The Mysterious Island (15 page)

"Its quite simple, my boy," said he, "for, in plunging my hand into the
water, I felt no sensation either of heat or cold. Therefore it has the
same temperature as the human body, which is about ninety-five degrees."

The sulphur spring not being of any actual use to the settlers, they
proceeded towards the thick border of the forest, which began some
hundred paces off.

There, as they had conjectured, the waters of the stream flowed clear
and limpid between high banks of red earth, the color of which betrayed
the presence of oxide of iron. From this color, the name of Red Creek
was immediately given to the watercourse.

It was only a large stream, deep and clear, formed of the mountain
water, which, half river, half torrent, here rippling peacefully over
the sand, there falling against the rocks or dashing down in a cascade,
ran towards the lake, over a distance of a mile and a half, its breadth
varying from thirty to forty feet. Its waters were sweet, and it was
supposed that those of the lake were so also. A fortunate circumstance,
in the event of their finding on its borders a more suitable dwelling
than the Chimneys.

As to the trees, which some hundred feet downwards shaded the banks of
the creek, they belonged, for the most part, to the species which abound
in the temperate zone of America and Tasmania, and no longer to those
coniferae observed in that portion of the island already explored
to some miles from Prospect Heights. At this time of the year, the
commencement of the month of April, which represents the month of
October, in this hemisphere, that is, the beginning of autumn, they
were still in full leaf. They consisted principally of casuarinas and
eucalypti, some of which next year would yield a sweet manna, similar to
the manna of the East. Clumps of Australian cedars rose on the sloping
banks, which were also covered with the high grass called "tussac" in
New Holland; but the cocoanut, so abundant in the archipelagoes of the
Pacific, seemed to be wanting in the island, the latitude, doubtless,
being too low.

"What a pity!" said Herbert, "such a useful tree, and which has such
beautiful nuts!"

As to the birds, they swarmed among the scanty branches of the eucalypti
and casuarinas, which did not hinder the display of their wings.
Black, white, or gray cockatoos, paroquets, with plumage of all colors,
kingfishers of a sparkling green and crowned with red, blue lories,
and various other birds appeared on all sides, as through a prism,
fluttering about and producing a deafening clamor. Suddenly, a strange
concert of discordant voices resounded in the midst of a thicket. The
settlers heard successively the song of birds, the cry of quadrupeds,
and a sort of clacking which they might have believed to have escaped
from the lips of a native. Neb and Herbert rushed towards the bush,
forgetting even the most elementary principles of prudence. Happily,
they found there, neither a formidable wild beast nor a dangerous
native, but merely half a dozen mocking and singing birds, known as
mountain pheasants. A few skillful blows from a stick soon put an end to
their concert, and procured excellent food for the evening's dinner.

Herbert also discovered some magnificent pigeons with bronzed wings,
some superbly crested, others draped in green, like their congeners at
Port-Macquarie; but it was impossible to reach them, or the crows and
magpies which flew away in flocks.

A charge of small shot would have made great slaughter among these
birds, but the hunters were still limited to sticks and stones, and
these primitive weapons proved very insufficient.

Their insufficiency was still more clearly shown when a troop of
quadrupeds, jumping, bounding, making leaps of thirty feet, regular
flying mammiferae, fled over the thickets, so quickly and at such a
height, that one would have thought that they passed from one tree to
another like squirrels.

"Kangaroos!" cried Herbert.

"Are they good to eat?" asked Pencroft.

"Stewed," replied the reporter, "their flesh is equal to the best
venison!—"

Gideon Spilett had not finished this exciting sentence when the sailor,
followed by Neb and Herbert, darted on the kangaroos tracks. Cyrus
Harding called them back in vain. But it was in vain too for the hunters
to pursue such agile game, which went bounding away like balls. After a
chase of five minutes, they lost their breath, and at the same time all
sight of the creatures, which disappeared in the wood. Top was not more
successful than his masters.

"Captain," said Pencroft, when the engineer and the reporter had
rejoined them, "Captain, you see quite well we can't get on unless we
make a few guns. Will that be possible?"

"Perhaps," replied the engineer, "but we will begin by first
manufacturing some bows and arrows, and I don't doubt that you will
become as clever in the use of them as the Australian hunters."

"Bows and arrows!" said Pencroft scornfully. "That's all very well for
children!"

"Don't be proud, friend Pencroft," replied the reporter. "Bows and
arrows were sufficient for centuries to stain the earth with blood.
Powder is but a thing of yesterday, and war is as old as the human
race—unhappily."

"Faith, that's true, Mr. Spilett," replied the sailor, "and I always
speak too quickly. You must excuse me!"

Meanwhile, Herbert constant to his favorite science, Natural History,
reverted to the kangaroos, saying,—

"Besides, we had to deal just now with the species which is most
difficult to catch. They were giants with long gray fur; but if I am not
mistaken, there exist black and red kangaroos, rock kangaroos, and rat
kangaroos, which are more easy to get hold of. It is reckoned that there
are about a dozen species."

"Herbert," replied the sailor sententiously, "there is only one species
of kangaroos to me, that is 'kangaroo on the spit,' and it's just the
one we haven't got this evening!"

They could not help laughing at Master Pencroft's new classification.
The honest sailor did not hide his regret at being reduced for dinner to
the singing pheasants, but fortune once more showed itself obliging to
him.

In fact, Top, who felt that his interest was concerned went and ferreted
everywhere with an instinct doubled by a ferocious appetite. It was even
probable that if some piece of game did fall into his clutches, none
would be left for the hunters, if Top was hunting on his own account;
but Neb watched him and he did well.

Towards three o'clock the dog disappeared in the brushwood and gruntings
showed that he was engaged in a struggle with some animal. Neb rushed
after him, and soon saw Top eagerly devouring a quadruped, which ten
seconds later would have been past recognizing in Top's stomach. But
fortunately the dog had fallen upon a brood, and besides the victim he
was devouring, two other rodents—the animals in question belonged to
that order—lay strangled on the turf.

Neb reappeared triumphantly holding one of the rodents in each hand.
Their size exceeded that of a rabbit, their hair was yellow, mingled
with green spots, and they had the merest rudiments of tails.

The citizens of the Union were at no loss for the right name of these
rodents. They were maras, a sort of agouti, a little larger than their
congeners of tropical countries, regular American rabbits, with long
ears, jaws armed on each side with five molars, which distinguish the
agouti.

"Hurrah!" cried Pencroft, "the roast has arrived! and now we can go
home."

The walk, interrupted for an instant, was resumed. The limpid waters of
the Red Creek flowed under an arch of casuannas, banksias, and gigantic
gum-trees. Superb lilacs rose to a height of twenty feet. Other
arborescent species, unknown to the young naturalist, bent over the
stream, which could be heard murmuring beneath the bowers of verdure.

Meanwhile the stream grew much wider, and Cyrus Harding supposed that
they would soon reach its mouth. In fact, on emerging from beneath a
thick clump of beautiful trees, it suddenly appeared before their eyes.

The explorers had arrived on the western shore of Lake Grant. The place
was well worth looking at. This extent of water, of a circumference of
nearly seven miles and an area of two hundred and fifty acres, reposed
in a border of diversified trees. Towards the east, through a curtain
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."

"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.