But have no whales any hair?
No real whales: but the Manati, which is very nearly a whale, has long bristly hair left. Don't you remember M.'s letter about the one he saw at Rio Janeiro?
This is all very funny: but what is the use of knowing so much about things' teeth and hair?
What is the use of learning Latin and Greek, and a dozen things more which you have to learn? You don't know yet: but wiser people than you tell you that they will be of use some day. And I can tell you, that if you would only study that gar-fish long enough, and compare him with another fish something like him, who has a long beak to his lower jaw, and none to his upper--and how he eats I cannot guess,--and both of them again with certain fishes like them, which M. Agassiz has found lately, not in the sea, but in the river Amazon; and then think carefully enough over their bones and teeth, and their history from the time they are hatched--why, you would find out, I believe, a story about the river Amazon itself, more wonderful than all the fairy tales you ever read.
Now there is luncheon ready. Come down below, and don't tumble down the companion-stairs; and by the time you have eaten your dinner we shall be very near the shore.
* * *
So? Here is my little man on deck, after a good night's rest.
And he has not been the least sick, I hear.
Not a bit: but the cabin was so stuffy and hot, I asked leave to come on deck. What a huge steamer! But I do not like it as well as the yacht. It smells of oil and steam, and -
And pigs and bullocks too, I am sorry to say. Don't go forward above them, but stay here with me, and look round.
Where are we now? What are those high hills, far away to the left, above the lowlands and woods?
Those are the shore of the Old World--the Welsh mountains.
And in front of us I can see nothing but flat land. Where is that?
That is the mouth of the Severn and Avon; where we shall be in half an hour more.
And there, on the right, over the low hills, I can see higher ones, blue and hazy.