Hale Cove was fortunately one of those few ports in which it was possible to get a little exercise, which the denseness of the undergrowth generally rendered impossible. The cliffs, at the foot of which Mana lay, were precipitous and clothed with vegetation to the sky-line, they thus scarcely lent themselves to exploration. There was, however, across the small bay a southern spur, on the top of which for some reason trees had not flourished and which was comparatively clear; this it was possible to reach by landing on a little beach and scrambling along an old track which had been cut through an intermediate belt of wood. We could in this way get some sort of a walk, at the cost of course of becoming soaked through from bogs and dripping vegetation.
Not far from the cove there were traces of a small frame house, and near it flourished European wheat and grass, which had obviously taken root from stray seed. Its history was difficult to guess. Why had a white man lived there, and on what had he subsisted? The only solution suggested was that it might at one time have been a port of call for a line of steamers, and a woodman had been employed to cut fuel. Another dwelling, but made of material found on the spot, had obviously been destroyed by fire, and on its abandoned site native wigwams had been erected. The place was evidently the resort of Indians; when, therefore, we noted near the old track, and not far from the water-course, part of two rough boards protruding from the earth, we hoped that we had chanced on an Indian burial-ground, which would naturally have been of much anthropological interest. The soil which had originally covered the boards had been partially washed away by the rain, and on moving them we found, as had been guessed, that just below were human bones; they were so deeply encrusted with roots and earth that it was only by much digging with our fingers we could get them out at all. Then they proved to be in much confusion, two parts of the skull even were in different places, and it was difficult at first to say whether the body, which was that of a man in middle life, had been buried full length or in the folded attitude so common among primitive peoples. It was my first experience in scientific body-snatching, a proceeding to which later I became fairly well inured, and it felt not a little weird being thus in contact with the dead in his lonely resting-place. A great tree-fern kept guard over the grave on one side, a gnarled trunk bent over it from the other, and the sun gleamed at intervals through the thick branches of surrounding cedars. At last it became obvious that the body had been outstretched, and the grave lined as well as covered with boards, in addition to which there had been a wrapping of some woven material; it seemed therefore evident that the corpse had been that of a civilised man. Who was he? the lumberman, the remains of whose hut we had seen? one of the crew of some vessel which had put in here? or possibly a shipwrecked mariner? for there were traces of an ill-fated vessel in a quantity of coal washed up on the beach. Why, though he had been buried with considerable care, was the grave so shallow, and why had it been left unmarked? We buried him again reverently, and though he was very possibly an unpleasant person when alive, the thoughts of one of us at least, who is naturally mid-Victorian, turned to the mother who had once borne and tended him somewhere and who could so little have pictured where he would lie.
“One midst the forest of the west
By a dark stream is laid;
The Indian knows his place of rest,
Far in the cedar shade.”
Mrs. Hemans.
We discussed marking the spot, but came to the conclusion that the best way to prevent its again being disturbed was to obliterate all traces of it; so there the nameless man rests on in his hidden grave.
The wind still being contrary, charts and sailing directions were ransacked for change of scene, and on New Year’s Eve we shifted our quarters, proceeding up Krüger Channel, and anchoring in a little cove called after De Wet: as Joubert was also in the neighbourhood, officials of the Chilean Government who had surveyed the district had apparently been of pro-Boer sympathies. On January 1st, 1914, we went out into the Gulf of Peñas, only to find that it was useless to attempt to put to sea, and we returned again to Hale Cove. The Challenger had, we found, anchored in the same spot on New Year’s Day, 1876. During the next few days Mr. Ritchie, with the help of Mr. Corry, occupied himself at my husband’s request in surveying a small cove as a possible anchorage for lesser craft.
