THE CAST- A WAT. 149 



" This mortal shall put on immortality." (You 

 didn't know they had Bibles on whale-ships? Yes, 

 they do; and what's more, they read them.) I 

 had witnessed many burials on shore, but none 

 had ever impressed itself so indelibly upon my 

 mind as this solemn burial at sea. 



Nor was this the only tragical recollection that 

 haunted my mind as we joined in that heart- 

 breaking search for the castaway. 



For my thoughts went out to a certain place 

 upon the northern end of Bird Island, one of this 

 same Seychelles Group — a spot I have ever since 

 called the mournfullest as well as the most deso- 

 late place in the whole world. There, grouped 

 together upon a lonely, sun-beaten flat, whose 

 stillness is broken only by the heavy, rolling surf 

 that dashes on the shore, are the graves of a dozen 

 sailors who have been buried from whale-ships 

 cruising around those banks for whales. 



Once more I seemed to be standing alone 

 among those uncared-for graves, and looking 

 out across the waste of waters toward the distant 

 home, thinking I could see some poor mother 

 waiting and longing and watching, and at last so 

 grievously disappointed ; or perhaps a wife and 

 her little children, enduring prolonged separation 

 from the one best loved of all, because they are 



