366 THE JOURNEYMAN. 



admiring its uncouth conformation. By the way, there 

 is something singular about this animal which I have 

 never yet seen noticed, and which I must set myself 

 more minutely to examine. I remember that when 

 sailing my little ship some eighteen years ago, I once or 

 twice accidentally set my foot on a sea-snail, and there 

 exuded from it, in consequence of the pressure, a blood- 

 like liquor which tinged the water with crimson for 

 yards around. You know the famous purple of the 

 Tyrians the finest and most precious of all the ancient 

 dyes is said to have been extracted from some unknown 

 species of fish. What if that fish be the sea- snail ! 

 Would it not be rare good fun, think you, to restore one 

 of the lost inventions, and that solely for the benefit of 

 one's fair countrywomen ? I do not know whether you 

 be acquainted with the animal. It is a reptile-looking 

 thing about four inches in length and two in breadth 

 when at the largest, of an oval shape, and furnished 

 with legs resembling those of a caterpillar magnified. 

 The back is of a dusky brown and covered with hair, 

 which, when the animal is alive, seems tinged with all the 

 hues of the rainbow, but which fades into a dirty sand 

 colour when it is dead. I have observed that more 

 unusual phenomena are to be seen in a large spring ebb 

 than in twenty ordinary ones ; for though the water 

 falls only a few feet lower, in these fevv almost all the 

 plants and all the animals are uncommon. On ascend- 

 ing a high mountain in a tropical country, the botanist 

 after rising a certain height finds it girded round with 

 a broad strip of vegetation composed of the plants of a 

 more temperate climate ; he ascends, and finds in a 

 second belt the trees and plants of still colder countries ; 

 anon he arrives at a third belt, then at a fourth, and at 

 length, bordering on the line where all vegetation ceases, 



