Page:Twenty years before the mast - Charles Erskine, 1896.djvu/85

 shamefully treated, especially their women, by whalers and traders in these seas. It is a disgrace to civilization. In the center of many of these islands is a beautiful basin of water, called a lagoon. It is of a rich blue tint, and generally has an opening through which the tide ebbs  and flows. The pearl oyster is very abundant in these lagoons. The plants and shrubs upon these islands are few, and the cocoanut, growing above them all, is the  only fruit or vegetable the islands produce. After lying to all night under the lee of the island, at daylight we  bore away for Serle Island, which we surveyed. On the 19th we made Hennake or Honden Island. Here we caught several large turtles, and all hands had turtle  soup. There are no natives on this island. The sharks near the shore and in the lagoon were ravenously hungry, and would bite at anything they could reach, so it was  not very pleasant to swim to the shore and back again to  the boat.

This island was swarming with a variety of birds. They were so tame that we pushed them off their nests to get at their eggs. Among them were the frigate-bird, gannet, sooty tern, and other beautiful tropical birds in  large numbers. One could capture any number of them without the least resistance. Some of the curious sights to be seen were crabs walking off with snakes, and then both being themselves borne away by some monster  bird. Armies of piratical crabs were seen in all directions, and as for spiders, spider-webs, and snails, there seemed to be no end to them. There were no cocoanuts or fruit of any kind on this island. On the 23d we made the two Disappointment Islands of Byron. This