Now, our prows we turned due west, across the blue lagoon.

Soon, no land appeared. Far as the eye could sweep, one azure plain;
all over flaked with foamy fleeces:--a boundless flock upon a
boundless mead!

Again, all changed. Like stars in multitude, bright islets multiplied
around. Emerald-green, they dotted shapes fantastic: circles, arcs,
and crescents;--atolls all, or coral carcanets, begemmed and flashing
in the sun.

By these we glided, group after group; and through the foliage, spied
sweet forms of maidens, like Eves in Edens ere the Fall, or
Proserpines in Ennas. Artless airs came from the shore; and from the
censer-swinging roses, a bloom, as if from Hebe's cheek.

"Here, at last, we find sweet Yillah!" murmured Yoomy. "Here must she
lurk in innocence! Quick! Let us land and search."

"If here," said Babbalanja, "Yillah will not stay our coming, but fly
before us through the groves. Wherever a canoe is beached, see you not
the palm-trees pine? Not so, where never keel yet smote the strand. In
mercy, let us fly from hence. I know not why, but our breath here,
must prove a blight."

These regions passed, we came to savage islands, where the glittering
coral seemed bones imbedded, bleaching in the sun. Savage men stood
naked on the strand, and brandished uncouth clubs, and gnashed their
teeth like boars.