BY THE SEA-SHOEE. 195 



Presently I was gratified with, the sight of one and then another of that enormous Medusa, the 

 Great Rhizostome, urging its diagonal course at the shining surface. Its great bluish-white 

 disc, like a globe of fifteen or eighteen inches in diameter, moves foremost by alternate 

 contractions and expansions, which remind one of the pulse of an enormous heart, especially 

 :as at each stroke a volume of fluid is shot out of the cavity, by the impact of which on the 

 ^surrounding water the huge body is driven vigorously forward. Meanwhile the compound 

 peduncle, with its eight arms that hang down to the depth of two feet below, is dragged after 

 the disc, its weight and the resistance of the water to its bulk combining to give that slanting 

 direction which this great Medusa always assumes when in motion. We watched the great 

 unwieldy creatures a long time, even till evening had faded into night, and were left almost 

 the only wanderers on the hill. But what a night it was ! So calm, so balmy, so solemnly 

 .still and noiseless; even the wash of the ripple at the foot of the cliff was hushed. There was 

 no moon, but many stars were twinkling and blinking, and in the north-west a strong flush of 

 light filled the sky, which was rapidly creeping along over the north cliffs. Then those cliffs 

 themselves, all distinctness of feature lost in the darkness, stood like a great black wall in front 

 of us, which being reflected in the placid sea so truly that no difference could be traced 

 between substance and shadow, the dark mass, doubled in height, seemed to rise from a line 

 only a few hundred yards off; and thus everything looked strange and unnatural and 

 unrecognisable, although our reason told us the cause. 



te Let us now scramble down the cliff-side path, tangled with briers and ferns, where the 

 swelling buds of the hawthorn and honeysuckle are already bursting, while the blackbird 

 mellowly whistles in the fast-greening thicket, and the lark joyously greets the mounting sun 

 .above us. Yonder on the shingle lies a boat newly painted in white and green for the 

 .attraction of young ladies of maritime aspirations ; she is hauled up high and dry, but the 

 sinewy arms of an honest boatman, who, hearing footsteps, has come out of his little grotto 

 under the rock to reconnoitre, will soon drag her down to the sea's margin, and 'for the sum of 

 :a shilling an hour/ will pull us over the smooth and pond-like sea whithersoever we may 

 choose to direct him. 



" ' Jump aboard, please, sir. Jump in, ladies. Jump in, little master/ And now, as 

 we take our seats on the clean canvas cushions astern, the boat's bottom scrapes along with a 

 harsh grating noise over the white shingle-pebbles, and we are afloat. 



" First to the caverns just outside yonder lofty point. The lowness of the tide will enable 

 us to take the boat into them, and the calmness of the sea will preclude much danger of her 

 striking upon the rocks, especially as the watchful boatman will be on the alert, boat-hook in 

 hand, to keep her clear. Now we lie in the gloom of the lofty arch, gently heaving and 

 : sinking and swaying on the slight swell, which, however smooth at the surface, is always 

 perceptible when you are in a boat among rocks, and which invests such an approach with a 



danger that a landsman does not at all appreciate. 



" Yet the water, despite the swell, is glassy, and invites the gaze down into its crystalline 



depths, where the little fishes are playing and hovering over the dark weeds. 



:c The sides of the cavern rise around us in curved planes, washed smooth and slippery by 

 the dashing of the waves of ages, and gradually merge into the massive angles and projections 

 and groins of the broken roof, whence a tuft or two of what looks like samphire depends. 



