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  CHAPTER I

  The sea--Longings for shore--A land-sick ship--Destination of the voyagers.

  Six months at sea! Yes, reader, as I live, six months out of sight ofland; cruising after the sperm whale beneath the scorching sun of theLine, and tossed on the billows of the wide-rolling Pacific--the sky above,the sea around, and nothing else! Weeks and weeks ago our fresh provisionswere all exhausted. There is not a sweet potato left; not a single yam.Those glorious bunches of bananas which once decorated our stern andquarter-deck, have, alas, disappeared! and the delicious oranges whichhung suspended from our tops and stays--they, too, are gone! Yes, they areall departed, and there is nothing left us but salt-horse and sea-biscuit.

  Oh! for a refreshing glimpse of one blade of grass--for a snuff at thefragrance of a handful of the loamy earth! Is there nothing fresh aroundus? Is there no green thing to be seen? Yes, the inside of our bulwarks ispainted green; but what a vile and sickly hue it is, as if nothing bearingeven the semblance of verdure could flourish this weary way from land.Even the bark that once clung to the wood we use for fuel has been gnawedoff and devoured by the captain's pig; and so long ago, too, that the pighimself has in turn been devoured.

  There is but one solitary tenant in the chicken-coop, once a gay anddapper young cock, bearing him so bravely among the coy hens. But look athim now; there he stands, moping all the day long on that everlasting oneleg of his. He turns with disgust from the mouldy corn before him, and thebrackish water in his little trough. He mourns no doubt his lostcompanions, literally snatched from him one by one, and never seen again.But his days of mourning will be few; for Mungo, our black cook, told meyesterday that the word had at last gone forth, and poor Pedro's fate wassealed. His attenuated body will be laid out upon the captain's table nextSunday, and long before night will be buried, with all the usualceremonies, beneath that worthy individual's vest. Who would believe thatthere could be any one so cruel as to long for the decapitation of theluckless Pedro; yet the sailors pray every minute, selfish fellows, thatthe miserable fowl may be brought to his end. They say the captain willnever point the ship for the land so long as he has in anticipation a messof fresh meat. This unhappy bird can alone furnish it; and when he is oncedevoured, the captain will come to his senses. I wish thee no harm, Peter;but as thou art doomed, sooner or later, to meet the fate of all thy race;and if putting a period to thy existence is to be the signal for ourdeliverance, why--truth to speak--I wish thy throat cut this very moment;for, oh! how I wish to see the living earth again! The old ship herselflongs to look out upon the land from her hawseholes once more, as JackLewis said right the other day when the captain found fault with hissteering.

  "Why, d'ye see, Captain Vangs," says bold Jack, "I'm as good a helmsman asever put hand to spoke; but none of us can steer the old lady now. Wecan't keep her full and bye, sir: watch her ever so close, she will falloff; and then, sir, when I put the helm down so gently and try like tocoax her to the work, she won't take it kindly, but will fall round offagain; and it's all because she knows the land is under the lee, sir, andshe won't go any more to windward." Ay, and why should she, Jack? didn'tevery one of her stout timbers grow on shore, and hasn't she sensibilitiesas well as we?

  Poor old ship! Her very looks denote her desires: how deplorable sheappears! The paint on her sides, burnt up by the scorching sun, is puffedout and cracked. See the weeds she trails along with her, and what anunsightly bunch of these horrid barnacles has formed about herstern-piece; and every time she rises on a sea, she shows her copper tornaway or hanging in jagged strips.

  Poor old ship! I say again: for six months she has been rolling andpitching about, never for one moment at rest. But courage, old lass, Ihope to see thee soon within a biscuit's toss of the merry land, ridingsnugly at anchor in some green cove, and sheltered from the boisterouswinds.

  * * * * * * * * * *

  "Hurrah, my lads! It's a settled thing; next week we shape our course tothe Marquesas!" The Marquesas! What strange visions of outlandish thingsdoes the very name spirit up! Lovely houris--cannibal banquets--groves ofcocoa-nuts--coral reefs--tattooed chiefs--and bamboo temples; sunny valleysplanted with bread-fruit trees--carved canoes dancing on the flashing bluewaters--savage woodlands guarded by horrible idols--_heathenish rites andhuman sacrifices_.

  Such were the strangely jumbled anticipations that haunted me during ourpassage from the cruising ground. I felt an irresistible curiosity to seethose islands which the olden voyagers had so glowingly described.

  The group for which we were now steering (although among the earliest ofEuropean discoveries in the South Seas, having been first visited in theyear 1595) still continues to be tenanted by beings as strange andbarbarous as ever. The missionaries, sent on a heavenly errand, had sailedby their lovely shores, and had abandoned them to their idols of wood andstone. How interesting the circumstances under which they were discovered!In the watery path of Mendanna, cruising in quest of some region of gold,these isles had sprung up like a scene of enchantment, and for a momentthe Spaniard believed his bright dream was realized. In honour of theMarquess de Mendoza, then viceroy of Peru--under whose auspices thenavigator sailed--he bestowed upon them the name which denoted the rank ofhis patron, and gave to the world, on his return, a vague and magnificentaccount of their beauty. But these islands, undisturbed for years,relapsed into their previous obscurity; and it is only recently thatanything has been known concerning them. Once in the course of a halfcentury, to be sure, some adventurous rover would break in upon theirpeaceful repose, and, astonished at the unusual scene, would be almosttempted to claim the merit of a new discovery.

  Of this interesting group, but little account has ever been given, if weexcept the slight mention made of them in the sketches of South Seavoyages. Cook, in his repeated circumnavigations of the globe, barelytouched at their shores; and all that we know about them is from a fewgeneral narratives.

  Within the last few years, American and English vessels engaged in theextensive whale fisheries of the Pacific have occasionally, when short ofprovisions, put into the commodious harbour which there is in one of theislands; but a fear of the natives, founded on the recollection of thedreadful fate which many white men have received at their hands, hasdeterred their crews from intermixing with the population sufficiently togain any insight into their peculiar customs and manners. Indeed, there isno cluster of islands in the Pacific that has been any length of timediscovered, of which so little has hitherto been known as the Marquesas,and it is a pleasing reflection that this narrative of mine will dosomething towards withdrawing the veil from regions so romantic andbeautiful.