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TRAVELLING 821
selves to the enjoyment of the birds' untiring flight as
the groups skimmed the blue deep in their endless search
after something ; all hither and thither in every possible
direction, with no common purpose that we could detect,
except to keep " going on " some-whither for evermore.
I am afraid this display of random and aimless energy·
reminded us of our groups of people in England working
for social reform. strenuously and unceasingly pushing in
the most divergent directions, with nothing in common
save determination to take no rest. In two respects,
however, the parallel fails, The motion of the birds was
always surpassingly graceful and quite free from noise,
As time went on, we caught ourselves fancying the
problem of perpetual motion was solved ; and, strangely
enough, the charm of the birds' flight was spoilt for us
when we recognized that it never was likely to cease. I
have known the same thing happen on listening to a huma.n
being's speech.
Besides the joy of visiting places like Troy, Delphi,
Pergamum, and many others which for ordinary folk are
generally out of reach, nothing could have been better
than the arrangements both on board ship and on land.
You could read the classics on deck without interruption,
except once or twice when the cry of " Dolphins " was
raised-a sound for which I would willingly drop any
book ever printed without replacing the marker. For
it was a question of getting front places on the bow.
Once I was lucky, and scrutinized one of the most beautiful
sights in nature. There were two of these creatures on
each side of the bow keeping pace with the ship, and all
but motionless except for a delicate twitch of the tail
now and then. How do they 'do it ? We were goingso
snid some "auto-pundit "-thirteen knots an hour. My
old most gifted pupil Gerald Anderson was on board,
and gave it as a suggestion that the bull of the ship was
so shaped that it pushed a horizontal column of water
in front of itself of which the finny beasts took' advan·
tage, like a larrikin on his cycle gripping the tail end of