The Coral Island: A Tale of the Pacific Ocean

  CHAPTER XII.

  Something wrong with the tank--Jack's wisdom and Peterkin'simpertinence--Wonderful behaviour of a crab--Good wishes for those whodwell far from the sea--Jack commences to build a little boat.

  Rest is sweet as well for the body as for the mind. During my longexperience, amid the vicissitudes of a chequered life, I have found thatperiods of profound rest at certain intervals, in addition to theordinary hours of repose, are necessary to the wellbeing of man. And thenature as well as the period of this rest varies, according to thedifferent temperaments of individuals, and the peculiar circumstances inwhich they may chance to be placed. To those who work with their minds,bodily labour is rest. To those who labour with the body, deep sleep isrest. To the downcast, the weary, and the sorrowful, joy and peace arerest. Nay, further, I think that to the gay, the frivolous, thereckless, when sated with pleasures that cannot last, even sorrow provesto be rest of a kind, although, perchance, it were better that I shouldcall it relief than rest. There is, indeed, but one class of men to whomrest is denied. There is no rest to the wicked. At this I do but hint,however, as I treat not of that rest which is spiritual, but, moreparticularly, of that which applies to the mind and to the body.

  Of this rest we stood much in need on our return home, and we found itexceedingly sweet, when we indulged in it, after completing the journeyjust related. It had not, indeed, been a very long journey, neverthelesswe had pursued it so diligently that our frames were not a littleprostrated. Our minds were also very much exhausted in consequence ofthe many surprises, frequent alarms, and much profound thought, to whichthey had been subjected; so that when we lay down on the night of ourreturn under the shelter of the bower, we fell immediately into very deeprepose. I can state this with much certainty, for Jack afterwardsadmitted the fact, and Peterkin, although he stoutly denied it, I heardsnoring loudly at least two minutes after lying down. In this conditionwe remained all night and the whole of the following day without awakingonce, or so much as moving our positions. When we did awake it was nearsunset, and we were all in such a state of lassitude that we merely roseto swallow a mouthful of food. As Peterkin remarked, in the midst of ayawn, we took breakfast at tea-time, and then went to bed again, where welay till the following forenoon.

  After this we arose very greatly refreshed, but much alarmed lest we hadlost count of a day. I say we were much alarmed on this head, for we hadcarefully kept count of the days since we were cast upon our island, inorder that we might remember the Sabbath-day, which day we had hithertowith one accord kept as a day of rest, and refrained from all workwhatsoever. However, on considering the subject, we all threeentertained the same opinion as to how long we had slept, and so ourminds were put at ease.

  We now hastened to our Water Garden to enjoy a bathe, and to see how didthe animals which I had placed in the tank. We found the garden morecharming, pelucid, and inviting than ever, and Jack and I plunged intoits depth, and gambolled among its radiant coral groves; while Peterkinwallowed at the surface, and tried occasionally to kick us as we passedbelow. Having dressed, I then hastened to the tank; but what was mysurprise and grief to find nearly all the animals dead, and the water ina putrid condition! I was greatly distressed at this, and wondered whatcould be the cause of it.

  "Why, you precious humbug," said Peterkin, coming up to me, "how couldyou expect it to be otherwise? When fishes are accustomed to live in thePacific Ocean, how can you expect them to exist in a hole like that?"

  "Indeed, Peterkin," I replied, "there seems to be truth in what you say.Nevertheless, now I think of it, there must be some error in yourreasoning; for, if I put in but a few very small animals, they will bearthe same proportion to this pond that the millions of fish bear to theocean."

  "I say, Jack," cried Peterkin, waving his hand, "come here, like a goodfellow. Ralph is actually talking philosophy. Do come to ourassistance, for he's out o' sight beyond me already!"

  "What's the matter?" inquired Jack, coming up, while he endeavoured toscrub his long hair dry with a towel of cocoa-nut cloth.

  I repeated my thoughts to Jack, who, I was happy to find, quite agreedwith me. "Your best plan," he said, "will be to put very few animals atfirst into your tank, and add more as you find it will bear them. Andlook here," he added, pointing to the sides of the tank, which, for thespace of two inches above the water-level, were incrusted with salt, "youmust carry your philosophy a little farther, Ralph. That water hasevaporated so much that it is too salt for anything to live in. You willrequire to add _fresh_ water now and then, in order to keep it at thesame degree of saltness as the sea."

  "Very true, Jack, that never struck me before," said I.

  "And, now I think of it," continued Jack, "it seems to me that the surestway of arranging your tank so as to get it to keep pure and in goodcondition, will be to imitate the ocean in it. In fact make it aminiature Pacific. I don't see how you can hope to succeed unless you dothat."

  "Most true," said I, pondering what my companion said. "But I fear thatthat will be very difficult."

  "Not at all," cried Jack, rolling his towel up into a ball, and throwingit into the face of Peterkin, who had been grinning and winking at himduring the last five minutes. "Not at all. Look here. There is waterof a certain saltness in the sea; well, fill your tank with sea water,and keep it at that saltness by marking the height at which the waterstands on the sides. When it evaporates a little, pour in _fresh_ waterfrom the brook till it comes up to the mark, and then it will be right,for the salt does not evaporate with the water. Then, there's lots ofsea-weed in the sea;--well, go and get one or two bits of sea-weed, andput them into your tank. Of course the weed must be alive, and growingto little stones; or you can chip a bit off the rocks with the weedsticking to it. Then, if you like, you can throw a little sand andgravel into your tank, and the thing's complete."

  "Nay, not quite," said Peterkin, who had been gravely attentive to thisoff-hand advice, "not quite; you must first make three little men to divein it before it can be said to be perfect, and that would be ratherdifficult, I fear, for two of them would require to be philosophers. Buthallo! what's this? I say, Ralph, look here. There's one o' your crabsup to something uncommon. It's performing the most remarkable operationfor a crab I ever saw,--taking off its coat, I do believe, before goingto bed!"

  We hastily stooped over the tank, and certainly were not a little amusedat the conduct of one of the crabs which still survived it companions. Itwas one of the common small crabs, like to those that are found runningabout everywhere on the coasts of England. While we gazed at it, weobserved its back to split away from the lower part of its body, and outof the gap thus formed came a soft lump which moved and writhedunceasingly. This lump continued to increase in size until it appearedlike a bunch of crab's legs: and, indeed, such it proved in a very fewminutes to be; for the points of the toes were at length extricated fromthis hole in its back, the legs spread out, the body followed, and thecrab walked away quite entire, even to the points of its nipper-claws,leaving a perfectly entire shell behind it, so that, when we looked, itseemed as though there were two complete crabs instead of one!

  "Well!" exclaimed Peterkin, drawing a long breath, "I've _heard_ of a manjumping out of his skin and sitting down in his skeleton in order to coolhimself, but I never expected to _see_ a crab do it!"

  We were, in truth, much amazed at this spectacle, and the more so when weobserved that the new crab was larger than the crab that it came out of.It was also quite soft, but by next morning its skin had hardened into agood shell. We came thus to know that crabs grow in this way, and not bythe growing of their shells, as we had always thought before we saw thiswonderful operation.

  Now I considered well the advice which Jack had given me about preparingmy tank, and the more I thought of it, the more I came to regard it asvery sound and worthy of being acted on. So I forthwith put his plan inexecution, and found it to answer excellently well, indeed much beyond myexp
ectation; for I found that after a little experience had taught me theproper proportion of sea-weed and animals to put into a certain amount ofwater, the tank needed no farther attendance; and, moreover, I did notrequire ever afterwards to renew or change the sea-water, but only to adda very little fresh water from the brook, now and then, as the otherevaporated. I therefore concluded that if I had been suddenly conveyed,along with my tank, into some region where there was no salt sea at all,my little sea and my sea-fish would have continued to thrive and toprosper notwithstanding. This made me greatly to desire that thosepeople in the world who live far inland might know of my wonderful tank,and, by having materials like to those of which it was made conveyed tothem, thus be enabled to watch the habits of those most mysteriousanimals that reside in the sea, and examine with their own eyes thewonders of the great deep.

  For many days after this, while Peterkin and Jack were busily employed inbuilding a little boat out of the curious natural planks of the chestnuttree, I spent much of my time in examining with the burning-glass themarvellous operations that were constantly going on in my tank. Here Isaw those anemones which cling, like little red, yellow, and green blobsof jelly, to the rocks, put forth, as it were, a multitude of arms andwait till little fish or other small animalcules unwarily touched them,when they would instantly seize them, fold arm after arm around theirvictims, and so engulf them in their stomachs. Here I saw the ceaselessworking of those little coral insects whose efforts have encrusted theislands of the Pacific with vast rocks, and surrounded them with enormousreefs. And I observed that many of these insects, though extremelyminute, were very beautiful, coming out of their holes in a circle offine threads, and having the form of a shuttle-cock. Here I saw curiouslittle barnacles opening a hole in their backs and constantly putting outa thin feathery hand, with which, I doubt not, they dragged their foodinto their mouths. Here, also, I saw those crabs which have shells onlyon the front of their bodies, but no shell whatever on their remarkablytender tails, so that, in order to find a protection to them, they thrustthem into the empty shells of wilks, or some such fish, and when theygrow too big for one, change into another. But, most curious of all, Isaw an animal which had the wonderful power, when it became ill, ofcasting its stomach and its teeth away from it, and getting an entirelynew set in the course of a few months! All this I saw, and a great dealmore, by means of my tank and my burning-glass, but I refrain fromsetting down more particulars here, as I have still much to tell of theadventures that befell us while we remained on this island.