Pierre Raymond de Brisson

This volume is comprised of three factual accounts of perilous situations experienced by French travellers. The first story takes place from 1816-1819 and is recalled by Charlotte Dard (née Picard). It begins with an overview of why Charlotte's father led his family away from Paris to sail to Senegal to improve their fortunes.

As it transpires, all of the Picards' fortunes turn bad from the moment their ship runs aground after sailing too close the the shore of the Sahara Desert. Most of the many passengers aboard the ship take to the smaller boats, 150 board a raft, some remain on the ship.

Supplies are not shared evenly and as luck would - or rather wouldn't - have it, the Picard family - that is Charlotte, her sister Caroline, her father, her step-mother, her three half-siblings, and two cousins - are forced to live on dire rations. At length they have to survive on 1/8 of a biscuit and a tiny amount of water per day.

When desperation reaches its height the surviving members on most of the boats decide to risk going on shore and brave travelling along the scorching desert. Charlotte - who I believe to be aged 18 at this stage - recalls the suffering she endured with the merciless sun burning down on her unprotected head and how her shoeless feet suffered on the boiling sands. At times they were forced to pass over thorny ground or thistles, thus cutting their bare feet. Raging thirst was a constant torture for often they went hours without a drink.

When at last the survivors of the desert trek reach Senegal the story, for me, becomes less interesting. The Picards endure much more misery during their time in Africa, and although reading Charlotte's recollections evoked my sympathy, I felt there was too much detail to keep me engaged in transpiring events.

In short, this first tale of torment is worth reading from the shipwreck through to the end of the desert journey, but most of what follows would've been better reading had Charlotte stuck to the more important events, rather than describing many smaller matters in fine detail. I'm just glad that she was one of the few that survived every cruel torment thrown at her and eventually returned to France.

The second recollection in this volume took place in 1785. This time Frenchman M. De Brisson recalls how the negligence of a ship's captain resulted in them running aground, forcing them to head over to the shore, where they were either killed by Arabs or captured as their slaves.

M. De Brisson was one of few slaves to survive the heat of the African desert and return to France but not till after a long time in captivity. I believe his mental strength helped him prevail in his bid to freedom.

Similar to the first story, this one starts off engaging, but veers off towards the end. After recalling his path to freedom M. De Brisson recalls a lot of the finer details about the Arabs, their way of life, their religion, etc., but I skipped over most of this as I didn't find it particularly interesting with it being after they principle events in the story.

Th third recollection is entitled: ACCOUNT OF THE ADVENTURES OF MADAME GODIN DES ODONAIS,IN PASSING DOWN THE RIVER OF THE AMAZONS,IN THE YEAR 1770.

This is recalled in second-hand by Madame Godin's husband. Unfortunately, his way of relating the story proved tedious to me, with pages of condensed text with little of interest on offer. His wife's survival in the forest, after she and her party were tipped from their canoe, is not a long tale. Her ordeal is sandwiched between, what seems to me, a lot of waffle. It's a shame Madame Godin could not have been the one recalling her experience first-hand, though perhaps it was too painful for her to do so.

This collections is available for free download from Project Gutenberg. I recommend it for the first two true tales of survival.… (mehr)