as in great doubt whether I should have availed
myself of it, as the island appeared to produce nothing which could
have added to our comfort, while delay would only have uselessly
consumed our provisions. There did not appear to be a living creature
on the island, and the danger of approaching to find a landing-place
was most imminent.

This unpromising appearance induced me to propose that we should
continue our course to Rio Janeiro. The men were of another opinion.
They said they had been too long afloat, cooped up, and that they
should prefer remaining on the island to risking their lives any
longer, in so frail a boat, on the wide ocean. We were still debating,
when we came to a small spot of sand, on which we discovered two wild
hogs, which we conjectured had come down to feed on the shell fish;
this decided them, and I consented to run to leeward of the island,
and seek for a landing-place. We sounded the west end, following the
remarks of Horseberg, and ran for the cove of the Nine-Pin Rock. As we
opened it, a scene of grandeur presented itself, which we had never
met with before, and which in its kind is probably unrivalled in
nature. An enormous rock rose, nearly perpendicularly, out of the sea,
to the height of nine hundred or one thousand feet. It was as narrow
at the base as it was at the top, and was formed exactly in the shape
of the nine-pin, from which, it derives its name. The sides appeared
smooth and even to the top, which was covered with verdure, and was so
far above us that the sea birds, which in myriads screamed around it,
were scarcely visible two-thirds of the way up. The sea beat violently
against its base--the feathered tribe, in endless variety, had been
for ages the undisturbed tenants of this natural monument; all its
jutting points and little projections were covered with their white
dung, and it seemed to me a wonderful effort of Nature, which had
placed this mass in the position which it held, in spite of the utmost
efforts of the winds and waves of the wide ocean.

Another curious phenomenon appeared at the other end of the cove. The
lava had poured down into the sea, and formed a stratum; a second
river of fused rock had poured again over the first, and had cooled so
rapidly as to hang suspended, not having joined the former strata,
but leaving a vacuum between for the water to fill up. The sea dashed
violently between the two beds, and spouted magnificently through
holes in the u