icultural chemistry, all of which they were going to
apply out in Queensland as soon as they got there.

Then one bright morning, well supplied with fresh provisions, and, to
Mark's great delight, with an ample store of fruit--from bananas, of
three or four kinds, to pine-apples, the delicious mangosteen, and the
ill-odoured durian, with its wooden husk, delicate custard, and large
seeds--the ship continued her course.

The sea was like crystal, and with the sun hot, but not to discomfort,
and a soft breeze blowing, the great vessel glided gently eastward. It
was a trifle monotonous, but this troubled Mark in only small degree,
for there was always something fresh to take his attention. Sea-birds
were seen; then some fish or another reared itself out of the limpid
sea, and fell back with a splash. Then a shoal of some smaller kind
rippled the surface as they played about, silvering the blue water with
their armoured sides.

Small the boatswain and Billy Widgeon rigged up tackle for the lad to
fish; and he fished, but caught nothing.

"But then, you know, you might have ketched real big fish," said the
little sailor encouragingly, "because, you see, you know they are
there."

It was a consolation, but not much, to one who has tried for days to
capture something or another worthy of being placed by the cook upon the
captain's table.

And so three days of slow progress passed on, after which the progress
grew more slow, and ended in a complete calm, just as they were a few
miles north of a verdant-looking island, whose waving palms, seen above
and beyond a broad belt of dingy mangroves, looked particularly tempting
to those who had been cooped up so long on shipboard, where, now that
the breeze had sunk, it seemed insufferably hot.

"I suppose it can't be hotter than this, Mr Gregory, can it?" asked
Mark, soon after noontide on the second day of the calm.

"Hotter than this?" said the first-mate with an assumed look of
astonishment. "Do you hear him, Morgan? He calls it hot!"

"I say, captain," said the major, "how long's this calm going to last?"

"Impossible to say," said the captain. "I am hoping for a fresh breeze
at sundown, but I dare not prophesy."

"Well, then, let's have the boat out and manned, and two or three of us
go ashore with our guns, to see if we can't shoot something."

The captain hesitated, looked at the sky, at the offing, studied his
glass, and then said that there was no prospect