810 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



can see the vivid green gradually fading as the water deepens toward 

 the edge of the reef, which is marked by a line of white breakers, 

 heaving and tossing as the swell rolls in from the deep blue water, 

 which stretches beyond until it merges with the lighter blue of the 

 cloudless sky. 



Every outline is so sharply defined in the pure atmosphere, and so 

 many elements are crowded into the brilliantly colored picture, that 

 it is more like a landscape traced by fancy in the clouds at sunset than 

 a substantial reality, and the whole is so much like fairy-land that we 

 feel that if we should shut our eyes for a few minutes we should ex- 

 pect on opening them to find the picture dissolving into clouds. 



Curbing our fancy, however, and returning to the solid facts about 

 us, science tells us that the history of the country is far stranger than 

 any fairy-story, and that, as the geologist measures time, this whole 

 group of islands, stretching for six hundred miles across the map, and 

 furnishing a home where thousands of people are born and pass their 

 lives, and grow old and die, is actually as transient and unstable as a 

 summer cloud. Only a few years ago, as years go with the geologist, 

 every particle of the land before us was diffused through the ocean 

 in invisible calcareous molecules, which have been gathered from the 

 waves and deposited by microscopic animals, and everywhere about 

 us we find abundant proofs that if these animals should cease their 

 constructive labors the whole would soon be diffused through the 

 ocean like the lump of sugar which is dissolved by our coffee. 



After we had familiarized ourselves with this distant view, the 

 custom-house officer came aboard and welcomed us to the islands in 

 the name of the British Government, and told us that, although we 

 could not be permitted to settle on shore until the next day, we were 

 at liberty to land and explore. 



All the members of our party will long remember the kind face 

 of this gentleman, Mr. Bethel, with whom we soon became well ac- 

 quainted. He is not only the custom-house collector, but also resident 

 magistrate, postmaster, health-officer, superintendent of schools, and 

 the general representative of the Government. I myself, as director 

 of the party, was the only witness of the promptness and informality 

 with which he dispatched our business at his office, but we all were 

 made to feel that he is a warm and kindly friend, ready to be called 

 upon at all times for help and advice, and pleased to welcome us at his 

 home. 



As soon as we received his permission to land, a party started off 

 in the yawl, which we had brought from Baltimore on the deck of our 

 little schooner, to visit an abandoned house which was pointed out to 

 us upon a hill-side at a distance from the town. 



The boat soon reached the mangroves, and, pushing in as far as 

 possible, we found ourselves surrounded by the life of the tropics. As 

 the tide was out, we could reach up from the boat and gather over our 



