ed on, or was
any ways fidgety; quite the contrary; it stood stock-still; and by
that means, no doubt, the true Greenwich time--at the period of
stopping, at least--was preserved to a second.

The mate, however, in addition to his "Dead Reckoning," pretended to
ascertain his meridian distance from Bow Bells by an occasional lunar
observation. This, I believe, consists in obtaining with the proper
instruments the angular distance between the moon and some one of the
stars. The operation generally requires two observers to take sights,
and at one and the same time.

Now, though the mate alone might have been thought well calculated for
this, inasmuch as he generally saw things double, the doctor was
usually called upon to play a sort of second quadrant to Jermin's
first; and what with the capers of both, they used to furnish a good
deal of diversion. The mate's tremulous attempts to level his
instrument at the star he was after, were comical enough. For my own
part, when he did catch sight of it, I hardly knew how he managed to
separate it from the astral host revolving in his own brain.

However, by hook or by crook, he piloted us along; and before many
days, a fellow sent aloft to darn a rent in the fore-top-sail, threw
his hat into the air, and bawled out "Land, ho!"

Land it was; but in what part of the South Seas, Jermin alone knew,
and some doubted whether even he did. But no sooner was the
announcement made, than he came running on deck, spy-glass in hand,
and clapping it to his eye, turned round with the air of a man
receiving indubitable assurance of something he was quite certain of
before. The land was precisely that for which he had been steering;
and, with a wind, in less than twenty-four hours we would sight
Tahiti. What he said was verified.

The island turned out to be one of the Pomotu or Low Group--sometimes
called the Coral Islands--perhaps the most remarkable and interesting
in the Pacific. Lying to the east of Tahiti, the nearest are within a
day's sail of that place.

They are very numerous; mostly small, low, and level; sometimes
wooded, but always covered with verdure. Many are crescent-shaped;
others resemble a horse-shoe in figure. These last are nothing more
than narrow circles of land surrounding a smooth lagoon, connected by
a single opening with the sea. Some of the lagoons, said to have
subterranean outlets, have no visible ones; the inclosing island, in
such cases, being a complete