444 KEELING ISLAND. [chap. xx. 



the heaviness of their steps, and the air resounded with 

 their wild cries. Every one appeared in high spirits, and 

 the group of nearly naked figures, viewed by the light of 

 the blazing fires, all moving in hideous harmony, formed 

 a perfect display of a festival amongst the lowest barbarians. 

 In Tierra del Fuego, we have beheld many curious scenes 

 in savage life, but never, I think, one where the natives 

 were in such high spirits, and so perfectly at their ease. 

 After the dancing was over, the whole party formed a 

 great circle on the ground, and the boiled rice and sugar 

 was distributed, to the delight of all. 



After several tedious delays from clouded weather, on 

 the 14th of March we gladly stood out of King George's 

 Sound on our course to Keeling Island. Farewell, 

 Australia ! you are a rising child, and doubtless some day 

 will reign a great princess in the South ; but you are too 

 great and ambitious for affection, yet not great enough for 

 respect. I leave your shores without sorrow or regret. 



CHAPTER XX. 



KEELING ISLAND : — CORAL FORMATIONS. 



I 



Keeling Island — Singular appearance — Scanty Flora — Transport 

 of Seeds — Birds and Insects — Ebbing and flowing Springs 

 — Fields of dead Coral — Stones transported in the roots of 

 Trees — Great Crab — Stinging Corals — Coral-eating Fish — 

 Coral Formations — Lagoon Islands or Atolls — Depth at 

 which Reef-building Corals can Live — Vast Areas inter- 

 spersed with low Coral Islands — Subsidence of their 

 foundations — Barrier Reefs — Fringing Reefs — Conversion 

 of Fringing Reefs into Barrier Reefs, and into Atolls — 

 Evidence of changes in Level — Breaches in Barrier Reefs — 

 Maldiva Atolls ; their peculiar structure — Dead and sub- 

 merged Reefs — Areas of subsidence and elevation — Dis- 

 tribution of Volcanoes — Subsidence slow, and vast in 

 amount. 



April 1st. — We arrived in view of the Keeling or Cocos 

 Islands, situated in the Indian Ocean, and about six 

 hundred miles distant from the coast of Sumatra. This 

 is one of the lagoon-islands (or atolls) of coral formation, 

 similar to those in the Low Archipelago which we passed 

 near. When the ship was in the channel at the entrance, 



