Narrative of the surveying voyages of his majesty's ships Adventure and Beagle (vol.3)

540 KEELING ISLAND. April, 1836. 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 the discontented state of the people, the repeated removals, and, perhaps, also from a little mismanagement, things are not very prosperous. The island has no quadruped, excepting the pig, and no vegetable in any quantity excepting the cocoa-nut. On the latter the whole prosperity of the place depends. The only exports are oil from the nut, and the cocoa-nut* itself. On it the pigs, which are loaded with fat, almost entirely subsist, as likewise do the j50ultry and ducks. Even a huge land-crab is furnished by nature with a curious instinct and form of legs to open and feed on this same fruit. The annular reef of this 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 reach the anchorage. On entering, the scene was very curious and rather pretty ; its beauty, however, being solely dependant 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 illuminated by a vertical sun, of a most vivid green. This brilliant expanse, several miles in width, is on all sides divided, either from the dark heaving water of the ocean by a line of snow-white breakers, or from the blue vault of heaven by the strips of land, crowned at an equal height by the 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, dark bands of living coral appear through 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 hun- dred yards wide ; on the lagoon side we have a white cal- careous beach, the radiation from which in such a climate is * The nuts are carried to Singapore and to Mauritius; the white part being grated into a pulp, is used in making curries, and is said greatly to improve that dish.