THE ARCTURUS ADVENTURE 



CHAPTER I 



SARGASSO WEEDS AND WAVES 

 BY WILLIAM BEEBE AND RUTH ROSE 



Most amazingly I am floating in midspace be- 

 neath a dense grape arbor with the smi shining 

 through a mat of yellow-green leaves and the un- 

 ripe fruit glowing like myriads of jade beads. 

 Then the air becomes chokingly oppressive — I 

 gasp — kick out violently with my feet and shoot up 

 through the tangled mass of olive growth. Drip- 

 ping like Neptune, wreathed like Bacchus, my head 

 breaks water in mid-ocean in a mass of sargassum 

 weed — a thousand miles from land. Nothing is in 

 sight except the sliding hillside of an appallingly 

 steep but smooth swell bearing down upon me, 

 until I shake the water from my eyes, brush aside 

 the dangling strands and, twisting about, behold 

 the huge bulk of the Arcturus silently lifting and 

 settling a few dozen yards away. This is my first 

 fish-eye-view of the Sargasso Sea, on the only day 

 for weeks which is calm enough for a swim. 



The thought of a grape arbor as seen from below 

 is more than a simile of these hanging gardens, and 

 far from original, for about three centuries ago 

 a Portuguese spoke of them as salgazo or "little 

 grapes." 



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