These
unexpected rollers are capital at upsetting boats just touching the
beach; the boat is broadside on and the occupants in the water in a
second. To-day the groundswell was more active, the waves closer
together, not having had time to forget the force of the extinct gale.
Yet the sea looked calm as a millpond--just the morning for a bath.
Along the yellow line where sand and pebbles meet there stood a gallant
band, in gay uniforms, facing the water. Like the imperial legions who
were ordered to charge the ocean, and gather the shells as spoils of war,
the cohorts gleaming in purple and gold extended their front rank--their
fighting line one to a yard--along the strand. Some tall and stately;
some tall and slender; some well developed and firm on their limbs; some
gentle in attitude, even in their war dress; some defiant; perhaps forty
or fifty, perhaps more, ladies; a splendid display of womanhood in the
bright sunlight. Blue dresses, pink dresses, purple dresses, trimmings of
every colour; a gallant show. The eye had but just time to receive these
impressions as it were with a blow of the camera--instantaneous
photography--when, boom! the groundswell was on them, and, heavens, what
a change! They disappeared.
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