were manned by men who are his direct professional ancestors.

No; the seamen of three hundred years hence will probably be
neither touched nor moved to derision, affection, or admiration.
They will glance at the photogravures of our nearly defunct
sailing-ships with a cold, inquisitive and indifferent eye. Our
ships of yesterday will stand to their ships as no lineal
ancestors, but as mere predecessors whose course will have been run
and the race extinct. Whatever craft he handles with skill, the
seaman of the future shall be, not our descendant, but only our
successor.



XXIII.



And so much depends upon the craft which, made by man, is one with
man, that the sea shall wear for him another aspect. I remember
once seeing the commander--officially the master, by courtesy the
captain--of a fine iron ship of the old wool fleet shaking his head
at a very pretty brigantine. She was bound the other way. She was
a taut, trim, neat little craft, extremely well kept; and on that
serene evening when we passed her close she looked the embodiment
of coquettish comfort on the sea. It was somewhere near the Cape--
THE Cape being, of course, the Cape of Good Hope, the Cape of
Storms of its Portuguese discoverer. And whether it is that the
word "storm" should not be pronounced upon the sea where the storms
dwell thickly, or because men are shy of confessing their good