She proved to be a new one of some 800 tons burden, laden with silk and indigo, to the value of £150,000, as her papers showed, bound from Calcutta to the Cape; but how she came to be in these southern waters surpassed our comprehension. The oddest thing of all was that there seemed to have been a panic on board, for the deck and cabins were strewed with the clothes of ladies and children; jewel-cases, jewels, and Indian shawls lay everywhere; but the chief part of the baggage had been taken away. Still more extraordinary was it to find that she had been scuttled in every compartment, evidently for the purpose of sinking her. Private letters, that we had no time to examine, lay strewed about, and cloaks and coats, bonnets and caps, yet hung on the hooks in the cabin. But what was her story, or the fate of those who had abandoned her, or why they had done so, we were fated never to know; for though our captain was in the highest glee at picking up so valuable a derelict, and proposed to put a few of the crew on board, and sail in company, a heavy gale came on after sunset, with thick clouds, and when day broke she was nowhere to be seen, and must have gone down in the night. And now I come to the mystery of our disappearance. Our voyage had been an exceedingly prosperous one till we reached the vicinity of the Crozet Islands, in the South Pacific. This solitary group, 'placed far amid the melancholy main,' comprising the Marion Rocks and the Twelve Apostles, lies midway between Prince Edward's Island and the Island of Kerguelen, the abode only of seals and sea swallows, and twenty-two degrees west of the equally solitary St. Paul's, whereon H.M.S. _Megara_ was cast away. The Crozet Islands are all of volcanic origin--wild, rugged, and horrid in aspect, and nearly inaccessible. Their mountains rise in conical peaks to an elevation of from four to five thousand feet, and are covered by perpetual snow, while dense fogs frequently envelop their bases. Before we came to this dangerous vicinity we had encountered a gale; but it had spent its fury, and was subsiding. The prospect, however, of the winter evening sea (for though the month was July, it was the season of midwinter there) was cheerless--a darkening sky, and nothing living in view but a seabird or two, swimming and skimming over the white tops of the grey waves. It had become evident to all on board that the captain's work as navigator disagreed with that of the mate and Joe Rudderford. He was 'out of his reckoning,' but was wroth with anyone who dared to hint that he was so; and, to allay his chagrin, drank large quantities of spirits.