"She who amid the tempest shone, The angel of the wave,"
was not, as might be supposed, a robust girl, but, on the contrary, quite delicate. Her spirit peacefully passed away a few months after the event above recorded.
Clarence's Dream--Davy Jones's Locker--Origin of the Term--Treasures of the Ocean--Pearl Fishing--Mother o' Pearl--Formation of Pearls--Art and Nature Combined--The Fisheries--The Divers and their _modus operandi_--Dangers of the Trade--Gambling with Oysters--Noted Pearls--Cleopatra's Costly Draught--Scottish Pearls very Valuable--Coral--Its Place in Nature--The Fisheries--Hard Work and Poor Pay--The Apparatus Used--Coral Atolls--Darwin's Investigations--Theories and Facts--Characteristics of the Reefs--Beauty of the Submarine Forests--Victorious Polyps--The Sponge a Marine Animal--The Fisheries--Harpooning and Diving--Value of Sponges.
"I saw a thousand fearful wracks: A thousand men that fishes gnawed upon: Wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl, Inestimable stones, unvalued jewels, All scattered in the bottom of the sea. Some lay in dead men's skulls; and in those holes Where eyes did once inhabit there were crept, As 'twere in scorn of eyes, reflecting gems, That wooed the slimy bottom of the deep, And mocked the dead bones that lay scattered there."
So dreamed Clarence on a memorable night, and, indeed, what treasures, known and unknown, must not the ocean cover!
The well-known term which forms the heading of this chapter, with its popularly-understood meaning, is familiar to every schoolboy, yet its origin is most obscure. Mr. Pinkerton, an ingenious correspondent of that valuable medium of inquiry, _Notes and Queries_,(25) argues as follows, and his opinion is entitled to respect. He says:--"I have arrived at the conclusion that the phrase is derived from the Scriptural account of the prophet Jonah. The word _locker_, on board ship, generally means the place where any particular thing is retained or kept, as 'the bread locker,' 'shot locker,' &c. In the ode in the second chapter of the Book of Jonah, we find that the prophet, praying for deliverance, describes his situation in the following words:--'In the midst of the seas; and the floods compassed me about; the depth closed me round about; the earth with her bars was about me.'