No greater calamity than the loss of their boat could have overtaken the
castaways, save losing life itself. It has made them castaways in the
fullest sense of the word, as much as if left boatless on a desert isle
in mid-ocean. Their situation is desperate, indeed, though for a time
they scarce realise it. How can they, in so lovely a spot, teeming with
animal life, and Nature, as it were, smiling around them? But the old
sealer knows all that will soon be changed, experience reminding him
that the brief bright summer will ere long be succeeded by dark dreary
winter, with rain, sleet, and snow almost continuously. Then no food
will be procurable, and to stay where they are would be to starve.
Captain Gancy also recalls the attempts at colonising Tierra del Fuego,
notably that made by Sarmiento at Port Famine in the Magellan Straits,
where his whole colony, men, women, and children--nearly three hundred
souls--miserably perished by starvation; and where, too, the lamented
missionary, Gardner, with all his companions, succumbed to a similar
fate. [Note 1.] The Captain remembers reading, too, that these
colonists had at the start ample store of provisions, with arms and
ammunition to defend themselves, and renew their stores. If _they_
could not maintain life in Tierra del Fuego, what chance is there for a
party of castaways, without weapons, and otherwise unfitted for
prolonged sojourn in a savage land? Even the natives, supplied with
perfect implements for fishery and the chase, and skilled in their use,
have often a hard, and at times an unsuccessful struggle for existence.
Darwin thus speaks of it:
"The inhabitants, living chiefly upon shell-fish, are obliged constantly
to change their place of residence, but return at intervals to the same
spot.--At night five or six of them, unprotected from the wind and rain
of this tempestuous climate, sleep on the wet ground, coiled up like
animals. Whenever it is low-water, they must rise to pick shell-fish
from the rocks, and the women, winter and summer, either dive to collect
sea-eggs, or sit patiently in their canoes, and with a baited hair-line
jerk out small fish. If a seal is killed, or the floating carcase of a
dead whale discovered, it is a feast. Such miserable food is assisted
by a few tasteless berries and fungi. Nor are they exempt from famine,
and, as a consequence, cannibalism, accompanied by parricide."
The old seal-fisher, familiar with these facts, keeps them to himself,
though knowing the truth will in time reveal itself to all.
They get an inkling of it that very day, when the "doctor," proceeding
to cook dinner, reports upon the state of the larder, in which there is
barely the wherewithal for another meal. Nearly all the provisions
brought away from the barque were in the gig, and are doubtless in it
still--at the bottom of the sea. So the meal is eaten in a somewhat
despondent mood, as after it little will remain for the morrow.
They get into better spirits soon after, however, on finding that Nature
has furnished them with an ample store of provisions for the present,
near at hand. Prospecting among the trees, they discover an edible
fungus, known to sealers as the "beech-apple," from its being a parasite
of the beech. It is about the size and shape of a small orange, and is
of a bright yellow colour. When ripe it becomes honeycombed over the
surface, and has a slightly sweetish taste, with an odour somewhat like
that of a morel mushroom, to which it is allied. It can be eaten raw,
and is so eaten by the Fuegian natives, with whom, for a portion of the
year, it is the staple article of subsistence.
The castaways find large numbers of this valuable plant adhering to the
birch-beeches--more than enough for present needs; while two species of
fruit are also available as food--the berries of the arbutus and
barberry.
Still, notwithstanding this plentitude of supply, the castaways make up
their minds to abandon their present encampment, for a reason that
becomes apparent soon after they see themselves boatless.
"There's no use in our stayin' longer hyar," says Seagriff, who first
counsels a change of quarters. "Ef a vessel should chance to pass along
outside, we couldn't well be in a worse place fur signalling or gettin'
sighted by her. We'd hev but the ghost of a chance to be spied in sech
a sercluded corner. Ther'fore we ought to cl'ar out of it, an' camp
somewhar on the edge o' the open shore."
"In that I agree with you, Chips," responds the Captain, "and we may as
well move at once."
"Thet's true, sir, ef we _could_ move at oncet. But we can't--leastways
not to-day."
"Why not?"
"It's too nigh night; we wouldn't hev time to git to the outer shore,"
explained the carpenter.
"Why, there's an hour of daylight yet, or more!"
"Thet's cl'ar enough, Captin'. But ef thar were two hours o' daylight,
or twice thet, it wouldn't be enough."
"I don't understand you, Chips. The distance can't be more than two or
three hundred yards."
"Belike it aren't more. But for all that, it'll take us the half of a
day, ef not longer, to cover it."
"How so?" queried the skipper.
"Wal, the how is thet we can't go by the beach; thar bein' no beach. At
the mouth o' the cove it's all cliff, right down to the water. I
noticed thet as we war puttin' inter it. Not a strip o' strand at the
bottom broad enough fur a seal to bask on. We'll hev to track it up
over the hills, an' thet'll take no end o' time, an' plenty o' toilin',
too--ye'll see, Captin'."
"I suppose, then, we must wait for morning," is the skipper's rejoinder,
after becoming satisfied that no practicable path leads out of the cove
between land and water.
This constrains them to pass another night on the spot that has proved
so disastrous, and the morning after, to eat another meal upon it--the
last they intend tasting there. A meagre repast it is; but their
appetites are now on keen edge, all the keener from the supply of food
being stinted. For by one of nature's perverse contrarieties, men feel
hunger most when without the means of satisfying it, and most thirsty
when no water can be had. It is the old story of distant skies looking
brightest, and far-off fields showing greenest--the very difficulty of
obtaining a thing whetting the desire to possess it, as a child craves
some toy, that it soon ceases to care for when once in its possession.
No such philosophic reflections occupy the thoughts of the castaways.
All they think of, while at their scanty meal, is to get through with it
as speedily as possible, and away from the scene of their disaster.
The breakfast over, the tent is taken down, the boat-sail folded into
the most portable form, with mast, oars, and everything made ready for
overland transport. They have even apportioned the bundles, and are
about to begin the uphill climb, when, lo! the _Fuegians_!
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note 1. There is now a colony in the Straits of Magellan, not far from
Port Famine, at Sandy Point--the "Punta de Arenas" of the old Spanish
navigators. The colony is Chilian, and was established as a penal
settlement, though it is now only nominally so. The population is about
fourteen hundred.