2,74 Voyage of the Novara. 



frigate, with three men who had taken up their abode in even 

 this desolate wilderness. Our imagination deluded us with the 

 pleasing idea that these three forlorn, forsaken figures might 

 be the long lost men wrecked in the Meridian, whom pitying 

 billows might have wafted to this solitary island. 



Presently there stepped on deck by the side-ropes a grizzly 

 figure, with deeply-furrowed features and long, grey beard, 

 clothed in a blue blouse and coarse linen trowsers, that seemed 

 to have weathered many a winter's storm. This primitive- 

 looking old man proved to be a Frenchman named Viot, who 

 had lived here for a considerable time as overseer of a fishing 

 establishment on the island. Our first question had reference 

 to the missing men from the Meridian. But how sore was our 

 disappointment when the old sailor in the blouse told us he 

 knew all the particulars of the catastrophe of the ship, but 

 that he had never come across the slightest trace of the three 

 unfortunates whom we had enquired about. Viot had visited 

 the island regularly every year since 1841, except that in 

 which the Meridian had been lost. The fate of these three 

 shipwrecked men must therefore remain for ever undetermined, 

 although, considering the tempestuous weather which usually 

 prevails in the Indian Ocean in the month of August, it is 

 highly improbable that a boat of such small dimensions as that 

 to which the captain and his two unhappy fellow-travellers 

 committed themselves, could reach St. Paul, which was distant 

 42 miles from the spot at which the ship was wrecked. 



About 11.30 A.M. the naturalists, accompanied by the oflScers 



