THE INDIAN OCEAN. 813 



rounded the Cape of Good Hope, and penetrated to 

 climes which liad hitherto Ijeen invested with all the 

 romance of mystery and fable ; then commencing a 

 commerce which has poured incalculable wealth into 

 the lap of Europe. 



This immense archipelago, which occupies a tract 

 of the Ocean four thousand miles in length, and 

 fourteen hundred in breadth, is an assemblage of 

 islands perfectly unique. The multitudinous islets 

 of the Pacific, if all united, would not tooether form 

 a third-rate island of this group. The land, though 

 broken with countless thousands of isles, so equally 

 divides the space with the sea, that one is at a loss 

 to say which predominates. A large majority of the 

 smaller isles and reefs are of the same structure as 

 the coral atolls of Polynesia, and present a similar 

 character in their zoology and botany ; but the larger 

 tracts of land, almost a continent in their dimensions, 

 are of the old formations. The widely-scattered 

 groups of small islands on the northern boundary, 

 indeed, — the Ladrones, the Carolines, the Pelews, &c., 

 we are at a loss to distinguish : they are usually 

 arranged in the Indian Archipelago, while they are 

 decidedly Polynesian in their characters. 



The boats which are used by the natives of these 

 islands, from their very peculiar construction, as well 

 as from their unrivalled powers of sailing, demand 

 a moment's notice. Lord Anson, who first met with 

 them at the Ladrone Islands, and who calls them 

 flying proas, considers them " so singular and extra- 

 ordinary an invention, that it would do honour to 

 any nation, however dexterous and acute. Since, 



