Horror in Paradise (39 page)

By this time the ship had settled down a considerable distance in the water, and I gave her up as lost. I however ordered the pumps to be kept constantly going, and endeavored to collect my thoughts for the occasion. I turned to the boats, two of which we then had with the ship, with an intention of clearing them away, and getting all things ready to embark in them, if there should be no other resource left; and while my attention was thus engaged for a moment, I was aroused with the cry of a man at the hatchway, “Here he is—he is making for us again!”

I turned around and saw him about one hundred rods directly ahead of us, coming down apparently with twice his ordinary speed, and to me at that moment, it appeared, with tenfold fury and vengeance in his aspect. The surf flew in all directions about him, and his course toward us was marked by a white foam of a rod in width, which he made with the continual violent thrashing of his tail; his head was about half out of water, and in that way he came upon, and again struck, the ship.

I was in hopes, when I descried him making for us, that by a dexterous movement of putting the ship away immediately I should be able to cross the line of his approach before he could get up to us and thus avoid what I knew, if he should strike us again, would prove our inevitable destruction. I bawled out to the helmsman, “Hard up!” but she had not fallen off more than a point before we took the second shock. I should judge the speed of the ship to have been at this time about three knots, and that of the whale about six. He struck her to windward, directly under the cathead, and completely stove in her bows. He passed under the ship again, went off to leeward, and we saw no more of him.

Our situation at this juncture can be more readily imagined than described. The shock to our feelings was such as I am sure none can have an adequate conception of that were not there: the misfortune befell us at a moment when we least dreamed of any accident, and from the pleasing anticipations we had formed, of realizing the certain profits of our labor, we were dejected by a sudden, most mysterious, and overwhelming calamity.

Not a moment, however, was to be lost in endeavoring to provide for the extremity to which it was now certain we were reduced. We were more than a thousand miles from the nearest land and with nothing but a light open boat as the resource of safety for myself and companions.

I ordered the men to cease pumping, and everyone to provide for himself; seizing a hatchet at the same time, I cut away the lashings of the spare boat, which lay bottom up across two spars directly over the quarter-deck, and cried out to those near me to take her as she came down. They did so accordingly, and bore her on their shoulders as far as the waist of the ship.

The steward had in the meantime gone down into the cabin twice, and saved two quadrants, two practical navigators, and the captain’s trunk and mine; all which were hastily thrown into the boat, as she lay on the deck, with the two compasses which I snatched from the binnacle. He attempted to descend again; but the water by this time had rushed in, and he returned without being able to effect his purpose.

By the time we had got the boat to the waist, the ship had filled with water, and was going down on her beam-ends: we shoved our boat as quickly as possible from the plank shear into the water, all hands jumping in her at the same time, and launched off clear of the ship. We were scarcely two boats’ lengths distant from her when she fell over to windward and settled down in the water.

Amazement and despair now wholly took possession of us. We contemplated the frightful situation the ship lay in, and thought with horror upon the sudden and dreadful calamity that had overtaken us. We looked upon each other, as if to gather some consolatory sensation from an interchange of sentiments, but every countenance was marked with the paleness of despair. Not a word was spoken for several minutes by any of us; all appeared to be bound in a spell of stupid consternation; and from the time we were first attacked by the whale to the period of the fall of the ship and of our leaving her in the boat more than ten minutes could not certainly have elapsed! God only knows in what way, or by what means, we were enabled to accomplish in that short time what we did; the cutting away and transporting the boat from where she was deposited would of itself, in ordinary circumstances, have consumed as much time as that, if the whole ship’s crew had been employed in it.

My companions had not saved a single article but what they had on their backs; but to me it was a source of infinite satisfaction, if any such could be gathered from the horrors of our gloomy situation, that we had been fortunate enough to have preserved our compasses, navigators, and quadrants. After the first shock of my feelings was over, I enthusiastically contemplated them as the probable instruments of our salvation; without them all would have been dark and hopeless.

Gracious God! What a picture of distress and suffering now presented itself to my imagination. The crew of the ship were saved, consisting of twenty human souls. All that remained to conduct these twenty beings through the stormy terrors of the ocean, perhaps many thousand miles, were three open light boats. The prospect of obtaining any provisions or water from the ship, to subsist upon during the time, was at least now doubtful. How many long and watchful nights, thought I, are to be passed? How many tedious days of partial starvation are to be endured, before the least relief or mitigation of our sufferings can be reasonably anticipated?

We lay at this time in our boat, about two ships’ lengths off from the wreck, in perfect silence, calmly contemplating her situation, and absorbed in our own melancholy reflections, when the other boats were discovered rowing up to us. They had but shortly before discovered that some accident had befallen us, but of the nature of which they were entirely ignorant. The sudden and mysterious disappearance of the ship was first discovered by the boat steerer in the captain’s boat, and with a horror-struck countenance and voice, he suddenly exclaimed, “Oh, my God! where is the ship?” Their operations upon this were instantly suspended, and a general cry of horror and despair burst from the lips of every man as their looks were directed for her, in vain, over every part of the ocean.

They immediately made all haste toward us. The captain’s boat was the first that reached us. He stopped about a boat’s length off but had no power to utter a single syllable: he was so completely overpowered with the spectacle before him that he sat down in his boat, pale and speechless. I could scarcely recognize his countenance, he appeared to be so much altered, awed, and overcome with the oppression of his feelings and the dreadful reality that lay before him. He was in a short time however enabled to address the inquiry to me, “My God, Mr. Chase, what is the matter?”

I answered, “We have been stove by a whale.” I then briefly told him the story.

After a few moments’ reflection he observed that we must cut away her masts, and endeavor to get something out of her to eat.

Our thoughts were now all accordingly bent on endeavors to save from the wreck whatever we might possibly want, and for this purpose we rowed up and got on to her. Search was made for every means of gaining access to her hold; and for this purpose the lanyards were cut loose, and with our hatchets we commenced to cut away the masts, that she might right up again, and enable us to scuttle her decks. In doing which we were occupied about three quarters of an hour, owing to our having no axes, nor indeed any other instruments but the small hatchets belonging to the boats. After her masts were gone she came up about two thirds of the way upon an even keel.

While we were employed about the masts the captain took his quadrant, shoved off from the ship, and got an observation. We found ourselves in latitude 0° 40’ S., longitude 119° W.

We now commenced to cut a hole through the planks, directly above two large casks of bread, which most fortunately were between decks, in the waist of the ship, and which being in the upper side when she upset, we had strong hopes was not wet. It turned out according to our wishes, and from these casks we obtained six hundred pounds of hard bread. Other parts of the deck were then scuttled, and we got without difficulty as much fresh water as we dared to take in the boats, so that each was supplied with about sixty-five gallons; we got also from one of the lockers a musket, a small canister of powder, a couple of files, two rasps, about two pounds of boat nails, and a few turtle.

In the afternoon the wind came on to blow a strong breeze; and having obtained everything that occurred to us could then be got out, we began to make arrangements for our safety during the night. A boat’s line was made fast to the ship, and to the other end of it one of the boats was moored, at about fifty fathoms to leeward; another boat was then attached to the first one, about eight fathoms astern; and the third boat the like distance astern of her.

Night came on just as we had finished our operations; and such a night as it was to us! So full of feverish and distracting inquietude that we were deprived entirely of rest. The wreck was constantly before my eyes. I could not, by any effort, chase away the horrors of the preceding day from my mind: they haunted me the livelong night. My companions—some of them were like sick women; they had no idea of the extent of their deplorable situation. One or two slept unconcernedly, while others wasted the night in unavailing murmurs.

I now had full leisure to examine, with some degree of coolness, the dreadful circumstances of our disaster. The scenes of yesterday passed in such quick succession in my mind that it was not until after many hours of severe reflection that I was able to discard the idea of the catastrophe as a dream. Alas! it was one from which there was no awaking; it was too certainly true that but yesterday we had existed as it were, and in one short moment had been cut off from all the hopes and prospects of the living! I have no language to paint out the horrors of our situation. To shed tears was indeed altogether unavailing, and withal unmanly; yet I was not able to deny myself the relief they served to afford me.

After several hours of idle sorrow and repining I began to reflect upon the accident and endeavored to realize by what unaccountable destiny or design (which I could not at first determine) this sudden and most deadly attack had been made upon us; by an animal, too, never before suspected of premeditated violence, and proverbial for its insensibility and inoffensiveness. Every fact seemed to warrant me in concluding that it was anything but chance which directed his operations; he made two several attacks upon the ship, at a short interval between them, both of which, according to their direction, were calculated to do us the most injury by being made ahead and thereby combining the speed of the two objects for the shock, to effect which, the exact maneuvers which he made were necessary. His aspect was most horrible, and such as indicated resentment and fury. He came directly from the shoal which we had just before entered, and in which we had struck three of his companions, as if fired with revenge for their sufferings. But to this it may be observed that the mode of fighting which they always adopt is either with repeated strokes of their tails, or snapping of their jaws together; and that a case, precisely similar to this one, has never been heard of among the oldest and most experienced whalers. To this I would answer that the structure and strength of the whale’s head is admirably designed for this mode of attack, the most prominent part of which is almost as hard and as tough as iron; indeed,

I can compare it to nothing else but the inside of a horse’s hoof upon which a lance or harpoon would not make the slightest impression. The eyes and ears are removed nearly one third the length of the whole fish from the front part of the head and are not in the least degree endangered in this mode of attack. At all events, the whole circumstances taken together, all happening before my own eyes, and producing, at the time, impressions in my mind of decided, calculating mischief on the part of the whale (many of which impressions I cannot now recall) induce me to be satisfied that I am correct in my opinion. It is certainly, in all its bearings, a hitherto unheard-of circumstance, and constitutes, perhaps, the most extraordinary one in the annals of the fishery.

Johannes C. Andersen

One of the most prominent students of Polynesian lore was Johannes Carl Andersen (1873-1962), born in Denmark. He was librarian for many years of the Alexander Tumbull Library in Wellington, New Zealand, and edited the
Journal of the Polynesian Society
from 1925 to 1947. He was honored by the award of the Royal Society Medal for Ethnology in 1944. During his long life Andersen published a number of articles and several books, such as
Polynesian Literature: Maori Poetry
(1946) and
Myths and Legends of the Polynesians
(1928), from which “The Feather Cloak of Hawaii” and “Hiku and Kawelu” are taken. Based upon the Alexander Fomander Collection of Hawaiian legends, both these lucid retellings deal with the eerie belief in “kapuku,” or restoration of a corpse to life.

The Feather Cloak

THE Hawaiians have a story of the feather cloak that served as the first known pattern. Eleio was a kukini, or trained runner, in the service of Kakaalaneo, chief of Maui. He was not only a swift and tireless runner, but was also a kahuna, initiated into the observances that enabled him to see spirits, that made him skilled in medicine, and able to return a wandering spirit to its dead body if the work of dissolution had not begun.

Eleio had been sent to Hana to fetch awa root for the chief, and was expected to be back so that the chief might have his prepared drink for supper. Soon after leaving Olowalu, Eleio saw a beautiful young woman ahead of him. He hastened his steps, but, exert himself as he would, she kept the same distance between them. Being the fleetest kukini of his time, it piqued him that a woman should be able to prevent his overtaking her, so he determined to capture her, and devoted all his energies to that object. She led him a long chase over rocks, hills, mountains, deep ravines, precipices, and gloomy streams, till they came to the cape of Hana-manu-loa at Kahiki-nui, beyond Kaupo, where he caught her just at the entrance to a puoa—a kind of tower made of bamboo, with a platform halfway up, where the dead bodies of persons of distinction were exposed to the elements.