When finished the slab had a smooth, gritty surface slightly incurved from end to end, and the grinder designed to lie across it had its corners rounded smoothly off.
I set to work now to grind my corn as follows: The slab was propped up at a slight angle on a piece of canvas; on this slab the corn, a handful at a time, was sprinkled and then ground by rubbing the grinder up and down over it. As it became pulverized the meal would gradually drift down on to the canvas, the coarser particles rolling away to the edge of the heap, only to be scraped up and ground over again. This was, as you may imagine, tedious work. When I had accumulated about four quarts of meal, I felt that I had enough of grinding for once.
Now commenced the first act of bread-making proper. In a gourd I mixed about a pint of the meal with warm water and a little salt, and set it in a warm place over night, that it might have a chance to ferment. This was to be my yeast. In the morning the contents of the gourd were in a state of incipient fermentation, and I went out and fired up the oven to be ready for the grand final act. While the oven was heating I mixed up the rest of the meal with salt and water, and added the fermented meal to it, mixing the whole to a consistency such that it could readily be stirred. This I set near the fire in an earthen pan, and watched it from time to time. In about two hours it began to rise slightly, and the oven being fully ready I clapped the pan in and closed it up to bake. In an hour I opened the oven and took out a fragrant panful of nicely browned, light, and crumbling corn bread, as a reward for all my labors. Perhaps it was not so good as a skilled bread-maker might have produced, but it was sweet and delightful to me, and well repaid all my trouble, and both Duke and I rejoiced over it with our broiled bacon.
After this experiment bread-making was a regular thing. Sometimes I simply stirred up the raw meal with a little salt and water and baked it on the back of a shovel before the open fire,—hoe-cake fashion,—to be eaten brown and hot; but I generally made raised bread by the process which I have described, sometimes adding a modicum of pork fat for shortening.
CHAPTER IX.
THE GALLEON FOUND.
THE severe rains gradually ceased, until sunshine was the rule and rain the exception. I did not expect a season of absolute dryness, for in this locality rain prevails to some extent throughout the whole year, so that the vegetation rarely suffers from drought.
One morning, the sky being clear and a gentle breeze blowing from the southwest, Duke and I went aboard the boat,—which by the way, I had named the “Mohawk”—and started for a trial of the water-glass. We were soon on the ground, a mile to the north of the cape. Lowering the sails I put the glass over the side, with very little hope of success as the water seemed to have a cloudy appearance. It proved to be in such a condition that I could not see the bottom at all. I then put up the sail and ran in nearer the shore to where the depth was about thirty feet. Here I could see the sand and rocks and shells on the bottom very distinctly, and noted that there were streaks and veins of the murky water running through the more transparent portion.
Finding that nothing could be done in the way of investigation until the water became clearer, I stood out to the west until by a single tack I could make Farm Cove, intending to bring back a cargo of corn and some yams and potatoes. I found a few bushels of yams still in good condition, and noted with pleasure that many of the potatoes left in the ground had sprouted and the vines had already acquired quite a growth. With spade and shovel I turned to heartily, and cleared away the luxuriant growth of weeds which threatened to choke this volunteer crop. Then I loaded in my corn and started back, reaching home in time for supper.
The next two days I devoted to planting a patch of corn, hardly expecting to remain long enough upon the island to enjoy it, but thinking it wise to provide for an uncertain future. On the third day I went out again to try the water-glass, but the water was still lacking in transparency and there was nothing to do except to wait.
But while returning I thought of a thing that would be very useful to me in future expeditions, and that was to set up on the northern cape something which might serve as a guide to me in future operations. I had no compass and was obliged to guess the direction blindly by the sun. Now the Spanish admiral, when he reported that the galleon bore east of north from the point of rocks, and about a mile therefrom, probably spoke, as to direction at least, from actual observation of the compass, as a sailor would; for nobody knows better than a sailor the impossibility of guessing at direction without a guide. Indeed, the sailor, when he comes on deck, turns instinctively to the compass to orient himself and correct his sense of direction, because the course of the vessel may have changed half a dozen times during a watch below, without his knowledge. To one on board a vessel the parts fore and aft, starboard and port, below and aloft, have a fixed relation to each other, and one is apt to get a set impression as to direction from this fixed relation of familiar objects. Thus I have heard of an old sailing-master who was on board the same vessel for twenty years, and who declared that, no matter where the ship might be or upon what course, it always seemed to him that the head of his bunk lay to the north; that when at sea the most distressing thing to him was that the sun never rose in the same quarter two mornings in succession; and that it never rose in the east except on Long Island, where he was born.