Ill*
infants grow red in the’ Sun. They live rough lives,
and die hard.
Leaving Bentinck Island and the perforated rock,
we steer directly for the Sisters. Islands bare as Sark
lie upon our right, fantastic of form. One is like, a
Japanese eagle, another like a palace, a third is like
a cathedral in the distance.
For the first time now, we come upon a pearler,
sweeping slowly with long oars, along a line of shadow,
under the precipitous flanks of Maria, most northerly
of the Sisters. These islands nearly all stand clean
out of the water, and look as if they had no interiors,
but only summits to be climbed with difficulty. The
first of the boats I see is the property of Olpherts,
the little clerk ; the second, of the German Hertzog.
The sea is placid as blue marble, swaying with the
first beat of life. Black rocks show their fangs in the
sun, and deep pacific harbours lie between the islands.
Between Maria and Elizabeth, where the rocks are
strung in a line across the strait, there is a wonderful
blaze of sea.
The pearlers, more numerous now, are scattered
like islands on the sun-steeped ocean, and with the aid
of the telescope I can tell if they are at work, from
the dark figure of the life-line man erect at the stern.
As we gradually approach I find that four men
are working at the pump wheel, two with their hands
and two with their feet. A man at the oar is slowly
propelling the boat in sympathy with the buried diver,
and two men stand silhouetted against the sky, one