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per Island, wliicli at low-tide is not separated from the main island, are 
cleared on account of some cattle of which, the lighthouse-keeper has 
charge. Throughout the rest of the island, however, except for a few 
pathways that have been cut on account of the cattle, the jungle is very 
dense and uniform. Around a bay at the south side of this island as well 
as on the north coast is a fringe of coco-nut trees. The height of Slipper 
Island is 110 feet; the highest point of Table Island proper is 150 feet. 
On the occasion of the visit referred to, the eastern half of the island, 
where the jungle is as yet intact, was traversed from south to north; the 
northern and westeim coasts were examined ; the island was traversed from 
west to east along one of the cattle paths ; the clearing was also examined 
for introduced weeds and escapes from cultivation. 
On Great Coco Island there is a small clearing on a peninsula that 
forms the north-eastern extremity of the island, the site of an abandoned 
settlement which, some years ago, it was attempted to effect and where 
the writer was encamped during his first visit. Except at this point and 
on two or thi’ee of the more exposed cliffs and slopes on the western sea- 
face of the island, which are only grass-clad, there is a uniform jungle 
from end to end of the island and from base to summit of the numerous 
more or less parallel steep ridges that compose it. The shore is fringed 
with coco-nut trees in quite a thin belt where the ridges that compose the 
island come close to the shore, and this fringe is broken here and there 
where these ridges end in abrupt headlands ; the belt widens however at 
the heads of the various bays and in two places in particular,—on the 
eastern side of the island along the bay that extends southward from the 
north-eastern peninsula already mentioned, as well as across the isthmus 
joining this peninsula to the main island and thence along the northern 
end of the island to the mouth of the principal creek—again, on the 
western side of the island for half a mile or more northwards from the 
southern end—this belt of coco-nut trees is 100 yards or moi’e in width. 
Where the beach meets the coco-nut belt there is an invariable sea-fence 
of Pandanus with other ordinary Indian Ocean littoral plants; this fence 
is generally less dense where the beach is composed of sand than when it 
consists of coral shingle. Except on the very crests of the ridges, and 
sometimes even there, and on the more exposed western headlands, the 
forest is composed of very tall trees with below these a dense under¬ 
growth ; this undergrowth is particularly dense, owing to the number 
of creepers, on the crest of ridges destitute of tall trees, and on the 
slopes of the western sea-face that are not grassy. It is also very dense 
immediately behind the coco-nut belt especially if, as frequently hap¬ 
pens, this belt passes insensibly into the mudflats that characterise the 
outskirts of a mangrove swamp. On the sides of ridges however, as 
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