Although thus disabled herself, however, the _W. C. Watjen_ was enabled to play good Samaritan to a smaller German vessel in a like plight, and took up her crew and brought them safely to Hall Sound. All the bulwarks were carried away, iron plates one-eighth of an inch thick were peeled from the sides of the ship, and crumpled up like paper by the force of the wind and sea. After the fifth day the captain was able to take an observation, and, by the help of an old chart, he concluded that New Guinea must be his nearest land. Crippled as he was, he endeavoured to make for Yule Island, where his chart, which was incomplete, told him there was a mission station, and, curiously enough, he was quite close to his desired haven when he was discovered and towed in by the _Moresby_ after seventy-six days’ stress. Had the vessel drifted farther west, she must have gone on the reefs, and the crew would certainly have fallen victims to the cannibal natives. It is really extraordinary how she managed to escape all the dangers of the coral islands that dot the seas for at least 200 miles west of Hall Sound. The same typhoon wrecked Townsville, unroofed an hotel, reduced brick buildings to débris and killed seven men; at the same time the sea receded and left the shipping dry. When we had been lying in Hall Sound some three or four days, the _Merrie England_ came up with the Administrator, Mr. Ruthven Le Hunte, who asked us to breakfast, and told us that for some days he had been very anxious about the _St. Andrew_ and had been keeping a sharp look-out for us on his passage from the west. When we had finally got our clearance we set about going to camp again at Ekeikei, but it took us until the 17th June to get together our carriers. The old difficulties in regard to them again beset us, but after great trouble and much searching and persuasion we obtained a somewhat inadequate force with which we pushed on and got back to Ekeikei on the 20th June. There five of our boys deserted.