in her arms. A lonely life indeed! and what a setting for the impressionable days of childhood—no trees, no grass, no birds except the sea-fowl, no paddock but the flat and barren tumble of sea, no room except for the eye, and, instead of the thousand-and-one friendly and pretty details of Mother Earth, simple, sheer, uncompanionable space. No bad abiding-place perhaps for a mind stored with theories calling for arrangement, or big with thoughts demanding birth—a kind of attic, indeed, of the Universe; but what does a child make of it? and what does it make of the child? I should greatly like to know. The hardship of having to endure so anchored an existence seemed to us that day almost intolerable; for we ourselves were gloriously leaping and flying along before a gallant wind and over a sea of gleeful green and silver. There were islets of cloud in the sky, and these could travel with us; but that poor pinnacle of rock was swiftly left behind—left to rooted loneliness. Now it was a mere cloud on the horizon—now it was gone.
The port at which we called next had a pleasant distinction. It owned a bullock-cart. Generally speaking, upon that shallow and surf-beaten coast our men had to do a great deal of wading in the course of loading or unloading the whaleboat—weary work, with heavy kegs and cases on your back; so that it was a grateful relief at Waipiro to find a team of eight great bullocks, with a capacious cart attached, waiting in the surf for our boat-load. How picturesque they looked, too, in addition! with their wide-branched horns, and great bulks of glossy red and chestnut and black, very vivid above the vivid blue of the sea and whiteness of the surf,
