Edgefield advertiser. [volume] (Edgefield, S.C.) 1836-current, 1903-09-02
a Voyage of Three Months and Its
Impressions Upon the Traveller
The By-Gone WhaIer-Wide Indeed
:: Is Old Mother Oceans Bosom.

the privacy of the sea is thing of the
past One, voyage in a sailing ship to
the Australasian colonies or to India
II. the opportunities it afforded were
rightly used, would do far more to con-
vince them of the utterly.wrong notion
possessing them than any quantity of
writing upon the subject would do. But
unhappily, few people today have the
leisure or the inclination to spend
voluntarily three months upon q sea
passage that can be performed in little
more than one Even those who by
reason of poverty or for their health's
sake do take such passages, almost
Invariably show signs of utter weari-
ness and boredom. AS day after day
passes, and the beautiful fabric in
which they live glides gently and
leisurely forward, their impatience
grows until in some it almost amounts
to a disease This condition of mind
is not favorable. to say the least, to a
calm study of the characteristic feat
ures of ocean itself. Fow, indeed, are
the passengers and fewer still are the
sailors who will for the delight of the
thing spend hour after hour perched
upon some commanding point in wide
eyed sight strengthening gaze out upon
the face of the sea.
Upon those who do there gro" S
steadily a sense of the most complete
privacy, a solemn aloofness belonging
to the seas. The infrequent vessel,
gentle though her progress may be
through the calm waters of the tropics.
still strikes them as an intruder upon
this realm of silence and loneliness.
The voices of the crew crate harshly
lpon the ear as with a sense of desecra-
ton such as one feels upon hearing
loud conversation in the sacred peace
of some huge cathedral. And when a
vessel heaves in sight, Tiny mark
a5asf sasfss sRa
q point from which the eye can family
calculate the immensity OF her sur
roundings.
This sense of solitude induced by
contemplation of the ocean is ex-
ceedingly marked even on the best fre-
uuented routes and the most crowded
(?) waters. To enter into it fully,
however, it is necessary to sail either
in a cable ship, whaler, or an ola
slow-aoing merchant sailor that gets
drifting out of the track OF vessels
Even in the English channel one can
not but feel how much room there Is
In spite of our knowledge OF the
numbers of ships that pass and repass
without ceasing along what may truth
fully be termed the most frequentet
highway in the watery world, there 1:
an undoubtedly reasonable sense IN
duced by it's contemplation that how
ever much the dry land may become
oyercrowded the sea will always b.
equal to whatever demands may b.
made upon 1t for space. There ar
MANY harbors in the world, at any rat
landlockeG bays that may rightly b.
called harbors, wherein the fleets OF al
.the nations might line in comfort
And their disappearance from the opel
sea would leave no sense of loss. 81
wide is old oceans bosom. Perhap
this is even now more strongly marke
than it was fifty years ago. The won
derful exactitude with which the stear
fleets of the world keep to certain vel
defined tracks leave the intermediat
breadths unyisited from year to yeal
They are private places whittier he VIII
should desire to hide himself from tn
eyes of men might hide and be. certai
that but. for the host of heaven, tn
yiewless wind, and the silent myriad
beneath, he would indeed be alon'
They are of the secret places of tn
Almighty.
Occasionally the great steamship
that lay for us the connecting nerve
of civilization. penetrate these arcan
for their path must be made on tn
shortest line between two continen
needless of surface tracks. And II
wise men who handle these wonderf'
handmaids of science know how pr
yate are the realms through whic
thev steadily steam, leaving behir
them the thin black line along. whit
shall presently flash at lightning spe'
s the thoueht-essence Of mankind. TT
& whaler, alas! is gone; the old leisure
Izssouth Seaman to whom time was
,;tbing of no moment. Her ruler kne
.ilstbat his best prospect of finding Il
!. prey he sought was where no keel di
turbed the sensitive natural Vibration
, of the wave. So these vessels sa
!. more of sea solitude than any Other
those weird spaces unvisited ev'
by wind, great areas of silky surfa
, into whose peaceful glades hard
J rolled a gently undulating swell bea
u ing silent evidence of storms ragil
. half a world away. So, too, upon c
!, easion. did, and does. belated saili
: ship such as one we met in the sout
ern seas bound from the united kin
dom Ito Auckland that had be
. then nine months on her passage.
L. TO what dread sea solitudes she II
b intruded. How many, many days h
elapsed during which she was
), solitary point rising from the shini
J. plain into zthe upper air. Her or
T. had wistful look upon their faces.
of men whose contact with the wo
e they dimly remembered had been
q. fectualIy cut off. And truly to maj
n news of her safety came in the natl
: of a message of resurrection. Boo
II of account concerning her had to
y. reopened, mourning garments Il
n aside. She had returned from
Il sllences, had rejoined the world
6 men