280 
Wild Life in Southern Seas. 
smoke nor fog, but the spray of the wild surf 
beating unceasingly against the long, mono¬ 
tonous line of grim and savage-looking cliffs 
that rear their dreaded fronts from Makefu to 
Fatiau. All day long, be the sea as smooth 
as glass oceanwards, or be the trade wind gone 
to sleep, the narrow ledge of black and jagged 
coral reef that here and there juts out at the 
foot of the forbidding wall of grey is smothered 
in the boil and tumble of the restless breakers; 
and where there is no shelving reef to first 
arrest and break their fury, the huge sweeping 
seas race madly inward, and with the roar of 
heavy artillery fling themselves in quick and 
endless succession against the face of the 
perpendicular cliffs, to pour back in sweeping 
clouds of snowy foam. Sometimes, if the 
south-east trade is blowing lustily, the roar 
and crash of the surf seems to shake and vibrate 
the coral wall to its foundations, and the thick 
and matted scrub that lines the summits of 
the cliffs to their very verge is drenched and 
flattened by the sheeted spray, and the swaying 
fronds of the coconut-palms growing further 
back from the shore are wetted and soaked by 
the lighter spume. 
