Chapter Seven.
A World on a Weed.
A pair of penguin “squabs” makes an ample dinner for the entire party, nor is it without the accompaniment of vegetables; these being supplied by the tussac-grass, the stalks of which contain a white edible substance, in taste somewhat resembling a hazel-nut, while the young shoots boiled are almost equal to asparagus. (Note 1.)
While seated at their midday meal, they have before their eyes a moving world of nature, such as may be found only in her wildest solitudes. All around the kelp-bed, porpoises are ploughing the water, now and then bounding up out of it; while seals and sea-otters show their human-like heads, swimming among the weeds. Birds hover above in such numbers as to darken the air, some at intervals darting down and going under with a plunge that sends the spray aloft in showers white as a snow-drift. Others do their fishing seated on the water; for there are many different kinds of water-fowl here represented—gulls, shags, cormorants, gannets, noddies, and petrels, with several species of Anativae, among them the beautiful black-necked swan. Nor are they all seabirds, or exclusively inhabitants of the water. Among those wheeling in the air above is an eagle and a small black vulture, with several sorts of hawks—the last, the Chilian jota (Note 2). Even the gigantic condor often extends its flight to the Land of Fire, whose mountains are but a continuation of the great Andean chain.
The ways and movements of this teeming ornithological world are so strange and varied that our castaways, despite all anxiety about their own future, cannot help being interested in observing them. They see a bird of one kind diving and bringing to the surface a fish, which another, of a different species, snatches from it and bears aloft, in its turn to be attacked by a third equally rapacious winged hunter, that, swooping at the robber, makes him forsake his ill-gotten prey, while the prey itself, reluctantly dropped, is dexterously re-caught in its whirling descent long ere it reaches its own element—the whole incident forming a very chain of tyranny and destruction! And yet a chain of but few links compared with that to be found in and under the water, among the leaves and stalks of the kelp itself. There the destroyers and the destroyed are legion, not only in numbers, but in kind. A vast world in itself, so densely populated and of so many varied organisms that, for a due delineation of it, I must again borrow from the inimitable pen of Darwin. Thus he describes it:—
“The number of living creatures of all orders, whose existence entirely depends on the kelp, is wonderful. A great volume might be written describing the inhabitants of one of these beds of seaweed. Almost all the leaves, excepting those that float on the surface, are so thickly encrusted with corallines as to be of a white colour. We find exquisitely delicate structures, some inhabited by simple hydra-like polyps, others by more organised kinds. On the leaves, also, various shells, uncovered molluscs, and bivalves are attached. Innumerable Crustacea frequent every part of the plant. On shaking the great entangled roots, a pile of small fish-shells, cuttle-fish, crabs of all orders, sea-eggs, star-fish, sea-cucumbers, and crawling sea-centipedes of a multitude of forms, all fall out together. Often as I recurred to the kelp, I never failed to discover animals of new and curious structures... I can only compare these great aquatic forests of the Southern Hemisphere with the terrestrial ones of the inter-tropical regions. Yet, if in any country a forest were destroyed, I do not believe so many species of animals would perish as would here from the destruction of the kelp. Amidst the leaves of this plant numerous species of fish live, which nowhere else could find food or shelter; with their destruction, the many cormorants and other fishing-birds, the otters, seals, and porpoises, would perish also; and lastly, the Fuegian savage, the miserable lord of this miserable land, would redouble his cannibal feats, decrease in numbers, and perhaps cease to exist.”
While still watching the birds at their game of grab, the spectators observe that the kelp-bed has become darker in certain places, as though from the weeds being piled up in swathes.
“It’s lowering to ebb-tide,” remarks Captain Gancy, in reply to an interrogation from his wife, “and the rocks are awash. They’ll soon be above water, I take it.”
“Jest so, Captain,” assents Seagriff; “but tain’t the weeds that’s makin’ those black spots. They’re movin’ about—don’t you see?”
The skipper now observes, as do all the others, a number of odd-looking animals, large-headed, and with long slender bodies, to all appearance covered with a coat of dark brown wool, crawling and floundering about among the kelp, in constantly increasing numbers. Each new ledge of reef, as it rises to the surface, becomes crowded with them, while hundreds of others disport themselves in the pools between.
“Fur-seals they are,” (Note 3) pronounces Seagriff, his eyes fixed upon them as eagerly as were those of Tantalus on the forbidden water, “an’ every skin of ’em worth a mint o’ money. Bad luck!” he continues, in a tone of spiteful vexation. “A mine o’ wealth, an’ no chance to work it! Ef we only had the ship by us now, we could put a good thousan’ dollars’ worth o’ thar pelts into it. Jest see how they swarm out yonder! An’ tame as pet tabby cats! There’s enough of ’em to supply seal-skin jackets fur nigh all the women o’ New York!”
No one makes rejoinder to the old sealer’s regretful rhapsody. The situation is too grave for them to be thinking of gain by the capture of fur-seals, even though it should prove “a mine of wealth,” as Seagriff called it. Of what value is wealth to them while their very lives are in jeopardy? They were rejoiced when they first set foot on land; but time is passing; they have in part recovered from their fatigue, and the dark, doubtful future is once more uppermost in their minds. They cannot stay for ever on the isle—indeed, they may not be able to remain many days on it, owing to the exhaustion of their limited stock of provisions, if for no other reason. Even could they subsist on penguins’ flesh and tussac-stalks, the young birds, already well feathered, will ere long disappear, while the tender shoots of the grass, growing tougher as it ripens, will in time become altogether uneatable.
No; they cannot abide there, and must go elsewhere. But whither? That is the all-absorbing question. Ever since they landed the sky has been overcast, and the distant mainland is barely visible through a misty vapour spread over the sea between. All the better for that, Seagriff has been thinking hitherto, with the Fuegians in his mind.
“It’ll hinder ’em seein’ the smoke of our fire,” he said; “the which mout draw ’em on us.”
But he has now less fear of this, seeing that which tells him that the isle is never visited by the savages.
“They hain’t been on it fur years, anyhow,” he says, reassuring the Captain, who has again taken him aside to talk over the ticklish matter. “I’m sartin they hain’t.”
“What makes you certain?” questions the other.
“Them ’ere—both of ’em,” nodding first toward the fur-seals and then toward the penguins. “If the Feweegins dar’ fetch thar craft so fur out seaward, neither o’ them ud be so plentiful nor yit so tame. Both sort o’ critters air jest what they sets most store by—yieldin’ ’em not only thar vittels, but sech scant kiver as they’re ’customed to w’ar. No, Capting, the savagers hain’t been out hyar, an’ ain’t a-goin’ to be. An’ I weesh, now,” he continues, glancing up to the sky, “I weesh ’t wud brighten a bit. Wi’ thet fog hidin’ the hills over yonder, ’tain’t possybul to gie a guess az to whar we air. Ef it ud lift, I mout be able to make out some o’ the landmarks. Let’s hope we may hev a cl’ar sky the morrer, an’ a glimp’ o’ the sun to boot.”
“Ay, let us hope that,” rejoins the skipper, “and pray for it, as we shall.”
The promise is made in all seriousness, Captain Gancy being a religious man. So, on retiring to rest on their shake-down couches of tussac-grass, he summons the little party around him and offers up a prayer for their deliverance from their present danger, not forgetting those in the pinnace; no doubt the first Christian devotion ever heard ascending over that lone desert isle.
Note 1. It is the soft, crisp, inner part of the stem, just above the root, that is chiefly eaten. Horses and cattle are very fond of the tussac-grass, and in the Falkland Islands feed upon it. It is said, however, that there it is threatened with extirpation, on account of these animals browsing it too closely. It has been introduced with success into the Hebrides and Orkney Islands, where the conditions of its existence are favourable—a peaty soil, exposed to winds loaded with sea spray.
Note 2. Cathartes jota. Closely allied to the “turkey-buzzard” of the United States.
Note 3. Otaria Falklandica. There are several distinct species of “otary,” or “fur-seal”; those of the Falkland Islands and Tierra del Fuego being different from the fur-seals of northern latitudes.