8 A NATURALIST ON DESERT ISLANDS. 



By three o'clock we had reached the western end of the 

 islands, and Captain Lebbem had begun to cast about 

 for a hkely-looking approach over the coral banks to the 

 only anchorage which is mentioned in the " West India 

 Pilot." This anchorage is situated at the extreme end 

 of the island, in an ideal little bay, such as one has always 

 associated with the coral islands of one's boyhood, and 

 where, as we were soon to discover, Hved the only 

 dwellers on the island. It is graven in indelible lines 

 upon our memory — a rocky headland overgrown with 

 cocoanut palms : a sickle-shaped beach of gleaming 

 white sand ; a rustic jetty pushed out through the 

 foaming send of the swell into the gin-clear water, where 

 ever and anon big shoals of fry glitter and flash in the sun ; 

 a weather-worn bungalow, lichen-stained and grey, 

 set a little back in the open clearing at the head of the 

 bay, where countless goings to and fro have beaten down 

 the coarse herbage and produced a short crisp turf ; a 

 tall flag-staff, a little to the right of the bungalow ; a 

 mango tree or two spreading their welcome shade on the 

 green, almost English-looking, turf ; and then, for a back- 

 ground, a dense wall of forest-trees which mark the Hmita 

 of the homestead. 



But how to reach it was the question ; for the wide- 

 flung coral banks might be studded with half-a-dozen 

 hidden danger-spots lurking beneath the smooth water, 

 and Swan Island so far has not been deemed important 

 enough to be charted. The approach over these coral 

 banks is, in fact, just a little sensational, for the water 

 is not only so absolutely clear that every rock and every 

 patch of weed or waving sea-fans can be seen with almost 

 painful distinctness down below, but the clearness of it 

 gives one the impression that it is nothing like so deep 

 as it really is. It was rather Hke passing over a chess- 

 board, the black squares being represented by ugly -looking 

 patches of coral rock, the white by patches of gleaming 

 sand, which varied as we got nearer and nearer to the 

 island from a greenish-blue colour to that of a pale 



