lOO INACCESSIBLE ISLAND. 



with its bright red berries, and the Potentilla-like Accena 

 ascetidens groves here and there together with the "tea-plant" 

 of the islanders. 



The stems and branches of the Phylica trees are covered 

 with lichens in tufts and variously coloured crusts, and the 

 branches of the trees meeting overhead, these little islands as 

 it were, in the seas of tall grass, afford most pleasant shady 

 retreats, which seem a perfect paradise after the terrible struggle 

 and fight through the penguin rookery, which it is necessary 

 to endure in order to reach them. 



In the early morning, we made out with a glass two men 

 standing on the shore gazing at the ship. The Captain went 

 on shore first, and brought off the men, who proved to be the 

 two Germans we had heard of at Tristan da Cunha. They 

 were overjoyed at the chance of escape from the island ; we 

 gave them breakfast, and heard something of their story. 



They both spoke English, one of them remarkably well. 

 They were brothers ; one of them had been an officer in the 

 German army during the war, the other one a sailor. They 

 had got landed at Inaccessible Island by a whaling vessel, in 

 the hope that they would be able to make a considerable sum 

 by killing fur seals, and taking their skins. They had been 

 bitterly disappointed.* 



After breakfast, I landed with one of the Germans as guide 

 with a large party. We passed through a broad belt of water, 

 covered with the floating leaves of the wonderful seaweed 

 Macrocystis pirifrra, which here, as at Tristan and Nightingale 

 Island, forms a sort of zone around the greater part of the 

 island, and of which we afterwards saw so much at Kerguelen's 

 Land. 



As we approached the shore, I was astonished at seeing a 

 shoal of what looked like extremely active very small porpoises 

 or dolphins. I could not imagine what the things could be, 

 unless they were indeed some most marvellously small Ceta- 

 ceans ; they showed black above and white beneath, and came 

 along in a shoal of fifty or more from seawards towards the 

 shore at a rapid pace, by a series of successive leaps out of the 

 water, and splashes into it again, describing short curves in the 

 air, taking headers out of the water and headers into it again ; 

 splash, splash, went this marvellous shoal of animals, till they 

 went splash through the surf on to the black stony beach, and 



* For an account of the sojourn of the Germans in the island, and 

 valuable particulars as to the habits of the various birds, see an article 

 by Mr. R. Richards, Paj-master, H.M.S. "Challenger,'' "Two Years on 

 Inaccessible," in the "Cape Monthly Magazine," Dec, 1873. Cape 

 Tuwn, ]. C. Juta. 



