BELLINGSHAUSEN ISLANDS. 255 
On the following morning we perceived a 
cluster of low coral islands, connected by reefs, 
which, as usual, enclosed an inland sea. The 
country was covered with thick dwarf shrubs ; 
and, in the whole group, we saw but one cocoa- 
tree rising solitarily above the bushes. A mul- 
titude of sea-birds, the only inhabitants of these 
islands, surrounded the vessel as we drew nearer. 
The group stretches about three miles from 
North to South, and is about two miles and a 
half broad. Guided by observations which, 
from the clearness of the atmosphere, I had 
been enabled to make correctly immediately 
before they came in sight, I estimated their 
latitude as 15° 487” South; their longitude 
as 154° 30’. We were the first discoverers, of 
these Islands, and gave them the name of our 
meritorious navigator, Bellingshausen. 
The night was stormy: morning indeed 
brought cheerful weather, but no cheerful feel- 
ings to our minds, for we had lost another 
member of our little wandering fraternity ; he 
died, notwithstanding all the efforts of our 
skilful physician, of a dysentery, occasioned by 
the continual heat and the frequently damp air. 
