In the early hours of the morning the wind increased and blew from the north-east with very heavy rain squalls. A landing on Inaccessible Island seemed quite impossible, so I ran for shelter under the south-west end of Nightingale Island, which we reached at about 7 A.M. I put out the surf boat and sent ashore a party, composed of Wilkins and Marr, for natural history work, and Douglas and Carr for geological purposes. Jeffrey was in charge of the boat, and I sent with him Henry Green and John Glass. They effected a landing on the south-east corner of the island, at a point where the rock rose sheer from the water, but where there was a rough ledge, on which they managed to get a footing and place their equipment, which consisted of theodolites, guns, pickaxes, bags, etc. Here the parties separated, John Glass accompanying Wilkins, whilst Henry Green acted as guide to the geologists. Marr writes in his diary: We climbed a short way along the jagged rocks with our baggage and came to a flat table-like area backed by high cliffs with gigantic boulders at their base. The other party went right on up a narrow gully with the intention of inspecting a guano patch at the far side of the island. We remained here for a short space whilst Wilkins shot a number of birds and then followed up the hill. From the ship we had thought that this would be easy going up a grassy slope. We were sadly disillusioned, however, for the grass was rank tussock and grew high above our heads, from six to ten feet in length, and was extremely difficult to break through. Underfoot the ground was rotten and soaking, and at every step it gave way and we sank knee-deep and further. Mr. Wilkins kept shooting birds on the way up, but we had great difficulty in finding them in the grass. We were drenched to the skin by the time we arrived at the top, where there was open land covered with small trees and loose rocks and a peculiar round-bladed grass which grew in close tufts very difficult to walk upon. Here more birds were shot, and we started on the return journey, sliding down the soaking rotten earth, stumbling blindly through the long grass and slipping into the holes. On reaching the bottom the party returned in the boat to the ship without waiting for the geologists. The latter had crossed the col to the northern slopes, finding, like the others, that the going was very hard on account of the tussock grass. “These (grass reeds) grow to about eight feet high,” says one of the party, “and are about half an inch in diameter, and are so dense that a man five feet away is invisible.” Examinations were made and survey work was carried out, and when it was finished the party set off back to the landing-place. Douglas writes: