304 Voyafjc of the Novara. 



as to realize some high insurance on a vessel which has 

 probably already become half unseaworthy — a not very con- 

 scientious method of doing business, of which, however, some 

 of the natives of Greece and the borders thereof are not 

 unfrequently guilty. In February, 1855, a North American 

 whaler struck upon the north-east side of Amsterdam in 

 a calm, and with a clear sky overhead, so that the entire crew, 

 30 in number, were able to secure the provisions and their kits. 

 The captain, with one of the ship's small boats, made for the 

 Island of St. Paul, 42 miles distant, in the hope, probably, 

 of getting assistance thence. A lucky destiny so willed it, 

 that (the accident having occurred in the finest season of 

 the year), a vessel of M. Ottovan's, which by a strange 

 coincidence was named L'Ange Gardien (the Guardian Angel), 

 lay at anchor inside the crater-basin, loading with fish. The 

 shipwrecked crew were indebted to his circumstance that, 

 within 14 days more, they found themselves at Mauritius. 

 A report circulated among the residents of St. Paul that 

 the captain of the stranded ship had landed wdth some of 

 his companions in a boat on the N.E. of Amsterdam, with the 

 intention of searching for a sum of several thousand dollars 

 which a previous visitant to this island was said to have buried 

 there for some mysterious reasons. While the captain was on 

 shore, vainly searching for a considerable time after the buried 

 treasure, the shipmaster left in charge in his absence came too 

 near the island, whereupon the vessel had been lest upon 

 one of the numerous reefs which lie off the shore. A part, it 



