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boats, being the whole survivors of the party, with the exception of Captain Cheap and two companions, who remained voluntarily, and for whose use another boat, the yawl, was left. The leaving of the captain was a thing unexpected by Byron and some others; and when a necessity occurred for sending back the barge to the island for some left canvas, these parties seized the chance of going in the boat to rejoin the captain and share his fate. On the 21st of October the final separation took place between the shore-party and those in the long-boat, who sailed for the south. Captain Cheap and those who came to him were joined by a small party who had originally seceded from the main body; and the whole of this united band, amounting to twenty men, set sail in the barge and the yawl towards the north, on the 15th of December. Up to that time, they contrived, with almost unheard-of difficulty, to subsist on what they could pick up. 'A weed called slaugh, fried in the tallow of some candles we had saved, and wild celery, were our only fare, by which our strength was so much impaired that we could scarcely crawl.' One fine day, the hull of the, Wager, still sticking together, was exposed, and by visiting her, the party got three small casks of beef hooked up. This soon restored to them sufficient strength for their enterprise, which they undertook on the day mentioned, in the barge and yawl. Unhappily, the sea grew very tempestuous, and 'the men in the boats were obliged to sit as close as possible, to receive the seas on their backs, and prevent their filling us. We were obliged to throw everything overboard to lighten the boats, all our beef, and even the grapnel, to prevent sinking. Night was coming on, and we were fast running on a lee shore, where the sea broke in a frightful manner.' Just as every man thought certain death approaching, an opening was seen in the rocks, the boats ran into it, and found a haven as 'smooth as a mill-pond!'

The party remained here four days, suffering much from their old enemy, hunger. In passing further along the coast, which they did at continual risk, they were reduced to such distress as to ‘eat the shoes off' their feet, these shoes being of raw sealskin. They never knew what it was to have a dry thread about them, and the climate was very cold. During the first few weeks of their course, the yawl was lost, and one man drowned; but what was a more distressing consequence, they were obliged to leave four men on shore, as the barge could not carry all. The men did not object to being left; they were wearied of their lives. When the poor fellows were left, 'they stood upon the beach, giving us three cheers, and called out God bless the king!' They were never heard of more; and it is but too probable, as Byron says, that they met a miserable end. But, indeed, every one had now given up hope of ultimate escape, and this was shewn by the resolution taken almost immediately afterwards, to 'go back to Wager's Island (the place of shipwreck), there to linger out a miserable life.' Eating nothing but

sea-weed and tangle by the way, the poor mariners again reached the island. They were here no better off. The weather was wretchedly wet, and 'wild celery was all we could procure, which raked our stomachs instead of assuaging our hunger. That dreadful and last resource of men in not much worse circumstances than ours, of consigning one man to death for the support of the rest, began to be mentioned in whispers.' Fortunately, one man found some rotten pieces of beef on the sea-shore, and with a degree of generosity only to be appreciated by persons so placed, he shared it fairly with the rest.

This supply sustained the whole till the arrival of some Indians, accompanied by a chief or cacique from the island of Chiloe, which lies in 40° 42′ of south latitude. This cacique could speak a little Spanish, and he agreed to conduct the party in the barge to the nearest Spanish settlement, being to receive the barge and all its contents for his trouble. Fourteen in number, the wrecked sailors again put to sea, and were conducted by their guide to the mouth of a river, which he proposed to ascend. But after toiling one whole day, the attempt to go up against the current was given over, and they were forced to try the coast again. The severe day's work, conjoined with hunger, caused the death of one of the strongest men of the party, although it was thought that he might have been preserved but for the inhumanity of Captain Cheap, who alone had food at the moment (got from the Indians), but would not give a morsel to the dying man. This roused the indignation of the others, and the consequence was, that, while others sought food on shore, 'six of the men seized the boat, put off, and left us, to return no more. And now all the difficulties we had hitherto encountered seemed light in comparison of what we expected to suffer from the treachery of our men, who, with the boat, had taken away everything that might be the means of preserving our lives. Yet under these dismal and forlorn appearances was our delivery now preparing!'

Mr Byron was now taken, with Captain Cheap, by the Indian guide to a native village, whence he expected to get more assistance in conducting the party, who, if they could not recover the barge for him, were to give a musket and some other articles as a reward. On coming in the evening to the Indian wigwams, after two days' travel, Mr Byron was neglected, and left alone. Urged by want and cold, he crept into a wigwam upon chance, and found there two women, one young and the other old, whose conduct amply corroborates the well-known and beautiful eulogium passed by Ledyard upon the kindness of that sex everywhere to poor travellers. They saw the young seaman wet and shivering, and made him a fire. They brought out their only food, a large fish, and broiled it for him. When he lay down upon some dry boughs, he found, on awaking a few hours after, that the women had gently covered him

with warm clothes, at the expense of enduring the cold themselves. When he had made signs that his appetite was not appeased, 'they both went out, taking with them a couple of dogs, which they train to assist them in fishing. After an hour's absence, they came in trembling with cold, and their hair streaming with water, and brought two fish, which having broiled, they gave me the largest share.' For a poor stranger they had just gone out in the middle of the night, plunged into the cold sea, and, with the aid of their nets or other apparatus, had got him food. These kind creatures were the wives of an old Indian, who was then absent, but who on his return struck them with brutal violence for their hospitality, Mr Byron looking on with impotent rage and indignation. The return of this Indian and his companions enabled the native guide of Captain Cheap and Byron to make an arrangement for conducting the shipwrecked party northward as they wished. The captain and Byron then left the wigwams to go back to their companions, being joined soon after by a body of Indian guides.

It was the middle of March 1742, ere this journey to the northward was begun. Various Indian canoes conveyed the whole party day after day along the sea-coast; shell-fish, eggs from the rocks, and sea-weed, being the food of the band, and even this being procurable in such miserable quantities as barely to sustain life. The condition of the captain in this respect was better than the others, for the Indians thought their reward safe if they attended to the chief of the whites alone, and he cruelly encouraged the notion. But what but selfishness could be expected from one in the following state: 'I could compare Captain Cheap's body to nothing but an ant-hill, with thousands of vermin crawling over about it; for he was now past attempting to rid himself in the least from this torment, as he had quite lost himself, not recollecting our names that were about him, or even his own. His beard was as long as a hermit's, that and his face being covered with train-oil and dirt, from his sleeping, to secure them, upon pieces of stinking seal. His legs were as big as mill-posts, though his body appeared to be nothing but skin and bone.' The rest were little better, and Mr Byron had often to strip himself in the midst of hail and snow, and beat his clothes with stones, to kill the insects that swarmed about him. At length, however, after one of them had sunk under his sufferings, the party got to the island of Chiloe, a place at the south extremity of the province of Chili, and under the rule of the Spaniards. Being a remote corner, Chiloe had only a few Spaniards in it, and these chiefly Jesuit priests; but the Indian inhabitants were comparatively civilised. The troubles of the party may be said to have ended here, for the natives pitied them much, and supplied them with abundance of food; fortunately, the quantity taken did not prove injurious.

Even after staying on the island for a considerable time, and being conveyed to the mainland to the town of Chaco, where a Spanish

governor resided, the eating of the famished mariners continued to be enormous. 'Every house was open to us; and though it was but an hour after we had dined, they always spread a table, thinking we could never eat enough after what we had suffered, and we were much of the same opinion.' Mr Byron made friends with the governor's cook, and so carried his pockets always full to his apartment, there to feed at leisure. They were in all four in number now; namely, Captain Cheap, Messrs Byron, Hamilton, and Campbell. From Chaco, they were taken to the larger town of Castro, and remained there for some months in the condition of prisoners at large, poorly clad, but decently lodged and well fed. On the 2d of January 1743, their case having become known to the authorities of Chili, they were put on board a ship to be conveyed to the city of St Jago. Here they remained two years as prisoners, but not in confinement. Fortunately for them, a Scotch physician, who bore the name of Don Patricio Ged, entreated the governor to allow the captives to stay with him; and for two years this generous man maintained them like brothers, nearly at his own expense. In December following, Captain Cheap and Messrs Byron and Hamilton were put on board a French vessel, to be conveyed to Europe: Mr Campbell, having become a Catholic, remained in Chili. They reached France safely, and after some detention there, were permitted to go to Britain by an order from Spain. Their friends were much surprised to see them, having long given them up for lost. Their term of absence exceeded five years.

The six men who cruelly made off with the barge, appear never to have been heard of again, and perished, doubtless, on the coast. The fate of the more numerous body who went off to the south in the long-boat, is known from the narrative of John Bulkely, gunner, one of the survivors. This band actually succeeded in rounding South America through the Strait of Magellan, and reached the Portuguese territory of Rio Janeiro, after hardships equal to those of the other party, and which reduced their number from nearly eighty to thirty. They reached the Rio Grande in January 1742. All of the thirty, however, probably did not see Britain. On coming to the Portuguese colony, they found food, friends, and countrymen, and separated from one another, Bulkely and two others reached England on the 1st of January 1743.

The members of this expedition went out with the hope of gathering gold at will among the Spanish colonies. What a different fate befell the unhappy crew of the 'Wager!

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F all the religious sects which have originated in Christendom, the most singular in its birth, its fortunes, and its tenets is undoubtedly 'The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints'--the name by which the Mormon community designates itself. Its founder was a man in whose character, at no period of his career, can we discern the customary lineaments of a saint, a reformer, or even a fanatic; and yet it is certain that he gathered round him a body of zealous and devoted followers, the majority of whom implicitly accepted him as a person divinely inspired and commissioned to regenerate and reconstruct human society. That he was illiterate, and yet achieved so much, is not the remarkable thing about him. Men almost, if not altogether, as illiterate as he have created and perpetuated sects; nor is it the mere fact that before he acquired notoriety as a prophet, No. 46.

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