out from the sea and roared deafeningly all around. I could not bathe,
for the sea was tremendous. A grand sight presented itself at dawn,
the sea foaming forwards in thousands of billows. Along five miles of
seashore the white horses galloped forward against the rocks, as if
the whole sea were an army arrayed against the land. How the white
pennons flew!

Later in the morning I undressed, and sitting in moderate safety on a
shelf of rock, let the spent billows rush over me. The waves rushed
up the steep beach like tigers for their prey, their eyes turned away
from mine, but full of cruelty and anger. I was, deep in myself,
afear'd.

At what an extraordinary rate the waves rushed up the shore, fast
galloping after one another, accomplishing their fates! There is
only one line I know that tells well of their rate, that glory of
Swinburne:--

Where the dove dipped her wing and the oars won their way,
Where the narrowing Symplègades whiten the straits of Propontis
with spray.


III

At Osipovka, where I spent a whole long summer day sitting on a log on
the seashore, I saw a vision of the sea and nymphs--a party of peasant
girls came down and bathed. They were very pretty and frolicsome,
taking to the water in a very different style from educated women.
They were boisterous and wild. They went into the sea backwards, and