“Strange that the ocean should come and go With its daily and nightly ebb and flow. Should bear on its placid bosom at morn The bark that ere night will be tempest torn; Or cherish it all the way it must roam, To leave it a wreck within sight of home; To smile as the mariners’ toils are o’er, Then wash the dead to the cottage door, And gently ripple along the strand, To watch the widow behold him land. Strange that the wind should be left so free To play with a flower, or tear a tree; To range or ramble where’er it will, And as it lists, to be fierce or still; Above and around to breathe of life, Or to mingle the sea and sky in strife; Gently to whisper, with morning light, Yet to growl, like a fetter’d fiend, ere night; Or to love, and cherish, and bless, to-day What to-morrow it ruthlessly rends away. But stranger than all, that man should die When his plans are formed and his hopes are high. He walks forth a lord of the earth to-day, And the morrow beholds him part of its clay. He is born in sorrow, and cradled in pain, And from youth to age it is labour in vain; All that the length of his years can show Is that wealth is trouble, and wisdom woe; That he travels a path of care and strife Who drinks of the poisoned cup of life! Alas! if we murmur at things like these That reflection tells us are wise decrees; That the wind is not ever a gentle breath; That existence is only the step towards death; That the ocean wave is not always still; And that life is chequered with good and ill. If we know ’tis well that such change should be, What do we learn from the things we see?— That an erring and sinning child of dust Should not wonder nor murmur, but hope and trust.”—_Hall._ [Illustration: S.S. ALERT. From a Photo by the late J. DODD, lost with the S.S. ALERT.] [Illustration: Decoration] CHAPTER IV. DESCRIPTION OF THE _ALERT_. The following is a complete description of the S.S. _Alert_:— Owners, Messrs Huddart, Parker and Co., Melbourne. She was an iron screw Steamer of 243 tons gross measurement, built at Port Glasgow, Scotland, in 1877. Her length was 169 feet. Breadth of beam, 19 feet 6 in., and depth of hold, 9 feet 8 inches, In other words, her length was nearly eighteen times her depth, and nearly nine times her width. She came out to Melbourne under sail, and rigged as a three masted Schooner. From the time of her arrival here until the month prior to her loss, she had been trading inside Port Phillip Heads, from Melbourne to Geelong and _vice versa_. All the time she was engaged in the Geelong trade, and up till the period of her loss, she was rigged with a foremast only, and hence she was not capable of carrying sail aft.