[Thomas Waters to his parents]
[from a transcript]
Guanape Islands
7 March 1870
Dear Father and Mother
Homeward bound but I must not hurrah until we round the wintry Cape Horn. Winter time too.
Blow the windy morning
Blow the winds heigh ho,
Clear away the morning dews,
Blow, blow, blow.
That’s the song we will sing. Everybody is happy, we are all homeward bound. Look out for me about July and tell Ben and the girls not to calculate to get any of my Father’s good strawberries this year for greedy Tom has his imaginative eye on them. I received a letter February 27th from Hook dated November and December and was very sorry to hear that Ben, my truly kind only Brother, was not well but I received a letter from Ben dated January 13th all well except little Tommy. I receive newspapers from Ben regularly, that is regularly for this part of the world and they are very acceptable. My address care of John Dawson Esq. Queenstown, Ireland and if Ben has any letters for me from Amy I wish him to send them to the above address immediately after I telegraph to him as perhaps I may only stay there a few hours as I only call for orders. If you have to pay postage on my letters from these parts do not blame me. Amy writes that she wishes I would pay the postage when I write to her, so that I suppose my friends have to do what I have to do, pay when they post and when they receive letters. The Peruvian, Paraguayan and other miserably governed countries out here have a peculiar but simple plan of paying their Post Office clerks, they give them little or no salary but wink at their privilege of stealing all they can, and whatever other failings these clerks may have no one can accuse them of not doing all their hand findeth to do in that line. Two sad accidents occured here to Captains, one was killed sea lion shooting and another one with a notorious negro whom the Captain had just shipped and a boy left the island at midnight in a small boat to proceed on board, the Captain had money and gold watch etc with him, nothing has been seen of them since – murdered or drowned. The Guanape Islands are a most miserable group of barren rocks, I do not wish to see them again, everything very dear and very poor and a murderous hole. I saw the sequel to a most desperate struggle for life, a bold British tar very powerful and as usual drunk and quarrelsome thought to amuse himself and gratify his noble propensities by pitching a small and inoffensive clerk ( who was stationed on a narrow projecting ledge to keep account of the guano laden boats) into the sea. The cliffs are precipitous and 300 or 400 feet high with sheer drops of 200 feet to the next lower ledge over-hanging the very deep water at the base. The poor clerk, a small but wiry man, seemed to know at once when he saw K Jack on the narrow ledge where two could not pass and where no help could come that his death warrant was near, he however struggled furiously in despair clutching to the rocks until his finger nails tore out, but in a few seconds both had passed to their account, Jack and his victim in their deadly embrace fell about 100 feet they struck on a projecting cliff which separated them, Jack bounded off into the sea and never rose until a week afterwards when my boat picked him up horribly disfigured. The poor Austrian clerk was caught on a ledge with his skull crushed, broken bones etc. I saw him five minutes after, a painful sight; his coffin was already making, a rough affair, he was buried with his blood stained dirty clothes and boots on just as he was picked up in less than one hour after the struggle and I presume that this scribble is about all that records or notices the event.
Hope your mushroom field is prosperous and that your green peas and horseradish are thriving. I expect that long before this you have likened me to the Lord Mayor’s fool that knew what was good. I will finish this on arriving at Payta [Paita, Peru].
So ends my 47th birthday.
‘When first our scanty years are told,
It seems like pastime to grow old’
Moore
Payta March 19th Sail today for Cork, all well.
Your ever affectionate son
Thomas Waters