62 JUNGLE PEACE 



and said to be the most densely populated bit 

 of land in the world; all of which guide-book 

 gossip was discouraging to a naturalist. But 

 besides the cemetery which was sanctuary for 

 the jolly little lizards, I found a bit of unspoilt 

 beach, with sand as white and fine as talcum 

 powder, where dwelt undisturbed many assem- 

 blages of small folk. There were land-crabs 

 which had come to have at heart more affection 

 for the vegetable gardens at the beach top than 

 for the waters of their forefathers. They had 

 degenerated into mere commuters from their 

 holes to the nearest melon patch. The lower 

 part of the beach was that ever changing zone 

 — that altar upon which each tide deposited 

 some offering from the depths of the sea. This 

 will some day have a worthy interpreter, a sym- 

 pathetic recorder and commentator who will 

 make a marvelous volume of this intermittent 

 thread of the earth's surface, pulsing, chang- 

 ing — now showing as water, now as land — but 

 always vital with exciting happenings. 



I sat for an hour on the upper beach and 

 watched the little native folk, autochthones who 

 for innumerable generations had been so loyal to 

 their arenaceous home that the sheltering mantle 



