Hitherto they had experienced no greater hardships than they had expected, and were prepared for. But in June [mid-winter] their boat was, during a storm, washed off the beach, and broken up. This was to them a terrible disaster; their old supplies were exhausted, and they were practically cut off from not merely the world in general, but even the rest of the island. They got weaker and weaker, and by August were little better than two skeletons.
The sea was too tempestuous, and the distance too great for them to attempt to swim round (as they afterwards did) to another part of the island. But succour was at hand; they were saved by the penguins, a very clumsy form of relief. The female birds came ashore in August to lay their eggs in the nests already prepared by their lords and masters, the male birds, who had landed some two or three weeks previously. Our good Germans had divided their last potato, and were in a very weak and despondent condition when the pleasant fact stared them in the face that they might now fatten on eggs ad libitum. Their new diet soon put fresh heart and courage in them, and when, early in September, a French bark sent a boat ashore, they determined still to remain on the island. They arranged with the captain for the sale of their seal-skins, and bartered a quantity of eggs for some biscuit and a couple of pounds of tobacco. Late in October a schooner from the Cape of Good Hope called at the island, and on leaving, promised to return for them, as they had decided to quit the island, not having had any success in obtaining peltries or anything else that is valuable; but she did not re-appear, and in November their supplies were again at starvation-point. Selecting a calm day, the two Crusoes determined to swim round the headland to the eastward, taking with them their rifles and blankets, and towing after them an empty oil-barrel containing their clothes, powder, matches, and kettle. This they repeated later on several occasions, and, climbing the cliffs by the tussock grass, were able to kill or secure on the plateau a few of the wild pigs. Sometimes one of them only would mount, and after killing a pig would cut it up and lower the hams to his brother below. They caught three little sucking-pigs, and towed them alive through the waves, round the point of their landing-place, where they arrived half drowned. They were put in an enclosure, and fed on green stuff and penguin’s eggs—good feeding for a delicate little porker. Attempting on another occasion to tow a couple in the same way, the unfortunate pigs met a watery grave in the endeavour to weather the point, and one of the brothers barely escaped, with some few injuries, through a terrible surf which was beating on their part of the coast. Part of their time was passed in a cave during the cold weather. When the Challenger arrived their only rifle had burst in two places, and was of little use, while their musket was completely burst in all directions, and was being used as a blow-pipe to freshen the fire when it got low. Their only knives had been made by themselves from an old saw. Their library consisted of eight books and an atlas, and these, affording their only literary recreation for two years, they knew almost literally by heart. When they first landed they had a dog and two pups, which they, doubtless, hoped would prove something like companions. The dogs almost immediately left, and made for the penguin rookeries, where they killed and worried the birds by hundreds. One of them became mad, and the brothers thought it best to shoot the three of them. Captain Nares gave the two Crusoes a passage to the Cape, where one of them obtained a good situation; the other returned to Germany, doubtless thinking that about a couple of dozen seal-skins—all they obtained—was hardly enough to reward them for their two years’ dreary sojourn on Inaccessible Island.
Chapter III.
The Men of the Sea.
The great Lexicographer on Sailors—The Dangers of the Sea—How Boys become Sailors—Young Amyas Leigh—The Genuine Jack Tar—Training-Ships versus the old Guard-Ships—“Sea-goers and Waisters”—The Training Undergone—Routine on Board—Never-ending Work—Ship like a Lady’s Watch—Watches and “Bells”—Old Grogram and Grog—The Sailor’s Sheet Anchor—Shadows in the Seaman’s Life—The Naval Cat—Testimony and Opinion of a Medical Officer—An Example—Boy Flogging in the Navy—Shakespeare and Herbert on Sailors and the Sea.
Dr. Johnson, whose personal weight seems to have had something to do with that carried by his opinion, considered going to sea a species of insanity.31 “No man,” said he, “will be a sailor who has contrivance enough to get himself into a jail: for being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned.” The great lexicographer knew Fleet Street better than he did the fleet, and his opinion, as expressed above, was hardly even decently patriotic or sensible. Had all men thought as he professed to do—probably for the pleasure of saying something ponderously brilliant for the moment—we should have had no naval or commercial superiority to-day—in short, no England.
The dangers of the sea are serious enough, but need not be exaggerated. One writer32 indeed, in serio-comic vein, makes his sailors sing in a gale—
“When you and I, Bill, on the deck
Are comfortably lying,
My eyes! what tiles and chimney-pots
About their heads are flying!”
leading us to infer that the dangers of town-life are greater than those of the sea in a moderate gale. We might remind the reader that Mark Twain has conclusively shown, from statistics, that more people die in bed comfortably at home than are killed by all the railroad, steamship, or other accidents in the world, the inference being that going to bed is a dangerous habit! But the fact is, that wherever there is danger there will be brave men found to face it—even when it takes the desperate form just indicated! So that there is nothing surprising in the fact that in all times there have been men ready to go to sea.
Of those who have succeeded, the larger proportion have been carried thither by the spirit of adventure. It would be difficult to say whether it has been more strongly developed through actual “surroundings,” as believed by one of England’s most intelligent and friendly critics,33 who says, “The ocean draws them just as a pond attracts young ducks,” or through the influence of literature bringing the knowledge of wonderful voyages and discoveries within the reach of all. The former are immensely strong influences. The boy who lives by, and loves the sea, and notes daily the ships of all nations passing to and fro, or who, maybe, dwells in some naval or commercial port, and sees constantly great vessels arriving and departing, and hears the tales of sailors bold, concerning new lands and curious things, is very apt to become imbued with the spirit of adventure. How charmingly has Charles Kingsley written on the latter point!34 How young Amyas Leigh, gentle born, and a mere stripling schoolboy, edged his way under the elbows of the sailor men on Bideford Quay to listen to Captain John Oxenham tell his stories of heaps—“seventy foot long, ten foot broad, and twelve foot high”—of silver bars, and Spanish treasure, and far-off lands and peoples, and easy victories over the coward Dons! How Oxenham, on a recruiting bent, sang out, with good broad Devon accent, “Who ’lists? who ’lists? who’ll make his fortune?
“ ‘Oh, who will join, jolly mariners all?
And who will join, says he, O!
To fill his pockets with the good red goold,
By sailing on the sea, O!’ ”
And how young Leigh, fired with enthusiasm, made answer, boldly, “I want to go to sea; I want to see the Indies. I want to fight the Spaniards. Though I’m a gentleman’s son, I’d a deal liever be a cabin-boy on board your ship.” And how, although he did not go with swaggering John, he lived to first round the world with great Sir Francis Drake, and after fight against the “Invincible” Armada. The story had long before, and has many a time since, been enacted in various forms among all conditions of men. To some, however, the sea has been a last refuge, and many such have been converted into brave and hardy men, perforce themselves; while many others, in the good old days of press-gangs, appeared, as Marryat tells us, “to fight as hard not to be forced into the