The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1870-08-04

The majority OF the men saved were i'll their
berths, when the Mercurius struck, and swan
to the rock in their shirts; and it was not
until one of their number made Il hat out of
the fiber of the solitary ..cocoatrec, sewing it
together with 4 needle make out of a piece Of
brass found on the island, that any protection
for the head was to be seen among them.
To add to their misery, the reef was swarm
I'd with venomous ants, which bit the
strangers numerically, and with an effect
which can only be realized by those who
have suffered from the insect-lle of tropical
clinics The commissariat question was
settled in n way which will make every
school boys mouth water who reads of it.
They went out in their boats and caught fish
and turtle. and they had an abundance Of
birds eggs and shel-tish They manu-
featured bird traps and caught young birds,
suffered to go out by night or day. They
had, of course, no matches, and no means
of procuring light other than the time-hon-
ored one we have all read OF in CoOpcr's
novelS-that of rubbing two bits of wood
together till they ignite There was no fuel
belonging to the island, and the broken
1edris of former wrecks supplied the only
material for the all-important fire. Three
times during their soourn on the rock was
this fire suffered by some accident to 90 out
and three times was the experiment in friction
anXousy and successfully tried. SO the
time wore on until fifty-one weary days had
been spent on the reef days in which every
man scanned the horizon. and in which the
strong cheered the faint hearted, and all
spoke hope in turn 1t is easy to picture the
existence these men led. The first gratitude
of escape; the anxious search for fellow
survivors; the moumtul conclusion that the
rest of their shipmates were no more: the
stern necessity which bade them work, invent,
contrive; the development, day by day, of
some fresh ingenuity, some little suspected
quality in each, and the gradual accumula-
ton of rcliefs, and even comforts-can all be
traced They We're prudent men-men
taught by calamity to prepare for 4 rainy
day; for when rescued, they had two
hundred eggs in store, and are described as
being in good condition. Their rescue was
moi effected until the 10Th Of May, when the
commander Of the iron clipper bark Silver
Craig, Captain Cohn, was approaching Per-
nambuco and discerned lump on the we'll
known Rocas Reef, which he made out to be
hut Drawing nearer he disccrned a sig
nal Of distress, composed of 4 seamans strip
ed shirt fluttering half mast high, and he
then hove-to within six miles from the island,
and waited until six nearly naked men put
off in their rude boats and came on board.
They We're kindly and Hospitality received,
and had passage given them to Liverpool,
where they are now telling their strange
story, and exhibiting to their friends the
cocoa-fibre hats, which We're until recently
their only articles Of attire, and which they
now keep as momcntoes of the pcrils they
have escaped. In simple force, in romances,
III strangeness, in fertility of resource and in
adventure, the real experience of these six
sailors on. desolate island is worthy of
Defoe, and makes most fictitious histories Of
shipwreck seem tame and feeble by com
parison.