In Search of the Castaways; or the Children of Captain Grant

CHAPTER IX THROUGH THE STRAITS OF MAGELLAN

THE joy on board was uni­ver­sal when Pa­ganel’s res­olu­tion was made known.

Lit­tle Robert flung him­self on his neck in such tu­mul­tuous de­light that he near­ly threw the wor­thy sec­re­tary down, and made him say, “Rude _pe­tit bon­homme_. I’ll teach him ge­og­ra­phy.”

Robert bade fair to be an ac­com­plished gen­tle­man some day, for John Man­gles was to make a sailor of him, and the Ma­jor was to teach him _sang-​froid_, and Gle­nar­van and La­dy He­le­na were to in­stil in­to him courage and good­ness and gen­eros­ity, while Mary was to in­spire him with grat­itude to­ward such in­struc­tors.

The DUN­CAN soon fin­ished tak­ing in coal, and turned her back on the dis­mal re­gion. She fell in be­fore long with the cur­rent from the coast of Brazil, and on the 7th of Septem­ber en­tered the South­ern hemi­sphere.

So far, then, the voy­age had been made with­out dif­fi­cul­ty. Ev­ery­body was full of hope, for in this search for Cap­tain Grant, each day seemed to in­crease the prob­abil­ity of find­ing him. The cap­tain was among the most con­fi­dent on board, but his con­fi­dence main­ly arose from the long­ing de­sire he had to see Miss Mary hap­py. He was smit­ten with quite a pe­cu­liar in­ter­est for this young girl, and man­aged to con­ceal his sen­ti­ments so well that ev­ery­one on board saw it ex­cept him­self and Mary Grant.

As for the learned ge­og­ra­pher, he was prob­ably the hap­pi­est man in all the south­ern hemi­sphere. He spent the whole day in study­ing maps, which were spread out on the sa­loon ta­ble, to the great an­noy­ance of M. Ol­bi­nett, who could nev­er get the cloth laid for meals, with­out dis­putes on the sub­ject. But all the pas­sen­gers took his part ex­cept the Ma­jor, who was per­fect­ly in­dif­fer­ent about ge­ograph­ical ques­tions, es­pe­cial­ly at din­ner-​time. Pa­ganel al­so came across a reg­ular car­go of old books in the chief of­fi­cer’s chest. They were in a very dam­aged con­di­tion, but among them he raked out a few Span­ish vol­umes, and de­ter­mined forth­with to set to work to mas­ter the lan­guage of Cer-​vantes, as no one on board un­der­stood it, and it would be help­ful in their search along the Chil­ian coast. Thanks to his taste for lan­guages, he did not de­spair of be­ing able to speak the lan­guage flu­ent­ly when they ar­rived at Con­cep­cion. He stud­ied it fu­ri­ous­ly, and kept con­stant­ly mut­ter­ing het­ero­ge­neous syl­la­bles.

He spent his leisure hours in teach­ing young Robert, and in­struct­ed him in the his­to­ry of the coun­try they were so rapid­ly ap­proach­ing.

On the 25th of Septem­ber, the yacht ar­rived off the Straits of Mag­el­lan, and en­tered them with­out de­lay. This route is gen­er­al­ly pre­ferred by steam­ers on their way to the Pa­cif­ic Ocean. The ex­act length of the straits is 372 miles. Ships of the largest ton­nage find, through­out, suf­fi­cient depth of wa­ter, even close to the shore, and there is a good bot­tom ev­ery­where, and abun­dance of fresh wa­ter, and rivers abound­ing in fish, and forests in game, and plen­ty of safe and ac­ces­si­ble har­bors; in fact a thou­sand things which are lack­ing in Strait Lemaire and Cape Horn, with its ter­ri­ble rocks, in­ces­sant­ly vis­it­ed by hur­ri­cane and tem­pest.

For the first three or four hours–that is to say, for about six­ty to eighty miles, as far as Cape Gre­go­ry–the coast on ei­ther side was low and sandy. Jacques Pa­ganel would not lose a sin­gle point of view, nor a sin­gle de­tail of the straits. It would scarce­ly take thir­ty-​six hours to go through them, and the mov­ing panora­ma on both sides, seen in all the clear­ness and glo­ry of the light of a south­ern sun, was well worth the trou­ble of look­ing at and ad­mir­ing. On the Ter­ra del Fuego side, a few wretched-​look­ing crea­tures were wan­der­ing about on the rocks, but on the oth­er side not a soli­tary in­hab­itant was vis­ible.

Pa­ganel was so vexed at not be­ing able to catch a glimpse of any Patag­oni­ans, that his com­pan­ions were quite amused at him. He would in­sist that Patag­onia with­out Patag­oni­ans was not Patag­onia at all.

But Gle­nar­van replied:

“Pa­tience, my wor­thy ge­og­ra­pher. We shall see the Patag­oni­ans yet.”

“I am not sure of it.”

“But there is such a peo­ple, any­how,” said La­dy He­le­na.

“I doubt it much, madam, since I don’t see them.”

“But sure­ly the very name Patag­onia, which means ‘great feet’ in Span­ish, would not have been giv­en to imag­inary be­ings.” “Oh, the name is noth­ing,” said Pa­ganel, who was ar­gu­ing sim­ply for the sake of ar­gu­ing. “And be­sides, to speak the truth, we are not sure if that is their name.”

“What an idea!” ex­claimed Gle­nar­van. “Did you know that, Ma­jor?”

“No,” replied Mc­Nabbs, “and wouldn’t give a Scotch pound-​note for the in­for­ma­tion.”

“You shall hear it, how­ev­er, Ma­jor In­dif­fer­ent. Though Mag­el­lan called the na­tives Patag­oni­ans, the Fue­gians called them Tireme­nen, the Chil­ians Cau­cal­hues, the colonists of Car­men Tehuelch­es, the Arau­cans Huilich­es; Bougainville gives them the name of Chauha, and Falkn­er that of Tehuel­hets. The name they give them­selves is In­aken. Now, tell me then, how would you rec­og­nize them? In­deed, is it like­ly that a peo­ple with so many names has any ac­tu­al ex­is­tence?”

“That’s a queer ar­gu­ment, cer­tain­ly,” said La­dy He­le­na.

“Well, let us ad­mit it,” said her hus­band, “but our friend Pa­ganel must own that even if there are doubts about the name of the race there is none about their size.”

“In­deed, I will nev­er own any­thing so out­ra­geous as that,” replied Pa­ganel.

“They are tall,” said Gle­nar­van.

“I don’t know that.”

“Are they lit­tle, then?” asked La­dy He­le­na.

“No one can af­firm that they are.”

“About the av­er­age, then?” said Mc­Nabbs.

“I don’t know that ei­ther.”

“That’s go­ing a lit­tle too far,” said Gle­nar­van. “Trav­el­ers who have seen them tell us.”

“Trav­el­ers who have seen them,” in­ter­rupt­ed Pa­ganel, “don’t agree at all in their ac­counts. Mag­el­lan said that his head scarce­ly reached to their waist.”

“Well, then, that proves.”

“Yes, but Drake de­clares that the En­glish are taller than the tallest Patag­oni­an?”

“Oh, the En­glish–that may be,” replied the Ma­jor, dis­dain­ful­ly, “but we are talk­ing of the Scotch.”

“Cavendish as­sures us that they are tall and ro­bust,” con­tin­ued Pa­ganel. “Hawkins makes out they are gi­ants. Lemaire and Shouten de­clare that they are eleven feet high.”

“These are all cred­ible wit­ness­es,” said Gle­nar­van.

“Yes, quite as much as Wood, Nar­bor­ough, and Falkn­er, who say they are of medi­um stature. Again, By­ron, Gi­rau­dais, Bougainville, Wal­lis, and Carteret, de­clared that the Patag­oni­ans are six feet six inch­es tall.”

“But what is the truth, then, among all these con­tra­dic­tions?” asked La­dy He­le­na.

“Just this, madame; the Patag­oni­ans have short legs, and a large bust; or by way of a joke we might say that these na­tives are six feet high when they are sit­ting, and on­ly five when they are stand­ing.”

“Bra­vo! my dear ge­og­ra­pher,” said Gle­nar­van. “That is very well put.”

“Un­less the race has no ex­is­tence, that would rec­on­cile all state­ments,” re­turned Pa­ganel. “But here is one con­so­la­tion, at all events: the Straits of Mag­el­lan are very mag­nif­icent, even with­out Patag­oni­ans.”

Just at this mo­ment the DUN­CAN was round­ing the penin­su­la of Brunswick be­tween splen­did panora­mas.

Sev­en­ty miles af­ter dou­bling Cape Gre­go­ry, she left on her star­board the pen­iten­tiary of Pun­ta Are­na. The church steeple and the Chil­ian flag gleamed for an in­stant among the trees, and then the strait wound on be­tween huge granitic mass­es which had an im­pos­ing ef­fect. Cloud-​capped moun­tains ap­peared, their heads white with eter­nal snows, and their feet hid in im­mense forests. To­ward the south­west, Mount Tarn rose 6,500 feet high. Night came

V. IV Verne on af­ter a long lin­ger­ing twi­light, the light in­sen­si­bly melt­ing away in­to soft shades. These bril­liant con­stel­la­tions be­gan to bestud the sky, and the South­ern Cross shone out. There were nu­mer­ous bays along the shore, easy of ac­cess, but the yacht did not drop an­chor in any; she con­tin­ued her course fear­less­ly through the lu­mi­nous dark­ness. Present­ly ru­ins came in sight, crum­bling build­ings, which the night in­vest­ed with grandeur, the sad re­mains of a de­sert­ed set­tle­ment, whose name will be an eter­nal protest against these fer­tile shores and forests full of game. The DUN­CAN was pass­ing Fort Famine.

It was in that very spot that Sarmien­to, a Spaniard, came in 1581, with four hun­dred em­igrants, to es­tab­lish a colony. He found­ed the city of St. Philip, but the ex­treme sever­ity of win­ter dec­imat­ed the in­hab­itants, and those who had strug­gled through the cold died sub­se­quent­ly of star­va­tion. Cavendish the Cor­sair dis­cov­ered the last sur­vivor dy­ing of hunger in the ru­ins.

Af­ter sail­ing along these de­sert­ed shores, the DUN­CAN went through a se­ries of nar­row pass­es, be­tween forests of beech and ash and birch, and at length dou­bled Cape Froward, still bristling with the ice of the last win­ter. On the oth­er side of the strait, in Ter­ra del Fuego, stood Mount Sarmien­to, tow­er­ing to a height of 6,000 feet, an enor­mous ac­cu­mu­la­tion of rocks, sep­arat­ed by bands of cloud, form­ing a sort of aeri­al archipela­go in the sky.

It is at Cape Froward that the Amer­ican con­ti­nent ac­tu­al­ly ter­mi­nates, for Cape Horn is noth­ing but a rock sunk in the sea in lat­itude 52 de­grees. At Cape Mo­max the straits widened, and she was able to get round Nar­bor­ough Isles and ad­vance in a more souther­ly di­rec­tion, till at length the rock of Cape Pi­lares, the ex­treme point of Des­ola­tion Is­land, came in sight, thir­ty-​six hours af­ter en­ter­ing the straits. Be­fore her stem lay a broad, open, sparkling ocean, which Jacques Pa­ganel greet­ed with en­thu­si­as­tic ges­tures, feel­ing kin­dred emo­tions with those which stirred the bo­som of Fer­di­nand de Mag­el­lan him­self, when the sails of his ship, the TRINIDAD, first bent be­fore the breeze from the great Pa­cif­ic.