A specimen of nautical oratory—Criticisms of the sailors—The starboard
watch are given a holiday—The escape to the mountains.
Early the next morning the starboard watch were mustered upon the
quarter-deck, and our worthy captain, standing in the cabin gangway,
harangued us as follows:—
“Now, men, as we are just off a six month’s cruise, and have got
through most all our work in port here, I suppose you want to go
ashore. Well, I mean to give your watch liberty to-day, so you may get
ready as soon as you please, and go; but understand this, I am going to
give you liberty because I suppose you would growl like so many old
quarter gunners if I didn’t; at the same time, if you’ll take my
advice, every mother’s son of you will stay aboard, and keep out of the
way of the bloody cannibals altogether. Ten to one, men, if you go
ashore, you will get into some infernal row, and that will be the end
of you; for if these tattooed scoundrels get you a little ways back
into their valleys, they’ll nab you—that you may be certain of. Plenty
of white men have gone ashore here and never been seen any more. There
was the old _Dido_, she put in here about two years ago, and sent one
watch off on liberty; they never were heard of again for a week—the
natives swore they didn’t know where they were—and only three of them
ever got back to the ship again, and one with his face damaged for
life, for the cursed heathens tattooed a broad patch clean across his
figure head. But it will be no use talking to you, for go you will,
that I see plainly; so all I have to say is, that you need not blame me
if the islanders make a meal of you. You may stand some chance of
escaping them though, if you keep close about the French encampment,
and are back to the ship again before sunset. Keep that much in your
mind, if you forget all the rest I’ve been saying to you. There, go
forward: bear a hand and rig yourselves, and stand by for a call. At
two bells the boat will be manned to take you off, and the Lord have
mercy on you!”
Various were the emotions depicted upon the countenances of the
starboard watch whilst listening to this address; but on its conclusion
there was a general move towards the forecastle, and we soon were all
busily engaged in getting ready for the holiday so auspiciously
announced by the skipper. During these preparations, his harangue was
commented upon in no very measured terms; and one of the party, after
denouncing him as a lying old son of a sea-cook who begrudged a fellow
a few hours’ liberty, exclaimed with an oath, “But you don’t bounce me
out of my liberty, old chap, for all your yarns; for I would go ashore
if every pebble on the beach was a live coal, and every stick a
gridiron, and the cannibals stood ready to broil me on landing.”
The spirit of this sentiment was responded to by all hands, and we
resolved that in spite of the captain’s croakings we would make a
glorious day of it.
But Toby and I had our own game to play, and we availed ourselves of
the confusion which always reigns among a ship’s company preparatory to
going ashore, to confer together and complete our arrangements. As our
object was to effect as rapid a flight as possible to the mountains, we
determined not to encumber ourselves with any superfluous apparel; and
accordingly, while the rest were rigging themselves out with some idea
of making a display, we were content to put on new stout duck trousers,
serviceable pumps, and heavy Havre frocks, which, with a Payta hat,
completed our equipment.
When our shipmates wondered at this, Toby exclaimed, in his odd grave
way, that the rest might do as they liked, but that he for one
preserved his go-ashore traps for the Spanish main, where the tie of a
sailor’s neckerchief might make some difference; but as for a parcel of
unbreeched heathen, he wouldn’t go to the bottom of his chest for any
of them, and was half disposed to appear among them in buff himself.
The men laughed at what they thought was one of his strange conceits,
and so we escaped suspicion.
It may appear singular that we should have been thus on our guard with
our own shipmates; but there were some among us who, had they possessed
the least inkling of our project, would, for a paltry hope of reward,
have immediately communicated it to the captain.
As soon as two bells struck, the word was passed for the liberty-men to
get into the boat. I lingered behind in the forecastle a moment, to
take a parting glance at its familiar features, and just as I was about
to ascend to the deck, my eye happened to light on the bread-barge and
beef-kid, which contained the remnants of our last hasty meal. Although
I had never before thought of providing anything in the way of food for
our expedition, as I fully relied upon the fruits of the island to
sustain us wherever we might wander, yet I could not resist the
inclination I felt to provide a luncheon from the relics before me.
Accordingly I took a double handful of those small, broken, flinty bits
of biscuit which generally go by the name of “midshipmen’s nuts,” and
thrust them into the bosom of my frock; in which same ample receptacle
I had previously stowed away several pounds of tobacco and a few yards
of cotton cloth,—articles with which I intended to purchase the
good-will of the natives, as soon as we should appear among them after
the departure of our vessel.
This last addition to my stock caused a considerable protuberance in
front, which I abated in a measure by shaking the bits of bread around
my waist, and distributing the plugs of tobacco among the folds of the
garment.
Hardly had I completed these arrangements when my name was sung out by
a dozen voices, and I sprung upon the deck, where I found all the party
in the boat, and impatient to shove off. I dropped over the side, and
seated myself, with the rest of the watch, in the stern sheets, while
the poor larboarders shipped their oars, and commenced pulling us
ashore.
This happened to be the rainy season at the islands, and the heavens
had nearly the whole morning betokened one of those heavy showers
which, during this period, so frequently occur. The large drops fell
bubbling into the water shortly after our leaving the ship, and by the
time we had effected a landing, it poured down in torrents. We fled for
shelter under cover of an immense canoe-house, which stood hard by the
beach, and waited for the first fury of the storm to pass.
It continued, however, without cessation; and the monotonous beating of
the rain overhead began to exert a drowsy influence upon the men, who,
throwing themselves here and there upon the large war-canoes, after
chatting awhile, all fell asleep.
This was the opportunity we desired, and Toby and I availed ourselves
of it at once, by stealing out of the canoe-house, and plunging into
the depths of an extensive grove that was in its rear. After ten
minutes’ rapid progress, we gained an open space, from which we could
just descry the ridge we intended to mount looming dimly through the
mists of the tropical shower, and distant from us, as we estimated,
something more than a mile. Our direct course towards it lay through a
rather populous part of the bay; but desirous as we were of evading the
natives and securing an unmolested retreat to the mountains, we
determined, by taking a circuit through some extensive thickets, to
avoid their vicinity altogether.
The heavy rain that still continued to fall without intermission,
favoured our enterprise, as it drove the islanders into their houses,
and prevented any casual meeting with them. Our heavy frocks soon
became completely saturated with water, and by their weight, and that
of the articles we had concealed beneath them, not a little impeded our
progress. But it was no time to pause, when at any moment we might be
surprised by a body of the savages, and forced at the very outset to
relinquish our undertaking.
Since leaving the canoe-house we had scarcely exchanged a single
syllable with one another, but when we entered a second narrow opening
in the wood, and again caught sight of the ridge before us, I took Toby
by the arm, and pointing along its sloping outline to the lofty heights
at its extremity, said, in a low tone, “Now, Toby, not a word, nor a
glance backward, till we stand on the summit of yonder mountain; so no
more lingering, but let us shove ahead while we can, and in a few
hours’ time we may laugh aloud. You are the lightest and the nimblest,
so lead on, and I will follow.”
“All right, brother,” said Toby, “quick’s our play, only let’s keep
close together, that’s all”; and so saying, with a bound like a young
roe, he cleared a brook which ran across our path, and rushed forward
with a quick step.
When we arrived within a short distance of the ridge, we were stopped
by a mass of tall yellow reeds, growing together as thickly as they
could stand, and as tough and stubborn as so many rods of steel; and we
perceived, to our chagrin, that they extended midway up the elevation
we proposed to ascend.
For a moment we gazed about us in quest of a more practicable route; it
was, however, at once apparent that there was no resource but to pierce
this thicket of canes at all hazards. We now reversed our order of
march, I, being the heaviest, taking the lead, with a view of breaking
a path through the obstruction, while Toby fell into the rear.
Two or three times I endeavoured to insinuate myself between the canes,
and, by dint of coaxing and bending them, to make some progress; but a
bull-frog might as well have tried to work a passage through the teeth
of a comb, and I gave up the attempt in despair.
Half wild with meeting an obstacle we had so little anticipated, I
threw myself desperately against it, crushing to the ground the canes
with which I came in contact, and rising to my feet again, repeated the
action with like effect. Twenty minutes of this violent exercise almost
exhausted me, but it carried us some way into the thicket; when Toby,
who had been reaping the benefit of my labours by following close at my
heels, proposed to become pioneer in turn, and accordingly passed ahead
with a view of affording me a respite from my exertions. As, however,
with his slight frame he made but bad work of it, I was soon obliged to
resume my old place again.
On we toiled, the perspiration starting from our bodies in floods, our
limbs torn and lacerated with the splintered fragments of the broken
canes, until we had proceeded perhaps as far as the middle of the
brake, when suddenly it ceased raining, and the atmosphere around us
became close and sultry beyond expression. The elasticity of the reeds
quickly recovering from the temporary pressure of our bodies, caused
them to spring back to their original position, so that they closed in
upon us as we advanced, and prevented the circulation of the little air
which might otherwise have reached us. Besides this, their great height
completely shut us out from the view of surrounding objects, and we
were not certain but that we might have been going all the time in a
wrong direction.
Fatigued with my long-continued efforts, and panting for breath, I felt
myself completely incapacitated for any further exertion. I rolled up
the sleeve of my frock, and squeezed the moisture it contained into my
parched mouth. But the few drops I managed to obtain gave me little
relief, and I sank down for a moment with a sort of dogged apathy, from
which I was aroused by Toby, who had devised a plan to free us from the
net in which we had become entangled.
He was laying about him lustily with his sheath-knife, lopping the
canes right and left, like a reaper, and soon made quite a clearing
around us. This sight reanimated me; and seizing my own knife, I hacked
and hewed away without mercy. But, alas! the farther we advanced the
thicker and taller, and apparently the more interminable, the reeds
became.
I began to think we were fairly snared, and had almost made up my mind
that without a pair of wings we should never be able to escape from the
toils, when all at once I discerned a peep of daylight through the
canes on my right, and, communicating the joyful tidings to Toby, we
both fell to with fresh spirit, and speedily opening a passage towards
it, we found ourselves clear of perplexities, and in the near vicinity
of the ridge.
After resting for a few moments we began the ascent, and after a little
vigorous climbing found ourselves close to its summit. Instead,
however, of walking along its ridge, where we should have been in full
view of the natives in the vales beneath, and at a point where they
could easily intercept us, were they so inclined, we cautiously
advanced on one side, crawling on our hands and knees, and screened
from observation by the grass through which we glided, much in the
fashion of a couple of serpents. After an hour employed in this
unpleasant kind of locomotion, we started to our feet again, and
pursued our way boldly along the crest of the ridge.
This salient spur of the lofty elevations that encompassed the bay,
rose with sharp angle from the valleys at its base, and presented, with
the exception of a few steep acclivities, the appearance of a vast
inclined plane, sweeping down towards the sea from the heights in the
distance. We had ascended it near the place of its termination, and at
its lowest point, and now saw our route to the mountains distinctly
defined along its narrow crest, which was covered with a soft carpet of
verdure, and was in many parts only a few feet wide.
Elated with the success which had so far attended our enterprise, and
invigorated by the refreshing atmosphere we now inhaled, Toby and I, in
high spirits, were making our way rapidly along the ridge when suddenly
from the valleys below, which lay on either side of us, we heard the
distant shouts of the natives, who had just descried us, and to whom
our figures, brought in bold relief against the sky, were plainly
revealed.
Glancing our eyes into these valleys, we perceived their savage
inhabitants hurrying to and fro, seemingly under the influence of some
sudden alarm, and appearing to the eye scarcely bigger than so many
pigmies, while their white thatched dwellings, dwarfed by the distance,
looked like baby-houses. As we looked down upon the islanders from our
lofty elevation, we experienced a sense of security; feeling confident
that, should they undertake a pursuit, it would, from the start we now
had, proved entirely fruitless, unless they followed us into the
mountains, where we knew they cared not to venture.
However, we thought it was well to make the most of our time; and
accordingly, where the ground would admit of it, we ran swiftly along
the summit of the ridge, until we were brought to a stand by a steep
cliff, which at first seemed to interpose an effectual barrier to our
farther advance. By dint of much hard scrambling, however, and at some
risk to our necks, we at last surmounted it, and continued our flight
with unabated celerity.
We had left the beach early in the morning, and after an uninterrupted,
though at times difficult and dangerous ascent, during which we had
never once turned our faces to the sea, we found ourselves, about three
hours before sunset, standing on the top of what seemed to be the
highest land on the island, an immense overhanging cliff composed of
basaltic rocks, hung round with parasitical plants. We must have been
more than three thousand feet above the level of the sea, and the
scenery viewed from this height was magnificent.
The lonely bay of Nukuheva, dotted here and there with the black hulls
of the vessels composing the French squadron, lay reposing at the base
of a circular range of elevations, whose verdant sides, perforated with
deep glens, or diversified with smiling valleys, formed altogether the
loveliest view I ever beheld, and were I to live a hundred years, I
shall never forget the feeling of admiration which I then experienced.