o the weather-braces of the top-sails and the top-sail
halyards at the same time, I should thereby render these sails almost
powerless. Besides this, I proposed to myself to keep a sharp look-out
on the barometer in the cabin, and if I observed at any time a sudden
fall in it, I resolved that I would instantly set about my multiform
appliances for reducing sail, so as to avoid being taken at unawares.
Thus I sailed prosperously for two weeks, with a fair wind, so that I
calculated I must be drawing near to the Coral Island; at the thought of
which my heart bounded with joyful expectation.

The only book I found on board, after a careful search, was a volume of
Captain Cook's voyages. This, I suppose, the pirate captain had brought
with him in order to guide him, and to furnish him with information
regarding the islands of these seas. I found this a most delightful book
indeed, and I not only obtained much interesting knowledge about the sea
in which I was sailing, but I had many of my own opinions, derived from
experience, corroborated; and not a few of them corrected. Besides the
reading of this charming book, and the daily routine of occupations,
nothing of particular note happened to me during this voyage, except
once, when on rising one night, after my three hours' nap, while it was
yet dark, I was amazed and a little alarmed to find myself floating in
what appeared to be a sea of blue fire! I had often noticed the
beautiful appearance of phosphorescent light, but this far exceeded
anything of the sort I ever saw before. The whole sea appeared somewhat
like milk and was remarkably luminous.

I rose in haste, and, letting down a bucket into the sea, brought some of
the water on board and took it down to the cabin to examine it; but no
sooner did I approach the light than the strange appearance disappeared,
and when I removed the cabin lamp the luminous light appeared again. I
was much puzzled with this, and took up a little of the water in the
hollow of my hand and then let it run off, when I found that the luminous
substance was left behind on my palm. I ran with it to the lamp; but
when I got there it was gone. I found, however, that when I went into
the dark my hand shone again; so I took the large glass of the ship's
telescope and examined my hand minutely, when I found that there were on
it one or two small patches of a clear, transparent substance like jelly,
which were so thin as to be almost invisibl