We passed the night a mile within the mouth of Disaster Inlet, and next morning, which was cool and bracing enough for a latitude twenty degrees further south, we followed its upward course, which was more westerly than suited our impatience to proceed direct into the interior.  Four miles and a half from the entrance, in a straight line, though ten by the distance the boats had gone, we came on a reach trending south.  This improvement in the course was equally felt by all, as was shown by the bending of the oars to the eager desire of the crew to push on; but scarcely had the boats glided midway through the hitherto untraversed piece of water, when the tragical event occurred, which the name of the inlet serves to recall, although it is too deeply engraven on the memories of both actors and spectators ever to be forgotten.

COCKATOOS.

The mangroves that in patches fringed the banks, whilst all besides was one flat grassy plain, were literally whitened with flocks of noisy cockatoos, giving the trees an appearance as if they were absolutely laden with huge flakes of snow—­a somewhat remarkable aspect for a scene in such a clime to wear.  It seemed as if the rigid hand of winter had for once been permitted to visit with its icy touch this tropical land; but the verdure of all around, the serenity of the heavens, warm with the fervid beams of the sun that gilded the rippling waters of the reach, dispelled the illusion.  And soon the huge masses of white plumage began to float from tree to tree across the reach, whilst their screams as they flew by seemed a fair challenge to the sportsman.  Mr. Gore accordingly resolved to secure a few of them for dinner, and put out his gun for the purpose.

NARROW ESCAPE.

The sudden arrest of the birds’ flight—­the flash of the gun—­the volume of smoke—­caught the eye as it closed at the explosion; with some of us it might have been for ever!  Twas the affair of but a second.  Death came to our sides, as it were, and departed ere the report of the gun had ceased to roll over the waters of the reach.  Something whizzed past my ear, deafening and stupefying me for a moment—­the next I saw my much-valued friend Gore stretched at his length in the bottom of the boat, and I perceived at a glance the danger we had incurred and providentially escaped.

ACCIDENT TO LIEUTENANT GORE.

His fowling piece had burst in his hand, and flown away in fragments, leaving only a small portion of the barrel at my feet.  How it happened that the coxswain and myself were unhurt seemed a miracle.  I was on the right of Mr. Gore, in the stern-sheets of the yawl, and the coxswain was a little on the left, and over him, steering.  Our preservation can only be attributed to Him whose eye is on all his creatures and who disposes of our lives as it seemeth good in his sight.  Without intending to be presumptuous, we may be permitted to believe that we were spared partly on account of the service in which we were engaged—­so beneficial to humanity, so calculated to promote the spread of civilization, which must ever be the harbinger of Christianity.  At any rate it is not, in my humble opinion, any impeachment of the wisdom of the Almighty, to imagine that he determines the fortunes of men according to the work in which they are engaged.