Page:The Boy Travellers in Australasia.djvu/112

88 swimming around among the spines of these huge polyps. The water is very clear, and as you look over the side of the boat into the garden of coral with its great variety of colors, and its numerous inhabitants, finny, shelly, and otherwise, it is like a glimpse of fairy-land.

"It made our flesh creep just a little to see the water-snakes coiling around the branches of coral, and gliding about all unconscious of being gazed at. Then there are gold-fish, blue-fish (not the blue-fish of America, but a little fellow of the brightest sky-blue you ever saw), fish of a pale green, and so on through all the scale of colors. As they swam among the corals they reminded us of butterflies in a garden."

Fred saw a shell travelling along in a most unexpected way, which he could not understand until he ascertained that it was occupied by a hermit-crab. Then there were large crabs in their own shells, and also lobsters, which kept a sharp eye out for danger, and retired to places of security when the boat approached.

The youths had hoped to be able to walk on the reef, but the surf was so high that it was unsafe to venture there. Besides, the walking, even when the reef is comparatively dry, is not of the best, as the surface is rough, and there are many holes in the coral in which the novice may get a dangerous fall.

Many fishing-boats were about, as the time of low tide is the best for fishing, and the water furnishes an important part of the food of the people. Several fishermen, nearly naked, and armed with spears, were in the foaming waters at the outer edge of the reef, waiting, with their weapons poised, ready to strike anything that came within their reach. A dozen or more large fish were taken in this way while our friends were looking on; not once did the spearmen miss hitting their mark, and Frank and Fred both wanted to applaud them for their accuracy of aim.

Inside the lagoon other fishermen were pursuing their prey in boats, the spearmen standing ready in the bow to embrace every opportunity of striking. Men and women were fishing after the ordinary manner