With our arrival at Mozambique terminated the surveying operations of the Alert, so that it only remained for us now, on receiving our mails, to make the best of our way to England. We accordingly sailed on the 22nd of May, and proceeded on our voyage towards the Cape of Good Hope, which we expected to reach in about a fortnight's time. However, the weather proved to be most unfavourable, for on passing to the southward of Madagascar, where we had calculated on meeting with the south-easterly trade wind, we encountered instead a westerly breeze, accompanied by a rather heavy sea, so that our progress for the time was far from satisfactory. On reaching the latitude of Algoa Bay, on the east coast of Africa, it was decided on running in there for coal, which we accordingly did, anchoring off the town of Port Elizabeth on the 9th of June, and remaining there until the morning of the 11th, when we resumed our voyage to the Cape.

We arrived at Simon's Bay, Cape of Good Hope, on the 14th of June, and made a stay of fourteen days, which was necessary in order to enable us to refit and revictual the ship, and otherwise prepare for the homeward voyage through the Atlantic.

On one of the few days which I here spent on shore, I made the acquaintance of a Mr. Black, a fine hale old man, a shipwright by trade, who supplemented his regular work by collecting and preparing for sale various curiosities of natural history, especially the skins and horns of many South African animals of the antelope family. His latest trophy was a very large specimen of the egg of the Epiornis of Madagascar, a gigantic bird which would seem to have become extinct almost within the historic period. He had purchased this egg, as a commercial speculation, from the supercargo of a trading schooner, and hoped to realize a considerable profit by disposing of it to one of the European museums. It was indeed of enormous proportions—although not actually the largest on record—for it measured eleven and three-quarter inches in length and eight and a half inches in breadth, while it had a capacity of about eight quarts. The shell was one-eighth of an inch in thickness, as I ascertained by measuring it at the smaller end, where there was an aperture large enough to admit the thumb. He could not give me any information as to the conditions under which it was found, and although he had paid a large sum for it seemed to be unaware of the fact that somewhat similar specimens existed. It appeared to be in a sub-fossil condition, and was dotted over externally with fine pits, so that its surface somewhat resembled that of an old half-decayed human skull. About one-third of its surface was stained uniformly of an earthy colour, suggesting the idea that it must have remained for a long time partially imbedded in the ground.

On the direct homeward voyage we stopped for a few days at St. Helena, and also at Fayal in the Azores, finally reaching Plymouth Sound on the 3rd of September, 1882, after an absence from England of nearly four years.

GENERAL INDEX.