- 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.
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Words from 186524 to 187034
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