22'^ Voyage of the Nov ar a. 



selves with collecting specimens on the beach, and amid 

 the surrounding rocks. A singular spectacle now presented 

 itself to the astonished view. A couple of lucifer matches 

 that had been thrown aside without further thought, had 

 burst into flames amid the parched rush beds, and dense 

 volumes of black smoke forthwith rose upon the surface of 

 the island. The fire speedily spreading among the thick 

 dry grass, soon assumed a formidable breadth, and ere long a 

 considerable portion of the east coast of the island was 

 in a light flame. There was now presented to the members of 

 the Novara expedition, the same spectacle as that witnessed 

 by the naturalists of the Recherche, when D'Entrecasteaux 

 passed here some sixty years before. It may safely be assumed 

 that the fire, and the thick wreaths of smoke then visible were 

 like those of to-day, the result of man's hands, and not 

 of subterranean forces — in fact, kindled in all probability 

 by fishermen, who were clearing this uninhabitable island 

 of the close impervious brushwood that so greatly impedes 

 locomotion, and were rendering it capable of being traversed, 

 as well as susceptible of cultivation. During the night 

 of 7th and 8th December, 1857, the sky was clear and 

 cloudless, and the flames crackled and leaped high above 

 the beach, in an elliptical area, which must have measured a 

 couple of miles in its major axis. A dense, copper-coloured, 

 luminous cloud of smoke rose straight into the air, where 

 it spread out horizontally, till at last a long trail of smoke 

 stretched in a S.E. direction to the farthest horizon, entirolv 



