The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1904-09-15
FINDING THE .HoPE."
IBY NJ. OUAD.1

1 lB4 VI. NOAD.l
The British merchantmen Hope
had been lost on or near the Kerguelen
| ISLANDS, and / was one of the crew OF
the bark Rambler" sent out from
Sidney, Australia, to pick up informa-
ton as to her end Kerguelen proper
is an island 90 miles long by so to 90
wide, and is surrounded by a dozen
smaller islands and banks and reefs.
Two-thirds of the big island is bare
rock. and taken altogether it is one
OF the most inhospitable and forbid
ding spots in the Indian ocean.
Upon our arrival at the island, after
a tendious voyage, the bark was an
chored in a sheltered spot and two ex-
petitions sent ashore to search the
| coast east and west. While they were
at work the long boat was to run
search some of the smaller ones. 1t
was my luck to be detailed with one
of the land parties, and as it was sum-
mer time we had only couple of
muskets and GUN provisions to carry.
The admiralty chart of the islands.
shows over one hundred bays and
roadsteads in which ship may an
Choir, and all these had to be inspected,
or would have been had we not sooner
got trace of the missing ship. There
were hardly a hundred rods of straight
shore line to be found. At every lit
tie distance the waves seemed to have
eaten into the shore and made a cove,
and many of these were without a foot
of beach. In the first II miles we pass
ed IL bays in which a ship could ride.
On the third day of the expedition,
and when we had made about 80 miles,
we came to what looked like a large
river. The distance across was about
a quarter of a mile, and the water
very deep. We headed inland for
about a mile, and then found that our
river was but finger of the sea, stop
ping short at the base of a range of
cliffs. On the rocks and single on the
east side lay a mass of wreckage.
There were pieces of bulwark, an
Choir, a broken rudder, a lot of chains
and ropes and no end of planks and
beams. Eighty rods away was a rude
shelter constructed of boards taken
from this heap, and in the hut we
found several cooking utensils, a, sail
or'S SOU wester, a broken compass and
a seaman's chest. One of the boards
used in the flooring had belonged to a
ships long boat, and the first thing to
greet our eyes as we looked in was the
name Hope" We found it in two
other instances while overhauling the
wreckage, and there could be no doubt
of the identity of the vessel which had
met her fate in that lonely place.
The doomed vessel had driven into
the bay with the gale and the tide and
gone to pieces on the rocks before she
could anchor. The turn of the tide had
carried most of the wreckage out to sea,
but there was more left than we could
have turned over in a day. Just here
the ground fell away to the south and
was covered with stunted bushes. In
among them we found two
bales of cloth, black and rotten; two |
cabin stools, a sailors mess kit, and the
skeleton of a man, with fragments of
cloth still clinging to the bones. 1t was
strange enough that the Hope" should |
nave been driven into that narrow bay |
from the sea with a furious gale raging,
put it was stranger yet that any of her |
crew had lived out the disaster. She |
was probably dismasted outside, and in !
being wave-swept she lost most of her |
people, but two of the sailors certainly |
reached shore and lived on for weeks |
Or months.