ther gave his last
directions.

"I'll do my best, Mr Harry, and I pray that you may have a successful
voyage, and when you return find all things going on well," he said, as
he shook hands with us all.

The anchor was then hove up, and sail being made, we stood out of the
harbour, while Mr Humby returned on shore, waving his last adieus.

The first part of our voyage was uneventful. We had fine weather, a
fair wind, and a smooth sea, and the ladies soon got accustomed to their
life on board, declaring that it was even more pleasant than they had
expected, though they should like occasionally to get sight of some of
the beautiful islands of the Pacific, of which they had so often heard.

We left New Caledonia and the Loyalty Islands on our port side, then
steered to the north between the New Hebrides and the Fiji Islands, at
neither of which my brother wished to touch.

Day after day we sailed on without sighting land, and at last Emily
exclaimed, "What has become of the islands we have heard so much about?
I thought we should not pass a day without seeing several of them. They
appear on the chart to be very close together, like the constellations
in the sky."

"But if you will measure off on the chart the distances they are apart,
you will easily understand how it is we have sailed so far without
seeing them," said Harry.

The very next day, as Fanny was looking over the starboard side, Harry
pointed out to her several blue hillocks rising out of the ocean, which
he told her were the northern islands of Fiji, the habitation of a
dark-skinned race, once the most notorious cannibals in the Pacific.

"I am very glad to keep away from them, then," answered Fanny, "for I
shouldn't at all like to run the risk of being captured and eaten."

"Not much chance of that," said Harry. "The larger number of them have
given up their bad habits, and promise to become as civilised as any of
the people in these seas."

"Still, I would rather not go near their shores," said Fanny.

She little thought at the time that there were many other islands in
every direction, the inhabitants of which were quite as savage as those
of Fiji had been.

From the first, Tom Platt had taken a fancy to Dick, who had hitherto
behaved himself remarkably well.

"We'll make a seaman of the lad, if he only sticks to it," he said to
me. "The rope's-endings, as he tells me he used to get aboard the
_Eclipse_, did him a world of good, though he