Page:Castaway on the Auckland Isles (IA castawayonauckla01musg).pdf/36

20 I shall yet again be of service to my family, I think my spirit, if not my health, would break down; although under my present afflictions my continual prayer is that God may soon deliver me out of them. During the week the weather has been variable; wind generally from N.W.

On Wednesday we had a very heavy gale, similar to the one the 'Grafton' went on shore in; wind baffling between N.W. and S.W. On Friday Mr. Raynal and others went to Figure-of-Eight Island; they killed seven young seals. There were great numbers on the island. They might have killed any quantity, but we did not want them; we salt and dry what we cannot use fresh. Barometer 29⋅70; thermometer 48°.

Sunday, March 20, 1864.—During the last week we have had nothing but a succession of westerly gales, which only cease for a few hours and then blow again with great fury; and it has also rained almost constantly until yesterday at noon. Since then we have had very frequent falls of hail and snow: some of the mountains are now quite capped with snow. I fear we shall have a great deal of this sort of weather in the winter. However, we have got a good stock of meat hanging up in the house, and so long as we can get to the roots we shall not starve; but these roots will not keep long out of the ground. We are obliged to pull them as we want them. We had a few hours of moderate weather on Friday, and we went to Figure-of-Eight Island, and found the seals, both young and old, very numerous; but this time we had a regular pitched battle with some thirty or forty of them on the beach. We vanquished them, and got seven young calves. There were four of us; Mr. Raynal had the gun, but I did not want him to fire at them if we could avoid it, so he stood by as a reserve while we poured on to them with our clubs, and there was not a shot fired. We killed a number of old ones; but these we had to leave, as they would only have been an incumbrance to us, and the seals were running around in such numbers, and in such a threatening