The Aberdeen Democrat. (Aberdeen, South Dakota) 1???-1909, 1905-06-02
A SEA RHAPSODY

It did not seem to me that iooAe"
upon the channel only.
The gray waste Of waters leaped IN
der a northeasterly breeze; there was
q gray sun in a faint blue sky vi as
sat l saw faroff sunny seas, a SKY as
h,ue nc the unrest heavens Of the trop-
les and great sunlit shores. This was
the channel-the English channel-Dut
beyond it's verge, beyond the Lizard
end the fatal rocks Of Ushant, the Az
lantic rolled, and not only the north AT
lantic, but the southern, and beyond
the southern Atlantic he vaster SOUTH
ern ocean that washes the ice barrier
of the antarctic pole.
I did not see the channel. What l
saw was one; it was the ocean itself.
l sailed, as Of old, round the mighty
wedge that thrusts itself outward INTO
cold sens and Is known as the Horn. l
saw the Diego Ramirez islands (knoWn
to sailormen as the Daggaramma-
reens), and l came up by the windy
Falklands to the Gains Of Capricorn,
or the horse ATTITUDES, and lay there be-
Gained.
Yet even so was this the same sea,
the sea one and indivisible, the repub-
lie Of waters. For not a wave that
leaped on the shores Of England but
had lain in quiet calm south Of the
line. 1t was our sea, eve vet ours, the
English sea Of the world.
So wonderful a thing this Is to me
that now l never think Of any separate
ocean. There Is no Atlantic, no Pacific,
no great southern ocean. 1t Is one sea,
and whether we sail, as Drake did,
along the western shores Of America or
blunder through the strait of Magellan,
as Magellan did, or go south to the ice
barrier with Enderby or north with
Franklin it is the selfsame breathing
creature of a sea that bears us up and
onward.
Here are the Palm islands Of the Pa
ciic, truly, let us say, II here
strange, bold eyed Samoans paddle In
their lucid waters. Yet these same wa
tiers are the equal heritage Of the Eski-
mo, the God given gift to those wild
savages Of TERRA del Fuego. Whether
the trades blow or the passage winds
that help us to India or the cyclones Of
the West Indies or the typhoons Of the
China seas, the seas are the great high
ways for all races, and all roads lead
to England, as all paths lead to Rome.
Is this, then, to say nothing or to say
what Is known? l have heard of those
who were disappointed with the Allan
tic; I have known children to cry at the
poorness Of the reality they saw at
Ramsgate. Had they known what the
sea was-how 1t cleaned under q great
moon even then, how even at that quiet
hour wild woolliwaws spun across the
foam that Magellan plowed, how at
that very moment vast cyclones roared
by the "vexed Bermoothes' or scream
ed under the high cliffs of mighty For
mosa-they would have sat down in
strange establishment by the eventful
sea they knew not. All my fancies spin
strange webs about this thought, and
out of the knowledge that 1 have first
hand or that l have gathered from
quiet seamen or from books It comes
that l never behold any narrow creek
or strait Of the great waters but I see,
too, the one parent Of them all.
The Red sea is the seas, and the sea
made 1t. The Arabian sea is his, and
the hot waters by barren Sokotra, and
the cliffs of Guardafui, where the mon
soon dies in calm at last. The thunder
OF the sea upon the beach at Colombo
and upon the breakwater is the music
OF the great ocean. Its equal diapason
sounds in Achill and on the red Dor
phyry Of the bold Lizard and in the
coral line barriers Of Fiji or the Great
er Barrier reef that makes Great Sandy
strait.
This Is the music that we hear in the
channel. This they hear at the Mar
quesas. The Indians hear the song out
OF the Pacific. This same wind fingers
this same instrument in the sea Of
Okhotsk and off the windy Cane of
Good Hope. This is the lutte Camoens
heard. This Balboa knew. This the
Romans feared and the Greeks faced
boldly. They who sailed to Ophir o.,
to the far Cassiterides knew it, The
music has enchanted old vikings, nj
rates, buccaneers and explorers of the
unknown.
What sea is there but one? The IT.
tie land upon which we walk is but nm
Incident in its great history. From the
Foreland or from B%ournemouth or
from the lighthouse on the Start Won
or or any n with eyes can look
across a little gray waste of crowded
water and see the rollers of the Horn
or the cross, pyramidal seas of thu
cape or the sunlit seas of the Islands
OF Palms. Whatever we sail in. wheth.
r 1t be a four masted ship of stea,
that the Clyde saw the birth of, Or a
wooden bark built Of soft wood from
Nova Scotia, or a deal galley, or a Ro.
man galley, or a junk from Whamnoo
or a catamaran from Colombo, or a
prahu of the Malays, or a war canoe Of
tie Maoris, or q felucca from Sicily or
q gaggala from Zanzibar, we sail tbo
same sea and hear the same music and
see the same things.
We are equal citizens of the ron,h,,o
OF the sea. So much l saw from On
L III ~l~- A. 81