Through the South Seas with Jack London by Martin Johnson

Author:Martin Johnson [Johnson, Martin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Travel, History, General
ISBN: 9783968652641
Google: WqHJDwAAQBAJ
Barnesnoble:
Goodreads: 533861
Publisher: Good Press
Published: 1976-10-28T00:00:00+00:00

All morning and most of the afternoon we coasted along about a mile from a low coral reef, on which the surf thundered and pounded. The strip of land was only about a quarter of a mile wide, but one hundred miles in circumference, forming an atoll with a large lagoon in the centre. We sailed within a mile of the low sandy beach before we could make out an opening, and Captain Y—— finally decided that this was not the lagoon we were looking for, but that the one ahead was, so we sailed up the coast of this island, so close that we could plainly make out the remains of a schooner that had been wrecked upon the reef. Perhaps this old hull was the monument of human lives, the last relict of those who had sailed her. This did not prove to be the atoll we were looking for, nor did the next, or the next; we were getting among p185 islands so thick that it was necessary to carry double watches at night on deck. Captain Y—— acted like a man driven crazy, for the ship was in his care, and the currents and squalls were so deceptive during this time that he was almost entirely deprived of sleep. One day we had sighted several small sails to the leeward of us; on trying to get to them we found our way blocked by a reef just on a level with the water, so low that had it been night nothing could have saved us from being wrecked. While we were trying to get round the reef, the sails disappeared beneath the sky-line, and we were still in a dangerous position. Little islands scarcely large enough to bear one cocoanut tree would spring up ahead, and then we must spend valuable time beating around them. It was not the island itself that we were most afraid of, it was the reef that we knew always surrounded the island, sometimes over a mile from the land.

Large merchant ships have spent weeks and weeks trying to get out of this group. Little pearling luggers pile up on the white coral by the hundreds, every year. Something like two thousand of these small pearling vessels are scattered through these islands. Pearl shell is the only article of value to be found. Every season, scores of lives are lost in the hurricanes that sweep over the islands; the sand, being so close to the water, will often be levelled off to the water-line. The only safe place during such storms is on some sort of boat in the centre of the lagoon. p186

The atolls are all about the same shape—that is, circular. The land, about a quarter of a mile in width, will sometimes form in such a large circle that it will be impossible to see across the lagoon. However, we could see the whole of the atoll of the ones we sailed past.

We had been tangled up among these islands for seven days.

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