Page:Twenty Thousand Verne Frith 1876.pdf/463

 objects had I to note daily! Here, amongst other zoophytes, were those known as Physalis pelagica, like large oblong bladders with mother-of-pearl rays, lifting their membranes to the breeze, and letting their long blue tentacles float like silken threads, beautiful medusæ to look at, but regular nettles to touch, and distilling a corrosive liquid. Among the articulates were annelides a yard and a half in length, armed with a rose-coloured horn, and furnished with 1,700 organs of locomotion, which twined about in the water and reflected all the colours of the solar spectrum. Amongst the fish were, Malabar-rays—enormous cartilaginous fish, ten feet long and 600 lbs. weight, a triangular pectoral fin on a lumpy back, eyes fixed beyond the head at the extremities of the face, and which floated like wreckage, and appearing sometimes like a shutter before our window. There were the American balistæ, dressed by Dame Nature in black and white, gobies, mackerel of enormous size, of the albicore species. Then we had grey mullet in shoals, striped with gold from head to tail, moving their resplendent fins, which shone like a masterpiece of jewellers’ workmanship; these were formerly consecrated to Diana, and were particularly sought after by rich Romans, and of which the proverb states, “who takes them does not eat them.” Lastly, pomacanthe dorys, ornamented with emerald bands, dressed in silk and velvet, passed like Veronese lords. What a number of other specimens I might have noted had not the Nautilus dived to the lowest depths! Here animal life is not represented except by ecrines, starfish, pentacrines, medusa-heads, troques, and such like.

On the 20th April we had risen to a medium height of 1,500 yards. The nearest land was the Bahamas, lying like a number of paving-stones at the surface of the sea. High cliffs rose up, perpendicular walls, rough blocks