482 
KEELING ISLAND 
CHAP. 
years ago, Mr. Hare, a worthless character, brought from the 
East Indian archipelago a number of Malay slaves, which now, 
including children, amount to more than a hundred. Shortly 
afterwards Captain Ross, who had before visited these islands 
in his merchant-ship, arrived from England, bringing with him 
his family and goods for settlement: along with him came Mr. 
Liesk, who had been a mate in his vessel. The Malay slaves 
soon ran away from the islet on which Mr. Hare was settled, 
and joined Captain Ross's party. Mr. Hare upon this was 
ultimately obliged to leave the place. 
The Malays are now nominally in a state of freedom, and 
certainly are so as far as regards their personal treatment ; 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 production 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 making 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, however, 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 pleasing contrast with the azure sky, so in the 
lagoon bands of living coral darken the emerald green water. 
