248 TROPIC DAYS 



pellets which to the tenderest ripple are but the play- 

 thing of a moment, so are the lives of the shy crustaceans 

 spent. What may be the motive for the perpetual 

 labour, as useless, apparently, as the rolling of Sisyphus 's 

 stone ? For part of the year the beach is the resort 

 of the red-necked sandpiper, which has an enormous 

 appetite for the small, live things of the sea's margin. 

 To bewilder the birds and so reduce the risk to life, 

 Nature imposes the task upon the crabs of forming 

 replicas of themselves not readily distinguishable in 

 size and tint, which represent labour unconsciously 

 expended as life insurance, and serve the subsidiary 

 purpose of detecting the passing of man. 



What material has been left by the wayside for the 

 history, not to be altogether despised because of its 

 rusticity, of the unstable ways of one of the ancient 

 peoples of the world, now few in numbers, forgetful 

 of the past, estranged from the customs of their fathers, 

 and dying without mourners and without records ? 

 Search the sites of camps the track passes, and there 

 is naught to tell of the manner of those who recently 

 occupied them save a tomahawk or a rare domestic 

 implement of stone, and such stones do not preach 

 thrilling but distinctive sermons. Why hurry along this 

 pleasant way ? Is not the one domestic appliance of 

 the long-deserted camps worthy of passing notice ? 

 There it rests, half buried in the sand a worn stone, 

 with two others complementary to it to be had for the 

 searching. It is meet that the most primitive of mills 

 should be examined, and that one of the several and 

 slow processes by which a poisonous, repugnant, and 

 intractable nut was wont to be converted into food 

 should be cited to the credit of the economic forethought 

 of the most thriftless of people. 

 On^adjacent flats and slopes grow survivals from one 



