The haunted island

by E. H. Visiak

I beheld a low woody shore, whereon at some points a sort of squat small trees grew quite down to the sea, their branches so low as to touch the water. Hugely contrasting with these, were palm trees, being exceeding tall (160 feet at the least) and wholly destitute of branches to the very tops, where grew prodigious great leaves. The trunks were of a huge thickness and were covered with prickles.

Near the bottom of the bay a river flowed into the sea, on the marshy banks whereof those great trees did chiefly grow. In the background the woods grew very thick and high. I saw therein many brave cedar trees. At the farther extremity of the bay, where the woods were much thinner, there was a clear ground, and in the midst a wooden hut, the roof whereof was covered with the great leaves I have told you of. A smoke went up from a heap near the entry.

Even as I spied this hut, a man stepped forth from within, and was followed by another. On spying the ship, they immediately turned and hid themselves within the woods. They appeared to be white men, very slovenly dressed. I took them for hunters. I observed by the stirring of the undergrowth (albeit ’twas but slight) that they worked their way in the coverts of the woods alongst the shore towards the ship. Being come over against us, they stood concealed amongst the little thick trees beside the sea; and there they were, when, on my brother coming to me on the poop, I told him what I had seen.

He immediately ordered the jolly-boat to be launched and manned; and, this done, he put himself into the boat, and so did I.

We pulled to the shore, making to a point near the place where those two men lurked amongst the trees, and where there was ground fit to light upon. Having jumped ashore, the Captain hallooed to these people, telling them that he came in peace, and would by no means harm them; only he desired some discourse with them, and to trade with them.

Hereupon one of them made answer, in very poor English, that ’twas well; they would trade with him, and invited him to come and drink with them in their hut. They desired, however, that he would come alone; by reason, as they said, their little mean hut was not fit to entertain more. He thanked them, and told them he would go with them.

Then came they out of their hiding towards us into the open. They were a French buccaneer (or hunter of wild bulls and cows), and his slave. They were very slovenly dressed, and beastly dirty. The buccaneer wore a dirty linen shirt tucked into his breeches, which were dyed in the blood of the beasts he killed. He had round his middle a sailor’s belt; a long sheath-knife hung from the belt at the back thereof: leggings he had of hairy boar-hide, shoes of dressed bull-hide, and a big wide-brimmed hat upon his head. The habit of the slave was likewise; only without belt or shoes, and on his head an old cloth montero-cap. Their faces were anointed with hog’s grease to defend them from the stings of insects.

My brother went with them to the hut; and I, with Surgeon Burke, into the woods. For Burke took the opportunity of gathering divers medicinal herbs and woods that the place afforded.

Before he left the seamen, however, he warned them that they should by no means touch the fruit of any tree which was not pecked by birds; for, said he, ’twas an infallible sign that they were not good, and evinced those little squat trees that I had observed from the ship, which had apples on them that did smell very sweet. These were manchineel, or dwarf-apple trees, the fruit whereof no bird doth eat: and, indeed, it is so venomous that the very crabs that eat of it are poisonous. He that eats thereof is presently raving mad, and dead within a little while after. Moreover, the sap of this tree doth raise on the skin terrible red blisters, as it were scalding water.

We roved up and down in the woods, gathering Burke’s medicants; but, as the sun climbed, we began to be tormented with those big venomous gnats called mosquitoes, as with other flying and creeping pests also. And, though the Surgeon seemed not much to mind them, for me the incessant attacks and inroads of the creatures became well-nigh insupportable; but I endured them for the sake of the novelty of the way.