Page:Pleasant Memories of Pleasant Lands.djvu/400

 DELIVERANCE FROM DANGER. 375-

many of us had committed ourselves with extreme reluctance. Yet a vessel more under the dominion of the winds, and beleaguered as we were amid walls of ice, in a rough sea, must inevitably have been destroyed.

By nine in the morning of April 19th, it pleased God to set us free from this great danger. Afterwards, when the smallest sails appeared on the distant horizon, our excellent captain caused two guns to be fired, to bespeak attention, and then by flags and signals warned them to avoid the fearful region from which we had with such difficulty escaped. Two tiny barks came struggling through the billows to seek a more intimate conversation with the mighty steam-ship, who, herself not wholly unscathed from the recent contest, willingly dispensed her dear-bought wisdom. There was a kind of sublimity in this gift of advice, and interchange of sympathy between the strong, experienced voyager, and the more frail, white-winged wanderers of the trackless waste of waters. It seemed like some aged Mentor, way-worn in life s weary pilgrimage, counselling him who had newly girded on his harness, &quot; not to be high- minded, but fear.&quot;

As we drew near the end of our voyage, we felt how community in danger had endeared those to each other, who, during the sixteen days of their companionship upon the ocean, had been united by the courtesies of kind and friendly intercourse. Collected as the pas sengers were from various climes and nations, and many of them about to separate without hope of again meeting in this life, amid the joy which animated those

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