Beschreibung:

Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton (1874-1922) Autograph letter signed ('your loving brother Ernest') to his sister Eleanor, 'At Sea' [ Hoghton Tower , Indian Ocean], 24 April [1893], 3½ pages, 12mo (worn at folds, the lower half of f.2 detached); with an envelope inscribed by Emily Shackleton 'a very precious letter given me years ago by Eleanor Shackleton'. Provenance : Eleanor Shackleton. Lady Shackleton, and thence by descent. One of the earliest known letters by Shackleton, written as a nineteen year-old during his apprenticeship as a merchant seaman. 'How would you like to be in Mauritius where you can buy a whole big juicy watermelon for 6d?'. The letter describes some of the wildlife of Mauritius - 'there are not monkeys here like there were in India' - and the curious 'crackling sound' to be heard issuing from an isolated house, which turns out to be a Chinese temple where 'the Chinese [are] letting off crackers in honour of their God'; the letter ends with a promise to bring Eleanor a present 'better than the one I sent in Chittagory'. Shackleton served his entire probation and apprenticeship from June 1890 to July 1894 aboard the Hoghton Tower , carrying cargo between Liverpool, South America and the Far East. The ship had deposited a cargo of rice at Mauritius, where the crew was hit by fever, Shackleton particularly badly - a subject on which he is characteristically reticent. A few days after the present letter the Hoghton Tower arrived in Newcastle, New South Wales. Eleanor Hope was the fourth of Shackleton's eight sisters; she became a nurse, inspired, according to her own account, by her older brother's independence of spirit.