154 Cruise of the ^' Alert'' 



165° 32'5' \V., and steaming up to and around it, we made a 

 series of soundings, which occupied our surveyors for half the day. 

 The reef, a submerged one, is indicated by a circular patch of 

 breakers about a quarter of a mile in circumference, from one 

 part of which a long tapering line of surf extends in a north-east 

 direction, making the entire affair have some resemblance in out- 

 line to a tadpole. A cloud of white spray overhung this great 

 mass of seething water, and the frightful tumble and confusion of 

 the crests of the breakers as they uprose in pyramids twenty feet 

 in height, made one shudder to think of the consequences to an 

 ill-fated vessel striking on this reef Its position is given correctl}' 

 on the old charts. 



On the same evening we passed about four miles to the north- 

 ward of the Danger Islands, a low coral group, which is found to 

 be about six miles to the eastward of the position assigned to it 

 on the charts on the authority of the Tuscarora (U. S.) Expedition. 



In the forenoon of the 3rd September we sighted Fakaata, or 

 Bowditch Island, and some hours later Nukunono, which lies in 

 latitude 9'^ 24' S., longitude 171° 27' W. These two islands, with 

 Oatafu, which lies further to the westward, constitute the Union 

 Group. They are all low lagoon-islands. At 3.30 p.m., when 

 abreast of Nukunono, we altered course and stood in towards the 

 land, and when about three miles off observed an outrigger canoe 

 with three men in it, paddling towards us. The crew consisted of 

 one white man and two Polynesian natives. The former came 

 on board, and proved to be a Portuguese, in a very attenuated 

 condition, and sadly in want of provisions. He told us in broken 

 English that he had lived on the island for sixteen years, that he 

 was the only white man there, and that the native population 

 amounted to eighty. A conspicuous white building which we had 

 noticed on the island was, he informed us, a church, presided over 

 by a native missionary teacher, there being at present no clergyman 

 on the island. He besought us to give some biscuit, salt meat, 

 and nails, for which he tendered payment in dollars, which was of 



