80 



THE OPAL SEA 



TheMedi- 

 terra nea n 

 in the. heat 

 f>j summtr. 



The Dal- 



mntian 



coast. 



pearl-like in its quality that it cannot fail of 

 attention. 



Yet the opal sea is a common enough ap- 

 pearance during hot weather. It shows slightly 

 different tints on different days, and perhaps 

 only in the still waters of inland seas like the 

 Mediterranean or the Caribbean is it seen in its 

 full splendor. And just here I can do no bet- 

 ter by way of describing this and other ap- 

 pearances of the flat sea than by giving extracts 

 from my note books. The notes were made 

 at different times, by different seas, and may 

 sound contradictory or inconsistent, and yet 

 they are quite true to the time and place. For 

 the sea is not any one thing but many things, 

 and rarely repeats the identical appearance. 



"July 3. Noon. Along the Dalmatian coast, steam- 

 ing slowly through the island groups below Zara, the day 

 fair, warm, and hazy with a peculiar milky-blue haze. 

 The sky is blue suffused with rose; the smooth water, 

 where it reflects the sky, is pearl-like; seen looking 

 straight down into it from the shadowed side of the little 

 steamer it is green; under the shadow of white clouds it 

 shows blue; and under the shadow of the smoke trailing 

 aft it shows reddish-brown — deepening and darkening 

 where the water is most broken by the propeller. The 

 bare Velebit Mountains, gleaming white as chalk in the 

 sunlight, are seen reversed in the sea and the whiteness 

 of them is reduced to an ivory tint of great beauty. 



" Evening. The sea ruffled up this afternoon under 



