The Mysterious Island
of verdure, picturesquely raised in some places, sparkled an horizon of
sea. The lake was curved at the north, which contrasted with the sharp
outline of its lower part. Numerous aquatic birds frequented the shores
of this little Ontario, in which the thousand isles of its American
namesake were represented by a rock which emerged from its surface, some
hundred feet from the southern shore. There lived in harmony several
couples of kingfishers perched on a stone, grave, motionless, watching
for fish, then darting down, they plunged in with a sharp cry, and
reappeared with their prey in their beaks. On the shores and on the
islets, strutted wild ducks, pelicans, water-hens, red-beaks, philedons,
furnished with a tongue like a brush, and one or two specimens of the
splendid menura, the tail of which expands gracefully like a lyre.
As to the water of the lake, it was sweet, limpid, rather dark, and from
certain bubblings, and the concentric circles which crossed each other
on the surface, it could not be doubted that it abounded in fish.
“This lake is really beautiful!” said Gideon Spilett. “We could live on
its borders!”
“We will live there!” replied Harding.
The settlers, wishing to return to the Chimneys by the shortest way,
descended towards the angle formed on the south by the junction of
the lake’s bank. It was not without difficulty that they broke a path
through the thickets and brushwood which had never been put aside by the
hand of men, and they thus went towards the shore, so as to arrive at
the north of Prospect Heights. Two miles were cleared in this direction,
and then, after they had passed the last curtain of trees, appeared the
plateau, carpeted with thick turf, and beyond that the infinite sea.
To return to the Chimneys, it was enough to cross the plateau obliquely
for the space of a mile, and then to descend to the elbow formed by
the first detour of the Mercy. But the engineer desired to know how
and where the overplus of the water from the lake escaped, and the
exploration was prolonged under the trees for a mile and a half towards
the north. It was most probable that an overfall existed somewhere, and
doubtless through a cleft in the granite. This lake was only, in short,
an immense center basin, which was filled by degrees by the creek, and
its waters must necessarily pass to the sea by some fall. If it was so,
the engineer thought that it might perhaps be possible to utilize this
fall and borrow its power, actually lost without profit to any one.
They continued then to follow the shores of Lake Grant by climbing the
plateau; but, after having gone a mile in this direction, Cyrus Harding
had not been able to discover the overfall, which, however, must exist
somewhere.
It was then half-past four. In order to prepare for dinner it was
necessary that the settlers should return to their dwelling. The little
band retraced their steps, therefore, and by the left bank of the Mercy,
Cyrus Harding and his companions arrived at the Chimneys.
The fire was lighted, and Neb and Pencroft, on whom the functions of
cooks naturally devolved, to the one in his quality of Negro, to the
other in that of sailor, quickly prepared some broiled agouti, to which
they did great justice.
The repast at length terminated; at the moment when each one was about
to give himself up to sleep, Cyrus Harding drew from his pocket little
specimens of different sorts of minerals, and just said,--
“My friends, this is iron mineral, this a pyrite, this is clay, this is
lime, and this is coal. Nature gives us these things. It is our business
to make a right use of them. To-morrow we will commence operations.”
Chapter 13
“Well, captain, where are we going to begin?” asked Pencroft next
morning of the engineer.
“At the beginning,” replied Cyrus Harding.
And in fact, the settlers were compelled to begin “at the very
beginning.” They did not possess even the tools necessary for making
tools, and they were not even in the condition of nature, who, “having
time, husbands her strength.” They had no time, since they had to
provide for the immediate wants of their existence, and though,
profiting by acquired experience, they had nothing to invent, still they
had everything to make; their iron and their steel were as yet only in
the state of minerals, their earthenware in the state of clay, their
linen and their clothes in the state of textile material.
It must be said, however, that the settlers were “men” in the complete
and higher sense of the word. The engineer Harding could not have been
seconded by more intelligent companions, nor with more devotion and
zeal. He had tried them. He knew their abilities.
Gideon Spilett, a talented reporter, having learned everything so as to
be able to speak of everything, would contribute largely with his head
and hands to the colonization of the island. He would not draw back from
any task: a determined sportsman, he would make a business of what till
then had only been a pleasure to him.
Herbert, a gallant boy, already remarkably well informed in the natural
sciences, would render greater service to the common cause.
Neb was devotion personified. Clever, intelligent, indefatigable,
robust, with iron health, he knew a little about the work of the forge,
and could not fail to be very useful in the colony.
As to Pencroft, he had sailed over every sea, a carpenter in the
dockyards in Brooklyn, assistant tailor in the vessels of the state,
gardener, cultivator, during his holidays, etc., and like all seamen,
fit for anything, he knew how to do everything.
It would have been difficult to unite five men, better fitted to
struggle against fate, more certain to triumph over it.
“At the beginning,” Cyrus Harding had said. Now this beginning of which
the engineer spoke was the construction of an apparatus which would
serve to transform the natural substances. The part which heat plays in
these transformations is known. Now fuel, wood or coal, was ready for
immediate use, an oven must be built to use it.
“What is this oven for?” asked Pencroft.
“To make the pottery which we have need of,” replied Harding.
“And of what shall we make the oven?”
“With bricks.”
“And the bricks?”
“With clay. Let us start, my friends. To save trouble, we will establish
our manufactory at the place of production. Neb will bring provisions,
and there will be no lack of fire to cook the food.”
“No,” replied the reporter; “but if there is a lack of food for want of
instruments for the chase?”
“Ah, if we only had a knife!” cried the sailor.
“Well?” asked Cyrus Harding.
“Well! I would soon make a bow and arrows, and then there could be
plenty of game in the larder!”
“Yes, a knife, a sharp blade.” said the engineer, as if he was speaking
to himself.
At this moment his eyes fell upon Top, who was running about on the
shore. Suddenly Harding’s face became animated.
“Top, here,” said he.
The dog came at his master’s call. The latter took Top’s head between
his hands, and unfastening the collar which the animal wore round his
neck, he broke it in two, saying,--
“There are two knives, Pencroft!”
Two hurrahs from the sailor was the reply. Top’s collar was made of a
thin piece of tempered steel. They had only to sharpen it on a piece of
sandstone, then to raise the edge on a finer stone. Now sandstone was
abundant on the beach, and two hours after the stock of tools in the
colony consisted of two sharp blades, which were easily fixed in solid
handles.
The production of these their first tools was hailed as a triumph. It
was indeed a valuable result of their labor, and a very opportune one.
They set out.
Cyrus Harding proposed that they should return to the western shore of
the lake, where the day before he had noticed the clayey ground of which
he possessed a specimen. They therefore followed the bank of the Mercy,
traversed Prospect Heights, and after a walk of five miles or more they
reached a glade, situated two hundred feet from Lake Grant.
On the way Herbert had discovered a tree, the branches of which the
Indians of South America employ for making their bows. It was the
crejimba, of the palm family, which does not bear edible fruit. Long
straight branches were cut, the leaves stripped off; it was shaped,
stronger in the middle, more slender at the extremities, and nothing
remained to be done but to find a plant fit to make the bow-string.
This was the “hibiscus heterophyllus,” which furnishes fibers of such
remarkable tenacity that they have been compared to the tendons of
animals. Pencroft thus obtained bows of tolerable strength, for which he
only wanted arrows. These were easily made with straight stiff branches,
without knots, but the points with which they must be armed, that is
to say, a substance to serve in lieu of iron, could not be met with so
easily. But Pencroft said, that having done his part of the work, chance
would do the rest.
The settlers arrived on the ground which had been discovered the day
before. Being composed of the sort of clay which is used for making
bricks and tiles, it was very useful for the work in question. There was
no great difficulty in it. It was enough to scour the clay with sand,
then to mold the bricks and bake them by the heat of a wood fire.
Generally bricks are formed in molds, but the engineer contented himself
with making them by hand. All that day and the day following were
employed in this work. The clay, soaked in water, was mixed by the feet
and hands of the manipulators, and then divided into pieces of equal
size. A practiced workman can make, without a machine, about ten
thousand bricks in twelve hours; but in their two days work the five
brickmakers on Lincoln Island had not made more than three thousand,
which were ranged near each other, until the time when their complete
desiccation would permit them to be used in building the oven, that is
to say, in three or four days.
It was on the 2nd of April that Harding had employed himself in fixing
the orientation of the island, or, in other words, the precise spot
where the sun rose. The day before he had noted exactly the hour when
the sun disappeared beneath the horizon, making allowance for the
refraction. This morning he noted, no less exactly, the hour at which
it reappeared. Between this setting and rising twelve hours, twenty-four
minutes passed. Then, six hours, twelve minutes after its rising, the
sun on this day would exactly pass the meridian and the point of the sky
which it occupied at this moment would be the north. At the said hour,
Cyrus marked this point, and putting in a line with the sun two trees
which would serve him for marks, he thus obtained an invariable meridian
for his ulterior operations.
The settlers employed the two days before the oven was built in
collecting fuel. Branches were cut all round the glade, and they picked
up all the fallen wood under the trees. They were also able to hunt with
greater success, since Pencroft now possessed some dozen arrows armed
with sharp points. It was Top who had furnished these points, by bringing
in a porcupine, rather inferior eating, but of great value, thanks to
the quills with which it bristled. These quills were fixed firmly at the
ends of the arrows, the flight of which was made more certain by some
cockatoos’ feathers. The reporter and Herbert soon became very skilful
archers. Game of all sorts in consequence abounded at the Chimneys,
capybaras, pigeons, agouties, grouse, etc. The greater part of these
animals were killed in the part of the forest on the left bank of the
Mercy, to which they gave the name of Jacamar Wood, in remembrance of
the bird which Pencroft and Herbert had pursued when on their first
exploration.