very thorough search of this island of treasure. Everything was to be
captured, alive or dead, animal, vegetable or mineral.

At half-past five the next morning we were steaming slowly towards what
looked like a quite impregnable face of rock, with bare cliffs standing
straight out of the water, which, luckily for us, was comparatively
smooth. As we coasted to try and find a landing-place the sun was rising
behind the island, which reaches to a height of two thousand feet, and
the jagged cliffs stood up finely against the rosy sky.

[Illustration: SOUTH TRINIDAD--E. A. Wilson, del.]

We dropped our anchor to the south of the island and a boat's crew left
to prospect for a landing-place, whilst Wilson seized the opportunity to
shoot some birds as specimens, including two species of frigate bird,
and the seamen caught some of the multitudinous fish. We also fired shots
at the sharks which soon thronged round the ship, and about which we were
to think more before the day was done.

The boat came back with the news that a possible landing-place had been
found, and the landing parties got off about 8.30. The landing was very
bad--a ledge of rock weathered out of the cliff to our right formed, as
it were, a staging along which it was possible to pass on to a steeply
shelving talus slope in front of us. The sea being comparatively smooth,
everybody was landed dry, with their guns and collecting gear.

The best account of South Trinidad is contained in a letter written by
Bowers to his mother, which is printed here. But some brief notes which I
jotted down at the time may also be of interest, since they give an
account of a different part of the island:

"Having made a small depot of cartridges, together with a little fluffy
tern and a tern's egg, which Wilson found on the rocks, we climbed
westward, round and up, to a point from which we could see into the East
Bay. This was our first stand, and we shot several white-breasted petrel
(Oestrelata trinitatis), and also black-breasted petrel (Oestrelata
arminjoniana). Later on we got over the brow of a cliff where the petrel
were nesting. We took two nests, on each of which a white-breasted and a
black-breasted petrel were paired. Wilson caught one in his hands and I
caught another on its nest; it really did not know whether it ought to
fly away or not. This gives rise to an interesting problem, since these
two birds have been classified as different species, and it now look