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Updated: June 29, 2025
Although during their long four years' cruise Edward Gancy and Henry Chester have seen many a strange sight, they think the one now before their eyes as strange as any, and unique in its quaint comicality. They would have continued their observations much longer but for Seagriff, to whom the sight is neither strange nor new.
"Well," says Captain Gancy, after an inspection of the untenanted building, "it'll serve us a turn or two, whoever may have built it. The roof appears to be all tight and sound, so we needn't be at the bother of turning the boat-sail into a tent this time." A fire is kindled inside the hut, and all gather round it, the night being chilly cold.
Captain Gancy, quickly covering the canoes with his glass, makes out, what is yet undistinguishable by the naked eye of any other than a Fuegian, that there are two sorts of men in them, quite different in appearance; unlike in form, facial aspect, dress everything. Above all, are they dissimilar in size, some being of gigantic stature; the others alongside of them appearing like pigmies!
Captain Gancy, quickly sighting through his binocular, declares them different at least, in their array. They are not all men, more than half being women and children, while no warlike insignia can be discerned neither white feathers nor chalked faces.
While yet afar off, Captain Gancy, through his glass, is able to announce certain facts which favour confidence. The people in the canoes are of both sexes, and engaged in a peaceful occupation they are fishing.
They have no trouble in making their course, as the sky is clear, and Sarmiento an all-sufficient guide-post always visible. But although neither Captain Gancy nor Seagriff has any anxiety as to the course, both seem anxious about something, all the while scanning the water ahead the skipper through his glass, the old sealer with hand shading his eyes.
"So it may be, Captin'," pursues Seagriff; "but thar's somethin' 'bout these breakin' off an' becomin' bergs ez ain't so well understood, I reckin'; leastways, not by l'arned men. The cause of it air well enough know'd 'mong the seal-fishers ez frequent these soun's an' channels." "What is the cause, Chips?" asked young Gancy, like all the others, interested in the subject of conversation.
Still it floats, drifting outward, and for a while all seems well with it. Believing it to be so, the two youths rush to the tent, and each snatching an oar from it, prepare to swim out and bring the boat back. But before they can enter the water, a voice tells them their hope is vain, Captain Gancy himself calling out, "It's no use, boys! The gig's got a hole in its bottom, and is going down.
"We ain't out o' the wood yit," he says, employing a familiar backwoods expression often heard by him in boyhood, adding, in like figurative phrase, "we still hev to run the gauntlit o' the Tekeneekas." "But surely we've nothing to fear from them?" interrogates the younger Gancy; Henry Chester affirming, "No, surely not." "Why hevn't we?" demands Seagriff.
Thar we'll be a'most sure o' findin' some o' the sealin' vessels, thet bein' one o' thar rendeyvoos when they're fishin' roun' Staten Land." "You think that better, then, than trying to the northward for the Straits of Magellan?" inquires Captain Gancy. "Oceans o' odds better.
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