INTRODUCTION xxiii 



to the ground, or wasted and carried away by the sea. I could 

 scarcely credit my eyes when daylight came ; the wreckage was 

 so thorough and complete that the islands were unrecognisable. 

 Of my plantations of coconuts I am sure that not more than 

 one tree in a hundred stood it; in consequence I have lost 

 800,000 trees, more or less. As for lighters and boats, more 

 than 40 per cent, are lost, broken, or damaged. 



" Altogether only five buildings stood upright, and these 

 without roofs upon them. The Avhole of that night we were 

 practically under water or in the water, wet and miserably 

 bedraggled. Fortunately only one man was killed right off 

 by a falling tree, and another died of exposure. It was simply 

 miraculous how the people were saved, and the tales of their 

 sufferings during that night are beyond belief. They were 

 scattered by the seas all over the islands, and one can only say 

 that Providence guided them into safety. 



" We are plagued by mosquitoes, flies and other insects, all 

 of varieties that I do not even recognise — and they pester the 

 whole group, and make life a burden." 



It is a sad duty to add this letter to the description I have 

 given of the prosperity and order of the settlement as I 

 last saw it. If it is permissible to extract interest from such a 

 disaster, I would call attention to the importance of the arrival 

 of presumed new species of insects with the wind. Again, the 

 fact that the waves swept right over the islands, and deposited 

 sand upon a tower fifty feet high, will serve to bring home to 

 those who do not believe in the power of waves to shape atolls, 

 and move " negro-heads," that the waves of the storm-driven 

 blue ocean are not to be pictured at an inland fireside. 



ADDENDUM TO RE-ISSUE 



In Api-il 1910, the Governor, whose ill-health had been aggravated bj^ 

 the hardships experienced during the cyclone, sailed for England. He 

 was not fated to return. On July 7, 1910, he died in the island from 

 which some three hundred years before, William Keeling had set out on 

 his voyages of discovery. Keeling lies buried at Carisbrook, wliile hard 

 by in Bonchurch churchyard George Clunies-Eoss has found his last 

 resting-place. 



