Page:Sea and River-side Rambles in Victoria.djvu/47

28 and motion. From analogical reasoning then we may fairly conclude that the Actiniæ do possess the powers attributed to them, at any rate there can be no doubt of the peculiar rasping sensation experienced when the finger is touched by the tentacles. Landsborough mentions that the Italian epicures eat many kinds of Actiniæ as food, and adds, that they smell like a large lobster, and form to their taste a savoury repast, and we should certainly give them a decided preference to the Cephalopoda, (Cuttle fishes, &c. &c.) which are so much appreciated in the Indian, or the Trepang (Sea Cucumber), in the Chinese market.

And so we sit chatting, until fairly driven away by the incoming tide, the spray from which has already given us wet jackets, nor by the way are our knees one whit improved by kneeling on the sharp muscles which cover every part of the coast, and the sun is getting high too, so we get ferried across the river, and wander along its banks, festooned with the yellow Zygophyllum Billardierii, the elegant Myrtle flowering Myoporum, and the blue Dianella, until we arrive at the house of a friend, whose hospitable door is ever open to the traveller, and here we were entertained with much kindness, and even as Isaac Walton's hostess dressed his fish after his heart, so did ours, quite in accordance with our ideas of gastronomic skill. But we must not linger here longer than is necessary, and once more buckling on our knapsacks, we are in a short time wending our way with light hearts to the precipitous cliffs, overhung with dense clusters of the