far more near the average, I will describe the soil and productions
of Fakarava. The surface of that narrow strip is for the more part
of broken coral lime-stone, like volcanic clinkers, and
excruciating to the naked foot; in some atolls, I believe, not in
Fakarava, it gives a fine metallic ring when struck. Here and
there you come upon a bank of sand, exceeding fine and white, and
these parts are the least productive. The plants (such as they
are) spring from and love the broken coral, whence they grow with
that wonderful verdancy that makes the beauty of the atoll from the
sea. The coco-palm in particular luxuriates in that stern solum,
striking down his roots to the brackish, percolated water, and
bearing his green head in the wind with every evidence of health
and pleasure. And yet even the coco-palm must be helped in infancy
with some extraneous nutriment, and through much of the low
archipelago there is planted with each nut a piece of ship's
biscuit and a rusty nail. The pandanus comes next in importance,
being also a food tree; and he, too, does bravely. A green bush
called miki runs everywhere; occasionally a purao is seen; and
there are several useless weeds. According to M. Cuzent, the whole
number of plants on an atoll such as Fakarava will scarce exceed,
even if it reaches to, one score. Not a blade of grass appears;
not a grain of humus, save when a sack or two has been imported to
make the semblance of a garden; such gardens as bloom in cities on
the window-sill. Insect life is sometimes dense; a cloud o'
mosquitoes, and, what is far worse, a plague of flies blackening
our food, has sometimes driven us from a meal on Apemama; and even
in Fakarava the mosquitoes were a pest. The land crab may be seen
scuttling to his hole, and at night the rats besiege the houses and
the artificial gardens. The crab is good eating; possibly so is
the rat; I have not tried. Pandanus fruit is made, in the