246 Wild Life in Southern Seas. 
sailed in their boats to either of these groups in 
a comparatively short time. Under an erro¬ 
neous impression, however, that all those lands 
were inhabited by an inhospitable race of people, 
they preferred pulling to windward for the 
coast of Peru, and in the attempt were exposed 
to and suffered dreadful privations. 
Those few who survived their complicated 
disasters first made the land at Elizabeth or 
Henderson’s Island, a small, uninhabited spot 
in the South Pacific, and which, until then, had 
never been visited by Europeans. After a short 
stay here part of the survivors again put to sea 
in search of inhabited land, and ultimately 
reached the coast of South America; and an 
English whaler at Valparaiso was sent to rescue 
those left on the island, but found but two 
alive.” 
Unless the writer is mistaken the Handa Isle 
was not the first vessel bound from New Zealand 
to Sydney that was struck by a whale; for about 
twenty-eight years ago a small barque named 
the King Oscar met with an exactly similar 
experience, and could not be kept afloat. Then, 
in the year 1835, “ the ship Pusie Hall encoun¬ 
tered a fighting whale, which, after injuring and 
