The Land of Fire: A Tale of Adventure

by Mayne Reid

For a time all is turmoil and confusion, with doubting fear on the part of the white people, who cannot tell what is to be the issue. Mrs Gancy and Leoline have retired into the tent, while the men stand by its entrance, prepared to defend it. They make no demonstration of hostility, however, but keep their weapons as much as possible out of sight, and as calmly as possible await the action of the savages. To show distrust might give offence, and court attack—no trifling matter, notwithstanding the age and apparent imbecility of the savages. Seagriff knows, if the others do not, that the oldest and feeblest of them—woman or man—would prove a formidable antagonist; and, against so many, he and his four men companions would stand but a poor chance. Luckily, he recalls a word or two of their language which may conciliate them and, as soon as he has an opportunity of making himself heard, he cries out, in a friendly tone, “Arré! Cholid!” (“Brothers! Sisters!”)

This appeal has the effect intended, or seems to have. With exclamations of astonishment at hearing an akifka akinish address them in their own tongue, the expression of their faces becomes less fierce, and they desist from menacing gestures. One of the men, the oldest, and for this reason having chief authority, draws near and commences patting Seagriff on the chest and back alternately, all the while giving utterance to a gurgling, “chucking” noise that sounds somewhat like the cluck of a hen when feeding her chicks.

Having finished with the old sealer, who has reciprocated his quaint mode of salutation, he extends it to the other three whites, one after the other. But as he sees “the doctor,” who, at the moment, has stepped from within the wigwam, where he had been unperceived, there is a sudden revulsion of feeling among the savages—a return to hostility, the antipathy of all Fuegians to the African negro being proverbially bitter. Strange and unaccountable is this prejudice against the negro by a people almost the lowest in humanity’s scale.

“Ical shiloké! Uftucla!” (“Kill the black dog!”) they cry out in spiteful chorus, half a dozen of them making a dash at him.

Seagriff throws himself in front, to shield him from their fury, and, with arms uplifted, appealingly calls out, “Ical shiloké—zapello!” (“The black dog is but a slave.”)

At this the old man makes a sign, as if saying the zapello is not worth their anger, and they retire, but reluctantly, like wolves forced from their prey. Then, as if by way of appeasing their spite, they go stalking about the camp, picking up and secreting such articles as tempt their cupidity.

Fortunately, few things of any value have been left exposed, the tools and other highly-prized chattels having been stowed away inside the tent. Luckily, also, they had hastily carried into it some dried fungus and fish cured by the smoking process, intended for boat stores. But Caesar’s outside larder suffers to depletion. In a trice it is emptied—not a scrap being left by the prowling pilferers. And everything, as soon as appropriated, is eaten raw, just as it is found—seal’s flesh, shell-fish, beech-apples, berries, everything! Even a large squid, a hideous-looking monster of the octopus tribe thrown on the beach near by, is gobbled up by them as though it were the greatest of delicacies.

Hunger—ravenous, unappeasable hunger—seems to pervade the whole crew; no doubt the fact that the weather has been for a long time very stormy has interfered with their fishing, and otherwise hindered their procuring food. Like all savages, the Fuegian is improvident—more so, even, than some of the brute creation—and rarely lays up store for the future, and hence is often in terrible straits, at the very point of starvation. Clearly, it is so with those just landed; and having eaten up everything eatable that they can lay their hands on, there is a scattering off amongst the trees in quest of their most reliable food staple—the beech-apple. Some go gathering mussels and limpets along the strand, while the more robust of the women, under the direction of the old men, proceed to the construction of wigwams. Half a score of these are set up, long branches broken from the trees furnishing the rib-poles, which are roofed over with old seal-skins taken out of the canoes. In a wonderfully short time they are finished, almost as quickly as the pitching of a soldier’s tent. When ready for occupation, fires are kindled in them, around which the wretched creatures crouch and shiver, regardless of smoke thick and bitter enough to drive a badger from its hole. It is this that makes them blear-eyed, and even uglier than Nature intended them to be. But the night is now near beginning, a chill, raw evening, with snow falling, and they can better bear smoke than cold. Nor are they any longer hungry. Their search for shell-fish and fungus has been rewarded with success, and they have eaten gluttonously of both.

Meanwhile, our friends the castaways have been left to themselves, for the time undisturbed, save by the dogs, which give them almost continuous trouble. The skulking curs, led by one of their kind, form a ring around the camp, deafening the ears of its occupants with their angry baying and barking. Strangely enough, as if sharing the antipathy of their owners, they seem specially hostile to “the doctor,” more furiously demonstrating their antagonism to him than to any of the others. The poor fellow is kept constantly on the alert to save his shins from their sharp teeth.

Late in the evening, the old chief, whom the others call Annaqua (“the arrow”) pays the camp a visit, professing great friendship, and again going through the patting and “chucking” process as before. But his professions ill correspond with his acts, as the aged sinner is actually detected stealing the knife of Seagriff himself, and from his person, too!—a feat of dexterity worthy the most accomplished master of legerdemain, the knife being adroitly abstracted from its sheath on the old sealer’s hip during the exchange of salutations. Fortunately, the theft is discovered by young Chester, who is standing near by, and the thief caught in the very act. On the stolen article being taken from under the pilferer’s shoulder-patch of seal-skin, where he had dexterously secreted it, he breaks out into a laugh, pretending to pass it off as a joke. In this sense the castaways are pleased to interpret it, or to make show of so interpreting it, for the sake of keeping on friendly terms with him. Indeed, but that the knife is a serviceable tool, almost essential to them, he would be permitted to retain it; and, by way of smoothing matters over, a brass button is given him instead, with which he goes on his way rejoicing.