I May Add, That I Have
Heard It Stated In Shropshire, That Sheep, Which Have Been
Imported From Vessels, Although Themselves In A Healthy
Condition, If Placed In The Same Fold With Others, Frequently
Produce Sickness In The Flock.
[4] Travels in Australia, vol.
I. p. 154. I must express my
obligation to Sir T. Mitchell, for several interesting personal
communications on the subject of these great valleys of New
South Wales.
[5] I was interested by finding here the hollow conical pitfall
of the lion-ant, or some other insect; first a fly fell down the
treacherous slope and immediately disappeared; then came a large
but unwary ant; its struggles to escape being very violent,
those curious little jets of sand, described by Kirby and Spence
(Entomol., vol. i. p. 425) as being flirted by the insect's
tail, were promptly directed against the expected victim. But
the ant enjoyed a better fate than the fly, and escaped the
fatal jaws which lay concealed at the base of the conical
hollow. This Australian pitfall was only about half the size of
that made by the European lion-ant.
[6] Physical Description of New South Wales and Van Diemen's
Land, p. 354.
CHAPTER XX
KEELING ISLAND: - CORAL FORMATIONS
Keeling Island - Singular appearance - Scanty Flora -
Transport of Seeds - Birds and Insects - Ebbing and flowing
Springs - Fields of dead Coral - Stones transported in the
roots of Trees - Great Crab - Stinging Corals - Coral
eating Fish - Coral Formations - Lagoon Islands, or Atolls -
Depth at which reef-building Corals can live - Vast Areas
interspersed with low Coral Islands - Subsidence of their
foundations - Barrier Reefs - Fringing Reefs - Conversion of
Fringing Reefs into Barrier Reefs, and into Atolls - Evidence
of changes in Level - Breaches in Barrier Reefs - Maldiva
Atolls, their peculiar structure - Dead and submerged Reefs -
Areas of subsidence and elevation - Distribution of Volcanoes
- Subsidence slow, and vast in amount.
APRIL 1st. - We arrived in view of the Keeling or Cocos
Islands, situated in the Indian Ocean, and about six hundred
miles distant from the coast of Sumatra. This is one of the
lagoon-islands (or atolls) of coral formation, similar to
those in the Low Archipelago which we passed near. When
the ship was in the channel at the entrance, Mr. Liesk,
an English resident, came off in his boat. The history
of the inhabitants of this place, in as few words as
possible, is as follows. About nine years ago, Mr. Hare,
a worthless character, brought from the East Indian
archipelago a number of Malay slaves, which now including
children, amount to more than a hundred. Shortly afterwards,
Captain Ross, who had before visited these islands in his
merchant-ship, arrived from England, bringing
with him his family and goods for settlement along with
him came Mr. Liesk, who had been a mate in his vessel.
The Malay slaves soon ran away from the islet on which
Mr. Hare was settled, and joined Captain Ross's party. Mr.
Hare upon this was ultimately obliged to leave the place.
The Malays are now nominally in a state of freedom, and
certainly are so, as far as regards their personal treatment;
but in most other points they are considered as slaves. From
their discontented state, from the repeated removals from
islet to islet, and perhaps also from a little mismanagement,
things are not very prosperous. The island has no domestic
quadruped, excepting the pig, and the main vegetable production
is the cocoa-nut. The whole prosperity of the place
depends on this tree: the only exports being oil from the nut,
and the nuts themselves, which are taken to Singapore and
Mauritius, where they are chiefly used, when grated, in making
curries. 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. The strip of dry land is only a few hundred
yards in width; on the lagoon side there is a white calcareous
beach, the radiation from which under this sultry
climate was very oppressive; and on the outer coast, a solid
broad flat of coral-rock served to break the violence of the
open sea. Excepting near the lagoon, where there is some
sand, the land is entirely composed of rounded fragments of
coral. In such a loose, dry, stony soil, the climate of the
intertropical regions alone could produce a vigorous vegetation.
On some of the smaller islets, nothing could be more
elegant than the manner in which the young and full-grown
cocoa-nut trees, without destroying each other's symmetry,
were mingled into one wood. A beach of glittering white
sand formed a border to these fairy spots.
I will now give a sketch of the natural history of these
islands, which, from its very paucity, possesses a peculiar
interest. The cocoa-nut tree, at first glance, seems to
compose the whole wood; there are however, five or six
other trees.
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