ising
has but few patches of TERRA FIRMA scattered about over its immense area
when compared with the crowded archipelagoes lying farther south and
east.

We could not see the reported land from the deck for two hours after
it was first seen from aloft, although the odd spectacle of a scattered
group of cocoa-nut trees apparently growing out of the sea was for some
time presented to us before the island itself came into view. It
was Christmas Island, where the indefatigable Captain Cook landed on
December 24, 1777, for the purpose of making accurate observations of an
eclipse of the sun. He it was who gave to this lonely atoll the name it
has ever since borne, with characteristic modesty giving his own great
name to a tiny patch of coral which almost blocks the entrance to the
central lagoon. Here we lay "off and on" for a couple of days, while
foraging parties went ashore, returning at intervals with abundance
of turtle and sea-fowls' eggs. But any detailed account of their
proceedings must be ruthlessly curtailed, owing to the scanty limits of
space remaining.

CHAPTER XIX. EDGING SOUTHWARD

The line whaling grounds embrace an exceedingly extensive area, over the
whole of which sperm whales may be found, generally of medium size. No
means of estimating the probable plenty or scarcity of them in any given
part of the grounds exist, so that falling in with them is purely a
matter of coincidence. To me it seems a conclusive proof of the enormous
numbers of sperm whales frequenting certain large breadths of ocean,
that they should be so often fallen in with, remembering what a little
spot is represented by a day's cruise, and that the signs which denote
almost infallibly the vicinity of right whales are entirely absent in
the case of the cachalot. In the narrow waters of the Greenland seas,
with quite a small number of vessels seeking, it is hardly possible for
a whale of any size to escape being seen; but in the open ocean a goodly
fleet may cruise over a space of a hundred thousand square miles without
meeting any of the whales that may yet be there in large numbers. So
that when one hears talk of the extinction of the cachalot, it is well
to bear in mind that such a thing would take a long series of years to
effect, even were the whaling business waxing instead of waning, While,
however, South Sea whaling is conducted on such old-world methods
as still obtain; while steam, with all the power it gives of rapi