III._, which appeared from its imprint to be the latest authority, and showed marks of frequent consultation in the passages about the French Frigate Shoals, the Harman, Cure, Pearl, and Hermes reefs, Lisiansky Island, Ocean Island, and the place where we then lay--Brooks or Midway.

A volume of Macaulay's _Essays_ and a shilling Shakespeare led the van of the belles lettres; the rest were novels: several Miss Braddons--of course, _Aurora Floyd_, which has penetrated to every isle of the Pacific, a good many cheap detective books, _Rob Roy_, Auerbach's _Auf der Hohe_ in the German, and a prize temperance story, pillaged (to judge by the stamp) from an Anglo-Indian circulating library.
"The Admiralty man gives a fine picture of our island," remarked Nares, who had turned up Midway Island.

"He draws the dreariness rather mild, but you can make out he knows the place." "Captain," I cried, "you've struck another point in this mad business.
See here," I went on eagerly, drawing from my pocket a crumpled fragment of the _Daily Occidental_ which I had inherited from Jim: "'misled by Hoyt's Pacific Directory'?
Where's Hoyt ?" "Let's look into that," said Nares.

"I got that book on purpose for this cruise." Therewith he fetched it from the shelf in his berth, turned to Midway Island, and read the account aloud.

It stated with precision that the Pacific Mail Company were about to form a depot there, in preference to Honolulu, and that they had already a station on the island.
"I wonder who gives these Directory men their information," Nares reflected.