The gentlemen, however,
were all in good spirits, and as the boats kept near each other, Captain
Truck enlivening their way with his peculiar wit, and Mr. Effingham, who
was influenced by a motive of humanity in consenting to come, being
earnest and interested, Eve soon began to entertain other ideas.
As they drew near the end of their little expedition, entirely new
feelings got the mastery of the whole party. The solitary and gloomy
grandeur of the coasts, the sublime sterility,--for even naked sands may
become sublime by their vastness,--the heavy moanings of the ocean on the
beach, and the entire spectacle of the solitude, blended as it was with
the associations of Africa, time, and the changes of history, united to
produce sensations of a pleasing melancholy. The spectacle of the ship,
bringing with it the images of European civilization, as it lay helpless
and deserted on the sands, too, heightened all.
This vessel, beyond a question, had been driven up on a sea during the
late gale, at a point where the water was of sufficient depth to float
her, until within a few yards of the very spot where she now lay; Captain
Truck giving the following probable history of the affair:
"On all sandy coasts," he said, "the return waves that are cast on the
beach form a bar, by washing back with them a portion of the particles.
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