Читать книгу Lolóma, or two years in cannibal-land. A story of old Fiji онлайн

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The strange view of scores of islands and islets scattered over the ocean interested me greatly. In many instances the encircling reef was visible, sending jets of milk-white foam high into the air, where they burst like rockets, and glittered in the sun like columns of shattered diamonds.

Occasionally a fleet of large sailing canoes appeared in sight, bound on some pleasure excursion or warlike expedition. Sitting on a rocky prominence on a fine day, I could see these summer islets floating on bright spheres of tropic sea, stretching from point to point like a beautiful panorama, and I thought the world had no fairer spectacle to show. The canoes glided past with a stately sweep. They gradually became mere dots in the distance, and I began to think of the nautilus spreading its purpled wings to the wind, and coquetting in the enchanted gulfs of the fable, till I involuntarily looked to see “the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair.” The return of the canoes to port was as magnificent a spectacle as their departure and gradual fading from sight. Nothing could be more beautiful than to see them, one by one, fold their coloured wings and come to anchor with the dainty grace of a sea-bird settling on the crest of a wave.