CHAPTER XLIII

The Pig Hunt—The Supply—The Otaheitan Roast—Ham Smoking

The next morning, at break of day, we renewed our search. We directed our course to the sugar-cane plantation, where I had built a hut of branches, but we found it all blown down; and setting up our tent, we resolved to pass the forenoon there.

While my wife was making preparations for dinner, we explored the sugar-canes, as I thought it would be a natural retreat for the serpents, if there yet remained any in this part of the country. Happily, our investigation was without any result; and we were turning to quit the sugar-canes, when suddenly our dogs began to bark, as if they had taken some dangerous animal. We could perceive nothing; but as it was not prudent to venture among the canes, I ordered my sons to direct their course toward the plain, and we soon found ourselves clear of the canes. At the same time there emerged from them a troop of pigs of quite respectable size and strength. I at first thought it was the young family of our old sow; but their number, the grey colour of their skin, and the singular manner in which they walked, soon banished that idea. They trotted one after the other with a precision and regularity that would have done honour to a troop on parade. I took good aim, fired both barrels of my gun, and two of the animals fell. The loss did not seem to make much impression on the rest of the troop, who trotted on as before. It was a singular spectacle to see the whole family marching along the borders of the sugar-canes, with an imperturbable tranquillity; every one followed exactly in his place, without any pushing for precedence; and, on examining them more closely, we found that there was but one footstep in the sand, so regularly did they march.

But Jack and Fritz, who were a little in advance, could not let them pass unheeded. Bang, bang, went their pistols, and two more animals bit the dust; the dogs also had their part in the victory, and each one strangled a victim.

I immediately recognized them as being a sort of hog, and as I knew that one part, if not immediately removed, would render the meat uneatable, I immediately set about the operation, and my sons gladly aided me, so rejoiced were they at such a splendid booty; for we had six pigs, each, on an average, three feet in length.

While we were thus occupied, I heard the reports of two other guns in the distance; I conjectured them to have come from Ernest and Francis, who had overtaken the pigs. I was right; and Ernest, who soon returned with the waggon for which I had sent Fritz, confirmed me in my conjecture. We thus had in possession three more pigs, for Billy had also done his duty.

The arrival of the doctor naturally provoked a discussion on the name of our game. Fritz thought that these were the Otaheitan pigs of which Captain Cook speaks. Ernest was of another opinion, and maintained that they were peccaries. This animal is very common in Guiana and South America. Before loading the waggon we resolved to clean our game to diminish the weight. Although we worked as diligently as possible, the work was not yet finished at dinner-time, and we were glad to find in the sugar-cane a cordial that refreshed and nourished us. We set out for the tent; but my boys were so proud of our chase that they determined to convert our convoy into a triumphal march: they cut some green boughs and decorated our equipage; they adorned their caps and guns with flowers, and we made our entrance chanting a song of victory.

“You have kept me waiting long enough, gentlemen,” said my wife; “your dinner is all spoiled; but, bless me! what a quantity of meat! Why should you abuse the provision nature has so liberally provided by killing more than we require?”

We justified ourselves as well as we were able, and my children offered their mother the sugar-canes they had brought home.

Fritz proposed to regale the family with an Otaheitan roast. We received his proposition, but it was put off till the morrow, as the preparation of our pigs precluded all thoughts of anything else.

I sent the two smaller boys to gather a quantity of green branches and leaves, with which to smoke our pork, and we then set to work. Ernest skinned the pigs. Fritz and I cut them up, and my wife salted the pieces. I piled the hams all together, so that the salt would penetrate every part, and we also poured salted water over them and allowed them to remain until the hut for smoking was constructed. As for the heads and bones, they were abandoned to the dogs.

The next morning, Fritz recalled to my memory the promise I had made to allow him to serve us for dinner an Otaheitan roast. He began by digging a deep trench; he then took the pig he had reserved for the purpose, washed it with care, rubbed the interior with salt, and filled it with a sort of stuffing made of meat, potatoes, and different roots.

When the trench was full of combustibles, Fritz set it on fire, and from time to time the boys threw in, by the direction of their elder brother, a quantity of pebbles, which soon became red hot.

My wife observed all these particulars with a look of incredulity.

“Beautiful cookery you will make,” said she, “with an entire pig, some ashes, and a hole in the ground—delicious eating I do not doubt!”

Nevertheless, notwithstanding her sarcasms, she could not help giving the boys some advice, and she aided Fritz in giving his pig the graceful turn that roast pigs should always have to taste good.

When these preparations were finished, our cook-in-chief enveloped his “roast” in leaves and pieces of bark; a hole was made in the burning cinders large enough to receive it, and it was then covered with red-hot stones, and the hole filled up with earth to prevent the air from penetrating.

Fritz let his “roast” cook for about two hours; and it was not without astonishment that, after having taken off the triple layer of earth, cinders, and stones, the most delicious odour saluted our olfactories. I scarcely expected anything eatable, and we had before us meat cooked to a nicety, combined with a spicy perfume that would have done honour to a Parisian cook. Fritz triumphed: his good mother avowed that she was conquered, and every one proceeded, without delay, to prove the pig. Some ashes which had fallen on it were carefully removed, and the meat was pronounced delicious.

During the three days while our meat was being smoked, I had every day, with my sons, explored the country. These excursions discovered to us no traces of the boa; but they very seldom ended without our bringing home some little addition to our comforts and luxuries.

One day we directed our course toward the wood of bamboo, and returned home loaded with cups of all dimensions, formed from rushes, which we sawed apart at every knot; some of them were very large, twenty inches in diameter. We also made another discovery the same day: it was that each knot of the rushes distilled a sugary matter which crystallized in the sun, and resembled candied sugar. These rushes also furnished us a quantity of long, strong thorns, which filled the place of nails admirably.

We also made an excursion to Prospect Hill; but we found every thing there in the greatest disorder: the walls of the farmhouse were pulled down, and the cattle gone. The monkeys had passed that way, and left unequivocal traces of their progress.

We then surrounded the hut, where our hams were suspended, with a rampart of earth, and fortified it with branches and stones, so as effectually to keep out all intruders; and we arranged everything so that we might be ready to set off on the morning of the fourth day, and commence our explorations beyond the defile that had been the barrier between the district we had inhabited for nearly three years, and an unknown land, which we had but once entered, and then were nearly destroyed by a troop of buffaloes.