7^- THE COCOS-EEELING ISLANDS. 21 



affectionate relations existing between The House and the Cocos 

 village. I noted little presents of first ripe fruit, or specially- 

 large eggs constantly being offered. When a death occurs— 

 as one did during my visit— it is felt by each individual as if 

 the departed had been of his own family. The interment 

 takes place as soon as possible, and the usual vocations are 

 resumed at once, every one trying, as best he may, to seem as 

 if lie had forgotten that they were one fewer. That in their 

 relations one with another there should be perfection, is not to 

 be expected, but a finer and more upright community I have 

 never known ; not a simpler or more guileless people — many 

 of whom have never known, and never seen a world wider than 

 their own atoll, which can be surveyed in a single glance of 

 the eye ; and I feel more than half confident that the English 

 Service for the Dead has been said over, and that beneath the 

 coral shingle of Grave Islet there rest, as blameless lives as 

 perhaps our weak humanity can attain to. 



The labourers' village is neatly kept, and though the coolies 

 live under a stricter regime, they are treated liberally and 

 kindly, and housed in comfortable dwellings. Their children 

 are educated along with the Cocos children. Should a head of 

 a family die, his children are, at the mother's option, sent 

 back to their native place in Java, or if she elect, she and 

 they may throw in their lot with, and after a certain probation 

 become, Cocos people. Malay is the language spoken in both 

 villages, though many of the Cocos people understand English. 



As this was my first acquaintance with living coral formation, 

 everything about me had the interest of novelty. My first 

 morning's walk was to the seaward margin of the reef. As half 

 a century is hardly a day's life in the existence of an atoll, Mr. 

 Darwin's accurate description of that part of it might have 

 been written the day before. The waves so continually break 

 on the sJiore, that it is difiicult, except on the very stillest 

 days, to examine the coral on the furthest margin ; yet I got 

 every now and then, on the recoil of the waves, a good view of 

 the shoals of Scarus feeding in the surf on the living coral. 

 They are furnished on the front of their heads with soft pads, 

 so as to be able to retain their position undisturbed among the 

 breakers, by squeezing hard up against the uneven wall, while 

 they are gnawing off the tips of the living polyps. During 



