166 



THE OPAL SEA 



Singing 

 sands. 



The cres- 

 cent beach. 



and Gulf weed from reef and shallow, jelly 

 fish, star fish, sea-jiorcupine, sea-turtle — all the 

 flora and fauna of the Gulf and beyond. But 

 seldom a relic or a trace of humanity. No 

 wreck, no broken boat, no message in a bottle 

 finds its way here. Nature still holds a sway 

 as undisputed as when the Spanish conquerors 

 came. The terraced beach is perfect in its 

 sweep, the sands as they crunch under the foot 

 seem musical; and the blue waves that ride in 

 with snowy crests break on the white shores 

 with a sound like distant cathedral bells at 



evening. 



Of all the beaches, in the tropics or elsewhere, 

 perhaps the sickle-shaped or crescent beach 

 is the most graceful in form. Especially is 

 this true when the curve of the shore is em- 

 phasized by contrasting cliffs or rocky head- 

 lands near at hand. The abrupt perpendicular 

 line seems necessary to bring out the winding 

 horizontal line. And yet graceful as is this 

 winding curving beach, it is perhaps not so 

 impressive, not so strong, as the broader sim- 

 pler shores. Along every coast, sometimes for 

 hundreds of miles, are straight-away stretches 

 where sea and shore seem to parallel each other 

 in long vanishing lines that are nothing less 

 than sublime in their reach. More often, how- 



