Читать книгу Adventures in Southern Seas: A Tale of the Sixteenth Century - George Forbes - Страница 5

Let those who read this narrative doubt not its veracity. There be much in Nature that we wot not of, and many strange countries to explore. The monsters who roamed the earth in ancient times, as their fossil bones attest, are still to be seen in those regions hitherto unvisited by white men, and in the fathomless depths of uncharted seas leviathans find a home.

Peter Ecoores Van Bu was born upon the island of Urk, in the Zuider Zee, in the year 1596, and was brought up a fisher-lad until the coming to the island of a priest, to whom my parents, ambitious for my advancement, entrusted my education in the arts of reading and writing, accomplishments in little vogue at this time. Hence it comes that I am able to set down here a record of perils and adventures by sea and land which may prove entertaining reading to those who have never travelled beyond the limits of their own countries.

My parents, who had stinted themselves to provide my education, placed me when I was eighteen years old in a merchant's office at Amsterdam, where I became acquainted with Dirk Hartog, a famous navigator, who, a year later, invited me to become his secretary and engraver of charts on board the ship "Endraght", being then commissioned for a voyage of discovery to the South, and having obtained a reluctant consent from my master, De Decker, the merchant, to Hartog's proposal I gladly abandoned the office desk for the sea.

The discovery of America by Christopher Columbus in 1492 had given rise to a theory that a vast continent known as Terra Australis existed in the South, and Portuguese and Spanish ships had made report from time to time of this southern land. It was to confirm or dispel this belief that the voyage of Dirk Hartog was made.

For many months after leaving Amsterdam we sailed south, touching at some islands to obtain vegetable food and replenish our water-casks. Worn out with hardship, our crew more than once showed signs of mutiny. Sometimes for weeks together we lay becalmed in the tropics, when the air hung like a pall of vapour from the sky, and the pitch boiled and blistered in the seams of the deck-planks. In other seasons we were driven by storm and stress. But at length, in spite of every obstacle, an unbroken coast stretched before us far as the eye could reach. For three days we sailed past verdure-covered hills, white, sandy beaches, and bluff headlands, until Hartog felt assured the Great South Continent was at last in very truth before him.

The day upon which Hartog determined to land was bright and fine; the place a sandy beach upon which the waves broke in frothy spume. We were all keen to be ashore after so long a spell of the sea, and I reckoned myself in luck to be chosen as one of the boat's crew to land the captain.

"Let Peter come," said Hartog when the boat was alongside. "I would have him engrave a plate to be set in some safe place, so that it may be known that I, Dirk Hartog, landed here, to any who may come after me."

When we had come to the shore Hartog, taking the boat's crew with him, set off inland, leaving me to my work. The plate was soon finished, when I fastened it to a rock out of reach of the waves.

It bore the following inscription:

"1616

"On the 25th of October arrived here the ship 'Endraght,' of

Amsterdam; first supercargo Gilles Miebas Van Luck; Captain Dirk

Hartog, of Amsterdam. She set sail again on the 27th of the same

month. Bantum was second supercargo; Janstins first pilot.

"Peter Ecoores Van Bu, in the year 1616."

I engraved the date upon which the ship was to sail according to directions given me by the captain, though whether the "Endraght" did sail at that time I cannot say, by reason of an adventure which befell me.

When I had finished my work I began to think in what manner I might employ myself until my companions returned, and, perceiving a grove of trees not far distant from where I stood, I determined to rest a while in the shade. As I penetrated these silent forests I beheld sights wholly novel. Parrots and paroquets flew among the trees, as also large white birds with sulphur crests, the like of which I had never seen before. Presently I came to a stream which took its course through a valley, and, kneeling, I was about to quench my thirst when I felt a hand upon my shoulder. Springing to my feet, I was confronted by a band of savages, many of whom held their spears its though about to strike. They were all quite naked, their bodies marked with white streaks. I tried to make them understand I came as a friend, and endeavoured to retrace my steps to the open, where I hoped my shipmates might see me and effect a rescue, but I now perceived that whichever way I turned my path was barred by these wild men. The savages now began to jabber to each other in a jargon which I could not comprehend, and presently two of them laid hold of me, one by each arm, and in spite of my protests and such resistance as I made, forced me through the scrub inland. Some of the tribe followed, others went on ahead, flitting like shadows among the trees, the journey being performed at a rate which made it hard for me to keep pace with them.

All day we continued to penetrate the bush toward the interior of the country, and just before dark we came to a native village, where we found the tribe assembled at their camp fires. There must have been several hundred blacks in this camp, and many gathered round to look at me, although they did not appear to regard me with as much curiosity as might have been expected, from which I conjectured that white men were not unknown to them.

After a meal of fish and wild duck, together with a pasty kind of bread made from the bulrush root, which I found palatable, I was permitted to lie down in one of their gunyahs upon a bed of freshly-picked leaves, where, in spite of my anxieties, I soon fell asleep.

Toward morning I awoke to a full conviction of my sorry plight. The camp was in darkness, save for the glow of the fires and the light of the stars, which shine with a wonderful brilliancy in these southern skies. The cry of some night bird came from the bush beyond the camp. All else was still, but a crouching form at the entrance to the gunyah warned me I was a prisoner. There was no need, however, to set a guard upon me, for without a guide I knew I could never reach the coast, so that even if I succeeded in making my escape from the savages, I must perish miserably in the bush.

My thoughts now turned to home and friends whom it seemed unlikely I would ever meet again. Dirk Hartog and the crew of the "Endraght", though rough as became the hardy lives they led, had always shown a kindly disposition toward me. They would miss me, and speak of me perhaps, until, in the changing events of their adventurous career, I would be forgotten. My parents also would mourn me as dead. But there was one at Urk who would miss me more than friends or parents; Anna Holstein, to whom I had plighted my troth, and to whom I looked to be wed on my return. Anna was above me in station as the world goes. Her father was the Governor of Urk, who would not willingly give his daughter in marriage to a poor lad such its I. But who in love is wise? Who reckons worldly wealth when love, the spirit and spring of the universe, awakens in the soul? Like birds who call their mates with love-learned songs, Anna and I loved each other, so that nothing bid, death could part us. I had promised Anna I would return rich from my voyage as others had done, when her father might be the more inclined to look with favour upon my suit. Well—here was the and of my promises, and my hopes—death, or, still worse, life among a savage and barbarous people.