Notwithstanding this, if one is patient and bides one’s opportunity, there are days when landing can be accomplished without any difficulty whatever.
When I visited Trinidad with the Falcon I discovered one especially safe landing-place on the lee side of the island, where a natural pier of coral projects into the sea beyond the breakers. I knew that it was possible to effect a landing here ten times to once that this could be done on the more exposed beach of the bay under the Sugarloaf, where the Aurea party landed. A considerable and, I believe, perennial stream of water runs down as a cascade into the sea close to my landing-place, and I knew that it would be easy to disembark here a quantity of provisions, and establish a depot to which the working-party in Sugarloaf Bay could repair in the case of their stores falling short and their communication with the vessel being cut off by bad weather. I had myself crossed the lofty mountains which separate this landing-place from the bay under the Sugarloaf, and knew that, though difficult, they were not inaccessible.
My negotiations with Mr. A⸺ terminated in his furnishing me with the bearings of the hidden treasure, and handing over to me the copy of the pirate’s plan of the island, which the Aurea people had taken with them. This plan merely indicated the safest landing-place in the bay.
Mr. A⸺’s account of his own experiences were of great service to me in fitting out this expedition. He told me that there was no constant stream of fresh water on the shores of this bay, or anywhere near it; but that a little water of an inferior quality could be collected after rain. There was, however, according to him, an abundance of dead wood on the hillsides, which served admirably as fuel; so I took note that a condensing apparatus would be an indispensable addition to our stores. He told me that I should find the Aurea tools lying on the beach, which if not too corroded, might be of use to us. We did eventually find some of these, and employed them in our operations: I have now in my possession an Aurea pick which I brought away with me. I have to thank Mr. A⸺ for a variety of valuable hints, which I did not neglect.
Having decided to go, the first thing to be done was to find a vessel, a fore-and-after which could accommodate thirteen or fourteen men on an ocean voyage, and which could yet be easily handled by two or three while hove to off the island.
I went down to my old headquarters, Southampton, and explained what I was in search of to Mr. Picket, of West Quay, who had been my shipwright from my earliest yachting days, and who fitted out the old Falcon for her long voyage. With his assistance I soon discovered a very suitable vessel, the cutter-yacht Alerte, of fifty-six tons yacht measurement, and thirty-three tons register. This was, therefore, a considerably larger vessel than the Falcon, with which I had made my first voyage to Trinidad, for she was twenty-four feet shorter than the Alerte, and was only of fifteen tons register.
The dimensions of the Alerte are as follows:—length, 64.3 feet; beam, 14.5 feet; depth, 9 feet. She was built by Ratsey of Cowes in 1864, so she is rather an ancient vessel; but she was constructed in a much stronger fashion than is usual in these days, of thoroughly seasoned teak. There had been no scamping of work in her case, and now, after twenty-six years of service, she is as sound as on the day she left the stocks; there is not a weak spot in her, and she is in fact a far more reliable craft than a newer vessel would have proved; for, even as a human life is more secure after it has safely passed through the period of infantile disorders, so a vessel, if she does not develop dry-rot within a few years of her launching, is not likely to do so afterwards. She has proved herself to have been honestly put together of seasoned timber, and not of sappy rubbish.
The Alerte, moreover, was of the good old-fashioned build, with ample beam, and not of the modern plank-on-end style. She had only two tons of lead outside, the remainder of her ballast was in her hold—a great advantage for real cruising; for a vessel with a lead mine on her keel cannot but strain herself in heavy weather with the violent jerkiness of her action, instead of rolling about with a leisurely motion on the top of the water as if she were quite at home there, like a vessel of the comfortable Alerte type.
This was not the first ocean cruise the gallant
