practise ourselves in that until we are very speedy in it."
We did this accordingly, several evenings in succession, always at
dusk, so that our proceedings should not be seen by sharp-eyed savages;
and we found in a few days that we could fit the joints of the staff
together, and set it up in its socket, in the space of five minutes, as
near as I could guess. We kept the several joints in the tree, so that
we should not have the labour of hauling them from the ground every
time, fastening them to the boughs with strands of creepers.
While on this matter of the flagstaff, I must say that it came into my
mind one day that I had seen the native women making a kind of cloth
out of the bark of a tree, though I had not observed what tree it was.
I thought we might contrive to make a pendant in the same way, and
after some trials of the bark of different trees we discovered that the
bread-fruit tree was best fitted for our purpose, and by diligently
beating with stones upon a broad strip of the bark, moistened with
water, we flattened and stretched it until it became a sort of thin
fabric, which would serve for a flag, though a makeshift one. But
having made it, we could not at first devise a means of attaching it to
the staff, having no nails, or anything that could be used in their
stead. There did, indeed, come out of the bark as we bruised it, a
sticky substance which we hoped might serve as glue, but we found that
it was not sufficiently tenacious. However, after some thought I hit
upon the device of stringing the flag on a strand of creeper, and then
knotting the ends of this about the pole.
Our success in this particular gave us much contentment, and Billy
declared that now that we knew how to make cloth we must discover a
means of making needles and thread, so that we could patch our shirts
and breeches, which were already miserably rent and tattered. But this
was too great a puzzle for us at the moment, though we solved it
afterwards, as I shall tell in its place.
[Sidenote: Pottery]
Having started to tell some of the matters that occupied us while we
were pondering the means of setting up the posts of our house, I may
mention here another notion that came into my head. We had used some
of the clayey earth of the hill-side to fill the interstices of our
small house, and being often at a loss for vessels in which to cook our
food, and also to carry water--as yet we did not drink it much, for
very good reasons--I thought of trying to make some pots and pans. I
had, to be sure, no turning wheel, nor could I make one, nor had I the
prepared flints or the lead for glaze, such as were employed in my
uncle's factory. But I had seen the native people making pottery on
the island at which we touched, and that being, so to speak, my own
line of business, I had taken more particular note of it than of any
other of their devices.
Their manner was to put a piece of calabash, or some such thing, under
a lump of clay, to make it turn freely, and then to turn it slowly, but
very deftly, by hand, fashioning thereby a vessel of such regular shape
that I am sure my uncle, could he have seen it, would scarce have
believed it had not been thrown, as we say, on the wheel. Such vessels
they first dried in the sun, then, when a group of them had been
moulded, a fire was kindled round and over them, and so they were
baked. I had no calabash, but I tried my prentice hand with the half
of a cocoa-nut shell, and found it very serviceable. But what gave me
a deal of trouble was the clay. When I had mixed a great lump of it,
moistening it with water and pounding it with stones, and had moulded a
sort of porringer upon the shell at first, the vessel would not keep
its shape, even so long as it took me to set it upon the ground to dry.
After making several trials of it, and being always disappointed, I saw
that I must mix some other substance with the earth to give it
consistency. This was a thing that baffled me for days, since all our
scouring of the island did not bring to light any substance that would
be of use, and we had no means of grinding into powder the flints which
lay around in plenty. How strange is it that we may look afar for what
we have at our very doors! All of a sudden it came into my head that
the sand of the seashore, at the edge of the lava tract, which we trod
every day in going to bathe, might be the very substance I needed, and
I found, when I came to try it, that it not only gave the clay the
consistency I desired, but added a glaze to it when I baked the first
vessel I made with it. I soon had a row of basins finished, not very
comely in shape, but serviceable, and all of a size; and Billy, having
heard me deplore that I had nothing larger than a cocoa-nut to mould
them on, went a-prowling on the shore one day, and came staggering back
with a great dome-shaped stone, and when he set it down in front of me,
"Oh, ain't I a fool!" says he.
[Illustration: Billy's Plate and Mug]
"What's the matter, Billy?" I asked. "'Tis the very thing I have been
wanting this long time."
"I know it is, master," says he, "but what I don't know is why I was
such a silly ass as to sweat myself a-carrying of it, when I might have
rolled it on its edge."
"Well, you won't do it again," I said, smiling at his woebegone look.
"No, I take my davy I won't," says he.
"What is 'davy'?" I asked, never having heard that expression before.
"Why, don't you know that?" says he, opening his eyes very wide.
"No. What is it?" I said.
Then he scratched his head, and looked at the ground, and after a great
deal of consideration says: "Well, master, I can't say, not to be
certain, what a davy is; but suppose I said to you, 'I eat forty
cocoa-nuts at a go,' and you said to me, 'You're a liar,' and I said,
'I take my davy on it,' you'd have to believe me or else fetch me a
crack on the nob: at least, that's what they do Limehouse way."
This may seem a very trifling matter, and not worthy of setting down in
a serious history; but I quote the words to show that we did not pass
the days without discourse, from which indeed I for my part got much
entertainment.
With the round stone which Billy brought me, and others we afterwards
discovered, I made several pots of different sizes, which we found very
useful, more and more, indeed, as time went on. And as I became more
dexterous with practice, the shape and fashion of the pottery likewise
improved, so that I grew proud of my handicraft, and wished my uncle
could have seen it. As for Billy, he was very jealous of my work, and
lamented that he had not a forge and an anvil and the other implements
of a smith's calling, and he would show me what he could do; but as he
lacked these things, and so far as he could see was never like to have
them, he very sensibly employed himself in helping me, and in getting
and preparing our food, and the various materials needed for our house.
I must not forget to mention, too, that it was Billy who first thought
of using the red sap of the wood I have before spoke of, in giving a
dye to my pottery, which became thereby a bright red colour, very
pleasing to the eye.
[Illustration: Some of my Pottery]
All this while we had been thinking very deeply of the matter of our
big hut, and at last we hit upon a means of erecting the four
corner-posts. First we drove the handle of one of the axes--the wood
being hard and the earth soft, as I have said--for some distance into
the ground, and then having withdrawn it, we were able to drive into
the hole a somewhat thicker pole, the end of which we sharpened to a
point with our axes. Then we took the first of our corner-posts,
sharpened the end of it in like manner, this costing us much labour,
and charred the same end with fire, both to make the driving of it into
the earth easier, and to preserve it from rotting. The more serious
difficulty, of raising the heavy post and driving it in, was solved in
the following manner. We made three long ropes by twining strands of
creepers together, and these we tied very securely to the top of our
post. Having made a hole in the earth, as aforesaid, to the depth of
about four feet, we brought the pointed end directly over the hole, and
then raised the other end gradually with levers, propping it up
continually, as we tilted it higher, with a pile of small logs and
stones, which we increased moment by moment as required. I leave you
to judge what a slow and tedious business this was.
[Sidenote: Building under Difficulties]
When by this means the top end of the post was raised to a considerable
height, the pointed end slid into the hole, though not straight; but
the post was now tilted sufficiently for us to get under it and heave
it up with our hands until it was fairly upright, and then the point of
it sank some little way into the hole, but not far. Then, while I held
it upright, Billy went to a distance of a few yards, and drove a wedge
of wood like a tent-peg into the ground, using for hammer a long stone;
and this being done, he bound one of the three ropes (so I call them)
firmly about it. He did likewise with two more tent-pegs and the two
other ropes, so that when he had finished, the post was held erect and
stoutly supported by three ropes, the lower ends of which were so
placed as to be at the angles of what is called in the _Elements of
Euclid_ an equilateral triangle. This work took us a whole day,
reckoning in the time for our meals.
The next part of our design was to erect a scaffolding about the post.
For this we chose and cut down stalks of the bamboo-like plant of which
we had made our flagstaff. These we lashed firmly together with
creeper ropes--or rather Billy did it, he having a seaman's dexterity
in such things; and driving their lower ends into the ground, we
contrived to construct a scaffolding four-square about the post, each
face of it about nine feet long, and carried up a little higher than
the top of the post, so as to clear the ropes that held this in
position. The scaffolding being finished with a prodigious deal of
labour--for having no ladder we were obliged to make standing-places of
stones, which were very insecure; indeed, both Billy and I tumbled off
them more than once, and grew very angry at having to collect the
stones and build them up again: the scaffolding being finished, I say,
we made a light platform of straight branches upon the top of it, but
not quite covering it, so that the top of the post was not hidden.
"It won't bear us, that I'm sure," says Billy, when we had made the
platform.
"Try," said I. "You are lighter than me: you go first."
Billy clambered on to the platform very nimbly, and though the
scaffolding trembled and swayed so that I thought to see it instantly
collapse, it did no such thing, and I ventured to climb up on the other
side and join Billy. I was much more clumsy than he was, and pretty
nearly lost my balance, but managed to steady myself, and then we both
stood on the platform, and found that it bore the weight of us both
very well.
The next thing was to haul up the implement which, after much
consideration, we had devised for driving in the post. 'Twas a massy
stump of a tree, which, both together, we could heave about two feet
above the ground--such a thing as resembled in some sort the big wooden
pummet which road-menders use for hammering down the cobbles in the
streets, though our pummet had no handle either at the top or the side,
but must be heaved up by main force from the bottom. We tied it many
times round with our creeper ropes, and, having mounted again on to the
platform, we began to haul. But the weight of the pummet, and our
heaving, and the being both on one side of the platform, was too much
for our frail support; the scaffolding fell apart, down we toppled
headlong after the pummet, and the strain upon the sustaining ropes
being too great, one of them snapped, and down came the post, falling
very luckily in the opposite direction from us, or we might have been
killed, or at least had our heads broken.
Billy fairly howled with disappointment at this overthrow of our hopes,
and let forth many of the ugly words which he had learnt, either at
Limehouse or aboard the _Lovey Susan_. Indeed, it was a most vexatious
accident, for the labour of a good many days was undone in a moment,
and we had to begin over again, both to erect the corner-post and to
construct a scaffolding. Billy, who was like a child in some things,
declared and vowed he would work no more on the big hut. "I take my
davy I won't," says he. "What's the good? Here's another big hole
tore in my breeches. Why should you and me work like slaves when there
ain't no call for it, victuals growing free? And as for lodgings, the
small hut is good enough for me. We don't want a castle when there
ain't no one here but dogs and pigs; and I tell you what it is, master,
we don't eat enough pork, and I wish we had some onions;" and so he
talked on, and I said nothing, for I knew he would grumble until he was
tired, and then readily take up his work again. So in fact it proved,
for after a day's idleness, or rather change, we spending the day in
hunting for eggs, we set to work to weave more ropes and put together
another scaffolding, which when we tried it stood very steady, even
when we hauled up the pummet. With this pummet we drove the
corner-post into the earth inch by inch, lifting it with our hands (it
was as much as we could do) and then letting it fall plump on the head
of the post. 'Twas terribly slow work, and hard too, and we thought
our backs would break across the middle, they ached so much, only we
had to pause in the driving every now and then to let down our
platform, in proportion as the post went deeper into the ground, and
this of course took a great while. However, we drove the post at last
to the depth of four feet, and then Billy was just as elated as before
he had been cast down, for the post stood so massive and solid that it
seemed nothing short of an earthquake could move it; and that was
strong enough for us, for against an earthquake, if it came, of course
we could do nothing. Having succeeded with our first post, we did not
take quite so long about erecting the other three; but it was near six
weeks, I should think, before we got all four in position, I mean six
weeks after we had felled the trunks, they having then to be pointed
with our rude axes, and the scaffolding having to be built up afresh
with the same care for the fourth post as for the first.
When we had the four posts up we were very well satisfied with our
handiwork, but desperately weary, for we had stuck to it day after day
without respite except to get our food and perform the other articles
of our regular life--bathing, and going up to our watch-tower, as we
called it, and so forth. Accordingly I said to Billy that we would
take a week's holiday before we made the walls of our house, on which
Billy sighed very heavily.
"Why, don't you want a holiday?" I asked him.
"'Course I do, master," says he, "but how can you have a holiday
without any beer?"
He then told me that when his father took a holiday, he drove to some
country part near London--Islington, or maybe Hampstead--and spent the
day in playing skittles and drinking beer. This put a notion into my
head, and the first day of our holiday we played skittles with some
short posts set up in the sand on the beach, bowling at them with
cocoa-nuts. 'Twas as good a sport as we could devise at that time,
though we soon came to invent a better, as you shall hear.
CHAPTER THE EIGHTH
OF MY ENCOUNTER WITH A SEA MONSTER; AND OF THE MEANS WHEREBY WE
PROVIDED OURSELVES WITH ARMS
I think it was on the second day of our week's holiday that we had a
terrible fright, which affected us the more because hitherto there had
been so little to alarm us. We had eaten our dinner, and were roaming
idly along the high ground in the west of the island, when, looking
over the brink, Billy spied some nests among the rocks in the face of
the cliff. We had never been able to obtain near so many eggs for our
food as we wished, the hens laying their eggs, as I have said, in
secret places which required much searching for, and for that we did
not on our working days care to spend time. But spying these nests,
Billy was set on clambering down to them to see if they contained eggs,
which would make us a very good supper.
There was a narrow ledge that ran down the face of the cliff, ending
not far above the sea, which at this spot washed the base, there being
no beach of sand. The descent was so steep, and the ledge so narrow,
that I was in some doubt whether the attempt were not too dangerous;
but Billy, as I say, was set on it, and when I saw him actually begin
to clamber down, I could do naught but accompany him, and soon
outstripped him, because he stopped more often than I did to pry in all
the crevices. The face of the cliff was much scarred, and certain
large boulders in it seemed to me to be very loosely embedded; indeed,
now and again a piece of rock would become detached when I catched hold
of it to steady myself, and rolled and rumbled away until it fell into
the sea. You see by this how carefully it behoved us to go, and if the
ledge had not been a little wider than it appeared from the top, I
think I should have given up the enterprise. However, we persevered,
and in the course of our descent rifled of their eggs such nests as
came within our reach, the rightful owners of the nests, which were
sea-birds, wheeling about our heads with a clamour of shrill and
plaintive cries. We put the eggs in our pockets, having no other means
of carrying them, and when Billy sighed for a basket I said that we
would try to make one the very same day, there being plenty of material
for weaving.
[Sidenote: A Sea Monster]
Here and there in the face of the cliff there grew trees, not of great
size; indeed, it was a marvel that any grew, the ground being so hard
and rugged. When we came near the sea, we saw a little cluster of a
kind of pine tree[1] (at least I judged it so by its exceeding pleasant
smell) which jutted out over the sea, one of the tallest of them,
covered with great bunches of flowers of a bright yellow colour, very
pretty, reaching up to the edge of the narrow path down which we were
climbing. It was a strange tree, for instead of having a trunk thicker
at the bottom, like other trees, it divided into a number of shoots,
which entered the ground in the shape of a pyramid. I was just
reaching forward
[1] Probably the screw-pine (_Pandanus odoratissimus_).--H.S.
to pluck one of the blossoms when I felt a strange tickling about my
ankle, and immediately afterward a sharp pain like that of a gad-fly's
bite, only worse. I thought a scorpion or some such thing had bitten
me, and turned myself a little, for the ledge on which I stood was too
narrow for great movements, and drew my leg back so that the reptile
should not sting me again. But I felt then as if my ankle had been
caught in a noose, which was being drawn constantly tighter, and I
could not free my leg from the grip, though I kicked as much as I
dared. Looking down to see what was holding me, I was annoyed, yet
relieved at the same time, to find that my leg was caught in nothing
worse, as it appeared, than a big brown, or rather brownish-purple,
leaf, into which I supposed I had unwittingly put my foot. Yet I
wondered that a mere leaf could grip me so firmly, and as I took out of
my belt the axe without which I never went abroad, intending to cut the
impediment away, my eye chanced to travel along the leaf towards its
furthest extremity, where it was partly hidden by a cluster of fruit.
And then I felt a shiver run down my spine like a trickle of cold
water, for there, beyond the cluster, I saw two horrid eyes, like a
parrot's, gleaming in the midst of a big shapeless body, which I knew
to be alive by its pulsations. I had never in my life seen or heard of
such a thing, and knew not what it was or whether it was dangerous or
no; but the mere sight of it filled me with a sickening dread, and when
I saw the loathly monster drawing nearer to me, working its way, as it
seemed, by the tentacles wherewith it had attached itself to the tree,
and its body throbbing, I was as near overcome with sheer terror as any
man could be, so that I could not think, nor even cry out to Billy, who
was some few yards above me. All that I could do, and that was only by
instinct, was to resist the creature's pull, which had all but
dislodged me from my narrow foothold.
It was Billy's voice that roused me from this palsy of the mind. "My
pockets won't hold no more, master," he said, being quite ignorant of
what was passing beneath him. Then I cried out to him that a monster
was attacking me, and at the same time I bent down and slashed
furiously with my axe upon the tentacle that gripped my leg, and turned
sick again when the axe-head encountered the slimy mass. But my
strokes, doubly redoubled, caused the monster somewhat to relax its
grip, and immediately afterward a big jagged piece of rock, hurled by
Billy, smote full upon it with a sickening thud, and rebounding fell
with a splash into the sea. The monster, as if stunned by the shock,
loosened its hold on the branches to which, as we now saw, it had
anchored itself, and in a little while fell into the sea and
disappeared from our sight.
[Illustration: "I CRIED OUT TO HIM THAT A MONSTER WAS ATTACKING ME."]
"I never did see such a wicked villain," says Billy. "Why, master,
you're as white as a sheet!" and, indeed, I was not far from swooning,
the horror of that great beast being still upon me. Billy was not near
so much affected, not having felt the monster's grip nor seen closely
its baleful eyes; and I think Billy was a trifle scornful of the terror
I could not conceal, though afterwards he said he didn't wonder at my
feeling pretty bad. It was some little time before I was sufficiently
recovered to attempt the upward climb; but, with Billy's help, I
presently clambered to the top, and threw myself very thankfully on the
grass, never heeding Billy's lamentable outcry when he found that two
of the eggs he carried had broken in his pocket.
This terrible encounter, and most happy escape, set me on thinking
first what a mercy it was I carried my axe, and then how perfectly
defenceless we were against any human enemy that might come against us
armed. I said to Billy that we must spend the rest of our holiday in
making weapons, though when I spoke I had not the least notion of what
we could make that would be of any avail. Billy was for making huge
clubs, and sticking pieces of flint into their knobby ends, which would
beyond doubt have proved very formidable weapons at close quarters;
but, as I had told him already, we should be shot down with spears or
arrows before we could come within reach of the enemy, and therefore we
could do nothing against them unless we made weapons like their own.
Whereupon Billy declared for spears, since we had no strings for bows,
and we spent a day cutting light poles for the shafts and in searching
for sharp flints that might serve as the heads. But we had such a
difficulty in fastening the heads on, and the spears were so exceeding
rude and clumsy when made, that I despaired of ever making serviceable
defensive weapons of them, and being by no means satisfied that it was
beyond our capacity to fashion bows and arrows, I seized occasion while
Billy was cooking our supper (which was baked bread-fruit and fried
eggs, the latter stronger in flavour and not near so pleasant as hens'
eggs, having a fishy taste)--I seized occasion, I say, to make a first
trial for a bow-string, which Billy had very shrewdly perceived would
be the greatest difficulty.
[Sidenote: Making Arms]