Tarbox
before long caught another. In the meantime, however, Ali hauled up a
couple; indeed, to each of ours he managed somehow or other to get two.
Their names I do not remember, but I know I never had better sport in my
life. Gradually the rocks above our heads grew higher and higher in the
gloom of approaching night, which seemed to soften the faint outlines of
the landscape, and to increase the size of the objects round us. A
little way from us was an opening in the cliffs, beyond which we could
see the dark forest. From it there issued various sounds, which seemed
to echo backwards and forwards among the rocks. Among them we could
distinguish the moaning cries of monkeys--one seeming to be calling to
the other for help in piteous tones. The effect was curious, and had a
peculiarly melancholy sound; indeed we might easily have supposed them
to be the cries of captive slaves, or perhaps a more fanciful person
might describe them as disembodied spirits in some haunted island.
Meanwhile the night wind, sighing through the lofty trees, came moaning
down towards us. At length darkness compelled us to give up our sport,
and, with an abundant supply of fish, we pulled slowly back towards our
usual landing-place, where, having unladen our boat, we hauled her up to
a safe spot above high-water mark.

I felt an unusual melancholy steal over me, why I cannot tell, while, by
the light of a lamp fed by cocoa-nut oil manufactured by my uncle and
his factotum Tanda, I sat writing these lines of my journal:--"To-morrow
morning Ali and I are going off in the hopes of obtaining a nautilus,
and he feels confident that we shall get one, probably at a reef which
he knows of at some distance, almost out of sight of the island. It is
so far off that, had he not mentioned it, we should not have been aware
of its existence."

EMILY'S JOURNAL.

Only yesterday, my dear brother Walter asked me to assist him in writing
his journal from his dictation, begging me to put in any remarks of my
own. Little did I think at the time that the whole would be my work. I
obey his wishes, though sick at heart and full of anxiety. Yesterday
morning he and Ali went off in the boat to fish, saying that they were
sure of bringing back a nautilus, which our uncle and Mr Hooker so long
to possess; but a whole day has passed, and they have not returned.
They were seen to be pulling out to sea further than they have ever
before gone. They had been som