Most of the more buoyant debris, however, took the
next tide back in the direction whence came.
When there are eight or ten islands and islets within an afternoon's
sail, and miles of mainland beach to police, variety lends her charms to
the pursuit of the Beachcomber. Landing in one of the unfrequented coves,
he knows not what the winds and the tides may have spread out for
inspection and acceptance. Perhaps only an odd coco-nut from the Solomon
Islands, its husk riddled by cobra and zoned with barnacles. The germ of
life may yet be there. To plant the nut above high-water mark is an
obvious duty. Perhaps there is a paddle, with rude tracery on the handle,
from the New Hebrides, part of a Fijian canoe that has been bundled over
the Barrier, a wooden spoon such as Kanakas use, or the dusky globe of an
incandescent lamp that has glowed out its life in the state-room of some
ocean liner, or a broom of Japanese make, a coal-basket, a "fender," a
tiger nautilus shell, an oar or a rudder, a tiller, a bottle cast away
fat out from land to determine the strength and direction of ocean
currents, the spinnaker boom of a yacht, the jib-boom of a staunch
cutter.
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