Adventures on the Mosquito shore

Contents

CHAPTEB L

PAGE

Jamaica, and how the Author got there — A Solemn Soliloquy — An Artist Tempted — Painting a Portrait — The .Schooner Prince Albert — Captain and Crew — Antonio — Superstitions — Gathering of the Storm — A Scene of Terror — The Shipwreck 1

Chapter II

"El Roncador" — The Escape — Coral Cays — Scene with the Dead — A Night of Fever — Delirium — Island Scenes — Turtles — A Cruel Practice — Sail, ho ! — An Encounter — Revolvers versus Knives — Departure from " El Eoncador" — Island of Providence — A Scene of Revelry — Away for the Mainland . '20

CHAPTEE III.

Approach to Blueflelds — An Imperial City— New Quarters — Mr. Hodgson — The Mosquito King — " George William Clarence!" — Grog versus Gospel — The "Big-Drunk" — A Mosquito Funeral — Singular Practices — Superstitions — An ill-fated Colony — Sad Reflections . . . .38

Chapter IV

Rama Indians — Departure from Blue-fields — Canoe Voyage — Strange Companionship — The " Haulover" — Our first Encampment — Epicurean Episode — Night under the Tropics — Life on the Lagoons — Pearl Cay Lagoon — Climbing after Cocoa-Xuts — A Solitary Grave — Man-

VI CONTENTS.

PAG-E

groves — Soldier Crabs — Roseate Spoonbill — River Wawashaan — Deserted Plantation — Sambo Settlement — " A King-Paper" — Extraordinary Reception — Captain Drummer — King's House — Vanilla Plant — Philanthropy — A Dance — " Spoiled Head " — Fire-light Fishing — Night Scene 54

Chapter V

Visit to the Turtle Cays — Spearing Turtle — Jumping Turtle — Return to the Lagoon — Off again — Native Indigo — Another Haulover — Tropical Torments — Braving the Bar — Great River — Temporal Camp — Continuous Rain — Doleful Dumps — Freaks of the Flood — Rain, Rain ! — Craw- Fish— "El Moro"— The Manzanilla— Guavas— The Release 78

Chapter VI

On the River — Strong Currents — An Indian Village — A Woolwa Welcome — Ceremonious Reception — Relations of the Indians — Their Habits — A Tabooed Establishment — Projected Sport — Hunting the Manitus — Habits of the Animal — The Attack — Great Excitement — Successful Capture — Division of the Spoil — Instruments of the Chase — Another Epicurean Episode . . . .98

Chapter VII

Departure — The Plantain-Tree — Bisbire — Nocturnal Noises — " Stirring up the Animals" — At Sea again — Mollusca of the Caribbean — Walpasixa — The Moonlit Ocean — Prinza-pulka River — Vines and Verdure — Savannahs — Village of Quamwatla — Inhospitable Reception — A Retreat — Fatal Encounter — A Trial of Cunning — Tropical Thunder-Storm — A Second Encounter — The Fight, and the Triumph — Flight — Asylum in the Forest — The Explanation 108

Chapter VIII

Tapir Camp — A Picturesque Retreat — Wild Life — Palm Wine — Queen of the Forest — Pine Ridges — Parrots and Paproquets — A Fright — " Only a Dante" — Trapping the Tapir — Successful Result — Narrow Escape — "An Army with Banners" — Honey-bees — Communion with Nature — Once more on the Lagoons 128

CONTENTS. VI

Chapter IX

Lagoons of the Mosquito Shore — Indians and Sambos — Life among the Lagoons — Aquatic Birds — Silk-Cotton Tree — Water Plant — Night Travelling — Tongla Lagoon — Fishing — A Disagreeable Discovery — The Chase — Prospect of a Fight — Successful Device — Diamond cut Diamond — Safely off— Wava Lagoon — Attack of Fever — Primitive Physic — Poisonous Reptiles — My Poyer Boy Bitten — The Cure 143

Chapter X

Leave Fever Camp — Tonkas Indians — Formal Reception — Singular Practices — Towka Marriage — Extraordinary Ceremonies — Presents Propitiatory — Shouldering the Responsibility — Marriage Festival — How to get Drunk — The End of it— Wild Animals— Indian Rabbits— The Curassow — Chachalaca — Gibeonite — River Turtle — Savoury Cooking 160

Chapter XI

Duckwarra Lagoon — Aboriginal Relics — Sandy Bay — Mosquito Fashions — Sambos of Sandy Bay — General Peter Slam — An English Captain — Brutality — Interference — A Drunken Debauch — Mishla Drink — Dances and Songs — A Sukia Woman — Opportune Warning — Hurried Departure — Power of the Sukias — Making Mishla — A Disgusting Operation 173

Chapter XII

ape Gracias — Its Inhabitants — Fine Savannah — Sambo Practices — Novel Mode of Hunting — Island of San Pio — Mangrove Oysters — Trial of the Sukia — A Mysterious Seeress — Superstitions of the Sambos — Wulasha and Lewire — Character and Habits of the Mosquitoes — Drunkenness — Decrease — Festival of the Dead — New Plans — |River Wanks or Segovia — Iguanas — Armadilloes . . 189

Chapter XIII

ver Bocay — New Scenery — End of the Savannahs — Lilian Village — The Messenger — A Night Adventure — Sanctuary of the Sukia — Hoxom-Bal, the Mother of the Cigers — Mysteries — Ruins among the Mountains — Series Impressions — A Tale of Wanks River — Harry F. and he Padre of Pantasma v>01

Vlll CONTENTS.

Chapter XIV. Page

Up the Cape River — Imposing Scenery — Storm among the Mountains — Influence of the Moon's Rays — River Tirolas — Mountain Streams — Picturesque Embarcadero — A Sweet Encampment — An Accident — Laid up — Send off the Poyer Boy for Help — Speedy Recovery — Monkeys — An Encounter with the Pigs — To Eat or to be Eaten, a wide Difference — Return of the Poyer — Abandonment of the Canoe — "El Moro'' again — Ascent of the Mountains — Another Temporal — Reflections on Eire . . . 223

Chapter XV

The Crest of the Mountains — A Desert Waste — Descent — Rio Guallambre — Gold Washing — The Poyer Tillage — Habits of the Poyers — Plantations — Poisoning Eish — Primitive Arts — Indian Naiads — Patriarchal Government — Departure — Rio Amacwass — Rio Patuca — " Gateway of Hell" — Approach to the Sea — Brus Lagoon . . 239

Chapter XVI

Arrival at Brus — A Festival — Hospitality — Loss of the Poyer Boy — Civilization of the Caribs — Cocoa Groves — Sanitary Precautions — Wild-Eig or Banyan-Tree — Habits of the Caribs — Industry — The Mahogany-Cutters — Celebration of their Return — A Carib Dandy — Polygamy — Singular Practices — A Carib Crew — Departure — The Bay of Honduras — The Bottom of the Sea — Island of Guanaja — Night — Sombre Soliloquies — Antonio's Secret — The . Rousing of the Indians — Deep-laid Schemes of Revenge — The Voice of the Tiger in the Mountains . . . 257

Appendix

A — Histoeical Sketch 276

B — Notes and Exteacts 298

C — Mosquito Vocabulary 307

THE

MOSQUITO SHOEE.

Chapter I

MONTH in Jamaica is enough for any person's punishment. At any rate, a week had given me a surfeit of Kingston, with its sinister, tropical Jews, and variegated inhabitants, one-half black, one-third brown ; and the balance as fair as could be expected, considering the abominable, unintelligible Congo-English which they spoke. Besides, the cholera which seems to be domesticated in Kingston, and to have become one of its local institutions, had begun to spread from the stews, and to invade the more civilized parts of the town. All the inhabitants, therefore, whom the emancipation had left rich enough to do so, were flying to the mountains, with the pestilence following, like a sleuth-hound

2 THE MOSQUITO SHOIIE.

at their heels. Kingston was palpably no place for a stranger, and that stranger a poor artist.

The cholera had cheated me of a customer. I was moody, and therefore swung myself in a hammock, lit a cigar, and held a grand inquisition on myself, as the poets are wont to do on their souls. It ran after this wise, with a very little noise but much smoke : —

"Life is pleasant at twenty-six. Do you like life?"

Eather.

"Then you can't like the cholera ?"

No!

" But you'll have it here !"

ThenFll be off!

" Where ?"

Any where !

is Good, but the exchequer, my boy, how about that ? You can't get away without money."

There was a long pause, a great cloud of smoke, and much swinging in the hammock, and a final echo —

Money ! Yes, I must have money !

So I got up, spasmodically opened my portmanteau, dived deep amongst collars, pencils and foul linen, took out my purse, turned its contents on the table, and began to count.

Eight, eight ten, nine, and this handful of small silver and copper. Call it ten pounds in all.

" Only ten pounds !'' ejaculated my mental interrogator.

Only ten ! responded I.

"'T won't do!"

It was clear enough, it wouldn't do; and I got into the hammock again. Commend me to a

THE AUTIST S SOLILOQUY. O

hammock, (a pita hammock, none of your canvas abominations,) and a cigar, as valuable aids to meditation and self-communion of all kinds. There was a long silence, but the inquisition went on. Finally " I'll do it \" I exclaimed, in the voice of a man determined on some great deed, not agreeable but necessary, and I tossed the cigar stump out of the window. But what I determined to do, may seem no great thing after all ; it was only to paint the portrait of my landlady. " Yes, Fll paint the old wench !"

Now, I am an artist, not an author, and have got the cart before the horse, inasmuch as my narrative does not preserve the " harmonies/' as every well-considered composition should do. It has just occurred to me that I should first have told who I am, and how I come to be in Jamaica, and especially in that filthy place, Kingston. It is n't a long story, and if it is not too late, I will tell it now.

As all the world knows, there are people who sell rancid whale oil, and deal in soap, and affect a great contempt for artists. They look down grandly on the quiet, pale men who paint their broad red faces on canvas, and seem to think that the few paltry pounds which they grudgingly pay for their flaming immortality, should be received with meek confusion and blushing thanks, as a rare exhibition of condescension and patronage. I never liked such patronage, and therefore would paint no red faces. But there is a great difference between red, bulbous faces, and rosy faces. There was that sweet girl at the boarding-school in L* Place, with the dark eyes and tresses of the South , and the fair cheek and elastic step of the North ! Of course, I painted her portrait, a dozen times at least, I should say. I could paint it now ; and I fear it is more than painted on my heart, or it would n't rise smiling here, to distract my thoughts, make me sigh, and stop my story.

I'll paint grand historical paintings, thought I one day, and straightway purchased a large canvas. I had selected my subject, Balboa, the discoverer of the Pacific, bearing aloft the flag of Spain, rushing breast- deep in its waves, and claiming its boundless shores and numberless islands for the crown of Castile and Leon. I had begun to sketch in the plumed Indians, gazing in mute surprise upon this startling scene, when it occurred to me — for I have patches of common sense scattered amongst the flowery fields of my fancy — to count over the amount of my patrimonial portion. Grand historical paintings require years of study and labour, and I found I had but eighty pounds, owed for a month's lodging, and had an unsettled tailor's account. It was clear that historical painting was a luxury, for the present at least, beyond my reach. It was then some evil spirit, taking the cue doubtless from my projected picture, suggested : —

" Try landscape, my boy ; you have a rare hand for landscapes — good flaming landscapes, full of yellow and vermilion, you know !"

Although there was no one in the room, I can swear to a distinct slap on the back, after the emphatic "you know" of the tempter. It was a true diabolical suggestion, the yellow and vermilion, but not so sulphurous as what followed : —

" Go to the tropics, boy, the glorious tropics,

THE ARTIST TEMPTED. D

where the sun is supreme, and never shares his dominion with blue-nosed, leaden-coloured, rheumyeyed frost-gods ; go there, and catch the matchless tints of the skies, the living emerald of the forests, and the light-giving azure of the waters ; go where the birds are rainbow- hued, and the very fish are golden; where — ;;

But I had heard enough ; I was blinded by the dazzling panorama which Fancy swept past my vision, and cried, with enthusiastic energy, " Hold; I'll go to the glorious tropics P' And I went — more's the pity — in a little dirty schooner, full of pork and flour ; and that is the way I came to be in Jamaica, dear reader, if you want to know. I had been there a month or more, and had wandered all over the really magnificent interior, and filled my portfolio with sketches. But that did not satisfy me ; there were other tropical lands, where Nature had grander aspects, where there were broad lakes and high and snow-crowned volcanoes, which waved their plumes of smoke in mid- heaven, defiantly, in the very face of the sun ; lands through whose ever-leaved forests Cortez, Balboa, and Alvarado, and Cordova had led their mailed followers, and in whose depths frowned the strange gods of aboriginal superstition, beside the deserted altars and unmarked graves of a departed and mysterious people. Jamaica was beautiful certainly, but I longed for what the transcendentalists call the sublimely-beautiful, or, in plain English, the combined sublime and beautiful — for, in short, an equatorial Switzerland. And, although Jamaica was fine in scenery, its dilapidated plantations, and filthy, lazy negroes, already more than half relapsed into native and congenial barbarism, were

6 THE MOSQUITO SHOUE.

repugnant to my notions and tastes. They grinned around me, those negroes, when I ate, and scratched their heads over my paper when I drew. They followed me every where, like black jackals, and jabbered their incomprehensible lingo in my ears until they deafened me. And then their odour under tropical heats ! Faugh !

I had, therefore, come down from the interior to set up my easel in Kingston, paint a few views, and thereby raise the wind for a trip to the mainland. Of course, I did not fly from painting redfaced portraits in the United States, to paint ebony ones in Jamaica. My scruples, however, did not apply to customers. There was a "brown man/' which is genteel Jamaican for mulatto, who was an Assembly-man, or something of the kind, and wanted a view of the edifice at Spanish-town, wherein he legislated for the "emancipated island." I had agreed to paint it for the liberal compensation of twenty pounds. But one hot, murky morning, my brown lawgiver took the cholera, and before noon was not only dead, but buried — and my picture only half-finished ! Mem. As people have a practice of dying, always get your pay beforehand.

Voltaire, I believe, has said, that if a toad were asked his ideal of beauty, he would, most likely, describe himself, and dwell complacently on a cold, clammy, yellow belly, a brown, warty, corrugated back, and become ecstatic on the subject of goggle eyes. And, I verily believe, that if my landlady had been asked the same question, she would have coquettishly patted up her woolly curls over each oleaginous cheek, and glanced toward the mirror, by way of reply. Black, glossy black, and fat,

A PROPOSAL. /

marvellously fat, yet she was possessed, even she, of her full share of feminine vanity. There was no mistaking, from the first day of my arrival, that head was running on a portrait of herself. She was fond of money and penurious, and careful, therefore, not to venture upon a proposition until she had got some kind of clue as to what her immortality would be likely to cost. I had, however, diplomatically evaded all of her approaches, up to the unfortunate day when my Assembly-man died. She brought me the news herself, and saw that it annoyed rather than shocked me, and that I stopped painting with the air of a man abandoning a bad job. She evidently thought the time favourable for a coup de main; there was a gleam of cunning in her little, round, half-buried eyes, and the very ebony of her cheek lightened palpably, as she said :

" So your picture will be no good for nothing?"

No!

u You have not got the V\

And she significantly rubbed the fore-finger of one hand in the palm of the other.

No !

There was a pause, and then she resumed :

ff I want a picture I"

Eh?

i( A picture, you know \"

And now she complacently stroked down her broad face, and exhibited a wide, vermilion chasm, with a formidable phalanx of ivories, by way of a suggestive smile.

No, I never paint portraits !

" Not for ten pounds V 3

No ; nor for a hundred,— go 1

And my landlady rolled herself out of the room with a motion which, had she weighed less than two hundred, might have passed for a toss.

It was on the evening of this day, and after this conversation, one half of the Assembly-house at Spanish-town staring redly from the canvas in the corner, that I lay in my hammock and soliloquized as aforesaid. It was thus and then, that I resolved to paint my landlady.

And having now, by means of this long parenthesis, restored the harmonies of my story, and got my horse and cart in correct relative positions, I am ready to go a-head.

I not only resolved to paint my landlady, but I did it, right over the half-finished Assembly-house. It was the first, and, so long as there are good potatoes to be dug at the rate of six cents the bushel, it shall be my last portrait. I cannot help laughing, even now, at that fat glistening face, looking for all the world as if it had been newly varnished, surmounted by a gaudy red scarf, wound round the head in the form of a peaked turban; and two fat arms, rolling down like elephants' trunks against a white robe for a background, which concealed a bust that passeth description.

My landlady was satisfied and generous withal, for she not only paid me the ten pounds, and gave me my two weeks board and lodging in the bargain, but introduced me to a coloured gentleman, a friend of hers, who sailed a little schooner twice a year to the Mosquito shore, on the coast of Central America, where he traded off refuse rum and gaudy cottons for turtle-shells and sarsaparilla. There

THE " PRINCE ALBERT. 9

was a steamer from Kingston, once a-month, to Carthagena, Chagres, San Juan, Belize, and c: along shore ;" but, for obvious reasons, I shall not go in a steamer. So I struck up a bargain with the fragrant skipper, by the terms of which he bound himself to land me, bag and baggage, at Bluefields, the seat of Mosquito royalty, for the sum of three pounds, " currency ."

Why Captain Ponto (for so I shall call my landlady's friend, the coloured skipper) named his little schooner the a Prince Albert/' I cannot imagine, unless he thought thereby to do honour to the Queen-Consort; for the aforesaid schooner had evidently got old, and been condemned, long before that lucky German woke the echoes of Gotha with his baby cries. The u Prince Albert'' was of about seventy tons burden, built something on the model of the " Jung-frau," the first vessel of the Netherlands that rolled itself into New York bay, like some unwieldy porpoise, after a rapid passage of about six months from the Hague. The wise men of the Historical Society have satisfactorily shown, after long and diligent research, that the (c Jung-frau" measured sixty feet hold, and was modelled after one of Kubens' Yenuses. The dimensions of the " Prince Alberl" were eveiy way the same, only twenty feet less. The sails were patched and the cordage spliced, and she did not leak so badly as to require more than six hours' steady pumping out of the twenty-four. The crew was composed of Captain Ponto, Thomas, his mate, one seaman, and an Indian boy froni Yucatan, whose business it was to cook and do the pumping. As may be supposed, the Indian boy did not rust for want of occupation.

10 THE MOSQUITO SHOItE.

It was a clear morning, toward the close of December, that Captain Ponto's wife, a white woman, with a hopeful family of six children, the three eldest with shirts, and the three youngest without., came down to the schooner to see us off. I watched the parting over the after-bulwarks, and observed the tears roll down Mrs. Ponto's cheeks as she bade her sable spouse good-by. I wondered if she really could have any attachment for her husband, and if custom and association had utterly worn away the natural and instinctive repugnance which exists between the superior and inferior races of mankind ? I thought of the condition of Jamaica itself, and mentally inquired if it were not due to a grand, practical misconception of the laws of Nature, and the inevitable result of their reversal ? It cannot be denied that where the superior and inferior races are brought in contact, and amalgamate, there we uniformly find a hybrid stock springing up, with most, if not all of the vices, and few, if any of the virtues of the originals. And it will hardly be questioned, by those experimentally acquainted with the subject, that the manifest lack of public morality and private virtue, in the Spanish- American States, has followed from the fatal facility with which the Spanish colonists have intermixed with the negroes and Indians. The rigid and inexorable exclusion, in respect to the inferior races, of the dominant blood of North America, flowing through different channels perhaps, yet from the same great Teutonic source, is one grand secret of, its vitality, and the best safeguard of its permanent ascendency.

Mrs. Ponto wept ; and as we slowly worked our way outside of Port Royal, I could see her waving

THE OPEN SEA. II

her apron, for she was innocent of a more classical signal, in fond adieus. We finally got out from under the lee of the land, and caught in our sailsthe full trade-wind, blowing steadily in the desired direction. I sat long on deck, watching the receding island sinking slowly in the bright sea, until Captain Ponto signified to me, in the patois of Jamaica, which the deluded people flatter themselves is English, that dinner was ready, and led the way into what he called the cabin. This cabin was a little den, seven feet by nine at the utmost^ low, dark and dirty, with no light or air except what entered through the narrow hatchway, and consequently hot as an oven. Two lockers, one on each side, answered for seats by day, and, covered with suspicious mattresses, for beds by night. The cabin was sacred to Captain Ponto and myself, the mate having been displaced to make room for the gentleman who had paid three pounds for his passage ! I question if the " Prince Albert" had ever before been honoured with a passenger; certainly not since she had come into the hands of Captain Ponto, who therefore put his best foot forward,, with a full consciousness of the importance of the incident. Ponto had been a slave once, and was consequently imperious and tyrannical now, toward all people in a subordinate relation to himself, Yet, as he had evidently been owned by a man of consequence, he had not entirely lost his early deference for the white man, and sometimes forgot Ponto the captain in Ponto the chattel. It was, in the latter character only, that he was perfectly natural ; and, although I derived no little amusement from his attempts to enact a loftier part, I shall not trouble the reader with an episode oa

Captain Ponto. He was a very worthy darkey, with a strong aversion to water, both exteriorly and internally. The mate, and the man who constituted the crew, were ordinary negroes of no possible account.

But Antonio, the Indian boy, who cooked and pumped, and then pumped and cooked — I fear he never slept, for when there was not a " sizzling" in the little black caboose, there was sure to be a screeching of the rickety pump — Antonio attracted my interest from the first ; and it was increased when I found that he spoke a little English, was perfect in Spanish, and withal could read in both languages. There was something mysterious in finding him among these uncouth negroes, with his relatively fair skin, intelligent eyes, and long, well-ordered, black hair. He was like a lithe panther among lumbering bears ; and he did his work in a way which accorded with his Indian character, without murmur, and with a kind of silent doggedness, that implied but little respect for his present masters. He seldom replied to their orders in words, and then only in monosyllables. I asked Captain Ponto about him, but he knew nothing, except that he was from Yucatan, and had presented himself on board only the day previously, and offered to work his passage to the main land. And Captain Ponto indistinctly intimated that he had taken the boy solely on my account, which, of course, led to the inference on my part, that the captain ordinarily did his own cooking. He also ventured- a patronizing remark about the Indians generally, to the effect that they made very good servants, u if they were kept under ;" which, coming from an ex-slave, I thought rather good.

ASTOXIO. 13

All this only served to interest me the more in Antonio; and, although I succeeded in engaging him in ordinary conversation, yet I utterly failed in drawing him out, as the saying is, in respect to his past history, or future purposes. Whenever I approached these subjects he became silent and impassible, and his eyes assumed an expression of cold inquiry, not unmingled with latent suspicion, which half inclined me to believe that he was a fugitive from justice. Yet he did not look the felon or knave ; and when the personal inquiries dropped, his face resumed its usual pleasant although sad expression, and I became ashamed that I had suspected him. There was certainly something singular about Antonio ; but, as I could imagine no very profound mystery attaching to a cook, on board of the " Prince Albert/' after the first day, I made no attempts to penetrate his secrets, but sought rather to attach him to me, as a prospectively useful companion in the country to which I was bound. Sol relieved him occasionally at the pump, although he protested against it ; and finally, to the horror of Captain Ponto, and the palpable high disdain of the mate, I became so intimate with him as to show him my portfolio of drawings. His admiration, I found to my surprise, was always judiciously bestowed, and his appreciation of outline and colouring showed that he had the spirit of an artist. Several times, in glancing over the drawings, he stopped short, looked up, his face full of intelligence, as if about to speak, and I paused to listen. Each time, however, the smile vanished, the flexible muscles ceased their play and became rigid, and a cold, filmy mist settled over the clear eyes which looked into mine.

14 THE MOSQUITO SHOIIE.

Whatever was Antonio's secret, great or small, it was evidently one that he half-wished, half-feared to reveal. I was puzzled to think that there could exist any relation between it and my paintings ; but Antonio was only a cook, and so I dismissed all reflection on the subject.

On our third day out, the weather, which up to that time had been clear and beautiful, began to change, and night settled black and threatening around us. The wind had increased, but it was loaded with sultry vapours — the hot breath of the storm which was pressing on our track. Captain Ponto was not a scientific sailor, and kept no other than what is called u dead reckoning." He had made the voyage very often, and was confident of his course. Upon that point, therefore, I gave myself no uneasiness ; not so much from faith in Captain Ponto, as because there was nothing in the world to be done, except to follow his opinion. Nevertheless the captain was serious, and consuited an antediluvian chart which he kept in his cabin. It was a Rembrandtish picture, that negro tracing his forefinger slowly over the chart, by the light of a candle, which only half revealed the little cabin, while it brought out his grizzly head and anxious face in strong relief against the darkness. What Captain Ponto learned from all this study is more than I can tell ; but when he came on deck, he ordered a reef to be made in the sails, and a variation of several points in our course, for the wind not only freshened, but veered to the northcast. The hot blasts or puffs of air became more and more frequent, and occasional sheets of lightning gleamed along the horizon. The sea, too, was full of phosphorescent light; fiery monsters