18 OUR HERITAGE THE SEA 



the Tropic of Cancer. The full strength of the North 

 East Trade impinges upon the eastern coast of each 

 island, and, rising, sweeps over it into the Gulf beyond. 

 But these islands are nearly all mountainous, and their 

 peaks arrest some of the immense rain-bearing clouds 

 borne by the winds, so that their contents are dis- 

 charged into the humid valleys, and dense, dank 

 vegetation rises from the fertile soil. Therefore, 

 although the ground is not swampy, the fecund growth 

 makes aeration impossible ; and while upon the higher 

 levels, where the healthful wind has free sway, an 

 almost perfect climate is enjoyed, in the valleys there 

 is disease, principally malaria, which exacts a tremen- 

 dous price from those who venture to live there, in 

 order to garner the wealth which lavish Nature spreads 

 broadcast ; for it cannot be too strongly pointed out 

 that the food of vegetation is the poison of man. 



Science, however, has come to man's aid, and shown 

 how, by a little attention to certain laws, notably a 

 comparatively recent discovery, that tropical diseases 

 are nearly always disseminated by insects, such as the 

 deadly mosquito, these once dreaded regions may be 

 lived in with almost as complete an immunity from 

 disease as the wind-swept uplands of more favoured 

 northern climes, while the highlands of these favoured 

 islands afford an almost perfect refuge for the weak- 

 lings who are unable to withstand the searching bitter 

 blasts of higher latitudes. Whether in the near future 

 the sense of the community will be favourable to the 

 idea which now prevails of preserving the unfit and 

 penalizing the useful for the support of the useless and 

 dangerous is another matter. 



I, for one, look forward to the time when the West 



