" Could it be a Ghost?'' 



593 



as though all the clouds of heaven were lavishing- their con- 

 tents upon us. All on board indulged in every possible 

 hypothesis that could explain these sounds, and exhausted 

 themselves in conjectures. Some maintained that one of the 

 volcanoes of the Solomon group, in the vicinity of which we 

 were at the time, was in a state of activity, and was the 

 cause of these submarine thunders; but the sailors, sailor- 

 like, insisted it was ghosts playing pranks, and the attendants 

 refused any longer to remain in the cock-pit, alleging it was 

 haunted ! However, when a second examination was made 

 of the shot-racks, it was found that no fewer than eighty 

 thirty-pound iron shots had broken through the wooden 

 bulk-head of the ordnance room, whence they had made 

 their way into the bread-depot, as it was called, and on its 

 metal floor had produced the resonance peculiar to the im- 

 pact of metal against metal. The mystery was at once solved 

 in the most natural manner, and the '' each-particular-hair- 

 on-end " ghost stories which during the last few days had 

 been flying from mouth to mouth, forthwith dropped. Thus 

 might many a " marvel " prove to be the result of some very 

 ordinary cause, if people would but take the trouble to ex- 

 amine its natural causes, instead of ascribing everything 

 which they cannot understand or explain to some supernatural 

 influence. 



At noon of the 7th October, in 6° 37' S., IGf 8' E., we 

 were, according to chart, 12 miles distant from Bradley's 

 Reef. But although both seamen and midshii^men were 



VOL. II 2 Q 



