A flat beach surrounded it upon
all sides; and the midst was occupied by a thicket of
bushes, the highest of them scarcely five feet high, in
which the sea-fowl lived. Through this we tried at
first to strike; but it were easier to cross Trafalgar
Square on a day of demonstration than to invade these
haunts of sleeping sea-birds. The nests sank, and the
eggs burst under footing; wings beat in our faces,
beaks menaced our eyes, our minds were confounded with
the screeching, and the coil spread over the island and
mounted high into the air.
"I guess we'll saunter round the beach," said Nares,
when we had made good our retreat.
The hands were all busy after sea-birds' eggs, so there
were none to follow us. Our way lay on the crisp sand
by the margin of the water: on one side, the thicket
from which we had been dislodged; on the other, the
face of the lagoon, barred with a broad path of
moonlight, and beyond that the line, alternately dark
and shining, alternately hove high and fallen prone, of
the external breakers. The beach was strewn with bits
of wreck and drift: some redwood and spruce logs, no
less than two lower masts of junks, and the stern-post
of a European ship--all of which we looked on with a
shade of serious concern, speaking of the dangers of
the sea and the hard case of castaways.
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