The Hawaiian Archipelago - Six Months Among The Palm Groves, Coral Reefs, And Volcanoes Of The Sandwich Islands By Isabella L. Bird
- Page 16 of 466 - First - Home
His Body Is About Twice The Size Of That Of A Very Large
Rat, Black And Furry Underneath, And With Red Foxy Fur On His Head
And Back.
His face is pointed, with a very black nose and prominent
black eyes, with a savage, remorseless expression.
His wings, when
extended, measure forty-eight inches across, and his flying powers
are prodigious. He snapped like a dog at first, but is now quite
tame, and devours quantities of dried figs, the only diet he will
eat.
We crossed the Equator in Long. 159 degrees 44', but in consequence
of the misty weather it was not till we reached Lat. 10 degrees 6'
N. that the Pole star, cold and pure, glistened far above the
horizon, and two hours later we saw the coruscating Pleiades, and
the starry belt of Orion, the blessed familiar constellations of
"auld lang syne," and a "breath of the cool north," the first I have
felt for five months, fanned the tropic night and the calm silvery
Pacific. From that time we have been indifferent to our crawling
pace, except for the sick man's sake. The days dawn in rose colour
and die in gold, and through their long hours a sea of delicious
blue shimmers beneath the sun, so soft, so blue, so dreamlike, an
ocean worthy of its name, the enchanted region of perpetual calm,
and an endless summer. Far off, for many an azure league, rims of
rock, fringed with the graceful coco palm, girdle still lagoons, and
are themselves encircled by coral reefs on which the ocean breaks
all the year in broad drifts of foam.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 16 of 466
Words from 4187 to 4459
of 127766
