was generally known, since I did not wish to advertise our
presence or the object of our journey.

We crossed the Great Australian Bight, of evil reputation, in
the most perfect weather; indeed it might have been a mill pond,
and after a short stay at Melbourne, went on to Sydney, where we
coaled again and laid in supplies.

Then our real journey began. The plan we laid out was to sail
to Suva in Fiji, about 1,700 miles away, and after a stay there,
on to Hawaii or the Sandwich Islands, stopping perhaps at the
Phoenix Islands and the Central Polynesian Sporades, such as
Christmas and Fanning Isles. Then we proposed to turn south again
through the Marshall Archipelago and the Caroline Islands, and so
on to New Guinea and the Coral Sea. Particularly did we wish to
visit Easter Island on account of its marvelous sculptures that
are supposed to be the relics of a pre-historic race. In truth,
however, we had no fixed plan except to go wherever circumstance
and chance might take us. Chance, I may add, or something else,
took full advantage of its opportunities.

We came to Suva in safety and spent a while in exploring the
beautiful Fiji Isles where both Bastin and Bickley made full
inquiries about the work of the missionaries, each of them
drawing exactly opposite conclusions from the same set of
admitted facts. Thence we steamed to Samoa and put our two
natives ashore at Apia, where we procured some coal. We did not
stay long enough in these islands to investigate them, however,
because persons of experience there assured us from certain
familiar signs that one of the terrible hurricanes with which