This island is difficult of access, owing to its steep rocky coast and the big Atlantic swell which seldom ceases.  It has therefore been little visited, and as it is infested with land crabs the stay of the few parties which have been there has been short.  But scientifically it is of interest, not only for the number of new species which may be obtained there, but also for the extraordinary attitude of wild sea birds towards human beings whom they have never learnt to fear.  Before we left England it had been decided to attempt a landing and spend a day there if we should pass sufficiently near to it.

Those who have visited it in the past include the astronomer Halley, who occupied it, in 1700.  Sir James Ross, outward bound for the Antarctic in 1839, spent a day there, landing “in a small cove a short distance to the northward of the Nine Pin Rock of Halley, the surf on all other parts being too great to admit of it without hazarding the destruction of our boats.”  Ross also writes that “Horsburgh mentions ... ’that the island abounds with wild pig and goats; one of the latter was seen.  With the view to add somewhat to the stock of useful creatures, a cock and two hens were put on shore; they seemed to enjoy the change, and, I have no doubt, in so unfrequented a situation, and so delightful a climate, will quickly increase in numbers.’  I am afraid we did not find any of their descendants, nor those of the pig and goats."[34] I doubt whether fowls would survive the land crabs very long.  There are many wild birds on the island, however, which may feed the shipwrecked, and also a depot left by the Government for that purpose.  Another visitor was Knight, who wrote a book called The Cruise of the Falcon, concerning his efforts to discover the treasure which is said to have been left there.  Scott also visited it in the Discovery in 1901, when a new petrel was found which was afterwards called ‘Oestrelata wilsoni,’ after the same ‘Uncle Bill’ who was zoologist of both Scott’s Expeditions.

And so it came about that on the evening of July 25 we furled sail and lay five miles from South Trinidad with all our preparations made for a very thorough search of this island of treasure.  Everything was to be captured, alive or dead, animal, vegetable or mineral.

At half-past five the next morning we were steaming slowly towards what looked like a quite impregnable face of rock, with bare cliffs standing straight out of the water, which, luckily for us, was comparatively smooth.  As we coasted to try and find a landing-place the sun was rising behind the island, which reaches to a height of two thousand feet, and the jagged cliffs stood up finely against the rosy sky.

[Illustration:  SOUTH TRINIDAD—­E.  A. Wilson, del.]

We dropped our anchor to the south of the island and a boat’s crew left to prospect for a landing-place, whilst Wilson seized the opportunity to shoot some birds as specimens, including two species of frigate bird, and the seamen caught some of the multitudinous fish.  We also fired shots at the sharks which soon thronged round the ship, and about which we were to think more before the day was done.