THE COMPLETED ATOLL. 247 



mountain, hill, river, and many of the implements of their 

 ancestors, as well as the trees and other vegetation of the land 

 from which they are derived, ^re lost to them ; and as words 

 are but signs for ideas, they have fallen off in general intelli- 

 gence. It would be an interesting inquiry for the philosopher, 

 to what extent a race of men placed in such circumstances is 

 capable of mental improvement. Perhaps the query might be 

 best answered by another. How many of the various arts of 

 civilized life could exist in a land where shells are the only 

 cutting instruments, — the plants of the land in all but twenty- 

 nine in number, — minerals but one, — quadrupeds none, with 

 the exception of foreign rats or mice, — fresh-water barely 

 enough for household purposes, — no streams, nor mountains, 

 nor hills? How much of the poetry or literature of Europe 

 would be intelligible to persons whose ideas had expanded 

 only to the limits of a coral island ; who had never conceived 

 of a surface of land above half a mile in breadth, — of a slope 

 higher than a beach, — of a change of seasons beyond a varia- 

 tion in the prevalence of rains? What elevation in morals 

 should be expected upon a contracted islet, so readily over- 

 peopled that threatened starvation drives to infanticide, and 

 tends to cultivate the extremest selfishness ? Assuredly, there 

 is not a more unfavourable spot for moral or intellectual pro- 

 gress in the wide world than the coral island. 



Still, if well supplied with foreign stores, including a good 

 stock of ice, they might become, were they more accessible, a 

 pleasant temporary resort for tired workers from civilized lands, 

 who wish quiet, perpetual summer air, salt-water bathing, and 

 boating or yachting ; and especially for those who could draw- 

 inspiration from the mingled beauties of grove, lake, ocean, and 

 coral meads and grottoes, where 



" Life in rare and beautiful forms 



Is sporting amid the bowers of stone." 



But after all, the dryland of an atoll is so limited, its features 

 so tame, its supply of fresh water so small, and of salt water 

 so large, that whoever should build his cottage on one of them 



