What a contrast to the bouquet of
Brazil! Still, why should there not be acres rich and worthy, behind
those dull grey rocks? The idea of an incorrigible country was not to be
entertained, for overcrowded England stood, with her hand for ear-
trumpet, and the question on her tongue, 'What is the message?' Adventure
followed adventure in the effort to secure it.
'Somehow,' quoth Sir George, 'we didn't seem to mind the risks, and I
imagine that is the experience of everybody who has encountered any. A
man is zealous upon some task, it quite occupies him, and the dangers are
just details. Afterwards, his friends make him out to be a bit of a hero,
and he has leisure to fancy so himself, which is all entirely harmless.
Now, I had to swim across an arm of the sea, where a violent tide ran,
and where alligators and sharks had their haunts. The latter, I believed
from observations made when we bathed off the schooner, could smell a
human body in the water from a long distance. But the plain necessity was
that, for the succour of certain members of the expedition, I must swim
the lagoon.'
A nearer hazard furnished Sir George with a knowledge, which a call from
his friend Sir Charles Lyell, the geologist, enabled him to use in fun.
Lyell walked in on him, in London, with a spear-head and the curiosity,
'How old do you judge that would be?' The weapon was of stone, uncouth,
barbarous.
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