in my islands--elevations and subsidences, separations and reunions,
which helped to modify the life of the group considerably. Indeed,
volcanic action was constantly at work altering the shapes and sizes of
the different rocky mountain-tops, and bringing now one, now another,
into closer relations than before with its neighbours. Why, as recently
as 1811 (a date which is so fresh in my memory that I could hardly
forget it) a new island was suddenly formed by submarine eruption off
the coast of St. Michael's, to which the name of Sabrina was
momentarily given by your human geographers. It was about a mile around
and 300 feet high; but, consisting as it did of loose cinders only, it
was soon washed away by the force of the waves in that stormy region. I
merely mention it here to show how recently volcanic changes have taken
place in my islands, and how continuously the internal energy has been
at work modifying and re-arranging them.

Up to the moment of the arrival of man in the archipelago the whole
population, animal and vegetable, consisted entirely of these waifs and
strays, blown out to sea from Europe or Africa, and modified more or
less on the spot in accordance with the varying needs of their new
home. But the advent of the obtrusive human species spoilt the game at
once for an independent observer. Man immediately introduced oranges,
bananas, sweet potatoes, grapes, plums, almonds, and many other trees
or shrubs, in which, for selfish reasons, he was personally interested.
At the same time he quite unconsciously and unintentionally stocked the
islands with a fine vigorous crop of European weeds, so that the number
of kinds of flowering plants included in the modern flora of my little
archipelago exceeds, I think, by fully one-half that which I remember
before the date of the Portuguese occupation. In the same way, besides
his domestic animals, this spoil-sport colonist man brought in his
train accidentally rabbits, weasels, mice, and rats, which now abound