The Project Gutenberg EBook of Man on the Ocean, by R.M. Ballantyne

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Title: Man on the Ocean
A Book about Boats and Ships

Author: R.M. Ballantyne

Illustrator: R. Richardson

Release Date: June 7, 2007 [EBook #21749]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MAN ON THE OCEAN ***

Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England

MAN ON THE OCEAN, A BOOK ABOUT BOATS AND SHIPS, BY R.M. BALLANTYNE.

CHAPTER ONE.

TREATS OF SHIPS IN GENERAL.

There is, perhaps, no contrivance in the wide world more wonderful than
a ship--a full-rigged, well-manned, gigantic ship!

Those who regard familiar objects in art and nature as mere matters of
course, and do not trouble themselves to wander out of the beaten track
of everyday thought, may not at first feel the force or admit the truth
of this statement. Let such folk endeavour to shake themselves
vigorously out of this beaten track of everyday thought. Let them knit
their brows and clench their teeth, and gaze steadfastly into the fire,
or up at the sky, and try to realise what is involved in the idea of--a
ship.

What would the men of old have said, if you had told them that you
intended to take yonder large wooden house, launch it upon the sea, and
proceed in it out of sight of land for a few days? "Poor fellow," they
would have replied, "you are mad!" Ah! many a wise philosopher has been
deemed mad, not only by men of old, but by men of modern days. This
"mad" idea has long since been fulfilled; for what is a ship but a
wooden house made to float upon the sea, and sail with its inmates
hither and thither, at the will of the guiding spirit, over a trackless
unstable ocean for months together? It is a self-sustaining movable
hotel upon the sea. It is an oasis in the desert of waters, so
skilfully contrived as to be capable of advancing against wind and tide,
and of outliving the wildest storms--the bitterest fury of winds and
waves. It is the residence of a community, whose country for the time
being is the ocean; or, as in the case of the _Great Eastern_ steamship,
it is a _town_ with some thousands of inhabitants launched upon the
deep.