246 CORALS AND CORAL LSLANDS. 



Island, a few degrees east of the Navigator Group : they were 

 lying two hundred yards inside of the line of breakers. The 

 island is uninhabited, and the origin of the stones is doubtful ; 

 they may have been brought there by roots of trees, or perhaps 

 by some canoe. 



Fragments of pumice and resin are transported by the waves 

 to many of the islands in the Central Pacific. We were in- 

 formed at the Gilbert Islands that the pumice was gathered 

 from the shores by women and pounded up to fertilize the soil 

 of their taro patches ; and that it is common for a woman to 

 pick up a peck a day. 



Where this pumice comes from is not ascertained. It is 

 probably drifted from the westward, and perhaps from volcanic 

 islands of the Ladrones or Philippines. In addition, volcanic 

 ashes are sometimes distributed over these islands, through the 

 atmosphere. In this manner the soil of the Tonga Islands has 

 been improved, and in some places it has even received a red- 

 dish colour. This group has its own active volcano to supply 

 the ashes, and the volcanic group of the new Hebrides is not 

 far distant to the south-west. 



Notwithstanding all the products and all the attractions of a 

 coral island, even in its best condition it is but a miserable 

 place for human development, physical, mental or moral. There 

 is poetry in every feature, but the natives find this a poor 

 substitute for the bread-fruit and yams of more favoured lands. 

 The cocoanut and pandanus are, in general, the only products 

 of the vegetable kingdom afforded for their sustenance, and 

 fish, shell-fish, and crabs from the reefs their only animal food. 

 Scanty too is the supply ; and infanticide is resorted to in self- 

 defence, where but a few years would otherwise overstock the 

 half a dozen square miles of which their little world consists — 

 a world without rivers, without hills, in the midst of salt water, 

 with the most elevated point but ten to twenty feet above high 

 tide, and no part more than three hundred yards from the ocean. 



In the more isolated coral islands, the language of the natives 

 indicates their poverty as well as the limited productions and 

 unvarying features of the land. All words like those for 



