down through this observing and faithful author. He represents the ship as being hailed from the supposed depths of the sea the evening before the line is to be reached, and the captain is given the compliments of Neptune and asked to muster his novices for the sealord's inspection. The next day the ship is 'hove to' at the proper moment, and Neptune, with his dear Amphitrite and suite, comes on board. Neptune appears, preceded by a young man plainly dressed in tights and riding on a car made of a gun-carriage drawn by six nearly naked blacks spotted with yellow paint. He has a long beard of oakum, an iron crown on his head, and of course carries a trident with a small dolphin between the prongs. His attendants consist of a secretary with quills from a sea-fowl; a surgeon with lancet and pill-box; a barber with a huge wooden razor, its blade made of an iron hoop; and a barber's mate, with a tub for a shaving-box. Amphitrite, wearing a woman's night-cap with harpoon, carries a ship's boy in her lap as a baby, with

She is at

a marlin-spike to cut his teeth on. tended by three men dressed as nymphs, with curry-combs, mirror and pots of paint. The sheep-pen, lined with canvas and filled with water, has already been prepared. The victim, seated on a platform laid over it, is blindfolded, then shaved by the barber and finally plunged backward into the water. That is the traditional manner of the ceremony. We will change it to-morrow. You select your Neptune, who will make a proclamation welcoming the new-comers into the Southern sea, select your Amphitrite, who is to distribute largess to the men who have crossed, and after that we will have a concert and a supper. The exigencies of travel by steam makes it necessary to switch from the olden ceremony to those more modern and better fitted to the present expedition."

The occasion was one of hilarity. Neptune was a great success, and Miranda as Amphitrite won all hearts. The officers and passengers followed the traditions of gift-giving, and

the crew were richer and happier over the event. Cape Town was reached and the Southern Cross lay at anchor under famous Table Mountain, and passengers and crew saw the fleecy waitresses of the clouds set the cloth on the mountain for a banquet of the gods of the air.

Scroggins was a very ill man, so it was thought best to send him ashore to a hospital as a further stay on board might prove serious.

On the morning after the yacht arrived at Cape Town, Anderson received a cable, which read: "Dearest Algy, come back. I'm lonely without you, as you are so far away. All is forgiven. I was mistaken. I now know it was the bouquet of the wine-press. Your contrite Arabella."

"My poor Arabella," said Anderson; "I must hasten back."

He and Scroggins sailed two days later.

CHAPTER XV

The expedition anchored in Christmas Harbor and began preparation for their stay. Kerguelen Islands were discovered by Kerguelen Tremaric, a native of Brittany, in 1772. Discoverers have made mistakes and it is not to be wondered at. Columbus thought America was the Indies, and Kerguelen believed that the land he had found was the long thought-of Southern Continent, rich in natural resources and possibilities. Columbus went to his grave with his belief unchanged, but, in the case of Kerguelen, the disillusionment came very quickly, for the discoverer, on revisiting the group in 1774, found that the islands were barren and unproductive. In his chagrin he renamed them Desolation Land.

The crew of the Southern Cross almost immediately set to work building huts and an ob

servatory, and arranging all astronomical appliances to be ready for the coming transit.

Miranda, to use Stoneman's admiring comment, was "as busy as a one-armed paper hanger." Curlip, Barstars and Stoneman were helping. Stoneman was adjusting the plates for the cameras, large and small, and the other men doing anything to be useful.

Stoneman had rowed out to the yacht to get some needed things, leaving Curlip and Miranda alone. Barstars was off looking for

game.

"Do you believe in love at first sight, Miss Bradley?" asked Curlip.

"Well," she spoke slowly, "I suppose if some thoroughly reliable person told me such a thing existed I would not affirm to the contrary." "Then you have never experienced it?"

"Of course not, but I reiterate in the manner of the Quaker who in argument with an unbeliever was told that there is no God.

"And why thinkest thou so?' said the Quaker.