The whole of this put me on considering further the nature of the island we were upon: and I concluded with Don Manuel, as after experience more fully showed, that the entire island had been thrown up from the sea by fires from beneath; except what might have been added by the industrious coral insects in the course of ages. Not the mountain alone, I felt sure, but the plain country, was composed of lava rock, only covered by the depths of its rich soil. It was not in the way of speculation that I followed this out; but for a practical end, and one that touched on our own security. For, as all countries that were first formed by volcanoes, are ever liable to eruptions of fire, earthquakes, devastations of hot springs, effluvia of fatal gases, and other such causes of disturbance, it was well we should prepare ourselves for what we were to expect in that way, and what to avoid.
So this accident to poor Harry, when the effects of it were over (and he soon plucked up spirits again to join us as if nothing had chanced,) might be looked on as a wholesome warning, that we were in a place where nothing was to be ventured hap-hazard, or beyond what we understood.
As we continued our march, “ See, my dear friends”, said the priest, “how near we are to peril, and sometimes to death, when we least think of it. Here was our friend Geile (so he pronounced it, and made us all smile, and some of the men laugh outright, at his way of talking English,) was a strong sailor a quarter of an hour ago ; and now, see — ”
“ He ’s as weak as a cat”, replied poor Harry; and indeed, so he looked.
At this, we “shortened sail for him”, as Ned Hilton expressed it: and, what with one thing and another, we all came to a conclusion that we had earned a halt under the shade of the trees which now branched thick over our heads. The heat was indeed excessive, and we were glad of a breathing time. For though on board ship, the thermometer had stood at nearly the same point (and I reckoned we were at least 90° in the shade), yet the breeze that played over the sea, on and off, hindered the actual heat from oppressing the spirits as it did in the thickness of these our island coverts.
For, putting all things together, the priest and I concluded, though we had not an instrument for taking an observation, nor could so much as determine the points of the compass further than in general; yet, by what had dropped from the captain and mate for a day or two before they so barbarously left us here, and from some things the men said at times in their careless way, we concluded, I repeat, that the place of our sad captivity lay somewhere between ten and twelve degrees of latitude north of the line, and in about the same degree of heat with the South Caribbean Sea. This taught us we might expect to meet with both the goods and ills of such a latitude, so long as we remained here; or, indeed, till our deaths, if we were at last to find our graves on this lonely place.
We then began to ask, for what aim we were hurrying in our exploring party through the island? We should but reach the end of our tether the sooner; and there was a bitter feeling (I well knew) awaiting us, when we should arrive at the southern point of our prison-yard, as we were already acqainted with the northern. No sign of an inhabitant had been seen by any of us; and, for aught that appeared, we were the lords and possessors of all we surveyed; which was poor comfort enough. So, this being considered, we sat down under the shade of a large tree of the pimento kind: and the men, in spite of the hearty breakfast they had made in the morning, now voted it to be dinner-time. I forgot to say, we had packed up the remainder of our meat and bread-fruit, which Harvey volunteered to carry on his shoulders, wrapped in palm-leaves. This was now spread for us on the grass, and we fell to, some more, some less, according to the character and appetite of each.
Sailors mostly live for the day; and are so used to chances and changes, that it little matters to them where they make their shake-down when the day is over. I could not discover, from any chance remark that fell from these men, they had any plan of living settled in their minds under these strange circumstances in which we were placed. They seemed to leave every arrangement to Don Manuel and me; though they would have shown themselves jealous indeed, and rebellious too, had we assumed to dictate to them. It came to be the same in the end; for we had to consult, and suggest, for the whole party, at every turn. Don Manuel, on his part, seldom expressed his opinion, except when there was a question of right and wrong; or when he thought he could guide our minds to the better things whereon his own was constantly fixed. On those occasions he spoke; and always with the same even, cheerful temper which had gained him our hearts, or some part of them, from the first.
But I grow wearisome with these details: only, that the few first events of our establishment on the island were of such weight in fixing our condition there for years afterwards, that it may be pardonable to dwell on them at somewhat greater length.
Well, we sat or lay down, to our rest, and our early dinner, and I took the occasion to speak again.
“Let us now consider”, said I, “what sort of habitations we shall fix on, and how we shall best seek to support our lives here. No more caves for us, if you please, unless we can find one that has no sulphur fumes coming from it. Tell us, Harry, how say you?”
“No, indeed”, answered he, making a wry face, and with an oath that did not add anything, but profaneness, to his discourse. And this Don Manuel gently reminded him of. “Well, I was wrong”, added Gill, taking the reproof better than I expected from him: “but I haven’t got the taste of the brimstone out of my mouth yet, and that, I suppose, made me to swear. Give us another slice of cold pork, Harvey: and a crumb of our outlandish loaf, there, and no more about it.”
“Now,” said I, continuing, “the first thing, as appears to me, is to devise some method for supplying ourselves with food, not for to-day or to-morrow, but for as long as we may have to stay here. This cannot be by shooting down our game from day to day: for we have not powder and shot among us for more than perhaps forty or fifty rounds; and what becomes of us when these are expended? So I propose that we select, in the first place, some spot for a preserve, in which to keep such animals as we may snare, or wound by shooting; and that we husband our ammunition as much as possible for future need.”
No one raised a voice against my proposal; so I regarded it as passed, and went on.
“Next,” I said, “let each of us name some of the things we are most in want of: and let us see how we are to procure or make them; and what we must needs do without.”
At this, all fell to considering what they should name as most important to us in our distress.
“Come, Prodgers,” I went on, with a little motion aside to Don Manuel, that I gave the surly old fellow this precedence to make him more favourable: “what do you propose we should contrive for ourselves first?”
This set Richard Prodgers a- thinking; and he began searching his wits in the way most sailors do: that is to say, he fumbled in his pockets, twirled his hat round once or twice, turned a quid of tobacco in his cheek, and finished by refreshing his memory from his bottle of rum. At that last act of his, the rest fell to laughing at him, and insisted he should mention what was uppermost in his mind.
“I think,” said Prodgers slowly, with a very thoughtful look, “the first thing we should provide is, a fresh supply of hog for our dinner to-morrow.”
“And grog, I suppose”, added Harvey, seeing that the bottle peeped from Richard’s pocket.
Prodgers looked angrily; but I took up the discourse, to prevent any further jars amongst us; and said, none could doubt that our food must be looked to without delay, as I had already expressed. “And what say you, Ned Hilton?” I continued, turning to where he had sat a moment before.
But Hilton had strolled away while we were speaking; and was eyeing one of the trees overhead, which was a cocoa-nut tree.
“It is!” cried he, with great glee. “Hallo! messmates: a real live monkey! Look, there is another; and a third again!”
Up they all were at once, and not another thought about our future plans, so eagerly did they enter into this monkey-chase. Indeed, I must own, it was a diverting thing to see the monkeys, great troops of which we now discovered in the trees, where they had been watching our movements, scamper off in all directions with much swiftness, until they seemed to think the distance among the higher branches made them secure; then they looked down at us with such grimaces and chatterings as I believe would have made an owl laugh. There was no chance of catching any of them by climbing the trees, though some of our men could climb like monkeys themselves: for the trees grew so thick together that their branches interlaced, and the nimble creatures could easily have fled from one end of the wood to the other without once touching the ground. It seemed also to make no matter to them whether they used their hands, or feet, or tails; for their tails, as we afterwards found, measured nearly two feet in length, and were longer indeed than themselves; they being of a smaller kind of monkey, though exceeding active and mischievous.
It is scarce to be believed how they would hang themselves by the very end of these strong and flexible tails of theirs, only just clasping a small branch with them, as we might hook up a rasher of bacon on a nail by a small hook, just enough to keep it from falling off; then, suspended in this way, they would swing in any direction they chose, till they swung themselves near enough to another branch to catch it, or leap on to it, and so be as much at home as they were before. They would throw themselves about with such astonishing precision and certainty of lighting in safety, as almost equalled a bird upon the wing. In short, they being among the trees in their own natural element, as I may say, and we beneath them on the earth, which was ours, they had us at a considerable disadvantage in this game: and this they seemed to be aware of; for leaping and shaking the branches till all the trees above us were in a commotion, by their strange grimaces and chattering noises they appeared as though they were laughing at us, and bidding us come up and do our best to catch them.
Such a conduct irritated the men to that degree, that they ran for their fire-arms to shoot and bring some of the monkeys down: but I entreated them to be still for a while longer, promising them some cocoa-nuts for their forbearance; for an idea had just come into my head, and methought I had hit upon a means of getting some of these nuts without the pains of climbing for them. So I bade my comrades to pick up some stones and clods of earth, with which we sent a volley into the trees, that we might provoke the monkeys to return our compliment. And so, indeed, they did; for after sending down upon us all they could readily lay hands on, as leaves, and a few dead boughs, or the like, this not satisfying their vengeance, they leaped with one accord into the cocoa-nut trees, of which a good number grew hereabout, and began plucking and tugging with all their might (at least some of the oldest or the strongest among them) at the nuts, to get them off to cast at us; and they held fast to the stem of the tree all the while with their tails, to keep themselves from falling. So great was the rage of these creatures, that they put forth all their strength upon it; and if one could not pull off a cocoa-nut (for the nut was wrapped up in its coarse outer rind, and stuck fast to the tree, just under the leaves), then another would come and help him, till they had pulled it off with much effort between them.
It was well for our heads that these monkeys were more expert in getting off the nuts than in taking good aim with them, or some of us might have come off the field of battle with cracked crowns for our pains. But the nuts were so large, in their outer cases, as well nigh overbalanced the monkeys that threw them, so that they could not send them at us very exactly. Only, that some few of the more cunning of their number (for it seems, among monkeys as among men, there are those who take the lead, by reason of their superior intelligence, or their greater watchfulness and cunning), first taking a firm hold of the tree with their tails, swung themselves towards us, and delivered the cocoa-nuts straight at us, as a cricketer would deliver the ball at a wicket; by which it happened that, though we kept our eyes about us, as indeed we had need, and jumped aside as nimbly as we might to avoid these cannon-balls, we were hit once or twice, and that smartly; for I must tell you, a full ripe cocoa-nut, thrown by an angry monkey from a high tree, is no joke upon your head or arm.
So this accident to poor Harry, when the effects of it were over (and he soon plucked up spirits again to join us as if nothing had chanced,) might be looked on as a wholesome warning, that we were in a place where nothing was to be ventured hap-hazard, or beyond what we understood.
As we continued our march, “ See, my dear friends”, said the priest, “how near we are to peril, and sometimes to death, when we least think of it. Here was our friend Geile (so he pronounced it, and made us all smile, and some of the men laugh outright, at his way of talking English,) was a strong sailor a quarter of an hour ago ; and now, see — ”
“ He ’s as weak as a cat”, replied poor Harry; and indeed, so he looked.
At this, we “shortened sail for him”, as Ned Hilton expressed it: and, what with one thing and another, we all came to a conclusion that we had earned a halt under the shade of the trees which now branched thick over our heads. The heat was indeed excessive, and we were glad of a breathing time. For though on board ship, the thermometer had stood at nearly the same point (and I reckoned we were at least 90° in the shade), yet the breeze that played over the sea, on and off, hindered the actual heat from oppressing the spirits as it did in the thickness of these our island coverts.
For, putting all things together, the priest and I concluded, though we had not an instrument for taking an observation, nor could so much as determine the points of the compass further than in general; yet, by what had dropped from the captain and mate for a day or two before they so barbarously left us here, and from some things the men said at times in their careless way, we concluded, I repeat, that the place of our sad captivity lay somewhere between ten and twelve degrees of latitude north of the line, and in about the same degree of heat with the South Caribbean Sea. This taught us we might expect to meet with both the goods and ills of such a latitude, so long as we remained here; or, indeed, till our deaths, if we were at last to find our graves on this lonely place.
We then began to ask, for what aim we were hurrying in our exploring party through the island? We should but reach the end of our tether the sooner; and there was a bitter feeling (I well knew) awaiting us, when we should arrive at the southern point of our prison-yard, as we were already acqainted with the northern. No sign of an inhabitant had been seen by any of us; and, for aught that appeared, we were the lords and possessors of all we surveyed; which was poor comfort enough. So, this being considered, we sat down under the shade of a large tree of the pimento kind: and the men, in spite of the hearty breakfast they had made in the morning, now voted it to be dinner-time. I forgot to say, we had packed up the remainder of our meat and bread-fruit, which Harvey volunteered to carry on his shoulders, wrapped in palm-leaves. This was now spread for us on the grass, and we fell to, some more, some less, according to the character and appetite of each.
Sailors mostly live for the day; and are so used to chances and changes, that it little matters to them where they make their shake-down when the day is over. I could not discover, from any chance remark that fell from these men, they had any plan of living settled in their minds under these strange circumstances in which we were placed. They seemed to leave every arrangement to Don Manuel and me; though they would have shown themselves jealous indeed, and rebellious too, had we assumed to dictate to them. It came to be the same in the end; for we had to consult, and suggest, for the whole party, at every turn. Don Manuel, on his part, seldom expressed his opinion, except when there was a question of right and wrong; or when he thought he could guide our minds to the better things whereon his own was constantly fixed. On those occasions he spoke; and always with the same even, cheerful temper which had gained him our hearts, or some part of them, from the first.
But I grow wearisome with these details: only, that the few first events of our establishment on the island were of such weight in fixing our condition there for years afterwards, that it may be pardonable to dwell on them at somewhat greater length.
Well, we sat or lay down, to our rest, and our early dinner, and I took the occasion to speak again.
“Let us now consider”, said I, “what sort of habitations we shall fix on, and how we shall best seek to support our lives here. No more caves for us, if you please, unless we can find one that has no sulphur fumes coming from it. Tell us, Harry, how say you?”
“No, indeed”, answered he, making a wry face, and with an oath that did not add anything, but profaneness, to his discourse. And this Don Manuel gently reminded him of. “Well, I was wrong”, added Gill, taking the reproof better than I expected from him: “but I haven’t got the taste of the brimstone out of my mouth yet, and that, I suppose, made me to swear. Give us another slice of cold pork, Harvey: and a crumb of our outlandish loaf, there, and no more about it.”
“Now,” said I, continuing, “the first thing, as appears to me, is to devise some method for supplying ourselves with food, not for to-day or to-morrow, but for as long as we may have to stay here. This cannot be by shooting down our game from day to day: for we have not powder and shot among us for more than perhaps forty or fifty rounds; and what becomes of us when these are expended? So I propose that we select, in the first place, some spot for a preserve, in which to keep such animals as we may snare, or wound by shooting; and that we husband our ammunition as much as possible for future need.”
No one raised a voice against my proposal; so I regarded it as passed, and went on.
“Next,” I said, “let each of us name some of the things we are most in want of: and let us see how we are to procure or make them; and what we must needs do without.”
At this, all fell to considering what they should name as most important to us in our distress.
“Come, Prodgers,” I went on, with a little motion aside to Don Manuel, that I gave the surly old fellow this precedence to make him more favourable: “what do you propose we should contrive for ourselves first?”
This set Richard Prodgers a- thinking; and he began searching his wits in the way most sailors do: that is to say, he fumbled in his pockets, twirled his hat round once or twice, turned a quid of tobacco in his cheek, and finished by refreshing his memory from his bottle of rum. At that last act of his, the rest fell to laughing at him, and insisted he should mention what was uppermost in his mind.
“I think,” said Prodgers slowly, with a very thoughtful look, “the first thing we should provide is, a fresh supply of hog for our dinner to-morrow.”
“And grog, I suppose”, added Harvey, seeing that the bottle peeped from Richard’s pocket.
Prodgers looked angrily; but I took up the discourse, to prevent any further jars amongst us; and said, none could doubt that our food must be looked to without delay, as I had already expressed. “And what say you, Ned Hilton?” I continued, turning to where he had sat a moment before.
But Hilton had strolled away while we were speaking; and was eyeing one of the trees overhead, which was a cocoa-nut tree.
“It is!” cried he, with great glee. “Hallo! messmates: a real live monkey! Look, there is another; and a third again!”
Up they all were at once, and not another thought about our future plans, so eagerly did they enter into this monkey-chase. Indeed, I must own, it was a diverting thing to see the monkeys, great troops of which we now discovered in the trees, where they had been watching our movements, scamper off in all directions with much swiftness, until they seemed to think the distance among the higher branches made them secure; then they looked down at us with such grimaces and chatterings as I believe would have made an owl laugh. There was no chance of catching any of them by climbing the trees, though some of our men could climb like monkeys themselves: for the trees grew so thick together that their branches interlaced, and the nimble creatures could easily have fled from one end of the wood to the other without once touching the ground. It seemed also to make no matter to them whether they used their hands, or feet, or tails; for their tails, as we afterwards found, measured nearly two feet in length, and were longer indeed than themselves; they being of a smaller kind of monkey, though exceeding active and mischievous.
It is scarce to be believed how they would hang themselves by the very end of these strong and flexible tails of theirs, only just clasping a small branch with them, as we might hook up a rasher of bacon on a nail by a small hook, just enough to keep it from falling off; then, suspended in this way, they would swing in any direction they chose, till they swung themselves near enough to another branch to catch it, or leap on to it, and so be as much at home as they were before. They would throw themselves about with such astonishing precision and certainty of lighting in safety, as almost equalled a bird upon the wing. In short, they being among the trees in their own natural element, as I may say, and we beneath them on the earth, which was ours, they had us at a considerable disadvantage in this game: and this they seemed to be aware of; for leaping and shaking the branches till all the trees above us were in a commotion, by their strange grimaces and chattering noises they appeared as though they were laughing at us, and bidding us come up and do our best to catch them.
Such a conduct irritated the men to that degree, that they ran for their fire-arms to shoot and bring some of the monkeys down: but I entreated them to be still for a while longer, promising them some cocoa-nuts for their forbearance; for an idea had just come into my head, and methought I had hit upon a means of getting some of these nuts without the pains of climbing for them. So I bade my comrades to pick up some stones and clods of earth, with which we sent a volley into the trees, that we might provoke the monkeys to return our compliment. And so, indeed, they did; for after sending down upon us all they could readily lay hands on, as leaves, and a few dead boughs, or the like, this not satisfying their vengeance, they leaped with one accord into the cocoa-nut trees, of which a good number grew hereabout, and began plucking and tugging with all their might (at least some of the oldest or the strongest among them) at the nuts, to get them off to cast at us; and they held fast to the stem of the tree all the while with their tails, to keep themselves from falling. So great was the rage of these creatures, that they put forth all their strength upon it; and if one could not pull off a cocoa-nut (for the nut was wrapped up in its coarse outer rind, and stuck fast to the tree, just under the leaves), then another would come and help him, till they had pulled it off with much effort between them.
It was well for our heads that these monkeys were more expert in getting off the nuts than in taking good aim with them, or some of us might have come off the field of battle with cracked crowns for our pains. But the nuts were so large, in their outer cases, as well nigh overbalanced the monkeys that threw them, so that they could not send them at us very exactly. Only, that some few of the more cunning of their number (for it seems, among monkeys as among men, there are those who take the lead, by reason of their superior intelligence, or their greater watchfulness and cunning), first taking a firm hold of the tree with their tails, swung themselves towards us, and delivered the cocoa-nuts straight at us, as a cricketer would deliver the ball at a wicket; by which it happened that, though we kept our eyes about us, as indeed we had need, and jumped aside as nimbly as we might to avoid these cannon-balls, we were hit once or twice, and that smartly; for I must tell you, a full ripe cocoa-nut, thrown by an angry monkey from a high tree, is no joke upon your head or arm.
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