hundreds of good sailors, who have been missed and never more
heard of, bear witness that this is the most pitiless and unprotected,
and, even in calm weather, the most dangerous coast in the world.

But Jim came panting up, and, throwing himself on the short turf, said--

"So this is the great Southern Ocean; eh! How far can one see, now,
Halbert?"

"About thirty miles."

"And how far to India; eh?"

"About seven thousand."

"A long way," said Jim. "However, not so far as to England."

"Fancy," said Halbert, "one of those old Dutch voyagers driving on this
unknown coast on a dark night. What a sudden end to their voyage! Yet
that must have happened to many ships which have never come home.
Perhaps when they come to explore this coast a little more they may
find some old ship's ribs jammed on a reef; the ribs of some ship whose
name and memory has perished."

"The very thing you mention is the case," said the Doctor. "Down the
coast here, under a hopeless, black basaltic cliff, is to be seen the
wreck of a very, very old ship, now covered with coral and seaweed. I
waited down there for a spring tide, to examine her, but could
determine nothing, save that she was very old; whether Dutch or Spanish
I know not. You English should never sneer at those two nations: they
were before you everywhere."

"And the Chinese before any of us in Australia," replied Halbert.

"If you will just come here," said Alice, "where those black rocks are
hid by the bend of the hill, you get only three colours in your
landscape; blue sky, grey grass, and purple sea. But look, there is a
man standing on the promontory. He makes quite an eyesore there. I wish
he would go away."

"I suppose he has as good a right there as any of us," answered the
Doctor. "But he certainly does not harmonise very well with the rest of
the colouring. What a strange place he has chosen to stand in, looking
out over the sea, as though he were a shipwrecked mariner--the last of
the crew."

"A shipwrecked mariner would hardly wear breeches and boots, my dear
Doctor," said Jim. "That man is a stockman."

"Not one of ours, however," said George Barker; "even at this distance
I can see that. See, he's gone! Strange! I know of no way down the
cliff thereabouts. Would you like to come down to the shore?"

So they began their descent to the shore by a winding path of turf,
among tumbled heaps of granite, down towards the rock-walled cove, a
horseshoe of smoo