"Well, then, be good enough to hold yourself as if you were. And keep
a lookout. If there's any current we'll be closing with some islands
before daylight."
|
The east side of the gulf is fringed with islands, some solitary, others
in groups. One the blue background of the high coast they seem to float
on silvery patches of calm water, arid and gray, or dark green and
rounded like clumps of evergreen bushes, with the larger ones, a mile
or two long, showing the outlines of ridges, ribs of gray rock under the
dark mantle of matted leafage. Unknown to trade, to travel, almost to
geography, the manner of life they harbor is an unsolved secret. There
must be villages--settlements of fishermen at least--on the largest
of them, and some communication with the world is probably kept up by
native craft. But all that forenoon, as we headed for them, fanned along
by the faintest of breezes, I saw no sign of man or canoe in the field
of the telescope I kept on pointing at the scattered group.
|