“I suppose, then, we must wait for morning,” is the skipper’s rejoinder, after becoming satisfied that no practicable path leads out of the cove between land and water.
This constrains them to pass another night on the spot that has proved so disastrous, and the morning after, to eat another meal upon it—the last they intend tasting there. A meagre repast it is; but their appetites are now on keen edge, all the keener from the supply of food being stinted. For by one of nature’s perverse contrarieties, men feel hunger most when without the means of satisfying it, and most thirsty when no water can be had. It is the old story of distant skies looking brightest, and far-off fields showing greenest—the very difficulty of obtaining a thing whetting the desire to possess it, as a child craves some toy, that it soon ceases to care for when once in its possession. No such philosophic reflections occupy the thoughts of the castaways. All they think of, while at their scanty meal, is to get through with it as speedily as possible, and away from the scene of their disaster.
The breakfast over, the tent is taken down, the boat-sail folded into the most portable form, with mast, oars, and everything made ready for overland transport. They have even apportioned the bundles, and are about to begin the uphill climb, when, lo! the Fuegians!
Note 1. There is now a colony in the Straits of Magellan, not far from Port Famine, at Sandy Point—the “Punta de Arenas” of the old Spanish navigators. The colony is Chilian, and was established as a penal settlement, though it is now only nominally so. The population is about fourteen hundred.
Chapter Fourteen.
A Fuegian Fish-Hunt.
Yes, the savages are once more in sight, a canoe-full of them just appearing around the point of the cliff, closely followed by another, and another, till four are under view in front of the cove. They are as yet far out on the sea-arm; but as they have come along it from the west, the castaways suppose them to be some of their late assailants, still persistently continuing the pursuit.