Whatever of beauty the sea possesses it owes primarily to the winds—to the free breath of heaven which sweeps over those vast lonely breadths, them with tiniest by its , and them in headlong fury for thousands of miles by its hurricanes. It may be said that the term “ocean” cannot rightly be to winds at all, since they are common to the whole globe, and are not, like waves and currents, confined to the sea. But a little consideration will surely convince that it is just and right to speak of ocean winds which by contact with the great, pure plains of the sea acquire a character which a land wind never has or can have. In fact, it may be said with perfect truth that but for the health-bearing winds from the sea, landward folk would soon sicken and die, for our land winds are with disease germs, or, as in the mistral, the puña, the sirocco, and the simoom, to mention only a few of these terrible enemies to life, are still more deadly in their blasting effect upon mankind. From all these evil qualities ocean winds are free, and he who lives remote from the land, only their pure breath, knows truly what health is, feels the[261] blood dance joyously through his , indeed.  
As a factor in sea traffic ocean winds are popularly supposed to have become negligible. Indeed, the remark is often heard (on shore) that the has made man independent of wind and tide. It is just the kind of statement that would from some of our pseudo-authorities upon matters, and to the oft-quoted opinion that the of the steamship has driven romance from the sea. In the first place, know how tremendously the wind affects even the highest-powered steamship, and although some sailors will talk about an ocean liner ploughing her way through the teeth of an opposing at full speed, it is only from their love of the marvellous and desire to make the landsman stare. They know that such a statement is ridiculously untrue. Leaving the steamship out of the question, however, there are still very large numbers of at sea which are dependent upon the winds for their propulsion, their between port and port. They grow fewer and fewer every year, of course, as they are lost or broken up, because they are not replaced, yet in certain trades they are so useful and economical that it is difficult to see why they should be allowed to disappear. Masters of such ships are considered to be smart or the reverse in proportion to their knowledge of ocean winds, where to in order to get the full benefit of their incidence, what to avoid because there winds rarely blow, and how best to[262] manœuvre their huge-winged craft in the truly infernal whirl of an advancing or . For such purposes ocean winds may roughly be divided into two classes—the settled and the : those winds that may fairly be depended upon for both as to force and direction, and those whose coming and going is so aptly used in allegory. Taking as the former class the Trade winds of the globe, it is found that they are also subject to much mutability, especially those to the of the Equator known as the “North-East Trades.” Old seamen speak of them as do farmers of the weather ashore—complain that neither in steadiness of direction nor in constancy of force are they to be depended upon as of old. Of course they vary somewhat with the seasons, but that is not what is complained of by the ; it is their capricious variation from year to year, whereby you shall actually find a strong wind well to the southward of east in what should be the heart of the North-East Trades, or at another time fall upon a calm where you had every right to expect a fresh favouring breeze.
 
Still, with all their failure to maintain the reputation of former times in the estimation of sailors (as from steamship crews), even the much North-East Trade winds are fairly dependable. The South-East Trades, again, are almost as sure in their operation as is the of day and night. The homeward-bound sailing ship,[263] once having been swept round the of Good Hope in spite of winds by the Agulhas current, usually finds awaiting her a southerly wind. Sailors refuse to call it the first of the Trades, considering that any wind blowing without the Tropics has no claim to be called a “Trade.” This fancy matters little. The great thing is that these helpful breezes await the homeward-bounder close down to the southern limit of his passage, await him with arms outspread in welcome, and coincidently with the pleasant turning of his ship’s head homeward, permit the yards to be squared, and the course to be set as desired. And the ship—like a horse who, after a long day’s journey, finds his head pointing stablewards and settles down to a clinking pace—gathers way in stately fashion and northward at a uniform rate without any further need of interference from her crew. Throughout the long bright days, with the sea wearing one vast many-dimpled smile, and the ............