152 THE ARCTURUS ADVENTURE 



able, or there was something very pressing to be 

 done, and after a while I began to go about mur- 

 muring, "Je n'cd jamais vu Cai'cassonner 



It is a great thing to have authority on your 

 side, so when the Director took an interest in Is- 

 let-South-Of-Gardner I finally reached it. One 

 morning he and Betty and I were ferried over; 

 we landed on a little lava step to which it was just 

 possible to jump from the stern of the small boat. 

 This was on the opposite side of the island from the 

 cliff, and seemed the only feasible landing place, 

 for to the left the shores were too precipitous, and 

 to the right a long arm of boulders was partly 

 covered by a turmoil of surf. No one expects to 

 land on a Galapagos dryshod ; it is counted a lucky 

 day when an effected landing leaves you dry from 

 the waist up. So we dripped moistly up along a 

 series of zigzag shelves in the rock, until we stood 

 on a level bit of soil. The whole islet, seen from 

 this point, seemed to slope gently from the northern 

 to the southern side, — from the high point of the 

 cliff down to the boulder beach that buried itself in 

 the sea. Here among big water-smoothed stones 

 were other lumps, — some dark as the lava rocks, 

 others yellow-brown, depending on whether the sea- 

 lions had had time to dry since heaving themselves 

 out of the surf. 



From my short acquaintance with the race, 

 I feel justified in generalizing to the extent of 

 stating that sea-lions are nice people. From the 

 chunky unweaned babies that can be tucked under 

 the arm and lugged about, somewhat cumbersome 



