"
As I spoke a soft colour suffused her face, and her eyes brightened
with a joy and contentment such as no promise of pleasure or
indulgence could have inspired. To be the partner of adventure and
hardship, the drudge in toil and sentinel in peril, was the boon she
claimed, the best guerdon I could promise. If but the promise might
have been better fulfilled!
It was not till in latitude 9 deg. S. we emerged into the open ocean, and
presently found ourselves free from the currents of the narrow waters,
that, in order to see the remarkable island of which I had caught
sight in my descent, I requested Ergimo to remain for some hours above
the surface. The island rises directly out of the sea, and is
absolutely unascendible. Balloons, however, render access possible,
both to its summit and to its cave-pierced sides. It is the home of
enormous flocks of white birds, which resemble in form the heron
rather than the eider duck, but which, like the latter, line with down
drawn from their own breasts the nests which, counted by millions,
occupy every nook and cranny of the crystalline walls, about ten miles
in circumference.
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