THE MAKING OF AN ISLAND 133 



day, giant morays similar to the one that frequented the hole 

 near my bathing pool. Such a trip would require a brave heart, 

 and diving equipment of a type as yet undeveloped. It would 

 be a weird dangerous excursion down into the wet bowels of 

 an island; a jaunt that might lead anywhere. The age of ex- 

 ploration is by no means completed. 



The sun was now high and the trade wind had resumed its 

 daily vigor. But down in the glades between the trees, the air 

 was still; the temperature climbed steadily. Presently I was 

 bathed in perspiration, my shirt hung clammily to my skin. 

 Soon the heat was unbearable. Even the Uzards, which normally 

 basked in the sun in the more open places, lay prone under the 

 slabs of stone waiting patiently for whirling insects to come 

 within convenient reach. The bare rocks were hot to the touch, 

 so much so that to sit on them was uncomfortable. The heat 

 began to assume the proportions of a blast furnace. I was be- 

 ginning to get thirsty. Stopping at a small pool in a hollow of 

 a rock I tasted it. Like the foam from the lake it was steeped 

 in sodium chloride. A mile further on I tried another; it was 

 like the first. I wet my mouth with the canteen, sparingly; there 

 was a long way to go. Everywhere the ground was saturated 

 with salt. Even the roots of the trees growing in the hollows 

 of the rocks were encrusted with the crystals. How they sur- 

 vived was a puzzle. At home a sure method of destroying a 

 plant and ruining the ground for a long time was to pour salt 

 around the roots. Yet these trees thrived in it. By way of ex- 

 periment I broke a thick padded leaf and chewed it. The tissue 

 was full of moisture, unpleasant to the taste, but the moisture 

 was not salty. In some way the vegetables of this saline land 

 filtered out the chemical before it entered their tissues. Even 

 the earth itself was impregnated although some of the deeper 

 holes filled with a reddish brown earth derived from the decay 

 of drifted and dead leaves were quite fresh. In compensation, 



