might soon be expected.
The gallant frigate, seen from the impending rocks, looked like a light
merchantman, in all but her symmetry and warlike guise; nature being
moulded on so grand a scale all along that coast, as to render objects
of human art unusually diminutive to the eye. On the other hand, the
country-houses, churches, hermitages, convents, and villages, clustered
all along the mountain-sides, presented equally delusive forms, though
they gave an affluence to the views that left the spectator in a strange
doubt which most to admire, their wildness or their picturesque beauty.
The little air that remained was still at the southward, and as the ship
moved slowly along this scene of singular attraction, each ravine seemed
to give up a town, each shelf of rock a human habitation, and each
natural terrace a villa and a garden.

Of all men, sailors get to be the most _blases_ in the way of the
sensations produced by novelties and fine scenery. It appears to be a
part of their calling to suppress the emotions of a greenhorn; and,
generally, they look upon anything that is a little out of the ordinary
track with the coolness of those who feel it is an admission of
inferiority to betray surprise. It seldom happens with them that
anything occurs, or anything is seen, to which the last cruise, or, if
the vessel be engaged in trade, the last voyage, did not at least
furnish a parallel; usually the past event, or the more distant object,
has the advantage. He who has a sufficient store of this reserved
knowledge and experience, it will at once be seen, enjoys a great
superiority over him who has not, and is placed above the necessity of
avowing a sensation as humiliating as wonder. On the present occasion,
however, bur few held out against the novelty of the actual situation of
the ship; most on board being willing enough to allow that they had
never before been beneath cliffs that had such a union of the
magnificent, the picturesque, and the soft; though a few continued firm,
acting up to the old characters with the consistency of settled
obstinacy.

Strand, the boatswain, was one of those who, on all such occasions,
"died hard." He was the last man in the ship who ever gave up a
prejudice; and this for three several reasons: he was a cockney, and
believed himself born in the centre of human knowledge; he was a seaman,
and understood the world; he was a boatswain, and stood upon
his dignity.

As the Proserpine fanned