been raised from the hold, and plundered, a part of their contents still
lying scattered on the decks. The ship, however, had been lightly
freighted, and the bulk of her cargo, which was salt, was apparently
untouched. A Danish ensign was found bent to the halyards, a proof that
Captain Truck's original conjecture concerning the character of the vessel
was accurate, her name, too, was ascertained to be the Carrier, as
translated into English, and she belonged to Copenhagen. More than this it
was not easy to ascertain. No papers were found, and her cargo, or as much
of it as remained, was so mixed, and miscellaneous, as Saunders called it,
that no plausible guess could be given as to the port where it had been
taken in, if indeed it had all been received on board at the same place.

Several of the light sails had evidently been carried off, but all the
heavy canvas was left on the yards which remained in their places. The
vessel was large, exceedingly strong, as was proved by the fact that she
had not bilged in beaching, and apparently well found. Nothing was wanting
to launch her into the ocean but machinery and force, and a crew to sail
her, when she might have proceeded on her voyage as if nothing unusual had
occurred. But such a restoration was hopeless, and this admirable machine,
like a man cut off in his youth and vigour, had been cast upon the shores
of this inhospitable region, to moulder where it lay, unless broken up for
the wood and iron by the wanderers of the desert.

There was no object more likely to awaken melancholy ideas in a mind
resembling that of Captain Truck's, than a spectacle of this nature. A
fine ship, complete in nearly all her parts, virtually uninjured, and yet
beyond the chance of further usefulness, in his eyes was a picture of the
most cruel loss. He cared less for the money it had cost than for the
qualities and properties that were thus destroyed.