The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Boats of the "Glen Carrig", by William
Hope Hodgson

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Title: The Boats of the "Glen Carrig"

Author: William Hope Hodgson

Release Date: December 29, 2003 [eBook #10542]

Language: English

Character set encoding: US-ASCII

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THE BOATS OF THE 'GLEN CARRIG'

Being an account of their Adventures in the Strange places of the Earth,
after the foundering of the good ship _Glen Carrig_ through striking upon
a hidden rock in the unknown seas to the Southward. As told by John
Winterstraw, Gent., to his son James Winterstraw, in the year 1757, and
by him committed very properly and legibly to manuscript.

By William Hope Hodgson

1907

_Madre Mia_

People may say thou art no longer young
And yet, to me, thy youth was yesterday,
A yesterday that seems
Still mingled with my dreams.
Ah! how the years have o'er thee flung
Their soft mantilla, grey.

And e'en to them thou art not over old;
How could'st thou be! Thy hair
Hast scarcely lost its deep old glorious dark:
Thy face is scarcely lined. No mark
Destroys its calm serenity. Like gold
Of evening light, when winds scarce stir,
The soul-light of thy face is pure as prayer.

I

The Land of Lonesomeness

Now we had been five days in the boats, and in all this time made no
discovering of land. Then upon the morning of the sixth day came there a
cry from the bo'sun, who had the command of the lifeboat, that there was
something which might be land afar upon our larboard bow; but it was very
low lying, and none could tell whether it was land or but a morning
cloud. Yet, because there was the beginning of hope within our hearts, we
pulled wearily towards it, and thus, in about an hour, discovered it to
be indeed the coast of some flat country.

Then, it might be a little after the hour of midday, we had come so close
to it that we could distinguish with ease what manner of land lay beyond
the shor