Page:Calcutta, Past and Present.djvu/251

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CALCUTTA: PAST AND PRESENT

Europeans and natives. The officers and passengers mentioned in the accounts given in the papers of the time were the commander, Captain Coxon, and his three officers, Messrs. Logie, Shaw, and Beall; the purser, Mr. Hay; the chief mate's wife, Mrs. Logie; and passengers, Colonel and Mrs. James, Mr. and Mrs. Hosea with their daughter; two other girls, Miss Denis and Miss Wilmot; little Thomas Chambers, and another child, and Captain Adair, Mr. Nixon, and Mr. Newman, besides two native women, servants to Mrs. Hosea and Mrs. Logie.

Cast among savages who grew ever bolder and more threatening,—hampered by the sick, the injured, and the weakly,—cut off from every prospect of escape by sea, the unfortunate cast-aways essayed the impossible task of marching through an unknown and hostile country, in the hope of reaching the Dutch settlement five hundred miles away. Starting in a body, they soon broke up into parties, the strongest hurrying forward trusting to be able to reach their goal and bring back help to their weaker companions. Gradually the numbers dwindled, disease, privation, and exposure destroyed those who escaped the hands of the savages, and, in the end, of all that crowded ship's company eighteen alone survived to return to their friends. Of these,

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