PACIFIC AND BEERING’S STRAIT. 
JOl 
CHAPTEE V. 
Visit Oeno Island— Description of it — Loss of a Boat and one Seaman — Narrow Escape of the 
Crew — Crescent Island — Gambler Groupe — Visited by Natives on Rafts — Discover a 
Passage into the Lagoon— Ship enters — Interview with the Natives— Anchor off two 
Streams of Water— Visited by the Natives— Theft— Communication with them sus- 
pended Morai — Manner of preserving the Dead — Idols and Places of Worship. 
As soon as Adams and his party left us we spread every sail in the cHAP. 
prosecution of our voyage, and to increase our distance from a climate 
in which we had scarcely had the decks dry for sixteen days ; but the De.^ 
winds were so light and unfavourable, that on the following morning 
Pitcairn Island was still in sight. The weather was hazy and moist, but 
the island was overhung with dense clouds, which the high lands seemed 
to attract, leaving no doubt with us of a continuation of the weather 
We had experienced while there. At night there was continued light- 
ning in this direction. Several birds of the pelican tribe (pelicanus 
leiicocephaliis ) settled upon the masts and allowed themselves to be 
taken by the seamen. 
About ninety miles to the northward of Pitcairn Island there is a 
coral formation, which has been named Oeno Island, after a whale-ship, 
whose master supposed it had not before been seen ; but the discovery 
belongs to Captain Henderson of the Hercules. It is so low that it can 
he discerned at only a very few miles distance, and is highly dangerous 
to a night navigation. As this was the next island I intended to visit, 
every effort was made to get up to it ; and at one o’clock in the after- 
noon of the 23d December it was seen a little to leeward of us. We 
had not time to examine it that evening, but on the following morning 
we passed close to the reefs in the ship, in order to overlook the lagoon 
