It was no easy matter, however, to get it out of the bush and down to the sea again.

This cost us two days of hard labour to accomplish.
We had also much ado to clear away the rubbish from before the bower, and spent nearly a week in constant labour ere we got the neighbourhood to look as clean and orderly as before; for the uprooted bushes and sea-weed that lay on the beach formed a more dreadfully confused-looking mass than one who had not seen the place after the inundation could conceive.
Before leaving the subject I may mention, for the sake of those who interest themselves in the curious natural phenomena of our world, that this gigantic wave occurs regularly on some of the islands of the Pacific, once, and sometimes twice in the year.

I heard this stated by the missionaries during my career in those seas.

They could not tell me whether it visited all of the islands, but I was certainly assured that it occurred periodically in some of them.
After we had got our home put to rights and cleared of the _debris_ of the inundation, we again turned our thoughts to paying the penguins a visit.

The boat was therefore overhauled and a few repairs done.