The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1906-03-08

S- "oJ III al ldCSSI anu
all roads lead to England, as all
paths lead to Rome.
Is this, then, to say nothing, or
to say what is known? I have
heard of those who were disap-
pointed with the Atlantic; I have
+ known children to cry at the poor
ness of the reality they saw at
Ramsgate. Had they known what
the sea was-how it cleaned under
great moon even then, how even
at that quiet hour wild woolliwaws
spun across the foam that Magel-
Ian plOwed, how at that very mo
ment vast cyclones reared by the
"vexed Bermoothes" or screamed
under the high cliffs of mighty
FormOsa-they would have sat
1 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 I have first hand,
or that have gathered from quiet
seamen or from books, it comes
that l never behold any narrow
creek or strait of the great waters
but l see, too, the one parent of
them all.
The Red Sea is the seas and the
sea made it. The Adrian Sea is
his, and the hot waters by barren
Sokotra and the cliffs of Guardafui,
where the monsoon dies in calm
at last. The thunder Of the sea
upon beach at Colombo and upon
the breakwater is the music of the
great ocean; its equal diapason
sounds in AChilli and on the red
porphyry Of the bold Lizard, and
in the coral line barriers of Fiji, or
the Great Barrier Reef that makes
Great Sandy Strait.
This is the music that we hear
in the Channel; this they hear at
the Marquesas; the Indians hear
the song out of the Pacific; this
same wind fingers this same in
strument in the sea of Okhotsk and
off the windy Cape of Good Hose.
This the lutte Campns heard, this
Balboa knew; this the Romans
feared and the Greek faced boldly.
They who sailed to Ophir or to
the far Cassiterides knew it; the
music has enchanted old Vikings,
pirates, buccaneers, and explorers
of the unknown.
What sea is there but one? The
little land upon which we walk is
but an incident in its great history.
From t h e Foreland, or from
Bournemouth, or from the light
house on the Start, you or l or
anyone 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 the Cape, or the sunlit seas Of
the Islands Of Palms. Whatever
we sail in, whether it be four
mastedsship of steel that the Clyde
saw the birth of, or a wooden bark
built of soft wood from Nova SEQ
tia, or Deal galley, or Roman
galley, or junk from Woampoa, or
catamaran from Colombo, or a
prahu of the Malays, or felucca
from Sicily, or baggala from Fan
zlbar, we sail the same sea and
hear the same music and see the
same things.
We are equal citizens of the Re
public of the sea. So much I saw
from an old pier that sheltered
cross Channel boats that run to
France. SO much can anyone see
who stands by salt waters and has
eyes to behold things which are
a little beyond the horizon. In
the end the knowledge of the sea
and its final conquest may bring
the world together better than any
other knowledge or any other con-
quest that the seeking heart of
man may devise. 1t will be the
last chapter in the influence ofsea
power on human history.
VEGETABLE TRAVELLERS