Early in April, 1800, Southey was once more on his way from Bristol, by Falmouth, to the Continent, accompanied by his wife, now about to be welcomed to Portugal by the fatherly uncle whose prudence she had once alarmed. The wind was adverse, and while the travellers were detained Southey strolled along the beach, caught soldier-crabs, and observed those sea-anemones which blossom anew in the verse of Thalaba. For reading on the voyage, he had brought Burns, Coleridge’s poems, the Lyrical Ballads, and a poem, with “miraculous beauties,” called _Gebir_, “written by God knows who.” But when the ship lost sight of England, Southey, with swimming head, had little spirit left for wrestling with the intractable thews of Landor’s early verse; he could just grunt out some crooked pun or quaint phrase in answer to inquiries as to how he did. Suddenly, on the fourth morning, came the announcement that a French cutter was bearing down upon them. Southey leaped to his feet, hurriedly removed his wife to a place of safety, and, musket in hand, took his post upon the quarter-deck. The smoke from the enemy’s matches could be seen. She was hailed, answered in broken English, and passed on. A moment more, and the suspense was over; she was English, manned from Guernsey. “You will easily imagine,” says Southey, “that my sensations at the ending of the business were very definable—one honest, simple joy that I was in a whole skin!” Two mornings more, and the sun rose behind the Berlings; the heights of Cintra became visible, and nearer, the silver dust of the breakers, with sea-gulls sporting over them; a pilot’s boat, with puffed and flapping sail, ran out; they passed thankfully our Lady of the Guide, and soon dropped anchor in the Tagus. An absence of four years had freshened every object to Southey’s sense of seeing, and now he had the joy of viewing all familiar things as strange through so dear a companion’s eyes.