With no little satisfaction we launched our fleet into the lagoon.  Both canoes swam very well, and off we paddled with great delight across the lagoon.  How bright and clear were its waters!  It was almost impossible to estimate their depth, we could so completely see down to the bottom. After pulling some time, we rested on our oars.  As we looked over the side, how beautiful was the sight which met our view!  It was like a fairy land.  Coral rocks of the most fantastic shapes sprung up around. Caverns, and arches, and columns, and pinnacles appeared.  Gorgeous and varied were the hues.  There were white, and blue, and yellow corallines.  Among them grew marine vegetables of every description. Here the delicate sea-green stem of the fucas twisted round a rock; and near it the ocean fan expanded its broad leaves.  Every point was occupied by some feathery tuft of lovely tints, while from each cleft projected the feelers of some sea-anemone or zoophyte.  Among the heights of the submarine landscape moved thousands of living beings, to which the doctor gave some learned names which I do not pretend to remember.  Some he called chetodons.  They were flat and of an oval form, of a rich silvery hue, and had blue stripes downwards.  They swam in a perpendicular position, with one long, slender fin from the back curving upwards, and another from the opposite side curving downwards. Several came and looked at us, as if to inquire why we had visited their domains.  Others of still more curious forms and tints were darting in and out among the rocks; and there were huge lobsters, and crabs, and crayfish, of various sorts, poking their long antenna? out of gloomy caverns; and sea-urchins, and star-fish, and the beche-de-mer, lay scattered about; while huge clams opened wide their broad valves to catch their unwary prey.