University of Virginia Library

9. SKETCH NINTH.

Southeast of Crossman's Isle lies Hood's
Isle, or McCain's Beclouded Isle; and upon
its south side is a vitreous cove with a wide
strand of dark pounded black lava, called Black
Beach, or Oberlus's Landing. It might fitly
have been styled Charon's.

It received its name from a wild white creature
who spent many years here; in the person
of a European bringing into this savage region
qualities more diabolical than are to be found
among any of the surrounding cannibals.

About half a century ago, Oberlus deserted

at the above-named island, then, as now, a solitude.
He built himself a den of lava and
clinkers, about a mile from the Landing, subsequently
called after him, in a vale, or expanded
gulch, containing here and there among
the rocks about two acres of soil capable of
rude cultivation; the only place on the isle
not too blasted for that purpose. Here he succeeded
in raising a sort of degenerate potatoes
and pumpkins, which from time to time he exchanged
with needy whalemen passing, for
spirits or dollars.

His appearance, from all accounts, was that
of the victim of some malignant sorceress; he
seemed to have drunk of Circe's cup; beast-like;
rags insufficient to hide his nakedness;
his befreckled skin blistered by continual exposure
to the sun; nose flat; countenance
contorted, heavy, earthy; hair and beard unshorn,
profuse, and of fiery red. He struck
strangers much as if he were a volcanic creature
thrown up by the same convulsion which
exploded into sight the isle. All bepatched
and coiled asleep in his lonely lava den among
the mountains, he looked, they say, as a heaped

drift of withered leaves, torn from autumn
trees, and so left in some hidden nook by the
whirling halt for an instant of a fierce nightwind,
which then ruthlessly sweeps on, somewhere
else to repeat the capricious act. It is
also reported to have been the strangest sight,
this same Oberlus, of a sultry, cloudy morning,
hidden under his shocking old black tarpaulin
hat, hoeing potatoes among the lava. So
warped and crooked was his strange nature,
that the very handle of his hoe seemed gradually
to have shrunk and twisted in his grasp,
being a wretched bent stick, elbowed more
like a savage's war-sickle than a civilized hoehandle.
It was his mysterious custom upon a
first encounter with a stranger ever to present
his back; possibly, because that was his better
side, since it revealed the least. If the encounter
chanced in his garden, as it sometimes
did—the new-landed strangers going from the
sea-side straight through the gorge, to hunt
up the queer green-grocer reported doing business
here—Oberlus for a time hoed on, unmindful
of all greeting, jovial or bland; as the
curious stranger would turn to face him, the
recluse, hoe in hand, as diligently would avert
himself; bowed over, and sullenly revolving
round his murphy hill. Thus far for hoeing.
When planting, his whole aspect and all his
gestures were so malevolently and uselessly
sinister and secret, that he seemed rather in act
of dropping poison into wells than potatoes
into soil. But among his lesser and more harmless
marvels was an idea he ever had, that his
visitors came equally as well led by longings
to behold the mighty hermit Oberlus in his
royal state of solitude, as simply to obtain
potatoes, or find whatever company might be
upon a barren isle. It seems incredible that
such a being should possess such vanity; a
misanthrope be conceited; but he really had
his notion; and upon the strength of it, often
gave himself amusing airs to captains. But
after all, this is somewhat of a piece with the
well-known eccentricity of some convicts, proud
of that very hatefulness which makes them
notorious. At other times, another unaccountable
whim would seize him, and he would long
dodge advancing strangers round the clinkered
corners of his hut; sometimes like a stealthy
bear, he would slink through the withered thickets
up the mountains, and refuse to see the
human face.

Except his occasional visitors from the sea,
for a long period, the only companions of Oberlus
were the crawling tortoises; and he seemed
more than degraded to their level, having no
desires for a time beyond theirs, unless it were
for the stupor brought on by drunkenness. But
sufficiently debased as he appeared, there yet
lurked in him, only awaiting occasion for discovery,
a still further proneness. Indeed, the
sole superiority of Oberlus over the tortoises
was his possession of a larger capacity of degradation;
and along with that, something like
an intelligent will to it. Moreover, what is
about to be revealed, perhaps will show, that
selfish ambition, or the love of rule for its own
sake, far from being the peculiar infirmity of
noble minds, is shared by beings which have no
mind at all. No creatures are so selfishly
tyrannical as some brutes; as any one who has
observed the tenants of the pasture must occasionally
have observed.

“This island's mine by Sycorax my mother,”

said Oberlus to himself, glaring round upon his
haggard solitude. By some means, barter or
theft—for in those days ships at intervals still
kept touching at his Landing—he obtained an
old musket, with a few charges of powder and
ball. Possessed of arms, he was stimulated to
enterprise, as a tiger that first feels the coming
of its claws. The long habit of sole dominion
over every object round him, his almost unbroken
solitude, his never encountering humanity
except on terms of misanthropic independence,
or mercantile craftiness, and even such
encounters being comparatively but rare; all
this must have gradually nourished in him a
vast idea of his own importance, together with
a pure animal sort of scorn for all the rest
of the universe.

The unfortunate Creole, who enjoyed his
brief term of royalty at Charles's Isle was perhaps
in some degree influenced by not unworthy
motives; such as prompt other adventurous
spirits to lead colonists into distant regions
and assume political preëminence over them.
His summary execution of many of his Peruvians
is quite pardonable, considering the desperate

characters he had to deal with; while his
offering canine battle to the banded rebels
seems under the circumstances altogether just.
But for this King Oberlus and what shortly
follows, no shade of palliation can be given.
He acted out of mere delight in tyranny and
cruelty, by virtue of a quality in him inherited
from Sycorax his mother. Armed now with
that shocking blunderbuss, strong in the thought
of being master of that horrid isle, he panted
for a chance to prove his potency upon the
first specimen of humanity which should fall
unbefriended into his hands.

Nor was he long without it. One day he
spied a boat upon the beach, with one man, a
negro, standing by it. Some distance off was
a ship, and Oberlus immediately knew how
matters stood. The vessel had put in for wood,
and the boat's crew had gone into the thickets
for it. From a convenient spot he kept watch
of the boat, till presently a straggling company
appeared loaded with billets. Throwing these
on the beach, they again went into the thickets,
while the negro proceeded to load the boat.

Oberlus now makes all haste and accosts the

negro, who, aghast at seeing any living being
inhabiting such a solitude, and especially so
horrific a one, immediately falls into a panic,
not at all lessened by the ursine suavity of
Oberlus, who begs the favor of assisting him in
his labors. The negro stands with several
billets on his shoulder, in act of shouldering
others; and Oberlus, with a short cord concealed
in his bosom, kindly proceeds to lift
those other billets to their place. In so doing,
he persists in keeping behind the negro, who,
rightly suspicious of this, in vain dodges about
to gain the front of Oberlus; but Oberlus
dodges also; till at last, weary of this bootless
attempt at treachery, or fearful of being surprised
by the remainder of the party, Oberlus
runs off a little space to a bush, and fetching
his blunderbuss, savagely commands the negro
to desist work and follow him. He refuses.
Whereupon, presenting his piece, Oberlus
snaps at him. Luckily the blunderbuss misses
fire; but by this time, frightened out of his
wits, the negro, upon a second intrepid summons,
drops his billets, surrenders at discretion,
and follows on. By a narrow defile familiar to
him, Oberlus speedily removes out of sight of
the water.

On their way up the mountains, he exultingly
informs the negro, that henceforth he is to
work for him, and be his slave, and that his
treatment would entirely depend on his future
conduct. But Oberlus, deceived by the first
impulsive cowardice of the black, in an evil
moment slackens his vigilance. Passing through
a narrow way, and perceiving his leader quite
off his guard, the negro, a powerful fellow,
suddenly grasps him in his arms, throws him
down, wrests his musketoon from him, ties his
hands with the monster's own cord, shoulders
him, and returns with him down to the boat.
When the rest of the party arrive, Oberlus is
carried on board the ship. This proved an
Englishman, and a smuggler; a sort of craft
not apt to be over-charitable. Oberlus is severely
whipped, then handcuffed, taken ashore,
and compelled to make known his habitation
and produce his property. His potatoes, pumpkins,
and tortoises, with a pile of dollars he had
hoarded from his mercantile operations were
secured on the spot. But while the too vindictive

smugglers were busy destroying his hut
and garden, Oberlus makes his escape into the
mountains, and conceals himself there in impenetrable
recesses, only known to himself,
till the ship sails, when he ventures back, and
by means of an old file which he sticks into a
tree, contrives to free himself from his handcuffs.

Brooding among the ruins of his hut, and the
desolate clinkers and extinct volcanoes of this
outcast isle, the insulted misanthrope now
meditates a signal revenge upon humanity, but
conceals his purposes. Vessels still touch the
Landing at times; and by-and-by Oberlus is
enabled to supply them with some vegetables.

Warned by his former failure in kidnapping
strangers, he now pursues a quite different plan.
When seamen come ashore, he makes up to
them like a free-and-easy comrade, invites them
to his hut, and with whatever affability his redhaired
grimness may assume, entreats them to
drink his liquor and be merry. But his guests
need little pressing; and so, soon as rendered
insensible, are tied hand and foot, and pitched
among the clinkers, are there concealed till the

ship departs, when, finding themselves entirely
dependent upon Oberlus, alarmed at his
changed demeanor, his savage threats, and
above all, that shocking blunderbuss, they
willingly enlist under him, becoming his humble
slaves, and Oberlus the most incredible of
tyrants. So much so, that two or three perish
beneath his initiating process. He sets the
remainder—four of them—to breaking the
caked soil; transporting upon their backs
loads of loamy earth, scooped up in moist
clefts among the mountains; keeps them on
the roughest fare; presents his piece at the
slightest hint of insurrection; and in all respects
converts them into reptiles at his feet—
plebeian garter-snakes to this Lord Anaconda.

At last, Oberlus contrives to stock his arsenal
with four rusty cutlasses, and an added
supply of powder and ball intended for his
blunderbuss. Remitting in good part the labor
of his slaves, he now approves himself a man,
or rather devil, of great abilities in the way of
cajoling or coercing others into acquiescence
with his own ulterior designs, however at first
abhorrent to them. But indeed, prepared for

almost any eventual evil by their previous lawless
life, as a sort of ranging Cow-Boys of the
sea, which had dissolved within them the
whole moral man, so that they were ready to
concrete in the first offered mould of baseness
now; rotted down from manhood by their
hopeless misery on the isle; wonted to cringe
in all things to their lord, himself the worst
of slaves; these wretches were now become
wholly corrupted to his hands. He used them
as creatures of an inferior race; in short, he
gaffles his four animals, and makes murderers
of them; out of cowards fitly manufacturing
bravos.

Now, sword or dagger, human arms are but
artificial claws and fangs, tied on like false
spurs to the fighting cock. So, we repeat,
Oberlus, czar of the isle, gaffles his four subjects;
that is, with intent of glory, puts four
rusty cutlasses into their hands. Like any
other autocrat, he had a noble army now.

It might be thought a servile war would
hereupon ensue. Arms in the hands of trodden
slaves? how indiscreet of Emperor Oberlus!
Nay, they had but cutlasses—sad old scythes

enough—he a blunderbuss, which by its blind
scatterings of all sorts of boulders, clinkers, and
other scoria would annihilate all four mutineers,
like four pigeons at one shot. Besides, at first
he did not sleep in his accustomed hut; every
lurid sunset, for a time, he might have been
seen wending his way among the riven mountains,
there to secrete himself till dawn in some
sulphurous pitfall, undiscoverable to his gang;
but finding this at last too troublesome, he now
each evening tied his slaves hand and foot, hid
the cutlasses, and thrusting them into his barracks,
shut to the door, and lying down before
it, beneath a rude shed lately added, slept out
the night, blunderbuss in hand.

It is supposed that not content with daily
parading over a cindery solitude at the head of
his fine army, Oberlus now meditated the most
active mischief; his probable object being to
surprise some passing ship touching at his
dominions, massacre the crew, and run away
with her to parts unknown. While these plans
were simmering in his head, two ships touch
in company at the isle, on the opposite side to
his; when his designs undergo a sudden change.

The ships are in want of vegetables, which
Oberlus promises in great abundance, provided
they send their boats round to his landing, so
that the crews may bring the vegetables from
his garden; informing the two captains, at the
same time, that his rascals—slaves and soldiers
—had become so abominably lazy and good-for-nothing
of late, that he could not make
them work by ordinary inducements, and did
not have the heart to be severe with them.

The arrangement was agreed to, and the
boats were sent and hauled upon the beach.
The crews went to the lava hut; but to their
surprise nobody was there. After waiting till
their patience was exhausted, they returned to
the shore, when lo, some stranger—not the
Good Samaritan either—seems to have very
recently passed that way. Three of the boats
were broken in a thousand pieces, and the
fourth was missing. By hard toil over the
mountains and through the clinkers, some of
the strangers succeeded in returning to that
side of the isle where the ships lay, when fresh
boats are sent to the relief of the rest of the
hapless party.

However amazed at the treachery of Oberlus,
the two captains, afraid of new and still more
mysterious atrocities—and indeed, half imputing
such strange events to the enchantments
associated with these isles—perceive no security
but in instant flight; leaving Oberlus and
his army in quiet possession of the stolen
boat.

On the eve of sailing they put a letter in a
keg, giving the Pacific Ocean intelligence of
the affair, and moored the keg in the bay.
Some time subsequent, the keg was opened by
another captain chancing to anchor there, but
not until after he had dispatched a boat round
to Oberlus's Landing. As may be readily surmised,
he felt no little inquietude till the boat's
return; when another letter was handed him,
giving Oberlus's version of the affair. This precious
document had been found pinned half-mildewed
to the clinker wall of the sulphurous
and deserted hut. It ran as follows: showing
that Oberlus was at least an accomplished
writer, and no mere boor; and what is more,
was capable of the most tristful eloquence.

The fowl proved a starveling rooster, reduced
to a sitting posture by sheer debility.

Oberlus declares that he was bound to the
Feejee Isles; but this was only to throw pursuers
on a false scent. For, after a long time,
he arrived, alone in his open boat, at Guayaquil.
As his miscreants were never again beheld
on Hood's Isle, it is supposed, either that
they perished for want of water on the passage
to Guayaquil, or, what is quite as probable,
were thrown overboard by Oberlus, when he
found the water growing scarce.

From Guayaquil Oberlus proceeded to Payta;
and there, with that nameless witchery
peculiar to some of the ugliest animals, wound
himself into the affections of a tawny damsel;
prevailing upon her to accompany him back to
his Enchanted Isle; which doubtless he painted
as a Paradise of flowers, not a Tartarus of
clinkers.

But unfortunately for the colonization of
Hood's Isle with a choice variety of animated
nature, the extraordinary and devilish aspect
of Oberlus made him to be regarded in Payta
as a highly suspicious character. So that

being found concealed one night, with matches
in his pocket, under the hull of a small vessel
just ready to be launched, he was seized and
thrown into jail.

The jails in most South American towns are
generally of the least wholesome sort. Built
of huge cakes of sun-burnt brick, and containing
but one room, without windows or yard,
and but one door heavily grated with wooden
bars, they present both within and without the
grimmest aspect. As public edifices they conspicuously
stand upon the hot and dusty Plaza,
offering to view, through the gratings, their
villainous and hopeless inmates, burrowing in
all sorts of tragic squalor. And here, for a
long time, Oberlus was seen; the central figure
of a mongrel and assassin band; a creature
whom it is religion to detest, since it is philanthropy
to hate a misanthrope.

Note.—They who may be disposed to question the possibility
of the character above depicted, are referred to the
2d vol. of Porter's Voyage into the Pacific, where they will
recognize many sentences, for expedition's sake derived verbatim
from thence, and incorporated here; the main difference—save
a few passing reflections—between the two
accounts being, that the present writer has added to Porter's
facts accessory ones picked up in the Pacific from

reliable sources; and where facts conflict, has naturally preferred
his own authorities to Porter's. As, for instance, his
authorities place Oberlus on Hood's Isle: Porter's, on
Charles's Isle. The letter found in the hut is also somewhat
different; for while at the Encantadas he was informed
that, not only did it evince a certain clerkliness, but was full
of the strangest satiric effrontery which does not adequately
appear in Porter's version. I accordingly altered it to suit
the general character of its author.