ight of man, bird, or insect in
the isle. The moon, now three days old, and as yet but a silver crescent
on a still visible sphere, shone through the palm canopy with vigorous
and scattered lights. The alleys where we walked were smoothed and
weeded like a boulevard; here and there were plants set out; here and
there dusky cottages clustered in the shadow, some with verandahs. A
public garden by night, a rich and fashionable watering-place in a
by-season, offer sights and vistas not dissimilar. And still, on the one
side, stretched the lapping mere, and from the other the deep sea still
growled in the night. But it was most of all on board, in the dead
hours, when I had been better sleeping, that the spell of Fakarava
seized and held me. The moon was down. The harbour lantern and two of
the greater planets drew vari-coloured wakes on the lagoon. From shore
the cheerful watch-cry of cocks rang out at intervals above the
organ-point of surf. And the thought of this depopulated capital, this
protracted thread of annular island with its crest of coco-palms and
fringe of breakers, and that tranquil inland sea that stretched before
me till it touched the stars, ran in my head for hours with delight.

So long as I stayed upon that isle these thoughts were constant. I lay
down to sleep, and woke again with an unblunted sense of my
surroundings. I was never weary of calling up the image of that narrow
causeway, on which I had my dwelling, lying coiled like a serpent, tail
to mouth, in the outrageous ocean, and I was never weary of passing--a
mere quarter-deck parade--from the one side to the other, from the
shady, habitable shores of the lagoon to the blinding desert and
uproarious breakers of the opposite beach. The sense of insecurity in
such a thread of residence is more than fanciful. Hurricanes and tidal
waves over-leap these humble obstacles; Oceanus remembers his strength,
and, where houses stood and palms flourished, shakes his white beard
again over the barren coral. Fakarava itself has suffered; the trees
immediately beyond my house were all of recent replantation; and Anaa is
only now recovered from a heavier stroke. I knew one who was then
dwelling in the isle. He told me that he and two ship captains walked to
the sea beach. There for a while they viewed the on-coming breakers,
till one of the captains clapped suddenly his hand before his eyes and
cried aloud that he could endure no longer to behold them. This was in