Nevertheless, I pined for civilisation, and never let a day go by without scanning the bay and the open sea for a passing sail.

The natives told me they had seen ships at various times, and that attempts had even been made to reach them in catamarans, but without success, so far out at sea were the vessels passing.
Gradually, about nine months after my strange return to my Cambridge Gulf home, there came a time when life became so monotonous that I felt I _must_ have a change of some sort, or else go mad.

I was on the very best of terms with all my blacks, but their mode of living was repulsive to me.

I began to loathe the food, and the horrible cruelty to the women frequently sickened me.

Whenever I saw one of these poor patient creatures felled, bleeding, to the earth, I felt myself being worked up into a state of dangerous nervous excitement, and I longed to challenge the brutal assailant as a murderous enemy.