BEAUTIFUL SEA "WATER. 215 



count must be made, because, as our yaclit was in motion, the 

 line could not have been perpendicular. 



The water of the harbor is most exquisitely colored. It is a 

 soft, delicate, brilliant green, wholly unlike any of the countless 

 shades of green seen in tue vegetable world. "When the waves 

 are gently rolling in a brilliant sunlight, they gleam and sparkle 

 in a manner but faintly represented by the most beautifully tinted 

 silks when their graceful folds are in motion under a strong light. 

 It cannot be properly described upon paper, and if faithfully imi- 

 tated upon canvass by the most gifted artist he would be charged 

 by art critics and connoisseurs with painting the ideal, and Avith 

 being color mad. One never tires of looking at it, but soon gets 

 out of descriptive and eulogistic adjectives, and rests with a final 

 declaration that it is a brilliant, moving, liquid, sparkling, lovely 

 torquoise. At times, Avhen the winds and sunlight are particu- 

 larly favorable, such color effects are produced that practical, 

 prosaic men seem to vie with the more susceptible and apj)recia- 

 tive ladies in their exclamations of astonishment and pleasure. 

 A lady in our party on one occasion when we visited the corals, 

 exclaimed while gazing, feasting and almost getting intoxicated 

 upon this wonderful exhibition of color, " What would oiir 

 friends at home say if they could only see this! They think that 

 they know water, but they don't." 



Occasional rifts in the limestone bed of the harbor vary the 

 prevailing color with ribbons of the deepest and darkest blue, 

 while the ocean outside is seen to darkly mirror the softer blue 

 of the sky. Often also there is at midday a warm glow above 

 the horizon like that which heralds the ushering in of a new day. 



As we near the homes of the corals the foamino: and dashins: 

 of the breakers over coral reefs and submerged rocks reminds one 

 of our party of the icy spray of an Alpine avalanche, and adds a 

 new and pleasing variety to the view, while the neighboring 



