iu a foreign clime; and then most assuredly his own satisfaction
will one day well repay him.
Our voyage having come to an end, I will take a short retrospect
of the advantages and disadvantages, the pains and
pleasures, of our five years’ wandering. If a person should
ask my advice, before undertaking a long voyage, iny answer
would depend upon his possessing a decided taste for some
branch of knowledge, which could by such means he improved.
No doubt it is a high satisfaction to behold various
countries, and the many races of mankind, but the pleasures
gained at the time do not counterbalance the evils. It is
necessary to look forward to a harvest, however distant it
may be, when some fruit will be reaped, some good effected.
Many of the losses which must be experienced are obvious;
such as that of the society of all old friends, and of the
sight of those places, with which every dearest remembrance
is so intimately connected. These losses, however, are at the
time partly relieved by the exhaustless delight of anticipating
the long wished-for day of return. If, as poets say, life is a
dream, I am sure in a voyage these are the visions which serve
best to pass away the long night. Other losses, although not
at first felt, tell heavily after a period; these are, the want of
room, of seclusion, of rest;—the jading feeling of constant
hurry;—the privation of small luxuries, the comforts of
civilization and domestic society, and, lastly, even of music
and the other pleasures of imagination. When such trifles
are mentioned, it is evident that the real grievances (excepting
from accidents) of a sea life are at an end. The
short space of sixty years has made an astonishing difference
in the facility of distant navigation. Even in the time of
Cook, a man who left his comfortable fireside for such
expeditions, underwent severe-privations. A yacht now with
every luxury of life might circumnavigate the globe. Besides
the vast improvements in ships and naval resources, the
whole western shores of America are thrown open, and
Australia has become the metropolis of a rising continent.
How different are the circumstances to a man sliipwrecked
at the present day in the Pacific, to what they were in the
time of C ook! since his voyage a hemisphere has been added
to tlie civilized world.
If a person suffer much from sea-sickness, let him weigh
it heavily in the balance. I speak from experience : it is no
trifling evil w'hich may be cured in a week. If, on the other
hand, he takes pleasure in naval tactics, he will assuredly
have full scope for his taste. But it must be borne in
mind, how large a proportion of the time, during a long
voyage, is spent on the vvater, as compared w'ith the days in
harbour. And what are the boasted glories of the illimitable
ocean? A tedious waste, a desert of water, as the
Arabian calls it. No doubt there are some delightful scenes.
A moonlight night, with the clear heavens and the dark
glittering sea, and the white sails filled by the soft air of a
gently-blowing trade-ivind ;—a dead calm, with the heaving
surface polished like a mirror, and all still, except the
occasional flapping of the sails. It is well once to behold a
squall with its rising arch and coming fury, or the heavy
gale of wind and mountainous waves. I confess, how'cver,
my imagination had painted something more grand, more
terrific in the full-grown storm. It is an incomparably
finer spectacle when beheld on shore, where the waving
trees, the wild flight of the birds, the dark shadows and
bright lights, tlie rushing of the torrents, all proclaim the
strife of the unloosed elements. At sea the albatross and
petrel fly as if the storm were their proper sphere, the
water rises and sinks as if fulfilling its usual task, the ship
alone and its inhabitants seem the objects of wrath. On a
forlorn and weather-beaten coast, the scene is indeed different,
but the feelings partake more of horror than of wild
delight.
Let us now look at the brighter side of the past time.
The pleasure derived from beholding the scenery and the
general aspect of the various countries we have visited, has