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

CHAPTER II NAVIGATORS AND THEIR DISCOVERIES

NEXT day, the 27th of Jan­uary, the pas­sen­gers of the MAC­QUAR­IE were in­stalled on board the brig. Will Hal­ley had not of­fered his cab­in to his la­dy pas­sen­gers. This omis­sion was the less to be de­plored, for the den was wor­thy of the bear.

At half past twelve the an­chor was weighed, hav­ing been loosed from its hold­ing-​ground with some dif­fi­cul­ty. A mod­er­ate breeze was blow­ing from the south­west. The sails were grad­ual­ly un­furled; the five hands made slow work. Wil­son of­fered to as­sist the crew; but Hal­ley begged him to be qui­et and not to in­ter­fere with what did not con­cern him. He was ac­cus­tomed to man­age his own af­fairs, and re­quired nei­ther as­sis­tance nor ad­vice.

This was aimed at John Man­gles, who had smiled at the clum­si­ness of some ma­neu­ver. John took the hint, but men­tal­ly re­solved that he would nev­er­the­less hold him­self in readi­ness in case the in­ca­pac­ity of the crew should en­dan­ger the safe­ty of the ves­sel.

How­ev­er, in time, the sails were ad­just­ed by the five sailors, aid­ed by the stim­ulus of the cap­tain’s oaths. The MAC­QUAR­IE stood out to sea on the lar­board tack, un­der all her low­er sails, top­sails, top­gal­lants, cross-​jack, and jib. By and by, the oth­er sails were hoist­ed. But in spite of this ad­di­tion­al can­vas the brig made very lit­tle way. Her round­ed bow, the width of her hold, and her heavy stern, made her a bad sailor, the per­fect type of a wood­en shoe.

They had to make the best of it. Hap­pi­ly, five days, or, at most, six, would take them to Auck­land, no mat­ter how bad a sailor the MAC­QUAR­IE was.

At sev­en o’clock in the evening the Aus­tralian coast and the light­house of the port of Eden had fad­ed out of sight. The ship la­bored on the lumpy sea, and rolled heav­ily in the trough of the waves. The pas­sen­gers be­low suf­fered a good deal from this mo­tion. But it was im­pos­si­ble to stay on deck, as it rained vi­olent­ly. Thus they were con­demned to close im­pris­on­ment.

Each one of them was lost in his own re­flec­tions. Words were few. Now and then La­dy He­le­na and Miss Grant ex­changed a few syl­la­bles. Gle­nar­van was rest­less; he went in and out, while the Ma­jor was im­pas­sive. John Man­gles, fol­lowed by Robert, went on the poop from time to time, to look at the weath­er. Pa­ganel sat in his cor­ner, mut­ter­ing vague and in­co­her­ent words.

What was the wor­thy ge­og­ra­pher think­ing of? Of New Zealand, the coun­try to which des­tiny was lead­ing him. He went men­tal­ly over all his his­to­ry; he called to mind the scenes of the past in that ill-​omened coun­try.

But in all that his­to­ry was there a fact, was there a soli­tary in­ci­dent that could jus­ti­fy the dis­cov­er­ers of these is­lands in con­sid­er­ing them as “a con­ti­nent.” Could a mod­ern ge­og­ra­pher or a sailor con­cede to them such a des­ig­na­tion. Pa­ganel was al­ways re­volv­ing the mean­ing of the doc­ument. He was pos­sessed with the idea; it be­came his rul­ing thought. Af­ter Patag­onia, af­ter Aus­tralia, his imag­ina­tion, al­lured by a name, flew to New Zealand. But in that di­rec­tion, one point, and on­ly one, stood in his way.

“_Con­tin–con­tin_,” he re­peat­ed, “that must mean con­ti­nent!”

And then he re­sumed his men­tal ret­ro­spect of the nav­iga­tors who made known to us these two great is­lands of the South­ern Sea.

It was on the 13th of De­cem­ber, 1642, that the Dutch nav­iga­tor Tas­man, af­ter dis­cov­er­ing Van Diemen’s Land, sight­ed the un­known shores of New Zealand. He coast­ed along for sev­er­al days, and on the 17th of De­cem­ber his ships pen­etrat­ed in­to a large bay, which, ter­mi­nat­ing in a nar­row strait, sep­arat­ed the two is­lands.

The north­ern is­land was called by the na­tives Ikana-​Mani, a word which sig­ni­fies the fish of Mani. The south­ern is­land was called Tavai-​Pouna-​Mou, “the whale that yields the green-​stones.”

Abel Tas­man sent his boats on shore, and they re­turned ac­com­pa­nied by two ca­noes and a noisy com­pa­ny of na­tives. These sav­ages were mid­dle height, of brown or yel­low com­plex­ion, an­gu­lar bones, harsh voic­es, and black hair, which was dressed in the Japanese man­ner, and sur­mount­ed by a tall white feath­er.

This first in­ter­view be­tween Eu­ro­peans and abo­rig­ines seemed to promise am­ica­ble and last­ing in­ter­course. But the next day, when one of Tas­man’s boats was look­ing for an an­chor­age near­er to the land, sev­en ca­noes, manned by a great num­ber of na­tives, at­tacked them fierce­ly. The boat cap­sized and filled. The quar­ter­mas­ter in com­mand was in­stant­ly struck with a bad­ly-​sharp­ened spear, and fell in­to the sea. Of his six com­pan­ions four were killed; the oth­er two and the quar­ter­mas­ter were able to swim to the ships, and were picked up and re­cov­ered.

Af­ter this sad oc­cur­rence Tas­man set sail, con­fin­ing his re­venge to giv­ing the na­tives a few mus­ket-​shots, which prob­ably did not reach them. He left this bay–which still bears the name of Mas­sacre Bay– fol­lowed the west­ern coast, and on the 5th of Jan­uary, an­chored near the north­ern-​most point. Here the vi­olence of the surf, as well as the un­friend­ly at­ti­tude of the na­tives, pre­vent­ed his ob­tain­ing wa­ter, and he fi­nal­ly quit­ted these shores, giv­ing them the name Stat­en-​land or the Land of the States, in hon­or of the States-​Gen­er­al.

The Dutch nav­iga­tor con­clud­ed that these is­lands were ad­ja­cent to the is­lands of the same name on the east of Ter­ra del Fuego, at the south­ern point of the Amer­ican con­ti­nent. He thought he had found “the Great South­ern Con­ti­nent.”

“But,” said Pa­ganel to him­self, “what a sev­en­teenth cen­tu­ry sailor might call a ‘con­ti­nent’ would nev­er stand for one with a nine­teenth cen­tu­ry man. No such mis­take can be sup­posed! No! there is some­thing here that baf­fles me.”