CHAPTER XIX.
THE JACKET ALOFT.
Again must I call attention to my white jacket, which, about this time came near being the death of me.
I am of a meditative humour, and at sea used often to mount aloft at night, and seating myself on one of the upper yards, tuck my jacket about me and give loose to reflection.

In some ships in which.

I have done this, the sailors used to fancy that I must be studying astronomy--which, indeed, to some extent, was the case--and that my object in mounting aloft was to get a nearer view of the stars, supposing me, of course, to be short-sighted.

A very silly conceit of theirs, some may say, but not so silly after all; for surely the advantage of getting nearer an object by two hundred feet is not to be underrated.

Then, to study the stars upon the wide, boundless sea, is divine as it was to the Chaldean Magi, who observed their revolutions from the plains.
And it is a very fine feeling, and one that fuses us into the universe of things, and mates us a part of the All, to think that, wherever we ocean-wanderers rove, we have still the same glorious old stars to keep us company; that they still shine onward and on, forever beautiful and bright, and luring us, by every ray, to die and be glorified with them.
Ay, ay! we sailors sail not in vain, We expatriate ourselves to nationalise with the universe; and in all our voyages round the world, we are still accompanied by those old circumnavigators, the stars, who are shipmates and fellow-sailors of ours--sailing in heaven's blue, as we on the azure main.