United States or Serbia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !


Mac leaned down to the wounded man, and found him one of the Aucklands. "It's been simply blanky hell up here all day and now I'm just waiting for them to give me a hand out. You boys have come up none too soon. Mind you give the devils hell!" "You there with the pick," Mac found himself addressed, "get over to those holes up front there and dig in for all you're blanky well worth."

The imaginary heroes of Daniel Defoe or of Wyss, as well as Selkirk and Raynal shipwrecked on Juan Fernandez and on the archipelago of the Aucklands, were never in such absolute destitution. Either they had abundant resources from their stranded vessels, in grain, cattle, tools, ammunition, or else some things were thrown up on the coast which supplied them with all the first necessities of life.

This was confirmed on the following day, when the "Crusader's" boat, which had been repaired, arrived with the information that she had been seen passing down the sound early in the morning; but whether those in her intended to attempt a passage to New Zealand, or only to land on another part of the Aucklands, it was difficult to say.

New Zealand lay beyond; but a large portion of that country was but little known; they might reach a part inhabited by savages, who might treat them as foes instead of rendering them assistance. If so, might it not be safer to stand across from the Aucklands to the distant shores of Australia?

When at last it took off, and was succeeded by fine weather, we were so far to the southward that we might have fetched the Aucklands in another twenty-four hours. But, to our great relief, a strong southerly breeze set in, before which, under every rag of canvas, we sped north again.