alf a mile or so away, through a break
in the chain of low islets, we could see the tumbling blue of the ocean,
and over the tree-tops the white spume of the breakers as they leapt
upon the iron-bound coast.

We made fast our canoe to a jutting point of rock and rested awhile and
smoked. The tide was on the flow, and as the water came swirling and
eddying in from the great passage in the reef five miles away, there
came with it countless thousands of fish of the mullet species, seeking
their food among the mangrove creeks and flats that lay behind us. They
did not swim in an orderly, methodical fashion, but leapt and spun and
danced about as if thrown up out of the water by some invisible power
beneath. Sometimes they would rise simultaneously, thousands at a time,
and, taking a leap, descend again with an extraordinary noise. Then,
quick as lightning, they would make three or four such leaps in
succession with the regularity and precision of machinery. Hovering and
fluttering above them on tireless wing were numbers of sea-birds, which
ever and again darted down amongst them and rose with hoarse, triumphant
note, prey in mouth.

We lay resting quietly till the incoming tide had spent its strength,
and then once more pushed out into the transparent depths of the lagoon.
Bight ahead of us, after another hour's paddling, lay a long, gleaming
point of sand covered with a grove of palms; beyond that a wide sweep of
pale green shallow water; beyond that again the wild tumble and fret of
the surf on the barrier reef.

Laying down our paddles--for we were now in shallow water--we took up
our three long canoe poles, and striking them on the hard, sandy bottom
in unison we sent the canoe spinning round to the point, and as we
rounded it there lay before us the brown roofs of the village of Leasse
nestling under the shade of its groves. This was, as I have said, to be
my home for many long but happy months.

V

The moment we came in sight of the village, Nana, the native who was
for'ard, stood up and gave a loud cry, which was immediately answered by
some invisible person near us; and then the cry was taken up by some one
else nearer the village. In a few minutes we saw the people coming out
of their queer-looking, saddle-backed dwellings and running down to the
beach, where, by the time we shot the canoe up on the sand, the whole
population was gathered to welcome us.

Standing a little in front of the rest of the v