The Survivors of the Chancellor Jules Verne (best book club books of all time .TXT) 📖

rocks; not a germ had the wind carried to its surface, not a bird had taken refuge amidst the crags upon its summits. To a lover of natural history, the spot did not yield a single point of interest; the geologist alone would find subject of study in the basaltic mass.

When we reached the southern point of the island I proposed that we should disembark. My companions readily assented, young Letourneur jocosely observing that if the little island was destined to vanish, it was quite right that it should first be visited by human beings. The boat was accordingly brought alongside, and we set foot upon the reef, and began to ascend the gradual slope that leads to its highest elevation.

The walking was not very rough, and as André could get along tolerably well without the assistance of an arm, he led the way, his father and I following close behind. A quarter of an hour sufficed to bring us to the loftiest point in the islet, when we seated ourselves on the basaltic prism that crowned its summit.

André took a sketchbook from his pocket, and proceeded to make a drawing of the reef. Scarcely had he completed the outline when his father exclaimed⁠—

“Why, André, you have drawn a ham!”

“Something uncommonly like it, I confess,” replied André. “I think we had better ask Captain Curtis to let us call our island Ham Rock.”

“Good,” said I; “though sailors will need to keep it at a respectful distance, for they will scarcely find that their teeth are strong enough to tackle with it.”

M. Letourneur was quite correct; the outline of the reef as it stood clearly defined against the deep green water resembled nothing so much, as a fine York ham, of which the little creek, where the Chancellor had been stranded, corresponded to the hollow place above the knuckle. The tide at this time was low, and the ship now lay heeled over very much to the starboard side, the few points of rock that emerged in the extreme south of the reef plainly marking the narrow passage through which she had been forced before she finally ran aground.

As soon as André had finished his sketch we descended by a slope as gradual as that by which we had come up, and made our way towards the west. We had not gone very far when a beautiful grotto, perfect as an architectural structure, arrested our attention. M. Letourneur and André who have visited the Hebrides, pronounced it to be a Fingal’s cave in miniature; a Gothic chapel that might form a fit vestibule for the cathedral cave of Staffa. The basaltic rocks had cooled down into the same regular concentric prisms; there was the same dark canopied roof with its interstices filled up with its yellow lutings; the same precision of outline in the prismatic angles, sharp as though chiselled by a sculptor’s hand; the same sonorous vibration of the air across the basaltic rocks, of which the Gaelic poets have feigned that the harps of the Fingal minstrelsy were made. But whereas at Staffa the floor of the cave is always covered with a sheet of water, here the grotto was beyond the reach of all but the highest waves, whilst the prismatic shafts themselves formed quite a solid pavement.

After remaining nearly an hour in our newly-discovered grotto we returned to the Chancellor, and communicated the result of our explorations to Curtis, who entered the island upon his chart by the name that André Letourneur had proposed.

Since its discovery we have not permitted a day to pass without spending some time in our Ham Rock grotto. Curtis has taken an opportunity of visiting it, but he is too preoccupied with other matters to have much interest to spare for the wonders of nature. Falsten, too, came once and examined the character of the rocks, knocking and chipping them about with all the mercilessness of a geologist. Mr. Kear would not trouble himself to leave the ship; and although I asked his wife to join us in one of our excursions she declined, upon the plea that the fatigue, as well as the inconvenience of embarking in the boat, would be more than she could bear.

Miss Herbey, only too thankful to escape even for an hour from her capricious mistress, eagerly accepted M. Letourneur’s invitation to pay a visit to the reef but to her great disappointment Mrs. Kear at first refused point-blank to allow her to leave the ship. I felt intensely annoyed, and resolved to intercede in Miss Herbey’s favour; and as I had already rendered that self-indulgent lady sundry services which she thought she might probably be glad again to accept, I gained my point, and Miss Herbey has several times been permitted to accompany us across the rocks, where the young girl’s delight at her freedom has been a pleasure to behold.

Sometimes we fish along the shore, and then enjoy a luncheon in the grotto, whilst the basalt columns vibrate like harps to the breeze. This arid reef, little as it is, compared with the cramped limits of the Chancellor’s deck is like some vast domain; soon there will be scarcely a stone with which we are not familiar, scarcely a portion of its surface which we have not merrily trodden, and I am sure that when the hour of departure arrives we shall leave it with regret.

In the course of conversation, André Letourneur one day happened to say that he believed the island of Staffa belonged to the Macdonald family, who let it for the small sum of twelve pounds a year.

“I suppose then,” said Miss Herbey, “that we should hardly get more than half-a-crown a year for our pet little island.”

“I don’t think you would get a penny for it, Miss Herbey; but are you thinking of taking a lease?” I said, laughing.

“Not at present,” she said; then added, with a half-suppressed sigh, “and yet it is a place where I have seemed to know what it