182 A NATURALIST ON THE "CHALLENGER." 



seemed to lie some little way off the land, for the cliffs were 

 lighted up by sunlight. Down these cliffs in several places, 

 waterfalls poured into the sea. 



As we neared the island and entered the passage between 

 Possession Island and East Island, and came opposite the 

 sealers' anchorage at Navire Bay, we had a clear view of this end 

 of the island. It here presented a series of gentle slopes, 

 bounded by low littoral cliffs. Further off, towards America 

 Bay, the cliffs were seen to be much higher. ISTavire Bay is a 

 very slight indentation of the coast line, affording hardly any 

 shelter : it has a beach of large pebbles, and from it extends up 

 inland a sinuous valley, appearing to my eye as rather a space 

 left between two lava flows than the result of denudation. On 

 one side of the beach was seen a hut and a store of oil barrels. 



A shot was fired, but no one showed himself. The place 

 was evidently deserted. There was too much surf on the beach 

 to allow of landing. It was late in the evening, and a bank of 

 fog appeared to be drifting up to envelope us ; so after sounding 

 we made for Kerguelen's Land, greatly of course to my dis- 

 appointment, for the flora of the Crozets was then quite unex- 

 plored. The slopes, however, appeared from the ship as if covered 

 with a similar vegetation to that of Marion Island, which how- 

 ever, did not extend so high up the mountains. 



The slopes were covered with albatrosses, nesting as at 

 Marion, and the birds seen about the ship were the same as at 

 that island, but in addition a Molly mauk was seen. 



East Island presents towards Possession Island, very high 

 sheer precipices, with most remarkable jagged summits. Only 

 these summits, with their bold outline showing out against the 

 sky, lit up by the light of the sunset, were to be seen ; the base of 

 the cliffs was hidden in impenetrable fog. The Crozets are in 

 about the same latitude as the Prince Edward Islands. 



Crews of vessels have several times been cast away on the 

 Crozet Islands. I have already referred to the account given by 

 Charles Goodridge of his stay of two years in the islands in 

 1821-23.* Goodridge describes the discovery by his party at 



* "Narrative of a Voyage to the South Seas, &c.," pp. 42, 43, by C. M. 

 Goodridge. London, Hamilton and Adams, 1833. 



