Page:Guy Boothby - The Beautiful White Devil.djvu/71

 the white roofs of houses, with, here and there, the thatch of a native hut of the kind usually met with on the west coast of Borneo and the islands thereabout.

So strikingly beautiful was the view, and so great was my curiosity to examine for myself this home of the Beautiful White Devil, for such I could not help feeling convinced it was, that I dressed with all possible speed and repaired on deck.

From this point of vantage the prospect was even more pleasingly picturesque than it had been from the port-hole of my cabin.

All round us the water was smooth as green glass, and so wonderfully transparent that, on leaning over the starboard bulwark, I could plainly discern the flaking of the sand at the bottom and the brilliant colours of the snout-nosed fishes as they swam past, at least a dozen fathoms below the surface.

To my surprise the harbour was entirely landlocked, and, though I searched for some time, I could discern no opening in the amphitheatre of hills through which a vessel of even the smallest size could pass in from the sea. But being more taken up with the beautiful scenery of the bay than its harbour facilities, I did not puzzle over this for very long.

So still was the morning that the smoke of the huts ashore went up straight and true into the air, the pale blue contrasting admirably with the varied greens of the foliage out of which it rose. Overhead, and around us, flocks of gulls, of kinds hitherto unknown to me, wheeled and screamed, while at intervals gorgeously-plumed parrots flew across our bows from shore to shore. Once a small green bird, apparently of the finch tribe, settled