Palm Tree Island

by Herbert Strang

We walked round about the crater, observing, but not at first with any minuteness, the many rocks and boulders of strange shape that were scattered about, having been cast up at some time, I suppose, from the depths of the mountains. Billy laid his hand on one great boulder, and immediately started back in a fright, crying that it was burning hot, which somewhat alarmed me too, not supposing that the mountain sent forth aught now but hot water. But in a moment I saw that we had no cause for terror, for the sun was by this time high in the heavens, and the stone was made hot thereby, and by nothing else. When I said this to Billy he was in a rage with the stone for giving him a start, and shoved it very hard, and it being poised insecurely, it set off a-rolling down very fast until it struck another boulder of even greater size, and split with a mighty crash. "Serves you right," says Billy, and we both clambered down to see what had happened to it. We were surprised to see some bright streaks in the rock where it had been fractured, and Billy declared that there must be iron in it; indeed, it was of the brightness of steel. This set me on to think of the great wealth that might lie a-hiding in our island, and of the great delight it would have given my uncle if his adventure had gone as he wished; but the discovery brought no comfort to us in our helpless situation; indeed, it only made me the more sad.

We had gone but a little farther when we saw a spring of hot water bubbling out of the rock and running down in a cloud of steam. We followed its course, picking our way very slowly, for the side of the mountain was steep, until we came to a place where it dropped over a sheer cliff, and fell a perfect cascade into the sea. Then we crept round from this side of the mountain until we overlooked the long slope of blackish rock that ran down to the beach on which we had landed, and we descended slowly on the left side until we came to a strip of woodland. Here we found more bread-fruit trees, at which we were not so well pleased as if they had been cocoa-nut palms, because we had no present means of making a fire for cooking. Billy offered to make fire in the native way, but I said that he might do that afterwards, as I wished to see what this end of the island was like. So we went through the wood, and came out at the edge of a cliff, and saw below us the promontory with the archway through it, of which I have spoken. Here, too, we had another view of the monster rock, and observed that this face also was steep and straight like the others, so that it must be quite impossible to scale the rock unless its seaward face were more practicable.

PALM TREE ISLAND

Reflections

We had now traversed the whole of our island except the north-east corner, and having seen no living things except birds and small animals, we began to be pretty sure that we were the only human beings upon it. This, while it put away from us the present fear of being slain by savages, or despitefully used, yet brought home to us the full meaning of our loneliness. We sat down on the cliff, and looking over the sea, which stretched away without any sign of land, nor even the sail of a ship, we gave ourselves up to gloomy meditation. I knew that but few ships ever ventured into this southern ocean, and the chance that any ship would sight this tiny island was very small indeed. Still less was it likely that a vessel would draw in so close as to observe any signal that we might make. I remembered how Alexander Selkirk had lived four years on his desolate island before a friendly ship hove in sight, and that island was near the mainland, whereas ours was in the midst of a vast ocean, remote as well from populous lands as from the track of merchant ships. It seemed to me that we were doomed to a lifelong imprisonment, and though I had before bid Billy to be of good cheer, I was now myself utterly cast down, as one without hope.

Being thus a prey to wretchedness I sat with my head in my hands, not heeding the heat of the sun, which was now beating fiercely down upon us, until I felt very sick and dizzy, and then I got up and looked for Billy, who had disappeared. But he had only gone into the wood to find food, it being nigh dinner-time. He came back and told me that there was nothing but bread-fruit, and that we could not eat, so we had to make our way to the cocoa-nut wood, which we did by descending to the beach and climbing up the slope as before. In going along the beach Billy picked up two or three shell-fish which he called clams, the purple kind, not the larger sort, which were very heavy; indeed, one of them would have made a meal for a family. We saw, too, several crabs of a very large size, some above two feet long; and Billy, idly poking his cudgel into a hole beside a rock, he could not draw it back, and when he peeped in to see what held it, he cried out that it had been seized by a great crab, and though he pulled very hard, he could not draw it out. When we came to our wood we ate cocoanuts and quenched our thirst with the juice, Billy striking them open with the sharp flint he had in his pocket; but I could not forbear wondering how we were to live without fresh water, of which we had seen none but what was in the lake, and that was a medicine we were by no means inclined to. Having appeased our hunger and thirst we were too listless to walk any more, and too miserable to talk to each other, and so we laid ourselves down and fell asleep.

Weapons

When I awoke I saw that Billy had been fashioning for himself a new club in place of that which had been seized by the robber crab, only this time he had made a better one. Having observed that the sharp flint, of which I have before spoken, had two notches on its blunt side, he had conceived the notion of binding it to his club, and so using it as an axe-head. At first he was much exercised, as he told me, how to fasten the two together, and sighed for some iron-wire, or at least some stout cord; but glancing around he spied a creeping plant with very long and slender tendrils, which he proved to be very tough, and breaking off some lengths of this with his flint, he had nearly finished binding the flint to his club.