Chapter 6

But oceans and seas are the waters where danger may nearly always be expected. The sea may be as smooth as glass, the skies bright, and not a breath of wind be stirring; or a gentle breeze, just enough to ripple the water, may send our vessel slowly before it, and in a few hours the winds may be roaring, the waves dashing into the air, and the skies dark with storm-clouds.

If we are upon a large and strong steamer, we may perhaps feel safe enough among the raging waves; but if our vessel be a fishing-boat, or a small pleasure-craft, we have good reason to be afraid Yet many a little sloop like this rides bravely and safely through the storms. But many other little vessels, as strong and as well steered, go to the bottom of the ocean every year. If the sailor escapes severe storms, or sails in a vessel which is so stout and ably managed as to bid defiance to the angry waves, he has other dangers in his path. He may, for instance, meet with icebergs. If the weather is clear and the wind favorable, he need not fear these floating mountains of ice. But if it be night, or foggy, and he cannot see them, or if, in spite of all his endeavors, the wind drives him down upon them, then is his vessel lost, and, in all probability, the lives of all upon it. Sometimes, however, the passengers and crew may escape in boats, and instances have been related where they have taken refuge on the iceberg itself, remaining there until rescued by a passing ship.

But, be the weather fair or foul, a ship is generally quick to leave the company of so dangerous a neighbor as an iceberg. Sometimes great masses of ice take a notion to topple over, and, looking at the matter in what light you please, I think that they are not to be trusted.

Then there is the hurricane!

A large ship may bravely dare the dangers of an ordinary storm, but nothing that floats on the surface of the water can be safe when a whirlwind passes over the sea, driving everything straight before it Great ships are tossed about like playthings, and strong masts are snapped off as if they had been made of glass.

If a ship is then near a coast, her crew is seldom able, if the wind blows towards the land, to prevent her from being dashed upon the rocks; and if she is out upon the open sea, she is often utterly disabled and swallowed up by the waves.

I have known boys who thought that it would be perfectly delightful to be shipwrecked. They felt certain that they would be cast (very gently, no doubt) upon a desert island, and there they would find everything that they needed to support life and make them comfortable; and what they did not get there they would obtain from the wreck of the ship, which would be lying on the rocks, at a convenient distance from the shore. And once on that island, they would be their own masters, and would not have to go to school or do anything which did not please them.

This is the good old Robinson Crusoe idea, which at one time or another runs in the mind of nearly every boy, and many girls, too, I expect; but a real shipwreck is never desired the second time by any person who has experienced one.

Sometimes, even when the crew think that they have safely battled through the storm, and have anchored in a secure place, the waves dash upon the vessel with such force that the anchor drags, the masts go by the board, and the great ship, with the hundreds of pale faces that crowd her deck, is dashed on the great rocks which loom up in the distance.

Among other dangers of the ocean are those great tidal waves, which often follow or accompany earthquakes, and which are almost as disastrous to those living upon the sea-coast as to those in ships. Towns have been nearly destroyed by them, hundreds of people drowned, and great ships swept upon the land, and left there high and dry. In tropical latitudes these tremendous upheavals of the ocean appear to be most common, but they are known in all regions which are subject to serious shocks of earthquakes.

Waterspouts are other terrible enemies of the sailor. These, however dangerous they may be when they approach a ship, are not very common, and it is said that they may sometimes be entirely dispersed by firing a cannon-ball into the midst of the column of water. This statement is rather doubtful, for many instances have been related where the ball went directly through the water-spout without any effect except to scatter the spray in every direction. I have no doubt that sailors always keep as far away from water-spouts as they can, and place very little reliance on their artillery for their safety.

And now, have you had enough water?

We have seen how the waters of the earth may be enjoyed, how they may be made profitable to us, and when we should beware of them.

But before we leave them, I wish to show you, at the very end of this article, something which is a little curious in its appearance. Let us take a step down to the very bottom of the sea; not in those comparatively shallow places, where the divers descend to look for wrecks and treasure, but in deep Water, miles below the surface. Down there, on the very bottom, you will see this strange thing. What do you suppose it is?

It is not an animal or a fish, or a stone, or shell. But plants are growing upon it, while little animals and fishes are sticking fast to it, or swimming around it. It is not very thick--scarcely an inch--and we do not see much of it here; but it stretches thousands of miles. It reaches from America to Europe, and it is an Atlantic Cable. There is nothing in the water more wonderful than that.

HANS, THE HERB-GATHERER.

Many years ago, when people had not quite so much sense as they have now, there was a poor widow woman who was sick. I do not know what was the matter with her, but she had been confined to her bed for a long time.

She had no doctor, for in those days many of the poor people, besides having but little money, had little faith in a regular physician. They would rather depend upon wonderful herbs and simples, which were reported to have a sort of magical power, and they often used to resort to charms and secret incantations when they wished to be cured of disease.

This widow, whose name was Dame Martha, was a sensible woman, in the main, but she knew very little about sickness, and believed that she ought to do pretty much as her neighbors told her. And so she followed their advice, and got no better.

There was an old man in the neighborhood named Hans, who made it a regular business to gather herbs and roots for moral and medical purposes. He was very particular as to time and place when he went out to collect his remedies, and some things he would not touch unless he found them growing in the corner of a churchyard--or perhaps under a gallows--and other plants he never gathered unless the moon was in its first quarter, and there was a yellow streak in the northwest, about a half-hour after sunset. He had some herbs which he said were good for chills and fever; others which made children obedient; others which caused an old man's gray hair to turn black and his teeth to grow again--if he only took it long enough; and he had, besides, remedies which would cure chickens that had the pip, horses that kicked, old women with the rheumatism, dogs that howled at the moon, boys who played truant, and cats that stole milk.

Now, to our enlightened minds it is very evident that this Hans was nothing more than an old simpleton; but it is very doubtful if he thought so himself, and it is certain that his neighbors did not. They resorted to him on all occasions when things went wrong with them, whether it was the butter that would not come in their churns, or their little babies who had fevers.

Therefore, you may be sure that Dame Martha sent for Hans as soon as she was taken ill, and for about a year or so she had been using his herbs, making plasters of his roots, putting little shells that he brought under her pillow, and powwowing three times a day over bunches of dried weeds ornamented with feathers from the tails of yellow hens that had died of old age. But all that Hans, could do for her was of no manner of use. In vain he went out at night with his lantern, and gathered leaves and roots in the most particular way. Whether the moon was full or on the wane; whether the tail of the Great Dipper was above the steeple of the old church, or whether it had not yet risen as high as the roof; whether the bats flew to the east or the west when he first saw them; or whether the Jack o'lanterns sailed near the ground (when they were carried by a little Jack), or whether they were high (when a tall Jack bore them), it made no difference. His herbs were powerless, and Dame Martha did not get well.

About half a mile from the widow's cottage there lived a young girl named Patsey Moore. She was the daughter of the village Squire, and a prettier girl or a better one than Patsey is not often met with. When she heard of Dame Martha's illness she sometimes used to stop at the cottage on her way to school, and leave with her some nice little thing that a sick person might like to eat.

One day in spring, when the fields were full of blossoms and the air full of sunshine and delicious odors, Patsey stopped on her way from school to gather a bunch of wild-flowers.

They grew so thickly and there were so many different kinds, that she soon had a bouquet that was quite fit for a parlor. On her way home she stopped at Dame Martha's cottage.

"I am sorry, Dame Martha," said she, "that I have nothing nice for you to-day, but I thought perhaps you would like to have some flowers, as it's Spring-time and you can't go out."

"Indeed, Miss Patsey," said the sick woman, "you could'nt have brought me anything that would do my heart more good. It's like hearing the birds sing and sittin' under the hedges in the blossoms, to hear you talk and to see them flowers."

Patsey was very much pleased, of course, at this, and after that she brought Dame Martha a bouquet every day.

And soon the good woman looked for Patsey and her beautiful flowers as longingly and eagerly as she looked for the rising of the sun.

Old Hans very seldom came to see her now, and she took no more of his medicines. It was of no use, and she had paid him every penny that she had to spare, besides a great many other things in the way of little odds and ends that lay about the house. But when Patsey stopped in, one afternoon, a month or two after she had brought the first bunch of flowers, she said to the widow:

"Dame Martha, I believe you are a great deal better."

"Better!" said the good woman, "I'll tell you what it is, Miss Patsey, I've been a thinking over the matter a deal for the last week, and I've been a-trying my appetite, and a-trying my eyes, and a-trying how I could walk about, and work, and sew, and I just tell you what it is, Miss Patsey, I'm well!"

And so it was. The widow was well, and nobody could see any reason for it, except good Dame Martha herself. She always persisted that it was those beautiful bunches of flowers that Patsey had brought her every day.

"Oh, Miss Patsey!" she said, "If you'd been a-coming to me with them violets and buttercups, instead of old Hans with his nasty bitter yarbs, I'd a been off that bed many a day ago. There was nothing but darkness, and the shadows of tomb-stones, and the damp smells of the lonely bogs about his roots and his leaves. But there was the heavenly sunshine in your flowers, Miss Patsey, and I could smell the sweet fields, when I looked at them, and hear the hum of the bees!"

It may be that Dame Martha gave a little too much credit to Patsey's flowers, but I am not at all sure about it. Certain it is, that the daily visits of a bright young girl, with her heart full of kindness and sympathy, and her hands full of flowers from the fragrant fields, would be far more welcome and of far more advantage to many sick chambers than all the old herb-gatherers in the world, with their bitter, grave-yard roots, and their rank, evil-smelling plants that grow down in the swamps among the frogs and snakes.

Perhaps you know some sick person. Try Patsey's treatment.

SOME CUNNING INSECTS.

We hear such wonderful stories about the sense and ingenuity displayed by insects, that we are almost led to the belief that some of them must have a little reason--at least as much as a few men and women that we know.

Of all, these wise insects, there is none with more intelligence and cunning than the ant. How many astonishing accounts have we had of these little creatures, who in some countries build great houses, almost large enough for a man to live in; who have a regular form of government, and classes of society--soldiers, workers, gentlemen and ladies; and who, as some naturalists have declared, even have handsome funerals on the occasion of the death of a queen! It is certain that they build, and work, and pursue their various occupations according to systems that are wisely conceived and most carefully carried out.

Dr. Ebrard, who wrote a book about ants and their habits, tells a story of a little black ant who was building an arch at the foundation of a new ant-hill. It was necessary to have some means of supporting this arch, which was made of wet mud, until the key-stone should be put in and all made secure. The ant might have put up a couple of props, but this is not their habit in building. Their laws say nothing about props. But the arch must be supported, and so Mr. Ant thought that it would be a good idea to bend down a tall stalk of wheat which grew near the hill, and make it support the arch until it was finished. This he did by carrying bits of wet mud up to the end of the stalk until he had piled and stuck so much upon it that the heavy top bent over. But, as this was not yet low enough, and more mud could not be put on the slender stem without danger of breaking it, the ant crammed mud in between the stalk at its root and the other stalks, so that it was forced over still more. Then he used the lowered end to support his arch!

Some other ants once found a cockchafer's wing, which they thought would be a capital thing to dry for winter, and they endeavored to get it into the entrance of their hill. But it was too big. So they drew it out and made the hole larger. Then they tried again, but the wing was still too wide. They turned it and made several efforts to get it in sideways, and upside down, but it was impossible; so they lifted it away, and again enlarged the hole. But the wing would not yet go in. Without losing patience, they once more went to work, and, after having labored for three hours and a half, they at last had the pleasure of seeing their dried wing safely pulled into their store-room.

Then, there are spiders. They frequently show the greatest skill and cunning in the construction of their webs and the capture of their prey, and naturalists say that the spider has a very well developed brain. They must certainly have a geometrical talent, or they could not arrange their webs with such regularity and scientific accuracy. Some spiders will throw their webs across streams that are quite wide.

Now, to do this, they must show themselves to be engineers of no small ability. Sometimes they fasten one end of a thread to a twig on one side of the stream, and, hanging on the other end, swing over until they can land on the other side. But this is not always possible, for they cannot, in some places, get a chance for a fair swing. In such a case, they often wait until the wind is blowing across the stream from the side on which they are, and, weaving a long line, they let it out until the wind carries it over the stream, and it catches in the bushes or grass on the other side. Of course, after one thread is over, the spider can easily run backward and forward on it, and carry over all the rest of his lines.

Bees have so much sense that we ought almost to beg their pardon when we speak of their instinct. Most of us have read what Huber and others have told us of their plans, inventions, laws, and regular habits. It is astonishing to read of a bee-supervisor, going the round of the cells where the larvæ are lying, to see if each of them has enough food. He never stops until he has finished his review, and then he makes another circuit, depositing in each cell just enough food--a little in this one, a great deal in the next, and so on.

There were once some bees who were very much disturbed by a number of great moths who made a practice of coming into their hives and stealing their honey. Do what they could, the bees could not drive these strong creatures out.

But they soon hit upon a plan to save their honey. They blocked up all the doors of the hive with wax, leaving only a little hole, just big enough for one bee to enter at a time. Then the moths were completely dumbfounded, and gave up the honey business in despair.

But the insect to which the epithet of cunning may be best ascribed, is, I think, the flea. If you doubt this, try to catch one. What double backsprings he will turn, what fancy dodges he will execute, and how, at last, you will have to give up the game and acknowledge yourself beaten by this little gymnast!

But fleas have been taught to perform their tricks of strength and activity in an orderly and highly proper manner. They have been trained to go through military exercises, carrying little sticks for guns; to work and pull about small cannon, although the accounts say nothing about their firing them off; and, what seems the most wonderful of all, two fleas have been harnessed to a little coach while another one sat on the box and drove! The whole of this wonderful exhibition was so small that a microscope had to be used in order to properly observe it.

The last instance of the intelligence of insects which I will give is something almost too wonderful to believe, and yet the statement is made by a Dr. Lincecum, who studied the habits of the insect in question for twelve years, and his investigations were published in the _Journal of the Linnæan Society_. Dr. Lincecum says, that in Texas there is an ant called by him the Agricultural Ant, which not only lays up stores of grain, but prepares the soil for the crop; plants the seed (of a certain plant called ant-rice); keeps the ground free from weeds; and finally reaps the harvest, and separating the chaff from the grain, packs away the latter, and throws the chaff outside of the plantation. In "Wood's Bible Animals" you can read a full account of this ant, and I think that after hearing of its exploits, we can believe almost anything that we hear about the intelligence of insects.

A FIRST SIGHT OF THE SEA.

If you have ever seen the ocean, you will understand what a grand thing it is to look for the first time upon its mighty waters, stretching away into the distance, and losing themselves in the clouds and sky. We know it is thousands of miles over to the other shore, but for all that we have a pretty good idea of that shore. We know its name, and have read about the people who live there.

But when, in the beginning of the sixteenth century, Vasco Nuñez de Balboa stood upon the shore of the Pacific, and gazed over its boundless waters, the sight to him was both grand and mysterious. He saw that a vast sea lay beneath and before him--but that was all he knew. Europeans had not visited it before, and the Indians, who had acted as his guides, knew but little about it. If he had desired to sail across those vast blue waters, Balboa would have had no idea upon what shores he would land or what wonderful countries and continents he would discover.

Now-a-days, any school-boy could tell that proud, brave soldier, what lay beyond those billows. Supposing little Johnny Green (we all know him, don't we?) had been there, how quickly he would have settled matters for the Spanish chieftain.

"Ah, Mr. Balboa," Johnny would have said, "you want to know what lies off in that direction--straight across? Well, I can tell you, sir. If you are standing, as I think you are, on a point of the Isthmus of Darien, where you can look directly westward, you may cast your eyes, as far as they will go, over a body of water, which, at this point, is about eleven thousand miles wide. No wonder you jump, sir, but such is the fact. If you were to sail directly west upon this ocean you would have a very long passage before you came upon any land at all, and the first place which you would reach, if you kept straight on your westward course, would be the Mulgrave Islands. But you would have passed about seven or eight hundred miles to the southward of the Sandwich Islands, which are a very important group, where there is an enormous volcano, and where Captain Cook will be killed in about two hundred and fifty years. If you then keep on, you will pass among the Caroline Islands, which your countrymen will claim some day; and if you are not eaten up by the natives, who will no doubt coax you to land on some of their islands and will then have you for supper, you will at last reach the Philippine Islands, and will probably land, for a time, at Mindanao, to get water and things. Then, if you still keep on, you will pass to the north of a big island, which is Borneo, and will sail right up to the first land to the west, which will be part of a continent; or else you will go down around a peninsula, which lies directly in your course, and sail upon the other side of it, into a great gulf, and land anywhere you please. Do you know where you will be then, Mr. Balboa? Don't, eh? Well, sir, you would be just where Columbus hoped he would be, when he reached the end of his great voyage across the Atlantic--in the Indies! Yes, sir, all among the gold, and ivory, and spices, and elephants and other things!

"If you can get any ships here and will start off and steer carefully among the islands, you won't find anything in your way until you get there. But, it was different with Columbus, you see, sir. He had a whole continent blocking up his road to the Indies; but, for my part, I'm very glad, for various reasons, that it happened so."

It is probable that if Johnny Green could have delivered this little speech, that Vasco Nuñez de Balboa would have been one of the most astonished men in the world!

Whether he and his fellow-adventurers would ever have set out to sail over those blue waters, in search of the treasures of the East, is more than I can say, but it is certain that if he had started off on such an expedition, he would have found things pretty much as Johnny Green had told him.

THE LARGEST CHURCH IN THE WORLD.

This is St. Peter's at Rome. Is it possible to look upon such a magnificent edifice without acknowledging it as the grandest of all churches? There are some others in the world more beautiful, and some more architecturally perfect; but there is none so vast, so impressive, so grand!

This great building was commenced in 1506, but it was a century and a half before it was finished. Among other great architects, Michael Angelo assisted in its construction. The building is estimated to have cost, simply for its erection, about fifty millions of dollars, and it has cost a great deal in addition in later years.

Its dimensions are enormous. You cannot understand what a great building it is unless you could see it side by side with some house or church with which you are familiar. Several of the largest churches in this country could be stood up inside of St. Peter's without touching walls or roof, or crowding each other in the least.