PACIFIC AND BEERING'S STRAIT. 239 



alarm to the navigator ; and throughout tliere is a 

 neglect of the cardinal points. I have therefore, on 

 this ground, presumed to doubt the propriety of the 

 name of Bonin-sima being attached to these islands. 



Were the situation of Bonin-sima dependent solely 

 upon the account furnished by Kaempfer, it might 

 safely be identified with the group of Yslas del Arzo- 

 bispo ; but the recent notice of that island by the 

 Japanese authors is so very explicit, that great doubt 

 upon the subject is thereby created. Kaempfer's ac- 

 count stands thus : — In 1675 a Japanese junk was 

 driven out of her course by strong winds, and wrecked 

 upon an island three hundred miles to the eastward 

 of Fatsissio. The island abounded in arrack-trees 

 (areca ?) and in enormous crabs (turtle ?), which were 

 from four to six feet in length ; and was named Bune- 

 sima, in consequence of its being uninhabited. In 

 this statement the distance, the areca-trees, the turtle, 

 and the island being unoccupied agree very well with 

 the description of the island I have given above ; and 

 it is curious that Wittrein, whom we found upon the 

 island, declared he had seen the WTeck of a vessel in 

 which the planks were put together in a manner 

 similar to that which was noticed by Lieutenant Wain- 

 wright in the junk at Loo Choo. 



It is remarkable that this group should have es- 

 caped the observation of Gore, Perouse, Krusenstern, 

 and several others, whose vessels passed to the north- 

 ward and southward of its position. In the journals 

 of the above-mentioned navigators we find that when in 

 the vicinity of these islands they were visited by land- 

 birds ; but that they never saw land, the three small 

 islands of Los Volcanos excepted, which may be consi- 

 dered the last of the group. The consequence of its 



