he case when he inspected the place during
the day, hardly anything but slight brush being apparent beyond the
tussock-grass. The American captain also stated that the amount of sea
animals of all kinds on the island--whales, seals, and penguins--was
almost inexhaustible, his party having procured over six thousand
sealskins during their stay of seven months, besides killing more whales
than they could find room for the oil from them in their ship! This,
too, had become altered during the years which had elapsed, the seals
getting scarcer at Tristan now, through the wholesale war carried on
against them by the islanders, who latterly, with the exception of the
visits they paid to Inaccessible Island and Nightingale Islet--according
to old Green's account--had almost abandoned the pursuit for sheer want
of sport.

The next mention of Tristan d'Acunha, as related in the printed
chronicle Fritz read, was in the year after the American captain's
sojourn there, when two British ships of war, the _Lion_ and
_Hindostan_, which were probably East Indiamen, with the English embassy
to China on board, anchored off the north side of the island under the
cliff of the mountain peak; but, a sudden squall coming on, these
vessels had to leave without investigating the place thoroughly,
although their commanders described it as being uninhabited at that
time.

Nine years later, the captain of another ship that called there found
three Americans settled on the island, preparing sealskins and boiling
down oil. Goats and pigs had been set adrift by some of the earlier
visitors, as well as vegetables planted, and these colonists appeared to
be in a very flourishing condition, declaring themselves perfectly
contented to pass their lives there. One of the men, indeed, had drawn
up a proclamation, stating that he was the king of the country, a title
which the others acknowledged; and the three, the monarch and his two
subjects, had cleared about fifty acres of land, which they had sown
with various things, including coffee-trees and sugar-canes; but,
whether this plantation turned out unsuccessful, or from some other
notion, the "king" and his colleagues abandoned the settlement--the
place remaining deserted until the year 1817, when, during Napoleon
Buonaparte's captivity at Saint Helena, the island was formally taken
possession of by the English Government, a guard of soldiers being
especially drafted thither for its protection, selec