-vessel has found shelter from a storm that is raging on the
open sea. Daland, the skipper, has gone ashore to survey the land and
to find out, if he can, whither his ship has been driven. He
recognizes the spot: it is Sandwike, and the tempest has blown him
"sieben Meilen" out of his course. However, he is glad enough to be
safe; and seeing signs of better weather goes into his cabin to wait,
leaving a watchman on guard. This is the first specimen of the old
stage-craft; Daland had to be got rid of, so, instead of attending to
any damage the waves may have caused the ship, he goes quietly
downstairs to take a snooze. The watchman tries to keep himself awake
by singing. But it is no use. The librettist is inexorable: the stage
is wanted for some one else; and the watchman's song merely acts as a
soporific, and at last the poor fellow snores. In the distance appears
the ship of the Flying Dutchman--"blutroth die Segel, schwarz der
Mast"--she nears rapidly, enters the fiord and casts anchor hard by
Daland's boat, and Vanderdecken comes ashore. It is the seventh year,
and he has the usual short respite in which to seek the maid who will
redeem him. He has a long soliloquy; then, in the nick of time, Daland
awakes, comes on deck, unjustly reproaches the watchman for dozing,
hails the Dutchman, and joins him on the rocks for a chat. They soon
grow friendly and strike a bargain. Daland is to take the stranger
home with him, and if his daughter Senta proves satisfactory,
Vanderdecken is to have her as his bride in return for infinite
treasure out of the hold of the strange vessel. Daland has been shown
a sample, and is overjoyed with his bargain: a distinguished-looking
husband for his daughter and the husband's wealth for himself. The
wind changes to a favourable one; Daland sets out first, leaving the
Dutchman to follow in a boat which we may well believe goes faster,
for it is driven by the devil and carries a private hurricane wherever
it goes. The convenient veering of the wind need not be taken as
forced on the stage manager by the librettist, for Daland foretells
it at the very beginning of the act.

I do not wish to treat so noble a work as the _Flying Dutchman_ with
any irreverence; but if it is worth understanding Wagner's art, and
the slow processes of its transition from the baldness and
ultra-conventionality of _Rienzi_ to the richness and simplicity and
directness of _Tristan_, we must realize clearly that in its