A SALT BREEZE 155 



weltering quality, — it is salt to the ear no less 

 than to the smell. One fancies he hears the fric- 

 tion and clashing of the invisible crystals. A 

 shooting avalanche of snow might have this frosty, 

 beaded, anfractuous sound. The sands and pebbles 

 and broken shells have something to do with it; 

 but without these that threatening, serrated edge 

 remains, — the grainy, saline voice of the sea. 



'T is a pity the fabulous sea-serpent is not a real- 

 ity. The sea seems to imply such a monster, swim- 

 ming as a leech swims, with vertical undulations, 

 splitting the waves, or reposing across them in vast 

 scaly coils. There is something in the sea that fills 

 the imagination of men with the image of these 

 things. The sea-serpent will always be seen by 

 somebody, because the sea itself is serpentine, — 

 a writhing, crawling, crested, glistening saurian 

 with the globe in its embrace. How it rises up 

 and darts upon you ! In storms, its breath blackens 

 and blights the shore vegetation; it devours the 

 beach and disgorges it again, and piles the shore 

 with foam, like masses of unwashed wool. Often 

 a hissing, sibilant sound seems to issue from under 

 the edge of the bursting wave. Then that ever- 

 recurring rustle calls up a vision of some scaly mon- 

 ster uncoiling or measuring its length upon the 

 sands. I was told of two girls, in bathing- suits, 

 sitting upon the beach, where the waves, which 

 were running very high, reached them with only 

 their laced and embroidered edges; then, as if it 

 had been getting ready for a spring, a huge wave 



