Terhune, Albert Payson, 1872-1942 / 2008-06-21 00:00:00
EBOOK BLACK CAESAR'S CLAN ***
THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED, MOST GRATEFULLY
TO MY FRIEND
JOHN E. PICKETT
EDITOR OF
"THE COUNTRY GENTLEMAN"
FOREWORD
A wiggling, brainless, slimy atom began it. He and trillions
of his kind. He was the Coral Worm ("Anthozoa," if you prefer).
He and his tribe lived and died on the sea-bottom, successive
generations piling higher on the skeletons and lifework--or
the life-loafing, for they were lazy atoms--of those that went
before. At last the coral reef crawled upward until in
uncharted waters it was tall enough to smash a wooden
ship-keel.
Then, above the surface of the waves it nosed its way, grayish
white, whalebacked. From a hundred miles distant floated a
cigar-shaped mangrove-bud, bobbing vertically, through the
ocean, until it chanced to touch the new-risen coral reef.
The mangrove, alone of all trees, will sprout and grow in salt
water. The mangrove's trunk, alone of all trunks, is
impervious to the corrosive action of the sea.
At once the bud set to work. It drove an anchor-root into the
reef, then other roots and still others. It shot up to the
height of a foot or two, and thence sent thick red-brown roots
straight downward into the coral again.
And so on, until it had formed a tangled root-fence for many
yards alongshore. After which, its work being done, the
mangrove proceeded to grow upward into a big and glossy-leaved
shade-tree, making buds for further fences.
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