w opening in the
Barrier Reef through which Bligh found his way in 1780, in an open
boat, after the Mutiny of the 'Bounty.' Bligh gave the name to
Restoration Island to commemorate his escape from the mutineers. A
little further to the north took us abreast of Providential Channel,
through which Captain Cook entered with the greatest difficulty in
1770. He arrived outside the Barrier Reef, rolling heavily to the
swell with no wind, and finding it impossible to descry a single
opening. Hope seemed at an end, when, providentially, Captain Cook
espied from his masthead what looked like deep water between two
rocks, through which he safely steered his vessel. From Restoration
Island to Cape Weymouth we were considerably exposed to the sea, and
rolled about a good deal until we got into the shelter of Weymouth
Bay. Passing Fair Cape, we reached Piper Island at about eight
o'clock, and anchored for the night, close to the lightship, alongside
which there was another small steamer. The last fourteen miles had to
be done in the dark. This was a time of great anxiety for Tom, for the
passage was narrow, being only about half a mile wide in places, and
the current was strong. It blew hard all night, and we longed for the
sheltered anchorage of last evening.

_Friday, August 19th._--Early this morning Tom and some of the
gentlemen went on board the 'Claremont' lightship. After breakfast we
landed on the reef. It is a bare heap of sand and coral, save on its
highest part, where a few tufts of coarse grass are growing. Here we
found a native of St. John, New Brunswick, brought up, as he told us,
by foreign parents, engaged in the business of collecting
beche-de-mer, or dried sea-slugs, for which there is a large demand in
China.

[Illustration: Coral on Pearl-oyster]

This white man had in his employ thirty natives. He had five fine
boats, which are constantly at work inside the Great Barrier Reef. The
money embarked in this enterprise had been advanced by a bank at
Cooktown. Beche-de-mer commands a high price. We were shown the
accumulated casks full of this unattractive edible, representing a
value of many hundreds of pounds. Lee, the head of this establishment,
was living in a shelter formed of tattered canvas and battered sheets
of corrugated iron, but he evidently possessed the power of command
and organisation, and was not without education. He produced the
Admiralty charts of the coast and Barrier Reef, with large additio