or rather irregular, network of islands—some mere pinnacles and spits of black volcanic rock, bursting out, as it were, from the windy blue amid sharp outbursts of foam: others running out upon it, in long necks and headlands, capped with tawny turf enough to pasture a few wild goats, and low, shaggy Bush: while others again boldly reared themselves up, and braved its azure on-rush with radiant rose-coloured cliffs. All alike were uninhabited; and, for a fancy that loved adventure, as well as for an eye that loved colour and light, a better playground would have been hard to find. Then all of a sudden we ran round a bluff, and found ourselves in a small, sickle-shaped bay, deeply sunk between the horns of two high promontories, rimmed with snowy sand, and enclosing a shining crescent of smooth, sapphire water, which looked as though no breath of wind had stolen across it for a week.
There we anchored, and there we stayed all day, for the gale outside continued unabated. Inland, the cliffs ran up into great boulder-strewn hills, sparsely covered with short turf, and low manuka-scrub; and here, fossicking about for the rough-looking lumps of what, when scraped, revealed itself as kauri-gum (for kauri forest once covered all these barren isles), and setting the boulders to race each other down-hill—oh, the glorious pace they put on!—we managed to amuse ourselves well enough. From the Captain’s point of view, however, the delay was less enjoyable, and the old schoolmaster too, Mr. Quin, was already “behind his time” and anxious to get back to duty. He was, however, a gentle old man, and blessed with a remarkable talent for equanimity—the credit of
