Chapter Thirteen.
The Exploring Expedition.
Eiulo—Pearl-Shell Beach—A Warlike Colony—An Invasion Repelled.
“They linger there while weeks and months go by,
And hold their hope, tho’ weeks and months are past;
And still at morning round the farthest sky,
And still at eve, their eager glance is cast,
If there they may behold the far-off mast
Arise, for which they have not ceased to pray.”
For a number of days we remained upon the islet where we had first landed, seldom visiting even the adjacent shore. During this time we subsisted upon cocoa-nuts and a small species of shell-fish, resembling mussels, which we obtained in abundance from the ledges of the neighbouring reef, and which the little native told us, were used as a common article of food among his own people. We had reason to feel grateful that, while we were as feeble and incapable of exertion as we found ourselves for some days, food could be so readily procured. It was also fortunate that during this period the weather continued remarkably fine and mild, with no perceptible variations of temperature; for I have little doubt that in the reduced and exhausted condition in which we then were, and being without any effectual shelter, two or three days of bad weather would have cost some of us our lives. The nights were dry and mild, and no dew seemed to fall upon the islet: thanks to this genial weather, and to abundance of nourishing food, we began rapidly to recover strength.
Some time passed before we thought of making any attempt to penetrate or explore the island. We were, naturally, very reluctant to admit even to ourselves, the probability that our stay upon it was to be of any long duration; and we did not therefore feel as much interest in its character and resources as we should otherwise have done. All our thoughts and hopes ran in one channel. We looked for the coming of a ship to rescue us from our dreary position; and every morning and evening, at least, and generally many times a day, some one of us climbed into the tuft of an inclining palm, to take a careful survey of that portion of the ocean, which could be seen from our side of the island. The thought of acting in any respect as though the lonely spot where we now found ourselves was destined to be our permanent abode, was in fact too painful and repugnant to our feelings to be willingly entertained; we were content therefore, to provide for our daily wants as they arose, without anticipating or preparing for the future.
A few days passed in this unvaried and monotonous routine, seemed in reality a long period; recent occurrences began to assume the vagueness of things that had happened years ago. I remember particularly, that, in looking back at the dreadful scenes of the mutiny, and our subsequent sufferings at sea, the whole seemed unreal, and more like a horrible dream, than an actual part of our past experience.
We soon found that this inert and aimless mode of living—this state of passive expectation, while awaiting the occurrence of an event which we could do nothing to procure or hasten, was a most miserable one: though our physical strength was in a great measure recruited, there was no increase of cheerfulness. Except when engaged in procuring food, or making our daily surveys of the ocean, (which was all our occupation), we were dispirited and listless.
Arthur perceived the evil of this state of things, and set himself to devising a remedy.
We had been at the island about two weeks, when he proposed, one morning, that we should go over to the mainland and commence a search for water, making an excursion a little way into the interior, if it should prove necessary.
Max objected to this, saying that we had no need of water, since we could, without doubt, obtain cocoa-nut milk as long as we should be obliged to remain upon the island, and that by going into the interior, out of sight of the ocean, we might lose an opportunity of being rescued.
To this, Arthur replied, that the exclusive use of cocoa-nut milk was considered very unwholesome, and was supposed to be the cause of certain dropsical complaints, common among the natives of many of the Pacific islands; that beside; it was by no means certain that a supply of it could be obtained throughout the year. He finally suggested the possibility that our stay on the island might be longer than we anticipated, in which case its resources, and the means of subsistence which it afforded, would be matters of great interest to us. In regard to the danger which Max seemed chiefly to fear, he said that we should seldom altogether lose sight of the ocean, but might, on the contrary, obtain a wider view of it from other parts of the island. I warmly seconded Arthur’s proposal, for I perceived the probable beneficial effects of effort, or occupation, of almost any kind. Morton also was decidedly in favour of it; and Johnny, who had recovered strength and spirits wonderfully within the last few days, was quite enthusiastic for the excursion. He calculated confidently upon our discovering a creek of fresh water, full of fishes and lobsters, and cited the history of the Swiss family Robinson, in support of the reasonableness of these expectations; declaring that for us part, he could not see why we might not count upon equal good fortune with them. Browne seemed indifferent about the matter. The little native, (whose name, upon Arthur’s authority, I shall write “Eiulo,” though “Iooloo,” comes nearer to the sound, as he himself pronounced it), shared in Johnny’s delight in prospect of the expedition; indeed, the two had already become the best friends in the world, notwithstanding the difficulty of communicating with one another, and seemed to harmonise in every thing. The excursion was accordingly determined upon, and this being so, there was nothing to prevent our setting out at once.
Morton proposed that, instead of undertaking to penetrate into the interior, we should keep along the shore to the northward, as by that means some idea might be gained of the extent of the island; and since any considerable spring or stream must find its way to the sea, we should also be more likely to discover water, than by pursuing the other course. Along the southern shore, the land was lower and less uneven than in the opposite direction, and held forth a slighter prospect of springs or streams. The difficulty of holding a straight course through the forest, where we should be without any means of ascertaining the points of the compass, was a consideration of great weight, and Morton’s plan was at last adopted, as being upon the whole the best.
The sun was not more than half an hour high, when we pushed off from the shore of the islet, and rowed over towards the mainland. The morning was fine and clear, and either the fresh, bracing sea-air, or the stir and excitement of setting out upon our expedition, had an exhilarating influence, for we gradually became quite cheerful, and even animated; and the faces of my companions began to brighten up with more of the old familiar expression, than I had seen there for many a day.
The merest breath of a breeze just stirred the crisp leaves of the palms upon the neighbouring shore; the tiny wavelets rippled softly upon the snowy, shell-spangled beach, or, out in the lagoon, danced and sparkled in the sunlight; still further out and just beyond the barrier that fenced in this quiet and secluded scene from the open ocean, we could see the huge blue rollers with their foaming crests surging high into the air; and the heavy booming of the surf, as it thundered upon the reef, might be heard for miles around, amid the prevailing silence. Beyond this again, stretched away to the horizon, the blue, swelling arch of the ocean—a clear, deep, intense blue, contrasting beautifully with the paler blue of the sky, against which it was relieved, and with the emerald expanse of the lagoon.
Browne gazed about him with more interest than I had yet seen him manifest in any thing since we had reached the island. He inhaled the fresh morning air with the appearance of actual relish and enjoyment and at last, to my surprise, (for Max had accused him, not without some reason, of having been the most lugubrious of our party), he began to sing to a brisk and cheerful tune—
“O, happy days of hope and rest
Shall dawn on sorrow’s dreary night,
Though grief may be an evening guest,
Yet joy shall come with morning light!
The light of smiles shall beam again,
From lids that now o’erflow with tears,
And weary hours of woe and pain,
Are earnests of serener years.”
“Well,” said he, as he finished his song, “this may be a desert island, but I will defy any one to gainsay that the morning is delicious, and the scene a right lovely one.”
“I am glad you begin to wake up to it,” said Morton, “it looks very much as it has at this hour for ten days past.”
“No, no,” protested Browne, “this bright, clear atmosphere makes a very great difference in the appearance of things: we have had no such mornings as this.”
“I wish you could manage to enjoy it,” said Max, “without missing every other stroke, and digging me so unmercifully in the back with your oar-handle; if you can’t, I must ask you to change seats with me, and let me take the bow-oar.”
“How natural and refreshing that sounds!” cried Morton, laughing; “it is a sure token that prospects are brightening, and serious dangers are over, when we find ourselves again in a condition to scold about trifles.”
“It isn’t such a trifle, to be thumped and mauled with the butt of an oar, as I have been all the while Browne was singing, and rhapsodising, and going into ecstasies about the beauty of the morning; which is just such another as we have had ever since we have been here; all the difference being in his feelings, which happen to be a shade or two less doleful than usual, and so cause things to look brighter.”
“Perhaps you would have me believe,” answered Browne, “that the sun will invariably shine when I chance to be in good spirits, and that a thunder-storm would be the natural consequence of my having a fit of the blues?”
“I should be sorry if that were the case,” replied Max, “as we should then be sure to have a large average of bad weather.”
“This excursion reminds me of our school-days,” said Arthur; “it almost seems as though we were once more starting off together, on one of our Saturday rambles, as we have so often done on fine summer and autumn mornings at home.”
“I think I shall never forget those forays through the woods,” said Morton, “over hill and hollow, in search of nuts, or berries, or wild-grapes, or meadow-plums—the fishing and swimming in summer, the snow-balling, and sledding, and skating, in winter! an innocent and happy set of urchins we were then!”
“Really,” said Max, laughing, “to hear you one would suppose that we were now a conclave of venerable, grey-haired sages, scarcely able to remember the time when we were children, and so full of wisdom and experience, that we had long ago ceased to be ‘innocent and happy.’”
“Without professing to be so wise or experienced, as to be very unhappy on that account,” returned Morton, “I suppose I may say that I am old enough, and sufficiently changed since those days, to feel, as I now look back upon them with a sigh, their peculiar happiness, so unlike any thing that after-life affords.”
“How singular it is,” said Browne, “that you four who were playmates when children, should have happened to keep together so long.”
“And still find ourselves together on an island in the Pacific Ocean, thousands of miles from home,” added Arthur.
“After quitting school,” continued Browne, “I never met with any of my comrades there. Of all the mates with whom I used on the Saturday half-holydays, to go gathering hips and haws, or angling in the Clyde, I have not since come in contact with one.”
“It don’t seem at all like Saturday to me,” said Johnny, who for some minutes past had appeared to have something on his mind, as to the expediency of communicating which he was undecided; “I was afraid that it was Sunday, every thing is so still; but I hope it is not, for Arthur would not think it right to start upon an exploring expedition on Sunday, and so it would be put off.”
“Truly,” said Browne, “that is extremely flattering to the rest of us. Do you think we are all heathens, except Arthur? I, for one, have no notion of becoming a savage, because I am on a desert island; I shall go for maintaining the decencies of Christianity and civilisation.”
“Does any one know what day it really is?” inquired Morton.
Max said he believed it was Monday. Arthur thought it was Wednesday, and added that he had memoranda, from which he had no doubt he could fix the day with certainty.
“It was on Friday,” said Max, “that the mutiny took place, and that we got to sea in the boat.”
“Yes,” said Arthur, “and it was on Wednesday night, I think, five days afterwards, that we landed here.”
“Five days!” cried Max. “Do you mean to say that we were but five days at sea before reaching the island?”
“I think that is all,” replied Arthur, “though the time certainly seems much longer. Then, if my calculations are correct, we have been here just two weeks to-day, so that this is Wednesday. But,” continued he, “as our heavenly Father has thus guided our little bark safe through this wilderness of waters, let us celebrate the day of our landing on this ‘Canaan,’ by making it our first Sabbath, and our grateful voices shall every seventh day, from this, be lifted up in praise and thanksgiving for the mercy thus vouchsafed to us.”
While this conversation was going on, we reached the shore. Johnny scrambled eagerly to the bow, anxious to be the first to land, and he attained this object of his ambition, by jumping into the water nearly up to his waist, before the boat was fairly beached. Then, after gazing around him a moment with exclamations of wonder and admiration, he suddenly commenced running up and down the wide, firm beach, gathering shells, with as much zeal and earnestness, as though he was spending a holiday by the sea-side at home, and could tie up these pretty curiosities in his handkerchief, and run back with them in five minutes to his father’s house. There was certainly some ground for Johnny’s admiration; just at the spot where we had landed, the shore was thickly strewn, in a manner which I had never before seen equalled, with varieties of the most curious and beautiful shells. They were of all sizes, and of every conceivable shape and colour. The surfaces of some were smooth and highly polished; others were scolloped, or fluted, or marked with wave-like undulations. There were little rice and cowrie shells; mottled tiger shells; spider shells, with their long, sharp spikes; immense conches, rough, and covered with great knobs on the outside, but smooth and rose-lipped within, and of many delicate hues. There were some that resembled gigantic snail shells, and others shaped like the cornucopias, used to hold sugar-plums for children. One species, the most remarkable of all, was composed of a substance, resembling mother-of-pearl, exquisitely beautiful, but very fragile, breaking easily, if you but set foot on one of them: they were changeable in colour, being of a dazzling white, a pearly blue, or a delicate pale green, as viewed in different lights. Scattered here and there, among these deserted tenements of various kinds of shell-fish, were the beautiful exuviae and skeletons of star-fish, and sea-eggs; while in the shallow water, numerous living specimens could be seen moving lazily about. Among these last, I noticed a couple of sea-porcupines, bristling with their long, fine, flexible quills, and an enormous conch crawling along the bottom with his house on his back, the locomotive power being entirely out of sight.
Johnny seemed for the moment to have forgotten every thing else, in the contemplation of these treasures; and it was not until Arthur reminded him that there was no one to remove or appropriate them, and that he could get as many as he wanted at any time, that he desisted from his work, and reluctantly consented to postpone making a collection for the present.
Having drawn the boat high up on the beach, and armed ourselves with a cutlass apiece, (Johnny taking possession of the longest one of the lot), we commenced our march along the shore, to the right, without further delay.
We had by this time scarcely a remaining doubt that the island was uninhabited. No palm-thatched huts occupied the open spaces, or crowned the little eminences that diversified its windward side; no wreaths of smoke could be seen rising above the tops of the groves; no canoes, full of tattooed savages, glided over the still waters within the reef; and no merry troops of bathers pursued their sports in the surf. There was nothing to impart life and animation to the scene, but the varied evolutions of the myriads of sea-fowl, continually swooping, and screaming around us. With this exception, a silence like that of the first Sabbath brooded over the island, which appeared as fresh, and as free from every trace of the presence of man, as if it had newly sprung into existence.
With the continued absence of every indication of inhabitants our feeling of security had increased to such an extent, that even Johnny ventured sometimes to straggle behind, or to run on before, and occasionally made a hasty incursion into the borders of the grove, though he took care never to be far out of sight or hearing of the main body. Soon after starting, we doubled a projecting promontory, and lost sight of the boat and the islet. The reef bent round to the north, preserving nearly a uniform distance from the shore, and was without any break or opening.
The forest in most places, extended nearly to the beach, and was composed chiefly of hibiscus, pandanus, and cocoa-nut trees, with here and there a large pisonia, close to the lagoon. One gigantic specimen of this last species, which we stopped a moment to admire, could not have been less than twenty feet in girth. Max, Morton, Arthur, and myself, could not quite span it, taking hold of hands, and Johnny had to join the ring, to make it complete. For several hours we continued our journey pretty steadily, encountering no living thing, except tern, gannets, and other sea-birds, and one troop of gaudy little paroquets, glittering in green, and orange, and crimson. These paroquets were the only land-birds we saw during the day. Max pronounced them “frights,” because of their large hooked bills, and harsh discordant cries. They certainly gave Johnny, a terrible “fright,” and indeed startled us all a little, by suddenly taking wing, with loud, hoarse screams, from a hibiscus, beneath which we were resting, without having observed that they were perched over our heads.
When it was near noon, and we had travelled, as we supposed, making allowance for delays and deviations, some six or eight miles, the character of the shore suddenly changed. The white, shelving beach, and the dense groves meeting it near the water, now disappeared, and were succeeded by an open strip of land, bordering the lagoon, strewed with huge, irregular fragments of coral rock, and seamed with gullies. The line of the forest here receded some distance from the shore, leaving a broad rounded point, embracing a large area of low and barren ground, covered thinly with a growth of stunted shrubs, and a few straggling, solitary looking trees. The lagoon was at this point quite shallow, and low rocks and coral patches appeared above the surface, at short distances apart, nearly to the centre of the channel. The reef opposite, was entirely under water, and its position was indicated only by a line of breakers. A large portion of the point, comprising several acres, was covered with the rude nests of various aquatic birds. Many of these nests were occupied even at that hour, and the birds seemed in no wise alarmed, or even disturbed by our approach. When we came very close to any of them, they would survey us with an air half angry, and half inquisitive, stretching out their long necks; and screwing their heads from side to side, so as to obtain a view of us first with one eye, and then with the other; this seeming to be considered indispensable to a complete and satisfactory understanding of our character and intentions. After a thorough scrutiny, they would resume their former appearance of stupid indifference, as though we were creatures altogether too unimportant to merit further notice. They all, without exception, seemed perfectly tame and fearless, and quite ready to resent any infringement upon their rights.
Johnny, while inspecting too closely the nest of one of them, curiously constructed of long stiff reeds, resembling rods of steel, suddenly received, as a rebuke for his impertinence, a blow from the wing of the offended owner, which laid him sprawling upon his back.
Notwithstanding this severe lesson, the gentle and amiable aspect of a large white bird, so far reassured him, that he ventured to make some friendly advances, whereupon he got so severely pecked, that he at once gave up all further attempts at familiarity with any of them. This harsh treatment, in fact, so disgusted Johnny with the whole race of sea-birds, and so impaired his faith in their innocent and inoffensive looks, that he declared he would never have any thing more to do with them, “since that beautiful white bird had bitten him so savagely, when he only offered to stroke its neck.”
Some of these birds were very large and strong: in several of the unoccupied nests I saw eggs, as large as those of the duck: they were of different colours some of them prettily speckled or mottled, but most were of an ash colour, or a whitish brown. Eiulo pointed out two kinds, which he said were highly prized for food, and which, as we afterwards found, were, in fact, nearly equal to the eggs of the domestic duck.
The heat had by this time become exceedingly uncomfortable, and we concluded to halt until it should abate a little, at the first convenient and pleasant spot. Leaving the shore, which, besides being unsheltered from the sun, was so rugged with crevices and gullies, and great irregular blocks of coral, as to be almost impassable, we entered the borders of the wood, and took a short cut across the point. Johnny, in imitation of the desert islanders of the story-books, desired to give appropriate names to all the interesting or remarkable localities with which we became acquainted. He had already christened the little island on which we had first landed, “Palm-Islet,” and the spot upon the opposite shore, abounding in brilliant shells, had, from that circumstance, received the impromptu name of “Pearl-shell Beach.” He now proposed to call the point, “Cape Desolation,” from its waste and forbidding aspect; but finally fixed upon “Sea-bird’s Point,” as being more appropriate, the birds having, in fact, taken possession of nearly its entire area, which, judging from the warlike spirit they had displayed, they were likely to hold against all comers. Having crossed the point and reached the lagoon again, we found that the shore resumed its former character. The forest again extended nearly to the beach, but it was more open, and not so thickly wooded as before, and the trees were of a finer growth, and in much greater variety; many of them being of kinds unknown to any of us. We had not proceeded far, after regaining the beach, when we espied just such a resting-place as we were in search of.