The Ocean Waifs: A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea

It may be asked why so many creatures of different kinds congregate in this part of the ocean? Upon what do they subsist? what food can they find so far from land?

A ready reply to these questions may be given, by saying, that they subsist upon each other; and this would be, to some extent, true. But then there must be a base forming the food for all, and produced by some process of nature. What process can be going on in the midst of the ocean to furnish the subsistence of such myriads of large and voracious creatures? In the waters of the great deep, apparently so pure and clear, one would think that no growth, – either animal or vegetable, could spring up, – that nothing could come out of nothing. For all this, in that pure, clear water, there is a continual process of production, – not only from the soil at the bottom of the sea, but the salt-water itself contains the germs of material substances, that sustain life, or become, themselves, living things, by what appears, to our ignorant eyes, spontaneous production.

There is no spontaneity in the matter. It is simply the principle of creation, and acting under laws and by ways that, however ill-understood by us, have existed from the beginning of the world.

It is true that the whole extent of the great oceans are not thus thickly peopled. Vast tracts may be traversed, where both fish and birds of all kinds are extremely scarce; and a ship may sail for days without seeing an individual of either kind. A hundred miles may be passed over, and the eye may not be gratified by the sight of a living thing, – either in the water or the air. These tracts may truly be termed the deserts of the sea; like those of the land, apparently uninhabited and uninhabitable.

It may be asked, Why this difference, since the sea seems all alike? The cause lies not in a difference of depth: for the tracts that teem with life are variable in this respect, – sometimes only a few fathoms in profundity, and sometime unfathomable.

The true explanation must be sought for elsewhere. It will be found not in depth, but in direction, – in the direction of the currents.

Every one knows that the great oceans are intersected here and there by currents, – often hundreds of miles in breadth, but sometimes narrowing to a width of as many “knots.” These oceanic streams are regular, though not regularly defined. They are not caused by mere temporary storms, but by winds having a constant and regular direction; as the “trades” in the Atlantic and Pacific, the “monsoons” in the Indian Ocean, the “pamperos” of South America, and the “northers” of the Mexican Gulf.

There is another cause for these currents, perhaps of more powerful influence than the winds, yet less taken into account. It is the spinning of the earth on its axis. Undoubtedly are the “trades” indebted to this for their direction towards the west, – the simple centrifugal tendency of the atmosphere. Otherwise, would these winds blow due northward and southward, coming into collision on the line of the equator.

But it is not my purpose to attempt a dissertation either on winds or oceanic streams. I am not learned enough for this, though enough to know that great misconception prevails on this subject, as well as upon that of the tides; and that meteorologists have not given due credit to the revolving motion of our planet, which is in truth the principal producer of these phenomena.

Why I have introduced the subject at all is, not because our little book is peculiarly a book of the ocean, but, because that ocean currents have much to do with “Ocean Waifs,” and that these last afford the true explanation of the phenomenon first-mentioned, – the fact that some parts of the ocean teem with animal life, while others are as dead as a desert. The currents account for it, thus: – where two of them meet, – as is often the case, – vast quantities of material substances, both vegetable and animal, are drifted together; where they are held, to a certain extent, stationary; or circling around in great ocean eddies. The wrack of sea-weed, – waifs from the distant shores, – birds that have fallen lifeless into the ocean, or drop their excrement to float on its surface, – fish that have died of disease, violence, or naturally, – for the finny tribes are not exempt from the natural laws of decay and death, – all these organisms, drifted by the currents, meet upon the neutral “ground,” – there to float about, and furnish food to myriads of living creatures, – many species of which are, to all appearance, scarce organised more highly than the decomposed matters that appear first to give them life, and afterwards sustain their existence.

In such tracts of the ocean are found the lower marine animals, in incalculable numbers; the floating shell-fish, as Janthina, Hyalaea and Cleodora; the sea-lizards, as Velellae, Porpitae, and their kindred; the squids, and other molluscs; with myriads of medusa.

These are the oceanic regions known to the sailors as “thick waters,” the favourite resort of the whale and its concomitant creatures, whose food they furnish; the shark, and its attendants; the dolphins, porpoises, sword-fish and flying-fish; with other denizens of the water; and a like variety of dwellers in the air, hovering above the surface, either as the enemies of those below, or aids to assist them in composing the inscrutable “chain of destruction.”

Chapter Sixty Five.

A Whale on Fire!

Perhaps we have drifted too far adown the currents of the ocean. From our digression let us return to out special “Waifs.” We left them making preparations to roast the shark-flesh, – not in single steaks, but in a wholesale fashion, – as if they had intended to prepare a “fish dinner” for the full crew of a frigate.

As already stated, fuel they had in sufficiency; or, at all events, the best of oil, that would serve as such. The spermaceti could not be readily kindled, nor its blaze kept up, without wicks. But neither was there any difficulty about this. There was a quantity of old rope trash on the raft, which had been fished up among the wreck of the Pandora, and kept in case of an emergency. It needed only to restore this to its original state of tarry fibre, when they would be provided with wick enough to keep the lamp long burning. It was the lamp itself, or rather the cooking furnace, that caused them uneasiness. They had none. The tiny tin vessel that had already served for a single meal would never do for the grand roti they now designed making. With it, along with time and patience, they might have accomplished the task; but time to them was too precious to be so wasted; and as to patience, – circumstanced as they were, it could scarcely be expected.

They stood in great need of a cooking-stove. There was nothing on board the Catamaran that could be used as a substitute. Indeed, to have kindled such a fire as they wanted on the raft, – without a proper material for their hearth, – would have seriously endangered the existence of the craft; and might have terminated in a conflagration.

It was a dilemma that had not suggested itself sooner – that is, until the shark-steaks had been made ready for roasting. Then it presented itself to their contemplation in full force, and apparently without any loophole to escape from it.

What was to be done for a cooking-stove?

Snowball sighed as he thought of his caboose, with all its paraphernalia of pots and pans, – especially his great copper, in which he had been accustomed to boil mountains of meat and oceans of pea-soup.

But Snowball was not the individual to give way to vain regrets, – at least, not for long. Despite that absence of that superior intellect, – which flippant gossips of so-called a “Social Science” delight in denying to his race, themselves often less gifted than he, – Snowball was endowed with rare ingenuity, – especially in matters relating to the cuisine, and in less than ten minutes after the question of a cooking-stove had been started, the Coromantee conceived the idea of one that might have vied with any of the various “patents” so loudly extolled by the ironmongers, and yet not so effective when submitted to the test. At all events, Snowball’s plan was suited to the circumstances in which its contriver was placed; and perhaps it was the only one which the circumstances would have allowed.

Unlike other inventors, the Coromantee proclaimed the plan of his invention as soon as he had conceived it.

“Wha’ for?” he asked, as the idea shaped itself in his skull, – “wha’ for we trouble ’bout a pot fo’ burn de oil?”

“What for, Snowy!” echoed the sailor, turning upon his interrogator an expectant look.

“Why we no make de fire up hya?”

The conversation was carried on upon the back of the whale, – where the sharks had been butchered and cut up.

“Up here!” again echoed the sailor, still showing surprise. “What matter whether it be up here or down theear, so long’s we’ve got no vessel, – neyther pot nor pan?”

“Doan care a dam fo’ neyder,” responded the ex-cook. “I’se soon show ye, Mass’ Brace, how we find vessel, big ’nuff to hold all de oil in de karkiss ob de ole cashlot, as you call him.”

“Explain, nigger, explain!”

“Sartin I do. Gib me dat axe. I soon ’splain de whole sarkumstance.”

Ben passed the axe, which he had been holding, into the hands of the Coromantee.

The latter, as he had promised, soon made his meaning clear, by setting to work upon the carcass of the cachalot, and with less than a dozen blows of the sharp-edged tool hollowing out a large cavity in the blubber.

“Now, Mass’ Brace,” cried he, when he had finished, triumphantly balancing the axe above his shoulder, “wha’ you call dat? Dar’s a lamp hold all de oil we want set blaze. You d’sire me ‘crow’ de hole any wida or deepa, I soon make ’im deep’s a draw-well an’ wide as de track ob a waggon. Wha’ say, Mass’ Brace?”

“Hurraw for you, Snowy! It be just the thing. I dar say it’s deep enough, and wide as we’ll want it. You ha got good brains, nigger, – not’ithstanding what them lubbers as they call filosaphurs say. I’m a white, an’ niver thought o’ it. This’ll do for the furness we want. Nothin’ more needed than to pour the sparmacety into it, chuck a bit o’ oakum on the top, an’ set all ablaze. Let’s do it, and cook the wittles at once.”

The cavity, which Snowball had “crowed” in the carcass of the whale was soon filled with oil taken from the case. In this was inserted with due care a quantity of the fibre, obtained by “picking” the old ropes into oakum.

A crane was next erected over the cavity, – a handspike forming one support and an oar the other. The crane itself consisted of the long iron arrow and socket of one of the harpoons found in the carcass of the cachalot.

Upon this was suspended, as upon a spit, so many slices of shark-meat as could be accommodated with room, and when all was arranged, a “taper” was handed up from below, and the wick set on fire.

The tarry strands caught like tinder; and soon after a fierce bright blaze was seen rising several feet above the back of the cachalot, – causing the shark-steaks to frizzle and fry, and promising in a very short space of time to “do them to a turn.”

Any one who could have witnessed the spectacle from distance, and not understanding its nature, might have fancied that the whale was on fire!

Chapter Sixty Six.

The big Raft

While the strange phenomenon of a blazing fire upon the back of a whale was being exhibited to the eyes of ocean-birds and ocean-fishes, – all doubtless wondering what it meant, – another and very different spectacle was occurring scarce twenty miles from the spot, – of course also upon the surface of the ocean.

If in the former there was something that might be called comic, there was nothing of this in the latter. On the contrary, it was a true tragedy, – a drama of death.

The stage upon which it was being enacted was a platform of planks and spars, rudely united together, – in short, a raft. The dramatis persona were men, – all men; although it might have required some stretch of imagination, – aided by a little acquaintanceship with the circumstances that had placed them upon that raft, – to have been certain that they were human beings. A stranger to them, looking upon them in reality, – or upon a picture, giving a faithful representation of them, – might have doubted their humanity, and mistaken them for fiends. No one could have been blamed for such a misconception.

If human beings in shape, and so in reality, they were fiends in aspect, and not far from it in mental conformation. Even in appearance they were more like skeletons than men. One actually was a skeleton, – not a living skeleton, but a corpse, clean-stripped of its flesh. The ensanguined bones, with some fragments of the cartilage still adhering to them, showed that the despoliation had been recent. The skeleton was not perfect. Some of the bones were absent. A few were lying near on the timbers of the raft, and a few others might have been seen in places where it was horrible to behold them!

The raft was an oblong platform of some twenty feet in length by about fifteen in width. It was constructed out of pieces of broken masts and spars of a ship, upon which was supported an irregular sheeting of planks, the fragments of bulwarks, hatches, cabin-doors that had been wrested from their hinges, lids of tea-chests, coops, and a few other articles, – such as form the paraphernalia of movables on board a ship. There was a large hogshead with two or three small barrels upon the raft; and around its edge were lashed several empty casks, serving as buoys to keep it above water. A single spar stood up out of its centre, or “midships,” to which was rigged – in a very slovenly manner – a large lateen sail, – either the spanker or spritsail of a ship, or the mizzen topsail of a bark.

Around the “step” of the mast a variety of other objects might have been seen: such as oars, handspikes, pieces of loose boards, some tangled coils of rope, an axe or two, half a dozen tin pots and “tots,” – such as are used by sailors, – a quantity of shark-bones clean picked, with two or three other bones, like those already alluded to, and whose size and form told them to be the tibia of a human skeleton.

Between twenty and thirty men were moving amid this miscellaneous collection, – not all moving: for they were in every conceivable attitude, of repose as of action. Some were seated, some lying stretched, some standing, some staggering, – as if reeling under the influence of intoxication, or too feeble to support their bodies in an erect attitude. It was not any rocking on the part of the raft that was producing these eccentric movements. The sea was perfectly quiescent, and the rude embarkation rested upon it like a log.

The cause might have been discovered near the bottom of the mast, where stood a barrel or cask of medium size, from which proceeded an exhalation, telling its contents to be rum.

The staggering skeletons were drunk!