THE RAINY SEASON—WHAT TO WEAR-A SEAL-HUNT—CANDLE-MAKING—-WORK IN THE
GRANITE HOUSE—THE TWO CAUSEWAYS—RETURN FROM A VISIT TO THE
OYSTER-BED—WHAT HERBERT FOUND IS HIS POCKET.
The winter season began in earnest with the month of June, which
corresponded with December in our northern hemisphere. Showers and
storms succeeded each other without an intermission, and the inmates of
the Granite House could appreciate the advantages of a dwelling
impervious to the weather. The Chimneys would indeed have proved a
miserable shelter against the inclemency of the winter; they feared
even lest the high tides driven by the sea-wind should pour in and
destroy their furnaces and their foundry. All this month of June was
occupied with various labors, which left plenty of time for hunting and
fishing, so that the reserve stock of food was constantly kept up.
Pencroff intended, as soon as he had time, to set traps, from which he
expected great results. He had made snares of ligneous fibre, and not a
day passed but some rodent was captured from the warren. Neb spent all
his time in smoking and salting meat.
The question of clothes now came up for serious discussion. The
colonists had no other garments than those which they wore when the
balloon cast them on shore. These, fortunately, were warm and
substantial; and by dint of extreme care, even their linen had been
kept clean and whole; but everything would soon wear out, and moreover,
during a vigorous winter, they would suffer severely from cold. Here
Smith was fairly baffled. He had been occupied in providing for their
most urgent wants, food and shelter, and the winter was upon them
before the clothes problem could be solved. They must resign themselves
to bear the cold with fortitude, and when the dry season returned would
undertake a great hunt of the moufflons, which they had seen on Mount
Franklin, and whose wool the engineer could surely make into warm thick
cloth. He would think over the method.
“Well, we must toast ourselves before the fire!” said Pencroff.”
There’s plenty of fire wood, no reason for sparing it.”
“Besides,” added Spilett, “Lincoln Island is not in very high latitude,
and the winters are probably mild. Did you not say, Cyrus that the
thirty-fifth parallel corresponded with that of Spain in the other
hemisphere?”
“Yes,” said the engineer, “but the winter in Spain is sometimes very
cold, with snow and ice, and we may have a hard time of it. Still we
are on an island, and have a good chance for more moderate weather.”
“Why, Mr. Smith?” said Herbert.
“Because the sea, my boy, may be considered as an immense reservoir, in
which the summer heat lies stored. At the coming of winter this heat is
again given out, so that the neighboring regions have always a medium
temperature, cooler in summer and warmer in winter.”
“We shall see,” said Pencroff. “I am not going to bother myself about
the weather. One thing is certain, the days are getting short already
and the evenings long. Suppose we talk a little about candles.”
“Nothing is easier,” said Smith.
“To talk about?” asked the sailor.
“To make.”
“And when shall we begin?”
“To-morrow, by a seal-hunt.”
“What! to make dips?”
“No, indeed, Pencroff, candles.”
Such was the engineer’s project, which was feasible enough, as he had
lime and sulphuric acid, and as the amphibia of the island would
furnish the necessary fat. It was now June 4, and Pentecost Sunday,
which they kept as a day of rest and thanksgiving. They were no longer
miserable castaways, they were colonists. On the next day, June 5, they
started for the islet. They had to choose the time of low tide to ford
the channel; and all determined that, somehow or other, they must build
a boat which would give them easy communication with all parts of the
island, and would enable them to go up the Mercy, when they should
undertake that grand exploration of the southwestern district which
they had reserved for the first good weather.
Seals were numerous, and the hunters, armed with their iron-spiked
spears, easily killed half a dozen of them, which Neb and Pencroff
skinned. Only the hides and fat were carried back to Granite House, the
former to be made into shoes. The result of the hunt was about 300
pounds of fat, every pound of which could be used in making candles.
The operation was simple enough, and the product, if not the best of
its kind, was all they needed. Had Smith had at his disposition nothing
but sulphuric acid, he could, by heating this acid with neutral fats,
such as the fat of the seal, separate the glycerine, which again could
be resolved, by means of boiling water, into oleine, margarine, and
stearine. But, to simplify the operation, he preferred to saponify the
fat by lime. He thus obtained a calcareous soap, easily decomposed by
sulphuric acid, which precipitated the lime as a sulphate, and freed
the fatty acids. The first of these three acids (oleine, margarine, and
stearine) was a liquid which he expelled by pressure. The other two
formed the raw material of the candles.
In twenty-four hours the work was done. Wicks were made, after some
unsuccessful attempts, from vegetable fibre, and were steeped in the
liquified compound. They were real stearine candles, made by hand,
white and smooth.
During all this month work was going on inside their new abode. There
was plenty of carpenter’s work to do. They improved and completed their
tools, which were very rudimentary. Scissors were made, among other
things, so that they were able to cut their hair, and, if not actually
to shave their beards, at least to trim them to their liking. Herbert
had no beard, and Neb none to speak of, but the others found ample
employment for the scissors.
They had infinite trouble in making a hand-saw; but at last succeeded
in shaping an instrument which would cut wood by a rigorous
application. Then they made tables, chairs and cupboards to furnish the
principal rooms, and the frames of beds whose only bedding was
mattrasses of wrack-grass. The kitchen, with its shelves, on which lay
the terra-cotta utensils, its brick furnace, and its washing-stone,
looked very comfortable, and Neb cooked with the gravity of a chemist
in his laboratory.
But joiners work had to give place to carpentry. The new weir created
by the explosion rendered necessary the construction of two causeways,
one upon Prospect Plateau, the other on the shore itself. Now the
plateau and the coast were transversely cut by a water-course which the
colonists had to cross when ever they wished to reach the northern part
of the island. To avoid this they had to make a considerable detour,
and to walk westward as far as the sources of Red creek. Their best
plan therefore was to build two causeways, one on the plateau and one
on the shore, twenty to twenty-five feet long, simply constructed of
trees squared by the axe. This was the work of some days. When these
bridges had been built, Neb and Pencroff profited by them to go to the
oyster-bed which had been discovered off the down. They dragged after
them a sort of rough cart which had taken the place of the inconvenient
hurdle; and they brought back several thousand oysters, which, were
readily acclimated among the rocks, and formed a natural preserve at
the mouth of the Mercy. They were excellent of their kind, and formed
an almost daily article of diet. In fact, Lincoln Island, though the
colonists had explored but a small portion of it, already supplied
nearly all their wants, while it seemed likely that a minute
exploration of the western forests would reveal a world of new
treasures.
Only one privation still distressed the colonists. Azotic food they had
in plenty, and the vegetables which corrected it; from the ligneous
roots of the dragon-trees, submitted to fermentation, they obtained a
sort of acidulated beer. They had even made sugar, without sugar-cane
or beet-root, by collecting the juice which distills from the “acer
saccharinum,” a sort of maple which flourishes in all parts of the
temperate zone, and which abounded on the island. They made a very
pleasant tea from the plant brought from the warren; and, finally, they
had plenty of salt, the only mineral component necessary to food—but
bread was still to seek.
Perhaps, at some future time, they would have been able to replace this
aliment by some equivalent, sago flour, or the breadfruit tree, which
they might possibly have discovered in the woods of the southwest; but
so far they had not met with them. Just at this time a little incident
occurred which brought about what Smith, with all his ingenuity, could
not have achieved.
One rainy day the colonists were together in the large hall of Granite
House, when Herbert suddenly cried,
“See, Mr. Smith, a grain of corn.”
And he showed his companions a single gram which had got into the
lining of his waistcoat through a hole in his pocket. Pencroff had
given him some ring-doves in Richmond, and in feeding them one of the
grains had remained in his pocket.
“A grain of corn?” said the engineer, quickly.
“Yes, sir; but only one.”
“That’s a wonderful help,” said Pencroff, laughing. “The bread that
grain will make will never choke us.”
Herbert was about to throw away the grain, when Cyrus Smith took it,
examined it, found that it was in good condition, and said quietly to
the sailor:—
“Pencroff, do you know how many ears of corn will spring from one
grain?”
“One, I suppose,” said the sailor, surprised at the question.
“Ten, Pencroff. And how many grains are there to an ear?”
“Faith, I don’t know.”
“Eighty on an average,” said Smith. “So then, if we plant this grain,
we shall get from it a harvest of 800 grains; from them in the second
year 640,000; in the third, 512,000,000; in the fourth, more than
400,000,000,000. That is the proportion.”
His companions listened in silence. The figures stupefied them.
“Yes, my friend,” resumed the engineer. “Such is the increase of
Nature. And what is even this multiplication of a grain of corn whose
ears have only 800 grains, compared with the poppy plant, which has
32,000 seeds, or the tobacco plant, which has 360,000? In a few years,
but for the numerous enemies which destroy them, these plants would
cover the earth. And now, Pencroff,” he resumed, “do you know how many
bushels there are in 400,000,000,000 grains?”
“No,” answered the sailor, “I only know that I am an idiot!”
“Well, there will be more than 3,000,000, at 130,000 the bushel!”
“Three millions!” cried Pencroff.
“Three millions.”
“In four years?”
“Yes,” said Smith, “and even in two, if, as I hope, we can get two
harvests a year in this latitude.”
Pencroff answered with a tremendous hurrah.
“So, Herbert,” added the engineer, “your discovery is of immense
importance. Remember, my friends, that everything may be of use to us
in our present situation.”
“Indeed, Mr. Smith, I will remember it,” said Pencroff, “and if ever I
find one of those grains of tobacco which increase 360,000 times, I’ll
take care not to throw it away. And now what must we do?”
“We must plant this grain,” said Herbert.
“Yes,” added Spilett, “and with the greatest care, for upon it depend
our future harvests!”
“Provided that it grows,” said the sailor.
“It will grow,” answered Smith.
It was now the 20th of June, a good time for planting the precious
grain. They thought at first of planting it in a pot; but upon
consideration, they determined to trust it frankly to the soil. The
same day it was planted, with the greatest precaution. The weather
clearing a little, they walked up to the plateau above Granite House,
and chose there a spot well sheltered from the wind, and exposed to the
midday fervor of the sun. This spot was cleared, weeded, and even dug,
so as to destroy insects and worms; it was covered with a layer of
fresh earth, enriched with a little lime; a palissade was built around
it, and then the grain was covered up in its moist bed.
They seemed to be laying the corner-stone of an edifice. Pencroff was
reminded of the extreme care with which they had lighted their only
match; but this was a more serious matter. The castaways could always
have succeeded in obtaining fire by some means or other; but no earthly
power could restore that grain of corn, if, by ill fortune, it should
perish!