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.
The next morning after anchoring I went on shore on Direction
Island.
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