meaning here. By all accounts Tarshish could have been no other
city than the modern Cadiz. That's the opinion of learned men.
And where is Cadiz, shipmates? Cadiz is in Spain; as far by water,
from Joppa, as Jonah could possibly have sailed in those
ancient days, when the Atlantic was an almost unknown sea.
Because Joppa, the modern Jaffa, shipmates, is on the most
easterly coast of the Mediterranean, the Syrian; and Tarshish
or Cadiz more than two thousand miles to the westward from that,
just outside the Straits of Gibraltar. See ye not then, shipmates,
that Jonah sought to flee worldwide from God? Miserable man!
Oh! most contemptible and worthy of all scorn; with slouched
hat and guilty eye, skulking from his God; prowling among
the shipping like a vile burglar hastening to cross the seas.
So disordered, self-condemning is his look, that had there
been policemen in those days, Jonah, on the mere suspicion
of something wrong, had been arrested ere he touched a deck.
How plainly he's a fugitive! no baggage, not a hat-box, valise,
or carpet-bag,--no friends accompany him to the wharf with
their adieux. At last, after much dodging search, he finds
the Tarshish ship receiving the last items of her cargo;
and as he steps on board to see its Captain in the cabin,
all the sailors for the moment desist from hoisting in the goods,
to mark the stranger's evil eye. Jonah sees this; but in vain
he tries to look all ease and confidence; in vain essays his
wretched smile. Strong intuitions of the man assure the mariners
he can be no innocent. In their gamesome but still serious way,
one whispers to the other--"Jack, he's robbed a widow;"
or, "Joe, do you mark him; he's a bigamist;" or, "Harry lad,
I guess he's the adulterer that broke jail in old Gomorrah,
or belike, one of the missing murderers from Sodom." Another runs