200 AT MINNIKOY 



charmed with the quiet air of prosperity that pervades 

 the island and with the happy combination of inno- 

 cence and primitive civilisation that exists. Things, 

 in fact, remind one of the stories of our own early 

 ancestors, but without the violence and tyranny of 

 those somewhat brutal times ; for here as then, wealth 

 is reckoned, not in banker's scrip, but chiefly in kind ; 

 so that, for example, the value of a fishing-smack is 

 estimated in bags of rice. And though industry is 

 a virtue and idleness is in the lowest degree discredit- 

 able, yet everyone is not absorbed body and soul in 

 gain, and there is not enough accumulation of wealth 

 for anyone to have too much of it. But although 

 there are no feuds between patrician and plebeian or 

 between capital and labour, yet, as in all such 

 primitive societies, the blind elemental forces of Nature 

 often bring about a sudden and acute desolation that 

 is worse than any amount of the chronic discomfort 

 that accompanies a higher civilisation. It is not 

 so much that hurricanes sometimes uproot by the 

 thousand the coconut palms that form the nucleus of 

 their slender capital, and wreck the little trading-fleets 

 that may be carrying the greater part of a season's 

 rent and wages and interest, or even that epidemics, 

 occasionally falling on such virgin soil, may spread 

 like wildfire : Omnes eodem cogimur, and things of 

 this sort may happen anywhere. But the peculiar 

 terror which hangs over these small islands that rise 



