THE OCEAN SHORE 



bush closes around us, until we come to a thin hedge of coconut- 

 palms, beyond which lies the sparkling sea. 



Here on the seashore, under the palms, amidst the dead fronds 

 and fragments of husk that crackle beneath our feet, a little reddish 

 flower blooms, which resembles our bindweed; it belongs, indeed, 

 to the same family. It is the Goatfoot Bindweed, which is widely 

 distributed on all tropical coasts, as the seed survives long immer- 

 sion in salt water; I had seen it already in Ceylon. Another flower 

 of similar form holds up towards the sun a bright yellow blossom, 

 whose interior is a warm orange, with a fleck of darkest violet at 

 its heart. It opens always at nine o'clock in the morning, so that 

 the Brazilians call the plant "Nove Horas" — or even say "relogio" 

 for "nine o'clock." One finds this pretty little flower also between 

 the rails of the electric tramway in Olinda. 



And now once more we are on the beach, and the sea glitters 

 green; little pale sand-crabs scuttle away before us, and when 

 they hurry sidelong across the sand they look like empty shells 

 driven by the wind. — There are few shellfish lying on the beach; 

 but yonder shines a blue transparent bladder, shimmering like 

 glass, almost as large as a man's fist. Its shape is like that of a 

 three-cornered hat; as though seeking the water, the pointed end 

 gropes to and fro, while the bladder alternately dilates and 

 contracts (Fig. 2). 



It is a marine animal, cast up by the sea; the Physalia, a species 

 of Hydromedusa. The Brazilians call it the Caravella — which 

 means a little ship ; the English name is the Portuguese man-of-war. 

 And the Caravella really does float upon the water like a little 

 ship of glass. I used often to put one of these creatures into a glass 

 of sea-water, and I was never weary of marvelling at its glorious 

 colours. Now light blue, now violet, now silver the crystalline 

 creature shimmers, and still further to enhance its splendour the 

 top of the bladder is traversed by a crimson comb. From the under- 

 side of the bladder depend long filaments, which seem to be spun 

 of glass of the most glorious ultramarine blue. Silently they con- 

 tract and extend themselves as the bladder dilates and subsides. 



The Caravella is not a single individual, but a whole colony of 

 polyps. The polyp is a primitive organism whose intestine is a 

 simple sac, having only one orifice, through which nourishment is 

 absorbed and undigested matter ejected. In the Caravella quite 



43 



