The Coral Island: A Tale of the Pacific Ocean

by R. M. Ballantyne

  CHAPTER XVI.

  The boat launched--We visit the coral reef--The great breaker that nevergoes down--Coral insects--The way in which coral islands are made--Theboat's sail--We tax our ingenuity to form fish-hooks--Some of the fish wesaw--And a monstrous whale--Wonderful shower of little fish--Water-spouts.

  It was a bright, clear, beautiful morning, when we first launched ourlittle boat and rowed out upon the placid waters of the lagoon. Not abreath of wind ruffled the surface of the deep. Not a cloud spotted thedeep blue sky. Not a sound that was discordant broke the stillness ofthe morning, although there were many sounds, sweet, tiny, and melodious,that mingled in the universal harmony of nature. The sun was just risingfrom the Pacific's ample bosom and tipping the mountain tops with a redglow. The sea was shining like a sheet of glass, yet heaving with thelong deep swell that, all the world round, indicates the life of ocean;and the bright sea-weeds and the brilliant corals shone in the depths ofthat pellucid water, as we rowed over it, like rare and precious gems.Oh! it was a sight fitted to stir the soul of man to its profoundestdepths, and, if he owned a heart at all, to lift that heart in adorationand gratitude to the great Creator of this magnificent and gloriousuniverse.

  At first, in the strength of our delight, we rowed hither and thitherwithout aim or object. But after the effervescence of our spirits wasabated, we began to look about us and to consider what we should do.

  "I vote that we row to the reef," cried Peterkin.

  "And I vote that we visit the islands within the lagoon," said I.

  "And I vote we do both," cried Jack, "so pull away, boys."

  As I have already said, we had made four oars, but our boat was so smallthat only two were necessary. The extra pair were reserved in case anyaccident should happen to the others. It was therefore only needful thattwo of us should row, while the third steered, by means of an oar, andrelieved the rowers occasionally.

  First we landed on one of the small islands and ran all over it, but sawnothing worthy of particular notice. Then we landed on a larger island,on which were growing a few cocoa-nut trees. Not having eaten anythingthat morning, we gathered a few of the nuts and breakfasted. After thiswe pulled straight out to sea and landed on the coral reef.

  This was indeed a novel and interesting sight to us. We had now been solong on shore that we had almost forgotten the appearance of breakers,for there were none within the lagoon; but now, as we stood beside thefoam-crested billow of the open sea, all the enthusiasm of the sailor wasawakened in our breasts; and, as we gazed on the wide-spread ruin of thatsingle magnificent breaker that burst in thunder at our feet, we forgotthe Coral Island behind us; we forgot our bower and the calm repose ofthe scented woods; we forgot all that had passed during the last fewmonths, and remembered nothing but the storms, the calms, the freshbreezes and the surging billows of the open sea.

  This huge, ceaseless breaker, to which I have so often alluded, was amuch larger and more sublime object than we had at all imagined it to be.It rose many yards above the level of the sea, and could be seenapproaching at some distance from the reef. Slowly and majestically itcame on, acquiring greater volume and velocity as it advanced, until itassumed the form of a clear watery arch, which sparkled in the brightsun. On it came with resistless and solemn majesty,--the upper edgelipped gently over, and it fell with a roar that seemed as though theheart of Ocean were broken in the crash of tumultuous water, while thefoam-clad coral reef appeared to tremble beneath the mighty shock!

  We gazed long and wonderingly at this great sight, and it was withdifficulty we could tear ourselves away from it. As I have once beforementioned, this wave broke in many places over the reef and scatteredsome of its spray into the lagoon, but in most places the reef wassufficiently broad and elevated to receive and check its entire force. Inmany places the coral rocks were covered with vegetation,--the beginning,as it appeared to us, of future islands. Thus, on this reef, we came toperceive how most of the small islands of those seas are formed. On onepart we saw the spray of the breaker washing over the rocks, and millionsof little, active, busy creatures continuing the work of building up thisliving rampart. At another place, which was just a little too high forthe waves to wash over it, the coral insects were all dead; for we foundthat they never did their work above water. They had faithfullycompleted the mighty work which their Creator had given them to do, andthey were now all dead. Again, in other spots the ceaseless lashing ofthe sea had broken the dead coral in pieces, and cast it up in the formof sand. Here sea-birds had alighted, little pieces of sea-weed andstray bits of wood had been washed up, seeds of plants had been carriedby the wind and a few lovely blades of bright green had already sprungup, which, when they died, would increase the size and fertility of theseemeralds of Ocean. At other places these islets had grown apace, andwere shaded by one or two cocoa-nut trees, which grew, literally, in thesand, and were constantly washed by the ocean spray; yet, as I havebefore remarked, their fruit was most refreshing and sweet to our taste.

  Again at this time Jack and I pondered the formation of the large coralislands. We could now understand how the low ones were formed, but thelarger islands cost us much consideration, yet we could arrive at nocertain conclusion on the subject.

  Having satisfied our curiosity and enjoyed ourselves during the wholeday, in our little boat, we returned, somewhat wearied, and, withal,rather hungry, to our bower.

  "Now," said Jack, "as our boat answers so well, we will get a mast andsail made immediately."

  "So we will," cried Peterkin, as we all assisted to drag the boat abovehigh-water mark; "we'll light our candle and set about it this verynight. Hurrah, my boys, pull away!"

  As we dragged our boat, we observed that she grated heavily on her keel;and, as the sands were in this place mingled with broken coral rocks, wesaw portions of the wood being scraped off.

  "Hallo!" cried Jack, on seeing this. "That won't do. Our keel will beworn off in no time at this rate."

  "So it will," said I, pondering deeply as to how this might be prevented.But I am not of a mechanical turn, naturally, so I could conceive noremedy save that of putting a plate of iron on the keel, but as we had noiron I knew not what was to be done. "It seems to me, Jack," I added,"that it is impossible to prevent the keel being worn off thus."

  "Impossible!" cried Peterkin, "my dear Ralph, you are mistaken, there isnothing so easy--"

  "How?" I inquired, in some surprise.

  "Why, by not using the boat at all!" replied Peterkin.

  "Hold your impudent tongue, Peterkin," said Jack, as he shouldered theoars, "come along with me and I'll give you work to do. In the firstplace, you will go and collect cocoa-nut fibre, and set to work to makesewing twine with it--"

  "Please, captain," interrupted Peterkin, "I've got lots of it madealready,--more than enough, as a little friend of mine used to be in thehabit of saying every day after dinner."

  "Very well," continued Jack; "then you'll help Ralph to collect cocoa-nutcloth, and cut it into shape, after which we'll make a sail of it. I'llsee to getting the mast and the gearing; so let's to work."

  And to work we went right busily, so that in three days from that time wehad set up a mast and sail, with the necessary rigging, in our littleboat. The sail was not, indeed, very handsome to look at, as it wasformed of a number of oblong patches of cloth; but we had sewed it wellby means of our sail-needle, so that it was strong, which was the chiefpoint. Jack had also overcome the difficulty about the keel, by pinningto it a _false_ keel. This was a piece of tough wood, of the same lengthand width as the real keel, and about five inches deep. He made it ofthis depth because the boat would be thereby rendered not only much moresafe, but more able to beat against the wind; which, in a sea where thetrade-winds blow so long and so steadily in one direction, was a matterof great importance. This piece of wood was pegged very firmly to thekeel; and we now launched our boat with the satisfaction of knowing thatwhen the false keel should be scraped off
we could easily put on another;whereas, should the real keel have been scraped away, we could not haverenewed it without taking our boat to pieces, which Peterkin said madehis "marrow quake to think upon."

  The mast and sail answered excellently; and we now sailed about in thelagoon with great delight, and examined with much interest the appearanceof our island from a distance. Also, we gazed into the depths of thewater, and watched for hours the gambols of the curious andbright-coloured fish among the corals and sea-weed. Peterkin also made afishing line, and Jack constructed a number of hooks, some of which werevery good, others remarkably bad. Some of these hooks were made of iron-wood, which did pretty well, the wood being extremely hard, and Jack madethem very thick and large. Fish there are not particular. Some of thecrooked bones in fish-heads also answered for this purpose pretty well.But that which formed our best and most serviceable hook was the brassfinger-ring belonging to Jack. It gave him not a little trouble tomanufacture it. First he cut it with the axe; then twisted it into theform of a hook. The barb took him several hours to cut. He did it bymeans of constant sawing with the broken pen-knife. As for the point, anhour's rubbing on a piece of sandstone made an excellent one.

  It would be a matter of much time and labour to describe the appearanceof the multitudes of fish that were day after day drawn into our boat bymeans of the brass hook. Peterkin always caught them,--for we observedthat he derived much pleasure from fishing,--while Jack and I found ampleamusement in looking on, also in gazing down at the coral groves, and inbaiting the hook. Among the fish that we saw, but did not catch, wereporpoises and sword-fish, whales and sharks. The porpoises camefrequently into our lagoon in shoals, and amused us not a little by theirbold leaps into the air, and their playful gambols in the sea. The sword-fish were wonderful creatures; some of them apparently ten feet inlength, with an ivory spear, six or eight feet long, projecting fromtheir noses. We often saw them darting after other fish, and no doubtthey sometimes killed them with their ivory swords. Jack rememberedhaving heard once of a sword-fish attacking a ship,--which seemed strangeindeed; but, as they are often in the habit of attacking whales, perhapsit mistook the ship for one. This sword-fish ran against the vessel withsuch force, that it drove its sword quite through the thick planks; andwhen the ship arrived in harbour, long afterwards, the sword was foundstill sticking in it!

  Sharks did not often appear; but we took care never again to bathe indeep water without leaving one of our number in the boat to give uswarning, if he should see a shark approaching. As for the whales, theynever came into our lagoon, but we frequently saw them spouting in thedeep water beyond the reef. I shall never forget my surprise the firstday I saw one of these huge monsters close to me. We had been ramblingabout on the reef during the morning, and were about to re-embark in ourlittle boat, to return home, when a loud blowing sound caused us to wheelrapidly round. We were just in time to see a shower of spray falling,and the flukes or tail of some monstrous fish disappear in the sea a fewhundred yards off. We waited some time to see if he would rise again. Aswe stood, the sea seemed to open up at our very feet; an immense spout ofwater was sent with a snort high into the air, and the huge blunt head ofa sperm whale arose before us. It was so large that it could easily havetaken our little boat, along with ourselves, into its mouth! It plungedslowly back into the sea, like a large ship foundering, and struck thewater with its tail so forcibly as to cause a sound like a cannon shot.We also saw a great number of flying fish, although we caught none; andwe noticed that they never flew out of the water except when followed bytheir bitter foe, the dolphin, from whom they thus endeavoured to escape.But of all the fish that we saw, none surprised us so much as those thatwe used to find in shallow pools after a shower of rain; and this not onaccount of their appearance, for they were ordinary-looking and verysmall, but on account of their having descended in a shower of rain! Wecould account for them in no other way, because the pools in which wefound these fish were quite dry before the shower, and at some distanceabove high-water mark. Jack, however, suggested a cause which seemed tome very probable. We used often to see water-spouts in the sea. A water-spout is a whirling body of water, which rises from the sea like a sharp-pointed pillar. After rising a good way, it is met by a long tongue,which comes down from the clouds; and when the two have joined, they looksomething like an hour-glass. The water-spout is then carried by thewind, sometimes gently, sometimes with violence, over the sea, sometimesup into the clouds, and then, bursting asunder, it descends in a deluge.This often happens over the land as well as over the sea; and itsometimes does much damage, but frequently it passes gently away. Now,Jack thought that the little fish might perhaps have been carried up in awater-spout, and so sent down again in a shower of rain. But we couldnot be certain as to this point; yet we thought it likely.

  During these delightful fishing and boating excursions we caught a goodmany eels, which we found to be very good to eat. We also found turtlesamong the coral rocks, and made excellent soup in our iron kettle.Moreover, we discovered many shrimps and prawns, so that we had no lackof variety in our food; and, indeed, we never passed a week withoutmaking some new and interesting discovery of some sort or other, eitheron the land or in the sea.