So level was the beach, so high was the surf, that from the low cart it seemed that gigantic monsters were constantly arising from the sea; and just as the fear of them overshadowed the fascinated mind, they melted away again into nothingness.

As he looked at the waves he saw that their water, mixed with sand, was a yellowish brown, and dark almost to black when the curling top yawned before the downfall; but so fast did each wave break one upon the other that glossy water was only seen in glimpses, and boiling fields of foam and high crests of foam were the main substance of all that was to be seen for a hundred yards from the shore.
Proceeding thus, they soon came to what was actually the end of the island, and were on the narrow ridge of sand-dunes which extended a distance of some twenty miles to the next island.

The sand-hills rising sheer from the shore, fifty, sixty, or a hundred feet in height, bordered their road on the right.

To avoid the soft dry sand of their base the pony often trotted in the shallow flow of the foam, which even yet now and then crept over all the damp beach to the high-water mark.
The wind was like spur and lash; the horse fled before it.

Eyes and ears grew accustomed even to the threatening of the sea-monsters.