Category: Biographies
I was born in or near Paris, in the year 1844. My father was a fairly prosperous man of business--a general merchant, to be precise, who dealt largely in shoes; but when I was about ten years old, my mother, in consequence of certain domestic differences, took me to live with...
I was born in or near Paris, in the year 1844. My father was a fairly prosperous man of business--a general merchant, to be precise, who dealt largely in shoes; but when I was a...
2. Chapter 2The three black pearls--The fatal morning--Jensen and his flotilla drift away--Alone on the ship--"Oil on the troubled waters"--A substitute for a rudder--Smoke signals--The whi...
3. Chapter 3On the wreck--Efforts to kindle a fire--My flagstaff--Clothing impossible--Growing corn in turtles' blood--My house of pearl shells--How the pelicans fished for me--Stung by a "...
4. Chapter 4I try to revive my visitors--Demonstrations of amazement--A variety entertainment--Evil spirits in the mirror--"The star above my home"--"Preliminary canter" with the boat--A jo...
5. Chapter 5Some queer dishes--Water wizards--A mysterious deputation--I protest against cannibalism--My marriage ceremony--A startling proposition--Daily routine--A diet of worms--I procee...
6. Chapter 6A weird duel--The tragedy of the baby whale--My boat is destroyed--A ten miles' swim--Gigantic prizes--Swimming in the whale's head--I make use of the visitors--A fight with an...
7. Chapter 7The agonies of thirst--A ghastly drink--I ask Yamba to kill me--My ministering angel--How Yamba caught opossum--The water witch--A barometer of snakes--The coming deluge--The pl...
8. Chapter 8In the throes of fever--A ghastly discovery--Pitiful relics--A critical moment--Yamba in danger--A blood bath--A luxury indeed--Signs of civilisation--The great storm--Drifting,...
9. Chapter 9The children's sports--A terrible ordeal--Queer notions of beauty--How little girls are taught--Domestic quarrels--Telltale footprints--I grow weary--Off on a long cruise--Astou...
10. Chapter 10Miss Rogers begins her story--An interview on the high seas--Drifting to destruction--The ship disappears--Tortured by thirst--A fearful sight--Cannibals on the watch--The black...
11. Chapter 11Easier travel--The girls improve--How the blacks received them--A large hut--A dainty dish--What might have been--The girls decorate their home--Bruno as a performer--"A teacher...
12. Chapter 12The girls in sun-bonnets--I advise the blacks--Fatal excitement--Last moments--The catastrophe--I cannot realise it--A fearful contrast--"Only a withered flower"--Bruno's grief-...
13. Chapter 13Occasionally one of the tribes would display hostility towards us at first sight, but I generally managed to ingratiate myself into their good graces by the exercise of a little...
14. Chapter 14An eventful meeting--Civilisation at last--Rage and despair--A white man's tracks--Yamba's find--Good Samaritans--Bitter disappointment--Bruno as guardian--A heavy burden--A str...
15. Chapter 15Lost in the desert--Gibson's dying advice--Giles meets Gibson--A fountain in the desert--A terrible fix--Giles regains his camp--Gibson's effects--Mysterious tracks--A treasured...
16. Chapter 16A teacher of English--Myself as a black-fellow--I rest content--An unknown terror--Manufacture of gunpowder--A curious find--The fiery raft--In the lair of snakes--A dangerous e...
17. Chapter 17Mosquitoes and leeches--I explain pictures--An awkward admission--My great portrait--The stomach as a deity--The portrait a success--A colossal statue of "H. R. H."--Fish withou...
18. Chapter 18I make a perambulator--Meeting with whites--A dreadful habit--The miracle of Moses--Preparing a demonstration--An expectant audience--Yamba growing feeble--One tie snapped--Yamb...