16 A NATURALIST ON DESERT ISLANDS. 



From where we sit smoking, with our back against the 

 stone-Hke trunk of a pabn, we can see the long seaward 

 margin of the plantation, and note its grandly beautiful, 

 sweeping curve, as it faithfully follows the very verge 

 of the land ; a sight which to our mind is one of the most 

 beautiful things in nature. 



The sea has piled up the sand of the beach into a 

 long gentle slope, the top of which only stops abruptly 

 at the very foot of the over-arching trees. Just 

 where the dainty, lace-like fringe of the thinly 

 spread surf , reaches its ultimate limit on the sand, is a long 

 wavy line of feathery, sun-bleached jetsam — ^the dead 

 remains of dehcate sea- weeds, various kinds of sponges, 

 tufts of encrusted Millipores and the pale mauve of fan- 

 shaped Gorgonias. Farther away, where the beach loses 

 the protection of the reef, great sheets of creamy surf go 

 sweeping up the broad slopes of sand, advancing and 

 receding in irregular sequences, far as the eye can follow 

 them, and forming momentary patches of gleaming white 

 upon the golden carpet. Beyond the reef, the eye ranges 

 outwards over the glittering sea, till it reaches the line 

 of the big white Trade clouds which sit upon its very 

 edge. 



Husking cocoanuts is not nearly so nice as sitting 

 by like this and seeing it done. It is a wearisome task, 

 but a good man will husk fifteen hundred in a day. 

 When up to a certain standard size they will fetch 

 four pounds a thousand. The "laird "told me he had 

 four thousand five hundred trees in full bearing, with 

 three thousand young ones coming on, and plenty of 

 room to plant more. When you come to think of it, it is 

 an astounding thing what an incredible number of 

 cocoanuts are used up yearly for the world's wants. 

 From the two small islands of Cayman Brae and Little 

 Cayman, which lie about two hundred miles to the 

 north of this island, and which are each about nine 

 miles long by one-and-a-half miles broad, two million 

 nuts are annually exported. 



