'Higher than for a long time. I hope it won't bring fog. I know this
district is famous for fogs, and fine weather at this time of the
year is bad for them anywhere. I would rather it blew, if it wasn't
for exploring those gaps, where an on-shore wind would be nasty.
Six-thirty to-morrow; not later. I think I'll sleep in the saloon for
the future, after what happened to-night.'



15 Bensersiel

[For this chapter see Map B.]

THE decisive incidents of our cruise were now fast approaching.
Looking back on the steps that led to them, and anxious that the
reader should be wholly with us in our point of view, I think I
cannot do better than give extracts from my diary of the next three
days:

_

'16th Oct._ (up at 6.30, yacht high and dry). Of the three galliots
out at anchor in the channel yesterday, only one is left ... I took
my turn with the breakers this morning and walked to Wangeroog, whose
village I found half lost in sand drifts, which are planted with
tufts of marram-grass in mathematical rows, to give stability and
prevent a catastrophe like that at Pompeii. A friendly grocer told me
all there is to know, which is little. The islands are what we
thought them--barren for the most part, with a small fishing