r. From pretty
huts of plaited reeds, under the shade of bread-fruit trees, the women,
some of them with children in their arms, were flying to conceal
themselves in the forest. Such was the commotion our appearance
occasioned in this little community. A few heroes summoned courage
enough to advance, with threatening attitudes, to the margin of the
shore; but no single canoe, though many lay on the coast, ventured to
approach us. Judging from their size and the good arrangement of their
sails, these canoes seem intended for visits to other and even distant
islands. We sailed quite round our new discovery without finding any
haven by which we could effect a landing; and the sea being tempestuous,
with a high and boisterous surf, we were compelled to renounce our
desire of becoming more intimately acquainted with the Predpriatians.
The unclouded sky enabled us, nevertheless, to determine by observation
the exact latitude and longitude of this little island, whose greatest
extent is only four miles from E.N.E. to W.S.W. The latitude of its
central point is 15 deg. 58' 18" South, and its longitude, 140 deg. 11'
30". The variation of the needle was 4 deg. East.

When we had finished our observations, I steered a westerly course for
the island of Araktschief, discovered in the year 1819 by the Russian
Captain Bellingshausen, in order to convince myself that it was actually
not the one we had just quitted.

At four o'clock in the afternoon we could already see this island from
the mast-head, and we reached it before sunset. It bears, with respect
to size and circumstances, so close a resemblance to that of
Predpriatie, that they might easily be mistaken, if their relative
situations were not exactly known.

From our observation, we found the latitude of the centre of the island
of Araktschief 15 deg. 51' 20" South; and the longitude 140 deg. 50' 50".
According to Captain Bellingshausen's chart, the latitude is 15 deg. 51',
the longitude 140 deg. 52'. Unable to discover any traces of inhabitants
on this island, we should have supposed there were none, had not Captain
Bellingshausen ascertained the contrary.

At night we retired to some distance from the island and lay-to, that we
might not, in the darkness, strike on any unknown land. At break of day
I steered a north-west course, to see the island of Romanzow, (which I
had formerly discovered when with the ship Rurik,) and convince myself
of the accuracy of the astronomica