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Hard. I must insist, sir, you'll make yourself1 easy on that head.

Mar. You see I'm resolved on it.2-A very troublesome fellow, as ever I met with. [Aside.]

Hard. Well, sir, I'm resolved, at least, to attend you. -This may be modern modesty, but I never saw anything look so like old-fashioned impudence. [Aside.]

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[Exeunt MAR. and HARD. Hast. So, I find this fellow's civilities begin to grow troublesome. But who can be angry with those assiduities which are meant to please him?

SEA FOG, AND WRECK.

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On the 9th of May, we reached Halifax, off which port we were detained in a very disagreeable way;5 for we had the misfortune to be kept three whole days off the harbour, in one of those Nova Scotia fogs, which are celebrated all over the world. I can hardly give by description an idea of how gloomy they are ;7 but I think their effects may be compared to those of the sirocco; with the further annoyance, that while they last, we are not able to see far beyond our noses. They are even worse than rain, for they seem to wet one through sooner; while they make everything appear dreary, and certainly render all the world lazy and discontented."

On the day we made the land,10 we had great hopes of

1 Non; je prétends que vous soyez parfaitement. The verb prétendre, in the sense of vouloir, governs the subjunctive.

2 C'est un parti pris, voyez-vous. 3 mais elle ressemble pas mal à l'impudence d'autrefois.

4 See page 164, note 8.

5 Turn, and we were detained off that port.'-'off,' à la hauteur de, in this sense.

6 for we had,' &c.; cut all this shorter by suppressing the semi

colon after 'port,' higher up, and turning, during three days, in one of those Nova Scotia fogs (brumes de la Nouvelle-Ecosse).

7 Simply, an idea of them.' 8 car elles vous mouillent encore plus vite jusqu'aux os.

9 jettent un voile noir sur tous les objets et vous accablent de langueur et de tristesse. The word voile, 'a veil,' is masculine; but voile, 'a sail,' is feminine.

10 Le jour que nous atterrâmes.

being able to enter the harbour, as the wind was fair:1 when, all at once, we were surrounded by so thick a mist, that, for the three succeeding days, we could not see above twenty yards on any side.

There are few things, indeed, more provoking than these fogs off Halifax; for, as they happen to be companions of that very wind, the south-east,2 which is the best for running in, the navigator3 is plagued with the tormenting consciousness, that if he could be allowed but a couple of hours' clear weather, his port would be gained, and his troubles over. The clearing up, therefore, of these odious clouds or veils is about the most delightful thing I know ;4 and the instantaneous effect which a distinct sight of the land, or even of the sharp horizon, when far at sea, has on the mind of every person on board,5 is quite remarkable. All things look bright, fresh, and more beautiful than ever. The stir over the whole ship at these moments is so great, that even persons sitting below 6 can tell at once that the fog has cleared away. The rapid clatter of the men's feet springing up the hatchways at the lively sound of the boatswain's call to "make sail !" soon follows. Then comes the cheerful voice of the officer, hailing the topmen to shake out the reefs, trice up the stay-sails, and rig out the booms. That peculiar and well-known kind of echo, also, by which the sound of the voice is thrown back from the wet sails, contributes, in like manner, to produce a joyous elasticity of spirits, greater, I think, than is excited by most of the ordinary occurrences of a sea-life. 10

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A year or two after the time I am speaking of, it was resolved to place a heavy ll gun upon the rock on which

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car, comme elles accompagnent justement le vent du sud-est."

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pour entrer dans le port, le

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Sambro light-house is built; and, after a good deal of trouble, a long twenty-four pounder was hoisted up to the highest ridge of this prominent station. It was then arranged that, if, on the arrival of any ship off the 2 harbour in a period of fog, she chose to fire guns,3 these were to be answered from the light-house; and in this way a kind of audible, though invisible, telegraph might be set to work. If it happened that the officers of the ship were sufficiently familiar with the ground, and possessed nerves stout enough for such a groping kind of navigation, perilous at best, it was possible to run fairly into the harbour, notwithstanding the obscurity, by watching the sound of these guns, and attending closely to the depth of water.

I never sailed in any ship which ventured upon this feat; but I perfectly recollect a curious circumstance, which occurred, I think, to His Majesty's ship Cambrian. She had run in from sea towards the coast, enveloped in one of these dense fogs. Of course they took for granted9 that the light-house and the adjacent land, Halifax included, were likewise covered with an impenetrable cloud or mist. But it so chanced, by what freak of Dame Nature I know not, that the fog, on that day, was confined to the deep water; 10 so that we, who were in the port, could11 see it, at the distance of several miles from the coast, lying 12 on the ocean like a huge stratum of snow, with an abrupt face, fronting the shore.13 The Cambrian, lost in the midst of this fog-bank, supposing herself to be near the land, fired a gun. 14 To this the light-house replied; and so the ship and the light went on, pelting away, gun for gun,15 during half the day, without ever seeing one another. The people at the light-house had no

1 on parvint à en hisser un de penser. vingt-quatre livres de balles.

2 en vue du.

3 tirer le canon.

4 on lui répondrait.

5 et se sentaient assez de hardiesse

pour tenter.

6 en étudiant.

7 Je ne me suis jamais trouvé. 8 avait donné dans la rade.

9 Naturellement l'équipage dut

10 la pleine mer.

11 In such a case as this, the pronoun subject of the verb is elegantly repeated.

12 s'étendant.

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means of communicating to the frigate, that, if she would` only stand on a little further, she would disentangle herself from the cloud, in which, like Jupiter Olympius of old, she was wasting1 her thunder.

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At last, the captain, hopeless of its clearing up,2 gave orders to pipe to dinner; but as the weather, in all respects except this impenetrable mist, was quite fine, and the ship was still in deep water, he directed her to be steered towards the shore, and the lead kept constantly going. As one o'clock approached, he began to feel uneasy, from the water shoaling, and the light-house guns sounding closer and closer; but being unwilling to disturb the men 7 at their dinner, he resolved to stand on for the remaining ten minutes of the hour.9 Lo and behold! however, they had not sailed 10 half a mile further, before the flying-jib-boom end emerged from the wall of fog, then the bowsprit 12 shot into 13 daylight, and, lastly, the ship herself glided out of the cloud into the full blaze of a bright and "sunshine holiday."14 All hands were instantly turned up to make sail; and the men, as they flew on deck,15 could scarcely believe 16 their senses when they saw behind them the huge bank, right ahead the harbour's

1 comme le Jupiter du vieil Olympe, elle consumait en vain. 2 See page 21, note 3.

3 commanded to the crew to dine.'

y

4 et... (see page 17, note 6) il avait assez d'eau sous la quille. 5 il fit gouverner le vaisseau vers le rivage sans discontinuer d'aller la sonde à la main.

6 de sentir progressivement diminuer le brassiage et d'entendre le son du canon.

7 ses matelots, here.

8 de se porter encore sur le rivage.

9 Simply, 'during ten minutes.' 10 Tout à coup (page 148, note 2), à peine le Cambrien avait-il marché. The verb marcher does not only mean 'to march,' and 'to walk; it is also used in a far more

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mouth,1 with the bold cliffs of Cape Sambro on the left, and, farther on, the ships at their moorings,3 with their ensigns and pendants blowing out, light and dry in the breeze.

A far different fate, alas! attended5 His Majesty's ship Atalante, Captain Frederick Hickey. On the morning of the 10th of November, 1813, this ship stood in for Halifax harbour in very thick weather, carefully feeling her way with the lead, and having look-out men at the jib-boom end, fore-yard-arms, and everywhere else from which a glimpse of the land was likely to be obtained. After breakfast, a fog signal-gun was fired,10 in the expectation of its being answered by the light-house on Cape Sambro, near which it was known they must be. Within a few 11 minutes, accordingly, a gun was heard in the NN.W. quarter,12 exactly where the light was supposed to lie. As the soundings agreed with the estimated position of the ship, and as the guns from the Atalante, fired at intervals of fifteen minutes, were regularly answered in the direction of the harbour's mouth, it was determined to stand on,13 so as to enter the port under the guidance of these sounds alone. By a fatal coincidence of circumstances, however, these answering guns 14 were fired, not by Cape Sambro, but by His Majesty's ship Barrossa, which was likewise entangled by the fog. She, too, supposed that she was communicating with the light-house, whereas it was 15 the guns of the unfortunate Atalante that she heard all the time.

There was, certainly, no inconsiderable risk incurred by running in for the harbour's mouth under such circum

1 'mouth,' here, entrée.

2 escarpés. 3 au mouillage. 4 'with,' &c., pavillons et flammes se déroulant.

5was that of.'

6 Notice that proper names of ships are usually preceded, in French, by the definite article (omission of grammars).-See preceding page, note 10.

7 se dirigeait vers. 8 étudiant.

9 et ayant des hommes en vigie au bâton de foc, aux bouts de la vergue de misaine.

ole capitaine fit tirer un signal de brume.

11 Au bout de quelques. 12 dans la partie du N. N. O. 13 il (ie., le capitaine), résolut de s'avancer toujours.

14 ces coups de canon en réponse à ceux de l'Atalante.

15 See page 158, note 8.

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