Part 198

II.

There is a shallow bay in which the ship anchored in fifteen fathoms on the east side of the island; and there, as in Tristan, a narrow belt of low ground, extending for about a mile along the shore, is interposed between the cliff and the sea. A pretty waterfall tossed itself down, about the middle of the bay, over the cliff from the plateau above. A little way down it was nearly lost in spray, like the Staubbach of Schaffhausen, and collected itself again into a rivulet, where it regained the rock at the lower level. A hut built of stones and clay, and roofed with spars and thatch, lay in a little hollow near the waterfall, and the two Germans, in excellent health and spirits, but enraptured at the sight of the ship and longing for a passage anywhere out of the island, were down on the beach, waiting for the first boat. Their story is a curious one, and as Captain Nares agreed to take them to the Cape, we had ample time to get an account of their adventures, and to supplement from their experience such crude notions of the nature of the place as we could gather during our short stay.

Frederick and Gustav Stoltenhoff are sons of a dyer in Aix-la-Chapelle (+Aachen+). Frederick, the elder, was employed in a merchant’s office in Aix-la-Chapelle at the time of the Franco-German war (1870). He was called on to serve in the German army, where he attained the rank of a lieutenant, and took part in the siege of Metz and Thionville. At the end of the campaign he was discharged, and returned home to find his old situation filled up.

+gestaltete sich jedoch wieder zu einem kleinen Bache.+

+Vertiefung+, f.

= stood. Consult S. 5, N. 2.

= very (+höchst+) curious.

= granted them their request.

Let the student endeavour to construe this passage by means of the attributive construction, which will prove excellent practice.

Section 235.

A CURIOUS STORY.

III.

In the meantime, his younger brother, Gustav, who was a sailor and had already made several trips, had joined on the 1st of August, 1870, at Greenock, as an ordinary seaman, the English ship “Beacon Light,” bound for Rangoon. On the way out, the cargo, which consisted of coal, caught fire when they were from six to seven hundred miles north-west of Tristan d’Acunha, and for (S. 166, N. 10) three days all hands were doing their utmost to extinguish the fire. On the third day, the hatches, which had been battened down, to exclude the air, blew up, the main hatch carrying overboard the second mate who had been standing on it at the time of the explosion. The boats had been provisioned beforehand, ready to leave the ship. Two of the crew were drowned through one of the boats being swamped, and the survivors, to the number of sixteen, were stowed in the long-boat. Up to this time the ship had been nearing Tristan with a fair wind at the rate of six knots an hour, so that they had now only about three hundred miles to go. They abandoned the ship on Friday; on Saturday afternoon they sighted Tristan, and on the following day a boat came off to their assistance and towed them ashore.

The shipwrecked crew remained for eighteen days at Tristan d’Acunha, during which time they were treated with all kindness and hospitality. They were relieved by the ill-fated “Northfleet,” bound for Aden with coal, and Gustav Stoltenhoff found his way back to Aix-la-Chapelle.

to join a ship, +sich einem Schiffe verheuern+.

= On the voyage thither (+dorthin+).

to catch fire, +in Brand geraten+.

= about, +ungefähr+.

‘all hands’, here = all sailors, +die ganze Mannschaft+, +alle Matrosen+, +alle Schiffsleute+.

+in die Luft sprengen+; the hatches, +die Luken+; the main hatch, +die große Luke+.

= and the main hatch carried overboard (+über Bord schleudern+).

= through the sinking of one of the boats.

‘=at the rate of=’, referring to the rapidity of motion, is rendered by ‘+=mit einer Schnelligkeit von=+’, but when referring to price, is generally rendered by ‘+=zum Preise von=+’.

=an hour=, +=in der Stunde=+, +=per Stunde=+, or +=die Stunde=+. He receives 20 marks a week, +er erhält 20 Mark die Woche+ (or +wöchentlich+).

Section 236.

A CURIOUS STORY.

IV.

During his stay at Tristan he heard that a large number of seals were to be had among the islands, and he seems to have been greatly pleased with the Tristaners and to have formed a project of returning there. When he got home, his brother had just got back from the war and was unemployed; he infected him with his notion, and the two agreed to join in a venture to Tristan to see what they could (App. § 33) make by seal-hunting and barter.