a distance that represented some hours of steaming in our slow little boat, towing the skiff. There remained but one thing more to add to our misfortunes, and it came-namely, the rain. The night, after a starry prelude, had slowly been clouding over. The wind gradually dropped, and at midnight or thereabouts the rain began definitely to drop too. Our clothes had been completely soaked with salt water twice over: once in swimming ashore, and again when rescuing the drifting skiff. Wringing them out had produced not exactly dryness but at least a damp approach to it, not unbearable in that climate, if unpleasant; and the sleep of the just and of the weary had come to us, even on the thin couches of leaves which alone separated us from the hard ground. But now cold pig" descended on us from the sky, drop after heavy drop. There was no avoiding a avoiding them. The rain searched every corner of our wretched bivouac. Even the adjacent trees offered little or no protection, and merely collected the falling water in definite catchment areas overhead, from which to fall in larger drops on our defenceless bodies. Further sleep was impossible. With the first grey of dawn began our attempts to make fire; for without fire there could be no steam in the steam-boat, and no return to the ship. Everything was by this time quite damp, though kindling wood, paper, and what unfolded tents, never before needed, on account of the huts; and, most serious of all, every box of matches had gone as well, except for a few which Huxley remembered to have put in his trouser pocket in order to light up the steamboat's furnace in the morning. The next flash of memory reminded him and us that he had just swum ashore in those self-same trousers. He pulled the soaked and disintegrating box out of his pocket, and sadly placed in a row five drowned little Bryants by the side of five defunct little Mays near the still warm ashes of the ruined camp, in the hope -alas! vain that the heat might dry the matches back to usefulness. A day's provisions-" iron rations -are always kept in every surveying boat for use on such an emergency as this. I sent to get them from the steam-boat, and also to bring ashore the stump of a precious candle in a lantern that was there, together with the boat's "firework box." This latter was a soldered-up tin box containing rockets, blue-lights, and other means of making night signals, also for emergency use. provisions consisted of a small quantity of preserved meat in tins and ship's biscuit. That was all; but it was better than nothing, even though we were reluctantly obliged to leave half of it for the following morning, when we should need it for breakfast, before starting back to the ship, which was at The 66 remained of the matches had been defended from the pitiless rain so far as was possible. The moment had evidently arrived for putting into practice the advice drummed and drilled into the brain of every midshipman of those days as to how to act when away in an armed boat on active service and desirous of obtaining a light, the homely match-box, for some unknown reason, being entirely prohibited from a boat's equipment. The stereotyped reply, which had helped to pass many a viva voce exam. for sub-lieutenant, was, "I should fire a blank charge from a rifle into a piece of slow-match placed near the the muzzle." A moderately sheltered spot having been discovered under the dripping bushes, this ingenious method was put to the test. . . . Presently the shrill whistle announced the successful raising of steam. We gathered up whatever portable fragments remained to us of the poor charred camp, ate miserably the remainder of our cold, unbreakfast-like "iron rations," and paddled off to the steamboat just as the nine o'clock sun devoured the last of the rain-cloud; so that our departure at least was, so far, cheerful. Chapman, who had slept heavily through our night of wretchedness, sat quietly After three whole hours, hav- in the boat as we steamed back ing destroyed an entire field- to the ship, with a countenance day's supply of blank cartridge of the most extreme melanwithout any appreciable result choly, relapsing into tears with upon the sulky slow-match, the appearance of any sea-bird and having done things with near or round the boat. When the fireworks which in happier we got on board, and the tale less desperate circumstances of our adventure and sufferings would have reduced all of us had been told, the doctor adto mere cinders, a detonator vised that he should be kept was at last induced to func- under observation only, but tion on its accompanying blue- under no restraint; and as light; and from this danger- the day progressed he seemed ous, quickly burning torch to become torch to become more and more the precious gift of fire was passed on to our equally precious bit of candle. This latter consisted of about 4 inches of a "pusser's dip," which we had cut into two pieces; so that while one sacred flame normal. But that night, at a little after 1 A.M., the Quartermaster on watch heard a heavy splash in the sea under the bows. It was an overpoweringly hot night. There had been a thunderstorm and a torrent of rain. A steaming heat drove all hands white sandy bottom of the up to sleep on deck. With the always heart-rending alarm, "Man overboard," the quiet ship was immediately roused into thrilling life. Boats were lowered, lanterns flashed, men with ropes and life-buoys bent over the low bulwarks, peering into the blackness beneath. Some men jumped overboard, regardless of sharks, and were swimming about, searching in every direction. It was poor Chapman who had disappeared so suddenly, as we soon found out when mustering the ship's company "round the capstan," as it was called, a duty which was carried out as soon as possible by flickering candle-light, the men in every sort of queer "rig," most of them in nothing but a "flannel." Nothing was ever seen of the unfortunate man again. When daylight came, the boats were sent in all directions "dragging" for his body, searching with "water-glasses the pure little bay off Lizard Island, where the ship lay at anchor. All that was there to be seen was clearly visible through the translucent water : the anchor and the curve of the attached cable up to the hawsepipe, a few scattered lumps of dark coral-crusted stone, and at one place over which the ship had once lain were the mortal remains of poor old Tabbs, the ship's cat, who had found her last batch of kittens too much for her, and had died a few days previously, and been consigned, shotted, to a watery grave. She, at least, had not been touched by sharks, and, indeed, we never at any time saw sharks at Lizard Island, so that what became of the luckless Chapman was and remains a mystery. The Skipper read the burial service over the place of his escape from the "birds." He was marked as "DD" in the List of the Ship's Company, and there the matter stands. The wise surveying Skipper, who realises that his assistants are but men and not sounding machines, will arrange that those who do the depth-taking part of the work most efficiently shall not for that reason be employed on it and on nothing else. At the first sign of staleness-and, better still, earlier -he will put the sounder 66 III. on to some other job, such as Tidal observations, inland topography, astronomical work, coast-lining-there is a large field of choice in Hydrographical Surveying; indeed, each of these subjects (and there are several more) is itself not merely a "field" but an estate of considerable acreage. After a few weeks of sounding, therefore, not because I had become very competent at it far otherwise-but because it was time for me to begin on a new subject, I was put on to learn "coast-lining." This means the accurate mapping of the high-water line around the coasts of a survey; the boundary, as you may say, of Britannia's Realm. It is performed by walking round the high-water line of the shore, following exactly its every turn and twist, small and great, and fixing its position on the chart by means of a sextant, theodolite, and several other instruments, indicating, by appropriate symbols, what part is rock, what gravel, what sand, what mud, and so forth. Even the colour of each must be noted, and the heights of offlying rocks. It is really artistic work, full of dodges, and extremely interesting. If it is possible, a small pulling boat accompanies you as you proceed round the coast, carrying instruments and lunch, and assisting in fixing outlying rocks, too deep to be reached by wading to them. The tropical coastline is strangely different from any to be found in the British Isles. In these cold lands the seafronts are for the most part bare of trees, and are windswept; but in hot-house latitudes, when heat is associated with a rank fertility of soil, the struggling, jostling tangle of trees comes thrusting out over the beach, each foliageladen bough straining to be the outermost and the first to suck in the light and the soft damp air coming in over the sea. At high-water the tidal edge lies far in under these green bowsprits, and coastlining is impossible beneath them, so that, until the tide falls, one must find that rarity, an open piece of coast, on which to work. At low water an almost greater difference from the English coast-line is seen. Every islet of the Queensland sea within the Barrier is set about with a girdle of flat reef, accreted even as is tartar round a tooth. The shore-line itself is surrounded by a band of coral sand of a whiteness that, in the blazing sunlight, causes first the eyes and then the whole head to ache distressingly; and you step gratefully from it to the stage below the sand, the undazzling stretch of brown, dead, coral rock. This is sometimes as much as a hundred yards in width, and is nearly flat. It is intersected with crevices and pools, in which, left by the tide, are little darting fish of brilliant colours, and large cowry shells (generally the homes of hermit crabs) and black sea-cucumbers, disgusting to look at, and more disgusting to touch. Not a leaf of seaweed, as we know it, is anywhere to be seen. As you walk out towards the reefedge, the pools become deeper, and their sides are crusted with clumps of living coral; and then suddenly you find yourself on the verge of a steep slope, falling away into : cool blue depths of fairyland. as much as a hundredweight: There can be nothing more you could easily give a baby beautiful or fanciful in the a bath in one of them. One world. You look down through must suppose that these monthe pellucid water upon a a sters began their existence, when dream-garden of the most ex- no larger than cockles, in some quisite branching sea-growths, vacancy among the coral of unimaginable variety of branches at what was then forms, all lovely. They glow the outer edge of the living with colour in the flooding reef. As the reef grew slowly sunlight, not steadily but in seaward and Tridacna gigasquick living palpitations, in which is the monster's namevibrations of mauve, and blue, increased in size, he pushed and carmine, and golden brown, away the softly encroaching and a thousand soft shades coral buds until by the time besides, down, down, into the the living front of the reef purple mystery at the foot of had grown outward past his the steep slope it is the chosen home, he had moulded front of the coral army, march- for, himself a recess in the now ing ever outwards from the hard coral rock, just wide land on stepping-stones of its enough to allow full play to dead self to better things. his hungry jaws, and just deep enough for them to be exactly flush with the surface of the reef. Thus the huge creature lies completely hidden, and as you walk over the reef a careful look-out is most necessary. Each lip of the shell is deeply corrugated and sharply edged. When closed, the indentations fit closely into one another, and when open they lie five or six inches apart. If, as you walk, you look sufficiently closely, you can distinguish the mouths of these man-traps (though they are intended to be fish-traps) by a wavy zigzag line of dark green and red. The corrugations of the lips of the shell are thus traceable amongst the lighter browns and reds and greens of the reef, but are not at all clearly marked. Shortly before our arrival in the Queens Through its wonderful branches, as if their own glowing colour was not sufficient for the greediest spectator, there move fishes of shapes and tints surpassing all invention, ever changing, ever interweaving. In their setting they are like the creatures of some brilliantly illuminated ancient manuscript. When tramping along the beach, industriously coast-lining, it is difficult indeed to resist taking an occasional and quite unnecessary walk to the reef edge when the tide is low to look over it into the wonderland slope of the weather side. To do so, however, requires not only strong boots, but also great circumspection. Some of the crevices in the surface of the dead reef are the hidden dwelling-places of giant clams, whose double shells often weigh |
