Real Gold: A Story of Adventure

“Bother the old fish!”
“Yes; they won’t bite.”
“It’s no good, Perry; they are having their siesta. Let’s get in the shade and have one too.”
“What! in the middle of the day—go to sleep? No, thank you. I’m not a foreigner.”
“More am I; but you come and live out here for a bit, and you’ll be ready enough to do as the Romans—I mean the Spaniards—do.”
“Not I, Cyril, and I don’t believe fish do go to sleep.”
“What? Why, I’ve seen them lie in shoals here, perfectly still; basking in the hot sunshine, fast asleep.”
“With their eyes shut?”
“Gammon! Fish can’t shut their eyes.”
“Then they can’t go to sleep.—My! it is hot. I shan’t fish any more.”
Two boys sitting in a boat half a mile from the shore, and sheltered by a ridge of rocks from the tremendous swell of the vast Pacific Ocean, which to north and south curled over in great glistening billows upon the sand—in the former instance, to scoop it out, carry it back, and then throw it up farther away; in the latter, to strike upon sheer rocks and fly up in silver spray with a low deep sound as of muttered thunder. Away to the west there was the great plain of smooth damasked silver, lost at last in a faint haze, and all so bright that the eyes ached and were dazzled by its sheen. To the east, the bright-looking port of San Geronimo, with a few ships, and half-a-dozen long, black, red-funnelled screw-steamers at anchor; beyond them wharves and warehouses, and again beyond these the houses of the little town, with a few scattered white villas rising high on terrace and shelf of the steep cliffs. The place looked bright and attractive seen from the distance, but dry and barren. Nothing green rested and refreshed the eye. No trees, no verdant slope of lawn or field; nothing but sand in front, glittering rock behind. Everything suggested its being a region where no rain fell.