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.
Sponges there were, too, though not in great enough abundance to
warrant the sponge-gathering fleets coming to this section.
Through the water glass, our friends could see fish swimming around
under the water, darting here and there between the waving coral and
under the growing sponges.
It was all very wonderful and beautiful, but it is doubtful if any of
the young people really appreciated it as they might have done, had
their hearts been lighter. Inez did not care to look at the sea
sights, for she said she had seen them too often as a, child in the
islands.
In spite of her anxiety concerning her father und his possible fate,
she did not obtrude her desires on her friends.
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