88 
FROM SYDNEY TO TORRES STRAIT. 
Sunset of the 9th lighted up the summit of Mount Ikurangi, 5535 feet high, which 
dominates the eastern peninsula of North Island. This was our last glimpse of New Zealand 
—a land highly favoured by Nature, and doubly interesting as one of those rising colonies 
which are likely to occupy a large place in future history. 
A three days’ run with a strong westerly breeze brought us amongst the Kermadec 
Islands, said to be uninhabited, though they must have been occasionally visited by canoes 
from the neighbouring islands, situated as they are nearly mid-way between New Zealand 
and the archipelagoes of Tonga and Fiji. We obtained a distant view of the bare Esperance 
Rocks, and devoted the greater part of the 14th to sounding and dredging within sight of 
Raol or Sunday Island, then distant about twenty-eight miles to the southward. It presents 
to the eye a long serrated ridge, seemingly covered with vegetation, the highest point not 
rising much over 1500 feet above the sea. Recent soundings have shown that the Kermadec 
Islands belong to the same submarine plateau which, with an average depth of about 1500 
fathoms, connects the Tonga, Fiji, and Samoan Islands, a channel of over 2000 fathoms 
dividing this plateau from that of New Zealand. 
We were now rapidly approaching the belt of the tropics—the enchanting region of 
never-ending summer. But, as seems to be the general rule on the dividing line between 
the temperate and the torrid zones, both wind and weather proved inconstant, and we were 
driven further eastward into the wide expanse of the Pacific Ocean. On the 17th, the 
sounding-line marked the great depth of 2900 fathoms, or over three and a quarter miles. It 
appears we had drifted into the area of depression subsequently explored by the German 
frigate Gazelle, and which has been found to extend from the coasts of New Zealand to 
those of Patagonia, with depths varying between 2000 and 3000 fathoms. With the exception 
of the Chatham Islands near New Zealand, not a single island or solitary rock rises out of 
this immense watery waste—5000 miles wide and three miles deep—which fills up the space 
between the 40th and 50th parallel. 
On Sunday morning, the 19th July, H.M.S. “Challenger” was close to Eoa Island, 
the most southern of the group which Cook named the Friendly Islands, on account of the 
hospitable character of their inhabitants. Eoa, unlike its neighbour Tongatabu, forms an 
elevated plateau rising abruptly from the sea on all sides. Although fertile and inhabited, 
it is but rarely visited by vessels of large size, having no good anchorage. The port 
we expected to reach on this day is also defended by a formidable barrier of coral reefs, 
the scene of frequent wrecks ; but after carefully threading our way through a labyrinth of 
channels, often not wide enough to allow a ship to turn, we took up our station before 
Nukualofa, the capital and residence of His Majesty King George of Tongatabu. 
tongatabu. 
In size and shape the island of Tongatabu may be compared to the Isle of Wight. 
It is heart-shaped, a wide lagoon bisecting the northern part. But the little Eden of 
the English Channel is more hilly than its rival of the Pacific, for, though the surface 
