“Ah, well,” he said, “I suppose I must. Not that it is very much of a story; only, gentlemen, it is true. I haven’t lived long enough yet to have to invent yarns. I haven’t told half what I’ve seen and come through. But not to weary you—what delicious tea, ma’am!”
“So glad it pleases you, sir.”
“I’ve sailed around a good many coasts in my time; but I think you will find scenery more charming on the seaboard of some parts of South America than in any other country in the world. Round about Patagonia, now, what can beat the coast line for grandeur and stern beauty? Nothing that I know of.
“But farther north—on the shores of Bolivia, for instance—the scenery is just a trifle disappointing; the coast is low and sandy, and very rough in places.
“They call the ocean that laves it the Pacific. Bless my soul! friends, had you but seen it one day in the month of April, 18—, you wouldn’t have said there was much ‘pacific’ about it. The bit of a barque I was coasting in was on a lee-shore, too, and there was nothing short of a miracle could save her. We all saw that from the first. That miracle never took place. We were carried on shore—carried in on top of a mountain wave, struck with fearful force, and broke in two in less than an hour.
“It was a wonder anybody was saved. As it was, seven of us got on shore one way or another, and there we lay battered and bruised. The sun dried one half of our clothes; then we rolled round, and he dried the other. We had tasted no food for four-and-twenty hours, for we had been battened down, and all hands had to be on deck. So when a case rolled right up to our very feet we weren’t long looking inside it, and glad enough to find some provisions in the shape of tinned soup.
“Stores floated on shore next day, and spars, and one thing and another, so we rigged a tent, and made ourselves as much at home as it was possible for shipwrecked mariners to do.