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It seems as if Nature had taken precautions that these her choicest treasures should not be made too common, and thus be undervalued. This northern coast of New Guinea is exposed to the full swell of the Pacific Ocean, and is rugged and harbourless.
It was then uncertain whether Aden or Sokotra would be chosen as a coaling station for India, and Lieutenant Wellsted was sent in the Palinurus to take a survey of it; but doubtless the harbourless condition of the island, and the superior position of Aden in that respect, caused the decision in favour of Aden.
We got him into the cozy forecastle, clapped him on the back, put him in dry duds; and, then, "Come, now, lads!" cried Billy Lisson, the hearty skipper of the Greased Lightning, "don't you go sayin' a word 'til I brew you a cup o' tea. On the Harbourless Shore, says you? An' all hands lost? Don't you say a word. Not one!" The castaway turned a ghastly face towards the skipper.
"The maid that turns me mad," was my benighted reflection, as I climbed the Watchman to take a look at the weather, "will be a wonderful clever hand." Johns' knowing nothing of his own knowledge, but only by hearsay; and the bones of Skipper Jim already lay stripped and white in the waters of the Harbourless Shore.
When one has seen the very elaborate forts erected by the Portuguese on the coasts of the Persian Gulf and East Africa one feels pretty confident in asserting that they took no steps to settle themselves permanently in Sokotra; in fact, their occupation of it only extended over a period of four years, and the probability is that, finding it harbourless, and worth little for their purposes of a depôt on the road to India, they never thought it worth their while to build any permanent edifices.
The Atlantic coast, being the most dangerous to shipping, is guarded by more than 175 stations; the Great Lakes require fifty or more to care for the survivors of the vessels that are yearly wrecked on their harbourless shores. For the Gulf of Mexico eight are considered sufficient, and the long Pacific coast also requires but eight.
They knew the harbourless character of the African coast west of Egypt, and the dangers of the Lesser and Greater Syrtes. They knew the fertility of the Tunisian projection, the excellence of its harbours, and the prolificness of the large island that lay directly opposite. Here were the tracts where they might expand freely, and which would richly repay their occupation of them.
But so evil a turn did the weather take so thick and wild that we were thrice near driven on a lee shore, and, in the end, were glad enough to take chance shelter behind Saul's Island, which lies close to the mainland near the Harbourless Shore.
Long may ye flourish, peaceful and liberal inhabitants of Demerara. Your doors are ever open to harbour the harbourless; your purses never shut to the wants of the distressed: many a ruined fugitive from the Oroonoque will bless your kindness to him in the hour of need, when flying from the woes of civil discord, without food or raiment, he begged for shelter underneath your roof.
Black flocks and white they gather their delicate shadows up, "swift as dreams," at the end of their flight into the clefts, platforms, and ledges of harbourless rocks dominating the North Sea. They subside by degrees, with lessening and shortening volleys of wings and cries until there comes the general shadow of night wherewith the little shadows close, complete.
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