Île mystérieuse. English

Chapter 3

The next day, the 30th of Oc­to­ber, all was ready for the pro­posed ex­plor­ing ex­pe­di­tion, which re­cent events had ren­dered so nec­es­sary. In fact, things had so come about that the set­tlers in Lin­coln Is­land no longer need­ed help for them­selves, but were even able to car­ry it to oth­ers.

It was there­fore agreed that they should as­cend the Mer­cy as far as the riv­er was nav­iga­ble. A great part of the dis­tance would thus be tra­versed with­out fa­tigue, and the ex­plor­ers could trans­port their pro­vi­sions and arms to an ad­vanced point in the west of the is­land.

It was nec­es­sary to think not on­ly of the things which they should take with them, but al­so of those which they might have by chance to bring back to Gran­ite House. If there had been a wreck on the coast, as was sup­posed, there would be many things cast up, which would be law­ful­ly their prizes. In the event of this, the cart would have been of more use than the light ca­noe, but it was heavy and clum­sy to drag, and there­fore more dif­fi­cult to use; this led Pen­croft to ex­press his re­gret that the chest had not con­tained, be­sides “his half­pound of to­bac­co,” a pair of strong New Jer­sey hors­es, which would have been very use­ful to the colony!

The pro­vi­sions, which Neb had al­ready packed up, con­sist­ed of a store of meat and of sev­er­al gal­lons of beer, that is to say enough to sus­tain them for three days, the time which Hard­ing as­signed for the ex­pe­di­tion. They hoped be­sides to sup­ply them­selves on the road, and Neb took care not to for­get the portable stove.

The on­ly tools the set­tlers took were the two wood­men’s ax­es, which they could use to cut a path through the thick forests, as al­so the in­stru­ments, the tele­scope and pock­et-​com­pass.

For weapons they se­lect­ed the two flint-​lock guns, which were like­ly to be more use­ful to them than the per­cus­sion fowl­ing-​pieces, the first on­ly re­quir­ing flints which could be eas­ily re­placed, and the lat­ter need­ing ful­mi­nat­ing caps, a fre­quent use of which would soon ex­haust their lim­it­ed stock. How­ev­er, they took al­so one of the car­bines and some car­tridges. As to the pow­der, of which there was about fifty pounds in the bar­rel, a small sup­ply of it had to be tak­en, but the en­gi­neer hoped to man­ufac­ture an ex­plo­sive sub­stance which would al­low them to hus­band it. To the firearms were added the five cut­lass­es well sheathed in leather, and, thus sup­plied, the set­tlers could ven­ture in­to the vast for­est with some chance of suc­cess.

It is use­less to add that Pen­croft, Her­bert, and Neb, thus armed, were at the sum­mit of their hap­pi­ness, al­though Cyrus Hard­ing made them promise not to fire a shot un­less it was nec­es­sary.

At six in the morn­ing the ca­noe put off from the shore; all had em­barked, in­clud­ing Top, and they pro­ceed­ed to the mouth of the Mer­cy.

The tide had be­gun to come up half an hour be­fore. For sev­er­al hours, there­fore, there would be a cur­rent, which it was well to prof­it by, for lat­er the ebb would make it dif­fi­cult to as­cend the riv­er. The tide was al­ready strong, for in three days the moon would be full, and it was enough to keep the boat in the cen­ter of the cur­rent, where it float­ed swift­ly along be­tween the high banks with­out its be­ing nec­es­sary to in­crease its speed by the aid of the oars. In a few min­utes the ex­plor­ers ar­rived at the an­gle formed by the Mer­cy and ex­act­ly at the place where, sev­en months be­fore, Pen­croft had made his first raft of wood.

Af­ter this sud­den an­gle the riv­er widened and flowed un­der the shade of great ev­er­green firs.

The as­pect of the banks was mag­nif­icent. Cyrus Hard­ing and his com­pan­ions could not but ad­mire the love­ly ef­fects so eas­ily pro­duced by na­ture with wa­ter and trees. As they ad­vanced the for­est el­ement di­min­ished. On the right bank of the riv­er grew mag­nif­icent spec­imens of the ul­maceae tribe, the pre­cious elm, so valu­able to builders, and which with­stands well the ac­tion of wa­ter. Then there were nu­mer­ous groups be­long­ing to the same fam­ily, among oth­ers one in par­tic­ular, the fruit of which pro­duces a very use­ful oil. Fur­ther on, Her­bert re­marked the lardiz­abala, a twin­ing shrub which, when bruised in wa­ter, fur­nish­es ex­cel­lent cordage; and two or three ebony trees of a beau­ti­ful black, crossed with capri­cious veins.

From time to time, in cer­tain places where the land­ing was easy, the ca­noe was stopped, when Gideon Spilett, Her­bert, and Pen­croft, their guns in their hands, and pre­ced­ed by Top, jumped on shore. With­out ex­pect­ing game, some use­ful plant might be met with, and the young nat­ural­ist was de­light­ed with dis­cov­er­ing a sort of wild spinach, be­long­ing to the or­der of chenopo­di­aceae, and nu­mer­ous spec­imens of cru­cifer­ae, be­long­ing to the cab­bage tribe, which it would cer­tain­ly be pos­si­ble to cul­ti­vate by trans­plant­ing. There were cress­es, horseradish, turnips, and last­ly, lit­tle branch­ing hairy stalks, scarce­ly more than three feet high, which pro­duced brown­ish grains.

Do you know what this plant is?” asked Her­bert of the sailor.

“To­bac­co!” cried Pen­croft, who ev­ident­ly had nev­er seen his fa­vorite plant ex­cept in the bowl of his pipe.

“No, Pen­croft,” replied Her­bert; “this is not to­bac­co, it is mus­tard.”

“Mus­tard be hanged!” re­turned the sailor; “but if by chance you hap­pen to come across a to­bac­co-​plant, my boy, pray don’t scorn that!”

“We shall find it some day!” said Gideon Spilett.

“Well!” ex­claimed Pen­croft, “when that day comes, I do not know what more will be want­ing in our is­land!”

These dif­fer­ent plants, which had been care­ful­ly root­ed up, were car­ried to the ca­noe, where Cyrus Hard­ing had re­mained buried in thought.

The re­porter, Her­bert, and Pen­croft in this man­ner fre­quent­ly dis­em­barked, some­times on the right bank, some­times on the left bank of the Mer­cy.

The lat­ter was less abrupt, but the for­mer more wood­ed. The en­gi­neer as­cer­tained by con­sult­ing his pock­et-​com­pass that the di­rec­tion of the riv­er from the first turn was ob­vi­ous­ly south­west and north­east, and near­ly straight for a length of about three miles. But it was to be sup­posed that this di­rec­tion changed be­yond that point, and that the Mer­cy con­tin­ued to the north-​west, to­wards the spurs of Mount Franklin, among which the riv­er rose.

Dur­ing one of these ex­cur­sions, Gideon Spilett man­aged to get hold of two cou­ples of liv­ing gal­li­naceae. They were birds with long, thin beaks, length­ened necks, short wings, and with­out any ap­pear­ance of a tail. Her­bert right­ly gave them the name of tina­mous, and it was re­solved that they should be the first ten­ants of their fu­ture poul­try-​yard.

But till then the guns had not spo­ken, and the first re­port which awoke the echoes of the for­est of the Far West was pro­voked by the ap­pear­ance of a beau­ti­ful bird, re­sem­bling the king­fish­er.

“I rec­og­nize him!” cried Pen­croft, and it seemed as if his gun went off by it­self.

“What do you rec­og­nize?” asked the re­porter.

“The bird which es­caped us on our first ex­cur­sion, and from which we gave the name to that part of the for­est.”

“A ja­ca­mar!” cried Her­bert.

It was in­deed a ja­ca­mar, of which the plumage shines with a metal­lic lus­ter. A shot brought it to the ground, and Top car­ried it to the ca­noe. At the same time half a dozen lo­ries were brought down. The lo­ry is of the size of a pi­geon, the plumage dashed with green, part of the wings crim­son, and its crest bor­dered with white. To the young boy be­longed the hon­or of this shot, and he was proud enough of it. Lo­ries are bet­ter food than the ja­ca­mar, the flesh of which is rather tough, but it was dif­fi­cult to per­suade Pen­croft that he had not killed the king of eat­able birds. It was ten o’clock in the morn­ing when the ca­noe reached a sec­ond an­gle of the Mer­cy, near­ly five miles from its mouth. Here a halt was made for break­fast un­der the shade of some splen­did trees. The riv­er still mea­sured from six­ty to sev­en­ty feet in breadth, and its bed from five to six feet in depth. The en­gi­neer had ob­served that it was in­creased by nu­mer­ous af­flu­ents, but they were un­nav­iga­ble, be­ing sim­ply lit­tle streams. As to the for­est, in­clud­ing Ja­ca­mar Wood, as well as the forests of the Far West, it ex­tend­ed as far as the eye could reach. In no place, ei­ther in the depths of the forests or un­der the trees on the banks of the Mer­cy, was the pres­ence of man re­vealed. The ex­plor­ers could not dis­cov­er one sus­pi­cious trace. It was ev­ident that the wood­man’s axe had nev­er touched these trees, that the pi­oneer’s knife had nev­er sev­ered the creep­ers hang­ing from one trunk to an­oth­er in the midst of tan­gled brush­wood and long grass. If cast­aways had land­ed on the is­land, they could not have yet quit­ted the shore, and it was not in the woods that the sur­vivors of the sup­posed ship­wreck should be sought.

The en­gi­neer there­fore man­ifest­ed some im­pa­tience to reach the west­ern coast of Lin­coln Is­land, which was at least five miles dis­tant ac­cord­ing to his es­ti­ma­tion.

The voy­age was con­tin­ued, and as the Mer­cy ap­peared to flow not to­wards the shore, but rather to­wards Mount Franklin, it was de­cid­ed that they should use the boat as long as there was enough wa­ter un­der its keel to float it. It was both fa­tigue spared and time gained, for they would have been obliged to cut a path through the thick wood with their ax­es. But soon the flow com­plete­ly failed them, ei­ther the tide was go­ing down, and it was about the hour, or it could no longer be felt at this dis­tance from the mouth of the Mer­cy. They had there­fore to make use of the oars. Her­bert and Neb each took one, and Pen­croft took the scull. The for­est soon be­came less dense, the trees grew fur­ther apart and of­ten quite iso­lat­ed. But the fur­ther they were from each oth­er the more mag­nif­icent they ap­peared, prof­it­ing, as they did, by the free, pure air which cir­cu­lat­ed around them.

What splen­did spec­imens of the flo­ra of this lat­itude! Cer­tain­ly their pres­ence would have been enough for a botanist to name with­out hes­ita­tion the par­al­lel which tra­versed Lin­coln Is­land.

“Eu­ca­lyp­ti!” cried Her­bert.

They were, in fact, those splen­did trees, the gi­ants of the ex­tra­trop­ical zone, the con­geners of the Aus­tralian and New Zealand eu­ca­lyp­tus, both sit­uat­ed un­der the same lat­itude as Lin­coln Is­land. Some rose to a height of two hun­dred feet. Their trunks at the base mea­sured twen­ty feet in cir­cum­fer­ence, and their bark was cov­ered by a net­work of far­rows con­tain­ing a red, sweet-​smelling gum. Noth­ing is more won­der­ful or more sin­gu­lar than those enor­mous spec­imens of the or­der of the myr­taceae, with their leaves placed ver­ti­cal­ly and not hor­izon­tal­ly, so that an edge and not a sur­face looks up­wards, the ef­fect be­ing that the sun’s rays pen­etrate more freely among the trees.

The ground at the foot of the eu­ca­lyp­ti was car­pet­ed with grass, and from the bush­es es­caped flights of lit­tle birds, which glit­tered in the sun­light like winged ru­bies.

“These are some­thing like trees!” cried Neb; “but are they good for any­thing?”

“Pooh!” replied Pen­croft. “Of course there are veg­etable gi­ants as well as hu­man gi­ants, and they are no good, ex­cept to show them­selves at fairs!”

“I think that you are mis­tak­en, Pen­croft,” replied Gideon Spilett, “and that the wood of the eu­ca­lyp­tus has be­gun to be very ad­van­ta­geous­ly em­ployed in cab­inet-​mak­ing.”

“And I may add,” said Her­bert, “that the eu­ca­lyp­tus be­longs to a fam­ily which com­pris­es many use­ful mem­bers; the gua­va-​tree, from whose fruit gua­va jel­ly is made; the clove-​tree, which pro­duces the spice; the pomegranate- tree, which bears pomegranates; the Eu­gea­cia Cauliflo­ra, the fruit of which is used in mak­ing a tol­er­able wine; the Ugui myr­tle, which con­tains an ex­cel­lent al­co­holic liquor; the Caryophyl­lus myr­tle, of which the bark forms an es­teemed cin­na­mon; the Eu­ge­nia Pi­men­ta, from whence comes Ja­maica pep­per; the com­mon myr­tle, from whose buds and berries spice is some­times made; the Eu­ca­lyp­tus man­ifera, which yields a sweet sort of man­na; the Guinea Eu­ca­lyp­tus, the sap of which is trans­formed in­to beer by fer­men­ta­tion; in short, all those trees known un­der the name of gum-​trees or iron-​bark trees in Aus­tralia, be­long to this fam­ily of the myr­taceae, which con­tains forty-​six gen­era and thir­teen hun­dred species!”

The lad was al­lowed to run on, and he de­liv­ered his lit­tle botan­ical lec­ture with great an­ima­tion. Cyrus Hard­ing lis­tened smil­ing, and Pen­croft with an in­de­scrib­able feel­ing of pride.

“Very good, Her­bert,” replied Pen­croft, “but I could swear that all those use­ful spec­imens you have just told us about are none of them gi­ants like these!”

“That is true, Pen­croft.”

“That sup­ports what I said,” re­turned the sailor, “name­ly, that these gi­ants are good for noth­ing!”

“There you are wrong, Pen­croft,” said the en­gi­neer; “these gi­gan­tic eu­ca­lyp­ti, which shel­ter us, are good for some­thing.”

“And what is that?”

“To ren­der the coun­tries which they in­hab­it healthy. Do you know what they are called in Aus­tralia and New Zealand?”

“No, cap­tain.”

“They are called ‘fever trees.’”

“Be­cause they give fevers?”

“No, be­cause they pre­vent them!”

“Good. I must note that,” said the re­porter.

“Note it then, my dear Spilett; for it ap­pears proved that the pres­ence of the eu­ca­lyp­tus is enough to neu­tral­ize mi­as­mas. This nat­ural an­ti­dote has been tried in cer­tain coun­tries in the mid­dle of Eu­rope and the north of Africa where the soil was ab­so­lute­ly un­healthy, and the san­itary con­di­tion of the in­hab­itants has been grad­ual­ly ame­lio­rat­ed. No more in­ter­mit­tent fevers pre­vail in the re­gions now cov­ered with forests of the myr­taceae. This fact is now be­yond doubt, and it is a hap­py cir­cum­stance for us set­tlers in Lin­coln Is­land.”

“Ah! what an is­land! What a blessed is­land!” cried Pen­croft. “I tell you, it wants noth­ing–un­less it is–“

“That will come, Pen­croft, that will be found,” replied the en­gi­neer; “but now we must con­tin­ue our voy­age and push on as far as the riv­er will car­ry our boat!”

The ex­plo­ration was there­fore con­tin­ued for an­oth­er two miles in the midst of coun­try cov­ered with eu­ca­lyp­ti, which pre­dom­inat­ed in the woods of this por­tion of the is­land. The space which they oc­cu­pied ex­tend­ed as far as the eye could reach on each side of the Mer­cy, which wound along be­tween high green banks. The bed was of­ten ob­struct­ed by long weeds, and even by point­ed rocks, which ren­dered the nav­iga­tion very dif­fi­cult. The ac­tion of the oars was pre­vent­ed, and Pen­croft was obliged to push with a pole. They found al­so that the wa­ter was be­com­ing shal­low­er and shal­low­er, and that the ca­noe must soon stop. The sun was al­ready sink­ing to­wards the hori­zon, and the trees threw long shad­ows on the ground. Cyrus Hard­ing, see­ing that he could not hope to reach the west­ern coast of the is­land in one jour­ney, re­solved to camp at the place where any fur­ther nav­iga­tion was pre­vent­ed by want of wa­ter. He cal­cu­lat­ed that they were still five or six miles from the coast, and this dis­tance was too great for them to at­tempt dur­ing the night in the midst of un­known woods.

The boat was pushed on through the for­est, which grad­ual­ly be­came thick­er again, and ap­peared al­so to have more in­hab­itants; for if the eyes of the sailor did not de­ceive him, he thought he saw bands of mon­keys spring­ing among the trees. Some­times even two or three of these an­imals stopped at a lit­tle dis­tance from the ca­noe and gazed at the set­tlers with­out man­ifest­ing any ter­ror, as if, see­ing men for the first time, they had not yet learned to fear them. It would have been easy to bring down one of these quadra­mani with a gun­shot, and Pen­croft was great­ly tempt­ed to fire, but Hard­ing op­posed so use­less a mas­sacre. This was pru­dent, for the mon­keys, or apes rather, ap­pear­ing to be very pow­er­ful and ex­treme­ly ac­tive, it was use­less to pro­voke an un­nec­es­sary ag­gres­sion, and the crea­tures might, ig­no­rant of the pow­er of the ex­plor­ers’ firearms, have at­tacked them. It is true that the sailor con­sid­ered the mon­keys from a pure­ly al­imen­ta­ry point of view, for those an­imals which are her­biv­orous make very ex­cel­lent game; but since they had an abun­dant sup­ply of pro­vi­sions, it was a pity to waste their am­mu­ni­tion.

To­wards four o’clock, the nav­iga­tion of the Mer­cy be­came ex­ceed­ing­ly dif­fi­cult, for its course was ob­struct­ed by aquat­ic plants and rocks. The banks rose high­er and high­er, and al­ready they were ap­proach­ing the spurs of Mount Franklin. The source could not be far off, since it was fed by the wa­ter from the south­ern slopes of the moun­tain.

“In a quar­ter of an hour,” said the sailor, “we shall be obliged to stop, cap­tain.”

“Very well, we will stop, Pen­croft, and we will make our en­camp­ment for the night.”

“At what dis­tance are we from Gran­ite House?” asked Her­bert.

“About sev­en miles,” replied the en­gi­neer, “tak­ing in­to cal­cu­la­tion, how­ev­er, the de­tours of the riv­er, which has car­ried us to the north­west.”

“Shall we go on?” asked the re­porter.

“Yes, as long as we can,” replied Cyrus Hard­ing. “To-​mor­row, at break of day, we will leave the ca­noe, and in two hours I hope we shall cross the dis­tance which sep­arates us from the coast, and then we shall have the whole day in which to ex­plore the shore.”

“Go ahead!” replied Pen­croft.

But soon the boat grat­ed on the stony bot­tom of the riv­er, which was now not more than twen­ty feet in breadth. The trees met like a bow­er over­head, and caused a half-​dark­ness. They al­so heard the noise of a wa­ter­fall, which showed that a few hun­dred feet up the riv­er there was a nat­ural bar­ri­er.

Present­ly, af­ter a sud­den turn of the riv­er, a cas­cade ap­peared through the trees. The ca­noe again touched the bot­tom, and in a few min­utes it was moored to a trunk near the right bank.

It was near­ly five o’clock. The last rays of the sun gleamed through the thick fo­liage and glanced on the lit­tle wa­ter­fall, mak­ing the spray sparkle with all the col­ors of the rain­bow. Be­yond that, the Mer­cy was lost in the bush­wood, where it was fed from some hid­den source. The dif­fer­ent streams which flowed in­to it in­creased it to a reg­ular riv­er fur­ther down, but here it was sim­ply a shal­low, limpid brook.

It was agreed to camp here, as the place was charm­ing. The colonists dis­em­barked, and a fire was soon light­ed un­der a clump of trees, among the branch­es of which Cyrus Hard­ing and his com­pan­ions could, if it was nec­es­sary, take refuge for the night.

Sup­per was quick­ly de­voured, for they were very hun­gry, and then there was on­ly sleep­ing to think of. But, as roar­ings of rather a sus­pi­cious na­ture had been heard dur­ing the evening, a good fire was made up for the night, so as to pro­tect the sleep­ers with its crack­ling flames. Neb and Pen­croft al­so watched by turns, and did not spare fu­el. They thought they saw the dark forms of some wild an­imals prowl­ing round the camp among the bush­es, but the night passed with­out in­ci­dent, and the next day, the 31st of Oc­to­ber, at five o’clock in the morn­ing, all were on foot, ready for a start.