e spices, the tulips,
the hyacinths, the pipes of sea-foam, the porcelain cups of
Holland... 'Amsterdam! Amsterdam! when shall we again see Amsterdam!'
they cry from on board, while the tempest howls in the cordage,
beating them forever about in their watery hell." Heine adds: "I
fully understand the passion with which the unfortunate captain once
exclaimed: 'Oh if I should EVER again see Amsterdam! I would rather be
chained forever at the corner of one of its streets, than be forced to
leave it again!' Poor Van der Decken!"

Heine well knew what poor Van der Decken had suffered in his terrible
and eternal course upon the ocean, which had fastened its fangs in the
wood of his incorruptible vessel, and by an invisible anchor, whose
chain he could not break because it could never be found, held it firmly
linked upon the waves of its restless bosom. He could describe to us
when he chose, the hope, the despair, the torture of the miserable
beings peopling this unfortunate ship, for he had mounted its accursed
timbers, led on and guided by the hand of some enamored Undine, who,
when the guest of her forest of coral and palace of pearl rose more
morose, more satirical, more bitter than usual, offered for the
amusement of his ill humor between the repasts, some spectacle worthy
of a lover who could create more wonders in his dreams than her whole
kingdom contained.

Heine had traveled round the poles of the earth in this imperishable
vessel; he had seen the brilliant visitor of the long nights, the aurora
borealis, mirror herself in the immense stalactites of eternal ice,
rejoicing in the play of colors alternating with each other in the
varying folds of her glowing scarf. He had visited the tropics, where
the zodiacal triangle, with its celestial light, replaces, during the
short nights, the burning rays of an oppressive sun. He had crossed the
latitudes where life becomes pain, and advanced into those in which it
is a living death, making himself familiar, on the long way, with the
heavenly miracles in the wild path of sailors who make for no port!
Seated on a poop without a helm, his eye had ranged from the two Bears
majestically overhanging the North, to the brilliant Southern Cross,
through the blank Antarctic deserts extending through the empty space of
the heavens overhead, as well as over the dreary waves below, where the
despairing eye finds nothing to contemplate in the sombre depths of a
sky without a star, vainly