“Land, ho! Land, ho!” was shouted one morning, soon after daybreak, from the mast-head. I was on my first voyage to the West Indies, in the good ship Banana.
“Where away?” asked the captain, whom the sound called out of his berth on deck.
“A little on the starboard bow,” was the answer.
The ship was kept away towards the point indicated, while the captain, with his glass slung on his back, went aloft. The passengers, of whom I forgot to say we had several, and all the crew, were on the lookout, wondering what land it could be. We found, after the captain came below and had consulted his chart, that it was a little rock or key to the southward of Barbadoes.
“We’ll get a nearer look at them, in case any poor fellows may have been cast away there. I have known the survivors of a ship’s company remain on them for weeks together, and in some instances they have died of starvation before relief has reached them.”
As we approached the rock all the glasses on board were directed towards it, to ascertain if there were signs of human beings there. The spot looked silent and deserted.
“If there are any poor fellows there, how eagerly they will watch our approach—how anxious they will be lest we should sail away without looking for them,” I said to myself.
While these thoughts were passing through my mind, I heard the first mate say that he could make out something white on the shore, which he took for a tent or a boat’s sail. As we drew nearer it became evident that there was a tent, but no human being was stirring that we could see. Nearer still a boat was observed, drawn up on the rocks. On further inspection she was discovered to be a complete wreck. Melancholy indeed was the spectacle which told so clearly its own story—how the shipwrecked mariners had been cast on the island in their boat—how they had gone on waiting for relief, and how at length famine had carried them off, one by one, till none remained. Still our captain was not a man to quit the spot after so cursory an inspection. The ship, having got under the lee of the land, was hove to, and a boat was lowered. Charley, another midshipman, or apprentice rather, and I formed part of her crew, while Mr Merton, our first officer, went in charge of her, accompanied by some of the passengers.
It was a long, low, coral-formed island, with a white beach—a very untempting spot for a habitation in that burning climate. When we landed, Mr Merton told us to accompany him, leaving two other men in the boat. We followed close after him, with the boat’s stretchers in our hands, proceeding along the beach, for the tent we had seen was some little distance from where we had landed. We had got within a hundred yards of it, when suddenly part of it was thrown back, and out there rushed towards us two figures, whose frantic and threatening gestures made us start back with no little surprise, if not with some slight degree of apprehension. They were both tall, gaunt men, their hair was long and matted, their eyes were starting out of their heads, and their cheeks were hollow and shrivelled. They looked more like skeletons covered with parchment than human beings. Their clothes were in rags, and their large straw hats were in tatters, and, to increase their strange appearance, they had covered themselves with long streamers of dried seaweed, strings of shells, and wreaths of the feathers of wild birds. Each of them flourished in his hand a piece of timber—a rib, apparently, of a boat.
“Who are you, who dare to come and invade our territory?” exclaimed one, advancing before the other. “Away—away—away! We are monarchs and rulers here. This land is ours, won by our trusty swords and battle-axes. Away, I say! or meet the consequences of your temerity.”