Voyage around the world

“ The years pass and the little people grow and grow. During the voyage most of the passengers go overboard into the open sea; but some make the voyage to arrive at a coast with mountains and valleys, cities and castles, a world of powers and of activities unseen by the dwellers upon the low coast on the other side of the sea of life. ”

“ My ship was also in better condition than when she sailed from Boston on her long voyage. She was still as sound as a nut, and as tight as the best ship afloat. She did not leak a drop—not one drop! ”

“ How great and agreeable, then, must our surprise be, after perusing the histories of long navigations in former days, when so many perished by marine diseases, to find the air of the sea acquitted of all malignity; and, in fine, that a voyage round the world may be undertaken with less danger, perhaps, to health, than a common tour in Europe. ”

“ VOYAGES AND TRAVELS ROUND THE WORLD.
Boucher de la Richarderie, the author of the Bibliothèque Universelle des Voyages, makes some just remarks on the nature and extent of those voyages to which this appellation is usually applied. He observes that for the most part, by a Voyage round the World, is understood a voyage either by the Atlantic Ocean or the Indian Sea to the Pacific or Great Southern Ocean, the visiting the isles in the last, exploring the Antarctic Seas, and returning by the route opposite to that by which the ship went out. ”

“ Was the crew well? Was I not? I had profited in many ways by the voyage. I had even gained flesh, and actually weighed a pound more than when I sailed from Boston. ”

“ Notwithstanding the great improvement of navigation within the last two centuries, a voyage round the world is still considered as an enterprize of so very singular a nature, that the public have never failed to be extremely inquisitive about the various accidents and turns of fortune with which this uncommon attempt is generally attended. ”

“ Ugh, what a miserable thing is a voyage! Here we are now eight days at sea, the eternal sameness of all around growing every hour less supportable. Sea and sky are beautiful things when seen from the dark woods and waving meadows on shore ”

“ To one given to day-dreaming, and fond of losing himself in reveries, a sea voyage is full of subjects for meditation; but then they are the wonders of the deep and of the air, and rather tend to abstract the mind from worldly themes. ”

“ If the Spray discovered no continents on her voyage, it may be that there were no more continents to be discovered; she did not seek new worlds, or sail to powwow about the dangers of the seas. ”

“ Were this world an endless plain, and by sailing eastward we could for ever reach new distances, and discover sights more sweet, and strange than any Cyclades or Islands of King Solomon, then there were promise in the voyage. ”

“ During a long voyage, when for months you have seen nothing but water and sky, the smallest novelty which appears and promises variety for the eye and the mind, though only for a few minutes, is joyfully welcome. ”

“ I shall satiate my ardent curiosity with the sight of a part of the world never before visited, and may tread a land never before imprinted by the foot of man. These are my enticements, and they are sufficient to conquer all fear of danger or death and to induce me to commence this laborious voyage with the joy a child feels when he embarks in a little boat, with his holiday mates, on an expedition of discovery up his native river. ”

“ In that land of sunshine, with the cool breeze from the sea, the constant influx of European and American travelers, keeping one in touch with the world and with the simplicity of the surroundings, one can imagine a tranquilizing life and a happy coterie. ”

“ I always look back to our boat cruises, and my land journeys, when through unfrequented countries, with an extreme delight, which no scenes of civilisation could have created. I do not doubt that every traveller must remember the glowing sense of happiness which he experienced when he first breathed in a foreign clime where the civilised man had seldom or never trod. ”

“ A voyage esteemed too great for man to dare; the adventures of this voyage through unknown oceans deemed unnavigable; the eastern world happily discovered, and for ever indissolubly joined and given to the western; the grand Portuguese empire in the East founded; the humanization of mankind, and universal commerce the consequence! ”

“ The great continental journey to and fro, from ocean to ocean, across barren deserts, through dangerous waterways, over snow-clad mountains, among savage and unknown tribes, had been accomplished with a success unparalleled in the world of modern adventure and exploration. ”

“ It deserves its reputation as the most beautiful voyage in the world; at least I cannot conceive how, taking the elements of earth, water and sky, anything more exquisitely beautiful could be produced from them. ”

“ It may not be familiar to my readers, that even Navigation, by the discovery and pursuit of which mankind in our day are always passing in large numbers upon the Ocean, which we term in modern language, the “Highway of Nations;” which is quite indispensible to the intercourse and commerce of the world ”

“ Even today, when the ocean is furrowed by crowded highways, and the earth is girdled with speaking wires, and distances are so divided and reduced that the traveller need never be very long out of touch with his home, few people can set out on a long voyage without some emotional disturbance, however slight it may be ”

“ Every new voyage in the age of discovery expanded the historical horizon; and every improvement in the technique of navigation has helped to eliminate distance and reduced intercourse on the World Ocean to the time-scale of the ancient Mediterranean. ”

“ The return voyage home in the "trades" is delightful—a warm sun and a good steady breeze, not a brace touched for a week or more, a water-spout and a rain-squall to vary the monotony of the every-day routine. ”

“ ACROSS THE CONTINENT. I ONLY remember my trip across the continent as one maze of happy greetings, happy wishes, congratulating telegrams, fruit, flowers, loud cheers, wild hurrahs, rapid hand-shaking and a beautiful car filled with fragrant flowers attached to a swift engine that was tearing like mad through flower-dotted valley and over snow-tipped mountain, on–on–on! It was glorious! A ride worthy a queen. They say no man or woman in America ever received ovations like those given me during my flying trip across the continent. ”

“ A grand and terrible confusion reigns around; the voyager shrinks from the overwhelming scene, where ranges of mountains, islands, rocks, castles, huge formless masses, and gorgeous prismatic lights, surround that laboring speck upon the mystic sea, of whose littleness he is so small an atom ”

“ Nature, assisted by a little art, no where appears in more splendor than at this isle. In these delightful walks, we met numbers of people; some travelling down to the ships with their burdens of fruit ”

“ In travelling by land there is a continuity of scene, and a connected succession of persons and incidents, that carry on the story of life, and lessen the effect of absence and separation. We drag, it is true, "a lengthening chain" at each remove of our pilgrimage; but the chain is unbroken; we can trace it back link by link; and we feel that the last still grapples us to home. But a wide sea voyage severs us at once. It makes us conscious of being cast loose from the secure anchorage of settled life, and sent adrift upon a doubtful world. ”

“ The wind blows stiffly from the Nor-East, the sea runs high, we ship a deal of water, the night is dark and cold, and the shapeless passengers lie about in melancholy bundles, as if they were sorted out for the laundress ”

“ With spacious saloons, well-aired sleeping-apartments, roomy promenades protected from the weather, and a steady-going ship, a voyage even to distant lands is now little more than an excursion of pleasure. ”

“ TRAVELLING COMPANIONS All the earth is seamed with roads, and all the sea is furrowed with the tracks of ships, and over all the roads and all the waters a continuous stream of people passes up and down—travelling, as they say, for their pleasure. ”

“ In most of the Wonder Voyages represented in this volume there are traces of the influence of the last voyage of man. In the Greek, in the Celtic, and in the Norse voyages there is a clear reference, as will be seen from the Notes, to the other world as the bourne from which our travelers do return: in fact, we have here the free play of the Folk-mind on man's last home. The travelers cross the bar and sail out into the Unknown ”

“ With such good examples to direct them, the seamen were always obedient and alert; and on the present occasion, so far were they from wishing the voyage to be concluded, that they rejoiced at the prospect of its being prolonged another year, and of soon enjoying the benefits of a milder climate. ”

“ Others take longer voyages, and, generally speaking, seek a more adventurous line of life. Thus there are, among men I have known, those who have gone to the Greenland seas, round Cape Horn, to Australia, to India, and the Pacific islands, and have gone, again and again, induced by the divine passion for knowledge and travel. ”

“ Objects of any kind belonging to a country so famous, and yet so little known, it will be easily conceived, must have excited a general curiosity; and, accordingly, every soul on board was upon deck in an instant to gaze at them. As the vessel to windward approached us, she hauled farther 364off shore; upon which, fearing that we should alarm them by the appearance of a pursuit, we brought the ships to, and she passed ahead of us, at the distance of about half a mile. ”

“ One goes abroad for merchandise and trading, Another stays to keep his country from invading, A third is coming home with rich and wealthy lading. Hallo! my fancie, whither wilt thou go? OLD POEM. To an American visiting Europe, the long voyage he has to make is an excellent preparative. The temporary absence of worldly scenes and employments produces a state of mind peculiarly fitted to receive new and vivid impressions. The vast space of waters that separate the hemispheres is like a blank page in existence. ”

“ In point of dismal fact that voyage is made upon an uncharted sea. A few plain general instructions in the principles of navigation are all we get; we have to look out for the rocks and shoals and whirlpools and adverse currents for ourselves. ”

“ These losses, however, are at the time partly relieved by the exhaustless delight of anticipating the long-wished-for day of return. If, as poets say, life is a dream, I am sure in a voyage these are the visions which best serve to pass away the long night. ”

“ Yes, it was possible that the little world, on its voyage among all the stars, might become like that; a boat on which one could travel no longer, from which one could no longer look up and confront those bright rings or revolution. ”

“ To cross the Pacific Ocean, even under the most favorable circumstances, brings you for many days close to nature, and you realize the vastness of the sea. Slowly but surely the mark of my little ship's course on the track-chart reached out on the ocean and across it, while at her utmost speed she marked with her keel still slowly the sea that carried her. ”

“ As these Streights are often esteemed to be the boundary between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, and as we presumed we had nothing before us from hence but an open sea, till we arrived on those opulent coasts where all our hopes and wishes centered, we could not help perswading ourselves that the greatest difficulty of our voyage was now at an end, and that our most sanguine dreams were upon the point of being realised ”

“ The landsman who has never been on a sea-voyage looks with more or less hesitation at the prospect of making one. His thoughts are occupied with what he has heard or read of the perils of the great deep, and he regards with a feeling akin to veneration the bronzed sailor who has plowed every ocean on the globe, and tasted the delights of every climate. ”

“ As the mariner, though cheered by genial winds and canopied by cloudless skies, tests and marks his position and course by repeated observations, so we now desire to note the progress of this humanity-freighted vessel in its voyage over an uncertain sea, yet, as we trust, toward lands of perpetual security and peace. All are voyagers on the sea of life. ”

“ But to return to ourselves:—in the voyage which we have made by the order of your majesty, in addition to the ninety-two degrees we ran toward the west from the point of our departure before we reached land on the thirty-fourth parallel, we have to count 300 leagues which we sailed northeastwardly, and 400 nearly east along the coast before we reached the fiftieth parallel of north latitude, the point where we turned our course from the shore toward home. ”

“ In travel, the little hardships and vexations bring the novelties and comforts into stronger relief, and make the voyager’s happiness more real. It is an excellent trait of human nature that the traveler can remember with increased vividness the pleasing features of his journey while he forgets their opposites. ”

“ The modern reader would surely give his sympathy, unreservedly, to a narrative in which the navigator should describe his wonder, his terror, his joy, when, throughout the voyage, he saw the tremulous index point invariably north ”

“ As it was, in the five and a half months since fate had brought us on board, we had cleared 14,000 leagues, and over this track longer than the earth’s equator, so many fascinating or frightening incidents had beguiled our voyage: that hunting trip in the Crespo forests, our running aground in the Torres Strait, the coral cemetery, the pearl fisheries of Ceylon, the Arabic tunnel, the fires of Santorini, those millions in the Bay of Vigo, Atlantis, the South Pole! ”