4OO Incidents of Foreign Field Sport. 



responsibilities on my shoulders. After hesitating a 

 little, on my saying I would take the lighter and go 

 alone if he was afraid to accompany me, he assented, 

 though with a very bad grace. We started with a 

 good breeze and were off the shoal by daylight, but 

 there the wind failed us. We both thought we 

 should be to the west instead of to the east of the 

 Preparis, and did all we could to get westward, but 

 signally failed, as in the absence of winds the 

 currents were too strong for us ; and it was just as 

 well, as we ascertained afterwards, that we had failed 

 in our endeavour, as there was a barrier of rocks 

 beyond which we should not have been able to 

 weather, and on which we would probably have 

 been wrecked. About 10 A.M. the wind sprang again, 

 and we went on merrily. We sighted Table Island 

 just as we lost all bearings of the reef and got to 

 our destination by 9 P.M., where we found the 

 schooner at anchor. Early next morning I landed, 

 and explored my future abode. There was no fresh 

 water on it. It was very hilly and densely covered 

 with bamboo and tree jungle. Its length and 

 breadth, including Slipper Island, was all but a mile 

 each way. There was nothing to shoot there, 

 cocoa-nuts were few and far between and existed 

 only on the south-east face. It was not an inviting 

 place to live in with life convicts (all murderers, 

 who had escaped hanging by the skin of their 

 teeth) for the space of three years. But I am a 

 bit of a fatalist, and believe that sufficient for the 

 day is the evil thereof. In the afternoon the 

 steamer with the superintendent arrived. After 

 a brief interview, I was told to land all the 



