Jarwin and Cuffy by Robert Michael Ballantyne (most popular ebook readers txt) 📕

Jarwin, feeling ashamed to appear in so _very_ light a costume before a lady, turned smartly round and walked away. Then, reflecting that he was quite as decently clothed as the other natives about, he turned again and slowly retraced his steps, pretending to be interested in picking stones and plants from the ground.

The missionary's wife looked at him for a moment with no greater interest than she would have bestowed on any other native, and then gazed towards the sea-shore, as if she expected some one. Presently Mr Williams approached.

"Well, have you been successful?" she asked.

"Yes, it has been all arranged satisfactorily, so I shall begin at once," replied Mr Williams. "The only thing that gives me anxiety is the bellows."

Poor Jarwin drew nearer and nearer. His heart was again stirred in a way that it had not been for many a day, and he had to pull the rein pretty tightly; in fact, it required all his Christianity and British-tar-hood to prevent him from revealing himself, and claiming protection at that moment.

As he raised himself, and gazed with intense interest at the speakers, the missionary's attention became fixed on him, and he beckoned him to approach.

"I think you are one of the strangers who have just arrived, are you not?"

This was spoken in the language of Raratonga, which was so similar to that which he had already acquired, that he opened his mouth to reply, "Yes, your honour," or "Your reverence," in English. But it suddenly occurred to him that he must translate this into the native tongue if his secret was to be preserved. While he was turning over in his mind the best words to use for this purpose he reflected that the imperfection of his knowledge, even the mere tone of his voice, would probably betray him; he therefore remained dumb, with his mouth open.

The missionary smiled slightly, and repeated his question.

Jarwin, in great perplexity, still remained dumb. Suddenly an idea flashed across his mind. He pointed to his mouth, wagged his tongue, and shook his head.

"Ah! you are dumb, my poor man," said the missionary, with a look of pity.

"Or tabooed," suggested the lady; "his tongue may have been tabooed."

There was some reason and probability in this, for the extraordinary custom of tabooing, by which various things are supposed to be rendered sacred, and therefore not to be used or touched, is extended by the South Sea Islanders to various parts of their bodies, as for instance, the hands; in which case the person so tabooed must, for a time, be fed by others, as he dare not use his hands.

Jarwin, being aware of the custom, was so tickled by the idea of his tongue being tabooed, that he burst into an uncontrollable fit of laughter, to the intense amazement of his questioners. While in the midst of this laugh, he became horrified by the thought that _that_ of itself would be sufficient to betray him, so he cleverly remedied the evil, and gave vent to his feelings by tapering the laugh off into a hideous yell, and rushed frantically from the spot.

"Strange," observed the missionary, gazing after the fugitive mariner, "how like that was to an English laugh!"

"More like the cry of a South Sea maniac, I think," said Mrs Williams, re-entering the house, followed by her husband.

The matter which the missionary said had been arranged so satisfactorily, and was to be begun at once, was neither more nor less than the building of a ship, in which to traverse the great island-studded breast of the Pacific.

In case some one, accustomed to think of the ponderous vessels which are built constantly in this land with such speed and facility, should be inclined to regard the building of a ship a small matter, we shall point out a few of the difficulties with which the missionary had to contend in this projected work.

In the first place, he was on what is sometimes styled a "savage island"--an island that lay far out of the usual track of ships, that had only been discovered a little more than a year at that time, and was inhabited by a blood-thirsty, savage, cruel, and ignorant race of human beings, who had renounced idolatry and embraced Christianity only a few months before. They knew no more of ship-building than the celebrated man in the moon, and their methods of building canoes were quite inapplicable to vessels of large capacity. Besides this, Mr Williams was the only white man on the island, and he had no suitable implements for shipbuilding, except axes and augurs, and a few of the smaller of the carpenter's tools. In the building of a vessel, timbers and planks are indispensable, but he had no pit-saw wherewith to cut these. It is necessary to fasten planks and timbers together, but he had no nails to do this. Heavy iron forgings were required for some parts of the structure, but, although he possessed iron, he had no smith's anvil, or hammer, or tongs, or bellows, wherewith to forge it. In these circumstances he commenced one of the greatest pieces of work ever undertaken by man--greatest, not only because of the mechanical difficulties overcome, but because of the influence for good that the ship, when completed, had upon the natives of the Southern Seas, as well as its reflex influence in exciting admiration, emulation, and enthusiasm in other lands.

The first difficulty was the bellows. Nothing could be done without these and the forge. There were four goats on the island. Three of these were sacrificed; their skins were cut up, and, along with two boards, converted into a pair of smith's bellows in four days.

No one can imagine the intense interest with which John Jarwin looked on while the persevering but inexperienced missionary laboured at this work, and tremendous was the struggle which he had to keep his hands idle and his tongue quiet; for he was a mechanical genius, and could have given the missionary many a useful hint, but did not dare to do so lest his knowledge, or voice, or aptitude for such work, or all these put together, should betray him. He was, therefore, fain to content himself with looking on, or performing a few trifling acts in the way of lifting, carrying, and hewing with the axe.

His friends frequently came to look on, as the work progressed, and he could not help fancying that they regarded him with looks of peculiar interest. This perplexed him, but, supposing that it must result from suspicion of his integrity, he took no notice of it, save that he became more resolute than ever in reference to "honour bright!" Big Chief also came to look on and wonder, but, although he kept a sharp eye on his slave, he did not seem to desire intercourse with him.

When the bellows were finished, it was found that they did not work properly. The upper box did not fill well, and, when tried, they were not satisfied with blowing wind out, but insisted on drawing fire in! They were, in short, a failure! Deep were the ponderings of the missionary as to how this was to be remedied, and small was the light thrown on the subject by the various encyclopaedias and other books which he possessed; but the question was somewhat abruptly settled for him by the rats. These creatures devoured all the leather of the bellows in a single night, and left nothing but the bare boards!

Rats were an absolute plague at that time at Raratonga. Mr Williams tells us, in his interesting "Narrative," that he and his family never sat down to a meal without having two or more persons stationed to keep them off the table. When kneeling at family prayer, they would run over them in all directions, and it was found difficult to keep them out of the beds. On one occasion, when the servant was making one of the beds, she uttered a scream, and, on rushing into the room, Mr Williams found that four rats had crept under the pillow and made themselves snug there. They paid for their impudence, however, with their lives. On another occasion, a pair of English shoes, which had not been put in the usual place of safety, were totally devoured in a night, and the same fate befell the covering of a hair-trunk. No wonder, then, that they did not spare the bellows!

Poor Jarwin sorrowed over this loss fully as much as did the missionary, but he was forced to conceal his grief.

Still bent on discovering some method of "raising the wind," Mr Williams appealed to his inventive powers. He considered that if a pump threw water, there was no reason why it should not throw wind. Impressed with this belief, he set to work and made a box about eighteen or twenty inches square and four feet high, with a valve in the bottom to let air in, a hole in the front to let it out, and a sort of piston to force it through the hole. By means of a long lever the piston could be raised, and by heavy weights it was pushed down. Of course considerable power was required to raise the piston and its weights, but there was a superabundance of power, for thousands of wondering natives were ready and eager to do whatever they were bid. They could have pumped the bellows had they been the size of a house! They worked admirably in some respects, but had the same fault as the first pair, namely, a tendency to suck in the fire! This, however, was corrected by means of a valve at the back of the pipe which communicated with the fire. Another fault lay in the length of interval between the blasts. This was remedied by making another box of the same kind, and working the two alternately, so that when one was blowing the fire, the other was, as it were, taking breath. Thus a continuous blast was obtained, while eight or ten grinning and delighted natives worked the levers.

The great difficulty being thus overcome, the work progressed rapidly. A large hard stone served for an anvil, and a small stone, perforated, with a handle affixed to it, did duty for a hammer. A pair of carpenter's pincers served for tongs, and charcoal, made from the cocoanut and other trees, did duty for coals. In order to obtain planks, the missionary split trees in half with wedges and then the natives thinned them down with adzes extemporised by fitting crooked handles to ordinary hatchets. When a bent or twisted plank was required, having no apparatus for steaming it, he bent a piece of bamboo to the required shape, and sent natives to scour the woods in search of a suitable crooked tree. Thus planks suited to his purpose were obtained. Instead of fastening the planks to the timbers of the ship with iron nails, large wooden pins, or "trenails," were used, and driven into augur holes, and thus the fabric was held together. Instead of oakum, cocoanut husk was used, and native cloth and dried banana stumps to caulk the seams, and make them watertight. The bark of a certain tree was spun into twine and rope by a rope-machine made for the purpose, and a still more complex machine, namely, a turning-lathe, was constructed for the purpose of