find the harbor that we knew
must be near at hand, though we could not tell just where. A headland,
looming up to twice its real height in the fog about it, was rounded,
and the lead followed in the hope that it would take us to the desired
haven. Soon a fishing boat hailed, and a voice, quickly followed by a
man, emerged from the fog and shouted that if we went farther on that
course we would be among the shoals. We were told we had passed the
mouth of the harbor, and so turning back, tried to follow our guide,
but he soon disappeared. Just at this moment when it seemed
impossible for us to find any opening, the fog lifted and we saw a
schooner's sail over one of the small islets that lay about us. Taking
our cue from that we poked into the next narrow channel we came to,
and getting some sailing directions from a passing boat, and from the
signal man stationed on a bluff to give assistance to strangers, we
glided into an almost circular basin, hardly large enough for the
vessel to swing in, set among steep rising sides, into which many ring
bolts were seen to be fastened, and perfectly sheltered from every
wind. The use for the ring bolts we found later. The fog kept rolling
over, and the little fishing vessels kept shooting in, till it seemed
the harbor would not hold another. As all sail had to be hauled down
before the vessels came in sight of the interior, the vessels seemed
literally to scoot into the basin. A few of the vessels were anchored
and kept from swinging by lines to the bolts, and the rest of the
fleet made fast to them. In all the number of vessels crowded into the
space where we hardly thought we could lie was about twenty. How they
would ever get out seemed a puzzle, but the next morning it was
accomplished, with a light fair wind, by all at once without accident
or delay. Had the wind been ahead, the ring bolts would have aided in
warping to a weatherly position.

During the evening the mail steamer caught us, and after putting a
little freight ashore, left us behind again. Here were some strange
epitaphs painted on the wooden slabs, also people ready to exchange or
sell at a far higher rate than we had hitherto paid, anything they
possessed for the cash which was all we had left to bargain with, the
available old clothes having been already disposed of.

It was hard to disabuse the minds of the people at Square Island
Harbor of the idea that we had come to seek gold or other valuable
mines, the