If I were asked, “What recurs to you most frequently with pleasure in
your experience at sea thus far”, I should say, The hour under the
mizzen mast, morning after morning. The solitude there was unrivalled.
In the depths of a forest you are not sure of being alone; for you
yourself have come thither, and what hinders the approach of others?
Half of the ship’s company are asleep; those who are up are busily
occupied; before you left your bed you heard the tramp of feet
overhead. The dash of buckets of water, the noise of brooms, the
holy-stone drawn backwards and forwards and athwart ship, and then the
perfect quiet, made you feel that everything was ready for any one who
wished to be alone on deck. Behind you, but hidden from view by the
spanker, is the man at the wheel; the rudder-head jounces monotonously
at every turn; a sailor here and there creeps about barefooted; the
steward makes his official visits to the galley; these, and the few
others who are stirring, only seem to make you feel that you are
isolated. The depths are around you; the distant sail tells you that
yonder is a company of human beings shut out like you from the world;
you understand how solitary you are, by musing on them; you fancy how
lonesome you would be sailing away, as they seem to be, from human
fellowship, not considering that you are also. I had made an index to
the book of Psalms, easily drawn up, and had written it on paper the
size of a small ‘Testament and Psalms,’ twelve pages, and had pasted it
in my small Testament. I did not need De Wette, nor Rosenmuller, nor
any other commentator to remind me that a word of David was in Hiphil
or Hophal, Piel or Pual; the index, looked over, beginning; A, As the
hart panteth, 42. B, Behold, bless ye, 134. D, Deliver me from, 59,
would each day suggest a Psalm which seemed to have the same key note
with the feelings with which I had awaked. No song of bird, no wheels,
nor hum of labor disturbed the exceeding peace which all nature seemed
to have concentrated, in this morning hour in the solitude of ocean. I
could not refrain from thinking how it would have been wholly broken up
by paddle wheels or propeller, and by the sympathy which the jaded mind
would have with the incessant walking beam, the alternating pistons;
and by the column of black smoke, the imprisoned steam. Let trade,
and strong nerves, and economy of time, and imperative engagements
gratefully avail themselves of machinery in passing from one side of
the sea to the other, but let some sailing vessels be spared, with
their poetry of motion, and architecture of canvas, mystery of rigging,
habits, usages, phraseology, modes of life, the tar and slush, the
going aloft instead of down into the furnace room, the laying becalmed
instead of driving ahead impetuously, reckless of wind and weather.
In our desire for the advancement of mankind, we do not calculate for
indisposition. It is out of place. But these clipper ships could not
be better contrived for comfort, had they been arranged expressly for
invalids.