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186 their concrete church, still standing like an island among the general wreckage, as a proof of Divine warranty, a little tempered perhaps by reason of a gaping rent in the tower. The people were living in the open air, crawling into the cover of their ruined houses to shelter from the rain. Poor souls! they bore their misfortunes with a light heart, though the crop of orange trees, from which they get their living, were uprooted, and the cocoanuts would not recover for two years. Every boat in the island was busy bringing food from the less stricken villages, and the men were saving something from the wreck by turning the fallen cocoanuts into copra.

Next day we set forth in the ship's boats to survey the German coaling-station in the bight of the harbour. The shore is here a coral reef, upheaved about fifteen feet above the sea. The soil is shallow, but, like all limestone formations, very productive, and covered with plantations and cocoanut trees. On the further side was the open sea, for this part of the harbour is a mere breakwater, tapering away to a boat passage in the bight of the harbour, where the land is only two furlongs across. The Germans had done themselves handsomely, and had allowed no concern for the welfare of the