ly terms. He was a man of vast
experience in the South Seas, and, except that he was subject to
occasional violent outbursts of temper when anything went wrong, was an
easy man to get on with, and a pleasant comrade.

The mate was the only other European on board, besides the captain and
myself, all the crew, including the boatswain, being either Polynesians
or Melanesians. The whole ten of them were fairly good seamen and worked
well.

A few days after leaving Noumea, Poore took me into his confidence,
and told me that, although he certainly intended to make a trading
and recruiting voyage, he had another object in view, and that was to
satisfy himself as to the location of some immense copper deposits that
had been discovered on Rook Island--midway between New Britain and New
Guinea--by some shipwrecked seamen.

Twenty-two days out from Noumea, the _Samana_, as the schooner was
named, anchored in a well-sheltered and densely-wooded little bay on the
east side of Rook Island. The place was uninhabited, though, far back,
from the lofty mountains of the interior, we could see several columns
of smoke arising, showing the position of mountaineer villages.

It was then ten o'clock in the morning, and Poore, feeling certain that
in this part of the coast there were no native villages, determined to
go ashore, and do a little prospecting. (I must mention that, owing to
light weather and calms, we had been obliged to anchor where we had to
avoid being drifted on shore by the fierce currents, which everywhere
sweep and eddy around Rook Island, and that we were quite twenty miles
from the place where the copper lode had been discovered.)

Taking with us two of the native seamen, Poore and I set off on shore
shortly after ten o'clock, and landed on a rough, shingly beach. The
extent of littoral on this part of the island was very small, a bold
lofty chain of mountains coming down to within a mile of the sea, and
running parallel with the coast as far as we could see. The vegetation
was dense, and in some places came down to the water's edge, and
although the country showed a tropical luxuriance of beauty about the
seashore, the dark, gloomy, and silent mountain valleys which everywhere
opened up from the coast, gave it a repellent appearance in general.

Leaving the natives (who were armed with rifles and tomahawks) in charge
of the boat, and telling them to pull along the shore and stop when we
stopped, Poore and I set ou