A SUMMER RAMBLE AMOSG THE HEBRIDES. 213 



parent gelatinous bell, which, though scarce visible in even 

 the bowl, proved a most efficient instrument of motion. Such 

 were its contractile powers, that its sides nearly closed at 

 every stroke, behind the opaque orbicular centre, like the legs 

 of a vigorous swimmer ; and the animal, unlike its more bulky 

 congeners, that, despite of their slow but persevering flap- 

 pings, seemed greatly at the mercy of the tide, and progressed 

 all one way, shot, as it willed, backwards, forwards, or 

 athwart As the evening closed, and the depths beneath pre- 

 sented a dingier and yet dingier green, until at length all had 

 become black, the distinctive colours of the acelpha, the 

 purple, the orange, and the brown, faded and disappeared, 

 and the creatures hung out, instead, their pale phosphoric 

 lights, like the lanthorns of a fleet hoisted high to prevent 

 collision in the darkness. Now they gleamed Him and indis- 

 tinct as they drifted undisturbed through the upper depths, 

 and now they flamed out bright and green, like beaten torches, 

 as the tide dashed them against the vessel's sides. I bethought 

 me of the gorgeous description of Coleridge, and felt all its 

 beauty : 



" They moved in tracks of shining white, 

 And when they reared, the elfish light 



Fell off in hoaiy flakes. 

 Within the shadow of the ship 



I watched their rich attire, 

 Blue, glassy green, and velvet black : 

 They curled, and swam, and every track 



Was a flash of golden fire." 



A crew of three, when there are watches to set, divides 

 wofully ill As there was, however, nothing to do in the 

 calm, we decided that our first watch should consist of our 

 single seaman, and the second of the minister and his friend. 

 The clouds, which had been thickening for hours, now broke 

 in torrents of rain, and old Alister got into his water-proof 

 oil-skin and souwester, and we into our beds. The seams of 



