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And with summer friends-what of them? But, then, there is the opera! Return we to the scene on the Sound. It was July. But July on the Sound and July at the Centennial were wonderfully different. The air was cool enough to make me button up my linen duster over my coat as I walked on deck. We had passed Hell Gate an hour before-past Hallett's Point, where General Newton was still at work preparing for the great blast-and were now in the wide waters of the Sound. The sun was sinking behind the western shore. The clouds retained their vivid colors for a long time. From a central sea of fire rose castles, minarets, and broken arches of that rarest color of the ruby which jewellers call "pigeon's blood." Miles away the clouds toned down into purples and grays. Just above, where the sun had sunk, a lake of myrtle green receded into space with spectral mountains on its farthest shore. "O hyacinthine sea," I said, "might I float on forever amid scenes like these!" The senses are more acute with the falling night. Nature sinks into sleep, leaving man a solitary watcher.

Later; a thin scud was slowly drifting over the Sound at a lower elevation than the stationary clouds. As the last rays were reflected from the horizon and reached the level of the scud, they turned it into billows of fire rolling in immense volumes under the dark clouds above. was a tremendous conflagration of the heavens. It was awe-inspiring, and involuntarily one recalled the imagery of that sublime hymn:

Dies iræ, dies illa!

Solvet sæclum in favillâ

Teste David cum Sibylla.

"O day of wrath, O fearful day!

"

It

When the world in ashes shall burn away, As David witnessed and the Sibyls say.' I sat on deck until dark, watching the fading out of the last rays of color into the Indian-ink tints of night. One by one the lights appeared in the lighthouses along the shore-red,

yellow, and green-fixed, revolving, and flash lights. One by one we passed them, and others came in sight. There was no moon. The groups on deck thinned out by degrees, and retired to their state

rooms.

In the morning the shouting and tramping on deck and the silence of the great engines told us that we were at Newport. A hasty breakfast and we were off by the boat train for Boston. A marked change was visible in the landscape. My eyes had got accustomed to the broad, level fields around Philadelphia, the hardwood trees and luxuriant crops. Here I recognized once more the dark scrubby hills of the North; the twisted spruce and granite boulders; Indian corn scarcely two feet high in the fields; the grass everywhere virident instead of withered and brown.

Four hours in the "Hub," with its familiar streets, which seemed more crooked than ever, and its "burnt district," grand and new, and then we found ourselves in Haymarket Square at the Boston and Maine depot, checking our baggage through to Halifax via the steamship Falmouth from Portland.

The day was fine and the four hours ride to Portland by rail was as pleasant as railroad travelling can ever be, which is not saying a great deal. All the watering-places we passed along the coast of Maine were full. At Wells Beach I caught the first glimpse of the ocean, not having seen it for two years. I sniffed at the breeze to catch the well-remembered saline odor. The long blue line of the horizon, with the white sails painted against it, renewed youthful emotions. sea is familiar, but never so friendly as the sky. It is cold and enigmatical. Its depths are azure like those of the atmosphere, but they are frightful, not full of peace. Yet it never ceases to attract us to watch and wonder at its waves. They

The

have a rhythm which is like an echo a few moments the next afternoon at

of eternity.

At Ocean Bluff and at Old Orchard Beach, several of our passengers left us to enjoy their summer holiday. At five o'clock we ran into the depot at Portland, having half an hour to spare for the Falmouth, which was lying at the long wharf with all steam up, waiting for the noon trains over the Boston and Maine and Eastern Railroads from Boston. The Falmouth was a little disappointing after the Sound boats. But on her own merits she is a fine ship: 1300 tons burden, 900 horse-power, a large and handsomely-upholstered saloon, and comfortable and wellventilated staterooms. Her commander, Captain Colby, is an experienced and competent officer, the first of qualifications on this foggy coast, and is attentive to the comfort of his passengers. I feel bound to say so much in praise of the Falmouth, as our run of thirty-one hours from wharf to wharf-the distance between Portland and Halifax being three hundred and fifty miles-was one of the pleasantest salt-water trips in my recollection. I have never been seasick since my first voyage across the "big pond" in one of the Cunard mailers a good many years ago, and I rather enjoy a little tumbling about and a pipe under the lee guard at night. But the sea was calm as a clock, and the sky without a cloud. The Bay of Fundy for once forgot its rough ways and fogs. Nobody was seasick out of our one hundred and fifty passengers, except two or three women who came on board with their minds made up to be sick, and who would have been so had they been floated unawares into a drydock.

Among those victims to the novelty of seagoing were two tall, large but well-formed girls, the smaller of whom must have turned the scale at 160 pounds. At the wharf at Portland they had cheeks as red as roses, but when they appeared on deck for

sea, they were as pale as ashes; and I don't believe the color was washed off. I had first observed them on the deck of the steamer while we were getting under way at Portland. They were evidently girls in humble life, but their manner was not vulgar. They were probably working-girls returning to the Provinces. My attention had been directed to the younger of the two by an exclamation on her part, that if she “had the money for her ticket back again, she would not go." She was half laughing, but equally inclined to cry. The elder laughed at her hesitation. The younger said, "I'll not stay there if I don't like it." Her companion asked her where she would get the money to come back. She said, with emphasis, "I will find a way to get it if I want it." The conversation was carried on unrestrainedly, with that disregard of the bystanders common among people in humble life. Presently two young men came on deck from the wharf to bid them good-by. They were working men, and apparently compatriots of the girls. They separated into couples and sat down at a little distance from each other on the benches on deck. Only a few other passengers were present. Everything was in the bustle of departure. The younger one, sitting with her young man, burst into tears. "See," said the elder, “ (calling her by her Christian name) is crying." Thus noticed, she put on a braver air, laughed a little, and brushed away her tears, her young man appearing to encourage her. I hate to see a young and handsome woman crying, and so I turned away and went forward. I afterwards saw them at the gangway bidding their two friends a last farewell, the young men jumping ashore as the planks were pulled on board.

There was certainly nothing fashionable about this leavetaking. Nothing of that "repose" that stamps the

caste of Lady Clara Vere de Vere. Men being vain and pervious to ridicule, prefer demonstrations of affection to be in private, even at the cost of a cool parting. It is only the very great-queens or empresses-or the very humble to whom a public embrace is permitted, according to English or American standards. The great middle classes dread nothing so much as being ridiculous. A hand kept lingering in another, a quivering mouth, and eyes that would gaze forever into other eyes-these are their tokens of affection. Working-girls are more independent of criticism. They earn their own living, generally live alone, and have no friends to pinch each other and laugh at them.

In the case of this Portland Ariadne, who reversed the fable and left her Theseus behind her, other feelings were probably working besides the regret of parting. She was afraid of the sea and of the loneliness into which we were about sailing. Women are timid navigators. There is no record of a female Columbus. There have been Amazons. But the only position the most strong-minded of the sex never refers to with jealousy, is a sailor's on the lookout at the masthead, nearing land on a winter's night, or hanging on to the bowsprit furling the jib in a howling gale in mid-ocean. This poor girl on the deck of the Portland steamer, looking at the wide, watery expanse before her, and feeling that she was about to plunge into the unknown, clung to her young man as a sort of cable that still held her to the shore. The night was glorious, but cool enough for a thick overcoat. We ran down the coast of Maine with the open sea on our right hand. The ship rose and fell with the long swell sliding under her bows, but hardly rolled a foot from side to side. A fleet of schooners, loaded with ice, coming out of the Kennebec River, crossed our bows two or three miles ahead. They were all bound for

Philadelphia, Captain Colby told us. What a crop of the gelid luxury the poor sweltering souls at the Centennial must have consumed during the season!

The tones of sunset on the open sea in northern temperate latitudes have more umber in them, are colder and more subdued than in inland waters. The distances appear greater. The horizon is boundless to the east, and has not the refracting and radiating powers of mountains or a coastline. A haze from the land precedes the setting sun and accompanies the descent of the fiery orb into the west. The prismatic colors are fewer in number and less brilliant. Reds and yellows predominate. They shade off into lead color. The delicate tints of emerald, pale orange, and violet are more vague, and disappear quickly. But, to compensate for this atmospheric simplicity, the color of the water is more profound, and the mingling of sea and sky is inexhaustible in interest and beauty.

The night was dark but starlit. The captain pointed out the lights on the Maine shore to the few passengers clustered on the foredeck. Most of the men smoked a pipe or cigar, and then turned in. The next morning (Sunday) rose with an equally fair sky and smooth sea. We were crossing the Bay of Fundy and soon sighted Seal Island, at the extreme southern coast of Nova Scotia. It is a rocky and dangerous island, and navigators generally give it a wide berth. But it looked peaceful enough covered with green on that bright July Sunday morning. Some cables' length from the shore, between us and it, and about three miles off, we could see the waves breaking over Seal Rock. Here the steamship Chase, from Portland for Halifax, was lost in a fog about three years ago, but fortunately all hands saved.

After breakfast the ladies got out their new novels and magazines, sat down in the sun on deck with their

shawls around them. We had no clergymen on board, and the captain did not pipe to prayers. The men passengers gathered about the forecastle deck, smoking and watching the passing sails. About eleven o'clock the breeze freshened a little, and the captain set his square foresail to gain half a knot if he could in his reckoning. The sails flapped, bellied out, shivered, and drew a little. But the wind was almost dead aft, and the ship was steaming along at a rate almost equal to its velocity; so we did not gain much by this manoeuvre. The sea was still smooth and the sky fair. The crisp waves sparkled in the sun. Far off the blue sky descended sheer into the water. Suddenly we were all electrified by a cry from the man at the wheel, "There she spouts!"' All hands jumped from their seats and rushed to the rail. Crossing our bows, a quarter of a mile away, a whale had broken water and spouted. Presently he came to the surface again on our starboard quarter and spouted. A round, thin column of blue water rose in the air about eight or ten feet and then feathered off into spray. Another shout from the other side of the deck. Another whale had spouted on our port beam. We were in the midst of a school of those huge dwellers of the deep. In a few minutes one rose a little distance astern, spouted, flung his enormous head out of the water, then dived, raising a tail-fin like the sail of a windmill, clear above the surface as he plunged under. He was a monster, thirty or forty feet long.

After this little excitement the day wore away quietly on deck and in the saloon. Headlands after headlands, deep bays, and rocky islands, as the Falmouth sped swiftly along the Noya Scotia shore. Green promontories came in sight, edged abreast of us, and then sank behind

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rocks in the bare sun, about three miles off. Her masts were still standing, and the day was so bright we could almost count her timbers. She was wrecked about three years ago. She had been got off the rocks where she had first struck, by speculators belonging to Halifax; but, the tide leaving her, she had again stuck fast before she was quite clear of the ledges. She had then been stripped and abandoned. She was coming from the eastward, and must have struck bows full on. Her empty hull rolled in regular oscillations from side to side, but the sea was peaceful enough about her now.

After dark the air got decidedly cold. There was no mistaking the fact, even in July, that we were on the Nova Scotia coast. The night was clear but dark; starlit, but no moon. There was no fog. It was one of those nights when a ship nears port with confidence, but keeps a good lookout. The Great Bear glittered almost overhead, Orion sparkled, but these and all the other stars and constellations seemed to shine out from fathomless deeps in the black vault around them. A dim line, a darker shade along the horizon, showed the land to an experienced eye. The second mate and two seamen ran from the forecastle at frequent intervals and hove the lead, then reported to the captain. "We'll sight Sambro light in an hour," he said. Sambro light is at the entrance of Halifax harbor; two hours would then bring us to the wharf. It was then after nine o'clock. A few men were on deck; we were all muffled in overcoats. The ship trembled and swung through the surrounding darkness. The stars glinted overhead. All was silent, and if there had been any wind we should have heard the breakers. We were passing Mars Head light. On such a night, dark but starlit, no fog, but a little more wind, the fated Atlantic rushed to her doom on that awful ledge. Over three hun

dred lives were lost. We peered out in the gloom towards the light. It was about five miles distant. In imagination I could almost hear again the shrieks and groans of that multitude of shipwrecked souls floating out from the land. Captain Colby, who was then on the "Carlotta," was coming in on the same night from Portland, just as we were now. He afterwards took up some of the survivors to Halifax. The man at the lookout, it is said, saw or heard the sea breaking as the Atlantic steamed head foremost on to the land, and shouted, "Breakers or ice ahead!" There was not much sea, and it was even then time to save the ship. But the officer on deck, who was afterwards lost, instead of instantly ordering the engines to be reversed, ran forward, and, before he knew her danger or could retrieve his mistake, she was on the rocks.

A lighthouse has since been built on Mars Head; but it is scarcely needed. On the true course of the Atlantic, Sambro light ought to have been in sight. All shipmasters agree on that. We had already sighted it on board the Falmouth. It is the finest light on the coast; a powerful fixed white light, at an elevation of one hundred and fifteen feet above high water, and can be seen twentyone miles on such a night.

Bravely and steadily the good ship Falmouth flung the waves from her bow as we neared Sambro. Soon we were abreast of the light. Here we might consider our voyage ended. Sambro light is the great objective point of all ships making Halifax harbor at night. How many thousands have gazed at it on dark and sullen nights from the deck of the Cunard, or Allan, or Anchor, or Inman steamers arriving from Liverpool and Queenstown, or the coastwise steamers from New York, Boston, or Portland! The lighthouse is built on Sambro Island. It is a white octagonal tower, sixty feet high. It stands

on high ground near the middle of the island, one and three-quarter miles from the shore and Cape Sambro, and southwest four and a half miles from Chebucto Head, the western point of the entrance to Halifax harbor. It exhibits, at an elevation of one hundred and fifteen feet above high water, a fixed white light, visible in clear weather twenty-one miles. A Dobell's fog trumpet was placed south of the lighthouse a few years ago, but it was not found to work well, and the Canadian Department of Marine and Fisheries returned for a time to the use of guns in foggy weather. The Department is now putting up a new fog whistle, which will soon be in operation, when the guns will be disused.

We had now opened the light on Chebucto Head. This is a revolving white light, attaining its greatest brilliancy once every minute. The lighthouse is built on Chebucto Head, a precipitous cliff, of whitish granite, one hundred and six feet high. The water is deep close to the bluff. As we approach one of those powerful revolving lights from sea on a dark night, drawing nearer and nearer to it, and closer to the land, with nothing to break the stillness all around except the sweep of the ship's paddles, the feeling produced is intense. We experience curiosity, mingled with an expectancy which is almost awe. The night was calm, and we must have been within half a mile of the land; but when the lantern illuminated the beetling cliff it seemed hardly more than a stone's throw distant. I watched the light gradually attaining greater brilliancy as the full face of the lantern revolved towards me. Brighter and brighter grew the stream of light over the water between the lighthouse tower and the ship. Still brighter! Then while I slowly counted one, two, three, the full refulgence gleamed in a long lane of silver over the dark rippling waves, alınost dazzling the eyes when they were fixed on the

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