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.
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