Six Months on a Barren Rock, A TRUE STORY.

Observer, Volume 1, Issue 5, 16 October 1880, Page 37

Six Months on a Barren Rock, A TRUE STORY.

Told by Charles Wordsworth, one of the Surviyors,

CHAPTER 111. The weather was now getting rather less severe, but we could only recollect three fine days all the time Aye were there, and we always had to pay dearly for them. Another shanty was being built, and 1 was promised a very small old one for my mother and myself, which a third-class passenger had previously built, and had kindly offered us. On a cold, stormy day, September 13 : a vessel, a full-rigged ship, under reefed topsails, as far as Aye could make out, came between Hoggs Island and ours, then, running close along our island, kept away to the east. I was in what was called the Skinning Cave, and saw the ship and gave the alarm first. Away went some of us, as hard as hard as we could run, with blankets and counterpanes to the flagstaff, our black figures showing well against the snow-covered bill, so that I believe they could not have helped seeing us. The blanket flag was up in a very short time, and the ship, when she had got past the end of the island, came into the wind, I "believe, for previously she had been running with the wind aft, and we all thought that she iad seen us, and Avas going to stay for us till inner Aveather came to take us off, when a squall of snoAv came on and hid her from vieAV. She had gone off a little in the squall, but some of the men said she Avas still " hove to." She had

not increased Her distance much, but eventually she took to her heels. Of course it was a great disappointment, but we expected when in port she would report us, and hope kept us up for about a couple of months. But no ; we never heard anything more of her. Now I am sure she saw us, to desert us thus was abominable. She was near enough to let us see her topmast and top-gallant aud rigging ; and when we <3ould see all that, how could she not see our black figures and a large blanket and counterpane flying against a clear sky ? Except during the squall the air was beautifully clear, and they must have had glasses, Avhich we had not. v Mr. Peters has the date of this ship's appearance, and I should like to find out her name. About the end of September the penguins first made their appearance. They are a most remarkable set of birds, if we may call them so; ior they have no wings, but just flippers, and their coats look more like f ur than feathers ;in fact I think them not unlike seals. It was very amusing to watch them making their nests : •one would go to a little distance and pick up in its bill, with great ado, a small stone, and carry it with immense dignity to its mate, Avhen they carefully arranged it in some mysterious way, shaking their heads and gobling over it ; then turned up their faces towards the sky and waved their flippers, as if asking a blessing on their labour or making incantations. A few -stones thus got together constituted their nests: .a single blade of grass or two I have seen treated in the same manner ; but I never heard of them or saw them build in the grass, but always on stony places, often great heights .above the sea. The tracks that the penguins made through thejfgrass wound up round the edges of cliffs ; they were narrow and stony, and had the appearance of having been worn down to their s^jgresent condition, through the soil and grass,

by the tread of countless penguins seeking every year their favourite resorts, Avhich must have been their choice for ages. Some of these paths in places were very steep ; and really, to look at the rocks they manage to climb up, you Avould think they would require a ladder. They made great fuss over their courting, and Avoe betide any unfortunate hen avlio dared to be frivolous, leaving its own nest to go a short walk ; for no so'mer Avas it noticed, than all the neighbours raised a cry of anger and horror, and prepared to give the delinquent an unmerciful pecking as it wended its Avay through the thick ranks of its comrades. If it returned to it 1 ? lord and master the tune Avas immediately changed from discordant hoAvls and croaks to a more musical tone of thanksgiving and rejoicing. I have seen in books of natural lust-ay that penguins lay only one egg; iioav our penguins laid three. The first Avas the smallest, and of a light-green colour ; the others whiter, and larger, especially the last one. They all had strong rough shells, Avhich, Avhen the eggs were neatly hatched, had been Avorn by constant friction on the stones smooth and thin, easy for the young ones to break through. The position of the bird Avhen " sitting " is upright, or very nearly so. The yolk of these eggs boiled hard before the Avhite, the latter looking like arroAvroot Avhen quite boiled, and also tasting not unlike it : but our palates Avere perhaps not to be depended upon after living so long on coarse fishy food. I noticed that the penguins always turned their backs to a squall, Avhilst the other birds — albatross, &c. — ahvays faced it. Being ahvays amongst the penguins, their habits were of great interest to us, and their noises my mother used to fancy resembled nearly all the sounds of the farmyard. A lot of them cawing at a di-tance seemed like the loAving of a cow ; there Avas the cackling of , ducks, the hissing of geese ? the gobbling of

turkeys, and even the noise of a donkey braying, to be distinguished amongst the babel of tongues When the penguins had been sitting some weeks on their eggs, a visible decrease in their numbers was noticed, and we thought at first that they were leaving us entirely ; but the hens were left on the island, looking very lean and careworn, whilst the cocks went to sea. This was the first time we had seen any of the regular householders leave their homes, even for food, since their arrival on the island ; and whilst on shore they were never seen to eat anything. However, I think in a week or so the cocks came back, and very fat, there being about an inch thick of fat on their skins, which was very precioits to us. Most of them, too, had their paunches full of a sort of food which did not look unlike a linseed-meal poultice ; this was for their young, which were either hatched, or very nearly so. The hens, when relieved by the cocks, then left for their holiday ; but Ido not think that they stayed so long away nor came back fat like their mates. After that, there was a constant traffic of penguins going down and returning from the sea. The long lines of travelling penguins, meeting each other on their narrow tracks to the sea, seemed to be very particular about keeping their 'own side of the street. The homewardbound ones, with their full paunches, laboriously climbing up the steep paths, and their funny little short legs, Avhite bosoms, and black, extended flippers, looked like fat old gentlemen in white waistcoats ; and one could almost fancy that yoii could hear them puffing and blowing with their hard work. Whether the penguins who had been out at sea always came back to their old mates, who had been left behind, or nut, I would be afraid to say. Yet I think somtimes they did ; but

their numbers were so great, and they were so much alike, it would be impossible to decide. We used to see great flocks of young penguins congregated together under the care apparently only of one couple. These young ones were very tender eating, but, except when very young, of rather a rank flavour. The penguins are plucky creatures ; and I have even seen a weak, soft-looking youngster stand up manfully for itself against a fierce hawk. The albatrosses were very majestic and graceful in their movements. We used to sec them, when pairing, bending and bowing to each other like courtiers in the olden time dancing a minuet ; but their voices were not equal to their appearance, sounding like a bad imitation of a donkey braying. At one time, when they were sitting on their eggs, we had, I daresay, about a couple of hundreds or more of the beautiful creatures scattered over the grassy parts of our island. They lay but one egg, and it is scarcely so large as you might expect from the size of the bird ; it is white, with pinkish spots on the broad end. I had almost forgotten to mention the real owners of the soil : the only unwebbed-foote,d birds on the island, and csnstant residents, were what we called "little white thieves," "white pigeons," or "white crows." They posses -ed many of the qualities of our jackdaw, being very inquisitive and mischievous, hardy, and not to be daunted by trifles.' Their build was stronger and more compact than that of a pigeon, biit they were about the same size. I do not think they were powerful fliers. Their feet and beak were black, the latter having a sort of wart on it about the nostril, larger in the male than in the female : whilst their plumage was pure white. Their eggs were dark and speckled. These little "thieves," when the penguins were on the island, never

eased watching them and their eggs. They would frit on a stone which gave them a commanding position over the multitude beneath, and wait for a chance Jof stealing an egg, and they had a very knowing way of bending down and putting their head on one side to see under the penguin's tail. When a chance of robbing presented itself, they descended from their elevated position, fearlessly hopping amongst the crowded penguins, evading adroitly the pecks aimed at them, stuck their beak into the egg, and, if they had not time to enjoy it there, would open their beak whilst inserted therein, and lifting it in this way, would fly to their holes in the banks or rocks and demolish their cleverly-earned meal at their leisure. One of our men tells a story of one of these " white thieves," who, tired of an unprofitable vigil, had the audacity to come quietly \vp behind a penguin sitting on its egg and impertinently peck its tail (a great insult) ; and when the penguin got up to resent the injury, the little rascal dabbed its beak into the egg and carried it off. Apropos of their hardihood, an American sailor relates the following anecdote ; but I daresay it requires to be swallowed cum grano salis. He had killed one of the birds, as he thought, and had sat down to pluck it warm ; he had done so all but the wings, and had taken out his knife to cut the latter off, -when away the bird fluttered minus the body-feathers. Their chirrup sounded like "Quick, quick ! " which seemed to be their motto. Some more of the men left the lower shanty, and nw, mother and I got installed in our new abode.^* It was high up on the hill at the other side, on one of these stony frequented by<%he penguins. We hadV.# force our way through a dense cloud of these to reach our hole, which we called Penguin Cottage. The height inside was about fbiir feet, in the highest place, length rather less than four feet, and

a sort of shelf on the rock which we used as a bed-place about three feet wide and five in length. The bottom of this bed we called the "well," for the damp was so great that our coverlet would get as Avet as if dipped in muddy water ; consequently we kept pur legs curled .up, which took aAvay from the width. When both were in the shanty, one often retired to bed to make more room, we were so crushed ; besides, one side not being water-tight was too wet to sit down near, aiid we had to crouch, under the rock to keep out of the rain. The wall was abo.it four feet wide, built of sods ; but not having a spade, tearing up these sods with our hands made them very uneven, and gave lots of channels for raiii to fiud its way through. In the wall of our little shanty there was a whale-bird's nest. They wer very quiet ; but before rain they cooed and moaned in the most plaintive and musical tones, and after that you never had to wait long for wet weather. Of course I plastered up these places with mud^ as well as I could, but to little 'V^-pose Outf cave was made by buildr; Ig a turf wali against a slanting piece d rough rock. We managed to have a. hre, aS there were lots of penguins, thiiugh we were not very good at keeping it alight till we got accustomed to it. The way we managed was this : At night, before the fire was quite out, I put in a piece of dry turf, which kept a spark in, or got red-hot through, and lasted, if a good piece, till morning. I then put dry gi\iss or shavings from the mattress and blew it till it caiight, or helped it with gunpowder, then hung strips of fat skin over the flame, thereby making a good fire. The fire once lit I put on the stone pot. and prepared breakfast. A list of our furniture and effects might be interesting : a very small mattress of dirty shavings, a counterpane, a table-spoon (plated), a tea-spoon (real), a fork, two bottles (great treasures), a small piece of

till made into a frying-pan, about six inches long and one in depth ; a stone lamp, two stone frying-pans, in which Aye cook all our meat ; a fireplace, two or three umbrella wires, which were used for pokers, or bars to rest the tin pan on. The most valuable articles in the cabin were my club and knife : the latter was simply invaluable— no money would have bought it ; without it I could not have kept up an independent shanty, and upon it and my club depended every necessary of life. Another useful article Was a needle made from the wire of an umbrella. The thread we used was unravelled* worsted. I also had my revolver, and some precious rags I could make " touch "uf, with the help of gunpowder. I had quantities of oil got from the fat of the penguins put in the large gut of the other seabirds, also in what -n c called " pigs "—that is, the skin of a penguin without a cut in it, dried and made a bag of. Tiny were also used for carrying water. [to be continued in our next.]

— Whatever faults Sammy Coombes may have, lie is at least a fructifying father and a good colonist. Proof of this was afforded by the show of little Coombeses, who sang the " Schoolmaster " at the children's party last Saturday night. There were six little girls — the eldest about ten, and the youngest about four years— artistically arranged on the platform, and the row of curly little heads, very much resembled a small flight of stairs. — Amongst the ladies who honoured the meeting of the Pakuranga Hunt Club with their presence. I observed Mrs. and the Miss Whitakers, the Misses Taylor, Miss Williamson, Mrs. Cruickshank, Miss Dunnett, Miss Jane Aitken, etc. — They say Dick Feltus is going to put the letters 1.0. G.T. after bis name, and run for the Mayoralty on the teetotal ticket. — Poor oleaginous Ikey Isaacs. The "Eance" went for him properly in its last issue. Ikey hasn't smiled since.