But the "blue, unclouded weather," in which we had hitherto basked, was at an end for the present.

We had already enjoyed a longer succession of calm days than usually falls to the lot of the travellers in that windy middle island, and it was now quite time for the imprisoned "nor'-wester" to have his turn over the surface of the domain.
Accordingly the first day's sail was against a light, ominously warm head-wind, and we only made any way at all by keeping up a complicated system of tacking.

The start had not been an early one, so darkness found us but little advanced on our voyage, and we passed the night in a rough shanty, on beds of fern-leaves, wrapped in our red blankets.

Tired as we were, none of us could sleep much.

The air was dry and parched; every now and then a sough of the rising hot gale swept through our crazy shelter without cooling us, and warned us to prepare for what was coming.