thunderbolt, and disappeared beneath the waves,presently, perhaps, to emerge with their prey. Then there were fulmarpetrels, that went darting about the waves, and were said by the sailorsto catch the flying-fish, and to forebode the coming of storms, thelovely, pearly-white bird, which once seen can never be forgotten, themolly hawk, and the great dusky albatross itself, of which--built uponthe superstition of sailors--Coleridge writes so charming a tale, andwhich the ancient mariner shot so cruelly, causing such dire andterrible sorrow to the vessel and all on board; albeit, it had broughtthem the best of good fortune, for it saved them from the ice, and--
"A good south wind sprung up behind, The albatross did follow. And every day, for food or play, Came to the mariner's hollo!
"In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud, It perched for vespers nine, Whiles all the night, through fog-smoke white, Glimmered the white moonshine."
The albatross is a stately and noble bird, and the stretch of its wingshas been known to be fully twelve feet from tip to tip. The creature,they tell me, will devour the dead, but never touch a living man.
The fish and marine monsters they saw on this sunny voyage weresometimes most lovely, sometimes hideous in the extreme. Giant rays,the skins of which would have been big enough to have carpeted aschoolroom; great whales and sharks innumerable,--the blue shark, thewhite shark, and the large basking shark, which really seems to goasleep on the warm surface of the water.
Land ho! was the hail from the masthead one beautiful morning, and theyhad all been so long at sea that they certainly were not sorry to hearit.
But what land was it? And could they find water, fruit, and freshprovisions on it?
Book 3--CHAPTER FOUR.
THE UNKNOWN LAND.
"After the sea-ship, after the whistling winds, After the white-grey sails, taut to their spars and ropes, Below a myriad, myriad waves hastening, lifting up their necks, Tending in ceaseless flow toward the track of the ship, A motley procession with many a fleck of foam and many fragments, Following the stately and rapid ship, in the wake following."
Whitman's _Leaves of Grass_.
Scene: The _Gloaming Star_ standing in towards the land, which lookslike a long low greenish cloud on the horizon. The sky is a burningblue, the day is hot and sultry, and the pitch boils in the seams of thedeck. Land birds, some very pretty, and hosts of butterflies as largeas small fans, and surpassingly radiant in colour, are hovering aboutthe vessel. Medusae, like open umbrellas, and whose limbs seem studdedwith gems, float around the ship, while now and than huge turtles can beseen, each one as big and as broad as a blacksmith's bellows.
The log before me is so water-stained, so yellow with age, and so worn,that I cannot make out--do what I may--the latitude and longitude of the_Gloaming Star_ at this particular time. But from all I have read andfrom all I know of these oceans and islands, I think the land now insight must have been either Tasmania itself or some of the isles not faroff. Seeing, on a nearer approach, no signs of a harbour, nor any deepwater, only the white foaming breakers booming on a low sandy beech; andthe green woods beyond, and the wind coming on to blow higher and higherfrom the west, they put to sea again, and stood away still farthernorth.
In the morning, land was in sight again, and not far off, and the coastwas rocky and wild; the wind, too, had gone down considerably, so sailwas made, and seeing a wide gap in the rocks they made for it, and foundthemselves in an hour's time in a lovely wood-girt bay. But wood is tootame a term to apply to it. Primeval forest is surely better. Neverbefore had any one on board beheld such wondrous trees, nor such awealth of vegetation. The ferns, which were of gigantic size, were aspecial feature in this tree-scape, while immense climbing plants, withgorgeous hanging flowers, made an intricate wildery of this forest land.Great flocks of pigeons sometimes rose into the air, which they almostdarkened. Ibises grey and red sat and nodded on the rocks, looking likerows of soldiers and riflemen, while the woods resounded with the criesof strange birds and the chattering of innumerable monkeys.
Boats landed about noon, and came off laden with fruit, but they couldfind no water that was not brackish.
An expedition was accordingly got up to go farther inland and search forit. Both Leonard and Douglas went with it. They were fortunate enoughto find a running stream. The casks were filled, and after a rest, theywere preparing to return, when a wild war-whoop rent the air, and theyfound themselves suddenly confronted by a dozen nearly naked savages,armed with club, and spear, and shield. The march shore-wards, however,was commenced, and carried out in perfect order, the natives followingslowly on after them, and threatening their rear. They grew bolder whenthey noticed the intention of the men to embark with their casks.Spears were thrown, and more than one man was wounded. Then Leonard andDouglas lost their patience and fired. Two savages bit the dust. Theothers stood as if petrified. They had evidently never heard of or seensuch a thing as a gun before. Then recovering themselves, with oneunearthly shriek they turned and fled away into the darkness of theforest.
Nothing was to be gained by stopping here and fighting those dusky sonsof the woods, so anchor was got up that evening, and the _Gloaming Star_resumed her voyage. Although the ship was still, to some extent, scarceof water, they trusted to future good fortune, as brave sailors were inthe habit of doing in those days.
After coasting about for nearly a fortnight, with variable winds, landbreezes, sea breezes, and even half-gales, they found themselves oneforenoon once more approaching the land. The wind was fair, the day wasfine, and men were kept constantly in the chains lest, the watersuddenly shoaling, the vessel might get stranded.
There was plenty of dash and "go" about Captain Blunt, but no such thingas rashness, a quality which in a commander is oftentimes fatal, andinvolves the loss of many a gallant ship and thousands of livesannually.
Strange birds such as they had never seen before kept constantlywheeling and screaming around the vessel, and there were strangercreatures still in the water. They had all heard of sea-serpents or of_the_ sea-serpent, but here they were on this particular bank in scoresand in hundreds, gliding along in the water or floating in knots--ugly-looking flat-tailed creatures, though of no great size. I haveheard of a lieutenant having been killed by the bite of one of thesestrange snakes; at the same time I can hardly believe it. The story,briefly told, is as follows:--
BITTEN BY A SEA-SNAKE.
It was in the gun-boat B--some few hundred miles south of Bombay in theIndian Ocean. Lieutenant Archer was asleep in his cabin in theafternoon, just after luncheon, and the day being fine and the weatherfair when he lay down, he had opened his little port for fresh air; inother words, he had pulled the scuttle out. One of those suddensqualls, however--so common in this lovely sea--came down on the shipjust as she was about to cross a coral bank infested with theseserpents.
The tramping noise on deck, the rattle of ropes overhead, and theflapping of sails and shouting of orders might have failed to wakenArcher--he was used to it--but something else did. No, not a snake; thesnake comes in afterwards. But he shipped a sea through the scuttlewhich deluged the bed. The officer sprang out, put in and fastened thescuttle, shook the rug, and then himself as a big dog might have done,and quietly turned in again. He got up to keep the first dog-watch, andon putting his hand down to take up his jacket the terrible sea-viperstruck him. It is said he was almost instantly paralysed with terrorand pain. The doctor found him, pale, perspiring, with startingeye-balls, and almost bloodless, and nothing could rally him, for hesank and died.
Now I give the story as I got it. It _may_ be true. It may be likesome of Rory O'Reilly's yarns, worthy of credence as far as one halfgoes, the other half being left for the story-teller himself to make thebest of.
It was strange now that, although far away among the woods they had seenthe smoke of fires, on landing with men to dig wells and search forwater, not a sight of a human being could be seen. They dug well afterwell, but all
were brackish.
So this island had to be deserted.
The next place they came to swarmed with natives, and very fine-lookingfellows they were, armed to the teeth, however. They obstinatelyrefused to hold any palaver with the officers or crew of the _GloamingStar_. Even the display of beads did not tempt them, and although herewere streams of fresh water, it was ultimately decided to sail away andseek for it on other and probably more hospitable shores.
It is impossible to chronicle all the wanderings of our heroes in thoselovely islands, and their cruises round their coasts, but all summerlong off and on they voyaged in their midst. Then came the autumn--which is contemporaneous with our spring--and higher winds began toblow, and the weather got sensibly cooler and more pleasant.
There was no dearth of fresh provisions anywhere, there was fish in thesea and game on shore, and although the dangers they had to incur insearch of water were sometimes great, they succeeded in getting itnevertheless.
One