Tage is 9 marvellous deal of truth in the ancient aphorism respecting those who go down to the sea in ships, and do business in great waters. Many as are the disagreeables of that familiar voyage facetiously known as the Over-Iand Ronte—not a single step on terra firma being necessary the whole way from Southampton to Shanghai; oppressive as may be the heat, monotonous the life, unsavoury the odours, and exasperating the ceaseless pitch and toss, there ore still numberless experiences inseparable from the undertaking, which should have a charm for all, We do not. now refer to the most obvious attraction of any—thefrequent glimpses of new and interesting lands. Beautifal, doubtless, ere the umbrageous palm.groves and creamy surf and rugged rockwork of Ceylon; equally beautiful is the luxuriant vegetation of Singapore, where the thickets are all ablaze, with & million fireflies, which flash and glitter in almost rhythmic cadences, at night, like the jewel-fruited trees in Aladdin's enchanted cave. But it isnot to these wonders of the torrid zone that we now refer. It is when the ship is steaming gaily her eleven knots, and the last dim speck of misty land has disappeared from the horizon, that the other world, the world of perpetual motion and constant change, presents itself with all its treasures to the observant traveller, Many folks complain of the horrible sameness of the sea. Considered as a landscapés—if the Hibernicism may be pardoned—there is some trath in this complaint, A tract of uninhabited country consisting of one huge pathless plain, without trees, hills, brooks or flowers, would certainly be ugly and dismal enough. But the sea is neither uninhabited nor undiversified, as those who set themselves to watch will soon discover. For instance, look at its marvellous variety of colours. Under the purple firmament of the Mediterranean, where the "wild horses of heaven," as the old Taoist calls the flying clouds, chase one another as though ranning an Olympian race, there lies, as it were reflected, a second vast expanse, a brightly purple as the eky itself, on which the sparkling. crested. waves are playing the same game as their snowy prototypes above. Nothing can outvie the wonderful richness. and splendid depth of the Mediterranean blue; unless, indeed, it, be that of the Indian ocean, especially at night, when the phosphorescent water is alive with the sparkle of @ million liquid diamonds, and Brightly resplendent in the sky revolves The Milky Way.
Ever and anon, a little silver arrow darts across the sea, flying at times some forty or fifty yards, and then disappearing like a meteor's tail under some huge bloc wave. This is the flying-fish; an unlucky little creature in spite of its graceful accom. pushment, for only too frequently it lands itself upon the horsehair sofa in one of the first-class cabins, where it pants out its doomed life in bewildered misery, Than come a school of porpoises, apparently engaged in a clumsy attempt to play at fly-the-garter; tumbling head over heels with all the gay abandon of so many frolicsome cows, and causing no small annoyance to the sober-minded and more thoughtful jelly-fish. Lying lazily upon the surface of the water is a Innguid serpent, six feet long or thereabouts, with body handsomely marked in yellowish-brown and drab; gazing philosophically at nothing in particular, profoundly indifferent to the presence of the rushing, smoking monster from which he is being observed, and content to float along luxuriously upon his heaving bed of blue. But a few more revolutions of the machinery, and we witness a transformation scene, We are not in Grosvenor Gallery; bat there before us lies the original of one of Mr. Whistler's most effective " harmonies in green and gold." The sea is a dazzling, vivid, painfully-brilliant, green; the brightest apple-green one can imagine dims into a dusky olive in comparison. Bounding it on all sides are ribands and undulations of gleaming yellow sand; as golden, under the hot sun of Africa, as the "sunny fountains" of that country are always said to be; while the translucent atmosphere, which quivers with clear heat, combines the rarest and most delicate tints of light in one vast sheet of opalescent purity. The scene is one never to be wholly erased from the remembrance of any one who has once inhaled its influences for it is one of the most marvellous effect which the great Painter of this lovely Universe has over produced upon the canvas of our puny world.
But hitherto we have got no further than suggestion. Everything we have seen as yet is simply on the surface. What is there below this splendid screen? Who can form any idea of the wouderfal scenery beneath the heaving, nover-resting waves? In the ocean-depths there is @ world almost entirely unknown to us outsiders, who can do little more than scratch the world's crust in search of the necessaries of life. But we know that there are hills and dales at the bottom of the sea, giant growths of the finny brood, stray visitors from whence show themselves from time to time upon the surface of the sea. Huge, slimy monsters lead a happy life in the ocean's cool green caves; red,-velvety anemones, garnished with, fringe of thicroscopic, tenuity, respire on' the coral boulders; strange creatures, who consist apparently of innumerable feelers, in constant wavy motion and of a pearly delicacy of tint, enjoy an uneventful existence, undisturbed by predatory neighbours; while, uncon. scious of the storms that rage above, in blissful ignorance of his own appalling ugliness, rampages that embodied night. mare, that cousin-german of jabber. woaks and slithy toves, the wonderfal Octopus. The sea is the atmosphere of the submarine world, just as the air we Terrenes breathe is the atmosphere of ours; and it is only its density that veils the wonders of the deep from our enchanted view. The surface of this atmosphere, which we call the sea, is beautiful enough; how much more beautiful, then, must be the world it hides,—the home of all the sentient, suffering, living creatures by whom it is inhabited! In very truth, which. ever way we turn, we discover @ new world. The telescope reveals to us the star-depths, in comparison with the mighty range of which our own prov. ince in the realms of space is but a nebula: while, on other hand, the microscope unveils a leaf, a system of existence in every drop we drink, a world in each breath we draw. The sea has yet to be ex. plored; and formidable as are the difficulties in the way, we need not doubt that the great work will some day be accomplished.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.