" DOWN THE COAST." 293 



at little more than a cable's length. He is apparently a small Fin- 

 back, or Rorqual, perhaps 40 feet long. 



You notice that he does not " spout" as whales do in pictures and 

 poems. The fact is that no whale habitually spouts water. But in 

 northern seas the hot-water-laden air from his lungs is condeused by 

 the colder atmosphere iuto a cloud of steam, or even drops of water. 

 Here and now the air is as warm outside the whale as inside him. 

 Wounded whales do certainly sometimes spout blood, and I suppose 

 that a sick one might throw up other things besides ambergris and 

 Jonah ; but colds in the head and bloody noses are no more normal 

 to whales than to ourselves, though probably plentier than prophets 

 or perfumes. Again our whale rises, and still nearer; but as he disap- 

 pears we see for an instant his tail in the air. He has seen more of 

 the boat than he likes, and will change his course, of which I am 

 not sorry, liking his room better than his company, since we are not 

 in the way of boiling him down. He has accompanied us past a mile 

 or more of very inviting looking sand; but we know that it is frino-ed 

 all along with reefs dangerous even to our small craft. Behind it the 

 wooded hills rise steep, and it ends in a head land, bolder and more 

 picturesque than Dandi, with high detached crags — Adi Point. A 

 little beyond this, however, the hill recedes in a great crescent, and 

 Nandgaum Bay shows again the familiar long line of palm-trees with 

 their edging of almost white sand. 



Yitir (or Vihur) Point, beyond it, is bluff and wild again ; but 

 rounding it, we come in sight of a great bay, evidently leading far 

 inland. In fact we know of old where it goes, for right in the mid- 

 dle of the narrow waist of it stands our old acquaintance, the sea- 

 castle of Jaujira; and we have just been signalled as rounding the 

 point by the nearer aud smaller isle fort of Kansa, a sort of calf to 

 the great fortress, which we pass under the salute. The tide has 

 turned these two hours, and the boat is going up the bay at a speed 

 of probably five knots an hour, heading for the far end of a line of 

 cocoa palms on the north side, faced with many white buildino-s. 

 This is Murud, the working metropolis of the State under its 

 present ruler, who has given up living on a rock in the water like 

 a garefowl on an " All-aloue-stone," as his ancestors did. 



The apparently unbroken line of white foam before us is on the 



bar, and it makes a man hold his breath as the boat rushes before 



flood tide and sea-breeze into an opening that seems scarce wider 



than herself. Instantly the helm goes down, and she comes up 



39 



