My Tropic Isle

es in a Li

greater than the sun in the heavens, but never dare hope to convince t

rned; for had it not been foretold that gold was certain to be found on the Island, and were not the invincible truths of geology verified by our covert ways? Had not one of the natives told of a lump so weighty that no man might lift it and on which hungry generation after hungry generation had pounded nuts? Had not another used a nugget as a plummet for his fishing-line? It mattered not that the sordidly battered lump proved to be an ingot of crude copper - probably portion of the ballast from some ancient wrecks - and that Truth was sulking down some very remote well when the fable of the golden sinker w

e jungle, too, at a spot so artfully concealed that no mortal man could ever unguided hope to find it, where was to be revealed a reef - a rich reef blasted by the mere refractoriness of the ore, a disadvanta

r to assume an air of mystery. "Our secret," said we, "is more desirabl

oncealed, and the reason for the concealment remains an incomprehensible enigma. Was it not the pinnacle of folly to retire to an Island where gold was not to be gotten either by the grac

use, without the least constraint or necessity," the exercise of that "refined

he lives - a precept in which I steadfastly believe, provided the fo

ost superfluous - most of the evidences of the characteristics of the race had, in the course of nature, been obliterated. A few frescoes adorning remote rock shelters, a few pearl shell fish-hooks, stone axes and, hammers, a

p and saline air. Unwittingly the blacks handed down specimens of their handicraft - the pearl shell fish-hooks, a thousand times more durable in this climate than hooks of steel. Geologists tell us that shells with iridescent colours are found in clays of such ancient date that if stated in centuries an indefinite number of millions would have to be assigned to them. It is not strange, then, that som

are from the disturbance of other folk's troublous cries, the ocean does not af

of which is sedate (for I am a sedate and determined man, and refuse to be flurried by my own barrow). Nervousness and excitement began to play. Thank the propitious stars, two miles and more of mighty ocean separated me from the furious car. Otherwise, who may say? I might in my confusion have been unable to avoid disaster. This place is becoming thrilling. Let me move farther from the rush and bewilderment of traffic. Let me flee to s

ed, firewood to be cut, house to be looked after. Most of the substantial improvements have long since been finished, but there is no place

ldom do we leave the Island, and rarely does any but a casual visitor break in on our privacy. Satisfied of the unpotentiality of wealth, here we materialise those dreams

grapple, though, I am one of those who mourn for democracy, since democracy has chosen to indulge in such hazardous experiments. The Government of a country which gives equal voice in the elect

or loll in the shade of scented trees, or thread the sunless mazes of the jungle - that region of shadow where all the leaves are dumb - listening for faint, ineffective sounds, or bask o

of the butcher; who, heedless of rule and method, adjusts the balance between wholesome toil and whole-hearted ease; who has a foolish love for the study of Nature; who has a sense of fellowship with animate and inanimate things; who endeavours to learn the character and the purpose of varied forms of life; whose jurisdiction extends over fifteen sacrosanct isles; who is never hap

itude, the loveliness of this most gay and youthful earth, and the tones of the pleasant-voiced and often surly sea fill me with joy an

of confiding secrets to the chaste moon - poets and dramatists term such incontinence of speech soliloquy and employ it for the utterance of edifying inspiration - it is because it is impossible to be ever quite alone. Not so very long ago in Merrie England if a person muttered to

ge grow

icks and mumbl

to saunter down into the gloom at the foot of the