Traces of former CiviUzation. 301 



each fresh avalanche of difficulties, which sought to thwart 

 our exertions and impair our forces, served only to reavi^aken 

 the energies and reanimate the confidence of each and all amid 

 all our calamities. 



So soon as the hovel we inhabited, which had enabled us to 

 make observations upon the direction and strength of the wind 

 rather than secured us any accommodation for sleep, had been 

 in some degree restored to its original condition, we availed 

 ourselves of the slight improvement in the weather, to examine 

 a tolerably numerous collection of very beautifully bound 

 books, which v/ere found stowed away in one of the recesses 

 for books running into the four partitions, and had in all pro- 

 babilitv much to dread from the rain-water tricklino; throuo-h 



ml Q O 



the covering of the roof. These had been brought hither by a 

 former proprietor of the island, and when it was sold were trans- 

 ferred with the rest of the stock of tools, &c., to M. Ottovan, 

 who occasionally resided at St. Paul for a month or two, but 

 seemed, so far as the condition of the books went, rarely to 

 meddle with them. It was curious enough, however, to en- 

 counter in a lone desert island, so many evidences of the most 

 refined civilization, so we shall cite in a note some of the most 

 interesting of this library of about 150 dififerent works, which 

 deserved a better fate than to moulder away undisturbed till 

 they fell into dust.* 



* Among these were tlie works on Natural History, by Charles Bonnel (Neiifchatel, 

 1783) ; J. S. Laharpe's " Abregc cle rilistoke Gencrale des Voyages, Paris, 1816 ; " 

 Dacier's " Translation of Horace into French, Avith Notes and Critical Remarks. 

 Paris, 181(5 ; " " De la Fclieite Publiqiie ; ou, Considerations sur Ic sort des Hommes 



