BLUE-BLOODED SAILORS.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 5, Issue 1320, 6 March 1883, Page 2

BLUE-BLOODED SAILORS.

"A life on.'the ocean wave" is a very fine thing from a poetical'point of view, but it is hardly tho sort of life people would lead from choice. Those who are compelled to lead it, indeed are glad enough to run ashore whenever they get the chance, and stay there as long as they' can,' sYefc there are some queer iolks, especially in what Jearaes De la Pluche used to call the " hupper suckles," who are nevor happy unless they literally live on' the sea. Young men who have everything they can. desire oh land, rank,- .wealth; foyers, friends; the delights of the gay world, the graver pleasures of refined society,—these are;often the'yery ones who cannot bear' the' burden of exis : tence there and find no rest but on the restless ocean.- Lord Byron had somethingof this madness in him.. He was never so happy as when he .pa tumbling about the Mediterranean in some crazy craft, or threading (jangerous straits among the Greek, islands in company with a crew more pirates than sailors, arid mdre brigand than either. But poor Byron bad a conscience—and a wife—to Jly from, and be loved the seii in proportion only as he loathed his kith arid'kin. In short, he soughti distraction, everywhere and anywhere, I and he was as well, pleased to get it in iEgean, the Adriatic, or the Hellespont, as in the heights of Jura, or the Alpine solitudes*. A more uncommon case was that of the late Earl of Aberdeen, nephew of, our Sir.., Arthur Gordon, j who with nothing to. 'from his family or his country, yet took to salt water as if by ah irresistible impulse, and deliberately chose .to .pass his existence before the mast of a small trading, vessel .in' the.' Atlantic, He had risen by merit and good seamanship tobe second mate,if we remember rightly,.when he went overboard in a gale and was seen no .more/ A somewhat similar but less melancholy instance is that of the youth who by the : death of a distant relative has just bepome Lord Berwick. o,n succeeding Ito the tijjle he Jjas as it' were," from fhe'sea and entered : a new! .world.'; He has. -.actually lived on his yacht summer; and winter for twelve years accompanied by his wife a Swedish girl whom he mot on one. of his cruises, and married at Maliuco in : 1869, Lady Berwick, it appears, has had noexperience of any sorfc'of life than 1 that of- the : sea, and it must have' been a strange sensation for her to be suddenly introduced to the fashionable society of London. It will be curious to know how the new peer and his mermaid:will like the change of Condition. ;•;:.: , ;: