casting lots who should be sacrificed to serve for food for the rest, no alternative remained.  While horror at the bare contemplation of an extremity so repulsive occupied the thoughts of all, the horizon was observed to be suddenly obscured, and presently clouds of penguin alighted on the island.  The low grounds were actually covered; and before the evening was dark, the sand could not be seen for the number of eggs, which, like a sheet of snow, lay on the surface of the earth.  The penguins continued on the island four or five days, when, as if by signal, the whole took their flight, and were never seen again.  A few were killed, but the flesh was so extremely rank and nauseous that it could not be eaten.  The eggs were collected and dressed in all manner of ways, and supplied abundance of food for upwards of three weeks.  At the expiration of that period, famine once more seemed inevitable; the third morning began to dawn upon the unfortunate company after their stock of eggs were exhausted; they had now been without food for more than forty hours, and were fainting and dejected; when, as though this desolate rock were really a land of miracles, a man came running up to the encampment with the unexpected and joyful tidings that “millions of sea-cows had come on shore.”  The crew climbed over the ledge of rocks that flanked their tents, and the sight of a shoal of manatees immediately beneath them gladdened their hearts.  These came in with the flood, and were left in the puddles between the broken rocks of the cove.  This supply continued for two or three weeks.  The flesh was mere blubber, and quite unfit for food, for not a man could retain it on his stomach; but the liver was excellent, and on this they subsisted.  In the meantime, the carpenter with his gang had constructed a boat, and four of the men had adventured in her for Tristan d’Acunha, in hopes of ultimately extricating their fellow-sufferers from their perilous situation.  Unfortunately the boat was lost—­whether carried away by the violence of the currents that set in between the islands, or dashed to pieces against the breakers, was never known, for no vestige of the boat or crew was ever seen.  Before the manatees, however, began to quit the shore, a second boat was launched; and in this an officer and some seamen made a second attempt, and happily succeeded in effecting a landing, after much labor, on the island, where they were received with much cordiality and humanity by Governor Glass—­a personage whom it will be necessary to describe.

Tristan d’Acunha is believed to have been uninhabited until 1811, when three Americans took up their residence upon it, for the purpose of cultivating vegetables, and selling the produce, particularly potatoes, to vessels which might touch there on their way to India, the Cape, or other parts in the southern ocean.  These Americans remained its only inhabitants till 1816, when, on Bonaparte being sent to St. Helena, the British government deemed it expedient to garrison