Finding, however, that the general course of the river changed to south-west, I left the party at a small lagoon and rode up the river again, making a second search, more especially at the junction of the small dry creek, which proved to be identical with the Alice River, though more than five miles to the south, as the Victoria River never reaches the parallel of 24 degrees.

Keeping back from the right bank of the main channel, we passed some ridges of drift sand, and came on a fine lagoon nearly a mile in length.

Here we surprised a party of natives, who decamped on our approach, leaving a net, fish, etc., which we of course left untouched, and camped at a spot lower down the lagoon.

At 4 p.m. they informed us they were going to sleep at the most distant part of the lagoon, and would return next morning at sunrise, and then departed.

After toiling south-west a day and a half over this level surface to latitude 27 degrees 50 minutes, we approached some low ridges, at the foot of which there was a lagoon 100 yards wide, exhibiting signs of a current during flood to the north-west; and as there was an evident westerly trend in all the smaller channels previously crossed, it was evident they would soon merge in Cooper's Creek.

Were the banks removed, and the stone bridge joining Manila to Binondo replaced by a swing bridge, or a canal made round it, the coasting vessels would be able to ship the produce of the lagoon provinces at the very foot of the fields in which they grow.

Beyond Jalajala, on the south coast of the Lagoon of Bay, lies the hamlet of Los Baños, so called from a hot spring at the foot of the Makiling volcano.

North-west of Los Baños there lies a small volcanic lake fringed with thick woods, called Dagatan (the enchanted lagoon of travellers), to distinguish it from Dagât, as the Tagals call the great Lagoon of Bay.

North-west of Los Baños there lies a small volcanic lake fringed with thick woods, called Dagatan (the enchanted lagoon of travellers), to distinguish it from Dagât, as the Tagals call the great Lagoon of Bay.

The Lagoon of Bay is seen to extend far to the north-east; in the distance the Peninsula of Jalajala and the Island of Talim, from which rises the Susong-Dalaga volcano, terminate the vista.

McHenry and I followed the road which circles the island by the lagoon and sea-beach.

Lovaina suggested, since I liked to be about the lagoon, that I move to the Annexe, a rooming-house she owned and conducted as an adjunct to the Tiare.

The Annexe fronted the lagoon.

" Lying Bill sighed like a diver just up from the bottom of the lagoon.

It was built over a tiny stream, which emptied fifty feet away into the lagoon.

The lagoon between the reef and the beach was turning from dark blue to azure pink.

It was the low tide succeeding sunrise, and the water over the reef was a few inches deep, so that I could see the marine life of the wall, the many kinds of starfish, the sea-urchins, and the curious bivalves which hide with their shell-tips just even with the floor of the lagoon, and, keeping them barely even, wait for foolish prey.

After dinner and a prolonged session upon the camphor-wood chest to hear Lovaina's chatter, I came leisurely to the Annexe along the shore of the lagoon.

The sun was down, and the lagoon a purple lake when we were again at the bust of Bougainville.

'E bathed a couple o' times a day in the lagoon or in fresh water, but 'e believed in rubbin' oil on his skin, and when a bloke is all greasy and nyked, 'e looks dirty.

" He gazed ruminantly away from the lagoon to the pool of Psyche, where the Tahitian women squatted on their shapely haunches and thumped their clothes.

The lagoon is now a glistening pearly gray.

The Garibaldi perch and the electric fish excite interest at Santa Catalina, but here are a hundred marvels, and if I wish I can see them all as they swim in and out of the coral caverns within the lagoon.

I need never ask the reason here, but look to the blue sky, the placid sea within the lagoon, the generous fruitage of nature, the palms and flowers ever present and inviting; the very sign of the gentle souls and merry hearts of these most lovable people.

The cocoanut-trees were gray ghosts against the dark foliage and trunks of the breadfruits and the sugar cane; the reef was a faint gleam of white over the lagoon and a subdued sound of distant waters.