Chapter XLVI (1)

Fane had spent some time in diligent pursuit of Onslow; at first with no great promise of success, but latterly with some certainty of being upon his track. Just, however, as his hopes of securing him were strongest, he had received a letter which had been following him for some time from town to town, summoning him to attend the sick-bed of his uncle, who had been attacked with sudden and dangerous illness.

Of course he set off at once, as in duty bound; but he was surprised and ashamed, knowing the obligations he lay under to his relative, to notice how little anxiety and pain the news occasioned him. Fane was very honest in analysing his own emotions, and on the present occasion laid more blame to the account of his own nature, which he accused of unsympathising callousness, than it by any means deserved. He would have done as much to serve a friend, and was capable of as warm attachment, as most people, but his feelings required a congenial nature to call them forth. He was not one of those who wear their hearts on their sleeve for any daw to peck at, and had none of that incontinence of affability which insures a man so many acquaintances and so few friends. Had he been Lear’s eldest son, he would, to a certainty, have been disinherited, along with Cordelia, in favour of those gay deceivers, Goneril and Regan.

Now, Mr Levitt his uncle, though naturally amiable, was an undemonstrative character, full of good impulses which terribly embarrassed him. He would read a poem or romance with the keenest enjoyment, yet with affected contempt, turning up his nose and screwing down the corners of his mouth, while his eyes were watering and his heart beating. He would offer two fingers to a parting friend, nod good-by to him slightly, and turn away, feeling as if a shadow had come upon his world. He had been used to write to his nephews in the spirit of a Roman or Spartan uncle, giving them stern advice, and sending them the most liberal remittances, in the most ungracious manner—throwing checks at their heads, as it were—while all the time he was yearning for their presence. In fact, he was so ashamed of his best points, and so anxious to conceal them, that the rigid mask wherewith he hid his virtues had become habitual, and he was a very sheep in wolf’s clothing.

Those, however, who had known him long, rated him at his true value. Fane found the household in great grief. Miss Betsey, an ancient housekeeper, distinguished principally by strong fidelity to the family interests, a passion for gin-and-water, and a most extraordinary cap, wrung her hands with great decorum; and Mr Payne the banker, Orelia’s father, at the first news of his old friend’s illness, had left a great money transaction unfinished to rush to his bedside, where Fane found him on his arrival. Indeed, it was from him he had received intelligence of his uncle’s illness.

Mr Payne’s temperament had suffered foul wrong when they made him a banker. He had naturally an intense dislike to matters of calculation, his bent being towards _belles lettres_, foreign travel, and the like pleasant paths. Somehow or other he had got rich, and flourished in spite of his want of talent for money-making. His worldly pursuits, perhaps, made his tastes keener, for he fell upon all manner of light reading with wonderful zest after a busy day at the bank. As for his taste for travelling, it was whispered among his acquaintances that its development was not so much owing to an erratic and inquiring spirit, as to the fact that in the second Mrs Payne he had caught a Tartar, and availed himself of any plausible excuse to escape from her domestic tyranny. Orelia, coming home from school one vacation, and finding her stepmother in full exercise of authority, not only, as a matter of course, rebelled herself, but tried to stir up her father to join in the mutiny. Finding him averse to open war, she proclaimed her intention forthwith of quitting the paternal mansion, and living in the house which had become hers by the death of her godmother, as before related; and Mr Payne, coming down on Saturdays after the bank was closed, would spend one-half of his weekly visit in lamenting the ill-temper of his spouse, and the other in his favourite studies.

Fane found his uncle slowly recovering from the effects of the attack which had prostrated him, and by no means secure from a relapse. Mr Levitt caught the sound of his step on the stair, and recognised it; and Mr Payne, seated by the bedside, saw the invalid glance eagerly at the door. Nevertheless, he received his nephew almost coldly, though the latter testified warm interest in his state.

“You’ve been some time finding me out, Durham,” said his uncle, after shortly answering his inquiries. “I’m afraid you’ve been summoned to this uninteresting scene from some more agreeable pursuit.”

“It was an important one, at any rate, sir,” returned Fane; “yet even that did not prevent me hastening hither the moment Mr Payne’s letter reached me. I only got it this morning.”

“An important one, hey, Durham!” said Mr Levitt, with the cynical air under which he was accustomed to veil his interest in his nephew’s proceedings. “We may judge of its importance, Payne, by his hurrying away from it to look after the ailments of a stupid old fellow like me. Some nonsense, I’ll be bound.”

Mr Payne, a bald benevolent man of fifty, in spectacles, came round the bed to shake Fane’s hand.

“Without the pleasure of knowing the Captain, I’ll answer for his holding you in due consideration,” said Mr Payne. “And your uncle knows that, too; he’s only joking,” he said to Fane.

“Well, but the important business, Durham?” said the invalid, as Fane seated himself beside his pillow.

Fane, remembering that his cousin’s was a prohibited name, and fearing the effect it might produce, attempted to laugh off the inquiry.

“Love!” said Mr Levitt, with another cynical glance at Mr Payne, who had resumed his station at the other side of the bed. “A charmer for fifty pounds; why, I grow quite curious—don’t you, Payne? It’s exactly what you suggested as the cause of his delay. Come, let’s hear about her—begin with the eyes—that’s the rule, isn’t it?”

“Wrong, sir, quite wrong,” said Fane, with another disclaiming laugh.

“Poor, bashful fellow!” persisted his uncle. “But we won’t spare his blushes, Payne. And how far did you pursue the nymph, Durham?—and why did she fly you? Is she at length propitious? I hope so!—you know my wishes.”

“There’s no lady in the case, sir, I assure you,” said Fane earnestly.

“Ah! it’s always the way with your sensitive lovers,” pursued his questioner, addressing Mr Payne. “They’re as shy of the subject which occupies their thoughts as if they didn’t like it. Come, if you’re afraid to speak out before my friend Payne (though I’m sure you needn’t be—he’s discretion itself), he’ll go away, I daresay. What is she like? and when is it to be?”

“When is what to be, sir?” asked Fane, trying to humour the old gentleman, but getting impatient, nevertheless.

“Why, the wedding, of course. Seriously, Durham, I’m all impatience. Your last letter seemed to point at something of the kind; and it was written long enough ago to have settled half-a-dozen love affairs since. I’m more earnest than ever on the subject, now that my admonitions seem likely to be cut short; and this matrimony question may affect the dispositions of my will, Durham.”

“Consider it settled, then, I beg, sir,” said Fane seriously. “I shall never marry.”

“I shall be sorry to find you serious, Durham. A bachelor’s life is but a dreary one. Just look at the difference between me and my friend Payne—he is rosy and happy, and, if he were lying here, he would have quite a family meeting assembled round him—while I should be alone, but for a nephew who has no great reason to care about me, and a friend whose good-nature brings him to see what may, perhaps, be the last of an old acquaintance. My opinions on the subject I’ve so often spoken to you of, haven’t changed, you see, in the least—and perhaps I shall act upon them.”

“As you please, sir,” said Fane. “I speak my deliberate thought when I say I don’t intend to marry.”

Here Miss Betsey tapt at the door, to say that Mr Durham’s supper was ready.

“Go down with him, Payne,” said Mr Levitt. “I’ll go on with this story here—a silly thing; but sick people mustn’t be too critical.”

“An excellent novel!” exclaimed Mr Payne—“full of feeling.”

“Ay, ay, well enough for that kind of trumpery,” said the invalid, who was secretly burning to know how the hero and heroine were to be brought together through such a sea of difficulties; and his friend and his nephew, after making a few arrangements for his comfort, went down stairs together.

Fane dismissed the servant who waited at table. He wished to open what he intended to be, and what proved, a very interesting conversation.

“You’re a very old friend of my uncle’s, Mr Payne,” he said. “I’ve so often heard him speak of you, that I seem almost familiar with you, though this is our first meeting.”

“A school friendship,” said Mr Payne; “and it has continued unbroken ever since.”

“I will tell you,” said Fane, “what the pursuit was I was really engaged in, and you will perceive I could not mention it to my uncle. The fact is, I believe I was on the point of discovering my cousin Langley.”

Mr Payne dropt his knife and fork, and leant back in his chair. “You don’t say so!” cried he. “Poor Langley—poor, poor Langley!”

Fane told the grounds he had for suspecting Langley and the ex-dragoon Onslow to be one and the same person.

“Following some faint traces,” said Fane, “I reached a town where, exposed for sale in a shop window, I saw some drawings which I recognised for his. You know his gift that way.”

“Ay, a first-rate draughtsman, poor fellow,” said Mr Payne.

“He had sold these for a trifle far below their value, and, as I found, had left the town only the day before. I therefore felt secure of him when your letter diverted me from the pursuit.”

“Poor Langley!” repeated the sympathetic Mr Payne. “Such a clever fellow! Draw, sir! he had the making of half-a-dozen academicians in him—and ride!—but you’ve seen him ride, of course. And such an actor!—nothing like him off the London boards, and not many on them equal to him, in my opinion. And to end that way, I don’t know if I should like to see him again.”

“You can perhaps enlighten me on a point I’ve long been curious about,” said Fane. “I mean the real cause of my uncle’s displeasure towards him—the extravagance attributed to Langley doesn’t sufficiently account for it.”

“No,” said Mr Payne, “your uncle would have forgiven that readily enough. He pretended, as his way is, to be angrier at it than he was. But the real cause of estrangement was more serious.

“Your uncle finding, by his frequent applications for money, that accounts which had reached him of Langley’s gambling were but too true, at length replied to a request for a hundred pounds by enclosing a check to that amount, at the same time saying it was the last he must expect, and expressing his displeasure very harshly. The check was brought to our bank the next day, and it was not till after it had been cashed that it was suspected that the original amount, both in words and figures, had been altered. Four hundred pounds it now stood, and that sum had been paid on it. The 1 had easily been made into a 4, and the words altered to correspond—neatly enough, but not so like your uncle’s as to pass with a close scrutiny. While we were examining it, your uncle came in, his anxiety on Langley’s account having brought him to town. He took the check, looked at it, and then drew me aside. ‘’Tis forged,’ said he; ‘mine was for a hundred: but not a word of this, Payne—let it pass as regular—tell the clerks ’tis all right.’ This was a terrible blow to him. From that day to this we have heard nothing of Langley, nor does your uncle ever mention his name; and no one but an intimate friend like me would guess how much he felt the dishonour.”

“But Langley must have known ’twould be discovered immediately,” said Fane, who listened with deep attention.

“Ay—but meantime his end was answered. The money was paid, and he doubtless calculated that your uncle would rather lose the sum than suffer the disgrace of exposure—and he was right.”

“I can’t believe him guilty,” said Fane.

“He must have been severely tempted, poor boy,” said Mr Payne—“always so open and upright; but there can, I’m afraid, be no doubt of his guilt. Consider, he has never showed his face since.”

Fane thought for a minute or two. “No,” he said—“no, not guilty, I hope and believe. No guilty man could have borne himself as he has done since. But there is now more reason than ever for resuming my search for him. Yes, yes—I must see and question him myself.”

“Where do you believe him to be?” asked Mr Payne.

“I traced him to Frewenham, in ——shire,” answered Fane.

“Frewenham! God bless me! Why, my daughter’s place, Larches, is close to that. I’m going down there in a day or two to see Orelia.”

“Orelia!” exclaimed Fane; “then Miss Payne is your daughter.”

“Oh, you have met, then, perhaps?” said Mr Payne, with interest; “where and when?”

“At the Heronry,” said Fane. “My troop is at Doddington, the town nearest to where Miss Payne was staying.”

“Oh, ho! this is fortunate,” said Mr Payne. “As soon as your uncle gets better, we will go down together to Frewenham. My friend Levitt,” he resumed presently, “is, I see, much disappointed to find his surmises as to your matrimonial prospects incorrect. He had set his heart on their fulfilment; and some expressions of admiration for some lady, in a late letter of yours, prepared him to expect something of the kind.”

Fane coloured deeply. He remembered, indeed, that, writing to his uncle one evening, after a delightful afternoon passed with Lady Lee, he had suffered his admiration to overflow in expressions which, though they seemed to him slight compared with the merits of the subject, were yet, perhaps, sufficiently warm to warrant his uncle’s inferences. It was some comfort to remember that he had not mentioned her name in this premature effusion.

“My uncle seems to have quite a monomania on the subject of my becoming a Benedict,” he said presently, by way of breaking an awkward silence. “His doctrine would have seemed more consistent had he inculcated it by example as well as by precept. One doesn’t often see a more determined bachelor.”

“A love affair was the turning-point of your uncle’s life,” said Mr Payne. “He knows and feels that a different, and how much happier man he might have been, but for an early disappointment, and that makes him so desirous to see you comfortably established.”

“Now, do you know,” said Fane, “I can’t, by any effort of imagination, fancy my uncle in love. His proposals, if he ever reached that point, must have been conveyed in an epigram.”

“Your uncle is a good deal changed, in every respect, within the last few years, especially since that sad business of poor Langley,” said Mr Payne; “but I scarcely recognise in him now my old (or rather, I should say, my young) friend Levitt. However, you may take my word for it, Captain Durham, that your uncle knew what it was, some five-and-twenty years ago, to be desperately in love. He seemed, too, to be progressing favourably with the object of his affections, till a gay young captain in the Guards turned her head with his attentions—Captain, afterwards Colonel Lee.”

“What! Bagot!” said Fane.

“Ah, you know him, then,” said Mr Payne; “then you also know it was no great alleviation to your uncle’s disappointment to find a man like Colonel Lee preferred to him. Lee, it seems, had no serious intentions, and jilted her—and your uncle disdained to renew his suit.”

This account seemed to Fane to throw a good deal of light upon parts of his uncle’s character which he had hitherto been unable to fathom.

“Yes,” resumed Mr Payne, “yes; your uncle is a great advocate for marriage, and certainly ’tis all very well in its way, though, perhaps,” he added dubiously, in an under tone, to himself—“perhaps it may be done once too often.”

Here Mr Payne left Durham while he went up-stairs to visit his sick friend, and presently returned to say he had found him asleep, and thought he had better not be disturbed again. Shortly afterwards, finding Durham more disposed to ruminate over what he had heard than to converse, he bid him good night, and went to bed.

Fane’s meditations were interrupted by Miss Betsey, who came in, not altogether free from an odour of gin-and-water, to express her gratification at seeing him well. Miss Betsey was a thin old lady, with an unsteady eye, and a nose streaked with little veins, like a schoolboy’s marble. She wore on her head the most wonderful structure, in the shape of a cap, ever seen. It was a kind of tower of muslin, consisting of several stories ornamented with ribbons, and was fastened under her chin with a broad band like a helmet. Her aged arms protruded through her sleeves, which were tight as far as the elbow, and sloped out wider till they terminated half-way to her wrist, where a pair of black mittens commenced.

“Your dear uncle’s been bad, indeed,” said Miss Betsey, taking a pinch of snuff. “I a’most thought we should have lost him, Mr Durham; but he’s better now, poor dear. But there’s no knowing what might happen yet,” said Miss Betsey, shaking her head; “and I’ve had a thought concerning you, and him, and another, Mr Durham.” Here Miss Betsey closed her snuff-box—which was round, black, and shining, and held about a quarter of a pound of princes’ mixture—and, putting it in her ample pocket, laid the hand not occupied with snuff on Fane’s shoulder with amiable frankness, which gin-and-water generates in old ladies. “Mr Durham, your dear uncle’s never forgot your cousin, Master Langley—and ’twould be a grievious thing if he was to leave us” (a mild form of hinting at Mr Levitt’s decease) “without forgiving him. Couldn’t you put in a word, Mr Durham, for your dear cousin?”

“The very thing I intend, Miss Betsey,” returned Fane, “as soon as it can be done effectually.”

“Ah, Mr Durham,” the old lady went on, waxing more confidential, “your dear uncle’s fond of you, and well he may be, but you’re not to him what Master Langley was;—no,” repeated the old lady, shaking her forefinger, and looking sideways at him, “not what Master Langley was; and your dear uncle’s never been like the same man since that poor dear boy left us.”

“You seem to be quite as fond of him as my uncle ever could have been, Miss Betsey,” Fane remarked.

“Fond!” said Miss Betsey, “who wasn’t? He had that coaxing way with him that he could”—she completed the sentence by flourishing her forefinger in the air, as if turning an imaginary person round it. “Everybody was fond of him;—the maids (the pretty ones in particular) was a’most too fond of him—so much so, that it rather interfered with their work.”

Fane’s smile at this proof of his cousin’s irresistibility called forth a playful tap on the shoulder from the old virgin, who presently afterwards dived down into her pocket for her snuff-box, and, screwing off the lid, which creaked like the axle of a stage waggon, stimulated her reminiscences with a pinch.

“Well-a-day! your uncle’s never been the same man since. You don’t know, perhaps” (whispering in a tone that fanned Fane’s cheek with a zephyr combined of gin-and-water and princes’ mixture), “that he keeps Master Langley’s room locked up the same as the poor boy last left it, do you? There now, I said so,” giving him a gentle slap on the back, and retreating a pace, as he answered in the negative; “for all you lived here weeks together, on and off, you never knew that. Come with me,” added the old lady; “I’ve got the key, and we’ll go in there together.”

Fane willingly followed her, taking deep interest in all fragments of his cousin’s history. Arriving at the door of a room looking out on the lawn, Miss Betsey stopped, and, after some protracted fumbling at the keyhole, opened it. “Once or twice, when he thought nobody was watching him, I’ve seen your uncle coming out of this door with tears in his blessed eyes,” said she, as she entered, preceding him with the candle.

The rooms were, as Miss Betsey had said, just as their former occupant had left them. The pieces of a fishing-rod, with their bag lying beside them, were scattered on the table, together with hackles, coloured worsteds, peacocks’ herls, and other materials for fly-making. An open book was on the window-seat, and an unfinished sketch in oils stood on an easel.

“There,” said Miss Betsey, holding the candle up to a painting over the mantelpiece, “there you see the dear fellow taking a leap that none of the others would face. Your uncle was so proud of that deed that he got it painted, as you see—and a pretty penny it cost him. There were other likenesses of him here, but your uncle put ’em all away before you came from Indy.”

Fane approached to look at the picture, which set at rest any uncertainty that might remain as to his cousin’s identity with the rough-riding corporal. There was the same handsome face, only younger, and without the mustache. The same gay air and easy seat that distinguished the dragoon Onslow on horseback appeared in the sportsman there represented, who rode a gallant bay at a formidable brook, with a rail on the farther side. The work was highly artistic, being the production of a famous animal-painter.

At this stage of the proceedings Miss Betsey’s feelings seemed to overpower her. She wept copiously, and even hiccupped with emotion; and, setting the candle on the table, abruptly retired.

Fane lingered round the room, looking at the backs of the books, and turning over portfolios of drawings, which would, of themselves, have identified the hand that produced them with Onslow’s, as exhibited in the sketch-book of Orelia. Among these was a coloured drawing of his uncle—a good likeness—and another of the artist himself. Fane, looking at the bold frank lineaments, internally pronounced it impossible that their possessor could have been guilty of the mean and criminal action imputed to him. He pictured to himself, and contrasted his cousin’s condition before he lost his uncle’s favour, with his life as a soldier, and decided it to be contrary to experience that any one could, under such a startling change of circumstances, have behaved so well, had he been conscious of guilt.

After some time spent in these and similar meditations, suggested by the objects around him, he went out and locked the door. Passing the housekeeper’s room, he went in to leave the key. Miss Betsey appeared to have been soothing her emotions with more gin-and-water, for she sat still in her elbow-chair, with her wonderful structure of cap fallen over one eye, in a manner that rather impaired her dignity, while she winked the remaining one at him with a somewhat imbecile smile.

“Come, Miss Betsey,” said Fane, “let me see you to bed.”

Miss Betsey rose, and, taking his offered arm, they proceeded slowly along the passage together. “By Jove,” thought Fane, “if those youngsters, Bruce and Oates, could see me now, what a story they’d make of it!”

“You must make haste and get a wife, Mr Durham,” said Miss Betsey, whose thoughts seemed to be taking a tender hue—“though, to be sure, you’re not such a one for the ladies as Mr Langley was”—and here the old lady commenced the relation of an anecdote, in which a certain housemaid, whom she stigmatised as a hussy, bore a prominent part, but which we will not rescue from the obscurity in which her somewhat indistinct utterance veiled it.

Fane opened the old lady’s bedroom door, and, putting the candle on the table, left her, not without a misgiving that she might possibly set fire to her cap, and consequently to the ceiling. This fear impressed him so much that he went back and removed it from her head, and with it a row of magnificent brown curls, which formed its basis, and, depositing the edifice, not without wonder, on the drawers, he wished her good night, and retreated; but, hearing her door open when he had got half-way along the passage, he looked back, and saw Miss Betsey’s head, deprived of the meretricious advantages of hair, gauze, and ribbon, protruded shiningly into the passage, as she smiled, with the utmost blandness, a supplementary good night.

CORAL RINGS.[5]

Montgomery’s well-known lines in praise of the coral polyps have given these animals a tolerable share of poetical celebrity. Mr Darwin’s ingenious researches have invested them with a degree of importance which elevates them to the rank of a great geological power. These minute creatures are now entitled to a larger share of consideration than the greatest and most skilful of quadrupeds can claim. All the elephants and lions which have been quartered in this world since its creation—all the whales and sharks which have prowled about in its waters—have done much less to affect its physical features, and have left far slighter evidences of their existence, than the zoophytes by whose labours the coral formations have been reared. For the most colossal specimens of industry we are indebted to one of the least promising of animated things. Comparing their humble organisation with that of other tribes, we feel pretty much the same sort of surprise as a man might express were he told that the pyramids and temples of antiquity had not been constructed by Egyptians or Romans, but by a race like the Earthmen of Africa, or by a set of pigmies like the Aztecs now exhibiting in London.

Though the works now before us have been long in the hands of the public, the substance of their contents is far from being generally known. Yet the beauty of the results at which their authors have arrived, and the interest with which they have invested the coral reefs, may well recommend these volumes to universal perusal. While Dana, more than all his predecessors, has illustrated the natural history of the little gelatinous creatures by which the coral is secreted, Darwin has described the growth and consolidation of their labours into lofty and extended reefs, and connected these with the broadest and most striking phenomena of physical geology. The toiling of the minute zoophytes in the production of vast masses of coral rock which wall round whole islands, and stretch their mural barriers across deep and stormy seas, he has shown to be successful only through the conjoined operation of those wonderful physical forces which are now lifting and now lowering large areas of the earth’s surface.

Mr Darwin’s views not only exhibit a charming sample of scientific induction, but carry with them such an air of probability, that the most cautious investigators may subscribe to them without any particular demur. Being the result of very extensive inquiries, and confirmed by collating the peculiarities of many reefs, they are grounded upon a sufficient quantity of data to entitle them to reasonable confidence. We propose, in the present article, to indicate some of the principle steps in the theory which this gentleman has propounded; and that the reader may examine them consecutively, we shall imagine an intelligent voyager visiting the Pacific for the first occasion in his life. As he sails across that noble sheet of water, observing with a philosophic eye every object which presents itself to his view, he suddenly perceives in the midst of the sea a long low range of rock against which the surf is breaking with a tremendous roar. He is told that this is a coral reef; and having read a little respecting these curious productions, he resolves to investigate them carefully, in order to fathom, as far as possible, the mystery of their origin. As he approaches, the spectacle grows more interesting at every step. Trees seem to start up from the bosom of the ocean, and to flourish on a beach which is strewed with glistening sand, and washed by the spray of enormous billows. When sufficiently near to survey the phenomenon as a whole, he perceives that he has before him an extensive ring of stone, set in an expanse of waters, and exhibiting the singular form of an annular island. Launching a boat, and following the curve of the shore for some distance, he finds at length an opening through which he penetrates into the interior of the ring. Once entered, he floats smoothly on a transparent lake of bright green water, which seems to have been walled in from the rest of the ocean, as if it were a preserve for some sort of nautical game, or a retreat for the more delicate class of marine divinities. Its bed is partially covered with pure white sand, but partly also with a gay growth of coral—the stems of this zoophyte branching out like a plant, and exhibiting the most brilliant diversities of colour, so that the floor of the lake glows like a sunken grove. All the hues of the spectrum may be seen gleaming below, whilst fishes scarcely less splendid in their tints glide to and fro in search of food amidst this shrubbery of stone. A fringe of trees, consisting principally of graceful palms, decorates the inner portion of the ring, and when surveyed from the centre of the lagoon, this edging of verdure springing up in the midst of the Pacific presents one of the most picturesque sights the voyager can conceive. Indeed, as he contemplates the tranquil lake within, and listens to the dash of the surf without—as he runs over the features of this beautiful oasis in the wilderness of waters, we may pardon him if he almost expects to be accosted by ocean nymphs or startled mermaids, and indignantly expelled from their private retreat.

The whole structure is so striking, that the most careless observer must feel some little curiosity to ascertain its origin. Our voyager regards it with much the same sort of interest as an intelligent wanderer would display, were he to stumble upon a ring of blocks like those at Abury or Stonehenge in some distant desert. In order to pursue his inquiries systematically, he proceeds to note down the principal characteristics of the scene. The first peculiarity which arrests his consideration, is the circular form which the rock assumes. Though far from constituting a smooth and perfect ring, its outline is sufficiently definite to rivet the attention at once. Then he observes that the outer portion of the annulus scarcely rises above the level of the sea, whilst the inner portion—the bank on which the belt of trees is mounted—is not more than ten or twelve feet in height at the utmost. From this he infers that the agency concerned in the formation of the structure was probably restricted in its upward range. Next he notices that the ring itself—that is, the wall of rock enveloping the lake, though by no means uniform in breadth—is not more, perhaps, than three or four hundred yards across in any part of its extent: this seems to say, that the agency was also restrained by circumstances in its lateral expansion. Again, as he runs his eye along the whole sweep of the reef, he remarks that it is not quite continuous, the ring being broken here and there by openings, through one of which he himself passed into the lagoon. If he then endeavours to estimate the size of the whole formation with its included lake, he may find it in this particular case to be eight or ten miles in circumference. Should he stoop down to examine the material of which the reef is composed, he will discover it to be dead coral rock mixed with sand where it is not washed by the sea; but on breaking off a fragment where it is covered with water, he may observe multitudes of little worms, or curiously shaped polyps, which, incompetent as they seem, are in reality the architects of the pile. But perhaps the most significant circumstance to be noticed is the difference in depth between the internal lagoon and the external ocean. If he takes soundings within the reef, he ascertains that the water is comparatively shallow, the slope of the rock beneath the lake being tolerably gentle, and the depth rarely more than thirty or forty fathoms. Let him cross the ring, however, pushing his way through the belt of trees; and on trying the experiment in the contrary direction, seawards, he finds that the ground shelves downwards gradually under the water, until it reaches a depth of five-and-twenty fathoms, after which it plunges precipitously into the abyss. So abrupt, indeed, does the descent become when this point has been attained, that at the distance of a hundred yards from the reef he cannot reach the bottom of the sea with a line of two hundred fathoms. If, then, our explorer were capable of existing under water for a while, and could be lowered to the bed of the ocean, he would see before him an enormous cone or mound of rock shooting upwards through the liquid to a prodigious height, its summit being hollowed into a kind of cup or shallow basin, the rim of this lofty vase just peering above the level of the waves, and its interior being partially inlaid with a gorgeous and flower-like growth of coral.

Now, without glancing at minor details, it must be admitted that our voyager has stumbled upon a fine physical problem. As the Round Towers of Ireland have constituted one of the most perplexing questions on shore, so these coral towers of the tropics seem to present an equally perplexing mystery for the sea. In the course of his researches, however, he detects a circumstance which appears to be perfectly paradoxical. Climbing the cliff from the bottom of the ocean, he perceives that the creatures which produce the coral cannot exist at any greater depths below the surface than from twenty to five-and-twenty fathoms. Within that limit, upwards, the rock is covered with life; below, it is tenantless and dead. Yet, descending as the structure of coral does to immeasurably greater depths, the question naturally arises—how could the animal ever toil where it cannot even live? How has that part of the edifice, which lies buried in a region where no sunbeam ever pierces, been built by architects whose range of activity is comparatively so restricted?

Brooding over an inquiry, which only adds fuel to his curiosity, he proceeds on his cruise. He has already noted the prominent features of one particular reef, which exhibits a coral construction in its simplest shape—namely, as a ring enclosing a lagoon. He now falls in with specimen after specimen of a similar class, and carefully observes the differences in character they present. In point of shape, he finds that some are oval, others greatly elongated, and many very jagged and irregular in their form. Here is one like a bow, and there another like a horse shoe, whilst none can be said to be geometrically round. In regard to size, he meets with reefs which are a single mile only in diameter, and then with others, which amount to as many as fifty, sixty, or even more. If he compares the various rings, he observes that some are perforated by few openings, and in rare cases there are none—the fissures having apparently been filled up with sand or detritus, so as to form a continuous girdle round the lake. But, in other instances, the reef is so freely intersected by these openings, that the ring itself may be said to consist of a series of small islands arranged upon an extensive curve. In general, however, he perceives that the channels connecting the ocean with the lagoon are confined more especially to that side of the structure which is least exposed to the action of the wind; and as he is sailing within the region of the trade-winds, the portion of the reef which fronts the breeze and the billow perpetually, appears to be more lofty and substantial than the other. Glancing, too, at the bank which carries the fringe of trees, he observes that it never seems to rise higher than a certain level in any case whatever; and as he finds that it consists chiefly of sand and sediment, he concludes that it has been heaped up by the waves themselves. The vegetation, indeed, which frequently gives such a gay and graceful aspect to coral rocks, does not always gladden the eye; but where it is wanting, he infers that the circumstances which favour the dissemination of seeds or the growth of plants, have failed to operate as yet, but may, perhaps, in process of time produce their accustomed effects. Comparing also the depth of the lagoons with that of the surrounding ocean, he ascertains that the striking discrepancy which attracted his attention in the first reef he examined, obtains to a considerable degree in every subsequent instance: however shallow the sea may be within the ring, its depth rapidly increases, and frequently becomes quite unfathomable at no great distance without. Finding, then, that though certain differences exist in the formations he has already inspected, yet certain general features of resemblance invariably prevail, he concludes that all of these structures are due to the operation of a kindred agency. But here there arises another perplexing question. If he must admit—and the admission is inevitable—that the coral polyps have been the builders of these piles, how can he suppose that a number of small animals, each labouring separately, as it were, could erect an immense wall of rock, leagues in circumference, which, though far from regular in its composition, shall yet exhibit any marked approach to a circle, an oval, a horse shoe, or any other symmetrical form? Still more, how could they build, not one, but innumerable reefs, differing in various particulars, but all indicating some common principle of construction? How is he to explain the appearance of co-operation, where, from the nature of the creatures, he cannot imagine any intentional co-operation to exist? A troop of moles working beneath a field will never cast up a succession of hillocks in such a way that they will all combine to form a spacious circle, or any other regular and definite figure. If, therefore, he is compelled to believe that a number of insignificant creatures like the coral polyps are capable of executing such prodigious undertakings, wanting, as they do, the intelligence which enables higher beings to carry out a coherent scheme, he must look for an explanation, not in the _instincts_ of the animals, but in the _conditions_ under which they pursue their toils.

Hitherto, however, our voyager has only encountered reefs of one class—namely, “atolls,” or lagoon islands. He looks anxiously, therefore, in the hope of falling in with a specimen of a different description. He knows that if a process is too slow in its action to admit of direct observation, yet its character may probably be ascertained by comparing several cases where the same agency is employed—that is, by criticising the phenomenon in distinct stages of development. He proceeds on his voyage, and at length is fortunate enough to meet with a coral formation which varies in type from those already inspected. There is the same sort of ring springing hastily from the sea; but instead of an internal lagoon, the central space is occupied by a beautiful and populous island, leaving only a belt of water between the reef and the shore. Where all the elements of such a scene are sufficiently defined, a more charming spectacle can hardly be conceived. The land appears like a pleasant picture framed in coral. Round a group of mountains, forming the nucleus of the isle, there runs a verdant zone of soil—next comes a girdle of tranquil water—then a ring of coral—and last, a band of snowy breakers, where the swell of the ocean is shattered into surf. The island of Tahiti, whose mountains rise to the height of seven thousand feet, and whose greatest breadth is about thirty-six miles, is almost encompassed by a reef of this description. When this spot is approached so as to make the separate objects visible, the appearance becomes quite striking. “Even upon the steep surface of the cliff, vegetation abounds; the belt of low land is covered with the tropical trees peculiar to Polynesia, while the high peaks and wall-faced mountains in the rear are covered with vines and creeping plants. This verdure is seen to rise from a quiet girdle of water, which is again surrounded by a line of breakers dashing in snow-white foam on the encircling reefs of coral.”[6] Perhaps, however, the descent of the waves upon the ring—curling and chafing like coursers suddenly curbed—constitutes the most magnificent feature of the scene. “The long rolling billows of the Pacific, arrested by this natural barrier, often rise ten, twelve, or fourteen feet above its surface, and then, bending over it, their foaming tops form a graceful liquid arch, glittering in the rays of a tropical sun, as if studded with brilliants; but before the eyes of the spectator can follow the splendid aqueous gallery which they appear to have reared, with loud and hollow roar they fall in magnificent desolation, and spread the gigantic fabric in froth and spray upon the horizontal and gently broken surface of the coral.”[7]

With a reef like this before him our explorer may now collect some additional data which will help him a few steps onward in his inquiry. The distinction between a formation of this class and those of the former description, consists principally in the substitution of an internal island for a lagoon. Were that island pared away or dug out, a simple lake surrounded by a ring of coral rock would be left. The one structure would pass into the other by the erasure of the central land. But here again he has stumbled over a difficulty apparently as great as any he has previously encountered; for it would be preposterous to suppose that large areas or lofty hills could be readily expunged from the surface of the earth. There is a stage, however—call it rather a pause—in the reasoning process, when the great master of inductive logic recommends that, after having arranged all our available facts, and extracted from them all the inferences they can legitimately supply, we should allow the mind to take a little leap forward, just by way of venture, and see what conclusions it will suggest. In short, we are to send for the imagination, yoke it to the materials we have accumulated, and observe in what direction it will conduct us. Our explorer does this. He sets that faculty to work—with due discretion, however—and in a short time it hints to him that islands may possibly _sink down slowly_ in the ocean by the action of the subterranean forces. And if so, would not that explain everything?

He proceeds, therefore, to inquire how this supposition will work; for there are many conditions which it must satisfy, and many puzzles which it must solve, before its probability can be affirmed. In the first place, the coral polyps, as we have seen, can only operate within a limited depth of water, which has been roughly fixed at twenty or five-and-twenty fathoms. Mr Dana, indeed, considers that sixteen fathoms will perhaps measure the whole extent of the region assigned to the principal artificers. Consequently, when the creatures laid the foundation of any particular reef, they must have done so in shoal water, or in the neighbourhood of land. Next, where a small isle issues from a profound sea, it will in general be tolerably regular in shape; because, with relation to the bed of that sea, it must in reality be a kind of mountain: therefore, as the coral builders find the requisite range of water in the zone which encircles the shore, the reef they form will be tolerably regular too. Hence the circular or curvilinear outline which these structures generally assume. Then, if, after the basement of such a ring has been laid, the land should begin to descend slowly, the polyps must proceed to raise the edifice storey after storey, for thus alone can they keep themselves within the region of vitality; and here we have an explanation of the singular fact, that the reef, where it constitutes a true atoll, or coral-lagoon, usually ascends to the level of the sea. A singular fact we call it; because, if we consider how variable are the heights of any series of mountains on land, the equality of stature which distinguishes these marine elevations is certainly a remarkable result. If it were possible for some great giant to run the palm of his hand along the tops of the Andes or Himalayas, it would describe a very irregular sweep, rising or falling with every peak it visited; but were he to draw it over the summits of a succession of atolls, though these might stretch through a space thousands of miles in length, he would scarcely perceive any difference whatever in point of altitude. It will be seen, therefore, that the uniformity characterising these Alps of the ocean is a circumstance which our explorer’s hypothesis readily solves. But in raising their embankment higher, it is clear that the animals must build up vertically, and hence the abrupt or precipitous face which it presents externally towards the deep water. Landwards, again—that is, within the reef—the pigmy architects will labour more feebly, because it is found that the kind of polyps which exist in smooth still water are more delicate in their productions than their gallant little brethren who flourish amongst the breakers. This serves to explain, again, why there is an interval of fluid left between the rising reef and the sinking shore; but as the land subsides, the space which it occupies within the magic ring will obviously diminish, whilst the space covered by water will proportionately increase. The girdle of coral will not maintain its original dimensions, because the polyps will probably incline inwards, instead of building directly upwards; but the contraction of the ring will proceed slowly, because the wall is invariably steep seawards, even if it should not be altogether precipitous. Finally, when the island is fairly drowned, when we have got its whole body well under water, we shall have an enormous mass of coral raised by successive additions of coral skeletons, and resting upon a basis which may be hundreds of feet below the level of the sea. A zone of rock, constituting the rim of the structure, will just show itself above the waves, whilst within this zone sleeps a shallow lake, where the polyps, for various reasons, have not followed the growth of the ring with equal rapidity, or where the sediment deposited has not accumulated in sufficient quantities to fill up the interior. And when the lake is obliterated, as ultimately it may be, either by the labours of the feebler animals, or by the deposition of detritus from the reef, we shall have the platform of a new country where tropical forests may some day flourish, where towns and villages may hereafter arise, and where man may exhibit the strange and mingled play of virtue and vice, which has marked his footsteps from the first. “The calcareous sand lies undisturbed, and offers, to the seeds of trees and plants cast upon it by the waves, a soil upon which they rapidly grow, to overshadow its dazzling white surface. Entire trunks of trees, which are carried by the rivers from other countries and islands, find here, at length, a resting-place, after many wanderings: with these come some small animals, such as insects and lizards, as the first inhabitants. Even before the trees form a wood, the sea-birds nestle here; stray land-birds take refuge in the bushes; and at a much later period, when the work has been long since completed, man appears, and builds his hut on the fruitful soil.”[8]

Thus, it will be seen that the supposition of a slow descent of the land appears to meet the prominent requirements of the case; and however startling the assumption might seem when first suggested, yet the pressure of certain conditions, which this theory alone can sustain, renders its adoption almost, if not altogether, inevitable. But, says the explorer, if this hypothesis be correct, it should follow that, as the sinking isle may vary in altitude in different parts—as it may have several peaks or elevated districts—all these higher portions must be left projecting out of the water for some time after the lower lands have been entirely submerged. Accordingly, we may expect to discover coral reefs, containing within their circuit several small islands, the relics of some larger district which has died a watery death. And this is just what frequently occurs. The two isles of Raiatea and Tahaa, for example, are included in one reef. The group known as Gambier’s Islands consists of four large and a few smaller islets encircled by a single ring. The reef of Hogoleu, which is one hundred and thirty-five miles in circuit, contains ten or eleven islands in its spacious lagoon.

So, again, says our explorer, as islands are frequently arranged in clusters, it should follow that, if the areas whereon any of these groups were stationed, have subsided, whole _archipelagoes_ of coral reefs ought to exist. And some of these archipelagoes may be expected to exhibit a series of perfect lagoons, where the land has been fairly submerged; whilst others, where the process is less advanced, or the ground more elevated, ought to present a series of reef-encircled islands merely. Here also the theory is fully corroborated by facts. Low Archipelago is composed of about eighty atolls; and of the thirty-two groups examined by Captain Beechy, twenty-nine then possessed the internal lakes which we have seen are characteristic of this class; the remaining three having passed, as he believed, from the same condition originally to the dignity of closed or consolidated reefs. The Society Archipelago, again, consists of tolerably elevated islands, encircled by coral ledges, and lying in a direction almost parallel to the last.

Indeed, it will be readily imagined that the shape and character of the coral formations must be considerably influenced by the nature of the site upon which they are reared. They will assume different aspects according to the physical configuration of the land to be entombed. They must be interrupted where the water is too deep, or the shore too precipitous to permit the artificers to acquire a proper footing. They will exhibit breaches where the descent of cold streams from the mountain heights, or the presence of mud carried down by rivers, rendered it impracticable for the creatures to pursue their avocations. They may also adopt peculiar forms where the lowering of the ground may not have taken place gradually, or where, from some eccentric action of the subterranean force, one portion may have sunk under different circumstances from the rest. A reef may, therefore, be submerged in part, or, as in some instances, throughout its whole extent. Thus, in the Peros Banhos Atoll, forming a member of the Chagos group in the Indian Ocean, a portion of the ring dips under water for a distance of about nine miles. This sunken segment consists of a wall of dead coral rock, lying at an average depth of five fathoms below the surface, but corresponding in breadth and curve with the exposed reef, of which it is obviously the complement. Or a ring may be wholly submarine. The same group affords, amongst others, an admirable example of this in the Speaker’s Bank, which is described as a well-defined annulus of dead coral, let down into the sea to a depth of six or eight fathoms, with a lagoon twenty-two fathoms deep and twenty-four miles across. It is apparently a drowned atoll. Hence from these, or from other causes, such as the action of the sea, the killing of the zoophytes by exposure or otherwise, we may have several modifications of the model reef.