Page:Scented isles and coral gardens- Torres Straits, German New Guinea and the Dutch East Indies, by C.D. Mackellar, 1912.pdf/127

Rh of New Britain (Neu Pommern) on one side and New Ireland (Neu Mecklenburg) on the other. These mountains seem very high, and when first seen were wreathed in clouds round their bases. Between them is St. George's Channel and the Duke of York Islands. Quite suddenly we entered the zone of a monsoon, and had a terrific gale with heavy squalls of wind and rain. This woke us up—it was no longer the Stille Meer—and I revelled in it, as I love a great gale at sea beyond anything. A monsoon is no joke though, and a time it was terrific and left us breathless; we were buffeted about and wondered where we would be driven to. Even as we entered St. George's Channel and approached the Duke of York Islands, behind which appeared the volcanoes known as the Mother and Daughters, we were still in the thick of the storm, which came at us from every direction at once. As darkness came on I wondered what island we should go ashore on, but did not much care. My spirits always become exuberant in a real gale, and I love the thought of the brave little ship battling and toiling in this fierce turmoil of wind and sea. The blood of my Viking ancestors, of the old jarls of Orkney and of Iceland, is strong in me at such times. I look back with unalloyed delight to a fierce gale off Iceland, where we lay-to and kept our nose to it, and which drove me wild. How much there is in blood after all! I realised there the brave and daring spirit of those old Scandinavian jarls which made them face such storms in their small craft.

Here enjoyment was tempered by the horrible mugginess of the air and the demoniacal way the winds swept round us and at us from every direction—but a monsoon is a riot of devils. Nevertheless, we did not think of missing our