18 WORST JOURNEY IN THE WORLD 
ago a chap named Knight lived on the island for six months 
with a party of Newcastle miners—trying to get at it. He 
had the place all right, but a huge landslide has covered up ~ 
three-quarters of a million of the pirate’s gold. The land- 
crabs are little short of a nightmare. They peep out at you 
from every nook and boulder. Their dead staring eyes 
follow your every step as if to say, ‘ If only you will drop © 
down we will do the rest.’ To lie down and sleep on any 
part of the island would be suicidal. Of course, Knight 
had a specially cleared place with all sorts of precautions, 
otherwise he would never have survived these beasts, which 
even tried to nibble your boots as you stood—staring hard 
at you the whole time. One feature that would soon send 
a lonely man off his chump is that no matter how many are 
in sight they are all looking at you, and they follow step 
by step with a sickly deliberation. They are all yellow 
and pink, and next to spiders seem the most loathsome 
creatures on God’s earth. Talking about spiders [Bowers 
always had the greatest horror of spiders]—I have to col- 
lect them as well as insects. Needless to say I caught them 
with a butterfly net, and never touched one. Only five 
species were known before, and I found fifteen or more— 
at any rate I have fifteen for certain. Others helped me to 
catch them, of course. Another interesting item to science 
is the fact that I caught a moth hitherto unknown to exist 
on the island, also various flies, ants, etc. Altogether it 
was a most successful day. Wilson got dozens of birds, and 
Lillie plants, etc. On our return to the landing-place we 
found to our horror that a southerly swell was rolling in, 
and great breakers were bursting on the beach. About 
five p.m. we all collected and looked at the whaler and 
pram on one side of the rollers and ourselves on the other. 
First it was impossible to take off the guns and specimens, — 
so we made them all up to leave for the morrow. Second, 
a sick man had come ashore for exercise, and he could not 
be got off : finally, Atkinson stayed ashore with him. The 
breakers made the most awe-inspiring cauldron in our 
little nook, and it meant a tough swim for all of us. Three 
of us swam out first and took a line to the pram, and finally 
