18 A TEDIOUS BRIEF EXPLANATION 



their steady and long-continued operations, sailing 

 directions of some value will be compiled. 



Work of this sort, involving simultaneous exact 

 efforts of several different kinds, demands a large 

 number of hands and heads, and in my time the 

 Investigator s company consisted of more than a 

 hundred and twenty, officers and men. 



It is also hard work, even when observations of 

 the stars (of which I have made no mention, since 

 they are of only occasional necessity for those who 

 are working in a country that has already been 

 properly measured off by a land-survey) are left out 

 of consideration. 



Every morning at daybreak we shall see a little 

 fleet of well-manned boats and launches preparing to 

 leave the ship. One of these will carry a coast-lining 

 party ; another will be taking in a load of spars and 

 canvas and whitewash for survey marks," and men 

 to erect the marks ; others are for sounding-parties to 

 explore the shallow waters near shore, in which it 

 would be dangerous for the ship herself to sound. 



Occasionally — for this is not an everyday occur- 

 rence — we shall see one with a tide-pole and an 

 unhappy tide-watchers' party, off to be marooned on a 

 sandbank or in a mangrove swamp. 



Having cast off these, away the ship goes to take 

 soundings on her own account in deep water. She 

 will pick them up again somewhere (if they have 



