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Philippe busied himself actively with the youngster's education. He was admirably assisted in this work first by his sisters and afterward by an old aunt, the widow of a naval officer, who lived at Brest and gave young Raoul a taste for the sea. The lad entered the Borda training-ship, finished his course with honors and quietly made his trip round the world.
"Let us hope you will be one soon, Monsieur Fred," said Dolly. "You will have well deserved it, according to the way you have distinguished yourself on board the 'Borda."
He was first taught at a school in Rochefort, but at the age of seventeen, being destined for the navy, he entered the great French naval school, Le Borda, and has gradually risen in his profession. His pseudonym is said to have had reference to his extreme shyness and reserve in early life, which made his comrades call him after "le Loti," an Indian flower which loves to blush unseen.
The Chevalier de Borda had given Cook 48 degrees 26 minutes South, 64 degrees 57 minutes East of Paris as the position of Rendezvous Island; this Cook took to be an isolated rock they only just weathered in the fog, to which he gave the name of Bligh's Cap, for he said: "I know nothing that can Rendezvous at it but fowls of the air, for it is certainly inaccessible to every other animal."
Eden, who corrupts all Spanish words, as do most travellers in our own times, calls it the Stancha: it is the Station des Rochers of M. Borda, as is proved by the barometrical heights there observed. These heights were in 1803, according to M. Cordier, 19 inches 9.5 lines; and in 1776, according to Messrs. Two inclined rocks form a kind of cavern, which affords a shelter from the winds.
"Young ladies," said Jacqueline, "I present to you a 'bordachien' a little middy from the practice-ship the Borda." They burst out laughing: "A bordachien! A middy from the practice-ship!" they cried.
Its height appeared to us to be about 50 or 60 feet; its circumference near the roots is 45 feet. We could not measure higher, but Sir George Staunton found that, 10 feet from the ground, the diameter of the trunk is still 12 English feet; which corresponds perfectly with the statement of Borda, who found its mean circumference 33 feet 8 inches, French measure.
The hill called Montanita de la Villa seems indeed to have emitted lavas; and according to the tradition of the Guanches, an eruption took place in 1430. Colonel Franqui assured Borda, that the place is still to be seen whence the melted matter issued; and that the ashes which covered the ground adjacent, were not yet fertilized.
I was then fourteen and a half years of age, and that gave me, therefore, three years and a half in which to prepare myself for the naval academy, consequently I had time to do it thoroughly and properly. But in the meantime I had to encounter many refusals and all sorts of difficulties before my admittance to the Borda.
"Yes," explained Jacqueline, "he is going to be transferred from the 'Borda' to the 'Jean-Bart' which, by the way, is no longer the 'Jean-Bart', only people call her so because they are used to it. Meantime you see before you "C," the great "C," the famous "C," that is, he is the pupil who stands highest on the roll of the naval school at this moment." There was a vague murmur of applause.
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