THE LAST CRUISE OF THE MIRANDA. 41 



against wind and tide in trying to round a point, and 

 were obliged to put in to shore upon a desert island — a 

 bleak and barren spot, offering but little shelter. We gathered 

 some scrubby underbrush, however, and stretched ourselves, 

 thoroughly tired out with our struggles with wind and wave 

 and oar, around the fire that we built. Spasmodic attempts 

 were made to keep up a cheerful conversation ; but as there 

 was nothing to eat or drink, and as most of us were pretty 

 well drenched, it would have taxed Mark Tapley himself to 

 have kept up an appearance of jollity. There was a sense of 

 desolateness about the place hard to describe, while the wind 

 moaned dismally over it. 



" — A wind that shrills 

 Over a waste land, where no one comes, 

 Or has come since the making of the world." 



The moon rose cold and clear, and looked down upon a 

 dejected and shivering group huddled around a flickering fire. 

 It was cold, very cold, and the wind still blew, and the great 

 waves dashed against the rocky shore. At length, some time 

 after midnight, there came a lull in the tempest, and we 

 gladly took to our boats again. It was a long, hard pull 

 against wind and tide ; but very beautiful seemed the barren, 

 rocky islands in the now bright moonlight, and the sky up 

 above was a wonder and a revelation, with the great northern 

 lights ever and anon streaming over it, then dimming and 

 dying, then flashing out again in long, shining clouds that lit 

 up earth and sky. It was three o'clock in the morning before 

 we reached our home on the rolling deep, and never did the 

 Miranda's lights seem more welcome to us than when they 

 gleamed over the waters in the gray dawn of that morning. 



Later on that day, July 21, a communication from Captain 

 Farrell was read by Dr. Cook to the assembled members of 

 the expedition. This stated that it would be necessary to 



