Well, I probably should have posted the original 

sentence. 

Here it is:

"So hatte er die Meere kaum gesehen ... und niemals 

wirklich durchfahren."

/So he had hardly seen the seas ... and never really 

traveled through them./

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the image I get is of him 

actually driving through the waters, submarine-like, 

on his chariot (earlier Kafka used "kutschieren" 

/to drive a horse drawn carriage/).

QImSIr