In many places the coast is rock-bound, or, more properly,clinker-bound; tumbled masses of blackish or greenish stuff like thedross of an iron-furnace, forming dark clefts and caves here and there,into which a ceaseless sea pours a fury of foam; overhanging them with aswirl of gray, haggard mist, amidst which sail screaming flights ofunearthly birds heightening the dismal din. However calm the seawithout, there is no rest for these swells and those rocks; they lashand are lashed, even when the outer ocean is most at peace with, itself.On the oppressive, clouded days, such as are peculiar to this part ofthe watery Equator, the dark, vitrified masses, many of which raisethemselves among white whirlpools and breakers in detached and perilousplaces off the shore, present a most Plutonian sight. In no world but afallen one could such lands exist.

Those parts of the strand free from the marks of fire, stretch away inwide level beaches of multitudinous dead shells, with here and theredecayed bits of sugar-cane, bamboos, and cocoanuts, washed upon thisother and darker world from the charming palm isles to the westward andsouthward; all the way from Paradise to Tartarus; while mixed with therelics of distant beauty you will sometimes see fragments of charredwood and mouldering ribs of wrecks. Neither will any one be surprised atmeeting these last, after observing the conflicting currents which eddythroughout nearly all the wide channels of the entire group. Thecapriciousness of the tides of air sympathizes with those of the sea.Nowhere is the wind so light, baffling, and every way unreliable, and sogiven to perplexing calms, as at the Encantadas. Nigh a month has beenspent by a ship going from one isle to another, though but ninety milesbetween; for owing to the force of the current, the boats employed totow barely suffice to keep the craft from sweeping upon the cliffs, butdo nothing towards accelerating her voyage. Sometimes it is impossiblefor a vessel from afar to fetch up with the group itself, unless largeallowances for prospective lee-way have been made ere its coming insight. And yet, at other times, there is a mysterious indraft, whichirresistibly draws a passing vessel among the isles, though not bound tothem.