Whales and the Lake

The sea presented that smooth, satin like surface called a sleek produced by the subtle moisture thrown off by the whale in his more quiet moods. Here the storms in the roaring glens between the outermost whales were heard, but not felt. We must watch for a breach in the living wall that hemmed us, in the wall that had only admitted us in order to shut us up. Keeping at the centre of the lake, were occasionally visited by small tame cows and calves, the women and children of this routed host. They came snuffing round us, right up to our gun walls and touching them till it almost seemed that some spell had suddenly domesticated them.