The Toilers of the Sea Read Online Free

on fire if he touches it. Some local names, for example, Tinttajeu (from Welsh Tin-Tagel), point to the presence of the Devil. As Eustace (the name of Wace) says in the old lines—
    Then surged the sea,
The waves ’gan swell and stir,
The skies grew black, and black the clouds.
And soon the sea was all aroused.
    The Channel is as unsubdued today as it was in the time of Tewdrig, Umbrafel, Amon Dhû, the Black, and the knight Emyr Lhydau, 4 who sought refuge on the island of Groix, near Quimperlé. In these parts the ocean puts on
coups de théâtre
of which man must beware. This, for example, which is one of the commonest caprices of the winds in the Channel Islands: a storm blows in from the southeast; then there is a period of dead calm; you breathe again; this sometimes lasts for an hour; suddenly the hurricane, which had died down in the southeast, returns from the northwest; whereas previously it took you in the rear, it now reverses direction and takes you head on. If you are not a former pilot and an old sailor, and if you have not been careful to change your tack when the wind changed direction, it is all over with you: the vessel goes to pieces and sinks. Ribeyrolles, 5 who died in Brazil, jotted down from time to time during his stay on Guernsey a personal diary of the events of the day, a page from which we have in front of us:
    1st January: New Year gifts. Storm. A ship coming from Portrieux was lost yesterday on the Esplanade.
    2nd: Three-master lost in Rocquaine Bay. It hailed from America. Seven men dead. Twenty-one saved.
    3rd: The packet did not arrive.
    4th: The storm continues.
    14th: Rain. Landslide, which killed one man.
    15th: Stormy weather. The
Fawn
could not sail.
    22nd: Sudden squall. Five wrecks on the west coast.
    24th: The storm persists. Shipwrecks on all sides.
    There is hardly ever any respite in this corner of the ocean. Hence the seagull shrieks, echoing down the centuries in this never-ending squall, uttered by the uneasy old poet Lhy-ouar’h-henn, that Jeremiah of the sea. But bad weather is not the greatest peril for navigation in the archipelago: the squall is violent, but violence is a warning sign. You return to harbor, or you head into the wind, taking care to set the center of effort of the sails as low as possible. If the wind blows strong you brail up everything, and you may still come through. The greatest perils in these waters are the invisible perils, which are always present; and the finer the weather the more they are to be dreaded.
    In such situations special methods of working the ship are necessary. The seamen of western Guernsey excel in such maneuvers, which can be called preventive. No one has studied so carefully as they the three dangers of a calm sea, the
singe,
the
anuble,
and the
derruble.
The
singe
or
swinge
is the current; the
anuble
(“dark place”) is the shoals; the
derruble
(pronounced
terrible
) is the whirlpool, the navel, the funnel formed by underwater rocks, the well beneath the sea.

VI
    THE ROCKS
    In the archipelago of the Channel the coasts are almost everywhere wild. These islands have charming interiors but a stern and uninviting approach. Since the Channel is a kind of Mediterranean, the waves are short and violent and the tide has a lapping movement. Hence the bizarre battering to which the cliffs are subjected and the deep erosion of the coasts. Skirting these coasts, you pass through a series of mirages. At every turn the rocks try to deceive you. Where do these illusions come from? From the granite. It is very strange. You see huge stone toads, which have no doubt come out of the water to breathe. Giant nuns hasten on their way, heading for the horizon; the petrified folds of their veils have the form of the fleeing wind. Kings with Plutonian crowns meditate on massive thrones, ever under attack by the breakers. Nameless creatures buried in the rock stretch out their arms, showing the fingers of their open hands. All