SWAN ISLAND SIGHTED. 7 



never travels, especially off the beaten track, these may 

 be platitudes, but to those who have just made a successful 

 land-fall, the thought we have endeavoured to express 

 must ever recur again and again, with a constant fresh- 

 ness and reality. 



When we came on deck again after lunch. Swan Island 

 looked like a long spinney, standing haK submerged in the 

 middle of a vast flooded plain. The trees seemed to be 

 growing in the sea. A Httle later, and we had " raised 

 the land," low as it turned out to be, and the island in its 

 entirety was a visible fact. Coasting along its southern 

 shore, we could now see the twin nature of what we had 

 at first supposed to be one single island. Both islands 

 were densely wooded ; but while the eastern one had low 

 precipitous cliffs, against which the waves dashed and 

 broke into sheets of white spray, the western isle was 

 long and rather flat ; sandy beaches, backed by over- 

 hanging trees, gleamed here and there along its shores ; 

 there was a streak of white surf, where the swell surged 

 gently over a miniature barrier-reef ; frigate-birds, with 

 stiffly-extended wings, " planed " in graceful curves 

 high above the green dome of the woods, like skaters for 

 ever on the outside edge. 



Such, then, was our first near view of these little islands. 

 Only once before had any naturahst visited them. This 

 was in 1886, when Mr. Chas. Townsend, an American 

 ornithologist, paid a visit to the islands. 



It was not likely, therefore, that on such a small island 

 there would be anything left for us to discover, but as the 

 pursuit of health, rather than bird-collecting, was the 

 primary object of Sir Frederic's visit, this was a minor 

 consideration. Originally it had been Sir Frederic's 

 intention to stay only two or three days, but as events 

 turned out, the islands proved so attractive in other ways, 

 and so completely health-restoring, that our stay was 

 prolonged into one of nearly three weeks, and even then 

 it was only the ever-present question of coal-supply 

 that finally dragged us away. 



