[122]
Horror-struck, we ask, Wherefore this hateful contest?
The melancholy but truthful answer comes, that this is the established method of determining justice between nations.
His word-painting of warfare on the sea is still more vivid:--
The scene changes.
Far away on the distant pathway of the ocean two ships approach each other, with white canvas broadly spread to receive the flying gales.
They are proudly built.
All of human art has been lavished in their graceful proportions and in their well-compacted sides, while they look in dimensions like floating happy islands of the sea. A numerous crew, with costly appliances of comfort, hives in their secure shelter.
Surely these two travellers shall meet in joy and friendship: the flag at the mast-head shall give the signal of fellowship; the happy sailors shall cluster in the rigging, and even on the yard-arms, to look each other in the face, while the exhilarating voices of both crews shall mingle in accents of gladness uncontrollable.
It is not so. Not as brothers, not as friends, not as wayfarers of the common ocean, do they come together, but as enemies.
The gentle vessels now bristle fiercely with death-dealing instruments.
On their spacious decks, aloft on all their masts, flashes the deadly musketry.
From their sides spout cataracts
