At last we, too, were crossing the Atlantic. At last the dream of
forty years, please God, would be fulfilled, and I should see (and
happily, not alone) the West Indies and the Spanish Main. From
childhood I had studied their Natural History, their charts, their
Romances, and alas! their Tragedies; and now, at last, I was about
to compare books with facts, and judge for myself of the reported
wonders of the Earthly Paradise. We could scarce believe the
evidence of our own senses when they told us that we were surely on
board a West Indian steamer, and could by no possibility get off it
again, save into the ocean, or on the farther side of the ocean; and
it was not till the morning of the second day, the 3d of December,
that we began to be thoroughly aware that we were on the old route
of Westward-Ho, and far out in the high seas, while the Old World
lay behind us like a dream.

Like dreams seemed now the last farewells over the taffrel, beneath
the chill low December sun; and the shining calm of Southampton
water, and the pleasant and well-beloved old shores and woods and
houses sliding by; and the fisher-boats at anchor off Calshot, their
brown and olive sails reflected in the dun water, with dun clouds
overhead tipt with dull red from off the setting sun--a study for
Vandevelde or Backhuysen in the tenderest moods. Like a dream
seemed the twin lights of Hurst Castle and the Needles, glaring out
of the gloom behind us, as if old England were watching us to the
last with careful eyes, and bidding us good speed upon our way.
Then had come--still like a dream--a day of pouring rain, of
lounging on the main-deck, watching the engines, and watching, too
(for it was calm at night), the water from the sponson behind the