Читать книгу The Sea: Its Stirring Story of Adventure, Peril, & Heroism (Vol. 1-4). The History of Sea Voyages, Discovery, Piracy and Maritime Warfare онлайн

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DREDGING IMPLEMENTS USED BY THE “CHALLENGER.”

Fig. 1, Sounding machines. Fig. 2, Slip water-bottles. Fig. 3, Deep-sea thermometer. Fig. 4, The dredge. Fig. 5, Cup sounding lead.

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 of 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 needs. 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 of powder, bullets, and shot. They had also sensibly provided themselves with some seeds, so that, all in all, they started life on the island under favourable circumstances.