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the general populace? A religion whose rites were so fearsome or so 
holy to the devotees as to preclude their celebration in public or 
their raention in story so that with the decadenoe of the older people 
? 
all Knowledge of their form or place has disappeared. 
Such ponderings appear ^especially appropriate as one reclines 
at dusk on a oot perched on a rocky ledge high above the sea, with 
the wash and orash of waves as a ba&cground for a mosaic of sounds, 
formed by the yelping of terns, the croaking of circling boobies, and 
the soft barking notes of gentle petrels among the rook crevices near 
one* s head. Or when, as one awakens when the first rays of dawn touch 
the olouds at the horizon, untold thousands of terns,, as if at a 
preconcerted signal rush out from the rocks in a va3t cloud to greet 
approaching day. In the cold light of mid-day the stone temples of 
Seeker present a problem whose mysteries still remain to be solved. 
It is strange that neither here nor on Kihoa were we sucoessful in 
discovering ancient human burials whose bcsies might aid in tolling 
who the anoient visitors to the island may have been. 
Islands of coral sand. 
Like La Perouse after leaving Seeker, we continued west until 
we sighted a pinnacle rock and a little later the line of breakers that 
M 
guard the lagoon at PrsnCh irrigates Shoal, a spot named by the famous 
French explorer in honor of his gallant ships, appellation suggested in 
all probability by tjxe foim of the rook, which has a orude resemblance to 
a ship under sail. With the Tanaggr at anchor in the calm water south 
of the reefs we crossed in the surf and whale boats to Last Island to 
