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Updated: May 1, 2025
Scogan strolled back together from the gates of the courtyard, whence they had bidden their last farewells; on the writing-table in the hall they found the visitor's book, open, and Ivor's composition scarcely dry. Mr. Scogan read it aloud: "The magic of those immemorial kings, Who webbed enchantment on the bowls of night.
Suddenly two men of the sea, distinguished from the others by swords of red stone, moved through the water, and seizing the sailor in their webbed hands, hurried him before the King of the Under-Waters. On a coral throne, in a great hall roofed with a high circular dome, sat the King.
Flowers fascinating to the eye have no smell, but uncouth looking shrubs and bushes often fill the air with their delicate aroma; crows look like magpies, and dogs like jackals; four-footed animals hop about on two feet; rivers seem to turn their backs on the sea and run inland; swans are black, and eagles white; some of the parrots have webbed feet; and birds laugh and chatter like human beings, while never a song, or even a chirrup, can be heard from their nests and perches.
He remarked that its webbed feet enable it to swim rapidly, and that when pursued it dives, and can remain nearly eight minutes under water; so that, if not taken unawares, it is able to escape most of its numerous foes.
On its head it wears what looks like a curiously-shaped helmet, with a long tube in front, which serves as a snout; while its feet are webbed, and armed with sharp claws at the end of its thick, powerful legs. From the chin hang down two fringe-like membranes, and the throat and neck are similarly ornamented.
The widgeon has observed him going down; and, calculating to a nicety the spot where he will reappear, seats himself in readiness. The moment the other emerges, and before he can fully recover his sight or his senses, the active spoliator makes a dash, seizes the celery in his horny mandibles, and makes off with it as fast as his webbed feet can propel him.
Happy is the man who can weather a day's travel at the price of silence, and that on a beaten track. And of all heartbreaking labors, that of breaking trail is the worst. At every step the great webbed shoe sinks till the snow is level with the knee.
The apparition of a very small hand whose fingers are bunchy and have the appearance of being slightly webbed which is frequently lifted above the table in a vain and impotent attempt to reach the inkstand, always affects me as a novelty at each recurrence of the phenomenon.
Even the otter, which propels itself through the water mostly by means of its long and powerful tail, has the feet furnished with webs. So has the aquatic Yapock opossum of Australia, while the feet of the duck-bill are even more boldly webbed than those of the bird from which it takes its popular name.
Many were the wild and fantastic rumours we had heard at the Residency at Cape Nelson, on the north-east coast of British New Guinea, concerning a curious tribe of natives whose feet were reported to be webbed like those of a duck, and who lived in a swamp a short way in the interior, some distance to the north of us.
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