A Voyage round the World / A book for boys

by William Henry Giles Kingston

would certainly return to the boat, and that if we went in search of them, the so doing would only delay our meeting. Being somewhat tired, therefore, we got into the boat, and drawing the sail over the after-part, we lay down in the stern-sheets and were soon fast asleep. We were both awoke by old Surley’s bark, and jumping up, we saw Mr Brand with his other two companions running along the beach. We jumped out of the boat and hurried to meet them. Mr Brand had Jerry’s cap in his hand, which old Surley had carried with him to show that he had found us. We speedily narrated our adventures to each other. They had been dreadfully alarmed on our account. It turned out as we had supposed—Mr Kilby had reached the sea-shore by himself, thinking that we were with the other party, while they supposed we were with him. However, they had not been very anxious about us till they saw the conflagration burst out, and guessed that we were by some means the cause of it. They were on their way to look for us, but the flames, like some mighty torrent, rushed towards them. They had with frantic haste to dart through the clumps of tussac and penguin grass to reach the beach. They hurried to the boat, and had barely time to leap into her, and shove off, before the flames, fanned by the wind, came crackling and hissing up after them, and would very probably have set her on fire. Cousin Silas was almost in despair about us, and Mr Kilby told me that he said he should never forgive himself if we came to harm. They were much interested with the account we gave them of our adventures; and as it was time for dinner, we agreed to cook and eat the trophies we had brought with us—the beef-steaks—before putting to sea. We were amused at finding that we had committed an illegal act in killing the bulls; but, as it was in self-defence, it was agreed that the act was justifiable.

It had been arranged that we were to rejoin the schooner on the evening of this day, at a point of land running out from an island a little to the west of where we now were, unless the weather should prove bad; in which case she was to come in for us. The weather, however, was very fine, so making sail we stood across the channel. The station to which she had gone was three or four miles further to the south. The water was very clear, and as we passed through the kelp we looked down in some places where it grew less thickly, and could see its vast stems and branches, with their huge leaves, springing up from the depth of many fathoms, like a forest of submarine oaks or Spanish chestnuts. We were amused with the flight of some of the ducks we put up. Mr Burkett called them loggerheads, racers, or steamers. Their wings will not lift them from the water, but whirling them round and round, they went scuttling and waddling away over the surface at a rapid rate, generally two and two—the loving husband and his wife—leaving a deep furrow in the water behind them. We burst into fits of laughter at the ridiculous manner in which they moved. They are fat and fishy, and not at all fit for food. I never expected to have seen more birds together than we had passed at the rookery under the cliffs in the morning; but we sailed by an island, of which birds of all descriptions had taken entire possession. There were various species of ducks, and geese, and snipe, and teal, and shags, and grebes, and penguins, and albatrosses, and sea-rooks, and oyster-catchers, and gulls with pink breasts, and many others, of whose names I have no note. As we believed that we had plenty of time, we landed near some cliffs to have a nearer look at them. So tame were they that we could knock down as many as we liked with our sticks; but it was murderous work, and as we did not want them to eat—indeed many were not fit for eating—we soon desisted from it.

Near where we landed the cliffs ran out into the sea, forming natural docks, and in one of these cliffs we discovered a large cavern, which seemed to run a great way under the ground. By climbing along the ledges of the rocks, somewhat slippery with sea-weed, at no little risk of a ducking, we got to the mouth of the cavern. The sides were composed of ledges rising one above another, and every available spot, as far as the eye could penetrate, was occupied by shags and divers, and other sea-fowls. There were thousands—there might have been millions of them, if the cavern ran back as far as we supposed it did. They in no way seemed alarmed at our intrusion, but allowed us to kick them over, without attempting to escape. However, at last, old Surley found his ways after us, and his appearance created the wildest hurly-burly and confusion. Such clapping of wings, and hurrying to and fro, and quacking, and shrieking, and whirling here and there, was never seen among a feathered community. They must have been very glad when we took our departure.

We had got into high spirits with our walk, and had begun

to forget all about the bulls and the fire, when, as Jerry and I were in advance scrambling along the shore, we saw basking, a little way inland, among some tussac grass, a huge animal. “Why, there is an elephant!” I exclaimed, starting back “or a live mammoth, or something of that sort. I don’t like his look, I own.”

However, screwing up our courage, we advanced cautiously toward the monster, as he seemed no way disposed to move at our approach. Then we halted and examined him more narrowly. He was alive, for we saw his eye complacently looking at us, as Diogenes might have looked out of his tub at the passing crowd. He was fully twenty feet long, with a huge unwieldy body and a big head. The most curious thing about his head was a huge nose, or trunk rather, which hung down nearly half a foot below the upper jaw. His skin was covered with short hair of a light dun colour, and he had a tail and fins like a seal. While we were still in doubt what he could be, Mr Kilby overtook us, and laughingly seizing our hands ran up behind the monster.

“Are you for a ride?” he exclaimed; and before Jerry suspected what was going to happen he found himself seated on the monster’s tail! “There you go, on the back of a sea-elephant,” exclaimed Mr Kilby, giving the beast a poke with his stick. “Hold on tight, and he can’t hurt you.”

Jerry did hold on, not knowing whether to laugh or shriek out with fear. Away crawled, or whalloped rather, the elephant towards the water, Mr Kilby and I keeping alongside, ready to catch Jerry should he fall off. I soon saw there was no real danger, except the monster should roll round, when his weight would kill any one under him. Jerry also instantly entered into the joke of the thing, and was delighted with the idea of being able to boast that he had ridden on a sea-elephant.

“I shall be carried off into the depths of the ocean, and you, Mr Kilby, will have to be answerable to my disconsolate father,” he sang out, half laughing and half crying. “Good-bye, Harry; a pleasant voyage to you round the world. May you not be spirited away by a sea-monster like this. Oh! oh! help me off, though!—he’ll have me into the sea to a certainty, and then he’ll turn round and gobble me up—he will. I know he will.”