If there are any birds, it is the strange andheavy penguin, the passing albatross, or the Mother Cary's chicken, whichhas been called the humming bird of ocean, and here finds a place for itsyoung. By night these birds come for their repose; at earliest dawn theytake wing and hover over the sea, leaving the isle deserted. The only busyor beautiful life which always surrounds it is that of a myriad species offish, of all forms and shapes, and often more gorgeous than anybutterflies in gold and scarlet and yellow.Once set foot on such an island and you begin at once to understand thelegends of enchantment which ages have collected around such spots. Climbto its heights, you seem at the masthead of some lonely vessel, keptforever at sea. You feel as if no one but yourself had ever landed there;and yet, perhaps, even there, looking straight downward, you see below youin some crevice of the rock a mast or spar of some wrecked vessel,encrusted with all manner of shells and uncouth vegetable growth. Nomatter how distant the island or how peacefully it seems to lie upon thewater, there may be perplexing currents that ever foam and swirl about it--currents which are, at all tides and in the calmest weather, as dangerousas any tempest, and which make compass untrustworthy and helm powerless.It is to be remembered also that an island not only appears and disappearsupon the horizon in brighter or darker skies, but it varies its height andshape, doubles itself in mirage, or looks as if broken asunder, dividedinto two or three.
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