lows, and niches. Lying on them we could discern the seals, hundreds and hundreds of them, all staring at us, all barking and bellowing. As we approached, they scrambled from their elevations, and, diving to the bottom, scurried to the entrance of the cave.
We lay on our oars for ten minutes. Then silence fell. There persisted a tiny drip, drip, drip from some point in the darkness. It merely accentuated the hush. Suddenly from far in the interior of the hill there came a long, hollow boo-o-o-m! It reverberated, roaring. The surge that had lifted our boat some minutes before thus reached its journey's end.
The chamber was very lofty. As we rowed cautiously in, it lost nothing of its height, but something in width. It was marvellously coloured, like all the volcanic rocks of this island. In addition some chemical drip had thrown across its vividness long gauzy streamers of white. We rowed in as far as the faintest daylight lasted us. The occasional reverberating boom of the surges seemed as distant as ever.
This was beyond the seal rookery on the beach. Below it we entered an open cleft of some size to another squarer cave. It was now high tide; the water extended a scant ten fathoms to end on an interior shale beach. The cave was a perfectly straight passage following the line of the cleft. How far in it reached we could not determine, for it, too, was full of seals, and after we had driven them back a hundred feet or so their fiery eyes scared us out. We did not care to put them at bay.
The next day I rowed out to the Laughing Lass and got a rifle. I found the captain asleep in his bunk, and
