The Cruise of the 'Alerte' / The narrative of a search for treasure on the desert island of Trinidad

by E. F. Knight

PICK AND SHOVEL.

As it was a Sunday there was no work done on the first day of my stay in camp; all hands had the usual holiday, which they chiefly employed in fishing, and in mending their clothes. I walked up the ravine and was surprised to find that so much of the landslip had been already removed. The trench was about twenty feet broad, and ultimately attained a depth of upwards of twenty feet in places. It extended for some distance along the face of the cliff—if that term can be properly applied to a steep slope of a sort of natural concrete, a compact but somewhat brittle mass of stones and earth. It was at the foot of this cliff that we expected to find the cave described by the pirate, but how far we should have to dig down through the accumulation of earth and rocks that had fallen from above and now filled up the bottom of the ravine it was not easy even to conjecture.

Our object, it will be seen, was to clear the face of the cliff until we came to the original bottom of the ravine. Though the cliff was, as I have explained, composed of brittle matter, as if in an intermediate state between earth and rock, and of comparatively modern formation, it was easy to distinguish it from the much looser soil of the landslip that lay along its sides; this last, too, was of a very different colour, being reddish brown, whereas the cliff was slate-blue.

The men had constructed several little paths leading from the trench, down the ravine, to the edges of the chasms and precipitous steps which are frequent in this gully, and the earth and stones that were dug out of the trench were carried down these paths in the wheelbarrows and tilted over the precipices. As we gradually filled up these chasms the roads had to be extended further down the ravine, and at last we had formed a great dyke which stretched right across it. I was satisfied that all the operations had been conducted with judgment, and, if the treasure were in the ravine at all, there was but little doubt that we should find it.

The same rules that had been laid down by the doctor for the discipline of the camp were observed during my stay on shore. All hands turned out at dawn, and cocoa and biscuit were served out. Then we worked hard from half-past five till nine, at which hour the temperature in that closed in ravine became so high that it was quite impossible even for a black man to work with pick and shovel. A bath in the sea, to refresh ourselves and wash off the clinging red dust, was our next proceeding. Then we put off our working clothes for others, and partook of a good breakfast, consisting chiefly of oatmeal, which we found by experience was the best food to work on. During the heat of the day we lay in our tents, almost panting for breath at times, so intolerably hot and close it was. At half-past three we returned to the ravine and did another three hours' work. After this was another bath, then supper. There was a whole holiday on Sunday and a half holiday on Wednesday.

Even during the early hours of the morning, when the sides of the ravine shaded us from the sun, digging was hot and trying work for white men. We were, of course, bathed in perspiration all the while, and were, consequently very thirsty, so that the cook was kept busily employed in going backwards and forwards between camp and trench to refill our water-bottles.

In the middle of the day the sun, blazing on the sands, made them terribly hot. No one could step on them with bare feet, even for a moment; one could not even lay one's hand on the ground.

The sand here is mixed with a finely granulated black mineral substance, and I think it is the presence of this that causes so great an absorption of heat. I have never found sands elsewhere, even in the Sahara, attain so high a temperature.

We were not altogether lazy out of digging hours. One's clothes had to be washed, water had to be brought down in breakers and demi-johns from the distant issue in the cliffs, and firewood had to be gathered. We sometimes went out in a body to perform this last duty. We would climb high up the mountain-sides, where the dead trees lay thickest, and throw down the timber before us as we descended, until we had accumulated a large quantity at the bottom.

I shared one of the tents with Pursell, while the doctor and Powell occupied the other. On my first night on shore we caught three turtle. Our black cook, who was always looking out for them, came to my tent and reported that, while prowling about the beach, he had observed several large females crawling up the sands. It was a very dark night, so, taking a lantern, four of us set out. We soon came across one of the creatures, and followed her quietly until she had reached a spot far above high-water mark, and then we turned her over on her back. This is by no means an easy undertaking when one has to deal with a seven-hundred-pound turtle, and requires at least four men to carry it out. The turtle does not permit this liberty to be taken with her without offering considerable resistance: with her powerful flippers she drives the sand violently into the faces of her aggressors, attempting to blind them, so that caution has to be observed in approaching her. We turned over three turtle, and, on the following day, salted down the meat that we could not eat in a fresh state.