COCOS— THE ISLE OF PIRATES 223 



pagos were scattered over such a wide expanse of 

 ocean that they were hkely to be seen now and 

 then. But Cocos had an elusive quahty which it 

 has not completely lost even yet. Surrounded by 

 strong and tricky currents, concerning which much 

 remains to be discovered, and very often veiled by 

 such heavy mists and rainstorms that a ship may 

 pass within a few miles without glimpsing a trace 

 of land, the very existence of such an island has 

 been denied in comparatively modern times. 



Of course in the 16th century, when navigation 

 was more an art than an exact science, it is easy to 

 understand that the precise position of Cocos was 

 difficult to establish, and long after its discovery it 

 was located at the caprice of the geographers, now 

 south of the Equator, now north, moving from side 

 to side, and on some maps completely ignored. For 

 a while another island called Santa Cruz was fig- 

 ured as lying to the northeast of Cocos, probably 

 named by some navigator, who, obtaining a wrong 

 position, thought that he had found a new island, 

 which was really the ambulatory Cocos. 



At last Cocos came out fresh and green from 

 her shroud of rain, and we slowed, sounding every 

 few yards, drifting nearer and nearer until the 

 heights of Nuez Island were well abeam to star- 

 board, and Cocos itself loomed high over us. At 

 the signal, in seventeen fathoms, the chain clanked 

 and jangled through the hawse hole and we swung 

 around head on to the stiff alongshore current. 



Here at last, on the ides of May, we were close 

 to Cocos, three hundred miles off Costa Rica. It 



