A Voyage round the World / A book for boys

by William Henry Giles Kingston

However, we crossed in safety, and spent a very pleasant day at Santiago, seeing all the sights of that city, though Jerry and I agreed that we would rather have been in the mountains shooting guanacoes or hunting pumas,—so I daresay would old Surley. We got back in good time to Valparaiso. When dining at the hotel, we met an Englishman who had travelled over all parts of South America, and had made an infinite number of sketches, which he did in the most rapid way. He made me a present of several, which he drew at the hotel; among them was the Frontispiece to this volume. He gave us the following information at the same time. He told us that apes’ flesh was very nice for eating—a fact some of our party were inclined to doubt. He laughed at our scruples, and assured us that he had frequently dined off apes. The Indians on the Amazon go out regularly to hunt them, and have a very successful mode of so doing. Every hunter is provided with a hollow cane, called a sarbacan—I before described it in our trip up the Amazon. It is about twelve feet in length; and a quiver containing a dozen little pieces of very hard wood, sharp at one end, and fitted with a bit of cotton-wadding at the other. Concealed by the luxuriant foliage of the forest, the Indian, resting his sarbacan on the branch of a tree, waits the near approach of his prey; then blowing out one of the little polished arrows from the tube with his mouth, he invariably strikes the ape, and brings him to the ground. What ensures the success of this mode of hunting is, that it is carried on without the slightest noise, and a whole troop of apes may be killed without their discovering whence the death-dealing darts proceed. When we were on the Amazon we did not know that the poor monkeys were killed in this way. I forgot to mention before the beautiful regularity of the land and sea-breezes which we experienced at this place. It was the dry season of the year, and the air was wonderfully bright and clear. The atmosphere being in a state of equilibrium (so the doctor told us), was ready to obey even the slightest impulse, and to rush towards any spot where rarefaction was taking place. Thus, at about ten in the morning, as the rays of the sun gain power and shed their influence over the earth, the air from the sea begins to move towards it. As rarefaction increases, so does the strength of the wind, till by three or four in the afternoon it rushes in with great force, creating a considerable sea, and if a vessel is not well moored, driving her before it. Captain Frankland knew what to expect, and was therefore prepared for the emergency.

On the afternoon of our return to Valparaiso, we put to sea. From the cause I have mentioned respecting the strength of the sea-breeze, it is necessary to make a good offing from the land. We therefore stood off shore till we had sunk the tops of the Andes below the horizon. The name of the Pacific was given to this ocean by the Spaniards, who first crossed the Isthmus of Panama, under the belief that the whole sea was always as calm as was then the portion they beheld. Storms, if less frequent, are certainly not less violent than in other portions of the world. We certainly very frequently experienced the fickleness of the elements. As we were about to haul up to the northward, the wind suddenly shifted round to that very quarter, and then shifted somewhat to the eastward. We stood away on the starboard-tack, but were evidently making a great deal of lee-way. At last Captain Frankland, finding that no progress could be made, hove the ship to. Jerry and I had by this time got pretty well accustomed to knocking about, so that we did not mind it. We suffered the greatest inconvenience at our meals, because very often the soup which we had intended to put into our mouths without signal or warning rolled away into the waistcoat-pockets of our opposite neighbour. The doctor more than once suffered from being the recipient of the contents of Jerry’s plate as well as of mine; but he took it very good-naturedly, and as he very soon returned us the compliment, we were all square. Not long after dinner, while we were on deck, Ben Yool, who was aloft, hailed to say that he saw bearing right down for us a large brig, and, considering the gale, that she was carrying a wonderful press of canvas. Her courses were brailed up, but her topsails were set, while the top-gallant-sails and royals were flying away in ribbons, except the main-royal, which, with the mast, had gone over the side. We accordingly all looked out for her. We soon, as we rose to the summit of a long rolling sea, caught sight of her, plunging over the foaming waters and often half buried in them. There was something very strange in her appearance, and in the way she came tearing along through the waters. Captain Frankland looked at her attentively through his glass.

“I cannot make it out,” he exclaimed; “the people on board are either all drunk or must have gone mad.”

We were not kept long in suspense. On came the brig. She was a fine-looking vessel; but such a sight met our eyes as I never expected to see. Her deck was crowded with men, but instead of attempting to shorten sail, they were all shrieking and fighting together. One party seemed to have taken possession of the after-part of the vessel, the rest were forward—while in the intermediate space several lay weltering in their blood. Now one party would rush forward and meet the other in the waist, and then after a desperate struggle one would retreat before the other. Thus they continued as long as they remained in sight. It appeared, from the glimpse we got of them as they drove by, that the crew had risen against their officers, who were fighting to regain the upper hand. What they were it was difficult to say, but their appearance bespoke them to be a great set of ruffians. I asked Ben Yool what he thought of them.

“To my mind, Master Harry, they are nothing better than a set of pirates, and I had just as soon not have fallen in with them in smooth water.”

Every spy-glass on board was directed towards them. Strange as it appeared, there could be no doubt about the matter. In spite of the terrific gale—in spite of the prospect of the masts going overboard, and of the ship being reduced to a complete wreck, an event which might any moment occur, the wretched crew of the brig were destroying each other with the maddest fury. From the state of things on board as we saw them, the chances were that the survivors of the victorious party would not have strength to take in sail or clear the deck at the end of the fight.

“That was an extraordinary spectacle we have just witnessed,” observed Cousin Silas, as Jerry and I were holding on to the rails near him as the strange brig disappeared, hidden by the dark foam-topped waves which leaped up between her and us. “Never heard anything like it before, perhaps you will say, lads. Now, in my opinion, you have heard of many things exactly like it before. What is the world doing at the present moment? What has it been doing since the flood? Men have been quarrelling, and fighting, and knocking each other on the head, while ruin has been encircling them around, from that time to the present. We were sent into this world to perform certain duties—to help each other in doing them—to love God and to love each other. If we obey God, we are promised eternal happiness: if we disobey him, eternal punishment. We are told that this world must come to an end, and that all things in it will be destroyed. What do men do? They shut their eyes to all these truths. They live as if they and everything in the world were to last for ever—as if there were no God to obey and love; and, like the madmen we have just seen, they separate into parties, hating each other, and fight, and quarrel, and deface God’s image in which he made man, utterly regardless of the terrible doom awaiting them—just as the people aboard that ship were doing.”

“The simile would not have occurred to me, Mr Brand,” observed Jerry. “I see it now, though. Still, if people do as little harm as they can, it is all right.”

“No, no, lad. Don’t for a moment indulge in such an erroneous, foolish notion, put into people’s heads by the spirit of evil himself, to deceive them. I tell you we were sent into the world not only to abstain from sin, but to do as much good as we can—to actively employ ourselves—to look about us to see how we can do good,—not to wait till some opportunity occurs that may never come. But we are certain to find some good work if we look for it; and if your heart is right towards God, and you earnestly wish to serve him, and not the world, and not yourself, he will point out to you what to do.”

The conversation was interrupted by a heavy lurch the ship made, which sent Jerry and me tumbling away into the lee scuppers; a huge sea at the same moment came rolling up with a foaming crest towards us. It caught the brig broad on the bow—up it rose like a wall, and then with a loud angry roar fell right over us. I felt myself swimming in deep water, with my mouth full and almost blinded. I heard Jerry’s cry close to me. The dreadful thought occurred to me that we were both overboard, and the utter impossibility of lowering a boat to save us flashed across me. I shrieked out for help. A whirl—a confused sound of roaring, hissing waters—a sensation of battling and struggling with them—an eager desire to clutch at something,—are all I remember. Down came the gale on the ship with greater fury than before—another sea from the opposite quarter struck her. I felt myself grasped by a strong arm, and when I opened my eyes, I saw that I was being dragged up to windward by Cousin Silas, who, at the imminent risk of losing his own life, had sprung out with a rope in his hand and hauled me on board again.