Such, at least, was the case with myself. As I saw the last blue lines ofmy native land fade away like a cloud in the horizon, it seemed as if I hadclosed one volume of the world and its concerns, and had time formeditation, before I opened another. That land, too, now vanishing from myview, which contained all most dear to me in life； what vicissitudes mightoccur in it-what changes might take place in me, before I should visit itagain！ Who can tell, when he sets forth to wander, whither he may be drivenby the uncertain currents of existence； or when he may return; or whether it may be ever his lot to revisit the scenes of his childhood？
I said, that at sea all is vacancy; I should correct the impression. To one given to day-dreaming, and fond of losing himself in reveries, a sea voyage is full of subjects for meditation; but then they are the wonders of the deep and of the air, and rather tend to abstract the mind from worldly themes. I was delighted to loll over the quarter-railing or climb to the main-top, of a calm day, and muse for hours together on the tranquil bosom of a summer's sea; to gaze upon the piles of golden clouds just peering above the horizon, fancy them some fairy realms, and people them with a creation of my own; - to watch the gently undulating billows rolling their silver volumes, as if to die away on those happy shores.
There was a delicious sensation of mingled security and awe with which I looked down, from my giddy height, on the monsters of the deep at their uncouth gambots: shoals of porpoises tumbling about the bow of the ship; the grampus, slowly heaving his huge form above the surface; or the ravenous shark, darting, like a spectre, through the blue waters. My imagination would conjure up all that I had heard or read of the watery world beneath me; of the finny herds that roam its fathomless valleys; of the shapeless monsters that lurk among the very foundations of the earth; and of those wild phantasms that swell the tales of fishermen and sailors.
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