illustration: then a woman was lowered by means of this, and safely stowed away. darry the life saver--page 185] ----------------------------------------------------------------------darry the life saver or the heroes of the coast by frank v. webster author of "only a farm boy," "bob the castaway," "the boys of bellewood school," etc. illustrated new york cupples & leon company publishers ----------------------------------------------------------------------books for boys by frank v. webster 12mo. cloth. illustrated. price per volume, 40 cents, postpaid only a farm boy tom, the telephone boy the boy from the ranch the young treasure hunter bob, the castaway the young firemen of lakeville the newsboy partners the boy pilot of the lakes two boy gold miners jack, the runaway comrades of the saddle the boys of bellwood school the high school rivals airship andy bob chester's grit ben hardy's flying machine dick, the bank boy darry, the life saver copyright, 1911, by cupples & leon company darry, the life saver ----------------------------------------------------------------------contents chapter page i. the hurricane 1 ii. saved by the life chain 10 iii. abner peake's offer 19 iv. the cabin by the sea 29 v. an encounter on the road 39 vi. winning his way 46 vii. the midnight alarm 55 viii. across the bay 63 ix. the signal rocket 71 x. jim the bully 78 xi. a glorious prospect 86 xii. the stolen traps 94 xiii. joe's shotgun secures a supper 102 xiv. the lonely vigil of the coast patrol 110 xv. the power of music 117 xvi. darry meets with a rebuff 124 xvii. abner tells a little history 132 xviii. the imprisoned launch 139 xix. the part of an elder brother 146 xx. bad luck and good 154 xxi. satisfying the mortgage 162 xxii. abner hears the news 171 xxiii. darry in the lifeboat 179 xxiv. the awakening 191 xxv. conclusion 202 ----------------------------------------------------------------------darry, the life saver chapter i the hurricane "will we ever weather this terrible storm?" it was a half-grown lad who flung this despairing question out; the wind carried the sound of his voice off over the billows; but there came no answer. a brigantine, battered by the tropical hurricane sweeping up from the caribbean sea, was staggering along like a wounded beast. her masts had long since gone by the board, and upon the stump of the mizzen-stick a bit of canvas like a goose-wing had been spread in the useless endeavor to maintain steerageway. all around, the sea rose and fell in mountainous waves, on which the poor wreck tossed about, as helpless as a cork. though the lad, lashed to some of the rigging that still clung to the temporary jury mast, strained his eyes to the utmost, he could see nothing but the waste of waves, the uplifting tops of which curled over, and were snatched away in flying spud by the furious wind. darry was the cabin boy of the _falcon_, having sailed with captain harley now for several years. the old navigator had run across him in a foreign port, and under most peculiar conditions. hearing a boyish voice that somehow struck his fancy, raised in angry protest, followed by the crack of a whip, and much loud laughing, the skipper of the brigantine had pushed into a café in naples. here he discovered a small, but sturdy lad, who had apparently been playing a violin for coppers, refusing to dance for a big brute of a sailor, an italian, who had seized upon his beloved instrument. when the boy had made an effort to recover the violin the bully deliberately smashed it on the back of a chair. then, laughing at the poor little chap's expressions of grief as he gathered up the pieces tenderly in his arms, the brutal sailor had seized upon a carter's whip, and cracking it loudly, declared that he would lay it over the boy's shoulders unless he mounted a table and danced to his whistling. it was then that the big mariner strode in and stood between the lad and his cowardly persecutors. when good-hearted captain harley heard the boy's pitiful story, and that he was a waif, having been abandoned some years before by an old man with whom he seemed to have been traveling, he offered to befriend him, and give him a chance to see something of the world as cabin boy on the good old brigantine, _falcon_. this offer the little chap had eagerly accepted, for he believed he must be of american birth, and somehow longed to set foot on that land far across the sea. some years had passed. darry knew no other home save the friendly cabin of the brigantine, and since he had no knowledge as to what his name might be, by degrees he came to assume that of his benefactor. during these years the boy had seen much of the world, and learned many things under the guidance of the warm-hearted captain. of course he spent many bitter hours in vain regrets over the fact that there was so little chance of his ever learning his identity--only a slender link seemed to connect him with that mysterious past that was hidden from his sight; and this was a curious little scar upon his right arm just below the elbow. it looked like a crescent moon, and had been there ever since he could remember. this fact caused darry to believe it might be the result of some accident that must have occurred while he was yet a baby. if such were the case then some people, _somewhere_, would be apt to recognize this peculiar mark if they ever saw it again. captain harley had always encouraged him in the belief that some happy day he would surely know the truth. just now, however, it really looked as though darry need no longer allow himself to feel any anxiety on that score. the ocean depths would offer just as easy a resting place to a nameless waif as to a crowned monarch. when the great waves broke over the drifting vessel the rush of water must have swept him away, only that he had been wise enough to lash himself to the stump of the mizzen-mast. during a little lull in the tempest someone joined him, also using the whipping rope-ends to secure his hold. darry saw by the aid of the darting lightning that it was his good friend, the captain; and with his thoughts still taken up with the peril of his situation he repeated the question that only the mocking winds had heard before: "will we ever weather this storm, captain?" "i fear not, my lad," replied the master of the ship, sadly, "the poor old hulk is now only a plaything for the elements. it looks as though the _falcon_ had reached the end of her voyaging at last. twenty years have i commanded her. i have a feeling that if so be she goes down i will not survive her." the roar of the gale was such that it became necessary to shout at times, in order to make one's self heard above the elements. "are we near the coast?" asked the boy, anxiously; for he knew that such a thing must double their danger. "i am afraid it is only too true, though the storm has been so prolonged that i have long ago lost my reckoning," replied the mariner. "but you told me these coasts are patrolled by brave life savers, who always stand ready to risk everything in case a vessel is driven on the reefs?" continued the boy, trying to see a gleam of hope through the gloom. "that is true, but alas! i am afraid even the bravest of men would find themselves helpless in such a terrific blow as this." "but, captain, surely you have not given up all hope?" anxiously demanded darry, trying to face the terrible prospect with a brave heart. "i never do that, lad. but one of us may not live to reach the shore; and since it is so, i wanted to have a few last words with you, and then i must return to my duty, which is to try and steer this drifting hulk until the end comes." he reached out his hand. the boy eagerly clutched it, and there, as the lightning flashed, he looked into the kind face of his benefactor. something seemed to tell him that it was the last time he would ever feel the pressure of that friendly hand, and this thought alarmed him as the storm had thus far been unable to do. "listen, and take heed, my lad," said the skipper, earnestly, "it may be that providence will shield you through this time of trouble, and that you shall reach the shore in safety after all. should ill befall me i want you to write my old mother up in york state--you know where she lives. i have made all preparations, so that she will be provided for, and my sister also. do you understand me?" "oh! yes, sir! but i hope we may both pull through!" cried the boy, earnestly. "so do i, for life is sweet; but it may not be. now, lad, about yourself, and i am done. remember all that i have taught you. then you will grow up to be a true man. and continue to search for some evidence of your people. that mark on your arm may be of great value to you some day. hark! i fancied i caught the sound of the breakers just then! it is possible that the time has come for us to part. good bye, my boy, and god bless you whatever betide!" another fierce pressure of the hand, and captain harley was gone. standing there, filled with horror and dismay, darry caught a last glimpse of his guardian staggering across the wet deck, and then the gloom forever hid him from view. the days would come, and the days would go, but always must he remember that the last thought of the noble captain was for him. he strained his hearing to ascertain whether the captain's fears were well founded, and it was not long before he too could catch the awful pounding of the seas upon the half-submerged reefs. the helpless brigantine was drifting slowly, but surely to her fate; for there was hardly a place along the whole american coast more dangerous than this, which had in times past proved a graveyard for many noble ships. among the tangled rigging was a broken spar, and to this darry lashed himself, in the faint hope that if it were swept ashore he might still cling to life. he awaited the impending crash with his heart cold within his breast; for after all he was but a lad, and the strongest men might have viewed the catastrophe with a sickening sense of dread. then came a fearful shock, as the brigantine was smashed down upon the jaws of the reef by a mighty force. after that the seas had her for a plaything, rushing completely over her as if in derision. three times the boy was almost drowned by the flood that poured across that slanting deck, and he knew that if he remained there longer his time had surely come. it would be better to cut loose from the mast, and trust his fortunes upon the breast of the next giant wave that, if it were kind, would carry him well over the rocks, and head him for the distant beach. it was in sheer desperation that he seized upon his sailor's knife and severed the ropes that thus far had held so securely. then he awaited the coming of the next comber with set teeth, and held his breath. a few seconds and it was upon him. this time the spar, as well as the clinging lad, went sweeping over the side of the vessel, and carried safely above the reef, started in toward the beach on a roller that seemed gigantic. the spray was in his eyes, so that he could hardly see at all, but at that moment darry thought he glimpsed a light somewhere ahead; and what the captain had told him about the gallant life savers flashed into his mind. somehow, it seemed to give the despairing boy renewed hope. perhaps these brave men were watching for the coming of just such flotsam from the wreck, which they must have sighted when the lightning flashed; and would find some means for plucking him out of the raging sea. chapter ii saved by the life chain the line of reefs stood as a barrier to the sea, and after the waves came in contact with the rocks they continued on their course with less violence than before. still, it was terrible enough to any one exposed to their fury. hope soars high in the breast of youth, however, and life is sweet, so that our hero continued to struggle against the forces to which he found himself exposed. again had his eyes caught a glimpse of a burning light on the shore, and somehow it gave him renewed courage to hold on, for he seemed to understand that determined hearts were waiting there, eager to give him a helping hand. then some object sped past him, and he caught the sight of flashing oars. it was the lifeboat! in spite of the great danger involved in the undertaking, the coast guards had succeeded in launching their boat, and were even now heading toward the wreck on the reef; though the chances of finding a single living soul aboard seemed small indeed, for the billows were breaking completely over her, and she must soon go to pieces. darry tried to call out, but his mouth filled with salty water, and in despair he saw the boat pass him by. even the lightning failed to illumine the scene just then, or some eager eye might have detected the floating spar and its human burden. no hope remained save that he might be tossed up on the beach somewhere near the friendly fire that was burning as a beacon. once he fancied he heard men shouting during a lull in the roar of the elements; but the coming of another smothering billow shut out the friendly sounds. closer he was flung, until he could again hear the shouts of men, but the baffling seas kept playing with him, sending him up on the breaking wave only to once more snatch him back, until the poor boy almost despaired of living through the dreadful ordeal. he tried his best to raise his voice, but the cry he gave utterance to was so feeble that even if heard it must have been taken for the note of some storm bird attracted by the light of the beacon fire. just when he was giving way to despair, he saw the figures of men running along the beach close to the edge of the waves, and new hope awoke in his breast that his predicament had been seen. now they were pushing into the sea, holding one another's hands, and forming a living chain, with a sturdy fellow at the end to snatch the victim of the wreck out of the jaws of death. the precious sight was at that instant shut out, for again there came a deluge of water from behind, overwhelming the boy on the floating spar. darry felt something take hold upon him, which, in his excited condition, he at first believed to be a shark; but, on the contrary, it proved to be the fingers of the man at the outer end of the line. once they closed upon the person of the shipwrecked cabin boy they could not be easily induced to let go, and amid shouts of triumph, spar and lad were speedily dragged up on the beach beyond reach of the hungry waves. he was dimly conscious of being released from his friendly float, and tenderly carried a short distance to the shelter of a house. it was the life-saving station to which the boy had been taken by his rescuers. [illustration: he was dimly conscious of being released from his friendly float.] here he was wrapped in blankets, and placed close to a warm fire in order to restore his benumbed faculties; while some hot liquid being forced between his pallid lips served to give new strength to his body. in less than ten minutes he opened his eyes and looked around. kind faces, even though rough and bearded, surrounded him, and he knew that for once he had cheated the sea of a victim. as strength came back he began to take an interest in what was passing around him, especially when he saw several men carried in, whom he recognized as some of the sailors of the ill-fated brigantine. eagerly he watched and prayed that his good friend the captain might be one of those who had been snatched from a watery grave; but as time passed this hope gradually became fainter. the lifeboat had managed to return from the wreck, to report that not a living soul remained aboard; and that the seas were so tremendous that even had it been otherwise there would have been small chance of saving them, since it was next to impossible to approach close to the vessel. how the boy, lying there, looked with almost reverence upon those stalwart fellows who were risking their lives in the effort to save their fellow men. darry would never forget that hour. the impressions he received then would remain with him through life; and in his eyes the calling of a life saver must always be reckoned the noblest vocation to which a young man could pledge himself. he thought he would like nothing better than to become one of the band, and in some way repay the great debt he owed them by doing as he had been done by. presently he had so far recovered that he could get up and move around. all of the sailors had not been equally fortunate; indeed, two of them would never again scour the seas, having taken out papers for that long voyage the end of which no mortal eye can see. as each new arrival was carried in the boy would be the first to hasten forward, but as often his sigh echoed the heavy feeling in his heart as he discovered a face other than the familiar one he had grown to love. one of the surfmen who had manned the lifeboat seemed to be particularly interested in the rescued boy, for he came into the station several times to ask how he was feeling, and if there was not something more he wanted. he was a tall, angular fellow, with a thin but engaging face, and darry had heard some of the others call him abner peake. somehow he found himself drawn toward this man from the start; and it seemed as though in losing one good friend he had found another to take the place of the kind captain. abner was a native of the shore, and spoke in the peculiar dialect of the uneducated southerner; but as a water-dog he knew no superior, and it is this quality that uncle sam looks for when making up his crews to man the life-saving stations that dot the whole coast from maine to florida. there was a twang about his voice that reminded darry of a negro he had once had for a shipmate on the brigantine; but at the same time his tone was soft, and inspired confidence. "better hev a leetle more coffee, bub?" he said, coming upon darry as the latter turned away white-faced from the last body carried in by the rough men. "perhaps it would do me good; i still feel mighty weak; but i'm glad to be here instead of out there," replied darry, pointing to where the white-capped waves were rushing in long lines toward the beach. "course yuh be, bub. and we-uns air glad tuh get a chanct tuh pull yuh outen the water. my old woman'd like tuh set eyes on yuh. jest the age our joe would a-ben if he'd pulled through," and the rough surfman swept his sleeve across his eyes as he spoke. the secret of his interest in darry was out; he had lost a boy of his own, and his heart was very tender still, so that the sight of this poor shipwrecked lad brought back his own sorrow keenly. "you haven't seen anything of the captain, i suppose?" anxiously asked darry, wondering if it could possibly be that he had missed sight of his friend at the time he was lying there unconscious. abner peake shook his head in the negative. he saw the boy was very eager to learn of the mariner's fate, and well he knew that with each passing minute the chances of the other surviving the pounding of the seas became less and less. it was now not far from dawn. the hurricane still blew with its old violence, and there was scant hope of its passing for another twelve hours at least. all that time those devoted men must be on the watch, ready to man their surfboat again and take their lives in hand, should another vessel strike the dangerous reefs that were marked upon the chart as the worst within a hundred miles of hatteras. sick at heart over the loss of his wise friend and benefactor, darry found the interior of the station almost unbearable just then. he felt as though he must get outside where the elements rioted, and watch the incoming waves for some sign of the captain. but this new-found friend declared that it could do no good, since the beach was already patrolled by those whose keen eyes would discover the faintest trace of a brave swimmer trying to buffet the cruel waves; he must remain under cover, so as to escape the possible evil results of his late experience. and so darry had to once more lie down and let the other cover him with a blanket, a pillow having been placed under his head. he was utterly exhausted, and it had only been hope and excitement that had buoyed him up until now. as he lay there watching the various things that were being done for the relief of the poor fellows snatched from a watery grave he found his eyes growing heavy, and occasionally closing in spite of his efforts to remain awake. once he sat up as some men came in bearing another sailor who, alas, had apparently been dragged out of the sea too late to save the spark of life; but, upon learning that it was not the one in whose fate he was so keenly interested, darry had fallen back again upon his hard pillow. soon after things faded from his sight, and he slept the sleep of weariness, for every muscle in his body was as sore as though it had been pounded with a club. it was hours before he awoke. at first he could not understand just where he was or how he came in such unfamiliar surroundings; but seeing the kindly face of abner peake bending over, he asked a mute question that the other answered with a shake of his head. the captain's body had not as yet come ashore. chapter iii abner peake's offer days passed. darry had entirely given up hope of ever hearing from the captain, whose body must have been carried out to sea again, as were several of the crew. after the shock became less severe, our hero began to take a new interest in the scene around him, and particularly in connection with the life-saving station where his new friend abner was quartered. the keeper was a grizzled surfman named frazer, and a man possessed of some education; he did not awaken the same feelings in the boy as abner peake, but at the same time he was evidently inclined to be friendly in his own gruff way. on the third day after the rescue he called darry to him as he sat mending a net with which the crew of the station secured enough fish to serve them for an occasional meal. "sit down, lad. i want to talk with you a bit," he said. darry dropped on a block close by. he was still filled with the deepest admiration for these men of the coast, and his determination to follow their arduous calling when he grew big enough to take an oar in the surfboat was undiminished. "now, tell me about yourself, and where you belong. we are not allowed to keep any rescued sailors more than a certain time. you notice that all the others have gone, save the poor chaps lying under those mounds yonder. being a boy you've been favored; but the time has come to know what you mean to do. speak up, lad, and tell me your story?" encouraged by his kind voice, darry told all he knew about himself up to the very moment when he parted from his friend, the captain. mr. frazer seemed interested. "i feel sorry for you, darry. it must be hard to feel that you haven't got a friend in the world. my hands are tied in the matter, so i can do nothing; but there's abner peake telling me he'd like you to stay with him," he remarked. "i understood him to say he once had a boy about my age." "yes, a likely little chap, but it was about a year back he was lost." "was he drowned?" asked darry, feeling that this was about the way most persons in this coast country must meet their end. "yes. the little fellow was a venturesome boy, and tried to cross the bay in a heavy sea. he must have been swept out at the inlet. they found the boat on the beach, three miles above here, but never little joe. abner has never gotten over it. to this day he sits and looks out to sea as if he could discover his poor boy coming back to him. i thought for a time the fellow would go out of his mind." "and he wants me to stay with him?" continued darry, musingly. "yes. abner has a small house out of the village, where his wife and the two little girls live, while he is over here at the station. often we want someone to cross over with supplies, and he thinks you might like the job." darry drew a long breath. "i have no home. the only one i ever knew was the poor old _falcon_, and her timbers are scattered along the coast for ten miles. i think that if mr. peake really wants me to stay with him i shall accept gladly. it is tough to feel like a piece of driftwood all the time," he said. "i think you are wise in deciding that way. abner is a kind man, and as for his wife--well, she's got a temper all right, but if you don't rub it the wrong way she can be got on with, i reckon. anyhow, it would pay you to try it until something else turns up. maybe you want to ship on another vessel?" "i think i have had all of the sea i want, after that time. i wake up nights, thinking i'm choking with the salt water, and trying to catch my breath. when i get older and stronger i want to be a life saver like you, sir." the keeper smiled pleasantly. it was not often he appeared as a hero in the eyes of even a boy, and, being human, he could not help feeling some satisfaction. "it's a dangerous calling, darry; but, after all, no worse than that of a sailor. and while we risk our lives often, it is to try and save others. there's some satisfaction in that. but there sits abner on that old keel of a wreck; suppose you go and tell him your story, and see what he says." when the boy joined him abner peake looked up, and the solemn expression on his face changed to one of kindliness. "set down, lad. are yuh feelin' all right agin after your rough time?" he asked. "a little sore in the arms still, but that will pass away soon. mr. frazer told me you wanted to hear my story." "if yuh don't mind tellin' me. i reckoned as how yuh must 'a' had a hard time. now, i ain't never been away from this here coast, but i feels for boys what's out in the wide world. still, there's some hope o' _them_ comin' back tuh the nest agin, some day. now, go on, lad," with a long-drawn sigh. again did the homeless darry start in to narrate his brief career, so far as it was known to him; and the old surfman listened with a tear in his eye, as he told of his abandonment in a foreign port, and the hard time he had getting enough to eat. finally it was all told, and abner peake laid a hand on his arm, saying: "don't say yuh ain't got a home, any more, darry, if so be yuh'd care to stay at my place. the missus ain't the easiest one in the world tuh get along with, but soon as she sees what a likely chap yuh be i know she'll like yuh, same as i do. try it awhile, lad, until yuh kin make your mind up. my joe used tuh make a tidy lot of money trappin' animals in the swamp for ther skins, huntin' turkles like them terrapin they pay sech a big price fur, an' actin' as guide fur the shooters as come down along the coast after ducks and snipe and bay birds. no reason but what you could do the same. only try and git on the good side of the ole woman, to begin with, lad. she's got a heart, tho' there's some as don't believe it. i know she's still a feelin' bad because joe was taken from us." "it was hard to lose him, your only boy," said darry, consolingly. the man shook his head dolefully, and bent a wistful look toward the open sea. "yes, it was tough; but i reckon he's safe in the harbor long afore now. what say, lad, be yuh of a mind to try it with us?" he continued eagerly. "i will, and only glad of the chance. it is kind of you to make me the offer, and i only hope i may be able to please your wife. i'll do everything i can to take the place of joe, although, of course, i couldn't expect to do that altogether," replied darry. "say, yuh make me feel better, already. seems to me as if i heerd little joe aspeakin' to me from somewhere. i'm goin' crost the bay to-night, lad. it's my turn for a day off, an' i'll take yuh with me. i reckons his clothes'd just about be the right fit fur yuh." so it was settled. darry felt easy in his mind now, much more so than he had been ever since finding himself adrift on shore, like a vessel without an anchor. no matter how humble, it would be _home_ to him, for he had no memories to haunt him, and bring about discontent. there was the village near by, where possibly he might meet boys of his own age; and what abner had said about the pursuits by which joe had been accustomed to making odd bits of money appealed to him, for he believed he had something of a love for outdoor sports in his nature, since he had never neglected to take advantage of a chance to use a fishing line, when the brigantine happened to be in one of the world ports to which business called her. but above all he gloried in the fact that occasionally he would have the opportunity to visit the station on the outer beach, where those hardy men patrolled every night, and stood ready to go to the assistance of any imperilled mariners. after supper he accompanied abner to the little landing where a stout rowboat was fastened. into this they dropped, and darry immediately seized upon the oars, to the secret amusement and satisfaction of the life saver, who was quite willing to let him display his ability in this important line. "yuh sure pull a good, strong stroke, lad," he declared, after they had been upon the bay for some time, darry taking his bearings from a bright star that had appeared in the east. "he taught me," replied the boy, and, perhaps unconsciously, his voice quavered as he spoke, for he could not even think of the captain without emotion. "all the better. a feller ain't no use 'round this section less he kin row a boat with the best. and if so be yuh 'spect to jine with us some day, the more yuh larn about this same thing the better for yuh. joe, he was a reg'lar water duck--but he was too darin' and he tried the game onct too often. beware o' that inlet, lad. the tide sweeps outen it like a mill race sometimes, an' the best man couldn't hold his own agin it. it's ben a mystery to me always how it happened. nobody ever knowed, only that we found the boat two days arter on the beach, three miles up. when yuh git tired say so, an' i'll spell yuh." after a long time they drew near the other shore. here lights had been seen, and darry discovered quite a collection of houses, for the most part cabins such as are so common in the south, especially along the coast of north carolina. abner insisted upon taking the oars now; and as he knew just where it was most desirable to land the boy no longer objected. sitting there in the stern he watched the scene unfold as they approached the mainland, though the new moon gave very little light. sounds as of boys at play, together with the barking of dogs, and even the gabble of a goose, awoke in his breast new emotions such as he had never experienced before; for he was about to be introduced to a home, no matter of what character, where he would after that belong. the boat was brought up against a landing, and both went ashore. "in the mornin' i'll get yuh to help carry the groceries to the boat, so i kin ferry 'em acrost. jest now i'm pinin' to get to the shack, 'cause i ain't ben home these two weeks, yuh see. this way, darry, lad. my cabin ain't jest in the village; but when i come home i ginerally stop in at the butcher's an' take some meat along. git out, yuh yaller critter!" this to a dog that had come barking toward them as though recognizing the fact that a stranger had come to town. "hyar, peake, don't yer hit my dorg!" shouted a half-grown boy, slouching around a corner as though he had just come out of a drinking resort there. "keep him home, then, jim dilks, er else teach the critter to behave. he tackled me onct and i had to kick him over a fence to save my shins from his teeth. some day that hound'll get a call all right, yuh hear me, jim?" declared abner. jim leered at him, and then looked at the boy. "reckon it'll be a bad day for the feller that hurts me dorg, see? who yer got trailin' 'long with yer, peake? say, be he the critter as kim ashore? sooner he skips outen this the better. we ain't got jobs enough now fur them as growed up round hyar." "no danger of you worrin' 'bout jobs, jim dilks. work an' you never got on well. mind your own business, now. this lad can look out for hisself. he's goin' to live with me. come on, darry, don't notice the loafer," concluded the life saver; and he and the boy passed on. darry was destined to see a great deal more of jim dilks, as we shall presently learn. chapter iv the cabin by the marsh as is customary in many of these little villages along the coast, the butcher shop was also the country store where groceries, dry goods, notions, and possibly boots and hats in addition, were sold. mr. keeler eyed the boy in abner's company, while he was cutting off the meat. "likely lad, that, mr. peake," he said. "i reckon he must be the one that come ashore from the wreck t'other night. i heard all about it, 'cause some of our men were over to help out," he added, in a low tone, taking advantage of darry straying off a bit to examine a colored print that hung on the wall, and offered all manner of inducements to young fellows wishing to enlist in the navy. "the boy's all right. he's gwine to live with my missus--if they kin git on together. but about them as were over, gus, i've got a notion some on 'em thought it might be a good chanct to wreck a craft. i seen dilks there, with his crowd, an' yuh know he's under suspicion o' havin' lured that schooner ashore with a false light last year. time's comin' when them rascals air goin' to git caught. hangin' 'd be too easy for such snakes. an' that boy o' his'n promises to be a chip o' the ole block. he's as bad as they make 'em," returned the surfman, shaking his head. nothing so angers a life saver as the mention of a wrecker; for deep down in his heart he believes that the men who make a living from salvage after a vessel has gone to pieces on the reefs, or else in boarding the wreck when the storm has gone down, would not hesitate a minute about sending any ship to her doom if they believed it could be done without too much risk. "if he doesn't get on with the missus let me have a try with him, abner. looks to be a likely lad. they're a scarce article around here--some go to sea, others are in the service, and more get drowned; while those that are left seem bad from top to bottom, just like jim dilks. yes, i could use that younker, i think." peake had turned white at mention of the fate that befalls so many young men of the shore; but he made no remark concerning his feelings. "i'll remember what yuh say, mr. keeler. but i got a notion the boy will stick with me. when the missus gets to know him she can't help but like him. he's the clear quill. take the change out of that bill. we just got paid last night, yuh see. darry, let's move along." the village merchant looked after the couple a little enviously, as though something about the boy's appearance had awakened his interest. "i saw jim dilks talking to peake before they came in here. i wager that young scamp has it in for the new boy in town. he's been a holy terror for a long time, and for one i think something should be done to put a stop to his doings. but his father has a grip on the worst elements here, and everyone seems afraid to rile up the old wrecker. some say he used to be a smuggler years back, and even blacker stories are told of his life in cuba, before spain got out of the island. well, it's none of my business. i don't dare act alone. if someone else starts the ball rolling i'll give it a big shove." and so the butcher salved his conscience for not doing his duty. meanwhile darry and his new friend walked briskly along, talking as they went. the boy had seen considerable of foreign ports, and the many strange things he could tell were doubly interesting to this simple life saver, who had never been further than to wilmington in all his life. "see that light ahead, lad? that's a lamp in the windy o' my shack. they knows when my night comes around, an' the missus puts that lamp there. it's a big thing, darry, to have a light in the windy, ashinin' only fur you. makes a feller feel like he had one leetle nest in all this big world, where some un cared fur him. and that is goin' to be your home too, boy." "i don't know how to thank you, mr. peake," faltered the lad. "then don't try. besides, mebbe yuh won't like it so well, after all. nancy, she ain't so easy to get on with, since leetle joe went away. seems like she jest can't ever git over it. i seen her cryin' the last time i was over. no use tryin' to comfort the pore ole gal. it left a sore place in her heart that nothin' kin ever heal. i'm a hopin' that p'haps with you around she may perk up some." they were soon at the door. it was thrown open at the sound of abner's call, and two rather unkempt little girls rushed out, to be tossed up in the air by the proud father. they looked at darry with wide-eyed wonder, for strangers were uncommon in this neighborhood, so far removed from the railroad. "come right in, darry. here's the missus," said the life saver. a woman came forward, and after greeting abner, looked with a little frown in the direction of the boy. the surfman hastened to explain that darry was a survivor of the last wreck, on the shore where so many brave ships had left their bones. "he's a waif, what's never knowed no home, nance. the captain picked him up abroad, but he's english or american, sure enough. with the death of that captain went his only friend. i liked the lad,--he somehow made me think of our joe. jest the same size, too, and he could wear his clothes fine. he'd be a great help to yuh, i reckons, if so be yuh would like to have him stay." abner saw a look of coming trouble in the eyes of his wife, and his voice took on a pleading tone. his mention of joe was unfortunate, perhaps, for the woman had never become reconciled to the loss of her only boy, and always declared heaven had dealt unjustly with her when there were so many worthless lads in the village, who could have been far better spared. "just like i didn't have my hands full now, without bringing home any more mouths to feed," she fumed. "like as not he's a good-for-nothing like jim dilks, and will only make us trouble right along. keep him over at the station if you want, abner peake, but you don't quarter him on me. this is my house, and i'm to be consulted before anybody is brought here." abner had apparently thought this all over. he simply took darry's hand and drew the half resisting lad over in front of the irate woman. "nancy, i never knowed yuh to be anything but fair. s'posin' our leetle joe was kerried out to sea, an' in a strange land met up with a citizen as took him home to his wife. what kinder reception do yuh think _he'd_ get? could any woman look in joe's face an' send him away from her door? wall, then, jest look in the face o' this boy, an' then if so be yuh say take him away, i'll do it, nancy," he said, simply. almost against her will she was compelled to look. well it was for darry that he had clear eyes in which lurked no guile, for that gaze of the surfman's "missus" was searching, since she had before her mind a picture of the lost joe. she only nodded her head and said: "let him stay." perhaps she was too full of emotion to say more; but the husband nodded his head as though satisfied with what he had done. "it's all right, boy; she seen joey in your eyes, jest as i done. seems to me yuh kin make good with the ole woman. don't notice all she says fur a time. sure she's suffered some." apparently the family had waited with supper for abner to come home, for his wife immediately placed the meat on the frying pan, and the odor of steak quickly filled every cranny of the small cabin of three rooms. the two little girls were slow to make up with darry, but he knew how to interest them in certain ways, and it was not long before they hovered around him as if he were a curiosity indeed. abner tried to make himself as agreeable as possible, for various reasons. he saw that his wife had not yet become reconciled to the fact of a stranger coming among them, and was watching darry out of the corners of her eyes from time to time, while a frown would gather on her brow. she was a sharp-featured woman; but life goes hard with those of her sex in this coast country, and they grow old at forty. darry was studying hard how to please her, for he felt that she was to be pitied after having lost her only boy so suddenly a year or so back; and he determined never to forget this if she should scold him needlessly or show temper. he anticipated her wants in the line of wood for the fire, cheerfully assisted in washing up the supper dishes, and was withal so obliging that ere long the anxious abner saw the lines begin to leave the forehead of his better half. this tickled him more than any well-won fight in the breakers might have done, for he had a secret dread of nancy's often ungovernable temper. "the boy's gone and done it, blame me if he ain't!" he muttered to himself, when he saw his wife actually smile over at where darry was sitting, with one of the twins on either side, entranced with some figures he was drawing to illustrate a little story he had been telling them about some sight seen in naples. when it came time to retire darry was given a shake-down in the second room. he felt that he had made some sort of an impression upon the surfman's wife, and that after all she might not prove so hard to win as he had feared from what little he had heard about her temper. that night was the most peaceful he had known for some time. in the morning he was up before any one else stirred, and when mrs peake made her appearance she found a bright fire burning in the kitchen, plenty of wood on hand, a bucket of water from the spring handy, and a boy only too anxious to do anything he was told in the way of chores. perhaps she may have had a suspicion that it would not last. "a new broom sweeps clean," she remarked to abner, as he appeared and looked at her inquiringly. "i calkerlate this one means to keep a-going' right along," he said, "yuh see, the poor critter ain't never had no home before, an' he'll sorter 'preciate one now. give him a show an' he'll make good." when abner had to return to the other side of the bay darry went with him to the store, where a supply of edibles was laid in according to the list written out by the station keeper; together with a can of oil, since their stock had run low. when abner shook his hand heartily at pushing off, darry felt as though another link connecting him with the past had been broken. perhaps his face betrayed his feelings, for the old man exclaimed: "keep a stiff upper lip, lad, and it'll all come out well. the missus is interested in yuh already. tell her that i said to give yuh joe's gun, and the traps he left. he writ down how he used to git the muskrats an' coons, too, so yuh kin understand how to set the traps. tell the missus that yuh mean to share an' share alike with her in the money yuh get. that'll please her, 'cause yuh see cash is some skeerce with we-'uns all the time. ten dollars a week don't go far. sometimes nancy hunts roots in the marshes, or picks up a few turkles that sells for a dollar or two each. to-morrow yuh bring over the mail. i've got a boat as is fair, if it only had a new pair o' oars. p'raps as a sailor lad yuh could whittle out a pair to answer. well, good-bye, darry, my boy, and good luck. keep an eye out to windward for squalls if so be that jim dilks shows alongside." when the surfman had pulled with a strong stroke for some distance he paused long enough to wave his hand to the boy; after which darry turned away to get the articles mrs. peake wanted at the store, and for which she had doled out the necessary cash to a penny. it would seem as though abner must have had a vision of some coming trouble in connection with the ne'er-do-well son of the notorious wrecker, dilks, for even as darry entered the village street on his way to the general store he saw the heavily built young ruffian shuffling toward him. there was a leer on the features of the bully. our hero had knocked around the world long enough to be able to detect signs of a coming storm when he saw them; and if ever the signals were set for trouble they certainly gave evidence of being now, when that shiftless jim dilks intercepted the newcomer. chapter v an encounter on the road jim dilks had long ruled as the bully of ashley village. he had a reputation as a bad boy that served him in place of fighting; and as a rule an angry word from him was sufficient to command obedience. besides, nature had made him so ugly that when he scowled it was enough to send a shiver down the spinal column of most boys. darry came to a pause. indeed, he could not well have continued along the path he was taking without walking over the bully, so completely had jim blocked his way. "looky here, didn't yer hear me tell yer last night ter get outen this place?" demanded the wrecker's son, thrusting that aggressive chin of his forward still more, and glaring at his prospective victim in his usual commanding way. "i believe you did say something like that. are you jim dilks?" asked darry, and to the surprise of the other he did not seem to show the customary anxiety that went with hostile demonstrations by the bully. "when air yer going, then?" continued jim. "i haven't decided. in fact, i like my present accommodations with mrs. peake so well that i may stay there right along," replied darry, steadily. jim caught his breath, and in such a noisy way that one would think it was a porpoise blowing in the inlet. in all his experience he had never come across such an experience as this. "i see yer want takin' down," he cried. "i've run this ranch a long time now, an' there ain't no new feller comin' here without i say so. yer got ter skip out er take a lickin' on the spot. now, i give yer one more chanct ter say yer'll hoof it." darry knew what it meant, for he had not knocked around so long without learning the signs of storm and fight. he had thought seriously over this very matter, after being warned that he might sooner or later have trouble with jim; and as a result his decision was already formed. when jim dilks saw him deliberately taking off his jacket he stared, with a new sensation beginning to make its presence felt around the region of his heart--the element of uncertainty, even fear. "wot yer doin' that fur?" he demanded, shaking his head after the manner of a pugnacious rooster about to enter into combat for the mastery of the barnyard. "why, you said you were going to lick me, and as this is a very good coat mrs. peake gave me, one that used to belong to her boy, joe, i thought she might feel bad if she saw it dusty or torn," replied darry, solemnly. "say, you bean't goin' ter fight, be yer?" gasped jim, hardly able to believe his senses, the shock was so great. "why, you said i had to. i don't want to fight a bit, but i always obey orders, you see, and you told me i must or leave ashley. now, i don't mean to go away, so i suppose i must do the other thing. but i hate to hurt anyone." "hey? you hurt me? don't worry about thet, cub. i reckon i kin wipe up the ground with a feller o' yer build. so yer won't run, eh? then all i kin say is yer got to take yer medicine, see?" naturally, jim knew next to nothing about the science of boxing, for he had always depended upon his brute strength to pull him through, backed by his really ferocious appearance, when he assumed his "fighting face," as he was proudly wont to term it. on the other hand darry had often boxed during the dog watch, with some of the sailors aboard the old brigantine, and since there were several among the crew who prided themselves on a knowledge of fisticuffs, he imbibed more or less of skill in the dexterity shown in both self defense and aggressive tactics. at the same time darry had seldom been called upon to utilize this knowledge, for he was of a peaceful nature, and would shun a fight if it could be done in honor. now, he knew that jim dilks was determined to have it out with him, and consequently, if he really intended to remain in ashley, he must show this bully that he could take care of himself. jim was surprised when he received a staggering blow in the first encounter, and before he had even been able to lay a hand on his antagonist, who, after striking had nimbly bounded aside, so that the village boy came near falling down. believing that this must have been only an accident, jim turned with a roar and once more strove to crush his rival by sheer weight and bulldog tactics. there never was a fight yet that did not immediately attract a crowd of the curious and idle. boys came running from several quarters, and not a few men too, the more shame to them, always glad to watch a contest, whether between a pair of aggressive dogs or roosters, or pugnacious lads. those who came running up could hardly believe their eyes, when they saw the recognized bully of the village engaged with a strange boy, and apparently, thus far, getting the worst of the bargain. darry felt rather ashamed to be caught in the centre of such a gathering; but the fight had been forced upon him, and the only thing left was to wind it up as quickly as possible. accordingly, he began to force matters, and the third time that jim leaped at him, failing as before to land his blow, he received a sudden shock in the shape of a swift tap directly under the ear that hurled him to the ground. there was a buzz of excitement about this time. boys who had tamely yielded to the sway of the bully for many moons began to take notice, and even say things that were not calculated to soothe the lacerated feelings of jim who was picking himself up slowly, and trying to collect his scattered wits. the bully, of course, had not had enough as yet. this time, however, when he came on it was with considerable caution, for his rough experience had begun to teach him that rush tactics were not going to answer with the boy who knew so well how to handle his fists. it made no difference, for darry met him squarely, and after a rapid interchange of blows that brought out many a whoop from those who looked on, jim once more received an unexpected tap that caused him to sit down a second time. he was in no hurry to get up now, but sat there in a half-dazed way, rubbing the side of his head, and gritting his teeth savagely. the crowd began to cheer, and it must have been a galling sound to that defeated bully, whose hour had come, as it usually does with most of his kind. "get up!" said one man, jeeringly. jim scrambled to his feet, to find his antagonist facing him in a manner that made him quail. "are you done, or shall we go on with it?" asked darry, calmly, for he did not seem to have been even winded in the exchange of blows. "ah, git out. me hand is sprained, i tell ye. i fell on it last night. that's why i couldn't knock yer out. this thing ain't done yet, cub. i'll git yer as sure as me name is jim dilks. i allers do wen i goes arter a feller." he turned away with his head tossed in the air as though victory had really perched upon his banner. [illustration: he was in no hurry to get up now, but sat there in a half-dazed way.] the laugh that arose must have been galling to his pride, for he stopped in his tracks and looked around angrily in the hopes of detecting one of the boys in the act, whom he could trash later on as a sop to his wounded feelings; but they were shrewd enough to hide their exultant faces just then. darry picked up his coat, and putting it on, strode away. he was conscious of a feeling of satisfaction, not because he had whipped his antagonist, for it had been almost too easy; but he knew jim dilks had long lorded it over the boys of ashley, and perhaps after this he might hesitate to act the part of bully again. at any rate he was not intending to leave the place just because one fellow had given him orders; perhaps before they left him alone he might have to repeat this dose; but the reputation of the one who had downed jim dilks would travel fast, and the balance of the village herd would think twice before trying conclusions with the new boy at peake's. chapter vi winning his way when darry entered the store the proprietor looked at him with interest. mr. keeler was a very strait-laced individual, and wont to raise his hands in horror at the mention of fighting, or anything, in fact, that partook of violence. he always gave it as his opinion that football was a brutal game, equal to the bull rights of the spaniards, and could hardly be induced to even watch a baseball match, for fear one of the players be injured. nevertheless, mr. keeler was human, and from the door of his shop he had seen the little affair on the road, and recognized the combatants as peake's new boy and the village bully. he could hardly believe his eyes when he saw that darry had come off victor, and that the idle men who gaped at the encounter were giving jim the laugh as he crossly slouched away. perhaps after all there might be something in such a fight as this, where a much-needed lesson was taught a young scoundrel. mr. keeler had his eyes opened for once; but at the same time he thought it his duty as a man of peace to speak to the new boy. "what was the trouble about, my lad?" he asked, as darry handed him a list of the articles mrs. peake wished him to bring back. "there was no trouble on my side. i only wanted to be left alone, sir," replied our hero, smiling. "oh! i see, and jim wouldn't have it? like as not he told you to get off the earth--it would be just like his impudence." "not quite so bad as that, sir, but he did say i couldn't stay with mrs. peake, and must move on. i'm quite satisfied where i am, and i mean to stay--that is as long as she wants me to." "quite right. i suppose there may be times when a boy is compelled to stand up for his rights, although i've generally preached the other way. but if you had to fight i'm glad you succeeded in convincing jim that you could hold your own." "that was easy enough, sir. he is a clumsy fighter." "i hope you do not love to engage in such affairs, darry?" continued the grocer, alive to what he considered his duty. "i've been set upon a few times when i had to defend myself, but i never look for trouble. i'd even avoid it if i could; but you know, mr. keeler, sometimes a boy has to either run away or fight; and somehow i don't care to run away." mr. keeler nodded his head. he was getting a new insight into boy character that day, that might revolutionize a few of his pet theories. "you say you have decided to stay with the peakes?" he continued. "if mrs. peake wants me to. it isn't quite decided yet; but i think i shall like to have a home there. you see, sir, outside of the cabin of the old _falcon_ i've never known a home in all my life." mr. keeler felt a new interest in this strange lad, who had been a wanderer the brief span of his days, and yet strange to say seemed to possess the instincts of a manly young chap. he wondered very much where the boy could have picked up his ways; but then mr. keeler had never met captain harley, or he might not have indulged in so much vague speculation. "if you can get on with mrs. peake you deserve considerable praise, lad. not but what she is a good enough woman, and with a kindly heart; but ever since little joe went out on the ebb tide and never came back again she seems to have become what i might say, soured on humanity. abner is meek enough to stand it, but she has had quarrels with many people in the village. still, who knows but what you may be the very one to do her good. you are about the size of her joe, and with his clothes on, i declare now, you do look a little like him. he was a clever boy, and i just reckon her heart was all wrapped up in him. at any rate, i wish you success there, darry. and if i can do you a good turn at any time just ask me." "thank you, sir," replied the boy, with a lump in his throat; for he was unused to kindness save from captain harley, and had had more hard knocks in the past than good wishes. the benevolent grocer continued to chat with him until the purchases were all tied up in a bundle, and after payment had been made darry placed the rather bulky package on his shoulder and trotted off. on the way home he was not spoken to by anyone. he saw several boys pointing in his direction, and there was a look of awe on their faces as they watched him walk by; but no one ventured to address a word to the newcomer who was said to have roundly trounced big jim. a tall man also looked sharply at him, and as he wore a great nickel star on the breast of his coat darry understood that this must be hank squires, the constable of the village. no doubt news of the encounter had drifted to his ears, and since the boy who usually made life miserable for him had come out "second best" hank did not think it policy to take any official notice of the misdemeanor. as soon as he arrived at home, darry busied himself in undoing his package, and placing the various articles where mrs. peake told him they belonged. his manner was so obliging and his answers to her questions so ready, that despite her feeling of resentment at abner, thinking anyone could ever take the place of joe in her heart, the woman found herself insensibly drawn to the boy. perhaps, after all, the mere fact that he had never known a mother's love, nor had a home of any kind, appealed more to her sympathies than anything else. she watched him take off his coat and carefully fold it before setting to work. that too, was like joe, always trying to save his mother needless worry and work. after a while, as he happened to come close to her in doing something to save her steps, she uttered a little exclamation. "did you fall down with the bundle, darry?" she asked, leaning forward. he turned a little red, conscious that in some way she must have discovered signs of his recent adventure on the road. "oh! no, it was not heavy at all, ma'am," he replied, and then noting that her eyes were fastened on his cheek he put up his hand, in this way discovering for the first time, a little soreness there. when he withdrew his fingers he saw a spot of blood. "how did that happen then, darry?" she asked, suspiciously. "i think he must have hit me there, but i didn't know it until now," he replied, relieved to feel that he could tell her the whole truth. "someone struck you--have you been fighting then?" she asked, a little coldly; for woman-like, mrs. peake did not approve of strenuous encounters. "he said that i would have to leave you, and get out. i couldn't do anything else but defend myself when he came at me. i'm sorry, for i never tried to get in a fight in my life, and i never ran away from one either." "who was it, darry?" she asked again, looking uneasy. "jim dilks," he answered promptly, unconsciously squaring his shoulders. "oh! that terrible boy again! what a shame he can't pick out some one of his own size to beat! did he hurt you very much, my poor boy?" then she was surprised to see darry smile broadly. "i didn't know he had even struck me until just now. you see captain harley allowed me to box with the sailors, and i learned how to defend myself. jim says he is going to get even with me later on," he said modestly. "do you mean to tell me you whipped that big loafer, that good-for-nothing bully who has run the place for years?" exclaimed the woman, in astonishment. "i wouldn't just say that, ma'am, and jim wouldn't admit it either; but i did knock him down twice, and the second time he said he wouldn't fight any more because, you see, his right hand was sprained. so he went off and left me alone." "splendid! he deserved a lesson, the brute! many's the time he has jeered at me when he passed; and everyone has been afraid to put a hand on him because his father is a bad man. and you did that? well, the boys of ashley ought to vote you thanks. and you fought because he wanted you to leave _this_ house? you thought it was a home worth fighting for? then it shall be yours as long as you want to stay here, darry." before he suspected how greatly her feelings had been aroused, mrs. peake threw her arms about his neck and gave him a resounding kiss--perhaps in her heart she was in this way demonstrating her undying affection for the boy who had vanished from that home one year ago, and never came back. after that darry worked with a light heart, such as he had never before known in all his life. during the afternoon abner's wife took pains to open a box that contained all the treasured possessions of the young trapper and naturalist whose greatest delight had been to spend his time in the swamps watching the animals at their play; and in the proper season setting his traps to secure the pelts of muskrats, 'coons and skunks, which, properly cured, would bring high prices at such centres where furs are collected, and secure many little luxuries for his mother during the winter season. darry handled these with a bit of reverence, for he knew what a wrench it must be to the devoted heart of the mother to see a stranger touching the things she had hoarded up as treasures, and over which she must have had many a secret cry. together with the traps and other things there was an old shotgun still in good condition, and darry had visions of coming days in the marsh and swamp, where fat ducks and squirrels might fall to his aim, and provide good dinners for this little family into whose humble home he had now been fully taken. his heart was filled with gratitude, for he knew that his lines had fallen in pleasant places, since he was no longer a waif in the world. chapter vii the midnight alarm darry found himself greatly interested in the little diary left behind by the boy naturalist, and which, besides containing an account of his catches in the way of fur-bearing animals, also explained his methods of setting snares and traps, how he cured the skins when taken, and where he received the highest prices for the same. all of this information was eagerly devoured by his successor, who felt that it was certainly up to him to do his share toward supporting the little family of the life saver who had been so kind to him. he wandered out late one afternoon to look around and see what prospect there might be for game; since the fall season was now on, and the boom of guns beginning to be heard on the bay, where the ducks were commencing to congregate. as he drew near the cabin just at dusk he was surprised to discover a figure making off in a suspicious way, as though not desirous of being seen. he recognized the lurker as jim dilks, and the fact gave him considerable uneasiness, for he had not forgotten how the other vowed to get even for his discomfiture, and jim's methods of wiping out a score were sometimes little short of shocking, if darry could believe half he had heard. had the fellow been prowling around in hopes of meeting him again, and trying conclusions a second time? darry could not believe it, for such a thing would not be in line with the reputation of the village bully. he would be more apt to try and obtain a mean revenge by doing some injury to the kind woman who had given refuge to this shipwrecked lad. evidently mrs. peake should know what he had seen, and so as soon as he entered the kitchen, he spoke of it. "jim dilks hanging about here," she echoed, in rising anger; "i'd just like to know what that scamp wants, that's all. no good follows his visits, as every one about this section knows to their sorrow." "i'm afraid i'm the cause of it all. unfortunately my being here is apt to bring trouble down upon you. perhaps it might be as well if i moved on, as he said," remarked the boy, dejectedly. the woman looked at him quickly, almost sharply. "do you want to go?" she demanded. "no, oh, never; but it would save you trouble, and i have no right to bring that on you," he cried, hastily, and with emotion. "then i say you shan't go away, not for a dozen jim dilks. you belong here now. i've done what i said i never would do, given away my joey's things, and you're my boy, i say. i won't let you go away! this is your home as long as you want to stay. let me catch that jim dilks trying to chase you off, that's all." darry could not trust his voice to say one word, only caught up her work-stained hand and pressed it to his lips, then fled from the house. and yet as darry stood out under the old oak that shielded the cottage from the burning sun in summer, and the biting winds of the "northers" in winter, looking up at the first bright evening star that peeped into view, he felt a happiness deep down in his boyish heart that could not be excelled by a prince of the royal blood coming into his palace home. he was merry all evening, and the twins romped as they had not done for many a day, in fact, ever since their brother had left them. the mother looked on in silent approval, thinking that once more home seemed to have a brightness about it that had been long lacking. when all had retired save darry he sat by the fire thinking. somehow he could not forget that skulking figure he had seen leaving the vicinity of the cabin at dusk, and he would have given much to have known just what mission brought the vindictive jim out there. the bully's home was in the village, and he had no business so far away, unless bent on an errand that would not bear the light of day. a sense of responsibility came upon the boy as he sat there. what if this young wretch should be cruel enough to poison the chickens, or the three pigs that were expected to help carry the family over the winter? the thought gave him a bad feeling, and almost unconsciously he reached out his hand and picked up the gun that joe had purchased with money earned through the sale of roots dug in the woods or furs secured through clever deadfalls. there were a few shells in the box, and among others, several containing very small shot, that might sting pretty lively, but could not do much damage to a half-grown boy as tough as jim dilks. and it was with that same individual in his mind that darry pushed two of these small bird shells into the barrels of the gun. he did not know that he would care to send even this charge directly at a human being; but in case it became necessary he wanted to make certain he would do little harm. after that he seemed to feel easier in his mind, for he lay down and was soon fast asleep. something awoke him about midnight, and thinking he had heard a sound he sat up to listen; then he heard it again, and felt sure it must be a cough, as of some one partly choking. he was worried and left his lowly bed to go to the door connecting the rooms and listen, but nothing came from beyond. could the sound come from outside? he slipped on some of his clothes, and stepping over quietly opened the outer door, looking into the night. the new moon had long since vanished behind the horizon, and yet he could see some sort of flickering light, coming from that region back of the house. at the same time he believed he caught the muttering of voices, or it might be a low chuckle, followed by a plain sneeze. smoke came to his nostrils, and that meant fire! darry had a sudden vision of jim dilks getting even, and it took the form of a burning corn-crib or chicken house. filled with indignation, he turned back into the house, and snatched up the old shotgun; gone now was his hesitation with regard to using the gun to pepper the rascally gang that took orders from the even more rascally jim. without saying a word darry shot out of the door and turned the corner, when his worst fears were realized, for he saw flames rising up alongside the pigsty, which adjoined the building in which the fowls were kept. his first act was to fire the right barrel of his gun in the air, and at the same time give vent to a shout. immediately several shadowy figures, which in spite of their bent attitudes he knew to be boys, started to scamper away, in sudden alarm lest they be recognized, and made to pay the penalty in the squire's court. as near as darry could tell there were three of them, and as they ran he believed he could recognize jim dilks in the centre of the group. the temptation was too great to be resisted, and filled with indignation because of the cowardly trick of which they had been guilty, darry took a snap shot at the running bunch. it was music to his ears to catch the howls that immediately arose; but he knew no serious damage had resulted because they ran faster than ever after that, quickly vanishing from view in the shadows. there was work to be done if he would save the humble quarters of the family porkers from destruction, and the hennery as well. he knew where the rain barrel stood that held the wash water, and snatching up a bucket he hastily dipped it in, after which he rushed over to the fire and dashed the contents upon the blaze. back and forth he galloped, using considerable discretion as to where he put the water so as to head off the creeping fire. mrs. peake now came running with another bucket, and proved herself a woman in a thousand by assisting the new addition to the family put out the last of the conflagration. when there was not a spark remaining, and beyond the grunting of the pigs and the cackling of the fowls, everything had fallen back into its usual condition, one or two neighbors arrived on the scene, asking questions, and busying themselves generally, though had it depended on their efforts the frail buildings must have gone up in smoke before now. of course many questions were fired at darry, and he felt that it was necessary he should tell what he had seen, though cautious about saying he had fully recognized any one of the three skulkers, no matter what strong suspicions he may have entertained. he believed he had a means of identifying one or more of them, nevertheless, when the proper time came. more neighbors arrived, attracted by the shots and the confusion, for nothing could quiet the excited chickens; and for an hour there was more or less discussion on the part of these good people. finally the excitement died out, the last neighbor went home, and the peake cabin was left to those who belonged there. there was no further alarm during the balance of that eventful night. chapter viii across the bay darry welcomed the coming of dawn. he was glad to see that the sky was clear, for he anticipated a long row across the broad bay that day, bearing the mail for those at the life-saving station, as well as several things he had been commissioned to fetch over by abner. hardly had they finished breakfast than there arrived a visitor. mrs. peake saw him coming along the road, for she could look out of the window of the kitchen, where they ate, and have a view of the open stretch. "here comes old hank squires. i reckon he's heard something about what happened here last night. it's about time he took notice of some of the mean pranks those village boys play on those who live outside. tell him all he wants to hear, darry; but unless you can swear to it perhaps you'd better not say that you think it was jim dilks and his crowd. if you feel sure, go ahead," she remarked, for with all her temper mrs. peake was a woman with a due sense of caution. the constable knocked, and in response to her call to "come in," he entered. "i heard ye had a little shindig up to here last night, mrs. peake, an' i jest called 'round to see what it is all 'bout," said hank, seating himself. "i see thar was a fire here all right, an' it kim near burning yer buildings down in the bargain. some says as how it was sot by a passel o' boys. how 'bout that, ma'am?" "i didn't see anyone," answered the woman. "when i got out darry here had the fire pretty well under control, and i only helped him finish. you can ask him about it, mr. squires." darry had already learned through the grocer that previous to her marriage to abner the good woman had been for some years a teacher in the schools, which fact accounted for her superior language and knowledge of things that were far above the intelligence of most of her neighbors. the constable looked keenly at our hero. "i b'lieve this is the boy wot was saved from the wreck o' that brigantine. so he's gwine to be your boy now, mrs. peake? well, i understand he's got the makin' o' a man in him, so mr. keeler sez to me last night, and i hope you'll never have no reason to be sorry. i want to know, darry, what about this here fire?" "i'll be only too glad to tell you all i know, sir," replied the boy promptly. "when did it happen?" began the constable, with the air of a famous lawyer, with a bewildered witness on the rack. "i think it was somewhere near midnight. i have no watch, and mrs. peake took the little clock in her room with her." "that was near the time. it was half-past one when i went back to my bed with my two little girls," remarked the owner of the house. "s'pose you tell me what happened, jest as it comes to you, lad." with this invitation darry soon related the whole matter, even to his firing after the vanishing culprits. this latter event appeared to interest the constable more than anything else. "do you think you hit any o' 'em?" he asked, eagerly. "they didn't stop to tell me, but i heard a lot of howling, and they ran faster than ever," replied darry, smiling. "that sounds as if you did some damage. mrs. peake, i must look into this outrage closer, and if i can only git my hands on any dead-sure evidence somebody's boys is a gwine to pay for the fiddlin'. i'm tired o' sech goings-on. they sure are a disgrace to our village. but you know how it is--my hands are tied acause theys politics back o' it all. if i arrested jim dilks now on the strength o' a suspicion i'd get tied up in litigation and lose my job in the bargain. i hears as how theys gwine to be a meetin' called at the house o' the dominie to discuss this question, an' see what kin be did to change things." "i'm sure i'm glad to know it, and if they want another to join in tell them to count on nancy peake. the women must take this thing in hand, since the men are too much afraid of that ruffian, big jim dilks, to do anything. be sure and let me know when that meeting is coming off, mr. squires," said abner's better half; and when he saw the fire in her eyes and the determination shining there constable squires realized that the day of salvation for ashley village was not so very far away. "then you wouldn't like to swear to its being any particular pusson?" he went on, turning again to darry. "i did not see a face, and without that my evidence would hardly convict. no, sir, i would not swear that one of the three was jim." "that's bad. i stand ready to do my duty and arrest the boy if so be any one makes a complaint; but without that it wouldn't pay and only makes useless trouble all 'round. but i'm goin' to keep my eyes open from now on, and when i git a sure case on jim he comes in." that was all mr. squires would say, and he soon departed; but not before he had called darry outside for a few words in parting. "looks like you was marked to be the central figger o' the comin' storm, lad. keep your eye open for squalls. if things git too black around jest slip over to the dominie's leetle house and hev a talk with him. i knows more about what's gwine to happen than i let on; but somebody's due to hev a surprise that hain't a donation party either. you seem to have the right stuff in you, lad. i heard from mr. keeler how you took that bully jim into camp mighty neat. he'll never be satisfied till he's paid you back. a word to the wise is sufficient. goodbye, darry." after all the constable did not seem to be a bad sort of fellow. during the morning darry accomplished many things for abner's wife, and she showed in her manner how pleased she was to have him there. when noon had come and gone he prepared for his row across the bay, for she insisted upon his making an early start. "clouds are banking up in the southeast, and we look for trouble whenever that comes about. still, you will have plenty of time to row over. stay with abner to-night and return in the morning if it is safe on the bay. perhaps you may have a chance to see how the life savers work," said mrs. peake. it was almost two when he pushed off from the float and started on his long row directly across the bay. steadily he kept pushing across the wide stretch of shallow water. as abner had said, a new pair of oars seemed to be badly needed in connection with the old boat; but a willing heart and sturdy arms sent the craft along until finally darry reached his goal. the storm was drawing near, for by now the heavens were clouded over, and the haze seemed to thicken. perhaps had he lingered another hour darry might have stood a chance of losing his way, and being drawn out of the inlet by the powerful ebb tide--just as the unfortunate joe had been. abner was waiting at the landing for him. "glad to see yuh, lad. how's everything to home?" he asked. of course darry understood this to mean with regard to himself and his relations with the good woman of the house. truth to tell abner had worried more than a little since parting from the boy, for his wife had shown more than unusual ill temper lately, and he feared that he had possibly done an unwise thing in leaving darry there to be a constant reminder of the son she had lost. but the happy look on the boy's countenance eased his mind even before the boy spoke a single word. "he kin do it, if any boy kin," was what the life saver was saying under his breath. "all well, and your wife sent this over to you, sir. here's the mail, too. the postmaster didn't want to give it to me, but mr. keeler told him it was all right, and that i belonged with the crew over here." unconsciously his tones were full of pride as he made this assertion, and the grocer had evidently done more to please the lad in making that assertion than he would ever know. but abner seemed to be staring down at something. "seems like as if yuh bed ben a leetle mite keerless, son, with them trousers. don't strike me thet burn was on 'em yesterday," he remarked. "it wasn't, mr. peake. i got that last night," he said, quickly. "doin' what?" went on abner, who seemed to guess that there was a story back of it all that he ought to hear. "putting out the pigsty, that was on fire, sir." "what's that? who sot it afire, i'd like to know? them pigs never has smoked, leastways not yit. jest tell me the hull bloomin' thing, lad." to begin at the start darry had to take up the subject of his encounter on the road, and from that he went on until the whole story had been told, including the visit of hank squires. chapter ix the signal rocket abner peake made no comment until the end had been reached. then he smote one hand into the palm of the other, and relieved his feelings in the expressive way one would expect a coast "cracker" to do. "this sorter thing has got to stop! it's sure the limit wen them varmints set about burnin' a honest man's buildin's up! i'll take the law into my own hands onless somethin' is did soon. p'raps that parson kin manage to rouse up the village, and upset old dilks. ef so be it falls through i'm gwine to take a hand, no matter what happens." he immediately told the whole story to his companions at the station, and they, of course, sympathized with him to a man. "that dilks gang has got to be run out of ashley, root and branch, daddy and sons, for they're all alike," declared the keeper, mr. frazer, who was a man of considerable intelligence--indeed, no one could hold the position he did unless fairly educated and able to manage the various concerns connected with the station. "it's a burning shame that the families of men who are away from home in the service of the government can't be left unmolested. i'm going to take the matter up with the authorities the next time the boat comes to this station." the life savers asked darry many questions, but he was careful not to fully commit himself with regard to identifying the three culprits. "course he couldn't say, boys. don't forget darry's new in this section, and most o' the boys is strangers to him. but he's put his trade-mark on one as won't forget it in a hurry. and for me i'd be willing to wager my week's pay that young jim dilks was leadin' them raiders in their rascally work," declared one of the crew, a stalwart young fellow named sandy monks. by this time the storm began to break, and it became necessary for the keeper to make good use of his glass in the endeavor to place any vessel chancing to be within range, so that in case of trouble later in the night they would have some idea as to the character of the imperiled craft. darry watched everything that was done with eager eyes. after an early supper, in which he participated with the men of the station, he saw the guard that had the first patrol don their storm clothes, and prepare to pass out to tramp the beach, exchanging checks when they met other members of the next patrol to prove that through the livelong night they had been alive to their duty. abner was on the second watch. he had consented to let the boy go out with him, and share his lonely tramp, for he seemed to realize that just then it was the most ardent wish in the heart of our hero to become a life saver like himself. the rain came down in sheets, and the thunder rattled, while lightning played in strange fashion all around; but this storm was not in the same class with the dreadful west india hurricane that had sent the poor _falcon_ on to the cruel reefs, to wind up her voyaging forever. darry might have liked to sit up and listen to the men tell about former experiences; but the keeper chased them to their beds, knowing that it was necessary to secure some sleep, since they must remain up the latter half of the night. a hand touching his face aroused darry. "time to git up, lad, if so be yuh wants to go along," came a voice which he recognized as belonging to abner, though he had been dreaming of the captain. he was quickly dressed and out of doors. it seemed to be still raining, and the wind howled worse than ever, though but little thunder accompanied the vivid flashes of lightning. having been giving some spare waterproof garments in the shape of oilskins, and a sou'wester, darry felt himself prepared to face any conditions that might arise during his long walk with his friend. taking lantern and coster lights for signalling, abner set out, another patrol going in the opposite direction. those who had been out for hours had returned to the station in an almost exhausted condition, and at the time abner and darry left they were warming up with a cup of coffee, strong spirits being absolutely forbidden while on duty. darry asked questions when the wind allowed of his speaking, which was not all the time, to be sure. he wanted to know how the patrol learned when a ship was in distress, and abner answered that sometimes they saw lights on the reefs; again the lightning betrayed the perilous condition of the recked vessel; but usually they learned of the need of assistance through rockets sent up by those on board, and which were answered by the coast guard. captain harley had not been given a chance to send such an appeal for help, since he had been swept overboard just after the brigantine struck; besides, the vessel was a complete wreck at the time, and without a single stick in place could never have utilized the breeches buoy even had a line been shot out across her bows by means of the lyle gun. in two hours they had gone to the end of their route, and exchanged checks with the other patrol coming from the south. then the return journey was begun. almost an hour had elapsed since turning back, and they were possibly more than half way to the station, when suddenly darry, who chanced to be looking out to sea, discovered an ascending trail of fire that seemed to mount to the very clouds, when it broke, to show a flash of brilliant light. "see!" he had exclaimed, dragging at the sleeve of his companion's coat, for abner was plodding along steadily, as if his mind was made up to the effect that there was going to be no call for help on this night. "a rocket! a signal!" cried the old life saver, at once alive to the occasion. his first act was to unwrap one of the coster lights, and set it on fire. this was intended to inform those on board the ship that their call for assistance had been seen, and that the lifeboat would soon be started if conditions allowed of its getting through the surf; for there are occasionally times when the sea runs so high that it proves beyond human endeavor to launch the boat. having thus done his duty, so far as he could, abner set out on a run for the station, knowing that unless the full crew was on hand all efforts to send out the boat would be useless. darry kept at his heels, though he could have outrun the older man had he so desired, being sturdy and young. stumbling along, sometimes falling flat as they met with obstacles in the darkness, they finally came within sight of the lights of the station. here they found all excitement, for the signal rockets had of course been seen by the lookout, and all was in readiness to run the boat out of its shed. darry found that he could certainly make himself useful in giving a helping hand, and with a will the boat was hurried down to the edge of the water that rolled up on the beach. all they waited for now was the coming of one man, whose beat happened to be a little longer than any other, but who should have shown up ere now. as the minutes passed the anxiety of the helmsman grew apace, for those on the stranded vessel were sending more rockets up, as though they believed their peril to be very great. the men stood at their places, ready to push at the word, and then leap aboard. darry was with them, eager and alert; indeed, he had done such good service up to now that the stout mr. frazer cast an eye toward him more than once, as though tempted to ask him to take the place of the missing man, who must have had an accident on the way, perhaps spraining an ankle over some unseen obstacle that came in his way as he ran headlong. darry saw him talking with abner, who looked his way, and shook his head as if hardly willing to give his consent. just as his hopes ran high, and the words seemed trembling on the lips of the helmsman a shout was heard and the missing man came limping down to take his place without a complaint, though as it afterwards turned out he had a bad sprain. then the wild word was given, the men heaved, the surf boat ran into the water, with the men jumping aboard, oars flashed out on either side, and were dipped deep, after which the boat plunged into the next wave, rode on its crest like a duck, made a forward move, and then darkness shut it from the gaze of the lad left behind. chapter x jim the bully although he could not accompany the life savers in the boat darry had been given duties to perform, which he went about with a vim. one of these was to keep the fire burning, so that it might serve as a beacon to the life savers as they toiled at the oars. what with the darkness, and the flying spray that seemed almost as dense as fog, it was a difficult task to hold their bearings, and this glare upon the clouds overhead was essential. by this time several other men arrived on the scene, having taken chances upon the bay when it was seen that the night would be stormy. they were only too willing to assist, and as time passed many anxious looks were cast out upon the dashing sea in expectation of seeing the boat returning, possibly with some of the passengers or crew of the vessel in danger. finally a loud shout was heard: "there they come!" upon the top of an incoming billow the lifeboat was seen perched, with the men laboring at the oars to keep it steady, and the steersman standing at his post, every muscle strained to hold the craft from broaching to. it was a wild sight, and every nerve in darry's body seemed to thrill as he kept his eyes glued upon that careening boat. on it came, sweeping in with the wash of the agitated sea, until finally it was carried far up the beach, where men, rushing in waist deep, seized hold and prevented the undertow from dragging it out again. then the crew jumped out to lend their aid. darry saw that quite a number of strangers were aboard, who had undoubtedly been taken from the vessel. they were passengers, the captain and crew refusing to abandon their craft. the steamer being head on, was not in as bad a condition as might otherwise have been the case; and as the storm promised to be short-lived, the commander had decided to try and await the coming of tugs from the city to drag his vessel off. the telephone to the mainland was immediately put to good use, and a message sent to a salvage company that would bring a couple of strong sea-going tugs to the scene inside of ten hours. abner had labored with the rest. he was more or less tired when darry found him, after the boat had been drawn up on the beach, but not housed, since it might be needed again; but this sort of thing was an old story in his life, and in comparison with some of his labors the adventure of the night had been rather tame. in the morning darry started across the bay again, homeward bound. he was sorry to leave the beach, so much was his heart wrapped up in the work of the life savers. the day was bright and fine after the short storm which had seemed to clear the air wonderfully. he could see a few boats moving about, some of them oyster sloops or dredgers, other pleasure craft belonging to the rich sportsmen who had already commenced to drift down in pursuit of their regular fall shooting. occasionally the distant dull boom of a gun told that a few ducks were paying toll on their passage south. darry looked longingly at a splendid motor-boat that went swiftly past him. the young fellow on board seemed to be having a most delightful time, and it was only natural for any boy to envy him. it was noon when our hero arrived home. mrs. peake was interested in all he had to tell about the trip of the life savers. "we get used to hearing these things," she said, "but all the same it keeps the wives of the life savers feeling anxious. some night it happens one of the crew of the lifeboat goes out and does not return. at any time it may be my turn. i know three widows now." "i think they ought to pick out the unmarried men," remarked darry, who had himself been considering this very subject. "they do, i believe, as far as they can; but we must have bread, and the number of available surfmen is small. but those who win their living from the sea learn to expect these things sooner or later. it is only a question of time." after a bit of lunch darry was sent to the village on an errand. this was how he happened to see jim dilks again. the meeting occurred just before darry reached the grocer's, and as jim was totally unaware of his coming he had no chance to assume airs. darry looked at him eagerly, as though expecting to make a discovery; and this anticipation met with no disappointment. there could be no doubt about jim limping, and once he instinctively put his hand back of him as if to rub a spot that pained more or less. darry understood what it meant, and that he had not sent that shower of fine bird shot after the trio of desperate young scamps in vain. if hank squires wanted positive evidence as to who had been connected with the firing of mrs. peake's out-buildings he could find it upon an examination of the person of jim dilks. when the good-for-nothing caught sight of darry it was surprising how he stiffened up and walked as upright as a drum-major. darry had lost all respect for the prowess of the young ruffian, after that one trial of strength, when he had found jim so lacking in everything that goes to make up a fighter. he had the feeling that he could snap his fingers in the other's face. being a boy he could not help from addressing the ex-bully, and rubbing it in a little, for jim was scowling at him ferociously. "hello, jim, how's the sprain--or was it rheumatism you had in your wrist? sorry to see it's gone down now into one of your legs, and makes you limp. i tell you what's good for that sort of thing. first, be sure to take out any foreign substance, such as gravel, _lead_ or anything like that; then wash it well and rub on some sort of ointment. follow the directions and it will work fine," he said, as soberly as though he meant every word. if anything, jim scowled worse than before, since his guilty soul knew that this boy suspected his connection with the lawless act of the recent night. "saw yer comin' acrost the bay this mornin'; say, was yer over on ther beach with the life savers? did a boat go ter pieces on the reefs?" he asked. darry saw that the other was swallowing his resentment in order to pick up information, and he remembered what dark stories he had heard in connection with the men who formed the companions of jim's father--that they were termed wreckers, and some said they had reached a point of desperation where they did not hesitate to lure a vessel upon the reefs in order to profit from the goods that would float ashore after she went to pieces. possibly the older dilks and his cronies may have been abroad on the preceding night, hovering around in hopes of a windfall; and jim was eager to learn whether such a chance had come. "not last night, i'm glad to say. there was a steamer aground, but only the passengers would come ashore, the captain and crew remaining on board waiting for the tugs to arrive," replied darry. jim's face fell several degrees. he would have been satisfied to hear that a dozen poor sailors had been lost if it meant a big haul for the wreckers of the coast. "say, be yer goin' to stay 'round this district," asked the bully, changing the subject suddenly. "well, mrs. peake wants me to remain with her, and so does abner. i'm thinking about it. when i make my mind up i'll let you know, jim. if it's stay, why we can have it all over again. i want to warn you, jim. you're going to get yourself into trouble if you keep on the way you're bent now. there's a law that sends a man to the penitentiary for setting fire to a neighbor's house," he said, as sternly as he could. "never set fire ter a house," declared jim, quickly. "well, it doesn't matter whether it's a house or a barn or a hencoop. if hank squires could only find some positive evidence against you he says he'd lock you up right now; and jim, i know how he could get all the evidence he needs." "'taint so," flashed out the bully, but looking alarmed all the same; while his hand half instinctively sought his rear. "i think that an examination of those ragged trousers you wear would show where a few fine bird-shot peppered you as you ran. perhaps both the other fellows got a touch of the same medicine, too, so you'd have company, jim, when you went up." "it's a lie. i never sot that pigpen on fire!" "oh! you know it was a pigpen, then, do you? i spoke of a chicken coop only." "heerd 'em torkin' about it. thet ole busybody, miss pepper, she war in ther store wen i was gittin' somethin' fur mam, and she sed as how she'd run this village if she war a man, an' the feller as set fire ter a honest woman's pigpen 'd git his'n right peart. like fun she wud," returned jim, quickly. "she's got her eye on you, jim. she believes you led that gang. going, eh, good-bye." chapter xi a glorious prospect jim had heard enough. he was beginning to be a bit afraid lest this sturdy new boy who had mastered him so easily in their late encounter, take a notion to investigate his condition physically; and there were several little punctures that just then jim did not care to have seen. darry watched the bully saunter away, and it made him smile to see what an effort the other kept up his careless demeanor, when every step must have caused him more or less pain. perhaps jim, in spite of his bombastic manner, might have received a lesson, and would be a little more careful after this how he acted. so he walked to the store, completed his purchases, and was waiting for them to be tied up when who should enter but the young fellow he had seen in the beautiful cedar motor-boat out on the bay. he was dressed like a sportsman, and there was a frank, genial air about him that quite attracted darry. apparently he had dropped in to get his mail, for he walked over to the little cubby hole where a clerk sat. as his eyes in roving around chanced to fall on darry, and the latter saw him give a positive start, and he seemed to be staring at him as though more than casually interested. then he spoke to the clerk, who looked out toward darry and apparently went on to explain that he was a stranger in the community, having been on a brigantine recently wrecked on the deadly reefs off the shore. the young man sauntered around until darry left. just as our hero put the last of the small shanties that formed the outskirts of ashley behind him he caught the sound of hurrying steps. thinking of jim and his ugly promise of future trouble he half turned, but to his surprise and pleasure he saw that it was the owner of the launch, and that apparently the youth was hurrying to overtake him. what his curiosity was founded on darry could not say; but presumed the other had liked his looks and wanted to strike up an acquaintance. it would not be the first time such a thing had happened to him. "good morning, or rather good afternoon," said the stranger. "i believe they told me your name was darry, and that you are stopping with one of the life savers. my name is paul singleton, and i'm down here, partly for my health, and also to enjoy the shooting. it turns out to be pretty lonely work, and i'm looking for a congenial companion to keep me company and help with the decoys later. i'm willing to pay anything reasonable, and i carry enough grub for half a dozen. my boat is small, but affords ample sleeping accommodations for two. how would you like to try it," and the youth smiled broadly. darry was thrilled at the prospect, although he could not see his way clear to accept it just then. first of all he would not think of doing so without consulting abner, who had been so kind, and who expected him to remain with the little family; then, it was nice to believe that mrs. peake would feel sorry to lose him; and last of all he knew little or nothing about the bay or the ways of guides, and the duties connected with the profession. "i'd like it first-rate, but just now i don't see how i could accept," he replied. "if it's a question of wages--" began the young man, who was watching the various expressions flit over darry's face with an eager eye. "not at all. i was only thinking of my duty to abner peake and his wife, who have been so good to me. perhaps later on i might accept, providing you have not already filled the place." "i suppose you know best, but somehow i've taken a notion i'd like to have you along with me, darry. for a week or two i mean to just knock around here, sometimes ashore and again afloat. perhaps when the shooting begins in earnest you may be able to give me a different answer." "at any rate by that time i shall know more about the bay and the habits of the ducks that drop in here. i'm a stranger, you see, mr. singleton, and though i've done some hunting in india and other places where our ship lay at anchor for weeks, i know little about this sport. i can cook as well as the next fellow, and of course know something about boats, though more used to sails than gasoline." "you're too modest, darry. some chaps would have jumped at the chance to have a fine time. but i like you all the better for it. i see you are in a hurry, so i won't detain you any longer. it's understood then that if you can get off later you'll come to me?" "i'll only be too glad to do so, mr. singleton," was darry's answer. the young fellow thrust out his hand, while his gaze still-remained riveted on darry's face. as the boy walked rapidly away, feeling a sense of overpowering delight at the prospect ahead if all things went well, something caused him to glance back, and he saw paul singleton shaking his head while sauntering toward the village, as if something puzzled him greatly. darry could not understand what ailed the other, or how anything about his appearance should attract so fine a young gentleman. he told mrs. peake about it, and while she looked displeased at first, darry was so apparently loth to leave her that the better element in the woman's nature soon pushed to the front. "of course you can go, after a little. there's nothing to prevent. it will be a fine thing for you, and may lead to something better. we have put through one winter without a man in the house, and can again. time was when all my children were little, and even then abner used to be away most of the time. don't worry about us, darry. when the time comes, i say, go," was what she remarked. how the skies were brightening for him! and only a few days back he had faced such a gloomy prospect that it appalled him! now he whistled as he worked, rubbing up the various traps taken from joe's box, and preparing to sally out for his first experience in trying to catch the muskrats that haunted the borders of the watercourses in the marshes near by. carrying that invaluable little notebook along for reference in case he should become puzzled about anything, and with a few traps slung over his shoulder darry followed the paths along the edge of the marsh until he reached one that seemed to enter the waste land. joe had designated this as his favorite tramp, since it paralleled the creek, and the burrows of the little fur-bearing animals could be easily located. presently darry was busily engaged in examining the bank, and it was not long before he had found what he sought. this was a hole just below the water line. there were also the tracks of the occupants close by, showing just how they issued from their snug home to forage for food. he carefully set his trap under a few inches of water, so that the first rat coming forth and starting to climb the bank would set his hind feet in it. the chain he fastened to a stake out in the creek. this was done in order that the little rodent would be quickly drowned. trappers invariably follow this rule when after water animals, and it is not always through a spirit of mercy toward the victim that actuates their motive, but the fact that they would otherwise lose many a catch, since the captive in despair over its inability to escape would gnaw its foot off. having finished with the trap, darry walked further into the marsh. it was a lonely place, seldom visited save by a few hunters in the season, who looked for mallard ducks there; or it might be some boy trapper, endeavoring to make a few dollars by catching some of the shy denizens wearing marketable fur coats. here a brace of snipe went spinning away, and a little further a blue crane got up and flapped off, his long legs sticking out like fishing poles. in an hour or so the boy had placed all his traps. he had followed joe's directions to the letter, and the morning would show as to whether he was to make a success of the venture. one thing was positive, and it was this, that even should he find nothing in the traps he did not mean to give up; if he had made a mistake, then it must be rectified, even if he had to secure some old boat in order to carry out his operations without leaving a scent behind to alarm the game. it was late in the afternoon when he reached home. the twins ran to meet him as though already they looked upon him in the light of a member of the little family. darry threw first one and then the other up into the air, while they shrieked with laughter, and he could see that mrs. peake was looking on approvingly, as if her desolated mother heart was warming toward this lad who had never known what it was to have any one love him. he had been thinking much that afternoon of paul singleton, even repeating the name of the young man over and over, as though striving to remember whether he could have ever heard it before, which did not seem likely. and it was not so much anticipation of the good times coming that engaged his thought as that queer look on the face of paul while they had been talking. what could it mean? chapter xii the stolen traps in the morning darry occupied himself repairing the damage done by the fire. after he had done all the chores, even to assisting mrs. peake wash the breakfast dishes, and there seemed nothing else to be undertaken, he took joe's shotgun on his shoulder and walked toward the marsh. the woman, seeing how much he looked like her lost boy with the gun and the clothes, had a good cry when left to herself; but darry did not know this. as he approached his first trap he found himself fairly tingling with eagerness. this was not because of the value involved in the skin of a muskrat, though it seemed as though each year the price was soaring as furs became more scarce; but he wanted to feel that he had learned his lesson well, and followed out the instructions given in joe's little handbook. the trap was gone! he saw this with the first glance he cast over the low bank. did it have a victim in its jaws or had some marauder stolen it? with a stick he groped in the deeper water, and catching something in the crotch he presently drew ashore the trap. he had caught his first prize. of course he understood that when compared with the mink and the fox, a muskrat is an ignorant little beast at best, and easily captured; but for a beginning it was worth feeling proud over. setting the trap again in the hope that there might be others in the burrow, one of which would set his foot in trouble on the succeeding night, darry went on. he found only one more victim to the half dozen traps. perhaps he had been too careless with the others and left plain traces of his presence that had warned the cunning rodents. having placed all his traps in the water again, he started back home, swinging the two "muskies" in one hand, while carrying his gun in the other. after leaving the marsh he chanced to look back and was surprised to see a boy come out and start on a run toward the village. darry had very little acquaintance with the village lads, and could not make up his mind whether he had ever seen this fellow before or not; but once or twice he thought he detected evidence of a limp in his gait when he fell into a walk, and this brought to mind jim and his two cronies. it was not jim, but at the same time there was no reason why it should not be one of his bodyguard, "the fellows who sneezed when jim took snuff," as mrs. peake had said in speaking of the lot. suppose this did happen to be sim clark or bowser, what had he been doing in the marsh? could it be possible that the fellow had been spying on him, and was now hastening to report to his chief? they might think to annoy him by stealing the traps he had placed, or at least robbing them of any game. darry shut his teeth hard at the idea. he made up his mind that he would go out earlier on the following day, even if, in order to do so, he had to get up long before daylight to accomplish his various chores. no doubt he made rather a sorry mess of the job when he came to removing those first pelts--at least it took him half a dozen times as long as a more experienced trapper would have needed in order to accomplish the task. still, when he finally had them fastened to a couple of boards left by joe, he felt that he had reason to be satisfied with his first attempt. mrs. peake declared they seemed to look all right, and as each represented a cash money value of some forty or fifty cents, darry realized that there was a little gold mine awaiting him in that swamp, providing those miserable followers of jim allowed him to work it. several times he awoke during the night and started up, thinking he heard suspicious sounds again, but they proved false alarms. he was glad to see the first peep of day, and quickly tumbled out to set about his various duties of starting the fire, bringing in water and wood, and later on chopping a supply of fuel sufficient to last through the day. when mrs. peake gave him permission to go darry hurried off. again he carried the gun, thinking he might find a chance to bag a fine fat duck or two, which mrs. peake declared she would be glad to have for dinner. arriving at the scene of his first triumph of the previous day, he discovered once more that the trap was gone from the bank. again he fished for it with the crotched stick, but despite his efforts there was no trap forthcoming. finally, filled with a sudden suspicion, he crawled down to examine the stake in the water to which the chain had been secured. the stake was there all right but no trap rewarded his search. with his heart beating doubly fast, darry sped along the path to where he had located his second trap, only to find it also missing. now he knew that it could be no accident, but a base plot to upset all his calculations and deprive him of the fruits of his industry. the thing that angered him most of all was the fact that he must face mrs. peake and tell her he had lost the treasures she valued so highly. he shut his teeth together firmly. "they won't keep them, not if i know it," he muttered. "i'll find out where they hide them. i'll get 'em again, sure as i live!" the thieves had apparently done their evil work well. not a single trap did he find in the various places where he had left them. but one thing he saw that gave him a savage satisfaction, and this was the fact that there were footprints around the last one, in which the muddy water had not yet had time to become clear. darry believed from this that those who had rifled his belongings could not have left the scene more than a few minutes. perhaps if he were smart he could overtake them and demand restitution. it stood to reason that the rascals could not have returned along the same path, for he would have met them. he bent down to examine the ground and could easily see where the marks of several wet and heavy shoes continued along the trial that followed the creek. darry immediately started off on a run. hardly five minutes later, as he turned a bend, he had a glimpse of a figure just leaving the path and entering the woods bordering the swamp. so far as he knew he had not been noticed; but to make sure he crept along under the shelter of neighboring bushes until he reached the place where the moving figure had caught his eye. voices now came to his ear, and it was easy enough to follow the three slouching figures that kept pushing deeper into the swamp. he even saw his precious traps on their backs, together with several muskrats which jim himself carried. perhaps their first idea was to throw the traps into the oozy water of the swamp, so that they could never be found again; but then those steel contraptions represented a cash value of a dollar or so, and money appealed strongly to these fellows; so they hung on, with the idea of placing them in a hollow tree, where, later, they could be found and sold. darry knew that he was going to recover his own, and he now watched the movements of the three with more or less curiosity. all the while he kept drawing nearer, fearful lest they discover him before he could get close enough to hold them up; for should they run in different directions he could not expect to accomplish his end. then he saw what brought them to this place. a rude shack made of stray boards, and branches from trees loomed up. it was evidently a secret hide-out of the gang, where they came when matters got too warm either at home or among the neighbors whose hen roosts they had been pillaging. when darry saw jim throw his bunch of game on the ground, he knew his chase was at an end, and that presently, when he felt good and ready, he could turn the tables on his enemies. lying there watching them start a fire and prepare to cook something they had brought along, he even chuckled to imagine how surprised the trio of young rascals would be when he popped up like a jack-in-the-box. chapter xiii joe's shotgun secures a supper one of the fellows with jim, and whom he addressed as sim, gathered the six stolen traps together and held them up laughingly. "a bully find, fellers; but if i had me way i'd let 'em lie and snooped the musky out every day. why it'd be like takin' candy from the baby, that's what. but jim there wanted to kerry off the hull bunch," he said, swinging the traps idly to and fro. "i wanted ter let him know i allers kep' me word. when he finds 'em gone i bet yer he knows who's had a hand in it; but he caint prove nothin'. i kin snap me fingers in his face, an' tell him ter chase hisself. here, bowser, git that fire goin' in a hurry. i'm pretty near starved. the ole man chased me outen the house last night, an' ther ole woman won't give me a bite. reckon i'll hev ter hustle fur meself arter this. dad's as mad as hops 'cause he aint hed a chanct ter pick up any stuff on the beach fur three moons. if it keeps on, him and his gang 'll hev ter do sumpin different ter make biz good." darry did not care to linger any longer. he wanted those traps and the animals that had been taken from them, and he meant to have them. "why, hello, boys!" the three young rascals sprang erect when they heard these words, and their amazement can be imagined at discovering the object of their recent raid standing there not twenty feet away, holding joe peake's old shotgun carelessly in his hands. in that moment the real nature of each of them showed itself--sim clark darted into cover and ran away at the top of his speed like the coward he was, bowser fell on his knees and wrung his hands, being weak when it came to a showdown; but jim dilks, ruffian as he was, scorned to do either, and stood his ground, like a wolf brought to bay and showing its fangs. "i see you have been so kind as to gather a few traps of mine together. and as i live if you haven't relieved me of the trouble of fishing for several rats. very kind of you, jim. now, don't say a word, and just keep where you are, or by accident something might happen. guess you know what shot feels like when it hits. once ought to be enough, and this time you're so close it might be serious. now, listen to me, once and for all, jim dilks, and you bowser, i'm going right back and set these traps where i think i'll find more game. you touch a finger to one of them at your peril. i'll let hank squires know all about this shack here, and what you've been up to. the first trap that is missing means the whole three of you behind the bars. that's all." jim never opened his mouth. he was awed for the time being, and watched darry pick up the traps, together with the three muskrats, swing the lot over his shoulder and walk away. the boy did not know but what they might attempt to jump upon him yet and kept on the alert; but when he presently looked back upon hearing a shout, he found that jim was only relieving his wounded feelings by kicking the kneeling bowser vigorously. darry did just as he had said he would. he went a little further into the marsh, thinking that since so many feet had been trampling around the bank of the creek the game might have become shy; but he set the six traps, and even marked the tree nearest each, so that the location could be easily found by himself or others, inclined that way. such bold tactics would do more to keep jim and his set from disturbing the traps than the utmost secrecy. when darry went back home, he thought it best not to say anything about his adventure to mrs. peake; but having occasion to go to the village later in the day he sought out the constable, whom he found cleaning up his garden patch and burning the refuse. old hank amused him. the fellow was always indulging in mysterious hints as to what he was going to do some day soon, and doubtless his intentions were all right, but, as miss pepper had truly said, he lacked the backbone to carry them out. old jim dilks and his crew of trouble breeders had dominated the vicinity so long now that it was hard to break away from their sway. the officer of the law was in his shirt sleeves, so that his fine nickel badge could not shine upon his manly breast; but as he saw darry approach, and scented coming business, he drew his tall figure up as if in that way he could at least represent the majesty of the law. hank had an idea that he possessed an eye that was a terror to evil-doers, when to tell the truth his gaze was as mild and peaceful as that of a babe. "glad to see you, darry. hope there ain't been any more doings up at your place? i'm laying for the slippery rascals, and hope to have them dead to rights soon; but you know men in my profession have to go slow. a mistake is a serious thing in the eye of the law," he said, offering his hand in a friendly fashion. "there's nothing wrong up at the house, sir; but i wanted to tell you something i think you ought to know, in case the time comes when you might want to find jim dilks and his gang and they were not at home," began darry. the constable quailed a trifle, then grew stern. "big jim or little jim, which?" he said, anxiously. "the boy who has tried to make things so warm for me. he and his crowd have a shack in the swamp, where they camp out from time to time. that's where you'll find them when wanted." "sure that's interesting news, lad. can you tell me just where to look?" he heaved a sigh of relief--then there was not any need of immediate haste, and hank was a true southern "cracker," always ready to postpone action. "leave the path along the creek just where it makes that sharp bend. a fallen tree marks the spot. head due south until you sight a big live oak, the only one i noticed. the shack lies under its spreading branches, mr. squires. i thought you ought to know. besides, i told jim and his crowd i meant to inform you." "what! you saw jim there, and his crowd with him? i wonder they let you get out of the swamp without a beating," exclaimed the constable, surprised, and looking at this newcomer as though he could hardly believe his senses. "they knew better. the fact is, sir, i had a shotgun with me. perhaps they may have had a recent experience with such a little tool. but no matter, they let me gather up my traps and the three muskrats taken from them, and never offered to put out a hand to stop me." "traps--muskrats--look here, now i begin to see light, and can give a guess how it came you were there in that swamp. you followed the rascals there." "to tell the truth, i did, for i was determined to get back what they had taken." "bully for you, lad. if you had dropped in on us some time back we might have had a different class of boys around here by now. you're a reformer, that's what you are. first you knocks that tyrant jim down; then you pepper him with shot after he has fired the pigpen of your new home, and now you brave him in his own dooryard. that's reforming all right, and i hope you keep at it until you've reformed the ugly beggar into the penitentiary. i begin to pluck up hope that soon public spirit will be so aroused that we can do something right. would you mind shaking hands with me again, darry. it does me good, sure it does." of course darry complied, though he had his doubts as to whether mr. squires would ever have the nerve to connect himself with any movement looking to the purging of ashley village of its rough element. in fact, if anything were ever done he believed such women as miss pepper would be the ones to run the evil-doers out of town, and put up the bars. darry had taken the three animals home, pleased to know that after all half his traps had found victims on this second day. he judged from this that he was doing very well, and with a little more experience could consider himself a full-fledged trapper. later in the afternoon he thought of the ducks, and passing out upon the marsh walked until he discovered several feeding among the wild rice, when he started to creep up on them with infinite cunning. reaching at last a bunch of grass as near as he could hope to go he waited until two were close together, when he fired his right barrel. as the remaining mallard started to rise in a clumsy fashion darry gave him the benefit of the other barrel. when mrs. peake saw what fine birds he had secured she was loud in her praise, for their coming meant at least one good meal without cost, and every cent counted in this little family. again darry busied himself with his pelts. he was pleased to find how much easier the job seemed after his experience of the preceding day; and when the skins had been stretched upon the boards they had a cleaner look that satisfied the eye. after that he plucked the three ducks for the good woman, saving her a task she never fancied, and winning her thanks. then he looked after the gun, believing that it is wise to always keep such a weapon in the best of order, since it serves its owner faithfully when called upon. "i had some visitors while you were away," announced mrs. peake, when after supper they were seated by the table. darry looked up from his work of whittling more stretching boards, interested at once. chapter xiv the lonely vigil of the coast patrol mrs. peake looked amused. "a young man called on me," she said. dairy's face lighted up. "it must have been mr. singleton!" he exclaimed, eagerly. she nodded in the affirmative. "did he come to see me?" he asked. "no, i rather think he wanted to have a little talk with me. you see he guessed from what you told him that it all was because of me you wouldn't go with him, and he just dropped in, he said, to have a neighborly chat, and let me know how much he was interested in a boy by the name of darry." "that was fine of him. what did you think, wasn't he all i said?" "as nice a young gentleman as i ever met. he asked a lot of questions about you." "of course. he had a right to. when a gentleman asks a strange fellow to go off with him on a cruise it's only business for him to learn all he can about whether the other is honest and all that. you told him i never touched liquor, i hope?" "he never asked about such things. in fact, it was all in connection with your past he seemed interested." "my past--how could he be interested in that? he never saw me before." yet, strange to say, the fact seemed to thrill darry through and through; for he was still hugging that hope to his heart, and wondering if some day he might not be lucky enough to learn who and what he was. "well, all i can say is that he kept asking me all about you came here, why you were darry, and what your other name might be; when he learned that you never knew who your parents were he seemed to be strangely agitated. he didn't take me into his confidence; but i'm morally convinced that mr. singleton believes he is on the track of some sort of discovery. i heard him ask miss pepper, who was hurrying over, seeing i had a visitor, if there was a telegraph office in ashley; and when he left he was saying to himself: 'i must let her know--this may be important.' it would be a fine thing for you, my boy, if circumstances brought you face to face with some rich relative so soon after you landed on the soil of america." darry drew a long breath, and shook his head. "it would be great, as you say, whether my father or mother were rich or poor, it wouldn't matter a bit to me; but i'm afraid you're getting too far along. perhaps what you heard him say may refer to another affair entirely. no matter, i like mr. singleton, and have from the start. if we go off together i know i'd enjoy it first-rate in that dandy little motor-boat of his. i haven't said i would for sure. i mean to wait a while and see how things come out here ashore." she knew he was thinking of jim dilks and his scheming for mischief--that he believed the fact of her giving him shelter and a home had drawn upon her head the vindictive fury of the lawless rascal, who, finding the little home undefended if darry went away, might think it safe to continue his persecution. when darry strode forth into the marsh the next day he again carried the gun. he found his traps all safe. undoubtedly his defiance had had its effect upon the mind of jim; and however much he may have felt like repeating the thievish act which darry's prompt arrival on the scene had nipped in the bud, he dared not attempt it. he was beginning to be afraid of this young chap who kept a chip on his shoulder, and dared him to knock it off. this time four victims attested to the skill with which the new trapper attended to his business. already was the list reaching respectable proportions. he expected to cross over that afternoon to see abner, and carry the mail again; and it would be with satisfaction that he could inform his good friend how the traps joe had left behind were still fulfilling their destiny at the same old stand. the sky was clouded over when he started out on his long trip. he had during his leisure minutes fashioned a sort of sail that could be used with the wind astern; and as this happened to be the case now darry got it in position for service. with the sail, he just rushed along over the bay; and all the while sat there taking his ease instead of dragging at the oars. having spent some years on the waters there was little in connection with boats, big or little, that the lad did not know. he had found some good wood which abner had expected to use for the purpose at some future date, and one oar was already pretty well advanced. by the time he crossed again he believed he would have them both completed; and at that they would be nothing of which anyone need feel ashamed. the favoring wind kept up until he drew in to the little landing where, as before, abner stood waiting for him. that was a great night for darry. first there came the supper with those jolly fellows, whose laughter and jokes he enjoyed so much; after that a nice quiet chat with abner, who asked for all the news, and was deeply interested in his success in catching the sly denizens of the marsh; although he frequently sighed while darry was speaking, and the boy could easily comprehend that at such times the poor man was picturing in his mind how joe used to go through with the same experiences. when darry thought it only right to tell how the three cronies had stolen his possessions, and how he had recovered them, abner slapped his hand down on his knee, and exclaimed: "i reckon mr. fraser was right t'other day when he sez as how the sun o' the dilks tribe began to set when yuh kim ashore from that wreck. somehow yuh seem to be hittin' 'em hard, son. i aint much o' a prophet, sence i caint even tell wot the weather's gwine to be tomorry; but i seem to just know from the way things is a heapin' up that they's gwine to be a big heave soon, an' that means the dilks has got to move on--ashley don't want ther kind no more." darry insisted on accompanying abner when it came his turn to go out on his long patrol; this time it was in the earlier part of the night, so neither man nor boy thought of going to bed. the night was not wholly dark, for there was a moon behind the clouds; but beyond a certain limited distance of the sea lay in gloom, only the steady wash of the incoming waves telling of the vast reach of water lying along toward the east. they talked of many things as they plodded along the sandy beach. darry spoke for the first time of paul singleton, and his desire that he accompany him later on in his cruising up and down the series of connected bays that stretched for some hundreds of miles back of the sandbars. abner was silent at first, and the boy realized that he felt grieved to know there might come a break in the pleasant relations that had been established at home. "course it's only right yuh should accept, lad," he said presently, "it's give me much comfort to know yuh was gittin' on so well with the ole woman, for i've felt bad on 'count o' her many times sense _he_ war taken. but it's a chance thet may never kim again, an' we cudn't 'spect to tie yuh down. anyhow, your comin' hez been a good thing fur nancy, an' i reckons she'll begin to perk up from now on. 'sides, who knows wot may kim outen this? jest as she sez thet younker aint interested in yuh jest acause he wants a feller in the boat along with him--i tell yuh he thinks he knows who yuh belong to, and that's a fack, son." "oh! i hope so; but i don't dare dream of it. but i'm glad you think well of his offer. i can earn some money that will help out at home, besides having a good time," said darry, eagerly; though truth to tell, it was the faint hope lodged in his heart that he might learn something concerning his past that chief of all influenced him in his desire to go with the owner of the motor-boat. "glad to hear yuh say that word '_home_,' boy. i hopes it is a home to yuh, an' allers will be. i've ben thinkin' that your comin' war the greatest favor heaven ever sent to me an' mine. if it gives nancy new life that means a lot to me." darry knew not what to say to this, but he found the rough hand of abner, and with a hearty squeeze expressed his feelings far better than any words could ever have done. chapter xv the power of music it seemed as though luck favored darry on this trip, for the wind veered around during the night, and blew out of the southeast when he was ready to start on his return voyage to the mainland. thus he was able to use his little sail to advantage both ways. it was coming so hard off the ocean, however, that at the advice of abner he took a reef in the canvas before leaving--the life saver had become so attached to his new boy by this time that he could not bear to see him taking any unnecessary chances on that sheet of treacherous water that had already deprived him of one son. darry was glad he had taken his friend's advice before half way across. where the wind had a full sweep of the bay the waves were quite heavy, and it required all his skill as a sailor to keep his cranky little craft head on. as it was, he reached his haven with a rush, and his tactics in making a landing aroused the admiration of several old fisherman who were lounging at the dock. he had only time to accomplish several little messages at the store and get on the road for home when it began to drizzle. darry was sorry for this, for he had laid out to visit his traps again during the afternoon, not wishing to leave any game that may have been taken, too long in the water. when later on at lunch he mentioned this to mrs. peake she said he would find an old oilskin jacket of abner's behind the closet door in the hall, which joe had been wont to don under similar circumstances. so after all, he went forth, defying the elements, as a true sailor lad always does; and was rewarded for his labor by taking three more trophies from the firm-jawed traps. really it was beginning to look like business, with so many on the stretching boards; and mrs. peake smiled to see how careful the boy was in everything he undertook. it spoke well for his future, if he carried the same principle into his whole life. of course darry knew full well that the skins he was taking thus early in the fall were not as good in quality, and would not be apt to bring as high prices in the fur marts as those to be captured when real cold weather had set in; but there are times when one has to make hay while the sun shines; and he could not be sure that he would have the opportunity to do these things later. besides, the supply of rats seemed unlimited, so rapidly do they breed all over the eastern coast, from maine to the florida line. the rain continued all that night and the better part of the following day. it was one of those easterly storms that generally last out portions of three days, and are followed by a lengthy spell of good weather, with touches of frost in the early mornings. darry made his regular pilgrimage to the marsh in spite of the rain, and this time found only two prizes to reward his diligence. from this he determined that it was time to make a change of base, and set his traps in other places where the game might not be so wary. at any rate he was having no further trouble with the dilks crowd, and in that he found more or less satisfaction. unconscious of the fact that he was being watched from time to time by one of the cronies of which jim boasted, darry went about his business, satisfied to do his daily duties, and each night count some progress made. twice had he crossed the bay to the strip of sandy beach where the tides of the mighty atlantic pounded unceasingly, day and night. his coming was always eagerly anticipated by the whole crew of the life-saving station, and for a good reason. it happened that on his visit just after the easterly storm had blown out, while they were all gathered around just before dark, chatting and joking, darry cocked up his ear at the tweeking sound of a fiddle, which one of the men had drawn out of its case, and was endeavoring to play. altogether he made a most doleful series of sounds, which upon analysis might prove to be an attempt to play "annie laurie," though one would need all his wits about him to settle whether this were the tune, or "home, sweet home." the men looked daggers at the player, for the screeching sounds were certainly anything but pleasant. darry sauntered over. he had played since a little lad, some italian having first taught him; and on the brigantine captain harley had a violin of more than ordinary make, with which he had coaxed the cabin boy to make melody by the hour. "sounds like a pretty good instrument?" suggested darry to the would-be performer. "they tell me that, boy; but you see i ain't much of a judge. p'raps in time i may get on to the racket, that is if the boys don't fire me and the fiddle out before-hand," replied the surfman, grinning, for his clumsy hands were really never intended by nature to handle a violin bow. "would you mind letting me try it? i used to play a little." at the first sound of that bow crossing the strings, after darry had properly tuned the instrument every man sat up and took notice; and as the boy bent down and lovingly drew the sweetest chords from the violin that they had ever heard, they actually held their breath. after that he was kept busy; indeed they would hardly let him have any rest, and that was why those rough men looked forward eagerly to the expected coming of abner peake's new boy. it seemed as though he must know everything there was, and the music would turn from riotous ragtime to the most tender chords, capable of drawing tears from those eyes so unused to weeping. it was a rare treat to darry, too, for he dearly loved music, and the absence of his fiddle had made a gap in his life. the month was now passing, and closer drew the stormy period when, with the advent of grim november, the duties of the beach patrol naturally grow more and more laborious, since there are greater possibilities of wrecks, with the strong winds and the fogs that bewilder mariners, and allow them to run upon the reefs when they believe they are scores of miles away from the danger zone. the boom of guns could now be heard all day, and frequently darry saw northern sportsmen in the village; though as a rule they kept on board their yachts or else stayed at the various private clubs up or down the sound. jim dilks and his gang still lay low. they awaited a favorable opportunity to carry out some evil scheme, whereby the boy they had come to fear, as well as hate, might be injured. well, they knew that he made daily trips into the marsh, and it would seem that they might find the chance they craved at such times; but there was one thing to deter them, and this was the fact that darry never went to examine his traps without carrying that steady-shooting old shotgun. the burnt child dreads the fire, and jim had hardly ceased to rub his injured parts, so that the possibility of getting a second dose was not at all alluring in his eyes. he was a good waiter, and he felt that sooner or later fortune would turn the trick for him, and the chance arise whereby he might pay back the debt he owed the "interloper," as he chose to deem darry. chapter xvi darry meets with a rebuff during these weeks darry had accomplished many little jobs around his new home, things that had been wanting looking after for a long time; for abner's visits were so few and far between that he had little time to mend broken doors, or put up shelves where they would save the "missus" steps. if he went off with paul singleton later he would have no chance to look after these things, and so he made good use of his opportunities. he had not seen the young gentleman once since, and upon making inquiries of the storekeeper, learned that he had gone to a very exclusive club to spend some little time. darry wondered whether he had been utterly forgotten. perhaps the youth had regretted asking him to keep him company; it may have been done on the spur of the moment, simply because he chanced to resemble someone he knew. once in the comfortable club, with experienced guides to attend him, and the very best points for shooting reserved, doubtless paul singleton had forgotten that there was such a boy as darry in existence. so he tried to forget about it, and make up his mind that he could find plenty of congenial work looking after his traps and assisting abner's wife during the winter, with occasional trips across the sound, and possibly a chance to pull an oar in the surfboat, should luck favor him. all this while he had taken toll of the feathered frequenters of the marsh, and many a plump fowl graced the table of the peake family, thanks to the faithful old gun, and the steady nerves back of it. darry soon learned where there were squirrels to be found, and twice he had brought in a mess of the gray nutcrackers, though not so fond of hunting them as other game. and one day he had delighted the good housewife with four nice quail, or as they were known in this section, "pa'tridge," which he had dropped out of a bevy that got up before him in the brush close to the woods where he looked for squirrel. he knew that something had been troubling mrs. peake, but it was a long time before he could tempt her to speak of it. it concerned money matters, of course, as is nearly always the case when trouble visits the poor. abner had been incautious enough to put a little mortgage upon his humble home in order to help a relative who was in deep distress because of several sudden deaths in her family. he should not have done it, to be sure, but abner had a big heart, as darry well knew, and simply could not resist the pleading of his cousin. no doubt she meant well, but circumstances had arisen that prevented her from repaying the debt, and for the want of just one hundred dollars the peakes were in danger of being dispossessed. of course the mortgage was in the hands of a money shark, for even little villages boast their loan offices, where some usurer expects to get ten per cent. on his money, and will not hesitate to foreclose if it is not forthcoming. abner's friends were all as poor as he was, and besides, he was so bashful about such things that he could never muster enough courage to mention his financial troubles to anybody. when by degrees darry managed to draw this story from mrs. peake he thought it all over while off on one of his swamp trips, and reached a conclusion. that very day he stepped into the store of a man who as he chanced to know purchased the few furs that were taken in a season around that section. he learned that pelts were bringing unusually good prices, and the party quoted as high as eighty cents for fall muskrat skins, properly treated. when he got home, darry counted his catch and found that he had some twenty-six in stock; with these he went back to the dealer, and struck a bargain whereby he came away with fourteen dollars in his pocket. then he made for the office of the lawyer who held the mortgage, thinking he could pay up the arrears of interest, and bring happiness to the face of his kind benefactress. just there he struck a snag. the loan shark refused to accept the money. he claimed that since they had defaulted on the interest the entire amount was due, and that he meant to have it, or foreclose. darry knew little of law, but he saw that darius quarles meant business, and suspected that for some reason he meant to hold to his advantage and give abner peake more or less trouble. "mr. quarles, if you would only accept this interest now, i think i can promise that the whole sum will be paid by spring," darry said, eagerly. this was, of course, just what the lawyer did not want. he pretended to look skeptical, and shook his head. "i suppose you are the boy peake has adopted. where did you get this money, may i ask? did nancy send you here with it?" he went on; and from the look in his cold, blue eyes, it was apparent that he would have enjoyed having the woman on her knees before him. darius quarles was a very small-minded man evidently; even a boy like darry could understand that. "no, she does not know i have come here," replied our hero. "then where did you get the money? boys as a rule don't sport such sums as fourteen dollars in a bunch. i haven't heard of any bank being robbed, or a sportsman being held up; but you understand, it looks suspicious, boy." darry flushed with mortification at the insult; but because of mrs. peake he managed to bite his lips and refrain from telling the curmudgeon just what he thought of him. "i received that fourteen dollars not ten minutes ago from a merchant in this village. he will vouch for it if you ask him," he said, quietly, though his eyes flashed fire. "just mention his name, if you please. i might take a notion to drop in and see if he corroborates your assertion. as i am a magistrate as well as a lawyer, it is my bounden duty to make sure there is nothing crooked in such transactions as come under my observation. who is the man?" he tried to look stern, but the attempt was a failure. nature had made mr. quarles only to appear small and mean. "it was mr. ketcham, the hardware man," the boy answered. "and what would he be paying you this munificent sum for? so far as i know you have never worked for ketcham, boy. now, be careful not to commit yourself. what was this money given to you for doing?" darry smiled as he drew out a paper. how fortunate that the hardware merchant who sold traps and purchased such furs as were taken in that region had insisted upon giving him a little bill of sale, in order to bind the transaction, and prove conclusively what the reigning price happened to be at the time. "please glance at that, sir." darius quarles did so, and a shade of disappointment crossed his face. "i see you have taken up the same foolish pursuit that young joe peake followed--wasting your time loafing in the marsh when you had better be going to school and perhaps learning to become a useful man, a lawyer like myself for instance." darry shrugged his shoulders, and his action brought a frown to the face of the narrow-minded man who sat there before him; perhaps he jumped to the conclusion that this frank-faced lad did not entertain such an exalted notion of his greatness as he would have liked to impress upon him. "at least that proves i did not steal the money, mr. quarles?" asked darry. "i suppose so, though it is an open question as to whether you have any right to take these little inoffensive animals, and sell their coats to ketcham. i think he might be in a better business; but then he always was a cruel boy." as darry remembered the hardware man he believed him to be a jolly, red-faced man, and with a kindly eye, quite the opposite from the fishy orb of mr. quarles; but then there are some things that had better remain unsaid, and he did not try to voice his opinion. "then you will not do mrs. peake this little favor, sir?" he asked. "business is business with me, young man. sometimes it is one person's day, and then the tables turn, and it is another's. this happens to be my time. according to the strict construction of the law, and the wording of the mortgage, the failure to pay the interest on time, with three days' grace, constitutes a lien on the property. i have a use for that cottage--in fact, a relative of mine fancies it. here, i will give nancy a chance to redeem her home. wait a minute or two." he wrote rapidly on a sheet of paper, signed the same, and held it out. "seven days i agree to wait, and if the principal and delayed interest are not handed over to me by next tuesday, just one week from to-day, on wednesday they will have to vacate. that will do, boy. tell nancy i only do that because of our old friendship. had it been anyone else they would have cleared out before this. you can go now." darry had to bite his lips harder than ever to keep from telling the skinflint just what he thought of him. thrusting the paper in his pocket he stalked from the den of the human spider, his mind in a whirl; but grimly determined to try and find some means for saving the humble home of abner peake from the hand of the spoiler. chapter xvii abner tells a little history as he walked home that evening darry was figuring. fourteen dollars was not going far when the sum required, according to the figures mr. quarles had written out, reached the grand total of a hundred and eleven dollars and thirty-seven cents. he had had much more than that on board the poor old _falcon_ when she went to pieces, the amount of his savings for several years; but there was no use of his thinking about that. to whom could he look for assistance? he had not a friend, save new ones in the village; and even mr. keeler would be apt to decline to lend him money. times were hard, collections very slow--he had heard this said many times of late--and to small merchants the sum of a hundred dollars means much. darry thought it best not to say anything just then to mrs. peake, though a little later he must tell her about his visit to the money lender, and deliver the message mr. quarles had sent to her. he was due to cross the sound on the morrow, and perhaps it would be best to tell abner first; he might have been making some arrangement to get someone else to assume the mortgage, and pay the lawyer off. so darry tried to assume a cheerfulness he was far from feeling. long he lay awake that night, thinking and trying to lay out some plan of action that might promise results. in the morning darry visited his traps. only one victim rewarded his labor, and this added to his gloom. he finished all his various chores, and they were many, for he had taken numerous duties upon his shoulders in order to spare abner's wife. as before, it was nearly the middle of the afternoon before he could get away. mr. keeler loaded him down with packages intended for the station-keeper; indeed darry had to make two trips between the store and his boat before he had all his cargo aboard. the weather was what a sailor would call "dirty"; that is, it gave promise of turning into more or less of a storm, and wise mariners would be keeping a weather eye out for a safe and snug harbor. darry had no fear. he believed he knew that bay like a book now, and since he had tinkered with the boat and placed it in fair condition he thought it could stand any sea that might meet him in his passage to and fro between the mainland and the stretch of sand acting as a buffer to the ocean tides. it was a dead calm when he started, and he was compelled to use the oars; but by the time he reached the middle a breeze sprang up, and quick to take advantage of his opportunity he spread his bit of a sail, and went flying along like a frightened gull. abner was always glad to see him, and taking advantage of the first chance to get the life saver alone, darry told of his recent experience with the loan shark. the other looked very downcast; indeed, darry could not remember having ever seen him appear so disheartened. "it means trouble for the poor ole woman, darry. if i kin only muster up enough courage to ask some o' the folks to help me out p'raps we kin pull through; but the best o' friends pull back wen money is spoken of. they all got ther own burdens to kerry. i know i war a fool to ever do it; but jenny got on my nerves yuh see, an' promised to give it back. an' thet shark, quarles, it does him a lot o' good to know he kin push me down a peg," he said, with a heavy sigh. "i seemed to get the notion that he didn't love you very much, mr. peake," remarked darry. "i thort he'd forgot all about it, but now i know he ain't, the skunk! he holds it agin me, and hes all these years. i reckon he jest hugged hisself wen i kim to him an' asked that loan. it war jest like playin' into his hands. yuh see, lad, him an' me was rivals onct on a time." darry pricked up his ears. here was a touch of romance, something one would hardly expect to find in connection with so ordinary looking a man as abner peake. "you mean that he wanted nancy--that is mrs. peake, to marry him?" he asked. "thet's jest it, son. i reckon he'd a got her, too, fur i didn't hold a candle to darius wen it kim to looks or larnin', but yuh see thet's whar chanct stepped in an' guv me a shove." "something happened then?" "nancy fell overboard off a boat we was all on. darius, he didn't know how to swim and all he could do was to yell and wave his arms." "and you went overboard after her?" "i reckon i did. they sed as how i was in the water nigh about as quick as nancy herself. she was a carryin' on high, like she was chokin', when i got to her, but i had her out in a jiffy. arter thet she kinder took to me, an' darius he got the mitten." "now i understand why he feels that way toward you," said darry, wisely. "they was some things i never did understand 'bout that thing. nancy, she was allers the best gal swimmer in the village, but she did act like she was drownin' that day. some sed as how they thort she tumbled over apurpose jest to hev some fun, an' see which o' her beaux'd drap in arter her the quickest," and the surfman smiled at the thought. "and you won out. i guess mr. quarles has never forgiven you for that. but what can be done to beat him at his game now? isn't there any way?" "we got a week to try, an' as i git off before the end o' the time i'll see if anything kin be did. p'rhaps keeler might help me out, though i did hear him say he was mighty hard up jest now. it was nice in yuh tryin' to do wot yuh did, boy. i knowed i wasn't makin' no mistake when i sized yuh up as the right sorter lad to take leetle joey's place." the life saver put an arm affectionately across the shoulders of his companion, and darry never felt prouder in his life than when he realized that he had "made good" with this simple surfman who had been so kind to him at their first meeting. "i only wish i had been able to do what i wanted to. it it had been any other man but mr. quarles i think he would have fixed it up, and i meant to put aside what i earned this winter, either from trapping or working for mr. singleton, to wipe out all that debt. i will yet, if i have the chance, and you can get somebody to take over the mortgage," he said, stoutly. "give me time to think, lad. wen yuh kim acrost another time p'raps i'll have some plan made up. i'd do nigh anything to save pore nancy bein' put outen our leetle home. 'taint much to look at, but she sets a heap by it, i reckon. and as soon as i git a chanct i mean to drop outen this business an' try to make a livin' another way, so i kin be home more. fishin' it might be, er somethin' thet way." that night darry played for the men, but they could not help noticing that much of his music was along the sad order. in the morning the sky was still overcast, and the sound lay in a bank of half darkness that looked like fog, though the whistling wind seemed to forbid such a thing. abner was a little dubious about letting the boy depart, but darry laughed at the idea of any harm befalling him. he had several things he wished to attend to, and besides, mrs. peake would need him through the day in many ways. he entered his boat and took up the oars for a hard row, for the wind was of too deceptive a character to allow him to make use of his sail. the men of the station had come down to see him off, for by this time darry had won his way into the hearts of every rough fellow, and they looked upon him as a sort of general ward of the crew, pulled out of the sea at their door and destined for great things. not one of them but who believed a bright future awaited peake's new boy, and many were the predictions made among them, some even venturing the assertion that he would be president yet. so they waved their sou'westers and shouted a merry good-bye to him as he rowed into the gray blanket of mist that shrouded the sound. chapter xviii the imprisoned launch the prospect ahead did not dismay darry at all. he had been a sailor for some years and was accustomed to meeting all kinds of bad weather. besides, his boat though old, was staunch, and could hold its own against waves that would upset another craft less steady; and then again he knew how to handle his oars with the skill that only long practice can bring. by degrees he lost sight of the sandy shore. he was now surrounded by a heaving sheet of water, and it required all his knowledge of things nautical to keep his bearings, for it was impossible to see even the slightest object on any side. the situation would have alarmed many a lad less accustomed to depending on himself in emergencies. darry felt no fear. he noted the direction of the waves, and unless the wind shifted suddenly, which it was not apt to do, he felt positive he could bring up somewhere along the shore near the village. to his surprise he heard the sullen boom of a gun close by and wondered what any sportsman could be doing out there in that dense atmosphere, where it was impossible to see more than fifty feet away. certainly ducks could not be coming to stool under such conditions. what could he be firing at then? there it was again, one shot following another in rapid order, until he had counted six. that would indicate the possession of one of those new style repeating shotguns, capable of holding half a dozen shells, and worked with a pump action. all of a sudden it struck darry that possibly someone was in trouble and was taking this means of summoning assistance; though the chances were very slight that any bayman would be anywhere near with that gray blanket covering things--they knew enough to stick to the shore at such a time. our hero changed his course a little thinking it could do no harm to look into matters and see what the bombarding meant. should it prove that some green sportsman from one of the clubs was lost in the mist perhaps he would be glad of help, and might even promise to pay liberally to be taken ashore in tow. just then darry's mind was filled with an eager desire to make money, for he knew of a good use to which he could put it. again as he approached, the rattle of a fusilade came to his ears, followed by a series of shouts in a strained voice. he was close on the spot apparently. "hello!" he shouted in return. an answering whoop came back. "this way, please! i'm in a peck of trouble here!" he heard someone say. twisting his head around as he bobbed up and down on the rollers, our hero caught just a glimpse of some object that seemed stationary, with the waves breaking over it. it was even worse than being lost upon the sound then--the unknown had driven his boat upon some half hidden rocks, and caught as in a vise she was in danger of being wrecked unless some other craft came upon the spot and pulled her off. that accounted for the shots and shouts, her owner realizing his extreme peril, for he was two miles from land and the storm increasing constantly. darry pushed on and soon another surprise awaited him. "hello! is that you, darry?" asked a voice, and now he recognized it, so that even before he turned around again he knew he was once more in the company of paul singleton. "how are you, sir?" he cried. "looks like you had run aground in the middle of the bay. if you will give me a rope i'll try and drag you off the way you went on. that is the only thing to be done." "i like the way you go about business," answered the young man. "i begin to have hopes that my poor little _griffin_ may come out of this adventure with a whole skin. it began to look as though i might have to swim for it. here you are with the painter, which i have fastened to the stern. all depends on how good a haul you can give, darry." "what happened to your engine, sir?" asked the boy, surprised that it was not working in the effort to help the boat off. "i'll start it up again, but it did no good before, only churned the water. it seems i am wedged between two rocks so fast that even the lift of the waves has no effect upon the boat. they break all over us, and i'm wet to the skin and shivering in the bargain. you're as welcome as the flowers in may, darry." the engine was speedily started up and the little propeller thrashed the water at a great rate, but though the cedar craft trembled violently there was no change in her position. "keep that up and stay in the stern, so as to lighten the bow all you can. i think that is where she is caught fast. if you have anything heavy up forward and can manage to shift it aft so much the better," called darry, as he kept off by an expert use of the oars; indeed, paul never could understand how he managed to do this and secure the rope to a thwart at the same time. "there are a few things up there i can move--the water can and a lot of stuff in tins. will you be able to hold out a few minutes longer?" asked paul. "easy enough. take your own time, sir. when you're ready tell me, and i'll give a series of sharp jerks. i hope we can make her move some." presently the owner of the motor-boat declared he had moved everything possible, and that the bow seemed to be a little more free than before, as though almost ready to rise with each flowing wave that swept past with a rush. darry set to work and began to use every atom of strength in his sturdy muscles; at the same time he engineered matters in such a clever fashion that every time he pulled his oars through the water it was with a rapid movement in the nature of a shock, so that the little hawser tightening, gave a drag at the imprisoned craft. "she's moving!" yelled paul singleton, excitedly. darry kept right along, pulling with even more vim than before. "bully boy! she's coming! i can feel her move each time. if only an inch, it is something. we're going to get her off! it's a cinch, i tell you!" plainly paul singleton was considerably excited over the changed prospect that confronted him, and his cries gave the lad heart to exert himself to the utmost. suddenly he found that he was towing the launch behind him. she had left her berth in between the two rocks and floated on the waves. the owner gave a last whoop of delight. "i knew if anyone could accomplish it, you would. i think you must be my good genius, darry. to think of our meeting again here in the middle of the bay and just when i was on my way to your home to see if i could induce you to keep your half-given promise. it's great! tell me about destiny after this." that was the way paul was calling out, as he busied himself in righting things aboard the jaunty little cedar craft. [illustration: she had left her berth in between the two rocks and floated on the waves.] "now, what's to hinder you coming aboard and towing the rowboat astern? the engine is all right and capable of twelve miles an hour, so we can go with this blow easily enough," he suggested. darry was quite willing, for his arms felt a bit weary after his exerions, and the launch did look comfortable, even though fairly drenched just then, as a result of the waves breaking over the stern while she was held a prisoner in the jaws of rock. the transfer was made without any particular trouble, and once darry had secured his boat to the brass cleat in the stern of the launch he set to work throwing some of the surplus water overboard. "working your passage, eh?" laughed paul, who seemed to be in unusually high spirits, such was the re-action that had come over him. meanwhile they drew in toward the land. what with the rain that was falling both of them were wet through; but this was such a chronic condition for a sailor lad to be in that darry, for one, paid little attention to it. chapter xix the part of an elder brother "come," said paul, after the boat had been tied up where the waves could not reach them and things had begun to assume a more comfortable aspect; "here's a fine little cabin and an oil stove on which to make a hot pot of coffee, besides assisting to dry us out. i insist on you staying to keep me company for a while. we are both cold and wet. say you will, darry!" darry did not need much urging. he was wet and chilled, and it did look cozy after paul had started the stove going. "besides," continued paul, misconstruing his silence; "i am under heavy obligations to you for coming to my assistance when you did. you saved my life and you are a regular life saver like mr. peake. there must be some way in which i can partly cancel that debt. you are allowed salvage by law when you save a vessel, darry, did you know it? but for your coming my poor little _griffin_ must have gone to pieces, not to mention what would have become of her owner. now, how can i settle for this indebtedness." he was laughing as he spoke, but darry considered the moment had come for him to put in a plea for his friends. so he swallowed what seemed to be a lump in his throat, for after all it was no easy thing to ask such a favor from one who was hardly more than a stranger. "mr. singleton, i was just wishing i could meet you somewhere soon," he began. "well, that is queer, since i was thinking about you too, and hoping you would not go back on me, for somehow, i seem to have set my mind on having you with me. and besides, there was another reason why i wanted to keep track of you, which i may tell you some day soon, darry. but why were you wanting to see me?" "to ask a great favor?" "not to let you off from your promise?" "oh, no, i'll be only too glad of a chance to be with you. it would be glorious to spend some time aboard this fine little boat. what i wanted to say--that is, the favor i wanted to ask was not for myself." "come, that's rather strange, darry. not for yourself--a favor for another? let's hear what it's about. you've certainly excited my curiosity, and don't hesitate a bit about it. i shall be only too willing to do anything that lies in my power, if it pleases you." the words were most kind, and the smile that accompanied them even more so. darry flushed with a sense of coming victory, for something told him he was in line to win out, and that the money-shark would be cheated of his prey. "i want to borrow a hundred dollars, sir," he said, slowly. paul laughed as if amused. immediately taking out his pocket-book he withdrew from it a bank bill of a large denomination and handed it to his companion, who received it in an embarrassed way. "there you are, darry, and there is no loan about it. i owe you many times that much for your assistance. now, don't say anything about it, for i am not used to being crossed. it's a mere bagatelle to me, as you must know. some time if you feel like it you may tell me the circumstances that have arisen; but not until you're good and ready. i'm only too delighted to be of a little help." "i'm going to tell you all about it right here. it's only fair you should know where your money is going, sir. as soon as i get my breath you shall hear," went on darry, fingering the hundred dollar bill as though he could hardly believe his senses. never did a bill of like denomination seem to carry more happiness in its touch; he could easily picture the light that would dawn upon the worried features of mrs. peake when he handed her that mortgage, canceled, and abner, too, how he would be likely to throw up his hat in the air and shout like a boy. paul singleton had been observing him curiously, but with kindling eyes, as if he saw more and more in this boy to admire; he could give something of a guess as to what was coming, and hence was not much surprised a little later when he heard the story of darius quarles and his long-slumbering revenge. he laughed heartily at the quaint way in which abner had hinted about nancy tumbling overboard on purpose, in order to discover which of her lovers was the better man. "i've met the lady, and to tell the truth i really believe she would have been equal to such a prank some years back. there's a lurking spirit of mischief in her eyes to this day, though i know she has met with a great grief lately, for i heard all about poor little joe," paul said, after darry had finished. "you can never understand how glad i am to be able to bring a little joy to this poor couple. they have not known much happiness, sir. even now, abner is compelled to be away from home all the time in order to earn bread for his family." paul singleton seemed to consider. "we'll talk that over later on, darry, when we have plenty of time," he answered. "perhaps i may be able to suggest a remedy. i have shares in several properties down this way, and possibly abner can be given a steady job as keeper at the club, or put in charge of a farm i own not far away from here. depend upon it, some means can be found to help your benefactor out. i'd rather talk about you, just now, and what you have seen in your adventurous past. in fact, i'd like to know everything that ever happened to you, if you don't mind," he continued. again darry had that queer sensation pass over him, and he could not but remember what abner had said about the possibility of his finding out something connected with his childhood, and that this young gentleman would be the means of supplying the missing link. so as they sat there and sipped the delicious coffee and dried out in comfort, he answered all the questions paul could think of asking. they covered his entire past, from his earliest recollection, and especially about the old man who had finally deserted him in naples, for he naturally occupied a prominent place in the recital. darry had called him uncle, but thought the man could not have held that relationship toward him. he never knew what had become of the old man, but suspected that he must have met with some fatal accident in the italian city. then he narrated how he had supported himself by playing the violin, and at the same time learned to speak italian as well as a native. finally came the scene in the café, when captain harley rescued him from the cruelty of a bully, and after that there was very little to tell up to the time the brigantine was lost and his best friend vanished from the scene, never to appear again on earth. paul singleton harked back to his earliest recollections, and with the skill of a lawyer asked questions that put darry's memory to a strain; he examined the singular mark upon the boy's arm with deepest interest and seemed impressed. "that will undoubtedly prove one thing or the other, as soon as i can see her," darry heard him say, as if to himself. evidently paul singleton knew nothing of the mark and was depending upon some other party to settle the identification. it was noon before either of them realized it. darry declared he must hurry off so as to catch the lawyer at his office and settle matters before going home. "hark, darry," said paul, holding his hand as they parted; "promise me that if there is anything else i can do to please you i'm to know it right away. confide in me, my boy. it makes me happy to share, even to a limited extent, in your little affairs. and you know we are going to be great chums all winter, you and i. look on me then as a sort of elder brother or a cousin, if you please." and darry thought as he looked into the clear laughing eyes of paul singleton that nothing would give him greater happiness on earth than if he could claim relationship to this fine manly fellow. he seemed to be walking on air as he left the cove and headed into the village. upon calling at the office of darius quarles he was disappointed to learn that the lawyer had gone off in his closed buggy early that morning, and would not be back all day--he had to foreclose a mortgage the clerk remarked, and never allowed that duty to be performed by a subordinate, for it gave him too much satisfaction to attend to it personally. even his employees had a secret contempt for his mean ways, it seemed. "he expects to be home to supper, and if your business is pressing you might call at his house, which is just out of the village on the road to harden," the young clerk said in concluding. "thank you, i believe i shall call, as i wish to see him very much," replied darry, and left the place. he made his way along the rather lonely road that led to the humble home of the peakes, bowing his head to the storm, and yet with a song of thanksgiving swelling in his heart, for he knew he was carrying with him the means of lifting the load that had for some time oppressed his kind benefactors. suddenly something struck him a stunning blow and looking up as he staggered he heard a chorus of shrill laughs, and realized that a rope had been thrown around him in such a way that his arms were pinioned down at his sides. at the same moment several impish figures sprang out of the dense brush and fell upon him with vicious blows, as though bent upon knocking him down. though they had their faces concealed after a ridiculous fashion he recognized the malicious laugh of one as belonging to jim dilks. chapter xx bad luck and good of course darry knew what this attack meant. his enemy had been brooding over matters for a long time, and despairing of accomplishing his end while darry was armed with a gun, during his daily visits to the big marsh, he had finally decided to lie in wait and have it out on the road from the village. jim wisely backed himself up with a couple of allies in thus undertaking to give his enemy that long-delayed whipping. he had tried it once by himself and apparently had no relish to repeat the experiment. perhaps it would have been the part of wisdom on the part of the young life saver to have taken to his heels and beat a masterly retreat. great generals have done this same thing and considered it no dishonor to save their army for another day. to a high-spirited lad, however, it is the last thought, and many a fellow will stand the chances of a beating rather than to turn his back on the foe. of course there was no time to consider the matter. the three disguised boys attacked him on all sides, and almost before darry knew what he was doing blows were being exchanged with a vim. he fought gallantly and well, sending in just as many hard hits as his knowledge of the game permitted. whenever he saw an opening he was quick to take advantage of the same, and as a consequence first one of jim's supporters and then the other temporarily bit the dust, with a galaxy of stars floating before their mental vision. they were very much surprised. true, they may have heard something about the fighting abilities of this wonderful new boy; but jim had kept declaring that only for his lame hand he would surely have easily come out victor on that memorable day of the first meeting, and they were forced to believe him. artful jim was wise enough to do a great deal of jumping about, but seemed quite willing his allies should meet with the brunt of the battle while he saved himself for the finishing touches. when darry had tired himself out against sim clark and bowser then his time would have arrived. darry anticipated being whipped in the encounter. it was not to be expected that one boy could hold his own against three such tough customers as those opposed to him, since they would wear him out. nevertheless, he declined to run at the beginning, and after a little it was entirely out of the question for him to do so, since he lacked the wind to conduct a flight. so there was really nothing to do but stand and take what was coming to him, at the same time give as good as he knew how. they would never be able at any rate to say they had won an easy victory. by this time they were beautifully daubed with mud, as each appeared to be the under dog while the minutes crept along. darry's only hope lay in the possibility of some one passing that way, and as the day was so stormy, and few people ever took this road, his chances were indeed slender. now the whole bunch seemed to be upon the ground alongside the road, struggling like a pack of kilkenny cats, the three aggressors having their hands on darry at one time in the endeavor to subdue him. suddenly jim gave a hoarse cry. "haul off dere, fellers; somebody's comin'!" was what he ejaculated. immediately the other two sprang to their feet like a couple of deer, afraid lest they be caught at their game; perhaps a vision of old hank squires flashed before them, with the penitentiary in the background. darry, out of breath, but game to the last, made an ineffectual attempt to hold one of his tormentors, catching the flying end of his jacket; but such was the moment of sim's upward movement, and the flimsy character of his wearing apparel, that the entire section came away, remaining in the grip of the enemy as he went tearing after his mates. the three of them plunged into the bushes alongside the road, and were lost to sight, leaving darry half sitting up on the road, plastered with mud, and ruefully surveying the strip of cloth in his hand. after all it proved to be a false alarm, for no one came in sight. darry was not foolish enough to invite a further attack by remaining on the ground after the enemy had temporarily withdrawn, so he gathered himself together and continued along the road, feeling of his limbs to ascertain just how seriously he had been bruised, and trying to scrape some of the mud from his clothes. he felt ashamed to let mrs. peake see him in this condition, for the clothes had been joe's, and naturally she would feel badly to discover how they were now treated to a coating of mud. but then the fact of his having such a joyful surprise for her would discount any bad effect of his appearance. thinking thus, darry put his hand eagerly into the inside pocket where he had so carefully stowed the little leather pocket-book in which the hundred dollar bill given him by paul, as well as the amount which his muskrat pelts had fetched at the hardware store, had been lodged. the pocket-book was gone! poor darry shivered as if someone had struck him a blow. could he have lost it while upon the shore with paul singleton and had the angry sound claimed it as passage money for having allowed a victim to escape? no, he recollected very distinctly feeling it there as he started from the office of the lawyer, after learning that mr. quarles was away. then it must have fallen out during his struggles on the road, for several times he had been on his back, with those "wildcats" clawing at him. despite the chances of meeting them again, and having the struggle renewed, he deliberately turned back and quickly ran to the spot where there were plain evidences to be seen of the free-for-all fight. how eagerly he searched every foot of that territory, his heart, figuratively speaking, in his throat with anxiety. but as the minutes passed and he realized the hopeless character of his hunt it seemed to drop like lead into his shoes, the change was so great. then there remained only one solution of the mystery--one of those young rascals must have inserted a hand in his coat while they were struggling there on the road and stolen the pocket-book with its contents. his heart seemed almost broken, and he even contemplated rushing after them to renew the battle and tear the prize from their possession; but a little thought caused him to understand how foolish such a move would be, for he had no idea as to what quarter they could he heading for when they left him, unless it might be that shack in the swamp, and it would be rash indeed for him to go there alone. he tried to pluck up courage enough to go home, basing all his hopes on paul, who had seemed so very kind, and ready to help him out. of course mrs. peake was astonished at his appearance, but the rising anger vanished when she learned who had been the cause of his misfortunes--at least it was turned in the direction of jim dilks, and she vowed that before another day had passed she would swear out a warrant for his arrest, and go personally to see that hank squires did his duty. depressed in spirits darry crept away to change his clothes for some others she brought him, also once belonging to joe. mrs. peake advised that the muddy garments be hung up until they dried, when by a vigorous brushing they might be restored to something like their former condition of cleanliness. accordingly, darry first of all picked up the trousers and placed them on a line in a corner of the room, where they could drip without soiling the floor, he having spread a newspaper beneath. then he proceeded to attend to the coat in the same way. while engaged in this he felt something bulky in one of the pockets and smiled faintly as he remembered thrusting that portion of sim's torn coat there. this he had done under the impression that hank might consider it conclusive evidence, calculated to convict the young ruffian beyond a possibility of doubt. it might just as well hang alongside the other garments, though darry did not intend removing the incriminating mud stains from the fragment. as he drew the offending piece of cloth out he was thrilled to feel something in the folds, and with trembling fingers he opened it out. it seemed that with the portion of the coat that had come away in his hands was one of the pockets, and out of this receptacle darry quickly drew something at which he stared as though he fancied he were dreaming. _his pocket-book!_ sim had undoubtedly snatched the same from his person as they wrestled upon the ground, and having no other place in which to hide it at the moment, had thrust it in the very outside pocket of his coat that a minute later remained in the grip of the boy he had robbed. darry stared at it until he realized the amazing fortune that had so kindly returned him his property, and then rolling over on the floor he shook with wild laughter, so that mrs. peake came to the door in alarm to see if he were ill. chapter xxi satisfying the mortgage while darry was gurgling with laughter, still clutching the fragment of coat and the precious pocket-book, he felt a hand seize his arm. looking up he saw the puzzled and anxious face of abner's wife. "what ails you, boy? did they injure you more than you told me?" she asked, as if fearful that he were going out of his mind. to the further astonishment of the good woman the boy climbed to his feet, suddenly threw his arms around her neck and gave her a vigorous hug. "it's all right, mother, after all; they didn't get it!" he exclaimed. "what's all right? i don't understand at all," she replied, looking at the dirty strip of cloth he was holding, and the pocket-book as well. "why, what do you think, while we were struggling there on the road, with me underneath part of the time, that sneak thief, sim clark, managed to steal my pocket-book out of my inner pocket. that was what made me seem so blue, for i had something in it i meant to show you. but when he tried to run away i held on and part of his coat ripped away. i stuck it in my pocket, thinking hank would like to see it as evidence, and when i took it out here, don't you see i found what i had lost in sim's pocket! did you ever hear of such luck in your born days." mrs. peake herself laughed. "you do seem to be a fortunate boy. and they would have robbed you of what little you have. i'm glad you got it back, and i'm determined to see hank squires to-morrow about this thing. it has gone far enough." "but i've got something else to tell you. come and sit down where we can talk," he continued, feeling happier than ever before in all his life, for he knew he was in a condition to chase away the clouds that had been bringing anxiety to her mind for months. so he told first of all about his visit to the hardware man, and how he obtained fourteen dollars for his muskrat skins. after that came the call upon the lawyer and what followed in connection with his offer to pay the interest due, and how mr. quarles had absolutely refused to accommodate him. nancy sighed as she heard what the cold, grasping man of law had said about settling old scores. perhaps she was sorry now she had given him such cause for hatred; but better the life she had led than one as the wife of a cruel money shark of his breed. from this darry soon branched out and spoke of his trip to the shore, and how on his return a kindly fate had allowed him to be of material assistance to the very young man with whom he expected to spend the winter on his launch. mrs. peake began to listen more eagerly now, for she surmised that something of a pleasant nature was coming. when darry finally placed the money in her hand, she looked at it in bewilderment, never having touched so much at one time in all her life; then she turned her tear-stained eyes upon him, and drawing him into her motherly arms kissed him again and again. and darry never felt so well repaid for any action of his life as that. there was sunshine in the peake house the balance of that day, even though the weather without was dark and overcast, for light hearts carry an atmosphere of their own that does not depend upon outside influences. the woman would not hear of darry's going to see the lawyer that night. something might happen to him again, with those malicious boys still at large, and it would be wiser she thought, to wait until morning, when the two of them could take the money to darius quarles and satisfy the mortgage. besides, nancy thought she would like to see what the money-lender looked like when finding his plans frustrated so neatly. "thank goodness that relative of his will have to wait some time before this house falls into his clutches," she remarked, for the fourth time, since it was impossible, just then, to talk about anything else. so when another day dawned, while the weather was still heavy they walked to the village and astonished the lawyer by appearing in his office soon after his arrival. supposing that nancy had come to beg for more time, he set his face in its hardest lines, even though pretending to be sympathetic--times were out of joint, collections difficult to make, and he absolutely needed every cent he could scrape together in order to meet his obligations--that was the way he put it, when she announced she had come in relation to the mortgage. "then i suppose you will be glad to receive this money, darius, and return the mortgage canceled to me. and you can be sure that abner will never trouble you in the same way again," she said, thrusting the full sum, with interest toward him. he slowly counted it, and found that every cent, as he had written it down for darry, was there. "ahem! this is an unexpected pleasure, nancy. i congratulate you, indeed i do, on your success in finding someone to take over the mortgage," he stammered, as his face turned from red to white, and his little eyes glittered. "you are mistaken. there will be no mortgage on my home after this. the money has been earned by this brave boy here, not borrowed," she said, coldly. this caused him to look at darry, and his mouth told that he was gritting his teeth wrathfully. "ah! yes, indeed, truly a remarkable boy. what has he been doing now--taking the rats of the swamp by wholesale, i presume? let me see, only yesterday he had sold twenty-six skins for fourteen dollars, and now a hundred dollar bill follows. it is amazing. pardon me if i doubt my eyes. i suppose the bill is a good one?" "we will wait here until you go and find out. you might ask mr. paul singleton, who has a little launch down at the docks, and is a member of the club above," replied mrs. peake, with stinging emphasis. "did mr. singleton give him this money?" demanded the lawyer, suddenly. "he did, for saving his launch out in the bay yesterday. and what is more, darry expects to cruise with him the balance of the winter. he has taken a great fancy for my boy. you can find him easily if you wish to ask him about this." it was wonderful how quickly the lawyer changed his manner. he knew who paul singleton was, and what wealth he represented in the exclusive sporting club near ashley. "that alters the complexion of the whole thing. now i congratulate darry on his good fortune in making such a good, easy friend. of course the bill must be all right if paul singleton gave it to him. i will immediately attend to the mortgage for you, and also see that it is satisfied on the books at the county office. meanwhile i shall write you out a receipt in full, showing that it has been paid." mrs. peake said nothing more. she felt the utmost contempt for this man, and having been enabled to defeat his scheme for humiliating herself and husband, wished to remain in his company no longer than was absolutely necessary. so she and darry presently went forth, and how pure even the stormy atmosphere seemed after being for half an hour in that spider's web of a lawyer's den. on the strength of the improved prospects mrs. peake felt that she was privileged to spend a portion of the small sum of money she had been hoarding against paying the interest, though as it had not amounted to the full sum she had not dared approach darius with an offer. mr. keeler, being a good friend of the peakes, and inclined to be hostile to the lawyer, she naturally confided her late troubles to his sympathetic ear, feeling that she could not keep silent. he shook the hand of the boy with sincerity, and declared that it was a great day for abner and his brood when the surf man helped to pull the cabin boy of the _falcon_ out of the sea. being a modest lad, darry escaped as soon as he could, and waited around until mrs. peake was ready to go home, when he showed up to carry her parcels. the family feasted that night most royally. darry himself had purchased a steak in the store as his donation, and this was a luxury the little peakes seldom knew. ducks and fish were all very well, together with oysters, when they could get them; but after all there was a sameness in the diet that rather palled on the appetite, and that beefsteak with onions did smell mighty fine, as even the good cook admitted. the future looked very rosy to both darry and abner's wife. when the latter heard what paul singleton had said about getting some place for the life saver ashore, where he could be with his family right along, the poor woman broke down and sobbed; but it was joy that caused the tears to flow, and darry felt his own eyes grow wet as he realized how she must have suffered while compelled to live in this mean way. nancy having been a teacher had looked to better things, no doubt; but abner thus far had lacked the ability to provide them for his family. now, however, the current had changed. "and to think it all comes through you, boy. god sent you to us, i believe, just when things were at the worst. how different it looks now. i am the happiest woman in ashley this night," she declared, and it seemed as though she could hardly take her beaming eyes off his face during that whole evening as they sat and built air castles for the future. it can be set down as certain that darry found it hard to get to sleep after so much excitement. long he lay there and went over all the recent experiences, to wonder again and again why providence was so good to him, the waif who had until the last few years known only cuffs and trouble. the morning showed no improvement in the weather, for which darry was sorry, because he wished to cross the sound in order to carry the glorious news to abner and relieve his mind of the worry that must even now fill it. and as the prospect was that even worse weather might follow before it would improve he determined to go, though mrs. peake was rather loth to grant permission. chapter xxii abner hears the news when darry reached the village and was making for the place where his boat was tied up, he remembered that paul singleton was close by with his motor-boat. perhaps he was aboard and would be interested in hearing what had happened to darry since they parted. accordingly he walked that way and was accosted by a genial voice calling: "all hail, comrade, what news? come aboard. just thinking about you, and if you hadn't hove in sight soon i meant to don my raincoat and saunter up to find out what was in the wind. here you are, just in time to join me at my lunch, such as it is--coffee, a canoeist stew and some fresh bread i bought from a good housewife in the village. sit down right there; no excuse, you must know sooner or later what sort of a cook i am, for we expect to share many a meal in common." in such a hearty way did paul singleton greet him, and of course darry had to obey orders, even though hardly hungry. he entertained paul with an account of his recent adventures, and that young gentleman nearly doubled up with merriment when he heard how a malicious fate had succeeded in cheating sim clark out of the reward of his villainy. "and where are you off to now?" demanded paul, when they had finished their "snack," as he termed it in southern style, and darry seemed to be getting ready to depart. "across to the station. mr. keeler told me last evening there was some important mail to go over, and i think its going to storm worse before it finally clears up." "looks pretty dusty out there even now, for your little tub. say, suppose we take your boat in tow and go over in the launch? i was wondering what to do only a little while back. besides, i've wanted to see the surfmen work their boat, and if it comes on to storm hard, perhaps there may be a necessity for them to launch. i'd be sorry to have a wreck occur; but if it does happen i'd like to be on hand. say yes, now, darry." of course he did, for who could resist paul singleton; especially when the passage could be made so much more quickly in the staunch little motor-boat than with his own clumsy craft. in a short time they sallied out. the cedar craft was a model of the boat builder's art, and carried a twelve-horse power engine, so that even though the wind and tide chanced to be against them they made steady progress toward the shore seen so dimly far across the sound. nearly every wave sent the spray flying high in the air as it struck the bow; but there was a hood to catch this, and besides both occupants of the motor-boat had donned oilskins before starting. it was a long trip, nevertheless, for the wind continued to increase in force as the afternoon waned, and darry, with a sailor's gift of foretelling what the weather was to be, predicted that the succeeding night must witness a storm such as had not visited the coast since the night he was cast ashore. abner was delighted to see his boy, and it was not long before the party found shelter in the warm station, for the air was growing bitter. "a bad night ahead!" said one of the surfmen, after greeting darry, "and worse luck, poor tom here has broken his leg. mr. frazer is somethin' of a surgeon, and has set it, but as soon as this storm is over he must be taken home. it leaves us short a man if so be we are called out, unless some feller happens to run across before night, which is kinder unlikely." "i'd be only too glad to pull an oar, if necessary, and you couldn't find any better man," said darry, quickly, looking at abner, who shook his head, dubiously. "they may hev to take yuh, lad; but i hopes as how we aint gwine to be called out. it's a cruel night to fight the sea, an' only them as has been thar knows wot it means. now come an' set down here, both on yuh, an' tell me all the news from hum. i seen somethin' in your eye, lad, thet tells me yuh knows sure a heap wuth hearin'. i hopes it's good news," he said. "indeed it is, the best ever," replied darry, with bursting heart, and then as quickly as he could he told the whole story. poor abner sat there, blinking, and hardly able to comprehend the wonderful change that had so suddenly come over his fortunes. unable to speak he could only stretch out his hand to paul, and then turning to our hero looked at him with his very soul in his eyes. after a little, when he became calmer, he asked many questions, and even had a quiet little laugh at the expense of darius quarles. "that's the second time yuh see he's ben knocked out a-tryin' to rob me. nancy done it fust a-fallin' into the water, and this time darry here cum to the front. darius he must be concludin' he was borned under an unlucky star, 'specially wen he tackles nancy peake. i'd give somethin' to see the gal jest now," he added wistfully as he tried to picture what she must look like when really and truly happy. long they talked, until an early supper was ready, and the men gathered about the table, while the wind shrieked and sighed about the corners of the station, telling of the severe labors the coming night would demand. after the meal was finished nothing would do but that darry must give them some music ere the first detail went out on their arduous duties in facing the cold storm. paul had known nothing of this accomplishment on the part of his new friend. he sat there as though enthralled while darry drew such weird strains from the little polished instrument in his hands that this young man, who had doubtless listened to many masters of the violin believed he had never in all his life heard such wonderful music. of course the strange surroundings had something to do with it, for there was a constant accompaniment of howling wind, with the surge of the wild surf beating time to the magic of the bow, and it seemed as though the player selected just such music as would be appropriate to such a setting. finally the first detail had to make ready for their long tramp along the beach, and muffled in their oilskins they sallied forth. later on abner and his companions expected to start out, for paul was determined to learn all he could about this hard life of those who patrolled the coasts while the storms raged, a helpful auxiliary to the lighthouse department. the men should have sought rest and sleep while they had the chance, but no one seemed desirous of lying down. tom, the poor fellow with the broken leg, was bearing up bravely, and only bemoaned the fact that, if there should be any necessity for the launching of the surfboat he could not do his duty. suddenly everyone started up. above the roar of the storm a sound had come that could not be anything other than the boom of a gun. there is nothing that startles more than this sound, heard upon the shore as the storm rages, for it invariably tells of peril hovering over some vessel that has been beaten from her track and is threatened with wreck, either upon the reefs or the treacherous sands. instantly all was bustle and excitement. every man donned his oilskins, and as they had made all preparations there was little time wasted in doing this. paul rushed out with the rest, eager to be "in the swim," as he said. it was a scene never to be forgotten. the waves were running high and breaking upon the beach with a thunderous roar, while the wind added to the clamor; so that save for the absence of thunder and lightning the picture seemed to be a duplicate of that other so strongly impressed upon darry's mind. down the beach they could catch glimpses of an illumination, and it seemed as though some of the coast patrol might be burning coster lights to signal the vessel on the reef. presently they would come back, when the lifeboat would be launched. with material that was kept ready for just such an emergency a fire was immediately started. mr. frazer was looking anxiously down the beach, and darry heard him calling to abner. "i don't like the looks of things yonder. that fire is none of the work of our men. jim dilks and his wreckers must be over here looking for pickings. i pity any poor wretch who comes ashore and falls into their hands. that scoundrel wouldn't be above robbing a castaway, and even chocking out what little life remained in his body, if so be it looked like he might tell. keep a lookout for the rascals, boys. and all give a hand here to get the boat out of the shed. we're going to have a hard night of it, i'm afraid." chapter xxiii darry in the lifeboat the boat was soon rolled out and placed where it could be quickly launched at the word. mr. frazer was not only the keeper of the station but the helmsman of the lifeboat, which latter was a most responsible position, since he must direct the movements of the men who pulled the oars, bring the boat under the vessel in peril, manage to rescue as many of those aboard as could be carried, and finally navigate the craft successfully to the shore. darry looked upon him as a wonderful man, a hero, indeed, whose equal he had never known. there were signs of distress seaward. through his night glasses mr. frazer reported seeing a steamer in trouble. she had evidently gone on the reef, having gotten out of her course in the wild storm, or else because the wreckers further down the coast had deceived her navigator by means of false beacons. no matter, she was fast upon the treacherous reef and would likely fill and be a wreck before morning, since her entire port side seemed exposed to the fury of the waves. it was a wonder how anything could remain on board and endure so terrific a pounding; if later on she were washed free the chances were there would be holes enough in her by that time to cause her to sink like a shot. the lifeboat could not get out to her any too soon. those on board were burning lights, and sending up rocket after rocket to indicate that their need of assistance was great. still nothing could be done until the men on the detail came in. already it had been settled that unless assistance came speedily, in the shape of a recruit to take the place of tom, darry would have to go. the boy was in a fever of suspense, fearful that he might be cheated out of the experience, as on the previous occasion. paul was quite useless because he knew so little about pulling an oar, while as a sailor, with some years experience on a vessel, darry was at home on the water in any capacity. "i certainly admire your grit, darry," said paul, shuddering as he looked out at the heaving waves, the white tops of which loomed up in the gloom. "oh! i'm used to these things. dozens of storms i've been through, under all sorts of conditions," answered the boy. "all the same it's a big risk. i hope nothing will go wrong. that's a mighty small boat to pit against the fury of the sea." "but as safe as they make them. it's impossible to sink it, and the ropes are there to keep us from being swept out, even if flooded. all around the outside you see ropes, and if a fellow goes over he holds on to one of those until another wave sweeps him back in his seat again, and there you are." although darry spoke so lightly it must not be assumed that he failed to realize the gravity attending the passage of the surboat out upon such a troubled sea; for accidents do happen to the crews of these life-saving craft, and many a daring soul has gone to his account while trying to rescue others. but just then the patrol came running up, almost out of breath. from one man frazer learned that his surmise concerning the appearance of the lawless wreckers on the shore was well founded, and that they had been up to some mischief further south, where signs of lights had been noticed by this coastguard. the word was given to take their places, as the boat was about to be launched. they had waited a brief time to allow the newly-arrived men a chance to recover their wind for they would need it presently, when once upon the heaving bosom of the deep. paul squeezed the hand of his young friend. how he envied him this chance to prove his courage and to pull an oar in a life-saving trip. the rockets had ceased to ascend as though either the supply had given out, or else conditions had become so bad that there was no longer a chance to carry on this work. then came the word: "go!" there was a simultaneous movement on the part of the entire crew, and as the sturdy men put their shoulders to the task the surfboat shot forward just at the proper instant when a wave expended itself upon the sloping beach. its prow entered the water, and those furthest ahead sprang into their places, whipping the long oars into the rowlocks for a struggle against the force of the next onrushing billow. darry was one of these. he had not watched that other launching for nothing, and understood just what was required of him, as though through long practice. now they were off! the oars dipped deep, and hardy muscles strained back of them. slowly but surely the boat gained against all the fury of the onrushing tide, and foot by foot they began to leave the shore. paul was shouting, swinging his hat, as darry could see while he tugged at his task. once fully launched upon the swelling bosom of the sea, the progress of the surfboat was more rapid, though every yard had to be won by the most arduous of labor, the men straining like galley slaves under the lash; but in this case it was a sense of duty rather than the whip of the tyrant that urged them on. no man but the helmsman saw anything of the steamer that was fast upon the cruel jaws of the reef, for it was against orders for anyone to turn his head. such an incautious movement might throw him out of balance in the swing of the stroke and bring about disaster, or at least temporarily disarrange their regular advance; they had to trust everything to the wisdom and experience of the man who hung on to the long steering oar, and blindly obey his shouted instructions. many times had he gone forth upon just such a hazard, and thus far his sagacity had proven equal to the task. they began to hear human voices shrieking through the storm. that meant they were drawing close under the lee of the steamer, and that those on board must have sighted them, and were consequently filled with new hope. above all else came the awful pounding of the sea upon the side of the doomed steamer. darry knew the sound well, for many a night had he gone calmly to sleep while the chorus of the elements was beating close to his head. he had pulled well, and held his own with the brawny men of the crew, just as mr. frazer had known would be the case when he allowed him to take the place of tom in the boat. abner was next to him, and the surfman had watched the manly efforts of his adopted boy with secret delight. few boys indeed of his size could have proven their worth to the crew of the lifeboat in time of need as darry had done. he could indeed be reckoned one of the life savers from this hour on, if so be they came back again to the shore that had witnessed their departure. now, as they swung around temporarily the rowers were afforded their first glimpse of the imperiled vessel. it was undoubtedly a steamer, one of the coasters that pass up and down the atlantic seaboard, bound from new york to one of the various southern ports, or _vice versa_, and usually keeping far enough out to avoid the perils that hover about kitty hawk and hatteras. she was in a bad position, having gone ashore, or been washed aground, so that her whole quarter was exposed to the sweep of the boiling sea. through the flying spray they could see numerous figures along the lee rail of the vessel, hanging on desperately, while now and then the water would sweep over the deck, and at such times a chorus of screams told that there were other than men there, women half frightened out of their senses by the peril. the surfboat was, after some maneuvering, gotten in such a position under the lee of the steamer that a rope could be thrown aboard. then a woman was lowered by means of this, and safely stowed away. as the rope had been fastened to the boat there was no longer necessity for the crew to strain at the oars, consequently they were at liberty to assist in caring for those sent down by the steamer's crew, working under the direction of a cool, level-headed captain. darry had cast off his oilskins, as being in the way. a wetting was of small moment anyway to one so warm-blooded as he, and the cumbersome garments impeded his movements, since they were meant for a big man. the sleeve of his shirt had also become torn in some way and flapped loose until he tucked it up out of the way. all unconscious of the picturesque figure he made he continued to work with all his might, helping to receive the women and children as they were slipped over the side. many an eye was attracted toward him as seen by the light of the lanterns that were held over the side of the steamer to aid the workers, and more than one wondered how it came that a mere lad was to be found keeping company with these hardy men of the coast, seasoned to storms, and able to defy the rigors of the cold. it was no easy task to take on a load of the passengers under such conditions. only when the surfboat rose on a billow could they be lowered, for at other times the distance was so great that the deck of the steamer looked as far away as the roof of a tall building. yet, thanks to the ability of the steamer captain, and the experience of the surfmen below, the shipping of the women and children was accomplished with but a single accident. one child dropped off the rope, having been insecurely fastened, and with the shrieks of the women fell into the sea, but hardly had she reached the water than with a splash darry was over, and had seized upon the little one. his companions immediately reached out friendly hands, and both were drawn into the plunging boat, amid frantic cheers from all who had seen the daring rescue. one woman seized hold of the boy as he pushed his way through the crowd to his place at the oars, and looked wildly in his face. he supposed she must be the mother of the child he had saved, and not wishing for any scene just then, when he was needed at his place, as they were about to cast off, darry gently broke her hold, leaving on her knees and staring after him. although he little suspected the fact it was something else that had chained the attention of this woman passenger; and even as she knelt in the bottom of the boat, which was beginning its perilous passage toward the shore, her eyes continued to be riveted upon his face, and she was saying to herself over and over: "oh! who is he, that boy? i must see him again if we both live. can it be possible he had any connection with paul's telegram? i have come far, but i would go over the distance a thousand times if only a great joy awaited me. yes, i must see him surely again!" from which it would appear that the friendly fortune that seemed to be attending the affairs of our young hero of late had again started work; and that even in gratifying his wild desire to serve as a life saver darry had been advancing his own cause. now the lifeboat was headed for the shore, and sweeping in on a giant roller. great care had to be exercised lest the boat broach-to, and those in her be spilled out, when some must be drowned, for having taken so many aboard they lacked the buoyancy that had previously marked their progress. standing in his place the steersman carefully noted every little point, and high above the rush of the storm his voice rang out as he ordered the crew to cease rowing, or to pull hard. it was well worth experiencing, and darry was glad he had at last found a chance to go out with the crew. abner knew that at least one more trip would have to be made, in order to take off the crew of the steamer, and he was determined that if there should have arrived any substitute on the beach while they were away darry must not be called upon to undertake the second voyage. the strain was terrific for a mere stripling of his build, and only old seasoned veterans could stand under it. there was no need of questioning the willingness of the lad to volunteer again; and if it seemed absolutely necessary abner would give his consent, but he hoped circumstances might change and another hand be provided. with the women and children they had several of the crew who had come along to relieve any oarsman who might give under the great strain; the more sent in this load the less remaining for the next, and among these abner had picked upon a certain husky fellow who seemed able to do his part if called upon. now the shore was close by. the fire burned brightly, fed by paul, and the steersman could see several other men at the water's edge, proving that they had crossed the sound in some sort of staunch craft, or had come down from above, knowing the wreck was close to the life-saving station. at last the boat mounted the last billow on which she was to continue her voyage to the beach. the crew pulled heartily to keep her perched high on its foamy crest, and in this fashion they went rushing shoreward. chapter xxiv the awakening as the boat shot forward and her keel grated on the sand the crew were over the sides like a shot, seizing upon her in order to prevent the outgoing wave from carrying her along. then one by one the women and children were carried to the shore, and hurried to the shelter of the station, where a warm fire and something to drink in the way of coffee and tea would put new life in the shuddering mass. the woman who had been so strangely agitated at sight of darry seemed to be a lady of refinement, but she was almost perishing from the cold, and did not resist when they forced her to seek shelter. once she turned around and looked back to where darry was busy; but when inside the house she swooned from exhaustion, to come to later and find paul singleton bending anxiously over her, with words of affection on his lips. meanwhile darry was ready to again take his place with the rest, but abner had been busy, and spoke to mr. frazer, who in turn engaged a stalwart fisherman to fill the vacancy caused by tom's absence. although disappointed, darry did not insist, for he knew the tax upon his young muscles had been severe, and if he failed it might throw the whole crew out of balance. so he saw them set out again, with his heart in his eyes. when they had vanished from view he walked nervously up and down the beach for a short time; then noticing the presence of a moving light not more than half a mile down the shore he remembered what he had heard mr. frazer say about the wreckers being abroad, looking for anything of value they could lay hands on. usually these men make their living by gathering up whatever may be cast on the beach after a vessel has gone to pieces, and thus far their calling is legitimate, but as a rule they are a bad class, and at times, when fortune frowns upon their efforts, many of their kind resort to desperate means for accumulating riches, even robbing the dead, and it was hinted in connection with jim dilks' crowd, going still further. when a vessel is in danger of going to pieces, the passengers usually load themselves with what valuables they may possess in the hope of saving these in case they reach the shore in safety; so that these ghouls frequently find a little fortune upon the persons of the drowned travelers. darry had heard the crew of the lifeboat talking about these wreckers so frequently that he was more than curious with regard to them, and as he saw the lantern moving to and fro along the water's edge, now approaching and again retreating, he felt a sudden desire to look upon their methods of work. it was not a wise move on his part at all, for such men are as a rule desperate characters, and resent being spied upon, since such action savors too much of the law and justice in their eyes; but darry was only a venturesome boy, who somehow never knew the meaning of the word fear, and a little saunter along the beach would pass away some of the time until the boat came in again. so he started off, telling no one of his intention, though one man noticed him walk away, which fact proved fortunate in the end. as he drew nearer the moving light he saw that, as he had suspected, it was a lantern held in the hand of a big man who was passing along as close to the edge of the water as he could, and surveying with the eye of a hawk each incoming billow, as though he expected to discover a floating form that must be snatched away ere it were carried out again. but it was no errand of mercy that caused this human vulture to keep up his unceasing vigil; for should the body of a luckless passenger come ashore his first act would be to rifle the pockets rather than attempt to restore life. darry caught a glimpse of several other figures beyond, but their lanterns had evidently given out, so they were trusting to their eyes alone for seeing in the dark. he had never as yet met big jim dilks, but something told him that this man was now before him, and he wondered if the son might not also be one of the other prowlers beyond, since he evidently possessed the same kind of savage instincts that characterized his father. darry had come as close as he deemed prudent when he saw the man start forward with a sudden swoop, and seizing some object from the inflowing wave drag it up on the shore. there was no outcry to call the attention of others, for evidently this was a game of "every man for himself," though possibly a division of spoils might be made later on. horrified, darry pressed closer, for he fancied he had seen a feeble movement on the part of the figure drawn from the waves--doubtless alone and unassisted the swimmer could never have crawled out on the beach, but now that he was beyond reach of the waves, would the man who had snatched him ashore do the slightest thing to keep the spark of life from going out entirely? he saw jim dilks bend eagerly down. closer still darry pressed, unconscious in his eagerness to see that he was placing his own life in danger. the man who would not hesitate to rob the dead might go even further in order to conceal his crime. he saw jiw dilks hurriedly search through the pockets of the figure, transfer a number of articles to his own person, and then with a growl lift the body in his arms, giving it a toss that once more sent it afloat. the terrible nature of this act brought out a half-stifled cry from the watching boy, and the wrecker, startled, wheeled to see him there. he darted upon him like a wolf, and ere darry could lift a hand to save himself he was struck a severe blow on the head. after that he knew nothing more. when he opened his eyes later he found himself in the life-saving station, and for a minute or so wondered what had happened, for as he started to rise there was a severe pain in his head, and he sank back with a sigh. then it all seemed to pass before him. again he could see the savage face of big jim, as he turned like a sheep-killing dog caught in the act, and once more darry shivered with the terrible thought that life had not wholly departed from the wretched passenger from the ill-fated steamer at the time the wrecker tossed him back into the merciless sea. who had found him, and brought him here, when evidently the lawless man had intended that he should share the fate of the doomed passenger, and thus forever have his lips sealed? someone must have heard him sigh, for there was a movement close by, and his eyes took in the eager face of paul singleton. "bully for you, darry! we were getting mighty anxious about you, but i can see you're all right now. it has been hard to keep abner at his duty watching the shore. every little while he appears at the door to ask if you have recovered your senses yet. why, he couldn't be more fond of you if you were his own joe," said paul, running his hand tenderly over the boy's forehead. "i don't understand how i got here," declared darry; "the last thing i remember was being struck by the fist of that brute, big jim dilks. he had just robbed a passenger from the wreck. i saw him pull the body out of the water, clean out the pockets, and then throw the poor fellow back again. and, mr. singleton, it's a terrible thing to say, but i'm most sure there was life still in the body of the man he robbed when he tossed him back!" "the scoundrel, i wouldn't put it past him a particle. and that isn't the first time he and his gang have done the same thing either. but their time has come, darry. even now i chance to know that the government has sent agents down here to make arrests, urged on by the women of ashley, and before another day rolls around all of those rascals will be in the toils. you may be called on to give evidence against dilks. but please forget all about this gruesome matter just now, my dear boy. there is something else of a vastly different nature that awaits you--some delightful intelligence, in fact." paul paused to let the half-dazed lad drink in the meaning of his words. "oh! mr. singleton!" he began. "no, from this hour let it be paul--cousin paul, in truth. you know, i said i wanted you to look upon me as an elder brother, but now it seems that we are actually related, and that i am your full-fledged cousin." "my cousin! oh! what can you mean?" gasped the bewildered darry. "i'll tell you without beating around the bush, then. you are no longer the poor homeless waif you used to believe yourself." "no, that is true, thanks to dear old abner and nancy," murmured darry, loyal to his good friends in this hour. "but there is someone who has a better claim upon your affection than either abner or nancy, kind-hearted though they undoubtedly are. it is your own mother, darry!" exclaimed the young man, leaning over closer as he said that word of magic. "mother! my mother! how sweet that sounds! but tell me how can this be? who am i, and where is she? how did you find it out, and, oh! paul, are you _sure_, quite sure? a disappointment after this would be hard to bear." "have no fears, darry, there is no longer the slightest shadow of a doubt. the minute my aunt set her eyes on that crescent-shaped mark on your arm she knew beyond all question that heaven had granted her prayers of years, and in this marvelous way restored her only child to her again. she saw you leap overboard to save that little child, and she recognized in your face the look she remembered so well as marking the countenance of her husband, now long since dead. she says you are his living picture as a boy." "i remember some lady seizing hold of my arm after they dragged me aboard the lifeboat, but at the time i believed it must be the mother of the child, and i was anxious to get back to my place, for the boat might upset with one oar missing. and that was--my mother?" how softly, how tenderly, he spoke the word, as though it might be something he had only dared dream about, and had difficulty in realizing now that he could claim what nearly all other boys had, a parent. "yes, that was my dear aunt elizabeth. i wired her away down in south america, where she was visiting cousins, and it has taken her quite a while to get here. she had to change steamers twice, and meant to come back here from new york by rail, when a strange freak of fortune sent that vessel upon the reef, and placed you in the lifeboat that went to the rescue. after this i shall stand in awe of the mysterious workings of providence, since this beats anything i ever heard of. i could see something familiar in your looks, and after hearing your story sent for her on a chance. that was why i dared not tell you any more than i did. if i had only known about the history of that scar on your arm i would have been positive. she asked me immediately about it, and when i told her it was surely there she fainted again." "my mother! how strange it seems. go on please, paul," murmured the boy, reaching out and possessing himself of the other's hand, as though its touch gave him assurance that this was not one of his tantalizing dreams. "i went in search of you, and one of the men told me he had seen you walking down the beach, as though attracted by the light which he believed was a lantern carried by a wrecker, perhaps the feared jim dilks. i engaged him to accompany me, and securing a lantern we hurried along. and darry, we found you just in time, for the sea was carrying you out. i believe that wretch must have cast you into the water just as he did the body of the passenger." "then i owe my life to you--cousin paul?" "if so it only squares accounts, for i guess i'd have gone under out there on the sound only for your coming in time. but darry, do you think you feel strong enough to see your mother? i forced her to lie down in the little room beyond, but she cannot sleep from the excitement." "yes, oh! yes. please bring her. i shall be a long time understanding it all, and trying to realize that i am truly awake. to think that i really have a mother!" darry drew a long breath, and followed paul with eager eyes as he went through the doorway into the other room. it was dawn now. in more senses than one the day had come to darry. he heard low voices, and then someone came through the door, someone whose eyes were fastened hungrily upon his face. darry struggled to sit up, and was just in time to feel a pair of arms around his neck and have his poor aching head drawn lovingly upon the bosom of the mother whom he had not known since infancy. chapter xxv conclusion later on, in fragments, darry learned the whole story. it was all very wonderful, and yet simple enough. the old man whom he remembered so well, and who had told him to call him uncle, was in reality a brother of his mother. he had quarreled with his sister elizabeth's husband, after abusing his kindness, and to cancel what he called a debt, had actually stolen the only child of the man he had wronged and hated. an old story, yet happening just as frequently in these modern days as in times of old, for men have the same passions, and there is nothing new under the sun. everything that money could do was done to find the man and the little boy he had kidnapped, but he proved too cunning for them all, and although several times traces were found of his being at some foreign city, when a hunt was made he had again vanished. so the years came and went, and the child's mother was left a widow. hope never deserted her heart, though it must have grown fainter as time passed on, and all traces of the wicked child-stealer seemed swallowed up in mystery. paul had known of her great trouble, and it was the remarkable resemblance of darry to a picture he had seen of his uncle rudolph as a boy that first startled him. then came the story about the waif, and this gave him strong hopes that by the wonderful favor of providence he had been enabled to come across the long-lost boy, his own cousin. their happiness was subdued, for there had been lives lost in the storm, a number of passengers and crew having been swept from the deck of the steamer by the giant waves before the coming of the life savers. as the storm subsided by noon, our little party, increased by abner's presence, was enabled to cross the still rough sound in the staunch motor-boat of paul, and to nancy's amazement appeared at her humble little home. she heard the story of darry's great good fortune with mingled emotions, for while she could not but rejoice with him in that he had found a mother, still, in a way, it seemed to the poor woman as though she had been bereaved a second time, for she was beginning to love the boy who had come into her life to take the place of joe. still, the future appeared so rosy that even nancy could not but feel the uplift, and her face beamed with the general joy as she bustled around and strove to prepare a supper for her guests. in the village they had heard news. jim dilks and several of his cronies were in the hands of the united states authorities, having been arrested on serious charges. later on they were convicted of using false beacons in order to lure vessels on the reefs for wicked purposes, and of robbing the dead cast up on the shore. a more serious charge could not be proven, though few doubted their innocence. darry, or as he was compelled to call himself now, adrian singleton, being summoned to give evidence, helped to send the big wrecker to his well-earned solitude by telling what he had seen on the night of the last storm, and as some jewelry was found in his possession, which was identified by the wife of a passenger who lost his life, and whose body was washed up on the beach later on, there was no difficulty in securing his conviction. as for his profligate son, he was not long in following the elder dilks to confinement, being caught in some crime that partook of the nature of robbery, and was sent to a reformatory, where it is to be hoped he may learn a lesson calculated to make him a better man when he comes forth. since these happenings took place only a few years back, young jim is still in confinement; his boon companions sim clark and bowser vanished from ashley and doubtless sought congenial surroundings in wilmington, where they could pursue their destiny along evil lines until the long arm of the law reached out and brought them to book. true to his word, paul saw to it that abner peake was placed in charge of the big farm he owned, not a great distance away from ashley, and here the former life saver and his family have every comfort their simple hearts could wish for, so that they count it the luckiest day of their lives when the cabin boy of the lost brigantine, _falcon_, was washed up on the beach out by the life-saving station. about once a year abner visits his old chums out on the beach, spending a couple of days in their company and reviving old times, but on such occasions they often see him sitting by himself under the shelter of some old remnant of a former wreck, his calm blue eyes fixed in an absent-minded fashion upon the distant level horizon of old ocean, and at such times no one ventures to disturb him, for well they know that he is holding silent communion with the spirit of poor little joe, who went out with the tide, and was seen no more. somewhere upon that broad, lonely ocean his little form has found a resting place, and so long as he lives must abner drop a tear in his memory whenever he sets eyes upon his watery shroud. but the peakes are happy, and the twins are growing up to be buxom children. there is another little laughing peake now, a boy at that, and at last accounts darry--it is hard to call him by any other name--heard that he is destined to be christened joseph darry peake. after all, paul and darry did have a chance to spend some part of the winter cruising together on the sound, although our hero later on decided that he must start in to make himself worthy of the position which was from this time to be his lot, and enrolled at an academy where his fond mother could be near him, and have a home in which he might find some of the happiness that fate had cheated him out of for so long. no one who knows the youth doubts that he has a promising future before him, and many prophesy that he will eventually make a more famous lawyer than his father was before him. often darry loves, when by himself, to look back to the days that are no more, and at such times he thinks with gratitude of the friends whom a kindly providence raised up for him in his time of need. among these he never fails to include captain harley, the skipper of the _falcon_, whose widow darry had communicated with while he was still under the roof of the life saver's home, and whom he later on met personally, as she came on to hear all he could tell about her lost husband. and the brave life savers on that desolate carolina beach have not been forgotten by the grateful mother of the boy they had adopted, for during each winter there always comes a huge box filled with such warm clothing as men in their arduous and dangerous profession greatly need. at christmas holidays darry, paul and mrs. singleton make it a point to spend a week at ashley, during which time they live again the stirring scenes of the past, and find much cause for gratitude because of the wonderful favors that were showered upon them in that locality. the end the ocean and its wonders, by r.m. ballantyne. chapter one. what the ocean has to say--its whispers--its thunders--its secrets. there is a voice in the waters of the great sea. it calls to man continually. sometimes it thunders in the tempest, when the waves leap high and strong and the wild winds shriek and roar, as if to force our attention. sometimes it whispers in the calm, and comes rippling on the shingly beach in a still, small voice, as if to solicit our regard. but whether that voice of ocean comes in crashing billows or in gentle murmurs, it has but one tale to tell,--it speaks of the love, and power, and majesty of him who rides upon the storm, and rules the wave. yes, the voice of ocean tells but one tale; yet there are many chapters in that wonderful story. the sea has much to say; far more than could possibly be comprehended in one volume, however large. it tells us of the doings of man on its broad bosom, from the day in which he first ventured to paddle along shore in the hollow trunk of a tree, to the day when he launched his great iron ship of 20,000 tons, and rushed out to sea, against wind and tide, under an impulse equal to the united strength of 11,500 horses. no small portion of the ocean's tale this, comprising many chapters of deeds of daring, blood, villainy, heroism, and enterprise. but with this portion of its story we have nothing to do just now. it tells us, also, of god's myriad and multiform creatures, that dwell in its depths, from the vast whale, whose speed is so great, that it might, if it chose, circle round the world in a few days, to the languid zoophyte, which clings to the rock, and bears more resemblance to a plant than to a living animal. the sea has secrets, too, some of which it will not divulge until that day when its creator shall command it to give up its dead; while others it is willing to part with to those who question it closely, patiently, and with intelligence. among the former kind of secrets are those foul deeds that have been perpetrated, in all ages, by abandoned men; when no human ears listened to the stifled shriek, or the gurgling plunge; when no human eyes beheld the murderous acts, the bloody decks, the blazing vessels, or the final hiss of the sinking wrecks. among the latter kind of secrets are the lives and habits of the creatures of the deep, and the causes and effects of those singular currents of air and water, which, to the eye of ignorance, seem to be nothing better than irregularity and confusion; but which, to the minds of those who search them out, and have pleasure therein, are recognised as a part of that wonderful, orderly, and systematic arrangement of things that we call nature: much of which we now know, more of which we shall certainly know, as each day and year adds its quota to the sum of human knowledge; but a great deal of which will, doubtless, remain for ever hidden in the mind of nature's god, whose ways are wonderful, and past finding out. it is the latter class of secrets to which we purpose directing the readers attention in the following pages. on approaching so vast a subject, we feel like the traveller who, finding himself suddenly transported into the midst of a new and magnificent region, stands undecided whither to direct his steps in the endlessly varied scene. or, still more, like the visitor to our great international exhibition of _1862_, who,--entering abruptly that gigantic palace, where were represented the talent, the ingenuity, time wealth, and industry of every people and clime,--attempts, in vain, to systematise his explorations, or to fix his attention. it is probable that, in each of these supposed cases, the traveller and visitor, resigning the desire to achieve what is impossible, would give themselves up to the agreeable guidance of a wandering and wayward fancy. let us, reader, act in a somewhat similar manner. let us touch here, and there, and everywhere, on the wonders of the sea, and listen to such notes of the ocean's voice as strike upon our ears most pleasantly. chapter two. composition of the sea--its salts--power and uses of water--advantage and disadvantage of salts--anecdote--deep-sea soundings--brookes apparatus--importance of the search after truth--illustrations-discoveries resulting from deep-sea soundings. before proceeding to the consideration of the wonders connected with and contained in the sea, we shall treat of the composition of the sea itself and of its extent, depth, and bottom. what is the sea made of? salt water, is the ready reply that rises naturally to every lip. but to this we add the question,--what is salt water? or, as there are many kinds of salt water, of what sort of salt water does the sea consist? to these queries we give the following reply, which, we doubt not, will rather surprise some of our readers. fresh water, as most people are aware, is composed of two gases--oxygen and hydrogen. sea water is composed of the same gases, with the addition of muriate of soda, magnesia, iron, lime, sulphur, copper, silex, potash, chlorine, iodine, bromine, ammonia, and silver. what a dose! let bathers think of it next time they swallow a gulp of sea water. most of these substances, however, exist in comparatively small quantity in the sea, with the exception of muriate of soda, or common table salt; of which, as all bathers know from bitter experience, there is a very considerable quantity. the quantity of silver contained in sea water is very small indeed. nevertheless, small though it be, the ocean is so immense, that, it has been calculated, if all the silver in it were collected, it would form a mass that would weigh about two hundred million tons! the salt of the ocean varies considerably in different parts. near the equator, the great heat carries up a larger proportion of water by evaporation than in the more temperate regions; and thus, as salt is not removed by evaporation, the ocean in the torrid zone is salter than in the temperate or frigid zones. the salts of the sea, and other substances contained in it, are conveyed thither by the fresh-water streams that pour into it from all the continent of the world. maury, in his delightful work, "the physical geography of the sea," tells us that "water is nature's great carrier. with its currents it conveys heat away from the torrid zone, and ice from the frigid; or, bottling the caloric away in the vesicle of its vapour, it first makes it impalpable, and then conveys it by unknown paths to the most distant parts of the earth. the materials of which the coral builds the island, and the sea-conch its shell, are gathered by this restless leveller from mountains, rocks, and valleys, in all latitudes. some it washes down from the mountains of the moon in africa, or out of the gold-fields of australia, or from the mines of potosi; others from the battle-fields of europe, or from the marble quarries of ancient greece and rome. the materials thus collected, and carried over falls and down rapids, are transported to the sea." here, as these substances cannot be evaporated, they would accumulate to such a degree as to render the ocean uninhabitable by living creatures, had not god provided against this by the most beautiful compensation. he has filled the ocean with innumerable animals and marine plants, whose special duty it is to seize and make use of the substances thus swept from the land, and reconvert them into solids. we cannot form an adequate conception of the extent of the great work carried on continually in this way; but we see part of it in the chalk cliffs, the marl beds of the sea shore, and the coral islands of the south seas,--of which last more particular notice shall be taken in a succeeding chapter. the operations of the ocean are manifold. besides forming a great reservoir, into which what may be termed the impurities of the land are conveyed, it is, as has been shown, the great laboratory of nature, where these are reconverted, and the general balance restored. but we cannot speak of these things without making passing reference to the operations of water, as that wonder-working agent of which the ocean constitutes but a part. nothing in this world is ever lost or annihilated. as the ocean receives all the water that flows from the land, so it returns that water, fresh and pure, in the shape of vapour, to the skies; where, in the form of clouds, it is conveyed to those parts of the earth where its presence is most needed, and precipitated in the form of rain and dew, fertilising the soil, replenishing rivers and lakes, penetrating the earth's deep caverns; whence it bubbles up in the shape of springs, and, after having gladdened the heart of man by driving his mills and causing his food to grow, it finds its way again into the sea: and thus the good work goes on with ceaseless regularity. water beats upon the rocks of the sea-shore until it pounds them into sand, or rolls them into pebbles and boulders. it also sweeps the rich soil from the mountains into the valleys. in the form of snow it clothes the surface of the temperate and frigid zones with a warm mantle, which preserves vegetable life from the killing frosts of winter. in the form of ice it splits asunder the granite hills; and in the northern regions it forms great glaciers, or masses of solidified snow, many miles in extent, and many hundred feet thick. these glaciers descend by slow, imperceptible degrees, to the sea; their edges break off and fall into it, and, floating southward, sometimes in great mountainous masses, are seen by man in the shape of icebergs. frequently huge rocks, that have fallen upon these glaciers from cliffs in the arctic regions, are carried by them to other regions, and are deposited on flat beaches, far from their native cliffs. the saltness of the sea rendering it more dense, necessarily renders it more buoyant, than fresh water. this is obviously a great advantage to man in the matter of commerce. a ship does not sink so deep in the sea as it does in a fresh-water lake; hence it can carry more cargo with greater facility. it is easier to swim in salt than in fresh water. the only disadvantage to commerce in the saltness of the sea is the consequent unfitness of its water for drinking. many and harrowing are the accounts of instances in which sailors have been reduced to the most terrible extremities for want of fresh water; and many a time, since navigation began, have men been brought to feel the dread reality of that condition which is so forcibly expressed in the poem of the "ancient mariner":- "water, water everywhere, and not a drop to drink." science, however, at length enabled us to overcome this disadvantage of saltness. by the process of distillation, men soon managed to procure enough water at least to save their lives. one captain of a ship, by accident, lost all his fresh water; and, before he could put into port to replenish, a gale of wind, which lasted three weeks, drove him far out to sea. he had no distilling apparatus on board, and it seemed as if all hope of the crew escaping the most horrible of deaths were utterly taken away. in this extremity the captain's inventive genius came to his aid. he happened to have on board an old iron pitch-pot, with a wooden cover. using this as a boiler, a pipe made of a pewter plate, and a wooden cask as a receiver, he set to work, filled the pot with sea water, put an ounce of soap therein to assist in purifying it, and placed it on the fire. when the pot began to boil, the steam passed through the pipe into the cask, where it was condensed into water, minus the saline particles, which, not being evaporable, were left behind in the pitch-pot. in less than an hour a quart of fresh water was thus obtained; which, though not very palatable, was sufficiently good to relieve the thirst of the ship's crew. many ships are now regularly supplied with apparatus for distilling sea water; and on the african coasts and other unhealthy stations, where water is bad, the men of our navy drink no other water than that which is distilled from the sea. the salts of the ocean have something to do with the creating of oceanic currents; which, in their turn, have a powerful influence on climates. they also retard evaporation to some extent, and have some effect in giving to the sea its beautiful blue colour. the ocean covers about two-thirds of the entire surface of the earth. its depth has never been certainly ascertained; but from the numberless experiments and attempts that have been made, we are warranted in coming to the conclusion that it nowhere exceeds five miles in depth, probably does not quite equal that. professor wyville thompson estimates the average depth of the sea at about two miles. of the three great oceans into which the sea is naturally divided--the atlantic, the pacific, and the arctic--the atlantic is supposed to be the deepest. there are profundities in its bosom which have never yet been sounded, and probably never will be. the difficulty of sounding great depths arises from the fact that, after a large quantity of line has been run out, the shock of the lead striking the bottom cannot be felt. moreover, there is sufficient force in the deep-sea currents to sweep out the line after the lead has reached the bottom so that, with the ordinary sounding-lines in use among navigators, it is impossible to sound great depths. scientific men have, therefore, taxed their brains to invent instruments for sounding the deep sea--for touching the bottom in what sailors call "blue water." some have tried it with a silk thread as a plumb-line, some with spun-yarn threads, and various other materials and contrivances. it has even been tried by exploding petards and ringing bells in the deep sea, when it was supposed that an echo or reverberation might be heard, and, from the known rate at which sound travels through water, the depth might thus be ascertained. deep-sea leads have been constructed having a column of air in them, which, by compression, would show the aqueous pressure to which they had been subjected; but the trial proved to be more than the instrument could stand. captain maury, of the american navy--whose interesting book has been already referred to--invented an instrument for sounding the deep sea. here is his own description of it:--"to the lead was attached, upon the principle of the screw-propeller, a small piece of clock-work for registering the number of revolutions made by the little screw during the descent; and it having been ascertained by experiment in shoal water that the apparatus, in descending, would cause the propeller to make one revolution for every fathom of perpendicular descent, hands provided with the power of self-registering were attached to a dial, and the instrument was complete. it worked beautifully in moderate depths, but failed in blue water, from the difficulty of hauling it up if the line used were small, and from the difficulty of getting it down if the line used were large enough to give the requisite strength for hauling it up." one eccentric old sea captain proposed to sound the sea with a torpedo, or shell, which should explode the instant it touched the bottom. another gentleman proposed to try it by the magnetic telegraph, and designed an instrument which should telegraph to the expectant measurers above how it was getting on in the depths below. but all these ingenious devices failed, and it is probable that the deepest parts of the ocean-bed still remained untouched by man. at last an extremely simple and remarkably successful deep-sea sounding apparatus was invented by mr brooke, an american officer. it consisted of nothing more than thin twine for a sounding-line, and a cannon ball for a sinker. the twine was made for the purpose, fine but very strong, and was wound on a reel to the extent of ten thousand fathoms. the cannon ball, which was from thirty-two to sixty-eight pounds' weight, had a hole quite through it, into which was fixed a sliding rod, the end of which, covered with grease, projected several inches beyond the ball. by an ingenious and simple contrivance, the cannon ball was detached when it reached the bottom of the sea, and the light rod was drawn up with specimens of the bottom adhering to the grease. with this instrument the americans went to work with characteristic energy, and, by always using a line of the same size and make, and a sinker of the same shape and weight, they at last ascertained the law of descent. this was an important achievement, because, having become familiar with the precise rate of descent at all depths, they were enabled to tell very nearly when the ball ceased to carry out the line, and when it began to go out in obedience to the influence of deep-sea currents. the greatest depth reached by brooke's sounding-line is said to have been a little under five miles in the north atlantic. the value of investigations of this kind does not appear at first sight, to unscientific men. but those who have paid even a little attention to the methods and processes by which grand discoveries have been made, and useful inventions have been perfected, can scarcely have failed to come to the conclusion that _the search after_ truth, _pure and simple, of any kind, and of every kind, either with or without reference to a particular end_, is one of the most useful as well as elevating pursuits in which man can engage. _all_ truth is worth knowing and labouring after. no one can tell to what useful results the discovery of even the smallest portion of truth may lead. some of the most serviceable and remarkable inventions of modern times have been the result of discoveries of truths which at first seemed to have no bearing whatever on those inventions. when james watt sat with busy reflective mind staring at a boiling kettle, and discovered the expansive power of steam, no one could have for a moment imagined that in the course of years the inventions founded on the truth then discovered would result in the systematic driving of a fleet of floating palaces all round the world at the rate of from twelve to fifteen or twenty miles an hour! instances of a similar kind might be multiplied without end. in like manner, deep-sea sounding may lead to great, as yet unimagined, results. although yet in its infancy, it has already resulted in the discovery of a comparatively shallow plateau or ridge in the north atlantic ocean, rising between ireland and newfoundland; a discovery which has been turned to practical account, inasmuch as the plateau has been chosen to be the bed of our electric telegraph between europe and america. the first atlantic cable was laid on it; and although that cable suffered many vicissitudes at first, as most contrivances do in their beginnings, communication between the two continents was successfully established. soundings taken elsewhere showed that somewhat similar plateaus existed in other parts of the atlantic, and now the whole of western europe is being bound more firmly, by additional cables, to the eastern seaboard of america. this great and glorious achievement has been the result of the discovery of two truths,--of a truth in science on the one hand, and a truth in regard to the structure of the bed of the sea on the other. the study of electricity and of deep-sea soundings was begun and carried on for the sake of the discovery of _truth_ alone, and without the most distant reference to the atlantic telegraph,--yet that telegraph has been one of the results of that study. who can tell how many more shall follow? and even were no other result ever to follow, this one may prove to be of the most stupendous importance to the human race. another discovery that has been made by deep-sea sounding is, that the lowest depths of the ocean are always in a state of profound calm. oceanic storms do not extend to the bottom. when the tempest is lashing the surface of the sea into a state of the most violent and tremendous agitation, the caverns of the deep are wrapped in perfect repose. this has been ascertained from the fact that in many places the bottom of the sea, as shown by the specimens brought up by brooke's apparatus, and more recently by professor thompson's deep-sea dredge, is composed of exceedingly minute shells of marine insects. these shells, when examined by the microscope, are found to be unbroken and perfect, though so fragile that they must certainly have been broken to pieces had they ever been subjected to the influence of currents, or to the pulverising violence of waves. hence the conclusion that the bottom of the sea is in a state of perpetual rest and placidity. indeed, when we think of it, we are led to conclude that this must necessarily be the case. there are, as we shall presently show, currents of vast size and enormous power constantly flowing through the ocean; and when we think of the tremendous power of running water to cut through the solid rock, as exemplified in the case of niagara, and many other rivers, what would be the result of the action of currents in the sea, compared with which niagara is but a tiny rivulet? ocean currents, then, flow on a bed of still water, that protects the bottom of the sea from forces which, by calculation, we know would long ago have torn up the foundations of the deep, and would probably have destroyed the whole economy of nature, had not this beautiful arrangement been provided by the all-wise creator. chapter three. waves--system in all things--value of scientific knowledge--illustrative anecdote--height of waves--dr. scoresby--size, velocity, and awful power of waves--anecdotes regarding them--tides. when a man stands on the deck of some tight-built ship, holding on to the weather bulwarks, and gazing with unphilosophic eye through the blinding spray at the fury of the tempest--by which the billows are made to roll around him like liquid mountains, and the ship is tossed beneath him like a mere chip, the sport and plaything of the raging waters--he is apt to think, should his thoughts turn in that direction at all, that all is unmitigated confusion; that the winds, which blew west yesterday and blow east to-day,--shifting, it may be, with gusty squalls, now here, now there, in chaotic fury,--are actuated by no laws, governed by no directing power. yet no thought could be more unphilosophical than this. apart altogether from divine revelation, by which we are informed that "all deeps, fire, and hail, snow, and vapour, and stormy wind," are "fulfilling god's word" (which information we are bound to receive as a matter of faith if we be christians, and as a matter of necessity if we be men of common sense, because it is mere absurdity to suppose that the "stormy winds," etcetera, are _not_ fulfilling god's word--or will), we now know, to a great extent from practical experience and scientific investigation, that the winds blow and the waters of the ocean flow in grand, regular, uninterrupted currents. amongst these there are numberless eddies, which, perhaps, have tended to fill our minds with the idea of irregularity and confusion; but which, nevertheless, as well as the grand currents themselves, are subject to law, and are utterly devoid of caprice. in regard to these matters there is much about which we are still in ignorance. but the investigations of late years--especially those conducted under the superintendence of captain maury of the american navy, and doctors carpenter and thompson of england--have shown that our atmosphere and our ocean act in accordance with a systematic arrangement, many facts regarding which have been discovered, and turned, in some cases, to practical account. see note 1. a very interesting instance of the practical use to which scientific inquiry can be turned, even in its beginnings, is given by maury. after telling us of the existence and nature of a current in the ocean called the gulf stream, he gives the following account of the manner in which upon one occasion be made use of his theoretical knowledge. in the month of december 1853, the fine steam-ship _san francisco_ sailed from new york with a regiment of united states troops on board, bound for california by way of cape horn. she was overtaken, while crossing the gulf stream, by a gale of wind, in which she was dreadfully crippled. her decks were swept, and, by one single blow of those terrible seas that the storms raise in the gulf stream, more than in any other part of the atlantic, one hundred and seventy-nine souls, officers and soldiers, were washed overboard and drowned. the day after this disaster she was seen by one vessel, and again, the next day, december 26th, by another; but neither of them could render her any assistance. when these two vessels arrived in the united states and reported what they had seen, the most painful apprehensions were entertained by friends for the safety of those on board the steamer. vessels were sent out to search for and relieve her. but where should these vessels go? where should they look? an appeal was made to know what light the system of researches carried on at the national observatory concerning winds and currents could throw upon the subject. the materials they had been discussing were examined, and a chart was prepared to show the course of the gulf stream at that season of the year. two revenue cutters were then appointed to proceed to sea in search of the steamer, and maury was requested to "furnish them with instructions." it will be observed here that the gentleman thus appealed to was at the time engaged in his study at washington, utterly ignorant of all that had occurred within the previous few weeks on the stormy atlantic, except through the reports brought thence by ships. these reports furnished him with meagre data to proceed upon--simply that a crippled steamer had been seen in a certain latitude and longitude on a particular day. but this information was sufficient for the practical man of science. proceeding upon the supposition that the steamer had been completely disabled, he drew two lines on the chart to define the limits of her drift. this his previous knowledge of the flow of the gulf stream at all seasons of the year enabled him to do. between these two lines, he said, the steamer, if she could neither steam nor sail after the gale, had drifted. and that she could neither steam nor sail he had good reason to suppose from the account of her brought in by the vessels above mentioned. a certain point was marked on the chart as being the spot where the searching vessels might expect to fall in with the wreck. while these preparations were being made, two ships fell in with the wreck and relieved the crew. this, however, was not known at the time by the anxious friends on shore. the cutters sailed on their mission, and reached the indicated spot in the sea, where, of course, their assistance was now unnecessary. but when the vessels that had relieved the crew of the wreck arrived in harbour and reported where the wreck had been last seen, it was found to be within a few miles of the spot indicated by maury! thus, upon very slight data, a man of science and observation was enabled, while seated in his study, to follow the drift of a wrecked vessel over the pathless deep, and to indicate to a rescue party, not only the exact course they ought to steer, but the precise spot where the wreck should be found. the waves of the ocean are by no means so high as people imagine. their appearance in the atlantic or pacific, when raised by a violent storm, is indeed very awful, and men have come to speak of them as being "mountains of water." but their sublime aspect and their tumultuous state of agitation have contributed much to deceive superficial observers as to their real height. scientific men have measured the height of the waves. not many years ago a vessel, while crossing the atlantic, was overtaken by a violent storm. the sea rose in its might; the good ship reeled under the combined influence of wind and waves. while the majority of the passengers sought refuge from the driving spray in the cabin, one eccentric old gentleman was seen skipping about the deck with unwonted activity--now on the bulwarks, now on the quarter-deck, and anon in the rigging; utterly regardless of the drenching sea and the howling wind, and seeming as though he were a species of human stormy petrel. this was the celebrated dr scoresby; a man who had spent his youth and manhood in the whale-fishing; who, late in life, entered the church, and, until the day of his death, took a special delight in directing the attention of sailors to him whose word stilled the tempest and bade the angry waves be calm. being an enthusiast in scientific research, dr scoresby was availing himself of the opportunity afforded by this storm to _measure the waves_! others have made similar measurements, and the result goes to prove that waves seldom or never rise much more than ten feet above the sea-level. the corresponding depression sinks to the same depth, thus giving the entire height of the largest waves an elevation of somewhere between twenty and thirty feet. when it is considered that sometimes the waves of the sea (especially those off the cape of good hope) are so broad that only a few of them occupy the space of a mile, and that they travel at the rate of about forty miles an hour, we may have some slight idea of the grandeur as well as the power of the ocean billows. the forms represented in our illustration are only wavelets on the backs of these monster waves. waves travel at a rate which increases in proportion to their size and the depth of water in which they are formed. every one knows that on most lakes they are comparatively small and harmless. in some lakes, however, such as lake superior in north america, which is upwards of three hundred miles long, the waves are so formidable as to resemble those of the ocean, and they are capable of producing tremendous effects. but the waves of the sea, when roused to their greatest height, and travelling at their greatest speed, are terrible to behold. their force is absolutely irresistible. sometimes waves of more than usually gigantic proportions arise, and, after careering over the broad sea in unimpeded majesty, fall with crushing violence on some doomed shore. they rush onward, pass the usual barriers of the sea-beach, and do not retire until horrible devastation has been carried far into the land. maury gives the following anecdote from the notes of a russian officer, which shows the awful power of such waves. "on the 23rd of december 1854, at 9:45 a.m., the shocks of an earthquake were felt on board the russian frigate _diana_, as she lay at anchor in the harbour of simoda, not far from jeddo in japan. in fifteen minutes afterwards (10 o'clock) a large wave was observed rolling into the harbour, and the water on the beach to be rapidly rising. the town, as seen from the frigate, appeared to be sinking. this wave was followed by another; and when the two receded, which was at fifteen minutes past ten, there was not a house, save an unfinished temple, left standing. these waves continued to come and go until half-past two p.m., during which time the frigate was thrown on her beam-ends five times; a piece of her keel, eighty-one feet long, was torn off; holes were knocked in her by striking on the bottom, and she was reduced to a wreck. in the course of five minutes the water in the harbour fell, it is said, from twenty-three to three feet, and the anchors of the ship were laid bare. there was a great loss of life; many houses were washed into the sea, and many junks carried up--one two miles inland--and dashed to pieces on the shore. the day was beautifully fine, and no warning was given of the approaching convulsion: the sea was perfectly smooth when its surface was broken by the first wave." monster waves of this kind occur at regular intervals, among the islands of the pacific, once and sometimes twice in the year; and this without any additional influence of an earthquake, at least in the immediate neighbourhood of the islands, though it is quite possible that earthquakes in some remote part of the world may have something to do with these waves. one such wave is described as breaking on one of these islands with tremendous violence. it appeared at first like a dark line, or low cloud, or fog-bank, on the sea-ward horizon. the day was fine though cloudy, and a gentle breeze was blowing; but the sea was not rougher, or the breaker on the coral reef that encircled the island higher, than usual. it was supposed to be an approaching thunder-storm; but the line gradually drew nearer without spreading upon the sky, as would have been the case had it been a thunder-cloud. still nearer it came, and soon those on shore observed that it was moving swiftly towards the island; but there was no sound until it reached the smaller islands out at sea. as it passed these, a cloud of white foam encircled each and burst high into the air. this appearance was soon followed by a loud roar, and it became evident that the object was an enormous wave. when it approached the outer reef, its awful magnitude became more evident. it burst completely over the reef at all points, with a deep, continuous roar; yet, although part of its force was thus broken, on it came, as if with renewed might, and finally fell upon the beach with a crash that seemed to shake the solid earth; then, rushing impetuously up into the woods, it levelled the smaller trees and bushes in its headlong course; and, on retiring, left a scene of wreck and desolation that is quite indescribable. "storm-waves," as those unusually gigantic billows are called, are said to be the result of the removal of atmospheric pressure in certain parts of the ocean over which a storm is raging. this removal of pressure allows the portion thus relieved to be forced up high above the ordinary sea-level by those other parts that are not so relieved. the devastating effects of these storm-waves is still further illustrated by the total destruction of coringa, on the coromandel coast, in 1789. during a hurricane, in december of that year, at the moment when a high tide was at its highest point, and the north-west wind was blowing with fury, accumulating the waters at the head of the bay, three monstrous waves came rolling in from the sea upon the devoted town, following each other at a short distance. the horror-stricken inhabitants had scarcely time to note the fact of their approach, when the first wave, sweeping everything in its passage, carried several feet of water into the town. the second swept still further in its destructive course, inundating all the low country. the third, rushing onward in irresistible fury, overwhelmed everything, submerging the town and twenty thousand of its inhabitants. vessels at anchor at the mouth of the river were carried inland; and the sea on retiring left heaps of sand and mud, which rendered it a hopeless task either to search for the dead or for buried property. we have spoken of waves "travelling" at such and such a rate, but they do not in reality travel at all. it is the undulation, or, so to speak, the _motion_ of a wave, that travels; in the same manner that a wave passes from one end of a carpet to the other end when it is shaken. the water remains stationary, excepting the spray and foam on the surface, and is only possessed of a rising and sinking motion. this undulatory motion, or impulse, is transmitted from each particle of water to its neighbouring particle, until it reaches the last drop of water on the shore. but when a wave reaches shallow water it has no longer room to sink to its proper depth; hence the water composing it acquires _actual_ motion, and rushes to the land with more or less of the tremendous violence that has been already described. waves are caused by wind, which first ruffles the surface of the sea into ripples, and then, acting with ever-increasing power on the little surfaces thus raised, blows _them_ up into waves, and finally into great billows. sometimes, however, winds burst upon the calm ocean with such sudden violence that for a time the waves cannot lift their heads. the instant they do so, they are cast down and scattered in foam, and the ocean in a few minutes presents the appearance of a cauldron of boiling milk! such squalls are extremely dangerous to mariners, and vessels exposed to them are often thrown on their beam-ends, even though all sail has been previously taken in. generally speaking, however, the immediate effect of wind passing either lightly or furiously over the sea is to raise its surface into waves. but these waves, however large they may be, do not affect the waters of the ocean more than a few yards below its surface. the water below their influence is comparatively calm, being affected only by ocean currents. the tides of the sea--as the two great flowings and ebbings of the water every twenty-four hours are called--are caused principally by the attractive influence of the moon, which, to a small extent, lifts the waters of the ocean towards it, as it passes over them, and thus causes a high wave. this wave, or current, when it swells up on the land, forms high tide. when the moon's influence has completely passed away, it is low tide. the moon raises this wave wherever it passes; not only in the ocean directly under it, but, strange to say, it causes a similar wave on the opposite side of the globe. thus there are two waves always following the moon, and hence the two high tides in the twenty-four hours. this second wave has been accounted for in the following way: the cohesion of particles of water is easily overcome. the moon, in passing over the sea, separates the particles by her attractive power, and draws the surface of the sea away from the solid globe. but the moon also attracts the earth itself, and draws it away from the water on its opposite side thus causing the high wave there, as represented in the diagram, _figure 1_. the sun has also a slight influence on the tides, but not to such an extent as the moon. when the two luminaries exert their combined influence in the same direction, they produce the phenomenon of a very high or spring-tide, as in _figure 2_, where the tide at _a_ and _b_ has risen extremely high, while at _c_ and _d_ it has fallen correspondingly low. when they act in opposition to each other, as at the moon's quarter, there occurs a very low or neap-tide. in _figure 3_ the moon has raised high tide at _a_ and _b_, but the sun has counteracted its influence to some extent at _c_ and _d_, thus producing neap-tides, which neither rise so high nor fall so low as do other tides. tides attain various elevations in different parts of the world, partly owing to local influences. in the bristol channel the tide rises to nearly sixty feet, while in the mediterranean it is extremely small, owing to the landlocked nature of that sea preventing the tidal wave from having its full effect. up some gulfs and estuaries the tides sweep with the violence of a torrent, and any one caught by them on the shore would be overtaken and drowned before he could gain the dry land. in the open sea they rise and fall to an elevation of little more than three or four feet. the value of the tides is unspeakable. they sweep from our shores pollution of every kind, purify our rivers and estuaries, and are productive of freshness and health all round the world. -----------------------------------------------------------------------the gentlemen here referred to are agreed as to the fact of systematic arrangement of currents, though they differ in regard to some of the causes thereof and other matters. chapter four. the gulf stream--its nature--cause--illustration--effect of small powers united--adventures of a particle of water--effect of gulf stream on climate--its course--influence on navigation--sargasso sea--scientific efforts of present day--wind and current charts--effects on commerce-cause of storms--influence of gulf stream on marine animals. of the varied motions of the sea, the most important, perhaps, as well as the most wonderful, is the gulf stream. this mighty current has been likened by maury to a "river in the ocean. in the severest droughts it never fails, and in the mightiest floods it never overflows. its banks and its bottom are of cold water, while its current is of warm. it takes its rise in the gulf of mexico (hence its name), and empties into the arctic seas. its current is more rapid than the mississippi or the amazon, and its volume more than a thousand times greater." this great current is of the most beautiful indigo-blue colour as far out as the carolina coasts; and its waters are so distinctly separated from those of the sea, that the line of demarcation may be traced by the eye. its influences on the currents of the sea, and on the climates and the navigation of the world, are so great and important, that we think a somewhat particular account of it cannot fail to interest the reader. the waters of the gulf stream are salter than those of the sea; which fact accounts for its deeper blue colour, it being well known that salt has the effect of intensifying the blue of deep water. the cause of the gulf stream has long been a subject of conjecture and dispute among philosophers. some have maintained that the mississippi river caused it; but this theory is upset by the fact that the stream is salt--salter even than the sea--while the river is fresh. besides, the volume of water emptied into the gulf of mexico by that river is not equal to the _three thousandth part_ of that which issues from it in the form of the gulf stream. scientific men are still disagreed on this point. they all, indeed, seem to hold the opinion that _difference of temperature_ has to do with the origination of the stream; but while some, such as captain maury, hold that this is the _chief_ cause, others, such as professor thompson, believe the trade-winds to be the most important agent in the matter. we venture to incline to the opinion that not only the gulf stream, but _all_ the constant currents of the sea are due chiefly to _difference of temperature and saltness_. these conditions alter the specific gravity of the waters of the ocean in some places more than in others; hence the equilibrium is destroyed, and currents commence to flow as a natural result, seeking to restore that equilibrium. but as the disturbing agents are always at work, so the currents are of necessity constant. other currents there are in the sea, but they are the result of winds and various local causes; they are therefore temporary and partial, while the _great_ currents of the ocean are permanent, and are, comparatively, little affected by the winds. every one knows that when a pot is put on the fire to boil, the water contained in it, as soon as it begins to get heated, commences to circulate. the heated water rises to the top, the cold descends. when heated more than that which has ascended, it in turn rises to the surface; and so there is a regular current established in the pot, which continues to flow as long as the heating process goes on. this same principle of temperature, then, is one of the causes of the gulf stream. the torrid zone is the furnace where the waters of the ocean are heated. but in this process of heating, evaporation goes on to a large extent; hence the waters become salter than those elsewhere. here is another agent called into action. the hot salt waters of the torrid zone at once rush off to distribute their superabundant caloric and salt to the seas of the frigid zones; where the ice around the poles has kept the waters cold, and the absence of great heat, and, to a large extent, of evaporation, has kept them comparatively fresh. in fact, the waters of the sea require to be stirred, because numerous agents are at work day and night, from pole to pole, altering their specific gravity and deranging, so to speak, the mixture. this stirring is secured by the unalterable laws which the creator has fixed for the carrying on of the processes of nature. the currents of the sea may be said to be the result of this process of stirring its waters. it is curious and interesting to note the apparently insignificant instruments which god has seen fit to use in the carrying out of his plans. the smallest coral insect that builds its little cell in the southern seas exercises an influence in the production of the gulf stream. it has been said, with some degree of truth, that one such insect is capable of setting in motion the entire ocean! the coral insect has, in common with many other marine creatures, been gifted with the power of extracting from sea water the lime which it contains, in order to build its cell. the lime thus extracted leaves a minute particle of water necessarily destitute of that substance. before that particle can be restored to its original condition of equality, every other particle of water in the ocean must part with a share of its superabundant lime! the thing _must_ be done. that bereaved particle cannot rest without its lime. it forthwith commences to travel for the purpose of laying its brother-particles under contribution; and it travels far and wide--round and round the world. myriads upon myriads of coral insects are perpetually engaged in thus robbing the sea water of its lime; shells are formed in a similar manner: so that our particle soon finds itself in company with innumerable other particles of water in a like destitute condition. it rises to the surface. here the sun, as if to compensate it for the loss of its lime, bestows upon it an unusual amount of heat; and the surrounding particles, not to be outdone, make it almost unlimited presents of salt. full to overflow with the gifts of its new companions, it hastens to bestow of its superabundance on less favoured particles; joins the great army of the ocean's currents; enters, perchance, the gulf of mexico, where it is turned back, and hastens along with the gulf stream, with all its natural warmth of character, to ameliorate the climate of great britain and the western shores of europe. having accomplished this benevolent work, it passes on, with some of its heat and vigour still remaining, to the arctic seas--where it is finally robbed of all its heat and nearly all its salt, and frozen into an icicle--there for many a long day to exert a chilling influence on the waters and the atmosphere around it. being melted at last by the hot sun of the short arctic summer, it hurries back with the cold currents of the north to the genial regions of the equator, in search of its lost caloric and salt, taking in a full cargo of lime, etcetera, as it passes the mouths of rivers. arrived at its old starting-point, our wanderer receives once more heat and salt to the full, parts with its lime, and at once hastens off on a new voyage of usefulness--to give out of its superabundance in exchange for the superabundance of others: thus quietly teaching man the lesson that the true principles of commerce were carried out in the depths of the sea ages before he discovered them and carried them into practice on its surface. perchance another fate awaits this adventurous particle of water. mayhap, before it reaches the cold regions of the north, it is evaporated into the clouds, and descends upon the earth in fresh and refreshing rain or dew. having fertilised the fields, it flows back to its parent ocean, laden with a superabundant cargo of earthy substances, which it soon parts with in exchange for salt. and thus on it goes, round and round the world; down in the ocean's depths, up in the cloudy sky, deep in the springs of earth; ever moving, ever active, never lost, and always fulfilling the end for which it was created. all ocean currents are composed of water in one or other of the conditions just described;--the hot and salt waters of the equator, flowing north to be cooled and freshened; the cold and fresh waters of the north, flowing south to be heated and salted. the gulf stream is simply the stream of equatorial hot water that flows towards the pole through the atlantic. its fountain-head is the region of the equator, _not_ the gulf of mexico; but it is carried, by the conformation of the land, into that gulf and deflected by it, and from it out into the ocean in the direction of europe. this stream in the atlantic is well defined, owing to the comparative narrowness of that sea. the gulf stream, then, is like a river of oil in the ocean,--it preserves its distinctive character for more than three thousand miles. it flows towards the polar regions, and the waters of those regions flow in counter-currents towards the equator, because of the fixed law that water must seek its equilibrium as well as its level, thus keeping up a continuous circulation of the hot waters towards the north and the cold towards the south. there are similar currents in the pacific, but they are neither so large nor so regular as those of the atlantic, owing to the wide formation of the basin of the former sea. the effect of the gulf stream on climate is very great. the dreary fur-trading establishment of york factory, on the shores of hudson's bay, is surrounded by a climate of the most rigorous character--the thermometer seldom rising up so high as zero during many months, and often ranging down so low as 50 degrees below zero, sometimes even lower, while the winter is seven or eight months long: the lakes and rivers are covered with ice upwards of six feet thick, and the salt sea itself is frozen. yet this region lies in the same latitude with scotland, york factory being on the parallel of 57 degrees north, which passes close to aberdeen! the difference in temperature between the two places is owing very much, if not entirely, to the influence of the gulf stream. starting from its caldron in the gulf of mexico, it carries a freight of caloric towards the north atlantic. owing partly to the diurnal motion of the earth on its axis, its flow trends towards the east; hence its warm waters embrace our favoured coasts, and ameliorate our climate, while the eastern sea-board of north america is left, in winter, to the rigour of unmitigated frost. but besides the powerful influence of this current on climate, it exerts a very considerable influence on navigation. in former times, when men regarded the ocean as a great watery waste--utterly ignorant of the exquisite order and harmonious action of all the varied substances and conditions which prevail in the sea, just as much as on the land--they committed themselves to the deep as to a blind chance, and took the storms and calms they encountered as their inevitable fate, which they had no means of evading. ascertaining, as well as they could from the imperfect charts of those days, the position of their desired haven, they steered straight for it through fair weather and foul, regarding interruptions and delays as mere unavoidable matters of course. but when men began to study the causes and effects of the operation of those elements in the midst of which they dwelt, they soon perceived that order reigned where before they had imagined that confusion revelled; and that, by adapting their operations to the ascertained laws of providence, they could, even upon the seemingly unstable sea, avoid dangers and delays of many kinds, and oftentimes place themselves in highly favourable circumstances. navigators no longer dash recklessly into the gulf stream, and try to stem its tide, as they did of yore; but, as circumstances require, they either take advantage of the counter-currents which skirt along it, or avail themselves of the warm climate which it creates even in the midst of winter. there is a certain spot in the atlantic known by the name of the sargasso sea, which is neither more nor less than a huge ocean-eddy, in which immense quantities of sea-weed collect. the weed floats so thickly on the surface as to give to the sea the appearance of solid land; and ships find extreme difficulty in getting through this region, which is rendered still further unnavigable by the prevalence of long-continued calms. this sargasso sea is of considerable extent, and lies off the west coast of africa, a little to the north of the cape verd islands. in former years, ships used to get entangled in this weedy region for weeks together, unable to proceed on their voyage. the great columbus fell in with it on his voyage to america, and his followers, thinking they had reached the end of the world, were filled with consternation. this sargasso sea lies in the same spot at the present day, but men now know its extent and position. instead of steering straight for port, they proceed a considerable distance out of their way, and, by avoiding this calm region, accomplish their voyages with much greater speed. the ocean currents have been, by repeated and long-continued investigation, ascertained and mapped out; so also have the currents of the atmosphere, so that, now-a-days, by taking advantage of some of these currents and avoiding others, voyages are performed, not only in much shorter time, but with much greater precision and certainty. as it was with ocean currents long ago, so was it with atmospheric. navigators merely put to sea, steered as near as possible on their direct course, and took advantage of such winds as chanced to blow. now they know whither to steer in order to meet with such winds and currents as will convey them in the shortest space of time to the end of their voyage. the knowledge necessary to this has not been gained by the gigantic effort of one mind, nor by the accidental collocation of the results of the investigations of many ordinary minds. but a few master-minds have succeeded in gathering within their own grasp the myriad facts collected by thousands of naval men, of all countries, in their various voyages; and, by a careful comparison and philosophical investigation of these facts, they have ascertained and systematised truths which were before unknown, and have constructed wind and current charts, by the use of which voyages are wonderfully shortened, commercial enterprises greatly facilitated, and the general good and comfort of nations materially advanced. the truth of this has of late been proved by incontestable facts. for instance, one year particular note was taken of the arrival of all the vessels at the port of san francisco, in california; and it was found that of 124 vessels from the atlantic coast of the united states, 70 were possessed of maury's wind and current charts. the average passage of these 70 vessels, on that long voyage round cape horn, was 135 days; while the average of those that sailed _without_ the charts (that is, trusted to their own unaided wisdom and experience) was 146 days. between england and australia the average length of the voyage out used, very recently, to be 124 days. with the aid of these charts it has now been reduced to 97 days on the average. the saving to commerce thus achieved is much greater than one would suppose. at the risk of becoming tedious to uninquiring readers, we will make a brief extract from hunt's "merchants' magazine" of 1854, as given in a foot-note in maury's "physical geography of the sea." "now, let us make a calculation of the annual saving to the commerce of the united states effected by these charts and sailing directions. according to mr maury, the average freight from the united states to rio janeiro is 17.7 cents per ton per day; to australia, 20 cents; to california, also about 20 cents. the mean of this is a little over 19 cents per ton per day; but, to be within the mark, we will take it at 15, and include all the ports of south america, china, and the east indies. "the sailing directions have shortened the passage to california 30 days; to australia, 20; to rio janeiro, 10. the mean of this is 20; but we will take it at 15, and also include the above-named ports of south america, china, and the east indies. "we estimate the tonnage of the united states engaged in trade with these places at 1,000,000 tons per annum. "with these data, we see that there has been effected a saving for each one of these tons, of 15 cents per day for a period of 15 days, which will give an aggregate of 2,250,000 dollars (468,750 pounds) saved per annum. this is on the outward voyage alone, and the tonnage trading with all other parts of the world is also left out of the calculation. take these into consideration, and also the fact that there is a vast amount of foreign tonnage trading between these places and the united states, and it will be seen that the annual sum saved will swell to an enormous amount." before the existence of the gulf stream was ascertained, vessels were frequently drifted far out of their course in cloudy or foggy weather, without the fact being known, until the clearing away of the mists enabled the navigators to ascertain their position by solar observation. now, not only the existence, but the exact limits and action of this stream are known and mapped; so that the current, which was formerly a hindrance to navigation, is now made to be a help to it. the line of demarcation between the warm waters of the gulf stream and the cold waters of the sea is so sharp and distinct, that by the use of the thermometer the precise minute of a ship's leaving or entering it can be ascertained. and by the simple application of the thermometer to the gulf stream the average passage from england to america has been reduced from upwards of eight weeks to little more than four! but this wonderful current is useful to navigators in more ways than one. its waters, being warm, carry a mild climate along with them through the ocean even in the depth of winter, and thus afford a region of shelter to vessels when attempting to make the atlantic coast of north america, which, at that season is swept by furious storms and chilled by bitter frosts. the atlantic coasts of the united states are considered to be the most stormy in the world during winter, and the difficulty of making them used to be much greater in former days than now. the number of wrecks that take place off the shores of new england in mid-winter is frightful. all down that coast flows one of the great cold currents from the north. the combined influence of the cold atmosphere above it, and the warm atmosphere over the gulf stream, far out at sea, produces terrific gales. the month's average of wrecks off that coast has been as high as three a day. in making the coast, vessels are met frequently by snow-storms, which clothe the rigging with ice, rendering it unmanageable, and chill the seaman's frame, so that he cannot manage his ship or face the howling blast. formerly, when unable to make the coast, owing to the fury of these bitter westerly gales, he knew of no place of refuge short of the west indies, whither he was often compelled to run, and there await the coming of genial spring ere he again attempted to complete his voyage. now, however, the region of the gulf stream is sought as a refuge. when the stiffened ropes refuse to work, and the ship can no longer make head against the storm, she is put about and steered for the gulf stream. in a few hours she reaches its edge, and almost in a moment afterwards she passes from the midst of winter into a sea of sunnier heat! "now," as maury beautifully expresses it, "the ice disappears from her apparel; the sailor bathes his limbs in tepid waters. feeling himself invigorated and refreshed with the genial warmth about him, he realises out there at sea the fable of antaeus and his mother earth. he rises up and attempts to make his port again, and is again, perhaps, as rudely met and beat back from the north-west; but each time that he is driven off from the contest, he comes forth from this stream, like the ancient son of neptune, stronger and stronger, until, after many days, his freshened strength prevails, and he at last triumphs, and enters his haven in safety--though in this contest he sometimes falls to rise no more, for it is terrible." the power of ocean currents in drifting vessels out of their course, and in sweeping away great bodies of ice, is very great; although, from the fact that there is no land to enable the eye to mark the flow, such drifts are not perceptible. one of the most celebrated drifts of modern times, and the most astonishing on account of its extent, was that of the _fox_ in baffin's bay in the year 1857, a somewhat detailed account of which will be found in a succeeding chapter. the gulf stream is the cause of many of the most furious storms. the fiercest gales sweep along with it, and it is supposed that the spring and summer fogs of newfoundland are caused by the immense volumes of warm water poured by it into the cold seas of that region. we are told that sir philip brooke found the temperature of the sea on each side of this stream to be at the freezing-point, while that of its waters was 80 degrees. from this it may be easily seen how great are the disturbing influences around and above it; for, as the warm and moist atmosphere over it ascends in virtue of its lightness, the cold air outside rushes in violently to supply its place, thus creating storms. the warm waters of this stream do not, it is believed, anywhere extend to the bottom of the sea. it has been ascertained, by means of the deep-sea thermometer, that they rest upon, or rather flow over, the cold waters which are hastening from the north in search of those elements which, in their wanderings, they have lost. as cold water is one of the best non-conductors of heat, the gulf stream is thus prevented from losing its caloric on its way across the atlantic to ameliorate the climates of the western coasts of europe, and moderate the bitterness of the northern seas. were it otherwise, and this great stream flowed over the crust of the earth, so much of its heat would be extracted, that the climates of france and our own islands would probably resemble that of canada. our fields would be covered, for two, three, or four months, with deep snow; our rivers would be frozen nearly to the bottom; our land traffic would perhaps be carried on by means of sledges and carioles; our houses would require to be fitted with double window-frames and heated with iron stoves and our garments would have to be made of the thickest woollens and the warmest furs. the presence and the unchanging regularity of these great hot and cold currents in the ocean is indicated very clearly by the living inhabitants of the deep. these, as certainly as the creatures of the land, are under the influence of climate; so much so, that many of them never quit their native region in the sea. all the beautiful and delicate marine creatures and productions which dwell in the warm waters of the south are utterly absent from those shores which are laved by the cold currents that descend from the north; while, owing to the influence of the gulf stream, we find many of those lovely and singular creatures upon our comparatively northern shores. of late years, as every one knows, we have all over the land been gathering these marine gems, and studying their peculiar habits with deep interest in that miniature ocean the aquarium. in the same parallel on the other side of the atlantic none of these little lovers of heat are to be found. on the other hand, the whale, delighting as it does to lave its huge warm-blooded body in iced water, is never found to enter the gulf stream. thus these fish, to some extent, define its position. other fish there are which seem to resemble man in their ability to change their climate at will but, like him also, they are apt in so doing to lose their health, or, at least, to get somewhat out of condition. some kinds of fish, when caught in the waters off virginia and the carolinas, are excellent for the table; but the same species, when taken off the warm coral banks of the bahamas, are scarcely worth eating. in fact, we see no reason for doubting that when these fish find their health giving way in the warm regions of the south, they seek to reinvigorate themselves by change of water; and, quitting for a time the beauteous coral groves, spend a few of the sunnier months of each year in gambolling in the cool regions of the north, or, what is much the same thing, in those cool currents that flow from the north in clearly defined channels. besides its other useful and manifold purposes, the gulf stream would seem to be one of the great purveyors of food to the whales. sea-nettles, or medusae, are well known to constitute the principal food of that species of whale which is termed the right whale. navigators have frequently observed large quantities of these medusae floating along with the gulf stream; and one sea captain in particular fell in with an extraordinarily large quantity of them, of a very peculiar species, off the coast of florida. as we have said, no whales ever enter the warm waters of the gulf stream; therefore, at that time at least, the leviathan could not avail himself of this rich provision. the captain referred to was bound for england. on his return voyage he fell in with the same mass of medusae off the western islands, and was three or four days in sailing through them. now, the western islands is a great place of resort for the whale, and thither had the gulf stream been commissioned to convey immense quantities of its peculiar food. we might enlarge endlessly on this great ocean current, but enough, we think, has been said to show that the sea, instead of being an ocean of unchanging drops, driven about at random by the power of stormy winds, is a mighty flood flowing in an appointed course--steady, regular, and systematic in its motions, varied and wonderful in its actions, benign and sweet in its influences, as it sweeps mound and round the world, fulfilling the will of its great creator. chapter five. the atmospheric ocean--order in its flow--offices of the atmosphere-dangers lessened by science--currents of atmosphere--cause of wind--two great currents--disturbing influences--calms--variable winds--causes thereof--local causes of disturbance--gulf stream--influence--the winds mapped out--a supposed case. fish are not the only creatures that live in this ocean. the human inhabitants of earth, dwell at the bottom of an ocean of air, which encircles the globe. fish, however, have the advantage of us, inasmuch as they can float and dart about in their ocean, while we, like the crabs, can only crawl about at the bottom of ours. this atmospheric ocean is so closely connected with the sea, and exercises upon it so constant, universal, and important an influence, that to omit, in a work of this kind, very special reference to the winds, would be almost as egregious an oversight as to ignore the waves. wind, or atmospheric air in motion, is the cause of storms, of waves, of water-transport through the sky, and of an incalculable amount of varied phenomena on land and sea. without this great agent no visible motion would ever take place in the sea. its great currents, indeed, might flow on (though even that is questionable), but its surface would never present any other aspect than that of an unruffled sheet of clear glass. the air, then, becomes in this place an appropriate subject of consideration. the voice of ocean has something very emphatic to say about the atmosphere. in regard to its nature, it is sufficient to say that atmospheric air is composed of two gases--oxygen and nitrogen. like the sea, the atmosphere is an ocean which flows, not in chaotic confusion, but in regular, appointed courses; acting in obedience to the fixed, unvarying laws of the almighty, and having currents, counter-currents, and eddies also, just like the watery ocean, which exercise a specific and salutary influence where they exist. the offices of the atmosphere are thus quaintly enumerated by maury:-"the atmosphere is an envelope or covering for the distribution of light and heat over the earth; it is a sewer into which, with every breath we draw, we cast vast quantities of dead animal matter; it is a laboratory for purification, in which that matter is recompounded, and wrought again into wholesome and healthful shapes; it is a machine for pumping up all the rivers from the sea, and for conveying the water from the ocean to their sources in the mountains. it is an inexhaustible magazine, marvellously stored; and upon the proper working of this machine depends the well-being of every plant and animal that inhabits the earth." an element whose operations are so manifold and so important could not fail to engage the study of philosophic men in all ages; but so difficult has been that study that little progress was made until very recently, when men, acting in unison in all parts of the world, have, by collating their observations, become acquainted with some of those laws which govern the atmosphere, and direct its courses and velocities. in early ages very little indeed was known about the wind beyond the palpable facts of its existence, its varied condition, and its tremendous power; and men's observations in regard to it did not extend much beyond the noting of those peculiar and obvious aspects of the sky which experience taught them to regard as evidences of approaching storm. but, although such aspects of the heavens were, and always will be, pretty safe and correct indicators of the weather, they are by no means infallible; and in some regions and under certain conditions they are wanting altogether. when the sea captain observes a lowering aspect of the sky, with, it may be, a dark line above the distant edge of the sea, he knows--however calm and unruffled may be the ocean around him--that wind may be expected; and, calling the crew, he orders sail to be taken in, and preparation made for the approaching breeze. but there are times when no such warning is given, when the atmospheric is perfectly still, the sea calm as glass, and the vessel floats motionless with her sails hanging idly from the yards, as if she were: a painted ship upon a painted ocean. suddenly, and before preparation can be made to withstand it, the hurricane bursts in appalling fury over the sea: the sails are blown to ribbons; the masts, perhaps, broken down; and frequently the vessel itself overwhelmed and sent to the bottom. many a gallant ship, which has left the harbour ably commanded and well manned, and never more been heard of, has doubtless gone down in sudden storms such as those we have referred to. but the inventions of science have now very much lessened the danger of these storms. the barometer, by the sudden fall of its column of mercury, tells, as plainly and certainly as if it spoke with an audible voice, that a storm is approaching, even though all nature should appear to contradict the fact by its calm and serene aspect; so that the crew thus warned have time to furl the sails, fasten down the hatches, and otherwise prepare to face the impending danger. the atmosphere flows in a grand harmonious system of currents and counter-currents, with their corresponding eddies, just like the ocean; and the grand final results of its varied action are to equalise in some degree the temperatures of the world, to carry off and distribute moisture where it is required, to sweep away noxious vapours, and generally to ventilate the earth and gladden the heart of man. the primary cause of all wind is the combined action of heat and cold. if the world were heated with perfect equality all round, there would be, as far at least as heat is concerned, a perfect and permanent stagnation of the atmosphere; and this would speedily result in the destruction of every living thing. but by the varied and beautiful arrangements which the almighty has made in nature he has secured a regular flow of atmospheric currents, which will continue unalterably to move as long as the present economy of things exists. the intense and constant action of the sun's rays in the torrid zone produces great heat, while the less powerful and frequently interrupted influence of his rays in the frigid zones induces extreme cold. hence we have in one region heated air, in another cool air. now, the effect of heat upon air is to expand it, make it light, and cause it to rise. the moment it does so, the cold air rushes in to supply its place; and this rushing in of the cold air is what we call wind. it may surprise many people to be told that there are only two great and never-ceasing courses of the winds of this world--namely, north and south. they flow perpetually from the equator to the poles, and from the poles to the equator. all the irregularities and interruptions that we observe are mere temporary and partial deflections from this grand course. the heated air at the equator rises continually and flows in an upper current towards the pole, getting gradually cooled on its way north. that from the pole flows in an under current towards the equator, getting gradually heated on its way south. we speak only of the northern hemisphere, for the sake of simplifying explanation,--the action of the great wind-current in the southern hemisphere is precisely similar. but our broad simple statement about the upper current from the equator, and the under current from the pole, requires a slight modification, which we thought it best not to mingle with the statement itself. the heated air from the equator does indeed _commence_ to flow in an upper current, and the cooled air from the pole in an under current; but, as the upper currents of air are speedily cooled by exposure to space, and the under currents are heated by contact with the earth's surface, they constantly change places--the lower current becoming the upper, and _vice versa_. but they do not change _direction_. the equatorial current ascends, rushes north to a point about latitude 30 degrees, where, being sufficiently cooled, it swoops down, and continues its northward rush along the earth. at another point the polar current quits the earth, and soaring up, in consequence of its recently acquired heat, becomes the upper current. this change in the two currents takes place twice in their course. of course, the effect of these changes is to produce north winds in one latitude and south winds in another, according to the particular wind (equatorial or polar) that happens to be in contact with the earth. at the points where these two currents cross, in changing places, we necessarily have calms, or conflicting and variable winds. here, then, we have the first of the constant disturbing causes, and of apparent irregularities, in the winds. the earth, as every one knows, whirls rapidly on its axis from west to east. at the equator the whirl is so rapid that the atmosphere does not at once follow the earth's motion. it lags behind, and thus induces an easterly tendency to the winds, so that a north wind becomes a north-east, and a south wind a south-east. here we have another constant cause of variation from the northerly and southerly flow. we thus account for an easterly tendency to the winds, but whence their westerly flow? it is simply explained thus: the motion of the earth is greatest at the equator. it diminishes gradually towards the poles, where there is no motion at all. the atmosphere partakes of the earth's motion when in contact with it; and when thrown upwards by heat, as at the equator, it keeps up the motion for some time, as it meets with no resistance there. bearing this in mind, let us now follow a gush of warm atmosphere from the equator. it rushes up, and, turning north and south, seeks the poles. we follow the northern division. when it left the earth it had acquired a very strong motion _towards_ the east,--not so great as that of the earth itself, but great enough to be equivalent to a furious gale from west to east. if we suppose this air to redescend whence it rose, it would, on reaching the equator, find the earth going too fast for it. it would lag a little, and become a gentle easterly breeze. but now, throw aside this supposition;--our breeze rushes north; at latitude 30 degrees it has got cooled, and swoops down upon the earth; but the earth at this latitude is moving much slower than at the equator; the wind, however, has lost little or none of its easterly velocity. on reaching the earth it rushes east much faster than the earth itself, and thus becomes a westerly gale. there are, however, many other agents at work, which modify and disturb what we may call the legitimate flow of the wind; and these agents are diverse in different places, so that the atmosphere is turned out of a straight course, and is caused to deflect, to halt, and to turn round: sometimes sweeping low as if in haste; at other times pausing, as if in uncertainty; and often whirling round, as if in mad confusion. to the observer, who sees only the partial effects around his own person, all this commotion seems but the disorderly action of blind chance; but to the eye of him who sees the end from the beginning, we may certainly conclude that naught is seen but order and perfect harmony. and to the eye of science there now begins to appear, in what was formerly an atmospheric chaos, an evidence of design and system, which is not, indeed, absolutely clear, but which is nevertheless abundantly perceptible to minds that cannot hope in this life to see otherwise than "through a glass, darkly." the causes which modify the action of the winds are, as we have said, various. local causes produce local currents. a clear sky in one region allows the sun's rays to pour upon, let us say, the ocean, producing great heat; the result of which is evaporation. aqueous vapour is very light, therefore it rises; and in doing so the aqueous particles carry the air up with them, and the wind necessarily rushes in below to supply its place. the falling of heavy rain, in certain conditions of the atmosphere, has the effect of raising wind. electricity has also, in all probability, something to do with the creation of motion in the atmosphere. now, as these are all local causes, they produce local--or what, in regard to the whole atmosphere, may be termed irregular--effects. and as these causes or agents are in ceaseless operation at all times, so their disturbing influence is endless; and hence the apparent irregularity in the winds. but these causes are themselves, not less than their results, dependent on other causes or laws, the workings of which are steady and unvarying; and the little irregularities that appear to us in the form of fluctuating and changing winds and calms may be compared to the varying ripples and shifting eddies of a river, whose surface is affected by the comparatively trifling influences of wind, rain, and drought, but whose grand onward course is never for a single moment interrupted. among these disturbing influences, the gulf stream is a very important one. it is constantly sending up large volumes of steam, which, rising into the air, induce a flow of wind from both sides towards its centre. and many of the storms that arise in other parts of the atlantic make for this stream, and follow its course. so much has been ascertained by scientific investigation of the winds, that we can now distinctly map out the great belts or currents which pass right round the world. we can tell in which parallels winds with easting, and in which those with westing, in them, will be most frequently found; and by directing our course to such places, we can to a certain extent count upon profiting by the winds that will be most suitable. before the facts of atmospheric circulation were known, mariners sailed by chance. if they happened to get into the belt of wind that suited them, their voyages were favourable; if they got into the wrong region, their voyages were unfavourable,--that was all. but they had no idea that there was any possibility of turning the tables, and, by a careful investigation of the works of the creator, coming at last to such knowledge as would enable them to reduce winds and waves, in a great degree, to a state of slavery, instead of themselves being at their mercy. the world may be said to be encircled by a succession of belts of wind, which blow not always in the same direction, but almost invariably with the same routine of variations. a vessel sailing from north to south encounters these belts in succession. to mariners of old, these varying winds seemed to blow in utter confusion. to men of the present time, their varied action is counted on with some degree of certainty. the reason why men were so long in discovering the nature of atmospheric circulation was, that they were not sufficiently alive to the immense value of united effort. they learned wisdom chiefly from personal experience--each man for himself; and in the great majority of cases, stores of knowledge, that would have been of the utmost importance to mankind, were buried with the individuals who had laid them up. moreover, the life of an individual was too short, and his experience too limited, to enable him to discover any of the grand laws of nature; and as there was no gathering together of information from all quarters, and all sorts of men, and all seasons (as there is now), the knowledge acquired by individuals was almost always lost to the world. thus men were ever learning, but never arriving at a knowledge of the truth. may we not here remark, that this evil was owing to another evil-namely, man's ignorance of, or indifference to, the duty of what we may term human communication? as surely as gravitation is an appointed law of god, so surely is it an appointed duty that men shall communicate their individual knowledge to each other, in order that the general knowledge of the species may advance and just in proportion to the fidelity with which men obey this duty--the care and ability with which they collate and systematise and investigate their knowledge--will be the result of their efforts. in order to make the above remarks more clear as regards atmospheric phenomena, let us suppose the case of a sailor who makes the same voyage every year, but not precisely at the same time each year (and it must be remembered that the rigid punctuality at starting which now holds good did not exist in former times). in his first voyage he had to cross, say, four of the wind-belts. while crossing belt number one, he experiences south-west winds chiefly, and, being an observant man, notes the fact. in belt number two he encounters westerly winds. in number three he is in a region of variable winds and calms. in this region the winds blow all round the compass, averaging about three months from each quarter. but our sailor does not know that; he does not stay there all the year to make notes; he passes on, having recorded his experience. in crossing belt number four, he finds the prevailing winds to be easterly. next year he sets forth again but merchants are not always punctual. the lading cannot be completed in time, or adverse winds render the setting sail unadvisable. at length, after a month or six weeks' delay, he proceeds on his voyage, and finds belt number one perhaps much the same as last year. he congratulates himself on his good fortune, and notes his observations; but in belt number two, the wind is somewhat modified, owing to its being later in the season,--it is rather against him. in number three it is right in his teeth, whereas last year it was quite in his favour. in number four, which we will suppose is the trade-wind belt (of which more hereafter), he finds the wind still easterly. here, then, is the groundwork of confusion in our sailor's mind. he has not the remotest idea that in belt number one the wind blows chiefly, but not always, in one particular direction; that in number four it blows invariably in one way; and that in number three it is regularly irregular. in fact, he does not know that such belts exist at all, and his opportunities of observing are not sufficiently frequent or prolonged to enable him to ascertain anything with certainty. now, when we remember that in this imperfect experience of his he is still further misled by his frequently encountering _local_ vicissitudes--such as storms and calms resulting from local and temporary causes--we see how confusion becomes worse confounded. no doubt he does gather some few crumbs of knowledge; but he is called on, perhaps, to change his scene of action. another ship is given to him, another route entered on, and he ceases altogether to prosecute his inquiries in the old region. or old age comes on; and even although he may have been beginning to have a few faint glimmerings as to laws and systems in his mind, he has not the power to make much of these. he dies; his knowledge is, to a very large extent, lost, and his log-books disappear, as all such books do, nobody knows or cares where. now this state of things has been changing during the last few years. log-books are collected in thousands. the experiences of many men, in reference to the same spots in the same years, months, and even hours, are gathered, collated, and compared; and the result is, that although there are conflicting elements and contradictory appearances, order has been discovered in the midst of apparent confusion, and scientific men have been enabled to pierce through the chaos of littlenesses by which the world's vision has been hitherto obscured, and to lay bare many of those grand progressions of nature which move unvaryingly with stately step through space and time, as the river, with all its minor eddies and counter-currents, flows with unvarying regularity to the ocean. chapter six. trade-winds--storms--their effects--monsoons--their value--land and sea breezes--experiments--hurricanes--those of 1801--rotatory storms--their terrible effects--china seas--hurricane in 1837--whirlwinds--weight of atmosphere--value of atmospheric circulation--height of atmosphere. before proceeding to speak of the power and the dreadful effects of wind, it is necessary to say a word or two about the trade-winds. it is supposed that the "trades" derived their name from the fact of their being favourable to navigation, and, therefore, to trade. they consist of two belts of wind, one on each side of the equator, which blow always in the same direction. in the last chapter it was explained that the heated atmosphere at the equator rises, and that the cooler atmosphere from the poles rushes in to supply its place. that which rushes from the south pole is, of course, a south wind, that from the north pole a north wind; but, owing to the earth's motion on its axis from west to east, the one becomes a north-east, the other a south-east wind. these are the north-east and the south-east "trades." they blow regularly--sometimes gently, sometimes fiercely--all the year round. between the two is a belt of calms and changeable breezes, varying from 150 to 500 miles broad-according to the time of the year--where there are frequent and violent squalls, of very short duration, accompanied with heavy rains. this region is called by seamen the "doldrums," and considerable trouble and difficulty do ships experience in crossing it. it has already been explained that about latitude 30 degrees, the upper current of wind from the south descends. at the same point the upper current from the north also descends. they cut through each other, and the point where these two cut each other is the northern limit of the north-east trade-winds. the same explanation holds in regard to the southern limit of the south-east trades. in the accompanying diagram the arrows within the circle point out the direction of the north-east and the south-east "trades" between the tropics of cancer and capricorn, and also the counter currents to the north and south of these, while the arrows around the circle show how counter currents meet and rise, or descend, and produce the calm belts. we have hitherto enlarged chiefly on the grand currents of the atmosphere, and on those modifying causes and effects which are perpetual. let us now turn to the consideration of those winds which are produced by local causes, and the effects of which are partial. and here we are induced to revert to the gulf stream, which has been already referred to as a _local_ disturber of the regular flow of the atmosphere. this immense body of heated water, passing through cold regions of the sea, has the effect of causing the most violent storms. the hurricanes of the west indies are among the most violent in the world. we have read of one so violent that it "forced the gulf stream back to its sources, and piled up the water in the gulf to the height of thirty feet. a vessel named the _ledbnry snow_ attempted to ride it out. when it abated, she found herself high up on the dry land, having let go her anchor among the tree-tops of elliott's quay! the florida quays were inundated many feet; and it is said the scene presented in the gulf stream was never surpassed in awful sublimity on the ocean. the water thus dammed up rushed out with frightful velocity against the fury of the gale, producing a sea that beggared description." the monsoons of the indian ocean are among the most striking and regular of the locally-caused winds. before touching on their causes, let us glance at their effects. they blow for nearly six months in one direction, and for the other six in the opposite direction. at the period of their changing, terrific gales are frequent--gales such as we, in our temperate regions, never dream of. what is termed the rainy season in india is the result of the south-west monsoon, which for four months in the year deluges the regions within its influence with rain. the commencement of the south-west monsoon is described as being sublime and awful beyond description. before it comes, the whole country is pining under the influence of long-continued drought and heat; the ground is parched and rent; scarcely a blade of verdure is to be seen except in the beds of rivers, where the last pools of water seem about to evaporate, and leave the land under the dominion of perpetual sterility. man and beast pant for fresh air and cool water; but no cool breeze comes. a blast, as if from the mouth of a furnace, greets the burning cheek; no blessed drops descend; the sky is clear as a mirror, without a single cloud to mitigate the intensity of the sun's withering rays. at last, on some happy morning, small clouds are seen on the horizon. they may be no bigger than a man's hand, but they are blessed harbingers of rain. to those who know not what is coming, there seems at first no improvement on the previous sultry calms. there is a sense of suffocating heat in the atmosphere; a thin haze creeps over the sky, but it scarcely affects the broad glare of the sun. at length the sky begins to change. the horizon becomes black. great masses of dark clouds rise out of the sea. fitful gusts of wind begin to blow, and as suddenly to cease; and these signs of coming tempest keep dallying with each other, as if to tantalise the expectant creation. the lower part of the sky becomes deep red, the gathering clouds spread over the heavens, and a deep gloom is cast upon the earth and sea. and now the storm breaks forth. the violent gusts swell into a continuous, furious gale. rain falls, not in drops, but in broad sheets. the black sea is crested with white foam, which is quickly swept up and mingled with the waters above; while those below heave up their billows, and rage and roar in unison with the tempest. on the land everything seems about to be uprooted and hurled to destruction. the tall straight cocoa-nut trees are bent over till they almost lie along the ground; the sand and dry earth are whirled up in eddying clouds, and everything movable is torn up and swept away. to add to the dire uproar, thunder now peals from the skies in loud, continuous roars, and in sharp angry crashes, while lightning plays about in broad sheets all over the sky, the one following so close on the other as to give the impression of perpetual flashes and an unintermitting roar; the whole scene presenting an aspect so awful, that sinful man might well suppose the season of the earth's probation had passed away, and that the almighty were about to hurl complete destruction upon his offending creatures. but far other intentions are in the breast of him who rides upon the storm. his object is to restore, not to destroy--to gladden, not to terrify. this tempestuous weather lasts for some days, but at the end of that time the change that comes over the face of nature seems little short of miraculous. in the words of mr elphinstone, who describes from personal observation--"the whole earth is covered with a sudden but luxuriant verdure, the rivers are full and tranquil, the air is pure and delicious, and the sky is varied and embellished with clouds. "the effect of this change is visible on all the animal creation, and can only be imagined in europe by supposing the depth of a dreary winter to start at once into all the freshness and brilliancy of spring. from that time the rain falls at intervals for about a month, when it comes on again with great violence; and in july the rains are at their height. during the third month they rather diminish, but are still heavy. in september they gradually abate, and are often suspended till near the end of the month, when they depart amid thunders and tempests, as they came." such are the effects of the monsoons upon land and sea. of course the terrific gales that usher them in and out could not be expected to pass without doing a good deal of damage, especially to shipping. but this is more than compensated by the facilities which they afford to navigation. in many parts of the world, especially in the indian ocean, merchants calculate with certainty on these periodical winds. they despatch their ships with, say, the north-east monsoon, transact business in distant lands, and receive them back, laden with foreign produce, by the south-west monsoon. if there were no monsoons, the voyage from canton to england could not be accomplished in nearly so short a time as it is at present. and now as to the cause of monsoons. they are, for the most part, _deflected trade-winds_. and they owe their deflection to the presence of large continents. if there were no land near the equator, the trade-winds would always blow in the same manner right round the world; but the great continents, with their intensely-heated surfaces, cause local disturbance of the trade-winds. when a trade-wind is turned out of its course, it is regarded as a monsoon. for instance, the summer sun, beating on the interior plains of asia, creates such intense heat in the atmosphere that it is more than sufficient to neutralise the forces which cause the trade-winds to blow. they are, accordingly, arrested and turned back. the great general law of the trades is in this region temporarily suspended, and the monsoons are created. it is thus that the heated plains of africa and central america produce the monsoons of the atlantic, the pacific, and the gulf of mexico. we think it unnecessary to explain minutely the causes that produce variation in the monsoons. every intelligent reader will readily conceive how the change of seasons and varied configuration as well as unequal arrangement of land and water, will reverse, alter, and modify the direction and strength of the monsoons. land and sea breezes are the next species of wind to which we would direct attention. they occur in tropical countries, and owe their existence to the fact that the land is much more easily affected by sudden changes of temperature than the sea. thus, the land in warm regions is much heated by the sun's rays during the day; the atmosphere over it becomes also heated, in virtue of which it rises: the cool atmosphere over the sea rushes in to supply its place, and forms the _sea breeze_: which occurs only during the day. at night the converse of this takes place. land heats and cools rapidly; water heats and cools slowly. after the sun sets, the cooling of the land goes on faster than that of the sea. in a short time the atmosphere over the land becomes cooler than that over the sea; it descends and flows off out to sea; thus forming the _land breeze_. it occurs only at night, and when the change from one to the other is taking place there is always a short period of calm. land and sea breezes are of the greatest use in refreshing those regions which, without them, would be almost, if not altogether, uninhabitable. in "the tempest," an interesting work on the origin and phenomena of wind, published by the society for promoting christian knowledge, a curious and simple experiment is described, whereby the existence of upper and under currents of air and the action of land and sea breezes may be clearly seen and understood. we quote the passage:-"the existence of the upper and under currents of air which mark the phenomena of the trade-winds, and of land and sea breezes, may be beautifully illustrated in two adjoining rooms, in one of which a good fire is burning, while in the other there is none. if the door between the two rooms be thrown open, the cold air will enter the heated room in a strong current, or, in other words, as a violent wind. at the same time the heated air of the warm room ascends and passes the contrary way into the cold room, at the upper part of the same doorway; while in the middle of this opening, exactly between the two currents, the air appears to have little or no motion. the best way to show this experiment is to introduce the flame of a candle into the doorway between a hot and a cold room. if the flame be held near the bottom of the doorway, where the air is most dense, it will be strongly drawn towards the heated room; and if held near the top of the door it will be drawn towards the cold room with somewhat less force; while midway between the top and bottom the flame will be scarcely disturbed. "there is also another pretty experiment which illustrates well the theory of land and sea breezes. take a large dish, fill it with cold water, and in the middle of this put a water-plate or a saucer filled with warm water. the first will represent the ocean, and the latter an island made hot by the rays of the sun, and rarefying the air above it. take a lighted wax candle and blow it out; and, if the air of the room be still, on applying it successively to every side of the saucer, the smoke will be seen moving towards the saucer and rising over it, thus indicating the course of the air from sea to land. on reversing the experiment, by filling the saucer with cold water (to represent the island at night) and the dish with warm water, the land breeze will be shown by holding the smoking wick over the edge of the saucer; the smoke will then be wafted to the warmer air over the dish." we have just tried the first of these experiments, with complete success. we would, however, recommend a piece of twisted brown paper, lighted and blown out, instead of a wax candle, because it gives out more smoke and is probably more obtainable on short notice. the experiment of the doorway, moreover, does not require that there should lie two rooms with a door between. we have found that the door of our study, which opens into a cold passage, serves the purpose admirably. were we treating chiefly of the atmosphere in this work, it would be necessary that we should enlarge on all the varieties of winds, with their causes, effects, and numerous modifications. but our main subject is the ocean. the atmosphere, although it could not with justice have been altogether passed over, must hold a secondary place here; therefore we will conclude our remarks on it with a brief reference to hurricanes. it has been ascertained that most of the great storms that sweep with devastating fury over the land and sea are not, as was supposed, rectilinear in their motion, but circular. they are, in fact, enormous whirlwinds, sometimes upwards of one hundred and fifty miles in diameter; and they not only whirl round their own centres, but advance steadily forward through space. in the year 1831, a memorable and dreadful series of storms passed over some of the india islands, and caused terrible havoc, especially in the island of barbadoes. the peculiarity of these hurricanes was that they ravaged the different islands at different dates, and were therefore supposed to be different storms. such, however, was not the case. it was one mighty cyclone, or circular storm,--a gigantic whirlwind,--which traversed that region at the rate of about sixteen miles an hour. it was not its progressive, but its rotatory motion, that constituted its terrible power. on the 10th of august it reached barbadoes; on the 11th, the islands of saint vincent and saint lucia; on the 12th it touched the southern coast of porto rico; on the 13th it swept over part of cuba; on the 14th it encountered havanna; on the 17th it reached the northern shores of the gulf of mexico and travelled on to new orleans, where it raged till the 18th. it thus, in six days, passed, as a whirlwind of destruction, over two thousand three hundred miles of land and sea. it was finally dissipated amid heavy rains. the effect of a hurricane is well described by washington irving. "about mid-day," he says, "a furious gale sprang up from the east, driving before it dense volumes of cloud and vapour. encountering another tempest from the west, it appeared as if a violent conflict ensued. the clouds were rent by incessant flashes, or rather streams, of lightning. at one time they were piled up high in the sky, at another they descended to the earth, filling the air with a baleful darkness, more impenetrable than the obscurity of midnight. wherever the hurricane passed, whole tracts of forest were shivered and stripped of their leaves and branches; and trees of gigantic size, which resisted the blast, were torn up by the roots and hurled to a great distance. groves were torn from the mountain-precipices, and vast masses of earth and rock precipitated into the valleys with terrific noise, choking the course of the rivers. "the fearful sounds in the air and on the earth, the pealing thunder, the vivid lightning, the howling of the wind, the crash of falling trees and rocks, filled every one with affright, and many thought that the end of the world was at hand. some fled to caverns for safety, for their frail houses were blown down, and the air was filled with the trunks and branches of trees, and even with fragments of rocks, carried along by the fury of the tempest. when the hurricane reached the harbour, it whirled the ships round as they lay at anchor, snapped their cables, and sunk three of them to the bottom with all who were on board. others were driven about, dashed against each other, and tossed mere wrecks upon the shore by the swelling surges of the sea, which in some places rolled for three or four miles upon the land. this tempest lasted for three hours." the china seas are the most frequently visited by severe tempests, or typhoons; yet of all vessels, the chinese junks, as they are called, seem to be least adapted by their build for encountering such storms. a terrible hurricane burst upon the china seas in the month of january 1837, as we learn from the "united service journal" of that year. an english vessel was exposed to it. the sea, rising in mountains around and over the ship's sides, hurled her rapidly on her passage homeward, when suddenly a wreck was discovered to the westward. the order to shorten sail was given, and promptly obeyed; and when they neared the wreck they found her to be a chinese junk without mast or rudder--a helpless log on the breast of that boiling sea. there were many chinamen on deck vehemently imploring assistance. the exhibition of their joy on beholding the approach of the stranger was of the wildest and most extravagant nature; but it was doomed to be suddenly turned to despair, as the violence of the storm drove the ship past the wreck. it became necessary to put her on the other tack, a manoeuvre which the poor creatures construed into abandonment, and the air rang with the most agonising shrieks of misery. but hope was again raised, when a boat was lowered and a rope thrown on board for the purpose of towing the junk to the ship. this intention was frustrated by the windlass breaking. at sight of this one man, in a paroxysm of despair, jumped overboard after the rope; but he missed it. being a good swimmer, he tried to reach the boat; but his feeble power could avail him nothing in the midst of such raging elements: he speedily sank to rise no more. another rope, however, was secured to the junk, and by means of it the rest of the crew (eighteen in number) were saved. their gratitude was boundless. they almost worshipped the officers, the crew, and the vessel, prostrating themselves and kissing the feet of the former, and the very planks of the latter. well-built ships, however, are not always able to withstand the violence of rotatory storms. instances occur in which the tightest built and best manned ships are destroyed as suddenly as the clumsiest of ill-managed junks. not many years ago, a vessel was proceeding prosperously on her voyage, when signs of a coming tempest induced the wary captain to reduce, and, finally, to take in all sail. but his precautions were in vain. the storm burst on the devoted ship, and in a few minutes the masts went over the side, and the hull lay a total wreck upon the sea. these hurricanes or cyclones, although in reality whirlwinds, are so large that man's eye cannot measure them, and it is only by scientific investigation that we have arrived at the knowledge of the fact. the whirlwind, properly so called, is a much smaller body of atmosphere. sometimes we see miniature whirlwinds, even in our own temperate land, passing along a road in autumn, lifting the leaves and dust into the air and carrying them along in the form of a rotatory pillar. in other regions they exert a power quite equal to the tempest, though in a more limited space, overturning houses, uprooting trees, cutting a track twenty or thirty yards wide through the dense forest as thoroughly as if a thousand woodmen had been at work there for many years. when whirlwinds pass from the land to the sea they create waterspouts; of which we shall have something to say in another chapter. meanwhile, we think it may be interesting to give the following miscellaneous information regarding the atmosphere, gathered from the work of dr buist, who devoted much earnest study to the subject of atmospheric phenomena. "the weight of the atmosphere is equal to that of a solid globe of lead sixty miles in diameter. its principal elements are oxygen and nitrogen gases, with a vast quantity of water suspended in them in the shape of vapour; and, commingled with these, a quantity of carbon in the shape of fixed air, sufficient to restore from its mass many-fold the coal that now exists in the world. water is not compressible or elastic; it may be solidified into ice or vaporised into steam: but the air is elastic and compressible. it may be condensed to any extent by pressure, or expanded to an infinite degree of tenuity by pressure being removed from it. it is not liable to undergo any changes in constitution beyond these, by any of the ordinary influences by which it is affected." if the heating and cooling process--which we have described as being carried on between the equator and the poles--were to cease, we should have a furious hurricane rushing perpetually round the globe at the rate of one thousand miles an hour,--ten times the speed of the most violent tornado that has ever carried devastation over the surface of the earth. the air, heated and dried as it sweeps over the arid surface of the soil, drinks up by day myriads of tons of moisture from the sea,--so much, indeed, that, were none restored to it, the surface of the ocean would be depressed eight or ten feet annually. we do not certainly know the height of the atmosphere. it is said that its upper surface cannot lie nearer to us than fifty, and can scarcely be further off than five hundred, miles. "it surrounds us on all sides, yet we cannot see it; it presses on us with a weight of fifteen pounds on every square inch of the surface of our bodies--in other words, we are at all times sustaining a load of between seventy and one hundred tons of it on our persons--yet we do not feel it! softer than the finest down, more impalpable than the lightest gossamer, it leaves the cobweb undisturbed, and, at times, scarcely stirs the most delicate flower that feeds on the dew it supplies; yet it bears the fleets of nations on its wings round the world, and crushes the most refractory substances with its weight. it bends the rays of the sun from their path to give us the aurora of the morning and the twilight of evening. it disperses and refracts their various tints to beautify the approach and the retreat of the orb of day. but for the atmosphere, sunshine would burst on us in a moment and fail us in the twinkling of an eye, removing us in an instant from midnight darkness to the blaze of noon." we have written a good deal on this subject, yet the thousandth part has not been told of even the grand and more obvious operations of the atmosphere, much less the actions and results of its minor and invisible processes. were we to descend with philosophers into the minuter laboratories of the world, and consider the permeating, ramifying, subtle part the atmosphere plays in the innumerable transformations that are perpetually going on around and within us, we should be constrained to feel more deeply than we have ever yet felt, that the works of the creator are indeed wonderful beyond all expression or conception. chapter seven. waterspouts--causes of--appearance--electricity--experiments--artificial waterspouts--showers of fish--mr. ellis on waterspouts in the south seas. we turn back now from the atmospheric to the aqueous ocean. yet so intimate is the connection between the two, that we shall find it impossible to avoid occasional reference to the former. our present subject, _waterspouts_, obliges us to recur for a little to the atmosphere, which we dismissed, or attempted to dismiss, in the last chapter. there is no doubt that waterspouts are to a great extent, if not altogether, due to the presence of electricity in the air. when the clouds have been raging for some time in the skies of tropical regions, rendering the darkness bright, and the air tremulous with their dread artillery, they seem to grow unusually thirsty; the ordinary means of water-supply through the atmosphere do not appear to be sufficient for the demand, or war-tax in the shape of water-spouts, that is levied on nature. the clouds therefore descend to the sea, and, putting down their dark tongues, lick up the water thirstily in the form of waterspouts. these whirling pillars of water frequently appear in groups of several at a time. they are of various heights, sometimes ranging up to seven hundred yards, with a thickness of fifty yards, and are very dangerous to ships that happen to come within their influence. that they are caused by electricity has been proved by experiment-miniature waterspouts have been produced by artificial means; and as dr bonzano of new york gives particular directions how the thing ought to be done, we quote his words for the benefit of those who happen to possess electrical machines. "from the conductor of an electrical machine suspend, by a wire or chain, a small metallic ball (one of wood covered with tinfoil); and under the ball place a rather wide metallic basin, containing some oil of turpentine, at the distance of about three-quarters of an inch. if the handle of the machine be now turned slowly, the liquid in the basin will begin to move in different directions and form whirlpools. as the electricity on the conductor accumulates, the troubled liquid will elevate itself in the centre, and at last become attached to the ball. draw off the electricity from the conductor, to let the liquid resume its position; a portion of the turpentine remains attached to the ball. turn the handle again very slowly, and observe now the few drops adhering to the ball assume a conical shape, with the apex downward; while the liquid under it assumes also a conical shape, the apex upward, until both meet. as the liquid does not accumulate on the ball, there must necessarily be as great a current downward as upward, giving the column of liquid a rapid circular motion, which continues until the electricity from the conductor is nearly all discharged silently, or until it is discharged by a spark descending into the liquid. the same phenomena take place with oil or water. using the latter liquid, the ball must be brought much nearer, or a much greater quantity of electricity is necessary to raise it. "if, in this experiment, we let the ball swing to and fro, the little waterspout will travel over its immature sea, carrying its whirlpools along with it. when it breaks up, a portion of the liquid--and with it anything it may contain--remains attached to the ball. the fish, seeds, leaves, etcetera, that have fallen to the earth in rain-squalls, may have owed their elevation to the clouds to the same cause that attaches a few drops of the liquid, with its particles of impurities, to the ball." there can be no doubt whatever that fish are carried up in waterspouts, because the descent of those creatures from the skies in rain is a well-established fact; and if they did not get there in waterspouts-which, when we consider it, seems most natural--then we are driven to the conclusion that their native region is the sky, which is by no means so natural or so probable. many travellers have recorded the fact that small fish have descended in rain. in a letter written not long ago by a gentleman in singapore we have the following account of a shower of fish:-"we experienced a shock of earthquake here on the 16th february last. its duration was about two minutes. although it caused no damage, its undulatory motion was sufficiently strong to affect certain persons with a sensation akin to sea-sickness. it was followed by rain in torrents, on the 20th, 21st, and 22nd. on the latter day especially, we were, for half an hour, surrounded with water to a considerable depth. we could not see three yards before us. when the sun came out again, i saw a number of malays and chinese filling their baskets with fish contained in the pools formed by the rain. "they told me the fish had `fallen from heaven,' and three days later, when the pools were all dried up, there were still many dead fish lying about. as they lay in my court-yard, which is surrounded by a wall, they could not have been brought in by the overflowing of a torrent; indeed, there is none of any considerable size in the neighbourhood. "the space covered by these fish might be about fifty acres, comprising the eastern part of the town. they were very lively, and seemed to be in good health." the writer of the above suggests, with some degree of hesitation, that these fish were sucked up by waterspouts. we think that there need be no hesitation in the matter! the appearance usually presented by a waterspout is that of a column of aqueous vapour reaching from the sea to the clouds, sometimes straight, more frequently a little bent, and thicker above and below than in the centre of the column. mr ellis, the missionary, in his "polynesian researches," mentions having, with a companion, met and narrowly escaped being overwhelmed by several waterspouts, when passing on one occasion in an open boat between two islands about thirty miles apart. on the passage they were overtaken by a sudden and violent squall, which lasted several hours; and, in order to avoid being sunk, they tied their masts, oars, and sails in a bundle, and attaching a rope to them, and to the boat, cast them into the sea. thus they lay, as it were, at anchor in the lee of this extemporised breakwater. it was but a feeble barrier, however, against so wild a storm, and the native boatmen were so overcome by fear, that they sat down in the bottom of the boat, and covered their eyes with their hands. after a time the rain diminished, the sky began to clear, and the boat's crew to revive, when suddenly one of the men uttered a cry of consternation, and pointed to an object towards which all eyes were instantly turned. they beheld a large cylindrical waterspout, extending, like a massive column, from the ocean to the dark and impending clouds. it was not far distant, and seemed to move slowly towards the boat. had mr ellis had any doubt as to the danger of a waterspout, the extreme terror exhibited by the natives on this occasion must have removed it; for it was not probable that, just after escaping from the most imminent peril, they would fail back into a much more violent state of terror, unless former experience had given them too good reason to dread the presence of the object they now saw before them. the roughness of the sea forbade their attempting to hoist a sail in order to avoid the waterspout. they were compelled, therefore, to summon all the resolution they possessed, to enable them calmly to await its approach, and put their trust in the arm of jehovah. the helm was in the hands of a seaman whose steadiness could be depended on. the natives were down in the bottom of the boat; they had given way to despair. two other waterspouts now came into view, and subsequently a third, if not more, so that they felt as if completely surrounded by them. some were well defined, extending in an unbroken line from the sea to the sky, like pillars resting on the ocean as their basis, and supporting the clouds; others, assuming the shape of a funnel or inverted cone attached to the clouds, extended their sharp points to the ocean below. from the distinctness with which they were seen, it was judged that the furthest could not have been many miles distant. in some they imagined they could trace the spiral motion of the water as it was drawn up to the clouds, which were every moment being augmented in their portentous darkness. the sense of personal danger, mr ellis confesses, and the certainty of instant destruction if brought within their vortex, prevented a very careful observation of their appearance and accompanying phenomena. the storm continued all day, and at intervals the party in the boat beheld, through the driving clouds and rain, one or other of those towering waterspouts; which, however, did not come nearer to them. it is interesting to read the record left by a christian missionary of his conflicting feelings on that terrible occasion. mr ellis believed that all hope of escape was over, and his mind went through that ordeal which must be the experience of every one who sees the steady approach of speedy death. he says that during those hours when he sat awaiting his doom, the thought of death itself did not make a deep impression. "the struggle, the gasp, as the wearied arm should attempt to resist the impetuous waves; the straining vision, that should linger on the last ray of retiring light, as the deepening veil of water would gradually conceal it for ever; and the rolling billows heaving over the sinking and dying body, which, perhaps ere life should be extinct, might become the prey of voracious inhabitants of the deep;"--these things caused scarcely a thought, compared with the immediate prospect of the disembodied spirit being ushered into the presence of its maker; the account to be rendered, and the awful and unalterable destiny that would await it there. "these momentous objects," he says, "absorbed all the powers of the mind, and produced an intensity of feeling, which, for a long time, rendered me almost insensible to the storm, or the liquid columns which threatened our destruction." it was now that the missionary could look back with deepest gratitude upon that mercy which had first brought him to a knowledge of the saviour. "him and him alone," he adds, "i found to be a refuge, a rock in the storm of contending feelings, on which my soul could cast the anchor of its hope for pardon and acceptance before god... i could not but think how awful would have been my state, had i in that hour been ignorant of christ, or had i neglected or despised the offers of his mercy. our prayers were offered to him who is a present help in every time of danger, for ourselves and those who sailed with us; and under these and similar exercises several hours passed away." those prayers were answered, for the waterspouts gradually disappeared, and the boat got safe to land. in speaking of another waterspout, seen on a subsequent voyage, mr ellis tells us that it was well defined,--an unbroken column from the sea to the clouds, which on this occasion were neither dense nor lowering. around the outside of the liquid cylinder was a kind of thick mist; and within, a substance resembling steam, ascending apparently with a spiral motion. the water at its base was considerably agitated with a whirling motion; while the spray which was thrown off from the circle formed by the lower part of the column, rose several feet above the level of the sea. it passed about a mile astern of the ship. occasionally, when passing nearer to a ship than was deemed safe, a waterspout has been dissipated by a cannon-shot, as represented in our engraving. such are the usual appearances and actions of waterspouts. they are not, however, properly named, being simply whirlwinds at sea, instead of whirlwinds on land. professor oersted suggests the name "storm-pillar," as being a more appropriate term. it does not follow that a large ship would inevitably be destroyed if brought within the vortex of a waterspout; but it is certain that she would run the risk of being dismasted, and perhaps thrown on her beam-ends. navigators have not had sufficient experience of the power of waterspouts to pronounce authoritatively on that point,--and it is to be hoped they never will. captain beechy, in his narrative of a voyage to the pacific, describes one into which his ship actually entered, and from which he received extremely rough handling before he was set free. but this might not have been a very large waterspout; and it is not absolutely certain whether he was quite within its vortex, or was merely brushed by the skirts of its outer garment. certain it is that waterspouts vary in size and in power; for we read of them passing from the sea to the land, and there rooting up trees, unroofing and overturning houses, dismounting cannon, emptying fish ponds, half emptying harbours, and otherwise exhibiting a degree of force that would undoubtedly sink the largest vessel that ever was built, if brought thoroughly to bear upon it. the rate of motion in waterspouts varies. sometimes they revolve slowly, sometimes with the utmost rapidity. they often produce violent noise, as, indeed, might be expected; and they are generally accompanied by thunder and lightning, though not invariably so, for they are sometimes observed when the heavens are clear and the sea calm. chapter eight. the arctic seas--their character, scenery, and atmospherical illusions. there is a tendency on the part of most writers on the subject of polar regions--especially compilers--to dwell disproportionately on the gloomy side of the picture; insomuch that readers are led, not to over-estimate the grand and the terrible aspects of the polar oceans, but to under-estimate the sweet and the beautiful influences that at certain periods reign there. we quarrel not with authors for dwelling on the tremendous and the awful. too much cannot be said on these points; but while they do not by any means paint the dark side of their picture too black, they fail to touch in the lights with sufficient brilliancy. we have had some personal experience of the arctic regions, and have found it extremely difficult to get many persons--even educated men and women--to understand that there _is_ a summer there, though a short one; that in many places it is an uncommonly hot and excessively brilliant summer; and that the sun, as if to make amends for its prolonged absence in winter, shines all night as well as all day, blazing on the crystal icebergs and pure snow (which _never_ disappear from those seas) with a degree of splendour that renders the far north transcendently beautiful and pre-eminently attractive. we admit freely that the prevailing character of arctic seas, during the greater part of the year, is dark, gloomy, forbidding. but this is the very reason why their brief but cheering smiles should be brought prominently into the foreground, and, if they cannot in justice be dwelt on long, at least be touched upon with emphasis. why, in some of our cyclopaedia accounts of the realms of "thick-ribbed ice," so much prominence is given to "the horrors and wide desolation of the scene," and so much graphic power is expended in working up the reader's imagination to a conception of the dreadful dangers and the appalling terrors that await the madman who should dare to venture within the arctic circle, that persons who have not been there might well be tempted to shrink in affright from the very contemplation of a region in which there does not appear to be one redeeming quality. we repeat, that we do not think the one side of the picture has been too darkly painted,--but the other side has been painted too slightly. at the same time, we would caution our readers against jumping to the opposite extreme. the dark side of the picture is in reality out of all proportion to the light. and we do not hesitate to state our confirmed opinion, that the arctic regions are more interesting to read about than pleasant to dwell in. having, then, defended the lights, let us commence our investigations with the shadows. those oceans lying within the arctic circle exhibit phenomena so grand, so wonderful, and so varied, that they claim distinct and separate treatment from the ocean as a whole. here the extreme cold acts with such power, and produces such extraordinary results, that it is difficult to find words or similes by which to convey a just conception of nature's aspects to the general reader. during nearly two-thirds of the year the arctic regions are under the absolute dominion of winter; and for many weeks of that bitter season they are shrouded with the mantle of a dark, sunless night. the entire ocean is locked in the embrace of a covering of ice many feet thick, so that its liquid aspect is thoroughly removed; and, owing to ice-masses scattered over its surface, together with mounds of drifted snow, it bears a much stronger resemblance to the land than to the sea. gales of wind sometimes sweep over those frozen plains in bitter fury, hurling the snow into the air in vast eddying masses, and threatening destruction to any living creature that may chance to be exposed to them--not so much from their violence, however, as from the intense cold of the atmosphere which is put in motion. but in regard to gales, although there are no lack of them, they are neither so fierce nor so frequent as are those of the torrid zone. it might be supposed that in such a climate animal life could scarcely exist; but such is not the case. the inhabitants of part of the arctic regions, named esquimaux (more correctly eskimos, with the accent on the last syllable), are a stout, hardy, healthy race and the polar bears, foxes, wolves, seals, musk-oxen, walruses, etcetera, that dwell there, seem to enjoy their existence just as much as do the animals of more favoured and warmer climes. during the short but hot summer of the arctic regions, the immense masses of ice formed in winter are by no means cleared away. a great part of the heat of early summer (there is no season there that merits the name of spring) is spent in breaking up the solid crust of ice on the sea, a large proportion of which is carried south by the currents that flow to the equator, and melted long before they reach the temperate zones. but a considerable quantity of broken ice-masses get locked in narrow places or stranded on shallows; and although they undergo the process of melting the whole summer, they are not much diminished ere the returning frost stops the process and locks them in the new ice of a succeeding winter. thus there is no period of the year in which large quantities of ice may not be seen floating about in the arctic seas. this fact it is that enables us to speak appropriately of the _scenery_ of the arctic ocean. and assuredly this scenery of the ice is exceedingly and strikingly beautiful. the imagination cannot conceive the dazzling effect of a bright summer day in those regions, when the ocean is clear as glass, and ice-humps and ice-mountains of every shape and size are glittering in the sun's rays with intense brilliancy, while the delicate whiteness of these floating islands, and the magical atmospheric illusions by which they are frequently surrounded, render the scene pre-eminently fairy-like. all the navigators who have penetrated into the arctic seas speak with enthusiasm of the splendour of floating ice-masses. they take the most curious and fantastic shapes; sometimes appearing like great cities of white marble, with domes and towers and spires in profusion; sometimes looming huge and grand like fortresses, and many of them with their summits overhanging so much as to suggest the idea that they are about to fall. this indeed, they often do, adding to the grandeur of the scene, and not a little to the danger, should ships chance to be in the neighbourhood. the atmospheric illusions, before mentioned, are the result of different temperatures existing within a few miles of each other, and which are caused by the presence of large bodies of ice. the effect of this is to cause the ice-masses on the horizon to appear as if floating in the air, and to distort them into all sorts of shapes, even turning them upside down, and thus affording to an innovative mind a most ample and attractive field wherein to expatiate. to ascertain the causes of facts and effects so curious must be interesting to all who have inquiring minds. we will, therefore, attempt to describe and account for arctic phenomena in the following chapters as simply as may be. chapter nine. formation of ice--dangers of disrupting ice--anecdote--drifting ice-drift of the "fox"--"nipping" anecdote--loss of the "breadalbane." it is well known that when fresh water becomes so cold that its temperature is 32 degrees of fahrenheit's scale, it loses its liquid form and becomes ice. a somewhat lower temperature than this is necessary to freeze salt water; the reason being, that greater force is required to expel the salt which the sea holds in solution,--which salt is always more or less expelled in the process of freezing. ice commences to form in the shape of needles, which shoot out at angles from each other. in smooth water, under the influence of intense cold, the process is rapid, and a thin cake soon covers the water, and increases in thickness hour by hour. but when the sea is agitated the process is retarded, and the fine needles are broken up into what arctic navigators call _sludge_. this, however, soon begins to cake, and is broken by the swell into small cakes; which, as they thicken, again unite, and are again broken up into larger masses. these masses, by rubbing against each other, have their edges slightly rounded up, and in this form receive the name of _pancake_ ice. when a quantity of ice covers the ocean in a wide level sheet of considerable extent, it is called an _ice-field_. fields of this kind are often seen by navigators hundreds of miles in extent, and nearly thirty feet thick. ice of such thickness, however, only shows five or six feet above water. when fields are broken by heavy ocean-swells, the edges are violently forced up, and fall in debris on the surface; thus _hummocks_ or mounds are formed. when field-ice breaks up under the influence of an ocean-swell, caused by a storm, the results are terrific. an exceedingly graphic account of an incident of this kind is given by dr brown, in his "history of the propagation of christianity." he writes:-"the missionaries met a sledge with esquimaux, turning in from the sea, who threw out some hints that it might be as well for them to return. after some time, their own esquimaux hinted that there was a ground-swell under the ice. it was then scarcely perceptible, except on lying down and applying the ear close to the ice, when a hollow, disagreeable, grating sound was heard ascending from the abyss. as the motion of the sea under the ice had grown more perceptible, they became alarmed, and began to think it prudent to keep close to the shore. the ice also had fissures in many places, some of which formed chasms of one or two feet; but as these are not uncommon in ice even in its best state, and the dogs easily leap over them, they are frightful only to strangers. "as the wind rose to a storm, the swell had now increased so much that its effects on the ice were extraordinary, and really alarming. the sledges, instead of gliding smoothly along as on an even surface, sometimes ran with violence after the dogs, and sometimes seemed with difficulty to ascend a rising hill. noises, too, like the report of cannon, were now distinctly heard in many directions, from the bursting of the ice at a distance. alarmed at these frightful phenomena, our travellers drove with all haste towards the shore; and, as they approached it, the prospect before them was tremendous. the ice having burst loose from the rocks, was tossed to and fro, and broken in a thousand pieces against the precipices with a dreadful noise; which, added to the raging of the sea, the roaring of the wind, and the driving of the snow, so overpowered them as almost completely to deprive them of the use of their eyes and ears. "to make the land was now the only resource that remained, but it was with the utmost difficulty that the frightened dogs could be driven forward; and as the whole body of the ice frequently sank below the summits of the rocks, and then rose above them, the only time for landing was the moment it gained the level of the coast--a circumstance which rendered the attempt extremely nice and hazardous. "both sledges, however, succeeded in gaining the shore, and were drawn up off the beach, though not without great difficulty. scarcely had they reached it, when that part of the ice from which they had just escaped burst asunder, and the water, rushing up from beneath, instantly precipitated it into the ocean. in a moment, as if by a signal, the whole mass of ice for several miles along the coast, and extending as far as the eye could reach, began to break up, and to be overwhelmed by the waves. the spectacle was awfully grand. the immense fields of ice rising out of the ocean clashing against each other, and then plunging into the deep with a violence which no language can describe, and with a noise like the discharge of a thousand cannon, was a sight which must have filled the most unreflecting mind with feelings of solemnity. "the brethren were overwhelmed with amazement at their miraculous escape, and even the esquimaux expressed gratitude to god for their deliverance." such is the terrible aspect in which field-ice is seen when broken up and converted into smaller masses or _floes_. when these lie closely together the mass is called _pack-ice_; in which shape it usually drifts away with the southern currents, and, separating as it travels south, is met with in loose floating masses, of every fantastic form. there is always, as we have said, a large quantity of floe and pack-ice in the polar seas, which becomes incorporated with the new ice of the succeeding winter; and not infrequently whale and discovery ships get frozen into the pack, and remain there as firmly embedded as if they lay high and dry on land. when the pack is thus re-frozen, it usually remains stationary; but there are occasions and circumstances in which the entire body of a pack drifts slowly southward even during the whole year; showing clearly that oceanic circulation is by no means arrested by the icy hand of the hyperborean winter. a very remarkable drift of this kind is recorded by captain mcclintock of the _fox_, which is worthy of being noticed here, as illustrative of the subject we are now considering and also as showing in a remarkable manner the awful dangers to which navigators may be exposed by the disruption of the pack in spring, and the wonderful, almost miraculous, manner in which they are delivered from imminent destruction. in attempting to cross baffin's bay, by penetrating what is called the "middle ice," the _fox_ was beset, and finally frozen in for the winter; and here, although their voyage may be said to have just commenced, they were destined to spend many months in helpless inactivity and comparative peril and privation. their little vessel lay in the centre of a field of ice of immense extent; so large, indeed, that they could not venture to undertake a journey to ascertain its limits. yet this field slowly and steadily descended baffin's bay during the whole winter, and passed over no fewer than 1385 statute miles in the space of 242 days, during which period the _fox_ was firmly embedded in it! it is with difficulty the mind can form any adequate conception of the position of those voyagers;--unable to move from their icy bed, yet constantly drifting over miles and miles of ocean; uncertain as to the where or the when of their deliverance from the pack; exposed to the terrible dangers of disrupting ice, and surrounded by the depressing gloom of the long arctic night. at length deliverance came; but it came surrounded by terrors. in february, mcclintock writes thus: "daylight reveals to us evidences of vast ice-movements having taken place during the dark months, when we fancied all was still and quiet; and we now see how greatly we have been favoured, what innumerable chances of destruction we have unconsciously escaped. a few days ago, the ice suddenly cracked within ten yards of the ship, and gave her such a smart shock that every one rushed on deck with astonishing alacrity. one of these sudden disruptions occurred between me and the ship, when i was returning from the iceberg. the sun was just setting as i found myself cut off... at length i reached a place where the jagged edges of the floes met; so crossed, and got safely on board." again, in march, he says, "last night the ice closed, shutting up our lane; but its opposite sides continued for several hours to move vast each other, rubbing off all projections, crushing and forcing out of the water masses four feet thick. although one hundred and twenty yards distant, this pressure shook the ship and cracked the intervening ice." soon after that, a heavy gale burst upon them from the south-east, encircling them with snow-drift so dense that they could neither hear nor see what was going on twenty yards off. at night the ship became suddenly detached from her wintry bed, and heeled over to the storm, inducing them to believe that the whole pack had been broken in, and was pressing against them. this was not the case. a large mass of ice had protected them; but at a distance of about fifty yards, ice of four and a half feet thick had been crushed to atoms. soon after, the protecting mass yielded, and the _fox_ received a nip which lifted her stern about a foot, while occasional groaning from her sturdy little hull replied to the wild surgings of the ice without. but all this was as nothing compared with the scene of desperate turmoil and confusion which took place when the ice finally broke up, and a gale raised a fearful swell; so that the _fox_ found herself surrounded by huge masses, which tossed and ground against each other furiously, and any two of which pieces could have crushed in her sides as if she had been made of walnut shell. gradually the pack opened out, and the vessel, by aid of wind and steam, was mercifully delivered from her dangerous position. before passing from the subject of risk to navigators to the consideration of other forms and aspects of polar ice, let us take a glance at an effectual case of nipping. there have been many partial and severe nips, the descriptions of which are all more or less graphic; but few ships have come so suddenly to the end of their career as did the _breadalbane_, a small vessel that was used as a transport ship to the expedition in search of sir john franklin in 1852. one who was on board when it occurred thus describes it:-_sunday, august 21st_.--about ten minutes past four, the ice passing the ship awoke me, and the door of my cabin, from the pressure, opened. i hurriedly put on my clothes, and on getting on deck found some hands on the ice endeavouring to save the boats; but the latter were instantly crushed to pieces. they little thought, when using their efforts to save the boats, that the ship was in so perilous a situation. i went forward to hail the _phoenix_ (another ship that was fortunately near) for men to save the boats; and whilst doing so, the ropes by which we were secured parted, and a heavy nip took us, making every timber creak, and the ship tremble all over. i looked in the main hold, and saw the beams giving way. i hailed those on the ice, and told them of our critical situation, they not for one moment suspecting it. i then rushed to my cabin, hauled out my portmanteau on deck, and roared like a bull to those in their beds to jump out and save their lives. the startling effect on them might be more easily imagined than described. on reaching the deck, those on the ice called out to me to jump over the side, that the ship was going over. i left my portmanteau, and jumped over the side on the loose ice, and with difficulty, and with the assistance of those on the ice, succeeded in getting on the unbroken part, with the loss of the slippers i had on when quitting the vessel, with wet feet, etcetera. the cold was little thought of at the exciting moment--life, not property, being the object to be saved. "after being on the ice about five minutes, the timbers, etcetera, in the ship cracking up as matches would in the hand, it eased for a short time; and i, with some others, returned to the ship, with the view of saving some of our effects. "captain inglefield now came running towards the ship, and ordered me to see if the ice was through it. on looking down into the hold, i saw all the beams, etcetera, falling about in a manner that would have been certain death to me had i ventured down there. but there was no occasion for that (i mean to ascertain the fact of the ice being through), it being too evident that the ship could not last many minutes. i then sounded the well, and found five feet in the hold; and, whilst in the act of sounding, a heavier nip than before pressed out the starboard bow, and the ice was forced right into the forecastle. every one then abandoned the ship, with what few clothes they saved--some with only what they had on. the ship now began to sink fast, and from the time her bowsprit touched the ice until her mast-heads were out of sight, did not occupy above one minute and a half! "it was a very sad and unceremonious way of being turned out of our ship. from the time the first nip took her, until her disappearance, did not occupy more than fifteen minutes." such is the account of the fate of the _breadalbane_. while we read it, we cannot help feeling that many arctic ships must have perished in a similar manner. it is wonderful, nevertheless, how many of those that dare the dangers of the ice survive the conflict. undoubtedly this is owing, to a large extent, to the fact that ships' bottoms are rounded; so that when a severe nip takes place, there is a tendency in the ice to slip under their rounded bottoms, and squeeze the vessels up out of the water. were it not for this, few ships that have gone to those seas would ever have returned. a catastrophe such as that which befell the _breadalbane_ shows the immense power of field-ice. hundreds of somewhat similar incidents might be cited to illustrate this power; but we content ourselves with the selection of one instance, which exhibits it in a remarkable manner, and at the same time shows the way in which heavy vessels are sometimes forced out of the water. in the year 1836, captain back commanded the _terror_, which was sent out to make geographical discoveries in the polar regions, and spent the winter of that year in the ice. few ships have undergone severer tests than did the _terror_ on that voyage. the severest treatment she experienced was in the spring, when the disruption of the winter ice began to take place. the evening of the 7th of march was specially fraught with danger. we quote the gallant commander's graphic account:-"ominous rushing sounds were heard far off to the north-east and north-west. these gradually drew nearer as the flood made its way, either under the compact bodies that withstood the shock, or along the cracks and openings--gaining in these latter a furious velocity, to which everything seemed to yield. "it happened that there were several of these around the ship; and when they opened on us like so many conduits pouring their contents to a common centre, the concussion was absolutely appalling, rending the lining and bulkheads in every part, loosening some shores and stanchions, so that the slightest effort would have thrown them down, and compressing others with such force as to make the turpentine ooze out of their extremities. one fir plank, placed horizontally between the beams and the shores actually glittered with globules. at the same time the pressure was going on from the larboard side, where the three heaviest parts of the ruin of the floe remained, cracked here and there, but yet adhering in firm and solid bodies. these, of course, were irresistible; and after much groaning, splitting, and cracking, accompanied by sounds like the explosion of cannon, the ship rose fore and aft, and heeled over about ten degrees to starboard." again, on the 11th, back says: "at this time she showed symptoms of suffering in the hull, which was evidently undergoing a severe ordeal. inexplicable noises, in which the sharp sounds of splitting and the harsher ones of grinding were most distinct, came in quick succession, and then again stopped suddenly, leaving all so still that not even a breath was heard. "in an instant the ship was felt to rise under our feet, and the roaring and rushing commenced with a deafening din alongside, abeam and astern, at one and the same instant. alongside, the grinding masses held the ship tight as in a vice; while the overwhelming pressure of the entire body, advancing from the west, so wedged the stern and starboard quarter, that the greatest apprehensions were entertained for the stern-post and framework abaft. "some idea of the power exerted on this occasion may be gathered from this:--at the moment which i am now describing, the fore-part of the ship was literally buried as high as the flukes of the anchors in a dock of perpendicular walls of ice; so that, in that part, she might well have been thought immovable. still, such was the force applied to her abaft, that after much cracking and perceptible yielding of the beams, which seemed to curve upwards, she actually rose by sheer pressure above the dock forward; and then, with sudden jerks, did the same abaft. during these convulsions, many of the carpenters and others stationed below were violently thrown down on the deck, as people are in an earthquake. it was a moment of intense suspense. "on the 16th, another rush drove irresistibly on the larboard quarter and stern, and forcing the ship ahead, raised her on the ice. a chaotic ruin followed... the ship was careened fully four streaks, and sprang a leak as before. scarcely were ten minutes left us for the expression of our astonishment that anything of human build could outlive such assaults, when another equally violent rush succeeded; and in its way toward the starboard quarter threw up a rolling wave thirty feet high, crowned by a blue square mass of many tons, resembling the entire side of a house, which, after hanging for some time in doubtful poise on the ridge, at length fell with a crash into the hollow, in which, as in a cavern, the after-part of the ship seemed embedded. it was, indeed, an awful crisis, rendered more frightful from the mistiness of the night and dimness of the moon. "the poor ship cracked and trembled violently, and no one could say that the next minute would not be her last--and, indeed, his own too, for with her our means of safety would probably perish." it is unnecessary to give additional instances of this kind, in order to show the terrible power of field-ice. indeed, it requires little in the way of illumination to prove that masses of solid matter, many thousands of tons in weight, can, when in motion, utterly destroy the most powerful engines of human construction. we shall now turn our attention to another, and a very prominent form, in which arctic ice presents itself--namely, that of icebergs. chapter ten. icebergs--their appearance and forms--their cause--glaciers--their nature and origin--anecdote of scoresby--risk among icebergs--mcclure's experience. there are not only ice-fields, ice-floes, etcetera, in the polar seas, but there are ice-mountains, or bergs. it was long a matter of uncertainty as to where and how those immense mountains, that are met with occasionally at sea, were formed. we are now in a position to tell definitely where they originate, and how they are produced. they are not masses of frozen sea water. their birth-place is in the valleys of the far north, and they are formed by the accumulation of the snows and ice of ages. this is a somewhat general way of stating the matter; but our subsequent explanations will, we trust, make our meaning abundantly clear. icebergs are found floating in great numbers in the arctic seas. they drift southward each spring with the general body of polar ice, and frequently travel pretty far south in the atlantic before the heat of the water and atmosphere united accomplishes their dissolution. they sometimes travel as far south as florida with the southerly current that flows along that coast; but the warm waters of the gulf stream, together with its northerly flow, form an impassable barrier between these ice-mountains and europe. icebergs assume every variety of form, and almost every size. they sometimes resemble castles, sometimes churches with glittering spires, and sometimes the peaked and jagged mountains of norway. they are also frequently seen in the form of immense misshapen and top-heavy masses. in size they vary from one hundred to seven or eight hundred feet in height. one iceberg, seen by ross in baffin's bay, was above two miles in length, nearly the same in width, and fifty feet high. but in stating this, we have not given the reader any idea of its vast proportions; for it is well known that all icebergs, or masses of ice, have a much greater proportion of their bulk under than above water--in other words, they sink very deep. the relative proportion that sinks depends on the nature of the ice. of some kinds, there is usually ten times as much below as there is above water; of other kinds, there may be eight or five parts below. in all cases there is much more below than above so that a mountain of a hundred feet high--if afloat--may be safely calculated to be a mass of ice not far short of a thousand feet thick. as these bergs float southward with the currents, they melt very rapidly. the heat of the sun and the action of the waves gradually round off the sharp angles and topple down the spires that characterised them in the land of their birth. the process of dissolution, too, is carried on internally; for rain and melted water on the surface percolates through the mass, rendering it porous. as the waves cut away the base, the centre of gravity is thrown out, and the whole berg turns over with a terrible crash. sometimes loud reports like cannon-shots are heard, and the huge mountain splits asunder; while, not unfrequently, the whole berg falls into a heap of chaotic ruins, and floats away in a mass of smaller pieces which disappear gradually in their parent sea. the formation of icebergs has, as we have said, puzzled mankind for many years. their existence has long been known: for, even before men dared to venture their lives in the polar regions, navigators, in crossing the atlantic ocean, frequently met with these marble-like mountains; and, what is worse, sometimes ran at full speed against them, and were sunk with all on board. bergs are frequently enveloped in dense fogs, caused by the cold atmosphere by which they are surrounded condensing the moisture of the warmer atmosphere which they encounter on their voyage southward; hence they are exceedingly dangerous to navigation. but now to speak of their formation. many of the great valleys of the far north are completely filled up with solid ice. observe, we do not say that they are merely covered over with ice; they are absolutely filled up with it from top to bottom. those ice-masses are known by the name of glaciers; and they are found in most of the elevated regions of the earth,--on the alps and the mountains of norway, for instance,--but they exist in greater abundance about the poles than elsewhere. glaciers _never_ melt. they have existed for unknown ages, probably since the world began; and they will, in all likelihood, continue to exist until the world comes to an end,--at least until the present economy of the world terminates. they began with the first fall of snow, and as falls of snow during the long winters of the polar regions are frequent and heavy, the accumulated masses are many feet deep, especially in places where drifts are gathered--sometimes fifteen, twenty, thirty, and even forty feet deep. the summer sun could not melt such drifts entirely. new snow was added each winter, until the valleys of the far north were filled up; and so they remain filled up to this day. in order to understand the nature of glaciers clearly, let us turn back to those remote ages that rolled over this earth long before man was created. let us in spirit leap back to the time when no living creature existed, even before the great mastodon began to leave his huge foot-prints on the sands of time. we have reached one of the large valleys of the arctic regions. it is solemn, grand, and still. no merry birds, no prowling creatures, are there to disturb the universal calm. the creator has not yet formed the living creatures and pronounced them "very good." it is the world's first winter. as we look upward to the sky, we observe the first white snow-flakes falling gently to the ground. they reach it, and, for the first time, that valley is covered with a garment of virgin snow. the valley is upwards of two miles broad. it rises from the sea, and goes far back into the mountains, perhaps to the extent of ten or twelve miles. the mountains that flank it are five or six thousand feet high. we have seen such valleys in norway, within the arctic circle. before that first winter has passed, many and many a fall of snow has thickened and pressed down that first coat; and many a furious storm has caught up the snow from the mountain-tops and swept it into the valley, adding to and piling up the mass, and packing it firmly down. spring arrives. the short but warm arctic summer bursts upon that vale, melting the surface of the snow; and the water thus produced sinks through the mass, converting it into a sort of thick slush--half snow, half water,--not liquid, yet not solid; just solid enough to lie there apparently without motion; yet just liquid enough to creep by slow, absolutely imperceptible degrees, down the valley. the snow in all the mountain gorges is similarly affected: it creeps (it cannot be said to flow) out and joins that in the vale. but we cannot perceive any of the motion of which we are writing. the mass of snow seems to be as still and motionless as the rocks on which we stand; nay, if we choose we may walk on its hard surface almost without leaving the slightest print of our foot. but if we throw a large stone on the surface of the snow and mark the spot, and return again after many days, we shall find that the stone has descended the valley a short distance. we shall also observe that the snow has now a variety of markings on its surface; which might lead us to fancy, had we not known better, that it had once been a river, which, while raging down to the sea with all its curling rapids and whirling eddies, had been arrested in all instant by the ice-king and frozen solid,--in fact, it has all the graceful lines and forms of fluidity, with all the steady, motionless aspect of solidity. it really moves, this vast body of snow; but, like the hour hand of a watch, its motion cannot be recognised, though we should observe it with prolonged, unflagging attention. we have called it a vast body of snow, but this is only comparatively speaking. it will be vaster yet before we have done with it. at present it is but a thick semi-fluid covering, lying at the bottom of this ancient arctic vale. the brief summer ends. much of the winter snow has been melted and returned to the sea; but much, very much more, is still lying deep upon the ground. the world's second winter comes. the first frost effectually puts a stop to all the melting and moving that we have been describing. the snow-river no longer moves--it is arrested. the water no longer percolates through the snow--it is frozen. the mass is no longer semi-fluid--it is solid ice; and the first step in the process of a glacier's formation is begun. thereafter this process is continued from year to year, each winter adding _largely_ to its bulk, each summer deducting _slightly_ therefrom. the growing mass of ice ascends the mountain-sides, swallows the rocks and shrubs and trees in its progress, until its body becomes a thousand feet thick: the extreme summits of the mountain-peaks alone tower above the snowy waste, and the mass at the bottom is now, by the pressure of superincumbent masses, pure ice, hard and clear as crystal. when the great glacier grows old it still maintains its stealthy downward motion during every summer. it has reached the shore, and has been pushed, like a huge white tongue, out into the sea. "but what has all this to do with icebergs?" it may be inquired. much, very much. it is common enough, in commenting on a child, to speak of the parent. the glacier is the _mother_ of the iceberg. when, in the world's early morning, the embryo glacier reached the sea, its thin edges were easily broken off by the waves; but as it increased and still further encroached, these edges became thicker and thicker, until at last a wall of pure ice, several hundred feet high, presented its glittering front to the ocean. it was hard and massive; the sun of summer had little effect on its frigid face, and it seemed to bid defiance to the sea itself. but things often are not what they seem. each billow sapped its foundation; it soon began to overhang its base. at length the cohesion of the mass was not sufficient to sustain its weight. a rending, accompanied by sounds like heaven's artillery, took place; the crystal mountain bowed its brow and fell with thunderous crash upon the water; then, rocking slowly under the impulse of its dread plunge, the first iceberg floated off to sea! it is right to remark here that this explanation is, to some extent, disputed--at least there is a difference of opinion as to the _manner_ in which the iceberg leaves its parent glacier. there is no dispute as to its origin. this difference will be explained shortly in a quotation from dr kane's work; meanwhile, in support of the present theory, let us listen to the words of one who saw with his own eyes something similar to what has been described. dr scoresby, than whom a better man never explored the arctic seas, says:-"in july 1818, i was particularly fortunate in witnessing one of the grandest effects which these polar glaciers ever present. a strong north-westerly swell, having for some hours been beating on the shore, had loosened a number of fragments attached to the iceberg, and various heaps of broken ice denoted recent shoots of the seaward edge. as we advanced towards it, with a view of proceeding close to its base, i observed a few little pieces fall from the top; and while my eye was fixed upon the place, an immense column, probably fifty feet square, and one hundred and fifty feet high, began to leave the parent ice at the top, and, leaning majestically forward, with an accelerated velocity fell, with an awful crash, into the sea. "the water into which it plunged was converted into an appearance of vapour or smoke, like that from a furious cannonading. the noise was equal to that of thunder, which it nearly resembled. the column which fell was nearly square, and in magnitude resembled a church. it broke into thousands of pieces. this circumstance was a happy caution, for we might inadvertently have gone to the very base of the icy cliff from whence masses of considerable magnitude were continually breaking!" now, this incident suggests the probability, that, had the face of the glacier projected into deep water, the mass which broke off might have fallen into the sea without being broken to pieces, and might have floated away as a berg. we confess, however, to be partial to the view expressed by some writers, that the great glaciers continue year by year to thrust their thick tongues out to sea, until the projecting masses reach water sufficiently deep to float them, when they are quietly cracked off from their parent and carried away without any fall or plunge. the following remarks by dr kane will make this more clear. writing of the iceberg, he says: "so far from falling into the sea, broken by its weight from the parent glacier, it rises from the sea. the process is at once gradual and comparatively quiet. the idea of icebergs being discharged, so universal among systematic writers, and so recently admitted by myself, seems to me at variance with the regulated and progressive action of nature. developed by such a process, the thousands of bergs which throng these seas should keep the air and water in perpetual commotion-one fearful succession of explosive detonations and propagated waves. but it is only the lesser masses falling into deep waters which could justify the popular opinion. the enormous masses of the great glacier [of greenland] are propelled step by step, and year by year, until, reaching water capable of supporting them, they are floated off, to be lost in the temperatures of other regions... "the height of the ice-wall at the nearest point was about three hundred feet, measured from the water's edge; and the unbroken right line of its diminishing perspective showed that this might be regarded as its constant measurement. it seemed, in fact, a great icy table-land, abutting with a clean precipice against the sea. this is, indeed, characteristic of all those arctic glaciers which issue from central reservoirs, or _mers de glace_, upon the fords or bays, and is strikingly in contrast with the dependent or hanging glacier of the ravines." elsewhere the same writer speaks of this glacier as a line of cliff, rising in a solid glassy wall to a height of three hundred feet above the water-level, and with an _unfathomable_ depth below it; and its curved face, sixty miles in length, from cape agassiz to cape forbes, vanished into unknown space at not more than a single day's rail-road travel from the pole. the interior with which it communicated, and from which it issued, was an unsurveyed _mer de glace_, or sea of ice, of apparently boundless dimensions; and from one part of this great cliff he _saw_ long lines of huge bergs floating slowly away. here, we think, is ice enough and of sufficient dimensions to account for the largest bergs that were ever beheld. it will be at once seen, then, that icebergs, though found floating in the sea, are not necessarily of the sea. they are composed entirely of fresh water, and arctic ships can at any time procure a plentiful supply of good soft drinkable water from the pools that are formed in the hollows of the bergs. the risk of approaching icebergs in the arctic regions is not so great as when they are found floating further south; because when in their native regions they are comparatively tough, whereas on their southern journeys they become more or less disintegrated--in fact, the blow of an axe is sometimes sufficient to cause a rent, which in its turn will induce other rents and failings asunder, so that the whole mass runs the risk of being entirely broken up. hence the danger of ships, in certain circumstances, venturing to anchor to them. nevertheless this is a common practice--sometimes a necessity--among discovery ships and whalers. it is a convenient practice too; for many a vessel has been saved from absolute destruction by getting under the lee of a good sound iceberg, where she has lain as safely, for the time being, as if in a harbour. when captain mcclure was endeavouring to make the north-west passage in 1851, he was saved, from what appeared to be at least very probable destruction, by a small iceberg. on the 17th of september he writes: "there were several heavy floes in the vicinity. one, full six miles in length, passed at the rate of two knots, crushing everything that impeded its progress, and grazed our starboard-bow. fortunately there was but young ice upon the opposite side, which yielded to the pressure; had it otherwise occurred, the vessel must inevitably have been cut asunder. in the afternoon we secured to a moderately-sized iceberg, drawing eight fathoms, which appeared to offer a fair refuge, and from which we never afterwards parted." to this lump of ice the ship clung with the tenacity of a bosom friend, and followed it, literally, through thick and thin! there is something almost ludicrous, as well as striking, in mcclure's account of their connection with this bit of ice. it conveyed them to their furthest north-east position, and back round the princess royal islands--passed the largest within five hundred yards--returned along the coast of prince albert's land--and finally froze in at latitude 70 degrees 50 minutes north, longitude 117 degrees 55 minutes west, on the 30th september; during which circumnavigation they received many severe "nips," and were frequently driven close to the shore, from which their dear friend the iceberg, small though he was, kept them off. icebergs assume almost every conceivable form, and are seen of every size--sometimes, also, in great numbers. scoresby mentions one occasion on which he was surrounded by bergs to the number of several hundreds. now, all this ice that we have been speaking of, besides being, in a secondary way, a passive agent in the affairs of man (chiefly in barring his progress northward), is one of the most potent agents in the economy of nature. it is the means by which the world is kept cool enough for man and beast to dwell in. the polar regions--north and south--are, as it were, the world's refrigerators; tempering the heated air of the south, and, in connection with the torrid zone, spreading throughout the earth those beneficial influences which gladden the sphere of man's temporal existence. chapter eleven. ice an agent in transporting boulders--how this comes about--dr. kane's observations--long night in winter and long day in summer--extreme darkness--influence on dogs--intense cold--effect on the sea. there are many things in this world which, up to within a few years back, have been to men a source of surprise and mystery. some of these problems have been solved by recent travellers, and not a few of them are referable to polar oceans and ice. in many parts of our coasts we find very striking and enormously large boulder-stones lying on the beach, perfectly isolated, and their edges rounded away like pebbles, as if they had been rolled on some antediluvian beach strewn with titanic stones. these boulders are frequently found upon the loose sands of the sea-shore, far removed from any rocks or mountains from which they might be supposed to have been broken; and, more than that, totally different in their nature from the geological formations of the districts in which they are found. "whence came these?" has been the question of the inquisitive of all ages, "and how came they there?" there may, for aught we know to the contrary, be more than one answer to these questions; but there is at least one which is quite satisfactory as to how and whence at least some of them have come. ice was the means of conveying these boulders to their present positions. it has been said that once upon a time a large part of this country was under the dominion of ice, even as the polar regions and some of the mountains and valleys of norway are at the present day; that the boulders we see in elevated places were conveyed thither by glacier action; and that when the glacial period passed away, they were left there on the hill-sides--sometimes almost on the mountain-tops. but this is not the question we are considering just now. we are now inquiring into the origin of those huge boulders that are found upon our coasts and on the coasts of other lands--boulders which could not have rolled down from the hills, for there are no hills at all near many of them; and those hills that are near some of them are of different geological formation. this question will be answered at once, and one of the phenomena of arctic ice and oceanic agency will be exhibited, by reference to the recent discoveries of the celebrated arctic voyager, dr kane of the american navy. while wintering far beyond the head of baffin's bay, and beyond the most northerly point, in that direction, that had at that time been reached by any previous traveller, dr kane made many interesting observations and discoveries. he seems to have penetrated deep into the heart of nature's northern secrets. among other things, he ascertained the manner in which boulders are transported from their northern home. the slow, creeping movement of glaciers, to which we have already referred, is one means whereby large boulders are formed. at the lower edge of one of the glaciers of norway we saw boulders, thirty or forty feet in diameter, which had been rolled and forced, probably for ages, down the valley by the glacier, and thrust out on the sea-beach, where they lay with their angles and corners rubbed off and their surfaces rounded and smoothed as completely as those of the pebbles by which they were surrounded. had these boulders been formed in the arctic regions, they might have been thrust out upon the thick solid crust of the frozen sea, which in time would have been broken off and floated away; thus rafting the boulders to other shores. the formation of boulders, and their positions, are facts that we have seen. their being carried out to sea by ice-rafts is a fact that dr kane has seen and recorded. on the wild rocky shores where his ship was set fast, there was a belt of ice lining the margin of the sea, which he termed the "ice-belt," or the "ice-foot." this belt never melted completely, and was usually fast to the shore. in fact it was that portion of the sea-ice which was left behind each spring when the general body of ice was broken up and swept away. referring to this, he writes: "the spot at which we landed i have called cape james kent. it was a lofty headland, and the land-ice which hugged its base was covered with rocks from the cliffs above. as i looked over this ice-belt, losing itself in the far distance, and covered with its millions of tons of rubbish, greenstones, limestones, chlorite, slates, rounded and angular, massive and ground to powder, its importance as a geological agent, in the transportation of drift, struck me with great force. "its whole substance was studded with these varied contributions from the shore; and further to the south, upon the now frozen waters of marshall bay, i could recognise raft after raft from the last year's ice-belt which had been caught by the winter, each one laden with its heavy freight of foreign material. "the water torrents and thaws of summer unite with the tides in disengaging the ice-belt from the coast; but it is not uncommon for large bergs to drive against it and carry away the growths of many years. i have found masses that had been detached in this way, floating many miles out at sea--long, symmetrical tables, two hundred feet long by eighty broad, covered with large angular rocks and boulders, and seemingly impregnated throughout with detrited matter. these rafts in marshall bay were so numerous, that could they have melted as i saw them, the bottom of the sea would have presented a more curious study for the geologist than the boulder-covered lines of our middle latitudes. one boulder in particular had had its origin in a valley where rounded fragments of water-washed greenstone had been poured out by the torrents and frozen into the coast-ice of the belt. the attrition of subsequent matter had truncated the great egg-shaped rock, and worn its sides into a striated face, whose scratches still indicated the line of water-flow." so, then, when we next meet with a huge isolated boulder on any of our flat beaches, we may gaze at it with additional interest, when we reflect that, perchance, it was carried thither by the ocean, countless ages ago, from the arctic regions, on a gigantic raft of ice; after having been, at a still more remote period, torn from its cliffs by some mighty glacier and slowly rolled and rounded, for hundreds of years perhaps down the scarred slopes of its native valley. the primary cause of the intense and prolonged cold of the arctic regions is the shortness of the time during which they are under the influence of the sun's rays. for a few months in summer the sun shines brightly, but, owing to the position of the globe, obliquely on the poles. during part of that period it shines at mid-night as well as at mid-day. put during the greater part of the year its beams throw but a feeble light there, and for several months in winter there is absolutely no day at all--nothing but one long dismal night of darkness, that seems as if the bright orb of day had vanished from the heavens for ever. the length of this prolonged day in summer, and this dreary night in winter, depends, of course, upon latitude. the length of both increases as we approach the poles. the long daylight in summer is exceedingly delightful. we once saw the sun describe an almost unbroken circle in the sky for many days and nights, and had we been a few degrees further north we should have seen it describe an entire circle. as it was, it only disappeared for twenty minutes. it set about midnight, and in twenty minutes it rose again so that there was no night, not even twilight, but a bright, beautiful blazing day, for several weeks together. dr kane describes the midnight sun thus: "on our road we were favoured with a gorgeous spectacle, which hardly any excitement of peril could have made us overlook. the midnight sun came out over the northern crest of the great berg, our late `fast friend,' kindling variously-coloured fires on every part of its surface, and making the ice around us one great resplendency of gem-work--blazing carbuncles and rubies, and molten gold." very different indeed is the aspect of the winter night. let the same authority speak, for he had great experience thereof. on december 15th he writes: "we have lost the last vestige of our mid-day twilight. we cannot see print, and hardly paper. the fingers cannot be counted a foot front the eyes. noonday and midnight are alike; and, except a vague glimmer on the sky, that seems to define the hill-outlines to the south, we have nothing to tell us that this arctic world of ours has a sun. in one week more we shall reach the midnight of the year... "the influence of this long intense darkness was most depressing. even our dogs, although the greater number of them were natives of the arctic circle, were unable to withstand it. most of them died from an anomalous form of disease, to which i am satisfied, the absence of light contributed as much as extreme cold." quoting from his journal he says: "i am so afflicted with the insomnia of this eternal night, that i rise at any time between midnight and noon. i went on deck this morning at five o'clock. it was absolutely dark; the cold not permitting a swinging lamp, there was not a glimmer came to me through the ice-crusted window-panes of the cabin. while i was feeling my way, half puzzled as to the best method of steering clear of whatever might be before me, two of my newfoundland dogs put their cold noses against my hand, and instantly commenced the most exuberant antics of satisfaction. it then occurred to me how very dreary and forlorn must these poor animals be, at atmospheres 10 degrees above zero in-doors and 50 degrees below zero without--living in darkness, howling at an accidental light, as if it reminded them of the moon--and with nothing, either of instinct or sensation, to tell them of the passing hours, or to explain the long lost daylight. they shall see the lantern more frequently." yet this state of midnight darkness is not altogether unmitigated. there are a few ameliorating influences at work, the nature of some of which we will treat of in the next chapter. among others, the moon frequently shines there with great brilliancy in winter. dr kane says that in october the moon had reached her greatest northern declination: "she is a glorious object. sweeping around the heavens, at the lowest part of her curve she is still 14 degrees above the horizon. for eight days she has been making her circuit with nearly unvarying brightness. it is one of those sparkling nights that bring back the memory of sleigh-bells and songs and glad communings of hearts in lands that are far away." but despite all the varied and transient beauties of the northern skies in winter, the long arctic night is undoubtedly depressing in the extreme. in these regions men speak of being able to read the thermometer on the 7th of november at noonday "without a light," as being matter for gratulation. the darkness still before them at that time would be of about three months' duration, and even then they would only get back to a species of twilight. the cold experienced by these navigators of the northern seas is terribly intense. their thermometers have frequently indicated a temperature as low as 75 degrees below zero, or 107 degrees of frost, on fahrenheit's scale. the thermometers of arctic explorers are always filled with spirits of wine, as quicksilver freezes at about 40 degrees below zero, and is therefore unsuitable. it would be frozen, indeed, the greater part of the winter. dr kane says: "at such temperatures chloric ether became solid, and carefully prepared chloroform exhibited a granular pellicle on its surface. spirits of naphtha froze at 54 degrees below zero, and oil of sassafras at 49 degrees. the oil of winter-green was in a flocculent state at 56 degrees, and solid at 63 degrees. "the exhalations from the surface of the body invested the exposed or partially clad parts with a wreath of vapour. the air had a perceptible pungency upon inspiration, but i could not perceive the painful sensation which has been spoken of by some siberian travellers. when breathed for any length of time, it imparted a sensation of dryness to the air-passages. i noticed that, as it were involuntarily, we all breathed guardedly, with compressed lips." now, strange to say, this extremely low temperature does not affect the ocean to any great depth. just below the ice, in cold such as the above, the sea was found to be 29 degrees _above_ zero. no doubt, deeper down, the temperature was still warmer. we have heard it said, that when men chance to fall into the water in cold regions, in the depth of winter, it feels at first rather warm and agreeable! on scrambling out again, however, their condition is not enviable; for in a few minutes the keen frost causes their garments to become as hard as boards. much light has been thrown on the fact of the existence of under and upper currents in the sea, by the phenomena of the arctic regions, and some of the questions to which these currents give rise are so interesting that we shall treat of them in a new chapter. chapter twelve. question of an open sea round the poles--upper and under currents of the ocean--cause thereof--habits of the whale as bearing on the question-dr. kane's discovery of an open sea in the far north--notes on the expedition--a bear-hunt. it was long and very naturally supposed that the impenetrable ice of the arctic regions extended to, and, as it were, sealed up the pole. but from time to time philosophic observers of nature's laws began to hint their opinion that there is an open ocean around the pole; and of late years this opinion has all but been converted into a firm belief. maury remarks, that like air--like the body--the ocean _must_ have a system of circulation for its waters. and an attentive study of the currents of the sea, and a close examination of the laws which govern the movements of the waters in their channels of circulation through the ocean, will lead us irresistibly to the conclusion that always, in summer and winter, there must be, somewhere within the arctic circle, a large body of open water. there is an under-current setting from the atlantic, northward through davis' straits, into the arctic ocean, and a surface-current setting out. the fact is proved beyond a doubt by the observations of arctic explorers, who have seen immense icebergs drifting rapidly northward against a strong current. this apparent anomaly could only be accounted for by the fact that a powerful undercurrent carried them northward; and as at least seven times more of these bergs must have been under than above water, we can easily understand how the under-current, acting on the larger mass of each berg, had power to carry it against the surface-current. this under-current is _warm_, while the upper-current is _cold_. now we know that according to nature's laws, heated water, like heated air, rises to the surface, and cold water sinks to the bottom. how, then, comes this warm current to be underneath the cold, as soundings have proved it to be? it is owing to the fact that the under-current is much salter, and therefore heavier (despite its warmth), than the surface-current; which latter, being mingled with the drainage and ice-masses of the arctic regions, is comparatively fresh, and therefore light as well as cold. the hot and salt waters of the tropics are carried north by the gulf stream. there are here two counteracting agents at work. heat inclines the gulf stream to rise; saltness inclines it to sink. during the first part of its journey, as we know, its great heat prevails over the other influence, and it flows as a surface-current. but, at a certain point in its northward route, it meets with the cold, brackish, ice-bearing currents that flow out of the arctic basin. having lost much of its heat (though still possessing a great deal more than the arctic currents), the saltness of the gulf stream prevails; it dips below the polar waters, and thenceforth continues its course as an under-current, salt, and comparatively warm. to state the matter briefly: the hot water, which _ought_ to keep on the surface because of its heat, is sunk by its superabundant salt; and the cold water, which _ought_ to sink because of its cold, is buoyed on the surface because of its want of salt. now arises the question--what becomes of the great quantity of salt that is thus being carried perpetually into the polar basin? manifestly it must be carried out again by the surface-current, otherwise the polar basin would of necessity become a basin of salt. the under-current _must_, therefore, rise to the surface somewhere near the pole, with its temperature necessarily only a little, if at all, below the freezing-point--which, be it observed, is a _warm_ temperature for such regions. here, then, where the warm waters from the south rise to the surface, it is supposed this open arctic ocean must exist. so much for theory. now for facts that have been observed, and that tend, more or less, to corroborate this proposition of an open polar sea. the habits of the whale have gone far to prove it. the log-books of whalers have for many years been carefully examined and compared by scientific men. these investigations have led to the discovery "that the tropical regions of the ocean are to the `right' whale as a sea of fire, through which he cannot pass, and into which he never enters." it has also been ascertained that the same kind of whale which is found off the shores of greenland, in baffin's bay, etcetera, is found in the north pacific, and about behring's straits; and that the `right' whale of the southern hemisphere is a different animal from that of the northern. how, then, came the greenland whales to pass from the greenland seas to the pacific? not by the capes horn or good hope; the "sea of fire" precluded that. clearly there was ground here for concluding that they did so through the (supposed) open sea lying beyond, or rather within, the frozen ocean. it is true the objection might be made, that the same kind of whale which exists in the north pacific exists also in the north atlantic, although they never cross over to see each other. but another discovery has met this objection. it is the custom among whalers to have their harpoons marked with date and name of ship, and dr scoresby, in his work on arctic voyages mentions several instances of whales having been taken near behring's straits, with harpoons in them bearing the stamp of ships that were known to cruise in the greenland seas; and the dates on the harpoons were so recent as to preclude the supposition that the said whales had, after being struck, made a voyage round the capes above mentioned,--even were such a voyage possible to them. all this does not, indeed, absolutely prove the existence of an open arctic sea, but it does, we think, prove the existence of at least an _occasionally_ open sea there, for it is well known that whales cannot travel such immense distances under ice. but the most conclusive evidence that we have in regard to this subject is the fact, that one of the members of dr kane's expedition, while in search of sir john franklin, did actually, on foot, reach what we have every reason to believe was this open sea; but not being able to get their ship into it, the party had no means of exploring it, or extending their investigations. the account of this discovery is so interesting, and withal so romantic, that we extract a few paragraphs relating to it from kane's work. after spending the dreary winter in the ice-locked and unexplored channels beyond the head of baffin's bay, kane found his little ship still hopelessly beset in the month of june; he therefore resolved to send out a sledge-party under morton, one of his best men, to explore the channel to the north of their position. after twelve days' travelling they came to the base of the "great glacier," where morton left his party, and, in company with an esquimaux named hans, set out with a dog-sledge to prosecute the journey of exploration. they walked on the sea-ice in a line parallel with the glacier, and proceeded twenty-eight miles that day, although the snow was knee-deep and soft. at the place where they encamped a crack enabled them to measure the ice. it was seven feet five inches thick! and this in june. we may mention here, in passing, that dr kane never got his vessel out of that frozen strait, which seems to be bound by perpetual ice. he and his party escaped with their lives; but the vessel that bore them thither is probably still embedded in that ice. next day morton and hans came to a region of icebergs, which had arrested a previous sledging-party of the same expedition. "these [icebergs] were generally very high, evidently newly separated from the glacier. their surfaces were fresh and glassy, and not like those generally met with in baffin's bay,--less worn, and bluer, and looking in all respects like the face of the great glacier. many were rectangular, some of them regular squares, a quarter of a mile each way; others more than a mile long." to pass amidst these bergs was a matter of labour, difficulty, and danger. sometimes the sides of them came so close together, that the men could scarcely squeeze between them, and they were obliged to search for other passages; in doing which, the variation of their compass confused them. at other times, "a tolerably wide passage would appear between two bergs, which they would gladly follow; then a narrower one; then no opening in front, but one to the side. following that a little distance, a blank ice-cliff would close the way altogether, and they were forced to retrace their steps and begin again." thus they puzzled their way through, "like a blind man in the streets of a strange city;" but more difficulties awaited them beyond. after advancing many miles they were arrested by broad rents in the ice, and were obliged to diverge frequently far out of their course, or to bridge the chasms over by cutting down the ice hummocks and filling them up with loose ice, until the dogs were able to haul the provision-sledge over. advancing thus for several days, and encamping on the snow at night, they at last came to a spot where the ice was dangerous. "it was weak and rotten, and the dogs began to tremble." proceeding at a brisk rate, they had got upon unsafe ice before they were aware of it. their course was at the time nearly up the middle of the channel; but as soon as possible they turned, and by a backward circuit reached the shore. the dogs, as their fashion is, at first lay down and refused to proceed, trembling violently. the only way to induce the terrified, obstinate brutes to get on, was for hans to go to a white-looking spot, where the ice was thicker, the soft stuff looking dark; then calling the dogs coaxingly by name, they would crawl to him on their bellies. so they retreated from place to place, until they reached the firm ice they had quitted. a half mile brought them to comparatively safe ice, a mile more to good ice again. in the midst of this danger they had, during the liftings of the fog, sighted open water. soon after they saw it plainly. so many long and dreary months had these men passed since they were gladdened by the sight of open water, that they could scarcely believe their eyes; and morton declared, that but for the birds which were seen flying about it in great numbers, he would not have believed it. they made for the land-ice as fast as possible, and quickly gained it; but the sea-ice had cracked off and sunk so much, that the land-ice presented a wall along the whole coast of about eight or nine feet high. it was quite perpendicular, in some places overhanging, so that it was a matter of the greatest difficulty they managed to throw up the provisions, clamber up themselves, and haul the dogs and sledge up afterwards. this accomplished, however, they were safe, and could advance with confidence. but this mass of land-ice became narrower as they proceeded, till at last it dwindled to a mere narrow ledge, clinging to the high, perpendicular cliffs, and looking as if at any moment it might crumble off and fall with them into the open water between it and the floating sea-ice. the sea here was very deep and clear. they could see the bottom quite plainly, although a stone they cast in, the size of a man's head, took twenty-eight seconds to reach it. being now afraid of the ice-ledge, they attempted to find a path along the face of the cliff; but failing in this, morton determined to leave part of the provisions in "_cache_," and proceed with a lighter load. the cape round which they were travelling, and on the other side of which lay the open water, was extremely bold, and the ice-ledge at the end of it was barely three feet wide; so they were obliged to unloose the dogs, and drive them forward alone, then tilted the sledge on one runner, and thus pushed it past the worst place. here the ice on the sea was partly broken up, and a strong tide was running from the southward. the night before it had been running from the north. as they advanced, the channel became still more open, and after passing the cape they saw nothing but open water, with innumerable wild sea-birds of every description flying overhead, or disporting in the pools. let it by observed here, however, that this was the open water of a strait or channel,--not the great arctic sea, about the probable existence of which we have been writing. upon the ice-masses near them numerous seals were seen basking. one thing that struck them much here was, that although strong north winds, amounting to a gale at times, had been blowing for several days, no ice had been brought down from the north into the channel, along the shore of which they travelled. thick, damp fogs prevailed, preventing them from seeing far in advance at any time. at last they came to a place where the broken ice of the shore rendered passage for the sledge impossible. they therefore tied the dogs, intending to push forward a short way alone. but they had not been sufficiently careful to secure them; for the poor animals, supposing themselves deserted, no doubt, succeeded in breaking their lines, and rejoined the two men in about an hour after. this, as it turned out, was rather a fortunate circumstance. preparatory to quitting their sledge, the men had loaded themselves with eight pounds of pemmican and two of biscuit, besides the artificial horizon, sextant, and compass, a rifle, and a boathook. they had not been an hour gone when, as above stated, four of the dogs overtook them. an hour afterwards they came upon a polar bear with her cub. the fight that followed, although somewhat foreign to our subject, is so graphically described by dr kane, that we think it quite unnecessary to apologise for inserting it here. "the bear instantly took to flight; but the little one being unable to keep pace with her, she turned back, and, putting her head under its haunches, threw it some distance. the cub safe for the moment, she would then wheel round and face the dogs, so as to give it a chance to run away; but it always stopped, just as it alighted, till she came up and threw it ahead again; it seemed to expect her aid, and would not go on without it. sometimes the mother would run a few yards ahead, as if to coax the young one up to her, and when the dogs came up she would turn and drive them back then, as they dodged her blows, she would rejoin the cub and push on, sometimes putting her head under it, sometimes catching it in her mouth by the nape of the neck. "for a time she managed her retreat with great celerity, leaving the two men far in the rear. they had engaged her on the land-ice; but she led the dogs in-shore, up a small stony valley which opened into the interior. after she had gone a mile and a half, her pace slackened, and, the little one being jaded, she soon came to a halt. "the men were then only half a mile behind, and running at full speed. they soon came up to where the dogs were holding her at bay. the fight was now a desperate one. the mother never went more than two yards ahead, constantly looking at the cub. when the dogs came near her, she would sit upon her haunches, and take the little one between her hind-legs, fighting the dogs with her paws, and roaring so that she could have been heard a mile off. never was an animal more distressed. she would stretch her neck and snap at the nearest dog with her shining teeth, whirling her paws like the arms of a windmill. if she missed her aim, not daring to pursue one dog lest the others should harm the cub, she would give a great roar of baffled rage, and go on pawing and snapping, and facing the ring, grinning at them with her mouth stretched wide. "when the men came up the little one was perhaps rested, for it was able to turn round with its dam, no matter how quick she moved, so as to keep always in front of her belly. the five dogs were all the time frisking about her actively, tormenting her like so many gad-flies. indeed they made it difficult to take an aim at her without killing them. but hans, lying on his elbow, took a quiet aim, and shot her through the head. she dropped and rolled over dead, without moving a muscle. "the dogs sprang towards her at once; but the cub jumped upon her body and reared up, for the first time growling hoarsely. they seemed quite afraid of the little creature, she fought so actively, and made so much noise; and, while tearing mouthfuls of hair from the dead mother, they would spring aside the minute the cub turned towards them. the men drove the dogs off for a time, but were obliged to shoot the cub at last, as she would not quit the body. "hans fired into her head. it did not reach the brain, though it knocked her down; but she was still able to climb on her mother's body, and try to defend it, her mouth bleeding like a gutter-spout. they were obliged to despatch her with stones." after skinning the old one they gashed its body, and the dogs fed upon it ravenously. the little one they _cached_ for themselves against their return. this little fight quite knocked up hans the esquimaux; morton therefore advanced alone, in the hope of being able to get beyond a huge cape that lay before him. on reaching it, the grand sight of an _apparently boundless ocean of open water_ met his eye. only "four or five small pieces" of ice were seen on the glancing waves of this hitherto unknown sea. "viewed from the cliffs," writes dr kane, "and taking thirty-six miles as the mean radius open to reliable survey, this sea had a justly-estimated extent of more than 4000 square miles." here, then, in all probability, is the great arctic ocean that has been supposed to exist in a perpetually fluid state round the pole, encircled by a ring of ice that has hitherto presented an impenetrable barrier to all the adventurers of ancient and modern times. there were several facts connected with this discovery that go far to prove that this ocean is perpetually open. further south, where dr kane's brig lay in ice that seemed never to melt, there were few signs of animal life--only a seal or two now and then; but here, on the margin of this far northern sea, were myriads of water-fowl of various kinds. "the brent goose," writes the doctor, "had not been seen before since entering smith's strait. it is well known to the polar traveller as a migratory bird of the american continent. like the others of the same family, it feeds upon vegetable matter, generally on marine plants, with their adherent molluscan life. it is rarely or never seen in the interior; and from its habits may be regarded as singularly indicative of open water. the flocks of this bird, easily distinguished by their wedge-shaped line of flight, now crossed the water obliquely, and disappeared over the land to the north-east. "the rocks on shore were crowded with sea-swallows, birds whose habits require open water; and they were already breeding. the gulls were represented by no less than four species. the kittiwakes--reminding morton of `old times in baffin's bay'--were again stealing fish from the water (probably the small whiting), and their grim cousins, the burgomasters, enjoying the dinner thus provided at so little cost to themselves. it was a picture of life all round. "here, for the first time, morton noticed the arctic petrel,--a fact which shows the accuracy of his observation, though he had not been aware of its importance. this bird had not been met with since we left the north water of the english whalers, more than two hundred miles south of the position on which he stood. its food is essentially marine; and it is seldom seen in numbers, except in the highways of open water frequented by the whale and the larger representatives of ocean life. they were in numbers flitting and hovering over the crests of the waves, like their relatives of kinder climates,--the cape of good hope pigeons, mother carey's chickens, and the petrels everywhere else. "it must have been an imposing sight, as morton stood at this termination of his journey, looking out upon the great waste of waters before him. not a speck of ice could be seen. there, from a height of 480 feet, which commanded a horizon of almost forty miles, his ears were gladdened with the novel music of dashing waves; and a surf, breaking in among the rocks at his feet, stayed his further progress." strong presumptive evidence, all this, that there is an ocean of open water round the pole, and a milder climate there than exists nearer to the arctic circle. had the short barrier of ice that intervened between the brig and that mysterious sea been removed, as, perchance, it is sometimes removed by a hot summer, dr kane might have been the first to reach the north pole. this, however, is reserved for some other navigator. the gallant kane now lies in an early grave but some of his enterprising comrades have returned to those regions, bent on solving this problem; and it is possible that, even while we now write, their adventurous keel may be ploughing the waters of the hitherto untraversed and mysterious polar sea. chapter thirteen. miscellaneous phenomena of the polar seas and regions--the aurora borealis--ice-blink--optical illusions--anecdote of scoresby--haloes-coronae--mock suns--refraction--frosts. owing to the intensity of the cold in the arctic regions, there are, as we may readily believe, many singular appearances connected with the ocean and the atmosphere, which are worthy of special notice. chief, perhaps, among the phenomena of those regions is the _aurora borealis_. ever mindful of the welfare of the creatures whom he has formed, the almighty has appointed a light to mitigate the darkness of the polar regions when the sun, in its appointed course, withdraws for a season. what the aurora borealis is no one knows, although many have hazarded opinions regarding it. what it is like is known even to ourselves, though the faint indications of it which sometimes seen in our own heavens are not to be compared to the brilliancy of the spectacle that is occasionally presented in the northern skies. the most ordinary aspect of the aurora is that of a band of pale-green light extending irregularly over part of the sky, and marked by wavy motions, as well as by varying brightness. sometimes one part of this band becomes more bright than another part. sometimes the whole seems to move gently, like the undulations of a flag in a light breeze; at other times more vigorous action takes place, and pointed tongues of light shoot vividly up into the zenith. this sometimes takes place so frequently, and the tongues are so long and numerous, that the aurora has been popularly termed the "northern streamers." although pale-green is the most frequent colour, the aurora borealis has often been observed with blue and red hues; and the sky has been seen suffused with an intense crimson colour by it. captains parry and lyon saw these northern lights in full splendour during their residence in the arctic regions. they tell us that "the aurora had a tendency to form an irregular arch, which, in calm weather, was very often distinct, though its upper boundary was seldom well defined; but whenever the air was agitated, showers of rays spread in every direction with the rapidity of lightning, but always appearing to move to and from a fixed point, somewhat like a ribbon held in the hand and shaken with an undulatory motion. no rule, however, could be traced in the movement of those lighter parcels called the `merry dancers,' which flew about perpetually towards every quarter; becoming in stormy weather more rapid in their motions, and sharing all the wildness of the blast. they gave an indescribable air of magic to the whole scene, and made it not wonderful that, by the untaught indian, they should be viewed as `the spirits of his fathers roaming through the land of souls.'" we are told by some that the aurora borealis is accompanied by a loud hissing and crackling sound and captain lyon says that the sudden glare and rapid bursts of those wondrous showers of fire make it difficult to believe that their movements are wholly without sound. yet such would seem to be the case, for the same authority tells us that he stood on the ice for hours listening intently and could hear nothing. he was thoroughly convinced that no sound proceeds from the aurora, and most intelligent voyagers support him in this opinion. that the aurora dims the lustre of the stars seen through it, is a fact which was ascertained clearly by the same gentleman; and that it moves in a region beyond the clouds is also evident from the fact that when the latter covered the sky the aurora disappeared. but some of the most singular appearances of the sea and sky in the polar regions are presented in summer. during that season the perpetual presence of the sun and the large tracts of ice floating about on the sea exert their opposing influences so as to produce the most astonishing results. one part of the sea being covered with ice, produces a cold atmosphere; another part being free from ice, produces a warmer atmosphere. refraction is the result of viewing objects through those different media, and very curious appearances follow. when scoresby was in greenland a singular atmospheric phenomenon occurred, whereby he became aware of the approach of his father's ship some time before it rose above the horizon. he had reached greenland before his father, who followed him in the _fame_. the following is his account of the circumstance: "on my return to the ship, about eleven o'clock, the night was beautifully fine and the air quite mild. the atmosphere, in consequence of the warmth, being in a highly refractive state, a great many curious appearances were presented by the land and icebergs. the most extraordinary effect of this state of the atmosphere, however, was the distinct inverted image of a ship in the clear sky, over the middle of the large bay or inlet, the ship itself being entirely beyond the horizon. appearances of this kind i have before noticed, but the peculiarities of this were the perfection of the image, and the great distance of the vessel that it represented. it was so extremely well defined, that, when examined with a telescope, i could distinguish every sail, the general `rig of the ship,' and its peculiar character; insomuch that i confidently pronounced it to be my father's ship the _fame_, which it afterwards proved to be, though, on comparing notes with my father, i found that our relative positions at the time gave our distance from one another very nearly thirty miles, being about seventeen miles beyond the horizon, and some leagues beyond the line of direct vision." scoresby was, perhaps, one of the most persevering and intelligent observers of nature that ever went to the polar seas. his various accounts of what he saw are most interesting. we cannot do better than quote his remarks upon _ice-blink_, that curious appearance of white light on the horizon, whereby voyagers are led to infer the presence of ice:-"this appearance of the _ice-blink_," says he, "occurred on the 13th of june 1820, in latitude 76 degrees north. the sky aloft was covered with dense, uniform, hazy cloud, which indeed occupied the whole of the heavens, excepting a portion near the horizon, where it seemed to be repelled. the upper white blink referred to ice about six miles distant, being beyond the horizon; the narrow yellowish portions referred to floes and compact ice; the lowest yellow blink, which in brightness and colour resembled the moon, was the reflection of a field at the distance of thirty miles, to which, directed by the blink, we made way in the _baffin_, through the channels of water represented in the sky by bluish-grey streaks. the field we found to be a sheet of ice 150 miles in circumference!" another very singular appearance observed occasionally in foggy weather is a series of bright circles, or coronae, surrounding the heads or persons of individuals in certain positions. we have, while standing at the mast-head of a vessel in hudson's straits, observed our own shadow thrown on the sea with a bright halo round it. the day was bright and hazy at the time. referring to a particular case of this kind, scoresby says: "during the month of july 1820, the weather being often foggy, with a bright sun sometimes shining at the height of the day, some extraordinary coronae were observed from the mast-head. these occurred opposite to the sun, the centre of all the circles being in a line drawn from the sun through the eye of the observer. on one occasion four coloured luminous circles were observed. the exterior one might be twenty degrees in diameter. it exhibited all the colours of the spectrum. the next, a little within it, was of a whitish-grey colour; the third was only four or five degrees in diameter, and though it exhibited the colours of the spectrum, these colours were not very brilliant. the fourth was extremely beautiful and brilliant. the interior colour was yellow, then orange, red, violet, etcetera. the colours of the whole three coronae were, i think, in the same order, but of this i am not very certain. indeed, on reflection, i suspect that the second circle must have been in the reverse order of the first; the first and the fourth being the same. the third was not coloured. in the midst of these beautiful coronae i observed my own shadow, the head surrounded by a glory. all the coronae were evidently produced by the fog; my shadow was impressed on the surface of the sea." the cause of these phenomena is "the reflection of the sun's rays, decomposed by different refractions in minute globules of water, of which the mist, wherein the coronae occur, in a great measure appears to consist." mock suns, or _parhelia_, are common appearances in northern skies. sometimes two of these mock suns are seen, one on each side of their great original, glowing so brightly that either of them, if we could suppose it to have shone in the sky alone, would have made a very respectable sun indeed! even four of these "sun-dogs"--as they are some times called--have been seen surrounding the sun; one on each side of it, one directly above, and one immediately below, with a ring of light connecting them together, a streak of light passing horizontally and another passing perpendicularly between them, thus forming a luminous cross, in the centre of which was the sun itself. this magnificent spectacle is sometimes enhanced by a second circle of light enclosing the whole, and the edges of several outer circles springing in faint light therefrom until gradually lost, leaving the imagination to call up the idea of an endless series of glories extending over the whole sky. refraction frequently causes grotesque as well as wonderful and beautiful appearances. ships are sometimes seen with their hulls flattened and their masts and sails drawn out to monstrous dimensions; or the hulls are heightened so as to appear like heavy castle walls, while the masts and sails are rendered ludicrously squat and disproportioned; and not only so, but ships are often seen with their images inverted over their own masts, so that to the observer it appears as if one ship were balancing another upside down--mast-head to mast-head. land and icebergs assume the same curious appearances--peaks touching peaks, one set pointing upwards, the other set pointing down, while the broad bases are elevated in the air. at other times the whole mass of land and ice on the horizon is more or less broken up and scattered about as if in confusion, yet with a certain amount of regularity in the midst of it all, arising from the fact of every object being presented in duplicate, sometimes triplicate, and occasionally, though seldom, four-fold. when sharp sudden frosts occur in those regions, the splendour of the scenery is still further enhanced by the formation of innumerable minute crystals which sparkle literally with as much lustrous beauty as the diamond. on one occasion scoresby's ship was decorated with uncommon magnificence, and in a peculiarly interesting manner. "in the course of the night," he writes, "the rigging of the ship was most splendidly decorated with a fringe of delicate crystals. the general form of these was that of a feather having half of the vane removed. near the surface of the ropes was first a small direct line of very white particles, constituting the stem or shaft of the feather; and from each of these fibres, in another plane, proceeded a short delicate range of spiculae or rays, discoverable only by the help of a microscope, with which the elegant texture and systematic construction of the feather were completed. many of these crystals, possessing a perfect arrangement of the different parts corresponding with the shaft, vane, and rachis of a feather, were upwards of an inch in length, and three-fourths of an inch in breadth. some consisted of a single flake or feather, but many of them gave rise to other feathers, which sprang from the surface of the vane at the usual angle. there seemed to be no limit to the magnitude of these feathers, so long as the producing cause continued to operate, until their weight because so great, or the action of the wind so forcible, that they were broken off and fell in flakes to the deck of the ship." it is impossible for the mind to conceive the effect of such a galaxy of curious, and bright, and eminently beautiful combinations as are sometimes displayed in the arctic regions. none of the fabulous conceptions of man, even though profoundly elaborated and brightly gilded with the coruscations of the most sparkling genius and fancy, ever produced so gorgeous a spectacle as may be witnessed there every summer day. four or five suns in the blue sky, with lines and circles of light shooting from or circling round them! ice in all its quaint, majestic, and shining forms, rendered still more quaint and grand by the influence of refraction; and, by the same power, ships sailing in the sky, sometimes, as if nature's laws were abrogated, with their keels upwards, and their masts pointing to the sea! walls of pure ice hundreds of feet high, many miles in extent, clear as crystal, and sending back the rays of heaven's luminaries in broad blazing beams; while the icebergs' pinnacles reflect them in sparkling points! white luminous fogs, like curtains of gauze, too thin to dim the general brightness, yet dense enough to invest the whole scene with a silver robe of mystery, and to refract the light and compel it to shine in great circles of prismatic colours! and everything--from the nature of the materials of which the gay scenery is composed--either white or blue, varying in all gradations from the fairest snow to the deepest azure, save where the rainbow's delicate hues are allowed to intermingle enough of pink, yellow, purple, orange, and green to relieve the eye and enable it more fully to appreciate the virgin drapery of the scene. all this, seen in detail--seen frequently in rapid succession--sometimes seen almost all at one moment,--all this is absolutely beyond conception, and utterly beyond adequate description. yet all this is seen at times in those realms of ice and snow, which are, as we have already said, too much represented as the "gloomy, forbidding, inhospitable polar regions." there are two sides to every picture. we take leave of this particular branch of our sun with the remark, that if the shady side of the far north is dreadfully dark and dreary, its bright side is intensely brilliant and beautiful. chapter fourteen. animal life in the sea--medusae--food of the whale--phosphoric light-cause thereof--luminosity of the ocean. reference has elsewhere been made in this volume to the immense amount of animal life that exists in the ocean, not only in the form of fish of all sizes, but in that of animalcules, which, although scarcely visible to the naked eye, are, in some cases, so innumerable as to give a distinct colouring to the water. the _medusae_, or, more familiarly, sea blubbers, are seen in the waters that lave our own shores. they are of various sizes, from that of a large plate to a pin-head. they are almost colourless, like clear jelly, and when carelessly observed, seem to be dead objects drifting with the tide; but a closer observation shows that they are possessed of life, though not of a particularly active kind, and that they swim by alternate contractions and expansions of their bodies. these creatures constitute a large part of the whale's food. some of them are flat, some semi-globular, others are bell-shaped, while some have got little heads and small fins. of these last it is said that each little creature has no fewer than three hundred and sixty thousand minute suckers on its head with which it seizes its prey. when we think of the exceeding smallness of the creatures thus preyed upon, and consider the fact that each little thing must obtain food by making war upon some creatures still smaller than itself, we are led almost in spite of ourselves into that mysteriously metaphysical question--infinitesimal _divisibility_; which may be translated thus--the endless division and subdivision of atoms. this subject has puzzled the heads of the profoundest philosophers of all ages; we will not, therefore, puzzle our readers with it any further. scoresby tells us that the colour of the greenland sea varies from ultramarine blue to olive-green, from the purest transparency to striking opacity; and that these colours are permanent, and do not depend on the state of the weather, but on the quality of the water. he observed that whales were found in much greater numbers in the green than in the blue water; and he found, on examining the former with the microscope, that its opacity and its colour were due to countless multitudes of those animalcules on which the whale feeds. we need scarcely remark that it is utterly beyond the power of man to form anything approaching to a correct conception of the amount of _life_ that is thus shown to exist in the ocean. although it has pleased the creator to limit our powers, yet it has also pleased him to leave the limit of those powers undefined. we may not, indeed, ever hope in this life to attain to perfect knowledge, nevertheless, by "searching" we may "find out wisdom;" and certain it is, that, although there undoubtedly must be a point of knowledge on any given subject which man cannot reach, there is in man a power incessantly to extend his knowledge and increase his powers of conception, by each successive effort that he makes in his course from the cradle to the grave. even although we were told the exact number of the little creatures that inhabit the sea, we could not, by any simple effort of the mind, however powerful, form a conception of what that number implied. we might shut ourselves up like the hermits of old, abstract our thoughts from all other things, and ponder the subject for weeks or months together, and at the termination of our effort we should be as wise as we were at its commencement, but no wiser. but by searching round the subject, and comparing lesser things with greater, although we should still fail to arrive at a full comprehension of the truth, we may advance our powers of conception very considerably beyond the point attained by our first effort; and which point, as we have said, could not be surmounted by a hair's breadth by the mere exertion of simple or abstract thought. dr scoresby's remarks on the subject of animal life in the ocean, are so graphic and curious that we extract the passages verbatim from the admirable memoir of that gentleman, written by his nephew. he says: "i procured a quantity of snow from a piece of ice that had been washed by the sea, and was greatly discoloured by the decomposition of some peculiar substance upon it. a little of this snow dissolved in a wine-glass appeared perfectly nebulous--the water being found to contain a great number of semi-transparent spherical substances, with others resembling small portions of fine hair. on examining these substances with a compound microscope, i was enabled to make the following observations:-"the semi-transparent globules appeared to consist of an animal of the medusa kind. it was from one-twentieth to one-thirtieth of an inch in diameter. its surface was marked with twelve distinct patches, or nebulae, of dots of a brownish colour. these dots were disposed in pairs, four pairs or sixteen pairs alternately, composing one of the nebula. the body of the medusa was transparent. when the water containing these animals was heated, it emitted a very strong odour, in some respects resembling the smell of oysters when thrown on hot coals, but much more offensive. "the fibrous or hair-like substances were more easily examined, being of a darker colour. they varied in length from a point to one-tenth of an inch; and when highly magnified, were found beautifully moniliform. whether they were living animals, and possessed of locomotion, i could not ascertain. they possessed the property of decomposing light, and in some cases showed all the colours of the spectrum very distinctly. "i afterwards examined the different qualities of sea water, and found these substances very abundant in that of an olive-green colour; and also occurring, but in lesser quantity, in the bluish-green water. the number of medusae in the olive-green water was found to be immense. they were about one-fourth of an inch asunder. in this proportion, a cubic inch of water must contain 64; a cubic foot 110,592; a cubic fathom 23,887,872; and a cubic mile about 23,888,000,000,000,000." of course we have, in the last two numbers, reached the utterly incomprehensible; but dr scoresby goes into comparisons which help us a little, at least to ascertain how hopelessly beyond our conceptions such numbers are. "from soundings made in the situation where these animals were found, it is probable the sea is upwards of a mile in depth; but whether these substances occupy the whole depth is uncertain. provided, however, the depth to which they extend be but two hundred and fifty fathoms, the above immense number of one species may occur in the space of two miles square. it may give a better conception of the amount of medusae in this extent, if we calculate the length of time that would be requisite, with a certain number of persons, for counting this number. allowing that one person could count a million in seven days, which is barely possible, it would have required that eighty thousand persons should have started at the creation of the world to complete the enumeration at the present time! "what a stupendous idea this gives of the immensity of creation, and of the bounty of divine providence in furnishing such a profusion of life in a region so remote from the habitations of men! "the larger portion of these medusae, consisting of transparent substances of a lemon-yellow colour, and globular form, appeared to possess very little power of motion. some of them were seen advancing by a slight waving motion, at the rate of a hundred and eightieth of an inch in a second; and others, spinning round with considerable celerity, gave great interest and liveliness to the examination. but the progressive motion of the most active, however distinct and rapid it might appear under a high magnifying power, was, in reality, extremely slow; for it did not exceed an inch in three minutes. at this rate they would require one hundred and fifty-one days to travel a nautical mile. "the vastness of their numbers, and their exceeding minuteness, are circumstances, discovered in the examination of these animalcules, of uncommon interest. in a drop of water examined by a power of 28.224 (magnified superficies) there were fifty in number, on an average, in each square of the micrometer glass, of an eight hundred and fortieth of an inch; and as the drop occupied a circle on a plate of glass containing 529 of these squares, there must have been, in this single drop of water, taken out of the yellowish-green sea, in a place by no means the most discoloured, about 26,450 animalcules. hence, reckoning sixty drops to a dram, there would be a number in a gallon of water exceeding, by one half the amount of the population of the whole globe! it gives a powerful conception of the minuteness and wonders of creation, when we think of more than twenty-six thousand animals living, obtaining subsistence, and moving perfectly at their ease, without annoyance to one another, in a single drop of water... a whale requires a sea, an ocean, to sport in. about one hundred and fifty millions of these animalcules would have abundant room in a tumbler of water!" but besides furnishing food to the whale, and, no doubt, to many other of the inhabitants of the deep, those medusae are the cause of the phosphorescent light that sometimes glows on the ocean with resplendent brilliancy. we see this light oftentimes on our own coasts. it is usually of a pale bluish-white colour, more or less intense, apparently, according to the condition of the creatures by which it is emitted. it can only be seen at night. we have seen it on the west coast of scotland, so bright that the steamer in which we sailed left behind her what appeared to be a broad highway of liquid fire. at times it requires vigorous motion, such as takes place when an oar is dipped, a stone thrown, or paddle-wheels dashed into the water; but at other times, the mere motion of the ocean swell, even in calm weather, is sufficient to stir up the lambent light and cause the crest of every undulation to glitter as if tipped with burnished silver. in such circumstances we have seen the ends of the oars of a boat silvered with it when lifted out of the wave, and the drops which fell from them before being redipped resembled the most beautiful diamonds. mr p.h. gosse, in his interesting work, "the ocean," gives the following account of this luminosity of the sea, as witnessed by himself on one occasion: "in a voyage to the gulf of mexico, i saw the water in those seas more splendidly luminous than i had ever observed before. it was indeed a magnificent sight, to stand on the fore-part of the vessel and watch her breasting the waves. the mass of water rolled from her bows as white as milk, studded with those innumerable sparkles of blue light. the nebulosity instantly separated into small masses, curdled like clouds of marbles, leaving the water between of its own clear blackness; the clouds soon subsided, but the sparks remained. sometimes one of these points, of greater size and brilliancy than the rest, suddenly burst into a small cloud of superior whiteness to the mass, and be then lost in it. the curdling of the milky appearance into clouds and masses, and its quick subsidence, were what i had never before observed elsewhere." many scientific travellers have carefully examined this subject, and we believe that all agree in referring this beautiful appearance to the medusae. one gentleman drew a bucketful of water from the sea when it was in this condition, and found, on examining it in a dark place, that the little creatures "could be distinctly seen emitting a bright speck of light. sometimes this was like a sudden flash, at others appearing like an oblong or round luminous point, which continued bright for a short time, like a lamp lit beneath the water and moving through it, still possessing its definite shape, and then suddenly disappearing. when the bucket was sharply struck on the outside, there would appear at once a great number of these luminous bodies, which retained their brilliant appearance for a few seconds, and then all was dark again. they evidently appeared to have it under their own will, giving out their light frequently, at various depths in the water, without any agitation being given to the bucket. at times might be seen minute but pretty bright specks of light, darting across a piece of water and then vanishing; the motion of the light being exactly that of the cyclops through the water. upon removing a tumblerful from the bucket, and taking it to the light, a number of cyclops were accordingly found swimming and darting about in it." we have given the above quotation at full length, because it proves, in an interesting manner, the fact that phosphorescence, or luminosity, of the sea is actually produced by multitudes of living creatures. we cannot pass from it, however, without expressing our difference of opinion in regard to the power of the medusae to emit their light "at will." it seems much more probable that the light is the result of passion and action. when a man's feelings are strongly roused, whether pleasurably or otherwise, he usually starts into action under a sudden impulse, which sends the blood violently through his veins, causing his face to become flushed and _red_. this reddening is not the result of will. it is the unavoidable result of passionate impulse, and could not possibly be produced by an effort of the will. it is well known that electric fluid permeates the bodies of all animals, more or less; and it is quite conceivable that under the influence of nervous impulse one creature should become luminous, while another only becomes red. man leaps and sings for joy; and the result is, that the actions cause his countenance to glow with _colour_. the marine animalcule, experiencing a sudden influx of delight, darts hither and thither under the strong impulse of its exuberant glee; and the result is, that its little body gleams with _light_. vigorous action is the direct cause of the emission of light in the one case, just as vigorous action is the direct cause of the suffusion of the countenance in the other. but in both cases the primary cause is passion--at least so it seems to us. no doubt fear as well as joy may create vigorous action, and produce the same result; but as we know that, as a general rule, there is much more of joy than of fear dwelling at all times in the hearts of god's creatures, we can well believe that the amount of luminosity produced in the sea by the latter passion is immeasurably smaller than that produced by the former. we are thus, therefore, set free to indulge in the pleasing reflection that when we behold that magnificent gleaming of the sea, which almost resembles liquid silver reflecting the stars of heaven, we are witnessing the frolicsome and joyous gambols of those myriads of little beings to whom the beneficent creator has assigned the ocean as their dwelling-place. the theory which we have ventured to propound in regard to vigorous impulse (whether of joy or fear) being the cause of eliciting luminosity, is supported in some degree by the remark in our last quotation, that when the bucket was sharply struck, there appeared at once a number of luminous bodies, which shone for a few seconds, and then disappeared. undoubtedly the poor little things got a fright when their residence was sharply assailed in such an unusual manner; their energies were roused, and their light emitted. then, as they gradually calmed down, their light disappeared. we are further told that when a drop of sulphuric acid was put into a tumbler of water, "several bright flashes were seen." this, we venture to think, was somewhat similar to the putting of a few drops of brandy and water into the human stomach; the usual result of which is, as we all know, to produce several bright flashes of wit, if not of light, or of something at least meant to be remarkably luminous! but this luminosity is not entirely confined to the minute creatures of the sea. some fish have the power of emitting light. some species of the shark emit a greenish light; and the sun-fish is said, when seen down in the sea on a dark night, to glow like a white-hot cannon-ball. fish when dead and putrid frequently glow in the dark with a truly magnificent light, as can be proved by every one who will take the trouble to procure several kinds of fish, and keep them, for the purpose of proving the fact, in a dark closet. of all the minute inhabitants of the deep, that which is to our mind the most curious, both as to its nature and its stupendous works, is the coral insect. this creature is much too important to be dragged in at the tail of a chapter. we will, therefore, commence its history in a new one. chapter fifteen. coral insects and coral islands--polynesia--operations of the coral insect--growth of coral reefs. many of the large and beautiful islands that stud the pacific ocean, like emeralds in a field of blue, are _artificial_; that is to say, they were made by artists--they were actually _built_ by _artisans_! these artisans are the coral insects; and as they not only affect the face of the sea by raising large islands above it, but also, in consequence of their labours, assist in causing the circulation of the ocean, we think they are justly entitled to very special attention. the great archipelago called polynesia covers an area of the pacific nearly 5000 miles in length, and not far short of 2000 in breadth. some of the islands of this group are of volcanic origin, and some are crystal; but by far the greater number are of coral formation--the work of those curious little insects, which are so small that they inhabit a dwelling sometimes little larger than a pin-point. the manner in which these islands are made is, to some extent, a matter of uncertainty. the most generally received opinion is, that the insects fasten round the summit of a submarine mountain, and build upwards until they reach the surface of the sea, where they die, and their labours cease. as, however, the sea is sometimes unfathomable close to those islands, it has been supposed that the submarine islands on which the corallines began to build have gradually subsided, and that, as they did so, the insects always built a little more, so as to keep the top of their structures on a level with the sea. above the sea they cannot build. to be washed by the waves is essential to their existence. we do not think this a very satisfactory theory, because it supposes a prolonged subsiding of these islands, and then an unaccountably sudden stoppage. for although the corallines might continue to build during the whole time of subsidence, it were utterly impossible that the coral _island_, with its luxuriant herbage, could be formed until that subsidence should have ceased. the manner in which the islands are formed makes this obvious. when the coral reef, as it is called, reaches the surface, it advances no further. soon the action of the waves breaks off the branches of the upper portions of coral, which are tossed upon the reef, and pulverised into fine sand. this goes on increasing until the island rises a little above the waves. when this happens, birds alight there; sea-drift is carried thither; seeds are blown to it by the wind; and gradually a few green blades arise. from this little beginning it is easy to conceive the process by which at last a flourishing island springs up. at the same time, it is not easy to see how such islands could ever be formed on the supposition that the submarine rocks on which they were founded were perpetually subsiding. but be that as it may, we have no difficulty in understanding the fact that the coral insect does build those islands. it possesses the power of secreting the lime held in solution by sea water, and depositing the same on the rocks below the waves. the coral rock is the edifice of the coralline. the insect itself is a soft and very minute worm, which, when washed by the waves, thrusts its head out of its tiny little door, and spreading abroad its numerous feelers, so that it resembles a beautiful little star, moves these about as if enjoying itself--though, doubtless, it is actually engaged in the process of manufacturing its little atom of coral rock. it is extremely interesting to think of the immense power of _union_ thus exhibited. singly, those little creatures could not produce a sufficient result to attract the attention of any creature save such as chanced to come in direct and close contact with its little cell. united, they have formed vast islands, which have become the abode of man, and which, in the aggregate, form no inconsiderable portion of the globe. the consideration of this leads us to perceive that god has ordained that units cannot, separately, accomplish much; and that united effort, in order to be successful, requires the harmonious action of units. "a house divided against itself cannot stand." the innumerable and eminently beautiful isles of the pacific had never stood where they now stand if the curious, and separately insignificant, little architects that reared them had not wrought unitedly upon a fixed and systematic plan--each insect working its utmost from the hour of its birth until that of its death. there are various kinds of coral insects, which form varied species of coral rock. some kinds of coral assume the form of rounded masses; some are like a branching shrub; others are in layers, or thin plates; and some are shaped like the human brain, from which they derive their name--brainstones. these different kinds differ also in colour, and thus present a beautiful appearance when seen at the bottom of clear and shallow water. in regard to the rate at which the corallines build their cells there is some diversity of opinion--some asserting that the process is imperceptible, while others state as positively that it is rapid. there can be no doubt that some localities and positions are more favourable to the growth of coral than others. dr allan, while at madagascar, made several experiments to test this. he selected several masses of coral, each weighing about ten pounds, and of different species. these he placed three feet below the surface of the sea, and staked them in to prevent removal. in a little more than six months they were found to have risen nearly to the surface, and to have attached themselves to the solid rock. there is also a case mentioned of a ship in the persian gulf which, in the course of twenty months, had her copper encased with living coral to the thickness of two feet. on the other hand, it is asserted, and we doubt not with equal truth, that many reefs do not seem to increase in size in the course of many years. when a coral reef has reached the surface, the formation of an island instantly begins; but it necessarily takes a long time ere this island becomes habitable by man. among the first plants that raise their heads to the sea-breeze is the graceful cocoa-nut palm. this tree is exceedingly hardy, and is found growing on reefs which are so low that at a distance the trees seem to be standing on the surface of the water. indeed many of them spring out of the pure white sand, and their roots are washed perpetually by the salt spray. nevertheless, the fruit of such trees is sweet and good. coral islands of the kind we have just described seldom rise more than a few feet above the level of the sea; but most of them are clothed with luxuriant vegetation. we might easily fill a volume on the subject of the ocean's inhabitants, small and great; but we think the few to which we have made reference is sufficient for the purpose of showing that one set of creatures accounts for that strange luminosity of the ocean which is seen at times in all marine parts of the globe, while another set accounts not only for the sudden appearance of coral islands in the sea where no such islands existed in days of old, but also, partly, for that circulation of the waters of the ocean which is absolutely necessary to the wellbeing of all the creatures on this earth. there are other animals in the sea, besides medusae, which assist in giving luminosity to its waters; and there are other insects, besides corallines, which extract its lime, destroy its equilibrium, and assist in causing its perpetual motion; but the two species which we have described are the best types of the respective classes to which they belong. chapter sixteen. volcanic islands--opinions of the ancients--"atlantis"--instance of the formation of a volcanic island--conclusion. in the last chapter we described the manner in which a certain class of islands in the south seas are formed; in the present we will make a few observations on another class, which have sprung up from the bottom of the sea, as if by magic, under the irresistible influence of fire. there are volcanoes in the sea, as well as on the land; and these volcanoes have in former times up-heaved huge masses of land so as to form large islands, while in other cases they have caused islands formerly in existence to subside and disappear. in the writings of the ancients we find reference made to an island which, if it ever did exist, now exists no longer. it was situated opposite the straits of gibraltar, was nearly two hundred miles in length, and was called "atlantis"--hence the name of the atlantic ocean. many believe, and with some reason, we think, that this island was not altogether a myth, although much that is said of it is undoubtedly fabulous. plato tells us that it was a large island in the western ocean, situated before or opposite to the straits of gades; and that out of this island there was an easy passage into some others which lay near a large continent, exceeding in bigness all europe and asia. so far plato may have told the truth, and from this passage it is conjectured that the existence of the continent of america was known to the ancients. but he goes on, immediately after, to draw upon his imagination, and to tell us that neptune settled on this island, and that his posterity dwelt there for a period of nine thousand years in the midst of fertility and abundance. but, not content with their ample possessions and prolific soil, they went over to africa and europe, and even penetrated into asia, bent on conquest. passing from this mixture of probable truth and undoubted fable, plato then asserts that the island of atlantis finally sank and disappeared. this may or may not be true, but there is more reason for our crediting the statement than many people would suppose. certain it is that no such island exists at the present time, but it is believed by some that the azores, which are volcanic in their formation, are the summits of the mountain ranges of the atlantis of the ancients. but the best evidence we have of the possible existence of such an island is the fact that in modern times an island has been _seen_ to rise out of the sea, and, after a time, to disappear, under the influence of volcanic action. this remarkable event is related by captain tillard, an officer of the british navy, who saw it on the 12th of june 1811, when approaching the island of st. michael. on this occasion smoke was seen to rise from the surface of the sea, and, soon after, showers of cinders to burst forth. we cannot do better than give the captain's own words, as follows: "imagine an immense body of smoke rising from the sea, the surface of which was marked by the silvery rippling of the waves. in a quiescent state it had the appearance of a circular cloud revolving on the water, like a horizontal wheel, in various and irregular involutions, expanding itself gradually on the lee side; when, suddenly, a column of the blackest cinders, ashes, and stones, would shoot up in the form of a spire, at an angle of from ten to twenty degrees from a perpendicular line, the angle of inclination being universally to windward. this was rapidly succeeded by a second, third, and fourth shower, each acquiring greater velocity, and overtopping the other, till they had attained an altitude as much above the level of our eye as the sea was below it. "as the impetus with which the several columns were severally propelled diminished, and their ascending motion had nearly ceased, they broke into various branches resembling a group of pines. these again formed themselves into festoons of white feathery smoke, in the most fanciful manner imaginable, intermixed with the finest particles of falling ashes; which at one time assumed the appearance of innumerable plumes of black and white ostrich feathers surmounting each other; at another, that of the light wavy branches of a weeping willow. "during these bursts the most vivid flashes of lightning continually issued from the densest part of the volcano; and the cloud of smoke now ascending to an altitude much above the highest point to which the ashes were projected, rolled off in large masses of fleecy clouds, gradually expanding themselves before the wind, in a direction nearly horizontal, and drawing up to them a quantity of water-spouts, which formed a most beautiful and striking addition to the general appearance of the scene." such is the description given of this submarine volcano in action; and the crater which was thrown up at the time was about twenty feet above the level of the sea. as captain tillard could not, however, delay his voyage to make further observations at that time, the action that subsequently took place is not known; but its results were seen shortly afterwards. in about three weeks after the date of his passing the spot, captain tillard returned to it and found an island of about a mile in circumference, with a height of between two and three hundred feet at its highest point. there was no violent eruption going on, although the craters still emitted smoke. he therefore landed, and, on reaching the largest crater, found it to be full of boiling water, which overflowed and found its way to the ocean in a river of about six yards in width. this island, however, was not a permanent addition to the world's archipelago. it sank into the ocean again, and disappeared in october of the same year in which it rose. in commencing this little book we set out with the intention of rambling hither and thither, among things that relate to the sea, without regard to order. we have carried out our intention; and now, at the close of our task, find that the more we listen to the ocean's voice, the more we find its tale to be interminable, though the reverse of uninteresting. in these rambles we have sought to treat chiefly of those scientific facts relating to the sea and the atmospheric ocean, which are not so frequently made the subject of books for the young, as are the wild and daring deeds of man upon the surface of the mighty deep. it is not sufficient that man should become acquainted with the doings of his fellows on the sea. this is but one branch of general knowledge, and a very secondary one compared with that infinitely higher branch which treats of the workings of the almighty in the ocean; workings which render it what it is--not merely a means of commercial enterprise for man and a home for fish, but also a great purifier and revivifier of the earth and sweetener of the atmosphere. god is the great first cause of all that is and that operates in the universe. it were an act of presumption to inquire into what we may term the first acts of the almighty's power. but there is no presumption--on the contrary there is propriety, as well as the highest gratification of which the human mind is capable--in penetrating through the paths of knowledge up to that first series of second causes which circle like a glory round the fountain-head. we may not put the question, "how did god create all things out of nothing?" but, all things having been created, it is quite legitimate to inquire how the circles of their manifold operations are carried on, and in what respect the things that be do affect each other. no book that has of late years issued from the press treats more eloquently and interestingly of such subjects of inquiry than that admirable work of captain maury of the united states navy, entitled "the physical geography of the sea." much of the substance of what we have written has been culled from the pages of that fascinating volume. but we have merely plucked one or two leaves, as it were, and presented them to our readers in the hope that they may be tempted by their fragrance to pluck the flower. the mysteries of the atmospheric and aqueous oceans are here treated of fully, yet so agreeably, that one is frequently apt to fancy one is perusing the pages of romance. in our own little book we have been compelled to skim lightly, and, in many places, to pass over subjects of great interest. as for other subjects connected with the sea, of which we may not treat, they are innumerable. of the sea-weeds that clothe the bottom of the deep with the rich profusion and glowing colours of the gardens of earth--of the myriads of animalcules (besides those we have mentioned) that disport in its waters and fill the abyss with life and lambent fire--of the great whales and other huge creatures that revel in its depths and lash its waters in their terrible might--of these and a host of kindred subjects, our space forbids our saying more than that the voice of ocean has much to tell us in regard to them, and in regard to the provident care of their beneficent creator. files made available on the internet archive. transcriber's note italic text is denoted by _underscores_. all oe ligatures were converted to oe. the sea. _uniform with this volume_, and by the same author. _love_ (l'amour.) (_twenty-seventh edition._) price, $1,00 _woman_ (la femme.) (_thirteenth edition._) 1,00 _the child_ (l'enfant.) (_in press._) _the insect_ (l'insècte) its life, loves and labors. (_in press._) _the bird_ (l'oiseau.) its life, loves, and labors. (_in press._) _women of the french revolution._ (_in press._) the sea (la mer.) from the french of m. j. michelet, _of the faculty of letters, author of "a history of france," "love," "woman," "the child," "the insect," "the bird," "women of the french revolution," etc., etc., etc._ translated from the latest paris edition. [illustration] new york: rudd & carleton, 180 grand street paris: l. hachette et cie. mdccclxi. entered according to act of congress, in the year 1861, by rudd & carleton, in the clerk's office of the district court of the southern district of new york. extract from the london athenæum, feb. 9. 1861. 'the sea' is another of m. michelet's dreamy volumes,--half science, half fancy, with a blending in both of sensuous suggestion. m. michelet takes the seas of the world in his hands, manipulates them, invokes their monsters, assembles all their finny droves, gossips with the sirens, sails among the hyperborean waters with behemoth, and is on intimate terms with tennyson's little shell-king, who lives in a palace with doors of diamond, and wears a rainbow frill, for the admiration of the nations that dwell in his dim, sunken wildernesses. * * * * * he discourses upon marine terrors and beauties, and tells the reader, as a sublime peter parley might, that the salt of all the seas, if piled upon america, would spread over the continent a solid, cliff-edged mass, 4,500 feet high. there are chapters on sands, cliffs and beaches; on waves; on the anatomy of the sea itself, which resembles "a gigantic animal arrested in the earliest stage of its organization;" on tempests; on the sympathy between air and water; on the fecundity of the sea, which, were it not self-devouring, would putrefy, according to m. michelet into one solid mass of herring; on fish of every species, and especially on pearls. the queens of the east, he says, dislike the gleams of the diamond. they will allow nothing to touch their skins except pearls. a necklace and two bracelets of pearls constitute the perfection of ornament. the pearls silently say to the woman, "love us! hush!" in the north, too, dainty countesses love their pearls,--wearing them beneath their clothes by night and by day, concealing them, caressing them, only now and then exposing them. so do the odalisques of asia prize the soft linen vestment that just covers their limbs, never taking it off until worn out, which says little for oriental baths. * * * * * the book is pleasant reading, like all else that m. michelet writes. contents. page extract from the london atheneum, 5 book first. a glance upon the seas. i. the sea as seen from the shore, 11 ii. the beach, the sands, and the iron bound coast, 19 iii. the same, (_continued_) 24 iv. the same, (_continued_) 81 v. the fiery and the watery circle. the currents of the sea, 40 vi. tempests, 58 vii. tempests (_continued_) 63 viii. the storm of october, 1859, 72 ix. the beacons, 91 book second. the genesis of the sea. i. fecundity, 105 ii. the milky sea, 114 iii. the atom, 128 iv. blood-flower, 139 v. the world makers, 149 vi. daughter of the seas, 160 vii. the stone picker, 173 viii. shells, mother of pearl, and pearl, 182 ix. the sea rovers (poulpe, &c.) 194 x. crustaceæ. battle and intrigue, 202 xi. the fish, 212 xii. the whale, 225 xiii. the syrens, 236 book third. conquest of the sea. i. the harpoon, 251 ii. discovery of the three oceans, 260 iii. the law of storms, 275 iv. the polar seas, 289 v. man's war upon the races of the sea, 306 vi. the law of the ocean, 319 book fourth. the restoration of the sea. i. origin of sea bathing, 329 ii. choice of coast, 340 iii. the house, 349 iv. first aspiration of the sea, 360 v. baths. restoration of beauty, 369 vi. the restoration of heart and brotherhood, 377 vii. the new life of the nations, 388 notes. 401 book first. a glance upon the seas. chapter i. the sea as seen from the shore. a gallant dutch seaman, a cool and stern observer, who has passed his whole life at sea, frankly tells us that his feeling on first seeing the ocean was _fear_. for all terrestrial animals, water is the non-respirable element, the ever heaving but inevitably asphyxiating enemy; the fatal and eternal barrier between the two worlds. we need not, all things being considered, be at all surprised, if that immense mass of waters which we call the sea, dark and inscrutable in its immense depths, ever and always impresses the human mind with a vague and resistless awe. the imaginative orientals see it only and call it only, as, the _night of the depths_. in all the antique tongues, from india to ireland, the synonymous or analogous name of the sea is either _night_ or the _desert_. ah! with what a great and a hallowed and a hallowing, with what an at once soothing and subduing melancholy it is that, evening after evening, we see the sun, that great world's joy, that brilliant, life-quickening, and light-giving sun of all that lives, fade, sink, die--though so surely to rise and live again! ah! as that glorious light departs, how tenderly do we think of the human loves that have died from us--of the hour when we, also, shall thus depart from human ken, lost, for the time, to this world--to shine more gloriously in that other world, now dark, distant, unknown, but certain. descend to even a slight depth in the sea, and the beauty and brilliancy of the upper light are lost; you enter into a persistent twilight, and misty and half-lurid haze; a little lower, and even that sinister and eldritch twilight is lost, and all around you is night, showing nothing, but suggesting everything that darkness,--handmaiden of terrible fancy--can suggest. above, below, beneath, all around, darkness, utter darkness, save when, from time to time, the swift and gracefully terrible motion of some passing monster of the deep makes "darkness visible" for a brief moment--and, then, that passing gleam leaves you in darkness more dense, more utter, more terrible, than ever. immense in its extent, enormous in its depth, that mass of waters which covers the greater part of our globe seems, in truth, a great world of shadows and of gloom. and it is that which, above all, at once fascinates and intimidates us. darkness and fear! twin sisters, they! in the early day, the at once timid and unreasoning childhood of our race, men imagined that where no light was, neither could there be life; that in the unfathomed depths, there was a black, lifeless, soundless, chaos; above, nought but water and gloom,--beneath, sand, and shells, the bones of the wrecked mariner, the rich wares of the far off, ruined, and vainly bewailing merchant;--those sad treasures of "that ever-receiving and never-restoring treasury--the sea." the waters of the sea afford us no encouragement by their transparency. look not there for the seductive, brightly sparkling, and ever-smiling nymph of the fountain. opaque, heavy, mighty, merciless, your sea is a liquid polyphemus, a blind giant that cares not, reasons not, feels not--but hits a terribly hard blow. trust yourself upon that vast and ever-heaving bosom, bold swimmer, and marvellously will you be upheld; the mighty thing that upholds you dominates you, too; you are a mere weak child, upheld, indeed, for the instant by a giant-hand--in another moment that giant-hand may smite you with a giant's fatal force. her anchor once tripped, who can tell whither the good ship may be urged by some sudden wind, or some unsuspected but irresistible current? thus it was that our northern fishermen, not only without their intention, but even in spite of it, discovered polar america, and supped full of the horrors of funereal greenland. not a nation upon the earth but has its tales and traditions of the sea. homer and the _arabian nights_, have handed down to us a goodly number of those frightful legends, of shoals and tempests and of calms no less murderous than tempests,--those calms during which the hardiest sailor agonizes, moans, loses all courage and all hope in the tortures of the hours, days, haply even weeks, when, with cracked lip and blood-shotten eye, he has around him, heaving upward and sinking downward, but never progressing a cable's length, "water, water, everywhere, but not a drop to drink." thrilling and saddening legends have all our old writers handed down to us of the anthropophagi, those loathsome man-eaters, and of the leviathan, the kraken, the great sea-serpent, &c. the name given to the great african desert--_the abode of terror_,--may very justly be transferred to the sea. the boldest sailors, phoenicians and carthaginians, the conquering arabs who aspired to encircle and grasp the whole world, seduced by what they heard of the hesperides and the land of gold, sailed out of the mediterranean to the wide ocean, but soon were glad to seek their port again. the gloomy line eternally covered with clouds and mist which they found keeping their stern watch before the equator, intimidated them. they lay to; they hesitated; from man to man ran the murmur "_it is the sea of darkness_--and, then, back went they to port and, there told to wondering landsmen what wonders they had seen, and what horrors they had imagined." woe to him who shall persist in his sacrilegious espionage of that dread region! on one of those weird and far isles stands a sternly-threatening colossus, whose sempiternal menace is--"thus far thou hast come--farther thou shalt not go!" childish as we may think those terrors of the long by-gone ages they really were much the same as the emotions which we may any day see evinced by an inland-born novice who for the first time looks upon the sea. and not merely man, but all animals, experience the same surprise, the same shock, when suddenly brought face to face with the mighty water-world. even at ebb tide, when the water so gently and so lovingly caresses, as it leaves, that shore to which it shall so boisterously return, your horse quite evidently likes it not; he shudders, balks, snorts,--and very often bolts from it at the very top of his speed. your dog recoils, howls, and, after his own canine fashion, returns insult for insult to the waves that annoy and terrify him; he never concludes a real peace with the element which to him seems less doubtful than positively hostile. a certain traveller tells us that the kamtschatkan dogs, accustomed as they are to the sight of the sea, are nevertheless irritated and alarmed by it. during the long nights immense troops of them howl back to the howling waves that break, in their furious might, upon the iron-bound shores of the northern ocean. the natural introduction, the portico, the ante-room, of the ocean, which prepares us thoroughly to appreciate its vast and melancholy extent, is to be found in the dreary course of the rivers of north-western france, the vast sands of the south, or the sad and rarely trodden _landes_ of brittany. all who approach the sea by any of those routes are greatly impressed by that intermediate region. all along the rivers, there is a seemingly infinite chaos of roots and stumps, of willows and the like water-loving vegetation, and the waters becoming more and more brackish, at length become absolutely salt--the veritable sea-water. in the landes, on the other hand, as we approach the sea, we have a preliminary and preparatory sea of low-growing and coarse shrubs, broom, and bushes. proceed a league or two, and you see sickly and drooping trees which seem, after their manner, to tell you how much they suffer from the blighting breath of their near neighbor, and great tyrant, the sea. evidently, if they were not held there by their great strong roots they would fly to some climate more genial and some soil more generous; they turn every branch from the sea and towards the earth, as though they were a routed host, disorganized, panic-stricken, and prepared to seek safety in flight. fixed to the soil, they bend themselves eastward, twisting, writhing, mutely agonized at every new assault of the storm-winds from the seaward. still nearer to the sea, the trunk of the tree is slender, its stature dwarfish, and its few poor branches spread themselves confusedly to the horizon. on the shore, on the very margin and boundary line between land and sea, where the crushed shells rise in a fine and pungent dust, the trees are invaded, covered, choked up with it; their pores are closed, they inhale no air, they are stifled; still living as to form, they are mere petrified trees, spectral trees, melancholy shadows which have not even the privilege of departing,--sad prisoners--even in death! long before we are face to face with the sea, we can hear and imagine that grand and terrible entity. at first, we hear only a dull, uniform, and distant moaning, which grows louder and louder still, until its majestic roar silences, or covers, all meaner sounds. very soon we perceive that that roar is not monotonous, but has its alternating notes; its full, rich, mellow tenor, and its round, deep, majestic bass. the pendulum of the clock oscillates less regularly than that alternating moan and roar of the ocean in its grand unrest. and this latter, let me repeat it, has _not_ the monotony of the pendulum, for in "what those wild waves are saying," we feel, or fancy that we feel the thrilling intonations of life. and in fact, at high flood, when wave rears its crest upon wave, immense, electric, there mingles with the tumultuous roaring of the fiercely rushing waters, the sound of the shells and pebbles, and the thousand things animate as well as inanimate that they carry with them in their shoreward rush. when the ebb comes, a soft murmur tells us that, together with the sands, the sea carries back into her depths all with which for a few brief hours the shore had been adorned or enriched. and how many other voices hath the mighty sea! even when least agitated, how her wailings and her deep sighs contrast with the dull dead silence of the deserted shore, which seems to expect, in mute terror, the threatening of that mighty mass which so recently laved it with a gentle and caressing wavelet. and will she not speedily fulfil her threat? i know not, and will not anticipate. i will not, just now, at least, speak of those terrible concerts in which, haply, she ere long will take the principal part; of her duets with the rocks, of the basses, those muttered thunders which she utters in the deep caverns of the rocky shore, or of those strange, wild, weird, shrieking tones in which we seem to recognize the "_help, spare, save me!_" of some tortured or fearfully imperilled humanity. no; let us, for the present, contemplate her in her calmer moods; when she is strong, indeed, but not violent. chapter ii. the beach, the sands, and the iron-bound coast. we need not be at all surprised if childhood and ignorance are astounded, _astonied_, when they first find themselves face to face with that vast and mysterious sphinx of the great master's sculpture, the ocean. why, in fact, should we be astonished by their gaze of mingled awe, admiration and bewilderment, when we ourselves, despite our early culture and life-long experience, see so much in the great riddle of that great sphinx which we cannot even hope to explain? what is the real extent of the ocean? that it is greater than that of the earth is about as much as, conscientiously, we can at all positively affirm. on the entire surface of our globe, water is the generality--land the exception. but what is their relative proportion? that, water covers four-fifths of the globe is probable, though, some say a third or a fourth. it is difficult, not to say impossible, to answer the question precisely. a bold explorer discovers a polar land, lays it down, latitude and longitude, with scientific precision; in the very next year an equally bold and no less scientific adventurer seeks it in vain; and in all latitudes immense shoals and lovely coral islands form in the dark depths, rise to the surface, and disappear, just as suddenly and unaccountably as they arose. the real depth of the sea is still less known to us than its extent; we are only at the mere commencement of our early, few, and imperfect soundings. the daring little liberties which we take with the surface of the invincible element, and the confidence with which we go hither and thither upon its unsounded depths, have really nothing to say against the grand and well-founded pride of the ocean, impenetrable as she is as to her secrets, ever moving yet unchangeable, a reality, yet, in all but a few of her phenomena, as unreal to us as the spectres of our actual dreaming. that those mighty depths contain a whole world, a marvellously great and diversified world, of life, love, war, and reproduction of all sorts and sizes, we must imagine and may already with confidence affirm; but we have only, and barely, touched upon the threshold of that world. we are in such a hurry to leave that strange and hostile element! if we need the ocean, see ye, my brothers, the ocean in no wise needs us. nature, fresh from the hand of deity, scorns the too prying gaze and the too shallow judgment of finite but presumptuous man. that very element which we term fluid, shifting, capricious, suffers, in reality, no change; on the contrary it is a very perfect model of regularity. the really and constantly changing creature is man. his body of this year will have evaporated by this time next year, for, according to berzolius, four-fifths of our frame are water, which at every instant we yield to the ever craving atmosphere. fragile and fleeting creature as man is, he has indeed good reason for reflection and for humility when he finds himself in presence of the great unchanging, and, humanly speaking, unchangeable, powers of nature, just, and grand, glorious, as is his hope, his belief, his _certainty_ of a spiritual immortality. despite that delightful hope, that confident belief, that sustaining certainty, man yet is necessarily and terribly saddened by the smiting and strange suddenness with which he hourly sees the thread of man's life forever broken. the sea seems to exult over our fleeting tenure of a life of which we cannot anticipate, far less command, one added moment. whenever we approach her, she seems to murmur from her dark, inscrutable depths, unchangeable as his will who made them--"mortal! to-morrow you shall pass away, but i, _i_ am, and ever shall be, unchanged, unchangeable, mighty and mysterious. the earth will not only receive your bones but will soon convert them into kindred and indistinguishable earth, but i, ever and always, shall remain, main, the same majestic and indifferent entity, the great perfectly balanced life, daily harmonising myself with the harmonious and majestic life of the bright far worlds that shine above and around you." a stern and a scorning rebuke that is which is given to our poor human pride when, twice in our every mortal day the sea tears from our vexed shores the stony spoils which twice in every day she scornfully and terribly hurls back again. to any imagination but that of the trained and veteran seaman, the fierce rush of the rising tide infallibly suggests the likeness of a fierce and deadly combat; but when the child, or the savage, observes that the fury of the sea has its inevitable limits, the terror of the child or savage is turned--true coward-fashion--into an unreasoning compound of hate and rage, and he as fiercely, as impotently, pelts the terrible waves with the very pebbles which without effort, without consciousness, she has cast, heaps upon heaps, by ship loads, at every vast beat of her semi-diurnal pulse! foaming, roaring, threatening, the waves rush shoreward; the boy observes that though they may kiss, they cannot, at his safe stand-point, submerge his delicate little feet, returns laughter for their roarings, petty pebbles for their impotent threats. i saw a battle of this sort at havre, in july, 1831. a little boy whom i took thither felt his young courage aroused and his young pride stung, by the loud challenges and fierce threats of the incoming tide, and he returned scorn for threat, feebly-thrown pebble for surging and mighty wave. greatly, aye, laughably unequal was the strife between that small, white, delicate and feeble hand of the young mortal, and the vast and terrible force which cared not about it, feared it not, felt it not, knew it not. _laughably_, said i? ah! no inclination towards laughter remains with us when we reflect upon the fleeting existence, the ephemeral and impotent fragility of our best beloved, our fellows, our maker's favored, erring, vain-glorious, and, in the last issue, utterly helpless humanity, when in presence of that tireless and inscrutable eternity to which we may at any moment be recalled! such was one of my earliest glances at the ocean; such the gloomy meditations, only too truly and too sternly realized, that were suggested to me by that combat between the fierce sea upon which i look so often, and the glad and laughing, and buoyant child upon whom, alas! i shall look, lovingly and anxiously, no more. chapter iii. the beach, the sands, and the iron-bound coast, continued. look upon the ocean where and when you may, you everywhere and alway shall find her the same grand and terrible teacher of that hardest of all the lessons man has to learn,--man's insignificance. take your stand upon some bold headland, from which with earnest and well trained eye, you can sweep the entire horizon; or, wander, with shortened ken, in the sandy desert;--go whithersoever you will, where old ocean shall lash the shore, and everywhere and alway, i repeat, you shall find ocean the same--mighty and terrible. true it is, that our finite and dim gaze cannot discern the, humanly speaking, _infinity_ of the ocean; but we feel, we instinctively comprehend, that infinity, and the impression made by that instructive comprehension is even deeper than could be made by ocean visibly to our material eye, tangibly to our poor human hand. such, so deep, so permanent, was the impression made upon me by that wild tumultuous scene on the scourged-shore where granville--dear old granville!--keeps neutral watch between normandy and brittany. the wealthy, kindly and hearty, though bluff, and somewhat vulgar normandy with its vast outspread of orchard and meadow suddenly disappears, and, by granville and by the frowning saint michel we pass all at once into quite another world. for granville, though norman as to race, is thoroughly breton as to aspect. sternly, solidly, invincibly, the great rock rears his defiant front, and looks down in a quite insolent contempt upon the wild surges that incessantly assault, but never harm, that passionless and mutely mocking titan. let the wild winds, unpent from their northern caverns, sweep the rugged coast; borne on the cross-currents from the angry west, let the wind sweep all things else clear from its path and this stern unconquerable rock ever and alway saith "thus far shalt thou come, but no farther. strengthened though you are by your mad trans-atlantic leap of a thousand leagues, against me your fury shall be spent in vain." i loved that odd and somewhat dull little town, which owes its support to the distant and most perilous fishery. every family there, feels that it is supported by a dread game in which human life is at stake; and this feeling produces a certain harmonious gravity in the aspect and tone of the dwellers hereabout, and of all their surroundings. a touching and a hallowing melancholy, that, of which i have often felt the influence, when, walking on the already darkening shore or gazing from the upper town that crowns the great rock, i have seen the sun sink below the far and misty horizon, harshly streaked by alternate rays of luridness and gloom, and not pausing to tint the sky with those glowing and fantastic brilliances which in other climes delight us. here it is already autumn in august, and twilight scarcely exists. scarcely has the sun set, when the shrewd winds freshen, and the dark green waves sweep on with added force; below, you see a few spectral forms hurrying along in their dark cloaks, and from afar you hear the melancholy bleatings of the sheep already benighted on their scanty pasturage. the very small upper town rears its northern front sharply and boldly above the very edge of a cold dark abyss, facing the great sea, and swept by an eternal blast. this part of the place consists of only poor houses, and in one of them i found my quarters with a poor man, a maker of those pretty shell pictures for which the place is famous. ascending by a ladder, rather than a staircase, into a dark little room, i looked out upon the strange wild scene, as strange and tragic, as wild and impressive, as that which had presented itself, when, also from a window, i had caught my first view of the great glacier of the swiss grindelwald. the glacier had shown an enormous monster of peaked icebergs which seemed crashing down upon me; and this vexed sea of granville seemed an army of monstrous waves all rushing together to the attack. my host here, though far from old, was feeble and suffering, and, as i examined his shell work and talked with him, i perceived that his mind was somewhat shaken. poor fellow; upon that shore his only brother had perished, and from that moment the sea appeared to him an intelligent and persistent enemy. in the winter it beat his windows with snow or with icy winds, and kept him sleepless and peaceless during the long and dreary nights, and in the summer it brought him the vivid lightnings and the far resounding thunders. at the high tides it was still worse; the spray then beat upon his very windows, and he felt doubtful if some day he would not be drowned even on his own hearth. but he had not the means of finding a more secure shelter, and perhaps he was unconsciously retained there by we know not what strange fascination. he had not resolution to break altogether with that terrible foe, for which he had a certain respect, as well as a great awe. he seldom spoke of it by name; like the icelander who, when at sea, does not name the ourque, lest she should hear, and appear. i fancy that even now i can see his pale face, as, pointing to the wave-beaten beach, he said--"that terrifies me!" was he a lunatic? not at all. he spoke quite sensibly, and was in reality interesting and even distinguished. a nervous being, too delicately organized for such a scene as that in which he was placed. but the sea can madden, and often does. livingstone brought from africa a bold and intelligent man who had hunted and killed lions, but had never seen the sea. when taken on board ship, the novel sight was too much for his brain, he became frantic, and threw himself headlong into the heaving deep, which at once terrified and fascinated him. on the other hand, so attached do some men become to the sea, that they can never quit it. i have seen old pilots, compelled by infirmity to abandon their office, fret themselves into imbecility. on the very summit of saint michael you are shown what they call _maniac's shelf_; and i know no place better fitted to make one mad than that giddy height. all around a vast stretch of white sand, solitary ever, and ever treacherous. it is neither land nor water; it is neither sea water nor fresh, though streams are constantly flowing beneath. rarely, and but for brief moments, a boat can cross there, and if you cross when the water is out you risk being swallowed in. i can state that with full authority, for i nearly lost my life there. a very light vehicle in which i ventured there, and the horse that drew it, disappeared in too, and only by a perfect miracle i escaped on foot, feeling myself sinking at every step. at length, however, i reached the rock, that gigantic abbey, fortress and prison, that frowning sublimity, so well worthy of the scene which it so sternly dominates. this is no place for a detailed description of such a monument. on a huge block of granite, that titanic pile rises and rises still, rock upon rock, age upon age, and still dungeon above dungeon. at the foot, the _in pace_ of the monks; higher up, the iron cage made by louis xi.; higher still, that of louis xiv.; higher still, the prison of our own day. and all this in a whirlwind, a perpetual tempest; a sepulchre without the sepulchre's peace. is it the fault of the sea, if this beach is treacherous? not at all. there, as elsewhere, the sea arrives strong and loud, indeed, but in all frankness and loyalty. the real fault is in the land, apparently solid, but undermined by numberless streams of fresh water which converts that seemingly solid beach into a treacherous and devouring quagmire. and especially is the fault in the ignorance and negligence of man. in the long dark ages when man invented the legend and the pilgrimage of the archangel who vanquished the devil, the devil took possession of that deserted plain. the sea is quite innocent in the matter. far, indeed, from doing harm, the sea upon its madly bounding waves brings in a nourishing and fecundating salt more precious than the fat slime of the nile, enriching the once hideous marshes of dol into the lovely gardens of our own day. the sea is a somewhat violent mother, no doubt;--but a mother still. abounding in fish, she lavishes upon the opposite cancale, and upon many another bank, millions, thousands of millions, of oysters, whose crushed shells give beauty, and verdure, and flowers, and fruit. we must enter into a right understanding with the sea, and not be led away by the false notions which its barren beach or its own more violent phenomena--often only the disguises of very real and very great benefits--may suggest to us. chapter iv. the beach, the sands, and the iron-bound coast, continued. the headlands, the sandy beaches, the bold capes and the low shores, command various, but ever useful, views of the great sea, stern and wild at the first glance, but divine and friendly, as we come to know it better. the advantage of the headlands is that at the foot of one of those giant rock-walls we more entirely than elsewhere appreciate the breathing and bounding pulse of the sea. insensible, imperceptible, on the mediterranean, that pulse is very distinct on the ocean. the ocean breathes and pulsates, even as you and i do; it compels me to calculate my days and hours, and to look up to heaven. it reminds me alike of myself and of the world. let me seat myself upon some such shore, that, for instance, of antifer, whence i may look out upon that vast expanse. the sea which, but a moment agone, seemed dead, has suddenly shuddered and become tremulous--first symptom of the great approaching movement. the tide has heaved past cherbourg and barfleur, and turned sharply and violently round the lighthouse; its divided waters lave calvados, rush upon havre and come to me at étretat, at fécamp, at dieppe, to hurl themselves into the canal despite the strong northern currents. it is for me to watch its hour. its height, almost indifferent to the sandhills, is here, at the foot of the headland, alike worthy of your attention and powerful to command it. this long rock-wall of thirty leagues has but few stairways. its narrow inlets, which form our smaller havens, occur at rare and great distances. and at low water we can with inquiring gaze inspect and question the strata above strata, gigantically and regularly superposed, which, as so many titanic registers, tell us the history of accumulated ages of growth and decay, of life and death. from that great open book of time every year tears away a page. we have before us a piece of an hourly perishing, hourly renewing, world, which the sea from beneath is hourly devouring, and the torrents and the tempests, the frosts and the thaws from above, are hourly, and still more destructively, attacking. wearing, crushing, beating, pulverising, wave, and wind, and storm and time, that great _edax rerum_, that unsparing and untiring moth of the universe, are, even as we gaze, converting the one vast rocky mass into the rounded and petty pebble. it is this rough work which makes this coast, so richly fertile on the land side, a real maritime desert on the seaward. a few, very few, sea plants survive the eternal crushing and grinding of the ever crushed and ever crushing pebbles driven hither and thither by every wave that every wind scourges into motion. the molluscæ, and even the very fish shun this vexed shore. great contrast that between an inland country so genial, and such a stern, rugged, threatening and inhospitable coast. it is only to be seen thoroughly when looked down upon from the bold headland. below, the hard necessity of toiling over the beach, the sand yielding, and the pebbles round, hard, and rolling, makes the task of traversing this narrow beach a real and violent gymnastic exercise. no; let us keep to the heights where splendid villas, noble woods, the waving harvests, the delicious gardens which even to the very edge of the great rocky wall, look down upon that magnificent channel which separates the two shores of the two great empires of the world. the land and the sea! what more! both, here, have a great charm; nevertheless, he who loves the sea for her own sake, he who is her friend, her lover, will rather seek her in some less varied scene. to be really intimate with her, the great sandy beaches, provided, always, that they be not too soft, are far more convenient. they allow of such infinite strolls! they suffer us so well to build up our air castles, and to meditate upon so many things; they allow us to hold such familiar and deep conference with that never silent sea! never do i complain of those vast and free arenas in which others find themselves so ill at ease. when there, i am never less lonely than when alone. i come, i go, i feel that ever present sea. it is there, ever there, the sublime companion; and if haply that companion be in gentle mood, i venture to speak, and the great companion does not disdain to speak to me again. how many things have we not said to each other in those quiet wastes, when the crowd is away, on the limitless sands of scheveningen, ostend, royan, and saint georges. there it is that in long interviews we can establish some intimacy with the sea, acquire some familiarity with its great speech. when from the towers of amsterdam the zuyderzee looks muddy, and when at the dykes of scheveningen the leaden waves seem ready to overleap the earthy mound, the sea wears its least pleasing aspect; yet i confess that this combat between land and water attracts me forcibly--this great invention, this mighty effort, this triumph of man's skill and man's labor, over the fiercest force of inanimate nature. and this sea also pleases me by the treasures of fecund life which i know to abound in its dark depths. it is one of the most populous in the world. on the night of st. john, when the fishery opens, you may see another sea arise from the depths--the sea of herrings. you will imagine that the boundless plain of waters will prove too limited for this great living upburst, this triumphant revelation of the boundless fecundity of nature. such was my first impression of this sea, and when i saw the pictures in which genius has so well marked its profound character, ruysdaël's gloomy _estacade_ beyond any other painting in the louvre has always irresistibly attracted me. why? in the ruddy tints of those phosphorescent waters, i feel not the cold of the north sea, but the fermentation, the stream, the rushing energy of life. nevertheless, were i asked what coast the most grandly and powerfully impresses me, i should answer, that of brittany, especially those wild and sublime headlands of granite which terminate the old world at that bold point which dominates the atlantic and defies the western storm winds. nowhere have i better felt than there, those lofty and ennobling melancholies which are the best impressions of the sea. but i must explain, here. there are different melancholies; there is a melancholy of the weak, and a melancholy of the strong,--the melancholy of the too sensitive souls who weep only for themselves, and that of the disinterested hearts, which cheerfully accept their own lot, and find nature ever blessing and blessed, but feel the evils of society, and in melancholy itself find strength for action, means for creating good or mitigating evil. ah! what need we have, we of the working brain, often to strengthen our souls in that mood which we may call _heroic melancholy_. when, some thirty years since, i paid a visit to this country, i could not account for the potent attraction that it had for me. at the foundation of this attractive potency of brittany, is its great harmony. elsewhere, we feel, though we cannot explain it to ourselves, a certain discordance between the race and the soil. the very beautiful norman race, in those districts in which it is most unmixed, and where it retains the peculiar, ruddy complexion of the true scandinavian, has not the slightest apparent affinity with the territory upon which it has intruded itself. in brittany, on the contrary, on the most ancient geological formation on our globe, on that soil of granite and of flint, lives a race solid as that granite, sharp as that flint, a sturdy and antique race. just as much as normandy progresses, brittany retrogrades. witty, lively, and too imaginative, the impossible, the utterly absurd, are ever welcome to her. but, if wrong on many points, she is great upon a most important one; she has character; often you may think her erroneous, but never can you deem her common-place. if we would for a time emerge from that wretched common-place, that deadly liveliness, that horrible waking dream "of stupid starers and of loud huzzas," let us seat ourselves on one of the impending and commanding peaks that overlook the bay of douarnenez,--the stern, bold headland, for instance, of penmark. or, if the wind blow too strongly there for our frame, effeminated by the late hours, the bad atmosphere, and the hateful habits, and still more hateful passions, of the thronged city, let us take a quiet sail among the lower isles of the morbihan, where the soft warm tide is lazy, and all but soundless. where brittany is mild, brittany is surpassingly mild. sailing among her islands and on her gentler tides, you might fancy yourself on lethe; but, on the other hand, when brittany is aroused, brittany, take my word for it, is terribly strong and terribly in earnest! in 1831 i felt only the sadness of that coast, not its more than compensating inspiration; i was yet to learn the real character of that sea. it is in the most solitary little creeks, pierced in between the wildest and most rugged looking rocks, that you will find her truly gay, joyous, buoyant, abounding in glad and vigorous life. those rocks seem to you to be covered by you know not what greyish ashy asperities--look a little more closely and you perceive that that layer of seeming dust is a little world of living creatures, left there high and dry by the ebb of the sea, to be revived and fed again next tide. there, too, you see our little stone workers, hosts upon hosts of those sea hedge-hogs or urchins, which m. cailland has so intelligently watched and so admirably described. all this swarming though minute world chooses and feels just contrariwise to our choice and our feeling. beautiful normandy terrifies them; the hard pebbles of the beach would crush them, and they love not, either, the crumbling limestone that overhangs the more smiling shore, for they care not to build where at any moment building and foundation may sink into the depths forever. they love and affect only the solid rocks of brittany. let us take a lesson from them, and trust only to truth and not to mere appearance. the marine life shuns precisely those enchanting shores whose vegetable life is the most abounding and the most brilliant. they are rich, but rich only in fossils; very curious are they to the geologist, but they yield to him only the bones of the dead. the stern granite, on the contrary, looks down upon the sea swarming with its piscine life, and supports upon its massive breast the humble, but none the less interesting little molluscæ whose laborious life makes the serious charm, the great moral of the sea. and yet amidst all that teeming life there is a deep silence; that infinite population is ever and inevitably silent. its life is self-concentrated, its labors unmarked, uncheered, by a sound; it has no connection with you or me--to us, that life is only another aspect of death. a great and a dead solitude, says some feminine heart; it alarms, it saddens me. wrong! all here is lovable and friendly. these little creatures speak not to the world, but they all the time are hard at work for it. they yield themselves up to the sublime voice of their sublime parent, the ocean, that speaks for them; by his great utterance, they speak, confidingly, and by proxy. between the silent earth and the mute tribes of the sea, a great, strong, grave, and sympathetic dialogue is constantly carried on--the harmonious agreement with the _great i am_, with himself and his great work--that great eternal conflict which, everywhere and always, is love. chapter v. the fiery and the watery circle--the currents of the sea. scarcely has the earth cast one glance upon herself ere she not merely compares herself to the heavens above, but vaunts her own superiority. geology, the mere infant, hurls a titanic cry against her elder sister, astronomy, that haughty and splendid queen of all the sciences. "our mountains," exclaims geology, "are not _cast confusedly hither and thither like those stars in the sky_; our mountains form systems in which are found the elements of a general and orderly arrangement of which the celestial constellations present no trace." such is the bold and impassioned phrase which is uttered by a man as modest as he is illustrious,--m. elias de beaumont. doubtless, we have not yet developed the order, which, yet, we may not doubt is great, which prevails in the seeming confusion of the milky way, but the more obvious regularity of the surface of the globe, the result of the revolutions in its unfathomed and unfathomable depths, preserve still, and ever will preserve, for the most ingenious science, many clouds and many mysteries. the forms of that great mountain, upheaved from the mighty mass of waters, which we call the earth, shows many arrangements which, while they are sufficiently symmetrical, are still not reducible to what would seem a perfect system. the dry and elevated portions show themselves more or less as the waters leave them bare. it is the limiting line of the sea which, in reality, traces out the form of continent and of island; it is by the sea that we commence all true understanding of geography. let us note another fact, which has been discovered only within a few years past. the earth presents us with some seemingly antagonistic features. the new world, for instance, stretches from north to south, the old world from east to west; the sea, on the contrary, exhibits a great harmony, an exact correspondence between the two hemispheres. it is in the fluid portion of our world, that portion which we have deemed to be so capricious, that the greatest regularity exists. that which this globe of ours presents of the most rigidly regular, the most symmetrical, is just that which appears to be most utterly free, most entirely the mere sport of unrestricted motion. no doubt, the vertebræ and the bones of that vast creature have peculiarities which we, as yet, are not qualified to comprehend. but its living movements which cause the ocean currents, convert salt water into fresh water, which anon is converted to vapor to return again to the salt water, that admirable mechanism is as perfect and systematic as the sanguineous circulation of the superior animals; as perfect a resemblance as possible to the constant transformation of your own venous and arterial blood. the world would wear quite another aspect, were we to class its regions, not by _chains of mountains_ but by _maritime basins_. southern spain, resembles morocco, more than navarre; provence, resembles algeria, rather than dauphiny; senegambia, the amazon, rather than the red sea; and the great valley of the amazon, is more like to the moist regions of africa than it is to its arid neighbors, peru, chili, &c. the symmetry of the atlantic is still more striking in its under-currents and the winds and breezes that sweep over it. their action potently helps to create these analogies, and to form what we may call the _fraternity of the shores_. the principle of geographical unity, will be more and more sought for in the _maritime basin_, where the waters and the winds, faithful intermediaries, create the relation, the assimilation, of the opposite shores. far less can we ask this illustration of geographical unity from the mountains, where two slopes frequently present to you, under the same latitude, both a flora and a population absolutely different; on the one slope, eternal summer, on the other, eternal winter, according to the aspect of each. the mountain rarely gives unity of country; far more frequently, duality, discordance, actual diversity. this striking state of the case was first pointed out by borg. de saint vincent, and has since, in a thousand instances, been confirmed by the discoveries of maury. in the immense valley of the sea, beneath the double mountain of the two continents, there are, strictly speaking, only two basins:-1. _the basin of the atlantic_; 2. _the great basin of the indian ocean, and the pacific._ we cannot give the name of basin to the indeterminate cincture of the great austral ocean, which has no boundary save that on the north it is touched by the indian ocean, the coraline and the pacific. the austral ocean alone exceeds in extent all other seas together, and covers almost one-half of the entire globe. apparently, the depth of that sea is in proportion to its extent. while recent soundings of the atlantic give a result of 10,000 to 12,000 feet, ross and denham found in the southern ocean from 14,000 to 46,000 feet. here, too, we may note the mass of the antarctic ice, infinitely more vast than the arctic. we shall not be very wide of the truth, if we say that the southern hemisphere is the world of waters, the northern the world of land. he who sails from europe to cross the atlantic, having been fortunate enough to get clear of our ports in which he too frequently is imprisoned by the westerly wind, and having cleared the variable zone of our capricious seas, speedily gets into the fine climate and constant serenity which the n. e. breezes, the genial trade-winds, spread over sea and sky. above and around, everything favors him, everything smiles upon him, but, as he approaches the line, the inspiring breezes cease to breathe balmily upon him, and the air is almost suffocating. he enters the circle of those calms which prevail under the equator, and present unchangeably their barrier between our northern trade-winds and those of the south. heavy mists and clouds are all above and around him, and the tropical rains descend in mighty torrents. bitterly the seaman complains of those gloomy and deluging clouds, but only for their gloomy screen what scathing beams would descend upon the poor dizzy heads, and be reflected in smiting power from the bright, broad mirror of the atlantic? _but_ for those torrents which fall upon the other face of our globe, the indian ocean and the sea of coral, what would be their fermentation in the craters of their antique volcanoes! that dark mass of blackest clouds, once the terror of the navigator and the obstacle to navigation, that sudden and dense night extended over those broad waters form precisely the safeguard, the protecting facility which softens our passage and enables us, sailing southward still, to meet again the bright sun, the clear sky, and the balmy mildness of the regular winds. quite naturally, quite inevitably, the heats of the line raise the waters in masses of vapor, and form that dark band, so threatening in appearance, but in reality so beneficent. the observer who from some other planet could look upon our world would see around her a ring of clouds not unlike the belt of saturn. did he seek the purpose and the use of that ring, he might, in reply, be told--"it is the regulator which, by turns absorbing and giving forth, equalizes the evaporation and fall of the waters, distributes the rains and dews, modifies the heat of each country, interchanges the vapors of the two worlds, and borrows from the southern world the rivers and streams of our northern world." marvellous co-partnership and mutual reaction! south america, from the respiration of its vast forests, condensed into clouds, fraternally nourishes the flowers and fruits of our europe. the air which revives and inspirits us, is the tribute paid by the hundred isles of asia, exhaled by the great vegetation of java or ceylon, and entrusted to the great cloud-messenger that turns with the world and sheds life and freshness upon it. place yourself in imagination upon one of the many islands of the pacific and look to the southward. behind new holland you will perceive that the southern ocean touches with its circular wave the two extreme points of the old and the new continents. no land in that antarctic world; not one of those little islands or of those pretended polar lands which discoverers have marked only to behold their disappearance, and which probably have been but so many icebergs. water, still water; water without end. from the same post of observation on which i have, in imagination, placed you, in contrast with the great circle of antarctic waters, look eastward, towards the arctic hemisphere, and you may discern what ritter terms the circle of fire. to speak more precisely, it is an opened ring, formed by the volcanoes commencing at the cordilleras, passing by the heights of asia, to the innumerable basaltic isles of the eastern ocean. the first volcanoes, those of america, present, for a length of a thousand leagues a succession of sixty gigantic beacons whose constant eruptions command the abrupt coast and the distant waters. the others, from new zealand to the north of the philippines, number eighty still burning, and a countless host that are extinct. steering northward, from japan to kamschatka, fifty flaming craters dispense their ruddy lights far away to the gloomy seas of the arctic. in the whole, there is a circle of three hundred active volcanoes around the eastern world. on the other front of the globe, our atlantic ocean presented a similar appearance, prior to the revolutions which extinguished most of the volcanoes of europe and annihilated the continent of the atlantis. humboldt believes that that great ruin, only too strongly attested by tradition, was only too real. i may venture to add that the existence of that continent was in logical concordance with the general symmetry of the world, for that face of the globe was thus harmonized with the other. there rose, with the volcano of teneriffe, which alone remains of them, and with our extinct volcanoes of auvergne, of the rhine, &c., those which were to destroy atlantis. altogether, they formed the counterpoise of the volcanoes of the antilles, and other american craters. from these burning or extinct volcanoes of india and the antilles, of the cuban and the javanese seas proceed two enormous streams of hot water, which are to warm the north, and which we may fitly term the aortæ of the world. they are provided, beside or beneath, with their two counter currents which, flowing from the north, bring cold water to compensate the flow of hot water and preserve the balance. to the two streams of hot water which are extremely salt, the cold currents administer a mass of fresher water which returns to the equator, the great electric furnace, where it is heated and made salt. these streams of hot water, narrow at first, some twenty leagues in breadth, long preserve their force and their identity, but by degrees they grow weaker as they widen ultimately to about a thousand leagues. maury estimates that the hot water stream which flows from the antilles in a northernly course towards us displaces and modifies a fourth part of the waters of the atlantic. these great features in the life of the seas, noticed only recently, were, however, as visible as the continents themselves. our great atlantic and her sister, the indian artery, proclaim themselves by their color. in each case it is a great blue torrent which traverses the green waters; so darkly blue is this torrent, that the japanese call theirs the _black river_. ours is very clearly seen, as it leaps boilingly from the gulf of mexico, between cuba and florida, and flows west, salt, and distinguishable between its two green walls. in vain does the ocean press upon it, on either side, it still flows on, unbroken. by i know not what intrinsic density, or molecular attraction, these blue waters are so firmly held together, that, rather than admit the green water, they rear their centre into an arch, and they thus slope to the right and to the left, so that anything thrown into them rolls off into the ocean. rapid and strong, this gulf stream at first flows towards the north, along the shores of the united states; but, on reaching the great bank of newfoundland, its right arm sweeps off to the eastward, while the left arm, as an under current, hastens to create, towards the pole, the recently discovered open sea where all else around is fast frozen. the right arm spreading out, and proportionately weakened, at length reaches europe, touches ireland and england, which again divide the waters previously divided at newfoundland. weaker and weaker, it yet carries a little warmth to norway, and carries american woods to that poor iceland which, but for them, would die frozen beneath the very fires of her volcano. the indian and the american streams have this in common, that, starting from the line, from the electric centre of the globe, they carry with them immense powers of creation and agitation. on the one hand they seem the deep and teeming womb of a whole world of living creatures; on the other hand, they are the centre and the vehicle of tempests, whirlwinds, and water spouts. so much nursing gentleness and so much destroying fury; have we not here a great contradiction? no, it proves only that the fury disturbs only the exterior and not any considerable depths. the weakest creatures, shelled atomies, the microscopic medusæ, fluid creatures that a mere touch dissolves, availing themselves of the same current, sail, in all safety, though the tempest is loud and fierce right above them. few of them reach our shores; they are met at newfoundland by the cold stream from the pole, which slays them by myriads. newfoundland is the very bone-house of these frost-stricken voyagers. the lightest remain in suspension, even after death; but at length sink, like snowy showers to the depths, where they deposit those banks of shells which extend from ireland to america. murray calls the indian and american streams of hot water, _the two milky ways of the sea_. so similar in color, heat, direction, and describing precisely the same curve, they yet have not the same destiny. the american, at the very outset, enters an inclement sea, the atlantic, which, open to the north, bears down the floating army of icebergs from the pole, and it thus early parts with much of its heat. the indian stream, on the contrary, first circulating among the isles, reaches a closed sea well protected from the north, and thus for a long time preserves its original heat, electric and creative, and traces upon our globe an enormous train of life. its centre is the apogee of terrestrial energy, in vegetable treasures, in monsters, in spices, in poisons. from the secondary currents which it gives off, and which flow towards the north, results another world, that of the sea of coral. there, says maury, over a space as large as the four continents the polypes are industriously building thousands of islands, shoals, and reefs, which are gradually studding and dividing that sea; shoals which at present are the annoyance and the dread of the mariner, but which will at length rise to the surface, join together to form a continent, which, some day--who knows? may be the refuge of the human race, when flood, or fire, or earthquake, leave it no other shelter. john reynaud in his fine article in the _encyclopedie_, remarks that our world is not solitary. the infinitely complicated curve which it describes represents the forces, the various influences, which act upon her, and bear testimony to her connection and communication with the great luminaries of the heavens. that connection and communication are especially visible with the sun and moon; the latter, though the servant of earth, has none the less power over her. as the flowers of the earth turn their heads sunward, so does the flower-bearing earth aspire towards him. in her most movable portion, her immense fluid mass, she raises herself and gives visible token of feeling his attraction. she rises as far as she can and swelling her bosom twice a day gives, at least, a sigh to the friendly stars. does not our earth feel the attraction of yet other globes? are her tides ruled only by the sun and moon? all the learned world say it, all seamen believe it; thence terrible errors resulting in shipwrecks. at the dangerous shallows of saint malo the error amounted to eighteen feet. it was in 1839 that chazallan, who nearly lost his life through these errors, began to discover and calculate the secondary, but considerable undulations which, under various influences, modify the general tide. stars less dominant than the sun and moon have, doubtless, their share in producing the alternate rise and fall of the waters of our globe. but under what law do they produce this effect? chazallan tells us;--"the undulation of the tide in a port _follows the law of vibrating chords_." a serious and suggestive sentence, that, which leads us to comprehend that the mutual relations of the stars are the mathematical relations of the celestial music, as antiquity affirmed. the earth, by great and secondary tides, speaks to the planets, her sisters. do they reply to her? we must think so. from their fluid elements they also must rise, sensible to the rise of the waters of the earth. the mutual attraction, the tendency of each star to emerge from egotism, must cause sublime dialogues to be heard in the skies. unfortunately the human ear can hear but the least part of them. there is another point to be considered. it is not at the very moment of the passing of the influential planet that the sea yields to its influence. she is in no such servile haste to obey; she must have time to feel and obey the attraction. she has to call the idle waters to herself, to vanquish their inert force, to attract, to draw to her the most distant. the rotation of the world, too, so terribly rapid, is incessantly displacing the points subjected to the attractive power. to this we must add that the great army of waves in its combined motion has to encounter all the opposition of natural obstacles,--islands, capes, straits, the various curvings of shores, and the no less potent obstacles of winds, currents, and the rapid descent of mountain torrents, swelled by the melted snows;--these, and a thousand other unforseen accidents occur, to alter the regular movement into terrible strife. the ocean yields not. the display of strength which is made by broad and swift rivers cannot intimidate him. the waters, that the rivers pour down upon him, he heaps them up into mountainous masses and drives them back so violently that he seems bent on forcing them to the summits of the mountains from whence they have descended. obstacles thus numerous and various cause apparent tidal irregularities, which at once impress and confuse our minds. none of those irregularities is more surprising than the difference of their time between two quite closely neighboring ports. one havre tide, for instance, equals two of dieppe,--as is mentioned by chazallon, baude, &c. it is greatly to the honor of human genius to have subjected phenomena so complex to even proximately accurate calculation and positive laws. but beneath these exterior movements, the sea has others within; those under currents by which she is traversed in various directions and at varying depths. superposed at different depths, or flowing laterally in opposite directions, hot currents in one direction, cold counter currents in another, they, between them, keep up the circulation of the sea, the exchange of salt and fresh waters, and the alternating pulsation which is the result. the hot _pulse-beat_ is from the line to the pole; the cold, from the pole to the line. shall we be warranted in saying, as it has sometimes been said, that these currents so distinct and unmingling, may be strictly compared to the vessels, veins and arteries, of the superior animals? strictly speaking, we cannot so compare them; but they have considerable resemblance to the less determinate circulation which materialists have lately discovered in some inferior creatures, as molluscs and annelides. that _lacunary_ circulation supplies the want of, and at the same time prepares, the _vascular_; the blood flows in currents before it has precise channels. such is the sea. she resembles a vast animal that has stopped short at the first degree of organization. who has developed the currents, those regular fluctuation of the abysses into which we never descend? who has taught us the geography of those dark waters? those that live within or float upon those waters;--animals and vegetables. we shall see how the huge whale and the minute shelled atomies, how even the woods of america, floating to bleak iceland, have concurred in revealing the flow of hot water from the antilles to europe, and the counter current of cold meeting it at newfoundland, passing it beside or below, and thus getting its ices melted into immense fogs. a vast cloud of red animalcules, carried by a tempest from orinoco to france, explained the great aërial current of the southwest which brings to our europe the rains that have their birth place in the far cordilleras of south america. but for the constant change of waters which is made by the currents in the depths of the sea, she would, in parts, be filled up with salt, sands, animal and vegetable remains and the like detritus. it would be another case of the dead sea, which, for want of movement, has its banks loaded with salt, its vegetation incrusted with salt, and the very winds that cross its surface, burning, withering, breathing only of famine and of death. all the scattered observations upon currents of the air and of the water, the seasons, the winds and the tempests, were long confined to the memory of the fishermen and sailors, and too frequently died with them. meteorology, that guide of navigation, for want of being systematized and centralized seemed vain, and was even denied rank and usefulness as a science. the illustrious m. biot, demanded a strict account of the little that she had yet done. however, upon the two opposite shores of europe and america, persevering men founded that neglected and denied science upon the basis of observation. the latest and most celebrated of these observers, maury the american, courageously undertook what a whole administration had recoiled from, viz., to extract from and arrange the contents of i know not what multitude of log books, those often confused and ill-kept records of the sea captains. these extracts, reduced into tables under regular heads, gave, in the result, rules and generalities. a congress of seamen assembled at bruxelles decided that the observations, henceforth to be logged with more care, shall be sent from all parts to the observatory at washington. a noble compliment, that, paid by europe to young america and her patient and ingenious maury, the learned poet of the sea. he has not only summed up and exemplified her laws; he has done much more, for, by the force of heart and by the love of nature as much as by positive results, he has carried the whole world with him. his charts and his first work, of which a hundred and fifty thousand copies were printed, are liberally distributed to sailors of all nations by the united states government. a number of eminent men in france and in holland, tricot, jullien, margole, zurcher, and others, have made themselves the interpreters, the eloquent missionaries, of this apostle of the sea. why is it that in this matter america, so young, has outstripped europe, so old? it is precisely because she is young, and burning with a desire to be in close connection with the whole globe. upon her superb continent and in the midst of so many states, she yet deems herself solitary. so far from her european brother, she looks towards that centre of civilization as the earth looks toward the sun, and whatever seems to draw her into closer and more familiar connection with the grand old world, thrills her in every nerve. we have abundant proof of that from the joy, the intoxication, the perfect frenzy with which she hailed the completion of the submarine telegraph which joined the two distant shores, and promised that they should communicate within the brief space of minutes, in such wise that the two worlds should have but one thought. chapter vi. tempests. it is with a very real and masterly genius that maury has demonstrated the harmony that exists between air and water. as is the maritime ocean, so is the aërial ocean. their alternating movements and the exchange of their elements are precisely analogous. the aërial ocean distributes heat over the world and making dryness or humidity. the latter, the air draws from the seas, from the infinity of the central ocean, and especially at the tropics, the great boilers of the universal cauldron. dryness, on the contrary, the air acquires as it sweeps over the arid deserts, the great continents, and the glaciers (those true intermediate poles of the globe), which draw out its last drop of moisture from it. the heating at the equator and the cooling again at the pole, alternating the weight and lightness of the vapors, cause them to cross each other in horizontal currents and counter currents; while under the line the heat which lightens the vapors creates perpendicular currents, ascending from sea to sky. previous to dispersing they hover in this misty region, forming, as it were, a ring of clouds around the globe. here, then, we have pulsations both maritime and aërial, different from the pulse of the tide. this latter was external, impressed by other planets upon ours, but this pulse of various currents is inherent in the earth, it is her own veritable life. to my taste, one of the finest things in maury's book, is what he says of salt: "the most obvious agent in producing maritime circulation, heat, would not alone suffice; there is another and a no less important agent, nay, an even more important--it is salt." so abundant is salt in the sea that if it could be cast on shore it would form a mountain 4,500 feet thick. though the saltness of the sea does not vary very greatly, it yet, is augmented or diminished somewhat, according to locality, currents and proximity to the equator or to the poles. as it is more or less salted, the sea is lighter or heavier, and more or less mobile. this continued, with its variations, causes the water to run more or less swiftly, that is to say, _causes currents_, so like the horizontal currents in the bosom of the sea and the vertical currents from the sea of water upward to the sea of air. a french writer, m. lartique, has ingeniously corrected some deficiences and inexactitudes in m. maury's great work "maritime annals." but the american author had anticipated criticism by frankly pointing out where and why he thought his work and his science incomplete. on some points distinctly confining himself to hypothesis, at times he shows himself uncertain, and anxious. his frank and candid book quite plainly reveals the mental struggle which the author undergoes between _biblical literalism_ and the modern sentiment the _sympathy of nature_. the former makes the sea a thing, created by god at once, a machine turning under his hand, while the latter sees in the sea a living force, almost a person, in which the loving soul of the world, is creating still, and ever will create. it is curious to observe, how, by degrees, as it were by irresistible proclivity, maury approaches this latter view. as far as possible he explains himself mechanically, by weight, heat, density, &c. but this does not suffice, and for certain cases he adds a certain molecular attraction or a certain magnetic action. but even this does not suffice, and then he has recourse to the physiological laws which govern life. he attributes to the sea a pulse, veins, arteries, and even a heart. are these mere forms of style, simple comparisons? not so; he has in him--and it is one source of his strength--an imperious, an irresistible feeling of the personality of the sea. before him the sea was to most seamen a thing; to him it is a person, a violent and terrible mistress whom we must adore, but must also subdue. he loves, he deeply loves the sea; but on the other hand, he every moment thinks it necessary to restrain his enthusiasm and to keep within bounds. like levammerdam, baunet and many other illustrious men at once philosophical and religious, he seems to fear that in explaining nature too completely by her own phenomena we show disrespect to nature's god. surely, a very ill founded timidity. the more we exhibit the universality of life,--the more we confess our adoration of the great soul of the universe. where would be the danger were it proven that the sea in her constant aspiration towards organized existence is the most energetic form of the eternal desire which formerly evoked this globe and still creates in it? this salt sea, like blood, which has its circulation, its pulse, and its heart (for so maury terms the equator) in which its two bloods are exchanged, is it quite sure that an entity that has all these is a mere thing, an inorganic element? look at a great clock, or a steam engine which imitates almost exactly the movement of the vital forces. is that a freak of nature? should we not far rather imagine that in these masses there is a mixture of animality? one immense fact that he exhibits, but only secondarily, and as it were in a mere side view, is that the infinite life of the ocean, the myriads upon myriads of beings which it at every moment makes and destroys, absorb its various salts to form their flesh, their shells, &c., &c. they thus, by depriving the water of its salt, render it lighter, and, by so much, aid in producing currents. in the potent laboratories of animal organization, as those of the indian ocean and the coraline, that force, elsewhere less remarkable, appears as what it really is--immense. "each of these imperceptibles," says maury, "changes the equilibrium of the ocean, they harmonize and compensate it." but is this saying enough? should they not be the grand moving powers which have created the currents of the sea, put the immense machine into motion? who knows whether this vital _circulus_ of the marine animality is not the starting point of all physical _circulus_? if animalized sea does not give the eternal impulse to the animalizable sea--not organized, indeed, as yet, but aspiring to be so, and already fermenting with approaching life? chapter vii. tempests. there are occasional commotions of the sea, which maury, in his forcible way, calls "the sea's _spasms_." he especially alludes to the sudden movements which appear to proceed from below, and which in the asiatic seas are often equivalent to a genuine tempest. these sudden outbursts are attributed to various causes, as: 1st, the violent collision of two tides or currents; 2nd, the sudden superabundance of rain water on the sea's surface; 3rd, the breaking up and sudden melting of the icebergs, &c. to these causes, some authors add the hypothesis of electric movements and volcanic submarine heavings. it seems probable, however, that the depths of the great mass of the waters are quite peaceable; were it otherwise, the sea would be unfitted for her office of nursing-mother to her myriads upon myriads of living beings. if these occasional commotions, so violent at the surface, were equally so at the bottom of the sea, what could preserve the nurslings of that great nursery where a whole world of delicate creatures more fragile even than those of our earth, are cradled in and nourished by its waters? the myriad-life of the ocean assures us that these violent commotions cannot be common in its depths. naturally, the great sea is of great general regularity; subject to great periodical and uniform movements. tempests are the occasional and transient violences into which the sea is lashed by the winds, by electric power, or by certain violent crises of evaporation. they are the mere accidents which reveal themselves on the surface, but tell us nothing about the real, the mysterious personality of the sea. it would be sad reasoning were we to judge of a human temperament by the ravings of a brain-fevered man; and by what better right do we judge the sea on account of the momentary and merely superficial movements which probably do not make themselves felt to the depth of a very few hundred feet? everywhere that the sea is very deep, we may fairly assume that she is constantly calm, ever producing, ever nourishing, her quite literally countless brood. she takes no note of those petty accidents which occur only at the surface. the mighty hosts of her children that live, as we cannot too often repeat, in the depths of her peaceful night, and rise at the most only once a year within the influence of light and storm must love their great, calm, prolific mother as harmony itself. but these surface-disturbances of the great mother ocean have too serious a bearing upon the life of man, to allow of his sparing any pains towards obtaining a thorough comprehension of them. and to obtain that comprehension is no easy matter; in making the necessary observations, the boldest of us is a little apt to lose his cool presence of mind. even the most serious descriptions give only vague and general features, scarcely anything of the marked individuality which makes every tempest a thing of originality, a thing _sui generis_, the unforeseen result of a thousand unknown circumstances, potent in their influence, but obscure far beyond our power of search. he who safely gazes from his safe watch-tower on the shore, may, no doubt, see more clearly, as he is not distracted by his own danger. but for that very reason, he cannot so well appreciate the tempest in its grand and terrible entirety, as he can who is in the very centre of its rage and of its power, and looks in every direction upon that terrible panorama! we mere landsmen are indebted to the bold navigators for at least the courtesy of giving what old chaucer calls "faith and full credence" to what they tell us about what they have actually seen and suffered. it seems to me that there is exceedingly bad taste in that sceptical levity which men of the study, those stay-at-home travellers occasionally exhibit in their criticisms of what seamen tell us, for instance, about the height of the waves. they laugh at the seaman who tells us of waves a hundred feet in height. engineers affect to be able to measure the tempest, and to assure us that twenty feet is the utmost height of a wave. on the other hand, an excellent observer assures us, on the testimony of his own sight, that standing in safety on the shore, observing calmly, and in absence of all distraction, he has seen waves that would overtop the towers of notre dame, and the heights of montmartre. it is abundantly evident that these opposing witnesses speak of two totally different things; and hence their flat contradiction. if we speak of the lower bed of the tempest, of those long bowling waves which even in their fury preserve a certain regularity, probably the calculation of the engineers is pretty exact. with their rounded crests alternating with depressed valleys, it is likely enough that their utmost height does not greatly exceed twenty or five-and-twenty feet. but your chopping sea, where cross wave furiously hurls itself against cross wave, rises far higher. in their fierce collision they hurl each other to a quite prodigious height, and fall with a crushing weight, assailed by which the stoutest craft would open her seams, and go bodily down into the dark depths of the angry sea. nothing so heavy as sea water, in those mighty shocks, those enormous falls of which sailors truthfully speak, and of which none but those who have witnessed them, can calculate the tremendous greatness and power. on a certain day, not of tempest but of emotion, when old ocean indulged only in wild and graceful gaieties, i was tranquilly seated upon a beautiful headland of some eighty feet in height, and i enjoyed myself in watching the waves as upon a line of a quarter of a league they rushed in as if to assail my rocky seat, the green crest of each wave rounding and rearing, wave urging wave as though in actual and intelligent racing. now and then a sea would strike so that my very headland seemed to tremble, and burst as with a thunder clap at my very feet. advancing, retiring, returning, breaking, the wildly sportive waves were for a long time quite admirably regular in their movements. but on a sudden this regularity was at an end. some wild cross wave from the west suddenly struck my great regular and hitherto well behaved wave from the south. such was the crash that in an instant the very sky above me was darkened by the blinding spray; and on my lofty promontory i was covered, not with the many colored and fleeting mist, but with a huge, dark, massive wave, which fell on me, heavy, crushing, and thoroughly saturating. ah! just then i should very much have liked the company of those very learned academicians and ultra positive engineers, who are so well posted up in the combats of the ocean, and so very certain that the utmost height of a wave is just twenty feet! no; tranquilly seated in our studies we should _not_ lightly question the veracity of so many bold, hardy, and resolved men, who have looked death in the face too often to be guilty of the childish vanity of exaggerating the dangers which they have often braved--and are ready to brave again. nor should we ever oppose the calm narratives of ordinary navigators on the great and well known courses to the animated and often thrilling pictures occasionally presented to us by the bold discoverers who seek the very reefs and shoals which the common herd of sailors so carefully avoid. cook, peron, durville--discoverers such as these incurred very real dangers in the then unfrequented australian and coraline seas, compelled as they were to dare the continually shifting sand bank, and the conflicting currents which raise such frightful commotions in the narrow channels. "without tempest, with only rollers to deal with, and with a moderate wind right abaft, a cross wave will give your craft such a shock, that the ship's bell will strike, and if these big rollers with their sweeping motion, continue for any time, your masts will go by the board, your seams will open--you will be a wreck." so says the experienced durville--gallant sailor, if ever there was one. and he tells us that he has himself seen waves from eighty to a hundred feet high. "these waves," he says, "only boarded us with their mere crests, or the craft must have been swamped. as it was she staggered, and then for an instant stood still, as though too terrified to understand what was the matter. the men upon the deck were for moments completely submerged. for four long hours that night this horrible chaos endured; and those hours seemed an eternity to turn one's hair grey. such are the southern tempests, so terrible that even ashore the natives have a presentiment of their approach, and shelter themselves in caves." however exact and interesting these descriptions may be, i do not care to copy them; still less would i be bold enough to invent descriptions of what i have not seen. i will only speak briefly about tempests which i have seen, and which have, as i believe, taught me the different characteristics of the ocean and the mediterranean. during half a year that i passed at about two leagues from genoa, on the prettiest shore in the world, at nervi, i had in that sheltered spot but one little sudden tempest, but while it lasted it raged with a quite wonderful fury. as i could not, quite so well as i wished, watch it from my window, i went out and along the narrow lanes that separate the palaces, i ventured down, not indeed, to the beach, for in reality, there is none worthy the name, but to a ledge of black, volcanic rock, which forms the shore, a narrow path, often not exceeding three feet in width, and as often overhanging the sea at varying heights of from thirty up to sixty feet. one could not see far out; the spray continually raised by the whirlwind, drew the curtain too closely too allow of one's seeing far, or seeing much, but all that was to be seen was sufficiently frightful. the raggedness, the salient and cutting angles, of this iron-bound coast, compelled the tempest to make incredible efforts, to take tremendous leaps, as, foaming and howling, it broke upon the pitiless rocks. the tumult was absurd, mad; there was nothing connected, nothing regular; discordant thunders were mingled or followed by sharp shrill shrieks, like those of the steam engine; piercing shrieks, against which one only in vain tried to stop his ears. stunned by this wild scene, which assailed sight and hearing at once, i steadied myself against a projecting wall of rock, and thus comparatively sheltered, i was better able to study the grandly furious strife. short and chopping were the waves, and the fiercest of the strife was on this side where the sea broke on the ragged, yet sharply pointed rocks, as they rose boldly above, and ran out far beneath the waves, in long, shelving, reefs. the eye, as well as the ear was vexed, for a blinding snow was falling, its dazzling whiteness heightened by contrast with the dark waves into which it fell. on the whole, i felt that the sea had less to do than the land in rendering the scene terrible; it is exactly the contrary on the ocean. chapter viii. the storm of october, 1859. the storm, which of all storms, i had the best opportunity of observing, was that which swept in fury over the west of france, from the 24th of october 1859, to the 31st of the same month, the implacable and indefatigable storm, which, with but few and very short intervals, raged furiously for six days and six nights, and strewed our whole western coasts with wrecks. both before and after that storm, the barometer indicated great disturbances, and the telegraphic communications were cut off by the breaking of the wires, or the magnetic falsifications. very hot seasons had preceded this tempest, but it brought us a succession of very different weather; rainy, and cold. even 1860, up to the very day on which i write these lines, is marked by heavy rain storms, and cold winds from the west, and south, which seem to bring us all the rains of the atlantic, and of the great south sea. i watched this tempest from a spot so smiling and peaceful that tempest was the last thing that one would anticipate there. i speak of the little port of saint george, near royan, just at the entrance of the gironde. i had passed an exceedingly quiet five months there, meditating what i should say on the subject which i had treated upon in 1859; that subject at once so serious and so delicate. the place and the book are alike filled with memories very agreeable to me. could i have written that book in any other place? i know not; but one thing is quite certain: the wild perfume of that country; its aspect, at once staid and gentle, and the vivifying odors of its brooms, that pungent and agreeable shrub of the landes, had much to do with that book, and will ever be associated with it in my thought. the people of the place are well matched with its aspect and its nature. no vulgarity, no coarseness, among them. the farming population are grave in manner, and moral in speech and conduct, and the seagoing population, consists, for the most part, of pilots, a little band of protestants, escaped from persecution. all around, too, there is an honesty so primitive that locks and bolts are absolutely unknown there. noise and violence are utterly out of the question among people who are modest and reserved, as seamen seldom are, and who have a quiet and retiring tact not always to be found among a far more pretentious and highly placed people. though well known to and well respected by them, i yet enjoyed all the solitude which study and labor demanded. i was all the more interested in these people and their perils. without speaking to them, i daily and hourly watched them in their heroic labors, and heartily wished them both safety and success. i was suspicious of the weather, and looking upon the dangerous channel, i often asked myself whether the sea, so long gentle and lovely, would not, sooner or later, show us quite another countenance. this really dangerous place has nothing sad or threatening in its aspect. every morning, from my window, i could watch the white sails, slightly ruddied by the morning beams, of quite a fleet of small coasters, that only waited for a wind to leave the little port. at this port, the gironde is fully nine miles wide. with some of the solemnity of the great rivers of america, it combines the gaiety of bourdeaux. royan is a pleasure place, a bathing town which is resorted to by all gascony. its bay, and the adjoining one of st. george, are gratuitously regaled with the wild pranks of the porpoises, that boldly venture into the river, and into the very midst of the bathers, leaping, at once heavily and gracefully, six feet, and more, above the surface of the water. it would seem that they are profoundly convinced of the fact, that no one thereabout is addicted to fishing; that at that point of great daring and great labor, where from hour to hour all hands may be called upon to succor some imperilled vessel, folks will scarcely care to slay the poor porpoise, for his oil. to this gaiety of the waters, add the especially harmonious beauty of the two shores, as the abounding vineyards of medoc look across to the varied culture of the fertile fields of saintonge. the sky, here, has not the fixed, and sometimes rather monotonous beauty of the mediterranean, but, on the contrary, is very changeable. from the mingling waters of sea and river, rise variegated mists, which cast back upon the watery mirror, strange gleamings of gorgeous coloring, rod, blue, deepest orange, and most delicately pale green. fantastic shapes, "a moment seen, then gone for ever," "appearing only to depart, and seen only to be regretted," adorn the entrance to the ocean with strange monuments of bold collonades, sublime bridges, and, occasionally, triumphal arches. the two crescent-shaped shores of royan and saint georges, with their fine sands afford to the most delicate feet a delightful promenade of which one does not easily grow tired, tempted, and regaled as we are by the perfume of the pines which so enliven the downs with their young verdure. the fine promontories which overlook these shores, and the sandy inland downs send near and far their healthful perfumes. that which predominates on the downs has a something of medicinal, a mingled odor, which seems to concentrate all the sun and the warmth of the sands. the inland heaths furnish the more pungent odors which stir the brain and cheer the heart; thyme, and wild thyme, and marjoram, and sage which our fathers held sacred for its many virtues, and peppermint, and, above all, the little wild violet, exhale a mingled odor surpassing all the spicy odors of the far east. it seems to me that on these heaths the birds sing more beautifully than elsewhere. never have i heard elsewhere such a lark as i listened to in july on the promontory of vallière, as she rose higher and higher, her dark wings gilded and glinting in the rays of the fast setting sun. her notes coming from a height of probably a thousand feet were as sweet as they must needs have been powerful. it was to her humble nest, to her upward gazing and listening nestlings that she evidently sang her "wood notes wild," her song at once so rustic and so sublime, in which one might fancy that she translated into harmony that glorious sunlight in which she hovered, and called to her nestlings--"come up hither my little ones, come!" out of all these, perfumes and song, soft air, and sea made mild by the waters of the beautiful river, proceeded an infinitely agreeable, though not very brilliant harmony. the moon shone with a softened light, the stars were quite visible, but not very bright, and the atmosphere so mild and pleasant, that it would have been voluptuous, that whole scene and its accessories had there not mingled with all a something, which made one reflect, and substituted active thought for luxuriously idle reverie. and why so? do those shifting sands, those many colored and varying hues of the downs, and that crumbling and fossiliferous limestone remind you of the eternal change, that one only rule which here on earth has no exception? or, is it the silent but undying memory of the persecuted protestants? it is also, and in still greater power, the solemnity of the roadstead, the frequency of wrecks, the near neighborhood of the most terrible of seas, by which the interior becomes so serious, so suggestive of great and solemn thought. a great mystery is being enacted here, a treaty, a marriage infinitely more important than any human and royal nuptials; a marriage of interest between ill matched spouses. the lady of the waters of the south-west, swelled and quickened by tarn and dordogne and by those fierce brethren the torrents of the pyrenees, hastens, that amiable and sovereign gironde, to present herself to her giant spouse, old ocean, here, more than elsewhere, stern and repulsive. the mud banks of the charente and the long line of sands which, for fifty leagues, oppose him, put him in bad humor; and when he cannot hurtle fiercely against bayonne and saint jean de luz, he pitilessly assaults the poor gironde. her outlet is not like that of the seine, between sheltering shores; she falls at once into the presence of the open and limitless ocean. generally, he repels her; she recoils to the right and to the left, and seeks shelter in the marshes of saintonge, or among the medoc vineyards to whose vines she imparts the cool and sober qualities of her own waters. and now imagine the boldness of the men who throw themselves headlong into the strife between two such spouses; who go in the frail boat to the aid of the timorous craft who wait at the mouth of the pass afraid to venture in. such is the boldness of my pilots here; a boldness at once so modest, so heroic, so glorious, could it but be fully described. it is easy to understand that the old monarch of shipwrecks, the antique treasurer and guardian of so much submerged wealth bears no great good will towards the bold ones who venture to dispute with him his prey. if he sometimes allows them to succeed, sometimes also he avenges himself upon them--more malignantly delighted to drown one pilot than to wreck two ships. but for sometime past no such accident had been spoken of. the exceedingly hot summer of 1859, produced only one wreck in this neighborhood; but i knew not what agitation even then foretold greater disasters. september came, then october, and the brilliant crowd of visitors, loving the sea only when it is calm and smiling, already took its departure. i still remained, partly kept there by my unfinished work, partly by the strange attraction which that season of the year has for me. in october we had strange eccentric winds, such as seldom blow there; a burning storm-wind from the east, that quarter usually so peaceable. the nights were occasionally very hot, even more so in october than in august; sleepless, agitated, nervous nights; nights to quicken the pulse to the fever pace, and without apparent cause to render one excited and peevish. one day as we sat among the pines, beaten by the wind though somewhat sheltered by the downs, we heard a young voice, singularly clear, piercing, resonant, and, so to speak, metallic. it was the voice of a very young girl, small in figure, but austere in countenance. she was walking with her mother and singing snatches of an old ballad. we invited her to sit down and sing us the whole of it. this old ballad, this rustic little poem admirably expressed the double spirit of the country. saintonge is, in the first place, essentially rustic and home-loving, with none of the wild adventurous impulses of the basques. and yet in spite of her sedentary tastes saintonge turns sailor and goes forth into not unfrequent dangers. and why? the old ballad explains: the lovely daughter of a king while washing, like nausica of the odyssey, loses her ring in the sea; a young lover dives in search of it, and is drowned. she weeps his loss so bitterly that she is changed into the rosemary of the shore, at once so bitter and so odorous. this ballad, heard in that pine wood already shuddering and moaning at the threatening storm, touched and delighted me, but at the same time strengthened my secret presentiments. whenever i went to royan, i might calculate upon being overtaken, unsheltered, in a storm, before i could accomplish that short journey of only a few hours. it pressed upon me in the vineyards of saint george and the heathy table land of the promontory which i first ascended; and it pressed upon me more heavily still as i traversed the great semi-circular shore of royan. even now, in october, the heath exhaled all its perfumes of wild flowers and shrubs, and their perfumes seemed to me more pungent now than ever. on the still unvexed shore, the wind, warmly and gently fanned my cheek, and the no less gentle sea in murmuring ripples strove to kiss my feet. but for both caressing wind and gently murmuring wave, i was too well prepared, too suspicious, to be deceived by them. by way of prelude to the great change, after so many beautiful and almost effeminating evenings, suddenly, in the very middle of the night, burst forth a frightful gale of wind. again and again this occurred, but especially on the night of the 26th. on that night i felt sure that some great damage must needs be done. our pilots had gone out on their generous and perilous errand. during those long fluctuations of the equinoctial weather they had hesitated somewhat, delayed some little, then they grew impatient of delay, duty and business called to them aloud, and they resolved to put out, at the risk of some sudden and ruinous gust. i felt that there would be some such; i whispered to myself, "some one perishes now." and too truly was it so. from a pilot boat, which, in face of the bad weather, put out to rescue a vessel imperilled in the pass, an unfortunate man was swept from the deck, and the boat, herself in utmost peril was unable to lie-to for him. he left three young children and a pregnant wife. what rendered this calamity especially to be regretted, was the fact that this excellent young man, with the generous affection so common among sailors, had married a poor girl rendered incapable of earning her bread by an accident which had mutilated her hands. alas! how much was she to be pitied, helpless, pregnant, burdened with a young family--and thus suddenly widowed! a subscription was made for her, and i went to royan, with my mite towards it. a pilot whom i met there, spoke to me, with real grief and emotion, of the sad accident. "ah, sir," said he, "such is our hard profession; it is precisely when wind and sea are most angry, and most threatening, that it is especially incumbent upon us to go forth." the marine commissioner, who keeps the register of the living and the dead of that little community, and who, better than any one else, knows the history and the circumstances of every family there, appeared to me to be exceedingly saddened and anxious. it was plain that he thought, as i did, that this was only the beginning of calamity. i resumed my journey along the shore, and in the course of it, i had the opportunity to notice and study the dark zone of clouds which hemmed me in on every side, to the extent of, i should judge, not less than eight or ten leagues. on my left was saintonge, expectant, dull, passive; on my right, medoc, from which i was separated by the river, lay in a gloomy and misty stillness. behind me, coming from the west and brooding over the ocean, was a whole world of cloud and mist, but in my face, and opposing that world of cloud, blew the fresh land-breeze. sweeping down the course of the gironde, it seemed that the funereal pall that rose above the ocean, might be repulsed and dispelled. still uncertain, i looked behind me to the shoal of cordovan, from which, pale, fantastic, weird, its tower rose like some spectre that said--"woe, woe, woe!" i was not mistaken. i saw quite plainly that the land-breeze not only would be conquered, but that it would be compelled to become the help-mate of its seeming foe. that land-breeze blew quite low over the gironde, swept away from before it all dwarfish obstacles, but still hovered beneath the high pitched and inky clouds that swept in from the ocean, and formed for those clouds, as it were, a slippery inclined plane over which they would glide only the more easily and the more swiftly. in a brief space all was still from the landward, every breath died away beneath the thick grey mists; and, unopposed, the upper winds swept the ominous storm-clouds shoreward. when i reached the vineyards of vallière, near st. george, hosts of people were busily at work, striving to improve the brief time during which they could hope to labor. the first heavy drops of rain came down, solid and smiting as so much molten lead, and in another instant, one was right glad to find a sheltering roof. i had seen my full share of tempests. i had read my full share of descriptions of them; and i was prepared to expect anything and everything from their fury and from their power. but nothing that i had either seen or read, had prepared me for the effects of _this_ tempest, so fierce, so long-enduring, so implacable in its unceasing and uniform fury. when, from time to time, we have a pause, even the slightest mitigation, even a change, however slight, in the tempest's moods and manifestations, our over-distended senses also relax, recuperate, prepare themselves for the next assault. but in this case, night after night, day after day, for six weary and wearying nights and days, the storm-fiend never winked an eye or spared a blow. fierce, strong, angry, implacable; still the storm-fiend raged, untiring, and unsparing. on mine honor, see ye! it was something to daunt the boldest, to suggest despair to the most hopeful. no thunder, no crashing combat of the positive and negative storm-clouds, no loud and animating crash of the meeting and contending waves. all around was one dark, leaden, sinister, ominous, and mysterious pall of cloud and mist, all above us one black sky, terminated in the horizon by a sickly and leaden line brooding over a slowly heaving and mighty mass of leaden looking sea;--so slowly and monotonously heaving that one almost wished for the coming storm-blast to rouse them into a fierce fury, less terrible, less oppressive, than their horribly oppressive monotony. no poetry of a great terror could oppress one like this most prosaic and dark monotony. still, still and ever, came from the deep bosom of the coming storm the same terribly monotonous--"woe, woe! alas, alas, alas!" our abode was close upon the shore. we were no mere spectators of that scene; we were in it, of it, sharers, actors, thrilled actors in that sublime scene. every now and then the wild sea came within twenty feet of us; at every rush, she made our very hearth stone quiver beneath our feet. happily, the ever-rising and terrible sou' west wind struck our windows only obliquely, or we should have been drowned as we gazed, so vast was the torrent, nay the deluge, which every blast bore upon its mighty bosom, alike from the clouds above, and from the vexed and upheaving ocean below. in haste, and with no small difficulty, we fastened the shutters, and lighted lamps, that we might at least look coming fate in the face. in those apartments which looked out upon the landward, the noise and the perturbation were no jot or tittle inferior. i wrote on, curious to ascertain whether this wild outburst of nature could in reality oppress and fetter a free intellect, and i thus kept my intellect active, agile, cool, thoroughly in self-command. i wrote, i noted, i compared, i drew mine own conclusions. at length, worn out solely by fatigue, and abstinence, and the want of "tired nature's sweet restorer, balmy sleep," i felt myself deprived of that which i believe to be one of the most important of the writer's powers, the quick, sure, delicate sense of rhythm; i felt that my sentences became inharmonious. that sense of rhythm was the first cord in my being to snap, broken, inharmonious, over-strained,--ruined. the mighty howling of the tempest had but one variation, in the weird and strange tones of the winds that pitilessly yet mournfully assailed us. the house in which i was seated was directly in their path; and they therefore assaulted it in utmost fury and apparently on every side at once. now it was the strong, stern blow of the master, impatient to enter his own house; anon some strong hand tried to dash open the shutters; and again came shrill shrieks down the wide chimneys, wailing for the master's exclusion, fiercely threatening, if we did not admit him, and, at length, furious and mighty attempts to force an entry by dislodging the very roof from its rafters. and all these sounds were occasionally dominated by the sad, deep, melancholy, _heu, heu! alas, alas!_ woe, woe, and desolation. so immense, so potent, so terrible was that _heu, heu!_ of chorusing wind and sky, that even the voice of the bold storm-blast seemed to us, in comparison, secondary and mild. at length, the wind managed to clear a way for the rain; our house--i had almost said our craft--began to leak; the roof, opening its seams here and there, admitted the rain in torrents. still worse, the fury of the tempest, by a desperate effort, loosened one of the hinges of a shutter, which still remained closed, but from that moment shook, creaked, shrieked, in the most dismal fashion that you can imagine. to make it fast i had to open the window, and that moment that i did so, though sheltered by the shutter, i felt myself in the very centre of the whirlwind, half-deafened by the frightful force of a sound equal to that of a cannon fired close to one's ear. through the cracks of the shutter i perceived what gave me a clear notion of the tremendous power that was raging landward, skyward, seaward, horizontally, upward, and downward. the waves, meeting and battling, smote each other so fiercely that they could not descend again. gust after gust from beneath them, carried them landward; mighty and vast as they were, they were borne landward as though so many feathers, by the upheaving force of those mighty blasts. how would it have been, if, shutters and windows being driven in, our poor room had _shipped_ one of those vast billows which the storm-wind thus hurled upon the adjacent heaths? we were, in fact, exposed to the strange chance of being shipwrecked on the land. our house, so close to the shore, might at any moment have its roof or even its upper story carried right away by wind and wave. the villagers often told us that that was, in fact, their nightly thought and their nightly terror, and they advised us to seek a more inland shelter. but we still comforted ourselves with the thought that the longer this tempest had lasted, the sooner it must come to an end; and, to the undoubtedly reasonable advice thus given to us, our reply was, still, "to-morrow, to-morrow." the overland news that came to us, told of nothing but wrecks, still wrecks. close by us, on the 30th of october, a vessel from the south sea, with a crew of thirty hands, foundered, with a loss of all hands and her rich cargo--and this at the very entrance of the roadstead. after having passed through so many storms and calms, after having safely weathered so many rocks and shoals, she had arrived within sight, within hail, almost within touch of a little beach of fine sand, the fine-weather bathing place of delicate and timid women. well! that seemingly gentle little sandy beach, upheaved into a huge and impassable sandbar--was the grave of the good ship, which ran upon it with frightful force, and was crushed, shivered into small pieces--converted from a "thing of life," into a mutilated corpse. what became of the crew? not a trace of them has ever been found; they were probably swept, vainly struggling, from the deck, and swallowed up by the sands. this tragical event very naturally led us to suspect that many similar ones had occurred, elsewhere, and nothing was thought of or talked of but probable calamities. but the sea seemed by no means at the end of her work. we on shore had had quite enough of it. not so our enraged sea. i saw our pilots, sheltering themselves behind a rocky wall from south-west, keep an anxious look-out seaward, and shake their heads in ominous doubt of what was even yet to come. happily for them, no craft made her appearance in the offing--or they were there to risk, most probably to lose, their lives. and i, also, looked anxiously out upon that sea, on which i looked no less in hate than in anxiety. true, i was in no real danger, but for that very reason i was all the more despairingly the victim of _ennui_. that sea had a look at once hideous and terrible; her vagaries were as absurd as her strength was irresistible. nothing there reminded one of the fanciful descriptions of the poets. by a strange contrast, the more i felt myself depressed, and as it were, lifeless, the more vigorously and vehemently did she seem to feel and manifest her life; as though, galvanized by her own furious motion, she had become animated by some strange, fantastic soul. in the general rage, each wave seemed animated by its own special and sentient rage; in the whole uniformity, (paradoxical as it may seem, it, yet, is quite true) there was, as it were some diabolical swarming. was all this attributable to my worn brain and wearied eyes? or were the reality and the impression alike true? those waves reminded me of some terrible _mob_, some horrid rabblement, not of men, but of howling dogs, a myriad of howling and eager dogs, wolves--maddened and furious dogs and wolves. dogs and wolves, do i say? let me rather say, a dread concourse of nameless, and detestable, and spectral beasts, eyeless and earless, but with hugely yawning jaws, foaming and eager for blood, blood, still more blood! monsters! what more do ye require? are ye not surfeited with wrecked ships and slain men? do we not from all sides hear of your horrid triumphs? what more, i ask, do ye demand? and the horrid phantoms answer--"thy death, universal death, the destruction of the earth, a return to black night and ancient chaos." chapter ix. the beacons. impetuous is the channel where her strait receives the full rush of the north sea, and very turbulent is the sea of brittany, rushing over basaltic shoals in swift and furious rapids. but the gulf of gascony, from cordouan to biarritz, is just one long maritime contradiction, one enigma of mighty strifes. as she goes to the southward, she suddenly becomes extraordinarily deep, as though her waters sank, on the instant into some vast and fathomless abyss. passing over that sudden and immense depth, the onward wave under the impulse of the terrible pressure leaps upward to a height and onward with a velocity unequalled by any other of our seas. the great surge from the north-west is the motive-power of this huge liquid machinery; from a little more north it threatens to crush saint-jean-de-luz; farther west it repels the gironde, and crowns with her terrible billows the luckless cordouan. that poor cordouan, that respectable martyr of the seas and victim of the tempests, is only too little known. i believe it is the oldest of all the european beacons. at all events, only one, the celebrated genoese lantern, can rival it in antiquity. but there is a vast difference between them. the genoese, crowning a fort and solidly seated upon solid rock, looks smilingly, almost scornfully, down upon the impotently furious storms. but cordouan is upon a shoal which the water never wholly leaves. and, in truth, he was a bold man who conceived the notion of erecting a beacon here, amidst the waters; what say i? in the eternal wave-combat between such a river and such a sea. from one or the other, it, at every instant, receives tremendous blows. yes, even the gironde urged on the one hand by the winds, and on the other by the rude torrents from the pyrenees, assails this stern calm guardian, as though it were responsible for the assailing and repelling fury of the ocean. yet, cordouan is the only saving and consoling light that gleams over this stormy sea. run before the north wind, and miss cordouan, and verily, my storm-tossed brother, you are in very real danger; you, likely enough, will fail to sight arcachon. this sea, most stormy among seas, is also the darkest. at night, storm-driven upon that sea, there is no guiding mark, if you miss the beneficent light. during our whole six months stay upon this coast, our usual contemplation, i had almost said, our almost sole companion, was the beacon of cordouan. we felt that this guardian of the sea, this constant watchman over the strait became less a mere building than an actually living and intelligent _person_. standing erect over the vast western horizon, it shows itself under a hundred various aspects. now it is gilded, glorified by the setting sun; anon, pale and indistinct amidst the shifting mists, it tells us nothing of good augury. at evening, when suddenly it flashes its ruddy and glowing light athwart the heaving waters, it looks like some zealous inspector impressed and anxious in its conscious and deep responsibility. whatever happens from the seaward, our cordouan is held responsible for it. throwing his ruddy beams into the gloom of the tempest, he, the preserver, is held to be the cause of that which he only, and savingly, exhibits. thus, only too often, it is that genius is accused of evoking the evils which it exposes only that it may reform them. we, also, were ourselves thus unjust towards cordouan. was he late in displaying his guiding light? how ready we were to exclaim: "cordouan, cordouan, pale phantom, can you show yourself only to conjure up the storm, and the storm fiend?" and yet i believe, quite firmly, that to cordouan thirty of our fellows owed their lives in the great storm of october. their vessel was a total wreck, but they escaped with their lives. it is much that we can see our shipwrecking, to go down in full light, knowing exactly where we are, what are our perils, and what chances we have of evading or overcoming them. "great god! if we must perish, give us to perish in the broad, bright light of day!" when the ship of which i speak, driven by the strong surge from the open sea, reached this shore in the deep night, there were a thousand chances to one against her making her way into the gironde. on her starboard the bright point of the grave warned her off from medoc; on her larboard the little beacon of saint-palais showed her the dangerous rock of the grand'caute on the saintonge side; and between those fixed white lights, high over the central shoal flashed the ruddy cordouan, showing from moment to moment the only safe channel. by a desperate effort she got through, but only, and barely; wind, wave, and current conspired to drive her on saint-palais. the saving light showed the much harrassed, but still undaunted crew, where only lay their chance of safety from the driving sea behind and the terrible sands in front. fearing, yet daring, they leaped, fell, i know not how or where, and were saved, bruised, fainting,--but still living. who can even imagine how many ships and how many men are saved by these beneficent beacons? light, suddenly dispelling the dense shadows of those horrible nights when the bravest lose their courage and their presence of mind, not only points the path, but clears the head and strengthens the heart. it is a great moral support to be able to say in some mortal peril, "again! again! haul away my brothers, be bold! though wind and wave are both against us, we are not alone. see, yonder! humanity is still watching over us, and guiding us from yonder lofty tower!" the seamen of the old times, ever hugging the shore, and anxiously marking every headland, were still more in need than we are of the friendly beacon light. the etruscans, we are told, first kept the night-fires burning upon their sacred stones; the beacon was at once an altar, a temple, a column, and a watch tower. the celts, too, had their round towers which were beacons also; the most important of them were built on precisely those points where the friendly light could most widely flash over the dark waters; and the romans lit up watch fires from height to height and promontory to promontory along their whole shores of the mediterranean. the great terror of the northern sea kings, and the perilled and trembling life of the dark middle age, put out all those guiding and saving lights. the people cared not to favor the inroad of the sea rover; the sea was an object of dread, almost of hatred. every ship was an enemy, and, if it ran aground, was deemed lawful as well as unpitied prey. the pillage of a wreck was the gain of the noble; the _noble_ and the _wrecker_ were one! the count de leon, made wealthy by the fatal shoal upon his county's shore, said of that murderous rock, that it was "a precious stone, far more precious than any that glitters in a kingly crown." even in our own time, innocently, the poor fishermen have, again and again, by those fires which they have kindled upon the beach, seduced our poor seamen into shipwreck and death. the very beacons themselves have, not seldom, played the bad part of the false hearted wrecker, alluring, only to betray; so easy is it to mistake one light for another. now and then, that mistake, so readily made, leads to very horrible consequences. it was france, who, at the close of her great wars, took the lead in making the lighthouse the great saviour of the benighted and well nigh wrecked seamen. provided with that great refracting lamp of fresnel, (a lantern equal to four thousand common ones, and throwing its ruddy gleam over a dozen, or so, of leagues), it can cast, that good modern beacon, its directing and saving light, hither and thither so that strait and shoal are made visible and safe in the deep midnight as in the full broad glow of the bright noon. to the sailor, who steers by the stars, this invention gave him, as it were, a new heaven and added constellations. planets, fixed stars, all were created anew for him, and in those newly invented constellations there was even an improvement upon the celestial lights, in the variety of color, intensity and duration, of their glow and of their flashing. to some, we gave the calm, fixed, pale and steady gleaming which sufficed for the tranquil night and the comparatively safe sea; to others, the revolving and flashing, and fierce and ruddy glow that shone to every point of the compass. these latter, like the phosphoric creatures of the deep, palpitate and flash fitfully, now gleaming and anon paling, now leaping into dazzling glow, and anon dying into deepest darkness. in the darkest and most tempestuous nights, they are ever restless as ocean's self, and seem to give him back motion for motion, and gleam for gleam to the lurid and fitful lightnings. let us remember that in 1826, and even as late as 1830, our seas were still terrible in their drear darkness. in all europe there were but few lighthouses; in africa, there was but the single one on the cape, and, in all vast asia there were only those of bombay, calcutta, and madras, while the whole vast extent of south america displayed not even one. since the latter date all nations following, imitating, even rivaling, france, have said, on every bold headland that overlooks every dangerous shoal and strait have said "let there be light!" and every where the friendly light, gleams tranquilly, or fitfully flashes. just here i should like you to make with me the circumnavigation of our seas from dunkirk to biarritz, and to take a survey of our lighthouses. but, it would occupy us too long. calais, with her four lights of different colors, throws out her friendly warnings and hospitable imitations even to distant dover; and the noble gulf of the seine, between heve and barfleur, lights the american seaman on his otherwise perilous passage to havre and thence to the very home, the very heart of france. and the good heart of france goes to her very threshold to welcome the coming and sea borne guest; lighting up, as, with an admirable skill and hospitality she does, every bold point of brittany. at the outpost of brest, at saint matthew, at penmark, at the isle of fen, every headland has its warning and guiding light, now flashing, now darkening, from minute to minute, or from second to second, and saying by sudden flash or momentary gloom, "seamen! beware! luff it is! give that rock a wide berth! keep off that shoal! port! hard aport!--weather,--it is! midship helm! so! steady! safe you are,--at your moorings!" and observe, all these watch towers over the perilous deep, often built as they are among the breakers, and as it were in the very bosom of the tempest, solve for art the difficult problem of absolute solidity or seemingly treacherous and unsafe foundation. many of them are quite enormously high. the architecture of the middle ages, about which so much is as boastfully as untruly said and sung, never ventured to build so high, save on condition of giving their edifices clumsy buttresses and of clamping with clumsy and costly clamps of iron, the peaked summits of their towers. a glance at the much boasted, though really anything but artistic steeple of strasbourg, will convince you of this. our modern builders resort to no such rude expedients. the héaux beacon, recently erected by m. reynaud on the dangerous shoal of the épées de tréguier, displays all the sublime simplicity of some gigantic ocean tree. it has no buttresses, and it needs none; its foundation is sunk boldly and bodily into the living rock; from its base of sixty feet, it rears its tall column of twenty-four feet in diameter, and each of its huge granites is, neatly as firmly, dovetailed into the other, so neatly, so closely, so firmly, that cement is a sheer superfluity; and so solidly is all built that from base to summit the tall tower is solid as, nay, we may almost venture to say, more solid than, the old rock from which science, and art, and perseverance and what the american so graphically calls _pluck_ have hewn each separate stone. your wild wave knows not where to find a rent in the armor of this tall ocean-espying giant. she may smite, she may rage, but her blows will not harm, her rage will be spent in vain; from that rounded and great mass the giant blow glances harmlessly off; the mightiest thunder strokes of the ever enraged and ever baffled ocean have only succeeded in giving to this grand edifice a far slighter inclination than that of the purposely inclined "leaning tower" of pisa. behold, then, instead of those sad bastions which, in the olden day, overlooked and threatened old ocean, like those with which spain threatened the moor, our modern civilization erects peaceful towers of most benevolent and beneficent hospitality; beautiful and noble monuments, often sublime as they appeal to art, always touching as they appeal to sentiment; those towers which, flashing forth their ruddy or gleaming with their silvery fires, make upon the confines of our living, swarming, and much imperilled earth, a new firmament, saving, and guiding, blessing and blessed, as the firmament above us. when no star shines upon us from that firmament above, the seaman hails this art-created light as the star of brotherhood; "bids its ruddy lustre hail and scorns to strike his timorous sail." pleasant it is to seat oneself below one of these noble beacons, those friendly fires, those true and welcoming homes of the storm tried mariner. even the most modern of them is a venerable thing to all who, for one moment, reflect how many lives the most modern of them has already saved. with even the most modern, many a touching memory, many a wild and beautiful, and no less authentic story is connected. two generations, merely, are enough to make your beacon already ancient, linked with old memories, consecrated, honorable, hallowed. often, oh often does the mother say to her little ones--"behold! that friendly beacon saved your grandfather; but for it you would never have been born." and how often does our brave beacon receive the loving, and tender, and pure visits of the anxious wife or brother who watches for the return of the far husband or son! in the darkening evening, and even far into the dark night, the one or the other gazes anxiously up to the lofty tower, wishing, begging, imploring, for the first gleaming of the blessed and blessing light that shall guide the absent one safely back into port. oh! very justly did the men of the old day, confound these honored stones with the altars of the man guiding and man saving gods; to the heart that weeps, and hopes, and prays and battles amidst the howlings of the tempest, see ye! they are still one and the same; they are still the saving guides, the very altars of the saving and the guiding deity. for, in very truth, what are man's best works, but the realization of the almighty will and the great directing mercy? book second. the genesis of the sea. chapter i. fecundity. five minutes after midnight of st. john's--24th to 25th of june, commences the great herring fishery, in the north seas. phosphoric lights gleam and flash upon the waters, and from deck to deck is heard the hearty hail, "look out, there! the _herring lightning_!" and a real, and a vast lightning that is, as from the depths that vast mass of life springs upward in eager quest of heat, light, and dalliance. the soft, pale, silvery light of the moon is well pleasing to that timorous host; a beacon to guide them to their great banquet of love. upward they spring, one and all; not one idler or straggler remains behind. gregariousness is the fixed rule, the indefeasible law of that race; you never see them but in shoals. in shoals they lie buried in the vast dark depths, and in shoals they come to the surface to take their summer part in the universal joy, to see the light, to revel--and to die. packed, squeezed, crushed, layer on layer, it seems that they never can be close enough, they swim in such compact masses that the dutch fishermen compare them to their own dykes--afloat! between scotland, holland and norway, one might fancy that an immense island had suddenly risen, and that a whole continent was about to arise. one division detaches itself eastward, and chokes up the baltic sound. in some of the narrower straits you actually cannot row, so dense and solid is the mass of fish. millions, tens of millions, tens of thousands of millions;--who can even guess at the number of those hosts upon hosts? it is on record that on one occasion, near havre, one fisherman, on one morning, found in his nets no fewer than eight hundred thousand; and in scotland, the mighty mass of eleven thousand barrels was taken in a single night! they come as a blinded and doomed prey; no amount of destruction can discourage them. constantly preyed upon alike by fish and by men, they still come on in myriad shoals. and no marvel either; for they love and multiply, even as they move. kill them as fast as we may, they just as fast reproduce; their vast, deep columns, even as they float along, give themselves wholly up to the great work of reproduction. the wave of the sea and the electric wave impel that whole vast mass at every instant. no weariness, no satiety, no weakness, not even a pause, take one where you will and it either has just propagated, is propagating, or is about to propagate. in that vast polygamous host, pleasure is an adventure and love a navigation. over every league of its passage it pours out its torrents of fecundity. at some two or three fathoms deep the water is completely discolored by the incredible abundance of the herring-spawn; and at sunrise, far as the eye can reach, you may see the water whitened with the marvellous abundance of the thick, fat, viscuous billows in which life is fermenting into new life. over hundreds of square leagues it seems as though a volcano of teeming and fecund milk had burst forth and overwhelmed the sea. full of life as it is at the surface, the sea would be actually choked up with it but for the fierce and eager union of all sorts of destructions. let us remember that each herring has forty, fifty, or even seventy thousand eggs. but for the thinning process, each of them giving the average increase of fifty thousand, and as each of these in its turn giving the same average increase, a very few generations would suffice to solidify the ocean into a stagnant and putrid mass, and make our whole globe a desert. here we see the imperative necessity to life, of life's twin sister, death; in their immense strife there is harmony; destruction is the handmaiden of preservation. in the universal war carried on against the doomed race, it is the fierce giants of the deep that prevent the mass from dispersing, and drive it in dense shoals to our shores. the whale, and the other cetaceæ, plunge into the living mass, swallow down whole tons, and drive shoreward the still vast, the seemingly undiminished, host. and at the shore commences quite another and more vast destruction. in the first place, the smallest of fish devour the spawn of the herring, swallowing, like any human spendthrift, the great future for the small present. and for the present, for the full-grown herring, nature has provided a very efficiently gluttonous foe, dull-eyed, huge appetited, eager, insatiable,--the whole tribe of fish-devouring fish, cod, whiting, &c. the whiting gloats, devours, crams itself so with herring that it becomes one luscious mass of fat. the cod similarly stuffs itself with whitings, and becomes fat, fecund, overflowing with fecundity--with a really threatening superabundance of fecundity. just consider! what we have seen of the fecundity of the herring is a mere nothing when compared to the fecundity of the cod, which not seldom has nine millions of eggs! a cod weighing fifty pounds has fourteen pounds of eggs; and its breeding season is nine months of every year. this is the creature that, unchecked, would soon solidify the ocean and destroy the world. and accordingly we cry "help! to arms! launch ships and away, to check this too vigorous fecundity." england alone sends some twenty or thirty thousand seamen to the cod fisheries. and how many are sent from america, from france, from holland--from everywhere? the cod alone has caused the foundation of whole towns--of whole colonies! the catching and curing of the cod form an art, and that art has its own idiom--the _patois_ of the cod fishery. but what could man do against the enormous fecundity of the cod? nature knows well that our petty efforts of fleets and fisheries would be insufficient and that the cod would conquer us; and nature evokes another and a more efficient destroyer of the superfluous life that would produce universal death. down from its spawning bed in the river, thin, famishing, eager, fierce with hunger, comes the sturgeon, that great devourer. real rapture it is to the famishing glutton to find, on his return to the sea, ready fattened for him, the succulent and unctuous cod, the concentrated substance of whole shoals of herrings! this great devourer of the cod, though less fecund than its prey, _is_ fecund, producing fifteen hundred thousand eggs. the danger reappears. the herring threatened with its terrible fecundity, the cod threatened, the sturgeon threatens still. nature, therefore, produced a creature superb in destroying, almost powerless to reproduce, a monster at once terrible and serviceable that could cut through this otherwise invincible and ruinous fecundity, an omnivorous monster, huge of jaw and constant in appetite, ready for all prey, living or dead, the great, the perfectionated, the matchless devourer--the shark. but these furious devourers are anticipatively kept down; mighty in destroying, they are very slow in reproducing. the sturgeon, as we have seen is less prolific than the cod, and the shark is actually sterile, if compared to any other fish. not like them does it overspread and discolor the sea. viviparous, it sends forth its rare youngling, fierce, fully armed, savage and terrible. in her dark and teeming depths, the sea can smile in scorn at the destroyers to which she gives birth, well knowing, as the great proud fertile sea does, that no might of destruction can surpass her might of reproduction. her chief wealth, her most vast and countless produce, defies all the fury of the devourers, is inaccessible to their attacks. i speak of the infinite world of living atoms, of the microscopic atomies that live and love, enjoy, struggle, suffer and die from the surface to the utmost depths of the sea. it has been affirmed that, in the absence of solar light, life, also, must be absent; yet the darkest depths of the sea are studded with sea stars, living, moving, microscopic infusoriæ and molluscs. the dark crab, the phosphorescent seaworm, and a thousand strange and nameless creatures swarm in those uttermost depths and rise only now and then, describing long lines of variegated light upon the heaving surface. in its semi-transparent density, the sea has its own lucidity, its own glowing gleam, like that which fish, living or dead, reflect. the sea! glorious sea, hath her own lights, her own sun, moon, and stars. gaze inquisitively and intelligently on a mere salt well and you at once perceive how prolific the ocean depths must be; that seeming deposit of dead and inert matter hath its real life; it is a mass of infusoriæ, microscopic, but organized and sentient. all voyagers on the wide ocean concur in telling us that in their far wanderings they still and ever traverse living waters. freynel saw millions of square yards covered by a crimson glow--that glow, consisting of living animalculæ so minute that a myriad is packed into every square inch. in the bay of bengal, in 1854, captain kingman sailed for thirty miles through one vast white blotch which made the sea look like a great snow field. not a cloud above, but one unbroken leaden grey, in strange contrast with the brilliant whiteness beneath. look closely and you see that that seeming snow is gelatinous; bring your microscope into play and you see that that seeming jelly is a mass of living, moving, phosphoric animalculæ, flashing forth strange and marvellous lights. peron, too, tells us that for thirty leagues his good ship ploughed her way through what seemed a sort of greyish dust; examined with the microscope, this seeming dust was seen to be the eggs of some unknown species, covering and concealing the waters over all that immense space. even along the desolate shores of greenland, where we vainly fancy that prolific nature must needs expire, the sea is enormously populous. through waves two hundred miles by fifteen you sail through deep brown waters, colored by microscopic medusæ, of which, de schleiden tells us, more than a hundred and ten thousand live and love, battle, and die in every cubic foot. these productive and nourishing waters are supersaturated with all sorts of fatty atoms adapted to the delicate nature of the fish which lazily drink in the nourishment provided for them by the fertile and generous common mother. do they know what they thus swallow? scarcely. its minute but abounding nurture, its nourishing mother's-milk, comes to it without its care, and is received without its gratitude. our great fatality, our sad calamity, fierce and terrible hunger, is known only on the land. exertion and want of food are unknown in the great world of waters. there, life must glide away like a glad dream. what can the creature there do with his strength? all use of it is superfluous, impossible;--all save only one; all strength, all energy, are reserved for the great work of love. the one great law, the one great work of the seas, is to increase and multiply. love fills up the whole of its fecund depths, and is wealthiest in reproduction among those which are so small that to our unassisted eye they are invisible, unknown as though they were non-existent. we have spoken of mere atomies; but are there, in reality, any such? when we imagine that we have got the lowest, the utterly indivisible, we have but to examine with more earnest and penetrating gaze and we see that this seemingly frail atomy still loves, still reproduces itself in miniature. at the very lowest stages of life you find all the forms of life and reproduction. such is the sea, such the great _female of the globe_, whose ceaseless yearning, whose permanent conception, whose production and reproduction, never end. chapter ii. the milky sea. the water of the sea, even the purest, examined when you are far away from land, and from all possible admixture, is somewhat viscuous; take some between your fingers, and you find it somewhat ropy and tenacious. chemical analysis has not yet explained this peculiarity; there is in that an organic substance which chemistry touches only to destroy, taking from it all that it has of special, and violently reducing it back to general elements. the marine plants and animals are covered with this substance, whose mucousness gives them the appearance of a coating of jelly, now fixed, anon trembling, and always semi-transparent. and nothing more than this contributes to the fanciful illusions presented to us by the world of waters. its reflections are irregular, often strangely variegated, as, for instance, on the scales of fish and on the molluscæ, which seem to owe to it the exquisite beauty of their pearly shells. it is that which most attracts and enchains the interest of the child when he first sees a fish. i was very young when i first saw one, but i still remember how vividly i felt the impression. that creature with variously colored lights flashing from its silvery scales, threw me into an astonishment, a fascination, a rapture, which no words can describe. i endeavored to catch it, but found that it could no more be held than the water which glided through my small weak hand. that fish seemed to me to be identical with the element in which it swam, and gave me a confused idea of animated, organized and surpassingly beautiful water. a long time after, in my maturity, i was scarcely less impressed when on a sea beach i saw, i know not what of shining and transparent substance, through which i could clearly see the sand and pebbles. colorless as crystal, slightly, very slightly solid, tremulous when ever so slightly touched, it seemed to me as to the ancients and to réaumur, that which réaumur so graphically named it--_gelatinised water_. still more forcibly do we feel this impression when we discover in the early stage of their formation the yellowish white threads in which the sea makes her first outlines of the fuci and algæ which are to harden and darken to the strength and color of hides and leather. but when quite young, in their viscuous state, and in their elasticity, they have the consistence of a solidified wave, all the stronger because it is soft. what we now know of the generation and the complex organization of the inferior creatures, animal or vegetable, contradicts the explanation of réaumur and the ancients. but all this does not forbid us to return to the question which was first put by borg. de saint vincent; viz: what is the _mucus_ of the sea? that viscuousness which water in general presents? is it not the universal element of life? much engaged with these and the like reflections, i called upon an illustrious chemist, a man at once positive and sound, an innovator no less prudent than bold, and i abruptly asked him this plain question--"what, in your opinion, is that whitish, viscuous matter which we find in sea water?" "nothing else than life," was his reply, then retracting, or rather explaining his somewhat too simple and too absolute dictum, he added, "i should rather say a half organized and wholly organizable matter. in certain waters it is a dense mass of infusoriæ, in others a matter which is not yet, but which is to become infusoriæ. in fact, we have yet to begin, at all seriously, the study of this matter." this was spoken on the 17th of may, 1860. on leaving our great chemist, i went to a physiologist, whose opinion has no less weight with me, and to him i put the same question. his reply was very long and very beautiful. in substance it ran thus: "we know in reality no more about the composition of water than we know about that of blood. what we best know and can most safely affirm about the _mucus_ of sea water, is that it is at once an alpha and an omega, a beginning and an end. is it the result of the numberless deaths which furnish forth materials for new lives? no doubt, that is the general law; but in the case of the sea, that world of rapid absorption, the majority of the creatures there are absorbed while in full life; they do not slowly linger on towards death, as we on land do. the sea is a very pure element; war and death purvey to it. but life, without arriving at its final dissolution, is incessantly approaching it, exuding and exhaling all that is superfluous. with us, the animals of the earth, the epidermis, through its millions of pores, wastes the body at every instant; we suffer, as it were, a partial death at every breath we draw. now this partial death, this vast exudation, in the case of the marine world, fills that vast world of waters with a gelatinous wealth of which the young world has the instant benefit. it finds in suspension the oily superabundance of this common exudation, the still living atoms and liquids which have not had time to die. all this does not fall back into the inorganic, but enters quickly into new organisms. of all the theories on the subject, this seems the most reasonable; rejecting this theory, we plunge into a sea of extreme difficulties." these ideas of the most enlightened and earnest thinkers of the present day, are not irreconcilable with those which, nearly thirty years ago were promulgated by geoffrey saint hilaire, upon that general _mucus_ in which nature seems to find all life. he calls it "the _animalisible_ substance, the raw material of organic bodies. not a creature, whether animal or vegetable, but both absorbs and produces it from the earliest to the latest breath; indeed, the weaker the creature, the more abundant that is." this remark suggests a broad and bright light upon the life of the seas. their tenants seem, for the most part, foetuses in the gelatinous stage, which absorb and produce the mucous substance, permeate and saturate with it all the waters, and give to them the fecund and nourishing powers of a vast womb, in whose depths an infinite succession of generations, perpetually float, as in warm milk. let us make ourselves present in this divine work. let us take a drop from the sea; in it we shall be able to espy the very process of the primitive creation. nature's god is ever consistent; he does not work in one fashion to-day, and in another to-morrow. this drop of water, i doubt not, will tell us in its transformations, the tale of the universe. let us be patient, and observe. who can foresee or guess the history of this drop of water? which will it first produce, the vegetable-animal, or the animal-vegetable? will this drop be the infusoriæ, the primitive _monad_, which, vibrating, shall shortly become _vibrion_, and ascending step by step, from rank to rank, polypus, coral, or pearl, may perchance in ten thousand years reach the dignity of insect? will it produce the vegetable thread, so slight and silken that one would scarcely discern it, and yet already is no less than the first born hair, amorous and sensitive, which is so well known as _venus's hair_? this is no fable--it is true natural history. this hair, of double nature, at once animal and vegetable, is, in fact, the commencement of life. look quite down into the depths of a vessel of water; at first you discover nothing; patience for a few moments and you perceive drops, atomies, that are moving. bring a good glass into the service, and you see a whole cloud of these atomies. are they gelatinous or fleecy? under the microscope this seeming fleece becomes a group of filaments, of finest and silkiest threads; a thousand times finer, it is believed, than the finest hair that adorns the head of woman. you are now looking upon the first timid attempt of life that is struggling to achieve organization. these confervæ, these hair-weeds, are to be found wherever there is stagnant water, whether fresh or salt. they are the commencement of that double series of the primary vegetation of the sea which became terrestrial when the earth emerged from the watery depths. once above and beyond the waters, they become the vast, the numberless fungus-family; in the water, they are the hair-weeds, the many-formed and many-named algæ. this is the primitive, the indispensable element of organized vitality, and we find it even where we should, at the first glance deem it to be impossible. even in the dark depths of the ferruginous waters, supersaturated with iron; even in the all but boiling hot springs, you find this mucus, this abounding mass of little creatures, moving, writhing, agitated ever, which to your first glance, seem only so many lifeless specks. you need not greatly care into what class our finite and dim science consigns them. if candolle honors them with the title of animals, if dujardin, on the other hand, degrades them into the low rank of the lowest vegetation--let us not stay to heed these mere names. such as they are, all that they ask is that they may live and that their humble existence may open up the long series of beings which, but for them, would never be. these atomies, whether we call them living or dead, or passing from life to death, or vigorously struggling from death into organic life, are self-supporting, independently struggling, and ever taking and giving from and to the maternal waters, the life creating and the life supporting gelatine. it really is without any approach, even, to probability, that they show us, as specimens of the first creation, the primitive organization, the fossil imprints, more or less complex, whether of animal or vegetable--of the trilobites, for instance, already furnished with the superior organs--eyes, &c.,--or gigantic vegetation, widely branched and richly foliaged. it is beyond all computation more probable that these were preceded and heralded, and prepared, by species far more simple, but of such yielding and destructible matter that it could make no impress, leave no mark behind. how can we expect that those gelatinous, those almost liquid creatures should _not_ "die and make no sign" when we see that the hard shells are ground into very dust? in the south seas we see fish with teeth so sharp, at once, and of such iron strength that they browse on the tough coral, even as the timid sheep browses on the tender grass-blades. oh! depend upon it, generation after generation of the soft gelatinous germs of life have breathed before nature put forth its robust trilobite and its imperishable ferns. let us be just to these conservæ; let us restore to them their pretty obvious right to eldership in this glad and various world of ours. be they animal or be they vegetable, or do they vibrate and struggle between both--let us at least do them justice, let us speak about them all that is evidently true. upon them, and at their expense, arose the immense, the really marvellous marine flora. at that starting point i will not hesitate to express my tender sympathy. for three very sound and sufficient reasons i love and i bless that vast vegetation; small or large, that vegetation has three lovely qualities:-firstly, how innocent are all its members. not one of them all is poisonous. vainly in the whole marine vegetation shall you search for one poisonous plant. seek in every sea, and in every latitude, you will find the vegetation wholesome, genial, a blessing and a mercy. those innocent plants ask for nothing more than to nourish or to heal animality. many of them, the laminaires, for instance, contain a luscious sugar; and others, as, for instance, the corsican or irish moss, have a health-restoring bitter; and all, without exception, contain a concentrated and most nourishing mucilage, not a few of them saviours to the weak, worn, perishing lungs of presumptuous and ungrateful man. where we now exhibit iodide, the english formerly used nothing but a confection of that same corsican, or irish, moss. the third characteristic of that vegetation is its marvellous amorousness. we cannot doubt that if we pay the slightest attention to its strange hymeneial metamorphoses, here is the striving to be, beyond being, to be potent beyond power. we see it in the fire flies and the like small things, and we see it no less, if we will only look for it, in the sea weeds which, at the consecrated moment, seem to quit their merely vegetable life and leap into animality. where do these wonders commence? where are these first sketches of animality made? where are we to look for the primitive scene of organization? formerly these things were hotly disputed; in our own day there seems to be a certain agreement in the learned world of europe. i can find the reply to these questions in many recognized and authorized volumes, but i prefer to borrow it from an essay recently crowned by the academy of sciences, and, consequently, shielded by its high, unquestionable authority. living creatures are found in the hot waters of eighty, even up to ninety, degrees. it is when the cooled globe gets down to that temperature that life becomes possible. the water has then absorbed, at least in part, that terrible element of death--carbonic acid gas. it becomes possible to breathe. all the seas were at first like those parts of the great pacific ocean, which are comparatively shallow, and are studded with small, low islets. these islets are extinct craters of by-gone volcanoes; the seaman knows them only by the summits which the slow but steadfast toil of the coral insect has upheaved from the depths. but the depths between these volcanoes are probably themselves no less volcanic, and must have been, for the first essays of primitive creation, so many receptacles of life. popular tradition has, for ages past, attributed to volcanoes the guardianship of buried treasures, which from time to time give out to our upper world the gold that lies buried in the depths.--poetic fiction, which yet has its firm foundation in fact. the volcanic regions have within themselves the treasure of our globe, potent virtues of fecundity. it is they that most largely dower the otherwise sterile earth; from the dust of their lavas, from their still warm ashes, life springs, expands, glows, and creates new life. we recognize the wealth of vesuvius, and of etna in the long offshoots that they send far into the sea, and we know what a lovely paradise is formed under the himalayas, by the volcanic circle of the vale of cachemire. and the same thing is repeated in the lovely isles of the far south sea. even under the least favorable circumstances, the vicinity of volcanoes, and the warm currents which are their concomitants, create and preserve animal life, even in the most desolate and dreary places. amidst all the freezing horrors of the antarctic pole, not far from the volcanic erebus, captain james ross found living coral insects at the depth of a thousand fathoms below the surface of the frozen sea. in the early ages of our world, innumerable volcanoes exerted a submarine action far more powerful than they exhibit now. their clefts and their intermediate valleys allowed the marine mucus to accumulate in places, and to be electrified into life by the warm currents. no doubt the _mucus_ affected those parts, fixed itself there and worked and fermented to the utmost of its young power. its leaven was the attraction of the substance for itself. the creative elements, originally dissolved in the sea formed combinations, leagues, i had well nigh written marriages. first appeared, merely elementary lives--death following almost inseparably, indistinguishably, upon young life; and other lives following close upon, and nourished by, those wrecks and spoils, had firmer hold on life, became preparatory beings, slow but sure creators, which, thenceforth, began beneath the waters that eternal labor which, even in our own day and beneath our own scrutiny, they still continue. the sea nourishing them all, gives to each that which best suits it. each draws from that great nursing-mother, in its own fashion, and for its own especial behoof, that which it most needs, must have, to make it what we see of naked, or of shelled, of seeming vegetable, or of fierce, vigorous, and pugnacious life. and whether in life or in death, whether building actively or passively decomposing, they clothe the sad nudity of the virgin rocks, those daughters of the volcanic fires from which flaming and sterile, they were hurled from the planetary nucleus. quartz, basalt, porphyry, and semi-vitrified flints, each and all receive from these minute laborers a new, a more graceful, and a more fecund garb; from the fecund maternal milk (for such we must call the _mucus_ of the sea) they absorb and restore, and thus build up, and secure, and fructify, and beautify, this, our habitable earth. it is from these more favoring localities that have arisen our primal species. these works must have been commenced among the volcanic isles and islets, in the depths of their archipelagoes, in those sinuous windings, those peaceful labyrinths where the tides enter timidly and gently, warm and sheltered cradles for the newly-born. but the bolder strength of the fully-expanded flower, is to be sought for in, for instance, the vast depths of the indian gulfs. there, the sea is veritably a great artist. there she gives to the earth its most adorable forms, lively, loving, and lovable. with her assiduous caresses she rounds or slopes the shore, and gives it those maternal outlines, and i had almost said the visible tenderness of that feminine bosom on which the pleased child finds so softly safe a shelter, such warmth, such saving warmth, and rest. chapter iii. the atom. from the bottom of his nets a fisherman one day gave me three almost dying creatures, a sea hedge-hog, a sea star, and another star, a pretty ophiure, which still moved and soon lost its delicate arms. i gave them some sea water, but forgot them for two days, and when i again saw them, all were dead. on the surface of the water a thick gelatinous film had formed. i took an atom of this on the point of a needle; that atom, when placed under the microscope, showed me the following scene. a whirling crowd of short, thick, strongly built animals--_kolpodes_--rushed to and fro as though intoxicated with their sense of life, delighted, i may say, that they were born and keeping their birthday with a perfectly bacchanalian joy, while microscopic eels--_vibrions_--swam less than vibrated to spring forward. wearied with the contemplation of such movement, the eye, however, soon remarked, that all was not in motion, there were some vibrions yet stiff and still, and there were some intertwined in heaps which had not yet detached themselves and which looked as though expecting the moment of their deliverance. in that living fermentation of still motionless creatures, the disorderly kolpodes rushed and raged, hither and thither, regaling and fattening themselves at will. and this grand spectacle was displayed within the compass of an atom of film taken on the point of a needle! how many such scenes would be enacted in the whole of the gelatinous film which had so promptly formed on the surface of the water containing three dead creatures! the time had been wonderfully put to profit. in two days the dead had made a world; for three animals that i had lost i had gained millions, abounding in youth, absorbed in a real fury of new life! that infinite world of life which every where surrounds us was almost unknown until lately. swammerdam and others, who formerly recognized it, were stopped at their first step; and it was as lately as the year 1830, that the magician uhrenberg looked, revealed, and classified it. he studied the figure of these invisibles, their organization, their manners; he saw them absorb, digest, chase, and fiercely battle. their generation remained a mystery to him. what is the nature of their amours? _have_ they any amours? for creatures so elementary, would nature go to the expense of a complicated generation? or do they spring up spontaneously, and, in vulgar phrase, "like mushrooms?" a great question! at which more than one naturalist smiles and shakes his head. one is so certain of having solved the great mystery of the world and secured, laid down, once and forever, the true laws of life! it is for nature to obey! when, a hundred years ago, réaumur was told that the female silk worm could produce alone and without the male, he denied it in the brief phrase--"out of nothing, nothing comes." but the fact, often denied but always proved, is now thoroughly established and admitted, not only as to the silk worm, but as to the bee, certain butterflies, and still other creatures. in all times, in every nation, both the learned and unlearned have said, "out of death cometh life." it was especially supposed that the imperceptible animalculæ immediately sprang up from the wrecks of death. even harvey, who first laid down the law of generation, did not venture to contradict that ancient belief, for though he said every body comes from the egg, he immediately added--_or from the dissolved body of a preceding life_. it is precisely the theory which has been so brilliantly revived by the experiments of m. ponchet. he has established the fact that from the remains of the infusoriæ and other creatures, there proceeds a fecund jelly, the "prolific membrane" from which spring, not new beings, indeed, but the germs, the eggs from which new creatures will spring. we live in an age of miracles. this is not to astonish us. any one would formerly have been laughed at who had ventured to say that some animals, disobedient to the general laws of nature, take the liberty to breathe through their paws. the noble labors of milne edwards have brought this to light. and cuvier and blainville had observed, it is said, that other creatures, destitute of the regular organs of circulation, supply their place by the intestines, but those great naturalists deemed the fact so enormous and so incredible, that they did not venture to publish it. it is now perfectly established by milne edwards, m. de quatrefages, &c. whatever may be thought of their birth, our atoms, when once born, present a world infinitely and admirably varied. all forms of life are there honorably represented. if they know themselves, they must consider that they compose among themselves a harmony so complete as to leave but little to desire. they are not dispersed species, created apart; they clearly form a kingdom in which the various species have organized a great division of the vital labor. they have collective beings like our polypus or coral insect, engaged in the servitude of a common life; and they have their minute molluscs which already display their minute and delicate shells; they have their swiftly swimming fish and whirling insects, proud crustaceæ, miniatures of the future crabs, armed, like them, to the teeth; warrior, atoms that chase and devour inoffensive atoms. and all this in an enormous and marvellous abundance, which shows the comparative poverty of our visible world. without speaking of those rhizopodes which have made their part of the apennines and the cordilleras,--the foramineferes, alone, that numerous tribe of shelled atoms, amount, according to charles d'orbigny, to two thousand species. they are contemporary with every age of the earth; they present themselves at all the various depths of our thirty crises of the globe; sometimes varying a little in form, but always existing as species; identical witnesses of the life of the earth. in the present day the cold current from the south pole which the point of america cuts in two, sends forty species towards la plata and forty towards chili. but the great scene of their creation and organization appears to be the warm stream of the sea which flows from the antilles. the northern currents kill them. the great paternal torrent drifts myriads of their dead to newfoundland in our ocean, whose bottom is paved with them. when the illustrious godfather of the atoms, ehrenberg, baptised them and introduced them to the scientific world, he was accused of being too favorable to them, and of exaggerating the character of those little creatures. he declared them to be a complicated and elevated organization. so liberally did he endow them, that he gave them a hundred and twenty stomachs. the visible world became jealous of these invisibles, and, by a violent reaction, dujardin reduced them to the lowest degree of simplicity. the asserted organs he treated as mere appearances; but, as he could not deny their obvious and great powers of absorption, he granted them the gift of being able to improvise stomachs proportioned to what they had to swallow. m. pouchet does not coincide with this opinion, but rather inclines to that of ehrenberg. what is incontestable and admirable in these atoms is the vigor of movement. many have all the appearance of a precocious individuality. they do not long remain subject to the communistic life led by their immediate superiors, the true polypes. very many of these invisibles are individuals at the first leap; that is to say, that, at the first moment of their existence, they can come and go alone and at their own will; true citizens of the world whose movements depend only upon themselves. whatever can be seen or imagined of various modes of locomotion in the visible world, is equalled, even surpassed, among these invisibles. the impetuous whirl of a potent star, of a sun which attracts around him, as his planets, the weaker one which he meets, the more irregular course of the eccentric comet, the graceful undulation of the slender one in the water or upon the land, the rocking barque that veers right round in an instant, the rush of the swift shark and the slow crawl of the wretched sloth--all and every movement, clumsy or graceful, slow or swift, is to be found in the various species of atoms. and with what a marvellous simplicity of machinery! here you see one, a mere thread, advancing, twisting, a veritable elastic cork-screw; there you see one that for oar and rudder has only an undulating tail or a pair of little vibrating eye-lashes. the beautiful little polypus-worms, like flowers in a vase, anchor together upon an isle--a little plant, or a miniature crab, and then separate and cast off by detaching their delicate peduncle. what is even more surprising than the organs of motion, is what we may term the expression, the attitudes, the original signs of character and temper. you may recognize here the apathetic, there the vivacious and fantastic, some all alert for war, and others, as it would seem, fretful and agitated without any apparent cause. again, you will occasionally see a whole crowd of remarkably quiet and peaceable atoms suddenly dispersed and knocked over by some scapegrace atom, conscious of superior strength, and spoiling for a fight. a prodigious comedy is that of our atoms! they seem to be satirically rehearsing the various farces which are played in our own noble and serious world, of atoms of larger growth! at the head of the infusoriæ, we must make respectful mention of the majestic giants, the highest type of motion and of strength, slow, but terrible and great. take some moss from a roof, steep it for a few hours in water, then place it under the microscopic inspection, and you behold a vast, a mighty animal, the elephant or the whale of the invisibles, moving with a youthful grace which those large animals do not always display. respect this king of all the atoms, this rotifer, so called because on either side of his head he has a wheel; these wheels are his organs of locomotion, like the paddle-wheels of a steamship, or perhaps they also serve him as his arms of chase to catch his small game, the inferior and peaceable atoms! all fly, all yield to the rotifer, save one; one atom only fears nothing, yields nothing, but trusts to his superior weapons. he is a monster, but he is provided with superior senses. he has two great gleaming, purplish eyes. he is slow, but he can see, and he is admirably armed. to his strong paws he adds strong, sharp talons, which serve him to hold on with, and, at need, to serve him in the fight. potent initial essays of nature, that with such small expenditure of matter, can create in such majestic fashion! sublime first note of the sublime overture. these,--of what consequence is mere size?--have a colossal power of absorption and of movement, far beyond that which will be given to the enormous animals that are classed so much higher in the animal scale. the oyster fixed upon its rock, the crawling slug, are to the rotifers creatures as disproportioned as man to the alps or cordilleras--so disproportioned that one cannot compare them by glance, hardly by reflection and calculation. yet among those animal mountains, where will you find the vivacity, the ardor of vitality, displayed by the rotifer? what a fall we have as we ascend! our atoms are too vivacious, dazzlingly agile, and these gigantic beasts are smitten with paralysis. what if the rotifer could conceive, for instance, the superb, the colossal starred sponge, which one may see in the museum at paris? it is to the rotifer what this globe, with its twenty-seven thousand miles of circumference is to man. well! if the rotifer could compare himself to the huge sponge, rely upon it that the rotifer would move his wheels in utmost excitement, and exclaim--"i am great." ah! rotifer, rotifer! we should despise no one, and nothing. i am well convinced of your advantages and your superiority. but who knows if the captive and slumbering life which you, for instance, despise in the oyster or the snail, or the slug, be not in truth a progress? your wild vertiginous movement, and vivacity, by no means secure a passage towards higher destinies; for that passage, nature prefers a motion of less enchantment. she enters the dark sepulchre of that melancholy communism in which element reckons but for little; she teaches how to dominate individual anxieties and ambitions, and to concentrate substances for the benefit of superior lives. she sleeps there, for a time, like the _sleeping beauty in the wood_. but sleep, captivity, enchantment, be it what it may, it is not death. in the sponge, seemingly so dead, what life there is! it moves not, breathes not, has no organs of circulation, or of sense,--and yet it lives. how know we that, do you ask? twice in every year the sponge reproduces. she lives after her fashion, and even more richly than many others. at the proper day, small spheres leave the mother sponge, armed with minute fins, which enable them for a short time to float about in full liberty, but soon coming to anchor, they remain there, growing, reproducing, till the sponge-hunter carries them to the habitations of man, to the service of the greater enslaver, man, the civilized. thus, in the apparent absence of senses, and of all organization, in that mysterious enigma, at the doubtful threshold of life, generation opens up to us the visible world by which we are to ascend. as yet there is nothing, and in the bosom of that nothingness maternity already appears. as with the fabled gods of antique and mysterious egypt, as with that old isis and osiris, who begat before their birth, here, also, love exists before being. chapter iv. blood-flower. at the heart of the globe, in the warm waters of the line, and upon their volcanic bottoms, the sea so superabounds in life that it seems impossible for it to balance its multitudinous creations. overpassing purely vegetable life, its earliest products are organized, sensitive, living. but these animals adorn themselves with a singular splendor of botanic beauty, the splendid liveries of an eccentric and most luxuriant flora. far as the eye can reach, you see what, judging from the forms and colors, you take for flowers, and shrubs, and plants. but those plants have their movements, those shrubs are irritable, those flowers shrink and shudder with an incipient sensitiveness which promises, perception and _will_. charming oscillation, fascinating motion, most graceful equivoque! on the confines of the two kingdoms of animal and vegetable life, mind, under those faëry oscillations gives token of its first awakening, its dawn, its morning twilight, to be followed by a glorious and glowing noon. those brilliant colors, those pearly and enamelled flashings, tell at once of the past night and the thought of the dawning day. thought! may we venture to call it so? no, it is still a dream, which by degrees will clear up into thought. already, in the north of africa, over the other side of the cape, the vegetable kingdom, which reigns alone in the temperate zone, sees itself rivalled, surpassed. the great enchantment progresses, increases, as we near the equator. on the land,--tree, shrub, flower, weed, are proud and gorgeous, flaming in every bright color, delicate in every soft shade, and beneath the waters' slime and the ruddy corals. beside parterres, that display rainbow beauties of every color and every tint, commence the stone plants; the madrepores, whose branches (should we not rather say their hands and fingers?) flourish in a rose-tinted snow; like peach or apple blossoms. seven hundred leagues on either side of the equator, you sail through this faëry land of magical illusion and wondrous beauty. there are doubtful creatures, the corallines, for instance, that are claimed by all the three kingdoms. they tend towards the animal, they tend towards the mineral, and, finally, are assigned to the vegetable. perchance they form the real point at which life obscurely and mysteriously rises from the slumber of the stone, without utterly quitting that rude starting-point, as if to remind us, so high placed and so haughty, of the right of even the humble mineral to rise into animation, and of the deep and eternal aspiration that lies buried, but busy, in the bosom of nature. "the fields and forests of our dry land," says darwin, "appear sterile and empty, if we compare them with those of the sea." and, in fact, all who traverse the marvellous transparent indian seas are thrilled, stirred, startled, by the phantasmagoria that flashes up from their far clear depths. especially surprising is the interchange between animal and vegetable life of their especial and characteristic appearances. the soft impressible gelatinous plants, with rounded organs, that are neither precisely leaves nor precisely stalks, the delicacy of their animal curves--those hogarthian "lines of beauty," seem to ask us to believe that they are veritable animals, while the real animals, on the other hand, in form, in color, in all, seem to do their utmost to be mistaken for vegetables. each kingdom skilfully imitates the other. these have the solidity, the quasi permanence, of the tree; the others alternately expand and fade like the evanescent flower. thus the sea anemone opens as a roseate and pearly flower, or as a granite star with deep blue eyes; but when her corollæ have given forth an anemone daughter, you see the fair mother droop, fade, die. far otherwise variable, that proteus of the waters, the halcyon, takes every form and every color. now plant, now flower, it spreads itself out into a fanlike beauty, becomes a bushy hedge, or rounds itself into a graceful bouquet. but all this is so ephemeral, so fugitive, so timid, so shrinking, that at the slightest touch of the softest breath it disappears, and returns on the instant into the womb of the common mother. in these slight and fugitive forms you at once recognize the twin sisters of the sensitive plants of our earth; closing up, as they close at the first breath of evening. when you gaze down upon a coral reef, you see the depths carpeted, many colored flowers with fungi, masses of snowy brilliancy; every hill, every valley, of the great deep, is variegated with a thousand forms, and a thousand colors, from the ruddy and outstretched branches of the coral, to the deep, rich, velvety green of the cariophylles or violets, which seek their food by the gentle motion of the richly golden stamens. above this lower world, as if to shade them from the too glowing kiss of the ardent sun, waves a whole forest of giant and dwarf trees and shrubs, and from tree to tree feathery spirals stretch and interlace like the loving and embracing tendrils of the vine, but finer in tendril and infinitely more splendid in their variegated and contrasting, yet singularly harmonizing colors. this glorious sight inspires, yet agitates us; it is a dream, a vertigo; that fay of the shifting mirage, the sea, adding to these colors her own prismatic tints, fading, reappearing, now here, now gone, a capricious and fitful inconstancy, a hesitation, a doubt. have we really seen it, this lovely scene? no, it was not so. was it an entity, or a delusion? yes, yes, it must be real, there are certainly very real beings there, for i see whole hosts of them lodged there and sporting there. the molluscs confide in that reality, for there you can see their pearly shells reflecting lights, now flashing and brilliant, and anon of a most tender delicacy; and the crab, too, believes in it, for see how he hastens on his sidelong path. strange fish, vast and curious monsters of the deep, move hither and thither in their many colored vesture of purple and gold, and deep azure and delicate pink; and that delicate star, the ophiure agitates his delicate and elegant arms. in this phantasmagoria the arborescent madrepore more gravely displays his less brilliant colors. his beauty is chiefly that of form. but the chief attraction of the aspect of this vast community is in its entirety; the individual is humble, but the republic is imposing. here you have the strong assemblage of aloes and cactus; there you have the superbly branching antlers of the deer; and anon, you see the vast stretch of the vigorous branches of the giant cedar stretching at first horizontally, but tending to advance upward and upward still. those forms at present despoiled of the thousands and tens of thousands of living flowers, which should cover and enliven them have, perhaps, in that stern nudity an additional attraction for the mind. i love to look upon the trees in winter, when their bared boughs tell us and show us what they really are. and thus it is with the madrepores. in their present nudity, when from pictures they have become statues, it seems as though they were about to reveal to us the whole secret of the minute populations of which they are at once the creation and the monument. many of them seem to write to us in strange characters, to speak to us in strange tones. their interlacings evidently have a something to tell us, could we but understand them. but who shall be their interpreter; who shall give us the keynote to their harmony, mysterious harmony--but harmony doubtless? how much less significant is the bee architecture in its cold, severe, geometry! that is the produce of life, but here we look upon life itself. the stone was not simply the base and shelter of this people; it was itself a previous people, an anterior generation, which, gradually overtopped by the younger, assumed its present consistence. and all the movements of that first community are still strikingly visible, as details of another herculaneum, or pompeii. but here everything is accomplished without catastrophe, without violence, by orderly and natural progress; all testifies to serenity and peace. every sculptor will here admire the forms of a marvellous art which has achieved such infinite variety of forms, improving upon all arts of ornamentation. but we have to reflect upon something far beyond mere form. the arborescent variety on which the activity of these laborious tribes has been so wonderfully employed, is the effort of a thought, of a captive liberty, seeking the guiding thread in the deep and mazy labyrinth, and timidly feeling its way upward towards the light, and gently and gracefully working out its emancipation from communist life. i have in my possession two of these little trees differing from each other, but of like species. no vegetable is comparable to them. one, purely white as the most immaculate alabaster, has an inexhaustible wealth of buds, and blossoms and flowers, on every one of its many spreading branches. the other, less white and less spreading, has also its whole world upon its branches. exquisitely beautiful are they both; alike yet unlike, twins of innocence and fraternity. oh who shall explain to us the mystery of the infant soul that created these faëry things! we feel that it must be at work, captive and yet free; captive in a captivity so beloved that though still tending upward towards freedom, it yet cares not fully to achieve it. the arts have not yet seized upon those wonders from which the world has derived so much benefit. the beautiful statue of nature (at the entrance of the jardin des plantes) should have been surrounded by them; nature should only be exhibited as she ever lives, amidst faëry triumphs, enthroning her on a mountain of her own beauties. her first born, the madrepores, would have furnished the lower strata with their meanders, their stars and their alabaster branches; while above, their sisters, with their bodies and their fine hair would have made a living bed, softly to embrace with caressing love the divine mother in her dream of eternal maternity. painting has succeeded in these things no better than sculpture. her animated flowers have neither the expression nor the true, pure, delicate coloring of the animated flowers, of the nature of which our colored engravings give but a poor and mechanical idea, altogether destitute of the unctuous softness, suppleness, and warm emotion of the flowers of the fields, the woods, the gardens, or animated flowers of the seas. enamels, even attempted as by palissy, are too hard and cold; admirable for reptiles and the scales of fish, they are too glaring to resemble these tender and soft creatures that have not even a skin. the little exterior lungs of the annelides, the slight net work in which certain of the polypes float, the sensitive and ever-moving hairs which support the medusæ, are objects not merely delicate to sight, but affecting to imagination. they are of every shade, fine and vague, yet warm; as though a balmy breath had become visible. you see an ever-varying, ever-moving rainbow that delights your eye; but for them it is a very serious matter, the creating of that marvellous rainbow, of various forms and colors; it is their blood and their weak life converted into changing hues and tints, and lights and shades. take care! do not stifle that little floating soul, which mutely, but oh how eloquently, tells you its secret in those varying and palpitating colors. the colors do not long survive, and their creators, the madrepores, themselves survive only in their base, which has been called inorganic, but which in reality is condensed and solidified life. women, who have a more delicate and penetrating sense of the beautiful than we have, do not thus mistake; they have, at the least, confusedly divined that one of these trees, the coral, is a living thing, and thence the just favor in which they hold it. vainly did science tell them that coral was mere stone, and then that it was a plant, they knew quite differently. "madame, why is it that you prefer this tree of a dubious red, to all the precious stones?" "monsieur, it suits my complexion. rubies are too vivid, they make me look pale, while this, somewhat duller, rather more favorably contrasts fairness." the lady is quite right; the coral and the lady are related. in the coral, as in the lip and the cheek of the lady, it is iron, according to voyel, which makes the one red and the others roseate. "but, madame, these brilliant stones have an incomparable polish, and dazzling lustre." "yes, but the coral has something of the softness and even the warmth of the skin. as soon as i put it on, it seems to become a part of myself." "but madame, there are much finer reds than that of your coral necklace." "doctor, leave me this, i love it. why? that i know not; or if there is a reason, that which will do as well as any, is that its eastern and true name is 'the blood-flower.'" chapter v. the world makers. our museum of natural history, within its too narrow limits, contains a faëry palace in every part of which we see the genius of metamorphoses of lamarck and geoffroy. in the dark lower hall the madrepores serve as the base of the more and more living world that rises, stage above stage, above. higher up the superior creatures of the sea display their energy of organization, and prepare the life of the terrestrials, and above these, mammiferæ, over which the lovely birds spread their wings and almost seem to be still singing! the multitude of visitors pass quickly and with small show of interest from the madrepores, those elder born of the globe, and hasten to the light and to the presence of things of brightest beauty, mother of pearl, the richly painted wings of butterflies, and the plumage of birds. i, who stop longer below, often find myself quite alone in that dark little gallery. i love that solemn crypt of the great scientific church. there i best can feel the sacred soul, the still present spirit of our great masters, their great, their sublime effort, and the immortal audacity of our voyagers and travellers, the intrepid collectors of such a wealth of whatever is beautiful or instructive. wherever their bones may lie they themselves are still present in the museum by the treasures which they have bequeathed, treasures which some of them have paid for with their lives. on the 15th of last october, having remained in that crypt somewhat late, i had some difficulty in reading the label on some madrepores--that label bore the name of "lamarck." a sudden warmth, a religious glow, thrilled through my heart and brain. "lamarck!" great name, and already antique! it is as though among the tombs of saint denis we should suddenly read the name of clovis. the glory, the strifes, the royal triumphs, of his successor, have obscured somewhat the name of that blind homer of the museum, who, with the instinct of genius created, organized, and named the previously almost unknown class of invertebrates; a class, nay, a whole world, a vast abyss of soft half organized life still destitute of vertebræ; that bony centralization and essential support of personality. these are all the more interesting because they are obviously the earliest of all--those humble and so long neglected tribes. réaumur placed the crocodiles among the insects. the proud buffon deigned not to know even the names of humble invertebrates, he excluded them altogether from the olympus at versailles which he erected to nature. these great populations, so obscure, so confused, which, nevertheless, prepared everything and abound every where, remained exiled from the world of science until the coming of lamarck. it was precisely the elders that were thus excluded, elders so numerous that to exclude them was, in some sort, to close the eyes and bar the gate against nature herself. the genius of the metamorphoses was emancipated by botany and chemistry. it was a bold but most precious thing to take lamarck, from the botany in which he had passed his life, and remove him to the vast world of animality. that ardent genius, trained in miracles by the transformations of plants, and full of faith in the unity of life, next drew the animals, and that vast animal, the globe, from the state of petrifaction in which they so long had lain. half blind, he intrepidly treated a thousand things which the clear sighted scarcely dared to approach. at least, he infused his fire into them, and geoffroy, cuvier and blainville found them warm and living. "all is living, or has been," said lamarck; "everything is life, either present or past." great revolutionary effort, that, against inert matter; effort proceeding even to suppress and banish the inorganic! no longer any actual death. that which has lived may sleep; and yet preserve latent life, the capacity to revive. who is really dead? no one. what? nothing. this dictum, so novel, and so bold, swelled the sails of our scientific age with a strong and a favoring gale; it has urged on enquiries, such as but for it we should never have dreamed of making. history, or natural history, we demand of every thing, who are you--and every where the answer is, "_i am life_," and, thus, death retreats before the bold advance and eagle glance of science, and mind moves onward still, conquering and to conquer. among these resuscitations, i first note my madrepores, taking the interest of life, though previously scorned, or unnoticed, as dead stone. when lamarck collected and explained them at the museum, they were detected in the mystery of their activity, in their immense creations, and they exemplified how a world is made. that once known, it was at once suspected that if the earth makes the animal, the animal also makes the earth; and that each aids the other in the office of creation. animality is every where, filling every thing and peopling every thing. we find the remains or the imprint of it even in the minerals, as the statuary marble and alabaster, which have passed through the crucible of the most destructive fires. at every advance, in our knowledge of the existing, we discover an enormous past of animal life. as soon as our improvements in optics enabled us to discover and to watch the infusoriæ, we behold them making mountains and paving the ocean. the hard silex is a mass of animalcules, the sponge is an animated silex. our limestones are all animals; paris is built with infusoriæ, a part of germany rests upon a newly buried bed of coral. infusoriæ, coral, shells, chalk and lime. they are constantly taking from the ocean, but the fish, which devour the coral, restore it as chalk, and restore it to the waters whence it came. thus the coral sea in its labor of production, of upheaving, in its constructions incessantly augmented or diminished, built, ruined, and rebuilt, is an immense fabric of limestone which is continually oscillating between its two lives;--the _acting_ life of the day--the other life that _will act_ to-morrow. foster quite justly decides that these circular islands are the craters of volcanoes, raised up by the polypes. he has been contradicted, but wrongly so. upon no other hypothesis can we account for this identity of figure. there is always the same ring of about a hundred paces in diameter, very low, beaten on the outside by the waves, but enclosing a tranquil basin. a few plants of three or four species, here and there, crown the basin with verdure. the water is of the most beautiful green. the enclosing ring is of white sand, the residue of dissolved coral, contrasting with the blue of the ocean. beneath the salt water, our little laborers are at work, the stronger and bolder at the breakers, the weaker and more timid on the smoother sides. this is not a very varied world. but wait. the winds and the currents are constantly at work to enrich it; come a good tempest, and all the neighboring isles will be laid under contribution to enrich this rising one. and in this is one of the most magnificent functions of the tempest; the greater, the wilder, and the more sweeping, the more fecund it is. a water-spout passes over an island; the torrent that it produces carries with it slime, rubbish, plants, living or dead, and even whole forests, which the waves carry to the neighboring isles, raising, and at the same time enriching, their soil. a great messenger of life, and one of the most transportable, is the solid cocoanut. not only does it travel well, but, when thrown upon shoal or rock, if it find only a little poor white sand, which would support nothing else, the cocoanut contents itself there, finds brackish water not a jot less agreeable than the freshest; germinates, thrives, grows into a robust cocoa tree. a tree being thus planted, fresh water comes, falling leaves create earth, other trees follow, and at length we see the noble palm grove, which arrests the vapors, which at length form a rivulet or river, which, flowing from the center of the isle, make an opening of fresh water in the cincture of white sand, and thus keep the polypes, inhabitants only of salt water, at a respectful distance. of the rapidity with which the polypes do their work, we have some curious proofs. in forty days' harboring at rio janeiro, boats were wholly destroyed; in a strait near australia, there were formerly only twenty-six islets; there are already a hundred and fifty--well recognized: and the english admiralty believes that there are even more; and in twenty years hence the whole strait, forty leagues in length, will be so completely blocked up as to be unnavigable. the eastern shoal of australia is three hundred and sixty leagues, (one hundred and twenty-seven without any interruption,) and that of new caledonia one hundred and forty-five leagues; the single shoal of the maldives is almost five hundred miles long, and groups of isles in the pacific are four hundred leagues long, by a hundred and fifty wide. to all this work of the polypes, we must add, that the banks of the isle of france, and the shallows of the red sea, are continually rising. tunis and its environs present a wholly animal world; and the rocks present forms so strange, and colors so splendid, that the spectator is amazed and dazzled. you see them in a space of several leagues of shallow sea water--probably not averaging more than a foot of depth, working calmly, but perseveringly at their business of creating. their first intelligent observer was forster, companion of cook, who found them at work, caught them in the very fact of their great conspiracy to make, noiselessly and marvellously, whole chains of islands, to be by degrees converted into a continent. all this passed before his eyes, as it might have done in the first days of the world. from the submarine depths, the central fire throws up a dome or cone, which opens, and its lava forms a circular crater. but the volcanic strength becomes exhausted, and the cooling lava becomes covered with a living jelly, an animal multitude, whose perpetual exudation of mucus continually raises the circle higher and higher, to low water mark; no higher, or they would be dry; no lower, because they would lack the light. if they have no special organ with which to perceive the light, it circumfuses, penetrates, permeates their whole being. the glowing sun of the tropics, which traverses right through their transparent little frames, seems to have for them all the irresistible attraction of magnetism. when the tide ebbs and leaves them uncovered, they, nevertheless, remain open, and drink in the vivid light. dumont d'urville, who so often coasted among their little isles, says:--"it is a real pain to see, so near by the peace of that interior basin, and to see all around shallow waters, beneath which are the shelving rocks, tenanted by the coral insects, in perfect security, while we are enduring all the shocks of a raging tempest." but this amiable community and its edifice are a shoal, a terrible lee shore, scarcely hidden by the shallow waters; touch upon that shoal and you will be crushed. trust not to anchors among those peaked and jagged rocks; your cables, however good, would soon wear and snap. the seaman's anxiety is extreme, in those long nights when the southern surges drive him among these shoals, at once so rugged and yet as cutting as razors. to such accusations as these, our innocent shoal-makers reply--"time--give us only time, and these rocks will become hospitable, tenanted, fruitful. these banks, joined on to their neighboring banks, will no longer have these terrible threatenings for the seaman. we are preparing a spare world to replace your old one should it perish. ingrates! come some great and overwhelming catastrophe to your old world, if, as some one among you has said, the sea turns from one pole to the other in every ten thousand years, and you perchance will bless us, and hail with joy these southern isles which we are making, this huge southern continent that we are preparing. confess, now, that if, unhappily, ships do occasionally perish on these shoals, our work here, nevertheless, is useful, and good, and great. our improvised world may not unjustly be proud. to say nothing about the beauty of its triumphant colors, before which those of your earth grow pale; to say nothing about the graceful curves and circles on which we pride ourselves,--how many are the problems, which, insolvable to you, find their solution among us! the division of labor, a charming variety combined with a great regularity, a geometrical order, softened and made graceful and gracious by a rising liberty--where, among you men, will you find these so combined as from the beginning we have combined them among us? our incessant labor in relieving the sea-water of its salts, creates those currents which give it life and healthful power. we are the very spirits of the sea, giving, as we do, her motion." "and the sea is not ungrateful; she nourishes us at fixed periods; and not less punctually comes the glowing sun to caress us and dower us with brilliant colors. we are the beloved, the favored workers of the deity, entrusted by him with the first rude sketches and outlines of his worlds, and all our juniors upon this globe, need us, and are indebted to us. our friend the cocoa tree, that inaugurates terrestrial life upon our isle, could not do so but from our dust. in its far back origin, vegetable life is our liberal gift, and, made rich by us, it nourishes the superior creation." "but what need of other animals? we are within our own circle complete, harmonious and sufficing; with us the circle of creation might be closed. for as god crowns his isle on his old volcano of fire, he has created a volcano of life, and expansion of that living paradise. he has created all that he needs, and now he may repose." not yet, not yet. a creation must rise above yours, a thing which you do not fear. that rival is not the tempest, you would brave it; nor the fresh water, you would build beside it. it is not even the earth, which by degrees is invading your constructions. what, then, is that other power? in yourself, in polypes, there is an ambition to cease to be one. in your republic there is a certain creature who in constant anxiety and yearning, repeats that the perfection of this vegetating existence is not real life. it constantly dreams of a freer and more expanded life, navigating hither and thither, penetrating and viewing the unknown world even at the hazard of shipwreck;--that thing is--the soul. chapter vi. daughter of the seas. i passed the early part of 1858 in the pleasant little town of hyères which, from afar, gazes down on the sea, the islets and the peninsula by which its coast is sheltered. the sea, seen from this distance, is even more potently seductive than when one is on its very shore. the paths leading to it, whether we pass between gardens with their hedges of jasmin and myrtle, or, ascending some little, pass through the olive grounds and a little wood of pines and laurels, are exceedingly tempting. the wood by no means hinders us from catching, now and then, a glance of the bright sea. the place is, by no means unjustly, called fair-coast. often in the fine days of its gentle winters we met there a most interesting invalid, a young foreign princess who had come thither from a distance of five hundred leagues, in the hope of adding some span to her fading and failing life. that life, short as it was, had been a hard and sad one. scarcely had she become a glad wife when she found herself rudely threatened by death. and now she dragged on from day to day of suffering, supported and most tenderly treated by him who lived only for her and hoped not to survive her. if wishes and prayers could have preserved her she would still live; for all prayed for her, especially the poor. but spring came, and bloomed and ended, and on one of those april days whose genial influence revives every thing we saw the two shadows pass, pale as the wandering elysian spectres of virgil. sad at heart with sympathy, we reached the gulf. between the bold rocks, the pools left by the sea contained some little creatures that had not been able to accompany the retreating tide. some shelled creatures were there, self-concentrated and suffering from want of water, and amongst them, unshelled, unsheltered, lay the living parasol, that for some, anything, rather than good reason, we call the _medusa_. why has that name of terror been given to a creature so charming? never before had my attention been attracted to those wrecked beauties, which we so often see high and dry upon the sea shore at low ebb tide. this especial one was small, not larger than my hand, but singularly beautiful, in its delicate colors, passing so lightly from tint to tint. it was of an opal whiteness, into which passed, as in a light cloud, a crown of the most delicate lilac. the wind had turned it over, so that its lilac filaments floated above, while the umbrella, that is to say, its proper body, lay upon the rock. much bruised in that tender body, it was also wounded and mutilated in its fine filaments, or hairs, which are its sensitive organs of respiration, absorption, and even love. and the whole creature thus thrown upside down was receiving in full force the rays of the provençal sun, severe in its first awakening and rendered still more severe by the dryness of the occasional gusts of the south-westerly winds, the _mistral_ of our provençal coasts. the transparent creature was thus doubly pierced, doubly tormented, accustomed as it was to the caressing sea, and unprovided with the resisting epidermis of land animals. close to her dried up lagune were other lagunes still full of water, and communicating with the sea. within a few paces of her, then, was safety, but for her who had no organs of locomotion, excepting her undulating hairs, it was impossible to traverse even that petty distance, and it seemed that remaining under that fierce sun and exposed to the arid blasts of that wind she very speedily must faint, die, and be actually dissolved. nothing more ephemeral, more delicate than these daughters of the sea. some of them are so fluid that they dissolve and disappear as soon as taken from the sea. such is that slight band of azure called the _girdle of venus_. the medusa, a little more solid has all the more trouble in dying. was she dying or already dead? i do not readily believe in death, and believing that she still lived i resolved to convey her to a lagune of salt water. to say the truth i felt some repugnance to touching her. the delicious creature with her visible innocence, and rainbow of tender colors, looked like a trembling jelly which must slip from one's touch or dissolve in one's grasp. however, i conquered this repugnance, slid my hand gently beneath her and as i turned her over her hairs fell down into their natural position, when used in swimming. i thus carried her to the water, where she sank without giving the slightest sign of life. i walked about the shore, but in about ten minutes returned to look after my medusa. she was swimming under water, her hairs undulating gracefully beneath her; and slowly, but safely, she had left the rock far behind her. poor creature, perhaps she got wrecked or stranded again, ere long, for it is impossible to navigate with weaker means or in a fashion more dangerous. the medusæ fear the shore where so many hard substances hurt them, and in the open sea they are liable to be overturned at every gust of wind, in which case, their swimming-feathers being above instead of below their bodies, they are carried hither and thither, at random, upon the waves, as the prey of fish or the delight of birds who find sport and profit in seizing them. during a whole season which i spent on the banks of gironde i saw them cast ashore to perish miserably by hundreds. on their arrival they were white and brilliant as crystal. alas! how different was their aspect in the course of a couple of days. very happily they sank beneath the sand and were lost to my pitying view. they are the food of every thing marine, and have themselves scarce any aliment, none that we know of, but the, as yet, scarce organized atoms floating in the sea which they, etherialize, as we may say, and suck in without making them suffer. they have neither teeth nor weapons; no defence, excepting that some species, forbes says not all, can secrete, when attacked, a liquid which stings somewhat like the nettle, but so faintly that dicquemare with impunity received some of it in his eye. here we have, indeed, a creature little provided and in great peril. she is superior already; she has senses, and, if we may judge from her contractions, a great sensibility to suffering. she cannot, like the polypus, be divided and live. divide him and you double his existence; divide her and she dies. gelatinous as the polypus, the medusa seems to be an embryon cast away too soon from the bosom of the common mother, torn from the solid base and the association to which the polypus owes his safety, and launched into adventure. how has the imprudent creature set out? how, without sails, or oars, or helm, has she left her port? what is her point of departure? ellis, as long ago as 1750, saw a little medusa produced from the campanular polypus, and many later observers have ascertained that she is a kind of polypus that has left the society. to speak more simply, she is an escaped polypus. and the learned m. forbes who has so deeply studied them, very aptly asks, what is there astonishing in that? it only shows that to that extent the animal still obeys the vegetable law. from the tree, the collective being, proceeds the individual, the detached fruit which fruit will make another tree. a pear tree is a sort of vegetable polypus of which the pear, (the emancipated individual) can give us a pear tree. in like manner, adds forbes, as the leaf laden tree, stops in its development, contracts, and becomes an organ of love--i. e. a flower, the _polypier_, contracting some of its polypes and transforming their contractions, forms the placenta, the eggs from which proceeds the young and graceful medusa. one would guess as much from her hesitating grace, that weakness at once so unarmed and so fearless, which embarks without instruments of navigation, and trusts too much to life. it is the first tender and touching adventure of the new soul going forth without defence from the security of the common life, to be itself, an individual acting and suffering on its own account--soft sketch of free nature; an embryon of liberty. to be oneself, oneself alone, in a little complete world, was a great temptation for all. a universal seduction! a beautiful folly, which causes all the effort and all the progress of the world, from our earth upward to the very stars. but in her first attempts the medusa, seems especially unjustified. one would say that she was created on purpose to be drowned. laden above, and ill-ballasted below, she is formed in conditions exactly opposite to those of her parent, the physalie. this latter displays on the surface of the water, only a little balloon, an insubmersible membrane and below has infinitely long tentaculæ, of twenty feet or more, which steady her, sweep the waters, stupefy the fish, make prey of him. light and careless, inflating her pearly balloon of blue or purple tints, she darts from her long hairy tentaculæ a subtle and murderous poison. less formidable, the velelles are no less secure. they have the form of _radeaux_, their minute organization is already somewhat solid, and they can steer and trim their oblique sail to every wind. the porpites, that seem to be only a flower, a sea margaret, have their own peculiar levity; even after death, they continue to float. it is the same with many other fantastic and almost aërial beings, garlands with golden bells or with rosebuds--such as the physopheres, stephanomie, &c., azure girdles of venus. all these swim and float invincibly, fear only the shore, and sail boldly out on the open sea, and when it is ever so rough are perfectly safe there. so little do the porpites and velelles fear the sea, that, being able to rise at pleasure, they exert themselves to sink to the concealing depths when the weather is bad. not such is our poor medusa. fearing the shore, she is also in danger at sea. she could sink into the depths at will, but the watery abyss is forbidden to her; she can live only on the surface, in the broad light and in full peril. she sees, she hears, and her sense of touch is very delicate, to her misfortune, too much so. she cannot guide herself; her most complicated organs overload and overbalance her. and so we are tempted to believe that she must needs repent of so perilous a search after liberty; and desires to be back in the inferior state, the security of the common life. the polypier made the medusa, she in turn makes the polypier, and returns to the life of community. but this vegetating state wearies her, and in the next generation she again emancipates herself and goes forth again to the perils of her vain navigation. strange alternation, in which she floats incessantly; moving, she dreams of repose; in rest, she sighs for movement. these strange metamorphoses, which by turns raise and abase the undecided creature, keeping her alternating between two lives so different, are apparently the case of the inferior species, of the medusa which have not been able to enter decidedly into the irrevocable career of emancipation. for the others, we can easily suppose that their charming varieties mark the interior progress of life, the degrees of development, the sports, the smiling graces of their new liberty. this latter class, admirably artistic, won this so simple theme of a disk or parasol which floats, of a light lustre of crystal which reflects the sun's glowing and coloring lights, has made an infinity of variations, a deluge of little marvels. all these beauties floating on the green mirror of the sea in their gay and delicate colors, and in the thousand attractions of an infantine and unconscious coquetry, have puzzled science, which to class and to name them, has been obliged to call to its aid both the queens of history and the goddesses of mythology. here we have the waving berenice, whose rich hair floats another and brighter flood upon the flood; there we have the little orithya, the fair spouse of eölus, who, at the breathing of her husband, displays her pure, white urn, uncertain, and scarcely supported by her fine hair, which she often entangles beneath, or the weeping dionea, looking like an alabaster cup, from which, in crystalline streamlets, flow splendid tears. such, when in switzerland, i saw spreading themselves the wearied and idle cascades, which, having made too many turnings, seemed dropping with drowsiness and languor. in the great faëry of the illumination of the sea on stormy nights, the medusa has her separate part. bathed, like so many other beings, in the phosphoric fluid with which they are all penetrated, she returns it in her manner, with a peculiar charm. how dark is the night at sea when we do not see that phosphoric gleam or a fitful flashing! how vast and formidable are those dark depths, on such gloomy nights. on land, the shadows are less dense and impenetrable, we see, if dimly, and make out forms, if imperfectly, so that we get so many directing marks. but at sea, how vast, unbroken, infinitely dense is the darkness of the dark nights. nothing, still nothing; a thousand dangers to be imagined, but not one to be seen and avoided! we feel all this, even when living on the coast. it is a great gladness, an exciting pleasure, when, the air becoming electric, we see in the distance, a slight line of pale fire. what is it? we see it even at home, on the dead fish, the herring, for instance. but, living in his great sea, he is still more luminous in the long trains that he leaves behind him. that phosphoric brilliancy is by no means the exclusive privilege of death. is it an effect of heat? no, for you find it at both poles, in the antarctic seas, in the siberian seas, in ours--in all. it is the common electricity which the half-living waters throw off in stormy weather; the innocent and pacific lightning of which all marine creatures are then so many conductors. they inhale it, and they exhale it, and they restore it largely when they die. the sea gives it, and the sea takes it back again. along the coasts and in the straits, the currents and the collisions, cause it to circulate the more powerfully, and each creature, according to its waters, takes more or less of it. here, immense surfaces of peaceable infusoriæ appear, like a milky sea, of a mild, white light, which, when more animated, turns to the yellow of burning sulphur; there their conical lights pirouette upon their own bases, or roll in red balls. a great disc of fire (pyrosome) commences with an opaline yellow, becomes for a moment greenish, then bursts into red and orange, and at last darkens down into blue. these changes occur with an approach to regularity that would indicate a natural function, the contraction and dilatation of some vast creature, breathing fire. then on the horizon, fiery serpents writhe and glide along an immense length--sometimes to the extent of twenty-five or thirty leagues. the biphores and the salpas, transparent alike to sea and sulphur, are the performers in this serpentine spectacle, an astonishing company which disport themselves in this frantic dance, and then separate. separated, its free members produce free little ones, which, in their turn light up the horizon with their dancing and wild lights. great fleets, more peaceful, float over the waves of lights. the velelles, at night, light up their little craft. the beroes are triumphant as flames. none more magical than those of our medusæ. is it in part a physical effect like that which gives their serpentine motion to the salpas, injected with fire? is it, as others think, and as some observations would lead us to believe, an act of aspiration? is it a caprice, as with so many beings that throw out their sparkles and flashes of a vain and inconstant joy? no, the noble and beautiful medusæ, such as the crowned oceanique, and the lovely idonea, seem to express gravest thoughts. beneath them, their luminous hair, like some sombre watch-light, gives out mysterious lights of emerald and other colors, which, now flashing, anon growing pale, reveal a sentiment, and, i know not what of mystery; suggesting to us the spirit of the abyss, meditating its secrets; the soul that exists, or is to exist some day. or should it not rather suggest to us some melancholy dream of an impossible destiny which is never to attain its end? or an appeal to that rapture of love which alone consoles us here below? we know that on land our fire flies, by their fire give the signal of the bashful yet eager lover who thus betrays her retreat, and decoys her mate. have the medusæ this same sense? we know not; but thus much is certain, that they yield at once their flame and their life. the fecund sap, their generative virtue, escapes and diminishes at every gleam. if we desire the cruel pleasure of redoubling this brilliant faëry, we have only to expose them to warmth. then they become excited, flash, and become beautiful, oh, so exquisitely beautiful--and then the scene is at an end. flame, love, and life, all are at an end--all evanish for ever. chapter vii. the stone picker. when the excellent doctor livingstone visited the poor africans who have so much difficulty in defending themselves against the lion and the slave merchant, the women, seeing him armed with all the protecting arts of europe, invoked him as their friend and providence in these touching words--"give us sleep!" and such is the prayer which all beings in their own language address to nature. all desire, and all dream of, security. we cannot doubt of that when we note the ingenious endeavors which are made to obtain it. those efforts have given birth to the arts. man has not invented one, which animals had not previously invented, under that strong and abiding instinct, the desire of safety. they suffer, they fear, they desire to live. we must not assume that creatures little advanced, and as it were embryonic, have, therefore, but little sensibility. the very contrary is certain. in every embryon, that which first appears, is the nervous system, that is to say, the organ and capacity of feeling and of suffering. pain is the spur by which the creature is urged to foresight and expedients. pleasure serves the like purpose, and it is already observable even in those which seem the most cold. it has been observed that the snail, after the painful researches of his love, is singularly happy on meeting again the loved object. both of them with a touching grace wave their swan-like necks, and bestow upon each other the most lively caresses. who is it that tells us this? the rigid, the very exact blainville. but alas! how largely and how widely is pain distributed! who has not noted with pity the painful efforts of the shell-less mollusc, as he grovels along on his unguarded belly? painful but faithful image of a foetus untimely torn from the mother by some cruel chance, and cast upon the ground naked and defenceless. the poor mollusc thickens and indurates his skin as well as he can, softens the asperities of his road, and renders it slippery. but at every contact with the ragged or pointed stones, his writhings and contractions only too plainly show how great is his sensibility to pain. notwithstanding all this, she loves, does that great soul of harmony which is the unity of the world; she loves all beings, and by alternations of pleasure and of pain, instructs them and compels them to ascend. but to ascend, to pass into a superior grade, they must first exhaust all that the lower one can furnish of trials more or less painful, of instinctive art, and of stimulants to invention. they must even have exaggerated their species, perceived its excesses, and, by contrast, be inspired with the craving and the need of an opposite one. progress is thus made by a kind of oscillation between contrary qualities, which by turns are separated from life, and incarnated with it. let us translate these divine things into human language, familiar, indeed, and little worthy of the grandeur of such things, but which will make them understood: nature, having long delighted to make, unmake, and remake the medusæ, thus infinitely varying the theme of infant liberty, smote her forehead one morning, and said--"i have a new and a delicious idea. i forgot to secure the life of the poor creature. it can continue only by the infinity of number, the very excess of its fecundity. i must now have a creature at once better guarded and more prudent. it shall if need be, be timid, even to excess, but above all, it is my will that it shall survive." these timid creatures, when they appeared, were of a prudence carried to its extremest limits. they shut themselves in, shunning even the light of day. to save themselves from the rude contact of sharp and ragged stones, they employed the universal means, a glutinous mucus from which they secreted an enveloping tube, which elongated in proportion to the length of their journey. a poor expedient, that, which kept these miners, the tarets out of the light and out of the free air, and which compelled an enormous expenditure of their substance. every step cost them enormously; a creature thus ruining itself that it may live, can only vegetate--poor, and incapable of progress. the next resource was not much better, temporarily to bury themselves, going below the sands at low water, and rising to the flood-tide; the resource of the solen. a varying life that, fugitive twice a day, and consequently full of anxiety. among very inferior creatures a thing as yet obscure, which was in time to change the world, began to appear. the simple sea stars had in their fine rays a certain support, a sort of jointed carpentry, and on the outside some thorns, suckers, which could be thrust forward or withdrawn at will. an animal very humble, but timid and serious, seems to have profited by this coarse specimen. it said, i imagine, to nature: "i am quite without ambition. i do not ask for the brilliant gifts of the molluscs; i covet neither pearl nor mother of pearl, much less the brilliant colors, the gorgeous array which would discover and betray me; least of all do i envy your silly medusæ, with the fatal charm of their waving and fiery hair, which serves only to drown them, or give them a helpless prey to fish below or birds above. oh, mother nature, i ask but one thing, _to be_, to exist, to have life; to be one, self concentrated, and without compromising external appendages; to be strongly and solidly built, self centred, and of rounded figure, as that is the figure that is least easily taken hold of. i have but little desire to travel; sometimes to roll from high to low water will suffice me. fastened to my rock, i will solve the problem which your future favorite, man, will vainly brood over, the problem of safety; _the strict exclusion of enemies, and the free admission of friends_, especially water, air, and light. i know that to achieve this, i must work hard and work long. covered with movable thorns, i shall be avoided, i shall live a strictly retired life; and my name shall be oursin, little bear, or sea hedge-hog." how superior is that prudent animal to the polypes, in their own stone, which they make from their own secretion, without hard labor, indeed, but also without affording them any safety; how superior, even to his superiors themselves, i mean to so many _molluscs_, who have more various senses, but are destitute of the unity of his vertebral provision, of his persevering labor, and of the skillful tools with which that very labor has provided him. the great marvel, however, of this poor rolling ball, which we might mistake for a thorny chestnut, is that he is at once _one and multiple_, _fixed and movable_, and consists of two thousand four hundred pieces, which separate at his will and pleasure. let us see his history of creation. it was in a narrow creek of the sea of brittany, where there was no soft bed of polypes and of algæ, such as the sea hedge-hogs of the indian sea enjoy, in addition to their exemption from labor. our breton, on the contrary, was in presence of great peril and difficulty; like ulysses, in the odyssey, who, cast ashore, and anon washed seaward again, endeavored to fasten himself to the rock, with his torn and bleeding fingers. every ebb and flow of the tide was to our little ulysses, as bad as a mighty tempest; but his iron will and potent desire made him cling so closely and lovingly to the rock, that he became fastened to it as though the air had been expelled from between them by the cupping glass. at the same time his strong thorns scratched and scratched, and endeavored to get a hold, and one of them subdivided and formed a triple and real anchor of safety in aid of the cupping glass, if this latter should fail to act quite perfectly on a by no means smooth surface. after he had thus doubly secured himself to his rock, he gradually comprehended that he would be a great gainer if he could form a concavity in it, gradually dig himself out a hole, and thus form himself a snug nest, for the day of sickness or of age. for, in fact, one is not always young and strong. and how pleasant it would be, if, some day, the veteran oursin could relax somewhat of the effort necessitated by this constant holding on, this anchorage by day and night. so he worked and worked, to make a hollow; it was for dear life that he was working, and you may be sure that he never relaxed. formed of detached pieces, he worked with five claws, which, always pushing together, united and formed an admirable pick. his pick of five teeth, of the finest enamel, is attached to a frame work, delicate, but very strong, and consisting of forty pieces, which work in a sort of sheath, playing in and out, in the most perfect and regular manner, with an elasticity preventing too violent shocks, and self-repairing, in case of any accident. rarely, in the softer stone, which he holds in contempt, but almost always in the solid rock, in the hardest granite, it is that this heroically laborious sculptor goes to work. the harder the rock, the firmer he feels himself secured. and, then, in fact, what does it matter about the length of the task? time is of no consequence to him, centuries are before him; supposing that his tools and his life should end to-morrow, another would take his place and continue his work. during their life, they hold but little communication, these hermits; but in death a brotherhood exists, even for them, and the young survivor, who shall find the work half done, will bless the memory of the good workman who has preceded him. do not fancy that he strikes, and strikes continually. he has an art, a labor-saving art of his own. when he has well attacked the layers of the rock, and well cleaned it, he tears away the asperities as with little pincers. a work of great patience, and one which requires long intervals, too, in order that the water may aid in doing the work upon the denuded parts. he then proceeds to the second layer, then to the next, and so on till the long, long labor is at length completed. in this uniform life, however, there are occasional crises, even as in the life of the poor human laborer. the sea retires from certain shores; in the summer, this or that rock becomes quite insupportably hot; and our oursin must have two houses, one for summer, and one for winter. a great event, that, of moving from place to place, for a creature without feet and covered all over with points. m. cailland had an opportunity of observing the conduct of the creature under those circumstances. the weak and movable scoops which play backward and forward, are by no means insensible though he protects them somewhat by covering them with a little soft gelatine. at length he steadies himself on his thorns, as on so many crutches, rolls his diogenes' tub, and attains his port as he best may. arrived there, he shuts himself up again, and in the little nest which he almost always finds partly made, he concentrates himself in the enjoyment of his solitary and thrice blessed security. let a thousand enemies prowl without, let the storm-lashed wave moan or rage, all that is for his pleasure. let the very rock tremble at the dash of the breakers; he well knows that he has nothing to fear, that it is only his kind nurse that is making all that noise; he is safe in his cradle, and with a glad good night, he sleeps. chapter viii. shells, mother of pearl, and pearl. the oursin has carried the genius of defence to its utmost limit. his cuirass, or, preferably, his fortress of pieces, is at once movable and resisting, yet sensitive, retractile, and capable of being repaired in case of accident; this fortress is fast-joined and anchored to the rock, and still farther lodged within a hollow of the rock, so that the enemy has no means of attacking the citadel;--it is a system of defence so perfect that it can never be surpassed. no shell is comparable to it; far less are any of the works of human industry. the oursin is the completion of the starred and circular creatures; in him they have their highest and most triumphant development. the circle has few variations; it is the absolute form; in the globe of the oursin, at once so simple and so complicated, is the perfection and completion of the first world. the beauty of the world next to come, will be the harmony of double forms, their equilibrium, the gracefulness of their oscillation. from the molluscs even up to man, every being in this next world is to be made up of two corresponding halves; in every animal is to be found (far better than _unity_) _union_. the master piece of the oursin had gone even beyond what was needed; that miracle of defence had made him prisoner; he was not only shut in but buried; he had dug his own grave. his perfection of isolation had banished him, deprived him of all connections, and of all possibility of progress. to have a regular ascent, we must commence from a very low stage, from the elementary embryon, which at the outset will have no other movement than that of the elements. the new creature is the mere serf of the planet; so completely so, that even in the egg, it turns as the earth turns, with its double turning on its own axis, and the general rotation. even when emancipated from the egg, growing up, become adult, it will still remain the embryon, the soft mollusc. it will vaguely represent the progress of the superior lives; it will be as the foetus, as the larvæ or nymph of the insect, in which, folded and hidden, there yet are the organs of the winged creature which is yet to come. one trembles for a creature so weak; even the polypus though not less soft is less in danger. having life equally in all its parts, wounds, even mutilations will not kill the polypus: wounded and mutilated he still lives on, apparently forgetful of the excised parts. but the centralised mollusc is far more vulnerable. what a door in his ease is open to death! the uncertain motion of the medusa, which sometimes, perchance, may save her; the mollusc, at least at the outset, possesses but very slightly. all that is granted to him is his sloughing or exuding a gelatine matter, which walls him in, and replaces the cuirass of the oursin and the oursin's rock. the mollusc has the advantage of finding his defence within himself. two valves form a house, light and fragile, indeed, so much so that those which float are transparent; in the case of those which are to be stationary, the mucus forms a filamentary anchoring cable, called the hyssas. it is formed exactly as silk is from an element originally quite gelatinous. the gigantic iridacne, moors so fast by that cable, that the madrepores mistake it for an islet, build upon it, envelope it, and strangle it. passive and motionless life. it has no other event than the periodical visit of the sun and light, and no other action but to absorb what comes, and to secrete the jelly which makes the house, and will by degrees do the rest. the attraction of the light, always in the same direction, centralizes the view; and behold the eye. the secretion fixed by a constant effort, becomes an appendage, an organ which lately was a cable, and which by and bye will become the foot, a shapeless and inarticulated mass, which will bend itself to anything. it is the fin of those that swim, the pick of those that burrow in the sand, and the foot of those who at first rather crawl than walk. some species arch it so that they can make a clumsy essay at leaping. poor tribe, terribly exposed, pursued by many enemies, tossed by the waves and bruised on the rocks. those of them which do not succeed in building a house, seek a shelter in living beds; they find a tent with the polypes, or with the floating halcyons. the pearl-bearing avicule, tries to find a quiet life in the hollows of the sponge. the pholade, tries in his stony retreat, to imitate the arts of the oursins, but with what inferiority! instead of the admirable chisel of the oursin, which might be envied by our stone cutters, the pholade has but a little rasp, and to dig out a shelter for her fragile shell, she wears out the shell itself. with but a few exceptions, the moluscs know themselves the prey of everything, and are therefore the most timid of creatures. the cone so well knows that he is sought after, that he dares not leave his shelter, and dies there, from fear of being killed. the volute and the porcelain drag slowly along their pretty houses, and conceal them as well as they can. the casque, to get along with his palace, has only a little chinese foot, so small and so useless that he scarcely attempts to walk. such the life, such the dwelling; in no other species is there more complete identity between the inhabitant and the habitation; taken from his own substance, his house is but a continuation, a supplement of his own body; alike it even in form and tints. the architect, beneath the edifice, is himself its very foundation-stone. a very simple thing it is for the sedentaries to remain sedentary. the oyster, regularly fed by the sea, has only to gape when he would dine, and sharply to close his shells, when he has any suspicion that he may become himself a dinner for some hungry neighbor. but for the travelling mollusc the thing is more complicated. he can travel, but he cannot leave behind him his beloved house which he will need for defence as well as shelter; and it is precisely while on his journey, that he is most liable to be attacked. he must shelter, above all, the most delicate part of his being, the tree by which he breathes, and whose little roots nourish him. his head is of little consequence, often it is lost without the destruction of life; but if the viscera were left uncovered and wounded, he must die. thus, prudent and cuirassed he seeks his livelihood. come nightfall, he asks himself whether he will be quite safe in a wide open lodging? will not some inquisitives intrude a look--who knows--may not some one find the way in with claw and tooth as well as glance? the hermit reflects. he has but one instrument, his foot, from that he developes a very serviceable appendage with which he closes the aperture and behold him safe at home for the night. his great and permanent difficulty is this, to combine safety with connection with the outer world. he cannot, like the oursin, utterly isolate himself; without the aid of his instructors and nurses, light and air, he cannot strengthen his soft body and make his organs. he must acquire senses; he needs scent and hearing, those guides of the blind; he must acquire sight, and above all, he must be able to breathe freely. great and imperative function, that! how little we think of it while it is easy; but what terrible pain and agitation if it become too difficult! let our lungs become congested, let the larynx even be embarrassed for a single night and our agitation and anxiety are so extreme, so unendurable, that often, at all risks, we have every window thrown open. with the asthmatic, the anxiety and torture are so extreme that when they cannot breathe freely through the natural organ, they create a supplementary means. air, air, air, or death! nature, when thus pressed, is terribly inventive. we not wonder if the poor sedentaries, stifling in their houses, have discovered a thousand means, invented a thousand sorts of pipes through which to admit the vital air. one admits air between plates around his feet, another by a sort of comb, another by a disc or buckler, and others by extending threads, some with pretty side plumes, and lastly, some have on their back a little tree, a pretty miniature aspen, which trembles continually and at every movement inhales or exhales a breath. sometimes those most sensitive and important organs affect the most elegant and fanciful forms; we would say that they wish to plead, to melt, to secure mercy, taking every form and every color. these little children of the sea, the molluscs, in their infantine grace, in their rich variety of colors, are their ocean mother's eternal ornament and joy. stern as she may be, she has but to look on them, and she must smile. but a timid life is full of melancholy. one cannot doubt that she greatly suffers from her severe seclusion, that fairest of the fair, that queen beauty of the seas, the haliotide. she has a foot, and could, if she chose, get along, though slowly; but she dares not. ask her why, and she will reply: "i am afraid. the crab is continually watching me, and a whole world of voracious fish are continually swimming over my head. my cruel admirer, man, punishes me for my beauty; pursuing me from the indies to the pole, and is now loading whole ships with me at golden california." but the unfortunate, though unable to go out, has discovered a subtle means of procuring air and water; in her house, she has little windows, which communicate with her little lungs. hunger at length compels her to risk something, and towards evening she crawls a little around, and feeds on some sea-weed, her sole nourishment. here let us remark, that those marvellous shells, not only the haliotide, but the widow (black and white) and the golden mouth (of mingled pearly and gold color,) are poor herbivori, inoffensive, temperate, feeders. a living, and decisive refutation, that, of those who fancy that beauty is the daughter of death, of blood, of murder, of a merely brutal accumulation of animal substance. but to these, our beautiful shell-tenants, the merest modicum of subsistence suffices. their chief aliment is the light which they drink in, by which they are permeated, by which they color and tint, with more than rainbow beauty, and variety of tint, their inner dwelling, in which they conceal and cherish their solitary love. each of them is double, hermaphrodite; lover and loved, in one. as the palaces of the east are concealed by dark and repulsive outer walls, so, here, also, without, all is rude, within, all is of the most dazzling beauty; the hymeneal seclusion is lightened up by the gleaming and many-hued reflections of a little sea of mother of pearl, which, even when the house is closed to the outer light, create a faëry, a mysterious, and a most lovely twilight. it is a great consolation that when our poor prisoners cannot have the sun, they can at least have a moon of their own, a paradise of soft and trembling lights, ever changing, yet ever renewed, and giving to that sedentary life, that little variety which is absolutely needed by every creature. the poor children who work in the mines, ask visitors, not for food, or sweetmeats, or money, or toys--all they ask for is the means of getting more light. and it is the same with our ocean children, the haliotides. every day, blind though they be, they feel, and greedily welcome, the return of the light, receiving it, and contemplating it, with the whole of their transparent bodies; and when the light has departed, from without, they still preserve and nurse some portion of it within themselves. they watch, they wait, they hope for its return; their whole little soul consists of that hope, that watching, that eager desire, that incessant yearning. who can doubt that the return of the glad light is as delightful to them as it is to us, nay, even more so than it is to us, who have the manifold distractions of so busy and varied a life? their whole lives pass in thinking, wishing, divining, hoping, or regretting; their great lover, the sun. never seeing him, they yet, in their own fashion, certainly comprehend that that warmth, that glorious light comes to them from without, and from a great centre, powerful, fecund and beneficent. and they love that great deeply felt, though never seen, central light, which caresses them, fills them with joy, floods them with life. had they the power, they no doubt would rush to seek his rays. and, at least, attached as they are to their abode, they, like the brahmin at the door of the pagoda, silently offer him up their homage, at once meditative and thrilling. first flower of instructive worship. already they love and pray, who say the little word which the holy prefers to all prayer--that _oh!_ that heart utterance, which contents and pleases heaven. when the indian utters it at sunrise, he well knows that all that innocent world of mother of pearl, pearl, and humblest shells, utters it with him, from the depths of the seas. i fully understand what the sight of the pearl suggests of feeling and fancy to the charmingly untutored heart, the woman heart, that dreams, and fancies, and is stirred by a sweet, and strange, and uncomprehended emotion. that pearl is not exactly a person, but neither, on the other hand, is it exactly a thing. what adorable whiteness; no, call it not mere whiteness, but _candor_, virginal candor; no, not virginal, but better still. for your young virgins, sweet and modest as they are, have always a slight dash of young tartness, and verdancy. no, the pearl's candor rather resembles that of the innocent young bride, so pure, yet so submissive to love. no ambition to shine. our pearl softens, almost suppresses, its lights. at first, you see only a dull white; it is only when you have taken a second and a closer glance that you discover its mysterious iris, its exquisitely glancing and pure light. where lived it? ask the deep ocean. on what? ask the sunbeams; like some clear spirit it lived on love and light. great mystery! but our beautiful pearl herself explains it. we cannot look upon her without feeling that this creature, at once so lovely and so meek, must for a long time have lived in quietude, waiting and waited for, willing nothing and doing nothing, but the will of the beloved one. the son of the sea put his beautiful dream into his shell, the shell into the mother of pearl, and she into the pearl, which is but a concentration of herself. but the pearl we are told only comes to her mother in consequence of some wound, some continued suffering, which withdraws or absorbs all vulgar life into that divine poetry. i have been told that the great ladies of the east, more delicate and tasteful than our vulgar rich, shun the diamond and allow their soft skin to be touched only by the pearl. and in truth, the brilliancy of the diamond is not in accord with the light of love. a necklace and a pair of bracelets of fine pearls are the harmonious and true decorations for woman; instead of diverting the glance of the lover, they move him, make tenderness more tender--say to him--"no noise--let us love!" the pearl seems amorous of woman, and woman of the pearl. the ladies of the north, when they have once put on pearl ornaments, never afterwards remove them, but carry them day and night concealed beneath their attire. on very rare occasions, if the rich fur cape, lined with white satin, chances to slip aside, we may catch a momentary glance of the happy ornament, the inseparable necklace. it reminds one of the silken tunic which the odalisque wears close to her person, and loves so much that she will not part with it until it is worn and torn beyond all possibility of repair; believing it as she does to be a talisman, an infallible love charm. it is just so with the pearl; like the silk, it drinks in and is impregnated with the very life of the wearer. when it has slept so many nights upon her fair bosom, the ornament is no longer an ornament, it is a part of the person, and is no longer to be seen by an indifferent eye. one alone has a right to know it, and to surprise upon that necklace the mystery of the beloved woman. chapter ix. the sea rovers (poulpe, &c.) the medusæ and the molluscs are generally innocent creatures, and i have thus far dwelt, as it were, with them in their amiable and peaceful world. thus far i have met with few carnivora; and even those few killed only in the stern necessity of hunger, and even of those part fed only on atoms, animal jelly, life unorganized, and scarcely commenced. as a consequence, pain, anger, cruelty were absent. their little souls had, nevertheless, a ray, the aspiration towards the light alike of heaven and of love, revealed in the changing flame which illumines and rejoices the seas. but, now, i have to enter into quite another world: a world of war, slaughter, fierce pursuit, and greedy devouring. i must confess that from the beginning, from the first appearance of life, death also appeared; a rapid and useful purification of the globe from the weak and slow, but prolific tribes whose fecundity would otherwise have been mischievous. in the oldest strata we find two wondrous creatures, the _devourer_ and the _sucker_. the first is made known to us by the imprint of the trilobite, a species no longer existing, an extinct destroyer of extinct species. the second is known to us by a frightful remnant, a beak of almost two feet pertaining to the great sucker, the leiche or poulpe of dujardin. judging from that immense beak, this monster must have had an enormous body, and sucking-arms of twenty or thirty feet, like a prodigious spider. sad reflection, these murderous creatures are those which we earliest find in the depths of the earth. are we then to suppose that death preceded life? no doubt; but the soft creatures upon which these monsters fed have perished utterly, not leaving remains or even imprint of themselves. the devourers and the devoured, were they two nations of different origin? the contrary is more probable. from the mollusc, form undecided, matter still fit to be converted to any form, the superabundant strength of the young world, richly plethoric, abounding in alimentation, there must at an early period have proceeded two forms, contrary in appearance, but tending and qualified to the same end. swelling and breathing, and measurelessly inflating itself, the mollusc became an enormous balloon, an absorbing bladder, absorbing all the more as it stretched the more, ever craving and ever consuming, but toothless,--and we have the _sucker_. on the other hand, by the self-same force, the mollusc gradually developing articulated members of which each had its shell, and hardening this shelled creature everywhere, but especially at the claws and mandibles formed for gnawing and grinding, to pulp or powder, the very hardest substances became--the _devourer_. let us in the first place, in this chapter, speak of the first, the _sucker_. the sucker of the soft gelatinous world, was himself soft and gelatinous. warring upon and devouring the molluscs, he himself none the less, remained mollusc, that is to say, still a mere embryon. there would be something absurd, caricatural, were it not so terrible, in this sight of a mere foetus, soft and transparent, yet cruel, raging, eager, breathing nothing but murder. for he, see you, goes not to war for the mere sake of food. he has a real passion for destroying, for destruction's sake; whenever he has gorged himself, well nigh to bursting, he will destroy still. destitute of defensive armour, his threatening snortings disguise, but by no means quiet, his real anxiety; his real, his only safety, is an attack. he is the veritable bully of the young world; really vulnerable himself, and yet so terrible to others; he sees in everything that he meets only enemy or victim. at all risks he casts hither and thither his long arms, or rather his whip-lashes, tipped with cupping glasses, and upon enemy or victim, before the fight or the capture commences, he sends out his stupefying, paralysing effluvia. double power. to the mechanical strength of these outstretched arms, add the magical force of that mysterious fluid, and a singularly acute hearing and quick eye. you see in all these, a creature to alarm you. what must it have been, then, when the early world so lavished its wealth of alimentation, that these monsters of the deep could feed and swell indefinitely? they have decreased now, both in number and in size. yet, even lately, rang tells us that he has seen them big as a hogshead; and peron has seen them quite as large in the south sea. the creature rolled, and snorted in the rolling wave, with a noise to terrify, to astonish, all meaner creatures. his arms, six or seven feet in length, turning, twisting, writhing, and grasping in every direction, imitated some furious pantomime, some fantastic dance of at once furious and eccentric serpents. after these matter of fact statements, it seems to me, that we should not be quite so incredulous, not quite so scornful, when we read the accounts of the old voyagers; we should not curl the lip _quite_ so insolently as we read, in denis de montford, that he saw a monstrous poulpe, grasp, with his enormous arms, lash, scourge, smite, stupefy with his electric lashes a fierce and strong mastiff which, in spite of all his efforts, and his terrible howlings, had to succumb, did succumb, _did_ die in that giant and terrible embrace. the poulpe, that terrible and living steam machine, can accumulate such incalculable force and elasticity, that, as d'orbigny tells us (see his article cephal.) it can leap from the sea to the deck of a ship. this at once relieves our old voyagers from the charge so often and so lightly made against them, of exaggeration and mere romance. they told us, and it now seems quite truly told us, that they came athwart a gigantic poulpe that leaped inboard, twining its prodigious arms around masts and shrouds; and the monstrous creature would have had possession of the craft, and would have devoured all hands, but that these latter cut away its arms with their axes, as they would have cut away masts in a case of impending wreck, and the mutilated but still threatening creature fell into the sea. some have given this creature credit for arms of sixty feet in length; and others have reported that while cruising in the north seas, they fell in with the kraken, a monstrous creature, half a league in circumference, no doubt, one of our terrible _poulpes_, able to embrace, stupefy, and devour, a whale a hundred feet long. the prolonged existence of these monsters, would have endangered nature herself, would have absorbed our very globe. but, on the one hand, gigantic birds (perhaps, for instance, the _epiornis_) made war upon them; and on the other hand the exhausted earth destroyed the monster by cutting off its supply of alimentation. thank heaven, our existing poulpes are somewhat less terrible. their elegant species of the present day, the argonaut, that graceful swimmer in its wavy shell, the calmar, good sailor, if ever there was one, and the handsome seiche, blue-eyed, and beautiful to look upon, traverse the ocean, hither and thither, annoying nothing but the small creatures that they need for their support. in them we see exhibited the first approach to the vertebral bone; they display, too, a perfect rainbow of changing colors, that come and go--shine, fade, dazzle and die. we may quite fairly call them the chameleons of the sea. they have the exquisite perfume, ambergris, which the whale only owes to the countless multitudes of seiches which it has absorbed. and the porpoises, too, make an enormous destruction of them. your seiches are very gregarious. about the month of may, they seek the coast to deposit their eggs, and the porpoises await them there, sure of a splendid banquet. and your porpoise is somewhat of a _gourmet_ though sufficiently _gourmand_; he feeds delicately, though we cannot deny that he feeds largely. the head and the eight arms are his tid-bits, tender and easy of digestion; the rest of the carcass they may have who come for it. tens of thousands of these mutilated seiches you find upon the coast at royan; and there, too, you will see the porpoises making their mighty bounds when in chase of their coveted prey, the seiches, or in bacchanal enjoyment and revelling when the prey has been taken and the banquet is over. notwithstanding the strange, not to say grotesque, appearance of its beak, the seiche is decidedly an interesting creature. all the various shades of the most brilliant and various rainbow, come and go, die and reappear on his transparent skin, according to the play of the light as he turns now hither and now thither, and as he dies his azure eyes look upon you with an expression, now flashing and now fading, which seems to rebuke you for your cruelty in killing, or to express a regret at parting with life. the general decrease of that class, so immensely important in the past ages, is less remarkable as to the navigators (seiches, &c.) than in the poulpe, properly so called, the sad frequenter of our shores. it has not the same firmness as the seiche, strengthened as the latter is by an interior bone, and it has not, like the argonaut, a resisting exterior, a shell to protect the most vulnerable organs. neither has it the kind of sail which aids its navigation and spares it the labor of _rowing_. it paddles about along our shores, hugging the shore like some timid coaster. and its conscious inferiority teaches it habits of treachery; it is at once timid and bold--lying in ambush until quite sure that it can devour without the preliminary necessity of a fight. lying in wait in some rocky crevice, it awaits its prey. that having passed in unsuspicious security, your poulpe throws out the terrible lashes, the weaker of the prey are devoured, the stronger get loose and escape. a man when swimming, if thus attacked, finds no difficulty in mastering his at once insolent and imbecile assailant. disgusted, but not alarmed, he handles the creature without gloves, crushes, collapses him, and feels actually vexed with himself for having even for an instant been provoked by an enemy so contemptible. "bah!" one is tempted to exclaim, on having so easily vanquished such a thing--"bah! you came swelling, blowing, threatening, and after all you prove to be only a sham, a mask rather than a being. without fixity, without substance, a blown-up bladder, now collapsed, to be to-morrow a mere drop, a nameless portion of the dark blue waters of the sea." chapter x. crustacæ--battle and intrigue. if, from some rich collection of armor, of the middle ages, immediately after examining the mighty masses of iron in which our knights of old oppressed and half stifled themselves, we go to the museum of natural history, and examine the armor of the crustacæ, we shall actually feel something very like contempt for our human skill. the former are a mere masquerade of absurd disguises, that seem especially designed for encumbering their warlike wearers, and rendering them impotent. but these latter, especially the armor of the terrible _decapodes_, the ten-footed warriors of the waters, are so marvellously armed that had they but the stature and bulk of our human warriors, none of us could dare even to look upon them. the _veni vidi_ of cæsar, would be eternally followed by his soon-ended _vici_; they would not need to seize, or to strike; their very aspect would thrill, magnetise--utterly stupefy and subdue us. there they are, all ready for the fight, armed at all points. within that terrible arsenal, offensive and defensive, how lightly, yet how strongly are they armed. there are the strong nippers, mandibles, ready to craunch through iron itself, and the cuirasses, furnished with the thousand darts, every one of which cries aloud to the foe _noli me tangere_. we ought to be very thankful to nature, that has made them thus diminutive. if only the stature and bulk of man were given to them, who, who, and by what means, could engage with them? fire arms would be in vain; the elephant, vast and mighty, and intelligent as he is, would have to hide; the fierce tiger, with lashing tail, blood-shotten eyes and fatal paw, would seek shelter on the topmost branches of the tallest trees, and the trice solid hide of the rhinoceros, would no longer be invulnerable. we perceive at once that the interior agent, the motive power of that machine, centralized within an almost invariable convex, has, even from that single peculiarity, a perfectly enormous force. the slender and delicate elegance of man, his longitudinal figure, divided into three parts, with four great and diverging appendages, distant, all, from his centre, make him, whatever we may say to the contrary, an essentially weak animal. in those armors of the old knights, in the great, telegraphic arms, and in the heavy, pendant legs, we, at a glance, see, and sadden, as we see, the unsteady, uncentralized creature; halting and staggering, that the slightest collision will beat to the earth. in the crustacæ, on the contrary, the appendages are at once so firmly, so neatly, and so closely, conjoined to the short, rounded, and compacted body, that every blow, every touch, every grasp, has the whole weight, and the whole force and impetus of the entire mass. even to the extremity of its claws, every inch is instinct with nervous energy, mighty with the whole physical force. it has two brain systems, head and body; but to concentrate its power thus, it must have no neck; head and body must be undivided, a dual unity. marvellous, perfectly marvellous, simplification! the head combines eyes, feelers, claws and jaws. when the quick eye has discerned the enemy, or the prey, the feelers touch, the claws grasp, the jaws crush, and, immediately behind them, the stomach, which is itself furnished with a strong crushing machinery, triturates and digests whatever enters it. in an instant the prey is seized, crushed, digested, and disappears. in this creature, every organ is superior. the eyes can discern, both in front, and in rear. convexed, exterior, and _en facettes_, they can, at a glance, sweep almost the entire horizon. the antennæ, the feelers, organs of touch and trial, of warning and of guiding, have the sense of touch at their extremities, of hearing and of scent, at their base. an immense advantage, such as we do not possess. how would it be if the human hand could hear and smell? how rapid and concentrated would then be our power of observation. divided among three senses, each of which works independently of the other, our impressions are, for that very reason, very often inexact or evanescent. of the ten feet of the decapodes, six are hands, hard, griping pincers, and, moreover, are, at their extremeties, organs of respiration. and in this last particular our singularly armed warrior, by a quite revolutionary expedient, solves the problem which so much embarrassed our poor mollusc; how to breathe, in spite of the shell. to this he calmly replies: "i breathe through hand and foot. this great, this fatal difficulty of breathing, which would so surely overcome me, i overcome by the very same weapon with which i smite, the very same implement by which i seize and masticate my food." the chief and most potent enemies of the crustacæ, are the tempest and the rock. little in the deep sea, they almost constantly lurk along shore in waiting for their prey. often, as they lurk there waiting for the oyster to open and furnish them with a breakfast, a hard gale drives them from their ambush, and then their armor becomes their fatality. hard, and destitute of elasticity, it receives the full and unmitigated shock of every collision; dashed upon the rocks, they leave it, if alive, only with broken weapons and rent armor. happily for them, they, like the oursin, can replace an organ, lost or mutilated. so well do they know that strange power, that they voluntarily shake off a claw, if confined by it. it would seem that nature especially favors servants so useful. to counterbalance the infinite fecundity of other species, the crustacæ have an infinite power of absorption. and they are everywhere; on every coast; ubiquitous as the seas themselves. the vultures, and other carrion birds, share with the crustacæ the essential office of health preservers. let some large animal die, and, on the instant, the bird above, and the crab below and within, are at work to prevent it from polluting the atmosphere. the talitre, that small and skipping crab that we might almost mistake for an insect, burrows in the sands of the sandy shores. let a tempest drive a quantity of medusæ or other such prey upon the beach, and you will immediately see the sands all in motion, and myriads of crabs swarming, leaping, hungry, and apparently determined to clear away the spoil before the next flood tide. large, robust, and full of wiles, the great crabs are a very combative race. so highly are they gifted with the instinct of war that they even resort to noise in order to intimidate their enemies; advancing to the fight they clash their claws together with a noise like that of castanettes. yet, they are very prudent when they have to do with a stronger enemy. i remember to have watched them from the top of a high rock, when the tide was out. but, high above them as i was, they perceived that they were watched, and speedily beat a retreat; the warriors hurrying sidelong, as is their wont, into their secure ambush. they resemble achilles far less than hannibal. when they feel that they are the stronger, they will attack both the living and the dead, and the helplessly wounded man may well dread them. it is related that, on some desert isle, several of drake's sailors were attacked and devoured by these greedy creatures. no living creature can fight them with equal weapons. the gigantic poulpe who should enlace the smallest of the crab family, would do so at the risk of losing his antennæ, and the greediest of fish would not venture to swallow so hard a morsel. when the crustaceæ are large they are the tyrants and the terror of both land and sea; their impregnable armor enables them to attack everything. they would multiply to such an excess as to disturb the balance of living creatures, but that their armour itself is their great peril and destroyer. hard and inelastic, it will not yield to the increasing growth of the animal and thus becomes its prison always, and at certain periods its torture. to find, despite this solid wall, the means of breathing, it is obliged to place the organ of respiration in that very organ, the claw, which it most frequently loses. to allow for the growth of its interior substance, it is obliged--most perilous obligation!--to submit that the hard cuirass shell shall at times be discarded; that the creature shall have its seasons of _moulting_; that the eyes, and the claws, and the tentacles, which supply the place of lungs shall suffer with all the rest. a strange and pitiful sight it is to see the lobster writhing, twisting, struggling, to get out of its too confining armor. so violent is the struggle that he sometimes actually casts off his claws. then he remains soft, weak, exhausted. in two or three days a raw shell covers the naked body; but the crab does not so easily repair damages; it takes him much longer to renew his armor, and during that time he is the victim of all that previously were his unspared and unpitied prey. even handed justice now becomes terrible to him. the victims now have their revenge; the strong is subjected to the law of the weak; falls, as a species, to their level, and pays full share in the great balance between life and death. if one died but once in this world, there would be less of sadness, but every living thing must partially die daily; daily suffer moulting, that partial death which is essential to the continuance of life. hence, a weakness and a melancholy to which we do not readily confess. but what is to be done? the bird in its moulting time is sad and silent; still more sad is the poor snake when it casts its skin. we, also, in every month, every day, every instant, are parting with portions of our living frame, but as gently as constantly, and only feel weakened, in those moments of dreamy melancholy, when the vital flame is weakened, that it may become stronger and more vivid. how far more terrible it must be for the creature whose whole external frame work must be rent asunder and cast off. it is weak, timorous, crushed;--at the mercy of the first comer. there are crustacæ of the fresh water that must thus partially die a score of times in every two months. others (the crustacean suckers) succumb to this terrible operation, are unable to renew their armor, and lose all power. so to speak, they resign their piratical commission, and, coward-like, take shelter in the viscera of the larger animals, which, in spite of themselves, have to forage for them and to feed them. the insect in its chrysalis seems utterly to forget itself, not only does it not suffer, but it even seems to enjoy that semblance of death, that unconscious life, which the infant enjoys in its warm cradle. but the crustacæ, in their moulting time, see themselves and feel themselves as they are, suddenly hurled from energetic and terrible life and power to the most complete impotency. they are alarmed, helpless, lost, and can but creep under some sheltering stone, seeing nothing, hearing nothing, feeling nothing but the terror of the coming foe and the unpitied death. never having encountered terrible foe, or even serious obstacle, and relieved from all necessity of industry by their potent armor, they no sooner lose that than they find themselves utterly without resource. each might protect the other, but they are all defenceless at the same time. yet it is said that, in certain species, the male does strive to protect the female, and that if we take one we take both. that terrible necessity of moulting, and the eager research of man, more and more lord of the shores, and the extinction of the old species that afforded them such abounding alimentation, have necessarily kept down the increase of the crustaceæ. even the poulpe which, being good for nothing, is neither hunted after nor eaten, has considerably decreased in number. how much more so, then, the crustaceæ whose flesh is so excellent and so coveted by all creatures. they actually seem to be aware of this. the weaker among them resort to the grossest little rogueries to protect themselves; they are ingenious, intriguing. this latter epithet is the true one; they really resemble intriguers who, without visible means, contrive to support themselves upon the means of others. a kind of bastards, neither quite fish, nor quite flesh, they make increment alike of the living, the dying and the dead; occasionally even of land animals. the oxystome makes himself a kind of miser, and thieves by night; the birgus at nightfall quits the sea on a marauding expedition, and, for want of better, even ascends the cocoa tree and eats the fruit. the dromios disguise themselves, and bernard the hermit, unable to harden his exterior, seizes a mollusc, devours the body, and clothes himself in the shell. thus fitted out, he prowls at evening in search of food, and we detect the furtive pilgrim by the noise which he cannot avoid making as he halts and staggers along, under the load of his ill acquired and ill fitting armor. others, at most times, but especially in the winter, seek the land, and burrow. perhaps they would change their nature altogether and become insects, were the sea not so dear to them. as once in every year the twelve tribes of israel were wont to wend their way to jerusalem to celebrate the feast of tabernacles, there are certain shores to which these faithful children of the sea repair to pay her their homage and to consign to her tender care their eggs, thus recommending their offspring to her who nursed their ancestry. chapter xi. the fish. it was inevitable that the free element, the sea, should, sooner or later, produce a creature like unto herself, eminently free, undulating and fluid, gliding like the wave, but with a marvellous mobility founded on an interior miracle greater still, on an internal organization at once delicate and strong, and very elastic, such as no creature had previously ever approached to. the mollusc, crawling on its belly, was the poor serf of the glebe, and the poulpe, with all his swelling and threatening pride, swimming badly and unable to walk or crawl at all, was still more completely the serf of chance. the warlike crustaceæ, by turns so high and so low, alternately the terror and derision of all, were at times the slave, the prey of even the weakest creatures. great and terrible servitudes those; how were they to be remedied? strength is the very soul of liberty. from the very beginning, life seems gradually but confusedly to have sought the creation of a central axis which should give the creature unity, and enormously increase its strength of motion. the rayed family and the molluscs exhibit a presentiment, a partial sketch of it, but they were too much led away by the insoluble problem of the exterior defence. the covering, always the covering, was that which constantly occupied the attention of these poor beings. as to that one point, they produced masterpieces; the thorny ball of the oursin, the shell at once open and closed of the haliotide, and, finally, the armors of jointed pieces of the crustaceæ, are the very perfection of armor at once defensive and terribly offensive. what more could be required? it would seem, _nothing_. _nothing?_ say, rather, everything. let us have a creature who shall trust entirely to motion, a creature of freedom and audacity, that shall look down upon all these creatures as infirm, or miserably slow; a creature that shall consider the envelope as a merely secondary matter, and concentrate his whole strength within himself. the crustaceæ shroud themselves, as it were, in an exterior skeleton. the fish has his skeleton within, to which nerves, muscles, and all organs are attached. this seems a fanciful invention, and one quite contrary to good sense; to place the hard and the solid beneath the thick covering of the soft! to place the bone, so useful without, precisely where it seems it must be so useless! the crustaceæ must needs have laughed in derision when they first saw the short, thick, soft fish of the indian ocean, for instance, without defensive armor, having no strength save inwardly, protected only by its oily fluidity, by the exuberant mucus that surrounds it, and which by degrees consolidates into elastic scales, a slight cuirass, which ever yielding, never yields entirely. it was a revolution comparable to that of gustavus adolphus, when he relieved his soldiery of their heavy iron armor, and covered their breasts only with the at once stout and yielding buff leather. a late revolution, but a wise one. our fish, being no longer confined like the crab or lobster, imprisoned in armor, is at the same time relieved from the cruel condition inseparable from that armor, the _moulting_, with its attendant danger, weakness, struggle, and enormously wasteful expenditure of strength. like the superior animals and man, he moults slowly. he economises and hoards up strength, and creates for himself the treasure of a powerful nervous system, with numerous telegraphic threads that connect spine and brain. even when the bone is soft or absent, and the fish preserves its embryonic appearance, he has nevertheless his great harmony in that abundant provision of nervous threads. we do not find in the fish the elegant weakness of the reptile and the insect, so slender that in those parts one can cut through them as through a thread; his segments are within, and well protected. he uses them for contractile power, but does not, as the less perfect reptile and insect do, expose them to external injury. like the crustaceæ, the fish prefers strength to beauty, and for this end has no neck; head and trunk form one mass. admirable principle of strength, which enables him, in cleaving through so yielding an element as water, to strike, at will, with a thousand fold more force than is necessary, and then his motion is as the flight of an arrow or the flash of lightning! the interior bone, single in the seiche, is in the fish at once one and multiple; one for force of unity, multiple for elasticity, enabling the muscles alternately to contract and expand, and thus create swift motion. marvellous, really marvellous is that formation of the fish, so solid without and contractile within, that inward keel to which are attached the motor muscles which work with an alternating shock. exteriorly, he exposes only his auxiliary oars, short fins which are but little in danger, being strong, slippery, and sharp to wound, or to scrape. how superior in all this is the fish, to the poulpe and the medusa, which present to all comers soft flesh, a tempting morsel for the crustaceæ or the porpoise. this true son of the water, gliding and mobile as his mother, glides by means of his mucus, cleaves with his head, impelled by his contractile muscles, and finally, with his strong fins rows and steers. the least of these powers would suffice, but he unites them all; a perfect model and absolute type of swift motion. even the bird is less mobile, seeing that he has to perch. he is fixed for the night, but the fish, never; even asleep, he still floats. so extremely mobile, he at the same time is in the highest degree strong and lively. wherever there is water, there is the fish: he is the universal creature of the globe. in the loftiest lakes of asia and of the cordilleras, where the atmosphere is so rarefied that no other creature can endure it, the fish lives and thrives. it is the red fish of the gudgeon species, which thus looks down upon all the earth. in like manner, in the great depths, beneath the most enormous weights, live the herring and the cod. forbes, who divides them into ten superposed beds or stages, finds them all inhabited, and in the lowest of all, supposed to be so dark, he finds a fish provided with eyes so admirable that he finds sufficient light in that which seems to us the uttermost darkness of night. there is yet another privilege of the fish. many species, as salmon, shad, eels, sturgeon, &c., can live equally in fresh water or sea water, and regularly migrate from one to the other. many families of fish include both sea fish and fresh water fish, as for instance, the thornback. nevertheless, peculiar degrees of heat, peculiar food, and peculiar habits, seem to confine them within certain limits in the seas, free as that element is. the warm seas are as a confining wall beyond which the polar species cannot pass; and on the other hand, the fish of the warm seas are stopped by the cold currents at the cape of good hope. we know of only two or three species that can be properly called cosmopolitan. few of them frequent the open sea; most of them hug the shore, and have favorite shores to frequent. those of the united states are not those of europe. then, too, fish have peculiarities of taste which attach them to certain localities, though they do not actually confine them there. the thornback grovels in the mud, soles in sandy bottoms, the bullhead loves the high bottoms, and the sea eel the rocks. the scorpene, or flying fish, swims and flies by turns; when pursued by fish, she darts from the water, and for some distance sustains herself in the air; and when pursued by birds she drops back into the water. the popular phrase, "as happy as a fish in water," is founded on a truth. in fine weather he floats at his ease, enabled as he is to rise or sink at pleasure, to make himself a balloon more or less filled with air, and therefore lighter or heavier. he moves in peace, rocked and caressed by the wave, and, if he so chooses, even sleeps as he floats. he is at once surrounded and isolated by the unctuous substance which renders his skin and his scales slippery and impenetrable by the water. his temperature varies but little and is neither too hot nor too cold. what a difference between a life so convenient, and that which is allotted to us dwellers upon the land; where at every step we meet with asperities and obstacles, which fatigue and exhaust us as we toil up or down our hills and mountains! the atmosphere varies, and often most cruelly, with our various seasons. for days and nights together, the cold rains pour pitilessly down, penetrating us; at times frozen, and piercing us with its sharp crystal points. the felicity and fullness of life of the fish is shown at the tropics by the splendor of his colors, and at the north by the swiftness of his motion. in oceania and the indian sea they rove and sport in the oddest forms and colors, taking their pleasure among the corals, and living flowers. our fish, of the temperate and cold seas, are potent rowers; thorough sailors. their slender and elongated figures give them an arrowy swiftness and grace of movement, which might serve as ensample to our ship builders. some of them have as many as ten fins which serve them, at will, as sails or oars, and may be kept wide spread or close-reefed. their tail, that marvellous rudder, is also the principal oar. the best swimmers have it forked, the entire spine ends there and which contracting its muscles gives the fish his swift motion. the thornback has two immense fins, two great wings to cleave the waves. his long, supple, and slender tail is a weapon with which to lash and divide the waters. so slender and displacing so little water, this fish has no need of the air bladder which supports the thicker fish. thus each has the peculiar provisions that fit it for its peculiar locality and surroundings. the sole is oval and flat that it may glide in the sand, the eel long and slender that it may glide through the mud, and the lophies, that they may cling to the rocks, have hand like fins that remind one rather of frogs than fish. sight is the great sense of the bird; scent is that of the fish. the hawk, from above the clouds, pierces, with his glance, the deep space and marks the scarcely visible prey below; in like manner the shark, from the depths of the water, scents his tempting prey, and darts upward upon it. those that, like the sturgeon, rummage the mud for food have exquisite touch. in the watery world half darkened, and having only uncertain and delusive lights, scent, and, in some cases, touch, must be relied on. the shark, the thornback and the cod, with his great eyes, see badly, but have an exquisite sense of scent. the thornback has that sense in such excess that he is provided with a veil for the express purpose of deadening it at will, when it probably affects his brain unpleasantly. to this powerful means of chasing their prey, we must add admirable teeth, sometimes like those of a saw. some species have several rows of them, lining the mouth, the palate, the throat, and even the tongue. these teeth being so fine are, therefore, fragile; and behind, therefore, are others ready to replace them if they break. at the commencement of this second book, we said that it was necessary that the sea should produce these terrible and mighty destroyers to combat her own too great fecundity. death by persevering excision and bleedings relieved her of a plethora which, otherwise, would have destroyed her. against that alarming torrent of production which we have instanced in the case of the herring and the cod, those frightful multiplying machines which would have choked up the ocean and desolated the earth, she defends herself by the machine of death, the armed swimmer, the fierce and voracious fish. great, splendid, impressive spectacle! the universal combat between death and life, which we witness upon the land, fades into insignificance when we compare it to that which is going on in the depths of the sea. there, its surpassing grandeur, at first, almost alarms us, but when we examine more closely we see that all is harmonious and in marvellous equilibrium. that fury is necessary; that dazzlingly rapid exchange of substance, that prodigality of slaughter, are safety. nothing of sadness, but a wild fierce joy seems to reign in all this. in this opposition in the sea of two forces, that seem so inevitably destructive of each other, the sea finds her marvellous health, her incomparable purity, and a beauty at once sublime and terrible. she triumphs alike in the living and in the dead, giving to them and receiving from them the electricity, the light which beams, flashes, sparkles everywhere, even in the long, dark, polar night. what is melancholy in the sea is not her carelessness to multiply death, but her impotence to reconcile progress with the excess of movement. she is a hundred times, a thousand times richer, and more rapidly fecund than the earth. she even builds up for earth. the increase of the land, as we have seen in the case of the corals, is given by the sea; the sea is no other than the parturient and laboring womb of the globe. her sole obstacle is in the rapidity of her births; her inferiority appears in the difficulty, which, so rich in generation, she finds in organizing love. it is melancholy to reflect that the myriads upon myriads of the inhabitants of the sea have only a vague, elementary, and imperfect, love. those vast tribes that, each in its turn, ascend and go in pilgrimage towards pleasure and light, give in floods the best of themselves, their very life, to blind and unknown chance. they love, and they will never know the beloved creature in which their dream, their desire, was incarnated; they produce multitudes, but never know their posterity. a few, a very few of the most active, warlike, and cruel species love after our human manner. those terrific monsters, the shark and his female, are obliged to approach each other. nature has imposed upon them the peril of embracing. a terrible and suspicious embrace. habitually they devour, eagerly and blindly, everything that comes in their path--animals, wood, stone, iron--anything, but in their fierce love, they restrain their hunger. they approach each other with their sawlike and fatal teeth, and the female intrepidly allows the male to seize her with his, and thus fastened together, they sometimes roll furiously about for weeks, unwilling to separate, even though famishing, and invincible in their fierce embrace, even by the fiercer tempest. it is affirmed that even after they have separated, they lovingly pursue each other, the faithful male following his mate till the birth of his heir presumptive, the sole fruit of that marriage, and never, never devours him, but follows and watches over him. in fact, in case of peril to the sharkling, the excellent farther takes him into his vast throat, but to shelter, not digest him. if the life of the sea has a dream, a wish, a confused desire, it is that of fixity. the violent and tyrannical embrace of the shark, the fury of his union with the female give us an idea of a perfectly desperate love. who knows if in other species, gentler and better fitted for families, who knows if this impotence of union, this eternal fluctuation of an objectless voyage, is not a cause of sadness? these children of the sea become owners of the land. many of them ascend the rivers amorous with the fresh water, which they find so poor and possessed of so little nutriment, that they may deposit there, far from the raging waves, the hope of their posterity. at the very least they approach the shore in search of some sinuous and land locked creek. at this time they even become industrious, and with sand, mud, and grass endeavor to make little nests. a touching effort! they have none of the implements of the insect, that marvel of animal industry. they are far more destitute than the bird. by sheer dint of perseverance, without hands, or claws, or beak, and solely with their poor bodies, they yet pass and repass over it till they have pressed it into a sufficient cohesion, as coste informs us in his description of the sticklebacks. and what obstacles still await them! the female, blind and greedy, threatens the eggs, the male will not quit them, but guards and protects them, more motherly than the mother herself. this instinct is found in several species, especially in the humblest, the gobies, a small fish, unfit for food, held in such contempt that if, by chance, caught, it is thrown back again to the water. well, this lowest of the low is a tender father. weak, small, destitute as he is, he, nevertheless, is the ingenious architect and laborious workman of the nest, and constructs it unaided, save by his tenderness and his strong will. it moves one to pitying reverie, to perceive that such an effort of the heart is arrested at the first effort of art, and by the fatality of the world, in which its nature detains it. we feel that that world of waters is not all sufficient for itself. great mother that hath commenced life, thou canst not perfect it; allow thy daughter, the earth, to continue the work. you see it, even in your bosom; your children think of earth and long for its fixity; they approach her, offer her their homage. it is for thee still to commence the series of new beings, by an unexpected prodigy, a grandiose rough draft of the warm amorous life, of blood, of milk, of tenderness which will have its development in the terrestrial races. chapter xii. the whale. "the fisherman belated at night in the north sea," says milton, "saw an isle, a shoal, which, like the back of an enormous mountain, lay upon the water, and in that isle or shoal he fastened his anchor. the isle fled and carried him away. that isle was leviathan." an error only too natural. d'urmont durville was similarly though not so fatally deceived. he saw at a distance what seemed a bank with breakers and eddies all around it, and certain patches upon it looked like rocks. above and around this seeming bank the swallow and the stormy petrel raced and sported. the bank looked venerably grey, covered as it was with shells and madrepores. but the mighty mass suddenly moved, and two enormous columns of water which it threw high into the air, revealed the awakened whale. the inhabitant of another planet who should descend towards ours in a balloon and survey it from a vast height would say to himself, "the only creatures that i can discover there are from one hundred to two hundred feet long, their arms are only twenty feet long, but their superb tail, thirty feet, magnificently beats the sea, and enables them to advance with a speed and a majestic ease which make it very evident that they are the sovereigns of that planet." and by and bye he would add: "it is a great pity that the solid part of that globe should be deserted, or at best peopled only by creatures so small that they are invisible. the sea alone is inhabited and by a kind and gentle race. here the family is held in honor, the mother nurses and suckles her young ones with tenderness, and although her arms are very short she contrives during the raging of the tempest to protect her little one by pressing it to her vast body." whales are given to companionship. formerly they were seen sailing along not only in pairs, but occasionally in large families of ten or twelve in the solitary seas. nothing exceeded the grandeur of those vast and living fleets, sometimes lighted up by their own phosphorescence, and throwing to the height of thirty or forty feet in the polar seas columns of water which smoked as it rose. they would approach a vessel, peaceably and in evident curiosity; looking upon her as some specimen of a new and strange species of fish; and they sported around and welcomed the visitor. in their joy they raised themselves half upright and then fell down again with a huge noise, making a boiling gulf as they sank. their innocent familiarity went so far that they sometimes touched the ship or her boats. an imprudent confidence which was most cruelly deceived! in less than a century, the great species of the whale have almost disappeared. their manners and their organization are those of our herbivora. like our ruminating animals they have a succession of stomachs where their nourishment is elaborated; they need no teeth and have none. they easily graze the living prairies of the sea, i mean the gigantic, soft, and gelatinous, fucus, the beds of infusoriæ, the banks of the imperceptible atoms. for such aliments the chase is not necessary. having no occasion for war, they have no necessity for the sawlike teeth or the frightful jaws of the shark and other destructive creatures. boitard tells us that they never pursue. their food is borne to them on every wave. innocent and peaceable, they engulf a world of scarcely organized creatures which die ere they lived, and pass unconsciously into the crucible of universal change. not the slightest connection between this gentle race of mammiferæ, which, like our own, have milk and red blood, and the monsters of an earlier age,--horrible abortions of the primitive mud! the whale, of far more recent origin, found a purified water, a free sea, and a peaceful globe. he had finished, the globe had, his old discordant dream of lizard-fishes, and flying dragons, the frightful reign of the reptile; he had got out of the sinister fogs and mists into the lovely dawn of harmonious conceptions. our carnivorous creatures were not yet in existence. there was a brief time (a hundred thousand years, perhaps,) of great gentleness and innocence, when the opossum and other pouched animals were on the earth; excellent creatures, that tenderly loved their families, that carried their young, and, in case of the fatigue or danger of those little creatures, sheltered them in their pouches. in the sea appeared vast and gentle giants. the milk of the sea, its superabundant oil, its warm animalized mucus, saturated with a marvellous power tending to life, swelling at length into those gigantic creatures, those spoilt children of nature which she endowed with an incomparable strength, and with the yet greater gift of the beautiful and warm red blood, which now for the first time appeared. that is the true flower of the world. all the pale and cold blooded creation is languid and seemingly heartless, when compared with the generous and exulting life which boils with anger or love in the rich purple. the strength of the superior creation, its charm, its beauty, reside in that blood. with it commenced a new youth in nature, a flame of desire, of love, and the love of family and race; to be completed and crowned in man by divine pity. but with this magnificent gift of red blood, the nervous sensibility was enormously increased; the being became more vulnerable, more sensitive alike to pleasure and to pain. the whale having scarcely any sense of scent or hearing, every thing in his organization is favorable to the sense of touch. the thick blubber which so well protects him from the cold, does not at all guard him against hurts. his finely organized skin of six tissues shudders and vibrates in them all at every blow, and their papillæ are most delicate instruments of touch. and all this is animated and made vivid by rich, red blood, which, even allowing for difference of bulk, is infinitely more abundant than that of the terrestrial mammiferæ. the whale, when wounded, ensanguines the ocean to a great distance; the blood that we have in drops, is lavished upon him in torrents. the female is pregnant nine months. her milk is sweetish and warm, like that of the human female. but as she has always to breast the wave, her front mammæ, if placed on the chest, would be exposed to all shocks; they are, therefore, placed a little lower on the belly. here the young one is sheltered and safe from the shock of the wave, which is already broken, ere it reaches him. the form, inherent to such a life, contracts the mother, at the waist and deprives her of that adorable grace of woman, that beauty of settled and harmonious life, where all is tenderness. but the whale, the great woman of the sea, however tender she may be, is forced to conform, in every thing, to her continual battle with the waves. for the rest, beneath that strange uncouth disguise, the organization, and the sensitiveness, are the same; fish above, the whale is woman beneath. she is infinitely timid, too; the mere flight of a bird will sometimes terrify her so much that she dives so violently as to hurt herself by striking the bottom. love with the whale being subject to difficult condition requires a profoundly peaceful place. like a noble elephant, who fears profane eyes, the whales love only the desert. their meeting place for pairing is towards the poles, in the solitary bays of greenland, among the fogs of behring, and, also, no doubt, in the warm sea which is known to exist close to the pole itself. a solitude they must have to mate in, be it arctic or antarctic. will that warm sea be found again? it is only to be reached by traversing the horrid defiles which open, close, and change, with every succeeding year, as though to prevent the return. the whale, it is believed, pass under the ice from one sea to the other; a bold and perilous journey by that dark road. compelled to rise to breathe every quarter of an hour, though they have reserves of air which will last them a little longer, they are much endangered as they pass through that enormous crust with only here and there a breathing hole. if one of these cannot be reached in due time, the ice is so thick and solid every where else, that no strength of the whale could break through it; and he would be as helplessly drowned as leander in the hellespont. but the whales know nothing about the fate of leander; so they boldly venture, and for the most part pass safely. the solitude is great, it is a strange scene of death and silence for this festival of ardent and passionate life. a white bear, a seal, or, perhaps, a blue fox, respectful and prudent, looks on from a distance. fantastically brilliant chandeliers and mirrors are not wanting. bluish crystals, huge and dazzling peaks of ice, and masses of virgin snow, are all around. what renders this elephantine hymen the more interesting, is, that it is one of express consent. they have not the tyrannous weapons of the shark by which he subdues his female, for on the contrary their slippery skins separate them. in their struggle to overcome this desperate obstacle to their happiness, one might suppose them to be fighting. the whale-men assert that they have seen this strange spectacle. the couples in their burning transports rear themselves upright like two vast towers, and endeavor to embrace with their short arms. they fall down again with an immense crash; and bear and man alike retreat, astounded by the deafening sobs of the vast creatures. the solution is unknown; those explanations, which have been given, are simply absurd. what is certain is, that, whether in the act of love or of suckling, or of defence, the unfortunate whale suffers under the double oppression of its weight and its difficulty of breathing. she can only breathe with her head above water; if she remain below she will be choked. is the whale, therefore, a terrestrial animal? not so. if by chance she be stranded on the coast, the enormous weight of her flesh and blubber overwhelms her respiring organs and she is strangled. placed wholly in the only element in which she can respire, she is asphyxiated just as surely as if kept beyond a certain space of time wholly beneath the water. let us speak plainly. this vast mammiferous giant is an incomplete creature, the first poetic offspring of creative power, which first contemplates the sublime and then reverts to the possible and the durable. the admirable animal was well provided as to size, strength, warm blood, sweet milk, and good disposition. it needed nothing but the means of living. it was made without respect to the general proportions of this globe, without respect to the imperative law of weight. in spite of his enormous bones, beneath, his gigantic sides were not strong enough to keep his chest sufficiently expanded and free. escaping from his enemy, the water, he found another enemy in the land, and his mighty lungs were overwhelmed, and collapsed. his magnificent blowing apertures throwing up columns of water thirty feet into the air, are, in themselves, proofs of an organization infantine and rude. in throwing up that column towards the sky the _panting blower_ seems to say, "oh, nature, why hast thou made me a serf?" the life of this creature was a problem, and it seemed that this splendid but imperfect first draft of the vast and the warm-blooded could not endure. their furtive and difficult love, their suckling amidst the roar and the rush of the tempest, in the hard choice between shipwreck and strangling; the two great acts of their life rendered almost impossible, and performed only by mightiest effort and most heroic will;--what conditions of existence are these! the mother has never more than one little one, and that is much for her to achieve. both she and it have three great annoyances, the difficulty of breasting the waves, the suckling, and the fatal necessity of rising to the surface to breathe. the education of the young one is a real combat. tempest-tossed and sorely beaten by the waves, the young one sucks, as it were, by stealth, when the mother can throw herself on her side. here the mother is admirable. she knows that the young one in endeavoring to draw the teat will be forced to leave its hold; and, therefore, seizing the favorable moment, she, as from a piston, discharges a tun of milk into the gaping and craving mouth. the male seldom quits the female. their embarrassment is great when the eager and cruel fishers attack them in the person of their young one. the whale-men harpoon the young one, well knowing that the parents will follow it. and, in fact, they do make almost incredible efforts to save it and carry it off; they rise to the surface and expose themselves to the utmost danger. even when it is dead, they still defend it; though so well able to dive and save themselves, they remain upon the water in full peril to follow the floating body of their little one. shipwrecks are common among them, for two reasons. in the first place they cannot, like the fishes, remain during tempestuous weather in the lower and peaceable depths; and in the next place, whatever the danger, they will not separate; the strong nobly share the fate of the weak; the whole family drowns together. in december, 1723, at the mouth of the elbe, eight females perished, and near their carcasses were their eight males; and a similar scene was witnessed in 1784, at andierne in brittany. in the latter instance, fish and frightened porpoises were driven on shore by the tempest, and strange and terrible bellowings were heard from a great family of whales, tempest-driven, and struggling for life. there, again, the males perished with the females. many of the latter were with young and defenceless against the pitiless waves; they were cast upon the shore to die. two of them, in this situation, brought forth their young with piercing shrieks, and groans most harrowingly human. chapter xiii. the syrens. behold me once more on shore. i had enough, and to spare, of shipwreck. i want durable races. the cetaceæ must disappear. let us moderate our conceptions, and, of that gigantic faëry of the first-born mammalia, of milk and warm blood, let us preserve all except the giant. above all, let us preserve the gentleness, the love, and the love of family. let us preserve them completely in those humbler but kindly races into which both elements infuse their spirits. the benedictions of the earth already begin to be felt. on quitting the life of the fish, many things impossible to it, easily become harmonized. thus the whale, tender mother if ever there was one, could grasp her nursling, but could not press it to her breast, the arms being too high and short, and the breast, as we have already shown, being, perforce, placed far back. in the new creatures, which swim, but which also creep upon the land, such as seals, sea cows, &c., the breast, lest it should be hurt by the ground, is placed upon the chest, thus foreshadowing woman, and giving to the form and attitude, a grace most illusive at a distance. in reality, even closely examined, if it has less of charming whiteness, the breast of the new creatures is a true feminine breast; that globe which, swelling with love, and with the sweet necessity of giving suck, exhibits, in its gentle heavings, all the sighs of the heart beneath, and invites the child to nourishment and soft repose. all this is denied to the mother that swims and floats, but is enjoyed by her who rests. the fixity of the family, the constant tenderness, let us at once say, society, all these commence from the moment that the child reposes on the maternal breast. but how is organization to pass from creatures of the sea to creatures of both sea and land? let us try to divine that transition. at the outset, the parentage of the amphibious race is evident. many, amphibious still, to their great inconvenience, have the heavy tail of the whale. and this latter, in one species, at least, conceals in its tail the rude outlines and distinct commencements of the two hind feet of the highest of the amphibious creatures. in the seas studded with islands, continually interposing land, the cetaceæ, so frequently interrupted in their passage, had to modify their habits accordingly. their less rapid motion, and confined life, diminished their bulk, and from the whale they were reduced to the sea elephant, and reserving the memory of the superb which had armed certain of the cetaceæ, in their grand sea life, the sea elephant still has strong, but very harmless fore teeth. even its masticating teeth are not precisely either herbivorous or carnivorous. they are but ill adapted to either diet, and must needs operate but slowly. two things tended to lighten the whale; his mass of blubber, that vast mass of concentrated oil, which floated him on the water, and that powerful tail whose alternate strokes to right and left, urged him onward. but all this was unfitted for the amphibious creature, grovelling in shallow waters, or crawling on the rocks. the fish, so agile, scorns a creature that cannot catch him, and he consequently gets little other prey than the molluscs, as slow as himself. by degrees, he learns to eat the abundant and gelatinous sea wrack, which nourishes, and fattens, but without giving the strength of animal food. such a one we may see in the red sea, the malay isles, and those of australia. crawling or sitting, that rare collossus, the dugong, displays its chests and breasts. he is sometimes called the dagon of the tabernacles, an inert idol, which in spite of its imposing aspect, cannot defend itself, and which will soon disappear, and enter into that region of fable which already contains so many realities, at which we as stupidly, as presumptuously, laugh. what has caused this great change, created the terrestrial dugong, and his brother the walrus? the plentiful alimentation of the generous and fertile earth, truly pacific before the coming of man, and doubtless, also, love, so difficult to the whale, so easy in the quiet and settled life of the amphibious. love, to these latter, is no longer a thing of flight and danger; the female is no longer the shy giant that must be followed to the end of the world, but is content, on her bed of sea-weed, to obey the will of her master, whose life she makes pleasant. few mysteries here. the amphibious live frankly and honestly in the face of day. the females being very numerous, voluntarily form a seraglio. from wild, fierce poetry, we descend to patriarchal manners and pleasures too facile. the male, good patriarch, notable for his large head, his moustaches, and his great front teeth, sits proudly between his sarah and agar, rebecca and leah, and his little flock of young ones, to all of which he is most kind. in his quiet life, the great strength of this sanguineous creature, turns wholly to family tenderness; he embraces all his family, and is willing to die, if need be, in their defence. but, alas! his strength and his fury serve him but feebly for even his own defence: his enormous mass delivers him over to the enemy. he bellows, and crawls, and is willing to combat, but unable--gigantic failure as he is; an abortion belonging to neither world, a poor disarmed caliban. weight, so fatal to the whale, is still more so to these. let us, then, still farther reduce the bulk, make, the spine more supple, and above all, either do away with that tail, or rather, let us fork it into two fleshy appendages, which will be much more useful. this new being, the seal, lighter, a good fisher, getting his subsistence in the sea, but living on the land, will employ his life in endeavoring to return to it, to climb the rock to which his females and their offspring await his return from fishing. having no tusks, like those with which the walrus assists himself in climbing, he presses into the service his front and back members, clings to the sea-weed, distending his members continually, until they form into fingers. what is finest in the seal, what strikes you the moment you catch sight of his round head, is the great capaciousness of brain. boitard assures us that, with the exception of man, no creature has so fine a cerebral development as the seal. we are strongly impressed by the aspect of the seal, far more so than by that of the ape tribe, whose grimaces never fail to revolt us. i shall never forget the seals in the zoological garden at amsterdam, admirable museum, so rich, so beautiful, so well organized, decidedly one of the finest establishments in the world. i was there on the twelfth of last july, just after a great rain fall. the atmosphere was heavy and sultry, and two seals sought shelter and coolness, swimming and playing in their pond. when they rested they looked up at me with their velvety eyes, and there was a mixed intelligence and melancholy in their fixed gaze. there was no language which we could mutually understand. pity that, between soul and soul, there should be that eternal barrier! the earth is the world of their greatest affection. there they are born, there they love; thither, when wounded, they retire to die. thither they take their pregnant females, form for them their beds of sea-weed, and provide them with fish. they are very affectionate, good neighbors, mutually defending each other; only at their season of amours they are a little apt to fight. each male has two or three females that he finds a home for on some mossy rock of sufficient extent. that is his estate, and he suffers no intrusion upon it. he knows how to maintain his right of proprietorship. the females are gentle and defenceless. if ill treated, they weep, are agitated and cast despairing glances upon the assailant. they are parturient during nine months, and nurse their young during five or six months, teaching them to swim, fish, and select the best food. no doubt they would keep them still longer, but the husband is jealous of his own progeny, fearing that the too weak mother will give him a rival. no doubt this brevity of education has limited the progress which the seal would otherwise have made. maternity is only complete when we come to the sea cow, an excellent family in which the parents have not the sad courage to drive away their young. the mothers nurse them for a long time; even while suckling a second, the mother still keeps by her the eldest, which, though it be a male, the father never ill treats, but seems to regard him with a love only second to that of the mother. this extreme tenderness, peculiar to that species, is exemplified in the physical progress made in the organization. in the seal, a great swimmer, and in the heavy and clumsy sea elephant the arms still continue to be fins; closely attached to the body are incapable of extension. but at length the sea cow, the _sea mama_ as the negroes call her, accomplishes the miracle. all extend and becomes pliant by a continuous effort. nature exerts all her ingenuity upon the fixed idea of holding, pressing, caressing the young. the ligaments yield and extend, the fore arm appears and by and by appears the hand. and then the mother has the great, the supreme pleasure to press her young one to her breast. here, then, are two things which may enable these amphibious creatures to make great progress. already they have the hand, that organ of industry, that essential instrument of future toil. it must be supplied, must aid the work of the teeth as with the beaver, and the ant, will commence, at the outset, with building a home for the family. on the other hand, education, also, has become possible. the young one rests on the maternal bosom and, slowly drinking in her life, remains there a long time, and to an age when he can learn every thing,--all this depends on the kindness of the father who protects the innocent rival. and it is that which allows of progress. and, if we might give credence to certain traditions, progress did marvellously continue. the developed amphibious creatures, according to those traditions, approached nearer and nearer to the human form and became tritons and syrens, men and women of the sea. only, in contradiction to the fables of the melodious syrens, these are dumb in their utter impotency to find a language in which to address themselves to man and obtain his pity. these races will have perished, as has the unfortunate beaver which cannot speak, but weeps. it has been very lightly affirmed that these men and women of the sea were seals. but how is it possible that such a mistake could be made? every species of the seal has been known from very early times; even as early as the seventh century the seal was hunted, not only for his skin, but also for his flesh, which was then eaten. the men and women of the sea which are spoken of in the writings of the sixteenth century, were seen, not merely for an instant, and on the water, but brought to land, shown, and kept in the great cities of antwerp and amsterdam in the time of charles v. and philip ii., and, therefore, under the very eyes of vesale and other learned men and eminent naturalists. mention is made of a marine woman who, for several years, wore the dress of a nun and lived in a convent where any one might see her. she could not speak, but worked, and could spin, knit, and sew. only one peculiarity, they could not cure her of,--her great love of the water, and her incessant efforts to return to it. but it will be asked--"if these creatures really existed, how is it that we do not see them now?" alas! we need not seek far for the reply. they were so generally killed! it was considered a sin to let them live, "for they were _monsters_." this we are expressly told by the old writers. whatever had not the known form of animality, and, especially, whatever approached to the form of man passed for a _monster_, and was pitilessly dispatched. even the human mother of a greatly deformed child, could not protect it; the poor creature was smothered, as being a child of the devil, an invention of his malice to outrage the creation and calumniate the deity. on the other hand, those syrens, too analogous to humanity, were all the more taken and detested for a diabolic mockery. in such horror and hate were they held in the eyes of the middle ages that their appearance was considered a prodigy, an omen that god permitted to terrify sinners. people scarcely dared to name them, and made haste to get rid of them. even the bold sixteenth century still believed them to be men and women in shape, but devils in reality, and not even to be touched, excepting with the harpoon. they had become very rare when miscreants made a profit of keeping and exhibiting them. but do there now exist any remains, any whole, or even partial, skeletons of these creatures? we shall know that, when the museums of europe shall throw open to our view the whole of their immense collections. i am aware that room is wanting for that; and it is always likely to be wanting, if we need a palace. but the most simple building, if it only be sufficiently spacious and weather tight, would serve to hold such collections, and needs not to be at all costly. hitherto, we have only seen mere specimens and selections. let us add that stuffed amphibious creatures, to give us a real idea of them, should be so placed as to exhibit _these monsters_ in the attitudes of their actual life. let the maternal seal, or the sea cow, be seen on its rock, as a syren, in the first use of her hand and pressing her little one to her breast. is this to affirm that these creatures might have ascended to us? or that we have descended from them? mallet supposed so, but i cannot see the least probability in either. the sea, no doubt, commenced everything. but it is not from the highest marine animals, that has proceeded the long parallel series of terrestrials that is culminated and crowned in man. they were already too fixed, too special, to form the first rude sketch of a nature so different. they had carried far, almost exhausted, the fecundity of their species. in that case the elders perish; and it is very low down in the obscure juniors of some parent class that the new series commences that is to ascend so much higher. [see notes at the end of the volume.] man was not their son, but their brother--a terribly tyrannical brother. see him at length arrive, the active, the ingenious, the cruel monarch of the world! my book grows brighter, clearer. but what does it now proceed to exhibit? alas! what sad things must i now draw into that broad, bright light! this creature, this tyrannical sovereign, can create a second nature within nature. but what has he done with the first, with his mother, and his nurse? with the very teeth that she has given him, he has cruelly gnawed her bosom! how many animals that lived peaceably, were becoming civilized, began even to practise some of the arts, are now hunted and terrified into the condition of mere brutes? the ape-kings of ceylon, whose sagacity was so well known in india, and that brahmin of the creation, the elephant, have been chased, subdued into the state of mere beasts of burthen. the freest of beings, that formerly sported so joyously and harmlessly in the sea, those affectionate seals, those gentle whales, the pacific pride of the ocean, have fled to the polar seas, the terrible world of ice. but they cannot all support, for long, so hard a life; in a brief time they will all have disappeared. an unfortunate race, the polish peasants, have learned to understand the intelligence of the dumb exile which has taken refuge in the lakes of lithuania. the poles say--"woe to him who makes the beaver weep." that artist-animal has become a timid beast, which knows nothing and can do nothing. the few that still survive in america, still retire farther and farther from the vicinage of man. a traveller lately found one, far, very far off, beyond the great lakes. it was timidly resuming its traditional labors, and had commenced building a house for its family. when it saw a man, it dropped the wood on which it was working; it did not even dare to escape, but burst into tears. book third. conquest of the sea. chapter i. the harpoon. "the sailor who sights greenland," says captain john ross, with a grave simplicity, "finds nothing to delight him with the sight." i can very well believe it. in the first place, it is an iron-bound coast of most pitiless aspect, whose dark granite does not even preserve a vestment of snow. everywhere else, ice; not a trace of vegetation. that desolate land which hides the pole from us, seems a veritable land of famine and of death. during the brief time when the water remains unfrozen, one might contrive to live there; but the place is frozen up for nine months in the year, and during all that time, what is to be done? and what can one get to eat? one can scarcely even search for food. the night lasts for months together, and at times the darkness is so dense that kane, surrounded by his dogs, could only discover them by the humid warmth of their breath. in that long, long, darkness, on that sterile land, clothed in impenetrable ice, there wander, however, two hermits, who persist in living in that land of horror. one of these is the fishing bear, a bold and eager prowler, in rich fur, and in so thick an under vestment of fat, that he can for a long time defy both cold and hunger. the other, a grotesque creature, looks, when seen from a distance, like a fish reared upwards, standing on the tip of its tail; a fish clumsily and awkwardly built, and having long hanging fins. but this seeming fish is a man. each scents the other, the brute and the man; both are fierce with hunger, yet the bear sometimes declines the combat, and retreats before the fiercer, and still more famished, man. a famishing man is very terrible in his cruel courage. with no other weapon than a sharpened bone, our greenlander pursues the enormous bear. but he would have long since perished of famine, had he no other food than his terrible compatriot. he saved himself from death only by a crime. the earth affording nothing, he turned his attention to the sea, and as it was closed by the ice, he found nothing there to kill except his gentle acquaintance the seal. in him he found the oil without which he would be dead of cold, even sooner than of hunger. the day dream of the greenlander is that at his death he will pass to the moon, where he will have wood, fire, the light of the hearth. here below, in greenland, oil supplies the place of all these. he drinks it, in huge draughts, and is at once warmed and nourished. a great contrast between that man and the somnolent, amphibious creatures, that, even in that climate, can live without any very severe suffering! the gentle eye of the seal, sufficiently indicates that. nursling of the sea he is always, in connection with her, and there are always clefts in the ice, at which the excellent swimmer knows how to provide himself with food. heavy and clumsy as we may take him to be, he can adroitly mount on a piece of ice and steer himself in search of a convenient fishing place. the water, thick with molluscs, and fat with animated atoms, richly nourishes the fish, for the use of the seal, who, having well filled himself, returns to his rock, and sleeps too soundly to feel the cold, or to fear anything. the man's life in greenland, is the very contrary of this. he seems to be there in spite of nature, an accursed being, upon whom everything makes pitiless war. looking upon the photographs that we have of the esquimaux, we can read their terrible destiny in the fixity of their gaze, and in the harsh, dark eye; black as midnight. they look as though petrified by perpetually seeing before them the vision of an infinite wretchedness. that gazing upon eternal terror, has hidden beneath a mask of iron the man's strong intelligence, which, however, is rapid and full of the expedients suggested by the endless dangers and sufferings of such a life. what was he to do. his family was famishing, his children cried for bread, and his wife shivered upon the snow. the north wind, pitilessly assailed them all with mingled hail and snow, that horrid pelting which blinds, stupefies, deprives one of sense and voice. the sea was frozen up; so, fish was out of the question. but the seal was there, and how many fish there were in one seal; what an accumulation of the richest oil! the seal was there, defenceless, sleeping. nay, had he even been awake, he would not have tried to escape. he is like the sea cow; you must beat him if you wish to drive him away. take one of their young and it is in vain that you throw him into the sea, he will get out and still follow you, gentle and attached as your favorite dog. this facile, this affectionate, trait in the creature's character, must have terribly troubled the man who first thought of killing such a creature; must have made him hesitate and resist the temptation. but at length cold and famine got the upper hand, and he committed the assassination; from that moment he was rich. the flesh nourished the famishing people, the oil served to warm and cheer them, and the bone and sinews served for many domestic uses, while the skin served to clothe them. and what was still more useful was, that by industriously sowing the skins together they made a vehicle, at once light, and strong, and water proof, which the man called his canoe, and in which he dared to put out to sea. a miserable little vehicle it was; long, slender, and weighing scarcely anything. but it was every where very firmly closed up, except an opening in which the rower seated himself, drawing the skin tightly around his waist. one would suppose that such a craft must upset and be swamped; but nothing of the sort occurs. it darts like an arrow over the crest of the wave, disappears, reappears, now in the eddies, now between the icebergs. man and boat are one; a marine entity; an artificial fish. but how inferior is this artificial fish to the true one! he has not the floating bladder, which enables the fish to make itself lighter or heavier as the occasion may demand. still more, the man has not the vigorous motion, the lively contraction and expansion of the spine to communicate such power to the strokes of the tail, nor has he the oil which, being so much lighter than water, will always ride above the waves. what the man best imitates is the fin, but even that only imperfectly. the man's fins, his oars, are not attached to his body, but, moved by his long arms, are weak compared to the fin, and, moreover, soon fatigue the rower. what is it that makes amends for so much of inferiority in the means of the man? his terrible energy, his vivid reason which, from beneath that fixed and melancholy countenance, flashes out from time to time, invents, resolves, and finds an instant remedy for all the deficiences which, in this floating skin, momentarily threaten him with death. frequently our rower is stopped by a mass of ice which peremptorily refuses him a passage. then comes a new expedient, the parts are changed on the instant. hitherto the canoe has carried the man; now the man carries the canoe. he takes it on his shoulder and traverses the icy portage till he comes again to open water, the ice crackling beneath him as he crosses it. occasionally icebergs, floating, and terrible mountains, are so close that they leave between them only a narrow passage which our man passes through at the risk of being in an instant crushed, flattened between them. those icy walls now widen, now contract, the space between them; they may, at any moment, come together with a force that would crush a seventy-four, to say nothing about our poor greenlander in his poor skin canoe. such a fate did, in fact, once occur to a tall ship; she was cut in two, flattened, crushed; by the coming together of two icebergs. these greenlanders tell us that their ancestors were whale fishers. they were less wretched then, more ingenious, and better provided. no doubt they had iron; procured probably from norway or iceland. whales have always been very numerous in the greenland seas. a grand object of desire to those to whom oil is a thing of the very first necessity! the fish give it by drops, the seal in waves--the whale in mountains! he was truly a man, and a bold one, who first, with his poor weapons, with the sea howling at his feet, and the darkness closing around him, dared to pursue the whale! a bold man, he, who trusting to his courage, the strength of his arm and the weight of his harpoon, first believed that he could pierce that mighty mass of blubber and flesh and convert it to his own profit!--the man who first imagined that he could attack the whale and not perish in the tempest that would be raised by the plunges and terrific tail-blows of the astonished and suffering monster! and, as if to crown his audacity, the man next fastened a line to his harpoon, and braving still more closely the frightful shock of the agonized and dying giant, never once feared that that giant might plunge headlong into the deep, taking with him harpoon, line, boat,--and man! there is still another danger, and no less terrible. it is that instead of meeting the common whale, our man should fall in with the cachalot, that terror of the seas. he is not very large, perhaps not more than from sixty to eighty feet. but his head alone measures about a third; from twenty to twenty-five feet. in case of such a meeting, woe to the fisher; he would become the chased instead of the chaser, the victim instead of the tyrant. the cachalot has horrible jaws, and no fewer than forty-eight enormous teeth; he could with ease devour all; both boat and man. and he seems always drunk with blood. his blind rage so terrifies all the other whales that they escape, bellowing, throwing themselves on the shore, or striving to hide themselves in the sand. even when he is dead they still fear him and will not approach his carcass. the fiercest species of the cachalot is the ourque or physetene of the ancients, which is so much dreaded by the icelanders, that when they are on the sea they will not so much as name him lest he should come and attack them. they believe, on the other hand, that a species of whale, the jubarte, loves and protects them, and provokes the monster in order to save them from his fury. many think that the first who undertook so perilous a task as that of whale fishing must have been eccentric hot heads. according to those who think so, that perilous chase could never have originated with the prudent men of the north, but must have been initiated by the basques, those daring hunters and fishers who were so well accustomed to their own capricious sea, the gulf of gascony, where they fished the tunny. here they first saw the huge whales at play and pursued them, frenzied by the hope of such enormous prey, and pursued them still, onward and onward, no matter whither; even to the confines of the pole. here the poor colossus fancied it must needs be safe, for it could not fancy any one would be desperate enough to follow it thither, and so it went tranquilly to sleep. but our basque mad-caps approached it stealthily and silently. tightening his red belt around his waist, the boldest and most active of the basque sailors leaped from the deck right on to the back of the sleeping monster, and, fearlessly or carelessly, drove the harpoon home to the very eye. poor whale! chapter ii. discovery of the three oceans. who opened up to men the great distant navigation? who revealed the ocean, and marked out its zones and its liquid highways? who discovered the secrets of the globe? the whale and the whaler! and all this before columbus and the famous gold seekers, who have monopolized all the glory, found again, with much outcry about their discovery, what had so long before been discovered by the whalers. that crossing of the ocean which was so boastfully celebrated in the fifteenth century, had often been made, not only by the narrow passage between iceland and greenland, but also by the open sea; for the basques went to newfoundland. the smallest danger was the mere voyage, for these men, who went to the very end of the then world, to challenge the whale to single combat. to steer right away into the northern seas, to attack the mighty monster, amid darkness and storms, with the dense fog all around and the foaming waves below, those who could do this, were, believe it well, not the men to shrink from the ordinary dangers of the voyage. noble warfare; great school of courage! that fishery was not then, as it is now, an easy war to wage, made from a distance, and with a potently murderous machine. no; the fisher then struck with his own strong hand, impelled and guided by his own fearless heart; and he risked life to take life. the men of that day killed but few whales, but they gained infinitely in maritime ability, in patience, in sagacity, and in intrepidity. they brought back less of oil; but more, far more, of glory. every nation has its own peculiar genius. we recognize each by its own style of procedure. there are a hundred forms of courage, and these graduated varieties, formed, as it were, another heroic game. at the north, the scandinavian, the ruddy race from norway to flanders, had their sanguine fury. at the south, the wild burst, the gay daring, the clear-headed excitement, that impelled, at once, and guided them over the world. in the center, the silent and patient firmness of the breton, who, yet, in the hour of danger could display a quite sublime eccentricity. and lastly, the norman wariness, considerately courageous; daring all, but daring all for success. such was the beauty of man, in that sovereign manifestation of human courage. we owe a vast deal to the whale. but for it, the fishers would still have hugged the shore; for almost every edible fish, seeks the shore, and the river. it was it that emancipated them, and led them afar. it led them onward, and onward still, until they found it, after having almost unconsciously, passed from one world to the other. greenland did not seduce them, it was not the land that they sought, but the sea, and the tracks of the whale. the ocean at large is its home, and especially the broad and open sea. each species has its especial preference for this or that latitude, for a certain zone of water; more or less cold. and it was that preference which traced out the great divisions of the atlantic. the tribe of inferior whales, that have a dorsal fin, (baleinopteres) are to be found in the warmest, and in the coldest seas; under the line, and in the polar seas. in the great intermediate region, the fierce cachalot inclines towards the south, devastating the warm waters. on the contrary, the free whale fears the warm waters; we should rather say that they did, formerly, fear them;--they have become so scarce! especially affecting, for their food, the molluscs, and other forms of elementary life, they sought them in the temperate waters, a little to the northward. they are never found in the warm, southern current; it was that fact that led to the current being noticed, and thence to the discovery of the _true course from america to europe_. from europe to america, the trade winds will serve us. if the free whale has a perfect horror of the warm waters, and cannot pass the equator, it is clear that he cannot double the southern end of america. how happens it, then, that when he is wounded on one side of america, in the atlantic, he is sometimes found on the other side of america, and in the pacific? _it proves that there is a north-western passage._ another discovery which we owe to the whale, and one which throws a broad light alike on the form of the globe, and the geography of the seas! by degrees, the whale has led us everywhere. rare as he is at present, he has led us to both poles, from the uttermost recesses of the pacific to behring's strait, and the infinite wastes of the antarctic waters. there is even an enormous region that no vessel, whether war ship or merchantman, ever traverses, at a few degrees beyond the southern points of america and africa. no one visits that region but the whalers. had they chosen, the magnates of the earth might much earlier have made the discoveries of the fifteenth century. they should have addressed themselves to the sea rovers, to the basques, to the icelanders, to the norwegians, and to our normans. for very many reasons, they could not venture to do so. the portuguese were unwilling to employ any but men of their own nationality, and formed in their own school. they feared our normans, whom they chased and dispossessed from the coast of africa. on the other hand, the kings of castile always felt suspicious of their subjects, the basques, whose privileges rendered them a kind of republic within a monarchy, and who, moreover, were well known to be both bold and dangerous. it was this feeling which caused these princes to fail, in more than one enterprise. we need mention only one of them, the miserably ruined armada, so proudly and absurdly called the _invincible_. philip ii, who had two veteran basque admirals, gave the command of the armada, to a castilian. the advice of the veterans was neglected, and thence the disaster. a terrible disease broke out in the fifteenth century. the hunger, the thirst, the raging thirst for gold. kings, priests, warriors, people, all cried aloud for gold. there was no longer any means of balancing income and expenditure. false money, cruel persecutions, atrocious wars, all and every thing, were employed, but still the cry was for gold, and the gold was not forthcoming. the alchemists confidently promised that they would soon make it; but it was to be waited for, that gold; still, still, it was not forthcoming. the treasury became furious as a hungry lion, devoured the jews, devoured the moors, and of all that mighty devouring there was not a morsel left between the teeth of the still gold-hungry nations. the peoples were quite as eager as the kings. lean and sucked to the very bone, they begged, they prayed, they implored, for a miracle that would bring down gold from heaven. we all know the story of sinbad the sailor, that capital story in the _arabian nights_. the poor porter, hindbad, bending under a load of wood, stops before the doors of sinbad's palace, to listen to the music, and bitterly complains of the contrast between the lot of the poor porter hindbad, and that of sinbad, the returned, renowned, and magnificently rich sinbad. but when the enriched sailor related all the perils he had undergone, and all the sufferings he had endured, hindbad stood aghast at the tale. the entire effect of the story is to exaggerate the dangers of the great game, the vast lottery of travelling, but also to exaggerate the profits that may be made by it, and to discourage steady and humble industry. the legend, which, in the fifteenth century, influenced so many hearts, and turned so many brains, was a rehash of the fable of the hesperides, an eldorado, a land of gold, which was located in the indies; a terrestrial paradise, still existing here below. the only difficulty consisted in finding that same golden land. they did not care to seek it in the north, which was the reason why so little use was made of the discovery of newfoundland and greenland. in the south, on the contrary, gold dust had already been found in africa. that was encouraging. the learned dreamers of a pedantic century heaped up texts and commentaries, and the discovery, by no means difficult in itself, was rendered so, by dint of lectures, reflections, and utopian dreams. was this land of gold, paradise, or was it not? was it at our antipodes? and, in fact, have we any antipodes? and at this last question all the doctors, all the men of the black robe, stopped the learned quite short, and reminded them that upon that point, the church was quite positive; the heretical doctrine of the antipodes having been formally and expressly condemned. behold a serious difficulty! our learned dreamers were stopped short. but why was it so difficult to discover the already discovered america? the reason seems to be that the discovery was at once hoped for and dreaded. the learned italian bookseller, columbus, felt quite satisfied upon the subject. he had been in iceland to collect traditions, and on the other hand the basques told him all that they knew about newfoundland. a gallician had been cast away there and had lived there. columbus selected for his associates the pinçons, andalusian pilots, who are with much probability supposed to be identical with the pinçons of dieppe. we say that this is very probable because our basques and normans, subjects of castile, were intimately connected. they are the same who, under the name of castilians, were led by the norman bethencourt to the famous expedition of the canaries. our kings conferred privileges on the _castilians_ settled at honfleur and dieppe; and, on the other hand, the men of dieppe had trading establishments at seville. it is not certain that a dieppois found america four years before columbus, but it is about certain that these pinçons of andalusia were norman privateers. neither basques nor normans could obtain authority to act under the commission of castile. it was an able and eloquent italian, a persistent genoese, who seized upon the fitting moment, and used it, and set all scruple aside,--that moment when the ruin of the moors had cost so dear to castile, and when the cry of gold, gold, or we perish, became louder, more piteous, and more unanimous, than ever. that moment was when victorious spain shuddered as she counted the cost, paid and unpaid, of her wars of the crusade and the inquisition. the italian seized upon that lever and used it most unscrupulously; becoming most devout among the devout. more apparently bigoted than the bigots themselves, he pressed the very church into his service. isabella was reminded of the great sin and scandal of leaving whole nations of pagans still in the valley of the shadow of death; and it was particularly pressed upon her observation, that to discover the golden land, was the one thing needful to acquiring the ability to exterminate the turk and to recover jerusalem. it is well known that of three ships the pinçons shipped two, and commanded them, and they led the way. one of them, indeed, mistook his course, but the others, francis pinçon and his younger brother vincent, pilot of the vessel _nina_, signalled to columbus, on the 12th of october, 1492, to steer to the south-west. columbus, who was on a westerly course, would have encountered the gulf stream in its fullest force, and directly thwart hawse, and he would have crossed that liquid wall only with the greatest difficulty. he would have perished, or would have made such little way that his discouraged crew would have mutinied. on the contrary, the pinçons, who probably had collected some traditions on the subject, steered as though they were well acquainted with the current; they did not attempt to cross it in its force, but keeping well to the southward, crossed without difficulty and made the exact spot where the trades blow directly from africa to america in the latitude of haiti. this is proved from the journal of columbus himself, who candidly avows that he was guided by the pinçons. who first saw america? one of pinçon's sailors, if we may put any confidence in the report of the royal enquiry of 1513. from all this it would seem pretty plain that a good share of both the glory and the gain ought to have been awarded to the pinçons. they thought the same, and commenced legal proceedings, but the king decided in favor of columbus. why? apparently because the pinçons were normans, and spain preferred to recognize the right of a genoese, without national feeling, than that of french subjects of louis xii, and of francis i, to whom, as french subjects, they might some day, from fear or favor, transfer their rights. one of the pinçons died of despair, caused by this very manifestly unjust decision. but still, who had overcome the great obstacle of religious repugnance? whose eloquence, tact, and perseverance, in fact set the expedition fairly afloat? columbus, and columbus alone. he was the real author of the enterprise and he was also its heroic conductor, and he merits the glory which his posterity preserves and ever will preserve for him. i think with m. jules de blosseville (a noble heart and a good judge of great and heroic things) that in all these discoveries the only real difficulty was the circumnavigation of the globe, the enterprise of magellan and his pilot, the basque, sebastian del cano. the most brilliant, but at the same time the easiest, was the crossing the atlantic, catching the trade wind, and thus getting to america far south of the point at which it had long before been discovered at the north. the portuguese did a far less extraordinary thing in taking an entire century to discover the western coast of africa. our normans, in a very brief space had discovered the half of it. in spite of all that is said about the laudable perseverance of prince henry, in establishing the lisbon school, the venetian cadamosto clearly proves the want of ability of the portuguese pilots. they no sooner had one at once bold and highly gifted, in the person of bartholomew diaz, who doubled the cape, than they replaced him by gama, a noble of the king's household, and, above all, a soldier. the truth is, that the portuguese cared more about conquests to make, and treasure to gain, than about discoveries, properly so called. gama was brave as brave could be, but he was only too faithful to his orders to suffer no other flag in the same seas. a ship load of pilgrims from mecca, whom he barbarously murdered, exasperated all the hates, and augmented, throughout the east, that horror of the very name of christian, which more and more closed asia, alike against discoverers, for the sake of discovery, and adventurers for the sake of plunder. is it true that magellan, before his great enterprise, had seen the pacific laid down upon a globe by the german, behaim? no; that globe has never been produced. had he seen, in the possession of his master, the king of portugal, a chart which had it so laid down? it has been said, but never proved. it is far more probable that some of the adventurers who, already, for twenty years, had been traversing the american continent, had seen the pacific, not on globes or charts, but with their own eyes. that report, which was circulated, spread admirably well with the theoretical calculation of such a counterpoise, necessary to our hemisphere, and to the equilibrium of the globe. there is not a more terrible biography than that of magellan. throughout, we have nothing but combat, far voyages, flights, trials, attempted assassination, and at length, death, among the scourges. he fought in africa, he fought in the indies, and he married among the brave but ferocious malays;--whom, by the way, he seems not a little to have resembled. during his long residence in asia, he collected all possible information, preparatory to his great expedition, to find the way by america, to the spice islands, the moluccas; thus getting spices so much cheaper than by the old course. his original idea of the enterprise, was, thus, an altogether commercial one. to lower the price of pepper, was the primitive inspiration of the most heroic voyage ever made on this globe! the true court spirit of intrigue, reigned in portugal in full power over everything. magellan finding himself ill treated there, went over to spain, where charles v. magnificently furnished him with five ships, but not choosing to put full confidence in a portuguese malcontent, the king associated with magellan a castilian. magellan sailed between two dangers, the jealousy of the castilian, and the vengeance of the portuguese, who sought to assassinate him. he soon had a mutiny in the fleet, and displayed, in crushing it an indomitable heroism, and no less barbarity. the mutineers he savagely put to death, and his castilian colleague he put into irons. to increase his troubles, some of his vessels were wrecked. his people were unwilling to proceed with him, when they saw the desolate aspect of cape horn, the truly discouraging aspect of terra-del-fuego, and cape forward. the islands, which form, under the name of cape horn, the southern point of america, seem to have been violently rent from the continent by the fury of many volcanoes, and suddenly cooled. as the result, they present a frightfully heterogeneous mass of sharp peaks, huge blocks of granite, of lava, and of basalt, all these, grotesquely, yet frightfully, arranged, in frowning confusion, and clothed in ice and snow. all had quite enough of this at a single glance, and bold magellan's word was--"onward!" he filled away his sails, steered now to starboard, now to larboard, then to starboard again, and at length found himself in that boundless sea which was then so _pacific_ that it then received the name which it has ever since borne; though all who have sailed upon it, well know that at times, it can comport itself in an anything rather than pacific style. magellan at length perished in the philippines. four vessels were lost. the only one which survived, was the victory, whose crew was reduced to thirteen men. but among them was the great and intrepid pilot, the basque, sebastian, who, in 1521, returned to spain, the first of mortal men who had been completely round the globe. nothing could be grander. the sphericity of the globe was thus made matter of certainty. that physical marvel of water uniformly extended over a globe, and constantly adhering to it, that strange mechanical postulate, was fully demonstrated. the pacific was at length known, that grand, and till then mysterious laboratory, in which, far from our ken, nature so profoundly labors in life-creating and life-nurturing, making new rocks, new islands, new continents. a revelation, that, of immense significance; and not only of material, but also of moral significance, which gave a hundred fold increase to man's daring, and sent him forth on another daring voyage, on the boundless ocean of the sciences, to circumnavigate,--with more or less of success, as it may chance,--the infinite! chapter iii. the law of storms. it is but yesterday, as it were, that we have built ships fit for southern navigation; for navigation in those seas where the long, strong, _rollers_, pile themselves, each upon each, into absolutely mountainous masses of storm-lashed waves. what, then, shall we say of the early navigators who ventured into such seas with their clumsy leewards, heavy, and yet scarcely sea-worthy cock-boats? especially for the polar seas, whether arctic or antarctic, we need ships expressly built for such rude service. they were bold men, those who, like a cabot, a brentz, a willoughby, ventured in their clumsy, ill-found, badly rigged, and scarcely sea-worthy tubs to navigate the icy seas; to dare spitzbergen, to make greenland by that funereal cape _farewell_, and to coast the thousand giant icebergs in sight of which, men in our own day, a hundred whalers have gone to pieces. what chiefly rendered those ancient heroes so sublime was their very ignorance, their blind courage, their desperate resolution. they knew but little of the sea, and of the heavens they knew still less; the compass, their only instructor and their only reliance, they dared the most alarming phenomena without being able even to guess at their causes. they had none of our instruments which speak to us so plainly and so unmistakably. they went blindfolded towards, and fearlessly into, the uttermost darkness. they, themselves, confess that they feared, but also, they would not yield. the sea's tempests, the air's whirlwinds and water spouts, the tragic dialogues of those two oceans, of air and water, the striking, and, not so long since, ominous phenomena of the aurora borealis, all this strange and wild phantasmagoria seemed to them the fury of irritated nature, a veritable strife of demons against which man could _dare_ all--as they did--but could _do_ what they also did--nothing. during three centuries but little progress was made. read cook, read peron, and you will readily comprehend how difficult, uncertain, and perilous was navigation, even up to an hour so near our own. cook, that man of immense courage, but also, of most lively imagination, himself confesses, as his journal testifies, that he knew how uncertain and perilous was the profession of the seaman even so lately as his day. in his journal, we read; "the dangers are so great, that i venture to say, that no one will dare to go farther than i have gone." now it is precisely since then that voyages have become, at once, more distant, more regular, and less dangerous. a great age, a titanic age, the 19th century, has coolly, intelligently, and sternly noted all those phenomena which the old navigators braved, but did not examine. in this century it is that we, for the first time, have dared to look the tempest squarely, and fearlessly, and scrutinizingly, in the eyes. its premonitory symptoms, its characteristics, its results;--each and all have been calmly watched, and carefully and systematically registered; and, then, from that registration, necessarily come explanation and generalization, and thence, the grand, bold--and, as our not very distant ancestors would have said, impious system--the _law of storms_. so! what we took, what we in the old, bold, but blind day, took for matter of caprice, is really, after all, reducible to a system, obedient to a law! so! then, those terrible facts, that made the brain swim, the boldest quail, because they _fought shadows_ and _walked in the darkness_, so! then, those terrible facts have a certain regularity of recurrence, and the seaman, resolute and strong, calmly considers whether he cannot oppose to those regular attacks a defence no less regular. in brief, if the tempest has its _science_, can we not create and use an _art_? an art not merely to survive the tempest but even to make it useful? but our science and our art cannot be called into life and activity until we shall have laid aside our old and ill founded notion that tempests are caused by "the caprice of the winds." attentive observation has taught us that the winds are _not_ capricious, that they are the accident, sometimes, also, the agent of the tempest, but that, generally speaking, the tempest is an _electrical phenomenon_, and often occurs in the absence of gales. romme (brother of the conventionalist, principal author of the calendar) laid the foundations of our very important science. english seamen had remarked that in the tempests in the indian seas, they sailed for days together, and yet made no headway. romme collected and systematized all their observations, and pointed out the important fact that the same occurred in the tempests of china, africa, and the antilles. he also first pointed out that rectilinear winds are of rare occurrence, and that, usually, tempests have a circular character,--are, literally, a _whirl_ wind. the great _whirling_ tempests of the united states in 1815, and that of 1821 (the year of the great eruption of hecla) when the winds blew from all points to a common centre, aroused philosophical attention, both in america and europe. brande, in germany, and at the same time, redfield in new york, were the next after romme in profiting by these facts to lay down the law that, generally, the tempest is a _whirl_-wind, advancing, and at the same time _revolving on its own base_. in 1838, the english engineer, reid, being sent to barbadoes after the too celebrated tempest which killed fifteen hundred people, ascertained, with mathematical precision, this double movement of advance and rotation. but his still more important discovery was that _in our northern hemisphere the tempest turns from right to left_, that is to say from east to north, and round the compass, back to east; while in _southern tempests it turns from left to right_. a most important fact to regulate the seaman's course. reid very rightfully gave his book the bold title of--"on the law of storms." but it was the law of their _motion_, not the explanation of their _cause_; it told nothing, either, of what storms do, or of what they are. here france came to the rescue. in 1840, peltier published his _causes of whirlwinds_, and his ingenious and numerous experiments established the fact that whirlwinds, whether at sea or on shore, were _electrical phenomena_, in which the winds play only a secondary part. beccaria, a full century earlier, had suspected that fact, but it was reserved for peltier to establish the fact, by making miniature storms. electrical whirlwinds readily take their rise in the neighborhood of volcanoes,--those ventilating pipes of the subterranean world, and therefore they are more common in the subterranean world, than in ours. the atlantic, open at both ends, and swept in all directions by the winds, should necessarily, have more rectilinear, and fewer circular tempests; but piddington quotes a great number of the latter. from 1840 to 1850, the immense compilations of piddington and maury were made, at calcutta and new york. maury is rendered illustrious for his charts, his _directions_, and his _geography of the sea_. piddington, less artistical, but not less learned, in his _seaman's guide_, that encyclopedia of storms, gives the results of an infinite experience, the minutest and most precise means of calculating the distance of the whirlwind, its rate of speed, and the nature of its various waves. he confirmed the ideas of peltier, as to the electric theory, and showed that those who had dwelt on the caprice of the whirlwind, had, in truth, completely mistaken the effect for the cause. the old art of auguries, and science of presages, never contemptible, was most happily revived by that excellent book. the setting of the sun, is by no means an indifferent augury. if he set red, and if the sea retain the reflection of his blood-red rays, rely upon it, a storm is brewing, in that other ocean--the air; if around him you see a lurid red within a white circle, and the stars are flickering, and seeming to fall, be sure that the upper regions of the atmosphere are threatening. still worse, it is, if, upon a dirty sky, you see small clouds marshalling, like so many purple arrows, flying from all quarters to one common point, and if, at the same time, the larger masses assume the shape of strange buildings, ruined bridges, broken rainbows, and a hundred other eccentricities; then rely upon it, the storm has already commenced in the upper region. at present, all is calm, here below, but, on the horizon, you may discern the faintly flashing, and silent lightnings. listen attentively, and, from time to time, you shall hear the low mutterings of the distant thunder; and the waves, as they break upon the beach, seem to sob. look out! the sea tells you, plaintively, of the coming storm. "what are those wild waves saying?" they are warning you, i repeat, of the coming storm. the wild, free birds have already taken warning, and hasten to their secure shelter in the clefts of the rocks. if they are far from land when they see, and feel, and hear, the first threatenings of the rising storm, they settle down upon your masts, and yards, and shrouds. and first among them comes that bird of evil omen, the "mother carey's chicken," the stormy petrel. look out, my brothers; i assure you the tempest approaches. does it thunder? be very glad of that, brother seaman; the electric discharge is taking place far above us, and we shall have the less of the tempest. it is an old popular observation, but confirmed by the science of peltier and by the experience of piddington and others. if the electricity, accumulated on high, discharges itself here below, it will create circular currents, and we shall have whirlwind, fierce tempest, and, probably water spout. this last sort of storm not uncommonly attacks you when you are seemingly quite safe in harbor. in 1698, captain langford, in port and well anchored, saw that he was about to be thus assailed, slipped his cable, and found safety on the open sea. other craft, whose commanders had less freight or less daring, remained at anchor and were destroyed. at madras and at barbadoes, warning signals are given to the ships at anchor. in canada, the electric telegraph, swifter than nature's own electricity, sends warning of the coming storm from port to port. to the sailor when on the broad ocean, the great friend and adviser is the barometer; its perfect sensitiveness gives you the most exact information of the weight with which the storm-laden atmosphere oppresses it. usually, it tells you of nothing but fine weather; it almost seems to sleep. but at the first and most distant note of the rising storm, it suddenly awakens, is agitated, and its mercury descends, ascends, redescends. the barometer has its own tempest. peron when at the mauritius observed that flashes of pale light escaped from the mercury, and filled the whole tube. during gales, the sensitive instrument seems actually to breathe. "in its fluctuations," say daniel and barlow, "the water barometer breathed, blew, like some wild animal." but the tempest advances and occasionally illuminates the horizon all around with its electric lightnings. in 1772, during the great storm in the west indies, when the sea rose seventy feet above ordinary high water mark, the dense darkness of the night was dissipated by balls of lurid fires that lighted up every shore. the approach of the storm may be more or less rapid. in the indian ocean, thickly studded with islands and obstacles, the whirlwind and the water-spout approach you only at the rate of some two miles an hour; while when they come along the course of the warm current, that comes to us from the antilles, they travel at the rate of from forty to fifty. their speed would, in fact, be incalculably great but for their oscillation, beaten as they are by the winds, both internally and externally. slow or rapid, the fury of the tempest is the same. in 1789, in a single instant and with a single rush, the tempest dashed to pieces every vessel in the port of ceringa; at a second rush the town was flooded; at the third it was in ruins, and twenty thousand of its inhabitants were dead. in 1822, off bengal, a water spout was for twenty-four hours sucking up air and water, and, when it burst, fifty thousand people perished. in different localities, different aspects of the tempest. in africa you have the _upas_, the fierce compound of _simoom_ and _tornado_. the atmosphere seems calm and clear, and yet you feel a strange oppression of the lungs and a general anxiety as terrible as it is strange. then a black cloud, "no bigger than a man's hand," appears on the horizon, approaches with lightning speed, lengthening, widening, and deepening as it approaches (_vires acquirit eundo_) the storm descends, and in a quarter of an hour all around is devastated, utterly ruined, and ships have utterly disappeared. nature takes no heed of such small matters. about sumatra and bengal, you see in the evening or night (never in the morning) a dark arched cloud in the sky. it rapidly increases, and presently, from that dark cloud, come down flashes and sheets of pale and ghastly lights. woe to the mariner who shall encounter the first wind that rushes from that sinister cloud; he will pretty certainly go down. but the ordinary form is that of a huge funnel. a sailor, who was caught in one of these terrible storms, says: "i found myself, as it were, at the bottom of an enormous crater of a volcano; all around was darkness, above a glimmering of lurid lights." that light is what is technically termed "_the eye of the tempest_." when the water spout, the horrible typhoon, empties itself, human science and human daring are of no avail. roaring, howling, shrieking, hissing, the storm fiends are at work above, below, around the luckless vessel. suddenly there is a dead, a quite horrible silence, and there comes forth, seemingly, from the very centre of the water spout, a blinding flash, and a deafening report, and when you, at length, recover power to look aloft, you find that mast and spars have been shivered. seymour tells us that, sometimes, after being caught in one of those horrible typhoons the sailors, for a long time, have blackened nails and weakened sight. sometimes, too, this terrible typhoon sucks up not only air and water, but also the luckless ship, holds it suspended in the air, and then dashes it rudely down into the watery abyss. from this terrible action and pitiless power of the typhoon, the chinese derived their notion of the terrible mother _typhon_, who, hovering in the sky, picks out her victims and is ever conceiving and bearing the _ken woo_, whirlwinds of fire and iron. to that terrible _typhon_ they have erected temples and altars, adoring her and praying to her in the vain hope of humanising her. the brave piddington had no adoration to spare for her; on the contrary, he gives her a marvellously ill name. he calls her an only too strong corsair, a pirate so strong and so tricky that there is no dishonor in getting out of her way. that perfidious enemy sometimes sets a snare for you; tempts you with _a good wind_. avoid that same _good wind_, turn your back to it if you possibly can. give that dangerous companion the widest possible berth. steer very clear of the storm cloud or it will suddenly sink you; ship, crew and cargo. such is the advice of the brave and skillful piddington, and, assuredly, one would gladly take such advice. but how? it would be utterly useless if the storm cloud and the ship were brought together within narrow and land locked waters. but, in general, this enormous compound of whirlwind and water spout embraces a circle of ten, twenty, or even thirty leagues, and this gives every ship, on which a constant and intelligent look out is kept, a fair chance of keeping at a respectful distance from so redoubtable a foe. the great point to be ascertained is, _where is the centre_, the nucleus, the terrible home, of this terrible _typhon_. and then to ascertain its rate of progression and its line of approach. the sailor of the present day has two excellent lights to steer by; his maury and his piddington. on the one hand, maury teaches him the general laws of the air and sea, and the art of selecting and using the currents, directing him, as it were, along the streets and highways of the ocean. on the other hand, piddington in his small, but instructive volume, sums up for him, and places in his hands, the _experience of tempests_; not only how to avoid them, when possible, but sometimes when to make them useful. and this it is that at once explains and justifies the fine sentence of the dutch captain jansen. "at sea," says he, "the first impression is that of the power of nature, the profundity of the depths--and our own nothingness. on board of the largest ship, we still feel that we are constantly in danger. but when the mind's eye has penetrated the depths and surveyed the expanse, man no longer fears the danger. he rises to the true sense of the situation. guided by astronomy, shown by maury along the highways and byways of the ocean, he steers his course safely and _confidently_." this is truly sublime. the tempest is not abolished, it is true; but ignorance, bewilderment, that terrible bewilderment which is born of danger and darkness, are abolished. at least if the seaman of the present day perish, he will know the why and wherefore. great, oh, very great is the safeguard of having the calm, clear presence of mind, with our soul and intellect unruffled and resigned to whatever may be the effect of the great divine laws of the world which, at the expense of a few shipwrecks, produce equilibrium and safety. chapter iv. the polar seas. what most tempts man? the difficult, the useless, the impossible. of all maritime enterprises, that to which the most persistent energy has been given, is the north western passage, the direct line from europe to asia. and yet, the plainest common-sense might anticipatively have told us that, given, the existence of such a passage, in a latitude so cold, so blocked up by ice, it would, practically, be useless; few would, none could, make any regular use of it. _open this year, it is quite sure to be closed up next year._ remember that that region has not the flatness of siberia; it is a mountain of a thousand leagues, horribly broken, with deep chasms, with seas, that, thawed one hour, are frozen up the next, passages between icebergs, which shift their position from time to time, open to invite you, and close to crush you. at length, in 1853, that passage was found, by a man who had got so far in, that it was safer to go ahead, than to recede, and who, therefore, went daringly and desperately forward, till he found that which he sought. now we know what that passage is; men's minds are calmed down; we know that there is such a passage, and we have not even the smallest desire to make use of it. when i spoke of that passage, as being _useless_, i spoke of it as a commercial highway. but in following this commercially useless enterprise, we have made many very useful discoveries for geography, meteorology, and the magnetism of the earth; just as silly alchemy, has done so much for wise, and admirably useful chemistry. what was the original idea? to open a short way to the land of gold, to the east indies. england, and other powers, jealous of spain and portugal, reckoned upon surprising them in the very heart of their distant possessions, in the very sanctuary of wealth. from the time of queen elizabeth of england, adventurers having found, or stated that they found, some portions of gold in greenland, searched into, and made bold use of the old northern legend of _treasure hidden beneath the pole_; mountains of gold, guarded by gnomes, &c., &c. and the legend inflamed men's minds. upon so reasonable a notion, sixteen ships were sent out, having on board the sons and hopes of the noblest families. there was quite a competition as to who should have leave to go in quest of that polar eldorado; and those who sought it, succeeded in finding only hunger, icy barriers, suffering, and--death! but that check was unavailing; during three hundred years, explorers, with a perfectly marvellous perseverance, continued to explore, to fail, to be martyrized, and to die. cabot, the earliest of them, was only saved by the mutiny of his crew, who would not allow him to go any farther. brentz died of cold, and willoughby of famine. cortereul lost all, property, and life; and hudson was set adrift by his men, and, as he had neither sails nor provisions, it is but too probable that he perished miserably, though his fate was never precisely ascertained. behring, in finding the strait which separates america from asia, perished of fatigue, cold, and want, on a desert island. in our own day, franklin perished, in the ice; he and his men having been reduced to the most horrible cannibalism. every thing that can discourage man, is combined in these northern voyages. considerably before the polar circle is reached, a cold fog freezes upon the sea, and covers you with hoar frost; sails and ropes are icy and stiffened, the deck is one sheet of glare ice, and every manoeuvre is a work of immense difficulty; and those moving shoals, the icebergs, that are so much to be dreaded, can scarcely be made out at the distance of the ship's length. at the mast-head, the look-out man, an actual living stalactite, every now and then warns the watch upon deck of the approach of a new enemy, a huge white phantom, a terrible iceberg, often from two to three hundred feet out of the water. but these preliminary horrors, which announce to the seaman his approach to the world of ice and suffering, so far from deterring, increase his desire and determination to proceed. in the mystery of the pole, there is, i know not what, of sublime horror and heroic suffering. even those who have only gone as far north as spitzbergen, retain in memory a profound impression of its drear and horrible sublimity. that mass of peaks, chains, and precipices, which, for four thousand five hundred feet, rears its icy front, is like a gigantic apparition, in that gloomy sea. its glaciers flash forth living lights, dazzling flashes of the most brilliant colors, green, blue, and purple, contrasting marvellously with the uniform whiteness of the snow. during the nights, whose duration is not of hours, but of months, the _aurora borealis_, every now and then lights up the dreary scene in the strange splendors of a sinister illumination; vast and terrible bale fires, that, from time to time, light up the whole horizon, forming, with their magnificent jets of lurid lights, a fantastic etna, that throws temporary and illusive light on that scene of eternal winter. all is prismatic in an atmosphere surcharged with icy particles, where the air is full of mirrors and little crystals. hence, the most astonishing mirages, rendering one uncertain whether he may take the evidence of his own eyes as to the reality of any thing that he thinks he sees. merely aërial reflections and colored mists appear solid masses, castles, cathedrals, islands,--anything; and what you see upright at one moment, is upside down a moment afterwards. the strata of air which produce these effects, are in constant revolution, the lightest ascends above the others, and in an instant the mirage changes form, color, size, and character. the slightest variation of the temperature, lowers, raises, or slopes, the huge mirror; the image becomes confounded with the object; they separate, disperse, another succeeds, and then a third, pale and feeble, appears, to disappear in its turn. it is a world of illusion. if you love to dream; if, especially, you love day-dreaming, with fancies wild or tender, go to the north, and there you will see real, yet no less fugitive, all that your waking dreams have ever painted. in that world of mirages, the atmosphere will put all your "castles in the air" to utter shame. no style of architecture but that magical atmosphere can imitate. now you have the classic greek, with its porticos and colonnades; anon, egyptian obelisks appear, the one pointing high and sharp, towards the sky, the other lying prostrate, and in twain, at the base of the former. and, then, mountain upon mountain appears, pelion upon ossa, a whole city of giants, with cyclopean walls, which change into the circular sacrificial stones of the druids, with dark, mysterious caves beneath. finally, all disappears; the wind rises, and the mists and atmospheric reflections are dispersed. in this veritable world of the upside down, the law of gravitation is repealed, or, at the least, disregarded; the weak and the light, carrying the strong and the heavy; a spacious church is seen on the top of a slender spire, an egyptian pyramid whirls, dances, upon the sharply pointed apex; it is an eccentric, a mad, school of art, where you pass at once from the beautiful to the terrible, from the terribly sublime to the absurdly fantastic. sometimes a terrible incident occurs. against the great stream, which flows majestically and slowly from the north, there suddenly comes, from the south, a huge iceberg, whose base is some six or seven hundred feet below the water. it is impelled by the strong under-tow, and advances so swiftly that it dashes aside, or to pieces, whatever it happens to encounter. arrived at the plain of ice, this moving giant, this terrible iceberg is not at all embarrassed. thus, duncan, writing in 1826, describes a scene of the kind--"the field-ice was broken up for miles in less than a minute, with reports loud as those of a hundred pieces of artillery. as the mountainous heap approached us, the space between it and us was filled with the mighty masses, into which the shock of her collision had broken up the massive field ice. we should assuredly have perished, but the huge mass suddenly sheered off to the northeast, and we were saved." it was in 1818, after the european war, that this war against nature, this search after the north-western passage was resumed. it opened with a serious and singular event. the gallant captain ross, being sent with two ships into baffin's bay, was completely deceived by the phantasmagoria of that world of spectral delusions. he distinctly saw, as he thought, a land which has never existed, maintained that if he proceeded he would certainly lay the bones of his ships on that non-existent shore, and actually returned to england. there he was laughed at, and accused of timidity, and he was refused by the admiralty, the command of another expedition, which he solicited, in the interest of his honor. sir felix booth, a london distiller and liquor merchant, more liberal than the british government, presented ross with a hundred thousand dollars, and ross returned to the north, determined to pass or die. neither the one nor the other was granted to him! but he remained during i know not how many winters, forgotten, in those terrible solitudes. he had all the appearance of a mere savage, so long and so horrible was his destitution, when he was saved by some whalers, who, when they first saw him, asked him if he had, by any chance, fallen in with _the late captain john ross_! his lieutenant, parry, who confidently believed that he could pass, made four attempts to do so; trying first by baffin's bay and the west, and then by spitzbergen and the north. he made some discoveries by boldly pushing forward in a sledge-boat; a sledge on the ice, and a boat in the water. but the ice always defeated his bold attempts, and he was no more successful than ross. in 1882, a brave young frenchman, jules de blassville, conceived that france, in his person, might win the glory of discovering the north-west passage. he risked, at once, money and life; and purchased death. he could not even get the selection of a proper ship. they gave him the _lilloise_, which sprang a leak on her very first day out, and he had her repaired and refitted, at his own cost of about eight thousand dollars. in this unsafe vessel, he sailed for the iron-bound coast of greenland. according to all appearance, he did not get even as far out as that. he has never since been heard of, nor has any portion of his unseaworthy vessel been picked up. most likely she foundered, with all hands on board. the english expeditions have been fitted out in a very different style; every thing was provided that prudence could suggest or liberal-expenditure supply; yet they succeeded no better. the gallant, scientific, and ill fated, franklin, was blocked in by the ice in 1845. for twelve years from that date the english, with an honorable persistence, sent out expeditions in search of him. and not england alone; france and america no less honorably assisted, and both those great nations lost some of their brightest and best in the brave, though fruitless, search. side by side with the name of franklin, as connected with the icy peaks and capes of that desolate region, our belliot, and others, must be named, who devoted themselves in hope to save him. and, on the other hand, captain john ross offered to organize and lead an expedition to search for blainville. dark greenland is connected with a host of such brave, sad reminiscences, and the desert is no longer quite a desert when connected with such touching testimonies of _human brotherhood_. there is something very touching in the persistent belief, the inflexible affection, of lady franklin. she could not, would not, believe herself widowed, but incessantly besought for further search after her brave husband. she vowed that she was quite sure that he still lived for his country and for her; and so well did she impress her own belief upon the admiralty board, that, seven years after he was completely missing, he was officially named, not as _captain_, but as vice admiral. and she was right; he was then still living. the esquimaux saw him in 1850, and he had then sixty of his men with him. very soon after he had only thirty, and those so worn by fatigue and want that they could not hunt, or even walk, and as each one died he was eaten by his far more wretched survivors. if lady franklin's advice had been duly attended to, her brave husband and most, perhaps all, of his men would have been saved. for she said--and the soundest sense dictated her words--that he should be sought for to the southward, inasmuch as it was to the last degree improbable that in his desperate situation he should aggravate it by proceeding towards the north. but the admiralty, perhaps more anxious about the north-west passage than about the lost franklin, persisted in sending expeditions to the north, and the afflicted lady did for herself what the admiralty would not do for her. at a great expense, she fitted out a vessel to search to the southward of his last known or presumed position. but it was already too late. only the bones of franklin were found. in the mean time longer, but more successful, voyages were made towards the south pole. there we do not find the same commingling of land and sea, ice and tempestuous thaws, that make up the great horror of greenland. there is a boundless sea of immense and mighty waves, and a glacier far more extensive than ours of the north. very few islands; those which have been seen, or, rather fancied, have most probably been only shifting and wandering icebergs. everything there varies with the varying character of the winters. morel in 1820, weddell in 1824, and ballery in 1839, found an opening, and made their way into an open sea, which none since have been able to find. the french kerguelen and the english james ross have, undoubtedly, discovered lands. the first, in 1771, discovered the large island which he named after himself, but to which the english have given the appropriate title of _desolation_. two hundred leagues in length it has some excellent ports, and, in spite of the severity of the climate, it is tolerably prolific in seals and birds, with which a ship can be plentifully provisioned. that glorious discovery which louis xvi., on his accession, rewarded with a peerage, was, subsequently the ruin of kerguelen. false charges were brought against him, and the rivalry of noble officers overwhelmed him, jealous rivals with a hateful intrepidity, bearing false witness against him. it was from a dungeon of six feet square that, in 1782, he dated the narrative of his discovery. in 1838, america, france, and england each fitted out an expedition in the interests of science. the illustrious duperrey had pointed out the way to important magnetic observations, and it was desired to continue them under the very pole. the english expedition, with this object, was entrusted to the command of james ross, nephew and lieutenant of the captain john ross of whom we have spoken. it was a model expedition for which everything was foreseen, and provided, and james ross brought back his crew without having lost a man, or even had a man sick. the american wilkes and the french dumont d'urville were not thus admirably fitted out; and perils and sickness scourged them fearfully. james ross, more fortunate, doubled the arctic circle and found real land; but he confesses, with a really admirable modesty, that he chiefly owed his success to the admirable manner in which his government had fitted him out. the _erebus_ and the _terror_ with their powerful machines, their ice saw, and their iron shielded prow, cut their way through the ice till they reached an open sea abounding in birds, seals, and whales, and lighted up by a volcano of twelve thousand feet in height, a northern etna. but no vegetation, no landing place, but an enormously high and sharply scarped granite upon which not even the snows could retain their hold. but it _was_ land; not a doubt of that. that polar etna, which they named after their good ship erebus, is there to prove it. a terrestrial nucleus, therefore, is girdled by the arctic sea. april and may of 1853, were a grand date in the history of the arctic pole. in april that passage was found which had been so perseveringly and vainly sought for during three centuries. the discovery resulted from a bold stroke of desperation. captain maclure having made his way in by behring's strait was, for two years, shut in by the ice. finding it impossible to return, he determined, at all hazards, to push forward. he did so and in only forty miles further found himself along side of english ships in the eastern ocean. his boldness saved him and the great problem was at length solved. at that very time, may, 1858, new york sent out an expedition for the extreme north. a young naval surgeon, elisha kent kane, only about thirty years old, but who had already sailed far and wide, announced an idea which greatly excited the american mind. just as wilkes had proposed to find a world, kane proposed to find a sea, an open sea, under the pole. the english, in their routine, had searched from east to west; kane proposed to sail due north and take possession, for his country, of that, as yet, undiscovered open polar sea. the bold proposal was enthusiastically hailed. grinnell of new york, a great ship owner, princely alike in fortune and in heart, generously gave two ships; learned societies, and not a few of the general public, assisted with pecuniary contributions, with a perfectly religious zeal made up and contributed warm clothing. the crews, carefully selected from volunteers, were sworn to three things; to be obedient to orders, to abstain from spirituous liquors, and from profane language. a first expedition failed, but its failure daunted neither mr. grinnell nor the american public; and a second was fitted out, with the aid of certain english societies, who had chiefly in view the propagation of the gospel or a final search after franklin. few voyages are more interesting than this second one of kane's. we can readily understand the ascendancy which young kane acquired over his followers. every line of his book is marked by his strength, his brilliant vivacity, and his practical exemplification of the bold american watchword--_go ahead._ he knows every thing; is confident of everything; prudent, hopeful, more than hopeful,--positive. every line tells you that he is a man to be conquered by no obstacle. he will go as far as mortal man can go. the combat is curious between such a character and the pitiless and icy north, that rampart of terrible obstacles. scarcely has he sailed when he is already seized by the cold hand of winter and detained for six months amidst the ice. even in the spring he had a cold of seventy degrees! at the approach of the second winter, on the 28th of august, nine out of his seventeen men, deserted him. but the fewer his men and resources, the bolder and sterner he became, being determined, as he tells us, to make himself the better respected. his good friends, the esquimaux, who hunted or fished for him, and from whom he is even compelled to take some small objects, stole three copper vessels from him. in return he kidnapped two of their women. an excessive and savage chastisement. it was hardly prudent to bring these poor creatures among the eight seamen who still remained with him; all the less prudent when we consider that discipline was already so much relaxed. they were married women, too. siver, wife of metek, and aninqua, wife of marsiqua, were in tears for five days. kane laughed at them and makes us laugh too, when he says: "they wept and made terrible lamentation; _but they did not lose their appetite_." at length their husbands and friends took back the stolen articles and took all that had passed in good part, with the native good sense of men who had no weapons, but sharpened fish bones, to oppose to revolvers. they agreed to every thing and promised the utmost friendship and most faithful alliance. a week after, they disappeared and we may easily imagine with what feelings of friendship! of course, wherever they went, they would warn the natives to shun the white man. and thus it is that we close the uncivilized world alike against ourselves and civilization. the sequel is sad. so cruel are the sufferings of the seamen that some die and others want to return. but kane is of quite another mind, he has promised to discover a new sea, and discover it he will. plots, desertions, treacheries, all add to the horrors of his situation. in the third winter he must have died, destitute as he was of food and fuel, had not other esquimaux supplied him with fish; he aiding them by hunting. in the mean time some of the men, who had been out exploring, had the good fortune to find that sea about which he was so anxious. at least they reported that they had seen a vast extent of open unfrozen water, and, all around, birds which seemed to find there the shelter of a less severe climate. that was enough to warrant the return. kane, saved by the esquimaux, who took no advantage either of their superior numbers or of his extreme destitution, left there his vessel frozen up in the ice. weak and exhausted, he yet contrived, in eighty-two days, to get back to the south. but he got back only to die. that intrepid young man, who approached nearer to the pole than any other man had ever done, dying, carried off the prize which the learned societies of france laid upon his tomb--the great geographical prize. in his narrative, which contains so many terrible things, there is one which seems to me to be very touching. it enables us to estimate the exceeding sufferings of such an expedition; i allude to the death of his dogs. he had some excellent ones of the newfoundland breed, and some of the esquimaux; they, rather than men, were his companions and his friends. during his long winter nights, those nights of months, they watched around his ship, and when he sallied out in the dense darkness he recognized the brave brutes by their warm breath as they came and licked his hands. the newfoundlanders were the first to grow sick. he fancied that they suffered less from the cold than from the privation of light; when the lanterns were shown to them they seemed to revive. but, by degrees, a strange melancholy grew upon them, and they went mad. next followed, in the same sad course, the esquimaux dogs, and none remained but his little slut, flora, _the wisest_ little thing--as he calls her--and she neither went mad nor died. i believe this is the only point, in his fearfully interesting narrative, at which you can perceive that that brave, stern heart, for an instant sank. chapter v. man's war upon the races of the sea. on reviewing the whole history of voyages, we are impressed by two quite contrary feelings: 1. we admire the courage and genius with which man has conquered the seas, and dominated his whole planet. 2. we are astonished to find him so unskilful in all that concerns the conciliation of the inhabitants of the various seas and lands, that he has conquered. every where, the voyager has gone, as the enemy of the young populations, whether human or brute, whether terrestrial or maritime, which, properly treated, would have been, each in its own limited sphere, so servicable to him. man, as to the globe on which he has made such grand discoveries, is like a musical novice, before some immense organ, from which he can produce but a few notes. emerging from the middle ages, after so much of philosophy and theology, he still remained barbarous; of the sacred instrument, he only knew how to break the keys. the gold seekers, as we have seen, sought only gold, nothing but that; man they pitilessly crushed. columbus, though the last of them, shows this with a quite terrible plainness and simplicity, in his own journal. his words make us shudder, anticipating, prophesying, as they do, what would be done by his successors. no sooner has he landed in haiti, than he enquires, "where is the gold? who has got gold?" the natives smiled, in their innocent astonishment, at this fierce desire for gold. they promised him that they would search for it for him, and in the mean time, gave their rings and ornaments to satisfy the earlier, that eager appetite. he gives us a most touching description of that unfortunate race, so interesting for its beauty, its kindness, and its tender confidence. but the geonese, touchingly as he described that people, had his own mission of avarice, his hard, stern habits of thought. the turkish wars, the atrocious galleys, and their wretched slaves, piracy and manstealing, were the common life of that day. the sight of that young, unarmed community, those poor, naked children, and lovely and innocent women, inspired him only with the horrible mercantile thought, that they might be very easily enslaved. he would not, however, consent to have them carried away from the beautiful island; they and it, belonged, said he, to the king and queen, ferdinand and isabella. but he said these darkly and terribly significant words--"they are timid and well fitted for obedience. they will do whatever they are ordered to do; a thousand of them would retreat before three or four of ours. if your highnesses give me the order to carry them off or to enslave them here, there is nothing to hinder it; fifty men will suffice to do it." thus wrote he in his journal, or despatch, of 14 and 16, december. presently came from europe the wholesale sentence of that whole poor innocent people. they were ordered to be the slaves of gold--all subjected to compulsory labor, some to seek gold, and others to feed the goldseekers. columbus confesses that in twelve years, six sevenths of that once happy population had perished; and herrera adds that in twenty-five years, that population had fallen from a million of souls to fourteen thousand. what followed, is only too well known. the gold seeker and the planter exterminated the natives and incessantly replaced them at the expense of the negroes. and what has been the consequence? that in the low, hot, immensely fecund countries, the black race alone, are permanent. america will belong to that race; europe has achieved precisely the opposite of that which it intended. every where, in all directions, the colonizing impotency of europe has displayed itself in america. the french adventurer has not survived; he took thither no family, and did take thither all the worst vices of his native land. as a natural consequence, instead of civilizing the barbarians, he added their vices to his own, and sank to their barbarous level. with the exception of two temperate countries into which they went _en masse_, and in families, the english have not been much more successful than the french in planting their race permanently and healthily in transmarine colonies. in another century, india will scarcely know that the englishmen once lived there. have the missionaries, whether catholic or protestant, made any converts? dumont, the thoroughly well-informed dumont, tells me--"_not one_!" between them and us, there are thirty centuries and thirty religions. try to force their intellect, and the result will be that which the truly great humboldt observed in those american villages which are to this day called "_missions_;" that, having lost their own native energies and traditions, without acquiring ours, they will sink into a sort of stupefaction, become merely so many children of a larger growth, alive in body, but dead in mind,--all but idiots, useless alike to themselves and to others. our voyages, upon which we moderns, and more especially the learned, so plume ourselves, have they been really, or at all, servicable to the savages? i really cannot see it. while, on the one hand, the heroic races of north america have perished of hunger and wretchedness, the soft, effeminate, gentle races of the south, perish, too, to the great shame of our seamen, who, in that distant part of the world, have thrown off even the very mask of decency. population at once kindly and weak, in whom bourgainville discerned such excess of complaisance, among whom the english missionaries have gained much profit, but not a single soul,--kindly and weak people, they are perishing miserably beneath the double scourge of the worst vices and the most loathsome diseases of the old world. formerly, the long coast of siberia was well peopled. under that terribly hard climate, the nomadic natives hunted the richly, the preciously, furred animals which at once fed and clothed them. the russian despotism, at once strong and senseless, compelled them to adopt the settled life of agriculturists, in a climate, and upon a soil, where agriculture is an absurdity, an impossibility. the consequence is that these peoples have gradually died off. on the other hand, the trading spirit, that greedy and insatiable devourer, has refused to spare the brutes in their breeding seasons, and as a necessary consequence, the brutes have disappeared with the men; and now, for a thousand miles along that coast, you have a terrible solitude, where man hunts not, and where the brutes are not. the winds may whistle shrilly, the frost may be bitter and biting as ever, but there is neither man nor beast to listen to the one or to shudder beneath the other. had our voyagers to the north been truly wise, their very first care should have been to form a good, firm friendship with the esquimaux, to mitigate their miseries, to adopt some of their children and have them well instructed in europe, and thus lay the foundation of a great indigenous race of discoverers. we learn from captain john ross, and from not a few others, that they are very intelligent, and very readily acquire the knowledge and the arts of europe. marriages would have been contracted between european sailors and the native women; a mixed population would thus have sprung up, to which all that northern portion of the american continent would have been "native and to the manor born." and that would have been the, at once, safe and sure way of discovering the much coveted north-western passage. thirty years--a single generation--would have done it effectually--and in three hundred years it has been done only uselessly because you have terrified those poor savages; because you have destroyed alike the man of the soil and the _genius loci_. what is the use of merely seeing that desert, when, in the very act of seeing it you make it either depopulated or hostile? we may be quite sure that if man, civilized man, has thus ill treated his uncivilized brother man, he has been neither more friendly nor more merciful for the brutes. he has converted the gentlest and the most affectionate of them forever, irreclaimably, into savage and merciless foes to man. and man, civilized man, has done this. all the old authors concur in telling us that when these poor brutes first (most unluckily for themselves!) made the acquaintance of man, they exhibited nothing but the most confident and inquisitive sympathy. he could walk past and through whole families of sea cows and seals, and they never fled from him. the penguins, and their kindred species, followed him, begged a share of his shelter, yea, even nestled at night beneath his garments. our forefathers, quite justly, believed that, to a very great extent, the animals feel and love, even as we do. certain it is that they have a singular and very decided taste for music. the very shad, simple as they seem, will follow you to the sound of bells; valence tells us; and noël tells us that he has often seen the poor whale, the joubarde roll and frolic around the bark, delighted with the music, and, fearless of the _man_! what the poor, dumb creatures most enjoy; what they most possess of intelligent life; what they have most been deprived of by dint of human and very cruel persecution;--is the right, the security, the sanctity of marriage! fugitive and isolated, they now only retain that which we, most cruelly, have left to them; temporary concubinage, that miserable temporary concubinage which makes sterile every creature that is subjected to it. marriage, fixed, settled, faithful, is the very life of nature,--and we find it in even the poorest living tribes on which man's tyranny has not yet imposed unnatural laws. the roebuck, the pigeon, that prettiest of the parrot family, the "love bird," and hundreds of other species, which we, in our profound ignorance and fancied learning, despise, have this instinctive love of marriage. you may notice that, even among the other and wilder birds and beasts, the matrimonial tie is inseparable, at least, until the young family is old enough to take care of itself. the hare, in its timid and ever anxious life, the bat, that strange prowler in the dark night hours, are very very tender of their families. the crustaceæ, even, nay, even the very poulpes have their marital affection; take the female and the male is sure to be there, to combat vainly, and to be taken with her. how much more, then, shall love, the family, _marriage_, in the true sense of that word, exist among our gentle, truly gentle, till brutally persecuted, amphibious creatures! slow, sedentary, attached to home, how natural, how inevitable it is, that, the male should be true to his mate,--and she to him! among them the husband will die for, or with, the wife, either for the young one. and, among them, too, we find what we too often, only in vain look for among what we presumptuously term the higher animals, the young one will boldly leave its shelter and fight for the mother that has previously rescued him. steller and hartwig mention a strange, an almost human scene enacted in the family of the otarie, another amphibious creature. the female had allowed her young to be stolen from her. the male, furious, beat her severely, and she grovelled and wept. the whales, which have not the fixed abode of the amphibii, yet cross the ocean in couples. duhamel and lacepede say, that in 1723, two whales being attacked kept firmly side by side. one of them being killed, the other, with terrible moanings of mingled despair and grief, of sympathy and rage, threw itself upon the dead body of its mate and died, rather than retreat. if there was in the world one being which, even more than any other ought to have been spared, it was the free whale, that admirable creature so abounding in value; that most inoffensive of all the creatures of the ocean whose very food is different from that of man. excepting its terribly strong tail, this creature has not even a weapon of defence. and, then, the poor thing has such a host of enemies! every one and everything seems to be hostile to it. its parasites establish themselves, not only on, but in its vast gnawing, even its very tongue. the narvel, with its terrible tusks pierces it, the dolphins gnaw it, and the bold, ever hungry, swiftly swimming, shark tears huge bleeding morsels from it. and, then, there are two blinded and ferocious foes that, in most dastardly fashion, thin that inoffensive race even anticipatively; killing the pregnant mother. first, there is the horrible cachalot, whose head makes a full third of its entire frame. this horrid creature, with its crushing jaws, armed with forty-eight teeth, literally eats the unborn young one. man, still more cruel, causes the poor creature a more prolonged suffering. the cruel harpoon, plunged again and again into that quivering and sensitive body inflicts suffering, such as we cannot even think of, without blushing for that human nature of which we so often and so unblushingly boast. dying slowly, and in the long agony of many wounds, and of many convulsions, she writhes, shudders, lashes the sea into a mad foam with her terrible tail, and, even as she dies, feels about with her poor hand-fins, as though striving once more to embrace and caress her little one. something dreadfully human, as it seems to me, is that death scene of the poor whale! at this day we can scarcely even imagine what were the scenes of butchery some two hundred years ago; while the whales swam in shoals and every shore swarmed with the amphibii. the enormous massacres polluted the ocean with blood to an extent such as our human battles, from the earliest day, cannot even begin to compare with. in a single day, from fifteen to twenty whales were killed, and fifteen hundred sea elephants! and this was mere killing for the sake of killing. for what was to be done with so many of those huge creatures, each of which had so much blood and so much oil? what was the meaning of all this cruel slaughter? what the result? just simply, to redden and pollute so many miles of the pure ocean! to have the cold and cruel enjoyment of most brutal tyrants; to watch, with cruel eye, the lingering agonies and the fierce, but impotent struggles, of one of god's noblest and most inoffensive creatures! peron relates, with a disgust which does him honor, that he saw a brutal sailor thus slowly and brutally butcher a female seal. she groaned and writhed like something human; and whenever she opened her poor, bleeding mouth, he dashed the oar into it, breaking her poor teeth at every thrust. durville tells us that at the new shetland isles, in the south seas, the english and americans actually exterminated the seals in four years; killing, in their blind rage, alike the newly born and parturient female, and often they killed only for the skin, losing the vast and very precious amount of oil. such slaughter as that is really a disgrace to our common humanity; such butchery reveals a terrible, a loathsome, instinct, that makes us shudder as we look around upon even our best and kindliest, and reflect how soon and upon what slight temptation they, too, may become cruel! on a smiling shore and among a notably amiable people, we remember one of these murderous massacres to have taken place. some five or six hundred tunnies were driven into a lovely bay that they might be ignominiously murdered in a single day. the drag nets, so vast that the capstan and the bars had to be brought into requisition, to _heave_, rather than draw them in, brought the poor creatures into that beautiful bay, to them, a veritable _chamber of death_, and all around were bronzed, hardy, and cruel men, armed with harpoons and pikes. and from distances of even twenty leagues around, fair women--shame to our nature!--yea, women sat or stood to witness that truly brutal butchery. the signal is given and the dastardly butchers strike, and the pierced and bleeding victims writhe, bound, agonize--as though they were human, and pitiless woman applauds the prowess--godwot!--of pitiless man! the waters, agitated by the vain, though mighty struggle of the victims, is polluted and discolored with blood and foam, and woman--woman looks on this horrid scene and, when the last victim has given its last gasp, sighs deeply and departs, wearied, but not satisfied, and whispers--is that all? and yet we call ourselves only, "a little lower than the angels!" chapter vi. the law of the ocean. a great and deservedly popular writer, eugene noël, who throws a bright, broad light upon every subject which he touches, most truly says, in his important work on pisciculture, the following words: "we might make the ocean an immense food-factory, more productive than even our earth itself, fertilizing and supporting everything, seas, rivers, lakes, and lands. hitherto we have cultivated only the lands--let us now cultivate the waters. nations! attention!" more productive than the land? eh! how is that to be? m. baude explains the matter very clearly, in his recently published and very important work on fishery. he shows very clearly that, of all creatures, the fish consumes the least, and produces the most. merely to keep that creature alive, nothing, or next to nothing, is required. rondelet kept a carp three years in a bottle of water, and gave it nothing save what it could extract from that water; yet, in that time, it so increased in bulk that he could not get it out of the bottle! the salmon, during its stay, of two months, in fresh water, scarcely feeds at all, and yet in that time scarcely loses flesh. its stay in salt water, during the same space of time, gives it the enormous increase of six pounds in weight. how little that resembles the slow growth of our land animals! if we were to pile up into one heap all that it takes to fatten an ox or a pig, we should actually be astounded at the amount of food required for the like increase of weight. and, accordingly, those people whose demand most urgently presses upon their power of supply, the chinese, with their three hundred millions of ever craving appetites, have directly applied themselves to the art of promoting that great power of reproduction, that richest manufacture of nourishing food. on all the great rivers of china, prodigious multitudes find in the waters, the food which they would but vainly ask from the land. agriculture is always more or less precarious; a blighting wind, a frost, the slightest accident, can sentence a whole nation to all the horrors of famine. but, on the contrary, the living and teeming, the exulting and abounding, harvest beneath the waters, nourishes innumerable families, and makes those families almost as prolific and abounding as itself. in may, on the great central river of the empire, a vast trade is done in fish _fry_, which is bought, sold, and resold, for the purpose of stocking the fish-ponds of private persons, who feed their fish from the mere offal of the household. the romans,--so long ago!--had the same wise system;--only they, sometimes, were barbarous enough to feed their fish with slaves! bad enough, that, and to spare; but at least they left us the precious legacy of these words--"the spawn of the sea fish _can_ become fish in fresh water." in the last century, a german, by the name of jacobi, discovered, or rather, revived, the art of _artificial fecundation_; and, in our own century, and with still more productive effect, france, copying from england, has done the same thing. a fisherman of bresse, remy, has practised, since 1840, the art which has now become european. taken in hand by such men as coste, pouchet, &c., this art has ceased to be merely empirical--it has become _a science_. among other things, it has become known that there are certain regular connections between the salt and the fresh water; the fish from the former, coming, at certain seasons, to spawn in the latter. the eel, wherever bred, as soon as it has the thickness of a needle, hastens to ascend the river, and in such numbers that it actually whitens the whole stream. this treasure, which, if properly taken care of, would give many thousands of pounds of the most nutritious food is unworthily, shamefully, destroyed; sold as so much mere manure. the salmon is no less faithful; invariably it comes from the sea back to the river in which it had its birth. mark hundreds of them, and not one of them shall be missing. their love of their native river is such that they will even, (see the _salmon leaps_ of scotland, ireland, and northern england) _leap_, springing from the tail, over seemingly insurmountable obstacles! such are the fish! upon land, we take care of our _horses_; why not preserve the sea? why not _protect the breeding season of the ocean_? the young and the pregnant females, should be held sacred, more especially as to those species which are not superabundantly productive, such as the cetacæ, and the amphibii. to kill, is a necessity of our nature, our teeth and stomach sufficiently testify to that; but that very necessity obliges us to preserve life. on the land, we feed and protect our flocks and herds. but for the food and protection which we give to them, most of them would not exist at all, or would have been devoured by wild beasts. we have a right, or at least, a plausible excuse, for killing them, but we take care to spare the young and the pregnant. in the seas there are still more young lives annihilated when we depart from this law of _preserving_ that we may the more plentifully kill. we may, if we prudently as well as mercifully so will it, make the generation of the inferior animals, an element almost infinitely productive. in our seas and rivers, chiefly, it is, that man appears the magician. high time it surely is, that he should unite to his power both kindness and wisdom. he is in reality, the opponent of death; for, though appetite compels him to kill, his skill and care can create torrents of teeming life. as regards those precious species which, foolishly, as well as cruelly, we have almost annihilated, and especially for that greatest and most precious life of all, the whale, there should be an absolute peace, for at least half a century. that great, that really magnificent species, will then repair its losses. being no longer persecuted, it will return to the temperate zone, which is its natural climate, where it will find its natural food in the abounding animalculæ of the comparatively warm waters. being thus restored to its natural climate and its natural food, it will regain its old gigantic proportions. let the old rendezvous of their love be held sacred, and again we shall see the leviathan, the whale of two or three hundred feet long. let this magnificent creature's haunts be respected, especially in its breeding season, and in half a century it would be as plentiful as of old. formerly it abounded in a bay of california. why not make that bay sacred to it? then it would not seek shelter among the horrid glaciers of the pole. let us respect their reason of love, and enormous will be the benefit to ourselves. peace! i say again; peace for the whale, the sea-cow, the sea-elephant; peace for all those precious species which man's inhumanity has so nearly crushed out of existence. a long, a sacred peace should be granted to them; like that which the swiss so wisely granted to the chamois, which, when almost extinct, was thus rendered numerous as ever. for all, whether fish or amphibii there is needed a season of perfect rest, like the _truce of god_, which in the olden day prevented the chivalry of europe from butchering each other. these creatures themselves instinctively comprehend what we either know not or neglect; for, at their season of maternity, they lose their timidity, and venture to our shores, as though certain that at such a season, they will be held sacred. at that season, they are in their greatest beauty a id their greatest strength. their brilliant color and their flashing phosphorence indicate the utmost vigor of their existence, and in every species that is not menacingly superabundant, that season of reproduction should be respected. kill them afterwards? by all means--but pray do not anticipatively kill in the one fish a whole shoal of fishes. every unoffending creature has a right to the moment of happiness, to that moment when the individual, however lowly placed, goes beyond the narrow limits of his individual _self_, and from his dark individuality, glances into and feels the infinite future. and let us aid nature; then shall we be blessed, from the lowest depths to the starry heights; then shall we receive the blessing glance of that god who hath made both great and small, and who has commanded us to imitate him. book fourth. the restoration of the sea. chapter i. origin of sea bathing. the sea, so ill treated by man, in this pitiless warfare, has been to him most generously kind. when earth, which he loves so much, when that rude earth wears, weakens, exhausts him, it is that so much feared, so much abused sea, which takes him to her bosom, and restores him to new life. and, in fact, is it not from her that life primitively sprang? she contains within her all the elements of life in a quite marvellous plenitude. why, then, when we feel ourselves sinking, do we not repair for restoration to the abounding source of life? that source has space and kindness enough for all, but is especially kind to the too civilized children of men, for the sons and daughters who are suffering for the fathers and mothers, victims of mistaken or sinning love, less culpable than the sinning parents, yet a thousand fold more punished. the sea, that vast female, delights to restore them; to their weakness she gives her strength; and restores them young, beautiful, healthful, from the boundless stores of her wide expanse and fathomless depths. venus, who was born of ocean, is from ocean reborn every moment, and not a sick, suffering, peevish, pale, and melancholy venus, but the triumphant, venus full of passion and certain of fecundity. how between this great and salutary, but somewhat rude, strength and our weakness, can there be any connection? what union can there be between elements so greatly disproportioned? that was a serious and difficult question; to solve it required an art, an initiation. to understand that question thoroughly, we must make ourselves acquainted with the time and occasion when this art first revealed itself. between two ages of strength, the strength of the age of the renaissance and that of the revolution, there was a period of depression both moral and physical. the old world had died, the new one was not yet born, and the misbegotten children of worn out parents were weak and unhealthy. on the one hand, the excessive indulgence of the rich; on the other hand, the awful privations of the poor, decimated the nations, and most decimated, precisely those nations which most boasted their civilization. france thrice ruined, from base to apex, in a single century succumbed beneath the orgies of the regency. england triumphed over our ruin, yet had death and destruction within her own bosom. her puritan idea had departed, and another had not yet come. weakened by the fierce lusts of charles ii., she was still farther degraded by the paltry briberies of walpole; and in the debasement of the public the worst passions of the individual came to light. the fine book of _robinson_ exhibits the horrors of the terrible lust of strong drink;--a terrible book, that, in which medicine calls to its aid all the denunciations of religion, and denounces the gloomy suicide of celibatism. anxieties, evil habits, effeminate and unwholesome life;--all these betray themselves in the softened tissues, the meagre forms, the horrid scrofula. lovely complexions cover the most vile diseases. anne of austria, renowned for her extreme clearness of complexion, died of loathsome ulcer; the princess of soubise, that dazzlingly fair beauty, rotted, so to speak, into her grave. in england, the duke of newcastle asked the learned doctor russell why it was that the beautiful lily and rose concealed so much of scrofula. it rarely happens that a worn out race recovers itself; but the english did so. for some seventy or eighty years it recovered a wonderful strength of activity. partly it owed its recovery to its political and social disturbances,--for there is nothing so conducive to health as movement; but it must be confessed that the chief cause of its renovation was its change of habits. it changed in everything,--education, food, medicine; all were changed, for all felt that health and strength were necessary to success in anything and everything. there needed no great genius for such a reform; the true theory had been propounded; all that was necessary was to make the science an art, to _practise_ what hitherto had only been _preached_. the moravian, comenius, writing a century before rousseau, said: "return to nature; educate according to nature;" the saxon hoffman said: "return to nature; make her your physician." hoffman appeared just in time to combat the evils caused by the orgies of the regency, evils in which the remedies were as bad as the disease, the physician as fatal as the quack. hoffman truly said to his age--"leave doctors alone; live temperately, drink water, and you will need no medicines." that was a true moral reform. and thus among ourselves, priessnith in 1830, after the bacchanalia of the restoration imposed upon the luxurious aristocracy of europe the coarse food of the peasant, and, in the hard northern climate, the open air bath, in snow water; that hell of cold which, in its reaction, gives such a glow of heat. and the rich and the delicate submitted to this hard discipline; so great is our human love of life and fear of death. and, in fact, why should not water be the safety of man? berzelius assures us that four-fifths of our living frames are water; just as four-fifths of our globe are covered by oceans, seas, lakes, and rivers. for our arid earth the sea is a constant hydropathist, curing it of its otherwise deadly dryness, and nourishing and beautifying its fruits and flowers. strange and prodigious magician, that same water! with so little, making so much; with so little, destroying so much--destroying so slowly, but so surely! _gutta lapidem cavat, non vi, sed stepe cadendo_; "the plastic globule wears the rugged rock, by frequent falling, not by sudden shock." water is at once the most potent and the most elastic of all forces, lending her aid to all the metamorphoses of our globe, covering, penetrating, transforming all around us. into what frightful desert, into what gloomy forest, will not man penetrate in search of the healing springs which boil up from the bosom of the earth? what a perfectly superstitious belief we have in those springs which bring to us the hidden and healing virtues! i have seen fanatics who had no deity but carlsbad, that wonderful meeting of the most contradictory waters. i have seen the worshippers of bareges, and i confess that i have myself submitted to the gushing and sulphureous waters of acqui in their strange and almost animal pulsations. the hot baths of earth have no medium in their action; they are either certain health or certain death. how many sufferers who might have lingered through weeks, months, or even years, have been quickly slain by them! frequently, those potent waters give a sudden revival, and, together with health, bring back the very passions which caused disease; passions hot as the waters which revived them. the very atmosphere above these sulphureous waters is intoxicating, the _aura_ of the sybil that maddened her into prophecy! an outburst which compels us to speak that which we would most conceal. and how terribly self-revealing we are in those babels to which, under the plea of seeking health, we resort to throw aside the conventionalities, in too many cases the very decencies of society. there, pale, worn sufferers, of both sexes, sit at the gaming table in eager passion to win gold, and, in reality, winning only an earlier death. very different is the saving breath of the great sea; in itself it is a purifier. that never ceasing interchange of the ocean of air, and the ocean of water, forbids life ever to languish. early and late, those oceans of air and sea are at work. at every instant each passes through the crucible of death--and at every instant revives. the whirlwind and the water spout give newer and stronger life to the vexed ocean. to live on land is to repose; to live on sea is to combat, and to combat savingly;--for those who can bear it, a spartan training in which many perish, but those who survive are very strong. in the middle ages there was a perfect horror of the sea. they libelled the great sea, they called that fertile mother "the kingdom of the prince of the powers of air"--the very name which was given to satan. the nobility of the seventeenth century would by no means consent to have its palaces near the huts of the rude seamen. the frowning castle, with its ugly and formal garden, was almost always built, as far as possible from the sea, on some place destitute of sun and air, but marvellously rich in fog and miasmata. in england it was just the same. if the manor house was on a hill, the advantage of the situation was sedulously provided against by a forest of tall trees, and quite as often, instead of being on the hill, it was in the pestilent marsh below. at the present day, england, wiser than of old, builds by the sea side, rejoices in sea baths even in winter, and is rewarded by strong health. the people of the sea coasts better knew, even in earlier times, the life-giving power of the sea. its purifying power first struck them; they observed its power in curing scrofula of its disgusting sores, and they well knew the power of its bitterness in killing the parasite worms which, otherwise, would kill the child. they ate the sea weed and the _halcyonia_, well knowing that the iodine that they contain contracts and makes firm the flesh. russell, who heard and noted these popular recipes, was thus enabled to answer the question of the duke of newcastle, and did so in his excellent book, published in 1750, on the use of sea water in cases of glandular wasting. there is a great force in his sentence--"the great want is not how to cure, but how to repair, _to create_." he proposed a miracle, but a quite possible one; to make new flesh, new tissues. and he proposed to do that chiefly with the child, who, though born of polluted parents, might yet be re-made. it was at the same time that bakewell, the leicestershire farmer, _created_ meat. up to that time horned cattle were chiefly valued for their milk, from his day forth they are made to yield a more generous food. the poor milk diet, in fact, had to be abandoned by men who are compelled to be so active, so laborious, so untiring. russell's little book, in 1750, created sea bathing; it is not too much to say he created it, for it really was he who made it in vogue. this whole grand theory may be summed up in a very few words: "it is necessary to drink sea-water, to bathe in sea-water, and to eat sea-weed; clothe your children as lightly as possible, and let them have plenty of air. the ocean breeze, and the ocean water; there you have the sure cure." that last advice seems very bold. to have the half naked child exposed to the open air in a damp and variable climate, is, no doubt, anticipatively, to lose the weak; but the strong will survive, and their posterity will be the better brought up. let us add that business, and navigation, by earlier relieving the boys from school, from the sedentary life of the young nobles at oxford or cambridge, make them a new race. in his ingenious book, guided only by popular tradition, russell doubtless was far enough from suspecting how, in a single century, all science would come to the aid of his theory, and that each would aid him in making of the sea a perfect system of therapeutics. the most valuable elements of terrestrial life are abundantly in the sea; and science may well say to us--"hither! hither, worn and wearied nation, swinked laborer, failing woman, young child, fading because your parents sinned; hither! to the sea, and the sea shall cure you!" the universal base of life, the embryonic mucus, the living animal jelly in which man continually takes and retakes the marrowy substance of his being, is so abounding in the sea that we may call it the sea itself. of that mucus, both marine animals and marine vegetables are made. her generosity puts earth to shame. she is liberal to give, be ye therefore, willing to receive. "but," it maybe said, "we are attacked in the very foundation and support of our being. our bones bend, bow, and we are weak, and tottering from their insufficient nurture." well! the lime which they need abounds in the sea; so abounds that her madrepores build islands of it, and are at this moment building whole continents. her fishes carry it hither and thither in such vast quantity that, washed upon every shore, it serves as a manure. and you, young female, you who, visibly, are wasting into an early grave, repair to the sea, where every breath you draw shall be a restorative. that restorative iodine, is in every breath that blows, in every wave that heaves, in every fish that swims. the cod alone have enough to iodise the entire earth. is it animal warmth that you lack? the sea affords you the most perfect, the most equable, the most widely diffused warmth; warmth so great, in fact, that were it not diffused, it would melt the earth from pole to pole, and make each pole another equator. the rich, warm, red blood, is the triumph of the sea; by it she has animated and armed with mightiest strength her giants, so much mightier than mightiest giants of the earth. she has made that element, and she can remake you, poor, pale, drooping flower. she abounds, superabounds, in that rich red blood; in her children it so abounds that they give it forth to every wind. and there is the revelation of the whole mystery. all the principles, pale mortal, that are combined in you, she has in separation. she has your bone, your blood, your sap and your heat--in one or the other of her creatures, she has them all. and she has, also, what you have not, a superabundant strength. her breathing gives i know not what of inspiring excitement; of what we may call physical heroism. with all her violence, the great generating element inspires us with the same fiery vivacity, the same wild love, with which she herself palpitates. chapter ii. choice of coast. earth is her own doctor; every climate has its own remedy. more and more will medicine lie in emigration. but it must be an emigration of foresight, not one of those mad-cap, rapid, and most mischievous journeys in which the patient rushes from one extreme of climate to another, but prudently calculated to the obtaining of those vivifying aids which nature every where holds in store for those who know how to profit by them. the youth, that is yet to be born, depends upon these two things--the _science of emigration_ and the _art of acclimatization_. hitherto, man has remained a prisoner like an oyster on its rock. if he occasionally emigrates to some small distance from his temperate zone, he, for the most part, goes to die. he will only become free, really brave, when the science and art of emigration and climatization shall make him free of the whole globe. few diseases are cured in the place and under the circumstances which have given rise to them; they hold to certain habits which the localities perpetuate and render unconquerable. there is no reform, physical or moral, for those who persist in the originating vice. medicine, guided by the auxiliary sciences, directs us in the new road to the desired end. our emigrations must be made prudently and gradually. can we, safely, without preparation, without alteration of diet and of habits, be suddenly removed from an inland to a maritime abode? can we prudently take to the sea-bath until the sea breeze shall have trained our physical frame? can we suddenly and without preparation encounter the severe shock, the horripilation of the really tremendous shock of the cold water bath in the cold open air? these questions we are glad to say are more and more being put and answered by our physicians. the extreme rapidity of our railroad journeys is very mischievous even to the strong;--in many cases fatal to the ailing. to pass, as so many do, from paris to the mediterranean in twenty-four hours, passing at every hour into a different climate, is as perilous a thing as a nervous person can do. you arrive agitated, giddy. when madame de sevigné took a whole month to travel from brittany to provence, she proceeded by slow and calculated degrees from one climate to another, and its opposite. she proceeded, by slow degrees, from the maritime climate of the west into the inland climate of burgundy. then, travelling slowly by the upper rhone into dauphiny, she, with the greater safety and comfort, braved the free winds of valence and of avignon; then, halting awhile, and resting at aix, in the interior of provence, far from the rhone and from its shores, she made herself provençal in lungs. france has the enviable advantage of being between two seas, and thence the facility of alternating, as the disease may require, between the saline tonicity of the mediterranean and the moister and--except in case of tempest--the far milder air of the ocean. on each of the two coasts there is a graduated scale of stations, more or less mild, more or less strengthening. it is very interesting to observe, and very useful to follow, this double scale,--proceeding, as a general thing, from weaker to stronger. the climate of the ocean parting from the strong, rough, ever-heaving waters of the channel, becomes extremely mild at the south of brittany, milder still in the gironde, and mildest of all in the land-locked basin of arcachon. the air of the mediterranean, which we may call circular, has its highest note in the dry, though keen, climate of provence and genoa, becomes more mild as you approach pisa, milder and less variable in sicily, and at algiers attains a wonderful mildness and regularity. and on your return be sure of a balmy air at majorca and the little ports of the rousillon, so well sheltered from the harsh north wind. the mediterranean commands our admiration by two characteristics; the beauty of its shores and the brilliant purity of its sky and atmosphere. very salt, very bitter is that sea; but what a glorious blue sky is above it! it gives out by evaporation about thrice as much water as it receives from all its tributary rivers. it would become all salt, like that terrible dead sea, but for the lower currents, the under-tow, like that from gibraltar, for instance, were not constantly tempering it with the waters of the ocean. all that i have seen of its shores are beautiful, though somewhat stern. nothing common-place about those shores. the volcanic, the lurid bale fires of the lower earth, have everywhere made their mark upon the upper earth; those dark plutonic rocks are never tiresome like the marshy sands of other shores. if the famous orange woods sometimes seem somewhat monotonous, they compensate you when here and there, a sheltered spot, you find the true african vegetation, the aloe and the cactus, the hedge of myrtle and jessamine, and the wild and perfumed landes. above, it is true, bald and frowning mountains loom, and their long offshoots run even into the very sea. "it seemed to me," said a traveller, "that i was between two atmospheres; the air above, and the air below." he describes the varied world of plants and animals which were reflected by the crystal mirror of that deep blue sea of sicily. i was less fortunate off genoa, where, gazing into the depths, i saw nothing but a desert. the dry and sterile rocks, the volcanic framing of the shores, dark as midnight, or of a still sadder and more ghastly and ghostlike white, showed me nothing but antique sarcophagi--reversed churches, reminding one, at times, of the cathedrals of florence, or the leaning tower of pisa. sometimes, also, i seemed to see "strange monsters of the deep." whales? elephants? i do not know; but of real life not a trace. such, however, as that beautiful sea is, it admirably nerves and hardens the dwellers on its shores, and the sailors on its bosom; it makes at once the most fiery and the most solid of races. our giants of the north, are, perhaps, stronger, but certainly are not more enduring, and, as certainly, they do not so readily, or so safely acclimatise, as the seamen of genoa, of calabria, or of greece, bronzed as they are, not by an accident of the skin, but by the permeation, the imbibation of the sun's rays. a friend of mine, a learned physician, sends his pale patients from paris or lyons to take their sun-baths in the south, and himself lies nude on the rocks, for hours together. he has only his head covered; as to all the rest of his person, he is bronzed as an african. the really sick will go to sicily, to algiers, to madeira, in search of health. but the restorative of the pale, worn populations of our great cities, is best to be found in the more varied and more strengthening climates of the country which has given to earth its most iron humanity, its heroes by sea and by land, and in the council chamber--that truly iron race of the columbuses, the dorias, the massenas,--and the garibaldis. our extreme northern ports, dunkirk, boulogne and dieppe, where the winds and waters of the channel meet, are also a great nursery of renewed life, and restored strength. that great breeze and that great sea, might recall one from the grave. you may see there perfectly incredible recoveries. go there without any real and vital wound, and you recover on the instant. the whole human machine acts strongly; digests well, breathes freely. you need not even strive for health when there, for nature says to you, as tully said to atticus, _jubeo valere_,--_i command you to be well_. the sturdy vegetation that flourishes upon the very margin of the sea, seems to rebuke our weakness. each of the little ports which pierce our norman coast, is swept by the nor' westerly wind, which strengthens and revives us; but grows less violent, though not less salubrious, at the mouth of the seine, beneath the fruitful orchards of honfleur and trouville. the good river, sweeping away to the left, carries with it a softer and gentler air. higher up, you meet the strong, the sometimes really terrible, sea of granville, saint-maloes, and cancale, about the best of naval schools for young folks, a school which will make the strong still stronger. but if, on the contrary, we have to deal with some weakling, some young child, born to weakness, or some young mother, made weak by too frequent parturition, we must select some milder shelter. and such a warm and always calm shelter, you will find, without going further south, among the sleepy little isles and peninsulæ of morbihan. these isles form a labyrinth more perplexed than that in which the english king sheltered his fair rosamond. entrust your own treasure to that shelter, and none shall know of her save the druidic rocks and the handful of fishermen who inhabit those at once wild and gentle shores. does some gentle patient ask us on what people live, in those marine solitudes? we reply, upon fish, fish--still fish! it is not far from st. gildas, where the bretons assure you that heloise sought her abelard. they contrive to live there as cheaply and as well as robinson crusoe and his man friday. places more civilized and attractive are to be found farther south, such as pornice, royan, saint george, arcachon, &c. i spoke elsewhere of saint george's, bordered by many a bitter and precious plant; and arcachon, too, is as attractive, with its resinous and wholesomely pleasant odor of its pine woods. but for the worldly rush from that great and wealthy bordeaux, but for that flood of health seekers, which pours into it at certain seasons, it is at arcachon that we would shelter the dearly beloved patient, that dear and delicate creature for whom we fear the rush and crush of the hard working day world. that place, as long as we contemplate it only within the inner basin, offers the contrast of an absolute and very deep calm with a terribly rough sea close by. beyond the lighthouse is the terrible gascon sea, within the bay a lazy tide, so lazy that you cannot hear its murmurs, as low, as light, as the quiet tread of lady's gentle footstep on the sea-weed carpet of that strand. in an intermediate climate which is neither north nor south, neither brittany nor vendëe, i have visited again and again, and always with pleasure, the pretty and staid shelter of ponice, with its frank seamen and its pretty girls, with their conical hats. it is a pretty quiet little place, which, protected as it is by the island (rather the peninsula) of noirmantiers, receives only a slanting and exceedingly well behaved sea; that enters silken in its softness. and in that bay of several leagues, these creeks, with sloping shores, made, as it would seem, on purpose for baths for women and children, they are so sheltered and so safe. those nice sandy beaches, parted by such sheltering rocks, conceal so much, and yet reveal so much of the sea life, the plain, blunt, yet ever kindly and courteous life of the seaman! but if those sheltering rocks do much good, they also do no little injury. the sheltered creek and safe haven, keeps out the tempest;--but, it also keeps out the fishes. by little and little, but very regularly, the grand rush and the grand murmur of the sea are kept out, and yet, that half silence has a very great charm. no where else have i so much welcomed, or so richly enjoyed, that great luxury of the undisturbed day-dreaming. chapter iii. the house. permit an ignoramus who, yet, has paid a pretty high price for what he _does_ know, to give you some quiet advice upon certain points upon which books, hitherto, have told you little and doctors nothing. that this advice may come the more directly to both head and heart, i will address them to an imaginary patient. imaginary? not so; i have met such a patient many times. you meet a young lady seriously ill, or manifestly about to be so, she is very weak, and her young child is weaker still. the winter has been hard upon them, and the spring still harder. yet it is only weakness;--lassitude, the _tedium vitæ_ which byron truly calls "more terrible than death itself." and she is sent to the sea-side for the summer. a great expense, that, for a fortune below even mediocrity; painful moving for the mistress of a family; hard separation, above all, for husband and wife who truly love each other. they bargain, they would fain shorten that separation. would not one month be enough? but the wise physician knows better, and says it would _not_; he well knows that a very short sojourn at the sea side is far more likely to injure than to benefit. the sudden, the severe shock of the sea bath is likely enough to injure even the strong; to the feeble it is simply murderous. you should first breathe the sea air;--acclimatize yourself. do this during the month of june, then you shall have july, august, september, and, in some seasons, even october for your baths, and the bath and the great, strong, keen winds will harden your frame against the fast approaching winter. few men are free during the whole summer; happy the husband who can be away from the thronged city to pass a couple of the summer months at the sea side with his suffering wife. however much he may feel inclined to sacrifice every secondary interest for her, it is for her interest that he must remain in the counting house or the factory. there are strong links in the chain of our daily life which we may not, which we cannot, break. therefore, the wife must go alone; and, for the time, behold them loving, and yet divorced. shall i give you my opinion? _let_ her go alone; better for her than if she went in the train of some rich luxurious family. that gregarious travel and gregarious abode have their pleasures, no doubt; but, also, they have their evils. in such cases we are apt either to become enemies, or, which is still worse in the case of woman, to become too friendly. the style of life at a watering place sometimes, and not seldom produces results which we regret through the whole remainder of life. in my opinion the smallest inconvenience of that gregarious watering-place life (smallest but very far from small) is that the very people who alone would be both morally and physically benefited by the sea, lose all that benefit by carrying to the solemn shore the frivolity, the late hours, the false gaiety of the great town. alone we think; in the crowd we gossip and scandalise. the great and the rich lead the young and suffering female into their own dissipations, and the consequence is that she has by the sea shore a really more mischievous excitement than she would have had in paris, or london, saint petersburgh or new york, and will entirely lose the end for which, loving husband, you sent her thither. reflect upon it, young woman, be courageous, but also be prudent. it is in an innocent solitude that you may, if you will, enjoy with your child, that you will most surely find the renewed health and strength that you so much desire. in that infantine, pure, but noble and poetic life, i again assure you, it is that you will find restoration. believe me the delicate and tender justice which makes you fear expense, while he at home is toiling so hard, will well repay you. the old ocean will love you the better if you love only it, and will lavish upon you its great treasures of health and youthfulness. your child will flourish like a young bay tree and you shall increase in grace and beauty; and you will return to your far home youthful and dearly beloved. she resolves, she departs, for a place, the waters of which are well known by chemical analysis to have the qualities suited to her case. but there are many local circumstances which cannot be known or even guessed at from a distance. the doctor who recommends particular waters seldom knows the place, though he knows the waters. for some of the more important watering places guides have been published which are not without merit, so far as they point out the particular diseases for which particular waters are suited. but very few give details which enable one to choose between a healthy and unhealthy, a pleasant and an unpleasant, situation. they do not venture upon such particulars as would enable one to choose between places as well as between waters, but confine themselves to so general a eulogy of the latter as to leave us in the dark as to the former. what is the precise exposition? look at the map and you perceive that the coast slopes to the south, but even this tells you nothing; for it may chance that a peculiar curve of the land may place your house under a cold or damp influence, from a northern or western exposure. are there any marshes in the neighborhood? in most cases the answer must be, yes. but the difference is very great whether the marshes be salt and renewed, and made salubrious by the sea, or whether they be stagnant marshes of fresh water which after droughts emit feverish miasmata. is the sea very pure, or mixed? and in what proportion? a great mystery. for nervous persons, however, for novices just commencing with salt water bathing, the mildest are the best. a sea, somewhat mixed, an air less salt and keen, and a less desolate shore, having some of the charms of the country, are the best recommendations. a grave point is the choice of a house; and who shall direct you as to that? no one. you must see for yourself; you must observe all the particulars on the spot. you will learn little from persons who have visited or even lived there. they praise or condemn this or that place not on account of its real merit, but according to the pleasure they have enjoyed or the friends they have made there. they recommend you to some of those friends who receive you admirably; at first you are delighted, but in a short time you discover many inconveniences, and sometimes the house is even dangerously unhealthy. yet you do not like to leave it, lest you should mortify both those who recommended you and the kind and amiable family who so hospitably received you. "well, then," you say, "i will ask no recommendation, but on reaching the place i will consult an honest and skilful doctor who will be able to enlighten me." honest! that is not enough, he must also be very intrepid to tell you frankly any of the bad qualities of the place, for he would be a ruined man, he would take leave of the whole place, would live as solitary as a wolf; and, indeed, would be lucky if some personal injury were not done to him. i have a perfect horror of the absurdly flimsy houses which speculators build in our variable climate. these pasteboard erections are so many dangerous traps. in the full heats of summer such bivouacs are all well enough, but often one has to remain in september and october amid the high winds and the torrents of rain. for themselves the landlords build good substantial houses, but for poor patients they build chalets of wood, ill closed, and not even moss-covered, like the swiss chalets. it really is treating us quite too ill. in those villas, apparently luxurious, but in reality wretched, no provision is made for comfort. drawing-rooms for show,--and commanding a view of the sea, they have, but no provision is made to gratify that feeling of home comfort, so dear to the sick, and more especially so to woman. she feels unsheltered, as though constantly exposed to half a gale of wind, and constantly passing from one temperature to another. on the other hand, the solidly built house of the fisherman is often low, damp, and inconveniently arranged in its interior. often, it has not even a double ceiling, but mere planks, which admit cold draughts into the upper rooms, inflicting coughs, rheumatism, and a score of other diseases. whatever may be your choice, madame, between these two kinds of house, do you know what i heartily wish for you? laugh, if you please. what i wish you to have, even in june, is a good fire-place, with a very excellent chimney, well closed against the wind. in our beautiful france, with its cold north-west and its rainy south-west, which occasionally predominates for nine months, a good fire may be necessary, even in june. on a damp evening, when your child returns shivering from his promenade, a fire is necessary, to warm him, before he goes to bed. two things ought to be especially looked after, wherever you lodge, fire and good water, the latter a thing rarely to be found near the sea. if it is altogether bad, endeavor, by the use of beer or tea, to dispense with drinking the plain water, or if you must use it, let it previously be boiled. why cannot i, with a single word, build you just such a villa as i have in my mind? i do not speak of the show-house, the almost castle, such as the wealthy build at the sea side, but of the humble house, fitted for humble fortunes. it is an art which is yet to be created, and one which no one seems to suspect, that of building a house, at once small and substantial. the houses which are built for us, especially at the sea side, are built in direct contradiction with our needs in so changeable a climate. those kiosks, with their flimsy ornaments, may do well enough for well-sheltered situations, but make one fancy that the wind must needs blow them into the sea. the swiss chalets have immense overhanging roofs, which so well protect from the snow, but also have the serious defect of excluding the light. the sun, in our northern seas, should not be excluded, but most cordially received. as to the imitations of chapels, gothic churches, and the like toys, we need say nothing about them, they are really beneath notice, so absurdly ill calculated as they are for comfortable homes. the first necessity for a sea-side house, is great strength, a solid thickness of walls, which will obviate that rocking which we always feel in slight buildings. we want such a solidity of construction as even in the greatest tempests will give courage to a timid woman, and enable her to say with a smile of pleasure. "how very comfortable we are in here, while such a storm rages without!" the second point is that on the land side, the house should be so perfectly sheltered that on that side we can sit and forget the sea, and in the neighborhood of that great movement find the most complete repose. to meet those two needs, i prefer the form which affords least hold to the wind, the crescent form, with the convex front to the sea, so that every window will in turn receive the sun. the concave portion of this half circle would be sheltered by the horns of the crescent, so as to enclose the pretty flower garden of the mistress of the house. stretching from this flower garden, the progressive sloping of the soil would allow of a kitchen garden of a certain extent, well sheltered from the wind. we are told that "flora shuns the sea;" what she really does shun, is not the sea, but man's negligence, ignorance, or indolence. at eteretat, before a very heavy sea, on the high overlooking beach, and exposed to heavy winds, there is a farm, with an orchard of superb trees. what precautions have been taken? a simple hedge-crowned bank, five feet high, and behind that a row of elms, which shelter all the rest. many places brittany would furnish us with like instances. who does not know that roscoff raises fruit and vegetables in such profusion as to sell them cheaply, even in normandy? but to return to our building. i want it low-pitched; only a ground floor, and over that the bed-chambers. our house, therefore, will be but small; but, on the other hand, it must be very thick, must have two rows of chambers, an apartment looking out on the sea, and another on the land. the ground floor apartment, looking towards the land, would be somewhat sheltered by the upper story, which would project about five feet. this would make the interior crescent a sort of gallery for use in bad weather. the lower rooms would be a dining room;--a small room for our books (voyages and travels, and natural history) and a bathroom. i do not mean an actual library or luxurious bath. the necessary, and the very plain, the convenient, and nothing more. on very rough days, when the beach is hardly the fit place for delicate patients, i should wish to see the lady reading or working in her pretty parterre. she would have some life there, flowers, an aviary, and a little tank of sea water to receive the little creatures which the fishermen would be sure to give her. of course she would also have an excellent compound microscope. for the aviary, i should prefer the free one which i have advised elsewhere, into which the birds come at night for protection and a little food. it is closed upon them at night, to protect them from birds of prey, but opened for them very early in the morning. they return to this aviary very regularly. i believe, even, that if the aviary were large enough, and the tree which they most affect were enclosed, they would freely breed there, and confide their little ones to your protection. delightful, and yet serious life, this, that we have planned for our fair patient and her sole child. what charming solitude in this short widowhood. how new the situation. no housekeeping, no business. with her boy, she is even more alone than she would be without him. but for him she would be intruded upon by reverie and vain fancies. but her innocent guardian, her boy, keeps all such fancies away. he occupies her, causes her to talk, and talks to her of home, and he thus constantly reminds her of him who, in their far off home, is toiling for them, and she counts the days to her return. flourish, pure and amiable woman. you are now even younger than ever, you have become a girl again, free, sweetly free, under the guardianship of your boy. chapter iv. first aspiration of the sea. it is a great and sudden transition to leave paris in the beautiful month of june when the great city is resplendent with its magnificent gardens and its chestnut trees in bloom. june would be delightful on the coast if one had a single companion and the crowd had not arrived. but when one is alone on the deserted, with the great sea, we are touched with a sort of melancholy. on a first visit to the coast the impression made is not very favorable. there is aridity, there is wildness, and yet there is a certain monotony. the novel grandeur of the spectacle makes us feel, by contrast, how weak and small we are, and that thought thrills the heart. the delicate chest that so lately was confined in a chamber, and now finds itself suddenly removed to this vast open chamber of the universe, with the sun shining so brightly and the sea breeze blowing so strongly, feels oppressed. the child comes, goes, and the mother sits down, shivering in the free fresh breeze. the warmth of the home she has but just left comes to her mind and she saddens. but her boy frolics gaily and that soon consoles her. all this will soon pass away madame. be resolute; your impressions will be very different when you become better acquainted with the sea and think of its myriads of inhabitants. and that painful constriction of the lungs will pass away too, when you become accustomed to the free atmosphere of the sea. you require time to accustom yourself to it, by and by, not thinking about it, as your boy plays with you in sheltered nooks, you will breathe freely and your chest will dilate without pain and without conscious effort. but, just at first, i advise you not to stay too long at a time on the beach, but rather to take your walk inland. the land, your accustomed friend, recalls you. the pine woods rival the sea in healthful emanations; and theirs have less of harshness. they penetrate all our being, enter by every pore, modify and purify the blood, and perfume us with their subtle aroma. in the landes behind the pine woods, the herbs and even the coarse grass on which you tread, yield perfumes not enervating or intoxicating as the dangerous roses, but agreeably bitter. seat yourself among them and you, like them, will be sheltered by this slight slope of land. might you not, now that you are thus sheltered, fancy yourself a hundred leagues from the sea? drink in the sweet breathings, the pure spirits, the very soul of these wild flowers--that, in purity, are your very sisters. gather them if you will, madame; they ask for nothing better. somewhat rude, perhaps, and yet so beautiful; and in their virginal perfume they have that singular mystery of calming and strengthening. do not fear to hide them in your fair bosom and upon your beating heart. let us not forget that these sheltered landes are, at certain hours, burning hot. they so absorb and concentrate the rays of the sun. the weak woman is wilted there. the young girl, full of vigorous life, feels her pulses boiling and has redoubled power; her brain swims and she has strange and dangerous day dreams. if you wish to go there let it be on some moist and rather cloudy day; or, still better, rise at a very early hour when all is cool, when the wild thyme still keeps somewhat of its dew, and while the hare is still abroad. but let us return to the ocean. at ebb-tide he manifests, and, in some sort, presents to you, the rich life that he nourishes. you must follow, step by step, the retiring waves, though the wet sand will sink some little beneath your feet. fear not. the gentle wave will, at the most, kiss your feet. if you look closely you will perceive that the sand is not, as you at first thought it, dead, but is here and there moved by numerous lingerers that the ebb-tide has left behind. on certain beaches, small fish are thus hidden in the sand. at the mouth of the rivers the eel's writhing movement, throws up the sand in mimic earthquakes. the crab, too eagerly engaged in feeding, or fighting, has now to hasten back to the sea, and in his flight he leaves an odd mosaic, a zigzag line marking his oblique travel, and at the end of that line you will find him lying in wait for the coming in of the tide. the solen (_manche de couteau_), that razor-shaped shell fish, has plunged deep into the sand, but betrays himself to you by the breathing holes that he has left. the venus you can just as certainly trace by the fucus attached to its shell, but floating on the surface; and the undulations of the soil betray to you the covered ways of the warlike annelides, and viewing them with the aid of your microscope you will be charmed with the rainbows of their changing colors. but the finest sights are caused at the first low ebb, which always follows the high spring tide. at such ebbs, immense and unexplored spaces are left bare, and we can survey that mysterious bottom of the sea, on which we have so often speculated and dreamed. there you discover, in motion, in life, in all the secrecy of their retreats, astonished populations, which fancied themselves secure, and which rarely, if ever before, had been looked upon by the sun, and still more rarely by the eye of man. be not alarmed, swarming populations of minute creatures, you are seen only by the inquisitive but compassionate eye of a woman; it is not the cruel and coarse hand of a fisherman that invades your retreat. but you ask, what does she want with you? nothing but to see you, salute you, show you to her boy, and leave you in your natural element, and with every kindly wish for your health and prosperity. at times we need not wander far; at such times in a cleft of the rock, we may find every minute species, old ocean having diverted himself with lodging a whole world of minute creatures within the space of a few square feet. we sit and we watch, and the longer and the more closely we watch, the more do we see of life, at first imperceptible. and so interested are we that we should sit there for an indefinite time, were we not chased to shore by that imperious master of the beach, the flood tide. but to-morrow, at ebb, she will return to the beach, that school, that museum, that inexhaustible amusement for both mother and child. there the delicate and penetrating sense of woman and the tenderness of her heart seize and divine all. maternity tells her all the secrets of increasing, diminishing, and recreating life. do you ask why her instinct so quickly reveals creation to her; why she enters as one so thoroughly at home, into the great mystery of nature? it is because she is nature herself. in the depths of the unctuous waters the small algæ, small, but unctuous and nourishing, and other little plants of delicate and pretty figures, form a miniature prairie which is browsed by a vast herd of molluscæ, limpets, whelks, and a hundred other species, watch, wait, feed, there, and to-morrow you will find them there still. but do you therefore suppose that they are utterly inert? that they have no confused idea of love and the unknown? of some benevolent thing which at certain hours returns to refresh and nourish them? oh yes, they both think of it and expect it; those widows of the great ocean well know that he will return to caress the earth. anticipatively they look towards the ocean, and even those which have a fixed abode, turn from the rock and open their shells towards the incoming tide. and if it come in somewhat strongly they are all the more delighted; too happy to hail that living wave that advances so strongly, as in haste to caress them. "see my child" says the young mother, "at our approach the motionless ones remain, but the quicker have fled. now see, they take courage again. the active shrimp, with its fine feelers, rainbowed by the water, creates a great commotion in that mimic and miniature sea, and the slow and hesitating sea spider, at once timid and daring, saves herself by ascending to the warm surface, and the crab advancing and surveying, suddenly returns into his miniature forest of sea weed. "but what do i see now? what _is_ that? a large, motionless shell suddenly takes life, and moves. oh, but that is not natural, and the impostor betrays himself by his awkward gait and his many stumbles. yes, yes, we detect you now, you most cunning of all cunning crabs, sir bernard the hermit, who would fain pass yourself off for an innocent mollusc! your bad conscience agitates you too much." on the shore of our ocean, strangers to these movements, the animated flowers expand their corollæ. near to the heavy anemone those charming little annelides appear in the sunlight. from a tortuous tube rises a disc, an umbrella, white or lilac, sometimes flesh color. thrown, itself, a little on one side, it casts off from itself an object which has nothing comparable to it in the whole vegetable world. not one of these is like its sister, and all are admirable for their velvety delicacy. see one of them, without umbrella, which throws off a whole cloud of light cottony threads, scarcely tinted with a silver grey, while five longer filets are of the richest cherry color. they wave, they entwine, they untwist, and their silvery heads form beautiful images in the water. to the coarse senses of man, such a sight as that would suggest no serious thought; but to the nervous and delicate woman, it is much. at those colors, by turns flashing and fading, she reflects on her own young life that now flashes, now fades, and now threatens to expire. affecting thought! again she looks into the pretty miniature ocean of a few feet square, and there she better discerns nature, the fertile mother, but the stern mother too. and our fair patient is plunged into an oppressive reverie. woman would cease to be woman, that is to say, the charm of the world, if she had not that touching gift of _tenderness for everything that lives_; _pity, and loving tears_. she has not wept as yet, our fair patient, but she has been so near to doing so! her boy perceives it. being already attentive and quick, he remains silent; and, silently they return. that was the amiable first day when she first began to spell with her heart the language of nature. and at her very first lesson that language had so stirred the tenderness of that poor heart! the daylight was dying, the sea bird, on rapid wing, approached the shore and sought his nest. and as our patient and her boy entered their already dark garden, the cry of the night bird was heard. but the aviary was well closed, and the innocent little refugees within were asleep with heads under wings. having herself seen that all was thus safe, she relieved her heart with a sigh, and embraced her son. chapter v. baths--restoration of beauty. if, as certain french physicians maintain, sea-water baths have only a mechanical action, infuse no new principle into the blood and _are merely a simple branch of hydropathy_, it must be confessed that of all the forms of hydropathy they are the harshest and most hazardous. let it once be clearly shown that that sea-water, so rich in life, bestows no more of vitality than fresh water and we must confess that it is little less than madness to take sea-baths in the open air and at all the risk of the wind, the sun, and the thousand possible accidents. whoever has seen a poor creature come out of the water after taking his first bath, whoever has seen him come out pale and shuddering, must perceive how dangerous such experiments are to certain constitutions. be assured that none of us would submit to so much suffering if health could be as readily secured without suffering and without danger, in one's own house, and by common fresh water hydropathy. and, as though the impression of a first sea-bath were not sufficiently strong, it is aggravated for a nervous woman by the presence of the crowd of bathers. for her it is a cruel exhibition to make before a critical crowd, before rivals, delighted to see her ugly, for once; before silly and heartless men, who, with telescope in hand, watch the sad hazards of the toilette of the poor humiliated woman. to brave all this the patient must have faith, great, surpassing faith, in the sea. she must believe that no other remedy will meet her case, and must determine that, at whatever risks, she will be permeated by the virtues of the sea water. "and why not be thus _permeated_?" ask the german physicians. "if at first entering the water you contract and close up your pores, reaction brings almost immediately a warmth that reopens them, dilates the skin and renders it very capable of _absorbing_ the life of the sea." the two operations, the closing and the reopening of the pores, the first chill and the succeeding glow, almost always take place in five or six minutes. to stay in longer than the latter space of time, is almost always injurious. moreover, we should not venture upon this violent emotion of the cold bath without a preliminary course of warm bathing, to facilitate absorption. our skin which is entirely composed of the little mouths which we call pores, and which, in its way, both absorbs and digests, as the stomach does, wants time to get accustomed to such strong nourishment as the _mucus_ of the sea, that salted milk with which the sea makes and remakes such myriads of creatures. by a graduated course of baths, hot, warm, lukewarm, and almost cold, the skin acquires this habit, and, so to speak, this appetite; and "increase of appetite grows by what it feeds on." for the hard ceremony of the first cold sea-water baths, at least, the odious gaze of a mob of people is to be avoided. let them be taken in private and with no one present but a perfectly reliable person who, at need, will help the nervous patient, and rub her with hot cloths and revive her with warm drinks containing a few drops of the potent elixir. "but," it may be said, "the presence of other bathers lessens the danger; we are far different from virginia, who, in an extreme danger, preferred drowning herself to taking a bath." a great mistake; we are more nervous now than ever we were. and the impression of which i speak is at once so vivid and so revolting--i mean for nervous people--that it is quite capable of killing, by aneurism or apoplexy. i love the people, but i hate a mob; especially a noisy mob of fast livers who come to sadden the great sea with their noise, their fashions, and their absurdities. what! is not the land large enough? must such people come to the sea to martyrize the sick and to vulgarize the majesty of the sea, that wild and true grandeur? i once had the ill luck to run from havre to honfleur in a craft loaded with such fools. even in that short trip they found time to grow weary of quiet, and to get up a ball. one of them--probably a dancing master--had his kit with him and played all sorts of dances in the presence of that great ocean. happily one could not hear much of that small music; scarcely now and then could a shrill note or two rise above the solemn, the truly solemn bass of the sea's roar. i can easily imagine the sadness of the lady who, in july, suffers under the invasion of a mob of these fops, fools, and gossips. all liberty is then at an end. even in the most retired spot the drowsy ear of night is vexed by the boisterous echoes from saloon, and dancing room, coffee-room and casino. in the day the host of yellow gloves and varnished boots crowds the shore. one lady is observed alone, with her boy. why is that? impertinents wish to know, they approach, and, gathering sea shells for the child, endeavor to force their conversation on the mother. the lady is embarrassed, bored to death, and has to confine herself to her lodging or venture out only in early morning, while the empty pated revellers are still sleeping off the effects of the last night's follies. then, from her seclusion flow a thousand ill natured comments. she becomes alarmed, for some of these idlers have influence and may, possibly, injure her husband. nowhere more than at the sea side, are we inquisitive, and the poor woman becomes agitated and sleepless during the long hot nights of july and august, and if, towards morning, she at length sleeps, she is not much more tranquil. the baths, far from cooling, add the saline irritation to the fierce heat of the dog days. from her youth she derives, not strength, but fever; and, weak and highly nervous, she is all the more disturbed by that interior storm. interior, but yet not hidden. the sea, the pitiless sea, brings to the skin the proofs of that excitement which the sufferer would fain keep hidden. she betrays it by red blotches, slight efflorescences. all these petty annoyances, which still more afflict the children, and which in them the mother looks upon as signs of returning health, the mothers feel as humiliations when seen on their own faces. they fear that they will therefore be less loved. so little do they know of the heart of man. they know not that the sharpest spur of love is not beauty, but suffering. "oh! if he should find me ugly!" is the poor woman's morning thought, as she looks in her glass. she at once fears and desires the coming of her husband. and yet she feels so lonely, and fears, she knows not what, amidst that noisy crowd. she dares not go out, she becomes feverish, and at length is confined to her bed. in little more than twenty-four hours, the beloved one is by her side. who has summoned him? she certainly has not. but, in his great straggling handwriting, her boy has written to his father thus: "my dear papa, come quickly. mamma is confined to bed, and the other day she said 'oh if he were here!'" and accordingly he was there, and immediately she felt herself recovering. and he, how happy he is! happy to see her restored, happy to be necessary to her, and happy to see her looking so beautiful. she is somewhat sun burnt, but how young she looks! what life in her glance, and in her flowing and silky hair! is this mere fiction, this so prompt restoration of life, beauty, and tenderness; this delightful incident of finding in a wife, a young mistress, so happy in being rejoined by a husband? not at all. it is an agreeable sight which right often may be witnessed. if rare among the very rich, it is not so among the laborious families whose labor makes them, during most of their lives, close prisoners. their forced separations are painful, and their reunion has a charm, a rapture, which they do not even try to conceal. when we consider the prodigious tension of modern life, for toiling men, (that is to say, for every one but a few idlers) one cannot but be glad to witness those scenes of joy, when a reunited family expand their hearts. those who have no hearts, call all this vulgar and prosaic. but, the form matters little, where the substance is so surpassingly good. the careworn merchant, who, from three months to three months, has only with utmost difficulty saved the bark in which the destiny of his wife and children is exposed to shipwreck; the administration victim; the employé, worn well nigh to death by the injustice and tyranny of the offices--these suffering captives, are released, for a brief space, from their galling chains, and the tender family, the mother and child, endeavor to make the husband and father forget his cares. and well able are wife and child to wile the worn man into that sweet temporary oblivion. their gaiety, their caresses, and the distractions of the sea-side, soothe his wearied soul, and fill his mind with other and happier thoughts. it is their triumph. they hurry off to visit _their_ beach, to contemplate _their_ sea, and to enjoy his admiration, which he, worthy man, just a little exaggerates, because he wishes them to be pleased. yes! it is _their_ sea; having bathed in it, they have taken possession; and he, the toilworn husband and father, must share with them in their vast possession. the young woman no longer fears that crowd which formerly so much annoyed, and even alarmed, her; now that he is beside her she is not merely safe, but bold, daring; to say the truth, just a little presumptuous. she is quite familiar with the sea; familiar enough to be determined to learn to swim. at first she is supported by her active and bold boy. supported by him, she swims--but i fear if left to herself her native timidity would return, and she would sink. yet she is in love with the sea; yea, jealous of the sea. for, in fact, the sea inspires no moderate passions. there is i know not what of electric inspiration, of all-absorbing passion for the sea, in all who truly know it. chapter vi. the restoration of heart and brotherhood. there are three forms of nature which especially expand and elevate our souls, release her from her heavy clay and earthy limits, and send her, exulting, to sail amidst the wonders and mysteries of the infinite. first; there is the variable ocean of air with its glorious banquet of light, its vapors, its twilight, and its shifting phantasmagoria of capricious creatures; coming into existence only to depart on the instant. second; there is the fixed ocean of the earth, its undulating and vast waves as we see them from the tops of "earth o'er gazing mountains," the elevations which testify its antique mobility, and the sublimity of its mightier mountains clad in eternal snows. third; there is the ocean of waters, less mobile than air, less fixed than earth, but docile, in its movements, to the celestial bodies. these three things form the gamut by which the infinite speaks to our souls. nevertheless, let us point out some very notable differences. the air-ocean is so mobile that we can scarcely examine it. it deceives, it decoys, it diverts; it dissipates and breaks up our chain of thought. for an instant, it is an immense hope, the day of an infinity;--anon, it is not so; all flies from before us, and our hearts are grieved, agitated, and filled with doubt. why have i been permitted to see for a moment that immense flood of light? the memory of that brief gleaming must ever abide with me, and that memory makes all things here on earth look dark. the fixed ocean of the mountains is not thus transient or fugitive; on the contrary, it stops us at every step, and imposes upon us the necessity of a very hard, though wholesome, gymnastic. contemplation here has to be bought at the price of the most violent action. nevertheless, the opacity of the earth, like the transparency of the air, frequently deceives and bewilders us. who can forget that for ten years ramon, in vain, sought to reach mount perdu, though often within sight of it? great, very great, is the difference between the two elements; the earth is mute and the ocean speaks. the ocean is a voice. it speaks to the distant stars, it answers to their movements in its deep and solemn language. it speaks to the earth on the shores, replying to the echoes that reply again; by turns wailing, soothing, threatening, its deepest roar is presently succeeded by a sad, pathetic sigh. and it especially addresses itself to man. as it is the fecund womb in which creation began and still continues, it has creation's living eloquence; it is life speaking to life! the millions, the countless myriads, of beings, to which it gives birth, are its words. that milky sea from which they proceed, that fecund marine jelly, even before it is organized, while yet white and foaming,--speaks. all these mingled together makes the unity, the great and solemn voice of the ocean. and, "what are those wild waves saying?" they are telling of _life_, of the eternal metamorphosis; of the great fluid existence, shaming our senseless ambitions of the earth-world. they are telling of _immortality_. an indomitable strength is at the bottom of nature, how much more so at nature's summit, the soul! and it speaks of partnership, of union. let us accept the swift exchange which, in the individual, exists between the diverse elements; let us accept the superior law which unites the living members of the same body--humanity; and, still more, let us accept and respect the supreme law which makes us create and coöperate with the great soul, associated as we are--in proportion with our powers,--with the loving harmony of the world--copartners in the life of god. the sea very distinctly, in that voice that is mistakenly supposed to be a mere confusion of sounds, articulates those grave words. but man does not easily recognize those words, when he first arrives on the shore exhausted by worldly struggles, deafened, distracted, by worldly babble. the sense of the higher life is dulled even among the best of us; the best of us, to a greater or less extent, resist that sense. and who shall teach us to quicken and obey that sense? nature? not yet. softened into tenderness by the family, by the innocence of the child and the tenderness of the wife, man first takes an interest, real and strong, in the things of humanity, in the cares and studies which tend to preserve the family. but woman is earlier and more deeply interested in the sea, in the poetry of the infinite. and thus we see that souls have sexes as well as bodies have. for the man thinks of the seaman more than of the sea's wonders; he thinks of its dangers, of its daily and hourly tragedies, and of the floating destiny of his family. the woman, tender as she is to individuals, takes less interest in classes. every laborious man, who visits the coast, bestows his principal attention and his principal sympathy upon the hard life of the man of toil, the fisherman and the sailor; upon that hard hard life so laborious and perilous and so little productive of gain. such a man, while his wife rises and dresses her sweet child, walks upon the beach in the early morning just as the fishing boats return. the morning is cold, the night has been rainy, and the boats have shipped many a heavy sea. the men, and not only men but very small boys, too, are wet to the skin. and what have they brought back? not much;--but they _have_ come back, and that is much. for last night, see you, they shipped many a sea and looked at death closely many a time. ah! when the stranger reflects upon the hard life brought immediately under his purview, surely, however much he may have complained of his own lot, he will now learn to say "my lot is far better than theirs." in the evening, just when the sun sets, coppery and threatening, into the sinister horizon, these men already have to sail again. and the stranger says to them, "shall you not have bad weather, think you?" "sir," they reply, "we must earn our bit of bread," and they and their sturdy boys push off to sea. and their wives, more than serious, sad, follow them with their eyes; and more than one of those wives whisper an earnest prayer. and the stranger, too, whispers his prayer, and says to himself, "they will have a dirty night; would that they may return in safety." and thus it is that the sea opens the heart, and that even the hardest hearts are softened in presence of the great stern mother. in that presence, no matter what we may strive to think, we become humanized, sympathizing, tender. and heaven knows how much need and how much occasion there are for sympathy there! every kind of want and struggle is to be found among those brave, honest and intelligent marine populations who are incomparably the best of our country. i have lived a good deal on the coast. every heroic virtue, which an inland population would praise so highly, is there an every day and very common-place matter. and, still more curious!--there is no pride among these hardy mariners. all our french pride is for the landsmen--the soldiery. but among our marine population the greatest dangers count for nothing; every one braves such every day, and no one ever thinks of boasting of them. i have never met with men who were milder or more modest (i had almost said more timid) than our gironde pilots who, from royan and from st. george's gallantly put out, to face all that cordouan has of peril. there, as at granville, and every where else on that coast, it is the women alone who have anything to say, or any business to do, on land. the brave pilots, when once on shore, never say a word in the way of command; peaceable as their valiant wives are superbly noisy, the men leave the women full authority to administer the poor income and to rule (occasionally with a pretty hard hand) the youngsters of the household. the husband, in fact, though he reads no latin, literally and practically translates the latin poet: "happy, when in mine own house i am as nobody." their wives, greatly interested about the foreigner, had, nevertheless, let it be boldly as truly said, a royal, a magnificent, a generous, kindly feeling. at st. georges, they cut up, and scraped up, all their linen to make lint for the wounded at solferino. at entretat, three englishmen being wrecked, and in awful danger, the whole population, men, women and children, rushed to the rescue, and dragged them to land with all the outward and visible signs of a real and a violent sensibility. and they were fed, and clothed, and tended, and relieved, even as though they had been compatriots, and very dear friends. this occurred in april, 1859. oh! those kind french people! and yet, how hard, hitherto, has been their life! in our _regime_ of classes (so useful, however, in itself, and from which we derive so much of giant strength) the sailor is compelled, at any moment, to leave the merchant service for the war ship, daily and hourly growing more severe, more crushing, in its hard discipline! forty years ago the sailor sang, as he worked at the capstan bar; _now_ he heaves in silence. (ial. arch ii. 522). and in the merchant service, the great fisheries are almost worked out. the profits of the whale fishery belong, almost entirely, to the outfitter. (boitard, diet. art. cetaceæ, whales, &c.) the cod has diminished, the mackerel grows more and more scarce. a very precious little book (_the story of rose duchenin_, by herself) gives a most touching picture of this great destitution. alphonse karr, that admirable writer, had the good sense to write that book from the dictation of that fisherman's wife, without altering a word of hers, or adding a word of his own. étretat is not, properly speaking, a port. situated little, if any, above the level of the sea, and defended only by the pebbly bar which the sea has washed in, it is but poorly sheltered. and consequently, it is necessary that, according to the old celtic custom, every vessel that runs in there, must be hauled up to the quay by the cable and the capstan; the capstan bars being handled by the women, for the lads are all at sea. the labor and the difficulty will be easily understood by all who read this. the lubberly craft, as it is drawn up, hits hard from boulder to boulder, and ascends only by leaps, violent and damaging, and still more threatening than either. and at every leap and every shock, those poor women suffer from the hard blow to their necks and from the bitterly painful emotions of their poor hearts. when i first witnessed this terrible labor, i was wounded, saddened in mine inmost heart. my first impulse was to bear a hand and lend my aid. but the thing would seem so singular, i thought, that a something, i know not what, of false shame, arrested me. but every day i lent a hand, at least with my wishes and my prayers. i went, and looked. those young and charming, though anything but pretty, women and girls did not sport the short red petticoat of the coasts, but long robes; and for the most part, they had the refined and delicate aspect of the young lady of the great city. bending to that hard toil (a filial, and, therefore, a noble toil) they had a certain mingled grace and pride, and, in all that hard toil, not a complaint, not even a sigh, escaped them. that very small quay of boulders, small as it is, yet is too large. i saw there a number of vessels, abandoned, useless. for, see you, the fishery has become so unproductive! the fish have fled that shore. entretat languishes, perishes, so near to languishing, and, but for its sea-bathing, perishing, dieppe, which owes its present existence--such as it is!--to the greater or less number of visitors, who render dieppe in one season prosperous, and in another as nearly as possible, bankrupt. and this very influx from paris, worldly paris, is, after all, morally, at least, a real scourge to that marine population. our norman populations who discovered america, and who, ever since the fourteenth century, have known africa, are every year becoming less and less in love with the sea, so that, year by year, more and more of them are turning their faces inland. the descendant of the bold fellow who formerly harpooned the whale, is now a pale cotton-spinner of montville or of balbec. it is for science, it is for the law, to put a stop to this fearful decay. the former with its skill, its sound advice will,--if such advice be resolutely acted upon, _economise the sea and_ revive that fishery which is the very nursery of seamen; and in the next place, the law, less exclusively caring for the interests of the real _élite_, the real flower and elect of the country, in no wise to be compared to those great masses from which we draw our soldiery, but who, under given circumstances, will be able to cut the gordian knot of the world. such were my reflections, on the little wharf or quay of etretat, in the cloudy and rainy summer of 1860, while the capstan bar was heaved at by young females, while the capstan screamed at every turn, and while the whole scene put one in mind of _desolation for the present, and worse to come_. and thus is it with our century. ever since 1730, and so in the present day, labor, fatigue, and slowness have been upon us. let us all, of no matter what rank, put hand and strength to the capstan bar! but, alas! how many of us prefer _picking up pebbles on the wild_ sea shore! we read that scipio, stern conqueror of carthage, and terence, the lucky refugee from that shipwreck of a world, amused themselves in picking up shells on the sea shore; capital friends in their forgetfulness of the past. they enjoyed the _dolce far niente_; they were luxurious in their enjoyment of the illusion of being _boys once more_. but let not that be _our_ wish. we will not, we must not, we dare not, forget _our_ duty; no, with persistent labor, with uncooling ardor, we will put our hands to the capstan bar, and help to _warp up_ this great, but worn and much tried century. chapter vii. the new life of the nations. just as i was finishing this book, in december, 1860, resuscitated italy, that great and glorious mother of the modern nations, sent me tidings, in the shape of a small book, a mere pamphlet. it was my "new year's gift for 1861." and from that italy how often have we had great and beautiful tidings? in 1300 news from dante; in 1500 news from americus vespucius; in 1600 from galileo. and what are our present tidings from florence? apparently, but small. but who knows? perhaps the results will be immense! it is a discourse of but a few pages, a medical pamphlet, and its very title is more likely to repel than to attract. and, yet, in those few pages there is matter which, duly acted upon, may change the whole destiny of our great, but weak, our often wise, but still more often mistaken humanity. opposite to the title i find two portraits, one a deceased boy, and another dying. the author of the pamphlet is a doctor, who, very unusual thing! has been so terribly impressed by the fate of his poor unknown and, but for him, uncared for children, that he has been led to write for our instruction, his pain and his regret. the elder of these children, of a fine and high nature, in the bitterness, as it would seem, of a great destiny cut short, has a bouquet upon his pillow. his mother,--poor, poor, mother! has given it to him this morning, having nothing else to give, and the nurses, seeing the quite religious love with which he cared for the poor gift of that poor mother, have allowed him to keep it. the second, still younger, in all the tender grace of his four or five years, is evidently dying; his eyes are fast veiling beneath the death film. each of these poor boys had shown sympathy for the other. when they could no longer speak their sympathy, they _looked_ it in their tender glances, and the good kind doctor, (blessings on him for the kindly thought!) had them placed opposite to each other, and his engraving shows them to us (touching sight), just as, dying, they exchanged their sympathizing glances! the whole is truly, and nobly, italian. in any other country a man would fear to be laughed at in showing himself thus truly tender. not so in italy. the doctor wrote to his italian public, just as he might soliloquise in the privacy of his own study; and he unreservedly pours out all his feelings with an intensity, with a perfectly feminine sensibility, which will make the worldly man laugh, and the kindly man weep. and it must be confessed that his native language has much to do with his power over our feelings; it is the language of women and children, at once so tender and so striking, beautiful even in its terrible accent of grief and suffering. it is a shower of mingled tears and roses. and then he suddenly stops himself. and apologizes. he would not have written thus, but for sufficient cause, and that cause is that "those poor children would not have died if they could have been sent to the sea-side." and, the inference? that at the sea-side we must have hospitals for children. now here, if you please, is a really skilful, as well as greatly humane, man. he touches the heart; and the rest necessarily follows. men listen attentively and are touched; women burst into an agony of tears. they beg, they pray, they insist--and who is to resist them? without waiting for government action, or government aid, a voluntary society has founded a "_children's sea-bathing hospital_" at viareggio. all who have been there admire the crescent-like sweep, made by the mediterranean, when it quits genoa passes the magnificent road of spezzia and reaches the virgilian olive groves of tuscany. about half way from leghorn a cape, stolen from the sea, is the site, henceforth the sacred site, of this truly admirable foundation. florence, by the way, has preceded all europe in the way of charitable foundations; she had hospitals before the close of the tenth century, and in the year 1287, when beatrice inspired and maddened dante, her father, the cruel persecutor of the greater, far greater dante, founded the hospital of _st. maria nuova_. even luther, though in his travels he saw little to admire in italy, _did_ admire, and very heartily, its hospitals and the beautiful italian women, who, veiled, stood by the bedsides of the sick sinner and the dying pauper. this new foundation, of which we have spoken, will, we trust, be a model for europe. we owe that much to children; for upon them it is that fall the worst effects of our murderous toils and our still more murderous excesses in every kind of bad life. it is impossible not to perceive the visible and terrible deterioration of our western races. the causes of it are numerous and very various. the chief of them all is the immensity and the constant and rapid increase of our hours of labor. for the most part, it is compulsory; compelled by trade regulations and trade necessities. but even where no such compulsion exists, there the same ardor of long hours and hard toil exists. i know not what demoniac fire exists in our modern temperament. compared to ourselves, all former centuries have been positively idle. our results, no doubt, are immense. from our prolific brain and iron hand, proceeds such a marvellous flood of art, science, inventions, productions, and ideas, that we are actually glutting the markets, not only of the present, but also of the future. but at what cost are we doing all this? at the price of an awful expenditure of strength, and of nervous energy; we are enervating ourselves, our works are prodigious, and _our children_ are miserable. we condemn them to disease, suffering, and premature death even before they are born. _our spendthrift waste of energy entails feebleness and early death upon them!_ and let it be remembered that this immense amount of production is the work of only a comparatively small number. america does little of it, asia next to nothing, and even in europe all, or nearly all, is done by a few millions in the extreme west. the others laugh to see the really working peoples thus wear themselves out. poor barbarians! do you fancy, then, that this russian or that backwoodsman, can replace, at need, a mechanic of london or an optician of paris? no; we have become such by the education and the practice of long centuries. a whole and a very long tradition is in us. what would become of you if we should die? none of you are ready to succeed us. but this same murderous toil, this absolutely suicidal production, if we be willing to accept it for ourselves, it is our duty _not_ to accept it for our children; we have no right thus to _add murder to suicide_. and, yet, that is what we really are doing. they are born already, with our fatigue, our cerebral exhaustion. with a perfectly frightful precocity, they _know_, they _can_, they _will_, and they _do_. but how long? the grave opens for them _so_ early! the human infant, like the young plant, needs rest, air, and a sweet liberty. do we give our children any of these? no; our very virtues, as well as our vices, deny them all. everything seems to combine to kill them early. do we love them? no doubt; and yet our worst malice could not do more than we do to kill them early or to cause them to live miserably, pitifully, sufferingly, effeminate. such a society as ours, so overworked, so over excited, so constantly agitated, is, (whether society will confess it or not) a real, and a murderous war upon our children. especially there are times and seasons in the course of the child's growth when his life quite literally hangs upon a thread. life, at those times, seems to borrow human voice, and to ask,--"can i possibly last?" at those critical times, see you, the contact of so many, the close, sedentary, and imprisoned life of cities, is just simply death to those delicate and fading creatures. or, even worse than death, it is the commencement of a long career of suffering and helplessness far worse than death itself. in this latter case you leave a poor creature who, now sick, now well, drags on a wretched existence, a misery to himself and a burthen upon public charity. all this must be cut short. we must have foresight combined with humanity. we must snatch the child from these murderous surroundings; we must take him from man and give him to the grand nursing of the fecund nature--of the sea. and, then, the child will live and become man. your very foundlings, if you thus treat them may some day become your nelsons and your napiers, and your community, instead of having to support an habitual patient of your hospitals, will have the bold seaman or the strong laborer. and, for the matter of that, why need we depend upon the state to do this great thing? florence hath taught us that the royal heart is fully equal to any other royalty; woman in her mercy, _is_ a royalty; she commands, entreats, and man obeys. woman! have mercy upon the children! if i were a young and lovely woman, i well know what _i_ should say, and what _i_ should do. i should have all around me my magnificence and my luxury, and when on some fine day, my lover in his love should be eager, passionate, ready to give great gifts, i would say to him:-"please offer me none of your cachemires, designed in england and woven in india; for diamonds i really care nothing; berthollet who knows so well how to imitate nature can make diamonds, if he so please. but if you really wish to make me a present which i shall love, and for which i shall love you, be so good as to get me a nice well sheltered, yet beautifully sunny home, in which i can lodge some three score, or so, of poor children. they will want no fine furniture; not much of any kind. once established in that sunny, quiet, and kindly home, they will be well fed, and well cared for; and, my word for it, not a woman will go to the sea-side for her own health who will not give her mite towards the support of those poor children. if beatrice of florence could influence her father to found such a home, such a saving refuge, cannot we women of france do as much? is it that we are less beautiful, or are you less truly in love?" "if the sea, as you every morning tell me, has beautified and improved me so much; surely, your best gift would be my keepsake for the beach. and if you really love me, you will share with me in this work, this great work of bringing to the bosom of the great ocean-mother a whole family of these perishing children. let her take our pledges of a durable tenderness and purest love! let her bear witness that, in the presence of the infinite, we _were_, in very truth, united in one holy thought!" one woman has thus commenced and another will continue, the common mother, france. no institution more useful, no money better expended. and, in fact, not much needs to be expended. the chief thing necessary will be to transfer some of our charitable institutions from the interior. for many of those institutions expend their funds in mere waste; in fact, some of them might be quite truly termed pauper manufactories. the romans had the good sense never to grudge expense for anything that concerned the public health. just look at their splendid aqueducts, just consider their public baths where quite gratuitously, or, at the utmost, at the charge of a half cent, the meanest could bathe, and you will at once understand their public spirit, their really large and grand patriotism. fresh water baths, salt water baths, everything was provided for that lazy and non-producing plebeianism! perhaps, in fact, in the politico-economical sense, the patricians of rome did too much for that, at once indolent and seditious _plebs_. and shall we, we, we hesitate to do far less to save our own race, that one creative and laborious race that creates all that is really progressive on our globe? i speak not here merely, or even principally, of the children; but of all. every town, at this very instant, has a town within a town, a town of horrible sufferers; of the poor, and the afflicted; they are going to be paupers not only now, but for the whole remainder of their lives. again, and again, and again they will come; cured to-day, and returning to-morrow worse and more helpless than ever. they must be enormously expensive; and who pays the cost? why their hardier fellow workmen who, in the ultimate result, pay all our expenses! and the laborer dies young, and leaves his young ones a burthen on the public purse. _prevention is better than cure._ you can do far more for the man who is in danger of being sick than for him who is already worn out. ten days or a fortnight of rest and good living at the sea-side, will restore him to you, a good, sound, solid laborer. his carriage, and the cheap shelter, for so few days! by that recuperating sea-side, i tell you again, will restore him to you, a good sound, honest, and independent laborer. and the man will be saved, and his young family; and such a man as, if you once lose him, you cannot easily replace. no! you cannot replace him, for, as i have already said, every really working man is the slow product, of a long tradition of thought and of labor, and he himself is a work of art; of that so much misunderstood human art in which _humanity itself becomes a creative power_. who shall give me to see that crowd of inventive people, that creating and manufacturing people, who in the world's service are hourly wearing themselves out; who, i ask, will give me to see that people, that true people, enabled to repair their shattered frames at the magnificent sea-side? let this ability be provided for them, and all classes and conditions will equally share the benefit. and let it not be forgotten that all classes and conditions _owe_ thus much to the worn toilers, for by their toil, their excessive toil, all classes are benefited. it is by their very blood, by their very marrow, that all classes receive their enjoyments, their elegance, and their enlightenment. let society, then, give to them the repose, the saline air, the restoring waters of the great restoring sea. in doing thus much, society will benefit itself; while doing the simplest justice to its worn toilers. have pity upon yourselves, all ye poor men of the west. consult upon, and act for, the common weal. earth entreats you to live and offers you that which is her best, the sea, to repair your own strength and thus secure your children against your weakness. earth would be ruined if you persist in ruining yourselves, for you are her genius, her inventive and working soul. she lives by your life, and if you die she also will die. in the name, then, of humanity and of nature, too, nations! attention! mercy for yourselves; earth supplies you with the means of laboring and living; the sea offers you the still better means of living well. notes. "that vast animal the earth, which for heart has a magnet, has at its surface a doubtful being, electric and phosphorescent, more sensitive, and infinitely more prolific, than the earth itself. "that being which we call the sea,--is it a parasite of the vast animal which we call the earth? no. it has not a distinct and hostile personality. it vivifies and fecundates the earth with its vapors; it even appears to be the earth itself in that which it has of the most productive; in other words, its principal organ of fecundity." german dreams! but are they, in feet, entirely dreams? more than one great mind, without going quite so far, seem to admit for both earth and sea a kind of obscure personality. ritter and lyell say: "the earth labors herself; can she be impotent to organise herself? how are we to imagine that the creative power which we observe in every being on the globe can be denied to the globe itself?" but how does the globe act? how at the present time does it obtain accretion? from the sea and its living denizens. the full solution of these great questions would require a more profound study of physiology than we as yet have made. nevertheless, during the last twenty years every thing tends this way: 1. we have studied the irregular and exterior phase of the movements of the sea, we have inquired into the _law of storms_. 2. we have studied the movements proper to the sea, its _currents_, the play of its arteries and veins, of which the first propel the salt water from the equator to the poles, while the second return it, freshened, to the equator: 3. the third and more difficult question on which modern chemistry will throw light, is that as to the real nature of the marine _mucus_, of that unctuous gelatine which is every where found in sea water, and which appears to be a living liquid. it is quite recently that the sounding of brooke, and more especially the soundings for the submarine telegraph from europe to america, have begun to reveal the secrets of the bottom of the sea. are its lowest depths peopled? formerly, that was denied, but forbes and james ross found life throughout them. previous to those splendid discoveries, which were made less than twenty years ago, the book of the sea could not be written. the first attempt at writing it was made by m. hartwig. for my own part, i was still far from the idea of writing it when, in 1845, in preparing my book of "the people," i commenced, in normandy, my study of the population of the coasts. in the fifteen subsequent years, this vast and difficult subject has been continually growing upon me, and has followed me from shore to shore. the first book of this volume--_a glance at the seas_, is, as the title indicates, merely a preliminary promenade. all the important matters therein are discussed in the following three books. i except two, however, _tides_ and _beacons_. here my principal guide has been m. chazallon's important _annual_, already numbering twenty volumes, the first having appeared in 1839. if the civic crown was bestowed upon the man who saved one human life, how many such crowns has not m. chazallon deserved! anterior to his labors, the errors, as to the tides, were enormous. by immense labor he has corrected the observations for nearly five hundred ports from the adour to the elbe. his _annual_ gives the most exact information upon the beacons. similarly valuable is the clear and agreeably written exposition in the _souvenirs_ of m. de quatrefages on the lighthouse system of fresnel and arago. the admirable system of revolving lighthouses, in which the lights flash and disappear, at short and regular intervals, is due to lemoine, mayor of calais. for the various names of the sea refer to ad. pictet-_origines indo-europeennes_. on the water, consult the introduction to deville's _annual of the waters of france_; aime's _annale's de chimie_ ii., v., xii., xiii., and xv. morren, the same, i, and acad de bruxelles, xiv., &c. on the saltness of the sea chapman quoted by tricaut _ann. de hydrographie_ xiii., 1857, and thomassy's _bulletin de la société geographique_, 4 june, 1860. i did not thoroughly comprehend the shore of _saint michel en greve_ and the questions concerning it, until i read in the _revue des deux mondes_ the two very fine articles of m. baude, full alike of facts and ideas. i speak elsewhere of his excellent views on the fisheries. in speaking (chap. iii.) of brittany, i must acknowledge my obligation to the book of cambry which formerly gave me my first ideas upon that subject. it should be read in the edition which émile souvestre enriched, and we may say doubled, with his excellent notes and notices which thenceforth made us thoroughly acquainted with the _derniers bretons_. in several admirable little tales of graphic and striking truthfulness, souvestre has given the best existing pictures of our western coasts, especially of finisterre and the neighboring shores of the loire. i should be glad to quote something from a writer so agreeable, and a friend so sincerely lamented, but the limits of this little book prevent me from quoting any literary matter. the remarkable observation made by elie de beaumont, quoted by me in chapter 4 of book i., stands at the head of his article--which, in itself, is a great book--_terrains_ in the dictionary of m. d'orbigny. what i have said about st. george's, in chapter 7, is much better said in pelletan's books on _royan_ and in his _pasteur du desert_. that pastor, as is generally known, was the grandfather of pelletan, the reverend minister jarousseau, so admirably heroic in saving his enemies. his small house, still standing, is a veritable temple of humanity. notes to book 2. chapter i, _fecundity_. on the herring, see vol. i of de reste's translation of an anonymous dutch work; noël de la moriniere in his excellent works printed and unpublished; valenciences' _poissons_, &c. chapter ii. _milky sea._ bory de saint vincent, _diet. classique_, articles _mer et matieres_; zimmerman, the _world before man_, a beautiful and popular work which is in every one's hands. i am indebted also to the work of m. bronn, crowned by the _academy of the sciences_. on the universal innocuousness of the vegetation of the sea, consult pouchet's _botanique_ a work of the highest order. for the plants which become animals; see vaucher's conferves, 1803; decaisne and thuret _annales de sc. nat._, 1845; volumes iii., xiv. and xvi., and _comptes de l'acad._, 1853, vol. xxxvi.; also, articles of montagne dict d'orb. on the volcanoes, see part 4, of humboldt's cosmos, and ritter, translated by elisee reclus, _revue germ._, 30th november, 1859. chapter iii. _the atom._ in the text i have quoted the great masters, ehrenberg, dujardin, pouchet, heterogenie. in the end spontaneous generation will conquer. chapters iv., v., vi., &c. throughout this book, in ascending from inferior to superior life, i have taken for my guiding thread in the great labyrinth, the hypothesis of metamorphosis but without serious intention of constructing a _chain of beings_. the idea of ascending metamorphosis is natural to the mind, and is, in some sort, irresistibly imposed upon us. cuvier himself, at the close of his introduction to his _poissons_, confesses that if that theory has no historical value it _has a logical value_. on the _sponge_, see paul gervais dict. d'orb. v. 375; grant in chenn, 307, &c. on polypes, corals, and madrepores (chapters 4 and 5) besides forster, peron and dawin consult quoy and gaimard; lamouroux, _polypes flexibles_; milne edwards, polypes and ascidies of the channel, &c. on the calcaire, see the two geologies of lyell. chapter vi. _medusæ, polypes, &c._ see ehrenberg, lession, dujardin, &c. forbes shows by vegetable analogies that these animal metamorphoses are very simple phenomena. annals of nat. history, december, 1844. see also his excellent dissertations, _medusæ_, in quarto, 1849. chapter vii. _the oursin or sea hedgehog._ see the curious dissertations in which m. cailland has described his discoveries. chapter viii. _shells, pearl, and mother of pearl._ the capital work on these is blainville's _malacology_. see, also, on the pearl mabius of hamburgh, _revue germ._, july 31, 1858. i have profitably consulted on this subject our celebrated jeweller, m. froment meurice. chapter ix. _the poulpe._ cuvier, blainville, dujardin ann. des sciences nat., first series, vol. v. p. 214, and second series vols. 3, 16, and 17; robin and secord, locomotion of cephalapodes, revue de zoology, 1849, p. 333. chapter x. _crustaceæ._ besides the classical and important work of milne edwards, i have consulted d'orbigny and various travelers. see, also, the fine atlas of dumont d'urville. chapter xi. _fish._ the introduction of cuvier, valenciennes' article fish, in d'orbigny's dictionary. this last article is a complete book, learned and excellent. on the anatomy of fish see the celebrated dissertation of geoffroy. for what i have said on the nests made by spawning fish i am indebted to messrs. caste and gerbe. chapters xii and xiii. _whales, amphibii and syrens._ here, lacepede is at once instructive and eloquent. nothing can be better than boitard's articles in d'orbigny's dictionary. notes to book 3. _conquest of the sea._ this book sprang naturally out of my perusal of travels and voyages from the first history of dieppe, by vitel estancelin, down to the recent discoveries. especially consult kerquelon, john ross, parry, weddell, dumont, d'urville, james ross, and kane; biot in the _journal des savants_ and the luminous and precious abridgement of those works, by m. langele in the _revue des deux mondes_. on the fishery, besides the great works of duhamel, see tiphaine, "economie history of the western seas de france, 1760." notes to book 4. _restoration by the sea._ as long ago as 1725, maraigli seems to have suspected the presence of iodine. in 1730, an anonymous work, _comes domesticus_, recommended sea bathing. the bibliography of the sea would be endless. there are many excellent books. among them i may mention "the mediterranean sea," by w. h. smith, 1854, the manuals and guide books of guadet, roccas, cochet, ernst, &c. on the degeneracy of races, see morel, 1857: magnus huss, "_alcoholismus_," 1852, &c. i owe my acquaintance with the pamphlet of doctor barellay (_ospizi marini_) to my illustrious friend montanelli, and to the delightful articles of m. dall' ongaro. * * * * * [illustration] _new books_ and new editions recently published by rudd & carleton, _150 grand street, new york._ (brooks building, cor. of broadway.) [illustration] n.b.--rudd & carleton, upon receipt of the price, will send any of the following books, by mail, postage free, to any part of the united states. this convenient and very safe mode may be adopted when the neighboring booksellers are not supplied with the desired work. 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