Mrs Reichardt was obliged to break off her narrative, where it
concluded at the end of the last chapter. As I have said, her household
duties, being very numerous, and requiring a great deal of attention,
took up nearly the whole of her time.
The garden now presented a most agreeable appearance, possessing
several different kinds of vegetables, and various plants that had been
raised from seed. We had succeeded in raising several young orange
trees from the pips she had brought in her basket; and they promised to
supply us with plenty of their luscious fruit. Even the peas we thought
so dry and useless had germinated, and provided us with a welcome
addition to our table. I shall never forget the first day she added to
our scanty meal of dried fish a dish of smoking potatoes fresh out of
the moist earth. After enjoying sufficiently my wonder at their
appearance, and delight at their agreeable taste, she informed me of
their first introduction into Europe, and their gradual diffusion over
the more civilised portions of the globe.
I speak of Europe now, because I had learned from my companion, not
only a good deal of geography, but had obtained some insight into
several other branches of knowledge. In particular, she had told me
much interesting information about England, much more than I had
learned from Jackson; dwelling upon its leading features, and the most
remarkable portions of its history; and I must acknowledge that I felt
a secret pride in belonging to so great a country.
I considered that I belonged to it, for my father and mother were
English, and though I might be called The Little Savage, and be fixed
to an obscure island in the great ocean, I felt that my real home was
in this great country my mother talked about so glowingly, and that my
chief object ought to be to return into the hands of my grandfather the
belt that had in so singular a manner come into my possession.
I often thought of this great England whose glory had been so widely
spread and so durably established, and longed for some means of leaving
our present abode, and going in search of its time-honoured shores. But
I asked myself how was this desirable object to be effected? We had no
means of transporting ourselves from the prison into which we had been
accidentally cast. We had nothing resembling a boat on the island, and
we had no tools for making one; and even had we been put in possession
of such a treasure, we had no means of launching it. The rocky
character of the coast made the placing of a boat on the water almost
impossible.
The expectation of a vessel appearing off the island appeared quite as
unreasonable. We had seen no ships for a long time, and those we had
observed were a great deal too far off to heed our signals.
We had no help for it, but to trust to Providence and bear our present
evil patiently. Nevertheless, I took my glass and swept the sea far and
wide in search of a ship, but failed to discover anything but a
spermaceti whale blowing in the distance, or a shoal of porpoises
tumbling over each other nearer the shore, or a colony of seals basking
in the sun on the rocks nearest the sea. My disappointment was shared
by Nero, who seemed to regard my vexation with a sympathising glance,
and even the gannets turned their dull stupid gaze upon me, with an
expression as if they deeply commiserated my distress.
I had for a long time employed myself in making a shelving descent to
the sea, on the most secure part of the rock, intending that it should
be a landing place for a boat, in case any ship should come near enough
to send one to our rescue. It was a work of great labour, and hatchet
and spade equally suffered in my endeavours to effect my object; but at
last I contrived to take advantage of a natural fracture in the rock,
and a subsequent fall of the cliff, to make a rude kind of inclined
plane, rather too steep, and too rough for bad climbers, but extremely
convenient for my mother and me, whenever we should be prepared to
embark for our distant home.
My thoughts were now often directed to the possibility of making on the
island some kind of boat that would hold ourselves and sufficient
provisions for a voyage to the nearest of the larger islands. I spoke
to Mrs Reichardt on the subject, but she dwelt upon the impossibility
without either proper tools, or the slightest knowledge of
boat-building, of producing a vessel to which we could trust ourselves
with any confidence, neither of us knowing anything about its
management in the open sea; and then she spoke of the dangers a small
boat would meet with, if the water should be rough, or if we should not
be able to make the island in any reasonable time.
Yet I was not daunted by difficulties, nor dissuaded by discouraging
representations. I thought at first of fastening all the loose timber
together that had drifted against the rocks, as much in the shape of a
boat as I could get it, but on looking over my stock of nails, I found
they fell very far short of the proper quantity; consequently that mode
of effecting my purpose was abandoned.
I then thought of felling a tree and hollowing it out by charring the
timber. As yet I had discovered nothing on the island but shrubs. I was
quite certain that no tree grew near enough to the sea to be available,
and if I should succeed in cutting down a large one and fashioning it
as I desired, I had no means of transport.
I might possibly make a boat capable of carrying all I wanted to put
into it, but as I could neither move the water up to the boat, nor the
boat down to the water, for all the service I wanted of it, even if the
island contained a tree large enough, I might just as well leave it
untouched.
Still I would not altogether abandon my favourite project. I thought of
the willows that grew on the island, and fancied I could make a
framework by twisting them strongly together, and stretching seal skins
over them. I laboured at this for several weeks,--exercising all my
ingenuity and no slight stock of patience, to create an object with
which I was but imperfectly acquainted.
I did succeed at last in putting together something in a remote degree
resembling the boat that brought part of the whaler's crew to the
island and had taken them away, but it was not a quarter the size, and
was so light that I could carry it without much difficulty to the
landing I had constructed on the cliff. When I came to try its
capabilities, I found it terribly lop-sided--it soon began to leak, and
in fact it exhibited so many faults, that I was forced to drag it again
on shore, and take it to pieces.
I called in Mrs Reichardt to my assistance, and though at first she
seemed averse to the experiment, she gave me a great deal of
information respecting the structure of small boats, and the method of
waterproofing leather and other fabrics. I attended carefully to all
she said, and commenced re-building with more pretensions to art.
I now made a strong frame-work, tolerably sharp at each end, and as
nearly as possible resembling a keel at the bottom. I covered this on
both sides with pieces of strong cloth saturated with grease from the
carcases of birds, and then covered the whole with well-dried seal
skins, which I had made impervious to wet. The inside of the boat
nearest the water I neatly covered with pieces of dry bark, over which
I fixed some boards, which had floated to the island from wrecked
ships. Finally I put in some benches to sit on, and then fancied I had
done everything that was necessary.
I soon got her into the fishing-pool, and was delighted to find that
she floated capitally--but I still had a great deal to do. I had made
neither oars to propel her through the water, nor sail to carry her
through the waves, when rowing was impossible. I remembered the
whaler's spare oars and mizen, but they were too large; nevertheless,
they served me as models to work upon, and in time I made a rough pair
of paddles or oars, which, though rudely fashioned, I hoped would
answer the purpose pretty well.
The next difficulty was how to use the oars, and I made many awkward
attempts before I ascertained the proper method of proceeding. Again my
companion, on whom nothing which had once passed before her eyes had
passed in vain, shewed me how the boat should be managed.
In a short time I could row about the pool with sufficient dexterity to
turn the boat in any direction I required, and I then took Nero as a
passenger, and he seemed to enjoy the new gratification with a
praiseworthy decorum; till, when I was trying to turn the boat round,
the movement caused him to attempt to shift his quarters, which he did
with so little attention to the build of our vessel, that in one moment
she was capsized, and in the next we were swimming about in the pool
with our vessel bottom upwards.
As she was so light, I soon righted her, and found that she had
received no injury, and appeared to be perfectly water-tight.