The Children of Captain Grant

A Journey Around the World

In Search of the Castaways

An Extraordinary Voyage

by

Jules Verne

Illustrations by

Riou

Book One: South America

Book Two: Australia

Book Three: New Zealand

An Unabridged English Translation © D.A. Sample

dsample@gmail.com

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

You are free to:

Share:

copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format

Adapt:

remix, transform, and build upon the material

The licensor cannot revoke these freedoms as long as you follow the license terms.

Under the following terms:

Attribution:

You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.

NonCommercial:

You may not use the material for commercial purposes.

No additional restrictions:

You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.

Translator’s Notes

I recently had occasion to compare the usual English translations available for Jules Verne’s Les enfants du capitaine Grant, commonly given the English title In Search of the Castaways, with its French original. I had heard that the public domain English editions of this book were highly abridged, but I hadn’t realized just how bad some of them were.

Entire swathes of text are missing. Much of Verne’s description of the wildlife, geography, and history of the places his searchers pass through is completely omitted, and the prose of the text is often stilted and awkwardly phrased. Google Translate often does a better job of producing nicely flowing English prose from the French source.

In Search of the Castaways is generally considered to be the first volume in Jules Verne’s Sea Trilogy, along with Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas, and The Mysterious Island. Those volumes have already had unabridged English translations done for them, by F. P. Walter, and Sidney Kravitz. I believe that In Search of the Castaways deserved a similar treatment.

I have used multiple sources for this translation, all obtainable from Project Gutenberg, the Internet Archive, or Google Books. The first, and most important, is the original French text.

The next is the 1877 three volume Routledge edition, scans of which are available in the Internet Archive, and Google Books. The electronic text of these has been OCRed from the scans, but the first and third volumes don’t appear to have had any manual cleanup done on them, and the second volume still has a lot of OCR errors in it.

The volumes are:

South America

Australia

New Zealand

This appears to be the most complete English translation available, and doesn’t suffer from the wholesale cuts that the other translations do. At least it has all the chapters. It’s primary failings tend to be in areas describing seamanship, and storms.

The next is the version published in 1874 by J.B.Lippincott & Co. This version has many wholesale cuts, but in the sections that haven’t been cut describing sailing, and storms at sea, it tends to be better than the Routledge.

Another English translation is the 1911 version by Charles Francis Horne. This seems to be the most common English version out there (as is evident from its low Gutenberg number) and is usually the top hit that any internet search will get you. This is unfortunate, as this book appears to be a much abridged version of the Routledge edition.

Another important resource for any Jules Verne fan is Zvi Har’El’s Jules Verne Collection. This is, among other things, where I got all of the illustrations from the original Hetzel edition, that I am including in this book

My French sucks. As a Canadian I have been exposed to it for much of my life and know a few phrases, but I can’t pretend be able to carry on any sort of conversation in it, or read anything complicated, so I relied on Google Translate a lot when creating this. My basic process is to start with the Google translation from the French original, and then start editing it, cleaning up the prose, and fixing things that it gets wrong, referencing the other English translations where I have difficulties figuring out what the heck Verne was trying to say. (And I sometimes discover that the earlier English translators had problems with exactly the same passages.) My first pass through a chapter is mainly just restoring all the bits that got cut out, with the primary goal being complete, not especially well polished prose. Translating each chapter will also often involve trips down the Wikipedia rabbit hole, researching various animals, plants, or historical events and people that Verne mentions. As he was writing in the nineteenth century, he sometimes uses words, or names for things and places that have gone out of use, or obsolete spelling. I also spend a lot of time in Google Earth, reviewing his geography.

When I came to the Māori in the New Zealand section of the book I made extensive use of Kendall and Lee’s A Grammar and Vocabulary of the Language of New Zealand,¹ first published in 1820. Verne himself appears to have used a version of this book as a reference, for I’ve been able to find just about every word or phrase he uses in it. (Though he seems to have modified many of the spellings, to conform with French phonetic rules.) It was also the reference book Dumont D’Urville used when he was visiting New Zealand in 1827, an event which Verne references multiple times.

My primary goal in creating this is completeness. I want there to be a complete version of this book available for English readers. The second is readability. I am endeavouring to produce good English prose.

How well I accomplish the first is something that can be judged fairly objectively. The second, not so much, but I hope that I am producing something that people will enjoy reading.

As I progress, I am marking the text to indicate what I have done. Sections that were present in the English translations I used for reference are unadorned. Sections that I have restored from the French original are highlighted like this. These sections are much more prevalent in the South America section, as I hadn’t yet found the Routledge version when I did it. Anything I have added myself (generally footnotes, Verne liked his footnotes, so I continue the practice) is highlighted like this. The few changes I felt compelled to make are highlighted like this.

When it comes to actual changes, I am trying to be very sparing with them. The first is a minor tweak to the section on the interpretation of the English, German and French documents in chapter two. Verne’s characters are Scottish, but Verne was French, writing in French, for a French audience, so he has them do their reconstruction of the message in the bottle in French, despite it having been created by English speakers as well. I have them working in English, and make a couple of minor adjustments to the legible fragments of the English document, to make it look more like something a native English speaker would write. (This is something I had to keep going back to, as the multiple re-interpretations of the document made the first changes I made incompatible with later interpretations.)

Where Verne, speaking in his authorial voice, imparts a bit of history that didn’t match up with my research, I put in the more current understanding of the events described, and footnote the changes. If it is one of Verne’s characters (usually Paganel) who is imparting what I consider to be incorrect information, I generally leave it unchanged, but again add some footnotes.

Many of my changes are to details of geography that are not correct. The Hetzel edition has footnotes that give metric conversions of English measurements stated by the characters, but sometimes the conversions don’t match. Verne sometimes puts geographic features in the wrong places, or gives incorrect distances. I have tried to adjust all numbers to be consistant with reality. Sometimes when Verne puts something in the wrong place, I will substitute the place name with something which is close to where Verne said it was.

I have found a couple of continuity errors, which I have tried to correct. (For example, Verne’s characters start their trek across Australia with a wagon being pulled by six oxen. About ¾ of the way across, two of them just disappear, without any reference to what happened to them.)

Jules Verne was a nineteenth century man, and sometimes it shows. While he was progressive, for his time, some of his word choices, and attitudes toward issues such as race, are … problematic … for many modern readers. While he doesn’t treat all non-Europeans as somehow lesser people (Indeed, if there is one race that gets dumped on a lot, it’s the Anglo-Saxons. Verne’s main characters are all Scottish and French, and none of them much like the English) Verne did think that race is important, and that “pure” races are superiour to “mixed” races. While I haven’t removed this completely from the book, I have toned it down, a bit, by changing, or omitting, some adjectives.

But when it came to his descriptions of the Australian Aborigines, I was sorely tempted to give them a major rewrite. Instead I just added a bunch of annotations about some of what Verne was getting wrong. And I didn’t relegate those annotations to the footnotes.

I also gave Thaouka a sex change. The first time Google gave me a pronoun when talking about her, it was feminine, so I went back and added “mare” to my initial description of her. After coming across a few “him”s and “he”s in further descriptions of the horse, I figured that Google had messed up that first one, but I thought that the book could use some female representation in that section, so I went with it. And really, that trip across the Pampas would have gone much smoother for them if they’d paid more attention to that horse.

I’d like to thank James D. Keeline for his help, especially in pointing me to the online versions of the Routledge editions. I’d also like to thank the members of the Jules Verne Forum for their help with some of the trickier bits of translation.

1. Kendall, Thomas; Lee, Samuel. A Grammar and Vocabulary of the Language of New Zealand. London: Church Missionary Society, 1820

Maps

The searcher’s route across Chile and Argentina at the 37th parallel

The searcher’s route across Australia at the 37th parallel

The searcher’s route across New Zealand

Book One: South America

Main Index

Chapter I

The Balance-Fish

Chapter II

The Three Documents

Chapter III

Malcolm Castle

Chapter IV

Lady Glenarvan’s Proposal

Chapter V

The Departure of the Duncan

Chapter VI

The Passenger in Cabin Six

Chapter VII

Where Does Jacques Paganel Come From?

Chapter VIII

A Brave Man Onboard the Duncan

Chapter IX

Through the Straits of Magellan

Chapter X

The 37th Parallel

Chapter XI

Crossing Chile

Chapter XII

Twelve Thousand Feet Aloft

Chapter XIII

Descent of the Cordillera

Chapter XIV

The Gunshot of Providence

Chapter XV

Jacques Paganel’s Spanish

Chapter XVI

Rio Colorado

Chapter XVII

The Pampas

Chapter XVIII

In Search of Water

Chapter XIX

The Red Wolves

Chapter XX

The Argentinian Plains

Chapter XXI

Fort Independence

Chapter XXII

The Flood

Chapter XXIII

Leading the Lives of Birds

Chapter XXIV

Still Leading the Lives of Birds

Chapter XXV

Between Fire and Water

Chapter XXVI

The Atlantic

Main Index

Chapter I
The Balance-Fish

On the 26th of July, 1864, in a strong north-east breeze, a magnificent yacht was steaming over the waves of the North Channel. The English flag flapped at the mizzen-mast. At the top of the main mast flew a blue standard bearing the initials E. G., embroidered in gold, and surmounted by a ducal coronet. This yacht was the Duncan, and it belonged to Lord Glenarvan, one of the sixteen Scottish peers who sit in the Upper House, and the most distinguished member of the Royal Thames Yacht Club, so famous throughout the United Kingdom.

Lord Edward Glenarvan was on board with his young wife, Lady Helena, and one of his cousins, Major MacNabbs.

A huge fish frolicking in the wake of the yacht

The newly built Duncan had been making a trial trip a few miles outside the Firth of Clyde. She was returning to Glasgow, and the Isle of Arran already loomed in the distance, when the watchman pointed out a huge fish frolicking in the wake of the yacht. Captain John Mangles immediately informed Lord Edward, who climbed to the quarterdeck with Major MacNabbs, and asked the captain what he thought of this animal.

“Really, Your Honour,” said Captain Mangles, “I think it’s a shark, and a fine large one, too.”

“A shark in these waters?”

“There is nothing unusual about that,” said the captain. “If I’m not much mistaken it’s a ‘balance-fish,’¹ and those rascals are known in all latitudes, and seas! If Your Honour agrees, and Lady Glenarvan wishes to witness a novel hunt, we’ll soon know what it is.”

“What do you say, MacNabbs?” asked Lord Glenarvan. “Shall we try to catch it?”

“If it pleases you,” said the Major calmly.

“The more of those terrible creatures that are killed the better,” said John Mangles, “so let’s seize the chance. It will not only give us a little diversion, but be doing a good turn.”

“Do it, John,” said Lord Glenarvan, and sent for his wife.

Lady Helena soon joined her husband on deck, quite tempted at the prospect of such exciting sport. The sea was magnificent; the rapid movements of the shark, every vigorous plunge and dart, could easily be followed on its surface.

John Mangles gave his orders. The sailors threw a strong rope over the starboard side of the yacht with a big hook at the end of it, concealed in a thick lump of bacon. The shark sensed the bait immediately, though it was still a full fifty yards off. It made rapidly for the yacht, beating the waves violently with its fins, grey at the end, black at their base, while its tail held it in a perfectly straight line. As it got nearer, its great projecting eyes could be seen inflamed with greed, and its gaping jaws uncovered a quadruple row of teeth. Its head was large, and shaped like a double headed hammer. Captain Mangles was right: this was the most voracious specimen of the family of sharks, what the English call the balance-fish.

The passengers and sailors on the Duncan followed all the shark’s movements with keen interest. It soon came within reach of the bait, turned over on his back to seize it, and the bacon and hook vanished into its vast throat. It gave a violent jerk on the rope, and the sailors hauled in the enormous shark by means of tackle attached to the yardarm.

The shark struggled desperately against being removed from its natural element, but its captors were prepared for its violence, and had a long rope ready with a noose which caught its tail and paralyzed its movements. In a few moments it was hoisted up over the side of the yacht and thrown on the deck. A sailor approached it cautiously, and with one powerful stroke of an axe, cut off its tail.

This satisfied the sailors’ vengeance, and there was no longer any reason to fear the shark, but their curiosity was not yet satisfied. It is customary on board any vessel to examine a shark’s stomach carefully. Sharks were well known for their voracious appetites, and the contents of a shark might be worth investigation.

Lady Glenarvan declined to be present at such a disgusting exploration, and withdrew to the cabin again. The fish lay gasping on the deck. It was ten feet long, and weighed more than six hundred pounds. This was nothing extraordinary, for though the balance-fish is not classed among the giants of the sharks, it is always reckoned among the most formidable.

The huge brute was soon unceremoniously ripped open with an axe. The hook had caught in the stomach, which was found to be absolutely empty. Obviously the animal had been fasting for a long time, and the disappointed sailors were just about to throw the remains overboard, when the boatswain’s attention was attracted by a large object sticking fast in its viscera.

“Hey! What’s that?” he cried.

“That,” replied one of the sailors, “is a piece of rock the beast swallowed by way of ballast.”

“No!” said another sailor. “It’s a cannonball that the fellow has swallowed, and couldn’t digest.”

“Be quiet, all of you!” said Tom Austin, the mate of the Duncan. “Don’t you see that it’s a bottle! This animal was a drunkard, and in order not to lose anything he drank not only the wine, but also the bottle?”

“What!” said Lord Glenarvan. “Do you mean to say that the shark has got a bottle in his stomach?”

“What!” said Lord Glenarvan. “Do you mean to say that the shark has got a bottle in his stomach?”

“It’s really a bottle,” said the boatswain, “but not from the wine cellar.”

“Well, Tom, be careful how you take it out,” said Lord Glenarvan, “for bottles found in the sea often contain valuable documents.”

“You think?” said Major MacNabbs.

“It might, at any rate.”

“Oh! I’m not saying it doesn’t,” said the Major. “There may perhaps be some secret in it.”

“That’s just what we’re to see,” said Glenarvan. “Well, Tom?”

“Here it is,” said the mate, holding up a shapeless lump he had managed to pull, with some difficulty, from the shark’s stomach.

“Well, get the ugly thing washed, and bring it to the cabin.”

Tom obeyed, and this bottle — found in such singular circumstances — was placed on the table of the saloon, around which Lord Glenarvan, Major MacNabbs, Captain John Mangles, and even Lady Helena took their places, for women, they say, are always a little curious.

Everything is an event at sea. For a moment they all sat silent, gazing at this frail relic, wondering if it told a tale of sad disaster, or only an insignificant message entrusted to the mercy of the waves by some idle navigator?

The only way to know was to examine the bottle. Glenarvan set to work without further delay, with the care of a coroner² making an inquest, as the most minute of details might lead to an important discovery.

He started with a close inspection of the exterior of the bottle. The neck was long and slender, and around the thick rim there was still an end of wire hanging, though eaten away with rust. The sides were very thick, and strong enough to bear great pressure. It was evidently of Champagne origin. With these bottles, the Aï or Epernay winemakers block carriage wheels, without any evidence of a crack. The bottle had thus been able to bear with impunity the chances of a long peregrination.

“That’s one of Clicquot’s bottles,” said the Major, and as he ought to know, no one contradicted him.

“My dear Major,” said Lady Helena. “What does it matter about the bottle, if we don’t know where it comes from?”

“We shall know that, too, my dear Helena,” said Lord Edward. “And we can already say that it comes from far away. Look at those petrifactions all over it, these different substances almost turned to mineral through the action of sea water! This waif had been tossing about in the ocean a long time before the shark swallowed it.”

“I quite agree with you,” said MacNabbs. “And this fragile vessel, protected by its stone envelope, has been able to make a long journey.”

“But where does it come from?” asked Lady Glenarvan.

“Wait a little, dear Helena, wait. We must have patience with bottles, but if I am not much mistaken, this one will answer all our questions.” And Lord Glenarvan began to scrape away the hard material protecting the neck. Soon the cork made its appearance, but much damaged by the sea water.

“That’s unfortunate,” said Lord Edward, “for if there are any papers in there, they’ll be in very bad shape.”

“That is to be expected,” said the Major.

“But it’s a lucky thing the shark swallowed them, I must say,” added Glenarvan; “for the bottle would have sunk to the bottom before long with such a cork as this.”

“No doubt,” replied John Mangles. “But it would have been better to have fished it up in the open sea. Then we might have found out the road it had come by taking the exact latitude and longitude, and studying the atmospheric and submarine currents; but with such a postman as a shark that goes against wind and tide, there’s no clue whatever to the starting-point.”

“We shall see.” Glenarvan gently pulled out the cork. A strong odour of salt water pervaded the whole saloon.

“Well?” asked Lady Helena.

“I was right!” said Glenarvan. “I see papers inside!”

“Documents! Documents!” exclaimed Lady Helena.

“Only, they seem to be eaten away by moisture,” said Glenarvan, “and it will be impossible to remove them, for they appear to be sticking to the sides of the bottle.”

“Let’s break it,” said the Major.

“I’d rather keep it intact.”

“No doubt you would,” said Lady Helena, “but the contents are more valuable than the bottle, and we’ll have to sacrifice the one for the other.”

The papers were carefully removed, and spread out on the table

“If Your Honour would break off the neck, I think we might remove the papers, without damaging them” suggested John Mangles.

“Try it, my dear Edward,” said Lady Helena.

Lord Glenarvan couldn’t see any other way to proceed, so he decided to break the neck of the precious bottle. He had to use a hammer, for the stony envelope had acquired the hardness of granite. Soon the debris fell on the table, and several pieces of paper were seen adhering to each other, and the inner walls of the bottle. Glenarvan carefully removed, separated, and spread them on the table, while Lady Helena, Major MacNabbs, and Captain Mangles crowded around him.

1. The balance-fish is so named by English sailors because its head has the form of a balance. It is more commonly known today as the hammerhead shark.

2. Officer who investigates criminal cases.

| Index | Chapter II

Chapter II
The Three Documents

These pieces of paper, half destroyed by the sea-water, had only a few legible words, the indecipherable remains of lines almost entirely erased. Lord Glenarvan examined them carefully for a few minutes; he turned them around; he held them up to the light; he observed the least traces of writing left by the sea; then he looked at his friends, who regarded him anxiously.

“There are three distinct documents here,” he said. “Apparently copies of the same document in three different languages. One in English, the second in French, and a third in German. The few words that have survived leave me in no doubt about it.”

“But can you make any sense out of them?” asked Lady Helena.

“That’s hard to say, my dear Helena; the words remaining on these documents are very incomplete.”

“Maybe they compliment each other?” said the Major.

“Very likely they will,” said John Mangles. “It is unlikely for sea-water to have gnawed these pages precisely in the same places, and by bringing these fragments of phrases together, we may find an intelligible meaning.”

“That is what we are going to do,” said Lord Glenarvan. “But let us proceed methodically. Here is the first document.”

The document had the following layout, and words:

June 27, 1862. The three-master Britannia, of
Glasgow, sank fifteen hundred leagues from
Patagonia, in the Southern Hemisphere, stranding
two sailors and their skipper, Harry Grant. They
have landed on Maria Theresa Island. Continually
plagued by cruel poverty, they threw this document
into the sea at 153° of longitude and 37° 11’ of
latitude. Bring them assistance, or they are lost.¹

“That doesn’t mean much,” said the Major, disappointedly.

“But in any case,” said the captain, “it is English.”

“There’s no doubt of it,” said Glenarvan. “The words ‘sank,’ ‘land,’ ‘this,’ and, ‘lost’ are intact; ‘skipp’ is evidently part of the word skipper, and most likely the captain of the shipwrecked vessel’s name begins with ‘Gr’.”

“The meanings of ‘docum’ and ‘sistance’, have plain interpretations, as well,” said Captain Mangles.

“We’ve made good progress, already,” said Lady Helena.

“Yes, but unfortunately we are missing whole lines,” said the Major, “How do we find the name of the lost ship? The place of the sinking?”

“We’ll get to that, in due course,” said Lord Edward.

“I don’t doubt it,” replied the Major, who was naturally agreeable. “But how?”

“By comparing one document with the other.”

“Let’s find out,” said his wife.

The second piece of paper was even more damaged than the first; only a few scattered words remained here and there.

It ran as follows:

27 Juni 1862, die dreimastige Britannia aus
Glasgow, verlor sich fünfzehnhundert Meilen von
der Patagonien in der südlichen hemisphäre.
Auf dem Boden zwei Matrosen und die
Kapitän Grant erreichte Tabor Island,
dort ständig von grausamer Armut geplagt,
Sie warfen dieses Dokument um 153 ° Länge
und 37 ° 11 ‘von Breitengrad. bring ihnen Hilfe,
aber sie sind verloren.

“This is written in German,” said John Mangles as soon as he glanced at the paper.

“And you know that language, John?” asked Lord Glenarvan.

“Perfectly, Your Honour.”

“Then tell us what these words mean.”

The captain examined the document carefully. “Well, first we have a date: ‘7 Juni’ means June 7; and if we put that before the figures ‘62’ from the English document, it gives us the complete date: 7th of June, 1862.”

“Excellent!” exclaimed Lady Helena. “Go on, John!”

“On the next line,” continued the young captain, “there is the syllable ‘Glas’ and if we add that to the ‘gow’ we found in the English paper, we get the whole word Glasgow. The documents evidently refer to some ship that sailed out of the port of Glasgow.”

“That is my opinion,” said the Major.

“The next line is entirely missing,” said the captain; “but further down are two important words: ‘zwei,’ which means two, and ‘atrosen,’ likely matrosen, the German for sailors.”

“Then I suppose it is about a captain and two sailors,” said Lady Helena.

“It seems so,” replied Lord Glenarvan.

“I must confess, Your Honour, that the next word, ‘grau,’ puzzles me. I can make nothing of it. Perhaps the third document may throw some light on it. The last two words are plain enough. ‘Bring ihnen’ means bring them, and if we combine them with the line of the English paper where we had assistance, we get: Bring them assistance.”

“Yes, that must be it,” said Lord Glenarvan. “But where are the poor fellows? We have not the slightest indication of the place, nor of where the catastrophe happened.”

“Let’s hope that the French copy will be more explicit,” said Lady Helena.

“Here it is, then,” said Lord Glenarvan, “and that is in a language we all know.”

Here is the exact facsimile of the third document:

27 juin 1862, le trois-mâts Britannia, de
 Glasgow, s’est perdu à quinze cents lieues de
la Patagonie, dans l’hémisphère austral.
Portés à terre, deux matelots et le
capitaine Grant ont atteint à l’île Tabor,
là, continuellement en proie à une cruelle indigence,
ils ont jeté ce document par 153° de longitude
et 37° 11′ de latitude. Venez à leur secours,
ou ils sont perdus.

“There are numbers!” cried Lady Helena. “See gentlemen! See!”

“Let us be orderly,” said Lord Glenarvan, “and begin at the beginning. I think we can make out from the incomplete words in the first line that it is a three-master, whose name, from the fragments of the English papers is the Britannia. As to the next two words, ‘gonie’ and ‘austral,’ it is only austral² that has any meaning to us.”

“That is a precious detail,” said John Mangles. “The shipwreck occurred in the southern hemisphere.”

“That’s vague,” said the Major.

“Well, we’ll go on,” resumed Glenarvan. “Here is the word ‘abor’; that is clearly the root of the verb aborder. The poor men have landed somewhere; but where? ‘Contin.’ Does that mean continent? ‘Cruel’!”

“Cruel!” interrupted John Mangles. “I see now what ‘grau’ is part of in the second document. It is grausam, the word in German for cruel!”

“Let us go on! Let us go on!” said Lord Glenarvan, becoming quite excited over his task, as the meanings of the incomplete words took form. “’Indi.’ Is it India where they have been shipwrecked? And what can this word ‘ongit’ be part of? Ah! I see! It is longitude; and here is the latitude, ‘37° 11′.’ That is a precise indication at last, then!”

“But the longitude is missing,” said MacNabbs.

“But we can’t have everything, my dear Major; and it is something at any event, to have the exact latitude. The French document is decidedly the most complete of the three; and it is plain enough that each is the literal translation of the other, for they all contain exactly the same number of lines. What we have to do now is to put together all the words we have found, translated into one language, and try to ascertain their most probable and logical meaning.”

“Well, what language shall we choose?” asked the Major. “English, German, or French?”

“I think we had better keep going in English, as that was evidently the native tongue of the author, as well as ours.”³

“Your Honour is correct,” said John Mangles.

“Very well. I am going to write this document by bringing together these remnants of words and fragments of sentences, respecting the intervals which separate them, completing those whose meaning can not be doubtful; then, we will compare and judge.”

Glenarvan immediately took the pen, and a few minutes later he presented to his friends a paper on which were drawn the following lines:

June 7, 1862, the three-master Britannia, of
Glasgow, sank fifteen hundred leagues distant
from Patagonie, in the southern hemisphere.
on the coast, two sailors and their
skipper Grant landed on Tabor Island.
There, continually preyed by cruel indigence,
they thrown this document at 153° of longitude
and 37° 11′ of latitude. Bring them assistance,
or they are lost.

As he was finishing, one of the sailors came to inform the captain that the Duncan was entering the Firth of Clyde, and to ask what were his orders.

“What are Your Honour’s intentions?” asked John Mangles, addressing Lord Glenarvan.

“To get to Dumbarton as quickly as possible, John; Lady Helena will return to Malcolm Castle, while I go on to London and lay this document before the Admiralty.”

Captain John Mangles

John Mangles gave his orders accordingly, and the sailor went to deliver them to the mate.

“Now, friends,” said Lord Glenarvan, “let us continue our research, for we are on the trail of a great catastrophe, and the lives of several men may depend on our wisdom. We must put all our intelligence into the solution of this enigma.”

“We are ready, my dear Edward,” said Lady Helena.

“First of all, there are three very distinct things to be considered in this document. One, the things we know; two, the things we may conjecture; and three, the things we do not know.

“What are those we know? We know that on the 7th of June a three-mast vessel, the Britannia of Glasgow, sank; that two sailors and the captain threw this document into the sea at 37° 11′ of latitude, and they ask for help.”

“Perfectly,” said the Major.

“What can we conjecture?” said Glenarvan. “First, that the shipwreck occurred in the southern seas; and here I would draw your attention at once to the incomplete word gonie. Doesn’t the name of a country strike you even in the mere mention of it?”

“Patagonia!” exclaimed Lady Helena.

“Undoubtedly.”

“But is Patagonia crossed by the 37th parallel?” asked the Major.

“That is easy to check,” said the captain, unfolding a map of South America. “Yes, it is; Patagonia just touches the 37th parallel. It cuts through Araucanía, goes over the Pampas — northern Patagonian lands — and loses itself in the Atlantic.”

“Well, let’s continue with our conjectures. The two sailors and the captain land … land where? Contin … on a continent; on a continent, mark you, not an island. What becomes of them? There are two letters here providentially which give a clue to their fate: ‘pr,’ that must mean prisoners, and cruel Indian is evidently the meaning of the next two words. These unfortunate men are captives in the hands of cruel Indians. Don’t you see it? Don’t the words seem to come of themselves, and fill in the blanks? Isn’t the document quite clear now? Isn’t the meaning self-evident?”

Glenarvan spoke with conviction, and his eyes burned with confidence. His enthusiasm was contagious, for the others all exclaimed, “Yes, it’s obvious, quite obvious!”

After a moment, Lord Edward went on. “All these hypotheses, my friends, seem to me extremely plausible; the disaster took place on the shores of Patagonia, but still I will have inquiries made in Glasgow, as to the destination of the Britannia, and we shall know if it is possible she could have been wrecked on those shores.”

“Oh, there’s no need to send so far to find that out,” said John Mangles. “I have the Mercantile and Shipping Gazette here, which should tell us all about it.”

“Come on, let’s see!” said Lady Glenarvan.

John Mangles took a bundle of newspapers from the year 1862 and quickly flipped through it. His search did not take long, and soon he said with a tone of satisfaction: “May 30, 1862, Peru-Callao, with cargo for Glasgow, the Britannia, Captain Grant.”

“Grant!” exclaimed Lord Glenarvan. “That is the bold Scot who wanted to found a New Scotland in the Pacific Seas!”

“Yes,” replied John Mangles, “The same person who, in 1861, sailed from Glasgow in the Britannia, and has not been heard of since.”

“No doubt! No more doubt!” said Glenarvan. “It’s him. The Britannia left Callao on the 30th of May, and on the 7th of June, eight days after her departure, she is lost on the coast of Patagonia. We find her entire story in these remnants of words that seemed indecipherable. You see, my friends, our conjectures hit the mark very well; we know all now except one thing, and that is the longitude.”

“That is not needed now,” said John Mangles. “We know the country. With the latitude alone, I could undertake to go straight to the scene of the sinking.”

“We know everything, then?” said Lady Helena.

“All, my dear Helena; and those blanks that the sea has left between the words of the document, I will fill without difficulty, as if Captain Grant were dictating to me.”

Lord Glenarvan picked up the pen, and he wrote the following note:

“On the 7th of June, 1862, the three-master, Britannia, of Glasgow, has sunk on the coast of Patagonia, in the southern hemisphere. Making for the shore, two sailors and Captain Grant are about to land on the continent, where they will be taken prisoners by cruel Indians. They have thrown this document into the sea, at longitude ___ and latitude 37° 11′. Bring them assistance, or they are lost.”

“Very good, dear Edward,” said Lady Helena. “If these wretches see their country again, it is you that they will have to thank for it.”

“And they will see it again,” said Lord Glenarvan. “The statement is too explicit, too clear, and too certain for England to hesitate about going to the aid of her children castaway on a desert coast. What she has done for Franklin⁴ and so many others, she will do today for these poor shipwrecked men of the Britannia.”

“But these wretches doubtless have families who mourn their loss,” said Lady Helena. “Maybe this poor Captain Grant has a wife, children…”

“Very true, my dear lady, and I’ll not forget to let them know that there is still hope. But now, friends, we had better go up on deck, as we must be getting near the harbour.”

She anchored at the foot of the basaltic rock of Dumbarton

In fact, the Duncan was now following the shores of the Isle of Bute at full steam, and passing Rothesay off her starboard side, with its charming little town lying in its fertile valley; then she rushed into the narrowed passes of the gulf, sailed before Greenok, and at six o’clock she anchored at the foot of the basaltic rock of Dumbarton, crowned by the famous Wallace Castle, of the Scottish hero.

A carriage was hitched there, to take Lady Helena and Major MacNabbs to Malcolm Castle. Lord Glenarvan after kissing his young wife, rushed to catch the express train to Glasgow.

But before leaving he had given a faster agent an important notice, and a few minutes afterward it flashed along the electric telegraph to London, for the following words to appear next day in the Times and Morning Chronicle:

“For information on the fate of the three-master Britannia, of Glasgow, Captain Grant, apply to Lord Glenarvan, Malcolm Castle, Luss, Dumbartonshire, Scotland.”

1. I have made minor tweaks to the wording and formatting of the English version of the document. I don’t know how good Verne’s English was, and some of the word choices in his original look to me like they were translated into English by someone who didn’t know the language very well. Verne had sink instead of sank, aland instead of e land, and that monit (which John took to obviously be a fragment of monition, meaning ‘document’) instead of this docum — DAS

2. French words whose meanings were clear to Lord Glenarvan, and the others: trois: three, austral: southern, jeté: thrown. (Verne had a footnote giving the French translation of some of the legible words in the English document) — DAS

3. Verne’s characters decide to work in French, as that was the language he was writing in — DAS

4. The Franklin Expedition disappeared in the Canadian Arctic in 1845, searching for a Northwest Passage. Their fate remained unknown for many years, and many expeditions were mounted to search for survivors. None were ever found. The wrecks of his two ships, The Erebus, and the Terror, were not found until 2014, and 2016 — DAS

Chapter I | Index | Chapter III

Chapter III
Malcolm Castle

Malcolm Castle, one of the most poetic in the Highlands, is located near the village of Luss, where it dominates the pretty valley. The limpid waters of Loch Lomond bathe the granite of its walls. Since time immemorial it belonged to the Glenarvan family, who kept the old ways of the heroes of Walter Scott in the country of Rob Roy and Fergus MacGregor. At the time when the social revolution was taking place in Scotland, many people were driven off the land who could not pay heavy rents to the old clan chiefs. Some died of hunger; some became fishermen; others emigrated. It was a time of great despair.

The Glenarvans believed that fidelity bound the great and the small, and they remained faithful to their tenants. No one was evicted from the home in which he had been born, nor from the land where his ancestors rested; all remained in the clan of their old lords. At this time, in this century of disaffection and disunity, the Glenarvan family considered the Scots at Malcolm Castle as well as on board the Duncan, as their own people. All were descended from vassals of MacGregor, MacFarlane, MacNabbs, and MacNaughton. They were children of the counties of Stirling and Dumbarton: brave people, devoted body and soul to their master, and some of whom still spoke the Gaelic of Old Caledonia.

Loch Lomond in moonlight

Lord Glenarvan’s fortune was enormous, and he spent it to do much good. His kindheartedness was even greater than his generosity, for the one knew no bounds, while the other, of necessity, had its limits. As Lord of Luss and “laird” of Malcolm, he represented his county in the House of Lords; but, with his Jacobite ideas, he little pleased the House of Hanover, and he was looked upon coldly by the statesmen of England, because of the tenacity with which he clung to the traditions of his forefathers, and his energetic resistance to the political encroachments of Southerners.

And yet he was not a man behind the times, and there was nothing little or narrow-minded about him; but while always keeping his ancestral county open to progress, he remained Scottish at heart, and it was for the honour of Scotland that he competed in the yacht races of the Royal Thames Yacht Club.

Edward Glenarvan was thirty-two years old. He was tall in person, and had rather sharp features; but there was an exceeding sweetness in his look, and a stamp of Highland poetry about his whole bearing. He was known to be brave to excess, enterprising, chivalrous, a nineteenth-century Fergus; but his goodness excelled every other quality, and he was more charitable than St. Martin himself, for he would have given his entire cloak to the poor people of the Highlands.

He had scarcely been married three months, and his bride was Miss Helena Tuffnell, the daughter of William Tuffnell, the great traveller, one of the many victims of geographical science and of the passion for discovery.

Miss Helena did not belong to a noble family, but she was Scottish, which was worth more than nobility in the eyes of Lord Glenarvan. The Lord of Luss had made this charming, courageous, devoted young woman his life’s companion. When he first met her, she was an orphan, alone, almost without fortune, in her father’s house at Kilpatrick. He saw that the poor girl would be a valiant woman; he married her. Miss Helena was twenty-two years old; she was a fair-haired young woman with blue eyes like the water of Scottish lakes on a beautiful spring morning. Her love for her husband outweighed her gratitude. She loved him as if she had been the rich heiress, and he the abandoned orphan. As for his tenants and servants, they were ready to give their lives for whom they called “our good Lady of Luss.”

Malcolm Castle

Glenarvan and Lady Helena lived happily at Malcolm Castle, amid the beautiful nature of the wild Highlands. They walked in the dark alleys of chestnut and sycamore trees, and on the banks of the lake where rang the pibrochs¹ of the old days. They explored the depths of uncultivated gorges in which the history of Scotland is written in secular ruins. They would lose themselves in the birch or larch woods, or amidst the vast fields of yellow heather. They would climb the steep summits of Ben Lomond, or ride on horseback through the abandoned glens; studying, understanding, admiring this poetic land — all these famous sites so valiantly sung of by Walter Scott — still called “the country of Rob Roy.”

In the evening, at nightfall, when “the lantern of MacFarlane”² was lit on the horizon, they would wander along the bartizans — an old circular gallery that made a chain of battlements to Malcolm Castle — and there, thoughtful, forgotten, and as if alone in the world, they would sit on some detached stone in the midst of the silence of nature while daylight faded from the the summits of the darkening mountains, and the pale moon shone down upon them. They lost themselves in the ecstasy and intimate rapture that loving hearts alone have the secret to on earth.

They walked on the banks of the lake

But Lord Glenarvan did not forget that his wife was the daughter of a great traveller, and he thought it likely that she would inherit her father’s predilections. In the first month of their marriage he had the Duncan built expressly that he might take his bride to the most beautiful lands in the world, and complete their honeymoon by sailing the Mediterranean, and through the clustering islands of the Archipelago. Lady Helena had been overjoyed when her husband showed her the Duncan. What greater happiness could there be than to walk with one’s love through those charming regions of Greece, and to see the honeymoon rise on the enchanted shores of the East?

Lord Glenarvan had gone now to London. The lives of the shipwrecked men were at stake, and Lady Helena was too much concerned about them, herself, to begrudge her husband’s temporary absence. A telegram next day gave her hope that he would return soon, but a letter came that evening that warned her that he might be further delayed, and the morning after brought another, in which he openly expressed his dissatisfaction with the Admiralty.

Lady Helena became anxious as the day wore on. In the evening, when she was sitting alone in her room, Mr. Halbert, the house steward, came in and asked if she would see a young girl and boy who wanted to speak to Lord Glenarvan.

“Local people?” asked Lady Helena.

“No, Madame,” said the steward, “I do not know them. They have just arrived by rail to Balloch, and walked the rest of the way to Luss.”

“Tell them to come up, Halbert.”

In a few minutes a girl and boy were shown in. They were evidently brother and sister, for the resemblance was unmistakable. The girl was about sixteen years old. Her tired pretty face, sorrowful eyes, resigned but courageous look, as well as her neat though poor attire, made a favourable impression. The boy she held by the hand was about twelve, but his face expressed such determination that he appeared quite his sister’s protector.

The girl seemed too shy to utter a word at first, but Lady Helena quickly relieved her embarrassment by saying, with an encouraging smile: “You wish to speak to me, I think?”

“No,” replied the boy, in a firm tone. “Not to you, but to Lord Glenarvan.”

“Excuse him, Madame,” said the girl, with a look at her brother.

“Lord Glenarvan is not at the castle just now,” said Lady Helena, “but I am his wife, and if I can do anything for you—”

“You are Lady Glenarvan?” asked the girl.

“Yes, miss.”

“The wife of Lord Glenarvan, of Malcolm Castle, that put an announcement in the Times about the shipwreck of the Britannia?”

“Yes, yes,” said Lady Helena, eagerly. “And you?”

“I am Mary Grant, Madame, and this is my brother, Robert.”

“I am Mary Grant, Madame, and this is my brother, Robert.”

“Miss Grant, Miss Grant!” exclaimed Lady Helena, drawing the young girl toward her, and taking both her hands and kissing the boy’s rosy cheeks.

“What is it you know, Madame, about the shipwreck? Tell me, is my father still living? Shall we ever see him again? Oh, tell me,” said the girl.

“My dear child,” replied Lady Helena. “Heaven forbid that I should answer lightly such a question. I would not delude you with vain hopes.”

“Oh, tell me all, tell me all, Madame. I’m proof against sorrow. I can bear to hear anything.”

“My poor child, there is but a faint hope; but with the help of Almighty Heaven it is just possible you may one day see your father again.”

“My God! My God!” exclaimed Miss Grant, who could not contain her tears, while Robert covered Lady Glenarvan’s hands with kisses.

As soon as they grew calmer, the girl asked countless questions. Lady Helena told them the story of the document. How the Britannia was lost on the shores of Patagonia; how, after the shipwreck, the captain and two sailors, the only survivors, must have reached the continent; and finally, how they implored the help of the whole world in this document, written in three languages, and abandoned to the caprices of the ocean.

Robert Grant devoured Lady Helena with his eyes while she recited her story, hanging on her every word. His childish imagination evidently retraced all the scenes of his father’s shipwreck. He saw him on the deck of the Britannia, and then struggling with the waves, then clinging to the rocks, and lying at length exhausted on the beach.

More than once he cried out, “Oh, papa! my poor papa!” and hugged his sister close.

Mary Grant sat silent and motionless through Lady Helena’s account, with clasped hands, and all she said when the narration ended, was: “Oh, Madame, may I see the paper, please?”

“I do not have it anymore, my dear child,” said Lady Helena.

“You do not have it?”

“No. Lord Glenarvan has taken it to London, for the sake of your father; but I have told you all it contained, word for word, and how we managed to make out the complete meaning from the fragments of words left — all except the longitude, unfortunately.”

“We can do without that,” said the boy.

“Yes, Mr. Robert,” rejoined Lady Helena, smiling at the child’s sure tone. “And so you see, Miss Grant, you know the smallest details now just as well as I do.”

“Yes, Madame, but I should like to have seen my father’s writing.”

“Well, tomorrow, perhaps tomorrow, Lord Glenarvan will be back. My husband determined to lay the document before the Lords of the Admiralty, to induce them to send out a ship immediately in search of Captain Grant.”

“Is it possible, Madame,” exclaimed the girl, “that you have done that for us?”

“Yes, my dear Miss Grant, and I am expecting Lord Glenarvan back any minute now.”

“Oh, Madame! Heaven bless you and Lord Glenarvan,” said the young girl, fervently, overcome with grateful emotion.

“My dear girl, we deserve no thanks; anyone in our place would have done the same. I only pray the hopes we are leading you to entertain may be realized, but until my husband returns, you will remain at the Castle.”

“Oh, no, Madame. I could not abuse the sympathy you show to strangers.”

“Strangers, dear child!” interrupted Lady Helena. “You and your brother are not strangers in this house, and I should like Lord Glenarvan, when he returns, to be able to tell the children of Captain Grant himself, what is going to be done to rescue their father.”

It was impossible to refuse an invitation given with such heart, and Miss Grant and her brother consented to await the return of Lord Glenarvan to Malcolm Castle.

1. A form of Scottish bagpipe music involving elaborate variations on a theme, typically of a martial or funerary character.

2. The full moon.

Chapter II | Index | Chapter IV

Chapter IV
Lady Glenarvan’s Proposal

Lady Helena thought it best to say nothing to the children about the fears Lord Glenarvan had expressed in his letters respecting the decisions of the Lords of the Admiralty with regard to the document. Nor did she mention the probable captivity of Captain Grant among the Indians of South America. Why sadden the poor children, and dampen their newly cherished hopes? It would not alter the actual state of affairs in the least; so not a word was said, and after answering all Miss Grant’s questions, Lady Helena began to interrogate her in turn, asking her about her past life and her present circumstances.

It was a touching, simple story she heard in reply, and one which increased her sympathy for the young girl.

Mary and Robert were the captain’s only children. Harry Grant had lost his wife when Robert was born, and during his long voyages he left his children in the care of his cousin who was a good old lady. Captain Grant was a fearless sailor. He not only thoroughly understood navigation, but commerce as well — a two-fold qualification eminently useful to skippers in the merchant service. He lived in Dundee, in Perthshire, Scotland. His father, a minister of St. Katrine’s Church, had given him a thorough education, as he believed that could never hurt anybody.

Harry Grant’s voyages, first as a mate, and then as captain where highly successful, and a few years after Robert was born, he found himself in possession of a considerable fortune.

It was then that he proposed the grand scheme which made him so popular in Scotland. Like Glenarvan, and a few noble families in the Lowlands, he had no love for the union with England. In his eyes the interests of his country were not in line with those of the Anglo-Saxons, and to give scope for personal development, he resolved to found a Scottish colony on one of the continents of Oceania. He might have thought that some day they would achieve their independence, as the United States had done — an example doubtless to be followed eventually by Australia and India. But whatever his motives might be, he had a dream of colonization. But, as is easily understood, the Government opposed his plans, and put difficulties in his way that would have dissuaded a lesser man. But Harry would not be beaten. He appealed to the patriotism of his countrymen, placed his fortune at the service of the cause, built a ship, manned it with a picked crew, and leaving his children to the care of his cousin, set off to explore the great islands of the Pacific. This was in 1861, and for a year, up until May, 1862, regular news was received from him. But since his departure from Callao, in May, no one heard any more of the Britannia, and the Maritime Gazette became silent as to the captain’s fate.

It was then that Harry Grant’s old cousin died, and the two children were left alone in the world.

Mary Grant was only fourteen, but she resolved to face her situation bravely, and to devote herself entirely to her little brother, who was still a mere child. By dint of close economy, combined with tact and prudence, she managed to support and educate him. She worked day and night — denying herself everything — that she might give him all he needed; watching over him and caring for him like a mother.

The two children were living in this touching manner in Dundee, struggling patiently and courageously with their poverty. Mary thought only of her brother, and indulged in dreams of a prosperous future for him. She had long given up all hope of the Britannia, and was fully persuaded that her father was dead. What, then, were her emotions when she accidentally saw the notice in the Times?

She never hesitated for an instant as to the course she should adopt, but determined to go to Dumbartonshire immediately, to learn the best and worst. Even if she were to be told that her father’s lifeless body had been found on a distant shore, or in the bottom of some abandoned ship, it would be a relief from the incessant doubt and torturing suspense.

She told her brother about the advertisement, and the two children started off together that same day for Perth, where they took the train, and arrived in the evening at Malcolm Castle.

Such was Mary Grant’s sorrowful story, and she recounted it in so simple and unaffected a manner, that it was evident she never thought her conduct through those long and trying years had been that of a heroine. But Lady Helena thought it for her, and more than once she put her arms around both the children, and could not restrain her tears.

As for Robert, this seemed to be the first time he had heard many of these particulars. He gazed at his sister with wide-open eyes, all the while she was speaking. Only now learning now how much she had done and suffered for him; and, as she ended, he flung himself on her neck, and exclaimed, “Oh, mamma! My dear little mamma!”

Night had fallen while they talked

Night had fallen while they talked. Lady Helena brought their conversation to an end, for she knew they must be tired after their journey. She had the children taken to their rooms, where they were soon both sound asleep, dreaming of a better future.

After they had retired, Lady Helena sent for Major MacNabbs, and told him the incidents of the evening.

“That Mary Grant must be a brave girl,” said the Major.

“I only hope my husband will succeed, for the poor children’s sake,” said Lady Helena. “It would be terrible for them if he did not.”

“He will be sure to succeed, or the Lords of the Admiralty must have hearts harder than Portland stone.”

In spite of MacNabbs’ assurance, Lady Helena passed the night in great anxiety, and could not get any sleep.

Mary Grant and her brother were awake at dawn the next morning, and were walking about in the courtyard when they heard the sound of a carriage approaching. It was Lord Glenarvan, coming as quickly as his horses could pull him. Almost immediately, Lady Helena and the Major came out to meet him.

Lady Helena flew toward her husband the moment he alighted, but he embraced her silently, and looked gloomy and disappointed — indeed, even furious.

“Well, Edward? Edward?” she asked.

“Well, my dear Helena,” said Lord Glenarvan. “Those people have no heart!”

“They refused?”

“Yes. They have refused me a ship! They talked of the millions that had been wasted in the search for Franklin, and declared that the document was obscure and unintelligible. And then they said it was two years now since they were castaway, and there was little chance of finding them. Besides, they would have it that the Indians, who made them prisoners, would have dragged them into the interior, and it was impossible, they said, to hunt all through Patagonia for three men — three Scots — that the search would be vain and perilous, and cost more lives than it saved. In short, they assigned all the reasons that people invent who have made up their minds to refuse. The truth is, they remembered Captain Grant’s projects, and that is the secret of the whole affair. So the poor fellow is lost for ever.”

“My father! My poor father!” cried Mary Grant

“My father! My poor father!” cried Mary Grant, throwing herself on her knees before Lord Glenarvan, who exclaimed in amazement:

“Your father? What? Is this Miss—”

“Yes, Edward,” said Lady Helena, “This is Miss Mary Grant and her brother, Robert. The two children condemned to orphanage by the cruel Admiralty!”

“Oh! Miss Grant,” said Lord Glenarvan, raising the young girl. “If I had known of your presence—”

He said no more. A painful silence, interspersed with sobs, reigned in the courtyard. No one raised their voice, neither Lord Glenarvan, nor Lady Helena, nor the Major, nor the servants of the castle ranged silently around their masters. But by their attitude, all these Scots protested against the conduct of the English government.

At last the Major addressed Lord Glenarvan: “Then you have no hope whatever?”

“None.”

“Very well, then,” exclaimed little Robert, “I’ll go and speak to those people myself, and we shall see—”

He did not complete his threat, for his sister stopped him; but his clenched fists showed his unspiritual intentions.

“No, Robert,” said Mary Grant. “We will thank this noble Lord and Lady for what they have done for us, and never cease to think of them with gratitude; and then we’ll both go together.”

“Mary!” said Lady Helena, in a tone of surprise.

“Go where?” asked Lord Glenarvan.

“I am going to throw myself at the Queen’s feet, and we shall see if she will turn a deaf ear to the prayers of two children, who ask for the life of their father.”

Lord Glenarvan shook his head; not that he doubted the kind heart of Her Majesty, but he that knew Mary Grant would never gain access to her. Supplicants rarely reach the steps of a throne. It seems as if royal palaces had the same inscription on their doors that the English have on their ships:

Passengers are requested not to
speak to the man at the wheel.

Lady Glenarvan understood what her husband was thinking, and she felt the young girl’s attempt would be useless, and only plunge the poor children into deeper despair. It was then that she had a great, and wonderful idea.

“Mary Grant!” she cried. “Wait, my child, and listen to what I’m going to say.”

Mary had just taken her brother by the hand, and turned to go away; but she turned back at Lady Helena’s bidding.

Lady Helena, her eyes moist, but her voice firm and her features animated, advanced toward her husband. “Edward, when Captain Grant wrote that letter and threw it into the sea, he committed it to the care of God. God has sent it to us — to us! Undoubtedly God intends us to undertake the rescue of these poor men.”

“What do you mean, Helena?”

“I mean,” said Lady Helena, “that we ought to think ourselves fortunate if we can begin our married life with a good action. I know, Edward, that to please me you planned a pleasure trip; but what could give us such genuine pleasure, or be so useful, as to save those unfortunate fellows, cast off by their country?”

“Helena!” exclaimed Lord Glenarvan.

“Yes, you understand me, Edward. The Duncan is a good and strong ship. She can venture in the Southern Seas, or go around the world if necessary. Let us go, Edward. Let us start off and search for Captain Grant!”

Lord Glenarvan made no reply to this bold proposition, but smiled, and holding out his arms, drew his wife into a close, fond embrace. Mary and Robert seized her hands, and covered them with kisses. The servants who thronged the courtyard and had been witnesses of this touching scene, shouted with one voice:

“Hurrah for the Lady of Luss. Hurrah! Three cheers for Lord and Lady Glenarvan! Hurrah!”

Chapter III | Index | Chapter V

Chapter V
The Departure of the Duncan

It has been said that Lady Helena had a brave and generous soul, and what she had just done proved it without a doubt. Her husband had good reason to be proud of this noble woman, who complemented him in every way. The idea of going to Captain Grant’s rescue had occurred to him in London when his request was refused. It was only the thought of leaving Helena that had prevented him from making the suggestion himself. But now that she, herself, proposed to go, all of his hesitation was gone. The servants of the Castle had hailed the project with loud acclamations — for it was to save their brothers: Scots, like themselves — and Lord Glenarvan cordially joined his cheers with theirs, for the Lady of Luss.

With the decision made, there was not an hour to lose. A telegram was immediately dispatched to John Mangles, with Lord Glenarvan’s orders to take the Duncan to Glasgow right away, and to make preparations for a voyage to the South Seas, and possibly around the world, for Lady Helena was correct that the Duncan was built with such strength and speed that she could safely attempt the circumnavigation of the globe, if necessary.

The Duncan was the finest class of steam yacht. She displaced 210 tons, and the first ships that had landed in the New World, or made the great voyages of the age of exploration — those of Columbus, Vespucci, Pinçon, or Magellan — were much smaller.¹

She was a twin masted, topsail schooner. Her mainmast had a fore-and-aft rigged mainsail, and a gaff rigged topsail. Her foremast had a fore-and-aft mainsail, and square rigged topsail and topgallant, like those of a brigantine. She also boasted large and small jibs, and staysails. Her sails allowed her to ride the winds like an ordinary clipper, taking advantage of any favourable breeze, but her main motive power came from her steam engine. This engine, of the latest high-pressure design, produced 160 horsepower, driving a double bladed helical screw. During her trials in the Firth of Clyde the patent-log² indicated her speed as 17 knots.³ As she was, the Duncan was quite capable of sailing around the world, so John Mangels had only to see to her interior fittings and provisioning, to prepare her for her journey.

His first task was to enlarge the bunkers to carry as much coal as possible, for it might be difficult to get fresh supplies en route. He had to do the same with the store-rooms, and managed so well that he succeeded in laying in enough provisions for two years. Lord Glenarvan had granted him a generous budget, and enough money remained to buy a pivot cannon, which he mounted on the forecastle. There was no knowing what might happen, and it is always good to be able to send an eight pound cannonball over four miles.

John Mangles understood his business. Though he was only the captain of a pleasure yacht, he was one of the best skippers in Glasgow. He was thirty years old, and his rough countenance expressed both courage and goodness. He had been brought up at the castle by the Glenarvan family, and had become an excellent sailor, having already shown skill, energy, and composure in multiple long voyages. When Lord Glenarvan offered him the command of the Duncan, he jumped at the chance, for he loved Lord Glenarvan like a brother, and this was an opportunity to serve him as he had always wanted to.

Tom Austin, the mate, was an old sailor, worthy of all confidence. The crew, consisting of twenty-five men, including the captain and mate, were all from Dumbartonshire, experienced sailors, and all came from the Glenarvan estate. They formed a regular clan, and even carried a traditional bagpiper⁴ with them. They made a loyal crew for Lord Glenarvan, skilled in their calling, devoted, full of courage, and as practiced in handling fire-arms as maneuvering a ship; a valiant little troop, ready to follow him anywhere, even on the most dangerous expeditions. When the crew heard where they were bound, they could not restrain their enthusiasm, and the rocks of Dumbarton rang again with their joyous outbursts of cheers.

While John Mangles made the stowage and provisioning of the yacht his chief business, he did not forget to arrange the apartments of Lord and Lady Glenarvan for a long trip, as well. He had to prepare cabins for Captain Grant’s children too, for Lady Helena could not turn down Mary’s request to follow her aboard the Duncan.

As for young Robert, he would have smuggled himself in the hold of the Duncan, rather than be left behind. It was impossible to resist the little fellow, and indeed, no one tried. He refused to go as a passenger, but insisted that he must serve in some capacity: as a cabin-boy, like Nelson or Franklin; an apprentice, or a sailor; he did not care which. So he was put in the charge of John Mangles, to be properly trained for his vocation.

“And I hope he won’t spare me the ‘cat-o-nine-tails’⁵ if I don’t do properly,” said Robert.

“Rest easy on that score, my boy,” said Lord Glenarvan, gravely. He did not add, that this mode of punishment was forbidden on board the Duncan, and moreover, was quite unnecessary.

Next on the roll of passengers was Major MacNabbs. The Major was about fifty years of age, with a calm face and regular features. He was a man who did whatever he was told, of an excellent, even temper; modest, silent, peaceable, and amiable; agreeing with everybody on every subject, never arguing, never getting angry. He wouldn’t move a step quicker, or slower, whether he walked upstairs to bed or mounted a breach. Nothing could excite him, and nothing could disturb him, not even a cannon ball, and no doubt he would die without ever having known a passing feeling of irritation.

This man was endowed in eminent degree not only with ordinary animal courage, that physical bravery of the battle-field, but he had what is far nobler: moral courage, firmness of soul. If he had any fault it was his being so intensely Scottish from head to toe, a pure Caledonian, an obstinate stickler for all the ancient customs of his country. This was the reason he would never serve in England, and he gained his rank of major in the 42nd regiment, the Highland Black Watch, composed entirely of Scottish noblemen. As a cousin of Glenarvan’s, he lived in Malcolm Castle, and as a major it was quite natural that he went with the Duncan.

Such, then, were the personnel of this yacht, so unexpectedly called to make one of the most marvellous voyages of modern times. From the hour the Duncan reached the steamboat quay at Glasgow, she completely monopolized the public attention. A considerable crowd visited her every day, and the Duncan was the only topic of interest and conversation, to the great irritation of the other captains in the port, especially of Captain Burton, in command of the Scotia, a magnificent steamer lying close beside her, and soon to depart for Calcutta.

Considering her size, the Scotia might justly look upon the Duncan as a mere fly-boat,⁶ and yet this pleasure yacht of Lord Glenarvan’s was the centre of attention, and the excitement about her increased daily.

John Mangles’ work brought the moment of departure quickly upon them. A month after her tests in the Firth of Clyde, the Duncan, stowed, stocked, and laid out, was ready to go to sea. The departure was set for August 25th, which would have the yacht arriving in the southern hemisphere at the beginning of spring.

Many people opposed Lord Glenarvan, as soon as his plan was made public, and warned him of the difficulties and dangers of the journey as he prepared to leave Malcolm Castle. The majority declared itself for the Scottish lord, and all the newspapers, with the exception of the “government organs,” unanimously condemned the conduct of the Admiralty in this affair. Lord Glenarvan was indifferent to either criticism or praise; he did his duty as he saw it, and cared little for the rest.

On August 24th, Lord Glenarvan, Lady Helena, Major MacNabbs, Mary and Robert Grant, Mr. Olbinett — the Yacht Steward — and his wife Mrs. Olbinett — attached to the service of Lady Glenarvan — left Malcolm Castle, having received the touching farewells of the servants of the family. A few hours later, they were on board the Duncan. The people of Glasgow welcomed Lady Helena, the young and courageous woman who renounced the tranquil pleasures of a life of luxury and flew to the rescue of the castaways.

The apartments for Lord Glenarvan and his wife occupied the rear quarter of the Duncan in the poop. They consisted of two bedrooms, a parlour, and two washrooms. Then there was a common saloon, surrounded by six cabins, five of which were occupied by Mary and Robert Grant, Mr. and Mrs. Olbinett, and Major MacNabbs. John Mangles and Tom Austin had cabins in the forecastle, which opened onto the deck. The crew was comfortably lodged below deck, for the yacht carried no cargo other than her coal, provisions, and arms. John Mangles had not stinted on the interior fittings.

Reverend Morton implored the blessings of Heaven and put the expedition under the care of Providence

The Duncan was to leave at three o’clock on the morning tide of August 25th. But before that, the people of Glasgow witnessed a moving ceremony. At eight o’clock in the evening of the 24th, Lord Glenarvan and his guests, the whole crew, from the stokers to the captain — all who were to take part in this journey — abandoned the yacht and went to St. Mungo’s, the old Glasgow Cathedral. This ancient church, so marvellously described by Walter Scott, remains intact amid the ruins of the Reformation. It was there, in the grand nave beneath its lofty arches, in the presence of an immense crowd, and surrounded by tombs as thickly set as in a cemetery that Reverend Morton implored the blessings of Heaven, and put the expedition under the care of Providence. There was a moment when Mary Grant’s voice rose in the old church. The girl prayed for her benefactors and poured before God the sweet tears of gratitude. The assembly was deeply moved as it withdrew.

At eleven o’clock the passengers and crew returned on board the Duncan. John Mangles and the crew began their final preparations. At midnight, the boilers were lit, and soon billows of black smoke mingled with the mists of the night. The sails of the Duncan had been furled and carefully stowed in canvas holsters to protect them from the pollution of the coal, for the wind was blowing from the southwest. She would depart under steam power alone.

At two o’clock the Duncan began to shudder with the quivering of her boilers; the pressure gauge indicated a full head of steam, with a pressure of four atmospheres; the heated steam whistled through relief valves; the tide was running; the twilight already made it possible to see the Clyde channel between the beacons and the biggings⁷ whose lanterns were gradually fading before the dawn. It was time to leave.

John Mangles called Lord Glenarvan, who immediately climbed the bridge.

Soon the ebb-tide was felt; the Duncan blew vigorous whistles in the air, dropped her moorings, and separated herself from the surrounding ships. The screw was set in motion and pushed the yacht into the river channel. John had not taken on a pilot, for he knew the channels of the Clyde well, and no one on board was better able to maneuver her. The yacht responded silently and surely to his slightest touch, with his right hand controlling the engine order telegraph, and his left the helm. Soon the last factories of Glasgow gave way to the villas raised on the riverine hills, and the rumours of the city faded in the distance.

The Duncan doubled the Mull of Cantyre, and sailed into the open ocean

An hour after departing Glasgow, the Duncan raised the rocks of Dumbarton; two hours later she was in the Firth of Clyde; at six o’clock in the morning she doubled the Mull of Cantyre, left the northern channel, and sailed into the open ocean.

1. The fourth voyage of Christopher Columbus was undertaken with four ships. The largest, the caravel Capitana, commanded by Columbus, displaced 70 tons; the smallest only 50. They were real coasters.

2. The patent-log is an instrument which, by means of needles rotating on a graduated circle, indicates the speed of the ship.

3. 17 nautical miles per hour. The nautical mile being 1852 metres, 17 knots is nearly 32km/h, or 20mph.

4. The bagpiper who still exists in Highlander regiments.

5. It is a martinet composed of nine belts, very much in use in the English navy.

6. Riverboat.

7. Small mounds of stones marking the channel of the Clyde.

I can find no reference to “biggings” as any sort of channel marker, but I'm assuming that it’s a perfectly cromulent, if obscure, word for such things, since Verne used it, but still felt the need to footnote it. — DAS

Chapter IV | Index | Chapter VI

Chapter VI
The Passenger in Cabin Six

The ocean was rough on the Duncan’s first day at sea, and the yacht tossed and pitched in the waves. The wind freshened toward evening, so the ladies didn’t appear on the quarterdeck, but chose to remain in their cabins.

But the wind changed the next morning, and Captain Mangles ordered the men to put up the foresail, topsail, and topgallant, which steadied the vessel on the waves, lessening her rolling and pitching. Lady Helena and Mary Grant were able to join Lord Glenarvan, Major MacNabbs, and the captain on the deck at dawn.

The sunrise was magnificent. The day star rose from the ocean like an electroplated golden disc from its immense voltaic bath. The Duncan slipped through this splendid irradiation with her sails stretched out to catch the sun’s rays. The yacht’s passengers watched the rising of the radiant star in a silent contemplation.

“What a beautiful sight!” said Lady Helena. “This is the beginning of a beautiful day. May the winds continue to blow fair for the Duncan.”

“It would be impossible to desire a better one, my dear Helena,” said Lord Glenarvan, “and we have no reason to complain of this beginning of the journey.”

“Will the crossing be long, my dear Edward?”

“It’s up to Captain John to answer us,” said Glenarvan. “Do we go well? Are you satisfied with your ship, John?”

“Very satisfied, Your Honour,” replied John. “It is a marvellous ship, and a sailor likes to feel the sea under his feet. Never have I felt a hull and engine better matched. You see how smooth the wake of the yacht is, and how easily she cuts through the waves? We sail at seventeen knots. If we maintain this speed, we will cross the Equator in ten days, and in five weeks we will have doubled Cape Horn.”

“You hear, Mary,” said Lady Helena. “Five weeks!

“Yes, Madame,” said the girl, “I hear, and my heart beats very hard at the captain’s words.”

“And how do you find the sea, Miss Mary?” asked Lord Glenarvan.

“Pretty well, My Lord. I am not very much inconvenienced by it. Besides I shall soon get used to it.”

“And our young Robert?”

“Oh, as for Robert,” said the captain, “whenever he is not poking about down below in the engine room, he is perched somewhere aloft among the rigging. A youngster like that laughs at sea-sickness. Why, look at him this very moment! Do you see him?”

The captain pointed toward the foremast, and sure enough there was Robert, hanging on the yards of the topgallant, a hundred feet above the deck. Mary involuntarily gave a start.

“Oh, don’t be afraid, Miss Mary," said the captain. “He is all right, take my word for it. I’ll have a capital sailor to present to Captain Grant before long, for we’ll find the worthy captain, depend upon it.”

“Heaven grant it, Mr. John,” said the young girl.

“My dear child,” said Lord Glenarvan, “there is something so providential in the whole affair, that we have every reason to hope. We are not going, we are led; we are not searching, we are guided. And look at all the brave men who have enlisted in the service of this good cause. We shall not only succeed in our enterprise, but there will be little difficulty in it. I promised Lady Helena a pleasure trip, and if I am not mistaken, I will keep my word.”

“Edward,” said his wife, “you are the best of men.”

“Not at all, but I have the best of crews and the best of ships. Do you not admire the Duncan, Miss Mary?”

“On the contrary, My Lord, I do admire her, and I’m a connoisseur in ships,” said the young girl.

“Indeed?”

“Yes. I have played all my life on my father’s ships. He should have made me a sailor, for I dare say, at a push, I could reef a sail or braid a lanyard, easily enough.”

“Do you say so, miss?” asked John Mangles.

“If you talk like that you and John will be great friends, for he can’t think any calling is equal to that of a seaman; he can’t fancy any other, even for a woman. Isn’t it true, John?”

“Quite so,” said the young captain, “and yet, Your Honour, I must confess that Miss Grant is more in her place on the poop than reefing a topsail. But for all that, I am quite flattered by her remarks.”

“And especially when she admires the Duncan,” said Glenarvan.

“Well, really,” said Lady Glenarvan, “you are so proud of your yacht that you make me wish to look over all of it; and I should like to go down and see how our brave men are lodged.”

“Their quarters are first-rate,” said John. “They are as comfortable as if they were at home.”

“And they really are at home, my dear Helena,” said Lord Glenarvan. “This yacht is a portion of our old Caledonia, a fragment of Dumbartonshire, making a voyage by special favour, so that in a manner we are still in our own country. The Duncan is Malcolm Castle, and the ocean is Loch Lomond.”

“Very well, my dear Edward, do us the honours of the Castle then.”

“At your service, Madame; but let me tell Olbinett first.”

The steward of the yacht was an excellent butler, a Scot, who might have been French for his airs of importance, but he discharged his functions with zeal and intelligence. He appeared promptly when summoned.

“Olbinett, we are going to have a tour of the ship before breakfast.” said Glenarvan, as if he was proposing a walk to Tarbert or Loch Katrine. “I hope we shall find the table served when we come back.”

Olbinett bowed gravely.

“Are you coming with us, Major?” asked Lady Helena.

“If you command me,” said MacNabbs.

“Oh, the Major is absorbed in his cigar,” said Lord Glenarvan. “You mustn’t tear him from it. He is an inveterate smoker, Miss Mary, I can tell you. He is always smoking, even while he sleeps.”

The Major gave an assenting nod, and Lord Glenarvan and his party went below.

MacNabbs remained alone, talking to himself, as was his habit, but never contradicting himself. Soon he was enveloped in thick clouds of smoke. He stood motionless, watching the wake of the yacht. After some minutes of this silent contemplation he turned around, and suddenly found himself face to face with a stranger. Certainly, if any thing could have surprised him, this encounter would, for he had never seen the man before in his life.

He was a tall, thin, withered-looking man, about forty years old

He was a tall, thin, withered-looking man, about forty years old, resembling a long nail with a big head. His head was large and thick, his forehead high, his nose long, his mouth wide, his chin strongly hooked. His eyes were concealed by enormous round spectacles, and his eyes seemed to have that particular uncertainty of the nyctalop¹. His countenance announced that he was an intelligent and happy man. He did not have the forbidding expression of those grave individuals who never laugh on principle, and cover their dull-wittedness with a mask of seriousness. He looked far from that. His careless, good-humoured air, and easy, unceremonious manners, showed plainly that he knew how to take men and things at their best. Though he had not yet opened his mouth, he gave the impression of being a great talker, and moreover, one of those absent minded folks who neither see though they are looking, nor hear though they are listening. He wore a travelling cap, and stout yellow buskins with leather gaiters. His pantaloons and jacket were of brown velvet, and their innumerable pockets were stuffed with note-books and diaries, books, wallets, and a thousand other things as cumbersome they were useless, not to mention a telescope, which he carried slung from a baldric.

The stranger’s excitement was a strong contrast to the Major’s placidity. He walked around MacNabbs, looking at him and questioning him with his eyes without eliciting one remark from the imperturbable Scot, or awakening his curiosity in the least to know where he came from, and where he was going, and how he had got on board the Duncan.

The stranger drew out his telescope and began gazing at the horizon

Finding all his efforts confounded by the Major’s indifference, the mysterious passenger seized his telescope, drew it out to its fullest extent, about four feet, and began gazing at the horizon, standing motionless with his legs wide apart. After gazing at the horizon for five minutes, he lowered the telescope, set it up on deck, and leaned on it as if it had been a cane. The telescope immediately collapsed in on itself so suddenly that he fell full length on deck, and lay sprawling at the foot of the mainmast.

Anyone but the Major would have at least smiled at such a ludicrous sight, but MacNabbs never moved a muscle of his face.

This was too much for the stranger.

“Steward!” he called, with an clearly foreign accent.

He waited a minute, but nobody appeared, and he called again, still louder, “Steward!”

Mr. Olbinett was passing that moment on his way to the galley in the forecastle. He was astonished at hearing himself addressed like this by a lanky individual of whom he had no knowledge, whatever.

“Where can he have come from? Who is he?” he thought to himself. “He can not possibly be one of Lord Glenarvan’s friends?”

However, he went up on the poop, and approached the stranger.

“Are you the steward of this vessel?“

“Yes, sir,” said Olbinett; “but I have not the honour of—”

“I am the passenger in cabin six.”

“Cabin six?” repeated the steward.

“Certainly; and your name, what is it?”

“Olbinett.”

“Well, Olbinett, my friend, we must think of breakfast, and that pretty quickly. It is thirty-six hours since I have had anything to eat, or rather thirty-six hours that I have been asleep — pardonable enough in a man who came all the way, without stopping, from Paris to Glasgow. What is the breakfast hour?”

“Nine o’clock,” replied Olbinett, mechanically.

The stranger tried to pull out his watch to see the time, but it was not until he had rummaged through the ninth pocket that he found it.

“Ah, well,” he said, “it is not yet eight o’clock. Well then, Olbinett, a biscuit and a glass of sherry to wait, because I’m starving.”

Olbinett heard him without understanding what he meant, for the voluble stranger kept on talking incessantly, flying from one subject to another.

“The captain? Isn’t the captain up yet? And the chief officer? What is he doing? Is he asleep too? It is fine weather, fortunately, and the wind is favourable, and the ship goes on quite by herself—”

Just at that moment John Mangles appeared at the top of the stairs.

“Here is the captain!” said Olbinett.

“Ah! Enchanted, Captain Burton,” exclaimed the stranger. “Delighted to make your acquaintance.”

John Mangles stood stunned, as much at seeing the stranger on board as at hearing himself called “Captain Burton.”

But the newcomer went on in the most affable manner. “Let me shake your hand, sir; and if I did not do so yesterday evening, it was only because I did not wish to be troublesome when you were preparing to sail. But today, Captain, it gives me great pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

John Mangles opened his eyes as wide as possible, and looked back and forth between the stranger, and Olbinett.

“Now the introduction is made, my dear Captain, we are old friends,” the fellow rattled on. “Let’s have a little talk, and tell me how you like the Scotia.”

“What do you mean by ‘the Scotia’?” said John Mangles at last.

“By the Scotia why, the ship we’re on, of course — a good ship that has been commended to me, not only for its physical qualities, but also for the moral qualities of its commander, the brave Captain Burton. Would you be some relation of the famous African traveller² of that name? A bold man. I offer you my congratulations.”

“Sir,” interrupted John. “I am not only no relation to Burton the great traveller, but I am not even Captain Burton.”

“Ah, is that so? Is it Mr. Burdness, the chief officer, that I am talking to at present?”

“Mr. Burdness?” repeated John Mangles, beginning to suspect the truth. He only wondered whether the man was mad, or some heedless rattle pate? He was about to explain the case in a categorical manner, when Lord Glenarvan, his wife, and Miss Grant came back up on the deck.

The stranger caught sight of them “Ah! Passengers!” he exclaimed. “Passengers! Excellent! I hope you are going to introduce me to them, Mr. Burdness!”

But he could not wait for anyone’s introduction, and going up to them with perfect ease and grace, said, bowing to Miss Grant, “Madame;” then to Lady Helena, with another bow, “Miss;” and to Lord Glenarvan, “Sir.”

Here John Mangles interrupted him, and said, “Lord Glenarvan.”

“My Lord,” said the stranger, “I beg your pardon for presenting myself to you, but at sea it is well to relax the strict rules of etiquette a little. I hope we shall soon become acquainted with each other, and that the company of these ladies will make our voyage in the Scotia appear as short as it is pleasant.”

Lady Helena and Miss Grant were too astonished to be able to utter a single word. The presence of this intruder on the poop of the Duncan was perfectly inexplicable.

“Sir,” said Lord Glenarvan, “to whom have I the honour of speaking?”

“To Jacques-Éliacin-François-Marie Paganel, Secretary of the Geographical Society of Paris, Corresponding Member of the Societies of Berlin, Bombay, Darmstadt, Leipzig, London, Petersburg, Vienna, and New York; Honorary Member of the Royal Geographical and Ethnographical Institute of the East Indies; who, after having spent twenty years of his life in geographical work at a desk, wishes to see active service, and is on his way to India to gain for science what information he can by following up the footsteps of great explorers.”

1. A person who has a peculiar construction of the eye which makes their sight imperfect in the day and better at night.

2. Sir Richard Francis Burton (not the actor). 1820 – 1890. Noted explorer, ethnologist, linguist, spy, and translator. One of many explorers who sought the source of the Nile in Central Africa, and known for translating One Thousand and One Arabian Nights, and the Kama Sutra into English.

Chapter V | Index | Chapter VII

Chapter VII
Where Does Jacques Paganel Come From?

The Secretary of the Geographical Society was evidently an amiable man, for all this was said in a most charming manner. Lord Glenarvan knew quite well who he was now, for he had often heard Paganel spoken of, and was aware of his merits. His geographical works, his reports on modern discoveries inserted into the reports of the Society, and his world-wide correspondence, gave him a most distinguished place among the scholars of France.

Lord Glenarvan could not but welcome such a guest, and shook hands cordially. “And now that our introductions are over,” he added, “you will allow me, Monsieur Paganel, to ask you a question?”

“Twenty, My Lord, “ replied Paganel. “It will always be a pleasure to converse with you.”

“Was it last evening that you came on board this ship?”

“Yes, My Lord, about eight o’clock. I jumped into a cab at the Caledonian Railway, and from the cab into the Scotia, where I had booked my cabin before I left Paris. It was a dark night, and I saw no one on board, so I found cabin number six, and went to my berth immediately — for I had heard that the best way to prevent sea-sickness is to go to bed as soon as you start, and not to stir for the first few days; and, moreover, I had been traveling for thirty hours. So I tucked myself in, and slept conscientiously, I assure you, for thirty-six hours.”

Paganel’s listeners understood the whole mystery of his presence on the Duncan, now. The French traveller had mistaken his vessel, and gone on board while the crew were attending the service at St. Mungo’s. All was explained. But what would the learned geographer say, when he heard the name and destination of the ship in which he had taken passage?

“Then it is Calcutta, Monsieur Paganel, that you have chosen as your point of departure on your travels?”

“Yes, My Lord, to see India is an idea I have cherished all my life. It will be the realization of my fondest dreams, to find myself in the country of elephants and Thugs.”

“Then it would be by no means a matter of indifference to you, to visit another country instead.”

“No, My Lord; indeed it would be very disagreeable, for I have letters of recommendation from Lord Somerset to the Governor-General of India, and also a mission to execute for the Geographical Society.”

“Ah, you have a mission?”

“Yes, I have to attempt a curious and important journey, the plan of which has been drawn up by my learned friend and colleague, M. Vivien de Saint Martin. I am to pursue the track of the Schlaginweit Brothers; and Colonels Waugh and Webb, and Hodgson; and Huc and Gabet, the missionaries; and Moorecroft and M. Jules Remy, and so many celebrated travellers. I mean to try and succeed where Krick, the missionary so unfortunately failed in 1846; in a word, I want to follow the course of the Yarou-Dzangbo-Tchou,¹ which waters Tibet for a distance of fifteen hundred kilometres, flowing along the northern base of the Himalayas, and to find out at last whether this river joins itself to the Brahmaputra in the northeast of Assam. The gold medal, My Lord, is promised to the traveller who will succeed in ascertaining a fact which is one of the greatest desiderata to the geography of India.”

Paganel spoke with superb animation

Paganel was magnificent. He spoke with superb animation, soaring away on the wings of imagination. It would have been as impossible to stop him as to stop the Rhine at Schaffhausen Falls.

“Monsieur Jacques Paganel,” said Lord Glenarvan, after a brief pause, “that would certainly be a grand achievement, and you would confer a great boon on science, but I should not like to allow you to be labouring under a mistake any longer, and I must tell you, therefore, that for the present at least, you must give up the pleasure of a visit to India.”

“Give it up. And why?”

“Because you are turning your back on the Indian peninsula.”

“What? Captain Burton!”

“I am not Captain Burton,” said John Mangles.

“But the Scotia.”

“This ship is not the Scotia.”

It would be impossible to depict the astonishment of Paganel. He stared first at one and then at another in the utmost bewilderment.

Lord Glenarvan was perfectly grave, and Lady Helena’s and Mary’s expressions showed their sympathy for his vexation. As for John Mangles, he could not suppress a smile; but the Major appeared as unconcerned as usual. At last the poor fellow shrugged his shoulders, pushed down his spectacles over his nose and said:

“The Duncan! The Duncan!” he exclaimed, with a cry of despair

“You are joking.”

But just at that very moment his eye fell on the wheel of the ship, and he saw the two highlighted words on it:

Duncan
Glasgow

“The Duncan! The Duncan!” he exclaimed, with a cry of despair, and rushed down the stairs, and away to his cabin.

As soon as the unfortunate scientist had disappeared, everyone, except the Major, broke out into such peals of laughter that the sound reached the ears of the sailors in the forecastle. To mistake a railway and to take the train to Edinburgh when you wanted to go to Dumbarton might happen; but to mistake a ship and be sailing for Chile when you meant to go to India — that is a blunder indeed!

Paganel rushed down the stairs to his cabin

“However,” said Lord Glenarvan, “I am not much astonished at it in Paganel. He is quite famous for such misadventures. One day he published a celebrated map of America, and put Japan in it! But for all that, he is a distinguished scientist, and one of the best geographers in France.”

“But what shall we do with the poor gentleman?” said Lady Helena; “we can’t take him with us to Patagonia.”

“Why not?” said MacNabbs, gravely. “We are not responsible for his distraction. Suppose he were in a railway train, would they stop it for him?”

“No, but he could get out at the next station.”

“Well,” said Glenarvan. “That is just what he can do here, too, if he likes; he can disembark at the first place we land.”

Paganel, pitiful and ashamed, was coming back up onto the quarterdeck. He had been making sure that his luggage was all on board, and kept repeating incessantly the unlucky words, “The Duncan! the Duncan!” He could find no others in his vocabulary. He paced restlessly up and down; sometimes stopping to examine the mast, or gaze inquiringly at the mute horizon of the open sea.

Finally he returned to Lord Glenarvan. “And this Duncan — where is she going?”

“To America, Monsieur Paganel.”

“And to what particular part?”

“To Concepción.”

“In Chile! In Chile!” cried the unfortunate geographer. “And my mission to India. But what will M. de Quatrefages, the President of the Central Committee, say? And M. d’ Avezac? And M. Cortanbert? And M. Vivien de Saint Martin? How shall I show my face at the meetings of the Society?”

“Come, Monsieur Paganel, don’t despair. It can all be managed; you will only have to put up with a little delay. The Yarou-Dzangbo-Tchou will wait for you still in the mountains of Tibet. We shall soon put in at Madeira, and you will get a ship there to take you back to Europe.”

“Thank you, My Lord. I suppose I must resign myself to it; but people will say it is a most extraordinary adventure, and it is only to me such things happen. And then, too, there is a cabin taken for me on board the Scotia.”

“As to the Scotia, you’ll have to give that up.”

“But the Duncan is a pleasure yacht, is it not?” began Paganel again, after a fresh examination of the ship.

“Yes, sir,” said John Mangles, “and she belongs to Lord Glenarvan.”

“Who begs you to draw freely on his hospitality,” said Lord Glenarvan.

“A thousand thanks, My Lord! I deeply feel your courtesy, but allow me to make one observation: India is a fine country, and can offer many a surprising marvel to travellers. These ladies, I suppose, have never seen it. Well now, the man at the helm has only to give a turn at the wheel, and the Duncan will sail as easily to Calcutta as to Concepción; and since it is only a pleasure trip that you are—”

His proposal was met by such grave, disapproving shakes of the head, that he stopped short before the sentence was completed.

“Monsieur Paganel,” said Lady Helena. “If we were only on a pleasure trip, I should reply, ‘Let us all go to India together,’ and I am sure Lord Glenarvan would not object; but the Duncan is going to bring back shipwrecked mariners who were castaway on the shores of Patagonia, and we could not alter such a destination.”

In a few minutes the French traveller was made aware of the situation; he learned, not without emotion, of the providential discovery of the documents, the story of Captain Grant, and the generous proposal of Lady Helena.

“Madame, permit me to express my admiration of your conduct throughout,” he said. “My unreserved admiration. Let your yacht continue her course. I should reproach myself were I to cause a single day’s delay.”

“Will you join us in our search, then?” asked Lady Helena.

“It is impossible, Madame. I must fulfill my mission. I shall disembark at the first place you touch at, wherever it may be.”

“That will be Madeira,” said John Mangles.

“Madeira be it then. I shall only be 180 leagues from Lisbon, and I shall wait there for some means of transport.”

“Very well, Monsieur Paganel, it shall be as you wish; and, for my own part, I am very glad to be able to offer you, meantime, a few days’ hospitality. I only hope you will not find our company too dull.”

“Oh, My Lord,” exclaimed Paganel, “I am but too happy to have made a mistake which has turned out so agreeably. Still, it is a very ridiculous plight for a man to be in: to find himself sailing to America when he set out to go to the East Indies!”

But in spite of this melancholy reflection, the Frenchman submitted gracefully to the compulsory delay. He made himself amiable and merry, and even diverting, and enchanted the ladies with his good humour. Before the end of the day he was friends with everybody. At his request, the famous document was brought out. He studied it carefully and minutely for a long time, and finally declared his opinion that no other interpretation of it was possible. Mary Grant and her brother inspired a keen interest in him. He gave them great hope; indeed, the young girl could not help smiling at his sanguine prediction of success, and his odd way of foreseeing future events. But for his mission, he would surely have joined in the search for Captain Grant!

As for Lady Helena, when he heard that she was William Tuffnell’s daughter, there was an explosion of admiring epithets. He had known her father, and many letters had passed between them when William Tuffnell was a corresponding member of the Society! It was he himself that had introduced him and M. Malte Brun. What a meeting this was, and what a pleasure to travel with William Tuffnell’s daughter.

He wound up asking permission to kiss her, which Lady Helena granted, though it was, perhaps, a little improper.

1. What Paganel calls the Yarou-Dzangbo-Tchou is the Yarlung Tsangpo River of Tibet, and it is indeed the same river as the Brahmaputra. That they were the same river wasn’t settled until 1913, so Paganel’s hopes to prove this might have been overambitious. The largest waterfall on the river wasn’t seen by westerners until 1998. (Though the Chinese authorities claim to have photographed it from a helicopter in 1987.)

Chapter VI | Index | Chapter VIII

Chapter VIII
A Brave Man Onboard the Duncan

The Duncan, favoured by the currents from the north of Africa, was making rapid progress toward the Equator. On the 30th of August they sighted the Madeira group of islands, and Glenarvan, true to his promise, offered to put in there, and land his guest.

“My dear Lord,” said Paganel. “I won’t stand on ceremony with you. Tell me, did you intend to stop at Madeira before I came on board?”

“No,” said Glenarvan.

“Well, then, allow me to profit by my unlucky mistake. Madeira is an island too well known to be of much interest now to a geographer. Everything about this group of islands has been said and written already. Besides, the place is going completely down hill as far as viticulture is concerned. Just imagine, there are hardly any vineyards remaining in Madeira! In 1813, 22,000 pipes¹ of wine were made there, and in 1845 the number fell to 2,669. It is a grievous spectacle! If it is all the same to you, we might go on to the Canary Isles instead.”

“We can easily stop in the Canaries instead,” said Glenarvan. “It will not the least interfere with our route.”

“I know it will not, my dear Lord. In the Canary Islands, you see, there are three groups of islands to study, besides the Peak of Tenerife, which I always wished to visit. This is an opportunity, and I should like to avail myself of it, and make the ascent of the famous mountain while I am waiting for a ship to take me back to Europe.”

“As you please, my dear Paganel,” said Lord Glenarvan, with a smile.

The Canary Islands are not far from Madeira, scarcely 250 miles², a trifling distance for as swift a ship as the Duncan. Next day, on the 31st of October, about two p.m., John Mangles and Paganel were walking on the poop. The Frenchman was assailing his companion with all sorts of questions about Chile, when the captain interrupted him, and pointed toward the southern horizon.

“Monsieur Paganel?” he said.

“Yes, my dear Captain.”

“Be so good as to look in this direction. Do you see anything?”

“Nothing.”

“You’re not looking in the right place. It is not on the horizon, but above it in the clouds.”

“In the clouds? What am I looking for?”

“There, there, by the upper end of the bowsprit.”

“I see nothing.”

“Then you don’t want to see. Yet I tell you that the Peak of Tenerife is quite visible above the horizon, though we are forty miles off.”

But whether Paganel could not or would not see it then, two hours later he was forced to yield to the evidence of his eyes, or declare himself blind.

“You do see it at last, then,” said John Mangles.

“Yes, yes, distinctly,” said Paganel, adding in a disdainful tone, “and that’s what they call the Peak of Tenerife?”

“That’s the Peak.”

“It doesn’t look all that high.”

“It is 11,000 feet, though, above sea level.”

“That is not as tall as Mont Blanc.”

“That’s true, but when it comes to climbing it, you’ll probably think it’s high enough.”

Tenerife

“Climb it? Climb it? My dear Captain, what would be the good in that after Humboldt and Bonpland? That Humboldt was a great genius. He climbed this mountain, and his description of it leaves nothing to be desired. He tells us that it comprises five different zones — the vine zone, the laurel zone, the pine zone, the alpine heath zone, and, lastly, the sterile zone. He set his foot on the summit, and found that there was not even enough room to sit down. The view from the summit was very extensive, stretching over an area equal to Spain. Then he went right down into the volcano, and examined the extinct crater. What could I do, I should like you to tell me, after that great man?”

“Well, certainly, there isn’t much left to glean. That is unfortunate, too, for you would find it dull work waiting for a ship in the port of Tenerife. There isn’t much distraction here.”

“Except mine,” laughed Paganel. “But, I say, my dear Mangles, are there no ports in the Cape Verde Islands that we might touch at?”

“Oh, yes, nothing would be easier than putting you off at Villa Praia.”

“And then I should have an additional advantage, which is by no means inconsiderable — Cape Verde is not far from Senegal, where I should find some compatriots. I am quite aware that the islands are said to be devoid of much interest, and wild, and unhealthy; but everything is curious in the eyes of a geographer. Seeing is a science. There are people who do not know how to use their eyes, and who travel about with as much intelligence as a shell-fish. But that’s not in my line, I assure you.”

“As you please, Monsieur Paganel. I have no doubt geographical science will gain by your sojourn in the Cape Verde Islands. We must stop there anyway for coal, so your disembarkation will not occasion the least delay.”

The captain gave immediate orders for the yacht to continue her course, steering to the west of the Canary group, and leaving Tenerife on her larboard. She made rapid progress, and crossed the Tropic of Cancer on September 2nd at five o’clock in the morning.

The weather began to change, and the air became damp and heavy. It was the rainy season, “le tempo das aguas,” as the Spanish call it, a difficult season for travellers, but useful to the inhabitants of the African Islands, which lack trees, and consequently water. The rough weather prevented the passengers from going on deck, but did not make the conversation any less animated in the saloon.

The appearance of the island through the thick veil of rain was mournful in the extreme

On September 3rd Paganel began to collect his luggage in preparation for his departure. The Duncan was already steaming among the Cape Verde Islands. She passed the Isle of Salt, a flat wasteland of sand, and salt ponds, infertile and desolate; she went on among the vast coral reefs and passed along side the Isle of St. Jacques, with its long north-south chain of basaltic mountains, until she entered the port of Villa Praia and anchored in eight fathoms of water. The weather was frightful, and the surf high, though the bay was sheltered from the sea winds. The rain fell in such torrents that the town was scarcely visible through it. It lay on a rising series of plateaus of volcanic rocks three hundred feet high. The appearance of the island through the thick veil of rain was mournful in the extreme.

Lady Helena could not go on shore as she had planned; indeed, even coaling was a difficult business, and the passengers had to content themselves below the decks as best they could. Naturally enough, the main topic of conversation was the weather. Everybody had something to say about it except the Major, who surveyed the universal deluge with the utmost indifference. Paganel walked up and down shaking his head.

“It is clear enough, Paganel,” said Lord Glenarvan, “that the elements are against you.”

“I’ll be all right,” said the Frenchman.

“You could not face rain like that, Monsieur Paganel,” said Lady Helena.

“Oh, I can face it, Madame. It is my luggage and instruments that I am worried about. Everything will be ruined.”

“The disembarking is the worst part of the business. Once at Villa Praia you might manage to find pretty good quarters. They wouldn’t be over clean, and you might find the monkeys and pigs not always the most agreeable companions. But travellers can not be too particular, and, moreover, in seven or eight months you would get a ship, I dare say, to take you back to Europe.”

“Seven or eight months!” exclaimed Paganel.

“At least. The Cape Verde Islands are not much frequented by ships during the rainy season. But you can employ your time usefully. This archipelago is still but little known. There’s still a lot of work to do in topography, climatology, ethnography, hypsometry…”

“You can explore the large rivers,” suggested Lady Helena.

“There are none, Madame.”

“Well, then, the small rivers.”

“There are none of those, either.”

“Brooks, then?”

“Pas davantage.”

“You can console yourself with the forests if that’s the case,” put in the Major.

“You can’t make forests without trees, and there are no trees.”

“A charming country!” said the Major.

“Comfort yourself, my dear Paganel, you’ll have the mountains at any rate,” said Glenarvan.

“Oh, they are neither lofty nor interesting, My Lord, and they have been described already.”

“Already!” said Lord Glenarvan.

“Yes, that is always my luck. At the Canary Islands, I saw myself anticipated by Humboldt, and here by M. Charles Sainte-Claire Deville, a geologist.”

“Impossible!”

“It is too true,” replied Paganel, in a doleful voice. “Monsieur Deville was on board the government corvette, La Décidée, when she touched at the Cape Verde Islands, and he explored the most interesting of the group, and went to the top of the volcano in Isle Fogo. What is left for me to do after him?”

“It is really a great pity,” said Helena. “What will become of you, Monsieur Paganel?”

Paganel remained silent.

“You would certainly have done much better to have landed at Madeira, even if there was no more wine,” said Glenarvan.

Still the learned secretary of the Society of Geography was silent.

“I’ll wait.”

“I’ll wait,” said the Major, exactly as if he’d said “I won’t wait.”

Paganel remained silent for several more seconds. “My dear Glenarvan, where do you mean to touch next?”

“At Concepción.”

“Diable! That is a long way out of my way to India.”

“Not really. From the moment you pass Cape Horn, you are getting closer to it.”

“I guess so.”

“Beside,” continued Lord Glenarvan, perfectly seriously, “when you are going to the Indies it doesn’t much matter much whether it is to the East or West.”

“What? It does too matter!”

“Not to mention the inhabitants of the Pampas in Patagonia are as much Indians as the natives of the Punjab.”

“Well done, My Lord,” said Paganel. “That’s a reason that would never have entered my head!”

“And then, my dear Paganel, you can gain the gold medal anyway. There is as much to be done, and sought, and investigated, and discovered in the Cordilleras of the Andes as in the mountains of Tibet.”

“But the course of the Yarou-Dzangbo-Tchou — what about that?”

“Go up the Rio Colorado instead. It is a river but little known, and its course on the map is marked out too much according to the fancy of geographers.”

“I know it is, my dear Lord. They have made grave mistakes. Oh, I have no question that the Geographical Society would have sent me to Patagonia as soon as to India, if I had sent in a request to that effect. But I never thought of it.”

“Just like you.”

“Come, Monsieur Paganel, will you go with us?” asked Lady Helena, in her most winning tone.

“Madame, and my mission?”

“I must tell you, we shall pass through the Straits of Magellan,” said Lord Glenarvan.

“My Lord, you are a tempter.”

“Let me add, that we shall visit Port Famine.”

“Port Famine!” exclaimed the Frenchman, besieged on all sides. “That port celebrated in geographical splendour!”

“Think, too, Monsieur Paganel, that by taking part in our enterprise, you will be forging bonds between France with Scotland,” said Lady Helena.

“Undoubtedly.”

“A geographer would be of much use to our expedition, and what can be nobler than to bring science to the service of humanity?”

“That’s well said, Madame.”

“Take my advice, then, and yield to chance, or rather Providence. Follow our example. Providence sent us the document, and we set sail. Providence brought you on board the Duncan. Don’t leave her.”

“Shall I say yes, my good friends? Come, now, tell me. You want me very much to stay, don’t you?” said Paganel.

“And you’re dying to stay, now, aren’t you, Paganel?” returned Glenarvan.

“Parbleu!” exclaimed the learned geographer, “but I was afraid of being indiscreet!”

1. One pipe is approximately 500 litres. (About 125 gallons — DAS)

2. About 90 leagues. (360 kilometres — DAS)

Chapter VII | Index | Chapter IX

Chapter IX
Through the Straits of Magellan

Everyone aboard the Duncan was overjoyed to learn of Paganel’s decision. Young Robert threw himself on the Secretary to hug him with enough force that he nearly knocked Paganel over. “He’s a tough petit bonhomme,” said Paganel. “I’ll teach him geography.”

Robert was bound to become an accomplished gentleman some day, for John Mangles was making a sailor of him, the Major was teaching him self control, and Lord and Lady Glenarvan were instilling him with courage, goodness and generosity, while Mary was inspiring him with gratitude toward his instructors.

The Duncan soon finished taking on coal, and turned her back on the dismal region. She was soon in the current flowing down the coast of Brazil, and on the 7th of September entered the southern hemisphere.

So far, the crossing had been uneventful. Everyone was hopeful for the success of their mission, and each day their faith in finding Captain Grant grew. Captain Mangles was among the most confident on board, but his confidence mainly arose from the desire he had to see Miss Mary happy. He was quite smitten with this young girl, and managed to conceal his sentiments so well that everyone on board the Duncan saw it — except himself and Mary Grant.

The Duncan at sea

As for the learned geographer, he was probably the happiest man in all the southern hemisphere. He spent whole days in studying maps which were spread out on the saloon table — to the great annoyance of Mr. Olbinett who could never get the cloth laid for meals without disputes on the subject. But all the passengers took Paganel’s side except the Major, who was perfectly indifferent about geographical questions, especially at dinner-time. Paganel also came across a trove of old books in the mate’s chest that included a number of Spanish volumes. He determined forthwith to teach himself the language of Cervantes, as no one on board understood it, and it would be helpful in their search along the Chilean coast. Thanks to his talent for languages, he expected to be able to speak the language fluently when they arrived at Concepción. He studied it diligently, and was constantly muttering heterogeneous syllables to himself.

He spent his spare time teaching young Robert, and instructing him in the history of the country they were so rapidly approaching.

On the 10th of September, at latitude 5° 37‘ and longitude 31° 15′, Lord Glenarvan learned something that many more educated people probably do not know. Paganel told the story of America, and the great navigators in whose path the Duncan now followed. He went back to Christopher Columbus, and how he had gone to his grave without ever knowing that he had discovered a New World.

His whole audience was surprised, but Paganel persisted in his contention.

“Nothing is more certain,” he said. “I do not wish to diminish the glory of Columbus, but the fact is certain. At the end of the fifteenth century everyone had the same objective: to facilitate communication with Asia. In a word, go by the shortest route to “Spice Country.” That is what Columbus tried to do: to seek the East by sailing West. He made four journeys. He touched the coasts of America at Cumaná¹, Honduras, Mosquitos, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama, which he took for the lands of Japan and China. He died without having realized that he had discovered a great continent to which he should have bequeathed his name!”

“I want to believe you, my dear Paganel,” said Glenarvan, “however, you will allow me to be surprised, and to ask you who are the navigators who did learn the truth about the discoveries of Columbus?”

“His successors, Ojeda, who had already accompanied him in his travels, as well as Vincent Pinzon, Vespucci, Mendoza, Bastidas, Cabral, Solis, and Balboa. These navigators skirted the eastern coasts of America. They mapped them, three hundred and sixty years ago, moving southward, carried by the same current that carries us along! My friends, we crossed the Equator at the very spot where Pinzon crossed it in the last year of the fifteenth century, and we are approaching that eighth degree of southern latitude where he landed in Brazil. A year later, Cabral of Portugal reached the port of Seguro. Then Vespucius, in his third expedition in 1502, went farther south. In 1508, Vincent Pinzon and Solis joined forces for the mapping of the American shores, and in 1514, Solis discovered the mouth of the Rio de la Plata, where he was devoured by the natives, leaving Magellan the glory of rounding the continent. This great navigator set out with five ships in 1519, followed the coast of Patagonia, discovered the ports of Desire, and San Julian, where he had a long rest, found at fifty-two degrees of latitude, Cape Virgenes at the mouth of this strait that bears his name, and on the 28th of November, 1520, he emerged into the Pacific Ocean. Ah! what a joy he must have felt, and how his heart must have beat, when he saw a new sea sparkle on the horizon beneath the rays of the sun!”

“Yes, Mr. Paganel!” said Robert Grant, excited by the words of the geographer. “I would have liked to be there!”

“Me too, my boy, and I would not have missed such an opportunity, if Heaven had given birth to me three hundred years ago!”

“That would have been unfortunate for us, Mr. Paganel,” said Lady Helena, “for you would not be on the Duncan’s poop now to tell us this story.”

“Another would have said it in my place, Madame, and he would have added that the mapping of the west coast is due to the brothers Pizarro. Those bold adventurers were great founders of cities. Cusco, Quito, Lima, Santiago, Villarica, Valparaiso and Concepción, where the Duncan takes us, are their work. At that time, Pizarro’s discoveries were connected with those of Magellan, and the complete American coast appeared on the maps, much to the satisfaction of the old world’s scientists.”

“Well,” said Robert, “I would not have been satisfied yet.”

“Why is that?” asked Mary, looking at her younger brother, who was passionately hanging on every word of this tale of discoveries.

“Yes, my boy. Why?” asked Lord Glenarvan with the most encouraging smile.

“Because I’d want to know what was beyond the Strait of Magellan.”

“Bravo, my friend,” said Paganel, “and I too would have liked to know whether the continent extended to the pole, or whether there was a free sea, as Drake supposed — one of your compatriots, My Lord. It is therefore obvious that if Robert Grant and Jacques Paganel had lived in the seventeenth century, they would have followed Shouten and Lemaire, two Dutch explorers eager to solve this geographic enigma.

“Were they scientists?” asked Lady Helena.

“No, but daring traders, who cared little for the scientific side of their discoveries. At the time, the Dutch East Indian company had an absolute monopoly over all the trade through the Straits of Magellan. Since no other passage was yet known to reach Asia by travelling West, this monopoly gave them enormous profit. Some merchants wished to thwart this monopoly by discovering another strait. One of these men was Isaac Lemaire, an intelligent and educated man. He paid for an expedition commanded by his nephew, Jacob Lemaire, and Shouten, an experienced sailor from Horn. These bold navigators set out in June 1615, nearly a century after Magellan; they discovered the strait of Lemaire, between Tierra del Fuego and the Staten Island,² and on February 12, 1616, they doubled that famous Cape Horn, which, even more than its brother, the Cape of Good Hope, would have deserved to be called ‘The Cape of Storms!’”

“Oh, I would have liked to be there!” said Robert.

“And you would have experienced the greatest satisfaction, my boy,” said Paganel, becoming more animated. “Is there, in fact, a truer satisfaction, a pleasure more real than that of the navigator who adds his own discoveries to the map? He sees a land gradually forming under his gaze, island by island, promontory by promontory, and, so to speak, emerging from the bosom of the waves! First, the outlines are vague, broken, interrupted! Here a solitary cape, there an isolated bay, further a gulf of unknown breadth. Slowly the discoveries come together, the lines meet, the dotted lines of guesswork give way to the solid lines of fact. The bare bones are fleshed out by the indentations of the bays; the capes attach to fixed shores; until, finally, the new continent with its lakes, rivers, mountains, valleys and plains; villages, towns and capitals; is spread out on the globe in all its magnificent splendour! Ah! my friends, a discoverer of land is a real inventor! He has the greatest joy and wonder! But now this mine is almost exhausted! We have seen everything, identified everything, invented the continents or new worlds, and we, the latest ones come in geographical science, have we nothing more to do?”

“Yes, my dear Paganel,” replied Glenarvan.

“What?”

“What we do!”

The Duncan, continued in the course of Vespucci and Magellan with marvellous speed. On September 15, she crossed the tropic of Capricorn, and the course was set for the entrance of the famous strait. Several times the lower coasts of Patagonia were seen as a barely visible line on the horizon, more than ten miles away, and Paganel’s famous telescope gave him only a vague idea of these American shores.

On the 25th of September, the Duncan arrived off the Straits of Magellan, and entered them without delay. This route is generally preferred by steamers on their way to the Pacific Ocean. The exact length of the straits is 376 miles.³ Ships of the largest tonnage find sufficient water depth throughout, even close to the shore. There is a good bottom everywhere, an abundance of fresh water, rivers abounding in fish, forests in game, and plenty of safe and accessible harbours. In fact a thousand things that are lacking in Lemaire Strait and Cape Horn, with its terrible rocks, incessantly visited by hurricanes and tempests.

For the first few hours, that is, sixty to eighty miles — as far as Cape Gregory — the coasts were low and sandy. Jacques Paganel did not want to miss a single view, nor a single detail of the straits. The passage would take thirty-six hours, and the moving panorama on both sides, seen in all the clearness and glory of the light of a southern sun, was well worth the trouble of looking at and admiring. On the Terra del Fuego side, a few wretched-looking people were wandering about on the rocks, but on the other side not a solitary inhabitant was visible.

Paganel was so disappointed at not being able to catch a glimpse of any Patagonians, that his companions were quite amused by him. He would insist that a Patagonia without Patagonians was not a Patagonia at all.

“Patience, my worthy geographer,” said Lord Glenarvan. “We shall see the Patagonians yet.”

“I am not sure of it.”

“But there are such a people,” said Lady Helena.

“I greatly doubt it, Madame, since I don’t see them.”

“But surely the very name of Patagonia, which means ‘big feet’ in Spanish, would not have been given to imaginary beings.”

“Oh, the name doesn’t have anything to do with it,” said Paganel, who was arguing simply for the sake of arguing. “And besides, to speak the truth, we are not sure if that is their name.”

“What an idea!” said Glenarvan. “Did you know that, Major?”

“No. And I wouldn’t give a Scotch pound-note for the information.”

“You shall hear it, however, Major Indifferent,” said Paganel. “Though Magellan called the natives of this country Patagonians, the Fuegians called them ‘Tiremenen,’ the Chileans ‘Caucalhues,’ the colonists of Carmen ‘Tehuelches,’ the Araucans ‘Huiliches’; Bougainville gives them the name of ‘Chauha,’ and Falkner that of ‘Tehuelhets’. The name they give themselves is ‘Inaken’. Now, tell me, how would you identify them? Indeed, is it likely that a people with so many names has any actual existence?”

“That’s a queer argument, certainly,” said Lady Helena.

“I’ll admit that,” said her husband, “but our friend Paganel must also admit that even if there are doubts about the name of the Patagonians, there is none about their size.”

“Indeed, I will never admit to anything as outrageous as that,” replied Paganel.

“They are tall,” said Glenarvan.

“I don’t know.”

“Small?” asked Lady Helena.

“No one can say.”

“About average, then?” said MacNabbs, looking for a compromise.

“I don’t know that either.”

“That’s going a little too far,” said Glenarvan. “Travellers who have seen them—”

“Travellers who have seen them,” interrupted Paganel, “don’t agree at all in their accounts. Magellan said that his head scarcely reached to their waist.”

“Well, that proves—”

“Yes, but Drake declares that the English are taller than the tallest Patagonian!”

“About what I’d expect from an Englishman,” said the Major, disdainfully, “but what would a Scot say?”

“Cavendish assures us that they are tall and robust,” said Paganel. “Hawkins makes out that they are giants. Lemaire and Shouten declare that they are eleven feet tall.”

“These are all credible witnesses,” said Glenarvan.

“Yes, quite as much as Wood, Narborough, and Falkner, who say they are of medium stature. Again, Byron, Giraudais, Bougainville, Wallis, and Carteret, declared that the Patagonians are six feet six inches tall while M. d’Orbigny, the scholar who knows these lands best, gives them an average height of five feet four inches.”

“But what is the truth, then, among all these contradictions?” asked Lady Helena.

“Just this, Madame; the Patagonians have short legs, and a large trunk; or by way of a joke we might say that these natives are six feet tall when they are sitting, and only five when they are standing.”

“Bravo! My dear geographer,” said Glenarvan. “That is very well put.”

“Unless the race has no existence: that would reconcile all statements,” said Paganel. “But here is one consolation, in any event: the Straits of Magellan are very magnificent, even without Patagonians.”

Often the end of Duncan’s yards grazed the branches of the Antarctic beeches leaning over the waves

The Duncan was rounding the peninsula of Brunswick between splendid panoramas. Seventy miles after doubling Cape Gregory, she passed the penitentiary of Punta Arena on her starboard. The church steeple and the Chilean flag gleamed for an instant among the trees, and then the strait wound on between huge granitic masses which had an imposing effect. Cloud-capped mountains appeared, their heads white with eternal snows, and their feet hidden in immense forests. Toward the southwest, Mount Tarn rose 6,500 feet high. Night came on after a long lingering twilight — the light imperceptibly melting away into soft shades.

The sky glittered with brilliant stars, and the Southern Cross pointed the way for navigators seeking the south pole. In the midst of this luminous darkness, in the light of these stars which replace the lighthouses of the civilized coast, the yacht continued its course audaciously, without anchoring in any of the easy bays that abound on this shore. She continued her course fearlessly through the luminous darkness. Often the end of her yards grazed the branches of the Antarctic beeches leaning over the waves. Her screw beat the waters of the great rivers, waking geese, ducks, snipe, and teal.

Presently ruins came in sight, crumbling buildings, which the night invested with grandeur: the sad remains of a deserted settlement, whose name will be an eternal protest against these fertile shores and forests full of game. The Duncan was passing Port Famine.

Port Famine

It was on this site that the Spaniard Sarmiento, in 1584, settled with three hundred immigrants. He founded the settlement of Rey Don Felipe, but the extreme severity of the winters decimated the colony, and those who had survived through the cold died subsequently of starvation. The English privateer Thomas Cavendish landed at the site in 1587, and found only ruins. He named the site Port Famine.⁴

The Duncan sailed past these deserted shores, and at daybreak entered a series of narrow channels. She sailed between forests of beech, ash, and birch from which emerged green domes of foothills carpeted with vigorous holly. Sharp crags, Buckland’s Obelisk the tallest among them, rose above the hills. She passed the bay of St. Nicholas, formerly French Bay, so named by Bougainville. In the distance, herds of seals and pods of large whales played. Their spouts could be seen from four miles away. At length the Duncan doubled Cape Froward, still bristling with the ice of the last winter. On the other side of the strait, in Terra del Fuego, stood Mount Sarmiento, towering to a height of 6,000 feet: an enormous accumulation of rocks, separated by bands of cloud, forming a sort of aerial archipelago. Cape Froward is the true southern tip of the American continent, for Cape Horn is nothing but a rock lost at sea at a latitude of 52°.

Beyond Cape Froward, the strait narrowed between Brunswick Peninsula and Desolation Island: a long island lying between a thousand islets, like a huge cetacean beached upon of the rocks. What a contrast between this jagged end of America and the sharp peaks of Africa, Australia or India! What unknown cataclysm had pulverized this immense promontory thrown up between two oceans?

These fertile shores gave way to a series of barren coasts, wild-looking, indented by the thousand fjords of this labyrinth. The Duncan, without error or hesitation, followed a sinuous course, mixing the eddies of her smoke with the mists churned by the rocks. She passed, without slowing, before some Spanish factories established on these abandoned banks. The strait widened at Cape Tamar. At last, thirty-six hours after entering the strait, she saw the rock of Cape Pilares appear on the western extremity of Desolation Island. An immense, free, sparkling sea stretched out before her bow, and Jacques Paganel greeted her with an enthusiastic gesture, felt himself as moved as Ferdinand Magellan himself, at the moment when the Trinidad⁵ sailed into the breezes of the Pacific Ocean.

1. Venezuela — DAS

2. Named after the Netherlands States-General, just like the New York borough. Now part of Argentina, and known as Isla de los Estados — DAS

3. 130 leagues, 520 kilometres

4. Verne has the settlement founded in 1581, and Cavendish finding one survivor — DAS

5. The ship that carried Magellan

Chapter VIII | Index | Chapter X

Chapter X
The 37th Parallel

Eight days after they had doubled Cape Pilares, the Duncan steamed into the Talcahuano Bay, a magnificent estuary, twelve miles long and nine broad. The weather was splendid. The skies of this country are cloudless from November to March, and the southerly wind invariably reigns along the coast sheltered by the Andean range. Following Lord Glenarvan’s orders, John Mangles had sailed as closely to the Chiloé Archipelago as possible, and examined all the inlets and windings of the coast, hoping to discover some traces of the shipwreck. A broken spar, or a piece of wood worked by the hands of men could have put them on the right track, but they found nothing, and the Duncan continued on her way, until she dropped anchor at the port of Talcahuano, forty-two days after leaving the misty waters of the Clyde.

Glenarvan had a boat lowered immediately, and accompanied by Paganel, landed at the foot of the pier. The learned geographer gladly availed himself of the opportunity to make use of the Spanish he had been studying so conscientiously, but to his astonishment, found he could not make himself understood by the natives.

“I don’t have the accent,” he said.

“Let’s go to Customs,” said Glenarvan.

There, he learned by means of a few English words, aided by expressive gestures, that the British Consul lived at Concepción, an hour’s ride away. Glenarvan easily found two swift horses, and he and Paganel were soon within the walls of the great city, founded by the enterprising genius of Valdivia, the valiant comrade of the Pizarros. It had declined from its former splendour. Often pillaged by the natives, and burned in 1819, it lay in desolation and ruin, its walls still blackened by the flames. It scarcely numbering 8,000 inhabitants, now, and was overshadowed by Talcahuano. Grass was growing in the streets beneath the lazy feet of its citizens, and all trade and business, indeed any description of activity, was impossible. The notes of mandolins resounded from every balcony, and languid songs floated on the breeze. Concepción, the ancient city of men, had become a village of women and children.

Concepción

Lord Glenarvan was unwilling to inquire into the causes of this decay, though Paganel tried to draw him into a discussion on the subject, and without losing a moment he went to J. R. Bentock, Esq., Consul of her Britannic Majesty, who received them very courteously, and, on learning the story of Captain Grant, undertook to make inquiries all along the coast.

As to the question of whether the three-master Britannia had come to grief near the 37th parallel along the Chilean or Araucanían coast, he had no information. No report of such an event had reached the Consul, or any of his colleagues from other nations. Glenarvan was not discouraged; he went back to Talcahuano, and spared neither pains nor expense. He dispatched agents to make an examination of the coast. But it was all in vain. The most careful inquiries made among the neighbouring populations were fruitless, and Lord Glenarvan returned to the yacht to report his lack of success. It had to be concluded that the Britannia had left no trace of her shipwreck.

When Glenarvan told his companions of his failure to learn anything, Mary Grant and her brother could not restrain their grief. It was six days after the arrival of the Duncan at Talcahuano. The passengers were gathered on the poop. Lady Helena did her best to console them, not with words — What could she say? — but with hugs and caresses. Jacques Paganel took up the document and began studying it again, as if he wanted to snatch new secrets from it. He had been poring over it for more than an hour when Glenarvan interrupted him.

“Paganel! I appeal to your intelligence. Has our analysis of this document been wrong? Is there anything illogical about our interpretation?”

Paganel was silent, absorbed in reflection.

“Have we mistaken the place where the catastrophe occurred?” asked Glenarvan. “Does not the name Patagonia seem apparent even to the least clear-sighted individual?”

Paganel was still silent.

“Besides,” said Glenarvan, “does not the word Indian prove we are right?”

“Perfectly,” said MacNabbs.

“And is it not evident, then, that at the moment of writing the words, the shipwrecked men were expecting to be made prisoners by the Indians?”

“I wouldn’t go that far, my dear Lord,” said Paganel. “Even if your other conclusions are correct, that last one, at least, does not seem to be the only interpretation to me.”

“What do you mean?” asked Lady Helena, while all eyes were fixed on the geographer.

“I mean,” said Paganel, emphasizing his words, “that Captain Grant is now a prisoner of the Indians, and I further add that the document states it unmistakably.”

“Explain yourself, sir,” said Mary Grant.

“Nothing is plainer, dear Mary. Instead of reading the document ‘seront prisonniers’, read ‘sont prisonniers’, and the whole thing is clear.”

“But that’s impossible,” said Lord Glenarvan.

“Impossible? Why, my noble friend?” asked Paganel, smiling.

“Because the bottle could only have been thrown into the sea just when the vessel broke on the rocks, and consequently the latitude and longitude given refer to the actual place of the shipwreck.”

“There is no proof of that,” said Paganel, sharply. “And I see nothing to preclude the supposition that the poor fellows — after having been dragged by the Indians into the interior of the continent — sought to make known the place of their captivity by means of this bottle.”

“Except for the fact, my dear Paganel, that in order to throw a bottle into the sea, the sea must be there.”

“Or in the absence of the sea, a river which ran into it.”

An astonished silence greeted this unexpected, and yet reasonable, answer. The brightening of everyone’s eyes revealed the rekindling of their hope to Paganel. Lady Helena was the first to speak.

“What an idea!”

“And what a good idea,” added the geographer, naively.

“What would you advise, then?” said Glenarvan.

“My advice is to follow the 37th parallel from the point where it touches the American continent to where it dips into the Atlantic, without deviating from it half a degree, and possibly in some part of its course we shall find the shipwrecked from the Britannia.”

“There is a poor chance of that,” said the Major.

“Poor as it is,” said Paganel, “we must not neglect it. If I am right in my conjecture, that the bottle reached the sea on the current of some river, we cannot fail to fall on the path of the prisoners. You can easily convince yourselves of this by looking at this map of the country.”

He laid out a map of Chile and the Argentinian provinces on the table as he spoke.

“Just follow me across the American continent for a moment. Let us cross the narrow strip of Chile, and over the Andes mountains, and get into the heart of the Pampas. Will we find any lack of rivers, watercourses, or streams? No, for the Rio Negro, Rio Colorado, and their tributaries are intersected by the 37th parallel, and any of them might have carried the bottle on its waters. There, perhaps, in the midst of a tribe in some Indian settlement at the edge of some little-known river in the gorges of the mountains, those whom I may call my friends await some providential intervention. Ought we to disappoint their hopes? Do you not all agree with me that it is our duty to go along the line my finger is pointing out at this moment on the map? And if, against all odds, we find I have been mistaken, is it not then our duty to keep moving straight on, and follow the 37th parallel until we find those we seek, even if we go all around the world?”

His generous enthusiasm so touched his listeners that they involuntarily rose to their feet and came to shake his hands.

“Yes!” cried Robert, devouring the map with his eyes. “My father is there!”

“And wherever he is,” said Glenarvan, “we will find him. Nothing can be more logical than Paganel’s theory, and we must, without hesitation, follow the course he points out. Captain Grant may have fallen into the hands of a large tribe, or his captors may be but a handful. In the latter case we shall carry him off at once. If the former, after we have reconnoitred the situation, we will meet with the Duncan on the eastern coast and go to Buenos Aires, where we can soon organize a detachment of men, with Major MacNabbs at their head, strong enough to tackle all the Indians in the Argentinian provinces.”

“Hear, Hear, Your Honour!” said John Mangles, “And may I ask, will this crossing of the continent be without peril?”

“Without danger, or hardship,” said Paganel. “How many have already accomplished it, who had scarcely any resources, and whose courage was not supported by the grandeur of this enterprise! Did not Basilio Villarino go from Carmen to the Cordilleras in 1782? Didn’t Don Luiz de la Cruz, a Chilean alcalde of the province of Concepción, follow this 37th parallel across the Andes from Antuco to Buenos Aires in only forty days in 1806? Finally, have not Colonel Garcia, Mr. Alcide d’Orbigny, and my honourable colleague, Dr. Martin de Moussy, travelled this country in every direction, and done for science what we are going to do for humaneness?”

“Monsieur, Monsieur!” said Mary Grant in a voice broken with emotion. “How can you follow a vocation that exposes you to so many dangers?”

“Dangers!” exclaimed Paganel. “Who said anything about danger?”

“Not me!” said Robert Grant, his eyes wide and bright.

“Dangers!” scoffed Paganel, “They aren’t worth considering. A journey of three hundred and fifty leagues, in a straight line. A journey which will take place at a latitude similar to Spain, Sicily, or Greece in the other hemisphere and therefore in a climate almost identical. A trip whose duration will be a month at most! It’s a walk in the country!”

“Monsieur Paganel,” asked Lady Helena, “you have no fear then that if the poor fellows have fallen into the hands of the Indians their lives at least have been spared.”

“What a question? Why, Madame, the Indians are not cannibals! Far from it. One of my own countrymen, M. Guinnard, who I knew at the Geographical Society, was a prisoner among the Indians in the Pampas for three years. He suffered. He was badly treated, but came out victorious from his ordeal. A European is a useful being in these countries. The Indians know his value, and take care of him as if he were some prize animal.”

“There is no time for delay,” said Lord Glenarvan. “We must go, and as soon as possible. What route should we take?”

“One that is both easy and agreeable,” said Paganel. “It is rather mountainous at first, but then slopes gently down the eastern side of the Andes into a smooth plain, turfed and gravelled quite like a garden.”

“Let’s see the map,” said the Major.

“Here it is, my dear MacNabbs. We shall pick up the 37th parallel on the coast, between Rumena Point and Carnero Bay, pass through the capital of Araucanía, and cut through the mountains by Antuco Pass north of the volcano. Then gliding gently down the mountain sides, past the Rio Neuquén and the Rio Colorado we reach the Pampas, Lake Epecuén,¹ the Guamini River, to the Sierra Tapalquen. There we shall reach the frontier of the province of Buenos Aires. This we shall cross, and pass over the Sierra Tandil, pursuing our search to the very shores of the Atlantic, as far as Point Medano.”

Paganel went through this itinerary for the expedition without so much as a glance at the map. He was so well informed in the travels of Frézier, Molina, Humboldt, Miers, and d’Orbigny, that he had the geographical nomenclature at his finger tips, and trusted implicitly to his never-failing memory.

“You see then, my dear friends,” he added, “that it is a straight road. In thirty days we shall have gone over it, and arrived on the eastern side to reunite with the Duncan, however much she may be delayed by the westerly winds.”

“Then the Duncan is to cruise between Cape Corrientes and Cape San Antonio,” said John Mangles.

“Just so.”

“And how is the expedition to be organized?” asked Glenarvan.

“As simply as possible. All there is to be done is to reconnoiter the situation of Captain Grant and not to fight with the Indians. I think that Lord Glenarvan, our natural leader; the Major, who would not yield his place to anybody; and your humble servant, Jacques Paganel—”

“And me!” said young Robert.

“Robert!” exclaimed Mary.

“Why not?” asked Paganel. “Travel shapes the young. We four, and three sailors from the Duncan.”

“And does your Your Honour mean to pass me by?” John Mangles asked Glenarvan.

“My dear John,” said Glenarvan, “we’re leaving the ladies on board, those dearer to me than life, and who is to watch over them but the Duncan’s devoted captain?”

“Then we can’t accompany you?” asked Lady Helena, while a shade of sadness clouded her eyes.

“My dear Helena, the journey must be accomplished with great speed. Our separation will be short.”

“Yes, dear, I understand. It’s all right; and I do hope you will succeed.”

“Besides, you can hardly call it a journey,” said Paganel.

“What is it, then?” asked Lady Helena

“A passage, nothing more. We will pass, like the honest man of the earth, doing as much good as possible. Transire beneficiendo shall be our motto.”

This ended the discussion, if a conversation can be so called, where all who take part in it are of the same opinion. Preparations commenced the same day, but as secretly as possible to prevent the Indians getting wind of it.

Tom Austin, Wilson, and Mulrady

The day of departure was set for the 14th of October. When it came to choosing the sailors to go with them, all volunteered, and Glenarvan was spoiled for choice. To prevent jealousy among the crew he chose the three to accompany him by lot. Fortune favoured the mate, Tom Austin; Wilson, a strong, jovial young fellow; and Mulrady, so good a boxer that he might have entered the lists with Tom Sayers² himself.

Glenarvan had been very busy with the preparations, for he was anxious to be ready by the appointed day. John Mangles was equally busy in coaling and provisioning the ship, so she would be ready to put to sea as soon as the land party departed. He wanted to be the first to reach the Argentinian coast. The friendly rivalry between them benefitted them all.

On the 14th of October, at the appointed hour, everything was ready. The whole search party assembled in the saloon to bid farewell to those who remained behind. The Duncan was just about to get under way, and already the blades of her screw were agitating the limpid waters of Talcahuano. Glenarvan, Paganel, MacNabbs, Robert Grant, Tom Austin, Wilson, and Mulrady, stood armed with Colt rifles and revolvers. Guides and mules awaited them at the end of the pier.

“It is time,” said Lord Edward at last.

“Go then, dear Edward,” said Lady Helena, restraining her emotion.

Lord Glenarvan clasped her closely to his breast for an instant, and then turned away, while Robert flung his arms round Mary’s neck.

“And now, dear companions,” said Paganel, “a final handshake, to last us to the shores of the Atlantic!”

It was a lot to ask, but he certainly got strong enough grips and hugs to go some way toward satisfying his desire. They went up onto the deck, and the seven travellers left the Duncan. They were soon on the quay, and as the yacht came about to set course for the harbour channel, she came within half a cable of wharf.

Lady Helena called out “God help you, my friends!” one last time from the quarterdeck.

“And he will help us, Madame,” shouted Paganel in reply, “for you may be sure we will help ourselves.”

“All ahead!” the captain shouted to his engineer.

“On the way!” ordered Lord Glenarvan.

And as the travellers turned their mounts to follow the path along the shore, the Duncan, under the action of her screw, was heading out to sea.

1. Verne has “Salinas” here, but that is 500 miles (800 kilometres) north of Paganel’s projected route, and Lake Epecuén is right were he placed Salinas.

2. A famous boxer from London

Chapter IX | Index | Chapter XI

Chapter XI
Crossing Chile

The native troops organized by Lord Glenarvan consisted of three men and a boy. The captain of the muleteers was an Englishman, who had become naturalized through twenty years’ residence in the country. He made a livelihood by renting out mules to travellers, and leading them over the difficult passes of the Cordilleras, after which he put them in the charge of a baqueano, or Argentinian guide, familiar with the routes through the Pampas. This Englishman had not spent so much time among mules and Indians that he had forgotten his mother tongue, and this was fortunate as Lord Glenarvan found it far easier to pass his orders through him, if he wanted to see them carried out, than to rely on Paganel’s still imperfect grasp of the language.

The madrina walked in front, leading the ten mules

The catapez, as he was called in Chilean, had two native peons, and a boy about twelve years old under him. The peons took care of the baggage mules, and the boy led the madrina, a young mare adorned with rattles and bells, which walked in front, leading the ten mules. The travellers rode seven of these, and the catapez another. The remaining two mules carried provisions and a few bales of goods, intended to secure the goodwill of the caciques of the plain. The peons walked, as was their custom. Travelling in this manner was considered to be the quickest, and safest way to cross the continent.

Crossing the Andes is not a simple journey to undertake. It could not be accomplished without the help of the hardy mules of the famous Argentinian breed. These excellent animals are far superior to other breeds. They are not particular about their food, only drink once a day, and they can easily travel ten leagues in eight hours while carrying a load of fourteen arrobes¹ without complaint.

There would be few inns along this road from one ocean to another. The travellers took provisions of dried meat, and rice seasoned with pimento, which they would supplement with such game as could be shot along the way. The torrents would provide them with water in the mountains, and the rivulets in the plains, which they improved by the addition of a few drops of rum. Each man carried a supply of this in a bullock’s horn, called a chiffle. They had to be careful, however, not to abuse alcoholic beverages, as the climate itself had a peculiarly exhilarating effect on the nervous system. Their saddles, called recado by the natives, also served as their bedding. This saddle is made of pelions — sheepskin, tanned on one side and woolly on the other — fastened by ornately embroidered straps. Wrapped in these warm coverings a traveller could sleep soundly, well protected on the damp nights.

Robert and Paganel

Glenarvan was an experienced traveller, who knew how to adapt himself to the customs of other countries. He adopted the Chilean costume for himself and his whole party. Paganel and Robert, two children — one big and one small — were wild with delight as they inserted their heads in the national poncho, an immense tartan cloth with a hole in centre. Their legs were encased in high, colt leather boots. The mules were richly caparisoned, with Arabian bits in their mouths, and long reins of plaited leather, which also served as a whip; the headpiece of the bridle was decorated with metal ornaments, and each mule carried alforjas, double sacks of brightly coloured cloth, containing the day’s provisions.

Paganel, absent minded as usual, was nearly kicked three or four times by his excellent steed before he could mount it. But once in the saddle, his inseparable telescope hung on his baldric, he held on well enough: keeping his feet fast in the stirrups, and trusting entirely to the intelligence of his mule. As for young Robert, his first attempt at mounting was successful, and he showed that he had the makings of an excellent horseman.

The weather was splendid when they set out; the sky was a deep cloudless blue; the heat of the sun was moderated by refreshing sea breezes. They made their way quickly along the winding shore of Talcahuano Bay on their way to the parallel, thirty miles to the south. They spoke little as they passed through the reeds of old desiccated marshes. The farewells of their departure still a poignant memory. The smoke from the Duncan was still visible on the horizon. All were silent, except for Paganel, who talked to himself in Spanish, asking and answering questions.

The catapez was a naturally taciturn man, and his calling had not made him more talkative. He hardly spoke to his peons. They understood their duties perfectly. If one of the mules stopped, they urged it on with a guttural cry, and if that proved insufficient, a good-sized pebble, thrown with unerring aim, soon cured the animal’s obstinacy. If a strap came loose, or a rein fell, a peon came forward instantly and threw his poncho over the animal’s head to calm it until the tack could be repaired and the march resumed.

The custom of the muleteers was to start at eight o’clock, right after breakfast, and not to stop until they made camp for the night, about four o’clock in the afternoon. Glenarvan kept with the practice, and the first halt was just as they arrived at Arauco, at the very end of the bay, without having abandoned the frothy edge of the ocean. To reach the western end of the 37th parallel, they would have to continue as far as Carnero Bay, twenty miles further, but Glenarvan’s agents had already scoured that part of the coast without encountering any sign of the sinking. To repeat the exploration would have been pointless. It was, therefore, decided that Arauco should be their jumping off point, and that they should strike inland from from there.

The little troop entered the city to spend the night, and encamped in an inn, the comfort of which was still rudimentary.

Arauco is the capital of Araucanía, a country a hundred and fifty leagues long, thirty wide, and inhabited by the Mapuche, the descendants of the Chilean race sung of by the poet Ercilla.² A proud and strong people, the only one in the two Americas that has never submitted to foreign domination.³ If Arauco once belonged to the Spaniards, the people, at least, had not submitted. They resisted the Spaniards as they now resisted the invading Chileans, and their independent flag — a white star on a field of azure — still floated at the top of the fortified hill which protected the city.

While supper was being prepared, Glenarvan, Paganel, and the catapez walked among the thatched houses. Except for a church and the remains of a Franciscan convent, Arauco offered little to the curious tourist. Glenarvan tried unsuccessfully to gather some information. Paganel was desperate to make himself understood by the inhabitants; but since they spoke Araucanían, a tongue that was in general use all the way to the Strait of Magellan, Paganel’s Spanish served him as well as Hebrew. He had to use his eyes, rather than his ears in his scholarly pursuits, and took great delight in observing the variety of Mapuche people around him. The men were tall, with flat faces, coppery complexions, shaved chins, skeptical eyes, and large heads lost in long black hair. They seemed doomed to the special idleness of warriors who do not know what to do in peacetime. Their grim and courageous wives were busy with the hard work of the household: grooming the horses, cleaning the weapons, ploughing, hunting for their husbands, and still finding time to weave richly embroidered ponchos that required two years to make, and could sell for over 100 dollars.⁴

In short, these Mapuches were an uninteresting people, with rather wild manners. They have almost all the human vices, against one virtue: the love of independence. “True Spartans,” said Paganel, when his walk was over, and he took his place at the evening meal.

The worthy scholar perhaps exaggerated the qualities of the Mapuches, and was even less understood when he added that his French heart was beating loudly during his visit to the city of Arauco. When the Major asked him the reason for this unexpected “beating,” he replied that his emotion was very natural, since a fellow Frenchman had once occupied the throne of Araucanía. The Major begged him to be good enough to make known the name of this sovereign. Jacques Paganel proudly named the brave Orélie-Antoine de Tounens, an excellent man, a former lawyer from Perigueux, a little too bearded, and who had undergone what dethroned kings like to call “the ingratitude of their subjects.”⁵ The Major smiled slightly at the idea of a former solicitor driven from the throne, Paganel replied very seriously that it was perhaps easier for a lawyer to make a good king, than for a king to make a good lawyer.

And on that note, everyone laughed and drank a few drops of chicha⁶ to the health of Orélie-Antoine Ier, the former King of Araucanía. A few minutes later the travellers, wrapped in their ponchos, were all soundly asleep.

The ford of the Rio de Tubal

The next day, at eight o’clock, with the madrina at the head, and the peons at the tail, the little troop returned to following the 37th parallel to the east. They crossed the fertile territory of Araucanía, rich in vineyards and herds. But, little by little, it became more desolate. Sometimes, after miles without seeing anything they’d pass by a hut of a rastreadores, an Indian tracker, famous throughout America. Sometimes they’d see an abandoned post house, that served as a shelter for a wandering plains native. Their route was intersected by two rivers: the Rio de Raque and the Rio de Tubal. But the catapez led them to fords that allowed them to cross. The chain of the Andes unfolded on the horizon, its foothills swelling and peaks multiplying. These were still the low vertebrae of the enormous spine running down the back of the New World.

At four o’clock in the evening, after a journey of thirty-five miles, they stopped in the middle of the countryside under a bouquet of giant myrtle. The mules were unbridled, and went off to graze the thick grass of the meadow. The alforjas supplied the accustomed meat and rice. The pelions laid out on the ground served as blankets and pillows, and each of them found a restful repose on these improvised beds, while the peons and the catapez took turns keeping watch.

Since the weather remained so favourable, the whole party was in perfect health, and the journey had commenced under such happy auspices, the entire party wanted to push forward as quickly as possible. The next day they marched thirty-five miles or more, crossed the Bell Rapids without incident, and encamped at nightfall on the banks of Rio Biobio which separates Spanish Chile from independent Chile. The country was still rich and fertile, and abounded in amaryllis, tree violets, fluschies, daturas and cactuses with golden flowers. Some animals were seen among the brush, but there were not many natives. A few guassos, the degenerate offspring of Indians and Spaniards, passed like shadows on horses galloping across the plain. The horses’ flanks were bloodied by cruel thrusts from the spurs of their riders’ feet. It was impossible to make inquiries when there was no one to question, and Lord Glenarvan came to the conclusion that Captain Grant must have been dragged right over the Andes into the Pampas, and that it would be useless to search for him elsewhere. The only thing to be done was to press forward with all the speed in their power.

On the 17th they set out in the usual line of march, a line which was difficult for Robert to keep. His eagerness constantly compelled him to get ahead of the madrina, to the great despair of his mule. Nothing but a sharp recall from Glenarvan kept the boy in proper order.

The country became more rugged, and the rising ground promised future mountains. Rivers were more numerous, and came rushing noisily down the slopes. Paganel consulted his maps, and when he found any of these streams not marked, which happened often, all the fire of a geographer would burn in his veins.

“An unnamed river is like having no civil standing,” he would declare with charming anger. “It has no existence in the eye of geographical law!”

He did not hesitate to baptize these unnamed rivers, and mark them down on the map, qualifying them with the most high-sounding adjectives he could find in the Spanish language.

“What a language!” he said. “How full and sonorous it is! It is like the finest bronze that church bells are made of — composed of seventy-eight parts of copper and twenty-two of tin.”

“But do you make any progress in it?” asked Glenarvan.

“Most certainly, my dear Lord. Ah, if it wasn’t the accent, that wretched accent!”

And for want anything better to do, Paganel whiled away the time along the road by practising the difficulties in pronunciation, repeating all the jawbreaking words he could, though still making geographical observations. Any question about the country that Glenarvan might ask the catapez was sure to be answered by the learned Frenchman before he could reply, to the great astonishment of the guide, who gazed at him in bewilderment.

About ten o’clock that same day they came to a crossroad, and naturally enough Glenarvan inquired the name of it.

“It is the road from Yumbel to Los Ángeles,” said Paganel.

Glenarvan looked at the catapez.

“Quite right,” he said. Turning toward the geographer, he added “You have traveled in these parts before, sir?”

“Parbleu!” said Paganel, seriously.

“On a mule?”

“No, in an armchair.”

The catapez did not understand, but shrugged his shoulders and resumed his post at the head of the party.

At five in the evening they stopped in a shallow gorge, some miles above the little town of Loja, and encamped for the night at the foot of the Sierras, the first rungs of the great Cordillera.

1. The arrobe is a local measure equivalent to 11.5 kilograms

2. Alonso de Ercilla was a sixteenth century Spanish nobleman, soldier and poet, who wrote an epic poem, La Araucana, about the Araucanían insurrection — DAS

3. This was not to last much longer. The Chilean Occupation of Araucanía was completed by 1883 — DAS

4. 500 francs

5. Orélie-Antoine de Tounens’ “subjects”, the Mapuches, seemed to be quite happy with him. It was the government authorities of Chile who took exception, arrested him, declared him insane, and shipped him back to France — DAS

6. Fermented corn brandy

Chapter X | Index | Chapter XII

Chapter XII
Twelve Thousand Feet Aloft

The passage through Chile had taken place without serious incident, but all the obstacles and dangers of a mountain journey were about to crowd on the travellers. The struggle with the natural barrier was truly beginning.

An important question had to be resolved before they began. Which pass would take them over the Andes, without taking them too far away from the 37th parallel? Lord Glenarvan asked the catapez.

“I do not know,” he said, “but there are only two practicable passes that I know of in this part of the Cordilleras.”

“One is undoubtedly the pass of Arica discovered by Valdivia Mendoze,” said Paganel.

“Exactly.”

“And the other is that of Villarica, located south of Nevado.”

“Just so.”

“Well, my good fellow, both these passes have only one fault; they take us too far out of our route, either north or south.”

“Have you another pass to propose?” asked the Major.

“Certainly,” said Paganel. “There is the Antuco Pass, on the slope of the volcano, in latitude, 37° 30′ , or, in other words, only half a degree out of our way. It is only a thousand fathoms high and has been scouted by Zamudio de Cruz.”

“That would do,” said Glenarvan. “Are you acquainted with this Antuco Pass, catapez?”

“Yes, your Lordship, I have crossed it, but I did not mention it, as it is just a cattle path used by the Indian shepherds of the eastern slopes.”

“Well, my friend,” said Glenarvan, “where the herds of mares, sheep, and oxen of the Pehuenches pass, we shall pass as well. And since this keeps us on the right line, head for the Antuco Pass.”

The signal for departure was given immediately, and they struck into the heart of the valley of Las Lejas, between great masses of crystalline limestone. At first they ascended a gentle slope. At about eleven o’clock it was necessary to skirt the banks of a small lake, a natural reservoir, and a scenic rendezvous of all the neighbouring rivers. The streams arrived there murmuring and mingled in a clear tranquil pool. Above the lake lay vast llanos, high plains covered with grasses, where Indian flocks grazed. They had to cross a marsh, running south and north, but the mules had an instinct that kept them from becoming mired in it. At one o’clock, Fort Ballenare appeared on a steep rock, which it crowned with its crumbling curtain wall. They continued on. The slopes were getting steeper, and strewn with loose stones and pebbles which the hoofs of the mules sometimes dislodged, triggering noisy cascades of stones. About three o’clock, they came across picturesque ruins of another fort, destroyed in the uprising of 1770.

“Apparently, the mountains are not a sufficient barrier to separate men, we must strengthen them!” said Paganel.

From this point the pass began to be difficult, and even dangerous. The slopes steepened, the ledges narrowed, and frightful precipices fell off to their sides. The mules went cautiously, keeping their heads near the ground, as if scenting the track. They went on in single file. Sometimes the madrina would disappear around a sudden bend of the road, and the little caravan guided itself by the distant tinkle of her bells. Often some capricious winding would bring the column in two parallel lines, and the catapez could speak to his peons across a crevasse not two fathoms wide, though two hundred deep, creating an uncrossable abyss between them.

Vegetation still struggled to take root against the invasions of stone. There was a feeling of the mineral and vegetable kingdoms struggling against one another. A few rust-coloured lava streaks, bristling with needle-shaped yellow crystals, showed they were approaching the volcano of Antuco. The rocks, piled on top of each other, and ready to fall, stood against all the laws of balance. Any sort of trembler would tumble these poorly seated formations down. The time of final settling had not yet come to this mountainous region.

Under these conditions, the path became difficult to recognize. The almost incessant agitation of the Andean spine often changes its shape, and the landmarks shifted. The catapez hesitated; he stopped; he looked around him; he examined the shape of the rocks; he sought traces of Indians on the friable stone. Orientation became more difficult.

Antuco Pass

Glenarvan followed his guide step by step. He saw that he was becoming more perplexed as the way became more difficult, but did not dare to interrogate him, perhaps thinking, rightly enough, that both mules and muleteers were very much governed by instinct, and it was best to trust them.

The catapez kept wandering about, almost haphazardly, for another hour, though always getting higher up the mountains. At last he was obliged to stop short. They were in a narrow valley, one of those gorges the Indians called quebradas, and on reaching the end, a wall of porphyry rose perpendicularly before them, and barred further passage. The catapez, having vainly sought to find an opening, dismounted, crossed his arms, and waited. Glenarvan went up to him.

“Have we gone astray?” he asked.

“No, My Lord,” said the catapez.

“But we are not in the pass of Antuco.”

“We are.”

“You are sure you are not mistaken?”

“I am not mistaken. See! There are the remains of a fire left by the Indians, and there are the marks of their mares and sheep.”

“They must have gone on, then.”

“Yes, but no more will go; the last earthquake has made the route impassable.”

“To mules,” said the Major, “but not to men.”

“That is your business,” said the catapez. “I have done all I can. My mules and myself are at your service to try the other passes of the Cordilleras.”

“And that would delay us?”

“Three days at least.”

Glenarvan considered the matter. The catapez knew his business and was clearly correct. His mules could go no farther. However, when the proposal was made to turn back, Glenarvan turned to his companions.

“Do you want to go on, anyway?”

“We will follow you,” said Tom Austin.

“And even precede you,” said Paganel. “What is it after all? We have only to cross a mountain range, whose opposite slopes offer an incomparably easier descent! That done, we shall find baqueanos, Argentinian shepherds, who will guide us through the Pampas, and swift horses accustomed to galloping over the plains. Forward then, I say, and without hesitation.”

“Forward!” cried Glenarvan’s companions.

“You will not go with us, then?” Glenarvan asked the catapez.

“I am a mule driver.”

“As you please,” said Glenarvan.

“We can do without him,” said Paganel. “On the other side of this wall we shall find the Antuco Pass again, and I’m quite sure I can lead you to the foot of the mountain as straight as the best guide in the Cordilleras.”

Glenarvan settled accounts with the catapez, and bade farewell to him and his peons and mules. Weapons, instruments, and a small stock of provisions were divided among the seven travellers, and it was unanimously agreed that the ascent should recommence at once, and, if necessary, should continue into the night. There was a very steep winding path on the left, which the mules never would have attempted. It was toilsome work, but after two hours’ exertion and detours, the little party found themselves once more in the trail through Antuco Pass.

They were in the Andes proper, now, and not far now from the upper ridge of the Cordilleras, but the clear path petered out again. The entire region had been overturned by recent earthquakes, and all they could do was keep on climbing higher and higher. Paganel was rather disconcerted at finding no clear way out to the other side of the chain, and expected great hardships before the topmost peaks of the Andes could be crossed, for their mean height is between 11,000 and 12,600 feet. Fortunately the weather was calm, the sky clear, and the season favourable, but in winter, from May to October, such an ascent would have been impossible. The intense cold quickly kills travellers, and those who manage to hold out against it fall victims to the violence of the temporales, a sort of hurricane peculiar to these regions, which yearly fills the abysses of the Cordilleras with dead bodies.

They went on, toiling steadily upward through the night, hoisting themselves up to almost inaccessible plateaus, and leaping over broad, deep crevasses. They had no ropes, but arms linked in arms supplied the lack, and shoulders served for ladders. These intrepid men looked like a troop of acrobats competing in mad Icarian games. The strength of Mulrady and the dexterity of Wilson were taxed heavily now. These two brave Scots were worth a troop by themselves. But for their devotion and courage the small band could not have gone on. Glenarvan never let Robert out of his sight, for his youth and energy made him imprudent. Paganel on the other hand, advanced with a French fury. In contrast, The Major only went as quickly as was necessary, neither more nor less, climbing without any apparent exertion, as if he didn’t know that he was climbing at all, or perhaps he fancied himself descending.

At five o’clock in the morning, the travellers had reached a height of 7,500 feet

At five o’clock in the morning, the travellers had reached a height of 7,500 feet, determined by a barometric observation. They were on the secondary plateaus, approaching the tree line. The animals that lived there that would have made a hunter happy, or rich. These agile creatures knew it, too, for they fled from the approach of men. The llama: a valuable mountain camelid, that replaces sheep, oxen and horses, and lives where even mules would not go. The chinchilla: a small, gentle and fearful rodent, rich in fur, looking like a cross between a hare and a jerboa, and with hind legs like those of a kangaroo. Nothing was as charming as watching this light animal running across the tops of the trees like a squirrel. “It’s not a bird yet,” said Paganel, “but it’s no longer a quadruped.”

These animals were not the last inhabitants of the mountain, however. At 9,000 feet, on the edge of the perpetual snows, were ruminants of incomparable beauty, the alpaca, with long, silky fur. And then a sort of horned, elegant and proud goat, with fine wool, that naturalists have named the vicuña. But it was nigh impossible to approach it, and it was difficult to even glimpse it. They fled, swiftly and silently gliding on dazzling mats of whiteness.

The whole aspect of the region had changed completely. Huge blocks of glittering ice rose in ridges on all sides, glittering blue in the early light of day. The ascent became very perilous. No one moved without probing carefully for crevasses. Wilson took the lead, and tried the ground with his feet. His companions followed exactly in his footprints. They lowered their voices to a whisper, as the least sound could disturb the masses of snow suspended seven or eight hundred feet above their heads, and bring it down upon them in an avalanche.

They passed through a region of shrubs and bushes which, 250 fathoms higher gave way to grasses and cacti. At 11,000 feet even these hardy plants had abandoned the arid soil, and all trace of vegetation disappeared. They had only stopped once, at eight o’clock, to rest and snatch a hurried meal to restore their strength. With superhuman courage, they resumed their ascent amid ever increasing dangers. They were forced to mount sharp peaks and leap over chasms so deep that they did not dare to look down them. They followed a route marked out by wooden crosses, each bearing witness to some past tragedy.

An immense plateau … stretched out between gaunt peaks

About two o’clock they came to an immense plateau, without a sign of vegetation. A kind of desert stretched out between gaunt peaks. The air was dry and the sky deep, clear blue. At this elevation rain is unknown, and vapours only condense into snow or hail. Here and there peaks of porphyry or basalt pierced through the white shroud like the bones of a skeleton. Fragments of quartz or gneiss, loosened by the action of the air, fell at times with a faint, dull sound which was almost imperceptible in the sparse atmosphere.

Despite their courage, the little band was becoming exhausted. Glenarvan, seeing how tired his men had become, regretted having pressed so high into the mountains. Young Robert held out manfully, but he could not go much farther. At three o’clock Glenarvan stopped.

“We must rest,” he said, for he knew that if he did not propose it himself, no one else would.

“Rest?” asked Paganel. “But we have no place to shelter.”

“It is absolutely necessary, however, if only for Robert.”

“No, no, My Lord,” said the courageous child. “I can still walk. Don’t stop.”

“You shall be carried, my boy; but we must get to the other side of the Cordilleras, whatever the cost,” said Paganel. “There we may perhaps find some hut to cover us. All I ask is another two hours of walking.”

“Are you all of the same opinion?” asked Glenarvan.

“Yes,” was the unanimous reply.

“I’ll carry the boy,” said Mulrady.

They resumed the eastward march. It was another two hours of a frightening ascent to reach the highest peaks of the mountains. The rarefaction of the atmosphere produced that painful condition known as puna. Blood oozed from the gums and lips, from the lack of air pressure, and perhaps also under the influence of the snow, which at a great height vitiates the atmosphere. The lack of air made their inhalations more rapid, as they desperately tried to fill their lungs, which only tired them more quickly. The reflection of the sun off the snow blinded them. Whatever the will of these courageous men, the moment came when the most valiant fainted, and vertigo, that terrible mountain sickness, destroyed not only their physical strength, but also their determination. No one could fight with impunity against such fatigues. Soon the falls became frequent, and those who fell advanced only by crawling.

But just as exhaustion was about to make an end to any further ascent, and Glenarvan’s heart began to sink as he thought of the snow spreading out as far as the eye could reach, and of the intense cold, and saw the shadow of night fast overspreading the desolate peaks, and knew they had no roof to shelter them, suddenly the Major stopped, and spoke in a calm voice.

“A hut!”

Chapter XI | Index | Chapter XIII

Chapter XIII
Descent of the Cordillera

Anyone but MacNabbs might have passed beside, around, or even over the hut a hundred times without noticing it. It was covered in a carpet of snow, and scarcely distinguishable from the surrounding rocks. It had to be cleared, but after half an hour of hard work, Wilson and Mulrady succeeded in digging out the opening to the casucha and the little troop snuggled inside.

The casucha was an adobe cube, twelve feet on a side

This casucha had been built by the Indians from adobes: mud bricks baked in the sun. It was cube shaped, twelve feet on each side, and standing on a block of basalt. A stone stair led up to the door, the only opening, and narrow as this door was, the wind, snow, and hail found their way in when the temporales were unleashed in the mountains.

Ten people could easily fit inside it, and though the walls might be none too water-tight in the rainy season, at this time of the year, at any rate, it was sufficient protection against the intense cold, which, according to the thermometer, was ten degrees below zero¹. There was a sort of fireplace in it, with a chimney of bricks, badly enough put together, certainly, but it still allowed for a fire to be lit.

“This will be enough shelter,” said Glenarvan, “even if it is not very comfortable. Providence has led us here, and we can only be thankful.”

“I’d call it a perfect palace,” said Paganel. “We only lack the sentries and courtiers. We shall do capitally here.”

“Especially when we get a good fire blazing in the hearth,” said Tom Austin. “For we are colder than we are hungry, right now. For my part, I would rather see a good faggot than a slice of venison, just now.”

“Well, Tom, we’ll try and get something that will burn,” said Paganel.

Mulrady shook his head doubtfully. “Fuel on the top of the Cordilleras?”

“Since there is a chimney in the casucha,” said the Major, “it’s likely that we can find something to burn in it.”

“Our friend MacNabbs is right,” said Glenarvan. “Get everything ready for supper, and I’ll go out and turn lumberjack.”

“Wilson and I will go with you,” said Paganel.

“Do you want me?” asked Robert, getting up.

“No, my brave boy, rest yourself,” said Glenarvan. “You’ll be a man, when older people are still children.”

Glenarvan, Paganel, and Wilson left the casucha. It was six o’clock in the evening. In spite of the perfect calmness of the air, the cold was stinging. The blue of the sky was already darkening, and high peaks of the Andes mountains were lit by the last rays of the setting sun. Paganel, had brought his barometer; consulting it showed 495 millimetres of mercury. This corresponded to an elevation of 11,700 feet.² This region of the Cordilleras had an elevation only 4,100 feet³ lower than Mont Blanc. But if these mountains had the hazards with which the giant of Switzerland is bristling, if its blizzards had been unleashed against them, not one of the travellers would have survived the crossing of the great mountain chain of the New World.

On reaching a little mound of porphyry, Glenarvan and Paganel stopped to gaze about them and scan the horizon on all sides. They were now at the summit of the Cordilleras, and overlooked an area of 400 square miles⁴. To the east, the slopes descended in gentle ramps down which the peons would slide for several hundred yards at a time. In the distance, longitudinal streaks of stone and erratic blocks, pushed back by the sliding glaciers, formed immense lines of moraines. The valley of the Colorado was already lost in shadows from the setting sun. The relief of the ground, the projections of peaks and spires were disappearing as night was fast drawing her mantle over the eastern slopes of the Andes. The buttresses that supported the sheer walls of the western flanks of the mountains were illumined by the rays of the setting sun; the peaks and glaciers bathed in its radiance were a dazzling sight. Toward the north rippled a confusion of summits which blended together, like a trembling line drawn by an incompetent artist. But to the south the view was magnificent, and with the fading light, it was becoming more so. Across the wild valley of the Torbido, about two miles away, rose the volcano of Antuco. The mountain roared like the leviathan of Revelation, and vomited fiery smoke, mixed with torrents of sooty flame. The surrounding peaks appeared to be on fire. Showers of incandescent stones, clouds of reddish vapour and rockets of lava combined into sparkling streams. The apparent brightness increased from moment to moment, as daylight faded. A dazzling explosion filled this vast arena with its intense reverberations, while the sun, gradually stripped of its crepuscular rays, disappeared like a star extinguished in the shadows of the horizon.

Paganel and Glenarvan would have remained for a long time gazing at the magnificent struggle between the fires of earth and heaven if the more practical Wilson had not reminded them of the business at hand. There was no wood to be found, but the rocks were covered with a thin, dry species of lichen. They collected enough of this, as well as of a plant called yareta, whose root burns reasonably well. They brought this precious fuel back to the casucha and heaped it upon the hearth. The fire was difficult to light, and more difficult to keep burning. The air was so rarefied that there was scarcely enough oxygen in it to support combustion. At least, this was the reason assigned by the Major.

“On the other hand,” he added, “water will not need to be heated to one hundred degrees to boil. Those that want their coffee that hot will have to do without. At this height, water will boil at less than ninety degrees.”⁵

MacNabbs was right, as the thermometer proved, for it was plunged into the kettle when the water boiled, and the mercury only rose to 87. Coffee was soon ready, and eagerly gulped down by everyone. The dry meat seemed poor fare, and Paganel couldn’t help making a reasonable, yet impractical comment on it.

“Parbleu,” he said, “I wouldn’t mind some grilled llama. They say that llama is a good substitute for beef or mutton, and I would like learn if it is so for myself.”

“You’re not content with your supper, most learned Paganel?” asked the Major

“Enchanted with it, my brave Major; still I must confess I should not say ‘no’ to a dish of llama.”

“You are a sybarite.”

“Guilty as charged. But I’m sure that whatever you say, you wouldn’t object to a beefsteak yourself, would you?”

“Probably not.”

“And if you were asked to stand on watch all night in the cold and the darkness, you would do it without thinking?”

“Of course, if you want me to…”

MacNabbs’ companions had hardly time to thank him for his obliging good nature, when distant howls were heard. They went on for a long time, and were not the cries of a few animals, but those of an entire herd, approaching quickly. Paganel wondered if Providence was about to supply them with supper, after providing them with the hut. Glenarvan damped his optimism by pointing out that the herds of the Cordillera never ventured this high.

“Then where does the noise come from?” asked Tom Austin. “Don’t you hear them getting nearer!”

“An avalanche?” suggested Mulrady.

“Impossible,” said Paganel. “Those are real cries of animals.”

“Come,” said Glenarvan.

“And let’s go hunting,” said MacNabbs, who took his rifle.

They all rushed out of the casucha. Night had completely set in, dark and starry. The moon, now in her last quarter, had not yet risen. The peaks on the north and east had disappeared from view, and nothing was visible save the fantastic silhouette of some towering rocks here and there. The wails, clearly the cries of terrified animals, were redoubled. They came from the dark part of the Cordilleras. What could be going on there? Suddenly a furious avalanche arrived, an avalanche of living animals mad with fear. The whole plateau seemed to tremble. There were hundreds, perhaps thousands, of these animals, and in spite of the rarefied atmosphere, their noise was deafening. Were they wild beasts from the Pampas, or herds of llamas and vicuñas? Glenarvan, MacNabbs, Robert, Austin, and the two sailors just had time to throw themselves flat on the ground before the living whirlwind swept a few feet over them. Paganel, who, as a nyctalope, had remained standing to see better, was knocked down in the twinkling of an eye.

At the same moment the report of a firearm was heard. The Major had fired, and it seemed to him that an animal had fallen close by, while the whole herd, yelling louder than ever, had disappeared down the slopes lit by the reverberations of the volcano.

“Ah, I’ve got them,” said a voice: the voice of Paganel.

“Got what?” asked Glenarvan.

“My spectacles, parbleu! I wouldn’t have cared to lose them after such a tumult as this.”

“Are you hurt?”

“No, a little trampled, but by what?”

“By this,” said the Major, dragging the animal he had shot behind him.

They all hastened eagerly into the hut, to examine MacNabbs’ prize by the light of the fire.

It was a pretty creature, like a small camel without a hump. The head was small and the body flattened, the legs were long and slender, the skin fine, and the hair the colour of café au lait. The underside of its belly was spotted with white.

Paganel barely glanced at it. “A guanaco!”

“What sort of beast is a guanaco?” asked Glenarvan.

“One you can eat,” said Paganel.

“Is it good?”

“Tasty! A meal from Olympus! I knew we would have fresh meat for dinner, and such meat! But who is going to butcher the beast?”

“I will,” said Wilson.

“Then I will grill it,” said Paganel.

“Are you a cook, Monsieur Paganel?” asked Robert.

“Parbleu, my boy. I am French, and in every Frenchman there is always a cook.”

Five minutes later Paganel began to grill large slices of venison on the coals produced by the yareta’s root. Ten minutes later he served up to his companions this very appetizing meat, under the name of “guanaco cutlets.” No one stood on ceremony, but fell to with a hearty good will.

To the absolute stupefaction of the geographer, however, the first mouthful was greeted with a general grimace, accompanied by a “pouah!”

This was followed by a chorus of “It is horrible!” “It’s inedible!”

The poor scientist, whatever may be, was obliged to admit that this barbecue could not be enjoyed, even by hungry men. They began to banter about his “Olympian dish,” and indulge in jokes at his expense, which he did not contradict. All he cared about was to find out how it was that the flesh of the guanaco — which was reputed to be such good and edible food — had turned out so badly in his hands, when a sudden thought occurred to him.

“Eh parbleu!” he cried. “Of course! I have it!”

“The meat was too old, was it?” asked MacNabbs, quietly.

“No, parochial Major, but the meat had worked too much. How could I have forgotten that?”

“What do you mean?” asked Tom Austin.

“I mean this that the guanaco is only good for eating when it is killed in a state of rest. If it has been long hunted, and run a long way before it is captured, it is no longer edible. I can affirm the fact by the mere taste, that this animal has come a great distance, and consequently the whole herd has.”

“You are certain of this?” asked Glenarvan.

“Absolutely certain.”

“But what could have frightened the creatures so, and driven them from their haunts, when they ought to have been quietly sleeping?”

“That is a question, my dear Glenarvan, I could not possibly answer. Take my advice, and let us go to sleep without troubling our heads about it. For my part, I am very tired. I say, Major, shall we go to sleep?”

“Yes, we’ll go to sleep, Paganel.”

Each one, thereupon, wrapped himself up in his poncho, and the fire was banked for the night. Loud snores in every tune and key soon resounded from all sides of the hut, the deep bass contribution of Paganel completing the harmony.

But Glenarvan could not sleep. Uneasiness kept him in a continual state of wakefulness. His thoughts reverted involuntarily to those frightened animals flying in one common direction, impelled by one common terror. They could not be pursued by wild beasts, for at such an elevation there were scarcely any, and of hunters still fewer. What terror could have driven them toward Antuco’s abysses? Glenarvan felt a premonition of approaching danger.

But gradually he fell into a half-sleeping state, and his fears gave way to hope. He saw himself on the morrow on the plains of the Andes, where the search would actually commence, and perhaps success was close at hand. He thought of Captain Grant and his two sailors, and their deliverance from cruel bondage. As these images passed rapidly through his mind, every now and then he was roused by the crackling of the fire, or sparks flying out, or some little jet of flame would suddenly flare up and illuminate the faces of his slumbering companions. Then his premonitions came back with more intensity, and he listened anxiously to the sounds outside the hut.

At times he thought he could hear distant growls, rumbling noises in the distance, dull and threatening like the mutterings of thunder before a storm. Here, those sounds could only be a storm raging down below at the foot of the mountains. He got up and went out to see.

The moon was rising. The air was pure and calm. Not a cloud visible either above or below. Here and there was a passing reflection from the flames of Antuco, but there was neither storm nor lightning, and myriads of bright stars glittered overhead. Still the rumbling noises continued. They seemed to be getting closer and running through the Andean range. Glenarvan returned to the casucha more worried than ever, wondering what the connection could be between these sounds and the flight of the guanacos. He looked at his watch and found it was about two o’clock. Not being certain of any immediate danger, he did not wake his companions, whom fatigue held fast asleep, and after a little, dozed off himself, and slumbered heavily for some hours.

A violent crash made him start to his feet, a deafening noise like the roar of artillery. He felt the ground giving way beneath him, and the casucha rocked, and crumbled around them.

He shouted to his companions, but they were already awake, and tumbling pell-mell over each other to escape the collapsing hut. They were being rapidly drawn down a steep slope. Day dawned and revealed a terrible scene. The shape of the mountains was changing. Cones were cut off. Tottering peaks disappeared as if some hatch had opened under their base. Because of a peculiar phenomenon of the Cordilleras,⁶ a massif, many miles wide, had been displaced entirely, and was sliding down toward the plain.

“An earthquake!” yelled Paganel.

The plateau rushed down the slope with the speed of an express

He was not wrong. It was one of those frequent cataclysms on the mountainous edge of Chile. It was in this region where Copiapó had been destroyed twice, and Santiago laid in ruins four times in fourteen years. This region of the globe is so underlaid with volcanic fires, and the volcanoes in this chain insufficient safety valves for the subterranean vapours, that shocks known as tremblores are a frequent occurrence.

The plateau to which the seven stunned and terrified men were clinging, holding on by tufts of lichen, was rushing down the slope with the swiftness of an express, at the rate of fifty miles an hour. Not a cry was possible, nor an attempt to get off or stop. They could not even have heard themselves scream. The internal rumblings, the crash of the avalanches, the clash of masses of granite and basalt, and the whirlwind of pulverized snow, made all communication impossible. Sometimes the massif went perfectly smoothly without jolts or jerks; sometimes it would reel and roll like a ship in a storm. It ran alongside abysses into which fragments of the plateau fell away. It tore up trees by the roots, and levelled, with the precision of an immense scythe, every projection of the eastern slope.

One wonders at the power of a mass weighing several billion tons, hurtling with ever-increasing speed down a slope at an angle of fifty degrees.

How long this indescribable descent would last, no one could calculate; nor what abyss it ultimately would end in. None of the party knew whether all the rest were still alive, or whether one or another were already lying in the depths of some abyss. Stunned by the speed of the descent, frozen by the cold air which pierced through their clothing, blinded with the whirling snow, they gasped for breath. Exhausted and nearly unconscious, they clung to the rocks by a powerful instinct of self-preservation.

The Major picked himself up

A shock of incomparable violence suddenly tore them from their grip on their slippery vehicle. They were thrown forward and rolled to a stop at the foot of the mountain. The plateau had stopped dead.

For some minutes no one stirred. At last one picked himself up, and stood on his feet, stunned by the shock, but still firm on his legs: the Major. He shook off the dust that blinded him and looked around. His companions lay in a close circle like the lead pellets from a shotgun, piled one on top of another.

The Major counted them. All except one lay on the ground around him. The one missing was Robert Grant.

1. 14° Fahrenheit — DAS

2. 3,570 metres — DAS

3. 1,250 metres — DAS

Verne’s original French text has them 910 metres below the elevation of Mont Blanc. I adjusted the numbers to make them consistent with the true height of that mountain. — DAS

4. Verne has 40 square miles, but you can see that large an area from on top of a small hill. — DAS

5. The boiling point of water lowers by about 1 degree for every 325 metres of elevation.

6. An almost identical phenomenon occurred on the flanks of Mont Blanc in 1820, in a terrible disaster that killed three guides from Chamonix.

Verne appears to be referring to the Hamel Accident, of 1820 which killed three climbers on Mont Blanc in an avalanche with very little resemblance to what he describes happening to the Glenarvan party — DAS.

Chapter XII | Index | Chapter XIV

Chapter XIV
The Gunshot of Providence

The eastern side of the Cordilleras of the Andes consists of a series of long slopes, that blend down almost imperceptibly into the plain on which the portion of the massif had suddenly stopped. In this new country, the soil is carpeted in rich pasture, and bristling with magnificent trees. Many of these were forests of apple trees, planted during the European conquest, and sparkling with golden fruit. It was as if a corner of Normandy had been transplanted to this plateau. The sudden transition from a desert to an oasis, from snowy peaks to verdant plains, from winter to summer, could’t fail to strike the traveller’s eye.

The ground, moreover, had recovered its immobility. The earthquake had subsided, though there was little doubt the subterranean forces were carrying on their devastating work further on, for the Andes are never entirely free from earthquakes. This time the shock had been extremely violent. The outline of the mountains was wholly altered. A new panorama of peaks, ridges, and pinnacles was outlined against the blue background of the sky, and a Pampas guide would have vainly searched it for his accustomed landmarks.

A magnificent day had dawned. The sun was just emerging from its oceanic bed. It had glided beneath the continent and was now rising from the Atlantic. Its bright rays streamed over the Argentinian plains. It was eight o’clock in the morning.

Lord Glenarvan and his companions, revived by the Major’s efforts, gradually came back to life. They were all dizzy, and disoriented, but had sustained no serious injury. They had come down the Cordilleras, and would have applauded how rapidly they had reached the plain, if only the smallest and weakest member of their party, Robert Grant, hadn’t been missing from the roll call.

The brave boy was beloved by everybody. Paganel was particularly attached to him, and so was the Major, for all his apparent coldness. As for Glenarvan, he was desperate when he heard of his disappearance, and pictured the child lying in some deep abyss, wildly crying for help from his second father.

Glenarvan could barely restrain his tears. “My friends! We must look for him. We must look until we find him! We cannot leave him to his fate. Every valley, precipice and abyss must be searched thoroughly. I will be tied with a rope, and go down myself. I insist upon it, you understand, I insist upon it! Heaven grant Robert may be still alive! If we lose the boy, how could we ever dare to meet the father? What right have we to save the captain at the cost of his son’s life?”

Glenarvan’s companions listened to him in silence. They knew that he was looking to them for reassurance that Robert would be found alive, but none of them felt any hope of it.

“Well, you heard me,” said Glenarvan. “What do you have to say? Do you mean to tell me that you have no hope — not the slightest?”

Again there was silence, until MacNabbs asked “Can any of you remember when Robert disappeared?”

No one could say.

“At least,” said the Major, “can one of you tell be who the child was beside during our descent of the Cordilleras?”

“Beside me,” said Wilson.

“Very well. How long did you see him near you? Try to remember.”

“All that I can recollect is that Robert Grant was still by my side, holding fast by a tuft of lichen, less than two minutes before the shock which finished our descent.”

“Less than two minutes? Are you certain? I dare say a minute seemed a very long time to you. Are you sure you are not making a mistake?”

“I don’t think I am. No; it was less than two minutes.”

“Good!” said MacNabbs. “And was Robert to your right or your left?”

“On my left. I remember his poncho whipping past my face.”

“And where were you, with respect to the rest of us?”

“On the left also.”

“So Robert must have disappeared on this side,” said the Major, turning toward the mountain and pointing toward his right. “And considering the time that has elapsed since his disappearance, that the spot where he fell is about two miles up. That is where we must search, dividing the different zones among us, and that’s where we’ll find him.”

Not another word was spoken. The six men commenced their search, keeping constantly to the line they had made in their descent, examining closely every fissure, and going into the very depths of the abysses, choked up though they partly were with fragments of the plateau; and more than one came out again with their clothes torn to rags, and feet and hands bleeding. For long hours they scrupulously searched all this portion of the Andes, with the exception of a few inaccessible crags, without any thought of resting. But it was all in vain. It seemed that the child had not only found his death on the mountain, but also been sealed forever in a stone tomb.

About one o’clock, Glenarvan and his defeated companions met again at the bottom of the valley. Glenarvan was completely crushed with grief. He scarcely spoke. The only words that escaped his lips amid his sighs were “I shall not leave! I shall not leave!”

Every one of the party understood his feelings, and shared them.

“Let us wait,” said Paganel to the Major and Tom Austin. “We will take a little rest, to restore our strength. We need it either way, whether to stay and search some more, or to continue our journey.”

“Yes,” said MacNabbs, “and we will stay, since Edward wishes to stay. He still has hope, but what is it he hopes for?”

“God knows!” said Tom Austin.

Paganel brushed away a tear. “Poor Robert!”

The valley was thickly wooded, and the Major chose a clump of tall carob trees under which they made their temporary camp. All they had remaining were a few blankets, weapons, and a little dried meat and rice. Not far off there was a river, which supplied them with water, though it was still somewhat muddy after the disturbance of the avalanche. Mulrady soon had a fire lit on the grass, and a warm and comforting drink to offer his master. But Glenarvan refused to touch it, and lay stretched prostrate on his poncho.

So the day passed, and night came on, calm and peaceful as the preceding had been. While his companions were lying motionless, though wide awake, Glenarvan ascended once more the slopes of the Cordilleras, listening intently in hope that some cry for help reach him. He ventured high and alone, sometimes placing his ear to the ground, straining to hear anything between the beats of his own heart. He called out in a desperate voice.

He wandered all night in the mountains. Sometimes the Major followed him, and sometimes Paganel, ready to lend a helping hand among the slippery peaks and dangerous chasms into which his recklessness drew him. All his efforts were in vain, and the only response to his repeated cries of “Robert! Robert!” was an echo.

Day dawned, and it was necessary to drag Glenarvan back to the camp from the distant plateaus, in spite of himself. His despair was terrible. None would dare speak to him of departing from this fatal valley. Yet their provisions were exhausted, and the Argentinian guides and horses promised by the catapez to take them across the Pampas were not far off. Backtracking would be more difficult than going forward. Besides, the Duncan would be waiting in the Atlantic. These were strong reasons against any long delay; indeed it was best for all parties to continue the journey as soon as possible.

MacNabbs undertook the task of rousing Lord Glenarvan from his grief. For a long time he spoke without his friend seeming to hear him. At last Glenarvan shook his head, and said, almost inaudibly.

“Go?”

“Yes! Go.”

“Another hour!”

“Yes, we’ll search another hour,” said the worthy Major.

When the hour had passed, Glenarvan begged again for another hour. He sounded like a convict begging for a delay of his execution. They continued like this until noon. MacNabbs and the rest agreed that they could delay no longer. All of their lives depended on setting out at once.

“Yes, yes!” replied Glenarvan. “Let’s go! Let’s go!”

But he spoke without looking at MacNabbs. His gaze was fixed intently on a certain dark speck in the heavens.

“There! There!” Glenarvan extended an arm, pointing to the sky. “Look! Look!”

All eyes turned turned toward the sky in the direction indicated so imperiously. The dark speck was growing. It was a large bird hovering high above them.

“A condor,” said Paganel.

“Yes, a condor,” said Glenarvan. “Who knows? It is coming down. It is getting lower! Let us wait.”

What did Glenarvan hope? Did his reason go astray? “Who knows?” he had said.

Paganel was correct. It was a condor, and getting closer every moment. This magnificent bird, once revered by the Incas, is the king of the southern Andes. It attains an extraordinary size, and prodigious strength in those regions. It has often driven oxen into the depths of chasms. It attacks sheep, colts, and young calves browsing on the plains, and carries them off to inaccessible heights. It is not uncommon for it to hover twenty thousand feet above the ground, far beyond human reach, and it could discern the smallest objects on the ground beneath it. The power of its vision astonished naturalists.

The condor’s spiral path was converging on an inaccessible crag

What had this condor discovered then? Could it be the corpse of Robert Grant? “Who knows?” repeated Glenarvan, keeping his eyes fixed on the bird. The enormous creature was fast approaching, sometimes hovering, and sometimes plummeting like a stone. Presently it began to wheel around in wide circles, less than a hundred fathoms from the ground. They could see it distinctly. It had a wingspan of more than fifteen feet, and its powerful wings bore it along without beating, for it is the prerogative of large birds to fly with calm majesty, while insects have to beat their wings a thousand times a second.

The Major and Wilson had seized their rifles, but Glenarvan stopped them with a gesture. The condor’s spiral path was converging on an inaccessible crag about a quarter of a mile up the side of the mountain. It wheeled round and round with dizzying speed, opening and closing its formidable claws, and shaking his cartilaginous crest.

“He’s there, there!” yelled Glenarvan.   

A sudden thought flashed across his mind.

“What if Robert’s still alive?” he cried. “The bird! Fire my friends! Fire!”

But it was too late. The condor had dropped out of sight behind the crags. Only a second passed, a second that seemed an age, and the enormous bird reappeared, flying slowly under the burden of a heavy load.

The condor had seized Robert by his clothes

A cry of horror rose on all sides. It was a human body the condor had in his claws, dangling in the air, and apparently lifeless — it was Robert Grant. The bird had seized him by his clothes, and was already one hundred and fifty feet in the air. It had caught sight of the travellers, and was flapping its wings violently, endeavouring to escape with its heavy prey.

“Argh!” cried Glenarvan. “It would be better that Robert were dashed to pieces against the rocks, rather than be a—”

He did not finish his sentence, but seizing Wilson’s rifle, took aim at the condor. His arms were trembling too badly, to draw a steady aim.

“Let me do it,” said the Major.

And with a calm eye, and sure hands and motionless body, he aimed at the bird, now three hundred feet above him in the air.

But before he had pulled the trigger the report of a gun resounded from the bottom of the valley. White smoke rose from between two masses of basalt, and the condor, shot in the head, began to fall, spinning, its great wings spread out like a parachute. It had not let go its prey, but gently sank down with it to the ground, about ten paces from the stream.

“We’ve got him, we’ve got him,” shouted Glenarvan; and without waiting to see where the providential shot had come from, he rushed toward the condor, followed by his companions.

When they reached the spot the bird was dead, and Robert’s body was concealed beneath its broad wings. Glenarvan flung himself on the corpse of the boy, tore it from the condor’s grasp, placed it flat on the grass, and knelt down and put his ear to his chest.

It had not let go of its prey

But a wilder cry of joy never broke from human lips, than Glenarvan uttered the next moment, as he jumped to his feet.

“He’s alive! He’s still alive!”

The boy’s clothes were stripped off in an instant, and his face bathed with cold water. He moved slightly, opened his eyes, looked round and murmured, “Oh, My Lord! It’s you!” he said. “My father!”

Glenarvan could not reply. Emotion suffocated him. He knelt down weeping, beside the child so miraculously saved.

Chapter XIII | Index | Chapter XV

Chapter XV
Jacques Paganel’s Spanish

Robert had no sooner escaped one terrible danger than he ran the risk of another scarcely less formidable. He was almost crushed by the hugs of his friends, who were so overjoyed at the sight of him, that in spite of his weak state, none of them would be satisfied without giving him an embrace. However, it seems that good rough hugging does not hurt sick people; at any rate it did not hurt Robert, but quite the contrary.

But when the first joy of Robert’s deliverance was past, the next thought was for the deliverer. Of course it was the Major who looked around first. Fifty paces from the river a very tall man was standing motionless on the lowest crags at the foot of the mountain. He was resting the butt of his long gun on the ground.

The Patagonian, Thalcave

He had broad shoulders, and long hair bound together with leather thongs. He was over six feet tall. His bronzed face was red between the eyes and mouth, black by the lower eyelids, and white on the forehead. Dressed in the manner of the Patagonians of the frontiers, he wore a splendid cloak, ornamented with scarlet arabesques, made of the underside skins of the guanaco, sewn together with rhea¹ tendons, and with the silky wool turned outward. Under this mantle was a garment of fox-skin, fastened around the waist, and coming down to a point in front. A little bag hung from his belt, containing the colours he used for painting his face. His boots were made from ox hide, fastened around the ankles by crossed straps.

This Patagonian had a splendid face, indicating real intelligence, despite the mixture of colours that decorated it. His waiting pose was full of dignity; indeed, to see him standing, grave and motionless on his pedestal of rocks, one might have taken him for a statue of self control.

As soon as the Major saw him, he pointed him out to Glenarvan, who ran to him. The Patagonian came two steps forward to meet him, and Glenarvan caught hold of his hand and pressed it in his own. It was impossible to mistake the meaning of the action, for the face of the Scottish lord so beamed with gratitude that no words were needed. The stranger bowed slightly in return, and said a few words that neither Glenarvan nor the Major could understand.

Seeing their lack of comprehension, the Patagonian spoke again in another language. But this second idiom was no more intelligible than the first. Certain words, however, caught Glenarvan’s ear as sounding like Spanish, of which he knew a few phrases.

Español?” he asked.

The Patagonian nodded in reply, a movement of the head which has an affirmative significance among all people.

“That’s good!” said the Major. “Our friend Paganel will be the very man for him. It is lucky for us that he took it into his head to learn Spanish.”

Paganel was called. He came at once, and saluted the stranger with all the grace of a Frenchman. But his compliments were lost on the Patagonian, for he did not understand a single syllable. The learned geographer was made aware of the situation.

“Perfect,” he said. He opened his mouth wide to better enunciate the words.

“Vos sois um homen de bem!.”² The native listened, but made no reply.

“He doesn’t understand,” said the geographer.

“Perhaps you haven’t the right accent,” said the Major.

“That’s just it! Diable d’accent!”

Once more Paganel repeated his compliment, but with no better success.

“I’ll change the phrase,” he said, and in slow, deliberate tones he went on, “Sem duvida, um patagâo.”³

Still no response.

“Dizeime!”⁴ said Paganel.

But no answer came.

“Vos compriendeis?”⁵ shouted Paganel, at the very top of his voice, as if he would burst his throat.

Evidently the Indian did not understand, for he replied in Spanish,

“No comprendo.”⁶

It was Paganel’s turn now to be amazed. He pushed his spectacles right down over his nose, as if greatly irritated, and said “I’ll be hanged if I can make out one word of his infernal patois. It is Araucanían, that’s certain!”

“No,” said Glenarvan. “He certainly answered in Spanish.” And turning to the Patagonian, he repeated the word, “Español?”

“Si, si!”⁷ replied the Indian.

Paganel’s surprise became absolute stupefaction. The Major and Glenarvan looked at each other out of the corners of their eyes.

“Ah, my learned friend.” A half smile was drawn to MacNabbs’ lips. “Is this another of your misadventures? You seem to have quite a monopoly of them.”

“What!” said Paganel, pricking up his ear.

“Yes, it’s clear enough the man speaks Spanish.”

“Him!”

“Yes, he certainly speaks Spanish. Perhaps it is some other language you have been studying all this time instead of—”

But Paganel would not allow him to proceed. He squared his shoulders, and said stiffly “You go a little too far, Major.”

“Well, how is it that you don’t understand him then?”

“I do not understand him, because the man speaks badly,” said the learned geographer, who was beginning to grow impatient

“That is to say, he speaks badly, because you can’t understand him,” returned the Major calmly.

“Come, come, MacNabbs,” said Glenarvan, “your supposition is quite inadmissible. However absent minded our friend Paganel is, we can not assume that his distraction went so far as learning one language for another!”

“Then, my dear Edward, or rather you, my brave Paganel, explain to me what is going on here.”

“I explain nothing.” said Paganel. “Here is the book I use daily, to practice the difficulties of the Spanish language. Examine it for yourself, Major, and see if I am mistaken!”

That said, Paganel fumbled in his many pockets. After a few minutes of searching, he drew out a volume in very bad condition, and presented it with an assured air. The major took the book and looked at it.

“And what’s the name of this book?” asked the Major.

“These are the Lusiades,⁸ an admirable epic, which—”

“The Lusiades!” exclaimed Glenarvan.

“Yes, my friend, the Lusiades of the great Camões, neither more nor less.”

“Camões!” repeated Glenarvan; “but Paganel, my unfortunate fellow, Camões was Portuguese! It is Portuguese you have been studying for the last six weeks!”

“Camões! Lusiades! Portuguese!” Paganel could not say more. His eyes flickered beneath his glasses, while a Homeric burst of laughter sounded in his ears from his companions around him.

The Patagonian did not stare; he waited patiently for an explanation of an incident absolutely incomprehensible to him.

“I'm a fool! An idiot!” said Paganel. “Is it really a fact? You are not joking with me? Is that what I have actually been doing? Why, it is a second confusion of tongues, like Babel. Ah, my friends, my friends, what is to become of me? To start for India and arrive in Chile! To learn Spanish and talk Portuguese! Why, if I go on like this, some day I shall be throwing myself out of the window instead of my cigar!”

To hear Paganel bemoan his misadventures and see his comical discomfiture, would have made anyone laugh. Besides, he set the example himself. “Laugh away, my friends, laugh as loud as you like; you can’t laugh at me half as much as I laugh at myself!” And he uttered the greatest laugh to ever come out of a scientist’s mouth.

“But, I say,” said the Major, after a minute, “this doesn’t alter the fact that we have no interpreter.”

“Oh, don’t distress yourself about that,” said Paganel, “Portuguese and Spanish are so much alike that I made a mistake; but this very resemblance will be a great help toward rectifying it. In a very short time I shall be able to thank the Patagonian in the language he speaks so well.”

Paganel was right. He soon managed to exchange a few words with the stranger, and even found out that his name was Thalcave, a word that meant “The Thunderer” in Araucanían. This nickname had, no doubt, come from his skill in handling firearms.

But what rejoiced Glenarvan most was to learn that he was a guide by occupation, and, moreover, a guide across the Pampas. To his mind, the meeting with him was so providential, that he could not doubt now of the success of their enterprise. The deliverance of Captain Grant seemed an accomplished fact.

When the party went back to Robert, the boy held out his arms to the Patagonian, who silently laid his hand on his head, and proceeded to examine him with the greatest care, gently feeling each of his aching limbs. Then he went down to the river, and gathered a few handfuls of wild celery, which grew on the banks, with which he rubbed the patient’s body. Under this massage, done with infinite delicacy, the child felt his strength return, and it was obvious that a few hours of rest would be enough to set him right.

It was decided that the rest of the day and the following night would be spent at the camp. Two important questions had to be settled: where to get food, and transport. Provisions and mules were both lacking. Fortunately, they had Thalcave. This guide, accustomed to taking travellers along the Patagonian frontiers, and one of the most intelligent baqueanos in the country, undertook to supply Glenarvan with all that was missing from his little troop. He offered to take him to a tolderia of Indians, four miles off at most, where he could get everything they needed. This proposition was partly made by gestures, and partly by a few Spanish words which Paganel managed to make out. His offer was accepted, and Glenarvan and his learned friend started off with him at once.

Overhead, hundreds of birds were chasing each other around the sky, rending the air with their shrieks

They walked at a good pace for an hour and a half, and had to make great strides to keep up with the giant Thalcave. The path lay through a beautiful fertile region, abounding in rich pastures; where a hundred thousand cattle might have fed comfortably. Large ponds, connected by an intricate labyrinth of rivers, amply watered these plains and produced their greenness. Black-headed swans whirled capriciously in the water, disputing possession with the numerous rheas which gambolled over the llanos. The brilliantly plumed and feathered tribes came in a marvellous variety and made a deafening noise. The isacus — a graceful sort of dove with grey feathers streaked with white — and the yellow cardinals were flitting about in the trees like living flowers. Overhead, pigeons, sparrows, chingolos, jilgueros, and monjitas were chasing each other around the sky, rending the air with their shrieks.

Jacques Paganel walked from wonder to wonder, and he had nearly exhausted his vocabulary of adjectives in his loud exclamations, to the astonishment of the Patagonian, who thought it quite natural that there were birds in the air, swans on the ponds, and grass in the meadows. The learned geographer was so lost in delight, that it seemed to him that they had hardly started before they came in sight of the Indian camp.

The tolderia occupied a narrow valley between the foothills of the Andes. About thirty nomadic Indians were living there in huts made of branches, pasturing immense herds of cows, sheep, oxen, and horses. They went from one pasture to another, always finding a well-spread table for their four-footed guests.

These nomads were a hybrid type of Araucans, Pehuenches, and Aucas. These Ando-Peruvians, had olive skin, medium stature and massive form, with a low forehead, almost circular face, thin lips, high cheek-bones, effeminate features, and cold countenance. They would not have offered to the eyes of an anthropologist the character of the pure races. In short, they were uninteresting natives. However, it was their herds Glenarvan wanted, not themselves. As long as he could get beef and horses, he asked for nothing else.

Thalcave did the bargaining

Thalcave did the bargaining. It did not take long. In exchange for seven little Argentinian horses, all harnessed, a hundred pounds of charqui, or dried meat, some measures of rice, and leather bottles for water, the Indians agreed to take twenty ounces of gold⁹ as they could not get wine or rum, which they would have preferred — though they were perfectly acquainted with the value of gold. Glenarvan wished to purchase an eighth horse for the Patagonian, but he gave him to understand that it was not necessary.

When the bargain was done, Glenarvan took leave of his new “suppliers,” as Paganel put it, and returned to the camp in less than half an hour. His arrival was hailed with acclamations by the whole party or rather the provisions and horses were. They were all hungry, and ate heartily. Robert took a little food with the rest. He was fast recovering strength.

The close of the day was spent in rest, and conversation. They spoke a little bit about everything: their dear loved ones back on the Duncan, Captain John Mangles and his crew. And they spoke of Harry Grant, who was perhaps not as far away.

Paganel never left the Indian’s side. It was not that he was so glad to see a real Patagonian, beside whom he looked like a dwarf — a Patagonian who might have almost rivalled the Emperor Maximii, and that Congo negro seen by the learned Van der Brock, both eight feet tall — but he caught up Spanish phrases from the Indian and studied the language without a book this time, gesticulating at a great rate all the grand sonorous words that fell on his ear.

“If I have an unusual accent,” he said to the Major, “it won’t be my fault. But if someone had told me that it would be a Patagonian who would teach me Spanish one day, I wouldn't have believed him!”

1. Verne has "ostrich" here, but those birds aren't found in South America. — DAS

2. You are a brave man!

3. A Patagonian, no doubt.

4. Answer me!

5. Do you understand?

6. I do not understand.

7. Yes, yes!

8. The Lusiades by Luís Vaz de Camões is an epic poem celebrating the discovery of a sea route around Africa to India by Vasco de Gama. — DAS

9. 1,630 francs. (325 dollars — DAS)

Chapter XIV | Index | Chapter XVI

Chapter XVI
Rio Colorado

Next day, the 22nd of October, at eight o’clock in the morning, Thalcave gave the signal for departure. Between the 22nd and 42nd degrees the Argentinian ground slopes eastward, and all the travellers had to do was to follow the gentle incline down to the sea.

When the Patagonian had refused Glenarvan’s offer of a horse, he had supposed that it was because Thalcave preferred to walk, as some guides do, but this turned out not to be the case.

When they were ready to set out the Patagonian gave a peculiar hissing whistle, and a magnificent Argentinian bay mare¹ came bounding out of a grove close by. The animal was a perfect beauty; proud; brave and spirited; her lively head tossed, her nostrils flared, her eyes were bright; she had wide legs, good withers, a high chest, and long pasterns: all the qualities that make for strength and flexibility in a horse. The Major, a connoisseur of horses, admired this specimen of the Pampean breed without reservation, and considered that, in many respects, it greatly resembled an English hunter. This splendid creature was named “Thaouka,” which means “bird” in Patagonian, and she was well named.

When Thalcave was in the saddle, his horse leaped beneath him. The Patagonian was a consummate rider, magnificent to see. His recado saddle had two of the hunting weapons commonly used on the Argentinian plains mounted to it: the bolas and the lasso. The bolas consists of three balls fastened together by a leather strap, attached to the front of the recado. The Indians will often fling it a hundred paces or more at an animal or enemy they are pursuing, and with such precision that they wrap around their legs and knock them down in an instant. It is a formidable weapon, that they handle with surpassing skill. The lasso on the other hand, is always retained in the hand. It is simply a rope, thirty feet long, made of tightly twisted leather, with a slip knot at the end, which passes through an iron ring. This noose was thrown with the right hand, while the left holds the rope, the other end of the rope is fastened to the saddle. A long rifle, with a shoulder strap completed the weapons of the Patagonian.

Thalcave, without noticing the admiration produced by his natural grace, his ease, and his proud carelessness, took the head of the troop. They set off, sometimes going at a gallop, sometimes a walk, for the trot seemed to be unknown to these horses. Robert proved to be a bold rider, and completely reassured Glenarvan as to his ability to keep his seat.

The Pampas begin at the very foot of the Cordilleras. They can be divided into three parts. The first extends from the chain of the Andes, and stretches 250 miles covered with low trees and bushes; the second 450 miles is clothed with magnificent grasslands, and stops about 180 miles from Buenos Aires; The third part of the Pampas stretches from this point to the sea, where the traveller’s footsteps trod over immense prairies of alfalfa and thistles.

Dust-devils of the medanos

On leaving the gorges of the Cordilleras, Glenarvan and his band first encountered plains of sand dunes, called medanos, lying in ridges like waves on the sea, and moving with the wind where not secured by the roots of plants. The sand was so extremely fine that the slightest breeze picked up the light particles, and sent them flying in clouds that rose in dust-devils of considerable height. It was a spectacle which caused both pleasure and pain for the eyes. Nothing could be more extraordinary than to see these whirlwinds wandering over the plain, colliding and mingling with each other, or falling and rising in wild confusion. On the other hand, nothing could be more disagreeable than the dust which was thrown off of these innumerable medanos, which was so fine that it even found its way through closed eyelids.

This phenomenon lasted the greater part of the day, driven by a strong north wind. Nevertheless, they made good progress, and by six o’clock the Cordilleras lay a full forty miles behind them, their dark outlines almost lost in the evening mists.

They were all somewhat fatigued with the journey, and glad enough to halt for the night on the banks of the Rio Neuquén, a troubled torrent flowing between high red cliffs. The Neuquén is called Ramid, or Comoe by certain geographers and its source was known only to the Indians.

They rode quickly over the firm ground

That night, and the next morning passed without any noteworthy incidents. They rode well and fast. The firm ground, and moderate temperature made for trouble-free progress. The afternoon grew warmer, the sun’s rays became scorching, and when evening came, a bar of clouds streaked the southwestern horizon, a symptom of a change in the weather. The Patagonian pointed it out to the geographer.

“Yes, I know,” said Paganel. He turned to his companions. “See, a change of weather is coming! We are going to have a taste of pampero.”

He explained that this pampero is very common in the Argentinian plains. It is an extremely dry southwest wind.

Thalcave was right, for the pampero blew violently all night, making things very uncomfortable for men sheltered only by their ponchos. The horses lay on the ground, and the men stretched themselves beside them in a close group. Glenarvan was afraid they would be delayed if this hurricane continued, but Paganel reassured him, after consulting his barometer.

“The pampero generally brings a storm which lasts three days, and may be always foretold by the depression of the mercury,” he said. “But when the barometer rises — and it is — all we should expect is a few violent blasts. So you can make your mind easy, my good friend; by sunrise the sky will be quite clear again.”

“You talk like a book, Paganel,” said Glenarvan.

“And I am one; and what’s more, you are welcome to browse through me whenever you like.”

The book was right. At one o’clock in the morning the wind calmed, and the weary men fell asleep. They awoke at daybreak, refreshed and invigorated. Paganel stretched and cracked his joints with a joyous noise like a puppy.

It was the 24th of October, and the tenth day since they had left Talcahuano. They were still ninety-three miles² from the point where the Rio Colorado crosses the 37th parallel, about three days’ journey. Glenarvan kept a sharp lookout for any Indians, hoping to question them about Captain Grant through Thalcave, as Paganel was beginning to be able to communicate well enough with him. But the track they were following was little used by the natives. The Pampas roads between the Argentinian Republic and the Cordilleras were to the north of them. They also didn’t come across any wandering Indians or sedentary tribes living under the law of the caciques. If by chance some nomadic horseman came in sight in the distance, he fled quickly, not caring to talk with strangers. Such a troop must have seemed suspicious to anyone who ventured in the plain. Small bandit bands would consider a group of eight well armed and mounted men too dangerous to attempt to rob, and any lone honest traveller in these deserted lands would see them as potential bandits, so it was impossible to approach either honest men, or bandits. Glenarvan also would have preferred being at the head of a band of rastreadores³ if any conversation might begin with rifle shots.

However much, in the interests of his search, Glenarvan might have regretted the absence of Indians, an incident soon occurred which amply justified his interpretation of the document.

The road from Carmen to Mendoza

Several times the expedition’s route cut across other trails of the Pampas, among them the road from Carmen to Mendoza. The road was demarcated by the bones of domestic animals: mules, horses, sheep and oxen, that bordered it with their remains disintegrating under the beaks of birds of prey, and bleached by the sun. There were thousands of them, and no doubt more than a few human skeletons confusing their dust with the dust of the humblest animals.

Until then, Thalcave had made no observations on the route strictly followed by the party. He understood that the path they followed would not bring them in contact with any town, village, or settlement of the Argentinian Pampas. Every morning they set out straight toward the rising sun, travelled through the day without deviating from that line, and every evening the sun set directly to their west. It must have struck Thalcave that instead of being the guide he was the guided. If he was astonished by this, his natural reserve kept him from commenting on it, but on reaching this road, he stopped his horse.

“The Carmen road,” he said to Paganel.

“Yes, my brave Patagonian,” replied Paganel in his best Spanish. “the route from Carmen to Mendoza.”

“We are not going to take it?”

“No,” replied Paganel.

“Where are we going then?”

“Always to the east.”

“That’s going nowhere.”

“Who knows?”

Thalcave was silent, and gazed at the scientist with an air of profound surprise. He had no suspicion that Paganel was joking, for he was always serious, and it didn’t occur to him that others weren’t.

“You are not going to Carmen, then?” he added, after a moment’s pause.

“No.”

“Nor to Mendoza?”

“No, nor to Mendoza.”

Glenarvan came up to ask why they had stopped, and what Paganel and Thalcave were discussing.

“He wanted to know whether we were going to Carmen or Mendoza, and he is astonished at my negative reply to both questions.”

“Well, our route must seem odd, to him.”

“I think so. He says we’re not going anywhere.”

“Well, Paganel, could you not explain to him the object of our expedition, and why we are always going east.”

“That would be a difficult matter,” said Paganel, “for an Indian knows nothing about degrees, and the finding of the document would appear to him a mere fantastic story.”

“Is it the story he would not understand, or the storyteller?” asked MacNabbs, quietly.

“Ah, MacNabbs, I see you still have little faith in my Spanish.”

“Well, try it, my good friend.”

“So I will.”

Paganel returned to the Patagonian and began his narrative, frequently interrupted by the lack of words, by the difficulty of translating certain peculiarities, and by explaining to a half-ignorant savage details which were very difficult for him to understand. It was a curious sight. He gesticulated, he articulated, he struggled in a hundred ways, and big drops of sweat cascaded down his forehead onto his chest. When his tongue failed, his arms were called to aid. Paganel got down on the ground and traced a map on the sand, showing where the lines of latitude and longitude cross and where the two oceans were, where the Carmen road ran. Never was a teacher in such a quandary. Thalcave watched his antics calmly, without showing whether he understood or not. The geographer’s lesson lasted more than half an hour. When he came to the end of it, Paganel fell silent, mopped his face, which was dripping with sweat, and looked at the Patagonian.

“Does he understand?” asked Glenarvan.

“We will see,” said Paganel, “but if he doesn’t, I give up.”

Thalcave did not move. He did not speak. His eyes remained fixed on the lines drawn on the sand, now being erased by the wind.

“Well?” Paganel asked him.

Thalcave did not seem to hear him. Paganel could already see the ironic smile forming on the Major’s lips, and was about to recommence his geographical illustrations, when the Indian stopped him by a gesture.

“Looking for a prisoner?” he said.

“Yes,” replied Paganel.

“And just on this line between the setting and rising sun?” added Thalcave, pointing out by comparison with the Indian fashion the road from west to east.

“Yes, yes, that’s it.”

“And it is your God,” continued the guide, “that has sent you the secret of this prisoner on the waves of the vast sea?”

“God himself.”

“His will be done, then,” said Thalcave, solemnly. “We will march to the east, and if necessary, to the sun.”

Paganel, triumphing in his pupil, immediately translated Thalcave’s replies to his companions.

“What an intelligent race!” he said. “All my explanations would have been lost on nineteen in every twenty of the peasants in my own country.”

Glenarvan urged Paganel to ask the Patagonian if he had heard of any foreigners who had fallen into the hands of the Pampas Indians.

Paganel made the request, and awaited an answer.

“Maybe,” said the Patagonian.

At this word, Thalcave found himself surrounded by the seven travellers, questioning him with eager looks.

Paganel was so excited, he could hardly find words, and resumed his interrogation. He gazed at the grave Indian as if he could read the reply before it was spoken.

Each Spanish word spoken by Thalcave was instantly translated, so that the whole party seemed to hear him speak in their mother tongue.

“And what about the prisoner?” asked Paganel.

“He was a foreigner.”

“You have seen him?”

“No, but I have heard the Indians speak of him. He was a brave man. He had the heart of a bull.”

“The heart of a bull!” said Paganel. “Ah, this magnificent Patagonian language. You understand him, my friends, he means a courageous man.”

“My father!” exclaimed Robert Grant. “How do you say ‘It is my father.’ in Spanish?”

“Es mio padre,” replied the geographer.

Immediately taking Thalcave’s hands in his own, the boy said, in a soft voice:

“Es mio padre.”

“Suo padre,”⁴ replied the Patagonian, his face lighting up.

He took the child in his arms, lifted him up on his horse, and gazed at him with peculiar sympathy. His intelligent face was full of quiet feeling.

But Paganel still had many unanswered questions. “This prisoner, where was he? What was he doing? When did you hear of him?” All these questions poured out of him at once.

The answers were quick in coming, and Paganel learned that the European was a slave in one of the Indian tribes that roamed the country between the Colorado and the Rio Negro.

“But where was the last place he was in?”

“With the Cacique Calfoucoura.”

“In the line we have been following?”

“Yes.”

“And who is this Cacique?”

“The chief of the Poyuches Indians, a man with two tongues and two hearts.”

“That’s to say false in speech and false in action,” said Paganel, after he had translated this beautiful figure of the Patagonian language.

“And can we rescue our friend?” he added.

“Perhaps, if he is still in the hands of the Indians.”

“And when did you last hear of him?”

“A long while ago; the sun has brought two summers since then to the Pampas.”

Glenarvan’s joy could not be described. This reply agreed exactly with the date of the document. But one question still remained for him to put to Thalcave.

“You spoke of a prisoner,” said Paganel. “But were there not three?”

“I do not know,” said Thalcave.

“And you know nothing of his present situation?”

“Nothing.”

This ended the conversation. It was possible that the three men had become separated long ago. But what was known from the information given by the Patagonian was that the Indians spoke of a European who had fallen into their power. The date of his captivity, the place he was supposed to be, all the way to the Patagonian phrase used to express his courage, obviously applied to Captain Harry Grant.

The next day, the 25th of October, the travellers resumed their eastward journey with a fresh determination. The plain, always monotonous, formed one of those endless spaces which are called travesias in the language of the country. The clay soil was scoured smooth by the wind; not a stone, not even a pebble, rose above the level except in some arid and dry ravines, or on the edge of artificial pools dug by the Indians. Low forests, with black crowns pierced here and there by white carob trees whose pods contained a sweet, pleasant and refreshing pulp, appeared at long intervals. Sparse patches of terebinths, chanares, wild brooms, and all kinds of thorny trees whose thinness betrayed the infertility of the soil became more common.

The 26th was a long, tiring day. The travellers were determined to win the Rio Colorado. The horses, excited by their horsemen, made such an effort that by evening they reached the beautiful river of the Pampas, at 69° 45‘ of longitude. Its Indian name, the Cobu-Leubu, means “great river,” and after a long journey, it will empty into the Atlantic. There, at its mouth, a curious peculiarity occurs, for the volume of water in the river diminishes as it approaching the sea, either by soaking into the ground, or by evaporation, and the cause of this phenomenon is not yet determined.

Paganel’s first ambition was to swim in its waters

Arriving at the Rio Colorado, Paganel’s first ambition was to swim “geographically” in its waters coloured by a reddish clay. He was surprised to find them so deep, still in flood from the melting mountain snow under the first summer sun. The river was too wide for the horses to swim across it. Fortunately, a few hundred yards upstream was a wicker bridge supported by leather straps and hanging in the Indian fashion. The little troop was able to cross the river and camp on the left bank.

Before falling asleep, Paganel took an exact measurement of the location of the Rio Colorado, and he marked it on his map with particular care, as a consolation for not finding the course of the Yarou-Dzangbo-Tchou, which flowed without him in the mountains of Tibet.

The next two days, the 27th and 28th of October, passed without incident. The land was monotonous, and sterile. Never was a landscape less varied, never more insignificant. The soil became very wet. It was necessary to pass canadas, kinds of flooded bottomlands, and esteros, permanent lagoons clogged with aquatic weeds. In the evening, the horses stopped at the edge of a large lake, with highly mineralized waters, the Ure-Lanquem, named “bitter lake” by the Indians, who in 1862 were witnessing cruel retaliation by Argentinian troops. They camped in the usual manner, and the night would have been good, but for the presence of alouatta monkeys⁵ and wild dogs. These noisy animals, no doubt in their honour, but certainly to the annoyance of European ears, performed one of those natural symphonies which would not have been disowned by a composer of the future.

1. A bit farther on Google will use “her” when referring to Thaouka, so I stuck “mare” in here. Even farther on I figured out that Google had made one of its mistakes, but decided to keep this change, and will continue referring to Thaouka as female.

2. 150 kilometres.

3. Raiders of the plain.

4. Your father.

5. Howler monkey.

Chapter XV | Index | Chapter XVII

Chapter XVII
The Pampas

The Argentinian Pampas extend from the 34th to the 40th degree of southern latitude. The word pampa, of Araucanían origin, means “grass plain”, and justly applies to the whole region. The mimosas growing on the western part, and the substantial grasslands on the eastern, give those plains a peculiar appearance. The vegetation is rooted in a layer of soil covering sandy red or yellow clay. The geologist would find rich treasures in the tertiary strata here, for it is full of antediluvian bones, which the Indians attribute to some extinct large armadillo species that lived in a past age, and been buried beneath layers of vegetable remains.

The South American Pampas are a geographical region similar to the African savannahs, or Siberian steppes. Its climate has more extremes of heat and cold than that of the province of Buenos Aires, being more continental. For, according to the explanation given by Paganel, the heat absorbed by the ocean in the summer is released during the winter, giving islands a more uniform temperature than the interior of continents.¹ Because of this, the climate of the western Pampas does not have the consistency that it has on the coasts, thanks to the proximity of the Atlantic. It is subject to sudden excesses, and rapid changes, which constantly drive the thermometer from one extreme to the other. In autumn, during the months of April and May, torrential rains are frequent, but at this time of the year the weather was very dry and the temperature very warm.

They set off at dawn. Except for the road, itself, the soil of the region was held in place by shrubs and bushes. There were no medanos, nor the sand of which they were formed, nor the dust for the wind to suspend in the air. The horses went on at a good pace through the thick paja-brava, the pampas grass par excellence, so high and thick that the Indians find shelter in it from storms. The shallow basins were becoming rarer. These marshes were lined with willows, and Gynerium argenteum, a tall grass which thrived in the presence of fresh water. Here the horses drank their fill, taking the opportunity when it came. Thalcave went first to beat the bushes and frighten away the cholinas, a dangerous species of viper, whose bite will kill an ox in less than an hour. The agile Thaouka leapt over the undergrowth and helped her master clear a passage for the other horses.

They travelled quickly and easily over these boring and flat plains. No change occurred in the nature of the meadow; not a stone, nor pebble was seen for a hundred miles. It was the most monotonous landscape any of them had ever encountered, and it seemed to go on, and on. There was no change to the scenery, nor to anything found in it. You had to be a Paganel, one of those enthusiastic scientists who see wonders where there is nothing, to take interest in the details of this road. About what there was to excite him he could not explain. A bush, at most! A blade of grass, maybe. These sufficed to excite his inexhaustible enthusiasm, and to to give him something to teach Robert, who liked to listen to him.

On October 29th, the plain unfolded before the travellers with its infinite uniformity. About two o’clock, they came upon the remnants of a herd of oxen, their bones heaped up and bleached. The remains were not spread out in a winding line, such as such might be left by animals at the end of their strength and falling gradually on the path. Nobody knew how to explain this collection of skeletons in a relatively small space, neither Paganel, nor any of the others. He questioned Thalcave, who was able to answer him.

A “Pas possible!” from the scholar, and an emphatic affirmative sign from the Patagonian intrigued their companions.

“What is it?” they asked.

“The fire of Heaven,” replied the geographer.

“What? Lightning could have produced such a disaster?” said Tom Austin. “A herd of five hundred heads lying on the ground?”

“Thalcave affirms it, and Thalcave is a reliable witness. I believe it, moreover, because the storms of the Pampas are known to all for their fury. I hope we don’t encounter any!”

“It’s hot,” said Wilson.

“The thermometer,” said Paganel, “must mark thirty degrees in the shade.²

“It does not surprise me,” said Glenarvan; “I feel the heat penetrating me. I hope this temperature will not hold.”

“Oh, no!” said Paganel. “We must not count on a change of weather, since the horizon is free of all clouds.”

“Never mind,” replied Glenarvan, “for our horses are not much affected by the heat. You’re not too hot, boy?” he added, addressing Robert.

“No, My Lord,” replied the little fellow. “I like heat, it’s a good thing.”

“Especially in the winter,” the Major pointed out, blowing smoke from his cigar into the sky.

They stopped at an abandoned rancho

That evening, they stopped at an abandoned rancho, a wattle and daub hut roofed with thatch. This hut was beside an enclosure of half-rotten posts, which sufficed to protect the horses during the night against attacks from foxes. Not that they had anything to fear from these animals, but the malignant beasts gnawed their halters, and the horses would take advantage of that to escape.

There was a hole dug a few steps from the rancho that served as a kitchen and contained cold ashes from a fire. Inside, there was a bench, a leather pallet, a pot, a spit, and a maté kettle. Maté is a hot drink consumed in South America. It’s Indian tea. It consists of an infusion of fire-dried leaves, and is sucked up like American drinks, through a straw. At Paganel’s request, Thalcave prepared a few cups of this beverage, which was a very good accompaniment to their usual rations and was declared excellent.

The next day, October 30th, the sun rose in a fiery haze and poured its warming rays on the ground. The temperature rose quickly, and the plain offered no shelter. They resumed their eastward trek in spite of this. Several times they came across immense herds which, not having the strength to graze under this oppressive heat, remained lying lazily on the ground. These herds were guarded by dogs, which were accustomed to suckle the sheep when thirst prompted them. They watched, without supervision, these numerous herds of oxen, cows, and bulls. These animals had a mild humour, and do not have that instinctive horror of red which distinguishes their European cousins.

“It probably comes from grazing the grass of a republic!” said Paganel, delighted with his joke … a little too French perhaps.

Toward the middle of the day they couldn’t help but notice some changes occurring in the Pampas. Grasses became rarer. They gave way to meagre burdocks and gigantic thistles, nine feet high, which would have delighted all of the donkeys of the earth. Sparse plants sprouted here and there in the dry soil, stunted bushes and other thorny shrubs of a dark green. The clay of the grasslands had previously held enough moisture to maintain the thick and luxurious carpet of grass across the meadows, but now, this carpet was becoming worn and torn in many places, exposing the underlying weft, and spreading distress of the soil. These symptoms of increasing drought could not be ignored, and Thalcave pointed them out.

“I’m not sorry for this change,” said Austin. “All this grass, always grass; it becomes sickening in the long run.”

“Yes, but always grass, means always water,” said the Major.

“Oh, we are not short,” said Wilson, “and we will find some river on our way.”

If Paganel had heard this, he would not have failed to say that rivers were rare between Rio Colorado and the sierras of the Argentinian province; but at this moment he was explaining to Glenarvan a fact which had just caught his attention.

For some time, the atmosphere seemed to be imbued with a smell of smoke. However, no fire was visible on the horizon; no smoke betrayed a distant fire. Glenarvan could not therefore attribute a natural cause to this phenomenon. Soon the smell of burning grass became so strong that it astonished all the travellers, except Paganel and Thalcave. The geographer was, as always, quick to share his knowledge.

“We do not see the fire,” he said, “and yet we smell the smoke. Now, there’s no smoke without fire, and the proverb is as true in America as in Europe. So there is a fire somewhere. But these Pampas are so flat that nothing hinders the wind, and what we perceive is the smell of grasslands that burn at a distance of nearly seventy-five miles.³

“Seventy-five miles?” said the unconvinced Major.

“Or more,” said Paganel. “These conflagrations can spread quickly, and often cover vast areas.”

“Who sets fire to the meadows?” asked Robert.

“Sometimes lightning, when the grass is parched by heat; sometimes the Indians.”

“Why?”

“They claim — I do not know how well founded this claim is — that the pampas grasses grow better after a fire. It is a means of revitalizing the soil with the ashes. For my part, I believe that these fires are intended to destroy billions of ticks: parasitic insects that particularly inconvenience herds.”

“But this aggressive technique must cost the lives of some of the cattle that roam the plain,” said the Major.

“Yes, it burns a few; but what does that matter out of the multitudes?”

“I’m not worried about them,” said MacNabbs. “It’s their business, but it might be hard on travellers crossing the Pampas. What if they are surprised and enveloped by the flames?”

“Just so!” said Paganel, with an air of visible satisfaction. “It happens sometimes, and, for my part, I would not be sorry to see such a spectacle.”

“This is our learned man,” said Glenarvan. “He would follow science to the point of being burnt alive.”

“No, my dear Glenarvan, but I have read my Cooper, and Leatherstockings has taught us the means of stopping the spread of flames by tearing the grass around you within a radius of a few fathoms. Nothing is simpler. I do not fear the approach of a fire. I wish for it!”

But Paganel’s desires were not to be realized, and if he was half roasted, it was only in the heat of the sun’s rays, which poured down with an unbearable intensity. The horses were panting under the influence of this tropical temperature. There was no shadow to hope for, unless it came from some rare cloud veiling the burning disc; the shadow then ran on the level ground, and the horsemen, pushing their horses, tried to keep themselves in the shade which the westerly winds drove before them. But the horses would soon be left behind, and the unveiled star showered a new rain of fire on the parched ground of the Pampas.

When Wilson had said that their supply of water would not fail, he hadn’t counted on the unquenchable thirst that consumed his companions during that day. When he added that they would meet some river on the road, he had gone too far. In fact, there were no rivers, for the flatness of the terrain offered them no favourable bed. The artificial pools dug by the Indians were also dried up. Seeing the symptoms of drought increase from mile to mile, Paganel made these observations to Thalcave, and asked him where he expected to find water.

“At Laguna Epecuén⁴,” replied the Indian.

“And when shall we get there?”

“Tomorrow evening.”

When the Argentinians travel in the Pampas they generally dig wells, and find water a few feet below the surface. But the travellers could not fall back on this resource, not having the necessary tools. They were therefore obliged to husband the small provision of water they still had left, and deal it out in rations, so that no one became too thirsty, even if they couldn’t quench their thirst completely.

They halted that evening after travelling thirty miles and eagerly looked forward to a good night’s rest to compensate for the tiring day. But their slumbers were invaded by swarms of mosquitoes and gnats, which gave them no peace. They came with a change of the wind which had shifted to the north. These accursed insects generally disappeared with a south or southwest breeze.

Even these petty ills of life could not ruffle the Major’s equanimity, but Paganel was indignant at this teasing of fate. He damned the insects desperately, and deplored the lack of some acid lotion which would have eased the itching of their bites. The Major did his best to console him by reminding him of the fact that they had only to put up with two species of insect, among the 300,000 naturalists count. Paganel would not be soothed, and awoke the next morning in a very bad temper.

Paganel was quite willing to start at daybreak, despite the unrestful night, for they had to get to Laguna Epecuén before sundown. The horses were tired and dying for water, and though their riders had stinted themselves for their sakes, still their ration was insufficient. The drought grew deeper, and the heat no less intolerable under the dusty breath of the north wind, a Pampas simoon.

There was a brief interruption this day to the monotony of the journey. Mulrady, who was in front of the others, rode hastily back to report the approach of a troop of Indians. The news was received with very different feelings by Glenarvan and Thalcave. Glenarvan was glad of the chance of gleaning some information about the Britannia shipwreck, while Thalcave was not very happy to find the nomadic prairie Indians in his path. He considered them plunderers and thieves, and only sought to avoid them. Following his orders, the little troop massed, and prepared their weapons.

The nomads were ten in number

The nomads soon came in sight, and the Patagonian was reassured at finding they were only ten in number. They came within a hundred yards, and stopped. This was near enough to observe them distinctly. They were natives of the Pampean race, which had been almost entirely swept away in 1833 by General Rosas. Tall in stature, with arched forehead and olive complexion. They were dressed in skins of guanacos or skunks, and carried twenty foot lances, knives, slings, bolas, and lassos, and, by their dexterity in the management of their horses, showed themselves to be skilful riders.

They appeared to have stopped for the purpose of holding a council with each other, for they shouted and gesticulated at a great rate. Glenarvan determined to go up to them; but he had not crossed two fathoms before the whole band wheeled around, and disappeared with incredible speed.

“The cowards!” exclaimed Paganel.

“They scampered off too quick for honest folks,” said MacNabbs.

“Who are these Indians, Thalcave?” asked Paganel.

“Gauchos.”

“Gauchos!” said Paganel. He turned to his companions. “We need not have been so much on our guard; there was nothing to fear.”

“How is that?” asked MacNabbs.

“Because the Gauchos are harmless peasants.”

“You believe that, Paganel?”

“Certainly I do. They took us for robbers, and fled.”

“I rather think they did not dare to attack us,” replied Glenarvan, much annoyed at not being able to enter into some sort of communication with those Indians, whatever they were.

“That’s my opinion too,” said the Major. “If I am not mistaken, instead of being harmless, the Gauchos are formidable out-and-out bandits.”

“The idea!” exclaimed Paganel, and forthwith commenced a lively discussion of this ethnological thesis — so lively that the Major became excited, and, quite contrary to his usual suavity, said bluntly:

“I believe you are wrong, Paganel.”

“Wrong?” replied Paganel.

“Yes. Thalcave took them for robbers, and he knows what he is talking about.”

“Well, Thalcave was mistaken this time,” retorted Paganel, somewhat sharply. “The Gauchos are agriculturists and shepherds, and nothing else, as I have stated in a pamphlet on the natives of the Pampas, written by me, which has attracted some notice.”

“Well, you have committed an error, that’s all, Monsieur Paganel.”

“What, Mr. MacNabbs? You tell me I have committed an error?”

“A distraction, if you like, which you can put among the errata in the next edition.”

Paganel, highly incensed at his geographical knowledge being brought in question, and even jested about, allowed his ill-humour to get the better of him.

“Know, sir,” he said, “that my books have no need of such errata!”

“Indeed! Well, on this occasion they have, at any rate,” replied MacNabbs, quite as obstinate as his opponent.

“Sir, I think you are very annoying today.”

“And I think you are very crabby.”

The disagreement was in danger of growing far out of proportion to its merit. Glenarvan thought it was high time to intervene.

“Come, now, there is no doubt that one of you is very annoying and the other is very crabby, and I must say I am surprised at both of you.”

The Patagonian, without understanding the cause, could see that the two friends were quarrelling. He began to smile.

“It’s the north wind,” he said quietly.

“The north wind?” exclaimed Paganel. “What’s the north wind got to do with it?”

“Ah, it is just that,” said Glenarvan. “It’s the north wind that has put you in a bad temper. I have heard that, in South America, the wind greatly irritates the nervous system.”

“By St. Patrick, Edward, you are right,” said the Major, laughing heartily.

But Paganel, his temper roused, would not give up the contest, and turned upon Glenarvan, resenting this jesting intervention.

“And so, My Lord, my nervous system is irritated?” he said.

“Yes, Paganel, it is the north wind — a wind which causes many a crime in the Pampas, as the tramontane does in the Campagna of Rome.”

“Crimes!” returned the geographer. “Do I look like a man who would commit crimes?”

“That’s not what I said.”

“Are you afraid that I want to assassinate you?”

“Well,” replied Glenarvan, bursting into an uncontrollable fit of laughter. “I wasn’t previously. Fortunately, the north wind lasts only one day!”

Everyone joined in Glenarvan’s laughter. Paganel, still in a pique, went on ahead, alone. A quarter of an hour later his normal good mood returned, and he didn’t think about it again.

At eight o’clock in the evening, Thalcave, who was considerably in advance of the rest, saw in the distance the much-desired laguna. A quarter of an hour later, the little troop descended the banks of Laguna Epecuén, but a grievous disappointment awaited them — the laguna was dried up.

1. The winters of Iceland are therefore milder than those of Lombardy.

2. 86 degrees Fahrenheit — DAS

3. Thirty leagues. (120 kilometres — DAS)

4. Verne has Lake Salinas, but that lake is several degrees north of the our hero’s path, and Laguna Epecuén matches his location and description almost perfectly — DAS)

Chapter XVI | Index | Chapter XVIII

Chapter XVIII
In Search of Water

Laguna Epecuén lies at the end of the string of lagoons connecting the Sierra de la Ventana with Guamini. In the past, numerous expeditions had come there from Buenos Aires to collect the salt deposited on its banks, as the waters contain great quantities of sodium chloride, deposited when the water was evaporated by the fiery heat of the sun.

When Thalcave spoke of the laguna as supplying drinkable water he was thinking of the rios of fresh water which run into it at many places. Those streams, however, were all dried up, like the laguna. The burning sun had drunk everything, to the consternation of the travellers.

Some action had to be taken immediately, for what little water still remained in their bottles was tainted, and could not be used to quench their thirst. Hunger and fatigue were forgotten in the face of this driving need. A sort of leather tent, called a roukah, which had been abandoned by the natives afforded the party a temporary resting-place, and the weary horses stretched themselves along the muddy banks, and tried to browse on the marine plants and dry reeds they found there — nauseous to the taste as they must have been.

As soon as the whole party were ensconced in the roukah, Paganel asked Thalcave what he thought was best to be done. A rapid conversation followed, a few words of which were intelligible to Glenarvan. Thalcave spoke calmly, but the lively Frenchman gesticulated enough for both. After a little, Thalcave sat silently and folded his arms.

“What does he say?” asked Glenarvan. “I fancied he was advising us to separate.”

“Yes, into two parties,” said Paganel. “Those of us whose horses are so done in with fatigue and thirst that they can scarcely put one foot in front of the other are to continue on the road of the 37th parallel as best they can, while the others, whose steeds are fresher, are to push on in advance toward the river Guamini, which flows into Lake San Lucas about thirty-one miles off.¹ If there is enough water in the river, they are to wait there until their companions reach them; but should it be dried up, they will hasten back and spare them a useless journey.”

“And what will we do then?” asked Austin.

“Then we shall have to make up our minds to go 75 miles south, as far as the ramparts of the Sierra Ventana, where rivers abound.”

“It is wise counsel,” said Glenarvan, “and we will act upon it immediately. My horse is in tolerable good trim, and I volunteer to accompany Thalcave.”

“Oh, My Lord, take me!” said Robert, as if it were a question of some pleasure party.

“But would you be up for it, my boy?”

“Oh, I have a fine horse, which just wants to have a gallop. Please, My Lord, take me.”

“Come, then, my boy,” said Glenarvan, delighted not to leave Robert behind. “If we three don’t manage to find fresh water somewhere,” he added, “we must be very stupid.”

“And what about me?” asked Paganel.

“Oh, my dear Paganel, you must stay with the reserve corps,” said the Major. “You are too well acquainted with the 37th parallel and the river Guamini and the whole Pampas for us to let you go. Neither Mulrady, nor Wilson, nor myself would be able to rejoin Thalcave at the given rendezvous, but we will put ourselves under the banner of the brave Jacques Paganel with perfect confidence.”

“I resign myself,” said the geographer, much flattered at being given such responsibility.

“But no distractions,” added the Major. “Don’t you take us to the wrong place — to the borders of the Pacific, for instance.”

“It would serve you right, insufferable Major,” laughed Paganel. “But how will you manage to understand what Thalcave says, Glenarvan?”

“I don’t suppose that we’ll have much to talk about,” said Glenarvan. “Besides, I know a few Spanish words. In a pinch, I think we can understand each other.”

“Then go, my good friend,” said Paganel.

“We’ll have supper first,” said Glenarvan, “and then sleep, if we can, until it is time to go.”

The supper was not very reviving without drink of any kind, and they tried to make up for the lack of it by a good sleep. But Paganel dreamed of water all night, of torrents and cascades, and rivers and ponds, and streams and brooks, and full carafes. It was a complete nightmare.

At six o’clock the next morning, Thalcave, Glenarvan and Robert saddled their mounts. Their last ration of water was given to the horses, and drunk with more avidity than satisfaction, for it was filthy, disgusting stuff. The three horsemen climbed into their saddles.

“Goodbye,” said the Major, Austin, Wilson and Mulrady.

“And whatever you do, try not to come back!” called Paganel after them.

Soon, Thalcave, Glenarvan and Robert lost sight of the detachment entrusted to the wisdom of the geographer, not without a certain heart-ache.

The desierto de las Salinas, which they had to traverse, is a clay plain covered with stunted shrubs no higher than ten feet, and small mimosas which the Indians call curra-mammel; and jumes, a bushy shrub, rich in soda. Here and there large pans were covered with salt, which sparkled in the sunlight with astonishing brilliancy. These barreros² might easily have been taken for sheets of ice, had not the intense heat forbidden the illusion. The contrast these dazzling white sheets presented to the dry, burned-up ground gave the desert a most peculiar character.

Eighty miles south,³ the Sierra de la Ventana, to which the possible drying up of the Guamini might force travellers to descend, presented a different aspect. This country, explored in 1835 by Captain FitzRoy, who then commanded the Beagle’s expedition, is of superb fertility. The best pastures of Indian territory grow there with unparalleled vigour. The north-west slope of the mountain range is covered with lush grass, and descends into rich mixed forests. There grow the algarrobo, a sort of carob tree, whose dried fruit, reduced to flour, is used to make a bread that is highly esteemed by the Indians; the white quebracho with its long, flexible branches that weep like the European willow; the red quebracho with an indestructible wood; the naudubay, which can be ignited with extreme ease, and often causes terrible fires; the viraro, whose violet flowers are pyramid shaped, and finally the timbo, which spreads its immense parasol eighty feet in the air, and under which whole herds can shelter against the sun’s rays. The Argentinians have often tried to colonize this rich country, without succeeding in overcoming the hostility of the Indians.

Of course, it was to be believed that abundant rivers descended from the rumps of the mountains, to supply the water necessary for so much fertility, and, indeed, the greatest droughts never evaporated these rivers. Unfortunately, to reach them would require a march of 130 kilometres south; and this was why Thalcave thought it best to go first to Guamini, as it was not only much nearer, but also on the direct line of their quest.

The three horses galloped with enthusiasm, as if instinctively knowing where their masters led them. Thaouka especially displayed a courage that neither fatigue nor hunger could damp. She bounded like a bird over the dried-up canadas and the curra-mammel bushes, her loud, joyous neighing seeming to bode success to the search. The horses of Glenarvan and Robert, though not so light-footed, felt the spur of her example, and followed her bravely. Thalcave, motionless in the saddle, inspired his companions as much as Thaouka did her four-footed brethren. Thalcave often turned his head to consider Robert Grant.

Seeing the young boy, firm and well seated, with supple back, shoulders relaxed, legs falling naturally, knees fixed to the saddle, he showed his satisfaction with an encouraging cry. In truth, Robert Grant had become an excellent horseman and deserved the compliments of the Indian.

“Bravo! Robert,” said Glenarvan. “Thalcave is evidently congratulating you, my boy, and paying you compliments.”

“What for, My Lord?”

“For your good horsemanship.”

“I’m standing firmly, that’s all,” said Robert, blushing with pleasure at such an encomium.

“That is the main thing, Robert,” said Glenarvan, “But you are too modest. I tell you that some day you will turn out an accomplished horseman.”

“What would papa say to that?” said Robert, laughing. “He wants me to be a sailor.”

“The one doesn’t prevent the other. Even if all cavaliers won’t make good sailors, there is no reason why all sailors should not make good cavaliers. To keep one’s footing on the yards teaches a man balance, and to hold on firm. Both are skills needed for horsemanship. After that, making a horse go through all sorts of movements, that’s easily acquired. Indeed, it comes naturally.”

“Poor father,” said Robert, “how he will thank you for saving his life.”

“You love him very much, Robert?”

“Yes, My Lord, dearly. He was so good to me and my sister. We were his only thought. And whenever he came home from his voyages, we were sure of some souvenir from all the countries he had visited; and, better still, of loving words and hugs. Ah! if you knew him you would love him, too. Mary is most like him. He has a soft voice, like hers. That’s strange for a sailor, isn’t it?”

“Yes, Robert, very strange.”

“I see him still,” the boy went on, as if speaking to himself. “Good, brave papa. He put me to sleep on his knee, crooning an old Scottish ballad about the lochs of our country. The song sometimes comes back to me, but very confused like. To Mary, too. Ah, My Lord, how we loved him. Well, I do think one needs to be little to love one’s father like that.”

“Yes, and to be grown up, my child, to venerate him,” replied Glenarvan, deeply touched by the boy’s genuine affection.

During this conversation the horses had been slackening speed, and were only walking now.

“We’ll find him, won’t we?” said Robert again, after a few minutes’ silence.

“Yes, we’ll find him,” said Glenarvan. “Thalcave has set us on the track, and I have great confidence in him.”

“Thalcave is a brave Indian, isn’t he?” said the boy.

“Certainly.”

“Do you know something, My Lord?”

“Tell me, and I will tell you.”

“There are only good people with you. Lady Helena, whom I love so, and the Major, with his calm manner, and Captain Mangles, and Monsieur Paganel, and all the sailors on the Duncan. How courageous and devoted they are.”

“Yes, my boy, I know that,” replied Glenarvan.

“And do you know that you are the best of all?”

“No, most certainly I don’t know that.”

Robert grasped the Lord’s hand and lifted it to his lips.

“Well, it is time you did, My Lord,” said the boy, who grasped the Lord’s hand and lifted it to his lips.

Glenarvan shook his head, but said no more, as a gesture from Thalcave made them spur their horses on and hurry forward. It was necessary not to waste time for the sake of those who remained behind.

They resumed their rapid pace, but it was soon evident that, with the exception of Thaouka, the wearied animals could not go quicker than a walking pace. At noon they were obliged to let them rest for an hour. They could not go on at all, and refused to eat the tufts of alfafares, a kind of lean alfalfa roasted by the sun’s rays.

Glenarvan became worried. The symptoms of infertility did not diminish, and the lack of water could have disastrous consequences. Thalcave said nothing, thinking probably, that it would be time enough to despair if the Guamini should be dried up — if, indeed, his heart could ever despair.

Spur and whip both had to be employed to induce the poor animals to resume the route, and then they only crept along, for their strength was gone.

Thaouka, indeed, could have galloped swiftly enough, and reached the rio in a few hours. She must have thought of it, but Thalcave would not leave his companions behind, alone in the midst of a desert, so he forced Thaouka to slow to the pace of the other horses.

It was hard work, however, to get the animal to consent to walk quietly. She kicked, and reared, and neighed violently, and was subdued at last more by her master’s voice than hand. Thalcave talked to the horse, and Thaouka, if she did not answer, understood him at least. It must be believed that the Patagonian gave her excellent reasons, for after having “discussed,” the matter for some time, Thaouka yielded to his arguments and obeyed — though she still champed the bit.

But if Thaouka understood Thalcave, Thalcave had not less understood Thaouka. The intelligent animal, served by superior senses, felt humidity in the air and drank it in with frenzy, moving and making a noise with her tongue, as if taking deep draughts of some cool refreshing liquid. The Patagonian could not mistake her now — water was not far off.

The two other horses seemed to catch their comrade’s meaning, and, inspired by her example, made a last effort, and galloped forward after the Indian.

About three o’clock a bright line appeared in a fold of the ground, and seemed to tremble in the sunlight.

“Water!” exclaimed Glenarvan.

“Yes, yes! It’s water!” shouted Robert.

The horses plunged up to their chests in the water

They no longer had to urge their horses on. With revived strength, the poor creatures carried them irresistibly forward. In a few minutes they had reached the Rio de Guamini, and plunged up to their chests in the beneficent waters.

Their masters plunged in too, in spite of themselves, and took an involuntary bath, of which they did not think to complain.

“Oh, that’s good!” said Robert, taking a deep draught in the open air.

“Drink moderately, my boy,” said Glenarvan; but he did not practice what he preached.

Thalcave drank quietly, without hurrying himself, taking small gulps, but “as long as a lasso,” as the Patagonians say. He seemed as if he were never going to finish, and there was some danger of his swallowing up the whole river.

“Well, our friends won’t be disappointed when they get here,” said Glenarvan, after he had drunk his fill. “They will be sure of finding clear, cool water — that is, if Thalcave leaves any for them.”

“But couldn’t we go to meet them?” asked Robert. “It would spare them several hours’ suffering and anxiety.”

“You’re right my boy; but how could we carry them this water? The leather bottles were left with Wilson. No; it is better for us to wait for them as we agreed. They can’t be here until about the middle of the night, so the best thing we can do is to get a good bed and a good supper ready for them.”

Thalcave had not waited for Glenarvan’s proposition to to look for a campsite. He had been fortunate enough to discover a ramada on the banks of the rio, a sort of enclosure which had served as a fold for flocks that was shut in on three sides. It was an excellent place to spend the night, provided that you had no fear of sleeping out under the stars, and none of Thalcave’s companions had any objections to that. So they took possession at once, and stretched themselves out on the ground in the bright sunshine, to dry their dripping clothes.

A ramada stood on the banks of the rio

“Well, now we’ve secured a lodging, we must think of supper,” said Glenarvan. “Our friends must not have reason to complain of the couriers they sent ahead, and I don’t propose to disappoint them. It strikes me that an hour’s shooting won’t be wasted time. Are you ready, Robert?”

“Yes, My Lord,” replied the boy, standing up, rifle in hand.

It was clear why Glenarvan had this idea. The banks of the Guamini seemed to be the rendezvous of all the game of the surrounding plains. The tinamous, a type of Pampas partridge; black jellies; a species of plover named teru-teru; yellow rays; and water fowl with beautiful green plumage rose in coveys.

At first, they couldn’t see any sort of four footed game, but Thalcave, indicated the tall grasses and thick brush lining the river, and made it clear that they were hidden there. The hunters were only a few paces away from the most game-rich country in the world.

Disdaining the feathered tribes when more substantial game was at hand, the hunters’ first shots were fired into the underwood. Instantly there rose by the hundred roebucks and guanacos, like those that had swept over them that terrible night on the Cordilleras, but the timid creatures were so frightened that they were all out of range in an instant. The hunters were obliged to content themselves with slower game, which still left nothing to be desired from an alimentary point of view. A dozen tinamous and rays were quickly brought down, and Glenarvan skilfully killed a tay-tetre, or peccary: an American wild pig, the flesh of which is excellent eating.

In less than half an hour the hunters had all the game they required. Robert had killed a curious animal belonging to the order Edentata, an armadillo, covered with a hard bony shell, in movable pieces, and measuring a foot and a half long. It was very fat and Thalcave said it would make an excellent dish. Robert was very proud of his success. As for Thalcave, he gave his companions the show of hunting a rhea, a South American relative of the ostrich, remarkable for its extreme swiftness.

There could be no slow stalk of such a quick animal, and the Indian did not attempt it. He urged Thaouka to a gallop, to reach the rhea as quickly as possible. In a chase, if the first attack failed, the bird would soon tire out both horse and rider by involving them in a corkscrew pursuit. As soon as Thalcave closed the distance, he flung his bolas with such a powerful hand, and so skilfully, that he caught the bird around the legs and immobilized it immediately. In a few seconds it lay flat on the ground.

The Indian had not made his capture for the mere pleasure and glory of such a novel chase. The flesh of the rhea is highly esteemed, and Thalcave felt bound to contribute his share to the common repast.

They returned to the ramada, bringing back the string of partridges, the rhea, the peccary, and the armadillo. The rhea and the peccary were skinned at once, and cut into thin slices to prepare them for cooking. As for the armadillo, it carried its rotisserie with it, and it was placed in its own shell over the glowing embers.

The three hunters contented themselves with the bartavelles for their supper. The piece de resistance was reserved for their friends. They washed down their meal with clear, fresh water, which was pronounced superior to all the ports of the world, even to the famous usquebaugh⁴, so honoured in the Highlands of Scotland.

The horses had not been overlooked. A large quantity of dry fodder was discovered lying heaped up in the ramada, and this supplied them amply with both food and bedding.

When all was ready the three companions wrapped themselves in their ponchos, and stretched themselves on a quilt of alfafares, the usual bed of hunters on the Pampas.

1. Fifty kilometres.

2. Land impregnated with salt.

3. Thirty-two leagues. (130 kilometres — DAS)

The numbers in the Hetzel edition don’t add up in this section, converting eighty miles to “more than a hundred leagues.” I’ve corrected the conversion — DAS

4. Fermented barley brandy. (Whisky — DAS)

Chapter XVII | Index | Chapter XIX

Chapter XIX
The Red Wolves

Night came, a new moon night during which the orb of night was invisible to all the inhabitants of the earth. The dim light of the stars was all that illumined the plain. On the horizon, the zodiacal stars were extinguished in a dark haze. The waters of the Guamini ran silently, like a sheet of oil over a surface of marble. Birds, quadrupeds, and reptiles were resting motionless after the fatigues of the day, and the silence of the desert brooded over the far-spreading Pampas.

Glenarvan, Robert, and Thalcave had followed the common example, and lay in profound slumber on their soft couch of alfafares. The worn-out horses lay on the ground, except Thaouka, who slept standing, proud in repose as in action, and ready to launch at the slightest sign from her master. Absolute silence reigned within the enclosure, over which the dying embers of the fire shed a fitful light.

The Indian’s sleep did not last long; for at about ten o’clock he woke, sat up, and turned his ear toward the plain, listening intently with half-closed eyes, trying to catch some nearly imperceptible sound. An uneasy look began to appear on his usually impassive face. Had he caught scent of some party of Indian marauders, or of jaguars, water tigers, or other dreadful beasts that haunt the neighbourhood of rivers? This last hypotheses seemed most likely, for he threw a rapid glance on the combustible materials heaped up in the enclosure, and his anxiety deepened. All this dry litter of alfafares would soon burn out and could only ward off the attacks of wild beasts for a short time.

There was nothing to be done in the circumstances but wait; and wait he did, in a half-recumbent posture, his head leaning on his hands, and his elbows on his knees, like a man roused suddenly from his night’s sleep.

An hour passed, and anyone except Thalcave would have lain down again on his couch, reassured by the silence around him. But where a stranger would have suspected nothing, the sharpened senses of the Indian detected the approach of danger.

While he listened and watched, Thaouka gave a low neigh, and stretched her nostrils toward the entrance of the ramada. Thalcave straightened up.

“Thaouka scents an enemy.” He stood and went to the opening, to make a careful survey of the plains.

Silence still reigned, but not tranquillity. Thalcave glimpsed shadows moving noiselessly over the tufts of curra-mammel. Here and there luminous spots appeared, dying out and rekindling constantly, in all directions, like fantastic lights dancing over the surface of an immense lagoon. An inexperienced eye might have mistaken them for fireflies,¹ which shine at night in many parts of the Pampas, but Thalcave was not deceived. He knew the enemies he had to deal with. He cocked his rifle and took up his post in front of the fence.

He did not wait long, for a strange cry, a confusion of barking and howling, broke over the Pampas, followed next instant by the report of the rifle, which made the uproar a hundred times worse.

Glenarvan and Robert, suddenly awake, jumped to their feet.

“What is it?” asked Robert.

“Indians?” asked Glenarvan.

“No,” said Thalcave. “Aguarás.”

“Aguarás?” said Robert, looking inquiringly at Glenarvan.

“Yes,” replied Glenarvan. “The red wolves of the Pampas.”

They seized their weapons at once, and stationed themselves beside the Patagonian, who pointed toward the plain whence arose a concert of howling.

Robert drew back involuntarily.

“You are not afraid of wolves, my boy?” said Glenarvan.

“No, My Lord,” said the lad in a firm tone, “and moreover, beside you I am afraid of nothing.”

“So much the better. These aguarás are not very formidable; and if it were not for their number I would not even care.”

“What does it matter?” said Robert. “We are all well armed; let them come.”

“We’ll certainly give them a warm reception.”

Glenarvan said this to reassure the boy, but this legion of carnivorous animals in the night filled him with a secret terror. There might be hundreds of them, and what could three men do, as well armed as they were, against such a multitude?

As soon as Thalcave said the word aguará, Glenarvan knew that he meant the red wolf, for this is the name given to it by the Pampas Indians. This voracious animal, called by naturalists the Canis jubatus,² is shaped like a large dog, with the head of a fox. Its coat is a cinnamon red, and a black mane runs down its back. It is a strong, nimble animal, generally inhabiting marshy places, pursuing aquatic animals by swimming, prowling about by night and sleeping during the day. Its attacks are particularly dreaded at the estancias, or sheep stations, where it often wreaks considerable havoc. A lone aguará is not much to be feared; but a large pack was a different matter. It was better to have to deal with a jaguar or cougar that you could face straight on.

Both from the noise of the howling and the multitude of shadows leaping about, Glenarvan had a pretty good idea of the number of the wolves, and he knew they had scented a good meal of human flesh or horse flesh, and none of them would go back to their dens without a share. It was certainly a very alarming situation to be in.

The circle of wolves was gradually drawing closer. The awakened horses displayed signs of growing terror, with the exception of Thaouka, who stamped her foot, and tried to break loose and get out. Her master could only calm her by keeping up a low, continuous whistle.

Glenarvan and Robert had placed themselves so as to defend the opening of the ramada. They were just about to fire into the nearest ranks of the wolves when Thalcave lowered their weapons.

“What does Thalcave mean?” asked Robert.

“He forbids our firing.”

“Why?”

“Perhaps he thinks it is not the right time.”

This was not the Indian’s motive. He had more urgent reason, and Glenarvan understood it when Thalcave lifted his powder magazine and showed that it was almost empty.

“What’s wrong?” asked Robert.

“We must conserve our ammunition. Today’s shooting has cost us dear, and we are short of powder and shot. We do not have twenty shots left.”

The boy made no reply. “Are you afraid, Robert?”

“No, My Lord.”

“Good boy.”

A fresh report resounded that instant. Thalcave had made short work of one assailant more audacious than the rest, and the infuriated pack had retreated to a hundred paces from the enclosure.

On a sign from the Indian Glenarvan took his place, while Thalcave went back into the enclosure and gathered up all the dried grass and alfafares, and other combustibles he could rake together, and piled them by the entrance. Into this he flung one of the still-glowing embers from their fire, and soon a bright curtain of flames shot up into the dark night. Through its rents, it was now possible for Glenarvan to estimate the size of the pack they faced. It was larger than his worst fears, and the barrier of fire cutting them off from their prey only seemed to enrage them more. Several of them pushed forward to the fire itself, and didn’t retreat until it had burned their legs.

From time to time another shot had to be fired, notwithstanding the fire, to keep off the howling pack, and in the course of an hour fifteen dead animals lay stretched on the prairie.

The situation of the besieged was, relatively speaking, less dangerous now. As long as the powder lasted and the barrier of fire stood at the entrance to ramada, there was no fear of being overrun. But what was to be done afterward, when both means of defence failed at once?

Glenarvan’s heart swelled as he looked at Robert. He forgot himself in thinking of this poor child, as he saw him showing a courage so far above his years. Robert was pale, but he kept his gun steady, and stood firmly, ready to meet the attacks of the infuriated wolves.

However, after Glenarvan had calmly considered their situation, he resolved to put an end to it.

“In an hour,” he said, “we shall have no more shot, powder nor fire. It will never do to wait until then before we settle on what to do.”

Accordingly, he went up to Thalcave, and tried to talk to him by the help of the few Spanish words his memory could muster, though their conversation was often interrupted by one or the other having to fire a shot.

It was no easy task for the two men to understand each other, but, most fortunately, Glenarvan knew a great deal of the peculiarities of the red wolf; otherwise he could never have interpreted the Indian’s words and gestures.

A quarter of an hour still passed before he could pass on Thalcave’s answer about their desperate situation to Robert.

“What does he say?”

“He says that we must hold out until daybreak, whatever the cost. The aguará only goes out at night. In the morning they will return to their lairs. It is a cowardly beast, that loves the darkness and dreads the light — an owl on four feet.”

“Very well, let us defend ourselves, then, until morning.”

“Yes, my boy, and with a knife, when we can no longer do it with guns.”

Already Thalcave had set an example, for whenever a wolf came too near the burning pile, the long arm of the Patagonian dashed through the flames and came out again reddened with blood.

But very soon this means of defence would be at an end. Toward two o’clock in the morning, Thalcave flung their last armful of fuel into the fire, and only five shots remained to their guns.

Glenarvan threw a sorrowful glance round him. He thought of the lad standing there, and of his companions and those left behind, whom he loved so dearly. Robert was silent. Perhaps the danger seemed less imminent to his imagination. But Glenarvan thought for him, and pictured to himself the horrible prospect, now inevitable, of being eaten alive! Quite overcome by his emotion, he took the child in his arms, and hugged him convulsively to his breast, pressed his lips on his forehead, while tears he could not restrain streamed down his cheeks.

Robert looked up into his face with a smile, and said, “I am not frightened.”

“No, my child, no! and you are right. In two hours daybreak will come, and we shall be saved.”

Thalcave struck them down with the butt of his rifle

At that moment, two wolves attempted to leap their dying fire. Thalcave struck them down with the butt of his rifle. “Bravo, Thalcave! my brave Patagonian! Bravo!”

But the fire was fast dying out, and the denouement of the bloody drama was approaching. The flames got lower and lower. Once more the shadows of night fell on the prairie, and the glaring eyes of the wolves glowed like phosphorescent balls in the darkness. In a few more minutes the whole pack would be in the enclosure.

Thalcave fired his rifle for the last time, killing one more enormous monster, and then folded his arms. His head bowed over his chest, and he meditated silently. Was he planning some daring, impossible, foolish attempt to repulse the infuriated horde? Glenarvan did not dare ask.

At this moment a change occurred in the attack of the wolves. The deafening howls suddenly ceased: they seemed to be going away. Gloomy silence spread over the prairie.

“They’re going!” said Robert.

But Thalcave, guessing his meaning, shook his head. He knew they would never relinquish their sure prey until daybreak made them go back to their dark dens.

Still, their tactics had obviously changed. The aguarás no longer attempted to force the entrance, but their new maneuvers only heightened the danger. They had given up on the frontal assault on the ramada, and were now trying to get in on the opposite side.

They heard their claws attacking the mouldering wood, and already formidable paws and hungry, savage jaws had found their way between the posts. The terrified horses broke loose from their halters and ran about the enclosure, mad with fear. Glenarvan put his arms around the young lad, and resolved to defend him as long as his life held out. Possibly he might have made a useless attempt at flight when his eye fell on Thalcave.

The Indian had been stalking about the ramada like a stag, when he suddenly stopped short, and going up to his horse, who was trembling with impatience, began to saddle him with the most scrupulous care, without forgetting a single strap or buckle. He seemed no longer to disturb himself in the least about the wolves outside, though their yells had redoubled in intensity. A dark suspicion crossed Glenarvan’s mind as he watched him.

“He is going to desert us,” he exclaimed at last, as he saw him seize the reins, as if preparing to mount.

“Him? Never!” said Robert.

And indeed, the Indian was not going to abandon his friends. He was going to attempt to save them by sacrificing himself.

Thaouka was ready, and stood champing her bit. She reared up, and her splendid eyes flashed fire; she understood her master.

But just as the Patagonian caught hold of the horse’s mane, Glenarvan seized his arm with a convulsive grip.

“You are going away?” he asked, pointing to the open prairie.

“Yes,” replied the Indian, understanding his gesture. Then he said a few words in Spanish, which meant: “Thaouka; good horse; quick; will draw all the wolves away after her.”

“Oh, Thalcave,” exclaimed Glenarvan.

“Quick, quick!” replied the Indian, while Glenarvan said, in a broken, agitated voice to Robert:

“Robert, my child, do you hear him? He wants to sacrifice himself for us. He wants to rush away over the Pampas, and divert the wolves from us by drawing them to himself.”

“Friend Thalcave!” Robert, threw himself at the feet of the Patagonian. “Friend Thalcave, don’t leave us!”

“No,” said Glenarvan, “he shall not leave us.”

And turning toward the Indian, he said, pointing to the frightened horses, “Let us go together.”

“No,” replied Thalcave, catching his meaning. “Bad horses. Frightened. Thaouka, good horse.”

“Be it so then!” returned Glenarvan. “Thalcave will not leave you, Robert. He teaches me what I must do. It is for me to go, and for him to stay by you.”

Then seizing Thaouka’s bridle, he said, “I am going, Thalcave, not you.”

“No,” replied the Patagonian quietly.

“I say to you,” exclaimed Glenarvan, snatching the bridle out of his hands. “It will be me! Save this boy, Thalcave! I entrust him to you.”

Glenarvan was so excited that he mixed up English words with his Spanish. But what mattered the language at such a terrible moment? A gesture was enough. The two men understood each other.

However, Thalcave would not give in, and the discussion continued, though every second’s delay increased the danger. Already the piles of the ramada were giving way to the teeth and claws of the wolves.

Neither Glenarvan nor Thalcave appeared inclined to yield. The Indian had dragged his companion toward the entrance of the ramada, and showed him the prairie, making him understand that now was the time when it was clear from the wolves; but that not a moment was to be lost, for should this maneuver not succeed, it would only render the situation of those left behind more desperate. and that he knew his horse well enough to be able to trust her wonderful lightness and swiftness to save them all. But Glenarvan was blind and obstinate, and determined to sacrifice himself at all hazards, when suddenly he felt himself violently pushed back. Thaouka pranced up, and reared herself bolt upright on her hind legs, and made a bound over the barrier of fire, while a clear, young voice called out:

“God save you, My Lord!”

And Glenarvan and Thalcave barely had time to catch sight of Robert, who, clinging to the mane of Thaouka, disappeared into the darkness.

“Robert! oh you unfortunate boy,” cried Glenarvan.

The red wolves launched in pursuit of the horse.

But even Thalcave did not catch the words, for his voice was drowned in the frightful uproar made by the wolves, who had dashed off at a tremendous speed in pursuit of the horse.

Thalcave and Glenarvan rushed out of the ramada. Already the plain had resumed its tranquillity, and all that could be seen of the red wolves was a moving line undulating far away in the distant darkness.

Glenarvan fell to the ground, and clasped his hands despairingly. He looked up at Thalcave.

“Thaouka, good horse.” Thalcave smiled with his accustomed calmness. “Brave boy. He will save himself!”

“And if he falls?” said Glenarvan.

“He will not fall.”

In spite of Thalcave’s confidence, poor Glenarvan spent the rest of the night in tortured anxiety. He seemed quite oblivious now to the danger that had disappeared with the wolf pack. He wanted to chase after Robert, but the Indian stopped him by making him understand the impossibility of their horses overtaking Thaouka. And also that boy and horse had outdistanced the wolves long since, and that it would be useless going to look for them until daylight.

Morning began to dawn at four o’clock. A pale glimmer appeared on the horizon, and pearly drops of dew lay thick on the plain and on the tall grass, already stirred by the breath of day.

The time to leave had come.

“Now!” said Thalcave, “come.”

Glenarvan made no reply, but took Robert’s horse and sprang into the saddle. The next minute both men were galloping at full speed toward the west, in the line in which their companions ought to be advancing.

Glenarvan and Thalcave urged their steeds on

They dashed along at a prodigious rate for a full hour, dreading every minute to come across the mangled corpse of Robert. Glenarvan had torn the flanks of his horse with his spurs in his mad haste, when at last gun-shots were heard in the distance at regular intervals, as if fired as a signal.

“It’s them!” exclaimed Glenarvan;

He and Thalcave urged on their steeds to a still quicker pace, until in a few minutes more they came up to the little detachment conducted by Paganel. A cry broke from Glenarvan’s lips, for Robert was there, alive and well, still mounted on the superb Thaouka, who neighed loudly with delight at the sight of her master.

“Oh, my child, my child!” cried Glenarvan, with indescribable tenderness in his tone.

Both he and Robert leaped to the ground, and flung themselves into each other’s arms. Then the Indian hugged the brave boy in his arms.

“He is alive, he is alive,” repeated Glenarvan again and again.

“Yes,” replied Robert, “thanks to Thaouka.”

This great recognition of his favourite’s services was wholly unexpected by the Indian, who was talking to her that minute, caressing and speaking to her, as if human blood flowed in the veins of the proud creature.

Turning to Paganel, he pointed to Robert, and said, “A brave!” and employing the Indian metaphor, he added “His spurs did not tremble!”

But Glenarvan put his arms around the boy and said, “Why wouldn’t you let me or Thalcave run the risk of this last chance of deliverance, my son?”

“My Lord,” replied the boy in tones of gratitude. “Wasn’t it my place to do it? Thalcave has saved my life already, and you — you are going to save my father.”

1. Phosphorescent insects.

2. Now known as Chrysocyon brachyurus, the mane wolf. — DAS

Chapter XVIII | Index | Chapter XX

Chapter XX
The Argentinian Plains

After the first joy of the meeting was over, Paganel, Austin, Wilson, Mulrady, all those who had been left behind, except perhaps for Major MacNabbs, were only conscious of one feeling — they were dying of thirst. Most fortunately for them, the Guamini ran not far off, and about seven in the morning the little troop reached the enclosure on its banks. The area was strewn with the dead wolves, and judging from their numbers, it was evident how violent the attack must have been, and how desperate the resistance.

As soon as the travellers had drunk their fill, they began to demolish the breakfast prepared in the ramada, and did ample justice to the extraordinary viands. The rhea fillets were pronounced first-rate, and the armadillo, roasted in its carapace, was delicious.

“To eat it sensibly,” said Paganel, “would be ingratitude to Providence. We must eat too much.”

And he ate too much of it, and did not hurt himself, thanks to the clear water of the Guamini, which seemed to greatly aid in digestion.

Glenarvan, however, was not going to imitate Hannibal at Capua,¹ and at ten o’clock next morning gave the signal to depart. The leather bottles were filled with water, and the day’s march commenced. The horses were so well rested that they were quite fresh again, and kept up a canter almost constantly. The country was not so dry now, and consequently more fertile, but still a desert. No incident occurred of any importance during the 2nd and 3rd of November, and in the evening the travellers, already recovering from the severities of their journey, reached the boundary of the Pampas, and camped for the night on the frontiers of the province of Buenos Aires. They had left Talcahuano Bay on October 14th, twenty-two days ago, and they had come 450 miles.² almost two thirds of their journey was happily behind them.

Next morning they crossed the conventional line which separates the Argentinian plains from the region of the Pampas. It was here that Thalcave hoped to meet the caciques, in whose hands, he did not doubt to find Harry Grant and his men in slavery.

Of the fourteen provinces composing the Argentinian Republic, that of Buenos Aires is at once the largest and the most populous. It borders the Indian territories of the south, between the 64th and 65th degrees. Its territory is surprisingly fertile. A particularly salubrious climate reigns on this plain covered with grasses and leguminous trees, which extends almost perfectly flat to the foot of the Tandil and Tapalquem mountain ranges.

Since leaving the Guamini, there was marked change in the temperature, to the great relief of the travellers. The average temperature didn’t exceed 17 degrees,³ thanks to the violent and cold winds from Patagonia, which constantly churn the atmospheric waves. Horses and men were glad enough of this, after what they had suffered from the heat and drought, and they advanced with fresh zeal and confidence. But contrary to what Thalcave had said, the whole district appeared uninhabited, or rather abandoned.

Their route often led past or went right through small lagoons, sometimes of fresh water, sometimes of brackish. On the banks and in the shelter of bushes light wrens skipped, and happy larks sang, in company with the tangaras, that rival the colours of the brilliant humming birds. These pretty birds fluttered gaily without paying any attention to the starlings that paraded on the banks with their epaulets and red breasts. Annubis nests swung to and fro in the breeze like a creole hammock on the thorny bushes. Magnificent flamingos stalked the shore like soldiers marching in regular order, and spread out their fire coloured wings. Thousands of their cone shaped nests, about a foot high, formed a complete town. The flamingos did not disturb themselves in the least at the approach of the travellers, but this did not suit Paganel.

“For a long time,” he said to the Major, “I have wanted to see a flamingo flying.”

“Good!” said the Major.

“Now, since I find the occasion, I shall take advantage of it.”

“Enjoy yourself, Paganel.”

“Come with me, Major, and you too, Robert. I want witnesses.”

And Paganel, letting the rest of the band go on, led Robert and the Major to the troop of birds.

The shot made the whole flock of flamingos take wing

As soon as they were near enough, Paganel fired a shotgun, only loaded with powder, for he would not shed the blood of a bird uselessly. The shot made the whole assemblage take wing, while Paganel watched them attentively through his spectacles.

“Well, did you see them fly?” he asked the Major.

“Certainly I did. I could not help seeing them, unless I had been blind.”

“Good. And did you think they resembled feathered arrows when they were flying?”

“Not in the least.”

“Not a bit,” added Robert.

“I was sure of it,” said the scientist, with a satisfied air. “And yet the very proudest of modest men, my illustrious countryman, Chateaubriand, made the inaccurate comparison between flamingos and arrows. Oh, Robert, comparison is the most dangerous figure in rhetoric that I know. Mind you avoid it all your life, and only employ it in a last extremity.”

“Are you satisfied with your experiment?” asked MacNabbs.

“Delighted.”

“And so am I. But we had better push on now, for your illustrious Chateaubriand has put us a mile behind.”

On rejoining their companions, Paganel found Glenarvan busily engaged in conversation with the Indian, whom he did not seem to understand. Thalcave often stopped to observe the horizon, each time with a puzzled expression on his face. Glenarvan had been unable to determine the cause, without his usual interpreter. As soon as he saw the scientist return, he called to him.

“Come along, friend Paganel. Thalcave and I can’t understand each other at all.”

After a few minute’s talk with the Patagonian, the interpreter turned back to Glenarvan. “Thalcave is quite astonished by a fact which he finds truly bizarre.”

“Which?”

“That there are no Indians, nor even traces of any to be seen in these plains, for they are generally thick with companies of them, either driving along cattle stolen from the estancias, or going to the Andes to sell their zorillo rugs and braided leather whips.”

“And what does Thalcave think is the reason?”

“He does not know; he is astonished and that’s all.”

“But what Indian people did he reckon on meeting in this part of the Pampas?”

“Just the very ones who had the foreign prisoners in their hands, the natives under the rule of the Caciques Calfoucoura, Catriel, or Yanchetruz.”

“Who are these caciques?”

“Band leaders who were all-powerful thirty years ago, before they were driven beyond the sierras. Since then they have submitted as much as an Indian can submit, and they scour the plains of the Pampas and the province of Buenos Aires. I quite share Thalcave’s surprise at not discovering any traces of them in regions which they usually infest as salteadores.”⁴

“And what must we do then?”

“I’ll go and ask him,” replied Paganel.

After a brief conversation he returned.

“This is his advice, which seems sound to me. He says we had better continue our route to the east as far as Fort Independence, and if we don’t get news of Captain Grant there we shall hear, at any rate, what has become of the Indians of the Argentinian plains.”

“Is Fort Independence far away?” asked Glenarvan.

“No, it is in the Sierra Tandil, about sixty miles.”

“And when shall we arrive?”

“The day after tomorrow, in the evening.”

Glenarvan was quite disconcerted by this circumstance. Not to find an Indian where there were generally too many, was so unusual that there must be some serious cause for it. But worse still if Harry Grant were a prisoner in the hands of any of those tribes, had he been dragged away with them to the north or south? This doubt left Glenarvan uneasy. He felt that, cost what it might, they must not lose his track, and therefore decided to follow the advice of Thalcave, and go to the village of Tandil. There, at least, they would find someone to talk to.

About four o’clock in the evening a hill, which seemed a mountain in so flat a country, was sighted in the distance. This was Sierra Tapalquem, at the foot of which the travellers camped that night.

The passage of this mountain the next day was the easiest thing in the world. They followed sandy ripples up gently sloping terrain. Such a mountain could not be taken seriously by people who had crossed the Andes, and the horses barely reduced their speed. They passed the deserted fort of Tapalquem — the first of the chain of forts which defended the southern frontiers from Indian marauders — at noon. But to the increasing surprise of Thalcave, they did not come across even the shadow of an Indian. However, about the middle of the day three flying horsemen, well mounted and well armed, came in sight, gazed at them for an instant, and then sped away with incredible speed. Glenarvan was furious.

“Gauchos,” said the Patagonian, designating them by the name which had caused such a fiery discussion between the Major and Paganel.

“Ah! the Gauchos,” said MacNabbs. “Well, Paganel, the north wind is not blowing today. What do you think of those fellows yonder?”

“I think they look like regular bandits.”

“And how far is it from looking to being, my good geographer?”

“Only just a step, my dear Major.”

Paganel’s admission was received with a general laugh, which did not in the least disconcert him. He went on talking about the Indians however, and made this curious observation:

“I have read somewhere,” he said, “that the Arabs have a peculiar expression of ferocity in their mouths, while human expression is in the eye. Well, in the wild American, it’s the complete opposite. These people have a particularly nasty eye.” No physiognomist by profession could have better characterized the Indian race.

But desolate as the country appeared, Thalcave was on his guard against surprises, and gave orders to his party to form themselves in a close platoon. It was a useless precaution, however; for that same evening, they camped for the night in an immense tolderia, where the Cacique Catriel ordinarily gathered his bands of natives, which they not only found perfectly empty, but which the Patagonian declared, after he had examined it all around, must have been uninhabited for a long time.

Next day, the first estancias⁵ of the Sierra Tandil came in sight. Thalcave resolved not to stop at any of them, but to go straight on to Fort Independence, where he wished to inquire, particularly, on the peculiar situation of this abandoned country.

The trees, so rare since the Cordillera, reappeared, most planted after the arrival of the Europeans on the American territory. There were azedarachs, peach trees, poplars, willows, and acacias, which grew quickly and well by themselves. They usually surrounded the corrales: large, fenced, cattle enclosures. There, thousands of oxen, sheep, cows, and horses — branded with their owner’s mark — were grazing and fattening, while large, vigilant and numerous dogs watched over them. The slightly saline soil at the foot of the mountains was well suited to herds and produces excellent forage: well suited for the establishment of the estancias, which are directed by a majordomo and a foreman, with a team of four peons for a thousand head of cattle.

These people lead the life of the great shepherds of the Bible. Their flocks are as numerous — perhaps more numerous — than those which filled the plains of Mesopotamia. But here the family is wanting the Shepherd, and the great estancers of the Pampas are rude cattle merchants, nothing like the patriarchs of biblical times.

This is what Paganel explained very well to his companions, and on this subject he engaged in an interesting anthropological discussion on the comparison of races. He even managed to entice the Major into the discussion.

Paganel had occasion to observe mirages

Paganel also had occasion to observe the curious effect of mirages very common in these flat plains: the estancias, from afar, resembled large islands. The poplars and willows surrounding them seemed to be reflected in clear water, which receded before the footsteps of travellers, but the illusion was so perfect that the eye could not get used to it.

During the day of November 6th, they passed several estancias, and also one or two saladeros. It is here that the cattle, after having been fattened in the midst of succulent pastures, are brought to be butchered. The saladero, as its name suggests, is the place where meat is salted. This repugnant work begins at the end of spring. The “saladeros” will collect animals from a corral. They seize them with a lasso, which they handle skilfully, and lead them to the saladero. There, oxen, bulls, cows, and sheep are slaughtered in the hundreds, skinned and dried. Often the bulls do not let themselves be taken without a fight. The flayer then becomes a bullfighter, and this dangerous craft, he does with alacrity and, it must be said, an unusual ferocity. In short, this butchery presents a dreadful spectacle.

Nothing is as repulsive as the surroundings of a saladero. These horrible enclosures are surrounded by a fetid stench. The ferocious cries of flayers, sinister barking of dogs, and prolonged screams of dying animals emanate from them, while the urubus and auras — great vultures of the Argentinian plains — come from thousands of miles around to compete with the butchers for the still stirring debris of their victims. But at the moment the saladeros were silent, peaceful and uninhabited. The season for these immense killings had not yet come.

Thalcave pressed the march; he wished to arrive at Fort Independence that evening. The horses, excited by their masters and following the example of Thaouka, galloped through the tall grasses of the plain. They passed several farms crenellated and defended by deep moats; the main house had a terrace, from the top of which the inhabitants can shoot the bandits of the plain with military precision. Glenarvan might have found the information he was seeking at one of these, but the surest way was to arrive at the village of Tandil. They did not stop. They crossed the Rio de los Huesos, and a few miles farther on, the Chapaleofu. Soon the first grassy slopes of the Sierra Tandil came under their horses’ hooves, and an hour later the village appeared at the bottom of a narrow gorge, dominated by the crenellated walls of Fort Independence.

1. According to Livy, rather than capitalizing on his victory at Cannae by following it up with an immediate attack on a demoralized Rome, Hannibal retired to the city of Capua to celebrate his victory, and thus squandered his chance to win the Second Punic War. Modern historians tend to discount this theory — DAS

2. About 180 leagues. (720 kilometres — DAS)

3. 63° Fahrenheit. — DAS

4. Bandits.

5. The great cattle stations of the Argentinian plain.

Chapter XIX | Index | Chapter XXI

Chapter XXI
Fort Independence

The Sierra Tandil rises a thousand feet above sea level. It is a primordial chain — that is to say, it came prior to all organic and metamorphic creation. Its texture and composition have gradually changed under the influence of internal heat. It is formed of semi-circular ridges of gneiss hills, covered with fine short grass. The district of Tandil, to which it has given its name, includes all the south of the Province of Buenos Aires, and terminates in a river which conveys north all the rios that are born on its slopes.

This district contains about four thousand inhabitants, and its chief town is the village of Tandil, situated at the foot of the northern ridge of the sierra, under the protection of Fort Independence. It is favourably positioned on the stream of Chapaleofu. Of special interest to Paganel, this village was populated by French Basques and Italians. It was France that founded the first European settlements in this lower part of the Plata. In 1828, Fort Independence — intended to protect the country against the repeated invasions of the Indians — was built by the Frenchman Parachappe. Alcide d’Orbigny, best known for his study and description of all the southern countries of South America accompanied him on this undertaking.

Tandil occupied a strategic location. Large ox carts, called galeras, built for the plains roads, can travel between the village and Buenos Aires in twelve days. This allows for active commerce. The village sends the city the cattle of its estancias, the saltings of its saladeros, and various products of the Indians, such as cotton and wool fabrics, leatherwork, and other things. Tandil consists of a number of fairly comfortable houses, schools to educate its people of this world, and churches to educate them of the other.

Paganel, after imparting this information to his companions, added that information could not be lacking in the village. The fort, moreover, was always occupied by a detachment of national troops. Glenarvan put their horses in the stable of a fonda of rather good appearance, then he, Paganel, MacNabbs, and Robert, under the direction of Thalcave, proceeded to Fort Independence.

After making a short ascent up the sierra, they reached the postern gate, carelessly guarded by an Argentinian sentinel. They passed through without difficulty, which indicated either extreme negligence or extreme confidence.

It was a dozen children and young boys who were drilling

Some soldiers were exercising on the parade ground of the fort. The oldest of these soldiers was twenty, and the youngest seven. As a matter of fact, it was a dozen children and young boys who were drilling, very nicely. Their uniform consisted of a striped shirt tied at the waist with a leather belt, without trousers, breeches, or Scottish kilt. The mildness of the temperature made this uniform quite practical, and Paganel had a good opinion of a government that wasn’t stingy with stripes. Each of these young boys carried a percussion rifle and a sabre, the sword too long and the rifle too heavy for the little ones. All had swarthy faces, and a certain family resemblance. The corporal instructor looked like them, too. It must have been, and indeed it was, twelve brothers parading under the orders of the thirteenth.

Paganel was not surprised. He knew his Argentinian statistics, and knew that the average number of children exceeds nine per household. But what greatly surprised him was to see these children perform the principal movements of loading their rifles with perfect precision, twelve times. Often the corporal’s commands were even in the native language of the learned geographer.

“That’s exceptional,” he said.

But Glenarvan had not come to Fort Independence to watch toddlers do military exercises, let alone to deal with their nationality or origin. He did not give Paganel time to be surprised any more, and he begged him to ask for the head of the garrison. Paganel complied, and one of the Argentinian soldiers went to a small barracks building.

A few minutes later the Commandant appeared in person. He was a vigorous man about fifty years old, of military bearing, with greyish hair, and an imperious eye — as far as one could see through the clouds of tobacco smoke which escaped from his short pipe. His walk reminded Paganel of the old noncommissioned officers of his own country.

Thalcave, addressing the Commandant, introduced him to Lord Glenarvan and his companions. While Thalcave was speaking, the commander kept staring at Paganel in a rather embarrassing manner. The scientist could not understand what the soldier meant by it, and was just about to question him, when the commander came forward, and without ceremony, seized both his hands, and said in a joyful voice, in the geographer’s own language:

“Un Français?”

“Oui! Un Français!” said Paganel.

“Ah! Enchanté! Bienvenu! Bienvenu!” The Commandant shook Paganel’s hand with alarming vigour. “Suis Français aussi,” he added.

“Ah! Enchanté! Bienvenu! Bienvenu!” The Commandant shook Paganel’s hand with alarming vigour. “Suis Français aussi,” he added.

“Is he a friend of yours, Paganel?” asked the Major.

“Parbleu!” said Paganel, somewhat proudly. “I have friends in all five regions of the world!”

After he had succeeded in disengaging his hand, though not without difficulty, from the living vice in which it was held, a lively conversation ensued. Glenarvan would gladly have put in a word about the business at hand, but the soldier related his entire history, and was not in a mood to stop until he was done. It was plain to see that this good man must have left France many years back, for his mother tongue had grown unfamiliar, and if he had not forgotten the words he certainly did not remember how to put them together. His speech was more like the creole of a French colony. Indeed, they were quick to learn that the commander of Fort Independence was a French sergeant, an old comrade of Parachappe.

He had not left the fort since it had been built in 1828, and he now commanded it with the consent of the Argentinian government. He was a man about fifty years of age, a Basque, and his name was Manuel Ipharaguerre, so that he was almost a Spaniard. A year after his arrival in the country he was naturalized, took service in the Argentinian army, and married an Indian girl, who was now nursing twin, six month old babies — two boys, be it understood, for the good wife of the sergeant would have never thought of presenting her husband with girls. Manuel could not conceive of any state but a military one, and he hoped in due time, with the help of God, to offer the Republic a whole company of young soldiers.

“Did you see them? Charming! Good soldiers are José, Juan, and Miquele! Pepe, seven year old Pepe, can handle a gun!”

Pepe, hearing himself complimented, brought his two little feet together, and presented arms with perfect grace.

“He’ll get on!” added the sergeant. “He’ll be Colonel Major or Brigadier General some day!”

Sergeant Manuel seemed so enchanted that it would have been useless to express a contrary opinion, either to the profession of arms or the probable future of his children. He was happy, and as Goethe says, “Nothing that makes us happy is an illusion.”

All this talk took up a quarter of an hour, to the great astonishment of Thalcave. The Indian could not understand how so many words could come out of one throat. No one interrupted the Commandant, but as a sergeant, even a French sergeant, had stop talking at some point, Manuel finally fell silent, but not without obliging his guests to follow him to his house and be presented to Madame Ipharaguerre who was indeed “a good woman”.

Then, and not until then, did he ask his guests what gave him the honour of their visit. Now or never was the moment to explain, and Paganel, seizing the chance at once, began an account of their journey across the Pampas, and ended by asking why the Indians had abandoned the country.

“Ah! … nobody!” said the Sergeant, shrugging his shoulders. “Really! … No one! … and us, arms crossed … nothing to do!”

“But why?”

“War.”

“War?”

“Yes, civil war— “

“Civil war?” asked Paganel, dropping into the same sort of creole as the sergeant.

“Yes, war between the Paraguayans and Buenos Aires,” replied the sergeant.

“Well?”

“Well, Indians all in the north, in the rear of General Flores. Indian looters, loot”

“But where are the caciques?”

“Caciques are with them.”

“What! Catriel?”

“No Catriel.”

“And Calfoucoura?”

“Point Calfoucoura.”

“And Yanchetruz?”

“More Yanchetruz.”

The reply was reported to Thalcave, who shook his head and gave an approving look. The Patagonian was either unaware of, or had forgotten that civil war was decimating the two parts of the republic — a war which would ultimately lead to the intervention of Brazil. The Indians have everything to gain by these internecine strifes, and would not lose such fine opportunities for plunder. There was no doubt the sergeant was right in assigning the war in the north as the cause of the forsaken appearance of the plains.

But this circumstance upset all Glenarvan’s plans, for if Harry Grant was a prisoner in the hands of the caciques, he must have been dragged north with them. How and where should they ever find him if that were the case? Should they attempt a perilous and almost useless journey to the northern border of the Pampas? It was a serious question which would need to be well debated.

However, there was an important question that could still be asked of the sergeant; and it was the Major who thought of it, while the others looked at each other in silence.

“Has the sergeant heard whether any Europeans were being held prisoners in the hands of the caciques?”

Manuel looked thoughtful for a few minutes, like a man trying to ransack his memory.

“Yes,” he said finally.

“Ah!” said Glenarvan, catching at the fresh hope.

They all eagerly crowded around the Sergeant. “Tell us, tell us!” they said eagerly.

“A few years ago,” replied Manuel. “Yes … that’s it … European prisoners … but never seen…”

“A few years,” said Glenarvan. “You are mistaken. The date of the sinking is precise. The Britannia was wrecked in June, 1862, less than two years ago.”

“Oh, more than that, My Lord.”

“Impossible!” said Paganel.

“If really! It was when Pepe’s birth. It was two men.”

“No, three!” said Glenarvan.

“Two!” replied the Sergeant, in a positive tone.

“Two?” echoed Glenarvan, very surprised. “Two Englishmen?”

“No, no. Who speaks of English? No … a Frenchman and an Italian.”

“An Italian who was massacred by the Poyuches?” exclaimed Paganel.

“Yes! and I have since learned … Frenchman saved.”

“Saved!” cried young Robert, hanging on the sergeant’s every word.

“Yes, saved from the hands of the Indians,” said Manuel.

Paganel struck his forehead with an air of desperation.“Ah! I understand! It is all clear now; everything is explained.”

“But what is it?” asked Glenarvan, as worried as impatient.

“My friends,” replied Paganel, taking both Robert’s hands in his own, “we must resign ourselves to a grave disappointment. We have been on a wrong track. The prisoner mentioned is not Captain Grant at all, but one of my own countrymen; and his companion, Marco Vazello, who was murdered by the Poyuches. The Frenchman was dragged across the Pampas several times by the cruel Indians. Often as far as the shores of the Colorado, but he managed at length to make his escape, and return to France. Instead of following the track of Harry Grant, we have fallen on that of young Guinnard.”¹

A profound silence greeted this statement. The error was palpable. The details given by the sergeant, the nationality of the prisoner, the murder of his companion, his escape from the hands of the Indians, all evidenced the fact.

Glenarvan looked at Thalcave with a crestfallen face.

The Indian, turning to the sergeant, asked “Have you ever heard of three captive Englishmen?”

“Never,” replied Manuel. “We would have known of them at Tandil, I am sure. No, it cannot be.”

Glenarvan, after this answer, had nothing more to do at Fort Independence. He and his friends withdrew, after thanking the sergeant and exchanging a few handshakes with him.

Glenarvan was distraught at this complete reversal of his hopes, and Robert walked silently beside him, with his eyes full of tears. Glenarvan could not find a word of comfort to say to him. Paganel gesticulated and talked to himself. The Major never opened his mouth, nor Thalcave, whose Indian self esteem seemed quite wounded by having lost his way on a false trail. No one, however, thought of reproaching him for such an excusable error.

They went back to the fonda.

Supper was a gloomy affair. Not one of these courageous men regretted the trials they had so heedlessly endured, or the dangers they had run, but they all felt that their hope of success was gone. Was there any chance of coming across Captain Grant between the Sierra Tandil and the sea? No. Sergeant Manuel must certainly have heard if any prisoners had fallen into the hands of the Indians on the Atlantic coast. Any event of this nature would have attracted the notice of the Indians who trade between Tandil and Carmen, at the mouth of the Rio Negro. The traders of the Argentinian plain traffic in gossip as much as goods. If such a thing had happened, all would know of it. The only thing to do now was to get to the planned rendezvous with the Duncan at Point Medano, as quickly as possible.

Paganel asked Glenarvan to let him have the document again, to see if he could discover how they had been led astray. He re-read it with poorly hidden anger, trying to extract some new meaning out of it.

“Yet nothing can be clearer,” said Glenarvan. “It gives the date of the shipwreck, and the manner, and the place of the captivity in the most categorical manner.”

“No, it does not!” Paganel struck the table with his fist. “A hundred times, no! Since Harry Grant is not in the Pampas, he is not in America. But this document must say where he is, and it will say it, my friends, or my name is not Jacques Paganel!”

1. Auguste Guinnard was, in fact, a prisoner of the Poyuches Indians for three years, from 1856 to 1859. He endured terrible trials with extreme courage, and finally managed to escape by crossing the Andes at the Upsallata Pass. He saw France again in 1861, and is now one of the colleagues of the Honourable Paganel at the Geographic Society.

Chapter XX | Index | Chapter XXII

Chapter XXII
The Flood

A Distance of 150 miles separates Fort Independence from the shores of the Atlantic.¹ Unless there were unforeseen delays, which were unlikely, Glenarvan would rejoin the Duncan in four days. But to come back without Captain Grant, after having failed so completely in his search, was something he was loath to do. He gave no orders for departure the next day. The Major took it upon himself to have the horses saddled, renew their provisions, and to establish the bearings of the road. Thanks to his activity the little troop descended the grassy slopes of Sierra Tandil the next morning at eight o’clock.

Glenarvan, with Robert at his side, galloped along without saying a word. His bold, determined nature made it impossible to take this failure calmly. His heart throbbed as if it would burst, and his head was burning. Paganel, annoyed by the difficulty, returned to the words of the document, trying to discover some new meaning. Thalcave was perfectly silent, and left Thaouka to lead the way. The Major, always confident, remained solid at his post, like a man on whom discouragement takes no hold. Tom Austin and his two sailors shared the dejection of their master. A timid rabbit happened to run across their path, and the superstitious Scots looked at each other in dismay.

“A bad omen,” said Wilson.

“Yes, in the Highlands,” said Mulrady.

“What’s bad in the Highlands is not better here,” said Wilson sententiously.

By noon they had crossed the Sierra Tandil, and descended into the undulating plains stretching to the sea. At each step clear rios watered this fertile land, and lost themselves among the tall grasses. The ground had once more become completely level, like the ocean after a storm. The last mountains of the Argentinian Pampas were behind them, and a long carpet of greenery unrolled itself over the monotonous meadow. It was easy to see the fertility of this land in the rich abundance of its pastures and their somber greenness.

The weather had been fine until then. But today the sky presented anything but a reassuring appearance. The heavy vapours generated by the high temperature of the preceding days hung in thick clouds which promised to empty themselves in torrents of rain. Moreover, the vicinity of the Atlantic, and the prevailing west wind, made the climate of this country particularly humid.

That day, at least, the clouds did not burst, and in the evening, after a brisk gallop of forty miles, the horses stopped on the brink of a deep canadas, an immense natural trench filled with water. No shelter was near, and ponchos had to serve both for tents and coverlets as each man lay down and fell asleep beneath the threatening sky, but the rains still did not come.

Next day as the plain lowered, the presence of underground water became still more noticeable. Moisture oozed from every pore of the ground. Soon large ponds, some just beginning to form, and some already deep, lay across the road to the east. As long as they had only to deal with lagunas, well circumscribed stretches of water unencumbered with aquatic plants, the horses could get through well enough, but when they encountered moving sloughs called penganos, it was harder work. Tall grass clogged them, and it wasn’t possible to recognize the hazard until you were already in it.

These bogs had already proved fatal to more than one living thing, for Robert, who had gone forward by half a mile, came rushing back at full gallop.

“Monsieur Paganel, Monsieur Paganel!” he called. “A forest of horns!”

“What!” exclaimed the geographer; “you have found a forest of horns?”

“Yes, yes, or at least a grove.”

“A grove!” Paganel, shrugged his shoulders. “My boy, you are dreaming.”

“I am not dreaming, and you will see for yourself,” said Robert. “This is a strange country. They sow horns, and they sprout up like wheat. I wish I could get some of the seed.”

“The boy is really speaking seriously,” said the Major.

“Yes, Major, and you will soon see clearly.”

Robert was not mistaken, for presently they found themselves in front of an immense field of horns, regularly planted and stretching far out of sight. It was a complete copse, low and close packed, but strange.

“Well,” said Robert.

“This is peculiar,” said Paganel, and he turned around to question Thalcave on the subject.

“The horns come out of the ground,” said Thalcave, “but the oxen are down below.”

“What?” exclaimed Paganel. “Is there a whole herd that has mired in this mud?”

“Yes,” said the Patagonian.

In fact, an immense herd had died under this soil, which had been liquified by the vibration of its passage. Hundreds of oxen had just perished, side by side, suffocated in the vast pothole. This event, which sometimes occurs in the plains of Argentina, could not be ignored by the Indian, and it was a warning to be taken seriously. The immense hecatomb, which would have satisfied the most exacting gods of antiquity, was circled around, and an hour later the field of horns was left two miles behind.

Thalcave was somewhat anxiously observing a state of things which appeared unusual to him. He frequently stopped and raised himself on his stirrups and looked around. His great height gave him a commanding view of the whole horizon, but perceiving nothing that could enlighten him, he quickly resumed his seat and went on. About a mile further he stopped again, and leaving the straight route, made a circuit of some miles north and south, and then returned and fell back in his place at the head of the troop, without saying a syllable as to what he hoped or feared. This strange behaviour, repeated several times, intrigued Paganel, and worried Glenarvan. At last, at Glenarvan’s request, he asked the Indian about it.

Thalcave replied that he was astonished to see the plains so saturated with water. Never, to his knowledge, since he had followed the calling of guide, had he found the ground in this waterlogged condition. Even in the rainy season, the Argentinian plains had always been passable.

“But what is the source of all this water?” said Paganel.

“I do not know, and when I do…”

“Do the rios of the Sierra, swollen by heavy rain, never overflow their banks?”

“Sometimes.”

“And now, maybe?”

“Perhaps.”

Paganel was obliged to be content with this unsatisfactory reply, and went back to Glenarvan to report the result of his conversation.

“And what does Thalcave advise us to do?” said Glenarvan.

“What should we do?” he asked him.

“Go on quickly,” said Thalcave.

This was easier said than done. The horses rapidly tired treading over ground that gave way and oozed water at every step. This part of the plain could be likened to an immense bottom, where the invading waters were quickly accumulating. A flood would immediately transform this basin into a lake. It was important to cross these lands without delay,

They quickened their pace, but could not go fast enough to escape the water, which rolled in great sheets at their feet. About two o’clock the clouds burst, and cascades of tropical rain poured down upon the plain. There was no way to escape this deluge, and it was better to receive it stoically. Their ponchos were dripping; their hats overflowed like a roof whose gutters are engorged; the fringe of the recados seemed made of liquid nets. The horse’s hooves struck up torrents from the ground, and the horsemen, splashed by their mounts, rode in a double shower which came at once from the earth and the sky.

In this drenched, cold, and worn out state, they came to a miserable rancho at evening. Only desperate people could call it a shelter, and only travellers at bay would even think of entering it; but Glenarvan and his companions had no choice, and were glad enough to burrow in this wretched hovel, though it would have been despised by even a poor Indian of the Pampas. A miserable fire of grass was kindled, which gave out more smoke than heat, and was very difficult to keep alight, as the torrents of rain which dashed against the outside of the ruined cabin found their way within and fell down in large drops from the roof. Twenty times over the fire would have been extinguished if Mulrady and Wilson had not kept off the water.

The supper was a dull meal, and neither appetizing nor reviving. Only the Major seemed to eat with any relish. The impassive MacNabbs was superior to all circumstances. Paganel, Frenchman as he was, tried to joke, but the attempt was a failure.

“My jests are damp,” he said. “They miss fire.”

The only consolation in such circumstances was to sleep, and accordingly each one lay down and endeavoured to find in slumber a temporary forgetfulness of his discomforts and fatigues. The night was stormy, and the planks of the rancho cracked before the blasts as if every instant they would give way. The poor horses outside, exposed to all the inclemency of the weather, were making piteous moans, and their masters were suffering quite as much inside the ruined hut. Sleep overpowered them at last. Robert was the first to close his eyes and lean his head against Glenarvan’s shoulder, and soon all the rest were soundly sleeping under the protection of God.

It seems that God made good guard, because the night ended without accident. No one stirred until Thaouka woke them by tapping vigorously against the rancho with her hoof. She knew it was time to start, and at a push could give the signal as well as her master. They owed the faithful creature too much to disobey her, and set off immediately.

The rain had abated, but floods of water still covered the saturated ground. Puddles, marshes and ponds overflowed and formed immense banados of untrustworthy depth. Paganel, on consulting his map, came to the conclusion that the rios Grande and Vivarota, into which the water from the plains generally runs, must have merged into one bed several miles wide.

Extreme haste was imperative, for all their lives depended on it. Should the inundation increase, where could they find refuge? Not a single elevated point was visible on the whole circle of the horizon, and on such level plains water would sweep along with fearful rapidity.

The horses were spurred on to the utmost, and Thaouka led the way, bounding over the water as if it had been her natural element. Certainly she might justly have been called a sea-horse — better than many of the aquatic animals who bear that name.

Suddenly, about ten o’clock, Thaouka gave signs of violent agitation. She kept turning around toward the wide plains of the south, neighing continually, and snorting with wide open nostrils. She reared violently, and Thalcave had some difficulty in keeping his seat. The foam from her mouth was tinged with blood from the action of the bit, pulled tightly by her master’s strong hand, and yet the fiery animal would not be still. Had she been free, her master knew she would have fled away northward as fast as her legs would have carried her.

“What is the matter with Thaouka?” asked Paganel. “Is she bitten by the leeches? They are very voracious in the Argentinian streams.”

“No,” replied the Indian.

“Is she frightened at something, then?”

“Yes, she scents danger.”

“What?”

“I do not know.”

A falling, rising, rushing, incoherent mixture of frightened animals, fleeing with a frightful speed.

If the eye did not yet reveal the danger that Thaouka felt, the ear, at least, could already be aware of it. A low murmur, like the sound of a rising tide, was heard beyond the limits of the horizon. The wind was gusty and wet with mist. The birds, fleeing some unknown phenomenon, traversed the air. The horses, submerged to mid-leg, felt the first thrusts of the current. Soon a tremendous noise: a roaring, neighing, bleating sounded half a mile south, and huge herds appeared. A falling, rising, rushing, incoherent mixture of frightened animals, fleeing with a frightful speed. It was scarcely possible to distinguish them amidst the liquid eddies raised in their course. One hundred of the largest of whales could not have pushed up more violent waves in the ocean.

“Anda, anda!”² shouted Thalcave, in a voice like thunder.

“What is it, then?” asked Paganel.

“Flood! Flood!” said Thalcave, spurring his horse, which he launched northward.

“Flooding!” cried Paganel, flying with his companions after Thaouka.

It was past time, for about five miles south an immense tsunami was advancing over the plain, and changing the whole country into an ocean. The tall grass disappeared before it as if cut down by a scythe. Tufts of mimosas, torn off by the current were pushed ahead of the wave, advancing with irresistible power. Of course there had been a break in the barrancas of the great rivers of Pampasia, and perhaps the waters of Rio Colorado to the north and Rio Negro to the south met now in a common bed.

The wave was speeding on with the rapidity of a race-horse, and the travellers fled before it like a cloud before a storm-wind. They looked in vain for some refuge. The sky and the water were confused on the horizon. The terrified horses galloped so wildly along that the riders could hardly keep their saddles. Glenarvan often looked back, and saw the water overtaking them.

“Anda, anda!” shouted Thalcave.

They spurred the poor horses on until blood ran from their lacerated sides, and traced the water in long red threads. They stumbled over crevasses in the ground, or got entangled in the hidden grass below the water. They fell, and were pulled up, only to fall again and again, and be pulled up again and again. The level of the water was rising. Long ripples announced the assault of this wave, which raised its foaming head less than two miles behind them.

This ultimate struggle with the most terrible of elements lasted for a quarter of an hour. The fugitives could not tell how far they had gone, but, judging by their speed, the distance must have been considerable. The poor horses were chest high in water now, and could only advance with extreme difficulty. Glenarvan, Paganel, Austin, all thought themselves doomed to the horrible death of those poor souls lost at sea. The horses were swiftly getting out of their depth, and six feet of water would be enough to drown them.

It is necessary to give up painting the poignant anxieties of these eight men overtaken by a rising tide. They felt helpless to fight against this cataclysm of nature, superior to human efforts. Their salvation was no longer in their hands.

Five minutes later, and the horses were swimming; the current alone carried them along with tremendous force, and with a swiftness equal to their fastest gallop. They must have been moving at fully twenty miles an hour.

All hope of delivery seemed impossible, when the Major suddenly called out.

“A tree!”

“A tree?” exclaimed Glenarvan.

The monstrous wave, forty feet high, swept over them

“There, there!” Thalcave pointed to a species of gigantic walnut, which raised its solitary head above the waters, a mile to the north.

His companions needed no urging now; this tree, so unexpectedly discovered, must be reached at all costs. The horses very likely might not be able to get to it, but the men at least might be saved. The current was bearing them right to it.

Just at that moment Tom Austin’s horse gave a smothered neigh and disappeared. His master, freeing his feet from the stirrups, began to swim vigorously.

“Hang on to my saddle,” called Glenarvan.

“Thank you, Your Honour, but I have good stout arms.”

“How’s your horse, Robert?” asked Glenarvan, turning to young Grant.

“Very well, My Lord! He swims like a fish.”

“Look out!” shouted the Major, in a stentorian voice.

The warning was scarcely spoken before the enormous tsunami arrived. A monstrous wave forty feet high, swept over the fugitives with a terrible noise. Men and animals all disappeared in a whirl of foam. A liquid mass, weighing several millions of tons, engulfed them in its seething waters.

When the tsunami had passed, the men reappeared on the surface, and counted each other rapidly; but all the horses, except Thaouka, who still bore her master, had disappeared forever.

“Courage, courage,” repeated Glenarvan, supporting Paganel with one arm, and swimming with the other.

“I can manage! I can manage!” said the worthy scholar. “I am even not sorry—”

Thaouka was being rapidly carried away by the current

But no one ever knew what he was not sorry about, for the poor man was obliged to swallow down the rest of his sentence with half a pint of muddy water. The Major advanced quietly, making regular strokes, worthy of a life guard. The sailors took to the water like porpoises, while Robert clung to Thaouka’s mane, and was carried along with her. The noble animal swam superbly, instinctively making straight for the tree.

The tree was only forty yards off, and in a few minutes the whole party had safely reached it. If not for this refuge they must all have perished in the flood.

The water had risen to the top of the trunk, just to where the parent branches forked out. It was easy to cling to it. Thalcave abandoned his horse, and climbed into the tree, carrying Robert with him. Then his mighty arms helped pull all the exhausted swimmers to safety.

But Thaouka was being rapidly carried away by the current. She turned her intelligent face toward her master, and, shaking her long mane, neighed to call him.

“Are you going to forsake her, Thalcave?” asked Paganel.

“Me?” cried the Indian.

He plunged down into the tumultuous waters, and came up again twenty yards off. A few instants afterward his arms were around Thaouka’s neck, and master and steed were drifting together toward the misty horizon to the north.

1. About 60 leagues. (240 kilometres — DAS)

2. Quick! Quick!

Chapter XXI | Index | Chapter XXIII

Chapter XXIII
Leading the Lives of Birds

The tree in which Glenarvan and his companions had just found refuge resembled a walnut, having the same glossy foliage and rounded form. In reality, however, it was the ombú, which grows solitarily on the Argentinian plains. The enormous and twisted trunk of this tree is planted firmly in the soil, not only by its great roots, but still more by its vigorous shoots, which fasten it down in the most tenacious manner. This was how it stood proof against the shock of the tsunami.

This ombú was one hundred feet tall, and its shadow covered a circumference of sixty fathoms. Its immense canopy rested on three great boughs which trifurcated from the top of the six foot wide trunk. Two of these rose almost perpendicularly, and supported an immense parasol of foliage, the branches of which were so crossed and intertwined and entangled — as if by the hand of a basket maker — that they formed an impenetrable shade. The third branch stretched out horizontally above the roaring waters, into which its lower leaves dipped. The tree made an island of green in the midst of the surrounding ocean. Space was not lacking in the interior of this gigantic tree, for there were great gaps in the foliage, perfect glades, with air in abundance, and freshness everywhere. To see the innumerable branches rising to the clouds, parasitic lianas running from bough to bough, and attaching them together, while the sunlight glinted here and there among the leaves, one might have called it a complete forest instead of a solitary tree sheltering them all.

A myriad of the feathered tribes fled away into the topmost branches on the arrival of the fugitives, protesting this flagrant usurpation of their domicile with their outcries. These birds, who themselves had taken refuge in the solitary ombú, were there by the hundreds: blackbirds, starlings, isacas, jilgueros¹, and especially the picaflors² of most resplendent colours. When they flew away it seemed as though a gust of wind had stripped the tree of its flowers.

Such was the asylum offered to Glenarvan’s little band. Young Grant and the agile Wilson were scarcely perched on the tree before they had climbed to the upper branches and put their heads through the leafy dome to get a view of the vast horizon. The ocean made by the inundation surrounded them on all sides, and, far as the eye could reach, seemed to have no limits. Not a single tree was visible on the liquid plain; the ombú stood alone amid the rolling waters, and trembled in them. In the distance, drifting from south to north, carried along by the impetuous torrent, they saw trees torn up by the roots, twisted branches, roofs torn from destroyed ranchos, planks of sheds stolen by the deluge from estancias, carcasses of drowned animals, blood-stained skins, and on one shaking tree a whole family of jaguars, howling and clutching hold of their frail raft. Still farther away, a black spot — almost invisible already — caught Wilson’s eye. It was Thalcave and his faithful Thaouka.

“Thalcave, Thalcave!” shouted Robert, waving his arms at the courageous Patagonian.

“He will save himself, Mr. Robert,” said Wilson. “We must go down to His Honour.”

In a moment they had descended through three storeys of boughs, and landed safely on the top of the trunk, where they found Glenarvan, Paganel, the Major, Austin, and Mulrady, sitting either astride or in some position they found more comfortable. Wilson gave his report on their visit to the summit of the ombú, and all shared his opinion with respect to Thalcave. The only question was whether it was Thalcave who would save Thaouka, or Thaouka who would save Thalcave.

Their own situation was much more alarming than his. The tree would likely be able to resist the current, but the waters might rise higher and higher, until the topmost branches were covered, for the basin of this part of the plain made a deep reservoir. Glenarvan’s first concern, consequently, had been to make notches by which to track the progress of the flood. For the present it was stationary, having apparently reached its height. This was reassuring.

“And now what are we going to do?” said Glenarvan.

“Make our nest, parbleu!” said Paganel

“Make our nest?” asked Robert.

“Certainly, my boy, and live the life of birds, since we can’t that of fishes.”

“All very well, but who will fill our bills for us?” said Glenarvan.

“Me,” said the Major.

All eyes turned toward him immediately, and there he sat in a natural arm-chair formed of two elastic boughs, holding out his alforjas damp, but still intact.

“Oh, MacNabbs, that’s just like you,” said Glenarvan. “You keep your head, while everyone around you is losing theirs.”

“As soon as it was decided that we were not going to be drowned, I had no intention of dying of hunger.”

“I should have thought of it, too,” said Paganel, “but I am so distrait.”

“And what is in the alforjas?” asked Tom Austin.

“Food enough to last seven men for two days,” said MacNabbs.

“And I hope the flood will have gone down in twenty-four hours,” said Glenarvan.

“Or that we shall have found some other way of regaining terra firma,” added Paganel.

“Our first business then, is to have breakfast,” said Glenarvan.

“After drying ourselves, though,” said the Major.

“And where’s the fire?” asked Wilson.

“We must make it,” replied Paganel.

“Where?”

“On the top of the trunk, parbleu.”

“And what with?”

“With the dead wood we cut off the tree.”

“But how will you light it?” asked Glenarvan. “Our tinder looks like a wet sponge.”

“We can dispense with it,” replied Paganel. “We only need a little dry moss and a ray of sunshine, and the lens of my telescope, and you’ll see what a fire I’ll get to dry myself by. Who will go and cut wood in the forest?”

“I will,” said Robert.

And off he scampered like a young cat into the depths of the foliage, followed by his friend Wilson. Paganel set to work to find dry moss, and had soon gathered sufficient. He procured a ray of sunshine, which was easy for the sun was shining brightly, and focused with his lens, the moss was easily kindled. This he laid on a bed of damp leaves, at the trifurcation of the large branches, forming a natural hearth, from which there was little fear of the fire spreading.

Robert and Wilson had reappeared, each with an armful of dry wood, which they threw on the smouldering moss. In order to ensure a proper draught, Paganel stood over the hearth with his long legs straddled out in the Arab manner. Then stooping down and raising himself with a rapid motion, he made a violent current of air with his poncho, which made the wood take fire, and soon a bright flame roared in the improvised brazier.

They dried themselves, and hung their ponchos in the breeze

After drying themselves, each in his own fashion, and hanging their ponchos on the tree, where they were swung to and fro in the breeze, they ate breakfast, carefully rationing out the provisions, for the morrow had to be thought of. The immense basin might not empty as quickly as Glenarvan hoped, and the supply was very limited. The ombú produced no fruit. Fortunately, it would likely abound in fresh eggs, thanks to the numerous nests stowed away among the leaves, not to mention their feathered proprietors. These resources were by no means to be disdained.

The next business was to install themselves as comfortably as they could, in prospect of a long stay.

“As the kitchen and dining-room are on the ground floor,” said Paganel, “we must sleep on the first floor. The house is large, and as the rent is not dear, we must not cramp ourselves for room. I can see natural cradles up there, in which once safely tucked up we shall sleep as if we were in the best beds in the world. We have nothing to fear. Besides, we will watch, and we are numerous enough to repulse a fleet of Indians or wild animals.”

“We only need fire-arms,” said Austin.

“I have my revolvers,” said Glenarvan.

“And I have mine,” said Robert.

“But what good are they?” asked Tom Austin, “unless Monsieur Paganel can find some way of making powder.”

“We already have it,” said MacNabbs, exhibiting a powder magazine in a perfect condition.

“Where did you get that, Major?” asked Paganel.

“Thalcave. He thought we might need it, and gave it to me before he plunged into the water to save Thaouka.”

“Generous, brave Indian!” said Glenarvan.

“Yes,” said Tom Austin, “if all the Patagonians are cut from the same cloth, I must compliment Patagonia.”

“Do not forget the horse,” said Paganel. “She is part and parcel of the Patagonian, and I’m much mistaken if we don’t see them again, the one on the other’s back.”

“How far are we from the Atlantic?” asked the Major.

“About forty miles at the most,” said Paganel. “And now, friends, since everyone is free to choose their actions, I beg to take leave of you. I am going to choose an observatory for myself up there, and by the help of my telescope, let you know how things are going on in the world.”

The scientist was dismissed to his selected work, and hoisted himself up skilfully from bough to bough, until he disappeared into the thick foliage. His companions began to arrange the night quarters, and prepare their beds. This didn’t take long, as they had no blankets to spread, nor furniture to arrange and very soon they resumed their seats around the fire to talk.

They didn’t talk about their current situation, for which there was nothing more to do than to endure it patiently. They returned to the inexhaustible theme of Captain Grant. They would return on board the Duncan in three days, should the water subside. But Harry Grant and his two sailors, those unfortunate castaways, would not be with them. Indeed, it even seemed after this failure, and this useless journey across America, that all chance of finding them was gone forever. Where could they commence a fresh quest? What grief Lady Helena and Mary Grant would feel on hearing there was no further hope.

“My poor sister!” said Robert. “It’s all over, for us.”

For the first time Glenarvan could not find any comfort to give him. What could he say to the lad? Had they not followed with rigorous accuracy the indicated latitude of the document?

“And yet,” he said, “this 37th degree of latitude is not a mere figure. Whether it applies to the shipwreck or captivity of Harry Grant, it is no mere guess or supposition. We read it with our own eyes.”

“All very true, Your Honour,” said Tom Austin, “and yet our search has been unsuccessful.”

“It is both irritating and depressing,” said Glenarvan.

“Irritating, and depressing, I’ll grant you,” said the Major calmly, “but not hopeless. It is precisely because we have an incontestable figure provided for us, that we should follow it up to the end.”

“What do you mean?” asked Glenarvan. “What more can we do?”

“A very logical and simple thing, my dear Edward. Let’s turn east, when we’re aboard the Duncan, and follow the 37th parallel back to our starting point, if need be.”

“Do you suppose that I have not thought of that, Mr. MacNabbs?” said Glenarvan. “Yes, a hundred times. But what chance is there of success? Isn’t leaving the American continent going away from the very spot indicated by Harry Grant, from this very Patagonia so distinctly named in the document.”

“And would you recommence your search in the Pampas, when you have the certainty that the shipwreck of the Britannia occurred on neither the Pacific, nor Atlantic coast?”

Glenarvan was silent.

“And however small the chance of finding Harry Grant by following up the given parallel, ought we not to try?”

“I don’t say ‘no’,” said Glenarvan.

“And you, my friends,” said the Major to the sailors. “Do you share my opinion?”

“Entirely,” said Tom Austin, while Mulrady and Wilson nodded.

“Listen to me, friends,” said Glenarvan after a few moments of thought, “and listen well. Robert, this is a serious discussion. I will do my utmost to find Captain Grant; I am pledged to it, and will devote my whole life to the task if needs be. All Scotland would unite with me to save so devoted a son as he has been to her. I too think with you that we must follow the 37th parallel around the globe if necessary, however slight our chance of finding him, and I will do so. But that is not the question we have to settle. There is one much more important than that is. Should we give up our search on the American continent?”

No one made any reply. Each one seemed afraid to pronounce the word.

“Well?” asked Glenarvan, addressing himself especially to the Major.

“My dear Edward,” said MacNabbs, “it would be incurring too great a responsibility for me to reply hic et nunc³. It is a question which requires reflection. I must know first, through which countries the 37th parallel of southern latitude passes?”

“That’s Paganel’s business,” said Glenarvan.

“Let’s ask him, then,” said the Major.

But the scholar was nowhere to be seen, hidden by the thick foliage of the ombú. It was necessary to hail him.

“Paganel, Paganel!” shouted Glenarvan.

“Ici!” answered a voice from above.

“Where are you?”

“In my tower.”

“What are you doing there?”

“Examining the wide horizon.”

“Could you come down for a minute?”

“Do you need me?”

“Yes.”

“What for?”

“To know what countries are crossed by the 37th parallel.”

“Nothing is easier,” said Paganel. “I need not come down for that.”

“Very well, tell us now.”

“Listen, then. After leaving America the 37th parallel crosses the Atlantic Ocean.”

“And then?”

“It encounters the Tristan da Cunha Islands.”

“Yes.”

“It passes two degrees below the Cape of Good Hope.”

“And afterwards?”

“Runs across the Indian Ocean, and just touches Isle St. Pierre, in the Amsterdam group.”

“Go on.”

“It cuts Australia in the province of Victoria.”

“And then.”

“After leaving Australia it—”

This last sentence was not completed. Was the geographer hesitating, or didn’t he know what to say?

No. A terrible cry resounded from the top of the tree. Glenarvan and his friends turned pale and looked at each other. What fresh catastrophe had happened now? Had the unfortunate Paganel fallen?

Paganel appeared, tumbling down from branch to branch

Already Wilson and Mulrady were rushing to his rescue when his long body appeared, tumbling down from branch to branch.

Was he alive? Was he dead? He made no attempt to catch himself. He was about to fall into the roaring waters when the Major stopped him.

“Much obliged, MacNabbs,” said Paganel.

“What is the matter with you?” said the Major. “What came over you? Another of your ‘distractions’?”

“Yes, yes,” said Paganel, in a voice almost inarticulate with emotion. “Yes, a distraction, but this was something phenomenal.”

“What was it?”

“We were wrong! We are wrong again! We are always wrong!”

“Explain yourself.”

“Glenarvan, Major, Robert, my friends!” cried Paganel. “All you that hear me, we are looking for Captain Grant where he is not to be found.”

“What do you mean?” exclaimed Glenarvan.

“Captain Grant is not now, nor has he ever been, lost in America!”

1. Goldfinches — DAS

2. Hummingbirds — DAS

3. Latin: here and now — DAS

Chapter XXII | Index | Chapter XXIV

Chapter XXIV
Still Leading the Lives of Birds

Profound astonishment greeted these unexpected words. What could the geographer mean? Had he lost his mind? He spoke with such conviction, however, that all eyes turned toward Glenarvan, for Paganel’s statement was a direct answer to the question he had so recently posed to them. But Glenarvan confined himself to shaking his head at the scientist’s sudden assertion.

Paganel soon had better control over himself. “Yes!” he said with conviction. “Yes! We went astray in our research, and read into the document words that were never there!”

“Explain yourself, Paganel,” said the Major. “And more calmly, if you can.”

“It’s very simple, Major. As you were in error, I too was thrown into a false interpretation. Just a moment ago, at the top of this tree, answering your questions, and stopping on the word ‘Australia’, a lightning flash went through my brain and it came to me.”

“What?” exclaimed Glenarvan. “Do you claim that Harry Grant—”

“I claim,” said Paganel, “that the word ‘austral’ that occurs in the document is not a complete word, as we have thought so far, but just the root of the word Australie.”

“Well, that would be strange,” said the Major.

“Strange?” Glenarvan shrugged his shoulders. “It is simply impossible.”

“Impossible?” said Paganel. “That is a word we don’t allow in France.”

“How?” asked Glenarvan, in a tone of the most profound incredulity. “How do you dare to contend, with the document in your hand, that the shipwreck of the Britannia happened on the shores of Australia?”

“I am sure of it,” replied Paganel.

“Well, Paganel,” said Glenarvan, “that is a declaration which astonishes me a great deal, coming from the Secretary of the Geographical Society!”

“And why so?” said Paganel, poked in his vanity.

“Because, if you allow the word Australie! you must also allow the word Indiens, and Indians are never seen there.”

Paganel was not the least surprised at this rejoinder. Doubtless he expected it, for he began to smile, and said:

“My dear Glenarvan, do not hasten to triumph. I am going to ‘battre à plates coutures’¹ as we Frenchmen say, and never was an Englishman more thoroughly defeated than you will be. It will be the revenge for Crécy and Agincourt.”

“I wish nothing better. Take your revenge, Paganel.”

“Listen, then. In the text of the document, there is neither mention of the Indians nor of Patagonia! The incomplete word ‘indi’ does not mean Indiens, but of course, indigenes, natives! Now, do you admit that there are ‘natives’ in Australia?”

“Bravo, Paganel!” said the Major.

“Well, do you agree to my interpretation, my dear Lord?”

“Yes,” replied Glenarvan, “if you will prove to me that the fragment of a word ‘gonie’, does not refer to the country of the Patagonians.”

“Certainly it does not. It has nothing to do with Patagonia,” said Paganel. “Read it any way you please except that.”

“How?”

“Cosmogonie, theogonie, agonie.”

“Agonie!” said the Major.

“I don’t care which,” said Paganel. “The word does not matter; I will not even try to find out its meaning. The main point is that ‘austral’ means Australie, and we must have gone blindly on a wrong track not to have discovered the explanation at the very beginning, it was so evident. If I had found the document myself, and my judgment had not been misled by your interpretation, I should never have read it differently.”

A burst of hurrahs, and congratulations, and compliments followed Paganel’s words. Austin and the sailors, the Major, and especially Robert were overjoyed at this new hope, and applauded him heartily. Even Glenarvan was almost prepared to give in.

“I only want to know one thing more, my dear Paganel,” he said, “and then I must bow to your perspicacity.”

“What is it?”

“How will you group the words together according to your new interpretation? How will the document read?”

“Easily enough answered. Here is the document.” Paganel took out the precious paper he had been studying so conscientiously for the last few days.

There was a profound silence, while the geographer collecting his thoughts, took his time to answer. His finger followed the broken lines on the document, while in a sure voice, and emphasizing certain words, he read:

“‘On June 7, 1862, the three-master Britannia of Glasgow sank after … ’ Let’s say, if you like, ‘two days, three days’ or ‘a long agony,’ it does not matter, it’s totally irrelevant, ‘on the shores of Australia. Heading to land, two sailors and Captain Grant will try to approach’ or ‘landed the continent where they will be’ or ‘are prisoners of cruel indigenes. They threw this document,’ etc., etc.

“Is that clear?”

“Clear enough,” replied Glenarvan, “if the word ‘continent’ can be applied to Australia, which is only an island!”

“Rest assured, my dear Glenarvan; the best geographers have agreed to call the island ‘the Australian Continent’.”

“Then all I have to say now, my friends, is away to Australia!” said Glenarvan. “And may Heaven help us!”

“To Australia!” echoed his companions, with one voice.

“Do you know, Paganel,” said Glenarvan, “that your being on board the Duncan is a providential event.”

“All right. Look on me as an envoy of Providence, and let us not talk about it again.”

Thus ended this conversation, which had such great consequences for their future. It completely changed the morale of the searchers. They had just seized the thread to lead them out of this labyrinth in which they had believed themselves forever lost. A new hope arose over the ruins of their collapsed plans. They could safely leave behind this American continent, and all their thoughts were already flying to Australia. They would not bring despair when they re-boarded the Duncan. Lady Helena, and Mary Grant would not have to mourn the irrevocable loss of Captain Grant! So they forgot the dangers of their situation to indulge in joy, and they had only one regret: that they were not able to leave immediately.

It was about four o’clock in the afternoon, and they determined to have supper at six. Paganel wished to prepare a splendid spread in honour of the occasion, but as their supplies were very scanty, he proposed to Robert that they should go and hunt in “the neighbouring forest.” Robert clapped his hands at the idea, so they took Thalcave’s powder magazine, cleaned and loaded the revolvers, and set off.

“Don’t go too far,” said the Major, solemnly, to the two hunters.

After their departure, Glenarvan and MacNabbs went down to examine the state of the water by looking at the notches they had made on the tree, while Wilson and Mulrady replenished the fire.

Glenarvan saw no sign of the flood abating, but it seemed to have reached its maximum height. But the violence with which the water still rushed northward proved that the equilibrium of the Argentinian rivers was not yet restored. Glenarvan did not expect the waters to start to recede as long as the current kept running so strong.

The hunt was going well

While Glenarvan and his cousin were making these observations, the report of firearms resounded frequently above their heads, accompanied by shouts of joy almost as loud. Robert’s soprano mixed with Paganel’s bass. No one could say who was the most childish. The hunt was going well, and wonders in culinary art might be expected. When Glenarvan returned to the brazier, he congratulated Wilson on an excellent idea, which he had skilfully carried out. The brave fellow had managed to catch, with only a pin and a piece of string, several dozen small fish, as delicate as smelts, called mojarras, which were all jumping about in a fold of his poncho, ready to be converted into an exquisite dish.

The hunters came down from the ombú peaks. Paganel was cautiously carrying some black swallows’ eggs, and a string of sparrows, which he meant to serve up later under the name ‘wimps’. Robert had skilfully brought down several pairs of jilgueros, small green and yellow birds, which are excellent to eat, and greatly in demand in the Montevideo market. Paganel, who knew fifty-one ways of preparing eggs, was obliged for this once to be content with simply hardening them on the hot embers. Never the less, the meal was as varied as it was delicate. The dried beef, hard eggs, grilled mojarras, sparrows, and roast jilgueros, made one of those gala feasts whose memory is imperishable.

The conversation was very cheerful. Many compliments were paid Paganel on his twofold talents as hunter and cook, which the scholar accepted with the modesty which characterizes true merit. Then he turned the conversation to the peculiarities of the ombú, under whose canopy they had found shelter, and whose depths he declared were immense.

“Robert and I,” he added, jestingly, “thought ourselves hunting in the open forest. I was afraid, for a minute, we should lose ourselves, for I could not find the road. The sun was sinking below the horizon; I sought vainly for footmarks; I began to feel the sharp pangs of hunger, and the gloomy depths of the forest resounded already with the roar of wild beasts. No, not that; there are no wild beasts here, I am sorry to say.”

“What!” exclaimed Glenarvan, “you are sorry there are no wild beasts?”

“Certainly, I am.”

“And yet we should have every reason to dread their ferocity.”

“Their ferocity is non-existent, scientifically speaking,” said the learned geographer.

“Now come, Paganel,” said the Major, “you’ll never make me admit the utility of wild beasts. What good are they?”

“Why, Major,” exclaimed Paganel, “for purposes of classification into orders, and families, and species, and sub-species.”

“A mighty advantage, certainly!” said MacNabbs, “I could dispense with all that. If I had been one of Noah’s companions at the time of the deluge, I should most assuredly have hindered the imprudent patriarch from putting in pairs of lions, and tigers, and panthers, and bears, and such animals, for they are as malevolent as they are useless.”

“You would have done that?” asked Paganel.

“Yes, I would.”

“Well, you would have done wrong in a zoological point of view.”

“But not in a humanitarian one,” said the Major.

“It is shocking! Why, for my part, on the contrary, I should have taken special care to preserve megatheriums and pterodactyls, and all the antediluvian species of which we are unfortunately deprived by his neglect.”

“And I say, that Noah did a very good thing when he abandoned them to their fate — that is, if they lived in his day.”

“And I say he did a very bad thing,” said Paganel, “and he has justly merited the malediction of scholars to the end of time!”

The rest of the party could not help laughing at hearing the two friends disputing over old Noah. Contrary to all his principles, the Major, who all his life had never disputed with anyone, was always sparring with Paganel. The geographer seemed to have a peculiarly exciting effect on him.

Glenarvan, as usual the peacemaker, intervened in the debate. “Whether the loss of ferocious animals is to be regretted or not, in a scientific point of view, there is no help for it now; we must be content to do without them. Paganel can hardly expect to meet with wild beasts in this aerial forest.”

“Why not?” asked the geographer.

“Wild beasts in a tree!” exclaimed Tom Austin.

“Yes, undoubtedly. The American tiger, the jaguar, takes refuge in the trees, when it is too much pressed by hunters. It is quite possible that one of these animals, surprised by the inundation, might have climbed up into this ombú, and be hiding now among its thick foliage.”

“You haven’t met any of them, at any rate, I suppose?” asked the Major.

“No,” replied Paganel, “though we hunted all through the wood. It is unfortunate, for it would have been a splendid chase. There is no more ferocious carnivore than the jaguar. He can twist the neck of a horse with a single stroke of his paw. Once he has tasted human flesh he scents it greedily. He likes to eat an Indian best, and next to him a negro, then a mulatto, and last of all a white man.”

“I am delighted to hear we come only forth,” said MacNabbs.

“That only proves you are bland,” said Paganel, with an air of disdain.

“I am delighted to be insipid.”

“Well, it is humiliating enough,” said the intractable Paganel. “The white man proclaims himself chief of the human race! It seems that this is not the opinion of the jaguars.”

“Be that as it may, my brave Paganel,” said Glenarvan, “seeing there are neither Indians, nor negroes, nor mulattoes among us, I am quite rejoiced at the absence of your beloved jaguars. Our situation is not so particularly agreeable.”

“What? Not agreeable!” exclaimed Paganel, jumping at the word as likely to give a new turn to the conversation. “Are you complaining of your lot, Glenarvan?”

“I should think so, indeed,” said Glenarvan. “Do you find these hard branches very luxurious?”

“I have never been more comfortable, even in my study. We live like the birds; we sing and fly about. I begin to believe men were intended to live in trees.”

“But we lack wings,” said the Major.

“We’ll make them some day.”

“In the meantime,” said Glenarvan, “with your leave, I prefer the gravel of a park, the floor of a house, or the deck of a ship, to this aerial dwelling.”

“We must take things as they come, Glenarvan,” said Paganel. “If good, so much the better; if bad, we’ll make do. Ah, I see you are wishing you had all the comforts of Malcolm Castle.”

“No, but—”

“I am quite certain Robert is perfectly happy,” interrupted Paganel, eager to insure he had at least one ally.

“Yes, Mr. Paganel!” exclaimed Robert, in a joyous tone.

“It’s his age,” said Glenarvan.

“And mine, too,” returned the geographer. “The fewer one’s comforts, the fewer one’s needs; and the fewer one’s needs, the greater one’s happiness.”

“Now, now,” said the Major, “here is Paganel running a tilt against riches and gilt ceilings.”

“No, MacNabbs,” said the scholar, “I’m not; but if you like, I’ll tell you a little Arabian story that comes into my mind, very apropos to our situation.”

“Oh, do, do!” said Robert.

“And what is your story to prove, Paganel?” asked the Major.

“Much of what all stories prove, my good companion.”

“Not much then,” said MacNabbs. “But go on, Scheherazade, and tell us one of those tales you tell so well.”

“Once upon a time …”

“Once upon a time,” said Paganel, “there was a son of the great Haroun-al-Raschid, who was unhappy, and went to consult an old Dervish. The old sage told him that happiness was a difficult thing to find in this world. ‘However,’ he added, ‘I know an infallible means of procuring your happiness.’ ‘What is it?’ asked the young Prince. ‘It is to put the shirt of a happy man on your shoulders.’ Whereupon the Prince embraced the old man, and set out at once to search for his talisman. He visited all the capital cities in the world. He tried on the shirts of kings, and emperors, and princes and nobles; but all in vain: he could not find a man among them that was happy. Then he put on the shirts of artists, and warriors, and merchants; but these were no better. By this time he had travelled a long way, without finding what he sought. At last he began to despair of success, and began sorrowfully to retrace his steps back to his father’s palace, when one day he saw in the country a brave ploughman, all happy and singing, who was pushing his plough. He thought, ‘Surely this man is happy, if there is such a thing as happiness on earth.’ Forthwith he accosted him, and said, ‘Are you happy?’ ‘Yes,’ was the reply. ‘There is nothing you desire?’ ‘Nothing.’ ‘You would not change your lot for that of a king?’ ‘Never!’ ‘Well, then, sell me your shirt.’ ‘My shirt? I don’t have one!’”

1. French: beat you flat — DAS

Chapter XXIII | Index | Chapter XXV

Chapter XXV
Between Fire and Water

Jacques Paganel’s story was applauded by everyone, but it didn’t change anyone’s opinion. They were in agreement on one point: they had to make do with their tree, as they had neither a palace, nor a hut.

The evening had advanced while they talked. All that remained for them to close out this eventful day was to get a good sleep. The guests of the ombú were not only tired by the ordeal of the flood, but overwhelmed by the heat of the day, which had been excessive. Their winged companions were already setting an example; the jilgueros, those nightingales of the Pampas, ceased their melodious roulades, and all the birds of the tree had disappeared into the the thick foliage. It was best to imitate them.

The sun had just set behind the sparkling mists of the western horizon

Before retiring “to their nest,” as Paganel had called it, he, Robert, and Glenarvan climbed up into his observatory to have one more inspection of the liquid plain. It was about nine o’clock; the sun had just set behind the sparkling mists of the western horizon. All this half of the celestial sphere, from the horizon to the zenith, was drowning in hot steam. The brilliant constellations of the southern hemisphere seemed veiled with light gauze, and were only partially visible. Nevertheless, they were distinct enough to be recognized, and Paganel pointed out the splendid stars of this circumpolar zone for the elucidation of Robert and Glenarvan. Among others, he showed them the Southern Cross, a group of four stars of first and second magnitude, arranged in rhombus, that orbited around the pole; the Centaur, where you could find the nearest star of the earth, 8,000 billion leagues away;¹ the clouds of Magellan, two vast glowing nebulae, the largest of which covers an area two hundred times as large as the apparent size of the moon; then, finally, the “Coalsack”, a dark nebula where there seemed to be no stars at all, obscuring part of the Milky Way.

To his great regret, Orion, which can be seen from both hemispheres, had not yet risen; but Paganel taught his two pupils a curious peculiarity of Patagonian cosmography. In the eyes of the Indian poets, Orion represented an immense lasso and three bolas thrown by the hand of a hunter who traverses the celestial meadows. All these constellations, reflected in the mirror of the flood waters, were a beautiful sight, like a double sky surrounding them.

While Paganel discoursed on the stars, the eastern horizon was gradually assuming a most stormy aspect. A thick dark bar of cloud was rising higher and higher, and gradually extinguishing the stars. Before long half the sky was overspread. The cloud seemed to be advancing under its own power, for there was not a breath of wind. Absolute calm reigned in the atmosphere; not a leaf stirred on the tree, not a ripple disturbed the surface of the water. There seemed to be scarcely any air even, as though some vast pneumatic machine had rarefied it. High voltage electricity saturated the atmosphere, and every living thing felt it running along its nerves.

“We are going to have a storm,” said Paganel.

“You’re not afraid of thunder, are you, Robert?” asked Glenarvan.

“No, My Lord!”

“Good, the storm is not far off.”

“And a violent one, too,” added Paganel. “Judging by the look of things.”

“It is not the storm that worries me,” said Glenarvan, “so much as the torrents of rain that will accompany it. We shall be soaked to the skin. Whatever you may say, Paganel, a nest won’t do for a man, and you will learn that soon, to your cost.”

“With the help of philosophy, it will,” replied Paganel.

“Philosophy will not keep you from getting drenched.”

“No, but it will warm you.”

“Well,” said Glenarvan, “we had better go down to our friends, and advise them to wrap themselves up in their philosophy and their ponchos as tightly as possible, and above all, to lay in a stock of patience, for we shall need it before very long.”

Glenarvan gave a last glance at the threatening sky. The clouds now covered it entirely; only a dim streak of light from the setting sun shone faintly in the west. A dark shadow lay on the water, and it could hardly be distinguished from the thick vapours above it. There was no sensation of light or sound. All around was darkness and silence.

“Let us go down,” said Glenarvan. “The lightning will soon burst over us.”

On returning to the bottom of the tree, they found themselves, to their great surprise, in a sort of dim twilight, produced by myriads of luminous specks which appeared buzzing confusedly over the surface of the water.

“Phosphorescence?” said Glenarvan.

“No, but phosphorescent insects,” said Paganel. “A sort of glow-worm — living diamonds — which the ladies of Buenos Aires convert into magnificent ornaments.”

“What!” exclaimed Robert. “Those sparks flying about are insects!”

“Yes, my boy.”

Robert caught one in his hand, and found Paganel was right. It was a kind of large drone, an inch long, and the Indians call it “tuco-tuco.” This curious specimen of the Coleoptera sheds its radiance from two spots in the front of its breast-plate, and the light is sufficient to read by. Holding his watch close to the insect, Paganel saw distinctly that the time was 10 P. M.

On rejoining the Major and his three sailors, Glenarvan warned them of the approaching storm, and advised them to secure themselves in their beds of branches as firmly as possible, for there was no doubt that after the first clap of thunder the wind would become unchained, and the ombú would be violently shaken. Though they could not defend themselves from the waters above, they might at least keep out of the rushing current beneath.

They wished one another “good-night,” though without much hope for it, and then each one rolled himself in his poncho and lay down to sleep.

But the approach of a great phenomena of nature excites vague anxiety in the heart of every sentient being, even the strongest. The guests of the ombú felt agitated and oppressed, and not one of them could close his eyes. The first peal of thunder found them wide awake. They heard the first distant rumbling at about eleven o’clock. Glenarvan ventured to creep out of the sheltering foliage, and made his way to the extremity of the horizontal branch to take a look round.

The deep blackness of the night was already scarified with sharp bright lines, which were reflected back by the water with unerring exactness. The clouds had rent in many parts, but noiselessly, like some soft fluffy fabric. After observing both the zenith and horizon, which were merged in equal darkness, Glenarvan returned to the centre of the trunk.

“Well, Glenarvan, what’s your report?” asked Paganel.

“I say it is beginning in good earnest, and if it goes on so we shall have a terrible storm.”

“So much the better,” replied the enthusiastic Paganel. “I love a good show, since we can’t run away from it.”

“That’s another of your theories that will burst,” said the Major.

“And one of my best, MacNabbs. I am of Glenarvan’s opinion, that the storm will be superb. Just a minute ago, when I was trying to sleep, I recalled several facts to my memory that make me hope it will, for we are in the region of great electrical tempests. For instance, I have read somewhere, that in 1793, in this very province of Buenos Aires, lightning struck thirty-seven times during one single storm. My colleague, M. Martin de Moussy, counted fifty-five minutes of uninterrupted thunder.”

“Watch in hand?” asked the Major.

“Watch in hand,” said Paganel. “There is one thing that worries me — not that worrying will change anything — and that is that the culminating point of this plain is this very ombú where we are. A lightning rod would be very useful to us at present. For it is this tree especially, among all that grow in the Pampas, that the lightning has a particular affection for. Besides, I need not tell you, friend, that learned men tell us never to take refuge under trees during a storm.”

“Well,” said the Major, “It’s a little late to change that.”

“I must confess, Paganel,” added Glenarvan, “that you might have chosen a better time for this reassuring information.”

“Bah!” said Paganel. “Every moment is good for learning! Ha! Now it’s beginning.”

More violent bursts of thunder had interrupted this inopportune conversation. At first came the low grave rumbles like distant bass drums, but higher moderato snares soon joined in, accented with the crash of cymbals. The atmospheric strings added their strident accompaniment. The sky was on fire, and in this conflagration it was impossible to associate the reverberations of the thunder echoing across the sky to the electric flash of lightning that generated it.

The incessant flashes of lightning took various forms. Some darted down perpendicularly from the sky five or six times in the same place. Others would have thrilled the interest of any scholar, for though Arago, in his curious statistics, only cites two examples of forked lightning, it was visible here hundreds of times. Some of the flashes branched out in a thousand different directions, making coralliform zigzags, and threw out wonderful trees of light.

Soon the whole sky from east to north was underlined by a brilliant band of phosphorescence. This fire gradually spread over the entire horizon, igniting the clouds like a mass of combustible matter which was mirrored in the waters beneath. It formed an immense globe of fire, with the ombú at its centre.

Glenarvan and his companions gazed silently at this terrifying spectacle. They could not make their voices heard, but the sheets of white light which enwrapped them every now and then, revealed the face of one or another: sometimes the calm features of the Major; sometimes the eager, curious glance of Paganel; or the energetic face of Glenarvan; and at others, the frightened face of Robert, and the untroubled looks of the sailors, illuminated suddenly with spectral light.

As yet, no rain had fallen, and the wind had not risen in the least. But soon the cataracts of the sky opened, and vertical stripes stretched like the threads of a weaver against the black background of the sky. These large drops of water, striking the surface of the lake, were reflected in thousands of sparks illuminated by the fire of lightning.

A burning globe the size of a fist appeared at the end of the horizontal branch

Was the rain the finale of the storm? Would Glenarvan and his companions escape with nothing more than a vigorous shower? No. At the height of the struggle of the aerial fires, a burning globe, the size of a fist and surrounded by black smoke, suddenly appeared at the extremity of the horizontal branch. This ball, after spinning round and round for a few seconds, burst like a bombshell, and with so much noise that the explosion was distinctly audible above the general din. A sulphurous smoke filled the air, and complete silence reigned for a moment. It was broken by Tom Austin.

“The tree is on fire!” he shouted.

Tom was right. In a moment, as if some fireworks were being ignited, the fire ran along the west side of the ombú. The dead wood, nests of dried grass, and the spongy sapwood fed the hungry flames.

The wind rose, and fanned the flames. It was time to flee, and Glenarvan and his party hurried away to the eastern side of their refuge, which so far was untouched by the fire. They were all silent, troubled, and terrified as they watched branch after branch shrivel, and crack, and writhe in the flame like living serpents, and then drop into the swollen torrent, still red and gleaming, as it was borne swiftly away on the rapid current. The flames sometimes rose to a prodigious height, until they were lost in the conflagration of the atmosphere, and sometimes, beaten down by the hurricane, closely enveloped the ombú like a robe of Nessus. They were all terrified. A thick smoke suffocated them; an intolerable heat burned them; the fire gained on their side of the lower frame of the tree. Nothing could stop, or extinguish it! Finally, the situation was no longer tenable, and of the two deaths, it was necessary to choose the least cruel.

“Into the water!” yelled Glenarvan.

Wilson, who was nearest the flames, had already plunged into the lake, but next minute he screamed out in the most violent terror:

“Help! Help!”

Austin rushed to him, and with the assistance of the Major, dragged him back up onto the tree.

“What’s the matter?”

“Alligators! Alligators!” said Wilson.

The whole foot of the tree appeared to be surrounded by these formidable saurians. Their scales shimmered in the fire light; their tails vertically flattened, their heads like a spearhead, their eyes protruding, their jaws split as far as the back of the ear. The animals were instantly recognized by Paganel, as a ferocious species of alligator peculiar to America, called caimans in the Spanish territories. About ten of them lashed the water with their powerful tails, and attacked the ombú with the long teeth of their lower jaw.

At this sight the hapless men felt lost. A frightful death was in store for them. They must either be devoured by the fire or by the caimans.

Even the Major said, in a calm voice “This may well be the end for us.”

There are circumstances in which men are powerless, when the unchained elements can only be combated by other elements. Glenarvan’s haggard gaze shifted between the fire and the water leagued against him, hardly knowing what deliverance to implore from Heaven.

The violence of the storm had abated, but a considerable quantity of vapours had accumulated in the atmosphere, to which electricity was about to communicate immense force. In the south an enormous whirlwind, a cone of mists, was forming — the point at the bottom, and base at the top, which connected the turbulent water and the angry clouds. It soon began to move forward, spinning with terrifying speed, and sweeping up a column of lake water into its centre, while its whirling motion made all the surrounding currents of air rush toward it.

The gigantic water-spout threw itself on the ombú

A few seconds later the gigantic water-spout threw itself on the ombú, and caught it up in its whirl. The tree shook to its roots. Glenarvan could fancy the caimans’ teeth were tearing it up from the soil; for as he and his companions held on, each clinging firmly to the other, they felt the towering ombú give way, and fall. Its flaming branches plunged into the tumultuous water with a terrible hiss. It was over in an instant. Already the water-spout had passed, to carry on its destructive work elsewhere. And drawing its waters up as it went, it seemed to empty the lake in its passage.

The ombú lying in the water, began to drift rapidly along, impelled by wind and current. All the caimans had fled, except one that was crawling over the upturned roots, and coming toward the poor refugees with wide open jaws. But Mulrady, seizing hold of a branch that was half-burned off, struck the animal so hard that he broke its back. The caiman fell away into the eddies of the torrent.

Glenarvan and his companions — rescued from the voracious saurians — stationed themselves on the branches windward of the conflagration, while the ombú sailed along like a blazing fire-ship through the dark night, the flames spreading themselves like sails before the breath of the hurricane.

1. Close. The Alpha Centauri system is 4.37 light years from Earth, which is 10,300 billion leagues. Proxima Centauri — which had not yet been discovered, and is not visible to the naked eye — is slightly closer, at 10,000 billion leagues.

Chapter XXIV | Index | Chapter XXVI

Chapter XXVI
The Atlantic

For two hours the ombú navigated the immense lake without reaching land. The flames which had been devouring it were gradually extinguished. The main danger of their frightful passage had disappeared. The Major went so far as to say that he should not be surprised if they were saved after all.

The direction of the current remained unchanged, always carrying them to the northeast. The profound darkness was illumined now and then by a parting flash of lightning. Paganel searched in vain for some landmark on the horizon. The storm was nearly over. The rain had given way to light mists, which a breath of wind dispersed. The heavy masses of cloud had separated, and now streaked the sky in long bands.

The ombú was carried quickly by the heedless current, as if some powerful locomotive engine was hidden in its trunk. It seemed possible that they might drift this way for days. However, at about three o’clock in the morning, the Major noticed that the roots were beginning to graze the ground occasionally. Tom Austin, with a long branch began sounding the depth, and it was getting shallower. Twenty minutes later, the ombú ran aground with a violent jolt.

“Land! land!” shouted Paganel, in a ringing tone.

The tips of the charred limbs had struck a hillock, and never were sailors more glad of a grounding; the bank was like a harbour to them.

Already Robert and Wilson had leaped onto the dry land. They howled with joy when they heard a well-known whistle. The gallop of a horse resounded over the plain, and the tall form of Thalcave emerged from the darkness.

“Thalcave!” cried Robert, and the others joined in with one voice.

“Amigos!” said the Patagonian

“Amigos!” said the Patagonian, who had been waiting for the travellers here in the same place where the current had landed him.

As he spoke he lifted up Robert in his arms, and hugged him to his breast, never imagining that Paganel was hanging on to him. A general and hearty hand-shaking followed, and everyone rejoiced at seeing their faithful guide again. Then the Patagonian led the way into the shed of a deserted estancia, where there was a good, blazing fire to warm them, and a substantial meal of fine, juicy slices of venison soon broiling, of which they did not leave a crumb. When their minds had calmed down a little, and they were able to reflect, none of them could believe that they had escaped this adventure of so many different dangers: the flood, fire, and formidable caimans of the Argentinian rivers.

Thalcave, in a few words, gave Paganel an account of himself since they parted, entirely ascribing his deliverance to his intrepid horse. Then Paganel tried to make him understand their new interpretation of the document, and the consequent hopes they were indulging. Whether the Indian actually understood his ingenious hypothesis was in question; but he saw that they were glad and confident, and that was enough for him.

As can easily be imagined, after their compulsory rest on the ombú, the travellers did not want to delay getting back on the road. At eight o’clock they set off. No means of transport being procurable so far south, they were compelled to walk. However, it was not more than forty miles¹ that they had to go now, and Thaouka would not refuse to give a lift occasionally to a tired pedestrian, or two if need be. In thirty-six hours they might reach the shores of the Atlantic.

The low-lying tract of marshy ground, still under water, soon lay behind them, as Thalcave led them upward to the higher plains. Here the Argentinian territory resumed its monotonous appearance. A few clumps of trees, planted by European hands, might chance to be visible among the pasturage, but quite as rarely as in the Tandil and Tapalquem Sierras. The native trees are only found on the edge of long prairies and about Cape Corrientes.

Next day, though still fifteen miles distant, the proximity of the ocean was felt. The virazon, a peculiar wind which blows regularly half of the day and night, bowed the tall grasses. The thin soil supported scattered woods, small arboreal mimosas, acacia bushes and bouquets of curra-mabol. They had to skirt around some saline lagoons that shimmered like broken glass, but made walking difficult. They pushed on as quickly as possible, hoping to reach Lake Salado on the shores of the ocean. The travellers were all rather tired when, at eight o’clock in the evening, they saw the sand dunes, twenty yards high, which skirt the coast. Soon the long murmur of breaking waves reached their ears.

“The ocean!” exclaimed Paganel.

“Yes, the ocean!” said Thalcave.

The exhausted men forgot their fatigue, and ran up the dunes with surprising agility.

But it was getting quite dark already, and their eager gaze could discover no traces of the Duncan on the gloomy expanse of water.

“But she is there, for all that,” said Glenarvan, “waiting for us, and running along this coast.”

“We shall see her tomorrow,” said MacNabbs.

Tom Austin hailed the invisible yacht, but there was no response. The wind was very high and the sea rough. The clouds were scudding along from the west, and the spray of the waves dashed up even to the sand-hills. It was little wonder, then, if the Duncan was at the appointed rendezvous, that her lookout could neither hear nor make himself be heard. The coast offered no shelter. Neither bay nor cove, nor port; not so much as a creek. It consisted of long sand-banks which ran out into the sea, and were more dangerous to a ship than rocky shoals. The sand-banks raised the waves into high rolling breakers that could dash any grounded ship to pieces.

It was natural, then, that the Duncan would keep far away from such a coast. John Mangles was too prudent a captain to get too near. Tom Austin was of the opinion that she would keep five miles out.

The Major advised his impatient relative to resign himself to circumstances. Since there was no means of dispelling the darkness, what was the use of straining his eyes by vainly endeavouring to pierce through it.

The Major organized the night’s encampment sheltered by the dunes. They prepared and ate the last meal of their journey with their remaining provisions. Afterward, each, following the Major’s example, dug an improvised bed in a comfortable hole, and, bringing his huge sand blanket up to his chin, fell into a heavy sleep.

Glenarvan kept watch

But Glenarvan kept watch. There was still a stiff breeze, and the ocean had not yet settled from the recent storm. The waves broke upon the beach with a noise like thunder. Glenarvan could not rest, knowing the Duncan was so near him. It was unimaginable that she had not arrived at the appointed rendezvous. Glenarvan had left Talcahuano Bay on the 14th of October, and arrived on the shores of the Atlantic on the 12th of November. He had taken thirty days to cross Chile, the Cordilleras, the Pampas, and the Argentinian plains, giving the Duncan ample time to double Cape Horn, and arrive on the eastern coast. There was no conceivable delay that could have kept her away. Certainly the storm had been very violent, and its fury must have been terrible on such a vast battlefield as the Atlantic, but the yacht was a good ship, and the captain was a good sailor. She was bound to be there, and she would be there.

These reflections, however, did not calm Glenarvan. When the heart and reason are struggling, it is generally the heart that wins. The laird of Malcolm Castle felt all those he loved to be near in this darkness: his dear Helena, Mary Grant, the crew of his Duncan. He wandered up and down the lonely strand. He gazed, and listened, and even fancied he caught occasional glimpses of a faint light.

“I am not mistaken,” he said to himself; “I saw a ship’s light, one of the lights on the Duncan! Oh! why can’t I see in the dark?”

All at once the thought rushed across him that Paganel said he was a nyctalope, and could see at night. He went to go and wake him.

The scientist was sleeping as soundly as a mole in his hole when a strong arm pulled him up out of the sand.

“Qui va là?” he cried.

“It’s me.”

“Qui, vous?”

“Glenarvan. Come, I need your eyes.”

“My eyes?” Paganel tried to rub the sleep out of them.

“Yes, I need your eyes to make out the Duncan in this darkness, so come on.”

“Au diable with the nyctalopia!” Paganel muttered to himself, though he was pleased to be of any service to his friend.

He got up, shook his stiffened limbs, and stretching and yawning as most people do when roused from sleep, followed Glenarvan to the shore.

Glenarvan begged him to examine the distant horizon across the sea, which he did most conscientiously for some minutes.

“Well, do you see anything?” asked Glenarvan.

“Not a thing. Even a cat couldn’t see two paces in this darkness.”

“Look for a red light or a green one — her larboard or starboard light.”

“I see neither a red nor a green light, all is pitch dark.” Paganel’s eyes involuntarily began to close.

For half an hour he followed his impatient friend, mechanically letting his head frequently drop on his chest, and raising it again with a start. At last he neither answered nor spoke. His unsteady steps made him reel about like a drunken man. Glenarvan looked at him, and found he was asleep on his feet!

Glenarvan took him by the arm, and, without waking him, took him back to his hole, where he comfortably buried him.

At dawn, everyone was startled awake by a loud cry.

“The Duncan, the Duncan!” shouted Glenarvan.

They rushed to the shore, shouting “Hurrah, hurrah!”

There she was, five miles out, her lower sails carefully reefed, and her steam half up. Her smoke was lost in the morning mist. The sea was so rough that a vessel of her tonnage could not have ventured safely nearer the beach.

Glenarvan, armed with Paganel’s telescope, watched the Duncan’s progress. John Mangles had not yet seen them on the shore, for he did not alter his course, and continued to run, on port tack, under his topsails alone.

Thalcave fired his rifle, loaded with extra powder, in the direction of the yacht. They watched, and listened, but the Duncan gave no sign of having heard the shot. Thalcave fired a second, and third time. The reports of his gun echoed off the dunes.

At last a plume of white smoke was seen issuing from the side of the yacht.

“They see us!” cried Glenarvan. “That’s the Duncan’s gun.”

A few seconds later, a dull detonation came to die at the edge of the shore. The Duncan’s topsails were adjusted and the yacht came about, to come in as close to the shore as was safe.

Presently, through the glass, they saw a boat lowered.

“Lady Helena will not be able to come,” said Tom Austin. “It is too rough.”

“Nor John Mangles,” added MacNabbs; “he cannot leave the ship.”

“My sister, my sister!” cried Robert, stretching out his arms toward the yacht, which was now rolling violently.

“Oh, I can’t wait to get on board!” said Glenarvan.

“Patience, Edward! you will be there in a couple of hours,” replied the Major.

Two hours! But it was impossible for a boat, rowed with six oars, to make the return trip in a shorter space of time.

Glenarvan went back to Thalcave, who stood with his arms crossed beside Thaouka, calmly watching the waves.

Glenarvan took his hand, and pointing to the yacht, said “Come!”

The Indian gently shook his head.

“Come, friend,” said Glenarvan.

“No,” said Thalcave, softly. “Here is Thaouka, and there, the Pampas,” he added, embracing with a passionate gesture the wide-stretching prairies.

Glenarvan understood his refusal. He knew that the Indian would never forsake the prairie, where the bones of his fathers were whitening, and he knew the religious attachment of these sons of the desert for their native land. He therefore did not urge Thalcave longer, but simply squeezed his hand. Nor could he find it in his heart to insist, when the Indian, smiling as usual, would not accept the price of his services, pushing back the money, and saying:

“For friendship.”

Glenarvan could not reply; but he wished at least, to leave the brave Indian some souvenir of his European friends. What was there to give? Weapons, horses, he had lost everything in the disasters of the flood. His friends were no richer than him.

He was quite at a loss how to show his recognition of the selflessness of this noble guide, when an idea occurred to him. He drew from his wallet a precious medallion which surrounded an admirable portrait, a masterpiece of Lawrence, and he offered it to the Indian.

“My wife.”

The Indian gazed at it with a softened eye. “Good and beautiful,” he said.

Robert, Paganel, the Major, Tom Austin and the two sailors exchanged heartfelt farewells with the Patagonian. These good people were sincerely moved to leave this intrepid and devoted friend. Thalcave embraced them each, and pressed them to his broad chest. Paganel made him accept a map of South America and the two oceans, which he had often seen the Indian looking at with interest. It was the most precious thing the geographer possessed. As for Robert, he had only hugs to give, and these he lavished on his friend, not forgetting to give a share to Thaouka.

The boat from the Duncan was approaching, and in another minute had glided into a narrow channel between the sand-banks, and run ashore.

“My wife?” asked Glenarvan.

“My sister?” asked Robert.

“Lady Helena and Miss Grant are waiting for you on board,” replied the coxswain; “but we don’t have a minute to lose, Your Honour, for the tide is beginning to ebb.”

“Quien sabe?” said Thalcave

The last hugs were exchanged, and Thalcave accompanied his friends to the boat, which had been pushed back into the water. Just as Robert was going to step in, the Indian took him in his arms, and gazed tenderly into his face.

“Now go,” he said. “You are a man.”

“Goodbye, friend! Farewell” said Glenarvan, once more.

“Will we ever see each other again?” asked Paganel.

“Quien sabe?”² said Thalcave, raising his arms to the sky.

Those were the Indian’s last words, dying away on the breeze. The boat pushed off. The boat moved away from the shore, carried by the receding tide.

For a long time, Thalcave’s dark, motionless silhouette stood out against the sky, through the white, dashing spray of the waves. Then by degrees his tall form began to diminish in size, until at last his friends lost sight of him, altogether.

An hour afterward Robert was the first to leap on board the Duncan. He flung his arms round Mary’s neck, amid the loud, joyous hurrahs of the crew on the yacht.

Thus the crossing of South America was accomplished, scrupulously following the 37th parallel. Neither mountains nor rivers had made the travellers change their course; and though they did not have to combat any ill-will from men, their determination had been roughly put to the test often enough by the fury of the unchained elements.

End of Book One

1. About fifteen leagues. (60 kilometres — DAS)

2. Who knows?

The searcher’s route across Chile and Argentina at the 37th parallel

Chapter XXV | Index |

Book Two: Australia

Main Index

Chapter I

The Return Onboard

Chapter II

Tristan da Cunha

Chapter III

Amsterdam Island

Chapter IV

The Wagers of Jacques Paganel and Major MacNabbs

Chapter V

The Wrath of the Indian Ocean

Chapter VI

Cape Bernouilli

Chapter VII

Ayrton

Chapter VIII

The Departure

Chapter IX

The Province of Victoria

Chapter X

The Wimmera River

Chapter XI

Burke and Stuart

Chapter XII

The Melbourne to Sandhurst Railway

Chapter XIII

A First Prize in Geography

Chapter XIV

The Mines at Mount Alexander

Chapter XV

Australian and New-Zealand Gazette

Chapter XVI

Where the Major Says That They Are Monkeys

Chapter XVII

Millionaire Breeders

Chapter XVIII

The Australian Alps

Chapter XIX

The Coup de Théâtre

Chapter XX

E-land! Zealand!

Chapter XXI

Four Days of Anguish

Chapter XXII

Eden

Main Index

Chapter I
The Return Onboard

The first few moments back on board the Duncan were devoted to the happiness of being reunited with their friends and loved ones. Lord Glenarvan did not want the failure of their search to take away everyone’s joy, so his first words were “Trust me, my friends! Captain Grant is not with us, but we are sure to find him!”

Lady Helena and Mary Grant stood waiting on the poop

Only such an assurance as this could have restored hope to those on board the Duncan. Lady Helena and Mary Grant had been sorely tried by the suspense as they stood on the poop waiting for the return of the boat, trying to count the number of its passengers. Sometimes the girl was desperate; at others she imagined seeing her father. Her heart throbbed and she could not speak, and indeed could scarcely stand. Lady Helena put her arm around her waist to support her, but John Mangles, who stood close beside them spoke no encouraging word, for his practiced eye plainly saw that Captain Grant was not there.

“He is there! He is coming! Oh, Father!” murmured the young girl. The travellers were not a hundred fathoms from the yacht, when not only Lady Helena and John Mangles, but Mary herself, her eyes bathed in tears, had lost all hope, but for the reassuring voice of Glenarvan.

After the first embraces, Lady Helena, Mary Grant, and John Mangles were informed of the main events of the expedition, and especially of the new interpretation of the document, due to the sagacity of Jacques Paganel. Glenarvan also praised Robert, of whom Mary might well be proud. His courage and devotion, and the dangers he had run, were all emphasized, until the modest boy did not know where to hide, if his sister’s arms hadn’t offered him a refuge.

“No need to blush, Robert,” said John Mangles. “Your conduct has been worthy of your name.” And he leaned over the boy and pressed his lips on his cheek, still wet with Mary’s tears.

The Major and Paganel, it need hardly be said, came in for their due share of welcome, and Lady Helena only regretted she could not shake hands with the brave and generous Thalcave. MacNabbs, after the first outbursts, slipped away to his cabin, and began to shave himself as coolly and composedly as possible. Paganel fluttered about here and there, like a bee sipping the sweets of compliments and smiles. He wanted to embrace everyone on board the yacht, beginning with Lady Helena and Mary Grant, and finishing with Mr. Olbinett, the steward, who could only acknowledge so polite an attention by announcing that breakfast was ready.

“Breakfast?” exclaimed Paganel.

“Yes, Monsieur Paganel.”

“A real breakfast, on a real table, with a cloth and napkins?”

“Certainly, Monsieur Paganel.”

“And we shall neither have charqui, nor hard eggs, nor fillets of rhea?”

“Oh, Monsieur,” said Olbinett, in an aggrieved tone.

“I don’t want to hurt your feelings, my friend,” said the smiling geographer. “But for a month that has been our usual bill of fare, and when we dined we stretched ourselves full length on the ground, unless we sat astride on the trees. Consequently, the meal you have just announced seemed to me like a dream, or fiction, or chimera.”

“Well, Monsieur Paganel, come along and let us prove its reality,” said Lady Helena, who could not help laughing.

“Here is my arm,” said the gallant geographer.

“Has Your Honour any orders to give me for the Duncan?” asked John Mangles.

“After breakfast, John,” replied Glenarvan, “we’ll discuss the program of our new expedition en famille.”

Mr. Olbinett’s breakfast seemed quite a fête to the hungry guests. It was pronounced excellent, and even superior to the feasts of the Pampas. Paganel helped himself twice to each dish, “by distraction,” he said.

This unfortunate word reminded Lady Helena of the amiable Frenchman’s propensity, and made her ask if he had ever fallen into his old habits while they were away. The Major and Glenarvan looked at each other with a smile, and Paganel burst out laughing, and pledged “on his honour” that he would never be caught distracted again during the whole voyage. After this prelude, he gave an amusing recital of his disastrous mistake in learning Spanish, and his profound study of Camões.

“After all,” he added, “it’s an ill wind that blows no good, and I don’t regret the mistake.”

“Why not, my worthy friend?” asked the Major.

“Because not only do I now speak Spanish, but also Portuguese. I have gained two languages instead of one.”

“Upon my word, I never thought of that,” said MacNabbs. “My compliments, Paganel! My sincere compliments.”

Everyone applauded Paganel, but he did not lose a single bite. He ate and talked, at the same time. He was so much taken up with his plate that one little fact quite escaped his observation, though Glenarvan noticed it at once. This was that John Mangles had grown particularly attentive to Mary Grant. A slight sign of Lady Helena to her husband told him that it was “like that!” Glenarvan looked at the two youngsters with affectionate sympathy, but when he spoke to John Mangles it was on a different subject.

“And your journey, John?” he asked. “How did it go?”

“We had excellent conditions; but I must apprise your Lordship that I did not go through the Straits of Magellan again.”

“What? You doubled Cape Horn, and I wasn’t there!” exclaimed Paganel.

“Oh, hang yourself!” said the Major.

“You only say that because you want the rope!” said the geographer.¹

“Come, my dear Paganel,” said Glenarvan. “Unless you have the gift of ubiquity you can’t be everywhere. While you were crossing the plains of the Pampas you could not be doubling Cape Horn.”

“That doesn’t prevent my regretting it,” said Paganel.

They dropped that subject, and John Mangles continued his account of his voyage. He had hugged the American coast, and observed all the western archipelagos without finding any trace of the Britannia. On arriving at Cape Pilares he had found the winds dead against him, and therefore continued south. The Duncan had followed the coast of Desolation Island, and after reaching the 57th² degree of southern latitude, had doubled Cape Horn, passed by Terra del Fuego and through the Straits of Lemaire. Then they followed the Patagonian coast northward again. At Cape Corrientes they encountered the terrible storm which had assaulted the travellers so violently, but the yacht had handled it well, and for the last three days they had cruised off the coast, until the welcome signal-gun of the expedition was heard announcing the arrival of the anxiously-looked-for party. As for Lady Glenarvan and Miss Grant, the captain of the Duncan would be unjust in disregarding their rare fearlessness. The storm did not frighten them, and if they manifested any fears, it was for their friends, wandering the plains of the Argentine Republic.

After John Mangles had finished his narrative, and received the compliments of Lord Glenarvan, he turned to Mary. “My dear Miss Mary, the captain has been doing homage to your noble qualities, and I am happy to think that you do not dislike being aboard his ship!”

“How could it be otherwise?” said Mary, looking at Lady Helena, and perhaps at the young captain too.

“Oh, my sister likes you, Mr. John!” said Robert. “And so do I.”

“And I like you too, my dear boy,” said the captain, a little disconcerted by Robert’s words, which had brought a faint blush to Mary’s cheek.

He shifted the conversation to less fraught ground. “Since I have finished telling of the Duncan’s journey, will Your Honour give us some more details of your crossing of America, and the exploits of our young hero?”

No story could be more agreeable to Lady Helena and Mary Grant; Lord Glenarvan hastened to satisfy their curiosity. He related, incident by incident, the entire march from one ocean to another: the passage over the Andes, the earthquake, the disappearance of Robert, his capture by the condor, Thalcave’s gunshot, the episode of the red wolves, the dedication of the young boy, Sergeant Manuel, the flood, the refuge on the ombú, the lightning, the fire, the caimans, the waterspout, the night on the Atlantic shore. All these details, happy or terrible, excited laughter and terror in turns in his listeners. Many circumstances were reported that earned Robert hugs from his sister and Lady Helena. Never before was a boy so much embraced, or by such enthusiastic friends.

“And now, friends, we must think of the present.” said Lord Glenarvan, when he had finished his story. “The past is gone, but the future is ours. Let us come back to Captain Harry Grant.”

Breakfast was over; the guests returned to Lady Glenarvan’s private cabin and seated themselves around a table covered with charts and plans, and the conversation began immediately.

“My dear Helena,” said Lord Glenarvan, “I told you, when we came on board a little while ago, that though we had not brought back the castaways of the Britannia, our hope of finding them was stronger than ever. Our passage through America has resulted in the conviction, or I should say the certainty, that the catastrophe did not take place on the Pacific or on the Atlantic coasts. The natural inference is that, as far as regards Patagonia, our interpretation of the document was erroneous. Fortunately, our friend Paganel, enlightened by a sudden inspiration, discovered the error. He has demonstrated that we have been on the wrong track, and interpreted the document in such a way as to leave no hesitation in our minds. I will ask Paganel to go over it for your benefit.”

The learned geographer, thus called upon, began to speak

The learned geographer, thus called upon, began to speak in the most convincing manner. He declaimed on the syllables ‘gonie’ and ‘indi’, and extracting ‘Australia’ out of ‘austral’. He pointed out that Captain Grant, on leaving the coast of Peru to return to Europe, might have been carried away with his disabled ship by the southern currents of the Pacific right to the shores of Australia. His hypotheses were so ingenious and his deductions so subtle that even the matter-of-fact John Mangles, a difficult judge, and most unlikely to be led away by any flights of imagination, was completely satisfied.

At the conclusion of Paganel’s dissertation, Glenarvan announced that the Duncan would sail immediately for Australia.

But before the order was given to head east, Major MacNabbs asked to make a simple observation.

“Say away, MacNabbs,” replied Glenarvan.

“My aim,” said the Major, “is not to weaken the arguments of my friend Paganel, still less to refute them. I find them serious, sagacious, worthy of all our attention, and they must rightly form the basis of our future search. But I want them to undergo a final review so that their value is indisputable and undisputed.”

No one knew where the prudent MacNabbs was going, and they all listened with some anxiety.

“Go on, Major,” said Paganel. “I am ready to answer all your questions.”

“They are simple enough, as you will see. Five months ago, when we left the Firth of Clyde, we had studied these same documents, and their interpretation seemed obvious to us. No other coast but the western coast of Patagonia could possibly, we thought, have been the scene of the shipwreck. We had not even the shadow of a doubt on the subject.”

“That’s true,” said Glenarvan.

“A little later,” continued the Major, “when Paganel, in a moment of providential distraction, came on board the Duncan, the documents were submitted to him and he approved our plan of to search the American coast without reservation.”

“I do not deny it,” said Paganel.

“And yet we were mistaken,” said the Major.

“Yes, we were mistaken,” said Paganel. “It is only human to make a mistake, but to persist in a mistake, a man must be a fool.”

“Wait, Paganel, don’t excite yourself; I don’t mean to say that we should prolong our search in America.”

“What is it, then, that you want?” asked Glenarvan.

“An admission, nothing more. The admission that Australia now seems to be the scene of the sinking of the Britannia as evidently as America did before.”

“I willingly admit it,” said Paganel.

“I take note of it,” said the major, “and I take advantage of it to engage your imagination in challenging these successive and contradictory interpretations. Who knows if, after Australia, another country will not offer us the same certainties, and if this new search is made in vain, it will not seem ‘obvious’ that they must be recommenced elsewhere?”

Glenarvan and Paganel looked at each other silently, struck by the justice of these remarks.

“I should like you, before we actually start for Australia, to make one more examination of the documents.” said the Major. “Here they are, and here are the charts. Let us take up each point in succession through which the 37th parallel passes, and see if we come across any other country which would agree with the precise indications of the document.”

“Nothing is easier and less time-consuming,” said Paganel, “for happily, land does not abound in this latitude.”

“Come,” said the major, unfolding an English Mercator projection map of the entire globe.

He placed it before Lady Helena, and they all stood around, so as to be able to follow Paganel’s demonstration.

“As I have said already,” said the learned geographer, “after having crossed South America, the 37th degree of latitude meets the islands of Tristan da Cunha. Now I maintain that none of the words of the document could relate to these islands.”

The documents were scrupulously examined, they all agreed that Paganel was correct. There was nothing in the documents that indicated Tristan da Cunha.

“Let us continue,” said Paganel. “After leaving the Atlantic, we pass two degrees below the Cape of Good Hope, and into the Indian Ocean. Only one group of islands is found on this route, the Amsterdam Islands. Now, then, we must examine these as we did Tristan da Cunha.”

After a close survey, the Amsterdam Islands were ousted in their turn. Not a single word, or part of a word, French, English or German, applied to this group in the Indian Ocean.

“Now we come to Australia,” said Paganel. “The 37th parallel meets this continent at Cape Bernouilli, and leaves it at Twofold Bay. You will agree with me that, without straining the text, the English fragment ‘stra’ and the French one ‘austral’ may relate to Australia. I trust that this is obvious enough.” Everyone agreed with Paganel’s conclusion. This interpretation seemed quite reasonable.

“Let us keep going,” said MacNabbs.

“After leaving Twofold Bay, we cross this stretch of sea eastward to New Zealand. Here I must call your attention to the fact that the word ‘contin’ from the French document irrefutably indicates a continent. So Captain Grant can not have found refuge on New Zealand, which is only an island. Be that as it may, examine and compare, and turn over each word, and see if, by any possibility, they can be made to fit this new country.”

“In no way whatever,” said John Mangles, after a careful observation of the documents and the map.

“No,” agreed all the rest, including the Major, “it cannot be New Zealand.”

“Now,” continued Paganel, “in all this immense space between New Zealand and the American coast, there is only one solitary barren little island crossed by the 37th parallel.”

“And what is its name,” asked the Major.

“Here it is, marked in the map. It is Maria Theresa, a name of which I can find no trace in any of the three documents.”

“None,” said Glenarvan.

“I leave you, then, my friends, to decide whether all these probabilities, not to say certainties, are not in favour of the Australian continent?”

“Of course,” said the passengers and the captain of the Duncan.

“Well, then, John,” said Glenarvan, “the next question is, have you provisions and coal enough?”

“Yes, Your Honour, I took in an ample store at Talcahuano, and besides, we can easily replenish our stock of coal at Cape Town.”

“Well, then, give the—”

“Let me make one more observation,” interrupted MacNabbs.

“Go on then.”

“Whatever likelihood of success Australia may offer us, wouldn’t it be advisable to stop a day or two at the Tristan da Cunha and Amsterdam Islands? They lie in our route, and would not take us the least out of the way. Then we should be able to ascertain if the Britannia had left any traces of her shipwreck there?”

“The incredulous Major!” exclaimed Paganel. “He sticks to his idea.”

“I especially don’t want to retrace our steps, if by chance, Australia should disappoint our hopes.”

“It seems to me a reasonable precaution,” said Glenarvan.

“And I’m not the one to dissuade you from it,” said Paganel. “Quite the contrary.”

“Then, John,” said Glenarvan, “set your course for Tristan da Cunha.”

“Immediately, Your Honour,” replied the captain, and he returned to the deck, while Robert and Mary Grant gave Lord Glenarvan their most sincere thanks.

Soon, the Duncan had left the American coast, and was running eastward, her swift bow splitting the waves of the Atlantic Ocean.

1. It was a common nineteenth century superstition that possessing a bit of noose from a hanged man was good luck — DAS

2. Verne has them reaching the 67th degree, which would put them inside the Antarctic Circle, and run them into the Antarctic Peninsula. 57° S still clears Cape Horn by a respectable margin.

| Index | Chapter II

Chapter II
Tristan da Cunha

If the yacht had followed the line of the equator, the 196 degrees which separate Australia from America, or, more correctly, Cape Bernouilli from Cape Corrientes, would have been equal to 11,760 nautical miles¹; but along the 37th parallel these same degrees, owing to the shape of the earth, only represent 9,480 nautical miles². From the American coast to Tristan da Cunha is 2,100 miles³ — a distance which John Mangles hoped to cross in ten days, if east winds didn’t slow the yacht. But any worry on that score was soon allayed, for toward evening the breeze noticeably lulled and then changed, and the Duncan was able to display all her incomparable speed on a calm sea.

The passengers had resumed their ordinary shipboard life, and it hardly seemed as if they had been gone for a whole month. Instead of the Pacific, the Atlantic stretched itself out before them, and there was scarcely a shade of difference in the waves of the two oceans. The elements, after having handled them so roughly, now seemed to be uniting in their favour. The ocean was peaceful, and the wind was on the beam, so that the yacht could spread all her canvas, to lend its aid to the indefatigable steam stored up in the boiler.

The crossing was completed without incident or accident. The closer they came to Australia, the more their confidence grew. They began to talk of Captain Grant as if the yacht were going to take him on board at their Australian port of call. His cabin was prepared, and berths for his men. Mary delighted in arranging and decorating it with her own hands. It had been ceded to him by Mr. Olbinett, who was now sharing a cabin with his wife. This cabin was next to the famous number six, which Paganel had taken possession of instead of the one he had booked on the Scotia.

The learned geographer spent most of his time shut up in his cabin. He was working from morning till night on a work entitled Sublime Impressions of a Geographer in the Argentine Pampas. They could hear him repeating elegant phrases aloud before committing them to the white pages of his notebook; and more than once, unfaithful to Clio, the muse of history, he invoked in his transports the divine Calliope, the muse of epic poetry.

Paganel made no secret of it, either. The chaste daughters of Apollo willingly left the slopes of Helicon and Parnassus at his call. Lady Helena paid him sincere compliments on his mythological visitants, and so did the Major.

“But above all,” he added, “no distractions, my dear Paganel. And if by chance you take a fancy to learn Australian, don’t go and study it in a Chinese grammar!”

Things went smoothly on board. Lady Helena and Lord Glenarvan watched the growing attraction between John Mangles and Mary Grant with interest. There was nothing to be said against it, and, indeed, since John remained silent, it was best not to mention it to him, either.

“What will Captain Grant think?” Lord Glenarvan asked his wife one day.

“He will think that John is worthy of Mary, my dear Edward, and he’ll be right.”

The yacht was making rapid progress. Five days after losing sight of Cape Corrientes on the 16th of November, they fell in with fine westerly breezes, the very ones which take the ships which round the tip of Africa against the regular south-easterly winds. The Duncan covered herself with canvas, and under her foresail, brigantine, topsail and topgallant, studsails, jibs and stays, she ran on the port tack with daring speed. Her screw was barely biting the receding waters cut by her bow, as if she were running a race with the Royal Thames Yacht Club.

Next day, the ocean was covered with immense sea-weeds, looking like a vast pond choked with grass. It was one of those sargasso seas formed of the debris of trees and plants torn off the neighbouring continents that Commander Murray had described. The Duncan seemed to be gliding over a broad prairie, which Paganel compared to the Pampas, and her speed slackened a little.

Twenty-four hours later, at dawn, the man on the look-out was heard calling out “Land ho!”

“In what direction?” asked Tom Austin, who was on watch.

“Leeward!” said the sailor.

This excited cry had everyone popping up on deck. Soon a telescope made its appearance, followed immediately by Jacques Paganel.

The scientist pointed his instrument in the direction indicated, but could see nothing that resembled land.

“Look in the clouds,” said John Mangles.

“Ah,” said Paganel. “Now I do see it. A sort of peak, but very indistinctly.”

“It is Tristan da Cunha,” said John Mangles.

“Then if my memory serves me right, we must be eighty miles from it,” said Paganel. “For Tristan’s peak, seven thousand feet high, is visible at that distance.”

“Precisely,” said Captain John.

The conical peak of Tristan looked black against the bright sky

Some hours later, the sharp, lofty crags of the group of islands stood out clearly on the horizon. The conical peak of Tristan looked black against the bright sky which seemed all ablaze with the splendour of the rising sun. Soon the main island emerged from the rocky mass, its triangular peak inclining toward the north-east.

Tristan da Cunha is situated at 37° 8′ of southern latitude, and 10° 44′ of longitude west of the Greenwich meridian.⁴ Inaccessible Island is eighteen miles to the southwest, and Nightingale Island is ten miles to the southeast. They make up a solitary little group of islets in the Atlantic Ocean. Toward noon, the two principal landmarks which are used as recognition points by sailors were sighted: a rock, shaped like a ship under sail on Inaccessible Island, and two islets similar to a ruined fort at the northern point of Nightingale Island. At three o’clock the Duncan entered Falmouth Bay of Tristan da Cunha, that the tip of Bon-Secours point shelters from westerly winds.

A few whaling ships were lying quietly at anchor there, for the coast abounds in seals and other marine animals.

John Mangles’ first concern was to find good anchorage, for this bay is very vulnerable to northwest and northwesterly winds. It was at precisely this place that the English brig Julia was lost in 1829. The Duncan came to rest half a mile from shore, and anchored in twenty fathoms on a bed of rocks. All the passengers, both ladies and gentlemen, got into the long boat and were rowed ashore. They stepped out on a beach covered with fine black sand, the debris of the volcanic rocks of the island.

The capital of the Tristan da Cunha group consists of a little village overlooking the bay, on a large, murmuring brook. There were about fifty houses, quite clean, and arranged with the geometrical regularity which seems to be the last word in English architecture. Behind this miniature town lay 1,500 hectares of meadow, bounded by an embankment of lava. The conical peak rose 7,000 feet above this plateau.

Lord Glenarvan was received by a governor from the English colony at Cape Town. He inquired at once respecting Harry Grant and the Britannia, and found the names entirely unknown. The Tristan da Cunha Islands are out of the shipping lanes, and therefor rarely visited. Since the famous wreck of the Blendon Hall on the rocks of Inaccessible Island in 1821, two vessels have stranded on the main island — the Primanguet in 1845, and the American three-master Philadelphia in 1857. These three events comprise the whole catalogue of maritime disasters in the annals of the da Cunhas.

Lord Glenarvan had not expected to glean any more precise information, and only asked the governor for the sake of thoroughness. He even sent the boats to make the circuit of the island, the circumference of which was not more than twenty-five miles.⁵ London or Paris wouldn’t fit on the island, even if it were three times larger.

In the interim the passengers walked about the village and the neighbouring coast. The population didn’t exceed 150 inhabitants, and consisted of Englishmen and Americans, married to Hottentots from Cape Town, who leave nothing to be desired in terms of ugliness. The children of those heterogeneous households are very disagreeable compounds of Saxon stiffness and African darkness.

The tourists extended their promenade along the shore, glad to feel the firm ground beneath their feet. Wide spreading pastures stretched upward from the beach, the only part of the island which was cultivated. Everywhere else the coast was composed of steep, craggy, lava cliffs, where enormous albatrosses and stupid penguins congregated in hundreds of thousands.

The visitors, after examining the igneous rocks, went up to the plain. Sparkling, murmuring brooks ran here and there, fed by the eternal snows which crowned the cone. Green bushes on which the eye could count almost as many sparrows as flowers, enlivened the meadows. One species of tree, a kind of Phylica grew twenty feet high, and the Spartina arundinacea, or tussac grass, grew in large bamboo like clumps in the fertile pastures. Acaena, a low bush with reddish flowers and a fruit covered in barbs that clung to clothing, a few perennial shrubby plants whose balsamic scents filled the breeze with penetrating scents, mosses, wild celery, and ferns formed a small but opulent flora. Eternal spring seemed to smile on the island. Paganel enthusiastically maintained that this was the famous Ogygia sung of by Homer. He proposed that Lady Glenarvan should seek a grotto, like Calypso, and asked for no other use for himself than to be “one of the nymphs who served her.”

The party returned to the yacht at nightfall, talking, and admiring the natural riches displayed on all sides. Herds of cattle and sheep grazed in the neighbourhood of the village. Fields of wheat, maize, and vegetables, imported forty years before, spread their wealth to the edges of the capital.

The boats returned to the Duncan as Lord Glenarvan was coming back aboard. They had gone around the entire island in a few hours, without coming across a trace of the Britannia. The only result of this circumnavigation was to strike the name of Tristan Island from the search programme.

The Duncan could now leave these African Islands, and resume her course eastward. The reason that she did not set sail that same night was that Glenarvan had given permission to his crew to hunt the innumerable seals which, under the name of calves, lions, bears, and marine elephants, crowd the shores of Falmouth Bay. Right whales, too, were formerly very numerous about the island, but they have been chased and harpooned by so many ships’ crews, that scarcely any were left. Amphibious animals, on the other hand, gathered there in herds, and the crew of the yacht resolved to spend the whole night in hunting them, and to devote the next day to making a good supply of oil. So the Duncan’s departure was postponed until November 20th.

During supper, Paganel gave some interesting details about the Tristan Islands. He informed his listeners that the group was discovered in 1506 by a Portuguese mariner, named Tristão da Cunha, one of Albuquerque’s companions, but they remained unexplored for more than a century. These islands were believed, and not without reason, to be the nests of tempests, and had no better reputation than Bermuda. They were scarcely ever approached, and no ship landed there, unless driven by Atlantic gales.

In 1697, three Dutch ships of the East India Company stopped there, and determined their coordinates, leaving to the great astronomer Halley the task of reviewing their calculations in the year 1700. From 1712 to 1767, some French navigators became acquainted with them, and La Pérouse⁶ visited them during his famous voyage of 1785.

It was not until 1811, that an American, Jonathan Lambert, undertook to colonize them. He and two others landed there in the month of January, and courageously commenced their labours as colonists. The English governor of the Cape of Good Hope, hearing that they prospered, offered them the protection of England, which Jonathan accepted, and hoisted the British flag over his hut. He seemed to have reigned peacefully over his people, namely an old Italian and a Portuguese mulatto, until one day during a reconnaissance of the shores of his empire he either drowned himself or was drowned; it is not known which. Then came the year 1816, when Napoleon was imprisoned at St. Helena, and to guard him more securely, the English government placed a garrison on Ascension Island, and another on Tristan da Cunha. At Tristan the garrison consisted of a Cape artillery company and a detachment of Hottentots. In 1821, on the death of Napoleon, the troop was sent back to Cape Town.

“A solitary European, who was a corporal, and a Scot—”

“Ah, a Scot!” said the Major, always interested in his countrymen.

“His name was William Glass,” said Paganel, “and he remained alone on the island with his wife and two Hottentots. Not long afterwards, two Englishmen, a sailor and Thames fisherman, and an ex-dragoon in the Argentinian army, joined the little party, and, in 1821, one of the survivors of the shipwrecked Blendon Hall and his young wife took refuge on the island. This raised the number of inhabitants to six men and two women. In 1829, there were seven men, six women, and fourteen children. In 1835, the number rose to forty, and now the population is tripled.”

“So begin nations,” said Glenarvan.

“To complete the history of Tristan da Cunha, I will add that this island deserves to be called a Robinson Crusoe island as much as Juan Fernandez, for if two sailors were castaways successively on Juan Fernandez, two scholars narrowly escaped being left on Tristan da Cunha. In 1793, one of my countrymen, the naturalist Aubert Dupetit-Thouars, carried away by his passion for botanical research, lost himself, and only managed to rejoin his ship at the very moment the anchor was being lifted. In 1824, one of your compatriots, my dear Glenarvan, a skilful draughtsman, named Augustus Earle, was left on the island for eight months. The captain of his ship had forgotten he was on land, and sailed for Cape Town without him.”

“Well, that’s what I call an absent-minded captain,” said the Major. “Probably one of your parents, Paganel.”

“If he was not Major, he deserved to be!”

The Duncan’s crew had a good hunt

During the night the Duncan’s crew had such good hunting that upward of fifty large seals were caught; and as Glenarvan had authorized the hunt, he could not but allow his men to make the most of it. The following day was spent in dressing the skins, and in preparing the oil of the lucrative animals. The passengers used the day for a second excursion around the island. Glenarvan and the Major took their rifles with them in hopes of finding game. This walk extended to the foot of the mountain, on a soil strewn with broken rocks, slag, porous and black lava, and all sorts of volcanic detritus. The foot of the mountain was a chaos of tottering rocks. It was hard to mistake the nature of the enormous cone, and the English Captain Carmichael was right to recognize it as an extinct volcano.⁷

Several wild boars were seen by the hunters, one of which was shot by the Major. Glenarvan contented himself with killing a few brace of black partridges, which made an excellent salmis when cooked. A large number of goats were seen at the top of the high plateaus. Numerous feral cats, fierce, proud, powerful creatures, formidable even to dogs, promised one day to become very ferocious beasts.

At eight o’clock everyone returned on board, and during the night the Duncan set sail, and left the shores of Tristan da Cunha, never again to revisit them.

1. 5,450 leagues (21,800 kilometres — DAS)

2. 4,400 leagues (17,600 kilometres — DAS)

The Hetzel version seems to have goofed in its arithmetic again, giving incorrect distances in its footnotes. The distances given in nautical miles in the text is correct — DAS

3. 875 leagues (3,380 kilometres — DAS)

4. 13° 4′ west of the Paris meridian. The difference between these two meridians is 2° 20′.

5. Verne gives the island a circumference of only seventeen miles — DAS

6. Jean-François de Galaup, comte de Lapérouse was a French naval officer and explorer, who vanished in the vicinity of the Solomon Islands, in 1788 — DAS

7. Not so extinct. The volcano on Tristan da Cunha last erupted in 1961, causing a two year evacuation of the island. An offshore eruption in 2004 nearly caused another evacuation — DAS

Chapter I | Index | Chapter III

Chapter III
Cape Town and M. Viot

As John Mangles intended to put in at the Cape of Good Hope for coal, he was obliged to deviate a little from the 37th parallel, and go two degrees north. The Duncan was south of the zone of the trade winds, and the strong westerlies sped her on her way¹ In less than six days she cleared the 1,500 nautical miles² which separate the tip of Africa from Tristan da Cunha, and on the 24th of November, at three o’clock, Table Mountain was sighted. At eight o’clock they entered the bay, and cast anchor in the port of Cape Town.

Paganel, as a member of the Society of Geography, could not ignore that the tip of Africa was first reached in 1486 by the Portuguese admiral Bartolomeu Dias, and doubled in 1497 by the famous Vasco De Gama. And how could Paganel have ignored it, since Camões sang of the glory of the great navigator in his Lusiades? But in this regard he made a curious remark: if Dias, in 1486, six years before the first voyage of Christopher Columbus, had doubled the Cape of Good Hope, the discovery of America might have been indefinitely delayed. The Cape Route was a shorter and more direct way to the East Indies. Columbus was seeking a route to the “Spice Islands,” so, once the Cape was doubled, his expedition would have been without purpose, and he might not have gone.

Cape Town, situated on Table Bay, was founded by the Dutchman Van Riebeck in 1652. It is the capital of an important colony which was ceded to the English by the Treaty of 1815. The passengers of the Duncan took advantage or their stop to go ashore. They had only twelve hours to spend on a walk, for one day was enough for Captain John to renew his supplies, and he wanted to leave on the morning of the 26th.

But this would be long enough to examine the chess-board of houses and streets, arranged with geometrical regularity known as Cape Town, where thirty thousand inhabitants — blacks and whites — enact the role of kings and queens, knights and pawns, and perhaps fools. At least that was Paganel’s opinion of it. When you have seen the Castle at the southeast of the town, the Government House and Garden, the Exchange, the Museum, and the Stone Cross erected by Bartolomeu Dias at the time of his discovery; and when you have drank a glass of Pontai, the first growth of the Constantia wines, it remains only to leave. This is what they did at dawn the next day. The Duncan sailed under her jib, staysail, foresail, and topsail, and a few hours later she doubled the famous Cape of Storms, to which the optimist King of Portugal, John II, gave the very inappropriate name of Bonne-Espérance.

Between the Cape and Amsterdam Island lie 2,900 miles³ of ocean, but with a good sea and favourable breeze, this was only a voyage of ten days. The elements were now no longer at war with the travellers, as they had been on their journey across the Pampas. Wind and sea seemed in league to help them forward.

“Ah! The sea! The sea!” said Paganel. “It is the field par excellence for the exercise of human energies, and the ship is the true vehicle of civilization. Think, my friends, if the globe had been only an immense continent, we would only know the thousandth part of it, even in this nineteenth century. See what is happening in the interiors of the great lands. Man scarcely dares to venture in the steppes of Siberia, the plains of Central Asia, the deserts of Africa, the prairies of America, the immense wilds of Australia, or in the icy solitudes of the Poles. The most daring shrink back; the most courageous succumb. We cannot penetrate them. The means of transport are insufficient. The heat, disease, and savagery of the natives form so many impassable barriers. Twenty miles of desert separate men more than five hundred miles of ocean! One coast is neighbour to another, but if only a forest separates us, we are strangers. England is contiguous to Australia; while Egypt, for instance, seems to be millions of leagues from Senegal, and Peking at the very antipodes of St. Petersburg! The sea is more easily crossed than any Sahara, and it is thanks to it, as an American scholar⁴ has justly said, that a universal kinship has been established among all the parts of the world.”

Paganel spoke with such warmth that even the Major had nothing to say against this hymn to the ocean. If the finding of Harry Grant had involved following the 37th parallel across the northern continents instead of the southern oceans, the enterprise could not have been attempted; but the sea was there, ready to carry the travellers from one country to another, and on the 6th of December, at the first streak of the day, they saw a fresh mountain emerging from the bosom of the waves.

This was Amsterdam Island, situated in 37° 47′ latitude and 77° 24′⁵ longitude, whose high cone is visible from fifty miles away in clear weather. At eight o’clock, its form, indistinct though it still was, seemed almost a reproduction of Tenerife.

“And consequently it must resemble Tristan da Cunha,” said Glenarvan.

“A very wise conclusion,” said Paganel, “according to the geometrical axiom that ‘that two islands, similar to a third, resemble one another.’ I will only add that, like Tristan da Cunha, Amsterdam Island is also rich in seals and Robinsons.”

“So, there are Robinsons everywhere?” said Lady Helena.

“Indeed, Madame,” said Paganel, “I know of few islands which have not had their adventures of this kind, and the romance of your immortal countryman, Daniel Defoe, had been often enough realized before his day.”

“Monsieur Paganel,” said Mary, “may I ask you a question?”

“Two if you like, my Miss, and I will undertake to answer them.”

“Well,” said the girl, “would you be much afraid of being abandoned on a desert island?”

“Me?” exclaimed Paganel.

“Come, my friend,” said the Major, “don’t go and tell us that it is your dearest wish.”

“I don’t pretend that,” said Paganel. “But such an adventure would not be very unpleasant to me. I would begin a new life. I would hunt and fish. I would go home to a cave in winter and a tree in summer. I would make storehouses for my harvests; in one word, I would colonize my island.”

“All alone?”

“Alone, if necessary. Besides, are we ever alone in the world? Cannot one find friends among the animals, and tame a young kid, eloquent parrot, or amiable monkey? And if a lucky chance should send one a companion, like the faithful Friday, what more is needed to be happy? Two friends on a rock, that’s happiness. Suppose the Major and I—”

“Thank you,” interrupted the Major. “I have no taste for that sort of life, and should make a very poor Robinson Crusoe.”

“Dear Monsieur Paganel,” said Lady Helena, “you are letting your imagination run away with you. But reality is very different from the dream. You are thinking of those imaginary Robinsons, thrown onto a carefully chosen island, and treated like spoilt children by nature. You only see the beautiful side.”

“What, Madame! You don’t believe a man could be happy on a desert island?”

“I do not. Man is made for society, not for isolation. Solitude can only engender despair. It is a question of time. At the outset it is quite possible that material wants, and the very necessities of existence may engross the poor shipwrecked fellow just snatched from the waves, but afterwards, when he feels himself alone, far from his fellow-men, without any hope of seeing country and friends again, what must he think, what must he suffer? His little island is all his world. The whole human race is shut up in himself, and when death comes, which utter loneliness will make terrible, he will be like the last man on the last day of the world. Believe me, Monsieur Paganel, such a man is not to be envied.”

Paganel regretfully acknowledged the arguments of Lady Helena, but still kept up a discussion on the advantages and disadvantages of isolation, until the very moment the Duncan dropped anchor about a mile off Amsterdam Island.

This isolated group in the Indian Ocean consists of two distinct islands, thirty-three miles apart, and situated exactly on the meridian of the Indian Peninsula. To the north is Amsterdam, or Saint Pierre Island, and to the south Saint Paul, but they have been often confounded by geographers and navigators.

These islands were discovered in December, 1796, by the Dutchman, Vlaming, and observed again by d’Entrecasteaux, who led the Esperance and Recherche expedition to find La Pérouse. It is from this voyage that the confusion of the islands dates. The cartographer Beautemps-Beaupré in his atlas of the d’Entrecasteaux expedition, then Horsburg, Pinkerton, and other geographers, have constantly described Saint Pierre Island for Saint Paul Island, and vice versa. In 1859, the officers of the Austrian frigate Novara, in her circumnavigation voyage, avoided making this mistake, which Paganel particularly wanted to rectify.

Saint Paul Island lying south of Amsterdam Island, is nothing but an uninhabited islet, a conical mountain that must be the remains of an ancient volcano. On the other hand, Amsterdam Island — to which the long boat conveyed the passengers of the Duncan — is about twelve miles in circumference. It is inhabited by a few voluntary exiles, who have become used to their dreary life. They are the guardians of the fishery which belongs, as well as the islands, to a M. Otovan, a merchant from Reunion. This sovereign, though not yet recognized by the European powers, enjoys a civil list of 75,000 to 80,000 francs,⁶ by fishing, salting, and exporting a fish called the Cheilodactylus, also known more commonly as “cod.”

Moreover, this Amsterdam island was destined to become and remain French. In fact, it belonged first, by right of first occupation, to M. Camin of Saint-Denis, Bourbon; then it was ceded, by virtue of some international contract, to a Pole, who had it cultivated by Madagascan slaves. But when I say Polish, I also mean French, and the island became French again in the hands of Sieur Otovan.

When the Duncan visited the island on December 6th, the population consisted of three people — a Frenchman, and two mulattoes — all three employed by the merchant proprietor. Paganel was delighted to shake hands with a countryman in the person of respectable M. Viot. This “wise old man” did the honours of the island with much politeness. It was a happy day for him when he received friendly foreigners. Saint Pierre was only frequented by seal fishermen, and now and then a whaler, the crews of which are usually rough, coarse men.

The little house where the three islanders lived was nestled in a natural harbour

M. Viot presented his subjects, the two mulattoes. They composed the whole living population of the island, except for a few wild boars in the interior, and myriads of penguins. The little house where the three islanders lived was nestled in a natural harbour on the southwest, formed by the collapse of a portion of the mountain.

It was long before the reign of Otovan Ist that Saint Pierre served as a refuge for shipwrecked men. Paganel related an interesting story about this, which he called “The History of Two Scots, cast away on Amsterdam Island.”

It was in 1827 that the English ship Palmira, passing within sight of the island, noticed smoke curling in the air, and on approaching the shore, saw two men making signals of distress. The captain sent a boat ashore, and brought them back to his vessel. The two poor fellows were hardly recognizable. One was a young man named Jacques Pain, about 22 years of age, and the other was older, 48 years old, whose name was Robert Proudfoot. For 18 months they had been almost without food or fresh water, living on shell-fish, and fishing with an old bent nail. Occasionally they had caught a young wild boar, but they often went for three days at a time without food, watching like vestals over the fire which they had lighted with their last piece of tinder, never letting it go out, and carrying it with them in their excursions, as a thing of priceless value. Such was the life of misery, privation, and suffering which they had led. Paine and Proudfoot had been landed on the island by a schooner engaged in seal fishing. According to the usual custom of seal fishermen, they were to remain on the island a month, and collect a supply of oil and skins, waiting for the return of the schooner. The schooner did not reappear. Five months afterwards, the Hope, bound for Van Diemen’s, put in at the island, but her captain, by a barbarous and inexplicable caprice, refused to take the poor Scots on board, and went away without even leaving them a biscuit or a lighter. The unfortunate men would likely have perished, but for the timely arrival of the Palmira.

The second adventure related by Paganel in the history of Amsterdam Island — if such a rock can have a history — was that of Captain Peron, a Frenchman this time. This adventure, moreover, begins like that of the two Scots and ends likewise: a voluntary release on the island, a ship which does not return, and a foreign ship that the chance of the winds brings to this group, after forty months abandonment. Only a bloody drama marked the stay of Captain Peron, and it offers many curious points of resemblance to the imaginary events which occurred in the history of Defoe’s hero.

Captain Peron had landed on the island with four sailors, two of them English and two French, intending to hunt sea lions for fifteen months. They were very successful, but when the fifteen months came to an end, and no vessel returned, and their provisions dwindled, international relations became difficult. The two English sailors revolted against their captain, and would have killed him but for the interference of his fellow countrymen. From that moment the two parties watched each other night and day, always armed for attack, and alternately conquerors and conquered. They led a frightful existence of misery and anguish. In the end one faction would have undoubtedly slain the other, if some English ship hadn’t repatriated these unfortunate men that a miserable question of nationality divided on a rock of the Indian Ocean.

Twice then, had Amsterdam Island become the home of abandoned sailors, providentially saved from misery and death. But since these events no vessel had been lost on its coast. Had any shipwreck occurred, some fragments must have been thrown on the sandy shore, and any poor sufferers from it would have found their way to M. Viot’s fishery. The old man had been on the island for many years, and had never been called upon to exercise such hospitality. Of the Britannia and Captain Grant he knew nothing. Neither Amsterdam Island nor St. Paul Island, which whalers and fishermen often visited, had been the scene of this catastrophe.

Glenarvan was neither surprised nor saddened by his answer. His object in asking was to establish the fact that Captain Grant had not been there, rather than that he had. This done, they were ready to proceed on their voyage next day.

Here and there thermal springs escaped from the black lava

They rambled about the island until evening, as its appearance was very inviting. Its fauna and flora would not have filled the octavo of the most prolific naturalists. The order of quadrupeds, birds, fish, and cetaceans, contained only wild boars, snow petrels, albatrosses, perch, and seals. Here and there thermal springs and chalybeate waters escaped from the black lava, and thick vapours rose above the volcanic soil. Some of these springs were very hot. John Mangles held his thermometer in one of them, and found the temperature was 176 degrees Fahrenheit⁷. Fish caught in the sea a few yards off, cooked in five minutes in these almost boiling waters, which persuaded Paganel not to attempt to bathe in them.

Toward evening, after a good walk, Glenarvan bid farewell to the honourable M. Viot. Everyone wished him all the happiness possible on his desert island. In return, the old man gave his blessings to the expedition, and the Duncan’s boat brought her passengers back on board.

1. These winds run counter to the trade winds below the 30th parallel.

2. 700 leagues (2,800 kilometres — DAS)

Verne had 1,300 miles and 600 leagues — DAS

3. 1,350 leagues. (5,400 kilometres — DAS)

4. Commander Matthew Fontaine Maury. (“The Father of Modern Oceanography.” A particular favourite of Verne’s. He gets several mentions in 20,000 Leagues Under the Seas, as well. — DAS)

5. 75° 4′ east of the Paris meridian.

6. $15,000 to $16,000 , £3,000 to £3,200. — DAS

7. 80 degrees centigrade.

Chapter II | Index | Chapter IV

Chapter IV
The Wagers of Jacques Paganel and Major MacNabbs

On the 7th of December, at three in the morning, the Duncan’s boilers were already building pressure. Sailors turned the capstan, pulling the anchor free from the sandy bottom of the little harbour, and up to its davit. The screw was set turning, and the yacht set sail. By eight o’clock, when the passengers came on deck, Amsterdam Island had almost disappeared into the mists of the horizon. This was the last stop on the 37th parallel, until they reached Australia, three thousand nautical miles¹ away. If the west wind continued to blow fair, and the seas remained calm, the Duncan would reach Australia in twelve days.

Mary Grant and her brother could not gaze at the waves through which the Britannia must have cruised but a few days before her shipwreck, without feeling sadness. Here, perhaps, Captain Grant, with a disabled ship and diminished crew, had struggled against the formidable hurricanes of the Indian Ocean, and been driven toward the coast by an irresistible force. Captain Mangles pointed out and explained the different currents to Mary on the ship’s charts. There was one running through the Indian Ocean straight to the Australian continent, and it continued on through the southern Pacific and Atlantic oceans, circling the entire globe. It was doubtless this current which had carried the Britannia, dismasted and rudderless, unable to maneuver, until she had broken on the Australian coast.

A difficulty about this hypothesis presented itself. The last news of Captain Grant in the Mercantile and Shipping Gazette was from Callao on the 30th of May, 1862. How was it possible that on the 7th of June, only eight days after leaving the shores of Peru, the Britannia found herself in the Indian Ocean? But to this, Paganel, who was consulted on the subject, found a very plausible solution.

It was on the evening of December 12th, six days after leaving Amsterdam Island. Lord and Lady Glenarvan, Robert and Mary Grant, Captain John, MacNabbs and Paganel, were talking on the poop. As usual, the main topic of the conversation was the Britannia, as it was the only thought on board. The aforesaid difficulty was raised incidentally, and had the immediate effect of stopping all conversation.

Paganel’s head came up sharply at Glenarvan’s remark. Without saying a word, he went and fetched the document. After perusing it, he still remained silent, and simply shrugged his shoulders, as if ashamed of troubling himself about such a trifling matter.

“Well, my dear friend,” said Glenarvan, “at least give us an answer.”

“No,” said Paganel, “I will merely ask Captain John a question.’’

“Yes, Monsieur Paganel?” said John Mangles.

“Could a well fitted ship cross the Pacific Ocean from America to Australia in a month?”

“Yes, making two hundred miles a day.”

“Would that be an extraordinary speed?”

“Not at all; clipper ships often go faster.”

“Well, then, instead of ‘7 June’ on this document, suppose the sea has eaten one digit from that date, and it should read ‘17 June’ or ‘27 June,’ and all is explained.”

“Indeed,” said Lady Helena, “from May 31st to June 27th…”

“Captain Grant could easily have crossed the Pacific and found himself in the Indian Ocean.”

Paganel’s theory met with universal acceptance.

“That’s one more point cleared up,” said Glenarvan. “Thanks to our friend, all that remains to be done now is to get to Australia, and look for traces of the Britannia on the western coast.”

“Or the eastern,” said John Mangles.

“Indeed, John, you may be right, for there is nothing in the document to indicate which shore was the scene of the catastrophe, and both points of the continent crossed by the 37th parallel must therefore be explored.”

“Then, My Lord, it is doubtful, after all?” said Mary.

“Oh no, Miss Mary!” John Mangles hastened to reply, seeing the young girl’s apprehension. “His Honour will wish to point out that if Captain Grant had gained the shore on the east of Australia, he would almost immediately have found refuge and assistance. The whole of that coast is populated with English colonists. The crew of the Britannia could not have gone ten miles without meeting fellow countrymen.”

“I quite agree, Captain John,” said Paganel. “On the eastern coast Harry Grant would not only have found an English colony easily, but he would certainly have found some means of transport back to Europe.”

“And he would not have found the same resources on the side we are making for?” asked Lady Helena.

“No, Madame,” replied Paganel. “The coast is deserted, with no communication between it and Melbourne or Adelaide. If the Britannia was wrecked on those rocky shores, she would be as much cut off from all chance of help as if she had been lost on the inhospitable shores of Africa.”

“But then,” said Mary, “What has become of my father, these two years?”

“My dear Mary,” replied Paganel, “you believe it is certain that Captain Grant reached Australia after his shipwreck?”

“Yes, Monsieur Paganel.”

“Well, once on this continent, what became of Captain Grant? The suppositions we might make are not numerous. They are confined to three. Either Harry Grant and his companions have found their way to the English colonies, or they have fallen into the hands of the natives, or they are lost in the vast loneliness of Australia.” Paganel fell silent, and looked into the eyes of his listeners for any objections to his hypotheses.

“Go on, Paganel,” said Lord Glenarvan.

“I reject the first hypothesis: Harry Grant could not have reached the English colonies, or he would have been back with his children in Dundee, long ago.”

“Poor father,” murmured Mary. “Away from us for two whole years!”

“Hush, Mary,” said Robert. “Monsieur Paganel has more to tell us.”

“Alas, my boy, I cannot! All I can say is that Captain Grant is a prisoner of the Australians, or—”

“But these natives,” interrupted Lady Helena. “Are they…?”

“Reassure yourself, Madame,” said Paganel, understanding where her thoughts were leading. “These natives are savage, stupid, at the lowest level of human intelligence, but of gentle morals, and not bloodthirsty like their New Zealand neighbours. If they took the survivors of the Britannia prisoner, their lives have never been threatened, you may be sure. All travellers are unanimous in declaring that the Australian natives abhor shedding blood, and many a time they have found in them faithful allies in repelling the attacks of bands of convicts, far more cruelly inclined.”

“You hear what Monsieur Paganel tells us, Mary,” said Lady Helena, turning to the young girl. “If your father is in the hands of the natives, as the document suggests, we will find him.”

“And what if he is lost in that immense country?” asked Mary.

“Well, we’ll still find him,” declared Paganel, confidently. “Won’t we, my friends?”

“Most certainly,” said Glenarvan. And, anxious to turn the conversation in a less gloomy direction, he added “But I won’t admit the supposition of his being lost.”

“Neither will I,” said Paganel.

“Is Australia a big place?” asked Robert.

“Australia, my boy, is about four-fifths the size of Europe. It is somewhere about 775 million hectares.”

“As much as that?” said the Major,

“Yes, MacNabbs, within a yard. Do you believe now that such a country has a right to be called a ‘continent,’ as the document does?”

“Certainly, Paganel.”

“I may add,” continued the scholar, “that there are few accounts of travellers being lost in this immense country. I believe that Leichhardt is the only one whose fate is unknown, and shortly before my departure I learned from the Geographical Society that McIntyre had strong hopes of having discovered traces of him.”²

“Has all of Australia been explored?” asked Lady Helena.

“No, Madame. Far from it! This continent is not much better known than the interior of Africa, and yet it is from no lack of enterprising travellers. From 1606 to 1862, more than fifty men have been engaged in exploring Australia along the coast, and in the interior.”

“Fifty! Really?” exclaimed the incredulous MacNabbs.

“Yes, MacNabbs, as many as that. I speak of the sailors who braved the dangerous shoals and reefs to chart the Australian shores, and explorers who have traversed the continent.”

“Nevertheless, fifty is a great deal,” said the Major.

“And I might go farther, MacNabbs,” said the geographer, impatient of contradiction.

“Farther still, Paganel!”

“If you doubt me, I can give you the names.”

“Oh!” said the Major, coolly. “That’s just like you scientists. So sure of yourselves.”

“Will you bet your rifle against my telescope?”

“Major, will you bet your Purdey Moore and Dickson rifle against my Secretan telescope?”

“Why not, Paganel, if you’d like?”

“Done, Major!” said Paganel. “You may say good-bye to your rifle, for it will never shoot another chamois or fox unless I lend it to you, which I shall always be happy to do, by the way.”

“And whenever you require the use of your telescope, Paganel, I shall be equally obliging,” said the Major, gravely.

“Let us begin, then. Ladies and gentlemen, you shall be our jury. Robert, you must keep count.”

Lord and Lady Glenarvan, Mary and Robert, the Major, and John Mangles, whom the discussion amused, prepared to listen to the geographer. The Duncan was sailing toward Australia, after all, and a lesson on its history could not be more timely. Paganel was invited to begin his mnemonic tricks without delay.

“Mnemosyne! Goddess of Memory, mother of chaste Muses!” he called. “Inspire thy faithful and fervent worshipper! Two hundred and fifty-eight years ago, my friends, Australia was still unknown. The existence of a great southern continent was suspected. Two charts in the library of your British Museum, Glenarvan, dated 1550, mention a land south of Asia, which the Portuguese called Great Java. But the authenticity of these charts is questionable. In the seventeenth century, in 1606, Queirós, a Spanish navigator, discovered a land which he named Australia de Espiritu Santo. Some authors believe that this was the New Hebrides group, and not Australia. I am not going to discuss the question, however. Count Queirós, Robert, and let us pass on to another.”

“One,” said Robert.

“In that same year, Luís Vaz de Torres, the second in command of the fleet of Queirós, pushed further south to reconnoitre the new lands, but it is to Theodoric Hartog, a Dutchman, that the honour of the great discovery belongs. He landed on the western coast of Australia by 25° of latitude, and called it Eendrachtsland, after his ship. After his time, more navigators came. In 1618, Zeachen discovered the northern parts of the coast, and called them Arnheim and Diemen. In 1619, Jan Edels went along the western coast, and christened it with his own name. In 1622, the Leeuwin went down as far as the cape which became its namesake. In 1627, De Nuyts, and De Witt, the one at the west the other at the south, filled in the discoveries of their predecessors, and were followed by Commander Carpenter, who penetrated the immense gulf, still called the Gulf of Carpentaria, with his ships. Finally, in 1642, the famous Tasman rounded Van Diemen’s Land, an island which he supposed to be joined to the continent, and gave it the name of the Governor-General of Batavia, a name which posterity justly changed to Tasmania. The whole continent had now been rounded. It was known that the Indian and Pacific Oceans washed its shores, and in 1665 the name of New Holland, which it was not to keep, was bestowed on this great southern island — just about the time when the roll of Dutch navigators in its exploration was about to end. How many have we now, Robert?”

“Ten.”

The stories of Paganel

“Very well. I pass on to the English. In 1686, a buccaneer, a Brother of the Coast, one of the most celebrated freebooters of the southern seas, William Dampier, after many adventures mingled with pleasures and miseries, arrived in his ship, the Cygnet, off the northwest coast of New Holland, at latitude 16° 50′. He entered into communication with the natives, and brought home a very complete description of their manners, their poverty, and their intelligence. He came back in 1699 to the same bay where Hartog had landed, but not as a freebooter. He was in command of the Roebuck, a ship of the Royal Navy. Up to this time, the discovery of New Holland had been simply an interesting geographical fact. There was little thought of colonizing it. For almost three quarters of a century, from 1699 to 1770, it remained unvisited by any navigator. But at last came Captain Cook, the most illustrious sailor in the whole world, and it was not long until the new continent became a field for European emigration. James Cook landed in New Holland during all three of his famous voyages. The first time was on the 31st of March, 1770. After being fortunate enough to witness the transit of Venus across the sun at Otahiti³, Cook sailed his little ship, the Endeavour, to the western Pacific Ocean. There he mapped the coast of New Zealand, and subsequently reached a bay on the west coast of Australia, which he found so rich in new plants, that he gave it the name of Botanical Bay. Its present name is Botany Bay. His relations with the half-witted natives were not very interesting. From there he went north, and at 16° of latitude, near Cape Tribulation, the Endeavour struck a coral reef eight leagues from shore. The danger of sinking was imminent. Provisions and cannon had to be thrown into the sea; but the following night the tide re-floated the lightened ship. It was found that her sinking was prevented by a piece of coral that had stopped up the hole in her bottom, and Cook succeeded in bringing her safely into a small cove, at the mouth of a river which he called the Endeavour. During the three months that it took for the repairs to be completed, the English tried to establish useful communication with the natives, but they met with little success. On putting out to sea again, the Endeavour continued her route northward. Cook wished to find out whether a strait existed between New Guinea and New Holland. After encountering fresh dangers and risking his ship twenty times or more, he caught sight of the sea spreading out toward the southwest. The strait existed. He had passed through it. Cook landed on a little island, where he took possession of the whole coast he had explored in the name of England. He gave it the very British name of New South Wales. Three years later the daring sailor commanded the Adventure and the Resolution. Captain Furneaux, of the Adventure, went on to explore the coast of Van Diemen’s Land, and came back supposing that it was joined to the mainland and formed part of New Holland. It was not until 1777, at the time of his third voyage, that Cook moored his ships, the Resolution and the Discovery, in Adventure Bay, in Van Diemen’s Land. It was from there, some months afterwards, he departed for the Sandwich Islands, where he died.”

“He was a great man,” said Glenarvan.

“The most illustrious sailor who ever breathed. It was Banks, his companion, who suggested to the British Government the idea of founding a colony at Botany Bay. Navigators of all nations followed in his wake. In the last letter received from Lapérouse, written in Botany Bay and dated February 7, 1787, the unfortunate sailor announced his intention of visiting the Gulf of Carpentaria and all the coast of New Holland, as far as Van Diemen’s Land. He set out and never returned. In 1788, Captain Phillip founded the first English colony at Port Jackson. In 1791, Vancouver went a considerable distance around the southern coast of the new continent. In 1792, d’Entrecasteaux, sent in search of Lapérouse, made the tour of New Holland, west and south, discovering several unknown islands on the way. In 1795 and 1797, Flinders and Bass, two young men in a eight foot long boat, courageously pushed their way along the southern coast, and in 1797 Bass passed between Van Diemen’s Land and New Holland, through the strait that bears his name. In that same year, 1797, Vlamingh, the discoverer of Amsterdam Island, found the Swan River on the western shores, the banks of which abound with the most beautiful black swans. As for Flinders, he resumed his explorations in 1801, and at 138° 58′ of longitude and 35° 40′ of latitude, he met with two French ships in Encounter Bay: the Geographe and the Naturaliste, commanded by Captains Baudin and Hamlin.”

“Ah! Captain Baudin?” said the Major.

“Yes. What about him?”

“Oh, nothing. Go on, my dear Paganel.”

“Well, I have the name of one more navigator to add to the list — that of Captain King, who from 1817 to 1822 completed the exploration of the inter-tropical coasts of New Holland.”

“That makes twenty-four,” said Robert.

“Well, I have half your rifle already, Major. And now that I’m done with the sailors, let’s go on to the explorers on land.”

“Very good, Monsieur, Paganel,” said Lady Helena. “Really your memory is astonishing.”

“Yes,” said Lord Glenarvan, “and it is strange enough it should be in a man so—”

“So distrait,” interrupted Paganel. “Oh, I only remember dates and facts, that’s all.”

“Twenty-four,” repeated Robert,

“Well, twenty-five is Lieutenant Dawes. It was in 1789, a year after the colony of Port Jackson was founded. The tour of the continent had been made, but no one knew what it contained. A long range of mountains, running parallel to the eastern shore, seemed to forbid all approach to the interior. Lieutenant Dawes, after nine days’ march, was obliged to turn back and retrace his steps to Port Jackson. During the same year Captain Tench tried to cross the lofty chain, but could not succeed. These two failures deterred other explorers from any attempts for three years. In 1792, Colonel Paterson, a bold African explorer, made a fresh endeavour, which proved equally unsuccessful. But the following year a simple quartermaster in the English navy, the courageous Hawkins, out-distanced all his predecessors by crossing over the impassable ridge and going twenty miles beyond. He had only two imitators during the next eighteen years, and these were both unsuccessful. One was Bass, the famous sailor, and the other Bareiller, an engineer in the colony. I now arrive at the year 1813, when a passage was at last discovered to the west of Sydney. Governor Macquarrie ventured through it in 1815, and the town of Bathurst was founded beyond the Blue Mountains. After that I may mention the names of Throsby in 1819; Oxley, who went 300 miles into the interior; Hovell and Hume, who started from Twofold Bay, which is crossed by the 37th parallel, and Captain Sturt, who, in 1829 and in 1830 discovered the Darling and Murray rivers. All these are men who enriched geography with new facts, and helped to develop the colonies.”

“Thirty-six,” said Robert.

“Excellent! I’m ahead,” said Paganel. “I quote for the record Eyre and Leichhardt, who explored part of the country in 1840 and 1841; Sturt in 1845; the Gregory brothers and Helpman in 1846 in Western Australia; Kennedy in 1847 on the Victoria River, and in 1848 in Northern Australia; Gregory in 1852; Austin in 1854; the Gregory brothers in 1855 to 1858 in the northwest of the continent; Babbage, the discoverer of Lake Torrens and Lake Eyre. And I arrive at a traveller famous in the annals of Australian exploration, to Stuart, who crossed the continent three times. His first expedition into the interior was in 1860. Later, if you like, I will tell you how Australia has been traversed four times from south to north. Today, I am simply finishing this long list, and from 1860 to 1862 I will add to the names of so many hardy pioneers of science those of the Dempster brothers, and of Clarkson and Harper, Burke and Wills, Neilson, Walker, Landsborough, McKinlay, Howitt—”

“Fifty-six,” called out Robert.

“Well then, Major, I will give you good measure, for I have not yet mentioned Duperrey, Bougainville, FitzRoy, Wickham, Stokes…”

“Enough!” cried the Major, overpowered by the number.

“Neither Péron, nor Quoy,” Paganel went on, dashing along like an express train, “nor Bennett, nor Cunningham, nor Nutchell, nor Tiers—”

“Mercy!”

“Nor Dixon, nor Strzelecki, nor Reid, nor Wilkes, nor Mitchell…”⁴

“Stop, Paganel!” said Glenarvan, laughing heartily, “don’t completely crush poor MacNabbs. Be generous. He admits defeat!”

“And his rifle?” asked the geographer, triumphantly.

“It’s yours, Paganel,” said the Major, “and I am very sorry for it. But you have a memory to gain an entire artillery museum.”

“It is certainly impossible to be better acquainted with Australia,” said Lady Helena. “Not the least name, not even the most trifling fact.”

“As to the most trifling fact, I don’t know about that,” said the Major, shaking his head.

“What do you mean, MacNabbs?” asked Paganel.

“Simply that, perhaps, not all of the incidents connected with the discovery of Australia are known to you.”

“For example?” asked Paganel, puffing up proudly.

“If I tell you one fact you don’t know, will you give me back my rifle?” asked MacNabbs.

“On the spot, Major.”

“Bargain?”

“Bargain!”

“All right. Well now, Paganel, do you know how it is that Australia does not belong to France?”

“It seems to me—”

“Or, at any rate, do you know the reason the English give?” asked the Major.

“No, Major,” said Paganel, with an air of vexation.

“It’s because Captain Baudin, who was by no means a timid man, was so afraid in 1802, of the croaking of the Australian frogs, that he raised his anchor with all possible speed, and fled, never to return.”

“What?” exclaimed Paganel. “Do they actually teach that version of it in England? But it’s just a bad joke!”

“Bad enough, certainly, but still it is history in the United Kingdom.”

“It’s an indignity!” exclaimed the patriotic geographer. “They seriously say that?”

“I am obliged to agree, my dear Paganel” said Glenarvan, amidst a general outburst of laughter. “Do you mean to say you have never heard of it before?”

“Absolutely! I protest! Besides, the English call us ‘frog-eaters.’ Now, in general, people are not afraid of what they eat.”

“It is said, though, for all that,” replied MacNabbs.

And that’s how the famous Purdey Moore and Dickson rifle remained the property of Major MacNabbs.

1. 1,400 leagues (5,600 kilometres — DAS)

2. Ludwig Leichhardt disappeared in the Australian interior in 1848. In 1864 Duncan McIntyre discovered two trees marked with “L” on the Flinders River near the Gulf of Carpentaria, but further searching found no other traces. Leichhardt’s ultimate fate is still a mystery.

3. The passage of the planet Venus across the disk of the sun took place in 1769. This rather rare phenomenon presented a great astronomical interest as it made it possible to calculate the distance separating the earth from the sun.

4. The list of the names Paganel gives. Robert’s count is a bit off, as Paganel mentions a few people multiple times. I have removed any duplicates. And he should lose points for “Commander Carpenter,” who seems to be fictitious.

Queirós, 1606

Luís Vaz de Torres, 1606

Theodoric Hartog

Zeachen, 1618
(His existence is questioned, as he supposedly named ‘Diemen’ about twenty years before van Diemen was made Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies. One of Tasman’s ships was named Zeehaen, which may be where the confusion arose from.)

Jan Edels, 1619
(Likely meant Jacob d’Edel, who accompanied Frederick de Houtman)

The Leeuwin, 1622

De Nuyts, and

De Witt, 1627

Commander Carpenter
(Appears to be a figment of Paganel’s imagination. The Gulf of Carpentaria was explored, and named by Jan Carstenszoon, in 1623. He named the gulf after the Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies, Pieter de Carpentier.)

Tasman, 1642

William Dampier, 1686

Captain Cook, 1770

Captain Furneaux, 1773

Banks

Lapérouse, 1787

Captain Phillip, 1788

Vancouver, 1791

d’Entrecasteaux, 1792

Flinders and

Bass, 1795 and 1797

Vlamingh, 1797

Captains Baudin and

Hamlin, 1801

Captain King, 1817 to 1822

Lieutenant Dawes, 1789

Captain Tench, 1789

Colonel Paterson, 1792

Hawkins, 1793

Bareiller,

Governor Macquarrie, 1815

Throsby, 1819

Oxley

Hovell and

Hume

Captain Sturt, 1829, 1830

Eyre, 1840

Leichhardt, 1841

The Gregory brothers, 1846

Helpman, 1846

Kennedy, 1847 and 1848

Austin ,1854

Babbage,

Stuart, 1860 to 1862

Dempster brothers

Clarkson

Harper

Burke and Wills

Neilson

Walker

Landsborough

McKinlay

Howitt

Duperrey

Bougainville

FitzRoy

Wickham

Stokes

Péron,

Quoy

Bennett

Cunningham

Nutchell

Tiers

Dixon,

Strzelecki

Reid

Wilkes

Mitchell

Chapter III | Index | Chapter V

Chapter V
The Wrath of the Indian Ocean

Two days after this conversation, John Mangles announced that the Duncan was in longitude 113° 37′, and the passengers found after consulting the chart that Cape Bernouilli was only twenty-five¹ degrees off. Between this cape and Point d’Entrecasteaux, the Australian coast describes an arc over the 37th parallel. If the Duncan turned north now, and ascended toward the equator, she would soon have reached Cape Chatham, a hundred twenty miles to the north. They were sailing into that part of the Indian Ocean which was sheltered below the Australian continent, and in four days they should see Cape Bernouilli appear on the horizon.

The yacht had been favoured by a strong westerly breeze, but it had been slackening, little by little, for the past few days. On the 13th of December the wind fell entirely, and her inert sails hung limply from her masts. Without her powerful engine, the Duncan would have been chained by the calm of the ocean.

There was no saying how long these conditions might last. Glenarvan consulted with John Mangles. The young captain, seeing his coal bunkers emptying, was very much annoyed by this drop in the wind. He had covered his ship with sail, hoisting all his studsails and staysails to take advantage of the slightest breeze, but as the sailors said, there wasn’t enough wind to fill a hat.

“In any case, we shouldn’t complain, too much,” said Glenarvan. “It is better to have no wind than a contrary one.”

“Your Honour is right,” said John Mangles. “But these sudden calms can presage a change in the weather, and that is why I dread them. We are close to the boundary of the monsoon² which blows from the northeast from October to April. If we are caught in it, our journey will be very delayed.”

“What are you worried about, John? If it happens, we will have to deal with it. It will only make our voyage a little longer.”

“Yes, if it does not bring a storm with it.”

“Do you think we are going to have bad weather?” Glenarvan examined the sky, which from horizon to zenith seemed absolutely cloudless.

“Yes,” said the captain. “I’m saying it to Your Honour, but I would not like to alarm Lady Glenarvan or Miss Grant.”

“You are acting wisely; but what makes you uneasy?”

“Some indications of heavy weather. Do not trust the appearance of the sky, My Lord. Nothing is more deceitful. For two days the barometer has been falling in a most disturbing manner, and is now at 27 inches.³ This is a warning I dare not ignore. There is nothing I dread more than the storms of the southern sea. I have struggled with them already. The vapours which condense in the immense glaciers at the South Pole produce a breath of air of extreme violence. Hence a struggle between the polar and equatorial winds, which results in hurricanes, tornadoes, and all those multiplied varieties of storm against which a ship is at a disadvantage.”

“Well, John,” said Glenarvan, “the Duncan is a good ship, and her captain is a skilful sailor. Let the storm come, we’ll meet it!”

John Mangles, in expressing his fears, obeyed his duty as a seaman. He had a keen weather sense. The persistent decline in the barometer made him take all the necessary precautions on board. He expected a violent storm. Even if the sky remained clear, his barometer was telling him otherwise. The atmospheric currents flow from places where the column of mercury is high toward those where it is lower. The greater the difference over a shorter distance, the faster the equilibrium is restored, and the greater the wind speed.

John stayed on deck all night. About eleven o’clock the sky began to darken in the south, and the crew were called up. All the sails hauled in, except the foresail, brigantine, topsail, and jibs. At midnight the wind freshened, and became very brisk, blowing at twenty knots.⁴ Before long, the creaking of the masts, the rattling of the cordage, the snapping of sails in sudden changes of wind, and the groaning of timbers awakened the passengers. Paganel, Glenarvan, the Major and Robert appeared on deck, some curious, others to help. When they had gone below the sky had been clear, and dotted with stars. Now it roiled with thick clouds, separated by clear bands spotted like a leopard skin.

“Hurricane?” asked Glenarvan simply.

“Not yet, but soon,” said the captain.

He gave the orders to reef the topsail. The sailors sprang into the rigging, and, not without difficulty, they reduced the area of the sail by winding it with its bats on the yard. John Mangles wanted to keep up as much canvas as possible in order to support the yacht, and soften her rolling in the rising sea.

With the sails reduced, he gave orders to Austin and the boatswain to make other preparations for the onslaught of the hurricane, which could not fail to break loose. The lashings of the boats and the moorings of the drome⁵ were doubled. The hoists on the side of the gun were reinforced. The shrouds and backstays were tightened. The hatches were battened. John stood on the quarterdeck like an officer in a breach, in the teeth of the wind. He gazed at the stormy sky, trying to snatch its secrets.

The barometer had fallen to 26 inches, a dip that rarely occurs in the barometric column, and the storm glass⁶ indicated a tempest.

It was one o’clock. Lady Helena and Miss Grant, violently shaken in their cabins, ventured to come on deck. The wind had increased to fifty knots. It whistled in the rigging with extreme violence. The metal stays hummed like the strings of giant musical instruments, stroked by some gigantic bow. The pulleys strained. Ropes ran with a sharp sound in their rough grooves. The sails cracked like cannons. Monstrous waves rolled to assail the yacht, which was tossed like a toy on their foaming crests.

When Captain John saw the passengers, he hurried toward them, and begged them to go below again, immediately. The waves were already beginning to dash over the side of the ship, and the sea might at any moment sweep right over her from stem to stern. The noise of the warring elements was so great that his words were scarcely audible.

“Are we in danger?” asked Lady Helena durning a slight lull.

“None, Madam,” said John Mangles. “But you cannot remain on deck! Nor you, Miss Mary!”

Lady Glenarvan and Miss Grant could not disobey an order that resembled a prayer, and they went back below deck as a wave, breaking over the transom, made the hatch windows shudder in their frames. At the same moment the wind redoubled its fury, making the masts bend under the pressure of the sails, and the yacht seemed to rise on the waves.

“Brail up the foresail!” shouted the captain. “Bring in the topsail and jibs!”

The sailors rushed to their maneuvering stations. The halyards were loosened, and the brails drawn in. The noise of the jibs descending was, for a moment, greater than that of the storm. The Duncan, her chimney vomiting torrents of black smoke, rolled in the heavy sea, and the blades of her screw broke the surface of the water.

Glenarvan, the Major, Paganel, and Robert contemplated the Duncan’s struggle against the waves with a mixture of admiration and wonder. They clung firmly to the railings without being able to exchange a single word, and looked at the flights of satanic petrels, those funereal birds of storms, which played in the wild winds.

Just then, a deafening whistle was heard over the hurricane. The steam was escaping violently, not by the funnel, but from the safety-valves of the boiler. The alarm whistle sounded unnaturally loud, and the yacht made a frightful pitch. An unexpected blow from the wheel overturned Wilson, who was at the helm. The uncontrolled Duncan turned broadside to the waves.

The captain rushed to the bridge. “What happened?”

“The ship is heeling over!” cried Wilson.

“Have we lost the rudder?”

“To the engine! To the engine!” shouted the engineer.

John rushed to the hatch, and down the ladder to the engine-room. A cloud of steam filled the compartment. The pistons were motionless in their cylinders, the connecting rods were not imparting any movement to the crankshaft, and the engineer, seeing them jammed and fearing for his boilers, was letting off steam.

“What’s wrong?” asked the captain.

“The screw is bent or entangled! It’s not turning at all!”

“Can’t you clear it?”

“Impossible!”

This was not a problem that could be fixed under the current conditions. It was in indisputable fact that the screw could not turn, and the steam had been released through the valves. John had to fall back on his sails, and seek to make an ally of his most powerful enemy, the wind.

He went back up on deck, and after explaining in a few words to Lord Glenarvan how things stood, begged him to retire to the cabin with the rest of the passengers. But Glenarvan wished to remain above.

“No, Your Honour,” said John Mangles firmly. “I must be alone here with my crew. Go into the saloon. The ship will have a hard fight with the waves, and they would sweep you over without mercy.”

“But we might be a help.”

“Go below, My Lord! Go below! I must insist on it. There are times when I must be the master on board, and you must retire! I order it!”

Their situation must indeed be desperate for John Mangles to speak in such a manner. Glenarvan realized it was up to him to set an example for the others. He left the bridge, followed by his three companions, and rejoined the ladies, who were anxiously awaiting the denouement of this war with the elements.

“He’s an energetic fellow, this brave John of mine!” said Lord Glenarvan, as he entered the saloon.

“Yes,” said Paganel. “He reminds me of your great Shakespeare’s boatswain in The Tempest, who says to the King whom he carries on board ‘What care these roarers for the name of King? To cabin! Silence! Trouble us not!’”⁷

John Mangles had not lost a second to pull his ship from the peril in which she was placed by the failure of her screw. He resolved to rely on the mainsail to keep the Duncan on course, as far as possible. It was therefore necessary to brace the sails obliquely to the wind. The topsail was reefed, a foresail was rigged on the mainstay of the mast, and the helm was crowded hard aport.

The nimble yacht wheeled about like a swift horse that feels the spur, and she turned to face the waves. Would this reduced sail hold? It was made of Dundee’s best canvas, but what fabric can withstand such violence?

The main advantage of keeping the mainsail up was that it presented the most solid portions of the yacht to the waves, and kept her on her original course. Still it involved some peril, for the vessel might get engulfed between the waves, and not be able to raise herself. But Mangles felt there was no alternative, and he resolved to keep the mainsail, as long as the masts and sails held. His crew stood there before his eyes, each man ready to go where he was needed. John, tied to the shrouds, watched the angry sea.

The remainder of the night was spent in this manner. It was hoped that the storm would diminish at dawn, but this was a vain desire. At eight o’clock the wind had increased to sixty-four knots: a hurricane.

John said nothing, but he trembled for his ship, and those on board. The Duncan made a frightful plunge forward. Her spars creaked, and the tips of the foresail whipped the crest of the waves. For an instant the men thought she would never rise again. Already they had seized their hatchets to cut away the shrouds from the mainmast, when the sails, torn from their ropes, flew away like gigantic albatrosses.

The Duncan had risen once more, but she now found herself entirely at the mercy of the waves, with nothing to steady or direct her. She pitched and tossed about so violently that the captain expected the masts might break off at their roots at any moment. She could not bear such a roll for long. She was tiring in this blast, and soon her disjointed planks, her shattered seams, would give passage to the waves.

John had no choice but to rig a storm jib, and run before the gale. But this was no easy task. It took hours of labour, undone by the storm twenty times over, so they had to start again. It was not until three o’clock that the jib was hoisted on the forestay and delivered to the action of the wind.

The Duncan surged forward under this piece of cloth

The Duncan surged forward under this piece of cloth, and began to flee the tailwind with incalculable speed. The hurricane pushed her to the northeast. Her safety lay in speed. Sometimes she would surge ahead of the waves which carried her along, and cutting through them with her sharp prow, plunge like a huge cetacean, and the ocean would sweep over her deck from stem to stern. At others, she would keep pace with the waves, her rudder lost all effect, and there was imminent danger of her being capsized. And sometimes the the waves would run faster than the yacht, and the seas would jump the transom and sweep over the deck from stern to stem with irresistible force.

December 15th and the ensuing night passed in this alarming situation amid dreadful alternations of hope and despair. John Mangles never left his post for a moment, not even to eat. Though his impassive face betrayed no symptoms of fear, he was tortured with anxiety, and his steady gaze was fixed on the north, as if trying to pierce through the thick mists that enshrouded it.

There was, indeed, great cause for fear. The Duncan was rushing toward the Australian coast with a speed which nothing could lessen. To John Mangles it seemed as if a thunderbolt were driving them along. Every instant he expected the yacht would be dashed into a thousand pieces against some rock. He reckoned the coast could not be more than twelve miles off. To make landfall now would mean the loss of the ship. It is a hundred times better to be out in the immense ocean, where a ship has a chance to defend herself, even if she may eventually yield. But when a storm throws her on land, she is lost.

John Mangles went to find Glenarvan, and had a private talk with him about their situation, telling him frankly the true state of affairs, stating the case with all the coolness of a sailor prepared for anything and everything and he wound up by saying he might, perhaps, be obliged to cast the Duncan on shore. “To save the lives of those on board, if it is possible, My Lord.”

“Then do it, John,” replied Lord Glenarvan.

“And Lady Helena? Miss Grant?”

“I will only warn them at the last moment, when all hope of keeping out at sea is lost. You will let me know?”

“I will, My Lord.”

Glenarvan rejoined his companions, who felt they were in imminent danger, though no word was spoken on the subject. Both ladies displayed great courage, fully equal to any of their companions. Paganel indulged in the most untimely theories as to the direction of the atmospheric currents. Robert made interesting comparisons between tornadoes, cyclones, and straight storms. The Major calmly awaited the end with the fatalism of a Muslim.

About eleven o’clock, the hurricane seemed to decrease slightly. The damp mist began to clear away, and a sudden gleam of light revealed a low-lying shore about six miles leeward. They were driving right down on it. Enormous breakers, fifty feet high, or more, were dashing over it. John knew that there must be shallow water before the shore to push the waves to such heights.

“There are sand bars,” he said to Austin.

“I think you’re right,” said the mate.

“We are in God’s hands,” said John. “If we cannot find any opening for the Duncan, and if she doesn’t find the way in herself, we are lost.”

“The tide is high at present, it is just possible we may ride over those benches.”

“But look at those breakers. What ship could stand them? God help us, my friend!”

The Duncan, under her storm jib, was approaching the coast with frightening speed. Soon she was within two miles of the sand banks, though the shore was still veiled in mist. John fancied he could see beyond the breakers a quiet basin, where the Duncan might find a haven, but how could she reach it?

All the passengers were summoned to the deck, for now that the hour of shipwreck was at hand, the captain did not wish anyone to be shut up below. Glenarvan and his companions looked at the dreadful sea. Mary Grant turned pale.

“John,” said Glenarvan softly to the captain, “I will try to save my wife, or I will perish with her. You take care of Miss Grant.”

“Yes, Your Honour,” replied John Mangles, raising his hand in a salute.

The Duncan was only a stone’s throw from the sand-banks. The tide was high. If it were calm, there would likely be enough water under the keel of the yacht to allow her to cross this dangerous bar; but the huge waves, alternately lifting her up, and then dropping her, would infallibly ground her. Was there any means of moderating the movement of these waves, of facilitating the sliding of their liquid molecules, of calming this tumultuous sea?

John Mangles had an idea.

“The oil!” he exclaimed. “My lads, get the oil! Get the oil!”

The crew understood him immediately. This was a known technique, that sometimes worked. The fury of the waves can be appeased by covering them with a sheet of oil. The sheet floats on the surface, and destroys the shock of water. Its effect is immediate, but it passes quickly. The moment after a ship has passed over the smooth surface, the sea redoubles its violence, and woe to anyone that follows.⁸

“It’s in God’s hands!” cried the captain. “Pour out!”

The barrels of seal oil were hauled up onto the forecastle by the crew, for danger seemed to have doubled the men’s strength. They were axed open, and hung over the port and starboard railings.

“Hang on!” shouted John, looking out for the right moment.

In twenty seconds the yacht reached the bar, carried by a roaring tidal bore. Now was the time.

“It’s in God’s hands!” cried the captain. “Pour out!”

The barrels were capsized, and streams of oil poured out. Instantly, the oily tablecloth levelled the frothy surface of the sea. The Duncan flew over the calmed waters, into a peaceful basin beyond the formidable bar. But the ocean, cleared of its fetters, burst forth again with all its fury, and the towering breakers dashed over the bar with increased violence behind her.

1. Verne has them five degrees from Cape Bernouilli, which is way off. I thought he might have meant five degrees from Point d’Entrecasteaux, but its longitude is 116° so that still doesn’t match — DAS

2. Extremely violent winds reigning in the Indian Ocean. Their direction varies according to the seasons, and the summer monsoons are generally in the opposite direction to the monsoons of the winter.

3. 686 millimetres. The normal height of the barometric column is 760 millimetres.

4. For some reason, Verne gives wind speeds in this chapter in fathoms per second. I’ve converted them to knots — DAS

5. The cache of spare parts, lumber, etc. needed for making repairs, kept lashed on deck. Another perfectly cromulent word, though when I finally tracked it down in a dictionary of nautical terms, its usage citation pointed back to Verne’s use of it here — DAS

6. Glasses containing a chemical mixture that changes appearance depending on the direction of the wind and the electrical voltage of the atmosphere. The best are made by Messrs. Negretti and Zambra, opticians of the British navy.

Storm Glasses don’t actually work, but they were popular in the 1860s, with many prominent advocates in the world’s navies, including Admiral FitzRoy — DAS

7. The Tempest, Act I, Scene I — DAS

8. Thus the maritime regulations forbid captains from using this desperate means, when another ship follows them.

Chapter IV | Index | Chapter VI

Chapter VI
Cape Bernouilli

John Mangles’ first care was to moor his vessel securely on two anchors. He anchored in five fathoms of water, with a hard gravel bottom which gave an excellent hold. There was no danger now of either being driven away or stranded at low water. After so many hours of danger, the Duncan found herself in a cove, sheltered by a high circular point from the offshore winds.

Lord Glenarvan shook hands with John Mangles, simply saying “Thanks, John.”

John felt generously rewarded by those two words. Glenarvan kept his secret anguish to himself, and neither Lady Helena, nor Mary or Robert suspected the grave peril they had just escaped.

One important fact had to be ascertained. Where on the coast had the Duncan be thrown by the storm? How far must they go to regain the parallel? How far to the southwest was Cape Bernouilli? These were the first questions addressed to John Mangles. He immediately took his bearings, and pointed out his observations on the map.

The Duncan had not deviated too far from her course: only two degrees. They were at 136° 12′ of longitude, and 35° 07′ latitude, at Cape Catastrophe in South Australia, three hundred miles from Cape Bernouilli.

Cape Catastrophe, an ominous sounding name, lies across Investigator Strait from Cape Borda, formed by a promontory on Kangaroo Island. Investigator Strait leads to two deep gulfs — Spencer Gulf in the north, and Gulf St. Vincent in the south. The port of Adelaide, the capital of the province of South Australia, lies on the eastern coast of Gulf St. Vincent. This city, founded in 1836, numbers forty thousand inhabitants, and many resources would be available there. But its people are too much taken up with the cultivation of their fertile soil, and with looking after their grapes and oranges, and all their agricultural wealth, to occupy themselves with great industrial enterprises. The population comprises fewer engineers than agriculturists, and the general spirit runs neither in the direction of commercial operations nor mechanical arts.

Could the Duncan be repaired there? To answer that question, the extent of the damages first had to be determined. Captain Mangles ordered some men to dive down below the stern to inspect the screw. Their report was that one of the blades of the screw was bent, and was jammed against the sternpost,¹ which prevented all possibility of rotation. This was serious damage, that could not likely be repaired with the resources available in Adelaide.

Lord Glenarvan and Captain John, after careful consideration, decided to sail along the Australian coast, looking for signs of the Britannia. They would stop at Cape Bernouilli to collect the latest information available there, and then continue south to Melbourne, where the Duncan could easily be repaired. With the screw restored, they would proceed to cruise along the eastern coast to complete their search.

This proposal was approved. John Mangles resolved to take advantage of the first fair wind to sail. He did not have to wait long. By evening the hurricane had completely subsided. A manageable breeze followed it, blowing from the southwest. Repairs were made to the rigging, and new sails were taken from stores. At four o’clock in the morning, sailors turned the capstan. Soon the anchors were raised and the Duncan, under her foresail, topsail, topgallant, jibs, brigantine, and her staysails, ran on the starboard tack close hauled to the wind along the Australian shores.

Two hours later she lost sight of Cape Catastrophe, and found herself across Investigator Strait. In the evening they doubled Cape Borda, and came alongside Kangaroo Island. This is the largest of the Australian islands, and serves as a refuge for fugitive deportees. Its appearance was enchanting. The stratified rocks on the shore were carpeted with lush vegetation. As in the time of its discovery in 1802, countless mobs of kangaroos leaped through the woods and plains.

Boats were sent ashore to examine the coast minutely

Next day, while the Duncan was sailing offshore, boats were sent in to examine the coast minutely, as they were now on the 36th parallel, and between that and the 38th, Glenarvan wished to leave no part unexplored.

On December 18th the Duncan, which flew along before the wind like a regular clipper, sailed close past Encounter Bay. It was here that the explorer Sturt came in 1828, after he had discovered the Murray: the largest river in southern Australia. They were no longer sailing past the green shores of Kangaroo Island, but a low and jagged coast of arid hills showing all the dryness of a polar continent. Sometimes the uniformity was broken by some grey cliffs, or sand promontories.

The boats did hard service during this journey, but the sailors never complained. Almost always Glenarvan and his inseparable companions, Paganel and young Robert, accompanied them. They wanted to search for some vestiges of the Britannia with their own eyes. But all this painstaking exploration revealed nothing of the shipwreck. The Australian shores revealed no more than the Patagonian. However, it was not yet time to lose all hope. They had not reached the exact point indicated by the document. This extended search was a precaution, to leave nothing to chance. During the night, the Duncan hove to, so as to remain in place as much as possible, and during the day the coast was carefully searched.

On December 20th, they arrived off Cape Bernouilli, which terminates Lacepede Bay, without finding any trace of the Britannia. Still this was not surprising, for in the two years since the catastrophe the sea might, and indeed must, have scattered and destroyed whatever fragments of the three-master had remained. Besides, the natives, who scent a wreck as the vultures do a dead body, would have collected the smallest debris. Then, Harry Grant and two his companions, taken prisoner the moment the waves threw them on shore, had undoubtedly been dragged into the interior of the continent.

But if so, what became of Paganel’s ingenious hypothesis about the document? In the Argentine territory, the geographer could rightly contend that the figures in the document related not to the theatre of the sinking, but to their place of captivity. Indeed the great rivers of the Pampas, with their numerous tributaries were there to bring the precious document to the sea. Here, in this part of Australia, the rivers which cross the 37th parallel are scarce. Besides, the Patagonian rivers — the Rio Colorado and the Rio Negro — throw themselves into the sea along deserted beaches, uninhabitable and uninhabited, while the main Australian rivers — the Murray, Yarra, Torrens, and Darling — are tributaries to each other, or rush into the ocean by mouths which have become frequented ports. Ports where navigation is active. What was the chance, then, that a fragile bottle could have descended the course of these incessantly traversed waters and arrived at the Indian Ocean?

This impossibility could not escape insightful minds. Paganel’s hypothesis, plausible in Argentina, would have been illogical in Australia. Paganel recognized this problem when it was raised by Major MacNabbs. It was evident that the position reported in the document related to the place where the Britannia was actually shipwrecked, and not to the place of captivity, and that the bottle therefore had been thrown into the sea on the western coast of the continent.

As Glenarvan correctly pointed out, this interpretation did not exclude the hypothesis that Captain Grant was a captive. The document anticipated that they were to be taken prisoners of the cruel natives, but there was no longer any reason to look for the prisoners on the 37th parallel, rather than any other.

After a long debate, the question was resolved with a final conclusion: if traces of the Britannia were not found at Cape Bernouilli, Lord Glenarvan would have to return to Europe. His search would have been fruitless, but he had done his duty courageously and conscientiously.

This saddened the passengers of the yacht, especially Mary and Robert Grant. On their way to the shore with Lord and Lady Glenarvan, John Mangles, MacNabbs, and Paganel, the captain’s two children said that the question of their father’s salvation was about to be irrevocably decided. Irrevocable, indeed, they might consider it, for as Paganel had judiciously demonstrated, if the wreck had occurred on the eastern side, the survivors would have long since found their way back to their own country.

“Hope! Hope! Always hope!” Lady Helena repeated to the girl, sitting next to her in the boat that was taking them to shore. “The hand of God will not leave us!”

“Yes, Miss Mary,” said Captain John. “It is at the moment when men have exhausted human resources, that Heaven intervenes, and, by some unforeseen fact, opens new ways to them.”

“God hear you, Mr. John!” said Mary Grant.

The shore was only a cable away. The cape which extended two miles into the sea ended in gentle slopes. The boat put in at a sort of natural cove between coral banks still in the process of formation. In time they might form a reef belt around the southern part of Australia. Even now they were quite enough to destroy the keel of any ship that grounded on them, and the Britannia might have been dashed to pieces on them.

The Duncan’s passengers landed without difficulty on an absolutely deserted shore. The coast was formed by cliffs of stratified rock, sixty to eighty feet high. It would have been difficult to scale without ladders or crampons. Fortunately, John Mangles discovered a breach half a mile to the south. Part of the cliff had collapsed. The sea, no doubt, had beat this barrier of friable tuff during its great equinoctial rages, and caused the fall of the upper portions of the plateau.

Glenarvan and his companions entered the gully, and reached the summit of the cliff via a steep slope. Robert climbed like a young cat, and was first to the top ridge, to the despair of Paganel who was quite ashamed to see his long legs, forty years old, outdistanced by the young legs of a twelve year old. However, he was far ahead of the peaceful Major, who did not care otherwise.

The little troop, soon reunited, examined the plain that stretched before their eyes. It appeared entirely uncultivated, and covered with shrubs and bushes. It was an arid land, which Glenarvan thought resembled some of the glens of the Scottish Lowlands, and to Paganel like some barren heaths of Brittany. But if this country appeared uninhabited along the coast, the presence of man, not the savage, but the worker, was revealed in the distance by some auspicious constructions.

“A mill!” exclaimed Robert.

Three miles away, the wings of a windmill were turning in the wind.

“It certainly is a windmill,” said Paganel after examining the object in question through his telescope. “Here is a small monument as modest as it is useful. It is a privilege to lay my eyes on such an enchanting sight.”

“It’s almost a steeple,” said Lady Helena.

“Yes, Madame, and if one grinds the bread of the body, the other grinds the bread of the soul. From this point of view they are very alike.”

“Let us go to the mill,” said Glenarvan.

A plain and comfortable dwelling, crowned by a merry mill

They started on their way, and after walking about half an hour, the country began to change, showing it had been worked by the hand of man. The transition from the barren countryside to cultivation was abrupt. Instead of scrub, hedgerows surrounded a recently cleared enclosure. A few oxen and half a dozen horses grazed in meadows surrounded by sturdy acacias transplanted from the vast nurseries of Kangaroo Island. Gradually fields of grain came in sight, a few acres bristling with blond ears of corn, haystacks shaped like large beehives, blooming orchards, a fine garden worthy of Horace, where the pleasant mingled with the useful. Then came sheds, well distributed out buildings, and, last of all, a plain comfortable house, which the merry mill dominated with its sharp gable and caressed with the moving shadows of its large sails.

A pleasant-faced man, about fifty years old, came out of the house, warned of the arrival of strangers by the loud barking of four dogs. He was followed by five handsome and strong boys, his sons, and their mother, a tall, robust woman. There was no mistaking the little group. This man, surrounded by his valiant family, in the midst of these new constructions, in this almost virgin countryside, was a perfect example of the Irish colonist: a man who, weary of the miseries of his country, had come, with his family, to seek fortune and happiness beyond the seas.

Before Glenarvan and his party had time to reach the house, and present themselves in due form, they heard the cordial words “Strangers! Welcome to the house of Paddy O’Moore!”

Glenarvan took the man’s outstretched hand. “Are you Irish?”

“I was,” said Paddy O’Moore, “but now I am Australian. Come in, gentlemen, whoever you may be, this house is yours.”

It was impossible not to accept an invitation given with such grace. Lady Helena and Mary Grant were led in by Mrs. O’Moore, while the gentlemen were assisted by his sturdy sons to disencumber themselves of their fire-arms.

An immense hall, light and airy, occupied the ground floor of the house, which was built of strong planks laid horizontally. The hall was furnished with a few wooden benches fastened against the cheerfully coloured walls, a dozen stools, two oak chests on which there was a display of white porcelain and shiny pewter, and a large long table where twenty guests could sit comfortably. It was all in perfect keeping with the solid house and sturdy inhabitants.

Lunch was served. The soup tureen was steaming between roast beef and a leg of mutton, surrounded by large plates of olives, grapes, and oranges. The necessary was there, and there was no lack of the superfluous. The host and hostess were so pleasant, and the big table, with its abundant fare, looked so inviting, that it would have been ungracious not to have seated themselves. The farm-hands, on equal footing with their employer, were already in their places to take their share of the meal.

Paddy O’Moore pointed to the seats reserved for the strangers, and said “I was waiting for you.”

“Waiting for us?” asked Glenarvan.

“I am always waiting for those who come,” said the Irishman. And then, in a solemn voice, while the family and hands reverently stood, he recited the blessing. Lady Helena felt very moved by such a perfect simplicity of manners, and a glance from her husband made her understand that he admired it as she did.

Dinner followed immediately, during which an animated conversation was kept up on all sides. From Scottish to Irish is but a hands breadth. The Tweed,² several fathoms wide, digs a deeper trench between Scotland and England than the twenty leagues of Irish Channel which separates Old Caledonia from Érin.

Paddy O’Moore related his history. It was that of all immigrants driven by misfortune from their own country. Many come to seek fortunes who only find trouble and sorrow, and then they throw the blame on bad luck, and forget that the true cause is their own idleness, and vice, and want of common sense. Whoever is sober and courageous, honest and economical, succeeds.

Such a one had been, and was, Paddy O’Moore. He left Dundalk, where he was starving, and came with his family to Australia. He landed at Adelaide, where he chose the hard work of a farmer, over the more hazardous work of a miner. Two months later he started clearing his own land, and so prospers today.

The whole territory of South Australia is divided into eighty acre lots³, and these are sold to colonists by the government. An industrious man, by proper cultivation, can not only make a living out of his lot, but lay aside eighty pounds⁴ a year.

Paddy O’Moore knew this. His knowledge of farming served him well. He lived, he saved, and acquired new lots with the profits from the first. His family prospered, and also his farm. The Irish peasant became a landowner, and though his little estate was not yet two years old, he had five hundred acres cleared by his own hands, and five hundred head of cattle. He was his own master, after having been a serf in Europe, and as independent as one can be in the freest country in the world.

His guests congratulated this Irish immigrant heartily as he ended his narration. Paddy O’Moore, his story over, waited, no doubt expecting the strangers to recite their own story in turn, but he didn’t demand it from them. He was one of those discreet people who can say, “I tell you who I am, but I don’t ask who you are.” Glenarvan wanted to tell him of the Duncan, and how they came to Cape Bernouilli, and of the search they pursued with tireless perseverance. But first he questioned Paddy O’Moore about the sinking of the Britannia.

The reply of the Irishman was not favourable. He had not heard of this ship. For the past two years, no ship had been wrecked on that coast, neither above nor below the Cape. The catastrophe was only two years ago. He could declare with the greatest certainty that the survivors of the wreck had not been thrown on this part of the western shore.

“Now, My Lord,” he added “may I ask what interest you have in making the inquiry?”

Glenarvan told the settler the story of the document, the voyage of the Duncan, the attempts to find Captain Grant. He did not conceal that his dearest hopes fell before so clear a claim, and that he despaired of every finding the shipwrecked Britannia.

Glenarvan’s final words made a painful impression on the minds of his listeners. Robert and Mary’s eyes filled with tears as they listened to him. Paganel couldn’t find a word of hope, or comfort to give them. John Mangles was suffering from a pain he could not soften. Despair was invading the souls of the generous people whom the Duncan had brought unnecessarily to these distant shores, when these words were heard:

“My Lord, praise and thank God! If Captain Grant is alive, he is on Australian soil!”

1. The upright structural member or post at the stern of a ship.

2. The river that separates Scotland from England.

3. One acre is 0.405 hectare.

4. £80 = $400 = 2,000 francs.

Chapter V | Index | Chapter VII

Chapter VII
Ayrton

The surprise caused by these words cannot be described. Glenarvan sprang to his feet, pushing back his seat “Who said that?”

“I did,” said one of the farm hands, at the far end of the table.

“You, Ayrton?” said the settler, no less bewildered than Glenarvan.

“Yes, it was me,” said Ayrton in a firm, though somewhat agitated voice. “A Scot like yourself, My Lord, and one of the shipwrecked crew of the Britannia.”

This declaration produced an indescribable effect. Mary Grant fell back in Lady Helena’s arms, half-fainting from joy. Robert, Mangles, and Paganel jumped up and rushed toward the man that Paddy O’Moore had addressed as Ayrton.

He was a coarse-looking fellow, about forty-five years old

He was a coarse-looking fellow, about forty-five years old, with very bright eyes, though half-hidden beneath thick, overhanging brows. In spite of his extreme leanness there was an air of unusual strength about him. He seemed all bone and nerves, or, to use a Scottish expression, he had not wasted time in making fat. He was broad shouldered, of middle height, and determined bearing. His face was so full of intelligence and energy, that though his features were rough, he gave a favourable impression. The sympathy he inspired was further increased by the marks of recent suffering imprinted on his face. It was evident that he had endured long and severe hardships, which he had borne bravely, and overcome.

Glenarvan and his friends were drawn to him at first sight. Ayrton’s personality was obvious from the start. This meeting had evidently surprised both of them. Glenarvan took over, asking all the questions his friends wanted to ask, and to which Ayrton replied.

His first questions rushed out of him before he could think to put them in logical order.

“Are you one of the castaways of the Britannia?”

“Yes, My Lord. Captain Grant’s quartermaster.”

“Saved with him after the sinking?”

“No, My Lord, no. I was separated from him at that terrible moment, for I was swept off the deck as the ship struck.”

“Then you are not one of the two sailors mentioned in the document?”

“No. I didn’t know about any document. The captain must have thrown it into the sea when I was no longer on board.”

“But the captain? The captain?”

“I thought I was the only survivor”

“I thought he had drowned; gone down with all the crew of the Britannia. I thought I was the only survivor.”

“But you said just now, Captain Grant was alive.”

“No,” I said, ‘If the captain is alive…’”

“And you added ‘he is on the Australian continent.’”

“Where else could he be?”

“Then you don’t know where he is?”

“No, My Lord. I say again, I supposed he was buried beneath the waves, or broken on the rocks. It was from you I learnt that he was still alive.”

“Then, what do you know?” asked Glenarvan.

“Simply this: if Captain Grant is alive, he is in Australia.”

“Where did the shipwreck occur?” asked Major MacNabbs.

This should have been the first question, but in the confusion caused by the unexpected incident, and in his rush to learn of Captain Grant’s fate, Glenarvan had forgotten to ask it. After the Major’s question, the previously vague, illogical conversation, proceeding by leaps and bounds, touching on subjects without deepening them, mingling the facts, swapping the dates, took on a more reasonable pace. Soon the details of this obscure story appeared, clear and precise in the minds of its listeners.

To the question put by the Major, Ayrton replied “When I was swept off the forecastle where I was hauling down the jib, the Britannia was running toward the Australian coast. She was not more than two miles from it. The sinking happened there.”

“By 37° of latitude?” asked John Mangles.

“Yes, by 37°.”

“On the west coast?”

“No! On the east coast,” replied the quartermaster quickly.

“And at what date?”

“It was on the night of June 27th, 1862.”

“That’s it! That’s it!” exclaimed Glenarvan.

“You see then, My Lord,” said Ayrton, “why I say that if Captain Grant is alive, it is on the Australian continent that he must be sought, and not anywhere else.”

“And we will look for him there, and we will find him, and we will save him, my friend!” exclaimed Paganel. “Ah, precious document,” he added, with perfect naiveté, “you must admit you have fallen into the hands of uncommonly shrewd people.”

But, doubtless, nobody heard his flattering words. Glenarvan and Lady Helena, Mary and Robert huddled around Ayrton. They shook his hands. It seemed as if this man’s presence was a sure guarantee of Harry Grant’s salvation. If this sailor had escaped the dangers of the shipwreck, why shouldn’t the captain? Ayrton was happy to say that Captain Grant must be alive as well. Where, he could not say, but certainly on this continent. He answered the thousand questions that assailed him with remarkably intelligence and precision. Miss Mary held one of his hands in hers, all the time he spoke. This sailor was a companion of her father’s, one of the Britannia’s seamen! He had lived with Harry Grant, crossed the seas with him, and shared the same dangers. Mary could not take her eyes off his rough face, and she wept with happiness.

So far, no one had thought of questioning the veracity or the identity of the quartermaster. Only the Major, and perhaps John Mangles, less quick to jump to conclusions, began to ask themselves if Ayrton’s word was to be fully trusted. There was something suspicious about this unexpected meeting. Certainly Ayrton had mentioned corresponding facts and dates, and the minuteness of his details was most striking. But details, as exact as they were, do not form certainty, and generally, it has been noted, a lie is affirmed by the precision of its details. MacNabbs reserved his opinion.

John Mangles’ doubts didn’t resist the words of the sailor for long. He was convinced that Ayrton had been a true companion of Captain Grant’s when he heard him speak to the young girl about her father. Ayrton knew Mary and Robert quite well. He had seen them in Glasgow when the Britannia had sailed. He remembered them at the farewell dinner given on board the Britannia for the captain’s friends, at which Sheriff MacIntyre was present. Robert, who was barely ten years old, had been entrusted to Dick Turner, the boatswain, and he had escaped him, and climbed up to the topgallant’s yards.

“That’s right; I did!” said Robert.

And Ayrton recalled a thousand little facts, without appearing to attach the importance that John Mangles gave to them, and when he stopped, Mary Grant said, in her soft voice “Oh, go on, Mr. Ayrton, tell us more about our father!”

The quartermaster did his best to satisfy the girl’s desires, and Glenarvan did not interrupt him, though a score of questions far more important crowded into his mind. Lady Helena made him look at Mary’s beaming face, and the words he was about to utter remained unspoken.

It was in this conversation that Ayrton told the story of the Britannia and her voyage through the Pacific. Mary Grant knew most of it, as news of the ship had come regularly up to May of 1862. During this year, Harry Grant had landed at all the principal lands of Oceania. He touched the Hebrides, New Guinea, New Zealand, and New Caledonia, often encountering unjustified seizures, subject to the ill will of the English authorities, as his mission was reported in the British colonies. He had succeeded in finding a likely place on the western coast of Papua, where it seemed that a prosperous Scottish colony could be established. A good port of call on the Maluku and Philippine route would attract ships, especially when the completion of the Suez Canal supplanted the Cape of Good Hope route. Harry Grant was one of those who appreciated the great work of M. de Lesseps, and would not allow political rivalries to interfere with international interests.

He found himself in the hands of natives

After surveying Papua, the Britannia went to refuel at Callao, and left that port on the 30th of May, 1862, to return to Europe via the Indian Ocean and the Cape. Three weeks later, a terrible storm disabled the ship. It had been necessary to cut away the masts. A leak sprang in the hold, and could not be stopped. The crew were soon too exhausted to work the pumps, and for eight days the Britannia was tossed about like a toy in the hurricane. She had six feet of water in her hold, and was gradually sinking. The boats had all been carried away by the tempest; death stared them in the face, when, on the night of the 27th of June, as Paganel had rightly supposed, they came in sight of the eastern coast of Australia. The ship soon neared the shore, and presently dashed violently against it. Ayrton was swept off by a wave, and thrown among the breakers, where he lost consciousness. When he recovered, he found himself in the hands of natives, who dragged him away into the interior of the continent. Since that time he had never heard the Britannia’s name mentioned, and reasonably enough came to the conclusion that she had gone down with all hands on the dangerous reefs of Twofold Bay.

Here ended the story of Captain Grant. More than once sorrowful exclamations were evoked by the story. The Major could not, in common justice, doubt its authenticity. But after the story of the Britannia, Ayrton’s particular story was of even more interest. Thanks to the document, they knew that Grant had survived the sinking with two of his sailors, like Ayrton himself. They should be able to deduce Captain Grant’s fate from Ayrton’s. He was invited to tell the story of his adventures. It was very simple and very short.

The seaman, a prisoner of a native tribe, was taken inland, to those areas watered by the Darling River, four hundred miles north of the 37th parallel. He spent a miserable existence there — not that he was ill-treated, but the natives themselves lived miserably. He passed two long years of painful slavery among them, but always cherished in his heart the hope of one day regaining his freedom, and watching for the slightest opportunity that might turn up, though he knew that his flight would be attended with innumerable dangers.

He reached the house of Paddy O’Moore

One night in October, 1864, he managed to escape the vigilance of the natives, and disappeared into the depths of the immense forests. For a month he subsisted on roots, edible ferns, and mimosa gums, wandering through vast solitudes, guiding himself by the sun during the day and by the stars at night, often depressed by despair. He went on across marshes, rivers, and mountains, until he had traversed the whole of the uninhabited continent, where only a few bold travellers have ventured. At last, in an exhausted and all but dying condition, he reached the hospitable house of Paddy O’Moore, where he found a happy home in exchange for his labour.

“And if Ayrton speaks well of me,” said the Irish settler when the narrative ended, “I have nothing but good to say of him. He is an honest, intelligent fellow, and a good worker; and as long as he pleases, Paddy O’Moore’s house shall be his.”

Ayrton thanked the Irishman with a gesture, and waited for new questions to be put to him. He told himself, however, that he surely must have satisfied all legitimate curiosity. What could remain to be said that he had not said a hundred times already? Glenarvan was about to open a discussion about their future plan of action, based on this encounter with Ayrton, and the information he had given them, but Major MacNabbs had one more question.

“You were the quartermaster, aboard the Britannia?”

“Yes,” said Ayrton, without the least hesitation. But as if conscious that a certain feeling of mistrust, however slight, had prompted this question from the Major, he added “I have my contract with me; I saved it from the wreck.”

He left the common room immediately to fetch this official document, and, though hardly absent a moment, Paddy O’Moore had time to say “My Lord, you may trust Ayrton; I vouch for him being an honest man. He has been in my service for two months now, and I have never once found fault with him. I knew all this story of the shipwreck and his captivity. He is a loyal man, worthy of all your confidence.”

Glenarvan was about to reply that he had never doubted his good faith, when Ayrton came back with his contract papers. It was signed by the shipowners and Captain Grant. Mary recognized her father’s writing at once. It certified that “Tom Ayrton, able seaman, was engaged as quartermaster on board the three-master Britannia, Glasgow.” There was no longer any doubt as to Ayrton’s identity, for it would have been difficult to account for his possession of the document if he were not the man named in it.

“Now,” said Glenarvan, “I wish to ask everyone’s advice as to how we should proceed. Your advice, Ayrton, will be particularly valuable to us, and I shall be much obliged if you would let us have it.”

“I thank you, My Lord, for the confidence you show toward me, and I hope to prove worthy of it,” said Ayrton. After a moment’s thought he went on “I have some knowledge of the country, and the habits of the natives, and if I can be of service to you…”

“Certainly,” said Glenarvan.

“I think,” said Ayrton, “that Captain Grant and his two sailors have been saved from wreck, but since they have not found their way to an English settlement, nor been seen anywhere, I have no doubt that their fate has been similar to my own, and that they are prisoners in the hands of some of the native tribes.”

“You repeat here, Ayrton, the arguments I have already made,” said Paganel. “The castaways are obviously prisoners of the natives, as they feared. But should we think that, like you, they were dragged away north of the 37th parallel?”

“I should suppose so, sir; for hostile tribes would hardly remain anywhere near the districts under British rule.”

“That will complicate our search,” said Glenarvan, somewhat disconcerted. “How can we possibly find traces of the captives in the heart of so vast a continent?”

No one replied, though Lady Helena’s questioning glances at her companions seemed to press for an answer. Even Paganel remained silent. His ingenuity, for once, unable to come up with an answer. John Mangles paced the common room with great strides, as if he were on the deck of his ship, evidently quite nonplussed.

“And you, Mr. Ayrton,” said Lady Helena at last. “What would you do?”

“Madam,” replied Ayrton at once, “I would embark on board the Duncan, and go straight to the scene of the shipwreck. There I would be guided by circumstances, and by any clues that chance might provide.”

“Very good,” said Glenarvan. “But we must wait until the Duncan is repaired.”

“Ah! You have suffered damage?” said Ayrton.

“Yes,” said John Mangles.

“Serious?”

“No, but repairs require tools we do not have on board. One of the blades of the screw is twisted, and we cannot get it repaired nearer than Melbourne.”

“Can’t you simply sail there?” asked the quartermaster.

“Yes, but if the Duncan encounters contrary winds, it could take a long time to reach Twofold Bay, and in any case she will have to pass by Melbourne.”

“Well, let the ship go to Melbourne then,” said Paganel, “and we will go without her to Twofold Bay.”

“How?” asked Mangles.

“By crossing Australia as we crossed America, keeping along the 37th parallel.”

“But the Duncan?” asked Ayrton, as if particularly anxious on that score.

“The Duncan can rejoin us, or we can rejoin her, as the case may be. Should we discover Captain Grant in the course of our journey, we can all return together to Melbourne. If we have to go on to the coast, then the Duncan can come to us there. Who has any objection to make? Have you, Major?”

“No,” said MacNabbs. “Not if there is a practicable route across Australia.”

“So practicable,” said Paganel, “that I propose Lady Helena and Miss Grant should accompany us.”

“Are you serious?” asked Glenarvan.

“Very serious, my dear Lord. It is a journey of 350 miles,¹ no more. At twelve miles a day, it will last a mere month, enough time to complete repairs to the Duncan. If we had to cross the continent farther north, at its widest part, and traverse the immense deserts where there is no water, and torrid heat, and go where the most adventurous travellers have never yet ventured, that would be a different matter. But the 37th parallel cuts through the province of Victoria, quite an English country, with roads and railways, and well populated almost everywhere. It is a journey you might almost make in a carriage, though a wagon would be better. It is no more difficult than a trip from London to Edinburgh.”

“What about ferocious animals?” asked Glenarvan, wanting to know all of the potential hazards.

“There are no ferocious animals in Australia.”

“And how about the savages?”

“There are no savages in this latitude, and if there were, they do not have the cruelty of the New Zealanders.”

“And the convicts?”

“There are no convicts in the southern provinces of Australia, only in the eastern and western colonies. The province of Victoria not only refused to admit them, but passed a law to prevent any convicts released from other provinces entering her territories. This year the Victorian Government even threatened to withdraw its subsidy from the Peninsular Company if their vessels continued to take in coal in those ports of Western Australia where convicts are admitted. How don’t you, an Englishman, know that?”

“First of all, I am not an Englishman,” said Glenarvan.

“What Mr. Paganel says is perfectly correct,” said Paddy O’Moore. “Not only Victoria, but also South Australia, Queensland, and even Tasmania, have agreed to expel deportees from their territories. Ever since I have been on this farm, I have not heard of a single convict.”

“And for my part, I have never met any,” said Ayrton.

“You see, my friends,” continued Jacques Paganel, “very few savages, no ferocious animals, and no convicts. There are not many countries in Europe for which you can say as much. Well, is it agreed?”

“What do you think, Helena?” asked Glenarvan.

“What we all think, my dear Edward.” Lady Helena looked around at her companions. “Let us be off at once!”

1. 140 leagues (560 kilometres — DAS)

The Hetzel version has “1,200 leagues around” here, which makes no sense whatsoever.

Chapter VI | Index | Chapter VIII

Chapter VIII
The Departure

Glenarvan was not used to wasting time between the adoption of an idea, its execution. As soon as Paganel’s proposal was accepted, he immediately gave orders for the preparations for the journey to be completed as soon as possible. The departure date was set for December 22nd, in two days.

What results could this crossing of Australia produce? The presence of Harry Grant on the continent having become an indisputable fact, the consequences of this expedition could be great. Their chance of finding him had increased. No one flattered themselves with the idea that they would discover the captain exactly on the 37th parallel, which they intended strictly to follow, but they might come upon his track, and in any event, they were going to the actual site of the shipwreck. That was the main point.

Besides, if Ayrton consented to join them and act as their guide through the forests of Victoria Province, to lead them to the eastern coast, there was every chance of success. Glenarvan was sure of it. He was particularly anxious to secure the assistance of Harry Grant’s crewman. He asked his host if he would object to them taking Ayrton with them.

Paddy O’Moore consented, though he said he would regret the loss of his excellent worker.

“Well, will we follow you, Ayrton, on this expedition in search of the shipwrecked Britannia?” asked Glenarvan.

Ayrton did not reply immediately. He even showed signs of hesitation; but at last, after due reflection, said “Yes, My Lord, I will follow you, and if I do not lead you in the footsteps of Captain Grant, at least I will take you to the very spot where his ship wrecked.”

“Thank you, Ayrton,” said Glenarvan.

“Only one question, My Lord.”

“Yes?”

“Where will you meet the Duncan again?”

“In Melbourne, if we do not cross Australia from one shore to another. On the east coast, if our search extends that far.”

“And her Captain?”

“Her Captain will wait for my instructions in the port of Melbourne.”

“Well, My Lord,” said Ayrton, “you can count on me.”

“I am counting on it, Ayrton,” said Glenarvan.

They returned to the Duncan

The quartermaster was warmly thanked by the Duncan’s passengers, and the children hugged him. Everyone was happy with his decision, except the Irishman, who was losing an intelligent and faithful worker. But Paddy understood the importance Glenarvan attached to the quartermaster’s presence, and resigned himself. Glenarvan commissioned him to procure the transportation needed for this trip across Australia, arranged a rendezvous with Ayrton, and their business concluded, the passengers returned onboard the Duncan.

It was a joyful return. Everything had changed. All hesitation disappeared. The brave searchers were no longer blindly following the 37th parallel. It could not be doubted that Harry Grant had found refuge on the continent, and everyone felt their hearts fill with the satisfaction of certainty after doubt.

In two months, if all went well, the Duncan would return Harry Grant to the shores of Scotland!

When John Mangles supported the proposal to cross Australia with the passengers, he supposed that this time he would accompany the expedition. So he conferred with Glenarvan. He put forward all sorts of arguments in his favour: his devotion to Lord and Lady Glenarvan, his usefulness as an organizer of the caravan, and his not being needed as Captain aboard the Duncan. He had a thousand more arguments marshalled, but he didn’t need them.

“I’ll only ask you one question, John,” said Glenarvan. “Do you have absolute confidence in your second?”

“Absolutely,” said John Mangles, “Tom Austin is a good sailor. He will take the ship to her destination, see that the repairs are skilfully executed, and bring her back on the appointed day. Tom is a slave to duty and discipline. Never would he take it on himself to alter or retard the execution of an order. Your Honour may count on him as on myself.”

“Very well then, John; you shall go with us.” Lord Glenarvan smiled. “It will be good that you will be there when we find Mary Grant’s father again.”

“Oh! Your Honour,” murmured John. That was all he could say. He paled for a moment, and seized the hand extended to him by Lord Glenarvan.

Next day, John Mangles, accompanied by the ship’s carpenter and sailors laden with provisions, returned to Paddy O’Moore’s farm to consult with the Irishman about the best method of transport.

The whole family was waiting for him, ready to work under his orders. Ayrton was there, as well, and gave the benefit of his experience.

He and Paddy agreed on the main point: that the journey should be made in an oxcart for the ladies, and that the gentlemen should ride on horseback. Paddy could provide both the animals, and vehicle.

The preparation of the wagon

The vehicle was a wagon twenty feet long, covered over by a tarpaulin, and resting on four large wheels without spokes, or rims, or iron tires — simple wooden disks, in other words. The front and rear wheelsets were widely separated, and connected to the wagon by a rudimentary mechanism which did not allow the vehicle to turn sharply. A thirty-five foot pole extended out in front, to which six paired oxen were to be yoked. These animals, thus arranged, drew from the head and neck by the combination of a yoke fastened on their nape and a collar fixed to the yoke by an iron peg. It required great skill to drive this narrow machine, subject to long oscillations, and quick to veer aside, and to guide this team by means of a goad. The role of driver was assigned to Ayrton, for he had served his apprenticeship on the Irishman’s farm, and Paddy vouched for his competence.

There were no springs in the wagon, so it was not likely to be very comfortable, but it was the best option available. If the rough construction could not be altered, John Mangles resolved that the interior should be made as cozy as possible. First, it was divided into two compartments by a means of a plank partition. The back one was intended for the provisions and luggage, and Mr. Olbinett’s portable kitchen. The front was set aside for the ladies, and under the carpenter’s hands, was to be converted into a comfortable room, covered with a thick carpet, and fitted up with a wash-table and two berths reserved for Lady Glenarvan and Mary Grant. Thick leather curtains could shut in this compartment if necessary, and protect the occupants from the chilliness of the nights. In a pinch, such as during heavy storms, the men might find refuge there, but a tent was to be their usual shelter when the caravan camped for the night. John Mangles strove to furnish the small space with everything that the two ladies could possibly require. He succeeded so well, that neither Lady Helena nor Mary had cause to regret trading this rolling room for their comfortable cabins on board the Duncan.

Preparations for the rest of the party were simpler. Seven sturdy horses were provided for Lord Glenarvan, Paganel, Robert Grant, MacNabbs, John Mangles, and the two sailors, Wilson and Mulrady, who were to accompany their master in this new expedition. Ayrton had his natural place in the front of the wagon, and Mr. Olbinett, who was not inclined to riding, made room for himself among the baggage.

The horses and oxen were set to grazing in the Irishman’s meadows, ready to fetch when the time came to leave.

After all arrangements were made, and the carpenter set to work, John Mangles escorted the Irishman and his family back to the yacht, for Paddy wished to return the visit of Lord Glenarvan. Ayrton had thought it fit to come, as well, and about four o’clock the party came over the side of the Duncan.

They were received with open arms. Glenarvan offered them dinner on board, in return for their Australian hospitality. His offer was willingly accepted. Paddy was quite amazed at the splendour of the saloon: the furnishing of the cabins, the hangings, the tapestries, all the fittings of maple and rosewood excited his admiration. Ayrton, on the other hand, gave only moderate approval to these costly superfluities.

When he examined the yacht from a more marine point of view, the quartermaster of the Britannia was more impressed. He visited the bottom of the hold; he went down to the engine room, and inspected the machinery; he inquired as to its power, and its coal consumption; he explored the coal bunkers, the galley, and the supply of powder; he was particularly interested in the armoury, and the cannon mounted on the forecastle. Glenarvan saw that he was dealing with a man who knew his ships. Finally, Ayrton completed his tour by inspecting the masts and the rigging.

“You have a beautiful ship, My Lord,” he said.

“One of the best,” said Glenarvan.

“And what is her tonnage?”

“She displaces 210 tons.”

“If I’m not mistaken,” said Ayrton, “I’d say she can easily do fifteen knots, at full steam.”

“Say seventeen,” put in John Mangles, “and you’d be right.”

“Seventeen!” exclaimed the quartermaster. “Why, not a man-of-war — not the best among them, I mean — could catch her!”

“Not one,” said John Mangles. “The Duncan was built as a racing yacht, and would never let herself be beaten.”

“Even sailing?” asked Ayrton.

“Even sailing.”

“Well, My Lord, and you too, Captain,” said Ayrton, “allow a sailor who knows what a ship is worth, to compliment you on yours.”

“You are welcome to join her company, then, Ayrton,” said Glenarvan. “The decision is yours.”

“I will think on it, My Lord,” was all Ayrton said.

Just then Mr. Olbinett came to announce that dinner was served. Lord Glenarvan and his guests made their way to the quarterdeck.

“That Ayrton is an intelligent man,” said Paganel to the Major.

“Too intelligent!” muttered MacNabbs, who, without any apparent reason, had taken a great dislike to the face and manners of the quartermaster.

During the dinner, Ayrton gave some interesting details about the Australian continent, which he knew well. He asked how many sailors were going to accompany the expedition. When he learned that only two of them, Mulrady and Wilson, were to go with them, he seemed surprised. He advised Glenarvan to take all his best men, and even insisted upon it. An insistence which, by the way, ought to have heightened the Major’s suspicion.

“But, our journey is not dangerous, is it?” asked Glenarvan.

“Not at all,” said Ayrton, quickly.

“Well, then, we’ll leave all the men we can on board. Hands will be needed to sail the Duncan, and to help in the repairs. Above all, it is important that she should meet us at our rendezvous, wherever it may be. So, we won’t reduce her crew.”

Ayrton seemed to understand Lord Glenarvan’s point, and said no more on the matter.

When evening came, Scottish and Irish separated. Ayrton and Paddy O’Moore’s family returned home. The horses and wagon were to be ready the next day. Departure was set for eight o’clock in the morning.

Lady Helena and Mary Grant made their last preparations. They were quickly done. Certainly more quickly than the meticulous preparations of Jacques Paganel. The scientist spent part of the night in disassembling, cleaning, polishing, and then reassembling the lenses of his telescope. So he was still sleeping when the Major woke him at dawn with a resounding bellow.

The luggage had already been transported to the farm by John Mangles. A boat was waiting to take the passengers, who soon took their places. The young captain gave his final orders to Tom Austin. He impressed upon him that he was to wait at Melbourne for Lord Glenarvan’s commands, and to obey them scrupulously, whatever they might be.

The old sailor told John he might rely on him, and, in the name of the men, begged to offer his Honour their best wishes for the success of this new expedition. A round of thunderous hurrahs burst from the crew.

In ten minutes the boat reached shore, and a quarter of an hour later the travellers arrived at the Irishman’s farm.

All was ready. Lady Helena was delighted with the arrangements. The huge wagon, with its primitive wheels and massive planks, pleased her particularly. The six oxen yoked in pairs had a patriarchal air about them which quite took her fancy.

“Parbleu!” said Paganel. “This is an admirable vehicle. It beats all the coaches of the world. A house that moves: goes or stops wherever you please. What else can one wish for?”

“Monsieur Paganel,” said Lady Helena, “I hope I shall have the pleasure of seeing you in my salon.”

“Assuredly, Madame, I should count it an honour. Have you fixed a day?”

“I shall be at home every day to my friends,” said Lady Helena; “and you are—”

“The most devoted of all, Madame,” interrupted Paganel, gallantly.

This exchange of courtesies was interrupted by the arrival of the seven horses, all saddled by one of Paddy’s sons. Lord Glenarvan paid the sum agreed for his various purchases, adding his cordial thanks, which the worthy Irishman valued at least as much as the guineas.

The signal to start was given

The signal was given to start, and Lady Helena and Mary took their places in the reserved compartment. Ayrton seated himself in front, and Olbinett scrambled in among the luggage. Glenarvan, the Major, Paganel, Robert, John Mangles, and the two sailors, well armed with rifles and revolvers, mounted their horses. A “God help you!” was shouted by Paddy O’Moore, and echoed in chorus by his family. Ayrton gave a peculiar cry, and his team set off. The wagon shook, the planks crackled, the axles creaked in the hubs of the wheels. The searchers soon disappeared around the bend in the road leading eastward from the hospitable farm of the honest Irishman.

Chapter VII | Index | Chapter IX

Chapter IX
The Province of Victoria

It was December 23rd, 1864. December is a dull, damp, dreary month in the northern hemisphere, but on the Australian continent it might be called June. Astronomically, summer was already two days old, for on the 21st the sun had reached the Tropic of Capricorn, and its presence above the horizon was already diminishing by a few minutes each day. So it was in the hottest season of the year and under the rays of an almost tropical sun that Lord Glenarvan started on his new expedition.

All English possessions in this part of the Pacific Ocean are called Australasia. This includes New Holland, Tasmania, New Zealand, and some nearby islands. The Australian continent is divided into vast colonies of unequal wealth. Anyone who glances at modern maps drawn up by Messrs Petermann or Preschœll is at first struck with the rectangularity of these divisions. The English have drawn straight lines which separate these great provinces, without consideration of mountain slopes or river courses, or the variations in climate or differences in race. The colonies are placed rectangularly, like pieces of inlay. In this arrangement of straight lines and right angles one sees the hand of the geometer rather than the geographer. Only the coasts, with their varied windings, fjords, bays, capes, and estuaries, protest in the name of Nature with their charming irregularity.

This chess-board regularity justly inspired Jacques Paganel’s ire. If Australia had been French, the French geographers most certainly would not have carried a passion for the square and ruler to such lengths.

There are presently six colonies on the Big Island of Oceania: New South Wales, the capital of which is Sydney; Queensland, capital: Brisbane; Victoria, capital: Melbourne; South Australia, capital: Adelaide; Western Australia, capital: Perth; and Northern Australia, still without a capital¹. The coasts alone are populated by settlers. Hardly anyone had ventured more than two hundred miles inland, even from the major cities. The interior of the continent, an area equal to two-thirds of Europe, was almost entirely unknown.

Fortunately the 37th parallel did not cross these immense, lonely, inaccessible lands, which have already cost many victims to science. Glenarvan could never have faced them. He was dealing with only the southern part of Australia, which consisted of a narrow stretch of the province of South Australia, the full width of the province of Victoria, and finally the tip of the inverted triangle formed by New South Wales.

It is scarcely sixty-two miles² from Cape Bernouilli to the Victoria border. It was not more than two days’ march, and Ayrton planned to sleep the next evening at Apsley, the westernmost town in the province of Victoria.

The beginnings of a trip are always marked by the enthusiasm of riders and horses. This is well enough in the riders, but it seemed appropriate to moderate the pace of the horses. Whoever wants to go far must spare his horse. It was therefore decided that they should try to average no more than twenty-five to thirty miles each day.

Besides, the pace of the horses was regulated by the slower pace of the oxen, truly mechanical engines which lose in time what they gain in power. The wagon, with its passengers and provisions, was the nucleus of the caravan, the travelling fortress. The horsemen might beat the flanks of their advance, but never ventured far away from it.

As no special marching order had been adopted; everyone was at liberty to follow his inclinations, within limits. The hunters could scour the plain, amiable folks could talk to the fair occupants of the wagon, and philosophers could philosophize. Paganel, who was all three combined, had to be, and was, everywhere at once.

The march across South Australia presented nothing of any particular interest. A succession of low hills rich in dust, a long expanse of wastelands which together constitute what Australians call “bush”: some meadows covered by tufts of a salty shrub with angular leaves which the sheep are very fond of, succeeded each other for many miles. Here and there they could see some “pig’s faces,” a species of sheep peculiar to New Holland that had a head like a pig, grazing between the poles of the telegraph line recently established to Adelaide on the coast.

These plains bore a singular resemblance to the extended monotony of the Argentinian Pampas. There was the same grassy flat soil, the same sharply-defined horizon against the sky. MacNabbs declared they had never changed countries, but Paganel assured him that the country would change soon. On his guarantee, they expected wonderful things.

Both horses and riders suffered the incessant bites of these tormenting diptera

About three o’clock the wagon crossed a large, treeless space known as “Mosquito Plains.” The scientist had the satisfaction of proving for himself that the name had been worthily bestowed. Both horses and riders suffered severely from the incessant bites of these tormenting diptera. It was impossible to escape them, but there was a salve made with ammonia carried in the wagon’s portable pharmacy which eased their bites. Paganel could not help but damn those bitter mosquitoes that larded his long person with their annoying stings.

Toward evening, a few quickset hedges of acacias enlivened the plain, and thickets of white gum trees were scattered here and there. A little further on they came to a freshly dug ditch, and then to trees of European origin: olives, lemon-trees, and holm oaks, and finally to well-kept fences. About eight o’clock, the oxen, urged on by Ayrton’s goad, arrived at Red Gum Station.

The word “station” is applied to large cattle-breeding establishments — the principle wealth of Australia — the owners of which are called “squatters,” people who sit on the ground.³ Certainly this is the most natural position a colonist would take when fatigued from a long journey through a vast unknown country.

Red Gum Station

Red Gum Station was a small establishment, but Glenarvan found the most sincere hospitality there. The table is invariably served for the traveller under the roof of these lonely dwellings, and in every Australian colonist one is sure to find an obliging host.

Ayrton harnessed his oxen the next morning at daybreak. He wanted to reach the Victoria territory that evening. The ground gradually became more uneven. A succession of small hills undulated as far as the eye could see, all sprinkled with scarlet sand. One might have imagined an immense red flag had been thrown over the plain, whose folds were swelled by a breath of wind. Some “mallees” with multiple straight, smooth trunks growing from a single root, spread their dark green branches and foliage over lush meadows swarming with merry bands of jerboa. Further on were vast fields of scrub and young gum trees, the fields became fewer, the shrubs became trees, and presented the first specimen of an Australian forest.

As they approached the frontiers of Victoria, the country’s appearance changed significantly. The travellers felt they were treading on new ground. Their imperturbable path was always a straight line without any obstacle, lake or mountain, obliging them to change it into a curved or broken line. They invariably put into practice the first theorem of geometry, and followed, without turning aside, the shortest path from one point to another. They experienced neither fatigue, nor difficulty. Their march conformed to the slow pace of the oxen, and if these quiet animals did not go quickly, at least they went without stopping.

On the evening of December 23rd, after a sixty-mile trek in two days, the caravan reached the parish of Apsley, the first town in the province of Victoria, situated on the one hundred and forty-first degree of longitude, in the district of Wimmera.

The wagon was stored by Ayrton at an inn which, for lack of a better name, was called the Crown Hotel. Their supper, which consisting solely of multiple varieties of mutton, steamed on the table.

They ate a lot, but talked more. Everyone questioned the geographer, eager to learn about the peculiarities of the Australian continent. The amiable geographer needed no pressing, and described this Victorian province, which was named Australia Felix.

“Wrongly named!” he said. “It would have been better to call it ‘Rich Australia,’ for it is true of countries, as individuals, that riches do not make happiness. Australia, thanks to its gold mines, has been abandoned to wild and devastating adventurers. You will see this when we cross the gold fields.”

“Is not the colony of Victoria of recent origin?” asked Lady Glenarvan.

“Yes, Madame, she is only thirty years old. It was on the 6th of June, 1835, on a Tuesday—”

“At a quarter past seven in the evening,” put in the Major, who liked to quibble with Paganel about his precise dates.

“No,” said the geographer, seriously. “It was at seven minutes past ten that Batman and Fawkner first began a settlement at Port Phillip, the bay on which the great city of Melbourne now lies. For fifteen years the colony was part of New South Wales, and recognized Sydney as its capital; but in 1851, she was declared independent, and took the name of Victoria.”

“And has she prospered since?” asked Glenarvan.

“Judge for yourself, my noble friend,” said Paganel. “Here are the numbers given by the latest census; and whatever MacNabbs thinks, I know nothing more eloquent than statistics.”

“Go on,” said the Major.

“Well, then, in 1836, the colony of Port Phillip had 244 inhabitants. Today the province of Victoria numbers 550,000. Seven million vines produce 121,000 gallons of wine, annually. There are 103,000 horses galloping over its plains, and 675,272 horned cattle graze in her immense pastures.”

“Does she not also have a certain number of pigs?” asked MacNabbs.

“Yes, Major. 79,625, if you please.”

“And how many sheep, Paganel?”

“7,115,943, MacNabbs.”

“Including the one we are eating at this moment?”

“No, without counting that, since it is three quarters devoured.”

“Bravo, Monsieur Paganel,” exclaimed Lady Helena, laughing heartily. “It must be admitted that you are well informed in geographical questions, and my cousin MacNabbs will not trip you up.”

“But it’s my job, Madame, to know this sort of thing, and to teach it when necessary. You can believe me when I tell you that this strange country holds many marvels.”

“None so far, however,” said MacNabbs, still enjoying teasing the geographer.

“Just wait, impatient Major,” said Paganel. “You have hardly put your foot on the frontier, and you are already complaining! Well, I say, and say again, and will always maintain, that this is the most curious country on the earth. Its formation, its nature, its products, and its climate, past, present and future, have amazed, are now amazing, and will amaze, all the scientists of the world. Think, my friends of a continent, the margin of which, instead of the centre, rose out of the waves like a gigantic ring; perhaps this ring encloses in its centre a partially evaporated sea, whose rivers are drying up daily; where moisture does not exist either in the air or in the soil; where the trees lose their bark every year, instead of their leaves; where the leaves present their profile to the sun instead of their face, and do not give shade; where the wood is often incombustible, where good-sized stones are dissolved by the rain; where the forests are low and the grasses high; where the animals are strange; where quadrupeds have beaks, like the echidna and platypus, and naturalists have been obliged to create a special order for them, called monotremes; where the kangaroos leap on unequal legs, and sheep have pigs’ heads; where foxes fly about from tree to tree; where the swans are black; where rats make nests; where the bower-bird opens his salon to receive visits from his feathered friends; where the birds astonish the imagination by the variety of their songs and their aptitudes; where one bird serves for a clock, and another makes a sound like a postilion cracking a whip, and a third imitates a knife-grinder, and a fourth the motion of a pendulum; where one laughs when the sun rises, and another cries when the sun sets! Oh, strange illogical country, land of paradoxes and anomalies, if ever there was one on earth — the learned botanist Grimard was right when he said, ‘So this is Australia, a kind of parody of universal laws, or rather a challenge, thrown in the face of the rest of the world.’⁴”

Paganel’s tirade, launched at full speed, seemed unlikely to stop. The eloquent secretary of the Geographical Society was no longer self possessed. He went on and on, gesticulating furiously, and waving his fork to the imminent danger of his neighbours at the table. But at last his voice was drowned in a thunder of applause, and he managed to stop.

Certainly, after this enumeration of Australian peculiarities, there was no thought of asking Paganel to go on. But the Major could not help but to say “And is that all, Paganel?” in his calmest tones.

“Well no! That’s not all,” said the scientist, and seemed ready to relaunch himself.

“What?” asked Lady Helena. “There are more wonders still in Australia?”

“Yes, Madame: its climate. It is even stranger than its productions.”

“For example?” they all asked.

“I am speaking of the hygienic qualities of the Australian continent, so rich in oxygen and low in nitrogen. It has no humid winds, since the trade winds blow parallel to its coasts, and most diseases are unknown here, from typhus to measles, and chronic afflictions.”

“That is no small advantage,” said Glenarvan.

“No doubt, but I am not referring to that,” said Paganel. “There is one quality to the climate here that is … improbable.”

“And what is that?” asked John Mangles

“You will never believe me.”

“Believe what,” asked his audience, determined to hear his response.

“Well, it’s…”

“It’s what?”

“It’s moralistic!”

“Moralistic?”

“Yes,” said the scientist with conviction. “Yes, moralistic! Metals do not oxidize in the air, here, nor men. Here, the pure, dry atmosphere whitens everything rapidly, both linen and souls. The virtues of this climate were known in England, when it was decided to send people here to reform.”

“What? This influence is really felt?” asked Lady Helena.

“Yes, Madame, on animals and men.”

“Are you joking, Monsieur Paganel?”

“I am not joking. Horses and cattle are remarkably docile. You will see it.”

“It is not possible!”

“But it is a fact. And the convicts transported into this invigorating and salubrious air regenerate themselves in a few years. Philanthropists know this. In Australia, all natures grow better.”

“But what of you then, Monsieur Paganel? You who are so good already,” asked Lady Helena. “What will become of you in this privileged land?”

“Excellent, Madame,” said Paganel. “Simply excellent.”

1. Darwin would be made the Northern Territory’s capital in 1870 — DAS

2. 25 leagues. (100 kilometres — DAS)

3. From the English verb “to squat”, to sit down.

4. Grimard, Edouard. The Plant, A Simplified Botany. Paris: J. Hetzel, 1864

Chapter VIII | Index | Chapter X

Chapter X
The Wimmera River

They started at dawn the next day, December 24th. The weather was hot, but tolerable, and the road was level and favourable to the pace of the horses. They passed through a land of sparse scrub. In the evening, after a good day’s travel, they camped on the banks of White Lake, the waters of which were brackish and undrinkable.

Jacques Paganel was forced to agree that this lake was no more white than the Black Sea was black, the Red Sea red, the Yellow River yellow, or the Blue Mountains blue. He argued and disputed the point for the sake of geographer’s honour, but his arguments did not prevail.

Mr. Olbinett prepared the evening meal with his accustomed punctuality; then the travellers, some in the wagon, the others in the tent, soon fell asleep, in spite of the melancholy howls of the “dingoes,” the jackals of Australia.

A magnificent plain, thickly covered with chrysanthemums, extended beyond White Lake. Glenarvan and his friends would gladly have explored its beauties when they awoke next morning, but they had to be on their way. The land was flat, except for some distant low hills. A vast meadow stretched out as far as the eye could see, enamelled with flowers, in all the profusion of spring. The blue flowers of slender-leaved flax, intermingled with the bright red hues from a variety of acanthus peculiar to Australia. Many types of eucalyptus brightened this greenery, and salt impregnated land disappeared under the anserina, orache, and chard, some glaucous, others reddish, of the invasive salsoloideae family. These plants are useful to industry, because an excellent soda can be produced by washing their ashes, after incineration. Paganel, who became a botanist when he found himself among flowers, called these various plants by their names, and, with his mania for enumerating everything, did not fail to state that there were upward of 4,200 species of plants, divided into 120 families in the Australian flora.

Later in the day, after a quick march of about ten miles, the wagon wound its way through groves of tall acacias, mimosas, and white gum trees, whose inflorescence is so variable. The vegetable kingdom in this country of “spring plains”¹ is not ungrateful to the day star, and returned the sunlight given it with perfumes and colours.

The rare and illusive “jabiru”

The animal kingdom was more stingy with its products. A few cassowaries were bounding over the plain, but it was impossible to get near them. The Major was skilful enough to hit one very rare and illusive animal with a bullet in the flank. This was the “jabiru,” the giant stork of the English colonies. This bird was five feet tall, and its black, broad, conical beak with an extremely sharp tip was eighteen inches long. The violet and purple hues of its head contrasted vividly with the glossy green of its neck, the dazzling whiteness of its shoulders, and the bright red of its long legs. Nature seemed to have used up all the primary colours of her palette on this bird.

The bird was greatly admired, and the Major would have had the honours of the day, had not Robert come across an animal a few miles further on, and bravely killed it. It was a shapeless creature, half hedgehog, half anteater, a sort of roughed-out animal belonging to the first ages of creation. An extendible tongue, long and sticky, hung out of its mouth in search of ants, which formed its principal food.

“It’s an echidna!” said Paganel, giving the monotreme its proper name. “Have you ever seen such an animal?”

“It’s horrible,” said Glenarvan.

“Horrible, but curious,” said Paganel. “And, what’s more, peculiar to Australia. One might search for it in vain in any other part of the world.”

Naturally, Paganel wanted to take the ugly echidna and stow it in the luggage compartment. But Mr. Olbinett protested the idea so indignantly that the scholar gave up the idea of keeping this monotreme specimen.

They passed 142°² of longitude that day. So far, few colonists or squatters had come in sight. The country seemed deserted. There was not even the shadow of an Aborigine, because the wild tribes wander further north, through the vast solitudes watered by the tributaries of the Darling and Murray.

But a curious sight interested Glenarvan’s troop, for they chanced upon one of those immense droves of cattle which bold speculators bring down from the mountains in the east to the provinces of Victoria and South Australia.

About four o’clock in the afternoon, John Mangles reported an enormous column of dust on the horizon, about three miles off. What could be the cause of this phenomenon? Paganel’s lively imagination tried to concoct some natural explanation. Perhaps it was caused by a meteor, or— Ayrton summarily cut off his conjectures. It was the dust from a moving herd of cattle.

The quartermaster was not mistaken. The thick cloud approached. A whole concert of bleating, neighing, and bellowing escaped from it. Human voices, in the form of shouts, whistles, and complaints mingled with this pastoral symphony.

A man came out of the noisy cloud. He was the chief conductor of this four-footed army. Glenarvan advanced toward him, and friendly relations were quickly established. The leader, or to give him his proper designation, the “stockeeper,” was part owner of the herd. His name was Sam Machell, and he was on his way from the eastern provinces to Portland Bay.

The flock numbered 12,075 head: one thousand oxen, eleven thousand sheep, and seventy-five horses. All these had been bought in the plains of the Blue Mountains in a poor, lean condition, and were going to be fattened up on the rich pasture lands of South Australia, and resold at a large profit. Sam Machell expected to make two pounds on each ox, and a half-pound on every sheep, which would net him a profit of fifty thousand francs.³ This was a lot of money, but a great deal of patience and energy were required to conduct such a restive, stubborn herd to their destination, and many hardships had to be endured. The profit was well earned.

Sam Machell told his story in a few words while the flock continued their march among the groves of mimosas. Lady Helena, Mary, and the dismounted horsemen seated themselves under the shade of a wide-spreading gum tree, and listened to his recital.

It was seven months since Sam Machell had started. He was moving about ten miles a day, and his endless journey would last another three months. Twenty dogs and thirty men, including five blacks who were very skilled in tracking any stray animals, assisted him in this laborious task. Six wagons followed the army. The drivers, armed with stockwhips — a nine foot lash attached to an eighteen inch handle — circulated between the ranks, reestablishing order wherever it was disturbed, while the dogs, the light cavalry of the regiment, preserved discipline in the flanks.

The travellers admired the discipline maintained in the herd. The different breeds were kept apart, for sheep and oxen get along rather badly. The oxen would never have grazed where the sheep had passed along, and consequently they had to go first, divided into two battalions. Five regiments of sheep commanded by twenty drivers followed, and the herd of horses brought up the rear.

Sam Machell pointed out to his listeners that the army guides were neither men nor dogs, but oxen: intelligent “leaders” whose superiority was recognized by their peers. They advanced in the first rank with perfect gravity, choosing the best road by instinct, and fully convinced of their right to be treated with respect. They were well looked after, for the herd obeyed them without question. If it was convenient for them to stop, it was necessary to yield to their pleasure, for not a single animal would move a step until these leaders gave the signal to set off.

Some details added by the stockeeper completed the history of this expedition, worthy of being written, if not commanded, by Xenophon himself. As long as the army marched over the plains, it was well enough, there was little difficulty or fatigue. The animals fed as they went along, and slaked their thirst at the numerous creeks that watered the plains, sleeping at night, travelling during the day, and gathered obediently to the dogs’ voices. But in the great forests of the continent, through the thickets of eucalyptus and mimosas, the difficulties grew. Platoons, battalions, and regiments mingled or scattered, and it took considerable time to collect them again. Should a leader unfortunately go astray, he had to be found at all cost, on pain of a general mutiny, and the blacks would sometimes take several days to find him again. During heavy rains the lazy beasts refused to stir, and when violent storms came a disorderly panic could seize these animals, driving them mad with terror.

By dint of energy and activity, the stockeeper triumphed over these ever increasing difficulties. He kept steadily on. Mile after mile of plains, woods, and mountains lay behind him. In addition to all his other qualities, there was one higher than all others that he needed. This was patience, unswerving patience, patience that could not only wait for hours or days, but for weeks. This was required for river crossings. There, the stockeeper would be constrained in front of a stream that might be easily forded. There was nothing stopping him but the obstinacy of the herd. The oxen would drink the water and turn back. The sheep fled in all directions, rather than face the liquid element. The stockeeper hoped that when night came he might manage them better, but they still refused to go forward. The rams were thrown by force, but the sheep would not follow. They tried thirst, by depriving the flock of water for several days, but when they were brought to the river again, they simply quenched their thirst, and still declined to enter the water. The lambs were carried over, hoping the mothers would be drawn after them, by their bleating. But the lambs might bleat as pitifully as they liked, the mothers never stirred. Sometimes it lasted a whole month, and the stockeeper didn’t know what to do with his bleating, bellowing, neighing army. Then, one fine day, without rhyme or reason, by some whim, a detachment crossed the river. The only difficulty now was to keep the whole herd from rushing helter-skelter after them. Confusion set in among the ranks, and many animals were drowned in the passage.

Such were the details given by Sam Machell. During his story, a large proportion of the herd had filed past in good order. It was time for him to return to his place at the head of his army, to lead them away to good pastures. He took his leave of Lord Glenarvan, mounted an excellent native horse, which one of his men held waiting for him, and after shaking hands cordially with everyone, took his departure. Moments later, he had disappeared into the swirl of dust.

The wagon resumed its interrupted journey in the opposite direction, and did not stop again until they halted for the night at the foot of Mount Talbot.

Paganel made the judicious observation that it was December 25th, the Christmas Day celebrated by English families. The steward had not forgotten it and a succulent supper, served under the tent, earned him the sincere compliments of the guests. Mr. Olbinett had quite outdone himself. He produced from his stores an array of European dishes that are seldom seen in the Australian wilderness. Reindeer ham, slices of salted beef, smoked salmon, barley and oatmeal cakes, tea with discretion, whisky in abundance, and a few bottles of port made up this astonishing meal. The little party might have thought themselves in the grand dining hall of Malcolm Castle, in the heart of the Highlands of Scotland.

Nothing was missing from this feast, from the ginger soup to the mince pies for dessert. Paganel thought to make an addition with the fruit of a wild orange he found growing at the foot of the hills. It is called “moccaly” by the natives. The fruit is rather tasteless, but the crushed pips heat the mouth like cayenne pepper. The geographer persisted in eating them conscientiously for the sake of science, until his palate was on fire, and he could no longer answer the questions the Major overwhelmed him with, about the peculiarities of the Australian wilderness.

Nothing of any importance happened he next day, December 26th. They came to the source of Norton Creek, and a little later, to the half-dried Mackenzie River. The weather kept fine, and the heat quite bearable. The wind was from the south, and refreshed the atmosphere as a north wind in the northern hemisphere, which Paganel pointed out to his friend Robert Grant.

“A happy circumstance,” he added, “because the heat is greater on the average in the southern hemisphere than in the northern.”

“Why?” asked the boy.

“Why, Robert?” answered Paganel. “Have you never heard that the earth is closer to the sun during the winter?”

“Yes, Monsieur Paganel.”

“And that the cold of winter is due to the obliquity of the solar rays?”

“Certainly.”

“Well, my boy, that’s why it’s warmer in the southern hemisphere.”

“I don’t understand,” said Robert, opening his eyes wide.

“Think, Robert,” replied Paganel, “when it is winter in Europe, what is the season here in Australia, at the antipodes?”

“Summer,” said Robert.

“Well, and since it is precisely at this time that the earth is nearest the sun — do you understand?”

“I understand—”

“That the summer in the southern regions is warmer than summer of the boreal regions, because of this proximity.”

“Indeed, Monsieur Paganel.”

“So when we say that the sun is nearer the earth ‘in winter,’ it is only true for us who inhabit the boreal part of the globe.”

“That is something I hadn’t thought of,” said Robert.

“And now, go, my boy. And don’t forget it.”

Robert took this little lesson in cosmography with a good grace, and learned, in conclusion, that the mean temperature of the province of Victoria was 74° Fahrenheit.⁴

In the evening the troop camped about five miles beyond Lake Lonsdale, between Mount Drummond, which rose to the north, and Mount Dryden, whose mediocre summit dotted the southern horizon.

The following day, at eleven o’clock, the wagon reached the banks of the Wimmera River, on the 143rd meridian.

The river, half a mile wide, wound its limpid course between tall rows of gum and acacia trees. Magnificent specimens of the Myrtaceae, the Metrosideros Speciosa, among others, fifteen feet high, with long, drooping branches adorned with red flowers. Thousands of birds — orioles, finches, and gold winged pigeons, not to mention the parrots — fluttered about in the green branches. Below, on the surface of the water, were a couple of shy and unapproachable black swans. This rara avis of the Australian rivers soon disappeared among the meanders of the Wimmera, which capriciously watered the attractive countryside.

The wagon stopped on a grassy bank, the long fringes of which dipped into the rapid current. There was neither raft nor bridge, but it was necessary to cross. Ayrton looked about for a suitable ford. About a quarter of a mile upstream the water seemed shallower, and it was here that he resolved to reach the other bank. Various soundings showed a depth of only three feet, which the wagon should safely negotiate.

“Is there any other way to cross the river?” Glenarvan asked the quartermaster.

“No, My Lord,” said Ayrton, “but the passage does not seem dangerous. We shall manage it.”

“Should Lady Glenarvan and Miss Grant get out of the wagon?”

“Not at all. My oxen are surefooted, and I will keep them on track.”

“Very well, Ayrton,” said Glenarvan. “I trust you.”

The horsemen surrounded the heavy vehicle, and resolutely entered the river. Normally, when wagons have to ford rivers, they have empty casks slung all round them, to keep them floating on the water; but they had no such swimming belt with them on this occasion, and they could only depend on the sagacity of the animals and the prudence of Ayrton, who directed the team. The Major and the two sailors were some feet in front. Glenarvan and John Mangles went at the sides of the wagon, ready to lend any assistance the ladies might require, and Paganel and Robert brought up the rear.

All went well until they reached the middle of the Wimmera, but then the channel deepened, and the water rose above the axles. The oxen were in danger of losing their footing, and dragging the oscillating vehicle with them. Ayrton devoted himself courageously. He jumped into the water, and hanging on by the horns of the oxen, succeeded in dragging them back onto the right path.

The wagon leaned precariously

The wagon gave a jolt that it was impossible to prevent; a crack was heard, and the wagon began to lean precariously. The water rose to the ladies’ feet; the whole concern began to drift, despite John Mangles and Lord Glenarvan clinging to the sides. It was an anxious moment.

Fortunately a vigorous effort brought the wagon closer the opposite shore, and the bank began to slope upward, so that horses and oxen were able to regain their footing, and soon the whole party found themselves safe on the other side, wet, but satisfied.

The front of the wagon, however, was broken by the jolt, and Glenarvan’s horse had lost a shoe.

This was an accident that needed to be promptly repaired. They looked at each other, hardly knowing what to do, until Ayrton proposed he should go to Black Point Station, twenty miles further north, and bring back a blacksmith.

“Yes, go, my brave Ayrton,” said Glenarvan. “How long will it take you to get there and back?”

“Perhaps fifteen hours,” said Ayrton, “but not longer.”

“Start at once, and we will camp here, on the banks of the Wimmera, until you return.”

A few minutes later the quartermaster, riding Wilson’s horse, disappeared behind a thick curtain of mimosas.

1. Plains watered by numerous springs.

2. Verne had 141° 30′ here, which would put them west of White Lake — DAS

3. 50,000 francs = $10,000 = £2,000 — DAS

4. 23.3° Centigrade — DAS

Chapter IX | Index | Chapter XI

Chapter XI
Burke and Stuart

The rest of the day passed in talking and walking. The travellers, chatting and admiring the scene, followed the banks of the Wimmera. The cranes and the ibises took flight at their approach, uttering hoarse cries. The satin bowerbirds hid among the upper branches of the wild figs trees. The orioles, wheatears, epimachus, and many others flitted about among the branches of the liliaceous trees. The kingfishers abandoned their usual fishing, but the civilized family of parrots: the blue mountain, clothed in the seven colours of the prism; the little rosella, with its scarlet head and yellow throat; and the red and blue lory persisted in their deafening gossip at the top of the blooming gum trees.

The night caught them half a mile from camp

The travellers admired this beautiful nature until sunset, sometimes resting on the grass beside the murmuring waters, sometimes wandering between groves of mimosas. At length the night, preceded by a momentary twilight, caught them about half a mile from camp. They returned, guiding themselves not by the pole-star, which is invisible in the southern hemisphere, but by the Southern Cross, which glittered in the sky half way between the horizon and the zenith.

Mr. Olbinett had laid supper in the tent, and they sat down to eat. The masterpiece of the banquet was a salmis of parrots, which Wilson had dextrously shot, and the steward had skilfully prepared.

Supper over, they only needed the slightest excuse to justify not going immediately to sleep on so lovely an evening. Lady Helena pleased everyone when she requested that Paganel relate the adventures of some of the great Australian explorers, a story which he had long promised.

Paganel wished for nothing better. His listeners stretched out at the foot of a magnificent banksia; the smoke of cigars soon rose to the foliage lost in the darkness, and the geographer, drawing on his inexhaustible memory, took the stage.

“You remember, my friends, and the Major will not have forgotten, the enumeration of the explorers which I made to you on board the Duncan. Of the many who have sought to penetrate to the heart of the continent, only four have succeeded in crossing it from south to north or from north to south. These four were Burke, in 1860 and 1861; McKinlay, in 1861 and 1862; Landsborough, in 1862; and Stuart, also in 1862. Of McKinlay and of Landsborough I shall say very little. The former went from Adelaide to the Gulf of Carpentaria, and the latter from the Gulf of Carpentaria to Melbourne, both sent out by Australian committees to search for Burke who had not returned, and was never to return.

“Burke and Stuart are the two brave explorers of whom I am going to speak, and I will begin without further preamble.

“On August 20th, 1860, under the auspices of the Royal Society of Melbourne, an ex-Irish officer, and former police inspector at Castlemaine, named Robert O’Hara Burke, set out on his expedition. Eleven men went with him: William John Wills, a distinguished young astronomer; Dr. Beckler, a botanist; Gray; King, a young soldier of the Indian army; Landells; Brahe; and several sepoys. Twenty-five horses and twenty-five camels carried the explorers, their baggage, and provisions for eighteen months.

“The expedition was to make for the Gulf of Carpentaria on the northern coast, first following the Cooper River. They easily crossed the Murray and the Darling rivers, and arrived at Menindee Station, on the boundary of the colonies.

“There it was realized that the large baggage train was a source of great difficulty. This encumbrance, and a certain hardness of character in Burke, caused misunderstandings among the party. Landells, the manager of the camels, followed by some of the sepoys, separated himself from the expedition, and returned to the banks of the Darling. Burke continued his march northward. He descended toward Cooper Creek, sometimes through magnificent well watered pastures, and sometimes over stony tracts without any water. On November 20th, three months after his departure, he established a provision depot along the river.

“Here the explorers were detained for some time, unable to find a practicable route to the north on which they could be sure of a supply of water. After great difficulties they arrived at a camp, which they named Fort Wills. They built an enclosure surrounded by a palisade, halfway between Melbourne and the Gulf of Carpentaria. There, Burke divided his party into two parts. One, under command of Brahe, was to stay at Fort Wills for three months, or longer if their provisions held out, and await the return of the other party, which consisted of Burke, King, Gray, and Wills. They took with them six camels, and three months’ supplies — that is, three hundredweight of flour, fifty pounds of rice, fifty pounds of oatmeal, a quintal of dried horse meat, a hundred pounds of salt pork and bacon, and thirty pounds of biscuit — all to travel six hundred leagues¹, there and back.

“These four men began. After the painful crossing of a stony desert they arrived on the Eyre River, at the extreme point reached by Sturt in 1845, and following as near as possible the 140th meridian, they kept going north.

“On January 7th they passed the tropic under a blazing sun. They continued north, deceived by disappointing mirages, often without water, sometimes refreshed by heavy storms. Here and there they met wandering natives, who they attempted to avoid. In short, they were little disturbed by the difficulties of a route which was not barred by lakes, rivers, or mountains.

“On January 12th some sandstone hills appeared in the distance, including Mount Forbes, and then a succession of granite chains called ‘ranges.’ There, travel became difficult. They made very little progress. The animals would go no further. Burke wrote ‘Still on the ranges — the camels sweating from fear!’ in his journal. Still, by dint of their efforts, they arrived on the banks of the Turner River, then on the upper course of the Flinders River between curtains of palm and eucalyptus trees, seen by Stokes in 1841, on its way to the Gulf of Carpentaria.

“The neighbourhood of the sea was indicated by a succession of marshes. One of the camels perished there. The rest refused to go further. King and Gray had to stay with them. Burke and Wills continued their journey to the north, and after great difficulties, only slightly described in their notes, they arrived at a tidal channel into which the sea flowed, but dense mangrove swamps barred them from the ocean, itself. It was February 11th, 1861.”

“So,” asked Lady Glenarvan, “these bold men couldn’t go any farther?”

“No, Madame,” said Paganel. “The swampy ground sank under their feet, and they were obliged to turn their thoughts to rejoining their companions at Fort Wills. A sad return, I assure you. Weak and exhausted, Burke and Wills dragged themselves back to the place where they had left Gray and King. Then the expedition, following the route they had come north by, made for Cooper’s Creek.

“The ups and downs, dangers and sufferings of this journey, we do not know exactly, because the notes are missing from the journals of the explorers, but it must have been terrible.

“At last, in April, three of them arrived in the Cooper Valley. Gray had died. Four camels had perished. Still, if Burke managed to reach Fort Wills, where Brahe and his depot of provisions were waiting for him, he and his companions were saved. They redoubled their efforts; they dragged themselves on for a few more days. On April 21st, they saw the palisades of the fort. They had reached it! But that very day, after five long months of hopeless waiting, Brahe had gone!”

“Gone!” cried young Robert.

“Yes, gone! The same day, by a deplorable fatality! The note left by Brahe was dated only nine hours ago! Burke could not hope to overtake him. The poor fellows fortified themselves a little from the cache of provisions left at the depot, but they had no means of transport, and 150 leagues² still separated them from the Darling.

“It is then that Burke, contrary to the judgment of Wills, determined to try and reach the Australian settlement near Mount Hopeless, sixty leagues³ from Fort Wills. They set out. Of the two remaining camels, one perished in a marshy tributary of Cooper Creek; the other could not go a step farther; they had to kill it, and feed on its flesh. Soon all their food was gone. The three unfortunate wanderers were reduced to living on “nardoo,” an aquatic plant whose sporocarps are edible. Without the means to carry water across the desert, they dared not leave the banks of Cooper Creek. A fire burned their cabin, and camp effects. Now they were lost indeed! Nothing remained for them but to die!

The death of Burke

“Burke called King to him. ‘I have only a few hours to live,’ he said. ‘Take my watch and my notes. When I am dead, I want you to place a pistol in my right hand, and to leave me just as I am, without burial!’ After this, Burke did not speak, and expired the next morning at eight o’clock.

“King, horrified and distraught, went to look for an Australian tribe. When he returned, Wills had just succumbed too. As for King, he was picked up by natives, and in September he was found by Mr. Howitt’s expedition sent in search of Burke, at the same time as the parties under McKinlay and Landsborough. Thus, of the four explorers, only one survived the journey across the continent of Australia.”

Paganel’s story left a painful impression in the minds of his listeners. They all thought of Captain Grant wandering, perhaps like Burke and his comrades, in the midst of this fatal continent. Had the castaways escaped the sufferings which had decimated those bold explorers? The analogy was so natural that tears came to Mary Grant’s eyes.

“My father! My poor father!” she whispered.

“Miss Mary, Miss Mary!” cried John Mangles. “To endure such hardships, you must be in the interior. Captain Grant must be among the natives like King. And like King, he will be saved. He has never been in such a sorry plight!”

“Never,” said Paganel, “and I repeat to you, my dear girl, the Australians are hospitable.”

“May God hear you,” said the girl.

“And Stuart?” asked Glenarvan, wishing to divert them from these sad thoughts.

“Stuart?” said Paganel. “Oh, Stuart had better luck, and his name is famous in Australian annals. As early as 1848, John McDouall Stuart, your countryman, my friends, as a prelude to his own travels, accompanied Sturt into the deserts north of Adelaide. In 1860, with only two men, he made an unsuccessful attempt to penetrate into the interior of Australia. He was not a man to be discouraged. In 1861, on January 1st, he left Chambers Creek at the head of eleven determined companions. But, his provisions exhausted, he was stopped only sixty leagues⁴ from the Gulf of Carpentaria. He was obliged to return to Adelaide without having crossed the vast continent. He resolved to tempt fortune again, and organized a third expedition, which this time would attain the ardently-desired goal.

“The Parliament of South Australia generously patronized this new expedition, and voted a subsidy of two thousand pounds sterling. Stuart took every precaution suggested to him by his earlier experience. The expedition consisted of ten men in all, most of them friends and comrades from his previous explorations, including Thring, Kekwick, Woodforde and Auld. They were joined by Waterhouse the naturalist. He took twenty skins of American leather, which could hold seven gallons each, and on April 5th, 1862, the party was assembled at Newcastle Waters, beyond the 18th parallel of latitude, the point which Stuart had never been able to go beyond. His route followed the 131st meridian, nine degrees west of that followed by Burke.

“Newcastle Waters was to be the base of future explorations. Stuart, surrounded by dense woods, vainly strove to reach the Victoria River, to the northwest. Impenetrable bush impeded all passage.

“Stuart resolved to try moving directly north, and he succeeded in moving his camp into the Hower Marshes. Then, bearing east, he reached Daly Waters, in the middle of grassy plains which he followed north for thirty miles.⁵

“The country was magnificent: its pastures would have been a joy and a fortune to a squatter, and the eucalyptus grew to a prodigious height. Stuart, marvelling, continued to advance. He reached the banks of the Strangway River and Roper Creek, discovered by Leichhardt. Their waters flowed amid palm trees worthy of this tropical region, and here he found native tribes who welcomed the explorers.

“From this point the expedition headed north-northwest, crossing a tract of sandstone and ferruginous rock they found the source of the Adelaide River, which falls into Van Diemen Gulf. They followed it across Arnhem’s Land, in the midst of cabbage-palms, bamboos, pines, and screw-palms. The Adelaide was widening, and its banks becoming marshy. The sea was near.

“On Tuesday, July 22nd, Stuart camped in the marshes of Fresh Water, blocked by the innumerable streams that cut his way. He sent three of his companions to look for a suitable path. The next day, sometimes turning aside at uncrossable creeks, sometimes bogging down in muddy ground, he reached some high plains covered with grass, where clumps of gum trees and trees with fibrous bark grew. There were flocks of geese, ibises, and wild water birds. Of natives, there was little sign, only smoke from distant camps.

“On July 24th, nine months after leaving Adelaide, at twenty minutes past eight in the morning, Stuart started north. He hoped to reach the sea that same day. The country became slightly elevated, dotted with iron ore, and volcanic rock; the trees became smaller, and began to look like coastal trees. A wide alluvial valley presented itself, bordered by a curtain of shrubs. Stuart distinctly heard the noise of the waves as they broke, but he said nothing to his companions. They entered a thicket, made almost impassable by wild vines.

“Stuart went on a few steps. He found himself on the shores of the Indian Ocean. ‘The sea! the sea!’ cried a stupefied Thring. The others ran forward, and three long hurrahs saluted the Indian Ocean.

“The continent had just been crossed for the fourth time!

“Stuart, following the promise he had made to Governor Sir Richard MacDonnell, dipped his feet and washed his face and hands in the waves of the sea. Then, he returned to the valley, and inscribed his initials, JMDS, on a tree. They camped beside a small stream.

“Next day, Thring went to see if they could reach the mouth of the Adelaide River from the southwest, but the ground was too swampy for the horses’ feet. It was necessary to abandon the idea.

…and at the top he fixed the Union Flag

“Stuart selected a tall tree in a clearing. He cut off the lower branches, and at the top he fixed a Union Flag, embroidered with his name. On the bark of the tree were cut these words, ‘Dig One Foot—S.’

“And if at some future day a traveller digs at the spot indicated, he will find a tin box,⁶ and in this box the document whose words are engraved on my memory:

South Australian Great Northern Exploring Expedition.

The exploring party, under the command of John McDouall Stuart, arrived at this spot on the 25th day of July 1862 having crossed the entire Continent of Australia from the Southern to the Indian Ocean, passing through the Centre. They left the City of Adelaide on the 26th day of October 1861 and the most northern station of the colony on the 21st day of January 1862. To commemorate this happy event, they have raised this flag bearing his name. All well. God save the Queen!

‘’Followed by the signatures of Stuart and his companions.

“This was a great event that had a tremendous impact, worldwide.”

“And did these brave men live to rejoin their friends in the South?” asked Lady Helena.

“Yes, Madame, all,” said Paganel. “But not without undergoing terrible trials. Stuart suffered most. His health was seriously compromised by scurvy when he resumed his journey to Adelaide. By the beginning of September his illness had made such progress that he did not think he would reach the inhabited districts again. He could not sit in the saddle; he travelled lying in a stretcher suspended between two horses. At the end of October he was extremely ill, and spitting blood. They killed a horse to make him a broth. October 28th he thought death was at hand when a salutary crisis saved him, and on December 10th the whole little troop reached the first settlements.

“On December 17th Stuart received an enthusiastic welcome in Adelaide. But he had not recovered his health, and after receiving the gold medal of the Geographical Society, he took passage in the Indus for his beloved Scotland, his native land, where we shall see him on our return.”,⁷

“He was a man who possessed moral courage to the highest degree,” said Glenarvan, “And that, even more than physical strength, leads to the accomplishment of great things. Scotland is rightly proud to count him among her children.”

“Has no explorer attempted further discoveries, since Stuart?” asked Lady Helena.

“Yes, Madame,” replied Paganel. “I have often spoken to you of Leichhardt. He had already made a remarkable exploration of Northern Australia, in 1844. In 1848 he undertook a second expedition, to the northeast. That was seventeen years ago, and he has not been seen since. Last year the famous botanist, Dr. Mueller, of Melbourne, created a public subscription to defray the expenses of an expedition to search for him. The requisite sum was quickly raised, and a party of courageous squatters, commanded by the bold and intelligent Mclntyre, started from the pasturages of the Paroo river, on June 21st, 1864. At this moment he has probably penetrated far into the interior of the continent, in his search for Leichhardt. May he succeed, and may we too, like him, find again the friends so dear to us!”

Thus ended the geographer’s story. It was late. Paganel was thanked, and shortly later all were peaceably sleeping, while the clock-bird, hidden in the foliage of the white gum trees, kept time all through the still night.

1. 1,500 miles, 2,400 kilometres — DAS

2. 375 miles, 600 kilometres — DAS

3. 150 miles, 240 kilometres — DAS

4. 150 miles, 240 kilometres — DAS

5. 12 leagues, 50 kilometres — DAS

6. The tree on which Stuart carved “JMDS” was located in 1883. The flag tree, and its tin box, have not been found. — DAS

7. James Paganel was able to see Stuart on his return to Scotland, but he did not long enjoy the company of this famous traveller. Stuart died on June 5th, 1866, in a modest house in Nottingham Hill.

Chapter X | Index | Chapter XII

Chapter XII
The Melbourne to Sandhurst Railway

The Major had felt some apprehension as he watched Ayrton depart the Wimmera camp to go look for a blacksmith at Black Point Station, but he kept his misgivings to himself, and didn’t breathe a word to anyone. He contented himself with watching the neighbourhood of the river. The tranquility of the glades was undisturbed, and after a few hours of night the sun re-appeared on the horizon.

Glenarvan’s only fear was that Ayrton might return alone. If they failed to find a workman, the wagon could not resume the journey. This might detain them for many days, and Glenarvan, impatient to reach his goal, couldn’t tolerate any delay.

Fortunately, Ayrton lost neither time nor his way. He appeared next morning at daybreak, accompanied by a man who said he was a blacksmith from Black Point Station. He was a tall, powerful fellow, but with low, bestial, unfavourable features. But that was of no concern, provided he knew his business. He scarcely spoke, and did not waste his breath in useless words.

“Is he a good workman?” John Mangles asked the quartermaster.

“I know no more about him than you do, Captain,” said Ayrton, “but we shall see.”

The blacksmith set to work repairing the wagon, and it quickly became evident that he knew his trade. He worked skilfully and with uncommon energy. The Major observed that the flesh of his wrists was deeply furrowed, showing a black collar of bruising. It was the mark of a recent injury which the sleeve of an old woollen shirt could not conceal. MacNabbs questioned the blacksmith about these sores, which must have been painful, but the man continued his work without answering. Two hours later, the damage to the wagon had been repaired.

Glenarvan’s horse was re-shod even quicker. The blacksmith had the foresight to bring horseshoes with him. The Major noticed an unusual feature of these shoes: a deep clover design cut into their bottoms. MacNabbs pointed it out to Ayrton.

“It’s the Black Point brand,” said the quartermaster. “That enables them to track any horses that may stray from the station, and prevents their being mixed with other herds.”

The new shoes were quickly fitted to the horse’s hooves. The blacksmith claimed his wage, and left without uttering four words.

Half an hour later, the travellers were on the move again. Beyond the curtains of mimosas bordering the river stretched a wide open country, which quite deserved its epithet of “open plain.” Some fragments of quartz and ferruginous rock lay among the scrub and the tall grass, and there were fenced in areas where many flocks of sheep grazed. Some miles further the wheels of the wagon ploughed deep into the lacustrine soil, where irregular creeks murmured, half hidden among giant reeds. They skirted vast salty lagoons, rapidly evaporating in the day’s heat. The journey was effortless and trouble free.

Lady Helena invited the horsemen of the party to take turns visiting her, as her salon was very small. But each of them was happy to take a break from riding, and amuse himself in conversation with this amiable woman. Lady Helena, assisted by Miss Mary, did the honours of their travelling house with perfect grace. John Mangles was not forgotten in these daily invitations, and his serious conversation was not unpleasing. Quite the contrary.

They cut diagonally across the mail road from Crowland to Horsham. This was a very dusty road, little used by pedestrians. They skirted the rumps of some low hills at the boundary of Talbot County, and in the evening the travellers reached a point about three miles above Maryborough. A fine rain was falling, which in any other country would have soaked the ground, but here the air absorbed the moisture so rapidly, that it was scarcely an inconvenience.

Next day, December 29th, the march was somewhat slowed by a succession of small hills, resembling a miniature Switzerland. It was a constant repetition of up hill and down, on rough roads that jolted the wagon so unpleasantly that the ladies preferred to leave it, and walk part of the way.

At eleven o’clock they arrived at the large town of Carisbrook. Ayrton was of the opinion that the wagon might be delayed going through town, and suggested going around it. Glenarvan agreed, but Paganel, always eager for novelties, wanted to visit Carisbrook. He was allowed to do so, while the wagon went slowly around it.

As usual, Paganel took Robert with him. Their visit to the town was brief, but it sufficed to give him an impression of a typical Australian town. There was a bank, a court-house, a market, a school, a church, and a hundred or so perfectly uniform brick houses. The whole town was laid out in rectangles, crossed with parallel streets in the English fashion. Nothing could be simpler, or less attractive. As the town grew, they lengthened the streets as you lengthen the trousers of a growing child, and thus the primitive symmetry remains undisturbed.

Carisbrook was full of activity, a remarkable feature in these new towns. In Australia it seems that towns grow like trees in the heat of the sun. Busy people ran in the streets. Gold shippers crowded the exchange offices. The precious metal, escorted by the local police, was brought in from the mines at Bendigo and Mount Alexander. All of this little world was so absorbed in its own interests, that the strangers passed unobserved amid the busy population.

After an hour of looking around Carisbrook, the two visitors rejoined their companions, passing though the highly cultivated environs of the town. This was followed by long stretches of prairie known as the “Low Level Plains,” dotted with countless sheep, and shepherds’ huts. Then they came to a stretch of desert, without any transition, but with that abruptness peculiar to Australian nature. The Simpson Hills and Mount Tarrengower marked the point where the southern boundary of the Loddon district cuts the 144th meridian.

None of the aboriginal tribes living in the wild had been encountered so far. Glenarvan wondered if the Australians were wanting in Australia, as the Indians had been wanting in the Argentinian Pampas, but Paganel told him that, in this latitude, the natives were to be found in the Murray Plains, a hundred miles to the east.

“We are approaching the gold district,” he said. “In two days we shall cross the rich region of Mount Alexander. This is where the swarm of miners came in 1852; the natives fled to the wilderness of the interior. We are in civilized country, even if it doesn’t look like it. Later today we should cross the railway which connects the Murray with the sea. But I must confess that a railway in Australia does seem to me an astounding thing!”

“And why is that, Paganel ?” asked Glenarvan.

“Why? Because it chafes! Oh, I know you English are accustomed to colonizing distant possessions. You, with your electric telegraphs and World Exhibitions, even in New Zealand.¹ You think it is all quite natural. But it dumbfounds the mind of a Frenchman like myself, and confuses all his notions of Australia!”

“Because you look to the past, and not at the present,” said John Mangles.

“Perhaps,” said Paganel. “But the locomotives chuffing across wild plains, spirals of steam winding through the branches of mimosa and eucalyptus; echidnas, platypuses, and emus fleeing before speeding trains; savages taking the 3:30 express to go from Melbourne to Kyneton, to Castlemaine, to Sandhurst, or to Echuca: that sort of thing is erasing everything that isn’t English, or American from the world. With the coming of your railways, the poetry of the wilderness vanishes.”

“What does it matter as long as we make progress?” asked the Major.

A loud whistle interrupted the discussion. The party was within a mile of the railway. A locomotive coming slowly from the south stopped just where the road being followed by the wagon crossed the railway.

This railway, as Paganel had said, connected the capital of Victoria to the Murray, the largest river in Australia. This immense watercourse, discovered by Sturt in 1828, has its source in the Australian Alps. Augmented by its tributaries, the Lachlan and the Darling, it forms the northern boundary of the province of Victoria, and empties into Encounter Bay, near Adelaide. It flows through a rich and fertile country, and squatter stations multiply along its course, thanks to the easy communication with Melbourne established by the railway.

This railway was then operating over a distance of 105 miles² between Melbourne and Sandhurst, serving Kyneton and Castlemaine. The line, still under construction, continued for another seventy miles as far as Echuca, capital of the Riverine colony, founded that year on the Murray.

The 37th parallel intersected the track a few miles above Castlemaine, at Camden Bridge over the Loddon River, one of the many tributaries of the Murray.

Ayrton directed the wagon toward the bridge. The horsemen galloped ahead, attracted by curiosity over what was happening.

A considerable crowd was gathering at the railway bridge. The people from the neighbouring stations had left their houses, and the shepherds their flocks, and crowded the approaches to the railway. Every now and then someone shouted “At the railway! At the railway!”

Something serious must have occurred to produce so much agitation. Perhaps some great catastrophe.

A terrible accident had occurred

Glenarvan, followed by the rest, urged his horse on. In a few minutes he arrived at Camden Bridge, and became aware of the cause of so much excitement. A terrible accident had occurred. Not a collision, but a derailment, and fall which recalled the worst disasters of the American railways. The river crossed by the railway was full of the wreckage of several carriages, and the locomotive. The weight of the train had been too much for the bridge, or the train had gone off the rails. Either way, five out of six carriages had fallen into the bed of the Loddon, dragged down by the locomotive. Only the last carriage, miraculously preserved by the breaking of the coupling, remained on the rails, three feet from the abyss. Below it was a sinister pile of warped and blackened axles, shattered carriages, twisted rails, and charred sleepers. The boiler, burst by the shock, had scattered its plates to enormous distances. From this shapeless mass of ruins a few flames and wisps of steam and black smoke still rose. After the fall had come an even more horrible fire. Large streaks of blood, scattered limbs, and charred corpses were scattered around. No one could guess how many victims might lay under those ruins.

Glenarvan, Paganel, the Major, and Mangles mingled with the crowd, listening to what was being said. Everyone was trying to account for the disaster, while doing their utmost to save what could be saved.

“The bridge must have collapsed,” said one.

“Collapsed!” said another. “The bridge is still intact! They must have forgotten to close it to let the train pass. That is all.”

It was, indeed, a swing bridge which opened for the convenience of the river traffic. Had the guard, in an unpardonable act of negligence, forgotten to close it? And had the train, coming on at full speed, plunged into the bed of the Loddon? This hypothesis seemed very likely, for although one half of the bridge lay beneath the ruins of the train, the other half, drawn up to the opposite shore, hung by its chains, still undamaged. No one could doubt that negligence by the guard had caused the catastrophe.

The accident had occurred in the night to the №37 express train, which had left Melbourne at 11:45 in the evening. About a quarter past three in the morning, twenty-five minutes after leaving Castlemaine station, it arrived at Camden Bridge, where the terrible disaster occurred. The passengers and conductors of the last, and only remaining, carriage immediately tried to obtain help, but the telegraph line had been broken by the accident. Several poles were lying on the ground. It took three hours for the authorities from Castlemaine to reach the scene of the incident, and it was six o’clock in the morning when the rescue party was organized under the direction of Mr. Mitchell, the Surveyor General of the colony, accompanied by a detachment of police, commanded by an inspector. The squatters and their hands lent their aid, first working to extinguish the fire which raged uncontrollably through the wreckage. A few unrecognizable bodies lay on the slope of the embankment, but from that blazing furnace no living being could be saved. The fire had done its destructive work too quickly. Of the passengers on the train, the total number of which was unknown, only the ten from the last carriage had survived. The railway authorities sent an emergency locomotive to bring them back to Castlemaine.

Lord Glenarvan, having introduced himself to the Surveyor General, was talking with him and the police inspector. The inspector was a tall, thin man, imperturbably cool, and, whatever he may have felt, allowed no trace of it to appear on his face. He contemplated this calamity as a mathematician does a problem. He was seeking to solve it, and to find the unknown.

“This is a great misfortune,” said Glenarvan.

“Better than that, My Lord,” said the inspector.

“Better than that?” Glenarvan was shocked by the phrase. “What is better than a misfortune?”

“A crime!” said the inspector quietly.

Glenarvan, without being put off by the impropriety of the statement, turned to Mr. Mitchell, questioning him with his eyes.

“Yes, My Lord,” said the Surveyor General. “Our investigation has led us to the certainty that this catastrophe is the result of a crime. The last luggage car was looted. The surviving passengers were attacked by a gang of five or six bandits. The bridge was intentionally opened, and not left open by the negligence of the guard. Connecting this fact with the guard’s disappearance, it must be concluded that the wretched fellow was an accomplice of these criminals.”

The inspector shook his head at this last inference.

“You do not agree with me?” said Mr. Mitchell.

“No, not as to the complicity of the guard.”

“But with his complicity,” said the Surveyor General, “we may attribute the crime to the savages who wander in the Murray countryside. Without the guard, these natives could never have opened the bridge. They know nothing of its mechanism.”

“Correct,” said the inspector.

“Now,” said Mr. Mitchell, “it is undisputed that, by the evidence of a boatman who passed Camden Bridge at 10:40 in the evening, that the bridge was closed after he passed.”

“True.”

“Well, after that, I cannot see any doubt as to the complicity of the guard.”

The inspector shook his head.

“But then sir,” said Glenarvan, “you don’t attribute the crime to the natives?”

“Not at all.”

“Who then?”

It was the body of the guard

They were interrupted by a growing uproar, beginning half a mile up the river. A crowd was gathering, and grew quickly as it came closer. They soon reached the bridge, and in their midst were two men carrying a corpse. It was the body of the guard, already cold. He had been stabbed through the heart. The murderers had no doubt hoped that dragging his body away from Camden Bridge would mislead the police during their initial investigation. This discovery justified the doubts of the inspector. The natives had nothing to do with the crime.

“Those who dealt that blow,” said the inspector, “are people familiar with the use of this little instrument.” He produced a pair of “darbies,” a kind of handcuff made of a double ring of iron secured by a lock. “Before long, I shall have the pleasure of presenting them with these bracelets as a New Year’s gift.”

“Then you suspect—”

“People who ‘travelled free in Her Majesty’s ships.’”

“What! Convicts?” cried Paganel, who recognized the euphemism employed in the Australian colonies.

“I thought that convicts were not allowed in the province of Victoria,” said Glenarvan.

“Bah!” said the inspector. “If they have no right, they take it! They escape sometimes, and, if I am not greatly mistaken, this lot have come straight from Perth, and, take my word for it, they will soon be there again.”

Mr. Mitchell nodded acquiescence to the words of the inspector.

The wagon was approaching the railroad crossing. Glenarvan wished to spare the ladies the horrible spectacle at Camden Bridge. He took courteous leave of the Surveyor General, and signalled for the rest to follow him. “There is no reason to delay our journey.”

When they reached the wagon, Glenarvan merely stated to Lady Helena that there had been a railway accident, without saying what part the crime had played in the catastrophe. He also didn’t mention the presence of a band of convicts in the neighbourhood, reserving that piece of information for Ayrton’s ear, alone. The little troop crossed the railway a few hundred fathoms below the bridge, and resumed their eastward journey.

1. The New Zealand Exhibition of 1865 — DAS

2. 42 leagues, 170 kilometres — DAS

Chapter XI | Index | Chapter XIII

Chapter XIII
A First Prize for Geography

Translator’s Note:

This is the first chapter in which I was tempted to do a major rewrite of Verne’s story. It wouldn’t have been a change in any of the events, but I would have changed some of the characters’ reactions to them.

I haven’t done it, but if I did, I’d make Paganel angry about what has been done to Toliné, and not amused.

The practice of separating Aboriginal children from their families, and raising them in English religious schools was an abomination. There was nothing funny about what was done to those people.

Verne’s intent here may have been to criticize the practice through satire, as the beliefs that Toliné has been indoctrinated with are so absurd, especially considering that this was written for a French audience. But satire can be a very precarious bridge to cross, without falling off into giving the reader a very wrong impression of the author’s intent. And translating satire, which may in part be based on the language and culture of the original target audience, is especially fraught.

If this was meant as a satirical critique of the destruction of Aboriginal culture, it does get pretty much lost in translation.

— DAS

A few hills showed their profiles on the horizon at the edge of the plain, two miles from the railway. The wagon entered a succession of narrow gorges that wound capriciously up onto a low plateau, where beautiful trees — not gathered in forests, but spread out in isolated clumps — were growing with tropical luxuriance. Among the most admirable were the casuarinas, which seemed to have borrowed their robust trunk from the oak, their fragrance from the acacia, and their blue-green leaves from the pine. Their branches mingled with the elegant, slender cones of the banksia latifolia. Large shrubs with drooping branches cascaded over the edges of the plateau, like green water overflowing the rim of a basin. The eye was so bewildered with the many wonders of nature, that one hardly knew which way to look.

Ayrton, on orders from Lady Helena, stopped the wagon. The big wooden disks stopped grating over the quartz sand. Long green carpets of grass lay beneath groves of trees, divided at intervals by little mounds arranged in almost chess-board regularity.

Paganel understood this verdant solitude at a glance, so poetically laid out for eternal sleep. These were funereal squares, slowly being erased by the grass, which the traveller finds so rarely in Australia.

“The groves of the dead,” he said.

This was a native cemetery, but so green and shady, and so enlivened by the happy flocks of birds, and so engaging that it stirred no sad thoughts. It might have been gladly taken for a garden of Eden, where death was unknown. It seemed made for the living. But these tombs, kept with pious care by the aborigines, were already disappearing under a rising tide of greenery. The conquest had driven the Australians away from the land where their ancestors were resting, and colonization will soon deliver these fields of the dead to the teeth of cattle. So these groves have become rare, and how many are trod under the feet of indifferent travellers, who trample over past generations?

Paganel and Robert rode ahead of the others, exploring the small shady alleys of the tumuli. They talked and instructed each other, because the geographer maintained that he profited greatly from young Grant’s conversation. They had not gone a quarter of a mile, when Lord Glenarvan noticed them stop, dismount, and stoop down toward the ground. Judging by their expressive gestures, they were examining some very curious object.

A native child…slept peacefully

Ayrton goaded his oxen into motion, and the wagon soon reached the two friends. The cause of their halt and astonishment was immediately recognized: a native child, an eight year old boy, dressed in European clothes, slept peacefully in the shade of a magnificent banksia. There was no mistaking the characteristic features of his race: the frizzy hair, the nearly black skin, the flattened nose, the thick lips, the unusual length of the arms, immediately classed him among the natives of the interior. But his face showed intelligent features, and certainly some education had relieved this young native from his low origin.

Lady Helena, very interested by this sight, got out of the wagon, followed by Mary, and presently the whole company surrounded the little native, who was sleeping soundly.

“Poor child!” said Mary Grant. “Is he lost, in this wilderness?”

“I suppose that he came a long way to visit these groves of the dead,” said Lady Helena, “Here, no doubt, rest some of those he loves.”

“But we can’t leave him here,” said Robert. “He’s alone and—”

His charitable impulse was interrupted by a movement of the young native, who rolled in his sleep. Everyone was very surprised to see a sign, pinned on his shoulders.

TOLINÉ,
TO BE CONDUCTED TO ECHUCA,
CARE OF JEFFRIES SMITH, RAILWAY
PORTER. PREPAID.

“That’s the English, for you!” said Paganel. “They ship a child like a parcel! They record it as baggage! I heard it was done, but I could not believe it before!”

“Poor child!” said Lady Helena. “Could he have been in the train that derailed at Camden Bridge? Perhaps his parents were killed, and he is left alone in the world!”

“I don’t think so, Madame,” said John Mangles. “That sign indicates that he was travelling alone.”

“He’s waking up,” said Mary.

Indeed he was. Little by little, his eyes opened and closed again, pained by the glare of daylight. Lady Helena took his hand. He jumped up and looked about in astonishment at the group surrounding him. A momentary flash of fear appeared on his face, but the presence of Lady Glenarvan seemed to reassure him.

“Do you understand English, my friend?” asked the young woman.

“I understand and speak it,” replied the child, in fluent enough English, but with a marked accent, similar to a Frenchman’s.

“What is your name?” asked Lady Helena.

“Toliné,” replied the little native.

“Ah, Toliné!” exclaimed Paganel. “If I’m not mistaken, doesn’t that mean ‘tree bark’ in Australian?”

Toliné nodded, and looked around at the travellers.

“Where are you from, my friend?” asked Lady Helena.

“From Melbourne, by Sandhurst Railway.”

“Were you in that train that derailed at Camden Bridge?” asked Glenarvan.

“Yes, sir,” said Toliné. “But the God of the Bible has protected me.”

“Are you travelling alone?”

“Yes. The Reverend Paxton put me in the care of Jeffries Smith. Unfortunately, the poor factor was killed.”

“And you did not know anyone else on the train?”

“No one, sir; but God watches over children, and never forsakes them.”

Toliné said this in soft, quiet tones, which went to the heart. When he mentioned the name of God his voice was grave, and his eyes beamed with all the fervour that animated his young soul.

This religious enthusiasm at so tender an age was easily explained. The child was one of those young natives, baptized by English missionaries, and raised by them in the austere practices of the Methodist religion. His calm replies, proper behaviour, and even his sombre garb, made him look like a little Reverend already.

But where was he going all alone in these deserted regions, and why had he left Camden Bridge? Lady Helena asked him about it.

“I was returning to my tribe in Lachlan,” he said. “I want to see my family again.”

“Australians?” asked John Mangles.

“Australians from Lachlan,” said Toliné.

“Have you a father and mother?” asked Robert Grant.

“Yes, my brother.” Toliné held out his hand to young Grant, whom the epithet of “brother” affected noticeably. He embraced the little native, and it was enough to make them a pair of friends.

The entire party was was drawn into listening to the answers of the young native, and one by one they sat down around him and listened to him speak until the sun had already started to sink behind the tall trees. As this would make a good place to stop, and travelling a few more miles before sunset wouldn’t make much difference, Glenarvan gave orders to prepare their camp for the night. Ayrton unfastened the oxen, hobbled them with help from Mulrady and Wilson, and turned them loose to graze at will. The tent was pitched, and Olbinett got the supper ready. Toliné agreed to take his share, after some convincing, though he was hungry enough. He took his seat beside Robert, who picked out all the best pieces for his new friend. Toliné accepted them with a shy, charming grace.

The conversation did not languish. Everyone was interested in the child, and wanted to know his story. It was simple enough. He was one of the poor native children entrusted to the care of charitable societies by the tribes near the colony. The Australians are gentle and inoffensive. They do not profess the fierce hatred toward their conquerors which characterizes the New Zealanders, and perhaps a few of the tribes of Northern Australia. They often go to the large towns, such as Adelaide, Sydney, and Melbourne, and walk about in their very primitive costumes. They go to trade small objects of their industry: hunting and fishing implements, weapons, etc., and some tribal chiefs — from economic motives, no doubt — willingly leave their children to profit from the benefit of English education.

This was what Toliné’s parents had done. They were true Australian savages of Lachlan, a vast region lying beyond the Murray. The child had been in Melbourne for five years, and during that time had never once seen any of his family. Yet, the imperishable feeling of kindred still lived in his heart, and it was to see his tribe again, perhaps dispersed, and his family, decimated no doubt, that he had set out on this difficult journey through the wilderness.

“And after you have hugged your parents are you coming back to Melbourne?” asked Lady Glenarvan.

“Yes, Madame,” said Toliné, looking at the lady with a tender expression.

“And what are you going to be some day?”

“I want to tear my brothers out of misery and ignorance! I am going to teach them, to bring them to know and love God. I am going to be a missionary!”

These words, spoken with such animation by an eight year old child, might have provoked a laugh in light and mocking wits, but they were understood and respected by the grave Scots, who admired the religious valour of this young disciple, already prepared to fight. Even Paganel was stirred to the depths of his heart, and felt genuine sympathy awakened for the little native.

To speak the truth, until now, this savage in European attire did not much please him. He had not come to Australia to see Australians in a frock coat! He preferred them simply tattooed, and this “proper” dress baffled his preconceived notions. But as soon as Toliné had spoken so ardently, Paganel changed his opinion, and declared himself an admirer. The end of this conversation, moreover, was to make the good geographer the best friend of the Australian boy.

Toliné, in reply to a question asked by Lady Helena, said that he was studying at the Normal School in Melbourne, and that the principal was the Reverend Mr. Paxton.

“And what do you learn at this school?” asked Lady Glenarvan.

“They teach me the Bible, mathematics, geography—”

Paganel pricked up his ears at that. “Indeed! Geography?”

“Yes, sir,” said Toliné. “I even had the first prize for geography before the January holidays.”

“You had the first prize for geography, my boy?”

“Yes, sir. Here it is,” returned Toliné, pulling a book out of his pocket.

It was a well bound 32mo Bible,¹. On the reverse of the first page were written the words Normal School, Melbourne. 1st First Prize for Geography, Toliné of Lachlan.

Paganel was beside himself. An Australian well versed in geography! This was marvellous, and he kissed Toliné on both cheeks, just as if he had been the Reverend Mr. Paxton himself, on the day the prize was given. Paganel, however, should have known that this is not uncommon in Australian schools. The wild youth are very apt in the geographical sciences. They learn it eagerly. On the other hand, they are perfectly averse to the science of arithmetic.

Toliné could not understand this sudden outburst of affection on the part of the Frenchman. Lady Helena had to explain that Paganel was a famous geographer and, when required, a distinguished teacher.

“A geography teacher!” said Toliné. “Oh, sir. Please test me!”

“Test you, my boy?” said Paganel. “I’d like nothing better. Indeed, I was going to do it without your leave. I should very much like to see how they teach geography in the Melbourne Normal School.”

“And suppose Toliné shows you up, Paganel?” asked MacNabbs.

“The idea!” scoffed the geographer. “Show up the Secretary of the Geographical Society of France?”

Paganel settled his spectacles firmly on his nose, straightened himself up to his full height, and put on a solemn voice becoming to a professor. He began his interrogation.

“Pupil Toliné, stand up!”

“Pupil Toliné, stand up!”

As Toliné was already standing, he could not get any higher, but he waited patiently for the geographer’s questions.

“Pupil Toliné, what are the five divisions of the globe?”

“Oceania, Asia, Africa, America, and Europe.”

“Correct. Now we’ll take Oceania first, since we are there right now. What are the principal divisions?”

“It is divided into Polynesia, Malaysia, Micronesia and Megalesia. Its main islands are Australia, which belongs to the English; New Zealand, which belongs to the English; Tasmania, which belongs to the English; the Chatham Islands, Auckland, Macquarie, Kermadec, Makin, and Maraki, which belong to the English.”

“Very good,” said Paganel. “But what of New Caledonia, the Sandwich Islands, Mendana, Pomotou?”

“These are islands placed under the Protectorate of Great Britain.”

“What?” cried Paganel, “‘Under the Protectorate of Great Britain!’ On the contrary! I rather think that France—”

“France?” said the astonished child.

“Is that what they teach you in the Melbourne Normal School?”

“Yes, Professor. Isn’t it right?”

“Oh yes, yes, perfectly right. All Oceania belongs to the English. That’s an understood thing. Let’s continue.”

Paganel’s face showed a mixture of surprise and annoyance, to the great delight of the Major.

The interrogation continued.

“Let us go on to Asia,” said the geographer.

“Asia,” said Toliné, “is an immense country. Capital: Calcutta. Main cities: Bombay, Madras, Calicut, Aden, Malacca, Singapore, Pegou, and Colombo. The Laccadive Islands, the Maldives Islands, the Chagos Islands, etc., etc. Belongs to the English.”

“Very good, pupil Toliné. And now for Africa.”

“Africa comprises two chief colonies — the Cape in the south, capital: Cape Town; and on the west the English settlements, principal city: Sierra Leone.”

“Well done!” said Paganel, beginning to enter into the spirit of this perfectly taught, but whimsically Anglo-fantastic geography. “As to Algeria, Morocco, Egypt — they are all struck out of the Britannic atlases. Let us pass on, pray, to America.”

“It is divided,” said Toliné, promptly, “into North and South America. The former belongs to the English in Canada, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and the United States, under the administration of Governor Johnson.”

“Governor Johnson,” said Paganel, “the successor of the great and good Lincoln, assassinated by a fanatical proponent of slavery! Perfect! Nothing could be better. And as to South America, with its Guyana, its Malouines, its Shetland archipelago, its Georgia, Jamaica, Trinidad, etc., etc., that belongs to the English too! I will not argue about it. But, Toliné, I should like to know your opinion of Europe, or rather your professors’.”

“Europe?” asked Toliné not at all understanding Paganel’s agitation.

“Yes, Europe! Who owns Europe?”

“Europe belongs to the English,” said Toliné, with conviction.

“I suspected it,” said Paganel. “But how? That’s what I want to know.”

“England, Ireland, Scotland, Malta, Jersey and Guernsey, the Ionian Islands, the Hebrides, the Shetlands, and the Orkneys—”

“Yes, yes, Toliné; but there are other states you forgot to mention.”

“What are they?” asked the child, not the least disconcerted.

“Spain, Russia, Austria, Prussia, France…” said Paganel.

“Those are provinces, not states,” said Toliné.

“For example?” exclaimed Paganel, tearing off his spectacles.

“Without a doubt, Spain, capital: Gibraltar.”

“Admirable! Perfect! Sublime! And France, for I am French, and I should like to know to whom I belong.”

“France,” said Toliné, quietly, “is an English province with the chief town of Calais.”

“Calais!” cried Paganel. “How? Do you think Calais still belongs to the English?”

“Without a doubt.”

“And that it is the capital of France.”

“Yes, sir; and that is where the Governor, Lord Napoleon, resides.”

At these last words Paganel collapsed in laughter. Toliné did not know what to think. He had been questioned, he had answered as best he could. But the singularity of his answers could not be attributed to him. He never imagined anything singular about them. But he did not seem disconcerted, and gravely waited the end of Paganel’s incomprehensible antics.

Major MacNabbs was laughing at Paganel. “You see. I was right. The pupil could enlighten you after all.”

“Most assuredly, Major,” said the geographer. “So that’s the way they teach geography in Melbourne! They do it well, these professors in the Normal School! Europe, Asia, Africa, America, Oceania, the whole world belongs to the English. Parbleu, with such an ingenious education it is no wonder the natives submit. Ah, well, Toliné, my boy, does the moon belong to England too?”

“It will, some day,” replied the young savage, gravely.

With that, Paganel got up. He could not sit still. He had to laugh at his ease, and he went to regain his equilibrium a quarter of a mile away from the camp.

Meanwhile, Glenarvan got out a geography text they had brought among their books. It was Samuel Richardson’s Geographical Précis, an esteemed work in England, and more knowledgeable of the science than the Melbourne teachers.

“Here, my child,” he said to Toliné. “Take this book and keep it. You have some misconceptions in geography that it is good to reform. I give it to you in memory of our meeting.”

Toliné took the book silently; but, after examining it attentively, he shook his head in disbelief, without deciding to put it in his pocket.

By this time night had closed in. It was ten o’clock in the evening, and time to think of rest if they were to start early in the morning. Robert offered his friend Toliné half his bunk, and the little fellow accepted it.

Lady Helena and Mary Grant withdrew to the wagon, and the others lay down in the tent, while Paganel’s laughter mingling with the low song of the magpies.

But at six o’clock in the morning, when the sunshine wakened the sleepers, they looked in vain for the little Australian. Toliné had disappeared. Did he want to reach the Lachlan district without delay? Was he hurt by Paganel’s laughter? No one could say.

But when Lady Helena awoke she discovered a fresh bouquet of simple green branches lying across her, and Paganel found a book in his jacket pocket: Geographical Précis by Samuel Richardson.

1. 32mo is a small pocket book size, in which one printed sheet of paper is folded five times, into 32 leaf gatherings, which are then trimmed and bound into a book, about ⅔ the size of a mass market paperback: 3½ × 5½ inches, or 9 × 14 centimetres — DAS.

Chapter XII | Index | Chapter XIV

Chapter XIV
The Mines at Mount Alexander

In 1814, Sir Roderick Impey Murchison, now President of the Royal Geographical Society of London, while studying their structures found many remarkable similarities between the Ural Mountains, and the chain which runs from north to south near the southern coast of Australia.

Now the Urals being a gold bearing range, it struck the learned geologist that the precious metal might very likely be found in the Australian cordillera as well. He was not wrong.

Two years later, samples of gold were sent to him from New South Wales, and he sent a large number or miners form Cornwall to the auriferous regions of New Holland.

The first nuggets were discovered in South Australia by Mr. Francis Dutton, and in New South Wales by Messrs. Forbes and Smyth.

From this first impetus, miners flocked to Australia from all parts of the globe — English, American, Italian, French, German, Chinese — but it was not till April 3rd, 1851, that Mr. Hargrave discovered very rich gold deposits, and offered to reveal their location to the Governor of Sydney, Sir Charles FitzRoy, for the modest sum of five hundred pounds.

His offer was not accepted, but the rumour of the discovery had spread, and gold-seekers directed their steps to Summerhill and Leni’s Pond. The town of Ophir was founded, and the richness of the mines soon made it worthy of its biblical name.

Up to this time there had been no mention of gold discoveries in Victoria, but it was about to take first prize for the richness of its deposits.

It was a few months later, in August, 1851, that the first nuggets of gold were dug up in that province, and soon there were large mining operations going on in four different districts: Ballarat, the Ovens, Bendigo, and Mount Alexander. They all had rich deposits, but at the Ovens the abundance of water made mining difficult; at Ballarat, the gold was so unequally distributed that labour was often fruitless, and at Bendigo the soil was very unfavourable for digging mines. It was only at Mount Alexander that every condition for success was found, and the precious ore mined there was worth as much as 1,441 francs a pound.¹ The highest rate in all the markets of the world.

It was to precisely this place, so fertile in fatal ruins and in unexpected fortunes, that the 37th parallel led the searchers for Captain Harry Grant.

On December 31st, after traversing over very rough ground which tired both horses and oxen for the whole day, they saw the rounded peaks of Mount Alexander. They encamped for the night in a narrow gorge of this little chain, and the hobbled animals were set loose to graze among the quartz blocks that strewed the ground. They had not yet entered the gold fields. It was not until next day, the first day of the new year, 1866, that the wagon dug ruts in the roads of this opulent country.

James Paganel and his companions were delighted to see this famous mount, called Geboor in the Australian language. It was here that a horde of adventurers, thieves and honest men — those who hang, and who are hanged — had flocked in droves. At the first rumours of the great discovery, in the golden year of 1851, towns, fields, and ships were abandoned by settlers, squatters, and sailors. The gold fever became an epidemic, as contagious as the plague. How many died of it who thought fortune was already in their grasp? Prodigal nature, it was said, had sown millions in treasure over more than twenty-five degrees of latitude in this wonderful Australia. It was harvest time, and the reapers rushed to the ingathering.

The job of the “digger” took precedence over all the others, and, if it is true that many succumbed to the task, broken by fatigue, others enriched themselves with a single stroke of the pick. The failures were ignored; the successes shouted abroad. Those strokes of fortune were echoed to the five parts of the globe. Soon waves of the ambitious of all castes washed up on the shores of Australia. During the last four months of 1852, in Melbourne alone, there was an influx of 54,000 immigrants: an army, but an army without a leader, or discipline. An army on the day after a battle which has not yet been won; in short, 54,000 pillagers of the worst kind.

During those first years of mad intoxication it was an indescribable mess. However, the English, with their accustomed energy, soon made themselves masters of the situation. The policemen and the local constabulary took the part of the honest people over the party of robbers, and turned matters around. Glenarvan found nothing like the violent scenes of 1852. Thirteen years had elapsed since that time, and now gold mining operations were carried out in the most methodical manner, under strict management.

Besides, the placers² were already running out. Some had been completely mined out. And little wonder that these treasures of nature had been drained, when the soil of Victoria alone had yielded £63,107,478³ sterling in gold between 1852 and 1858! The immigrants had decreased in proportion, and had gone off to countries which were still virgin. The newly discovered gold fields in Otago and Marlborough in New Zealand attracted thousands of two footed termites.⁴

They arrived at the centre of the digging at about eleven o’clock. The travellers found themselves in a regular town, with workshops, bank, church, barracks, cottages, newspaper offices, hotels, farms, and villas. Nothing was wanting. There was even a theatre which was selling out at ten shillings a seat. They were playing a piece called Francis Obadiah, or the Lucky Digger. The hero, in the closing act, makes one last despairing stroke with his pick, and turns up a nugget of the most improbable weight.

Paganel, as usual, made himself the guide of the party

Glenarvan, who was curious to visit the vast operation of Mount Alexander, sent the wagon on under the direction of Ayrton and Mulrady, intending to rejoin them a few hours later. Paganel was delighted with this arrangement, and, as usual, made himself the guide and cicerone of the little party.

Following his advice, they first made their way toward the bank. The streets were wide. macadamized, and carefully watered. Gigantic advertisements of the “Golden Company (Limited),” “The Digger’s General Office,” and “The Nugget’s Union,” drew their gaze. The association of labour and capital had replaced the independent operations of the miner. Machines crushing quartz and washing sand could be heard everywhere.

Beyond the buildings were the placers — large tracts of land being worked by the diggers — highly paid workers in the employ of the mining company. It was impossible to count the holes in the ground. The iron of their picks and spades shone in the sunlight, and flashed like lightning as stroke after stroke fell. There were men from all nations among the workers. They did not quarrel, and performed their tasks silently, as salaried people.

“You must not think, however,” said Paganel, “that there are no longer any of those feverish seekers who come to make their fortune in the game of mines on Australian soil. I know most of the diggers are hired by the companies, and they must be, as the gold fields are either sold or leased by the government. But there is one chance of getting rich still left, even if a man can neither rent nor buy.”

“What is that?” asked Lady Helena.

“The chance of ‘jumping,’” replied Paganel; “so you see we who have not the least claim here, may, perhaps, by a great deal of good luck, make our fortunes.”

“But how?” asked the Major.

“By ‘jumping’ as I have just had the honour of telling you.”

“What is ‘jumping?’” inquired MacNabbs again.

“It is a convention accepted between the miners, which often brings violence and disorder, but which the authorities could never abolish.”

“Go on, Paganel,” said MacNabbs, “you are making our mouths water.”

“Well, it is agreed that any claim which has not been worked for twenty-four hours, except on great festivals, falls into the public domain. Anyone who seizes it can dig it, and get rich, if Heaven comes to his aid. So Robert, my boy, you had best look about for one of these deserted holes, and take possession of it.”

“Monsieur Paganel,” said Mary, “don’t put such ideas into my brother’s head.”

“I am only joking, my dear Miss Mary,” said Paganel, “and Robert knows that well enough. Him a miner? Never! To dig the earth, plough it, and cultivate it, and sow seed and expect a plentiful harvest in return, is a good life; but to burrow below like moles, and about as blind, for the sake of a handful of gold, is a pitiful calling, and one must be forsaken of God and man to follow it!”

After visiting the main mine site and walking through a shipping ground, consisting largely of quartz, shale, and sand from the disintegration of the rocks, travellers arrived at the bank.

It was large building, with the Union Flag at the peak of its roof. Lord Glenarvan was received by the inspector-general, who did the honours of his establishment.

This is where the mining companies deposit gold torn from the bowels of the earth in exchange for a receipt. In the early days, the miners were exploited by the merchants of the colony. They would pay fifty-three shillings an ounce for the gold at the placer, and sell it in Melbourne for sixty-five. True, the merchants had all the risk of transporting the gold, and as highway speculators multiplied, the gold and its escort did not always arrive at its destination.

Curious specimens of gold were exhibited

Curious specimens of gold were shown to the visitors, and the inspector told them interesting details about the different methods of extracting the ore.

The precious metal is generally found in two forms: as nuggets, or finely divided residual gold. It is found as ore mixed with alluvial soil, or enclosed in its gangue of quartz. To extract it one proceeds — according to the nature of the ground — by surface, or deep excavation.

Gold nuggets are found in river beds, valleys, and ravines, sorted according to size: first the grains, then the flakes, and finally the glitter.

On the other hand, the residual gold, whose gangue has been decomposed by the action of the wind, is concentrated in patches, lying in little piles that miners call pockets. Some of these pockets contain a fortune.

At Mount Alexander, the gold collects especially in the clay layers and in the interstices of the slate rock. There are nests of nuggets where a lucky miner can lay his hands on a jackpot.

After the different specimens of ore had been inspected by the visitors, they went through the Mineralogical Museum of the bank. There they saw, classified and labelled, all the substances which compose the Australian soil. Gold is not its only treasure, for, in sober truth, the country may be called an immense treasure chest of nature, in which she has stored all her jewels. Precious and semi-precious stones sparkled in glass cases: white topaz, rivalling Brazilian topaz; almandine garnets; epidote, a beautiful green silicate crystal; rubies, represented by scarlet spinels and by a rose-coloured variety of the greatest beauty; light and dark blue sapphires, a type of corundum, and as highly esteemed as those of Malabar and Tibet; brilliant rutiles; and finally, a small diamond crystal, which was found on the banks of the Turon. Nothing was missing from this resplendent collection of gemstones, and gold for the settings was close at hand. One could hardly wish for more, unless to have found them already mounted.

Glenarvan took leave of the bank inspector with many thanks for his courtesy, which he had used extensively. The tour of the placers was resumed.

Every minute he picked up a pebble…which he examined carefully

Paganel, as detached as he was from the goods of this world, could not take a step without examining the soil. His curiosity was getting the better of him, and his companions joked with him about it. Every minute he stooped down to pick up a pebble, a piece of gangue, or fragment of quartz, which he examined carefully, and then threw away in disdain. He went on this way during the whole walk.

“Ah, Paganel?” asked the Major. “Have you lost something?”

“No doubt,” said Paganel. “We have always lost what we have not found in this country of gold and precious stones. I can’t say why, but I should like to pick up a nugget weighing a few ounces, or even twenty pounds or more.”

“What would you do with it, my good friend?” asked Glenarvan.

“Oh, I shouldn’t be troubled,” said Paganel. “I would pay tribute to my country. I would deposit it in the Banque de France.”

“Would they accept it?”

“Most certainly, in the form of railway bonds!”

They congratulated Paganel on how he intended to present his nugget to his country. Lady Helena heartily wished he might pick up the largest nugget in the world. They continued to joke with one another as they moved through the diggings. Everywhere the work was being done regularly, mechanically, and without excitement.

After a two hour walk, Paganel pointed out a decent looking inn, and proposed they should stop there and rest until it was time to rejoin the wagon. Lady Helena consented, and as it didn’t do to sit in an inn without taking refreshments, Paganel asked the innkeeper to serve them some Australian beverage.

A “nobbler” was brought for each person. The nobbler is more or less a grog, but made in reverse. Instead of a small glass of brandy being put into a large glass of water, a small glass of water was put into a large glass of brandy, with sugar. This was rather too Australian, and, to the great astonishment of the innkeeper, the nobbler was transformed into a true British grog, by the addition of a large caraffe of water.

They talked of the miners and mining. Paganel, very satisfied with what he had just seen, admitted, however, that it would have been more interesting in the first years of operation at Mount Alexander.

“The ground then,” he said, “was riddled with holes, completely overrun with legions of hard working ants, and what ants! All the immigrants were eager enough, but some had little foresight. The gold drove them to mad excesses. They drank it, they gambled it, and this inn where we are now was a ‘hell,’ in the digger’s slang. Throws of the dice led to thrusts of knives. The police were powerless, and often the governor of the colony had to call out the regular troops to put down revolts among the miners. He managed to impose order, eventually, and made each digger pay a licence, though he had some difficulty in enforcing this; yet on the whole the disorders here were smaller than in California.”

“Can anyone become a miner?” asked Lady Helena.

“Yes, Madame, you do not need a bachelor’s degree for that. Two good arms are enough. Most of the adventurers, driven from their home lands by misery, came without a penny in their pockets. The rich might have a pickaxe, or the poor, a knife. And they all brought a madness to this labour which no honest calling could have inspired.

“These gold fields presented a strange spectacle. The ground was covered with tents, tarpaulins, huts, and barracks of mud, planks, and branches. In the centre was the Marquee of the Government, with the British flag waving over it, the blue canvas tents of its agents, and the offices of the money changers, gold-buyers, and traders, who speculated on this combination of wealth and poverty. They enriched themselves, for sure.

“You should have seen the diggers, with their long beards and red woollen shirts, living in water and mud. The air was filled with the continuous noise of the pickaxes, and foul smells rising from the carcases of animals left to rot on the ground. A stifling cloud of dust covered the whole scene. The mortality rate among these unfortunate people was frightfully high, and in a less healthy climate the population would have been decimated by typhus. It would have been bad enough if all the adventurers had succeeded, but so many had no compensation for their misery. It has been estimated that for every miner who became rich, a hundred, two hundred, perhaps even a thousand, died in poverty and despair.”

“Could you tell us, Paganel, how was the gold mined?” asked Glenarvan.

“Nothing was easier,” replied Paganel. “The first miners practiced their trade as it is still done in parts of the Cevennes in France. Today the companies proceed differently. They go back to the source, itself, to the vein which produces the glitter, flakes, and nuggets. But the first miners contented themselves with washing the gold sands, that was all. They scooped out the earth, and collected that which seemed to promise gold, and used water to separate the precious particles. The washing was done by means of a machine called a ‘cradle,’ an American invention. It is a box five or six feet long, divided into two compartments. The first contains a coarse sieve laid over finer sieves. The second contained a sluice. They put the sand into the upper sieve, and pour water on it, moving it about by hand, rocking the instrument. The larger stones remained in the first sieve, the ore and the light sand in the others, according to their fineness. The earth ran off with the water through the sluice, over a series of baffles and riffles in which the gold particles collected.”

“But you still had to have one,” said John Mangles.

“It could be bought from diggers who had made their fortunes or been ruined, as the case may be. Or they could manage without it, in a pinch.”

“How?” asked Mary Grant.

“They used a pan instead, a plain iron pan, my dear Mary, and winnowed the earth like corn, only instead of grains of wheat, they sometimes found grains of gold. The first year, many a miner became rich in this simple way. Those were good times, my friends, though you’d pay 150 francs for a pair of boots, and you paid ten shillings for a glass of lemonade. The first comers always get the first pick of things. Gold was everywhere, in abundance, just lying about on the ground. Streams ran over beds of the precious metal; it was even found in the Melbourne streets: there was gold dust in the macadam. Between January 26th and February 24th, of 1852, the amount of the precious metal conveyed from Mount Alexander to Melbourne by the Government escort rose to 8,238,750 francs. That makes an average of 164,725 francs a day.⁵

“About as much as the civil list of the Emperor of Russia,” said Glenarvan.

“Poor man!” said the Major.

“Were there any sudden strokes of fortune?” asked Lady Helena.

“Some, Madame.”

“And you know them?” asked Glenarvan.

“Parbleu!” said Paganel. “In 1852, in the district of Ballarat, a nugget was found weighing 573 ounces; another, in Gippsland, that weighed 782 ounces; and in 1861, a ingot of 834 ounces was found. At Ballarat, again, a miner discovered a nugget that weighed 65 kilograms, which, at 1,722 francs a pound made 246,000 francs.⁶ A stroke of the pick which brings in 11,000 francs a year, is a good stroke indeed.”

“How much has the production of gold increased since the discovery of the mines?” asked John Mangles.

“Enormously, my dear John. At the beginning of the century there was only forty-seven million, annually, and now, including the product of the mines of Europe, Asia, and America, it is estimated at nine hundred million. Call it a billion.”

“So, Monsieur Paganel,” said young Robert. “Where we are now, under our feet, perhaps, there is a lot of gold.”

“Yes, my boy, millions! We walk on it. We look down on it. I suppose you could say we despise it.”

“This Australia is quite a privileged country, isn’t it?”

“No, Robert,” replied the geographer; “The countries with gold are by no means privileged. They breed only sluggish populations, never strong and laborious. Look at Brazil, Mexico, California, and this Australia. Where are they in this nineteenth century? The country par excellence, my boy, is not the land of gold. It is the land of iron!”⁷

1. 1,441 francs = $288 = £57 12s — DAS

2. Deposits of sand or gravel in the bed of a river or lake, containing particles of valuable minerals. — DAS

3. 1,577,686,950 francs. A billion and a half. ($315,537,390 — DAS)

4. However, it is possible that the emigrants were mistaken. The gold deposits are not exhausted. According to the latest news from Australia, it is estimated that the placers of Victoria and New South Wales occupy five million hectares; the approximate weight of quartz containing gold veins would be 20,550,000 kilograms, and, with the present means of exploitation, it would take the work of a hundred thousand men three centuries to deplete these placers. In sum, the gold wealth of Australia is estimated at 664,250,000,000 francs. (= $133,000,000,000 = £26,600,000,000 — DAS)

5. 8,238,750 francs = $1,647,750 = £329,550
164,725 francs = $32,945 = £6,589 — DAS.

6. 65kg = 143lb
246,000 francs = $49,200 = £9,840

7. So, I guess Australia is a privileged country, after all. It is currently one of the world’s leading producers of iron ore. (Its iron ore production is currently worth about five times as much as its gold production.)

Chapter XIII | Index | Chapter XV

Chapter XV
The Australian and New Zealand Gazette

On January 2nd, at sunrise, the travellers left the gold regions and Talbot County behind them. The hooves of their horses trod the dusty trails of Dalhousie County. A few hours later they forded the Colban and the Caupaspe rivers at 144° 35′ and 144° 45′ of longitude. Half of their journey was now done. In another fortnight, if all continued to go well, the little troop would reach the shores of Twofold Bay.

They were all in good health. Paganel’s promises of the hygienic qualities of the climate were realized. There was little or no humidity, and the heat was quite bearable. Neither horses nor oxen could complain of it. Nor could the people.

The order of the march had been changed in one respect since Camden Bridge. The criminal catastrophe at the railway made Ayrton take some precautions which had previously been thought unnecessary. The hunters never lost sight of the wagon, and whenever they camped, someone was always placed on watch. Morning and evening the firearms were primed afresh. It was certain that a band of criminals was prowling about the country, and though there was no cause for immediate fear, it was good to be ready for whatever might happen.

Needless to say, these precautions were taken without the knowledge of Lady Helena and Mary Grant, as Lord Glenarvan did not wish to alarm them.

These were sensible precautions. Imprudence or even negligence could be costly. Glenarvan was also not alone in worrying about the state of things. In isolated villages and stations, the inhabitants and the squatters prepared carefully against any attack or surprise. Houses were closed at nightfall. Dogs, let loose inside the fences, barked at the slightest approach. Shepherds on horseback gathering their numerous flocks together at nightfall did so with rifles slung from their saddles. The news of the crime committed at Camden Bridge motivated this excess of precaution, and many a colonist, who until then had been sleeping with open doors and windows, locked himself in with care at dusk.

The administration of the province displayed zeal and caution. Detachments of local police were sent to the countryside. The movement of the mail was especially assured. Previously, the mail coaches ran the highways without escort. On this day, as Glenarvan and his troop were crossing the road from Kilmore to Heathcoate, the mail dashed by, the speed of its horses, raising a whirlwind of dust. But as quickly as it had dashed by, Glenarvan caught sight of the rifles of the policemen gleaming at its doors. One might have fancied themselves back in those lawless times when the discovery of the first gold fields deluged the Australian continent with the scum of Europe.

One mile after crossing the Kilmore road, the wagon sank under a mass of giant trees, and for the first time since Cape Bernouilli, the travellers entered one of those forests which cover vast swathes of Australia.

A cry of admiration escaped the travellers at the sight of two hundred foot tall eucalyptus trees, whose fungous bark was up to five inches thick. The trunks, twenty feet in circumference, and furrowed by the dribble of an odorous resin, rose one hundred and fifty feet above the ground. Not a branch, not a twig, not a stray shoot, not even a knot, altered their profile. They could not have come out smoother had they been turned on a lathe. There were hundreds of exactly matched columns. They bloomed at an enormous height in capitals of forking branches, garnished at their extremities with alternating leaves. At the axils of these leaves hung solitary flowers whose calyx was an inverted urn.

Horses, oxen, and wagon could easily pass between these widely spaced and arranged trees

The air circulated freely under this evergreen ceiling. Incessant ventilation drank the moisture from the soil. Horses, oxen, and wagon could easily pass between these widely spaced trees, arranged like the pickets of a managed coppice. This was neither like a densely-packed wood choked up with brambles, nor a virgin forest barricaded with the trunks of fallen trees, and overgrown with inextricable tangles of creepers, where only iron and fire could open up a track for the pioneers. A grassy carpet at the foot of the trees and a sheet of greenery at their summit, bounded long perspectives of bold pillars. There was little shade; a peculiar light, as if the rays came through a thin veil, dappled the ground with sharply reflected lights and darks, created a peculiar spectacle rich in novel effects. The forests of the Oceanic continent do not in the least resemble the forests of the New World, and the eucalyptus, the Tara of the aborigines, belonging to the family of Myrtaceae, the different varieties of which can hardly be enumerated, is the tree par excellence of Australian flora.

That the shade is not deep, nor the darkness profound, under these green domes, was the result of a curious anomaly in the arrangement of the trees' leaves. They do not offer their broad faces to the sunlight, only their sharp edges. The eye only sees profiles in this singular foliage. So the sun’s rays slant through them to the ground, as if through the open slats of a shutter.

Everyone was surprised at this circumstance, and wondered what could be the cause of it. The question was naturally put to Paganel, who was never at a loss for an answer.

“What astonishes me here is not the oddness of nature,” he said. “Nature knows what she is about, but botanists don’t always know what she is saying. Nature made no mistake in giving this peculiar foliage to the trees, but men have erred in calling them ‘eucalyptus.’”

“What does the word mean?” asked Mary Grant.

“It comes from εύ καλύπτω meaning ‘I cover well.’ We took care to commit the mistake in Greek, that it might not be so self-evident, for anyone can see that the eucalyptus covers badly.”¹

“Granted, my dear Paganel,” said Glenarvan. “But now tell us why the leaves are growing like this?”

“For a purely physical reason, my friends,” said Paganel, “and one that you will easily understand. In this land, where the air is dry, the rains are rare, and the ground is parched, the trees lack neither wind nor sun. Moisture is lacking, so sap is lacking too. Hence these narrow leaves, which seek to defend themselves against the light, and to preserve themselves from too much evaporation. This is why they present their profile and not their face to the sun’s rays. There is nothing more intelligent than a leaf.”

“And nothing more selfish,” said the Major. “They think only of themselves, and not at all of travellers.”

Everyone was inclined agree with MacNabbs, except Paganel, who, while wiping his brow, congratulated himself on walking under shadeless trees. This disposition of foliage was regrettable, however. The journey through these forests was often long and difficult, since nothing protected the traveller against the heat of the day.

The wagon continued to roll along through interminable rows of eucalyptus all day. They met neither quadruped nor native. A few cockatoos lived in the tops of the trees, but at such a height they could scarcely be distinguished, and their babble was reduced to an imperceptible murmur. Sometimes a flock of parakeets flew along a distant alley, and animated it for an instant with bright colours, but otherwise, solemn silence reigned in this vast green temple. The footsteps of the horses, a few words exchanged with each other by the riders, the squeaking of the wheels, and from time to time a cry from Ayrton to stir up his lazy team, were the only sounds which disturbed this immense solitude.

They camped at the foot of some eucalyptus

When night came they camped at the foot of some eucalyptus which bore the marks of a fairly recent fire. They looked like tall factory chimneys, for the flame had completely hollowed out their central cores. With the thick bark still covering them, they looked none the worse. However, this bad habit of squatters or natives will eventually destroy these magnificent trees, and they will disappear like the cedars of Lebanon. Four century old trees, that were burned for the sake of a camp fire.

Olbinett, acting on Paganel’s advice, lit his fire to prepare supper in one of these tubular trunks. He immediately obtained a considerable draft, and the smoke was lost in the dark foliage above. The requisite precautions were taken for the night, with Ayrton, Mulrady, Wilson, and John Mangles keeping watch in turns, until sunrise.

The endless forest multiplied its long symmetrical avenues throughout the day of January 3rd. It seemed as if it was never going to end. But the ranks of trees began to thin toward evening, and a few miles away, in a small plain, a group of regular houses appeared.

“Seymour!” said Paganel. “This is the last town we come to in the province of Victoria.”

“Is it important?” asked Lady Helena.

“Madame, it is a simple parish,” said Paganel. “It is on its way to becoming a municipality.”

“Will we find a suitable hotel?” asked Glenarvan.

“I hope so,” said Paganel.

“Well, let’s go into town, for our valiant ladies will not be sorry, I fancy, to have a good night’s rest.”

“My dear Edward, Mary and I agree, but only on the condition that it will not cause any inconvenience or delay.”

“Not at all,” replied Lord Glenarvan. “Our oxen are tired. Besides, we will start tomorrow at daybreak.”

It was nine o’clock; the moon was setting, and its oblique rays were drowned in the mist. It was gradually growing dark when the whole troop entered the wide streets of Seymour under the guidance of Paganel, who always seemed to know what he had never seen. But his instinct guided him well, and he walked straight to Campbell’s North British Hotel.

Horses and oxen were taken to the stable, the wagon parked, and the passengers conducted to comfortable rooms. At ten o’clock the guests were seated at a table, on which Olbinett threw the glance of a master. Paganel came in from rambling about the town with Robert, and recounted his nocturnal impression in a very laconic manner. He had not seen anything.

And yet a less distracted man would have noticed a strange stir in the streets of Seymour. Groups were forming here and there, which constantly grew larger. People were standing about the doors of their houses talking something over with grave, anxious faces. Newspapers were being read aloud, commented upon, and discussed. These symptoms could not have escaped the least attentive observer; but Paganel noticed nothing.

The Major, without going so far as even leaving the hotel, was soon aware of the fears which preoccupied the little town. Ten minutes of conversation with Dickson, the loquacious landlord, made him completely acquainted with the actual state of affairs.

But he did not say a word. Only when supper was over, and Lady Glenarvan, Mary, and Robert Grant had retired to their rooms, did the Major detain his companions a little, and said “The perpetrators of the crime on the Sandhurst Railway are known.”

“And are they arrested?” asked Ayrton quickly.

“No,” replied MacNabbs, without apparently noticing the eagerness of the quartermaster — a very justified eagerness, under the circumstances.

“Too bad,” said Ayrton.

“Well,” said Glenarvan. “Who are the authors of the crime?”

“Read.” The Major offered Glenarvan a copy of the Australian and New Zealand Gazette, “And you will see that the police inspector was not mistaken.”

Glenarvan read aloud the following passage:

Sydney, January 2, 1866.

It will be remembered that, on the night of the 29th of last December, there was an accident at Camden Bridge, five miles beyond the station at Castlemaine, on the railway from Melbourne to Sandhurst. The 11:45 night express, running along at full speed, was precipitated into the Loddon River.

Camden Bridge had been left open.

The numerous robberies committed after the accident, and the corpse of the guard found half a mile from Camden Bridge, proved that this catastrophe was the result of a crime.

The conclusion of the coroner’s inquest is that this crime must be attributed to the band of convicts which escaped six months ago from the Penitentiary at Perth, Western Australia, just as they were about to be transferred to Norfolk Island.²

These convicts number twenty-nine; they are commanded by a certain Ben Joyce, a criminal of the most dangerous class, who has been in Australia for a few months, we do not know by what ship, and who has hitherto succeeded in evading the hands of justice.

The inhabitants of towns, colonists, and squatters at stations, are hereby cautioned to be on their guard, and to communicate to the Surveyor General any information that may aid his search.

J. P. Mitchell, S.G.

When Glenarvan had finished reading this article, MacNabbs turned to the geographer, and said “You see, Paganel, there may be convicts in Australia.”

“Escapees, that is evident,” said Paganel. “But not regularly transported criminals. These people do not have the right to be here.”

“Well, they are here, at any rate,” said Glenarvan. “But I do not suppose that their presence can change our plans and stop our journey. What do you think, John?”

John Mangles did not reply immediately; he hesitated between the pain it would cause the two children to abandon the search, and the fear of compromising the expedition.

“If Lady Glenarvan and Miss Grant were not with us,” he said, “I would care very little about these wretches.”

Glenarvan understood this, and added “It goes without saying that it is not a question of giving up our task; but perhaps it would be prudent, for the sake of our companions, to rejoin the Duncan at Melbourne, and proceed with our search for traces of Harry Grant on the eastern coast. What do you think, MacNabbs?”

“Before giving my opinion,” said the Major, “I should like to know Ayrton’s.”

At this direct appeal, the quartermaster turned to Glenarvan. “I think we are a hundred miles³ from Melbourne, and that the danger, if it exists, is as great on the southern road as on the eastern road. Both are little frequented, whichever one we take. Besides, I do not think that thirty criminals can frighten eight well-armed, and resolute men. So barring better advice, I would go forward.”

“Well spoken, Ayrton,” said Paganel. “By continuing we may also come across the traces of Captain Grant. In turning south, we turn our backs to them. So I think as you do, and these escapees from Perth are of no account to men of good heart!”

With this, the proposal to change nothing in the program of the trip was put to the vote and passed unanimously.

“Just one thing, My Lord,” said Ayrton, when they were about to separate.

“Yes, Ayrton.”

“Wouldn’t it be advisable to send orders to the Duncan to meet us at the coast?”

“What’s the point?” said John Mangles. “There will be time enough to send for her when we reach Twofold Bay. If any unexpected event should oblige us to go to Melbourne, we might be sorry not to find the Duncan there. Besides, she cannot be repaired yet. Therefore, I think it would be better to wait.”

“All right,” said Ayrton, and didn’t press the issue.

Next day the little troop, armed and ready for whatever might happen, left Seymour. Half an hour later, they returned to the eucalyptus forest which reappeared to the east. Glenarvan would have preferred travelling in open country. A plain is less conducive for ambushes and snares than a thick wood. But they had no choice, and the wagon wended its way through the big monotonous trees all day long. In the evening, after having crossed the northern frontier of Anglesey County, they crossed the 146th meridian, and camped on the borders of the Murray district.

1. The eucalyptus Greek name describes its operculum, or cap, that covers its flowers, not the shade of its leaves — DAS

2. Norfolk Island is an island east of Australia, where the government holds recidivist and incorrigible convicts. They are subject to special supervision.

Norfolk Island ceased being used as a penal colony in 1856, 10 years before the events of this story. — DAS

3. Verne has Ayrton say that they are two hundred miles from Melbourne. The actual straight line distance is about sixty miles. Even taking a very round about route, such as backtracking to Castlemaine, and then taking the railway to Melbourne, wouldn't add up to much more than one hundred miles, and most of that could be done sitting on a train.

Chapter XIV | Index | Chapter XVI

Chapter XVI
Where the Major Says That They Are Monkeys

Translator’s Note:

This chapter started out pretty well, describing the genocide of the Australian Aborigines (and other indigenous peoples in other parts of the British Empire) in pretty stark language.

And then we meet some actual Aborigines, and things go rapidly down hill. I am sorely tempted to give this chapter a major rewrite, but for now, this is what it is.

I am going to be heavily annotating this chapter, and most of my annotations are not going to be relegated to the footnotes.

— DAS

The next day, January 5th, the travellers set foot in the vast territory of the Murray. This vague, uninhabited district extends as far as the lofty barriers of the Australian Alps. Civilization has not yet cut it into separate counties. It is a little known and little frequented portion of the province. Its forests will one day fall under the bushman’s axe; its prairies will be given over to the squatter’s sheep; but thus far it is virgin soil, deserted as it was the day it rose from the Indian Ocean.

These lands bear a significant name on the English maps, “Reserve for the blacks.” It is here that the natives have been brutally driven by the colonists. In the inaccessible bush of these distant plains there are marked out fixed places where the aboriginal race will gradually be extinguished. Any white man — colonist, immigrant, squatter, or bushman — may cross the limits of these reserves with impunity. The unescorted black man must never leave them.

Paganel descanted on the grave concerns of indigenous races, as he rode along. There was only one opinion in this respect, namely, that the British system led to the annihilation of conquered peoples, and their erasure from the regions in which their ancestors had lived. This fatal tendency is manifest everywhere, and in Australia more strikingly than elsewhere.

In the early days of the colony the deportees and the settlers considered the blacks to be wild animals. They hunted and shot them with rifles; they massacred them, and sought legal opinion to prove that the Australian black was outside of natural law: that the murder of these wretches was not a crime. The Sydney newspapers even proposed an expeditious way of getting rid of the Hunter Lake tribes: poison them en masse.

The English, at the beginning of their conquest, employed murder as an aid to colonization. Their cruel atrocities were numerous. They behaved in Australia as they had in India, where five million Indians have disappeared, and as they did in the Cape, where a population of one million Hottentots fell to a hundred thousand. The aboriginal population, decimated by mistreatment and drunkenness, is gradually disappearing from the continent before a homicidal civilization. Some governors, it is true, have issued decrees against the bloodthirsty bushmen. A few white men who cut off a black man’s nose and ears, or his little finger “to make a pipe cleaner,” were punished with a few lashes. This was a vain threat. Murder was organized on a vast scale, and whole tribes disappeared. In Tasmania alone, which had fifteen thousand¹ natives at the beginning of the century, the native population was reduced to seven by 1863; and recently the Mercury announced the arrival of the last of the Tasmanians at Hobart.

Neither Glenarvan, the Major, nor John Mangles contradicted Paganel. Even if they had been English, they would not have defended their compatriots. The facts were self evident and indisputable.

“Fifty years ago,” said Paganel, “we would have already met many tribes of natives on our road, and up till now not a single native has come in sight. In a century this continent will be entirely depopulated of its black race.”

In fact, the reserve appeared absolutely deserted — not a trace of camps or huts. Plains and woods succeeded one another, and gradually the country became wilder. It really seemed as if not a living thing, man or beast, frequented these distant regions, when Robert stopped suddenly before a clump of eucalyptus trees.

“A monkey! There’s a monkey!” He pointed to a big black body slipping from branch to branch with surprising agility, and passing from one tree to another as if some wings supported it in the air. In this strange country did monkeys fly like the foxes to which nature has given bats’ wings?

The wagon had stopped, and everybody’s gaze was fixed on this animal, which was gradually lost in the foliage at the top of the eucalyptus trees. Soon they saw him come down again with the rapidity of lightning, run along the ground with a thousand contortions and leaps, and then catch hold of the smooth trunk of an enormous gum tree with his long arms. They could not understand how he could get up the upright, smooth tree, when there was nothing to catch hold of; but the monkey, striking the trunk alternately with a sort of hatchet, made little notches, and by these supports at regular intervals reached the fork of the gum tree. In a few seconds he disappeared in the thick foliage.

“Well, I never!” cried the Major. “Whatever sort of monkey is that?”

“That monkey,” said Paganel, “is an Australian purebred.”

The geographer’s companions had not yet had time to shrug their shoulders, when peculiar cries were heard at a little distance, something like “Coo-eeh! Coo-eeh!” Ayrton goaded on his oxen, and about a hundred paces further on the travellers came suddenly on a camp of natives.

They were about thirty in number

What a sad spectacle! About ten tents were pitched on the bare ground. These “gunyos,” made with strips of bark staggered like tiles, only protect their wretched occupants on one side. These poor creatures were so degraded by misery as to be repulsive. They were about thirty men, women, and children dressed in kangaroo skins, shredded like rags. Their first impulse at the approach of the wagon was to fee, but a few words spoken in an unintelligible patois by Ayrton, appeared to reassure them. They came back with a mixture of confidence and fearfulness, like animals attracted by some tempting bait.

These natives were from five feet four to five feet seven in height, with dusky skins, not black, but the colour of old soot; woolly hair, long arms, distended abdomen, and hairy bodies, seamed by tattoo scars or incisions made in funeral ceremonies. Nothing was more horrible than their hideous faces, with enormous mouths, broad noses quite flat against the cheeks and projecting lower jaw, armed with white teeth. Never did human beings so closely approach the animal type.

“Robert was not mistaken,” said the Major, “they are monkeys; purebreds, if you like, but still monkeys.”

[Only in the sense that all men are apes, and all apes are monkeys. — DAS]

“MacNabbs,” said Lady Helena, gently, “would you side with those people, then, who hunt them down like wild beasts? The poor beings are men.”

“Men!” exclaimed MacNabbs. “At best they are but intermediate beings between man and the orangutan. If I were to measure their facial angle, I should find it exactly like a monkey’s.”

In this particular MacNabbs was right. The facial angle of an Australian aborigine is very sharp, about sixty or sixty-two degrees, equal to that of an orangutan. It was not without reason that M. de Rienzi’s proposed to class these poor wretches as a race apart, and to call them “pithecomorphs,” that is, men in the form of monkeys.

[Nineteenth century ideas about what the shape of a person’s head said about that person were complete bunkum.

[I’d like to see what MacNabbs would look like, after living in the Australian Outback for year or two. It only took a few months to kill Burke, travelling through areas which supported many bands of Aborigines. If he’d accepted the help the various bands of Aborigines he encountered offered him, he likely would have survived. — DAS]

But Lady Helena was even more right than MacNabbs, in affirming that these soul-endowed beings were human, even if of the lowest sort. Between the brute and the Australian there is an impassable chasm which separates genera. Pascal has justly said that man is not a beast. It is also true that he adds, with not less wisdom, “neither is he an angel.”

[The whole idea of “higher” and “lower” evolutionary forms is nonsense, and the Australians are just as closely related to the other great apes as all other humans. — DAS]

This latter clause of the great thinker’s proposition was certainly not true in the case of Lady Helena and Mary Grant. These two charitable women got out of the wagon, and held out their hands kindly to the poor creatures, offering them food, which the savages devoured with the most disgusting gluttony. They might very naturally have taken Lady Helena for a deity, as according to their belief, the white people were formerly black, and became white after death.

But it was the women especially who excited the pity of the fair travellers. Nothing is comparable to their condition in Australia. Nature has been a cruel stepmother to them, refusing them the slightest charm. An Australian woman is a slave, carried off by brutal violence, her only nuptial present being blows of the “waddie,” a sort of club which is never out of her master’s hand. From that moment she is struck with premature and sudden old age, she and her children are burdened with heavy labour incidental to a wandering life, carrying fishing and hunting gear, and a supply of phormium tenax from which she makes nets, wrapped in a bundle of reeds. She must find the food for her family; she hunts lizards, opossums, and snakes from the tops of the trees. She cuts the wood for the hearth, and strips off bark for the tent; a poor beast of burden, never knowing any rest, and only feeding on such revolting scraps as her master could not eat.

[My research into traditional Aboriginal life gives no indication that women were particularly poorly treated, when compared with women of Paris or London of the time, for example.

[“Waddies” are a multi-purpose tool: a hunting and war club, pestles for grinding food, for making fires, etc. They are made, and carried, by both men and women.]

Some of these unfortunate women, almost starving for food, perhaps, were trying to entice the birds with seeds.

They were seen lying on the scorching ground, motionless as if dead, waiting long hours for some unsuspecting bird to come within their reach. Their trapping technique was no more than this, and certainly only Australian birds would allow themselves to be caught in such a manner.

[Aboriginal culture has strict divisions of labour, with the men responsible for hunting larger game, while the women forage for small game, and vegetables. The women’s hunting efforts generally have a higher success rate than the men’s, and they supply most of the the band’s food. Food preparation is not an exclusively female, or male reserve, though the preparation of certain types of foods is divided between the men and women.]

The friendly advances of the travellers had tamed these savages so much that they all came around the wagon, and it had to be guarded against the native’s marauding instincts. They spoke in a whistling language, made of rhythmic beats, and made sounds resembling the cries of animals; yet their voices sometimes also had soft inflections. One word, “noki, noki,” was repeated constantly, and the gestures which accompanied it made it intelligible enough. It was, “Give me! Give me!” and referred to the most trivial articles belonging to the travellers. Mr. Olbinett had great trouble in defending his own compartment, and especially his stores of provisions. The poor famished wretches looked threateningly at the wagon, and showed their sharp teeth, which might have been exercised on human flesh. Most of the Australian tribes are not cannibals, in peacetime, but there are few savages who would hesitate to devour the flesh of a vanquished enemy.

At Lady Helena’s request, Glenarvan gave orders that some food should be distributed among them. They understood his intention quickly, and gave way to such demonstrations as would have moved the most unsympathizing heart. They roared like wild beasts, when their keeper brings their daily meal. Without conceding that the Major was right, it is impossible to deny that these aborigines border closely on animals.

Mr. Olbinett, like a gallant man, thought it only proper to serve the women first; but these poor creatures did not dare to eat before their formidable masters, who threw themselves on the biscuits and dried meat as on prey.

Mary Grant’s eyes filled with tears at the idea of her father being in the hands of such coarse wretches as these. She imagined what his sufferings must be as a slave to these wandering tribes, prey to misery, hunger, and cruel treatment. John Mangles, who was watching her with great uneasiness, divined the thoughts which filled her heart, and interpreting her wishes, questioned the quartermaster of the Britannia.

“Ayrton, was it from savages like these that you made your escape?”

“Yes, Captain,” said Ayrton. “All the tribes of the interior resemble each other. But what you see here is a mere handful of the poor devils. They are more numerous on the Darling River, and commanded by chiefs with formidable authority.”

“But what can a European do among them?” asked John Mangles.

“What I did myself,” replied Ayrton. “He goes hunting and fishing with them; he takes part in their combats. As I have told you already, he is treated according to the service he can render; and if he is at all a brave, intelligent man, he takes a position of considerable importance in the tribe.”

“But he is a prisoner,” said Mary Grant.

“And watched,” said Ayrton. “He cannot take an unobserved step, day or night.”

“Yet you managed to escape, Ayrton,” said the Major, joining in the conversation.

“Yes, Mr. MacNabbs, because of a fight between my tribe and a neighbouring people. I escaped, and I don’t regret it. But if I had to do it over again, I think I should prefer an eternal slavery to the tortures I experienced in crossing the wilderness of the interior. God keep Captain Grant from attempting such a chance of salvation!”

“Yes, certainly,” said John Mangles. “We must desire, Miss Mary, that your father is still detained by an indigenous tribe. It will be easier for us to trace him than if he were wandering over the forests of the continent.”

“You still hope, then,” said the young girl.

“I always hope, Miss Mary, to see you happy one day, with God’s help.”

Mary could only thank the young captain with her tearful eyes.

While this conversation was going on, a sudden commotion began among the savages. They uttered resounding cries; they ran about in different directions; they seized their weapons and seemed to be seized with a ferocious anger.

Glenarvan was wondering what it could all mean, when the Major asked Ayrton “You lived for a long time among the Australians. Do you understand what these fellows are saying?”

“Not quite,” said the quartermaster. “Each tribe has its own dialect. However, it seems to me that, by way of gratitude, the savages are going to show your Lordship a mock battle.”

He was correct. Without any further preamble, the savages began attacking each other with a perfectly simulated fury, so perfect, in fact, that had they not been warned, the audience would have taken this little war seriously. But explorers tell us that the Australians are excellent mimics, and on this occasion they displayed remarkable talent.

Their weapons of attack and defence consisted of a skull-cracker, a sort of wooden club, that could smash the thickest heads, and a type of tomahawk, with a sharpened stone axe head fixed between two sticks by an adhesive gum, with a ten foot handle. It is a formidable instrument in war and a useful one in peace; equally serviceable in cleaving branches and heads, in cutting bodies or trees, as the case may be.

All these weapons were wielded by frenzied hands

All these weapons were wielded by frenzied hands, amidst vehement shouting. The combatants threw themselves on each other. Some would fall to the ground as if dead, and his opponent would give a yell of triumph over the conquered foe. The women, the old ones principally, possessed by the demon of war, inspired by the battle, flung themselves on the apparent corpses, and seemingly mutilated them with a ferocity which wouldn’t have been more horrible, if it been real. Lady Helena feared that the game would degenerate into a real battle. The children, too, participated with enthusiasm. Little boys, and girls especially, administered superb blows with ferocious delight.

This mock fight went on for ten minutes, when suddenly the combatants stopped. Their weapons dropped from their hands. A profound silence succeeded the noisy tumult. The natives remained fixed in their last positions, like actors in tableaux vivants. They looked petrified.

What had caused this change, and what was the secret of this sudden marble-like immobility? It was soon apparent.

A flock of cockatoos was flying over the tops of the gum trees. They filled the air with their chatter, and resembled, with the brilliant tints of their plumage, a flying rainbow. It was the appearance of this dazzling flock of birds which had interrupted the combat. The mock battle had stopped to allow for a more useful hunt.

One of the savages seized a peculiar, red painted instrument, left his still motionless companions, and went between the trees and bushes toward the flock of cockatoos. He crept along noiselessly, without even rustling a leaf or displacing a pebble; he seemed like a gliding shadow.

When he got within range, he threw his weapon horizontally, about two feet above the ground. It flew in a straight line for about forty feet, and then suddenly, without touching the ground, rose upward at a right angle to the height of a hundred feet, mortally wounding a dozen birds in its flight, and, after describing a parabola, fell again at the hunter’s feet. Glenarvan and his companions were stupefied; they could not believe their eyes.

“It’s a boomerang,” said Ayrton.

“A boomerang!” cried Paganel. “An Australian boomerang!”²

And he was off like a child to pick up the wonderful instrument, and see what was inside.

Certainly anyone would have thought that some interior mechanism, a spring suddenly released, had altered its course; but there was nothing of the kind.

The boomerang was simply a piece of smooth, hard, curved wood, thirty or forty inches long. Its breadth in the middle was about three inches, and the two ends were sharply pointed. Its concave side bent back about sixty degrees, and its convex side had the edges finely bevelled. It was as simple as it was incomprehensible.

“So this is the famous boomerang!” said Paganel, after a careful examination of the strange instrument. “A piece of wood, and nothing more. Why is it, that at a certain moment in its horizontal flight, it suddenly rises in the air, and returns to the hand that threw it? Scholars and explorers have never been able to explain this phenomenon.”

“Is it not from the same cause that makes a hoop thrown in a certain fashion come back to the point of departure?” asked John Mangles.

“Or is it a backspin effect,” asked Glenarvan, “like that of a billiard-ball struck at a certain point?”

“Not at all,” said Paganel. “In both those cases there is a point of support which determines the reaction. There is the ground for the hoop, and the baize for the billiard-ball; but here the fulcrum is missing, the instrument does not touch the ground, and yet it rises to a considerable height.”

“Then how do you explain it, Monsieur Paganel?” asked Lady Helena.

“I have no explanation, Madame, as I have already said. The effect is evidently owing to the method in which the boomerang is thrown, and its peculiar shape, but how to throw it is still a secret known only to the natives of Australia.”

“In any case, it is very ingenious … for monkeys,” added Lady Helena, looking at the Major, who shook his head with the air of a man still unconvinced.

Time was passing on, and Glenarvan felt that they ought not delay any longer. He was about to ask the ladies to resume their places in the wagon when one of the natives came running, and pronounced some words with great excitement.

“Ah,” said Ayrton, “they have caught sight of cassowaries.”

“They’re going to have a hunt?” asked Glenarvan.

“We must see that,” said Paganel. “It will be interesting. Perhaps the boomerang will be used again.”

“What do you say, Ayrton?”

“It won’t take long, My Lord,” said the quartermaster.

The natives hadn’t lost a moment. It is a stroke of good fortune for them to kill a cassowary. It secures food for the tribe for several days, so the hunters employ all their skill in trying to seize such a prize. But how, without guns, do they manage to kill, and without dogs, do they catch such an agile animal? No wonder Paganel wished to see such a novel hunt.

The emu, or uncrested-cassowary, is called mourenk by the aborigines, and is becoming rare on the Australian plains. This large bird, two and a half feet tall, has white flesh, very much like the turkey. Its eyes are light brown, and it has a downward curving black beak; the feet have three toes, armed with powerful claws; the wings, only stumps, are of no use for flight. Its plumage, resembling fur, is darker on the neck and chest. But though it cannot fly, it can run faster than the swiftest horse. They can only be caught by trickery, and and the most singular cunning.

This was why, at the call of the native, about a dozen Australians deployed like a line of skirmishers across a magnificent plain, where indigo grew naturally, and blued the ground with its flowers. The travellers stopped on the edge of a mimosa wood.

At the approach of the natives, half-a-dozen emus rose up and fled, stopping about a mile off. After observing their position, the hunter made a sign to the others to stop. They stretched themselves flat on the ground, while he drew two emus’ skins, very skilfully sewn together, out of his net and put them on. He held his right arm over his head, and his movements were an exact imitation of an emu looking for food.

He made his way gradually toward the birds, occasionally stopping, and pretending to pick up a few seeds, and sometimes kicking up a cloud of dust around him. All his manoeuvres were perfectly executed. Nothing could be a more faithful reproduction of the motions of the emu. Every now and then he gave a deep croak, which deceived the birds themselves. The savage was soon in the midst of his unsuspecting prey. Suddenly he lifted his club, and killed five or six of the emus on the spot.

The hunter had succeeded, and the stalk was over.

Glenarvan and his party took leave of the natives at once, and started onward. The savages displayed no regret at parting. Perhaps the result of the cassowary hunt had made them forget their satisfied hunger. They did not even show the gratitude of the stomach, more lasting than that of the heart, in the uncultivated natures of savages.

Be that as it may, one could not but admire their intelligence and their skill.

“Now, my dear MacNabbs,” said Lady Helena, “you are surely willing to admit that the Australians are not monkeys.”

“Because they faithfully imitate the behaviour of an animal?” said the Major. “On the contrary, that would justify my doctrine!”

“Jesting is no answer,” returned Lady Helena. “I mean to make you give up your opinion, Major.”

“All right. Well, yes, my cousin, or rather, no. The Australians are not monkeys; it is the monkeys that are Australians.”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you know what the negroes say about that interesting race, the orangutans?”

“What do they claim?”

“They declare,” replied the Major, “that the monkeys are blacks like themselves, but more clever. ‘He no speak because he no want to work,’ said a negro of a tame orangutan that his master kept as a pet.”

1. Verne puts the pre-European indigenous population of Tasmania at 500,000, which is about two orders of magnitude too high. The entire pre-European indigenous population of Australia is estimated to be between 315,000 and 750,000 people. Tasmania’s population is estimated to have been between 2,000 and 15,000. They were pretty much extinct by 1866.

2. Boomerangs used for hunting are made to fly straight. Boomerangs that curve in flight are made as toys for recreation. (And now, to sell to tourists.) — DAS

Chapter XV | Index | Chapter XVII

Chapter XVII
Millionaire Breeders

On January 6th, at seven o’clock in the morning, after a tranquil night passed in longitude 146° 15′, the travellers continued their journey across the vast district. They walked steadily toward the rising sun, and their tracks marked a straight path across the plain. Twice they came upon the traces of squatters going north, and their different footprints would have became confused, if not for the double clover Black Point mark Glenarvan’s horse left in the dust.

The plain was sometimes crisscrossed by capricious creeks, surrounded by boxwood, and whose waters only flowed intermittently. They originated on the slopes of the Buffalo Ranges, a chain of mountains of moderate height, whose picturesque line undulated on the horizon.

It was decided to press on to the mountains before camping that evening. Ayrton goaded on his team, and after a journey of thirty-five miles, the somewhat fatigued oxen arrived at the foothills. The tent was pitched beneath tall trees, and supper quickly served as night closed in. There was less thought of eating than of sleeping, after such a march.

Paganel had the first watch

Paganel, who had the first watch, did not lie down, but shouldered his rifle and walked up and down before the camp, to keep himself from going to sleep.

In spite of the absence of the moon, the night was almost luminous under the glare of the southern constellations. The scholar amused himself by reading the great book of the firmament, a book which is always open, and full of interest to those who can understand it. The profound silence of sleeping nature was only interrupted by the clanking of the fetters on the horses’ feet.

Paganel allowed himself to be drawn into his astronomical meditations, and was more occupied with the things of heaven than with things of the earth, when a distant sound drew him from his reverie.

He listened attentively, and to his great astonishment, he thought he heard the sounds of a piano. A few chords, in arpeggiated movements, came to his ears. He could not be wrong.

“A piano in the wilderness!” thought Paganel. “I don't believe it!”

It was very surprising, indeed, and Paganel preferred to believe that some strange Australian bird was imitating the sounds of a Pleyel or Erard, as others imitate the sounds of a clock or mill.

But at this moment, a pure, ringing, voice rose on the air. The pianist was accompanied by a singer. Still Paganel was unwilling to be convinced. But after a few moments he was forced to concede that he was listening to the sublime strains of Mozart’s “II mio tesoro tanto” from Don Juan.

“Parbleu!” thought the geographer. “As strange as the Australian birds are, and even granting that parrots are the most musical birds in the world, they can’t sing Mozart!”

He listened to the end of this sublime inspiration of the master. The effect of this sweet melody on the still clear night was indescribable. Paganel remained spell-bound for a time; then the voice went quiet, and everything returned to silence.

When Wilson came to relieve Paganel on watch, he found the geographer plunged into a deep reverie. Paganel said nothing to the sailor, but reserved his information for Glenarvan in the morning, and went to snuggle into his bed in the tent.

Next day, the whole troop was awakened by unexpected barking. Glenarvan got up immediately. Two magnificent pointers, standing tall, admirable specimens of the English breed, were frolicking on the edge of a little wood. At the approach of the travellers, they retreated into the trees, redoubling their clamour.

“There is a station in this wilderness,” said Glenarvan, “and hunters, since these are hunting dogs.”

Paganel was already opening his mouth to recount his nocturnal experience, when two young men appeared, mounted on two beautiful purebred horses, true “hunters.”

The two gentlemen, dressed in elegant hunting costume, stopped at the sight of the little troop camped in such bohemian manner. They seemed to be wondering what the presence of armed men in this place meant when they saw the ladies get out of the wagon. They dismounted instantly, and went toward them, hat in hand.

Lord Glenarvan came to meet them, and as a stranger, announced his name and rank. The gentlemen bowed.

“My Lord,” said the elder, “will not these ladies, your companions, and yourself, honour us by resting a little beneath our roof?”

“Gentlemen…?” said Glenarvan.

“Michael and Sandy Patterson, proprietors of Hotham Station¹. You are already on our land, and our house is scarcely a quarter of a mile distant.”

“Gentlemen,” said Glenarvan, “I should not like to abuse such graciously offered hospitality.”

“My Lord,” said Michael Patterson, “by accepting it, you will confer a favour on poor exiles, who will be only too happy to do the honours of the station.”

Glenarvan bowed in token of acquiescence.

“Sir,’’ said Paganel, addressing Michael Patterson, “would I be indiscreet in asking if it was you who sang an air from the divine Mozart last night?”

“It was, sir,” replied the stranger, “and my cousin Sandy accompanied me.”

“Well, sir.” Paganel held out his hand to the young man. “Receive the sincere compliments of a Frenchman, who is a passionate admirer of this music.”

Michael grasped his hand cordially, and then indicated the road to follow. The horses were left in the care of Ayrton and the sailors. The two young men guided the party on foot, chatting and admiring, to Hotham Station.

It was truly a magnificent establishment, kept as scrupulously in order as an English park. Immense meadows, enclosed in grey fences, stretched away out of sight. Thousands of oxen and millions of sheep grazed there, tended by numerous shepherds, and still more numerous dogs. The crack of the stockwhip mingled continually with the barking of the dogs and the bellowing and bleating of the cattle and sheep.

Toward the east there was a boundary of myalls and gum trees, behind which rose the majestic peak Mount Hotham, 6,100 feet high. Long avenues of evergreen trees radiated in all directions. Here and there massed thickets of “grass trees,” ten foot tall shrubs, similar to the dwarf palm, crowned with tufts of long narrow leaves. The air was perfumed with the scent of laurel-mints, whose white blossoms, now in full bloom, gave off the finest aromatic scents.

To these charming groups of native trees were added transplants from European climates. There were peach, pear, and apple trees. The travellers were delighted by figs, oranges, and even oaks, and greeted them with loud hurrahs! But astonished as the travellers were to find themselves walking beneath the shadow of the trees of their own country, they were still more so at the sight of the birds that flew about in the branches. The satin bird, with its silky plumage, and the sericulus with their gold and black velvet plumage.

The “menure,” or lyre bird

For the first time, too, they saw here the “menure,” or lyre bird, the tail of which resembles in form the graceful instrument of Orpheus. It flew about among the tree ferns, and when its tail struck the branches, they were almost surprised not to hear the harmonious strains that inspired Amphion to rebuild the walls of Thebes. Paganel had a great desire to play on it.

Lord Glenarvan was not satisfied with admiring the fairy-like wonders of this oasis, improvised in the Australian wilderness. He was listening to the history of the young gentlemen. In England, in the midst of civilized campaigns, the newcomer acquaints his host whence he comes and whither he is going; but here, by a nuance of delicacy, Michael and Sandy Patterson thought it best to make themselves known to the travellers to whom they had offered hospitality. They told their story.

It was that of two young Englishmen, intelligent and industrious, who did not believe that being born wealthy dispensed with the need to work. Michael and Sandy Patterson were the sons of London bankers. At twenty, the head of their family said “Here are some millions, young men. Go to a distant colony, and start some useful settlement there. Learn to know life by labour. If you succeed, so much the better. If you fail, it won’t matter much. We shall not regret the millions that have served to make you men.” The two young men obeyed. They chose the colony of Victoria in Australia as the field for sowing the paternal bank-notes, and had no reason to repent the selection. At the end of three years the station was flourishing.

There are more than three thousand stations in Victoria, New South Wales, and South Australia. Some run by squatters who rear cattle, and others by settlers who cultivate the soil. Until the arrival of the two Pattersons, the largest station of this sort was that of Mr. Jamieson, which covered a hundred square kilometres, and ran for twenty-five kilometres² along the Peroo River, one of the tributaries of the Darling.

Hotham Station was now larger, and more prosperous. The young men were both squatters and settlers. They managed their immense property with rare ability and uncommon energy.

The station was far from the principal towns in the midst of the uncrowded wilds of the Murray. It occupied the area between 146° 48′ and 147°, a long wide space five leagues in extent, lying between the Buffalo Ranges and Mount Hotham. At the two northern angles of this vast quadrilateral stood Mount Aberdeen³ on the left, and the peaks of High Barven on the right. It was well watered by beautiful winding streams, thanks to the creeks and tributaries of the Oven’s River, which flows north into the Murray. They were equally successful in the breeding of cattle, and the cultivation of the land. Ten thousand acres of ground, excellently tilled and planted, mingled native crops with exotic produce, while millions of animals fattened in the fertile pastures. The products of Hotham Station fetched a high price in the markets of Castlemaine and Melbourne.

Michael and Sandy Patterson had just concluded these details of their busy life, when their home came in sight, at the end of an avenue of casuarinas.

It was a charming house, built of wood and brick

It was a charming house, built of wood and brick, hidden in a eucalyptus grove. It was in the elegant form of a chalet, surrounded by a verandah, with Chinese lamps hanging around the walls. Multi-coloured awnings unfolded over the windows, like flowers in bloom. Nothing could be more charming or exquisite, and at the same time nothing more comfortable. On the lawns, and in the clumps of trees round about, were bronze candelabras which supported elegant lanterns. At nightfall the whole of the park was lighted with white gas lights, supplied from a small gasometer, hidden under the cradles of myalls and tree-ferns.

There was nothing that indicated a working station. No sheds, stables, or bunkhouses. All these out-buildings — a veritable village of more than twenty huts and houses — were about a quarter of a mile off, at the bottom of a small valley. Electric telegraph wires connected the village and the masters’ house, which, far removed from all noise, seemed lost in a forest of exotic trees.

They passed along the casuarinas avenue. A small, extremely elegant, iron bridge across a murmuring creek formed the entrance to the private grounds. This was quickly crossed. A steward of high mien came out to meet the travellers, the doors of the house opened, and the hosts of Hotham Station conducted their guests into the sumptuous apartments contained within this envelope of brick and flowers.

All the luxury of artistic and fashionable life was offered to them. The antechamber, decorated with trophies of the turf and the hunt, opened into a large salon with five windows. There was a piano covered with classical and modern music, easels carrying rough canvases, pedestals adorned with marble statues, pictures by Flemish masters on the walls, rich carpets as soft on the feet as thick grass, tapestries brightened with graceful mythological scenes, an antique chandelier suspended from the ceiling, precious porcelain, priceless knick-knacks of perfect taste, a thousand dear and delicate things which were astonishing to see in an Australian house, made a perfect picture of artistic comfort. Everything that could charm the troubles of a voluntary exile, all that could bring back the remembrance of European habits, furnished this fairy salon. One might have thought himself in some castle in France or England.

The five windows let in daylight, softened by the shade of the veranda, and the thin fabric of the awnings. Lady Helena was quite amazed as she went toward them. The view from this side of the house extended over a wide valley, to the feet of the eastern mountains. The succession of meadows and woods, vast clearings, and the graceful outlines of the hills, made a spectacle beyond all description. No other country in the world could compare with it, not even the famous Paradise Valley, in Norway’s Telemark. This vast panorama, with its great patches of light and shade, changed every hour with the caprices of the sun. Imagination could dream of nothing finer, and this enchanting view satisfied all the appetites of the eye.

On an order from Sandy Patterson, the butler of the station improvised a lunch. In less than a quarter of an hour the travellers sat at a sumptuously served table. The quality of the food and wine was indisputable, but what pleased the guests most of all amidst these refinements of opulence, was the joy of the young squatters, happy to offer this splendid hospitality under their roof.

It was not long before they were told the history of the expedition, and took a keen interest in Glenarvan’s search. They also gave hope to the captain’s children.

“Harry Grant,” said Michel, “has obviously fallen into the hands of the natives, since he has not reappeared at any of the settlements on the coast. He knows his position exactly, as the document proves, and the reason he did not reach some English colony is that he must have been taken prisoner by the savages the moment he landed.”

“That is precisely what befell his quartermaster, Ayrton,” said John Mangles.

“But you, gentlemen,” asked Lady Helena, “have you never heard of the Britannia disaster?”

“Never, Madame,” said Michael.

“And what treatment, in your opinion, has Captain Grant met with among the natives?”

“The Australians are not cruel, Madame,” replied the young squatter, “and Miss Grant may be reassured on that score. There are frequent examples of the gentleness of their nature, and some Europeans have lived a long time amongst them without having the least cause to complain of their brutality.”

“King, amongst others, the sole survivor of the Burke expedition,” said Paganel.

“And not only that brave explorer,” said Sandy, “but also an English prisoner named Buckley. He escaped in 1803, on the coast of Port Philip, was collected by the natives, and lived for thirty-three years among them.”

“And more recently,” added Michael, “one of the latest issues of Australasian informs us that a man named Morrill has just been restored to his countrymen after sixteen years of captivity. His story is very similar to the captain’s, for it was at the time of his shipwreck in the Peruvian, in 1846, that he was made prisoner by the natives, and dragged away into the interior of the continent. So, I think you have to keep all hope.”

The young squatter’s words caused great joy to his listeners. They corroborated the opinions already given by Paganel and Ayrton.

The conversation turned to the convicts, after the ladies had left the table. The squatters had heard of the disaster at Camden Bridge, but felt no concern about the escaped gang. The criminals would not dare attack a station of more than a hundred men. Besides, they would never go into the wilderness of the Murray, where they could find no booty, nor near the colonies of New South Wales, where the roads were too well watched. Ayrton had expressed similar views.

Glenarvan could not refuse the request of his amiable hosts to spend the whole day at Hotham Station. It was twelve hours’ delay, but also twelve hours’ rest, and both horses and oxen would recuperate well in the comfortable stables they would find there.

This was agreed upon, and the two young men submitted to their guests a programme of the day, which was eagerly adopted.

At noon, seven vigorous hunters were pawing at the gates. An elegant brake was ready for the ladies, in which a coachman could exhibit his skill in driving four-in-hand. The riders, preceded by outriders armed with excellent shotguns, were in their saddles, and galloped out the gates, followed by a pack of pointers barking joyously as they bounded through the bushes.

For four hours the cavalcade traversed the paths and avenues of the park, which was as large as a small German state. The Reuiss-Schleitz, or Saxe-Coburg Gotha, would have fit inside it comfortably. They met few people, but sheep abounded. As for game, an army of beaters could not have thrown more before the rifles of the hunters. The noisy reports of guns were soon heard on all sides. Young Robert did wonders next to Major MacNabbs. The daring boy, in spite of his sister’s injunctions, was always in front, and the first to fire. But John Mangles promised to watch over him, and Mary felt less concerned.

During this hunt they killed certain animals peculiar to the country, which Paganel had previously only known by name: amongst others the “wombat” and the “bandicoot.”

The wombat is an herbivorous animal, which burrows in the ground like a badger. It is as large as a sheep, and the flesh is excellent.

The bandicoot is a species of marsupial which could outwit the European fox, and give him lessons in pillaging poultry yards. It was a repulsive looking animal, a foot and a half long, but as Paganel chanced to kill it, of course he thought it charming. “An adorable creature,” he called it.

Robert, in addition to game, skilfully killed a Dasyurus maculatus, or “tiger quoll,” a sort of small fox, whose black fur, spotted with white, is as valuable as the marten’s; and a couple of opossums, who were hiding among the thick foliage of the large trees.

The dogs roused a band of kangaroos

But the most interesting event of the day by far was the kangaroo hunt. About four o’clock, the dogs roused a band of these curious marsupials. The little ones retreated back into their maternal pouches, and the whole mob escaped in file. Nothing is more astonishing than the enormous bounds of the kangaroo. The hind legs of the animal are twice as long as the front ones, and unbend like a spring.

At the head of the flying mob was a male five feet high, a magnificent specimen of the Macropus giganteus. An “old man,” as the bushmen say.

The chase was vigorously pursued for four or five miles. The kangaroos showed no signs of weariness, and the dogs — who had reason enough to fear their strong paws armed with a sharp claw — did not care to approach them. But at last worn out with the race, the troop stopped, and the “old man” leaned against the trunk of a tree ready to defend himself. One of the pointers, carried away by excitement, went up to him. A moment later the unfortunate dog leapt into the air, and fell back, disemboweled. The whole pack would not have got the better of these powerful marsupials. They had to finish the fellow with rifle shots. Nothing but bullets could bring down the gigantic animal.

Robert almost fell victim of his own imprudence. To make sure of his aim, he had approached too near the kangaroo, and the animal leaped upon him immediately. Robert fell; a cry was heard. Mary Grant saw it all from the brake, and in an agony of terror, speechless, and almost unable even to see, stretched out her arms toward her little brother. No one dared to fire, for fear of wounding the child.

John Mangles pulled out his hunting knife, and at the risk of being disemboweled, rushed at the animal, and plunged his knife into its heart. The beast dropped, and Robert rose, unhurt. A moment later he was in his sister’s arms.

“Thank you, Mr. John! Thank you!” she said, holding out her hand to the young captain.

“I had pledged myself to his safety,” was all John said, taking her trembling fingers in his own.

This incident ended the hunt. The mob of marsupials had disappeared after the death of their leader, whose remains were brought back to the house. It was then six o’clock. A magnificent dinner was waiting for them. Among other dishes, a kangaroo tail soup, prepared in the native fashion, was the great success of the meal.

After the ice cream and sorbets of the dessert, the guests passed into the living room. The evening was devoted to music. Lady Helena, who was a very good pianist, put her talents at the disposal of the squatters. Michael and Sandy Patterson sang with perfect pitch passages borrowed from the latest scores of Gounod, Victor Massé, Félicien David, and even of that misunderstood genius, Richard Wagner.

Tea was served at eleven o'clock. It was made with that English perfection that no other people can match. Paganel, having asked to taste Australian tea, was brought a black, inky liquor: a liter of water in which half a pound of tea had boiled for four hours. Paganel, in spite of his grimaces, declared this drink excellent.

At midnight the guests were conducted to cool, comfortable rooms, where they prolonged in their dreams the pleasures of the day.

Next morning, at dawn, they took leave of the two young squatters, with hearty thanks and a promise from them of a visit to Malcolm Castle when they should return to Europe. Then the wagon began to move away, around the foot of Mount Hotham, and soon the hospitable dwelling disappeared from the sight of the travellers like some brief vision which had come and gone.

For five miles further the horses were still treading the station lands. It was not until nine o’clock that they had passed the last fence, and entered the almost unknown districts of the province of Victoria.

1. Verne has “Hottam” Station, but as it’s named after a real place, Mount Hotham, I changed it. I also reduced Mount Hotham’s stated height to match reality. — DAS

2. An area of thirty-seven square miles, with a sixteen mile border on the Peroo — DAS

3. Now named Mount Buffalo — DAS

Chapter XVI | Index | Chapter XVIII

Chapter XVIII
The Australian Alps

An immense barrier lay across the route to the southeast. It was the Australian Alps, a vast fortification, whose capricious curtains extended fifteen hundred miles, and pierced the clouds at the height of four thousand feet.

A subdued heat reached the ground through the veil of cloud in the overcast sky. The temperature was moderate, but the rough road made travel difficult. The undulations of the plain became more and more pronounced. Several hills covered with young, green, gum trees appeared here and there. Further on these sharply rising foothills formed the first echelons of the great Alps. Their course became a continual ascent, which put a greater strain on the oxen dragging along the cumbersome wagon. Their yokes creaked, they blew loudly, and the muscles of their hocks were stretched nearly to breaking. The planks of the vehicle groaned at the unexpected jolts that Ayrton, with all his skill, could not prevent. The ladies bore these difficulties cheerfully.

John Mangles and his two sailors acted as scouts, and went about a hundred paces ahead. They chose practicable paths, not to say passes, for these hills had many pitfalls, which the wagon had to steer carefully between. It required careful navigation to find a safe way through this rugged terrain.

It was a difficult and often perilous task. Wilson’s axe was needed many times to open a passage through thick tangles of shrubs. The damp clay soil gave way under their feet. A thousand detours around insurmountable obstacles — huge blocks of granite, deep ravines, or suspicious lakes — extended their journey. When night came they found they had only made half a degree’s progress. They camped at the foot of the Alps, on the banks of Cobungra Creek, on the edge of a small plain covered with four foot shrubs whose bright red leaves gladdened their eyes.

“It will be hard work getting over those,” said Glenarvan, looking at the silhouettes of the mountains, fading away in the deepening darkness. “Alps! The name has sobering connotations.”

“It is not quite as bad as it sounds, my dear Glenarvan,” said Paganel. “You do not have an entire Switzerland to cross. In Australia, there are the Grampians, Pyrenees, Alps, and Blue Mountains, just as in Europe and America, but in miniature. This simply demonstrates that the imagination of geographers is not infinite, or that their vocabulary of proper names is very poor.”

“So, these Australian Alps?” asked Lady Helena.

“Mere pocket mountains,” said Paganel; “we shall cross them without noticing.”

“Speak for yourself,” said the Major. “I only know of one man who is so distracted that he could cross over a chain of mountains and not know it.”

“Distracted!” said Paganel. “But I am not distracted, anymore. I appeal to the ladies. Since I set foot on Australia, have I not kept my promise? Have I been distracted even once? Can you name a single blunder?”

“Not one, Monsieur Paganel,” said Mary Grant. “You are now the most perfect of men.”

“Too perfect,” laughed Lady Helena. “Your distractions suited you admirably.”

“Didn’t they, Madame? If I have no faults now, I shall soon be like everyone else. I hope that before long I will commit some good blunder which will give you a good laugh. It seems to me that I fail in my vocation, if I’m not making mistakes.”

Next day, January 9th, the little troop ascended the alpine pass with great difficulty, despite the assurances of the confident geographer. It was necessary to hunt for a clear path, and to enter the depths of narrow gorges that could terminate in dead ends.

Ayrton would have been very much embarrassed, if, after an hour’s march, an inn, a miserable “tap” hadn’t unexpectedly presented itself on one of the mountain paths.

“Parbleu!” cried Paganel. “The landlord of this tavern won’t make his fortune in a place like this. What is the use of it here?”

“To give us the information we need,” said Glenarvan. “Let us go in.”

Glenarvan, followed by Ayrton, crossed the threshold of the inn. The landlord of the Bush Inn, as it’s sign proclaimed, was a coarse man with an ill-tempered face, who must have considered himself his principal customer for the gin, brandy, and whiskey he had to sell. He seldom saw anyone but squatters and drovers.

He answered all the questions put to him in a surly tone, but his replies sufficed to make the route clear to Ayrton. Glenarvan rewarded him with a handful of crowns for his trouble, and was about to leave the tavern, when a placard against the wall arrested his attention.

It was a notice from the colonial police. It announced the escape of the convicts from Perth, and offered a reward of £100 for the capture of Ben Joyce.

“He’s certainly a fellow that’s worth hanging,” said Glenarvan to the quartermaster.

“And worth capturing still more,” said Ayrton. “One hundred pounds! What a sum! He’s not worth it!”

“As to the innkeeper,” said Glenarvan, “he does not reassure me, notwithstanding his sign.”

“Me neither,” said Ayrton.

They went back to the wagon. They made their way to the end of the Lucknow road: a narrow path that snaked its way up the pass in a series of switchbacks. They started the climb.

It was a painful ascent. More than once both the ladies and gentlemen had to get down and walk. It was necessary to help move the heavy wagon by pushing on its wheels, and to support it on dangerous gradients; to unharness the oxen when the wagon’s steering gear couldn’t handle the sharp turns, and chock the wheels when the wagon threatened to roll back. More than once Ayrton had to reinforce his oxen by harnessing the horses, already tired with dragging themselves along.

Whether it was this prolonged fatigue, or from some other cause, one of the horses suddenly died, without the slightest warning or symptom of illness. It was Mulrady’s horse that fell, and when he tried to rouse it, he was surprised to find it deceased.

Ayrton came to examine the animal lying on the ground, but was at a loss to explain this sudden death.

“The beast must have broken some blood-vessel,” said Glenarvan.

“Evidently,” said Ayrton.

“Take my horse, Mulrady,” said Glenarvan. “I will join Lady Helena in the wagon.”

Mulrady obeyed, and the little party continued their exhausting ascent, leaving the carcass of the dead animal to the ravens.

The Australian Alps range is shallow, and the base is not more than eight miles wide. If the pass chosen by Ayrton came out on the eastern side, they might hope to get over the high barrier within another forty-eight hours. This was the last barrier, and once surmounted, it would be an easy road to the sea.

They reached the highest point of the pass, about two thousand feet, on January 10th. They came out on an open plateau, with nothing to block the view. Toward the north the quiet waters of of Lake Omeo glittered in the sunlight, dotted with waterfowl, and beyond lay the vast plains of the Murray. To the south stretched the green plains of Gippsland, with its rich gold fields and tall forests. It was still a wild country, where nature was still mistress of her resources, and the courses of her rivers. The great trees had not yet felt the woodman’s axe, and the rare squatters had not yet overcome her. It seemed as if this chain of the Alps separated two different countries, one of which had retained its primitive wildness.

The sun was setting, and a few rays piercing the reddened clouds highlighted the hues of the Murray district. On the other side of the mountains, Gippsland fell into deep shadow, as if night had suddenly fallen on the whole region. The contrast between these two countries was sharply felt by the spectators as they contemplated the almost unknown district that they were about to cross to the Victorian frontier.

A hail-storm of extreme violence assailed the travellers

They camped on the plateau that night, and began the descent the next day. They made good progress until an extremely violent hail storm assailed the travellers, and forced them to seek a shelter among the rocks. It was not hail stones, but regular lumps of ice, as large as one’s hand, which fell from the stormy clouds. A sling could not have thrown them with more force, and some good bruises taught Paganel and Robert that they had to stay under shelter. The wagon was riddled in several places, and few roofs could have held out against those sharp icicles, some of which had impaled themselves into the trunks of the trees. It was impossible to go on until this tremendous shower was over, unless the travellers wished to be stoned. It lasted about an hour, and then the march began again over slanting rocks still slippery after the hail.

Toward evening the wagon, very much shaken and disjointed in several places, but still standing firm on its wooden wheels, came down the last slopes of the Alps, between large isolated pines. The pass ended in the plains of Gippsland. The chain of the Alps was safely passed, and the usual arrangements were made for the nightly encampment.

On the 12th at daybreak, the journey was resumed with an ardour which never relaxed. Everyone was eager to reach the goal — that is to say, the Pacific Ocean — at the place where the wreck of the Britannia had occurred. Only there could the search really begin for the traces of the shipwrecked sailors, and not in these deserted regions of Gippsland. Ayrton again urged Lord Glenarvan to send orders for the Duncan to proceed to the coast, in order to have at hand all possible resources for the search. He thought it would be advisable to take advantage of the Lucknow road to Melbourne. It they waited it would be difficult to find any way of direct communication with the capital.

The quartermaster’s recommendation seemed sound, and Paganel concurred. He also thought that the presence of the yacht would be very useful, and he added that it would no longer be possible to communicate with Melbourne, once they left the Lucknow road.

Glenarvan was undecided about what to do, and perhaps he would have yielded to Ayrton’s arguments, if the Major had not vigorously disagreed. He maintained that the presence of Ayrton was necessary to the expedition, that he would know the country about the coast, and that if any chance should put them on the track of Harry Grant, the quartermaster would be better able to follow it up than anyone else, and, finally, that he alone could point out the exact spot where the Britannia had been lost.

MacNabbs urged for the continuation of the journey, without making any change in their programme. He found an ally in John Mangles, who agreed with him. The young captain even remarked that orders could reach the Duncan more easily from Twofold Bay, than if a messenger was sent two hundred miles through wild country. MacNabbs arguments prevailed. It was decided that they would wait until they came to Twofold Bay. The Major watched Ayrton closely, and noticed his disappointed look. But he said nothing, keeping his observations, as usual, to himself.

The plains which lay at the foot of the Australian Alps were level, but gently sloping toward the east. Large clumps of mimosas, eucalyptus, and numerous varieties gum trees, broke the uniform monotony. Gastrolobium grandiflorum covered the ground, with its bushes covered with gay flowers. Several unimportant creeks, mere streams full of little rushes, and overgrown with orchids, often interrupted the route. They were forded. Flocks of bustards and emus fled at the approach of the travellers. Kangaroos leapt and sprang over the shrubs like elastic puppets. But the hunters of the party scarcely thought of hunting, and the horses didn’t need the extra work.

A sultry heat weighed on the country. The atmosphere was saturated with electricity, and its influence was felt by men and beasts. They dragged themselves along, and cared for nothing else. The silence was only interrupted by the cries of Ayrton urging on his burdened team.

From noon to two o’clock they went through a curious forest of ferns, which would have excited the admiration of less weary travellers. These plants in full bloom were up to thirty feet high. Horses and riders passed easily beneath their drooping leaves, and sometimes the wheel of a spur resounded on striking their woody stems. Beneath these still parasols there was a refreshing coolness which everyone appreciated. Jacques Paganel, always demonstrative, gave such deep sighs of satisfaction that the parakeets and cockatoos flew out in alarm, making a deafening chorus of noisy chatter.

The geographer was going on with his sighs and jubilations, when his companions saw him suddenly tottering on his horse, and falling down in a lump. Was it some dizzy spell, or even a stroke, caused by the high temperature? They ran to him.

“Paganel! Paganel! what’s the matter?” asked Glenarvan.

Paganel disengaged himself from the stirrups. “My friend, I am well. My horse is not!”

“What! Your horse?”

“Dead, like Mulrady’s, as if a thunderbolt had struck him!”

Glenarvan, John Mangles, and Wilson examined the animal, and found Paganel was right. His horse had been suddenly struck dead.

“This is strange,” said John.

“Very strange, indeed,” muttered the Major.

Glenarvan could not help being concerned by this new accident. They could not go back in this wilderness, and if an epidemic was going to seize their steeds, it would be very difficult to proceed.

Before the close of the day, it seemed as if the word “epidemic” was justified. A third horse, Wilson’s, fell dead, and what was, perhaps, more serious, two of the oxen as well. The means of traction and transport were now reduced to four oxen¹ and four horses.

The situation became serious. The dismounted horsemen could, of course, continue on foot. Many squatters had already done so through these deserted regions. But if it became necessary to abandon the wagon, what would the ladies do? Could they cross the one hundred and twenty miles that still separated them and Twofold Bay?

John Mangles and Lord Glenarvan examined the surviving horses with great uneasiness, but there was not the slightest symptom of illness or even feebleness in them. The animals were in perfect health, and bravely bearing the exertions of the trip. This somewhat reassured Glenarvan, and made him hope that the malady would strike no more victims.

Ayrton agreed with him, but he confessed to have no understanding of what had caused these sudden deaths.

The night passed … beneath a vast mass of tree ferns

They went on again, with the pedestrians taking turns resting in the wagon. In the evening, after a march of only ten miles, the signal to halt was given, and they pitched the tent. The night passed without difficulty beneath a vast mass of tree ferns, between which enormous bats — properly called flying foxes — were flapping about.

The next day, January 13th, was good. There were no new calamities. The health of the expedition remained satisfactory; horses and oxen did their task cheerily. Lady Helena’s drawing room was very lively, thanks to the number of visitors. Mr. Olbinett busied himself in passing around refreshments, that thirty degrees² of heat made necessary. They went through half a barrel of scotch ale. Barclay and Co. were declared to be the greatest men in Great Britain, even above Wellington, who could never have manufactured such good beer. This was their opinion, as Scots. Jacques Paganel drank deeply, and discoursed still more de omni re scibili.³

A day so well commenced seemed as if it could only end well; they had gone a good fifteen miles, and adroitly passed a fairly mountainous country with reddish soil. There was every reason to hope they might camp that night on the banks of the Snowy River, an important river which flows south through Victoria, into the Pacific. Soon the wheels of the wagon were making deep ruts on wide plains of blackish alluvium. It passed on between tufts of luxuriant grass and fresh fields of Gastrolobium. As evening came on, a white mist on the horizon marked the course of the Snowy. The strength of the team pulled them on a few more miles, and a forest of tall trees came in sight at a bend of the road, beyond a gentle slope. Ayrton led his overworked team through the great trunks, lost in shadows, and he was already past the edge of the wood, half a mile from the river, when the wagon suddenly sank up to the wheel hubs.

“Stop!” he called out to the horsemen following him.

“What is it?” asked Glenarvan.

“We’re bogged down,” said Ayrton.

He tried to stimulate the oxen to a fresh effort by voice and with the goad, but the animals were buried halfway up their legs, and could not stir.

Bright flashes of lightning … illuminated the horizon

“Let’s camp here,” said John Mangles.

“That’s the best thing to do,” said Ayrton. “Tomorrow, by daylight, we’ll see how to get it out.”

Glenarvan called for a halt.

Night came on rapidly after a brief twilight, but the heat wasn’t reduced by the end of day. Stifling vapours filled the air, and occasionally bright flashes of lightning, the reflections of a distant storm, illuminated the horizon. They prepared for the night. They did the best they could with the sunken wagon, and the tent was pitched beneath a dark dome of tall trees. If the rain held off, they had not much to complain about.

Ayrton succeeded, with some difficulty, in extricating the oxen from the mud. These courageous beasts had been engulfed up to the flanks. The quartermaster turned them out with the horses, and allowed no one but himself to see to their fodder. He had always executed this task well, and this evening Glenarvan noticed he redoubled his care, for which he took occasion to thank him. The preservation of the team was of supreme importance.

During this time, the travellers took part in a rather summary supper. Exhaustion and heat had destroyed appetites, and they wanted sleep more than food. Lady Helena and Miss Grant bade the company good night, and retired to their berths in the wagon. The men soon stretched themselves under the tent, or outside on the thick grass under the trees, which is no great hardship in this wholesome climate.

Gradually they all fell into a heavy sleep. A thick curtain of clouds over the sky deepened the darkness. There was not a breath of wind in the air. The silence of night was only interrupted by the hooting of the “morepork” which sang the minor third with a surprising accuracy, like the sad cuckoo of Europe.

About eleven o’clock, after a poor, heavy, un-refreshing sleep, the Major woke. His half-closed eyes were struck with a faint light running under the tall tress. It looked like a white sheet, shimmering like the waters of a lake. At first, MacNabbs thought that it was the first glimmers of a fire spreading over the ground.

MacNabbs lay down on the ground

He got up, and went toward the wood. He was greatly surprised to discover a purely natural phenomenon! Under his eyes lay an immense bed of mushrooms, which emitted a phosphorescent light. The luminous spores of the cryptogams shone intensely in the darkness.⁴

The Major, who was not selfish, was about to waken Paganel so that he might see this phenomenon with his own eyes when an incident stopped him.

This phosphorescent glow illumined the wood for half a mile, and MacNabbs thought he saw a shadow pass across the edge of it. Were his eyes deceiving him? Was it some hallucination?

MacNabbs lay down on the ground, and, after a close scrutiny, he could distinctly see several men bending down and rising, in turn, as if they were looking on the ground for recent marks.

The Major resolved to find out what these fellows were about, and without the least hesitation or so much as arousing his companions, crept along, lying flat on the ground like a savage on the prairies, completely hidden among the long grass.

1. Verne has one ox die, reducing them to three, at this point, seeming having forgotten that they started out with six. I might have gone back and changed the initial number, but several of the Riou illustrations show six oxen as well. So I’m going to be killing off a couple more than Verne did — DAS

2. 86° Fahrenheit — DAS

3. Latin: “about every knowable thing” — DAS

4. This fact had already been mentioned by Drummond, who had noticed it in Australia in field mushrooms belonging to the family of the Omphalotus olearius.

Chapter XVII | Index | Chapter XIX

Chapter XIX
The Coup de Théâtre¹

It became a terrible night. At two o’clock in the morning a torrential rain began to fall from the stormy clouds, and continued until dawn. The tent was insufficient shelter so Glenarvan and his companions took refuge in the wagon. They didn’t sleep, but talked of one thing or another. The Major, whose brief absence had not been noticed, contented himself with being a silent listener. The downpour continued through the night. There was reason to fear that if the storm lasted much longer the Snowy River would overflow its banks, which would be a very bad thing for the wagon, stuck in the soft ground. Mulrady, Ayrton, and Mangles went to check the rising water level several times, and came back dripping from head to toe.

Finally, dawn came. The rain ceased, but the sunlight couldn’t break through the thick clouds. Large puddles of yellowish water — muddy, dirty ponds — covered the ground. A warm mist rose from the soaked earth, and saturated the atmosphere with unhealthy humidity.

Glenarvan’s first concern was the wagon. This was the most important thing in his eyes. They examined the heavy vehicle, and found it sunk in the ground in a deep hollow in the stiff clay. The front wheelset had disappeared almost entirely, and the rear was buried nearly up to the axle. It would be difficult to remove the heavy conveyance, and it would need the united strength of men, oxen, and horses.

“At any rate, we must hurry,” said John Mangles. “If the clay dries, it will make our task still more difficult.”

“Let us be quick, then,” said Ayrton.

Glenarvan, his two sailors, John Mangles, and Ayrton entered the woods where the animals had passed the night.

It was a tall forest of sinister looking gum trees, all dead. The widely spaced trees had been barked for ages, or rather skinned like the cork-oak at harvest time. A miserable network of bare branches could be seen two hundred feet overhead. Not a bird built its nest in these aerial skeletons; not a leaf trembled on the dry branches, which rattled like a jumble of bones. No one knows what causes these cataclysms, so frequent in Australia, in which entire forests are struck dead in some epidemic. Not even the oldest natives, nor their ancestors who have long lain buried in the groves of the dead, have ever seen them green.

As he walked, Glenarvan kept his eye on the grey sky, against which the smallest branch of the gum trees was sharply defined. Ayrton was astonished to not find the horses and oxen where he had left them the night before, but they could not have wandered far with the hobbles on their legs.

They looked through the wood, but found no signs of them. Ayrton returned to the beautiful, mimosa lined banks of the Snowy River. He gave a cry, well known to his team, but there was no reply. The quartermaster seemed uneasy, and his companions looked at each other with disappointed faces.

They searched in vain for an hour, and Glenarvan was about to go back to the wagon, when he heard the neighing of a horse, followed by a bellow.

“They are there!” cried John Mangles, slipping between tall clumps of Gastrolobium, which grew high enough to hide a whole herd.

Glenarvan, Mulrady, and Ayrton darted after him, and soon shared his stupefaction at the spectacle which met their gaze.

Three bullocks and three horses lay stretched on the ground, struck down like the others. Their bodies were already cold, and a flock of skinny crows croaking among the mimosas were watching the unexpected feast. Glenarvan and his party gazed at each other, and Wilson could not keep back the curse that rose to his lips.

“Enough of that, Wilson,” said Glenarvan, barely containing himself. “We can’t do anything about it. Ayrton, bring away the ox and the horse we have left. They will have to serve us now.”

“If the wagon were not bogged down,” said John Mangles, “these two animals could be enough to take us to the coast, if we go in small stages. But we must at all costs free the damn wagon.”

“We will try, John,” said Glenarvan. “Let’s go back to the camp. They must be getting worried about our long absence.”

Ayrton removed the hobbles from the ox and Mulrady from the horse, and they returned along the winding bank of the river.

In half an hour they rejoined Paganel, MacNabbs, and the ladies, and told them of this fresh disaster.

“Upon my honour, Ayrton,” the Major could not help saying, “it is a pity that you didn’t see to the shoeing of all our horses when we forded the Wimmera.”

“Why, sir?” asked Ayrton.

“Because out of all our horses, only the one your blacksmith had in his hands has escaped the common fate.”

“That’s true,” said John Mangles. “It’s a strange coincidence.”

“A mere chance, and nothing more,” said the quartermaster. He stared at the Major for a moment, before walking toward the wagon.

Major MacNabbs squeezed his lips as if to keep back something he was about to say. Glenarvan, Mangles, and Lady Helena seemed to be waiting for him to complete his thought, but the Major fell silent, and walked to the wagon, which Ayrton was examining.

“What did he want to say?” Glenarvan asked John Mangles.

“I don’t know,” replied the young captain. “But the Major is not at all a man to speak without reason.”

“No, John,” said Lady Helena. “MacNabbs must have some suspicions about Ayrton.”

“Suspicions?” asked Paganel, shrugging his shoulders.

“What can they be?” asked Glenarvan. “Does he suppose he could have killed our horses and oxen? For what purpose? Aren't Ayrton’s interests the same as ours?”

“You are right, dear Edward,” said Lady Helena. “And what is more, the quartermaster has given us incontestable proofs of his devotion ever since the commencement of the journey.”

“No doubt,” said Mangles. “But what could the Major mean? I wish he would speak his mind plainly. I’d like to have a clear heart on this matter.”

“Does he suppose him to be acting in concert with the convicts?” asked Paganel, imprudently.

“What convicts?” said Miss Grant.

“Monsieur Paganel is making a mistake,” said John Mangles, quickly. “He knows very well there are no convicts in the province of Victoria.”

“Ah, parbleu vrai!” said Paganel, who would have liked to withdraw his words. “Où diable was my head? Who has ever heard of convicts being in Australia? Besides, they would scarcely have disembarked before they would turn into good, honest men. The climate, you know, Miss Mary, the moralistic climate…”

The poor scientist, wishing to repair his mistake, was — like the wagon — bogging himself deeper down. Lady Helena’s look at him took whatever was left of his composure, but not wanting to embarrass him further, she took Mary away to the side of the tent, where Mr. Olbinett was busy setting the lunch according to all the rules of his art.

“I deserve to be transported,” said Paganel, woefully.

“I agree,” said Glenarvan.

And after this reply, made with a gravity which completely overwhelmed the worthy geographer, Glenarvan and John Mangles went toward the wagon.

The heavy vehicle did not move

They found Ayrton and the two sailors working to get it out of the deep rut. The ox and horse, harnessed side by side, were straining with every muscle. The traces were stretched to breaking; their collars threatened to break with the effort. Wilson and Mulrady were pushing the wheels, and the quartermaster urging on the team with voice and goad. The heavy vehicle did not move. The clay, already dry, held it as firmly as if sealed by some hydraulic cement.

John Mangles watered the clay to loosen it, but it was of no use. The wagon remained motionless. After repeated efforts, men and animals stopped. Unless the vehicle was taken to pieces, it would be impossible to extricate it from the mud. But they didn’t have the necessary tools to undertake such a task.

Ayrton, who wanted to overcome this obstacle at all costs, was was going to try again, when Glenarvan stopped him.

“Enough, Ayrton, enough,” he said. “We must spare the horse and ox we have left. If we are obliged to continue our journey on foot, one can carry the ladies and the other the provisions. They may thus still be of use to us.”

“Very well, My Lord,” said the quartermaster, unyoking the exhausted animals.

“Now, friends,” added Glenarvan, “let’s return to the camp. Let us deliberate on our options, evaluate their pro et contra, and determine our course of action.”

A few moments later the party was recovering from their bad night with a good breakfast, and the discussion was opened. Everyone was asked to give his opinion.

The first question was to determine their exact position, and this was naturally put to Paganel, who informed them, with his accustomed rigorous accuracy, that the expedition had been stopped on the 37th parallel, in longitude 148° 26′, on the banks of the Snowy River.

“What is the exact longitude of Twofold Bay?” asked Glenarvan.

“150°,” said Paganel.

“And how far is that 1° 34′”

“Eighty-five miles.”²

“And Melbourne is…?”

“Two hundred miles, at least.”

“Very good,” said Glenarvan. “Our position being settled, what should be done?”

The response was unanimous: get to the coast without delay. Lady Helena and Mary Grant pledged to travel five miles a day. The brave women were not afraid to walk, if necessary, the whole distance between the Snowy River and Twofold Bay.

“You are a valiant travelling companion, dear Helena,” said Lord Glenarvan. “But are we sure of finding the resources we need at the bay when we get there?”

“Without a doubt,” said Paganel. “Eden is a well established town that is many years old, and its port must have frequent communication with Melbourne. I suppose that even at Delegate, on the Victoria frontier, thirty miles from here, we might resupply our expedition, and find fresh means of transport.”

“And the Duncan?” asked Ayrton. “Don’t you think it advisable to send for her to come to the bay?”

“What do you think, John?” said Glenarvan.

The young captain thought for a moment before speaking. “I don’t think Your Honour should be in any hurry about it. There will be time enough to give orders to Tom Austin, and summon him to the coast.”

“That’s quite certain,” added Paganel.

“You see,” said John, “it should only take four of five days to reach Eden.”

“Four or five days!” said Ayrton, shaking his head. “Say more like fifteen or twenty, Captain, if you don’t want to regret your mistake later.”

“Fifteen or twenty days to go eighty-five miles?” cried Glenarvan.

“At least, My Lord. You are going to cross the most difficult portion of Victoria, a desert, where the squatters say everything is lacking. Plains covered with scrub, where there are no cleared tracks and no one has been able to found a station. You will have to walk with the axe or torch in hand, and, believe me, that’s not a fast way to travel.”

Ayrton had spoken firmly, and Paganel, at whom all the others looked inquiringly, nodded his head in token of his agreement in opinion with the quartermaster.

“Well, admitting these difficulties,” said John Mangles, “in fifteen days at most your Lordship can send orders to the Duncan.”

“I have to add,” said Ayrton, “that the principal obstacle will not come from the lack of a road, but the Snowy itself has to be crossed, and most likely we must wait until the water goes down.”

“What?” cried John. “Is there no ford?”

“I don’t think so,” said Ayrton. “I looked this morning for some practicable crossing, but could not find any. It is unusual to meet with such a torrential river at this time of the year, but it is a chance against which I am powerless.”

“Is this Snowy very wide?” asked Lady Helena.

“Wide and deep enough, Madame,” replied Ayrton. “Three hundred feet³, but with a dangerous current. A good swimmer could not cross it safely.”

“Let’s build a boat then,” said Robert, who believed he could do anything. “We have only to cut down a tree and hollow it out, get in it, and be off.”

“Bright lad, this boy of Captain Grant’s!” said Paganel.

“And he’s right,” said John Mangles. “We will be forced to come to that. I think it is useless to waste our time in idle discussions.”

“What do you think, Ayrton?” asked Glenarvan.

“I think, My Lord, that a month hence, unless some help arrives, we shall find ourselves still on the banks of the Snowy.”

“Well, then, do you have a better plan?” asked a somewhat exasperated John Mangles.

“Yes, that the Duncan should leave Melbourne, and go to the east coast.”

“Oh, always the Duncan! And how could her presence at the bay make it easier for us to get there?”

Ayrton waited an instant before answering, and then said, rather evasively “I have no wish to impose my opinions. What I do is in the interest of all, and I am ready to leave the moment his Honour gives the signal.” And he crossed his arms and was silent.

“That is not an answer, Ayrton,” said Glenarvan. “Tell us your plan, and we will discuss it. What do you propose?”

Ayrton replied, in a calm assured voice. “I propose that we should not venture beyond the Snowy in our present condition. It is here we must wait for help, and this help can only come from the Duncan. Let us camp here, where we have provisions, and let one of us take your orders to Tom Austin to go to Twofold Bay.”

This unexpected proposition was greeted with astonishment, and John Mangles did not conceal his antipathy to the idea.

“Meanwhile,” said Ayrton, “either the river will lower and allow us to ford it, or we shall have time to make a canoe. This is the plan I submit for your Lordship’s approval.”

“Well, Ayrton,” said Glenarvan. “Your idea deserves to be taken seriously. Its greatest fault is to cause a delay, but it would save us great fatigue, and perhaps danger. What do you think of it, friends?”

“What do you say, MacNabbs?” asked Lady Helena, “Since the beginning of the discussion you have been content to listen, and have been very stingy with your words.”

“Since you ask my advice,” said the Major, “I will give it you very frankly. It seems to me that Ayrton has spoken as a wise and prudent man, and I agree with his proposal.”

This was an unexpected response, as the Major had been strongly opposed to Ayrton’s proposal, before now. Ayrton himself was surprised, and gave a hasty glance at the Major. Once MacNabbs had endorsed the plan, Paganel, Lady Helena, and the sailors were very quick to agree, as well.

Glenarvan declared that the quartermaster’s plan should be adopted in principle.

“And now, John,” he added, “don’t you think it would be prudent to camp here, on the banks of the river, while waiting for the means of transport.”

“Yes,” replied John Mangles, “if our messenger can get across the Snowy when we cannot.”

All eyes were turned on the quartermaster, who answered with a smile. “The messenger will not cross the river.”

“Ah!” said John Mangles.

“He will simply go back to the Lucknow road, which leads straight to Melbourne.”

“Two hundred and fifty miles on foot!” cried the young captain.

“On horseback,” said Ayrton. “We still have a healthy horse. It should only only take four days to reach Melbourne. Allow the Duncan two days reach Twofold Bay and two to four days⁴ to get back to the camp, and in little more than a week the messenger can be back with the ship’s crew.”

The Major nodded approvingly, as Ayrton spoke, to the profound astonishment of John Mangles. But as everyone was in favour of the quartermaster’s plan, all there was to do was to carry it out as quickly as possible.

“Now then, friends,” said Glenarvan. “It remains to choose our messenger. I do not wish to hide that it will be a difficult and perilous mission. Who will devote himself to his companions, and carry our instructions to Melbourne?”

Wilson, Mulrady, Paganel, John Mangles, and even Robert, instantly offered their services. John particularly insisted that he should be entrusted with the mission.

“With your Honour’s permission, I will go myself”

Ayrton, who had been silent until now said “With your Honour’s permission, I will go myself. I am accustomed to this country. I have traversed more difficult areas many times. I can get through, where another would be stopped. I ask then, for the good of all, that I may be sent to Melbourne. A word from you will accredit me to your second, and in six days I will be sure to bring the Duncan to Twofold Bay.”

“Well spoken,” said Glenarvan. “You are an intelligent and brave man, Ayrton, and I am sure you will succeed.”

The quartermaster was obviously better able than anyone else to fulfill this difficult task. Everyone understood and withdrew.

John Mangles made one last objection, saying that Ayrton was needed to discover traces of the Britannia or Harry Grant. But the Major remarked that the expedition would remain on the banks of the Snowy until Ayrton returned, that they had no intention of resuming their search without him, and that consequently his absence would not in the least prejudice the captain’s interests.

“Go well, Ayrton,” said Glenarvan. “Be as quick as you can, and come back via Eden to our Snowy camp.”

A flash of satisfaction shot across the quartermaster’s face. He turned his head away, but not before John Mangles had caught the look, and instinctively felt his old distrust of Ayrton revive.

The quartermaster made immediate preparations for departure, assisted by the two sailors, one of whom saw to the horse and the other to the provisions. Glenarvan, meantime, wrote his letter for Tom Austin.

He ordered the Duncan’s second to go to Twofold Bay without delay. He recommended the quartermaster to him as a man he could trust. On arriving at the coast, Tom was to dispatch a detachment of sailors from the yacht under Ayrton’s orders…

Glenarvan was just at this passage of his letter, when MacNabbs, who was following him with his eyes, asked him in a strange tone how he wrote Ayrton’s name.

“Why, as it is pronounced, of course,” replied Glenarvan.

“That’s a mistake,” said the Major quietly. “He pronounces it ‘Ayrton,’ but he writes it ‘Ben Joyce!’”

1. A French expression meaning a spectacular turn of events — DAS

2. 35 leagues (140 kilometres — DAS)
The Hetzel text has the distance given to Twofold Bay with three incompatible numbers. A longitude of 147° 53′, a distance of 75 miles, and the footnote which gives that as 37 leagues. Of these three, it’s the footnote version which most closely corresponds with the actual location of the Snowy River. I have adjusted all three, as well as the distance to Delegate, to match reality — DAS

3. Verne has the Snowy River being a mile wide here, which is about twenty times broader than it actually is, so I’m just going with the flood and the current being enough of a barrier to them attempting a crossing — DAS

4. Verne has the trip from Twofold Bay to the Snowy as taking twenty-four hours, which given the difficulties of the trip already described is ridiculously optimistic — DAS

Chapter XVIII | Index | Chapter XX

Chapter XX
E-land! Zealand!

A shot rang out

The revelation of Ben Joyce’s name struck like a thunderbolt. Ayrton lunged to his feet, a revolver in his hand. A shot rang out and Glenarvan fell, wounded. Gunshots resounded outside.

John Mangles and the sailors, after this first surprise, tried to throw themselves on Ben Joyce, but the audacious convict had already disappeared, and rejoined his gang scattered among the gum trees.

The tent was no shelter against bullets. They had to retreat. Glenarvan’s wound was slight, and he could stand.

“To the wagon! To the wagon!” cried John Mangles, dragging Lady Helena and Mary Grant along. They were soon safe behind the thick planks. John, the Major, Paganel, and the sailors seized their rifles and stood ready to repulse the convicts. Glenarvan and Robert went in with the ladies, while Olbinett rushed to join the defence.

It all took place in an instant, like a lighting flash. John Mangles watched the edge of the wood carefully. The gunshots had ceased as soon as Ben Joyce reached the trees. A deep silence had succeeded the noisy fusillade. A few wisps of white smoke were still curling through the branches of the gum trees. The tall tufts of Gastrolobium were motionless. All signs of attack had disappeared.

The Major and John Mangles made a reconnaissance to the tall trees. The area was abandoned. They found many footprints, and the smouldering remains of expended primers on the ground. The Major, a prudent man, extinguished these carefully, for a spark would be enough to kindle a firestorm in this forest of dry trees.

“The convicts have disappeared!” said John Mangles.

“Yes,” replied the Major, “and this disappearance disturbs me. I prefer seeing them face to face. Better to meet a tiger on the plain than a snake in the grass. Let’s beat the bushes around the wagon.”

The Major and John searched the surrounding countryside. From the edge of the wood to the banks of the Snowy, there was not a convict to be seen. Ben Joyce and his gang seemed to have flown away like a flock of marauding birds. It was too strange a disappearance to let the travellers feel safe. They decided to keep a sharp lookout. The wagon, a veritable moored fortress, was made the centre of the camp, with two men mounted guard who were relieved hour by hour.

The first care of Lady Helena and Mary was to dress Glenarvan’s wound. Lady Helena had rushed toward him in terror, as he fell down struck by Ben Joyce’s ball. Controlling her anguish, the courageous woman helped her husband into the wagon. His shoulder was bared, and the Major found, on examination, that the ball had only gone into the flesh, and there was no internal lesion. Neither bone nor muscle appeared to be injured. The wound bled profusely, but Glenarvan, wagging his forearm, reassured his friends that the injury was not serious. As soon as his shoulder was dressed, he would not allow any more fuss to be made about him. He wanted an explanation of what had just happened.

Everyone except Mulrady and Wilson, who were on guard, were crowded into the wagon, and the Major was invited to speak.

He started by telling Lady Helena the things that had been withheld from her: about the escape of the convicts from Perth, and their appearance in Victoria and their complicity in the railway catastrophe. He handed her the Australian and New Zealand Gazette he had bought in Seymour, and added that a reward had been offered by the police for the apprehension of Ben Joyce, a formidable bandit, whose crimes during the last eighteen months had made him a notorious celebrity.

But how had MacNabbs learned that Ayrton was Ben Joyce? This was a mystery that everyone wanted an explanation for, and the Major soon supplied it.

Ever since their first meeting, MacNabbs had felt an instinctive wariness of the quartermaster. Two or three insignificant facts, a glance exchanged between him and the blacksmith at the Wimmera River, his hesitation at entering towns and villages, his persistence about getting the Duncan summoned to the coast, the strange death of the animals entrusted to his care, and, lastly, a lack of frankness in all his behaviour. Little by little, all these details had combined to awaken the Major’s suspicions.

However, he could not have made any direct accusation until the events of the previous night.

MacNabbs, slipping between the tall shrubs, came near the suspicious shadows he had noticed about half a mile away from the camp. The phosphorescent mushrooms threw pale gleams in the darkness.

Three men were examining fresh footprints on the ground, and MacNabbs recognized one of them as the blacksmith from Black Point. “It’s them!” said one of the men. “Yes,” said another, “there’s the clover mark of the horseshoe.” — “It has been like that since the Wimmera.” — “All the other horses are dead.” — “The poison is all around us.” — “There is enough here to kill a regiment of cavalry.” — “A useful plant, this Gastrolobium!”

The men fell silent and started to move off, but the Major needed to know more, so he followed them. Soon the conversation began again. “He is a clever fellow, this Ben Joyce,” said the blacksmith. “A capital quartermaster, with his invention of a shipwreck.” — “If his project succeeds, it will be a stroke of fortune.” — “He’s the very devil, this Ayrton.” — “Call him Ben Joyce, for he has earned his name!” The scoundrels left the forest, and the Major had learned all he needed, so he returned to the camp, convinced that, despite Paganel’s beliefs, Australia did not reform criminals.

When the Major was done recounting the story, his companions sat silently, thinking it over.

“Then Ayrton has dragged us here,” said Glenarvan, pale with anger, “to rob and murder us.”

“Yes,” said the Major.

“And ever since the Wimmera his gang has been following in our footsteps, and watching for a favourable opportunity.”

“Yes.”

“Then the wretch was never one of the sailors on the Britannia. Did he steal the name of Ayrton and the shipping papers?”

They all looked at MacNabbs, for he must have asked himself that question already.

“Here,” he answered in his still calm voice, “are the facts that can be drawn from this obscure situation. In my opinion the man is actually named Ayrton. Ben Joyce is his nom de guerre. It is undeniable that he knew Harry Grant, and also that he was quartermaster on the Britannia. These facts were already proved by the precise details given us by Ayrton, and are corroborated by the conversation between the convicts, which I repeated to you. Let us not be diverted into idle speculation, but take it for granted that Ben Joyce is Ayrton, and that Ayrton is Ben Joyce. That is to say, one of the crew of the Britannia has become the leader of a convict gang.”

MacNabbs’ explanation was accepted without discussion.

“Now,” said Glenarvan, “will you tell us how and why Harry Grant’s quartermaster is in Australia?”

“How, I don’t know,” said MacNabbs. “And the police say that they don’t know, either. Why? It is impossible to say. That is a mystery which the future may explain.”

“The police are not even aware that Ayrton is Ben Joyce,” said John Mangles.

“You are right, John,” said the Major, “and this information would throw light on their search.”

“Then I suppose,” said Lady Helena, “the despicable man had some criminal intent for getting work on Paddy O’Moore’s farm?”

“No doubt,” said MacNabbs. “He was planning some evil design against the Irishman, when a better opportunity presented itself. Chance led us to him. He heard Glenarvan’s story, the story of the shipwreck, and the audacious fellow quickly decided to take advantage of it. The expedition was decided on. At the Wimmera he found the means to contact one of his gang, the blacksmith from Black Point, and left recognizable traces of our passage. The gang followed us. A poisonous plant enabled him to kill our oxen and horses little by little. When the time came, he bogged us down in the marshes of the Snowy, and gave us into the hands of his gang.”

There was nothing more to say about Ben Joyce. His past had been reconstructed by the Major, and the wretch appeared as he was, a daring and formidable criminal. His intentions, clearly demonstrated, required extreme vigilance from Glenarvan. Fortunately, there was less to fear from the unmasked bandit than from the traitor.

But from this clarified situation emerged a serious consequence. No one had thought of it yet, except Mary Grant. Putting aside all the discussion of the past, she thought of the future. John Mangles was the first to notice her pale, despairing face; he understood what was passing through her mind at a glance.

“Miss Mary! Miss Mary! You’re crying!”

“Why are you crying, my child?” asked Lady Helena.

“My father, Madame. My father!” said the poor girl.

She could not continue, but the truth flashed in every mind. They all knew the cause of Mary’s grief, and why tears fell from her eyes and why her father’s name rose from her heart to her lips.

The discovery of Ayrton’s treachery had destroyed all hope. The convict had invented the shipwreck to entrap Glenarvan. In the conversation overheard by MacNabbs, the convicts had plainly said that the Britannia had never been wrecked on the rocks in Twofold Bay. Harry Grant had never set foot on the Australian continent!

For the second time an erroneous interpretation of the document had thrown the searchers for the Britannia on a wrong track.

A gloomy silence fell over the whole party at the sight of the children’s sorrow in the face of this situation. No one could find a hopeful word to say. Robert was crying in his sister’s arms.

“That damnable document!” Paganel muttered pitifully to himself. “It can boast of having scrambled the wits of a dozen brave people!”

And the worthy geographer was in such a rage with himself, that he struck his forehead as if he would smash it.

A couple of emus … passed between the shrubs

Glenarvan went out to Mulrady and Wilson, who were keeping watch. Profound silence reigned over the plain between the woods and the river. The big, motionless clouds were pressing down on the roof of the sky. The atmosphere was numbed with a deep torpor, the least noise was transmitted clearly, and nothing was heard. Ben Joyce and his band must must have retreated to a considerable distance. It was evident from the flocks of birds frolicking on the lower branches of the trees, the kangaroos feeding quietly on the young shoots, and a couple of emus whose confident heads passed between the great clumps of bushes, that those peaceful solitudes were untroubled by the presence of human beings.

“Have you either seen or heard anything in the last hour?” Glenarvan asked the two sailors.

“Nothing whatever, Your Honour,” said Wilson. “The convicts must be several miles from here.”

“They must not have been strong enough to attack us,” said Mulrady. “This Ben Joyce must have wanted to recruit more bandits of his kind among the bushrangers roaming about the foot of the Alps.”

“Possibly, Mulrady,” said Glenarvan. “These rascals are cowards. They know we are well armed. Perhaps they are waiting for nightfall to commence their attack. We must redouble our watch at sunset. Oh, if we could only get out of this bog, and down to the coast; but this swollen river bars our way. I would pay its weight in gold for a raft which would carry us over to the other side.”

“Why is Your Honour not giving us the orders to build a raft? We have plenty of wood.”

“No, Wilson,” said Glenarvan. “This Snowy is not a river, it is an impassable torrent.”

John Mangles, the Major, and Paganel were just returning from looking at the Snowy. They reported that the waters, swollen from the rain, were still a foot above their normal level. It formed a torrent like the rapids of America. It was impossible to venture over the foaming current of that rushing flood, broken into a thousand eddies and hollows and gulfs.

John Mangles declared the passage impossible.

“But we must not stay here, without attempting anything,” he said. “What we were going to do before Ayrton’s treachery is now even more necessary.”

“What do you mean, John?” asked Glenarvan.

“I mean that we must get relief, and that since we cannot go to Twofold Bay, we must go to Melbourne. We still have one horse. Give it to me, My Lord, and I will go to Melbourne.”

“That will be a dangerous undertaking, John,” said Glenarvan. “Ben Joyce and his accomplices will be guarding the roads, not to mention the perils of a journey of two hundred miles over an unknown country.”

“I know that, My Lord, but I also know that things can’t stay long as they are. Ayrton was only asking for eight days to bring back the Duncan’s men. I want to be back on the banks of the Snowy in six. Well, what is Your Honour’s order?”

“Before Glenarvan decides,” said Paganel, “I must make an observation. That someone must go to Melbourne is evident, but it cannot be John Mangles who exposes himself to the risk. He is the captain of the Duncan, and must be careful of his life. I will go instead.”

“Well spoken,” said the Major. “But why should it be you, Paganel?”

“Aren’t we here?” said Mulrady and Wilson.

“And do you think,” said MacNabbs, “that I’m afraid of a ride of two hundred miles on horseback?”

“My friends,” said Glenarvan, “if any of us should go to Melbourne, let fate designate him. Paganel, write our names—”

“Not yours, My Lord,” said John Mangles.

“And why not?”

“Separate you from Lady Helena, when your wound is not even closed!”

“Glenarvan,” said Paganel, “you cannot leave the expedition.”

“Your place is here, Edward,” said the Major. “You must not leave.”

“There are dangers to run,” said Glenarvan, “and I will not leave them to others. Write the names, Paganel, and put mine among them, and I hope the lot may fall on me.”

They bowed before his will. Glenarvan’s name was added to the others. The draw was made, and the fate fell upon Mulrady. The brave sailor crowed with satisfaction.

“My Lord, I am ready to start,” he said.

Glenarvan squeezed Mulrady’s hand. He returned to the wagon, leaving John Mangles and the Major on watch.

Lady Helena was informed of the decision to send a message to Melbourne, that they had drawn lots who should go, and Mulrady had been chosen. She said a few kind words to the valiant sailor, which went straight to his heart. Fate could hardly have chosen a better man, for he was not only brave and intelligent, but strong and tireless.

Mulrady’s departure was set for eight o’clock, after the short evening twilight. Wilson took charge of preparing the horse. He had the idea of changing the horse’s revealing left shoe, for one off a horse that had died in the night. This would prevent the convicts from tracking Mulrady, or following him, as they were not mounted.

While Wilson was arranging this, Glenarvan prepared the letter for Tom Austin, but his injured arm troubled him, and he asked Paganel to write it for him. The scientist, was so absorbed in some fixed idea that he seemed hardly aware of what was happening around him. It must be said, in all this succession of unfortunate adventures, that Paganel thought only of the falsely interpreted document. He turned the words over in his mind, attempting to extract a new meaning from them, and remained immersed in the abysses of interpretation.

So, he did not hear Glenarvan’s request, and he was forced to repeat it.

“Ah, very well,” said Paganel. “I’m ready.”

While talking, Paganel mechanically prepared his notebook. He tore a blank page off and, pencil in hand, he prepared to write. Glenarvan began to dictate his instructions.

“Order Tom Austin to get to sea without delay, and bring the Duncan to…”

Paganel was just finishing the last word, when his eye chanced to fall on the Australian and New Zealand Gazette lying on the ground. The folded newspaper was showing only part of its title. Paganel’s pencil stopped, and he seemed to completely forget Glenarvan, his letter, his dictation…

“Come, Paganel!”

“Ah!” started the geographer.

“What is the matter?” asked the Major

“Nothing, nothing,” said Paganel. Then he muttered to himself, “E-land, e-land, e-land!”

He had risen. He had seized the newspaper. He shook it, in his efforts to keep back the words that tried to escape from his lips. Lady Helena, Mary, Robert, and Glenarvan looked at him without understanding anything about this inexplicable agitation.

Paganel looked like a man suddenly struck by madness. But this state of nervous excitement did not last. He calmed himself, little by little. The gleam of joy that shone in his eyes died away. He sat down again, and said quietly “When you please, My Lord, I am at your service.”

Glenarvan resumed his dictation of his letter, which was definitely worded as follows:

Order to Tom Austin to sail without delay and to bring the Duncan by 37° of latitude to the eastern coast of Australia …

“Of Australia?” said Paganel. “Ah yes! Of Australia.”

Then he finished the letter, and presented it for signature. Glenarvan, still troubled by his wound, signed the order without reading it. Paganel closed and sealed the letter, and with a hand still trembling from emotion addressed the envelope.

Tom Austin,
Second aboard the yacht Duncan,
Melbourne

Then he left the wagon, gesticulating and repeating the incomprehensible words: “E-land, e-land, Zealand!”

Chapter XIX | Index | Chapter XXI

Chapter XXI
Four Days of Anguish

The rest of the day passed without further incident. All the preparations for Mulrady’s departure were completed, and the brave sailor was happy to give His Honour this mark of his devotion.

Paganel had regained his composure and his accustomed manner. His gaze still showed his pre-occupation, but he seemed determined to keep it secret. No doubt he had strong reasons for doing so, for the Major heard him muttering “No, no! They would not believe me. And, besides, what’s the point? It’s too late!” like a man struggling with himself.

Having taken this resolution, he busied himself with giving Mulrady the necessary directions for getting to Melbourne, and showed him his way on the map. All the paths from their location on the Snowy led to the Lucknow road. This road, after running directly south to the coast, took a sudden bend toward Melbourne. This was the route that must be followed, for it would not do to attempt a short cut across almost unknown country. So nothing could be simpler. Mulrady could not lose his way.

As to dangers, there were none after he had gone a few miles beyond the camp, where Ben Joyce and his gang might be waiting in ambush. Once past them, Mulrady was certain of being able to outdistance the convicts, and complete his mission.

At six o’clock they all dined together. The rain was falling in torrents. The tent was not protection enough, and the whole party had to take refuge in the wagon. It was, moreover, a safe retreat. The clay kept it firmly embedded in the ground, like a fortress resting on firm foundations. The arsenal was composed of seven rifles and seven revolvers, and they could stand a pretty long siege, for they had plenty of ammunition and provisions. But before six days were over, the Duncan would anchor in Twofold Bay, and a few days later her crew would reach the other shore of the Snowy; and should the passage still remain impracticable, the convicts at any rate would be forced to retire before the superior force. But it all depended on Mulrady’s success in his perilous enterprise.

At eight o’clock the night became very dark. It was time to start. The horse prepared for Mulrady was brought out. His hooves were wrapped with cloths as a precaution, to muffle the sound of them on the ground. The animal seemed tired, and yet the safety of all depended on his strength and sure footedness. The Major advised Mulrady to let him go gently as soon as he had got past the convicts. Better a half day delay than not to arrive at all.

John Mangles gave his sailor a revolver he had loaded with great care. This is a formidable weapon in the hand of a man who does not hesitate to use it, for six shots fired in a few seconds would easily clear an obstruction of criminals from a path.

Mulrady seated himself in the saddle, ready to start.

“Here is the letter you are to give to Tom Austin,” said Glenarvan. “Don’t let him lose an hour. He is to sail for Twofold Bay at once, and if he does not find us there, if we have not managed to cross the Snowy, let him come on to us without delay, Now go, my brave sailor, and God be with you.”

Glenarvan, Lady Helena, Mary Grant and the rest all shook hands with Mulrady. The departure on such a dark, raining night, on a road strewn with danger, through the unknown immensities of a wilderness, would have daunted a heart less firm than that of the sailor.

“Farewell, My Lord,” he said in a calm voice, and he soon disappeared by a path that ran along the edge of the woods.

The gusts of wind redoubled their violence

The gusts of wind redoubled their violence. The high branches of the eucalyptus rattled dully in the dark. They could hear the sound of broken branches striking the sodden soil. More than one giant tree, with no living sap, but still standing until then, fell during this tempestuous squall. The wind howled through the crackling wood, and mingled its ominous moans with the roaring of the Snowy. The heavy clouds, driving along toward the east, hung on the ground like rags of steam. A gloomy darkness intensified the horrors of the night.

The rest of the party, after Mulrady’s departure, went back into the wagon. Lady Helena, Mary Grant, Glenarvan, and Paganel occupied the first compartment, which had been hermetically closed. The second was occupied by Olbinett, Wilson, and Robert. The Major and John Mangles were on watch outside. This precaution was necessary, for an attack by the convicts would be easy enough, and therefore probable enough.

The two faithful guardians kept close watch, bearing philosophically the rain and wind that beat on their faces. They tried to see through the darkness, so perfect for ambushes, for nothing could be heard in the midst of the sounds of the storm: the howling of the wind, the rattling branches, falling trees, and roaring of the unchained waters.

At times the wind would cease for a few moments, as if to take breath. Nothing was audible but the moan of the Snowy as it flowed between the motionless reeds and the dark curtain of gum trees. The silence seemed deeper in these momentary lulls, and the Major and John Mangles listened attentively.

During one of these calms a sharp whistle reached them.

John Mangles quickly went up to the Major.

“You heard that?” he asked.

“Yes,” said MacNabbs. “Is it man or beast?”

“A man,” replied John Mangles.

They both listened. The mysterious whistle was repeated, and answered by a kind of detonation, but almost indistinguishable, for the storm was raging with renewed violence. MacNabbs and John Mangles could not hear themselves speak. They went under the shelter of the wagon.

The leather curtains were raised, and Glenarvan joined his two companions. He too had heard that sinister whistle, and the report which echoed under the tarpaulin.

“Which way was it?” he asked.

“There,” said John, pointing to the dark track in the direction taken by Mulrady.

“How far?”

“The wind brought it,” said John Mangles. “It must be at least three miles.”

“Come on!” said Glenarvan, putting his gun on his shoulder.

“No!” said the Major. “It’s a decoy to get us away from the wagon.”

“But if Mulrady has fallen to the blows of these miscreants!” said Glenarvan, seizing MacNabbs by the hand.

“We shall know by tomorrow,” said the Major, coolly, determined to prevent Glenarvan from taking a rash and futile action.

“You cannot leave the camp, My Lord,”said John. “I will go alone.”

“You will do nothing of the kind!” said MacNabbs, firmly. “Do you want us to be killed in detail, to diminish our strength, to put ourselves at the mercy of these criminals? If Mulrady has fallen victim to them, it is a misfortune that must not be repeated. Mulrady was sent, chosen by chance. If the lot had fallen to me, I would have gone as he did. I would not have asked for, nor expected, any help.”

In restraining Glenarvan and John Mangles, the Major was right in every respect. To try to reach the sailor, to run into the darkness of night among the convicts in their leafy ambush was foolish, and more than that, it was useless. Glenarvan’s party was not so numerous that it could afford to sacrifice another member of it.

Still, Glenarvan seemed as if he would not yield to reason. He kept his rifle gripped firmly in his hands. He wandered around the wagon. He listened to the faintest sound. He tried to pierce the sinister darkness. The thought that one of his party was, perhaps, mortally wounded, abandoned without help, calling in vain to those for whom he had devoted himself, was a torture to him. MacNabbs was not sure that he could succeed in holding him back, or if Glenarvan, carried away by his feelings, would not run into the arms of Ben Joyce.

“Edward, calm down,” he said. “Listen to a friend. Think of Lady Helena, of Mary Grant, of all who are left. And, besides, where would you go? Where would you find Mulrady? He must have been attacked two miles off. In what direction? Which path would you follow?”

At that moment, as if to answer the Major, a cry of distress was heard.

“Listen!” said Glenarvan.

This cry came from the same direction as the report, but less than a quarter of a mile off. Glenarvan, pushing past MacNabbs, was already on the path when he heard the call again, originating hundred paces away from the wagon.

“Help! Help!”

It was a plaintive and desperate voice. John Mangles and the Major sprang toward the spot.

A few seconds later they saw a human form dragging himself on the ground along the tree line, and uttering grim groans.

It was Mulrady, wounded, dying, and when his companions lifted him, they felt their hands bathed in blood.

They carried Mulrady back to the wagon

The rain came down with redoubled violence, and the wind raged among the branches of the dead trees. In the pelting storm, Glenarvan, the Major, and John Mangles carried Mulrady back to the wagon.

Everyone got up when they arrived. Paganel, Robert, Wilson, and Olbinett left the wagon, and Lady Helena gave up her berth to poor Mulrady. The Major removed the sailor’s jacket, which was dripping with blood and rain. He soon found the wound; the unfortunate man had been stabbed in the right side.

MacNabbs skilfully dressed the wound. He could not tell whether the weapon had reached any vital organ. An intermittent jet of scarlet blood flowed from it. The patient’s paleness and weakness showed that he was seriously injured. The Major washed the wound first with fresh water and then closed the opening. He covered the wound with a thick pad of tinder, and then folds of linen held in place with a bandage. He managed to stop the bleeding. Mulrady was laid on his side, with his head and chest raised, and Lady Helena gave him a few sips of water.

After about a quarter of an hour, the wounded man, who until then had lain motionless, stirred. His eyes opened; his lips muttered incoherent words; the Major, bending close to him, heard him repeating “My Lord … the letter … Ben Joyce.”

The Major repeated these words, and looked at his companions. What did Mulrady mean? Ben Joyce had attacked the sailor, but why? Wasn’t it just to stop him, to prevent him reaching the Duncan? The letter…

Glenarvan searched Mulrady’s pockets. The letter addressed to Tom Austin was gone!

The night passed in anxiety and worry. It was feared every moment that Mulrady would die. A burning fever consumed him. Lady Helena and Mary Grant, two sisters of charity, never left him. Never was a patient so well cared for, nor by such compassionate hands.

Dawn approached. The rain had stopped. Large clouds still rolled across the sky. The ground was strewn with broken branches. The clay, soaked by the torrents of rain, had softened again. The approaches to the wagon became difficult, but it could not sink any deeper.

At daybreak, John Mangles, Paganel, and Glenarvan went to reconnoitre around the camp. They went up the path which was still stained with blood. They saw no vestige of Ben Joyce, or his band. They went as far as to where the attack had taken place. Here, two corpses lay on the ground, hit by Mulrady’s bullets. One was the Black Point blacksmith. His face, decomposing in death, was a horror.

Glenarvan did not go farther. Prudence forbade him from wandering far from the camp. He returned to the wagon, deeply absorbed by the gravity of the situation.

“We must not think of sending another messenger to Melbourne,” he said.

“But we must,” said John Mangles. “I will try to go where my sailor could not succeed.”

“No, John! You do not even have a horse to carry you those two hundred miles!”

This was true, for Mulrady’s horse, the only one that remained, had not returned. Had he fallen during the attack on his rider, or was he straying in the bush, or had the convicts seized him?

“Whatever happens, we will not separate,” said Glenarvan. “Let’s wait a week, a fortnight if need be, for the Snowy to return to its normal level. We can then reach Twofold Bay by short stages, and from there we can send orders to the Duncan by a safer route, along the coast.”

“That seems the only option,” said Paganel.

“So, my friends, no more separation,” said Glenarvan. “It is too great a risk for one man to venture alone into this bandit infested wilderness. And now, may God save our poor sailor, and protect the rest of us!”

Glenarvan was right on both points: first in prohibiting any solo attempts, and second, in deciding to wait until the crossing of the Snowy River was possible. He was scarcely thirty miles from Delegate, the first frontier village of New South Wales, where he would find transportation to Twofold Bay, and from there he could telegraph to Melbourne his orders to the Duncan.

These measures were wise, but they were taken late. If Glenarvan had not sent Mulrady on the road to Lucknow what misfortunes might have been averted? To say nothing of the assassination of the sailor!

When Glenarvan returned to the camp, he found his companions in better spirits. They seemed more hopeful than before.

“He’s getting better! He’s getting better!” cried Robert, running out to meet Lord Glenarvan.

“Mulrady?”

“Yes, Edward,” said Lady Helena. “His fever has broken. The Major is more confident. Our sailor will live.”

“Where is MacNabbs?” asked Glenarvan.

“With him. Mulrady wanted to speak to him. Don’t disturb them.”

The wounded man had awakened about an hour ago, and his fever had abated. The first thing Mulrady did on recovering his wits and speech, was to ask for Lord Glenarvan, or failing him, the Major. MacNabbs seeing him so weak, would have forbidden any conversation, but Mulrady insisted with such energy that the Major had to give in.

The conversation had already lasted some minutes when Glenarvan returned. The only thing to do now was wait for MacNabbs’ report.

Presently, the leather curtains of the wagon opened, and the Major appeared. He rejoined his friends at the foot of a gum tree where the tent was erected. His face, usually so stolid, showed that something disturbed him. When his eyes fell on Lady Helena and the young girl, his glance was full of sorrow.

Glenarvan questioned him, and this is essentially what the major had just learned.

Five men threw themselves at the horse’s head

When he left the camp Mulrady followed one of the paths indicated by Paganel. He made as good speed as the darkness of the night would allow. He reckoned that he had gone about two miles when several men — five he thought — threw themselves at his horse’s head. The animal reared; Mulrady seized his revolver and fired. He thought he saw two of his assailants fall. He recognized Ben Joyce in the muzzle flash, but that was all. He hadn’t had time to fire all the chambers. He felt a violent blow to his right side and was thrown to the ground.

However, he had not lost consciousness. The assailants thought he was dead. He felt them search his pockets, and then he heard them speak. “I have the letter,” said one of the convicts. “Give it to me,” said Ben Joyce, “and now the Duncan is ours.”

At this point in MacNabbs’ story, Glenarvan could not suppress a cry.

“Now you fellows,” said Ben Joyce, “catch the horse. In two days I shall be on board the Duncan, and in six I shall reach Twofold Bay. That is the rendezvous. The Lord and his party will be still mired in the marshes of the Snowy. Cross the river at Kemple Pier bridge, proceed to the coast, and wait for me. I will find a way to get you on board. Once at sea in a ship like the Duncan, we shall be masters of the Indian Ocean.” “Hurrah for Ben Joyce!” cried the convicts. Mulrady’s horse was brought, and Ben Joyce galloped away on the Lucknow road, while the band took the road south-east to the Snowy River. Mulrady, though severely wounded, had the strength to drag himself to within three hundred paces from the camp where they found him almost dead.

“And that,” said MacNabbs, “is Mulrady’s story. And now you can understand why the brave fellow was so determined to speak.”

This revelation terrified Glenarvan and the rest of the party.

“Pirates! Pirates!” cried Glenarvan. “My crew massacred! My Duncan in the hands of these bandits!”

“Yes, for Ben Joyce will surprise the ship,” said the Major, “and then…”

“Well, we must get to the coast before them,” said Paganel.

“But how are we to cross the Snowy?” said Wilson.

“As they will,” replied Glenarvan. “They are to cross at Kemple Pier Bridge, and so will we.”

“But what about Mulrady?” asked Lady Helena. “What will become of him?”

“We will carry him; we will take turns. Can I leave my crew to the mercy of Ben Joyce and his gang?”

It might be possible to cross the Snowy at Kemple Pier bridge, but dangerous. The convicts might entrench themselves at that point, and defend it. They were at least thirty against seven! But there are times when you don’t count the odds, when you have no choice but to go on.

“My Lord,” said John Mangles, “before risking our last chance, before venturing to this bridge, we ought to reconnoitre, and I will undertake it.”

“I will go with you, John,” said Paganel. This proposal was agreed to, and John Mangles and Paganel prepared to leave at once. They had to go down the Snowy, follow its banks until they reached the place indicated by Ben Joyce, and especially avoid the sight of any convicts, who might be beating the banks.

So, well provisioned and armed, the two brave comrades set off and soon disappeared, sneaking through the tall reeds by the river.

The rest anxiously waited all day for their return. Evening came, and the scouts had not come back. They began to be seriously worried.

Finally, around eleven o’clock, Wilson signalled their return. Paganel and John Mangles were exhausted with the exertions of a ten mile walk.

Glenarvan sprang to meet them. “The bridge! Did you find it?”

“Yes, a creeper bridge,” said John Mangles. “The convicts passed over it, but…”

“But what?” asked Glenarvan, sensing some new misfortune.

“They burned it after they passed!” said Paganel.

Chapter XX | Index | Chapter XXII

Chapter XXII
Eden

It was not a time for despair, but action. The bridge at Kemple Pier was destroyed, but the Snowy had to be crossed, and they must reach Twofold Bay before Ben Joyce and his gang, whatever the cost. Instead of wasting time in empty words, the next day, January 16th, John Mangles and Glenarvan went down to examine the river, in order to plan the crossing.

The tumultuous waters, swollen by the rains, had not gone down. They swirled with indescribable fury. It would be suicide to confront them. Glenarvan stood motionless, gazing with folded arms and downcast face.

“Do you want me to swim to the other shore?” asked John Mangles.

“No, John!” said Glenarvan, holding back the bold young man. “Wait!”

They both returned to the camp. The day passed in the most intense anxiety. Ten times Lord Glenarvan went to look at the river, trying to invent some bold way to cross it, but in vain. Had a torrent of lava rushed between the shores, it could not have been more impassable.

During these long wasted hours, Lady Helena, with advice from the Major, was nursing Mulrady with the utmost skill. The sailor felt his strength slowly returning. MacNabbs ventured to affirm that no vital organ was injured. The loss of blood was enough to account for the patient’s weakness. With the wound closed and the hemorrhage stopped, time and rest would be all that was needed to complete his cure. Lady Helena had insisted on giving up the first compartment of the wagon to him. Mulrady felt ashamed; his greatest concern was the delay that his condition might cause Glenarvan, and he made him promise that they would leave him in the camp under Wilson’s care should the passage of the river become possible.

Unfortunately, no passage was practicable, either that day or the next, January 17th. To see himself so blocked despaired Glenarvan. Lady Helena and the Major vainly tried to calm him, and urged him to be patient. Patient, when perhaps at that very moment Ben Joyce was boarding the yacht! When the Duncan, might be casting off her moorings, raising steam to reach the fatal coast, and each hour was bringing her nearer!

John Mangles felt all that Glenarvan was suffering in his own heart. He was determined to overcome the obstacle at any price, and constructed an Australian style canoe with large sheets of gum tree bark. These sheets were held together in a frame of wooden strips, and formed a very fragile boat.

The captain and Wilson tried this frail boat during the day of the 18th. All that skill, strength, tact, and courage could do, they did. But they were scarcely in the current before they capsized, and nearly paid with their lives for the dangerous experiment. The boat disappeared, dragged down by an eddy. John Mangles and Wilson had not gone five fathoms, and the river was fifty across, swollen by the heavy rains and melted snows.

The 19th and 20th of January passed in the same fashion. The Major and Glenarvan went five miles up the river without finding a ford. Everywhere they found the same roaring, rushing, impetuous torrent. The whole southern slope of the Australian Alps poured its liquid masses into this single bed.

It was necessary to give up any hope of saving the Duncan. Five days had elapsed since the departure of Ben Joyce. The yacht must at this moment be at the coast, and in the hands of the convicts!

It was impossible that this state of affairs could last. The very violence of the flood meant that it would soon be exhausted. On the morning of the 21st, Paganel went to the river, and found that the water was lower. He reported his observation to Glenarvan.

“What does it matter now?” said Glenarvan. “It is too late!”

“That’s no reason to prolonging our stay here,” said the Major.

“Indeed,” said John Mangles. “Perhaps tomorrow the river may be crossable.”

“And will that save my poor crew?” cried Glenarvan.

“Your Honour will listen to me,” said John Mangles. “I know Tom Austin. He would execute your orders, and set out as soon as departure was possible. But who knows whether the Duncan was ready, and her damage repaired when Ben Joyce arrived in Melbourne? And suppose the yacht could not go to sea. Suppose there was a delay of a day, or two days.”

“You are right, John!” said Glenarvan. “We must get to Twofold Bay. We are only thirty miles from Delegate.”

“Yes,” said Paganel, “and we will find some rapid means of transportation in that town. Who knows if we will not arrive in time to prevent a calamity?”

“Let’s get to it!” said Glenarvan.

John Mangles and Wilson immediately set to work to construct a large raft. Experience had shown that pieces of bark could not resist the violence of the torrent. John cut down some gum trees, and made a rough but solid raft with their trunks. It was a long task, and the day passed without it being finished. It was not completed until the next morning.

By this time the waters of the Snowy had significantly lowered. The torrent had once more become a river, though still a very rapid one. John hoped to be able to scull, and row, the raft to the opposite bank.

At half-past twelve, they packed two days of provisions into whatever they could carry. The remainder was abandoned with the wagon and the tent. Mulrady’s convalescence was progressing well enough that he could be moved.

At one o’clock, they all took their places on the raft still moored to the shore. John Mangles positioned Wilson on the starboard side with a roughly fashioned oar to steady the raft against the current, and reduce its drift. He stood at the back, with a large scull, to propel them along. Lady Helena and Mary Grant occupied the center of the raft near Mulrady. Glenarvan, the Major, Paganel, and Robert surrounded them, ready to help, if needed.

“Are we ready, Wilson?” John Mangles asked his sailor.

“Yes, Captain,” said Wilson, seizing his oar with a sturdy hand.

“Look out, and support us against the current.”

John Mangles untied the raft, and with a push he threw it into the waters of the Snowy. Everything went well for fifteen fathoms. Wilson’s oar kept them from drifting too far downstream. But soon the raft was caught in an eddy, and spun around more rapidly than their rowing or sculling could control. despite their best efforts, Wilson and John Mangles soon found themselves turned completely around, which made the action of the oars ineffective.

There was no help for it. They could do nothing to stop the gyrations of the raft. It spun around with dizzying rapidity, and drifted out of its course. John Mangles stood with pale face and set teeth, gazing at the whirling current.

The raft had reached the middle of the river

The raft had reached the middle of the river, about half a mile downstream from their starting point. Here, the current was extremely strong, and this broke the whirling eddies, and gave the raft some stability.

John and Wilson seized their oars again, and managed to push the raft diagonally across the current. This brought them nearer the left shore. They were only ten fathoms from it, when Wilson’s oar broke, and the raft, no longer supported against the current, was dragged downstream. John tried to resist at the risk of breaking his scull too, and Wilson, with bleeding hands, joined his efforts.

At last they succeeded and the raft, after a crossing that had taken more than half an hour, struck against the steep bank of the opposite shore. The shock was so violent that the cords holding the logs together broke, and the raft came apart. The travellers barely had time to catch hold of the brush overhanging the steep bank. They dragged Mulrady and the two dripping ladies to shore. Everyone was safe, but most of their provisions and weapons, except for the Major’s rifle, drifted away with the remains of the raft.

The river was crossed. The little company found themselves almost without resources, thirty miles from Delegate, in the midst of the unknown wilds of the Victoria frontier. Neither settlers nor squatters were to be met with, here. It was entirely uninhabited, unless by ferocious, bushranger bandits.

They resolved to set off at once, Mulrady saw that he would be a burden to them, and he asked to stay, alone, until assistance could be sent from Delegate.

Glenarvan refused. It would take at least three days to reach Delegate, and five days to reach the coast. He couldn’t hope to get there before January 26th. If the Duncan had left Melbourne on the 16th what difference would a few days’ delay make?

“No, my friend,” he said. “I will not leave anyone behind. We will make a litter and take turns carrying you.”

The litter was made of boughs of eucalyptus covered with branches. Willingly or not, Mulrady was obliged to take his place on it. Glenarvan would be the first to carry his sailor. He took hold of the stretcher at one end and Wilson took the other, and they set off.

What a sad spectacle. It ended so badly, this expedition which had started so well. They were no longer looking for Harry Grant. This continent, where he was not, and never had been, threatened to prove fatal to those who sought him. And when his daring compatriots reached the Australian coast, they wouldn’t even find the Duncan waiting to take them home again.

The first day passed silently and painfully. Every ten minutes the litter changed bearers. All the sailor’s comrades took their share in this task without complaining of fatigue, which was increased by a great deal of heat.

In the evening after a journey of only five miles, they camped under thicket of gum trees. The small store of provisions saved from the raft composed the evening meal. All they had to depend upon now was the Major’s rifle.

It was a dark, rainy night, and morning seemed as if it would never dawn. They set off again, but the Major could not find a chance of firing a shot. This fatal region was more than a desert. Animals themselves didn’t frequent it.

Fortunately, Robert discovered a bustard’s nest with a dozen large eggs in it, which Olbinett cooked under hot ashes. These, with a few roots of purslane which were growing at the bottom of a ravine, were all the breakfast of the 23rd.

The path became extremely difficult. The sandy plains were bristling with spinifex, a prickly plant which is called the “porcupine” in Melbourne. It tears clothing to rags, and makes the legs bleed. The courageous ladies never complained, but went on valiantly, setting an example, and encouraging each other with a word and a look.

They stopped in the evening at the foot of Bulla Bulla, on the banks of the Jungalla Creek. The supper would have been very scant, if MacNabbs had not killed a large rat, the Leporillus conditor, which has an excellent reputation, from the point of view of food. Olbinett roasted it, and it would have been pronounced even superior to its reputation had it equalled a sheep in size. They were obliged to be content with it, however, and it was devoured to the bones.

On the 24th the weary but still energetic travellers started off again. After circling around the foot of the mountain, they crossed long prairies where the grass seemed made of whalebone. It was a tangle of darts, a medley of sharp bayonets, and a path had to be cut through it, sometime with an axe, and sometimes by fire.

There was not even a question of breakfast that morning. Nothing could be more barren than this region strewn with quartz debris. Not only hunger, but thirst, was cruelly felt. The burning atmosphere intensified its assault. Glenarvan and his friends could only go half a mile an hour. Should this lack of food and water continue until evening, they would all sink on the road, never to rise again.

But when everything fails a man, and he finds himself without resources, at the very moment when he feels he must give up, then Providence steps in.

Water presented itself in the cephalotes plants, a species with cup-shaped flowers, filled with refreshing liquid, which hung from the branches of coralliform shrubs. They all quenched their thirst with these, and felt revived.

The only food they could find was the same as the natives were forced to subsist upon, when they could find neither game, nor snakes, nor insects. Paganel discovered a plant in the dry bed of a creek whose excellent properties had been frequently described by one of his colleagues in the Geographical Society.

It was nardoo, a cryptogamous plant of the family Marsileaceae, and the same which had prolonged the lives of Burke, Wills, and King in the deserts of the interior. Under its leaves, which resembled those of the clover, there were dried sporules as large as a lentil, and these sporules, when crushed between two stones, made a sort of flour. This was converted into coarse bread, which stilled the pangs of hunger at least. There was a great abundance of this plant growing in this place, and Olbinett gathered a large supply, so that they were sure of food for several days.

The next day, the 25th, Mulrady was able to walk part of the way. His wound was entirely closed. The town of Delegate was not more than ten miles off, and that evening they camped in longitude 149°, on the very frontier of New South Wales.

A fine, penetrating rain had been falling for a few hours. There would have been no shelter from this, but John Mangles chanced upon a deserted and dilapidated sawyer’s hut. It was necessary to be satisfied with this miserable hut of branches and stubble. Wilson wanted to kindle a fire to prepare the nardoo bread, and he went out to pick up the dead wood scattered all over the ground. But he found it would not light. The great quantity of aluminous material which it contained prevented all combustion. This was the incombustible wood Paganel had mentioned, in his list of strange Australian products.

They had to dispense with fire and bread,¹ and sleep in their damp clothes while the laughing birds hidden in the high branches seemed to scoff at these unfortunate travellers.

The young women dragged themselves along, almost unable to walk

Glenarvan was nearly at the end of his sufferings, however. It was time for them to come to their end. The two young ladies were making heroic efforts, but their strength was hourly decreasing. They dragged themselves along, almost unable to walk.

Next morning they started at daybreak. At eleven o’clock, Delegate came in sight in Wellesley County, fifty miles from Twofold Bay.

Transportation was quickly arranged, there. Feeling so close to the coast, hope returned to Glenarvan’s heart. Perhaps there might have been some slight delay, and they might get there before the arrival of the Duncan, after all. In twenty-four hours they would reach the bay.

At noon, after a comfortable meal, the travellers all settled in a mail coach drawn by five strong horses. It left Delegate at a gallop.

The postilions, stimulated by the promise of a princely reward, drove rapidly along a well-kept road. They did not lose two minutes at the relays where they changed horses, which took place every ten miles. It seemed as if they were infected with Glenarvan’s zeal.

They ran at six miles an hour all day long, and through the night.

The next day, at sunrise, a low murmur announced their approach to the Pacific Ocean.² It was necessary to go around the bay to reach the shore at the 37th parallel, the exact point where Tom Austin was to await their arrival.

When the sea appeared, all eyes anxiously gazed at the horizon. Was the Duncan, by a miracle of Providence, running close to the shore, as she had been a month ago when they reached Cape Corrientes, and they had found her on the Argentine coast?

They saw nothing. Sea and sky mingled in the same horizon. Not a sail enlivened the vast stretch of ocean.

One hope still remained. Perhaps Tom Austin had thought it necessary to cast anchor in Twofold Bay, for the sea was heavy, and a ship would not dare to venture near the shore.

“To Eden!” said Glenarvan.

Immediately the mail coach resumed the route around the bay, toward the small town of Eden, five miles away.

The postilions stopped not far from the lighthouse which marks the entrance of the port. Some ships were anchored in the harbour, but none of them bore the Malcolm flag at its masthead.

Glenarvan, John Mangles, and Paganel got out of the coach and rushed to the customs house, to inquire about the arrival of vessels within the last few days. No ship had arrived in the bay for a week.

“Perhaps the yacht has not left Melbourne, yet,” said Glenarvan, who did not wish to return to despair. “Perhaps we have arrived before her!’’

John Mangles shook his head. He knew Tom Austin. His first mate would never have delayed the execution of an order for ten days.

“I must know how things stand, in any event,” said Glenarvan. “Better certainty than doubt.”

A quarter of an hour later, a telegram was sent to the trustee of the shipbrokers in Melbourne. Then the party was driven to the Victoria Hotel.

At two o’clock a telegram was delivered to Lord Glenarvan.

LORD GLENARVAN, EDEN,
TWOFOLD BAY.

DUNCAN LEFT ON 18 TIDE. DESTINATION UNKNOWN.

J ANDREW SB

The telegram dropped from Glenarvan’s hands.

There was no doubt now. The honest Scottish yacht was now a pirate ship in the hands of Ben Joyce!

So ended this journey across Australia, which had commenced under such auspicious circumstances. All trace of Captain Grant and the castaways seemed to be irrevocably lost. This failure had cost the lives of a whole crew. Lord Glenarvan had been vanquished, and this courageous searcher, whom the unfriendly elements of the Pampas had been unable to stop, had been conquered on the Australian shore by the perversity of men.

End of Book Two

1. Possibly just as well. Improperly prepared nardoo is mildly toxic, and may have hastened the demises of Burke and Wills.

2. The Hetzel edition has “Indian” here, but this is definitely the Pacific coast of Australia.

The searcher’s route across Australia at the 37th parallel

Chapter XXI | Index |

Book Three: New Zealand

Main Index

Chapter I

The Macquarie

Chapter II

Some Words About the Country They Were to Visit

Chapter III

The Massacres of New Zealand

Chapter IV

The Breakers

Chapter V

Improvised Sailors

Chapter VI

Where Cannibalism Is Discussed, Theoretically

Chapter VII

Where They Land in the Country They Should Have Avoided

Chapter VIII

The Present of the Country They Were In

Chapter IX

Thirty Miles to the North

Chapter X

The National River

Chapter XI

Lake Taupo

Chapter XII

The Funeral of a Māori Chief

Chapter XIII

The Last Hours

Chapter XIV

The Tapu Mountain

Chapter XV

Paganel’s Great Means

Chapter XVI

Between Two Fires

Chapter XVII

How the Duncan Came to Be at New Zealand

Chapter XVIII

Ayrton or Ben Joyce?

Chapter XIX

A Bargain

Chapter XX

A Cry in the Night

Chapter XXI

Tabor Island

Chapter XXII

The Last Distraction of Jacques Paganel

Main Index

Chapter I
The Macquarie

If the searchers for Captain Grant ever fully despaired of finding him, surely this was the moment. Where in the world should their next expedition take them? How were they to explore unknown countries? The Duncan was no longer in their possession, so they couldn’t even return immediately to Scotland. The undertaking of these generous Scots had failed. Failure! A sad word that finds no echo in a valiant soul, and yet, under the blows of fate, Glenarvan must have acknowledged his powerlessness to continue his quest of mercy.

Mary Grant had the courage, under the circumstances, not to speak of her father. She restrained her anxieties by thinking of the unfortunate crew that had just perished. The girl faded before the friend, and it was she who consoled Lady Glenarvan, after receiving so many consolations! She was the first to speak of returning to Scotland. To see her so courageous, so resigned, filled John Mangles with admiration. He wanted to give her one last word of hope for Captain Grant, but Mary stopped him with a look.

“No, Mr. John,” she said. “Let’s think of those others who have devoted themselves to the quest. Lord Glenarvan must return to Europe!”

“You are right, Miss Mary,” said John Mangles. “It must be done. It is also necessary to inform the English authorities of the fate of the Duncan. But do not give up hope. Rather than abandoning them, I will take up the search, alone. I will find Captain Grant, or I will die trying!”

It was a serious commitment that John Mangles made. Mary accepted it, and she held out her hand toward the young captain’s, as if to ratify the treaty. On John Mangles’s part, it was a dedication of his whole life. From Mary, undying gratitude.

It was decided that they would depart Eden, immediately. They resolved to reach Melbourne without delay. The next day, John went to inquire if any ships would be sailing, soon. He expected to find frequent communications between Eden and the capital of Victoria.

He was disappointed. Ships were scarce. Three or four ships, anchored in Twofold Bay, made up the entire merchant fleet of the place. None were sailing to Melbourne, Sydney, or Point de Galle, in Ceylon. From any of these ports, Glenarvan could expect to find ships taking passengers to Europe. Indeed, the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company has a regular service of steamers between these ports and England.

What was to be done in this situation? Wait for a ship? They could wait a long time, because Twofold Bay is little frequented. How many ships passed offshore and never come into the port?

After much thought and discussion, Glenarvan nearly decided to go to Sydney by road along the coast, when Paganel made a suggestion that no one expected.

The geographer had visited Twofold Bay, himself. He knew that no ships were sailing for Sydney or Melbourne. But of these three anchored ships, one was preparing to leave for Auckland, the capital of Te Ika-a-Māui, the northern island of New Zealand. Paganel proposed to take that ship to Auckland, whence it would be easy to return to Europe by the ships of the Peninsular Company.

This proposal was given serious consideration. Paganel, somewhat unusually for him, did not present a long list of arguments in favour of the idea. He confined himself to stating the fact, and adding that the crossing would not last more than five or six days. The distance from Australia to New Zealand is not much more than a thousand miles.¹

By a strange coincidence, Auckland was located precisely on the 37th parallel which the searchers had been stubbornly following from the coast of Araucanía. The geographer might have fairly used this fact to bolster an argument that they should follow his suggestion. It presented a natural opportunity to visit New Zealand.

Paganel did not argue this advantage, however. After two successive disappointments, he did not want to risk presenting a third interpretation of the document. Besides, what could he argue? The document seemed clear that a continent served as Captain Grant’s refuge, not an island. And New Zealand was definitely an island. This seemed decisive. Be that as it may, whether for this reason, or another, Paganel did not attach any new idea of exploration to his proposition of going to Auckland. He only remarked that regular communication existed between this point and Great Britain, and that it would be easy to take advantage of it.

John Mangles supported Paganel’s proposal. He advised its adoption, since it was impossible to say how long they’d have to wait for a ship at Twofold Bay. But before making any final commitment, he thought it proper to visit the ship indicated by the geographer. He took a boat with Glenarvan, Major MacNabbs, Paganel, and Robert, and in a few strokes of the oars, they docked at the ship anchored not far from the wharf.

It was a brig, named Macquarie

It was a 250 tonne brig, named Macquarie. She was doing cabotage between the different ports of Australia and New Zealand. The captain, or, more rightly, the “master,” received his visitors rather roughly. They saw that they were dealing with an uneducated man. His manners did not distinguish him from the five sailors by his side. A big red face, thick hands, a crushed nose, a flattened eye, lips dirty with the pipe, with that brutal look, made Will Halley a sad figure. But they had little choice, and for a crossing of a few days, they wouldn’t be too particular.

“What do you all want?” Will Halley asked these strangers who were standing on the deck of his ship.

“The captain?” said John Mangles.

“It’s me,” said Halley. “Next?”

“Is the Macquarie sailing for Auckland?”

“Yes. Next?”

“What is she carrying?”

“Anything she can buy or sell. Next?”

“When does she sail?”

“Tomorrow. On the noon tide. Next?”

“Would she take passengers?”

“That depends on the passengers, and if they were satisfied with the ship’s mess.”

“They would bring their own provisions.”

“Next?”

“Next?”

“Yes. How many are they?”

“Nine, including two ladies.”

“I do not have cabins.”

“We will make do with whatever deck space you make available.”

“Next?”

“Do you accept?” asked John Mangles, refusing to be put off by the captain’s gruff manner.

“We’ll see,” said the master of the Macquarie.

Will Halley took a turn or two around the deck, clomping loudly in his heavy hobnailed boots. He turned back suddenly to John Mangles.

“What will you pay?”

“What are you asking?”

“Fifty pounds.”

Glenarvan nodded.

“Alright. Fifty pounds,” said John Mangles.

“That’s passage only,” said Will Halley.

“Only the passage.”

“Food’s extra.”

“Extra.”

“Agreed. Next?” Will held out his hand.

“Huh?”

“The deposit?”

“Here’s half the price, twenty-five pounds.” John Mangles counted out the sum for the master, who pocketed it without saying thank you.

“Be on board before noon, tomorrow,” he said. “Whether you’re here or not, I’m sailing.”

“We will be here.”

This said, Glenarvan, the Major, Robert, Paganel, and John Mangles left the deck, without Will Halley having even touched the watch cap² stuck to his red mop.

“What a lout!” said John.

“Well, I’m fine with him,” answered Paganel. “He’s a real sea dog.”

“A real bear!” said the Major.

“And I imagine,” said John Mangles, “that this bear must have trafficked human flesh, in his time.”

“What does it matter?” asked Glenarvan. “As long as he commands the Macquarie, and the Macquarie goes to New Zealand. From Twofold Bay to Auckland we will see little of him. After Auckland, we will see less.”

Lady Helena and Mary Grant were pleased to learn that the departure was set for the next day. Glenarvan pointed out that the Macquarie did not match the Duncan for comfort. But after so many trials, they were not women to trifle themselves over something so petty. Mr. Olbinett was requested to take care of the supplies. The poor man, since the loss of the Duncan, had often mourned that the unfortunate Mrs. Olbinett had remained on board, and, consequently, fallen victim with all the crew to the ferocity of the convicts. Despite this, he fulfilled his duties as a steward with his usual zeal, and the “food extra” consisted of selected provisions which were never usually included in the brig’s fare. In a few hours his arrangements were complete.

Meanwhile, the Major went to cash some drafts that Glenarvan had on the Melbourne Union Bank. He did not want to be devoid of gold, nor of arms and ammunition, so he renewed his arsenal. As for Paganel, he obtained an excellent map of New Zealand, published by Johnston of Edinburgh.

Mulrady was nearly fully recovered. He could barely feel the injury that had put his life in danger. A few hours at sea would complete his cure. He intended to treat himself with the breezes of the Pacific.

Wilson was responsible for the accommodation of the passengers on board the Macquarie. Under the strokes of his brush and broom, the deckhouse changed appearance. Will Halley, shrugging his shoulders, let the sailor do as he pleased. Of Glenarvan, and his companions, he cared little. He did not even know their names and did not care. This extra freight was worth fifty pounds to him, that’s all. He cared less about it than the two hundred barrels of tanned leathers that filled his hold. The skins first, then the passengers. He was a trader. As for his qualities as a sailor, he was well practiced in navigating these seas, made very dangerous by coral reefs.

As the day drew to a close, Glenarvan wanted to return to the point on the shore crossed by the 37th parallel. He had two reasons to go there.

First, he wished to visit once more this presumed place of the shipwreck. Ayrton certainly had been the quartermaster of the Britannia, and the Britannia could have really been lost on the Australian coast. On the east coast, if not on the west. The site of the possible wreck should at least be examined, while he had the chance.

And even if there was no trace of the Britannia, there might be of the Duncan, from when she had fallen into the hands of the convicts. There may have been a fight. They might find traces of a struggle, of some last defence. If the crew had perished in the waves, perhaps the waves had cast up some bodies onto the shore.

Glenarvan, accompanied by his faithful John, performed this search. The master of the Victoria Hotel put two horses at their disposal, and they took the north road around Twofold Bay.

It was a sad exploration. Glenarvan and Captain John rode without speaking, but they understood each other. The same thoughts, and the same anxieties, tortured their minds. They looked at the rocks, gnawed by the sea. They did not need to question or answer one another.

John’s energy and intelligence ensured that every point of the shoreline was scrupulously explored. The smallest coves were carefully examined. The sloping beaches and sandy plateaus where the Pacific tides, however mediocre, could have thrown a wreck were investigated. But no clue was found that might provoke further searching in these parts.

No trace of a shipwreck was found.

Nor did they find any sign of the Duncan. All of this Australian coastline was deserted.

John Mangles did discover obvious traces of an encampment on the edge of the shore: remnants of fires recently lit under isolated myalls. Had a nomadic tribe of natives camped there for a few days? No, because Glenarvan found indisputable proof that the convicts had been on this part of the coast.

It was a grey and yellow tunic: worn, patched, a sinister rag left at the foot of a tree. It bore a registration number from Perth Penitentiary. The convicts were no longer there, but this sleazy castoff betrayed their passage. This livery of crime, after having dressed some wretch, was rotting on this deserted shore.

“See, John!” said Glenarvan. “The convicts have been here! And our poor comrades from Duncan…”

“Yes!” said John in a choked voice. “It is certain that they were not landed, that they perished!”

“Scum!” exclaimed Glenarvan. “If they ever fall into my hands, I will avenge my crew!”

They set off at a gallop, back to Eden

The pain had hardened Glenarvan’s features. For a few minutes he stared intently at the immensity of the waves, perhaps seeking a ship on the distant horizon. Then his eyes softened, he became himself again, and, without adding a word or making a gesture, he set off at a gallop, back to Eden.

Only one formality remained to be fulfilled: the declaration to the constable of the events which had taken place. It was made that evening to Thomas Banks. This magistrate could scarcely conceal his satisfaction while writing down his minutes. He was delighted by the departure of Ben Joyce and his gang. The whole town shared his contentment. The convicts had left Australia — thanks to a new crime, it is true — but they had left. This important news was immediately telegraphed to the authorities in Melbourne and Sydney.

His declaration completed, Glenarvan returned to the Victoria Hotel. The travellers passed their last evening sadly. Their thoughts wandered over this fertile land of misery. They remembered so many hopes so legitimately conceived at Cape Bernouilli, and so cruelly broken at Twofold Bay!

Paganel was in a feverish state of agitation. John Mangles, who had watched him since the Snowy River incident, felt that the geographer both wanted, and did not want to talk. Many times he had pressed him with questions to which the other had not replied.

That night, accompanying him back to his room, John asked him why he was so nervous.

“John, my friend,” said Paganel, “I’m no more nervous than usual.”

“Monsieur Paganel,” said John, “you have a secret that stifles you!”

“Well, what can I do?” The geographer waved his arms in the air. “It is stronger than me!”

“What is stronger than you?”

“My joy on one side; my despair on the other.”

“You are happy and despair at the same time?”

“Yes, happy and despair to visit New Zealand.”

“Have you found some clue?” asked John Mangles eagerly. “Have you returned to the lost track?”

“No, friend John! There is no return from New Zealand! But, nevertheless … well, you know human nature! We just have to breathe to hope! And my motto is “spiro, spero,”³ which is worth all the most beautiful currencies in the world!”

1. About 400 leagues. (1,600 km — DAS)

2. A sort of oilcloth hat.

3. Latin: As I breath, I hope — DAS

| Index | Chapter II

Chapter II
Some Words About the Country They Were to Visit

The next day, January 27th, Macquarie’s passengers were seated in the brig’s narrow cabin. Will Halley had not offered his cabin to the ladies. The lack of manners was not regretted, because the den was worthy of the bear.

At half-past twelve, they sailed with the ebb-tide. The chain came taut and the anchor was laboriously torn from the bottom. There was a moderate southwest breeze. The sails were leisurely unfurled. The five men of the crew were moving slowly. Wilson wanted to help them, but Halley begged him to keep quiet and not to interfere with anything that did not concern him. He was used to getting by on his own, and did not ask for help, or advice.

This last was addressed to John Mangles, who had smiled at the awkwardness of the ship’s maneuvers. John took this in good stead, but privately reserved the right to intervene, if the clumsiness of the crew compromised the safety of the ship.

In time, and with much swearing from the master, the crew got the sails set. The Macquarie ran wide on the port tack, under her mainsails, topsails, topgallants, and jibs. Later, the studsails and royals were hoisted. But in spite of all the canvas, the ship made very little way. Her rounded bow, broad beam, and her heavy stern, made her a very bad sailer: the perfect type of tub.

It was necessary to put up with it. Fortunately, even as poorly as the Macquarie sailed, in five days, six at the most, she should reach Auckland harbour.

They lost sight of the coast of Australia and the lighthouse marking the port of Eden at seven o’clock in the evening. The ship laboured in a heavy sea; she rolled in the troughs between the waves. The violent gyrations made the passenger’s stay below deck uncomfortable, but they could not stay on deck because of the heavy rain. They were condemned to close confinement.

Everyone was left to their own thoughts. There was little talk. Lady Helena and Mary Grant barely exchanged any words. Glenarvan was restless. He paced back and forth, while the Major remained motionless. John Mangles, followed by Robert, occasionally climbed to the deck to watch the sea. As for Paganel, he murmured vague and incoherent words in his corner.

What was the worthy geographer thinking? Of New Zealand, to which destiny led him. He reviewed all of its history; the past of this sinister country replayed itself in his mind’s eye.

Was there in all this history a fact, an incident which could justify anyone calling these islands a “continent”? Could a modern geographer, or sailor, give them that name? Paganel’s thoughts always returned to the interpretation of the document. It was his obsession, an idée fixe. After Patagonia, after Australia, his imagination, triggered by a word, was bent on New Zealand. But one point, one, stopped him in this tracks. “‘Contin’ … ‘contin’ …” he repeated, “but that means continent!”

And he thought of all the sailors who had explored these two great islands of the southern seas.

It was on December 13th, 1642 that the Dutchman Tasman, after discovering Van Diemen’s Land, landed on the unknown shores of New Zealand. He followed the coast for a few days, and on the 17th his ships entered a large bay, terminated by a narrow strait between the two islands.

The North Island was called Te Ika-a-Māui by the natives, which means “Māui’s Fish”. The South Island is Te Waipounamu meaning “The Waters of Jade”.¹

Abel Tasman sent his boats ashore, and they returned accompanied by two canoes carrying a noisy crew of natives. These savages were of medium size, brown and yellow skin, with protruding bones, gruff voices, and black hair tied up in a fashion similar to the Japanese, topped with a large white feather.

Seven canoes … attacked

This first meeting of Europeans and natives seemed to promise long-lasting friendly relations. But the next day, when one of Tasman’s boats was surveying an anchorage closer to the land, seven canoes carrying a large number of natives attacked it. The boat capsized and filled with water. The quartermaster who commanded it was struck in the throat with a roughly sharpened pike. He fell into the sea. Of his six companions, four were killed. The other two, and the quartermaster, swam back to the ships and were saved.

Tasman sailed following this incident, confining his vengeance to firing a few musket shots at the natives, that probably fell short. He left the bay, which is still called Massacre Bay,² went up the west coast, and on the 5th of January he anchored near the northern tip of Te Ika-a-Māui. The violence of the surf, and the hostility of the natives prevented him from taking on water. He left these islands, to which he gave the name Staten Landt, that is to say, Land Of the States, in honour of the States General, the Dutch Parliament.

Indeed, the Dutch navigator imagined that they were connected to the islands of the same name discovered east of Tierra del Fuego, at the southern tip of America. He thought he had found “The Great Southern Continent.”

“But,” Paganel told himself, “what a sailor of the seventeenth century might call a ‘continent,’ a nineteenth-century sailor would not! Such a mistake is inadmissible! No! There is something that escapes me!”

For more than a century, Tasman’s discovery was forgotten, and New Zealand no longer seemed to exist, until a French navigator, Surville, became acquainted with it at 35° 37′ of latitude. At first he did not have any complaints about the natives, trading with them for fresh food to treat the crew’s scurvy. Several of Surville’s sailors were treated hospitably by a chief named Ranginui when a storm stranded them ashore at Whatuwhiwhi. All went well until a few days later when Surville accused Ranginui of stealing a yawl which had been cast adrift in the storm. Surville punished the robbery by burning the village, and kidnapping Ranginui, to take back to Europe with him.³ This terrible and unjust revenge was but a prelude to some of the bloody retaliations New Zealand was about to witness.

On the 6th of October, 1769, the illustrious Cook appeared on these shores

On the 6th of October, 1769, the illustrious Cook appeared on these shores. He anchored in Teoneroa Bay with his ship the Endeavour, and sought to rally the natives by good treatment. But to treat people well, you have to start by catching them. Cook did not hesitate to take two or three prisoners and impose his beneficence on them by force. These, loaded with presents, were then returned to the shore. Soon, several natives, enticed by their stories, came on board voluntarily and traded with the Europeans. A few days later Cook made his way to Hawke’s Bay, a large gulf on the east coast of the northern island. He found himself in the presence of belligerent, screaming, provocative natives. Their demonstrations went so far that it became necessary to calm them with a canister of grape shot.

On October 20th, the Endeavour anchored in Tokomaru Bay, where there lived a peaceful population of two hundred souls. The botanists on board made fruitful explorations in the country, and the natives transported them to the shore with their own canoes. Cook visited two villages defended by palisades, parapets and double ditches, which demonstrated serious knowledge of fortifications. The most important of these forts was situated on a rock which became an island at high tide. This was better than an island itself, for not only did the waters surround it, but they roared through a natural arch, sixty feet high, on which this inaccessible “pā” rested.

On the 31st of March, Cook, having, over five months, collected a vast harvest of curious objects, native plants, and ethnographic and ethnological documents, gave his name to the strait which separates the two islands, and left New Zealand. He would return in his later voyages.

In 1773, the great sailor reappeared at Hawke’s Bay and witnessed scenes of cannibalism. Here, we must reproach his companions for provoking them. Officers, having found the mutilated remains of a young savage on the beach, brought them on board, “broiled them,” and offered them to the natives, who threw themselves on them with voracity. It is a sad whimsy to be the cooks for a meal of cannibals!

Cook visited these lands which he particularly loved again on his third voyage, wishing to complete his hydrographic survey. He left them for the last time on February 25th, 1777.

In 1791, Vancouver lay for twenty days in Dusky Sound, without any profit for the natural or geographical sciences. D’Entrecasteaux, in 1793, explored twenty-five miles of coast in the northern part of Te Ika-a-Māui. The merchant captains, Hausen and Dalrympe, then Baden, Richardson, and Moodi, made brief visits, and Dr. Savage collected interesting details of the customs of the Māori, during a five-week stay.

It was in the same year, in 1805, that the nephew of the Chief of Rangihoua, the intelligent Duaterra, embarked on the Argo, anchored at the Bay of Islands, and commanded by Captain Baden.

Perhaps the adventures of Duaterra will provide an epic subject to some Māori Homer. They were fruitful in disasters, injustices, and ill-treatment. Bad faith, sequestration, blows and wounds are what the poor savage received in exchange for his good services. What an impression he must have formed of people who call themselves “civilized!” He was taken to London. He was made a sailor of the lowest class, the butt of the entire crew. Without Reverend Marsden, he would have died of grief. This missionary took an interest in the young savage, in whom he recognized a sound judgment, a brave character, and marvellous qualities of gentleness, grace, and affability. Marsden had his protege obtain some sacks of wheat and farming implements to take back to his own country. These were stolen. More misfortunes and the sufferings nearly overwhelmed the poor Duaterra again, before he managed to return to his homeland in 1814. He was just beginning to gather the fruits of so many hardships, when he died at the age of twenty-eight, just as he was about to regenerate this bloody Zealand. Civilization was undoubtedly delayed for many years by this irreparable misfortune. Nothing can replace an intelligent and good man, who combines in his heart the love of good with the love of his country!

New Zealand was abandoned until Thompson in 1816, Liddiard Nicholas in 1817, and Marsden in 1819, traversed various portions of the two islands, and in 1820 Richard Cruise, captain of the 84th Infantry Regiment, stayed for ten months, making valuable contributions to science, and learning the customs of the natives.

In 1824, Duperrey, commanding La Coquille, anchored in the Bay of Islands for a fortnight, and had nothing but praise for the natives.

After him, in 1827, the British whaler Mercury had to defend herself against looting and murder. The same year, Captain Dillon was greeted in the most hospitable way during two visits.

In March 1827, the commander of the Astrolabe, the illustrious Dumont D’Urville, spent a few nights with the natives, safely and unarmed. He exchanged presents and songs, slept in their huts, and undertook his survey work without being troubled, which resulted in such beautiful maps for the Navy Ministry.

It went otherwise the following year for the English brig Hawes, commanded by John James. After having touched the Bay Of Islands, he went on to the East Cape, and suffered greatly from a perfidious chief named Enararo. Several of his company suffered a terrible death.

Of these contradictory events, of these alternatives of mildness and barbarism, it must be concluded that too often the cruelties of the Māori were only reprisals. Good or bad treatment depended on good or bad captains. There were certainly some unjustified attacks by the natives, but they were more usually provoked by the Europeans. Unfortunately, the punishment fell on those who did not deserve it.

After D’Urville, the ethnography of New Zealand was completed by a daring explorer who circled the world twenty times. A nomad, a Bohemian of science, an Englishman, named Earle. He visited the unknown portions of the islands without having personal difficulties with the natives, but he was often a witness to scenes of anthropophagy. Māori devoured each other with disgusting sensuality.

This is also what Captain Laplace found in 1831, during his stay at the Bay of Islands. Already the wars were much more formidable, because the savages used firearms with remarkable precision. The once flourishing and populated lands of Te Ika-a-Māui changed into deep solitudes. Entire tribes had disappeared as herds of sheep disappeared, roasted and eaten.

The missionaries have struggled in vain to overcome these bloodthirsty tendencies. As early as 1808, the Church Missionary Society had sent its most able agents — it is the name that suits them — to the main stations of the northern island. But the barbarism of the Māori forced them to suspend the establishment of new missions. It wasn’t until 1815 that Messrs Marsden — the protector of Duaterra — Hall and King landed at the Bay of Islands, and bought two hundred acres of land from the chiefs for the price of twelve iron axes. This became the seat of Anglican society.

The beginnings were difficult, but the natives came to respect the life of the missionaries. They accepted their care and their doctrines. Some wild men softened. A feeling of gratitude awoke in these uncivilized hearts. In 1824, it even came to pass that the Māori protected their arikis,⁴ that is, the Reverends, against savage sailors who insulted and threatened them with ill-treatment.

Thus, with time, the missions flourished, despite the presence of convicts escaped from Port Jackson who demoralized the indigenous population. In 1831, the Gospel Missionary Newspaper reported two large settlements, one at Kidikidi, on the banks of a stream that runs to the sea in the Bay of Islands, the other in Paï-Hia, at the edge of the Kawa-Kawa River. The natives converted to Christianity had traced roads under the leadership of the arikis, cut tracks through the immense forests, and bridged the torrents. Each missionary would in turn preach the civilizing religion to the remote tribes, raising chapels of rushes or bark, schools for the young natives, and on the roof of these modest constructions unfurled the flag of the mission, carrying the cross of Christ and these words: “Rongo Pai”, that is to say “The Gospel”, in the Māori language.

Unfortunately, the influence of the missionaries did not extend beyond their missions. The whole nomadic part of the population escaped their operation. Cannibalism was destroyed only among Christians, and these new converts should not be subject to too great a temptation. The instinct for blood still pulses in them.

Moreover, a chronic state war still exists in in these savage countries. Māori are not stupid Australians fleeing the European invasion. They resist, they defend themselves, they hate their invaders, and an incurable hatred drives them at this moment against the English immigrants. The future of these great islands hangs on a throw of the dice. An immediate civilization awaits it, or a deep barbarism for long centuries, according to the chance of arms.

Thus Paganel, his brain boiling with impatience, had replayed in his mind the history of New Zealand. But nothing in this story gave a reason to call this country consisting of two islands a “continent.” And though a few words of the document had awakened his imagination, these two syllables ‘contin’ stubbornly blocked a new interpretation.

1. Another Māori name for the South Island is Te Waka a Māui “Māui’s Canoe.” Together the islands are known as Aotearoa “land of the long white cloud.”

The Hetzel note here was a ”correction” to the name Verne gives in the text, though Verne’s name for the South Island seems to be correct (allowing for variations in spelling.) I’ve updated all the names in the text to match current spelling — DAS

2. Tasman named it Moordenaar’s Bay “Murderers Bay”. It was the French explorer Jules Dumont d’Urville who changed the name to Massacre Bay. With the discovery of gold in the region, it was renamed Golden Bay in the 1850s — DAS

3. Verne gives the chief the name of “Nagui-nouï”, and says that the yawl was stolen. What actually seems to have happened is that the boat had been cut adrift by the French after it got hung up on some rocks, and then salvaged by Ranginui, who by Māori custom, laid claim to it — DAS

4. Ariki is a Māori word meaning “person of the highest rank and seniority” so giving this title to the missionaries denoted their respect for them — DAS

Chapter I | Index | Chapter III

Chapter III
The Massacres of New Zealand

On the 31st of January, four days after setting sail, Macquarie had not yet crossed two-thirds of the narrow sea between Australia and New Zealand. Will Halley did not pay much heed to the handling of his ship. He let her sail herself. He was rarely seen, not that anyone minded. It wasn’t even that objectionable that he spent all his time in his cabin, if only for the fact that the lout was drunk every day on gin or brandy. His sailors followed the example set by him, and no ship ever sailed more by the grace of God than the Macquarie of Twofold Bay.

Mulrady and Wilson straightened the tiller more than once

This unforgivable carelessness forced John Mangles to keep constant vigilance. Mulrady and Wilson straightened the tiller more than once as some sudden yaw nearly laid the brig on its side. Will Halley often berated the two sailors with strong swear words for their actions. In response, Mulrady and Wilson wanted to to confine the drunkard to the hold for the rest of the crossing. But John Mangles stopped them, and with some difficulty calmed their just indignation.

The situation of the ship worried him, but in order not to disturb Glenarvan, he only spoke of it to Major MacNabbs and Paganel. MacNabbs sided with Mulrady and Wilson.

“If you think it is necessary, John,” said MacNabbs, “you must not hesitate to take command, or at least take over the handling of the ship. This drunkard can become master again after we disembark at Aukland, and wreck it is his pleasure.”

“No doubt, Mr. MacNabbs,” said John, “and I will do it, if it is absolutely necessary. As long as we are at sea, a little supervision is enough. My sailors and I will not leave the deck. But, if Will Halley hasn’t sobered up when we approach the coast, I will be very uneasy.”

“Cannot you direct our course?” asked Paganel.

“It will be difficult,” said John. “Would you believe that there are no charts on board?”

“Really?”

“Really. The Macquarie only operates between Eden and Auckland, and Will Halley is so familiar with these waters, that he takes no bearings.”

“He imagines, no doubt,” said Paganel, “that his ship knows the way, and that she steers herself.”

John Mangles laughed. “I do not believe in self-sailing ships, and if Will Halley is drunk when we make landfall, he will put us in extreme danger.”

“Let us hope,” said Paganel, “that he will have recovered his reason in the neighbourhood of the land.”

“So, if he hasn’t, you could not guide the Macquarie to Auckland?” asked MacNabbs.

“Not without a map of this part of the coast. These shores are extremely dangerous. It is a succession of irregular and capricious little fjords, like the coast of Norway. There are numerous reefs, and it takes great experience to avoid them. A ship, however solid, would be lost if its keel struck one of those rocks submerged a few feet under water.”

“And in that case,” said the Major, “the crew would have no other recourse than to take refuge on the coast?”

“Yes, Mr. MacNabbs, weather permitting.”

“A bitter end!” said Paganel. “For the coasts of New Zealand are not hospitable, and the dangers of the interior are worse.”

“Are you talking about the Māori, Mr. Paganel?” asked John Mangles.

“Yes, my friend. Their reputation is known throughout the Pacific Ocean. It is not a question here of shy or stupid Australians, but of an intelligent and bloodthirsty race of cannibals, fond of human flesh. Of cannibals from whom no pity is to be expected.”

“So,” said the Major, “if Captain Grant had been shipwrecked on the coasts of New Zealand, you would not advise to search for him?”

“You might search the coasts for traces of the Britannia,” said the geographer. “But not the interior. No, that would be useless. Every European who ventures into these disastrous lands falls into the hands of the Māori, and every prisoner in the hands of the Māori is lost. I pushed my friends to cross the Pampas, to cross Australia, but I would never drag them onto the trails of New Zealand. May the hand of Heaven guide us; pray to God that we are never in the power of these ferocious natives!”

Paganel’s fears were only too justified. New Zealand has a terrible reputation, and its history is stained with bloody incidents.

The martyr-roll of navigators numbers many victims to the New Zealanders. Abel Tasman’s five sailors, killed and devoured, began these bloody annals of cannibalism. After him, Captain Tukney and all his crew of boatmen suffered the same fate. Towards the eastern part of the Strait of Foveaux, five fishermen of the Sydney Cove also found death at the teeth of the natives. We must also mention four men of the schooner Brothers, murdered at Molineux Harbour, several soldiers of General Gates, and three deserters of the Mathilda, to arrive at the so painfully famous name of Captain Marion du Fresne.

On May 11, 1772, after Cook’s first voyage, the French Captain du Fresne came to anchor at the Bay of Islands with his ship the Mascarin, accompanied by the Marquis de Castries, commanded by Captain Crozet.

The Māori gave an excellent welcome to the newcomers. At first they appeared timid, and it took many presents, kindnesses, and a long period of regular communication to put them at ease.

Their leader, the intelligent Te Kauri, belonged to the Wangaroa tribe, if Dumont D’Urville is to be believed, and he was a relative of the chief treacherously abducted by Surville, two years before the arrival of Captain du Fresne.

In a country where honour requires all Māori to obtain blood satisfaction for suffered outrages, Te Kauri could not forget the insult made to his tribe. He waited patiently for the arrival of a European ship, planned his revenge, and carried it out with a cold-blooded ruthlessness.¹

After first simulating fear of the French, Te Kauri continued to lull them into a sense of false security. He and his comrades often spent the night aboard the ships. They brought gifts of fish. Their daughters and their wives often accompanied them. They soon learned the names of the officers and invited them to visit their villages. Du Fresne and Crozet, seduced by such advances, traveled all over this coast populated with four thousand inhabitants. The natives ran to meet them unarmed and sought to inspire them with absolute confidence.

Captain du Fresne, anchoring at the Bay of Islands, intended to replace the masts of the Marquis de Castries, badly damaged in a recent storm. He explored the interior of the country, and on the 23rd of May he found a magnificent cedar forest two leagues from the shore, and within reach of the bay a league from the ships.

A camp was established there where two-thirds of the crew, equipped with axes and other tools, worked to fell the trees and to build a road that led to the bay. Two other posts were chosen: one on the small island of Moturua, in the middle of the bay, where the sick of the expedition were transported along with the blacksmiths and coopers from the ships; the other on shore, a league and a half from the vessels. The shore camp was in communication with the carpenters’ encampment. Vigorous and helpful natives assisted the sailors in their various labours at all of these camps.

Captain du Fresne hadn’t overlooked taking some precautions. The savages were never allowed to bring weapons onto the ships, and the boats that went ashore were all well armed. But du Fresne and many of the most trusting of his officers were fooled by the conduct of the natives and the commander ordered that the boats be disarmed. Captain Crozet tried to persuade du Fresne otherwise, but he did not succeed.

After this, the attention and the devotion of the New Zealanders redoubled. Their chiefs and the French officers lived on a footing of perfect intimacy. Many times Te Kauri brought his son aboard, and let him sleep in the ship’s cabin. On the 8th of June, during a solemn visit to the shore, du Fresne was recognized as “grand chief” of the whole country, and he was crowned with four white feathers in his hair.

Thirty-three days had passed since the arrival of the ships at the Bay Of Islands. The work on the masts proceeded; the water tanks were filled with fresh water from Moturua. Captain Crozet personally directed the carpenters’ post, and there was every expectation of a successful enterprise.

On June 12th, at two o’clock, the commander’s boat was readied for a planned fishing trip near Te Kauri’s village. Du Fresne embarked with the two young officers, Vaudricourt and Lehoux, a volunteer, and twelve sailors. Te Kauri and five other leaders accompanied him. No one could predict the dreadful catastrophe that awaited fifteen out of the sixteen Europeans.

The crowded boat was rowed to shore, and was soon lost to sight from the two ships.

Captain du Fresne did not come back to the ship that evening. Nobody was worried about his absence. It was supposed that he had wanted to visit the masts yard and spend the night there.

The following day, at five o’clock, the Marquis de Castries longboat made its usual trip to the island of Moturua for fresh water. She returned on board without incident.

At nine o’clock the sailors of the Mascarin saw an almost exhausted man in the water, swimming toward the ships. A canoe went to his aid and brought him back.

It was Turner, one of the men who had gone with Captain du Fresne. He had two spear wounds in his side, and he alone, of the sixteen men who had left the ship the day before, returned.

He was questioned, and soon all the details of this horrible tragedy were known.

The unfortunate du Fresne’s boat had docked at seven o’clock in the morning. The savages came cheerfully to meet the visitors. They carried the officers and the sailors who did not want to get wet on their shoulders when they landed. Then the French separated from each other.

Immediately, the savages, armed with spears and clubs, rushed upon them, ten to one, and massacred them. The sailor Turner, struck with two spear-thrusts, was able to escape his enemies and hide in the undergrowth. From there he witnessed horrible scenes. The savages stripped the dead of their clothes, opened their bellies, and chopped them to pieces.

At this moment Turner, without being seen, threw himself into the sea, where he was retrieved by the Mascarin’s boat.

This event consternated the two crews. A cry of revenge broke out. But before avenging the dead, it was necessary to save the living. There were three posts on the shore, and thousands of angry savages, hungry cannibals, surrounded them.

In the absence of Captain Crozet, who had spent the night at the masts yard, Le Clesmeur, the first officer on board, took emergency measures. The Mascarin’s boat was dispatched with an officer and a detachment of soldiers. This officer must, above all, help the carpenters. He set off along the coast, saw Captain du Fresne’s boat grounded on the shore, and landed.

Captain Crozet, absent from the ship, and knowing nothing of the massacre, saw the detachment appear about two o’clock in the afternoon. He sensed that something was wrong, went to meet them, and learned the truth. He ordered that the others in the camp not be told what had happened, to prevent panic.

The savages, assembled in ranks, occupied all the heights. Captain Crozet recovered the main tools, buried the others, set fire to his sheds, and began his retreat with sixty men.

Four sailors, excellent marksmen

Natives followed him, shouting: “Te Kauri mate Marion!”² They hoped to frighten the sailors by revealing the death of their Captain. This made the sailors so furious that Captain Crozet could barely hold them back. They crossed the two leagues to the shore, and embarked in the boats with the men of the second camp. During all this time, a thousand savages, sitting on the ground, did not move. But when the boats left the shore, the stones began to fly. At once, four sailors, good marksmen, successively shot down all the chiefs, to the great astonishment of the natives, who did not know the effectiveness of the firearms. Captain Crozet rallied to the Mascarin, and he immediately dispatched the boat to Moturua Island. A detachment of soldiers settled on the island to spend the night there, and the sick were returned to the ships.

The next day, a second detachment came to reinforce the post on the island. It was necessary to clear the island of the savages which infested it, and to continue to fill the barrels with water. The village of Moturua had three hundred inhabitants. The French attacked them. Six leaders were killed, the rest of the natives retreated from the French bayonets, and the village was burned. The Marquis de Castries could not return to the sea without masts, and Crozet, forced to abandon the trees of the cedar forest, had to make joined masts. The watering work continued.

A month passed. The savages made a few attempts to retake Moturua Island, but did not succeed. When their canoes came within range of the ships, they were cut down with cannon.

The work was finally completed. It remained to be seen if any of the sixteen victims had survived the massacre, and to avenge the others. The boat, carrying a large detachment of officers and soldiers, went to Te Kauri’s village. As they approached, this treacherous and cowardly leader fled, wearing Commander du Fresne’s coat over his shoulders. The huts in the village were carefully searched. In Te Kauri’s hut, they found the skull of a man who had been recently cooked. The impressions of the cannibals’ teeth were still visible on it. A human thigh was skewered on a wooden spit. A shirt with a bloody collar was recognized as belonging to du Fresne, then the clothes and pistols of the young Vaudricourt. They found the boat-arms and more tattered clothes. Further on, in another village, they found cleaned and cooked human entrails.

These irrefutable proofs of murder and cannibalism were collected, and the human remains respectfully buried. Then the villages of Te Kauri and Piki-Ore, his accomplice, were delivered to the flames. On the 14th of July, 1772, the two ships left these fatal shores.

The memory of this catastrophe must be foremost in the mind of every traveller who sets foot on the shores of New Zealand. It is a foolish captain who does not profit from these lessons. New Zealanders are still treacherous cannibals. Cook, in turn, recognized this well during his second voyage of 1773.

In fact, a boat from one of his vessels, the Adventure, commanded by Captain Furneaux, having landed on December 17th, in search of a supply of wild grasses, did not reappear. A midshipman and nine men had manned her. Captain Furneaux, anxious, sent Lieutenant Burney to look for them. When Burney arrived at their landing site he found “A picture of carnage and barbarism, of which it is impossible to speak without horror. The heads, the entrails, the lungs of many of our people, lay scattered on the sand, and, very near there, some dogs were still devouring other debris of this kind.”

To end this bloody list, we must add the ship Brothers, attacked in 1815 by the New Zealanders, and Captain Thompson and all the crew of the Boyd, massacred in 1820. Finally, on March 1st, 1829, at Whakatane, the leader Enararo looted the English brig Hawes from Sydney. His horde of cannibals slaughtered several sailors, cooked their corpses, and devoured them.

Such was the country of New Zealand to which the Macquarie sailed, manned by a stupid crew, under the command of a drunkard.

1. The basic outline of events about to be described follows pretty closely with the generally accepted account, but there is dispute about Te Kauri’s motives. Rather than his behaviour being a cold blooded, calculated deception from the start, some believe that relations between the French and the Māori were soured by series of offences against Māori traditions and beliefs by the French, and a growing feeling that the French were taking too much of the local resources in their provisioning and ship repair work. Eventually, Te Kauri decided that they’d gone too far, and decided to do something about it — DAS

2. “Te Kauri killed Marion.”

Chapter II | Index | Chapter IV

Chapter IV
The Breakers

Their slow voyage continued. On February 2nd, six days after her departure, the Macquarie still hadn’t raised the shores of New Zealand. The wind was fair, from the southwest; but the currents were against them, and the brig hardly made any headway. The hard, stormy sea strained her rigging; her frame creaked, and she rose painfully from the troughs of the waves. Her badly managed shrouds and stays left play in the masts, which shook violently with every roll.

Very fortunately, Will Halley, as a man in no hurry, did not crowd on more sails, because if he had, all the rigging would inevitably have come down. John Mangles hoped that this wretched carcass would reach port without any mishap, but he suffered to see his companions so poorly installed aboard this brig.

Neither Lady Helena, nor Mary Grant complained, though continual rain forced them to stay in the deckhouse. There, the lack of air and the rolling of the ship made life miserable. They often came out onto the deck to brave the inclement weather until the unbearable squalls forced them below again. They returned to the small cabin more suited to lodge goods than passengers, and especially not ladies.

Their friends tried to distract them. Paganel passed the time with his stories, but he did not succeed much. Indeed, his stories of past visitors to New Zealand further demoralized them. As much as the geographer’s essays on the Pampas or Australia had been interesting, his stories of New Zealand left his audience indifferent and cold. Moreover, they were not approaching this sinister country voluntarily, with hope and enthusiasm, but under the pressure of necessity.

Lord Glenarvan remained on deck, staring incessantly at the sea

Of all the Macquarie’s passengers, the most unhappy was Lord Glenarvan. He was rarely seen in the deckhouse. He could not settle down. His nervous, over-excited nature did not accommodate itself to imprisonment between four narrow walls. He remained on deck, day and night, without concern for the torrents of rain or the high seas. Sometimes leaning on the rail, sometimes walking with feverish agitation, his eyes stared incessantly at the sea. He scanned the horizon with his telescope whenever the weather cleared enough to permit it. He seemed to question the silent waves. He would have torn away the mist that veiled the horizon with a gesture, if he could. He could not resign himself, and his face was full of pain. He was an energetic man, hitherto happy and powerful, to whom power and happiness were suddenly wanting.

John Mangles endured the harsh weather by his side. Whenever a break in the weather permitted, Glenarvan scanned the horizon with more obstinate stubbornness.

“Your Honour seeks the land?” asked John.

Glenarvan shook his head, no.

“Nevertheless,” said the young captain, “you must be getting tired of this brig. We should have seen the lights of Auckland thirty-six hours ago.“

Glenarvan did not answer. He was still staring, and for a minute his telescope remained fixed on the horizon to the windward side of the ship.

“The land is not on this side,” said John Mangles. “Your Honour should look to starboard.”

“Why, John?” asked Glenarvan. “It’s not the land that I am looking for!”

“What are you looking for, My Lord?”

“My yacht! My Duncan!” said Glenarvan angrily. “She must be there, in these parts, skimming these seas, doing the sinister job of pirate! She is there, I tell you. There, John, on this shipping lane, between Australia and New Zealand! And I have a feeling that we will meet her!”

“God preserve us from that meeting, My Lord!”

“Why, John?”

“Your Honour forgets our situation! What could we do on this brig, if the Duncan gave us the chase? We could not even run away!”

“Flee, John?”

“Yes, My Lord, though it would be in vain! We would be caught, delivered to the mercy of those wretches, and Ben Joyce has shown that he does not back away from any crime. Our lives would be worth nothing! We would defend ourselves to the death, but then what? Think of Lady Glenarvan, My Lord! Think of Mary Grant!”

“Poor women!” murmured Glenarvan. “John, my heart is broken, and sometimes I feel despair invade it. It seems to me that new catastrophes are waiting for us, that Heaven has declared itself against us! I am afraid!”

“You, My Lord?”

“Not for myself, John, but for those I love. For those you love too!”

“Don’t worry, My Lord,” replied the young captain. “We must not fear! The Macquarie sails badly, but she sails. Will Halley is a dumb ass, but I’m here, and if the approach to the shore seems dangerous to me, I’ll bring the ship back off. On that issue there is little or no danger. But God forbid we should find ourselves side by side with the Duncan. If Your Honour seeks to to sight her, it should only be so we can avoid her!”

John Mangles was right. Meeting of the Duncan would have been fatal to Macquarie. Such a meeting was to be feared in these narrow seas that pirates travelled without risk. That day, at least, the yacht did not appear, and the sixth night since their departure from Twofold Bay came, without the worst fears of John Mangles materializing.

But it was a terrible night. The darkness came on suddenly at seven o’clock in the evening. The sky was very threatening. A sailor’s instinct overcame Will Halley’s stupidity and drunkenness. He left his cabin, rubbing his eyes, and shaking his big red head. He took a deep breath, as another would have swallowed a glass of water to recover, and he examined the masts. The wind was freshening, and turning a quarter to the west, carrying them directly toward the New Zealand coast.

Will Halley loudly called his men, had the topgallants reefed, and set the night’s sails. John Mangles silently approved. He had given up talking to this rude sailor, but neither he, nor Glenarvan, left the deck. Two hours later, a strong breeze broke out. Will Halley added another reef to his topsail. The maneuver would have been difficult for five men if the Macquarie had not carried a double yard in the American style. It was enough to bring down the upper yard so that the topsail could be reduced to its smallest size.

Two hours passed. The sea was getting higher. The Macquarie was shaking to her bilges enough to make one think her keel was scrapping on the rocks. It was not the case, but her heavy hull struggled to rise up the waves. And crashing down into the troughs, the sea swept over her deck. The longboat, hanging from the port davits, disappeared with a wave washing over the deck.

John Mangles did not stop being worried. Any other ship would have played with these waves, but this heavy boat was in danger of sinking. The deck was filling with each dive, and the water wasn’t draining quickly enough through the scuppers. This could sink the ship. It would have been wise to break the bulwarks with an axe, in order to facilitate the draining of the deck, but Will Halley refused to take this precaution.

A greater danger threatened the Macquarie, and it was too late to prevent it. About half-past eleven John Mangles and Wilson, standing on the leeward side, were struck by an unusual sound. Their seafaring instinct awoke. John grabbed the sailor’s hand.

“The surf!” he said

“Yes,” said Wilson. “The waves are breaking on a bank.”

“Not more than two cables away?”¹

“At most! We’re near the shore!”

John leaned over the bulwarks, looked at the dark waves and exclaimed “The lead! Wilson! The lead!”

The master, posted at the front, did not seem to suspect his position. Wilson seized the lead line coiled in its pail, and rushed into the foresail stays. He threw the lead; the rope ran out between his fingers. At the third knot, the lead stopped.

“Three fathoms!” shouted Wilson.

“Captain!” said John, running to Will Halley. “We’re on breakers!”

He didn’t wait wait to see Will Halley shrug in response. He rushed to the rudder, to put the helm hard over, while Wilson, releasing the lead, hauled on the sheets of the main topsail to luff the ship. John pushed the in-comprehending man who was on the helm away from it with a sharp blow.

“Into the wind! Let loose! Let loose!” cried the young captain, maneuvering to turn away from the reefs.

For half a minute, the brig’s starboard side ran parallel to the shore, and despite the darkness of the night, John saw a roaring line whitening four fathoms from the ship.

Will Halley, becoming aware of this imminent danger, lost his head. His barely sober sailors could not understand his orders. His incoherent words, his contradictory orders, showed that the stupid drunkard had lost all self-control. He was surprised by his proximity to the land, which lay eight miles to leeward, when he had thought it was thirty or forty. The currents had thrown him off his usual course, and caught this miserable routinist off guard.

John Mangles’ quick maneuver had pushed Macquarie away from the breakers, but John did not know his position. Maybe he was in a tight channel between reefs. The wind was full in the west, and with every pitch they might run aground.

The sound of the surf redoubled off the starboard bow. They had to luff again. John put the tiller hard over. The breakers multiplied under the brig’s bow. They had to turn into the wind to get back out to sea. Could they do it in a poorly balanced ship, under reduced sails? It was uncertain, but it had to be tried.

“Hard over!” shouted John Mangles to Wilson.

The Macquarie was approaching the new line of reefs. Soon, the sea foamed over the submerged rocks.

It was a moment of inexpressible anguish. The foam brightened the waves with phosphorescence. The sea was screaming, as if she possessed the voice of the ancient sirens brought to life from pagan mythology. Wilson and Mulrady added their weight to the tiller. They pushed it to its stops.

Suddenly, they felt a shock. The Macquarie had struck a rock. The bobstay² broke, compromising the stability of the foremast. Could they complete the tack without further damage?

The foremast came down, with all its rigging

No, for the wind suddenly calmed, and the ship fell back to the leeward. Its turn was stopped. A high wave lifted her up, carried her further onto the reefs, and she fell back with extreme violence. The foremast came down with all its rigging. The brig shuddered twice and then remained motionless, listing thirty-five degrees to starboard.

The porthole windows shattered. The passengers rushed outside. But the waves swept the deck from one end to the other, and they could not remain there without danger. John Mangles, knowing the ship was firmly embedded in the sand, begged them to go back into the deckhouse.

“The truth, John?” asked Glenarvan calmly.

“The truth, My Lord,” said John Mangles, “is that we will not sink. As for being demolished by the sea, that’s another question, but we have time to take counsel.”

“Is it midnight?”

“Yes, My Lord, and we must wait for the day.”

“Can we not put to sea in the boat?”

“Not in these waves, in the dark. It is impossible! And besides, where would we land?”

“Alright, John, we’ll wait until daylight.”

Halley was running about the deck of his ship like a madman. His sailors who had recovered somewhat from their stupor, smashed open a barrel of brandy and began to drink. John foresaw that their drunkenness could soon bring terrible scenes. He could not count on the master to hold them back. That wretch tore his hair and wrung his hands. He thought only of his cargo, which was not insured.

“I am ruined! I am lost!” he cried, running from one side of the deck to the other.

John Mangles scarcely thought of consoling him. He ordered his companions to arm themselves, and stand ready to repulse the sailors, who were gorging themselves with brandy, and uttering terrible blasphemies.

“The first of these wretches who approaches the cabin,” said the Major calmly, “I will shoot like a dog.”

The sailors no doubt saw that the passengers were determined to hold them in check, for after a few attempts at plunder, they disappeared. John Mangles no longer worried about the drunkards, and waited impatiently for the day.

The ship was absolutely motionless. The sea slowly calmed. The wind was falling. The hull could resist for a few more hours. At sunrise, John would examine the shore. If it had an easy landing, the dinghy, now the only boat on board, could be used to transport the crew and passengers. It would take at least three trips, because it had room for only four people. As for the longboat, it had been carried away by the sea.

While thinking about the dangers of his situation, John Mangles leaned on the deckhouse, listening to the sounds of the surf. He sought to pierce the deep darkness. He wondered how far they were from the land, both desired, and feared. Breakers often extend several leagues from a coast. Could the frail little dinghy withstand a long crossing?

While John thought on, hoping for a little light in the dark sky, the ladies, confident in his word, rested in their berths. The immobility of the brig assured them of a few hours of tranquility. Glenarvan, John, and their companions no longer heard the cries of the dead drunk crew, who also seemed to be recovering with a quick sleep. By one o’clock in the morning a profound silence reigned aboard this brig, itself asleep on its bed of sand.

Around four o’clock, the first gleaming appeared in the east. The clouds shone slightly under the pale glow of dawn. John went back onto the deck. A curtain of mist hung on the horizon. Some indistinct contours floated above the morning fog. A slight swell still agitated the sea around them, but the waves of the open sea were lost amidst thick, motionless clouds.

John waited. The light grew gradually, the horizon became red. The curtain slowly lifted from the vast backdrop. Black reefs jutted out of the water. Then, a shoreline appeared as a strip of foam. A luminous point shone like a lighthouse as the tip of a peak was lit by the still invisible disc of the rising sun. The land was there, less than nine miles off.

“Land!” called John Mangles.

His companions, awakened by his voice, rushed to the deck of the brig, and silently watched the coast which was revealing itself on the horizon. Hospitable or fatal, it must become their place of refuge.

“Where is Will Halley?” asked Glenarvan.

“I do not know, My Lord,” answered John Mangles.

“And his sailors?”

“Missing, like him.”

“And like him, drunk, no doubt,” said MacNabbs.

“Look for them!” said Glenarvan. “We can not abandon them on this ship.”

Mulrady and Wilson went down to the crew quarters in the forecastle, and were back within two minutes. They were empty. They searched the rest of the brig, from the steerage, to the hold. They found neither Will Halley, nor his sailors.

“What! Nobody?” asked Glenarvan.

“Have they fallen into the sea?” asked Paganel.

“Anything’s possible,” said John Mangles, very concerned about this disappearance. He headed toward the stern. “Let’s get to the boat.”

Wilson and Mulrady followed to help him with the boat. But the dinghy was gone.

1. One cable is 100 fathoms, so two cables would be about 400 yards/metres — DAS

2. A stay underneath the bowsprit, to counteract the upward tension on the bowsprit from the jibs and forestay — DAS

Chapter III | Index | Chapter V

Chapter V
Improvised Sailors

Will Halley and his crew, taking advantage of the night and the passengers’ sleep, had fled with the brig’s only boat. No one doubted it. This master, whose duty obliged him to remain the last on board, had left first.

“The rascals have fled,” says John Mangles. “Well, all the better, My Lord. They have spared us some annoyances!”

“I agree,” said Glenarvan. “Besides, there is still a captain on board, John, and your companions are brave, if not skilful, sailors. Give us your orders. We are ready to obey you.”

Major MacNabbs, Paganel, Robert, Wilson, Mulrady, and even Olbinett, applauded Glenarvan’s words, and, standing on deck, put themselves at John Mangles’ disposal.

“What should be done?” asked Glenarvan.

The young captain looked out over the sea, examined the incomplete masts of the brig and, after a few moments of reflection, said “We have two options, My Lord, to get us out of this predicament: to raise the ship and get back to sea, or to gain the shore on a raft that will be easy enough to build.”

“If the ship can be raised, let’s raise it,” said Glenarvan. “That is the best option, isn’t it?”

“Yes, Your Honour, for once on land, what would become of us without means of transport?”

“Let’s avoid the coast,” said Paganel. “We must be wary of New Zealand.”

“Especially since we’ve drifted off course,” said John. “Halley’s carelessness has brought us south, it’s obvious. At noon, I will make my sighting, and if, as I presume, we are below Auckland, I will try to take the Macquarie north, along the coast.”

“But what of the damage to the brig?” asked Lady Helena.

“I do not think it is serious, Madame,” said John Mangles. “We can set up a makeshift mast to replace the foremast. We’ll sail — slowly, it’s true — but we’ll go where we want to go. If, unfortunately, the hull of the brig is ruptured, or if it can not be floated free, it will be necessary to resign ourselves to gaining the coast and to resume the way to Auckland on the shore.

“Let’s see the state of the ship,” said the Major. “It matters most.”

Glenarvan, John, and Mulrady opened the main hatch and went down into the hold. About two hundred barrels of tanned skins were very badly stowed there. They could be moved without much difficulty, by means of hoists attached to the main yard, directly above the hatch. John had some of the barrels thrown overboard to lighten the ship.

The Macquarie was listing to starboard

After three hours of hard work, the bilges of the brig could be examined. Two seams had opened in the planking on the port side, at the level of the water line. The Macquarie was listing to starboard, its port side elevated, and the defective seams were in the air, so that water could not penetrate. Wilson quickly caulked the gaps in the planks, and carefully nailed a sheet of copper over them to restore the seal.

While making their inspection they found only two feet of water in the bilge. The pumps would easily drain that water and lighten the ship.

John concluded that the hull had suffered little damage in the grounding. It was likely that some of the false keel would remain embedded in the sand, but he could do without it.

After examining the interior of the ship, Wilson dove into the sea to determine her position on the shoal.

The Macquarie had grounded on a steep sandbank, pointing in a northwesterly direction. The lower end of her bow and about two-thirds of her keel were deeply embedded. The stern of the ship floated in up to five fathoms of water. The rudder was not embedded, and operated freely. John thought it was unnecessary to lighten her a great deal. A real advantage, because they would be able to sail at the first opportunity.

The tides are not very strong in the Pacific; however, John Mangles was counting on the arrival of the flood to raise the Macquarie. The brig had grounded about an hour before high tide. From the moment when the ebb tide was felt, her starboard list had become more and more marked. At six o’clock in the morning, at low tide, it had reached its maximum inclination. It seemed pointless to prop the ship up on crutches. It was thus possible to keep the yards and other spars that John intended to use to build a makeshift foremast on board.

It remained to make their preparations to free the Macquarie. It was long and painful work. It was obviously impossible to be ready for the noon high tide. They would only see how the brig would behave, partly emptied, under the action of that tide, and they would make the push at the next tide.

“To work!” commanded John Mangles.

His improvised sailors were at his orders.

John first ordered the sails furled. The Major, Robert, and Paganel, led by Wilson, went up the main mast. The main topsail, stretched under the force of the wind, would have interfered with the floating of the ship. It was necessary to secure it, which was done as quickly as possible. Then, after taxing work, severe on hands that were not accustomed to it, the main topgallant was lowered. Young Robert, agile and bold as a cat, was a great deal of help during this difficult operation.

It was then a question of placing an anchor, or perhaps two, in line with the keel at the rear of the ship. The anchor’s traction would be required to haul the Macquarie off the bar at high tide. This chore would be easy, if they had a boat. Just carry out an anchor, and drop it at the predetermined point. But with every boat gone, it was necessary to improvise.

Glenarvan was enough of a sailor to understand the necessity of this undertaking. An anchor had to be set to extract a ship grounded by low water.

“But what do we do without a boat?” he asked John.

“We will use the remains of the foremast and empty barrels,” said the young captain. “The task will be difficult, but not impossible, because the Macquarie’s anchors are small. Once set, I hope that they won’t slip.”

“Very well. Let’s not waste any time, John.”

Everyone, sailors and passengers, was called to the deck. They all took part in the work. The rigging that still held the foremast was cut away with an axe. The small mast had broken in its fall, so the crow’s nest could be easily removed. John Mangles intended to use these spars to built the platform of a raft, supported with empty barrels, and capable of carrying the anchors. A scull was fitted, which allowed the raft to be steered. The ebb tide itself would help make it drift out behind the brig. Then, when the anchors were lowered, it would be easy to get back on board by hauling on the rope that stretched back to the ship’s deck.

This work was half finished when the sun approached the meridian. John Mangles allowed Glenarvan to continue with the task, and turned his attention to finding their position. This was very important to determine. Fortunately, John found a very dirty sextant, with a almanac from the Greenwich Observatory, in Will Halley’s cabin. It was good enough to take the sighting. He cleaned it up and brought it to the deck.

This instrument, by a series of moving mirrors, brings the sun’s image back to the horizon at the moment when it is noon, that is to say when the day star reaches the highest point of its course. To operate the sextant you must aim its telescope at a true horizon, where the sky meets the water. In this place, however, a point of land to the north interposed itself between the observer and the horizon, making a direct observation impossible.

When the true horizon can’t be sighted, it is replaced by an artificial horizon. This is usually a flat bowl, filled with mercury, above which one operates. The mercury presents itself as a perfectly horizontal mirror. John had no mercury on board, but he overcame the difficulty by using a pail filled with liquid tar, the surface of which reflected the image of the sun quite well.

He already knew his longitude, being on the west coast of New Zealand. This was fortunate, because without a chronometer he could not have calculated it. The latitude alone was lacking and he was able to obtain it.

He used the sextant to measure the meridian height of the sun above the horizon. This was 68° 30′. The distance from the sun to the zenith was therefore 21° 30′, since these two numbers added together give 90°. On that day, February 3rd, the declination of the sun was 16° 30′, according to the almanac. Adding this to the zenith distance of 21° 30′, gave a latitude of 38°.

The position of Macquarie was thus determined to be 174° 45′ of longitude, and 38° of latitude, allowing for some insignificant errors produced by the imperfection of the instruments, which could be ignored.

Using the Johnston map bought by Paganel in Eden, John Mangles saw that the grounding had taken place at the opening of Aotea Bay, above Kawhia Point, on the shores of the province of Auckland. The city of Auckland being situated on the 37th parallel, the Macquarie had been diverted one degree to the south. They should therefore go north one degree to reach the capital of New Zealand.

“So,” said Glenarvan, “a journey of eighty miles.¹ It’s nothing.”

“What is nothing on the sea will be long and difficult on shore,” said Paganel.

“So,” said John Mangles, “we do all that is humanly possible to float off the Macquarie.”

Their position established, the work was resumed. High tide came at a quarter past twelve. John could not take advantage of it, since his anchors were not yet set, but he watched the Macquarie with some anxiety. Would it float under the action of the flow? The question was going to be decided in five minutes.

They waited. They heard some crunches. The hull shuddered, but they didn’t rise. John had good hopes for the next tide, but the brig did not move yet.

They lowered the anchor in ten fathoms of water

Work continued. At two o’clock the raft was ready. The smaller anchor was loaded onto it. John and Wilson boarded the raft after mooring a rope to the stern of the ship. The current carried them half a cable out from the brig, and they lowered the anchor in ten fathoms of water.

The position was good and the raft was hauled back to the ship.

There remained the larger davit anchor. It was loaded onto the raft with difficulty. The raft was played out again, and soon this second anchor was secured behind the first, fifteen fathoms deep. John and Wilson hauled themselves back to the Macquarie.

The anchor cable and hawser were fixed to the windlass, and they waited for the next high tide, which would be at one o’clock in the morning. It was then six o’clock in the evening.

John Mangles complimented his sailors, and told Paganel that, with courage and good conduct, he might one day become a quartermaster.

Mr. Olbinett, after helping with the various tasks, returned to the kitchen. He prepared a timely and comforting meal. The crew had worked up hearty appetites that were fully satisfied, and everyone felt ready for more work.

After dinner, John Mangles made the final preparations to ensure the success of the operation. Nothing should be neglected when it comes to freeing a ship. Often, the attempt fails for the lack of a little more lightening, and the trapped keel does not leave its sand bed.

John Mangles had thrown a large portion of the cargo into the sea, in order to lighten the brig; but the rest of the barrels, the heavy spars, the spare yards, and a few tons of pig iron which formed the ballast were carried to the stern, to lighten the bow. Wilson and Mulrady also rolled a number of barrels which they had filled with water to the stern, in order to raise the nose of the brig.

These last tasks were completed by midnight. The crew was exhausted, a regrettable circumstance, at a time when they would need all their strength to turn the windlass, which led John Mangles to revise his plan.

The breeze had calmed. The wind was scarcely able to raise a few ripples on the surface of the water. John, looking at the horizon, noticed that the wind was swinging around from the southwest to the northwest. It was unmistakable to his sailor’s eye, from the disposition and colour of the bands of cloud. Wilson and Mulrady shared their captain’s opinion.

John Mangles told Glenarvan of his observations, and proposed that they postpone the floating.

“And here’s why,” he said. “First, we are all very tired, and we’ll need all our strength to free the ship. Then, once free, how do we guide it to deep water through these dangerous breakers in the dark? Better to do it in daylight. Another reason to wait is that the wind is shifting to a more favourable quarter and I want to be able to take advantage of it. I want the wind to blow us off, while the sea lifts us. Tomorrow, if I am not mistaken, the breeze will blow from the northwest. We can raise the sails on the main mast, and they will help to free the brig.”

These arguments were convincing. Glenarvan and Paganel — the most impatient to be free — agreed, and the operation was postponed until the next day. The night went well. A watch was set, especially to keep an eye on the anchors.

The day came. John Mangles’ weather prediction was accurate. A fresh breeze blew from the north-northwest. It gave them an important aid. The crew was assembled. Robert, Wilson, and Mulrady went to the top of the mainmast; the Major, Glenarvan, and Paganel were on the deck, preparing the sails to be deployed at the proper moment. The yard of the main topsail was hoisted to the block, the main sail and the main topsail left furled.

It was nine o’clock in the morning. High tide was still four hours away. They were not idle. John had them build a makeshift mast at the front of the brig, to replace the foremast. This would allow him to maneuver away from these dangerous shoals as soon as the ship was afloat. The work proceeded with renewed vigour, and before midday the foresail was firmly secured to its mast. Lady Helena and Mary Grant made themselves very useful, rigging a spare sail to the topgallant’s yard. They were happy to work for their common salvation. The rigging was completed. If the Macquarie left something to be desired from the point of view of elegance, at least she could sail, as long as she didn’t venture too far from the coast.

The tide rose. The surface of the sea rose in small, choppy waves. The heads of breakers disappeared little by little, like marine animals ducking under the water. The hour was approaching to attempt the grand operation. A feverish impatience kept everyone on edge. Nobody spoke. Everyone looked to John, anticipating his orders. John Mangles, leaning over the quarter deck, watched the tide. He glanced anxiously at the braided cable and hawser stretching out to the anchors. At one o’clock, the sea reached its highest point. It was steady for this short moment between its rise, and beginning to fall again. It was necessary act without delay. The main sail and the main topsail were dropped and combed the mast under the force of the wind.

“To the windlass!” John shouted.

It was a windlass with twin cranks, like a fire pump. Glenarvan, Mulrady and Robert on one side, Paganel, the Major and Olbinett on the other, leaned on the handles that turned the mechanism. At the same time, John and Wilson, engaging the breaker bars, added their efforts to those of their companions.

“Hardy! Hardy!” cried the young captain. “And all together!”

The cable and the hawser were stretched taut under the powerful action of the windlass. The anchors held firm and did not slip. It was necessary to succeed promptly. The high water only lasts a few minutes, and it would soon fall. They redoubled their efforts. The wind gave a violent gust, and pressed the sails against the mast. A few tremors were felt in the hull. The brig seemed ready to rise. Perhaps one more arm would be enough to pull her off the sandbar.

“Helena! Mary!” Glenarvan shouted.

The two young women joined their efforts to those of their companions. A last click of the ratchet was heard.

But that was all. The brig did not move. The chance was lost. The tide was already beginning to ebb, and it was evident that even with the help of the wind and the sea, this small crew could not free the ship.

1. Verne has twenty-five miles here, but the straight line distance from Aotea to Auckland is eighty miles. (130 kilometres) Verne does use a more accurate distance in later chapters. The longitude he gives is also off by about 3° 30′, so I’ve adjusted it — DAS

Chapter IV | Index | Chapter VI

Chapter VI
Where Cannibalism Is Discussed, Theoretically

The first means of salvation attempted by John Mangles had failed. It was necessary to resort to the second without delay. It was obvious that the Macquarie could not be raised, and no less obvious that the only action to be taken was to abandon the ship. Waiting on board for unknown relief would have been recklessness madness. The Macquarie would be torn to pieces before the providential arrival of a ship at the scene of the grounding. The next storm, or even a strong surf raised by offshore winds, would roll her on the sands, break her, and scatter and disperse the debris. John wanted to be on land before this inevitable destruction.

He therefore proposed to build a raft large enough to carry the passengers, and a sufficient quantity of supplies, to the New Zealand shore.

The work was begun

No one argued with his decision. The work was begun, and they had made good progress when darkness forced them to stop work.

About eight o’clock in the evening, after supper, while Lady Helena and Mary Grant rested in their berths in the deckhouse, Paganel and his friends were discussing grave matters as they paced the deck of the ship. Robert did not want to leave them. This brave child listened attentively, ready to render any service, ready to devote himself to any perilous enterprise.

Paganel asked John Mangles if the raft could follow the coast to Auckland, instead of landing its passengers ashore. John replied that such a voyage was impossible with such an unwieldy vessel.

“And what we can not attempt on a raft,” said Paganel, “could it have been done with the brig’s dinghy?”

“Yes, eventually,” said John Mangles. “But we’d have to sail by day and anchor by night.”

“So, those wretches who have abandoned us…”

“Oh, them,” said John Mangles. “They were drunk, and in the darkness I fear that they have paid with their lives for their cowardly abandonment.”

“Too bad for them,” said Paganel, “and too bad for us, for the boat would have been very useful.”

“What do you want, Paganel?” said Glenarvan. “The raft will take us to the shore.”

“That is precisely what I would have liked to avoid,” said the geographer.

“What! A journey of ninety miles at the most after what we have done in the Pampas, and across Australia. Can it frighten men who have been through such hardships?”

“My friends,” said Paganel, “I do not question your courage, or the valour of our companions. Ninety miles would be nothing in any other country but New Zealand. You will not suspect me of pusillanimity. I was the first to to encourage you to cross America, and Australia. But here, I repeat, anything is better than venturing into this treacherous country.”

“Anything is better than exposing yourself to certain death on a stranded ship,” said John Mangles.

“What do we have to fear so much in New Zealand?” asked Glenarvan.

“The Māori,” said Paganel.

“The Māori!” said Glenarvan. “Can we not avoid them, following the coast? Moreover, an attack of a few miserable beings can not worry ten Europeans well armed and determined to defend themselves.”

“They are not miserable,” said Paganel, shaking his head. “The Māori are terrible tribes who fight against English rule — against their invaders — who often defeat them, and who always eat them!”

“Cannibals!” cried Robert. “Cannibals!” Then they heard him murmuring “My sister! Lady Helena!”

“Do not be afraid, my child,” said Glenarvan, to reassure the boy. “Our friend Paganel exaggerates!”

“I’m not exaggerating anything!” said Paganel. “Robert has shown that he is a man, and I treat him as a man, by not hiding the truth. New Zealanders are the most cruel, if not the most greedy, of cannibals. They devour everything that comes their way. For them, war is a hunt for that tasty game called man, and it must be admitted that it is a more logical reason to make war. Europeans kill their enemies and bury them. The savages kill their enemies and eat them, and, as my compatriot Toussenel said so well ‘It is not so evil to roast an enemy when he is dead, as to kill him when he does not want to die.’”

“Paganel,” said the Major, “there is much to discuss, but this is not the time. Whether it is logical or not to be eaten, we do not want to be eaten. But how has Christianity not yet destroyed these anthropophagous habits?”

The martyrdom of Reverend Walkner

“Do you believe, then, that all New Zealanders are Christians?” said Paganel. “It is only a small minority, and the missionaries are still and too often victims of these brutes. Last year, Reverend Walkner was martyred with horrible cruelty.¹ The Māori hanged him. Their wives snatched out his eyes. They drank his blood; they ate his brains. And this murder took place in 1865, in Opotiki, a few leagues from Auckland, right under the eyes of the English authorities. My friends, it takes centuries to change the nature of a race of men. What the Māori have been, they will be for a long time yet. Their whole history is made of blood. How many crews have they slaughtered and devoured, from the sailors of Tasman to the sailors of the Hawes? And it is not the white man’s flesh that has whetted their appetites. Long before the arrival of the Europeans, the Māori satisfied their appetites at the cost of murder. Many travellers who have lived among them have attended cannibal feasts where the guests were driven by the desire to eat a delicacy, like the flesh of a woman or a child!”

“Bah!” said the Major. “Aren’t these accounts just traveller’s tales? We like to come back from dangerous countries telling of narrow escapes from the stomachs of cannibals!”

“I’m not exaggerating,” said Paganel. “Very reliable witnesses have spoken: the missionaries Kendall, and Marsden; Captains Dillon, D’Urville, Laplace, and others. And I believe their stories; I must believe it. Māori are cruel by nature. On the deaths of their leaders, they immolate human victims. They claim that these sacrifices appease the anger of the deceased, who could strike the living, and at the same time offer him servants for the next life! But as they eat these posthumous servants, after having massacred them, one is justified in believing that the stomach motivates them more than superstition.”

“However,” said John Mangles. “I imagine that superstition plays a role in the scenes of cannibalism. Therefore, as religion changes, manners will change too.”

“John, my good friend,” said Paganel. “You raise the significant question of the origin of anthropophagy. Is it religion, or is it hunger that has driven men to devour each other? This is just idle speculation, right now. Why does cannibalism exist? The question is not yet resolved, but it exists. This is an important fact, about which we have only too much reason to be concerned.”

Paganel was correct. Anthropophagy has been chronic in New Zealand, as in Fiji and the Torres Strait. Superstition obviously influences these odious customs, but there are cannibals because there are times when game is rare and hunger is great. The savages began by eating human flesh to satisfy the requirements of a rarely satiated appetite. Then, the priests regulated and sanctified these monstrous habits. The meal became a ceremony. That is all.

In the eyes of Māori, nothing is more natural than eating each other. Missionaries often asked them about cannibalism. They asked them why they devoured their brothers. To which the chiefs replied that fish eat fish, that dogs eat men, that men eat dogs, and that dogs eat each other. In their very theogony, legend relates that a god ate another god. With such precedents, how can one resist the pleasure of eating one’s neighbour?

Moreover, the Māori claim that by devouring a dead enemy one consumes their spirit. Thus one inherits the other’s soul, their strength, their worth, which are particularly enclosed in the brain. This accounts for the brain being a choice dish, reserved for the most honoured guest.

However, Paganel argued — not without reason — that sensuality, especially hunger, excited the zealots to anthropophagy, and not only the savages of Oceania, but the savages of Europe.

“Yes,” he added, “Cannibalism has long reigned among the ancestors of the most civilized peoples, and do not take this personally, especially among the Scots.”

“Really?” asked MacNabbs.

“Yes, Major,” said Paganel. “When you read some passages by Saint Jerome on the Attacotti of Scotland, you will see what to think of your ancestors! And without going back to pre-historical time, during the reign of Elizabeth, at the very time when Shakespeare was dreaming of his Shylock, was not the Scottish bandit Sawney Bean executed for the crime of cannibalism? And what was his reason for eating human flesh? Religion? No. Hunger.”

“Hunger?” asked John Mangles.

“Hunger,” replied Paganel, “but above all, the necessity for the carnivore to renew its flesh and blood by the nitrogen contained in animal flesh. The lungs are satisfied with a provision of tuberous and starchy plants. But if you want to be strong and active you must absorb those malleable foods that repair the muscles. As long as the Māori are not members of the society of the legumists, they will eat meat and, for meat, human flesh.”

“Why not the meat of animals?” asked Glenarvan.

“Because they have no animals,” said Paganel, “and you must know it, not to excuse, but to explain their habits of cannibalism. Quadrupeds, even birds, are rare in this inhospitable country. So the Māori have always fed on human flesh. There are even ‘seasons to eat men,’ as in civilized countries, seasons for hunting. Then there are the great battues, that is, the great wars, and entire tribes are served on the table of the victors.”

“Thus,” says Glenarvan, “according to you, Paganel, cannibalism will not disappear until the day when sheep, oxen, and pigs swarm in the meadows of New Zealand.”

“Of course, my dear Lord, and it will take years for the Māori to get rid of their preference for Māori flesh, for the sons will long enjoy what their fathers loved. According to them, this flesh tastes like pork, but with more aroma. As for white flesh, they are less fond of it, because the whites mix salt with their food, which gives them a peculiar flavour, little liked by the gourmets.”

“They are discerning!” said the Major. “But whether white or black flesh, do they eat it raw or cooked?”

“What does it matter to you, Mr. MacNabbs?” asked Robert.

“Now then, my boy,” replied the Major, seriously, “If I ever end up in the teeth of a cannibal, I prefer to be cooked!”

“Why?”

“To be sure of not being devoured alive!”

“Good, Major!” said Paganel. “But suppose that they cooked you alive?”

“The fact is,” said the Major, “that I would not give a half crown for the choice.”

“In any case, MacNabbs, and if it is agreeable to you,” said Paganel, “the New Zealanders only eat flesh when it is cooked or smoked. They are well informed people on matters of their cuisine. But, for me, the idea of being eaten is particularly unpleasant! Finish your existence in the stomach of a savage? Ugh!”

“The conclusion of all this,” said John Mangles, “is that we must not fall into their hands. Let’s also hope that one day Christianity will have abolished these monstrous customs.”

“Yes, we must hope so,” said Paganel. “But, believe me, a savage who has tasted human flesh will hardly give it up. Judge for yourself by these two stories.”

“Let’s hear the stories, Paganel,” said Glenarvan.

“The first is reported in the chronicles of the Jesuit society in Brazil. A Portuguese missionary once met a very sick Brazilian woman. She had only a few days to live. The Jesuit taught her the truths of Christianity, which the dying woman accepted without discussion. Then, after the food of the soul, he thought to give her the food of the body, and offered his penitent some European delicacies. ‘Alas!’ answered the old woman, ‘My stomach can not support any kind of food. There is only one thing I would like to taste; but, unfortunately, no one here could procure it for me.’ — ‘What is it?’ asked the Jesuit. — ‘Ah! My son! It’s the hand of a little boy! It seems to me that I could nibble on the little bones with pleasure!’”

“Ah, but is it good?” asked Robert.

“My second story will answer you, my boy,” said Paganel. “One day, a missionary reproached a cannibal for this horrible custom, contrary to the divine laws against eating human flesh. ‘And besides, it must taste awful!’ he added. — ‘Ah, Father!’ replied the savage, casting a covetous glance at the missionary, ‘Say that God forbids it, but do not say it’s awful! If only you would try it!’”

1. Reverend Carl Sylvius Völkner was captured by the Māori, and executed as an English spy (which he arguably was) — DAS

Chapter V | Index | Chapter VII

Chapter VII
Where They Land in the Country They Should Have Avoided

The facts reported by Paganel were indisputable. The cruelty of the Māori could not be doubted, so there was danger in landing there. But had the danger been a hundred times greater, it was necessary to face it. John Mangles felt that they should leave the ship destined for imminent destruction without delay. There could be no hesitation between the two dangers, the one certain, the other only probable.

It could not reasonably be expected that they would be rescued by a ship. The Macquarie was not on the shipping lanes used to land in New Zealand. They go to Auckland in the north, or New Plymouth in the south, but the stranding had taken place precisely between these two points, on the deserted part of the shores of Te Ika-a-Māui. It was a bad coast, dangerous, badly haunted. Ships have no other problem than to avoid it, and, if the wind carries them here, to leave again as quickly as possible.

“When will we leave?” asked Glenarvan.

“Tomorrow morning at ten o’clock,” said John Mangles. “The tide will be rising, and it will carry us to the shore.“

The next day, February 5th, at eight o’clock, the construction of the raft was completed. John had given all his care to the construction of it. The raft built from the the remains of the foremast which had been used to place the anchors was not large enough to carry all the passengers and provisions. They needed a sturdy, steerable vehicle, capable of navigating over nine miles of sea. The main mast alone could provide the materials needed for its construction.

Wilson and Mulrady set to work. The rigging deadeyes were cut away, and the main mast was felled, chopped down with an axe at its base. It fell over the starboard railing, which shattered under its impact. The Macquarie was then stripped like a hulk.

The lower yards, with the yards from the topsails and topgallants were sawn and split to make up the main frame of the raft. They were combined with the pieces of the foremast, and all these spars were firmly bound together. John was careful to fill in gaps between the spars with half a dozen empty barrels, to float the raft higher in the water.

On this strong foundation, Wilson laid a latticework floor made of grating. Any waves that broke over the raft would thus drain away, and the passengers could keep dry. Moreover, water barrels, solidly joined, formed a kind of circular bulwark which protected the deck against large waves.

That morning, John, seeing the favourable wind, placed the small topgallant’s yard as a mast in the centre of the raft. It was held by stays and equipped with a makeshift sail. A large oar with a wide blade, attached at the rear, made it possible to steer the rig, if the wind gave it sufficient speed.

Such a raft, under the best conditions, could resist the force of the waves. But could it be steered, or brought to the coast at all, if the wind turned? That was the question. They began the loading at nine o’clock.

First they stowed sufficient provisions to last as far as Auckland, so it wouldn’t be necessary to rely on the productions of this ungrateful land.

Olbinett’s remaining stores, purchased for the crossing of the Macquarie, provided a few preserved meats, but little remained of them. They had to rely on the provisions from the brig: mediocre quality sea biscuits, and two barrels of salted fish. The steward was ashamed of it.

These provisions were enclosed in hermetically sealed cases, impervious and impenetrable to sea water, then lowered to the raft and lashed to the foot of the makeshift mast. The weapons and ammunition were put in a safe and dry place. Fortunately, the travellers were well armed with rifles and revolvers.

The small anchor was also loaded in case they were unable to reach the shore on the first tide, and they had to anchor offshore.

At ten o’clock the tide began to make itself felt. The breeze was blowing weakly from the northwest. A slight swell rippled the surface of the sea.

“Are we ready?” asked John Mangles.

“Everything is ready, Captain,” answered Wilson.

“All aboard!” John shouted.

Lady Helena and Mary Grant descended a coarse rope ladder, and settled at the foot of the mast on the crates of provisions, their companions near them. Wilson took the helm. John placed himself on the sail tackle, and Mulrady cut the mooring that held the raft to the side of the brig.

The sail was deployed, and the raft began to move toward the shore under the double action of the tide and the wind.

The coast was nine miles away, a mediocre distance that a boat with good oars could cover in three hours. But with the raft, it would take longer. If the wind held, they might reach the land in a single tide. But if the breeze calmed, the ebb tide would prevail, and it would be necessary to anchor to wait for the next tide. That was John Mangles’ chief concern, and it filled him with apprehension.

Still, he hoped to succeed. The wind freshened. The tidal flow having commenced at ten o’clock, they must reach the shore by three o’clock, or they would have to anchor to avoid being carried out to sea on the ebb.

The beginning of the crossing went well. Little by little, the black heads of the reefs and the yellow carpets of the sandbanks disappeared under the rising tide and the waves. Great attention and skill were necessary to avoid these submerged shoals, and to direct a rig that was slow to respond to its rudder.

At noon they were still five miles from the coast. A clear sky allowed them to distinguish the main landmarks. In the northeast stood a mountain over three thousand feet high. It stood out on the horizon in a strange way, and its silhouette mimicked the grimacing profile of a monkey’s head, facing the sky. It was Mount Pirongia, precisely located on the 38th parallel, according to their map.

At half-past twelve Paganel pointed out that all the rocks had disappeared under the rising tide.

“Except one,” said Lady Helena.

“Where, Madame?” asked Paganel.

“There.” Lady Helena pointed to a black dot a mile ahead.

“Indeed,” said Paganel. “Let’s mark its position, we don’t want to strike it, after it is submerged.”

“It is precisely in line with the northern ridge of the mountain,” said John Mangles. “Wilson, make sure to give it a wide birth.”

“Yes, Captain,” said the sailor, leaning his full weight on the steering oar at the stern.

In half an hour they had gained half a mile. But, strangely enough, the black spot was still showing above the waves.

John was watching it attentively. He borrowed Paganel’s telescope to see it better.

“It is not a reef,” he said, after a moment’s examination. “It’s something floating. It goes up and down with the swell.”

“Is it a piece of Macquarie’s masts?” asked Lady Helena.

“No,” said Glenarvan. “No debris could have drifted so far from the ship.”

“Wait!” exclaimed John Mangles, “I recognize it. It’s the boat!”

“The brig’s dinghy?” asked Glenarvan.

“Yes, My Lord. The brig’s dinghy, capsized!”

“Those poor men!” exclaimed Lady Helena. “They perished!”

“Yes, Madame,” said John Mangles. “They must have perished, for in the midst of these breakers, on a stormy sea, on that black night, they were running to certain death.”

“May Heaven have pity on them!” murmured Mary Grant.

For a few moments the passengers remained silent. They looked at the frail boat they were approaching. It had evidently capsized four miles from the shore, and of those who had gone in her, no doubt no one had escaped.

“But this boat may be useful,” said Glenarvan.

“Indeed,” said John Mangles. “Steer for it, Wilson.”

The raft changed direction, but the breeze fell gradually, and the boat was not reached before two o’clock.

The capsized dinghy was brought alongside

Mulrady, placed at the front, fended off the impact, and the capsized dinghy was brought alongside.

“Empty?” asked John Mangles.

“Yes, Captain,” said the sailor. “The boat is empty, and its seams have been opened. It won’t be any use to us.”

“No use at all?” asked MacNabbs.

“None,” said John Mangles. “It’s only good to burn.”

“I regret it,” said Paganel. “For that dinghy could have taken us to Auckland.”

“We must resign ourselves, Mr. Paganel,” said John Mangles. “Moreover, on a rough sea, I still prefer our raft to that fragile boat. It took only a small blow to tear it to pieces! So, My Lord, we have nothing left to do here.”

“When you’re ready, John,” said Glenarvan.

“On the way, Wilson,” said the young captain. “Straight for the coast.”

The tide continued to rise for about an hour. They crossed a distance of two more miles. But the breeze fell almost entirely and tended to swing around away from the shore. The raft remained motionless. Soon it began to drift toward the open sea under the pressure of the ebb. John could not hesitate for a moment.

“Drop the anchor!” he ordered.

Mulrady had been expecting the order, and was ready. He dropped the anchor in five fathoms of water. The raft retreated two fathoms before the hawser pulled taut. They furled their makeshift sail, and settled down for a long wait.

Indeed, the tide was not to turn again before nine o’clock in the evening, and since John Mangles did not care to sail during the night, he planned to stay anchored there until five o’clock the next morning. The land was in sight just three miles off.

The waves, raised by a strong swell, seemed to be moving constantly toward the shore. Glenarvan, when he learned that the whole night would be spent on board the raft, asked John why he was not taking advantage of the waves to carry them closer to land.

“Your Honour is deceived by an optical illusion,” said the young captain. “Although the swell seems to carry the water landward, the water doesn’t move at all. It’s a balancing of liquid molecules, nothing more. Throw a piece of wood in the middle of these waves, and you will see that it will remain stationary, except for the motion from the ebb tide. We must remain patient.”

“And dinner?” asked the Major.

Olbinett drew a few pieces of dry meat and a dozen biscuits from a box of provisions. The steward blushed to offer his masters such a small menu, but it was accepted with a good grace, even by the ladies, who had not much appetite, owing to the violent motions of the raft.

This motion, produced by the jerking of the raft on its cable in the swells, was very tiring for all. The raft was incessantly tossed on the small and capricious waves as violently as if it was striking an underwater rock. It was sometimes hard to believe that they weren’t aground. The hawser was stretched taut, and every half an hour John pulled in a fathom to refresh it. Without this precaution, it would inevitably have broken, and the raft, cast adrift, would have been lost.

John’s apprehensions was easily understood. His cable could break, or his anchor slip, and in either case, they would be in trouble.

The night was approaching

The night was approaching. Already, the disc of the sun, blood red, and flattened by refraction, was disappearing behind the horizon. The last lines of water shone in the west and glittered like sheets of silver. To that side, everything was sky and water, except for one clearly marked point: the hulk of the Macquarie motionless on its shoal.

The short twilight delayed the onset of darkness by a few minutes, and soon the shore, which bounded the horizons of the east and the north, melted into the night.

The shipwrecked party were left in an anxious situation on this narrow raft, lost in the shadows of night. Some fell into disturbed slumber and bad dreams; the others could not find an hour of sleep. At daybreak, everyone was drained by the fatigues of the night.

With the rising tide, the wind resumed from the open sea. It was six o’clock in the morning. Time was pressing. John had arranged everything to get a quick start. He ordered that the anchor be weighed. But the anchor flukes, under the shaking of the cable, had deeply embedded in the sand. Without a windlass, and even with the tackle Wilson rigged, it was impossible to pull it off.

Half an hour passed in futile attempts. John, impatient to sail, had the line cut, abandoning his anchor and taking away any opportunity to moor in an emergency, or if this tide was not enough to reach the coast. But he did not want to wait any longer, and an axe delivered the raft to the breeze, helped by a current of two knots.

The sail was spread. They drifted slowly toward the shore, which was fading into greyish masses against a background of sky illuminated by the rising sun. The reefs were deftly avoided and doubled. But, under the uncertain breeze from the open sea, the raft did not seem to approach the shore. How difficult was it to land on this dangerous shore?

At nine o’clock, the coast was less than a mile away. The breakers bristled on a steep shore. It was necessary to discover a practicable landing there. The wind gradually weakened and fell completely. The sail flapped uselessly against the mast. John had it furled. The tide alone carried the raft to the land, but they could no longer steer it, and enormous bands of seaweed slowed their progress.

At ten o’clock the raft was almost stationary, three cables from the shore. With no anchor, were they going to be pushed back by the ebb? John, his hands clenched, his heart devoured with anxiety, cast a fierce glance at this unapproachable land.

The ladies, carried from arm to arm

Fortunately — fortunately this time — they felt a shock. The raft stopped. It had run aground on a sandy bottom, twenty-five fathoms from the coast.

Glenarvan, Robert, Wilson, and Mulrady threw themselves into the water. The raft was moored to some neighbouring rocks. The ladies, carried from arm to arm, reached the shore without having wetted a fold of their dresses, and soon all, with arms and provisions, had at last set foot on these formidable shores of New Zealand.

Chapter VI | Index | Chapter VIII

Chapter VIII
The Present of the Country They Were In

Glenarvan would have liked to begin following the coast to Auckland, without losing an hour. But the sky had filled with heavy clouds as the morning advanced, and at eleven o’clock, after they had unloaded the raft, the clouds burst in violent rain. Instead of setting off, they had to seek shelter.

Luckily, Wilson discovered a sea cave in the basaltic rocks of the shore. The travellers took refuge there, with their arms and provisions. There was a whole crop of dried kelp that had been washed up by the waves. It made a natural bedding. A few pieces of wood were piled up at the entrance of the cave, then lit, and everyone dried themselves as well as possible.

John hoped that the duration of this torrential rain would be in inverse proportion to its violence. This was not to be. The hours passed without bringing a change in the state of the sky. The wind freshened toward noon and increased to a squall. This contretemps would have tried the most patient of men, but what could they do? It would have been folly to brave such a storm without any vehicle. Besides, it should only take a few days to reach Auckland, and a delay of twelve hours would not be detrimental to the expedition, if they didn’t encounter any natives.

Conversation in the grotto

During this forced stop, the conversation turned to the history of the war to which New Zealand was now the theatre. To understand and appreciate the gravity of the circumstances in which the castaways of the Macquarie were thrown, it was necessary to know the history of this struggle, which then roiled the island of Te Ika-a-Māui.

Since the arrival of Abel Tasman in Cook Strait on December 16th, 1642, the Māori, often visited by European ships, had remained free in their independent islands. No European power thought of seizing this archipelago which commands the seas of the Pacific. Only the missionaries, established at various points, brought the benefits of Christian civilization to these new countries. Some of them, and especially the Anglicans, were preparing the Māori chiefs to bend under the yoke of England. The latter were skillfully manipulated into signing a letter addressed to Queen Victoria to demand her protection. But the most clear-sighted foresaw the foolishness of this step, and one of them, after applying the image of his tattoo on the letter, uttered these prophetic words: “We have lost our country; henceforth it is no longer ours. Soon the stranger will come to seize it and we will be his slaves.”

On January 29th, 1840, the corvette Herald arrived at the Bay of Islands, in the north of Te Ika-a-Māui. Captain Hobson landed at the village of Kororareka. The inhabitants were invited to meet in a general assembly in the Protestant church. There the titles given to Captain Hobson by the Queen of England were read.

On the 5th of February,¹ the principal Māori chiefs were summoned to an English residence at the village of Paihia. Captain Hobson sought their submission, saying that the Queen had sent troops and ships to protect them, that their rights were guaranteed, that their freedom remained intact. They kept ownership of their land, but henceforth they would only be allowed to sell it to the British Government.²

The majority of the chiefs, finding the protection too expensive, refused to acquiesce. But the promises and the presents had more power over their wild natures than the great words of Captain Hobson, and many of them did sign the treaty. From this year, 1840, until the day the Duncan left the Firth of Clyde, what happened? Nothing was unknown to Jacques Paganel, and he was ready to instruct his companions about all of it.

“Madame,” he answered Lady Helena’s questions, “I will repeat what I have already said, that the New Zealanders are a brave people who, having yielded for a moment, resist surrendering every additional foot to the English invaders. The Māori tribes are organized like the ancient clans of Scotland. There are many great families under one chief, who is very jealous of his prerogatives. The men of this race are proud and brave, some tall, with smooth hair, similar to the Maltese, or Jews of Baghdad, others smaller, stocky, like mulattoes, but all are robust, haughty and warlike. They had a famous chef named Hihi, a veritable Vercingetorix.³ So you will not be surprised if the war with the English is chronic in the territory of Te Ika-a-Māui, where William Thompson⁴ leads the famous tribes of Waikato in defence of their lands.”

“But aren’t the English masters of the principal ports of New Zealand?” asked John Mangles.

“No doubt, my dear John,” replied Paganel. “From 1840 to 1862, after Captain Hobson — who later became Governor of the island — took possession, nine colonies were founded in the most advantageous positions. From there, nine provinces were established, four in the North Island: Auckland, Taranaki, Wellington, and Hawke’s Bay; five in the South Island: Nelson, Marlborough, Canterbury, Otago, and Southland, with a general population of 180,346, as of June 30th, 1864. Important cities and commercial enterprises have risen all over. When we arrive at Auckland, you will admire without reservation the state of affairs in this southern Corinth, dominating its narrow isthmus, cast as a bridge to the Pacific Ocean, and which already has twelve thousand inhabitants. To the west, New Plymouth; to the east, Ahuriri; to the south, Wellington; are already flourishing and busy cities. On the island of Te Waipounamu, you would be spoiled for choice between Nelson, this Montpellier of the Antipodes, the garden of New Zealand; Picton, on the Cook Strait; Christchurch; Invercargill; and Dunedin, in the opulent province of Otago, where gold-diggers come from all over the world. And note that these are not assemblages of a few huts, an agglomeration of a few wild families, but real cities, with ports, cathedrals, banks, docks, botanical gardens, museums of natural history, acclimatization societies, newspapers, hospitals, charitable institutions, philosophical institutes, Freemasons’ lodges, clubs, choral societies, theatres and palaces of universal exposition, neither more nor less than in London or Paris! And if my memory is faithful, this past year, and perhaps still, at the moment when I speak to you, the industrial products of the whole globe are being exhibited in a country of cannibals!”

“What! Despite the war with the natives?” asked Lady Helena.

“The English, Madame, are little concerned about the war!” said Paganel. “They fight and they exhibit at the same time. It does not disturb them. They even build railways under the rifles of Māori. In the province of Auckland, the Drury Railway and the Mere Mere Railway cut through lands occupied by the rebels. I would wager that the workers are shooting from the tops of the locomotives.”

“But where is this endless war?” asked John Mangles.

“Six months have passed since we left Europe,” said Paganel, “I can not know what has happened since our departure, except for a few facts which I have read in the papers of Maryborough and Seymour, during our crossing of Australia. But at that time there was still a lot of fighting on the island of Te Ika-a-Māui.”

“When did this war commence?” asked Mary Grant.

“You mean ‘recommence,’ my dear Miss,” said Paganel. “The first insurrection took place in 1845. The current war began toward the end of 1863, but long before, the Māori were preparing to shake off the yoke of English rule. The Māori King Movement had an active campaign to elect a Māori leader. They wanted to make old Potatau their king, and his village between the rivers Waikato and Waipa the capital of their new kingdom. Potatau was an old man, more astute than bold, but he had an energetic and intelligent Prime Minister, a descendant of the tribe of those Ngatihahuas who lived in the Auckland isthmus before the foreign occupation. This minister, William Thompson, became the soul of the War of Independence. He skilfully organized Māori troops. Under his inspiration, a Taranaki chief united the scattered tribes in common cause; another Waikato chief formed the Land League Association, a real league for the public good, designed to prevent the natives from selling their land to the English Government. Rallies took place, as in the civilized countries, which are preludes to revolution. British newspapers began to pick up these alarming symptoms, and the Government was gravely concerned about the Land League’s actions. In short, spirits were high, the dam ready to burst. All that was missing was the spark, or rather the collision of two interests to produce it.”

“And this spark?” asked Glenarvan.

“It took place in 1860,” said Paganel, “in the province of Taranaki, on the south-west coast of Te Ika-a-Māui. A native owned six hundred acres of land in the vicinity of New Plymouth. He sold them to the English Government. But when surveyors came to measure the purchased land, Chief Kingi protested, and in the month of March he erected a pā defended by high palisades on the disputed land. A few days later, Colonel Gold removed this camp at the head of his troops, and those were the opening shots of the national war.”

“Are the Māori numerous?” asked John Mangles.

“The Māori population has been greatly reduced in this past century,” said the geographer. “In 1769, Cook estimated it at 400,000. In 1845, the census of the native protectorate lowered it to 109,000. The civilizing massacres, diseases, and fire water have further decimated it, but there are still 90,000 natives in the two islands, 30,000 of whom are warriors who will keep the European troops in check for a long time.”

“Has the revolt succeeded so far?” asked Lady Helena.

“Yes, Madame, and the English themselves have often admired the courage of the New Zealanders. They engage in partisan warfare, fielding skirmishing parties, attack small detachments, and plunder the fields of the colonists. This was not the sort of campaign, beating the bush for small bands of Māori, that General Cameron wanted to wage. In 1863, after a long and deadly struggle, the Māori occupied a large fortified position on the upper Waikato, at the end of a chain of steep hills, and protected by three lines of defence. Prophets called for the entire Māori population to come to the defence of their land and promised the extermination of Pākehā, that is white people. Three thousand men were assembled for the fight under the command of General Cameron, who no longer gave any quarter to the Māori, since the barbarous murder of Captain Sprent. Bloody battles took place. Some lasted twelve hours, without the Māori yielding to the European canons. It was the fierce tribe of Waikatos, under the command of William Thompson, who formed the nucleus of the independent army. This native general at first commanded 2,500 warriors, and his forces grew to 8,000 when subjects of Shongi and Heki, two formidable leaders, came to his aid. Even the women, in this holy war, took part in the cruelest hardships.

“But the right person does not always have the right weapons. After deadly fighting, General Cameron managed to subdue the Waikato region, but it was an empty and depopulated district, because the Māori escaped him on all sides. There were admirable exploits of war. Four hundred Māori, besieged in the Orakan fortress without food or water by a thousand English troops under the command of Brigadier General Carey, refused to surrender. Then one day, at noon, they made their escape through the decimated 40th regiment, and fled into the marshes.”

“But has this bloody war been ended by the submission of the Waikato district?” asked John Mangles.

“No, my friend,” said Paganel. “The English have resolved to march on the province of Taranaki and to besiege Mataitawa, the fortress of William Thompson. But they will not seize it without considerable losses. At the moment of leaving Paris, I had learned that the Governor and the General had just accepted the submission of the Taranga tribes, and that they left them three quarters of their lands. It was also said that the chief leader of the rebellion, William Thompson, was thinking of surrender; but the Australian newspapers have not confirmed this; on the contrary. It is therefore probable that at this very moment the resistance is being organized with new vigour.”

“And according to your opinion, Paganel,” said Glenarvan, “this struggle would be in the provinces of Taranaki and Auckland?”

“I think so.”

“That very province where the shipwreck of Macquarie has taken place?”

“Precisely. We landed a few miles above Kawhia Harbour, where the Māori National Flag must still fly.”

“Then we’d be wise to go north,” said Glenarvan.

“Very wise, indeed,” said Paganel. “New Zealanders are enraged against Europeans, especially against the English. So, let’s avoid falling into their hands.”

“Perhaps we will meet some detachment of European troops, if we’re lucky?” said Lady Helena.

“Perhaps, Madame,” said the geographer, “but I do not expect to. Isolated detachments do not readily beat the country, where the slightest bush, the frailest shrub might hide a skilful skirmisher. I do not count on us receiving an escort of soldiers from the 40th regiment. But there are some missions established on the west coast that we will follow, and we can move in stages from one to another until we reach Auckland. We might also try following the route which Dr. von Hochstetter followed while tracing the course of the Waikato.”

“Was he an explorer, Monsieur Paganel?” asked Robert Grant.

“Yes, my boy, a member of the scientific commission aboard the Austrian frigate La Novara during her circumnavigation voyage in 1858.”

“Monsieur Paganel,” continued Robert, whose eyes glittered at the thought of great geographical expeditions. “Does New Zealand have famous explorers like Burke and Stuart in Australia?”

“Some, my child, such as Dr. Hooker, Professor Brizard, naturalists Dieffenbach and Julius Haast; but, though many of them have paid for their adventurous passion, they are less famous than Australian or African travellers.”

“And you know their stories?” asked the young Grant.

“Parbleu, my boy! I see you want to know as much as I do, so I’ll tell you.”

“Thank you, Monsieur Paganel, I am listening to you.”

“And we, too, are listening to you,” said Lady Helena. “This is not the first time that bad weather has forced us to learn. Tell us all, Monsieur Paganel.”

“As you wish, Madame,” replied the geographer, “but my story will not be long. It is not a matter of those bold explorers who were fighting hand-to-hand with the Australian Minotaur, here. New Zealand is too small a country to defend itself against human investigations. So my heroes have not been explorers, strictly speaking, but simple tourists, victims of the most prosaic accidents.”

“And their names?” asked Mary Grant.

“The surveyor Witcombe, and Charlton Howitt, the same man who found the remains of Burke,⁵ of that memorable expedition that I told you during our stop on the banks of the Wimmera. Witcombe and Howitt each commanded two explorations on the island of Te Waipounamu. Both of them left Christchurch in the early months of 1863 to discover different passes through the northern mountains of the province of Canterbury.

“Howitt, crossing the chain on the northern limit of the province, established his headquarters on Brunner Lake. Witcombe, on the other hand, found a pass in the Rakaia Valley which led to the east of Mount Tyndall. Witcombe had a travelling companion, Jacob Louper, who published his tale of travel and disaster in the Lyttleton Times.

“As far as I remember, on April 22nd, 1863 the two explorers were at the foot of a glacier where the Rakaia River has its source. They climbed to the summit of the mountain and engaged in a search for a new pass. The next day, Witcombe and Louper, exhausted with fatigue and cold, camped in heavy snow at four thousand feet above sea level. For seven days they wandered in the mountains, at the bottoms of valleys whose sheer walls delivered no way out. Often without fire, sometimes without food: their sugar changed into syrup, their biscuit reduced to a damp paste. Their clothes and their blankets dripping with rain; devoured by insects, they made three miles on good days, and on bad days scarcely gained two hundred yards. Finally, on the 29th of April, they found a Māori hut, and a few handfuls of potatoes in its garden. This was the last meal the two friends shared together.

Jacob Louper remained clinging to the boat

“In the evening they reached the shore of the sea near the mouth of Taramakau. They had to cross to its right bank, in order to go north toward the Gray river. The Taramakau was deep and wide. Louper, after an hour’s search, found two small damaged boats, which they repaired as best they could and fixed to each other. The two explorers embarked toward evening. But in the middle of the current, the canoes filled with water. Witcombe swam back to the left bank. Jacob Louper, who could not swim, remained clinging to the boats. This was what saved him, but not without many hardships. The unfortunate man was pushed toward the breakers. A first wave plunged him to the bottom of the sea. A second brought him back to the surface. He was struck against the rocks. The darkest night had come. The rain was falling in torrents. Louper, his body bloody and swollen with sea water, was buffeted by the waves for several hours. At length the canoe struck the mainland, and the castaway, deprived of his senses, was thrown back on the shore.

“The next day, at dawn, he dragged himself to a spring, and discovered that the current had brought him back to within a mile of where he had started in his attempt to cross the river. He got up, followed the coast, and soon found the unfortunate Witcombe, his body half buried, face down in the mud. He was dead. With just his hands Louper dug a pit in the middle of the sands and buried the body of his companion. Two days later, he was dying of hunger, when he was found by some friendly Māori — there are some — and on May 4th he reached Charlton Howitt’s camp at Lake Brunner. Six weeks later, Howitt was going to perish himself, like the ill-fated Witcombe.”

“It seems that these catastrophes are tied together,” said John Mangles. “That a fatal chain unites the explorers, and that they all perish when a centre link breaks.”

“You are right, friend John,” said Paganel, “and I have often made this remark. By what law of solidarity was Howitt led to succumb in almost the same circumstances? It can not be said. Charlton Howitt had been hired by Mr. Wyde, the head of Government, to survey a horse-friendly road from the Hurunui plains to the mouth of Taramakau. He left on the 1st of January 1863, accompanied by five men. He carried out his mission with incomparable intelligence, and a road forty miles long was pierced to an unfordable point of Taramakau. Howitt then returned to Christchurch and, in spite of the approaching winter, he asked to continue his work. Mr. Wyde consented. Howitt went back to supply his camp for the bad season. It was at this time that he met Jacob Louper. On June 27th, Howitt and two of his men, Robert Little, and Henri Mullis, left the camp. They crossed Lake Brunner. They have never been seen since. Their swamped canoe was found stranded on the shore. A search for them went on for nine weeks, but to no avail, and it is evident that those wretches, who could not swim, drowned in the waters of the lake.”

“But why shouldn’t they be safe and sound among some Māori tribe?” asked Lady Helena. “Isn’t there at least some hope that they have lived?”

“Alas! No, Madame,” said Paganel. “A year after the catastrophe, in August of 1864, they had not reappeared.” He went on in a low murmur “And when one has been missing for a year in New Zealand, one is irrevocably lost!”

1. Verne has the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi take place on January 5th. The interpretation of this treaty has been, and continues to be, a major bone of contention between the Māori, and the European settlers of New Zealand, as the treaty was bilingual with copies written in both English and Māori, and the two versions don’t always say the same thing — DAS

2. Verne has the Māori giving up all their property rights, which wasn’t the case (in either the English or Māori versions) though the interpretation of the clause on just who the Māori could sell to would become a major sticking point later — DAS

3. Vercingetorix was a Gallic king who united the Gauls in a revolt against Roman rule, in the first century BC — DAS

4. Wiremu_Tamihana anglicized as “William Thompson” was more the diplomat and publicist of the Māori King Movement, than it’s military leader. Throughout the conflict he continued to attempt to come to a negotiated settlement with the English. The military leader was Rewi Maniapoto — DAS

5. Paganel is mistaken here. Charlton Howitt was the brother of Alfred Howitt, who found the remains of the Burke and Wills expedition — DAS

Chapter VII | Index | Chapter IX

Chapter IX
Thirty Miles to the North

On the 7th of February, at six o’clock in the morning, Glenarvan gave the signal to depart. The rain had stopped during the night. The sky, overcast with thin greyish clouds, stopped the rays of the sun three miles above the ground. The moderate temperature made it possible to face the trials of a journey by day.

Paganel had measured the distance between Kawhia Point and Auckland on the map as eighty miles. It would be an eight-day trip, at ten miles a day. But instead of following the winding shores of the sea, it seemed to him a better idea to head for the village of Ngaruawahia, at the confluence of the Waikato and Waipa rivers, thirty miles away. The Overland Mail Track — more a trail than a road, but passable to carriages — passed through it on its route from Napier, on Hawke’s Bay, to Auckland. From there it would be easy to reach Drury and rest in an excellent hotel that the geologist Dr. von Hochstetter particularly recommended.

The travellers, each carrying a share of their provisions, began to follow the shore of Aotea Bay. As a precaution, they stayed close together, and they watched the undulating plains to the east with their loaded rifles at the ready. Paganel, with his excellent map in hand, took professional pleasure in noting the accuracy of its every detail.

During part of the day, the little troop walked over sand composed of fragments of bivalve shells and cuttlebone, mixed with magnetite and hematite iron oxides. A magnet held close to the ground would instantly be covered with brilliant crystals.

Seals, with their rounded heads

On the shore, caressed by the rising tide, were a few marine animals that made no effort to flee. The seals, with their rounded heads, broad, curving foreheads, and expressive eyes, presented a sweet and even affectionate appearance. It was easily understood why fables romanticized these curious inhabitants of the waves, making them out to be enchanting sirens, though their true voices were an inharmonious growl. These animals, numerous on the coasts of New Zealand, are the object of an active trade. They are caught for their oil and fur.

Between them were three or four, blue-grey elephant seals, twenty-five or thirty feet long. These huge amphibians, lazily stretched out on thick beds of giant kelp, raised their flexible trunks and grimly waggled the rough bristles of their long and twisted moustaches: curly corkscrews like the beard of a dandy. Robert was amusing himself by contemplating this interesting world, when he exclaimed “Hey! Those seals are eating pebbles!”

And, indeed, many of these animals were greedily swallowing the stones from the shore.

“Parbleu! You’re right!” said Paganel. “It can not be denied that these animals graze the pebbles of the shore.”

“A strange food,” said Robert, “and difficult to digest!”

“It’s not for food, my boy, but for feeding itself, that these amphibians are swallowing stones. It is a way to increase their specific gravity to easily dive to the bottom of the sea. Once back on the land, they will regurgitate these stones without further ceremony. You will soon see these seals dive under the waves.”

Soon, indeed, half a dozen seals, sufficiently weighted, dragged themselves down the shore and disappeared into the water. But Glenarvan could not waste precious time waiting for their return to watch the unloading operation and, to Paganel’s great regret, the interrupted march was resumed.

At ten o’clock, they stopped for lunch at the foot of large rocks of basalt arranged like Celtic dolmens on the edge of the sea. An oyster bed provided a large quantity of these molluscs. These oysters were small and unpleasant tasting, but following Paganel’s advice, Olbinett cooked them on hot coals, and thus prepared, they were eaten by the dozens and dozens for the duration of the meal.

After finishing their lunch, they continued to follow the bay shore. On its jagged rocks, at the tips of the sharp peaks at the tops of its cliffs, a whole world of sea birds: frigates, boobies, gulls, and large immobile albatrosses had taken refuge. At four o’clock in the evening, ten miles had been crossed without difficulty or fatigue. The ladies asked to continue their walk until evening. At this point, in order to reach the Waipa valley, it was necessary to divert their path away from the sea, around the foot of some mountains which appeared to the north.

From a distance, the ground looked like an immense meadow that stretched as far as the eye could see, and promised an easy walk. But when the travellers arrived at the edge of these green fields, they were very disillusioned. The pasture gave way to a thicket of bushes with small white flowers, intertwined with the tall and innumerable ferns that the lands of New Zealand are particularly fond of. It was necessary to cut a path through these woody stems, which was hard work. However, they had passed around the first ridges of the Hakarimata Ranges by eight o’clock in the evening, and they stopped to camp for the night.

After a trek of fourteen miles, it was permissible to think of rest. Besides, there was neither a wagon nor a tent, so it was at the foot of the magnificent Norfolk pines that everyone prepared to sleep. They had plenty of blankets from which to improvise their beds.

Glenarvan took rigorous precautions for the night. They took turns keeping watch until daybreak, in well armed pairs. No fire was lit. Such glowing barriers are useful against wild beasts, but New Zealand has no tigers, lions, or bears, no ferocious animals of any sort; the New Zealanders, make up for the lack. A fire would only serve to attract such two-legged jaguars.

The night passed well, except for a few sand fleas, ngamu in the native language, the sting of which was very disagreeable, and an audacious family of rats that nibbled on their provision sacks.

The next day, February 8th, Paganel awoke feeling more confident and almost reconciled with the country. The Māori, whom he particularly feared, had not appeared, and these ferocious cannibals had not even threatened him in his dreams. He expressed his satisfaction to Glenarvan.

“I think that this little walk will be completed without difficulty,” he said. “Tonight we will have reached the confluence of the Waipa and the Waikato, and from there, meeting the natives is to be little feared on the road to Auckland.”

“How far do we have to go, to reach the confluence?” asked Glenarvan.

“Fifteen miles. About the same as we did yesterday.”

“But we will be very delayed if these endless forests continue to obstruct our way.”

“On the contrary,” said Paganel. “We will soon reach the Waipa, and there shouldn’t be any obstacle to us following its banks.”

“Let’s go, then,” said Glenarvan, who saw that everyone was ready to set out.

The forest further delayed their progress during the first hours of the day. Neither carriage nor horses could have passed where the travellers passed. They did not regret not having their Australian wagon. Until the day when motorized roads are built through its forests, it will only be practical for pedestrians to travel in New Zealand. The ferns, whose species are innumerable, compete with the same obstinacy as the Māori in defence of their native soil.

The little troop experienced a thousand difficulties in crossing the plains from which the Hakarimata Ranges arise. But they reached the banks of the Waipa before noon, and from there had no troubles following the river northward.

It was a charming valley, crossed with many small creeks of fresh, pure water which ran happily under the shrubs. According to the botanist Hooker, two thousand new species of plants have been discovered in New Zealand, of which five hundred were first described by him. The flowers are rare, of subdued colouring, and annual plants are scarce, but there are plenty of Filicophyta, grasses, and Apiaceae.

Some tall trees rose here and there out of the undergrowth of dark greenery, Metrosideros with scarlet flowers, Norfolk pines, Thujas with vertically compressed twigs, and the rimu, which resembled the sad European cypress trees. All these trunks were surrounded by many varieties of ferns. Birds fluttered and chatted between the branches of the tall trees, on the tops of the shrubs: cockatoos; green kākāriki, with a red band under its throat; the taupo, adorned with a fine pair of black whiskers; and the kaka, a parrot as large as a duck, with bright red plumage on the undersides of its wings, which naturalists have dubbed the Nestor meridionalis.

The Major and Robert were able, without leaving the group, to shoot some snipe and partridge, which were resting under the low forest of the plains. Olbinett, in order to save time, took care of plucking them while he walked.

Paganel, for his part, was less sensitive to the nutritional qualities of the game. He would have liked to catch some particular species of bird in New Zealand. The curiosity of the naturalist overcame the appetite of the traveller. His memory, if it did not deceive him, reminded him of the strange ways of the tui of the natives, sometimes called a “mockingbird” for its ceaseless cackling and sometimes “parson bird” because it has a white collar at the neck of its black cassock-like plumage.

“This bird,” Paganel told the Major, “becomes so fat during the winter that he becomes ill. He can not fly anymore. Then, he tears his chest with pecks, in order to get rid of his fat and make himself lighter. Does not this seem strange to you, MacNabbs?”

“So strange,” said the Major, “that I do not believe a word of it!”

Paganel, to his great regret, could not find a single example of these birds, to show the incredulous Major the bloody scarifications of their breasts.¹

But he was happier with a strange animal, which — under the pursuit of man, cat, and dog — fled to the uninhabited country and is quickly disappearing from the fauna of New Zealand. Robert, searching like a ferret, discovered a pair of wingless and tailless hens in a nest formed of intertwined roots. They had four toes on their feet, a long woodcock beak and white hairy feathers all over their bodies. Strange animals, which seemed to mark a transition from oviparous to mammalian animals.

The New Zealand kiwi

It was the New Zealand kiwi, Apteryx australis to naturalists, which feeds indiscriminately on larvae, insects, worms, and seeds. This bird is unique to the country. It has barely been introduced into the zoos of Europe. Its half-drawn form, its comic movement, have always attracted the attention of travellers, and during the great exploration in Oceania of the Astrolabe and the Zealous, Dumont D’Urville was mainly charged by the Academy of Sciences to bring back a specimen of these singular birds. But, despite the rewards promised to the natives, he could not procure a single living kiwi.

Paganel, happy with such a good fortune, tied together his two hens and carried them off bravely with the intention of paying homage to the Jardin des Plantes of Paris. In his mind’s eye, the confident geographer already pictured the seductive inscription “Given by M. Jacques Paganel,” on the most beautiful cage of the establishment!

The little troop descended the course of the Waipa without difficulty. The country was deserted, there was no trace of natives, no paths indicating the presence of man in these plains. The waters of the river flowed between high bushes or glided down gentle slopes. Their eyes wandered over the small mountains that bordered the valley in the east. With their strange shapes, their profiles drowned in a deceptive mist, they looked like gigantic animals, worthy of antediluvian times. They could have been a whole herd of enormous cetaceans, caught by a sudden petrification. Their tormented masses emanated an essentially volcanic character. New Zealand is the recent product of a plutonian work. Its emergence from the waters is constantly ongoing. Some places have risen by a fathom in the past twenty years. Fire still runs through her bowels, shakes her, convulses her, and escapes through the mouths of many geysers and the craters of volcanoes.

At four o’clock in the afternoon, they had happily covered nine miles. According to Paganel’s map, they were within five miles of the confluence of the Waipa and the Waikato, where they would meet the road to Auckland. They could camp there for the night. Two or three days would be enough to cover the remaining fifty miles which separated them from the capital. If Glenarvan met the postal carriage, which provides a bi-monthly service between Auckland and Hawke’s Bay, it could be done in as little as eight hours.

“So,” said Glenarvan, “we will still be forced to camp next night?”

“Yes,” said Paganel, “but for the last time, I hope.”

“Good, because this is very hard for Lady Helena and Mary Grant.”

“And they endure it without complaint,” said John Mangles. “But, if I’m not mistaken, Mr. Paganel, you mentioned a village at the meeting of the two rivers?”

“Yes,” said the geographer. “Here it is marked on Johnston’s map. It is Ngaruawahia, about two miles below the confluence.”

“Well, could not we stay there for the night? Lady Helena and Miss Grant would not hesitate to go two miles more to find a suitable hotel.”

“Hotel?” cried Paganel. “A hotel in a Māori village! You won’t even find an inn or a cabaret! This village is only a group of native huts, and far from seeking asylum there, I think we would be well advised to avoid it.”

“Always your fears, Paganel!” said Glenarvan.

“My dear Lord, it is better to distrust than trust the Māori. I do not know their relationship with the English: if the insurrection is suppressed, or victorious, or if we will land in the middle of the war. But modesty aside, people of our quality would be a good catch, and I do not wish to experience the hospitality of the Māori. So I think it’s wise to avoid the village of Ngaruawahia, to turn away from it, to flee any meeting with the natives. Once in Drury, it will be different, and there, our valiant companions can recover at their ease from the trials of the journey.”

The opinion of the geographer prevailed. Lady Helena preferred to spend one last night in the open air rather than expose her companions to danger. Neither she, nor Mary Grant asked to stop, and they continued to follow the banks of the river.

Two hours later, the first shadows of evening began to descend from the mountains. Before disappearing under the horizon in the west, the sun had darted some late rays through a sudden gap in the clouds. The distant summits to the east were reddened by the last fires of the day, like a parting salute to the weary travellers.

Glenarvan and his people hurried on. They knew the brevity of the twilight in this already elevated latitude, and how quickly the darkness of night came on. They wanted to reach the junction of the two rivers before deep darkness. But a thick fog rose from the ground, and made seeing their way very difficult.

Fortunately, hearing replaced sight, which the darkness had rendered useless. Soon a more accentuated murmur of the waters indicated the meeting of the two rivers in the same bed. At eight o’clock, the little troop arrived at the point where the waters of the Waipa merged into the Waikato, with a roaring turbulence of waves.

“The Waikato is here,” said Paganel, “and the Auckland road goes up along its right bank.”

“We will see it tomorrow,” said the Major. “Let’s camp here. It seems to me that those dark shadows over there are a small thicket of trees which might as well have been put there expressly to shelter us. Supper and sleep.”

“Supper,” said Paganel. “But biscuits and dry meat, without lighting a fire. We have arrived here incognito. Let us try to remain so! Fortunately, this fog makes us invisible.”

They reached the thicket of trees, and everyone conformed to the wishes of the geographer. They ate their cold supper quietly, and soon a deep sleep fell upon the travellers, tired by a march of fifteen miles.

1. And if he had, the Major’s scepticism of this story about the tui would have been confirmed.

Chapter VIII | Index | Chapter X

Chapter X
The National River

The next day, at dawn, a dense mist crept heavily on the waters of the river. Some of the vapour which saturated the air had condensed over the cool water, and covered the surface with a thick fog. But the rays of the sun soon pierced these banks of mist, and they melted away under the gaze of the radiant star. The riversides emerged from the haze, and the course of the Waikato appeared in all its morning beauty.

A finely elongated tongue of land, bristling with shrubs, came to an end in a point at the meeting of the two currents. The more chaotic waters of the Waipa drove a quarter of a mile into the waters of the Waikato before they became confused; but that river, powerful and calm, soon checked the angry waters, and dragged them peacefully along its course to the Pacific Ocean.

It was a canoe, seventy feet long

When the vapours rose, a boat appeared, going up the current of the Waikato. It was a canoe, seventy feet long, five broad, three deep, the front raised like a Venetian gondola, and it was carved entirely from a single trunk of a kahikatea fir. A bed of dry fern covered the bottom. Eight paddlers at the front made it fly on the surface of the water, while a man, seated at the stern, directed it by means of a steering oar.

This man was a tall native, about forty-five years old, with broad chest, and muscular arms and legs. His bulging forehead, furrowed with thick creases, violent expression, and sinister countenance, gave him a formidable appearance.

He was a high ranking Māori leader. This could be seen in the thin, tight tattooing that streaked his body and face. Two black spirals swept out like wings from his aquiline nose to encircle his yellow eyes, and meet on his forehead, where they disappeared into his magnificent hair. He had bright teeth, and his chin disappeared under a pattern of elegant scrolls that continued down to his sturdy chest.

The tattoo, the moko of the New Zealanders, is a mark of high distinction. Only a man who has participated valiantly in battle was worthy of these honorary sigils. Slaves, and people of the lower classes, can not claim them. Famous leaders identify themselves by the finesse, precision, and nature of their designs, which often cover their entire bodies with images of animals. Some undergo the very painful operation of receiving moko up to five times. The more illustrious you are, the more you are “illustrated” in New Zealand.

Dumont D’Urville gave interesting details of this custom. He pointed out that the moko was like the coats of arms that some families are so proud of in Europe. But he noted an important difference between these two signs of distinction. The coats of arms of Europeans often only attested to the individual merit of the person who first obtained them, without saying anything about the merit of his children, while the individual moko of the Māori genuinely testify that the bearer had shown extraordinary personal courage in order to have the right to wear them.

In addition, the tattooing of the Māori, independent of the consideration which the bearer enjoys, has an incontestable utility. It toughens the skin, which allows it to withstand the weather of the seasons, and incessant mosquito bites.

As for the leader who directed this boat, there was no doubt about his distinction. The sharp albatross bone, which is used by Māori tattooers, had furrowed his face five times in close and deep lines. His moko was in its fifth edition, and it showed in his haughty look.

He was wearing a loincloth, still bloody from recent battles, and draped in a large cloak of Phormium trimmed with dog pelts. Green jade dangled from his elongated earlobes, and his neck was encompassed with necklaces from which dangled pounamu, the highly treasured sacred stones of the Māori. At his side lay an English rifle, and a patiti, a kind of tomahawk, emerald coloured and eighteen inches long.

Beside him, nine warriors of lesser rank remained perfectly immobile, wrapped in their Phormium mantles. All were armed, with a fierce bearing, and some still suffered from recent wounds. Three wild-looking dogs were lying at their feet. The eight paddlers at the front seemed to be servants or slaves to the leader. They paddled vigorously. The boat was moving against the slow current of Waikato at a considerable speed.

In the centre of this long boat, with their feet tied, but their hands free, ten European prisoners were packed tightly together.

They were Lord Glenarvan and Lady Helena, Mary and Robert Grant, Paganel, the Major, John Mangles, the steward, and the two sailors.

The evening before, all the little troop — deceived by the thick fog — had gone to camp in the midst of a numerous party of natives. Toward the middle of the night, the travellers, caught in their sleep, were taken prisoner and taken aboard the canoe. They had not been mistreated so far, but they had tried in vain to resist. Their arms and ammunition were in the hands of the savages, and they would have been shot with their own guns.

It was not long before they learned, by overhearing some English words used by the natives, that the latter, driven back by British troops, beaten and decimated, were returning to the of Upper Waikato district. The Māori chief, after a stubborn resistance, his main warriors killed by soldiers of the 42nd Regiment, returned to make a new appeal to the tribes of the river to go to the aid of the indomitable William Thompson, who was still struggling against the conquerors. This chief was named Kai-Kúmu, a sinister name in the native language, which means “he who eats the arms of his enemy.” He was brave and daring, but his cruelty equaled his valour. They could expect no mercy from him. His name was well known to the English soldiers, and the governor of New Zealand had placed a price on his head.

This terrible blow had struck Lord Glenarvan just as he was about to reach the desired Auckland Harbour and repatriate to Europe. But by looking at his his cold, calm face, one could not have guessed the depth of his anxiety. This was because Glenarvan always rose to meet any challenge that misfortune dealt him. He felt that he must be strong, to set an example, for his wife and his companions. He, as the husband and leader was ready to die first for the common salvation if circumstances should require it. Deeply religious, he never lost his faith in God’s justice, nor his belief in the sanctity of his undertaking. In the midst of the perils accumulated on this journey, he did not regret the generous impulse which had carried him into the country of these savages.

His companions were worthy of him; they shared his noble thoughts, and to see their tranquil and proud countenances you would not have thought they had been led into a supreme catastrophe. Besides, by mutual agreement and on the advice of Glenarvan, they had resolved to affect a superb indifference to the natives. It was the only way to impress their wild natures. Savages, in general, and particularly the Māori, have a certain sense of dignity from which they never depart. They respect coolness and courage. Glenarvan knew that by remaining calm and composed, he spared himself and his companions from unnecessary mistreatment.

Since leaving the camp, the natives — not very talkative, like all savages — had scarcely spoken to each other. But from the few words exchanged, Glenarvan recognized that the English language was familiar to them. He decided to question the Māori chief as to the fate reserved for them.

He addressed Kai-Kúmu calmly, his voice free of fear. “Where are you taking us, chief?”

Kai-Kúmu looked at him coldly without answering him.

“What do you plan to do with us?” continued Glenarvan.

Kai-Kúmu’s eyes flashed briefly, and in a deep voice he replied “To exchange you, if your people want you; to kill you, if they refuse.”

Glenarvan did not ask for more, but hope returned to his heart. No doubt some of the Māori leaders had fallen into the hands of the English, and the natives wanted to try to recover them through a prisoner exchange. There was a chance of salvation; the situation was not hopeless.

The canoe was moving rapidly up the river. Paganel, whose mercurial nature easily swung from one extreme to the other, had recovered all his hope. He told himself that if the Māori saved them the trouble of walking to the English outposts, that it was so much the better. So, resigned to his fate, he followed the course of the Waikato across the plains and valleys of the province on his map. Lady Helena and Mary Grant, hiding their terror, conversed in low voices with Glenarvan, and the most skilful physiognomist would not have read the anguish of their hearts on their faces.

The Waikato is the national river of New Zealand. The Māori are proud and jealous of it, like the Germans of the Rhine, and the Slavs of the Danube. In its two hundred mile course, it watered the most beautiful regions of the northern island, from the province of Wellington to the province of Auckland. It gave its name to all those riverside tribes who, indomitable and untamed, rose en masse against the invaders.

The waters of this river are still almost untouched by any stranger. They opened only in front of the bows of the islander canoes. Hardly any audacious tourists had ventured between these sacred shores. Access to the headwaters of the Waikato seems to be forbidden to the European laymen.

Paganel knew the veneration of the natives for this great New Zealand artery. He knew that English and German naturalists had scarcely explored it beyond its junction with the Waipa. How far would Kai-Kúmu’s pleasure take his captives? He would not have guessed it if the word “Taupo”, frequently repeated between the chief and his warriors, had not arrested his attention.

He looked at his map and saw that the name of Taupo applied to a lake famous in geographical records, located in the mountainous heart of the island, to the south of the province of Auckland. The Waikato passes through this lake. From the Waipa confluence to the lake, the river’s course was about one hundred and twenty miles.¹

Paganel, addressing John Mangles in French so as not to be understood by the savages, asked him to estimate the speed of the boat. John told him it was about three miles an hour.

“Then,” said the geographer, “if we stop at night, our journey to the lake will take nearly four days.”

“But where are the English outposts located?” asked Glenarvan.

“It is difficult to say,” said Paganel. “But, the war has to have moved into the province of Taranaki, and, in all probability, the troops are massed on that side of the lake, behind the mountains, which have been the focus of the insurrection.”

“God grant it!” said Lady Helena.

Glenarvan glanced sadly at his young wife, at Mary Grant, exposed to the mercy of these savage natives and carried away to a wild country far from any human intervention. But he saw himself observed by Kai-Kúmu, and, out of prudence, not wishing to let him guess that one of the captives was his wife, he turned his thoughts inward and observed the banks of the river with perfect indifference.

The boat had passed in front of the old residence of King Potatau without stopping, half a mile above the confluence. No other boat was plying the waters of the river. Some huts, widely spaced on the banks, testified by their disrepair to the horrors of the recent war. The riparian countryside seemed abandoned, the banks of the river were deserted. Some representatives of the family of waterfowl alone animated this sad loneliness. Sometimes a pied stilt — a wading bird with black wings, a white belly, and a red beak — fled on his long legs. Sometimes, herons of three species: the grey matuku; a kind of stupid-looking bittern; and the magnificent kotuku with white plumage, yellow bill, and black feet; peacefully watched the native boat pass. Where the sloping banks showed enough depth to the water, the kingfishers, the kōtare in Māori, watched for the small eels that wriggle by the millions in the rivers of New Zealand. Where the bushes were overhanging the river, proud hoopoes, rallecs, and sultana hens had their morning baths under the first rays of the sun. All the winged world enjoyed in peace the leisure created by the absence of men, expelled or decimated by the war.

During this first part of its course, the Waikato flowed through wide, vast plains. But upstream the hills, then the mountains, were going to narrow the valley through which its bed had been dug. Ten miles above the Waipa, Paganel’s map indicated the village of Kirikiriroa on the west bank, which was indeed there. Kai-Kúmu did not stop. He had the prisoners given their own food, which had been taken in the looting of the camp. His warriors, his slaves, and he were satisfied with the native food, edible ferns, the Pteridium esculentum to botanists, baked roots, and kapanas, potatoes, which grew abundantly in the two islands. No animal matter appeared in their meals, and the dried meat of the captives did not seem to inspire them with any desire.

At three o’clock, a few mountains rose on the east bank, the Pokaroa Ranges, which looked like a demolished curtain wall. Ruined pās, ancient entrenchments erected by Māori engineers in impregnable positions were perched on rocky ridges. They looked like giant eagles’ nests.

The sun was about to set below the horizon when the canoe landed on a bank covered with pumice stones which the Waikato draws down its course from the volcanic mountains. A few trees grew there which appeared to be suitable for sheltering a camp. Kai-Kúmu disembarked his prisoners, and the men had their hands tied. The women remained free. All were placed at the centre of the encampment, surrounded by fires which made an unbroken circle of light around them.

Before Kai-Kúmu had told his captives that he intended to exchange them, Glenarvan and John Mangles had discussed ways to regain their freedom. While no possibilities had presented themselves in the canoe, they had hoped to find an opportunity in the night, once they landed and made camp.

But since Glenarvan had talked with the Māori chief, it seemed wise to abstain. It was the most prudent course to wait. A prisoner exchange offered a chance at salvation that did not involve an armed conflict, or a flight through these unknown lands. Many events might arise which would delay or prevent such a negotiation, but for now it was best to wait for that outcome. Indeed, what could ten unarmed men do against thirty well-armed savages? Glenarvan, moreover, supposed that Kai-Kúmu’s tribe had lost some chief of high value which he particularly wished to get back, and he was not mistaken.

The next day the boat ascended the course of the river with new speed. At ten o’clock they stopped for a moment at the confluence of the Pokaiwhenua, a small river which meandered over the plains of the east bank.

A canoe, manned by ten natives, joined Kai-Kúmu’s boat. The warriors barely exchanged the arrival greeting, “aire mai ra,” which means “come well,” before the two canoes continued together. The newcomers had recently fought against English troops. It was seen in their ragged clothes, their bloody arms, the wounds still bleeding under their rags. They were dark, and taciturn. With the natural indifference of all savage peoples, they paid no attention to the Europeans.

At noon, the summit of Maungatautari appeared in the west. The Waikato Valley was beginning to narrow. The river, tightly constrained, became powerful rapids. But the strength of the natives, doubled and regularized by a song which punctuated the beating of their paddles, pushed the boat over the foaming waters. The rapids were overcome, and the Waikato resumed its slow course, only varied from mile to mile by the winding of its banks.

Toward evening, Kai-Kúmu landed at the foot of mountains whose first buttresses fell steeply to the narrow banks. There, about twenty natives disembarked from their canoes to make arrangements for the night. Fires were set blazing under the trees. A chief, equal to Kai-Kúmu, advanced with measured steps, and, pressing his nose against Kai-Kúmu’s, gave him the cordial greeting of the hongi. The prisoners were placed in the centre of the camp and guarded with extreme vigilance.

The next morning, this long voyage up the Waikato was resumed. Other boats joined them, coming from the small tributaries of the river. About sixty warriors were now assembled, fugitives from the latest battles of the insurrection, returning to the mountains. Many suffered from greater or lesser wounds from English bullets. Sometimes a song rose from the line of canoes. A native sang the patriotic ode of the mysterious Pihe

“Pápa ra te wáti tídi
I dúnga nei”

the national anthem that inspires the Māori in their war of independence.² The voice of the singer, full and sonorous, echoed off the mountains, and after each verse, the natives would strike their chests, which resounded like a drum, and joined the bellicose verse in chorus. Then, with renewed strength from the paddlers, the canoes made way against the current and flew over the surface of the waters.

A curious phenomenon marked this day of navigation on the river. About four o’clock, the canoe, without hesitation or delaying its course, guided by the firm hand of the chief, threw itself through a narrow valley. The swirling current raged against numerous islets which made this section of the river especially dangerous. But to capsize here was particularly undesirable, because the shore offered no refuge. Anyone who stepped on the boiling mud of the banks would surely have died.

The river flowed between hot springs

The river flowed between hot springs, which have always been known as a curiosity to tourists. Iron oxide coloured the ooze of the banks bright red where a solid foothold of tufa had not built up. The atmosphere was saturated with a penetrating sulphurous odour. The natives did not appear affected, but the captives were seriously inconvenienced by the miasmas issuing from the fissures in the ground, and the bubbles which burst under pressure from internal gases. But if it was unpleasant to smell these emanations, the eye could only admire this imposing spectacle.

The boats ventured into the depths of a cloud of white vapour. Its dazzling spirals rose over the river. On its banks, about a hundred geysers, some throwing clouds of vapour, others pouring out columns of liquid, varied their displays like the jets and cascades of a fountain designed by the hand of man. It seemed as if some conductor was directing the intermittent play of these springs for his pleasure. Water and vapour, merged in the air, were excited by the rays of the sun.

In this place, the Waikato was flowing on a moving bed which was constantly boiling under the action of underground fire. Not far from Lake Rotorua, to the east, roared the hot springs and steaming waterfalls of Lake Rotomahana and Mount Tarawera, which have been seen by some bold travellers. This region is pierced with geysers, craters, and solfataras. They provide another outlet for the overflow of gases that could not find an outlet in the insufficient valves of Mounts Tongariro and Wakaari, the only active volcanoes of New Zealand.³

The native canoes sailed under this vault of vapour for two miles, enveloped in the warm spirals which rolled on the surface of the waters. Then, the sulphurous smoke dissipated, and pure air, drawn by the rapidity of the current, came to refresh the panting breasts. They had passed beyond the hot springs.

Before the end of the day, the Hipapatua and Tamatea rapids were ascended under the vigorous paddling of the savages. In the evening, Kai-Kúmu camped a hundred miles from the confluence of Waipa and Waikato. From here, their course up the Waikato would first turn to the east, before swinging back to the south, where the outflow from Lake Taupo fell into it.

At noon, the boats reached Lake Taupo

The next day, Jacques Paganel, consulting the map, identified Mount Tauhara on the east bank, which rises over three thousand feet above sea level.

At noon, the whole procession of boats came to a widening of the river, and paddled into Lake Taupo. The natives saluted a flap of cloth which fluttered in the wind at the top of a hut. It was the Māori flag.

1. 50 leagues, 200 kilometres — DAS

2. The line quoted from the song translates as “The thunder above, bursts forth.”a
The pihe is a Māori funeral ode, often sung to mourn the losses from a battle, not a national anthem. The idea that this particular pihe is an anthem seems to have originated with Dumont d’Urville, from his study of the Māori in 1827.b

a. Williams, William. A Dictionary of the New Zealand Language and a Concise Grammar; to Which Is Added a Selection of Colloquial Sentences. London: Williams and Norgate, 1852. pg 110

b. McLean, Mervyn. Māori Music. Auckland: Auckland University Press, 1996, pg 71

3. New Zealand has many active volcanoes. Indeed, one of the largest eruptions in recorded New Zealand history took place at Mount Tarawera, in 1886.

Chapter IX | Index | Chapter XI

Chapter XI
Lake Taupo

An unfathomable chasm twenty-five miles long, and twenty wide, was formed long before historical times by a collapse of caverns in the middle of the trachytic lavas of the centre of the island. The waters from the surrounding peaks slowly filled this enormous cavity to become a lake, an abyss that no sounding line has yet to plumb.¹

Such is the strange Lake Taupo, 1,170 feet above sea level, and surrounded by a cirque of mountains 2,400 feet high. To the west, the shore is dominated by sheer rock cliffs; to the north are some distant tree covered peaks; to the east, a wide beach crossed by a road decorated with pumice stones which shine under a lattice of bushes; to the south, volcanic cones rise behind a foreground of forests. In the heart of all this majesty lies a vast expanse of water, whose storms rival the hurricanes of the oceans.

All this region boils like an immense cauldron suspended on subterranean flames. The ground quivers under the caresses of the central fires. Steam issues from the ground in many places. The crust of the earth splits in violent cracks like dough that has risen too much, and no doubt this plateau would be ruined in an incandescent furnace if, twelve miles further, the imprisoned vapours could not find an exit through the craters of Tongariro.

From its north rim, this volcano appeared filled with smoke and flame above small lava domes. Mount Tongariro was part of a complicated system of volcanoes. Behind it, isolated in the midst of a plain, Mount Ruapahu rose nine thousand feet in the air, its peak lost amid of the clouds. No mortal has set foot on its inaccessible cone; no human eye has ever probed the depths of its crater,² while, three times in twenty years, Messrs. Bidwill and Dyson, and more recently Dr. von Hochstetter, have measured the more accessible peaks of Tongariro.

These volcanoes have their legends, and, in any other circumstances, Paganel would not have failed to tell them to his companions. He would have told them of the argument that happened one day between Tongariro and Taranaki, then his neighbour and friend, over the matter of a woman. Tongariro, who has a hot head, like all volcanoes, went so far as to hit Taranaki. Taranaki, beaten and humiliated, fled through the valley of the Whanganui, dropped two pieces of mountain on the way, and reached the shores of the sea, where he rises solemnly under the name of Mount Egmont.

But Paganel was hardly in a position to tell, nor were his friends in a mood to listen to him. They silently watched the northeastern shore of Lake Taupo where this most disappointing fate had just led them. Reverend Grace’s mission to Pūkawa, on the western shores of the lake, no longer existed. The minister had been driven far from the heart of the insurrection by the war. The prisoners were alone, abandoned, at the mercy of Māori greedy for reprisals, and in this wild portion of the island where Christianity has never penetrated.

Kai-Kúmu, leaving the waters of the Waikato, crossed the little cove which serves as a funnel to the river, doubled a sharp promontory, and landed on the eastern shore of the lake, at the foot of the first ripples of Maunganamu, an 1,800 foot, extinct volcano. There, fields of Phormium, what the natives call harakeke, the precious flax of New Zealand, were spread out. Nothing is is wasted of this useful plant. Its flower provides a kind of excellent nectar; its stem produces a gummy substance, which replaces wax or starch; its leaves, more useful still, lend themselves to many transformations: fresh, it serves as paper; desiccated, it makes an excellent tinder; cut, it is made into ropes, cables and nets; divided into filaments and combed, it becomes a blanket or mantle, mat or loincloth, and dyed red or black, it dresses the most elegant Māori.

This precious Phormium is found everywhere in the two islands, from the shores of the sea, to the banks of the rivers and lakes. Here its wild bushes covered entire fields; its reddish brown, agave-like flower stalks rose out of an inextricable clutter of its long leaves, which formed a trophy of sharp blades. Graceful birds, nectar eaters, common in the Phormium fields, flew in numerous flocks and delighted in the honeyed juice of the flowers.

Troops of black plumed ducks, dappled with grey and green, bobbed in the waters of the lake. This species was easily domesticated.

A quarter of a mile away, on an escarpment of the mountain, appeared a pā, a Māori fortress placed in an impregnable position. The prisoners were unloaded one by one, their feet and hands freed, and led toward it by the warriors. The path to the fortification crossed Phormium fields, and a grove of beautiful trees: kahikatea, evergreens with red berries; Cordyline australis, the ti of the natives, and commonly called the cabbage tree by the Europeans; and huious which provides black dye for fabrics. Large doves with a metallic sheen, ashen kōkako, and a world of starlings with reddish wattles, flew away at the approach of the natives.

Lord Glenarvan and his companions arrived inside the pā

After a long detour, Glenarvan, Lady Helena, Mary Grant and their companions arrived inside the pā.

This fortress was defended by an outer palisade, fifteen feet high; a second line of stakes, then a wicker fence pierced with loopholes, enclosing an inner space — the plateau of the pā — in which Māori buildings and about forty huts were arranged symmetrically.

On arriving there, the captives were horribly impressed by the sight of the heads that adorned the posts of the inner enclosure. Lady Helena and Mary Grant averted their eyes with more disgust than horror. These heads had belonged to fallen enemy leaders, whose bodies had served as food for the victors.

The geographer recognized them as such, from their empty eye sockets.

The eyes of a defeated chief are eaten. The head is then prepared by removing its brain and stripping away the skin. The nose is held in shape by small strips of wood, the nostrils stuffed with Phormium, the mouth and the eyelids sewn closed, and the head is smoked in an oven for thirty hours. Thus prepared, it is preserved indefinitely without alteration or wrinkle, to make a trophy of victory.

Often the Māori keep the heads of their own chiefs, but in this case, the eyes stay in their sockets and look out at the spectators. The New Zealanders display these relics with pride; they offer them up for the admiration of young warriors, and pay them a tribute of veneration with solemn ceremonies.

But, in Kai-Kúmu’s pā, the enemy’s heads alone adorned this horrible museum, and no doubt more than one English head with empty sockets had been added to the collection of the Māori chief.

Kai-Kúmu’s house rose between several huts of lesser importance at the bottom of the pā, in front of a large open field, which some Europeans called “the field of battle.” This house was built of poles caulked with intertwining branches, and internally lined with mats of Phormium. Twenty feet long, fifteen feet wide, and ten feet high, Kai-Kúmu’s house was a dwelling of three thousand cubic feet. It does not take more to house a Māori leader.

A single opening gave access to the house; a swinging flap made of thick vegetable fibre served as a door. Above, the roof extended in eaves away from the walls. Some carved figures at the end of the rafters adorned the house, and the whatitoka, or doorway offered a curious confusion of foliage, symbolic figures, monsters, and foliated scrolls, created by the chisel of native decorators for the visitors’ admiration.

Inside the house, the dirt floor was raised half a foot above the ground. A few reed shelves, and dry fern mattresses covered with a mat woven with the long, flexible leaves of Typha, served as beds. In the middle, a stone hole formed the hearth, and in the roof, a second hole served as a chimney. The smoke, when it was thick enough, finally decided to take advantage of this escape, but not without placing a varnish of the most beautiful black on the walls of the house.

Next to the hut stood the storehouses which contained the chief’s provisions, his harvest of Phormium, potatoes, taros, edible ferns, and the ovens in which the various foods were cooked in contact with heated stones. Further on, in small enclosures, were pigs and goats, rare descendants of the useful animals imported by Captain Cook. Dogs ran here and there, begging for their meagre food. They were poorly kept for beasts that daily serve as food for the Māori.

Glenarvan and his companions had taken in this scene at a glance. They waited near an empty house for the pleasure of the chief, while being exposed to the insults of a band of old women. This band of harpies surrounded them, threatened them with their fists, howled, and shouted. A few words of English escaping from their rude lips made it clear that they were demanding immediate vengeance.

In the midst of these shouts and threats, Lady Helena, seemingly tranquil, affected a calm that could not be in her heart. This brave woman contained herself with heroic efforts, to allow Lord Glenarvan to keep his own composure. Poor Mary Grant felt faint, and John Mangles supported her, ready to die defending her. Their companions variously endured this deluge of invective: with indifference, like the Major, or with growing irritation, like Paganel.

Glenarvan, wishing to relieve Lady Helena from the assault of these old shrews, walked straight to Kai-Kúmu, and pointing to the hideous group said “Send them away.”

The Māori chief stared at his prisoner without answering him; then, with a gesture, he silenced the screaming horde. Glenarvan bowed, as a sign of thanks, and slowly returned to his place among his people.

At this moment, a hundred New Zealanders were gathered in the pā, old men, adults, and youngsters. Some quiet, but dispirited, waiting for Kai-Kúmu’s orders, the others engaging in the most violent sorrow; they were crying for their parents or friends fallen in the latest battles.

Kai-Kúmu alone, of all the chiefs who had answered the call of William Thompson, returned to the districts of the lake, and was the first to tell his tribe of the defeat of the national insurrection, beaten in the lowlands of Waikato. Of the two hundred warriors who, under his command, ran to the defence of the land, a hundred and fifty were missing on their return. Even if some were prisoners of the invaders, how many — lost on the field of battle — were never to return to the land of their ancestors?

This explained the deep desolation that struck the tribe at the arrival of Kai-Kúmu. This was the first news to arrive of the latest defeat.

In savages, sorrow always manifests itself in physical demonstrations. Relatives and friends of dead warriors, especially women, tore their faces and shoulders with sharp shells. The blood gushed and mingled with their tears. The deep incisions marked their great despair. The poor Māori women, bloody and maddened, were horrible to see.

Their despair was increased even more for another reason, very serious in the eyes of the natives. Not only was the parent or the friend they were mourning no longer alive, but his bones couldn’t be placed in the family’s tomb. The disposition of these remains is regarded, in the Māori religion, as indispensable to their destinies in the afterlife. Not the perishable flesh, but the bones, which are carefully collected, cleaned, scraped, polished, even varnished, and finally deposited in the Údu pá, or “the house of glory.” These tombs are decorated with wooden statues that reproduce with perfect fidelity the tattoos of the deceased. But today the tombs would remain empty, the religious ceremonies would not be fulfilled, and the bones spared from the teeth of wild dogs would whiten without burial on the field of battle.

Their sorrow redoubled. The threats of the women against the Europeans overcame the imprecations of the men. More insults burst forth, the gestures became more violent. This outcry might be followed by acts of brutality.

Kai-Kúmu, fearing to be overwhelmed by the fanatics of his tribe, had his captives taken to a sacred place at the rear of the pā, on a steep plateau. This hut backed against a massif that towered a hundred feet above the rest of the pā, which fell away in steep slopes to the sides. In this Ware Atua, a consecrated house, the priests or the arijis taught the Māori of a god in three persons, the father, the son, and the bird or the spirit. The large well-built house contained the holy food chosen for Māui-Rangi-Ranginui to eat through the mouths of their priests.³

There the captives, momentarily sheltered against the native fury, lay on Phormium mats. Lady Helena, her strength exhausted, her moral energy vanquished, sank into her husband’s arms. Glenarvan, pressing her to his chest, repeated “Courage, my dear Helena. Heaven will not desert us!” to her.

Robert climbed on Wilson’s shoulders

They were barely shut in when Robert climbed on Wilson’s shoulders, and managed to slide his head through a gap between the roof and the wall, where rosaries of amulets hung. From there, he could see across the pā to Kai-Kúmu’s hut.

“They are gathered around the chief,” he said in a low voice. “They wave their arms … they scream … Kai-Kúmu wants to speak …”

The child was silent for a few minutes, then he went on.

“Kai-Kúmu speaks … the savages are calming down … they are listening to him …”

“Of course,” said the Major. “This chief has a personal interest in protecting us. He wants to exchange his prisoners for the leaders of his tribe! But will his warriors consent?”

“Yes! … They listen to him …” said Robert. “They scatter … some return to their huts … the others leave the fortress …”

“Is that right?” asked the Major.

“Yes, Mr. MacNabbs,” said Robert. “Kai-Kúmu alone remains, with the warriors of his boat. Ah! One of them comes to our hut.”

“Come down, Robert,” said Glenarvan.

At this moment Lady Helena, who had risen, seized her husband’s arm. “Edward,” she said firmly, “neither Mary Grant nor I must fall alive into the hands of these savages!”

And, with these words spoken, she handed Glenarvan a loaded revolver.

“A weapon!” exclaimed Glenarvan, a flash of lightning in his eyes.

“Yes! The Māori did not search their women prisoners! But this weapon is for us, Edward, not for them!”

“Glenarvan,” said MacNabbs quickly, “hide that revolver! It’s not yet time.”

The revolver disappeared under the Lord’s clothes. The mat that closed the entrance to the hut was raised. A native appeared.

He motioned the prisoners to follow him. Glenarvan and his people crossed the pā in a tight group, and stopped in front of Kai-Kúmu.

The principal warriors of his tribe were gathered around their chief. Among them was the Māori whose boat joined Kai-Kúmu’s at the confluence of the Pokaiwhenua and the Waikato. He was a man of forty, vigorous, fierce, and cruel. He was named Kára-Téte, that is to say, “the irascible” in the Māori language. Kai-Kúmu treated him with some respect, and, by the fineness of his tattoos, it could be seen that Kára-Téte was high in the tribes. A careful observer would have also guessed that there was a rivalry between these two leaders. The Major observed that the influence of Kára-Téte annoyed Kai-Kúmu. They both commanded important tribes of Waikatos with equal authority, but during their conversation, Kai-Kúmu’s mouth smiled, but his eyes betrayed a deep enmity.

Kai-Kúmu questioned Glenarvan. “You are English?” he asked.

“Yes,” replied the Lord without hesitation, for that nationality would render an exchange easier.

“And your companions?” asked Kai-Kúmu.

“My companions are English, like me. We are travellers, shipwrecked. But, if you want to know, we did not take part in the war.”

“It does not matter!” said Kára-Téte roughly. “All English are our enemies. You have invaded our island! You have burned our villages!”

“They were wrong!” said Glenarvan in a grave voice. “I say this because I believe it, and not because I am in your power.”

“Listen,” said Kai-Kúmu, “the Tohunga, the high priest of Nui Atua⁴ , fell into the hands of your brothers; he is a prisoner of the Pākehā⁵. Our god commands us to redeem his life. I would have liked to tear your heart out, I would have wanted your head and the heads of your companions to be eternally suspended on the posts of this palisade! But Nui Atua spoke.”

In speaking thus, Kai-Kúmu, hitherto master of himself, trembled with anger, and his countenance was imbued with ferocious exaltation.

Then, after a few moments, he went on coldly “Do you think the English will exchange our Tohunga for you?”

Glenarvan hesitated to answer, and watched the Māori chief carefully.

“I do not know,” he said, after a moment’s silence.

“Speak,” said Kai-Kúmu. “Is your life worth the life of our Tohunga?”

“No,” replied Glenarvan. “I am neither a leader nor a priest among mine!”

Paganel, stunned by this answer, looked at Glenarvan with profound astonishment.

Kai-Kúmu also seemed surprised. “So, you do not know?” he said.

“I do not know,” repeated Glenarvan.

“Your people will not accept you in exchange for our Tohunga?”

“Only me? No,” repeated Glenarvan. “All of us, maybe.”

“The Māori,” said Kai-Kúmu, “trade prisoners head for head.”

“Offer these women first in exchange for your priest,” said Glenarvan, pointing to Lady Helena and Mary Grant.

Lady Helena wanted to run to her husband. The Major held her back.

“These two ladies,” said Glenarvan, bowing with respectful grace to Lady Helena and Mary Grant, “rank high in their country.”

The warrior looked coldly at his prisoner. A perverse smile passed on his lips; but he repressed it almost immediately, and replied in a voice which he scarcely contained. “Do you hope to deceive Kai-Kúmu by false words, cursed European? Do you think that Kai-Kúmu’s eyes cannot read your hearts?”

And, pointing to Lady Helena “Here is your wife!” he said.

“No! Mine!” exclaimed Kára-Téte. Then, pushing back the prisoners, his hand came down on Lady Helena’s shoulder, who turned pale under this touch.

“Edward!” cried the distraught woman.

Glenarvan, without uttering a single word, raised his arm. A shot rang out. Kára-Téte fell dead.

At this detonation, a flood of natives came out of the huts. The pā filled in an instant. One hundred arms were raised against Glenarvan and the revolver was torn from his hand.

“Tapu! Tapu!” called out Kai-Kúmu

Kai-Kúmu gave Glenarvan a strange look; then, with one hand raised over Glenarvan, and the other toward the onrushing crowd he called out “Tapu! Tapu!”⁶ in a dominating voice.

At this word, the crowd stopped before Glenarvan and his companions, momentarily protected by a supernatural power.

A few moments later, they were escorted back to the Ware Atua, which served as their prison. But Robert Grant and Jacques Paganel were no longer with them.

1. The entire Lake Taupo region is the caldera of a super-volcano, and while the lake may have been unplumbed in Verne’s time, it isn’t really all that deep, with an average depth of 110 metres, and a maximum depth of 186 metres — DAS

2. This “inaccessible cone” was first climbed in 1879. Now there are ski resorts on its slopes, and it doubled for Mount Doom in the Lord of the Rings films — DAS

3. Verne seems to be trying too hard to draw parallels between Māori and Christian mythology here, with this parallel between some Māori gods and the Christian Trinity. In Māori mythology Māui is a hero demigod, who, among other things, pulled the Island of Te Ika-a-Māui (Māui’s fish) out of the sea when fishing one day. Rangi and Ranginui are alternate names of the sky father creator god. (Meaning “sky” and “great sky” respectively) — DAS

4. Name of the Māori god.

Not really. The Māori have several gods, but “Nui Atua” doesn’t seem to be one of them. Literally it means “great god.” Since the introduction of Christianity, “Atua” has come to mean the Christian God — DAS

5. Europeans.

6. Verne had Kai-Kúmu saying “Tabou” here, but as that is a loan word into French from the Polynesian/Māori “Tapu.” I kept Kai-Kúmu speaking Māori — DAS

Chapter X | Index | Chapter XII

Chapter XII
The Funeral of a Māori Chief

Kai-Kúmu, following a rather common practice in New Zealand, was the ariki as well as the chief of the tribe. He was clothed with the dignity of a priest, and as such he could extend the superstitious protection of the tapu over persons or objects.¹

The tapu, common to Polynesian peoples, has the immediate effect of prohibiting any use of, or relationship with, the object or person under the tapu. According to the Māori religion, anyone who lays a sacrilegious hand on what has been declared tapu could be punished with death by an angry god. And if the god is slow to avenge their own insult, the priests can step in to do it for them.

The tapu may be applied by a chief for political reasons, or it may come about from the ordinary events of everyday life. In many circumstances a native is tapu for a few days when he cuts his hair, when he has just received a tattoo, when he builds a canoe, when he builds a house, when he has a life-threatening illness, and when he is dead. If over consumption threatens to depopulate a river of its fish, or to ruin the future production of a field of sweet potatoes, these objects are struck with a tapu protection for economic reasons. If a leader wants to remove unwelcome guests from his house, he tapus them; to monopolize trade with a foreign ship for himself, he declares it tapu; to quarantine a European trader he is discontent with, he tapus. Its prohibition then resembles the old “veto” of kings.

When an object is tapu, no one may touch it with impunity. When a native is subject to this prohibition, he may be forbidden from touching certain foods for a period of time. If he is rich, he may be relieved of this severe diet by having his slaves feed him the foods he must not touch with his hands. If he is poor, he is reduced to picking up his food with his mouth, and the tapu reduces him to the status of an animal.

This singular custom directs and controls the smallest actions of the Māori. It is an incessant intervention of the divine in daily life. It is the law of the Māori. The frequent application of the tapu is the indisputable and undisputed native code.

For the captives imprisoned in the Ware Atua, it was an arbitrary tapu which had saved them from the fury of the tribe. Some of the natives, Kai-Kúmu’s friends and partisans, had suddenly stopped at the voice of their chief and had protected the prisoners.

Glenarvan was not under any illusion as to what was going to happen to him. His death alone could pay for the killing of a chief, and death among savage peoples only comes at the end of a long ordeal. Glenarvan expected that he would have to atone for the legitimate indignation which had motivated his action, but he hoped that Kai-Kúmu’s anger would only strike him.

The night passed anxiously for Glenarvan and his companions. Who could picture their agony or measure their suffering? Poor Robert, and the brave Paganel had not reappeared. What was their fate? Were they the first victims sacrificed to the vengeance of the natives? All hope had disappeared, even from the heart of MacNabbs, who did not despair easily. John Mangles felt himself going crazy at the misery and despair of Mary Grant, separated from her brother. Glenarvan was thinking of the terrible request from Lady Helena, who in order to escape torture or slavery, wanted to die at his hand! Would he have the courage to carry out such a horrible act?

“And Mary, do I have the right to kill her?” thought John, his heart breaking.

Escape was obviously impossible. Ten warriors, armed to the teeth, watched at the door of the Ware Atua.

The morning of February 13th arrived. No communication had taken place between the natives and the prisoners forbidden by the tapu. The hut contained some food which the poor inmates barely touched. Misery deadened the pangs of hunger. The day passed without bringing any change, or hope. Doubtless the hour of the dead man’s funeral and the hour of torture were to ring together.

However, if Glenarvan believed that Kai-Kúmu had given up all his ideas of a prisoner exchange, the Major still held a glimmer of hope. “Who knows,” he said, reminding Glenarvan of the strange expression that had crossed Kai-Kúmu’s face on the death of Kára-Téte. “Maybe Kai-Kúmu really does feel obliged to you?”

But, despite MacNabbs’ observation, Glenarvan did not want to hope anymore. Another day passed without any preparations for torture being revealed. There was a reason for this delay.

The Māori believe that the soul lives on in the body of the deceased for three days following death, so the corpse remains unburied for seventy-two hours. This custom of delayed burial was rigorously observed. The pā remained deserted until February 15th. John Mangles, hoisted on Wilson’s shoulders, often observed the outer fortifications. No natives could be seen there. The only ones he saw were the sentinels, relieving each other on guard at the door of the Ware Atua.

But on the third day the huts opened. The savages, men, women, and children, several hundred Māori in all, gathered in the pā, silent and calm.

Kai-Kúmu came out of his hut, and surrounded by the principal chiefs of his tribe, he took his place on a mound raised a few feet in the centre of the fortification. The crowd of natives formed a semicircle a few yards back. The whole assembly kept an absolute silence.

At a sign from Kai-Kúmu, a warrior made his way to the Ware Atua.

“Remember,” Lady Helena said to her husband.

Glenarvan hugged his wife to his heart. At this moment, Mary Grant approached John Mangles.

“Lord and Lady Glenarvan,” she said, “will think that if a woman can die from her husband’s hand to escape a shameful existence, a fiancée can die from her fiancé’s hand as well, to escape in her turn. John, you can tell me, in this final moment, have I not long been your betrothed in the secret of your heart? Can I count on you, dear John, like Lady Helena counts on Lord Glenarvan?”

“Mary!” cried the distraught young captain. “Oh! Dear Mary—”

He could not finish. The mat was raised, and the captives were dragged toward Kai-Kúmu. The two women were resigned to their fate. The men concealed their anxieties in a superhuman calm.

They arrived in front of the Māori chief. He did not delay passing his judgement.

“You killed Kára-Téte?” he asked Glenarvan.

“I killed him,” replied the Lord.

“Tomorrow, you will die at sunrise.”

“Only me?” asked Glenarvan, whose heart beat violently.

“Ah! If only the life of our Tohonga was not more precious than yours!” exclaimed Kai-Kúmu, whose eyes expressed a fierce regret.

There was agitation among the natives. Glenarvan glanced quickly around. The crowd parted, and a warrior appeared, dripping with sweat, panting with fatigue.

Kai-Kúmu, as soon as he saw him, spoke to him in English, with the evident intention of being understood by the captives “You come from the camp of the Pākehās?”

“Yes,” said the Māori.

“You saw the prisoner, our Tohonga?”

“I saw him.”

“He is alive?”

“He is dead! The English shot him!”

It was all over for Glenarvan and his companions.

“All!” cried Kai-Kúmu. “You will all die tomorrow at dawn!”

Thus, these poor souls would all suffer a common fate. Lady Helena and Mary Grant looked up at the sky with sublime thanks.

The captives were not taken back to the Ware Atua. They were to attend Kára-Téte’s funeral and the bloody ceremonies that would accompany it. A troop of natives led them a few steps to the foot of a huge koudi pine tree. Their guards remained, keeping watch over them. The rest of the Māori tribe, absorbed in their official grief, seemed to have forgotten them.

Three days had passed since the death of Kára-Téte. The soul of the deceased warrior had finally abandoned his mortal remains. The ceremony began.

The body was brought to a small knoll in the middle of the pā. He was dressed in lavish garments and wrapped in a beautiful mat of Phormium. His head, decorated with feathers, wore a crown of green leaves. His face, arms, and chest had been rubbed with oil, and showed no sign of decay.

The family and friends arrived at the foot of the hillock, and as one, as if some conductor was beating the measure of the funeral song, an immense concert of tears, moans, and sobs rose in the air. They were crying for the deceased with a plaintive, doleful rhythm. His kinsmen beat their heads; his kinswomen tore at their faces with their nails. They were more prodigal with their blood, than with tears.

These pitiful women conscientiously performed this savage duty, but these demonstrations were not enough to appease the soul of the deceased, whose wrath would undoubtedly have struck the survivors of his tribe. His warriors, unable to return him to life, wanted him to have no regrets of earthly existence in the other world. Kára-Téte’s wife was not to abandon her husband in the grave. The poor woman would have refused to survive him. This was her duty, in accord with their custom, and examples of such sacrifices are common in the history of New Zealand.

The woman appeared. She was still young. Her disordered hair floated around her shoulders. Her sobs and cries rose to the sky: incoherent words, regrets, broken phrases in which she celebrated the virtues of the dead, interrupted by moans. She lay at the foot of the knoll, beating the ground with her head in a supreme paroxysm of sorrow.

Kai-Kúmu approached her. Suddenly the unfortunate victim rose; but a violent blow of the mere, a formidable club, whirling in the chief’s hand, threw her to the ground. She fell as if thunderstruck.

A terrible cry arose. A hundred men threatened the captives, terrified by this horrible spectacle, but no one moved because the funeral ceremony was not finished.

Kára-Téte’s wife had joined her husband in death. The two bodies remained lying close to each other. But for eternal life, it was not enough for the deceased to just have his faithful wife. Who would serve them in the presence of Nui Atua, if their slaves did not follow them from this world to the next?

Six wretches were brought before the corpses of their masters. They were servants whom the pitiless laws of war had reduced to slavery. During the chief’s life, they had suffered the harshest privations, suffered a thousand mistreatments, scarcely fed, constantly used as beasts of burden, and now, according to Māori belief, they were going to continue their slavery for all eternity.

These unfortunate people were resigned to their fate. They were not surprised by this long-awaited sacrifice. Their hands, free from all restraint, testified that they would not defend themselves.

Their deaths were quick. They were spared from long suffering. Torture was reserved for the authors of the murder, who, grouped twenty paces away, averted their eyes from this dreadful spectacle, the horror of which was about to increase.

Six blows from a mere, carried out by the hands of six strong warriors, laid the victims on the ground in the middle of a pool of blood.

This was the signal to begin a terrible scene of cannibalism

This was the signal to begin a terrible scene of cannibalism.

The body of a slave is not protected by the tapu like the body of the master. It belongs to the tribe. It is the small change thrown to mourners. Also, the sacrifice to be consumed. The whole group of natives, chiefs, warriors, old men, women, and children, without distinction of age or sex, were seized with a bestial fury. They rushed upon the lifeless remains of the victims. In less time than a quick pen could trace it, the bodies, still warm, were torn apart, divided, cut up, not into slices, but into slivers. Of the two hundred Māori present at the sacrifice, each had his share of human flesh. They wrestled, struggled, and competed for the slightest scraps. Drops of hot blood spattered these monstrous revellers, and all this disgusting horde swarmed in a red rain. It was the madness and fury of fierce tigers on their prey. It was like a circus in which the gladiators devoured the wild beasts.

Twenty fires were lit around the pā, and the smell of burnt meat filled the air. Without the dreadful tumult of this feast, without the cries still escaping from the throats engorged with flesh, the prisoners would have heard the bones of the victims cracking between the teeth of the cannibals.

Glenarvan and his companions, breathless, tried to hide this abominable scene from the eyes of the two poor women. They understood then what torture awaited them the next day at sunrise, and, without doubt, what cruel tortures would proceed such a death. They were struck dumb with horror.

The funeral dances began. Strong liqueurs, distilled from the Piper excelsum, true spirit of pepper, intoxicated the savages. They seemed completely inhuman. Would they, forgetting the tapu of the chief, turn in their delirium on the prisoners, who were already terrified by this horrible scene? But Kai-Kúmu had kept his wits in the midst of the general drunkenness. He let this orgy of blood play out for an hour. After peaking in intensity, it faded away again, and the last act of the funeral took place with the usual ceremony.

The corpses of Kára-Téte and his wife were raised, their limbs bent and gathered against their bellies, according to the custom of the Māori. It was now time to bury them, not permanently, but until the earth, having devoured the flesh, left nothing but bones.

The location of the Údu pá, that is to say, the tomb, was chosen outside the fortification, at the top of a small mountain called Maunganamu situated on the east bank of the lake, about two miles away.

The bodies were brought to the foot of the mound

The bodies were to be transported there, carried on primitive palanquins, little more than stretchers. The corpses were placed on them, folded on themselves in a seated position, rather than lying down, and held that way in their clothes by a circle of lianas. Four warriors lifted the palanquins to their shoulders, and the whole tribe, resuming their funeral anthem, followed them in procession to the burial site.

The captives, still guarded, watched the procession leave the inner enclosure of the pā. The songs and the cries faded away.

For about half an hour this funeral procession remained out of sight in the depths of the valley. Then they saw it again, snaking up the paths of the mountain. The wavy movement of this long, sinuous column in the distance was an uncanny sight.

The tribe stopped at the top of Maunganamu, eight hundred feet above the lake, at the place prepared for the burial of Kára-Téte. A simple Māori would only have had a hole and a pile of stones. But for a powerful and feared chief, destined undoubtedly for deification, his tribe reserved a tomb worthy of his exploits.

The Údu pá was surrounded by palisades, and posts adorned with ocher-reddened figures stood near the grave where the bodies were to rest. The family had not forgotten that the Wairua, the spirit of the dead, feeds on material substances, as the body does during this perishable life. This is why food was left in the compound, as well as the weapons and clothing of the deceased.

Nothing was wanting in the comfort of the tomb. The two spouses were placed next to each other, then covered with earth and grass, after another series of lamentations.

Then the procession silently descended the mountain, and now no one could climb Maunganamu on pain of death, because it was tapu, like Tongariro, where the remains of a chief crushed by an earthquake in 1846 rested.

1. The title of ariki doesn’t have any special religious significance. It simply means “persons of the highest rank and seniority” — DAS

Chapter XI | Index | Chapter XIII

Chapter XIII
The Last Hours

As the sun disappeared beyond Lake Taupo, behind the peaks of Tuhahua and Puketapu, the captives were taken back to their prison. They were not to leave it again before the the first light of the day illuminated the peaks of the Huiarau Range.¹

They had one night left to prepare to die. Despite their despondency, despite the horror they felt, they took their meal together.

“We will need all of our strength, to look death in the face,” said Glenarvan. “We must show these barbarians that Europeans know how to die.”

When the meal was over, Lady Helena recited the evening prayer aloud. All her companions, bareheaded, joined in it.

Where is the man who does not think of God before his death?

This duty completed, the prisoners embraced.

Mary Grant and Helena retired to a corner of the hut, and lay on a mat. Sleep, which suspends all evils, soon dwelt on their eyelids. They fell asleep in each other’s arms, overcome by exhaustion and long insomnia. Glenarvan took his friends aside.

“My dear companions, our lives, and those of these poor women are with God,” he said. “If it is Heaven’s will that we die tomorrow, I am sure we will die as people of courage, as Christians, ready to appear without fear before the supreme judge. God, who sees the depths of souls, knows that we pursue a noble goal. If death is waiting for us instead of success, it is because God wills it. Hard as it is, I will not murmur against him. But death here is not death only, it is torture, it is infamy, perhaps, and as for the two women…”

Glenarvan’s voice, tightly controlled until then, faltered. He paused to regain his composure. Then, after a moment of silence, he went on.

“John,” he said to the young captain, “you promised Mary what I promised Lady Helena. What have you resolved?”

“I think I have the right before God to fulfill my promise,” said John Mangles.

“Yes, John! But we are without weapons!”

“Here is one,” said John, raising a dagger. “I tore it out of Kára-Téte’s hands, when that savage fell at your feet. My Lord, whichever of us that survives the other will fulfill the wish of Lady Helena and Mary Grant.”

A profound silence reigned in the hut after these words. Finally, the Major interrupted it. “My friends, this can only be done as a last resort. I do not support that which is irrevocable.”

“I did not speak for us,” replied Glenarvan. “Whatever it is, we will brave death! Ah! If we were alone, twenty times already I would have shouted to you ‘My friends, let’s try an escape! Let’s attack these wretches!’ But Helena! Mary! …”

John lifted the mat, and counted twenty-five natives who were watching at the door of the Ware Atua. A great fire had been lit and cast a sinister light on the rugged terrain of the pā. Some of these savages were lying around the fire. Others, standing motionless, stood out strongly against the light of the flames. But all of them cast frequent glances on the hut entrusted to their charge.

It is said that between a jailer who watches and a prisoner who wants to flee, the odds are for the prisoner. The interest of one is greater than the interest of the other. One can forget that he is guarding, the other can not forget that he is guarded. The captive is more likely to flee than his guardian to prevent his escape.

But here, hatred and vengeance kept watch over the captives, not an indifferent jailer. If the prisoners had not been bound, it was because bonds were useless, since twenty-five men were watching over the only way out of the Ware Atua.

This hut, backed against the sheer wall at the rear of the fortress, was accessible only by a narrow tongue of land which connected its front to the plateau of the pā. Its other sides fell away in steep slopes and overlooked an abyss a hundred feet deep. Descent of that cliff was impossible. Nor would there be any way to escape from the bottom of the battlements. The only way out was the entrance of the Ware Atua, and the Māori guarded that tongue of land that united it to the pā like a drawbridge. Any escape was impossible, and Glenarvan, after having probed the walls of his prison twenty times, was obliged to recognize it.

The anxious hours of the night were passing. Pitch blackness covered the mountain. Neither moon nor stars disturbed the deep darkness. A few gusts of wind whirled around the flanks of the pā. The posts of the hut groaned. The natives’ hearth flared up at this passing wind, and the gleams of firelight flickered through the Ware Atua, illuminating the prisoners for a moment: these poor people who were absorbed in their final thoughts. A deathly silence reigned in the hut.

It must have been about four o’clock in the morning, when the Major’s attention was aroused by a slight noise which seemed to be coming from behind the posts at the rear of the hut: the wall backing on the massif. MacNabbs at first ignored this noise, but as it continued, he listened more closely; then, intrigued by its persistence, he pressed his ear against the ground to hear it better. It seemed to him that the scratching was someone digging outside.

When he was certain of what he’d heard, the Major slipped near Glenarvan and John Mangles, tore them from their painful thoughts, and led them to the back of the hut.

“Listen,” he said in a low voice, beckoning them to bend down.

The scratches were becoming more pronounced; you could hear small stones grinding against a hard surface as they were rolled away.

“Some beast in its burrow?” said John Mangles.

Glenarvan slapped his forehead. “Who knows. What if it’s a man?”

“Man or animal,” said the Major, “We will soon find out!”

Wilson and Olbinett joined their companions, and they all began to dig by the wall, John with his dagger, the others with stones torn from the ground or with their fingernails. Mulrady, lying on the ground, watched the company of guarding natives through the gap at the bottom of the mat covering the door.

These savages, motionless around the fire, suspected nothing of what was happening twenty paces from them.

The ground was made up of loose, friable soil that covered the siliceous tuff. Despite the lack of tools, the hole grew quickly. Soon it was evident that a man or men, clinging to the flanks of the pā, was cutting a passage in its outer wall. What could be their goal? Did they know of the existence of the prisoners, or did some other venture explain the work that was being undertaken?

The captives redoubled their efforts. Their torn fingers were bleeding, but they kept digging. After half an hour of work, the hole they’d dug had reached a depth of half a metre. They could tell from the louder sounds that only a thin layer of earth prevented immediate communication.

A few more minutes passed, and suddenly the Major withdrew his hand, cut by a sharp blade. He bit back the cry that tried to escape his lips.

John Mangles, digging with the blade of his dagger, avoided the knife that was protruding above the ground, but he seized the hand that held it.

It was a woman’s, or a child’s hand — a European hand!

Not a word had been uttered, by either side. It was obvious that both sides wanted to keep quiet.

“Is it Robert?” murmured Glenarvan.

But, as low as he had pronounced this name, Mary Grant, who had been awakened by the movements that were taking place in the hut, slipped beside Glenarvan, and seizing that hand all spotted with earth, she covered it with kisses.

“It is! It is!” said the girl, who could not have been mistaken, “It’s you, my Robert!”

“Yes, little sister,” replied Robert, “I am here to save you all! But, be quite!”

“Brave child!” said Glenarvan.

“Watch the savages outside,” said Robert.

Mulrady, momentarily distracted by the appearance of the child, resumed his observation post. “All is well,” he said. “There are only four warriors keeping watch. The others are asleep.”

“Courage!” said Wilson.

In an instant, the hole was enlarged, and Robert passed from his sister’s arms into Lady Helena’s. A long Phormium rope was coiled around his body.

“My child, my child,” murmured the young woman. “The savages didn’t kill you!”

“No, Madame,” said Robert. “I do not know how, but during the confusion, I was able to hide myself from their eyes. I crossed the enclosure, and I remained hidden behind shrubs for two days. I slept at night; I wanted to see you again. While the whole tribe was busy with the funeral of the chief, I came to scout the side of the fortress where the prison stands, and I saw that I could reach you. I stole that knife and rope from a deserted hut. Tufts of grass, and branches of shrubs served me as a ladder. I was lucky to find a sort of cave dug in the massif beneath where this hut rests. I had only a few feet to dig in soft ground, and here I am.”

Twenty silent kisses were the only answer Robert could get.

“Let’s go!” he said in a determined tone.

“Is Paganel down below?” asked Glenarvan.

“Monsieur Paganel?” asked the child, surprised at the question.

“Yes, is he waiting for us?”

“No, My Lord. What? Monsieur Paganel is not here?”

“He’s not here, Robert,” said Mary Grant.

“What? Didn’t you see him?” asked Glenarvan. “You didn’t meet in the confusion? You didn’t escape together?”

“No, My Lord,” said Robert, aghast to learn of the disappearance of his friend Paganel.

“Let’s go,” said the Major. “There is not a minute to lose. Wherever Paganel is, he can not be worse off than we are. Let’s go!”

Indeed, moments were precious. They had to flee. The escape did not present great difficulties, except for an almost perpendicular wall outside the tunnel, but that was only twenty feet. Afterward, the slope offered a gentle descent to the bottom of the mountain. From there, the captives could quickly reach the lower valleys while the Māori, if they came to notice their flight, would be forced to make a very long detour to reach them, since they were unaware of the existence of this tunnel dug between the Ware Atua and the outer slope.

The escape began. Every precaution was taken to make it succeed. The captives passed one by one through the narrow tunnel and found themselves in the cave. John Mangles, before leaving the hut, tidied up the debris from their hole and slipped in his turn through the opening, pulling the mats from the hut over the opening behind him. The tunnel was therefore entirely concealed.

It was now necessary to descend the perpendicular wall to the slope, and this descent would have been impossible had Robert not brought the Phormium rope.

They unrolled it, fixed it to a projection of rock, and threw it out.

John Mangles, before letting his friends hang on these Phormium filaments, twisted together into a rope, felt them. They did not appear very strong to him. It was necessary not to risk themselves rashly, for a fall could be fatal.

“This rope can only bear the weight of two people,” he said, “so, proceed accordingly. Let Lord and Lady Glenarvan go first. When they arrive at the embankment, three tugs on the rope will give us the signal to follow them.”

“I’ll go first,” said Robert. “I found a deep hole at the bottom of the embankment where the first ones down can hide to wait for the others.”

“Go, my child,” said Glenarvan, shaking the boy’s hand.

Robert disappeared through the cave opening. A minute later, three tugs of the rope indicated that he had successfully reached the bottom.

Glenarvan and Lady Helena immediately ventured out of the cave. The darkness was still deep, but a few grey tints were already shading the peaks that rose in the east.

The brisk morning cold revived the young woman. She felt stronger and began her perilous escape.

Glenarvan first, then Lady Helena, slid along the rope

Glenarvan first, then Lady Helena, slid along the rope to where the perpendicular wall met the top of the embankment. Then Glenarvan, preceding his wife and supporting her, began to descend backwards. He sought for tufts of grass and shrubs to offer him a foothold; he found them first, and then guided the feet of Lady Helena. A few birds, awakened suddenly, flew away with little cries, and the fugitives shuddered when a stone, detached from its hollow, rolled noisily down to the bottom of the mountain.

They had descended half of the slope, when they heard a voice from the opening of the cave.

“Stop!” whispered John Mangles.

Glenarvan, clinging with one hand to a clump of Tetragonia, and holding his wife with the other, waited, barely breathing.

Wilson had heard some noise outside the Ware Atua. He had returned to the hut, and, raising the mat, he was observing the Māori. At a signal from him, John had stopped Glenarvan.

One of the warriors, aroused by some strange sound, had gotten up and approached the Ware Atua. Standing a stone’s throw from the hut, he listened with his head cocked. He remained in this attitude for a minute that seemed like an hour, listening and watching intently. Then, shaking his head like a man who misapprehended himself, he returned to his companions, took an armful of dead wood, and threw it into the half-extinguished fire, reviving its flames. His face, brightly lit, betrayed no more preoccupation, and after observing the first glimmers of dawn lightening the horizon, he settled down by the fire to warm his cold limbs.

“Everything is fine,” Wilson said.

John motioned Glenarvan to resume his descent. Glenarvan slid gently down the slope; soon he and Lady Helena stepped onto the narrow path where Robert was waiting for them.

The rope was shaken three times, and in turn John Mangles, preceding Mary Grant, followed the perilous way. When they reached the bottom they joined Lord and Lady Glenarvan in the depression found by Robert.

Five minutes later, all the fugitives, so fortuitously escaped from the Ware Atua, left their provisional retreat, and fleeing the inhabited banks of the lake, they plunged by narrow paths, deeper into the mountains.

They moved quickly, trying to avoid any place where some lookout might see them. They did not speak, they slid like shadows through the shrubs. Where were they going? They didn’t know, but they were free.

The day began to dawn at about five o’clock

The day began to dawn at about five o’clock. Shades of blue marbled the high clouds. The misty peaks emerged from the morning fog. The day star would soon appear, and this sun, instead of signalling the beginning of the torture, would, on the contrary, announce the flight of the condemned.

It was necessary to put as much distance as possible between themselves and the natives before their escape was discovered. But they could not move quickly over the steep trails. Lady Helena climbed the slopes, supported, not to say carried, by Glenarvan, and Mary Grant leaned on the arm of John Mangles. Robert, happy, triumphant, his heart full of joy at his success, led the march. The two sailors brought up the rear.

Another half hour, and the sun would emerge from the mists of the horizon.

For half an hour, the fugitives went on as chance led them. Paganel was not there to guide them. They were all concerned about Paganel; his absence cast a dark shadow over their happiness. They headed east, as nearly as possible, and advanced toward a magnificent dawn. Soon they had reached a height of five hundred feet above Lake Taupo, and the morning chill, increased by this altitude, stung them sharply. Indistinct forms of hills and mountains stood one above the other; but Glenarvan only wanted to get lost. Later, he would look for a way out of this mountainous labyrinth.

At last the sun appeared, and sent its first rays to meet the fugitives.

Suddenly a terrible scream, made up of a hundred cries, burst into the air. It rose from the pā. Glenarvan didn’t know its exact position. A thick curtain of mists stretching under his feet prevented him from seeing into the low valleys.

But the fugitives could not doubt that their escape was discovered. Would they escape the pursuit of the natives? Had they been seen? Would their tracks betray them?

The lower fog rose, momentarily enveloping them with a damp cloud before it cleared, and they saw, three hundred feet below them, the frenetic mass of natives.

They saw, but they had also been seen. A hue and cry broke out, and the whole tribe, after tying in vain to climb the rock walls by the Ware Atua, rushed out of the pā, and darted by the shortest paths in pursuit of the prisoners who were fleeing their vengeance.

1. Verne has “Wahiti Ranges” here, but I can find no reference to any mountain range with that name anywhere in New Zealand. I have substituted “Huiarau” which is the name of the mountains east of Lake Taupo (though they are quite a bit farther east than the mountains Verne describes.)

Chapter XII | Index | Chapter XIV

Chapter XIV
The Tapu Mountain

The summit of the mountain was still a hundred feet above them. The fugitives hoped to disappear from the Māori’s sight on the opposite side. They hoped that some passable ridge would allow them to reach the jumble of neighbouring peaks, an intricate network of mountains, which poor Paganel would have doubtless, if he had been with them, sorted out the complications.

They hurried up the mountain, pursued by the shouts which were getting closer and closer. The pursuing horde arrived at the foot of the mountain.

“Courage, my friends! Courage!” shouted Glenarvan, encouraging his companions with voice and gesture.

In less than five minutes they reached the summit. There, they paused to judge the situation and to choose a direction which might evade the Māori.

From this height, their gaze took in all of Lake Taupo, which stretched westward in its picturesque setting of mountains; to the northwest, the peaks of Pirongia; to the south, the fiery crater of Tongariro. But to the east, the eye stumbled against the barrier of peaks and ridges which formed the Huiarau Ranges, part of the chain of ranges that crosses the whole northern island from the East Cape to Cook Strait. They had to descend the opposite side and enter its narrow gorges, perhaps without exit.

Glenarvan glanced anxiously around him; the fog had melted in the rays of the sun, his gaze penetrated into the smallest hollows of the ground. No Māori movement could escape his sight.

The natives were not five hundred feet from him when they reached the plateau on which the solitary cone rested.

Glenarvan could not prolong this halt for a moment. Exhausted or not, they had to flee, or they would be surrounded.

“Let’s go!” he exclaimed, “let’s go before we’re cut off!”

But as the poor women were rising by a desperate effort, MacNabbs stopped them.

“It’s unnecessary, Glenarvan,” he said. “See.”

And all, indeed, saw the inexplicable change that had occurred in the onrush of the Māori.

Their pursuit had suddenly stopped. The assault on the mountain had ceased as by an peremptory command. The band of natives had ceased its momentum, and had stopped like the waves of the sea breaking against an immovable rock.

All these savages, hungry for blood, now ranged around the foot of the mountain, howling, gesticulating, waving their guns and axes, but they did not advance one foot up the mountain. Their dogs, also rooted on the spot, barked furiously.

What was going on? What invisible power held the natives? The fugitives looked down without understanding, fearing that the charm which chained the tribe of Kai-Kúmu would break.

Suddenly, John Mangles uttered a cry that made his companions turn around. He pointed toward a small fortress raised at the top of the cone.

“It’s the tomb of Chief Kára-Téte!” exclaimed Robert.

“Are you sure, Robert?” asked Glenarvan.

“Yes, My Lord, it is the tomb! I recognize it.”

Robert was correct. Fifty feet above, at the very top of the mountain, freshly painted posts formed a small, palisaded enclosure. Glenarvan too, now recognized the tomb of the Māori chief. The fortunes of their escape had brought them to the very top of Maunganamu.

The Lord, followed by his companions, climbed the last slopes of the cone to the very foot of the tomb. A wide opening covered with mats gave access to it. Glenarvan was about to enter the interior of the Údu pá when he suddenly stepped back sharply.

“A savage!” he said.

“A savage in this tomb?” asked the Major.

“Yes, MacNabbs.”

“What does it matter? Go in.”

Glenarvan, the Major, Robert, and John Mangles entered the compound. There was a Māori there, wearing a large Phormium cloak. The gloom of the Údu pá hid his features. He seemed very quiet, and was eating his breakfast with the utmost casualness. Glenarvan was about to speak to him, when the native, very politely, and with a kind voice, spoke to him in good English.

“Sit down please, my dear Lord”

“Sit down please, my dear Lord, breakfast is waiting for you.”

It was Paganel. On hearing his voice, everyone rushed into the Údu pá to exchange joyous hugs with the excellent geographer. Paganel was found! They were all saved! They all wanted to question him. They wanted to know how and why he was at the top of Maunganamu, but Glenarvan stopped this untimely curiosity.

“The savages!” he said.

“The savages,” Paganel shrugged. “I supremely despise those people!”

“But can’t they…?”

“Them? The fools! Come see them!”

They all followed Paganel out of the Údu pá. The Māori hadn’t moved, surrounding the foot of the cone, and uttering frightful shouts.

“Shout! Yell! Wear yourselves out, you stupid creatures!” cried Paganel. “I challenge you to climb this mountain!”

“Why?” asked Glenarvan.

“Because the chief is buried here; because his tomb protects us; because the mountain is tapu!”

“Tapu?”

“Yes, my friends! And that is why I took refuge here, as many wretches in the middle ages took sanctuary in a church.”

“God is on our side!” exclaimed Lady Helena, raising her hands to the heavens.

Paganel was correct. The mount was tapu, and because of its consecration, the superstitious savages would not invade it.

This wasn’t an escape for the fugitives, but it gave them a respite that they hoped would benefit them. Glenarvan, overcome by indescribable emotion, did not say a word, and the Major shook his head with a truly satisfied air.

“And now, my friends,” said Paganel, “if these brutes believe they can wait us out, they are mistaken. We will be out of the reach of these rascals within two days.”

“We will escape!” said Glenarvan. “But how?”

“I do not know,” said Paganel, “but we will think of something.”

Everyone wanted to know about the geographer’s adventures. It was somewhat bizarre, but for such a loquacious man, he was showing singular restraint in describing what had befallen him. It was necessary to drag his account from his lips in bits and pieces. He, who normally loved to talk so much, replied to many of his friends’ questions with evasions.

“They have changed my Paganel,” thought MacNabbs.

In fact, the appearance of the worthy scholar had changed. He wrapped himself tightly in his vast Phormium shawl, and seemed to avoid too inquisitive looks. His embarrassed manner, when someone asked about him, escaped no one, but, by discretion, no one seemed to notice them. Moreover, when Paganel was no longer the subject, he resumed his usual playfulness.

As for his recollections, here is what he thought fit to tell his companions when they were all seated near him, at the foot of the Údu pá’s palisade:

After the death of Kára-Téte, Paganel, like Robert, took advantage of the natives’ turmoil, and escaped the enclosure of the pā. But, less fortunate than the young Grant, he stumbled into another Māori encampment. This camp was commanded by a handsome, intelligent-looking chief, evidently superior to all the warriors of his tribe. This leader spoke good English, and welcomed the geographer with the nose to nose hongi greeting in which two people exchange the breath of life.

At first, Paganel wondered whether he should consider himself a prisoner or not. But he soon found that he could not take a step without being kindly accompanied by the chief, so he knew what to expect in this respect.

This chief, named “Híhi,” which means “sunbeam,” was not a wicked man. The geographer’s spectacles and telescope seemed to give him a high regard of Paganel, and he attached it particularly to himself, not only by granting him his protection, but also by strong Phormium chords. Especially at night.

This situation lasted three long days. They asked if he was well or poorly treated, to which Paganel would only say “Yes and no,” without further explanation. In short, he was a prisoner, and, except for the prospect of immediate execution, his condition seemed to him hardly more enviable than that of his unfortunate friends.

Fortunately, one night he managed to gnaw through his ropes and escape. He had witnessed the burial of the chief from afar. He knew that he had been buried at the top of Maunganamu, and that this had made the mountain tapu. It was there that he resolved to take refuge, not wishing to leave the area where his companions were detained. He succeeded in his perilous escape. He arrived at the tomb of Kára-Téte last night, and waited there, “while recovering strength,” hoping that Heaven might, through some chance, deliver his friends.

That was Paganel’s story. Did he purposely omit certain incidents from his stay with the natives? More than once, his evident embarrassment made everyone believe so. Be that as it may, he received unanimous congratulations, and with his story completed, they returned their concern to the present.

Their situation was extremely dire. The natives, if they did not venture to climb up Maunganamu, counted on hunger and thirst to drive their prisoners down. It was a matter of time, and the savages have long patience.

Glenarvan had no illusions about the difficulties of his position, but he resolved to wait for favourable circumstances, or to make them, if necessary.

First, Glenarvan wished to carefully scout his improvised fortress of Maunganamu — not to defend it, for attack was not to be feared, but to find a way to leave it. He, the Major, John, Robert, and Paganel made a survey of the mountain. They observed the directions of the paths, their ends, their slopes. A ridge, one mile long, which united Maunganamu to the Huiarau Range, descended close to the plain. Its spine, narrow and capriciously contoured, presented the only feasible route by which an escape might be made. If the fugitives crossed it unnoticed in the night, perhaps they would be able to get into the deep valleys of the Ranges and evade the Māori warriors.

But this route offered more than one danger. At its lowest point, it passed within gunshot range of the Māori. Natives posted on the lower slopes could set up a crossfire there, and stretch a net of lead across the ridge that no one could pass with impunity.

Glenarvan and his friends, having ventured onto the dangerous part of the ridge, were saluted with a hail of lead which fell short of them. A few bits of smouldering wadding, carried by the wind, did reach them. They were made of printed paper which Paganel picked up out of pure curiosity and deciphered with some difficulty.

“Ha!” he said. “Do you know, my friends, what these animals stuff their rifles with?”

“No, Paganel,” said Glenarvan.

“With slips of the Bible! If this is the use they make of sacred verses, I pity the missionaries! They will have trouble founding Māori libraries.”

“And what passage of the holy books have these natives fired at us?” asked Glenarvan.

“A word from Almighty God,” said John Mangles, who had just read the paper singed by the explosion. “This word tells us to hope in Him,” added the captain, with the unshakable conviction of his Scottish faith.

“Read it, John,” said Glenarvan.

And John read this verse that survived the explosion of the powder. “Psalm 91:14. ‘Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver him.’”

“My friends, we must deliver these words of hope to our brave and dear companions,” said Glenarvan. “This is something that will revive their hearts.”

Glenarvan and his companions returned up the steep slopes of the cone to the tomb they wished to further examine.

On the way, they were astonished, at times, to feel a slight vibration in the ground. It was not a shaking, but more like the continuous vibration experienced by the walls of a boiler. Vapour arising from the action of the subterranean fires was evidently stored under great pressure within the envelope of the mountain.

This could not particularly amaze people who had just passed between the hot springs of the Waikato. They knew that this central region of Te Ika-a-Māui is essentially volcanic. It is a veritable sieve whose fabric lets the earth’s vapours escape through boiling springs and solfataras.

Paganel, who had already observed it, called the attention of his friends to the volcanic nature of the mountain. Maunganamu was just one of the many cones that bristle in the central plateau of the island. It was a volcano in the making. The slightest mechanical action could create a crater in its walls made of a siliceous and whitish tuff.

“Indeed,” said Glenarvan, “but we are no more in danger here than with the Duncan’s boiler. The crust of the earth makes a solid plate!”

“True,” said the Major. “But a boiler, good as it may be, always breaks down after a long service.”

“MacNabbs,” said Paganel, “I do not wish to stay on this cone. Let Heaven show me a passable road, and I will leave it at once.”

“Ah! Why can’t this Maunganamu take us himself,” said John Mangles. “So much mechanical power is contained in its flanks! There may be, under our feet, the strength of several millions of horses, sterile and lost! Our Duncan could carry us to the ends of the world with a thousandth of this power!”

This memory of the Duncan, evoked by John Mangles, brought the saddest thoughts back to Glenarvan’s mind. As desperate as his own situation was, he often forgot it, to mourn the fate of his crew.

He was still thinking of them when he returned to his companions in misfortune at the top of Maunganamu.

Lady Helena came to him as soon as she saw him. “My dear Edward, did you reconnoiter our position? Should we hope or fear?”

“Hope, my dear Helena,” said Glenarvan. “The natives will never climb the mountain, and in time we will form an escape plan.”

“Besides, Madame,” said John Mangles, “God himself recommends for us to hope.”

He handed Lady Helena the page of the Bible, which contained the sacred verse. The young woman and the girl — with their confident souls, their hearts open to all the interventions of Heaven — saw an infallible omen of salvation in these words from the holy book.

“Now, to the Údu pá!” said Paganel, gayly. “This is our fortress, our castle, our dining room, our office! Nobody will bother us! Ladies, allow me to do you the honours of this charming dwelling.”

They followed the amiable Paganel. When the savages saw the fugitives again desecrating this tapu tomb, they fired numerous gunshots and terrible howls arose, each as noisy as the other. But, fortunately, the bullets did not carry as far as the cries, and fell half way, while the shouts were lost in the air.

Lady Helena, Mary Grant, and their companions, quite reassured by seeing that the Māori superstition was even stronger than their anger, entered the funereal monument.

The Údu pá of the Māori chief was a palisade of red painted posts. Symbolic figures, a veritable tattoo on wood, told of the nobility and the deeds of the deceased. Strings of amulets, shells, or cut stones swayed between the poles. Inside, the ground was covered with a carpet of green leaves. In the centre, a slight mound betrayed the freshly dug grave.

The chief’s weapons rested there, his loaded and primed rifles, his spear, and his superb green jade axe, along with a sufficient supply of powder and bullets for the eternal hunts.

“That’s a whole arsenal,” said Paganel, “we’ll make better use of it than the deceased. It’s a good thing that these savages carry their weapons into the other world!”

“Hey! These are English manufactured guns!” said the Major.

“No doubt,” said Glenarvan. “It is a foolish custom to give firearms to the savages that they can then turn against their invaders, and they are right to do so! In any case, these guns can be useful to us!”

“But what will be more useful to us,” said Paganel, “are the food and water destined for Kára-Téte.”

Indeed, the family and friends of the deceased had not been stingy. The supply testified to their esteem for the virtues of the chief. There was enough food to feed ten people for fifteen days, or rather the deceased for eternity. These plant-based foods consisted of ferns, sweet potatoes — indigenous Ipomoea batatas — and potatoes imported into the country long ago by Europeans. Large vases contained the pure water which appears in Māori meals, and a dozen artistically woven baskets contained tablets of an unknown green gum.

The fugitives were therefore provisioned against hunger and thirst for a few days. They had no compunctions against taking their first meal at the expense of the chief.

Glenarvan noted that they had the food they needed, and entrusted it to the care of Mr. Olbinett. The steward, always formal, even in the most serious situations, found the menu of the meal a little thin. Besides, he did not know how to prepare these roots, and he had no fire. But Paganel took matters in hand, and advised him to simply bury the ferns and sweet potatoes in the soil itself.

The temperature of the upper layers was very high, and a thermometer, sunk in this ground, would certainly have indicated a temperature of sixty to sixty-five degrees.¹ Olbinett was even very nearly seriously scalded, for as he was digging a hole in which to deposit his roots, a column of steam burst forth, and whistled a fathom up into the air.

The steward fell back

The steward fell back, terrified.

“Shut the tap!” cried the Major, who, with the aid of the two sailors, ran up and filled the hole with pumice debris, while Paganel looked at this phenomenon with a singular air.

“Tiens! Tiens! Hé! Hé! Pourquoi pas?” he murmured.

“Are you hurt?” MacNabbs asked Olbinett.

“No, Mr. MacNabbs,” said the steward, “but I did not expect so much—”

“So many blessings from Heaven!” Paganel exclaimed cheerfully. “After the water and the food of Kára-Téte, the fire of the earth! This mountain is a paradise! I propose to found a colony here, to cultivate it, to settle here for the rest of our days! We will be the Robinsons of Maunganamu! In truth, I search in vain for what we miss on this comfortable cone!”

“Nothing, if it’s solid,” said John Mangles.

“Well! It was not made yesterday,” said Paganel. “It has resisted the force of the interior fires for a long time, and it will hold until well after we leave.”

“Breakfast is served,” announced Mr. Olbinett, as gravely as if he had been performing his duties at Malcolm Castle.

At once the fugitives, seated near the palisade, began one of those meals which for some time Providence had sent them precisely when it was most needed.

There was little choice in what to eat, and opinions were divided on the edible fern root. Some found it sweet and pleasant to the taste, the others bland, perfectly tasteless, and a remarkably tough. The sweet potatoes, cooked in the hot earth, were excellent. The geographer remarked that Kára-Téte was not to be pitied.

Then, hunger sated, Glenarvan proposed that they discuss their escape plan without delay.

“Already!” said Paganel, in a truly pitiful tone. “How are you thinking about leaving this place of delights?”

“But, Monsieur Paganel,” said Lady Helena. “Admitting that we are at Capua, you know that we must not imitate Hannibal!”

“Madame,” replied Paganel, “I will not allow myself to contradict you, and since you wish to discuss it, let us discuss.”

“I think first of all,” said Glenarvan, “that we must attempt an escape before being driven out by hunger. We still have our strength, and we must take advantage of it. Next night, we will try to reach the valleys of the east by crossing the circle of natives under the cover of darkness.”

“Perfect,” replied Paganel, “if the Māori let us pass.”

“What if they stop us?” asked John Mangles.

“Then we will use the great means,” said Paganel.

“So, you have great means?” asked the Major.

“More than I know what to do with!” said Paganel without further explanation.

It only remained to wait for the night to try to cross the line of the natives.

They had not gone away. Their ranks even seemed to have grown with the arrival of the tribe’s stragglers. Burning hearths formed a belt of fires spread around the base of the cone. When darkness invaded the surrounding valleys, Maunganamu appeared to rise out of a vast fire, while its summit was lost in a thick darkness. Six hundred feet below, the agitation, shouts, and murmur of the enemy’s camp could be heard.

At nine o’clock, when it was very dark, Glenarvan and John Mangles resolved to make a reconnaissance, before leading their companions on this dangerous path. They descended quietly for about ten minutes, and mounted the narrow ridge which crossed the native line, fifty feet above the camp.

All was well until then. The Māori, lying near their fires did not seem to see the two fugitives, who took a few more steps. Suddenly, to the left and right of the ridge, a double fusillade broke out.

“Back!” shouted Glenarvan. “These bandits have cat’s eyes and riflemen!”

He and John Mangles immediately ascended the steep slopes of the mountain, and promptly reassured their friends, frightened by the gunfire. Glenarvan’s hat had been shot twice. It was impossible to cross the lengthy ridge between these two ranks of skirmishers.

“I’ll see you in the morning,” said Paganel. “And since we can not deceive the vigilance of these natives, you will allow me to serve them a dish of my own!”

The night was quite cold. Fortunately, Kára-Téte had carried his best night clothes to his grave. The fugitives had no scruples against wrapping themselves in these warm Phormium blankets, and soon, guarded by the native superstition, they slept quietly in the shelter of the palisades, on this lukewarm soil, shivering with interior bubbling.

1. 140° to 150° Fahrenheit — DAS

Chapter XIII | Index | Chapter XV

Chapter XV
Paganel’s Great Means

The next day, February 17th, the first rays of the rising sun awakened the sleepers on Maunganamu. The Māori had been stirring for some time, coming and going from around the foot of the cone, without abandoning their encirclement. A furious clamour greeted the appearance of the Europeans coming out of the desecrated enclosure.

Each of them took their first look at the surrounding mountains; deep valleys, still drenched in mists; and the surface of Lake Taupo, rippled by the morning breeze.

Then they all gathered around Paganel expectantly, anxious to learn about his new project.

Paganel immediately responded to the eager curiosity of his companions. “My friends, my project has the advantage that if it does not produce all the effect I expect, even if it fails completely, our situation will not be worse. But it must succeed; it will succeed.”

“And this project?” asked MacNabbs.

“Here it is,” said Paganel. “The natives’ superstition has made this mountain a place of asylum; superstition will help us to get off of it. If we succeed in persuading Kai-Kúmu that we have been the victims of our desecration, that heavenly wrath has struck us, that we died a terrible death, do you believe that he will abandon this plateau? Leave Maunganamu and return to his village?”

“That is likely,” said Glenarvan.

“And with what horrible death are you threatening us?” asked Lady Helena.

“The death of desecrators, my friends,” answered Paganel. “The vengeful flames are under our feet. Let us open them!”

“What? You want to make a volcano!” exclaimed John Mangles.

“Yes, a dummy volcano, an improvised volcano, whose fury we will direct! There is a whole supply of steam and underground fire waiting to come out! Let’s organize an artificial eruption for our benefit!”

“That’s quite an idea,” said the Major. “Well imagined, Paganel!”

“You understand,” said the geographer, “that we will pretend to be devoured by the flames of the Māori Pluto, and that we will disappear spiritually into the tomb of Kára-Téte, where we will stay three, four, five days, if necessary, until the savages, convinced of our death, abandon the field.”

“But what if they want to witness our punishment?” asked Miss Grant, “What if they climb the mountain?”

“No, my dear Mary,” said Paganel. “They will not do it. The mountain is tapu, and when she has devoured her profaners herself, her tapu will be even stronger!”

“This really is a good idea,” said Glenarvan. “The only way it can go wrong is if the savages persist in staying so long at the foot of Maunganamu that we run out of food. But this is unlikely, especially if we play our game skillfully.”

“And when will we try this last chance?” asked Lady Helena.

“This very evening,” said Paganel, “as soon as it is fully dark.”

“Agreed,” said MacNabbs. “Paganel, you are a man of genius and I — who do not easily get excited — anticipate a great success. Ah, those scoundrels! We will serve them a little miracle, which will delay their conversion by a good century! May the missionaries forgive us!”

Paganel’s plan was adopted, and truly, with the superstitious beliefs of the Māori, it had every chance of success. Only its execution remained. The idea was good, but its implementation difficult. Would this volcano devour those daring to create a crater in it? Could they control, and direct, this eruption when its vapours, flames, and lava were unleashed? Might the entire cone sink into a pit of fire? They were touching one of those phenomena on which nature reserved an absolute monopoly.

Paganel had foreseen these difficulties, so he intended to act with caution, and without pushing things to the extreme. It only took the appearance to deceive the Māori, and not the terrible reality of an eruption.

The day seemed very long. Everyone counted the endless hours. Everything was prepared for the escape. The provisions of the Údu pá had been divided into small, manageable packs. A few mats and firearms taken from the chief’s tomb completed this light baggage. It goes without saying that these preparations were made inside the palisaded enclosure, out of sight from the savages.

At six o’clock the steward served a comforting meal. Where and when they would eat in the valleys of the district, no one could foresee, so they dined for the future. The main dish consisted of half a dozen big stewed rats that Wilson had caught. Lady Helena and Mary Grant stubbornly refused to taste this game so esteemed in New Zealand, but the men feasted like real Māori. This flesh was really excellent, even tasty, and the six rodents were gnawed to the bone.

Evening twilight arrived. The sun disappeared behind a band of thick, stormy clouds. A few lightning flashes illuminated the horizon, and distant thunder rolled across the depths of the sky.

Paganel hailed the storm that helped his plans and completed his staging. The savages are superstitiously affected by these great phenomena of nature. The Māori believe the thunder to be the irritated voice of Nui Atua and the lightning is the angry flashing of his eyes. The deity would therefore appear to personally punish the profaners of the tapu. At eight o’clock, the summit of Maunganamu disappeared in a sinister darkness. The sky gave a black background to the blossoming of flames that Paganel’s hand was about to produce. The Māori could no longer see their prisoners. The moment to act had come.

It had to be done quickly. Glenarvan, Paganel, MacNabbs, Robert, the steward, and the two sailors, set to work together.

They attacked the rocky mass with levers

The location of the crater was chosen thirty paces from the tomb of Kára-Téte. It was important, even critical, that the Údu pá was spared by the eruption, because without it, the tapu of the mountain would be erased. Paganel had noticed an enormous block of stone there, around which vapours poured out especially strongly. This block covered a small natural crater dug in the cone, and its weight alone opposed the effusion of the underground flames. If it could be thrown out of its cavity, the vapours and lava would immediately burst through the open vent.

The workers made levers with the poles pulled up from inside the Údu pá, and vigorously attacked the rocky mass. Under their simultaneous efforts, the rock soon began to shake. They had dug a shallow trench below it on the slope of the mountain, so that it could slip on this inclined plane. As they lifted it up, the vibrations of the ground became more violent.

Dull roars of flame, and the whistling of a furnace ran under the thinned crust. The daring workmen, veritable cyclopes wielding the fires of the earth, worked silently. Soon, a few cracks and jets of burning steam told them that the place was becoming dangerous. A final effort tore the block loose, and it slid down the slope of the mount and disappeared.

The thinned layer immediately yielded. A violent detonation sent an incandescent column shooting up into the sky, while streams of boiling water and lava flowed toward the natives’ encampment in the lower valley.

An incandescent column shot up into the sky

The whole cone shook, as if it was about to collapse into a bottomless chasm. Glenarvan and his companions barely had time to escape the eruption. They fled to the enclosure of the Údu pá, while being hit by a few drops of nearly boiling water. This water at first gave off a slight odour of broth, which soon changed into a very strong odour of sulphur.

The mud, lava, and volcanic ash were merged into the same conflagration. Torrents of fire crisscrossed the flanks of Maunganamu. The nearby mountains lit up with the fire of the eruption. The deep valleys echoed with intense reverberations.

All the savages had risen, screaming under the bite of the lava burning into the middle of their bivouac. Those whom the river of fire had not overwhelmed fled up the surrounding hills. They turned, frightened, and surveyed this frightful phenomenon: the volcano with which the wrath of their god had destroyed the profaners of the sacred mountain. At moments when the roar of the eruption waned, they could be heard screaming their sacramental cry.

“Tapu! Tapu! Tapu!”

A huge quantity of vapour, burning stones, and lava escaped from the new crater of Maunganamu. It was no longer a mere geyser, like those near Mount Hecla in Iceland, but Mount Hecla itself. All this volcanic suppuration had hitherto been contained under the envelope of the cone, because the valves of Tongariro were sufficient for its release. But when a new escape opened, it rushed out with extreme vehemence, and that night, by a law of equilibrium, the other eruptions of the island were to lose their usual intensity.

An hour after the debut of this volcano on the world stage, large streams of incandescent lava flowed on its flanks. A whole legion of rats could be seen coming out of their uninhabitable holes and fleeing the burning ground.

During the whole night and under the storm that was unleashed in the heights of the sky, the cone shook with a violence that worried Glenarvan. The eruption gnawed at the edges of the crater.

The prisoners, hidden within the palisade, followed the frightful progress of the phenomenon.

The morning came. The volcanic fury did not abate. Thick yellowish vapour mingled with the flames; the streams of lava wound out on all sides.

Glenarvan kept watch, his heart throbbing, glancing through the interstices of the stockade and observing the natives’ encampment.

The Māori had fled to neighbouring plateaus, out of reach of the volcano. Some corpses lying at the foot of the cone were charred by the fire. Farther on, toward the pā, the lava had destroyed about twenty huts, which still smoked. The Māori, in scattered groups, regarded Maunganamu’s shrouded summit with a religious terror.

Kai-Kúmu came, surrounded by his warriors, and Glenarvan recognized him. The chief advanced to the foot of the cone, on the side untouched by the lava, but he did not ascend even the lowest slopes.

There, his arms outstretched like a sorcerer performing an exorcism, he made a few gestures whose meaning did not escape the prisoners. As Paganel had foreseen, Kai-Kúmu was laying a stronger tapu on the vengeful mountain.

Soon after, the natives filed away down the winding paths that led back to the pā.

“They’re leaving!” exclaimed Glenarvan. “They’ve given up! God be praised! Our stratagem has succeeded! My dear Helena, my good companions, we are dead, and here we are buried! But tonight, we will be resurrected; we will leave our tomb; we will flee these barbarous tribes!”

It would be difficult to imagine the joy that reigned in the Údu pá. Hope had risen in all their hearts. These courageous travellers forgot the past, forgot the future, and thought only of the present! And yet they still had the difficult task of reaching some European settlement in the midst of this unknown country. But with Kai-Kúmu outwitted, they thought they were saved from all the savages of New Zealand!

The Major, for his part, did not hide the utter contempt in which he held the Māori, and he did not lack the words to express it. It became a contest between him and Paganel. They called them unforgivable brutes, stupid donkeys, Pacific idiots, Bedlam savages, antipodean cretins, etc., etc. They did not run out of epithets.

A whole day had to pass before the final escape. It was employed discussing a flight plan. Paganel had preciously kept his map of New Zealand, and he was able to seek the safest ways.

After discussion, the fugitives resolved to move northeast, toward the East Cape.¹ They would be passing through unknown but probably deserted territory. The travellers, already accustomed to extricating themselves from natural difficulties, and overcoming physical obstacles, feared nothing but meeting the Māori. They wanted to avoid them at all costs, and to reach the northeastern tip of the island, where missionaries had founded a few settlements. Moreover, that part of the island had so far escaped the disasters of the war, and native parties were not beating the countryside.

The distance between Lake Taupo and the East Cape was estimated to be 140 miles:² two weeks of walking at ten miles a day. This could be done; it would be exhausting, but in this courageous troop no one counted their steps. Once they reached a mission, the travellers could rest there while waiting for a favourable opportunity to go on to Auckland, since this city was still their ultimate destination.

These various points decided, they continued to watch the natives until evening. There were none left at the foot of the mountain, and when the valleys around Lake Taupo fell into the shadows, no fire marked the presence of Māori at the bottom of the cone. The path was clear.

At nine o’clock, in the dark of night, Glenarvan gave the signal to depart. He and his companions, armed and equipped at the expense of Kára-Téte, began to cautiously descend the ramps of Maunganamu. John Mangles and Wilson were in the lead, ears and eyes on watch. They stopped at the slightest sound, they investigated the slightest gleam. Each of them crawled down the slope of the mountain to be better concealed by it.

Two hundred feet above the plateau, John Mangles and his sailor reached the perilous ridge that had been defended so obstinately by the natives. If, unfortunately, the Māori were more cunning than the fugitives, and had feigned a retreat to lure them down — if they had not been duped by the volcanic eruption — this was where their trap would be set. Glenarvan, despite all his confidence and despite Paganel’s jokes, could not help but shudder. The salvation of his people was going to be played out during the ten minutes necessary to cross this crest. Lady Helena clung to his arm. He could feel her heart beating.

He did not consider going back. Neither did John. The young captain, hidden by the complete darkness, and followed by the rest, crept along the narrow ridge, stopping when some loose stone rolled to the bottom of the plateau. If the savages were still waiting in ambush below, these unusual noises would have provoked a furious fusillade from both sides.

The fugitives did not go quickly, slipping like a snake across the inclined ridge. When John Mangles reached the lowest point, only twenty-five feet separated him from the plateau where the natives had camped the night before. The ridge now rose up in a steep slope to a copse of trees, a quarter of a mile ahead.

They crossed the low saddle of the ridge without accident, and the travellers began to go up in silence. The cluster of trees was invisible, but they knew it was there. And provided a native ambush was not prepared in it, Glenarvan hoped for it to be a safe place. However, he knew that from this moment he was no longer protected by the tapu. The rising ridge did not belong to Maunganamu, but to the mountainous system that bristled on the eastern side of Lake Taupo. So, not only the natives’ gunshots, but a hand-to-hand attack was to be feared.

For ten minutes the little troop rose almost imperceptibly toward the upper plateau. John could not yet see the dark copse, but it must have been less than two hundred feet away.

Suddenly he stopped, and almost backed up. He thought he heard some noise in the darkness. His hesitation stopped the movement of his companions.

He remained motionless, and that was enough to disturb those who followed him. They waited in inexpressible anguish! Would they be forced to go back and return to the summit of Maunganamu?

But John, finding that the noise was not repeated, resumed his ascent up the narrow path of the ridge.

Soon the copse was vaguely outlined in the shadows. A few more steps and they reached it, and the fugitives huddled under the thick foliage of the trees.

1. Verne’s description of where they plan to go makes no sense. He says that they plan to go east, to the Bay of Plenty, on the east coast. The Bay of Plenty is north of Lake Taupo, on the northern coast. Where he has them end up is near the East Cape, so that’s where I say they plan to go. (It’s further confused by the map included in the Hetzel edition, which shows them going to a point on the Bay of Plenty, nowhere near where text describes them going) — DAS

2. 56 leagues (225 kilometres) — DAS

Chapter XIV | Index | Chapter XVI

Chapter XVI
Between Two Fires

It was necessary to take full advantage of the night to to get as far as possible from the fatal area of Lake Taupo. Paganel took the lead of the little troop, and his marvellous traveller’s instinct was revealed again during this difficult journey into the mountains. He maneuvered with surprising skill through the the darkness, choosing almost invisible paths without hesitation, not deviating from his chosen direction. His nyctalopia served him well, and his cat-like eyes allowed him to distinguish the smallest objects in the profound darkness.

They walked for three hours, without stopping, along the broad flanks of the eastern ranges. Paganel inclined their route a little to the southeast, in order to reach the narrow pass between the Kaimanawa and the Huiarau Ranges used by the road from Auckland to Hawke’s Bay. Once through this gorge, he intended to leave the road and, sheltered by the high mountain chains, march to the coast through the uninhabited regions of the province.

By nine o’clock in the morning, they had covered twelve miles in twelve hours. No more could be demanded of the courageous women. Besides, they had reached a good place to camp. The fugitives had reached the pass separating the two chains. The overland road remained to their right and ran south. Paganel, his map in his hand, made a hook to the northeast, and at ten o’clock the little troop reached a natural redan formed by a projection of the mountains. Some of their provisions were taken from the sacks, and they were thankfully consumed. Mary Grant and the Major, who had not cared for the edible fern until then, enjoyed it that day. They rested until two o’clock in the afternoon before they continued eastward. In the evening the travellers were eight miles from the mountains when they stopped. No one objected to sleeping in the open air.

The route became more difficult the next day. It was necessary to cross a curious district of volcanic lakes, geysers and solfataras which extends to the east of the Huiarau Ranges. It was much more delightful to the eyes, than to the legs. Every quarter of a mile there were detours, obstacles, and false trails. It was exhausting, but what a strange spectacle, and what an infinite variety of scenery nature provided!

Salt springs of strange transparency

In this vast area of twenty square miles, the effusions of the subterranean forces took place in all their forms. Salt springs of strange transparency, populated by myriads of insects, emerged from the copses of native tea trees. They gave off a penetrating odour of burned powder, and deposited a white residue like dazzling snow on the ground. Their limpid waters were nearly boiling, while other nearby springs flowed in icy sheets. Gigantic ferns grew on their banks, under conditions analogous to those of the Silurian age.

Liquid sheaves, enveloped in vapour, darted from the ground like the fountains of a park on all sides. Some were continuous, others intermittent and subject to the pleasure of a capricious Pluto. They were arranged in amphitheatres of natural terraces layered in a cascade of shallow basins. Their waters were gradually confused beneath the spirals of white steam, and eroding the diaphanous steps of these gigantic staircases, they fed entire lakes with their bubbling waterfalls. Farther on, the hot springs and the tumultuous geysers were succeeded by the solfataras. There were so many half eroded craters, cracked with numerous fissures from which various gases were emerging, that the ground appeared covered with large pustules. The atmosphere was saturated with the pungent and unpleasant odour of sulphurous acids. Crusts and crystalline concretions of sulphur carpeted the ground. Incalculable sterile riches had accumulated for centuries, and it is to this little known district of New Zealand that industry will come to supply itself, if the soufrières of Sicily are exhausted one day.

It is easy to understand how exhausting it was for the travellers to cross these regions bristling with obstacles. Suitable campsites were difficult to find, and the hunters’ rifles did not meet a bird worthy of being plucked by Mr. Olbinett. It was most often necessary to be content with ferns and sweet potatoes, a meagre meal which did not recoup the exhausted strength of the little troop. Everyone was eager to leave these arid and deserted lands.

It took no less than four days to cross this impracticable country. On the 23rd of February, only fifty miles from Maunganamu, Glenarvan camped at the foot of an unnamed mountain marked on Paganel’s map. Plains of shrubs stretched before him, and the great forests reappeared on the horizon.

This was a good omen, provided that the habitability of these regions didn’t bring back too many inhabitants. So far, the travellers had not seen the shadow of a Māori.

MacNabbs and Robert had killed three kiwis that day, which figured with honour on the camp table, but not for long, to tell the truth, because in a few minutes they were devoured from beaks to feet.

Then at dessert, between potatoes and sweet potatoes, Paganel made a motion that was adopted with enthusiasm.

He proposed to give the name “Glenarvan” to the unnamed mountain which rose three thousand feet into the clouds, and he carefully printed the name of the Scottish lord onto his map.

To recount all the rather monotonous and uninteresting events which marked the rest of the journey would be pointless. Only two or three incidents of some importance marked this crossing of the island from the lakes to the Pacific Ocean.

They walked all day through forests and plains. John took sightings of the sun and the stars. The weather was rather mild, sparing its heat and its rains. Nevertheless, increasing exhaustion was slowing these travellers who had been so cruelly tried, and they were eager to reach the missions at the coast. They were still chatting, but not all together. The little troop was divided into groups which formed, not by close sympathy, but a communion of more personal ideas.

Most often Glenarvan walked by himself, thinking of the Duncan and her crew as he approached the coast. He forgot the dangers that still threatened him en-route to Auckland, to think of his slain sailors. The horrible image would not leave him.

They did not talk about Harry Grant anymore. What good was it, since nothing could be done for him? If the name of the captain was still mentioned, it was in the conversations between his daughter and John Mangles.

John had not reminded Mary of what she had told him during the last night in the Ware Atua. His discretion did not allow him to take advantage of a word uttered in a moment of supreme despair.

When he talked about Harry Grant, John always talked of continuing the search. He told Mary that Lord Glenarvan would resume this aborted endeavour. He started from the position that the authenticity of the document could not be doubted, so Harry Grant was alive somewhere. If they had to search the whole world, they would find him. Mary was entranced by these words, and she and John, united by the same thoughts, were now joined in the same hope. Lady Helena often took part in their conversations, but she did not lose herself to so many illusions. And yet, she did not bring these young people back to sad reality.

Meanwhile, MacNabbs, Robert, Wilson, and Mulrady hunted without straying far from the little troop, and each of them supplied his share of game. Paganel, still draped in his Phormium cloak, kept aloof, quiet and thoughtful.

And yet, it is good to say, in spite of the law of nature which states that in the midst of trials, danger, exhaustion, and privation, the best of characters may be wrinkled and soured, all these companions in misfortune remained united, devoted, and ready to die for each other.

On February 25th, the route was blocked by a river that was marked on Paganel’s map as the Waikare. They crossed it.

Plains of scrub succeeded one another for two uninterrupted days. Half the distance between Lake Taupo and the coast had been crossed without an accident, if not without fatigue.

They came to immense and endless woodlands, reminiscent of the Australian forests; but here, kauris replaced eucalyptus. Despite the preceding four months of incredible sights, Glenarvan and his companions were still amazed by these gigantic pines, worthy rivals of the cedars of Lebanon, and the mammoth trees of California. These kauris — Agathis australis to a botanist — grew to one hundred feet in height before branching. They grew in isolated clusters, and the forest was composed not of trees, but of innumerable clumps of trees, which extended their parasol of green leaves to two hundred feet in the air.

Some of these pines, still young — scarcely a hundred years old — resembled the red firs of Europe. They carried a dark green crown topped by a sharp cone. On the other hand, their elders — trees five or six centuries old — formed immense tents of greenery supported on an inextricable latticework of branches. These patriarchs of the New Zealand forest measured up to fifty feet in circumference, and the united arms of all the travellers could not encircle their trunks.

For three days the little troop ventured under these vast arches on a clay soil that no man’s foot had ever trod. It was easy to see in the heaps of resinous gum piled up in many places at the foot of the kauris, which would have supported many years of native exploitation.¹

The hunters found many coveys of kiwis, so rare in the middle parts of the island frequented by the Māori. It is in these inaccessible forests that these curious birds have taken refuge from being hunted by the New Zealand dogs. They provided an abundant and healthy food for the meals of the travellers.

It even happened that Paganel saw a couple of gigantic birds in a thicket in the distance. His naturalist’s instinct was revived. He called his companions, and, in spite of their exhaustion, the Major, Robert, and he, hurled themselves on the tracks of these animals.

The ardent curiosity of the geographer could be understood, for he had recognized — or believed he recognized — these birds to be “moas,” belonging to the genus of Dinornis, which several scholars rank among the extinct varieties. But this meeting confirmed the opinion of Dr. von Hochstetter, and other explorers, that these wingless giants of New Zealand still existed.²

The moas pursued by Paganel, these contemporaries of the megatheriums and pterodactyls,³ were up to eighteen feet in height. They were oversized and easily frightened ostriches, that fled with extreme speed. Not even a rifle bullet could stop them in their flight! After a few minutes of chase, these elusive moas disappeared behind some large trees, and the hunters gained nothing for their pains, or expense of powder.

That evening, on the 1st of March, Glenarvan and his companions finally abandoned the immense forest of kauris, and encamped at the foot of Mount Hikurangi, whose summit rose 5,500 feet in the air.

Nearly a hundred and forty miles had been travelled since they left Maunganamu, and the coast was still thirty miles away. John Mangles thought that they had made excellent time,⁴ in spite of the difficulties of this region.

The detours, the obstacles of the road, and the imperfections of their bearings, had lengthened it by a fifth, and unfortunately the travellers who arrived at Mount Hikurangi were completely exhausted.

It would take two more long days of walking to reach the coast. An extreme vigilance, unnecessary for many days, became necessary again, for they were returning to a country often frequented by the Māori.

However, everyone tamed their weariness, and the next day the little troop set out at daybreak.

Between Mount Hikurangi, which they passed to their right, and Mount Hardy, the summit of which rose to a height of 3,700 feet on their left, the journey became very painful. For ten miles the plain bristled with “supplejack,” a sort of flexible creeper aptly named “choking vines.” Arms and legs were entangled at every step, and these lianas, veritable serpents, wound the body in their tortuous coils. For two days it was necessary to advance with an axe in hand, and to fight against a hydra with a hundred thousand heads. Paganel would have gladly classified these troubling and tenacious plants among the zoophytes.

Hunting became impossible in these plains, and the hunters no longer brought their accustomed tribute. They reached the end of their provisions; they could not be renewed. There was no water; they could not quell their thirsts, doubled by fatigue.

The sufferings of Glenarvan and his people were horrible, and for the first time their morale was about to abandon them.

Finally, no longer walking, but dragging themselves along, soulless bodies only led by the instinct for survival that outlasted any other feeling, they reached Point Lottin, on the shores of the Pacific.

They found some deserted huts — the ruins of a village recently devastated by the war — abandoned fields, everywhere marks of plunder and fire. Destiny had reserved a new and terrible trial for the unfortunate travellers.

They were wandering along the shore when a detachment of natives appeared a mile from the coast. The natives rushed toward them, waving their weapons. Glenarvan, his back to the sea, could not escape, and, drawing his last strength, he was prepared to fight, when John Mangles exclaimed “A boat, a boat!”

Twenty paces away, indeed, a boat with six oars was stranded on the beach. To launch it, to jump into it and to flee this dangerous shore, took only a moment. John Mangles, MacNabbs, Wilson, and Mulrady took to the oars; Glenarvan took the rudder; the two women, Olbinett, and Robert lay beside him.

In ten minutes the boat was a quarter mile off the shore. The sea was calm. The fugitives kept a profound silence.

John, not wishing to deviate too far from the coast, was about to follow the shore, when his oar suddenly stopped in his hands.

He had just caught sight of three canoes coming out of Point Lottin, with the evident intention of chasing them.

“Out to sea! Out to sea!” he yelled. “It would be better to perish in the waves!”

The boat, propelled by its four oars, turned out to sea. For half an hour they were able to maintain their distance; but the poor exhausted rowers were beginning to falter, and the three canoes were noticeably gaining on them. Scarcely two miles now separated them. There was no possibility of avoiding an attack from the natives, who were preparing their rifles to fire.

What was Glenarvan to do? Standing at the back of the boat, he looked for some chimerical help on the horizon. What did he hope for? What could he expect? Did he have a premonition? Suddenly, his gaze caught fire, his hand extended to a point on the horizon.

“A ship!” he cried. “My friends, a ship! Row! Row hard!”

Not one of the four rowers turned to see this unexpected ship, because one should not lose a stroke of an oar. Only Paganel, getting up, pointed his telescope at the point indicated.

“Yes!” he said. “A ship! A steamer! She’s at full steam! She’s coming to us! Row hardy, my comrades!”

The fugitives found a new energy, and for half an hour they maintained their distance with strong strokes of their oars. The steamer became more and more visible. They could see her two masts, empty of canvas, and big billows of her black smoke. Glenarvan, abandoning the tiller to Robert, had seized the geographer’s telescope and was tracking all of the ship’s movements.

But what did John Mangles and his companions think when they saw the Lord’s features contract, his face turn pale, and the instrument fall from his hands? A single word explained this sudden despair to them.

“The Duncan!” cried Glenarvan. “The Duncan, and the convicts!”

“The Duncan?” cried John, who dropped his oar and got up immediately.

“Yes! Death on both sides!” murmured Glenarvan, broken by so much anguish.

It was indeed the yacht; they could not be mistaken. The yacht with its crew of bandits! The Major could not restrain a curse he threw against the sky. It was too much!

The boat was allowed to drift. Which way to go? Where to flee? Was it possible to choose between savages or convicts?

A gun fired from the nearest native boat, and the bullet struck Wilson’s oar. A few strokes of the oars then pushed the boat toward the Duncan.

The yacht was steaming only half a mile away. John Mangles, cut off on all sides, did not know where to turn, in which direction to flee. The two poor women, kneeling, desperate, prayed.

The savages fired a volley, and bullets rained around the canoe. A loud detonation broke out, and a cannonball, launched by the gun of the yacht, passed over the heads of the fugitives. The latter, caught between two fires, remained motionless between the Duncan and the native canoes.

John Mangles, mad with despair, seized his axe. He was about to scuttle the boat, to submerge it with his unfortunate companions, when a cry from Robert stopped him.

“Tom Austin! Tom Austin!” yelled the child. “He’s on board! I see him! He’s recognized us! He’s waving his hat!”

The axe remained hanging on John’s arm.

A ball cut the closest of the three canoes in half

A second ball whistled over his head and cut the closest of the three canoes in half, while a “Hurrah!” burst out on board the Duncan.

The frightened savages fled, and returned to the coast.

“To us! To us, Tom!” shouted John Mangles in a loud voice.

And, a few moments later, the ten fugitives, without knowing how, without understanding anything, were all safely aboard the Duncan.

1. Kauri gum has many uses, both by the Māori, and for export markets. It was one of New Zealand’s principle exports in the 19th and early 20th centuries — DAS

2. Dr. von Hochstetter, et al were mistaken. It is now generally accepted that all varieties of Dinornis had gone extinct by the 15th century — DAS

3. Megatheriums, yes. Pterodactyls, no. Pterosaurs had been extinct for sixty-five million years or so before either megatheriums of moas arrived on the scene — DAS

4. Verne has this distance as “nearly a hundred miles” and not as much progress as John had hoped to make in ten days.

Chapter XV | Index | Chapter XVII

Chapter XVII
How the Duncan Came to Be at New Zealand

It would be futile to attempt to depict the feelings of Glenarvan and his companions when the music of Scotland fell on their ears. By the time they stepped on Duncan’s deck, the piper, blowing his bagpipes, was playing the Malcolm clan’s pibroch, and vigorous “Hurrahs!” saluted the laird’s return.

They all cried and embraced one another

Glenarvan, John Mangles, Paganel, Robert, and even the Major, all cried and embraced one another. At first they were all delirious with joy. The geographer was absolutely mad. He frolicked about, and aimed his inseparable telescope at the remaining canoes that were returning to the coast.

But at the sight of Glenarvan and his companions, their ragged clothes, haggard features, and marks of horrible suffering, the yacht’s crew interrupted his demonstrations. It was ghosts who came back on board, and not those bold and brilliant travellers who had set out with with such hope on the track of the castaways three months before. Luck, chance alone, had brought them back to this ship, which they no longer expected to see again! And in what emaciated and exhausted condition!

But before thinking of his exhaustion, or the pressing needs of hunger and thirst, Glenarvan asked Tom Austin how he came to be here.

Why was the Duncan off Point Lottin on the coast of New Zealand? How was she not in the hands of Ben Joyce? By what providential destiny had God brought her across the path of the fugitives?

“Why?” “How?” “For what reason?” Tom Austin was bombarded with questions from all sides. The old sailor did not know who to listen to. He therefore resolved to listen only to Lord Glenarvan, and to answer only to him.

“But the convicts? asked Glenarvan. “What have you done with the convicts?”

“The convicts?” asked Tom Austin in the tone of a man who does not understand a question.

“Yes! The wretches who attacked the yacht?”

“Which yacht?” asked Tom Austin. “Your Honour’s yacht?”

“But yes, Tom! The Duncan, and Ben Joyce who came on board?”

“I do not know any Ben Joyce; I’ve never seen him,” said Austin.

“Never?” cried Glenarvan, stupefied by the old sailor’s replies. “So, will you tell me, Tom, why the Duncan is cruising right now off the shores of New Zealand?”

If Glenarvan, Lady Helena, Miss Grant, Paganel, the Major, Robert, John Mangles, Olbinett, Mulrady, and Wilson, did not understand the old sailor’s astonishment, what was their amazement when Tom replied in a calm voice “But the Duncan is here by Your Honour’s order.”

“By my orders?” exclaimed Glenarvan.

“Yes, My Lord. I only complied with your instructions contained in your letter of January 14th.”

“My letter? My letter?” exclaimed Glenarvan.

At that moment, the ten travellers surrounded Tom Austin and stared at him. The letter dated at Snowy River had reached the Duncan?

“Come,” said Glenarvan; “Explain it to us, for I think I’m dreaming. Did you receive a letter, Tom?”

“Yes, a letter from Your Honour.”

“In Melbourne?”

“In Melbourne, when I was finishing repairing the damage.”

“And this letter?”

“It was not written by your hand, but signed by you, My Lord.”

“That’s the letter. My letter was brought to you by a convict named Ben Joyce.”

“No, by a sailor named Ayrton, quartermaster of the Britannia.”

“Yes! Ayrton, Ben Joyce, it’s the same person. Well! What did this letter say?”

“She gave me the order to leave Melbourne without delay, and come to the eastern shores of—”

“Australia!” exclaimed Glenarvan with a vehemence that disconcerted the old sailor.

“Australia?” repeated Tom, his eyes widening. “No! Of New Zealand!”

“Of Australia, Tom! Of Australia!” said all of Glenarvan’s companions with one voice.

Austin felt a wave a dizziness. Glenarvan spoke with such assurance that he feared he had been mistaken in reading this letter. He, the faithful and exact sailor, could he have made such a mistake? He flushed, he was troubled.

“It’s all right, Tom,” said Lady Helena, “Providence wanted—”

“No, Madame, forgive me,” said old Tom. “No! It is not possible! I was not mistaken! Ayrton read the letter like me, and it was he who wanted to bring us back to the Australian coast!”

“Ayrton?” exclaimed Glenarvan.

“Himself! He told me it was a mistake, that you would meet me at Twofold Bay!”

“Do you have the letter, Tom?” asked the Major, intrigued to the highest degree.

“Yes, Mr. MacNabbs,” Austin replied. “I’ll go get it.”

Austin ran to his forecastle cabin. During the moment of his absence, they looked at each other, they were silent, except the Major, who crossed his arms, and fixed his gaze on Paganel.

“For example, we must admit, Paganel, that it would be a bit much!”

“Huh?” said the geographer, who, with his back bowed and the glasses on his forehead, looked like a gigantic question mark.

Austin came back. He held in his hand the letter written by Paganel, and signed by Glenarvan.

“Read it, Your Honour,” said the old sailor. Glenarvan took the letter and read.

Order to Tom Austin to sail without delay and to bring the Duncan by 37° of latitude to the eastern coast of New Zealand …

“New Zealand!” Paganel leapt up and he grabbed the letter from Glenarvan’s hands, rubbed his eyes, adjusted his glasses to his nose, and read in his turn.

“New Zealand!” He said with an incredulous emphasis, as the letter dropped from his fingers.

At that moment he felt a hand lean on his shoulder. He straightened up and saw himself face to face with the Major.

“Come, my brave Paganel,” said MacNabbs gravely. “We’re just glad you did not send the Duncan to Cochinchina!”¹

This joke finished the poor geographer. The entire crew of the yacht broke out in a Homeric laugh. Paganel ran about like like a madman. He grabbed at his head with both hands, tearing at his hair. He didn’t know where to go, or what to do. He descended by the ladder from the poop, mechanically; he paced the deck, staggering back and forth, aimlessly. He went up onto the forecastle. There, his feet got tangled in a bundle of ropes. He stumbled. His hands grabbed for a rope at random.

A terrible detonation broke out. The cannon on the forecastle had fired, peppering the calm waves of a volley of grape shot. The unfortunate Paganel had grabbed the lanyard of the still loaded gun, and the hammer had struck the primer. Hence this thunderclap. The geographer was knocked down the forecastle ladder and disappeared through the hatch into the crew’s quarters.

The surprise of the explosion was followed by a cry of fear. Everyone thought something terrible had happened. Ten sailors rushed down between decks and pulled Paganel up, bent in two. The geographer did not speak.

His long body was carried onto the poop. The companions of the brave Frenchman were desperate. The Major, always the physician in an emergency, started to remove the unfortunate Paganel’s clothes in order to dress his wounds. But scarcely had he laid his hands on the dying man, than the latter sat up, as if he had been hit with an electric shock.

“Never! Never!” he exclaimed

“Never! Never!” he exclaimed, and he pulled his ragged clothes back around himself, and buttoned them up with singular vivacity.

“But, Paganel!” said the Major.

“No! I tell you!”

“I have to see—”

“You will not see!”

“You may have broken—” said MacNabbs.

“Yes,” said Paganel, climbing back onto his long legs. “But what I have broken, the carpenter will mend!”

“What?”

“The companionway railing, which broke in my fall!”

At this reply, the bursts of laughter began again. This reply had reassured all of the worthy Paganel’s friends that had come out safe and sound from his adventure with the forecastle cannon.

“In any case,” thought the Major. “This is a strangely prudish geographer!”

However, Paganel, recovering from his great agitation, had yet to answer a question he could not avoid.

“Now, Paganel,” said Glenarvan. “Tell me truly. I recognize that your distraction was providential. Certainly, without you, the Duncan would have fallen into the hands of the convicts; without you, we would have been overtaken by the Māori! But, for God’s sake, tell me what strange association of ideas, what supernatural aberration of mind, led you to write ‘New Zealand’ for ‘Australia’?”

“Eh! Parbleu!” exclaimed Paganel, “It’s—”

But at that moment, his eyes fell on Robert and Mary Grant, and he stopped short; then he answered “What do you want, my dear Glenarvan? I am a fool, a fool, an incorrigible being, and I will die in the skin of the most famously distracted—”

“Unless you get skinned,” said the Major.

“Get skinned!” exclaimed the geographer furiously. “Is this an allusion—?”

“An allusion to what, Paganel?” asked MacNabbs in his quiet voice.

Paganel didn’t say, and the matter was dropped. The mystery of the Duncan’s presence was explained. The travellers, so miraculously saved, thought only of returning to their comfortable cabins, and breakfast.

Leaving Lady Helena and Mary Grant, the Major, Paganel, and Robert to enter the poop, Glenarvan and John Mangles held back with Tom Austin. They still wanted to question him.

“Now, old Tom,” said Glenarvan. “Answer me. Did not this order to cruise off the coasts of New Zealand seem strange to you?”

“Yes, Your Honour,” said Austin. “I was very surprised, but I am not used to questioning the orders I receive, and I obeyed. Could I do otherwise? If, by not following your instructions to the letter, a catastrophe had occurred, would I not have been guilty? Would you have done otherwise, Captain?”

“No, Tom,” said John Mangles.

“But what did you think?” asked Glenarvan.

“I thought, Your Honour, that in the interest of Harry Grant, you had to go where you told me to go. I thought that, as a result of new circumstances, a ship was to transport you to New Zealand, and that I should wait for you on the east coast of the island. Moreover, leaving Melbourne, I kept our destination a secret, and the crew knew it only when we were at sea, when the lands of Australia had already disappeared from our sight. But then an incident happened on board, which made me very perplexed.”

“What do you mean, Tom?” asked Glenarvan.

“I mean,” said Tom Austin, “when the quartermaster Ayrton learned, the day after the departure, of the Duncan’s destination—”

“Ayrton!” exclaimed Glenarvan. “So is he on board?”

“Yes, Your Honour.”

“Ayrton, here!” repeated Glenarvan, looking at John Mangles.

“God willed it!” said the young captain.

In an instant, quick as lightning, the conduct of Ayrton, his long prepared betrayal, the injury of Glenarvan, the stabbing of Mulrady, the miseries of the expedition trapped in the swamps of the Snowy, the whole wretched past appeared before the eyes of these two men. And now, by the oddest combination of circumstances, the convict was in their power.

“Where is he?” asked Glenarvan quickly.

“In a cabin of the forecastle,” replied Tom Austin, “and kept under guard.”

“Why this imprisonment?”

“Because when Ayrton saw that the yacht was sailing for New Zealand, he got furious; because he wanted to force me to change the direction of the ship; because he threatened me; because he finally attempted to incite my men to mutiny. I understood that he was a dangerous individual, and I had to take precautionary measures against him.”

“And since that time?”

“Since that time he has remained in his cabin, without trying to get out of it.”

“Good, Tom.”

At that moment Glenarvan and John Mangles were summoned to the cabin. The breakfast, which they so urgently needed, was prepared. They took their places at the table in the saloon and did not speak of Ayrton.

But when the meal was over, when the guests, refreshed and restored, were assembled on deck, Glenarvan informed them of the presence of the quartermaster on board. At the same time, he announced his intention to bring him before them.

“May I excuse myself from attending this interrogation?” asked Lady Helena. “I confess, my dear Edward, that the sight of this unfortunate man would be extremely painful to me.”

“It’s a confrontation, Helena,” Lord Glenarvan replied. “Stay, please. Ben Joyce must be face to face with all his victims!”

Lady Helena stayed for this confrontation. She and Mary Grant took seats beside Lord Glenarvan. Around them ranged the Major, Paganel, John Mangles, Robert, Wilson, Mulrady, and Olbinett: all those so seriously harmed by the betrayal of the convict. The crew of the yacht, without yet understanding the gravity of this scene, kept a profound silence.

“Bring Ayrton,” said Glenarvan.

1. ”Cochinchina” is a region in southern Vietnam.

Chapter XVI | Index | Chapter XVIII

Chapter XVIII
Ayrton or Ben Joyce?

Ayrton crossed the deck with a sure step

Ayrton appeared. He crossed the deck with a sure step and climbed the stairs to the quarterdeck. His eyes were dark, his teeth clenched, his fists closed convulsively. His demeanour was neither boastful nor humble. When he came into the presence of Lord Glenarvan, he folded his arms, mute and calm, waiting to be questioned.

“Ayrton,” said Glenarvan. “Here we are, you and us, on the Duncan you wanted to deliver to Ben Joyce’s convicts!”

At these words, the quartermaster’s lips trembled slightly. A quick flush coloured his impassive features. Not the redness of remorse, but the shame of failure. On this yacht, which he had planned to command as its master, he was a prisoner, and his fate would be decided in a few moments.

However, he did not answer. Glenarvan waited patiently, but Ayrton persisted in keeping an absolute silence.

“Speak, Ayrton. What do you have to say?” asked Glenarvan.

Ayrton hesitated; the creases of his brow furrowed deeply. Eventually, he spoke in a calm voice. “I have nothing to say, My Lord. I was foolish enough to let myself be captured. Act as you please.”

His answer given, the quartermaster turned his gaze to the coast to the south,¹ and he affected a profound indifference to everything that was going on around him. To look at him, you would think that he was a stranger to this serious affair. But Glenarvan had resolved to remain patient. He had a strong desire to know some of the details of Ayrton’s mysterious past, especially his connection with Harry Grant and the Britannia. He resumed his interrogation, speaking with extreme gentleness, and imposing the most complete calm over the violent irritation of his heart.

“I think, Ayrton, that you will not refuse to answer some of the questions I want to ask you,” he said. “But first, should I call you Ayrton or Ben Joyce? Yes or no, are you the quartermaster of the Britannia?”

Ayrton remained impassive, watching the coast, deaf to any questions.

Glenarvan, his eyes flashing, continued to question the quartermaster.

“Will you tell me how you left the Britannia? Why were you in Australia?”

The same silence; the same imperturbability.

“Listen to me, Ayrton,” said Glenarvan. “It’s better for you if you talk. You should be aware that frankness is your last recourse. For the last time, do you want to answer my questions?”

Ayrton turned his head to Glenarvan and looked him in the eyes “My Lord, I do not have to answer. It is up to justice, and not to me, to provide evidence against me.”

“The proofs will be easy!” said Glenarvan.

“Easy, My Lord?” said Ayrton mockingly. “It seems to me that Your Honour is a great deal ahead of himself. Me, I affirm that the best judge at the bar would be embarrassed to have me before him! Who can say how I came to Australia, since Captain Grant is no longer here to tell it? Who will prove that I am this Ben Joyce sought by the police, since the police have never held me in their hands, and my companions are at liberty? Who, except you, will report a single crime or blameworthy action against me? Who can say that I wanted to seize this ship and deliver it to the convicts? Nobody, hear me. Nobody! You have suspicions, true, but you need certainty to convict a man, and you have no certainties. Until proven otherwise, I am Ayrton, quartermaster of Britannia.”

Ayrton stopped talking, and he soon returned to his previous indifference. He no doubt imagined that his statement would terminate the interrogation, but Glenarvan spoke again.

“Ayrton, I am not a prosecutor charged with indicting you. It’s not my business. It is important that our respective positions are clearly defined. I’m not asking you for anything that could compromise you. That’s the concern of justice. But you know the search that I’m pursuing, and with a word you can put me back on the trail I lost. Do you want to talk?”

Ayrton shook his head like a man determined to remain silent.

“Will you tell me where Captain Grant is?” asked Glenarvan.

“No, My Lord,” said Ayrton.

“Will you tell me where the Britannia ran aground?”

“Nothing more.”

“Ayrton,” said Glenarvan, almost imploringly, “will you at least, if you know where Harry Grant is, tell his poor children, who are just waiting for a word from your mouth?”

Ayrton hesitated. His features contracted, but in a low voice he murmured “I can not, My Lord.” And he added violently, as if he had reproached himself for a moment of weakness “No! I will not talk! Hang me if you want!”

“Hang!” exclaimed Glenarvan, overcome by a sudden flash of anger. Then, mastering himself, he continued in a low voice. “Ayrton, there are neither judges nor executioners here. At the first port of call, you will be handed over to the English authorities.”

“That’s all I ask!” said the quartermaster.

He returned quietly to the cabin which served as his prison, and two sailors were placed at his door with orders to watch his slightest movements. The witnesses of this scene retired, indignant and desperate.

Since Glenarvan had just failed against Ayrton’s obstinacy, what was left for him to do? Obviously to continue the plan formed at Eden to return to Europe, even if to resume this unsuccessful enterprise later, because the traces of the Britannia seemed to be irrevocably lost. The document did not lend itself to any new interpretation. There was no other country to search on the path of the 37th parallel. All that remained was for the Duncan to return to Scotland.

Glenarvan, after consulting with his friends, dealt with the specifics of returning with John Mangles. John inspected his bunkers; they had no more than fifteen days supply of coal remaining. They needed to refuel at the next opportunity.

John proposed to Glenarvan that they set sail for Talcahuano Bay, where the Duncan had already refuelled once, before embarking on her circumnavigation voyage. It was a direct journey and precisely on the 37th degree. Then the yacht, fully stocked, could go south to double Cape Horn, and return to Scotland via the Atlantic.

This plan was adopted, and the order was given to the engineer to build his pressure. Half an hour later, they set course for Talcahuano on a sea worthy of its Pacific name, and at six o’clock in the evening the last mountains of New Zealand disappeared in the warm mists of the horizon.

The searcher’s route across New Zealand

Thus, the return journey began. It was a sad crossing for those brave seekers returning to port without bringing back Harry Grant! The crew, so happy and confident at at the outset, was now returning to Europe vanquished and discouraged. Of these brave sailors, no one felt moved by the thought of seeing his country again, and they all would have been willing to continue facing the perils of the sea for a long time, to find Captain Grant.

The cheers that had hailed Glenarvan on his return, were soon followed by discouragement. There were no more of those incessant discussions between the passengers, none of those conversations which once brightened up the journey. Everyone was keeping aloof, in the solitude of their cabins, and rarely did anyone appear on the Duncan’s deck.

Paganel: the man in whom the feelings on board, painful or joyful, were usually exaggerated, Paganel: who, if need be, had invented hope, remained dull and silent. He was seldom seen. His natural loquacity and his French vivacity had changed into muteness and despondency. He seemed even more completely discouraged than his companions. If Glenarvan spoke of resuming his search, Paganel shook his head like a man who does not hope for anything, and who seemed convinced as to the fate of the castaways of the Britannia. He believed them irrevocably lost.

There was one man on board who could provide the last word on this catastrophe, but who maintained his silence. It was Ayrton. There was no doubt that this wretch knew, if not the truth about the present situation of the captain, at least the place of the shipwreck. But Grant would obviously be a witness against him, if found, so he stubbornly kept quiet. Hence a seething anger grew, especially among the sailors, who wanted to deal summarily with him.

The two women remained shut up with the quartermaster for an hour

Several times Glenarvan renewed his attempts with the quartermaster. Promises and threats were useless. Ayrton’s refusal to speak was so complete, and inexplicable, that the Major came to believe that he knew nothing. This opinion was shared by the geographer, corroborating his particular ideas of Harry Grant’s fate.

But if Ayrton knew nothing, why didn’t he confess his ignorance? It couldn’t be turned against him. His silence increased the difficulty of forming a new plan. Was it possible to deduce the presence of Harry Grant on the continent of Australia, from the meeting of the quartermaster there? It was decided that at all costs, Ayrton had to explain himself on that subject.

Lady Helena, seeing her husband’s failure, asked permission to take her own turn against the obstinacy of the quartermaster. Where a man had failed, perhaps a woman’s gentle influence might succeed. Is it not an eternal fable that while the strongest hurricane may not tear the cloak from a traveller’s shoulders, the slightest ray of sunshine will make him gladly shed it? Glenarvan, knowing the intelligence of his young wife, left her free to act.

On that day, March 5th, Ayrton was brought to Lady Helena’s saloon. Mary Grant attended the interview because the girl might have a great influence on him, and Lady Helena did not want to overlook any chance of success.

The two women remained shut up with the quartermaster of the Britannia for an hour, but nothing came from their conversation. What they said, the arguments they used to extract the convict’s secret, all the details of this interrogation remained unknown. Moreover, when Ayrton left them, they did not seem to have succeeded, and their faces showed a profound discouragement.

So when the quartermaster was escorted across the deck, back to his cabin, the sailors greeted him with violent threats. He only shrugged his shoulders, which increased the fury of the crew, and it took the intervention of John Mangles and Lord Glenarvan to restrain it.

Ayrton only shrugged his shoulders

But Lady Helena did not give up her campaign. She wanted to struggle to the end against this pitiless soul, and the next day she went to Ayrton’s cabin herself, to avoid a repetition of the last day’s scene on the deck.

For two long hours the good and gentle Scottish woman remained alone, face to face, with the chief of the convicts. Glenarvan, in nervous agitation, lurked outside the cabin, sometimes determined to see this last chance for success through to the end, sometimes to tear his wife away from this painful conversation.

But this time, when Lady Helena reappeared, her features exuded confidence. Had she stirred the last threads of pity in the heart of this wretch, and snatched the secret?

MacNabbs, who saw her first, could not restrain a very natural expression of incredulity.

Yet the rumour spread quickly among the crew that the quartermaster had finally yielded to Lady Helena. It was like an electric shock. All the sailors assembled on deck faster than if Tom Austin’s whistle had called them there.

Meanwhile Glenarvan rushed up to his wife.

“He spoke?” he asked.

“No,” said Lady Helena. “But, yielding to my pleas, Ayrton wants to see you.”

“Ah! Dear Helena, you have succeeded!”

“I hope so, Edward.”

“Have you made any promise that I must ratify?”

“Only one, my friend. It is that you will use all your influence to soften the fate of this unfortunate man.”

“Good, my dear Helena,” he said. Lady Helena retired to her cabin, accompanied by Mary Grant.

“Have Ayrton brought to me, right now.”

The quartermaster was led to the saloon, where Lord Glenarvan was waiting for him.

1. Verne has “west” here, but Point Lottin is on the northern coast of the northeastern tip of New Zealand — DAS

Chapter XVII | Index | Chapter XIX

Chapter XIX
A Bargain

As soon as the quartermaster was brought into the presence of Lord Glenarvan, his guards withdrew.

“Did you want to talk to me, Ayrton?” asked Glenarvan.

“Yes, My Lord,” said the quartermaster.

“To me alone?”

“Yes, but I think it would be better if Major MacNabbs and Mr. Paganel were present at the interview.”

“For who?”

“For me.”

Ayrton spoke calmly. Glenarvan stared at him; then he sent word to MacNabbs and Paganel, who came promptly at his invitation.

“We are listening,” said Glenarvan, as soon as his two friends were seated at the table in the saloon.

Ayrton stood for a moment and said “My Lord, it is customary for there to be witnesses to any contract or bargain between two parties. That’s why I asked for the presence of Messrs. Paganel and MacNabbs. Because it is, strictly speaking, a bargain that I have come to propose to you.”

Glenarvan, accustomed to Ayrton’s way, did not flinch, though any bargain between him and that man seemed strange.

“What is your proposal?” he said.

“Here it is,” answered Ayrton. “You wish to learn from me some details which may be useful to you. I want some benefits that will be valuable to me. One for the other, My Lord. Does this suit you, or not?”

“What are the details?” asked Paganel.

“No,” said Glenarvan. “What are the benefits?”

Ayrton, with a nod of his head, showed that he understood the distinction observed by Glenarvan.

“Here, are the benefits I demand,” he said. “You always intended to put me into the hands of the English authorities, My Lord?”

“Yes, Ayrton; that is only justice.”

“I do not dispute it,” said the quartermaster quietly. “So, you would not consent to give me back my freedom?”

Glenarvan hesitated before answering the question so clearly posed. His answer might decide Harry Grant’s fate. However, his duty to justice prevailed. “No, Ayrton, I can not set you free.”

“I do not ask for it,” said the quartermaster proudly.

“So, what do you want?”

“A compromise, My Lord, between the gallows waiting for me, and the liberty you can not grant me.”

“And that is…?”

“To abandon me with the necessities of life on one of the deserted islands of the Pacific. I’ll make out as best I can, and perhaps, in time, I’ll repent!”

Glenarvan, unprepared for this proposal, looked at his two friends, who remained silent. After thinking for a moment, he said “Ayrton, if I grant you your request, will you tell me everything I want to know?”

“Yes, My Lord. That is, all that I know about Captain Grant and the Britannia.”

“The whole truth?”

“Whole.”

“But what guarantee can you give?”

“Oh! I see what worries you, My Lord. You will have to trust the word of a villain, it is true! But what do you want? That is the way things stand. Take it or leave it.”

“I’ll trust you, Ayrton,” Glenarvan said simply.

“And you will be right, My Lord. Besides, if I deceive you, you will always have the means to avenge yourself!”

“How?”

“By coming back to the island that I could not escape.”

Ayrton had an answer to everything. He was anticipating all objections, he was providing unanswerable arguments against himself. He appeared to treat his “bargain” with indisputable good faith. It was impossible to surrender with more perfect confidence. And yet he found a way to go even further in this path of disinterestedness.

“My Lord and gentlemen,” he added, “I want you to be convinced of this fact, because I am laying my cards on the table. I am not trying to deceive you, and will give you another proof of my sincerity in this affair. I can act frankly, because I can rely on your honesty.”

“Speak, Ayrton,” replied Glenarvan.

“My Lord, I have not yet your word to accede to my proposal, and yet I do not hesitate to tell you that I know very little about Harry Grant.”

“You know a few things!” said Glenarvan.

“Yes, My Lord. The details which I am able to communicate to you are pertinent to me, and my history, but they will not help to put you back on the trail you have lost.”

It was plain from their expressions that this revelation greatly disappointed Glenarvan and the Major. They believed the quartermaster possessed an important secret, and he stated that his revelations would be almost fruitless. As for Paganel, he remained impassive.

Be that as it may, Ayrton’s confession, freely given without any guarantee, particularly affected his hearers, especially when the quartermaster added “So, you are warned, My Lord: the bargain will be less advantageous for you, than for me.”

“It does not matter,” said Glenarvan. “I accept your proposal, Ayrton. You have my word to be landed on one of the islands of the Pacific Ocean.”

“Very well, My Lord,” said the quartermaster.

Was this strange man happy with this decision? It might have been doubted, for his impassive expression betrayed no emotion. He seemed to be treating for someone other than himself.

“I’m ready to answer,” he said.

“We have no questions for you,” said Glenarvan. “Tell us what you know, Ayrton, starting by declaring who you are.”

“Gentlemen, I really am Tom Ayrton”

“Gentlemen,” replied Ayrton, “I really am Tom Ayrton, the quartermaster of Britannia. I left Glasgow on Harry Grant’s ship on March 12th, 1861. For fourteen months we sailed together on the Pacific Seas, seeking some advantageous location to found a Scottish colony there. Harry Grant was a man who did great things, but often there were serious disagreements between us. We did not get along. I do not know how to bend, and with Harry Grant, when he has made up his mind, all resistance is futile, My Lord. This man has an iron will, both for himself and for others. I dared to revolt. I tried to drag the crew into my revolt and seize the ship. Whether I was wrong or not, it does not matter. Be that as it may, Harry Grant did not hesitate, and on April 8th, 1862, he landed me on the west coast of Australia.”

“On Australia,” said the Major, interrupting Ayrton’s story, “and consequently you left the Britannia before his stop at Callao, whence his latest news is dated?”

“Yes,” replied the quartermaster, “for the Britannia never stopped at Callao while I was on board. And if I told you about Callao at Paddy O’Moore’s farm, it’s because your story had given me that detail.”

“Go on, Ayrton,” said Glenarvan.

“So I found myself abandoned on an almost deserted coast, but only twenty miles from the penitentiary institutions of Perth, the capital of Western Australia. While wandering on the shore, I met a band of convicts who had just escaped. I joined them. You will exempt me, My Lord, from telling you my life for two and a half years. Just know that I became the leader of the escapees under the name of Ben Joyce. In September, 1864, I went to the Irish farm. I was admitted as a servant under my real name of Ayrton. I was waiting for the opportunity to seize a ship. It was my supreme goal. Two months later, the Duncan arrived.

“You told the whole story of Captain Grant during your visit to the farm, My Lord. I learned then what I did not know of the Britannia’s stop at Callao, her latest news dated June 1862 — two months after my landing — the matter of the document, the loss of the ship on a point of the 37th parallel, and finally, the reasons you had to look for Harry Grant on the Australian continent. I did not hesitate. I resolved to take possession of the Duncan, a marvellous ship that is faster than the finest vessels of the British navy.

“But she had serious damage to repair. So I let her go to Melbourne, and I gave myself to you in my true capacity of quartermaster, offering to guide you to the scene of a shipwreck that I fictitiously placed on the east coast of Australia. It was thus that, sometimes followed at a distance, and sometimes preceded by my band of convicts, I directed your expedition through the province of Victoria.

“My people committed a useless crime at Camden Bridge, since the Duncan, once at the coast, could not escape me, and with this yacht I would be the master of the ocean. I drove you thus and without distrust to the Snowy River. Horses and oxen gradually fell poisoned by the Gastrolobium. I mired the wagon in the marshes of the Snowy. At my insistence … but you know the rest, My Lord, and you can be sure that, without the distraction of Mr. Paganel, I would now command the Duncan. That is my story, gentlemen. Unfortunately, my revelations can not put you back on the trail of Harry Grant, and you see that by dealing with me you have made a bad bargain.”

The quartermaster fell silent, crossed his arms as usual, and waited. Glenarvan and his friends were silent. They felt that the whole truth had just been told by this strange miscreant. The capture of the Duncan had been thwarted only by a cause beyond his control. His accomplices had come to the shores of Twofold Bay, as shown by the convict shirt found by Glenarvan. There, faithful to their natures, they had tired of waiting for Ayrton, and had no doubt returned to their profession of plunderers and arsonists in the countryside of New South Wales. The Major asked the first questions, in order to specify the dates relative to the Britannia.

“So,” he asked the quartermaster, “it was on the 8th of April, 1862, that you were disembarked on the west coast of Australia?”

“Exactly,” Ayrton replied.

“And do you know what Harry Grant’s plans were?”

“In a vague way.”

“Tell us everything, Ayrton,” said Glenarvan. “The slightest clue may put us on the path.”

“Here is what I can tell you, My Lord,” said the quartermaster. “Captain Grant intended to visit New Zealand. This part of his programme was not executed during my stay on board. It would not be impossible, therefore, that the Britannia, on leaving Callao, could have come to reconnoitre the lands of New Zealand. This would agree with the date of June 27, 1862, assigned by the document to the sinking of the three-master.”

“Of course,” said Paganel.

“But,” said Glenarvan, “nothing in the remains of the words preserved on the document can apply to New Zealand.”

“I can not answer that,” said the quartermaster.

“Well, Ayrton,” said Glenarvan. “You have kept your word; I will keep mine. We will decide on which island of the Pacific Ocean you will be abandoned.”

“Oh! I do not care, My Lord,” said Ayrton.

“Go back to your cabin,” said Glenarvan, “and wait for our decision.”

The quartermaster retired under the guard of two sailors.

“This scoundrel could have been a man,” said the Major.

“Yes,” said Glenarvan. “He has a strong and intelligent nature! Why must his faculties have turned to evil!”

“But Harry Grant?”

“I’m afraid he’ll be lost forever! Poor children, who could tell them where their father is?”

“Me!” said Paganel. “Yes! Me.”

It must have been noticed that the geographer, usually so loquacious and impatient, had scarcely spoken during the interrogation of Ayrton. He listened without loosening his lips. But this last word which he pronounced was worth many others, and he startled Glenarvan.

“You!” he exclaimed. “You, Paganel? You know where Captain Grant is?”

“Yes, as far as one can know,” said the geographer.

“And how do you know?”

“By the eternal document.”

“Ha!” said the Major of the tone of the most perfect incredulity.

“Listen first, MacNabbs,” said Paganel, “You can shrug afterwards. I did not speak earlier because you would not have believed me. Then, it was useless. But if I decided to speak today, it is because Ayrton’s opinion has just come to support mine.”

“So … New Zealand?” asked Glenarvan.

“Listen and judge,” said Paganel. “It’s not without reason, or rather, it’s not without a reason, that I made the mistake that saved us. As I was writing the letter Glenarvan was dictating, the word ‘Zealand’ was working on my brain. Here’s why: you remember we were in the wagon. MacNabbs had just told Lady Helena the story of the convicts; he had given her the issue of the Australian and New Zealand Gazette on the Camden Bridge disaster. Now, as I was writing, the newspaper lay on the floor, and folded so that much of the title was concealed. What appeared before my eyes was ‘ealand.’ What an illumination that was in my mind! ‘e land’ appeared in the English document, which we had translated as have landed, or are landing, but it could also have been Zealand with the first and third letters obliterated.”¹

“Huh!” said Glenarvan.

“Yes,” said Paganel, with profound conviction. “That interpretation had escaped me, and do you know why? Because my research was done naturally on the French document, more complete than the others, and where this important word is missing.”

“Oh! Oh!” said the Major. “You have too much imagination, Paganel, and you forget a little easily your previous deductions.”

“Go ahead, Major, I’m ready to answer you.”

“Then,” said MacNabbs, “what becomes of your word ‘austra’?”

“What we first thought, that it means southern.”

“Well. And what of the ‘indi’ syllable, which was at first the root of Indians, and then the root of natives?”

“Well, the third and last time,” replied Paganel, “it will be the first syllable of the word indigence!”

“And ‘contin’!” exclaimed MacNabbs. “Does it mean still a continent?”

“No, since New Zealand is only an island.”

“So…?” asked Glenarvan.

“My dear Lord,” said Paganel, “I will translate the document according to my third interpretation, and you will judge. I make only two observations: First, as far as possible, forget the preceding interpretations, and free your mind from all previous preconceptions. Second, certain passages may appear ‘forced’ to you, and it is possible that I translate them badly, but they have no importance. Among others the word ‘agonie’ which shocks me, but which I can not explain otherwise. Moreover, it is in the French document that word appears, and do not forget that it was written by an Englishman, to whom the idiomatic French might not be familiar. This posed, I begin.”

And Paganel, articulating each syllable slowly, recited the following:

“June 27, 1862, the three-master Britannia, of Glasgow, sank after a long agony in the southern seas, stranding two sailors and their skipper Harry Grant in New Zealand. Landed there, continually preyed upon by cruel poverty — ‘indigence’ in the French document —² they threw this document into the sea at … of longitude and 37° 11′ of latitude. Bring them assistance, or they are lost.”

Paganel stopped. His interpretation was plausible. But precisely because it seemed as likely as the previous ones, it could also be false. Glenarvan and the Major did not seek to dispute it. However, since traces of the Britannia had not been found on the coasts of Patagonia, or the coasts of Australia, at the points where these two countries were crossed by the 37th parallel, the odds were in favour of New Zealand.

His friends were especially struck when Paganel remarked on this.

“Now, Paganel,” said Glenarvan. “Will you tell me why, for the last two months or so, you have kept this interpretation secret?”

“Because I did not want to give you any more false hopes. Besides, we were going to Auckland, precisely at the point indicated by the latitude of the document.”

“But since then, when we were dragged off of that path, why not talk?”

“It is because, valid as this interpretation may be, it can not contribute to Captain Grant’s salvation.”

“Why is that, Paganel?”

“Because, even if Captain Harry Grant was stranded in New Zealand, two years have passed without his reappearing. He must have been a victim of the shipwreck, or the Māori.”

“So, your opinion is?” asked Glenarvan.

“That we might perhaps find some remains of the sinking, but that the castaways of the Britannia are irrevocably lost!”

“Silence on all this, my friends,” said Glenarvan, “and let me choose when I will bear this sad news to Captain Grant’s children!”

1. This is more of me changing the interpretation to match the changes I made to the English version of the document, because Verne was once again having Paganel base his latest interpretation primarily on the French document, and excusing some of the dicier parts of his interpretation on it being written by an Englishman. Unfortunately this excuse doesn’t work so well for explaining the dubious grammar and wording of his original English version — DAS

2. Verne again has Paganel do his interpretation in French, and rather than glossing ‘poverty’ as ‘indigence’ he glossed ‘Zélande’ as ‘Zealand’ — DAS

Chapter XVIII | Index | Chapter XX

Chapter XX
A Cry in the Night

The crew soon learned that the mystery of Captain Grant had not been cleared up by Ayrton’s revelations. This was discouraging to everyone on board, for they’d had high hopes, and it turned out that the quartermaster knew nothing that could put the Duncan on the trail of the Britannia!

The yacht maintained her course. It remained to choose an island on which Ayrton was to be abandoned.

Paganel and John Mangles consulted the charts. An isolated island known as Maria Theresa lay precisely on the 37th parallel, a rock lost in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, thirty-five hundred miles from the American coast, and fifteen hundred miles from New Zealand.¹ The nearest lands to the north were the Pomotou Archipelago², a French protectorate. There was nothing to the south, until you reached the eternally frozen ice pack around the southern pole. No ships came to this lonely island. No echo of the world reached her. Only the storm birds rested there during their long crossings, and many maps did not even show this rock beaten by the waves of the Pacific.³

If ever absolute isolation were to be found on the earth, it was on this island far from the rest of humanity. The choice was made known to Ayrton, who agreed to live there, far from his fellows, and the course was set for Maria Theresa. At this moment, a line drawn with a ruler on a Mercator map would have passed through the Duncan, the island, and Talcahuano Bay.

Two days later, at two o’clock, the lookout signalled sighting land on the horizon. It was Maria Theresa, low-lying, barely emerging from the waves, it looked like a huge cetacean. The yacht was still thirty miles off, and her bow sliced through the waves with a speed of sixteen knots.

Little by little, the profile of the islet grew on the horizon. The sun, sinking toward the west, highlighted her sinuous silhouette. A few higher peaks stood out here and there, highlighted by the rays of the day star.

At five o’clock John Mangles thought he could see a light smoke rising into the sky.

“Is it a volcano?” he asked Paganel, who was watching this new land with his telescope.

“I do not know what to think,” said the geographer. “Maria Theresa is little known. However, it should not be surprising if its origin was due to some submarine uprising, and therefore volcanic.”

“But then,” said Glenarvan, “if an eruption has produced it, can we not fear that an eruption will destroy it?”

“It is unlikely,” said Paganel. “It has evidently existed for several centuries, it should continue to exist for several more. When Julia Island emerged from the Mediterranean, she did not stay out of the water for long and disappeared a few months after her birth.”

“Good,” said Glenarvan. “Do you think we can land before dark, John?”

“No, Your Honour. I must not risk the Duncan in the darkness on an unknown coast. I will keep her under low pressure, running short tacks, and tomorrow, at daybreak, we will send a boat ashore.”

At eight o’clock in the evening, Maria Theresa, though only five miles upwind, appeared as a barely visible shadow on the horizon. The Duncan drew still closer.

At nine o’clock, a bright glow, a fire, shone in the darkness. It was motionless and continuous.

“That would confirm a volcano,” said Paganel, watching attentively.

“However,” said John Mangles, “at this distance we should hear the noise that always accompanies an eruption, and the east wind brings no sound to our ears.”

“Indeed,” said Paganel, “this volcano shines, but does not speak. It seems, moreover, that it is intermittent, like a flashing lighthouse.”

“You are right,” said John Mangles, “and yet we are not on a lighted coast. Ah!” he cried. “Another fire! On the beach this time! See! It’s moving! It’s changing places!”

John was correct. A new fire had appeared, which sometimes seemed to go out, only to be revived in a different location.

“Is the island inhabited?” asked Glenarvan.

“By savages, no doubt,” said Paganel.

“If so, we can not abandon the quartermaster, here.”

“No,” said the Major. “That would be a bad gift, even to savages.”

“We’ll look for some other desert island,” said Glenarvan, who could not help but smile at MacNabbs’ jest. “I promised life to Ayrton, and I intend to keep my promise.”

“In any case, let’s be careful,” said Paganel. “The Māori have the barbaric custom of fooling ships with moving lights, as once did the inhabitants of Cornwall. Now the natives of Maria Theresa seem to learned the practice.”

“Bear away by a quarter!” John shouted to the sailor at the helm. “Tomorrow, at sunrise, we’ll know what to expect.”

At eleven o’clock, the passengers and John Mangles returned to their cabins. The man on watch was pacing on the foredeck of the yacht. At the stern, the helmsman was alone at his post.

Mary and Robert Grant climbed onto the poop.

The captain’s two children … looked sadly at the phosphorescent sea

The captain’s two children, leaning on the rail, looked sadly at the phosphorescent sea and the luminous wake of the Duncan. Mary was thinking of Robert’s future; Robert was thinking of his sister’s. Both thought of their father. Was there any hope left for their beloved father? Should they give up? But no, without him, what would life be? Without him what would become of them? What would have become of them without Lord Glenarvan, and Lady Helena?

The young boy, matured by misfortune, divined the thoughts that disturbed his sister. He took Mary’s hand in his.

“Mary,” he said, “we must never despair. Remember what our father taught us. ‘Courage replaces everything here below,’ he said. Let us have it: that stubborn courage which rises above all else. So far you have worked for me, my sister, I want to work for you in my turn.”

“Dear Robert!” said the girl.

“I need to tell you something,” said Robert. “Don’t be angry, Mary.”

“Why should I anger myself, my child?”

“And you will let me do it?”

“What do you mean?” asked Mary, worried.

“My sister! I will be a sailor—”

“Will you leave me?” cried the girl, grasping her brother’s hand.

“Yes, sister! I’ll be a sailor, like my father; a sailor like Captain John! Mary, my dear Mary, Captain John has not lost all hope! You can, like me, trust in his dedication! He has promised that he will make me a good, a great sailor. Until then, we will seek our father together! Say that you want it, sister! What our father would have done for us, our duty, mine at least, is to do it for him! I am dedicating my life to a single purpose: to seek, always to seek the one who never abandoned either of us! Dear Mary, how good he was, our father!”

“And so noble, so generous!” said Mary. “You know, Robert, that he was already a famous man in our country, and that he would have counted among its great men, if fate had not stopped him in his mission!”

“I know it!” said Robert.

Mary Grant squeezed Robert to her heart. The young child felt tears running down his forehead.

“Mary! Mary!” he exclaimed, “Our friends won’t say that they have given up, but they have become very quiet. I still hope, and I will always hope! A man like my father does not die before having accomplished his task!”

Mary Grant could not answer. Sobs choked her. A thousand feelings were throbbing in her soul at the thought that new attempts would be made to find Harry Grant, and that the young captain’s dedication was boundless.

“Mr. John still hopes?” she asked.

“Yes,” said Robert. “He is a brother who will never leave us. I’ll be a sailor, my sister, a sailor to look for my father with him! Do you want it?”

“I want it!” said Mary. “But we will be apart!” whispered the girl.

“You will not be alone, Mary. I know that! My friend John told me so. Mrs. Helena will not let you leave her. You are a woman, you can, you must accept her help. To refuse it would be ingratitude! But a man, my father told me a hundred times, a man must make his his own fate in the world!”

“But what will become of our dear house in Dundee, so full of memories?”

“We’ll keep it, little sister! It has been arranged by our friend John, and also by Lord Glenarvan. He’ll keep you at Malcolm Castle, like his daughter! The Lord told my friend John, and John told me! You’ll be at home there, gathering news about our father, waiting for John and me to bring him back one day! Ah! What a beautiful day it will be!” exclaimed Robert, whose face shone with enthusiasm.

“My brother, my child,” said Mary. “How proud our father would be, if he could hear you! You already look so much like him, dear Robert; like our dear father! When you become a man, you will be just like him!”

“God hear you, Mary,” said Robert, blushing with pious and filial pride.

“But how do we repay Lord and Lady Glenarvan?” said Mary Grant.

“Oh, it will not be difficult!” said Robert, with his youthful confidence. “We love them, we venerate them, we tell them so, we embrace them well, and one day, at the first opportunity, we get killed for them!”

“On the contrary! Live for them!” exclaimed the girl, kissing her brother’s forehead. “They will like that better — and me too!”

The captain’s two children lapsed into indefinite reveries, talking together in the darkness of the night. They talked together, sometimes asking and answering each other’s questions. The yacht gently rocked in the long swells of the calm sea, and the screw turned up a luminous trail in the dark water.

Then came a strange and seemingly supernatural incident. By one of those magnetic communications which mysteriously bind souls to each other, the brother and sister, at the same moment, seemed to experience the same hallucination. From the midst of these alternately dark and shining waves, Mary and Robert thought they heard a voice rise to them, whose deep and woeful sound made all the fibres of their hearts tremble.

“To me! To me!” called the voice.

“Mary,” said Robert, “Did you hear that? You heard it?”

And, leaning over the rail, both of them, peered into the dark of the night.

But they saw nothing, only the shadow that stretched endlessly before them.

“Robert,” said Mary, pale with emotion, “I thought … yes, I thought like you … We both have a fever, my Robert!”

But a new call came to them, and this time the illusion was such that the same cry came at once from both of their hearts “My father! My father!”

It was too much for Mary Grant. Overcome by emotion, she fell fainting into Robert’s arms.

“Help!” Robert shouted. “My sister! My father! Help!”

The helmsman rushed to lift the girl up. The sailors on watch came running, followed by John Mangles, Lady Helena, and Lord Glenarvan, who had been suddenly awakened.

“My sister is dying, and our father is there!” exclaimed Robert, pointing to the waves. They did not understand his words.

“Yes,” he repeated. “My father is here! I heard my father’s voice! Mary heard it too!”

And at this moment, Mary Grant, returning to her senses also exclaimed “My father! My father is here!”

The poor girl, getting up and leaning over the rail, wanted to jump into the sea.

“My Lord! Mrs. Helena!” she repeated, clasping her hands, “I tell you my father is here! I tell you that I heard his voice coming out of the waves like a lament, like a last goodbye!”

Then, fresh seizures convulsed the poor child. She struggled. She had to be transported to her cabin, and Lady Helena followed to take care of her, while Robert kept repeating “My father! My father is here! I am sure of it, My Lord!”

The witnesses to this painful scene finally understood that the two children of the captain had been the victims of a hallucination. But how to restore their senses, so violently abused?

Glenarvan tried, however. He took Robert by the hand and said to him “Did you hear your father’s voice, my dear child?”

“Yes, My Lord. There, in the middle of the waves! He cried out ‘To me! To me!’”

“And you recognized the voice?”

“I recognized his voice, My Lord! Oh, yes! I swear to you! My sister heard it; she recognized it, too! How could we both be wrong? My Lord, let us go to the aid of my father! A boat! A boat!”

Glenarvan saw that he could not calm the poor child. Nevertheless, he made one last attempt and called the helmsman.

“Hawkins,” he asked, “were you at the helm when Miss Mary was so singularly struck?”

“Yes, Your Honour,” answered Hawkins.

“And did you see anything? Did you hear anything?”

“Nothing.”

“You see it, Robert.”

“If it had been Hawkins’ father,” replied the young child with indomitable energy, “Hawkins would not say he heard nothing. It was my father, My Lord! My father! My father—!”

Robert’s voice died in a sob. Pale and mute, in his turn, he lost consciousness. Glenarvan carried Robert to his bed, and the child, shattered by emotion, fell into a deep slumber.

“Poor orphans!” says John Mangles, “God tests them in a terrible way!”

“Yes,” replied Glenarvan, “the surfeit of pain has produced the same hallucination in both of them, and at the same time.”

“In both of them?” muttered Paganel. “It’s strange! Pure science would not admit it.”

Paganel beckoned for everyone to be quiet. He leaned over the rail, and listened. He heard only the deep silence of the night. He loudly hailed the shore. He heard no answer.

“It’s strange!” said the geographer, returning to his cabin. “An intimate harmony of thought and pain is not enough to explain this phenomenon!”

At dawn the next day, March 8th, at five o’clock in the morning, the passengers — Robert and Mary among them, for it had been impossible to restrain them — were assembled on the deck of the Duncan. Each of them wanted to examine that land which had scarcely been visible the day before.

The glasses eagerly wandered over the main points of the island. The yacht sailed one mile off the shore. The lookout could see its every detail. A shout suddenly arose from Robert. The child announced seeing two men running and gesticulating, while a third waved a flag.

“The English flag,” exclaimed John Mangles, who had seized his telescope.

“It’s true!” exclaimed Paganel, turning quickly to Robert.

“My Lord,” said Robert trembling with emotion. “My Lord, if you do not want me to swim to the island, you will have a boat put to sea. Oh, My Lord! I beg you on my knees to be the first to land!” No one dared to speak on board. What? On this islet crossed by the 37th parallel, three men, shipwrecked, English! And each one, returning to the events of the day before, thought of that voice heard in the night by Robert and Mary! Perhaps the children had only been wrong on one point: a voice could have come to them, but could this voice be that of their father? No, a thousand times no. Alas! And each one, thinking of the horrible disappointment which awaited them, trembled that this new test did not exceed their strength! But how to stop them? Lord Glenarvan did not have the courage.

“Lower the boat!” he cried.

In a minute, the boat was put to sea. The two children of Captain Grant, Glenarvan, John Mangles, and Paganel, rushed into it, and it pushed off quickly under the impulse of six sailors who rowed with passion.

A man was standing on the shore

Ten yards from the shore, Mary uttered a heart-rending cry.

“My father!”

A man was standing on the shore between two other men. His tall and strong figure, his countenance — at once soft and bold — offered an expressive mixture of the features of Mary and Robert Grant. He was the man that the two children had so often described. Their hearts had not deceived them. It was their father. It was Captain Grant!

The captain heard Mary’s cry, opened his arms, and fell on the sand, as if struck by lightning.

1. 3,500 miles = 1,400 leagues = 5,600 kilometres; 1,500 miles = 600 leagues = 2,400 kilometres — DAS

2. Now known as the Tuamotu Archipelago — DAS

3. The maps that didn’t show the island were correct. Maria Theresa is (was?) a “phantom island” reported by Asaph P. Taber, (hence it’s other name) captain of the whaling ship Maria Theresa, in 1843, and remained on many maps up until the 1950s, when extensive surveys of that area of ocean failed to find it again — DAS

Chapter XIX | Index | Chapter XXI

Chapter XXI
Tabor Island

You do not die of joy, because the father and the children came back to life even before they had reached the yacht. How to paint this scene? Words do not suffice. The whole crew was crying when they saw these three people joined in a mute embrace. Harry Grant, arrived on deck and fell to his knees. The pious Scott wished, by touching what to him was the soil of his country, to thank God, before all, for his deliverance.

Then, turning to Lady Helena, Lord Glenarvan and their companions, he gave them thanks in a voice broken by emotion. His children had told him the outline of the voyage of the Duncan during the short crossing from the islet to the yacht.

What an immense debt he had contracted toward this noble woman and her companions! From Lord Glenarvan to the least of the sailors, they had all struggled and suffered for him! Harry Grant expressed the feelings of gratitude that flooded his heart with so much simplicity and nobility, his face illuminated with such pure and gentle emotion, that the entire crew felt rewarded and more for all the hardships they had suffered. Even the impassive Major’s eye wet with a tear that he could not restrain. As for the worthy Paganel, he cried like a child who does not think to hide his tears.

Harry Grant never tired of looking at his daughter. He thought her beautiful, and charming! He said it to himself and said again aloud, with Lady Helena as his witness, as if to certify that his paternal love did not mislead him.

Then, he turned to his son. “You have grown up! You’ve become a man!” he cried with delight.

And he lavished on these two people, so dear to him, the thousand kisses piled up in his heart during two years of absence.

Robert introduced him in turn to all of his friends, and found means of varying his formulas, although he had to say the same of each one! It was because everyone was perfect in the boy’s eyes. When it was John Mangles’ turn to be introduced, the captain blushed like a girl and his voice trembled as he spoke to Mary’s father.

Lady Helena then told Captain Grant more of the story of the trip, and she made him proud of his son, and his daughter.

Harry Grant learned of the exploits of the young hero, and how this child had already paid Lord Glenarvan a portion of the paternal debt. Then, in turn, John Mangles spoke of Mary in such terms that Harry Grant, guided by a few hints from Lady Helena, put his daughter’s hand in the valiant hand of the young captain.

He turned to Lord and Lady Glenarvan. “My Lord, and you, Madame,” he said. “Bless our children!”

When all was said and said again a thousand times, Glenarvan told Harry Grant about Ayrton. Grant confirmed the quartermaster’s confession about his landing on the Australian coast.

“He is an intelligent, audacious man,” he said, “whose passions have thrown him to evil. May reflection and repentance bring him back to better feelings!”

But before Ayrton was transferred to Maria Theresa Island, Harry Grant wanted to do the honours of his rock for his new friends. He invited them to visit his wooden house and sit at the table of the Pacific Robinsons. Glenarvan and his companions wholeheartedly agreed. Robert and Mary Grant were burning with the desire to see these lonely places where their father had shed so many tears.

A boat was prepared, and the father, the two children, Lord and Lady Glenarvan, the Major, John Mangles, and Paganel soon landed on the shores of the island.

A few hours were enough to see all of Harry Grant’s estate. It was the summit of an underwater mountain, a plateau where basaltic rocks abounded with volcanic debris. In the geological epochs of the earth, this mountain had gradually risen from the depths of the Pacific under the action of subterranean fires. But for centuries the volcano had been a peaceful mountain, its crater filled, an island emerging from the liquid plain. Topsoil had formed and the vegetable kingdom established itself in this new earth. A few passing whalers had landed some domestic animals, goats and pigs, which multiplied in the wild, and now nature manifested itself in its three kingdoms on this island lost in the middle of the ocean.

When the castaways of the Britannia had taken refuge there, the hand of man came to regularize the efforts of nature. In two and a half years, Harry Grant and his sailors metamorphosed their islet. Several acres of land, cultivated with care, produced vegetables of excellent quality.

The visitors arrived at the house shaded by verdant gum trees. The magnificent sea stretched in front of its windows, sparkling in the rays of the sun. Harry Grant had his table set in the shade of the beautiful trees, and everyone took their place. A leg of kid, some nardoo bread, some bowls of milk, a few roots of wild chicory, and a pure and fresh water formed the elements of this simple meal, worthy of the shepherds of Arcadia.

Paganel was delighted. His old ideas of becoming a Robinson came back into his head.

“This islet is a paradise”

“That rascal Ayrton is not be to be pitied!” he cried in his enthusiasm. “This islet is a paradise.”

“Yes,” said Harry Grant, “a paradise for three poor shipwrecked men whom Heaven guarded! I regret that Maria Theresa is not a vast and fertile island, with a river instead of a stream and a harbour instead of a cove beaten by the waves of the open sea.”

“Why, Captain?” asked Glenarvan.

“Because then I could have laid here the foundation for the colony I want to give to Scotland in the Pacific.”

“Ah! Captain Grant,” said Glenarvan. “You have not abandoned the idea which has made you so popular in our old country?”

“No, My Lord, and God has saved me by your hands only to allow me to accomplish it. It is necessary that our poor brothers of old Caledonia, all those who suffer, have a refuge against misery in a new land! Our dear country must possess a colony of her own in these seas, where she can find a little of the independence and well-being which she lacks in Europe!”

“Ah! That’s right, Captain Grant,” said Lady Helena. “It is a beautiful project, and worthy of a big heart. But this islet…?”

“No, Madame, it is a good rock to feed at most a few colonists, while we need a vast and rich land with all the treasures of the first ages.”

“Well, Captain,” said Glenarvan. “The future is ours, and we will seek this land together!”

Harry Grant and Glenarvan exchanged a warm handshake, as if to ratify this promise.

Then, on this very island, in this humble house, everyone wanted to know the story of the castaways of the Britannia during their two long years of abandonment. Harry Grant hastened to satisfy the curiosity of his new friends.

“My story,” he said, “is that of all the Robinsons thrown on an island, and who, being able to rely only on God and themselves, feel that they have the duty of disputing for their lives with the elements!

“It was during the night of June 26th to 27th, 1862, that the Britannia, in distress after six days of storm, broke on the rocks of Maria Theresa. The sea was stormy, rescue impossible, and all my unhappy crew perished. Only my two sailors — Bob Learce, Joe Bell, and I — managed to reach the coast after twenty unsuccessful attempts!

“The land that received us was only a desert island, two miles wide, five miles long, with about thirty trees in the interior, a few meadows and a source of fresh water that fortunately never dries up. Alone with my two sailors, in this corner of the world, I did not despair. I put my trust in God, and I prepared to fight, resolutely. Bob and Joe, my brave companions in misfortune, my friends, assisted me energetically.

“We began — like our model, the ideal Robinson of Daniel Defoe — by collecting the wreckage from the ship: tools, a little powder, weapons, a bag of precious seeds. The first days were difficult, but soon hunting and fishing provided us with food, because wild goats swarmed inside the island, and marine animals abounded on its coasts. Gradually the work for our survival became routine.

“I measured the position of the island exactly with my instruments, which I had saved from sinking. This discovery placed us out of the shipping lanes, and we could not be rescued unless by a providential chance. While thinking of those who were dear to me and whom I no longer hoped to see again, I bravely accepted this trial, and the names of my two children were mixed daily with my prayers.

“We worked hard. Soon several acres of land were sown with the seeds from the Britannia. Potatoes, chicory, and sorrel fortified our usual diet, then other vegetables. We captured a few kid goats, which were easily tamed. We had milk, butter. The nardoo, which grew in dried up creeks, furnished us with a kind of substantial bread, and material life no longer inspired us with fear.

“We had built a clapboard house with debris from the Britannia. It was roofed with carefully tarred sails, and the rainy season passed happily under this solid shelter. There, we discussed many plans, many dreams, the best of which has just been realized!

“At first, I had the idea of facing the sea on a canoe made with the wreckage of the ship, but fifteen hundred miles separated us from the nearest land, that is to say, the islands of the Pomotou Archipelago. No small boat could have withstood such a long voyage. So I gave it up, and I waited for my salvation by no more than a divine intervention.

“Ah! My poor children! How many times, from the high rocks of the coast, have we watched far off ships? During the whole time that our exile lasted, only two or three sails appeared on the horizon, only to disappear immediately! Two and a half years passed thus. We did not hope anymore, but we did not yet despair.

“Finally, yesterday, I was on the highest peak of the island, when I saw a slight smoke in the west. It grew bigger. Soon a ship became visible to me. She seemed to be heading toward us. But would she avoid this islet that offered her no harbour?

“Ah! What a day of anguish, and how did my heart not break in my breast! My companions lit a fire on one of Maria Theresa’s peaks. Night came, but the yacht made no signal of recognition! Salvation was right there! Were we to see it disappear?

“I did not hesitate any more. The darkness was growing. The ship could round the island during the night. I threw myself into the sea and headed for her. Hope tripled my strength. I split the waves with superhuman vigour. I was nearing the yacht, scarcely thirty fathoms away, when she tacked!

“Then I uttered those desperate cries that my two children alone heard, and which had not been an illusion.

“I returned to the shore, exhausted, overcome by emotion and fatigue. My two sailors collected me, half-dead. That last night we passed on the island was horrible, and we thought we were still abandoned. But then, when the day came, I saw the yacht running along under a low steam. Your boat was put to sea! We were saved, and — divine goodness from Heaven — my children, my dear children, were there, stretching out their arms!”

Harry Grant’s story ended with kisses and hugs from Mary and Robert. And it was only then that the captain learned that he owed his rescue to the rather hieroglyphic document, which he had shut up in a bottle and entrusted to the caprices of the waves, eight days after his shipwreck.

But what was Jacques Paganel thinking during Captain Grant’s story? The worthy geographer turned the words of the document over in his brain a thousand times! He recalled those three successive interpretations, all three wrong! How was this island of Maria Theresa indicated on these papers gnawed by the sea? Paganel could not hold back any longer.

He grabbed Captain Grant by the hand. “Captain, will you finally tell me what was in your indecipherable document?”

Everyone shared the geographer’s curiosity. They all wanted to hear the answer to the riddle that they had sought for nine months. They were finally going to be told.

“Well, Captain,” asked Paganel. “Do you remember the precise wording of the document?”

“Exactly,” said Harry Grant, “and not a day has passed without my memory recalling those words to which our only hope was attached.”

“And what are they, Captain?” asked Glenarvan. “Tell us, because our pride is stung.”

“I am ready to satisfy you,” said Harry Grant, “but you know that to increase the chances of salvation, I had enclosed three documents written in three languages in the bottle. Which one do you want to know?

“So they are not identical?” exclaimed Paganel.

“As close as I could make them.”

“Well, quote the French document,” said Glenarvan. “It is the one that the waves have respected most, and it has mainly served as a basis for our interpretations.”

“My Lord, here it is word for word,” said Harry Grant.

“27 juin 1862, le trois-mâts Britannia, de Glasgow, s’est perdu à quinze cents lieues de la Patagonie, dans l’hémisphère austral. Portés à terre, deux matelots et le capitaine Grant ont atteint à l’île Tabor…”

“Huh!” said Paganel.

Captain Grant continued.

“…là, continuellement en proie à une cruelle indigence, ils ont jeté ce document par 153° de longitude et 37° 11′ de latitude. Venez à leur secours, ou ils sont perdus.”

At that name of ‘Tabor,’ Paganel had risen abruptly; then, no longer containing himself, he exclaimed: “How, ‘l’île Tabor?’ But it’s ‘Maria Theresa Island!’”

“No doubt, Mr. Paganel,” said Harry Grant. “‘Maria Theresa’ on the English and German charts, “but ‘Tabor’ on the French charts!”

At that moment, a tremendous punch hit Paganel’s shoulder, who folded in shock. The truth requires it to be said that it was addressed to him by the Major, abandoning for the first time his careful habit of conviviality.

“Geographer!” said MacNabbs with the tone of the deepest contempt.

But Paganel had not even felt the Major’s hand. What was it, compared to the geographical blow that overwhelmed him?

He had Captain Grant recite the words of the English document, which went thus:

“June 27, 1862. The three-master Britannia, of Glasgow, sank fifteen hundred leagues from Patagonia, in the Southern Hemisphere, stranding two sailors and their skipper, Harry Grant. They have landed on Maria Theresa Island. Continually plagued by cruel poverty, they threw this document into the sea at 153° of longitude and 37° 11’ of latitude. Bring them assistance, or they are lost.”

So, as Paganel told Captain Grant, he had nearly arrived at the truth! He had deciphered almost the entirety the indecipherable document! In turn, the names of Patagonia, Australia, and New Zealand had appeared to him with irrefutable certainty. ‘Contin,’ first continent, had gradually assumed its true meaning of continual. ‘Indi’ had successively meant Indians, natives, then finally indigence, its true meaning. Only the fragment ‘abor’ had deceived the wisdom of the geographer! Paganel had stubbornly made it the radical of the verb aborder, to approach, when it was the proper name — the French name — of Tabor Island, the island which served as a refuge for the Britannia’s castaways! An error easy to understand, however, since all the maps on the Duncan gave this islet the name of Maria Theresa.

“It does not matter!” exclaimed Paganel, tearing at his hair, “I should not have forgotten this double name! It is an unforgivable mistake. An unworthy error for un Secrétaire de la Société de Géographie! I am dishonoured!”

“Monsieur Paganel,” said Lady Helena. “Please, calm yourself!”

“No, Madam! No! I am an ass!”

“And not even a learned ass!” said the Major, as a consolation.

When the meal was over, Harry Grant put everything in his house in order. He took nothing, wanting Ayrton to inherit the riches of an honest man.

They came back on board. Glenarvan planned to leave that day, and gave his orders for the landing of the quartermaster. Ayrton was brought to the poop, and found himself in the presence of Harry Grant.

“It’s me, Ayrton,” Grant said.

“It’s you, Captain,” said Ayrton, pretending not to be surprised to see him. “Well, I’m not sorry to see you in good health.”

“It seems, Ayrton, that I made a mistake in landing you on an inhabited land.”

“It seems so, Captain.”

“You will replace me on this desert island. May Heaven inspire you with repentance!”

“So be it!” Ayrton answered calmly.

Glenarvan addressed the quartermaster. “You persist, Ayrton, in this resolution to be abandoned?”

“Yes, My Lord.”

“Tabor Island suits you?”

“Perfectly.”

“Now listen to my last words, Ayrton. Here you will be, far from any land, and without any possibility of communication with your fellow men. Miracles are rare, and you will not be able to flee this islet where the Duncan leaves you. You will be alone, under the eye of a God who reads the deepest hearts, but you will not be lost or ignored, as was Captain Grant. As unworthy as you are of men’s remembrance, men will remember you. I’ll know where you are, Ayrton, I’ll know where to find you, I’ll never forget it.”

“God preserve Your Honour!” said Ayrton simply.

These were the last words exchanged between Glenarvan and the quartermaster. The boat was ready. Ayrton climbed down into it.

John Mangles had previously shipped some boxes of preserved food, tools, weapons, and a supply of powder and lead to the island. The quartermaster could therefore rehabilitate himself with work. Nothing was lacking, not even books, and among others the Bible, so dear to English hearts.

The hour of separation had come. The crew and passengers stood on the deck. More than one felt a tightness in their soul. Mary Grant and Lady Helena could not contain their emotion.

“Must it be so?” the young woman asked her husband. “Is it necessary that this unfortunate man be abandoned?”

“It must be, Helena,” said Lord Glenarvan. “It is his expiation!”

The boat, commanded by John Mangles, pushed off. Ayrton, standing, still impassive, took off his hat and bowed gravely.

Glenarvan found himself, and with him all his crew, as one does before a man who is going to die, and the boat moved away in the middle of a deep silence.

The quartermaster stood motionless, his arms crossed

Ayrton, arrived at the beach, jumped onto the sand, and the boat came back to the ship. It was four o’clock in the evening, and from the top of the poop the passengers could see the quartermaster, arms crossed, motionless as a statue on a rock, looking at the ship.

“Are we leaving, My Lord?” asked John Mangles.

“Yes, John,” said Glenarvan, more excited than he wished to appear.

“Full steam!” John shouted to the engineer.

The steam whistled in its pipes, the screw beat the waves, and at eight o’clock the last summits of Tabor Island disappeared in the shadows of the night.

Chapter XX | Index | Chapter XXII

Chapter XXII
The Last Distraction of Jacques Paganel

The Duncan sighted the American coast on the 18th of March, eleven days after leaving Tabor Island, and she anchored the next day in Talcahuano Bay.

She returned after a journey of five months, during which, strictly following the line of the 37th parallel, she had circumnavigated the world. The passengers of this memorable expedition, unprecedented in the annals of the traveller’s club, had crossed Chile, the Pampas, the Argentine Republic, the Atlantic, the da Cunha Islands, the Indian Ocean, the Amsterdam Islands, Australia, New Zealand, Tabor Island, and the Pacific. Their efforts had not been fruitless, and they repatriated the castaways of the Britannia.

Not one of those brave Scots who had answered the call of their laird was missing from the roll. They were all returning to their old Scotland, and this expedition recalled history’s “battle without tears.”¹

The Duncan, her refuelling completed, followed the coast of Patagonia south, doubled Cape Horn, and sailed across the Atlantic Ocean.

No trip was less incidental. The yacht carried a cargo of happiness within it. There were no secrets aboard, not even the feelings of John Mangles for Mary Grant.

A mystery still intrigued MacNabbs, however. Why did Paganel always remain tightly bundled up in his clothes, and wrapped in a scarf that went up to his ears? The Major greatly desired to know the reason for this singular mania. But in spite of the all the interrogations, the allusions, the suspicions of MacNabbs, Paganel did not unbutton himself.

No, not even when the Duncan crossed the equator and the seams of the bridge melted under a heat of fifty degrees.²

“He is so distracted, that he thinks himself in St. Petersburg,” said the Major, seeing the geographer enveloped in a huge greatcoat, as if the mercury had been frozen in the thermometer.

They entered Malcolm Castle, to the “Hurrah!”s of the Highlanders

Finally, on May 9th, fifty-three days after leaving Talcahuano, John Mangles raised the light of Cape Clear. The yacht entered the St. George’s Channel, crossed the Irish Sea, and on the 10th of May, she reached the Firth of Clyde. At eleven o’clock she was anchoring at Dumbarton. At two o’clock in the afternoon her passengers entered Malcolm Castle, to the “Hurrah!”s of the Highlanders.

It was thus written that Harry Grant and his two companions would be saved, that John Mangles would marry Mary Grant in the old St. Mungo’s Cathedral, where Reverend Morton — who had prayed nine months earlier for the salvation of the father — blessed the marriage of his daughter and his saviour! It was therefore written that Robert would be a sailor like Harry Grant and John Mangles, and that he would take up with them the great project of Captain Grant, under the patronage of Lord Glenarvan!

But was it also written that Jacques Paganel would not die a bachelor? Probably.

In fact, the learned geographer could not escape celebrity after his heroic exploits. His distractions created a sensation in Scottish society. His modesty was insufficient to extract him from the attention lavished on him.

And it was then that an amiable thirty year old young lady — Major MacNabbs’ cousin, no less — a little eccentric herself, but still good and charming, fell for the singularities of the geographer and offered him her hand. Forty thousand pounds sterling came with it, but no one mentioned that.

Paganel was far from insensitive to Miss Arabella’s feelings, but he did not dare to answer her.

It was the Major who matched these two hearts, made for each other. He even told Paganel that marriage was the “last distraction” he would be allowed.

It was a great embarrassment to Paganel, who, by a strange singularity, could not come to articulate the fatal word.

“Miss Arabella does not please you?” MacNabbs kept asking.

“Oh, Major, she is charming!” cried Paganel. “A thousand times too charming, and, if it is necessary to tell you everything, I would like her more if she were less! I wish she had a fault.”

“Rest easy,” said the Major. “She has, and more than one. The most perfect woman still has her quota. So, Paganel, is it decided?”

“I do not dare,” said Paganel.

“Come, my learned friend, why are you hesitating?”

“I am unworthy of Miss Arabella!” the geographer invariably answered. And he would not say more than that.

Finally, the Major backed him against a wall one day, and Paganel entrusted to him, under the seal of secrecy, a peculiarity which would facilitate his identification, if the police were ever on his heels.

“Bah!” cried the Major.

“It’s like I tell you,” said Paganel.

“What does it matter, my worthy friend?”

“You think?”

“On the contrary, this adds to your personal merits! You are only more singular. This makes you the unmatched man of Arabella’s dreams!”

And the Major, keeping an imperturbable seriousness, left Paganel prey to the most poignant anxieties.

A short interview took place between MacNabbs and Miss Arabella.

A wedding was celebrated fifteen days later

Fifteen days later, a wedding was loudly celebrated in the Malcolm Castle Chapel. Paganel was gorgeous, but tightly buttoned, and Miss Arabella splendid.

And the geographer’s secret would have always remained buried in the depths of the unknown, if the Major had not spoken to Glenarvan, who did not hide it from Lady Helena, who had a word with Mrs. Mangles. Shortly the secret reached the ears of Mrs. Olbinett, and it burst forth.

Jacques Paganel, during his three days of captivity with the Māori, had been tattooed. Tattooed from his feet to his shoulders, and he wore on his breast the image of a heraldic kiwi with outstretched wings, which pecked at his heart.

This was the only adventure of his great journey to which Paganel never consoled himself, and he did not forgive New Zealand. It was also what, in spite of many solicitations and despite his regrets, prevented him from returning to France. He would have feared his person exposing the entire Geographic Society to the jokes of caricaturists and tabloids, by bringing back a freshly tattooed Secretary.

Captain Grant’s return to Scotland was hailed as a national event and Harry Grant became the most popular man in Old Caledonia. His son Robert became a sailor like himself, and Captain John, and it was under the auspices of Lord Glenarvan that he resumed the project of founding a Scottish colony in the Pacific Seas.

The End

1. The Battle of Brécourt, July 13th, 1793, during the French Revolution, became known as the “bataille «sans larmes»”. Fifteen hundred National Convention forces surprised a force of five thousand Federalists, near Pacy-sur-Eure. The Federalist forces broke and ran at the first sound of cannon fire, and there were no deaths or injuries on either side — DAS

2. 122° Fahrenheit — DAS

Chapter XXI | Index |