Page:Scented isles and coral gardens- Torres Straits, German New Guinea and the Dutch East Indies, by C.D. Mackellar, 1912.pdf/40

16 be a very lonely, dull life on these lightships. Not long ago this one was attacked by the blacks from the mainland, who were only repelled with difficulty.

We also put stores on board the Clement Isle Lightship. On it lived the master, his wife, and three other men. They sent some fresh fish on board, gorgeously coloured red-scaled things which some one called Red Brim. We had to anchor there all night, it is such dangerous navigation inside the Barrier Reef. Many of the dangerous reefs are covered all the year round, and some others are only visible at abnormally low spring tides. However, all this intricate coast-line has been admirably charted and lighted with beacons and lightships.

That night every one set to work to relate marvellous tales of mysterious disappearances. The Captain said that once the British Government, before the days of steamboats, built four or five brigs of war. They all sailed from England on the same day for different parts of the world, and not one was ever heard of again, and no trace of their fate was ever discovered. In the Red River Campaign in Canada the Gordon Highlanders lost a whole company of men, who disappearad entirely, not a rifle, a sword, or trace of them of any sort being ever discovered, nor could the wildest theories account for it. Is this a mere yarn, or is it true? I wish some one would tell me.

Another case was that of a surveyor and party of men who landed at some place in New South Wales and have never been heard of since. Their boat was found drawn up on the beach all right, left just as if they were to return to it, and in it was found a bullet, but though every search was made nothing could be found to account for