Page:Ballantyne--The Battery and the Boiler.djvu/79

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our hero at last reached the Great Eastern, he soon found himself in what may he termed a lost condition. At first he was disappointed, for he saw her at a distance, and it is well known that distance lends deception as well as "enchantment to the view," Arrived alongside, however, he felt as if he had suddenly come under the walls of a great fortress or city.

Presently he stood on the deck of the Big Ship, as its familiars called it, and, from that moment, for several days, was, as we have said, in a lost condition. He was lost in wonder, to begin with, as he gazed at the interminable length and breadth of planking styled the deck, and the forest of funnels, masts, and rigging, and the amazing perspective, which caused men at the further end from where he stood to look like dolls.

Then he was lost in reality, when he went below and had to ask his way as though he were wandering