Jack in the Forecastle; or, Incidents in the Early Life of Hawser Martingale

by John Sherburne Sleeper

The coast of Guiana was in sight.

Guiana is an extensive tract of country, extending along the sea coast from the Orinoco to the Amazon. When discovered in 1504, it was inhabited by the Caribs. Settlements, however, were soon made on the shore by the Dutch, the French, and the Portuguese; and the country was divided into several provinces. It was called by the discoverers "the wild coast," and is accessible only by the mouths of its rivers the shores being every where lined with dangerous banks, or covered with impenetrable forests. Its appearance from the sea is singularly wild and uncultivated, and it is so low and flat that, as it is approached, the trees along the beach are the first objects visible. The soil, however, is fertile, and adapted to every variety of tropical production, sugar, rum, molasses, coffee, and cacao being its staple commodities.

To the distance of thirty or forty miles from the sea coast the land continues level, and in the rainy season some districts are covered with water. Indeed, the whole country bordering on the coast is intersected with swamps, marshes, rivers, artificial canals, and extensive intervals. This renders it unhealthy; and many natives of a more genial clime have perished in the provinces of Guiana by pestilential fevers.

These marshes and forests are nurseries of reptiles. Alligators of immense size are found in the rivers, creeks, and pools, and serpents are met with on the swampy banks of the river, as large as the main-topmast of a merchant ship, and much larger! The serpents being amphibious, often take to the water, and being driven unconsciously down the rivers by the currents, have been fallen in with on the coast several miles from the land.

An incident took place on this coast in 1841, on board the bark Jane, of Boston, Captain Nickerson, which created quite a sensation on the decks of that vessel. The bark was ready for sea, and had anchored in the afternoon outside the bar at the mouth of the Surinam River, when the crew turned in and the watch was set that night. The bark was a well-conditioned, orderly vessel, harboring no strangers, interlopers, or vagrants of any description.

The next morning, soon after daybreak, the mate put his hand into an open locker, at a corner of the round-house, for a piece of canvas, when it came in contact with a soft, clammy substance, which, to his consternation and horror, began to move! He drew back, uttering an exclamation, in a voice so loud and startling as to alarm the captain and all hands, who hastened on deck in time to see an enormous serpent crawl sluggishly out of the closet, and stretch himself along the deck, with as much coolness and impudence as if he thought he really belonged to the brig, and with the monkeys and parrots, constituted a portion of the ship's company!

Not so thought Captain Nickerson and the brave men with him. The word was passed along "There is a snake on board, as long as the main-top bowline! Kill him, kill him!"

The sailors seized handspikes, the cook flourished his tormentors, the mate wielded an axe, and the captain grasped a pistol! Thus equipped and armed, they rushed to the encounter.

The reptile found himself among foes instead of friends. Where he looked for hospitality and kind treatment he found cruelty, oppression, and even murder! He saw it was useless to contend against his fate when the odds were so decidedly against him, and wisely made no resistance. He was stabbed by the cook, cudgelled by the crew, brained by the mate, and shot by the captain. And, adding insult to injury, he was stripped of his skin, which was beautifully variegated and measured fourteen feet in length, and brought to Boston, where it was examined and admired by many of the citizens.

This snake was doubtless an aboma, a species of serpent of large size and great beauty, which is not venomous. In attempting to cross the river, it had probably been drifted down with the current, and carried out to sea. It might have been swimming about in the waters for some time without finding a resting-place, and, having fallen in with a vessel at anchor, thought no harm would accrue to itself or others if it should silently glide on board through the rudder-hole, and take up its residence for the night. But Captain Nickerson entertained a different opinion. He looked upon "his snakesnip" as an "ugly customer," and gave him a reception as such.