CHAPTER XVII. 



OVER THE OCEAN-BED 



" The wrecks dissolve above us : their dust drops down from afar ; — 

 Down to the dark, the utter dark, where the blind white sea-snakes are. 

 There is no sound, no echo of sound, in the deserts of the deep, 

 O'er the great grey level plains of ooze, where the shell-burred cables 

 creep."— RuDYARD Kipling. 



T)Y way of variety, shall we take a little ex- 

 cursion together, you and I, into those 

 under-sea regions of which so much has been 

 said in past chapters ? Regions which the foot 

 of man has never trod ; which the eye of man 

 has never seen ; which, except in death, the 

 hand of man has never touched. 



Shall we leave behind the fair Earth that 

 we love, the sunshine, the bright sky, the fields 

 and hedgerows, the blue sparkles of Ocean's 

 surface, and go down and down, through a waste 

 of lonely waters, till our feet rest upon firm 

 ground below ? 



'' Eh, but it's eerie ! " we might say, were we 

 of Scots descent. Sunlight is at once lost sight 

 of, and twilight deepens fast. 



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