Erebus: The Story of a Ship

by Michael Palin

These were extraordinary shows in front of extraordinary audiences, but after I had sold the last dead parrot and sung the last lumberjack song, I was left with a profound sense of anticlimax. How do you follow something like that? One thing was for sure: I couldn’t go over the same ground again. Whatever I did next, it would have to be something completely different.

He went on to complain that the ship’s cat got into his drawer and tore up six of his charts, but the cat was soon forgiven, for on the 19th she presented them with three kittens. ‘Such an event as that you may think nothing of, but to us it is a great deal, for a kitten tends to relieve the monotony of such a cruise as this.’

The remains of these little settlements, built in hope, lie about in disorder, but it’s a natural disorder. They were built to keep the elements away, and the elements are slowly claiming them back. This is living history. Time and decay are at work and we shouldn’t interrupt them.