Those who have spent their lives on the ocean say
that we dwellers on land know nothing of life under
the open sky. The following extract is a bit of
night scenery aboard ship in the days of wooden
vessels with canvas wings.
One night while we were in the tropics, I went out to
the end of the flying jib boom upon some duty; and
having finished it, turned around and lay on the boom for
a long time, admiring the beauty of the sight below me.
Being so far out from the deck I could look at the ship 5
as at a separate vessel; and there rose up from the water,
supported only by the small black hull, a pyramid of canvas
spreading far out beyond the hull and towering up almost,
as it seemed in the indistinct night, into the clouds. The
sea was as still as an inland lake; the light trade wind was 10
gently and steadily breathing from astern; the dark-blue
sky was studded with the tropical stars; there was no
sound but the rippling of the water under the stem; and
the sails were spread out wide and high--the two lower
studding sails stretching out on either side far beyond the 15
deck; the topmost studding sails like wings to the topsails;
the topgallant studding sails spreading fearlessly out above
them; still higher the two royal studding sails, looking
like two kites flying from the same string; and highest
of all the little skysail, the apex of the pyramid, seeming 20
actually to touch the stars and to be out of reach of human
hand. So quiet, too, was the sea, and so steady the breeze,
that if these sails had been sculptured in marble they could
not have been more motionless--not a ripple on the
surface of the canvas, not even a quivering of the extreme
edges of the sail, so perfectly were they distended by the
breeze. I was so lost in the sight that I forgot the presence
of the man who came out with me, until he said (for he 5
too, rough old man-of-war's man that he was, had been
gazing at the show) half to himself, still looking at the
marble sails: "How quietly they do their work!"
--_Two Years Before the Mast._
1. This is a painting in words. From what position
did Mr. Dana view the scene? What impressed him
most?