[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.M.S.BeagleHudson in the Time of the(1839), and James Burney s A Chronological Historyof the Discoveries in the South Sea or Pacific OceanPatroons, A (1924)(1803 17; also used later as a source for Melville sPoem in WEEDS AND WILDINGS.In this last poem in lecture The SOUTH SEAS ).Melville names nonethe section titled The Year, Melville describes a of these sources in The Encantadas, but he doesbounteous Christmas such as one that might have name others: William Cowley s Voyage Round the 86 Encantadas, or Enchanted Isles, The Globe (1699), Captain David Porter s Journal of a Quito, Ecuador, and 5,000 miles due east of theCruise Made to the Pacific Ocean (1815, a work Mel- Kingsmills, he turns his attention to nearby islandsville had used repeatedly since TYPEE), and Captain that make up the Galápagos archipelago, describingJames Colnett s A Voyage to the South Atlantic and four of the islands in detail.Round Cape Horn into the Pacific Ocean (1798).Sketch Fifth: The Frigate, and Ship Flyaway In addition, each sketch opens with an epigraph,Beginning with this sketch, instead of merelyquoted variously from Edmund Spenser, Thomasdescribing the Enchanted Isles, Melville begins toChatterton, William Collins, and Beaumont andrelate stories connected with them.Here the nar-Fletcher s comic play Wit Without Money (1639).rator discusses the near wreck of the frigate U.S.S.Essex on the cliffs of Rock Rodondo while givingSYNOPSISchase to an apparently enchanted English shipSketch First: The Isles at Large during the War of 1812.Melville describes the Galápagos in general, stress-Sketch Sixth: Barrington Isle and the Buccaneers ing their desolateness.They are, he says, uninhab-Legend has it that, beginning in the 17th century,itable and changeless.He notes, however, that theyBarrington was a pirates hideaway.The narratorhave earned their moniker the Enchanted Isles points to a reported sighting of carved stone seatsbecause of the mysterious currents that surroundand the rusted remains of cutlasses and daggers asthe islands as well as the giant tortoises alleg-evidence of the truth of this legend.edly transmogrified sea officers that inhabit theirshores.Sketch Seventh: Charles Isle and the Dog-King Charles Isle is said to have been inhabited by aSketch Second: Two Sides to a Tortoise Cuban Creole who, having fought for PeruvianThe narrator describes how the dark upper shell ofindependence from Spain, was granted ownershipa giant tortoise contrasts with its bright undershell.of the island as payment.Now king of the island,He offers other observations about the three seem-the Creole surrounds himself with a disciplinedingly ageless creatures that a hunting party bringscavalry company of large grim dogs who help himback from Albemarle Island.That night in hismaintain absolute rule over the immigrants to hishammock he hears the tortoises resolutely crawlingkingdom among them deserters from whalingabout the deck, pushing stubbornly against immov-ships.When his subjects revolt, the Creole is forcedable objects.The next night he and his mates sitback to Peru as his former kingdom devolves into adown to a meal of tortoise steaks and stews, after- riotocracy. ward fashioning the creatures shells into tureensand salvers.Sketch Eighth: Norfolk Isle and the Chola Widow Hunting tortoises, the narrator and his compan-Sketch Third: Rock Rodondo ions visit Norfolk Island, where they come uponThe narrator and his sailor companions visit thea woman in distress, a Chola (mixed-race Indian)rocky promontory, which rises 250 feet straight outwoman from Peru named Hunilla.Three yearsof the sea.Fishing at its base, they are covered byearlier, Hunilla had traveled to the island froma canopy of flying sea birds.Farther down theyher home in Payta with her husband and brothersee other avian inhabitants of the island, includingaboard a French whaler.Their object was to huntpenguins, pelicans, albatrosses, and storm petrels.tortoises for their highly prized oil.The captainAs the sun rises, the men ascend the rock.of the French whaler promised to pick the smallSketch Fourth: A Pisgah View from the Rock party up from Norfolk Island in four months time,Alluding to Mount Pisgah on the Dead Sea, but he never reappeared.After Hunilla s husbandthe narrator describes the view from atop Rock and brother are drowned, the widow stays on aloneRodondo.After situating the Galápagos in splendid in the rude hut they have built, her only com-isolation north of Antarctica, 600 miles west of pany the ever-increasing pack of dogs descended Encantadas, or Enchanted Isles, The 87from the two that originally accompanied her little by two passages from Spencer s Faerie Queen thatparty.Rescued at last, she is forced to leave behind describe the cursed Wandering Islands andher husband s remains and all but two of her dogs
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]