wide ocean spread all around us; neither sail nor shore, nor living
creature was visible, and we had begun to ask ourselves whether we had
not found a watery planet, when Gazen suddenly cried out,

"Land!"

"Whereaway?" I enquired with breathless interest.

He pointed a little to the right of our course, and following the
direction of his finger, I saw a dim outline where sea and sky met. It
might have been mistaken for the tip of a cloud, but as we advanced it
rose above the horizon and took a definite shape not unlike a truncated
cone.

The glasses showed it to be an island apparently of volcanic formation,
and after a brief consultation with Carmichael, we steered towards it.
The emotion of Columbus when he arrived at the Bahamas affords, perhaps,
the nearest parallel to our feelings, but in our case the land in sight
was the outlier of another planet. Watchful curiosity and silent
expectation, the ineffable sorcery of new scenes, the mystery of the
unknown, the romance of adventure, the exultation of triumph, and the
dread of disaster, were inextricably blended in our hearts. It was a
glorious hour, and come what might, we all felt that we had not lived in
vain.

The island rose out of the sea like a volcanic peak, and was evidently
encircled with a barrier reef, as we could trace a line of snowy surf
breaking on its outer verge, and parting the sapphire blue of the deep
water without from the emerald green shoals within. The coast, sweeping
in beautiful bays, dotted with overgrown islets, and fended by rocky