Page:Colymbia (1873).djvu/56

50 be best effected by contact with your new fellow-citizens."

He informed me that a house had been assigned to me, the lease of which would be ready for my signature as soon as I should present myself before the magistrate who presided over such arrangements.

He then conducted me to the confines of the little bay, which was divided off from the great inner lake by a barrier of living coral, that did not rise to the surface of the water and therefore could be no impediment to any one wishing to pass in or out of the bay. It was generally understood, however, that the bay was reserved for the use of strangers, until their education was complete and they were able to mingle with the ordinary inhabitants of Colymbia, for that, I learned, was the name by which the subaqueous country went.

Passing the barrier, I at once found myself in the midst of a thickly-peopled region, with numerous elegant edifices of the strangest shapes, constructed chiefly of corals and corallines of every variety of hue.

My appearance seemed to be expected; for a number of young men and women were collected at the other side of the barrier, who warmly greeted me, and began talking so eagerly and quickly in the various manners I have attempted to describe, that I became utterly confused and bewildered.

Seeing this, most of them, with friendly smiles, moved off and left only one of their number with me as a guide, with whom I found it easy to converse. He told me, as we glided along, that it was a considerable time since his country had been visited by strangers, and that those last thrown among them had not been very favourable specimens of the outside world. My