ast eight--breakfast was over
and everybody was once more on deck and clustering about the gangways,
waiting for the boats to be brought alongside. This was soon done,
every boat belonging to the ship having been got into the water and
veered astern the first thing that morning. But now another delay
occurred, most vexatious to the impatient emigrants; for every one of
the boats--excepting the quarter boats, which had been kept tight by
filling them about a quarter full of water every morning--proved so
leaky, their seams having opened through long exposure to the air, that
they had quietly swamped in the interval between six o'clock and
breakfast-time. The swamping process, however, had not occupied more
than a quarter of an hour, since which time the submerged boats had been
rapidly "taking up"; therefore when, soon afterward, they were baled
out, it was found that they had already become tight enough to make the
short passage to the shore; and by ten o'clock the ship was empty, save
for Polson and two seamen who had been included in the exploring party
of the previous day, and who were now willing to remain aboard and look
after her.

I went ashore in the last boat to leave the ship; and, upon stepping
ashore, at once set my face toward the peak, with the intention of
ascending it. The nearer slopes ahead of me were thickly dotted with
people in little groups, parents and children, or friends, who were bent
upon seeing something of the island, certainly, but whose chief aim was
an enjoyable picnic. The children were already, for the most part,
busily engaged in plucking the many strange and beautiful flowers with
which the greensward was thickly dotted; while the parents, eager to
sample the various fruits which the island yielded, vainly strove to
quicken the youngsters' pace. There were a few solitary couples
straying off by themselves; and among them I presently recognised Gurney
and Grace Hartley. Wilde, acting as cicerone to a large party who were
evidently anxious to see as much as possible of the island forthwith,
was already a long way ahead.

The greensward, which came right down to the beach of coarse coral grit,
rose undulatingly at a very gentle slope until within about three-
quarters of a mile from the summit of the peak, when the slope became
considerably steeper--probably a rise of one in five--to within a couple
of hundred feet of the summit, when the slope took an angle of about
forty-five