Patrick O'Brian - Desolation island

They made him a little canvas boat, and it was thought that if he were obliged to wear two sea-elephant's bladders, blown up and attached to his person, he could not come to harm in such a placid sea; but after an unfortunate experience in which he became involved in his umbrella and it was found that the bladders buoyed up his meagre hams alone, so that only the presence of Babbington's Newfoundland preserved him, he was forbiddento go unaccompanied.

The duty of going with him generally fell to Herapath, who was of little more use in the rummaging of a hold than Stephen himself. The common world of papers and intelligence, of people walking about the paved streets of towns, was so very far away, so nearly dream-like, that his conduct towards Dr Maturin seemed to wound him less; and so much close-packed experience lay between his copying of the poisoned documents and the antarctic present that it might have occurred in years gone by. Their former intimacy revived to some extent, and although Herapath loathed walking knee-deep in the rank sodden grass that covered much of the lower ground, and although he did not greatly care whether the huge nesting fowl upon which they pored was a royal or a wandering albatross, he did not dislike these expeditions so long as he was not too often called upon to admire a pool of algae or an infant blue eyed shag. He had built a shelter by the water's edge, and there he sat with an angle for hours on end while Stephen walked about. It was almost always too wet to read or write, but he was a contemplative young man, and the sight of his cork bobbing away out there allowed his mind to drift far away, yet with a local attachment; and sometimes he would take a fish. When the rain was too heavy even for Dr Maturin they would sit there together, talking of Chinese poetry, or, more often, of Louisa Wogan, who at present lived on shore, and who could sometimes be seen in the distance, a straight, fur-clad figure, walking with Mrs Boswell's baby in the rare gleams of sun; for now the women's imprisonment was merely nominal.

"This is Paradise," said Stephen as they landed.

"A little damp for Paradise, perhaps," suggested Herapath.

"The terrestrial Paradise was no howling desiccated waste of sand, no arid desert," said Stephen. "Indeed, Mandeville particularly mentions its mossy walls, a sure proof of abundant moisture. I have already found fifty

three kinds of moss on this island alone; and no doubt there are more.' I le gazed about the black streaming crags, the slopes between them covered with coarse matted grass, yellow viscous cabbages, many of them in a state of slow decay, or raw spewy earth, the dung of seabirds everywhere, and the whole enveloped in drifting swatches of mist or rain. "This is very like the north-western parts of Ireland, but without the men: it reminds me of a promontory in the County Mayo where first I beheld the phalarope . . . Shall we visit the giant petrels first, or should you prefer the terns?"

"To tell the truth, sir, I believe I had rather sit in the shelter for a while. The cabbage seems to have turned my inward parts to water."

"Nonsense," said Stephen, "it is the most wholesome cabbage I have ever come across in the whole of my career. I hope, Mr Herapath, that you are not going to Join in the silly weak womanish unphilosophical mewling and puling about the cabbage. So it is a little yellow in certain lights, so it is a little sharp, so it smells a little strange: so much the better, say 1. At least that will stop the insensate Phaeacian hogs from abusing it, as they abuse the brute creation, stuffing themselves with flesh until what little brain they have is drowned in fat. A virtuous esculent! Even its boldest detractors, ready to make the most hellish declarations and to swear through a nine-inch plank that the cabbage makes them fart and rumble, cannot deny that it cured their purpurae. Let them rumble till the heavens shake and resound again; let them fart fire and brimstone, the Gomorrhans, I will not have a single case of scurvy on my hands, the sea-surgeon's shame, while there is a cabbage to be culled."

"No, sir,"said Herapath. He could not but agree: he had seen the cure. The Leopard's crew, having killed a seaelephant early in their stay, ate its enormous liver by way of a change; they came out in dull blue, clearly-defined blotches, about two inches across. Stephen instantly prescribed

the cabbage that he had found and that he had tried upon himself and the loblolly-boy, an unattractive plant with a startling smell. It did away with the blotches: as Jack observed, "it made the Leopards change their spots' - the first really full-hearted laugh, eyes vanishing in a face scarlet with mirth, that he had uttered in the last five thousand miles. And since the ship was short of lime-Juice, and since the practice was sound even if the ship had been swimming in anti-scorbutics, Stephen insisted upon the cabbage's being mixed with dinner every day: as to its alleged laxative properties, he had not perceived any inconvenience; and if they had an existence outside a hypochondriacal high-fed cosseted fancy, it was all to the good. Men, said he, looking sharply at his Captain, men who would breakfast on two albatross eggs, weighing close on a purser's pound apiece, should be purged of their gross humours daily.

"No, sir," said Herapath again. "But if you will forgive me, I am a little weary, and should like to fish awhile. You will recall that last time, when the giant petrel covered me with oil, you said I might be excused."

"It was only that you startled the poor bird by falling down, and by falling down, as vou must allow me to observe, in a singularly abrupt an~ awkward fashion, Mr Herapath."

"The ground was wet, and deep in the excrement of seals."

"Petrels cannot abide the least gaucherie," said Stephen. But it was true that Herapath was an unlucky wight; many of the petrels had shot their evil smelling stomach-oil at him, quite unprovoked, whereas they never resented Stephen; and an albatross had given him a cruel nip, sheering quite through his inoffensive sleeve. "Well," he said, "you shall do as you please. Let us share out the sandwiches, for I mean to stay until sunset."

Stephen's Paradise was quite large, an hour's walk from the inner to the outer side, and unlike most of the

islands, which were broken masses of rock, rising sheer, it possessed little in the way of cliffs except for two on the seaward side, being for the most part a smooth dome. Yet although it had a fine and parklike extent of many hundred acres, it was scarcely big enough for all the creatures that hurried to it for the breeding season, coming in from the limitless southern ocean, an ocean almost devoid of land, where they roamed for the rest of the year. The few resident birds, the curious teal, the blue-eyed shag, perhaps the sheathbill, could scarcely find room to turn, and Stephen himself had to walk very carefully not to step on eggs or plunge into the burrows made by the countless whale-birds. The top of the dome was occupied by the great albatrosses, and here it was easier to walk; the grass was not so long, and the nests were well spaced out. He knew many of the members of the colony quite well, having seen them in their courting, building, and mating, and now he recognized several as they walked about visiting other nests - the place was something like a common with white geese upon it, but gigantic geese, coming and going on wings like those of the genii in the Arabian tale, or walking, or sitting on their hollowed mounds. Most, indeed, were sitting now - few nests without an egg - and he made his way through the throng to the first nest in which he had seen a clutch, if a single egg could be called a clutch. The sitting bird was fast asleep, with its head along its back; it was so used to him that it only opened one eye and grunted when he pushed gently into its breast to find whether the egg were chipping yet. it was not, and he sat on a vacant nest close by to gaze about. A great rush of air - a distinct warmth and the smell of fishy bird, and the albatross's mate landed by him, staggering on the ground as it folded its enormous wings - and waddled over to address soft mutterings to its spouse and nibble her outstretched neck. At his feet a minute dull black petrel scrambled awkwardly among the tussocks, and at headheight the piratical skuas planed, glaring from