South, straight south. South as the bird flies. And with a fair and
spanking breeze too. As for birds--once past the rocky and volcanic
island of Diego Alvarez, few indeed bore them company. I believe
anybody might have this rocky place who had a mind to. They found it to
be the home of myriads--clouds, in fact--of gulls of every sort,
including the well-known Cape pigeon, the puffin, the penguin, and
albatross, to say nothing of the cormorant, and that strange, strange
creature on its wondrous wings, that lives in the sky most of its time,
and even goes to sleep as it soars high above the clouds--the
frigate-bird.
They went near enough to the island to witness one of the strangest
sights in nature--the bird-laden rocks. There was little chance of
landing on the island itself, owing to the terrible surf that beats for
ever and aye around the cliffs; but Ibsen, who turned out to be a real
handy fellow, had been here before, and pointed out to the captain some
rocks in the lee of which a boat could land, and--this being spring in
these regions--soon find enough eggs to keep the crew in food for a
month. His knowledge was taken advantage of, and a boat under his
guidance called away.
In it went Duncan and Frank.
What a scene! It beats imagination. Tier after tier on the rocky
cliffs sat those birds watching their nests and eggs.
They found a little cove in the tiny islet, and at the head of this the
boat was beached on the dark sand. The ground was everywhere so crowded
with nests that it was with difficulty they could walk amongst them
without doing damage.
How beautiful they were too! Of every shade of blue and green, with the
strangest of jet-black markings, were most of them.
But the king penguins did not cohabit with any of the gull families.
They thought themselves far too aristocratic for this, and here, as on
other lonely isles of the great southern ocean, they dwelt in a colony
all by themselves, which must have numbered about one thousand all told.
This colony had footpaths leading down to the shallowest parts of the
shore, whence these droll birds could easily take to the water.
They are really droll, whether walking, standing, running, or swimming.
They stand quite erect on their sturdy legs, so that a line dropped from
their beaks would almost fall between their broad webbed feet. Wings
they have none, a pair of broad flappers doing duty for these, which
seems to aid considerably their progress in running. But these flappers
are really paddles or oars in the water, and I know of few birds that
can swim so fast or turn so quickly in the sea.
On the arrival of the boat's crew there was a general panic among this
community. As regards the male birds, tall as they were, they did not
show a very great amount of courage.
_Sauve qui peut_ was their motto, and let the females take care of
themselves. Like the pigs in New Testament times, when the cast-out
devils got leave to go into them, they ran headlong down a steep place
into the sea. Their motions as they waddled and scurried along,
oftentimes tumbling over a stone or a tussock heap, were grotesque in
the extreme, and everyone roared with laughter.
With the exception of little Johnnie Shingles. I'm sure I cannot tell
you how he came to be called Johnnie Shingles, for pet names grow on
board ship just as they do on shore. Johnnie was picked up somewhere
abroad, and was looked upon as part and parcel of the good barque _Flora
M'Vayne_. He was a nigger of purest, blackest breed, probably four feet
four inches high, and in age something between nine and nineteen. Nobody
knew and nobody cared. Johnnie Shingles was just Johnnie Shingles, no
more and no less. Well, he couldn't have been much less. He was very
funny, however, and consequently a favourite with everybody on board,
from Mate Morgan to the monkey. His duty on board was really to be at
the beck and call of all hands, and to clean and feed the pets,
including Viking, the red-tailed gray parrot, and Jim the ape.
Well, you see, Johnnie was never allowed to land from the boat like any
of the crew, but as soon as he came within reasonable distance of the
shore he was simply thrown overboard, and left to struggle in through
the surf as best he could.
But Johnnie didn't mind the surf much, and he didn't mind the sharks.
Nor do I think the sharks minded Johnnie. In fact, my knowledge of
sharks generally causes me to come to the conclusion, that they are
somewhat particular in their tastes, and much prefer a white man to a
black.
Well, at this islet, Johnnie Shingles was as usual pitched ceremoniously
into the water, when about seventy yards from the landing-place. But as
ill-luck would have it he met the whole shoal of male penguins putting
out to sea. These birds are extremely bold and audacious in the water.
"Hillo!" one of the foremost shouted or seemed to shout, "here goes
another o' them. Let us all pitch into him!"
And suiting the action to the word they seized poor Johnnie by the seat
of his white ducks and dived with him under the water. Johnnie got up,
but only to be seized by another, while half a dozen at least dabbed and
pecked at him, till, had he been a white boy, he would have been black
and blue.
I believe that if, in answer to his shrieks the boat had not put back,
and laid those penguins dead with their oars right and left, poor
Johnnie Shingles would have lost the number of his mess. Even after the
angry king penguins had been routed nothing could for a time be seen of
the little nigger boy. But presently up popped a penguin, and close
behind it up popped Johnnie.
He came up smiling, as prize-fighters say, but he had got that penguin
by the hind-leg all the same, and kick as it would Johnnie held fast
till he and it were landed all alive in the boat.
Now, I do not know whether that king penguin had a wife and a family of
eggs or not, but if he had he very soon forgot them and settled down to
ship life as if he had been to the manner born. In fact, he became a
general favourite on board owing to his grave and peculiar gait.
Old Pen, as he was called, became specially attached to Johnnie
Shingles, and stuck to him as Johnnie had clung to him before they were
hauled into the boat.
As to the penguin's eggs: they lay but two, a big and a bigger. They
are good to eat--scrambled. But I am unable to say whether the king
bird or cock comes out of the big shell, and the hen out of the smaller,
or _vice versa_.
This particular king had very intelligent eyes, with which he would
stare at one fixedly for a minute at a time with his head on one side.
Indeed, he was always, to all appearance, seeking for information
everywhere, and there was not much on deck that he did not examine.
The coiled ropes were a source of great amusement to him, and after
unravelling one end he would seize it, and walk straight off with it as
men do with a hawser. When the men were washing down decks, before the
weather got very cold he was never tired examining their naked toes. He
used to straddle quietly up and separate them with his beak as a
starling would.
If the men jumped and cried "Oh-h!" Old Pen held back his head and
chuckled quietly to himself.
"I only wanted to know if you were web-footed," he appeared to say.
Well, if old Pen was grotesque and amusing when dressed only in his own
feathers, he was infinitely more droll when the men dressed him up as a
funny old girl with a black bonnet, a short dark skirt, a shawl, a pair
of frilled white trousers, and a gingham umbrella.
Old Pen didn't care. If everyone else laughed he only nodded his head
and seemed all the prouder.
I don't know whether Johnnie or he was the taller, only the grinning wee
nigger used to give the singular old lady an arm, and together they used
to walk up and down the deck in the most comical way imaginable.
But this was not all, for Johnnie taught her to waltz.
On board the _Flora_ was a man who could play the clarionet, while
another could bring very sweet music indeed from the guitar. This
really was all the band, with, of course, Frank's fiddle. But very far
indeed was it from bad, and dressed in their Sunday's best, the sailors
used to be invited aft, and during that long, long voyage to the
southern fields and floes of ice, many an evening concert beguiled the
time.
But if the sailor musicians went aft, Frank often went forward, and it
was on these occasions that old Mrs. Pen, as she was often called, was
trotted out by the curly-polled nigger-boy. It is a misappropriation of
a term to say "trotted out", for certainly there was very little trot
about the quaint old dame. But waltzing just suited her flat feet.
Yes, and there is no doubt that she liked it too. She might be down
below half-asleep before the galley fire, when the fiddle and guitar
began getting into tune with the clarionet; but she now pricked up her
ears at once and presently prepared to negotiate the broad companion
steps or stairs that led to the upper deck. This was always a very
serious matter for the great king penguin. Sometimes he tried to stride
from one step to another, a foot at a time. But this plan was
invariably a failure, so he found it more convenient on the whole to
hop, and his lower limbs were wondrously strong.
Arrived on deck, Johnnie Shingles was there to meet him, and dress him
as Susie. Then the _he_ became a _she_.
But the men would be at it by this time, dancing the daftest and wildest
of hornpipes. No chance of their catching cold when so engaged, nor
after, for as soon as they had finished a spell that
"Put life and mettle in their heels",
they threw on their heavy jumpers and walked around defiant, enjoying
the daft capers of their shipmates.
Then Susie and Shingles would appear on the scene arm in arm, the boy
with his round face, his laughing eyes, and his two rows of alabaster
teeth, looking a picture of radiant fun and good humour.
"Now, Massa Frank," he might cry, "gib me and my ole mudder a nice
d'eamy valtz."
"A dreamy waltz, eh? Well, you must have it."
"I must foh shuah, sah. My mudder hab got a soft co'n, and rheumatiz,
and all sorts ob tings."
There was no laughing about Susie. She took everything in grim earnest,
but, with her chin resting on black Johnnie's shoulder, she evidently
enjoyed both the movement and the melody, sometimes even closing her
eyes.
Her partner, like herself, was barefooted even in the coldest of
weather; but when once he tramped on Susie's toes, the old lady rewarded
him with a dig on the cheek that made Johnnie howl, and taught him
caution for all time to come.
Well, what with laughing and dancing, an evening thus spent sped away
very quickly, and was worth a whole bushel of doctor's stuff. There was
no surgeon on board, I may mention parenthetically. The law does not
require such an officer to be carried when the crew, all told, is under
forty men.
It is really somewhat marvellous that a bird like this big king penguin,
should have taken so soon and so kindly to the company and customs of
human beings; but then the poor bird was exceedingly well-treated, and
whenever fish was served out, Pen was always in the front rank. Ah,
well, it is only one more proof of the truth that _amor vincit
omnia_--love conquers all things.
Pen was not always dressed as Mother Gamp. No, for he had a really good
outfit, to which the neater-fisted seamen were always adding. So
sometimes he would appear on the quarter-deck as a man-o'-war sailor, at
others as a smart and elegantly-attired artilleryman, with his cap stuck
provokingly on one side, and a little cane under his left arm.
He was at times dressed as Paul Pry. And on these occasions, as he
stretched his head and neck curiously out in front of him, he really
seemed to say: "I hope I don't intrude".
Pen was a grand actor. Mr. Toole himself would have been nowhere in it
with Pen.
Viking at first must have thought the bird something "no canny". He
would start up with a wild "wowff" if Pen came anywhere near him, and
quietly retire.
The monkey or ape, on the other hand, tried to get up a friendship with
Pen. He would approach him with a peace-offering, crying "Ha! hah!
hah!" which, being interpreted, signifieth, "Take that, old Pen, and eat
it. It will taste in your mouth like butter and honey." As the
peace-offering invariably consisted of a gigantic cockroach about three
inches long, I think it may be doubted whether it tasted as well as the
monkey would have had Pen believe. However, the presentation was kindly
meant.
This huge monkey's mouth was always crammed with cockroaches. One side
at all events, and that one side stuck out as if he were suffering from
a huge gum-boil.
The men were somewhat sorry, I think, that they could not teach old Pen
to chew 'baccy, but old Pen drew the line at this. I must, out of
respect for the truth, state, however, that the bird could not be called
a total abstainer, for he dearly loved a piece of "plum-duff" steeped in
rum, and on this questionable delicacy I think he used at times to get
about half seas over. Then he would commence wagging his head and neck
very much from side to side, and indulge in a little song to himself.
Old Pen was not much of a singer, however, and never could have composed
an opera. In fact his song was partly grunt, partly squeak, and partly
squawk. But it pleased Pen, and that was enough.
After singing for a short time he would pinch a favourite seaman's leg.
"Kack!" he would say, opening his mouth. This meant "Chuck us another
sop, matie".
After receiving it he would be off, and take his usual stand near the
galley fire, and begin to wink and wink, and nod and nod, till finally
the lower eyelids would ascend over the beautiful irises, and Pen be
wafted away into dreamland. He wasn't aboard ship any longer. He was
back once more on his own little rocky sea-girt isle, with the gulls and
the cormorants screaming high in the air around. Near him stood Mrs.
Pen, his wife, and near her, and in front, his two youngsters--fluffy,
downy, droll brats, gaping their red mouths to be fed.
On the whole, I think Pen was a curious bird, and eminently suited for a
sailor's pet.