Page:Castaway on the Auckland Isles (IA castawayonauckla01musg).pdf/147

Rh between them. This and a lock of the unfortunate man's hair I have brought with me, as it is not impossible but we may yet, by some means, discover who the poor man was; and these may be claimed and valued by some relative or friend as the last memento of one gone.

After a gloomy and somewhat lengthened examination of the lamentable object of our present visit, we dug a grave, in which we placed the mortal remains of the unfortunate unknown, and, after offering up a brief prayer, his bones were mingled with their mother earth. There was not a vestige of clothing to be found about the place other than that described, which he had on. How he has come here I cannot conjecture. Has he been the only one saved from some ill-fated ship? or, have there been others who saved their lives also, and have they undertaken to travel over the inhospitable island in search of something whereupon they might subsist, while he, poor man—perhaps sick, or lame, or both—preferred remaining here to take his chance? or, worse than all, has he been turned ashore by some inhuman brute of a captain? Such things have been done, or the idea would not suggest itself to me. The only fact which presents itself is, that he has died of starvation, and been alone in this solitary spot. We raised the fallen roof from the ground to see that no one was underneath it. As we sailed along the shore the other day, we kept our eyes and glasses fixed on it, but did not see any smoke, or the slightest sign of there being a human being on the island. After performing the last melancholy ritual to the remains of our unfortunate brother tar, we returned pensively and gloomily towards the vessel.

This lamentable spectacle would undoubtedly give rise to serious thoughts in anyone, but how infinitely more in me, whose bones might at the present moment have been lying above the ground under similar circumstances, had not the hand of Providence showered such great mercies upon me, perhaps the least deserving. What a field for serious reflection! And it is not impossible that at the present moment