CHAPTER XVII
A new land, new to us, only a faint tint above the horizon, but land it is, we know; merely an outline of faint soft blue-grey mountains over the sparkling morning sea.
All night we waited and watched for its lights, but not till daylight did we have the pleasure of seeing “land”! Land rising out of the waters after even a week at sea is very gratifying, like food after hunger, like health after illness.
We have made a good land fall—we find ourselves heading straight to the centre of San Miguel, the largest island of the Azores group, within a few yards of the point we aimed at from Belfast; thanks to three skilled navigators, for we would have passed the islands miles to W. if we had not corrected compass by sun bearings, a procedure which demands very scientific knowledge of navigation.
So it is a case of a shave to-day, and getting out thin land clothing, with an occasional turn on deck between the operations to gloat on the blue hazy mountains.
We must bring a harpoon or two on deck to show our real character, for our queer craft, with its three guns forward, might make the Portuguese wonder what our intentions might be, especially as our full papers are being mailed out to Cape Town, and we must try to avoid any more red tape entanglements.
Gradually the hazy land is lit by the rising sun; some rays penetrate the veil of clouds that hangs over the mountains. We see greenish tints and white specks, and with the glasses make out that these are houses, apparently farms with a light and dark green tartan of fields and hedges round them.
Above the little fields are peaks with scrub or trees up to the clouds, below the cultivated land there is a steep coast like North Devon, covered with shrubs and cliffs, on which the sea sends up white shoots of foam.
As the sun rises the horizon becomes quickly blue—southern blue, but towards the land the clouds still keep the light subdued over sea, hills, glens, and peaks. The sea has awakened but the land seems still to sleep. Dolphins come from seaward and welcome us, and alas, one poor fellow goes away blazed with a harpoon mark; he was very nearly becoming food for the poor human creatures on board St Ebba, but the harpoon drew!
This island, St Michael or San Miguel, is undoubtedly like Madeira, without quite such extremely rugged peaks.
We plan staying one day in port to overhaul the engine, and there to get a large-sized chart and local information about whales, then to patrol round the islands for a week, and, if whales are here, perhaps longer. If not, we go to Madeira, thence southwards with the advancing season.
How exquisite is the colouring of the white and pink houses against the green and violet of the hills. Now the sun is in full blaze and the sea intensely blue. We drop sail and fly a little white flag, with blue square in centre for a pilot, and swing in from the south to Ponta Delgada, and with the glass make out a pilot’s flag and a six-oared grey pilot boat coming towards us over the little blue waves. The light grey long-boat swings alongside; the crew are in pale blue uniforms, with dark blue berries, their faces brown or sallow, eyes, hair, and moustaches black as coal.
We got a slight shake after the pilot came aboard, we had stopped our engine for him to come alongside, and in trying to start again found it would not work. However, fifteen minutes of the little steam-engine we rigged up in Belfast brought up enough air pressure to start them. In the seven days’ run from Belfast some fouling must have collected somewhere, possibly in the cylinders. The interval I put in usefully, talking to the pilot by means of some half-a-dozen words of Spanish and Portuguese and a good many English, plus sketch-book and pencil. With the last I find, after years of practice, a great deal can be expressed—half-a-dozen strokes gave an idea of the lie of the islands, and a dot or two from the pilot showed where he knew whales are occasionally being killed by local shores’ boats, so we feel that at last we are actually on fishing ground. His pilotage was very simple—he merely guided us to buoys, to which we made fast inside the breakwater.