There were two eighteenth-centurians, Edmund Tresillian, a Cornishman who lost a leg-in 1759 during the capture of Hood’s Vestal of the French Bellona off Cape Finisterre. Pensionless, and with a wife and seven children, he was reduced to begging. Caught stealing a purse, he died in prison of a fever while waiting for his trial. The second man, “Red” Cozens, had been a midshipman on the Wager, a rebuilt Indiaman merchant accompanying Admiral Anson’ s flotilla on its voyage around the world. It had been wrecked off the coast of Patagonia. After innumerable sufferings and hardships, part of its crew had gotten to civilization, where the Spanish government of Chile imprisoned them for a while. However, poor Cozens had been shot and killed by a Captain Cheap a few days after the wreck in the mistaken belief that he was a mutineer.
John Byron, the poet’s grandfather, also a midshipman then, had criticized Cheap for this in The Narrative of the Honourable John Byron (Commodore in a Late EXPEDITION round the WORLD) Containing An Account of the Great Distresses Suffered by Himself and His Companions on the Coast of Patagonia, from the Year 1740, till their Arrival in England, 1746, etc., London, 1768.
Frigate had owned a first edition of this book, in which he had found a description of an animal encountered by Byron which had to be a giant sloth.
He would have liked to have run across Byron. The little man had to have been incredibly tough to survive his experiences. Later, he had become an admiral, nicknamed “Foul Weather Jack” by his sailors. Just about every time he put out to sea, his fleet was hit by a bad storm.
Other interesting crew members were a late-twentieth-century Rhode Island millionaire and yachtsman; an eighteenth-century Turk, a bos’n’s mate who had died of syphilis, a common sailor’s disease then; and Abigail Rice, Earthly wife of an early-nineteenth-century second mate on a New Bedford whaler. Binns, the yachtsman, and Mustafa, the Turk, were obviously in love with each other.
As Peter would find out later, Cozens, Tresillian, and Chang shared Abigail Rice. This made Frigate wonder what she had been doing while her husband was spending two to three years chasing whales. Perhaps nothing she shouldn’t have been doing. Perhaps she had been so sexually starved on Earth that she had exploded here.
And then there was Umslopogaas. Pogaas for short. He was a Swazi, son of a king of that South African nation which had been enemies of the great Zulu people. He had lived during the expansion of the British and the Boers and the conquests of the bloody military genius, Shaka. On Earth, he had killed twelve warriors in duels; here, at least fifty.
He would have been unnoticed by history, despite his fighting prowess, if he had not happened to be attached in his old age to the mission of Sir Theophilus Shepstone. With Shepstone was a young man, H. Rider Haggard, who had been much attracted by the stately figure and the tall stories of the old Swazi. Haggard was to immortalize Umslopogaas in three novels, Nada the Lily, She and Allen, and Allan Quatermain. However, he made the Swazi a Zulu, which must have disturbed his model.
Now Pogaas lounged near the ship, leaning on a long-handled war-axe of flint. He was tall and slim and his legs were extraordinarily long. His features were not Negroid but Hamitic, thin lipped, hawk nosed, and high cheek boned. He seemed friendly enough, but there was something about his bearing that told all but the most insensitive that he was not to be trifled with. He was also the only person on the crew who did not help handle the ship. His specialty was fighting.
Frigate was tinkled pink, when he discovered the identity of this man. Imagine that! Umslopogaas!
After talking to various crew members, Frigate went back to a spot near the two officers. From what he heard, they were in no hurry to get to any particular place. The captain did, however, comment that he would like to get to the headwaters of The River some day. Which was, to say, in a hundred years or so.