The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 1850-1873, 1872-01-12

| ike 8 network OF IOll0g0 over tne
gunwale about the two beautiful
bodies of mother and babe. Il was
soquiet, solitary; the little nsh scam.
pered away as fast as tt could, Out
where the water was bright and
clear, and there were fishes to see. II
had not gone far before it met a
whale, fearfully big.
| "Don't swallow mel" cried the lit
| tie fish; 81 am not even to be tasted
am 80 small, and it il . great COM
fort to me to live"
"What are you doing away down
here, where your kind never cOme?'
asked the whale.
So then the little fish told about
the astonishing long ell, or whatever
that thing was, that had sunk down
from above and produced such q panic
amongst all the other creatures in
the sea.
"Ho, no !" said the whale, and he
drew in such a rush Of water that he
was ready to make prodigious spout
1 when he came to tho surface for q
breath. "Ho, no! so that was the
thing that tickled me ON the back
when I was turning round. I Thought
it was a ships mast, that I could
break up into clothes-pins. But it
was not here that it was no, q great
deal further out lies the thing. I'll
60 with you and look for it, for have
nothing else to do;" and 80 it swan
of, and the little fish behind it, not
too near, because there was q tearing
stream, as 1t were, in the wake of the
| whale.
They met o shark and an old saw
fish; they, too, had heard of the fam
Gus sea-eel, 30 long and so thin; they
had not seen It, but now they would.
"I'll 60 with you," said the shark,
who was on the same road "if the
great sea-serpent is no thicker than q
cable, then I can bite through it in
one bite :" and he opened his mouth
and showed his six rows of teeth--"I
can bite dents in q ships anchor, and,
certainly can bite off the shank"
"There it is" said the whale. 81
see him." He thought he saw better
than the others. "See how it risee,
how it bends, and bows and curves"
But 1t was not the sea-serpent, but
an extraordinary great eel, ever 50
many ellis long, that drew near.
"Why, have seen him before!"
said the saw-fish. "He never has
made a hullabaIoo in the sea or fright
ened any big fish out of his wits.n
And so they talked to him of the new
eel, and asked him if he would go
with them on their voyage of dis
covery.
eff the eel is longer than 1 am"
said the sea-eel, "there will be some
thing disagreeable happening"
SAY, that there WILL" said the
others; "there are enough of US not
to tolerate him?" and 80 they shot
ahead. But then there came right
in their way a great monster, bigger
than all of them put together; it look
ed like floating island, that could
not stop itself. 1t was a venerable
whale. It's head was grow n over
with sea-weed, its back cover ID with
barnacles, and such lnnumers BILE oys-
tiers and mussels, that its BIZ ,ck skin
was altogether whitened.
'Come with us, old fello WI" said
they. "Here is a new fish come, and
we won't stand it."
II would rather lie where I am ly-
ing" said the whale. "Leave me
alone, leave me alone. o ah, o ah!
1 suffer from a dreadful disease! My
only relief Is to get up toward the
surface and get my hack up higher;
then the great sea-fovl CO n come and
pick at me. That feels So good! only
when they do not drive their beaks
in too far sometimes they 20 in too
deep, quite into my blubber. You
can see how complete skeleton of
fowl is fixed in my back; sne struck
her claws In too deep, and could not
get them out when we mt down to
the bottom. And now the little fishes
have picked at her. T5ee how she
looks, and how I look 1 am all dis
easedr'
THAT is all imagin, .tion I" said the
shark. "I am never sick. No fish
Is ever sick"
"Pardon me-" said the whale. "The
eel suffers from he adache, the carp
has smallpox and we all have intes-
final worms"
''Nonsensep 80 Id the shark, and
refused TO hear AZ ~ further, and the
others also wou Id rather not they
had something else to attend to.
At last they came to the place
where the teleg raph cable lay. It has
a pretty long b ed on the floor Of the
sea from Eur ope to America, over
sand-banks and sea-mud, rocky
ground and weedy places, entire for
ests Of coral. The currents down
there, too, change, whirlpools eddy,
and fishes swarm in greater masses
than the countless flocks of birds that
that men zee when birds Of passage
take their fight. There is q stir, a
splashing there, a humming and
rushing, the rushing still haunts a
little tho great empty conch shells
when we hold them to our ears.
''There lies the fellow I" cried all
tho great fishes and tho little one
with them. They saw the cable, the
beginning and end of which vanished
beyond the reach of their eyes. Spon-
ges and polyps swayed from the
groand, rose and fell over 1t, 80 that
now 1t was hidden, now came to
view. Sea-porcupines, snails and
worms moved over it. Gigantic crabs,
that had complete fringe Of creep
ing things, sta1ked about 1t. Dark
sea-anemones, or whatever the crea-
ture Is called that eats with its entire
body, lay beside it and smelled of the
new creature that had stretched It
self on the bottom of the sea. Floun-
ders and Goldfish turned over In the
winter 80 as to get an idea about 1t
from all sides. The star.fish, that
always bores down into the mud and
can keep its eyes outside, lay and
stared to see what was to come of all
this hustle.
The telegraph cable lay without
stirring, but life and thought were in
it. Human thought went through
1t. "The thing is crafty" said the
whale; it is able to strike me in the
stomach, and that is my weak point"
"Let us grope along" said the
polyps. ~ have long arms and linn
ber fingers have been moving by
the side Of 1t now I'll 60 little fas-
ter" and 80 it stretched its most fiexi-
BILE, longest arms down to the cable
and round about it. sit has no
scales!" said the polyps; sit has no
skin at all. I do believe 1t never
feeds Its own young"
The sea-eel laid itself by the side
of the telegraph cable and stretched
out 80 far as 1t could. "The thing Is
longer than I am," it said; "but 1t Is
not length that does anything; one
must have skin, stomach and fiexi-
bility."
The whale dove down deeper than
1t ever had been. "Art thou fish or
art thou plant" it asked, "or art
thou only some piece of work made
up above that cannot thrive down
here amongst us?"
The telegraph cable did not an.