I only call the icebergs the
principal passengers, because they take up so much room; for thousands
and millions of other travellers come with them,--from the white bears
asleep on the bergs, and brought away quite against their will, to the
tiniest little creatures rocking in the cradles of the ripples, or
clinging to the delicate branches of the sea-mosses. I said you could
see no sign of the great water train from above: that was not quite
true, for many of the icebergs are tall enough to lift their heads far
up into the air, and shine with a cold, glittering splendor in the
sunlight; and you can tell, by the course in which they sail, which way
the train is going deep down in the sea.
The star-fish took passage on this train. He didn't start at the
beginning of the road, but got in at one of the way-stations somewhere
off Cape Cod, fell in with some friends going South, and had altogether
a pleasant trip of it. No wearisome stopping-places to feed either
engine or passengers; for this train moves by a power that needs no
feeding on the way, and the passengers are much in the habit of eating
their fellow-travellers by way of frequent luncheons.
In the course of a few weeks, our five-fingered traveller is safely
dropped in the Caribbean Sea; and, if you do not know where that sea is,
I wish you would take your map of North America and find it, and then
you can see the course of the journey, and understand the story better.
This Caribbean Sea is as full of mountains as New Hampshire and Vermont
are; but none of them have caps of snow like that which Mount Washington
sometimes wears, and some of them are built up in a very odd way, as you
will presently see.
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