223 iSLES OF SrMMfiS. 



siDonge was of the size and shape of a half bushel basket. It waS 

 secured for us, but proved to be old and rotten. 



Here also, as in the "Marine Garden," and in the ''coral 

 bowers and grottoes," way down in the edges of the lowest and 

 darkest shadows, we occasionally observed fishes repulsive in form 

 and diabolical in expression, whose movements were most de- 

 cidedly stealthy and suspicious. "What business had they to grope 

 in the caverns and peer into the sunlight? What was their mis- 

 sion in the garden of the sea gods? Were they piscatory bull 

 dogs to guard and protect, or piscatory demons bent on marring 

 a happiness which their lower nature was unfitted to enjoy? 



Our crew consisted in part of expert divers, who, as soon as we 

 anchored over or near to a coral bed, entered the little forecastle, 

 and soon re-appeared in costumes, not of Parisian, but of the 

 Garden of Eden cut — and truly " Solomon in all his glory was 

 not arrayed like one of these." When a growth of coral was dis- 

 covered by any one of the passengers, peculiarly beautiful and 

 coveted, the diver immediately plunged overboard and soon de- 

 tached and brought it to the surface, unless it proved to be too 

 large and heavy, or too securely fastened for his strength. It 

 is a novel and very amusing spectacle, and we could not refrain 

 from speculating upon the probable impression these black in- 

 truders made upon the gay and sportive dwellers in coral bowers. 

 If to us they seemed like imps of destruction, marring a beauty 

 they could not make, and disturbing a felicity they could not 

 appreciate or enjoy, no doubt the little gorgeous finny philoso- 

 phers were not only shocked and appalled by the desecration and 

 destruction which they witnessed, but sorely puzzled to reconcile 

 it with their ideas of what infinite justice and goodness should 

 either do or permit. 



Slowly moving out into view from under cover at the base of 

 the corals there is seen at times the sea-urchin, a shell fish from 



