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- 7899
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T07:57:55.413Z
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- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 7831
- text
- strangest satiric effrontery which does not adequately appear in
Porter’s version. I accordingly altered it to suit the general
character of its author.
SKETCH TENTH.
RUNAWAYS, CASTAWAYS, SOLITARIES, GRAVE-STONES, ETC.
“And all about old stocks and stubs of trees,
Whereon nor fruit nor leaf was ever seen,
Did hang upon ragged knotty knees,
On which had many wretches hanged been.”
Some relics of the hut of Oberlus partially remain to this day at the
head of the clinkered valley. Nor does the stranger, wandering among
other of the Enchanted Isles, fail to stumble upon still other solitary
abodes, long abandoned to the tortoise and the lizard. Probably few
parts of earth have, in modern times, sheltered so many solitaries. The
reason is, that these isles are situated in a distant sea, and the
vessels which occasionally visit them are mostly all whalers, or ships
bound on dreary and protracted voyages, exempting them in a good degree
from both the oversight and the memory of human law. Such is the
character of some commanders and some seamen, that under these untoward
circumstances, it is quite impossible but that scenes of unpleasantness
and discord should occur between them. A sullen hatred of the tyrannic
ship will seize the sailor, and he gladly exchanges it for isles,
which, though blighted as by a continual sirocco and burning breeze,
still offer him, in their labyrinthine interior, a retreat beyond the
possibility of capture. To flee the ship in any Peruvian or Chilian
port, even the smallest and most rustical, is not unattended with great
risk of apprehension, not to speak of jaguars. A reward of five pesos
sends fifty dastardly Spaniards into the wood, who, with long knives,
scour them day and night in eager hopes of securing their prey. Neither
is it, in general, much easier to escape pursuit at the isles of
Polynesia. Those of them which have felt a civilizing influence present
the same difficulty to the runaway with the Peruvian ports, the
advanced natives being quite as mercenary and keen of knife and scent
as the retrograde Spaniards; while, owing to the bad odor in which all
Europeans lie, in the minds of aboriginal savages who have chanced to
hear aught of them, to desert the ship among primitive Polynesians, is,
in most cases, a hope not unforlorn. Hence the Enchanted Isles become
the voluntary tarrying places of all sorts of refugees; some of whom
too sadly experience the fact, that flight from tyranny does not of
itself insure a safe asylum, far less a happy home.
Moreover, it has not seldom happened that hermits have been made upon
the isles by the accidents incident to tortoise-hunting. The interior
of most of them is tangled and difficult of passage beyond description;
the air is sultry and stifling; an intolerable thirst is provoked, for
which no running stream offers its kind relief. In a few hours, under
an equatorial sun, reduced by these causes to entire exhaustion, woe
betide the straggler at the Enchanted Isles! Their extent is such as to
forbid an adequate search, unless weeks are devoted to it. The
impatient ship waits a day or two; when, the missing man remaining
undiscovered, up goes a stake on the beach, with a letter of regret,
and a keg of crackers and another of water tied to it, and away sails
the craft.
Nor have there been wanting instances where the inhumanity of some
captains has led them to wreak a secure revenge upon seamen who have
given their caprice or pride some singular offense. Thrust ashore upon
the scorching marl, such mariners are abandoned to perish outright,
unless by solitary labors they succeed in discovering some precious
dribblets of moisture oozing from a rock or stagnant in a mountain
pool.
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