CHAPTER IV 

 THE HUMPBACK WHALE 



BEAUTIFUL beyond the power of description, the 

 islands of the Tonga group lay set in a sapphire 

 sea under an azure sky flooded with golden sun- 

 light ; a little breeze blew, just sufficient to raise tiny 

 wavelets fringed with snowy foam and sparkling as if 

 set with millions of diamonds. Over the fringing coral 

 barriers they curdled with a drowsy hum as of infinite 

 content, as if they knew they were perfectly beautiful 

 and perfectly fulfilling their appointed way. Only where 

 the prevailing swell came thundering shoreward,, fret- 

 ting at finding its three-thousand-mile course hindered, 

 was there any sign of the stress of elemental forces. 

 There, with every recurring billow as it reached the coral 

 barrier, rose a long thundering roll of breakers twenty 

 feet high, dazzling white in striking contrast to their 

 bases of deepest blue, and looking as if they would 

 overwhelm the whole group of islands. Higher and 

 higher they rose until, drooping, dejected, they owned 

 their limitations and recoiled hissing, to make way for 

 the next arrival. 



Towards this fierce barrier there hurried nervously 

 a mother Humpback Whale. She was of moderate 

 size, about forty-five feet long by thirty in girth, with 

 flattened head and mouth fringed with scanty whale- 

 bone. On her back she bore a dorsal erection like a 

 dumpy fin, whence the trivial name ' Humpback;' 



SI 



