308 TEE CRUISE OF TEE " CACEALOT:' 



away in the gathering shades of evening, it was'impos- 

 eible to help remembering the sufferings of that afflicted 

 family, confined to those trembling, sulphurous, ash- 

 bestrewn rocks, amid gloom by day, and unnatural 

 glare by night, for all that weary while. And while I 

 admit that there is to some people a charm in being 

 alone with nature, it is altogether another thing when 

 your solitude becomes compulsory, your paradise a prison 

 from which you cannot break away. There are many 

 Buch nooks scattered about the ocean, where men have 

 hidden themselves away from the busy world, and been 

 forgotten by it ; but few of them, I fancy, offer such 

 potentialities of terror as Sunday Island. 



We had hardly lost sight of the land, when Polly's 

 capture gave birth to a kid. This event was the most 

 interesting thing that had happened on board for a great 

 while, and the funny little visitor would have run great 

 risk of being completely spoiled had he lived. But, to 

 our universal sorrow, the mother's milk failed — from 

 want of green food, I suppose — and we were obhged to 

 kill the poor little chap to save him from being starved 

 to death. He made a savoury mess for some whose 

 appetite for flesh-meat was stronger than any senti- 

 mental considerations. 



To an ordinary trader, the distance between the 

 Kermadecs and the Bay of Islands, New Zealand, roughly 

 represents a couple of days' sail ; but to us, who were 

 apparently incapable of hurry under any circumstances, 

 it meant a good week's bludgeoning the protesting waves 

 before the grim outliers of the Three Kings came into 

 view. Even then, although the distance was a mere 

 bagatelle, it was another two days before we arrived 

 off that magnificent harbour where reposes the oldest 

 township in New Zealand — Eussell, where rest the mortal 



