THE ISLAND OF BOHOOLA.
But there is an end to all things, and at last the long wished for
breeze sprang up. The sails filled once more, the ship sped on and hope
revived.
A welcome sound at noon the next day brought everyone on deck.
"Land, ho!" called the forward watch.
"Where away!" shouted the mate who was on duty.
"Off the starboard bow!"
The captain had just finished his task of determining their location,
and had recognized the fact that the island they sought might be near at
hand.
The hours went by more swiftly now, all watching interestedly the new
field of their endeavor, the Treasure Isle. Would they find fortune and
a successful ending to their venture? Oddly enough the thought uppermost
in the minds of all was the possible abundant supply, not of treasure,
but of fresh water and something good to eat.
The land which they were rapidly approaching appeared to be of
considerable extent. Headlands, it was seen, rose somewhat abruptly from
the sea. At their base they could see a line of white caused by the
incessant action of the waves as they broke upon the shore.
"It doesn't seem as if there was any place to make a landing," said the
professor, looking at the long line of breakers and the spray that was
flung in the air.
"Can't tell until you are close in," replied the captain. "We'll run
along the shore a ways."
Continuing thus till within half a mile of the coast, the yacht was
brought about, and with sails close hauled, followed its contour for
quite some time without success.
"Looks like a bit of smooth water over there," said the captain,
indicating a place in the near distance. "Bring her up to the wind," he
ordered. "We will take a look into it."
The yacht had now been brought about and with sheets eased off she was
drifting slowly on the tide.
"Who will compose the first landing party?" asked the captain.
"Jim, Juarez and myself," answered the professor. "The steward and one
of the crew to row."
The boat was launched and equipped. One empty water cask and a bucket
was carried along. Was the island inhabited? From the ship's deck no
sign of life was discernible to the naked eye or indeed by careful
search with the spy glass. The party went, however, fully armed and
prepared for any emergency.
There was, they found, a recession in the shore several hundred feet in
width through which the waves extended their course, later to break in
foam on submerged rocks a hundred yards beyond.
The boat shot rapidly forward, and readily passed through the opening
between the cliffs. On each side, the rocks, jagged and rough, rose
threateningly, but a further recess to the right afforded shelter, and
the water became comparatively smooth. Passing through the channel and
rounding the obstructing rocks they found another passage of similar
extent which led further inland and brought them into a little crescent
shaped bay of something like a half mile in length by a quarter of a
mile in width. At several points were observed small strips of sandy
beach, and strange wading birds of the stork species were seen, but not
a suggestion or sign of a habitation.
"Crescent Bay!" cried Jim, noting the shape. "Isn't it fine here!"
"It's fine!" exclaimed the professor. "Who would think of such a place
as this hidden away in the fastness of these hills. It's like some of
the secret haunts of the buccaneers."
"It would be a nice bit of seamanship to bring a craft through that
channel, though," said Juarez.
"But I believe it could be done," said Jim.
The scenery grew wilder and more beautiful with every stroke of the
oars. From caverns of leafy shade came the gleam and flicker of many
colored plumage.
Few readers but are familiar with the glowing color in which voyagers
have painted the beautiful islands of the South Pacific. Nature has
lavished upon them her rarest gifts; deep shadowy groves, valleys
musical with murmuring streams, lofty mountains rising into the sapphire
heaven out of a girdle of eternal foliage; wonderous visions of color
in shrub and flower, the golden-yellow of the low-growing chinquapins,
and the blood red osiers; a bright fresh air, redolent of fragrance, and
a sea dimpling in cloudless sunshine.
But this fairy region, where Shakespeare might have fitly placed his
Oberon and Titania, was inhabited by a race unworthy of its charms; a
race enervated and corrupted, and abandoned to all those vices which
usually accompany or originate in a degrading and sanguinary idolatry.
The Tahitians were not cannibals, but they sacrificed human victims in
frightful numbers on the shrines of their hideous divinities.
Intoxication and theft were their predominant vices; continual wars
decimated the population so that in some cases great islands were left
absolutely without an inhabitant; infanticide was a universally
prevalent custom, and that fully two-thirds of the young were cruelly
murdered is a fact vouched for by the missionary Williams, one of the
most intelligent, persevering, and successful of the pioneers of the
true religion in Polynesia. This beautiful Tahitian group of islands
was, therefore, a sink of vice and crime.