‘That is the first spot in England,’ said Claude, ‘except, of course, “the meads of golden king-cups,” where I have seen wild flowers give a tone to the colouring of the whole landscape, as they are said to do in the prairies of Texas. And look how flowers and cliff are both glowing in a warm green haze, like that of Cuyp’s wonderful sandcliff picture in the Dulwich Gallery,—wonderful, as I think, and true, let some critics revile it as much as they will.’ ‘Strange, that you should have quoted that picture here; its curious resemblance to this very place first awoke in me, years ago, a living interest in landscape-painting. But look there; even in these grand summer days there is a sight before us sad enough. There are the ribs of some ill-fated ship, a man-of-war too, as the story goes, standing like black fangs, half-buried in the sand. And off what are those two ravens rising, stirring up with their obscene wings a sickly, putrescent odour? A corpse?’ No, it was not a corpse; but the token of many corpses. A fragment of some ship; its gay green paint and half-effaced gilding contrasting mockingly with the long ugly feathered barnacle-shells, which clustered on it, rotting into slime beneath the sun, and torn and scattered by the greedy beaks of the ravens. In what tropic tornado, or on what coral-key of the Bahamas, months ago, to judge by those barnacles, had that tall ship gone down? How long had that scrap of wreck gone wandering down the Gulf Stream, from Newfoundland into the Mid-Atlantic, and hitherward on its homeless voyage toward the Spitzbergen shore? And who were all those living men who “went down to Hades, even many stalwart souls of heroes,” to give no sign until the sea shall render up her dead? And every one of them had a father and mother—a wife, perhaps, and children, waiting for him—at least a whole human life, childhood, boyhood, manhood, in him. All those years of toil and education, to get him so far on his life-voyage; and here is the end thereof!’ ‘Say rather, the beginning thereof,’ Claude answered, stepping into the boat. ‘This wreck is but a torn scrap of the chrysalis-cocoon; we may meet the butterflies themselves hereafter.’ * * * * * And now we are on board; and alas! some time before the breeze will be so. Take care of that huge boom, landsman Claude, swaying and sweeping backwards and forwards across the deck, unless you wish to be knocked overboard. Take care, too, of that loose rope’s end, unless you wish to have your eyes cut out. Take my advice, lie down here across the deck, as others are doing. Cover yourself with great-coats, like an Irishman, to keep yourself cool, and let us meditate little on this strange thing, and strange place, which holds us now.