SHIPWRECK. 207 



expense of his gun and goose, and, to use his own expres- 

 sion, was obliged to ' tough it out under a tree till day- 

 light.' 



" There are altogether six families on the island.* Three 

 are lighthouse keepers, and two more are in charge of the 

 Government provision stores; the sixth is a professional 

 wrecker; but I fancy none of them are above doing a 

 little in that line when they get the chance. B., one of 

 the storekeepers, informed me that he has lived twenty- 

 nine years on the island. He has provisions enough under 

 his charge to winter ten men, also clothes for them to 

 wear, and a little house to shelter them. The Govern- 

 ment sends a steamer twice a year with supplies to the 

 different posts. These depots of provisions were placed on 

 the island in consequence of a great disaster that happened 

 thirty-five years ago. Late in the autumn, a large ship 

 called the Granicus went to pieces on the south-east point. 

 The crew escaped the wreck in their boats, and got as far 

 as Bel Bay on the northern shore, where they were frozen 

 in. When their bodies were found in the following spring, 

 one man had evidently only just died. He had lived for 

 months on his comrades, some of whose bodies, neatly 

 butchered, were found hanging up outside the camp. This 

 could not happen now with a small number of men ; but 

 if a troop ship or an emigrant ship were to run on shore 

 late in the fall, and the crew escape the wreck, nothing 

 short of a miracle could save them from dying of starva- 

 tion, which fate the other inhabitants of the island would 

 in all probability share with them. On Sable Island, I 

 * Now about fifty or sixty. 



