Here we were, then, lying off the island and scanning its sparse crown of cocoanut palms, looking for a French flag among their wavy tufts.  There was none in sight.  We were the winners in the long race.  Directly a whale-boat was lowered, and rowed around the white fringe of tremendous surf that broke ceaselessly against the vertical wall of coral rock.  There was just one narrow place where the waves rolled into a sort of cleft and did not break.  Here was the “landing,” then.

Landing was an acrobatic feat.  In you went on the crest of a wave, pointing for the place where the blue seas did not break into white.  An instant after, you were in the quiet water inside of the surf.  Jump out everybody and hold the boat!  Then it was pick up the various instruments, and carry them for a quarter of a mile to high-water mark and beyond, over the sharp points of the reef.

In one night we were fairly settled; in another the Hartford had sailed away, leaving us in our fairy paradise, where the corals and the fish were of all the brilliant hues of the rainbow, and where the whiteness of the sand, the emerald of the lagoon, and the turquoise of the ocean made a picture of color and form never to be forgotten.

But where are the Frenchmen?  The next morning there is the Eclaireur lying a mile or so out, and there is a boat with the bo’sun—­maitre d’equipage—­pulling towards the surf.  I wade out to the brink.  He halloes: 

“Where is the landing, then?”

“Mais ici”—­Right here,—­I say.

“Yes, that’s all very well for persons, but where do you land les bagages?”

“Mais ici” I say again, and he says, “Diable!”

But all the same he lands both persons and baggage in a neat, sailor-like way.  In a couple of days our two parties of fifty persons had taken possession of this fairy isle.  Observatories go up, telescopes, spectroscopes, photographic cameras are pointed and adjusted.  The eventful day arrives.  Everything is successful.  Then comes the Hartford and takes us away, and a few days later comes the Eclaireur, and the Frenchmen are gone.  The little island is left there, abandoned to the five natives who tend the sickly plantation of cocoa-palms, and live from year to year with no incident but the annual visit of “the blig” (Kanaka for brig), which brings their store of ship biscuit and molasses.

[Illustration:  “OBSERVATORIES GO UP.”]

Think of their stupendous experience!  For years and years they have lived like that in the marvellous, continuous charm of the silent island.  The “blig” had come and gone away this year, and there will be no more disturbance and discord for a twelve-month longer.

  “Surely, surely, slumber is more sweet than toil, the shore
  Than labor in the deep mid-ocean, wind, and wave, and oar,
  Then rest ye, brother mariners, we will not wander more!”