Byron's Narrative of the Loss of the Wager: With an account of the great distresses suffered by himself and his companions on the coast of Patagonia from the year 1740 till their arrival in England 1746Byron, John
History
Byron's Narrative of the Loss of the Wager: With an account of the great distresses suffered by himself and his companions on the coast of Patagonia from the year 1740 till their arrival in England 1746
Byron, John
Chiloé (Chile); Patagonia (Argentina and Chile); Wager (Ship)
It might be about the middle of March, that we embarked with these
Indians. They separated our little company entirely, not putting any
two of us together in the same canoe. The oar was my lot, as usual,
as also Mr. Campbell's; Mr. Hamilton could not row, and Captain Cheap
was out of the question; our surgeon was more dead than alive at the
time, and lay at the bottom of the canoe he was in. The weather coming
on too bad for their canoes to keep the sea, we landed again, without
making great progress that day. Here Mr. Elliot, our surgeon, died. At
our first setting out, he promised the fairest for holding out, being
a very strong, active young man: he had gone through an infinite deal
of fatigue, as Mr. Hamilton and he were the best shots amongst us, and
whilst our ammunition lasted never spared themselves, and in a great
measure provided for the rest; but he died the death many others had
done before him, being quite starved. We scraped a hole for him in the
sand, and buried him in the best manner we could. Here I must relate a
little anecdote of our Christian cacique. He and his wife had gone off,
at some distance from the shore, in their canoe, when she dived for
sea-eggs; but not meeting with great success, they returned a good deal
out of humour. A little boy of theirs, about three years old, whom they
appeared to be dotingly fond of, watching for his father and mother's
return, ran into the surf to meet them: the father handed a basket of
sea-eggs to the child, which being too heavy for him to carry, he let
it fall; upon which the father jumped out of the canoe, and catching
the boy up in his arms, dashed him with the utmost violence against
the stones. The poor little creature lay motionless and bleeding, and
in that condition was taken up by the mother; but died soon after. She
appeared inconsolable for some time; but the brute his father shewed
little concern about it. A day or two after we put to sea again, and
crossed the great bay I mentioned we had been to the bottom of, when
we first hauled away to the westward. The land here was very low and
sandy, with something like the mouth of a river which discharged itself
into the sea; and which had been taken no notice of by us before, as
it was so shallow that the Indians were obliged to take every thing
out of their canoes, and carry it over the neck of land, and then haul
the boats over into a river, which at this part of it was very broad,
more resembling a lake than a river. We rowed up it for four or five
leagues, and then took into a branch of it, that ran first to the
eastward, and then to the northward: here it became much narrower, and
the stream excessively rapid, so that we made but little way, though
we worked very hard. At night we landed upon its banks, and had a most
uncomfortable lodging, it being a perfect swamp; and we had nothing to
cover us, though it rained very hard. The Indians were little better
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account