or, Enchanted Isles
by Herman Melville
SKETCH TENTH.
RUNAWAYS, CASTAWAYS, SOLITARIES, GRAVE-STONES, ETC.
“And all about old stocks and stubs of trees, Whereon nor fruit nor leaf was ever seen, Did hang upon ragged knotty knees, On which had many wretches hanged been.”
Some relics of the hut of Oberlus partially remain to this day at thehead of the clinkered valley. Nor does the stranger, wandering amongother of the Enchanted Isles, fail to stumble upon still other solitaryabodes, long abandoned to the tortoise and the lizard. Probably fewparts of earth have, in modern times, sheltered so many solitaries. Thereason is, that these isles are situated in a distant sea, and thevessels which occasionally visit them are mostly all whalers, or shipsbound on dreary and protracted voyages, exempting them in a good degreefrom both the oversight and the memory of human law. Such is thecharacter of some commanders and some seamen, that under these untowardcircumstances, it is quite impossible but that scenes of unpleasantnessand discord should occur between them. A sullen hatred of the tyrannicship will seize the sailor, and he gladly exchanges it for isles, which,though blighted as by a continual sirocco and burning breeze, stilloffer him, in their labyrinthine interior, a retreat beyond thepossibility of capture. To flee the ship in any Peruvian or Chilianport, even the smallest and most rustical, is not unattended with greatrisk of apprehension, not to speak of jaguars. A reward of five pesossends fifty dastardly Spaniards into the wood, who, with long knives,scour them day and night in eager hopes of securing their prey. Neitheris it, in general, much easier to escape pursuit at the isles ofPolynesia. Those of them which have felt a civilizing influence presentthe same difficulty to the runaway with the Peruvian ports, the advancednatives being quite as mercenary and keen of knife and scent as theretrograde Spaniards; while, owing to the bad odor in which allEuropeans lie, in the minds of aboriginal savages who have chanced tohear aught of them, to desert the ship among primitive Polynesians, is,in most cases, a hope not unforlorn. Hence the Enchanted Isles becomethe voluntary tarrying places of all sorts of refugees; some of whomtoo sadly experience the fact, that flight from tyranny does not ofitself insure a safe asylum, far less a happy home.
Moreover, it has not seldom happened that hermits have been made uponthe isles by the accidents incident to tortoise-hunting. The interior ofmost of them is tangled and difficult of passage beyond description; theair is sultry and stifling; an intolerable thirst is provoked, for whichno running stream offers its kind relief. In a few hours, under anequatorial sun, reduced by these causes to entire exhaustion, woe betidethe straggler at the Enchanted Isles! Their extent is such-as to forbidan adequate search, unless weeks are devoted to it. The impatient shipwaits a day or two; when, the missing man remaining undiscovered, upgoes a stake on the beach, with a letter of regret, and a keg ofcrackers and another of water tied to it, and away sails the craft.
Nor have there been wanting instances where the inhumanity of somecaptains has led them to wreak a secure revenge upon seamen who havegiven their caprice or pride some singular offense. Thrust ashore uponthe scorching marl, such mariners are abandoned to perish outright,unless by solitary labors they succeed in discovering some preciousdribblets of moisture oozing from a rock or stagnant in a mountain pool.
I was well acquainted with a man, who, lost upon the Isle of Narborough,was brought to such extremes by thirst, that at last he only saved hislife by taking that of another being. A large hair-seal came upon thebeach. He rushed upon it, stabbed it in the neck, and then throwinghimself upon the panting body quaffed at the living wound; thepalpitations of the creature’s dying heart injected life into thedrinker.
Another seaman, thrust ashore in a boat upon an isle at which no shipever touched, owing to its peculiar sterility and the shoals about it,and from which all other parts of the group were hidden–this man,feeling that it was sure death to remain there, and that nothing worsethan death menaced him in quitting it, killed seals, and inflating theirskins, made a float, upon which he transported himself to Charles’sIsland, and joined the republic there.
But men, not endowed with courage equal to such desperate attempts, findtheir only resource in forthwith seeking some watering-place, howeverprecarious or scanty; building a hut; catching tortoises and birds; andin all respects preparing for a hermit life, till tide or time, or apassing ship arrives to float them off.
At the foot of precipices on many of the isles, small rude basins in therocks are found, partly filled with rotted rubbish or vegetable decay,or overgrown with thickets, and sometimes a little moist; which, uponexamination, reveal plain tokens of artificial instruments employed inhollowing them out, by some poor castaway or still more miserablerunaway. These basins are made in places where it was supposed somescanty drops of dew might exude into them from the upper crevices.
The relics of hermitages and stone basins are not the only signs ofvanishing humanity to be found upon the isles. And, curious to say, thatspot which of all others in settled communities is most animated, atthe Enchanted Isles presents the most dreary of aspects. And though itmay seem very strange to talk of post-offices in this barren region, yetpost-offices are occasionally to be found there. They consist of a stakeand a bottle. The letters being not only sealed, but corked. They aregenerally deposited by captains of Nantucketers for the benefit ofpassing fishermen, and contain statements as to what luck they had inwhaling or tortoise-hunting. Frequently, however, long months andmonths, whole years glide by and no applicant appears. The stake rotsand falls, presenting no very exhilarating object.
If now it be added that grave-stones, or rather grave-boards, are alsodiscovered upon some of the isles, the picture will be complete.
Upon the beach of James’s Isle, for many years, was to be seen a rudefinger-post, pointing inland. And, perhaps, taking it for some signal ofpossible hospitality in this otherwise desolate spot–some good hermitliving there with his maple dish–the stranger would follow on in thepath thus indicated, till at last he would come out in a noiseless nook,and find his only welcome, a dead man–his sole greeting theinscription over a grave. Here, in 1813, fell, in a daybreak duel, alieutenant of the U.S. frigate Essex, aged twenty-one: attaining hismajority in death.
It is but fit that, like those old monastic institutions of Europe,whose inmates go not out of their own walls to be inurned, but areentombed there where they die, the Encantadas, too, should bury theirown dead, even as the great general monastery of earth does hers.
It is known that burial in the ocean is a pure necessity of sea-faringlife, and that it is only done when land is far astern, and not clearlyvisible from the bow. Hence, to vessels cruising in the vicinity of theEnchanted Isles, they afford a convenient Potter’s Field. The intermentover, some good-natured forecastle poet and artist seizes hispaint-brush, and inscribes a doggerel epitaph. When, after a long lapseof time, other good-natured seamen chance to come upon the spot, theyusually make a table of the mound, and quaff a friendly can to the poorsoul’s repose.
As a specimen of these epitaphs, take the following, found in a bleakgorge of Chatham Isle:– “Oh, Brother Jack, as you pass by, As you are now, so once was I. Just so game, and just so gay, But now, alack, they’ve stopped my pay. No more I peep out of my blinkers, Here I be–tucked in with clinkers!”
