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Updated: June 11, 2025
Such are the recollections that come over poor sailor-boys crawling out on reeling yards to reef topsails as their vessels stagger round the stormy Cape; and such are the flitting images that make the eyes of old country-born merchants look dim and dreamy, as they sit in their city palaces, warm with the after-dinner flush of the red wave out of which Memory arises, as Aphrodite arose from the green waves of the ocean.
"Yes, they have indeed, Charlie; little friendless sailor-boys dashed on far-away rocks that splintered their ships to atoms, or swallowed up when their vessel foundered in great typhoons, thousands of miles away from home and England, in unknown seas; little boys like you, Charlie; and they have died bravely, too, though no living soul was near them to hear their cries, and nothing to mark their graves but the bubble for one minute while they sank."
He followed me with some reluctance, but follow he did, after some remonstrances that bordered on warmth. Any inexperienced eye that had seen us passing, would have mistaken us for two well-looking, smart young sailor-boys, who had just returned from a profitable voyage, and who, well-clad, tidy and semi-genteel, were strolling along the wharves as admirateurs, not to say critics, of the craft.
There are bosquets for the love-makers, and glassy pools, studded with islands innumerable, over which many a Lady of the Lake steers her shallop, while Oriental sailor-boys canoe wildly along. There are flower-beds which need not blush to be compared with Kew or the Crystal Palace. But it is not with such that we are now concerned.
The intervals between the shelves are generally ornamented with a set of pictures of rural innocence, where shepherds are seen wooing shepherdesses, balanced by representations of not quite such innocent Didos weeping at the Sally Port, and waving their lily hands to departing sailor-boys.
Such are the recollections that come over poor sailor-boys crawling out on reeling yards to reef topsails as their vessels stagger round the stormy Cape; and such are the flitting images that make the eyes of old country-born merchants look dim and dreamy, as they sit in their city palaces, warm with the after-dinner flush of the red wave out of which Memory arises, as Aphrodite arose from the green waves of the ocean.
Behind come the fishermen, young sailor-boys followed by rough grizzled elders bearing candles like the girls before them, and then the village Brotherhood, fishers too, but clad in strange garments of grey, with black hoods covering their faces, and leaving nothing but the bright good-humoured eye to guide one under this sepulchral figure to the Giovanni or Beppino who was cracking jokes yesterday till the Blue Grotto rang again.
Such are the recollections that come over poor sailor-boys crawling out on reeling yards to reef topsails as their vessels stagger round the stormy Cape; and such are the flitting images that make the eyes of old country-born merchants look dim and dreamy, as they sit in their city palaces, warm with the after-dinner flush of the red wave out of which Memory arises, as Aphrodite arose from the green waves of the ocean.
The instinct of life is strong in every living thing, and young sailor-boys are no exception to the rule; so, after I had stood in the presence of this frightful chaos for I have not the least idea how long, I began to think what I should do to save myself.
A little way beyond they passed the angle of a mining district, with four or five engine-houses high up like castles on the hillside, and rows of stamps clattering and working up and down like ogres' teeth. The sailor-boys shouted with laughter and struck up a song about a fox and a goose, which lasted all the way up a long hill and brought them to a second turnpike, on the edge of the moors.
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