came a
"Brother" and joined them to sail the ship and find an island "rich
and fertile in God's gifts to man, and with a pleasant people dwelling
thereon".

With a scratch crew of 'Frisco dead beats the brig reached Honolulu.
The crew at once cleared out, and several of the "Brothers," with their
wives, returned to America--they had had enough of it. After some weeks'
delay Richards managed to get four Hawaiian sailors to ship, and the
vessel sailed again for the Isle Beautiful. He didn't know exactly where
to look for it, but he and the "Brothers" had been told that there were
any amount of them lying around in the South Seas, and they would have
some trouble in making a choice out of so many.

The story of their insane wanderings after the _Julia_ went south of the
equator would have been diverting had it not been so distressing. The
mate, who we gathered was both a good seaman and a competent navigator,
was drowned through the capsizing of a boat on the reef of some island
between the Gilbert Group and Rarotonga, and with his death what little
discipline, and cohesiveness had formerly existed gradually vanished.
Richards apparently knew how to handle his ship, but as a navigator he
was nowhere. Incredible as it may seem, his general chart of the North
and South Pacific was thirty years old, and was so torn, stained and
greasy as to be all but undecipherable. As the weary weeks went by
and they went from island to island, only to be turned away by the
inhabitants, they at last began to realise the folly of the venture, and
most of them wanted to return to San Francisco. But Richards clung to
the belief that they only wanted patience to find a suitable island
where the natives would be glad to receive them, and where they could
settle down in peace. Failing that, he had the idea that there were
numbers of fertile and uninhabited islands, one of which would suit the
Brethren almost as well. But as time went on he too grew despondent, and
turned the brig's head northward for Honolulu; and one day he blundered
across Butaritari Island and entered the lagoon in the hope of at least
getting, some provisions. And again the crew bolted and left the Brethren
to shift for themselves. Week after week, month after month went by,
the provisions were all gone except weevily biscuit and rotten pork, and
they passed their time in wandering about the beaches of the lagoon
and waiting for assistance. And yet there wore two or three of