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smooth as a mill-pond, and its surface scarcely ruffled by the faintest
zephyr, though it was blowing moderately fresh outside. The shore all
round sloped very gently up from the water's-edge, with a gradually
increasing steepness, however, further inland, until just before the
culminating ridge was reached the inclination appeared to be quite
precipitous, giving indeed to the entire basin some similitude to the
interior of a gigantic saucer. The slopes here, at least near the
water's-edge, were not quite so densely wooded, the aspect of the
landscape being exceedingly park-like, the soil being clothed with a
velvety green-sward, thickly dotted with clumps of noble trees. A thin
fringe of sandy beach ran all round the edge of this inner basin, except
at its eastern or farther extremity, where the stretch of sand widened
out to about the eighth of a mile for fully a mile in length. The
deepest part of this basin was found to be at a point about a mile and a
quarter inside the two rocky bluffs, and from thence it shelved up very
gradually, the four-fathom line being struck at about a mile from the
eastern shore. It was now discovered, however, that what had originally
been taken for one island was in reality a group of four, two other
channels being noted, one at the north-east, and the other at the south-
east extremity of the inner basin. These channels were at once examined
by the explorers, with the result that they were found to be impassable,
except by boats. Indeed the north-east channel and one arm of the
south-east channel--the latter forking into two channels at a mile and a
half from its inner extremity--was found to be practically closed, even
to boats, by the existence of formidable reefs outside, over which the
surf was so heavy that no boat could possibly live in it. There was,
moreover, a sandy bar with only one fathom of water on it at the inner
extremity of both channels, but that passed, the water deepened again,
until in the case of the south arm of the south-east channel, another
bar was reached, over which, by watching their opportunity, the
explorers succeeded in taking their boat safely, when they once more
found themselves in the open sea. This act of crossing the bar they
discovered, when it was too late, was rather a bad move on their part,
for it placed them some three miles to leeward of the ship, in a fresh
breeze and roughish water; but they fortunately had the boat's sails
with th