And as he looked he thought of the vastness of this sea, how its waters washed the icy shores of Alaska and the palm-fronded atolls of the Marquesas; how they carried on their bosom the multitudinous commerce of a hundred peoples; how from Santiago to Shanghai and from the Yukon to New Zealand it was one ocean, serving all lands, and taking toll of all.

The Atoll in the mind.

The French, who have domination in these waters of a hundred islands and atolls between 8º and 27º south latitude, and between 137º and 154º west longitude, a stretch of about twelve hundred miles each way, make them all tributary to Papeete; and thus it is the metropolis of a province of salt water, over which come its couriers and its freighters, its governors and its soldiers, its pleasure-seekers and its idlers.

Otoo and I lived with the natives of the atoll for a week, when we were rescued by a French cruiser and taken to Tahiti.

Coral atolls with waving palm trees are delightful spots when one reads of them when seated in a comfortable armchair in a snug library, but the real island comes down heavily upon the nerve-centres when night falls upon the spot.