ike out for the open sea!

"False lights, false lights, are near the land,
The reef the land wave hides,
And the ship goes down in sight of the town
That safe the deep sea rides.
'Tis those who steer the old life near
Temptation suffer most;
The way is plain to life's open main,
There's danger near the coast.
Beware of the drifting dunes
In the nights of the watery moons,
Beware of the Maelstrom's tide
When the western wind blows free,
Of the rocks of the Skagerrack,
Of the shoals of the Cattegat;
Strike out for the open sea,
Strike out for the open sea!"

And so on life's sea I sailed away,
Where free the waters flow,
As I sailed from the old home port that day
For the islands of far Faroe.
And when I steer temptation near,
The pilot, like a ghost,
On the wave-rocked pier I seem to hear:
"There's danger near the coast.
Beware of the drifting dunes
In the nights of the watery moons,
Beware of the Maelstrom's tide
When the western wind blows free,
Of the rocks of the Skagerrack,
Of the shoals of the Cattegat;
Strike out for the open sea,
Strike out for the open sea!"

[Illustration: THE COAST.]

CHAPTER XVII.

THE GREATER RHINE.

THE RETURN HOMEWARD.--ON THE TERRACE,--QUEBEC.

The Class made their return voyage by the way of Liverpool to Quebec,
one of the shortest of the ocean ferries, and one of the most
delightful in midsummer and early autumn, when the Atlantic is usually
calm, and the icebergs have melted away.

As the steamer was passing down the Mersey, and Liverpool with her
thousands of ships, and Birkenhead with its airy cottages, were
disappearing from view, Mr. Beal remarked to the boys,--

"We shall return through the Straits, and so shall be probably only
four and a half days out of sight of land."

"I did not suppose it was possible to cross the Atlantic from land to
land in four days and a half," said Charlie Leland.

"We shall stop to-morrow at Moville, the port of Londonderry," said
Mr. Beal. "A few hours after we leave we shall sink the Irish coast.
Make notes of the time you lose sight of the light-houses of Ireland,
and of the time when you first see Labrador, and compare the dates
towards the end of the voyage," said Mr. Beal.

Past the green hills o