OF THE SOUTH SEAS 369 



in the canoes, and the joyous landing and counting of 

 the catch — all these were things never to be forgotten, 

 pictures to be unveiled in drabber scenes or on white 

 nights of sleeplessness. 



The sponges were oddities hard to recognize as the 

 tender toilet article. Some were soft and some were 

 full of grit. The grit was their skeletons, for every 

 sponge has a skeleton except three or four very low 

 specimens, and some without personal skeletons import 

 them by attraction and make up a frame from foreign 

 bodies. I examined and admired them, reasoning that 

 I myself, in the debut of living creatures, was close in 

 appearance to one ; but my basic interest in them was to 

 sit on them. 



Many times I went only to where the coral began, 

 half-way to the reef. This was away from the path of 

 the Vairahaha River, and where the coral souls had 

 manifestlj'^ indulged a thousand fancies in contour and 

 color. After the million years of their labor in throw- 

 ing up the bastion of the reef, with all its architectural 

 niceties, they had found in the repose behind it oppor- 

 tunities for the indulgence of their artistry. They were 

 the sculptors, painters, and gardeners of the lagoon. 



I brought with me a lunette, the diver's aid, a four- 

 sided wooden frame fifteen inches each way, with a bot- 

 tom of glass and no top. I stuck my head in the box 

 and looked through the glass, which I thrust below the 

 surface, thus evading the opaqueness or distortion 

 caused by the ripples. One did not need this inven- 

 tion ordinarily, for the water was as clear as air when 

 undisturbed, and the garden of the sea gods was a 

 brilliant and moving spectacle below my drifting canoe. 



