The Malay archipelago : the land of the orang-utan ... - Wallace Online

396 THE MALAY ARCHIPELAGO. [cHAr.uneasy. We s\-ere now in a sad plight, liaA'ing lost our two bestmen, and being doubtful if we had strength left to hoist ourmainsail. We had only two days' water on board, and thesmall, rocky, volcanic island did not promise us much chanceof finding any. The conduct of the men on shore was such asto render it doubtful if they would make any serious attemptto reach us, tliough they might easily do so, having two goodchoppers, with which in a day they could make a small outriggerraft on wliich they could safely cross the two miles ofsmooth sea with the wind right aft, if they started from theeast end of the island, so as to allow for the current. I couldonly hope they would be sensible enough to make the attempt,and determined to stay as long as I could to give them thechance.We passed an anxious night, fearful of again breaking ouranchor or rattan cable. In the morning (23rd), finding allsecure, I waded on shore with my two men, leaving the oldsteersman and the cook on board, with a loaded musket torecall us if needed. We first walked along the beach, tillstopped by the vertical cliffs at the east end of the island, findinga place where meat had been smoked, a turtle-shell stilldead leaves and sago refuse that had fallen in.greasy, and some cut wood, the leaves of which were still green—showing that some boat had been here very recently. Wethen entered the jungle, cutting our way up to the top of thehill, but when we got there could see nothing, owing to thethickness of the forest. Eetui'ning, we cut some bamboos, andsharpened them to dig for water in a low spot where some sagotreeswere growing ;when, just as we were going to begin, Hoi,the Wahai man, called out to say he had found water. It wasa deep hole among tlie sago-trees, in stiff" black clay, full ofwater, wliich was fresh, but smelt horribly from the quantity ofHastily concludingtliat it was a sirring, or that the water had filtered in,we baled it all out as well as a dozen or twenty buckets of mudand rubbish, hoping by night to have a good supply of cleanwater. I then went on board to breakfast, leaving my two mento make a bamboo raft to carry us on shore and back withoutwading. I had scarcely finished when our cable broke, and webumped against the I'ocks. Luckily it was smooth and calm,and no damage was done. AYe searched for and got up ouranchor, and found that the cable had been cut by grating allHad it given way in the night, we mightnight u]3on the coral.liave drifted out to sea without our anchor or been seriouslydamaged. In the evening we went to fetch water from the well,when, greatly to our dismay, we found nothing but a little liquidthen became evident that the holenmd at the bottom, and itwas one wliich had been made to collect rain water, and wouldnever fill again as long as the present drought continued. Aswe did not know what we might suffer for want of water, wefilled our jar with this muddy stuff so that it might settle. In