Singing Sands.

Te Aroha News, Volume V, Issue 226, 29 October 1887, Page 3

Singing Sands.

In one of the South Pacific Islands are some wonderful singing sands. These sands are in a small desert. In the centre of the desert are about a dozen cocoanut trees, and about five miles distant is the ocean. Ka Pule, a native guide, and myself reached the trees about noon. Our horses as well as ourselves were about used up, travelling through the deep sand under a blazing sun. As we lay stretched at the roots of the towering cocoanuts, the trade wind set in, cool and refreshing from the ocean. Notwithstanding the heat and our wearied condition, there was an 1 enchantmentabout the situation that caused me to think of the beautiful stories I had read in my childhood. I began to feel the soft touch of slumber, and all at once I heard a faint musical tinkling as if troops of fairies were coining to greet us as they used to do the enchanted princes in the olden days. 1 tried to locate the melodious sounds. In all directions there was nothing but hot glowing sand. I looked up — ■ there was nothing but the beautiful tropical sky and the tremulous atmosphere. Still louder sounded the music ; it was all around us it filled the air. I gazed towards the ocean, and there, apparently a short distance away, was a beautiful lake, with iU wave 3 dashing upon moss-covered stones. It was not there when we first; arrived at the place, and I became half-convinced that it was the work of enchantment.- Ka Pule had fallen asleep, and, gazing at the lake and listening to the music in the air, I rested my head aerainst the rough bark of a tree. As I did so I heard the distant gurgle of a brook. I could plainly hear the water splashing over the glistening stones and dying away in quiet eddies. 1 was more and more bewildered, and at length awoke Ka Pule. I told him what I had hoaid, and directed his attention to the lake. He explained that the seeming lake was a wailiula or mirage ; that the sound of gurgling waters came from an underground stieam, and that the music was caused by the stirring of the flinty sands by the wind. Anyway, the whole experience was beautiful, and I have often said that I onco made a visit to fairyland. — "Stockton Mail."