CHAPTER III
A King For A Comrade


At the time I now write of, we must have been something more than
sixty degrees to the west of the Gallipagos. And having attained a
desirable longitude, we were standing northward for our arctic
destination: around us one wide sea.

But due west, though distant a thousand miles, stretched north and
south an almost endless Archipelago, here and there inhabited, but
little known; and mostly unfrequented, even by whalemen, who go
almost every where. Beginning at the southerly termination of this
great chain, it comprises the islands loosely known as Ellice's
group; then, the Kingsmill isles; then, the Radack and Mulgrave
clusters. These islands had been represented to me as mostly of coral
formation, low and fertile, and abounding in a variety of fruits. The
language of the people was said to be very similar to that or the
Navigator's islands, from which, their ancestors are supposed to have
emigrated.

And thus much being said, all has been related that I then knew of
the islands in question. Enough, however, that they existed at all;
and that our path thereto lay over a pleasant sea, and before a
reliable Trade-wind. The distance, though great, was merely an
extension of water; so much blankness to be sailed over; and in a
craft, too, that properly managed has been known to outlive great