ALONE ON A TINY ISLAND.

“For a week,” said Mr Bagshawe, on his arrival at Christiania, “I was absolutely alone, and I have never felt so miserable in all my life. I didn’t know whether the party would reach the whalers’ base safely or not, and when fogs and the blizzards came up I was very anxious concerning them. Lester had promised to come back and stay with me till the leader returned with a ship, but at times I was haunted by the dread that disaster had overtaken the boat and I was left stranded there. My home was on a tiny island, not 30ft above the water level at the highest point, and my habitation an old, abandoned boat, which we had rigged up as a temporary hut, with the aid of sides taken from packing-cases. For companions I had a few dogs and some thousands of penguins, while occasionally a huge sea elephant would flounder ashore and stare at me. You can imagine my relief a week later to see a little catcher steaming up, towing the lifeboat. Lester was aboard the catcher, which departed after he had landed.

“Our first job was to make ourselves as comfortable as we could during our stay, The winter was rapidly approaching, and we had no suitable place in which to live during the months when the cold was intense. There was the old, abandoned boat, lying on a narrow sloping neck of land, and resting at an angle of 9 degrees, and at the after end the sea came up sometimes under the boat, while at the other end the water was only a few feet away.”