CHAPTER VIII. 



" A YOUNG AND RISING " ISLAND. 



Buccaneers, birds, and turtles were not the only subjects 

 on which the " laird " held forth. One day, for instance, 

 while we were sitting on the verandah, smoking and 

 watching the sun gradually disappear on the other side 

 of Yucatan, he began to talk about building a new 

 bungalow. From this we went on to discuss the question 

 of building material and the cost of transport, until at 

 length the conversation touched bottom at flagstones. 



Now any kind of " stone " on a coral island, except those 

 which drift there by accident, entangled in the roots of 

 trees, are, as anyone knows, as rare as strawberries at 

 Christmas time. Therefore, when the " laird " volun- 

 teered the remark that among the natural productions 

 of the island are flagstones, or great slabs of the hardest 

 rock imaginable, I expressed a little incredulity, and 

 suggested that possibly this " stone " might be simply 

 coral rock which had been acted upon by rain and sun, 

 and so rendered homogeneous and hard. 



Whereupon, some one was sent for what took the place 

 of the coal hammer on the island ; and armed with this 

 we sallied forth to the larder, at the threshold of which 

 was laid a long oblong block of worked stone. It rang 

 hard and tough, like a true flagstone would ; and looked 

 like one ; not like the flat metal-ringing slabs of pure coral 

 limestone one sees on an upraised sun-scorched reef. 



"And now," said the laird, " I will shew you our quarry 

 and from the larder w^e proceeded dora to the beach at 



