thoughts at last entered our hearts? If unknowingly we should pass
the spot where, according to our reckoning, our islands lay, upon what
shoreless sea would we launch? At times, these forebodings bewildered
my idea of the positions of the groups beyond. All became vague and
confused; so that westward of the Kingsmil isles and the Radack chain,
I fancied there could be naught but an endless sea.



CHAPTER XIII
Of The Chondropterygii, And Other Uncouth Hordes Infesting The South Seas


At intervals in our lonely voyage, there were sights which
diversified the scene; especially when the constellation Pisces was
in the ascendant.

It's famous botanizing, they say, in Arkansas' boundless prairies; I
commend the student of Ichthyology to an open boat, and the ocean
moors of the Pacific. As your craft glides along, what strange
monsters float by. Elsewhere, was never seen their like. And nowhere
are they found in the books of the naturalists.

Though America be discovered, the Cathays of the deep are unknown.
And whoso crosses the Pacific might have read lessons to Buffon. The
sea-serpent is not a fable; and in the sea, that snake is but a
garden worm. There are more wonders than the wonders rejected, and
more sights unrevealed than you or I ever ever dreamt of. Moles and
bats alone should be skeptics; and the only true infidelity is for a
live man to vote himself dead. Be Sir Thomas Brown our ensample; who,