AN EFFORT IN SIGN LANGUAGE 123 



away the ship and kept only three of the little boats to 

 tell that part of the story, and in the boats he put so 

 many sticks to represent the number of men in each. 

 When he had done this one of the men pointed to a 

 dog that was looking on and asked if the ship had any, 

 whereupon the sailor counted on his fingers to show 

 there were about forty, and by pantomime explained 

 that they had been shot. This being evidently 

 understood, Nindemann drew a chart of the coast-line, 

 and imitating a gale of wind showed that the boat he 

 came from went to the land at a certain point and that 

 he knew nothing of the others. Then he went on to 

 show how they had all left the boat, waded ashore and 

 walked along the river-bank, and he marked the huts 

 where they had stopped, and then he indicated where 

 one of the men had died and been buried in the river. 

 This was understood, for all the audience shook their 

 heads as if to say how sorry they were. But when he 

 tried to tell them that he had left the captain two days 

 afterwards and had been so many days on the way to 

 ask for help, they showed that they either did not or 

 would not understand ; and really it was not easy to 

 make such a matter clear. 



Next day Nindemann made another attempt to get 

 them to understand the one essential, urgent fact that 

 help was needed, or the men would die ; but no, he 

 could not do it. On the Thursday, despairing of the 

 hopelessness of his task and the helplessness of his 

 companions, he broke into tears and groans, and a 

 woman in the hut took pity on him and spoke earnestly 

 to one of the men, who came and said something 

 about a commandant. Then the sailor, who had 



