The Land of Fire: A Tale of Adventure

On the drier upland still another curious bird is encountered, singular in its mode of breeding and other habits. A petrel it is, about the size of a house pigeon, and of a slate-blue colour. This bird, instead of laying its eggs, like the penguin, on the surface of the ground, deposits them, like the sand-martin and burrowing owl, at the bottom of a burrow. Part of the ground over which the climbers have to pass is honeycombed with these holes, and they see the petrels passing in and out; Seagriff, meanwhile, imparting a curious item of information about them. It is that the Fuegians capture these birds by tying a string to the legs of certain small birds, and force them into the petrels’ nests, whereupon the rightful owners, attacking and following the intruders as they are jerked out by the cunning decoyers, are themselves captured.

Continuing upward, the slope is found to be steeper, and more difficult than was expected. What from below seemed a gentle acclivity turns out to be almost a precipice – a very common illusion with those unaccustomed to mountain climbing. But they are not daunted – every one of the men has stood on the main truck of a tempest-tossed ship. What to this were even the scaling of a cliff? The ladies, too, have little fear, and will not consent to stay below, but insist on being taken to the very summit.

The last stage proves the most difficult. The only practicable path is up a sort of gorge, rough-sided, but with the bottom smooth and slippery as ice. It is grass-grown all over, but the grass is beaten close to the surface, as if schoolboys had been “coasting” down it. All except Seagriff suppose it to be the work of the penguins – he knows better what has done it. Not birds, but beasts, or “fish,” as he would call them – the amphibia in the chasing, killing, and skinning of which he has spent many years of his life. Even with his eyes shut he could have told it was they, by a peculiar odour unpleasant to others, though not to him. To his olfactories it is the perfume of Araby.

“Them fur-seals hev been up hyar,” he says, glancing up the gorge. “They kin climb like cats, spite o’ thar lubberly look, and they delight in baskin’ on high ground. I’ve know’d ’em to go up a hill steeper an’ higher ’n this. They’ve made it as smooth as ice, and we’ll hev to hold on keerfully. I guess ye’d better all stay hyar till I give it a trial.”

“Oh, it’s nothing, Chips,” says young Gancy, “we can easily swarm up.”

He would willingly take the lead himself, but is lending a hand to his mother; while, in like manner, Henry Chester is entrusted with the care of Leoline – a duty he would be loth to transfer to another.

The older sealer makes no more delay, but, leaning forward and clutching the grass, draws himself up the steep slope. In the same way the Captain follows; then Ned, carefully assisting his mother; and lastly, but with no less alacrity, the young Englishman helping Leoline.

Seagriff, still vigorous – for he has not much passed manhood’s prime – and unhampered, reaches the head of the gorge long before the others.

But as soon as his eyes are above it, and he has a view of the summit level, he sees there something to astonish him: the whole surface, nearly an acre in extent, is covered with fur-seals, lying close together like pigs in a stye.

This sight, under other circumstances, he would have hailed with a shout of joy; but now it elicits from him a cry of apprehension, for the seals have taken the alarm, too, and are coming on in a rush toward the ravine, knowing that it is their only way to the water.

“Thunder an’ airthquakes!” he exclaims, in highest pitch of voice. “Look out thar, below!”

They do look out, or rather up, and with no little alarm. But the cause of it none can as yet tell. But they see Seagriff spring to one side of the gorge and catch hold of a rock to steady himself, while he shouts to them to do the same. Of course, they obey; but they barely have time to get out of the ravine’s bed before a stream, a torrent, a very cataract of living forms comes pouring down it – very monsters in appearance, all open-mouthed, and each mouth showing a double row of glittering teeth.

A weird, fear-inspiring procession it is, as they go floundering past, crowding one another, snapping, snorting, and barking, like so many mastiffs!

Fortunately for the spectators, the creatures are fur-seals, and not the fierce sea-lions; for the fur-seal is inoffensive, and shows fight only when forced to it. These are but acting in obedience to the most ordinary instinct, as they are seeking self-preservation by retreat to the sea – their true home and haven of safety.

The flurry lasts for but a brief while, ending as abruptly as it began. When all the seals have passed, our party resume the ascent and continue it till all stand upon the summit. But not all in silence; for turning his eyes north-eastward, and seeing there a snow-covered mountain – a grand cone, towering thousands of feet above all the others – Seagriff plucks off his hat, and, waving it around his head, sends up a joyous huzza, cries out, “Now I know whar we are better ’n a hul ship full o’ kompa an’ kernometors kud tell us. Yon’s Sarmiento!”

Chapter Nine.

An Unnatural Mother

“Yis, Capting, thet’s Sarmiento, an’ nary doubt of it,” pursues the old sealer. “I’d reck’noise thet mountin ’mong a millyun. ’Tair the highest in all Feweego.8 An’ we must be at the mouth o’ Des’late Bay, jest as I wor suspectin’. Wal, ’ceptin’ them ugly things I told ye ’bout, we kudn’t be in a better place.”

“Why?” inquires the Captain, dubiously.

“’Kase it ain’t a bay at all; but the entrance to a soun’ bearin’ the name o’ ‘Whale-Boat Soun’.’ An’ thet’s open water too, communicatin’ wi’ another known ez ‘Darwin Soun’’ – the which larst leads right inter the Beagle Channel.”

“But what of all that, Chips? How can it help us?”

“Help us! Why, ’tair the very i-dentical thing ez ’ll help us; our coorse is laid out to a p’int o’ the kompiss! All we’ll hev to do is to run east’ard through the Beagle Channel, an’ then ’long the open coast to good Success Bay, in the Straits o’ Le Maire. Thar we’ll be a’most sure o’ findin’ some o’ the sealin’ vessels, thet bein’ one o’ thar rendeyvoos when they’re fishin’ roun’ Staten Land.”

“You think that better, then, than trying to the northward for the Straits of Magellan?” inquires Captain Gancy.

“Oceans o’ odds better. To reach Magellan we’d hev to work out seaward ag’in, an’ back past the ‘Furies,’ whar thar’s all sorts o’ cross-currents to contend wi’. Whereas goin’ east’ard through the Beagle, we’ll hev both wind and tide a’most allers in our favour. ’Sides, there’d be no bother ’bout the coorse. ’Tair jest like steerin’ in a river, an’ along the coast ag’in. I’m wall acquaint’ wi’ every inch o’ ’t.”

That Captain Gancy, an experienced navigator, should be unacquainted with the Beagle Channel may seem strange. But at the time of which we write, this remarkable passage was of recent discovery, and not yet laid down on the charts.

“How about the other matter?” he asks, in half whisper, glancing significantly toward his wife and daughter, who are but a few paces off. “Will the Beagle course be any the safer for that?”

“I can’t say ’twill, sir,” is the answer, in like undertone. “Tho’ it won’t be any worse. Guess the danger’s ’bout equil eytherways.”

“What danger?” questions young Gancy, who has overheard the ugly word.

“O’ the gig gettin’ bilged, Mister Ed’ard,” is the ready, but not truthful, rejoinder. “In coorse thar’s rough seas everywhar through Fireland, an’ wi’ such a mite o’ a boat, we’ll hev to be on the keerful.”

“Then,” says the Captain, his mind made up, after long and minutely examining sea and coast all around through his glass, “then by the Beagle Channel be it. And we may as well set out at once. I can see nothing of the pinnace. If she’d weathered the gale and put in this way, they’d be sure to sail on for the mainland. In that case, they may sight us when we get well out on the open water.”

“Jest so, Capting,” says Seagriff, “an’ as ye perpose, we mout as well make the start now. We kin gain nothin’ by stayin’ hyar.”

“All right, then. Let us be off.”

So saying, the skipper takes a last look through the binocular, with a lingering hope that something may still be seen of the consort boat; then, disappointed, he leads the way down to the landing-place.

Their further stay on the island is for but a few minutes, – while the two youths make a fresh raid on the penguinnery, and rob it of another dozen of the young birds, as boat stores. Some tussac-asparagus is also added, and then all resume their places on the thwarts, this time with everything properly stowed and shipshape. The painter is drawn in and the gig shoved off.

Once more under way, they encounter a heavy ground swell; but the breeze is in their favour, and, with the sail set, they are able to keep steadily before it. They have no trouble in making their course, as the sky is clear, and Sarmiento – an all-sufficient guide-post – always visible. But although neither Captain Gancy nor Seagriff has any anxiety as to the course, both seem anxious about something, all the while scanning the water ahead – the skipper through his glass, the old sealer with hand shading his eyes.

This attracting the attention of young Gancy, sharp at reading facial expression, as are most men who follow the sea, he asks, after a time, “What is it, father? You and Chips appear to be troubled about something.”

“Wal, Mister Ed’ard, thar ain’t ennythin’ rumarkabul in thet, sitiwated ez we air; it’s only nateral to be allers expectin’ trouble o’ some sort. You youngsters don’t think o’ thet, ez we old ’uns do.”

The old sealer has made haste to answer a question not put to him. He fears that the skipper, in his solicitude as husband and father, may break down, and betray the secret that oppresses them.

Vain the attempt at concealing it longer; for the very next instant the Captain himself exclaims, —

“Ha! yonder! A boat full of people putting off from the shore!”

“Mout it be the pinnace, Capting?”

“No, Chips; it’s some sort of native craft. Look for yourself.” And he hands him the binocular.

“Yer right, sir,” says Seagriff, after a look through the glass. “A Feweegin canoe it air, an’ I do believe they’re Ailikoleeps. Ef so, we may look out for squalls.”

Both his words and tone tell of fear, – confessed at last, since he knows it can no longer be concealed. But the others are only surprised, for as yet they are ignorant of any danger which may arise from an interview with the natives, of whom they know nothing.

Meanwhile, the canoe has pulled well out from the shore – the northern one – and is evidently making to meet the gig in mid-water, an encounter which cannot be avoided, the breeze being now light, and the boat having little way, nothing like enough to shun the encounter. Seeing it to be inevitable, the Captain says, “We may as well show a bold front, and speak them, I suppose?”

“Yes,” assents Seagriff, “thet air the best way. ’Sides, thar’s no chance o’ our gettin’ past ’em out o’ reach o’ thar sling-stones. But I guess we hevn’t much to fear from thet lot, ef thar aren’t others to jine ’em; an’ I don’t see any others.”

“Nor do I,” indorses the Captain, sweeping the shore-line with his glass. “It’s the only craft I can see anywhere.”

“Wal, it ain’t on a warlike bender, whether Ailikoleep or no, seein’ as thar’s weemen an’ childer in ’t. So I reck’n thar’s nothin’ to be skeart about jest yet, though you niver kin tell for sartin what the critters air up to till they show it themselves.”

By this, the Fuegians have approached near enough for hailing, which, however, they have been doing all along, shouting in high-pitched voices, and frantically gesticulating.

They cry, “Ho-say! ho-say!” in quick repetition, two of them standing up and waving skins of some sort above their heads.

“Thet means to hold palaver, an’ hev a dicker wi’ ’em,” says Seagriff. “They want to trade off thar pelts an’ sech-like for what we can give them in exchange.”

“All right,” assents the Captain. “Be it so; and we may as well douse the sail and heave to – we’re making no way, any how.” At this the sail is lowered, and the boat lies motionless on the water, awaiting the approach of the canoe.

In a few seconds the native craft comes paddling up, but for a time keeps beyond grappling distance – a superfluous precaution on the part of the Fuegians, but very agreeable to those in the gig. Especially so now that they have a nearer view of the occupants of the native craft. There are, in all, thirteen of them; three men, four women, and the rest girls and boys of different ages, one of the women having an infant tied to her by a scarf fastened over one of her shoulders. Nearly a dozen dogs are in the canoe also – diminutive, fox-like animals with short ears, resembling the Esquimaux breed, but smaller. Of the human element – if human it can be called – all are savages of the lowest type and wildest aspect, their coarse shaggy hair hanging like loose thatch over low foreheads, and partially shading their little, bleary red eyes. Hideous are they to very deformity. Nor is their ugliness diminished, but rather heightened, by a variety of pigments – ochre, charcoal, and chalk – laid thick upon their faces and bodies with an admixture of seal-oil or blubber. The men are scantily clothed, with only one kind of garment, a piece of skin hung over their shoulders and lashed across the chest, and all the women wearing a sort of apron skirt of penguin-skins.

The canoe is a rough, primitive structure: several breadths of bark stitched together with sinews of the seal, and gathered up at the ends. Along each side a pole is lashed joining the gunwale-rail, while several stout pieces laid crosswise serve as beam timbers. In the bottom, amidships, is a mud hearth on which burns a fire, with sticks set up around it to dry. There are three compartments in the craft, separated from one another by the cross-pieces: in the forward one are various weapons – spears, clubs, and sling-stones – and fishing implements. The amidships section holds the fire-hearth, the men having place on the forward side of it; the women, who do the paddling, are seated farther aft; while in the stern division are stowed the boys, girls, and dogs.

Such is the picture taken in by the gig’s people at a glance, for they have neither time nor opportunity to examine it minutely, as the Fuegians keep up a continual shouting and gesticulating, their hoarse guttural voices mingled with the barking of the dogs making a very pandemonium of noise.

A sign from Seagriff, however, and a word or two spoken in their own tongue, brings about a lull and an understanding, and the traffic commences. Sea-otter and fox-skins are exchanged for such useless trifles as chance to be in the gig’s lockers, the savage hucksters not proving exorbitant in their demands. Two or three broken bottles, a couple of empty sardine-boxes, with some buttons and scraps of coloured cloth, buy up almost all their stock-in-trade, leaving them not only satisfied, but under the belief that they have outwitted the akifka-akinish (white men).

Still, they continue to solicit further traffic, offering not only their implements of the chase and fishing, but their weapons of war! The spears and slings Seagriff eagerly purchases, giving in exchange several effects of more value than any yet parted with, somewhat to the surprise of Captain Gancy. But, confident that the old sealer has a good and sufficient reason, the Captain says nothing, and lets him have his way.

The Fuegian women are no less solicitous than the men about the barter, and eagerly take a hand in it. Unlike their sisters of civilisation, they are willing to part with articles of personal adornment, even that most prized by them, the shell necklace.9 Ay, more, what may seem incredible, she with the child – her own baby – has taken a fancy to a red scarf of China crape worn by Leoline, and pointing first to it and then to the babe on her shoulder, she plucks the little one from its lashings and holds it up with a coaxing expression on her countenance, like a cheap-jack tempting a simpleton at a fair to purchase a pinchbeck watch.

“What does the woman want?” asks Mrs Gancy, greatly puzzled; all the rest sharing her wonder, save Seagriff, who answers, with a touch of anxiety in his voice, “She wants to barter off her babby, ma’am, for that ’ere scarf.”

“Oh!” exclaims Leoline, shocked, “surely you don’t mean that, Mr Chips.”

“Sure I do, Miss; neyther more nor less. Thet’s jest what the unnateral woman air up to. An’ she wouldn’t be the first as hez done the same. I’ve heerd afore uv a Feweegin woman bein’ willin’ to sell her chile for a purty piece o’ cloth.”

The shocking incident brings the bargaining to an end. Situated as they are, the gig’s people have no desire to burden themselves with Fuegian bric-à-brac, and have consented to the traffic only for the sake of keeping on good terms with the traffickers. But it has become tiresome, and Captain Gancy, eager to be off, orders oars out, the wind having quite died away.

Out go the oars, and the boat is about moving off, when the inhuman mother tosses her pickaninny into the bottom of the canoe, and, reaching her long skinny arm over the gig’s stern-sheets, makes a snatch at the coveted scarf! She would have clutched it, had not her hand been struck down on the instant by the blade of an oar wielded by Henry Chester.

The hag, foiled in her attempt, sets up a howl of angry disappointment, her companions joining in the chorus and sawing the air with threatening arms. Impotent is their rage, however, for the crafty Seagriff has secured all their missile weapons, and under the impulse of four strong rowers, the gig goes dancing on, soon leaving the clumsy Fuegian craft far in its wake, with the savages shouting and threatening vengeance.

Chapter Ten.

Saved by a Williwaw

“Wal!” says the old sealer, with an air of relief, when he sees that danger past, “I guess we’ve gi’n ’em the slip. But what a close shave! Ef I hedn’t contrived to dicker ’em out o’ the sling fixin’s, they mout ’a’ broke some o’ our skulls.”

“Ah! that’s why you bought them,” rejoins the skipper; he, as all the others, had hitherto been wondering at the acquisition of such worthless things, with more than their value given for them; for the spears were but tough poles pointed with flint or bone, and the slings a bit of seal-skin. “I perceive now what you were up to,” he adds, “and a good bargain you made of it, Chips.”

“But why should we have cared?” asked Henry Chester, his English blood roused, and his temper ruffled by the fright given Leoline. “What had we to fear from such miserable wretches? Only three men of them, and five of us!”

“Ay, Mister Henry, that’s all true as to the numbers. But ef they war only one to our five, he wouldn’t regard the odds a bit. They’re like wild animals, an’ fight jest the same. I’ve seed a Feweegin, only a little mite uv a critter, make attack on a whale-boat’s crew o’ sealers, an’ gi’e sev’ral uv ’em ugly wounds. They don’t know sech a thing as fear, no more’n a trapped badger. Neyther do thar weemen, who fight jest the same’s the men. Thar ain’t a squaw in that canoe as cudn’t stan’ a tussle wi’ the best o’ us. ’Sides, ye forgit thet we haven’t any weepens to fight ’em with ’ceptin’ our knives.” This was true; neither gun, pistol, nor other offensive arm having been saved from the sinking Calypso. “An’ our knives,” he continues, “they’d ’a’ been o’ but little use against their slings, wi’ the which they kin send a stone a good hundred yards.10 Ay, Mister Henry, an’ the spears too. Ef we hedn’t got holt o’ them, some uv ’em mout be stickin’ in us now. Ez ye may see, they’re the sort for dartin’.”

The English youth, exulting in the strength and vigour of growing manhood, is loth to believe all this. He makes no response, however, having eased his feelings, and being satisfied with the display he has made of his gallantry by that well-timed blow with the oar.

“In any case,” calmly interposes the skipper, “we may be thankful for getting away from them.”

“Yis, Capting,” says Seagriff, his face still wearing an anxious expression, “ef we hev got away from ’em, the which ain’t sartin yit. I’ve my fears we haven’t seen the last o’ that ugly lot.”

While speaking, his eyes are fixed on the canoe in an earnest, interrogating gaze, as though he sees something to make him uneasy. Such a thing he does see, and the next instant he declares, in excited tones, “No! Look at what they’re doin’!”

“What?” asks the Captain.

“Sendin’ up a signal smoke. Thet’s thar trick, an’ ne’er another.”

Sure enough, a smoke is seen rising over the canoe, quite different from that previously observed – a white, curling cloud more like steam or what might proceed from straw set on fire. But they are not left long conjecturing about it, ere their attention is called to another and similar smoke on the land.

“Yonder!” exclaims Seagriff. “Thar’s the answer. An’ yonder an’ yonder!” he adds, pointing to other white puffs that shoot up along the shore like the telegraphy of a chain of semaphores.11

“’Tair lookin’ bad for us now,” he says in undertone to the Captain, and still gazing anxiously toward the shores. “Thar’s Feweegins ahead on both sides, and they’re sure to put out fur us. Thet’s Burnt Island on the port bow, and Cath’rine to starboard, both ’habited by Ailikoleeps. The open water beyant is Whale-boat Soun’; an’ ef we kin git through the narrer atween, we may still hev a chance to show ’em our starn. Thar’s a sough in the soun’, that tells o’ wind thar, an’ oncet in it we’ll get the help o’ the sail.”

“They’re putting out now,” is the Captain’s rejoinder, as through his glass he sees canoe after canoe part from the shore, one shooting out at every point where there is a smoke.

When clear of the fringe of overhanging trees, the canoes are visible to the others; fifteen or twenty of them leaving the land on both sides, and all making toward the middle of the strait, where it is narrowest, evidently with the design of heading off the boat.

“Keep her well to starboard, Capting!” sings out the old sealer, “near as may be to the p’int o’ Cath’rine Island. Ef we kin git past thet ’fore they close on us, we’ll be safe.”

“But hadn’t we better put about and put back? We can run clear of them that way.”

“Cl’ar o’ the canoes ahead, yis! But not o’ the others astarn. Look yonder! Thar’s more o’ ’em puttin’ out ahint – the things air everywhar!”

“’Twill be safer to run on, then, you think?”

“I do, sir. B’sides, thar’s no help for ’t now. It’s our only chance, an’ it ain’t sech a bad un, eyther. I guess we kin do it yit.”

“Lay out to your oars, then, my lads,” cries the skipper, steering as he has been advised. “Pull your best, all!”

A superfluous command that, for already they are straining every nerve, all awake to the danger drawing nigh. Never in their lives were they in greater peril, never threatened by a fate more fearful than that impending now. For, as the canoes come nearer, it can be seen that there are only men in them; men of fierce aspect, every one of them armed.

“Nary woman nor chile!” mutters Seagriff, as though talking to himself. “Thet means war, an’ the white feathers stickin’ up out o’ thar skulls, wi’ thar faces chalked like circus clowns! War to the knife, for sartin!”

Still other, if not surer, evidences of hostility are the spears bristling above their heads, and the slings in their hands, into which they are seen slipping stones to be ready for casting. Their cries, too, shrilling over the water, are like the screams of rapacious birds about to pounce on prey which they know cannot escape them.

And now the canoes are approaching mid-channel, closing in from either side en échelon, and the boat must pass between them. Soon she has some of them abeam, with others on the bows. It is running the gauntlet, with apparently a very poor chance of running it safely. The failure of an oar-stroke, a retarding whiff of wind, may bring death to those in the gig, or capture, which is the same. Yet they see life beyond, if they can but reach it, – life in a breeze, the “sough” on the water, of which Seagriff spoke. It is scarcely two cables’ length ahead. Oh, that it were but one! Still they have hope, as the old sealer shouts encouragingly, “We may git into it yet. Pull, boys; pull wi’ might an’ main!”