English passengers

by Matthew Kneale

  ‘‘I think,’’ he said, icy as hoarfrost, ‘‘that it’s time you took yourselves to London, so you may have a little chat with some gentlemen from Her Majesty’s customs.’’ Then he peered over the side to call back his marines from the boat. ‘‘The Dolphin will escort you,’’ he added, all sarcastic, ‘‘just to make sure you don’t get lost.’’

  So off we went, quiet as lambs, with a coast guard cutter just behind, and the six marines stretched out on our deck, smoking pipes and having themselves a good few laughs about Manxmen and cheese. There was nothing to be done about it, either, except to tell Quayle that he was to cook us for our dinner a fine feed of fresh roasted pork. Of course, there were some aboard remarked how strange it was that the creature that had caused us this trouble was the exact same one that the Bishop of Man had called pig. Not that I was one to trouble myself over any such foolishness, but then again, it was a little curious.

  By dusk the coast was clear in sight. A long day it had been, too. Looking at that black English shore, all our dreamings of jink and rum and rented females were long gone. My thoughts were all of searches and questions, of fines and confiscations, of bankruptcy. Perhaps even a spell in gaol.

  What we actually got, of course, could hardly have been more different.

  The Reverend Geoffrey Wilson

  JUNE 1857

  THAT NIGHT I WALKED in Diemen’s Land. Through the furthest wilderness I strode, where no Christian had yet trod. Before me rose up cliffs steep as fortress walls, though these were like no ordinary cliffs, being white and smooth as polished alabaster. Humble yet fearless, I began to climb, surmounting boulders and chasms, reaching ever higher, till finally I stood upon a mighty peak and, there before me, miraculous to behold, lay the greenest land that ever was: a lush yet ordered abundance, a garden in the wilderness, lost these six thousand years. As I looked upon it, filled with awe and wonder, every distant fern and stream and flower seemed to murmur to me, ‘‘come hither, sweet vicar, come hither, and make haste.’’

  Then I woke and found myself in my sister-in-law’s house in Highgate. Early morning summer sunlight caught the curtains with a delicate brightness, transforming this most ordinary of scenes, filling me with a warming light of truth, and giving to my premonition—for premonition it surely had been—a sense of something confirmed.

  ‘‘Louisa,’’ I gently called to my wife. ‘‘I have just had a most extraordinary dream. I do believe it is a sign.’’

  My dear wife, though she is filled with fine and noble qualities, is not easily drawn by the visionary. ‘‘Oh good,’’ she murmured, without great attention, then returned to sleep.

  Early though the hour was, I rose from bed without delay. Twenty-six years as a parish priest in rural Yorkshire had been more than long enough to imbue me with the ways of country people, and could not be gainsaid by a few weeks in lazy London. In this case my promptness proved most opportune. Hardly had I set to work on my correspondence when there was a knock at the door and the housemaid, once she had been raised from her slumber, admitted Jonah Childs’s coachman, who had brought a note from his master across town in Clapham.

  Dear Mr. Wilson,

  Can you come here at eleven? There is someone it is imperative that you meet with regard to the expedition. Please inform by return if this is inconvenient.

  Also, bring Renshaw.

  Yours as ever,

  Jonah Childs

  The note’s simple directness was wholly characteristic of that noble man, as was its hour of arrival: he must have decided upon the meeting in the middle of the night, having the coachman roused—the idle fellow was visibly sulking—and sending him on his way there and then. Jonah Childs was never one for the slow or the round and about, being nothing less than a fountain of enthusiasm. To know him, indeed, was to be constantly delighted by his warm and excitable nature, his exuberance, his sudden and unexpected bursts of laughter. There were some, it is true, who considered him rather too changeable for their liking, yet I saw this never as a fault, but rather as a quality of charm, resembling the weather on a delightful spring day, when the wind may suddenly and unexpectedly alter its direction, transforming rain into sunshine.

  The truth was that without Jonah Childs’s extraordinary kindness the whole expedition would have been impossible, and I believe the Garden of Eden might never be found at all, at least in my lifetime. The man had been nothing less than a power of generosity, a gift from God, and in consequence any little annoyances that might be suffered were of little account. While it was, I admit, far from wholly convenient for me to to be called so suddenly to his home in Clapham, I never for a moment considered declining his invitation. It might, besides, prove of no small importance to learn the identity of this mysterious ‘‘somebody’’ he wished me to meet. Mr. Childs was so unpredictable of spirit that there was no telling what might be in his thoughts.

  ‘‘Tell your master I look forward to visiting at eleven,’’ I informed his servant.

  The morning promised a hot day, being already well warm by half past eight. As my cab journeyed down from Highgate hill, London dimly glinting in the distance through its own dust, I considered how richly unpredictable life could be. Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined, even a few months previously, that I might find myself in such a situation as this: my life wholly revolutionized, parish duties exchanged for hurried preparations for—now only ten days away—an epic journey of discovery.

  I cannot say the change was wholly unwelcome. Twenty-six years is a long time to remain a vicar in rural Yorkshire, and while I was honoured to perform my humble priestly duties, and found the parishioners— in their direct way—wholly charming, I must confess that there were moments when I did wonder if I had not been intended to perform some greater service on this earth. My student work had been, though I say it myself not without promise, while I sprang—if somewhat distantly—from one of the older families of Kent, which had included within its ranks two bishops. I began my ministry with some zeal, endeavouring to improve the lives of my flock by launching a little campaign to have the alehouse open only three days in the week instead of seven, and offering—as a nobler recompense—two extra church services. Sadly this little initiative was answered, in certain quarters, with something like hostility.

  Attendances at my normal Sunday services actually declined, while I felt myself regarded sometimes with frosty glances in the village.

  If this were not troubling enough, I found myself also increasingly concerned for the happiness of my dear wife. She had been brought up in exhilarating Manchester—she would often reminisce about its many colourful shops—and did not find life in this quiet corner of Yorkshire always easy. For a time she was distracted by the demands of our seven children, but as these grew older and more independent, her stoicism seemed slowly to wane. The main source of her distress was, charmingly, her noble loyalty to myself. Often she would recall one of my teachers during my Canterbury days, with whom I had enjoyed some splendid theological duels, in which I had acquitted myself, I must confess, by no means poorly. The man had later gone on to become a man of some influence in the Church, and she felt, perhaps foolishly, he might have helped me find some more exacting toil. Hard though I struggled to reassure her that such things were quite beyond our own poor understanding, still she would raise the matter ever and again, even to the point of weariness. Being much troubled by her unhappiness, which I seemed powerless to alleviate, I became increasingly drawn to taking long walks, along the cliffs or across the moors, so my senses might be refreshed by the bracing Yorkshire wind. It never occurred to me, of course, that I might be walking upon the very answer to my many questions.

  My interest began as the merest foolishness: a simple pleasure in collecting pebbles, the more pleasing of which I would bring home and place on the mantelpiece. After a time I developed a curiosity about their colours, which varied so wondrously, which led me onwards to observing the hues of the cliffs and soils of the a
rea. From here I took the great leap of purchasing a bag and tiny pick for the collection of samples, and all at once I discovered myself to be a man with a pastime, that even took me on little journeys of discovery about the county. Naturally I never expected anything to come of this enchanting pursuit beyond the knowledge and simple pleasure it already provided.

  One morning I visited our nearest town to purchase a replacement for a lamp that had broken, only to find that the shop was closed. A little annoyed to have wasted my journey, I drifted into a nearby bookseller’s, and soon chanced upon a newly published volume on geology. How close I came to replacing the book upon its shelf, considering its price too high. What drove me to make so rash a purchase? Merest chance? Or did some distant voice murmur words of encouragement? Of such mysteries are formed life itself. That same afternoon I applied myself to reading and received a mighty shock. Even in the very first chapter the author—supposedly a geologist of repute—brazenly asserted that Silurian limestone was no less than one hundred thousand years of age. This was despite the fact that the Bible tells, and with great clarity, that the earth was created a mere six thousand years ago.

  This was not mere error, this was slander. This was a most poisonous assault upon the good name of the Scriptures. As I sat thus by the fire, the cup of tea by my side grown cold, my wife working upon her knitting, needles clicking, my heart began to beat faster, and suddenly I knew myself to be in the midst of one of those rarest of moments, that are like some dazzling hilltop vista in the midst of the slow walk of life. A great truth began to pour through my soul, like some charge of electricity. All these long years in Yorkshire had not been wasted, far from it. I was simply being prepared for the great task now revealed to me: to right this terrible wrong, and prevent weak minds from being led astray by this vile falsehood.

  From that moment idle pastime was turned to deadly earnest, as I endeavoured to make a kind of machine of myself, to defend this great cause. I read every volume on the subject that I could find, only to discover that more than a few others were tainted with the same calumny as my opponent. My enemies were stronger than I had supposed. Still I strove not to lose heart, recalling to mind the story of little David and mighty Goliath. I began conducting investigations of my own, journeying even outside Yorkshire, as far as Wales and Cornwall. I studied. I pondered. I studied again. Half-formed thoughts began to crystallize into lines of reason. Vague assumptions took on a clear, fighting form. Finally I felt ready to put pen to paper and attempt my very first pamphlet, which I had printed at my own expense: False questions honestly answered: the new theory of divine refrigeration fully explained. Little did I imagine as I looked upon the results of my labours, stacked ready to be sent to periodicals and men of influence, where these sheets of paper might finally take me. Publication is a powerful thing. It can bring a man all manner of unlooked-for events, making friends and enemies of perfect strangers, and much more besides.

  My opponents’ first argument was that the rocks of the earth—which are generally agreed to have once been in a hot and melted state—would have required far longer to lose their heat than the Scriptures described. My reply was that the earth had indeed cooled at great speed, being made possible by a process I termed Divine Refrigeration. Seeing as our Lord had enjoyed the power to create the world, it seemed only logical, after all, that he would also have had the power to alter its temperature. This left only the atheist geologists’ second claim, which concerned the vanished creatures. My adversaries had fussed greatly about these, especially a defunct animal named the trilobite—that resembles nothing so much as a giant wood louse—whose remains are sometimes found in Silurian limestone, and which they claimed must have existed in some long-past era. The explanation, however, seemed nothing less than obvious. The earth had originally been created with a huge variety of animals dwelling upon it, extending from the useful—such as horses and trusty dogs—to the simply ludicrous, such as this tiresome specimen. Naturally, with time, many of the less satisfactory animals—and what could be less satisfactory than a giant wood louse?—had simply vanished away. A good deal of them, I proposed, would have succumbed during the great flood.

  One would have thought this might be an end to the matter, but no, my suggestions seemed only to feed the flames. Within weeks a countering piece appeared, not by my original adversary but by another of this many-headed hydra. What, my new critic demanded, of the first plants and animals? Genesis states that these were placed upon the earth within two days of the earth having been formed. Surely, he insisted, even divine refrigeration could not cool a world of molten rocks so quickly.

  Thus was the Garden of Eden brought into the fray.

  My staunchest ally in this desperate battle was the Good Book itself. Although the Scriptures possess the answer to every question that may be asked, they do not always surrender these easily. Sometimes the faith of the reader is tested with an ingenious puzzle, for which there are provided clever clues, and thus it was here. The Bible tells us that man and the animals at first dwelled only in one place—in all likelihood not even an especially large place—being the Garden of Eden. Here lay our answer. I surmised that Eden had lain upon a unique form of rock, one that was wholly impervious to heat, and which floated upon the rest like a great raft, probably surrounded by clouds of steamy vapour. Genesis does not tell us how long it was that Adam and Eve lived contentedly in the Garden before the serpent went about his wicked work, but men seemed to have lived to a great age then and it was surely a good number of years. By the time they were finally banished, the rest of the earth would have had ample time to be cooled by refrigeration, and plants and animals would have spread far and wide across its surface. This was the thesis of my second pamphlet: The Geology of Eden considered.

  It seems, however, there is no silencing critics. If this is true, they cried, in letters to periodicals, and as many as two articles, then where is this special form of rock? Why has it not been found?

  For some time I struggled with this problem, and I will admit I struggled in vain. Studies and reading brought no relief, likewise the letters I wrote to those few intrepid fellows who had travelled in remoter regions of Arabia, where I still supposed Eden must lie. Those were difficult weeks, and I confess I came close to abandoning the matter altogether, deciding, with the greatest reluctance, that there was nothing to be done but simply to wait for future discoveries to prove my case.

  Then, one day, I received a most unexpected piece of correspondence. The sender, who had been following my writings with interest, explained that he had previously lived for some years as a sheep farmer upon the remote island of Van Diemen’s Land, that has lately been renamed Tasmania, and lies just southwards of Australia. His farm had lain on high ground on the very edge of the settled area and he related how, on clear days, he could glimpse the distant mountains of the wilderness beyond. Though he had travelled extensively in other parts of the globe he had never seen anything remotely similar to these. The peaks, he said, were like ruined fortresses, almost as if they were all that remained of some wondrous city, built upon a scale greater than could be aspired to by mere man, that had lain forgotten for thousands of years. As if this were not already curious enough, he insisted that exploration of the colony had been largely confined to the coast and that, with the exception of aboriginal black men, not a soul had yet explored this distant wasteland.

  All at once my mind was set racing. Genesis, in that famous passage, which had, I realized, often left me slightly puzzled, states that four rivers flowed out from Eden. One is the Pison, which is unknown, a second is the Gihon, also unknown, which is said to flow to Ethiopia. A third is named the Hiddekel, which goeth towards the east of Assyria, and lastly there is the Euphrates. I have told how the Bible sometimes offers its knowledge in the manner of a puzzler testing his audience. A simple glance at the map shows that it is quite impossible for rivers to flow from the same source to both Ethiopia and Assyria, as the two lands are nearly completely
divided by ocean, being connected only by a narrow stretch of the peninsula of Sinai, itself a notorious desert. The more I considered the matter, the more I came to conclude that the passage could signify only one thing, and I was astonished that I had never realized it before. Look elsewhere, the Scriptures were urging. Look to some other place altogether. But where? To the east of Assyria. Suddenly all was dazzlingly clear. East of Assyria? Why not far to the east, as far even as Tasmania?

  This was not proof, of course. My next step was to try to discover the names of the rivers of that distant island. I sought the aboriginal names, their replacements by white settlers being far too recent, though these proved far from easy to obtain, the aborigines having been, most unfortunately, all but extinguished. My interest being whetted, however, I would accept no discouragement but persevered, writing to any men I could think of who might have spent time in that distant colony, and urging them, if they could not help me themselves, to provide the names of others who might. Little by little names began to come, and looking upon these, I quickly became struck by what I saw. They were not identical to those of the Bible—with the hazards of time it was inevitable that changes in pronunciation would have occurred—but still I found myself nothing less than amazed.

  BIBLICAL NAME ABORIGINAL NAME

  Euphrates Ghe Pyrrenne

  Gihon Gonovar

  Pihon Pewunger

  Hiddekel Liddywydeve

  Where, one might ask, do these four rivers originate? Why, in exactly the region of mountain wilderness that my farming friend had glimpsed from afar!

  Naturally I felt I had no choice but to make these findings available to the public. Thus appeared my third pamphlet: A proof against the atheisms of Geology: the truth of the chronology of the Bible finally and conclusively shown. I suppose I had anticipated the piece might attract a response and yet the scale of this quite took me aback. All at once our home was no longer the remote haven it had been, and frequently the postman was quite weighed down with correspondence. Callers would arrive, sometimes unannounced, one from as far as Edinburgh. Even the local population began to regard us with a certain dour curiosity, while my wife, who had never previously shown great interest in my geological pursuit, began quite to enjoy this little fame we had discovered.