The Sketch-Book of Geoffrey Crayon | Page 8

absence of worldly scenes and
employments produces a state of mind peculiarly fitted to receive new
and vivid impressions. The vast space of waters that separate the
hemispheres is like a blank page in existence. There is no gradual
transition by which, as in Europe, the features and population of one
country blend almost imperceptibly with those of another. From the
moment you lose sight of the land you have left, all is vacancy, until
you step on the opposite shore, and are launched at once into the bustle
and novelties of another world.
In travelling by land there is a continuity of scene, and a connected
succession of persons and incidents, that carry on the story of life, and
lessen the effect of absence and separation. We drag, it is true, "a
lengthening chain" at each remove of our pilgrimage; but the chain is
unbroken; we can trace it back link by link; and we feel that the last
still grapples us to home. But a wide sea voyage severs us at once. It
makes us conscious of being cast loose from the secure anchorage of
settled life, and sent adrift upon a doubtful world. It interposes a gulf,
not merely imaginary, but real, between us and our homes--a gulf,
subject to tempest, and fear, and uncertainty, rendering distance
palpable, and return precarious.
Such, at least, was the case with myself. As I saw the last blue lines of
my native land fade away like a cloud in the horizon, it seemed as if I
had closed one volume of the world and its concerns, and had time for
meditation, before I opened another. That land, too, now vanishing
from my view, which contained all most dear to me in life; what

vicissitudes might occur in it--what changes might take place in me,
before I should visit it again! Who can tell, when he sets forth to
wander, whither he may be driven by the uncertain currents of
existence; or when he may return; or whether it may be ever his lot to
revisit the scenes of his childhood?
I said, that at sea all is vacancy; I should correct the impression. To one
given to day-dreaming, and fond of losing himself in reveries, a sea
voyage is full of subjects for meditation; but then they are the wonders
of the deep and of the air, and rather tend to abstract the mind from
worldly themes. I delighted to loll over the quarter-railing or climb to
the main-top, of a calm day, and muse for hours together on the
tranquil bosom of a summer's sea; to gaze upon the piles of golden
clouds just peering above the horizon, fancy them some fairy realms,
and people them with a creation of my own; --to watch the gently
undulating billows rolling their silver volumes, as if to die away on
those happy shores.
There was a delicious sensation of mingled security and awe with
which I looked down, from my giddy height, on the monsters of the
deep at their uncouth gambols: shoals of porpoises tumbling about the
bow of the ship; the grampus, slowly heaving his huge form above the
surface; or the ravenous shark, darting, like a spectre, through the blue
waters. My imagination would conjure up all that I had heard or read of
the watery world beneath me; of the finny herds that roam its
fathomless valleys; of the shapeless monsters that lurk among the very
foundations of the earth; and of those wild phantasms that swell the
tales of fishermen and sailors.
Sometimes a distant sail, gliding along the edge of the ocean, would be
another theme of idle speculation. How interesting this fragment of a
world, hastening to rejoin the great mass of existence! What a glorious
monument of human invention; which has in a manner triumphed over
wind and wave; has brought the ends of the world into communion; has
established an interchange of blessings, pouring into the sterile regions
of the north all the luxuries of the south; has diffused the light of
knowledge, and the charities of cultivated life; and has thus bound

together those scattered portions of the human race, between which
nature seemed to have thrown an insurmountable barrier.
We one day descried some shapeless object drifting at a distance. At
sea, every thing that breaks the monotony of the surrounding expanse
attracts attention. It proved to be the mast of a ship that must have been
completely wrecked; for there were the remains of handkerchiefs, by
which some of the crew had fastened themselves to this spar, to prevent
their being washed off by the waves. There was no trace by which the
name of the ship could be ascertained. The wreck had evidently drifted
about for many months; clusters of