e
shore--except for a break of some two miles in length at the point where
Polson had detected indications of a cove or an inner harbour.

This much determined, I hailed the deck, instructing the boatswain to
haul up to the southward; and when we had brought the passage through
the reef in line with the summit of the peak I again hailed him to take
the bearings of the latter, to serve as a guide when running for the
passage on the morrow. This bearing I found to be north-west by west-a-
quarter-west, of which I made a note in my pocket book.

The sun was within half an hour of setting when at length, having
closely skirted the southern shore of the island, we opened out its
western side, which, all aglow as it was in the golden light of evening,
presented a picture of absolutely fairy-like beauty, its wooded slopes
revealing in the nearer distances a thousand varied tints of verdure,
from brilliant yellow to deepest olive, relieved here and there by great
patches of white, scarlet, purple, and other lovely tints that could
only proceed from immense masses of blossom of some kind. As this blaze
of rich and varied colour receded from the eye into the middle and more
remote distances, it gradually merged into an all-pervading tint of
delicate, exquisite, ethereal grey.

With the gradual unfolding of the charming picture presented by the
western side of the island--which seemed to throw all hands down on deck
into ecstasies of delight, judging from the continuous exclamations of
rapture that reached me from below as fresh beauties swung into view
with the progress of the ship--it became apparent that the barrier reef
existed only on the eastern side of the island; but the fringing reef
seemed to run all round it, with a narrow margin of dazzlingly white
coral sand above high-water mark. The land seemed to rise everywhere
from the beach at a very gentle slope; and the vegetation came down
right to the inner margin of the sand. In fact there was a thick fringe
of what I took to be coconut trees growing all along the edge of the
beach, and encroaching upon it so far in places, that the roots of the
trees must be actually washed by the salt water at the top of the spring
tides. But, search the shore as carefully as I might--and now that we
were to leeward of the island I did not hesitate to approach the ship to
within a quarter of a mile of the edge of the reef, in order that I
might obtain the best possible view--I coul