IN TliE COCOS-EEELING ISLANDS. 21 



affectionate relations existing between The House and the Cucos 

 village. I noted little presents of first ripe fruit, or specially- 

 large eggs constantly being offered. When a death occurs 



r ■ w 



as one did during my visit— it is felt by each individual as if 

 the departed had been of his own family. The interment 

 takes place as soon as possible, and the usual vocations are 

 resumed at once, every one trying, as best he may, to seem as 

 if he had forgotten that they were one fewer. That in their 

 relations one with another there shoidd be perfection, is not to 

 be expected, but a finer and more upright community I have 

 never known ; not a simpler or more guileless people — many 

 of w horn have never known, and never seen a world wider than 

 their own atoll, which can be surveyed in a single glance of 

 the eye ; and I feel more than half confident that the English 

 Service for the Dead has been said over, and that beneath the 

 coral shingle of Grave Islet there rest, as blameless lives as 

 perhaps our weak humanity can attain to. 



The labourers' village is neatly kept, and though the coolies 



live under a stricter regime, they are treated liberally and 



kindly, and housed in comfortable dwellings. Their children 



are educated along with the Cocos children. Should a head of 



a family die, his children are, at the mother's option, sent 



back to their native place in Java, or if she elect, she and 



they may throw in their lot with, and after a certain probation 



become, Cocos people. Malay is the language spoken in both 



villages, though many of the Cocos people understand English. 



As this was my first acquaintance with living coral formation, 



everything about me had the interest of novelty. My first 



morning's walk was to the seaward margin of the reef. As half 



a century is hardly a day's life in the existence of an atoll, Mr. 



Darwin's accurate description of that part of it might have 



been written the day before. The waves so continually break 



on the shore, that it is difficult, except on the very stilk^t 



days, to examine the coral on the furthest margin ; yet I got 



every now and then, on the recoil of the waves, a good view of 



the sboals of Scams feeding in the surf on the livmg cural. 



They are furnished on the front of their heads with soft pads, 

 so as to be able to retain their position undisturbed among the 



zing hard up against the uneven wall, wliiie 

 off^the tins of the living polyps. During 



breal 

 they 



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