blending was perfect.

We rowed in. The water was still. A faint ebb and flow whispered
against the tiny gravel beach at the end. I noted a practicable way
from it to the top of the cliff, and from the cliff down again to the
sand beach. Everything was perfect. The water was a beautiful light
green, like semi-opaque glass, and from the indistinctness of its
depths waved and beckoned, rose and disappeared with indescribable
grace and deliberation long feathery sea growths. In a moment the
bottom abruptly shallowed. The motion of the boat toward the beach
permitted us to catch a hasty glimpse of little fish darting, of big
fish turning, of yellow sand and some vivid colour. Then came the
grate of gravel and the scraping of the boat's bottom on the beach.
We jumped ashore eagerly. I left the men, very reluctant, and ascended
a natural trail to a high sloping down over which blew the great Trades.
Grass sprung knee-high. A low hill rose at the back. From below the
fall of the cliff came the pounding of surf.

I walked to the edge. Various ledges, sloping toward me, ran down to
the sea. Against one of them was a wreck, not so very old, head on,
her afterworks gone. I recognised the name _Golden Horn_, and
was vastly astonished to find her here against this unknown island.
Far up the coast I could see--with the surges dashing up like the explosion
of shells, and the cliffs, and the rampart of hills grown with grass
and cactus. A bold promontory terminated the coast view to the north,
and behind it I could glimpse a more fertile and wooded country. The
sky was partly overcast by the volcanic murk. It fled before the
Trades, and the red sun alternately blazed and clouded through it.

As there was nothing more to be seen here, I turned above the hollow
of our cove, skirted the base of the hill, and so down to the beach.

It occupied a wide semicircle where the hills drew back. The flat was
dry and grown with thick, coarse grass. A stream emerged from a sort
of canon on its landward side. I tasted it, found it sulphurous, and
a trifle worse than lukewarm. A little nearer the cliff, however, was
a clear, cold spring from the rock, and of this I had a satisfying
drink. When I arose from my knees, I made out an animal on the hill
crest looking at me, but before I could distinguish its
characteristics it had disappeared.

I returned along the tide sands. The surf dashed and roared, lifting
seaweeds of a blood red, so that in pla