THE COMPLETED CORAL ISLAND. 



C. The Completed Coral Island. 



43 



The coral island in its best condition is bat a miserable resi- 

 dence for man. There is poetry in every feature : but the na- 

 tives find this a poor substitute for the breadfruit and yams of 

 more favored lands. The cocoanut and Pandanus are, in gene- 

 ral, the only products of the vegetable kingdom afforded for 

 their sustenance, and fish and crabs from the reefs their only ani- 

 mal food. Scanty too is the supply ; and infanticide is resorted 

 to in self-defence, where but a few years would otherwise over- 

 stock the half-a-dozen square miles of which their little world 

 consists. 



Yet there are more comforts than might be expected on a 

 land of so limited extent,-— without rivers, without hills, in the 

 midst of salt water, with the most elevated point but ten feet 

 above high tide, and no part more than 300 yards from the ocean. 

 Though the soil is light and the surface often strewed with 

 blocks of coral, there is a dense covering of vegetation to shade 

 the native villages from a tropical sun. The cocoanut, the tree 

 of a thousand uses, grows luxuriantly on the coral-made land, 

 after it has emerged from the ocean ; and the scanty dresses of 

 the natives, their drinking vessels and other utensils, mats, cord- 

 age, fishing-lines, and oil, besides food, drink, and building ma- 

 terial, are all supplied from it. The Pandanus or screw-pine 

 nourishes well, and is exactly fitted for such regions: as it en- 

 larges and spreads its branches, one prop after another grows out 

 from the trunk and plants itself in the ground; and by this 

 means its base is widened and the growing tree supported. The 

 fruit, a large ovoidal mass made up of oblong dry seed, diverging 

 from a centre, each near two cubic inches in size, affords a sweet- 

 ish husky article of food, which, though little better than pre- 

 pared corn stalks, admits of being stored away for use when 

 other things fail. The extensive reefs, abound in fish which are 

 easily captured, and the natives, with wooden hooks, often bring 

 in larger kinds from the deep waters. Prom such resources a 

 population of 10,000 persons is supported on the single island of 

 Taputeouea, whose whole habitable area does not exceed six 

 square miles.* 



Water is to be found commonly in sufficient quantities for the 

 use of the natives, although the land is so low and flat. They dig 

 wells five to ten feet deep in any part of the dry islets, and gene- 

 rally obtain a constant supply. These wells are sometimes 

 fenced around with special care ; and the houses of the villagers, 

 as at Fakaafo, are often clustered about them. On Aratica (Carls- 



* There are a few islands better supplied with vegetable food, though the above 

 statements are literally true of a large majority. 



