NATURE AT SEA. 69 



NATURE AT SEA. 



BY FRANCIS H. HEKKICK, 



PROFESSOR OF BIOLOGY IN ADELBERT COLLEGE. 



IN crossing the seas, as in walking through the fields, there is 

 always the anticipation of making some new discovery. To- 

 day Nature may reveal to us some long-withheld secret. This 

 illusive bird or wild flower which we hitherto missed we now meet 

 face to face. So it is in traversing the great blue fields of the 

 ocean. On this voyage hardly a living object may be seen. The 

 sea-serpent lies low. The captain complains of meeting few sail. 

 Again, on the same track, the winds are fair, the ship makes her 

 course, and the storm cloud no longer baffles the navigator. The 

 inhabitants of the sea show themselves at the surface; and the 

 long days lose their monotony. The voyage is a memorable one 

 in the sailor's calendar. 



A good traveler and genuine lover of Nature has the advantage 

 often of turning the rubbish heaps of another to the best account. 

 He finds gold where his companion sees only sand. We can 

 hardly imagine Agassiz or Thoreau (the one representing the 

 scientific, the other the poetic naturalist) at a loss to turn Nature 

 to account anywhere under the sun. Thoreau delves in his Con- 

 cord meadow and brings up some precious nugget, while Agassiz 

 studies the waterworn pebbles and finds them more interesting 

 than arrowheads. Yet our good observer is, no doubt, put to a se- 

 vere test at sea, where he may often have occasion to repeat with 

 feeling those familiar lines : 



"Day after day, day after day, 



We stuck, nor breath nor motion ; 

 As idle as a painted ship 

 Upon a painted ocean." 



I left Nassau, New Providence, the 1st of July, on a sailing 

 vessel bound for New York. Our boat was a trim schooner of 

 a hundred and fifty tons burden, clean and well ordered, and did 

 credit to this kind of craft. We sailed out of the harbor and 

 crossed the coral bar at high water under a steady southwest 

 breeze which soon drove us out of sight of land and wafted us 

 many miles away in the night. 



The Bahaman capital shows to best advantage from the water. 

 Its peak-roofed, chimneyless houses and stuccoed walls of coral 

 stone make a strong contrast with their deep green setting of 

 tropical foliage, the ever-encroaching bush which comes up to the 

 threshold of the town on all sides, and covers these rocky islands 

 with a perpetual mantle of vivid green. The impenetrable maze 



