u can never rely upon a chart here, in the Pacific;
what is clear sea at the time that a survey is being made, may very
possibly be dotted with a score of such small islands as the one ahead
in a very few years. I have read that coral islands form very rapidly.
This one, however, cannot be of such very recent growth, for there are
full-grown cocoa-nuts upon it, as well as other trees; I am surprised
that it is not shown on the chart."

I said this as I was standing at the foot of the mast, and on the point
of going aloft. In a few seconds more I was standing on the cross-trees
and examining the line of surf ahead for the narrow strip of unbroken
water which would indicate the existence of a passage through the reef.
As I stood thus, my gaze was arrested by the appearance of a small
object in rapid motion across the bosom of the lagoon inside the reef,
and a scrutiny of a few seconds was sufficient to satisfy me that it was
a canoe. Seating myself upon the cross-trees, that I might more
conveniently use the glass which I had taken aloft with me, I quickly
focussed the instrument and brought it to bear. With its assistance, I
was now enabled to discern that the canoe was a craft of about the same
size as the one which we had towing astern, and it held three persons.
The two who wielded the paddles were black, but, unless my eyes
strangely deceived me, the third was a _white man_.

I cannot attempt to describe the extraordinary feeling which came upon
me at this discovery.

"Can it be possible," thought I, "that this is the island upon which the
_Amazon_ was cast away, and am I about to have the inexpressible joy of
seeing my beloved father once more, and so unexpectedly as this?" I
again had recourse to the glass, and being now somewhat nearer, I no
longer had any room for doubt; the individual who sat in the stern of
the canoe, and who, I now saw, was steering the craft with a paddle,
_was_ undoubtedly white. I now observed, too, that the canoe was
passing through an opening in the south-western edge of the reef. The
passage would have escaped my notice in the then position of the cutter,
had it not been for seeing the canoe passing through it, for it was
broadside-on to us, as it were, and the unbroken water was therefore not
easily detected. I turned my telescope upon the island, and now saw a
thin film of light blue smoke, as from a wood fire, rising from among
the trees; but there was no sign of a wreck of