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"Clem can hand, reef, and steer as well as any one, as far as his strength goes," said the captain, looking approvingly at him. "I'll set to work as soon as he likes, then," I observed. "But I wish those fellows would be sharp about breakfast, for I am desperately hungry." "Well, go into the cabin, and Clem will give you a hunch of bread to stay your appetite." I followed Clem below.
Internally the reef either slopes gently into the lagoon-channel, or ends in a perpendicular wall sometimes between two and three hundred feet under water in height: externally the reef rises, like an atoll, with extreme abruptness out of the profound depths of the ocean. What can be more singular than these structures? We see
THAT'S right there! it's all there now Hurroo!" "Hurroo!" would answer the scholar, waving his old hat over his own name, and "Hurroo!" would answer the cocoa-nut grove echoes; whilst the far, faint "Hi, hi!" of the wheeling gulls on the reef would come over the blue lagoon as if in acknowledgment of the deed, and encouragement. The appetite comes with teaching.
Upon this muddy floor there lie, here and there, growing corals, or occasionally great blocks of dead coral, which have been torn by storms from the outer edge of the reef, and washed into the lagoon. Shellfish and worms of various kinds abound; and fish, some of which prey upon the coral, sport in the deeper pools.
Fear had given it birth, and Fear still clung to it. It was, perhaps, the element of fear and the awful delight of daring the unknown that made him give way to it. He had rowed, perhaps, a hundred yards when he turned the boat's head and made for the reef.
Thus you have the reef forming a bed thicker upon the flanks of the island; but the edge of the reef will be very much further out from the land, and the lagoon will be many times deeper; in short, your fringing reef will be converted into an encircling reef.
A softly noisy chorus of sea voices kept rhythm to the swaying of the tall spars, and from somewhere out in the shimmering sea came the sob and suck of a broken swell over a submerged reef. A brown man stood at the wheel like a brown wooden figure, his arms and face vaguely illumined by the glow from the binnacle lamp. Forward the decks were silent and deserted, except in one spot.
She was clearly afloat, and the basin in which she rode had a communication on each side, of it, with the sound, or inlet, that still encircled the Reef. Descending to the shore, our young mariner got into the dingui, and pulled out round the vessel, to make a more minute examination.
Portions of the reef on which the ship had struck were now to be plainly seen above the sea-level; it was plain that they were rarely touched by the salt water, for there was an attempt at vegetation in one or two places. And beyond the reef Percival saw land, and land that it would be easy enough to reach. He turned to look for the remains of the Arizona, but there was little to be seen.
I remember times of big rain when it was so flooded we had to go in by canoe, out through the reef and in by Honolulu Harbour." "Remember," Lee Barton added, "it was just about that time that the youngster that became me arrived here for a few weeks' stay on our way around. I must have seen you on the beach at that very time one of the kiddies that swam like fishes.
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