I suppose the next three years were the happiest of Stricklands life.Atas house stood about eight kilometres from the road that runs round the island,and you went to it along a winding pathway shaded by the luxuriant trees of the tropics.It was a bungalow of unpainted wood,consisting of two small rooms,and outside was a small shed that served as a kitchen.There was no furniture except the mats they used as beds and a rockingchair,which stood on the veranda.Bananas with their great ragged leaves,like the tattered habiliments of an empress in adversity,grew close up to the house.There was a tree just behind which bore alligator pears,and all about were the coconuts which gave the land its revenue.Atas father had planted crotons round his property,and they grew in coloured profusion,gay and brilliant;they fenced the land with flame.A mango grew in front of the house,and at the edge of the clearing were two flamboyants,twin trees,that challenged the gold of the coconuts with the......