16 The Wine-Dark Sea - Libro della tutto

Patrick O'Brian The Wine-Dark Sea
long ago, and here there was not even a hint
of a bush, not even of a prostrate bush, only
the near-sterility of ichu grass stretching away
and away for ever over this high stark plateau.
The ground looked flat but in fact it rose and
fell, and pausing by a rocky outcrop Eduardo
gave Stephen a significant, triumphant look.
Stephen, half blind by now, followed his gaze
down the slope and to his utter amazement he
saw a scattered grove of what for a moment
he took to be thick-stemmed palm-trees about
fifteen feet high: but some of them had a
great solid spike rising as much again above
the palm-like crown.
He ran unsteadily to the nearest. The leaves
were like those of an agave, fierce-pointed
and with hooked thorns all along their sides:
the great spike was an ordered mass of closepacked
flowers, pale yellow, thousands and
thousands of them. 'Mother of God,' he said.