A King For A Comrade At the time I now write of, we must have been something more than sixty degrees to the west of the Gallipagos.

And having attained a desirable longitude, we were standing northward for our arctic destination: around us one wide sea.
But due west, though distant a thousand miles, stretched north and south an almost endless Archipelago, here and there inhabited, but little known; and mostly unfrequented, even by whalemen, who go almost every where.

Beginning at the southerly termination of this great chain, it comprises the islands loosely known as Ellice's group; then, the Kingsmill isles; then, the Radack and Mulgrave clusters.

These islands had been represented to me as mostly of coral formation, low and fertile, and abounding in a variety of fruits.

The language of the people was said to be very similar to that or the Navigator's islands, from which, their ancestors are supposed to have emigrated.
And thus much being said, all has been related that I then knew of the islands in question.