While we were talking we were rapidly approaching the coral island.  The doctor joined us, and was watching it also.  The schooner stood on, and we thought she was going to pass it.  The doctor, though not less anxious to leave the vessel than we were, did not appear to agree with our wish to be set on shore there.  "It is dreadfully hot there, without shelter from sun or wind.  There is also but little variety of food; and green as the ground looks from hence, we should find nothing to be compared to a green lawn when once we set foot on it," he remarked. Still Jerry and I were ready enough to run the risk, hoping that, at all events, we might soon find the means of getting away.  When, however, we had abandoned all hopes of landing there, the schooner was once more hauled up close to the wind.  We found that she had stood on to clear a reef.  She stood in under the lee of the land, and hove-to close to where an opening appeared in the reef.