The Coral Island

by R. M. Ballantyne

  CHAPTER TEN.

  MAKE DISCOVERY OF MANY EXCELLENT ROOTS AND FRUITS--THE RESOURCES OF THECORAL ISLAND GRADUALLY UNFOLDED--THE BANYAN TREE--ANOTHER TREE WHICH ISSUPPORTED BY NATURAL PLANKS--WATER-FOWL FOUND--A VERY REMARKABLEDISCOVERY, AND A VERY PECULIAR MURDER--WE LUXURIATE ON THE FAT OF THELAND.

  Our examination of the little valley proved to be altogether mostsatisfactory. We found in it not only similar trees to those we hadalready seen in our own valley, but also one or two others of adifferent species. We had also the satisfaction of discovering apeculiar vegetable, which, Jack concluded, must certainly be that ofwhich he had read as being very common among the South Sea Islanders,and which was named taro. Also we found a large supply of yams, andanother root like a potato in appearance. As these were all quite newto us, we regarded our lot as a most fortunate one, in being thus caston an island which was so prolific and so well stored with all thenecessaries of life. Long afterwards we found out that this island ofours was no better in these respects than thousands of other islands inthose seas. Indeed, many of them were much richer and more productive;but that did not render us the less grateful for our present goodfortune. We each put one of these roots in our pocket, intending to usethem for our supper--of which more hereafter. We also saw manybeautiful birds here, and traces of some four-footed animal again.Meanwhile the sun began to descend; so we returned to the shore andpushed on, round the spouting rocks, into the next valley. This wasthat valley of which I have spoken as running across the entire island.It was by far the largest and most beautiful that we had yet lookedupon. Here were trees of every shape and size and hue which it ispossible to conceive of, many of which we had not seen in the othervalleys; for, the stream in this valley being larger, and the mould muchricher than in the Valley of the Wreck, it was clothed with a moreluxuriant growth of trees and plants. Some trees were dark, glossygreen; others of a rich and warm hue, contrasting well with those of apale, light green, which were everywhere abundant. Among these werecognised the broad, dark heads of the bread-fruit, with its goldenfruit; the pure, silvery foliage of the candle-nut, and several specieswhich bore a strong resemblance to the pine; while here and there, ingroups and in single trees, rose the tall forms of the cocoa-nut palms,spreading abroad, and waving their graceful plumes high above all therest, as if they were a superior race of stately giants keeping guardover these luxuriant forests. Oh, it was a most enchanting scene! and Ithanked God for having created such delightful spots for the use of man.

  Now, while we were gazing around us in silent admiration, Jack utteredan exclamation of surprise, and pointing to an object a little to oneside of us, said:

  "That's a banyan tree."

  "And what's a banyan tree?" inquired Peterkin as we walked towards it.

  "A very curious one, as you shall see presently," replied Jack. "It iscalled the _aoa_ here, if I recollect rightly, and has a wonderfulpeculiarity about it. What an enormous one it is, to be sure!"

  "_It_!" repeated Peterkin. "Why, there are dozens of banyans here!What do you mean by talking bad grammar? Is your philosophy desertingyou, Jack?"

  "There is but one tree here of this kind," returned Jack, "as you willperceive if you will examine it." And, sure enough, we did find thatwhat we had supposed was a forest of trees was in reality only one. Itsbark was of a light colour, and had a shining appearance, the leavesbeing lance-shaped, small, and of a beautiful pea-green. But thewonderful thing about it was that the branches, which grew out from thestem horizontally, sent down long shoots or fibres to the ground, which,taking root, had themselves become trees, and were covered with barklike the tree itself. Many of these fibres had descended from thebranches at various distances, and thus supported them on naturalpillars, some of which were so large and strong that it was not easy atfirst to distinguish the offspring from the parent stem. The fibreswere of all sizes and in all states of advancement, from the pillars wehave just mentioned to small cords which hung down and were about totake root, and thin brown threads still far from the ground, whichswayed about with every motion of wind. In short, it seemed to us that,if there were only space afforded to it, this single tree would atlength cover the whole island.

  Shortly after this we came upon another remarkable tree, which, as itspeculiar formation afterwards proved extremely useful to us, meritsdescription. It was a splendid chestnut, but its proper name Jack didnot know. However, there were quantities of fine nuts upon it, some ofwhich we put in our pockets. But its stem was the most wonderful partof it. It rose to about twelve feet without a branch, and was not ofgreat thickness; on the contrary, it was remarkably slender for the sizeof the tree. But to make up for this, there were four or five wonderfulprojections in this stem, which I cannot better describe than by askingthe reader to suppose that five planks of two inches thick and threefeet broad had been placed round the trunk of the tree, with their_edges_ closely fixed to it, from the ground up to the branches, andthat these planks had been covered over with the bark of the tree andincorporated with it. In short, they were just natural buttresses,without which the stem could not have supported its heavy and umbrageoustop. We found these chestnuts to be very numerous. They grew chieflyon the banks of the stream, and were of all sizes.

  While we were examining a small tree of this kind Jack chipped a pieceoff a buttress with his axe, and found the wood to be firm and easilycut. He then struck the axe into it with all his force, and very soonsplit it off close to the tree--first, however, having cut it acrosstransversely above and below. By this means he satisfied himself thatwe could now obtain short planks, as it were all ready sawn, of any sizeand thickness that we desired, which was a very great discovery indeed--perhaps the most important we had yet made.

  We now wended our way back to the coast, intending to encamp near thebeach, as we found that the mosquitoes were troublesome in the forest.On our way we could not help admiring the birds which flew and chirpedaround us. Among them we observed a pretty kind of paroquet, with agreen body, a blue head, and a red breast; also a few beautifulturtle-doves, and several flocks of wood-pigeons. The hues of many ofthese birds were extremely vivid--bright green, blue, and scarlet beingthe prevailing tints. We made several attempts throughout the day tobring down one of these, both with the bow and the sling--not for meresport, but to ascertain whether they were good for food. But weinvariably missed, although once or twice we were very near hitting. Asevening drew on however, a flock of pigeons flew past. I slung a stoneinto the midst of them at a venture, and had the good fortune to killone. We were startled soon after by a loud whistling noise above ourheads, and on looking up, saw a flock of wild ducks making for thecoast. We watched these, and observing where they alighted, followedthem up until we came upon a most lovely blue lake, not more than twohundred yards long, embosomed in verdant trees. Its placid surface,which reflected every leaf and stem as if in a mirror, was covered withvarious species of wild ducks, feeding among the sedges and broad-leavedwater-plants which floated on it, while numerous birds like water-hensran to and fro most busily on its margin. These all, with one accord,flew tumultuously away the instant we made our appearance. Whilewalking along the margin we observed fish in the water, but of what sortwe could not tell.

  Now, as we neared the shore, Jack and I said we would go a little out ofour way to see if we could procure one of those ducks; so, directingPeterkin to go straight to the shore and kindle a fire, we separated,promising to rejoin him speedily. But we did not find the ducks,although we made a diligent search for half-an-hour. We were about toretrace our steps when we were arrested by one of the strangest sightsthat we had yet beheld.

  Just in front of us, at the distance of about ten yards, grew a superbtree, which certainly was the largest we had yet seen on the island.Its trunk was at least five feet in diameter, with a smooth, grey bark;above this the spreading branches were clothed with light-green leaves,amid which were clusters of bright-yellow fruit, so numerous as to weighdown the boughs
with their great weight. This fruit seemed to be of theplum species, of an oblong form, and a good deal larger than the magnumbonum plum. The ground at the foot of this tree was thickly strewn withthe fallen fruit, in the midst of which lay sleeping, in every possibleattitude, at least twenty hogs of all ages and sizes, apparently quitesurfeited with a recent banquet.

  Jack and I could scarce restrain our laughter as we gazed at thesecoarse, fat, ill-looking animals while they lay groaning and snoringheavily amid the remains of their supper.

  "Now, Ralph," said Jack in a low whisper, "put a stone in your sling--agood big one--and let fly at that fat fellow with his back toward you.I'll try to put an arrow into yon little pig."

  "Don't you think we had better put them up first?" I whispered. "Itseems cruel to kill them while asleep."

  "If I wanted _sport_, Ralph, I would certainly set them up; but as weonly want _pork_, we'll let them lie. Besides, we're not sure ofkilling them; so, fire away."

  Thus admonished, I slung my stone with so good aim that it went bangagainst the hog's flank as if against the head of a drum; but it had noother effect than that of causing the animal to start to its feet, witha frightful yell of surprise, and scamper away. At the same instantJack's bow twanged, and the arrow pinned the little pig to the ground bythe ear.

  "I've missed, after all!" cried Jack, darting forward with uplifted axe;while the little pig uttered a loud squeal, tore the arrow from theground, and ran away with it, along with the whole drove, into thebushes and disappeared, though we heard them screaming long afterwardsin the distance.

  "That's very provoking, now," said Jack, rubbing the point of his nose.

  "Very," I replied, stroking my chin.

  "Well, we must make haste and rejoin Peterkin," said Jack; "it's gettinglate." And without further remark, we threaded our way quickly throughthe woods towards the shore.

  When we reached it we found wood laid out, the fire lighted andbeginning to kindle up, with other signs of preparation for ourencampment; but Peterkin was nowhere to be found. We wondered very muchat this; but Jack suggested that he might have gone to fetch water, sohe gave a shout to let him know that we had arrived, and sat down upon arock, while I threw off my jacket and seized the axe, intending to splitup one or two billets of wood. But I had scarce moved from the spotwhen, in the distance, we heard a most appalling shriek, which wasfollowed up by a chorus of yells from the hogs, and a loud hurrah.

  "I do believe," said I, "that Peterkin has met with the hogs."

  "When Greek meets Greek," said Jack, soliloquising, "then comes the tugof--"

  "Hurrah!" shouted Peterkin in the distance.

  We turned hastily towards the direction whence the sound came, and soondescried Peterkin walking along the beach towards us with a little pigtransfixed on the end of his long spear!

  "Well done, my boy!" exclaimed Jack, slapping him on the shoulder whenhe came up. "You're the best shot amongst us."

  "Look here, Jack!" cried Peterkin as he disengaged the animal from hisspear. "Do you recognise that hole?" said he, pointing to the pig'sear; "and are you familiar with this arrow, eh?"

  "Well, I declare!" said Jack.

  "Of course you do," interrupted Peterkin; "but, pray, restrain yourdeclarations at this time, and let's have supper--for I'm uncommonlyhungry, I can tell you. And it's no joke to charge a whole herd ofswine with their great-grandmother bristling like a giant porcupine, atthe head of them!"

  We now set about preparing supper; and, truly, a good display of viandswe made when all was laid out on a flat rock in the light of the blazingfire. There was, first of all, the little pig; then there were thetaro-root, and the yam, and the potato, and six plums; and lastly, thewood-pigeon. To these Peterkin added a bit of sugar-cane, which he hadcut from a little patch of that plant which he had found not long afterseparating from us; "and," said he, "the patch was somewhat in a squareform, which convinces me it must have been planted by man."

  "Very likely," replied Jack. "From all we have seen, I'm inclined tothink that some of the savages must have dwelt here long ago."

  We found no small difficulty in making up our minds how we were to cookthe pig. None of us had ever cut up one before, and we did not knowexactly how to begin; besides, we had nothing but the axe to do it with,our knife having been forgotten. At last Jack started up and said:

  "Don't let us waste more time talking about it, boys.--Hold it up,Peterkin. There, lay the hind leg on this block of wood--so;" and hecut it off; with a large portion of the haunch, at a single blow of theaxe. "Now the other--that's it." And having thus cut off the two hindlegs, he made several deep gashes in them, thrust a sharp-pointed stickthrough each, and stuck them up before the blaze to roast. Thewood-pigeon was then split open, quite flat, washed clean in salt water,and treated in a similar manner. While these were cooking we scraped ahole in the sand and ashes under the fire, into which we put ourvegetables and covered them up.

  The taro-root was of an oval shape, about ten inches long and four orfive thick. It was of a mottled-grey colour, and had a thick rind. Wefound it somewhat like an Irish potato, and exceedingly good. The yamwas roundish, and had a rough brown skin. It was very sweet and wellflavoured. The potato, we were surprised to find, was quite sweet andexceedingly palatable, as also were the plums--and, indeed, the pork andpigeon too--when we came to taste them. Altogether, this was decidedlythe most luxurious supper we had enjoyed for many a day. Jack said itwas out-of-sight better than we ever got on board ship; and Peterkinsaid he feared that if we should remain long on the island he wouldinfallibly become a glutton or an epicure, whereat Jack remarked that heneed not fear that, for he was both already! And so, having eaten ourfill, not forgetting to finish off with a plum, we laid ourselvescomfortably down to sleep, upon a couch of branches, under theoverhanging ledge of a coral rock.