by Jules Vernes
Ah, the Loire! If it cannot be compared with the Hudson, the Mississippi, or the St Lawrence, it is none the less one of the finest rivers of France. It would no doubt be looked upon as a small stream in America; but then, America is not simply a ‘country’, – it is a whole continent.
Nevertheless, at sight of so many passing ships, I felt an eager leaning toward the sea. I was well versed in the seaman’s language, and understood naval manoeuvres sufficiently to follow them out in the maritime novels of Fenimore Cooper, whom I never tired of reading, and still read with admiration. Looking through a little telescope, I saw the ships, ready to tack about, hoist their jibs and gather in their sails, shifting first abaft, then at the bows. But my brother and I had still not sampled sailing on a stream ... that came later.
4
At the farther end of the port there was a man who kept boats to let, at twenty cents for the day. This was a heavy sum for our purses. It was also imprudent to embark in the man’s boats, for they leaked sadly.
The first one we took had but a single mast, but the second had two, and the third had three, like the coasting luggers and fishing-smacks. We went out with the ebb-tide, luffing against the west wind.
What a schooling was ours! The blunders we made in steering and in working the sails, the sheets let out at the wrong moment, and the shame of tacking with a back wind, when the waves ran high in the broad basin of the Loire, in front of our Chantenay!
Generally we went out with the ebb and came back with the flow, a few hours later. And, as our clumsy hired craft sailed heavily along between the banks, what a look of envy we cast on the pretty pleasure yachts that went lightly scudding over the bosom of the river!
One day I happened to be alone in a sorry yawl, which had no keel. I was some two leagues beyond Chantenay, when one of the planks was stove in, and the water came into the boat. There was no stopping the hole. The yawl went down head-foremost, and I had just time to save myself by swimming to an islet all covered with a thick growth of reeds, the tufted tops of which were swayed by the wind.
Now, of all the books I had read in my childhood, the one I liked best was The Swiss Family Robinson; I preferred it to Robinson Crusoe. I know that Daniel Defoe’s work is broader in its philosophical scope. It is man given up to himself alone, who one day discovers a footprint on the sand. But the work of Wyss, in rich facts and incidents, is perhaps more interesting to a youthful mind. It had the family, the father, the mother, the children in all their diverse aptitudes. How many years I passed on that island! With what enthusiasm I followed their discoveries! How I envied their lot! So it doesn’t surprise me that I was to be irresistibly drawn to create The Mysterious Island, ‘the Robinsons of science’, and in Two Years Holiday a whole boarding school of Robinson Crusoes!
Meanwhile, I was enacting, on my little island, not the part of Wyss’s hero, but that of Defoe’s. I was already meditating the construction of a log-hut, the manufacture of a fishing-line with a reed, and of fish-hooks with thorns, and of obtaining fire as the savages do, by rubbing one dry stick against another.
Signals? I should decline to make any, for they would be answered too soon, and I should be saved quicker than I wished to be.
The first thing was to appease my hunger. But how? My provisions had gone down with the wreck. Go hunting birds? I had neither dog nor gun. Well, what about shellfish? There were none.
Now, at last. I was made acquainted with all the agony of being shipwrecked on a desert island, and with horrors of privation such as the Selkirks and other personages mentioned in the ‘Celebrated Shipwrecks’ had experienced – men who were not imaginary Robinsons! My stomach cried with hunger.
The thing lasted only a few hours, for, as soon as it was low tide, I had merely to wade ankle-deep through the water to reach what I called the mainland, namely, the right bank of the Loire.
I quietly came back home, where I had to put up with the family dinner instead of the Crusoe repast I had dreamed of – raw shellfish, a slice of peccary, and bread made from the flour of manioc!
Such was this lively bit of navigation, with its head-winds, its foundering and disabled vessel – everything in fact that a shipwrecked mariner of my age could desire.
I have sometimes heard the reproach that my books excite young boys to quit their homes for adventurous travel. This, I am sure, has never been the case. But if boys should be brought to launch out into such enterprises, let them take example from the heroes of my Extraordinary Voyages, and they are sure to come safe into harbour again.
5
At twelve years of age I had not yet set eyes on the sea. Except in thought, I had not hitherto set foot on the many sardine-boats, fishing-smacks, brigs, schooners, three-masters, or even steamboats – they were then styled pyroscaphes – which sailed towards the mouth of the Loire.
One day, however, my brother and I got permission to take passage on board Pyroscaphe No. Two. What joy was ours! It was enough to make us lose our wits.
Soon we were on our way. We passed Indret, the huge State establishment, all feathered in dark wreaths of smoke. We left behind the landing-places on either bank. – Coueron, Le Pellerin, Paimboeuf. Our pyroscaphe crossed obliquely the broad estuary of the river.
We reached St Nazaire, with its incipient pier, its old church and slate-covered, slanting steeple, and the few houses or ramshackle tenements, which at that time made up the village that has so rapidly increased into a large town.
To rush off the boat and dash down the seaweed-coated rocks, in order to take up some of the sea-water in the hollow of our hands and convey it to our lips, was for my brother and myself our first impulse.
‘But it isn’t salty!’ said I, turning pale.
‘Not a bit!’ responded my brother.
‘We have been hoaxed!’ I exclaimed, in a tone which betrayed the liveliest disappointment.
Noodles that we were! It was low tide, and we had simply scooped up from the hollow of a rock some of the water of the Loire.
As the tide came in, however, we found it briny beyond our best hopes.
6
At last I had set eyes on the sea, or at least on the vast bay which opens on the ocean between the extreme points of the river.
I have since scudded over the Bay of Biscay, the Baltic, the North Sea and the Mediterranean.
With a smaller boat first, then with a sloop-yacht, and with a steam-yacht afterwards, I have been able to make some fine coasting pleasure-trips. I have even crossed the Atlantic on board the Great Eastern, and set foot on American soil, where – I am ashamed to have to confess it – I stayed only eight days.
What could I do? I had a ticket to go and come which was only good for a week!
After all, I saw New York, stopped at the Fifth Avenue Hotel, crossed East River before Brooklyn Bridge was built, sailed up the Hudson as far as Albany, visited Buffalo and Lake Erie, gazed on the Falls of Niagara from the top of the Terrapin Tower, while a lunar rainbow could be seen through the vapours of the mighty cataract, and finally, on the other side of the Suspension Bridge, sat down on the Canadian shore.
After which, I started back home. And one of my deepest regrets is to think that I shall never again see America – a country which I love, and which every Frenchman may love as a sister of France.
But these are no longer the reminiscences of childhood and youth; they are those of maturer years. My young readers are now made acquainted with the instincts and circumstances that led me to write a series of geographical novels. I was living in Paris, then, in the company of musicians, among whom I retain some good friends still, and was very little with my literary colleagues whom I knew little of.
However, I have made several voyages in the west, north and south of Europe – voyages, of course, much less extraordinary than those described in my stories, and I have now withdrawn into the provinces to terminate my task. That task is to paint the whole earth, the entire world, in novel-form, by imagining adventures peculiar
to each people, and by creating personages specially belonging to the regions in which they act.
But the world is very big, and life very short. To leave behind a complete work, one should live a hundred years.
Well, I shall try to be a centenarian, like M. Chevreul. But, between you and me, it is very difficult.
The First Ships of the Mexican Navy
1-From the Island of Guajan to Acapulco
On 18th October, 1825, the Asia, a high-built Spanish ship, and the Constanzia, a brig of eight guns, cast anchor off the isle of Guajan, one of the Mariannas. The crews of these vessels, badly fed, ill-paid, and harassed with fatigue during their six months voyage from Spain, had been secretly plotting a mutiny. Their insubordinate spirit was more especially shown on the Constanzia commanded by Captain Don Orteva, a man of iron will whom nothing could bend. The brig’s progress had been impeded by a number of serious accidents, so unexpected that it was clear they were due to deliberate malice. The Asia, commanded by Don Roque of Guzarte, had had to put into port at the same time. One night the compass had been smashed, nobody knew how: on another the foremast shrouds gave way as if they had been cut through, and the mast with all its sails and rigging fell over the side. Finally, during some important manoeuvres, the rudder-ropes had twice, most unaccountably, snapped.
Guajan, like all the other islands in the Mariannas, is governed by the Captain General of the Philippines. The Spaniards were in a friendly port, where they could speedily repair the damage.
While they were still forced to remain in port, Don Orteva told Don Roque of the mutinous spirit he had noticed on the brig, and both captains decided to be on their guard and to redouble their vigilance.
Don Orteva had especially to keep an eye on two of his men – his lieutenant Martinez and José, the captain of the maintop.
Lieutenant Martinez, who had already compromised his standing as an officer by joining in the plots hatched in the forecastle, had been several times placed under arrest; and during his imprisonment his place as lieutenant of the Constanzia had been taken by the midshipman Pablo. As for the seaman José he was a despicable wretch, influenced only by the love of gold. But he was closely watched by the boatswain, Jacopo, in whom Don Orteva placed complete confidence.
Young Pablo was one of those select few whose generosity prompts him to dare anything. An orphan, saved and brought up by Captain Orteva, he would readily have given his life for that of his benefactor. During his talks with Jacopo, Pablo had spoken most warmly of the filial affection he felt for his captain, and the honest seaman shook his hand in token of sympathy. Don Orteva had thus two devoted men on whom he could rely absolutely. But what could the three of them do against the ill-will of a lawless crew? While they tried, by night and day, to subdue the unruly spirit of the men, Martinez and José instigated their comrades to revolt and treachery.
The night before they were to set sail, Lieutenant Martinez went to a seedy inn. where he met several petty-officers and a dozen of the seamen from both ships.
‘Comrades,’ he addressed them, ‘thanks to those lucky accidents, the vessels have had to put into port, and I’ve been able to come here on the quiet to have a word with you.’
‘Bravo!’ cried the company with one voice.
‘Go on, Lieutenant,’ said one of the sailors, ‘and tell us your plan.’
‘This is my plan,’ Martinez replied. ‘As soon as we’ve been able to master the two vessels, we’ll set sail for the coast of Mexico. You know that it’s a new state, and that it hasn’t any fleet. It’ll buy our ships with no questions asked, and then we’ll not only start getting regular pay, we’ll share out what we get for the ships.’
‘Right!’
‘And what’s to be the signal for acting on both the ships at once?’ asked José.
‘A rocket will be sent up from the Asia,’ Martinez told him.
‘That’ll be the time to act! We’re ten against one, and the officers will be made prisoners on both ships before they’ve got time to know where they are.’
‘And when’s the signal to be given?’ asked one of the petty-officers of the Constanzia.
‘It’ll be in a few days, when we’re off the island of Mendanao.’
‘But won’t the Mexicans welcome our ships with cannon-shot?’ José protested. ‘If I’m not mistaken, the Mexican Confederation has issued a decree to be on their guard against Spanish vessels and instead of gold it may be lead and iron they’ll pay us with!’
‘Don’t worry, José. We’ll let them know who we are – from a good distance! Martinez assured him.
‘But how?’
‘We’ll hoist the Mexican colours at our peaks,’ and Martinez displayed a flag striped green, white, and red.
A gloomy silence greeted the appearance of this emblem of Mexican independence.
‘So already you’re regretting the Spanish flag?’ the lieutenant sneered at them. ‘Very well then! Anyone who feels like that can clear out and sail on happily under the orders of Captain Don Orteva or Commander Don Roque! But we, who don’t want to obey them any longer, we’ll soon know how to get the better of them!’
There came a general shout of assent.
‘Comrades!’ Martinez continued. ‘Our officers rely on using the trade winds to make for Sunda, but we’ll show them that we can beat up against the easterlies of the Pacific without their assistance.’
On leaving this secret meeting the sailors scattered and went back separately to their respective ships.
Next day, at dawn, the Asia and the Constanzia weighed anchor, and, steering to the south-west, set a course to New Holland. Lieutenant Martinez had returned to his duty, but by Captain Orteva’s instructions he was closely watched.
None the less, the captain was disturbed by sinister forebodings. He realised that the Spanish navy was likely to be destroyed, and that insubordination would lead to its destruction. Moreover, his patriotism was not yet reconciled to the successive disasters which had fallen on his country, and of which the revolution in Mexico had been the final blow. He often discussed these serious questions with young Pablo, and he always stressed the former supremacy of the Spanish fleet in every sea.
‘My boy,’ he said, ‘there’s no more discipline among our sailors these days. Signs of mutiny are quite obvious on my own ship, and it’s quite likely – I have a foreboding – that some shameful treachery is going to cost me my life! But you will avenge me, will you not? – and avenge Spain at the same time, for any blow aimed at me is really directed at her.’
‘I swear I will, Captain Orteva,’ the boy assured him.
‘Don’t make enemies with anyone on the brig, but remember, my boy, that in these unhappy times, the best way of serving your country is to keep a good look-out and then, when the time comes, to punish the wretches who want to betray her.’
I’ll die, I promise you,’ the boy replied earnestly. ‘Yes, if need be I’ll die to punish these traitors.’
It was three days since the ships had left the Mariannas. The Constanzia sailed with yards squared before a fresh breeze. The brig, with her low graceful hull, her light rigging, and her raking masts, bounded over the waves, whose foam covered her eight six-pounder carronades.
‘Twelve knots, Lieutenant,’ the midshipman Pablo told Martinez. ‘If we can speed along like this with the wind right aft, our voyage won’t take long.’
‘God grant it! We’ve had sufferings enough to make me want to see the end of them.’
The seaman José, who happened to be near the quarterdeck, had been listening.
‘We soon ought to sight land,’ Martinez said loudly.
‘Mindanao Island,’ the midshipman replied. ‘We’re at 140° west longitude and 8° north latitude, and if I’m not mistaken that island is at ...’
‘A hundred and forty degrees thirty-nine minutes longitude and 7° latitude,’ Martinez replied at once.
José looked up; then, having made a slight sign to Martinez, he hurried forw
ard.
‘You’re on the middle watch, Pablo?’ asked Martinez.
‘Yes, Lieutenant.’
‘It’s six now, so I won’t detain you.’
Pablo went below.
Martinez stayed alone on the poop and looked towards the Asia, which was sailing to leeward of the brig. The evening was fine, and presaged one of those lovely calm fresh tropical nights.
The lieutenant tried to make out in the gloom who was on watch. He could recognise José and two of the men who had been at the meeting in Guajan.
He then went up to the man at the helm. He said a couple of words to him in low tones, and that was all.
But it might have been noticed that the helm had been put a little more a-weather than before, so that the brig soon drew perceptibly towards the larger ship.
Contrary to the usual custom, Martinez paced up and down on the lee side, keeping an eye on the Asia. Uneasy and almost frightened, he kept playing with the speaking trumpet he was holding.
Suddenly an explosion was heard on the larger ship.
At this signal Martinez leapt on to the hammock-nettings and shouted: ‘All hands on deck! Brail up the courses.’
At that moment Don Orteva, followed by his officers, emerged from his cabin and demanded, ‘Why was that order given?’
Without replying, Martinez sprang down from the hammock-nettings and ran to the forecastle.
‘Down with the helm!’ he shouted. ‘Brace the yards to port! Quick! Haul away! Let fly the jib-sheet!’
At that moment some more explosions were heard on the Asia.
The crew obeyed the lieutenant’s orders, and the brig, coming quickly to the wind, hove to under her fore top-sail.
