ed. The party who thus proceeded in advance encountered the most
terrible difficulties; they coasted along the seashore because they had
no other food than the shell-fish found on the rocks; they had
continually to cross rivers from a mile to two miles wide; they were
kept from their slumbers by the wild beasts which prowled around them,
and at length they endured so much from want of water, that their
sufferings were extreme. They again subdivided and separated, wandering
they hardly knew where, exposed to a burning sun, without clothing and
without food. One by one they sat down and were left behind to die, or
to be devoured by the wild beasts before they were dead. At last they
were reduced to such extremity, that they proposed to cast lots for one
to be killed to support the others; they turned back on their route,
that they might find the dead bodies of their companions for food.
Finally, out of the whole crew, three or four, purblind and staggering
from exhaustion, craving for death, arrived at the borders of the
colony, where they were kindly received and gradually recovered."

"You now speak of the first party who separated from the captain and the
passengers, do you not, uncle?"

"Yes."

"And what became of the captain's party?"

"No tidings were heard of them; their fate was unknown; it was long
supposed that they had all perished; for if the sufferings of the
seamen, inured to toil and danger, had been so great, what chance was
there for helpless women and children? But after some years, there was a
report that they had been saved, and were living with the savages. Le
Vaillant first mentioned it, and then it died away and was not credited;
but since that, the reports of various travelers appear to give
confirmation to what Le Vaillant asserted. The paragraph you have now
read in the newspaper has again renewed the assertion, and the parties
from whom it proceeds are by all accounts worthy of credence. You may
imagine, my dear boy, what a pang it gives me when I read these
reports,--when I reflect that my poor girl, who was with that party, may
at this moment be alive, may have returned to a state of barbarism,--the
seeds of faith long dead in her bosom,--now changed to a wild, untutored
savage, knowing no God."

"But, my dear uncle, allowing that my aunt is alive, she was not so
young at the time of the wreck as to forget entirely what she had been
taught."

"That is possible; but then her condition mu