We pulled on shore, but, after exploring the island, it was found to yield nothing attractive to seamen except cocoa-nuts, with which our crew had soon supplied themselves as largely as they wished, and fish, which were abundant and easily caught, and of which they were soon tired.

The captain, therefore, when he had recovered his sobriety and his courage, had no great difficulty in inducing them to return to the ship, and endeavour either to get her off or construct from her timbers a raft which, following the course of the winds, might, it was thought, bring them into the track of vessels.

This would take some time, and I meanwhile was allowed to remain (my own wish) on _terra firma_; the noise, dirt, and foul smells of the vessel being, especially in that climate, intolerable.
"About ten o'clock in the morning of the 25th August 1867, I was lying towards the southern end of the island, on a little hillock tolerably clear of trees, and facing a sort of glade or avenue, covered only with brush and young trees, which allowed me to see the sky within perhaps twenty degrees of the horizon.

Suddenly, looking up, I saw what appeared at first like a brilliant star considerably higher than the sun.

It increased in size with amazing rapidity, till, in a very few seconds after its first appearance, it had a very perceptible disc.