“The crew were Chinamen, wholly ignorant of the use of oars, and our trip would have been of little avail had not the sea been perfectly calm. With a little trouble we succeeded in making them keep stroke, and made for the coral reef, which separates the northern from the lower channel. The tide was nearly out, and the water was very shoal on all the approaches to the reef. We found, however, a narrow channel winding between the groves of mimic foliage, and landed on the spongy rock, which rose about a foot above the water. Here the little pools that seamed the surface were alive with crabs, snails, star-fish, sea-prickles, and numbers of small fish of the intensest blue color. We found several handsome shells clinging to the coral. But all our efforts to secure one of the fish failed. The tide was ebbing so fast that we were obliged to return for fear of grounding the boat. We hung for some time over the coral banks, enraptured with the beautiful forms and colors exhibited by this wonderful vegetation of the sea. The coral grew in rounded banks, with the clear, deep spaces of water between, resembling, in miniature, ranges of hills covered with autumnal forests. The loveliest tints of blue, violet, pale-green, yellow, and white gleamed through the waves. And all the varied forms of vegetable life were grouped together along the edges of cliffs and precipices, hanging over the chasms worn by currents below. Through those paths and between the stems of the coral groves, the blue fish shot hither and thither like arrows of the purest lapis-lazuli: and others of a dazzling emerald color, with tails and fins tipped with gold, eluded our chase like the green bird in the Arabian story. Far down below in the dusky depth of the waters we saw now and then some large brown fish hovering stealthily about the entrances to the coral groves, as if lying in wait for their bright little inhabitants. The water was so clear that the eye was deceived as to its depths and we seemed now to rest on the branching tops of some climbing forest, now to hang suspended as in mid air between the crests of two opposing ones. Of all the wonders of the sea, which have furnished food for poetry and fable, this was assuredly the most beautiful.”