I

Egean, they are blown about in the most whimsical manner. used to think that Ulysses, with his ten years' voyage, had taken his time in making Ithaca; but my experience in Greek navi gation soon made me understand that he had had, in point of fact, a pretty good "average passage." Such are now the mariners of the Ægean; free, equal amongst themselves, navigating the seas of their forefathers with the same heroic and yet childlike spirit of venture, the same half-trustful reliance upon heavenly aid, they are the liveliest images of true old Greeks that time and the new religions7 have spared to us.' Eöthen.'

1. Dragoman, pl. dragomans, an interpreter. The term is in general use in the Levant, and in Arabia, Persia, &c.

2. Ottoman designates something that pertains to the Turks or to their government; as, the Ottoman power or empire. The word originated in Othman or Osman, the name of a sultan who assumed the government about the year 1300.

3. Hydra, an island of the Grecian Archipelago, off the coast of Argolis from which it is six miles distant. It is a mere rock, so utterly barren as to contribute nothing whatever to the maintenance of its inhabitants, nor in all probability would it ever have been peopled, unless its insular situation and the excellence of its harbour had pointed it out as a safe place of refuge from the oppressions of the Turks, and a favourable situation for commercial pursuits. The Hydriots, most of whom are Albanians, and not true Greeks, were, during their prosperity, which commenced in the beginning of the French war, the boldest seamen of all Greece, and acquired large sums by privateering. During the war of independence they earned for themselves

the character of being the most efficient and intrepid sailors in the Greek navy, and their bravery contributed in no small degree to the successful issue of that contest.

4. The article an seems quite superfluous, but it stands so in the original.

5. St. Nicholas is the great patron of Greek sailors; a small picture of him, enclosed in a glass case, is hung up like a barometer at one end of the cabin.

6. The Argonauts were those who sailed under Jason in the ship Argo to Colchis in quest of the golden fleece of Phryxus. The original facts on which this mythological story is founded cannot now be recalled; but it is generally supposed to represent the result of some bold commercial expedition that overstepped the previous discoveries of its age, or more probably still, the series of enterprises by which "Greek maritime knowledge was extended to the furthest shores of the Euxine." The expedition is said to have taken place 79 years before the taking of Troy, that is, 1263 B.C.

7. The new religions here referred to are the Christian and the Mahometan.

THE SEA.

THE sea, the sea, the open sea,
The blue, the fresh, the ever free:
Without a mark, without a bound,

It runneth the earth's wide regions round:
It plays with the clouds, it mocks the skies,
Or like a cradled creature lies.

I'm on the sea, I'm on the sea,

I am where I would ever be,

With the blue above and the blue below,
And silence whereso'er I go.

If a storm should come and awake the deep,
What matter? I shall ride and sleep.

I love, O how I love to ride

On the fierce, foaming, bursting tide,
When every mad wave drowns the moon,
And whistles aloft his tempest tune;
And tells how goeth the world below,
And why the south-west wind doth blow.
I never was on the dull, tame shore,
But I loved the great Sea more and more,
And backwards flew to her billowy breast,
Like a bird that seeketh its mother's nest-
And a mother she was and is to me,
For I was born on the open sea.

The waves were white, and red the morn,
In the noisy hour when I was born;
The whale it whistled, the porpoise rolled
And the dolphins bared their backs of gold;
And never was heard such an outcry wild,
As welcomed to life the ocean child.

I have lived since then in calm and strife,
Full fifty summers a rover's life,
With wealth to spend, and a power to range,
But never have sought or sighed for change;
And death, whenever he comes to me,
Shall come on the wild, unbounded sea.

I REMEMBER on one occasion hearing the captain of a ship say to a poor fellow who was almost gone, that he was glad to see him so cheerful at such a moment, and begged to know if he had anything to say.

"I hope, sir," said the expiring seaman with a smile, "I have done my duty to your satisfaction ?"

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That you have, my lad," said his commander, "and to the satisfaction of your country, too."

"That is all I wanted to know, sir," replied the man.

These few commonplace words cost the captain not five minutes of his time, but were long recollected with gratitude by the people under his orders, and contributed, along with many

other graceful acts of considerate attention, to fix his authority as firmly as he could desire.

If a sailor who knows he is dying has a captain who pleases him, he is very likely to send a message by the surgeon to beg a visit; not often to trouble his commander with any commission, but merely to say something at parting. No officer, of course, would ever refuse to grant such an interview; but it appears to me it should always be volunteered; for many men may wish it, whose habitual respect would disincline them to take such a liberty, even at the moment when all distinctions are about to cease.

Very shortly after poor Jack dies, he is prepared for his deepsea grave by his messmates, who, with the assistance of the sailmaker, and in the presence of the master-at-arms,' sew him up in his hammock, and having placed a couple of cannon-shot at his feet, they rest the body (which now not a little resembles an Egyptian mummy)2 on a spare grating. Some portion of the bedding and clothes are always made up in the package, apparently to prevent the form being too much seen. It is then carried aft, and, being put across the after-hatchway, the unionjack is thrown over all. Sometimes it is placed between two of the guns, under the half deck; but generally, I think, he is laid where I have stated, just abaft the mainmast.

I should have mentioned before, that as soon as the surgeon's ineffectual professional offices are at an end, he walks to the quarter-deck, and reports to the officer of the watch, that one of his patients has just expired. At whatever hour of the day or the night this occurs, the captain is immediately made acquainted with the circumstance. At the same time the masterat-arms is ordered by the officer of the watch to take possession of the dead man's clothes; and his messmates, soon afterwards, proceed to dress and prepare the body for burial.

Next day, generally about eleven o'clock, the bell on which the half hours are struck is tolled for the funeral by one of the quarter-masters of the watch below, or by one of the deceased's messmates; and all who choose to be present assemble on the gangways, booms, and round the mainmast, while the fore-part of the quarter deck is occupied by the officers.

In some ships, and it ought perhaps to be so in all, it is made imperative on the officers and crew to attend this ceremony. If such attendance be a proper mark of respect to a professional brother, as it surely is, it ought to be enforced, and not left to caprice. There may, indeed, be times of great fatigue, where it would harass men and officers needlessly to oblige them to come on deck for every funeral, and upon such occasions, the watch on deck may be sufficient. Or, when some dire disease gets into a

ship and is cutting down her crew by its daily and nightly, or, it may be, hourly ravages, and when two or three times in a watch the ceremony must be repeated; those only whose turn it is to be on deck need be assembled. In such fearful times, the funeral is generally made to follow close upon the death.

While the people are repairing to the quarter-deck, in obedience to the summons of the bell, the grating on which the body is placed, being lifted from the main-deck by the messmates of the man who has died, is made to rest across the lee-gangway. The stanchions for the man-ropes of the side are unshipped, and an opening made at the after-end of the hammock-netting, sufficiently large to allow a free passage.

The body is still covered by the flag already mentioned, with the feet projecting a little over the gunwale, while the messmates of the deceased range themselves on each side. A rope, which is kept out of sight in these arrangements, is then made fast to the grating, for a purpose which will be seen presently.

When all is ready, the chaplain, if there be one on board, or, if not, the captain, or any of the officers he may direct to officiate, appears on the quarter-deck, and commences the beautiful service, which, though but too familiar to most ears, I have observed never fails to rivet the attention even of the rudest and least reflecting. Of course, the bell has ceased to toll, and every one stands in silence and uncovered as the prayers are read. Sailors, with all their looseness of habits, are well disposed to be sincerely religious; and when they have fair play given them, they will always, I believe, be found to stand on as good vantage-ground in this respect as their fellow-countrymen on shore. Be this as it may, there can be no more attentive, or apparently reverent auditory, than assembles on the deck of a shipof-war, on the occasion of a shipmate's burial.

There is no material difference in the form of this service from that used on the shore, excepting in the place where allusion is made to the return of the body to its parent earth. Perhaps it might have been as well to have left this unchanged. for the ocean may well be taken in this sense as part of the earth; but since an alteration of the words was thought necessary, it could not have been made in better taste.

The land service for the burial of the dead contains the following words :-" Forasmuch as it hath pleased Almighty God, of his great mercy, to take unto himself the soul of our dear brother here departed, we therefore commit his body to the ground; earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust; in sure and certain hope," &c. Every one, I am sure, who has attended the funeral of a friend (and who will this not include ?) must

recollect the solemnity of that stage of the ceremony where, as the above words are pronounced, there are cast into the grave three successive portions of earth, which, falling on the coffin, send up a hollow, mournful sound, resembling no other that I know. In the burial service at sea, the part quoted above is varied in the following very striking and solemn manner :"Forasmuch," &c., "we therefore commit his body to the deer, to be turned into corruption, looking for the resurrection of the body, when the sea shall give up her dead, and the life of the world to come," &c.

At the commencement of this part of the service, one of the seamen stoops down, and disengages the flag from the remains of his late shipmate, while the others, at the words "we commit his body to the deep," project the grating right into the sea. The body, being loaded with shot at one end, glances off the grating, plunges at once into the ocean, and,

"In a moment, like a drop of rain,

He sinks into its depths with bubbling groan,

Without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined and unknown."

This part of the ceremony is rather less impressive than the correspondent part on land; but still there is something solemn as well as startling, in the sudden splash, followed by the sound of the grating, as it is towed along under the main-chains. In a fine day at sea, in smooth water, and when all the ship's company and officers are assembled, the ceremony just described, although a melancholy one, as it must always be, is often so pleasing, all things considered, that it is calculated to leave even cheerful impressions on the mind.-B. HALL'S 'Voyages.'

1. The master-at-arms is a petty officer of the navy, who may be considered the head of the police of the ship. His assistants are called the ship's corporals.

2. Mummy (from the Arabic mum, wax) is the name given to the dead bodies of men or animals which are by any means preserved in a dry state from the process of putrefaction.

3. Abaft, or aft, in sea language, signifies towards the stern, or hinder part of the vessel. Thus, a thing is abaft the foremast when it is between the foremast and the stern.

4. The following is one of many illustrations of this fact that might be brought forward. "As soon as the battle [of the Nile] was completed, Nelson sent orders through the fleet, to return thanks

giving in every ship, for the victory with which Almighty God had blessed His Majesty's arms. The French at Rosetta, who with miserable fear beheld the engagement, were at a loss to understand the stillness of the fleet during the performance of this solemn duty; but it seemed to affect many of the prisoners, officers as well as men, and graceless and godless as the officers were, some of them remarked that it was no wonder such order was preserved in the British navy, when the minds of our men could be impressed with such sentiments after so great avictory, and at a moment of such confusion. SOUTHEY.

5. Is this who right or wrong? Correct it and assign the reason.