but the commander dared not yet keep the ship away, not knowing how far the reef extending from it might reach. In the meantime the tack had been secured, and two reefs taken in the topsail. Even as it was, however, the ship, slashing through the foaming seas, could scarcely look up to the gale, and I every moment expected to see her go right over. The water was rushing through her ports, and rose half-way up the deck to the combings of the hatchway. With infinite relief, therefore, I heard the order given to port the helm and square the yards; and once more we flew on before the wind, leaving the dark land astern. It seemed as if there had come a sudden lull, so easily did she now speed on her way over the ocean.
All were eager to know who had been lost, and the muster-roll was called. One after another the men answered to their names, till that of Dicky Popo was shouted out. No Dicky answered, and it became certain that he was the unfortunate individual lost. Tamaku expressed his grief with a loud wail. “O Popo! Popo! why you go overboard?” he cried out. “You not swim like Kanaka, or you get to shore. But now I know you at de bottom of de sea.”
It was sad, indeed, to think that the poor lad had gone overboard at a moment when it was utterly impossible to render him any assistance. Under other circumstances he might easily have been saved, as the sea, though rough, was not sufficiently so to prevent a boat being lowered. Now, however, we could not go back to look for him; indeed, as Tamaku said, he must long before this have perished.
We after this sighted the Marquesas, to which the French have laid claim, though they have made no attempt to colonise these beautiful and fertile islands.
The Sandwich Islands were at length reached, and we brought up off Honolulu, in the island of Oahu. We were more struck with the beauty of the scenery than with that of the female portion of the inhabitants; but as the islands have been so often described, I will not attempt to do so; merely remarking that they are eleven in number, some of them about a hundred miles in circumference. Hawaii, formerly known as Owhyhee, is very much the largest, being eighty-eight miles in length by sixty-eight in breadth; and it contains two lofty mountains, each upwards of thirteen thousand feet in height—one called Mauna Kea, and the other Mauna Loa, which latter is for ever sending forth its volcanic fires, while it casts its vast shadow far and wide over the ocean.
After leaving Honolulu, which in those days was a very different place to what it is now, we brought up in the Bay of Kealakeakua, celebrated as the place where Captain Cook lost his life. As we entered the bay we could see in the far distance the towering dome of Mauna Loa. The whole country round bore evidence of the volcanic nature of the soil; broken cliffs rose round the bay, on the north side of which a reef of rocks offers the most convenient landing-place. It was here that Captain Cook was killed, while endeavouring to reach his boat. A few yards from the water stands a cocoa-nut tree, at the foot of which he is said to have breathed his last. The Imogene carried away the top of the tree; and her captain had a copper plate fastened on to the stem, the lower part of which has been thickly tarred to preserve it. On the plate is a cross, with an inscription—“Near this spot fell Captain James Cook, the renowned circumnavigator, who discovered these islands, A.D. 1778.”
Tamaku having been allowed to remain on shore during the time we were here, came off again of his own free will, and expressed his readiness to continue on board.
We again sailed to the southward. The commander had been directed to visit the archipelagoes on the western side of the Pacific, but he wished first to make a survey of the island on which we had so nearly run during the gale on our course northward.
I have, by-the-by, said very little about my messmates, except Mr. Worthy, Peter Mudge (who acted as my Mentor, as he was likewise that of all the youngsters), and my chum Tommy Peck. There was another mate, who had lately passed—Alfred Stanford, a very gentlemanly, pleasing young man. We had, besides, a surgeon, a master’s assistant, the captain’s clerk and the purser’s clerk, who made up the complement in our berth. My chief friend among the men was Dick Tillard, an old quartermaster, to whom I could always go to get instruction in seamanship, with the certainty that he would do his best to enlighten me. He had been at sea all his life, and had scarcely ever spent a month on shore at a time. He was a philosopher, in his way; and his philosophy was of the best, for he had implicit confidence in God’s overruling providence. If anything went wrong, his invariable remark was—“That’s our fault, not His who rules above; trust him, lads, trust him, and he will make all things right at last.”
I have very little to say about our second lieutenant, or the master, or surgeon, or purser—who, as far as I knew, were respectable men, not above the average in intellect, and got on very well together in the gunroom; so that our ship might have been looked upon as a happy one, as things go, though I confess that we cannot expect to find a paradise on board a man-of-war.
I must not omit to mention our boatswain, a person of no small importance on board ship. So, at all events, thought Mr. Fletcher Yallop, as he desired to be called; and if we youngsters ever wanted him to do anything for us, we always thus addressed him—though, of course, the commander and officers called him simply Mr. Yallop. If the men addressed him as Mr. Yallop, he invariably exclaimed—“Mr. Fletcher Yallop is my name, remember, my lad; and I’ll beg you always to denominate me by my proper appellation, or a rope’s end and your back will scrape acquaintance with each other.”
He explained his reasons to me in confidence one day. “You see, Mr. Rayner, I expect before I die to come into a fortune, when I shall be, of course, Fletcher Yallop, Esquire. I can’t make the men call me so now, because I am but a simple boatswain; but I like the sound; it keeps up my spirits. When I get out of sorts, I repeat to myself: ‘Fletcher Yallop, Esquire, be a man; be worthy of your future position in society when you take your place among the nobility of the land, and perhaps write M.P. after your name,’—and in an instant I am myself again, and patiently bear the rubs and frowns to which even warrant-officers are subjected. In truth, though I wish you not to repeat it, Mr. Rayner, I may become a baronet; and I always look with trembling interest at the Gazette, to see if a certain person, whose heir I am, has been raised to that dignity.”
I ventured to ask the boatswain on what he grounded his hopes of fortune.
“That is a secret, Mr. Rayner,” he replied, “which I must not divulge, even to you; but you would not doubt my word, I am sure. That must be sufficient for the present; and I must request you not to make the matter a subject of conversation among your messmates. They would not enter into my feelings as you do.”
I found, however, that Mr. Yallop had been equally confidential to Tommy Peck, though he had not ventured to talk of his hopes either to Mudge or Stanford. Tom and I, on comparing notes, came to the conclusion that the boatswain was under a hallucination; though, as it was a very harmless one, and afforded him intense satisfaction without in any way interfering with his duty, we agreed that it was as well to let him enjoy it. He was, indeed, a first-rate seaman and an excellent boatswain, though he handled the rope’s end pretty freely when any of the ship’s boys or ordinary seamen neglected their duty. He was a broadly built man, with enormous black whiskers; and no one would have supposed that he possessed a single grain of romance in his composition. He had an eagle eye, and a sun-burned, weather-beaten countenance; but I believe he had as tender a heart as any man in the ship.
Nothing of importance occurred till we sighted the island against which we had so nearly run. Standing in with the lead going, we found good anchorage in a wide bay, protected by a high point of land on one side and a reef on the other. The captain wishing to survey the island, and the weather being fine, he ordered his gig to be manned, and, much to my satisfaction, told me to be ready to accompany him. We took a supply of provisions for the day, as we did not expect to be back till late in the evening.
While the first lieutenant and master were surveying the bay in which the ship lay, and the coast in its immediate neighbourhood, we pulled round to the opposite side of the island. We had as yet seen no natives, but as cocoa-nut trees were visible on shore, we concluded that some parts of it were inhabited. The centre was of considerable height, and was evidently of volcanic origin, the highest point being apparently a volcano, though no smoke or fire was seen proceeding from it.
We had been pulling on for three