The Press., 1893-05-11

which ! am stranger. There is a peculiar character about the wood which strikes me ss rendering it unfit for the purpose to which it has been applied. l mean it's extreme porousness, considered independently Of the worm eaten con- dition which is a consequence of navlga- tion in these seas, and apart from the rotterness attendant upon age. It will appear perhaps an observation some what overcurious, but this wood would have every characteristic of Spanish oak, if Spanish oak were distended by any unnatural means.
 In reading the above sentence curi- ous apothegm of an old weatherbeaten Dutch navigator comes full upon my recollection. 'sIt is as sure," he. was wont to say when any doubt was enter tained of his veracity. ''as sure as there is a sea where the ship itself will grow in bulk like tke living body of the sea- man."
 About an hour ago l made bold to trust myself among group of the crew. They paid me no manner of attention, a1fd altho ugh stood in the very midst of them all seemed utterly unconscious of my presence. Like the one had at first seen in the hold, they all bore about them the marks of hoary old age Their knees trembled with infrmity. Their shoulders were bent double with decrepitude. Their shriveled skins rat tled-in the wind Their voices were low, tremulous and broken. Their eyes glis- tened with the rheum of years, and their grey hairs streamed terribly in the tenn A 1~% of the deck, lay scattered mathematical in- struments of the most quaint and obso- lete construction.
 mentioned some time ago the bend ing of studding sail. From that period the ship, being thrown dead off the wind, has continued her terrific course due south, with every rag of canvas packed l upon her, from her truck to her lower studding sail booms, and rolling every moment her topgallant yardarms into the most appalling hell of water which | it can enter into the mind of man to | imagine. have just left the deck, where I find it impossible to maintain 8 foot | ing, although the crew seems to experi- ence little inconvenience. It appears to | me miracle of miracles that our enor nous bulk is not swallowed up at once and forever.
 We are surely doomed to hover con- | tinual1y upon the brink of eternity with out taking final plunge into the abyss. From pillows. 8 thousand times more stupendous than any I have ever seen we glide away with the facility of the arrowy sea gull, and the colossal waters rear their heads above us like demons of the deep, but like demons confined to simple threats and forbidden to destroy. I am led to attribute these frequent escapes to the only natural cause which l can account for such effect. l must suppose the shlp to be within the infiu- ence of some strong current or lmpetu- ous undertow.
 1 I have seen the captain face to face and in his own cabin; but, as I expected, he paid me no attention. Although in his appearance there is to a casual ob server nothing which might bespeak him more or less than man, still feel ing of irrepressible reverence and awe mingled with the sensation of wonder with which regarded him. In stature he is nearly my own height-that is, about feet inches. He is of 8 well knit and compact frame of body neither robust nor remarkable otherwise. But it is the singularity of the expression which reigns upon the face-it is the in tense, the wonderful, the thrilling evi- dence of old age, so utter, so extreme, which excites within my spirit a sense, 8 sentiment, ineffab1e. His forehead, al though little wrinkled, seems to bear upon it the stamp of myriad of years. His gray hairs are records of the past, and his grayer' eyes are syblls of the fu- ture.
 The cabin floor was thickly strewn with strange, iron clasped folios, and
 moldering instruments of science, and obsolete, long forgotten charts. His head was bowed down upon his hands, and he pored with a fiery, unquiet eye over a paper which took to be a com mission, and which at all events bore the signature of monarch. He nut
 tered to himself-as did the first seaman
 whom I saw in the hold-some low, pee
 wish syllables of foreign tongue, and al
 though the speaker was close at my el- :; bow his voice seemed to reach my ears r, from the distance of 8 mile.
 The ship and all in it are imbued with
 the spirit of Eld. The crew glide to and
 fro like the ghosts of buried centuries their eyes have an eager and uneasy
 meaning, and when their figures fall athwart my path in the wild glare of the battle lanterns feel as have never felt before, although have been all my life dealer in antiquities and have imbibed
 the shadows of fallen columns at Bal
 bee and Tadnor and Persepolis until my very soul has become ruin.