I.] THE GRATER-LAKES. 9 



Our first expedition to the crater - lakes, one of the most 

 interesting natural phenomena we met with in these Eastern seas, 

 was unsuccessful owing to bad weather, but the next day being fine, 

 we started early in the steam launch to visit them again. They 

 are situated on the south side of the island, about four miles distant 

 from the south-west point off wliich we had anchored, and running 

 'along shore inside the coral-reef, it was not long before we found 

 ourselves at the entrance. It was barely a couple of hundred yards 

 across, and as we glided slowly in, the pale milky-blue of the water 

 on the reef suddenly gave place to the deepest sapphire. We had 

 altered our depth from three feet to between fifty and sixty fathoms, 

 and it hardly needed a glance at the high surrounding walls and 

 circular shape of the basin to tell us that we were in the crater 

 of an extinct volcano into which the sea had at some later period 

 irrupted. A little island at the entrance marks its original boundary 

 on the side towards the sea, and from this and the almost unbroken 

 regularity of the basin's circle it is evident that, if the land were 

 at the same level then as now, the sea had to encroach but little 

 to burst into the deep hollow which it fills at the present tune. 



The little lake and its surroundings were fairy-like in their 

 beauty, but so peculiar in character, and so rich in the troj)ical 

 luxuriance of foliage as to give an almost theatrical effect. Around 

 us the dense jungle overhung the water, completely precluding any 

 attempt to land, and clothed the steep walls of the crater to a height 

 of two hundred feet or more. Giant creepers had sprung from tree 

 to tree, and, choking the struggling vegetable life beneath them 

 with an impenetrable mass of foliage, hung in long trailers towards 

 the margin of the water below, — a wealth of green of every imagin- 

 able shade. It has been said over and over again by travellers 

 that the great masses of colour so often seen in the landscapes of 

 the temperate zone are in the tropics rare in the extreme. In 

 the dense forests of the latter the glorious orchids and other flowers 

 which are the pride of our hothouses at home are not in reality 

 uncommon. But they are for the most part hidden l^y the thick 



