Part 23 (1/2)
This harangue had a very tranquillising effect. The offenders all begged pardon, and a.s.sured me they would deserve my forgiveness by their future submission.
All this pa.s.sed at some little distance from the wreck, but within hearing; and while it was going on, the wind, which had been fair when we put off, gradually died away, and blew faintly from the south-west, directly towards the sinking wreck. I took advantage of this circ.u.mstance to read them a lecture. When I had subdued them and worked a little on their feelings, I said I never knew any good come of cruelty; whenever a s.h.i.+p or a boat had left a man behind who might have been saved, that disaster or destruction had invariably attended those who had so cruelly acted; that I was quite sure we never should escape from this danger if we did not show mercy to our fellow-creatures.
”G.o.d,” said I, ”has shown mercy to us in giving us this excellent boat to save us in our imminent danger; and He seems to say to us now, 'Go back to the wreck, and rescue your fellow-sufferer.' The wind blows directly towards her, and is foul for the point in which we intend to steer; hasten then,” pursued I, ”obey the divine will; do your duty, and trust in G.o.d. I shall then be proud to command you, and have no doubt in bringing you safe into port.”
This was the ”pliant hour;” they sprang upon their oars, and pulled back to the wreck with alacrity. The poor captain, who had witnessed all that had pa.s.sed, watched the progress of his cause with deep anxiety.
No sooner did the boat touch the s.h.i.+p than he leaped into her, fell down on his knees, and thanked G.o.d aloud for his deliverance. He then fell on my neck, embraced me, kissed my cheek, and wept like a girl. The sailors, meanwhile, who never bear malice long, good-naturedly jumped up, and a.s.sisted him in getting his little articles into the boat; and as Mungo followed his master, shook hands with him all round, and swore he should be a black prince when he went back to Guinea. We also took in one or two more little articles of general use, which had been forgotten in our former hurry.
We now shoved off for the last time; and had not proceeded more than two hundred yards from the s.h.i.+p, when she gave a heavy lurch on one side, recovered it, and rolled as deep on the other; then, as if endued with life and instinct, gave a pitch, and went down head foremost into the fathomless deep. We had scarcely time to behold this awful scene, when the wind again sprang up fair, from its old quarter, the east.
”There,” said I, ”heaven has declared itself in your favour already.
You have got your fair wind again.”
We thanked G.o.d for this; and having set our sail, I shaped my course for Cape St. Thomas, and we went to our frugal dinner with cheerful and grateful hearts.
The weather was fine--the sea tolerably smooth--and as we had plenty of provisions and water, we did not suffer much, except from an apprehension of a change of wind, and the knowledge of our precarious situation. On the fifth day after leaving the wreck we discovered land at a great distance. I knew it to be the island of Trinidad and the rocks of Martin Vas. This island, which lies in lat.i.tude twenty degrees south, and longitude thirty degrees west, is not to be confounded with the island of the same name on the coast of Terra Firma in the West Indies, and now a British colony.
On consulting Horsburgh, which I had in the boat, I found that the island which we were now approaching was formerly inhabited by the Portuguese, but long since abandoned. I continued steering towards it during the night, until we heard the breakers roaring against the rocks, when I hove-to to windward of the land, till daylight.
The morning presented to our view a precipitous and rugged iron-bound coast, with high and pointed rocks, frowning defiance over the unappeasable and furious waves which broke incessantly at their feet, and recoiled to repeat the blow. Thus for ages had they been employed, and thus for ages will they continue, without making any impression visible to the eye of man. To land was impossible on the part of the coast now under our inspection, and we coasted along in hopes of finding some haven into which we might haul our boat, and secure her. The island appeared to be about nine miles long, evidently of volcanic formation, an a.s.semblage of rocky mountains towering several hundred feet above the level of the sea. It was barren, except at the summit of the hills, where some trees formed a coronet at once beautiful and refres.h.i.+ng, but tantalising to look at, as they appeared utterly inaccessible; and even supposing I could have discovered a landing-place, I was in great doubt whether I should have availed myself of it, as the island appeared to produce nothing which could have added to our comfort, while delay would only have uselessly consumed our provisions. There did not appear to be a living creature on the island, and the danger of approaching to find a landing-place was most imminent.
This unpromising appearance induced me to propose that we should continue our course to Rio Janeiro. The men were of another opinion.
They said they had been too long afloat, cooped up, and that they should prefer remaining on the island to risking their lives any longer in so frail a boat on the wide ocean. We were still debating, when we came to a small spot of sand on which we discovered two wild hogs, which we conjectured had come down to feed on the sh.e.l.l fish; this decided them, and I consented to run to leeward of the island, and seek for a landing-place. We sounded the west end, following the remarks of Horsburgh, and ran for the cove of the Nine-Pin Rock. As we opened it, a scene of grandeur presented itself, which we had never met with before, and which in its kind is probably unrivalled in nature. An enormous rock rose, nearly perpendicularly, out of the sea, to the height of nine hundred or one thousand feet. It was as narrow at the base as it was at the top, and was formed exactly in the shape of a nine-pin, from which it derives its name. The sides appeared smooth and even to the top, which was covered with verdure, and was so far above us that the sea-birds, which in myriads screamed around it, were scarcely visible two-thirds of the way up. The sea beat violently against its base--the feathered tribe, in endless variety, had been for ages the undisturbed tenants of this natural monument; all its jutting points and little projections were covered with their white dung, and it seemed to me a wonderful effort of nature which had placed this ma.s.s in the position which it held in spite of the utmost efforts of the winds and waves of the wide ocean.
Another curious phenomenon appeared at the other end of the cove. The lava had poured down into the sea, and formed a stratum; a second river of fused rock had poured again over the first, and had cooled so rapidly as to hang suspended, not having joined the former strata, but leaving a vacuum between for the water to fill up. The sea dashed violently between the two beds, and spouted magnificently through holes in the upper bed of lava to the height of sixty feet, resembling much the spouting of a whale, but with a noise and force infinitely greater. The sound, indeed, was tremendous, hollow, and awful. I could not help mentally adoring the works of the Creator, and my heart sunk within me at my own insignificance, folly, and wickedness.
As we were now running along the sh.o.r.e, looking for our landing-place, and just going to take in the sail, the American captain, who sat close to the man at the helm, seemed attentively watching something on the larboard bow of the boat. In an instant he exclaimed, ”Port your helm, my good fellow, port hard.” These words he accompanied with a push of the helm so violent as almost to throw overboard the man who sat on the larboard quarter. At the same moment, a heavy sea lifted the boat, and sent her many yards beyond and to the right of a pointed rock just flush or even with the water, which had escaped our notice, and which none suspected but the American captain (for these rocks do not show breakers every minute--if they did they would be easily avoided). On this we should most certainly have been dashed to pieces, had not the danger been seen, and avoided by the sudden and skilful motion of the helm; one moment more, and one foot nearer, and we were gone.
”Merciful G.o.d!” said I, ”to what fate am I reserved at last? How can I be sufficiently thankful for so much goodness!”
I thanked the American for his attention--told my men how much we were indebted to him, and how amply he had repaid our kindness in taking him off the wreck.
”Ah, lieutenant!” said the poor man, ”it is a small turn I've done you for the kindness you have shown to me.”
The water was very deep, the rocks being steep; so we lowered our sail, and getting our oars out, pulled in to look for a landing. At the further end of the cove, we discovered the wreck of a vessel lying on the beach. She was broken in two, and appeared to be copper-bottomed.
This increased the eagerness of the men to land; we rowed close to the sh.o.r.e, but found that the boat would be dashed to pieces if we attempted it. The mids.h.i.+pman proposed that one of us should swim on sh.o.r.e, and, by ascending a bill, discover a place to lay the boat in. This I agreed to; and the quarter-master immediately threw off his clothes. I made a head-line fast to him under his arms, that we might pull him in if we found him exhausted. He went over the surf with great ease, until he came to the breakers on the beach, through which he could not force his way; for the moment he touched the ground with his foot, the recoil of the sea, and what is called by sailors the undertow, carried him back again, and left him in the rear of the last wave.
Three times the brave fellow made the attempt, and with the same result.
At last he sank, and we pulled him in very nearly dead. We, however, restored him by care and attention, and he went again to his usual duty.
The mids.h.i.+pman now proposed that he should try to swim through the surf without the line, for that alone had impeded the progress of the quarter-master; this was true, but I would not allow him to run the risk, and we pulled along sh.o.r.e, until we came to a rock on which the surf beat very high, and which we avoided in consequence. This rock we discovered to be detached from the main; and within it, to our great joy, we saw smooth water; we pulled in, and succeeded in landing without much difficulty, and having secured our boat to a grapnel, and left two trusty men in charge of her, I proceeded with the rest to explore the cove; our attention was naturally first directed to the wreck which we had pa.s.sed in the boat, and, after a quarter of an hour's scrambling over huge fragments of broken rocks, which had been detached from the sides of the hill, and enc.u.mbered the beach, we arrived at the spot.
The wreck proved to be a beautiful copper-bottomed schooner, of about a hundred and eighty tons burthen. She had been dashed on sh.o.r.e with great violence, and thrown many yards above the high-water mark. Her masts and spars were lying in all directions on the beach, which was strewed with her cargo. This consisted of a variety of toys and hardware, musical instruments, violins, flutes, fifes, and bird-organs.
Some few remains of books, which I picked up, were French romances, with indelicate plates, and still worse text. These proved the vessel to be French. At a short distance from the wreck, on a rising knoll, we found three or four huts, rudely constructed out of the fragments; and, a little further off, a succession of graves, each surmounted with a cross I examined the huts, which contained some rude and simple relics of human tenancy: a few benches and tables, composed of boards roughly hewn out and nailed together; bones of goats and of the wild hog, with the remains of burnt wood. But we could not discover any traces of the name of the vessel or owner; nor were there any names marked or cut on the boards, as might have been expected, to show to whom the vessel belonged, and what had become of the survivors.
This studied concealment of all information led us to the most accurate knowledge of her port of departure, her destination, and her object of trade. Being on the south-west side of the island, with her head lying to the north-east, she had, beyond all doubt, been running from Rio Janeiro towards the coast of Africa, and got on sh.o.r.e in the night.
That she was going to fetch a cargo of slaves was equally clear, not only from the baubles with which she was freighted, but also from the interior fitting of the vessel, and from a number of hand and leg shackles which we found among the wreck, and which we knew were only used for the purposes of confining and securing the unhappy victims of this traffic.
We took up our quarters in the huts for the night, and the next morning divided ourselves into three parties, to explore the island. I have before observed that we had muskets, but no powder, and therefore stood but little chance of killing any of the goats or wild hogs, with which we found the island abounded. One party sought the means of attaining the highest summit of the island; another went along the sh.o.r.e to the westward; while myself and two others went to the eastward. We crossed several ravines, with much difficulty, until we reached a long valley, which seemed to intersect the island.