THE SCHOONER OF KEPPEL ISLAND
A problem and a plan—The schooner—The island—Captain Gardiner's son—Jemmy Button—A disastrous enterprise—The massacre—Adventures of the ship's cook—Holding the fort—The new expedition—Forgiveness, not vengeance—Life on Keppel Island—The graves of the martyrs—Bishop Stirling and Ushuaia.
NOT long before the death of the heroic sailor who forms the subject of the preceding chapter, he drew up a plan for the future prosecution of the work to which he had devoted his life. He had learned by painful familiarity the difficulties and dangers which beset any attempt to settle at that time among a savage and unfriendly people in a barren and inhospitable land. Experience had shown him that there was a better way of attacking the problem of how to reach the inhabitants of Tierra del Fuego. And though he was not spared to make trial of that way himself, those who took up the task which death compelled him to lay down reaped the benefit of his hard-earned wisdom.
His plan in brief was this. The headquarters of the Mission should be transferred to one of the Falkland Islands, a lonely British group lying in the South Atlantic, some four or five hundred miles to the north-east of Cape Horn. To this station a few of the Fuegian natives should be taken in successive parties, so that the missionaries might have the double opportunity of acquiring their language and instructing them in Christian truth and the elements of a Christian civilization. As soon as sufficient progress had been made in both directions, a little vessel of about one hundred tons was to be built for the purpose of cruising about in the Straits of Magellan. It must be perfectly seaworthy, so as to face the fierce storms that rage around Cape Horn from the icy waters of the Antarctic Ocean. But it must also be fitted up internally in keeping with its character as a floating mission-house. In this way Captain Gardiner hoped that the problem which had baffled him so long would at last be solved.
When the news reached England of the dreadful calamity which had overtaken the founder of the South American Missionary Society and his whole party, the general feeling was that the brave seaman's hopes and plans were now buried with him forever in his lonely grave. But it was not so. At a time when most of the supporters of the Society were crushed and dispirited, the honorary secretary, the Rev. G. P. Despard, uttered the noble words, "With God's help, the Mission shall be maintained." He aroused in many others a spirit of prayerful determination like his own, and before long Captain Gardiner's schemes began to be literally fulfilled. A stout little schooner, fitly called the Allen Gardiner, was launched at Dartmouth, and sailed from Bristol in 1855 with a fresh staff of missionaries. Keppel Island, one of the West Falklands, was secured from the British Government as a mission station. To crown the brightening prospects, Mr. Despard himself offered his services as superintendent of the Mission, and sailed for the Falklands with his own family and several additional helpers. Among these, it is interesting to note, was Mr. Allen W. Gardiner, demy of Magdalen College, Oxford, the only son of the departed hero.
The first work that faced the missionaries, on reaching the dreary uninhabited island which was to be their home, was the building of houses, the digging of peat for winter fuel, and the endeavor to contribute to their own maintenance by catching fish and birds for food and spearing seal for oil. It was a toilsome life they had to live, but not without variety. Every morning the men turned out at 6:30 to dig in the peat moss till breakfast-time. Each following hour of the day brought its appointed tasks. But when evening fell they gathered round their seal-oil lamps to study those languages which seemed most likely to fit them for the greater work to which they eagerly looked forward.
The first voyage which Mr. Despard made to Tierra del Fuego in the Allen Gardiner was chiefly important because it enabled the members of the new staff to see among the wild rocks of Spaniard Harbour the last resting-place of their seven predecessors. A pathetic feature of the cruise was the fact that Mr. Allen W. Gardiner was one of those on board. He kept a careful diary, some of the entries in which are particularly touching. Thus we find him, when the schooner is about to leave Spaniard Harbor, asking the captain for the gig and rowing himself ashore alone to take a last look, with what feelings we can imagine, at Pioneer Cavern and his father's grave.
There was comparatively little intercourse with the natives on this first expedition to the islands, but better success attended a voyage in the following year. There was a well-known native at that period who had once been taken to England by a ship-captain, and had picked up a little English which he was always pleased to air before the sailors of any passing vessel. He had also acquired an English name, for he called himself Jemmy Button; while the little island on which he lived, and which lay off Woollya in the large island of Navarin, was known as Button Island.
In the hope of coming across Jemmy Button, the Allen Gardiner bore up for Woollya. It was a regular winter morning when they arrived, "snow lying on the deck and drifting into the sails and rigging, the wind fitful, howling, and gusty." Running for a cove abreast of Button Island, they found two canoes lying in shelter. One of the natives shouted out as the schooner approached, "Hillo, hoy, hoy!" which suggested that he might be the celebrated Button in person. But when the name "Jemmy Button '' was shouted back, he only pointed to the island.
It was two days after, a lovely winter morning, with the sun shining brightly on the frosty ground and the high peaks of the mountains all dazzling white with snow, when four canoes were seen rounding the point of Button Island and coining across the sound. As soon as they were within hailing distance Mr. Gardiner sang out, "Jemmy Button," whereupon a man stood up in the foremost canoe and answered, "Yes, sir." In a few minutes Jemmy came up the ladder and shook hands, and was soon down in the cabin enjoying a breakfast of bread and butter with coffee. He seemed very frank, and gave his own people a good character, but mentioned that an English ship had fallen shortly before into the hands of an adjoining tribe, by whom every one of the crew was killed.
As Jemmy's command of a little English promised to be useful with a view to intercourse, lie was asked if he would like to come with his wife and children to Keppel Island for several months. He was perfectly willing to do so, perhaps thinking that a course of English breakfasts would be a pleasant change from an unvarying diet of fish and seaweed. His family and he were accordingly given a passage to Keppel, the history of which as a mission station may now be said properly to begin.
The Buttons made themselves both agreeable and useful during their stay. Mrs. Despard speaks of Jemmy's great politeness, and tells how for any little trifle she might give him he would go and pick her a beautiful bouquet of wild flowers, or spear her a basket of fish. His eldest child also, to whom he had given the curious and unexplainable name of Threeboys, became a general favorite. But the family were of less service as instructors in the Fuegian language than had been expected. They did not like to speak their own tongue before the white strangers, and when they conversed with one another always did so in a whisper.
On his next voyage to Tierra del Fuego Mr. Despard took Jemmy Button, according to promise, back to the familiar life of the wigwam and the canoe. He had no difficulty, however, in persuading three other natives with their wives and children to return with him to the Falklands. These families stayed, as the Buttons had clone, through the winter and spring, and delighted every one by their progress. Two lads named Okokko and Lucca seemed to be especially promising. They not only learned with ease to do a little carpentry, but appeared to understand all that was told them about God and Christ, and even began to give thanks at their meals and to pray at their bedside.
Forming his judgment of the Fuegian character from what he had seen of the natives at Keppel during months of close observation, Mr. Despard believed that the ferocity of the people must have been overstated, and that they could not be so bloodthirsty as they were commonly represented. He thought therefore that the first steps should now be taken towards establishing a missionary station in Tierra del Fuego itself, and he resolved to make a start at Woollya, the neighborhood from which all his visitors had come. The enterprise was put into the hands of Mr. Phillips, one of the most trusted of the staff, and the Allen Gardiner sailed from Keppel Island for Woollya in the month of October, 1859.
Week after week passed away, and there was no sign of the returning vessel. At length Mr. Despard grew so anxious that he made his way to Stanley, the chief port of the Falklands, and engaged Captain Smyley, of the schooner Nancy, to sail at once on a voyage of inquiry.
It was not long before Captain Smyley returned with news not less terrible than that which he had been the first to bring eight years before regarding the fate of Captain Gardiner and his party. The natives at Woollya had massacred Mr. Phillips, Captain Fell of the Allen Gardiner, and six others. Of the whole company on board the schooner only one had escaped. From this man, who had been the ship's cook, the following narrative was obtained.
When the Allen Gardiner reached Woollya, the people appeared perfectly friendly, and for several days a good deal of intercourse went freely on between the vessel and the shore. Sunday coming round, a landing was made on the island with the view of conducting Christian worship in the presence of the natives, only the cook being left on board in charge.
For a time everything seemed to go well. But suddenly a concerted rush was made upon the white men and all were barbarously murdered. Not a hand or a voice was raised in their defense, though the cook saw the lad Okokko running up and down the beach in evident distress. We can imagine the feelings of that solitary watcher on the schooner's deck as he gazed with horrorstricken eyes on the dreadful scene which was enacted on the shore a few hundred yards from where he stood. With a sense of absolute powerlessness to help them, he saw all his companions brutally done to death, and he knew that his own turn would come next unless he could make his escape before the savages, now drunk with blood, attacked the vessel.
Realizing that now or never was his chance, he slid down into a boat, and rowing with all haste to the shore, disappeared in the depths of the dense forest before his red-handed pursuers could overtake him. In these forest depths he lay hid for several days, till at length hunger and cold drove him out among the natives. 'By this time their passion for blood seemed to have been sated, and though he got rough treatment from some of them, others supplied him with food and showed him a little kindness until the arrival of the Nancy placed him once more in the midst of friends.
Meanwhile the Allen Gardiner had been completely ransacked and plundered, but not burnt or otherwise destroyed, and Captain Smyley was able to convey her back to the Falkland Islands in safety. He brought along with him the lad Okokko and his wife Camilenna, who were very earnest in their entreaties to be removed from their barbarous surroundings and taken back once more to their Christian friends at Keppel Island.
Thus, what may be called the first chapter in the strange romance of a missionary schooner closed in a scene of tragedy and blood. It was more than three years before the Allen Gardiner sailed to Tierra del Fuego again.
The next voyage of the schooner was to England, to which Mr. Despard now returned, leaving two missionaries to hold the fort in Keppel Island until better days should come. One of these was William Bartlett, who had charge of the Mission farm: The other was Mr. Bridges, Mr. Despard's adopted son, a young man of a very fine spirit and possessed of a rare faculty for language. To him more than to any other the missionaries owed their eventual mastery of the difficult Fuegian tongue—an acquirement which smoothed away many obstacles and misunderstandings. In the care of the Mission property, in the further instruction of Okokko and Camilenna, and in the task of learning not only to speak Fuegian, but how to reduce it to a grammar, these two brave men whiled away the lonely months and years of waiting.
After two such crushing blows as had now fallen upon the South American Society within the space of eight years, it might almost be supposed that any idea of converting the Fuegians would be finally abandoned. But the patient heroism of the founder had become part of the Society's inheritance, and there was no slackening in the determination to go on. The story of some Missions is inspiring because of the vast and striking results which are achieved. There was no possibility of vast results among the scanty and dwindling tribes of a desolate archipelago. But this only makes us admire the more the undaunted courage and unfaltering perseverance of those who, in the face of one terrible disaster after another, still took for their motto, "With God's help, the Mission shall be maintained.”
With a view to increasing both her seaworthiness and her accommodation, the Allen Gardiner was now lengthened, and thereafter this historic schooner sailed from Bristol once again, with a fresh missionary party, to resume her work in the icy Southern seas. The leader of the enterprise on this occasion was the well-known Mr. Stirling, who seven years afterwards was consecrated as the first Bishop of the Falkland Islands.
The plans of the Society as well as its schooner had now been enlarged. Its operations were about to be extended northwards along the South American coast until they should reach from Cape Horn to Panama. Tierra del Fuego, however, still remained the special objective of the Allen Gardiner, and one of Mr. Stirling's earliest duties was to reopen that communication with the natives which had ceased after the massacre of 1859. He was greatly assisted in this task by both Mr. Bridges and Okokko, for the former had now become quite an expert in Fuegian, while the latter could speak English very well. As the schooner sailed about among the islands, the missionaries by means of these two highly competent interpreters made their friendly intentions everywhere known. At Woollya they were received with some suspicion, for the people there, recognizing the vessel, thought not unnaturally that it had come back now on a mission of vengeance. But when persuaded that their crime had been forgiven, and that Mr. Stirling and his companions had no thoughts towards them but thoughts of peace, they became quite enthusiastic, and far more of them volunteered to come to Keppel Island than could possibly be accommodated there. The chief difficulty now was to select from among the applicants those who were most likely to be of use in furthering the aims of the Mission.
The change for the natives from Tierra del Fuego to the Falklands was, no doubt, great. At home their time was largely spent in paddling about in their frail canoes. They lived mainly on fish, which they speared with great dexterity, their only vegetable diet being seaweed from the rocks, or fungi, which grew plentifully on the rugged hills. One of the occasional excitements of existence came from the arrival of a shoal of whales. They did not venture to attack those monsters of the deep in the open sounds, but they were frequently indebted to the fierce swordfish, which would so harass the clumsy creatures that they floundered into the shallows and got stranded; and then the hungry and watchful Indians had their chance.
At Keppel Island the Fuegians had to live a life that was much more civilized. They were expected to attend at Christian worship every day, and the younger members of the community were taught the elements of an ordinary education; but they were not asked to live after a fashion which would have been quite unnatural for them, as it was recognized that allowance and provision must be made for their hereditary instincts. And so, while they were trained to habits of industry in the Mission gardens and the peat valley, they still enjoyed the pleasures of spearing fish, as well as the novel and to them most exhilarating excitement of chasing the cattle, which were bred on the Mission farm, but allowed to run in a wild state over the island. It shows the deep-seated impulses of the natural man that even those who had stayed for a period at the station, and had learned to appreciate the comforts of a settled life and the blessings of Christianity, were generally quite glad by and by to go back to their own people. Their minds were now uplifted and enlarged, but they still loved the old, familiar, adventurous canoe life among the creeks and sounds of the Magellan Straits.
Some time after the arrival of Mr. Stirling the growing confidence inspired by the missionaries received a striking illustration. On one of the cruises of the Allen Gardiner the natives of Woollya of their own accord pointed out the spot where they had laid the bodies of the eight men whom they had murdered in November, 1859. They had carefully carried them to a quiet place among the rocks and covered them with large stones to keep them from being eaten by the foxes: and here ever since in their rocky sepulchers they had been lying undisturbed. Two of the bodies—those of Mr. Phillips and Captain Fell—could still be identified quite unmistakably. All were reverently lifted and buried in a Christian grave, with the simple and beautiful rites of the Church of England. The collect for St. Stephen's Day was most appropriately read, with its reference to the first Christian martyr and his prayer for those who murdered him. The schooner's flag meanwhile hung half-mast high, and at the close of the service two signal guns, booming across the water and echoing from rock to rock, announced to the company of Christian mourners and awestruck natives that all was over.
Year after year the Allen Gardiner continued to go forth on her blessed work, bringing successive batches of natives to Keppel, and taking them back again after a while to their wild homes to act the part of the leaven in the midst of the meal. And at last in 1869 a mission station was opened by Mr. Stirling in person at Ushuaia, some distance to the west of Spaniard Harbor, sacred to the memory of Captain Gardiner, and on the south coast of the main island of Tierra del Fuego. Here for seven months Mr. Stirling lived in a little hut, before which he often paced up and down as the shadows of evening were falling upon sea and mountain, feeling, he tells us, as if he were “a sentinel stationed at the southernmost outpost of God's great army.”
From this remotest outpost of the Church of Christ he was summoned suddenly to England to be consecrated Bishop of the Falkland Islands, with a diocese which included practically the whole of the South American continent. The work he had begun in Ushuaia was taken up by Mr. Bridges and others, and when Bishop Stirling next saw the place in 1872 it was a little Christian settlement that lay before him. Stirling House, the iron house of the Mission, occupied a conspicuous position, while around it were the wigwams and cultivated gardens of a native colony. A little chapel showed the consecration of the whole to God, and in that chapel on the Lord's Day the Bishop joined with Mr. Bridges—now an ordained clergyman—in administering the sacrament of Baptism to thirty-six Fuegians, adult and infant, and in joining seven couples in Christian marriage.
A genuine reformation in the Fuegian character had now begun. That for which, first, Captain Gardiner and his whole party, and at a later date Mr. Phillips and Captain Fell, with six other gallant men, had laid down their lives was already in process of accomplishment. The brutal natives of the Archipelago were being transformed into the likeness of peaceable Christian men and women. The best, because the most disinterested proof of this is found in a British Admiralty chart of 1871. In this chart the attention of mariners passing through the Straits of Magellan is directed to the existence of the mission station of Ushuaia; and they are assured that within a radius of thirty miles no shipwrecked crew need expect other than kindly treatment from any natives into whose hands they may fall.
For the foregoing narrative the author is indebted to The Story of Commander Allen Gardiner, R.N., by the Rev. John W. Marsh, Di. A., and the Rev. W. H. Stirling, D.D., Bishop of the Falkland Islands (James Nisbet and Co.), and also to Mr. Marsh's First Fruits of the South American Mission, which was kindly lent him by the Secretaries of the Society.