"Is it very beautiful, too ?" The school-master's eyes contracted as if he were short-sighted, or looking at something inside his own head.

But he smiled as he answered-- "The poet says, 'A pleasing land of drowsy-head it is, Of dreams that wave before the half-shut eye; And of gay castles in the clouds that pass, For ever flushing round a summer sky.'" "But are there any curious beasts and plants and that sort of thing ?" I asked.
"I believe there were no native animals originally," said the school-master.

"I mean inland ones.

But the fowls of the air and the fishes of the sea are of all lovely forms and colours.

And such corals and sponges, and sea-anemones, blooming like flowers in the transparent pools of the warm blue water that washes the coral reefs and fills the little creeks and bays!" I gasped--and he went on.