Horror in Paradise (33 page)

I believe I have done the third mate some little wrong in the beginning of this letter. I have said he was as self-possessed as a statue—that he never betrayed emotion or enthusiasm. He never did except when he spoke of “the old man.” I always thawed through his ice then. The men were the same way; the captain is their hero—their true and faithful friend, whom they delight to honor. I said to one of these infatuated skeletons, “But you wouldn’t go quite so far as to die for him?” A snap of the finger—“As quick as that!—I wouldn’t be alive now if it hadn’t been for him.” We pursued the subject no further.

Rations Still Further Reduced.
I still claim the public’s indulgence and belief. At least Thomas and his men do through me. About the thirty-second day the bread gave entirely out. There was nothing left, now, but mere odds and ends of their stock of provisions. Five days afterward, on the thirty-seventh day—latitude 16° 30’ N., and longitude 170° W.—kept off for the “American group”—“which don’t exist and never will, I suppose,” said the third mate. Ran directly over the ground said to be occupied by these islands—that is, between latitude 16° and 17° N., and longitude 133° to 136° W. Ran over the imaginary islands and got into 136° W., and then the captain made a dash for Hawaii, resolving that he would go till he fetched land, or at any rate as long as he and his men survived.

On Monday, the thirty-eighth day after the disaster, “we had nothing left,” said the third mate, “but a pound and a half of ham—the bone was a good deal the heaviest part of it—and one soup-and-bully tin.” These things were divided among the fifteen men, and they ate it all—two ounces of food to each man. I do not count the ham bone, as that was saved for next day. For some time, now, the poor wretches had been cutting their old boots into small pieces and eating them. They would also pound wet rags to a sort of pulp and eat them.

On the thirty-ninth day the ham bone was divided up into rations, and scraped with knives and eaten. I said: “You say the two sick men remained sick all through, and after awhile two or three had to be relieved from standing watch; how did you get along without medicines!”

The reply was: “Oh, we couldn’t have kept them if we’d had them; if we’d had boxes of pills, or anything like that, we’d have eaten them. It was just as well—we couldn’t have kept them, and we couldn’t have given them to the sick men alone—we’d have shared them around all alike, I guess.” It was said rather in jest, but it was a pretty true jest, no doubt.

After apportioning the ham bone, the captain cut the canvas cover that had been around the ham into fifteen equal pieces, and each man took his portion. This was the last division of food the captain made. The men broke up the small oaken butter tub and divided the staves among themselves, and gnawed them up. The shell of the little green turtle, heretofore mentioned, was scraped with knives and eaten to the last shaving. The third mate chewed pieces of boots and spit them out, but ate nothing except the soft straps of two pairs of boots—ate three on the thirty-ninth day and saved one for the fortieth.

The men seem to have thought in their own minds of the shipwrecked mariner’s last dreadful resort—cannibalism; but they do not appear to have conversed about it. They only thought of the casting lots and killing one of their number as a possibility; but even when they were eating rags, and bones, and boots, and shell, and hard oak wood, they seem to have still had a notion that it was remote. They felt that someone of the company must die soon—which one they well knew; and during the last three or four days of their terrible voyage they were patiently but hungrily waiting for him. I wonder if the subject of these anticipations knew what they were thinking of? He must have known it—he must have felt it. They had even calculated how long he would last; they said to themselves, but not to each other, I think they said, “He will die Saturday—and then!”

There was one exception to the spirit of delicacy I have mentioned—a Frenchman, who kept an eye of strong personal interest upon the sinking man and noted his failing strength with untiring care and some degree of cheerfulness. He frequently said to Thomas: “I think he will go off pretty soon, now, sir. And then we’ll eat him!” This is very sad.

Thomas and also several of the men state that the sick Portyghee, during the five days that they were entirely out of provisions, actually ate two silk handkerchiefs and a couple of cotton shirts, besides his share of the boots, and bones, and lumber.

Captain Mitchell was fifty-six years old on the 12th of June—the fortieth day after the burning of the ship and the third day before the boat’s crew reached land. He said it looked somewhat as if it might be the last one he was going to enjoy. He had no birthday feast except some bits of ham canvas—no luxury but this, and no substantials save the leather and oaken bucket staves.

Speaking of the leather diet, one of the men told me he was obliged to eat a pair of boots which were so old and rotten that they were full of holes; and then he smiled gently and said he didn’t know, though, but what the holes tasted about as good as the balance of the boot. This man was still very feeble, and after saying this he went to bed.

At eleven o’clock on the 15th of June, after suffering all that men may suffer and live for forty-three days, in an open boat, on a scorching tropical sea, one of the men feebly shouted the glad tidings, “Land ho!” The “watch below” were lying in the bottom of the boat. What do you suppose they did? They said they had been cruelly disappointed over and over again, and they dreaded to risk another experience of the kind—they could not bear it—they lay still where they were. They said they would not trust to an appearance that might not be land after all. They would wait.

Shortly it was proved beyond question that they were almost to land. Then there was joy in the party. One man is said to have swooned away. Another said the sight of the green hills was better to him than a day’s rations, a strange figure for a man to use who had been fasting for forty days and forty nights.

The land was the island of Hawaii, and they were off Laupahoehoe and could see nothing inshore but breakers. I was there a week or two ago, and it is a very dangerous place. When they got pretty close to shore they saw cabins, but no human beings. They thought they would lower the sail and try to work in with the oars. They cut the ropes and the sail came down, and then they found they were not strong enough to ship the oars. They drifted helplessly toward the breakers, but looked listlessly on and cared not a straw for the violent death which seemed about to overtake them after all their manful struggles, their privations, and their terrible sufferings. They said, “It was good to see the green fields again.” It was all they cared for. The “green fields” were a haven of rest for the weary wayfarers; it was sufficient; they were satisfied; it was nothing to them that Death stood in their pathway; they had long been familiar to him; he had no terrors for them.

Two of Captain Spencer’s natives saw the boat, knew by the appearance of things that it was in trouble, and dashed through the surf and swam out to it. When they climbed aboard there were only five yards of space between the poor sufferers and a sudden and violent death. Fifteen minutes afterward the boat was beached upon the shore and a crowd of natives (who are the very incarnation of generosity, unselfishness, and hospitality) were around the strangers, dumping bananas, melons, taro, poi—any thing and everything they could scrape together that could be eaten—on the ground by the cartload; and if Mr. Jones, of the station, had not hurried down with his steward, they would soon have killed the starving men with kindness. As it was, the sick Portyghee really ate six bananas before Jones could get hold of him and stop him. This is a fact. And so are the stories of his previous exploits. Jones and the kanaka girls and men took the mariners in their arms like so many children and carried them up to the house, where they received kind and judicious attention until Sunday evening, when two whaleboats came from Hilo, Jones furnished a third, and they were taken in these to the town just named, arriving there at two o’clock Monday morning.

Each of the young Fergusons kept a journal from the day the ship sailed from New York until they got on land once more at Hawaii. The captain also kept a log every day he was adrift. These logs, by the captain’s direction, were to be kept up faithfully as long as any of the crew were alive, and the last survivor was to put them in a bottle, when he succumbed, and lash the bottle to the inside of the boat. The captain gave a bottle to each officer of the other boats, with orders to follow his example. The old gentleman was always thoughtful.

The hardest berth in that boat, I think, must have been that of provision keeper. This office was performed by the captain and the third mate; of course they were always hungry. They always had access to the food, and yet must not gratify their craving appetites.

The young Fergusons are very highly spoken of by all the boat’s crew, as patient, enduring, manly and kindhearted gentlemen. The captain gave them a watch to themselves—it was the duty of each to bail the water out of the boat three hours a day. Their home is in Stamford, Connecticut, but their father’s place of business is New York.

In the chief mate’s boat was a passenger—a gentlemanly young fellow of twenty years named William Lang, son of a stockbroker in New York.

The chief mate, Samuel Hardy, lived at Chatham, Massachusetts; second mate belonged in Shields, England; the cook, George Washington (Negro), was in the chief mate’s boat, and also the steward (Negro); the carpenter was in the second mate’s boat.

Captain Mitchell.
To this man’s good sense, cool judgment, perfect discipline, close attention to the smallest particulars which could conduce to the welfare of his crew or render their ultimate rescue more probable, that boat’s crew owe their lives. He has shown brain and ability that make him worthy to command the finest frigate in the United States, and a genuine unassuming heroism that entitles him to a Congressional medal. I suppose some of the citizens of San

Francisco who know how to appreciate this kind of a man will not let him go on hungry forever after he gets there. In the above remarks I am only echoing the expressed opinions of numbers of persons here who have never seen Captain Mitchell, but who judge him by his works—among others the Hon. Anson Burlingame and our Minister to Japan, both of whom have called at the hospital several times and held long conversations with the men. Burlingame speaks in terms of the most unqualified praise of Captain Mitchell’s high and distinguished abilities as evinced at every point throughout his wonderful voyage.

Captain Mitchell, one sailor, and the two Fergusons are still at Hilo. The two first mentioned are pretty feeble, from what I can learn. The captain’s sense of responsibility kept him strong and awake all through the voyage; but as soon as he landed and that fearful strain upon his faculties was removed, he was prostrated—became the feeblest of the boat’s company.

The seamen here are doing remarkably well, considering all things. They already walk about the hospital a little, and very stiff-legged, because of the long inaction their muscles have experienced.

When they came ashore at Hawaii, no man in the party had had any movement of his bowels for eighteen days, several not for twenty-five or thirty, one not for thirty-seven, and one not for forty-four days. As soon as any of these men can travel, they will be sent to San Francisco.

I have written this lengthy letter in a great hurry in order to get it off by the bark
Milton Badger,
if the thing be possible, and I may have made a good many mistakes, but I hardly think so. All the statistical information in it comes from Thomas, and he may have made mistakes, because he tells his story entirely from memory, and although he has naturally a most excellent one, it might well be pardoned for inaccuracies concerning events which transpired during a series of weeks that never saw his mind strongly fixed upon any thought save the weary longing for food and water. But the logbooks of the captain and the two passengers will tell the terrible romance from the first day to the last in faithful detail, and these I shall forward by the next mail if I am permitted to copy them.

James Cowan

James Cowan (1870-1943), journalist and Maori scholar, was born at Pakuranga, Auckland, of an Irish father who had seen service in the Maori Wars in the Waikato region. Even in childhood, young Cowan absorbed Maori lore. When after an apprenticeship in journalism he took a publicity post with the Tourist Department in Wellington, he was able to travel throughout the islands and study their past. His principal work was a history of the New Zealand wars and the pioneering period, but he also wrote books on other Polynesian islands, such as
Suwarrow Gold
(1936), from which “The Slave Ships of Callao” is taken.

This is a brief account of a horrifying period in South Sea history, when ships from South America raided the islands of the South Pacific for native laborers condemned to die in the guano mines of Peru.

PEACEFUL lay the broad lagoon, peaceful the little thatched-hut villages beneath the palms that swished their fronds in the trade wind. On the outer reef beyond the sheltered glimmerglass, the surf beat with a slow percussive rhythm, softened to a kind of lullaby by distance. Most of the brown folk of the atoll were at their siesta; when the blazing sun westered more they would be making ready for their evening’s flying-fish catching by torchlight. Now it was blistering on the beaches; the sunshine was thrown back as from a glittering plate of steel from the surface of the water, a dazzle painful to the eye. The expanse of the lagoon stretched away for some five miles in front of the largest village. To right and left it extended in a crescent; the white heads of the rollers breaking on the coral wall appeared and subsided at regular intervals. Palm-grove isles darkened the long reef line; and in the lagoon there were islets, each bearing its tall leaning coconuts, their heads waving gently in the breeze.