night. About one o'clock, the trooper who was on watch,awakened us with
the news that there was a light out at sea. We thought at first it could
only be some blacks in their canoes, spearing fish by torchlight, but it
gradually drew nearer and nearer, until at last we could distinguish the
distant sound of voices, and the faint rattle of the iron cable as it flew
out through the hawse-hole.

"Some coasting craft, I suppose," said Dunmore.

"Most probably, but we shall find out in the morning;" and we were soon
again in the land of dreams.

Before daylight we had finished breakfast, and by the time the sun rose,
were in the whale-boat, pulling towards the new arrival. She was a dirty,
weather-beaten, nondescript-looking little craft, half fore and aft
schooner, half dandy-rigged cutter, and the look-out on board was evidently
not very vigilant, for we had almost arrived alongside, before a black head
showed over the gunwale, and, frightened at seeing a boat-load of armed men
in such an unexpected spot, poured out a flood of shrieking jargon that
would have aroused the Seven Sleepers, and which speedily awoke from their
slumbers the remainder of the crew. There seemed to be only two white men,
one of whom introduced himself as the captain, and asked us, in French, to
come on board. The vessel was the 'Gabrielle d'Estonville', of New
Caledonia, commanded by Captain Jean Labonne, and had put into Rockingham
Bay for water, during a 'beche-de-mer' expedition. Anything to equal the
filth of the fair 'Gabrielle', I never saw. Her crew consisted of another
Frenchman besides the captain, and of seven or eight Kanakas, two of whom
had their wives on board. As perhaps this extraordinary trade is but
little known to the reader who has not resided in China, I will briefly
narrate how it is carried out.