THE BEACH AGAIN. 
97 
shrubbery, the desert and the high sand-bank with its 
even slope, the broad white beach, the breakers, the 
green water on the bar, and the Atlantic Ocean ; and we 
traversed with delight new reaches of the shore; we 
took another lesson in sea-horses’ manes and sea-cows’ 
tails, in sea-jellies and sea-clams, with our new-gained 
experience. The sea ran hardly less than the day be¬ 
fore. It seemed with every wave to be subsiding, 
because such was our expectation, and yet when hours 
had elapsed we could see no difference. But there it 
was, balancing itself, the restless ocean by our side, lurch¬ 
ing in its gait. Each wave left the sand all braided or 
woven, as it were, with a coarse woof and warp, and a dis¬ 
tinct raised edge to its rapid work. We made no haste, 
since we wished to see the ocean at our leisure, and indeed 
that soft sand was no place in which to be in a hurry, for 
one mile there was as good as two elsewhere. Besides, 
we were obliged frequently to empty our shoes of the sand 
which one took in in climbing or descending the bank. 
As we were walking close to the water’s edge this 
morning, we turned round, by chance, and saw a large 
black object which the waves had just cast up on the 
beach behind us, yet too far off for us to distinguish 
what it was; and when we were about to return to it, 
two men came running from the bank, where no human 
beings had appeared before, as if they had come out of 
the sand, in order to save it before another wave took 
it. As we approached, it took successively the form 
of a huge fish, a drowned man, a sail or a net, and 
finally of a mass of tow-cloth, part of the cargo of the 
Franklin, which the men loaded into a cart. 
Objects on the beach, whether men or inanimate 
things, look not only exceedingly grotesque, but much 
5 G 
