interested: a Frenchman had made a new record in altitude; an
Englishman had won a fine race, coming in first of ten competitors; a
terrible accident had befallen a well-known airman at the moment of
descending. The most interesting piece of news was that a Frenchman
had maintained for three hours an average speed of a hundred and
twenty miles.

"I'm only just in time," said Smith to himself. He was folding the
paper when his eye was caught by a heading that recalled the days of
his boyhood, when he had revelled in stories of savages, pirates, and
the hundred and one themes that fascinate the ingenuous mind.


SHIPWRECKED AMONG CANNIBALS.


TERRIBLE SITUATION OF FAMOUS SCIENTIST.

(From Our Own Correspondent.)

BRISBANE, Thursday.


A barque put in here to-day with four men picked up from an
open boat south of New Guinea, who reported that the
Government survey vessel Albatross has run ashore in a
storm on Ysabel Island, one of the Solomon group. The crew
and passengers, including Dr. Thesiger Smith, the famous
geologist, were saved, but the vessel is a complete wreck,
and the unfortunate people were compelled to camp on the