I TAKE POSSESSION OF THE ISLAND—LANDING STORES—A GRAND CAROUSAL—FAREWELL—ALONE.

The 2nd March, 187—, was a bright mild day, with but little wind and a quiet sea: just the day for landing my stores. The goods I had selected, and those added by my father and M. Oudin, were of a very miscellaneous kind, and included provisions, farm and garden seeds (and a few implements), a canoe, a gun, clothing, fishing gear, oil and coal, cooking apparatus, and a score other things. As I knew the island was devoid of animals except rabbits, I asked for, and obtained some live stock—in fact, quite a farmyard. There were a goat, a dog, a cat, six pigeons, two pigs, six fowls, and last, though by no means least, a young donkey.

The large cases of goods were landed in a boat, not without a slight mishap, however, as one of them, in being lowered over the bulwarks, was carelessly unhitched by the men in the boat and tumbled overboard; it fell in three fathoms of water, but the water was so translucent that it was clearly discernible on the bottom.

This took quite an hour to get up, as it was an awkward thing to grapple, but there were plenty of hands willing to help in landing the goods, as several of the Guernsey men had come over to have a parting spree.

The pigs and donkey were pushed overboard and quickly reached the shore; the former, in spite of popular belief, proving themselves excellent swimmers when once they struck out shorewards, especially as the distance was short. On landing they went up over the island, and for the time disappeared among the rocks and wild bushes.

By dusk the cry was, "All ashore," as everything had been landed, and the "Cormorant" brought to a safe mooring under the lee of the rocky island of CreviÇon.

Altogether there were nearly twenty of us, that is, my father and self, the skipper and crew of the "Kitty," and several of the workmen who had been employed in altering and repairing the vessel; also the master shipwright, in whose charge the vessel had been.

First came a grand spread in the principal room of the house, the provisions for which had been brought over from St. Peter Port. It was a great success, and after the improvised table had been cleared away (boxes, surmounted by planks covered with a sail, formed the table) the fun commenced. Joke followed joke, and song followed song. Then came toasts and sentiments, which were of quite an international character, as songs and sentiments in English, French, and Spanish were continuously fired off, most of them being of a seafaring character.

The skipper of the "Cormorant" led off with a regular old North Sea song, called, "The Dark-eyed Sailor." It is probably known by nearly every seaman in the North Sea Fishery, and is a great favourite at all carousals. It commences:

This song, sung by a Norfolk man, always seems to me a great curiosity, as the last line is lengthened out and twisted about in a most grotesque manner, apparently to suit the whim or fancy of the singer, for no two of them seem to conjure vocally with it in the same way. Everyone present is supposed to join in the last line as a kind of chorus, and not only join in, but "give it lungs," as they say. Some of them pay such attention to these points, that they appear in danger of lockjaw, or the starting of a blood-vessel, so heartily do they sing.

Then came a French song, with a chorus something about "Houp, houp, houp À tra-la-la-la!" the singer standing on the top of an empty barrel to warble, and as he set the fashion, so every succeeding singer followed suit, and mounted the "pulpit," as they dubbed the cask.

Old Roscoe, our wooden-legged mate (the right leg of flesh having been lost in my father's service), gave a funny jaw-breaking Scotch song, with a chorus which no one could repeat, so when the chorus came he sang it alone, while we contented ourselves with howling "Rule Britannia"—at least all those who knew it, while the others who did not, laughed and smoked.

Then a Spaniard (who was a shipwright) sang one of his national songs to an accompaniment of thumb-snapping (to imitate castanets), at which he was very expert. He had a fine baritone voice, and his song was full of fire, being a famous bull-fighting ditty, in which El Toro came in for a dashing chorus.

By and bye the fun became still faster and more furious, till old Ross, of the timber-toe, took exception and would insist on order being kept. Ross always constituted himself Master of the Ceremonies when anything festive was on foot, and our men, as a matter of course, left everything in his hands; but the men of St. Peter Port knew him not, and would have no authority from him, and as a kind of good-natured revenge for his interference, some of them played a practical joke upon him; but they did not know their man, for no sooner had the joke been carried into effect (gunpowder in his pipe) than Ross seized his stick and knocked two of his tormentors down, the rest quickly fleeing out of doors. His wooden leg greatly handicapped him, but he at length got one of the men in a corner, who, on finding there was no means of escape, struck out right and left at Ross's somewhat prominent nose, causing the claret to flow like the cataract of Lodore. Now his Scotch blood was up, and he certainly would have done his assailant an injury, as he was a very powerful man, had not some of his comrades rescued him. But this did not appease his fury, for he went at them all with a glass bottle in one hand and a heavy stick in the other; but luckily his career was cut short by a man who ran behind him, and with a well-directed blow with an iron rod broke his leg clean in two just below the knee—the wooden one, of course. Down came the hero, who in his rage tore up the earth around him to fling at the circle of grinning faces. By this time my father and the skipper came upon the scene, and after a time cooled down the gallant Scot, and persuaded him to "gang awa" to bed, which he did, going in state, borne at the four corners by four of his shipmates.

This incident put a stop to the singing, but commenced fun in another way. Some of the fellows cut up the remains of Ross's leg and stick and set them on fire, the barrel which had done duty for a rostrum being also broken up and added; other wooden articles were quickly flung on, till at length quite a large bonfire was formed, round which these excited men danced hand-in-hand like children round a Maypole. Their manners, however, were hardly childlike, for they jumped, and yelled, and sang with the ruddy firelight glowing on their countenances, till they looked like a lot of demons performing some diabolical incantation. All around was the dark night, and rocks, and trees, which gave a most weird aspect to the scene when viewed from a short distance.

And thus they were enjoying their pandemonium when my father, the skipper, and I left them in the "wee sma' hours" and retired to rest.

How long they kept it up I know not, but when I awoke and dressed at daylight all was quiet. At six all hands were called, and a sorry sight they presented. Ross had mounted a jury-leg, while among the other men no less than three black eyes appeared, beside bruised cheeks, and red swollen noses. However, all were friendly again, and agreed that they had hardly ever before spent such a jolly night. Such was a sailor's idea of a jolly time or "high old spree!"

Breakfast over, my goods were hauled from the beach and placed in the different rooms and sheds according to their kind, while by noon the "Cormorant," with her Blue Peter flying, was ready for a start northward to dear old England. The Guernseaise had departed amid give and take cheering directly after breakfast, so that only the crew of the vessel remained. My father bade me an affectionate farewell on the deck of the vessel, but at the last embrace I felt too full of emotion to speak, for a lump was in my throat, and a tear started from my father's eye and rolled down his bronzed cheek, so that I knew that he, too, was greatly moved at losing me for such a long period. A firm grip of the hand told without words how we, father and son, loved each other, and to hide my emotion I tumbled over the bulwarks into the dingy, and was pulled ashore by a couple of hands, amid the hearty cheers of the men who stood on deck. They gave me a salute of twelve guns (fired from two revolvers).

I stood on the rocky shore and waved a tablecloth tied to a boat-hook till the vessel was hull down on the horizon, and then turned my face to my island home, not feeling nearly so happy as I had anticipated a month before. Alone! I felt as if the whole world had departed from me, and that I was the sole survivor of the human race.

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