Page:The history of yachting.djvu/324

ship, stripped of her canvas, with naked spars, held between earth and sky in the strong grasp of the mighty ocean, wages her battle amid the wild waves and pitiless blast of the whirlwind. And this sublime solitude is never loneliness; for, on the ocean one is never less alone than when alone, and the absolute stillness and quiet when the winds and waves are at rest are peace to the soul. After months passed on the ocean the sweetest joy the seaman ever knows is the first faint perfume from the land, sweetening the odor of the brine. If his ship be homeward bound—shortening the distance and cleaving her way from horizon to horizon with all the canvas her spars and rigging will stand,—the first green water, coasting craft, taking a pilot, the lighthouse, the rattling of the cable through the hawse-pipe as the anchor grasps the land, laying aloft for the last time to stow the sails, the church bells of his native town, are joys to the seaman's heart no words can tell. "Home"—it is a word no landsman can ever know the full meaning of.