HOW CAPTAIN PAMPHILE, MASTER OF THE TRADING BRIG “ROXELANE,” FOUND BETTER SPORT ON THE BANKS OF THE RIVER BANGO THAN ALEXANDRE DECAMPS HAD ENJOYED ON THE PLAIN OF SAINT-DENIS
ON the 24th July, 1827, the brig, “Roxelane,” set sail from Marseilles to load up with coffee from Mocha, spices from Bombay, and tea from Canton. She put in, for fresh provisions, at the Bay of St. Paul de Loanda, which lies, as every schoolboy knows, about half-way down the coast of Guinea.
While the victualling was in progress, Captain Pamphile, who was making his tenth voyage to the Indies, took his gun, and with the thermometer marking a hundred in the shade, amused himself by walking up the banks of the River Bango. The captain was, excepting Nimrod, the mightiest hunter before the Lord who had ever appeared on this earth.
He had not taken twenty steps in the long grass which grows near the river before he felt his foot slip on something round and smooth like the trunk of a young tree. At the same moment he heard a sharp hiss, and ten paces from him he saw the uplifted head of an enormous boa constrictor, on whose tail he had just trodden.
Anyone but Captain Pamphile would have been somewhat frightened to find himself confronted by this terrific head, whose bloodshot eyes glared out at him like carbuncles. But the boa did not know Captain Pamphile.
“God ‘a mercy, you filthy reptile you! Do you think to frighten me?” said the captain. And as the serpent opened its great jaws to seize him, he drove a bullet slap through the monster’s palate and out at the top of its head. The serpent collapsed, dead.
The Captain first leisurely reloaded, then, opening his clasp-knife, he went to the animal and slit up its belly, separated the liver from the entrails, as the Angel of Tobias did, and, after a short search, found a small blue stone about the size of a hazel-nut.
“Good,” said he to himself.
And he put the stone into a purse in which there were already a dozen similar stones. Captain Pamphile was as learned as a mandarin; he had read “The Thousand and One Nights,” and was looking for the enchanted bezoar-stone of Prince Camaralzaman.
Thinking he had verily found it, he continued his sport. In about a quarter of an hour’s time he saw that the grass was shaking some forty paces from him, and heard a terrible growling. At this sound every beast of the forest seemed to know that the king of them all was at hand. The birds stopped singing; two gazelles, terrified, bounded away and fled for the open plain; a wild elephant, which could be seen upon a knoll a quarter of a league away, raised his trunk ready for combat.
“Pr-r-r-r! pr-r-r!” rattled out Captain Pamphile, as if he were driving up a covey of partridges.
At this sound a tiger, which till then had been crouching down, stood up, lashing his sides with his tail; it was a Royal Tiger of the largest size. The huge beast bounded forward and landed within twenty feet of the hunter.
“Ho! ho!” cried Captain Pamphile, “so you think I am going to fire at long range, do you, and risk spoiling your skin? Pr-r-r! pr-r-r!”
The tiger made a second leap, which brought him to close quarters; but just as he landed, the captain fired, and the ball pierced the animal’s left eye. The tiger tumbled over like a hare, and died on the spot.
The Captain reloaded carefully as usual, drew his knife, turned the body over on its back, made an incision, and skinned the tiger as a cook would a rabbit. Then he wrapped himself in his victim’s hide, just as, four thousand years before, the Nemean Hercules had “done — a hero from whom, as a native of Marseilles, Captain Pamphile might claim descent; then he started once more on his quest for game.
Scarcely half an hour had passed when he heard a great splashing in the water of the river, up the course of which he was making his way. Running quickly to the brink, he saw that the cause of the commotion was a hippopotamus, which was swimming against the current and which from time to time came to the surface to blow.
“Bagasse!” cried Captain Pamphile. “There is a good six francs’ worth of glass beads saved.”
That was the price current of a bullock at St. Paul de Loanda, and Captain Pamphile had a reputation for economy. Thinking thus, guided by the bubbles which, ascending and breaking on the surface, betrayed the hippo’s course below, he followed the animal’s path, and when the enormous head came up, the sportsman, picking out the only vulnerable spot, sent a ball into the ear. The captain would have hit Achilles in the heel at five hundred yards.
The monster swam round and round for some seconds, groaning frightfully, and beating the water with his legs. For a moment it seemed as if he would be swallowed up in the whirlpool which he made in his agony; but soon his strength was spent, and he rolled over like a log; then by degrees the white and shiny skin of his under parts appeared instead of the black wrinkled hide of his back, and with his last effort he ran aground, legs uppermost, among the reeds growing at the edge of the stream.
Captain Pamphile reloaded his gun, drew his knife, and cut down a sapling about the thickness of a broomstick, sharpened one end and made a slit in the other, stuck the pointed end upright in the carcass, while in the cleft he inserted a leaf torn from his memorandum book, on which he had written in pencil:
“To the cook of the trading brig, ‘Roxelane ‘; this from Captain Pamphile, at present shooting up the River Bango.”
Then he shoved the animal off with his foot, so that it got well into the current, and started off quietly floating down stream, duly labelled like a commercial traveller’s portmanteau.
“Ah!” said Captain Pamphile, as soon as he saw his provisions well under way for his vessel, “I think I have fairly earned my breakfast.”
And, as it was a literal fact that to think of a plan with him was to carry it out forthwith, he spread his tiger skin on the ground, sat himself down on it, took from his left pocket a case-bottle of rum which he placed to his right, from his right pocket a fine guava which he placed to his left, and from his gamebag a piece of biscuit, which he placed between his legs.
This done, he proceeded to fill his pipe, so as to have nothing fatiguing left to do after his repast.
You may sometimes have seen Pantaloon carefully spreading his breakfast table, for Harlequin to eat? You may remember his face when turning round he finds his glass empty and his apples pilfered? You do? Well then, you can imagine that of Pamphile on finding his rum upset’ and his guava gone.
Captain Pamphile, whose freedom of speech the edict of the Home Minister had in no wise checked, gave vent to the most heartfelt “God ‘a mercy!” that ever escaped from the mouth of a Provençal since first Marseilles was built; but as he was less easily taken in than our friend Pantaloon, as he had read both ancient and modern works of philosophy, and had learnt from Diogenes Laertius and from M. de Voltaire that there can be no effect without a cause, he at once began to search for the cause, of which the effect was so prejudicial to his interests. This he did without seeming to notice anything, without moving from his seat, and affecting the while to gnaw his dry bread. Only his head turned slowly from side to side, like a Chinese mandarin’s. This was equally without result, until suddenly some substance fell on his head and remained entangled in his hair. The Captain put up his hand to the affected spot, and found the rind of his guava sticking there. Captain Pamphile then threw his head back and discovered, immediately above him, a monkey making faces at him from the branch of a tree.
Captain Pamphile felt for his gun, without losing sight of the thief; then, bringing it to his shoulders, he fired. The ape fell beside him.
“As I am a sinner!” said Captain Pamphile, on looking at his new victim, “I have killed a two-headed monkey.” In fact, the animal lying at the feet of the Captain had two separate heads, quite distinct from each other, and the phenomenon was the more remarkable in that one of the two heads was dead, with its eyes shut, while the other was alive and had its eyes wide open.
Captain Pamphile, wishing to clear up this odd freak of natural history, took up the monster by the tail to examine it closely, but at once all cause of astonishment disappeared. The monkey was a female ape, and the second head was that of her young one, whom she was carrying on her back when the shot was fired, and who fell with her without letting go its mother.
Captain Pamphile, who would not have shed a single tear over all the devotion of Cleobis and Bito, took the little monkey by the scruff of the neck, tore it from the corpse which he held in his arms, examined it as minutely as if he were M. de Buff on, and smiling with an air of great satisfaction:
“Bagasse!” cried he, “this is a piece of luck; it is worth fifty francs if it is worth a farthing, delivered alive at the port of Marseilles.” And he put it into his pouch.
Then, as Captain Pamphile was still fasting by reason of the incident described, he decided to return towards the bay.
Moreover, although his expedition had not lasted more than a couple of hours, he had killed a boa constrictor, a tiger, and a hippopotamus, and captured a live young ape. There are a good many sportsmen in Paris who would be very well satisfied to do the same in a whole day’s shooting.
On his arrival on board the brig, he found the whole crew engaged about the hippopotamus, which had fortunately arrived as addressed. The surgeon was extracting the tushes to make into knife handles and false teeth; the quartermaster was cutting off the hide, and making it into strips for the manufacture of whips for dogs and gaskets for cabin boys; and the cook was cutting steaks from the ribs and fillets from the undercut for the Captain’s table. The rest of the carcass was to be salted down for the use of the crew.
The Captain was so well pleased with all the energy displayed that he ordered an extra tot of grog all round, and remitted five lashes of the sentence of seventy to which a boy had been condemned.
They sailed that evening.
Having taken in so many provisions Captain Pamphile thought it unnecessary to touch at the Cape of Good Hope, and leaving on the right Prince Edward’s Islands and on the left the Island of Madagascar he sailed into the Indian Ocean.
The “Roxelane “then bowled gaily along with the wind abaft, doing her eight knots an hour, which sailors say is good going for a merchantman. Suddenly one of the watch bellowed from the foretop:
“Sail ahoy!”
Captain Pamphile took his spy-glass and trained it on the stranger, looked at her with the naked eye, and again through the telescope; then, after a few moments of careful study, he called up the mate and without a word put the glass into his hands. The mate at once put his eye to it.
“Well, Policar,” said the Captain, when he had given sufficient time for the officer to examine the object thoroughly, “what do you make of the craft?”
“‘Faith, Captain, I call her a rum-looking sort of ark.
As for her ensign,” — he brought the spy-glass up again—” the devil seize me if I can make out what nation flies it; it is a green and yellow dragon on a white ground.”
“Well, my boy, bow down to it to the very dust, for before you is a vessel belonging to the son of the sun, to the father and mother of the human race, to the king of kings, to the sublime Emperor of China and of Cochin China. Besides that, I can see by her laboured roll and her snail’s pace that she is not returning to Pekin with her hold empty.”
“The devil!” said Policar, scratching his ear.
“What do you think of our falling in with her?”
“I think it would be funnv if...’
“Would it not?... Well, I think so, too, my boy.”
“Then we must...?”
“Get the metal up on deck, and clap on every stitch of canvas.”
“Ah, now she has just made us out.”
“Then we will wait till dark, and till then will hold on quietly as at present, so that she may suspect nothing. As far as I can judge of her speed, about five o’clock we shall be in her wake; throughout the night we will sail abeam of her, and to-morrow at daybreak we will wish her good morning.”
Captain Pamphile had a system. Instead of ballasting his vessel with broken stone and pigs of iron, he placed in the bottom of the hold half a dozen swivel guns, four or five twelve-pounder Garronades, and a long eight-pounder; then he threw in casually a few thousand rounds of ammunition, half a hundred muskets, and a score of boarding cutlasses. On an occasion such as the present he would get all these little odds and ends up on deck, fix the swivel guns and carronades to their pivots, mount the long piece of eight on the poop, serve out the small arms to his men, and thus establish what he called his system of barter. Thus he was ready for trade when the Chinese discovered him in the morning.
On board the Imperial vessel stupefaction reigned supreme. The Captain had seen and recognized the previous evening a foreign merchantman, and after a pipe of opium had turned comfortably into his bunk; but here was the cat grown into a tiger during the night, here he was showing his claws of iron and his teeth of brass.
They went and warned the Captain, Kao-Kiou-Kwan, of the plight in which he was. He was finishing a most enchanting dream: the sun’s son had just given him one of his sisters in marriage, so that he became brother-in-law to the moon.
So he had a great deal of difficulty in making out what Captain Pamphile wanted. It was none the easier in that the latter spoke the tongue of Provence and the bridegroom answered in Chinese. At last there was found on board the “Roxelane “a Provençal deckhand who knew a little Chinese, and on board the ship of the Sublime Emperor a Chinaman who could speak tolerable Provençal, so that in the end the two skippers came to an understanding.
The result of the conversation was that half the cargo of the Imperial ship (master — Kao-Kiou-Kwan) was passed directly on board the merchant brig “Roxelane “(master — Pamphile).
And as this cargo consisted of coffee, rice, and tea, the system of barter rendered it unnecessary for Captain Pamphile to put in at Mocha, Bombay, or Pekin, so that he affected great economy, both of time and money.
This put him into such a happy mood that, when touching at the Isle of Rodriguez, he bought a parrot.
On arriving at the southern extremity of Madagascar, it was found that the supply of fresh water was getting low; but as the anchorage off Cape St. Mary was not safe for a vessel so deeply laden as the “Roxelane,” the Captain put his crew on half rations, and resolved not to bring to until he got to Algoa Bay. As he was looking after the filling-up of the water-casks at that place, he saw coming towards him a chief of the Gonaquas, followed by two men carrying a magnificent elephant’s tusk slung across their shoulders, and looking for all the world like a Bible cut of the Israelitish spies bearing the grapes of Eshcol. This was a sample which the chief Outavari (which, in the Gonaqua language, means “Son of the East “) was carrying down to the coast, hoping to obtain an order for a quantity.
Captain Pamphile examined the ivory, and found its quality was excellent. He asked the Gonaqua chief how much he would have to pay for two thousand tusks as good as the sample. Outavari said he would charge exactly two thousand bottles of trade brandy. The Captain wanted to get the ivory cheaper; but the Son of the East held to his price, saying he had not asked for more than he meant to take; so the Captain had to give in to the negro’s demand. He did not, however, do so very badly, for at this price he could, make about ten thousand per cent. The price settled, the Captain asked him when he could take delivery of the goods. Outavari asked for two years’ time; this period fitted in capitally with Captain Pamphile’s engagements, so the two worthy negotiators shook hands on the bargain, and parted with the most profound feelings of mutual respect.
Now after ill, this transaction, good as it was for him, did not sit altogether easy on the commercial conscience of the worthy master; he reflected, when alone, that if he bought ivory so cheap on the East of Africa, he ought to be able to buy it at half the rate on the Western side, since it was there that elephants were to be found in such multitudes that they had given the name to a river. He felt that he must purge his conscience of this sin, and so when he got to the thirtieth degree of latitude, he ran down for the land. But having made a mistake of one or two degrees in his reckoning, he made the mouth of the Orange River instead of the Elephant River.
Captain Pamphile did not mind a bit. The difference between the landfalls was so trifling that there could be little to choose as to the probable price of ivory; so he lowered the pinnace, and ascended the river as far as the chief town of the Little Namaquas, which was two days’ journey from the coast. He found the king, Outavaro, returning from a hunting expedition, in which he had killed fifteen elephants. Thus, there was no lack of samples, and the Captain could satisfy himself that they were even better than those of Outavari.
The result of this interview was a bargain between Outavaro and the Captain which was still better for the latter than that which he had concluded with Outavari. The Son of the West promised Captain Pamphile two thousand tusks for fifteen hundred bottles of brandy; that was twenty-five per cent less than his brother chieftain’s price; still, like him, he stipulated for two years to fulfil his contract in. Captain Pamphile raised no objection to this delay; far from it, he saw it suited him excellently, as he would only have to make one voyage for the two consignments. Outavaro arid the Captain shook hands over the bargain, and parted the best of friends in the world. The brig “Roxelane “proceeded on her voyage to Europe.
At this point in Jadin’s story the clock struck twelve, which is, perforce, bedtime for all who live above or about the fifth floor in Paris. All got up to go, when Flers reminded the doctor that there still remained one portion of his experiment to be verified. The doctor took the jar and held it up for all to see. Not a single fly was to be seen; while to compensate for their disappearance Mademoiselle Camargo had grown to the size of a turkey’s egg, and looked at if she had come out of a bottle of furniture polish.
All went home after congratulating Thierry on his profound learning. The next day we received each a letter couched in the following terms: “Messieurs Eugène and Alexandre Decamps have the honour to acquaint you with the sad loss they have sustained by
the death of Mademoiselle Camargo, of indigestion, during the night of the 2nd-3rd March. Your presence is requested at the funeral meal, which will take place at the residence of the lamented defunct at five o’clock (precisely) in the afternoon of the 4th instant.”