II.

There is a shallow bay in which the ship anchored in fifteen fathoms on the east side of the island; and there, as in Tristan, a narrow belt of low ground, extending for about a mile along the shore, is interposed between the cliff and the sea. A pretty waterfall tossed itself down, about the middle of the bay, over the cliff from the plateau above. A little way down it was nearly lost in spray, like the Staubbach of Schaffhausen, and collected itself again into a rivulet[1], where it regained the rock at the lower level. A hut built of stones and clay, and roofed with spars and thatch, lay in a little hollow[2] near the waterfall, and the two Germans, in excellent health and spirits, but enraptured at the sight of the ship and longing for a passage anywhere out of the island, were[3] down on the beach, waiting for the first boat. Their story is a curious one[4], and as Captain Nares agreed[5] to take them to the Cape, we had ample time to get an account of their adventures, and to supplement from their experience such crude notions of the nature of the place as we could gather during our short stay[6].

Frederick and Gustav Stoltenhoff are sons of a dyer in Aix-la-Chapelle (+Aachen+). Frederick, the elder, was employed in a merchant’s office in Aix-la-Chapelle at the time of the Franco-German war (1870). He was called on to serve in the German army, where he attained the rank of a lieutenant, and took part in the siege of Metz and Thionville. At the end of the campaign he was discharged, and returned home to find his old situation filled up.

[1] +gestaltete sich jedoch wieder zu einem kleinen Bache.+

[2] +Vertiefung+, f.

[3] = stood. Consult S. 5, N. 2.

[4] = very (+höchst+) curious.

[5] = granted them their request.

[6] Let the student endeavour to construe this passage by means of the attributive construction, which will prove excellent practice.

_Section 235._

A CURIOUS STORY.