In vain his oarsmen lent their aid to drive the little vessel forward.
Huge waves of heated water, always from the same direction drove his craft backward.
At last the truth of the matter dawned upon him.
He was on the outer edge of some vast boiling sea, which, rolling its hot waves ever outward, drove back his cockle shell of a bark. Making for a lofty promontory, he clambered to its highest point, wearing thick felt shoes and gloves to protect his feet and hands from the heated rocks.
A fearful and yet a sublimely beautiful sight met his gaze.
For hundreds and hundreds of miles the waters were in a state of most violent boiling, springing and leaping into the air as if a legion of giant demons were beneath forcing their hot breath upward from vast cavernous lurking places.
Upon reading of this boiling sea, I was seized with an uncontrollable desire to go in search of it.
True the waters might have cooled down in all these centuries, and yet I was confident I should find some trace of this once terrible caldron of seething waters.
The China Sea was only slightly known to navigators of my day and generation.
It had often been darkly hinted at that this vast body of water was studded with wonderful isles and filled with rare monsters.