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Updated: June 4, 2025
So, out past the Lâches, with the tide boiling round the point; past Derrible, with its yawning black mouths; past Dixcart with its patch of sand; under the grim bastions of the Cagnon; the clean grey cliffs and green downs above, all smiling in the morning sun; the clear green water creaming among the black boulders, hissing among their girdles of tawny sea-weeds, cascading merrily down their rifted sides; round the Convanche corner, so deftly close that the beauty of the water cave is bared to them, if they had eye or thought for anything but that which lies under the cliff in Coupée Bay.
In a moment she felt herself sinking through the clear water, deeper and deeper, with a delicious drowsy feeling that almost soothed her to sleep. She knew she was not asleep though, for she could see the misty forms of sea creatures, darting about in the dim shadows, and great waving sea-weeds crimson, yellow, and brown floating up from the rippled sand beneath.
She looked on the heaps of sea-weeds, and then along the line of breakers, that seemed even now gathering strength for a return movement. It was a trying ordeal for a child of ten, but the terrible novelty of the situation seemed to give her courage. She advanced towards the body, which she now saw was that of a woman dressed in black.
The old dog knew an apple when he saw it, and was disappointed after the last one was brought out from Betty's pocket, and lay down at her feet and went to sleep again. Betty got into the shade of the wharf and sat there looking down at the flounders and sculpins in the clear water, and at the dripping green sea-weeds on the piles of the wharf.
After a brisk run on the sands or over the downs, we joined Miss Ruth on the beach, where we worked and talked, or helped the children build sand-castles, and deck them with stone and sea-weeds. What treasures we collected for Carrie's Sunday scholars; what stores of bright-colored seaweed or sea flowers, as Dot persisted in calling them and heaps of faintly-tinged shells!
Now the beach supplied sand, lime supplied chalk, sea-weeds supplied soda, pyrites supplied sulphuric acid, and the ground supplied coal to heat the kiln to the wished-for temperature. Cyrus Harding thus soon had everything ready for setting to work.
We doubled Cape Froward on the 18th, which cape is in 53° 30' S. The 21st we were forced by a furious storm to take shelter in a small cove with our ships, four leagues beyond the cape, and on the southern shore of the straits, where we remained till the 15th of May; in which time we endured much distress, by excessive storms, with perpetual snow, and many of our men died of cold and famine, not having wherewithal to cover their bodies nor to fill their bellies, but living on muscles, sea-weeds, and water, with an occasional supply of meal from the ships stores.
At last, however, as they neared the sea-bank, a soft and cooling breeze began to fan the travellers' cheeks; the horse tossed his head and snuffed the air, as though delighted with the grateful sensation it imparted; and at the end of another quarter of an hour the car wheels were sinking deep in the dry sandy road which led up to the inn, where they were going on this occasion to leave the horse, as this afternoon's trip was only for a quiet ramble by the sea to collect a few stranded sea-weeds and shells.
Of the sea-weeds, one particular species, supposed to be the Fucus amylaeceus, thrown in great quantities upon the coast, is mentioned as forming when boiled, sweetened, and spiced, a nutritious and beautiful jelly of a fine rose colour; and as it appears that it may be dried without injury and preserved for years, it would be of value as an export.
The tusks had been so ingeniously cut and fitted that only the grain of the glistening surface told where one tusk joined another. As for the door, so closely was it fitted that it was not to be located at all. In two corners were seal-oil lamps. These had feed-pipes of some form of dried sea-weeds. They could thus be fed from without.
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