Page:Tupper family records - 1835.djvu/203

 one of his volunteers, who refused to assist in returning to the vessel, he was compelled to proceed to the nearest shore, — the island of Quiriquina. Here part of his companions took refuge in the underwood ; your brother remained with the wounded and dying sailor in the bottom of the boat, with a military officer, Captain La Rosa, (of whom, I believe, mention is made in General Miller's memoirs,) and two of his own soldiers. His first thought was now to retire to the other side of the island, opposite to the part of the main land of the promontory of Talcahuano, marked in the charts Plata Creek, and, if closely pursued in the morning, to swim across. But Captain La Rosa (formerly accustomed to the sea) volunteering to take an oar, your brother, notwithstanding his wounded hand, at once seized the other ; and the two, during the night, pulled across with the wounded man and two soldiers from Sandy Point of the island to the opposite shore, near a point called Point Lirquez, a distance of more than a league. Here they buried the wounded man, who had died on the passage, in the sand ; and with a doubloon, which your brother fortunately had in his pocket, they procured horses, and rode round the bay to Talca- huano. The people, who returned in the boats to Talcahuano, all declared that Colonel Tupper had been killed ; that he had been seen to ascend and to fall into the water, and had not been heard of since. You should have been in this city to have witnessed the regret of his party for his supposed death : numbers proceeded to the port to make further inquiries. When your brother appeared on horseback in the square of Talcahuano, his officers and soldiers ran to embrace him like one risen from the dead ; the soldiers shed tears, and called him by the name of father, which they were in the habit of giving him.

" Some days afterwards he came to the city, and a French sur- geon uniting his entreaties with mine, we prevailed upon him to suffer leeches to be applied to his breast, which had a large circle of coagulated blood blackening it from the severe blow, causing him much difficulty to breathe. He stretched himself for this pur- pose on my bed, a small camp bedstead, and even to this hour I cannot drive away the recollection of his gigantic, well proportioned figure, occupying and supported, as if in appearance, only by the little, frail bedstead. The leeches were of good service, and his left hand, though carrying it of necessity in a sling, healed fast. His stay here was short."

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