96 
CRUISE OF H.M.S. CHALLENGER . 
A boat’s crew, however, landed, and in a very short 
time the would-be Robinson Orusoes were discovered 
near a little grass hut they called their home. Not 
much pressing was necessary to induce them to come 
on board, when, after a good breakfast, they were 
able to tell their own story, which was as follows : — 
THE STOEY OF FREDEEICK STOLTENHOFF (THE ELDER).* 
Born in Moscow, of German parents, cloth dyers by trade, 
in 1846, at the outbreak of the Franco-German war, I was 
employed as a clerk in a merchant’s office at Aix-la- 
Chapelle. I was called on by the government to serve 
with the German army, being attached to the 15th division 
of the second army, and by the following Christmas I 
reached the position of second lieutenant. After taking 
parts in the siege of Metz and Thionville, the battalion 
I served in was detached south to join General Werder’s 
army. At the finish of the campaign I was discharged and 
returned home. 
In June 1871, my younger brother, Gustav, returned 
home from Tristan d’Acunha, where he landed with the 
crew of a St. John’s (Newfoundland) vessel, the Beacon 
Light , which had been lost by fire about 300 miles to the 
north-west of Tristan. The crew were taken from the island 
by the Northfleet (the ship afterwards sunk off Dungeness), 
and carried to Aden, from whence Gustav, having joined an 
English steamer, came to Germany. 
My brother’s account of the life at Tristan, and his desire 
to return there, led me to join him in a venture to the 
island, not with a view to remaining there by settling, but 
to endeavour to realise a sum by seal-hunting and barter. 
* For this story I am indebted to E. E. Eichards, Esq., Paymaster, 
who wrote it at StoltenhofFs dictation. 
