Man on the Ocean

Man on the Ocean, by R.M.
Ballantyne

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Title: Man on the Ocean A Book about Boats and Ships
Author: R.M. Ballantyne
Illustrator: R. Richardson
Release Date: June 7, 2007 [EBook #21749]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
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THE OCEAN ***

Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England

MAN ON THE OCEAN, A BOOK ABOUT BOATS AND SHIPS, BY
R.M. BALLANTYNE.

CHAPTER ONE.
TREATS OF SHIPS IN GENERAL.
There is, perhaps, no contrivance in the wide world more wonderful
than a ship--a full-rigged, well-manned, gigantic ship!
Those who regard familiar objects in art and nature as mere matters of
course, and do not trouble themselves to wander out of the beaten track
of everyday thought, may not at first feel the force or admit the truth of
this statement. Let such folk endeavour to shake themselves vigorously
out of this beaten track of everyday thought. Let them knit their brows
and clench their teeth, and gaze steadfastly into the fire, or up at the sky,
and try to realise what is involved in the idea of--a ship.
What would the men of old have said, if you had told them that you
intended to take yonder large wooden house, launch it upon the sea,
and proceed in it out of sight of land for a few days? "Poor fellow,"
they would have replied, "you are mad!" Ah! many a wise philosopher
has been deemed mad, not only by men of old, but by men of modern
days. This "mad" idea has long since been fulfilled; for what is a ship
but a wooden house made to float upon the sea, and sail with its
inmates hither and thither, at the will of the guiding spirit, over a
trackless unstable ocean for months together? It is a self-sustaining
movable hotel upon the sea. It is an oasis in the desert of waters, so
skilfully contrived as to be capable of advancing against wind and tide,
and of outliving the wildest storms--the bitterest fury of winds and
waves. It is the residence of a community, whose country for the time
being is the ocean; or, as in the case of the Great Eastern steamship, it
is a town with some thousands of inhabitants launched upon the deep.
Ships are, as it were, the electric sparks of the world, by means of
which the superabundance of different countries is carried forth to fill,
reciprocally, the voids in each. They are not only the media of
intercourse between the various families of the human race, whereby
our shores are enriched with the produce of other lands, but they are the
bearers of inestimable treasures of knowledge from clime to clime, and

of gospel light to the uttermost ends of the earth.
But for ships, we should never have heard of the wonders of the coral
isles and the beauties of the golden South, or the phenomena and
tempests of the icy North. But for ships, the stirring adventures and
perils of Magellan, Drake, Cook, etcetera, had never been encountered;
and even the far-famed Robinson Crusoe himself had never gladdened,
and saddened, and romantically maddened the heart of youth with his
escapes, his fights, his parrots, and his philosophy, as he now does, and
as he will continue to do till the end of time.
Some account, then, of ships and boats, with anecdotes illustrative of
the perils to which they are frequently exposed, cannot fail, we think, to
prove interesting to all, especially to boys, for whose particular
edification we now write. Boys, of all creatures in this world, are
passionately fond of boats and ships; they make them of every shape
and size, with every sort of tool, and hack and cut their fingers in the
operation, as we know from early personal experience. They sail them,
and wet their garments in so doing, to the well-known sorrow of all
right-minded mammas. They lose them, too, and break their hearts,
almost, at the calamity. They make little ones when they are little, and
big ones when they grow big; and when they grow bigger they not
unfrequently forsake the toy for the reality, embark in some noble craft,
and wed the stormy sea.
A word in your ear, reader, at this point. Do not think that because you
fall in love with a ship you will naturally and necessarily fall in love
with the sea! Some do, and