Now, to the unscientific reader it is useless to say more than that the innumerable and varied positions of these glassy particles, some transparent, others semi-transparent or opaque, reflecting the sun’s rays in different directions, with a complex modification of colour and effect resulting from the blueness of the sky, the condition of the atmosphere, and many other causes—all combined to produce the remarkable appearances of light and colour which aroused the admiration and wonder of the world in 1883.
The more one thinks of these things, and the deeper one dives into the mysteries of nature, the more profoundly is one impressed at once with a humbling sense of the limited amount of one’s knowledge, and an awe-inspiring appreciation of the illimitable fields suggested by that comprehensive expression: “The Wonderful Works of God.”
Chapter Thirty.
Coming Events, etcetera—Wonderful Changes among the Islands.
Some days after the wreck of the Sunshine, as described in a previous chapter, Captain Roy and his son stood on the coast of Java not far from the ruins of Anjer. A vessel was anchored in the offing, and a little boat lay on the shore.
All sign of elemental strife had passed, though a cloud of smoke hanging over the remains of Krakatoa told that the terrible giant below was not dead but only sleeping—to awake, perchance, after a nap of another 200 years.
“Well, father,” said our hero with a modest look, “it may be, as you suggest, that Winnie Van der Kemp does not care for me more than for a fathom of salt water—”
“I did not say salt water, lad, I said bilge—a fathom o’ bilge water,” interrupted the captain, who, although secretly rejoiced at the fact of his son having fallen over head and ears in love with the pretty little Cocos-Keeling islander, deemed it his duty, nevertheless, as a sternly upright parent, to make quite sure that the love was mutual as well as deep before giving his consent to anything like courtship.