A tropical sun soon makes one thirsty. I wanted ‘a drink,’ and for the first time tasted iced cocoanut-milk; never in my life have I ever drunk anything half as delicious. Don’t imagine that, in the least degree, it resembles the small teacupful of sweet insipid stuff dribbled out from the cocoanut as we buy it here in England. What we eat as kernel is liquid in the young nut, and the outer husk soft enough to push your thumb through. Surely the cocoanut palm must have been specially designed for the dwellers in the tropical world! It supplies everything uncivilised man can possibly need, to build his ships, rig, paddle, and sail them; from its products, too, he can make his houses, and obtain food, drink, clothing, and culinary utensils. Strictly littoral in its habits, the cocoa-palm loves to loll over the sea, and let the frothy ripple wash its rootlets. This also looks like another link in the chain of Divine intentions. The nuts necessarily fall into the sea—winds and currents carry them to coral reefs, or strand them on desert shores, there to grow, and, by a sequence of wondrously-ordered events, in time make it habitable for man. The ‘Havannah’ dropped down to the beautiful island of Tobago, to take in water ere she sailed for Vancouver Island.
As we crossed the Bay of Panama (which is, I believe, about 135 miles wide, running inland 120), pelicans, far too numerous to count, were floating high in the air, some of them mere specks. The species Pelecanus fuscus (the brown pelican) is a permanent resident on the southern coasts of America, frequenting in great numbers the shores of the Gulf of Mexico, California, the Bay of Panama, and other sheltered inlets. They frequently build in the trees, although the nest is quite as often placed on the ground, even when the former are close at hand. My acquaintance with the pelicans in the Zoological Gardens in the Regent’s Park had given me an idea of clumsiness, and to see them spooning the fish from out their pond is certainly no indication of being adepts at fishing. I know no prettier sight than to watch the brown pelican fishing in the Bay of Panama; no awkwardness there, every movement easy and graceful. Soaring high in the lurid atmosphere, to the eye little more than a tiny dark spot, suddenly down comes the bird as if hurled from the clouds; plunging in head-first, its sharp beak cleaves the water like a wedge; a fish seized is at once pouched; and, rising without any apparent effort from the sea, it soars off again, to look out for another chance. Should the fish be missed, an event that does not often happen, the bird sits quietly on the water, and stares round in stupid astonishment.
We remained several days at Tobago; and as we rode at anchor in the deep roadstead, I could have easily pitched a penny into the groves of tamarind and orange-trees, that grew on the very beach. From the sea-line to the summit of the island, which is quite a thousand feet in altitude, the hills rise in terraces, but so densely clothed with cocoanut, banana, tamarind, orange, and other tropical trees, that one hardly credits the existence of terraces, or that hill and valley are hid beneath the unbroken surface of green. A little village lies hid in a palm-grove at the base of the hill, and in the ravine behind it bubbles up the spring of pure fresh water, that never fails, and from which all vessels touching at Panama obtain their supply.
Mr. Baurman, a geologist, accompanied me on a ramble through its woods and along the seacoast. We did nothing to distinguish ourselves save getting frightfully hot, being well-nigh famished with thirst (for we were far away from the water), and although I fired at the cocoanuts in the hope of bringing one down, only succeeded in making holes in them and letting out the much-coveted milk, that fell on us like a shower of rain; shooting a few doves amongst the pineapples, and a turkey-buzzard on the summit—a frightful crime in Tobago, of which, at the time, I was in happy ignorance; but, fortunately for me, Baurman carried the bird, and was deemed, for his good nature, the greater culprit. The most singular sight we stumbled on was a bull, saddled and bridled in equine fashion, with a black man riding on his back. Tauro might have been a good hack, but he certainly did not look so as he waddled lazily along with his sable rider.
The inhabitants, with few exceptions, are blacks. There was one girl (the property of as repulsive an old demon as one could well see) perfectly blonde, fair even to paleness, with soft blue eyes and long golden hair, that hung in wavy ripples down to her waist—her feet and hands delicately small, and a figure Venus might have envied. Where she came from no one knew: one might have supposed her the descendant of some Viking, if Vikings had ever cruised in the Pacific. Perhaps her owner was a ‘Black Pirate,’ who stole the damsel, and knifed her friends; not bad material for a sensation story—‘The Fair Captive of Tobago.’
The view from the summit was exceedingly lovely. Behind, and to the right and left, the dark-green slope looked as if one could have slid into the vessels at their anchorage; before, a vertical wall of rock a thousand feet from the sea. It looked to me as if the island had been broken in two in the centre, and that one-half had sunk into the water and disappeared; the air quivered even at this height, as it does over a limekiln; not a leaf stirred— the intensely blue sea was unrippled far as eye could reach; the very birds and insects, too hot to fly, sat panting under the shadow of the leaves. We gathered a pineapple, but it tasted hot, as if half-roasted.
I am not favourably impressed with the honesty of the islanders that do the washing, or rather that do not do it. Following the example of the officers of the ‘Havannah,’ I delivered my bag of clothes, the accumulation since leaving England, to the washer, who promised, as only a black washerman will promise, to have it on board before we sailed: he kept his word, for he came when the ship was under weigh, had his money, and with bows, and prayers for my welfare in this world, vanished over the side. We were well out to sea when I looked at my bag; imagine my wrath at finding everything just as I had given it. It was lucky for the rascal he was out of reach, and perhaps quite as well for me; a dollar (4s.) a dozen to carry one’s clothes ashore, most likely to wear, and bring back again dirtier than it went, would enrage the meekest saint!
The voyage in the ‘Havannah’ from Panama to Vancouver Island was a long and wearisome one. We left Tobago on June 4, and entered the Straits of Juan de Fuca on July 12. Reference to the track-chart shows how we idled and idled along on the sea, sauntering, rather than sailing; with a blazing sun right over the masthead, the heat was intolerable, and attended with a depressing languor, that forbade all energy, and fairly melted one in body and mind. The only land sighted was a very distant view of the Gallopagos Islands, a mere black looking spot on an interminable surface of blue. This group of volcanic islands, so strangely isolated, might have been a monster fish, a phantom ship, or even the great sea-serpent, for anything that could be definitely made out, even aided by a ship’s telescope.
We caught great numbers of dolphins (Coryphæna hippuris), which are far more lovely to the eye than agreeable to the palate, in my estimation. This fish, usually from four to five feet in length, is built for rapid passage through the water: the tail, forked like horns, together with the long dorsal fin, reaching from head to tail, enables it to turn with an ease and celerity during even its swiftest transit through the sea. All who have written (in prose or poetry) about the dolphin have attempted a description of its marvellous colouring: to convey, by word-painting, the slightest idea of the changing, flashing, glowing radiance that plays around and upon this fish, when fresh from the ocean, is as impossible as to describe the colours of the Aurora, or the phosphorescence of the tropical seas; it must be witnessed to be realised in all its magnificence. Flying-fish are its favourite food, and these the dolphins course as greyhounds course hares; what is called ‘flying’ being merely an extended leap, aided by the immensely-elongated pectoral fins, made in sheer desperation to escape the voracious sea-hounds so hotly pursuing them.
In reference to these same flying-fish, the species washed on board the ‘Parana’ by the waves of the turbulent Atlantic, and that found their way into the stomach of a dolphin of terrestrial habits, was Exocetus exiliens. I could see nothing of its movements, as the sea simply washed it into the sponsons, or left it floundering on the deck. Its general appearance was exactly like a newly-caught herring: the scales, thin and rounded, easily detached, and adhered to the hand; the back a light steel-blue, with greenish reflections, shading into silvery whiteness on the sides; the pectoral fins reached quite to the tail, and were shaped like the wings of a swift; the dorsal and anal fins are opposite each other, and placed near the tail, which is deeply but unevenly forked—the lower limb being much the longer; the ventral fins, which are posterior to the middle of the body, are unusually long and strongly rayed.