The doctor told me that they had experienced, on every occasion they had landed, a strong current sweeping along the shore of the bay in an easterly direction, so that, no sooner did the bow of the boat touch the sand, than her stern was driven round by the current to the left, and, unless proper precautions were taken, she would get broadside on to the next sea and be rolled over.
On being asked whether they had had much rain in the bay, they replied that the showers had been as heavy as those tropical downpours we had experienced in the doldrums. They said that the Sugarloaf presented a magnificent appearance after one of these showers, for then a cascade 700 feet in height would pour down its almost perpendicular sides. They had been enabled to fill their tanks and breakers with rain-water, and had only used the condensing apparatus on one or two occasions, and then more by way of experiment, to see how it worked, than from necessity. It acted perfectly, and with it five gallons of fresh water were distilled from sea-water in a very short time.
The fortunate discovery had also been made of two small issues of water among the cliffs at the east end of the bay. The supply was sufficient, and though the carrying of the water in breakers from here to the camp over the rough ground entailed heavy labour, it was easier to fetch it in this way than to collect the large quantity of firewood necessary for condensing an equal amount of water.
The doctor reported Arthur Cotton as being ill, and unfit for further digging for the present; so he was left on board with me, while George went on shore to take his place. The doctor promised to come off for me on the following morning, so that I could pay a short visit to the shore and inspect the works—provided, of course, the surf permitted. Then we bade each other farewell, and the working-party returned to the bay.
The boat did not come off for me on the following day, as the surf was dangerous in South-west Bay; and I held no communication with the shore-party for another week. During this time the wind was from the south-east; but though it rushed down the ravine with the usual violent squalls, it was moderate outside, and we had no more of the heavy sea which had been running throughout the previous week. It would have been possible for me to have landed at the pier on nearly any day, but there was still a sufficient surf to prevent our carrying off any more stones from the shore.
We were anchored on a sandy bottom, but we could feel, by the grumbling of our chain as the yacht swung, that there were many rocks under us as well. These caused us a good deal of annoyance; for on several occasions, when the vessel was lying right over her anchor, the slack of the chain would take a turn round a rock and give us a short nip; so that when a swell passed under us, the vessel could not rise to it, but was held down by the tautened chain, which dragged her bows under, producing a great strain. The rocks must have been of brittle coral formation, for, after giving two or three violent jerks as the sea lifted her, the vessel would suddenly shake herself free with a wrench, evidently by the breaking away of the obstruction. At last all the projecting portions of the coral rock in our immediate neighbourhood must have been torn off, the chain having swept a clear space for itself all round, for after a time we were no longer caught in this way. These great strains loosened our starboard hawse-pipe badly, so that we had to slip our chain and pass it through the other hawse-pipe.
On December 9, it being a very fine day, I made an expedition in the dinghy toward the north end of the island. We found no good landing-place in that direction, for a coral ledge extends along the whole coast, causing broken water, and there are dangerous rocks in the midst of the breakers. We pulled into several little bays, each hemmed in by inaccessible barren mountains, so crowded with birds that, from the sea, the black crags looked quite white with them. We pulled inside Bird Island and inspected the Ninepin from close to. This huge cylinder of rock, 900 feet in height, is described by old navigators as having been crowned with large trees. It is now completely bare of vegetation, as it also was when I first saw it in 1881. I observed that, since my last visit, a huge mass had fallen off the top of it, which now lay by its side in shattered fragments. We caught a quantity of fish in these bays, one a fine fellow weighing thirty pounds; and we saw several large turtle floating on the water, but they sank as soon as we got near them.
The uneventful days passed by, and I grew stout on laziness, salt beef, and duff. At last, on December 14, we pulled off in the dinghy to South-west Bay, to see how the shore-party was getting on. We took with us a signal code book and the flags, so as to converse with our diggers in case we could not effect a landing—a feat not to be attempted with our rotten little dinghy except under the most exceptional circumstances. The shore-party was, of course, also provided with a code book and set of flags.
As I required some more specimens of birds, I took with me, not a gun with which to shoot them, but simply a ramrod, the end of which I had loaded with a piece of lead. With this, as I sat in the boat, I found no difficulty in knocking down the inquisitive birds as they flew just over our heads, and I thus procured several good specimens.
When we had pulled round the point and were in South-west Bay we saw the white tents of the camp in front of us, and we could plainly distinguish, in a ravine behind, the great trench which the men had dug at the side of the cliff. We found little surf in the bay, but I would not risk a landing; for it would not require much bumping to knock our dinghy's ancient bottom off; so we remained outside the breakers and signalled: 'Any news?'