f, and a
breeze came up from the land at night, fragrant of the spices or what
not of the coast.

On the 11th, with all sail set and with the spinnaker still abroad,
Christmas Island, about noon, came into view one point on the
starboard bow. Before night it was abeam and distant two and a half
miles. The surface of the island appeared evenly rounded from the sea
to a considerable height in the center. In outline it was as smooth as
a fish, and a long ocean swell, rolling up, broke against the sides,
where it lay like a monster asleep, motionless on the sea. It seemed
to have the proportions of a whale, and as the sloop sailed along its
side to the part where the head would be, there was a nostril, even,
which was a blow-hole through a ledge of rock where every wave that
dashed threw up a shaft of water, lifelike and real.

It had been a long time since I last saw this island; but I remember
my temporary admiration for the captain of the ship I was then in, the
_Tawfore_, when he sang out one morning from the quarter-deck, well
aft, "Go aloft there, one of ye, with a pair of eyes, and see
Christmas Island." Sure enough, there the island was in sight from the
royal-yard. Captain M----had thus made a great hit, and he never got
over it. The chief mate, terror of us ordinaries in the ship, walking
never to windward of the captain, now took himself very humbly to
leeward altogether. When we arrived at Hong-Kong there was a letter in
the ship's mail for me. I was in the boat with the captain some hours
while he had it. But do you suppose he could hand a letter to a
seaman? No, indeed; not even to an ordinary seaman. When we got to the
ship he gave it to the first mate; the first mate gave it to the
second mate, and he laid it, michingly, on the capstan-head, where I
could get it.

CHAPTER XVI

A call for careful navigation--Three hours' steering in twenty-three
days--Arrival at the Keeling Cocos Islands--A curious chapter of
social history--A welcome from the children of the islands--Cleaning
and painting the _Spray_ on the beach--A Mohammedan blessing for a pot
of jam--Keeling as a paradise--A risky adventure in a small boat--Away
to Rodriguez--Taken for Antichrist--The governor calms the fears of
the people--A lecture--A convent in the hills.

To the Keeling Cocos Islands was now only five hundred and fifty
miles; but even in this short run it was necessary to be extremely
careful in keeping a true course el