Life And Adventures Of Peter Wilkins, Vol. I. (of II.) Page 13

  CHAPTER IX.

  After I had stood a while in the utmost confusion of thought, and myspirits began to be a little composed, I was resolved to see what damagethe hull of the ship had received. Accordingly I looked narrowly, butcould find none, only she was immovably fixed in a cleft of therock, like a large archway, and there stuck so fast, that though uponfathoming I could find no bottom, she never moved in the least by theworking of the water.

  I now began to look upon Adams as a happy man, being delivered by animmediate death from such an inextricable scene of distress, and wishedmyself with him a thousand times. I had a great mind to have followedhim into the other world; yet I know not how it is, there is somethingso abhorrent to human nature in self-murder, be one's condition whatit will, that I was soon determined on the contrary side. Now again Iperceived that the Almighty had given me a large field to expatiate inupon the trial of His creatures, by bringing them into imminent dangersready to overwhelm them, and at the same time, as it were, hanging outthe flag of truce and mercy to them. These thoughts brought me to myknees, and I poured out my soul to God in a strain of humiliation,resignation to His will, and earnest petitions for deliverance orsupport in this distress. Having finished, I found myself in a morecomposed frame; so having eaten a biscuit and drank a can of water, andnot seeing anything to be done whereby I could better my condition, Isat me down upon the deck, and fell into the following soliloquy--

  Peter, says I, what have you to do here?--Alas! replied I to myself, Iam fixed against my will in this dismal mansion, destined, as rats mightbe, to devour the provisions only, and having eaten all up, to perishwith hunger for want of a supply.--Then, says I, of what use are you inthe world, Peter?--Truly, answered I, of no other use that I can see butto be an object of misery for Divine vengeance to work upon, and to showwhat a deplorable state human nature can be reduced to; for I cannotthink any one else can be so wretched.--And again, Peter, says I, whathave you been doing ever since you came into the world?--I am afraid,says I, I can answer no better to this question than to either of theformer; for if only reasonable actions are to be reckoned among mydoings, I am sure I have done little worth recording; for let me seewhat it all amounts to. I spent my first sixteen years in making a foolof my mother; my three next in letting her make a fool of me, and inbeing fool enough myself to get me a wife and two children before I wastwenty. The next year was spent in finding out the misery of slaveryfrom experience. Two years more I repined at the happiness of mybenefactor, and at finding it was not my lot to enjoy the same. Thisyear is not yet spent, and how many more are to come, and where they maybe passed, and what they may produce, requires a better head than mineeven to guess at; but certainly my present situation seems to promisenothing beside woe and misery.--But hold a little, says I, and let meclearly state my own wretchedness. I am here, it is true; but for anygood I have ever done or any advantage I have reaped in other places, Iam as well here as anywhere. I have no present want of food or unjustor cruel enemy to annoy me; so as long as the ship continues entireand provisions last, I shall do tolerably. Then why should I grieveor terrify myself about what may come? What my frighted imaginationsuggests may perhaps never happen. Deliverance, though not to be lookedfor, is yet possible; and my future fate may be as different frommy present condition as this is from the hopes with which I latelyflattered myself. And why, after all, may I not die a natural deathhere as well as anywhere? All mankind die, and then there is an end ofall----An end of all! did I say? No, there is something within thatgives me the lie when I say so. Let me see; Death, my master used tosay, is not an end, but a beginning of real life: and may it not be so?May I not as well undergo a change from this to a different state oflife when I leave this world, as be born into it I know not from whence?Who sent me into this world? Who framed me of two natures so unlike,that death cannot destroy but one of them? It must be the Almighty God.But all God's works tend to some end; and if He has given me an immortalnature, it must be His intention that I should live somewhere andsomehow for ever. May not this stage of being then be only anintroduction to a preparative for another? There is nothing in thissupposition repugnant to reason. Upon the whole, if God is the author ofmy being, He only has a right to dispose of it, and I may not put an endthereto without His leave. It is no less true that my continuing thereinduring His pleasure, and because it is so, may turn vastly to myadvantage in His good time; it may be the means of my becoming happy foreven when it is His will that I go hence. It is no less probable that,dismal as my present circumstances appear, I may be even now the objectof a kind Providence: God may be leading me by affliction to repentanceof former crimes; destroying those sensual affections that have all mydays kept me from loving and serving Him. I will therefore submit myselfto His will, and hope for His mercy.

  These thoughts, and many others I then had, composed me very much, andby degrees reconciled me to my destined solitude. I walked my ship, ofwhich I was now both master and owner, and employed myself in searchinghow it was fastened to the rock, and where it rested; but all to nopurpose as to that particular. I then struck a light and went into thehold, to see what I could find useful, for we had never searched theship since we took her.

  In the hold I found abundance of long iron bars, which I suppose werebrought out to be trafficked with the blacks. I observed they layall with one end close to the head of the ship, which I presumed wasoccasioned by the violent shock they received when she struck againstthe rock; but seeing one short bar lying out beyond the rest, thoughtouching at the end of one of the long bars, I thought to take it up,and lay it on the heap with the others; but the moment I had raisedthe end next the other bars, it flew out of my hand with such violence,against the head of the ship, and with such a noise, as greatlysurprised me, and put me in fear it had broke through the plank.

  I just stayed to see no harm was done, and ran upon deck with my hairstiff on my head; nor could I conceive less than that some subtle spirithad done this prank merely to terrify me.

  It ran in my pate several days, and I durst upon no account have goneinto the hold again, though my whole support had lain there; nay, iteven spoiled my rest, for fear something tragical should befall me, ofwhich this amazing incident was an omen.

  About a week after, as I was shifting myself (for I had not taken myclothes off since I came there), and putting on a new pair of shoeswhich I found on board, my own being very bad, taking out my ironbuckles, I laid one of them upon a broken piece of the mast that I satupon; when to my astonishment, it was no sooner out of my hand but up itflew to the rock and stuck there. I could not tell what to make of it,but was sorry the devil had got above deck. I then held several otherthings one after another in my hand, and laid them down where I laid thebuckle, but nothing stirred till I took out the fellow of that from theshoes; when letting it go away, it jumped also to the rock.

  I mused on these phenomena for some time, and could not forbear callingupon God to protect me from the devil; who must, as I imagined, havea hand in such unaccountable things as they then seemed to me. But atlength reason got the better of these foolish apprehensions, and I beganto think there might be some natural cause of them, and next to bevery desirous of finding it out In order to this I set about makingexperiments to try what would run to the rock and what would not. I wentinto the captain's cabin, and opening a cupboard, of which the key wasin the door, I took out a pipe, a bottle, a pocket-book, a silver spoon,a tea-cup, &c, and laid them successively near the rock; when none ofthem answered, but the key which I had brought out of the cupboard onmy finger dropping off while I was thus employed, no sooner was itdisengaged but away it went to it. After that I tried several otherpieces of iron-ware with the like success. Upon this, and the needle ofmy compass standing stiff to the rock, I concluded that this same rockcontained great quantity of loadstone, or was itself one vast magnet,and that our lading of iron was the cause of the ship's violent coursethereto, which I mentioned before.

  This quite satisfied me as to my noti
ons of spirits, and gave me a moreundisturbed night's rest than I had had before, so that now, havingnothing to affright me, I passed the time tolerably well in my solitude,as it grew by degrees familiar to me.

  I had often wished it had been possible for me to climb the rock, butit was so smooth in many places and craggy in others, and over-hanging,continuing just the same to the right and left of me as far as ever Icould see, that from the impossibility of it, I discharged all thoughtsof such an attempt.

  I had now lived on board three months, and perceived the days growshorter and shorter, till, having lost the sun for a little time, theywere quite dark: that is, there was no absolute daylight, or indeedvisible distinction between day and night; though it was never so darkbut I could see well enough upon deck to go about.

  What now concerned me the most was my water, which began to grow verybad (though I had plenty of it) and unsavoury, so that I could scarcedrink it, but had no prospect of better. Now and then indeed it snoweda little, which I made some use of, but this was far from contenting me.Hereupon I began to contrive; and having nothing else to do, I set twoopen vessels upon deck, and drawing water from the hold I filled one ofmy vessels, and letting it stand a day and a night I poured it into theother, and so shifted it every twenty-four hours; this, I found, thoughit did not bring it to the primitive taste and render it altogetherpalatable, was nevertheless a great help to it, by incorporating thefresh air with it, so that it became very potable, and this method Iconstantly used with my drinking-water, so long as I stayed on board theship.

  It had now been sharp weather for some time, and the cold stillincreasing, this put me upon rummaging the ship farther than ever Ithought to do before; when opening a little cabin under deck, I found alarge cargo of fine French brandy, a great many bottles, and some smallcasks of Madeira wine, with divers cordial waters. Having tasted these,and taken out a bottle or two of brandy, and some Madeira, I locked upmy door and looked no farther that time.

  The next day I inquired into my provisions, and some of my flesh havingsoaked out the pickle, I made fresh pickle and closed it up again. Ithat day also found several cheeses cased up in lead, one of which Ithen opened and dined upon: but what time of day or night it was when Ieat this meal I could not tell. I found a great many chests well filled,and one or two of tools which some years after stood me in a very goodstead, though I did not expect they would ever be of that service when Ifirst met with them.

  In this manner I spent my time till I began to see broad daylight again,which cheered me greatly. I had been often put in hopes during the darkseason that ships were coming towards me, and that I should once morehave the conversation of mankind, for I had by the small glimmering seenmany large bodies (to my thinking) move at a little distance from me,and particularly toward the reappearing of the light, but though Ihallooed as loud as I could, and often fired my gun, I never received ananswer.

  When the light returned, my days increased in proportion as they hadbefore decreased; and gathering comfort from that, I determined tolaunch my small boat and to coast along the island, as I judged it, tosee if it was inhabited and by whom; I determined also to make me somelines for fishing, and carry my gun to try for other game, if I founda place for landing; for though I had never, since my arrival, seen asingle living creature but my cat, except insects, of which there weremany in the water and in the air before the dark weather, and then beganto appear again, yet I could not but think there were both birds andbeasts to be met with.

  Upon launching my boat I perceived she was very leaky, so I let her filland continue thus a week or more to stop her cracks, then getting downthe side of my ship I scooped her quite dry and found her very fit foruse; so putting on board my gun, lines, brandy bottles, and clotheschest for a seat, with some little water and provisions for a week, Ionce more committed myself to the sea, having taken all the observationI could to gain my ship again if any accident should happen, though Iresolved upon no account to quit sight of the rock willingly.

  I had not rowed very long before I thought I saw an island to my rightabout a league distant, to which I inclined to steer my course, the seabeing very calm; but upon surveying it nearer, I found it only a greatcake of ice, about forty yards high above the water and a mile or twoin length. I then concluded that what I had before taken for ships wereonly these lumps of ice. Being thus disappointed as to my island, Imade what haste I could back to the rock again and coasted part ofits circumference; but though I had gone two or three leagues of itscircuit, the prospect it afforded was just the same.

  I then tried my lines by fastening several very long ones, made of thelog-line, to the side of the boat, baiting them with several differentbaits, but took only one fish of about four pounds weight, very muchresembling a haddock, part of which I dressed for my supper after myreturn to the ship, and it proved very good. Towards evening I returnedto my home, as I may call it.

  The next day I made a voyage on the other side of the rock, though butto a small distance from the ship, with intent only to fish, but tooknothing. I had then a mind to victual my boat or little cruiser, andprepare myself for a voyage of two or three days, which I thought Imight safely undertake, as I had never seen a troubled sea since I cameto the island; for though I heard the wind often roaring over my head,yet it coming always from the land-side, it never disturbed the waternear the shore. I set out the same way I went at first, designing tosail two or three days out and as many home again, and resolved ifpossible to fathom the depth as I went. With this view I prepared a verylong line with a large shot tied in a rag at the end of it, by way ofplummet, but I felt no ground till the second night The next morning Icame into thirty fathom water, then twenty, then sixteen. In both toursI could perceive no abatement in the height or steepness of the rock.

  In about fourteen fathom water I dropped my lines, and lay by for anhour or two. Feeling several jars as I sat on my chest in the boat, Iwas sure I had caught somewhat, so pulling up my lines successively, Ibrought first a large eel near six feet long and almost as thick as mythigh, whose mouth, throat, and fins, were of a fine scarlet, andthe belly as white as snow: he was so strong while in the water, andweighty, I had much ado to get him into the boat, and then had a harderjob to kill him; for though, having a hatchet with me to cut wood incase I met with any landing-place, I chopped off his head the moment Ihad him on board, yet he had several times after that have like to havebroken my legs and beat me overboard before I had quite taken his lifefrom him, and had I not whipped off his tail and also divided his bodyinto two or three pieces, I could not have mastered him. The next Ipulled up was a thick fish like a tench, but of another colour and muchbigger. I drew up several others, flat and long fish, till I was tiredwith the sport; and then I set out for the ship again, which I reachedthe third day.

  During this whole time, I had but one shot, and that was as I camehomewards, at a creature I saw upon a high crag of the rock, which Ifired at with ball, fearing that my small shot would not reach it Theanimal, being mortally wounded, bounded up, and came tumbling down therock, very near me. I picked it up, and found it to be a creature notmuch unlike our rabbits, but with shorter ears, a longer tail, andhoofed like a kid, though it had the perfect fluck of a rabbit I put itinto my boat, to contemplate on when I arrived at the ship; and, plyingmy oars, got safe, as I said, on the third day.

  I made me a fire to cook with as soon as I had got my cargo out of theboat into my ship, but was under debate which of my dainties to beginupon. I had sometimes a mind to have broiled my rabbit, as I called it,and boiled some of my fish; but being tired, I hung up my flesh tillthe next day, and boiled two or three sorts of my fish, to try which wasbest. I knew not the nature of most of them, so I boiled a piece of myeel, to be sure, judging that, however I might like the others, I shouldcertainly be able to make a good meal of that. This variety being ready,I took a little of my oil out of the hold for sauce, and sat down to mymeal, as satisfied as an emperor. But upon tasting my several messes,though the eel wa
s rather richer than the smaller fishes, yet the otherswere all so good, I gave them the preference for that time, and laid bythe rest of the eel, and of the other fish, till the next day, when Isalted them for future use.

  I kept now a whole week or more at home, to look farther into thecontents of the ship, bottle off a cask of Madeira, which I foundleaking, and to consume my new stores of fish and flesh, which, beingsomewhat stale when first salted, I thought would not keep so well asthe old ones that were on board. I added also some fresh bread to myprovision, and sweetened more water by the aforementioned method; andwhen my necessary domestic affairs were brought under, I then projecteda new voyage.