Many of the old-time sailing ships have been shorn of their towering masts, robbed of their canvas, and made into ignoble barges which, loaded with coal, are towed along by some fuming, fussing tugboat--as Samson shorn of his locks was made to bear the burdens of the Philistines.

This transformation from sail to steam has robbed the ocean of much of its picturesqueness, and seafaring life of much of its charm, as well as of many of its dangers.
The greater size of vessels and their swifter trips under steam, have had the effect of depopulating the ocean, even in established trade routes.

In the old days of ocean travel the meeting of a ship at sea was an event long to be remembered.

The faint speck on the horizon, discernible only through the captain's glass, was hours in taking on the form of a ship.

If a full-rigged ship, no handiwork of man could equal her impressiveness as she bore down before the wind, sail mounting on sail of billowing whiteness, until for the small hull cleaving the waves so swiftly, to carry all seemed nothing sort of marvelous.