ld 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 did not disturb
him. Perdosa and I, with infinite pains, tracked and stalked the
sheep, of which I killed one. We found the mutton excellent. The
hunting was difficult, and the quarry, as time went on, more and more
suspicious, but henceforward we did not lack for fresh meat.
Furthermore we soon discovered that fine trolling was to be had
outside the reef. We rigged a sail for the extra dory, and spent much
of our time at the sport. I do not know the names of the fish. They
were very gamy indeed, and ran from five to an indeterminate number
of pounds in weight. Above fifty pounds our light tackle parted, so
we had no means of knowing how large they may have been.

Thus we spent very pleasantly the greater part of two weeks. At the
end of that time I made up my mind that it would be just as well to
get back to business. Accordingly I called Perdosa and di