We put in at the Falkland Islands in November. The population consisted of ex-Royal Marines and their families. It was considered necessary to populate the Islands; and we always send for the Royal Marines in any difficulty. There were also South American guachos and ranchers. The governor came on board to ask for the captain's help. The governor wanted a man to be hanged, and his { 54} trouble was that he was afraid to hang him. The prisoner was a guacho, who had murdered a rancher, whom he had cast into the river and then shot to death. The governor was afraid that if he executed the murderer, the other guachos would rise in rebellion. So he wanted the captain to bring the murderer on board and hang him to the yard-arm. The captain refused this request; but he offered to hang him on shore, a proposal to which the governor agreed. The boatswain's mate piped: "Volunteers for a hangman--fall in." To my surprise, half the ship's company fell in. The sergeant of Marines was chosen to be executioner. He took a party on shore, and they constructed a curious kind of box, like a wardrobe, having a trap-door in the top, above which projected the beam. The man dropped through the trap door into the box and was no more seen, until the body was taken out under cover of night and buried.
The shooting on that island was naturally an intense delight to a boy of my age. We midshipmen used to go away shooting the upland geese. I managed to bring aboard more than the others, because I cut off the wings, heads and necks, cleaned the birds, and secured them by toggling the legs together, so that I was able to sling four birds over each shoulder. The whole island being clothed in high pampas grass, it was impossible to see one's way. Officers used to be lost in the Falklands. The body of a paymaster who was thus lost was not discovered for eight years. The cold induced sleep, and a sleeping man might freeze to death.
Admiral Penrose Fitzgerald, in his _Memories of the Sea_, relating his experience as a midshipman in the Falkland Islands, says, "Everybody has heard of the Falkland Island geese, and they may be seen to-day in St. James's Park. The upland geese--as they are generally called--are excellent eating; but there are also immense numbers and different varieties of other geese and these are known as 'kelp geese.' Alas! our ornithological education had been so { 55} sadly neglected that we did not know the difference with the feathers on, though we soon found it out, when we came to cook and eat them. All the birds we shot were kelp geese, about as fishy as cormorants; but they were not wasted, for we gave them to our Marine servants, who ate them all and declared them to be excellent. 'Some flavour about them,' as they said."