“What islands?”
“Let’s see; I ought to know, sir. The fust that comes near Europe is the Azores; then farther south there’s that there island where all the sick people goes, Madeiry; then there’s the Canaries, where the birds come from; only they aren’t all yaller like people keeps in their cages. Most I seed there was green, and put me in mind of them little chaps as we have at home with the yaller heads—you know, sir; them as cries, ‘A little bit of bread and no cheese.’ And you see them up country, a-twittering among the hedges.”
“Yes, I know,” said Rodd sharply; “but what about the Sargassey Sea?”
“Ah! I’m thinking it was after that we come to that sea, only I aren’t quite sure, sir. But if I recollect right, they say it shifts about according to what sort of weather we have.”
“Well, so does every sea,” cried Rodd, “when the waves are running high.”
“Ah, but they don’t run high here, sir. You see, the Sargassey Sea aren’t like other seas, and I suppose it’s only part of the Atlantic after all. It’s all smooth like because as far as you can see it’s all like one great bed of floating seaweed, so thick that you can hardly sail through it at times, and if you go out into it in a boat it’s as much as you can do to dip your oars.”
“Have you been out amongst it then?” asked Rodd.
“Yes, sir, more’n once. It was when I was in the Prince George off the West Coast of Africa, and we had got a surgeon on board there, and him and our second lieutenant had both got it badly.”
“What, West African fever?” cried Rodd.
“No, no, sir; same as your uncle’s got—looking after strange things as lives in the sea. I was one of the crew of the second cutter then, and in the beautiful calm weather we used to take the doctor and the second luff out in this Sargassey Sea, which used to look sometimes as if we were floating about in green fields.”