“What makes you certain?” questions the other.
“Them ’ere—both of ’em,” nodding first toward the fur-seals and then toward the penguins. “If the Feweegins dar’ fetch thar craft so fur out seaward, neither o’ them ud be so plentiful nor yit so tame. Both sort o’ critters air jest what they sets most store by—yieldin’ ’em not only thar vittels, but sech scant kiver as they’re ’customed to w’ar. No, Capting, the savagers hain’t been out hyar, an’ ain’t a-goin’ to be. An’ I weesh, now,” he continues, glancing up to the sky, “I weesh ’t wud brighten a bit. Wi’ thet fog hidin’ the hills over yonder, ’tain’t possybul to gie a guess az to whar we air. Ef it ud lift, I mout be able to make out some o’ the landmarks. Let’s hope we may hev a cl’ar sky the morrer, an’ a glimp’ o’ the sun to boot.”
“Ay, let us hope that,” rejoins the skipper, “and pray for it, as we shall.”
The promise is made in all seriousness, Captain Gancy being a religious man. So, on retiring to rest on their shake-down couches of tussac-grass, he summons the little party around him and offers up a prayer for their deliverance from their present danger, not forgetting those in the pinnace; no doubt the first Christian devotion ever heard ascending over that lone desert isle.
Note 1. It is the soft, crisp, inner part of the stem, just above the root, that is chiefly eaten. Horses and cattle are very fond of the tussac-grass, and in the Falkland Islands feed upon it. It is said, however, that there it is threatened with extirpation, on account of these animals browsing it too closely. It has been introduced with success into the Hebrides and Orkney Islands, where the conditions of its existence are favourable—a peaty soil, exposed to winds loaded with sea spray.
Note 2. Cathartes jota. Closely allied to the “turkey-buzzard” of the United States.
Note 3. Otaria Falklandica. There are several distinct species of “otary,” or “fur-seal”; those of the Falkland Islands and Tierra del Fuego being different from the fur-seals of northern latitudes.