112 THE CORAL REEFS OF THE MALDIVES. 



On our way to the east face, across South Nilandu, we passed four large 

 faros; they presented no special features of interest. The number of large 

 well-wooded islands found in the northern part of South Nilandu is one of 

 its marked features. To the south of our track we passed a low sand bank 

 covered with a few bushes, rising on the edge of a faro with a most diminu- 

 tive lagoon; it forms the beginning of a larger island, which when the lagoon 

 has been filled will cover the whole sand flat thus formed. We then came 

 upon a large flat with a sand-bar and without any trace of vegetation, and 

 next upon a small faro with a narrow rim enclosing a deep lagoon with an 

 islet on the eastern rim. The northern part of the east face of South 

 Nilandu is flanked by rectangular faros with lagoons of from four to seven 

 fathoms in depth. 



With two exceptions the passes separating the outer faros of South 

 Nilandu are deep, over twenty fathoms. We passed out of South Nilandu, 

 south of Konipafuri, and made for the southern extremity of Mulaku. Male 

 Faro, the faro to the south of Konipafuri, is marked by the great width of 

 its reef flat. 



When coming north from Kolumadulu, we examined the southern part 

 of the east face of South Nilandu (Pis. 62, 63, 64, fig. 2), from Maimbudu, 

 the faro forming the southeast angle of South Nilandu. In the centre of 

 the faro lies a large lagoon with from three to five fathoms ; each extremity 

 is occupied by an island. To the north on the east face follows a smaller 

 faro with a small lagoon to the west of Wani Island. The sea face of the 

 faro is edged by a boulder belt. A similar belt crops out along the sea face 

 of the faros of the eastern side of South Nilandu. The beaches of the 

 islands are steep, of coarse shingle, separating an occasional reach of coral 

 sand. The sea is encroaching on the islands of the east face. We passed 

 many cocoanut-trees lying on the beach, and here and there a palm boulder, 

 if I may so call the clump of roots of cocoanuts left occasionally on the reef 

 flats and coral sand beaches. 



North of Kandimas (Pis. 62, fig. 2; 63, 64, fig. 2), on the next reef flat 

 to the north, we find outliers of coral reef rock between the beaches of the 

 islands and the boulder belt, — outliers which have been undercut and are 

 deeply pitted, eroded, and honeycombed, and rise slightly above the general 



