1 88 SOME BIRDS OF SOUTH AFRICA 



I expressed my willingness to do so. 



Then he continued, " What anyone wants to go to 

 these islands for, I don't know ! They're ill all the way 

 there and all the way back, and sometimes they can't 

 land at all. However, some people never seem to know 

 when they're well off." He went on in this strain some 

 little while longer before he signed and handed me an 

 order without which the lighthouse keeper would not 

 allow me to land. Afterwards he became quite friendly, 

 showing me the different islands on a chart and telling 

 me their names, until he suddenly pulled himself up 

 and dismissed me, as though he felt that such an un- 

 approachable representative of the Harbour Buildings 

 as he was, had no right to be conversing on familiar 

 terms with a mere person. 



" Could I land on Seal Island?" I asked him, as I 

 left. 



"I've never landed on Seal Island," he replied in 

 an austere and rather hurt voice. 



That settled the matter. 



The evening was not a promising one, from a 

 weather point of view, but the sea gets up and goes 

 down at Port Elizabeth in such a short time that even 

 the most weatherwise of the old hands on the jetty, 

 and there are many such, were sometimes at fault. 

 I managed to get an early breakfast, and was down at 

 the appointed, and unusual hour for me, six o'clock. 

 The wind had shifted in the night, from south-east to 

 north-west, and it was blowing fairly hard from the 

 latter quarter, but as this meant a wind from the land, 

 it seemed to be the opinion of those best able to judge 

 that we should have a quiet sea. The large rollers, 



