Читать книгу Crusoe's Island: A Ramble in the Footsteps of Alexander Selkirk - Browne John Ross - Страница 2

The decks of the Brooklyn presented a strange and half-savage scene. Most of the passengers, aroused from their sleep by the shouts of the officers and crew, had rushed upon deck nearly naked, and quite at a loss to know what had happened. While we were answering some of their questions, Captain Richardson, the master, pushed his way through the crowd and asked what all the noise was about. We speedily explained how we had left the Anteus seventy miles out at sea, and how, through the aid of Providence, we had made our way into the harbor and descried the ship's lamp; declaring at the same time our belief that, had we missed the ship, in all probability we would have been dashed to pieces upon the rocks. We then made ourselves known personally to the captain, who was well acquainted with some of the party. He cordially welcomed us on board, and invited us into his cabin, where we gave him a more detailed account of our adventure. Meantime the cook was ordered to get us some breakfast as soon as possible, and Captain Richardson offered us dry clothes, and administered to our wants in the kindest manner. Nor was it long till we felt exceedingly comfortable considering the previous circumstances. We soon had breakfast, which, after our toils and troubles, was truly a Godsend. Some of the finest fish I ever ate was on the table; excellent ham and potatoes also, fresh bread, and coffee boiling hot. It was devoured with a most uncommon relish, as you may suppose; and it was none the less agreeable for being seasoned with pleasant conversation.

The captain admitted that in all his seafaring career he had never known of any thing more absurd than our adventure, and that it was a miracle we were not every one lost. All the passengers crowded around us as if we had risen from the depths of the sea, and I fancied they examined us as if they had an idea that we were some kind of sea-monsters.

The Brooklyn lay at anchor about half a mile from the boat-landing. At the dawn of day I was on the deck, looking eagerly toward the island. I may as well confess at once that no child could have felt more delighted than I did in the anticipation of something illusive and enchanting. My heart throbbed with impatience to see what it was that cast so strange a fascination about that lonely spot. All was wrapped in mist; but the air was filled with fresh odors of land, and wafts of sweetness more delicious than the scent of new-mown hay. The storm had ceased, and the soft-echoed bleating of goats, and the distant baying of wild dogs were all the sounds of life that broke upon the stillness. It seemed as if the sun, loth to disturb the ocean in its rest, or reveal the scene of beauty that lay slumbering upon its bosom, would never rise again, so gently the light stole upon the eastern sky, so softly it absorbed the shadows of night. I watched the golden glow as it spread over the heavens, and beheld at last the sun in all his majesty scatter away the thick vapors that lay around his resting-place, and each vale was opened out in the glowing light of the morning, and the mountains that towered out of the sea were bathed in the glory of his rays.

Never shall I forget the strange delight with which I gazed upon that isle of romance; the unfeigned rapture I felt in the anticipation of exploring that miniature world in the desert of waters, so fraught with the happiest associations of youth; so remote from all the ordinary realities of life; the actual embodiment of the most absorbing, most fascinating of all the dreams of fancy. Many foreign lands I had seen; many islands scattered over the broad ocean, rich and wondrous in their romantic beauty; many glens of Utopian loveliness; mountain heights weird and impressive in their sublimity; but nothing to equal this in variety of outline and undefinable richness of coloring; nothing so dreamlike, so wrapped in illusion, so strange and absorbing in its novelty. Great peaks of reddish rock seemed to pierce the sky wherever I looked; a thousand rugged ridges swept upward toward the centre in a perfect maze of enchantment. It was all wild, fascinating, and unreal. The sides of the mountains were covered with patches of rich grass, natural fields of oats, and groves of myrtle and pimento. Abrupt walls of rock rose from the water to the height of a thousand feet. The surf broke in a white line of foam along the shores of the bay, and its measured swell floated upon the air like the voice of a distant cataract. Fields of verdure covered the ravines; ruined and moss-covered walls were scattered over each eminence; and the straw huts of the inhabitants were almost imbosomed in trees, in the midst of the valley, and jets of smoke arose out of the groves and floated off gently in the calm air of the morning. In all the shore, but one spot, a single opening among the rocks, seemed accessible to man. The rest of the coast within view consisted of fearful cliffs overhanging the water, the ridges from which sloped upward as they receded inland, forming a variety of smaller valleys above, which were strangely diversified with woods and grass, and golden fields of wild oats. Close to the water's edge was the dark moss-covered rock, forever moist with the bright spray of the ocean, and above it, cleft in countless fissures by earthquakes in times past, the red burnt earth; and there were gorges through which silvery springs coursed, and cascades fringed with banks of shrubbery; and still higher the slopes were of a bright yellow, which, lying outspread in the glow of the early sunlight, almost dazzled the eye; and round about through the valleys and on the hill-sides, the groves of myrtle, pimento, and corkwood were draped in green, glittering with rain-drops after the storm, and the whole air was tinged with ambrosial tints, and filled with sweet odors; nothing in all the island and its shores, as the sun rose and cast off the mist, but seemed to

"suffer a sea-change

Into something rich and strange."