502 Transactions. — MiaccUaneons. 



The west coast, down which we soon commenced to pass, 

 is very grand and extremely bold. It may be briefly described 

 as a line of cliffs and steeps thirty-five miles long. Nearly 

 everywhere in the world west coasts are steep and east coasts 

 shelving. This is decidedly the case here. In Otago, in 

 Norv.'ay, and in North and South America, deep fiords relieve 

 the continnity of these steeps. Here there is nothing of the 

 kind save the strait between the two islands; on the contrary 

 the only apertures of the kind are six fine harbours, seldom 

 visited, on the east coast. The search for castaways does not 

 call for a visit to these, as they are not in the course of any 

 ships, and would not be reached by wanderers from the west 

 coast ; moreover, seal-poachers have no occasion to go there, 

 as the fur-seals only frequent the wild west coast. 



We passed inside Disappointment Island — a high island 

 lying some miles off the coast, only visited by seal-poachers. 

 We endeavoured to pick out the site of the wreck of the 

 " Invercauld." Not a stick of her timbers has ever been 

 found. For the first twenty or twentj'-five miles of the coast 

 there are numerous places where, if men happened to escape 

 at the right spot, they might serainble up to the high land. 

 There is scarcely a stretch of a mile where they could not get 

 up if strong enough. For the next ten miles there is scarcely 

 any place where this could be done. 



The romantic story of the loss on this coast of the fine, 

 ship " General Grant," whose figurehead is still seen a long 

 way up the coast, and v^hicli, according to the survivors, drove 

 into a cave 250ft. deep, has often been repeated. She was 

 lost with more than sixty passengers and crew''; and the 

 few survivors, including the stewardess, were rescued after 

 eighteen months' stay on the island. The fact that the ship 

 carried ten thousand pounds' worth of gold has incited several 

 parties to search for the cave wherein she was supposed to lie, 

 but they have had no better fortune than we had, for, though 

 we examined the coast with much care, and saw caves, we saw 

 none that would answer this purpose. 



At several points we saw vast rookeries of birds. Some of 

 these appeared to be penguins ; but, though Captain Fairchild 

 makes a point of stoj^ping and examining anything of the sort 

 when there is spare time, he could not afford to do so then. 

 Another of these was an immense area of mollymawk nests 

 (Diornedea melanophrijs). These birds, which are allied to 

 the albatros, nest in the most inaccessible places. Here, as 

 in most rookeries, they built among the grass on a slope, with 

 cliffs both above and below it. We thought it might, be pos- 

 sible, but difficult, to reach this from Carnley Harbour ; but 

 the distance is considerable. The grass where they build 

 grows darker than when in its natural state, and from this we 



