LE NAVIGATEUR. 4 A COUNTRY like ours, possessing so large a
navalpopulation, and being so eminently interested in all marine events, might be expected to be rich in works adapted for the amusement and instruction of those who go upon the deep waters, as it is rich in the materials of marine experience. Frame, however, possesses a little journal dedi- cated solely to the recording of the striking events that occur upon the ocean ; and there are few .periodicals we take up with greater pleasure than this journal of sufferings and events at sea. The number for the present month contains a Robinson Crusoe narrative, of great interest, of which, as well as our limited space will allow, we will communicate the substance. It is written by M. LESQUIN, the commander of a go- letta called the Adventure, which was fitted out from the Isle of France, and set sail in May 1 S*2 5, to the islands of Crozet, to fish for a cargo of oil, which is derived from the sea-elephants that abound on the shores of those inhospitable spots on the face of the ocean. These four islands, very little known to navigators (dispovered by two French captains, MARION and CROZET, in 1772), are situated in the 46° and 47°1at. and 44°-47° long. Paris. They are destitute of vegetation : half the year they are covered with snow, and the other they are bu- ried in a perpetual mist. The Adventure arrived off one of them in a storm ; and after landing nine of her crew of sixteen men, was driven from her uncertain anchorage on to another of them, where the vessel was wrecked and the crew were washed ashore. The cold was in- tense ; the shore one perfect sheet of snow, except where here and there it was spotted by troops of the marine elephant. The first want that these unfortunate men were made alive to was the want of a fire. When the captain saw the loss of the vessel inevitable, he had put about his person sonic provision of gunpowder, which, though nearly all wetted in the drenching he had had, enough was found to strike a fire, which was procured by the aid of a slice from his velvet collar. For fuel, they turned their eyes upon the monstrous animals feeding or sleeping on the shore, unconseious of man, unconscious • Le Navigateur, Journal des Nsurrages et des autres evenemens nautiques. Par une Seelai de Marina. No. 10, Janner 1830. also of the oil which they bore about them, and which had tempted sixteen human beings into their dreary haunts. The waves had thrown up an oar from the ship'; armed with which, they sallied forth against the sea-elephants, and succeeded in knocking down the youngest of the herd. A good fire was maintained with the oil ; and as soon as it had the effect of unfreezing the congealed limbs of the poor fellows, they set about collecting whatever had been washed ashore from the wreck : they picked up a great may useful articles, amongst which the rigging and sails and some masts, were objects of primary impor- tance : a bag of biscuits drenched with seawater was another welcome gift, which with some empty barrels and sundry tools, now made up their earthly fortune. Some money, washed ashore in a box, was left on the sand; no one thought it worth while to pick it up.
" These objects we immediately carried beyond the high-water mark, and availed ours:elves of the sails to shelter us from the snow. We erected a tent, kin.the middle of which we kept up the fire, and in other respects protected ourselves at well as we could from the weather, which was tremendous, and -which weetpected would come on still worse in the night. We began to feel the pains of hunger ; and though the biscuits were so steeped in sea.
• water as to be.no longer eatable in other circumstances, we shared out one each, and found them good. We then cut some slices of the sea-elephant that we had Idlled; and roasted them by the aid of a couple of barrel-hoops ; the taste, however, was so abominable, that we were compelled to reject it. Sup. per finished, we formed a circle about the fire : the snow which traversed otir tent prevented usfrom resigning ourselves to sleep. What a long and creel night was thia4Irst of my captivity I What Ideas did it suggest to my mind! I found myseNon an island situated in a high latitude, the very position of which,:was but little known, and which was never frequented by ships, which pre:minted no trace of vegetation, and which in short seemed adapted for no- thing else than a haunt for the.monsters of the deep."
, 'The night did not pass without an event ; the frail tent was carried only the-wind, and they were obliged to keep in continual motion till dawn, to prevent themselves from being frozen. In the morning they again .betook themselves to the shore, to see what the waves had sent them: they found only shivered timbers and barrel-staves ; one of the sails only of the tent was found. Another elephant was killed to keep up the breakfast fire. At some small distance a cave was found, in which the party estas blished themselves ; and some who had been to explore returned with a quantity of young albatrosses, the flesh of which was much preferred to that of the elephant. With a fire in the cave, the ftedi of the birds roasted in the flaming oil, and the sea-water biscuit, the second ewe- ing was passed' somewhat more gaily than the first ; and it was re- solved to build a house.. The cave was.only three feet high. In the first instance, they commenced another search after goods thrown up from the wreck ; and were happy enough. to find a case contaireng knives, muskets, a lance, a broken stew-pan and some tools. On their return to the cave, they were met by a new species of marine monster, which the writer calls a sea-leopard; and they quickly put to their use the instruments they had been so fortatnate•as to find. This individual was eight feet in length ; his head king and fiat; his jaws were adorned with two rows of sharp teeth; his .motion was the same as the elephant's, only that his fins were considerably longer than those of the other animal. Some of his flesh was cooked, but was found so detestable that the men fancied they were poisoned. It seems that riches are ever to breed discontent : even in this dup.. late spot, a poor knot of shipwrecked mariners, cut off from all the w.drld, and not sure of a day's subsistence, could not avoid falling out respecting the division of the valuable discoveries of the day. The third evening on this lonely island, in this wretched cave, was spent in quarelling. The crew was composed of men of every country, though when entire it only numbered sixteen. Among the seven in the cave, there appears to have been French, Dutch, Portuguese, and English. The captain was accompanied by a Mr. FOTHERINGRAM, an English- man, who was the manager of the fishing department ; and it seems probable that these two, the most active and intelligent of the party, were still willing.to consider themselves chiefs, though the calamity had reduced the whole party to a footing of equality. On the fourth day, the biscuit was done, and then the elephant flesh began to he thought good : it was afterwards found to be delicious. In about a week,- a great part of the wreck was thrown ashore, with which were-three inestimable treasures, a. compass-box, a bag of haricot beans, and Young's Night Thoughts—a most appropriate work for such scenes,. placed "far amid the melancholy main.' On the same day, being .without food, and wandering in search of elephants, the captain stum- bled upon about a hundred penguins, sitting on their nests in the snow. A stout battle was fought : the clubs with which the intruders were armed decided the day; the enemy was beat off the field, and their eggs fell a prey to the conquerors. They picked up one hundred and thirty-eight; of which (they are twice as large as a hen's egg) seventy-two were eaten, with sea-elephant oil, that same evening. About a fortnight after the shipWreck, the house was finished, built of timber and stones ; the roof being covered with elephant-skins. They cast lots for places, in which each man installed himself accord- ing to his notions of security and comfort. t'When established in the house, the captain proposed a voyage of discovery to Mr. FOTHERINGHAM ; who readily agreed to follow an outlet that had been observed leading from the valley in which they were, among the mountains surrounding them.
"At the dawn (24th August) Mr. Fotheringham and myself set out, on ft wet and foggy morning, each provided with a club and a bag of sailcloth con- taining our provisions. Arriving at the end of the valley, after two hoots' walk in the snow, we entered the gorge I had remarked the evening before. We ascended about an hour; after which, the fog increasing, we followed a straight defile over the highest point of the mountain, until we were stopped by an enormous mass of snow, which we found to be at the base of another mountain, which appeared'to us extremely high. We found, however, Means to climb up to the top, though the side was formed of steel) ice; anti* Dreier to plant the foot, we were obliged to hollow out a hole with our clubs. After a fatiguing walk, we at length got to a place where we thought we might descend. We seated ourselves on the ice, and let ourselves slide down, 'guiding our course with the poles we had in our hands. The descent was easy, but so rapid as nearly to deprive us of respiration. Hence we followed. a gorge, which by a slight inclination led us into a valley which we conceived :ran down to the sea. Here we were saluted by a variety of cries : some of them we knew to be those of the elephants, but it was only on arriving at the end of the valley near the shore that we discovered whence proceeded the rest. More than three millions of a kind of penguins were assembled .about an area of stones, in the middle of which flowed a considerable stream- let the place which they occupied was not covered with snow, and sent out 4 ptitrid odour. The young ones, still covered with down, were all together, and round about them were arranged their parent birds. A path, about two feet in bieadth, was left unoccupied up to the centre of this laying place, for the penguins returning from the sea to feed their little ones. The most per- .fect harmony appeared to reign among them, and all their efforts seemed 'solely employed in driving off flocks of a kind of pigeon, which attempted to devour the food reserved for the young penguins.
' " We thence betook ourselves to the strand, where we found several sea- elephants. In traversing the shore, we came to a grotto, the arch of which was blackened with smoke : fires had been made here ; and on examination, • Were found two long and flat stones, on which, doubtless, the gridiron had
• been placed. A little further we found some planks, appertaining, as we thought, to a boat ; they were so rotten as to show that they had long been there. Advancing towards the south of the valley, we found a quantity of those birds called Nettles, but which I call the Austral crow : they all had their nests on the snow, and which they did not quit as we approached them: we suspected they had eggs under them; and by the force of blows, we obliged them to leave their nests; rather than do which, however, many - of them suffered themselves to be beaten to death, but not before they had vomited the fetid contents of their stomachs. We found five-and-forty eggs, .which we put in our sacks to carry to the house ; and further on, we saw some young albatrosses on a plateau of snow, twelve of which we killed, and each took possession of six ; and we set off towards our abode, fatigued, but delighted with the discoveries we had made ; for we were now sure, that as long as we had force to get as far as the Valley of Abundance, (for so we , name it) we should never want food."
They were not doomed, however, to reach home on that day: in the haze and obscurity, they missed the path, and after falling down a pre- • clpice of fifty feet into the snow, and suffering much from fatigue, cold, and sprains, they were obliged to leave their plunder behind them, and only joined their companions at the middle of the second day.
Dreadful weather now set in : it became impossible to leave the -house for any distance, and within this no supply of food was to be - found. Confinement and hunger so far reduced them, that there was '-scarcely one that could stand : death was staring them in the face, • and the Captain already began to suspect that some horrible plan of • procuring food would be proposed. He therefore volunteered to return 'ito the Valley of Abundance, if any one would accompany him. Mr. FOTHBRINGHAM and a Dutchman did. They succeeded in procuring • a supply ; but on their return the strength of the Hollander failed him, and he was left in the snow. When they got home, the remaining • four were too far gone to show even joy at the arrival of food, and it • was with difficulty their lives were saved. In the night horrible cries ' were head: it was the Dutchman, who had been waked by the pain in his limbs, and had managed to scramble within ear-shot of the house, when he was found struggling in a pit of snow where he had -fallen.
Some time after, when the Captain and his friend had returned from an exploratory expedition, they found that their comrades had fought 'in their absence. These restless men, for want of something to 'do, -had quarrelled about the Dutch massacre at Amboyna, and by way of ' revenge, the Portuguese, SALVADOR, had stabbed METZLAAR, the • Dutchman, in the back. The general ill conduct of these men, joined • to this last fact, determined the Captain and Mr. FOTHERINGHAM to separate from them ; and they proceeded to build a smaller house for • themselves at some distance, the Hollander removing with them.
• They thus dwelt apart for some months ; and at one time, open war is declared between the two houses. The four daimons, as METZLAAR 'always called his antagonists, try the scheme of building a boat and ' putting off to sea; they are driven back by bad weather, and all nearly • lost. The Captain and Mr. FOTHERINGHAM, after the expiration of a year and a half, are employed upon the same desperate scheme, when one morning, (21st December 1826,) Mr. FOTHERINGHAM having left • the house, all-of a sudden set up a loud cry, and returned without the power of uttering a word. Being much surprised, I begged of • him to speak ; but he only answered me by making grimaces. At first • I thought that the sufferings we had borne had deprived this young man of his intellect : but at length he made a sign to me to go out—and • what were my joy and astonishment, to see a vessel within three • leagues, evidently making for the island !"
' This vessel proved to be the Cape Packet, of London, employed in the South Sea whale fishery: by its means they were enabled to escape from this dreary abode, with the exception only of one man who had • died of exhaustion : the Captain of the Packet, moreover, • sailed in search of the rest of the crew, who had been left by the vessel . on another part of the coast, and who were all found alive. Captain LESQUIN arrived at St. Nazarine, in France, on the 7th May 1827, after a captivity of seventeen months among the dreary Crozet Isles.
We have of course omitted a great number of interesting details : our article does not occupy a tenth of the space of the original Our description will, however, not only show what may be learned from Captain LasQuiN's own narrative, but also what a fine subject he had for a more experienced pen than often belongs to a sailor, in the desolate circumstances of these unhappy men, in their variety of cha- racter and country, in their various shifts and sufferings, and in the picture of these melancholy islands and their natural history, what materials for a new DEFOE!
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