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It was less than six hours when Godfrey saw the low land ahead, and they were presently coasting along it again with the wind free, for they were now running but little to the west of north. Thirty miles farther there was another break in the coast. "That was a first-rate map I made the tracing from," Godfrey said; "the coast-line is most accurately marked.
The water is generally profoundly deep close to the shore; but this fact, which has attracted the attention of most voyagers, seems to have no necessary connection with the presence of reefs; for Captain Moresby particularly observed to me, that, in latitude 24 deg 10' on the eastern side, there is a piece of coast, with very deep water close to it, without any reefs, but not differing in other respects from the usual nature of the coast-line.
But finally, as has so far generally been the case with other colonies, the English remained in possession of the whole, and, though their first thought was to use it merely as a penal settlement, they soon saw the importance of removing their convicts to Van Diemen's Island, and now no less than four or five distinct British colonies embrace the entire coast-line of the continent, the interior still remaining an unknown desert.
The sun piercing the morning mists had uncovered a coast-line broken with bays and inlets. Above it towered green hills, the peak of each topped by a squat blockhouse; in the valleys and water courses like columns of marble rose the royal palms. "You MUST look!" Carr entreated David, "it's just as it is in the pictures! "Then I don't have to look," groaned David.
But in one respect Lord Selkirk's experiment was wholly different from those that had preceded it. The earlier adventurers had sought the coast-line of the Atlantic upon which to fix their infant colonies. He boldly penetrated into the very centre of the continent and reached a fertile spot which to this day is most difficult of access.
Longer than any other red-blooded animal, except the whale, could their lungs go without fresh oxygen; so, though they knew nothing of those great depths where the whales sometimes frequent, it was easy for them to go deep enough to get below the storm. Sometimes a break in the coast-line, revealing the mouth of an inlet, would tempt the little band of migrants.
Eastward past Beeny the cliffs gradually rise, till at High Cliff they reach the height of 700 feet; it needs some enthusiasm for a pedestrian to keep to the coast-line, though every mile has its grandeur. Beyond Cambeak lies the delightful Crackington Cove, which will some day become a watering-place; it stands at the mouth of a verdant valley with a stream like that of the Valency.
The chief reason assigned for his liberation was the service which his knowledge and talents might render to the Republic, a reference to the knowledge of the Italian coast-line which he had gained during the mission to Genoa. For a space his daring spirit was doomed to chafe in comparative inactivity, in supervising the coast artillery.
The gibbon kept his eye on the receding outline of his native mountains, and every now and then made a desperate attempt to break his fetters; but when the coast-line began to blend with the horizon the captive's behavior underwent a marked change.
But, as the result of some strange convulsion of the earth, the coast-line has sunk down and down, until the incoming tide of the salt sea has swept over it, and schools of porpoises and fishes swim among the branches of old forest trees that in the former time were accustomed to the chatter of squirrels and songs of birds.
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