59^^ Voyage of the Novara. 



false reckoningj imagined to have discovered a new cluster ; 

 for on the following day at 6 p.m., when by our course, which 

 was south-easterly, the island ought to have lain W.N.W. ten 

 miles distant, not a vestige of land could be descried from 

 the deck, nor even from the mast-head, so that we felt positive 

 the Simpson group were neither at the spot laid in the general 

 chart of the English Admiralty, nor within ten miles of it in 

 either an easterly or westerly direction.* 



A few days after this interlude, an incident of a very pe- 

 culiar character took place, which excited universal attention, 

 and more especially greatly exercised the souls of the super- 

 stitious. The occasion was nothing less than a dread wliisi)er 

 that there was a ghost on board. From time to time, in fact, 

 dull rumbling sounds were said to be audible, which some 

 professed to hear above them, others below, some in the fore 

 part of the ship, others aft. It was a noise like the roll of 

 thunder, or of cannon-balls that had got loose. The shot- 

 racks .were carefully examined, but every tiling there ap- 

 peared to be in its usual order. The sound was repeated 

 the following days, when there was hanging over us a sky 

 as black and murky, accompanied by heavy pelts of rain, 



* Compare Captain Cheyne's sailing directions, p, 68 : " Captain Simpson of 

 Sydney reported to me in 1845, that a group of low coral islands, covered with cocoa- 

 nut trees and inhabited, had been seen in 4"* 52' S., and 160° 12' E. This may pro- 

 bably be the same group seen by Captain Wellings in 1824, which is laid down in 

 ]Mr. Arrowsmith's chart in latitude 4° 29' S., 159° 28' E." It is matter of surprise 

 in any case that considering the uncertainty which prevails as to the precise locality 

 of the reef, its position on the English Admiralty Charts should not at least be 

 marked doubtful. 



