PERILS OF PIONEERING. 171 



considerable distance, and divided from me by a surging 

 current. 



I still hoped that my brother would come, and 

 soon heard his voice much nearer than it sounded 

 overnight, so I shouted at the top of my voice that I 

 was on an island and flooded, and asked him to come 

 and take me off; but the birds were singing so joy- 

 ously in the morning sunshine, the laughing jackasses 

 near me keeping up a continuous peal of laughter, as 

 if they thought my presence amongst them was a huge 

 joke, that gradually my brother's voice died away and 

 I heard it no more. 



Having waited till ten o'clock, by which time I had 

 probably been in the tree for thirteen or fourteen 

 hours, and a long time having now elapsed since my 

 brother had gone, 1 began to fear that something must 

 have happened to them, and perhaps their lives were 

 in danger, or that they had been unable to save 

 themselves. 



With this idea I made up my mind to swim for the 

 shore, and began to divest myself of my clothes. It 

 was a helmet hat that I wore, and for the sake of 

 ventilation there was an aperture round my head. In 

 putting my watch inside my hat, I found there three 

 scorpions and two large centipedes, which had taken 

 refuge there and seemed quite happy and contented, 



