OF THE SOUTH SEAS 139 



There was a little canoe under a noble cocoanut-tree 

 on the shell-strewn and crab-haunted coral beach, the 

 roots of the palm partly covered by the salt water, and 

 partly by a tangle of lilac marine convolvulus. I 

 pushed the tiny craft into the brine, and paddled off 

 on the still water of the shining lagoon. 



No faintest agitation of the surface withheld a clear 

 view of the marvelous growths upon the bottom. I 

 peered into a garden of white and vari-colored flowers 

 of stone, of fans and vases and grotesque shapes, huge 

 sponges and waving bushes and stunted trees. Fish of 

 a score of shapes and of all colors of the spectrum wove 

 in and out the branches and caverns of this wondrous 

 parterre. 



Past the creamy reef the purple ocean glittered in the 

 nooning sun, while the motionless waters of the lagoon 

 were turquoise and bice near by and virescent in the dis- 

 tance. Looking toward the shore, the edge of milky 

 coral sand met the green matting of moss and grass, and 

 then the eye marked the fields of sugar-cane, the forests 

 of false coffee on which grew the vanilla-vines, the groves 

 of cocoanuts, and then the fast-climbing ridges and the 

 glorious ravines, the misty heights and the grim crags. 



