In its quieter pools I discovered many small fish, of four-or
five-pound weight I should imagine. In appearance, except as to
size and color, they were not unlike the whale of our own seas.
As I watched them playing about I discovered, not only that they
suckled their young, but that at intervals they rose to the surface
to breathe as well as to feed upon certain grasses and a strange,
scarlet lichen which grew upon the rocks just above the water line.
It was this last habit that gave me the opportunity I craved
to capture one of these herbivorous cetaceans--that is what Perry
calls them--and make as good a meal as one can on raw, warm-blooded
fish; but I had become rather used, by this time, to the eating of
food in its natural state, though I still balked on the eyes and
entrails, much to the amusement of Ghak, to whom I always passed
these delicacies.
Crouching beside the brook, I waited until one of the diminutive
purple whales rose to nibble at the long grasses which overhung
the water, and then, like the beast of prey that man really is, I
sprang upon my victim, appeasing my hunger while he yet wriggled
to escape.
Then I drank from the clear pool, and after washing my hands and face
continued my flight. Above the source of the brook I encountered
a rugged climb to the summit of a long ridge. Beyond was a steep
declivity to the shore of a placid, inland sea, upon the quiet
surface of which lay several beautiful islands.
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