Without permitting ourselves to be tempted into any further deviation or delay, we kept steadily along the beach, until we arrived, a little before sunset, at the spot where the yawl lay, drawn up on the sand, opposite the islet. Max declared that after our long march, we ought to have a supper consisting of something more substantial than cocoa-nuts, and proposed that we should pull over to the reef, and procure some shell-fish, which proposition meeting with general approval, we got the boat into the water, and in five minutes reached the inside of the ledge, and landed upon it at a point about a quarter of a mile from the opening, through which we had first entered the lagoon. In this place, it was some fifteen or twenty yards in width, and consisted of a seamed and broken flat of dead coral, elevated but slightly above the level of the sea. Though there was no wind, and had been none during the day, the mighty billows of the open ocean came rolling in upon the outer edge of the reef with their accustomed violence. The action of the trade-winds is upon the whole so steady and uniform, that when it does cease for short periods, its effects continue, and upon the windward side of these coral-belted islands, there are breakers that never cease to rage, even in the calmest weather. No sight could be more grand and imposing, than that of these enormous waves encountering the reef. One of them would sometimes extend along it a mile, or a mile and a half, in an unbroken line. As it sweeps onward, with a slow and majestic movement towering up, like a dark-blue mountain, it seems as if nothing could resist its power, and you almost tremble lest the solid barrier upon which you stand should be hurled from its foundations. It meets the curving line of the reef with a tremendous concussion, and thus suddenly arrested by the parapet of coral, reared from the depths of the sea, it rises at once, throughout its entire length, to the height of twelve or fifteen feet perpendicularly, and stands for a moment as if congealed in its progress; then breaking with a hollow roar, it falls in a deluge of foam and spray, filling all the seams and crevices, and marking their course in lines of white upon the dark ground of the ledge. Not the least striking feature of the spectacle, was the multitude of fishes, of all shapes, colours, and sizes, that could be seen suspended in the face of this liquid wall, the very moment before it fell. How they escaped being thrown upon the reef seemed inexplicable, but they darted hither and thither at the very edge of the roller, with the greatest apparent ease and security, and almost invariably turned sea-ward just in time to save themselves. Occasionally, however, some careless or unskilful individual, not sufficiently versed in this perilous kind of navigation, suffered shipwreck, and was left gasping and floundering upon the coral.