SITUATION OF THE BONIN ISLANDS. 



197 



CHAP TEE X. 



SITrATION OF BONIN ISLANDS.— FIRST DISCOVERY OF THEM. — EUROPEANS HAVE NO CLAIM AS THE DISCOVERERS. — MIXED 



CHARACTER OF PRESENT SETTLERS. EXTERNAL APPEARANCE OF PEEL ISLAND. GEOLOGICAL FORMATION. HARBOR OP 



PORT LLOTD. PRODUCTIONS OF THE ISLAND, ANIMAL AND VEGETABLE. RESORT OF WHALERS. CONDITION OF PRESENT 



INHABITANTS. COMMODORE CADSES THE ISLAND TO BE E.XPLORED. REPORTS OP EXPLORING PARTIES. KANAKAS. 



EXAMINATION OF STAPLETON ISLAND, AND REPORT THEREON. SURVEY OF HARBOR OF PORT LLOYD. LAND PURCHASED FOR 



A COAL DEPOT. DEPARTURE FROM BONIN ISLANDS ON THE RETURN TO LEW CHEW. DISAPPOINTMENT ISLAND- ITS TRUE 



POSITION. BORODINOS.— ARRIVAL AT NAPHA. 



HE BoBin Islands, lying in tlie Japanese sea, extend in a 



^^ direction nearly north and soutli, between the latitudes of 



^ 26° 30' and 27° 45' north, the centre line of the group being 



J in longitude about 142° 15' east. The islands were visited 



ft, by Captain Beechey in 1827, and, with the proverbial modesty 



"^^ ^ and justice of English surveyors, named by him, as if they 



had been then first observed. The northern cluster he called 

 Parry's Group; the middle cluster, consisting of three larger 

 ^^^^ islands, respectively Peel, Buckland, and Stapleton; and the 

 i= southern cluster was named by him Bailey's, utterly regardless 

 ^p of the fact thus stated by himself: "The southern cluster is 

 that on which a whale ship, commanded by a Mr. Coffin, 

 anchored in 1823, who was first to communicate its position to 

 this country, and who bestowed his name upon the port. As the cluster was, however, left 

 without any distinguishing appellation, I named it after Francis Bailey, esq., late President of 

 the Astronomical Society." * To the principal port of Peel I.sland he gave the name of Port 

 Lloyd. 



This was a pretty liberal distribution of honors by an accidental visitor in 1827, to a group 

 of islands that had been known, and of which we have authentic accounts as early as the 

 seventeenth century. According to Kasmpfer, these islands were known to the Japanese at a 

 period as far back as 1675, and were described by them under the name of Buna Sima, signifying 

 an island without people. According to the account of this traveller, whose words we quote, 

 the Japanese accidentally, about the year 1675, discovered a very large island, one of their 



Findlay's Directory of the Pacific Ocean. 



