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Meston gives examples of the destructiveness and power of tropical cyclones. He describes the burial of two of Kennedy's men on Albany Island and the remains of the failed settlement of Somerset, founded in 1862 by the Jardine family on the tip of Cape York, where 'the surrounding blacks were all bitterly and persistently hostile'. He also gives details of gold found on Possession Island. He narrates the killing and eating of shipwrecked Dutchmen on Torres Strait islands, and the Dutch government's retaliatory raid.