Karl Philipp Moritz

“ A few hours ago the green hills of England yet swam imperfectly before our eyes, scarcely perceptible in the distant horizon: they now unfold themselves on either side, forming as it were a double amphitheatre. The sun bursts through the clouds, and gilds alternately the shrubs and meadows on the distant shores, and we now espy the tops of two masts of ships just peeping above the surface of the deep. What an awful warning to adventurous men! We now sail close by those very sands (the Goodwin) where so many unfortunate persons have found their graves. ”

“ The shores now regularly draw nearer to each other: the danger of the voyage is over; and the season for enjoyment, unembittered by cares, commences. How do we feel ourselves, we, who have long been wandering as it were, in a boundless space, on having once more gained prospects that are not without limits! I should imagine our sensations as somewhat like those of the traveller who traverses the immeasurable deserts of America, when fortunately he obtains a hut wherein to shelter himself ”

“ On one of the highest of these hills near Gravesend stands a windmill, which is a very good object, as you see it at some distance, as well as part of the country around it, on the windings of the Thames. But as few human pleasures are ever complete and perfect, we too, amidst the pleasing contemplation of all these beauties, found ourselves exposed on the quarter-deck to uncommonly cold and piercing weather. ”