The Mysterious Island
This game was eaten fresh, but they preserved some capybara hams, by
smoking them above a fire of green wood, after having perfumed them with
sweet-smelling leaves. However, this food, although very strengthening,
was always roast upon roast, and the party would have been delighted
to hear some soup bubbling on the hearth, but they must wait till a pot
could be made, and, consequently, till the oven was built.
During these excursions, which were not extended far from the
brick-field, the hunters could discern the recent passage of animals of
a large size, armed with powerful claws, but they could not recognize
the species. Cyrus Harding advised them to be very careful, as the
forest probably enclosed many dangerous beasts.
And he did right. Indeed, Gideon Spilett and Herbert one day saw an
animal which resembled a jaguar. Happily the creature did not attack
them, or they might not have escaped without a severe wound. As soon
as he could get a regular weapon, that is to say, one of the guns which
Pencroft begged for, Gideon Spilett resolved to make desperate war
against the ferocious beasts, and exterminate them from the island.
The Chimneys during these few days was not made more comfortable, for
the engineer hoped to discover, or build if necessary, a more convenient
dwelling. They contented themselves with spreading moss and dry leaves
on the sand of the passages, and on these primitive couches the tired
workers slept soundly.
They also reckoned the days they had passed on Lincoln Island, and from
that time kept a regular account. The 5th of April, which was Wednesday,
was twelve days from the time when the wind threw the castaways on this
shore.
On the 6th of April, at daybreak, the engineer and his companions were
collected in the glade, at the place where they were going to perform
the operation of baking the bricks. Naturally this had to be in the open
air, and not in a kiln, or rather, the agglomeration of bricks made an
enormous kiln, which would bake itself. The fuel, made of well-prepared
fagots, was laid on the ground and surrounded with several rows of dried
bricks, which soon formed an enormous cube, to the exterior of which
they contrived air-holes. The work lasted all day, and it was not till
the evening that they set fire to the fagots. No one slept that night,
all watching carefully to keep up the fire.
The operation lasted forty-eight hours, and succeeded perfectly. It then
became necessary to leave the smoking mass to cool, and during this time
Neb and Pencroft, guided by Cyrus Harding, brought, on a hurdle made of
interlaced branches, loads of carbonate of lime and common stones,
which were very abundant, to the north of the lake. These stones, when
decomposed by heat, made a very strong quicklime, greatly increased by
slacking, at least as pure as if it had been produced by the calcination
of chalk or marble. Mixed with sand the lime made excellent mortar.
The result of these different works was, that, on the 9th of April,
the engineer had at his disposal a quantity of prepared lime and some
thousands of bricks.
Without losing an instant, therefore, they began the construction of
a kiln to bake the pottery, which was indispensable for their domestic
use. They succeeded without much difficulty. Five days after, the kiln
was supplied with coal, which the engineer had discovered lying open to
the sky towards the mouth of the Red Creek, and the first smoke escaped
from a chimney twenty feet high. The glade was transformed into a
manufactory, and Pencroft was not far wrong in believing that from this
kiln would issue all the products of modern industry.
In the meantime what the settlers first manufactured was a common
pottery in which to cook their food. The chief material was clay, to
which Harding added a little lime and quartz. This paste made regular
“pipe-clay,” with which they manufactured bowls, cups molded on stones
of a proper size, great jars and pots to hold water, etc. The shape of
these objects was clumsy and defective, but after they had been baked
in a high temperature, the kitchen of the Chimneys was provided with a
number of utensils, as precious to the settlers as the most beautifully
enameled china. We must mention here that Pencroft, desirous to know if
the clay thus prepared was worthy of its name of pipe-clay, made some
large pipes, which he thought charming, but for which, alas! he had no
tobacco, and that was a great privation to Pencroft. “But tobacco
will come, like everything else!” he repeated, in a burst of absolute
confidence.
This work lasted till the 15th of April, and the time was well employed.
The settlers, having become potters, made nothing but pottery. When
it suited Cyrus Harding to change them into smiths, they would become
smiths. But the next day being Sunday, and also Easter Sunday, all
agreed to sanctify the day by rest. These Americans were religious men,
scrupulous observers of the precepts of the Bible, and their situation
could not but develop sentiments of confidence towards the Author of all
things.
On the evening of the 15th of April they returned to the Chimneys,
carrying with them the pottery, the furnace being extinguished until
they could put it to a new use. Their return was marked by a fortunate
incident; the engineer discovered a substance which replaced tinder.
It is known that a spongy, velvety flesh is procured from a certain
mushroom of the genus polyporous. Properly prepared, it is extremely
inflammable, especially when it has been previously saturated with
gunpowder, or boiled in a solution of nitrate or chlorate of potash.
But, till then, they had not found any of these polypores or even any of
the morels which could replace them. On this day, the engineer, seeing
a plant belonging to the wormwood genus, the principal species of which
are absinthe, balm-mint, tarragon, etc., gathered several tufts, and,
presenting them to the sailor, said,--
“Here, Pencroft, this will please you.”
Pencroft looked attentively at the plant, covered with long silky hair,
the leaves being clothed with soft down.
“What’s that, captain?” asked Pencroft. “Is it tobacco?”
“No,” replied Harding, “it is wormwood; Chinese wormwood to the learned,
but to us it will be tinder.”
When the wormwood was properly dried it provided them with a very
inflammable substance, especially afterwards when the engineer had
impregnated it with nitrate of potash, of which the island possessed
several beds, and which is in truth saltpeter.
The colonists had a good supper that evening. Neb prepared some agouti
soup, a smoked capybara ham, to which was added the boiled tubercules of
the “caladium macrorhizum,” an herbaceous plant of the arum family.
They had an excellent taste, and were very nutritious, being something
similar to the substance which is sold in England under the name of
“Portland sago”; they were also a good substitute for bread, which the
settlers in Lincoln Island did not yet possess.
When supper was finished, before sleeping, Harding and his companions
went to take the air on the beach. It was eight o’clock in the evening;
the night was magnificent. The moon, which had been full five days
before, had not yet risen, but the horizon was already silvered by those
soft, pale shades which might be called the dawn of the moon. At the
southern zenith glittered the circumpolar constellations, and above all
the Southern Cross, which some days before the engineer had greeted on
the summit of Mount Franklin.
Cyrus Harding gazed for some time at this splendid constellation, which
has at its summit and at its base two stars of the first magnitude, at
its left arm a star of the second, and at its right arm a star of the
third magnitude.
Then, after some minutes thought--
“Herbert,” he asked of the lad, “is not this the 15th of April?”
“Yes, captain,” replied Herbert.
“Well, if I am not mistaken, to-morrow will be one of the four days in
the year in which the real time is identical with average time; that
is to say, my boy, that to-morrow, to within some seconds, the sun will
pass the meridian just at midday by the clocks. If the weather is fine
I think that I shall obtain the longitude of the island with an
approximation of some degrees.”
“Without instruments, without sextant?” asked Gideon Spilett.
“Yes,” replied the engineer. “Also, since the night is clear, I will
try, this very evening, to obtain our latitude by calculating the
height of the Southern Cross, that is, from the southern pole above the
horizon. You understand, my friends, that before undertaking the work
of installation in earnest it is not enough to have found out that this
land is an island; we must, as nearly as possible, know at what distance
it is situated, either from the American continent or Australia, or from
the principal archipelagoes of the Pacific.”
“In fact,” said the reporter, “instead of building a house it would
be more important to build a boat, if by chance we are not more than a
hundred miles from an inhabited coast.”
“That is why,” returned Harding, “I am going to try this evening to
calculate the latitude of Lincoln Island, and to-morrow, at midday, I
will try to calculate the longitude.”
If the engineer had possessed a sextant, an apparatus with which the
angular distance of objects can be measured with great precision, there
would have been no difficulty in the operation. This evening by the
height of the pole, the next day by the passing of the sun at the
meridian, he would obtain the position of the island. But as they had
not one he would have to supply the deficiency.
Harding then entered the Chimneys. By the light of the fire he cut two
little flat rulers, which he joined together at one end so as to form
a pair of compasses, whose legs could separate or come together. The
fastening was fixed with a strong acacia thorn which was found in the
wood pile. This instrument finished, the engineer returned to the beach,
but as it was necessary to take the height of the pole from above a
clear horizon, that is, a sea horizon, and as Claw Cape hid the southern
horizon, he was obliged to look for a more suitable station. The best
would evidently have been the shore exposed directly to the south; but
the Mercy would have to be crossed, and that was a difficulty. Harding
resolved, in consequence, to make his observation from Prospect Heights,
taking into consideration its height above the level of the sea--a
height which he intended to calculate next day by a simple process of
elementary geometry.
The settlers, therefore, went to the plateau, ascending the left bank of
the Mercy, and placed themselves on the edge which looked northwest and
southeast, that is, above the curiously-shaped rocks which bordered the
river.
This part of the plateau commanded the heights of the left bank, which
sloped away to the extremity of Claw Cape, and to the southern side of
the island. No obstacle intercepted their gaze, which swept the horizon
in a semi-circle from the cape to Reptile End. To the south the horizon,
lighted by the first rays of the moon, was very clearly defined against
the sky.
At this moment the Southern Cross presented itself to the observer in an
inverted position, the star Alpha marking its base, which is nearer to
the southern pole.
This constellation is not situated as near to the antarctic pole as the
Polar Star is to the arctic pole. The star Alpha is about twenty-seven
degrees from it, but Cyrus Harding knew this and made allowance for
it in his calculation. He took care also to observe the moment when it
passed the meridian below the pole, which would simplify the operation.
Cyrus Harding pointed one leg of the compasses to the horizon, the