r we have not landed on a tropic
island, for I shall not count civilised Singapore; but very soon we
shall take to our own boat and coast along here and there, landing where
we please, and you shall have nature's wonders and natural history to
your heart's content. Look there," he said softly; "there is a
beginning for you. Do you see that?"

He pointed down into the gloriously blue clear water, illumined by the
sunshine, which made it flash wherever there was the slightest ripple.

"Yes, I can see some lovely little fish, uncle," I said. "Why, they are
all striped like perch. There's one all blue and scarlet. Oh! I wish
I could catch him."

"No, no; farther down there, where those pink weeds are waving on that
deep-brown mass of coral. What's that?"

"Why, it's a great eel, uncle. What a length! and how thin! How it is
winding in and out amongst the weed! Is it an eel?"

"No, Nat; it is a snake--a sea-snake; and there is another, and another.
They are very dangerous too."

"Are they poisonous, then?" I said.

"Extremely. Their bite is often fatal, Nat, so beware of them if ever
you see one caught."

We had a fine opportunity for watching the movements of these snakes,
for several came into sight, passing through the water in that peculiar
waving manner that is seen in an eel; but a breeze springing up soon
after, the sail filled out, and once more we glided rapidly over the
beautiful sea.

I call it beautiful sea, for those who have merely looked upon the ocean
from our own coasts have no conception of the grandeur of the tropic
seas amongst the many islands of the Eastern Archipelago, where the
water is as bright as lapis lazuli, as clear as crystal, and the
powerful sun lights up its depths, and displays beauties of submarine
growth at which the eye never tires of gazing.

It used to worry me sometimes that we had not longer calms to enable me
to get down into the little boat and lie flat, with my face as close to
the water as I could place it, looking into what was to me a new world,
full of gorgeous corals and other Zoophytes, some motionless, others all
in action. Scarlet, purple, blue, yellow, crimson, and rich ruddy
brown, they looked to me like flowers amongst the singular waving weeds
that rose from the rocks below.

Here fishes as brilliant in colours, but more curious in shape, than the
pets of our glass globes at home, sailed in and out, chasing the insects
or one another, their s