esult of all this being known at the Cape. What was the result must be
reserved for another chapter.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

It was about two hours past mid-day, that a boat came from the shore,
and a gentleman in plain clothes stepped from the boat on to the ship,
and inquired if Mr Peterson was on board. I was sitting in the cabin,
reading, and the gentleman was shown down into the cabin, and I was told
he came to visit me. The gentleman, who was old, but tall and erect,
looked at me very critically, and then said, "Is your name Julius
Peterson?"

"Yes," I replied, "that is my proper name, but I have been renamed by
the Caffres."

"You of course remember your father," said the gentleman; "can you
describe him to me?"

I gave a very accurate description of my father, and then of our
compound and bungalow at Delhi. In reply to the gentleman's inquiry, I
gave the details of our journey to Calcutta, and of our voyage,
shipwreck, etc.

"You have no papers, or anything about you, which could prove you are
the person you represent yourself to be?" said the gentleman.

I laughed as he made this remark, for I could not see how I could be any
one else but myself; when, however, I saw how serious the gentleman was
in making this inquiry, I began to reflect that there was really no one
who could know me, and that my own statement was the only evidence of my
identity. After several other questions the gentleman informed me that
his name was Rossmar; that he lived at Wynberg, near Cape Town; that he
was well acquainted with my uncle, who had written to him some time
after I had left India, to meet me at the Cape if the ship touched there
on her voyage home. He then told me of the anxiety my friends had
suffered when nothing was heard of our ship, and at last they had
concluded that we had all gone down with the ship. Mr Rossmar
apologised for having asked me so many questions, but he said that cases
had happened where a shipwrecked boy, or man, had after some years
represented himself as some other person, who really had been drowned,
so that he had merely used common caution. He then congratulated me on
my escape, and said that he hoped I would come to his house and make it
my home until I received instructions from my father or uncle, both of
whom he said, by last accounts, were well.

I explained to Mr Rossmar that I had neither clothes nor money, and was
scarcely in a condition to accept an invitation to a ho