Chapter Forty-Nine: Walter Sinclair's Journal

May 18, 1863, at sea

We've had some rough seas the last week, as we sailed around Cape Horn, and most of them have been walking past me like ghosts, hanging onto the rails, weaving down the passageways, spewing forth at any mention of victuals being served in the galley. I expected as much from the women, but even the men have been under the weather, except for Greene and his little darkie. I suppose they were in some rough weather when they were sailing around Cape Hatteras in the Monitor, and that's enough storm surges to give a two-year-old toddler his sea legs. I decided we had to put to shore at Tierra del Fuego, as the storm on the 17th of May was especially tumultuous. We would most certainly have gone under if I hadn't made this decision.

We made it into the strait of Le Maire at noon, and I held the ship close to the Fuegian shoreline to stay away from the currents. At about three that afternoon we finally anchored at the Bay of Good Success, and the storm at last began to subside, although the clouds still hung above us like gloomy bugbears. As Captain Ericsson advised us, this was the same spot that Charles Darwin and his Beagle landed in 1832, and the others seemed quite impressed. I had been here once before, in 1860, running some slaves from the South Pacific to Nassau.

A group of about fifty natives were on shore when we arrived, and the men of the tribe approached us, with the gray and grizzled elders staying in front, with sagging breasts and animal skins wrapped around their loins. I knew their ways, so I brought along some tobacco, and they smiled broadly when I handed it to them. They also talked their chirping gibberish, with those infernal clicking sounds deep in their throats. They sounded rather like Bedlam lunatics, but Ericsson seemed quite taken in by their antics. When they motioned to their younger folk to come up and begin dancing, in our honor, I would suppose, Ericsson immediately began to imitate their prancing, whooping leaps. However, what appalled me the most was when the women and that little black shoeshine boy, Jefferson, all began to sing and dance with them as if they'd been at it for many years!

Was this what it was going to be like once we landed at our "paradise" Easter Island? I certainly hope not! My fiancée, Penelope, was especially strange when all this native paganism was taking place. She kept dancing around young Mister Greene, as his obvious shyness seemed to be a lure for her to embarrass him with her leg kicks and shrill screams. I must say, I wonder if dear Pen has lost a bit of her English reserve. I must talk to her about decorum when we have a few moments alone together.

The storm finally let up, and we all bid adieu to our friends the Fuegians. Captain Ericsson pointed out that "our" natives on Easter Island would be much more isolated, with practices that would probably fascinate us even more than these "primitives."