R. W. Coppinger

“ This, our first impression of the famous Straits, was certainly favourable. A winding channel, the glassy smoothness of whose surface was only broken by the splashing of cormorants, steamer-ducks, and other sea-birds, stretched away to the westward. On the north side were the low undulating plains of Patagonia, covered with their summer mantle of greenish-yellow vegetation; while to the southward a few widely separated wreaths of blue smoke, ascending from the gloomy shores of Tierra del Fuego, marked out the dwelling-place of one of the most remarkable varieties of the human species. ”

“ Across the seaward entrance of the channel, i.e., from Cape Gamboa on the north to Port Henry on the south, the soundings gave a mean depth of thirty fathoms, showing the existence of a sort of bar, while one mile inside of this the depth increased to two and three hundred fathoms. This was just as we expected; the bar across the entrance representing the terminal moraine of the huge glacier which originally gouged out the channel, and whose denuding action is abundantly recorded in the scorings, planings, and striations so palpable on all the hard rocks of these inhospitable shores. ”

“ Each aspiring leafy twig that happens by a too luxuriant growth to shoot above its fellows, is cut down by the relentless blast before it can acquire strength enough to make good its footing; and those branches alone survive in the struggle which grow uniformly with their neighbours, and which thus present a sufficiently compact surface to withstand the blighting influence of the westerly gales.
One day, when we were lying at our old anchorage in Tom Bay, I saw a cormorant rise to the surface with a large fish in its mouth, which, for several minutes, it vainly attempted to swallow. ”

“ Wild ducks were to be seen in the marshes near the railways, scarcely disturbed by the passage of the train; flocks of doves rose from the bushes here and there; owls hovered about in a scared sort of way, as if ashamed of being seen out in the honest sunlight; and on many a tree top was perched a solitary buzzard or vulture. Later in the forenoon small flocks of the military starlings were frequently sighted, their brilliant scarlet plumage showing to great advantage against the pale green bushes of the hill sides. ”

“ The scenery here contrasted strangely with that of Chasm Reach, for the steep hillsides now were richly clothed with a luxuriant growth of primeval forest, and rising to a greater altitude, had their summits capped with a broad mantle of snow, which showed to great advantage against the deep blue of the sky. In the narrowest part of the channel, where the flood tide was making southward in a rapid stream, numbers of fur seals were gambolling in the water, and the energetic movements of the cormorants testified to the abundance of the fish. ”

“ This then was the end of what is now known as the Picton Channel, and bold would be the mariner who would attempt to traverse it, and thread his way through such a maze of reefs and breakers. Among the islets at this, its northern extremity, we found an anchorage, where we decided on stopping for the night. As we cast anchor, a native boat approached, carrying no less than twenty-three inmates, most of whom were males, and of a most savage and treacherous appearance. They had with them several young fur seals, recently killed, which they were glad to barter for tobacco or biscuit. ”

“ Its eastern shore exhibited the kind of scenery prevailing about the Guia Narrows; viz., round-topped hills with great bare patches of rain-worn rock extending from the summits to a talus, which was covered with an uniform mantle of evergreen forest, the latter encroaching upon the sea-beach. But the country to the west presented a more pleasing variety, being composed of low undulating slopes of grassy-looking land, with here and there fissures or landslips exhibiting what seemed to us, as we scrutinized them with our glasses, to be sections of a sedimentary formation. ”

“ A pleasant drive of about ten miles brought us to the shore of a small bay exposed to the prevailing wind, and receiving on its beach the full fury of the swell of the main ocean. The foreshore was strewn with coral débris, and above high-water mark were quantities of pumice-stone, probably washed up from the sides of the neighbouring volcanic island of Uea. On either side, the bay was hemmed in by bold projecting crags of coral rock, whose faces indicated, by parallel tide erosions, that they had been elevated by sudden upheaval into their present position. ”

“ It will then, perhaps, be found that the tuft stands alone, surrounded in all directions by a sloping surface of bare rock which isolates it by a radius of forty yards from all other vegetation; the little tuft bearing itself up bravely as if in obstinate defiance of the wind and rain, which one is at first inclined to think must have swept away an old uniform mantle of vegetation from the rocky surface, leaving the mossy tuft on the summit the sole survivor. ”

“ I have seen an otter rise to the surface with one of these hideous crabs in its mouth, as unpalatable a morsel, one would think—for it is armed all over with strong spines—as a "knuckleduster." In the Alert, the great feat of sportsmanship was to shoot and bag an otter; for if the animal be not struck in the head, and killed outright at the first shot, it is almost certain to make a long dive, crawl up the beach in the shade of the overhanging bushes, and escape. ”

“ On touching the beach we were met by a pair of negroes, who, we learned, formed the entire human population of the island. They occupied some wretched huts which had been hitherto screened from our view by a dense thicket of bushes, which forms a fringe around the margin of the island, and gives it, from the anchorage, the delusive appearance of being well wooded. ”

“ While we were vainly looking out for a landing-place, a white man, accompanied by two Polynesians, launched a small outrigger canoe from the reef edge, and paddled out to us. From the white man we learned that the island belonged to a Mr. Halicott, an American gentleman, for whom he had been acting as care-taker for the previous five years, and that he and his native assistants were engaged in planting cocoa-nuts, and hoped in time to do a remunerative trade in copra. ”

“ Since the establishment of the Queensland Royal Mail-steamers, which traverse Torres Straits, some of the shell has been by them conveyed direct to England, where it is consigned to the manufacturers, to the greater profit of the pearl shellers. Most of the shelling establishments in Torres Straits are the property of companies consisting of two or more capitalists, who for the most part reside in Sydney, and it is indeed a rather odd anomaly that a lucrative industry subject to the jurisdiction of the Queensland government should be worked by capital from New South Wales. ”

“ Vereker made a good sketch, the north-east face of the cliff presents a magnificent dyke—a nearly vertical seam of dark lava, about three feet in width and two hundred feet in height, extending from summit to water line, and sealing up this long fissure in the older trachytic rock of the head. Farther on, masses of basalt resting unconformably on variously arranged layers of laterite tuff and trachyte, the latter in many places honeycombed in weird fantastic caverns, afforded a fertile subject for geological reveries into the early history of this now beautiful island. ”

“ Of trees of course there were none to be seen, and of shrubs only a few stunted representatives, scattered singly or in patches. A species of rank grass, however, flourished, and here and there a rather stately fungus raised its head as if in defiance of its otherwise sterile surroundings, the blown sand of the foreshore supplying sufficient nutriment for its humble wants. Of dead shells a great variety were picked up on the beach between tide marks, including representatives of the genera Arca, Patella, Cardium, Harpa, Littorina, and Strombus; a very perfect Spirula shell was also noticed. ”

“ However, those planted in good soil give, as might be expected, an earlier and more productive yield than is afforded by trees grown in the poor land which usually adjoins the coral sea-beach. A cocoa-nut planted in average soil commences to bear fruit in about the fifth year of its existence, and from that time until it has attained the age of a hundred years,—when it is probably blown down,—it yields about twelve dozen nuts per annum. ”

“ The most frequent shell on this part of the reef was a species of Pinna about eight inches long, which, in numbers of three or four together, was generally to be seen anchored vertically in the sand by means of its long byssus. The lips of the shell were so very fragile, and the byssal attachment was so firm, that it was no easy matter to root up an uninjured specimen. About the roots of the green sea-wrack nestled in great numbers a tiny cowrie, the collection of which gives occupation to great numbers of women and children, who may be seen scattered over the reefs every day at low tide. ”

“ On the morning of the 11th of October we got under way from Levuka, and spent the day in steaming over to Suva, a commodious harbour, situated on the south-east side of Viti Levu, where it was our intention to coal ship from a stationary hulk which supplies the steamers plying between Sydney and the Fijian ports. It is said that Suva, from the accommodation which its harbour affords, and from its position on an easily accessible part of the largest island of the group, is destined to become the seat of government and the future capital of Fiji ”

“ We saw, however, a flock of black-necked swans, numbering about sixty, in the water near the seashore, but found them too wary for us. A paroquet, a few starlings, a finch, a wren, a buzzard, and the ubiquitous cinclodes were the only land-birds seen. On subsequently penetrating into the forest in the rear of the settlement, I saw many examples of a bird of the "tree-creeper" family, which the Chilians call "carpintero," from its habit of making a "tap-tap" sound when digging its bill against the bark of trees, in pursuit of the insect-larva on which it feeds. ”

“ The island presented the appearance of undulating hills, covered for the most part with a thick growth of tropical forms of vegetation, but exhibiting a few patches of land devoid of trees, and bearing a rich crop of long tangled grasses. On landing, we found that there was no soil, properly so-called, but that the forest trees, scrub, and grass sprung from a surface layer of shingle, which on close inspection contrasted strangely with the rich and verdant flora which it nourished. ”

“ Pigs and domestic poultry seemed to be largely favoured by the colonists, and were indeed in a thriving state.
Like all the Amirantes, Poivre Island is low and flat, and is only exceptional in being the most prosperous island of the group, for which it is indebted to the zeal of the earlier colonists who planted its splendid grove of cocoa-nuts. The island is oval in [223] shape, about two miles in circumference, and it has a broad fringing reef composed of drift coral and sand, but exhibiting no live corals and very few shells. ”

“ Our peaceful aspect, and a satisfactory explanation on the part of the white people in charge of the lighthouse, soon set matters right, and the wretched blacks were now so delighted at finding their fears to be groundless, that they crowded about us—male and female—to the number of forty or fifty, brought us some boomerangs for barter, and finally shared our lunch of preserved meat and coffee, of which we partook on the rocks near where the boat was moored. ”

“ One day we made an excursion up the river Andalien, which flows into Talcahuano Bay, near the village of Penco, and which at high tide is navigable for boats to a distance of seven miles from its mouth. Our main object was to see something of the nutria—a large rodent (Myopotamus coypu) , which is common in some of the rivers of southern Chili, and which the natives call "Coypo." In a deep, narrow, ditch-like tributary of the Andalien, we came across several of these animals, swimming and diving about, some half-immersed clumps of bushes. ”

“ Pearl-shell is collected on the reefs, but not as yet in sufficient quantities to establish a lucrative industry. In this respect the island is not so fortunate as Alphonse, for there are no sheltered rock-pools in which the shell can be collected by swimming-divers without danger from the sharks; the sea everywhere flowing in over the outer edge of the broad fringing reef, and the great reef to the southward only drying in patches at low tide. ”