A pair of penguin "squabs" makes an ample dinner for the entire party,
nor is it without the accompaniment of vegetables; these being supplied
by the tussac-grass, the stalks of which contain a white edible
substance, in taste somewhat resembling a hazel-nut, while the young
shoots boiled are almost equal to asparagus. [Note 1.]
While seated at their midday meal, they have before their eyes a moving
world of nature, such as may be found only in her wildest solitudes.
All around the kelp-bed, porpoises are ploughing the water, now and then
bounding up out of it; while seals and sea-otters show their human-like
heads, swimming among the weeds. Birds hover above in such numbers as
to darken the air, some at intervals darting down and going under with a
plunge that sends the spray aloft in showers white as a snow-drift.
Others do their fishing seated on the water; for there are many
different kinds of water-fowl here represented--gulls, shags,
cormorants, gannets, noddies, and petrels, with several species of
_Anativae_, among them the beautiful black-necked swan. Nor are they
all seabirds, or exclusively inhabitants of the water. Among those
wheeling in the air above is an eagle and a small black vulture, with
several sorts of hawks--the last, the Chilian _jota_ [Note 2]. Even the
gigantic condor often extends its flight to the Land of Fire, whose
mountains are but a continuation of the great Andean chain.
The ways and movements of this teeming ornithological world are so
strange and varied that our castaways, despite all anxiety about their
own future, cannot help being interested in observing them. They see a
bird of one kind diving and bringing to the surface a fish, which
another, of a different species, snatches from it and bears aloft, in
its turn to be attacked by a third equally rapacious winged hunter,
that, swooping at the robber, makes him forsake his ill-gotten prey,
while the prey itself, reluctantly dropped, is dexterously re-caught in
its whirling descent long ere it reaches its own element--the whole
incident forming a very chain of tyranny and destruction! And yet a
chain of but few links compared with that to be found in and under the
water, among the leaves and stalks of the kelp itself. There the
destroyers and the destroyed are legion, not only in numbers, but in
kind. A vast world in itself, so densely populated and of so many
varied organisms that, for a due delineation of it, I must again borrow
from the inimitable pen of Darwin. Thus he describes it:--
"The number of living creatures of all orders, whose existence entirely
depends on the kelp, is wonderful. A great volume might be written
describing the inhabitants of one of these beds of seaweed. Almost all
the leaves, excepting those that float on the surface, are so thickly
encrusted with corallines as to be of a white colour. We find
exquisitely delicate structures, some inhabited by simple hydra-like
polyps, others by more organised kinds. On the leaves, also, various
shells, uncovered molluscs, and bivalves are attached. Innumerable
Crustacea frequent every part of the plant. On shaking the great
entangled roots, a pile of small fish-shells, cuttle-fish, crabs of all
orders, sea-eggs, star-fish, sea-cucumbers, and crawling sea-centipedes
of a multitude of forms, all fall out together. Often as I recurred to
the kelp, I never failed to discover animals of new and curious
structures... I can only compare these great aquatic forests of the
Southern Hemisphere with the terrestrial ones of the inter-tropical
regions. Yet, if in any country a forest were destroyed, I do not
believe so many species of animals would perish as would here from the
destruction of the kelp. Amidst the leaves of this plant numerous
species of fish live, which nowhere else could find food or shelter;
with their destruction, the many cormorants and other fishing-birds, the
otters, seals, and porpoises, would perish also; and lastly, the Fuegian
savage, the miserable lord of this miserable land, would redouble his
cannibal feats, decrease in numbers, and perhaps cease to exist."
While still watching the birds at their game of grab, the spectators
observe that the kelp-bed has become darker in certain places, as though
from the weeds being piled up in swathes.
"It's lowering to ebb-tide," remarks Captain Gancy, in reply to an
interrogation from his wife, "and the rocks are awash. They'll soon be
above water, I take it."
"Jest so, Captain," assents Seagriff; "but tain't the weeds that's
makin' those black spots. They're movin' about--don't you see?"
The skipper now observes, as do all the others, a number of odd-looking
animals, large-headed, and with long slender bodies, to all appearance
covered with a coat of dark brown wool, crawling and floundering about
among the kelp, in constantly increasing numbers. Each new ledge of
reef, as it rises to the surface, becomes crowded with them, while
hundreds of others disport themselves in the pools between.
"Fur-seals they are," [Note 3] pronounces Seagriff, his eyes fixed upon
them as eagerly as were those of Tantalus on the forbidden water, "an'
every skin of 'em worth a mint o' money. Bad luck!" he continues, in a
tone of spiteful vexation. "A mine o' wealth, an' no chance to work it!
Ef we only had the ship by us now, we could put a good thousan'
dollars' worth o' thar pelts into it. Jest see how they swarm out
yonder! An' tame as pet tabby cats! There's enough of 'em to supply
seal-skin jackets fur nigh all the women o' New York!"
No one makes rejoinder to the old sealer's regretful rhapsody. The
situation is too grave for them to be thinking of gain by the capture of
fur-seals, even though it should prove "a mine of wealth," as Seagriff
called it. Of what value is wealth to them while their very lives are
in jeopardy? They were rejoiced when they first set foot on land; but
time is passing; they have in part recovered from their fatigue, and the
dark, doubtful future is once more uppermost in their minds. They
cannot stay for ever on the isle--indeed, they may not be able to remain
many days on it, owing to the exhaustion of their limited stock of
provisions, if for no other reason. Even could they subsist on
penguins' flesh and tussac-stalks, the young birds, already well
feathered, will ere long disappear, while the tender shoots of the
grass, growing tougher as it ripens, will in time become altogether
uneatable.
No; they cannot abide there, and must go elsewhere. But whither? That
is the all-absorbing question. Ever since they landed the sky has been
overcast, and the distant mainland is barely visible through a misty
vapour spread over the sea between. All the better for that, Seagriff
has been thinking hitherto, with the Fuegians in his mind.
"It'll hinder 'em seein' the smoke of our fire," he said; "the which
mout draw 'em on us."
But he has now less fear of this, seeing that which tells him that the
isle is never visited by the savages.
"They hain't been on it fur years, anyhow," he says, reassuring the
Captain, who has again taken him aside to talk over the ticklish matter.
"I'm sartin they hain't."
"What makes you certain?" questions the other.
"Them 'ere--both of 'em," nodding first toward the fur-seals and then
toward the penguins. "If the Feweegins dar' fetch thar craft so fur out
seaward, neither o' them ud be so plentiful nor yit so tame. Both sort
o' critters air jest what they sets most store by--yieldin' 'em not only
thar vittels, but sech scant kiver as they're 'customed to w'ar. No,
Capting, the savagers hain't been out hyar, an' ain't a-goin' to be.
An' I weesh, now," he continues, glancing up to the sky, "I weesh 't wud
brighten a bit. Wi' thet fog hidin' the hills over yonder, 'tain't
possybul to gie a guess az to whar we air. Ef it ud lift, I mout be
able to make out some o' the landmarks. Let's hope we may hev a cl'ar
sky the morrer, an' a glimp' o' the sun to boot."
"Ay, let us hope that," rejoins the skipper, "and pray for it, as we
shall."
The promise is made in all seriousness, Captain Gancy being a religious
man. So, on retiring to rest on their shake-down couches of
tussac-grass, he summons the little party around him and offers up a
prayer for their deliverance from their present danger, not forgetting
those in the pinnace; no doubt the first Christian devotion ever heard
ascending over that lone desert isle.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note 1. It is the soft, crisp, inner part of the stem, just above the
root, that is chiefly eaten. Horses and cattle are very fond of the
tussac-grass, and in the Falkland Islands feed upon it. It is said,
however, that there it is threatened with extirpation, on account of
these animals browsing it too closely. It has been introduced with
success into the Hebrides and Orkney Islands, where the conditions of
its existence are favourable--a peaty soil, exposed to winds loaded with
sea spray.
Note 2. _Cathartes jota_. Closely allied to the "turkey-buzzard" of
the United States.
Note 3. _Otaria Falklandica_. There are several distinct species of
"otary," or "fur-seal"; those of the Falkland Islands and Tierra del
Fuego being different from the fur-seals of northern latitudes.