Part 13 (1/2)
When this rough piece of machinery was ready we began to turn the handle, both of us heaving at it, because the canoe was so heavy that it needed all our strength. At first, indeed, we could scarcely move it, and feared that all was again for nought; but when we had greased the drum again with pork fat where it fitted into the supports, we managed to turn it a very little way, and that giving encouragement, we persevered, and had the joy of seeing the canoe coming inch by inch, with much creaking and groaning of our machine, nearer to the water.
If the canoe had had a keel, I doubt whether we could have moved it, for it would almost certainly have ploughed into the sand and stuck; but being rounded and not pointed, it slid down, though slowly and with many checks. And so, having drawn it down to a spot where the depth of water when the tide came in would be sufficient to float it, we let forth a shout of delight and went home to dinner with cheerful minds and keen appet.i.tes, I do a.s.sure you.
We had left our mooring-rope attaching the canoe to the rock, so that it should not float away while we were at dinner; and when we had finished the meal we went down to the sh.o.r.e again, very impatient to try the vessel's buoyancy. The tide was not yet come near high enough to float it, and we waited for a good while, watching the ripples crawling up over the sand, every moment a little higher. At last the water was was.h.i.+ng around the canoe; then it floated, and no sooner did it float than Billy pushed it out with a great shove into deeper water and leaped aboard, and I laughed heartily at what ensued, for he turned a somerset and went souse into the sea, and the canoe filled and sank.
Billy came up spluttering, and the first words he said were, ”What's the good of the silly thing!” And, indeed, I saw that maybe the matter was not one for amus.e.m.e.nt, for if the vessel toppled over, or turned turtle, as they say at sea, whenever we tried to board her, we should have had all our labour in vain. However, we could but wait until the tide fell again, when she would be left high and dry, and meanwhile we went back to the house, as well to dry Billy's clothes (what there was now left of them) as to consider how we might improve the stability of the vessel on which we set such store.
[Sidenote: The Outrigger]
I remembered that when we were on the island where we sojourned for a time (how long ago it seemed!) we had seen some strangely-shaped canoes which very much moved my curiosity. There were cross-pieces of wood let into the side of the canoe, and bent over, being fastened at the lower extremity to a pole or plank which floated on the water. This odd contrivance I had heard the seamen call an outrigger, and the purpose of it was to keep the vessel on an even keel, as one may say, though having no keel it would be better to say plainly, to keep it steady. I was now much more alive to the benefit of this contrivance than when I had merely seen it as a spectator; things do take on very different aspects according as we are personally interested or not; and we immediately set to work to fas.h.i.+on an outrigger for our vessel, which took us two or three full working days to make, and another day to adjust. When it was done, we floated the canoe once more, and got into her, and felt exceeding pleased with ourselves for the s.p.a.ce of perhaps a minute, and then our complacency received a wound, for by some s.h.i.+fting of our position the balance of the vessel was altered, the outrigger rose up and made best part of a circle in the air, and Billy and I were cast into the water. It was plain that the outrigger was too light, and we made another one, using this time the heavy wood of the cocoa-nut palm, which being very hard, too, gave us a deal of trouble to fas.h.i.+on to the right shape; but we managed it at last, and when we fixed this new outrigger to the canoe, we found that we could sway from side to side without any danger of capsizing. Billy was greatly uplifted at this, and wanted to set off there and then on a voyage; he even said that perhaps we might rig up a sail and voyage to England; but I told him that we had not yet proved the vessel, and did not even know whether she would ride through a sea of any roughness; and as for England, it was impossible to think that we could ever cross the immense ocean in so clumsy a craft, though the mention of it set me a-longing, and I felt more miserable than I had done for many a day.
We had not yet made any paddles for propelling our canoe; Billy very sensibly saying that 'twas no good wasting time on them until we had proved whether our vessel would float. However, now that we were a.s.sured of this, we made some paddles, finding it a pretty hard job, for we had no means of splitting planks from the trees, and we had to content ourselves with short poles, with blades made in the following manner. To one end of the pole we lashed a thin flexible rod, bent to the shape of a circle, and we made a kind of basket-work on this by crossing and re-crossing with threads of cocoa-nut fibre, which we drew as tight as we could. When we had coloured it red with the sap of the redwood tree of which I have spoken before, we had a very serviceable paddle, and not ill-looking either. We paddled about in shallow water near the sandy beach, not venturing to go further out as yet, from fear of capsizing where we might be snapped up by a shark. Our vessel behaved very well, though with no grace of movement, to be sure, and we found after a little practice that we could sit on the crosspieces of the outrigger, which joined the sides of the canoe, and work our paddles very well.
I asked Billy what we should call our vessel.
”Blackamoor, that's what I say,” said he.
”But she's only black inside,” said I; ”her outside is fair enough; and now I come to think of it, we can paint her and make her look better still.”
[Sidenote: Naming the Vessel]
Accordingly we did this, expressing oil from the candle-nuts of which I have spoken, and mixing this with sap from the red-wood tree. We made a paintbrush of thin spines, and with this we painted the sides of the vessel, which took us above a fortnight, I should think, for it was wonderful what a prodigious quant.i.ty of paint we used, and what a prodigious number of nuts we pressed before we got enough oil for our purpose. When the painting was finished, Billy said that we ought to call the vessel _Painted Sally_, or some such name; but I thought she deserved a more respectful appellation, and suggested _Esperanza_, a name which I had come upon somewhere in my reading, and which I thought had a pleasant sound. However, Billy would not hear of it.
”It's French, that I warrant you,” he said, ”and I can't abide 'em.
Besides, what's it mean? I suppose it means some rubbish or other.”
”Well, I think it means 'hope',” I said, ”and I think it a much prettier word.”
”I don't,” says Billy bluntly; ”it's too soft like.”
”And therefore it suits our vessel,” I said, ”for you know, Billy, s.h.i.+ps are always given ladies' names.”
”Yes, and the _Lovey Susan_,” says he, ”she went to the bottom, and _her_ name was soft enough, and I don't believe any boat with the name _Esperanza_ would ever have the strength to ride through a storm. I likes a plain straightforward name, I do, like my own; you won't find any man,” says he, ”with a better name than Billy Bobbin.”
”Well, shall we call her Billy?” I asked.
Billy looked very serious at this, and after considering for a minute he said he wasn't going to be called a ”her” or a ”she” for anybody, not even on a boat, and then added, ”Call her plain _Hope_ and settle it, master, and never mind about your _Esperanzas_.”
”Fair Hope would suit a lady better than Plain Hope,” I said very gravely, and Billy, who was quite unconscious of the verbal point ('twas a very small one, I own), agreed that _Fair Hope_ wasn't bad; and so we got some powdered charcoal and mixed it with oil, and printed the name in black letters on the larboard bow, as Billy called it, and having done this, we thought we might now venture to make a short expedition up the coast.
[Sidenote: We go Sailing]
It was a fair bright morning when we set out on this our first voyage, and we were very much excited, as you may imagine. We had been by my reckoning, which was pure guess-work, above two years on the island, and though we had become pretty reconciled to it, regarding it indeed as our home for the rest of our lives, there were times when our lot seemed to be that of prisoners, and the prospect of getting beyond our bounds, though ever so short a distance and for ever so short a time, seemed like the loosening of fetters and the removing of prison bars.
This made me think what a blessed thing is liberty, and when I remembered unfortunate people whom I had read about as falling into captivity I compared our lot with theirs, and saw how much we had to be thankful for.
However, to return to our voyage. We had been taught a certain caution by sundry incidents that had already happened in our life on the island, so we put some food and two or three pots of fresh water in the bottom of the vessel, and our spears, axes, and bows and arrows as well. While Billy carried these things down to the vessel, I went up to our watch-tower, to see whether any canoes were in sight, for we should have been very sorry if we had run among a fleet of savage vessels. However, there was not a speck to be seen, only the low dusky line on the western horizon that we believed to be the coast of some island. Accordingly we set off in perfect ease of mind, and paddled slowly along, keeping close to the sh.o.r.e, and following its indentations as well as the rocks and shoals would permit us.
The seaward aspect of the familiar parts of the island was very interesting to us, and we amused ourselves with guessing what places in the interior were opposite to us when the cliffs hid them from sight.
For some distance we pa.s.sed beneath low cliffs; then the sh.o.r.e took a great curve inward, making the bay we had called by Billy's name; the head of this bay we judged to be the point of the sh.o.r.e nearest to our hut, which was not itself visible from any part of the sea, lying as it did in a hollow. We paddled out to the nearest of the big rocks that stood like sentinels guarding this side of the island, and found a great quant.i.ty of clams upon it, some of which Billy insisted on taking into the boat, to see if they tasted any different from those we found on our own sh.o.r.e, and in reaching over he pretty nearly upset the vessel. From thence we went on to the second rock, some little distance out to sea, and Billy wanted to get out and climb the rock, which stood almost perpendicular, but with jagged sides, so that climbing was possible; but the base of it was so thickly covered with slimy seaweed that it would have been difficult to maintain a footing, so I persuaded Billy to forego the enterprise. Leaving this rock, we continued on our course, and came by and by to the rocky spar that was what may be called the land's end of this part of the island. Here the cliffs were very steep, indeed, almost perpendicular, as we had discovered before when we had tried to walk round the coast, and found our way blocked. When we had turned the corner, we found another little bay, but no beach, except a very small strip of sand at the foot of the cliffs. We saw a great quant.i.ty of driftwood on this beach, and when we paddled up to it, a huge eel darted away from beneath a water-sodden log, on which Billy made a great lamentation because we had not brought our fis.h.i.+ng lines and hooks. Among the driftwood we saw two or three very old planks, worm-eaten and covered with moss, and we wondered whether they were planks of the boat of the _Lovey Susan_, which we might have had now if we had been more thoughtful. We took them on board, not that they would be of any use to us, but that we might keep them as mementoes.