Perseverance Island

PREFACE

In all works of the Robinson Crusoe type, the wreck is always near at hand, the powder dry and preserved, and the days for rafting the same ashore calm and pleasant. This unfortunate had no such accessories; and his story proves the limitless ingenuity and invention of man, and portrays the works and achievements of a castaway, who, thrown ashore almost literally naked upon a desert isle, is able by the use of his brains, the skill of his hands, and a practical knowledge of the common arts and sciences, to far surpass the achievements of all his predecessors, and to surround himself with implements of power and science utterly beyond the reach of his prototype, who had his wreck as a reservoir from which to draw his munitions.

THE MANUSCRIPT

To the Person who shall find this Manuscript, Greeting, —

I hope that in the mercy of God these lines may come to the hands of some of my fellow-creatures, and that such action may be taken as may be deemed best to inform the world of my fate and that of my unfortunate comrades; if the finder will, therefore, cause the accompanying account to be published, he will confer a lasting benefit upon his humble servant,

Everybody must remember the setting out of the schooner "Good Luck" from the Liverpool docks, England, in the summer of 1865, with the advance guard of a colony to be established in the Southern Pacific, on one or more of its numerous islands to be selected; and from that day to this, the non-reception of any news of her from her day of sailing.

I am the only survivor of that ill-fated vessel, and record here, in hopes that the manuscript may reach the eyes of those interested, all the facts of the case, and pray that they will speedily send to my relief some vessel to take me home, and permit me once more to gaze upon the faces of my fellow-men before I die.

THE FINDING OF THE MANUSCRIPT

Returning to my home in the evening after a hard day's work on my quarter-section farm, I saw in the twilight an object dangling in the air, and apparently fast to a young walnut sapling. I approached it and found that it was a small balloon of about three feet in diameter, made, I should think, of some kind of delicate skins of beasts or birds sewed cunningly together. Attached in the place where the car should be, I found the manuscript herewith submitted, written on some kind of parchment, which, being taken home and read, I found of such startling interest that I have, although poor, ordered the same published at my expense in hopes that some action may be taken by those whom it may concern to move further in the matter. I further depose that the accompanying manuscript is the original one found by me attached to the balloon, and that it has never been tampered with or allowed to leave my possession till this moment. It can be examined, as well as the balloon, at any time, by any responsible person, by calling upon me.

Then personally appeared before me the said Reuben Stanley, to me well known, and made oath that the above deposition made by him is true.

CHAPTER I

Boyhood and youth of the author. Sailor's life. The "Good Luck." South Pacific Island scheme. Loss of crew off Cape Horn.

I was born in the year 1833, in the State of Vermont, United States of America, and at an early age lost both parents by that fearful scourge, the small-pox. I was an only child, and upon the death of my parents, which happened when I was about six years of age, I was taken charge of by a friendly farmer of a neighboring town, who put me to school for several years in the winter, and at work upon the farm in the summer. I had no known relatives in the wide world, and often felt the bitter pangs of orphanhood. My master was not, however, unkind, and I grew up strong, robust, and with rather a retiring, quiet disposition, with a great love of mechanics and tools. Under all this quietness, however, lurked, I well knew myself, an unappeasable love of adventure and enterprise. I loved to lie in the open fields at night under the full moon; to explore swamps and brooks; and I soon learned to swim in the pond near by. At the age of fourteen I left my master, with his consent, and went to work in a neighboring machine-shop, where castings, etc., were made. I loved all manner of mechanical tools and instruments, and evidently had a taste in that direction. At the age of eighteen I became restless, and, having read during leisure hours many books of adventure and discovery, I took it into my silly head to become a sailor, and upon the inspiration of a moment I packed up my small bundle of clothes, and, bidding good-by to my workmates, started out on foot for Portsmouth, N. H. I arrived there and shipped as green hand in the schooner "Rosa Belle" for Boston, at which port we in due season arrived. From thence I shipped again before the mast in a large, square-rigged vessel for a voyage round the world. It is not my intention here to give a detailed account of my adventurous life till I joined the "Good Luck;" suffice it to say that during fourteen years at sea I passed through all the grades of boy, seaman, able seaman, boatswain, third mate, second mate, and first mate. It was after my discharge from a large clipper ship in Liverpool, lately arrived from China, in the latter capacity, that, having some few hundred dollars by me, I began to look about to see if I could not gain a livelihood in some easier way than by going to sea, being by this time heartily tired of the life, and for want of friends and relations with little chance of rising higher in the profession; it was at this time, I say, that this cursed project of the "Good Luck" was brought to my attention. As fate would have it, the schooner lay in the same dock with ourselves, and I became interested in her by hearing the talk upon the dock that she was bound to the South Pacific Islands to seek for pearls, sandal wood, tortoiseshell, etc., and to establish a colony of which the persons who were going out on this trip were the advance guard and projectors. I remember now, oh! how sadly, the Utopian ideas that were advanced, and although I, as a sailor in those seas, knew many of them to be false, yet imagination proclaimed them true. I could not resist the impulse to join my fortune to theirs. Having made up my mind, I called upon the chief movers in the matter and offered my services. It was first a question with them whether I could subscribe any money to the project, and secondly, what position I desired in the adventure?

I satisfied them upon the former, by stating that if I was pleased with their plans I could subscribe four hundred dollars in cash, and my services as a seaman and navigator in those seas. This seemed very satisfactory, and I was then asked, more pointedly, what position I demanded. I said that I should be satisfied with the position of chief officer, and second in command on board of the schooner, and fourth in command on the island as concerned the colony, – that is to say, if their plans suited me, which I demanded to know fully before signing any papers and bound myself by oath not to disclose if, after hearing and seeing everything, I declined to join them.

This straightforward course seemed to please the managers, and I was put in full possession of all their plans, and immediately after signed the papers.

It is sufficient for me to give an outline of this plan simply, which, through the act of God, came to naught, and left me, a second Robinson Crusoe, on my lonely island.

The company was formed of one hundred persons, who each put in one hundred pounds to make a general capital, – except a few like myself, who were allowed a full paid-up share for eighty pounds, on account of being of the advance guard, and wages for our services according to our station, with our proportionate part of the dividends to be hereafter made.

With this fund paid in, amounting to about nine thousand eight hundred pounds, the managing committee purchased the schooner "Good Luck." She was a fore-topsail schooner, of one hundred and fifty-four tons measurement, built in Bath, Maine, and about seven years old, – strong, well built, sharp, and with a flush deck fore and aft. She cost two thousand four hundred pounds. The remainder of the money was used in purchasing the following outfit for the scheme we were engaged in: —

Four breech-loading Armstrong cannon, nine pounders, four old-fashioned nine-pounders, twenty-five Sharpe's breech-loading rifles, and twenty-five navy Colt's revolvers, with plenty of ammunition for all. These, in conjunction with boarding-pikes, cutlasses, hand-grenades, and a howitzer for the launch, comprised our armament. The hold was stored with a little of everything generally taken on such adventures, – knives, hatchets, and calico for the natives, and seeds, canned meats, and appliances for pearl fishing, house-building, etc., for ourselves. To these were added a sawmill, an upright steam-engine, a turning-lathe, blacksmith tools, etc.

Our plan was to find an island uninhabited, that would form a good centre from which to prosecute our purpose of pearl gathering, and to there establish a colony, sending home the "Good Luck" for the rest of our companions and their families.

Ten of us were chosen as the advance guard (all but three being sailors), to make the first venture, establish the colony, load the schooner, leave part of our force upon the island selected, and the remainder to bring back the schooner to Liverpool. "Man proposes, but God disposes."

On July 31, 1865, we set sail upon this disastrous voyage, and from that day to this have I never seen the faces of civilized beings except those on board of the schooner, and not those for many months. Our captain was a fine, manly fellow, of about eight and thirty years of age, and we all liked him. Duty on board was of course different than it would have been in a common vessel; and although we had watches and regular discipline, each was familiar with the other, having, as we had, an equal stake in the adventure.

We had a tough time off Cape Horn, and, although the "Good Luck" behaved well, it was here that we met with our first misfortune. In stowing the jib, in a gale of wind, preparatory to laying-to, three men were swept overboard, and we never saw them more. This cast a damper upon the remaining seven, and was but a precursor of what was yet to happen. We rounded Cape Horn the first part of October, and, steering northwest, soon reached more pleasant weather. Our course was towards the group of islands, so well known in the South Pacific, called the Society Islands.

CHAPTER II

Push forward for the Society Islands. Driven into Magellan Straits by stress of weather. Anchor in a land-locked bay. Search for fresh water. Attacked by savages. Serious injuries to Capt. Davis and one of the crew. Return to the schooner and make sail for the open ocean. Resolve to return to England. Finally lay our course for Easter Island.

We had proceeded but a very short way towards the Society Islands when a terrific storm arose from the westward, driving us back upon the coast of South America. We lay to for many days, bending down before the blast, and drifting all the time rapidly to the southward and eastward; till one morning we discovered land broad off our lee beam, and, by a forenoon observation which the captain obtained, we found that we were off the western opening of the Straits of Magellan, and we soon put the schooner's head before the howling blast and ran in for shelter, rest, and repairs. We came up with the land very rapidly under easy sail, and passed the frowning cliffs and rocks on our port hand, not over a mile distant, as we knew we had plenty of water and to spare. After having passed the opening we hauled the schooner up on the port tack, heading her well up to the northward, intending to find some quiet land-locked cove where we could anchor and repair the damages – small in detail, but quite grave in the aggregate – that we had received in our buffeting of the last ten days.

About eight bells in the forenoon we found ourselves well inside the land, and with a smooth sea and a good fair working breeze, we kept the land well on the port beam and gradually crawled in toward it.

At about 4 P. M. we estimated that we were twenty miles inside the headlands, and having come to an arm of a bay trending well to the northward, we hauled the schooner sharp on a wind and steered into it; we discovered soon that it was about ten miles deep and thirty wide as near as we could judge; and as we came toward the head of the bay we found that we could run into a small inner bay of about three miles in area, with evidently smooth water and good anchorage. Into this inner bay or anchorage we quietly sailed and let go an anchor in six fathoms of water, and at a distance of about one mile from the shore.

When the sails were all properly furled, and everything put in "ship-shape and Bristol fashion," as the saying is amongst sailors, we had time to look about us; and the motion of the vessel having ceased, and the creaking of the masts and cordage, the flapping of the sails, and the usual noises of the sea, having come to an end, we were struck with the awful and sublime solitude of our surroundings. By this time the moon had risen, and by its light we saw the shadowy shapes of monstrous cliffs and miniature headlands covered with tangled forests of a species of pine, mirrored in the little bay in which we hung at anchor; but not one sound of life, no lights on shore, no cry of bird or beast, but the depressing, awful solitude of an unknown land; no noise except the graceful rise of the "Good Luck" to the miniature waves of the bay as she lay at anchor with twenty fathoms of chain out. We all spoke in whispers, so awe-striking was the scenery, and when we set the anchor watch and turned in it was unanimously conceded that we had little to fear in landing on the morrow either from natives or wild beasts.

Glad enough were we, after our long fight with the stormy ocean, to turn into our berths. It was chilly, although now past the middle of October, yet we saw no snow upon the ground, and the air had the smell of spring and verdure. This was easily accounted for when we remembered that in reality we were in the latter part of April as to seasons, and that we were no further south, than Great Britain is north, as concerns latitude. No doubt, also, the climate was favorably affected by this great arm of salt water penetrating the land. At any rate we had nothing to complain of on the score of ice and snow, which we should have found in plenty had we arrived a month or two earlier. Our captain had some very good traits, and was very systematic. For instance, he said that he would never allow a boat to leave the vessel to visit the shore, to be gone even an hour, without being properly rationed, and with flint, steel, and tinder, and also two large tin canisters filled with garden seeds. He had a hobby that it was our duty to plant seeds in all of the out-of-the-way places that we visited, for the good of those who might come after us. Carrying out these ideas, he had had our whaleboat on deck – whilst we were running by the land – righted and filled with the above-named articles, ready for use in the morning; that is to say, he had ordered to be put on board of her cooked rations for six days for four men, two breakers of fresh water, one bag of hard tack, a compass, two large tin canisters with water-tight screw-heads, filled with peas, beans, cucumber seeds, one hatchet, one knife, and a spare coil of rope.

The next morning, when we arose, there was a general desire to land upon the unknown coast, and we bethought ourselves of the plan of drawing lots to see who should stay on board and who go ashore, as the vessel would need the care of at least three hands, leaving four of us to go in the boat. Lots were drawn, and the privilege of going in the boat fell upon Captain Davis, two of the sailors, and myself. I was overjoyed at the opportunity of exploring this new world. Captain Davis told us to arm ourselves well with rifles and revolvers, and to be in readiness to start after breakfast, sharp.

No pleasanter party ever shoved off from a vessel's side than we on that pleasant October morning. We soon reached the shore, and, pulling up the boat upon the beach, were soon roaming here and there, stretching our legs and enjoying the novelty of our position. It was evident that the place was a complete solitude, and we doubted if any civilized persons had ever visited the shores of the bay before.

We wanted most of all things a supply of fresh water, and to this end we wandered somewhat apart and towards the upper part of the bay, concealed by overjetting cliffs, to see if there was not some stream or river flowing into it. After a little we heard a cry of delight from a comrade in advance, and hastening toward him found that after turning a short and abrupt point of rocks, a river of some considerable width lay before our eyes, evidently navigable with a small boat for some miles, but, as far as the eye could extend, no sign of any habitation. We ran gayly back to the boat, launched her, and soon pulled round the overhanging cliff that had concealed the presence of the river from us.

I should judge that we had pulled some five or six miles when we began to get hungry, and thought by the sun that it was about noon, and that we would land and eat our dinner. Up to this time we had found no side brook or spring entering the main river, and each turn was so enticing that we kept on passing bend after bend.

We landed upon a nice sandy beach, and soon had a pot boiling, and some clams, of which there were vast quantities in the sand, cooking upon hot stones. We made a capital meal, and after a good smoke took our oars again and went on up the river. Shall I ever forget the ending of that pleasant day? As we were chatting and passing a bend, and opening a new reach, in one moment of time our ears were filled with awful shrieks and shouts, and we had become the centre of a perfect shower of missiles from the cliff underneath the base of which we had just passed.

Our first instinct was to drop our oars and grasp the firearms, and a dropping, irregular fire into the bushes at the foot of the bend and towards the higher cliff towering above us brought to a sudden cessation the shower of stones with which we had been assailed, and with wild cries of fear, pain, and awe these untutored savages fled into the dense forest behind them.

I was amazed at the ease with which we had repelled them, until I bethought me that probably our firearms were the first they had ever heard. I wondered why we had not fired more, and quicker, and turning my eyes from their disappearing bodies, I saw, with horror, the cause. Captain Davis lay in the stern sheets of the boat with a large stone across both legs, dropped evidently from the cliff, which was some twenty or thirty feet above us, upon them. He had fainted away, or else was dead from some other wound, for he did not offer to stir or remove the stone. I glanced towards my other two comrades, and found, upon examination, one with a serious fracture of the left arm, which, however, did not prevent his holding on to his revolver in a most determined manner, and the other with only a few slight bruises. I beckoned him to come aft and help lift the stone off the captain's legs, we did so, and threw water in his face to revive him. We dared not imagine how bad his injuries were, and left him lying as we found him, after throwing overboard the stone, which undoubtedly would have gone through the bottom of the boat and sunk us, if it had not encountered the legs of the captain in its descent. As for our other comrade, we bound up his arm as best we could. I felt dizzy and weak, but did not suspect any serious injury. All that I have written was performed quickly, as sailors always act in an emergency. Bill Thompson and I soon got the boat's head pointed down stream, and the way we pulled for the ship was a sight to behold; pausing once in awhile to lift a hand and explode a revolver to keep the savages from attacking us again; but they had evidently had enough of it, for we saw no signs of them, and after a long and arduous pull we came to the ship's side, and sad was the news that we had for our comrades. We slung the boat and hoisted her on board, and I ordered the anchor to be weighed at once, and we set sail from this treacherous bay. It was found upon examination that one of the captain's legs was broken, evidently a compound fracture, and the other much bruised and inflamed. He was carried with care and affection to his stateroom, and I took charge of the deck. The sailor's arm was found to be a simple fracture, and we soon had it in splints and himself in his berth. After the schooner was fairly under way and heading out of the bay, I went below to my stateroom, and found that I had received several severe blows, but none that had drawn blood, except in the back of my head, where I found the hair under my cap bloody and matted together. This it was that had made me dizzy, although my excitement had been so great that I could not fix where the pain was till all was over. I washed myself, and went on deck again, to remain there during the night and run the schooner out into the open sea. What thoughts passed through my brain as the little vessel gallantly slipped along by the land, towards the ocean! – what in the world were we to do should Captain Davis die, and where were we to recruit, for during the long watches of that night it was agreed that we had become too short handed to prosecute our enterprise, and that the best thing that we could do would be to make our way back to England and start afresh; but after a long consultation, it was acknowledged that we were in no condition to face Cape Horn, and that we must get somewhere to recruit before we dare attempt the passage home. The captain, who had his senses perfectly, although suffering bodily pain, said "that we must make one of the easterly of the Society Islands before attempting to go home, and there recruit ourselves, overhaul the vessel, and by that time he should know what he was to expect of his own health, but feared that his injuries were beyond mortal aid." Towards morning the open sea appeared ahead, and at about eight bells, we issued from the mouth of Magellan Straits, and I laid the course of the schooner northwest, so as to hit Easter Island, or some of the islands further to the westward should the wind haul. At two bells in the forenoon we were bowling along on our course with everything set, and a fine working breeze from north-northeast, and a smooth sea. Of course we talked over the disastrous trip of the day before, and, as in all such cases, wondered why we did not do so and so, and why we were not more careful, etc., but to what good. The deed was done: our comrade with his broken arm, and our captain with his broken leg, were mute reminders of our folly and carelessness. My greatest fear at this time was that we should lose the captain, and that his duties would devolve upon me. He seemed throughout this day slightly better, but upon examination we found that we could not set his leg as we had the sailor's arm, and that, although he complained of little pain, his leg had a puffed and swollen appearance, and I feared the worst. I was somewhat in favor of changing the course and making a port on the South American coast; but the captain would not hear of it. He said "you can at least get to the Society Islands and land your cargo in some port under some flag where it will be safely kept till you return to England for a new crew. I shall not get well any sooner, if at all, on the South American coast than I shall in the Society Islands. We are bound by honor to push the adventure to its legitimate end, or as near it as possible." This and many other convincing things were uttered by him. "If my leg should have been amputated it should have been done before this; and it will be too late to do anything at Santiago as well as at Easter Island. You can still do a great deal towards making the adventure a success; perhaps you can even get volunteers enough in the islands to fill up your ranks, so as not to have to go back to England till you have your headquarters established and a cargo ready to ship back." And thus this sick and dying man cheered us on.