API ISLAND. 343 



small spots, with difficulty discerned with a glass, where plots are 

 cleared by the natives for cultivation. 



The ship steamed close in to the island, opposite a spot where 

 a valley terminated towards the sea with a widened mouth, 

 evidently containing a river. There was a stretch of flat land 

 at the bottom of the valley on which were conspicuous amongst 

 the other foliage some cocoanut palms and another species of 

 palm. As we came near natives appeared on the shore, some 

 hiding in the bushes, others running along at full speed, whilst 

 some shouted a loud " hoa." One man stood on the shore and 

 waved a green branch with untiring perseverance. 



These natives were said to be hostile and dangerous, and 

 therefore the first party, the " Captain's," which landed, was 

 armed, but the returned labourers acted as an introduction and 

 made matters smooth ; still, as all the natives were armed, 

 either with bows and poisoned arrows, clubs, or trade muskets, 

 and as the inhabitants of these islands are noted for treachery, 

 no one was allowed to leave the beach, and our stay lasted for 

 only a few hours. Thus we saw very little of this island, which 

 had certainly never been landed upon before by any scientific 

 man or naval officer. 



The shore is made up of a banked-up beach, composed of small 

 fragments of volcanic rock and volcanic sand, mingled with a 

 large proportion of coral fragments, and is fringed by a narrow 

 shore platform of coral, which, in the place where I examined 

 it, was not much more than 100 yards wide. The New Hebrides 

 have no barrier reefs but only narrow fringing reefs. The cause 

 of this, Dana concludes to be the fact that volcanic action has, in 

 this group of islands, been very recent. There are still several 

 active volcanoes in the group, and one was said by our returned 

 labourers to exist in Api. (The word Api means in Malay, 

 " lire "). Submarine ejections of carbonic acid and the falling of 

 fine dust might render the growing of reef corals round an active 

 volcanic island nearly impossible. 



The Api shore reef is remarkable for its extreme flatness. 

 Almost everywhere the living corals embedded in it are growing 

 only laterally, the upper surfaces being dead from want of suffi- 

 cient depth of water. In some small specimens of a massive 



