In those days passing ships landed stores in a cave on the island for shipwrecked and distressed wayfarers.

Captain Airy of the _Soushay_, a good man, sent a boat to the cave with his contribution to the general store.

The stores were landed in safety, and the boat, returning, brought back from the improvised post-office there a dozen or more letters, most of them left by whalemen, with the request that the first homeward-bound ship would carry them along and see to their mailing, which had been the custom of this strange postal service for many years.

Some of the letters brought back by our boat were directed to New Bedford, and some to Fairhaven, Massachusetts.
There is a light to-day on Booby Island, and regular packet communication with the rest of the world, and the beautiful uncertainty of the fate of letters left there is a thing of the past.
I made no call at the little island, but standing close in, exchanged signals with the keeper of the light.

Sailing on, the sloop was at once in the Arafura Sea, where for days she sailed in water milky white and green and purple.