The first edition of this book is dated 1848 posth.. The edition used is dated 1883. The publisher was George Routledge and Sons. The number of pages is 413.

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General information

Captain Frederick Marryat was born July 10 1792, and died August 8 1848. He retired from the British navy in 1828 in order to devote himself to writing. In the following 20 years he wrote 26 books, many of which are among the very best of English literature, and some of which are still in print.

Marryat had an extraordinary gift for the invention of episodes in his stories. He says somewhere that when he sat down for the day’s work, he never knew what he was going to write. He certainly was a literary genius.

“The Little Savage” was published in 1848, the twenty-sixth book to flow from Marryat’s pen. It was completed after his death by a member of his family. It is intended for children, and its religious overtones are in contrast to Marryat’s other works. He was far from irreligious, but this book is definitely in a different style.

This e-book was transcribed in 1998 by Nick Hodson, and was re- formatted in 2003, and again in 2005.

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Contents

Chapter I.
I am about to write a very curious history, as the reader will agree with me when he has read this book.

Chapter II.
The reader must understand that the foregoing remarks are to be considered as referring to my position and amount of knowledge when I was seven or eight years old.

Chapter III.
I left him, and commenced a careful descent of the precipices by which we were surrounded, but, before I had gone fifty paces, another flash of lightning was followed up by a loud shriek, which arrested my steps.

Chapter IV.
I then went down to the water’s edge to see if I could find anything from the wreck, for the water was smooth, and no longer washed over the rocks of the island.

Chapter V.
For three days did Jackson lie on his bed; I supplied him with water, but he did not eat anything.

Chapter VI.
I can hardly describe to the reader the effect which these conversations with Jackson had upon me at first.

Chapter VII.
I did not on the following day ask him to resume his narrative relative to my father and mother, as I perceived that he avoided it, and I already had so far changed, as to have consideration for his feelings.

Chapter VIII.
“I wish you to understand,” said he, “that my unwillingness to go on with my history proceeds from my being obliged to make known to you the hatred that subsisted between your father and me; but if you will recollect, that we both had, in our early days, been striving to gain the same object—I mean your mother—and also that he had taken, as it were, what I considered to have been my place, in other points—that he had been successful in life, and I had been unfortunate, you must not then be surprised at my hating him as I did.

Chapter IX.
“A year passed away, during which I was thus employed. At last, the birds made their appearance, and after we had laid up our annual provision, I was freed from my task, and had only to share the labour with others.

Chapter X.
Jackson threw himself back in his bed-place and was silent. So was I, for I was recalling all that he had told me, and my doubts were raised as to the truth of it.

Chapter XI.
I then went out of the cabin and took my usual seat, and began to reflect upon what I had heard.

Chapter XII.
What I most thought of was obtaining from him, now that he was dying, the full truth as to the deaths of my father and mother.

Chapter XIII.
“One thing, however, was evident, that your mother had an aversion—I may say a horror—of me, which she could not conceal.

Chapter XIV.
I was now, by Jackson’s account, nearly fourteen years old. During fourteen years but one vessel had been seen by us.

Chapter XV.
At last the birds came, and I procured some of their eggs, which were a very agreeable change, after living so long upon dried meat.

Chapter XVI.
I have before said that, tired of repeating the words of the songs which Jackson had taught me, I had taken those of Psalms in metre, at the end of the Prayer-book, by way of variety; and, as far as metre went, they answered very well, although people would have been surprised to have heard Psalms sung to such quick and varied measure.

Chapter XVII.
I arrived early, skinned both the seals, and dragged the skins up from the water side, though with difficulty, especially that of the large one, to the rock where I had taken up my quarters the night before.

Chapter XVIII.
It was early in the morning, and yet dark, when I felt something touch me.

Chapter XIX.
As soon as the sail was lowered, the men leaped over the sides of the boat into the water, and waded to the rocks.

Chapter XX.
Nero, who was an early riser, woke me up at daybreak, or I should have slept much longer; for I had been tired out with the fatigue and excitement of the night before.

Chapter XXI.
There was one thing which had made a great impression on me in the conversation with the men in the morning.

Chapter XXII.
I now resolved to speak to her relative to the belt which contained the diamonds; and I was first obliged to narrate to her in a few words what Jackson had told me.

Chapter XXIII.
I heard what she said, but my head was too confused to weigh the words.

Chapter XXIV.
I awoke the next morning quite recovered from my illness of the day before, and was out of the cabin before Mrs. Reichardt, who still remained behind the screen which she had put up after I had gone to sleep.

Chapter XXV.
When we met the following morning, my mother, as I shall in future call her, said to me, “This will be a busy day, Frank, for we have a great many arrangements to make in the cabin, so that we may be comfortable.

Chapter XXVI.
I must say that I was much better pleased with the appearance of the cabin, it was so neat and clean to what it had been, and everything was out of the way.

Chapter XXVII.
Mrs. Reichardt had promised to give me a history of the Bible; and one day, when the weather kept us both at home, she thus commenced her narrative:—

Chapter XXVIII.
The following morning, I went with Nero to take a couple of fish out of the pool.

Chapter XXIX.
“I am the daughter of a parish clerk in a small market-town near the southern coast of England, within a few miles of a large seaport.

Chapter XXX.
“It was about this time that I first became acquainted with an orphan boy, an inmate of the workhouse, who had been left to the care of the parish, by the sudden death of his parents, a German clockmaker and his wife, from a malignant fever which had visited the neighbourhood, and taken off a considerable portion of the labouring population.

Chapter XXXI.
It is impossible for me to overrate the value of Mrs. Reichardt’s assistance.

Chapter XXXII.
As soon as I could disconnect my tackle from the dead fish, I turned my face homewards, and struck out manfully for the shore; luckily I did not observe any sharks.

Chapter XXXIII.
“Our good minister Dr. Brightwell,” she commenced, “was a man of considerable scholastic attainments, and he delighted in making a display of them.

Chapter XXXIV.
“Time passed on. With all, except myself, Heinrich Reichardt appeared to be forgotten; in the opinion of all, except myself, he had forgotten our house, and all the friends he had once made there.

Chapter XXXV.
Mrs. Reichardt was obliged to break off her narrative, where it concluded at the end of the last chapter.

Chapter XXXVI.
I could not prevail upon Mrs. Reichardt to embark in my craft, the fate of my first passenger, which she had witnessed from the shore, had deterred her from attempting a voyage under such unpromising circumstances.

Chapter XXXVII.
I had several times pressed Mrs. Reichardt for the conclusion of her story, but she had always seemed reluctant to resume the subject.

Chapter XXXVIII.
“His reputation had now grown so great, that whatever he required was readily granted.

Chapter XXXIX.
“Things went on in this flourishing way for several years; my husband, deeply impressed with the responsibility of his position, as a chosen servant of God, devoted himself so entirely to the great work he had undertaken, that he often seemed to overlook the claims upon his attention of her he had chosen as his partner in his struggle against the powers of darkness.

Chapter XL.
Mrs. Reichardt’s story made a sensible impression on me. I no longer wondered at the pallor of her countenance, or the air of melancholy that at first seemed so remarkable; she had suffered most severely, and her sufferings were too recent not to have left their effects upon her frame.

Chapter XLI.
The perils of my first voyage had deterred me from making a similar experiment; but I recovered my boat, and having further strengthened it, fitted it with what could either be turned into a well or locker: I used to row out a little distance when the sea was free from sharks and fish.

Chapter XLII.
I had become tired of looking out for a ship. Though day after day, and week after week, I made the most careful scrutiny with my glass, as I have said, it brought no result.

Chapter XLIII.
Had the cows or horses been alive, they must have been left behind, for we could not have removed them; but the smaller animals were with comparatively little difficulty got on deck, and they descended with me into the boat.

Chapter XLIV.
Although my first experimental voyage had proved so hazardous, now that I was better provided for meeting its perils, I became anxious to make another attempt to circumnavigate the island.

Chapter XLV.
Vainly I stretched my eyes around the illimitable field of ocean, in hope of discerning some indication of that power whose ships I had been told traversed every sea; but nothing like a vessel was in sight—the mighty waters stretched out like an endless desert on every side.

Chapter XLVI.
The morning dawned upon a boundless expanse of sea. The first object that presented itself to my sight was an enormous whale spouting water, about a quarter of a mile distant from me; then I observed another, then a third, and subsequently, several more: they presented a singular and picturesque appearance, as one or other of these vast animals was continually throwing up a column of water that caught the rays of the sun, and looked very beautiful in the distance.

Chapter XLVII.
Five days and nights had we been drifting at the mercy of the winds and waves; all our small stock of food had been devoured—though we had hoarded every crumb, as the miser hoards his gold.

Chapter XLVIII.
My numerous pursuits, as I stated in a preceding chapter, obliging me to constant occupation, kept me from useless repining about my destiny, in being obliged to live so many years on this far-distant corner of the earth.

Chapter XLIX.
The captives were grouped together, some sitting, and some standing.

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