nd
Huxley stayed in Sydney for three months. Then, and in the course of
three other prolonged stays in that town during the expedition, Huxley
entered into the society of the town and became a general favourite.
He is still remembered there, and the accompanying illustration[C] is
a copy of an original sketch of himself, now in the possession of an
Australian lady. He drew it on the fly-leaf of a volume of Lytton's
poems and presented it on her birthday to the little daughter of a
friend. At Sydney, too, he met and gained the love of the lady, then
Miss Henrietta A. Heathorn, who afterwards became his wife.

On October 11th the _Rattlesnake_ sailed northwards to begin the real
work of the expedition. The great island of New Guinea, lying to the
north of Australia, is separated from it only by the comparatively
narrow Torres Straits. Through these lies the natural route for the
commerce between Australia and the Northern Hemisphere. The eastward
prolongation of New Guinea, and the coast of Queensland, enclose
between them a great tropical sea which gradually converges to the
Straits. The waters are very tempestuous, and the navigation is made
more dangerous by the thousands of coral islands and coral reefs that
stud the ocean. Following the shoreline of Queensland, at a distance
of from ten to one hundred and fifty miles, and stretching for twelve
hundred and fifty miles, is the Great Barrier Reef of Australia, one
of the wonders of the world. The shelving floor of the ocean rises
nearly to the surface along this line, and vast colonies of coral
building creatures have formed their reefs up to the water's edge
along the ridge. The turbulent waves scouring over this living mass
have carved and moulded it into millions of fantastic islands,
sometimes heaping detached masses of dead debris high above the
surface of the water. At low tide the most wonderful fields of the
animal flowers of the sea are exposed. Some of them form branching
systems of hard skeletons like stony trees, the soft, brightly
coloured animals dotted over the stems like buds. Others form solid
masses; others, again, rounded skull like boulders, or elevations like
toadstools. The colours of the skeletons and the animals are vivid
scarlets and purples and greens. Sea anemones, shell-fish, and
starfish of the most vivid hues are as abundant as the corals.
Brilliant fish dart through the blossoms of the marine gardens, and
sea birds scream and wheel in the