AMONG the photographic appliances there was a sort of haversack or bag with a shoulder-strap, designed to contain plate-holders. This I emptied and stored with a supply of fried turtle meat and a small bottle of water.
About seven o’clock I started up the bed of the brook, as affording the easiest path by which to penetrate the forest that, coming down nearly to the beach, extended on each hand as far as I could see. To the south was a stretch of low land, perhaps twenty acres in extent, covered for the most part with grass, and in the lowest portion with reeds and rushes. Just as the brook emerged from the forest it was shadowed by a dense mass of tall canes. The grass I had used in the construction of my house was a coarse variety growing from two and a half to three feet in height. On the higher ground grew a slenderer variety with heavy seed heads, a sample of which I gathered as it seemed to resemble canary seed, and might serve as food. Great quantities of this grass grew thickly on the knolls and higher parts of the upland. The water deepened where I waded through the canebrake, and ran with a sluggish current. I gathered a great bundle of rushes, and laid them on the bank, intending to pick them up on my return. They would be useful in weaving me a substitute for a hat, a convenience which I lacked at that time.
Just at the farther border of the canebrake, there was a muddy place where pigs had evidently been wallowing, for I found thousands of tracks about. Here was a favorite resort for them, not above a quarter of a mile from my house; but I wasted no time then hunting for this game, as I had formed no plan for its capture.
One thing I wanted to find was a bed of clay, which could be put to many valuable uses, especially the building of a fireplace and chimney. There was reason to believe that plenty was to be had on the island, which was of volcanic formation, and moreover the water of the brook, swollen by the recent rain, was stained as though with clay.
As I neared the line of cliff and rocks that formed the central ridge or back-bone of the island, the course of the stream bent to the north, and the forest was interspersed with small open glades where the great butterflies floated across through the sunshine, the metallic satiny blue of their lustrous wings glancing in the light. A flock of parrots with green, red, and blue plumage were chattering and screaming noisily in the bordering trees, and an occasional little green lizard would dash along the fallen trunks or over the rocks like a flash of emerald light. In one of these glades I found a quantity of shrubs growing about ten feet high and loaded with berries about the size of pepper-corns. The outside of these berries seemed covered with a greenish white wax. The leaf was somewhat like the myrtle. A sample of this, and of several other varieties of vegetation which were strange to me, I gathered to take home for identification in my manual of botany. I may here state that this berry-bearing shrub turned out to be the wax myrtle (Myrica ceriferaof the botanists), and that the waxy coating of the berries was what is known as bay-berry tallow. This wax can be readily collected by boiling the drupes and skimming it off as it rises to the surface of the water; and a bushel of the berries willyield from four to five pounds of the wax, which can be employed to make excellent candles.
Near the cliffs I came upon a fine bed of clay, and I was so delighted with this discovery that I immediately began casting about for means of transporting a good supply to my house. The bed was distant from the house, as nearly as I could judge, about two miles, and the labor of carrying such heavy material would be very great. The best plan would be to knock together a raft of dry wood and float the clay down stream as a cargo. Vines and creepers to serve as cordage to tie the dead wood together were abundant, nor did it take me long to collect the wood and fashion the raft. Indeed, the harder task proved to be the digging out of the tough clay, as the only implements I had for this purpose were pointed sticks. But I finally cut a sharp, heavy stake of hard wood, and by driving this into the clay, was able to pry off large chunks, and soon had a load ready. On the raft I laid some broad leaves and pieces of bark to serve as a deck, and on this placed the clay in a great heap, as much as the raft would carry in the shallow water. Tying a long creeper to the raft, by which to pull, guide, or hold it back, as the navigation might require, I started it off into the current, and wading in the shallow stream, followed it down, holding on to the line as it floated away. Barring an occasional grounding in the shallow places, my raft floated serenely along at a good pace, and soon reached port, where I unloaded the clay and drew out the raft to serve as firewood.
This was a good job well done, and I more than once regretted the time I had wasted in the lime-burning task, for had I found this clay sooner, a much better salt pan could have been made with it than with the mortar. This thought caused me to go and examine the salt pan. I found the mortar on the bottom dryand hard, so I opened the gate that the sea water might flow in at the next tide and fill it.
The first use to be made of the clay was in the building of a fireplace and chimney for the house. My plan was to build up the structure of sticks, cob-house fashion, and then chink and plaster it with a good coating of clay. Before this could be done, however, it would be necessary to put the clay through some pugging process by which it could be rendered soft and plastic. This I accomplished by trampling the clay with my naked feet, adding a sprinkling of water now and then, until I had a mass of soft, mortar-like consistency. Then on the outside of the house I built up the fireplace close against the wall, and carried the chimney up about a foot above the highest part of the roof, plastering the sticks inside thoroughly with the soft clay. When this was done I cut through the wall to the fireplace, and plastered clay on the jambs to make all tight. The hearth I formed of harder clay, well pounded down and mixed with the sand. If no wind came until the structure was dry, it would become hard and strong enough to resist anything short of a hurricane. That the drying might be more rapid, I immediately built a good fire in it, and was rejoiced to find the draught excellent and the effect of the bright firelight upon the interior quite pleasant and homelike. This work occupied the whole day.
In the evening I brought a good supply of clay into the house, and using the chest as a work-bench, busied myself until bedtime with moulding several vessels of different shapes and sizes for use in cooking and about the house. I fashioned a rude pot capable of holding about five gallons; a smaller one to hold a gallon or thereabouts; a water-jar with two handles by which it might be swung with a cord from the ridgepole,to contain drinking-water; and others of various shapes and sizes. All these I dusted over inside and out with dry sand and set aside where they might dry ready for burning.
That night I slept for the first time in my hammock, and the change was a comfortable one, though in the early morning hours I felt the need of some warm covering. For however hot the days might be, the nights on the island were always cool. However, when it got chilly I turned out and heaped the dry grass of my former bed into the hammock, and was soon warm enough.
In the morning, after setting my vessels out in the sun, I turned to the careful examination of all the samples of vegetation which I had collected, carefully looking them up in the Botany to find their names and properties, and also in the Dispensatory. The seed-bearing grass was undoubtedly canary grass. Besides this and the wax-bearing myrtle, the only other notable sample was a species of india-rubber-bearing artocarpus. As the canary grass was ripe, I thought I could not do better than to harvest a good supply of it at once. The whole of that day and the next were spent in gathering it and stacking it up near the house. The labor was very great, as my knife was a poor substitute for a sickle; but the necessity of some sort of farinaceous food spurred me on. I gathered in all a great stack ten feet in diameter and twelve feet high at the peak. This I thatched with grass, just as I had seen grain stacks thatched at home, that it might be protected from the wet. Great flocks of small birds were feeding upon this seed where it grew, and I trapped a dozen or more by unhinging the chest lid and using it propped up with a stick as a trap.
To try the character of the seed as food, I parched apint of it over the fire and then crushed it in a great bivalve shell with a round stone into a coarse meal. This meal I mixed with water and salt, and it made a very good sort of cold gruel. This, with the birds broiled on the coals, made quite the best meal I had so far eaten on the island. The salt pan had already begun to yield salt, which was crystallizing along the edges as the water evaporated. The smoked turtle meat continued good, and I relished it very much. The weather remained fine from day to day, and I had strong hopes that a vessel might heave in sight at any moment. As a preparation for such a chance I laid a pile of wood ready to make a signal fire, and as a permanent signal selected an isolated palm-tree and denuding it of its leaves, tied a great stick across it near the top,—an arrangement which, I hoped, might attract the attention of a passing vessel should I fail to see it. Of material to make a flag I had nothing to spare except the square of black focussing-cloth belonging to the camera,—and this I needed every night as a covering, as it was all I had for that purpose.
As soon as my pots and other vessels were thoroughly dry I built a great pile of dry wood over them and set fire to it. I greatly feared some of them might crack with the heat, but fortunately they all came out in a serviceable condition though by no means very hard. Now that I had a large vessel in which water could be boiled, I bethought me of the wax berries and made several trips to gather a store of them. These I boiled in my large pot, and skimmed off the wax until I had collected fully forty pounds of it, the product of about ten bushels of the berries. Of this wax I made candles, or rather rushlights, by dipping dry rushes into the melted wax and letting it cool on them. When one coat of wax set I would dip the rush again, and so on, untileach rush had four good coats. One of these candles would burn about four hours and give a good steady light without sputtering or guttering, though the rush wick required occasional snuffing. These lights were a great comfort to me at night, for I could read and do light work until bedtime without the necessity of keeping up a hot fire.
It was by candle-light that I made me a hat out of rushes as follows: Selecting about fifty of the cleanest and slenderest I could find, and all of about equal length, I tied them firmly together by a cord wound tightly around near the butts. Then I interwove stalks of the tough, heavy grass, spreading the rushes out into a conical shape until large enough to fit comfortably on my head. This was the body of the hat. The brim was produced in the same manner by bending out the ends of the rushes to a common horizontal plane and then interweaving the grass as before, finishing the edge of the brim with a grass selvage. This made a light, cool structure, sufficient to keep the sun off my head, and far more comfortable than the handkerchief I had worn wound about it as my sole head-covering up to this time.
Now that the salt pan was doing its work, and a supply of salt within a few days was considerably more than a mere possibility, I felt justified in endeavoring to obtain a store of meat. My mind turned to the turtle and the pigs, especially the latter; for if I could by any means capture a pig, there would be several weeks’ rations, at least, of fresh, salted, and smoked pork. Visions of broiled ham and bacon troubled my dreams. I made an effort to capture another turtle, watching the beach for the good part of a night; but I saw none. The next morning, I determined to go upon a regularly organized pig-hunt. The only method of capturingthem was by means of a lasso or the bolas. The forty-foot line that came ashore around the chest would make an excellent lasso, and I rigged it at once with a slip noose. I also cut a hard-wood pole about eight feet in length, charred the end in the fire to harden it, and made it sharp for use as a lance. A bolas was contrived out of two stones tied, one at each end, to a stout cord six feet long. Thus accoutred, I struck off from the creek and made a détour through the dense jungle so as to force the game into the stream, or at least to be upon higher ground if they should prove to be in the mud, as I hoped would be the case. The labor of penetrating the dense scrub was very great, and the heat intense; not a breath of air could reach these fastnesses, and perspiration poured from me as though I were in a Turkish bath.
After a two-hours struggle I found myself nearing the place, and it became necessary to move with the greatest caution. Every few minutes I would stop and listen. Presently I could hear the murmur of the brook, and crawling along cautiously, I came to a fallen tree, the trunk of which reached quite to the stream. By following this down carefully, I came to a point where I could see the wallowing-place. There, sure enough, were the pigs, a score or more in number, mostly lying asleep and half buried in the mud. I studied the whole situation rapidly but thoroughly. It seemed probable from the lay of the ground that if something could frighten the animals from the other side, they would naturally rush under the fallen tree just below me. Indeed, there was a well-beaten track at this place going under the trunk, which was at this point about five feet from the ground, and the stream, the canebrake, and the dense jungle made this by far the easiest route for the pigs.
My plan was made instantly, thus: I would throwthe bolas at a half-grown pig that was rooting about near the jungle on the farther side of the group, and take my chance of the herd coming this way when they broke. I unrolled my lasso and laid it ready for instant use, placed my lance where it could be grasped, and cautiously rising, that I might have free play, swung the bolas around twice and let it fly. Gyrating like twin planets, the stones sped fairly through the air, true to the mark; one passed under the pig, and the other swung behind him, wrapping the cords around the hind-quarters and legs, and bowling him over like a ten-pin. The little fellow set up a squeal, and then, whoof! whoof! with a grunt and a squeal, the whole herd sprang up, looked around, saw their overturned and struggling companion, and started directly toward my place of concealment. In the mean time I had crouched down out of view, and spread my noose ready for business. Underneath they ran squealing and snorting in great panic, and I let them pass as I had my eye on a great boar who was very deliberate in his movements and appeared to disdain undignified flight. He slowly advanced, however, champing his tusks until they frothed, and shaking his great head. I thought it best, in view of his great size and weight, to take a turn of the lasso around a limb and give it a hitch as a holdfast, as my own strength would not be enough to stop the brute. I had scarcely done this when his head came under the tree, and I swung the noose deftly over it as he emerged, and then hauled in the slack. The astonished beast sprang forward with a great bound and jerked the rope from my hands with such violence that I was thrown to the ground.
When I scrambled up I saw the rope tighten until it sung in the air like a bowstring, and then slacken again. I could not see the boar, as he was hidden inthe long grass; but I seized my sharpened stick lance and ran toward where he ought to be. Suddenly the great brute emerged from the grass, facing me, and charged toward me, evidently bent on mischief, the flakes of froth flying from his tusks. There was no time to get out of the way, nor even get the lance around into position, and I thought I should speedily feel his sharp tusks. He was almost upon me before I could realize the situation. Just at this critical juncture I felt the lasso fly up under my feet, throwing me over backward, and I caught a glimpse of the boar as he turned a half-somersault and plunged down on his side. When he fell he was not two feet from me. The lasso had been doubled around a bush and had thus brought the desperate creature up just in time to save me. The lance was still in my grasp, and I got to my feet before my enemy could recover. Now it was my turn. Knowing he could not reach me on this side, I came close up to him as he was making the dirt fly with his legs in a vain endeavor to get up, and drove the sharpened stick with all my force and weight into his side, just back of the shoulder.
This ended the battle as the stick went half-way through him. Panting for breath and with the perspiration fairly running into my eyes, I turned away and left him to die in peace, and went to look after the pig, thinking I had been a great fool to tackle the boar at all. I found the pig still struggling with the bolas wrapped around him. I immediately determined to keep this one alive. To do this, I must get my lasso loose from the dying boar. When I went back I found him just kicking his last. With the lasso I secured the pig in such manner that he could not get away, and then removed the bolas and let him up, giving him very little rope as I had no mind to let him run into thebrush and entangle himself. I then proceeded to flay the boar, cutting off the hams and choicer parts, and securing as much of the lard and fat as I was able. I carried this down the bed of the creek to the house. I then went back for the pig and endeavored to get him home alive; but I found it utterly impossible to do so, as the vicious, obstinate brute could not be made to go in any but the wrong direction. So I was finally obliged to haul him tight up against a tree and kill him.
I now had a great store of pork, and the next thing was to cure it. Salt was now the important thing, and I went to my salt pan to see what the prospect was. To my great satisfaction, I found the water all dried up, leaving a fine layer of glistening salt, thickest in the lower part of the basin and gradually thinning away to a mere frosting at the edges. It was quite dry and caked, so that there was no trouble to get it up from the bottom, and when I had heaped it together in the centre, there were, I should judge, over fifty pounds. This precious commodity I carried at once to the house so that it might be under shelter from the dew and rain.
I turned to at once to “dry-salt” the pork, rubbing each piece thoroughly on all sides, and piling the whole up in the now empty turtle shell with the breast plate weighed down on it with heavy stones. The only place where I could store this meat was in the single room of my house. But I determined to remedy this by building as soon as possible a lean-to at the back of the house, which I could use first as a smoke-house, and then as a storeroom for my provisions. The turtle meat, now perfectly cured, I stored temporarily in the chest.
That night I lay in my hammock in position to see the starlit ocean through one of the ventilators, and thought over my situation. I could not now complainof lack of food, for there was a supply sufficient to last me two months at least, and there was reason to suppose that it would not be at all difficult to replenish the store. In my porous earthen jar, slung at the head of my hammock in the cool air-current, and by its slow evaporation cooling the liquid contents, was pure, cool, sweet water to drink, and outside was a running brook from which to fill it as often as required. I could safely hope to support myself here as long as might be necessary. But as I had no desire to remain indefinitely a prisoner on this island, I began to turn my thoughts persistently upon the problem of building a boat to get away in. If in the mean time a vessel of some sort should heave in sight I was prepared to take advantage of the chance; and if none came I would still have my work started and no time unnecessarily lost.
Before I went to sleep that night I had planned a method of building a boat which I thought would be within the possibility of accomplishment, and had determined to begin work on the morrow.
WHEN I roused the next morning the first thought that came to me was about the building of the boat. It would be necessary to have a shed to work under, large enough to contain a boat, both for shelter from the rain and for shade from the pitiless tropical sun. The building of such a shed was therefore the first task. As a suitable shipyard I selected the side of the stream on the sands of the sea-beach, and far enough above tide to be safe from a possible storm. Here I put up eight posts in the sand. To get these posts (for they had to be hunted for among the fallen wood), to carry them one or two at a time for a distance ranging from half a mile to a mile and a half, and to set them up in holes dug at the proper distances apart, was a whole day’s work, and left me only time to overhaul my dry-salting before bed-time. I went over each piece of meat, rubbing it again with salt, and turning it the other side up, and finished by putting the weights on again as before. This salting and turning every day would be necessary for about two weeks, and then the meat would be ready for the smoke-house, which I would endeavor in the meantime to get ready to receive it.
The next day I spent getting poles for rafters, and lashing them together to form the roof of my workshop. Then a rain storm set in and lasted three days, during which I was practically confined to the house, andbusied myself indoors with making an easy chair out of a dry stick of cedar that split readily into straight pieces. It was a pleasure to work in this soft, straight-grained, fragrant wood, and I made a good, strong, comfortable arm-chair, dowelling and cording the parts together, and framing a sort of base for it so that it would stand firm on the sand floor. I could now sit and read with comfort, or look at the gray, rainy sea as it stretched its misty plane away before my door. It was at this time that I began to keep an irregular sort of journal, entering my thoughts and doings from time to time as the enforced semi-idleness of rainy weather prompted me. Besides pencils and pens there was paper enough in my stock, wet and stained and wrinkled though it had been, to last me indefinitely.
As soon as the rain was over I took the first day to construct my provision and smoke-house, in order that I might store the meat in it. A doorway was cut from my living-room into this store-room, and I purposed fitting a tight door into it before smoking my pork. I busied myself after that on my work-shed until it was finished. This roof I covered with palm-leaves,—not leaves of the cocoanut-palm, but of the great, spreading fan-palm, a single one of which was often three or four feet in diameter. I had used these leaves in making my storehouse roof, and had secured a giant specimen in a horizontal position over my front door as a sort of porch, and to keep the sun out of the house when the door was open.
The work-shed when finished was about twenty-four feet long by ten feet wide, with a shed or single-pitch roof, at the upper side about eight feet, and at the lower side—which was toward the sea—about five feet from the ground. Underneath was the clean sand of the beach. I was now ready to begin the actual workof boat-building, and my first need was a supply of clay,—so great a quantity, in fact, as would take me several days of hard work to raft down the stream to the boat-shed.
You will see as I proceed what part this material was to play. After a great deal of labor, wading up and down the creek, digging, loading, rafting, and unloading, I at last accumulated a sufficient amount for my purpose in a great heap close to the boat-shed. I next proceeded to smooth the sand beneath the shed, and to compact it into a smooth, hard floor as follows: I took of perfectly dry clay several bushels in fragments, and crushed these to a fine dust; this dust I sprinkled evenly all over the sand floor to the depth of an inch or more, sprinkling and wetting the dust and the sand liberally with a bough dipped in the sea water. As the mixture grew dry I trampled it with my naked feet until it was smooth and firm, sprinkling a little dry sand on the surface and trampling it in. The result was a dustless, dry floor, hard enough to support my weight readily, and smooth enough for my purpose.
On this floor, with a stretched cord rubbed with charcoal, I marked, as carpenters do with a chalk line, a straight line twenty-one feet long or thereabouts; this was to be the length of the boat, and its centre line from stem to stern. Using the cord as a measure, I laid off at each side of this centre line, the horizontal outline of my proposed boat. The greatest breadth of beam I made about six feet, and tapered both the stem and the stern alike, after the manner of a whaleboat. At each end of the centre line I drove a stake upright, and notched the top to carry a guide line stretched from one to the other directly over the centre line. Then, with tempered clay, I marked the outline of the boat by building up a little wall about three inches inbreadth and as many in height all around from stem to stern on both sides. The space inside this wall I filled with sand, sprinkled and compacted until it was level with the top of the wall. Then I added to the wall another course of clay and filled in again; and so kept on adding and filling and sloping in the wall, until I had a mound of clay-coated sand, shaped like a boat turned upside down.
This labor, simple as it sounds in statement, took me over a week, and before it was done I was interrupted by the necessity for setting my smoke-house in order for curing the hams and bacon. I built for the smoking a slow fire of bark, which required attention only once or twice each day. The clay form under the boat-shed I left to get dry and hard. It was my design, as I have no doubt you have already guessed, to use this clay form as a core or groundwork, upon which to shape my boat.
The next step was a most serious task; I had to procure a piece of timber for a keel, and shape it and fit to it two pieces, one at the stem, and one at the stern. The timber must be new and strong. There was absolutely no way to get this timber except by felling a tree which must be at least a foot in diameter. I could not hope to do this with a pocket knife except by an appalling amount of labor, and at the continual risk of breaking the blade; and, moreover, I did not want to subject this valuable instrument to any more wear than was absolutely necessary. I now carried it on my person tied securely to a lanyard as my most highly prized possession. But I thought I could manage to get down a tree by the aid of fire. Having selected the tree, I plastered the trunk with wet clay all around for a height of five or six feet, excepting a space of about two feet next the ground; then piled updry fuel on the windward side and set fire to it. After an hour or two the trunk caught fire and slowly burned. I kept checking the fire from eating upward by dabbing wet clay on, until finally the tree burned through and fell. It was a much less difficult task to burn it in two at the proper length after it was once down.
This done, the next thing was to reduce the stick to the correct lateral dimensions, which should be ten inches by three or thereabouts. As there was no saw, adze, or axe to be had, this reduction could be done in no other way so easily as by splitting the trunk with hard-wood wedges. I made several and charred them in the fire, then sharpened them and drove four of them in a line into the wood of the trunk at equal distances apart. By judicious management, driving them little by little, one after another, the trunk was riven asunder, and a second split produced a piece of the right size when a little had been split off from each edge. The plank was not as smooth as if turned out by a saw mill; but it was strong and was smooth enough for my purpose. I dragged it down to the boat-shed, and went back to the log and split off in like manner a piece of suitable size to make the stem and stern posts. I set the keel timber up on edge on the clay mould, securing it temporarily with some lumps of clay until I could mark the correct length. The stem and stern posts I cut and halved on to the keel, pinning them on by pins.
The drill by means of which I bored the holes for the pins was fashioned by inserting a piece of sharp chalcedony splinter into a split stick and securely wrapping the stick with a piece of cord. This stick or shank, which was about two feet in length, carried a ball of dry clay of three or more pounds in weight, and mounted about six inches from the chalcedony point. Through the upper end of the shank was a hole passingthrough which was a cord secured at each end to a loose cross-stick about a foot long. By twisting this cord around the shank the movement up and down of the loose cross-stick would cause the drill to revolve first in one direction and then in the other, the momentum of the whirling ball of clay causing the apparatus to continue its motion far enough to rewind the cord. This device is much used by primitive peoples, and it certainly proved a most effective instrument to me; for without renewing the drill point I bored five holes at each end, through the keel piece and the uprights.
The gunwale I made by splitting cane into long, thin strips half an inch in width, and laying these in a bundle tied securely round every three or four inches with a wrapping of cord. By this means I produced a sort of stiff, untwisted cable. I secured the ends of these gunwale cables firmly to the stem and stern uprights by cord passed through holes. I next got a great store of a sort of long, slender-stemmed creeper, which I fancy must have been a species of climbing palm, though I am not sure; for there was no description of it in my books. The wood of this creeper was tough and exceedingly fibrous. Of it I proposed to make the ribs of the boat, setting them about three inches apart along the whole length of the boat. The creepers which I chose for this purpose were about half an inch in diameter, and smooth and uniform in size. Holes drilled through the keel piece close to the clay mould permitted the passage of these ribs over the mould from gunwale to gunwale, where they were fastened by being inserted in the mass of cane splints and securely tied there with several wrappings of cöir. Of course I had to stop this work from time to time to manufacture the necessary supply of cöir.
Such interruptions were a relief to me, and I would sit in the shade of the palms spinning away and thinking of my Mohawk Valley home, or gazing out upon the broad sea, where the perfect shading from deep blue to faint cobalt and fainter green, the long swell, and the transparent, curling breakers, the restless sea fowl, and the serene, cloud-flecked sky, formed a view of which I never tired. It is a mistake, it seems to me, to speak of the sea as a lonesome thing. Its ceaseless motion, its constant change of color and of mood, never exactly alike and yet never entirely unlike, all lend to it an indefinable charm. It may, indeed, be filled with solitude, but it also is filled with companionship for the solitary, as I learned then to realize.
The island was the home of an astonishing number of species of small birds; several different varieties of the parrot family flew from tree to tree in flocks; different kinds of finches, many of bright plumage, in great numbers haunted the bushes about the stream; larks, flycatchers, gorgeous scarlet tanagers, little wrens, and tiny humming-birds were very numerous. The bird that I took most interest in was a daring little fellow, perhaps some sort of wren, of a brownish color, specked with pearly white spots. This self-contained and self-satisfied little fowl had a habit of carrying his tail stuck straight up in the air and cocking his head to one side in a most comical manner. This species seemed quite fearless of me, and I often saw them come hopping up on the ground near to where I sat, as though bent on ascertaining what sort of creature I was. Scarcely bigger than a walnut, with a tiny “chirp, chirp,” these dainty creatures seemed to be introducing themselves politely to me, and deprecating any possible unfriendliness that might have arisen, or might thereafter arise between us on account of an occasional seedstolen from my stack. At one time I had the notion to capture one or more of these little birds and train them as pets; but their courage and confidence utterly disarmed me.
When all the vine ribs had been fitted to the boat the next thing was to apply an exterior sheathing. This also I constructed of the long smooth creepers, uniform in size and laid close together each piece extending the whole length of the boat. I secured the ends of these vines to the stem and stern pieces by setting them into a groove or rebate, and dowelling a piece of wood down firmly upon them. At intervals I sewed or tied the rib and plank vines together with strong thin cord. When this was done I had the form of a boat, but of course it would leak like a sieve, and moreover would be crank as a basket. The next thing was to procure some sort of gum or resin, with which to coat the whole structure and thus bind it all together and strengthen it, as well as to make it water-tight.
There were trees of the pine or fir species growing on the island, high on the rocky backbone. I could see them distinctly, and had little doubt that they would furnish me with at least some of the ingredients for a sort of pitch, that might be made to answer my purpose. Up to this time I had never ascended the precipitous rocks and cliffs which formed a miniature mountainrange running north and south through the centre of the island. Now I resolved to make the attempt and to ascertain definitely what could be found there in the way of pitch or resin, among the several species of evergreens. To ascend these cliffs and rocks through the thickets and tangled vines was no easy task. Giant beds of fern, fallen tree-trunks, jungles of thorny bush, barred the way apparently at all points. The most feasible route seemed to be up a chasm through whichcame a tinkling rivulet to join the stream, with many a fall and leap, boiling now, and now dashing in spray over the fern-embowered rocks. It was a hard, hot climb. The humming-birds, like flying jewels,—rubies, topazes, amethysts, lapis lazuli,—darted to and fro in a dozen varieties, pausing to hover over the deep, scarlet chalices of the trumpet flower. Far above in the clear, deep blue of heaven slowly swung a circling vulture on motionless wing, a mere speck against the light.
At last I reached the top, a sort of broken rocky plateau covered with trees among which were numerous evergreens. After a brief rest to recover breath, I examined some of the trees, and found to my great delight a species of pitch pine among them. The scaly, reddish bark was bedewed with tears of gum which I knew would with a little boiling or drying be converted into a hard resin. Without losing any time I went to work with my knife upon the trees. I bared a place of its bark on each of a dozen trunks, about three feet in height and six inches in width, and cut a notch at the bottom to collect the gum, scoring the bared place with cross cuts at intervals of a few inches. This occupied me until it was within two hours of sunset, and I dared stay no longer that day, for fear of being benighted on the way home.
Early next morning I returned with my lasso, an earthenware vessel, and my burning-glass. The wounded trees had already begun to yield a supply of sticky sap or gum, which I scraped down and collected in the earthen pot, until it was quite full. I placed this to melt and boil over a slow fire and proceeded to wound about a dozen more trees. That night I slept on the summit, and worked hard all next day collecting and boiling the resin, so that when I went the next night tothe house I was able to carry with me twenty-five or thirty pounds of the material,—a hard, dark resin.
At this labor I spent about a week longer, sometimes going home at night, and sometimes sleeping on the rocks, until I had got together, as I thought, sufficient for my purpose. Now I wanted some grease to mix with the resin, and concluded to kill a pig for this purpose. I had to wait two days to find the herd, but finally succeeded in capturing a fine young porker, which yielded a good store of lard and fat, much more indeed than I needed for the pitch kettle, as well as a fine supply of fresh pork-chops and some meat for the smoke-house.
I melted the resin in my five-gallon pot, and added to it sufficient melted pig-fat, so that the pitch when cold would be quite stiff and hard, but not brittle. With this hot, tenacious pitch I payed the whole exterior of the boat with a good thick coat, penetrating and filling all the interstices. When this was hard and cold I tried to lift the boat from the clay core in order to turn it over. To my disgust I found that the pitch had stuck it fast to the core in a thousand places, so that it could not be moved. There was nothing to do, therefore, except to undermine the whole structure, dig the sand out, and take out the dry, hard clay from below, piece by piece,—an immense labor, as you may well conceive. But this was finally accomplished without injury to the boat. I found that the structure was entirely too flexible for practical navigation, and that it would be necessary to deck over the greater part, if for no other reason than to stiffen it. I decided to make an air-tight compartment at each end, extending about three feet, and carry a deck fore and aft over the entire boat, excepting a well hole in the middle, six feet long by three feet wide, which was to be surrounded by a washboard, or raised edge, about six inches in height. Having cleared away the débris, I turned my boat right side up.
I was very anxious to get this boat completed, and had been working hard at it every day for over a month. I wanted to know if it would at least float properly, and therefore labored from early dawn to dark without cessation. One night I had been restless and wakeful, and got up without appetite for parched seed and smoked meat. Fancying this was merely from excitement about the work, and from want of variety in diet, I concluded that the next day I would knock off work for a time and go fishing. But when I went down to the shed and got to work I felt tired and languid. There was a great pain in my head, chilly sensations ran up and down my back, and pains in the limbs and a general depression of spirits warned me of an approaching illness. Fearing a collapse I started for the house, when suddenly I grew faint and fell on the sand, and lay there for several hours, a fierce fever raging through me. An intense thirst stimulated my feeble energies to make one or two attempts to reach the house; but I failed and crawled back to the shed. Once I managed to reach the creek and get a drink, but it was preferable to suffer thirst, I thought, rather than make the attempt again. About sundown the fever left me, and though much weakened I felt well enough to get to the house, light a candle from the last sparks of my neglected fire, and turn into my hammock.
Evidently I was seized with some malarious disorder. Anxious to know what I could do for myself in the way of medicine, I got the Dispensatory and began a search for febrifuges. I could not hope to find Peruvian bark on the island as this region was, I conceived, out of its habitat. However, I made pencil notes of everything I could find mentioned as a febrifuge. Amongother things I noted that it was customary in the Campagna near Rome for the fever-stricken inhabitants to make a sort of tea of sliced lemons, which was said to cure the Campagna fever. Now I remembered to have seen wild limes growing along the upper part of the creek, and thought if I could get strength enough to gather some the next day I would try an infusion of them.
That night I slept pretty well, and in the morning got up feeling fairly well. But warned by yesterday’s experience, I dreaded a recurrence of the chill and fever, either that day or the next. So I went immediately and gathered a quantity of the ripest of the limes. These I sliced thin with my knife and poured boiling water over them in a small vessel, and set them aside to steep. As soon as the infusion was cold I took a small sip to see what the effect would be. I found no bad consequences, and in an hour took another larger sip. This I kept up every hour all day, and did some work on the boat. That night I drank about a quart of hot water, and buried myself in a bed of dry grass in the house, with a small fire going. I was soon in a profuse perspiration, and after a while fell sound asleep and awoke in the morning hungry. Whether the lime tea checked the fever, or whether the attack was no more than a passing biliousness, I do not know. At any rate I soon recovered, and was not ill again while on the island.
I now resumed work persistently on the boat, and finally the air-tight compartments and decking, made like the rest of the vessel of vines coated with pitch, were done. I got some rollers under the boat and pushed it into the creek, where it floated true and buoyant as I could desire. Mooring it securely I got on board and found it stanch, and every way much better than I had hoped. To my great joy it did not leak adrop, though I had expected to have a great deal of patching to do.
My next task was to rig a mast and sail. The mast I had already brought down from the heights, in the form of a slender evergreen, trimmed and peeled of its bark. Nor was I long in stepping and rigging it with the necessary stays. The making of the sail was a much longer matter. I had given this question a great deal of thought, and while at work on the boat had carefully weighed several different devices, but had been unable to hit upon a feasible plan. Therefore I deferred it until the very last thing, fitting on a rudder and even making and burning a water jar and a cover for it to contain a supply of fresh water on board, before regularly beginning work on the sail. Finally, however, all was finished except the sail, and I was forced to the task. The best thing I could think of for the purpose was strips of bark woven on cord after the fashion in which some window blinds are made from wooden slats and cord; and as this could best be used with what I believe is termed a latteen rig, that is to say a single short mast in the centre of the boat, with a long yard suspended at its top and inclined upward from the bow aft, upon which the sail is hung, I changed my mast and stepped it to suit such a rig. Then I procured a long, slender, tapering pole for a yard. I found a tree with a smooth, flexible inner bark, and after a great deal of labor secured a sufficient quantity, cut in strips one and a half inches in width, and some of it as long as the boom. Then I spun a great quantity of cord, and tied doubled lengths of it to the boom at intervals of a foot. Then laying the boom down on the beach I placed a strip of the bark alongside it and tied it there with all the cords; by the side of that I added another a little shorter and tied it, and so on until I had built up atriangular sail of the bark strips attached to the boom by the cords, the strips running parallel with the boom. In order to make it hold the wind better, I punched holes in the edges of the bark strips, and tied the edges of adjacent strips together.
When I had this sail complete and rigged to the mast the wind was blowing away from the shore, and I had to wait until the next day to give it a trial. But I made everything ready, including food and water and a ballasting of stones, and on the next morning, the wind blowing quietly on shore, I went on board, cast off, and poled the craft out of the creek, watching a good chance to push her through the breakers at the bar. I got safely out, and hoisted the sail. For a moment she fell off and rose and sunk with the swell, but taking the wind fair, presently leaned down until the lee gunwale was nearly buried in the green water, and began to forge ahead rapidly, fairly sliding through the water, with the wake running away behind and a white curl of foam racing from the bow. I tried her on all tacks, on and off the wind, ratching and running before it, and found that the best point of sailing was on the wind. This was entirely satisfactory. So delighted was I with the operation of the boat that I tacked away in stretches of two or three miles until I had beat up a good league from the island, and then turned and ran before the wind straight for the creek, where I arrived safe, and moored the boat securely in her snug harbor.
The building of this boat had taken me three months; but it was at last finished, and offered me a means, at the first fair wind, of sailing away for Martinique or some adjacent island, a port which I could fairly expect to make in two or three days at farthest. I went to bed that night in a happier and more contented frame of mind than I had theretofore experienced on the island.
AS the wind next day was in the wrong quarter, I set deliberately about lading my new boat, as far as my means went, with all the provisions and appliances that seemed necessary for the voyage. This was all done by noon, and I sat down idly to wait for a wind that should promise settled weather, and be in the right direction. The first, second, and third days passed without any prospect of change, and I grew very impatient. Things seemed to have lost their interest for me. The one idea of getting away drove all else out of mind. I walked to and fro along the beach like a caged animal, overhauled my cargo, added to it, changed the water in my storage jar, and did a hundred useless things. Still the breeze blew softly and steadily from the south of east,—a head wind, which would oblige me to ratch all the way to Martinique.
On the third night, as I was sitting out on the beach in the moonlight, I bethought me of the ancient rhyme of the mariner who, cursed by everlasting head winds, toiled on day by day only to be blown back night after night. There was plenty of time now to plan what I should do when I reached Martinique. Up to this time I had not thought it out very carefully. So to pass the dreary hours I began to go over the whole programme mentally. The more I thought about it, however, the less prospect could I see of getting at Martinique what appliances and assistance I wanted, even ifI had possessed money enough. I should have to go clear back to New York to get another diving apparatus, and that of itself would consume the greater part of my funds.
When this conviction forced itself on my mind, I was aghast. Must I give up the search for the treasureship merely for lack of funds, after all my trouble and expense? I sprang up and began walking up and down the sand at the very edge of the breakers, like a wild man. Abandon my enterprise? Never, never! I would rather stay and die on the island than do that. Why not, indeed, stay on the island and take my chances. I had built a boat out of nothing, and why could I not contrive some means for at least finding the sunken galleon and locating it accurately? Then, with something definite in prospect, it would surely not be difficult to go to Martinique and there interest somebody else to furnish the necessary funds for the enterprise, and divide the proceeds. There seemed to be wisdom in this course, and I resolved to adopt it forthwith.
Even as I made this resolution a heavy cloud passed over the moon, a faint breeze stirred through the rattling palm-leaves, and putting up a moistened finger I found the wind had changed to the southwest; soon it began to increase, and in an hour there was a fine steady breeze blowing exactly from the best quarter for my voyage, if I had chosen to take advantage of it. I was thankful at that moment that it had not come sooner. I looked long and musingly upon the darkening water and it must have been nearly midnight when, after seeing carefully to the security of my boat, I turned into the hammock with a contented mind, and buoyed up by a firm resolve to succeed.
In the morning, as I was going down to the stream, I saw approaching along the sands a dog. Nothingcould have been more astonishing to me than this sight. What could a dog be doing on this island? When and how did he get here? Where dogs are, there also are men. This dog could never have come here alone. The animal saw me as soon as I saw him, and came running up wagging his tail in the most friendly way, running around in half-circles, and barking with delight. I called him up and stroked his head. He was a fine black Gordon setter, with an intelligent high-bred appearance. Around his neck a chain collar bore a plate engraved “Duke 2d, property of H. Senlis.” “Duke, good Duke,” said I, “where is your master?” But the only answer Duke could make was a series of delighted contortions, jumps, and short barks. I went to the house and got some dried turtle-meat, which he ate voraciously, and seemed to call for more. When I had fed him all he seemed to demand he curled up on the sand as contentedly as though this was a long sought resting-place. With his head over one paw and one eye occasionally opening to look at me, he was the very picture of contentment and satisfaction.
As I sat eating my breakfast of parched-seed gruel and broiled bacon, and looking at the dog curled up on the sandy floor of my house, I speculated on the method of his arrival on the island. Was he shipwrecked like myself, or left by some hunting party? Was he here alone, or were those to whom he belonged still on the island; and if so where were they? The whole island was not above six or seven miles in length, and three or four in breadth. Yet the dense forest growth, the jungles and cane-brakes, the central ridge of precipitous rocks could easily conceal the presence of other people, especially if they were on the other side. At any rate I thought it high time for me to take a careful survey of the entire domain, and this, if for no other purpose, tosatisfy my curiosity aroused by the startling advent of Duke 2d.
When I first saw the dog he was coming up apparently from the southern end of the island, and I concluded to start in that direction down the beach, and go as far as possible along the sea,—quite around the whole island if that were practicable. With this view I packed my haversack with provisions, and filled my large bottle with fresh water, and swung it by a cord under my arm. Taking my lasso and lance and burning-glass, I started down the beach. Duke followed or ran on before, as much pleased apparently as though we were on a gunning expedition. The beach extended south from my house for a distance of about three miles, and then terminated in a low, rocky shore covered with cactus and thorny shrubs. Beyond this the southernmost extremity of the island extended in a rocky headland, and there were some low rocks detached from the shore and covered at high tide, forming dangerous breakers, to which a navigator rounding the southern cape would wish to give a wide berth.
In the sand and among the rocks where the cactus grew I captured an armadillo. This harmless little creature, about the size of a sucking pig, was called to my attention by the dog, which had discovered it and seemingly did not know what to make of such a strange customer, covered with its curious, horny armor. Duke was sniffing and jumping back and barking, when I caught sight of the hindquarters of the armadillo just disappearing in the sand. The animal was burrowing itself out of sight with astonishing rapidity in the loose soil. At first I could not conceive what it was, as it appeared from the view I had more like some sort of a reptile than an animal. But I speedily recognized it, and pulled it bodily out of the tunnel it was excavating.The little fellow did not attempt to run away, but curled itself up into a ball with its head and feet tucked out of sight. Duke went up to it and turned it several times over with his paw, but evidently could have inflicted no injury upon it had he been minded to make the attempt. However, as roast armadillo is noted as a savory dish I speedily put an end to its life by inserting my knife blade between the joints of its armor, and it was added to our larder at once.
We now crossed over through the rocks to the west shore, which was formed, so far as I could see, of rocks and cliffs, which rose bolder and higher toward the north. The travelling along these cliffs was very bad, and at a break I descended to the narrow margin of sand and rocks at their feet, left bare by the receding tide. Here the walking was fairly good, and we made our way along at a good pace for a mile. Now the shore rose boldly up in a sheer cliff nearly a hundred feet in height, and the beach was little more than a mass of fallen rock. In a shallow indentation or bay we, or rather the dog, discovered bubbling up through the sand a spring of cold, pure water which must have been under the sea at high tide. There was also an abundance of small oysters attached to the rocks, and I ate of them for my lunch.
At this spring I refilled my water bottle and sat down to rest in the shade of the rocks. The dog seemed very uneasy for some reason, and thinking there might be some animal about, I got up and looked around. To my great alarm I soon discovered that the tide had risen so far as partly to submerge some of the rocks that were dry when I had passed a half-hour before. It would be no trifling matter to be caught in this place by the tide; but whether it were best to go on or go back I could not tell. However, as I knew the roadbehind me I determined to retrace my steps. I had not gone a quarter of a mile before I found that it would be impossible to pass in that direction. Whether it would be practicable to proceed in the other I could not foresee; it was so doubtful that I had no time to lose. So I hurried back again to the spring, where a margin of sand was still uncovered by the rising waves. Here I soon found that advance as well as retreat along the water was cut off. Above me frowned the perpendicular cliffs. The situation seemed full of desperate peril, and was grave enough in all reason.
I felt much as one might fancy a rat feels when the door of the trap snaps on him, and breathless he circles about and finds no exit. Duke was crouched down and shivering as with an instinct of apprehension. There was a sense of numb despair with it all—a sickening sense of giving up the fight, as though it were useless to strive against brutal ill fortune. Why did I ever come into this rat-trap? Now a man should not waste any time or thought on vain repinings, self indignation or accusation, under such circumstances, but turn his attention to the real question, and keep his eye fixed firmly and singly on the main chance. But it is not always easy to think when and of what you ought. Indeed, I found myself speculating as to how the end would come. Inch by inch the water would creep up. Duke would first be swept under, unless I chose to support him for a while. Then little by little I would be submerged, knees, middle, chest, shoulders, neck, chin, lips,—and then the final struggle. I cast my eyes up to see how far above my height the water would rise. The marks of high water were there plain on the cliff, and I calculated that I should be submerged at least eight feet at high water.
All along, the rock rose sheer up without a break tothe very top. There was one place, however, where the cliff, undermined by the waves, had split off and fallen down, making a ledge about twenty-five or thirty feet above the water’s edge; but there seemed to be no way of climbing up to this ledge,—indeed it overhung the base. Upon it grew two or three small trees, and one of them leaned out over the sea. When my faculties once more began to assert themselves, it occurred to me that it might be possible to cast the end of my lasso over this projecting tree-trunk and thus perhaps haul myself up to the ledge hand over hand.
The conception of this idea was almost equivalent to its execution; I felt that I was saved. To one end of the lasso I tied a stone, and secured the other end firmly around the body of the dog. This stone I cast easily over the tree trunk, and swung the rope in such a manner that the weighted end would twist several times around the body of the rope. I pulled and tested it with my weight, and it held firm. Casting my lance up on the ledge, I climbed hand over hand up the rope, occasionally steadying myself with feet against the rock, until I had a firm grasp on the trunk and was safely on the platform. Leaning over I called to the dog, and when he came up close to the rock I spoke to him kindly to allay his fears, and then hauled him up. The platform was at least ten feet wide at the middle part, perhaps forty feet long, and tapered away to a mere ledge at each end. There was plenty of dry dead sticks and wood which had fallen down from above, and, as the afternoon sun shone hot and bright in the western sky, it was not long before I had kindled a fire with my burning-glass, and had spitted the armadillo for a roast.
I now sat and watched the sea rise and wash in breakers on the base of the cliff, and shuddered to think what would have been my fate but for the lasso and thetimely aid it afforded me. I watched a glorious sunset wherein long bars of purple cloud edged with molten gold, and fleecy flakes of burning vermilion melted on a sky of gray-green light, over an ocean of dark blue shot with violet, and here and there tinted and gilded with crimson and gold from the red, flaming ball that was just dipping to the horizon. And far into the night I sat awaiting the rising of the moon, the novelty of the situation driving all inclination for sleep from me. Duke was a good companion, and inclined to sit out the company. He lay with his head on my knee, occasionally looking up into my face in a truly sociable and friendly manner.
About nine o’clock at night, there being then a dead calm, I heard distinctly the beat of a screw propeller, accompanied by the regular blowing at slow intervals of escaping steam. I looked all about for the vessel, and presently made out her mast-head light, like a star quivering on the horizon. Gradually it lifted above the water in the southern sky, and I knew it would pass me quite near at hand unless its course were changed. There were still some embers of my fire alight, and nothing would have been easier than to make a signal which doubtless would have been seen on board. But though I gathered the embers together instinctively, I took no step toward making the signal. She drew nearer and nearer, and finally passed along the coast not half a mile distant, trailing a long plume of smoke. So near was she at one time that in the starlight and upon the light of the sea I could distinguish her form and build, and conjectured that she was some ocean tramp, sliding along stern deep down, and nose cocked out of the water, looking for a cargo from port to port,—an iron steamer, such as are sent out by thousands now-a-days to wander over all the seas and oceans, andwhich, going from port to port, finally return to the home port, perhaps when it is time to lay their sides and ribs into the junk heap for old iron.
When the moon rose the steamer was a pale, gray spot at the end of a long stain of dark smoke far in the northern horizon. It finally disappeared, the smoke fading away and mingling with the faint mist-wreaths that stole up from the sea under the moonlight. I went to bed on the rock with Duke coiled up beside me, and slept until broad day. I found the water still too high for me to descend safely to the sand; the tide had apparently gone out and was coming in again. I did not much like the idea of descending again to the foot of the cliff if it could be avoided, because there was no telling whether I could safely proceed farther to the north; nor was I yet ready to go back home, for I intended, if possible, to make the complete circuit of the island.
Therefore I turned my attention to that portion of the cliff that rose above my ledge. After a careful scrutiny I concluded it would be possible to reach the top by climbing a tree that grew close to the rock. A narrow ledge could be reached from the upper limbs, and it led along the face of the rocks for a few steps to a sort of crack or chasm up which one might easily clamber to the top. I climbed down to the beach as soon as the water was low enough, and filled my bottle anew at the spring, Duke howling and barking all the time, as though in great distress at being deserted. I returned to the ledge, fastened the end of the lasso around the dog, and climbed up the tree with my lance, haversack, and water bottle. With some difficulty I reached the chasm safely, and proceeded to haul up the dog. From there the climbing was not difficult to the top.
Here was a considerable forest, similar to the growth on the central mountainous plateau of the island where I went for pitch. Indeed, as well as I could then see, and as afterward I found to be the case, this line of cliffs was connected with the central plateau by a ridge running east and west. There was a valley between the cliffs and the plateau, divided into two parts by this transverse ridge. The travelling through the woods on the cliff was not difficult, as there was very little undergrowth.
I made a discovery in this wood of several lofty trees which bore nuts of the triangular variety known as Brazil nuts. They grow enclosed in a hard outer casing like a small cannon-ball. One of these fell as I passed beneath the tree. If it had struck Duke or me there is no estimating the hurt that would have been occasioned. It fell fairly on a projecting root, and burst open, scattering the loose nuts about. I gathered a haversack full and filled my shirt and pockets, casting uneasy glances the while up into the trees in fear of a possible bombardment from above; nor did we linger long under those dangerous limbs.
Pushing along, as near the edge of the cliffs as possible, we came, near the middle of the island, north and south, to a well beaten path leading down toward the sea through a break in the cliffs. Duke immediately bounded down this path, and I followed him anxiously; for it did not look as though made by pigs, but rather as if trodden by human feet. The narrow gorge speedily widened out into a little bowl-shaped valley, open to the sea on one side, and on three sides walled in by the cliffs, which were hung with luxuriant vegetation,—a most lovely spot. A gently sloping sward extended nearly to the pebbly beach, and a little stream of clear water, which came frothing in haste down the glen,paused in a quiet sweep and curve through the meadow, the long grass bending over its narrow course, and dipping into the limpid surface, till finally it flowed down over a bed of bright-colored pebbles to the little bay in front. Here and there a wide-spreading tree cast a broad, purple shadow, and many flowers sent forth fragrance to the pure, warm air. It was truly a sylvan paradise.
What specially interested me, however, was the white gleam of canvas shining through the foliage. A tent was pitched near the stream. I called out to announce my presence, but nobody appeared, and going up to the structure, I found it vacant and deserted. The tent was made of a huge mainsail, stretched over a pole and secured to the ground by pegs. It evidently had been long deserted, perhaps a month; the rains had washed the ashes of a fire nearly all away. In the trunk of an adjacent tree stuck an axe, buried to the helve as though by a powerful hand. The metal was all covered with red rust, and so firmly imbedded in the gash that I could not release it until I had pounded it out with a stone. A further search disclosed a dish broken in half, a rusty case-knife, a hand-saw, an iron kettle, a frying-pan, which lay in the tent, and fragments of old newspapers and letters strewed about. In one corner were two blankets rolled loosely together and somewhat mildewed. I hauled these blankets and also an old topsail out of the tent, and spread them in the sun to dry.
Then I wandered about seeking some clew as to who had been here and how long since; but conjecture was idle. At the mouth of the creek there was a tree with the marks on it of a mooring line; and the trace of the line was still faintly visible on the earthy bank. The most probable supposition was that a party of pig-hunters had landed here, and for some reason had beensuddenly called away. That they had left hurriedly was evident both from the standing tent and its contents, and also from the fact that a garden had been planted, which was now grown up to rank luxuriance. In this garden was a great quantity of yams and sweet potatoes, most of them just in a condition to be gathered; also peas and beans quite dry and ripe, and some Indian corn, the last still green. A rusty shovel and hoe were lying there just as they had been left. I made no scruple to help myself to what I wanted of this abundant harvest that chance had placed in my hand. It was not long before I had a fire built and the kettle on, and some of the yams and sweet potatoes boiling. These vegetables eaten hot, with salt and bacon, were to my unaccustomed palate more delicious than I can describe. Duke also ate of them ravenously.
About two o’clock in the afternoon, after packing up the new-found property in the tent as securely as I could, I hurried away to the north along the cliffs, anxious to reach home in order to get my boat and return for these treasures; for treasures indeed would this abundant supply of food as well as the other things be to me. About a quarter of a mile north of this little haven, which I named “Farm Haven,” the cliffs ran back from the sea, leaving a broad, smooth beach which gave an excellent road quite to the northern extremity of the island, excepting at one place where I was obliged to wade waist deep across the mouth of a deep indenting cove. At the northern end were isolated rocks, one of which rose boldly up to a height of fifty or sixty feet and was surrounded by the water even at low tide. After clambering over the rocks for an eighth of a mile I struck again the smooth, incurving beach that margined the eastern shore, and before dark reached home.
Everything about the house was just as I had leftit, and the boat was gently heaving to the modified swell that penetrated in gentle undulations to its safe harbor in the creek. I sat long that evening enjoying the cool air, and speculating on the events of my journey. I had not found Duke’s master, but could account at least in some measure for his presence on the island; for he had been undoubtedly forgotten in the hurried departure of the party whose camp I had just visited.