CHAPTER XIV.
WE LAND THE STORES IN THE BAY.
The patience of my men was now to be severely tried. Here before them was the mysterious isle, with all its golden possibilities; but for five days the sea was in far too disturbed a condition to permit of a landing; so they were confined to their floating prison, which rolled and pitched at her anchorage all the while, and gazed with vain desire at the forbidden land.
It was now that Ted came up to me, as spokesman for the rest of his shipmates in the forecastle, and said that they were all anxious to go on shore in turn, and do their share of digging with the rest of us. It had been part of the original scheme to keep the paid hands—with the exception, perhaps, of the cook—on board the vessel; but as by this time we knew the ways of the 'Alerte,' and could handle her with fewer men than when we had started. I decided that an officer and two paid hands would be a sufficient crew while she was lying off the island, and that all the other men could be spared for the work on shore. I therefore acceded to Ted's request.
The men were led to understand that they would be entitled to no share of the proceeds if the treasure were found, though they, of course, knew that, should fortune favour us, a handsome present would be given to them.
The agreement as to the division of the spoil among the gentlemen-adventurers had also to be revised in one respect. It was settled that the shares of those who had abandoned the expedition were to be portioned out among those who remained. By this arrangement each of my companions became nearly twice as rich—in expectations—as when he sailed from England.
Trinidad is supposed to be outside the limit of the south-east trade-winds, but I think this is doubtful; for, so far as my experience goes, the prevailing winds are from the easterly quarter, and more commonly from the south-east. When the winds are in the west quadrant, and more especially when from the south-west, a heavy sea rises, and landing is rendered altogether impossible. This was our experience for the next few days.
On November 24, there was a high wind from the north-west and a great swell. We were now on a lee shore, and a very dangerous one too; so all was got ready for slipping the anchor and running to the open sea in a moment, should it become necessary to do so. We gave the yacht all her starboard chain—sixty fathoms. We got up the end of the chain, and made it fast to the mainmast in such a way that we could let it go at once. One end of a stout thirty-fathom hawser was attached to the chain, just below the hawse-pipe, and to the other end of it we fastened an improvised buoy, made of a breaker and a small bamboo raft. In order to get under way we should now merely have to throw the buoy overboard and cast off the end of the chain from the mast. We could then sail away and leave our moorings behind us.
Then we set to work to bend the storm-trysail, a very handy sail, which could be hoisted much more readily than our heavy mainsail. We reefed the foresail, had a storm-jib ready, and housed our topmast. We were now prepared for anything that might turn up.
We were not idle this day, for after making all snug, we got the spades, hydraulic jack, and other tools out of the hold, so as to have them in readiness to put in the boat the moment there was a chance of landing.
Our fire on the mountain blazed away all this night and was not entirely extinguished for six days afterwards.
The next day was overcast, and the wind was from the south-west; then it veered to the southward. The sea was higher than on the previous day. The vessel tumbled about a great deal, rolling her scuppers under water, flooding her decks, and running her bowsprit under, all the while. Still, she rode very easily, the great length of heavy chain we had given her acting as a spring. We watched carefully for the first signs of dragging, but the anchor had evidently got a good hold now and she did not budge a foot. In the afternoon the glass fell rapidly and the sky looked very stormy, while the temperature in our saloon fell to 75°, which made us feel quite chilly.
It is probable that this disturbed weather and high sea were the results of apamperoraging thousands of miles to the southward of us.
On this day we took our dinghy on deck—a dilapidated little boat—and proceeded to stop her leaks, in a novel, but for the time effectual, manner, with plaster of Paris and tar.
The fish would not be caught while this heavy sea was running, but we secured some sharks and ate their flesh for dinner, to the horror of our black cook, whom I overheard telling his shipmates that he considered it 'degrading to eat de meat of de dam shark.'
November 26.—Same weather, blowing, raining, rolling, and impatient grumbling of men. Even the two amiable blacks, eager to be at work on shore, fretted a bit at the enforced imprisonment on board. They had always been fond of argument, but now the arguments became stormy, and we could hear them laying down the law to each other in the forecastle, while the English sailors sat round them, smoking in silence and listening with amused wonder. One black was a Roman Catholic, the other a Methodist; their discussions were generally theological, and they exchanged vituperations with a fine theological fury. It was grand to hear Theodosius rail at the Pope and call his comrade a heathen idolater, while George would pour the vials of his wrath on the Methodist heretic. These two poor fellows were the greatest friends, but, of course, each was confident that the other was doomed to perdition. When, in the course of one of these controversies, a theologian found himself caught in a dilemma, he would wax impatient and cry, 'Oh, chew it!'—an expression I have never heard before—indicating that one has been worsted in argument, but will not allow it, and insists, having had enough of it, on winding up the debate at once.
On the 27th the glass rose, the wind veered to north-east, and the sea moderated; but the surf was still dangerous, and we could see it breaking over a rock sixty feet in height. On this day we sighted two homeward-bound sailing-vessels. During our stay on Trinidad we saw a good many craft, sometimes four or five in a week, all homeward-bounders, for, as I have already explained, it is usual for vessels coming round Cape Horn to make for and sight this island, so as to correct the rate of their chronometers. Few outward-bounders pass it, and it is altogether out of the track of steamers.
On November 28 things looked better, the sea had all gone down. In the morning a few hands pulled off to the pier, where they found the landing perfectly easy, and brought off the coat which the doctor had left on the rock when we had jumped into the sea. My coat could not be found, as it had been washed off by a wave. They also brought off a specimen of a land-crab, which did not seem at all at home on our deck. He was introduced to Master Jacko, our monkey, whose horror at the uncouth apparition was intense. The wise monkey would not get within reach of the crab's nippers, but, having cleverly driven him into a corner, tried to push his ugly visitor through a scupper into the sea with a bit of firewood.
I must now apologise to Jacko for not having before this introduced him to my readers. He was a delightful little creature that we had purchased on the Praya at Bahia. He was very affectionate, and was free from malice, though, of course, full of mischief. He had a red blanket of his own, which he would carry about with him wherever he went, and, should a few drops of rain fall or spray come on board, he would deftly roll it about him in the fashion of a cloak, with his funny little head just peeping out of the hood. He was very fond of tea, and while we were at sea he took his 4 a.m. cup with the others. As soon as the cook began to lift the boiler of tea from the stove Jacko would give a whistle of delight, clamber up the pantry wall, unhook a pannikin, and walk up with it to be filled, 'all de same as a little ole man,' as the cook used to say. It was amusing to see him test the temperature of the tea with his fingers before drinking it. He was a marvellously intelligent and jolly little creature, and is now dwelling happily in a little house on a cocoanut tree in a plantation near Port-of-Spain. He prefers a West Indian life of warmth and unlimited bananas to an existence in a damp ship on salt junk and biscuit.
At noon, as the sea was still smooth, we made our first attempt at landing in Treasure Bay. We put the whale-boat in the water, and loaded her with about a ton of stores, consisting of tinned provisions of various sorts, biscuit, salt beef, the picks, spades, crowbars, wheelbarrows, hydraulic jack, and other tools. We also took in tow a raft constructed of the long bamboos we had brought from Bahia. These we knew would be useful for several purposes.
I steered the boat, while the doctor, Powell, Pursell, and two paid hands, took the oars. Having the wind behind us we were not long in crossing the two miles of smoothly heaving sea that lay between us and South-west Bay. We rounded the point into the bay, and, leaving on our port hand the islet in the middle, we made for the channel which the doctor and myself had surveyed from the mountains. When we came near we found that there were three parallel lines of breakers to be traversed, and, consequently, there was a treble chance of swamping. The surf was much more formidable than we had expected to find it, considering how smooth the sea was outside the bay. The wind was blowing in strong gusts right off shore, over the depression in the mountains at the back of the bay. It drove off the tops of the oncoming waves into great veils of spray, curling over in a contrary direction to the curl of the swell, and bright with shifting rainbows as the sun's rays fell upon it. The bay presented a most beautiful appearance from the boat, and those who had not seen the pirates' haunt before uttered exclamations of admiration and wonder. Between the gloomy black mountains on the left and the unearthly-looking dark red walls of Noah's Ark on the right was a scene in which, flooded with tropical sunlight, earth and ocean vied with each other in vividness of colouring. Directly in front were the great rollers of transparent green, their snowy crests flashing with rainbows; beyond, dazzling golden sands; above, domes of brilliant emerald cleaving the cloudless sky.
But this was no time to dwell on the beautiful; we had other matters to consider. The grand rollers with their breaking tops had no charms for us, for we had to get through them—a risky undertaking with a deeply-laden boat.
We discovered afterwards that it is almost impossible to judge from the height of the swell near our anchorage, or from the surf on the pier, whether landing in South-west Bay is likely to be easy or the reverse. The surf on this sandy beach is governed by a different system of laws to that which prevails on other portions of the coast of Trinidad. Here, curiously enough, there is more surf when the wind is blowing off shore than when it is blowing on. The north-east wind, sweeping in violent gusts down the slopes that back the bay, offers a resistance to the swell rolling in, and piles it into steep walls of water, breaking dangerously. The south-east wind raises a higher swell outside, but, blowing right into this bay, drives the sea down, and the landing becomes comparatively easy. At the anchorage opposite the cascade the contrary is the rule: with a north-east wind blowing off shore the sea is smooth, with a south-east wind the surf increases; but, as I have already stated, it is always smoother there than in South-west Bay.
The men rested on their oars, and we watched the surf from a safe distance, to discover if there were any chance of picking a favourable opportunity for landing. It would be a disappointing matter if we had to pull our boat-load of stores back to the yacht against the wind; so, after a little hesitation, I decided to risk the landing. One must run some risks on such a place as Trinidad, and we might as well commence at once. All in the boat were delighted at the decision.
Every one knows how the ocean swell proceeds in regular rhythm, and how one sees at intervals three greater waves than usual come up, one after the other, to be succeeded by a comparative calm. We took the boat just outside the outer breakers and awaited one of these smoothes. Soon three great waves passed under us, and broke beyond us with terrific force. Now was our time, and we made a dash for it. The long ash oars bent as the men, putting their backs into their work, drove the boat through the sea. Pull away! Pull away! The first row of breakers is passed; then we are safely borne on the top of the second, looking down upon the beach as from a hill. It passes us and breaks. All safe so far. We are close to the beach. Then, behind us, we see a wall of water suddenly rise, curling over. We should simply be rolled over if we tried to back the boat against it, so the men strain at their oars to reach the shore before it. The boat is just touching the sand, the order is given: 'All hands overboard and haul her up,' when the sea pours over our heads, filling the boat. The men leap or are washed overboard. One catches hold of the long painter we had provided in view of such an emergency and contrives to reach the shore; then, planting his heels in the sand, he holds on with all his strength, to prevent the boat being swept off into deep water by the receding wave. At first the other hands are out of their depth, but, as the roller recoils, they feel bottom; then, two of us holding on to one side of the boat and two on the other, while the remaining man scrambles on shore to assist the man with the painter, we haul the boat up till she grounds; then we all stand by till the next roller comes on to help us up a bit further. Here it comes! right over our heads, and we are afloat once more. But the two men on shore haul away with all their might, as do the others when they touch bottom, and when the wave recoils it has left us fifty feet higher up the bank, and out of reach of any heavy body of water.
It was lucky for us that ours was a lifeboat with a water-tight compartment at either end or we should not have got out of this scrape so well. The boat did not capsize when she filled, neither did she broach to, her head was always direct for the shore. The tide was coming in fast, so we lost no time in getting her safely drawn up. While some hands took out the stores and tools, others baled her out, and, by placing bamboo rollers under her, we dragged her up the steep incline of sand until she was quite out of reach of the sea. We found that we had not lost or damaged any of our stores, so had good reason to congratulate ourselves on our success.
A tot of rum was served to all hands after their exertions, and then we carried all our property up to the spot we had selected for our camp—a plateau of sand and earth opposite the mouth of the ravine.
Then, as all were, of course, anxious to see the supposed hiding-place of the treasure, the doctor and myself took them to it. On ascending the gully somewhat higher than we had gone on our previous visit we discovered two or three small pools of inferior water. But the supply was insufficient, even after the recent heavy rains; so it was evident that, unless we found some other source, our condensing apparatus would not have been brought in vain. There was, fortunately, an abundance of fuel in the neighbourhood, for the dead trees were strewed over all the hill-side.
We had not brought off any of the tents, but, with a good fire and plenty to eat, drink, and smoke, there would be little hardship in sleeping out; and the doctor and Powell volunteered to stay on shore, while I went back to the yacht. It was my intention to return, if possible, on the following day, with the tents and other stores, and to then leave a working-party on the island. We might, of course, on the other hand, be prevented by a heavy sea from landing again for a week or more; so we bade our comrades an affectionate farewell, and enjoined them not to be lazy, but to dig away until they saw us again—a quite unnecessary suggestion, for they were very keen to begin work.
Taking with me Pursell and the paid hands, we hauled the boat down to the beach; we dragged her into the water quickly, just as one big roller was recoiling, jumped in and pulled hard out to sea. We shipped a little water at the second line of breakers, and were then in safety.
We soon found, as we pulled back to the yacht, that our boat had sprung a leak, for the water was pouring in fast through her bottom, so that we had to stop and bale occasionally. She was an excellent sea-boat, but lightly built, and her bump on the sands had done her no good.
CHAPTER XV.
OUR CAMP.
We hoisted our leaky lifeboat into the davits when we got on board, intending to repair her on the following morning.
During the night fierce gusts blew down the ravine from the north-east, and black masses of cloud were constantly sweeping across the mountains. The wind howled as it does in a wintry gale on the North Sea, and, to all appearance, a heavy storm was raging. Still, it was quite smooth at our anchorage under the lee of the island, and we noticed that seawards the sky looked fine enough, and the clouds were travelling at no great pace. The storm, in fact, was entirely local, and was limited to the islet and its immediate neighbourhood. We afterwards became quite accustomed to these harmless gales, which had a habit of springing up at sunset.
Trinidad, in consequence of the loftiness of its mountains, can boast of a climate of its own. It is subject to miniature cyclones, whose influence does not extend a mile from the shore, and which, therefore, cannot raise a heavy sea. We were sometimes riding with straining chain to a wind of hurricane force, when we could see a vessel a league or so from the land making no progress, her canvas shaking in the calm; and, however fine it might be outside, the clouds would collect upon the peaks in ominous torn masses, that whirled along as if impelled by a terrific blast, and which looked very alarming until we came to understand the innocence of the phenomenon. We also found that the landing was often the most perilous on clear, windless days, when no clouds crowned the mountains.
These storms were, however, a nuisance to us; for the squalls would strike the yacht with great force, so that she strained at her chain and was likely to drag; consequently the officer in charge was unable to enjoy an undisturbed night's rest, but was in a state of constant anxiety for the vessel, and was often brought on deck by the turmoil to satisfy himself that all was going well.
The next day, November 29, was fine, the wind being still from the north-east. There was even less swell than on the previous day, so we saw that no time must be lost in landing more stores. A neglected opportunity on Trinidad might mean a month's delay.
We examined the boat, and found that she had started a plank, but that the damage was slight and could be easily repaired. A few copper nails, some cotton thrust between the seams with a knife, and a little marine glue, made her right again; and, after breakfast, she put off to Treasure Bay with a miscellaneous cargo—the tents, a barrel of flour, wire-fencing, the blankets and baggage for the shore-party, etc.; but we did not venture to put nearly so heavy a weight into her as on the previous day.
The surf in the bay was no longer dangerous, and, though water was shipped, all was landed without accident. At midday the boat returned to the yacht, was reloaded, and another successful disembarkation was effected. This put us in very good spirits. We had succeeded in overcoming the difficulties that had caused previous expeditions to fail, and had now got on shore all that was absolutely necessary for carrying on the digging for some time to come. The doctor, Pursell, Powell, and Ted Milner were left on shore for the night, and the boat returned to the yacht.
The next day, November 30, was the first on which we divided ourselves definitely into two parties, the working-gang on shore and a crew of three to take charge of the yacht. I had talked our plans over on the previous day with my sole officer, our medico-mate, and we came to the conclusion that it would be advisable for me to stay on board for the first fortnight, at least; for we did not know as yet whether it would be safe to remain at anchor for any length of time, or what steps might become necessary in order to ensure the safety of the vessel; and, until such knowledge had been gained by experience of the conditions of the place, it was right that I should undertake the responsibility of looking after the yacht.
So, on this morning, I went on shore for the last time, before settling down to my fortnight's watch. We took another cargo of stores in the boat, and landed without difficulty. This long spell of smooth sea was a most fortunate occurrence for us.
On landing I found that the shore-party had been hard at work. They had arranged the camp—and very snug it looked. Two ridge tents had been placed side by side, to be occupied by the gentlemen-volunteers, two in each; while a short way off was a larger tent, constructed of our racing spinnaker and the quarter-deck awning supported by bamboos. This was our dining-room and kitchen, and also served as sleeping quarters for the paid hands. At one end of it was an elegant dining-table—planks from the deck of some old wreck, supported by one of Mr. A——'s wheelbarrows which had been found in the ravine. A few campstools and barrels served as chairs, and the arrangements generally were almost luxurious.
Many improvements were made to the camp during our stay in Trinidad, and at last it became a comfortable little village. A conspicuous object near the tents was the condensing apparatus. Later on, the cooking was all done out of doors, a neat oven having been constructed of stones and plaster of Paris. The plaster of Paris had formed part of the taxidermist's stores, but, little used for its original purpose, it was found to be of much service in the way of cement.
A list of all that we landed on the shore of South-west Bay would be a long one. There was, at the very least, eight tons weight in all. I need not say that the cook was well provided with culinary apparatus, and that such articles as paraffin lamps for the tents, a library of books, fishing lines and hooks, and carpenter's tools had not been forgotten—our camp, in short, was fully furnished with everything that could be required.
The doctor and myself discussed the scheme of work on shore, and, when all was settled we launched the boat again and pulled off to the yacht. It was decided that the shore-party should keep the whale-boat—in the first place, because the crew on board would be insufficient to man her, and, secondly, because it was only right and prudent to leave a boat on the island in case of any accident happening to the yacht. It would be easy for the working-party to pull off, if necessary, and intercept a passing vessel. The dilapidated dinghy was left on board for our use.
The hands who had come off in the boat dined on board, and then the doctor, taking with him those who were going to stay on shore, pulled back to the bay, to commence his duties as Governor of Trinidad, leaving me with my two hands, Wright, and the coloured man Spanner. And a very good governor the doctor proved too, as I discovered when I next went on shore and saw the work that had been got through. He kept up a discipline quite strict enough for all practical purposes. He did more work than any one else himself, being physically the strongest man of us all, and he superintended all the operations with great skill and judgment. The control could not have been left in better hands, and he was well backed up by his comrades. There was hard work done on that island, considerable hardships were undergone, there was often dangerous landing and beaching of boats, and all was carried on under a vertical sun on one of the hottest and most depressing spots on earth. Great credit is due to the doctor and the others who worked so hard and with such pluck and cheerful zeal, and the ungenerous remarks of the one discontented volunteer we had left—a man who did not do his share of work either at sea or on shore, but who did far more than his share of criticism and fault-finding—can only reflect upon himself. As he has favoured the world with his sneers through the medium of the papers, I feel bound to say this much.
The doctor remained and worked hard on the island during the whole time that our operations were being carried on, as did Powell and Pursell, and they, with the paid hands, who relieved each other at intervals, practically did all the digging. I was on shore for one fortnight only, as will appear in the course of this narrative. I had, consequently, but a very small share of the hard work and of roughing it, for the life on board ship was incomparably more comfortable and easy than the life on shore. Our critical volunteer also only passed about two weeks, of not arduous work, on the island; for the rest of the time he was on the yacht.
This night we had another local storm, but by now we were getting accustomed to this.
Shortly after dawn on the following morning, Sunday, December 1, I saw, to my surprise, the whale-boat rounding the point. She came alongside, and the doctor, who was in charge of her boarded us. Seeing that there was very little surf in South-west Bay, he had rightly taken the opportunity of putting off for another cargo of stores. Among other articles, he carried away some large cocoanut mats we had purchased at Bahia, and which, when laid on the sandy floor of the tents, would make things more comfortable. He also took off the heavy boiler and receiving tank of the condensing apparatus, which could only be landed on a favourable day such as this was. Having loaded the boat, he left us again.
We had now taken so much weight out of the yacht that she was high out of the water, and might possibly prove somewhat cranky under canvas. So, after dinner, I took the two men off with me in the dinghy, for the purpose of fetching some heavy stones from the beach, to put in our hold in the place of all the tools we had taken out. First we pulled to the pier, where we landed without the slightest difficulty. Wright, while wandering about the beach, came across the last object one would expect to find on a desert island—a rather smart lady's straw-hat, so far as my judgment goes, of modern fashion. It had, probably, been blown off some fair head on a passenger steamer. The gallant gentlemen-adventurers, when they heard of this discovery, proposed that it should be stuck on a pole in the middle of the camp, to remind them of home and beauty.
Finding that there were no suitable stones near this beach, we got in the boat again and rowed to West Bay, to see if we should have better luck there. Three islets lie off the east side of the Ness. We found that the narrow deep-water channel between these and the cape could be taken with safety on a fine day like this. As a rule, this channel is impracticable, for the ocean swell penetrating it produces a great commotion, the sea being dashed with violence from the cliffs on one side to those on the other, so that the entire channel presents the appearance of a boiling cauldron; and, even on this quiet day, we had to keep the boat carefully in the middle, for the waves leapt high up the rocky walls with a loud noise, which was repeated in manifold echoes by the crags above. When we were in the passage between the third islet and the shore the scene before us was most impressive. The black cliffs rose perpendicularly on either side of us, about thirty feet apart, casting a profound shade on the heaving water, so that it looked like ink beneath us; and between these cliffs, as through a dark tunnel, we saw the sunlit waters and shores of West Bay. The mountains that lay to the back of it were barren and of bold outline, great pinnacles of rock dominating huge landslips that slope to the shingle-beach. We could distinguish the familiar forms of the Sugarloaf and Noah's Ark towering over the depressions of the hills.
At the farther end of the bay we found a suitable place for getting stones. Here a rocky shelf formed a sort of jetty. George leapt on shore and brought down the stones, while Wright, sitting in the stern, took them from him, and placed them at the bottom of the boat, while I backed in towards the jetty and pulled out again between the waves; for there was sufficient sea to do damage if proper caution was not observed. Having taken on board about half a ton of large heavy stones, we returned to the yacht and stowed them under the cabin-floor.
On the following morning, December 2, the doctor came off again in the lifeboat, and carried off another moderate load of stores. He reported that on the previous day, being Sunday, he had given all hands a holiday on his return to the shore, and that they had passed the day in exploring the neighbourhood of Treasure Bay. They came across some more tent poles and picks left by Mr. A——'s party. They also made one very curious discovery—a quantity of broken pottery, lying in a little rocky ravine at a considerable height above the shore. All this was of Oriental manufacture. Some was of unglazed earthenware, some of glazed china—the remains of what appeared to have been water-jars and punch-bowls. There were also some broken case-bottles of glass, oxidised and brittle from long exposure. The bowls proved to be of Blue Dragon china, about a hundred years old, and, therefore, of some value to the connoisseur.
Pottery of this description had certainly not formed part of the equipment of Mr. A——'s, or of any other of the treasure-hunting expeditions. Could these be relics of the pirates' booty—articles they had thrown away as being of no value to them when they buried the rest of the treasure? It was, certainly, difficult to account for the presence of old blue china on a barren hill-side of Trinidad. It has been suggested by an old sea captain that an East Indiaman may have been wrecked here many years ago, and that her crew had contrived to reach the shore with provisions and other property, for bowls of the same description as those of which these fragments had formed part were commonly used by the Malay sailors to eat their curry in.
The doctor soon left me, and hurried back with his boat's crew to the camp, for the sea was rising, the glass had been falling for twenty-four hours, and the sky had a stormy appearance, not only over the mountains, but on the sea-horizon as well.
These signs of foul weather did not deceive us, for it now blew hard from the south-east for several days, and the sea was so rough that we were unable to launch the dinghy, while, on the other hand, it was impossible to put out from the bay in the whale-boat. All communication was, therefore, cut off between the yacht and the shore for six days, and we could not even see each other during this time, as two capes stretched out between us.
It was fortunate that we had landed such an ample supply of stores while the weather was fine.
We had rather an uncomfortable time of it on board for the next few days. For a good part of the time the wind was blowing with the force of a gale, and it howled and whistled among the crags in a dreadful fashion, while the surf thundered at the base of the cliffs. The wind being south-east was parallel to this portion of the coast; so we were scarcely, if at all, protected by the island. A great swell rolled up, travelling in the same direction as the wind. But as violent squalls occasionally rushed down the ravines at right angles to the true wind, we were blown round by them, so that we were riding broadside on to the sea, rolling scuppers under in the trough of it, pitching the whole bowsprit in at one moment and thumping our counter on to the water the next.
Things looked so bad on December 4 that I was thinking of slipping the anchor and putting to sea, but, as the vessel did not appear to be straining herself, I held on. Our dinghy was dipping into the sea as we rolled, so we took it from the davits and secured it on deck.
We had now ample leisure to study the meteorology of Trinidad. The rains were heavy during this stormy period and the cascade swelled visibly. I do not think this island is subject to drought; for, notwithstanding that this—the summer—was the dry season here, scarcely a day passed without a shower during our long stay. In the winter season this is, to judge from the logs of passing vessels, a very rainy spot. The glass never fell below thirty inches while we were here, and generally stood at about thirty and two-tenths. The temperature in the shade on board averaged about eighty. In the tents on shore it was far hotter. The sunsets are often very fine on Trinidad, of wild and stormy appearance and full of vivid colouring; these indicate fine weather. The boisterous south-west winds, extensions of River Platepamperos, are heralded by clear blue skies.
We three now imprisoned on the yacht occupied our time in tidying her up, and making all necessary repairs in the sails and gear generally. We occasionally knocked down some birds as they flew over us. Some would coolly perch on our davits and stare at us very rudely, to the great indignation of Jacko, who swore at them in his own language. It was curious to watch the birds fly far out to sea each morning for their day's fishing, the air full of their shrill and melancholy cries, and return again in the evening. It was invariably while starting at daybreak that they called on the yacht. While going home in the evening they had their business to attend to. It was then that they carried food to their young—fluffy balls of insatiable appetite, which, I am afraid, had sometimes to go to bed supperless; for the anxious mothers are often robbed of their hard-earned fish by the cruel pirates who are perpetually hovering round this island.
These pirates are the frigate or man-of-war birds. They do not fish themselves, but attack the honest fishers in mid-air, and compel them to surrender what they have caught. The frigate-bird is of the orthodox piratical colour—black—but has a vermilion beak and a few white patches on its throat. It has a forked tail, and wings of extraordinary length in proportion to its body, their spread sometimes attaining, it is said, as much as fifteen feet.
There are other pirates here as well, of a meaner description, who, being able to fish for themselves, have no excuse for their crimes; whereas the frigate-bird is unable to skim the sea after fish. Should he touch the water he cannot make use of his unwieldy wings and flounders helplessly about until he becomes the prey of sharks.
But these other robbers have taken to dishonest ways from sheer laziness and lack of principle. Their favourite method is to seize a smaller fisher by the throat, and hold him under water until he is half drowned and has to disgorge his fish. Sometimes two or three plucky little birds will assist a neighbour in resisting the big bully, and often drive him off discomfited. We witnessed several most exciting combats of this description.
We skinned the birds we killed, and I have brought these specimens home with me. Of fish we now caught plenty. We salted and sun-dried some, but these were not a great success, and had a rank flavour in consequence of their oily nature.
CHAPTER XVI.
DISCOVERIES IN SOUTH-WEST BAY.
At last, on December 7, communication between the yacht and the shore was resumed; for the wind and sea had greatly moderated, and the doctor was enabled to come off to us at midday, with four volunteers and paid hands. They had been labouring hard with pick and shovel, and looked like it too. Digging into the volcanic soil of Trinidad soon takes all superfluous flesh off. Indeed, led on by the energetic doctor, they had worked harder, perhaps, than white men should in such a climate, and had a stale overstrained appearance, while they admitted that they felt somewhat slack.
They brought us off a quantity of turtle-eggs. The female turtle frequent South-west Bay in large numbers, for the purpose of depositing their eggs in the sand. But up till now, they had failed to catch any of the turtle. The eggs are excellent, and can be used for every purpose for which fowl's eggs are employed. Here is a receipt for making egg-nog which I have tried myself and can recommend:—Two turtle-eggs, a tea-spoonful of tinned milk, some water, sugar, and a small glass of rum.
The shore-party had obtained an abundance of fish; they used to catch them not only with hook and line, but with an extemporized seine net, which they dragged with great success through the pools left by the receding tide. This seine was simply a long piece of the wire-netting which we had brought with us to serve as land-crab-proof fencing round the camp. It seems that this netting did not fulfil its original purpose very satisfactorily, as the crabs could burrow under it.
The land-crabs however, did not molest the shore-party to any extent, and it was only now and then that a man found one of these unpleasant creatures in his bed. It was the custom for the men to sally forth every evening, just before dark, and kill, with sticks, every land-crab they could find in the immediate neighbourhood of the camp, each man slaying his sixty or seventy. This afforded an abundance of food for the others during the night, so that they had no need to stray into the tents. The crabs, I was informed, were excellent scavengers, and consumed all the cook's refuse.
The doctor and his companions had no lack of news to impart. I was anxious, of course, in the first place, to learn how the work had progressed. I was told that some hundreds of tons of earth had been already removed, and that a broad trench was being dug, along the face of the cliff, through the landslip in the first bend of the ravine, but that, so far, no indications of the treasure had been come across. The chief difficulty consisted in the presence of a great many stones of all sizes that were mixed up with the fallen soil, some of them being of several tons weight. In digging the trench an inclined plane was left at either end, up which the barrows of earth could be wheeled; and when one of the big stones was found, the earth was, in the first place, cleared from round it, and then it was dragged from the bottom of the trench up one of these inclined planes by means of powerful tackle, assisted by the hydraulic jack. When they had got it by these means to the top of the trench, they could easily roll it down the ravine.
The doctor explained to me all the routine that he had laid down for observance on shore, and the different details of the work. Sunday was always a holiday, and was occupied, as a rule, in wandering about and exploring; but it was sometimes too terribly hot for this.
I was informed that a crowbar and several other fresh relics of Mr. A——'s expedition had been discovered, and that a wooden box had been found, carefully hidden away at the farther end of the bay, which contained a chess-board, a quantity of shot cartridges, and several London and Newcastle newspapers, dated October 1875. Mr. A——'s expedition took place in 1885, Mr. P——'s—the first expedition—in 1880; so the papers gave us no clue as to who had brought them here. The shore-party had amused themselves by reading these ancient journals. In them they found accounts of the Wainwright trial and of the collision between the 'Mistletoe' and the 'Alberta.' It was strange to read, on Trinidad, the old theatrical advertisements in theStandard, with Charles Matthews acting at the Gaiety and Miss Marie Wilton at some other house. There was an excellent notice of the latter charming actress in one of these papers.
I was told that there had not been so much surf in South-west Bay as might have been expected with so strong a wind; but, as I have explained, the south-east is the wind that raises the least surf on this sandy beach, though it blows right on to it.
The doctor told me that they had experienced, on every occasion they had landed, a strong current sweeping along the shore of the bay in an easterly direction, so that, no sooner did the bow of the boat touch the sand, than her stern was driven round by the current to the left, and, unless proper precautions were taken, she would get broadside on to the next sea and be rolled over.
On being asked whether they had had much rain in the bay, they replied that the showers had been as heavy as those tropical downpours we had experienced in the doldrums. They said that the Sugarloaf presented a magnificent appearance after one of these showers, for then a cascade 700 feet in height would pour down its almost perpendicular sides. They had been enabled to fill their tanks and breakers with rain-water, and had only used the condensing apparatus on one or two occasions, and then more by way of experiment, to see how it worked, than from necessity. It acted perfectly, and with it five gallons of fresh water were distilled from sea-water in a very short time.
The fortunate discovery had also been made of two small issues of water among the cliffs at the east end of the bay. The supply was sufficient, and though the carrying of the water in breakers from here to the camp over the rough ground entailed heavy labour, it was easier to fetch it in this way than to collect the large quantity of firewood necessary for condensing an equal amount of water.
The doctor reported Arthur Cotton as being ill, and unfit for further digging for the present; so he was left on board with me, while George went on shore to take his place. The doctor promised to come off for me on the following morning, so that I could pay a short visit to the shore and inspect the works—provided, of course, the surf permitted. Then we bade each other farewell, and the working-party returned to the bay.
The boat did not come off for me on the following day, as the surf was dangerous in South-west Bay; and I held no communication with the shore-party for another week. During this time the wind was from the south-east; but though it rushed down the ravine with the usual violent squalls, it was moderate outside, and we had no more of the heavy sea which had been running throughout the previous week. It would have been possible for me to have landed at the pier on nearly any day, but there was still a sufficient surf to prevent our carrying off any more stones from the shore.
We were anchored on a sandy bottom, but we could feel, by the grumbling of our chain as the yacht swung, that there were many rocks under us as well. These caused us a good deal of annoyance; for on several occasions, when the vessel was lying right over her anchor, the slack of the chain would take a turn round a rock and give us a short nip; so that when a swell passed under us, the vessel could not rise to it, but was held down by the tautened chain, which dragged her bows under, producing a great strain. The rocks must have been of brittle coral formation, for, after giving two or three violent jerks as the sea lifted her, the vessel would suddenly shake herself free with a wrench, evidently by the breaking away of the obstruction. At last all the projecting portions of the coral rock in our immediate neighbourhood must have been torn off, the chain having swept a clear space for itself all round, for after a time we were no longer caught in this way. These great strains loosened our starboard hawse-pipe badly, so that we had to slip our chain and pass it through the other hawse-pipe.
On December 9, it being a very fine day, I made an expedition in the dinghy toward the north end of the island. We found no good landing-place in that direction, for a coral ledge extends along the whole coast, causing broken water, and there are dangerous rocks in the midst of the breakers. We pulled into several little bays, each hemmed in by inaccessible barren mountains, so crowded with birds that, from the sea, the black crags looked quite white with them. We pulled inside Bird Island and inspected the Ninepin from close to. This huge cylinder of rock, 900 feet in height, is described by old navigators as having been crowned with large trees. It is now completely bare of vegetation, as it also was when I first saw it in 1881. I observed that, since my last visit, a huge mass had fallen off the top of it, which now lay by its side in shattered fragments. We caught a quantity of fish in these bays, one a fine fellow weighing thirty pounds; and we saw several large turtle floating on the water, but they sank as soon as we got near them.
The uneventful days passed by, and I grew stout on laziness, salt beef, and duff. At last, on December 14, we pulled off in the dinghy to South-west Bay, to see how the shore-party was getting on. We took with us a signal code book and the flags, so as to converse with our diggers in case we could not effect a landing—a feat not to be attempted with our rotten little dinghy except under the most exceptional circumstances. The shore-party was, of course, also provided with a code book and set of flags.
As I required some more specimens of birds, I took with me, not a gun with which to shoot them, but simply a ramrod, the end of which I had loaded with a piece of lead. With this, as I sat in the boat, I found no difficulty in knocking down the inquisitive birds as they flew just over our heads, and I thus procured several good specimens.
When we had pulled round the point and were in South-west Bay we saw the white tents of the camp in front of us, and we could plainly distinguish, in a ravine behind, the great trench which the men had dug at the side of the cliff. We found little surf in the bay, but I would not risk a landing; for it would not require much bumping to knock our dinghy's ancient bottom off; so we remained outside the breakers and signalled: 'Any news?'
There was no reply with the flags, but some of the men walked down to the rocks under the Sugarloaf, so that we could come near enough to them to hail. A very disreputable lot our friends looked, too: as unkempt and rough as the original pirates might have been. The costume of each consisted merely of shirt, trousers, and belt, some sort of an apology for a hat crowning all. They were all more or less ragged, and were stained from head to foot with the soil in which they had been digging, so that they presented a uniform dirty, brownish yellow appearance, and, from a passing vessel, might easily have been taken for Brazilian convicts.
They shouted what news they had to tell. They reported that they were progressing well with the digging, and that they had caught a number of turtle. They promised to come off to the yacht the next morning, surf permitting. I made some sketches of Treasure Bay and West Bay as seen from the sea, and then returned to the vessel, to skin my birds.
The whale-boat was alongside on the following morning, December 15, and the doctor, Powell, Pollock, and two paid hands, boarded us. They had brought off some fresh and salted turtle and a quantity of turtle-eggs.
The yacht had now been lying off Trinidad for twenty-five days, and the shore-party had been hard at work for seventeen days; so I thought it was quite time for me to join the camp, and do my share of the work. I could see that the energetic doctor was anything but anxious to change the hard labour on shore for the lazy life on board ship, and though, as mate, he would have been the proper person to take charge of the vessel during my absence on land, still we considered it advisable to arrange matters differently.
The doctor, as I have said, was a most useful man on shore, and, as we were anxious to complete our operations as quickly as possible and leave the island before the stormy season should set in, it seemed a pity to waste so much energy and muscle as his in an idle life on board the yacht. Having remained at anchor for so long, and knowing that our anchor had now got such a firm hold that there was but little chance of its dragging, and having, moreover, discovered by experience that it was possible to ride where we were even in bad weather, I had acquired a considerable confidence in the safety of the vessel, and I believe that she could have remained off the cascade for six months without suffering damage. I, therefore, now came to the conclusion that it would not be very imprudent to leave a somewhat incompetent person in charge, as the chances were that he would have nothing to do. Pollock, who had complained of slackness for some time, was the one from whom the least amount of work could be extracted on shore, and was, therefore, the one who could be the most easily spared. I, consequently, decided to leave him on board the yacht, instead of the doctor.
The weather now looked very settled and there was little chance of bad weather for a time. I gave Pollock his instructions, and left with him, as a crew, Ted Milner and George Spanner. I packed up my traps and pulled off with the others to the bay, not at all sorry to do a little work, for a change.
We took Jacko on shore with us. He did not admire the island, and particularly objected to the land-crabs. His favourite amusement was to turn on the tap of our tank, when no one was looking, and let all our hard-got supply of water run out.
He behaved very well on the whole, however, except on Christmas Day, when he drank some rum which he found at the bottom of a pannikin, and, I am grieved to say, became disgracefully intoxicated. He had a dreadful headache the next day.