The Springdale news., 1909-03-23

@ thought 1t best hot to relln quish all authority. SD 1 organized reg ular expeditions and ordered their di rection The men did not object It was all good enough fun te them.
 The net results were that We found resting place of sea birds-too late in the season for eggs-a hot spring near enough camp To be useful, and l that was about all. The sheep were l the only animals oil the island, al though there were several sorts of birds. In general the country was as I have described it-either volcanic or overlaid with fertile earth. In any case it was canyon and hill We soon grew tired of climbing and turned our attention to the sea.
 i With the surfboat We skifted the coast. It was impregnable except in l three places-our own beach. that near the seal rookery and on the south side of the island. We landed at each one of these places. But returning close to the coast We happened upon cave mouth more or less guarded by an outlying rock.
 Tine day was calm. So we ventared 1 in At first I thought it merely gorge in the rock but even while peer ing for the end wall we slipped under the archway and found ourselves in vast room.
 Our eyes were dazzled so We could make out little at first. But through the still, clear water the light filtered freely from below, showing the bottom as through sea glass. We saw the fish near the entrance and coral and sea growths of marvellous viyidness. 1 They waved slowly as in draft of air. The medium in which they fioated was absolutely Invisible, for of course there were no reflections from its sur face. We seemed to be suspended in midair, and only when the dipping oars made rings could we realize that anything sustained us
 Suddenly the place let loose In pam demonium. The most fiendsh cries, groans, shrieks broke out, confusing themselves so thoroughly with their own echoes that the volume of sound was continuous. Heavy splashes shook the water The boat rocked. The in visible surface was broken Into facets
 We shrank, terrified. From all about us glowed hundreds of eyes like eoals of fire-on d level with us, above us, almost over our heads Two by two the coals were extinguished
 Below us the bottom was clouded with black figures darting rapidly like q school of minnows beneath a boat They darkened the coral and the sands and the glistening sea growths, only the oeeultations and brightenings sue ceeded each other much more swiftly
 We stared stupefied, our thinking power blurred by the ineessant whirl of motion and noise.
 | Suddenly Thrackles laughed aloud
 "Seals." he shouted through his trumpeted hands.
 Our eyes were expanding to the twi- light. We could make out the arch of the room, its shelves and hollows and inches. Lying on them we could dis cern the seals hundreds and hundreds of them, all staring at us, all barking and believing AS We approached they scrambled from their elevations and, diving to the bottom, seurried to the entrance of the cave.
 We lay on our oars for ten minutes. Then silence fell. There persisted tiny drip, drip drip. from some point in the darkness. It merely accentuated the hush. Suddenly from far in the interior of the hil there came long, hollow boo-o-om! It reverberated, roar ing. The surge that had lifted our boat some minutes before thus reached l its journeys end.
 The chamber was. very lofty. As We | rowed cautiously in 1t lost nothing of Its height. but something in width. It was maryelously colored. like all the volcanic rocks of this island. In addi- ton some chemical drip had thrown across its vividness long gauzy stream CTS of white. We rowed in as far as the faintsst daylight lasted us. The. occasional reverberating boom of the surges seemed as distant as ever. l This was beyond the seal rookery on l the beach. Below 1t we entered an l open cleft of some size to another sQuarer cave. It was now high tide. The water extended scant ten fath- oms to end on an interior shale beach. The cave was perfectly straight pas sage following the line of the cleft l How far in it reached we could not determine, for 1t, too was full of seals,