THE INDIAN OCEAN 



coconut plantation to the water's edge and native 

 huts and villages of thatch. Canoes of strange 

 models lay drawn up on shelving beaches; queer 

 fish-pounds of brush reached out considerable 

 distances from the coast. The white surf pounded 

 on a yellow beach. 



All about these things was the jungle, hemming 

 in the plantations and villages, bordering the lagoons, 

 creeping down until it fairly overhung the yellow 

 beaches; as though, conqueror through all the 

 country beyond, it were half-inclined to dispute 

 dominion with old Ocean himself. It looked from 

 the distance like a thick, soft coverlet thrown down 

 over the country; following, or, rather, suggesting, 

 the inequalities. Through the glasses we were 

 occasionally able to peek under the edge of this 

 coverlet, and see where the fringe of the jungle drew 

 back in a little pocket, or to catch the sheen of 

 mysterious dark rivers slipping to the sea. Up 

 these dark rivers, by way of the entrances of these 

 tiny pockets, the imagination then could lead on 

 into the dimness beneath the sunlit upper surfaces. 



Toward the close of one afternoon we changed 

 our course slightly and swung in on a long slant 

 toward the coast. We did it casually; too casually 

 for so very important an action, for now at last we 

 were about to touch the mysterious continent. 



55 



