Page:Life in India or Madras, the Neilgherries, and Calcutta.djvu/33

23 red-blooded sea-animal rather than a fish,) and not unlike beef in appearance and in taste.

Quite often the stirring cry of “!" called all hands on deck, and sent every eye glancing over the waters to catch a glimpse of the stranger. Nothing so breaks the solitude of the vast ocean, with its limitless plains of tossing water, as the sight of fellow-travellers upon its bosom. When the stranger barque bears down upon you, and the little birdlike thing, that in the distance was but a speck upon the horizon, swelling as it approaches to a cloud of canvas overhanging the narrow hull, lies side by side with your own sea home, you feel that you are not alone. The voice of the commander, as he hails you with his bluff "Ship ahoy! what ship is that?" and exchanges question and answer, seems like the voice of a friend or brother. This intercourse, however, usually lasts but for a few moments; and the two ships, bowing and curvetting as they rise and fall upon the waves, go each upon its own way, until, losing each other in the distance, each is once more alone upon the deep.

In the North Atlantic we had the usual alternations of winds, fair and foul, blowing from every quarter of the compass. Passing