a N.W. and S.E. direction. This place, I should suppose, abounds with seals, and sorry I am that the time and the lumbered state of my ship do not allow me to examine it.'
Captain Bristow visited them in the following year (1807) in the 'Sarah,' also belonging to the Messrs. Enderby, when he took formal possession of them for the British Crown, and left some pigs there, which afterwards increased to a surprising extent, but seem, by Captain Musgrave's account, to have since become quite extinct.[1] The islands remained untenanted during the subsequent years, being visited occasionally by vessels in search of whales and seals—the former coming into the bays to calve during the months of April and May, and the latter consisting chiefly of sea lions. Among those who came hither in 1829 was Captain Morrell, an American navigator, to whom, among other things, we owe the discovery of the deposits of guano at Ichaboe, and whose description of the port of Carnley's Harbour is given presently.
In the year 1840 the island was visited by the vessels of three nations—the English ships 'Erebus' and 'Terror,' under Sir James Clark Ross and Captain Crozier;[2] the French corvettes 'L'Astrolabe' and 'La Zelée,' under Dumont D'Urville; and the United States Exploring Expedition, under Captain Charles Wilkes. From the narratives of these voyages we have chiefly derived the subsequent particulars.
The islands were without permanent inhabitants during all the periods of the above visits; but, subsequently, a body of New Zealanders, about seventy in number, came over from Chatham Island in a whale ship, and were landed on the N.E. or Enderby Island. Bringing with them their warlike spirit, their quarrels soon led to an
