NARRATIVE OF THE CRUISE. 257 



Island, landed on it, shortly after the wreck of the " Bienden Hall," some goats and pigs ; 

 the progeny of the latter still flourish on the plateau above the cliffs of the island, 

 but as they live almost entirely on sea birds and their eggs, their flesh has a peculiar 

 fishy flavour, and is very unpalatable, so much so that the men in the Challenger could 

 not eat it. 



From 1822 Inaccessible remained deserted until the 27th November 1871, when two 

 Germans (brothers), named Frederic and Gustav Stoltenkoff, landed there for the purpose 

 of collecting sealskins, and remained on the island until taken off by the Challenger in 

 October 1873, after a residence of nearly two years. 1 



As the vessel lay off Inaccessible Island, the Penguins were to be heard screaming all 

 night on shore and about the ship, and when parties of them passed by, they left vivid 

 phosphorescent tracks behind them as they dived through the water alongside. In the 

 morning the island was in full view, and presented on this side a range of abrupt cliffs, 

 of much the same structure as those of Tristan, viz., successive layers of basalt, traversed 

 by vertical or oblique dikes, mostly narrow vertical ones. At the foot of the cliffs arc 

 some very steep debris slopes, extending in one place a long way up the cliff, but not so 

 as to render the ascent possible (see PI. VIIL). In front of these stretches a strip of 

 narrow uneven ground, formed of large detached rocks and detritus from the cliffs above, 

 which terminates seawards in a beach of black boulders and large pebbles. In one place, 

 where the cliff is somewhat lower than elsewhere, there is a waterfall, which at the 

 time of the visit was scantily supplied with water, but, from the marks left by 

 it on the rocks and vegetation, it evidently attains much greater dimensions in rainy 

 weather. The cascade pours right down from the high cliff above into a dark 

 pool of peaty water on the beach below. The rocks about its course are covered 

 with mosses and green incrusting plants. The face of the cliff generally is sprinkled 

 over with green, the vegetation consisting principally of Tussock Grass (Spartina 

 arundinaeea), Wild Celery (Apium australe), Sow-thistle (Sonchus oleraceus), Dock 

 (Rumex frutescens), a small Sedge (Carex insularis), and Ferns ; with dark green patches 

 of Phylica nitida on the debris slopes and ledges. 



Amongst the grass are several patches or small coppices of Phylica nitida, trees, 

 which keep the ground beneath them free from Tussock, it being covered instead with a 

 thick growth of Sedges, Ferns, and Mosses, forming an elastic carpet on the dark peaty 

 soil. Amongst the moss creeps Nertera deprcsm, with its bright red berries, and the 

 Potent illa-\ike Accena sangvisorbce grows 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 above these 

 little islands, as it were, in the seas of tall grass, afford most pleasant shady retreats, which 



1 Two Years on Inaccessible Island, by R. R. Richards, Esq., E.N., Cape Monthly Magazine, Cape Town, J. C. Jnta 



187:?. 



(XARR. UHAI.I,. EXP. VOL. I. 1884.) 33 



