se I would miss the atoll.

On the 12th, some hundred miles southwest of Christmas Island, I saw
anti-trade clouds flying up from the southwest very high over the
regular winds, which weakened now for a few days, while a swell
heavier than usual set in also from the southwest. A winter gale was
going on in the direction of the Cape of Good Hope. Accordingly, I
steered higher to windward, allowing twenty miles a day while this
went on, for change of current; and it was not too much, for on that
course I made the Keeling Islands right ahead. The first unmistakable
sign of the land was a visit one morning from a white tern that
fluttered very knowingly about the vessel, and then took itself off
westward with a businesslike air in its wing. The tern is called by
the islanders the "pilot of Keeling Cocos." Farther on I came among a
great number of birds fishing, and fighting over whatever they caught.
My reckoning was up, and springing aloft, I saw from half-way up the
mast cocoanut-trees standing out of the water ahead. I expected to see
this; still, it thrilled me as an electric shock might have done. I
slid down the mast, trembling under the strangest sensations; and not
able to resist the impulse, I sat on deck and gave way to my emotions.
To folks in a parlor on shore this may seem weak indeed, but I am
telling the story of a voyage alone.

I didn't touch the helm, for with the current and heave of the sea the
sloop found herself at the end of the run absolutely in the fairway of
the channel. You couldn't have beaten it in the navy! Then I trimmed
her sails by the wind, took the helm, and flogged her up the couple of
miles or so abreast the harbor landing, where I cast anchor at 3:30
P.M., July 17,1897, twenty-three days from Thursday Island. The
distance run was twenty-seven hundred miles as the crow flies. This
would have been a fair Atlantic voyage. It was a delightful sail!
During those twenty-three days I had not spent altogether more than
three hours at the helm, including the time occupied in beating into
Keeling harbor. I just lashed the helm and let her go; whether the
wind was abeam or dead aft, it was all the same: she always sailed on
her course. No part of the voyage up to this point, taking it by and
large, had been so finished as this.[D]

[D] Mr. Andrew J. Leach, reporting, July 21, 1897, through Governor
Kynnersley of Singapore, to Joseph Chamberlain, Colonial Secretary, said
concerning the _Iphegeni