The Voyage to the New Hebrides. WI 
j 
miles accomplished ; thirty-five miles being the poorest day’s 
work: recorded. 
A sea-voyage is always more or less monotonous, as there 
is so little to interest outside the vessel, and we saw perhaps less 
than usual of the sights of the sea. Both air and water were 
remarkably lifeless. Of the inhabitants of the mighty deep we 
saw none except a few flying fish, three sharks and a school of 
porpoises ; while few birds honoured us with their notice or 
their company. The sharks, as is usually the case, caused 
great excitement on board; everyone apparently being filled with 
anxiety to have the ugly creatures hauled: out of their native 
element without delay. We did, after a good deal of haggling, 
succeed in hooking one, and lugged it up on deck. Standing 
round at a safe distance we watched its ungainly flounders and 
its subsequent decapitation with great interest, after which we 
retired to dinner with feelings of placid satisfaction. 
Though there was not much life apparent outside the ves- 
sel, there was no lack of it inside. There were men, women 
and children in' great variety, there were pigs and goats, sheep 
and fowls, a young bull calf, a small dirty kitten, and cock- 
roaches. We were a most harmonious company with the ex- 
ception of the last-named creature. From the beginning to 
the end of the voyage there raged uncéasing war between man 
and cockroach, and on the whole I think that the latter had the 
best of it. ’Tis true that man might annihilate a few by one 
stamp of his foot, but then the cockroaches, assembling at night 
by the hundred, would retaliate, by biting their adversary’s toe- 
nails, flying against his face and running into his boots, until 
man would give up the fight in despair and the cockroach 
reign in triumph. 
All vessels frequenting these seas seem infested with these 
creatures, and there appears to be no way of getting rid of 
them. You may deluge the vessel with water, smoke it with 
