328 Voyage to Batchian. 



I staid some time at a place where I saw a new clearing on 

 a very steep part of the mountain, and obtained a few inter- 

 esting- insects. In the evening we went on to the extreme 

 southern point, to be ready to pass across the fifteen-mile strait 

 to the island of Kaioa. At five the next morning we started, 

 but the wind, which had hitherto been westerly, now got to 

 the south and south-west, and we had to row almost all the 

 way with a burning sun overhead. As we approached land a 

 fine breeze sprang up, and we went along at a great pace ; yet 

 after an hour we were no nearer, and found we were in a vio- 

 lent current carrying us out to sea. At length we overcame 

 it, and got on shore just as the sun set, having been exactly 

 thirteen hours coming fifteen miles. We landed on a beach 

 of hard coralline rock, with rugged cliffs of the same, resem- 

 bling those of the Ke Islands (chap, xxix.) It was accom- 

 panied by a brilliancy and luxuriance of the vegetation, very 

 like what I had observed at those islands, which so much 

 pleased me that I resolved to stay a few days at the chief vil- 

 lage, and see if their animal productions wei-e correspondingly 

 interesting. While searching for a secure anchorage for the 

 night we again saw the comet, still apparently as brilliant as 

 at first, but the tail had now risen to a higher angle. 



October \Uh. — All this day we coasted along the Kaioa 

 Islands, which have much the appearance and outline of Ke 

 on a small scale, with the addition of flat swampy tracts along 

 shore, and outlying coral reefs. Contrary winds and currents 

 had prevented our taking the proper course to the west of 

 them, and we had to go by a circuitous route round the south- 

 ern extremity of one island, often having to go far out to sea 

 on account of coral reefs. On trying to pass a channel through 

 one of these reefs we were grounded, and all had to get out 

 into the water, which in this shallow strait had been so heat- 

 ed by the sun as to be disagreeably warm, and drag our ves- 

 sel a considerable distance among weeds and sponges, corals 

 and prickly corallines. It was late at night Avhen we reached 

 the little village harbor, and Ave were all pretty well knocked- 



in the island. All the villages and crops were destroj'ed, and numbers of the 

 inhabitants killed. The sand and ashes fell so thick that the crops were partial- 

 ly destroj'ed fifty miles off, at Ternate, where it was so dark the following day 

 that lamps had to be lighted at noon. For the position of this and the adjacent 

 islands, see the map in chapter xxxvii. 



