rst researches. But better things were hoped for. It
was something to men whose former domains were so much circumscribed and
girded by the ocean, to find even a foundation for a new empire. Brown
was now consulted as to every step to be taken, and his advice was
implicitly followed. Columbus was scarcely a greater man, for the time
being, at the court of Ferdinand and Isabella, than Bill Brown
immediately became at the court of Waally. His words were received as
prophecies, his opinions as oracles.

Honest Bill, who anticipated no more from his discoveries than the
acquisition of certain portions of wood, iron, and copper, with,
perhaps, the addition of a little rigging, certain sails and an anchor
or two, acted, at first, for the best interests of his master. He led
the fleet along the margin of the group until a convenient harbour was
found. Into this all the canoes entered, and a sandy beach supplying
fresh water in abundance having been found, an encampment was made for
the night. Several hours of daylight remaining, however, when these
great preliminary steps had been taken, Brown proposed to Waally an
exploring expedition in a couple of the handiest of the canoes. The
people thus employed were those who had given the alarm to the governor.
On that occasion, not only was the boat seen, but the explorers were
near enough to the reef, to discover not only the crater, but the spars
of the ship. Here, then, was a discovery scarcely less important than
that of the group itself! After reasoning on the facts, Waally came to
the conclusion that these, after all, were the territories that Heaton
and his party had come to seek; and that here he should find those cows
which he had once seen, and which he coveted more than any other riches
on earth. Ooroony had been weak enough to allow strangers in possession
of things so valuable, to pass through _his_ islands; but _he_, Waally,
was not the man to imitate this folly. Brown, too, began to think that
the white men sought were to be found here. That whites were in the
group was plain enough by the ship, and he supposed they might be
fishing for the pearl-oyster, or gathering beche-le-mar for the Canton
market. It was just possible that a colony had established itself in
this unfrequented place, and that the party of which he had heard so
much, had come hither with their stores and herds. Not the smallest
suspicion at first crossed his mind that he there beheld the spars of
the