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The isthmus emerged from a wild and terrible coast-line, into whose bowels the ravenous sea had bored strange caverns, resonant with perpetual roar of tortured billows. At one spot in this wilderness the ocean had penetrated the wall of rock for two hundred feet, and in stormy weather the salt spray rose through a perpendicular shaft more than five hundred feet deep.
On the voyage Grant discovered and named many points on the Victorian coast-line; then, as soon as the vessel arrived and received a thorough overhaul, she was sent to sea again to continue the work in company with a small intercolonial vessel, the Bee. They sailed on March 8th, 1801, and were surveying until May 2nd, when Grant sums up the work done in these words:
At daylight, the coast-line loomed before us, immersed in fog, and two hours after, the tall minaret of the great mosque of Mogador, shooting erect, a dull lofty pyramid, stood over the thick haze lying on the lower part of the coast. This phenomenon of the higher objects and mountains being visible over a dense fog on the shore, is frequent on this side of the Atlantic. Wind also prevails here.
We now pursued our way along the coast-line of Dhofar in an easterly direction. Wali Suleiman entertained us for a night at a farm he had built at a place called Rizat, the land around which is watered by an abundant stream.
She carried a heavy deck-load of lumber which she was to take to France for the Marine Corps. She had in her bunkers some 3,000 tons of coal. On the morning of July 19, the cruiser, shortly after 11 o'clock, had reached a point about seven miles southeast of Point o' Woods. The sun was shining brilliantly, but the coast-line was veiled in a heavy haze.
The only fortification I could find on that side of the bay is the so-called "western battery," a recently constructed earthwork situated on the crest of the long, flat-topped hill which forms the outer coast-line.
They were fortunate enough to see one magnificent tempest, by which the ocean was lashed into fury, breaking in thunder over the rugged coast-line, and dashing spray sheer over the huge back of Egg Rock. Miss Sandford's threat was carried into execution; the family came to the hotel, and, for a week, Greenleaf and his friend were most devoted in their attentions.
So, reluctantly, we kept the shadowy coast-line for our companion, as we steered for the southwestern end of the island; to our right, companions more of our mood, parallel ridges of savage whiteness, where the surf boiled and gleamed along the coral shoals.
If a man were to leave the river, he might journey westward and find no human habitation, nor the smoke of a cooking fire, except the lonely tent of a Kabbabish Arab or the encampment of a trader's caravan, till he reached the coast-line of America. Or he might go east and find nothing but sand and sea and sun until Bombay rose above the horizon.
Without waiting for their reply, which would probably have been of the caustic and provocative type, I turned down the path I had not trodden for some three years. At one of the bends I looked up and saw them moving north along the coast-line. I had the cove to myself, and was soon in my bathing-dress. The water was magnificent.
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