were rushing to the Thames, and deserting the Metropolis, as though it were the “City of the Plague,” or the seat of Asiatic cholera.
But to return to the Batavier. Honour to the man who first applied steam to locomotion. His ingenuity has enabled him to distil from water a light vapour which conquers the ocean from whence it sprang. It more than half diminishes the terror of the sea and the miseries of the voyage. It brings Lisbon and Gibraltar within the same distance of London as Edinburgh used to be. Though lighter than the air we breathe, it can resist the impetuosity of the heaviest storm, and stem the torrent of the most rapid river. It has nearly broken the trident of Neptune, and owns little allegiance to his sceptre. Steam may now say to the watery god, what the ocean monarch once said to a brother deity—
“Non tibi imperium Pelagi sævumque tridentem,
Sed mihi sorte datur.”——
Æolus may unchain the winds—Boreas may bluster, and Auster may weep; but steam heeds them not. Resistance only lends it strength, and oppression elasticity. The offspring of eternal and implacable enemies (fire and water), its birth is invariably and necessarily fatal to its parents. The new Being thus generated is as gigantic in power as it is transitory in existence. Imprisoned for a moment, it bursts its barriers—regains its liberty—and dies! But these struggles for freedom work the iron wings that impel the monster steamer through the briny waves. Deep in the womb of this moving volcano, we see the fires of Ætna glowing—cauldrons boiling—pumps playing—chains clanking—Ixion’s wheels incessantly revolving—steam roaring—and volumes of smoke belched upwards, to darken the skies with artificial clouds. Could some of our forefathers rise from their graves, and behold a steamer flying over the waves against wind and tide, and without oar or sail, they would be not a little astonished, and curious enough to know the name of the planet to which they had been wafted after leaving their native earth.
THE SEA.
Campbell, our immortal poet, has dedicated an amatory epistle to the sea, descriptive of her various charms. When in good humour, no lady has a smoother face, or a more smiling countenance, and she then well deserves the title of “mirror of the stars,” which the bard has gallantly conferred on her. But when ruffled in temper, she is one of the veriest termagants I have ever encountered. She will then fret and foam—aye, and proceed from words to blows, knocking about her friends and her foes, like stock-fish.
Many have been the philtres and objurgations proposed for securing her “crispid smiles,” and obviating her “luxurious heavings;” but few of them are of any value. I have found it best to lie down, bandage my eyes, and let the angry Goddess have her own way. In the present instance her marine majesty was in a singularly mild mood, during the passage. A nautilus might have spread his sail and gone to sleep in safety. We approached the low sand hills concealing a still lower surface of country—struck on the Brill—and after two or three rolls, the Batavier tumbled like a whale into the Maas. We were soon abreast of Schiedam, whence volumes of smoke and vapour redolent of gin were wafted over us by the northern breeze, while a hundred windmills were whirling round as far as the eye could reach. It is curious that in Holland, the most watery country in the world, grain is ground by means of wind; while in Switzerland, the most windy country in Europe, corn is ground by means of water. A moment’s reflection clears up the paradox. In Holland, water sleeps during seven days in the week, unmolested, save by the occasional crawling of the trackschuyt:—in Switzerland, every stream leaps joyously from rock to rock, grinding the corn, washing the linen, spinning the flax, turning the lathes, and performing a hundred domestic services.