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Updated: June 11, 2025


"Alas! is it not true?" writes Carlyle in his Heroes, "that many men in the van do always, like Russian soldiers, march into the ditch of Schwiednitz, and fill it up with their dead bodies, that the rear may pass over them dry-shod, and gain the honour?

In short, nothing could persuade him, but he would go into the Red Sea with the sloop, and where the children of Israel passed through the sea dry-shod, and, landing there, would travel to Grand Cairo by land, which is not above eighty miles, and from thence he said he could ship himself, by the way of Alexandria, to any part of the world.

Then we heard the scream of triumph from the whistle, with which Schwartz cheered us as the dripping train ran on through shallower and shallower water, and turning, after a mile or so, began climbing, dry-shod, the grade which led from the flooded valley and out upon the uplands. "Come in, Mr. Elkins," said Corcoran. "You'll both freeze out there, wet as you are."

General Caffarelli was the only person who was really in danger, for his wooden leg prevented his sitting firmly on his horse in the water; but some persons came to his assistance and supported him. At St. Helena he said, "Profiting by the low tide, I crossed the Red Sea dry-shod. On my return I was overtaken by the night and went astray in the middle of the rising tide. I ran the greatest danger.

I was told also that the absolute foundation of the edifice is bad that the ground, which is near the river and swampy, would not bear the weight intended to be imposed on it. A sad and saddening spot was that marsh, as I wandered down on it all alone one Sunday afternoon. The ground was frozen and I could walk dry-shod, but there was not a blade of grass.

All literature which describes life as it existed in England, France, and Germany up to the close of the last century, is filled with pictures of coaches and carriages wallowing through these three countries in mud and slush half-wheel deep; but after Napoleon had floundered through a conquered kingdom he generally arranged things so that the rest of the world could follow dry-shod.

One may travel through tenacious seas of it without smirching one's boot-heel. There is even a feeling of triumph as we see it lying sulky and impotent on either side, while we bowl along dry-shod. When Noah and his family came out of the Ark, and found all "soft with the Deluge," it was very different. The prospect must have been discouraging.

But presently he remembered how Christ had walked the waves, and how even Saint Mary of Egypt, who was a great sinner, had crossed the waters of Jordan dry-shod to receive the Sacrament from the Abbot Zosimus; and then the Hermit's heart grew still, and he sang as he went down the mountain: "The sea shall praise Thee, O Lord."

Then in his dream David was troubled, and knew not how to follow; till he thought that it might be given him, as it was given once to Peter, to walk dry-shod over the depth; but when he set foot upon the water there broke so furious a wave at him, that he knew not how to follow.

A sea-bred boy would not have stayed a day on Earraid; which is only what they call a tidal islet, and except in the bottom of the neaps, can be entered and left twice in every twenty-four hours, either dry-shod, or at the most by wading. It was no wonder the fishers had not understood me. The wonder was rather that they had ever guessed my pitiful illusion, and taken the trouble to come back.

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