Description of the Island

• down the last few feet of rock to the lagoon
• the long scar smashed into the jungle, a break in the trees, splintered and broken trunks
• a reef about a mile out to sea with white surf
• a shore fledged with palm trees-the green leaves 100 feet up
• the ground beneath the palms was a bank covered in coarse grass with decayed coconuts and fallen palm trees
• open sea was dark blue
• lagoon was blue and green and purple
• beach was a thin bowstave
• palm, beach and sea disappeared in a line to infinity
• heat haze
• the beach, sand and sea were interrupted by a huge square block of pink granite 4 feet high in a kind of jetty, a platform
• the granite had a thin covering of sand and coarse grass and fallen palms
• next to the jetty was a lagoon of deep clear water, almost purple in colour
• sand banked in a storm had created a long, deep pool with a ledge of granite at the further end
• a palm sapling leaned out into the lagoon from the platform
• one great rock sitting out in the lagoon
• rocks get worse, a jumble of squareness
• jagged outline of the crags up to the mountain-less jungly stuff and more pink rock
• cubes lay askew often piled diminishingly on one another
• where the pink rock rose out there were narrow paths
• plunges through undergrowth -tangled creepers
• high over this end of the island, the shattered rocks lifted up like stacks and chimneys
• square top of the mountain
• roughly boat shaped
• humped at this end with behind them the jumbled descent to the shore
• on either side, cliff, tree tops and a steep slope
• forward, a tamer descent, tree clad and then the jungly flat of the island
• where the island petered out in the water was another island, a rock, almost detached, standing like a fort, facing them across the green
• the reef enclosed more than one side of the island
• shelters on the beach
• fire on the mountain
• Simon's hideaway, up towards the mountain