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Cruise of the Alerte - In Search of Treasure

CHAPTER X. THE SUMMIT OF TRINIDAD. On the following morning—November 21—as soon as breakfast was over, the doctor and myself started for the shore. In view of the rough climbing before us we did not burden ourselves with much baggage, but set forth in light marching order. We dispensed with blankets, and, in addition to the somewhat scanty clothing we had on, we carried merely provisions for three days, consisting of some ship's biscuit, a few strips of Brazilian charki or jerked beef—rather rank—some dried figs, a flask of rum, a tin bottle to hold water, one pannikin, tobacco, pipes, and matches. We could see from the deck that there was considerable surf on the beach, and it was evident that we should not find the landing at the pier to be so easy a matter as it often is. Two of the paid hands pulled us off in the dinghy. When we were about halfway to the shore we perceived a bright red object on an eminence near the cascade. On getting nearer we distinguished this to be a ragged red flag flying from a pole. This was a startling discovery for us, and might signify that some rival expedition had landed on the island. We reached the pier and found a high swell rolling by it, while eddies and overfalls round the outer end of it caused the boat to become more or less unmanageable, driving her first in one direction, then in another, so that she could not be brought very close to, without risk of staving her in against the rocks. Under these circumstances the only safe method of getting on shore was to jump into the water. The boat was backed in towards the pier end, the men pulling a few strokes ahead whenever a wave threatened to dash her on to it. I stood in the stern and awaited a favourable opportunity, then jumped overboard and clambered quickly up the pier side before the next roller should wash me off. Then the boat was backed in again, and the doctor repeated the performance. We had no particular objection to the wetting we had received, but a good many of our biscuits were converted into a pulp and our figs were pickled with the sea-water. So here we were at last safely on shore at Trinidad, both in high spirits at the prospect before us, for we were eager to commence the exploration that might result in who could tell what magnificent results. Climbing over the rugged top of the pier we descended on the beach, which at high-water is partly overflowed, the pier being then converted into an island. We scrambled over the rocks and scoriæ to the height by the cascade on which the flag was, and then our suspicions were put at rest by what we discovered. A good-sized barrel had been firmly jammed between the rocks in a prominent place and filled with stones. A pole had been planted in the barrel, and from this floated the red flag we had seen. It was in so ragged a condition that it was impossible to say whether it had ever been a British flag or not. Under it was a wooden tablet, on which was painted the following inscription: 'H.M.S. "Ruby," February 26, 1889.' There was also a bottle on the cask containing the cards of the commander of the vessel, Captain Kennedy, and his wardroom officers. Having thus satisfied ourselves that no enemy was in possession of the island, we went to the cascade. This stream rises among the tree-ferns at the summit of the mountain and rushes down the gully with a considerable volume of water. This issue is, I should imagine, perennial. Then we commenced our ascent, which involved no light work. The gully was excessively steep. We were climbing up a staircase of great rocks, and often where there were insurmountable precipices we had to make a détour round the mountain-side, creeping carefully along the steep declivities that overhung the cliffs, the rock and earth crumbling beneath our feet as we went: for one of the most unpleasant peculiarities of this island is that it is nowhere solid; it is rotten throughout, its substance has been disintegrated by volcanic fires and by the action of water, so that it is everywhere tumbling to pieces. As one travels over the mountains one is ever starting miniature landslips and dislodging great stones, which roll, thundering, down the cliffs, gathering other companions as they go until a very avalanche is formed. On this day the doctor, who was a little ahead of me at the time, sent adrift a stone weighing a hundredweight at the least, which just cleared my head as I stooped down to dodge it. We were on a dangerous part of the mountain, and had it struck me it must have impelled me over a precipice several hundred feet in height. After this we followed parallel tracks wherever this was feasible. The unstableness of Trinidad causes a perpetual sense of insecurity while one is on the mountains. One knows not when some over-hanging pinnacle may topple down. One great source of danger is that there are many declivities which can be descended but not ascended, and it would be easy to get hopelessly imprisoned at the foot of one of these. In the 'Cruise of the "Falcon"' is described one really terrible experience we went through. Our exploring party had found no water, and the boy was practically dying of thirst. So, driven by urgent necessity—for we saw by the configuration of the mountains that we should almost certainly find water at the bottom of a certain ravine—we proceeded to descend to it down a great slope, not of loose débris, but of half-consolidated volcanic matter like half-baked bricks, and very brittle. This slope became steeper as we advanced and very dangerous, but it was impossible to retrace our steps. When we attempted to ascend, the mountain slid away under our feet, crumbling into ashes. It was like climbing a treadmill. So we had to abandon this hope and go still further down, lying on our backs, progressing inch by inch carefully, one of us occasionally sliding down a few yards and sending an avalanche before him. We knew not to the edge of what precipices this dreadful way would lead us. Luckily we reached the bottom and found water in safety. I determined not to get into any difficulties of this description in the course of our present journey. We gradually ascended the ravine, sometimes climbing on one side of it, sometimes on the other, and occasionally wading through the water at the bottom, according to which route was the safest. The nature of the scenery around us was now grand in the extreme, and had a weird character of its own that I have never perceived on other mountains. The jagged and torn peaks, the profound chasms, the huge landslips of black rocks, the slopes of red volcanic ash destitute of vegetation, in themselves produce a sense of extreme desolation; but this is heightened by the presence of a ghastly dead vegetation and by the numberless uncanny birds and land-crabs which cover all the rocks. This lonely islet is perhaps the principal breeding place for sea-birds in the South Atlantic. Here multitudes of man-of-war birds, gannets, boobies, cormorants, and petrels have their undisturbed haunts. Not knowing how dangerous he is, they treat their superior animal, man, with a shocking want of due respect. The large birds more especially attack one furiously if one approaches their nests in the breeding season, and in places where one has to clamber with hands as well as feet, and is therefore helpless, they are positively dangerous. As for the land-crabs, which are unlike any I have seen elsewhere, they swarm all over the island in incredible numbers. I have even seen them two or three deep in shady places under the rocks; they crawl over everything, polluting every stream, devouring anything—a loathsome lot of brutes, which were of use, however, round our camp as scavengers. They have hard shells of a bright saffron colour, and their faces have a most cynical and diabolic expression. As one approaches them they stand on their hind legs and wave their pincers threateningly, while they roll their hideous goggle eyes at one in a dreadful manner. If a man is sleeping or sitting down quietly, these creatures will come up to have a bite at him, and would devour him if he was unable for some reason to shake them off; but we murdered so many in the vicinity of our camp during our stay on the island, that they certainly became less bold, and it seemed almost as if the word had been passed all over Trinidad that we were dangerous animals, to be shunned by every prudent crab. Even when we were exploring remote districts we at last found that they fled in terror, instead of menacing us with their claws. But the great mystery of this mysterious island is the forest of dead trees which covers it and which astonishes every visitor. The following account of this wood is taken from the 'Cruise of the "Falcon,"' and as it was nine years ago, so is it now:— 'What struck us as remarkable was, that though in this cove there was no live vegetation of any kind, there were traces of an abundant extinct vegetation. The mountain slopes were thickly covered with dead wood—wood, too, that had evidently long since been dead; some of these leafless trunks were prostrate, some still stood up as they had grown.... When we afterwards discovered that over the whole of this extensive island—from the beach up to the summit of the highest mountain—at the bottom and on the slopes of every now barren ravine, on whose loose-rolling stones no vegetation could possibly take root—these dead trees were strewed as closely as it is possible for trees to grow; and when we further perceived that they all seemed to have died at one and the same time, as if plague-struck, and that no single live specimen, young or old, was to be found anywhere—our amazement was increased. 'At one time Trinidad must have been covered with one magnificent forest, presenting to passing vessels a far different appearance to that it now does, with its inhospitable and barren crags. 'The descriptions given in the "Directory" allude to these forests; therefore, whatever catastrophe it may have been that killed off all the vegetation of the island, it must have occurred within the memory of man. 'Looking at the rotten, broken up condition of the rock, and the nature of the soil, where there is a soil—a loose powder, not consolidated like earth, but having the appearance of fallen volcanic ash—I could not help imagining that some great eruption had brought about all this desolation; Trinidad is the acknowledged centre of a small volcanic patch that lies in this portion of the South Atlantic, therefore I think this theory a more probable one than that of a long drought, a not very likely contingency in this rather rainy region.' Some time after the publication of the 'Cruise of the "Falcon"' I came across an excellent description of Trinidad in Captain Marryat's novel, 'Frank Mildmay.' It is obvious from the following passage, which I quote from that work, that the trees had been long dead at the date of its publication, 1829:— 'Here a wonderful and most melancholy phenomenon arrested our attention. Thousands and thousands of trees covered the valley, each of them about thirty feet high; but every tree was dead, and extended its leafless boughs to another—a forest of desolation, as if nature had at some particular moment ceased to vegetate! There was no underwood or grass. On the lowest of the dead boughs, the gannets, and other sea-birds, had built their nests, in numbers uncountable. Their tameness, as Cowper says, "was shocking to me." So unaccustomed did they seem to man that the mothers brooding over their young only opened their beaks, in a menacing attitude, at us as we passed by them. How to account satisfactorily for the simultaneous destruction of this vast forest of trees was very difficult; there was no want of rich earth for nourishment of the roots. The most probable cause appeared to me a sudden and continued eruption of sulphuric effluvia from the volcano; or else by some unusually heavy gale of wind or hurricane the trees had been drenched with salt water to the roots. One or the other of these causes must have produced the effect. The philosopher or the geologist must decide.' Captain Marryat was evidently unaware that these dead trees are to be found on the heights 3,000 feet above the sea-level as well as in the valleys, or he would not have suggested salt water as the cause of their destruction. His description proves that the trees were dead at least sixty years ago, and in all probability they had been dead for a long time before. The latest record I have been able to discover which describes live trees as existing on Trinidad is dated as far back as 1700. The Ninepin and the Sugarloaf, now utterly barren, were then crowded with trees of a great size. Though some of this timber is rotten, a large proportion of it is not decayed in the least, but when cut with the axe presents the appearance of a sound, well-seasoned wood. It is gnarled and knotty, extremely hard and heavy, its specific gravity being but slightly less than that of water. It is of a dark reddish colour and of very close grain. I brought a log of it home and sent it to a cabinetmaker, who found that it would take an excellent polish. On sending this specimen to Kew I was informed that the wood 'probably belongs to the family Myrtaceæ, and possibly to the species Eugenia.' I find that this species includes the pimento or allspice, the rose-apple, and other aromatic and fruit-producing trees; so that desert Trinidad may at one time have been a delicious spice-island. The doctor and myself toiled on up the gully, whose slopes, as we approached the summit, became less rugged, and here the ferns grew up between the trunks of the dead trees, spreading wide their beautiful fronds of fresh green. When we had come to a spot a little below the source of the stream we left the gully—not before we had drunk our fill and replenished the bottle—and ascended the down where the tree-ferns grow thickest. The soil is here very loose and presents the appearance of having been quite recently ploughed up, while it is honeycombed with the holes of the teeming land-crabs. Soon we reached the summit of the plateau, where a pleasant breeze stirred the ferns and we could now command a magnificent view not only over the mountains we had climbed but over the weather side of the island as well. I remembered the scene, for I had looked down from here nine years before. On the weather side of the island the mountains are even more precipitous than on the lee side; but, on the other hand, they do not run sheer into the sea, for at their base extend great green slopes continued by broad sandy beaches. Along all this coast are shallow flats and outlying rocks on which the surf breaks perpetually. Thirty miles out to sea rise the inaccessible rocky islets of Martin Vas. The plateau we were on was covered with a luxuriant vegetation, for in addition to the tree-ferns there were large bushes of some species of acacia—a tall thorny plant with flowers like those of scarlet-runners, and bearing large beans—flowering grasses, and various other plants. I collected specimens of these later on, which were lost, however, with other stores shortly before we abandoned the island, in consequence of the capsizing of our boat while launching her in Treasure Bay. It seemed strange to find so beautiful a garden, high up, almost unapproachable for the perils that surround it, throned as it is on a wilderness of rock rising up to it in chaotic masses and sheer precipices from the shore far below. The sailors under Frank Mildmay discovered this grove before me. In all his descriptions of places and scenery Captain Marryat is singularly faithful to the truth, even in the minutest details. In this respect indeed he is more conscientious in his works of fiction than are most travellers in their presumedly true narratives. The most minute and accurate description of Trinidad that I have come across is in 'Frank Mildmay,' and it is easy to identify every spot mentioned in that book. The author must himself have visited this strange place, and his imagination was strongly stirred by it. He gives us graphic pictures of 'the iron-bound coast with high and pointed rocks, frowning defiance over the unappeasable and furious waves which break incessantly at their feet.' His hero also experiences the usual difficulty in landing; men and boat are nearly lost, and in all his thrilling narrative there is not the least exaggeration. All the events described might well have happened, and probably did happen. Of the grove he says:—'The men reported that they had gained the summit of the mountain, where they had discovered a large plain, skirted by a species of fern-tree from twelve to eighteen feet high—that on this plain they had seen a herd of goats; and among them could distinguish one of enormous size which appeared to be their leader. They also found many wild hogs.' We saw no goats or hogs, and I am confident that none are now left alive. We did, however, in the course of our digging discover what appeared to be the bones of a goat. It is well known that these animals once abounded here. Captain Halley, of the 'Paramore Pink,' afterwards Dr. Halley, Astronomer-Royal, landed on this island April 17, 1700, and put on it some goats and hogs for breeding, as also a pair of guinea-fowl which he carried from St. Helena. 'I took,' says his journal,'possession of the island in his Majesty's name, as knowing it to be granted by the King's letters-patent, leaving the Union Jack flying.' The American commander, Amaso Delano, visited Trinidad in 1803. He writes:—'We found plenty of goats and hogs. We saw some cats, and these three sorts of quadrupeds were the only animals we saw on the island.' Possibly the land-crabs have gobbled all these up, for the only quadrupeds we came across were mice. Having attained the summit of the island, the doctor and myself took a rest under the shade of the tree-ferns, while we partook of a frugal lunch of biscuits and rum, the indispensable pipes, of course, following. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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