indows.

CHAPTER XIX.

THE JACKET ALOFT.

Again must I call attention to my white jacket, which, about this time
came near being the death of me.

I am of a meditative humour, and at sea used often to mount aloft at
night, and seating myself on one of the upper yards, tuck my jacket
about me and give loose to reflection. In some ships in which. I have
done this, the sailors used to fancy that I must be studying
astronomy--which, indeed, to some extent, was the case--and that my
object in mounting aloft was to get a nearer view of the stars,
supposing me, of course, to be short-sighted. A very silly conceit of
theirs, some may say, but not so silly after all; for surely the
advantage of getting nearer an object by two hundred feet is not to be
underrated. Then, to study the stars upon the wide, boundless sea, is
divine as it was to the Chaldean Magi, who observed their revolutions
from the plains.

And it is a very fine feeling, and one that fuses us into the universe
of things, and mates us a part of the All, to think that, wherever we
ocean-wanderers rove, we have still the same glorious old stars to keep
us company; that they still shine onward and on, forever beautiful and
bright, and luring us, by every ray, to die and be glorified with them.

Ay, ay! we sailors sail not in vain, We expatriate ourselves to
nationalise with the universe; and in all our voyages round the world,
we are still accompanied by those old circumnavigators, the stars, who
are shipmates and fellow-sailors of ours--sailing in heaven's blue, as
we on the azure main. Let genteel generations scoff at our hardened
hands, and finger-nails tipped with tar--did they ever clasp truer
palms than ours? Let them feel of our sturdy hearts beating like
sledge-hammers in those hot smithies, our bosoms; with their
amber-headed canes, let them feel of our generous pulses, and swear
that they go off like thirty-two-pounders.

Oh, give me again the rover's life--the joy, the thrill, the whirl! Let
me feel thee again, old sea! let me leap into thy saddle once more. I
am sick of these terra firma toils and cares; sick of the dust and reek
of towns. Let me hear the clatter of hailstones on icebergs, and not
the dull tramp of these plodders, plodding their dull way from their
cradles to their graves. Let me snuff thee up, sea-breeze! and whinny
in thy spray. Forbid it, sea-gods! intercede for me with Neptune, O
sweet Amphitrite, that no dull clod ma