We were apparently still many hundreds of miles away from our destination.
To add to the wretchedness of the situation, my poor Yamba, who had been so devoted, so hardy, and so contented, at length began to manifest symptoms of illness, and complained gently of the weariness of it all.
"You are looking," she would say, "for a place that does not exist.

You are looking for friends of whose very existence you are unaware." I would not give in, however, and persuaded her that all would be well in time, if only she would continue to bear with me.

Both of us were terribly cramped in the boat; and by way of exercise one or the other would occasionally jump overboard and have a long swim.

Whenever we could we landed at night.
One morning, shortly after we had begun our usual trip for the day, and were rounding a headland, I was almost stupefied to behold in front of me the masts of a boat (which I afterwards found to be a Malay proa), close in-shore.

The situation, in reality, was between Croker's Island and the main, but at the time I thought that I had at length reached Somerset.