the deep colors of the nature about them, and with the dark
complexions of the natives. Some very slender, graceful brown
lads are bathing with them,--lightly built as deer: these are
probably creoles. Some of the black bathers are clumsy-looking,
and have astonishingly long legs.... Then little boys come down,
leading horses;--they strip, leap naked on the animals' backs,
and ride into the sea,--yelling, screaming, splashing, in the
morning light. Some are a fine brown color, like old bronze.
Nothing could-be more statuesque than the unconscious attitudes
of these bronze bodies in leaping, wrestling, running, pitching
shells. Their simple grace is in admirable harmony with that of
Nature's green creations about them,--rhymes faultlessly with the
perfect self-balance of the palms that poise along the shore....

Boom! and a thunder-rolling of echoes. We move slowly out of
the harbor, then swiftly towards the southeast.... The island
seems to turn slowly half round; then to retreat from us. Across
our way appears a long band of green light, reaching over the sea
like a thin protraction of color from the extended spur of
verdure in which the western end of the island terminates. That
is a sunken reef, and a dangerous one. Lying high upon it, in
very sharp relief against the blue light, is a wrecked vessel on
her beam-ends,--the carcass of a brig. Her decks have been
broken in; the roofs of her cabins are gone; her masts are
splintered off short; her empty hold yawns naked to the sun; all
her upper parts have taken a yellowish-white color,--the color of
sun-bleached bone.

Behind us the mountains still float back. Their shining green
has changed to a less vivid hue; they are taking bluish tones