CHAPTER IX 
AUSTRALASIA, 1910 
As when we were still some distance off the land numerous Seals 
had come out to bid us welcome to Cape Town, so when we left, the 
Mollymauks saw us off, handing over the R.M.S. “ Arawa ” to the 
charge of the numerous Petrels and stately Albatrosses, which were 
to conduct her personally across the Southern Ocean. Soon after 
losing sight of Africa we crossed the Mozambique current which 
brings warm water from the shores of Madagascar and Zanzibar 
down the eastern coast of Africa. The temperature of the water, 
which the Captain told me had been 60° Fahr. at 4 a.m., rose by 
breakfast time to 72°, but the south-west breeze coming up from 
the Antarctic was as low as 57°, though it was midsummer, and 
as a consequence the ship was wrapped in fog. The fog, however, 
in no wise disconcerted the Whales, which rolled and spouted in the 
warm water. Ten days later the temperature of the sea fell to 
39° Fahr.—midsummer, mind you!—but possibly that meant that 
ice was not far off. Although the “ roaring forties ” treated us 
exceptionally well, roaring for but one day and night, the voyage 
from the Cape to Hobart was cold, cheerless, and tedious. We saw 
neither land, nor ship, nor even an iceberg, and one wearied of 
watching the quite mysterious flight of the Albatrosses. Those 
grand birds seemed simply to will, and then to glide in an in¬ 
explicable manner without the least exertion. The moving ship 
was to them as a motionless log, and, calm or storm, it seemed no 
trouble to overtake her, if by chance they had lagged behind to 
catch a fish or to squabble over some refuse cast overboard by the 
ship’s cooks. 
Hobart, Tasmania, lat. 43° S. 
January 20th, 1910. 
As we steamed along the Tasmanian Coast, when about 5 miles off 
South East Cape, the nearest land to windward being 23 miles off, 
I caught on the ship a Muscid fly, Pollenia stygia, Fabr., and two or 
