The Crater, James Fenimore Cooper [good book club books TXT] 📗

success. If in the ship at all, they were certainly not betwixt decks. Mark was still of opinion no such articles would ever be found; but Betts insisted on the conversation he had overheard, and on his having rightly understood it. The provision of tools was very ample, and, in some respects, a little exaggerated in the way of Friend White's expectations of civilizing the people of Fejee. It may be well, here, to say a word concerning the reason that the Rancocus contained so many of these tributes to civilization. The voyage of the ship, it will be remembered, was in quest of sandal-wood. This sandal-wood was to be carried to Canton and sold, and a cargo of teas taken in with the avails. Now, sandal-wood was supposed to be used for the purposes of idolatry, being said to be burned before the gods of that heathenish people, Idolatry being one of the chiefest of all sins, Friend Abraham White had many compunctions and misgivings of conscience touching the propriety of embarking in the trade at all. It was true, that our knowledge of the Chinese customs did not extend far enough to render it certain that the wood was used for the purpose of burning before idols, some pretending it was made into ornamental furniture; but Friend Abraham White had heard the first, and was disposed to provide a set-off, in the event of the report's being true, by endeavouring to do something towards the civilization of the heathen. Had he been a Presbyterian merchant, of a religious turn, it is probable a quantity of tracts would have been made to answer the purpose; but, belonging to a sect whose practice was generally as perfect as its theory is imperfect, Friend Abraham White's conscience was not to be satisfied with any such shallow contrivance. It is true that he expected to make many thousands of dollars by the voyage, and doubtless would so have done, had not the accident befallen the ship, or had poor Captain Crutchely drank less in honour of his wedding-day; but the investment in tools, seeds, pigs, wheelbarrows, and other matters, honestly intended to better the condition of the natives of Vanua Levu and Viti Levu, did not amount to a single cent less than one thousand dollars, lawful money of the republic.

In looking over the packages, Mark found white clover seed, and Timothy seed, among other things, in sufficient quantity to cover most of the mount of the crater. The weather temporarily clearing off, he called to Bob, and they went ashore together, Mark carrying some of the grass seed in a pail, while. Betts followed with a vessel to hold guano. Providing a quantity of the last from a barrel that had been previously filled with it, and covered to protect it from the rain, they clambered up the side of the crater. This was the first time either had ascended since the day they finished planting there, and Mark approached his hills with a good deal of freshly-revived interest in their fate. From them he expected very little, having had no loam to mix with the ashes; but, by dwelling so much of late on the subject of tillage, he was not without faint hopes of meeting with some little reward for the pains he had taken. The reader will judge of the rapture then, as well as of the surprise, with which he first saw a hill of melons, already in the fourth leaf. Here, then, was the great problem successfully solved. Vegetation had actually commenced on that hitherto barren mount, and the spot which had lain--how long, Mark knew not, but probably for a thousand years, if not for thousands of years, in its nakedness--was about to be covered with verdure, and blest with fruitfulness. The inert principles which, brought to act together; had produced this sudden change from barrenness to fertility, had probably been near neighbours to each other all that time, but had failed of bringing forth their fruits, for the want of absolute contact. So Mark reasoned, for he nothing doubted that it was Betts's guano that had stimulated the otherwise barren deposit of the volcano, and caused his seed to germinate. The tillage may have aided, as well as the admission of air, light and water; but something more than this, our young gardener fancied, was wanting to success. That something the manure of birds, meliorated and altered by time, had supplied, and lo! the glorious results were before his eyes.

It would not be easy to portray to the reader all the delight which these specks of incipient verdure conveyed to the mind of Mark Woolston. It far exceeded the joy that would be apt to be awakened by a relief from an apprehension of wanting food at a distant day, for it resembled something of the character of a new creation. He went from hill to hill, and everywhere did he discover plants, some just peeping through the ashes, others already in leaf, and all seemingly growing and thriving. Fortunately, Kitty had not been on the mount for the last fortnight, her acquired habits, and the total nakedness of the hills, having kept her below with the other animals, since her first visits. Mark saw the necessity of keeping her off the elevation, which she would certainly climb the instant anything like verdure caught her eyes from below. He determined, therefore, to confine her to the ship, until he had taken the precautions necessary to prevent her ascending the mount. This last was easily enough done. On the exterior of the hills there were but three places where even a goat could get up. This was owing to the circumstance that the base of the ascent rose like a wall, for some ten or twelve feet, everywhere but at the three points mentioned. It appeared to Mark as if the sea had formerly washed around the crater, giving this form to its bottom for so wall-like was the rock for these ten or twelve feet, that it would have defied the efforts of a man for a long time, to overcome the difficulties of the ascent. At two of the places where the débris had made a rough footing, half an hour's work would remove the material, and leave these spots as impassable as the others. At the third point, it might require a good deal of labor to effect the object. At this last place, Mark told Betts it would be necessary, for the moment, to make some sort of a fence. Within the crater, it was equally difficult to ascend, except at one or two places; but these ascents our mariners thought of improving, by making steps, as the animals were effectually excluded from the plain within by means of the sail which served for a curtain at the gateway, or hole of entrance.

As soon as Mark had recovered a little from his first surprise, he sent Bob below to bring up some buckets filled with the earth brought from Loam Rock, or island. This soil was laid carefully around each of the plants, the two working alternately at the task, until a bucket-full had been laid in each hill. Mark did not know it at the time, but subsequent experience gave him reason to suspect, that this forethought saved most of his favourites from premature deaths. Seed might germinate, and the plants shoot luxuriantly from out of the ashes of the volcano, under the united influence of the sun and rains, in that low latitude, but it was questionable whether the nourishment to be derived from such a soil, if soil it could yet be called, would prove to be sufficient to sustain the plants when they got to be of an age and size to demand all the support they wanted. So convinced did Mark become, as the season advanced, of the prudence of what he then did out of a mere impulse, that he passed hours, subsequently, in raising loam to the summit of the mount, in order to place it in the different hills. For this purpose, Bob rigged a little derrick, and fitted a whip, so that the buckets were whipped up, sailor-fashion, after two or three experiments made in lugging them up by hand had suggested to the honest fellow that there might be a cheaper mode of obtaining their wishes.

When Mark was temporarily satisfied with gazing at his new-found treasures, he went to work to scatter the grass stood over the summit and sides of the crater. Inside, there was not much motive for sowing anything, the rock being so nearly perpendicular; but on the outside of the hill, or 'mountain,' as Bob invariably called it, the first ten or twelve feet excepted, there could be no obstacle to the seeds taking; though from the want of soil much of it, Mark knew, must be lost; but, if it only took in spots, and gave him a few green patches for the eye to rest on, he felt he should be amply rewarded for his trouble. Bob scattered guano wherever he scattered grass-seed, and in this way they walked entirely round the crater, Mark using up at least half of Friend Abraham White's provision in behalf of the savages of Fejee, in the way of the grasses. A gentle soft rain soon came to moisten this seed, and to embed it with whatever there was of soil on the surface, giving it every chance to take root that circumstances would allow.

This preliminary step taken towards covering the face of the mount with verdure, our mariners went to work to lay out their garden, regularly, within the crater. Mark manifested a good deal of ingenuity in this matter. With occasional exceptions the surface of the plain, or the bottom of the crater, was an even crust of no great thickness, compared of concrete ashes, scoriæ &c., but which might have borne the weight of a loaded wagon. This crust once broken, which it was not very difficult to do by means of pick and crows, the materials beneath were found loose enough for the purposes of agriculture, almost without using the spade. Now, space being abundant, Mark drew lines, in fanciful and winding paths, leaving the crust for his walks, and only breaking into the loose materials beneath, wherever he wished to form a bed. This variety served to amuse him and Betts, and they worked with so much the greater zeal, as their labours produced objects that were agreeable to the eye, and which amused them now, while they promised to benefit them hereafter. As each bed, whether oval, winding or straight, was dug, the loam and sea-weed was mixed up in it, in great abundance, after which it was sown, or planted.

Mark was fully aware that many of Friend Abraham White's seeds, if they grew and brought their fruits to maturity, would necessarily change their properties in that climate; some for the worse, and others for the better. From the Irish potato, the cabbage, and most of the more northern vegetables, he did not expect much, under any circumstances; but, he thought he would try all, and having several regularly assorted boxes of garden-seeds, just as they had been purchased out of the shops of Philadelphia, his garden scarce wanted any plant that was then known to the kitchens of America.

Our mariners were quite a fortnight preparing, manuring, and sowing their parterre , which, when complete, occupied fully half an acre in the very centre of the crater, Mark intending it for the nucleus of future similar works, that might convert the whole hundred acres into a garden. By the time the work was done, the rains were less frequent, though it still came in showers, and those that were still more favourable to vegetation.