water, rocky
bottom; it appeared to be about one mile in extent, and about twenty feet
above the water. After running west by south one mile, got no bottom with
40 fathoms of line. Kept our course south by east: it (the island)
appeared to be quite level with rocks extending to north-west, with heavy
breakers. Made it by observation south latitude 14 degrees 4 minutes;
east longitude 123 degrees 31 minutes by good chronometer rated at Roti.

TROUBLE WITH THE HORSES.

At 6 A.M. on the morning of the 16th they experienced heavy squalls of
wind off Red Island, and this prevented them from getting into Hanover
Bay on that day; but on the morning of the 17th they anchored safely,
without having lost a single pony, or without having experienced any
serious misfortune, having made the passage from Roti in five days.

UNFORESEEN EMBARRASSMENTS.

Some short time was occupied in narrating the adventures we had
respectively encountered since we had last seen one another, and in
giving way to the pleasure arising from meeting again in so distant a
land, and under such circumstances: at last came the unpleasant
announcement that there was not an atom of forage on board, so that the
ponies must of necessity be landed tomorrow; and my plans of disembarking
them at a more eligible site were thus at once overthrown. Being the only
person who knew the route to Hanover Bay from the encampment, I was
obliged to remain on shore to guide the party over there the next
morning. Mr. Lushington and the Captain however returned on board to make
preparations for landing the horses at daybreak.

LANDING THE HORSES.

I lay down to sleep this night oppressed with very uneasy thoughts. I was
thoroughly convinced that the position we occupied was a bad one to make
a start from; but we had already approached too near the season of the
heaviest rains (the beginning of February) to allow of longer delay, so
that to have landed the horses, then to cut grass for them, and
afterwards to have re-embarked them and the stores, would, in my opinion,
have been a tedious and wrong course to adopt. Unforeseen difficulties,
and against which we could not have guarded, had already completely
encompassed us, so that, considering the scanty means at our disposal,
the remote and unknown region in which we were situated, and the
impossibility of our receiving further aid from any quarter, I saw no way
of overcoming them. All therefore that was now left us was to m