The Land of the Kangaroo / Adventures of Two Youths in a Journey through the Great Island Continent

by Thomas Wallace Knox

“The captain sprang from his bunk, and rushed on deck in his night-clothes. At the top of the companion-steps he was violently stabbed on the head and seized by the throat; he was quite unarmed and struck out with his fists at the face of his assailant, hoping to blind him. The coolie continued to stab him, and the captain started back down the steps until he slipped in the blood that covered them, and fell into the cabin, with a terrible wound in his side. He then crawled to where his revolver was, and started up the steps; when half way up, a man rolled down the steps against him and knocked him over.

“The captain thought it was the coolie, but it proved to be one of the sailors, who was frightened half to death. All he could say was, to beg of the captain to save him.

“The captain had his wife and child on board, and his wife was roused by the tumult. She came to her husband’s aid and proceeded to bind up his wounds. While she was doing this one of the coolies smashed in the skylight, and would have jumped into the cabin had not the captain fired at him with his revolver and drove him away.

“The next thing the coolies did was to murder the man at the wheel and fling his body overboard. Then they murdered the carpenter and a sailor and disposed of them the same way. Including the two mates, five men were slain and four others were wounded. The wounded men and the rest of the crew barricaded themselves in the forecastle for protection, and there they remained the rest of the night and all through the next day. The captain and his wife and child stayed in the cabin.

“The two coolies were in full possession of the ship from a little past midnight until eight o’clock of the following evening. One of them, venturing near the skylight, was shot in the breast by the captain, and then the two coolies rushed forward and threw a spar overboard. One of them jumped into the sea and clung to the spar, while the other dropped down into the between-decks, where he proceeded to set the ship on fire. Seeing this, the sailors who had barricaded themselves in the forecastle broke out, and two of them proceeded to hunt the coolie down with revolvers. They hunted him out and shot him in the shoulder, and then he jumped overboard and joined his companion. Shots were fired at the two men, and soon afterward they sank.

“The fire got such headway that it could not be put out. Finally a boat was provisioned and lowered; the crew entered it, and after waiting about the ship during the night in the hope that the flames might bring assistance, they put up a sail and headed for St. Helena. Thus was a ship’s crew of twenty-three people overawed and rendered helpless by two slender coolies, whom any one of the Yankee crew could have crushed out of existence in a very short space of time.

“The steamer passed near Ascension Island, but did not stop there. This island is entered in the British Navy List as a commissioned ship. It is nearly three thousand feet high, very rocky and well supplied with fresh water. Ships often stop there for a supply of water and such fresh provisions as are obtainable. The climate is said to be very healthy, and when the crews of British naval vessels are enfeebled by a long stay on the African coast, they go to Ascension Island to recruit their strength.”

Ned and Harry were very desirous of visiting the island of St. Helena, which became famous as a prison and for many years the grave of Napoleon. They were disappointed on ascertaining that the ship would not stop there, and the officer of whom they made inquiry said there was nothing to stop there for. “The island is not of much account,” he said, “and the natives have a hard time to make a living. In the days of sailing ships it was a favorite stopping place and the inhabitants did a good business. The general introduction of steamships, along with the digging of the Suez Canal, have knocked their business all to pieces.

“Where they used to have a dozen or twenty ships a month, they get about half as many in a year. The buildings where Napoleon used to live are all gone to ruin, and the sight of them does not pay for the journey one has to make to get there.”

When it was announced that the vessel was nearing the Cape of Good Hope, our young friends strained their eyes in a friendly competition to be first to make it out. Harry was ahead of Ned in discerning the dim outline of Table Mountain, which is well described by its name. It is a flat-topped mountain fronting on the bay on which Cape Town stands. It is about three thousand five hundred feet in height, and is guarded on the left by the Lion’s Head, and on the right by the Devil’s Berg. The harbor is reached by passing between a small island and the coast, the island forming a very fair shelter for ships that lie inside of it.