Wild Life in the Land of the Giants: A Tale of Two Brothers

“I’ll try, brother.”

Then I turned out, and began to dress, singing as usual.

Mrs Coates did come to breakfast, but looked worn and nervous. Peter was full of banter and nonsense. Captain Coates was keeping watch to let Peter “feed,” as Peter called it. But presently our worthy skipper would come below, and make a terrible onslaught on the cold ham. Nothing ever interfered with his appetite much. He was a philosopher, although a lean one, and always looked upon the bright side of life, and the bread-and-butter side.

“I sha’n’t get over the fright for a month,” said poor Mrs Coates. “Peter tells me he was standing on the bulwark, hardly holding on to anything.”

“I’ve scolded him well,” I said, “and if we meet the mail boat I’ve a good mind to send him back to mother and Mattie.”

“Wouldn’t you feel lop-sided, Jack, without the child?” said Peter. “And the Salamander would only have half a second mate. No; we’ll stick to Jill, only next time he wants a cold bath, we’ll find means to oblige him without having to call all hands.”

“Mrs Coates, I’ll have another egg, please,” said Jill.

“Well,” said Peter, “by all the coolness – ”

“Hands make sail!”

This last was a shout on deck, and in five minutes more we were all “upstairs,” as Mrs Coates phrased it.

We were entering the First Narrows, the low, moundy shores of Patagonia on our right, the gloomy grandeur of the frowning mountains of Tierra del Fuego on our left, the sea all dark between.

I have said “gloomy grandeur,” but gloom can hardly be associated with glaciers, ice, and snow; and surely, too, the myriads of wheeling birds were doing all they could to dispel the gloom; still, it lay on the sea, it hung on the dark cliffs, and hovered on the mists that had not yet risen from the mountain summits.

Indeed, everything in and around this strange ocean highway has an air of gloom. You cannot help feeling you are at the end of the world. There is something weird in the very appearance of the water, weird and treacherous too; and albeit the forests that clothe the lower sides of the mountains, some hundred miles farther on, are wildly picturesque, surmounted as they are by rugged hills, snow-white cliffs, and glittering glaciers, they look black, inhospitable, threatening.

The weather continued fine, the wind was fair. We kept quietly on all day, through the Second Narrows, and into Broad Reach, the captain having timed things well. The wind was now more abeam, but less in force, so that we should make a pleasant night of it.

Never have I seen a more glorious sunset than we now had. To gaze on that splendid medley of light and colour, that hung over the western hills, seemed to give one a foretaste of the beauty of heaven itself. But with all its dazzling, thrilling loveliness, it did not make us feel happy. At all events it kept us silent.

Next day, early, we reached Sandy Point. A strange wee town of long, low wooden huts with shingle roofs, a little church, a great prison, and a ricketty pier, very foreign-looking, and not at all elevating to the mind. But the gentleman – a Chilian he was – who came off to transact business with Captain Coates was the quintessence of politeness, doubly distilled.

We had to stop two hours here, so Jill and I, with Mrs Coates, went on shore to see the giants, and buy guanaco skins for our friends at home.

The giants were not in. At least I saw none of them. But there were shops, and I fear that both Jill and I spent more money on ostrich feathers than we had any right to do.

Early in the afternoon we once more weighed anchor, and stood away down the Reach, the breeze keeping steadily up all day, but, unfortunately for us, going down with the sun. It was my watch from twelve till four; the moon did not shine out brightly to-night, being obscured with clouds, a by no means unusual occurrence in this dreary region.

Jill did not keep me company either; he was tired, he said, and had turned early in. Perhaps it was this fact that was the occasion of my strange depression of spirits, a depression which I could neither walk off nor talk off, nor gambol off, albeit I tried hard to do so with our dogs, the beautiful deerhound and collie. They indeed appeared as little inclined for play to-night as I had ever seen them.

“They seems to have something on their minds,” said Ritchie, a sturdy old sailor who had sailed the seas off and on for twenty years.

“You’re not superstitious, Ritchie?” I asked.

Ritchie took three or four pulls at his pipe before he replied.

“I dunno, young sir, what you’d call superstitious, but I’ve seen some queer things in my time, and something was sure to ’appen arterwards. Once, sir – ”

“Stay, Ritchie,” I cried. “Don’t let’s have any of your ghost stories to-night I couldn’t stand them. The truth is, I’m a bit down-hearted.”

“Go and have a tot o’ rum; I’ll j’ine you.”

“No, Ritchie, that wouldn’t do either you or me good in the long run. But I dare say I’m feeling a trifle lonely; my brother isn’t the thing, I fear.”

“Nonsense, sir, nonsense. Never saw him looking better, nor you either, sir. I knows what’s the matter.”

“Well?”

“It’s the musgo that’s coming.”

“The musgo?”

“Ay, you’re new to the Straits, I must remember. The musgo is a fog, ‘a fiend fog’ I’ve heard it called. You always feel low-like afore it rolls down. To-morrow, sir, you’ll hardly see your finger afore you.”

“So dark!”

“It’s dark and it’s white – just as if it rolled off the snow, and so cold. You’ll see.”

“You said this moment, Ritchie, I wouldn’t see.”

This was a most miserable attempt at a joke on my part, and I felt so at the time.

Ritchie laughed as if it was his duty to laugh.

“Look, look!” I cried. “Look at the fire away in shore yonder, near the cliff foot.”

“I sees him.”

“And look, another on the lee bow – if we have a lee bow to-night – another on the quarter, and is that one far away yonder like a star?”

“That’s one. Them’s the canoe Indians a signalling to each other.”

“The natives of Tierra del Fuego?”

“Yes, drat ’em, and a bad, treacherous lot they be. They’re saying now – ‘Look out, there is a barque becalmed.’”

“Would they attack a ship?”

Ritchie laughed.

“Give them a chance only,” he said, “and there isn’t a more murderous, bloodthirsty lot ever launched a boat.

“I was broken down here once, or a bit farther up. It was in the little steamer Cordova, a Monte Videan. Smashed our seven, we did. Very little wind, and hardly a bit o’ sail to hoist. They weren’t long in spotting the difficulty. Durin’ the day, a miserable-looking woman and boy came in a canoe to sell skins and to beg. They must ’ave spotted that we had only a few hands. For at the darkest hour of midnight the ship was attacked.”

“Anything occur?”

“Well, it was like this: There wasn’t a longer-headed chap ever sailed than our skipper. A Scot he was, and clever for that. He knew these Fuegian fiends well, and was prepared.

“We had lights ready to get up at a moment’s notice. If we’d had arms we’d have used those, but with the exception of two or three revolvers we were defenceless. But we had coals, lumps as big as the binnacle. And we had boiling water and the hose ready. Mercy on us though, young sir, I think I hear the blood-curdling yell of those savages now, as they boarded at our bows. Up went the lights. Up came the hose, and – they caught a Tartar. It was cruel? Maybe, but it was self-defence.”