te craft. When she reached the far-stretching
Jersey coast, dangerous even now to mariners who know it well, this
vessel was overtaken by storm, and soon became a hopeless wreck.

It might have been a very good thing if Elizabeth had concluded to end
her voyage as she began it. If she had put her valuables into her
hogshead, and then had jumped in herself and had asked some of the
sailors to fasten her up, there is no doubt that she would have floated
ashore, if she had known how to keep the open bunghole uppermost,--which
no doubt she did,--and would have saved all her possessions. If one must
float through stormy waves and great breakers, there is no safer way to
do it than in a hogshead, as has been proved by the man who in that way
navigated the fierce rapids at Niagara. But Elizabeth did not go back to
her hogshead. She took her chances with the rest of the people on
board, and with them was cast on the shore of New Jersey.

This shore was absolutely wild and bare, and what became of the others
who reached it, we do not know; but Elizabeth eventually wandered off by
herself, alone and lost in a strange land. If the people who had been so
much concerned about her connection with the Swedish throne had been
able to see her then, they would have been perfectly satisfied that she
would give them no further trouble. How she lived during her days of
wandering and solitude is not told; but when we remember that New Jersey
is noted for its berries and for its clams, and that it was probably
summer time when she was cast ashore (for mariners would generally
calculate to arrive at the settlement in good weather), we may give a
very good guess at Elizabeth's diet.

It was not very long before she found that there was another wanderer in
this desolate and lonely place. She met with a white hunter named
Garrison; and very much surprised must he have been when his eyes first
fell upon her,--almost as much surprised, perhaps, as if he had come
upon a stranded hogshead, with a human voice calling through the
bunghole to be let out.

When a possible heiress of a royal crown meets with a solitary hunter,
probably poor and of no family to speak of, her reception of him depends
very much upon surrounding circumstances. In this case, those
circumstances induced Elizabeth to look upon Garrison with more favor
than she had ever looked upon a king or noble, for there is no doubt
that she would have perished on that wild and uninhabited