Vexed and confounded at the escape of his prey, the more so when he found his hands much lacerated in the encounter, he crawled on shore, where he luckily recovered his knife which he had dropped on the spot where they floundered. As he did not expect another visit from this animal, he picked up his club, and began to pursue his road back, benumbed with cold, and much reduced by the heavy fatigue of the day; he had not gone half a mile, when, to his great joy, he beheld a tolerably large tortoise moving up from the sea towards the woods. Exerting his utmost strength, he was so successful as to arrive in sufficient time to intercept its retreat, and he proceeded to despatch it without delay. This supply came very opportunely, and after this meal he found himself so much the better, that he reached the tree, where he put up for the night, and slept without disturbance. The next morning he finished the remains of the tortoise, and he then mustered up resolution to enter the forest, in order to keep a look-out from the mountain from whence he had beheld the American ship prepare for sailing. He succeeded in gaining the summit, and remained all this day viewing the distant horizon, but no sail appeared, and the night passed heavily. About the middle of the next day, he was obliged by hunger to return to the beach, the island being destitute of berries or fruits.
In this manner he subsisted till the morning of the twenty-first day, which found him on the top of the mountain, reduced to the greatest extremity, and more like an apparition than a human being; "sharp misery had worn him to the bone," and he expected to die very shortly. As his eye wandered round the glittering expanse, he thought he distinguished in the extreme distance a dark speck, which he took to be a sail. He gazed at it most intensely, but it did not seem to move, and he concluded it was a rock; in order to be convinced, he lay down, and brought the stem of a small tree to bear upon the distant object, which he now perceived moved along the level horizon. It must be a ship, but she was passing the island, and he kept anxiously looking, in the expectation of her fading from his view. In a short time he could perceive her to be a vessel of some size, but his heart sank within him when he observed soon afterwards that she stood away upon a different tack. In about half an hour she tacked again, and it now became evident that she was making for the island. The joy of the poor sufferer at this welcome sight broke out in sundry raptures and transports. He rushed down the mountain with such little caution, that he stumbled over the broken rocks, and pitched headlong down the broken and rugged descent. After many painful efforts, he staggered from the woods to the sea-shore, and, when he beheld the ship come fairly into the bay, and anchor, a boat hoisted out, and pull with long and rapid strokes towards him, he fell overpowered upon the sand.
On the boat reaching the shore, the poor fellow appeared at his last gasp, and all he could articulate was "Water, water!" One of the sailors brought some in a can, and suffered him to drink his fill; soon afterwards he again swooned away, and in this state they carried him alongside, where he became sensible, but unable to speak or move. His helpless condition rendered it necessary to hoist him on board. Nothing could exceed the kind and humane treatment which he received from Captain Cook, and the surgeon of the ship, to whose skill and attention may be attributed his ultimate recovery, as from the quantity of water the sailor suffered him to drink (which the surgeon succeeded in dislodging from his stomach,) in his miserable and emaciated state, the medical gentleman, when he first saw him, had but faint hopes of his surviving; indeed, this gentleman declared that he could not have lived upon the island many hours longer. In a short time, he was well enough to leave his cot, when he was informed by Captain Cook, that about a week's sail from the Gallapagos, he had luckily fallen in with the ship by which Lord had been left, when the master told him, that a youth had been missed, and was left upon the island; this induced the Captain to bear up for the place, otherwise he had no intention of making it.
This individual was afterwards Master's Assistant on board his Majesty's ship Druid.
[Abridged from the United Service Journal.]
It is easy to exclude the noontide light by closing the eyes; and it is easy to resist the clearest truth, by hardening the heart against it——Keith on Prophecy.
"Where did your Church lurk, in what cave of the earth slept she, for so many hundreds of years together, before the birth of Martin Luther?" The reply is, that she lurked beneath the folds of that garment of many colours, which the hands of superstition had woven and embellished for her, and wherewith she was fantastically encumbered and disguised. She slept in that cavern of enchantment, where costly odours and intoxicating fumes were floating around, to overpower her sense, and to suspend her faculties; till, at last, a voice was heard to cry, Sleep no more. And then she started up, like a strong man refreshed, and shook herself from the dust of ages. Then did she cast aside the gorgeous "leadings," which oppressed her, and stood before the world, a sacred form of brightness and of purity,——Le Bas.