Chapter 2

Dec. 1.--To-day it is so cold that firm ice has formed over the boat-track, and we can reach the ship on foot; we have brought over on our backs five hundred fish, and much of our bedding and clothes, which we had to dig out of the ice.

Dec. 10.--We have been busied this past week, save on Sunday, when we rested and performed the Sabbath duties of a Christian, in bringing hither stores from the ship--now bearing them over firm ice, and now wading knee-deep in half-frozen water. I will here describe the house which we have built to shelter us withal. It is among a tuft of thick trees, under a south bank, about a bow-shot from the seaside; it is square, and about twenty feet every way. First we drove strong stakes into the earth round about, which we wattled with boughs as thick as might be, beating them down very close. At the ends we left two holes for the light to come in at, and the same way the smoke did pass out also. Then we cut down trees into lengths of six feet, with which we made a pile on both sides. We left a little low door to creep into, and a porch was before that, made with piles of wood. We next fastened a rough tree aloft over all, upon which we laid our rafters and our roof. On the inside, we made fast our sails round about. Now have we driven in stakes and made us bedstead frames, about three sides of the house. We have made our hearth in the middle of the house, and on it our fire. This house we propose to call our mansion, as we have built two smaller near by for our kitchen and our store-house.

Dec. 31.--Our mansion is now covered thick with snow, almost to the very roof of it; we do not go out save we first shovel away the snow, and then by treading, make it somewhat hard under foot. We have got our boat ashore, and fetched up some of our provisions from the beach, with extremity of cold and labor; and thus we concluded the old year 1631.

Jan. 2, 1632.--I observed the sun to rise like an oval along the horizon; I called three or four to see it, the better to confirm my judgment; and we all agreed that it was twice as long as it was broad. We plainly perceived withal, that by degrees as it rose higher it also recovered its soundness.

Jan. 30.--But little worthy the writing has happened to us this month. The men grow daily weaker, and our stores less. We have three sorts of sick men--those that cannot move nor turn themselves in their beds, who must be tended like infants; those that are as it were crippled; and those that are something better, but afflicted with sore mouths. These last make shift to work; they go to work through the snow to the ship, and about their other business. Our cook doth order our food in this manner. The beef which is to serve on Sunday night to supper, he doth boil on Saturday night in a kettle full of water, with a quart of oatmeal, about an hour. Then taking the beef out, he doth boil the rest till it is thick, which we call porridge, which, with bread, we do eat as hot as we may; and after this we have fish, and thus we have some warm thing every supper.

But many of our sick eat nought save a little oatmeal or pease. Hitherto we have taken but a dozen foxes in all our traps.

Feb. 10.--The cold is as extreme just now as at any time this year, and many of our men complain heavily of sickness; two-thirds of our company are under the surgeon's hand. And yet, nevertheless, they must work daily, and go abroad to fetch wood and timber notwithstanding the most of them have no shoes to put on. Their shoes, upon their coming to the fire out of the snow, were burnt and scorched upon their feet, and they were forced to bind old clothes about their feet. Our clock and watch, though we have kept them ever by the fireside, yet they are so frozen that they cannot go. The inside of our house is hanged with icicles, and many a time when I put my hand into the brass kettle by the fire, I find one side very warm, and the other side an inch frozen.

Mar. 15.--One of our men thinks that he has seen a deer, whereupon he with two or three more desire that they may go and see if they can take it, and I have given them leave.

Mar. 16.--Last evening did our hunters return, not having seen the deer, but so disabled with cold, that they will not be well in a fortnight.

Mar. 31.--Our carpenter is now among our sick, his cutting tools are but few, and these mostly broken and bound about with rope-yarn as fast as may be. Thus our pinnace, on which lyeth so much of our hope of escape, is but in an indifferent forwardness.

April 4.--To-day we have been sitting all about the fire, reasoning and considering together about our estate. The time and season of the year comes forward apace, and we have determined on this course. With the first warm weather we will begin to clear the ship from the ice and water, so that should the pinnace never be finished, as seemeth in doubt through the sickness of our carpenter, we might yet have some hope in our old ship to complete our enterprise, and to return home.

April 6.--This day is the deepest snow we have had all this year; it hath filled up all our paths and ways.

April 16.--This is the most comfortable sunshine that hath come this year, and I have put some to clear off the snow from the upper decks of the ship, and to clear and dry the great cabin by making fire in it. Others have I put to dig down through the ice to come by our anchor.

April 25.--Now have we labored so hard that we are mightily encouraged, for the water doth rise without the ship, and yet doth not make its way into the hold. I have bid the cook that he pour hot water into the pumps, and so thaw them.

April 27.--One of the pumps is cleared, and by means of this we have drawn two feet of water from the hold, and we find to our satisfaction that it doth not rise again.

May 2.--It doth snow and blow so that we must keep house all day; our sick men are so grieved at this unexpected cold that they grow worse and worse.

May 3.--To-day some of the snow melted on the land, and some cranes and geese have come to it. I and the surgeon have been with a couple of fowling-pieces to see if we could kill any for our sick men, but never did I see such wild-fowl; they would not endure to see anything move, therefore we have been obliged to return empty-handed and wearied.

May 9.--We have at last come to and got up our five barrels of beef and pork which were sunk in the hold, and we have also found four butts of beer, which will be as a cordial to our sick men. God make us ever thankful for the comforts that He gives us!

May 13.--This is the Sabbath day, which we have solemnized, giving God thanks for those hopes and comforts which we daily have.

May 21.--This is the warmest day we have yet had. Two of my men have I sent a fowling, and myself, the master, the surgeon, and one more with our guns and our dogs, have been into the woods to see what comfort we could find. We have wandered full eight miles from the house, and have searched with all diligence, but returned comfortless; not an herb, no leaf eatable, that we could find. Our fowlers have had as bad success. The snow is by this time pretty well wasted in the woods. We have a high tree on the highest part of the island which we call our watch-tree, and from the top thereof we can see far over the seas, but we find no appearance of breaking up yet.

May 24.--Very warm sunshine. The ice doth consume by the shore side, and cracks all over the bay with a fearful noise. This morning I sent two to search for the ship's rudder, which was buried among the ice, and a fortunate fellow, one David Hammon, pecking between the broken blocks, struck upon it, who crying out that he had found it, the rest came and got it up on the ice, and so into the ship. O, this was a joyful day to us all; and we gave God thanks for the hopes we had of it.

May 31.--We have found some vetches on the beach, which I have made the men pick up, and boil for their sick comrades.

June 4.--These four days hath it snowed, hailed, and blown hard; and it hath been so cold that the water in our cans did freeze in the very house, our clothes also, that had been washed and hung out to dry, did not thaw all day.

June 15.--This day I went to our watch-tree, but the sea was still firm and frozen, and the bay we were in was full of ice.

June 16.--Here have there lately appeared divers sorts of flies, and such an abundance of mosquitoes, that we are more tormented with them than ever we were with the cold weather. Here be likewise ants, and frogs in the ponds upon the land, but we durst not eat of them, they looked so speckled like toads. By this time there are neither bears, foxes, nor fowl, to be seen; they are all gone.

June 17.--At high water we did heave our ship with such good-will that we heaved her through the sand into a foot and a half deeper water. After we had moored her we went all to prayers, and gave God thanks that had given us our ship again.

June 19.--There hath been the highest tide that we have known since we have been here, and in a happy hour have we got our ship off. This evening I went up to our watch-tree; and this was the first time I could see any open water, anyway, except that little by the shore-side. This sight gave us some comfort.

June 22.--We have sounded all about the ship, where she was sunken, and find it very bad ground, with stones three feet high, and two of them within a ship's breadth of the ship, wherein did more manifestly appear God's mercies to us; for if when we forced her ashore she had stricken one blow against these stones, it had broken her.

June 24.--The wind hath put all the ice upon us, so that for a while we were in such apparent danger that I verily thought we should have lost our ship. With poles and oars did we heave away and part the ice from her. But it was God that did protect and preserve us; for it was past any man's understanding how the ship could endure it, or we by our labor save her.

June 26.--These have been indeed days of fear and of confusion, but also, in the end, of comfort. Yesterday evening I went up to our watch-tree, taking a man with me, who should make a fire on the highest place of the island, to see if it would be answered. When I was come to the tree I laid down my lance, and while I climbed up to the top of the tree, I ordered him to set fire to some decayed wood thereabouts. He unadvisedly set light to some trees that were to windward, so that they and all the rest too, by reason it had been very hot weather, took fire like flax or hemp; and the wind blowing the fire towards me, I made haste down the tree. But before I was half way down, the fire reached its stem, and blazed so fiercely upwards, that I had to leap off the tree and down a steep hill, and in brief, with much ado escaped burning. My companion at last came to me, and was joyful to see me, for he thought verily I had been burned. And thus we went homewards together, leaving the fire increasing, and still burning most furiously. I slept but little all night; and at break of day I made all our powder and beef to be carried aboard. This morning I went to the hills to look to the fire, where I saw it did still burn most furiously, both to the westward and northward. Leaving a man upon the hills to watch it, I came home immediately and made the men take down our new set of sails immediately and carry them to the seaside, ready to be cast in, if occasion were, and to make ready to take down our houses. About noon the wind changed, and our sentinel came running home, bringing us word that the fire did follow him hard at his heels, like a train of powder. It was no need to bid us take down and carry all away to the seaside. The fire came towards us with a most terrible rattling noise, a full mile in breadth, and by the time we had unroofed our houses, and laid hands on our last things, the fire was come to our town, and seized on it, and burnt it down to the ground. Our dogs howled, and then ran into the sea. To-night shall we lie all aboard the ship, and give God thanks that he has shipped us in her again.

June 29.--These three days have we wrought hard in fetching our things aboard, as likewise our water, and have been all about the eastern point, searching for driftwood. Our pinnace, on which hath been spent so much time and labor, we need not, having our ship afloat again, wherefore I have commended her to be sawn in pieces and brought into the ship.

June 30.--To-day have we most earnestly continued our labor, and by eleven this night was our ship in readiness, for we have sought to finish our business with the week and the month, that so we might the better solemnize the Sabbath ashore to-morrow, and so take leave of our wintering island.

July 1.--To-day, the first of the month, being Sunday, we were up betimes. We went ashore, and first we marched up to the high cross we had put up to mark the graves of our dead companions. There we had morning prayer, and walked up and down till dinner-time. After dinner we walked to the highest hills to see which way the fire had wafted. We saw that it had consumed to the westward sixteen miles at least, and the whole breadth of the island; near about our cross and our dead it could not come, because it was a bare sandy hill. After evening prayer we went up to take the last view of our dead, and then we presently took boat and departed, and never put foot more on that island; but in our ship we went to prayer, beseeching God to continue His mercies to us, and rendering Him thanks for having thus restored us. Now go we on our discovery, which achieved, I purpose surely to return to England, unless it should please God to take us first into His heavenly kingdom. And so desiring the happiness of all mankind in our general Saviour Jesus Christ, I end this, my journal, written on the island."

THE DISCOVERERS OF MADEIRA.

It was during the merry days of the reign of King Edward III. of England, that a little ship left the port of Bristol, sailing suddenly and secretly, so that none knew to what port she was bound.

She was no trading vessel laden with English goods for Calais, for her crew was not composed of sailors; there were on board only a few men, and these wore the dress of English gentlemen. The strange crew, the secret departure, all told the tale of some danger from which they were seeking to escape, and had we been on board we should have seen by the anxious faces of the crew, by the quick, eager glances with which they watched the shores as they sailed out of the Bristol Channel, that they feared pursuit, either for themselves or for some one whom they had in charge. Though not really sailors, they were doing their best to guide the little vessel, and they had chosen for captain a young Englishman called Lionel Machin, whose directions they obeyed, and in whom they appeared to have full confidence.

It was for Lionel's sake that the party of friends were now making their escape from England. He had married a girl whom he had long loved, but he had not gained the consent of her father and mother. They were powerful and rich, and he had reason to fear that his young wife would be taken from him through their influence with the king, and therefore he had determined to seek a French port, and to hide himself and wife in some French city which did not own Edward as its king.

But, ignorant as they were of navigation, it was no easy matter for them to direct their course aright, and, high winds springing up, they were beaten about for five days without catching sight of the coast of France. They did not know in what direction they were being carried, and all on board, especially the new-made wife, were full of uneasiness and dismay. Lionel encouraged Arabella with loving and hopeful words, even when his own heart was sinking low, but his friends, who had come only for his sake, and without well considering the dangers and risks which they might encounter, were fast losing spirit and hope. Their merry adventure seemed to be turning into sad earnest, and these light-hearted lads, having nothing to sustain their courage when pleasure was gone, now vented their disappointment in continual murmurs and regrets.

Arabella herself tried to seem indifferent to their danger, and secure in Lionel's care; she hid her tears, lest they might grieve her husband; but when she thought that no one saw her, she gave herself up to sorrow and despair. She thought of her father and mother whom she had left secretly, lest they should forbid her marriage with Lionel, and she longed with an aching heart for one word of love and forgiveness. For hours she would sit, her eyes turned toward that part of the horizon where she had last seen the coast of England, her thoughts busied about her old home: her father, taking his pleasures with a sad heart; her little sister, weeping for her lost playmate; and, most of all, her mother, upright and dry-eyed, after the stern fashion of the day, but yet, as Arabella well knew, ever thinking of her absent and disobedient child, ever missing the light step, the loving smile, the tender touch of the daughter she had loved so well.

But Lionel still kept up heart and hope, still spoke gaily of the new home they would soon make in sunny France--yes, even when day after day passed by, and the watchers saw no land, and knew that they must be drifting far out of their course, away into the wide unknown ocean. They had been at sea more than a month when one morning early, Lionel, who was pacing the deck, heard behind him a sudden shout of joy.

He did not turn, for there were tears in his eyes which he must hide from his companions, for he had now, for the first time, learned from his wife of her repentance and her grief, and he too was sad at heart and well-nigh hopeless. But the shout was repeated and taken up by other voices.

"Land, land at last!" they cried, and Lionel turned to see, far in the distance, the tall sharp outline either of a rock or of the cliffs which guarded some unknown shore. Wind and wave were steadily sweeping the vessel onward towards this haven of refuge, and there was nothing to do but to watch the sharpening outlines, and to see, as fog and mist cleared before the sun, the sheer dark rocks and deep valleys of their new home.

Nearer still and nearer, till the land was full in sight, and the famished and wearied crew could see the green valleys and tree-covered heights of this lovely island, could almost hear the fall of the clear waters which they saw glancing down the face of the rocks.

What land it was they knew not. No houses were to be seen, no ships or canoes flew out from under the shelter of the shore, no natives gathered in fear or wonder on the silent silver beach, only a number of bright-winged birds came as if to greet the new-comers, and settled fearless on the sails and ropes.

Quickly the ship's one boat was lowered, and some of Lionel's companions, well armed, put off for the unknown shore. Lionel would fain have been of the number, but neither Arabella nor his friends would permit him to run this risk. Ere long the boat returned, and the adventurers climbed on board as eager to speak as were their companions to hear.

"A dainty and delicious country, truly, Captain Lionel, but men we saw none," said the first speaker.

"The beasts thereon are tame, and have no fear of man," continued another.

"Yea, and the land is a garden of flowers, and the air soft, that it would give back health to the dying; there will your fair wife recover her bloom, and we all shall rest after our grievous toil."

"Fruits are there in plenty, they dropped on us from the trees as we walked," added the first.

"Here at last we have found a haven," answered Lionel; "here, my kinsmen and faithful friends, may you regain the strength you have lost in my cause, yea, and win your pardon in England by this fair news. Arabella, you will soon be strong again," and Lionel, though he spoke confidently, looked with evident anxiety toward the pale face which bore the traces of sorrow as well as of sickness.

Soon the whole party, save some few who remained in charge of the ship, were on land, wandering with the glee of schoolboys over the green plains and wooded hills on which they seemed to be the first to set foot. Choosing a sheltered spot among the laurels and near to the bend of the river, the new lords of the island soon built a shelter for themselves, and brought thither stores from the ship.

In this happy retreat the fugitives spent nearly a fortnight, seeming to forget, in the peace and rest of the present, their past wrong-doing and their past disasters.

But on the thirteenth day a sudden and violent storm broke over the island. The ship was driven from her anchorage by the force of the wind and waves, and was carried, with those of the company then on board, toward the north coast of Africa, where she was at last completely wrecked. The crew escaped with their lives, but only to fall into the hands of the Moors, who, regarding all Christian nations as their enemies, immediately seized those poor English gentlemen as slaves.

Lionel and the few companions who were left with him on the island, grieved deeply for the loss of their companions, though they knew not the terrible fate which had befallen them. And mingled with their sorrow was penitence too, for the wrong act which had, as they felt, brought on them this deserved punishment. But Arabella's grief was deeper; from the time when this new disaster befell them she never spoke, but sat gazing ever over the now calm sea which parted her from her home; and thus she pined and died, deeply oppressed with grief, and not comforted with the assurance of the pardon which Christ the Saviour gives to all who repent and turn from sin.

Lionel could not endure without her the life which he had sought for her sake, and ere long he, too, died in the arms of his weeping friends, and husband and wife were buried at the foot of the laurels which had been their shelter.

The remaining adventurers determined at any risk to leave the island in the little boat which still remained to them, for the place now became distasteful; but before they sailed they set up over the grave of the husband and wife a wooden cross, on which were carved their names. Then, following the wish of Lionel, they added below a request that if any Christians should hereafter come to dwell in this island, they would build over the grave a church, in which our Saviour Jesus might be worshipped and adored.

The little boat being now ready and stored with birds and other food as provisions for their voyage, they set sail, but were, like their companions, cast on the coast of Africa, and made slaves with those who had gone before them. But the poor Englishmen were not the only captives, for in those times shipwrecked sailors from all parts of Europe were held in cruel slavery by the Moors.

Side by side with the companions of Lionel worked a young Spanish sailor named Jean de Morales, and, glad of any relief from the toil and tedium of their sad life, he listened eagerly to the often-repeated story of the lovely and beautiful island. Of this unknown land he dreamed and thought continually, longing for freedom that he might discover and tread its silent shores, for he was of a nation eager for discovery, and the highest rewards and honors were not thought too great for him who should add a new country to the dominions of the crown of Castile.