They Believe That The Russians
Were Not Only Most Thoroughly Beaten By The Turks, But Were
Absolutely Conquered, And All Converted To Islamism!
And they can
hardly be convinced that such is not the case, and that had it
not been for the assistance of France and England, the poor
Sultan world have fared ill.
Another of their motions is, that
the Turks are the largest and strongest people in the world - in
fact a race of giants; that they eat enormous quantities of meat,
and are a most ferocious and irresistible nation. Whence such
strangely incorrect opinions could have arisen it is difficult to
understand, unless they are derived from Arab priests, or hadjis
returned from Mecca, who may have heard of the ancient prowess of
the Turkish armies when they made all Europe tremble, and suppose
that their character and warlike capacity must be the same at the
present time.
GORAM
A steady south-east wind having set in, we returned to Manowolko
on the 25th of April, and the day after crossed over to Ondor,
the chief village of Goram.
Around this island extends, with few interruptions, an encircling
coral reef about a quarter of a mile from the shore, visible as a
stripe of pale green water, but only at very lowest ebb-tides
showing any rock above the surface. There are several deep
entrances through this reef, and inside it there is hood
anchorage in all weathers. The land rises gradually to a moderate
height, and numerous small streams descend on all sides. The mere
existence of these streams would prove that the island was not
entirely coralline, as in that case all the water would sink
through the porous rock as it does at Manowolko and Matabello;
but we have more positive proof in the pebbles and stones of
their beds, which exhibit a variety of stratified crystalline
rocks. About a hundred yards from the beach rises a wall of coral
rock, ten or twenty feet high, above which is an undulating
surface of rugged coral, which slopes downward towards the
interior, and then after a slight ascent is bounded by a second
wall of coral. Similar walls occur higher up, and coral is found
on the highest part of the island.
This peculiar structure teaches us that before the coral was
formed land existed in this spot; that this land sunk gradually
beneath the waters, but with intervals of rest, during which
encircling reef's were formed around it at different elevations;
that it then rose to above its present elevation, and is now
again sinking. We infer this, because encircling reefs are a
proof of subsidence; and if the island were again elevated about
a hundred feet, what is now the reef and the shallow sea within
it would form a wall of coral rock, and an undulating coralline
plain, exactly similar to those that still exist at various
altitudes up to the summit of the island. We learn also that
these changes have taken place at a comparatively recent epoch,
for the surface of the coral has scarcely suffered from the
action of the weather, and hundreds of sea-shells, exactly
resembling those still found upon the beach, and many of them
retaining their gloss and even their colour, are scattered over
the surface of the island to near its summit.
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