478 



CHARLES DARWIN 



but in most other points they are considered as slaves. From 

 their discontented state, from the repeated removals from 

 islet to islet, and perhaps also from a little mismanagement, 

 things are not very prosperous. The island has no domestic 

 quadruped, excepting the pig, and the main vegetable pro- 

 duction is the cocoa-nut. The whole prosperity of the place 

 depends on this tree : the only exports being oil from the nut, 

 and the nuts themselves, which are taken to Singapore and 

 Mauritius, where they are chiefly used, when grated, in mak- 

 ing curries. On the cocoa-nut, also, the pigs, which are 

 loaded with fat, almost entirely subsist, as do the ducks and 

 poultry. Even a huge land-crab is furnished by nature with 

 the means to open and feed on this most useful production. 



The ring-formed reef of the lagoon-island is surmounted 

 in the greater part of its length by linear islets. On the 

 northern or leeward side, there is an opening through which 

 vessels can pass to the anchorage within. On entering, the 

 scene was very curious and rather pretty; its beauty, how- 

 ever, entirely depended on the brilliancy of the surrounding 

 colours. The shallow, clear, and still water of the lagoon, 

 resting in its greater part on white sand, is, when illumined 

 by a vertical sun, of the most vivid green. This brilliant 

 expanse, several miles in width, is on all sides divided, either 

 by a line of snow-white breakers from the dark heaving 

 waters of the ocean, or from the blue vault of heaven by 

 the strips of land, crowned by the level tops of the cocoa- 

 nut trees. As a white cloud here and there affords a pleas- 

 ing contrast with the azure sky, so in the lagoon, bands of 

 living coral darken the emerald green water. 



The next morning after anchoring, I went on shore on 

 ' Direction Island. The strip of dry land is only a few hun- 

 dred yards in width ; on the lagoon side there is a white cal- 

 careous beach, the radiation from which under this sultry 

 climate was very oppressive ; and on the outer coast, a solid 

 broad flat of coral-rock served to break the violence of the 

 open sea. Excepting near the lagoon, where there is some 

 sand, the land is entirely composed of rounded fragments of 

 coral. In such a loose, dry, stony soil, the climate of the 

 intertropical regions alone could produce a vigorous vegeta- 

 tion. On some of the smaller islets, nothing could be more 



