The noise was indescribable.

At least fifty of the hundred were always talking at once, and that not in the low measured tones of the apathetically polite Malay, but with loud voices, shouts, and screaming laughter, in which the women and children were even more conspicuous than the men.

It was only while gazing at me that their tongues were moderately quiet, because their eyes were fully occupied.

The black vegetable soil here overlying the coral rock is very rich, and the sugar-cane was finer than any I had ever seen.

The canes brought to the boat were often ten and even twelve feet long, and thick in proportion, with short joints throughout, swelling between the knots with the abundance of the rich juice.