Page:Sailing Alone Around the World (Slocum).djvu/232

212 The Keeling Cocos Islands, according to Admiral Fitzroy, R. N., lie between the latitudes of 11° 50' and 12° 12' S., and the longitudes of 96° 51' and 96° 58' E, They were discovered in 1608-9 by Captain William Keeling, then in the service of the East India Company. The southern group consists of seven or eight islands and islets on the atoll, which is the skeleton of what some day, according to the history of coral reefs, will be a continuous island. North Keeling has no harbor, is seldom visited, and is of no importance. The South Keelings are a strange little world, with a romantic history all their own. They have been visited occasionally by the floating spar of some hurricane-swept ship, or by a tree that has drifted all the way from Australia, or by an ill-starred