Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 85.djvu/215

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under the lee of reefs and the drowsy roar of the ocean lulled us into sleep.

At Darnley Island we found our associates most comfortably housed in the home of the magistrate, Mr. T. Arnold Williams, from which hospital roof, indeed, they were most unwilling to be "rescued."

But at last the peaks of the three extinct volcanoes which constitute the Murray Islands loomed through the tropic haze, and still struggling among the maze of reefs, we made for Maër Island, the largest of the group and anchored under the lee of the mountain wall by the side of its palm-edged beach.

As our naptha launch approached the shore, the sands became black with natives all gesticulating in much excitement, but we were most