Mismanagement at home delays the arrival
of the vessel that was to have taken
out to them provisions in the spring.
They catch a fox, and salt it for food.
They eat mice. They eat a penguin
and a shag. They eat the few mussels
and limpets they can find, they eat remains
of a dead fish that is washed on shore; finally
they eat sea-weed. One of the Cornish
fishermen dies first. They bury him under a
tree, and then separate to search feebly for
things eatable. The carpenter dies next, and
then another of the Cornish men. High
tides again sweep out of the cavern its
contents, and scatter far and wide the little store.
To attract attention to their cave, they paint
upon the rocks a large hand pointing to it,
and write underneath: "My soul wait thou
upon God. Trust in him at all times, ye
people." In August, four men only survive,
but the division of parties survives with
them: two linger and die at Earnest Cove:
two a mile distant at Cook's River. Captain
Gardiner, who planned and led the expedition,
is the last to die.

Two months too late, in October, a schooner,
called the John Davidson, despatched from
Monte Video to the rescue, came to
Spaniard's Harbour. There their captain found
the remains of the Cook's river party. The
boat was on the beach, with one person dead
inside; another man was dead on the beach
itself, completely washed to pieces; and a
third was buried. Books, papers, medicine,
clothing, tools, were strewn about. In spite of
rain, and spray, and wind, upon the stormiest
coast in the world, all journals were found,
and all were legible. Mr. Williams said, in
his worst distress, "he would not swap his
situation for or with any man in life. He is
happy beyond expression!" At about the
same time, the captain of the frigate Dido,
who had received orders from the admiralty
to ascertain the fate of Captain Gardiner and
his party, went with provisions to Picton
Island, and was directed, by inscriptions on
the rocks, written by men certainly not
unwilling to swap their situation. "Go to
Spaniard's Harbour." "You will find us in
Spaniard's Harbour." "Dig below." "A bottle
under this pole." He discovered the remains
of the party at Earnest Cove, with books and
papers, and gave Captain Allen Gardiner an
honourable burial.

Encouraged by the wonderfully practical
result of this first enterprise, the Patagonian
Missionary Society began the building of a little
vessel, doubled and strengthened to do service
in stormy seas, fitted and equipped for the
purpose of another mission to the Patagonians
and Fuegians. This was a yacht of eighty-
eight tons register, the Allen Gardiner. She
was to sail from Bristol, and was, on the first
of August, eighteen hundred and fifty-four,
ready for some one to take charge of her, but
it was not easy to find a captain and a crew.

It then happened that Captain W. Parker
Snow, a gentleman well known to the public
by his account of a voyage on the trace of
Sir John Franklin, a mariner who has crossed
at divers times nearly all latitudes, read in
his newspaper the advertisement of "Captain
wanted," for the yacht of the Patagonian
Missionary Society. Captain Snow is a sailor
who has written sea-sermons and prayers for
seamen, and who is as openly religious as
a man may be without seeking the special
homage of his neighbours, as a precious
vessel. He "did not like to see a mission
vessel wanting a captain," offered unpaid
service, was accepted, but informed that the
society desired to have all its working
members paid and under agreement—received,
accordingly, his salary, which was of insignificant
amount. He stipulated that his wife
should go with him, and so she went. Before
sailing, the captain three times, in writing,
offered to resign his appointment; for, he
became concerned at the unpractical way in
which everything was being done. He was
directed to employ no one who was not
strictly religious, and a member of the
Church of England; and "at length," he
says, "I obtained two pious officers and the
promise of two men. These, on paying their
expenses to Bristol, and giving them high
wages, joined the ship; and afterwards I
procured one more indifferent seaman, partly
blind; also a young man, a landsman, and a
Hindoo cook. These formed the whole of
my crew, with the exception of a boy sent
on board for the cabin. The latter, however,
proved so utterly useless, and was so bad, as to
make it frequently necessary for me to resort
to the authorities against him. In addition
to my small, too small a crew, I had to take
out a young man as surgeon to the land
party, another young man as catechist (that
is, a sort of teacher to the young members of
the mission and to the natives), a joiner, as
house-carpenter, and a mason. These four
formed the land party, and were to be located
upon some place to be selected on the West
Falkland islands, for a mission station and a
depôt."

From a book recently published by Captain
Snow, containing an account of his voyage,
we derive the substance of this article, and
we shall now simply set down his experience
of the benevolence and charity which find
their object in the Patagonians. His impression
may be an erroneous one; we give it as
we find it, of course noticing the fact, that
this report comes from no scoffer at the
principle of distant missions; but from an honourable
gentleman, a sailor simply pious, who
would see nothing absurd on the face of a
missionary enterprise for the conversion of
Timbuctoo, but who, if he were connected with
it, would denounce it fearlessly, upon discovering
that it concealed any unworthy principle.

In getting the ship ready for sea, the
captain says, "I must observe that in no one
instance were my own expenses paid. Every