Westward Ho! Or, The Voyages and Adventures of Sir Amyas Leigh, Knight, of Burrough, in the County of Devon, in the Reign of Her Most Glorious Majesty Queen ElizabethKingsley, Charles
History
Westward Ho! Or, The Voyages and Adventures of Sir Amyas Leigh, Knight, of Burrough, in the County of Devon, in the Reign of Her Most Glorious Majesty Queen Elizabeth
Kingsley, Charles
Great Britain -- History -- Elizabeth, 1558-1603 -- Fiction
“Not of my seeing; but plenty of good fruit down to the beach, thank the
Lord. There comes the dawn at last.”
Up flushed the rose, up rushed the sun, and the level rays glittered on
the smooth stems of the palm-trees, and threw rainbows across the foam
upon the coral-reefs, and gilded lonely uplands far away, where now
stands many a stately country-seat and busy engine-house. Long lines of
pelicans went clanging out to sea; the hum of the insects hushed, and a
thousand birds burst into jubilant song; a thin blue mist crept upward
toward the inner downs, and vanished, leaving them to quiver in the
burning glare; the land-breeze, which had blown fresh out to sea all
night, died away into glassy calm, and the tropic day was begun.
The sick were lifted over the side, and landed boat-load after boat-load
on the beach, to stretch themselves in the shade of the palms; and in
half-an-hour the whole crew were scattered on the shore, except some
dozen worthy men, who had volunteered to keep watch and ward on board
till noon.
And now the first instinctive cry of nature was for fruit! fruit! fruit!
The poor lame wretches crawled from place to place plucking greedily the
violet grapes of the creeping shore vine, and staining their mouths
and blistering their lips with the prickly pears, in spite of Yeo's
entreaties and warnings against the thorns. Some of the healthy began
hewing down cocoa-nut trees to get at the nuts, doing little thereby but
blunt their hatchets; till Yeo and Drew, having mustered half-a-dozen
reasonable men, went off inland, and returned in an hour laden with the
dainties of that primeval orchard,--with acid junipa-apples, luscious
guavas, and crowned ananas, queen of all the fruits, which they had
found by hundreds on the broiling ledges of the low tufa-cliffs;
and then all, sitting on the sandy turf, defiant of galliwasps and
jackspaniards, and all the weapons of the insect host, partook of the
equal banquet, while old blue land-crabs sat in their house-doors and
brandished their fists in defiance at the invaders, and solemn cranes
stood in the water on the shoals with their heads on one side, and
meditated how long it was since they had seen bipeds without feathers
breaking the solitude of their isle.
And Frank wandered up and down, silent, but rather in wonder than
in sadness, while great Amyas walked after him, his mouth full
of junipa-apples, and enacted the part of showman, with a sort of
patronizing air, as one who had seen the wonders already, and was above
being astonished at them.
“New, new; everything new!” said Frank, meditatively. “Oh, awful
feeling! All things changed around us, even to the tiniest fly and
flower; yet we the same, the same forever!”
Amyas, to whom such utterances were altogether sibylline and
unintelligible, answered by:
“Look, Frank, that's a colibri. You 've heard of colibris?”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account