inced not only that this was the case, but that there actually
was a bay or cove of some sort inside it.

This discovery was made barely in time to enable me to jam my helm hard-
a-starboard and just fetch the opening, through which in about five
minutes afterwards we gently slid, finding ourselves in the midst of a
deep basin of almost perfect circular form, so completely landlocked and
with such a narrow and artfully-concealed entrance that it was not until
we were within a biscuit-throw of the rocks that I felt absolutely
certain there really existed a passage at all.

The basin, as I have already said, was of circular form, and I judged it
to be about a mile in diameter. The entrance was at the most northerly
point in its circumference; at which spot, as I afterwards ascertained
by sounding, there was nearly forty fathoms of water, though the horns
or cusps of the encircling cliffs approached each other so closely that
it would have been impossible to take even a small square-rigged vessel
through without bracing her yard sharp fore and aft, and a craft of say
a couple of hundred tons could not have been carried through at all.

At the entrance the cliffs rose almost perpendicularly out of the water,
both outside and inside, terminating in a wedge on either side.

From this point, however, they gradually widened away in the form of a
gently-rising plateau, out of which two spurs of the mountain sprang,
one on each side of the basin.

Between these spurs or shoulders lay a ravine, which sloped evenly down
from the level of the plateau on each side until it terminated, at the
southern extremity of the basin, in a beach of fine sand. This ravine
lay, of course, directly ahead of us as we entered; and its smooth,
lawn-like surface, swelling gradually upwards towards the mountain in
the rear and the plateaus on each side, formed a truly lovely picture
under any circumstances, and especially to us who had, within the last
hour, been battling with a stormy sea.

Its central portion, for perhaps a mile in length and a quarter of that
width, was luxuriantly clothed with the freshest verdure, but was quite
destitute of trees.

Beyond these limits, however, the whole face of the country was thickly-
wooded, cocoa-nuts and bananas being conspicuously abundant. The beach
ran about three-fourths round the basin, being broadest immediately in
front of the ravine, and gradually narrowing away to nothing at about a
mile's