e beautiful town of Perth and its
neighbourhood where it was very hot just then, and eating peaches
and grapes till we made ourselves ill, as a visitor often does who is
unaware that fruit should not be taken in quantity in Australia while
the sun is high. Then we departed for Melbourne almost before our
arrival was generally known, since I did not wish to advertise our
presence or the object of our journey.

We crossed the Great Australian Bight, of evil reputation, in the most
perfect weather; indeed it might have been a mill pond, and after a
short stay at Melbourne, went on to Sydney, where we coaled again and
laid in supplies.

Then our real journey began. The plan we laid out was to sail to Suva
in Fiji, about 1,700 miles away, and after a stay there, on to Hawaii
or the Sandwich Islands, stopping perhaps at the Phoenix Islands and the
Central Polynesian Sporades, such as Christmas and Fanning Isles. Then
we proposed to turn south again through the Marshall Archipelago and
the Caroline Islands, and so on to New Guinea and the Coral Sea.
Particularly did we wish to visit Easter Island on account of
its marvelous sculptures that are supposed to be the relics of a
pre-historic race. In truth, however, we had no fixed plan except to go
wherever circumstance and chance might take us. Chance, I may add, or
something else, took full advantage of its opportunities.

We came to Suva in safety and spent a while in exploring the beautiful
Fiji Isles where both Bastin and Bickley made full inquiries about
the work of the missionaries, each of them drawing exactly opposite
conclusions from the same set of admitted facts. Thence we steamed to
Samoa and put our two natives ashore at Apia, where we procured some
coal. We did not stay long enough in these islands to investigate them,
however, because persons of experience there assured us from certain
familiar signs that one of the terrible hurricanes with which they are
afflicted, was due to arrive shortly and that we should do well to put
ourselves beyond its reach. So having coaled and watered we departed in
a hurry.

Up to this time I should state we had met with the most wonderful good
fortune in the matter of weather, so good indeed that never on one
occasion since we left Marseilles, had we been obliged to put the
fiddles on the tables. With the superstition of a sailor Captain Astley,
when I alluded to the matter, shook his head saying that doubtless we
should pay for