INCIDENTS OF THE VOYAGE.

615

EXPEDITION TO PEARL BAY.

HE cajack took the lead, and we followed it through a labyrinth of reefs and rocks level with the surface of the water; Frederick winding his way with an ease which our heavier boat was unable to imitate. We encountered no marine monsters; but, by way of compensation, the rocks were covered with the bleached bones and tusks of walruses, bears, and sea-horses. Ernest made us stop several times-at the risk of dashing against the surf-beaten crags that we might select, among the débris of these monsters, some curiosities for our museum.

The sea was calm, and shone like a resplendent mirror, and over the sunny waves glided, like fairy boats, whole flotillas of the nautilus papyrus-the name given to a kind of univalve shell-fish, made like a tiny gondola with a raised poop. The old story ran that the animal inhabiting it taught men the art of navigation.

The most that can be said, however, is, that the form of the shell is not unlike that of a ship, and that the animal seems to steer himself through the waves as a pilot steers his vessel.

When the nautilus wishes to swim, he raises his two arms, and extends like a sail the thin light membrane fastened between them; two others he dips into the sea, and uses as oars; another serves him instead of rudder. He only takes so much water into his shell as is necessary to ballast it, and enable him to advance with as much safety as swiftness; but at the outbreak of a storm, or on the approach of an enemy, he takes in his sail, lays up his oars, and fills his shell with water sufficient to enable him to sink

616

THE NAUTILUS DESCRIBED.

rapidly. He turns his back keel upwards when he wishes to reascend to the surface, and by means of certain portions, which he expands or compresses at will, he can traverse the "liquid expanse;" but the moment he has attained the surface, he adroitly rights his little ship, empties it of its ballast, and expanding his canvas, permits himself to be carried wherever the wind wills. The nautilus is a constant navigator, who is at once his own pilot and his own craft.

The shell of the nautilus is thin as paper, white as milk, striated, and spirally involved; the animal is a kind of polypus, with eight feet, and both sides of his mouth is furnished with a fringe, which divides into twenty fingers (so to speak), and fulfil the functions of the creature's hands, stretching forward or contracting, seizing his prey, and carrying it to his mouth.*

My young naturalists could not see these charming shells executing their rapid evolutions on the tranquil surface of the waves without feeling a desire to pursue them; by means of the nets which we carried with us, we had soon captured half-a-dozen of

This graceful little animal has been described with much picturesque vigour by the poet Montgomery:

"Light as a flake of foam upon the wind,

Keel-upward from the deep emerged a shell,
Shaped like the moon ere half her horn is filled;
Fraught with young life, it righted as it rose,
And moved at will along the yielding water.

The native pilot of this little bark

Put out a tier of oars on either side,
Spread to the wafting breeze a twofold sail,
And mounted up and glided down the billow
In happy freedom, pleased to feel the air,

And wander in the luxury of light.

With all the dead creation, in that hour,

To me appeared this lonely Nautilus,

My fellow-being, like myself, alive.

Entranced in contemplation, vague yet sweet,

I watched its vagrant course and rippling wake,

Till I forgot the sun amidst the heavens.

"It closed, sunk, dwindled to a point, then nothing ; While the last bubble crowned the dimpling eddy, Through which mine eyes still giddily pursued it,

A joyous creature vaulted through the air

The aspiring fish that fain would be a bird,
On long, light wings, that flung a diamond-shower
Of dew-drops round its evanescent form,

Sprung into light, and instantly descended."

The Pelican Island,

A GOTHIC CAVERN.

617

them; they were quickly disembowelled, and carefully placed in a basket to serve as an ornament for our museum.

It was not long before we reached the promontory, behind which, according to Frederick, we should enter Pearl Bay. This promontory, in addition to the passage tunnelled in its flanks, presented, as a mass, an imposing and extraordinary appearance of well-shaped alcoves, arches, and aspiring pyramids; in a word, it resembled the façade of one of those old Gothic cathedrals embellished by the capricious fancy of medieval artists, with the sole difference that its proportions were colossal, that its flooring was not of marble but the sea, and that its columns, instead of resting upon the earth, had their bases beneath the waves. One might have said it was a temple elevated to the Eternal in the midst of immensity.

We passed beneath the vault: it was gloomy; for, like a Gothic pane, the daylight entered it only at rare intervals, through the fissures in the rock, or through some natural windows which had been opened up by the loosening of one crag from another.

We rowed several times around this curious edifice, but met with no traces of living beings. The bones of ocean-monsters were scattered here and there at the foot of the rocks, and proved that they had at one time served as a retreat for some of those terrible animals with which we had not hitherto been compelled to measure ourselves, but whose teeth and extraordinary size led us to think of them as very formidable enemies.

The clash of our oars frightened the peaceful salanganes, which fluttered about bewildered from one end to the other of the arched corridor, so that it was with difficulty we made our way through the winged legions. When our eyes had grown accustomed to the semi-twilight of the place, it was with no little pleasure we discovered that every hollow and niche were filled with nests.

These, similar in shape to, and not less transparent than, small cups of porcelain, were garnished, like the nests of other birds, with feathers and dried moss, and exhaled a strong perfume. Our experiment with this substance, which, when boiled and seasoned with salt and spice, resembles calf's-foot in flavour, had proved so successful, that we could not neglect the opportunity of securing

AN ENCOURAGEMENT TO HOPE.

619

height above the watery abyss, and fearing they might be too fatigued, I bade them discontinue their harvesting. After recruiting our energies with some food, we prepared to cross the gloomy defile. Before going further, however, I wished Ernest and Rudly to finish cleansing a quantity of nests which they had detached from the lower part of the rocky walls.

"In truth," exclaimed Master Ernest, suddenlythe work by no means interesting his professorship -"when I reflect a little, I can scarcely comprehend the degree of faith with which we accumulate here this dirty provision, to sell it to a ship which perhaps will never touch our coast. Ten years have already passed-”

)

Hope, my son," I replied, "is one of the greatest benefits Heaven has bestowed upon man here below; she is the daughter of Courage and the sister of Activity;

for the courageous man never despairs, and the hopeful ever labours to attain the goal of his desires. The philosophy of the slothful may whisper that the success of our cares is dubious; nevertheless, let us always maintain a cheerful and industrious spirit, confiding in the goodness of our heavenly Father."