nothing was lost, although my watch stopped half-an-hour afterwards and refused duty during the rest of the season, and my aneroid was never of any use again, both these articles having been carried in my belt.

On the weather coasts of cliff-girt islands exposed to the continuous trade-swell, much caution is needed in skirting the shore, as every ten minutes or more a huge roller suddenly rushes in, exposing rocks covered usually by three or four fathoms of water, and rising up the face of the cliffs to a height twice as high as the usual level reached by the breakers. From my foolhardy disregard of this circumstance, I very nearly lost my life in July, 1884, on the weather coast of Stirling Island. Having stood for some moments on the edge of the cliff admiring the magnificent breakers that broke at the foot, there having been a strong south-easterly gale during the two preceding days, I commenced to clamber down the face of the cliff to reach a ledge that rose about twenty feet above the usual level of the breakers. Whilst I was pausing in the descent to examine the numerous embedded corals in the cliff-face, a huge wave rose over the ledge, swept up the face of the cliff over my head, and carried me off as if I had been a feather. I thought my last moments had come, knowing that if swept off the ledge into the breakers below, I should be dashed by the next roller against the base of the cliff. As I was being carried off, I clutched a projecting point of coral-rock with all my energy, and in a few moments the wave had left me lying flat on my face on the ledge within two yards of its brink. The next roller was fortunately of much smaller size, and in less than a minute I had clambered up the face of the cliff again to a position of safety, pretty well bruised and scratched about the arms and legs, but otherwise none the worse. My compass and other things had fallen out of the pouches in my belt, showing that I had described a somersault during the immersion. Whilst waiting to dry my clothes in the sun, I noticed that another ten minutes elapsed before a breaker of similar size rolled in.

I will conclude this chapter with some observations on the nature of the work performed by the officers of the survey. The usual experiences of a nautical surveyor, when detached from his ship for periods varying from a few days to a fortnight or more, are little known outside the circle of those more immediately interested in the work of the Hydrographic Department of the Admiralty. They would afford, as I have often thought, materials for an interesting volume, the perusal of which would give the general reader some idea of what nautical surveying really is. It is a work often hazardous and tedious to those engaged in the boats, and frequently full of anxiety for the commander who has to direct the survey.

The work in the Solomon Islands had its peculiar, and none the less trying, features. To be detached in a boat for a week off a coast, on which it was not considered prudent to land, except on particular points selected for the establishment of theodolite-stations, was a not uncommon experience with the surveying parties. The alternation of heavy rain and scorching heat served to vary the experience, but not to increase the comfort of those employed from sunrise to sunset in mapping the intricacies of an unsurveyed coast; and the kindheartedness of the surveying officer was often sorely tried, when, after a tedious day’s work under these conditions, he had to tell off his men to keep a look-out for canoes, and a sharp eye on the land, to see that the boat did not drag. There were, of course, other occasions when the detached parties were engaged in surveying islands, the natives of which were friendly disposed; and then, if the weather favoured them, the week’s absence from the ship partook almost of the nature of a pleasant picnic. In the Solomon Islands, however, a considerable experience of the inhabitants of an island is required before a boat can be sent away with the certain assurance that its occupants will meet with no mishap. The unfortunate massacre of Lieutenant Bower of H.M.S. “Sandfly,” and of most of his boat’s crew in 1880, whilst employed in the survey of the Florida Islands in this group, is but an example of the uncertainty that there always will be in dealing with these races. Although similar disasters have been recently almost of monthly occurrence in these islands, during our intercourse of 21 months with the natives we did not fire a single shot in anger, and in our turn we never witnessed a spear hurled or an arrow discharged except in sport.

The navigation of a sailing ship, such as H.M.S. “Lark,” whilst engaged in the survey of a passage dotted with unknown, sunken coral-reefs, and skirted by islands inhabited by a race of savages who have obtained a notorious reputation on account of the ferocity they display to the white man, cannot but tax to the uttermost the capacity and nerve of the officer in command. I can recall more than one anxious moment, and probably there were others known only to those concerned in the navigation of the ship, when on our suddenly getting soundings in the middle of the night in a place where we expected to find “a hundred fathoms and no bottom,” I set about putting my journals together in order not to lose what I had been at so much pains to obtain. Towards the completion of the survey, however, it was ascertained by Lieutenant Oldham that the ship might have sailed without danger over any of the isolated reefs which were not indicated at the surface by either a sand-key or an islet; but this was a character of the reefs that was only ascertained by a process more pleasing to talk about than to undergo.

Before quitting this subject, I should refer to an apparent injustice which exists in the apportioning of no extra pay to the men employed in detached boat-work in the surveying service. With the exception of an issue of clothing, gratis, the boats’ crews receive little or nothing in the form of a reward. I am strongly inclined to believe that the recognition, even in a slight degree, of the arduous character of their work, which is of quite an exceptional character as compared with the routine-employment on board the ordinary man-of-war, would do much towards increasing the interest usually displayed by the men employed in such a service.