She towered up immense and strong, guarding priceless
traditions and untold suffering, sheltering glorious memories and base
forgetfulness, ignoble virtues and splendid transgressions. A great
ship! For ages had the ocean battered in vain her enduring sides; she
was there when the world was vaster and darker, when the sea was great
and mysterious, and ready to surrender the prize of fame to audacious
men. A ship mother of fleets and nations! The great flagship of the
race; stronger than the storms! and anchored in the open sea.
The _Narcissus_, heeling over to off-shore gusts, rounded the South
Foreland, passed through the Downs, and, in tow, entered the river.
Shorn of the glory of her white wings, she wound obediently after the
tug through the maze of invisible channels. As she passed them the
red-painted light-vessels, swung at their moorings, seemed for an
instant to sail with great speed in the rush of tide, and the next
moment were left hopelessly behind. The big buoys on the tails of banks
slipped past her sides very low, and, dropping in her wake, tugged at
their chains like fierce watchdogs. The reach narrowed; from both sides
the land approached the ship.
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