ight
through the centre of a pumpkin pie. If you could only see so far, just
to one side of that same headland, across yon low dikey ground, you
would catch sight of the isle of Narborough, the loftiest land of the
cluster; no soil whatever; one seamed clinker from top to bottom;
abounding in black caves like smithies; its metallic shore ringing under
foot like plates of iron; its central volcanoes standing grouped like a
gigantic chimney-stack.

Narborough and Albemarle are neighbors after a quite curious fashion. A
familiar diagram will illustrate this strange neighborhood:

[Illustration]

Cut a channel at the above letter joint, and the middle transverse limb
is Narborough, and all the rest is Albemarle. Volcanic Narborough lies
in the black jaws of Albemarle like a wolf's red tongue in his open
month.

If now you desire the population of Albemarle, I will give you, in round
numbers, the statistics, according to the most reliable estimates made
upon the spot:

Men, none.
Ant-eaters, unknown.
Man-haters, unknown.
Lizards, 500,000.
Snakes, 500,000.
Spiders, 10,000,000.
Salamanders, unknown.
Devils, do.
Making a clean total of 11,000,000,

exclusive of an incomputable host of fiends, ant-eaters, man-haters, and
salamanders.

Albemarle opens his mouth towards the setting sun. His distended jaws
form a great bay, which Narborough, his tongue, divides into halves, one
whereof is called Weather Bay, the other Lee Bay; while the volcanic
promontories, terminating his coasts, are styled South Head and North
Head. I note this, because these bays are famous in the annals of the
Sperm Whale Fishery. The whales come here at certain seasons to calve.
When ships first cruised hereabouts, I am told, they used to blockade
the entrance of Lee Bay, when their boats going round by Weather Bay,
passed through Narborough channel, and so had the Leviathans very neatly
in a pen.

The day after we took fish at the base of this Round Tower, we had a
fine wind, and shooting round the north headland, suddenly descried a
fleet of full thirty sail, all beating to windward like a squadron in
line. A brave sight as ever man saw. A most harmonious concord of
rushing keels. Their thirty kelsons hummed like thirty harp-strings, and
looked as straight whilst they left their parallel traces on t