hade of prismatic
colour, every marvel of dainty tracery, every beauty of curve and spiral
that the mind of man can conceive. The hard sand which the tide has left
is pitted with tiny holes, the lairs of a million crabs and sea insects.
The beaches are covered with a wondrous diversity of animal and
vegetable growths thrown up and discarded by the tide. Seaweed of
strange varieties, and of every fantastic shape and texture, the round
balls of fibrous grass, like gigantic thistledowns, which scurry before
the light breeze, as though endued with life, the white oval shells of
the cuttle-fish, and the shapeless hideous masses of dead _medusae_, all
lie about in extricable confusion on the sandy shores of the East Coast.

In the sea itself all manner of fish are found; the great sharks, with
their shapeless gashes of mouth set with the fine keen teeth; the
sword-fishes with their barred weapons seven and eight feet long; the
stinging ray, shaped like a child's kite, with its rasping hide and its
two sharp bony prickers set on its long tail; the handsome _tenggiri_,
marked like a mackerel, the first of which when taken are a royal
perquisite on the Coast; the little smelts and red-fish; the thousand
varieties that live among the sunken rocks, and are brought to the
surface by lines six fathoms long; the cray-fish, prawns, and shrimps;
and the myriad forms of semi-vegetable life that find a home in the
tepid tropic sea, all these, and many more for which we have no name,
live and die and prey upon each other along the eastern shores of the
Peninsula.

Here may be seen the schools of porpoises--which the Malays name 'the
racers'--plunging through the waves, or leaping over one another with
that ease of motion, and that absence of all visible effort, which gives
so faint an idea of the pace at which they travel. Yet when a ship is
tearing through the waters at the rate of four hundred miles a day, the
porpoises play backwards and forwards across the ploughing forefoot of
the bow, and find no difficulty in holding their own. Here, too, is that
monster fish which so nearly resembles the shark that the Malays call it
by that name, with the added title of 'the fool.' It lies almost
motionless about two fathoms below the surface, and when the fisher folk
spy it, one of their number drops noiselessly over the side, and swims
down to it. Before this is done it behoves a man to look carefully, and
to assure himself that it is indeed t