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I make sure my breath has nothing to do with it, but still it continues. At last a beam of sunshine lights up the pool, and as if a film had rolled from my eyes I see the cause of the disturbance. A sea-worm or a ghost of one is swimming about. Its large, brilliant eyes, long tentacles, and innumerable waving appendages are now as distinct as before they had been invisible.
It was perceived that the dikes, which had for ages preserved the coasts, were in many places crumbling to ruin, in spite of the enormous expenditure of money and labor devoted to their preservation. By chance it was discovered that the beams, piles and other timber works employed in the construction of the dikes were eaten through in all parts by a species of sea-worm hitherto unknown.
The sea-grass, or ladang laut, concerning which Sir James Lancaster tells some wonderful stories, partakes of the nature of a sea-worm and of a coralline; in its original state it is soft and shrinks into the sand from the touch; but when dry it is quite hard, straight, and brittle.
Meantime, like carpenters' augers, and the sea-worm called Remora, the guns of the Serapis were drilling away at the same doomed hull. After performing her nameless exploit, the Alliance sailed away, and did no more. She was like the great fire of London, breaking out on the heel of the great Plague.
For example, there were sugar-coated worms, preserved red snails, trepang, a kind of sea-worm, and putrid doves' eggs in an unspeakable sauce. The cakes made of honey, sugar and rice-meal, I am sure, would have been much more to your liking. Each hour the crowd increased, as the people poured into the city from the villages on the island of Hongkong, and from neighboring places.
He had come to the Philippine islands on board the Fils de France, had passed some years in South America, and had occupied several places of distinction in the navy, as captain-commandant, until at last, after many adventures and vicissitudes, he came with a small fortune to Manilla, where he bought a vessel, and set sail for the Pacific Ocean, to fish for the balaté or sea-worm.
It resists the sea-worm; and our colonial vessels, when hove down for repairs or survey at Sincapore, Launceston, or other ports, have always excited the admiration of the surveyors, and have been pronounced not to require to be coppered.
Of the trees which have a wide range over the country, especially near the sea-coast, the lignum vitae is of great value. As from its hard nature it turns the edge of the best-tempered tools, it serves for the construction of wharves, as well as for the keels of ships, the attacks of the teredo, or sea-worm, being futile upon the iron network of its fibres.
Just as when a sea-worm perforates the shell of an oyster, the oyster straightway closes the wound with a pearl, so does a forgiving spirit heal the hidden hurt of the heart, and win for itself a boon even at the hands of its foe. Let us forgive for our brother's sake. "What," asks George MacDonald, "am I brother for, but to forgive?" And how much for my brother my forgiveness may do!
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