landward by a bulk of shattered mountains. In every crevice of
that barrier the forest harboured, roosting and nestling there like
birds about a ruin; and far above, it greened and roughened the
razor edges of the summit.

Under the eastern shore, our schooner, now bereft of any breeze,
continued to creep in: the smart creature, when once under way,
appearing motive in herself. From close aboard arose the bleating
of young lambs; a bird sang in the hillside; the scent of the land
and of a hundred fruits or flowers flowed forth to meet us; and,
presently, a house or two appeared, standing high upon the ankles
of the hills, and one of these surrounded with what seemed a
garden. These conspicuous habitations, that patch of culture, had
we but known it, were a mark of the passage of whites; and we might
have approached a hundred islands and not found their parallel. It
was longer ere we spied the native village, standing (in the
universal fashion) close upon a curve of beach, close under a grove
of palms; the sea in front growling and whitening on a concave arc
of reef. For the cocoa-tree and the island man are both lovers and
neighbours of the surf. 'The coral waxes, the palm grows, but man
departs,' says the sad Tahitian proverb; but they are all three, so
long as they endure, co-haunters of the beach. The mark of
anchorage was a blow-hole in the rocks, near the south-easterly
corner of the bay. Punctually to our use, the blow-hole spouted;
the schooner turned upon her heel; the anchor plunged. It was a
small sound, a great event; my soul went down with these moorings
whence no windlass may extract nor any diver fish it up; and I, and
some part of my ship's company, were from that hour the bondslaves
of the isles of Vivien.