A PEEP AT THE FALKLAND ISLANDS.
Except to mariners who have rounded Cape Horn, this solitary group of islands is a veritable terra incognita. Seldom visited, however, as the Falkland Islands have been in the past, their isolation promises to be yet more complete in the future, as soon as an inter-oceanic canal diverts commerce from the old to a new route. Up to the present time, they have served as a half-way house for sailing-vessels on their voyage round Cape Horn in need of provisioning, or for refitting such as have been disabled by the tempestuous weather which for a great part of the year prevails in those latitudes. It appears probable, however, that their usefulness for even these purposes is nearly at an end, and that their lonely inhabitants are doomed, like the surviving innkeepers of coaching-days, to pass the remainder of their lives in mourning over the memories of the past.
These islands have at various times belonged to France and to Spain; but since 1833, when they were annexed by the English government for the protection of the whale-fishery, they have formed part of the British possessions. The group consists of the islands of East and West Falkland, and upwards of a hundred others—mostly mere islets or sandbanks—which have a united area of nearly five million acres. The only settlement or town—if it may be dignified with that name—is Stanley, which is situated on a gentle slope of moorland bordering upon a narrow and nearly land-locked harbour in the island of East Falkland; but few of the houses in Stanley are well constructed, and these are occupied by the governor and colonial officers and a few successful traders. The remainder are rough-and-ready specimens of architecture, in the construction of which the timber of many an old shipwrecked hulk has been utilised. The climate, though generally damp, is extremely healthy, but very changeable. To-day, perhaps the sun may be shining, the air clear and exhilarating; but to-morrow you rise at daybreak, look out at the same landscape, and behold what a change is there! A thick driving mist has rolled in from the ocean, and enveloped all nature in its moist and chilly embrace. The soil is more adapted to pasturage than to cultivation, being similar in its character to the unreclaimed wild lands of northern Scotland and the Orkney and Shetland Islands. Large herds of wild cattle roam at will over the country, but are worth little except for their hides, there being no market for the beef. The greater portion of these cattle belong to the Falkland Islands’ Company, who own a marine store and general outfitting establishment at Stanley. This Company, a few years ago, embarked in sheep-raising, by way of an experiment, importing some common stock from Patagonia, and crossing them with cheviots. The experiment has proved a great success, and sheep-raising now forms the principal industry of the later settlers; several young Englishmen, with a few hundred pounds capital, having within the last few years settled on the islands for this purpose, their ‘stations’ ranging from twenty to one hundred and fifty thousand acres, the aggregate value of the wool annually exported to England amounting to nearly fifty thousand pounds sterling.
There being no roads or vehicles for internal traffic, as most of the country round Stanley is a huge morass, the owners of these sheep-stations are obliged to keep small sailing-vessels in which to visit Stanley for provisions, or send their wool there for shipment to England.
In respect of scenery, it cannot be said that nature has bestowed gifts on the Falklands with a too lavish hand. There is but one tree in the entire islands, and that solitary exception attempts to grow in the governor’s garden at Stanley, where it is protected by a wall from the cutting south wind, which ruthlessly nips off any ambitious shoot which presumes to peep over its restricted limits.
The population of the Falklands in 1877 was a little over thirteen hundred, nearly three-fourths of that number being males. Most of the inhabitants are English; but there are also a few Americans and Spaniards, the latter being the surviving descendants of the former masters of the islands. The government is vested in a Governor, aided by an Executive Council and a Legislative Council, both appointed by the Crown. The majority of the working inhabitants are fishermen, whose chief sources of profit are derived from annual visits to the New Shetland Islands, about six hundred miles south from Cape Horn, and to other breeding-grounds in the Falkland Islands, to hunt for seals and penguins, which are slaughtered in large numbers for their skins and oil.
The breeding-grounds or ‘rookeries’ of the penguins are generally situated in the shelter of some land-locked bay or break in the line of steep and rugged cliffs; and often occupy several acres, which are laid out, levelled, and divided into squares, with intervening streets, the whole as if done at the dictation of a surveyor. Along these streets, the penguins gravely waddle on their way to and from the water, presenting the appearance of squads of awkward recruits, or a still more striking likeness, as has been often remarked, to troops of little children toddling along in their white pinafores. They build no nests; but lay a single egg in some selected spot, the incubation being equally shared by male and female. Although so closely allied to the feathered kind, they are unable to fly, nature having only furnished them with short stumpy apologies for wings, resembling the flippers of a turtle, by means of which they are enabled to attain prodigious speed, when diving under water in pursuit of fish for food. Penguins, as well as seals, are doubly provided against the cold of the high latitudes which they frequent, by a layer of fat immediately inside the skin, which is also the depository of the oil extracted by the fishermen. In landing to attack and slaughter them in their rookeries with clubs and boat-stretchers, stealthy precautions are quite unnecessary, the poor dumb creatures looking on in a state of indifferent stupidity, without making any attempt to escape, whilst their companions are being knocked on the head all around them. Seal-hunting, or ‘fishing’ as it is usually termed, on the contrary, requires great skill and patience. Seals are gregarious as well as polygamous, and when they forsake the open seas for their breeding-places on shore, are very shy of intrusion, and take great care to insure the safety of their retirement, particularly in localities which have been previously visited by human beings. They invariably post sentinels on every commanding point, so that it is only by patient waiting and under cover of night the hunters are enabled to elude their vigilance and surprise them.
The hunting or fishing season being over, the fishermen return to Stanley with their harvest of skins and oil, which they sell to the traders, who, as may be imagined, buy at their own price, and eventually get the lion’s share of the profits. Not that this appears to bother the minds of the fishermen, who are a happy-go-lucky set of men, and by no means provident in their habits. When I was serving in the English squadron on the south-east coast of America, we visited the Falkland Islands as a rule once a year, and the admiral usually timed our departure from Monte Video so as to arrive there somewhere about Christmas. As soon as we were sighted by the lookouts, all was flutter and excitement in the settlement. The married ladies were soon elbow-deep in pie-crust and confectionery; while the only single lady in the colony commenced practising her most sentimental songs, and hunting up old bits of finery to set off her mature charms, with a grim determination to capture the maiden affections of some susceptible young naval officer.
For those of our number to whom shooting and fishing offered more attractions than did the allurements of female society, the Falkland Islands afforded a fine field. The tyro whose sole ambition is a pot-shot at a standing object, may revel there in unequalled opportunities of distinguishing himself, for, except in the vicinity of the settlement, the upland geese are so little, if at all, accustomed to the sight of man, that they show no signs of fear or flight at his approach, and consequently fall an easy prey to the young sportsman. But there are other kinds of game which give excellent sport to older hands. Several species of duck and teal, abundance of snipe, and an occasional swan, will give the hunter who can hold his gun straight a satisfactory bag—and a weighty one too, if he has to carry it. Moreover, if he be ambitious, and has at times indulged in wild dreams of slaying the king of beasts in his forest lair, he may console himself for not having done so, by killing that animal’s degenerate marine cousin, the sea-lion. I myself once very nearly did; that is to say, I came as near to doing so, as a sea-lion did to making an end of me. It happened in this way. A party of us had pulled in a boat up a small river in West Falkland, which, at some distance from its mouth, opened into a lake with an islet in the centre, upon the shelving shore of which we beached our boat, for lunch. This islet was covered with patches of tall tussac grass—a favourite haunt of sea-lions—but appeared to be perfectly desolate and devoid of animal life. While sauntering idly along, smoking my pipe, I was suddenly roused from a reverie by the most horrible roar, proceeding as it seemed to me from the very ground under my feet; and lo! from a bunch of tussac grass through which I was forcing my way, there arose an immense, savage-looking animal, with a row of most formidable tusks, and confronted me. I was so taken aback at my close and unexpected proximity to such a monster, that I confess my first thoughts were in favour of an ignominious flight, had not my enemy anticipated me by turning tail himself. Gnashing his teeth with a parting roar, he half-waddled and half-rolled down the bank and into the water, while I was desperately pulling at the trigger of my gun, forgetting in my agitation that it was only at half-cock.
Having nearly exhausted all that the Falklands present in the way of interest or pleasure, we now say our adieus, weigh anchor and put to sea.