The Wreck of the South Pole and Other Strange Tales — page 17: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

10 The Wreck of the South Pole. ship, and with the manners of a refined gentleman, came out and addressed them. There was nothing in his con- versation or his actions which would indicate a ship- wrecked man, or one pining in loneliness in that solitary place. On the contrary, he had the appearance of a man well satisfied with his surroundings, and he greeted the men politely and cheerily, but not with that joyous gratefulness which they were accustomed to find in men rescued from such a situation. He received their salutations there as coolly as if the meeting had occurred in the center of civilization. They entered his hut and he entertained them frugally, of course, but as politely as if the meeting had been in New York. Of course, their first inquiry was as to how he came there, and from what ship he was lost, and to these queries he replied briefly: “My name is George Wilding. I was shipwrecked off Cape Horn a year ago. Our ship was a whaler, home- ward bound. ‘Ten of us escaped in the long boat, but I alone survived. After weeks of drifting, my boat was thrown upon the reefs in front of this cove, smashed to pieces, and I borne in to shore by the tide.”’ This was all he told them then, but he afterward left this record of strange adventure. Gomicbook (E@)