Читать книгу The Sea: Its Stirring Story of Adventure, Peril, & Heroism (Vol. 1-4) - Frederick Whymper - Страница 6

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One can hardly gaze upon the great ocean without feelings akin to awe and reverence. Whether viewed from some promontory where the eye seeks in vain another resting-place, or when sailing over the deep, one looks around on the unbounded expanse of waters, the sea must always give rise to ideas of infinite space and indefinable mystery hardly paralleled by anything of the earth itself. Beneficent in its calmer aspect, when the silvery moon lights up the ripples and the good ship scuds along before a favouring breeze; terrible in its might, when its merciless breakers dash upon some rock-girt coast, carrying the gallant bark to destruction, or when, rising mountains high, the spars quiver and snap before the tempest’s power, it is always grand, sublime, irresistible. The great highway of commerce and source of boundless supplies, it is, notwithstanding its terrors, infinitely more man’s friend than his enemy. In how great a variety of aspects may it not be viewed!

The poets have seen in it a “type of the Infinite,” and one of the greatest1 has taken us back to those early days of earth’s history when God said—

“ ‘Let there be firmament

Amid the waters, and let it divide

The waters from the waters.’ …

So He the world

Built on circumfluous waters calm, in wide

Crystalline ocean.”

“Water,” said the great Greek lyric poet,2 “is the chief of all.” The ocean covers nearly three-fourths of the surface of our globe. Earth is its mere offspring. The continents and islands have been and still are being elaborated from its depths. All in all, it has not, however, been treated fairly at the hands of the poets, too many of whom could only see it in its sterner lights. Young speaks of it as merely a

“Dreadful and tumultuous home

Of dangers, at eternal war with man,

Wide opening and loud roaring still for more,”

ignoring the blessings and benefits it has bestowed so freely, forgetting that man is daily becoming more and more its master, and that his own country in particular has most successfully conquered the seemingly unconquerable. Byron, again, says:—

“Roll on, thou dark and deep blue ocean—roll!

Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain;

Man marks the earth with ruin—his control

Stops with the shore; upon the watery plain

The wrecks are all thy deeds.”

And though this is but the exaggerated and not strictly accurate language of poetry, we may, with Pollok, fairly address the great sea as “strongest of creation’s sons.” The first impressions produced on most animals—not excluding altogether man—by the aspect of the ocean, are of terror in greater or lesser degree. Livingstone tells us that he had intended to bring to England from Africa a friendly native, a man courageous as the lion he had often braved. He had never voyaged upon nor even beheld the sea, and on board the ship which would have safely borne him to a friendly shore he became delirious and insane. Though assured of safety and carefully watched, he escaped one day, and blindly threw himself headlong into the waves. The sea terrified him, and yet held and drew him, fascinated as under a spell. “Even at ebb-tide,” says Michelet,3 “when, placid and weary, the wave crawls softly on the sand, the horse does not recover his courage. He trembles, and frequently refuses to pass the languishing ripple. The dog barks and recoils, and, according to his manner, insults the billows which he fears. … We are told by a traveller that the dogs of Kamtschatka, though accustomed to the spectacle, are not the less terrified and irritated by it. In numerous troops, they howl through the protracted night against the howling waves, and endeavour to outvie in fury the Ocean of the North.”

The civilised man’s fear is founded, it must be admitted, on a reasonable knowledge of the ocean, so much his friend and yet so often his foe. Man is not independent of his fellow-man in distant countries, nor is it desirable that he should be. No land produces all the necessaries, and the luxuries which have begun to be considered necessaries, sufficient for itself. Transportation by land is often impracticable, or too costly, and the ocean thus becomes the great highway of nations. Vessel after vessel, fleet after fleet, arrive safely and speedily. But as there is danger for man lurking everywhere on land, so also is there on the sea. The world’s wreck-chart for one year must, as we shall see hereafter, be something appalling. That for the British Empire alone in one year has often exceeded 1,000 vessels, great and small! Averaging three years, we find that there was an annual loss during that period of 1,095 vessels and 1,952 lives.4 Nor are the ravages of ocean confined to the engulfment of vessels, from rotten “coffin-ships” to splendid ironclads. The coasts often bear witness of her fury.

The history of the sea virtually comprises the history of adventure, conquest, and commerce, in all times, and might almost be said to be that of the world itself. We cannot think of it without remembering the great voyagers and sea-captains, the brave naval commanders, the pirates, rovers, and buccaneers of bygone days. Great sea-fights and notable shipwrecks recur to our memory—the progress of naval supremacy, and the means by which millions of people and countless millions of wealth have been transferred from one part of the earth to another. We cannot help thinking, too, of “Poor Jack” and life before the mast, whether on the finest vessel of the Royal Navy, or in the worst form of trading ship. We recall the famous ships themselves, and their careers. We remember, too, the “toilers of the sea”—the fishermen, whalers, pearl-divers, and coral-gatherers; the noble men of the lighthouse, lifeboat, and coastguard services. The horrors of the sea—its storms, hurricanes, whirlpools, waterspouts, impetuous and treacherous currents—rise vividly before our mental vision. Then there are the inhabitants of the sea to be considered—from the tiniest germ of life to the great leviathan, or even the doubtful sea-serpent. And even the lowest depths of ocean, with their mountains, valleys, plains, and luxurious marine vegetation, are full of interest; while at the same time we irresistibly think of the submerged treasure-ships of days gone by, and the submarine cables of to-day. Such are among the subjects we propose to lay before our readers. The Sea, as one great topic, must comprise descriptions of life on, around, and in the ocean—the perils, mysteries, phenomena, and poetry of the great deep. The subject is too vast for superfluous detail: it would require as many volumes as a grand encyclopædia to do it justice; whilst a formal and chronological history would weary the reader. At all events, the present writer purposes to occasionally gossip and digress, and to arrange facts in groups, not always following the strict sequence of events. The voyage of to-day may recall that of long ago: the discovery made long ago may be traced, by successive leaps, as it were, to its results in the present epoch. We can hardly be wrong in believing that this grand subject has an especial interest for the English reader everywhere; for the spirit of enterprise, enthusiasm, and daring which has carried our flag to the uttermost parts of the earth, and has made the proud words “Britannia rules the waves” no idle vaunt, is shared by a very large proportion of her sons and daughters, at home and abroad. Britain’s part in the exploration and settlement of the whole world has been so pre-eminent that there can be no wonder if, among the English-speaking races everywhere, a peculiar fascination attaches to the sea and all concerning it. Countless thousands of books have been devoted to the land, not a tithe of the number to the ocean. Yet the subject is one of almost boundless interest, and has a special importance at the present time, when so much intelligent attention and humane effort is being put forth to ameliorate the condition of our seafarers.