Men by Themselves
Kerguelen is one of those places like Grahamland which have to be occupied and 'administered' by a handful of poorly paid men in case any other country tries to annex it. In his kindly way, Migot describes how the sense of adventure dies down in the occupants and leaves behind a cold sense of frustration which turns, eventually, into a hatred of almost everything, including themselves. There are feuds, fights, rumours and ill-reports galore. But later, in the company of a party 'of seasoned Australian explorers, Migot found the 'Anglo-Saxon reserve' very much to his taste for solitude and his 'natural dislike of prying' into his neighbours' affairs and having them pry into his.
This prying reviewer was not able to find out very much about Father De Coccola from his own account of his life and works. It may be, of course, that the ecclesiastical censors chopped a lot out when his book was submitted for official 'clearance.' He certainly managed to baptise a camp of Krangmalit esquimaux before they succumbed, horribly, to influenza on one occasion, but that is one of the very few direct references to the evangelical side of his mission. For the rest there is an unvarnished record of life among the Nose People, the Seal, the Fish, the Passing Fat People and the race at the Back of the Earth—on Victoria Island. There is something quite remarkable in this account of their terrible lives amid feast, famine and familiar disaster. They kill caribou and, occasionally, each other, with equal equanimity because (Ayoratna)': 'It can't be helped. Life is like that.'
JOHN HILLABY
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