it real. I can never explain it. These poor girls were more to me
than loving sisters. They turned the black night of my desolate
existence into sunshine, and they were perpetually devising some sweet
little surprise--some little thing which would please me and add
additional brightness to our daily lives. This dreadful thing happened
many years ago, but to this day, and to the day of my death, I feel sure
I shall suffer agonies of grief and remorse (I blame myself for not
having forbidden them to go in the canoe) for this terrible catastrophe.

After we returned to the land, I haunted the sea-shore for hours, hoping
to see the bodies rise to the surface; but I watched in vain. When at
length the full magnitude of the disaster dawned upon me, despair--the
utter abandonment of despair--filled my soul for the first time. Never
again would my sweet companions cheer my solitary moments. Never again
would I see their loved forms, or hear their low, musical voices. Never
again would we play together like children on the sand. Never again
would we build aerial castles about the bright and happy future that was
in store for us, looking back from the bourne of civilisation on our
fantastic adventures. Never again should we compare our lot with that of
Robinson Crusoe or the Swiss Family Robinson.

My bright dream had passed away, and with a sudden revulsion of feeling I
realised that the people around me were repulsive cannibals, among whom I
was apparently doomed to pass the remainder of my hideous days--a fate
infinitely more terrible than that of joining my darlings beneath the
restless waves, that beat for ever on that lonely shore. I was a long
time before I could even bring myself to be thankful for Yamba's escape,
which was no doubt dreadfully ungrateful of me. I can only ask your pity
and sympathy in my terrible affliction. What made my sorrow and remorse
the more poignant, was the reflection that if I had retained one atom of
my self-possession I would never have dreamed of approaching the little
European vessel at the head of a whole flotilla of catamarans, filled
with yelling and gesticulating savages. As to the people on board the
vessel, I exonerated them then, and I exonerate them now, from all blame.
Had you or I been on board, we should probably have done exactly the same
thing under the circumstances.

Clearly the only reasonable plan of action was to have gone alone; but
then, at critical times,