were pursuing a westward course.

On the following morning we perceived a cluster of low coral islands,
connected by reefs, which, as usual, enclosed an inland sea. The country
was covered with thick dwarf shrubs; and, in the whole group, we saw but
one cocoa-tree rising solitarily above the bushes. A multitude of
sea-birds, the only inhabitants of these islands, surrounded the vessel
as we drew nearer. The group stretches about three miles from North to
South, and is about two miles and a half broad. Guided by observations
which, from the clearness of the atmosphere, I had been enabled to make
correctly immediately before they came in sight, I estimated their
latitude as 15 deg. 48' 7" South; their longitude as 154 deg. 30'. We
were the first discoverers of these Islands, and gave them the name of
our meritorious navigator, Bellingshausen.

The night was stormy: morning indeed brought cheerful weather, but no
cheerful feelings to our minds, for we had lost another member of our
little wandering fraternity; he died, notwithstanding all the efforts of
our skilful physician, of a dysentery, occasioned by the continual heat
and the frequently damp air. This same year the Tahaitians suffered
much from a similar disease, and died in great numbers from the want of
medical assistance. The Missionaries, who only desire to govern their
minds, have never yet troubled themselves to establish any institution
for the health of the body.

During this and the few succeeding days, the appearance of great flocks
of sea-birds frequently convinced us that we must be in the
neighbourhood of unknown islands; but as from the mast-head they can
only be discerned at a proximity of fifteen or sixteen miles, we did not
happen to fall in with them.

On the second of April, however, we passed a little uninhabited island,
something higher than the coral islands usually are. Its latitude is 14
deg. 32' 39" South, and its longitude 168 deg. 6'. I then considered it a
new discovery, and gave it the name of my First Lieutenant, Kordinkoff;
but, on my return, I learned that it had been previously discovered by
Captain Freycinet, on his voyage from the Sandwich Islands to New
Holland, in the year 1819; the narrative of which had not appeared when
I left Europe. The situation of this island, as he has given it,
corresponds exactly with my own observation.

This same night, by favour of the clear moonshine, we saw the most
easterly of the Navigators'