THE ANTARCTIC SEAL FISHERIES. 411 



"The soil of these islands is too cold and sour to be advantageously cultivated; but with the 

 skill and industry of an English gardener many kinds of vegetables might be raised. We found 

 very excellent celery on several of the islands, particularly at West Point, at the edge of the runs 

 of water, very tender and well bleached, being protected from the sun by the surrounding grass. 

 Cattle would find good grazing. The hogs support themselves, principally on what we call tussock 

 grass. They are therefore not fat, but furnish good sweet meat. The tussock grass grows in 

 bunches or clusters, of 5 or 6 feet in circumference and about 6 or 8 feet in height, so that we have 

 free walk among them. The root and much of the stalk is what the hogs feed on. I was hunting 

 among these tussock bogs one day when I suddenly came__up_on a wild hog, so near him that I 

 stepped back one or two paces that the muzzle of my gun might not touch him. I snapped my 

 gun twice; it missed fire. I then took out my knife and with it having sharpened my flint fired and 

 killed him. During all this time the hog never moved, but looked directly at me. It is probable 

 he had never seen a human being before. There is no fruit except berries of two or three kinds, 

 all inferior, excepting what we called the tussock berry, which grew on a vine and had much the 

 taste of our winter green. So variable is the atmosphere that I have frequently been picking 

 berries in snow squalls."* 



The following is related by Captain Morrell : 



"In entering Falkland Sound from the south west there are three islands on the starboard 

 side, one of which, called Eagle Island, has been the scene of a drama unparalleled in the annals of 

 navigation for ingratitude, treachery, and perfidy. I allude to the treatment received by Capt. 

 Charles H. Barnard, of New York, from the officers and crew of an English ship, whom he had 

 previously rescued from all the horrors of shipwreck on a desolate island. In return for his kind 

 offices they treacherously seized his vessel and made their escape, leaving him and part of his 

 crew to endure all the privations and sufferings from which he had nobly preserved them ! Captain 

 Barnard's narrative of this horrible transaction is before the public, and ought to be in the hands 

 of every reader. For nearly two years he was compelled to drag out a miserable existence on a,n 

 uninhabitated island, in as high a south latitude as Kamtchatka is in the north. 



" This unnatural act of perfidy wad perpetrated in the year 1813, some time in the month of 

 April, while Captain Barnard was engaged in a sealing voyage at the Falkland Islands, in a brig 

 from New lork, called the Nanina. On the 9th of February previous, the British ship Isabella, 

 on her passage from Port Jackson, New South Wales, to London, had been wrecked on Eagle 

 Island, a place where navigators seldom touch. From that time until they were relieved by the 

 noble exertions of Captain Barnard, the officers, passengers, and crew of the Isabella remained on 

 this uninhabited and inhospitable island, with no prospect before them but an uncertain period of 

 precarious subsistence, to terminate in a fearful death from cold or famine, or both combined. 

 There were several females among them to share the same fate. 



"Captain Barnard had laid his brig up in Barnard's Harbor, and was in search of seal at Fox 

 Bay, opposite Eagle Island, in a small shallop built for that purpose, when his attention was 

 attracted by a rising smoke on the other side the strait. Suspecting the real cause of this unusual 

 appearance, and prompted by his characteristic benevolence of heart, he immediately crossed 

 Falkland Sound in his shallop for the purpose of relieving the sufferers, whoever they might prove 

 to be. His errand of mercy was successful ; and though they proved to be subjects of England, 

 with whom our country was then at war, the benevolent purpose of Captain Barnard remained 

 unchanged." t 



* Manuscript Diary, 1797. t Morrell's Voyagos, \>. r>. r >. 



