So they were once more under way.
It was near St. Kitts that the two sailors from the Ramona had been picked up, to tell their story of the stressful hurricane and mutiny. And, other things being equal, as Jack put it, it was near St. Kitts that some news might be expected to be had of those for whom the search was being made.
As the capital, Basseterre, was a town of more than ten thousand population, it might reasonably be expected that some news of the foundering of the Ramona would be received there. It was in that vicinity, as was evident from the rescue of the two sailors, that the ship had been torn by the wind and waves.
A week was occupied in making the journey to St. Kitts from St. Croix, a week of cruising back and forth, and of stopping at many mere dots of islands. Some of these were seen at once to be not worth searching, since their entire extent could almost be seen at a single glance. They were merely collections of coral rocks, submerged at high water. Others were larger, and these were visited in the small boat which the Tartar carried with her.
It was on some of these trips, over comparatively shallow water, that the beauties and mysteries of the ocean bottom were made plain to our friends.
Joe, the engineer, made for them a "water glass," by the simple process of knocking the bottom out of a pail, and putting in puttied glass, instead. This, when put into the water, glass side somewhat below the surface, enabled one to see with startling clearness the bottom of the ocean, in depths from seventy-five to one hundred feet.
Most wonderful was the sight.
"Why, it looks like a forest, or a wonderful green-house down there," said Cora, after her first view.
"Those are the coral and the sponges," explained Joe. Our friends were surprised to see that coral, instead of being stiff and hard, as it had seemed to them when they handled specimens of it on land, was, under the water, as graceful and waving as the leaves of palm trees in a gentle wind. The ocean currents waved and undulated, it, until it seemed alive.
Branch coral they saw, like miniature trees, and great "fans," some nearly ten feet across. Then there were great rocks of the coral-living rocks, formed of millions and millions of the bodies of the polyps, insects who build up such marvelous formations.