By far the best workmanship in boat-building I saw on the voyage was here.

Many finished mechanics dwelt under the palms at Keeling, and the hum of the band-saw and the ring of the anvil were heard from morning till night.

The first Scotch settlers left there the strength of Northern blood and the inheritance of steady habits.
No benevolent society has ever done so much for any islanders as the noble Captain Ross, and his sons, who have followed his example of industry and thrift.
Admiral Fitzroy of the _Beagle_, who visited here, where many things are reversed, spoke of "these singular though small islands, where crabs eat cocoanuts, fish eat coral, dogs catch fish, men ride on turtles, and shells are dangerous man-traps," adding that the greater part of the sea-fowl roost on branches, and many rats make their nests in the tops of palm-trees.
My vessel being refitted, I decided to load her with the famous mammoth tridaena shell of Keeling, found in the bayou near by.

And right here, within sight of the village, I came near losing "the crew of the _Spray_"-- not from putting my foot in a man-trap shell, however, but from carelessly neglecting to look after the details of a trip across the harbor in a boat.

I had sailed over oceans; I have since completed a course over them all, and sailed round the whole world without so nearly meeting a fatality as on that trip across a lagoon, where I trusted all to some one else, and he, weak mortal that he was, perhaps trusted all to me.