RADACK CHAIN.—WATERING AT OCEAN ISLAND.—INCIDENTS OF THE RUN TO SYDNEY, N. S. W.
We continued working to the eastward until we were in longitude 170 degrees east, but the captain, not wishing to visit the Sandwich Islands, determined to leave this ground early, and finish out the season among the groups, recruiting at some island where he could drive a barter trade, in which our stock of tobacco and cloth could be made available. Up to the middle of August we had taken about five hundred barrels since leaving Strong's Island. In company with our old consort, the Leonidas, we steered to the southward, working down through those intricate and dangerous archipelagoes known as the Radack and Ralick chains of islands, where we carried sail days, and lay to nights with two men in the foretopmast crosstrees, and all the rest of the watch above the rail. Ragged reefs of coral, little more than flush with the surface of the sea, stretched here and there in unexpected directions, and sunken rocks waylaid us at every turn. At times we seemed to be embayed among these dangers, seeming the more formidable from the unpronounceable Russian names on the charts, while ever and anon a green islet with cocoanut trees popped into view, as if it had been forced up from the depths of the sea, while we had been looking for hidden dangers in another quarter of the horizon, and two or three canoes would dodge out from a lagoon, whence the only passage of egress seemed to us to have been by a submarine route under the reef of rocks. The old saying among us, "Where there's a cocoanut tree there's a Kanaka," though not infallible, held good through all this labyrinth. Sperm whales were seen several times, and in one instance we took two small whales and cut them with canoes alongside of us from a pretty little island, nestled among ugly reefs which stretched out like antennæ to draw luckless mariners into destruction. What it was called by the Russian officers I cannot now remember, but the name itself was ragged enough to bring a ship up all standing. We were not sorry when we had wound our way clear of these perils without accident, and emerged into a comparatively open sea.
We struck the equator between the longitudes of Ocean and Pleasant Islands, where we got a "cut" of a hundred and fifty barrels, and stood in under the lee of Ocean Island to get a few casks of water. We bargained with one of the white "beach-combers" to fill them by contract at so many heads of tobacco for each cask. I went ashore in the boat, with the second mate, having the casks in tow. We rolled them up on the reef and then high and dry on the beach. I was conscious all the time of a strange, giddy feeling, which seemed to be occasioned by the odors from the land, and as I went up from the reef to the soil and drew near to the cocoanut grove near the landing, this feeling overpowered me, my strength seemed to have left me all at once, I felt a tingling pain in my legs, and fell helpless to the ground. I was surprised, and rather indignant withal, to perceive that Mr. Dunham was laughing at me.
"Ah!" said he, "it's well for you that you came ashore. It's time we all had a land cruise and a good run among the fruit trees. We shall all be better for this day's work."
"Why," I asked, "what do you suppose ails me?"
"It's the scurvy working out of you, I suppose," said he. "That's what we call it. I have seen the same phenomenon once or twice before in men who had shown no symptoms of the disease while at sea, but the first contact with the land affected them as it does you now. That will soon pass off and you will feel better than ever."
His prediction proved true. In a few minutes a slight attack of vomiting relieved me, and I rose to my feet. The dizziness gradually passed away, and I felt stronger and fresher than when I landed.
The casks, in the mean time, had been rolled in a tier with the bungs out, I saw no watering-place from which they were to be filled. I naturally asked, "where is the water?"
"O," said Dan, the white man, "the water here is away up inland, in a sort of cave under ground."
"Is that the only fresh water here?" I inquired.