Chapter 7

THURSDAY ISLANDConcerning a wild-goose chase, and where it led[image]Chapter XVI headpieceCHAPTER XVIConcerning a wild-goose chase, and where it ledLife for the sad remnants of the dream ship's crew resolved itself into the pursuit of a will-o'-the-wisp.It was a strange craft that we were after: sufficiently staunch to stand any weather, yet small enough to be handled by a crew of three. The New Zealand seaboard had neither heard of nor seen such a thing. At Auckland and Wellington we were hustled off in launch or car with high hope in our hearts, and shown every manner of contrivance that floats, but there was no choice between hundred-ton schooners and harbour racing machines. New Zealand is a beautiful, over-legislated, intensely earnest little country, but for us it held no dream ship, and we passed on.Australia was little better. Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney were visited in turn, and scoured from end to end without producing anything within coo-ee of what we sought. With an "I-told-you-so" glint in her eye, Peter departed on a jaunt to New Guinea, and I continued the search alone, after the fashion of the "last little nigger boy."Hearing that the Torres Straits pearling luggers were likely craft, I set my teeth and journeyed on a Chinese liner—incidentally one of the most comfortable and well-managed ships it has been my good fortune to encounter—up through the myriad islets of the Queensland barrier reef to Thursday Island.It is a strange thing on a ten-thousand-ton liner to awake at night to a silence unbroken even by the familiar throbbing of the engines, and to feel the great ship rising and falling on the swell like any cockleshell; to go on deck and find her lying at anchor under a panoply of stars, and apparently in mid-ocean, for there is no sign of land. Yet this is a frequent experience of any passenger traversing the barrier reef. Whether liner or dream ship, it makes no difference to the infinite care necessary in navigating these reef-infested seas.A young navy of pilots performs the miracle—for miracle it is. After long apprenticeship they learn the exact dimensions of every open stretch of water, and if they leave one side at nightfall, they can tell by the vessel's speed, and to a yard, when they have reached the other, when they anchor until dawn. The farther we progressed up the magnificently rugged coast of Queensland, the more varied became the nature of our passenger list. There were sun-baked pastoralists from the cattle and sheep stations "out back" who owned herds and acreages that would cause the largest Western American rancher to open his eyes. One of them at a recent cattle "muster" had tallied up to half a million head, and he had not finished yet. The possibilities of the "Northern Territory," as it is called, are infinite—if it were not for the bugbear of labour troubles that stalks Australia with a heavier tread than any other country of the world.Then, there were commercial travellers—not the sleek variety that boards a "flyer" and is on its battle-ground in a matter of hours, but lean, hard-bitten men who take a launch or trading cutter and traverse vast stretches of ocean to the farthermost corners of the Gulf of Carpentaria, sleeping, eating, and having their being for weeks together in a stifling, evil-smelling deck house with native "boys" and their own sample cases for sole company.Wireless operators, engineers, pearlers, teachers of aboriginal schools, Chinamen, Japanese, all were on their way to this mysterious equatorial land of vast, unexplored spaces.A great deal has been written about Thursday Island, otherwise known as "T.I.", but, without exception, accounts refer to a more picturesque past when this sun-baked tile on the roof of Australia was the busy headquarters of a pearling fleet manned by "whites" and native "boys"; when hefty schooners were employed as floating stations, where shell was opened and treated at sea under the lynx-eyed supervision of a skipper or mate who claimed the hidden treasure it might contain. To-day, the pearling fleet is manned entirely by Japanese, who work on a prosaic fifty-per-cent. basis, and are entitled to every pearl they find.But of this, later. There were luggers in the bay, likely-looking craft, the most likely I had seen in all my weary pilgrimage. Was it possible that I was on the verge of being able to look Peter in the eye once more—and send a cable to Samoa?[image]High Holiday on a "T.I." BeachNot five minutes after landing in the corrugated-iron and goat-infested landscape of Thursday Island I was in the shipyards watching an army of Japanese workmen putting the finishing touches to a pearling lugger. Yes, I was told by the manager of the Pearling Company that had commissioned her, I could have a similar craft built for —— (a sum nearly double the seemingly preposterous figure I had received for the dream ship)—and she could be delivered in about a year! Labour, you know, prices of material—everything! Things were not as they used to be on 'T.I.'. Or yes; there were second-hand craft to be picked up, but it stood to reason they would have passed their day, or they would not be sold.[image]Festival Headdress of Torres Straits Islanders;The Japanese ClubI boarded twelve in all, and examined them from truck to keelson. In some cases one could scoop the dry-rot out of their timbers in handfuls; in others—— But why continue? In all of them the head-room was practically nil because of their light draught for negotiating reefs and sand-bars, and because the Japanese have no manner of use for head-room. When below, they live, move, and have their being on their heel-supported haunches. It would be necessary for the average Anglo-Saxon to crawl on all fours to escape a permanent crick in the neck and stooped shoulders aboard a pearling lugger.It was in that hour that I realized my final defeat. Peter and Steve were right—there never would be another dream ship. I resigned myself to the inevitable, and settled down on Thursday Island to await the next southern-bound steamer in two weeks' time. I wandered amidst sweltering corrugated iron and herds of cavorting goats, thinking my own sad and secret thoughts, until taken under the wing of two as bright lads as one could wish to meet. We "batched it," if you please, and I am consequently in a position to state precisely how one may live on T.I. in this year of grace.Taking it in turns to leave your sagging camp bed a trifle before dawn, you steal forth into the iron-bound forest of the settlement, and stalk your prey. It is a simple process. You offer the most appetizing-looking kid in sight a lump of sugar with one hand, and, seizing its hind leg with the other, smother its cries with a towel. Half an hour later it has been converted over a Primus into something that looks like shoe-leather and tastes like kerosene.In the alleged "cool" of the evening, you may play lawn tennis. We did, in shorts and a vest, and with diver's-suit rubber an inch thick glued to the soles of our shoes by way of protection against the heat and hardness of the court. In five minutes you are a dripping rag of perspiration, but no matter, it is tennis, and the bright lads could play, though argument across the net seemed their strongest point. One of these resolved itself into a bet as to who would win a game played in diver's helmet and boots respectively. It was put to the test with the utmost gravity, and resulted in a dead heat, the man in the helmet being unable to see through his three glass windows quickly enough to take the ball, and the booted competitor being unable to move.Such were some of the social amenities of T.I., interspersed with delightful evenings spent with thehaute monde, consisting of military authorities and owners of pearling fleets, in their charming bungalows situated behind and above the settlement. But for the most part we kept to the beach. It was more interesting—and kids were more plentiful.As for the industries of this queer little island with a white population of five hundred and a black-and-tan one of unknown dimensions, pearling predominates, as different a form of pearling from that of the Paumotus as can well be imagined. Here machinery is permissible, and with the up-to-date motor compressor keeping up a mechanically uniform and unfailing air supply, great depths are attained, and shell of a prodigious size and lustre obtained."I don't know," mused a pearling-lugger owner of my acquaintance; "I'm beginning to think it's the survival of the fittest, after all. The Japs are the best machine divers in the world. They don't seem to put the same value on life that we do, and maybe they're right; I don't know."But I can tell you this: they work as no white man would ever work—day and night for two weeks without shutting an eye; then they bring the stuff in, sleep two days and nights on end, and are ready for another two weeks."I used to go out with a crew now and then, and I've seen them go down fifty-two fathoms, and be hauled up dead, and another man climb into his suit and be 'down' inside of ten minutes."Another little trick they've got is to sail—almost into the wind, mind you, but still sail—towing a diver along the bottom. It saves him having to walk and he covers more ground; but would you like to be in that suit? What happens if it catches on a bit of coral? ..."I tell you what it is: they come over here on a three-years' indenture—it's the only way we allow them into Australian territory—and during that time they set out to make enough to keep 'em for the rest of their lives. And they do it—because they don't live long anyway after much fifty-two-fathom diving."Skin divers? We've got as good here in Torres Straits as any in the world! Twenty fathoms, and three minutes under water in the Paumotus? Well, that's not so bad, but we can beat it with a good abo (aboriginal). Come and see."I did, and am forced to give the palm to Torres Straits. Our crew was a hotch-potch of mainland aboriginals—Islanders, Malays, and Filipinos—but it was the aboriginal who did the diving, and his performance was every whit as good as, and in some cases better than, that of the Paumotan. But with what different results! Instead of the cleanly pearl-shell, bèche-de-mer or trepang was brought to light, immense brown or black sea slugs that are gutted, impaled on a stick, and cured in a smoke-box amidships. When cooked they make a soup as nutritious and appetizing as turtle, and although China is by far the largest consumer of bèche-de-mer at the present time, it is rapidly gaining favour in Europe.[image]Pearl diverThe remaining important products of the Coral Sea and its coasts are trochas shell and sandal wood. The first of these is second only to mother-of-pearl for buttons, knife-handles, and what-not; and as for sandalwood, its uses are too familiar to call for mention here. But I am grateful to this externally unlovely but fragrant tree for taking me to the shores of the Gulf of Carpentaria where it grows in profusion, for a stranger, more deserted land—saving always the Galapagos Islands—it would be difficult to find.You may stand on these shores and look inland over thousands of miles of gently undulating and lightly timbered country, containing not a living soul with the exception of a few bands of ever-wandering and rapidly decreasing aboriginals. Cotton grows here to perfection. What would not grow? There are rivers that Western-American irrigators would smack their lips over, a light but assured rainfall, a rich loam soil, and millions of acres of pasture untouched save by wallaby and kangaroo. Yet we still cry out that the world is over-full.Some day the entirely admirable bluff of "white Australia" will be called, and these territories of vast possibilities will be inundated by a people able and eager to develop them. It will be unpleasant, but then so are most penalties of degeneration and sloth in this cannibalistic old world of ours.Back from "the Gulf," we celebrated a successful trip in the approved fashion at one of Thursday Island's numerous and well-known circular bars, presided over by a high priestess who, after three years in New Guinea, favoured the native style of coiffure.Discussion turned on a race meeting of the morrow. A race meeting on T.I.! Why not? I had forgotten that wherever you find an assembly of more than two Australians, there you will find a race-course of some sort. It appeared that someone had stolen the favourite; nothing less! The horse had been pastured on Friday Island, a few miles distant, and now, a day before the race, it had vanished. The owner, who happened to be present, was telling us just what he was going to do to the culprit when he caught him, but I fear my attention wandered. An aboriginal was standing at my elbow with the most ghastly healed wound encircling his neck that could have been inflicted without decapitation. How the man could have suffered it and remained alive, was beyond my comprehension."That," I was told, "is Treacle, the only man who's had his head in a shark's mouth and got it out again. Care for an introduction?"I did care, and after sundry amenities elicited the following: "Me push; 'im leave go." That was all, delivered with every appearance of delight and pride in the accomplishment. Some of the shark's teeth were still embedded in the fellow's skull. With a vast grin, he will guide your finger to the spot—for sixpence; and for a like amount one is permitted to photograph Treacle the miraculous.The Australian "abo's" recuperative qualities are equalled only by his inventiveness. Was he not the originator of the boomerang, that most ingenious of weapons? And had he not, before the advent of the white man, instituted certain surgical operations which might, with advantage, be introduced into other lands? For example, the rendering incapable of a degenerate male parent to propagate his species, whereby his race was kept up to the highest standards of physique.But let these things pass, as relics of barbarism if you will, and there is still a quaint originality in his make-up that shows itself in his speech. Bèche-de-mer, or Pidgin-English, is his tongue for dealing with white folk, and here is some of his vocabulary:"Trousers belong letter" = Envelope."Bokkus belong noise" = Gramaphone, piano, or almost any musical instrument."Pull um come; push um go, brother belong tomahawk" = Saw."Belly belong me fnuast" = I am hungry."What time papa belong you plant um you?" = How old are you?Some day there will be a dictionary of Pidgin-English. It would make a diverting document.For a tiny community like that of Thursday Island, the racing on the following day was too commendable to be treated otherwise than seriously. The course was complete with grandstand and "bleacher" seats, totalisator, judge's box, and bar, and was soon thronged with the entire white population of T.I., and most of the coloured. Jockeys wore anything from orthodox "silk" to an undervest, and rode anything on four legs with immense earnestness, and amidst thunderous acclamation. We lost money or won money, as the case might be, but there is no doubt that we enjoyed ourselves.At the end of a pleasant and instructive fortnight a south-bound steamer, direct from New Guinea, touched at T.I., and as she came alongside, my gaze became fixed on a slight, inconspicuous but vaguely familiar figure standing at the rail.It was Peter.There, on T.I.'s rickety jetty, seated on a stack of sandalwood, we talked of many things; but behind all lurked the eternal question, and I was obliged to answer it:"I'm beat. You're right, both of you. There never will be another dream ship."But there I was wrong.ADVICE TO DREAMERS OF DREAM SHIPSFor the prospective dream-ship owner the world over[image]Chapter XVII headpieceCHAPTER XVIIFor the prospective dream-ship owner the world overThere are more dreamers in the world than I had reckoned on. So much is evident from the snowdrift of letters received from every corner of the world, asking this, that, and the other in connection with the dream ship, until it became a physical impossibility for me to answer them individually.Here I hope to answer them all, out of sympathy more than anything else, for I know how the dreamer feels; but let me tell him or her this at the outset: unless you are willing to take a chance, your dream will never be realized. To sail away on a dream cruise is an easier thing than to climb out of the rut you are probably in. There may be the most excellent reasons for your remaining in that rut—marriage and family ties, or ill health—but those are the only insurmountable obstacles in the path of any dream merchant worth his salt.You will notice, no doubt, that penury is not included in this catalogue of obstacles, and the reason of its absence is that penury ought to be an incentive rather than an obstacle. One must work for dream fulfilment as one is obliged to work for anything worth while."It's all very well for you to talk," people have said to me more than once, "but you have no ties; and you always have your writing."If they only knew, neither of these statements is true. To hear them talk one would think I had neither friend nor relation in the world, and that the average writer makes as much money as a plumber. My reply to such folk is: "All right, let's be personal. You have no ties but what you could fling aside for a while without hurting yourself or any one else, for it is a fifty-to-one chance that they are nothing but money-grubbing at best. It has become a habit with you, that is all. You have enough money to buy a car, why not a tight little cruiser, and sail where you will? And if you have not, you could soon make it, for your trade is less precarious than mine."No, my friend, you may sit in that chair, and simulate the adventurous spirit beating its wings at the prison bars of Duty, or some such stuff, but what really ails you is that you are in a rut, and afraid to get out; or else your dream has not taken firm enough hold to hoist you out. The latter is a matter of personal temperament, and cannot be helped, but the former is something quite different. It simply means that you lack initiative, dread possible discomfort, and fear the world."Please do not imagine because I am pointing out the disabilities of the average dreamer that I claim to be exempt myself. I possess them in an all-too-marked degree, but my dream was strong enough to lift me above them, and it was worth it.I know a man who, at the age of thirty, and while I was working the soul out of myself on cattle and horse ranch, in lumber-camp and salmon-cannery for an average of two dollars a day, bought a decked-in, dug-out canoe for twenty dollars, and with a capital of a like amount went clean up the British Columbia coast. During the summer he sailed, fished, and shot deer, trading his bag with farmers and store-keepers for other commodities that he needed. In the winter, he laid up the canoe, but lived aboard and trapped fur. He was his own man, and he lived. That was his dream, and he accomplished it. And I might have been doing precisely the same thing all those weary years, and come out a good deal better off at the end of them if I had only had the courage of my dream.For the benefit of the apparent multitude whose dream lies along much the same lines as my own, I must attack the more technical side of the dream cruise, and, before doing so, I want it to be clearly understood that everything I may say in these pages is simply the outcome of my own personal experience. Others have had different and, perhaps, much wider experience, and will no doubt differ with me at every point. But then, after a woman, and a horse, there never was a subject more provocative of dissension than the proper conduct of a ship. So here's to it![image]Out of the Deep;The Main Products of Torres Straits. From left toright:—Green Snail (used for buttons). Pearl-Shell(with natural blister in form of an elephant).Trochas (used for buttons, etc.). At back: Beche-de-mer.The Dream Ship.—The dream ship is my idea of the ideal ocean cruiser to be handled by a crew of three. That is why I bought her, and she cost (second hand) £300 or about $1,500. She was designed as a North Sea pilot cutter by the late Colin Archer, who also designed theFramfor Nansen, and was the originator of this type of vessel. She was built at Porsgrund, Norway, in 1908, and I reduced her canvas to make for easy handling by a small and light-weight crew. For this reason she was slow going to windward, but I would not have had her otherwise for one cannot haveeverything—there is bound to be a compromise somewhere—and one does not expect to go round the world "on a wind."[image]An Islander's Home on T.I.;The Tennis Handicap[image]Lines of the Dream Ship,Designed by Colin Archer and Builtat Porsgrund, Norway, in 1908Construction.—Her timbers were of pine and her planking of Italian oak, which is admittedly a reversal of the usual order of things, but is easily accounted for by the fact that Norway has plenty of pine (grown on hilltops so that the wind will make it "natural bent" for elbows and knees), but little or no oak; while Italy is oppositely placed, and the two countries trade their woods.The dream ship was copper-fastened, which made it possible to have her copper-sheathed against the inroads of the tropical cobra worm, and this was an immense saving of labour. With ordinary iron fastenings it is impossible to copper-sheathe because the two metals, when immersed in salt water, set up a galvanic action destructive to both. It must not be imagined, however, that because a boat is iron-fastened she is useless for tropical waters. There is no stronger and better fastening for a boat than galvanized iron, but it entails her under-water body being kept in the best condition by putting her on "the hard" wherever and whenever possible, and paying her up with anti-fouling paint. Most of the Island schooners are iron-fastened, and they last for forty years and longer, if well looked after. If not, they are a honeycomb from worm inside of a year.The dream ship was of life-boat or "double-ender" build, which means that she was "all ship," and had no counter. Various stems and sterns are recommended by various people, but I have found nothing better than the life-boat.Rig.—She was cutter rigged, and, always provided that the boom does not extend too far beyond the counter to be easily accessible, it is as handy an arrangement of sail as any other, and admittedly the best for sailing.I can almost hear the noble army of schooner-, ketch-, and yawl-owners howling their execration at these remarks, but I cannot help it. I have tried most rigs, and come back to the cutter. The howlers will at least admit that she sails as close to the wind as any, and closer than most; and as for facility in handling by the smallest possible crew, we of the dream ship had no trouble on this score, for she would heave-to in a gale under single reef like a duck, and with the wind abeam would go for hours on end with the tiller pegged.Our main difficulty was that the dream ship was too heavily sparred. The boom was the size of an average mast for a vessel of her tonnage, and the gaff little smaller in proportion.Next time, we shall have smaller spars, and a top-mast instead of a pole mast. Aboard the dream ship our topsail yard was twenty-three feet long, and many were the anxious moments in lowering it when taking in the topsail during a squall. The topmast does away with any necessity for a yard, and can be lowered to the deck in foul weather, thus also eliminating considerable top-hamper.[image]Sail and Rigging Plan of the Dream ShipA hollow topmast and a hollow squaresail yard sound alluring, and have proved themselves efficient in temperate climes, but would they stand the intense heat of, say, the Paumotus? I know they are put to a boiling test for several hours, but what about months? It would be a disconcerting episode, to say the least, if one's spars commenced to open out like a flower in mid-ocean. I am sufficiently generous to allow someone else to make the experiment.Gear.—The importance of good ground tackle cannot be over-emphasized. Never carry less than one hundred fathoms of sound, galvanized-iron cable, preferably amidships, and see that the anchors have long shanks. We carried three: a skeleton, for dropping for short periods; a medium, for ordinary use; and a large, for holding her in an emergency. We never used any but the medium, and we never dragged anchor, mainly on account of the length of shank.A winch is better than a capstan for heaving anchor, and if placed abaft the mast, serves also for "swigging" on halyards, or hoisting sail.As for sails, the dream ship's were all "barked" or tanned after the fisherman style, and there is no doubt that this process prevents rot, especially in the humid tropics. We carried one medium-weight mainsail, a working and a balloon foresail, storm and balloon jibs, and a squaresail, and of these the last was the most generally useful. Again I hear the howlers howling: "Why not a spinnaker?" and my reply is that a squaresail can be used whenever a spinnaker can be used; it is a larger sail, yet infinitely easier to handle.Our main halyards were of "combination" rope, that is, hemp to all outward appearances, but internally carrying several strands of flexible steel wire. There is nothing stronger, and nothing that will stand the perpetual chafe of a long passage better. Its slight awkwardness in handling compared with ordinary manila is amply atoned for by its durability. I was afraid to use it for peak halyards on account of its inelasticity, but next time it shall be rove throughout, with the exception of the main sheet, which must perforce be of manila.Wheel- or tiller-steering gear is a matter of taste. Personally, I like to feel the "life" of a ship, and this is better accomplished with a tiller.Fittings.—A deep-sea cruiser should always be flush-decked, and have an entirely detached, self-emptying cockpit. Coach roofs and immense skylights make for additional headroom below, but during bad weather are an abomination.We did not carry davits. They look "yachty," but we were not anxious to look that way, and found it far less trouble to haul the thirteen-foot dinghy over the bulwarks with the fore halyards. If one went in for every "fitting" advertised in a yachting catalogue, the deck—which must be kept as clear as possible—would be a scrap-heap of "gadgets."Brass, too, is a good thing to do without. Again, it looks well, but think of the work it entails, and have painted galvanized-iron instead. There is no reason why a vessel should not look as "ship-shape" with these latter fittings as with all the glinting—and dulling—brasswork in the world.Good paint is the best wood-preserver there is; for that reason, and several others not unconnected with labour, the dream ship was painted throughout instead of varnished. The decks were painted (pinewood colour), and remained as sound and unscathed at the end of the voyage as they had been at the beginning. Boom and gaff were painted the same colour, hatches and skylights were white, as also were her top sides.And that is another thing: never have black paint if going to the tropics. The dream ship's cockpit was black, and the helmsman could scarcely bear to touch any part of it with his naked hand, though the white ship's rail was comparatively cool. The mere thought of black top sides in the neighbourhood of the Paumotus causes me to break into a profuse perspiration to this day.Down below, the two prime factors are ventilation and light. In order to secure the first of these, the dream ship's internal arrangements were of the simplest. There were no separate staterooms, which confine space and are difficult to air. She was open from end to end, save for the bulkheads, each containing a comprehensive doorway, so that the for'ard hatch could be opened and a current of air pass clean through the ship.As for light, the interior decoration was white enamel, which reflects every gleam from the skylights.The engine-room was a problem, until we decided—very rightly, as we discovered later—to sacrifice some living space in order to have a roomy "chamber of horrors." It is far more satisfactory to be tortured in a palace than in a pill-box. It leaves adequate space for the expression of feeling.Because his ship is essentially a sailing vessel, the present-day owner too often tucks his engine away anywhere. It does not do. Some time or other, when the necessary atrocity is engaged in saving life, as ours did on more than one occasion, a vital part of the machinery is found to be out of reach, or so difficult to get at that invaluable time is lost.As regards cooking and artificial lighting, we had three Primus stoves and an oven on gimbals, over which we contrived to render food eatable, and ordinary swinging lamps. There are those, I know, who prefer electric light on account of its comparative coolness, and to such I would say: "Enterprising fellow! You like dynamos and fiddling with 'gadgets' generally. Very well." Personally, I am a coward in this department.Ballast.—There is something peculiarly unattractive about ballast. One sees nothing for many laborious hours spent upon it, and it takes up valuable space. But it must not be forgotten that on its correct distribution the whole stability of a vessel depends. Whether lead, pig-iron, or stone, according to purse, for a cruise anywhere in the neighbourhood of coral, it must beinside, and immovable. The reasons for these stipulations are obvious, but too often cruising yachts do not return, and it is not always a matter of a lee shore, broaching to, or being pooped; but ballast.An excellent plan is to have it cemented in, for this also ensures a clean bilge, but if this is done, the owner would be well advised to have the vessel's timbers surveyed first and a certificate of soundness given, because before now cement has been used for nothing less than hiding rotten timbers.[image]Palm treesAuxiliary Engines.—There is no doubt that an auxiliary engine for a deep-sea cruiser is well-nigh indispensable. It may be used but twice in a passage of four thousand miles, as ours was—once for getting out of harbour and once for getting in. But what of the countless contingencies that may arise, such as lee shores, narrow waters, contrary currents and calms, when without power a vessel is helpless?The heavy-duty, comparatively slow-revolutioned, kerosene-burning type is the best. It may be more cumbersome, and make more noise than the natty little launch engine, but it is infinitely more reliable. A thirteen-horsepower drove the dream ship at four knots through calm water, so one's own particular fancy may be selected on that basis. Each has his own idea as to motor marine engines, and all I can do here is to extend to the engineer my good wishes—and sincerest sympathies.Deep-Sea Cruising.—The inevitable remark that greets the deep-sea cruiser in small craft on completing a passage is: "Fancy coming all this way in that little thing!" And if the speaker only knew it, his remark is an insult to the owner. There is no reason in the world why a staunch, seaworthy craft of not less than forty-one feet on the waterline should not continue to circumnavigate the globe indefinitely, and with every whit as much safety as a ten-thousand-ton liner. The forty-one-footer goes to the top of every wave; the ten-thousand-tonner rests upon two or more; that is the sole difference.Before leaving England, "know-alls" were good enough to point out to me that it was a silly game at best; that I was risking my precious life for no particular purpose, and that I should never get where I wanted to, anyway. As for taking one's sister, it was nothing short of murder.When I returned, the self-same people, chatting over a club "port" between races, agreed that there was, after all, nothing in it. Was not deep-sea cruising in fair-weather latitudes safer than coastal navigation in our pestiferous home waters?With this latter argument I entirely agree, and would point out that I never held any other view. Moreover, we made the cruise because we wanted to, and not because it was a safe or daring thing to do.Where to find a Dream Ship.—This, as I think has been sufficiently demonstrated in the foregoing pages, is the most difficult question of all to answer at the present time.I have given here the design and sail plan of my dream ship, and if it meets with your approval sufficiently to impel you to have a replica, and if you are willing and able to spend in the neighbourhood of £2,500 or about $12,500, I can only suggest going to Porsgrund, Norway, or better still Randers, Denmark (where her timbers could be of Danish oak), and have her built. For this particular type of boat, Scandinavia cannot be equalled, let alone beaten. But in these days, building boats is a pastime for millionaires only.From this giddy pinnacle of affluence we fall to the next best thing, which is a second-hand boat as like the dream ship in seaworthiness and handiness as it is possible to procure, and that is what I have been searching for ever since the dream cruise ended. There are no more pilot boats of the dream-ship type being built in Norway. Steam has dethroned them, and those still in use are either too old to buy or too invaluable to sell. So, we are reduced to the inevitable compromise, and personally, I think I have found it in an English, Bristol Channel Pilot cutter, for which I paid £450 or, at par, about $2,250.Yes, I have another dream ship. I have notified Peter. I have cabled to Samoa. Next time....But that is another dream.THE END[image]Chapter XVII tailpieceAPPENDIX*State of Affairs Aboard the Ship—Contents of her Larder—Length of South Seamen's Voyages—Account of a Flying Whale-man—Determination to Leave the Vessel—The Bay of Nukuheva—The Typees—Invasion of their Valley by Porter—Reflections—Glen of Tior—Interview Between the Old King and the French Admiral.*From "Typee" by Herman Melville, copyright 1892 by Elizabeth S. Melville. Reprinted by permission of The Page Company, publishers of the works of Herman Melville, as follows: Typee, Omoo, Moby Dick, White JacketOur ship had not been many days in the harbour of Nukuheva before I came to the determination of leaving her. That my reasons for resolving to take this step were numerous and weighty, may be inferred from the fact that I chose rather to risk my fortunes among the savages of the island, than to endure another voyage on board theDolly. To use the concise, point-blank phrase of the sailors, I had made up my mind to "run away." Now, as a meaning is generally attached to these two words no way flattering to the individual to whom they are applied, it behooves me, for the sake of my own character, to offer some explanation of my conduct.When I entered on board theDolly, I signed, as a matter of course, the ship's articles, thereby voluntarily engaging, and legally binding myself to serve in a certain capacity for the period of the voyage; and, special considerations apart, I was of course bound to fulfil the agreement. But in all contracts, if one party fail to perform his share of the compact, is not the other virtually absolved from his liability? Who is there who will not answer in the affirmative?Having settled the principle, then, let me apply it to the particular case in question. In numberless instances had not only, the implied but the specified conditions of the articles been violated on the part of the ship in which I served. The usage on board of her was tyrannical; the sick had been inhumanly neglected; the provisions had been doled out in scanty allowance; and her cruises were unreasonably protracted. The captain was the author of these abuses; it was in vain to think that he would either remedy them, or alter his conduct, which was arbitrary and violent in the extreme. His prompt reply to all complaints and remonstrances was—the butt-end of a hand-spike, so convincingly administered as effectually to silence the aggrieved party.To whom could we apply for redress? We had left both law and equity on the other side of the Cape; and unfortunately, with a very few exceptions, our crew was composed of a parcel of dastardly and mean-spirited wretches, divided among themselves, and only united in enduring without resistance the unmitigated tyranny of the captain. It would have been mere madness for any two or three of the number, unassisted by the rest, to attempt making a stand against his ill-usage. They would only have called down upon themselves the particular vengeance of this "Lord of the Plank," and subjected their shipmates to additional hardships.But, after all, these things could have been endured awhile, had we entertained the hope of being speedily delivered from them by the due completion of the term of our servitude. But what a dismal prospect awaited us in this quarter! The longevity of Cape Horn whaling voyages is proverbial, frequently extending over a period of four or five years.Some long-haired, bare-necked youths, who, forced by the united influences of Captain Marryat and hard times, embark at Nantucket for a pleasure excursion to the Pacific, and whose anxious mothers provide them with bottled milk for the occasion, oftentimes return very respectable middle-aged gentlemen.The very preparations made for one of these expeditions are enough to frighten one. As the vessel carries out no cargo, her hold is filled with provisions for her own consumption. The owners, who officiate as caterers for the voyage, supply the larder with an abundance of dainties. Delicate morsels of beef and pork, cut on scientific principles from every part of the animal, and of all conceivable shapes and sizes, are carefully packed in salt, and stored away in barrels; affording a never-ending variety in their different degrees of toughness, and in the peculiarities of their saline properties. Choice old water, too, decanted into stout six-barrel casks, and two pints of which are allowed every day to each soul on board; together with ample store of sea-bread, previously reduced to a state of petrifaction, with a view to preserve it either from decay or consumption in the ordinary mode, are likewise provided for the nourishment and gastronomic enjoyment of the crew.But not to speak of the quality of these articles of sailors' fare, the abundance in which they are put on board a whaling vessel is almost incredible. Oftentimes, when we had occasion to break out in the hold, and I beheld the successive tiers of casks and barrels, whose contents were all destined to be consumed in due course by the ship's company, my heart sank within me.Although, as a general case, a ship unlucky in falling in with whales continues to cruise after them until she has barely sufficient provisions remaining to take her home, turning round then quietly and making the best of her way to her friends, yet there are instances when even this natural obstacle to the further prosecution of the voyage is overcome by headstrong captains, who, bartering the fruits of their hard-earned toils for a new supply of provisions in some of the ports of Chili or Peru, begin the voyage afresh, with unabated zeal and perseverance. It is in vain that the owners write urgent letters to him to sail for home, and for their sake to bring back the ship, since it appears he can put nothing in her. Not he. He has registered a vow; he will fill his vessel with good sperm oil, or failing to do so, never again strike Yankee soundings.I heard of one whaler, which after many years' absence was given up for lost. The last that had been heard of her was a shadowy report of her having touched at some of those unstable islands in the far Pacific, whose eccentric wanderings are carefully noted in each new edition of the South Sea charts. After a long interval, however, thePerseverance—for that was her name—was spoken somewhere in the vicinity of the ends of the earth, cruising along as leisurely as ever, her sails all bepatched and bequilted with rope-yarns, her spars fished with old pipe stores, and her rigging knotted and spliced in every possible direction. Her crew was composed of some twenty venerable Greenwich-pensioner-looking old salts, who just managed to hobble about deck. The ends of all the running ropes, with the exception of the signal halyards and poop-down-haul, were rove through snatch-blocks, and led to the capstan or windlass, so that not a yard was braced or a sail set without the assistance of machinery.Her hull was incrusted with barnacles, which completely encased her. Three pet sharks followed in her wake, and every day came alongside to regale themselves from the contents of the cook's bucket, which were pitched over to them. A vast shoal of bonetas and albicores always kept her company.Such was the account I heard of this vessel, and the remembrance of it always haunted me; what eventually became of her I never learned; at any rate, she never reached home, and I suppose she is still regularly tacking twice in the twenty-four hours somewhere off Desolate Island, or the Devil's-Tail Peak.Having said thus much touching the usual length of these voyages, when I inform the reader that ours had as it were just commenced, we being only fifteen months out, and even at that time hailed as a late arrival and boarded for news, he will readily perceive that there was little to encourage one in looking forward to the future, especially as I had always had a presentiment that we should make an unfortunate voyage, and our experience so far had justified the expectation.I may here state, and on my faith as an honest man, that though more than three years have elapsed since I left this same identical vessel, she still continues in the Pacific; and but a few days since I saw her reported in the papers as having touched at the Sandwich Islands, previous to going on the coast of Japan.But to return to my narrative. Placed in these circumstances then, with no prospect of matters mending if I remained aboard theDolly, I at once made up my mind to leave her: to be sure it was rather an inglorious thing to steal away privily from those at whose hands I had received wrongs and outrages that I could not resent; but how was such a course to be avoided when it was the only alternative left me? Having made up my mind, I proceeded to acquire all the information I could obtain relating to the island and its inhabitants, with a view of shaping my plans of escape accordingly. The result of these inquiries I will now state, in order that the ensuing narrative may be the better understood.The bay of Nukuheva, in which we were then lying, is an expanse of water not unlike in figure the space included within the limits of a horse-shoe. It is, perhaps, nine miles in circumference. You approach it from the sea by a narrow entrance, flanked on either side by two small twin islets which soar conically to the height of some five hundred feet. From these the shore recedes on both hands, and describes a deep semicircle.From the verge of the water the land rises uniformly on all sides, with green and sloping acclivities, until from gently rolling hillsides and moderate elevations it insensibly swells into lofty and majestic heights, whose blue outlines ranged all around, close in the view. The beautiful aspect of the shore is heightened by deep and romantic glens, which come down to it at almost equal distances, all apparently radiating from a common centre, and the upper extremities of which are lost to the eye beneath the shadow of the mountains. Down each of these little valleys flows a clear stream, here and there assuming the form of a slender cascade, then stealing invisibly along until it bursts upon the sight again in larger and more noisy waterfalls, and at last demurely wanders along to the sea.The houses of the natives, constructed of the yellow bamboo, tastefully twisted together in a kind of wickerwork, and thatched with the long tapering leaves of the palmetto, are scattered irregularly along these valleys beneath the shady branches of the cocoanut trees.Nothing can exceed the imposing scenery of this bay. Viewed from our ship as she lay at anchor in the middle of the harbour, it presented the appearance of a vast natural amphitheatre in decay, and overgrown with vines, the deep glens that furrowed its sides appearing like enormous fissures caused by the ravages of time. Very often when lost in admiration at its beauty I have experienced a pang of regret that a scene so enchanting should be hidden from the world in these remote seas, and seldom meet the eyes of devoted lovers of nature.Besides this bay the shores of the island are indented by several other extensive inlets, into which descend broad and verdant valleys. These are inhabited by as many distinct tribes of savages, who, although speaking kindred dialects of a common language, and having the same religion and laws, have from time immemorial waged hereditary warfare against each other. The intervening mountains, generally two or three thousand feet above the level of the sea, geographically define the territories of each of these hostile tribes, who never cross them, save on some expedition of war or plunder. Immediately adjacent to Nukuheva, and only separated from it by the mountains seen from the harbour, lies the lovely valley of Happar, whose inmates cherish the most friendly relations with the inhabitants of Nukuheva. On the other side of Happar, and closely adjoining it, is the magnificent valley of the dreaded Typees, the unappeasable enemies of both these tribes.These celebrated warriors appear to inspire the other islanders with unspeakable terrors. Their very name is a frightful one; for the word "Typee" in the Marquesan dialect signifies a lover of human flesh. It is rather singular that the title should have been bestowed upon them exclusively, inasmuch as the natives of all this group are irreclaimable cannibals. The name may, perhaps, have been given to denote the peculiar ferocity of this clan, and to convey a special stigma along with it.These same Typees enjoy a prodigious notoriety all over the islands. The natives of Nukuheva would frequently recount in pantomime to our ship's company their terrible feats, and would show the marks of wounds they had received in desperate encounters with them. When ashore they would try to frighten us by pointing to one of their own number, and calling him a Typee, manifesting no little surprise that we did not take to our heels at so terrible an announcement. It was quite amusing, too, to see with what earnestness they disclaimed all cannibal propensities on their own part, while they denounced their enemies—the Typees—as inveterate gormandizers of human flesh; but this is a peculiarity to which I shall hereafter have occasion to allude.Although I was convinced that the inhabitants of our bay were as arrant cannibals as any of the other tribes on the island, still I could not but feel a particular and most unqualified repugnance to the aforesaid Typees. Even before visiting the Marquesas, I had heard from men who had touched at the group on former voyages some revolting stories in connection with these savages; and fresh in my remembrance was the adventure of the master of theKatherine, who only a few months previous, imprudently venturing into this bay in an armed boat for the purpose of barter, was seized by the natives, carried back a little distance into this valley, and was saved from a cruel death only by the intervention of a young girl, who facilitated his escape by night along the beach to Nukuheva.I had heard, too, of an English vessel that many years ago, after a weary cruise, sought to enter the bay of Nukuheva, and arriving within two or three miles of the land, was met by a large canoe filled with natives, who offered to lead the way to the place of their destination. The captain, unacquainted with the localities of the island, joyfully acceded to the proposition—the canoe paddled on, and the ship followed. She was soon conducted to a beautiful inlet, and dropped her anchor in its waters beneath the shadows of the lofty shore. That same night the perfidious Typees, who had thus inveigled her into their fatal bay, flocked aboard the doomed vessel by hundreds, and at a given signal murdered every soul on board.I shall never forget the observation of one of our crew as we were passing slowly by the entrance of this bay on our way to Nukuheva. As we stood gazing over the side at the verdant headlands, Ned, pointing with his hand in the direction of the treacherous valley, exclaimed, "There—there's Typee. Oh, the bloody cannibals, what a meal they'd make of us if we were to take it into our heads to land! but they say they don't like sailor's flesh, it's too salt. I say, maty, how should you like to be shoved ashore there, eh?" I little thought, as I shuddered at the question, that in the space of a few weeks I should actually be a captive in that self-same valley.The French, although they had gone through the ceremony of hoisting their colours for a few hours at all the principal places of the group, had not as yet visited the bay of Typee, anticipating a fierce resistance on the part of the savages there, which for the present at least they wished to avoid. Perhaps they were not a little influenced in the adoption of this unusual policy from a recollection of the warlike reception given by the Typees to the forces of Captain Porter, about the year 1814, when that brave and accomplished officer endeavoured to subjugate the clan merely to gratify the mortal hatred of his allies the Nukuhevas and Happars.On that occasion I have been told that a considerable detachment of sailors and marines from the frigateEssex, accompanied by at least two thousand warriors of Happar and Nukuheva, landed in boats and canoes at the head of the bay, and after penetrating a little distance into the valley, met with the stoutest resistance from its inmates. Valiantly, although with much loss, the Typees disputed every inch of ground, and after some hard fighting obliged the assailants to retreat and abandon their design of conquest.The invaders, on their march back to the sea, consoled themselves for their repulse by setting fire to every house and temple on their route; and a long line of smoking ruins defaced the once-smiling bosom of the valley, and proclaimed to its pagan inhabitants the spirit that reigned in the breasts of Christian soldiers. Who can wonder at the deadly hatred of the Typees to all foreigners after such unprovoked atrocities?Thus it is that they whom we denominate "savages" are made to deserve the title. When the inhabitants of some sequestered island first descry the "big canoe" of the European rolling through the blue waters toward their shores, they rush down to the beach in crowds, and with open arms stand ready to embrace the strangers. Fatal embrace! They fold to their bosoms the vipers whose sting is destined to poison all their joys; and the instinctive feeling of love within their breasts is soon converted into the bitterest hate.The enormities perpetrated in the South Seas upon some of the inoffensive islanders well-nigh pass belief. These things are seldom proclaimed at home; they happen at the very ends of the earth; they are done in a corner, and there are none to reveal them. But there is, nevertheless, many a petty trader that has navigated the Pacific, whose course from island to island might be traced by a series of cold-blooded robberies, kidnappings, and murders, the iniquity of which might be considered almost sufficient to sink her guilty timbers to the bottom of the sea.Sometimes vague accounts of such things reach our firesides, and we coolly censure them as wrong, impolitic, needlessly severe, and dangerous to the crews of other vessels. How different is our tone when we read the highly wrought description of the massacre of the crew of theHobomakby the Feejees! how we sympathize for the unhappy victims, and with what horror do we regard the diabolical heathens, who, after all, have but avenged the unprovoked injuries which they have received! We breathe nothing but vengeance, and equip armed vessels to traverse thousands of miles of ocean in order to execute summary punishment upon the offenders. On arriving at their destination, they burn, slaughter, and destroy, according to the tenor of written instructions, and sailing away from the scene of devastation, call upon all Christendom to applaud their courage and their justice.How often is the term "savages" incorrectly applied! None really deserving of it were ever yet discovered by voyagers or by travellers. They have discovered heathens and barbarians, whom by horrible cruelties they have exasperated into savages. It may be asserted, without fear of contradiction, that in all the cases of outrages committed by Polynesians, Europeans have at some time or other been the aggressors, and that the cruel and bloodthirsty disposition of some of the islanders is mainly to be ascribed to the influence of such examples.But to return. Owing to the mutual hostilities of the different tribes I have mentioned, the mountainous tracts which separate their respective territories remain altogether uninhabited; the natives invariably dwelling in the depths of the valleys, with a view of securing themselves from the predatory incursions of their enemies, who often lurk along their borders, ready to cut off any imprudent straggler, or make a descent upon the inmates of some sequestered habitation. I several times met with very aged men, who from this cause had never passed the confines of their native vale, some of them having never even ascended midway up the mountains in the whole course of their lives, and who, accordingly, had little idea of the appearance of any other part of the island, the whole of which is not perhaps more than sixty miles in circuit. The little space in which some of these clans pass away their days would seem almost incredible.The glen of Tior will furnish a curious illustration of this. The inhabited part is not more than four miles in length, and varies in breadth from half a mile to less than a quarter. The rocky vine-clad cliffs on one side tower almost perpendicularly from their base to the height of at least fifteen hundred feet; while across the vale—in striking contrast to the scenery opposite—grass-grown elevations rise one above another in blooming terraces. Hemmed in by these stupendous barriers, the valley would be altogether shut out from the rest of the world, were it not that it is accessible from the sea at one end and by a narrow defile at the other.The impression produced upon my mind, when I first visited this beautiful glen, will never be obliterated.I had come from Nukuheva by water in the ship's boat, and when we entered the bay of Tior it was high noon. The heat had been intense, as we had been floating upon the long smooth swell of the ocean, for there was but little wind. The sun's rays had expended all their fury upon us; and to add to our discomfort, we had omitted to supply ourselves with water previous to starting. What with heat and thirst together, I became so impatient to get ashore, that when at last we glided toward it, I stood up in the bow of the boat ready for a spring. As she shot two-thirds of her length high upon the beach, propelled by three or four strong strokes of the oars, I leaped among a parcel of juvenile savages, who stood prepared to give us a kind reception; and with them at my heels, yelling like so many imps, I rushed forward across the open ground in the vicinity of the sea, and plunged, diver fashion, into the recesses of the first grove that offered.What a delightful sensation did I experience! I felt as if floating in some new element, while all sorts of gurgling, trickling, liquid sounds fell upon my ear. People may say what they will about the refreshing influences of a cold-water bath, but commend me, when in a perspiration, to the shade baths of Tior, beneath the cocoanut trees, and amidst the cool delightful atmosphere which surrounds them.How shall I describe the scenery that met my eye, as I looked out from this verdant recess! The narrow valley, with its steep and close adjoining sides draperied with vines, and arched overhead with a fretwork of interlacing boughs, nearly hidden from view by masses of leafy verdure, seemed from where I stood like an immense arbour disclosing its vista to the eye, whilst as I advanced it insensibly widened into the loveliest vale eye ever beheld.It so happened that the very day I was in Tior the French admiral, attended by all the boats of his squadron, came down in state from Nukuheva to take formal possession of the place. He remained in the valley about two hours, during which time he had a ceremonious interview with the king. The patriarch-sovereign of Tior was a man very far advanced in years; but though age had bowed his form and rendered him almost decrepit, his gigantic frame retained all its original magnitude and grandeur of appearance. He advanced slowly and with evident pain, assisting his tottering steps with the heavy war-spear he held in his hand, and attended by a group of gray-bearded chiefs, on one of whom he occasionally leaned for support. The admiral came forward with head uncovered and extended hand, while the old king saluted him by a stately flourish of his weapon. The next moment they stood side by side, these two extremes in the social scale—the polished, splendid Frenchman, and the poor tattooed savage. They were both tall and noble-looking men; but in other respects how strikingly contrasted! Du Petit Thouars exhibited upon his person all the paraphernalia of his naval rank. He wore a richly decorated admiral's frock-coat, a lacedchapeau bras, and upon his breast were a variety of ribbons and orders; while the simple islander, with the exception of a slight cincture about his loins, appeared in all the nakedness of nature.At what immeasurable distance, thought I, are these two beings removed from each other. In the one is shown the result of long centuries of progressive civilization and refinement, which have gradually converted the mere creature into the semblance of all that is elevated and grand; while the other, after the lapse of the same period, has not advanced one step in the career of improvement. "Yet, after all," quoth I to myself, "insensible as he is to a thousand wants, and removed from harassing cares, may not the savage be the happier man of the two?" Such were the thoughts that arose in my mind as I gazed upon the novel spectacle before me. In truth, it was an impressive one, and little likely to be effaced. I can recall even now with vivid distinctness every feature of the scene. The umbrageous shades where the interview took place, the glorious tropical vegetation around, the picturesque grouping of the mingled throng of soldiery and natives, and even the golden-hued bunch of bananas that I held in my hand at the time, and of which I occasionally partook while making the aforesaid philosophical reflections.

THURSDAY ISLAND

Concerning a wild-goose chase, and where it led

[image]Chapter XVI headpiece

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Chapter XVI headpiece

CHAPTER XVI

Concerning a wild-goose chase, and where it led

Life for the sad remnants of the dream ship's crew resolved itself into the pursuit of a will-o'-the-wisp.

It was a strange craft that we were after: sufficiently staunch to stand any weather, yet small enough to be handled by a crew of three. The New Zealand seaboard had neither heard of nor seen such a thing. At Auckland and Wellington we were hustled off in launch or car with high hope in our hearts, and shown every manner of contrivance that floats, but there was no choice between hundred-ton schooners and harbour racing machines. New Zealand is a beautiful, over-legislated, intensely earnest little country, but for us it held no dream ship, and we passed on.

Australia was little better. Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney were visited in turn, and scoured from end to end without producing anything within coo-ee of what we sought. With an "I-told-you-so" glint in her eye, Peter departed on a jaunt to New Guinea, and I continued the search alone, after the fashion of the "last little nigger boy."

Hearing that the Torres Straits pearling luggers were likely craft, I set my teeth and journeyed on a Chinese liner—incidentally one of the most comfortable and well-managed ships it has been my good fortune to encounter—up through the myriad islets of the Queensland barrier reef to Thursday Island.

It is a strange thing on a ten-thousand-ton liner to awake at night to a silence unbroken even by the familiar throbbing of the engines, and to feel the great ship rising and falling on the swell like any cockleshell; to go on deck and find her lying at anchor under a panoply of stars, and apparently in mid-ocean, for there is no sign of land. Yet this is a frequent experience of any passenger traversing the barrier reef. Whether liner or dream ship, it makes no difference to the infinite care necessary in navigating these reef-infested seas.

A young navy of pilots performs the miracle—for miracle it is. After long apprenticeship they learn the exact dimensions of every open stretch of water, and if they leave one side at nightfall, they can tell by the vessel's speed, and to a yard, when they have reached the other, when they anchor until dawn. The farther we progressed up the magnificently rugged coast of Queensland, the more varied became the nature of our passenger list. There were sun-baked pastoralists from the cattle and sheep stations "out back" who owned herds and acreages that would cause the largest Western American rancher to open his eyes. One of them at a recent cattle "muster" had tallied up to half a million head, and he had not finished yet. The possibilities of the "Northern Territory," as it is called, are infinite—if it were not for the bugbear of labour troubles that stalks Australia with a heavier tread than any other country of the world.

Then, there were commercial travellers—not the sleek variety that boards a "flyer" and is on its battle-ground in a matter of hours, but lean, hard-bitten men who take a launch or trading cutter and traverse vast stretches of ocean to the farthermost corners of the Gulf of Carpentaria, sleeping, eating, and having their being for weeks together in a stifling, evil-smelling deck house with native "boys" and their own sample cases for sole company.

Wireless operators, engineers, pearlers, teachers of aboriginal schools, Chinamen, Japanese, all were on their way to this mysterious equatorial land of vast, unexplored spaces.

A great deal has been written about Thursday Island, otherwise known as "T.I.", but, without exception, accounts refer to a more picturesque past when this sun-baked tile on the roof of Australia was the busy headquarters of a pearling fleet manned by "whites" and native "boys"; when hefty schooners were employed as floating stations, where shell was opened and treated at sea under the lynx-eyed supervision of a skipper or mate who claimed the hidden treasure it might contain. To-day, the pearling fleet is manned entirely by Japanese, who work on a prosaic fifty-per-cent. basis, and are entitled to every pearl they find.

But of this, later. There were luggers in the bay, likely-looking craft, the most likely I had seen in all my weary pilgrimage. Was it possible that I was on the verge of being able to look Peter in the eye once more—and send a cable to Samoa?

[image]High Holiday on a "T.I." Beach

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High Holiday on a "T.I." Beach

Not five minutes after landing in the corrugated-iron and goat-infested landscape of Thursday Island I was in the shipyards watching an army of Japanese workmen putting the finishing touches to a pearling lugger. Yes, I was told by the manager of the Pearling Company that had commissioned her, I could have a similar craft built for —— (a sum nearly double the seemingly preposterous figure I had received for the dream ship)—and she could be delivered in about a year! Labour, you know, prices of material—everything! Things were not as they used to be on 'T.I.'. Or yes; there were second-hand craft to be picked up, but it stood to reason they would have passed their day, or they would not be sold.

[image]Festival Headdress of Torres Straits Islanders;The Japanese Club

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Festival Headdress of Torres Straits Islanders;The Japanese Club

I boarded twelve in all, and examined them from truck to keelson. In some cases one could scoop the dry-rot out of their timbers in handfuls; in others—— But why continue? In all of them the head-room was practically nil because of their light draught for negotiating reefs and sand-bars, and because the Japanese have no manner of use for head-room. When below, they live, move, and have their being on their heel-supported haunches. It would be necessary for the average Anglo-Saxon to crawl on all fours to escape a permanent crick in the neck and stooped shoulders aboard a pearling lugger.

It was in that hour that I realized my final defeat. Peter and Steve were right—there never would be another dream ship. I resigned myself to the inevitable, and settled down on Thursday Island to await the next southern-bound steamer in two weeks' time. I wandered amidst sweltering corrugated iron and herds of cavorting goats, thinking my own sad and secret thoughts, until taken under the wing of two as bright lads as one could wish to meet. We "batched it," if you please, and I am consequently in a position to state precisely how one may live on T.I. in this year of grace.

Taking it in turns to leave your sagging camp bed a trifle before dawn, you steal forth into the iron-bound forest of the settlement, and stalk your prey. It is a simple process. You offer the most appetizing-looking kid in sight a lump of sugar with one hand, and, seizing its hind leg with the other, smother its cries with a towel. Half an hour later it has been converted over a Primus into something that looks like shoe-leather and tastes like kerosene.

In the alleged "cool" of the evening, you may play lawn tennis. We did, in shorts and a vest, and with diver's-suit rubber an inch thick glued to the soles of our shoes by way of protection against the heat and hardness of the court. In five minutes you are a dripping rag of perspiration, but no matter, it is tennis, and the bright lads could play, though argument across the net seemed their strongest point. One of these resolved itself into a bet as to who would win a game played in diver's helmet and boots respectively. It was put to the test with the utmost gravity, and resulted in a dead heat, the man in the helmet being unable to see through his three glass windows quickly enough to take the ball, and the booted competitor being unable to move.

Such were some of the social amenities of T.I., interspersed with delightful evenings spent with thehaute monde, consisting of military authorities and owners of pearling fleets, in their charming bungalows situated behind and above the settlement. But for the most part we kept to the beach. It was more interesting—and kids were more plentiful.

As for the industries of this queer little island with a white population of five hundred and a black-and-tan one of unknown dimensions, pearling predominates, as different a form of pearling from that of the Paumotus as can well be imagined. Here machinery is permissible, and with the up-to-date motor compressor keeping up a mechanically uniform and unfailing air supply, great depths are attained, and shell of a prodigious size and lustre obtained.

"I don't know," mused a pearling-lugger owner of my acquaintance; "I'm beginning to think it's the survival of the fittest, after all. The Japs are the best machine divers in the world. They don't seem to put the same value on life that we do, and maybe they're right; I don't know.

"But I can tell you this: they work as no white man would ever work—day and night for two weeks without shutting an eye; then they bring the stuff in, sleep two days and nights on end, and are ready for another two weeks.

"I used to go out with a crew now and then, and I've seen them go down fifty-two fathoms, and be hauled up dead, and another man climb into his suit and be 'down' inside of ten minutes.

"Another little trick they've got is to sail—almost into the wind, mind you, but still sail—towing a diver along the bottom. It saves him having to walk and he covers more ground; but would you like to be in that suit? What happens if it catches on a bit of coral? ...

"I tell you what it is: they come over here on a three-years' indenture—it's the only way we allow them into Australian territory—and during that time they set out to make enough to keep 'em for the rest of their lives. And they do it—because they don't live long anyway after much fifty-two-fathom diving.

"Skin divers? We've got as good here in Torres Straits as any in the world! Twenty fathoms, and three minutes under water in the Paumotus? Well, that's not so bad, but we can beat it with a good abo (aboriginal). Come and see."

I did, and am forced to give the palm to Torres Straits. Our crew was a hotch-potch of mainland aboriginals—Islanders, Malays, and Filipinos—but it was the aboriginal who did the diving, and his performance was every whit as good as, and in some cases better than, that of the Paumotan. But with what different results! Instead of the cleanly pearl-shell, bèche-de-mer or trepang was brought to light, immense brown or black sea slugs that are gutted, impaled on a stick, and cured in a smoke-box amidships. When cooked they make a soup as nutritious and appetizing as turtle, and although China is by far the largest consumer of bèche-de-mer at the present time, it is rapidly gaining favour in Europe.

[image]Pearl diver

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Pearl diver

The remaining important products of the Coral Sea and its coasts are trochas shell and sandal wood. The first of these is second only to mother-of-pearl for buttons, knife-handles, and what-not; and as for sandalwood, its uses are too familiar to call for mention here. But I am grateful to this externally unlovely but fragrant tree for taking me to the shores of the Gulf of Carpentaria where it grows in profusion, for a stranger, more deserted land—saving always the Galapagos Islands—it would be difficult to find.

You may stand on these shores and look inland over thousands of miles of gently undulating and lightly timbered country, containing not a living soul with the exception of a few bands of ever-wandering and rapidly decreasing aboriginals. Cotton grows here to perfection. What would not grow? There are rivers that Western-American irrigators would smack their lips over, a light but assured rainfall, a rich loam soil, and millions of acres of pasture untouched save by wallaby and kangaroo. Yet we still cry out that the world is over-full.

Some day the entirely admirable bluff of "white Australia" will be called, and these territories of vast possibilities will be inundated by a people able and eager to develop them. It will be unpleasant, but then so are most penalties of degeneration and sloth in this cannibalistic old world of ours.

Back from "the Gulf," we celebrated a successful trip in the approved fashion at one of Thursday Island's numerous and well-known circular bars, presided over by a high priestess who, after three years in New Guinea, favoured the native style of coiffure.

Discussion turned on a race meeting of the morrow. A race meeting on T.I.! Why not? I had forgotten that wherever you find an assembly of more than two Australians, there you will find a race-course of some sort. It appeared that someone had stolen the favourite; nothing less! The horse had been pastured on Friday Island, a few miles distant, and now, a day before the race, it had vanished. The owner, who happened to be present, was telling us just what he was going to do to the culprit when he caught him, but I fear my attention wandered. An aboriginal was standing at my elbow with the most ghastly healed wound encircling his neck that could have been inflicted without decapitation. How the man could have suffered it and remained alive, was beyond my comprehension.

"That," I was told, "is Treacle, the only man who's had his head in a shark's mouth and got it out again. Care for an introduction?"

I did care, and after sundry amenities elicited the following: "Me push; 'im leave go." That was all, delivered with every appearance of delight and pride in the accomplishment. Some of the shark's teeth were still embedded in the fellow's skull. With a vast grin, he will guide your finger to the spot—for sixpence; and for a like amount one is permitted to photograph Treacle the miraculous.

The Australian "abo's" recuperative qualities are equalled only by his inventiveness. Was he not the originator of the boomerang, that most ingenious of weapons? And had he not, before the advent of the white man, instituted certain surgical operations which might, with advantage, be introduced into other lands? For example, the rendering incapable of a degenerate male parent to propagate his species, whereby his race was kept up to the highest standards of physique.

But let these things pass, as relics of barbarism if you will, and there is still a quaint originality in his make-up that shows itself in his speech. Bèche-de-mer, or Pidgin-English, is his tongue for dealing with white folk, and here is some of his vocabulary:

"Trousers belong letter" = Envelope.

"Bokkus belong noise" = Gramaphone, piano, or almost any musical instrument.

"Pull um come; push um go, brother belong tomahawk" = Saw.

"Belly belong me fnuast" = I am hungry.

"What time papa belong you plant um you?" = How old are you?

Some day there will be a dictionary of Pidgin-English. It would make a diverting document.

For a tiny community like that of Thursday Island, the racing on the following day was too commendable to be treated otherwise than seriously. The course was complete with grandstand and "bleacher" seats, totalisator, judge's box, and bar, and was soon thronged with the entire white population of T.I., and most of the coloured. Jockeys wore anything from orthodox "silk" to an undervest, and rode anything on four legs with immense earnestness, and amidst thunderous acclamation. We lost money or won money, as the case might be, but there is no doubt that we enjoyed ourselves.

At the end of a pleasant and instructive fortnight a south-bound steamer, direct from New Guinea, touched at T.I., and as she came alongside, my gaze became fixed on a slight, inconspicuous but vaguely familiar figure standing at the rail.

It was Peter.

There, on T.I.'s rickety jetty, seated on a stack of sandalwood, we talked of many things; but behind all lurked the eternal question, and I was obliged to answer it:

"I'm beat. You're right, both of you. There never will be another dream ship."

But there I was wrong.

ADVICE TO DREAMERS OF DREAM SHIPS

For the prospective dream-ship owner the world over

[image]Chapter XVII headpiece

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Chapter XVII headpiece

CHAPTER XVII

For the prospective dream-ship owner the world over

There are more dreamers in the world than I had reckoned on. So much is evident from the snowdrift of letters received from every corner of the world, asking this, that, and the other in connection with the dream ship, until it became a physical impossibility for me to answer them individually.

Here I hope to answer them all, out of sympathy more than anything else, for I know how the dreamer feels; but let me tell him or her this at the outset: unless you are willing to take a chance, your dream will never be realized. To sail away on a dream cruise is an easier thing than to climb out of the rut you are probably in. There may be the most excellent reasons for your remaining in that rut—marriage and family ties, or ill health—but those are the only insurmountable obstacles in the path of any dream merchant worth his salt.

You will notice, no doubt, that penury is not included in this catalogue of obstacles, and the reason of its absence is that penury ought to be an incentive rather than an obstacle. One must work for dream fulfilment as one is obliged to work for anything worth while.

"It's all very well for you to talk," people have said to me more than once, "but you have no ties; and you always have your writing."

If they only knew, neither of these statements is true. To hear them talk one would think I had neither friend nor relation in the world, and that the average writer makes as much money as a plumber. My reply to such folk is: "All right, let's be personal. You have no ties but what you could fling aside for a while without hurting yourself or any one else, for it is a fifty-to-one chance that they are nothing but money-grubbing at best. It has become a habit with you, that is all. You have enough money to buy a car, why not a tight little cruiser, and sail where you will? And if you have not, you could soon make it, for your trade is less precarious than mine.

"No, my friend, you may sit in that chair, and simulate the adventurous spirit beating its wings at the prison bars of Duty, or some such stuff, but what really ails you is that you are in a rut, and afraid to get out; or else your dream has not taken firm enough hold to hoist you out. The latter is a matter of personal temperament, and cannot be helped, but the former is something quite different. It simply means that you lack initiative, dread possible discomfort, and fear the world."

Please do not imagine because I am pointing out the disabilities of the average dreamer that I claim to be exempt myself. I possess them in an all-too-marked degree, but my dream was strong enough to lift me above them, and it was worth it.

I know a man who, at the age of thirty, and while I was working the soul out of myself on cattle and horse ranch, in lumber-camp and salmon-cannery for an average of two dollars a day, bought a decked-in, dug-out canoe for twenty dollars, and with a capital of a like amount went clean up the British Columbia coast. During the summer he sailed, fished, and shot deer, trading his bag with farmers and store-keepers for other commodities that he needed. In the winter, he laid up the canoe, but lived aboard and trapped fur. He was his own man, and he lived. That was his dream, and he accomplished it. And I might have been doing precisely the same thing all those weary years, and come out a good deal better off at the end of them if I had only had the courage of my dream.

For the benefit of the apparent multitude whose dream lies along much the same lines as my own, I must attack the more technical side of the dream cruise, and, before doing so, I want it to be clearly understood that everything I may say in these pages is simply the outcome of my own personal experience. Others have had different and, perhaps, much wider experience, and will no doubt differ with me at every point. But then, after a woman, and a horse, there never was a subject more provocative of dissension than the proper conduct of a ship. So here's to it!

[image]Out of the Deep;The Main Products of Torres Straits. From left toright:—Green Snail (used for buttons). Pearl-Shell(with natural blister in form of an elephant).Trochas (used for buttons, etc.). At back: Beche-de-mer.

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Out of the Deep;The Main Products of Torres Straits. From left toright:—Green Snail (used for buttons). Pearl-Shell(with natural blister in form of an elephant).Trochas (used for buttons, etc.). At back: Beche-de-mer.

The Dream Ship.—The dream ship is my idea of the ideal ocean cruiser to be handled by a crew of three. That is why I bought her, and she cost (second hand) £300 or about $1,500. She was designed as a North Sea pilot cutter by the late Colin Archer, who also designed theFramfor Nansen, and was the originator of this type of vessel. She was built at Porsgrund, Norway, in 1908, and I reduced her canvas to make for easy handling by a small and light-weight crew. For this reason she was slow going to windward, but I would not have had her otherwise for one cannot haveeverything—there is bound to be a compromise somewhere—and one does not expect to go round the world "on a wind."

[image]An Islander's Home on T.I.;The Tennis Handicap

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An Islander's Home on T.I.;The Tennis Handicap

[image]Lines of the Dream Ship,Designed by Colin Archer and Builtat Porsgrund, Norway, in 1908

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Lines of the Dream Ship,Designed by Colin Archer and Builtat Porsgrund, Norway, in 1908

Construction.—Her timbers were of pine and her planking of Italian oak, which is admittedly a reversal of the usual order of things, but is easily accounted for by the fact that Norway has plenty of pine (grown on hilltops so that the wind will make it "natural bent" for elbows and knees), but little or no oak; while Italy is oppositely placed, and the two countries trade their woods.

The dream ship was copper-fastened, which made it possible to have her copper-sheathed against the inroads of the tropical cobra worm, and this was an immense saving of labour. With ordinary iron fastenings it is impossible to copper-sheathe because the two metals, when immersed in salt water, set up a galvanic action destructive to both. It must not be imagined, however, that because a boat is iron-fastened she is useless for tropical waters. There is no stronger and better fastening for a boat than galvanized iron, but it entails her under-water body being kept in the best condition by putting her on "the hard" wherever and whenever possible, and paying her up with anti-fouling paint. Most of the Island schooners are iron-fastened, and they last for forty years and longer, if well looked after. If not, they are a honeycomb from worm inside of a year.

The dream ship was of life-boat or "double-ender" build, which means that she was "all ship," and had no counter. Various stems and sterns are recommended by various people, but I have found nothing better than the life-boat.

Rig.—She was cutter rigged, and, always provided that the boom does not extend too far beyond the counter to be easily accessible, it is as handy an arrangement of sail as any other, and admittedly the best for sailing.

I can almost hear the noble army of schooner-, ketch-, and yawl-owners howling their execration at these remarks, but I cannot help it. I have tried most rigs, and come back to the cutter. The howlers will at least admit that she sails as close to the wind as any, and closer than most; and as for facility in handling by the smallest possible crew, we of the dream ship had no trouble on this score, for she would heave-to in a gale under single reef like a duck, and with the wind abeam would go for hours on end with the tiller pegged.

Our main difficulty was that the dream ship was too heavily sparred. The boom was the size of an average mast for a vessel of her tonnage, and the gaff little smaller in proportion.

Next time, we shall have smaller spars, and a top-mast instead of a pole mast. Aboard the dream ship our topsail yard was twenty-three feet long, and many were the anxious moments in lowering it when taking in the topsail during a squall. The topmast does away with any necessity for a yard, and can be lowered to the deck in foul weather, thus also eliminating considerable top-hamper.

[image]Sail and Rigging Plan of the Dream Ship

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Sail and Rigging Plan of the Dream Ship

A hollow topmast and a hollow squaresail yard sound alluring, and have proved themselves efficient in temperate climes, but would they stand the intense heat of, say, the Paumotus? I know they are put to a boiling test for several hours, but what about months? It would be a disconcerting episode, to say the least, if one's spars commenced to open out like a flower in mid-ocean. I am sufficiently generous to allow someone else to make the experiment.

Gear.—The importance of good ground tackle cannot be over-emphasized. Never carry less than one hundred fathoms of sound, galvanized-iron cable, preferably amidships, and see that the anchors have long shanks. We carried three: a skeleton, for dropping for short periods; a medium, for ordinary use; and a large, for holding her in an emergency. We never used any but the medium, and we never dragged anchor, mainly on account of the length of shank.

A winch is better than a capstan for heaving anchor, and if placed abaft the mast, serves also for "swigging" on halyards, or hoisting sail.

As for sails, the dream ship's were all "barked" or tanned after the fisherman style, and there is no doubt that this process prevents rot, especially in the humid tropics. We carried one medium-weight mainsail, a working and a balloon foresail, storm and balloon jibs, and a squaresail, and of these the last was the most generally useful. Again I hear the howlers howling: "Why not a spinnaker?" and my reply is that a squaresail can be used whenever a spinnaker can be used; it is a larger sail, yet infinitely easier to handle.

Our main halyards were of "combination" rope, that is, hemp to all outward appearances, but internally carrying several strands of flexible steel wire. There is nothing stronger, and nothing that will stand the perpetual chafe of a long passage better. Its slight awkwardness in handling compared with ordinary manila is amply atoned for by its durability. I was afraid to use it for peak halyards on account of its inelasticity, but next time it shall be rove throughout, with the exception of the main sheet, which must perforce be of manila.

Wheel- or tiller-steering gear is a matter of taste. Personally, I like to feel the "life" of a ship, and this is better accomplished with a tiller.

Fittings.—A deep-sea cruiser should always be flush-decked, and have an entirely detached, self-emptying cockpit. Coach roofs and immense skylights make for additional headroom below, but during bad weather are an abomination.

We did not carry davits. They look "yachty," but we were not anxious to look that way, and found it far less trouble to haul the thirteen-foot dinghy over the bulwarks with the fore halyards. If one went in for every "fitting" advertised in a yachting catalogue, the deck—which must be kept as clear as possible—would be a scrap-heap of "gadgets."

Brass, too, is a good thing to do without. Again, it looks well, but think of the work it entails, and have painted galvanized-iron instead. There is no reason why a vessel should not look as "ship-shape" with these latter fittings as with all the glinting—and dulling—brasswork in the world.

Good paint is the best wood-preserver there is; for that reason, and several others not unconnected with labour, the dream ship was painted throughout instead of varnished. The decks were painted (pinewood colour), and remained as sound and unscathed at the end of the voyage as they had been at the beginning. Boom and gaff were painted the same colour, hatches and skylights were white, as also were her top sides.

And that is another thing: never have black paint if going to the tropics. The dream ship's cockpit was black, and the helmsman could scarcely bear to touch any part of it with his naked hand, though the white ship's rail was comparatively cool. The mere thought of black top sides in the neighbourhood of the Paumotus causes me to break into a profuse perspiration to this day.

Down below, the two prime factors are ventilation and light. In order to secure the first of these, the dream ship's internal arrangements were of the simplest. There were no separate staterooms, which confine space and are difficult to air. She was open from end to end, save for the bulkheads, each containing a comprehensive doorway, so that the for'ard hatch could be opened and a current of air pass clean through the ship.

As for light, the interior decoration was white enamel, which reflects every gleam from the skylights.

The engine-room was a problem, until we decided—very rightly, as we discovered later—to sacrifice some living space in order to have a roomy "chamber of horrors." It is far more satisfactory to be tortured in a palace than in a pill-box. It leaves adequate space for the expression of feeling.

Because his ship is essentially a sailing vessel, the present-day owner too often tucks his engine away anywhere. It does not do. Some time or other, when the necessary atrocity is engaged in saving life, as ours did on more than one occasion, a vital part of the machinery is found to be out of reach, or so difficult to get at that invaluable time is lost.

As regards cooking and artificial lighting, we had three Primus stoves and an oven on gimbals, over which we contrived to render food eatable, and ordinary swinging lamps. There are those, I know, who prefer electric light on account of its comparative coolness, and to such I would say: "Enterprising fellow! You like dynamos and fiddling with 'gadgets' generally. Very well." Personally, I am a coward in this department.

Ballast.—There is something peculiarly unattractive about ballast. One sees nothing for many laborious hours spent upon it, and it takes up valuable space. But it must not be forgotten that on its correct distribution the whole stability of a vessel depends. Whether lead, pig-iron, or stone, according to purse, for a cruise anywhere in the neighbourhood of coral, it must beinside, and immovable. The reasons for these stipulations are obvious, but too often cruising yachts do not return, and it is not always a matter of a lee shore, broaching to, or being pooped; but ballast.

An excellent plan is to have it cemented in, for this also ensures a clean bilge, but if this is done, the owner would be well advised to have the vessel's timbers surveyed first and a certificate of soundness given, because before now cement has been used for nothing less than hiding rotten timbers.

[image]Palm trees

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Palm trees

Auxiliary Engines.—There is no doubt that an auxiliary engine for a deep-sea cruiser is well-nigh indispensable. It may be used but twice in a passage of four thousand miles, as ours was—once for getting out of harbour and once for getting in. But what of the countless contingencies that may arise, such as lee shores, narrow waters, contrary currents and calms, when without power a vessel is helpless?

The heavy-duty, comparatively slow-revolutioned, kerosene-burning type is the best. It may be more cumbersome, and make more noise than the natty little launch engine, but it is infinitely more reliable. A thirteen-horsepower drove the dream ship at four knots through calm water, so one's own particular fancy may be selected on that basis. Each has his own idea as to motor marine engines, and all I can do here is to extend to the engineer my good wishes—and sincerest sympathies.

Deep-Sea Cruising.—The inevitable remark that greets the deep-sea cruiser in small craft on completing a passage is: "Fancy coming all this way in that little thing!" And if the speaker only knew it, his remark is an insult to the owner. There is no reason in the world why a staunch, seaworthy craft of not less than forty-one feet on the waterline should not continue to circumnavigate the globe indefinitely, and with every whit as much safety as a ten-thousand-ton liner. The forty-one-footer goes to the top of every wave; the ten-thousand-tonner rests upon two or more; that is the sole difference.

Before leaving England, "know-alls" were good enough to point out to me that it was a silly game at best; that I was risking my precious life for no particular purpose, and that I should never get where I wanted to, anyway. As for taking one's sister, it was nothing short of murder.

When I returned, the self-same people, chatting over a club "port" between races, agreed that there was, after all, nothing in it. Was not deep-sea cruising in fair-weather latitudes safer than coastal navigation in our pestiferous home waters?

With this latter argument I entirely agree, and would point out that I never held any other view. Moreover, we made the cruise because we wanted to, and not because it was a safe or daring thing to do.

Where to find a Dream Ship.—This, as I think has been sufficiently demonstrated in the foregoing pages, is the most difficult question of all to answer at the present time.

I have given here the design and sail plan of my dream ship, and if it meets with your approval sufficiently to impel you to have a replica, and if you are willing and able to spend in the neighbourhood of £2,500 or about $12,500, I can only suggest going to Porsgrund, Norway, or better still Randers, Denmark (where her timbers could be of Danish oak), and have her built. For this particular type of boat, Scandinavia cannot be equalled, let alone beaten. But in these days, building boats is a pastime for millionaires only.

From this giddy pinnacle of affluence we fall to the next best thing, which is a second-hand boat as like the dream ship in seaworthiness and handiness as it is possible to procure, and that is what I have been searching for ever since the dream cruise ended. There are no more pilot boats of the dream-ship type being built in Norway. Steam has dethroned them, and those still in use are either too old to buy or too invaluable to sell. So, we are reduced to the inevitable compromise, and personally, I think I have found it in an English, Bristol Channel Pilot cutter, for which I paid £450 or, at par, about $2,250.

Yes, I have another dream ship. I have notified Peter. I have cabled to Samoa. Next time....

But that is another dream.

THE END

[image]Chapter XVII tailpiece

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Chapter XVII tailpiece

APPENDIX*

State of Affairs Aboard the Ship—Contents of her Larder—Length of South Seamen's Voyages—Account of a Flying Whale-man—Determination to Leave the Vessel—The Bay of Nukuheva—The Typees—Invasion of their Valley by Porter—Reflections—Glen of Tior—Interview Between the Old King and the French Admiral.

*From "Typee" by Herman Melville, copyright 1892 by Elizabeth S. Melville. Reprinted by permission of The Page Company, publishers of the works of Herman Melville, as follows: Typee, Omoo, Moby Dick, White Jacket

Our ship had not been many days in the harbour of Nukuheva before I came to the determination of leaving her. That my reasons for resolving to take this step were numerous and weighty, may be inferred from the fact that I chose rather to risk my fortunes among the savages of the island, than to endure another voyage on board theDolly. To use the concise, point-blank phrase of the sailors, I had made up my mind to "run away." Now, as a meaning is generally attached to these two words no way flattering to the individual to whom they are applied, it behooves me, for the sake of my own character, to offer some explanation of my conduct.

When I entered on board theDolly, I signed, as a matter of course, the ship's articles, thereby voluntarily engaging, and legally binding myself to serve in a certain capacity for the period of the voyage; and, special considerations apart, I was of course bound to fulfil the agreement. But in all contracts, if one party fail to perform his share of the compact, is not the other virtually absolved from his liability? Who is there who will not answer in the affirmative?

Having settled the principle, then, let me apply it to the particular case in question. In numberless instances had not only, the implied but the specified conditions of the articles been violated on the part of the ship in which I served. The usage on board of her was tyrannical; the sick had been inhumanly neglected; the provisions had been doled out in scanty allowance; and her cruises were unreasonably protracted. The captain was the author of these abuses; it was in vain to think that he would either remedy them, or alter his conduct, which was arbitrary and violent in the extreme. His prompt reply to all complaints and remonstrances was—the butt-end of a hand-spike, so convincingly administered as effectually to silence the aggrieved party.

To whom could we apply for redress? We had left both law and equity on the other side of the Cape; and unfortunately, with a very few exceptions, our crew was composed of a parcel of dastardly and mean-spirited wretches, divided among themselves, and only united in enduring without resistance the unmitigated tyranny of the captain. It would have been mere madness for any two or three of the number, unassisted by the rest, to attempt making a stand against his ill-usage. They would only have called down upon themselves the particular vengeance of this "Lord of the Plank," and subjected their shipmates to additional hardships.

But, after all, these things could have been endured awhile, had we entertained the hope of being speedily delivered from them by the due completion of the term of our servitude. But what a dismal prospect awaited us in this quarter! The longevity of Cape Horn whaling voyages is proverbial, frequently extending over a period of four or five years.

Some long-haired, bare-necked youths, who, forced by the united influences of Captain Marryat and hard times, embark at Nantucket for a pleasure excursion to the Pacific, and whose anxious mothers provide them with bottled milk for the occasion, oftentimes return very respectable middle-aged gentlemen.

The very preparations made for one of these expeditions are enough to frighten one. As the vessel carries out no cargo, her hold is filled with provisions for her own consumption. The owners, who officiate as caterers for the voyage, supply the larder with an abundance of dainties. Delicate morsels of beef and pork, cut on scientific principles from every part of the animal, and of all conceivable shapes and sizes, are carefully packed in salt, and stored away in barrels; affording a never-ending variety in their different degrees of toughness, and in the peculiarities of their saline properties. Choice old water, too, decanted into stout six-barrel casks, and two pints of which are allowed every day to each soul on board; together with ample store of sea-bread, previously reduced to a state of petrifaction, with a view to preserve it either from decay or consumption in the ordinary mode, are likewise provided for the nourishment and gastronomic enjoyment of the crew.

But not to speak of the quality of these articles of sailors' fare, the abundance in which they are put on board a whaling vessel is almost incredible. Oftentimes, when we had occasion to break out in the hold, and I beheld the successive tiers of casks and barrels, whose contents were all destined to be consumed in due course by the ship's company, my heart sank within me.

Although, as a general case, a ship unlucky in falling in with whales continues to cruise after them until she has barely sufficient provisions remaining to take her home, turning round then quietly and making the best of her way to her friends, yet there are instances when even this natural obstacle to the further prosecution of the voyage is overcome by headstrong captains, who, bartering the fruits of their hard-earned toils for a new supply of provisions in some of the ports of Chili or Peru, begin the voyage afresh, with unabated zeal and perseverance. It is in vain that the owners write urgent letters to him to sail for home, and for their sake to bring back the ship, since it appears he can put nothing in her. Not he. He has registered a vow; he will fill his vessel with good sperm oil, or failing to do so, never again strike Yankee soundings.

I heard of one whaler, which after many years' absence was given up for lost. The last that had been heard of her was a shadowy report of her having touched at some of those unstable islands in the far Pacific, whose eccentric wanderings are carefully noted in each new edition of the South Sea charts. After a long interval, however, thePerseverance—for that was her name—was spoken somewhere in the vicinity of the ends of the earth, cruising along as leisurely as ever, her sails all bepatched and bequilted with rope-yarns, her spars fished with old pipe stores, and her rigging knotted and spliced in every possible direction. Her crew was composed of some twenty venerable Greenwich-pensioner-looking old salts, who just managed to hobble about deck. The ends of all the running ropes, with the exception of the signal halyards and poop-down-haul, were rove through snatch-blocks, and led to the capstan or windlass, so that not a yard was braced or a sail set without the assistance of machinery.

Her hull was incrusted with barnacles, which completely encased her. Three pet sharks followed in her wake, and every day came alongside to regale themselves from the contents of the cook's bucket, which were pitched over to them. A vast shoal of bonetas and albicores always kept her company.

Such was the account I heard of this vessel, and the remembrance of it always haunted me; what eventually became of her I never learned; at any rate, she never reached home, and I suppose she is still regularly tacking twice in the twenty-four hours somewhere off Desolate Island, or the Devil's-Tail Peak.

Having said thus much touching the usual length of these voyages, when I inform the reader that ours had as it were just commenced, we being only fifteen months out, and even at that time hailed as a late arrival and boarded for news, he will readily perceive that there was little to encourage one in looking forward to the future, especially as I had always had a presentiment that we should make an unfortunate voyage, and our experience so far had justified the expectation.

I may here state, and on my faith as an honest man, that though more than three years have elapsed since I left this same identical vessel, she still continues in the Pacific; and but a few days since I saw her reported in the papers as having touched at the Sandwich Islands, previous to going on the coast of Japan.

But to return to my narrative. Placed in these circumstances then, with no prospect of matters mending if I remained aboard theDolly, I at once made up my mind to leave her: to be sure it was rather an inglorious thing to steal away privily from those at whose hands I had received wrongs and outrages that I could not resent; but how was such a course to be avoided when it was the only alternative left me? Having made up my mind, I proceeded to acquire all the information I could obtain relating to the island and its inhabitants, with a view of shaping my plans of escape accordingly. The result of these inquiries I will now state, in order that the ensuing narrative may be the better understood.

The bay of Nukuheva, in which we were then lying, is an expanse of water not unlike in figure the space included within the limits of a horse-shoe. It is, perhaps, nine miles in circumference. You approach it from the sea by a narrow entrance, flanked on either side by two small twin islets which soar conically to the height of some five hundred feet. From these the shore recedes on both hands, and describes a deep semicircle.

From the verge of the water the land rises uniformly on all sides, with green and sloping acclivities, until from gently rolling hillsides and moderate elevations it insensibly swells into lofty and majestic heights, whose blue outlines ranged all around, close in the view. The beautiful aspect of the shore is heightened by deep and romantic glens, which come down to it at almost equal distances, all apparently radiating from a common centre, and the upper extremities of which are lost to the eye beneath the shadow of the mountains. Down each of these little valleys flows a clear stream, here and there assuming the form of a slender cascade, then stealing invisibly along until it bursts upon the sight again in larger and more noisy waterfalls, and at last demurely wanders along to the sea.

The houses of the natives, constructed of the yellow bamboo, tastefully twisted together in a kind of wickerwork, and thatched with the long tapering leaves of the palmetto, are scattered irregularly along these valleys beneath the shady branches of the cocoanut trees.

Nothing can exceed the imposing scenery of this bay. Viewed from our ship as she lay at anchor in the middle of the harbour, it presented the appearance of a vast natural amphitheatre in decay, and overgrown with vines, the deep glens that furrowed its sides appearing like enormous fissures caused by the ravages of time. Very often when lost in admiration at its beauty I have experienced a pang of regret that a scene so enchanting should be hidden from the world in these remote seas, and seldom meet the eyes of devoted lovers of nature.

Besides this bay the shores of the island are indented by several other extensive inlets, into which descend broad and verdant valleys. These are inhabited by as many distinct tribes of savages, who, although speaking kindred dialects of a common language, and having the same religion and laws, have from time immemorial waged hereditary warfare against each other. The intervening mountains, generally two or three thousand feet above the level of the sea, geographically define the territories of each of these hostile tribes, who never cross them, save on some expedition of war or plunder. Immediately adjacent to Nukuheva, and only separated from it by the mountains seen from the harbour, lies the lovely valley of Happar, whose inmates cherish the most friendly relations with the inhabitants of Nukuheva. On the other side of Happar, and closely adjoining it, is the magnificent valley of the dreaded Typees, the unappeasable enemies of both these tribes.

These celebrated warriors appear to inspire the other islanders with unspeakable terrors. Their very name is a frightful one; for the word "Typee" in the Marquesan dialect signifies a lover of human flesh. It is rather singular that the title should have been bestowed upon them exclusively, inasmuch as the natives of all this group are irreclaimable cannibals. The name may, perhaps, have been given to denote the peculiar ferocity of this clan, and to convey a special stigma along with it.

These same Typees enjoy a prodigious notoriety all over the islands. The natives of Nukuheva would frequently recount in pantomime to our ship's company their terrible feats, and would show the marks of wounds they had received in desperate encounters with them. When ashore they would try to frighten us by pointing to one of their own number, and calling him a Typee, manifesting no little surprise that we did not take to our heels at so terrible an announcement. It was quite amusing, too, to see with what earnestness they disclaimed all cannibal propensities on their own part, while they denounced their enemies—the Typees—as inveterate gormandizers of human flesh; but this is a peculiarity to which I shall hereafter have occasion to allude.

Although I was convinced that the inhabitants of our bay were as arrant cannibals as any of the other tribes on the island, still I could not but feel a particular and most unqualified repugnance to the aforesaid Typees. Even before visiting the Marquesas, I had heard from men who had touched at the group on former voyages some revolting stories in connection with these savages; and fresh in my remembrance was the adventure of the master of theKatherine, who only a few months previous, imprudently venturing into this bay in an armed boat for the purpose of barter, was seized by the natives, carried back a little distance into this valley, and was saved from a cruel death only by the intervention of a young girl, who facilitated his escape by night along the beach to Nukuheva.

I had heard, too, of an English vessel that many years ago, after a weary cruise, sought to enter the bay of Nukuheva, and arriving within two or three miles of the land, was met by a large canoe filled with natives, who offered to lead the way to the place of their destination. The captain, unacquainted with the localities of the island, joyfully acceded to the proposition—the canoe paddled on, and the ship followed. She was soon conducted to a beautiful inlet, and dropped her anchor in its waters beneath the shadows of the lofty shore. That same night the perfidious Typees, who had thus inveigled her into their fatal bay, flocked aboard the doomed vessel by hundreds, and at a given signal murdered every soul on board.

I shall never forget the observation of one of our crew as we were passing slowly by the entrance of this bay on our way to Nukuheva. As we stood gazing over the side at the verdant headlands, Ned, pointing with his hand in the direction of the treacherous valley, exclaimed, "There—there's Typee. Oh, the bloody cannibals, what a meal they'd make of us if we were to take it into our heads to land! but they say they don't like sailor's flesh, it's too salt. I say, maty, how should you like to be shoved ashore there, eh?" I little thought, as I shuddered at the question, that in the space of a few weeks I should actually be a captive in that self-same valley.

The French, although they had gone through the ceremony of hoisting their colours for a few hours at all the principal places of the group, had not as yet visited the bay of Typee, anticipating a fierce resistance on the part of the savages there, which for the present at least they wished to avoid. Perhaps they were not a little influenced in the adoption of this unusual policy from a recollection of the warlike reception given by the Typees to the forces of Captain Porter, about the year 1814, when that brave and accomplished officer endeavoured to subjugate the clan merely to gratify the mortal hatred of his allies the Nukuhevas and Happars.

On that occasion I have been told that a considerable detachment of sailors and marines from the frigateEssex, accompanied by at least two thousand warriors of Happar and Nukuheva, landed in boats and canoes at the head of the bay, and after penetrating a little distance into the valley, met with the stoutest resistance from its inmates. Valiantly, although with much loss, the Typees disputed every inch of ground, and after some hard fighting obliged the assailants to retreat and abandon their design of conquest.

The invaders, on their march back to the sea, consoled themselves for their repulse by setting fire to every house and temple on their route; and a long line of smoking ruins defaced the once-smiling bosom of the valley, and proclaimed to its pagan inhabitants the spirit that reigned in the breasts of Christian soldiers. Who can wonder at the deadly hatred of the Typees to all foreigners after such unprovoked atrocities?

Thus it is that they whom we denominate "savages" are made to deserve the title. When the inhabitants of some sequestered island first descry the "big canoe" of the European rolling through the blue waters toward their shores, they rush down to the beach in crowds, and with open arms stand ready to embrace the strangers. Fatal embrace! They fold to their bosoms the vipers whose sting is destined to poison all their joys; and the instinctive feeling of love within their breasts is soon converted into the bitterest hate.

The enormities perpetrated in the South Seas upon some of the inoffensive islanders well-nigh pass belief. These things are seldom proclaimed at home; they happen at the very ends of the earth; they are done in a corner, and there are none to reveal them. But there is, nevertheless, many a petty trader that has navigated the Pacific, whose course from island to island might be traced by a series of cold-blooded robberies, kidnappings, and murders, the iniquity of which might be considered almost sufficient to sink her guilty timbers to the bottom of the sea.

Sometimes vague accounts of such things reach our firesides, and we coolly censure them as wrong, impolitic, needlessly severe, and dangerous to the crews of other vessels. How different is our tone when we read the highly wrought description of the massacre of the crew of theHobomakby the Feejees! how we sympathize for the unhappy victims, and with what horror do we regard the diabolical heathens, who, after all, have but avenged the unprovoked injuries which they have received! We breathe nothing but vengeance, and equip armed vessels to traverse thousands of miles of ocean in order to execute summary punishment upon the offenders. On arriving at their destination, they burn, slaughter, and destroy, according to the tenor of written instructions, and sailing away from the scene of devastation, call upon all Christendom to applaud their courage and their justice.

How often is the term "savages" incorrectly applied! None really deserving of it were ever yet discovered by voyagers or by travellers. They have discovered heathens and barbarians, whom by horrible cruelties they have exasperated into savages. It may be asserted, without fear of contradiction, that in all the cases of outrages committed by Polynesians, Europeans have at some time or other been the aggressors, and that the cruel and bloodthirsty disposition of some of the islanders is mainly to be ascribed to the influence of such examples.

But to return. Owing to the mutual hostilities of the different tribes I have mentioned, the mountainous tracts which separate their respective territories remain altogether uninhabited; the natives invariably dwelling in the depths of the valleys, with a view of securing themselves from the predatory incursions of their enemies, who often lurk along their borders, ready to cut off any imprudent straggler, or make a descent upon the inmates of some sequestered habitation. I several times met with very aged men, who from this cause had never passed the confines of their native vale, some of them having never even ascended midway up the mountains in the whole course of their lives, and who, accordingly, had little idea of the appearance of any other part of the island, the whole of which is not perhaps more than sixty miles in circuit. The little space in which some of these clans pass away their days would seem almost incredible.

The glen of Tior will furnish a curious illustration of this. The inhabited part is not more than four miles in length, and varies in breadth from half a mile to less than a quarter. The rocky vine-clad cliffs on one side tower almost perpendicularly from their base to the height of at least fifteen hundred feet; while across the vale—in striking contrast to the scenery opposite—grass-grown elevations rise one above another in blooming terraces. Hemmed in by these stupendous barriers, the valley would be altogether shut out from the rest of the world, were it not that it is accessible from the sea at one end and by a narrow defile at the other.

The impression produced upon my mind, when I first visited this beautiful glen, will never be obliterated.

I had come from Nukuheva by water in the ship's boat, and when we entered the bay of Tior it was high noon. The heat had been intense, as we had been floating upon the long smooth swell of the ocean, for there was but little wind. The sun's rays had expended all their fury upon us; and to add to our discomfort, we had omitted to supply ourselves with water previous to starting. What with heat and thirst together, I became so impatient to get ashore, that when at last we glided toward it, I stood up in the bow of the boat ready for a spring. As she shot two-thirds of her length high upon the beach, propelled by three or four strong strokes of the oars, I leaped among a parcel of juvenile savages, who stood prepared to give us a kind reception; and with them at my heels, yelling like so many imps, I rushed forward across the open ground in the vicinity of the sea, and plunged, diver fashion, into the recesses of the first grove that offered.

What a delightful sensation did I experience! I felt as if floating in some new element, while all sorts of gurgling, trickling, liquid sounds fell upon my ear. People may say what they will about the refreshing influences of a cold-water bath, but commend me, when in a perspiration, to the shade baths of Tior, beneath the cocoanut trees, and amidst the cool delightful atmosphere which surrounds them.

How shall I describe the scenery that met my eye, as I looked out from this verdant recess! The narrow valley, with its steep and close adjoining sides draperied with vines, and arched overhead with a fretwork of interlacing boughs, nearly hidden from view by masses of leafy verdure, seemed from where I stood like an immense arbour disclosing its vista to the eye, whilst as I advanced it insensibly widened into the loveliest vale eye ever beheld.

It so happened that the very day I was in Tior the French admiral, attended by all the boats of his squadron, came down in state from Nukuheva to take formal possession of the place. He remained in the valley about two hours, during which time he had a ceremonious interview with the king. The patriarch-sovereign of Tior was a man very far advanced in years; but though age had bowed his form and rendered him almost decrepit, his gigantic frame retained all its original magnitude and grandeur of appearance. He advanced slowly and with evident pain, assisting his tottering steps with the heavy war-spear he held in his hand, and attended by a group of gray-bearded chiefs, on one of whom he occasionally leaned for support. The admiral came forward with head uncovered and extended hand, while the old king saluted him by a stately flourish of his weapon. The next moment they stood side by side, these two extremes in the social scale—the polished, splendid Frenchman, and the poor tattooed savage. They were both tall and noble-looking men; but in other respects how strikingly contrasted! Du Petit Thouars exhibited upon his person all the paraphernalia of his naval rank. He wore a richly decorated admiral's frock-coat, a lacedchapeau bras, and upon his breast were a variety of ribbons and orders; while the simple islander, with the exception of a slight cincture about his loins, appeared in all the nakedness of nature.

At what immeasurable distance, thought I, are these two beings removed from each other. In the one is shown the result of long centuries of progressive civilization and refinement, which have gradually converted the mere creature into the semblance of all that is elevated and grand; while the other, after the lapse of the same period, has not advanced one step in the career of improvement. "Yet, after all," quoth I to myself, "insensible as he is to a thousand wants, and removed from harassing cares, may not the savage be the happier man of the two?" Such were the thoughts that arose in my mind as I gazed upon the novel spectacle before me. In truth, it was an impressive one, and little likely to be effaced. I can recall even now with vivid distinctness every feature of the scene. The umbrageous shades where the interview took place, the glorious tropical vegetation around, the picturesque grouping of the mingled throng of soldiery and natives, and even the golden-hued bunch of bananas that I held in my hand at the time, and of which I occasionally partook while making the aforesaid philosophical reflections.

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