The Island Home

by Richard Archer

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

  THE EXPLORING EXPEDITION.

  EIULO--PEARL-SHELL BEACH--A WARLIKE COLONY--AN INVASION REPELLED.

  "They linger there while weeks and months go by, And hold their hope, tho' weeks and months are past; And still at morning round the farthest sky, And still at eve, their eager glance is cast, If there they may behold the far-off mast Arise, for which they have not ceased to pray."

  For a number of days we remained upon the islet where we had firstlanded, seldom visiting even the adjacent shore. During this time wesubsisted upon cocoa-nuts and a small species of shell-fish, resemblingmussels, which we obtained in abundance from the ledges of theneighbouring reef, and which the little native told us, were used as acommon article of food among his own people. We had reason to feelgrateful that, while we were as feeble and incapable of exertion as wefound ourselves for some days, food could be so readily procured. Itwas also fortunate that during this period the weather continuedremarkably fine and mild, with no perceptible variations of temperature;for I have little doubt that in the reduced and exhausted condition inwhich we then were, and being without any effectual shelter, two orthree days of bad weather would have cost some of us our lives. Thenights were dry and mild, and no dew seemed to fall upon the islet:thanks to this genial weather, and to abundance of nourishing food, webegan rapidly to recover strength.

  Some time passed before we thought of making any attempt to penetrate orexplore the island. We were, naturally, very reluctant to admit even toourselves, the probability that our stay upon it was to be of any longduration; and we did not therefore feel as much interest in itscharacter and resources as we should otherwise have done. All ourthoughts and hopes ran in one channel. We looked for the coming of aship to rescue us from our dreary position; and every morning andevening, at least, and generally many times a day, some one of usclimbed into the tuft of an inclining palm, to take a careful survey ofthat portion of the ocean, which could be seen from our side of theisland. The thought of acting in any respect as though the lonely spotwhere we now found ourselves was destined to be our permanent abode, wasin fact too painful and repugnant to our feelings to be willinglyentertained; we were content therefore, to provide for our daily wantsas they arose, without anticipating or preparing for the future.

  A few days passed in this unvaried and monotonous routine, seemed inreality a long period; recent occurrences began to assume the vaguenessof things that had happened years ago. I remember particularly, that,in looking back at the dreadful scenes of the mutiny, and our subsequentsufferings at sea, the whole seemed unreal, and more like a horribledream, than an actual part of our past experience.

  We soon found that this inert and aimless mode of living--this state ofpassive expectation, while awaiting the occurrence of an event which wecould do nothing to procure or hasten, was a most miserable one: thoughour physical strength was in a great measure recruited, there was noincrease of cheerfulness. Except when engaged in procuring food, ormaking our daily surveys of the ocean, (which was all our occupation),we were dispirited and listless.

  Arthur perceived the evil of this state of things, and set himself todevising a remedy.

  We had been at the island about two weeks, when he proposed, onemorning, that we should go over to the mainland and commence a searchfor water, making an excursion a little way into the interior, if itshould prove necessary.

  Max objected to this, saying that we had no need of water, since wecould, without doubt, obtain cocoa-nut milk as long as we should beobliged to remain upon the island, and that by going into the interior,out of sight of the ocean, we might lose an opportunity of beingrescued.

  To this, Arthur replied, that the exclusive use of cocoa-nut milk wasconsidered very unwholesome, and was supposed to be the cause of certaindropsical complaints, common among the natives of many of the Pacificislands; that beside; it was by no means certain that a supply of itcould be obtained throughout the year. He finally suggested thepossibility that our stay on the island might be longer than weanticipated, in which case its resources, and the means of subsistencewhich it afforded, would be matters of great interest to us. In regardto the danger which Max seemed chiefly to fear, he said that we shouldseldom altogether lose sight of the ocean, but might, on the contrary,obtain a wider view of it from other parts of the island. I warmlyseconded Arthur's proposal, for I perceived the probable beneficialeffects of effort, or occupation, of almost any kind. Morton also wasdecidedly in favour of it; and Johnny, who had recovered strength andspirits wonderfully within the last few days, was quite enthusiastic forthe excursion. He calculated confidently upon our discovering a creekof fresh water, full of fishes and lobsters, and cited the history ofthe Swiss family Robinson, in support of the reasonableness of theseexpectations; declaring that for us part, he could not see why we mightnot count upon equal good fortune with them. Browne seemed indifferentabout the matter. The little native, (whose name, upon Arthur'sauthority, I shall write "Eiulo," though "Iooloo," comes nearer to thesound, as he himself pronounced it), shared in Johnny's delight inprospect of the expedition; indeed, the two had already become the bestfriends in the world, notwithstanding the difficulty of communicatingwith one another, and seemed to harmonise in every thing. The excursionwas accordingly determined upon, and this being so, there was nothing toprevent our setting out at once.

  Morton proposed that, instead of undertaking to penetrate into theinterior, we should keep along the shore to the northward, as by thatmeans some idea might be gained of the extent of the island; and sinceany considerable spring or stream must find its way to the sea, weshould also be more likely to discover water, than by pursuing the othercourse. Along the southern shore, the land was lower and less uneventhan in the opposite direction, and held forth a slighter prospect ofsprings or streams. The difficulty of holding a straight course throughthe forest, where we should be without any means of ascertaining thepoints of the compass, was a consideration of great weight, and Morton'splan was at last adopted, as being upon the whole the best.

  The sun was not more than half an hour high, when we pushed off from theshore of the islet, and rowed over towards the mainland. The morningwas fine and clear, and either the fresh, bracing sea-air, or the stirand excitement of setting out upon our expedition, had an exhilaratinginfluence, for we gradually became quite cheerful, and even animated;and the faces of my companions began to brighten up with more of the oldfamiliar expression, than I had seen there for many a day.

  The merest breath of a breeze just stirred the crisp leaves of the palmsupon the neighbouring shore; the tiny wavelets rippled softly upon thesnowy, shell-spangled beach, or, out in the lagoon, danced and sparkledin the sunlight; still further out and just beyond the barrier thatfenced in this quiet and secluded scene from the open ocean, we couldsee the huge blue rollers with their foaming crests surging high intothe air; and the heavy booming of the surf, as it thundered upon thereef, might be heard for miles around, amid the prevailing silence.Beyond this again, stretched away to the horizon, the blue, swellingarch of the ocean--a clear, deep, intense blue, contrasting beautifullywith the paler blue of the sky, against which it was relieved, and withthe emerald expanse of the lagoon.

  Browne gazed about him with more interest than I had yet seen himmanifest in any thing since we had reached the island. He inhaled thefresh morning air with the appearance of actual relish and enjoyment andat last, to my surprise, (for Max had accused him, not without somereason, of having been the most lugubrious of our party), he began tosing to a brisk and cheerful tune--

  "O, happy days of hope and rest Shall dawn on sorrow's dreary night, Though grief may be an evening guest, Yet joy shall come with morning light! The light of smiles shall beam again, From lids that now o'erflow with tears, And weary hours of woe and pain, Are earnests of serener years."

  "Well," said he, as he finished his song, "this may be a desert island,but I will defy any one to gainsay that the morning is de
licious, andthe scene a right lovely one."

  "I am glad you begin to wake up to it," said Morton, "it looks very muchas it has at this hour for ten days past."

  "No, no," protested Browne, "this bright, clear atmosphere makes a verygreat difference in the appearance of things: we have had no suchmornings as this."

  "I wish you could manage to enjoy it," said Max, "without missing everyother stroke, and digging me so unmercifully in the back with youroar-handle; if you can't, I must ask you to change seats with me, andlet me take the bow-oar."

  "How natural and refreshing that sounds!" cried Morton, laughing; "it isa sure token that prospects are brightening, and serious dangers areover, when we find ourselves again in a condition to scold abouttrifles."

  "It isn't such a trifle, to be thumped and mauled with the butt of anoar, as I have been all the while Browne was singing, and rhapsodising,and going into ecstasies about the beauty of the morning; which is justsuch another as we have had ever since we have been here; all thedifference being in his feelings, which happen to be a shade or two lessdoleful than usual, and so cause things to look brighter."

  "Perhaps you would have me believe," answered Browne, "that the sun willinvariably shine when I chance to be in good spirits, and that athunder-storm would be the natural consequence of my having a fit of theblues?"

  "I should be sorry if that were the case," replied Max, "as we shouldthen be sure to have a large average of bad weather."

  "This excursion reminds me of our school-days," said Arthur; "it almostseems as though we were once more starting off together, on one of ourSaturday rambles, as we have so often done on fine summer and autumnmornings at home."

  "I think I shall never forget those forays through the woods," saidMorton, "over hill and hollow, in search of nuts, or berries, orwild-grapes, or meadow-plums--the fishing and swimming in summer, thesnow-balling, and sledding, and skating, in winter! an innocent andhappy set of urchins we were then!"

  "Really," said Max, laughing, "to hear you one would suppose that wewere now a conclave of venerable, grey-haired sages, scarcely able toremember the time when we were children, and so full of wisdom andexperience, that we had long ago ceased to be `innocent and happy.'"

  "Without professing to be so wise or experienced, as to be very unhappyon that account," returned Morton, "I suppose I may say that I am oldenough, and sufficiently changed since those days, to feel, as I nowlook back upon them with a sigh, their peculiar happiness, so unlike anything that after-life affords."

  "How singular it is," said Browne, "that you four who were playmateswhen 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 mycomrades there. Of all the mates with whom I used on the Saturdayhalf-holydays, to go gathering hips and haws, or angling in the Clyde, Ihave not since come in contact with one."

  "It don't seem at all like Saturday to me," said Johnny, who for someminutes past had appeared to have something on his mind, as to theexpediency of communicating which he was undecided; "I was afraid thatit was Sunday, every thing is so still; but I hope it is not, for Arthurwould not think it right to start upon an exploring expedition onSunday, 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 nonotion of becoming a savage, because I am on a desert island; I shall gofor 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 fixthe day with certainty.

  "It was on Friday," said Max, "that the mutiny took place, and that wegot to sea in the boat."

  "Yes," said Arthur, "and it was on Wednesday night, I think, five daysafterwards, that we landed here."

  "Five days!" cried Max. "Do you mean to say that we were but five daysat sea before reaching the island?"

  "I think that is all," replied Arthur, "though the time certainly seemsmuch longer. Then, if my calculations are correct, we have been herejust two weeks to-day, so that this is Wednesday. But," continued he,"as our heavenly Father has thus guided our little bark safe throughthis wilderness of waters, let us celebrate the day of our landing onthis `Canaan,' by making it our first Sabbath, and our grateful voicesshall every seventh day, from this, be lifted up in praise andthanksgiving for the mercy thus vouchsafed to us."

  While this conversation was going on, we reached the shore. Johnnyscrambled eagerly to the bow, anxious to be the first to land, and heattained this object of his ambition, by jumping into the water nearlyup to his waist, before the boat was fairly beached. Then, after gazingaround him a moment with exclamations of wonder and admiration, hesuddenly commenced running up and down the wide, firm beach, gatheringshells, with as much zeal and earnestness, as though he was spending aholiday by the sea-side at home, and could tie up these prettycuriosities in his handkerchief, and run back with them in five minutesto his father's house. There was certainly some ground for Johnny'sadmiration; just at the spot where we had landed, the shore was thicklystrewn, in a manner which I had never before seen equalled, withvarieties of the most curious and beautiful shells. They were of allsizes, and of every conceivable shape and colour. The surfaces of somewere smooth and highly polished; others were scolloped, or fluted, ormarked with wave-like undulations. There were little rice and cowrieshells; mottled tiger shells; spider shells, with their long, sharpspikes; immense conches, rough, and covered with great knobs on theoutside, but smooth and rose-lipped within, and of many delicate hues.There were some that resembled gigantic snail shells, and others shapedlike the cornucopias, used to hold sugar-plums for children. Onespecies, 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 werechangeable in colour, being of a dazzling white, a pearly blue, or adelicate pale green, as viewed in different lights. Scattered here andthere, among these deserted tenements of various kinds of shell-fish,were the beautiful exuviae and skeletons of star-fish, and sea-eggs;while in the shallow water, numerous living specimens could be seenmoving lazily about. Among these last, I noticed a couple ofsea-porcupines, bristling with their long, fine, flexible quills, and anenormous conch crawling along the bottom with his house on his back, thelocomotive power being entirely out of sight.

  Johnny seemed for the moment to have forgotten every thing else, in thecontemplation of these treasures; and it was not until Arthur remindedhim that there was no one to remove or appropriate them, and that hecould get as many as he wanted at any time, that he desisted from hiswork, and reluctantly consented to postpone making a collection for thepresent.

  Having drawn the boat high up on the beach, and armed ourselves with acutlass apiece, (Johnny taking possession of the longest one of thelot), we commenced our march along the shore, to the right, withoutfurther delay.

  We had by this time scarcely a remaining doubt that the island wasuninhabited. No palm-thatched huts occupied the open spaces, or crownedthe little eminences that diversified its windward side; no wreaths ofsmoke could be seen rising above the tops of the groves; no canoes, fullof tattooed savages, glided over the still waters within the reef; andno merry troops of bathers pursued their sports in the surf. There wasnothing to impart life and animation to the scene, but the variedevolutions of the myriads of sea-fowl, continually swooping, andscreaming around us. With this exception, a silence like that of thefirst Sabbath brooded over the island, which appeared as fresh, and asfree from every trace of the presence of man, as if it had newly sprunginto existence.

  With the continued absence of every indication of inhabitants ourfeeling of
security had increased to such an extent, that even Johnnyventured sometimes to straggle behind, or to run on before, andoccasionally 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 mainbody. Soon after starting, we doubled a projecting promontory, and lostsight of the boat and the islet. The reef bent round to the north,preserving nearly a uniform distance from the shore, and was without anybreak or opening.

  The forest in most places, extended nearly to the beach, and wascomposed chiefly of hibiscus, pandanus, and cocoa-nut trees, with hereand there a large pisonia, close to the lagoon. One gigantic specimenof this last species, which we stopped a moment to admire, could nothave been less than twenty feet in girth. Max, Morton, Arthur, andmyself, could not quite span it, taking hold of hands, and Johnny had tojoin the ring, to make it complete. For several hours we continued ourjourney 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 theonly land-birds we saw during the day. Max pronounced them "frights,"because of their large hooked bills, and harsh discordant cries. Theycertainly gave Johnny, a terrible "fright," and indeed startled us all alittle, by suddenly taking wing, with loud, hoarse screams, from ahibiscus, beneath which we were resting, without having observed thatthey were perched over our heads.

  When it was near noon, and we had travelled, as we supposed, makingallowance for delays and deviations, some six or eight miles, thecharacter of the shore suddenly changed. The white, shelving beach, andthe dense groves meeting it near the water, now disappeared, and weresucceeded by an open strip of land, bordering the lagoon, strewed withhuge, irregular fragments of coral rock, and seamed with gullies. Theline of the forest here receded some distance from the shore, leaving abroad 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, andlow rocks and coral patches appeared above the surface, at shortdistances apart, nearly to the centre of the channel. The reefopposite, was entirely under water, and its position was indicated onlyby a line of breakers. A large portion of the point, comprising severalacres, was covered with the rude nests of various aquatic birds. Manyof these nests were occupied even at that hour, and the birds seemed inno wise alarmed, or even disturbed by our approach. When we came veryclose to any of them, they would survey us with an air half angry, andhalf inquisitive, stretching out their long necks; and screwing theirheads from side to side, so as to obtain a view of us first with oneeye, and then with the other; this seeming to be consideredindispensable to a complete and satisfactory understanding of ourcharacter and intentions. After a thorough scrutiny, they would resumetheir former appearance of stupid indifference, as though we werecreatures altogether too unimportant to merit further notice. They all,without exception, seemed perfectly tame and fearless, and quite readyto resent any infringement upon their rights.

  Johnny, while inspecting too closely the nest of one of them, curiouslyconstructed of long stiff reeds, resembling rods of steel, suddenlyreceived, as a rebuke for his impertinence, a blow from the wing of theoffended owner, which laid him sprawling upon his back.

  Notwithstanding this severe lesson, the gentle and amiable aspect of alarge white bird, so far reassured him, that he ventured to make somefriendly advances, whereupon he got so severely pecked, that he at oncegave up all further attempts at familiarity with any of them. Thisharsh treatment, in fact, so disgusted Johnny with the whole race ofsea-birds, and so impaired his faith in their innocent and inoffensivelooks, that he declared he would never have any thing more to do withthem, "since that beautiful white bird had bitten him so savagely, whenhe only offered to stroke its neck."

  Some of these birds were very large and strong: in several of theunoccupied nests I saw eggs, as large as those of the duck: they were ofdifferent colours some of them prettily speckled or mottled, but mostwere 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 afterwardsfound, were, in fact, nearly equal to the eggs of the domestic duck.

  The heat had by this time become exceedingly uncomfortable, and weconcluded to halt until it should abate a little, at the firstconvenient and pleasant spot. Leaving the shore, which, besides beingunsheltered from the sun, was so rugged with crevices and gullies, andgreat irregular blocks of coral, as to be almost impassable, we enteredthe 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 giveappropriate names to all the interesting or remarkable localities, withwhich we became acquainted. He had already christened the little islandon which we had first landed, "Palm-Islet," and the spot upon theopposite shore, abounding in brilliant shells, had, from thatcircumstance, received the impromptu name of "Pearl-shell Beach." Henow proposed to call the point, "Cape Desolation," from its waste andforbidding aspect; but finally fixed upon "Sea-bird's Point," as beingmore appropriate, the birds having, in fact, taken possession of nearlyits entire area, which, judging from the warlike spirit they haddisplayed, they were likely to hold against all comers. Having crossedthe point and reached the lagoon again, we found that the shore resumedits former character. The forest again extended nearly to the beach,but it was more open, and not so thickly wooded as before, and the treeswere of a finer growth, and in much greater variety; many of them beingof kinds unknown to any of us. We had not proceeded far, afterregaining the beach, when we espied just such a resting-place as we werein search of.