THE TWO CRTJSOES. 39 



little-known Tristan d'Acunha, of which Lord George Campbell* furnishes the following 

 account : " It is a circular-shaped island, some nine miles in diameter, a peak rising in 

 the centre 8,300 feet high a fine sight, snow-covered as it is two-thirds of the way 

 down. In the time of Napoleon a guard of our marines was sent there from the Cape; 

 but the connection between Nap's being caged at St. Helena and a guard of marines 

 occupying this island is not very obvious, is it.^ Any way, that was the commencement 

 of a settlement which has continued with varying numbers to this day, the marines 

 having long ago been withdrawn, and now eighty-six people men, women, and children 

 live here. ... A precipitous wall of cliff, rising abruptly from the sea, encircles 

 the island, excepting where the settlement is, and there the cliff recedes and leaves a loag 

 grass slope of considerable extent, covered with grey boulders. The cottages, in number 

 about a dozen, look very Scotch from the ship, with their white walls, straw roofs, and 

 stone dykes around them. Sheep, cattle, pigs, geese, ducks, and fowls they have in 

 plenty, also potatoes and other vegetables, all of which they sell to whalers, who give 

 them flour or money in exchange. The appearance of the place makes one shudder; 

 it looks so thoroughly as though it were always blowing there which, indeed, it is, 

 heavy storms continually sweeping over, killing their cattle right and left before they 

 have time to drive them under shelter. They say that they have lost 100 head of 

 cattle lately by these storms, which kill the animals, particularly the calves, from sheer 

 fatigue." The men of the place often go whaling or sealing cruises with the ships that 

 touch there. 



The Challenger steamed slowly over to Inaccessible Island during the night, and anchored 

 next morning off its northern side, where rose a magnificent wall of black cliff, splashed 

 green with moss and ferns, rising sheer 1,300 feet above the sea. Between two headlands 

 a strip of stony beach, with a small hut on it, could be seen. This was the residence 

 of our two Crusoes. 



Their story, told when the first exuberance of joy at the prospect of being taken 

 off the island had passed away, was as follows : One of the brothers had been cast 

 away on Tristan d'Acunha some years before, in consequence of the burning of his ship. 

 There he and his companions of the crew had been kindly treated by the settlers, and told 

 that at one of the neighbouring islands 1,700 seals had been captured in one season. 

 Telling this to a brother when he at last reached home in the Fatherland, the two ol' 

 them, fired with the ambition of acquiring money quickly, determined to exile themselves 

 for a while to the islands. By taking passage on an outward-bound steamer from 

 Southampton, and later transferring themselves to a whaler, they reached their destination 

 in safety on the 27th of November, 1871. They had purchased an old whale-boat mast, 

 sails, and oars complete and landed with a fair supply of flour, biscuit, coffee, tea, sugar, 

 salt, and tobacco, sufficient for present neecis. They had blankets and some covers, 

 which were easily filled with bird's feathers a German could hardly forget his national 

 luxury, his feather-bed. They had provided themselves with a wheelbarrow, sundry tools, 

 pot? and kettles ; a short Enfield rifle, and an old fowling-piece, and a very limited supply 



* " Log Letters from the Challenger" 



