The Coral Island E-Book

R. M. Ballantyne

• Herausgeber: R. M. Ballantyne
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

Robert Michael Ballantyne (24 April 1825 – 8 February 1894) was a Scottish author of juvenile fiction who wrote more than 100 books. He was also an accomplished artist, and exhibited some of his water-colours at the Royal Scottish Academy.

Leseprobe

The Coral Island A Tale of the Pacific Ocean

R. M. Ballantyne

Table of Contents

Beginning — My Early Life and Character — I Thirst for Adventure in Foreign Lands, and Go to Sea.

The Departure — The Sea — My Companions — Some Account of the Wonderful Sights We Saw on the Great Deep — A Dreadful Storm And a Frightful Wreck.

The Coral Island — Our First Cogitations After Landing and the Result of Them — We Conclude that the Island is Uninhabited.

We Examine into Our Personal Property, and Make a Happy Discovery — Our Island Described — Jack Proves Himself to Be Learned and Sagacious Above His Fellows — Curious Discoveries — Natural Lemonade!

Morning, and Cogitations Connected Therewith — We Luxuriate in the Sea, Try Our Diving Powers, and Make Enchanting Excursions Among the Coral Groves at the Bottom of the Ocean — The Wonders of the Deep Enlarged Upon.

An Excursion into the Interior in which We Make Many Valuable and Interesting Discoveries — We Get a Dreadful Fright — The Bread-Fruit Tree — Wonderful Peculiarity of Some of the Fruit-Trees — Signs of Former Inhabitants.

Jack’s Ingenuity — We Get into Difficulties About Fishing, and Get Out of Them by a Method which Gives Us a Cold Bath — Horrible Encounter with a Shark.

The Beauties of the Bottom of the Sea Tempt Peterkin to Dive — How he Did it — More Difficulties Overcome — The Water Garden — Curious Creatures of the Sea — The Tank — Candles Missed Very Much, and the Candle-Nut Tree Discovered — Wonderful Account of Peterkin’s First Voyage — Cloth Found Growing on a Tree — A Plan Projected, and Arms Prepared for Offence and Defence — A Dreadful Cry.

Prepare for a Journey Round the Island — Sagacious Reflections — Mysterious Appearances and Startling Occurrences.

Make Discovery of Many Excellent Roots and Fruits — The Resources of the Coral Island Gradually Unfolded — The Banyan Tree — Another Tree which is Supported by Natural Planks — Water-Fowl Found — A Very Remarkable Discovery, and a Very Peculiar Murder — We Luxuriate on the Fat of the Land.

Effects of Overeating, and Reflections Thereon — Humble Advice Regarding Cold Water — The “Horrible Cry” Accounted For — The Curious Birds Called Penguins — Peculiarity of the Cocoa-Nut Palm — Questions on the Formation of Coral Islands — Mysterious Footsteps — Strange Discoveries and Sad Sights.

Something Wrong with the Tank — Jack’s Wisdom and Peterkin’s Impertinence — Wonderful Behaviour of a Crab — Good Wishes For Those who Dwell Far from the Sea — Jack Commences to Build a Little Boat.

Notable Discovery at the Spouting Cliffs — The Mysterious Green Monster Explained — We are Thrown into Unutterable Terror by the Idea that Jack is Drowned — The Diamond Cave.

Strange Peculiarity of the Tides — Also of the Twilight — Peterkin’s Remarkable Conduct in Embracing a Little Pig and Killing a Big Sow — Sage Remarks on Jesting — Also on Love.

Boat-Building Extraordinary — Peterkin Tries His Hand at Cookery, and Fails Most Signally — The Boat Finished — Curious Conversation with the Cat, and Other Matters.

The Boat Launched — We Visit the Coral Reef — The Great Breaker that Never Goes Down — Coral Insects — The Way in which Coral Islands are Made — The Boats Sail — We Tax Our Ingenuity to Form Fish-Hooks — Some of the Fish We Saw — And a Monstrous Whale — Wonderful Shower of Little Fish — Waterspouts.

A Monster Wave and its Consequences — The Boat Lost and Found — Peterkin’s Terrible Accident — Supplies of Food for a Voyage in the Boat — We Visit Penguin Island, and are Amazed Beyond Measure — Account of the Penguins.

An Awful Storm and its Consequences — Narrow Escape — A Rock Proves a Sure Foundation — A Fearful Night and a Bright Morning — Deliverance from Danger.

Shoemaking — The Even Tenor of Our Way Suddenly Interrupted — An Unexpected Visit and an Appalling Battle — We All Become Warriors, and Jack Proves Himself to Be a Hero.

Intercourse with the Savages — Cannibalism Prevented — The Slain are Buried and the Survivors Depart, Leaving Us Again Alone on Our Coral Island.

Sagacious and Moral Remarks in Regard to Life — A Sail! — An Unexpected Salute — The End of the Black Cat — A Terrible Dive — An Incautious Proceeding and a Frightful Catastrophe.

I Fall into the Hands of Pirates — How They Treated Me, and what I Said to Them — The Result of the Whole Ending in a Melancholy Separation and in a Most Unexpected Gift.

Bloody Bill — Dark Surmises — A Strange Sail, and a Strange Crew, and a Still Stranger Cargo — New Reasons for Favouring Missionaries — A Murderous Massacre, and Thoughts Thereon.

Bloody Bill is Communicative and Sagacious — Unpleasant Prospects — Retrospective Meditations Interrupted by Volcanic Agency — The Pirates Negotiate with a Feejee Chief — Various Etceteras that are Calculated to Surprise and Horrify.

The Sandal-Wood Party — Native Children’s Games Somewhat Surprising — Desperate Amusements Suddenly and Fatally Brought To a Close — An Old Friend Recognised — News — Romata’s Mad Conduct.

Mischief Brewing — My Blood is Made to Run Cold — Evil Consultations and Wicked Resolves — Bloody Bill Attempts to Do Good, and Fails — The Attack — Wholesale Murder — The Flight — The Escape.

Reflections — The Wounded Man — The Squall — True Consolation — Death.

Alone on the Deep — Necessity the Mother of Invention — A Valuable Book Discovered — Natural Phenomenon — A Bright Day in My History.

The Effect of a Cannon-Shot — A Happy Reunion of a Somewhat Moist Nature — Retrospect and Explanations — An Awful Dive — New Plans — The Last of the Coral Island.

The Voyage — The Island, and a Consultation in which Danger is Scouted as a Thing Unworthy of Consideration — Rats and Cats — The Native Teacher — Awful Revelations — Wonderful Effects of Christianity.

A Strange and Bloody Battle — The Lion Bearded in His Den — Frightful Scenes of Cruelty, and Fears for the Future.

An Unexpected Discovery, and a Bold, Reckless Defiance, with its Consequences — Plans of Escape, and Heroic Resolves.

The Flight — The Pursuit — Despair and its Results — The Lion Bearded in His Den Again — Awful Danger Threatened and Wonderfully Averted — A Terrific Storm.

Imprisonment — Sinking Hopes — Unexpected Freedom to More than One, and in More Senses than One.

Conclusion.

Preface

I was a boy when I went through the wonderful adventures herein set down. With the memory of my boyish feelings strong upon me, I present my book specially to boys, in the earnest hope that they may derive valuable information, much pleasure, great profit, and unbounded amusement from its pages.

One word more. If there is any boy or man who loves to be melancholy and morose, and who cannot enter with kindly sympathy into the regions of fun, let me seriously advise him to shut my book and put it away. It is not meant for him.

Ralph Rover

Chapter One.

Beginning — My Early Life and Character — I Thirst for Adventure in Foreign Lands, and Go to Sea.

Roving has always been, and still is, my ruling passion, the joy of my heart, the very sunshine of my existence. In childhood, in boyhood, and in man’s estate I have been a rover; not a mere rambler among the woody glens and upon the hill-tops of my own native land, but an enthusiastic rover throughout the length and breadth of the wide, wide world.

It was a wild, black night of howling storm, the night on which I was born on the foaming bosom of the broad Atlantic Ocean. My father was a sea-captain; my grandfather was a sea-captain; my great-grandfather had been a marine. Nobody could tell positively what occupation his father had followed; but my dear mother used to assert that he had been a midshipman, whose grandfather, on the mother’s side, had been an admiral in the Royal Navy. At any rate, we knew that as far back as our family could be traced, it had been intimately connected with the great watery waste. Indeed, this was the case on both sides of the house; for my mother always went to sea with my father on his long voyages, and so spent the greater part of her life upon the water.

Thus it was, I suppose, that I came to inherit a roving disposition. Soon after I was born, my father, being old, retired from a seafaring life, purchased a small cottage in a fishing village on the west coast of England, and settled down to spend the evening of his life on the shores of that sea which had for so many years been his home. It was not long after this that I began to show the roving spirit that dwelt within me. For some time past my infant legs had been gaining strength, so that I came to be dissatisfied with rubbing the skin off my chubby knees by walking on them, and made many attempts to stand up and walk like a man — all of which attempts, however, resulted in my sitting down violently and in sudden surprise. One day I took advantage of my dear mother’s absence to make another effort; and, to my joy, I actually succeeded in reaching the doorstep, over which I tumbled into a pool of muddy water that lay before my father’s cottage door. Ah, how vividly I remember the horror of my poor mother when she found me sweltering in the mud amongst a group of cackling ducks, and the tenderness with which she stripped off my dripping clothes and washed my dirty little body! From this time forth my rambles became more frequent and, as I grew older, more distant, until at last I had wandered far and near on the shore and in the woods around our humble dwelling, and did not rest content until my father bound me apprentice to a coasting-vessel and let me go to sea.

For some years I was happy in visiting the seaports, and in coasting along the shores, of my native land. My Christian name was Ralph; and my comrades added to this the name of Rover, in consequence of the passion which I always evinced for travelling. Rover was not my real name; but as I never received any other, I came at last to answer to it as naturally as to my proper name. And as it is not a bad one, I see no good reason why I should not introduce myself to the reader as Ralph Rover. My shipmates were kind, good-natured fellows, and they and I got on very well together. They did, indeed, very frequently make game of and banter me, but not unkindly; and I overheard them sometimes saying that Ralph Rover was a “queer, old-fashioned fellow.” This, I must confess, surprised me much; and I pondered the saying long, but could come at no satisfactory conclusion as to that wherein my old-fashionedness lay. It is true I was a quiet lad, and seldom spoke except when spoken to. Moreover, I never could understand the jokes of my companions even when they were explained to me, which dulness in apprehension occasioned me much grief. However, I tried to make up for it by smiling and looking pleased when I observed that they were laughing at some witticism which I had failed to detect. I was also very fond of inquiring into the nature of things and their causes, and often fell into fits of abstraction while thus engaged in my mind. But in all this I saw nothing that did not seem to be exceedingly natural, and could by no means understand why my comrades should call me “an old-fashioned fellow.”

Now, while engaged in the coasting trade I fell in with many seamen who had travelled to almost every quarter of the globe; and I freely confess that my heart glowed ardently within me as they recounted their wild adventures in foreign lands — the dreadful storms they had weathered, the appalling dangers they had escaped, the wonderful creatures they had seen both on the land and in the sea, and the interesting lands and strange people they had visited. But of all the places of which they told me, none captivated and charmed my imagination so much as the Coral Islands of the Southern Seas. They told me of thousands of beautiful, fertile islands that had been formed by a small creature called the coral insect, where summer reigned nearly all the year round, where the trees were laden with a constant harvest of luxuriant fruit, where the climate was almost perpetually delightful; yet where, strange to say, men were wild, bloodthirsty savages, excepting in those favoured isles to which the Gospel of our Saviour had been conveyed. These exciting accounts had so great an effect upon my mind that, when I reached the age of fifteen, I resolved to make a voyage to the South Seas.

I had no little difficulty, at first, in prevailing on my dear parents to let me go; but when I urged on my father that he would never have become a great captain had he remained in the coasting trade, he saw the truth of what I said and gave his consent. My dear mother, seeing that my father had made up his mind, no longer offered opposition to my wishes. “But, oh Ralph!” she said on the day I bade her adieu, “come back soon to us, my dear boy; for we are getting old now, Ralph, and may not have many years to live.”

I will not take up my readers’ time with a minute account of all that occurred before I took my final leave of my dear parents. Suffice it to say that my father placed me under the charge of an old messmate of his own, a merchant captain, who was on the point of sailing to the South Seas in his own ship, the Arrow. My mother gave me her blessing and a small Bible; and her last request was that I would never forget to read a chapter every day and say my prayers, which I promised, with tears in my eyes, that I would certainly do.

Soon afterwards I went on board the Arrow, which was a fine, large ship, and set sail for the islands of the Pacific Ocean.

Chapter Two.

The Departure — The Sea — My Companions — Some Account of the Wonderful Sights We Saw on the Great Deep — A Dreadful Storm And a Frightful Wreck.

It was a bright, beautiful, warm day when our ship spread her canvas to the breeze and sailed for the regions of the south. Oh, how my heart bounded with delight as I listened to the merry chorus of the sailors while they hauled at the ropes and got in the anchor! The captain shouted; the men ran to obey; the noble ship bent over to the breeze, and the shore gradually faded from my view; while I stood looking on, with a kind of feeling that the whole was a delightful dream.

The first thing that struck me as being different from anything I had yet seen during my short career on the sea, was the hoisting of the anchor on deck and lashing it firmly down with ropes, as if we had now bid adieu to the land for ever and would require its services no more.

“There, lass!” cried a broad-shouldered jack-tar, giving the fluke of the anchor a hearty slap with his hand after the housing was completed —“there, lass, take a good nap now, for we sha’n’t ask you to kiss the mud again for many a long day to come!”

And so it was. That anchor did not “kiss the mud” for many long days afterwards; and when at last it did, it was for the last time!

There were a number of boys in the ship, but two of them were my special favourites. Jack Martin was a tall, strapping, broad-shouldered youth of eighteen, with a handsome, good-humoured, firm face. He had had a good education, was clever and hearty and lion-like in his actions, but mild and quiet in disposition. Jack was a general favourite, and had a peculiar fondness for me. My other companion was Peterkin Gay. He was little, quick, funny, decidedly mischievous, and about fourteen years old. But Peterkin’s mischief was almost always harmless, else he could not have been so much beloved as he was.

“Hallo, youngster!” cried Jack Martin, giving me a slap on the shoulder the day I joined the ship, “come below and I’ll show you your berth. You and I are to be messmates; and I think we shall be good friends, for I like the look o’ you.”

Jack was right. He and I, and Peterkin afterwards, became the best and staunchest friends that ever tossed together on the stormy waves.

I shall say little about the first part of our voyage. We had the usual amount of rough weather and calm; also we saw many strange fish rolling in the sea, and I was greatly delighted one day by seeing a shoal of flying-fish dart out of the water and skim through the air about a foot above the surface. They were pursued by dolphins, which feed on them; and one flying-fish, in its terror, flew over the ship, struck on the rigging, and fell upon the deck. Its wings were just fins elongated; and we found that they could never fly far at a time, and never mounted into the air like birds, but skimmed along the surface of the sea. Jack and I had it for dinner, and found it remarkably good.