Our pedestrians held straight on; there was a Mangrove swamp and a lagoon in front, for which they, bold lads, cared nothing.
We passed over a sort of open down, from which all vegetation had been cleared, save the Palmistes--such a wood of them as I had never seen before.

A hundred or more, averaging at least a hundred feet in height, stood motionless in the full cut of the strong trade- wind.

One would have expected them, when the wood round was felled, to feel the sudden nakedness.

One would have expected the inrush of salt air and foam to have injured their foliage.

But, seemingly, it was not so.