Yellow Sea

“ A characteristic feature of Yellow Sea coasts are the Chang-ma, or mid-summer rains, which set in with fair regularity in July and during their month's duration resemble in phenomena and general effects the periodic rains of the tropics. The winters, in all but the southern parts of the country, are long and severe and set in with great suddenness. ”

“ To an English mind that has had no experience of the East the term sea-beach conjures up visions of yellow sand, bathing-machines, groups of happy children, idle men and women taking a well-earned holiday. The long straight shore at Madras has nothing in common with the English beach. Yellow sand there is in abundance, in far greater abundance now than when my foot first touched it. ”

“ All this time the sea was most terrible, the wind and darkness were awful, the foam simply a white mist around us. The vessel suddenly rose up again, was again depressed, again lifted as the squall subsided; and after four such experiences, each one bringing our masts down to the waves, and the last one smashing the mizzen-topmast short at the cap, we floated more steadily. The wind changed, smote us again on the starboard quarter, after blowing in a circle for a couple of hours, and we rested on a trembling sea, drenched with spray and rain, and dishevelled. ”

“ One gets a good idea of the structure of the Red Sea coasts on leaving the Gulf of Suez for the voyage south, before the ship’s course passes far from land. On the western horizon is a range of wild mountains, a grey plain ending in a yellow shore-line separating them from the sea, and the off-lying islands are of the same colour. ”

“ It is so called from the yellowness of its water, caused by the vast quantity of mud which is swept down by its rapid current to the sea; hence, the common saying, "When the Yellow River runs clear," as an equivalent of the Greek Kalends. The huge embankments, built to confine it to a given course, are continually being forced by any unusual press of extra water, with enormous damage to property and great loss of life, and from time to time this river has been known to change its route altogether, suddenly diverging, almost at a right angle. ”

“ The plain is formed of gravel from the high hills, its yellow border seawards being coral limestone, and the islands also. In the sea are numerous reefs, here of very intricate plan, lines of white breakers separating the deep blue black water from large areas of green and brown shoals in waveless lagoons. There are deep channels between these reefs and the shore, which is itself fringed by a shallow reef with its edge at low water level but bearing perhaps one or two fathoms of water on its surface within. ”

“ As the grey winter day rose out of the sea to port, all eyes were fixed upon the batteries and the ships in harbour. Telescopes swept the hills and platforms, the traces of the wrecked boom, the almost deserted islands, the shattered forts. As men gazed in silence, broken only at intervals by duty orders, a sense of depression fell upon me, as if something unpleasant awaited us. ”

“ They rush in red and purple from the red clouds of the morn,
From temples where the yellow gods shut up their eyes in scorn;
They rise in green robes roaring from the green hells of the sea
Where fallen skies and evil hues and eyeless creatures be;
On them the sea-valves cluster and the grey sea-forests curl,
Splashed with a splendid sickness, the sickness of the pearl;
They swell in sapphire smoke out of the blue cracks of the ground,—
They gather and they wonder and give worship to Mahound. ”

“ Unless we have reached the mainland, this must be a landlocked bay. It is surely too large for a lake within an island.”
“It looks to me as if we had reached the mainland,” Ronald answered. “See how high the land towers beyond this lake or bay. If this is an island it must be Minong or Philippeau, and our Island of Yellow Sands lies far to the east. Let us go back for the canoe and cross this lake or skirt its shores. We have time enough before darkness comes.” ”

“ In many places the banks had been carried away, and an eye-witness has described the scene in the following words:* — *^For dreari- ness and desolation no scene can exceed that which the Yellow River here presents; everything natural and artificial is at the mercy of the muddy dun-coloured waters, as they sweep on their course towards the sea. ”

“ While Etienne was speaking, Ronald had been gazing intently at the stretch of land hazy and blue in the distance. When the Indian had finished, the boy said slowly: “I do not believe that land can be the island we seek. If the Island of Yellow Sands were as large and high and plainly visible as that, some one would have found and explored it long ago. No, that is either part of the mainland, or one of the greater islands that men know. Surely to have escaped the white men’s eyes for so many years, the Island of Yellow Sands must be small and low and inconspicuous.” ”

“ There's more fish in the water than ever came out of it, and more wonders in the world, I'll warrant, than we ever dreamt of; but I was never in these parts before; and in the South Sea, I must say, I never came across any, though Yeo says he has heard fair music at night up in the Gulf, far away from land.”
“The Spaniards report that at certain seasons choirs of these nymphs assemble in the sea, and with ravishing music sing their watery loves. It may be so. For Nature, which has peopled the land with rational souls, may not have left the sea altogether barren of them ”

“ From the blue ocean rises a mass of green palms. The sunlight glows in the green. It somehow even seems to turn the sunlight green. Against the dark blue of the sea and the light blue of the sky, the sunlight seems to be drawing the green island out of the water, and the soft south wind carries the scent of flowers far out to sea. It is the greeting of the island, and we inhale it deeply.
Here was a typical coral atoll—the kind you dream about. A circular reef studded with waving palms and within the reef a lovely, placid lagoon. ”

“ As we advance, the road comes out upon the sea, for we have crossed the peninsula which divides the Bay of Yedo from the Pacific, and are now on the shores of the ocean itself. How beautiful it seemed that day! It was the last of May, and the atmosphere was full of the warmth of early summer. The coast is broken by headlands shooting out into the deep, which enclose bays, where the soft, warm sunshine lingers as on the shores of the Mediterranean, and the waters of the mighty Pacific come gently rippling up the beach. ”

“ From Java Head we glided slowly through Princeʼs Strait, and coasting along the island, dropped our anchor in Anjer Roads. The scenery of this coast is extremely lovely, and comprises every feature which can heighten the picturesque; noble mountains, a lake-like sea, and deeply indented coast-line, rocks, islets, and, above all, a vegetation so luxuriant that the eye never wearies with gazing on its matchless tints. ”

“ From time immemorial it has been known that the Yellow River is neither more nor less than a prolongation of the Milky Way, soiled by earthly contact and contamination, and that the homes of the Spinning Maiden and the Cow-herd are the centres of two of the numerous villages that adorn its banks. It is not to be wondered at, however, that in an evil and skeptical world there should be many who doubt these facts. ”

“ The head-wind raises short, sharp, white-capped waves; shallow banks shine yellow through the clear water, and the coral reefs are patches of violet and crimson, and we are delighted by constant changes, new shades and various colourings, never without harmony and loveliness. A cloudless sky bends over the whole picture and shines on the red-brown bodies of the people, who bustle about their canoes, adding the bright red of their mats and dresses to the splendour of the landscape. ”

“ A strait, leagues in width, separates them from the mainland. Far too wide to be crossed by the strongest swimmer amongst them—too wide for them to be descried from the opposite side, even through a telescope! And the inland is a mere strip of sea-washed rock, running parallel to the coast, cliff-bound, table-topped, sterile, treeless—and, to all appearance, waterless!
As this last thought comes uppermost—along with the recollection that their boat is gone—what was at first only a flurry of excited apprehension, becomes a fixed fear. ”

“ Scarcely has one left the Java Sea—which is, as it were, an inland sea between Sumatra, Borneo, Java, and the archipelago of small islands between both of the last named—than, in the blue waters of the easterly part of the East Indian Archipelago, nature assumes a bolder aspect, more in harmony with the great depth of the ocean. The beauty of the Java Sea, and the delightful phenomena which air and ocean display, have here ceased. ”

“ Just as the ever-changing light of day made ever-changing10 beauties, so did the ever-changing air, and ever-changing tide; at low tide with a strong breeze every reef would speak and you would hear a sound that once heard you would never forget, the song of a hundred tiny shores, the tune of the reefs. Sometimes in those great low tides in which we fancy the moon and the sun hauling together at the heavy blue robe of the sea, as if to make her shew her hidden armour and her scars, the reefs would be fully exposed, razor-edged, hungry, and lean. ”

“ Outside, the palm-trees rustle endlessly, and the surf sings on the reef the long, low, perilous sweet song of the dreamy South Sea world—the song that has lured so many away into these lonely coral lands, to remember their Northern loves and homes no more—the song that, once heard, will whisper through the inmost chambers of the heart, across the years, and across the world till death. ”

“ Set like a gem in the centre of this snow-rimmed crown of the continent, is the loveliest body of fresh water on the globe, its dark-blue surface at an elevation greater than that of the highest clouds that fleck the azure sky of a summer's day, over the tops of the loftiest mountains of the East. Its waters teem with trout, and the primeval forests that cover the surrounding country are crowded with game. ”

“ The South Seas; to have wandered among their green isles is to have seen a new world, a new heaven and a new earth. The white reef with its whiter rim of plunging surf, the swaying palms, the flashing waterfall, the joyous people, straight as Greeks and colored like varnished leather, the bread-fruit tree and the brown orange, the purple splendor of the vine called Bougainvillia, and above all the volcanic mountains, green fringed with huge trees, with tree ferns and palms, the whole tied together into an impenetrable jungle by the long armed lianas. ”

“ The other islands and islets, visible from the one where they were stranded, appeared to be mere heaps of wind and wave-swept rock. It seemed unlikely that any sand whatever was to be found on the and the danger of trying to coast such rock piles in a clumsy raft was too great to be risked. If the gold-seekers could but reach a forested shore, where they could build another canoe, they might return and explore every island, but they must have a good boat first. ”

“ All the English flowers and fruits grow here as well, so that in the warmer months it must look beautiful. It is close to the sea, which runs here in little creeks and bays close up among the public walks and buildings; and as the shore is all rocky and steep at low water, there is no mud or swamp or seaweed, but only clear green water quite deep and always calm and tranquil, because the harbour is so broken up and diversified by innumerable islets, gulfs, &c., that no wind can raise any sea of consequence in it. ”

“ The sea is black with wind, white puffs of spindrift rise, drive over the water and disappear again. Some native vessels, which last night may have anchored in land-locked harbours some miles astern of us, are racing before the north wind, only daring to shew a corner of their great lateen main-sails, while we have not wind enough to find our way out of the reef-labyrinth in which we anchored for the night. ”

“ If you can imagine a cloudless sky of a deep blue colour, a sea so smooth that not a ripple is visible, and so clear that you can look down into it and see the dark rocks and the sandy bottom and strangely shaped fish swimming idly about amongst bushes of seaweed, which wave and curl with the ebb of the tide; and floating masses of jelly which occasionally double themselves into balls and then become floating masses again. If you can picture all this you will have an idea how clear the waters of the South Seas are when the sky is cloudless. ”

“ The pleasure of the sight of a new and beautiful world of shapes and colours, mimicking yet utterly unlike those of life on land, is for us enhanced by the vigour of its life and growth, in happy contrast to the desert shore.
On the edge of the shoal Porites and other solid forms appear as great rocky buttresses among the lighter plant-like growths, or, a little way from it may rise from the depths as an isolated pillar. In many places in the Red Sea such coral pinnacles abound in comparatively deep water, a horror of unexpected danger to the sailor. ”

“ There are certain parts of the world—like our American mountains, deserts, and lonely stretches of coast—which seem planned for the spiritual refreshment of mankind; places from which one carries away a new serenity and the sense of a yearning for beauty satisfied. Ever since the days of Cook the islands of the South Sea have charmed the white man—explorers, naturalists, traders, and the rough crews of whaling vessels ”