Part 10 (1/2)
”How singular it is,” said Browne, ”that you four who were playmates when children, should have happened to keep together so long.”
”And still find ourselves together on an island in the Pacific Ocean, thousands of miles from home,” added Arthur.
”After quitting school,” continued Browne, ”I never met with any of my comrades there. Of all the mates with whom I used on the Sat.u.r.day half-holydays, to go gathering hips and haws, or angling in the Clyde, I have not since come in contact with one.”
”It don't seem at all like Sat.u.r.day to me,” said Johnny, who for some minutes past had appeared to have something on his mind, as to the expediency of communicating which he was undecided; ”I was afraid that it was Sunday, every thing is so still; but I hope it is not, for Arthur would not think it right to start upon an exploring expedition on Sunday, and so it would be put off.”
”Truly,” said Browne, ”that is extremely flattering to the rest of us.
Do you think we are all heathens, except Arthur? I, for one, have no notion of becoming a savage, because I am on a desert island; I shall go for maintaining the decencies of Christianity and civilisation.”
”Does any one know what day it really is?” inquired Morton.
Max said he believed it was Monday. Arthur thought it was Wednesday, and added that he had memoranda, from which he had no doubt he could fix the day with certainty.
”It was on Friday,” said Max, ”that the mutiny took place, and that we got to sea in the boat.”
”Yes,” said Arthur, ”and it was on Wednesday night, I think, five days afterwards, that we landed here.”
”Five days!” cried Max. ”Do you mean to say that we were but five days at sea before reaching the island?”
”I think that is all,” replied Arthur, ”though the time certainly seems much longer. Then, if my calculations are correct, we have been here just two weeks to-day, so that this is Wednesday. But,” continued he, ”as our heavenly Father has thus guided our little bark safe through this wilderness of waters, let us celebrate the day of our landing on this 'Canaan,' by making it our first Sabbath, and our grateful voices shall every seventh day, from this, be lifted up in praise and thanksgiving for the mercy thus vouchsafed to us.”
While this conversation was going on, we reached the sh.o.r.e. Johnny scrambled eagerly to the bow, anxious to be the first to land, and he attained this object of his ambition, by jumping into the water nearly up to his waist, before the boat was fairly beached. Then, after gazing around him a moment with exclamations of wonder and admiration, he suddenly commenced running up and down the wide, firm beach, gathering sh.e.l.ls, with as much zeal and earnestness, as though he was spending a holiday by the sea-side at home, and could tie up these pretty curiosities in his handkerchief, and run back with them in five minutes to his father's house. There was certainly some ground for Johnny's admiration; just at the spot where we had landed, the sh.o.r.e was thickly strewn, in a manner which I had never before seen equalled, with varieties of the most curious and beautiful sh.e.l.ls. They were of all sizes, and of every conceivable shape and colour. The surfaces of some were smooth and highly polished; others were scolloped, or fluted, or marked with wave-like undulations. There were little rice and cowrie sh.e.l.ls; mottled tiger sh.e.l.ls; spider sh.e.l.ls, with their long, sharp spikes; immense conches, rough, and covered with great k.n.o.bs on the outside, but smooth and rose-lipped within, and of many delicate hues.
There were some that resembled gigantic snail sh.e.l.ls, and others shaped like the cornucopias, used to hold sugar-plums for children. One species, the most remarkable of all, was composed of a substance, resembling mother-of-pearl, exquisitely beautiful, but very fragile, breaking easily, if you but set foot on one of them: they were changeable in colour, being of a dazzling white, a pearly blue, or a delicate pale green, as viewed in different lights. Scattered here and there, among these deserted tenements of various kinds of sh.e.l.l-fish, were the beautiful exuviae and skeletons of star-fish, and sea-eggs; while in the shallow water, numerous living specimens could be seen moving lazily about. Among these last, I noticed a couple of sea-porcupines, bristling with their long, fine, flexible quills, and an enormous conch crawling along the bottom with his house on his back, the locomotive power being entirely out of sight.
Johnny seemed for the moment to have forgotten every thing else, in the contemplation of these treasures; and it was not until Arthur reminded him that there was no one to remove or appropriate them, and that he could get as many as he wanted at any time, that he desisted from his work, and reluctantly consented to postpone making a collection for the present.
Having drawn the boat high up on the beach, and armed ourselves with a cutla.s.s apiece, (Johnny taking possession of the longest one of the lot), we commenced our march along the sh.o.r.e, to the right, without further delay.
We had by this time scarcely a remaining doubt that the island was uninhabited. No palm-thatched huts occupied the open s.p.a.ces, or crowned the little eminences that diversified its windward side; no wreaths of smoke could be seen rising above the tops of the groves; no canoes, full of tattooed savages, glided over the still waters within the reef; and no merry troops of bathers pursued their sports in the surf. There was nothing to impart life and animation to the scene, but the varied evolutions of the myriads of sea-fowl, continually swooping, and screaming around us. With this exception, a silence like that of the first Sabbath brooded over the island, which appeared as fresh, and as free from every trace of the presence of man, as if it had newly sprung into existence.
With the continued absence of every indication of inhabitants our feeling of security had increased to such an extent, that even Johnny ventured sometimes to straggle behind, or to run on before, and occasionally made a hasty incursion into the borders of the grove, though he took care never to be far out of sight or hearing of the main body. Soon after starting, we doubled a projecting promontory, and lost sight of the boat and the islet. The reef bent round to the north, preserving nearly a uniform distance from the sh.o.r.e, and was without any break or opening.
The forest in most places, extended nearly to the beach, and was composed chiefly of hibiscus, panda.n.u.s, and cocoa-nut trees, with here and there a large pisonia, close to the lagoon. One gigantic specimen of this last species, which we stopped a moment to admire, could not have been less than twenty feet in girth. Max, Morton, Arthur, and myself, could not quite span it, taking hold of hands, and Johnny had to join the ring, to make it complete. For several hours we continued our journey pretty steadily, encountering no living thing, except tern, gannets, and other sea-birds, and one troop of gaudy little paroquets, glittering in green, and orange, and crimson. These paroquets were the only land-birds we saw during the day. Max p.r.o.nounced them ”frights,”
because of their large hooked bills, and harsh discordant cries. They certainly gave Johnny, a terrible ”fright,” and indeed startled us all a little, by suddenly taking wing, with loud, hoa.r.s.e screams, from a hibiscus, beneath which we were resting, without having observed that they were perched over our heads.
When it was near noon, and we had travelled, as we supposed, making allowance for delays and deviations, some six or eight miles, the character of the sh.o.r.e suddenly changed. The white, shelving beach, and the dense groves meeting it near the water, now disappeared, and were succeeded by an open strip of land, bordering the lagoon, strewed with huge, irregular fragments of coral rock, and seamed with gullies. The line of the forest here receded some distance from the sh.o.r.e, leaving a broad rounded point, embracing a large area of low and barren ground, covered thinly with a growth of stunted shrubs, and a few straggling, solitary looking trees. The lagoon was at this point quite shallow, and low rocks and coral patches appeared above the surface, at short distances apart, nearly to the centre of the channel. The reef opposite, was entirely under water, and its position was indicated only by a line of breakers. A large portion of the point, comprising several acres, was covered with the rude nests of various aquatic birds. Many of these nests were occupied even at that hour, and the birds seemed in no wise alarmed, or even disturbed by our approach. When we came very close to any of them, they would survey us with an air half angry, and half inquisitive, stretching out their long necks; and s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g their heads from side to side, so as to obtain a view of us first with one eye, and then with the other; this seeming to be considered indispensable to a complete and satisfactory understanding of our character and intentions. After a thorough scrutiny, they would resume their former appearance of stupid indifference, as though we were creatures altogether too unimportant to merit further notice. They all, without exception, seemed perfectly tame and fearless, and quite ready to resent any infringement upon their rights.
Johnny, while inspecting too closely the nest of one of them, curiously constructed of long stiff reeds, resembling rods of steel, suddenly received, as a rebuke for his impertinence, a blow from the wing of the offended owner, which laid him sprawling upon his back.
Notwithstanding this severe lesson, the gentle and amiable aspect of a large white bird, so far rea.s.sured him, that he ventured to make some friendly advances, whereupon he got so severely pecked, that he at once gave up all further attempts at familiarity with any of them. This harsh treatment, in fact, so disgusted Johnny with the whole race of sea-birds, and so impaired his faith in their innocent and inoffensive looks, that he declared he would never have any thing more to do with them, ”since that beautiful white bird had bitten him so savagely, when he only offered to stroke its neck.”
Some of these birds were very large and strong: in several of the unoccupied nests I saw eggs, as large as those of the duck: they were of different colours some of them prettily speckled or mottled, but most were of an ash colour, or a whitish brown. Eiulo pointed out two kinds, which he said were highly prized for food, and which, as we afterwards found, were, in fact, nearly equal to the eggs of the domestic duck.
The heat had by this time become exceedingly uncomfortable, and we concluded to halt until it should abate a little, at the first convenient and pleasant spot. Leaving the sh.o.r.e, which, besides being unsheltered from the sun, was so rugged with crevices and gullies, and great irregular blocks of coral, as to be almost impa.s.sable, we entered the borders of the wood, and took a short cut across the point. Johnny, in imitation of the desert islanders of the story-books, desired to give appropriate names to all the interesting or remarkable localities, with which we became acquainted. He had already christened the little island on which we had first landed, ”Palm-Islet,” and the spot upon the opposite sh.o.r.e, abounding in brilliant sh.e.l.ls, had, from that circ.u.mstance, received the impromptu name of ”Pearl-sh.e.l.l Beach.” He now proposed to call the point, ”Cape Desolation,” from its waste and forbidding aspect; but finally fixed upon ”Sea-bird's Point,” as being more appropriate, the birds having, in fact, taken possession of nearly its entire area, which, judging from the warlike spirit they had displayed, they were likely to hold against all comers. Having crossed the point and reached the lagoon again, we found that the sh.o.r.e resumed its former character. The forest again extended nearly to the beach, but it was more open, and not so thickly wooded as before, and the trees were of a finer growth, and in much greater variety; many of them being of kinds unknown to any of us. We had not proceeded far, after regaining the beach, when we espied just such a resting-place as we were in search of.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN.
CASTLE-HILL.