The daily morning journal and courier., 1904-05-28

starvation-A Penguin City.
 Especial Correspondence of the Journal
 and Courier.)
 In the South Atlantic, April IS, 1904.
 Our most obliging friend, the English governor of the Falklands, gave us the use of his steam-yacht another week, that we might make pious pilgrimage to the place where the first Protestant missionaries who came to this part of the new world died a cruel and finger ing death of starvation. It is away down in the neighborhood of Cape Horn, on one of the hundreds of un- named islands that fairly crowd these stormy waters, at a point appropriate ly called Starvation Beach," Proba- bly, you have heard of Captain Allen Gardiner, a gallant officer of the Brit ish navy, who gave his best years, his fortune, and finally his life, in fruitless endeavors to improve the social and moral condition of the aborigines of these parts. Being zealously reli- gious man, he conceived the idea that he was called upon to go about the world preaching the gospel to every creature" and rescuing heather brands from the burning. In pursuance of this motion. he circumnavigated the globe four times. He visited the Zulus in Southern Africa, the cannibals of far islands and the fiercest tribes of other remote places. At one time, with a single companion, he spent a year in the deserts of Patagonia; at another, bent on the same errand, he took his family to reside in the Falkland Is- lands, which were then uncolonized ex- cept as a convict station; and later de- voted himself to the Tierra del Fue- goans, vainly attempting to establish friendly relations with them. His first station in the inhospitable archipelago was on Picton Island; but the unappre- lciative savages whose welfare he had so much at heart, plundered him of ev- Ieraything and he was compelled to flee to save his life. Returning to England, with pious ardor unabated, though he had spent all his own fortune without Apparently accomplishing a particle of good, he went about the country lectur- | ing to obtain money enough to make lanother trial-which resulted in his death. The ninth and last time he left England on missionary work, he brought six companions to Tierra del Fuego, all of whom were as heathen- crazed as himself They were Dr.
 Richard Williams, London surgeon
 who gave up good practice to follow his religious convictions; MT. John
 Maidment, 9 preacher of Liverpool;
 Joseph Erwin, mechanic; and three Cornish boatmen. Establishing them selves at the place now called "Starva- tion Beach, they experienced a series of misfortunes which soon reduced them to eating mice, decayed fish and
 sea-weed to sustain life. Meanwhile the London mission, under whose aus pices they came, paid no attention to their necessities and failed to send the promised supplies. After year of horrible suffering, during which the little party displayed a degree of hero ism worthy the martyrs of old, they
 died, one by one, from slow starvation. Curiously enough, after all these years,
 the scene of the tragedy is frequently visited by representatives of the same society that allowed it's first missona- ries to starye-now comfortably estab- lished in the Falklands, and their schooner in which the trips are made lis named the "Allen Gardiner" Every hour of our journey thereto was de- lightful, iii spite of snow squalls, sud- den gales and frosty weather. Slowly 1 threading the narrow channels that lwind in every direction between innu- lmerable islands-most of them un- known bits of volcanic soil, not marked
 on any map or chartTthe scene was awe-inspiring and yet so peaceful that lit was difficult to realize that we were
 only a few miles removed from that
 dreadful waste of water where two mighty oceans rush together in cease less conflict. This portion of Tierra del Fuego is wholly unknown to the world lat large, and unvisited except by a few lventursome sealers, who confine their loperations to the edges of the outer is- Hands. Here are bits or scenery com lpared to which the Thousand Islands lof the St. Lawrence dwindle to insigni- lficance. Huge precipices meet the eye, land mountains covered with snows that have never borne the impress of a
 human foot Some of the islands have ia strange mottled appearance, owing to Indian fires that have burned the loli- lage off in places; some are of clayey iformation, others covered with black llava but most of them are green, vel lvety and undulating. Narrow passages jbarely wide enough for canoes, though locean deep, lead off in labyrinthine lfashion nobody knows where, between ldark rocks and ragged peaks. Anon we
 come upon sheltered coves that are
 dreams of beauty within sight of sil-
 very verdure-all backed by magnifi- cent snow-capped ranges. What
 charming places here for picnic parties l-barring the necessity of furs and overcoats and daily likelihood of snow-
 squalls. But how unutterably lone
 some! Not a sign of human habitation
 appears, not 9 sound to break the eter- Enal stiffness, nor a curling spire of
 smoke; never the song of a birl, or the lsmallest trace of animal life, or. any, iII.. ! IL