Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader | Page 9

it displayed all the gorgeous beauty of a rich tropical vegetation.
In some places the ground had been cracked and riven into great
fissures and uncouth caverns of the wildest description, by volcanoes
apparently long since extinct. In others the landscape presented the soft
beauty of undulating, grove-like scenery, in which, amid a profusion of
bright green herbage, there rose conspicuous the tall stems and waving

plumes of the cocoanut palm; the superb and umbrageous ko-a, with its
laurel-green leaves and sweet blossoms; the kukui, or candlenut tree;
the fragrant sandal-wood, and a variety of other trees and shrubs for
which there are no English names.
Hundreds of green paroquets with blue heads and red breasts,
turtle-doves, wood-pigeons, and other birds enlivened the groves with
sound, if not with melody, and the various lakelets and pools were alive
with wild ducks and water-hens.
The route by which the party traveled led them first across a country of
varied and beautiful aspect; then it conducted them into wild mountain
fastnesses, among which they clambered, at times with considerable
difficulty. Ere long they passed into a dreary region where the ancient
fires that upheaved the island from the deep seemed to have scorched
the land into a condition of perpetual desolation. Blackened and bare
lava rocks, steep volcanic ridges and gorges, irregular truncated cones,
deep-mouthed caves and fissures, overhanging arches, natural bridges,
great tunnels and ravines, surrounded them on every side, and so
concealed the softer features of the country that it was scarcely possible
to believe in the reality of the verdant region out of which they had just
passed. In another hour this chaotic scenery was left behind; the highest
ridge of the mountains was crossed, and the travelers began to descend
the green slopes on the other side of the island. These slopes terminated
in a beach of white sand, while beyond lay the calm waters of the
enclosed lagoon, the coral reef with its breakers, and the mighty sea.
"'Tis a pretty spot?" said Henry, interrogatively, as the party halted on
the edge of a precipice, whence they obtained an uninterrupted view of
the whole of that side of the island.
"Ay, pretty enough," replied Gascoyne, in a somewhat sad tone of
voice: "I had hoped to have led a quiet life here once, but that was not
to be. How say you, Bumpus; could you make up your mind to cast
anchor here for a year or so?"
"Wot's that you say, capting?" inquired honest John, who was evidently
lost in admiration of the magnificent scene that lay spread out before

him.
"I ask if you have no objection to come to an anchor here for a time,"
repeated the captain.
"Objection! I'll tell ye wot it is, capting, I never seed sich a place afore
in all my born days. Why, it's a slice out o' paradise. I do believe if
Adam and Eve wos here they'd think they'd got back again into Eden.
It's more beautifuller than the blue ocean, by a long chalk; an' if you
wants a feller that's handy at a'most anything after a fashion,--a
jack-of-all-trades and master of-none (except seamanship, which ain't o'
no use here),--Jo Bumpus is your man!"
"I'm glad to hear you say that, Jo," said Henry, laughing, "for we are
greatly in need of white men of your stamp in these times, when the
savages are so fierce against each other that they are like to eat us up
altogether, merely by way of keeping their hands in practise."
"White men of my stamp!" remarked Bumpus, surveying complacently
his deeply-bronzed hands, which were only a shade darker than his
visage; "well, I would like to know what ye call black if I'm a white
man."
"Blood, and not skin, is what stamps the color of the man, Jo. If it were
agreeable to Captain Gascoyne to let you off your engagement to him, I
think I could make it worth your while to engage with me, and would
find you plenty of work of all kinds, including a little of that same
fighting for which the Bumpuses are said to be so famous."
"Gentlemen," said Jo, gravely, "I am agreeable to become a good and
chattel for this occasion only, as the playbills say, and hold myself up
to the highest bidder."
"Nay, you are sold to me, Bumpus," said Gascoyne, "and must do as I
bid you."
"Wery good, then bid away as fast as you like."

"Come, captain, don't be hard," said Henry: "what will you take for
him?"
"I cannot afford to sell him at any price," replied the other, "for I have
brought him here expressly as a gift to a certain Mary Stuart, queen of
women, if not of Scotland,--a widow who dwells in Sandy