CHAPTER XII 
Letter XX. Somerset.' — H.M.S. Albatross — Off Murray Island — A 
warm welcome — An unforgettable day — “ No good for food” — Sardines 
and sharks — Teeming life — The annual feast — Wedding festivities — 
The women’s privilege — Entertaining companions — Darnley Island — 
“Dirty Johnstone” — The benefit of not being “flash” — A tasteful 
trousseau — Stephen Island — York Island. 
Somerset. 
After ten days at the Residency on Thursday Island, 
I went back in H.M. gunboat Paluma . They had 
lost one of their men in the bush, and had come up to 
the island for black trackers, who found him very 
quickly, not much the worse for his outing. 
I spent a lazy, happy three weeks at Somerset. It 
has been a very dry season, and most things that were 
in full blossom and fruit when I was there before, were 
only now in bud. I was to have left there for Port 
Darwin, but I missed the steamer, and had the pleasant 
satisfaction of seeing it go by with no means of catching 
it. Later on, I was amply rewarded, for H.M.S .Albatross 
was going to other islands, and, as I had had permission 
from headquarters to go where I wished in her, it was 
too good a chance to be lost. 
We left Somerset at nine in the morning of the 2 5th, 
and after a day of such tossing about as only the 
Albatross is capable of performing, we anchored for the 
first night off Dove Island, and had a comparatively 
smooth time. Next morning we were off at five, a long 
