ssel or owner; nor
were there any names marked or cut on the boards, as might have been
expected, to show to whom the vessel belonged, and what had become of
the survivors.

This studied concealment of all information led us to the most
accurate knowledge of her port of departure, her destination, and her
object of trade. Being on the south-west side of the island, with her
head lying to the north-east, she had, beyond all doubt, been running
from Rio Janeiro towards the coast of Africa, and got on shore in
the night. That she was going to fetch a cargo of slaves was equally
clear, not only from the baubles with which she was freighted but also
from the interior fitting of the vessel, and from a number of hand and
leg shackles which we found among the wreck, and which we knew were
only used for the purposes of confining and securing the unhappy
victims of this traffic.

We took up our quarters in the huts for the night, and the next
morning divided ourselves into three parties, to explore the island. I
have before observed that we had muskets, but no powder, and therefore
stood little chance of killing any of the goats or wild hogs, with
which we found the island abounded. One party sought the means of
attaining the highest summit of the island; another went along the
shore to the westward; while myself and two others went to the
eastward. We crossed several ravines, with much difficulty, until we
reached a long valley, which seemed to intersect the island.

Here a wonderful and most melancholy phenomenon arrested our
attention. Thousands and thousands of trees covered the valley, each
of them about thirty feet high; but every tree was dead, and extended
its leafless boughs to another--a forest of desolation, as if nature
had at some particular moment ceased to vegetate! There was no
underwood or grass. On the lowest of the dead boughs, the gannets, and
other sea birds, had built their nests in numbers unaccountable. Their
tameness, as Cooper says, "was shocking to me." So unaccustomed did
they seem to man, that the mothers, brooding over their young, only
opened their beaks, in a menacing attitude at us, as we passed by
them.

How to account satisfactorily for the simultaneous destruction of this
vast forest of trees, was very difficult; there was no want of rich
earth for nourishment of the roots. The most probable cause appeared
to me, a sudden and continued eruption of sulphuric effluvia from the
volcano; or e