THE morning broke fair with a gentle breeze from the west, which would enable me to make the run easily in a couple of hours. I put on board two light poles which might, if necessary, serve for oars, and rigged a couple of loops on the washboard at each side, through which to thrust them when they were to be used. After taking on board a supply of water, and food enough for several days in case I should chance to be blown out to sea, and not forgetting my lasso and burning-glass, I called Duke on board, hoisted the sail, and cast off. Out through the creek mouth, over the bar, and through its breakers slid the little craft, and as soon as we were fairly outside I bore up and ran straight for the north cape, with a fair beam wind. The fresh morning air, the dew still wet on the boat, the sun scarce a span above the sea, the cool, blue water sliding by, the breaking of the surf as it ran angling along the strand, all acted like a cordial to my spirits. Duke sat up in the bottom of the boat eyeing the whole proceeding with a critical air, hardly willing to yield an entirely unqualified approval, and yet not ready to advance any positive objection. I fairly burst into a laugh at his quizzical expression. He sprang up wagging his tail and came to me and laid his head on my knee, as much as to say, “It is all right, I see.”

Before reaching the cape I eased off a little with the intention of running approximately over the region where the sunken galleon was supposed to lie. The spot, according to the admiral’s account, was about a mile east of north from the rocky point, and I wanted to sound as far out in this direction as my forty-foot line would allow, if, as I hoped, there should chance to be any shallow that would allow me to reach bottom at all near the shore. The yellowish color of the water off the cape gave token of an extensive shoal in this direction, as did also the peculiar action of the swell, which seemed half inclined to break as it passed. With a stone tied to the line, I sounded as soon as I passed the cape, and found at two hundred yards from shore not over twenty feet of water. This depth increased very gradually until the full length of the line, forty feet or thereabouts, ran out at a distance of an eighth of a mile from the shore, showing that there was a long shoal or submerged spit extending out from the north end of the island.

As soon as I left the immediate vicinity of the shore, where the breakers stirred up the bottom, the water became beautifully clear and transparent, so that at my last sounding I saw, or fancied I saw, the gleam of the bright sand shining up from below. I now lowered the sail to test if there was any current running, but beyond a slight movement, I could detect nothing. I was now far enough from the cape so that I could take a slant to the southwest and easily clear the rocks. So I hauled up the sail and brought her head around. Soon we were spinning along the western shore, and in an hour were off the “Farm Haven,” toward which I turned, and running into the mouth of the little stream moored the boat safely and landed.

There was a busy day before me, and I lost no time in beginning work. First of all, I threw the ballast overboard to make room for a cargo of yams and potatoes. I next wove out of willow branches a rough basket, or rather a sort of shallow tray, to carry them to the boat. I dug and loaded fully five bushels of fine, clean sweet potatoes and a number of large yams, and the supply remaining in the ground would have filled my boat a half-dozen times. I next turned my attention to the dry peas and beans, and gathered about a bushel of each, besides a number of great scarlet pepper-pods. Then I took down the tent and put it aboard, as well as the axe, the shovel, the hoe, and the sail and blankets. I boiled a lot of yams for dinner, and this being over at about three in the afternoon, I called Duke and went up the gully path to the top and looked about a little to see what prospect there might be for a path over the island to the other side. In a straight east and west line the distance could not be over three and a half to four miles.

There was a ridge running back from the cliff to the central plateau, which I thought might afford an easy path, and I knew that once on this central plateau I could descend to the stream and so reach home. Having seen this much I returned to the boat, and casting off poled out as far as possible to get an offing. By short tacks I managed finally to get far enough to venture on my northern slant. But the sun was almost down when I rounded the north cape and started down the other shore.

Just as I came opposite the mouth of the creek, the wind died away, and I hastened to get out my rude poles and row into the harbor. This was a terrible task, and if the wind had not gone down I much doubt whether I could have done it at all until the tide turned. But at last we made the creek and moored the boat safely with its precious cargo. I was too tired that night to do more than unload the tools, blankets, canvas, and cooking utensils, leaving the vegetables on board till morning. That night being oppressively warm, I swung my hammock under the open work-shed, and lulled by the music of the breakers, slept soundly until broad day.

The first work on hand was the care of my cargo of potatoes. These with the beans and peas I carried up to the dark, dry store-room. Some of the potatoes I buried in the dry sand, to test its preservative properties. As a future provision I turned up with the spade a little patch of soil near the creek and planted half a dozen hills of yams and potatoes in a favorable spot, and a row of the beans and peas, guarding the latter from the birds with a layer of brush. This occupied the greater part of the day.

In the afternoon I drew a wire nail out of the chest, with which to make a fish-hook. The back of the axe formed a good anvil, and the shank of the hoe, the wooden handle being removed, did fairly well for a hammer. With these tools I fashioned the red-hot nail into hook form, using for tongs a pair of clam shells. I drew the point out sharp, bent the hook, and cut a barb over the edge of the axe. The head of the nail was left intact to secure the line. As this was my first effort at blacksmithing the hook was not perhaps as elegant as it might have been, but it looked as though it might work satisfactorily. For a line, I unlaid and retwisted some pieces of hempen rope that had formed reef points on the sail of the tent, and coated them well with candle-berry wax. I made a wooden float for a bob and fitted a stone for a sinker, so that by bed-time, my fishing-tackle was finished, together with a good hundred feet of stout line.

That night a rain set in, and it continued steadily for three days without ceasing, varying only between a violent downpour and a fine, driving mist from the northeast. I could not work out of doors in such weather; so, gathering a great quantity of cocoanut husks, I busied myself hour after hour spinning cÖir. I wanted to make a good, strong, sounding-line at least a hundred fathoms long, and a line of equal length by which to anchor a buoy as a guide in the submarine search operations. Thus the time was by no means lost, though the confinement was exceedingly irksome. Duke made an occasional dash out into the wet, and once returned carrying in his mouth an armadillo rolled up tight in a ball, which afforded us a variation in diet.

But the sky finally cleared and I hastened out to try my fishing-tackle. Anchoring the boat just beyond the breakers at the mouth of the creek, I baited my hook with a shell-fish and cast it over, letting the line run slowly out as the hook sank toward the bottom, and then hauling it up and repeating the operation. Presently I got a tremendous bite, and drew in a fish that weighed about fifteen pounds. It was a red snapper, and proved most excellent eating. This was fishing enough for once, and I pulled to shore and set about cooking part of my prize. Soon the air was redolent with the odor of fried fish, and both Duke and I regaled ourselves with fish and potatoes, washing them down with pure, sweet water cool from the porous water-jar.

I now set about the construction of an apparatus by the aid of which I hoped to be able to make a reconnaissance of the bottom of the shallow sea, where the sunken galleon was supposed to lie. I went out with my axe to the upland and cut down a fine cedar tree. This I split until I procured four rough but slight slabs, an inch thick and about a foot in width, sawing them to a length of about three feet. I pinned these securely together in the form of a rectangular tube a foot in diameter and three feet long, and in one end of the tube fitted a tight cedar bottom. In this bottom I cut an aperture just large enough to receive one of my glass photograph plates, five inches by seven, and after cleaning off the sensitive gelatine coating securely fitted it in place like a window. With melted pitch I payed freely all the joints and seams, so that the structure was perfectly water-tight, and then blackened the wood on the inside with a mixture of pulverized charcoal and hot wax, so that it would reflect no light.

Before this was finished the rains set in again and continued for a whole week. I concluded that the annual rainy season must now be at hand. For though the sky would occasionally clear for a day or part of a day, the showers were so frequent that the house grew damp and unwholesome, and I was obliged to air it every day with a rousing fire in the fireplace, the heat of which drove me to seek shelter under the work-shed. The weather was so uncertain that I did not dare to venture out in the boat further than a few hundred feet, and then with a line fast to the shore; this I occasionally did for the purpose of fishing, and always with good luck, catching the red snappers, rock cod, and various other varieties, all of which found their way to the larder.

It was on one of these occasions that I tried my new-made contrivance, the water-glass. When the closed end of this was submerged over the side of the boat, by looking in at the open upper end I could plainly see the bottom and the fish swimming about my hook. Of course I was very anxious to try the apparatus in deeper water to ascertain how far the vision could penetrate. But the weather would not render it possible without too great risk. The value of such a device would depend entirely upon the clearness and depth of the water. I knew from written accounts that the sponge fishers use a similar contrivance,—frequently a wooden bucket with a pane of glass in the bottom, which they call a “sponge glass,” and with which they search for sponges and conch shells in the Bermudas, employing it with perfect success, in clear water, even at a considerable depth. The sponge glass enables the operator to overcome the surface agitation and reflection of the water, just as a thin transparent sheet of ice sometimes renders the bottom of a deep pond visible to a skater.

One morning, when there was an almost perfect calm, I noticed on the surface of the sea a long streak extending from a point about half a mile from shore away toward the eastern horizon until it was lost in the distance. This appearance was so curious and inexplicable that after gazing at it for a while, both from the beach and from the top of a palm, I finally rowed the boat out to it, and found that it was muddy water, with leaves, grass, and vegetation floating in it, and a great number of cocoanuts bobbing about among the other fragments and detritus. It looked precisely as though the contents of some slack water lagoon connecting with the sea had been suddenly swept out by a freshet or some extraordinary current. Among the floating matter were innumerable sea beans, as they are called,—a sort of nut or seed that is sometimes used as an ornament for watch chains,—also little scarlet, egg-shaped seeds, like those that are picked up in such quantities on the Florida beaches. But there was no sea-weed with the other detritus. This mass of matter slowly travelled along the surface and by the next day was out of sight. I suppose to a more skilled observer the phenomenon might have proven a valuable aid in determining the set of the currents, or other natural facts worthy of note.

While out on this excursion I several times tried the water-glass, but found the sea so charged with matter and so cloudy and milky that I could see but indistinctly and to no great depth. This, however, did not discourage me, as I knew the water was likely to change in this respect from week to week.

There came upon the island at this time great numbers of pelicans. They would light on the beach in large flocks, and sit there for hours, apparently resting from a long flight; then all together, as by a concerted signal, they would rise and in an irregular body wing their way to the south. Duke took great delight in hunting these birds, and would watch by the hour for their arrival. As soon as a flock appeared in the northern sky he would prick up his ears, all attention, and wait until, circling about, they alighted. Then he would begin a deliberate attempt to stalk them, creeping along, belly to the ground, until nearly up to them, then making a bold rush, but always without success, the birds on such occasions merely rising and circling to another resting-place. He would come in after this sport wet with the rain and panting with exertion, and appeared to look with reproach at my lack of interest in the game, as though he would say, “Where is your gun, you idle fellow?” But I had no use for pelicans. Indeed, I still had too vivid a remembrance of the peculiar flavor of gull meat to hanker after fish-eating birds of any sort, as food. The white crane, or heron, and the beautiful pink and white ibis also made their appearance occasionally in flocks; but they were so shy and difficult to approach that I could never get within a hundred yards of them.

Penetrating one morning, in spite of the drizzling rain, to a part of the forest just under the rocky plateau, I came upon some trees about thirty or forty feet in height having flowers variegated with purple, yellow, green, and red, and bearing at the same time fruit in the form of great gourds. This I found was what is known as the calabash tree (Crescentia cujete). I collected a number, of different sizes, and carried them home through the rain. The hard, wood-like shells could readily be cut with the knife and saw, yet they were strong and tough. With this raw material, already partially shaped to hand, I set about making various kinds of vessels,—domestic and culinary utensils, a water-bottle to carry on my tramps and excursions, etc. With four great gourds lashed together I constructed a buoy for subsequent use in my marine explorations, and with a number of small ones I made a life-preserver as a part of my boat equipment. It was a great comfort to have a dish to eat from once more. Indeed, I had often regretted that I did not bring with me the two halves of the broken dish which I had seen at the “Farm Haven.” My two developing-trays with their deep sides had proved but inconvenient substitutes; besides, they were generally kept for other uses. Taken altogether there was no single vegetable product of the island that contributed more to my comfort than the calabash tree.

As I now had plenty of canvas I concluded to rig my boat anew and change it from the awkward latteen rig to that of a sloop with mainsail and jib. The want of a needle and thread to sew the sails was a great drawback, but I made shift to use an awl made out of a leg of a compass belonging to my drawing instruments, and for thread a slender cord made of cÖir. I rigged the jib with a traverse so that it needed no special attention except to be hauled aft when I went about, and the mainsail with a gaff and throat halliards, that it might be lowered by the run upon emergency; I also provided both jib and mainsail with three rows of reef points, that I might show little or much canvas, as the slate of the wind should require. With axe and saw and knife I fashioned a good pair of cedar oars, light and strong, and fitted thole-pins in the gunwales to receive them; I put a pair of thole-pins in the stern for sculling, and had a spare oar for use in case of breakage.

The weather continued stormy, with rain nearly every day, and frequently for several days together without cessation. I passed most of the time under the boat-shed, and generally slept there at night, as the climate was very mild and warm notwithstanding the rains. Moreover, I had now two blankets to sleep in at night, and lay quite warm and comfortable in my hammock. The house I used as a kitchen, dining-room, store-room, and library. It was quite impossible to read elsewhere at night, for the candle could not be kept alight in the open-sided shed. I read all the books through deliberately, including the German Word-book. I would lie in my swinging hammock by the hour during the day-time and read even the Dispensatory faithfully through while the rain pattered on the roof, with an occasional “swish, swish,” as the eddying wind drove it with greater or less violence against the house. That I should find the dry details of a Dispensatory sufficiently interesting to make the continuous reading of them even endurable expresses well the desperate dulness of my lonesome surroundings. Duke slept much, and I envied him his capacity for slumber. He would lie in a dry spot and snooze for fifteen minutes at a time, get up and gape and stretch, then lie down and shiver and drop to sleep with one eye open, and so alternating pass the day. Sometimes I would practice on him with German words from the Word-book, which he understood, so far as I could see, quite as well as English. At any rate, when I spoke he wagged his tail, and thus demonstrated that he was a good fellow and not disposed in any degree to criticise or find fault with the personal peculiarities or the language of a friend.

At last one clear, bright morning, when the birds were noisily rejoicing and the butterflies were out in their gala dresses, I undertook an expedition by land to the “Farm Haven.” The creek was swollen deep with the rains, so that I could not conveniently travel up the bed. Therefore I made my way north along the beach for a mile, and struck west through the jungle at the most open place I saw. By an occasional use of the axe I forced a path through to the rocks, which happened here to be low, and speedily gained the central plateau. At the point where I mounted the rocks I found great quantities of ripe whortleberries growing on low bushes, and of large size and exquisite flavor. I ate my fill of these and pressed on along the plateau looking for the connecting ridge. The walking was not bad on this upland, as there was no tangled mass of undergrowth, and the trees grew well apart. The ridge was not difficult to find and proved easily passable, so that I made shift to reach the cliffs long before noon.

Being near them I went to the Brazil-nut trees and gathered a peck or more of the nuts, filling my haversack quite full as well as my pockets. Duke here chased a little animal which I fancied must be what is called an agouti; but as he did not catch him I could not know positively. However, this persistent hunter soon after managed to tree an animal which I had no difficulty in recognizing as the familiar raccoon. I had no idea until I saw this specimen that this plantigrade was to be found in the Caribbean islands. There was, however, no mistaking the identity of the species. It was undoubtedly a genuine “coon.” The silver-tipped fur, the pointed snout, the barred tail all spoke in favor of a true descent and a perfect relationship with the animal which I had so often hunted on moonlight nights in the woods at home. It was an undoubted “case of coon.” When I found him he was in a slender sapling, with Duke barking below. I laid the axe to the trunk and speedily felled it to the ground. Duke seized his victim before he could recover, and shook him as a terrier would a rat. Running to his assistance I speedily put an end to the combat with my knife, and bagged the game. Here was material for a feast, for I well knew by experience that roast coon is a morsel fit for an epicure.

Farm Haven looked beautifully fresh from the rains. I found the garden still more choked with weeds, and the potatoes mostly gone to seed. I gathered a few to roast in the embers for my dinner, but most of them had begun to decay. The Indian corn was ripe, and I took this occasion to gather it all, a good heap of perhaps ten bushels, which I carried little by little to a sheltered nook under the rocks and piled up without removing the husks. I started a good fire to roast some corn and potatoes. After dressing the coon I swung it by a cord in front of the fire where it was slowly turned by the twist of the cord first in one direction and then in the other, requiring only an occasional twirl to keep it going.

While the dinner was cooking, Duke and I looked about the valley to see what could be found. We went over to the north of the mouth of the rivulet among some willows, to gather a few wands for basket-making. As soon as we reached the other side of the stream I noticed a strong stench as of decayed animal matter. The source of this smell was soon disclosed in a great heap of oysters. Great bivalves, some of them eight or more inches across, lay rotting in a pile on the pebbly shore. All about were heaps of open shells and decayed shell-fish. It occurred to me at once that I had chanced upon the headquarters of a pearl fishery; and this accounted most satisfactorily for the encampment, but not for the hurried departure of the campers. There was at least a ton of unopened oysters lying in the rotting drying-heap, and I determined to examine them as soon as we had finished dinner.