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heroic country have come to be the insignificance it is?

they should be able to make up for lost time by speed at sea. On the contrary, they were forty days in reaching Madeira, This port of St. Catherine's on the coast a distance sometimes accomplished in ten of Brazil was the second station at which or twelve, says the Chaplain, who pauses the squadron paused, and already its wants in his simple vivid story to describe that and imperfections were apparent. Sickisland and its excellent wines, which ness had appeared in the crowded ships. seem to be designed by Providence for the The Centurion alone sent eighty patients refreshment of the inhabitants of the torrid from its thronged and airless forecastle to zone, ," he says, with enthusiasm. Here the big hospital-tent established on shore, they were slightly excited by a report of -patients rather increased than diminished some strange squadron which had been seen in number by the moist heat of the climate at sea, and which was the Spanish fleet and other local disadvantages. Then some .looking for them, full information having deficiency was found in one of the ships, come of all their intentions. This fleet, the little Trial, one of the stanchest of the however, never met the expedition of which squadron, which had sprung her masts and it was in search. It drifted off into the otherwise disabled herself. While the sick great sea, into the storms, and came to men were carried on shore to gain what destruction peaceably without any aid from equivocal advantage they could among the Anson's guns. "The Spanish sailors, be- mosquitoes on the marshy coast, and a ing for the most part accustomed to a fair- busy scene of industry arose in all the weather country, might be expected to be ships-the carpenter's hammer and the very averse to so dangerous and fatiguing sailmaker's needle going from morning to a navigation," our Chaplain says, with in- night-the Commodore in painful impasular complacency. His conviction, how-tience overlooked these necessary but illever, that the opposition between England timed labours, counting the days till he and Spain is no thing of the moment, but could set sail. It was near a month" bean everlasting national feud, comes out in fore the Trial was ready-a month every the simplest amusing way, though the fact day of which was paid for by the lives of was not the least amusing to him. It never the men, since every day delayed the passeems to occur to him that an English ship sage of Cape Horn, the point to which all is likely to visit these coasts with other than looked forward with alarm but too well hostile intentions. And there is a certain founded. They should have been roundPortuguese governor, Don José Sylva de ing that dangerous headland when they Paz, of whom he writes as a Times' cor- were leaving St. Catherine's, so far behind respondent might write of an ill innkeeper, were they. And with hearts full of anxiety, warning the British tourist against his and such fear as brave men need not blush house. This man not only ruled a port to acknowledge, they set out at length, on which geographers had declared to be the 18th of January, from the but halfhealthy and convenient, but which the friendly port. Twenty-eight graves at St. squadron found neither the one nor the Catherine's had been filled from the Cenother -a very sufficient ground of irrita- turion's crew alone, and yet ninety-six sick tion-but secretly sent word to the Span- were mournfully re-embarked to take their iard of the whereabouts of the English fleet. chances upon the bitter seas. The ComThe same perfidy every British cruiser modore, however, was fully aware of the may expect who touches at St. Catherine's, dangers he was about to encounter, and while it is under the government of Don prepared for them with characteristic pruJosé Sylva de Paz," cries our Chaplain, dence. In case of misadventure happening with a vehemence which has something to one, each ship had its distinct instrucstrangely humorous and pathetic in it, as his voice comes hushed across the dead century. How little the risk of being betrayed to the Spaniard would alarm any British cruiser nowadays! Indeed, at this special juncture of affairs, every reference to the yet unfallen, yet powerful, sea-going empire, with its colonies and fabulous galleons, strikes one as the most curious sarcasm. Spain and England rivals for the dominion of half a world! By what wonderful magic of evil can that old noble

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tions. There was a trysting-place at St. Julian; another at the island of our Lady of Succour much-needed patroness; another at Juan Fernandez, an isle which romance had already made her own. In the landlocked waters at St. Catherine's the little council of commanders calmly looked the facts in the face and braced themselves to their work. Then they went forward with their lives in their hands. The story sounds more like that of a blind man groping his precarious way through a district

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full of snares and pitfalls, than of a daring savage and gloomy than the whole aspect British squadron traversing the subject of this coast." seas. They went on sounding at every Had this description been written tostep; casting the lead, sometimes into mea- day, no doubt the voyager would have sureless depths of ocean, sometimes in sixty, found a certain enthusiasm for this grand eighty, forty fathoms, the bottom varying by-way through the seas. He would have as the depth did. All along the coast of discovered lights about it, and reflections Patagonia they proceeded in this cautious unseen by the anxious practical eye of the way, looking out with ever-growing anxiety eighteenth century. But we doubt whether for the worst, which was not yet reached. Art itself could have made a more effective This caution was but half, if even so much point than the contrast of this sullen awful as half, for themselves; they were groping passage through which the silent ships sped for the good of England: making such breathless, the little Trial leading the way sketches as their skill permitted, rectifying - with the supposed brightness beyond, . their charts, lighting up the seas with divine to which the mariners looked forward, seelights of safety for those who might follow. ing through those gloomy portals of rock At St. Julian, close to the scene of sternest only a silvery Pacific Ocean and the end danger, the Trial is again in trouble with of their enterprise. They held their breath, those unlucky masts, which are too lofty for half, perhaps, from the shadow of death the latitude, and have to be cut and hacked overhanging them in the pinnacles of those and mended, while the Commodore pain- horrible rocks, but at least as much from fully restrains his impatience, and the expectation, feeling at last were but this Chaplain has leisure to find out about the passage made-the grand difficulties surwild horses and wild cattle, and the 'won-mounted, and their work within reach of ders of the lasso, there first displayed to their hands. We presumed we had nothcurious eyes. And then once more the ing before us from hence but an open sea," fated squadron is under way. Going softly cries the Chaplain, bursting forth out of à tâtons, feeling its way, ship by ship steals the cliff-shadows into a short-lived outforward with a certain solemnity to that break of the prevailing hope, "till we arawful strait of Le Maire, which was to rived on those opulent coasts where all our carry them into the scene of their mission. hopes and wishes centred. We could not Between the bristling coast of Tierra del help persuading ourselves that the greatest Fuego and the wild rocks of Staten Land difficulty of our voyage was now at an end, lay this horrible ghostly passage. In those and that our most sanguine dreams were days men had not learned to love nature in on the point of being realised; and hence her grand and gloomy aspects; and per- we indulged our imaginations in those haps it would be hard at any time to ex- romantic schemes which the fancied pospect from the sailor any enthusiasm of ad- session of the Chilian gold and Perumiration for two awful lines of deadly cliff, vian silver might be conceived to inspire." and the gloomy channel between them. The morning was lovely, bright, and mild Tierra del Fuego, the Chaplain tells us, -the finest day they had seen since they was "of a stupendous height, covered left England—the sun, no doubt, blazing everywhere with snow; and, on the other upon the snow, though that is not a hand, "Staten Land far surpasses it in the point which the Chaplain thinks worth wildness and horror of its appearance; mentioning. There was a brisk breeze, seeming to be entirely composed of inac- which hurried them through the dreaded cessible rocks without the least mixture of passage in about two hours, though it was earth or mould between them. These between seven and eight leagues in length. rocks terminate in a vast number of ragged And the hearts of the anxious Commodore points which spire up to a prodigious height, and his men rose within them. Surely and are all of them covered with everlasting here was fortune smiling upon them at The points themselves are on every last!

snow.

side surrounded with frightful precipices, Alas! it was only now they were upon and often overhang in a most astonishing the dreaded Cape, their terror throughout manner; and the hills which bear them are their voyage. Instead of proving, as they generally separated from each other by nar- hoped, a gateway into the soft Pacific, the row clefts which appear as if the country wild channel was but the avenue to dehad been frequently rent by earthquakes; struction. The day of our passage was for these chasms are nearly perpendicular, the last cheerful day that the greatest part and extend through the substance of the of us would ever live to enjoy," says the main rocks almost to their very bottoms; Chaplain, mournfully; and it is here that so that nothing could be imagined more the tragic interest of his narrative begins.

a precaution

Before they were well out of the shadow part well with vinegar,' of the rocks, the terrible truth burst upon made needful by the "noisome stench" them. The blue sky darkened over, the and vermin, which had become "intolerawind changed, the tide turned- "furi- bly offensive." This being so when things ously," says the historian. A violent cur- went comparatively well, it may be imagrent (he can use no milder words), aided ined what these decks must have got to be by the "fierceness and constancy of the when every comfort and almost every hope westerly winds," drove them to eastward. had abandoned the unhappy mass of sufferFor forty days, almost without intermis- ing men, drenched with salt water, frozen sion, they were driven and tossed, play- with cold, worn with continual labour, who things of the waters, up and down in mis- flung themselves upon them to die. Durerable zigzags, about the awful Cape; now ing their terrible beatings about Cape menaced by "mountainous waves," any Horn, the scurvy took stronger and stronger one of which, had it broken fairly over hold upon them. In April they lost fortythem, would have sent them to the bottom; three men from it on board the Centurion now dashed almost to pieces by the rolling alone; in May double that number; in of the ship - their sails torn off by the June, before they reached Juan Fernanwinds, split by the frost-their rigging dez, "the disease extended itself so procovered with ice, their bodies benumbed digiously that, after the loss of about two and disabled by the cold. Sometimes a hundred men, we could not at last muster fog came on; and the Commodore, himself more than six foremast men in a watch capstruggling for bare life, fired forlorn guns able of duty." The officers themselves every half-hour, flashes of despair to (and, still more remarkably, the officers' keep the perishing ships together. Yet all servants) seem to have escaped the attacks this time, in the height of their misery, of this disease, fortified either by the trethere still lingered a cheerful assurance of mendous burden of responsibility, or by hope. According to all they knew, they that curious force of high spirit and finer had been making their way steadily to- mettle which carries so many absolutely wards the Pacific. It could not but be weaker men through the perils which slay near at hand, and their toils near a close. the strongest. Our Chaplain records the And with every day of storm the longing characteristics of the disease with that for that sea of peace, for those isles and grave and calm simplicity which distinopulent coasts," must have grown on the guishes his style, revealing its full horrors, weary crews, who, any hour, any moment yet never dwelling unduly on them. Some so they thought-might suddenly glide of its victims, he describes, lay in their into the rippling waters and sunny calm. hammocks eating and drinking, in cheerful It may be supposed, accordingly, what spirits, and with vigorous voices; yet in a was the consternation of the sailors, thus moment, if but moved from one place to strained to the supreme struggle, when another, still in their hammocks, died out they found that they had been betrayed of hand, all vital energy being gone from by an insidious current completely out of them. Some who thought themselves still their course, and saw once more the awful able for an attempt at duty would fall rocks of Tierra del Fuego frowning out of down and die among their comrades on atthe mists upon their lee. tempting a stronger pull or more vigorous Before this time scurvy, most dreaded strain than usual. Every day, while winds of all the dangers of a long sea-voyage, and waves, roaring and threatening round, had made its fatal appearance among them. held over the whole shipload another kind With their feeble old pensioners and rap- of death, must the dim-eyed mariners with idly made up crew, sickness had been rife failing strength and sinking spirit have in the ships from the very beginning of the gathered to the funeral of their dead. By voyage; and it is evident that Anson's this time their companion ships had all disgood sense and good feeling had fore- appeared, and the Centurion alone, with stalled sanitary science so far as to do all its sick and dying, tossed about almost at that was possible for the ventilation and the will of the waves upon that desolate cleanliness of his crowded vessel. So early sea. At last there came a moment when, as November the sickly condition of the destruction being imminent, "the master crews and the want of air between the and myself," our brave Chaplain, underdecks had been reported to him; and by took the management of the helm, while the time they arrived at St. Catherine's it every available soul on board set to work was found necessary to give the Centurion to repair and set the sails and secure the a "thorough cleansing, smoking it between masts, to take advantage once more in desthe decks, and after all, washing every peration of a favourable change of wind.

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This was their last storm; but not even got into the bay, having lost three-fourths then were the troubles of this terrible voy- of her crew. Three weatherbeaten hulks, age at an end. They missed Juan Fer- with torn sails and broken masts; three nandez by one of those mistakes which groups of worn-out men escaped as from come in with bewildering certainty at such the dead, looked each other in the face in moments of desperation to enhance all suf- this lull of fate. With the whisper of the ferings. "The Commodore himself was soft woods in their ears, and delicious noise strongly persuaded that he saw it," but, and tinkle of running water, instead of the overpowered by the scepticism of his offi- roaring of the winds and the sea, what salucers, changed his course in over-precau- tations, from the edge of the grave, must tion. Then at last the high hearts of the have been theirs! The brave Commodore expedition gave way. The water was fail- set to work, without the loss of an hour, to ing, to add to all the rest; men were dying remove the sick to shore: not a man five and six every day. A general de- among them laboured harder than he, the jection prevailed among us," says the his- leader, and his officers followed his examtorian. It was at this moment, when ple, willingly or unwillingly. From one hope and heart were wellnigh gone, that vessel after another the helpless and sufferthe island of their hopes, all smiling ing were landed, to be healed and soothed in the sullen seas, with soft woods and out of their miseries. Green things of betgrassy slopes and sweet streams of running ter quality than grass, and fresh fish, and water, suddenly burst like a glimpse of flesh of goats, and new-made bread, conparadise upon their hungering eyes. soled the worn-out wretches, and rest stole into the souls of the almost lost. Anson for his own part, with a touch of sentiment which speaks, out of the utter silence in which he is content to leave himself, with a power beyond that of words, chose for himself an idyllic resting-place in this moment of repose.

In the front of his

"I despair of conveying an adequate idea of its beauty," says our Chaplain, who, let us hope, shared it with his master. "The piece of ground that he chose was a small lawn that lay on a little ascent, at the distance of about half a mile from the sea. tent there was a large avenue cut through the woods to the seaside, which, sloping to the water with a gentle descent, opened a prospect of the screened behind by a tall wood of myrtle, sweepbay and the ships at anchor. This lawn was ing round it in the form of a theatre. There were, besides, two streams of crystal water which ran on the right and left of the tent, within one hundred yards' distance, and were shaded by the trees which skirted the lawn on either side."

Nothing can be more touching than the sober, simple story, as it describes this deliverance out of despair. The feeble creatures, to whom water had become the first of luxuries, hastened on deck as fast as their tottering limbs would carry them, to gaze with eyes athirst at a great cascade of living water flinging itself, with the wantonness of nature, over a rock a hundred feet high into the sea. The first boat sent on shore brought back heaps of grass, having no time to search for better vegetables. The spectre crew were four hours at work, with the assistance of all the ghosts from below who could keep their feeble legs, to raise the cable, when it was necessary to change their anchorage, and could not manage it with all their united strength. But yet the haven was reached, the tempest over for the moment. The ship had but settled to her moorings when a tiny sail bore bravely up upon the newly arrived, and proved to be the Trial, valorous little sloop, which had held its own against all the dangers encountered by the Centurion, and now found its way to the trysting- He thinks some faint idea of "the eleplace, with only its captain, lieutenant, and gance of this situation" may be gleaned three men able to stand by the sails. A from a print which, unfortunately, is not fortnight later, some of the sailors, gazing to be found in the edition before us. A out from a height upon the sea, saw, or certain suppressed poetry of mind must fancied they saw, another sail faintly beating about the horizon. In five days more it appeared again, making feeble futile attempts to enter the safe shelter in which Anson lay. The watchful Commodore sent out instant help, risking his boats and refreshed convalescent men to save his consort, and by this timely help kept them alive, until, after three weeks or more of fruitless attempts, the Gloucester at last

have been in the man who, after such desperate encounter with primitive dangers, pitched his lonely tent between those running rills, with the bay and his ships at anchor softly framed at his feet by the sweet myrtle boughs. Does not the reader hear the sudden hush in the stormy strain,

"A sound as of a hidden brook,
In the leafy month of June"?

With what a profound harmony does this momentary vision of repose and tender quiet fall into the tale, all ajar with the danger of warring winds and waves!

again for the knowledge, if the Commodore and the Chaplain could prevent it. Thus the two set to work for their country as soon as they had got their sick on shore, and were at liberty for a stroke of independent toil. How they found a goat with its ears slit, one of Alexander Selkirk's flock, our Chaplain tells us by the way; and Crusoe with his umbrella seems to come out of the woods as he speaks, and give a friendly nod to the narrator. For it is not the first time we have seen Juan Fernandez,_or found it a shelter from the tempest. The reader pauses over the halcyon moment, almost longing to believe that it is a com

session of the isle, and that there, on the soft lawn between the brooks, the seaman will stay and forget his toils. Vain fancy! there where he sits, intent upon the distant bay and the ships at anchor, it is how to get at his work again, how to resume those toils, how to plunge once more into conflict with seas and Spaniards, rich galleons and prying guarda-costas - that is all the burden of his thoughts.

While Anson was drawing this breath of tranquillity and health, and taking up again, undismayed, the thread of his plans against the enemy, the other admiral, Vernon, with his splendid fleet and armament, had collapsed all into nothing. Long before, indeed, in April, while dauntless Anson, without a thought of turning back in his mind, was going through his agony round Cape Horn, the struggle was over for that rival who had outshone, outnumbered, and swallowed up his poor little ex-munity of Crusoes that have now got pospedition. The big fleet which sailed amid the cheers of England had beat back, all broken, disgraced, and discomfited, to Jamaica-driven miserably away from before the face of that old Spanish foreshadowing of a grim Sebastopol, known as Carthagena ere our little squadron painfully got itself together in the bay at Juan Fernandez.. Our Commodore, of course, could know nothing of that disaster, and indeed was still pondering in his mind how even yet, even now, his ragged shipwrecked band might carry something home to balance the conquests of those rustling gallants. Never could a greater contrast have been; and it was well for England that the chief seaman of so critical an age was not poor popular Vernon recriminating with his General at Jamaica, but Anson, musing alone on the island lawn, just out of the jaws of death, planning a thousand daring adventures, with his eyes fixed on the deceitful quiet of that Southern Sea.

The reckoning which remained to be made, however, when the sufferers came to life again, and the ghastly death-angel departed from hovering over the ships, was enough to discourage the stoutest heart. Two hundred and ninety-two men had died out of the Centurion alone since the commencement of the voyage; the Gloucester, though a smaller ship, had lost an equal number; the Trial, about half of her crew. Out of fifty pensioners and seventynine marines on board the Centurion, only

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rines only two remained. Thus the forebodings of the Commodore, and of the helpless veterans themselves, and of reason, if the authorities had cared anything about reason, were fully carried out. The three ships had started from England with nine hundred and sixty-one men on board - all that they could now muster among them was three hundred and thirty-five; a number greatly insufficient for manning the Centurion alone," says the Chaplain, with dejection, "and barely capable of navigating all the three with the utmost exertion of their strength and vigour." A chill of bitter discouragement evidently overwhelmed the steadfast heart of the Commodore as he numbered his remnant. A Spanish squadron was out in search of him, he knew; and

four of the one and eleven of the other surAnd to carry out the other part of his vived. Every pensioner on board the Gloucharacter, it is evident that the Chaplain-cester had perished; and of forty-eight masecretary who must by this time have grown to be a stout sailor, with clear eyes of his own and a modest courageous soul got little rest even in this interval of repose. He has scarce drawn breath from his tragic narrative, and still labours at his breast with a suppressed passion, when he is about again, setting down his master's distinct seamanlike instructions, topograph ical account of the island, and guide to mariners. As Anson groped along the unknown coast, coming up to the climax of tempest which drove soundings out of the level of possibilities, so now he surveys the rocks and inlets about his island, indicating where the British cruiser may and may not attempt to anchor, and settling once for all in sound numbers where that isle of Safety is to be found. A mistake in respect to this had cost him seventy men- but never English sea-captain should pay so dearly

however contemptible the ships and sailors of this part of the world may have been generally esteemed," says the histo