222 THE ARCTURUS ADVENTURE 



rain cloud, a stain of some indefinable color ap- 

 peared, deepened, and the island was crowned by a 

 rainbow so brilliant that its edges seemed to carry 

 human vision much farther along the scale than 

 usual, — oui* eyesight almost interdigitating with 

 heat on the one side and sound on the other. 



With the disappearing of Cocos into the en- 

 veloping rain-clouds, my mind went back into 

 equally obscure years of past centuries, when man- 

 kind first sighted this oceanic speck. 



The discoverers of the Galapagos did not think 

 enough of their find to attach a name to those 

 islands which they were the first to see. But the 

 man who discovered Cocos was even more indiffer- 

 ent, for he appears not to have so much as men- 

 tioned the circumstance that he had chanced upon 

 this scrap of tropical jungle afloat in the Pacific, 

 far from sight of any other land. At least, such 

 a conclusion is an explanation for the fact that 

 there seems to be no record of the first voyager to 

 set eyes on its steep shores, laced with waterfalls. 



The first map on which Cocos is shown is that 

 of Nicholas Desliens, in 1541. This was six years 

 after Berlanga, Bishop of Panama, reported his 

 accidental discovery of the group afterwards known 

 as Galapagos. No doubt Cocos was as fortuitously 

 found, perhaps by some Spanish captain explor- 

 ing the new domains of the mother-country, per- 

 haps by a filibuster fleeing with booty from the 

 mainland. Malpelo Island was already well- 

 kno^vn, as most of the ships plying those waters 

 could hardly have helped seeing it, and the Gala- 



