For the time being one was immersed, not in heated salt water only but in
the purifying essence of the scene--the glowing sky, stainless, pallid,
and pure; the gleaming, scarcely visible, fictitious sea and the bold blue
isles beyond; the valley whence whiffs of cool, fern-filtered, odorous
air issued shyly from the shadowed land of the jungle through the
embowered lips of the creek. The blend of these elements reacted on the
perceptions, rendering the bathe in two temperatures that of a lifetime
and a means also whereby the clarified senses were first stimulated and
then soothed. With an occasional lounge on the soft sand, when the body
became clad in a costume of mica spangles and finely comminuted shell
grit, the bathe continued for two hours, with an after effect of sleek
and silky content.

Another date (January 10, 1910) may verify details of such a sybaritic
soak in the sea as is to be indulged in only in the tropics and remote
from the turmoil of man. Between noon and 3 p.m. the thermometer hanging
on the wall of the house under the veranda, five feet from the corrugated
iron roof, wavered between 89 and 90 , while the unshaded sun registered
98 . My noontide bath failed to detect any difference in temperature
between air and water, and putting my perceptions to scientific test
found the sea to be heated to 90 . With the bulb buried in the sand six
feet from the edge of the water, the mercury rose to 112 in a few
seconds and remained stationary.

It being far more blissful to lounge in the sea than on the veranda, I
sat down, steeped chin deep in crystal clearness, warmth, and silence,
passively surrendering myself to a cheap yet precious sensation. Around
me were revealed infinitely fragile manifestations of life, scarcely less
limpid than the sea, sparkling, darting, twisting--strong and vigorous of
purpose. Tremulous filaments of silver flashed and were gone. No space