Page:Paine--Lost ships and lonely seas.djvu/246

208 paper, they might have carved upon boards the brief epitome of their story or lettered it with charcoal on bits of bark, and the kindly chiefs of Manicola would have guarded the record with care. Like ghosts of sailormen, they lived in the memories and the traditions of these South Sea Islanders. Captain Dillon made an interesting discovery while exploring the reefs, and he thus describes it:

It was in Captain Dillon's mind that one of the survivors had gone to another island, according to the old chief's story, and so after finishing the investigation of the Manicola group, he sailed to ransack the seas near by. Nothing came of the search, and the natives whom he questioned here and there had never seen or heard of other white