Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Ill ISLANDS With thrice seven-league boots one could stride from the coast of the United States and with a dozen steps reach British Guiana dry- shod. From an aviator's seat, the chain of West Indies, Windward and Leeward Islands curves gracefully southwards, like stepping-stones across a Japanese stream. If, corresponding to this annihilation of space, we could abbreviate minutes, hours and days as in a moving-picture film, we might have the edifying spectacle of our steamer's trip reduced to a succession of loops, ricochetting from island after island, as a stone skips along the surface of the water, sliding along those dotted lines which are so characteristic a feature of coasts in our school geographies, and coming to rest at last with a splash in the muddy current off the Georgetown stelling. Our steamer is preferable to the seven-leaguetrip, for we thereby omit the big, cumbersome West Indies. It is a curious fact that any land projecting above the surface of the water is interesting and exciting in inverse ratio to its size. The endless New Jersey shore moves one not at all, while the single volcanic cone of Nevis brings thrills and emotions; Cuba is wearisome as one steams slowly past headland after headland, while Sombrero—a veritable oceanic speck of dust—stimulates the imagination to the highest pitch. It seems as if our Ego enlarges as our immediate terrestrial cosmos diminishes. In studying the birds of the endless jungles of the South American continent my interest never flags, yet it never quite attains the nth power of enthusiasm which accompanies the thought of the possibility of locating every nest on St. Thomas. This love of small islands must savor of the joy of possible completeness in achievement, plus a king's sensations, plus some of those of Adam!...