“What for I called de funny fish Metoosah? Is that what you ask, my innocent and unsophisticated body-slave. I will tell you. Once upon a time, R’ooma, far away in the Lybian wilds, and by the banks of a magic lake, there was a beautiful garden, more enchanting by far, boy, than that down under the sea beneath our boat. This garden grew all kinds of luscious fruit, and all kinds of lovely flowers; but there were also trees therein, laden with apples of purest gold. Yes, you may well open your eyes in wonder, R’ooma. But these apples of gold were guarded night and day by a dreadful dragon—a creature bigger than a crocodile, uglier than the iguana, with bat-like wings, as large as the jib-sails of a boat, that enabled it to fly wherever it had a mind to, and its teeth and eyes were frightful to behold. And in the garden, R’ooma, there dwelt three fearful ladies—and one was called Medusa. Her hands and claws were of brass, she had wings that shone like burnished gold. Her body was covered with scales, like the crocodile’s, and her teeth were more formidable than those of the lion of the jungle. And she braided her hair with deadly snakes, that were for ever wriggling in and out, like the tentacles of yonder medusae just floating past us. And so awful were her eyes that, if she looked upon any one, he was turned into stone. She was slain at last, R’ooma; and they say that every drop of her blood changed into a thousand venomous snakes.
“Is dat where all de dreadful snakes come from? you ask me. Nay, boy, nay; never look so frightened, R’ooma. There, pull on shore into that little sandy bay, beneath that ridge of black rocks so beautifully fringed with green. In that cool spot, R’ooma, I would drink my coffee and rest; and there, too, I will tell you a simple story, that I tell all my boys, about Him who made and cares for us all, who gives motion to the air, flight to the birds, leaves to the trees, and life and joy to every creature we see around us. Row, R’ooma, row.”
The above, reader, you may if you choose consider a kind of a reverie, nevertheless it is true in every touch. Poor R’ooma, I wonder where he is now! A good and a childishly innocent lad he was, and loved me so dearly he would have died to please me. That very day, I remember, which I allude to in the above reverie, after a good, long rest, and after telling the story to R’ooma, which I had promised, I went into the warm sea to bathe. R’ooma came too. I had an idea that there might be sharks, and these ground-sharks will not touch a black man. Well, if one had appeared R’ooma might have covered my retreat. I have seen a black man jump into the sea after a sailor’s cap where sharks were in swarms.
We had a long way to walk through shallow water, before getting into a place deep enough to swim with comfort. On our way out, seawards, I came upon an immense univalve shell in about three or four feet of water. I could see that it was alive, and was a volute of some kind. It was by far and away the largest I have ever seen—quite an armful of a volute. I called to R’ooma to stand by and watch it while I bathed. After my swim, I hurried back shorewards to secure my prize, when, much to my chagrin, I found my boy floating about, enjoying himself.
“O, but, sah,” he said to me, “I have marked de place where dat plenty mooch big cowrie sleep. We soon findee he for true.”
My boy had marked the place by putting a piece of seaweed to float over it. So we didn’t “findee he for true.” The “plenty mooch big cowrie” was not to be caught napping, and, doubtless, moved away into deep water as soon as we had left. But I have even dreamed of that shell more than once since then.
In the sides of the cliffs that surrounded the bay where R’ooma and I had coffee that morning, and deeply imbedded in the rocks, were fossil shells, bivalves of some kind, in shape like the Patella, or cockle of our coast, only in size about two feet across. Fancy a cockle two feet across. As big as a turtle! It would make a dinner, I should say, for twenty hungry marines. In the shoal water were immense quantities of the common Holothuria, or sea cucumbers. They were of gigantic size. But the shores of these little uninhabited islands north of Zanzibar abound everywhere with shells of the most beautiful and curious kinds. Many of the islands are covered with wood, and snakes live there, if little else does. How did the snakes get there? Did they swim across from the mainland? Snakes can swim well; but I doubt if they could cross twelve or twenty miles of salt water.
On one of these islands I once had an encounter with a snake that cost me a pair of good shoes, and I had to go barefooted for a week. More about this in my next log-leaf.
R’ooma was a boy of an inquiring turn of mind, so I took a delight in teaching him many things which, perhaps, he remembers to this day. He used to make the oddest remarks about the creatures and things around him, which caused me often to say to him:
“You’re a poet, R’ooma! I declare, R’ooma, that you are a poet!”