Reef. The aspect of the northern coast of the main island is by no means unattractive. A cursory inspection would lead the observer on a fine day, such as we had, to think that it was a well-grassed country, something like that of some of the bare hills of Banks Peninsula. Here is a fine-looking sheep-run, and at a good harbour at the north-west corner of the island is a fine site for a woolshed, stockyard, and shipping appliances. There is a sealers' track from Port Ross to this harbour. I am afraid, however, that the suggestion of a shipping harbour for the sheep-run, with sheds, &c., is a purely superficial view. What looks like rolling hills of grass is a wilderness of high tussocks standing in deep peat, such as we struggled through in other places, in struggling through which years ago the “Invercauld's” survivors lost four of their number, who died, I suppose, really of the fatigue consequent on traversing a few miles of this country. When the Auckland Islands come to be settled it will not be by sheep-farmers, but by people who can manage with their own labour to burn off this tussock and get at a good soil said to underlie the peat. A good deal of top-soil has from time to time passed through my hands with plants collected in the islands. I have worked it between my fingers, and even between my teeth, and am unable to find even a trace of grit in it, so entirely is it composed of dead vegetable matter. In lifting large-leaved herbaceous plants, their dead leaves, the accumulation of a number of years, are often found under the growing leaves, already forming themselves into a peaty soil. Here, too, may be seen the earlier stages of the formation of peat, lignite, and brown coal of the purest kind.

The north coast is almost without wood: this may be due to the want of shelter. The west coast is too steep for trees; so is the external part of the south coast. But everywhere within the extensive harbours timber is found. It forms a regular fringe along the shore, extending up to about 200ft. above the sea—a low limit which attests the severity of the climate; thence it merges into scrub for a few hundred feet more; then come tussock-grass and herbaceous plants. The wood is mainly rata, with several species of Coprosma and a large Dracophyllum—a, timber-tree allied to the heaths, but in appearance resembling a pine, which is common in New Zealand, but does not grow so large. The forest is easy travelling near the shore, but even there you have often to bend to pass under branches. The scrub is extremely hard to pass through. I found a heavy hunting-knife of the greatest assistance in clearing fee way. The bush is everywhere full of bell-birds or korimako, whose beautiful note, I was told by a passenger who listened carefully, varied in different localities, as it does in New Zealand.

The west coast, down which we soon commenced to pass, is very grand and extremely bold. It may be briefly described as a line of cliffs and steeps thirty-five miles long. Nearly everywhere in the world west coasts are steep and east coasts shelving. This is decidedly the case here. In Otago, in Norway, and in North and South America, deep fiords relieve the continuity of these steeps. Here there is nothing of the kind save the strait between the two islands; on the contrary the only apertures of the kind are six fine harbours, seldom visited, on the east coast. The search for castaways does not call for a visit to these, as they are not in the course of any ships, and would not be reached by wanderers from the west coast; moreover, seal-poachers have no occasion to go there, as the fur-seals only frequent the wild west coast.

We passed inside Disappointment Island—a high island lying some miles off the coast, only visited by seal-poachers. We endeavoured to pick out the site of the wreck of the “Invercauld.” Not a stick of her timbers has ever been found. For the first twenty or twenty-five miles of the coast there are numerous places where if men happened to escape at the right spot, they might scramble up to the high land. There is scarcely a stretch of a mile where they could not get up if strong enough. For the next ten miles there is scarcely any place where this could be done.

The romantic story of the loss on this coast of the fine ship “General Grant,” whose figurehead is still seen a long way up the coast, and which, according to the survivors, drove into a cave 250ft. deep, has often been repeated. She was lost with more than sixty passengers and crew; and the few survivors, including the stewardess, were rescued after eighteen months' stay on the island. The fact that the ship carried ten thousand pounds' worth of gold has incited several parties to search for the cave wherein she was supposed to lie, but they have had no better fortune than we had, for, though we examined the coast with much care, and saw caves, we saw none that would answer this purpose.

At several points we saw vast rookeries of birds. Some of these appeared to be penguins; but, though Captain Fairchild makes a point of stopping and examining anything of the sort when there is spare time, he could not afford to do so then. Another of these was an immense area of mollymawk nests (Diomedea melanophrys). These birds, which are allied to the albatros, nest in the most inaccessible places. Here, as in most rookeries, they built among the grass on a slope, with cliffs both above and below it. We thought it might be possible, but difficult, to reach this from Carnley Harbour; but the distance is considerable. The grass where they build grows darker than when in its natural state, and from this we

thought it was a different plant, while the innumerable white spots among the plants looked at the distance exactly like white flowers. Seeing this, I felt certain that I had found one of the plants I was in search of, until the captain disillusionized us by telling us that our white flowers were the heads of mollymawks. Another very striking object seen on this coast, and afterwards on the south coast, was a waterfall which might be said to flow upwards. Streams coming down from the mountains are pretty numerous, and they generally reach the sea down steeps leading from gullies. Here and there, however, they fall over the cliffs, forming small waterfalls. The pressure of wind against a high cliff even in a moderate breeze is very great, and it is well known that in such a case an immense draught is felt at the edge of the cliff, where the compressed air forms an up-rushing wall, while a few yards back this wall causes the neighbouring air to be quite still. Here the waterfall became incorporated with the up-rushing air, and, instead of falling, was carried up above the land in a column like smoke. Presumably it fell again, but apparently until the wind changes it cannot go down, but must saturate the surrounding country, as we could see no water going down the face of the cliff. At the foot of the cliff however, in the sea was what looked like a perpetual whirlwind, which may have been caused by the interrupted water reaching the sea. Subsequently we saw this phenomenon of the column of spray from shore. Here it was exactly like a column of smoke; indeed, it is well known that Musgrave mistook one for a fire, and this mistake has often been made.

We now passed the western entrance to Carnley Harbour. It is too narrow or shallow for the “Hinemoa,” otherwise a mile of navigation would have saved us twenty-five miles. We passed it, and turned the fine bold cliffs which form the western end of the southern or Adam's Island. This island, which is generally 2,000ft. high, and sometimes higher, is twelve miles long by from two to four wide, and contains, I believe, some 30,000 acres. It is bold with precipitous shores on the south and steep slopes on the north. Near its eastern end is a gap in the cliffs. We turned and entered this, and found ourselves within the beautiful and rarely visited Fly Harbour. The captain wished to know whether the country above was accessible from this harbour. Deep water goes right up to the head, which is a mile and a half from the entrance. Dense forest clothes the steep sides, the only break in which is under a sheer cliff. A curious bar of kelp rising in deep water comes to the surface half-way up the harbour, and is liable to foul the propeller of a steamer. This serves effectually to break any sea that may enter. It was soon evident that there was no chance of passing through the dense

timber with less than a day's hard work; so we turned and steamed out. The shores close to the water were covered with masses of the most beautiful flowers: Ligusticum, Pleurophyllum, and other rare and beautiful flowering plants are huddled together with a lavish profusion which Nature alone can afford. We were sorry to go, but it could not be helped; so round we went past the last headland of this island, which promised us so much that was interesting, for we had seen on the high grassy uplands that rare sight—dozens of stately white birds sitting in solitude on their nests, and we knew that we were approaching what so few men are privileged to visit—the home of the wandering albatros. Flocks of muttonbirds (Puffinus tristis) accompanied us round the stormy cape, which, presenting an exception to the other parts of this strange land, was wooded to the height of 1,000ft. Heavy seas rolling in closed the mouth of a small cave under the cape, and thus compressing the air caused a loud explosion with a shower of snowy spray as the water plug became thinner with the recession of the wave. Sea-birds of several kinds swept to and fro; spotless albatroses soared high over the land; and in a few minutes we were well up the long, deep, wide fiord called Carnley Harbour, approaching the scene where Captain Thomas Musgrave lays the simple but wonderful story of his life as a castaway. Turning up towards the north arm we found his flagstaff still standing on Musgrave Peninsula, and soon after sighted the ruins of Epigwaitt House, where he lived so long with his men, near to which lay the bones of his ill-fated vessel on the beach. I was sorry to miss visiting this spot, but there was no object in going there; so we passed further up this arm, which led deep into the heart of the main island, and anchored off Figure Eight Island—a low piece of land in the centre of the harbour, so named by Musgrave from its shape—on which the captain of the “Hinemoa” had placed a few sheep and goats. We spent the rest of the afternoon there, some looking for sheep, others for plants. The sheep were found dead; the goats were alive and healthy. A few interesting plants were found. Sea-lions as usual grunted from the little gullies. I gathered here a few spiders, of which Mr. Goyen writes: “All but two of the spiders you collected on the islands to the south of New Zealand are one species, Amamobioides maritima. Of the two others, one is an Epeira (new, I think) and one a Salticus (new). Among the spiders there is a Phalangium which may turn out to be new.”

It would be out of place to narrate Musgrave's interesting story here. The ill-found vessel, equipped to search for tin or some other mythical metal at Campbell Island, was blown ashore through her anchor-chains parting while lying here