- I accompanied Captain Fitz Roy to an island
at the head of the lagoon:
The channel was exceedingly
intricate, winding through fields of delicately branched corals.
We saw several turtle and two boats were then employed in
catching them. The water was so clear and shallow, that although
at first a turtle quickly dives out of sight, yet in a
canoe or boat under sail, the pursuers after no very long
chase come up to it. A man standing ready in the bow, at
this moment dashes through the water upon the turtle's back;
then clinging with both hands by the shell of its neck, he is
carried away till the animal becomes exhausted and is secured.
It was quite an interesting chase to see the two boats
thus doubling about, and the men dashing head foremost
into the water trying to seize their prey. Captain Moresby
informs me that in the Chagos archipelago in this same
ocean, the natives, by a horrible process, take the shell from
the back of the living turtle. "It is covered with burning
charcoal, which causes the outer shell to curl upwards, it is
then forced off with a knife, and before it becomes cold
flattened between boards. After this barbarous process the
animal is suffered to regain its native element, where, after
a certain time, a new shell is formed; it is, however, too
thin to be of any service, and the animal always appears
languishing and sickly."
When we arrived at the head of the lagoon, we crossed a
narrow islet, and found a great surf breaking on the windward
coast. I can hardly explain the reason, but there is to
my mind much grandeur in the view of the outer shores of
these lagoon-islands. There is a simplicity in the barrier-like
beach, the margin of green bushes and tall cocoa-nuts,
the solid flat of dead coral-rock, strewed here and there
with great loose fragments, and the line of furious breakers,
all rounding away towards either hand. The ocean
throwing its waters over the broad reef appears an invincible,
all-powerful enemy; yet we see it resisted, and even
conquered, by means which at first seem most weak and
inefficient. It is not that the ocean spares the rock of coral;
the great fragments scattered over the reef, and heaped on
the beach, whence the tall cocoa-nut springs, plainly bespeak
the unrelenting power of the waves. Nor are any
periods of repose granted. The long swell caused by the
gentle but steady action of the trade-wind, always blowing
in one direction over a wide area, causes breakers, almost
equalling in force those during a gale of wind in the temperate
regions, and which never cease to rage. It is impossible
to behold these waves without feeling a conviction that
an island, though built of the hardest rock, let it be porphyry,
granite, or quartz, would ultimately yield and be demolished
by such an irresistible power.
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Words from 189211 to 189711
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