Galapagos Islands  Source  Whalesite

      Early in the year 1825, the subject of this narrative was, at the age of seventeen, by one of the freaks of fortune placed on board a ship employed in the South Sea Fishery; The ship being in the latitude of the Gallapagos, a group of islands situated about two hundred miles west of Peru, she directed her course towards them for the purpose of obtaining wood and water; here they found an American brig which had arrived there, a day or two previous, with the same intention. They came to an anchor fronting a sandy beach of no very great extent, with high hills, and lofty woods terminating the prospect; the inland parts at a little distance seemed impracticable from the great thickness of the forests. At 2 p. m. a number of hands were dispatched on shore in the long boat, but not meeting with so desirable a place for watering as they expected, some of the men entered the woods in search of the "Quick freshes," while others proceeded along shore to find one less objectionable. Of the former party was young Lord, and whether he was led on by destiny, wildness, or want of caution, it so happened that he got separated from the rest, and entered quite unconsciously into the thickest part of the country. Having wandered on in this wild labyrinth for nearly two hours, and not finding any water, nor able to knock down any of the large birds which he occasionally disturbed, and chased from among the wild furze and thickets, he began to think of returning, not apprehending any more difficulty of egress than he had met with on entering. Being perfectly satisfied in his own mind that he was proceeding in the direction for the ship, he steadfastly pursued the path he had chosen; evening, however, began to wrap the forest in a deeper gloom, and only just sufficient light remained to show him that he had arrived at a place clothed with some very fine trees, beyond which the woods grew so thick as to render them completely impassable. The fact now first flashed upon him, that he had proceeded in all probability some miles into the interior. Our youth was of a character of much pleasantry and good humour, blended with a determined spirit, and resolution greatly superior to most boys of his age; to those qualities, in after years, may be attributed his saving the life of a boy who fell overboard from one of his Majesty's ships at Plymouth, and the promptitude and activity he displayed on another occasion, when a sailor fell from the fore-yard into the sea, which procured for him the high commendation of his superior officers with a certificate of the circumstance from his gallant commander. But to resume, the certainty of having lost himself did not appear to him to be a discovery of great importance, and with a buoyancy of spirit, he determined to pass the night in the woods, not doubting that on the morrow, he should readily find his way back to the vessel. In this comfortable hope, after having fortified himself with a good drink of water, from a spring just at hand, he ascended one of the trees; and here, notwithstanding the loud screaming of the nightbird, and the continued whoopings of innumerable owls, "making night hideous," worn out by fatigue and watching, he slept till morning.

      It may be imagined that at the first glimpse of daybreak, he was not a little anxious to get out of the wood, an anxiety increased

by his experiencing that uneasy sensation which too long a fast is apt to produce. For some hours he wandered about in the intricacies of this wild and uninhabited spot, supported in the hope, as he advanced, that his toils were near their termination. Often did he listen in breathless attention to catch the sound of any signal gun to guide his footsteps, and often did he shout in expectation of being heard by those who might have been dispatched in search of him. He ascended at intervals any high tree that he met with in his progress, but found his view constantly intercepted by forests and elevated hills wooded to their summits. Hunger now pointed to him the necessity of seeking some means of subsistence; he accordingly prepared with his knife a formidable bludgeon, determined to knock on the head, if an opportunity offered, either biped or quadruped; and scarcely had an hour passed when he was startled by a rustling among the underwood, and he expected some kind of animal to sally forth, but he was surprised to see what in reality was neither one nor the other, for a large black snake glided out from its concealment and raised its head, “ nimble in threats," at his approach. Having got within range of his stick, he immediately "rapped” it "o' the coxcomb," whereupon it rolled itself up, and after a few twists and twirls remained quite stationary, with its forked tongue thrust out of its mouth. Although he had fasted a long time, yet his hunger had not as yet become so importunate as not to be resisted; otherwise he might have ventured upon a feed off this reptile, but his attention was diverted from the snake by the conviction of more dangers and difficulties. In this desolate situation night again overtook him, and although the climate of the island, notwithstanding its latitude, is generally mild, and the middle of the day pleasantly warm, yet the mornings and evenings are rather cold: consequently, he had to struggle against both cold and hunger without any apparent remedy. The simple circumstance of having met with a snake in the day did not seem of much consequence, but the idea of meeting one in the night, occasioned by his hearing those peculiar noises usually made by them at this period, alarmed his imagination, and kept up a continual anxiety. There being some small springs which ran meandering through the woods, he was not in want of water, and after imbibing a sufficient quantity, he thought it advisable to lay aside all farther attempts for that day; he therefore ascended a tree, and having eaten some of the leaves, which in a degree alleviated his hunger, there he remained during the obscurity of a night intensely dark, with his spirits “ down at Zero,” for he now began to fear that the ship would sail without him, and the apprehension of such an occurrence with all its terrors rushed upon his fancy; his situation appeared so hopeless, that he passed a sleepless and desponding night, the same noises being kept up in the woods which convinced him that many birds of prey existed upon the island. When day began to appear, he descended from the tree, and had not gone many paces when he perceived a large owl perched, with the most imperturbable gravity, upon the low bough, with its large eyes intently fixed on him, but as if unconscious of his appearance. He very quietly approached near enough to testify his joy at their meeting by instantly knocking it on the head; and thus he had the good fortune to provide himself with a breakfast. Not willing to waste time in useless attempts to obtain a fire (for the day previous his endeavours had

been unavailing), he instantly set to work to alleviate the cravings of hunger; but from the difficulty of plucking off the feathers, and the shrivelled and yellow appearance of the skin, he had reason to conclude that it had been a tenant of the island, and had been guilty of screaming and whooping about the forest, for at least half a century. Having eaten sufficiently of this carrion, which left his mouth as bitter as wormwood, he set out with a determination of moving in a right line, which could not fail of bringing him to the sea shore at some part of the island. Towards evening he was seized with a most painful sickness, and felt cold and disheartened; he had not seen during this day any four-footed animal.

      The night set in dark and rainy, and he took up his quarters at the base of a mountain, determined to ascend to the summit in the morning, in the hope of gaining a view of the sea; but the first thing he did was to shelter himself in one of the low trees which had the thickest foliage, and which proved, in some measure, a defence against the tempestuous weather which now set in; the rain fell in torrents, and he might truly have said, “ Here's a night pities neither wise men nor fools !” In this dismal situation he fell asleep; and on awakening found himself in a very feeble condition and completely wet through. Towards morning the weather cleared up, and he proceeded with no very great expedition to climb the mountain, for his strength was nearly exhausted; after great exertion he succeeded in gaining the top, and with great joy found that it commanded a view of the anchorage; but he also made another discovery, which, in its event, threatened to prove more fatal to this unfortunate youth than all his former adventures; the ship to which he belonged had put to sea, and the American brig was at that moment loosening her sails. The distance from the place where he stood to the sea beach, was at least three miles; and however rejoiced and gratified he might have been at the sight of the American, the well-known signal warned him that not a moment was to be lost in making a last effort to hail her before she got under weigh. The perfect hopelessness of all succour, should she sail before he could arrive at the beach, rendered him desperate, and he rushed down the mountain, sick, dizzy, and faint, his limbs with difficulty performing their office; he succeeded after nearly two hours of great fatigue and difficulty in reaching the bay where he first landed; but what was his horror on beholding the white sails of the American brig dwindled to a mere speck upon the horizon!

      Our youth was naturally of an almost unconquerable spirit, but when this last and only chance had failed him, the hopelessness of being rescued, shot like an arrow through his heart, he fell down in agony upon the sand which he grasped in an agitated spasm. Here he lay until the day was pretty far advanced. On recovering a little, the want of food became insupportable; he now hobbled along shore in search of shell-fish, but was obliged to put up with no better repast than what some sea-weed and wild shrubs afforded. He sheltered himself this night in the woods which skirted the sea, and in the morning returned to the task of procuring subsistence. With this intent he walked along the beach, and at a rocky part of the shore he perceived several seals; some of them were reposing on the sand, while others lay upon the rocks. Approaching very silently, and selecting one whose head presented a fair mark, he with a few blows secured the prize. Had he

been able to have made a fire he possibly might have dined very sumptuously off this animal, but as that was impossible, he proceeded to cut it up, and selecting a piece of the liver, ate it ravenously; this he had no sooner done than he was seized with excessive sickness, which affected him so much, that he was obliged to lie upon the sand for a length of time, completely exhausted. In a short time, however, having refreshed himself with some water, he again pursued his .path along shore, when by great good fortune he fell in with a turpin;^* this he also quickly dispatched, and the flesh agreeing with his stomach renovated his strength; he was soon afterwards enabled to return to the place where he had left the seal, which he forth with cut up into long strips, and laying them upon the sand, left them to dry, intending to try another piece for breakfast in the morning, the remains of the turpin sufficing only for that evening.

      In this manner he existed for some days, sleeping in the woods at night and roving abroad in the day; but the supply of seals at last failed him, nor had he an opportunity of recruiting his stock, neither could he find any turpin, and starvation began once more to stare him in the face. It happened, very luckily for him, that the weather was particularly pleasant, and he often refreshed himself with a sleep on the warm sand; a gun would have been the means of supplying him with plenty of water fowl, and he often had the vexation of seeing quantities of such birds fly past him with impunity. One morning when he had wandered some distance, allaying his appetite with whatever he could find upon the coast, he sank down beside a small bank quite exhausted, where he must have slept some hours. On awaking, he found that he had overlaid a snake; its species was different from the one he had killed in the woods and of a less size; it was not quite dead; the unexpected occurrence not a little startled him, and placing his stick under its speckled belly, he tossed it into the sea. He had not the good fortune, with all his industry, to meet with any provision, he therefore crawled back to the bay. As soon as the morning arrived, which was very serene and pleasant, he sauntered along, but with the same want of success as on the foregoing day, nothing could he find to recruit his strength, which now became seriously impaired, not only from the deprivation, but the quality of the food which he had been obliged to eat. The morning being very far advanced and the sun pleasantly warm, he threw himself, or rather fell down upon the shore, and betook himself to his usual recipe for hunger, which was going to sleep.

      It would require a much more able pen than the writer's to express the surprise of our hero on awaking; his eyes fixed on, not “a lovely female face of seventeen,” but the amphibious and black bully head of a large seal, who, like himself, was basking in the sun and enjoying a sound sleep; it had taken up its situation, singular as it may appear, almost within the grasp of our famished Crusoe. Astonished (as every one so situated would have been) at the companionable qualities displayed by his unctuous friend, for “ misery acquaints a man with strange bed-fellows,” he raised himself up and gazed perfectly panic-struck on the uncouth monster, who soundly reposed (no doubt after his fatigue and repletion sub aqua) with the utmost tranquillity. From what has

been related, it will not be unreasonably concluded that poor Lord was not at this time very strong, but it cannot be doubted that had he happened to have his club by his side, he would have given the seal a tolerable hard smash on the figure-head, which in all probability would have rendered it still more comatose and prevented a deal of trouble; but unfortunately he had let fall this weapon about twenty paces before he sank down upon the shore, and feared that if he got up to fetch it, he might disturb the gentle slumbers of his reposing companion and thereby be prevented from again converting (notwithstanding his former loathing) part of its liver and blubber to his own accommodation and enjoyment. He therefore relinquished all idea of regaining his club, and determined on commencing an attack with his knife, although fearful from its bluntness that it would not prove a very formidable weapon. However, he darted suddenly upon it, and driving the knife with all his force at its throat, succeeded in "drawing first blood,” and also of encircling the seal in his arms and legs, rolling the creature over and over; it made the most desperate efforts to escape, and practised sundry flip flaps and tourbillons, blowings and sniffings; still he succeeded in holding on its greasy carcase, with as much affection as ever the old man of the forest did about the neck of our old acquaintance Sinbad the Sailor. There is nothing so indispensably requisite for the establishment of good stamina as good living; and it therefore will not be wondered at, that he of the club found himself, after a few rolls and tumbles, in what is called bad condition, and getting the worst of the fight, and that he also began to sniff and blow with almost as much fury as his antagonist. The seal appeared to have a great affection for the water, while Lord wished to keep it a short time on land; they therefore struggled for the mastery, but the seal was too strong in despite of all he could effect, and they both rolled into the sea. This certainly increased the odds against the capture; the animal seemed to redouble its struggles at this advantage. Although nearly half drowned, our hero made a last attempt, by rising on his feet, to drag his slippery seal-ship again on shore, but he was too much exhausted.

      Vexed and confounded at the escape of his prey, the more so when he found his hands much lacerated in the encounter; he crawled on shore, where he luckily recovered his knife which he had dropped on the spot where they foundered. As he did not expect another visit from this animal, he picked up his club, and began to pursue his road back, benumbed with cold, and much reduced by the heavy fatigue of the day; he had not gone half a mile, when, to his great joy, he beheld a tolerably large turpin moving up from the sea towards the woods. Exerting his utmost strength, he was so successful as to arrive in sufficient time to intercept its retreat, and he proceeded to dispatch it without delay. It must be confessed that this supply came very opportunely, for he was more dead than alive, and after this meal (which lasted a considerable time,) he found himself so much the better, that he reached the tree, where he always put up for the night, when he composed himself to rest, and slept without disturbance. The next morning he finished the remains of the turpin, and he then mustered up resolution to enter the forest, in order to keep a look-out from the mountain from whence he had beheld the American ship prepare for sailing. He succeeded in gaining the summit without much difficulty,

as he could perceive it from the beach: here he remained all this day viewing the distant horizon, but no sail appeared, and the night passed heavily. About the middle of the next day, he was obliged by hunger to return to the beach, the island being destitute of berries or fruits.

      In this manner he subsisted till the morning of the twenty-first day, which found him on the top of the mountain, reduced to the greatest extremity, and more like an apparition than a human being; “sharp misery had worn him to the bone,” and he expected to die very shortly. As his eye wandered round the glittering expanse, he thought he distinguished in the extreme distance a dark speck, which he took to be a sail. He gazed at it most intensely, but it did not seem to move, and he concluded it was a rock; in order to be convinced he lay down, and brought the stem of a small tree to bear upon the distant object, which he now perceived moved along the level horizon. It must be a ship, but she was passing the island, and he kept anxiously looking, in the expectation of her fading from his view. In a short time she loomed larger, and he could now perceive her to be a vessel of some size, but his heart sank within him when he observed soon afterwards that she hauled her wind, and stood away upon a different tack. In about half an hour she tacked again, and it now became evident that she was making for the island, as she stood directly in for the bay. The extreme joy of the poor sufferer at this welcome sight broke out in sundry raptures and transports. He rushed down the mountain with such little caution, that he stumbled over the broken rocks, and pitched headlong down the broken and rugged descent. This fall almost rendered him helpless; he received a severe cut above the ancle, besides other bad contusions, but the idea of losing this only chance inspired him with fresh energy, and he made his way down, after many painful efforts, staggering from the woods upon the sea shore, and when he beheld the ship come fairly into the bay and anchor, a boat hoisted out, and pull with long and rapid strokes towards him, he fell overpowered upon the sand.

      On the boat reaching the shore, the poor fellow appeared at his last gasp, and all he could articulate was "water, water!" One of the sailors brought some in a can, and suffered him to drink his till; soon afterwards he again swooned away, and in this state they carried him alongside, where he became sensible, but unable either to speak or move. His helpless condition rendered it necessary to hoist him on board. Nothing could exceed the kind and humane treatment which he received from Capt. Cook, and the surgeon of the ship, to whose skill and attention may be attributed his ultimate recovery, as from the quantity of water the sailor had suffered him to drink, (which the surgeon succeeded in dislodging from his stomach,) in his miserable and emaciated state, the medical gentleman, when he first saw him, had but faint hopes of his surviving; indeed, this gentleman declared that he could not have lived upon the island many hours longer. In a short time he was well enough to leave his cot, when he was informed by Capt. Cook, that about a week's sail from the Gallapagos, he had luckily fallen in with the ship by which Lord had been left, when the master told him, that a youth had been missed, and was left upon the island; this induced the Captain to bear up for the place, otherwise he had no intention of making it.

      This individual is at present master's assistant on board his Majesty's ship Druid.

"Narrative of a Mariner Left on an Island in the Pacific."
      The United Service Journal and Naval and Military Magazine,
1830, part 2,
pp.165-170.

Galapagos Islands  Source  Whalesite