Beachcomber

“ Land is always near, and the flotsam and jetsam, do they not supply that smack of excitement—if not the boisterous hope—bereft of which life might seem "always afternoon?"
These chronicles are toned from first to last by perceptions which came to the Beachcomber—perceptions which lead, mayhap, to a subdued and sober estimate of the purpose and bearing of the pilgrimage of life. Doubts become exalted and glorified, hopes all rapture, when long serene days are spent alone in the contemplation of the splendours of sky and sea, and the enchantment of tropic shores. ”

“ If the wind is tempered to the shorn lamb, what is the provision of Nature which enables so tender a thing as a young bird, a mere helpless ball of creamy fluff, to withstand the frizzling heat with which the sun bleaches the broken coral? Many do avail themselves of the meagre shadow of shells and lumps of coral, but the majority are exposed to the direct rays of the sun, which brings the coral to such a heat that even the hardened beachcomber walks thereon with "uneasy steps," reminding him of another outcast who used that oft-quoted staff as a support over the "burning marl." ”

“ Dimly, he saw the universe the Beachcomber spoke of: a universe of Men set free. Over that inconceivable gap of time that stretched between Maxwell's time and theirs, they had purged themselves of all their frailties. Maxwell saw them striding among the stars, as much at home in the pitiless void as on the verdant planets they loved. He saw them tall and faultless and strong, handsome men and beautiful women, all with the power that glowed in the Beachcomber, but without a hint of his sadness. ”

“ Beachcomber Bill
You stay out of this! You stay out of this, you little pelican! Ah, no matter what happened, I'm gonna eat 'em, see?
Paddy Pelican
Hurry up! Hurry up, fellas! Run to the island! If you climb the trees, you won't be able to get down! Hurry up! Hurry up!
Beachcomber Bill
That blasted— You come here! You can't get away from me, so you might as well quit tryin'! Halt! Halt! I'll throw this war harpoon at ye, I'll tell you!
Buster Bear
Amos, y-y-you zig, and-and I'll zag, and-and-and-and then he won't-he won't catch us!
Beachcomber Bill
You pesky bird! Get away from my face! ”

“ Two of these modern hooks bound to bark lines are illustrated. What was the origin of the peculiar pattern of the pearl-shell fish-hooks? To this question, those who maintain that no handiwork of man exists which does not borrow from nature, or from something precedent to itself, may find a satisfactory answer offhand. As it weathers on the beach, the basal valve of the commonest of the oysters, of these waters occasionally assumes a crude crescent. ”

“ Close to the shore stood the coco-palms, and by the sheds 230on the beach under the shelter of the palms stood the natives, fine-looking men and women they were, some half-dressed and some only in their lava-lavas. As soon as we dropped the anchor they swarmed round the schooner in their catamarans, bringing us corals and other curios of the South Seas. ”

“ To those who bathe in its limpid waters it is a matter of curiosity to see below, the slow crawling of the conch, while the nimble crab scampers off in haste, and fish and prawn dart wantonly around. When the tide is down there is no turnpike in the world better fitted for a pleasure ride than that smooth hard beach, from which no dust can rise, and which is of course as level as a floor.
The spot on which Dr. Gordon proposed to build, was one commanding a view both of the distant fort and of the open sea, or rather of the green islands which guarded the mouth of the bay. ”

“ In such a sea there is no launching yawl or surf-boat, and no coming ashore.
When the tide is on the right moon and the wind has blown a gale from the southeast, the strand is entirely submerged, and people upon the main shore three miles away can see the surf breaking over the Beach hills.
Such a riot of sea and wind strews the whole extent of beach with whatever has been lost or thrown overboard, or torn out of sunken ships. Many a man has made a good week’s work in a single day by what 15 he has found while walking along the Beach when the surf was down. ”

“ Wrenched from their attachment to the rocks and washed ashore, these sea-weeds become twisted together by rolling in the heavy surf, till they form enormous vegetable cables, much thicker than the human body, and several hundred feet in length. In some parts, the beach is so cumbered with these masses that walking becomes quite laborious; the pedestrian sinks frequently to the knees in the decaying heaps, and animal substance being also caught up, as in a net, the traveller's progress is rendered both offensive and tedious. ”

“ Already the mist above, flecked with clustered clouds, flushed with rose colour and dull gold. I heard the low splash of the waves breaking and curling across the beach. A wandering breeze, fresh and fragrant, blew the curtains of my window. There was the scent of sweet bay in the room, and everywhere the subtile, nameless perfume of the sea.
When at last I stood upon the shore, the air and sea were all aglimmer in a rosy light, deepening to crimson in the zenith. Along the beach I saw a little cove, shelving and all ashine, where shallow waves washed with a mellow sound. ”

“ Seacombe, April.
1
The sea is merely grinding against the shingle. The Moondaisy lies above the sea-wall, in the gutter, with her bottom-boards out and a puddle of greenish water covering her garboard strake. Her hunchbacked Little Commodore is dead. The other two of her old crew, George Widger and Looby Smith are nowhere to be seen: they must be nearly grown up by now. The fishermen themselves appear less picturesque and salty than they used to do. It is slack time after a bad herring season. They are dispirited and lazy, and very likely hungry. ”

“ Tony knows. At places like Seacombe every boat, returning from sea, must run ashore and be hauled up the beach and even, in rough weather, over the sea-wall. The herring and mackerel drifters, which may venture twenty miles into the open sea, cannot be more than twenty-five feet in length else they would prove unwieldy ashore. To avoid their heeling over and filling in the surf, they must be built shallow, with next to no keel. They have therefore but small hold on the water; they do not sail close to the wind, and beating home against it is a long wearisome job. ”

“ I know that in after years, whenever I come within sound of surf under the prickly sunshine, my fancy will conjure up a picture of that grass cottage on the slope of a dazzling beach, and the portly form of the old Commodore stored snugly in the spacious hollow of a bamboo settee, drawn up on the stocks, as it were, for repairs, with a bandanna spread over his face, and a dark-eyed crouching figure beside him, fighting mosquitoes with a tuft of parrot-feathers. ”

“ The beach in many places dips steeply, so that, at high tide, there are six feet of water within two or three yards of the trees, shrubs, ferns, and creepers that clothe the shore in an abandonment of wild and graceful luxuriance. The sand shines beneath the waters of the sea like powdered diamonds, and all the myriads of pebbles and shells glisten and scintillate, with a fire and life and colour which they lose when the tide falls and leaves the sands dry, but for the little pools that fill the depressions of a generally even surface. ”

“ The common beach-comber is usually an outcast from that civilization of which, in the islands, he is the only pioneer. Sometimes he deals in rum, sometimes in land, most frequently in “black-birds”—that is, in coolies, as it is now usual to call slaves. Not, of course, that all coolies are slaves. My friend the beach-comber treated his dusky labourers with distinguished consideration, fed them well, housed them well, taught them the game of cricket, and dismissed them, when the term of their engagement was up, to their island homes. ”

“ Sometimes, when I was approaching the carcass of a horse or ox which lay on the beach there, where there was no living creature in sight, a dog would unexpectedly emerge from it and slink away with a mouthful of offal.
The sea-shore is a sort of neutral ground, a most advantageous point from which to contemplate this world. It is even a trivial place. The waves forever rolling to the land are too far-travelled and untamable to be familiar. Creeping along the endless beach amid the sun-squall and the foam, it occurs to us that we, too, are the product of sea-slime. ”

“ And meantime, as a young man often will, he could feel himself growing old.
One hot, bright noon, while he was retreating up the beach with his muddy basketful of clams, before the rising tide that slowly drove him shoreward, his eye caught the flutter of something pink at the edge of the land near the house. Looking closer, he saw—with a touch of surprise, for the place was almost never frequented—that it was a woman who stood there at the foot of the bank. She was looking out toward him, but as he straightened up she stooped and began plucking busily among the beach-grass. ”

“ Yet all in good time the beach is strewn with the logs, great square-cut baulks of red timber with their owners' marks upon their butts and covered generally with a thatch of cocoa-nut palm fronds to keep them from the all-powerful sun. The steamer will call for them some day, but it is no easy thing to get them through the surf, and steamer after steamer calls, whistles, decides that the surf is too heavy to embark such timber, and passes on. And where they have been cut and trimmed, the mammies come with baskets to gather pieces of the priceless wood to build their fires. ”

“ During the day the beach throughout its length is alive with the moving figures of porters, bearing clove and cinnamon bags, ivory, copal and other gums, and hides, to be shipped in the lighters waiting along the water's edge, with sailors from the shipping, and black boatmen discharging the various imports on the sand. In the evening the beach is crowded with the naked forms of workmen and boys from the 'go-downs,' preparing to bathe and wash the dust of copal and hides off their bodies in the surf. ”

“ A coarse spear-like grass finds a sparse growth upon them, and does what it can to hold the sand in place; but it has a hard time of it, as its blades buried to their tips or its naked roots often testify.
But there is one part of this Beach that is ever much the same. It is a broad, shelving strip of sand between the hills and the sea, where the tide rises and falls, pounding and grinding, year in and year 14 out—the play-ground and the battle-ground of the surf. ”

“ Yesterday they had made houses of sand and had dug deep wells all up and down the beach. But in the night the sea had stolen up and swept everything smooth again, even wiping out the tracks of feet which had crossed and criss-crossed it everywhere,—Aunt Claire’s tennis shoes, Kenneth’s and Rose’s little bare footprints, the deep tread of the clam-digger’s rubber boots, and the sandpipers’ light steps. The beach looked like a field covered with newly fallen snow on which nothing has yet made a mark. ”

“ I told him I came from England. He became interested in me and just as I was losing my first embarrassment, and had played him once again a Scottish melody which seemed to please him very much, I heard the wretched German chief steward shouting for me, and I had to make a bolt. I did not see him again till we arrived near the Islands, then one night as I was sitting on the hatchway picking the fiddle strings, sweating a good deal, for it was a sweltering hot night, Stevenson came through the alley-way by the engine-room, and sat beside me and another sailor who was humming as I strummed away. ”

“ There is a high surf running, and in order to get the dinghy through it without soaking the baggage we have to jump overboard into waist-deep water and help steer it through the breakers. The barang is piled up just above the reach of the incoming surges, but the tide seems to be rising.
It is necessary to get the stuff higher up, out of reach of the water, and we bend our energies in that direction. The beach seems to be deserted, and we wonder whether or not the natives have discovered our presence. ”

“ On the strip of yellow sand in the curve of the wall which separates the beach at Three Anchor Bay from the roadway above it two men sat playing cards in the blaze of the morning sunshine, which beat with untempered violence upon their uncovered heads, upon the hot sand that sloped gently to the rocky shore, and upon the long blue waves rolling slowly in from the Atlantic with the semblance of a succession of hooded serpents, rearing themselves with languid grace and folding over reluctantly, throwing off a stream of spray from their crests like the tail of some gigantic comet. ”

“ Rarely one might make out fishing smacks drifting across the horizon. Summer squatters never visited it; sportsmen shunned it, except in winter. Therefore, as I was about to do a bit of poetry, I thought that Pine Inlet was the spot for the deed. So I went there.
As I was strolling along the beach, biting my pencil reflectively, tremendously impressed by the solitude and the solemn thunder of the surf, a thought occurred to me: how unpleasant it would be if I suddenly stumbled on a summer boarder. As this joyless impossibility flitted across my mind, I rounded a bleak sand dune. ”

“ Should any one be visiting the island now, he might see, about ten miles' distance, looking seaward, half a dozen low, dark hummocks on the horizon. As he approaches, they gradually resolve themselves into hills fringed by breakers, and by and by the white sea beach with its continued surf—the sand-hills, part naked, part waving in grass of the deepest green, unfold themselves—a house and a barn dot the western extremity—here and there along the wild beach lie the ribs of unlucky traders half-buried in the shifting sand. ”