e enough to land a
goat upon, and you will find it laid down in the charts,--and, if it be
only far enough south, a Stonington sealer at anchor under its lee, or
a New Bedford whaler's crew ashore picking up drift-wood. Where are the
old dangers of the sea? We are fast learning to calculate for the
storms, and to run from them. Steam-frigates have ended forever the
pirates of the Spanish Main. The long, low, black schooner, which could
sail dead to windward through the pages of the cheap "yellow-covers,"
and the likeness of which sported its skull and crossbones on the said
covers, is to be met with nowhere else. Neither the Isle of Pines nor
the numberless West India keys know her or her romantic commander any
more.

The relations of trade, too, have changed with the changes of Science.
We were once gathered with the group of travellers who are wont to
smoke the cigar of peace beside the pilot-house of one of our noble
Sound steamers. As we rounded the Battery and sped swiftly up the East
River, the noblest avenue of New York, lined with the true palaces of
her merchant-princes,--an avenue which by its solid and truthful
architecture half atones for the flimsiness of its land structures,--as
we passed the ocean steamships lying at the "Hook," the sea-captains
about me began to talk of the American triumphs of speed. "They say to
the Englishmen now," said one, "that we're going to take the berths out
of the 'Pacific.'" (She had just made the then crack passage.) "When
the English fellows ask, 'What for?'--they say, 'Because Collins
intends to run her for a day-boat.'" This extravaganza raised a laugh;
but one of the older brethren shook his head solemnly and sadly. "It's
all very well," said he; "but what with a steamer twice a week, and
your telegraph to New Orleans, they know what's going on at Liverpool
as well as if they were at Prince's Dock. It don't pay now to lay a
week alongside the levee on the chance of five cents for cotton."

It was a text that suggested a long homily. The shipmaster was degraded
from his old position of the merchant's friend, confidential agent, and
often brother-merchant. He was to become a mere conductor, to take the
ship from port to port. No longer identified with the honor and success
of a great and princely house, with the old historic kings of the
Northwest Coast, or of Canton, or of Calcutta, he sinks into a mere
navigator, and a smuggler of Geneva watches or Trench embroideries.