"And oh! yet more affecting to the heart and mysterious to the mind, what companies of human beings are locked up in that wide, weltering, unsearchable grave of the sea! Where are the bodies of those lost ones over whom the melancholy waves alone have been chanting requiem? What shrouds were wrapped round the limbs of beauty, and of manhood, and of placid infancy, when they were laid on the dark floor of that secret tomb? Where are the bones, the relics, of the brave and the timid, the good and the bad, the parent, the child, the wife, the husband, the brother, the sister, the lover, which have been tossed and scattered and buried by the washing, wasting, wandering sea? The journeying winds may sigh as year after year they pass over their beds. The solitary rain-cloud may weep in darkness over the mingled remains which lie strewed in that unwonted cemetery. But who shall tell the bereaved to what spot their affections may cling? And where shall human tears be shed throughout that solemn sepulchre? It is mystery all. When shall it be resolved? Who shall find it out? Who but He to whom the wildest waves listen reverently, and to whom all nature bows; He who shall one day speak, and be heard in ocean's profoundest caves; to whom the deep, even the lowest deep, shall give up its dead, when the sun shall sicken, and the earth and the isles shall languish, and the heavens be rolled together like a scroll, and there shall be NO MORE SEA!" It now remains for us to investigate the origin of navigation, as preliminary to our subject, and then to commence the task before us with the history of Noah, the first seaman, and the Ark, the vessel he commanded. [Illustration: THE STORMY PETREL.] [Illustration: THE FIRST NAVIGATOR.] CHAPTER II. THE ORIGIN OF NAVIGATION--THE NAUTILUS--THE SPLIT REED AND BEETLE--THE BEAVER FLOATING UPON A LOG--THE HOLLOW TREE--THE FIRST CANOE--THE FLOATING NUTSHELL--THE OAR--THE RUDDER--THE SAIL--THE TRADITION OF THE FIRST SAIL-BOAT.