The Little Savage | Page 4

put a line over the rocks, and it had hardly time to go down
a fathom before anything at the end of it was seized. Indeed, our means
of taking them were as simple as their voracity was great. Our lines
were composed of the sinews of the legs of the man-of-war birds, as I
afterwards heard them named; and, as these were only about a foot long,
it required a great many of them knotted together to make a line. At the
end of the line was a bait fixed over a strong fish-bone, which was
fastened to the line by the middle; a half-hitch of the line round one end
kept the bone on a parallel with the line until the bait was seized, when
the line being taughtened, the half-hitch slipped off and the bone
remained crossways in the gullet of the fish, which was drawn up by it.
Simple as this contrivance was, it answered as well as the best hook, of
which I had never seen one at that time. The fish were so strong and
large, that, when I was young, the man would not allow me to attempt
to catch them, lest they should pull me into the water; but, as I grew
bigger, I could master them. Such was our food from one year's end to
the other; we had no variety, except when occasionally we broiled the
dried birds or the fish upon the embers, instead of eating them dried by
the sun. Our raiment, such as it was, we were also indebted to the
feathered tribe for. The birds were skinned with the feathers on, and
their skins sewn together with sinews, and a fish-bone by way of a
needle. These garments were not very durable, but the climate was so
fine that we did not suffer from the cold at any season of the year. I
used to make myself a new dress every year when the birds came; but
by the time that they returned, I had little left of my last year's suit, the

fragments of which might be found among the rocky and steep parts of
the ravine where we used to collect firing.
Living such a life, with so few wants, and those periodically and easily
supplied, hardly varied from one year's end to another, it may easily be
imagined that I had but few ideas. I might have had more, if my
companion had not been of such a taciturn and morose habit; as it was,
I looked at the wide ocean, and the sky, and the sun, moon, and stars,
wondering, puzzled, afraid to ask questions, and ending all by sleeping
away a large portion of my existence. We had no tools except the old
ones, which were useless--no employment of any kind. There was a
book, and I asked what it was for and what it was, but I got no answer.
It remained upon the shelf, for if I looked at it I was ordered away, and
at last I regarded it with a sort of fear, as if it were a kind of
incomprehensible animal. The day was passed in idleness and almost
silence; perhaps not a dozen sentences were exchanged in the
twenty-four hours. My companion always the same, brooding over
something which appeared ever to occupy his thoughts, and angry if
roused up from his reverie.
Chapter II
The reader must understand that the foregoing remarks are to be
considered as referring to my position and amount of knowledge when
I was seven or eight years old. My master, as I called him, was a short
square-built man, about sixty years of age, as I afterwards estimated
from recollection and comparison. His hair fell down his back in thick
clusters and was still of a dark color, and his beard was full two feet
long and very bushy; indeed, he was covered with hair, wherever his
person was exposed. He was, I should say, very powerful had he had
occasion to exert his strength, but with the exception of the time at
which we collected the birds, and occasionally going up the ravine to
bring down faggots of wood, he seldom moved out of the cabin unless
it was to bathe. There was a pool of salt water of about twenty yards
square, near the sea, but separated from it by a low ridge of rocks, over
which the waves only beat when the sea was rough and the wind on
that side of the island. Every morning almost we went down to bathe in

that pool, as it was secure from the sharks, which were very numerous.
I could swim like a fish as early as I can recollect, but whether I was
taught, or learnt myself, I cannot