, etc., glances by a vessel in a blow, or
comes on board her even when she is running before it. We have often
watched these clouds of water, as they have shot ahead of us, when
ploughing our own ten or eleven knot through the brine, and they
have ever appeared to us as so many useful admonishers of what the
power of God is, as compared to the power of man. The last shall
construct his ship, fit her with all the appliances of his utmost
art, sail her with the seaman's skill, and force her through her
element with something like railroad speed; yet will the seas "send"
their feathery crests past her, like so many dolphins, or porpoises,
sporting under her fore-foot. It is this following sea which becomes
so very dangerous in heavy gales, and which compels the largest
ships frequently to heave to, in order that they may present their
bows to its almost resistless power.
But our adventurers had no such gales as those we mean, or any such
seas to withstand. The wind blew fresh from the south, and Michigan
can get up a very respectable swell at need. Like the seas in all
the great lakes, it was short, and all the worse for that. The
larger the expanse of water over which the wind passes, the longer
is the sea, and the easier is it for the ship to ride on it.
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