Look upon his coming and his going--an international, universal property,
an ecstatic delight, an awesome marvel, upon which we gaze, of which we
cannot speak, lacking roseate phrases. A landscape painter also is he,
for have I not seen his boldest brush at work and stood amazed at the
magnificence of his art?

Do those who live in temperate and cold climates realise the effect of
the sun's heat on the sea--how warm, how hot, blessed by his beams, the
water may become? The luxuriousness of bathing in an ocean having a
temperature of 108 is not for the multitude who crowd in reeking cities
which the sun touches tremulously and slantwise.

On November 21, 1909 (far be it from me to bundle out into an apathetic
world whimpering facts lacking the legitimacy of dates), we bathed at
Moo-jee in shallow water on the edge of an area of denuded coral reef
fully two miles long by a mile broad. For three hours a considerable
portion of the reef had been exposed to the glare of the sun, and the
incoming tide filched heat, stored by solar rays, from coral and stones
and sand. The first wallow provoked an exclamation of amazement, for the
water was several degrees hotter than the air, and it was the hottest
hour (3 p.m.) of an extremely hot day. No thermometer was at hand to
register the actual temperature of the water, but subsequent tests at the
same spot under similar conditions proved that on the thermometerless
occasion the sea was about 108 F.--that is, the surface stratum of about
one foot, which averaged from 4 to 6 F. hotter than the air. Beneath,
the temperature seemed ordinary--corresponding with that of the water a
hundred yards out from the shore. This delectable experience revealed that
in bathing something more is comprehended than mere physical pleasure. It
touched and tingled a refined aesthetic emotion, an enlightened
consciousness of the surroundings, remote from gross bodily sensations.