Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. V, No. XXV, June, 1852Various
General
Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. V, No. XXV, June, 1852
Various
American literature -- Periodicals; Civilization -- Periodicals; Culture -- Periodicals
Miles made at noon 300. We have had truly a magnificent Sabbath day.
The sky has been cloudless, the wind fresh and favorable. At 12 o'clock
each day the captain takes an observation to decide our latitude and
longitude, and the number of miles the ship has made during the last
twenty-four hours. The sea is rough, and it is more comfortable,
or, rather, less uncomfortable to be upon deck than in the saloons.
Sheltered in some degree by the smoke-pipe, round which the wind is
ever circling, I have passed the weary hours of the monotonous day,
looking out upon the solitary ocean and the silent sky; both impressive
emblems of eternity and infinity. Toward night the wind changed into
the east, and blew more freshly. Clouds gathered. Angry waves, black
and foaming, swept madly by. The solitude of stormy night upon the
ocean! What pen can describe! And yet who can be insensible to the
luxury of that solitude--to its melancholy sublimity! As I now write,
our ship plunges and rolls in the heavy sea, and a death-like nausea
comes over me.
Monday Night, Mar. 22. Lat. 42° 23'. Long. 61° 23'.
Miles made 308. The malady of the sea drove me rather suddenly last
night from my pen to the deck. But in an hour the clouds and the gust
passed away. The stars came out in all their brilliance. The wind,
however, has steadily increased, and it has been quite rough all
day. Many are very sick, and nearly all are in a state of decided
discomfort. There is an indescribable charm which the ocean has in
its wide expanse, and in its solitude, and the imagination loves
to revel in its wild scenes, but it is, even in its best estate,
an uncomfortable place for the body to inhabit. Our most poetic
descriptions of ocean life have been written in the enjoyment of warm
and comfortable firesides on the land. Cushioned upon the parlor sofa,
the idea is delightful, upon the ocean wives to be "borne like a bubble
onward." But there is altogether too much prose in the reality. It is
indeed "distance which lends enchantment to the view." Never did there
float upon the ocean a more magnificent palace than that which now
bears us. Our ship is two hundred and eighty-five feet in length, that
is, nearly as long as four ordinary country churches. From the keel to
the deck it is as high as a common five story house. Its width from the
extremities of the paddle wheels is seventy-two feet, which is equal to
length of most churches. The promenade deck, as we now sail, is as high
above the water as the ridge-pole of an ordinary two story house. The
dining-saloon is a large, airy, beautiful room, sixty-two feet long and
thirty feet wide, with windows opening upon the ocean as pleasantly as
those of any parlor, and where two hundred guests can dine luxuriously.
The parlor or saloon is embellished in the very highest style of modern
art. The walls are constructed of the most highly polished satin-wood,
and rosewood, and decorated with paintings of the coats of arms of the
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