306 NIMKOD OF THE SEA; OR, 



tusks, but a blow with the heavy seal -club brought him to 

 earth. Being in for a joyous time, we worked up material 

 to the best advantage, and decorated ourselves with vines, 

 the flowers of air-plaiits, and passion-vine. Then, with our 

 prize slung over a pole, we inarched to the beach, chorusing, 



" Though it rains, it hails, it snows, it blows, 

 Yet this day a boar must die." 



We came in jolly and thirsty, and infinitely more steady 

 than the barons of old from their royal boar-hunts. In our 

 hog we found material for a sea-pie. The rock bearing our 

 ship's name was almost buried in the sand, and all hands 

 united in rolling it up out of the reach of the waves. A soli- 

 tary grave was pointed out as being that of a poor fellow 

 who was drowned in attempting to swim ashore and desert 

 to this land of continuous shower-baths. With slender, 

 barbed spears we took several varieties of the beautiful par- 

 rot-fish, which abound in the coral groves in the bottom of 

 the bay. These fishes are of beautiful metallic colors red, 

 green, and purple, finely contrasted hi belts and spots, and 

 in blending clouds. The head, plated in an armor of broad, 

 thick scales of the greatest brilliancy, is fitted for brows- 

 ing on the zoophytes which dwell in the sharp cells of the 

 branching corals and madrepores. In these growths, and 

 amidst the waving tangle of many -colored marine plants, 

 these fish, with multitudes of other strange and beautiful 

 creatures, are seen in great numbers. From caves great 

 cray-fish protrude their fringed heads and azure feelers; and 

 the loathsome toad-fish creeps from bunch to bunch of the 

 grasses. Flapping over the tops of the marine forest we 

 also see the brown devil-fish, and the echinus, or sea-eggs. 

 Tempted to reach for some sea-flowers, and wading the shal- 

 low, I touched a sea-egg with my bare foot, and ran to the 

 shore in agony. The thing' is like a porcupine, and the sole 



