The Jasper weekly courier. [volume] (Jasper, Ind.) 1858-1922, 1872-07-12

honeymoon of our loving doves win he
abridged to six short days more. you may be
certain. -
CHAPTER II.
GREAT STEP TAKEN.
In the midst Of the Antarctic ocean, little
on the route from New York to Australia
there lies large island named Kerguelen's
Land, Gas Capt. Cook called 1.-THE Island
Of Desolation.
II was discovered Just hundred wears ago.
Gn IT'D, by the French naval officer whose
name it bears. 1t was uninhabited then, and
is to-day as deserted as ever.
The smallest school-boy among our readers
can find 1t upon his map of the world, about
midway between the south end of Africa and
Australia, well up toward the South Pole.
1t Is hundred miles in length by fifty in
breadth. and is consequently three or four
times as large as Rhode Island.
Its coasts are SO wild and dangerous that its
dlscoverer. during the two expeditions that
he made to 1t, did not once bring his ships to
anchor in any of its ba and harbors.
:. Its shape liz very irregular, but something
like that of an hour-gass, it being nearly cut
in two by couple OF large bays but these
two divisions are unequal in size. the northern
peninsula being much larger than the south
ern.
Its coast line is widely broken and Jagged,
its innumerabe CULTS being long and narrow,
and slender, reaching out into the ocean like
fingers.
The body OF the island indeed resembl es
that Of some huge monster of the antediluyian
world, even as its capes and headands re-
ss!nble such monsters unsightly limbs and
claws.
A more terrible solitude than this isle of
Desolation does not exist upon our wrecked
planet.
Neither the SHOWS Of Himalaya nor the sands
OF Sahara can outvie Its terrors.
No inhabitant is there, not even a savage
no house, no tree, no shrub, no fence nor
road, no field nor garden, no horse no dog
not even a snake or a wolf.
Lone, blasted and barren, it looks like the
skeleton of a land that has persisted.
1t may indeed be that Desoation is the relic
the surviving fragment-of a continent that
went down here countless ages ago, with hosts
Of inhabitants, in some vast convulsion of
nature
1t has certainly undergone dreadful vista
tons; been rent by earthquakes, pulverized
by frosts. dashed and wasted by fierce tempests.
Its mountains are only of moderate height,
but are capped externally with snow.
Its vegetation Is limited to few dwarfish
plants, including some moses, a species of
hchen coarse grass, q plant resembling a
small cabbage, and sort of cress.
1t winds are raw ana piercing its summers
cold and frosty, its winters those of the Polar
Circles.
The interior of the island is occupied by
immense boggy swamps, where the ground
sinks at every step.
The rains in Desolation are almost incessant,
in their season, and the island is accordingly
veined with numerous torrents Of fresh water,
some OF which have worn oct of the solid rock
tremendous cavities and gullies. The only
other season than that Of the rains is one OF
almost constant snow.
The fogs. of that CHASTITY region are well
worthy Of the rains, being Of a cloud-like
density, and lowering almost continually over
the whole face of the island.
The sun of Desolation is usually hidden by
q canopy Of lead-colored clouds and appears,
on the rare occasions when il is visible scarcely
brighter than the moon in other lati.udes. As
to the moon itself, and the stars, the clouds
and fogs rarely permit them to betray their
existence.
No fishes worthy of note, not even fishes of
prey, abound in the adjacent waters, by rea-
son. perhaps, Of their containing poisonous
minerals, or deadly exhalatlons from the vol
canic fires beneath them.
Yet the dark grim sea inclosing Desolation
has done something to repair the sterlity Of
the island.
Penguins, ducks, gulls, comorants and
harbors.
Seals also abound.
Strange and terrible land
Not asingle human being, 90 far as is known,
has ever lived there, save as is now to be re-
corded in these pages.
Near the middle Of dull, dismal afternoon,
some eleven weeks later than the date Of the
preceding events, the good thip Flying Childers
drew near to the island Of Dissolution. shaping
her course toward its northernmost bay, called
by Capt. Cook Christmas Harbor.
A fair breeze was blowing from the north,
and the ship was carrying every stitch Of her
canvas, including studding-sais.
Her crew-both watches-were busy about
the deck. and her passengers-a score in num-
gathered in groups, mostly forward,
and we're gazing with great interest upon the
wild. rugged shores before them, SO far as the
fog suspended upon those shores permitted
them to become visible.
The ship had come here for water, nearly all
her water casks having been stove or started
during squat ten days previously, and every
soul aboard of her having been since that date
upon short allowance.
Upon the quarterback stood Capt. Luke
Pedder, looking unusually happy, with Will.
Hawley beside him.
II mean to get our water aboard before
dark, Capt. Pedder. and so avoid losing anight
here, said the young executive, totally uncon-
scious Of tho plot to leave him alone on the
desolate island and Of the extraordinary adj
ventures which were before him. The strange
eventa that hanpencd there and indeed the