Chapter Thirty Three.
Across Country.
It was a lovely morning, the loveliest that the shipwrecked people had seen since their landing on Kerguelen Land, when the little party started away from Penguin Castle, bidding adieu to the spot which for so many long months had given them a shelter and a home.
The sun was shining out brightly, the sky without a cloud, and the air felt quite warm, although with a freshness in it that just gave zest to movement; while the atmosphere had that peculiar opalescent translucency about it and an almost imperceptible colouring—in the faintest tints of light mauve and amber, with a shade of tender apple-green—which is rarely seen in more northern latitudes, excepting in those regions that are well within the borders of the Arctic circle.
Out in the bay opposite the creek, the water was as smooth as glass, undisturbed by the slightest breath of wind so as to cause a ripple; and numbers of baby puffins and young penguins, their spruce little downy bodies clad in bright new coats of silky feathers, were scattered in groups over the mirror-like expanse, diving and coming up again in a moment in the centre of a series of expanding circles that gradually grew wider and wider in diameter, as when a stone is flung into a still pond, only to disappear the next minute. Others were flitting along over the surface with the pinions of their little wings just dipped in the water, so that they flicked it up, in the short flights they took now and then in play and mimic pursuit of each other, like as rowing men do when they “feather” their oars too soon in lumpy water. Sometimes, the generally restless birdlets would rest tranquilly for a brief while on the bosom of the sea, chattering away like so many aquatic magpies in miniature mottled flocks; but this was only for a very short spell.
To the right of the creek, rising abruptly out of the sea, the black basaltic cliffs which formed such a bold headland to the bay stretched far out to where the extreme point of Cape Saint Louis could be seen, embracing within the compass of its arm the reef on which the Nancy Bell had been lost; and to the left, beyond the ridge at the back of the castaways’ dwelling, the higher ranges of the inland mountains, which seemed to run down to the southwards and eastwards as far as the eye could reach, stood up—towering in the distance above the hills immediately near in the foreground and lifting their snow-clad summits into the blue vault of the heavens.
The “travelling caravan,” as Mr Lathrope had styled the jolly-boat when he saw it first mounted on its broad-flanged, awkward-looking carriage, had been packed the night before with all the impedimenta of the pilgrims. Their few “goods and chattels and household effects” were stowed in and about below the thwarts, with the canvas bags containing the dried birds and Kerguelen cabbage which formed their stock of provisions ranged round the gunwales and crammed in anywhere; while a special place was kept clear and reserved in the stern-sheets for the accommodation of poor Captain Dinks, who was deposited here in his cot.
Pussy, who had been so happily saved from the wreck at the last moment and had since done such good service in demolishing the mice which infested the house, was placed alongside of the captain to keep him company, and he had also in charge a tame, or rather an educated penguin, that Master Maurice Negus had displayed considerable ability in training and which Mr Meldrum had allowed to be taken along with the other things as a reward for the “imp’s” services of late in assisting at the preparations of the expedition.
For some days prior to this, Mr Meldrum had been very busy taking short excursions in various directions, but all tending to the same point of the compass. He was endeavouring to find out which route would be the most practicable for reaching the eastern seaboard; and, after collecting all his observations into one harmonised whole and deliberating over the matter with Mr Lathrope and the first-mate, who had severally accompanied him in his various prospecting tours, the final course of the party was at length agreed on.
The bright morning appeared to all as an augury of success; so it was with light hearts that they set out.
They abandoned Penguin Castle in all its entirety, Mr Meldrum saying that possibly they might have to seek its shelter again; but, if happily there should arise no occasion for that eventuality, the building might still be of service to other shipwrecked men in a like extremity to themselves. Thus it came to pass that the place was left “all standing,” with rooms, furniture—such as it was—Snowball’s copper and the cooking range all intact. Even the flagstaff with Kate’s ensign at the peak was left hoisted, as if to show, that if deserted now, the spot had once been inhabited!
They were thirty-two souls in all now, reckoning the steward and the other four men of the mutineers who had come back in the longboat—which had to be broken up, by the way, after all, to form the jolly-boat’s carriage; and it was just “six bells in the forenoon watch” when they started, a team of the sailors, tethered in traces like a pack of Esquimaux dogs, hauling away at the boat-carriage and running it along merrily with a chorus of “cheerily men, cheerily ho!” The others tramped behind the queer vehicular conveyance, without respect of persons; only poor Captain Dinks being allowed a seat in the boat, while it travelled on land, and that only by reason of his helplessness and inability to move without assistance. When they had to take to the water, of course, the jolly-boat would have to carry more passengers.
On the way, sometimes, they had serious difficulties to encounter, for the ground in many places was moist and spongy, causing the feet of the men hauling to sink deeply into the soil as they tugged at the towing-rope of the jolly-boat’s carriage; but, as frequently Mr Meldrum remarked, to rouse the seamen’s energies, “difficulties were only made for brave men to conquer,” so at it they went with a will which soon overcame the dead weight of the load they had to drag behind them—a fresh towing team relieving the first at the expiration of every half hour, so as not to weary the men out by a too prolonged strain at such unusual exertion.
Bye and bye, they arrived at the end of their first “portage,” the shores of the little lake which Mr Meldrum had noticed trending in an eastward direction. This water would now considerably aid their passage across the isthmus by allowing the jolly-boat to take to its native element, on whose bosom it would be borne some miles on the onward way.
Here a halt was called and a short luncheon taken, after which the jolly-boat was safely launched on the water by backing it down on its carriage. This plan was easy as well as expeditious; for, as soon as the boat had reached its proper point of immersion, it floated off the wheels.
The ladies then got into the stern-sheets, alongside of the captain, accompanied by Mr Meldrum, while four of the seamen took their places on the thwarts in order to row them across—the remainder of the party stopping where they were, along with a portion of the packages that had been removed from the boat so as to make room for Mrs Major Negus and the others who went with her. The carriage belonging to the boat was also left behind until the latter should have deposited its first cargo on the other side of the lake and return to fetch a fresh load.
Three trips were taken before the whole party were thus transported over the lake, the boat’s carriage being then towed over at the last crossing.
It would be needless repetition to recount in detail all the different portages of the jolly-boat over the strips of land which lay between the chain of lakes that were spread over the line of their route; or, to tell the number of the trips by water that had to be made.
There were many unloadings of the little craft, and many packings-up again.
Many weary miles the poor unaccustomed pedestrians had to tramp, sometimes up-hill, sometimes down dale, through marshy lands and over stony boulders that blistered their feet; and all the while they had to drag after them that terrible Frankenstein-like monster, the jolly-boat mounted on its carriage, which seemed to the worn-out men sometimes a species of Juggernaut car, crushing out their spirits and sapping their every energy.
Suffice it to say, that, at the end of a fortnight’s time, they at length reached a magnificent stretch of blue water, which Mr Meldrum said was Hillsborough Bay, on the eastern side of Kerguelen Land.
Hurrah—they had crossed the isthmus, and arrived so far towards the end of their destination!
As they toiled over this neck of land which united the two principal peninsulas into which the island was divided, they could mark how, as had been noticed along the coast, the country was composed of a series of terraced hills, rising above a chain of lakes and lagoons that indented it deeply on either side and forming an endless succession of deep fords and harbours, the hills being almost invariably covered, from their crests down to a certain altitude, with perpetual snow. Below this line, their sides were clothed with green verdure, composed chiefly of a species of azorella and a rough spinated grass; while, the strangest feature of all was, that not a single tree, or plant approaching to the dimensions of a shrub, could be seen on any portion of the island!
The most charming characteristic of the scenery noticed, was the profusion of cataracts, cascades, and waterfalls, which leaped and sparkled from terrace to terrace of the basaltic net-work of peaks and ridges that ran here, there, and everywhere across the isthmus, enclosing the valleys and scarping the sea—the splashing of these natural fountains making soft music everywhere as the water gurgled down into tiny rivulets and brooks below, which stole their way along banks bordered by chickweed and liverwort into the lakes, and from the lakes into the ocean, only to be sucked up again by the clouds and deposited on the hills in the form of rain, forming the cascades and cataracts anew; and so on, da capo.