VANITY FAIR

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 74, Issue 112, 14 May 1931, Page 2

VANITY FAIR

“BEAUTIFUL AND CAME OLD SHIP" During the whole of the six days on the way to 7 asmania, we were running, slipping steadily along. Al nights it was exhilarating to Walk the reeling foe sic head as she rolled, choosing one's beat carefully in order not to be flung over the side as she staggered, and to look a B “t the great seas racing there, lowering huge above ihe little ship that always rose to them, and always sailed on. Sea after sea raced ceaselessly out of the night down upon her, roaring h efore the anger of the gale, and swept upon her counter and fumed around her, and teapl up at her weather side and, now and again, tossed hundreds of tons of themselves into the Wet misery of the main deck: some of the seas were so big, ana the ship seemed to be driven on so furiously, that it seemed that nothing could save her from being pooped by them, and swept helplessly fere and aft, as she had been upon that previous occasion off the pitch of the Horn. Yet she always rose, and she always ran on. No sea Was 100 big for her, and no cross-maelstrom they could devise so treacherous that she could not run sweetly through it. . . . Standing on the look-out there one found oneself looking more aft al the splendour of ihe spectacle there, than ahead for the lights there were not. Surely the sailing ship is one of the most beautiful things man ever made, and -ne from which he has had most faithful service. One could nd remove ■ . . the idea that the ship had some knowledge of what she was required to do, and was doing it; persistently there returned the notion that more than her sweetness of line, her strength, her gracefulness and old sea-beauty, were needed to bring her safely through. The Weather was not so bad; it could have been very much worse. Bui she had been doing this, encountering these conditions . . . and serving man as well in them, for forty years. Beautiful game old ship.—A. J. Hilliers, in "By Way of Cape Horn."