INTRODUCTORY. 



Although we were always travelling, this is no " Book 

 of Travels." No " useful information " will be found 

 in it about the places we went to. In truth, as far as 

 most of them were concerned, there is none to find. Therein 

 lay one of their great charms. Sometimes a scrap of 

 history has crept into our " reflections," derived from the 

 desultory doings of early discoverers, buccaneers, and 

 sea-rovers ; but by the simple lapse of time and the 

 glamour of adventure this history is no longer history — 

 it has become romance. But there will be little enough 

 even of this, for this book deals with " Desert Islands " 

 for the sake of what they are in themselves, and for the 

 sake of what they contain of beast and bird, of rocks and 

 Jand-flowers, of sea-flowers and coral-gardens. 



For six consecutive winters it was my good fortune 

 to accompany Sir Frederic Johnstone and his wife 

 Lady Wilton during some delightful yachting cruises in 

 the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico. During these 



