words "Bloody cape—bloody current."
Chapter V
*
"They hurried us aboard a bark;
Bore us some leagues to sea; where they prepared
A rotten carcass of a boat, not rigg'd,
Nor tackle, sail, nor mast: the very rats
Instinctively had girt us—"
Tempest.
The hour that succeeded in the calm of expectation, was one of the
most disquieting of my life. As soon as the ship was secured, and
there no longer remained anything to do, the stillness of death
reigned among us; the faculties of every man and boy appearing to be
absorbed in the single sense of hearing—the best, and indeed the
only, means we then possessed of judging of our situation. It was now
apparent that we were near some place or places where the surf was
breaking on land; and the hollow, not-to-be-mistaken bellowings of the
element, too plainly indicated that cavities in rocks frequently
received, and as often rejected, the washing waters. Nor did these
portentous sounds come from one quarter only, but they seemed to
surround us; now reaching our ears from the known direction of the
land, now from the south, the north-east, and, in fact, from every
direction. There were instances when these moanings of the ocean
sounded as if close under our stern, and then again they came from
some point within a fearful proximity to the bows.
Happily the wind was light, and the ship rode with a moderate strain
on the cable, so as to relieve us from the apprehension of immediate
destruction. There was a long, heavy ground-swell rolling in from, the
south-west, but, the lead giving us, eight fathoms, the sea did not
break exactly where we lay; though the sullen washing that came to our
ears, from time to time, gave unerring notice that it was doing so
quite near us, independently of the places where it broke upon
rocks. At one time the captain's impatience was so goading, that he
had determined to pull round the anchorage in a boat, in order to
anticipate the approach of light; but a suggestion from Mr. Marble
that he might unconsciously pull into a roller, and capsize, induced
him to wait for day.
The dawn appeared at last, after two or three of the longest hours I
remember ever to have passed. Never shall I forget the species of
furious eagerness with which we gazed about us. In the first place, we
got an outline of the adjacent land; then, as light diffused itself
more and more into the atmosphere, we caught glimpses of its
details. It was soon certain we were within a cable's length of
perpendicular cliffs of several hundred feet in height, into whose
caverns the sea poured at times, producing those frightful, hollow
moanings, that an experienced ear can never mistake. This cliff
extended for leagues in both directions, rendering drowning nearly
inevitable to the shipwrecked mariner on that inhospitable
coast. Ahead, astern, outside of us, and I might almost say all around
us, became visible, one after another, detached ledges, breakers and
ripples; so many proofs of the manner in which Providence had guided
us through the hours of darkness.
By the time the sun appeared, for, happily, the day proved bright and
clear, we had obtained pretty tolerable notions of the critical
situation in which we were placed by means of the captain's theory of
currents. The very cape that we were to drift past, lay some ten
leagues nearly dead to windward, as the breeze then was; while to
leeward, far as the eye could reach, stretched the same inhospitable,
barrier of rock as that which lay on our starboard quarter and beam.
Such was my first introduction to the island of Madagascar; a portion
of the world, of which, considering its position, magnitude and
productions, the mariners of Christendom probably know less than of
any other. At the time of which I am writing, far less had been
learned of this vast country than is known to-day, though the
knowledge of even our own immediate contemporaries is of an
exceedingly limited character.
Now that the day had returned, the sun was shining on us
Chapter V
*
"They hurried us aboard a bark;
Bore us some leagues to sea; where they prepared
A rotten carcass of a boat, not rigg'd,
Nor tackle, sail, nor mast: the very rats
Instinctively had girt us—"
Tempest.
The hour that succeeded in the calm of expectation, was one of the
most disquieting of my life. As soon as the ship was secured, and
there no longer remained anything to do, the stillness of death
reigned among us; the faculties of every man and boy appearing to be
absorbed in the single sense of hearing—the best, and indeed the
only, means we then possessed of judging of our situation. It was now
apparent that we were near some place or places where the surf was
breaking on land; and the hollow, not-to-be-mistaken bellowings of the
element, too plainly indicated that cavities in rocks frequently
received, and as often rejected, the washing waters. Nor did these
portentous sounds come from one quarter only, but they seemed to
surround us; now reaching our ears from the known direction of the
land, now from the south, the north-east, and, in fact, from every
direction. There were instances when these moanings of the ocean
sounded as if close under our stern, and then again they came from
some point within a fearful proximity to the bows.
Happily the wind was light, and the ship rode with a moderate strain
on the cable, so as to relieve us from the apprehension of immediate
destruction. There was a long, heavy ground-swell rolling in from, the
south-west, but, the lead giving us, eight fathoms, the sea did not
break exactly where we lay; though the sullen washing that came to our
ears, from time to time, gave unerring notice that it was doing so
quite near us, independently of the places where it broke upon
rocks. At one time the captain's impatience was so goading, that he
had determined to pull round the anchorage in a boat, in order to
anticipate the approach of light; but a suggestion from Mr. Marble
that he might unconsciously pull into a roller, and capsize, induced
him to wait for day.
The dawn appeared at last, after two or three of the longest hours I
remember ever to have passed. Never shall I forget the species of
furious eagerness with which we gazed about us. In the first place, we
got an outline of the adjacent land; then, as light diffused itself
more and more into the atmosphere, we caught glimpses of its
details. It was soon certain we were within a cable's length of
perpendicular cliffs of several hundred feet in height, into whose
caverns the sea poured at times, producing those frightful, hollow
moanings, that an experienced ear can never mistake. This cliff
extended for leagues in both directions, rendering drowning nearly
inevitable to the shipwrecked mariner on that inhospitable
coast. Ahead, astern, outside of us, and I might almost say all around
us, became visible, one after another, detached ledges, breakers and
ripples; so many proofs of the manner in which Providence had guided
us through the hours of darkness.
By the time the sun appeared, for, happily, the day proved bright and
clear, we had obtained pretty tolerable notions of the critical
situation in which we were placed by means of the captain's theory of
currents. The very cape that we were to drift past, lay some ten
leagues nearly dead to windward, as the breeze then was; while to
leeward, far as the eye could reach, stretched the same inhospitable,
barrier of rock as that which lay on our starboard quarter and beam.
Such was my first introduction to the island of Madagascar; a portion
of the world, of which, considering its position, magnitude and
productions, the mariners of Christendom probably know less than of
any other. At the time of which I am writing, far less had been
learned of this vast country than is known to-day, though the
knowledge of even our own immediate contemporaries is of an
exceedingly limited character.
Now that the day had returned, the sun was shining on us
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