Shifting Winds - Robert Michael Ballantyne (poetry books to read TXT) 📗

permanent.

In a few places of the ocean there are pools of almost stagnant tracts, of various sizes, which are a sort of eddies caused by the conflicting currents. They are full of seaweed and other drift, which is shoved into them by the currents, and are named Sargasso seas. Some of these are hundreds of miles in extent, others are comparatively small.

They bothered the navigators of old, did those Sargasso seas, uncommonly. They are permanent spots, which shift their position so little with the very slight changes in the currents of the sea, that they may be said to be always in the same place.

Columbus got into one of these Sargassos--the great Atlantic one that lies between Africa and the West Indies,--and his men were alarmed lest this strange weedy sea should turn out to be the end of the world! Columbus was long detained in this region of stagnation and calm, and so were most of the early navigators, who styled it the "Doldrums." Now-a-days, however, our knowledge of the currents of ocean and atmosphere enables us to avoid the Sargasso seas and sail round them, thereby preventing delay, facilitating trade, saving time, and greatly improving the condition of mankind.

Now, our bottle happened to get entangled in the weed of the Sargasso that exists in the neighbourhood of the Falkland Islands, and stuck fast there for many months. It was heaved up and down by the undulations, blown about a little by occasional breezes, embraced constantly by seaweed, and sometimes tossed by waves when the outskirts of a passing gale broke in upon the stagnant spot; but beyond this it did not move or advance a mile on its voyage.

At last a hurricane burst over the sea; its whirling edge tore up the weed and swept the waters, and set the bottle free, at the same time urging it into a north-easterly current, which flowed towards the coast of Africa. On its way it narrowly missed entanglement in another Sargasso,--a little one that lies between the two continents,--but fortunately passed it in safety, and at last made the Cape of Good Hope, and sighted the majestic Table Mountain which terminates the lofty promontory of that celebrated headland.

Here the bottle met with the wild stormy weather that induced its Portuguese discoverer, Bartholomew Diaz, to name it the "Cape of Tempests," and which cost him his life, for, on a succeeding voyage, he perished there. King John the Second of Portugal changed its name into the Cape of Good Hope, and not inappropriately so, as it turned out; for, a few years after its discovery in 1486, Vasco de Gama doubled the Cape of Good Hope and discovered the shores of India, whence he brought the first instalment of that wealth which has flowed from east to west ever since in such copious perennial streams.

There was a perplexing conflict of currents here which seemed to indicate a dispute as to which of them should bear off the bottle. The great Mozambique current, (which, born in the huge caldron of the Indian Ocean, flows down the eastern coast of Africa, and meets and wars with the currents coming from the west), almost got the mastery, and well-nigh swept it into an extensive Sargasso sea which lies in that region; in which case the voyage might have been inconceivably delayed; but an eccentric typhoon, or some such turbulent character, struck in from the eastward, swept the bottle utterly beyond Mozambique influence, and left it in the embrace of a current which flowed northward toward the equator.

Thus the bottle narrowly missed being flung on "India's coral strand," and voyaged slowly northward in a line parallel with that coast where "Afric's sunny fountains roll down their golden sands,"--where slavers, too, carried off the blacks in days happily gone by, to toil in slavery among the fields of cotton and sugar-cane, and where British cruisers did their best, (but that wasn't much!) to prevent the brutal traffic.

The chief point of interest in this part of the voyage was touching at Saint Helena, touching so sharply on the western promontory of that dreary islet, that the bottle again nearly made ship-wreck.

Admirably well chosen was this prominent, barren, isolated rock to be the prison of "Napoleon the Great," for he was a conspicuous, isolated specimen of humanity, barren of those qualities that constitute real greatness. Great he undoubtedly was in the art of shedding human blood and desolating myriads of hearths and hearts without any object whatever beyond personal ambition; for the First Napoleon being a Corsican, could not even urge the shallow plea of patriotism in justification of his murderous career.

So, let the bottle pass! Its career has not been more deadly, perchance, than was his during the time that the earth was scourged with his presence!

On reaching the hot region of the equator, our little craft was again sadly knocked about by conflicting currents, and performed one or two deep-sea voyages in company with currents which dived a good deal in consequence of their superior density and inferior heat. At one time it seemed as if it would be caught by the drift which flows down the east coast of South America, and thus get back into the seas from which it set out.

But this was not to be. Owing to some cause which is utterly beyond the ken of mortals, the bottle at last got fairly into the great equatorial current which flows westward from the Gulf of Guinea. It reached the north-west corner of South America, and progressing now at a more rapid and steady rate, progressed along the northern shore of that continent-- passed the mouth of the mighty Amazon and the Orinoco, and, pushing its way among the West India Islands, crossed the Carribean Sea, sighted the Isthmus of Darien, coasted the Bay of Honduras, and swept round the Gulf of Mexico.

Here the great current is diverted from its westward course, and, passing through the Gulf of Florida, rushes across the Atlantic in a north-easterly direction, under the well-known name of the Gulf Stream. Men of old fancied that this great current had its origin in the Gulf of Mexico; hence its name; but we now know that, like many another stream, it has many heads or sources, the streams flowing from which converge in the Gulf of Mexico, and receive new and united direction there.

With the Gulf Stream the bottle pursued its voyage until it was finally cast ashore on the west of Ireland. Many a waif of the sea has been cast there before it by the same cause, and doubtless many another shall be cast there in time to come.

An Irishman with a jovial countenance chanced to be walking on the beach at the moment when, after a voyage of two years, our bottle touched the strand.

He picked it up and eyed it curiously.

"Musha! but it's potheen."

A more careful inspection caused him to shake his head.

"Ah, then, it's impty."

Getting the bottle between his eyes and the morning sun, he screwed his visage up into myriads of wrinkles, and exclaimed--

"Sure there _is_ something in it."

Straightway the Irishman hurried up to his own cabin, where his own wife, a stout pretty woman in a red cloak, assisted him to reach the conclusion that there was something mysterious in the bottle, which was at all events not drinkable.

"Oh, then, I'll smash it."

"Do, darlint."

No sooner said than done, for Pat brought it down on the hearthstone with such force that it was shivered to atoms.

Of course his wife seized the bit of paper, and tried to read it, unsuccessfully. Then Pat tried to read it, also unsuccessfully. Then they both tried to read it, turning it in every conceivable direction, and holding it at every possible distance from their eyes, but still without success. Then they came to the conclusion that they could "make nothing of it at all at all," which was not surprising, for neither of them could read a word.

They wisely resolved at length to take it to their priest, who not only read it, but had it inserted in the _Times_ on the week following, and also in the local papers of Wreckumoft.

Thus did Mrs Gaff, at long last, come to learn something of her husband and son. Her friends kindly told her she need not entertain any hope whatever, but she heeded them not; and only regarding the message from the sea as in some degree a confirmation of her hopes and expectations, she continued her preparations for the reception of the long absent ones with more energy than ever.


CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.


THE FORTUNES OF GAFF AND BILLY CONTINUED.

Now, while the bottle was making its long voyage, Stephen Gaff and his son Billy were exposed to the vicissitudes of strange and varied fortune.

We left them sound asleep in the stern of the little boat, tossed on the troubled breast of the Pacific.

They never knew how long they slept on that occasion, but when they awoke the sun was high in the heavens, and the breeze had considerably abated.

Gaff was the first to shake off the lethargy that had oppressed him. Gazing round for some time, he seemed to hesitate whether he should lie down again, and looked earnestly once or twice in the face of his slumbering boy.

"'Tis pity to rouse him," he muttered, "but I think we must ha' had a long sleep, for I feel rested like. Hallo, Billy boy, how are 'ee?"

Billy did not respond to the greeting. Indeed, he refused to be moved by means of shouts of any kind, and only consented to wake up when his father took him by the coat-collar with both hands, and shook him so violently that it seemed as if his head were about to fall off.

"Hallo! faither," he cried in a sleepy voice, "wot's up?"

"Ha! you're roused at last, lad, come, it's time to have a bit breakfast. It ain't a heavy un you'll git, poor boy, but 'tis better than nothin', and bigger men have throve upon less at times."

Billy was awake and fully alive to his position by this time. He was much depressed. He would have been more than mortal had he been otherwise, but he resolved to shake off the feeling, and face his fortune like a man.

"Come along, daddy, let's have a spell at the oars before breakfast."

"No, lad, take a bit first," said Gaff, opening the sack which contained the biscuit, and carefully measuring out two small portions of the crumbs. One of the portions was rather larger than the other. Billy observed this, and stoutly refused to take his share when Stephen pushed the larger portion towards him.

"No, daddy," said he, "you're not a fair divider."

"Am I not, lad?" said Stephen meekly. "I thought I'd done it pretty eekal."

"No, my half is the biggest, so you'll have to take some of it back."

Gaff refused, but Billy insisted, and a small piece of the precious biscuit was finally put back into the bag. The meal was then eaten with much display of satisfaction by father and son, (a blessing having been first asked on it), and it was prolonged as much as possible in order to encourage the idea that it was not such a small one after all.