Читать книгу The Sea: Its Stirring Story of Adventure, Peril, & Heroism (Vol. 1-4). The History of Sea Voyages, Discovery, Piracy and Maritime Warfare онлайн

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“A great deal has been written about the natural beauties of Ceylon and Java,” says Mr. Cameron,100 “and some theologians, determined to give the first scene in the Mosaic narrative a local habitation, have fixed the paradise of unfallen man on one or other of those noble islands. Nor has their enthusiasm carried them to any ridiculous extreme; for the beauty of some parts of Java and Ceylon might well accord with the description given us, or rather which we are accustomed to infer, of that land from which man was driven on his first great sin.

“I have seen both Ceylon and Java, and admired in no grudging measure their many charms; but for calm placid loveliness, I should place Singapore high above them both. It is a loveliness, too, that at once strikes the eye, from whatever point we view the island, which combines all the advantages of an always beautiful and often imposing coast-line, with an endless succession of hill and dale stretching inland. The entire circumference of the island is one panorama, where the magnificent tropical forest, with its undergrowth of jungle, runs down at one place to the very water’s edge, dipping its large leaves in the glassy sea, and at another is abruptly broken by a brown rocky cliff, or a late landslip, over which the jungle has not yet had time to extend itself. Here and there, too, are scattered little green islands, set like gems on the bosom of the hushed waters, between which the excursionist, the trader, or the pirate, is wont to steer his course. ‘Eternal summer gilds these shores;’ no sooner has the blossom of one tree passed away, than that of another takes its place and sheds perfume all around. As for the foliage, that never seems to die. Perfumed isles are in many people’s minds merely fabled dreams, but they are easy of realisation here. There is scarcely a part of the island, except those few places where the original forest and jungle have been cleared away, from which at night-time, on the first breathings of the land winds, may not be felt those lovely forest perfumes, even at the distance of more than a mile from shore. These land winds—or, more properly, land airs, for they can scarcely be said to blow, but only to breathe—usually commence at ten o’clock at night, and continue within an hour or two of sunrise. They are welcomed by all—by the sailor because they speed him on either course, and by the wearied resident because of their delicious coolness.”