It must be seen first afar off, and then close, to understand the vagaries of splendour in which Nature indulges here.

And yet the Norantea, common in the high woods, is even more splendid, and, in a botanist's eyes, a stranger vagary still.
On past the whaling quay.

It was deserted; for the whales had not yet come in, and there was no chance of seeing a night scene which is described as horribly beautiful--the sharks around a whale while flensing is going on, each monster bathed in phosphorescent light, which makes his whole outline, and every fin, even his evil eyes and teeth, visible far under water, as the glittering fiend comes up from below, snaps his lump out of the whale's side, and is shouldered out of the way by his fellows.

We were unlucky indeed, in the matter of sharks; for, with the exception of a problematical back-fin or two, we saw none in the West Indies, though they were swarming round us.
The next day the boat's head was turned homewards.

And what had been learnt at the little bay of Alice Biscayen suggested, as we went on, a fresh geological question.