I could not sufficiently admire, and I
shall never forget the exquisite loveliness of land and sea; the
graceful curve of the beach, a hundred feet broad, fining
imperceptibly away till lost in the convexity of waters. The
morning sun, half way to the zenith, burned bright in a cloudless
sky, whilst in the east and west distant banks of purple mist
coloured the liquid plain with a cool green-blue, a celadon tint
that reposed the eye and the brain. The porpoise raised in sport
his dark, glistening back to the light of day, and plunged into
the cool depths as if playing off the "amate sponde" of the
Mediterranean; and sandpipers and curlews, the latter wild as
ever, paced the smooth, pure floor. The shoreline was backed by a
dark vegetable wall, here and there broken and fronted by single
trees, white mangroves tightly corded down, and raised on stilted
roots high above the tide. Between wood and wave lay powdered
sandstone of lively yellow, mixed with bright white quartz and
debris of pink shells. Upon the classic shores of Greece I should
have thought of Poseidon and the Nereids; but the lovely scene
was in unromantic Africa, which breeds no such visions of
"The fair humanities of old religion.
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