Chapter 2
By-and-by we began to perceive that, between and beyond the cliffs, green grass and trees were discernible. Fritz could distinguish many tall palms, and Ernest hoped they would prove to be cocoanut trees, and enjoyed the thoughts of drinking the refreshing milk.
‘I am very sorry I never thought of bringing away the captain’s telescope,’ said I.
‘Oh, look here, father!’ cried Jack, drawing a little spy-glass joyfully out of his pocket.
By means of this glass, I made out that at some distance to the left the coast was much more inviting; a strong current however carried us directly towards the frowning rocks, but I presently observed an opening, where a stream flowed into the sea, and saw that our geese and ducks were swimming towards this place. I steered after them into the creek, and we found ourselves in a small bay or inlet where the water was perfectly smooth and of moderate depth.
The ground sloped gently upwards from the low banks to the cliffs which here retired inland, leaving a small plain, on which it was easy for us to land. Everyone sprang gladly out of the boat but little Franz, who, lying packed in his tub like a potted shrimp, had to be lifted out by his mother.
The dogs had scrambled on shore before us; they received us with loud barking and the wildest demonstrations of delight. The chickens, geese and ducks kept up an incessant din, added to which was the screaming and croaking of flamingoes and penguins, whose dominion we were invading. The noise was deafening, but far from unwelcome to me, as I thought of the good dinners the birds might furnish.
As soon as we could gather our children around us on dry land, we knelt to offer thanks and praise for our merciful escape, and with full hearts we commended ourselves to God’s good keeping for the time to come. All hands then briskly fell to the work of unloading, and, oh, how rich we felt ourselves as we did so!
The poultry we left at liberty to forage for themselves, and set about finding a suitable place to erect a tent in which to pass the night. This we speedily did; thrusting a long spar into a hole in the rock, and supporting the other end by a pole firmly planted in the ground, we formed a framework over which we stretched the sailcloth we had brought; besides fastening this down with pegs, we placed our heavy chests and boxes on the border of the canvas, and arranged hooks so as to be able to close up the entrance during the night.
When this was accomplished, the boys ran to collect moss and grass, to spread in the tent for our beds, while I arranged a fireplace, surrounded by large flat stones, near the brook which flowed close by. Dry twigs and seaweed were soon in a blaze on the hearth, I filled the iron pot with water, and after I gave my wife several cakes of the portable soup, she established herself as our cook, with little Franz to help her.
He, thinking his mother was melting some glue for carpentry, was eager to know ‘what papa was going to make next?’
‘This is to be soup for your dinner, my child. Do you think these cakes look like glue?’
‘Yes, indeed I do!’ replied Franz, ‘And I should not much like to taste glue soup! Don’t you want some beef or mutton, Mamma?’
‘Where can I get it, dear?’ said she, ‘we are a long way from a butcher’s shop! But these cakes are made of the juice of good meat, boiled till it becomes a strong stiff jelly—people take them when they go to sea, because on a long voyage they can only have salt meat, which will not make nice soup.’
Fritz, leaving a loaded gun with me, took another himself, and went along the rough coast to see what lay beyond the stream; this fatiguing sort of walk not suiting Ernest’s fancy, he sauntered down to the beach, and Jack scrambled among the rocks searching for shellfish.
I was anxious to land the two casks which were floating alongside our boat, but on attempting to do so, I found that I could not get them up the bank on which we had landed, and was therefore obliged to look for a more convenient spot. As I did so, I was startled by hearing Jack shouting for help, as though in great danger. He was at some distance, and I hurried towards him with a hatchet in my hand.
The little fellow stood screaming in a deep pool, and as I approached, I saw that a huge lobster had caught his leg in its powerful claw. Poor Jack was in a terrible fright; kick as he would, his enemy still clung on. I waded into the water, and seizing the lobster firmly by the back, managed to make it loosen its hold, and we brought it safe to land.
Jack, having speedily recovered his spirits, and anxious to take such a prize to his mother, caught the lobster in both hands, but instantly received such a severe blow from its tail, that he flung it down, and passionately hit the creature with a large stone.
This display of temper vexed me. ‘You are acting in a very childish way, my son,’ said I. ‘Never strike an enemy in a revengeful spirit, or when the enemy is unable to defend itself. The lobster, it is true, gave you a bite, but then you, on your part, intend to eat the lobster. So the game is at least equal. Next time, be both more prudent and more merciful.’
Once more lifting the lobster, Jack ran triumphantly towards the tent. ‘Mother, mother! A lobster! A lobster, Ernest! Look here, Franz! Mind, he’ll bite you! Where’s Fritz?’ All came crowding round Jack and his prize, wondering at its unusual size, and Ernest wanted his mother to make lobster soup directly, by adding it to what she was now boiling.
She, however, begged to decline making any such experiment, and said she preferred cooking one dish at a time. Having remarked that the scene of Jack’s adventure afforded a convenient place for getting my casks on shore, I returned thither and succeeded in drawing them up on the beach, where I set them on end, and for the present left them.
On my return I resumed the subject of Jack’s lobster, and told him he should have the offending claw all to himself when it was ready to be eaten, congratulating him on being the first to discover anything useful.
‘As to that,’ said Ernest, ‘I found something very good to eat, as well as Jack, only I could not get at them without wetting my feet.’
‘Pooh!’ cried Jack, ‘I know what he saw—nothing but some nasty mussels—I saw them too. Who wants to eat trash like that! Lobster for me!’
‘I believe them to be oysters, not mussels,’ returned Ernest calmly. “They were stuck to the rocks, so I am sure they are oysters.”
‘Be good enough, my philosophical young friend, to fetch a few specimens of these oysters in time for our next meal,’ said I. ‘We must all exert ourselves, Ernest, for the common good, and pray never let me hear you object to wetting your feet. See how quickly the sun has dried Jack and me.’
‘I can bring some salt at the same time,’ said Ernest, ‘I remarked a good deal lying in the crevices of the rocks; it tasted very pure and good, and I concluded it was produced by the evaporation of sea water in the sun.’
‘Extremely probable, learned sir,’ cried I, ‘but if you had brought a bag full of this good salt instead of merely speculating so profoundly on the subject, it would have been more to the purpose. Run and fetch some directly.’
It proved to be salt sure enough, although so impure that it seemed useless, till my wife dissolved and strained it, when it became fit to put in the soup.
‘Why not use the sea-water itself?’ asked Jack.
‘Because,’ said Ernest, ‘it is not only salt, but bitter too. Just try it.’
‘Now,’ said my wife, tasting the soup with the stick with which she had been stirring it, ‘dinner is ready, but where can Fritz be?’ she continued, a little anxiously. ‘And how are we to eat our soup when he does come?’ she continued. ‘We have neither plates nor spoons. Why did we not remember to bring some from the ship?’
“Because, my dear, one cannot think of everything at once. We shall be fortunate if we do not find even more things we have forgotten.”
“But we can scarcely lift the boiling pot to our mouths,” she said.
I was forced to agree. We all looked upon the pot with perplexity, rather like the fox in the fable, to whom the stork served up a dinner in a jug with a long neck. Silence was at length broken, when all of us burst into hearty laughter at our own folly in not remembering that spoons and forks were things of absolute necessity.
‘Oh, for a few cocoanut shells!’ sighed Ernest.
‘Oh, for half a dozen plates and as many silver spoons!’ rejoined I, smiling.
‘Really though, oyster-shells would do,’ said he, after a moment’s thought.
‘True, that is an idea worth having! Off with you, my boys, get the oysters and clean out a few shells. And none of you must complain because the spoons have no handles, and we grease our fingers a little in baling the soup out.’
Jack was away and up to his knees in the water in a moment detaching the oysters. Ernest followed more leisurely, and still unwilling to wet his feet, stood by the margin of the pool and gathered in his handkerchief the oysters his brother threw him; as he thus stood he picked up and pocketed a large mussel shell for his own use. As they returned with a good supply we heard a shout from Fritz in the distance; we returned it joyfully, and he presently appeared before us, his hands behind his back, and a look of disappointment upon his countenance.
‘Unsuccessful!’ said he.
‘Really!’ I replied. ‘Never mind, my boy, better luck next time.’
‘Oh, Fritz!’ exclaimed his brothers who had looked behind him. ‘A sucking-pig, a little sucking-pig. Where did you get it? How did you shoot it? Do let us see it!’
Fritz then with sparkling eyes exhibited his prize.
‘I am glad to see the result of your prowess, my boy,’ said I; ‘but I cannot approve of deceit, even as a joke; stick to the truth in jest and earnest.’
Fritz then told us how he had been to the other side of the stream. ‘So different from this,’ he said, ‘it is really a beautiful country, and the shore, which runs down to the sea in a gentle slope, is covered with all sorts of useful things from the wreck. Do let us go and collect them. And, father, why should we not return to the wreck and bring off some of the animals? Just think of what value the cow would be to us, and what a pity it would be to lose her. Let us get her on shore, and we will move over the stream, where she will have good pasturage, and we shall be in the shade instead of on this desert, and, father, I do wish—’
‘Stop, stop, my boy!’ cried I. ‘All will be done in good time. Tomorrow and the day after will bring work of their own. And tell me, did you see no traces of our shipmates?’
‘Not a sign of them, either on land or sea, living or dead,’ he replied.
‘But the sucking-pig,’ said Jack, ‘where did you get it?’
‘It was one of several,’ said Fritz, ‘which I found on the shore; along with some very curious little animals that hopped rather than walked, and every now and then would squat down on their hind legs and rub their snouts with their forepaws. Had not I been afraid of losing all, I would have tried to catch one alive, they seemed so tame. But this was more easily taken.’
Meanwhile, Ernest had been carefully examining the animal in question.
‘This is no pig,’ he said, ‘and except for its bristly skin, does not look like one. See, its teeth are not like those of a pig, but rather those of a squirrel. In fact,’ he continued, looking at Fritz, ‘your sucking-pig is an agouti.’
‘Dear me,’ said Fritz, ‘listen to the great professor lecturing! He is going to prove that a pig is not a pig!’
‘You need not be so quick to laugh at your brother,’ said I, in my turn, ‘he is quite right. I, too, know the agouti by descriptions and pictures, and there is little doubt that this is a specimen. The little animal makes its nest under the roots of trees, and lives upon fruit. Its meat is white but dry, having no fat, and never entirely loses a certain wild flavour, which is disagreeable to Europeans. It is held in great esteem by the natives where it lives, especially when the animal has been feeding near the sea on plants impregnated with salt. But, Ernest, the agouti not only looks something like a pig, but most decidedly grunts like a porker.’
While we were thus talking, Jack had been vainly endeavouring to open an oyster with his large knife. ‘Here is a simpler way,’ said I, placing an oyster on the fire; it immediately opened.
‘Now,’ I continued, ‘who will try this delicacy?’ All at first hesitated to partake of them, so unattractive did they appear. Jack, however, tightly closing his eyes and making a face as though about to take medicine, gulped one down. We followed his example, one after the other, each doing so rather to provide himself with a spoon than with any hope of cultivating a taste for oysters.
Our spoons were now ready, and gathering round the pot we dipped them in, not, however, without sundry scalded fingers. Ernest then drew from his pocket the large shell he had procured for his own use, and scooping up a good quantity of soup he put it down to cool, smiling at his own foresight.
‘Prudence should be exercised for others, not just for oneself,’ I remarked. ‘Are you so much better than your brothers? Your cool soup will do capitally for the dogs, my boy; take it to them, and then come and eat like the rest of us.’
Ernest winced at this, but silently taking up his shell he placed it on the ground before the hungry dogs, who lapped up its contents in a moment; he then returned, and after waiting for the soup to cool some more, we all went merrily on with our dinner.
While we were thus busily employed, we suddenly discovered that our dogs, not satisfied with their mouthful of soup, had espied the agouti, and were rapidly devouring it. The boys all began to yell, and Fritz first threw a stone at the dogs and then, seizing his gun, flew to rescue it from their hungry jaws. Before I could prevent him, he struck one of them with such force that his gun was bent. The poor beasts ran off howling, followed by a shower of stones from Fritz, who shouted and yelled at them so fiercely, that if I had not interfered, it was probable he would have killed them.
I followed him, and as soon as he would listen to me, represented to him how despicable as well as wicked was such an outbreak of temper. ‘For,’ said I, ‘you have hurt, if not actually wounded, the dogs; you have distressed and frightened your mother, and you have spoiled your gun, which would have been so useful.’
Though Fritz’s passion was easily aroused it never lasted long, and speedily recovering himself, immediately he entreated his mother’s pardon, and expressed his sorrow for his fault.
By this time the sun was sinking beneath the horizon, and the poultry, which had been straying to some little distance, gathered round us, and began to pick up the crumbs of biscuit which had fallen during our repast. My wife hereupon drew from her mysterious bag some handfuls of oats, peas, and other grain, and with them began to feed the poultry.
She at the same time showed me several other seeds of various vegetables. ‘That was indeed thoughtful,’ said I, ‘but pray be careful of what will be of such value to us; we can bring plenty of damaged biscuits from the wreck, which though of no use as food for us, will suit the fowls very well indeed.’
The pigeons now flew up to crevices in the rocks, the fowls perched themselves on our tent pole, and the ducks and geese waddled off cackling and quacking to the marshy margin of the river. We too were ready for repose, and having loaded our guns, and offered up our prayers to God, thanking him for his many mercies to us, we commended ourselves to his protecting care, and as the last ray of light departed, closed our tent and lay down to rest.
The children remarked the suddenness of nightfall, for indeed there had been little or no twilight. This convinced me that we must be not far from the equator, for twilight results from the refraction of the sun’s rays; the more obliquely these rays fall, the further does the partial light extend, while the more perpendicularly they strike the earth the longer do they continue their undiminished force, until when the sun sinks, they totally disappear, thus producing sudden darkness.
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