Each waning star from heav'n's blué vault retires, And Venus fading last of all expires. 3890 3895 The wilderness of waves has chang❜d its hue 3905 What looks it like? 3915 I dinna ken its name, But spy it, captain, in the salt sea faem And, in gude faith, sin' heav'n will have it sae, One with a chimney? Hoot, you do it wrang― Sic as where Shelty dearly loves to gang Wi' his auld beard new-trimm'd. Hoot, hoot awa, 3930 * In coming from sea, and making the Land's End at E. or ENE. two round hills are seen, on the higher one of which a church may be discerned, and on a nearer approach another church becomes visible upon the outermost end of the low land. + Smugglers, on the British coast, when in danger of being captured, often sink their kegs concatenated by a splice into a kind Now they both ply the sweep, and hoist the sail→→→ They're busy as the de'el, Sir, in a gale. Our flag display! we roam not to deprive To join the skulkers at the galley-fire;* 3955 of chain; and, after the lapse of weeks, will return to the identical place, and drag successfully for their immersed freight, guided back by the remembrance of the bearing of some cape, or particular object on the shore. * Small vessels have a caboose for cooking the victuals: large ones a galley-fire. A ship is a microcosm; and at the galley the His quips, his pranks, his pastime to pursue 3960 When all the hands are pip'd, in vain I shout— 3970 quid-nuncs assemble to discuss the news of the day. The falsehoods fabricated around the ship's ingle are called "Galley Packets;" a proverbial phrase for spurious news. They who keep no watch at sea are likened to a ground-tier butt for the length of their slumber. + Those who do not turn out, after being repeatedly summoned, have the clues of their hammocks cut-which is called sawing their bed-posts. Of a worthless fellow the sailors say, If he were to fall overboard I would not throw him a rope. And charg'd me to endeavour to discern The Land's End first, and a full bottle earn. X. THE PROMONTORY OF BOLERIUM,† OR THE LAND'S END. 3975 Now for Britannia's isle we closer haul, 'The sea her trench, proud fleets her floating wall, Far in our wake the Longships‡ leave behind, And round Bolerium with indulgent wind 3980 *He who descries the land first is entitled, by prescription, to a bottle of rum. The Land's End, or the western extremity of Cornwall, is called in the old authors the Promontory of Bellerium, or Bolerium, from Bellerus, a Cornish giant, who made it the place of his abode. Milton, in apostrophizing Lycidas, alludes to this tradition : Or whether thou to our moist vows deny'd, The Longships are rocks off the Land's End, on the boldest of which a Light House is erected. To form some notion of this perilous reef of granite it needs only be told that, in a tempest the structure rocks violently, and that its lanthorn, though 110 feet in height, is covered with the bellowing surf. Had Zanga been placed here to trim the lamps, it may, I think, be questioned whether he would have exclaimed: "I like this rocking of the battlements!" |