The Cruise of the Alerte · Chapter 6 (1/2)

VI

On the Salvages

As soon as dinner was over the whaleboat was put into the water, and I pulled off to the landing-place with two of my companions.

The men on shore were still employed in carrying the barrels up to the cavern, but when we approached they ceased working, and stood gazing at us, with a not unnatural curiosity. We found the landing-place to be a queer one. A little channel clove the rocks for sixty or seventy feet inland. This inlet was so narrow that there was scarce room within it to work a boat with oars, and, as the ocean swell entered it with sufficient force to render a collision with the rocks dangerous for any boat, an ingenious arrangement had been placed there to facilitate the landing. Just outside the entrance of the inlet a barrel floated, which was moored to a big stone or anchor at the bottom; a stout grass rope was attached to this barrel, and the other end of it was made fast to a rock on shore at the head of the inlet. By hauling along this rope, which was sufficiently taut for the purpose, the boat was kept well in the centre of the channel, and all risk of getting foul of the rocks on either side was avoided. At the end of the inlet was a rocky shelf, on to which we jumped, having first made our boat fast to the rope in such a way that she could not bump against the shore.

Then there came down to us a very brown and amiable-looking old gentleman, whose dress consisted solely of a short, ragged shirt, which had once, I think, been of a vivid green, but which had now been toned down to a more aesthetic tint with age and dirt. He welcomed us to the island by silently shaking each of us by the hand very cordially.

I addressed him in Spanish, but he shook his head and commenced to speak in a language which I recognised as a Portuguese patois of some description. But we soon contrived to understand each other fairly well. He told me that he was the padron of the wild crew who stood round listening to our conversation with grave faces⁠—a sort of governor of the islet, and chief owner of the barrels of wealth which lay before us. He was also captain of the schooner.

Then he beckoned us to follow him, and he led us into one of the stone huts, the furniture of which consisted of barrels like those that were being landed from the schooner, an open hogshead of black grapes, and a demijohn. The good old man pulled out a pannikin from between the stones of the wall, and proceeded to serve out to each of us a tot of excellent aguardiente from the demijohn.

One of the half-naked men happened to be bringing another of the mysterious barrels into the hut; so, without showing any impolite curiosity, I contrived to hint that I should like to know what it contained. The padron forthwith dipped the pannikin into a barrel that had been already broached, and poured the contents into my hand. It was, as I had expected, not pirate treasure, but coarse salt.

Then he explained to me that he and his companions were natives of Madeira, that they were in the habit of coming here with their schooner at this season of the year, and that they made this bay their headquarters for salting down the fish which they caught, but that for the remainder of the year there were no human beings on these islands. He further said that the Salvages were claimed by the Portuguese, and not by the Spanish. On being asked whether there was any fresh water on the island, he said there was a small fountain in a hollow on the summit, and that all the water they used had to be brought down from there in small breakers on the heads of his men. They were nimble enough in scrambling down the cliffs under their burdens, as we saw later on; but all Madeirans are excellent mountaineers.

Then the padron, looking rather sly, inquired in his turn:⁠—“What have you Englishmen come here for? It is rare that vessels come by here.”

“It is on our way to Teneriffe,” I replied, “and as this is a pleasure yacht we are not bound to time.”

“Once before an Englishman came here. I thought you might have come for the same reason as he.”

“And why did he come?”

“To look for hidden money.”

This was very interesting, but we tried to assume a look of innocent surprise, as if we had heard nothing of this before.

“There is a great treasure hidden on this island somewhere,” he continued, “and the English know of it. Some years ago this milord came with his yacht, a bigger one than yours, a steamer with three masts, and they dug for the treasure. Oh! it is a great treasure, more than a thousand English pounds they say; but the Englishmen did not find it.”

“Where did they dig?” I asked.

“I do not know. I was not on the island at the time. It was several years ago.”

That was all he seemed to know; we could elicit no further information on the subject from him; but it was evident that the Alerte was not the first yacht that had come to the Salvages in search of the hidden chests of dollars.

We then set forth to explore the island. We climbed the narrow path that zigzagged up the bare cliffs, and in the construction of which a considerable amount of labour must have been expended, a proof in itself that the rare visitors to the island were Portuguese, for these people alone take the trouble to make roads on desert islands. They seem to love for its own sake the arduous work of cutting paths up difficult precipices, and very cleverly they do it too. We came across the remains of excellent Portuguese roads even among the apparently inaccessible crags of Trinidad.

We reached the green downs on the summit. The sky was cloudless and a fresh breeze was blowing over the sea, so the tramp was very enjoyable to us after the cramped life on board of a small vessel.

On every portion of these downs we found walls roughly put together of piled-up stones, which in some places formed long parallel lines, in others square enclosures. The object of these had probably been to prevent the soil from being washed into the sea; but whatever cultivation had formerly been carried on here had evidently been abandoned long since, in consequence, no doubt, of the insufficiency of the water-supply. The fishermen appeared to be entirely ignorant of the history of these old walls. In one place there were traces of an ancient vineyard. Wherever the ground was not too stony a coarse grass grew luxuriantly over the downs. There were also wild tomatoes in profusion and alkaline sea plants of various species.

We saw many rabbits dodging among the rocks, and gulls and cormorants in quantities. The cormorants dwelt with their families in fine stone houses which they had constructed with great ingenuity. Some of the stones were large and heavy; it would be interesting to observe how the birds set to work to move these and how they put their roofs on. I have been told that they rake up a mound of stones with their powerful wings in such a way that by removing some of those underneath they leave the roof above them. The gulls are not such good architects as the cormorants, and for the most part live in the natural crevices of the rocks, or in holes which they steal from the rabbits. We, however, saw one conscientious gull in the act of making his own house. He had selected a large stone lying on soft soil, and was burrowing a deep cavern underneath it.

We walked round the downs, looking over the cliffs into every bay; but we could see no extensive sandy beach such as that described by Captain Robinson. There were small patches of sand here and there, and that was all. The shore was formed of rock and shingle. It is probable that many changes have taken place on this exposed islet since the visit of the Prometheus; the sands may have been washed away, and there is no doubt that rocks and rocky landslips are constantly falling from above.

We saw clearly that it would be useless for us to dig in any of these bays; for none of them corresponded with the description given by the Spanish sailor; so we came to the conclusion that our search must be undertaken, if anywhere, on the middle island and not on the Great Salvage.

When on the summit of the island we looked out towards the south for the famous Peak of Teneriffe, which is said to be sometimes visible at a distance of one hundred and fifty miles. We were not much more than eighty miles from it here and the day was quite clear, but we could see no signs of it; neither was it visible while we were on the Great Piton, which is eight miles nearer. I have been at sea in the neighbourhood of Teneriffe on several occasions, but have never yet had a view of the great mountain, so either I am very unlucky or it must be rare indeed that it is to be distinguished at anything like the distance alleged.

Having explored the islet, we proceeded to hunt rabbits. We had brought no guns with us, so tried to kill them with stones, but failed completely; we were all out of practice at this sort of sport. We then descended the path to the huts, where the padron gave us a smiling welcome, and, inviting us again into the hut, produced for our benefit an unwonted luxury, a bottle of rough Madeira. We purchased some grapes from him and a bottle of aguardiente, and, having bade farewell to our Portuguese friends, we pulled off to the yacht and recounted our adventures to the others.

When we tasted the aguardiente we discovered that the monarch of the desert island understood how to trade in quite a civilised fashion; it was horrible stuff, not at all up to the excellent sample he had treated us to on our landing.

Shortly before sunset the schooner, having discharged all her salt, weighed anchor and set sail for Madeira, leaving about six men behind on the island.

As some of my companions seemed rather keen on taking their guns on shore and having a few hours’ rabbit-shooting, I decided that the yacht should remain at anchor where she was during the following forenoon, so as to enable them to enjoy their sport and stock our larder with fresh meat⁠—a very acceptable luxury⁠—while I would sail with a few hands in the whaleboat at daybreak to the Great Piton, effect a landing there if possible, and discover whether there was any bay which answered to the Spanish sailor’s description. In the afternoon the yacht was to get underway, and rejoin me at the other island.

So at 4 o’clock the next morning, September 14, we had coffee, put some provisions and two breakers of water into the boat, together with a few picks and shovels, a compass and other necessaries, and then sailed away.

I left the first mate in charge of the yacht, having first arranged a short code of signals with him, so that I could communicate from the shore when the yacht appeared off the Great Piton.

I took one of the signal code flags with me, which when flying from a perpendicular staff was to signify “All Right,” two waves of the flag indicated that we were coming off to the yacht in the boat, four waves was an order to the mate to send the dinghy off to us, and eight or more waves meant that we had found a likely-looking place and that I had decided to carry on digging operations. We were to indicate the best anchorage by pointing the flag in the direction we wished the yacht to be steered.

It was still dark when we got underway in the whaleboat, so the binnacle light was lit, and we shaped our course by compass towards the still invisible island, which was about nine miles distant.

I had with me the doctor, the second mate, and one of the paid hands⁠—Arthur Cotton. When we got clear of the protecting island we found that a fresh wind was blowing nearly right aft; so we set the two spritsails and ran fast across a tumbling sea, the Atlantic swell looking formidable when our little boat was in the deep hollows between the lofty crests.

By-and-by a faint light appeared in the east, and a red, rather stormy-looking dawn broadened across the dark sky.

Shortly after sunrise, the mists clearing from the islet, we perceived the Great Piton right ahead of us; but we only caught sight of it when we were on the summits of the waves, losing it again when we were in the deep valleys between.

We scudded on, and as we approached nearer, the sea became more confused and a little water tumbled on board occasionally. Outlying rocks showed their black heads above the water here and there, while curling breakers indicated the presence of other invisible dangers.

We lowered our sails and inspected the island from a safe distance before venturing to land; for if proper precautions are not exercised it is a very easy matter to lose one’s boat in a moment while beaching on any of these small oceanic islets.

We saw that the Great Piton was much lower than the Great Salvage, the shore was rocky and indented, and there was a good deal of surf in places. Above the shore was a green undulating plain, while towards the middle of it rose a steep dome with dark rocks at the summit.

The average height of the plain above the sea seemed to be about twenty feet, and the central hill, according to the chart, is only 140 feet high. We observed that there were sandy beaches in many of the little coves, and some of these tallied well with the spot described by the Spaniard.

The Great Piton is a long narrow island extending from northeast to southwest magnetic; therefore the whole side facing the southeast could be accurately described as the south side. It was somewhere on this shore that the mutineers must have landed with the chests.

Picking our way through the outer shoals we made for what appeared to be the best landing-place, a snug little cove at the eastern extremity of this south side. Here we landed without any difficulty; but, finding it impossible to haul our heavy boat up the beach, we moored her safely in the bay and waded on shore with our stores.

On a sandy slope above the rocks we found the ruined walls of a stone hut. By placing our sails over these we made a snug little house. “And now,” cried our medical adviser, “I suggest that, before doing anything else, we have breakfast.” Our early morning sail on the ocean had given us all a hearty appetite; so a fire was lit, cocoa made, and the ship biscuits and tinned beef were duly appreciated. Then we enjoyed our pipes, and leaving Arthur behind to make the camp as comfortable as he could, we set forth to explore the island. Our first discovery was that the corner on which we had landed became a separate islet at high-water; for it was divided from the bulk of the Great Piton by a broad depression, across which at about three-quarters flood the sea rushed with a violent current. This depression was of rock and lava, and it had been worn into a smooth and level floor by the action of innumerable tides. At low water it was several feet above the sea, so that one could then walk across dryshod.

We walked along the whole southern shore of the island, and it appeared to us that there were at least three coves to which the Spaniard’s description could apply equally well. We found no inhabitants, but there were frequent signs of the Portuguese fishermen who occasionally visit the islet. We saw many footprints on the sands, showing that some men had been here very recently. We came across their rough stone huts full of fleas, some of their fishing-tackle, mounds of coarse salt, the ashes of their fires, and in one cavern there were stored the large iron pots in which they cooked their food.

We found no rabbits on the island, and very few birds. The sole creatures on shore were beetles, flies, and fleas. The latter lively insects were a great plague to us at night; it was unwise of us to pitch our camp in the hut of a Portuguese fisherman. On the beach were great numbers of very active little crabs. There was no fresh water on the island.