Afloat and Ashore

by James Fenimore Cooper

  Captain Williams now told us to get our quadrants, for the heavens were cloudless, and we should have a horizon in time for the sun. He was anxious to get the latitude of our discovery. Sure enough, it so fell out, and we prepared to observe; some predicting one parallel, some another. As for the skipper himself, he said he thought we were still to the eastward of the Cape; but he felt confident that we had come out to the westward of Le Maire. Marble was silent; but he had observed, and made his calculations, before either of the others had commenced the last. I saw him scratch his head, and go to the chart which lay on the companionway. Then I heard him shout—

  "In the Pacific, by St. Kennebunk!"—he always swore by this pious individual when excited—"We have come through the Straits of Magellan without knowing it!"

  Chapter XII

  *

  "Sound trumpets, ho!—weigh anchor—loosen sail—

  The seaward-flying banners chide delay;

  As if't were heaven that breathes this kindly gale,

  Our life-like bark beneath it speeds away.—"

  PINKNEY.

  The stout ship Crisis had, like certain persons, done a good thing purely by chance, Had her exploit happened in the year 1519, instead of that of 1800, the renowned passage we had just escaped from would have been called the Crisis Straits, a better name than the mongrel appellation it now bears; which is neither English, nor Portuguese. The ship had been lost, like a man in the woods, and came out nearer home, than those in her could have at all expected. The "bloody currents" had been at the bottom of the mistake, though this time they did good, instead of harm. Any one who has been thoroughly lost on a heath, or in a forest, or, even in a town, can comprehend how the head gets turned on such occasions, and will understand the manner in which we had mystified ourselves.

  I shall remember the feelings of delight with which I looked around me, as the ship passed out into the open ocean, to my dying day. There lay the vast Pacific, its long, regular waves rolling in towards the coast, in mountain-like ridges, it is true, but under a radiant sun, and in a bright atmosphere. Everybody was cheered by the view, and never did orders sound more pleasant in my ears, than when the captain called out, in a cheerful voice, "to man the weather braces." This command was given the instant it was prudent; and the ship went foaming past the last cape with the speed of a courser. Studding-sails were then set, and, when the sun was dipping, we had a good offing, were driving to the northward under everything we could carry, and had a fair prospect of an excellent run from the neighbourhood of Terra del Fuego, and its stormy seas.

  It is not my intention to dwell on our passage along the western coast of South America. A voyage to the Pacific was a very different thing in the year 1800, however, from what it is to-day. The power of Spain was then completely in the ascendant, intercourse with any nation but the mother country, being strictly prohibited. It is true, a species of commerce, that was called the "forced trade on the Spanish Main" existed under that code of elastic morals, which adapts the maxim of "your purse or your life" to modern diplomacy, as well as to the habits of the highwayman. According to divers masters in the art of ethics now flourishing among ourselves, more especially in the atmosphere of the journals of the commercial communities, the people that "can trade and won't trade, must be made to trade." At the commencement of the century, your mercantile moralists were far less manly in the avowal of their sentiments, though their practices were in no degree wanting in the spirit of our more modern theories. Ships were fitted out, armed, and navigated, on this just principle, quite as confidently and successfully as if the tongue had declared all that the head had conceived.

  Guarda-Costas were the arguments used, on the other side of this knotty question, by the authorities of Spain; and a very insufficient argument, on the whole, did they prove to be. It is an old saying, that vice is twice as active as virtue; the last sleeping, while the former is hard at work. If this be true of things in general, it is thrice true as regards smugglers and custom-house officers. Owing to this circumstance, and sundry other causes, it is certain that English and American vessels found the means of plundering the inhabitants of South America, at the period of which I am writing, without having recourse to the no longer reputable violence of Dampier, Wood, Rogers, or Drake. As I feel bound to deal honestly with the reader, whatever I may have done by the Spanish laws, I shall own that we made one or two calls, as we proceeded north, shoving ashore certain articles purchased in London, and taking on board dollars, in return for our civility. I do not know whether I am bound, or not, to apologize for my own agency in these irregular transactions—regular, would be quite as apposite a word—for, had I been disposed to murmur, it would have done my morals no good, nor the smuggling any harm. Captain Williams was a silent man, and it was not easy to ascertain precisely what he thought on the subject of smuggling; but, in the way of practice, I never saw any reason to doubt that he was a firm believer in the doctrine of Free Trade. As for Marble, he put me in mind of a certain renowned editor of a well-known New York journal, who evidently thinks that all things in heaven and earth, sun, moon, and stars, the void above and the caverns beneath us, the universe, in short, was created to furnish materials for newspaper paragraphs; the worthy mate, just as confidently believing that coasts, bays, inlets, roadsteads and havens, were all intended by nature, as means to run goods ashore wherever the duties, or prohibitions, rendered it inconvenient to land them in the more legal mode. Smuggling, in his view of the matter, was rather more creditable than the regular commerce, since it required greater cleverness.

  I shall not dwell on the movements of the Crisis, for the five months that succeeded her escape from the Straits of Magellan. Suffice it to say, that she anchored at as many different points on the coast; that all which came up the main-hatch, went ashore; and all that came over the bulwarks, was passed down into the run. We were chased by guarda-costas seven times, escaping from them on each occasion, with ease; though we had three little running fights. I observed that Captain Williams was desirous of engaging these emissaries of the law, as easily as possible, ordering us to fire altogether at their spars. I have since thought that this moderation proceeded from a species of principle that is common enough—a certain half-way code of right and wrong—which encouraged him to smuggle, but which caused him to shrink from taking human life. Your half-way rogues are the bane of honesty.

  After quitting the Spanish coast, altogether, we proceeded north, with the laudable intention of converting certain quantities of glass-beads, inferior jack-knives, frying-pans, and other homely articles of the same nature, into valuable furs. In a word, we shaped our course for that district which bids fair to set the mother and daughter by the ears, one of these days, unless it shall happen to be disposed of à la Texas, or, what is almost as bad, à la Maine, ere long. At that time the whole north-west coast was unoccupied by white men, and I felt no scruples about trading with the natives who presented themselves with their skins as soon as we had anchored, believing that they had the best right to the country and its products. We passed months in this traffic, getting, at every point where we stopped, something to pay us for our trouble.

  We went as far north as 53°, and that is pretty much all I ever knew of our last position. At the time, I thought we had anchored in a bay on the main land, but I have since been inclined to think it was in one of the many islands that line that broken coast. We got a very secure berth, having been led to it by a native pilot who boarded us several leagues at sea, and who knew enough English to persuade our captain that he could take us to a point where sea-otter skins might be had for the asking. Nor did the man deceive us, though a more unpromising-looking guide never had charge of smuggling Christians. He carried us into a very small bay, where we found plenty of water, capital holding-ground, and a basin as smooth as a dock. But one wind—that which blew from the north-west—could make any impression on it, and the effects of even that were much broken by a small island that lay abreast of t
he entrance; leaving good passages, on each side of it, out to sea. The basin itself was rather small, it is true, but it did well enough for a single ship. Its diameter may have been three hundred yards, and I never saw a sheet of natural water that was so near a circle. Into a place like this, the reader will imagine, we did not venture without taking the proper precautions. Marble was sent in first, to reconnoitre and sound, and it was on his report that Captain Williams ventured to take the ship in.

  At that time, ships on the North-West Coast had to use the greatest precautions against the treachery and violence of the natives. This rendered the size of our haven the subject of distrust; for, lying in the middle of it, where we moored, we were barely an arrow's flight from the shore, in every direction but that which led to the narrow entrance. It was a most secure anchorage, as against the dangers of the sea, but a most insecure one as against the dangers of the savages. This we all felt, as soon as our anchors were down; but, intending to remain only while we bartered for the skins which we had been told were ready for the first ship that should offer, we trusted to vigilance as our safeguard in the interval.

  I never could master the uncouth sounds of the still more uncouth savages of that distant region. The fellow who carried us in had a name of his own, doubtless, but it was not to be pronounced by a Christian tongue, and he got the sobriquet of the Dipper from us, owing to the manner in which he ducked at the report of our muskets, which had been discharged by Marble merely with the intention to renew the cartridges. We had hardly got into the little basin, before the Dipper left us, returning in an hour, however, with a canoe loaded to the water's edge, with beautiful skins, and accompanied by three savages as wild-looking, seemingly as fierce, and certainly as avaricious as he was himself. These auxiliaries, through various little circumstances, were known among us that same afternoon, by the several appellations of Smudge, Tin-pot, and Slit-nose. These were not heroic names, of a certainty, but their owners had as little of the heroic in their appearance, as usually falls to the lot of man in the savage state. I cannot tell the designation of the tribes to which these four worthies belonged, nor do I know any more of their history and pursuits than the few facts which came under my own immediate observation. I did ask some questions of the captain, with a view to obtain a few ideas on this subject, but all he knew was, that these people put a high value on blankets, beads, gun-powder, frying-pans, and old hoops, and that they set a remarkably low price on sea-otter skins, as well as on the external coverings of sundry other animals. An application to Mr. Marble was still less successful, being met by the pithy answer that he was "no naturalist, and knew nothing about these critturs, or any wild beasts, in general." Degraded as the men certainly were, however, we thought them quite good enough to be anxious to trade with them. Commerce, like misery, sometimes makes a man acquainted with strange bed-fellows.

  I had often seen our own Indians after they had become degraded by their intercourse with the whites and the use of rum, but never had I beheld any beings so low in the scale of the human race, as the North-Western savages appeared to be. They seemed to me to be the Hottentots of our own continent. Still they were not altogether without the means of commanding our respect. As physical men they were both active and strong, and there were gleams of ferocity about them, that all their avarice and art could not conceal. I could not discover in their usages, dress, or deportment, a single trace of that chivalrous honour which forms so great a relief to the well-established cruelty of the warrior of our own part of the continent. Then, these sea-otter dealers had some knowledge of the use of fire-arms, and were too well acquainted with the ships of us civilized men to have any superstitious dread of our power.

  The Dipper, and his companions, sold us one hundred and thirty-three sea-otter skins the very afternoon we anchored. This, of itself, was thought to be a sufficient reward for the trouble and risk of coming into this unknown basin. Both parties seemed pleased with the results of the trading, and we were given to understand that, by remaining at anchor, we might hope for six or eight times our present number of skins. Captain Williams was greatly gratified with the success with which he had already met, and having found that all the Dipper had promised came true, he determined to remain a day or two, in his present berth, in order to wait for more bargains. This resolution was no sooner communicated to the savages than they expressed their delight, sending off Tin-pot and Slit-nose with the intelligence, while the Dipper and Smudge remained in the ship, apparently on terms of perfect good-fellowship with everybody on board. The gentry of the North-West Coast being flagrant thieves, however, all hands had orders to keep a good look-out on our two guests, Captain Williams expressing his intention to flog them soundly, should they be detected in any of their usual light-fingered dexterity.

  Marble and myself observed that the canoe, in which the messengers left us, did not pull out to sea, but that it entered a small stream, or creek, that communicated with the head of the bay. As there was no duty on board, we asked the captain's permission to explore this spot; and, at the same time, to make a more thorough examination of our haven, generally. The request being granted, we got into the yawl, with four men, all of us armed, and set out on our little expedition. Smudge, a withered, grey-headed old Indian, with muscles however that resembled whip-cord, was alone on deck, when this movement took place. He watched our proceedings narrowly, and, when he saw us descend into the boat, he very coolly slipped down the ship's side, and took his place in the stern-sheets, with as much quiet dignity as if he had been captain. Marble was a good deal of a ship's martinet in such matters, and he did not more than half like the familiarity and impudence of the procedure.

  "What say you, Miles," he asked, a little sharply, "shall we take this dried ourang-outang ashore with us, or shall we try to moisten him a little, by throwing him overboard'!"

  "Let him go, by all means, Mr. Marble. I dare say the man wishes to be of use, and he has only a bad manner of showing it."

  "Of use! He is worth no more than the carcase of a whale that has been stripped of its blubber. I say, Miles, there would be no need of the windlass to heave the blanket off of this fish!"

  This professional witticism put Marble in good humour with himself, and he permitted the fellow to remain. I remember the thoughts that passed through my mind, as the yawl pulled towards the creek, on that occasion, as well as if it had all occurred yesterday. I sat looking at the semi-human being who was seated opposite, wondering at the dispensation of Divine Providence which could leave one endowed with a portion of the ineffable; nature of the Deity, in a situation so degraded. I had seen beasts in cages that appeared to me to be quite as intelligent, and members of the diversified family of human caricatures, or of the baboons and monkeys, that I thought were quite as agreeable objects to the eye. Smudge seemed to be almost without ideas. In his bargains, he had trusted entirely to the vigilance of the Dipper, whom we supposed to be some sort of a relation; and the articles he received in exchange for his skins, failed to arouse in his grim, vacant countenance, the smallest signs of pleasure. Emotion and he, if they had been acquainted, now appeared to be utter strangers to each other; nor was this apathy in the least like the well-known stoicism of the American Indian; but had the air of downright insensibility. Yet this man assuredly had a soul, a spark of the never-dying flame that separates man from all the other beings of earth!

  The basin in which the Crisis lay was entirely fringed with forest. The trees in most places even overhung the water, forming an impenetrable screen to everything inland, at the season when they were in leaf. Not a sign of a habitation of any sort was visible; and, as we approached the shore, Marble remarked that the savages could only resort to the place at the moments when they had induced a ship to enter, in order to trade with them.

  "No—no," added the mate, turning his head in all directions, in order to take a complete survey of the bay; "there are no wigwams, or papooses, hereabouts. This is only a trading-post; and luckily for us, it is a
ltogether without custom-house officers."

  "Not without smugglers, I fancy, Mr. Marble, if contriving to get other people's property without their knowledge, can make a smuggler. I never saw a more thorough-looking thief than the chap we have nick-named the Dipper. I believe he would swallow one of our iron spoons, rather than not get it!"

  "Ay, there's no mistake about him, 'Master Mile,' as Neb calls you. But this fellow here, hasn't brains enough to tell his own property from that of another man. I would let him into our bread-lockers, without any dread of his knowing enough to eat. I never saw such a vacancy in a human form; a down-east idiot would wind him up in a trade, as handily as a pedlar sets his wooden clocks in motion."

  Such was Marble's opinion of the sagacity of Mr. Smudge; and, to own the truth, such, in a great measure, was my own. The men laughed at the remarks—seamen are a little apt to laugh at chief-mates' wit—and their looks showed how thoroughly they coincided with us in opinion. All this time, the boat had been pushing ahead, and it soon reached the mouth of the little creek.

  We found the inlet deep, but narrow and winding. Like the bay itself, it was fringed with trees and bushes, and this in a way to render it difficult to get a view of anything on the land; more especially as the banks were ten or fifteen feet in height. Under the circumstances, Marble proposed that we should land on both sides of the creek, and follow its windings on foot, for a short distance, in order to get a better opportunity to reconnoitre. Our dispositions were soon made. Marble and one of the boat's crew, each armed, landed on one side of the inlet, while Neb and myself, similarly provided, went ashore on the other. The two remaining men were ordered to keep abreast of us in the boat, in readiness to take us on board again, as soon as required.