Perseverance Island; Or, The Robinson Crusoe of the Nineteenth Century

by Douglas Frazar

Could anything be more miserable than our condition? Four unfortunate men, two of whom were crippled, one probably to the death, cast on the open ocean in an open boat, at least a thousand miles from any known land.

I thought of all the open-boat exposures of which I had ever read; of Lieutenant Bligh and the "Bounty," and others equally startling. I shuddered when I thought what our fate might be. I ran through, in my mind, the rapid events that had followed each other since our departure from England, and the unexplainable series of fatalities that had robbed us of our comrades till we remained only the little group now seated in this frail boat. In what direction should we steer? what was to be our fate? what had God still in store for us in the shape of misfortune and horror? It seemed as if the bitter cup had been full to overflowing, and that we had drained it to the very dregs. I was awakened from my day-dream by the voices of my comrades, who drew my attention, without speech, by pointing to the doomed vessel. We lifted Captain Davis in our arms, and with fixed eyes and set teeth saw the misnamed schooner drive her bows under the water, and then shortly after, majestically raising her forefoot high in air, sink down grandly into the abyss of ocean, leaving us poor unfortunates adrift upon its treacherous bosom.

After we had seen the last of the schooner we gathered together for consultation as to our course. It was demonstrated by the chart that we were much nearer to Easter Island than to any other land, say some eight hundred miles distant by projection. But, on the other hand, the wind hung persistently from the northward and placed us to leeward of our port. It was too far to think of standing back to the South American coast, and we felt that we must keep a northwesterly course, and if the wind headed us off from Easter Island, that we could at least fetch some of the more westerly of the Society Group.

Having decided upon this, we set our foresail and laid our course about W. by N., which was as high as the wind would allow us to lie. The day was pleasant and the wind light, and the sea quiet. I inaugurated at once a system of daily allowance, and for this first day we were to issue no rations, we all having had at least, although coarse and interrupted, one meal and plenty of water, before leaving the schooner. The days were growing perceptibly longer and warmer, and we ran all that afternoon quietly along over quite a smooth sea, making good headway to the westward, but little northing, which I was so anxious to make. As the sun went down Captain Davis, although very weak, called us all aft around him and, in a faint voice on the lonely ocean, from memory repeated for us all the Lord's Prayer; the loneliness of our situation and the solemnity of the occasion remain vividly in my mind to this day. We all saw that we must soon lose our captain, but no one dared to say as much to his neighbor; we could plainly see that his hours were few, and that the motion and exposure of the boat could not be endured by him much longer. After the sun went down I took the steering oar aft, and telling the men to lie down and get all the rest they could, I kept the boat on her course and seated myself near the captain, stretched on his mattress at my feet. At about ten o'clock, as near as I could judge, after a long and absolute silence, I heard Captain Davis utter my name. I bent down towards him, and he said, "Do not be shocked. I am soon, very soon, about to depart, the sands of life have almost run out, and I am weary and want to be at rest in the Haven of Repose. If you ever get back to England, tell them that I did my duty faithfully. I, as you know, have no wife or child to mourn for me, but I want you all to remember me as a just captain, with all my faults. I have no fear of being buried in the sea; God can find me anywhere at the great day, when we shall all be mustered on the quarter-deck for inspection, and, if worthy, promotion. If you are driven out of your course, keep to the westward still, and you will eventually find land. Say a prayer or two over my body when you commit me to the deep; and now wake up the men and let me say good-by to them, for I am going fast." I called up the men, and the two poor fellows came aft and shook the hand of our captain in sore distress; and we sat watching, unwilling to sleep or break the silence of that solemn moment. In about an hour Captain Davis opened his eyes, that had been closed, raised his arm slowly to his head, touched an imaginary hat, and said, "Come on board to report for duty, Sir,"—and passed away like a child dropping to sleep. We covered the body with our spare clothing, and each sat in sad reflection. Bill Thompson soon after relieved me at the oar, and I laid down in the forward part of the boat and tried to sleep; and such was exhausted nature that, in spite of our unfortunate condition, I soon dropped off. I was awakened early in the morning by a slight call from Bill, and sat up in the boat, rather bewildered for a moment, till I saw the outline of the body in the stern sheets, and then everything flashed back to my memory. I have little doubt but what that sleep saved me for the purposes that God has preserved me for to this day. It was thought best to dispose of the body before the full breaking of the day, and we for that purpose gathered around the remains, and, in compliance with the dead man's request, I recited the Lord's Prayer, and we committed the body to the deep. This event produced a new shock to our already overstrained systems, and we looked sadly enough upon each other with almost vacant eyes. We as yet were blessed with pleasant weather, and, although we were not heading up to our course, we were making westing quite fast. This day, November 7th, we passed without any remarkable event. As there were now only three of us left we found plenty of room in the boat to lie down at our ease, and it only took one of us to steer and look after the boat. We rearranged everything, and stowed all our articles in convenient places. So far, we had seen no signs of vessel or land, and we passed the day in sleeping and refreshing ourselves for whatever the future might have in store for us. The night was quiet and the stars shone down upon us with their silvery light, and we used them to keep our course by, having no light to see the compass in the night-time. Towards eight o'clock in the morning of the 8th the weather began to change, and large clouds to gather in the northern horizon; it was at this time that we made another discovery, and that was that one of the breakers of water had leaked out quietly till there was scarcely enough in it for our rations for that morning; this was caused by its not having been used for some time before we filled it on board of the ship. This discovery caused us great uneasiness, and although the breaker had evidently ceased leaking now, having swollen with the water placed in it, it was no longer useful, as we had no water to replace that which was lost. The weather to windward caused me great disquietude, and I was sadly afraid, in case of a blow, that my Nautical Almanac and Epitome and Compendium would be destroyed, either by rain or seas that we might ship. I bethought me, therefore, of copying off the declination of the sun for a few days, and the tables that I might want to use, on a spare leaf of the Epitome, and take out the head of the now useless breaker and enclose all the books and charts in it and head it up. This was accordingly done. We started the hoops, took out the head, put the books and charts in, carefully wrapped up in a piece of blanket, and replaced the head and closed up the bung-hole. I felt relieved after this, as I looked upon the preservation of my books as of the utmost importance in our future navigation, and I could think of no greater loss to people in our condition than to have them lost or destroyed. It was with infinite satisfaction that I saw them thus safely preserved from the water till I could again take them out in good weather and examine and copy from them.

Whilst we had been busy at this task the weather to windward was fast becoming bad and threatening. I dealt out a fair ration of hard tack and canned meat to my two comrades, and then ordered them to take the sprit out of the foresail, and bring the peak down to the foot of the mast, and lash it to the inner leach of the sail, and fasten what was before the after leach to the foot; so as to make a sort of double leg-of-mutton sail, with the body low down and along the boom. We labored with a will at our work, for the freshening breeze was fast coming down upon us, and at twelve o'clock, as I judge, we were plunging along quite well for so small a boat, in about half a gale of wind, which allowed us to head up as high as N. N. W. The sea, however, was getting up fast, and I foresaw that unless it moderated we should have to bear away and run before it. As I feared, we now commenced to take in considerable water, which, although not in dangerous quantities, gave us work to do in the shape of bailing with the empty meat cans, whilst the attention of one was needed without remission at the steering oar and sheet. We were, thank God, blessed with that best of seaboats, a Nantucket whaleboat; and although she was low in the water, she was also buoyant, and rode the waves better than could be expected of any other craft of her size. I felt, too, that we could at any time make easy weather of it by scudding or running before the wind, for which she was admirably fitted, being sharp at both ends, and therefore in no danger of being pooped; but this was the last thing that I desired to do, as it would take us from our course towards the islands and far to the southward, as such a boat would make rapid way before the wind, with even this small sail.

At about two o'clock the wind hauled more to the westward and headed us off to the southward. At three o'clock we had broken off to S. W., and the wind increasing, and the sea getting up fast, so fast that I already had to let the boat go very free before it, to keep her from being swamped.

At sundown the gale had greatly increased, and I found that to preserve us, and on account of the steady change of the wind, that I was compelled to steer about S. by W., and to allow ourselves to run before the tempest. As the darkness set down upon us like a pall, I gave ourselves up as lost. I clung to the steering-oar and guided the boat before the wind; the only clew that was given me how to steer was the angry roar of the combing billows astern and the rush of the wind by the side of my face: by these two senses of hearing and feeling, I was enabled to tell when the boat was about to broach to, which would have been destruction, and how to steer so as to keep her before the wind. The darkness was the darkness of the ocean in a storm, and torrents of rain and spray flew over us. I was unable to see an atom of even the sail ahead of me in the boat. And thus we plunged on, into the inky darkness, followed by the angry roar of the disappointed waves that we left astern. We were moving with frightful rapidity through the water; but in what direction I had no means of knowing.

I clung to the steering-oar, and my companions to their bailers; how many hours we thus rushed along I know not. I had become hardened to the situation, and the angry roar astern had become a familiar noise in my ears. I commenced to people the darkness with vessels, islands, sunlight, and music; I had long ceased to care what fate might have in store for me; I felt that the night must be nearly passed, and wondered whether we should survive to see the daylight. I dreamed, and became semi-unconscious, but still guided the boat onward before the wind.

I felt that nature could not be sustained much longer, and that in a few hours I must succumb. My comrades pottered round at my feet, their efforts to bail becoming more and more feeble. I was in this reckless, half-dazed state when, without one moment's warning, I was thrown with a crash into the forward end of the boat, and in another instant surrounded by pieces of the boat and floating débris. I found myself hurled rapidly forward by an incoming wave, and rolled over and over some hard substance; the next instant the retreating wave found me clinging to a mass of what was evidently land of some kind, and the sea already had a faint, distant sound to my ears. The next incoming wave dashed over some evident obstacle between me and it, and I clung to the object at which I had first clutched, ready to receive it. I was buried beneath it, but managed to keep my hold, and, as it retreated, the noise again became fainter, and it flashed over me that, by the first wave, I had been washed over some reef or barrier between the open ocean and where I now hung, and that each wave was broken by this barrier before reaching me.

Before the next wave came I had gained my feet, and felt that I was standing upon rocky ground, and clutching masses of rock-weed in each hand. I was again buried, but hung on with desperation till the wave had retired. Evidently I had been washed over the reef; but what was to leeward of me. By a sailor's instinct I knew that it was smooth water, and that I had at least a rocky barrier between me and the raging ocean outside. Every wave did not submerge me, but most of them did, and I felt that it was only a question of a few moments more how long I could hold on before trusting myself to swimming to leeward. O for some knowledge of what lay behind me. One flash of lightning, one speck of God's blessed daylight!