_en route_ for the land of the Celestials. It was Sunday,
and never Sabbath broke fairer than that one, or sun shone more
auspiciously on the commencement of a voyage.

Our friends, I doubt not, are casting longing and tear-bedimmed eyes
after us; and many a handkerchief flutters its good bye long after
objects on the shore have ceased to be distinguishable. Let us leave
them to their tears; for us the sterner realities of life. We are not
going away for ever, I trust; and England's sailors are patriots enough
to feel that their own land, and mothers, wives, and sisters are the
dearest and best in the world. With a short silent prayer, commending
them to God's protection, we take a last look for good and all, at old
Rame Head, and endeavour if we can to banish melancholy.

But are we really at sea? for the ship is so steady, and the water so
smooth, that, without the sense of sight, we have no perception of
motion. Sea voyages are, as a rule, uneventful and monotonous--to the
seaman, at any rate, and ours was no exception.

A few days after leaving Plymouth we were fairly in the bay so dreaded
by ancient mariners, and which is popularly supposed to be for ever

"Upheaving, downrolling tumultuously."

Many a yarn have I heard old salts spin of this special and favourite
abode of the god of storms: how that the seas were so high that in the
valleys between the wind was taken completely out of a ship's sails;
then, fearful lest each successive wave would engulf her, her trembling
crew see her up-borne with terrible force, and once more subject to the
full fury of the blast: how that no bottom was to be reached by the
heaviest of leads and the longest of lines,--and such-like awe-inspiring
wonders; or, as that most observant of naval poets, old Falconer,
graphically puts it--

"Now quivering o'er the topmast wave she rides,
Whilst beneath the enormous gulf divides.
Now launching headlong down the horrid vale,
Becalmed, she hears no more the howling gale;
Till up the dreadful height again she flies,
Trembling beneath the current of the skies."

We probably crossed Biscay during the time the presiding restless spirit
was taking holiday or sleeping; for a lake could not possibly have
presented a smoother surface. Shoals of porpoises, trying their rate of
speed under our bows; the dull flop of a solitary sea-bird astern,
seeking sundry bits of biscuit or other waste; and the everlasting rythm