PACIFIC AND BEERING’S STRAIT. 
157 
hundred yards wide in any part, with a lagoon in its centre, which the CHAP, 
colour of the water indicated to be of no great depth. In places this 
lake washed the trunks of the trees ; in others it was separated from jmu 
them by a whitish beach, formed principally of cardium and venus- 
shells. Shoals of small fish of the chaetodon genus, highly curious and 
beautiful in colour, sported along the clear margin of the lake, and 
'vith them two or three species of fistularia ; several moluscous animals 
and shell-fish occupied the hollows of the coral (principally madrepora 
cervi-cornis) ; and the chama giganteus was found so completely over- 
grown by the coral that just sufficient space was left for it to open its 
shell ; a fact which tends to show the rapidity with which coral increases. 
Upon the shores of the lagoon, the pandanus, cocoa-nut, toufano, 
scoevola koenigii, the suriana (whose aroma may be perceived at the 
distance of several miles), the large clump-tree, pemphis acidula, tour- 
Pefortia sericea, and other evergreens common to these formations, con- 
stituted a thick wood, and afforded a cool retreat from the scorching 
^ays of a vertical sun, and the still greater annoyance arising from the 
I'eflection of the bright white sand ; a luxury which until our arrival was 
enjoyed only by a few black and white tern, tropic and frigate birds, 
and some soldier-crabs which had taken up their abode in the vacated 
furbo-shells. 
Under these trees were three large pits containing several tons of 
fresh water, and not far from them some low huts similar to those de- 
scribed at the other islands, and a tomb-stone shaped like that at Whit- 
sunday Island. We judged that the huts had been long deserted, from 
fhe circumstance of the tern and other aquatic birds occupying some 
calabashes which were left in them. Among several things found in this 
deserted village were part of a scraper used by merchant-ships, and a large 
fish-hook, which we preserved, without suspecting that they would at a 
fixture day clear up the doubt that these articles were calculated to throw 
^pon the merit of discovering this island, to which we otherwise felt an 
^Indisputable claim. Our suspicions on this head were also strengthened 
fiy noticing that a cocoa-nut tree had been cut down with an instrument 
^harper than the stone axes of the Indians. We had, however, no direct 
proof that the island had been before visited by any ship ; and we con- 
