' The
whole country is like this night; beautiful to look at, but silent
as the grave--still as death, asleep, becalmed.
"If the sea was always calm," said he, "it would pyson the univarse;
no soul could breathe the air, it would be so uncommon bad. Stagnant
water is always unpleasant, but salt water when it gets tainted
beats all natur'; motion keeps it sweet and wholesome, and that our
minister used to say is one of the 'wonders of the great deep.' This
province is stagnant; it ain't deep like still water neither, for
it's shaller enough, gracious knows, but it is motionless, noiseless,
lifeless. If you have ever been to sea, in a calm, you'd know what
a plaguy tiresome thing it is for a man that's in a hurry. An
everlastin' flappin' of the sails, and a creakin' of the boombs, and
an onsteady pitchin' of the ship, and folks lyin' about dozin' away
their time, and the sea a-heavin' a long heavy swell, like the
breathin' of the chist of some great monster asleep. A passenger
wonders the sailors are so plagy easy about it, and he goes a-lookin'
out east, and a-spyin' out west, to see if there's any chance of a
breeze, and says to himself 'Well, if this ain't dull music it's a
pity.' Then how streaked he feels when he sees a steamboat a-clippin'
it by him like mad, and the folks on board pokin' fun at him, and
askin' him if he has any word to send to home.
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