My First Voyage to Southern Seas

by William Henry Giles Kingston

My heart bounded with satisfaction when once more we made sail to the southward. We were at length, I felt, fairly on our voyage to discover my brother. Keeping an easterly course, we steered along the coast of Berbera till we doubled Cape Guardafui. We then once more stood to the southward along the coast of Ajan. We saw no towns or even villages, though we constantly kept close in with the land. This part of Africa is inhabited by tribes of people called the Somauli, who are in general Mohammedans. Some live in towns, but they are mostly a pastoral people. Those who live on this part of the coast occupy themselves almost entirely as fishermen. We landed at several places to communicate with them, and got glimpses of fertile-looking valleys, and here and there of fine open grassy plains. We could hear of no vessel answering to the description of the Dragon having been seen off the coast; indeed, from the business in which she was said to have been engaged, it was not likely that she would have called off there. We entered also the harbour of Magadoxa, formed by a coral reef. It is a curious place. There are scarcely a hundred and fifty houses in the place—all of them with thick walls, and built round court-yards, but one-half of the town consists almost entirely of tombs.

We should not have been the wiser for our visit had we not fallen in with the master of an Arab dhow, who had been some way to the southward of the Portuguese settlements. Captain Armstrong had on some occasion rendered him some service, and when he saw the Star, he came on board with some small presents to show his gratitude. On being questioned, he told us that some voyages before he had fallen in with a brig answering exactly the description of the Dragon, and that he had heard that an attempt had been made by her master and his crew to carry off some of the negroes from a village on the coast against their will. He had succeeded in securing a few on board, but when returning on shore for a further supply, the natives had set on him, and murdered him and most of his people. They had then gone on board, rescued their countrymen, and carried off the survivors of the brig’s crew as captives into the interior.

Though I trembled while the account was being translated to me, yet on considering over the subject, I felt sure that Alfred would not have joined the party who had attempted to kidnap the natives, and I therefore had great hopes that he was among those who had been made prisoners, and that I should ultimately be able to discover the place of his captivity. The Arab did not know the exact position of the spot where the occurrence had taken place, as it was some way further to the south than he had gone. Yet from the information he gave, Captain Armstrong had little doubt about finding it.

Leaving Magadoxa, we continued our course to the southward. A few days after this we were standing on with a fair breeze and a light wind, when the look-out from the masthead hailed the deck, to say that there was an object on the port bow, but whether a rock, or a ship with her masts gone or capsized, or a whale, he could not tell. Several of the officers went aloft with their glasses, as I also did, to try and ascertain what it was which had hove in sight. We looked and looked, however, for some time, without being able to settle the point. The object was a long way off, and we drew only very slowly up to it. As we approached it seemed to grow larger and larger. It was pretty clearly not a ship’s bottom, nor a whale, and finally it resolved itself into a high rock surrounded by a coral reef—so we judged from the line of surf which every now and then we saw rising up out of the blue sea. It was a very dangerous-looking place, on which, during the fierce gales of those latitudes, in thick weather or on a dark night many a fine ship has probably been cast away.

“There appears to me to be something moving on the rock,” observed Mr D’Arcy, the second lieutenant. “Perhaps there are only birds there.”

“No, sir; there is a man, and he is waving a shirt or a flag, or something of that size,” I exclaimed, after looking attentively for some moments.

Having got as near as we could venture, we hove to, to leeward of the rock, when a boat was lowered, of which Mr D’Arcy took command, and very kindly allowed me to accompany him. As we pulled up to the rock, we found how much we had been deceived by the distance as to its size, for instead of being anything like the size of a ship, the rock, or rather the islet, proved to be nearly a mile in circumference, though when first discovered only the conical rock in the centre had been seen, the lower portion being very little above the level of the water. As soon as the man discovered us approaching, he ran down from his lofty post towards us. Why, I could not tell; I almost expected to see Alfred. We had to pull round some way before, guided by the signs he made, we could find a passage through the reefs. At length, however, one was found, and dashing through it, we were soon close to the shore. But even before we touched it, the man plunged into the water in his eagerness to meet us. I looked eagerly, but I soon saw that it was not Alfred. He was an oldish, roughish-looking man, and had all the appearance of a seaman.

“Thank Heaven, friends, that have been sent to save me,” he exclaimed, as he was helped into the boat; “I don’t think I could have held out many days longer. I have been living on dried whale’s flesh and shell-fish for I don’t know how many months past, and I was beginning to feel the scurvy breaking out in me; but all’s right now; I’ve no fear.”

Mr D’Arcy wished to have a look at the rock before leaving it, so he and I, and one of the midshipmen, landed. Our idea of its being the extinct crater of a marine volcano was undoubtedly correct. At the foot of the cone was a pool, deep and clear, of pure fresh water, forced up it must have been from beneath the ocean. On one side of the islet were the remains of a large sperm whale, the flesh of which had supplied the poor man with food. He had also constructed a hut very neatly out of the bones, near the top of the crater. Already young palm-trees and a variety of vegetable productions were springing up round the base of the cone, so that this spot in a few years hence may afford ample support to any one cast away on it. After a very cursory inspection of the place we hurried back to the boat, and returned on board.

The rescued man expressed himself most grateful for the assistance afforded him. He did not, however, at first say much about himself, merely observing that he had gone through a great number of adventures, and had at last, after having been a prisoner among the blacks, and effected his escape, been wrecked three months before on this rock, when he was the only person whose life had been saved.