Island of the Mori

Dr. McCormick made his case most vehemently before the captain and the first and second mate. The island I proposed to visit was nothing more than a barren rock in the sea which did not appear on any of our charts and had no apparent strategic value from a military or economic perspective. It was virtually devoid of plant life and any fauna were bound to be minimal and most primitive. For all we knew there was no safe place to make landfall.

In my reply, I turned his arguments around in my favor. If the island was missing from the charts it was clearly in our remit to gather any relevant information we could obtain. Without that information, we had no idea what its strategic value could be. The primitive nature of any plant or animal life was of great interest to me in my research about how such formations of such a relatively "new" geologic origin were initially colonized by terrestrial species. The island seemed to have been formed by an uplift of the sea floor rather than by volcanic activity and any geologic specimens we could collect would be invaluable. When I agreed that I would be satisfied with a cursory examination from a distance if no convenient landing place presented itself, Captain FitzRoy dropped any objections of his own and the mini expedition was approved.

McCormick was chosen to accompany me for better for for worse, despite the fact that he bore his defeat with poor grace, the same way he bore everything, given his irascible temperament. He chose not to revisit our confrontation on the boat as we took turns rowing out to our destination. So the journey was a quiet one, much to my relief.

As we approached the island with myself manning the oars, he declared that no landing place was available and we should return immediately to the ship. When I replied that this decision was premature until we had rowed past the beach head on the other side, he actually rose from his seat and tried to wrest the oars from my grasp. It was while we were distracted by this exchange that a rogue wave suddenly appeared and capsized the boat.

I managed to swim the remaining distance to the island without too much trouble. I had wrapped my notebook and equipment in oilskin so they were safe from the seawater. There was no sign of McCormick or of the boat, however, and I spent the better part of the afternoon watching for them, to no avail. So that my time was not wasted, I observed what I could see of the island life during the watch I kept.

The primary occupants were birds of the gannet family, who were slow and of minimal intelligence. The island was coated with deposits from their dung and there were clusters of eggs distributed at regular intervals. Another occupant was a genus of large crab, which attacked newly hatched fledglings and dragged them off without the parent birds being able to interfere in any way. It struck me as odd that these primitive invertebrates could have the more highly advanced vertebrates at such a disadvantage. I mused about how there must be a balance of sorts between the populations. Otherwise the gannets would be exterminated, which would deprive the crabs of food.

The evening was beginning to come on, and there was still no evidence of McCormick or the boat. I was not unreasonably alarmed. I knew that the captain would eventually send another boat for me and I would not be left marooned, but I was concerned about McCormick. I decided to make my way around to the other side of the island to see if perhaps he had come ashore there without my observing him.

The route was a bit of a goat path, forcing me to clamber over outcroppings and even wade into the ocean at certain points, but I found that the other side of the islet was much flatter and provided what looked to be an easy landing place. Above it, on the side of a ridge, I could see the mouth of a cave of some type. Next to the cave I spotted a neatly stacked pile of wooden barrels. Apparently the human species constituted one of the primitive life forms endemic to this rock in the sea.

Even though there were no footprints or obvious signs of recent activity in the area, I was hopeful that McCormick had managed to make it to land here and was perhaps taking shelter in the cave. I clambered up the rocks to the opening above and crept inside, shouting a tentative "Halloo" as I passed into its shadow.

An unfamiliar voice answered my "Halloo," and I turned around to find a silhouetted figure blocking the exit. He took a few steps closer, holding a wicked looking hunting knife at the ready.

We assessed one another silently for a few moments. He appeared to be a man of less than average height, quite slender under his jacket and the riding cape he wore wrapped around his shoulders. He had intelligent eyes and a broad forehead which sloped up to a high hairline. His hair itself was dark and curly and his upper lip was decorated by a thin mustache.

It was he who broke the silence.

"You are an Englishman, I presume." He spoke with an pronounced American accent.

"I am," I replied. "I assume that you have been watching our ship."

"Yes," he responded with a smile. "And your attempted landing by boat."

"An unfortunate affair," I answered. "But our expedition is a peaceful one. We are surveying the islands and collecting scientific specimens. I am a naturalist."

"I see," he observed, but his attitude remained tinged by suspicion.

"Our countries are not at war," I added. "My presence is hardly a threat."

He nodded in agreement and thrust his knife under his belt.

"Did you see what became of my companion?" I asked. "Did he make his way to shore?"

"Ah, yes," he replied, "your so-called companion climbed onto the upturned shell of the boat, retrieved an oar and paddled out of sight. He probably returned to that ship of yours and left you here marooned."

"No, not likely," I disagreed. "They will send out another party. Perhaps I should light a signal fire to let them know that I am here."

"Oh, I would not recommend that," he advised. "It might draw undue attention to my presence here."

"Are you some kind of fugitive, then?" I asked.

"A fugitive?" He laughed. "Hardly that. It is just that I am not anxious that my purposes for coming here be widely known."

He made no further explanation, and after I apologized for imposing on his privacy, he offered to let me use some of the canvas cloths he had on hand to make a signal flag alerting my shipmates of my presence.

"It is late in the day now," he observed. "Better to wait until daybreak. In which case, if you will forgive my previous lack of manners, I would like to invite you to spend the night here with me in these humble accommodations. I assure you that they are not unduly uncomfortable."

I was touched by his kindness and agreed immediately, but suggested that introductions might, in that case, be in order.

"My name is Charles Darwin," I began. "I am a naturalist, as I have said, assigned to the ship you have mentioned - the HMS Beagle."

"You can call me Pym," he suggested in return. "Arthur Pym of Nantucket Island in your former colony of Massachusetts, now part of the United States of North America."

"I am pleased to make your acquaintance, Mr. Pym," I said. And Pym replied in kind.

He led me farther back into the cave, where we found some mattresses made of canvas - sail sheets perhaps - stuffed with quantities of cotton. He opened one of the wooden casks and revealed that it contained brandy. We shared some from the single tin cup which he possessed and it was of surprisingly good quality.

"On tonight's menu," Pym announced, "is fish. The same as every night, I'm afraid."

"Do you have fishing gear?" I enquired.

"Not necessary," Pym explained, "although I do have a skin curragh hidden back here amongst the supplies. I let the local seabirds do the fishing for me. When they bring in their catch to feed the hatchlings, I help myself to the tastiest I can find among their nests, the same as walking through the fish market back in New Bedford town."

He showed me his cooking device - a kind of stove for which he supplied fuel in the form of whale oil contained in some of the wooden casks at the entryway. The results of his culinary efforts were quite satisfactory and we concluded our meal sitting inside the entrance to his cave, sharing a pipe and a few more tin cups of brandy.

As night spread across the horizon like a cloud of ink from a cuttle-fish, my companion gazed out at the darkening sky and recited some verses:

“Proud Evening Star,

In thy glory afar,

And dearer thy beam shall be;

For joy to my heart

Is the proud part

Thou bearest in Heaven at night,

And more I admire

Thy distant fire,

Than that colder, lowly light.”

When I asked which poet he was quoting, he confessed that he himself was the author. He had apparently published several volumes of verse, as well as some prose works in various journals.

I admitted my surprise. "I took you for a military man," I remarked.

"You are very observant," he replied. "I have done some military service and even trained as an officer. But it is not my calling, much to my foster-father's chagrin."

I laughed. "My father wanted me to be a physician like himself. But here I am."

"You could be a ship's physician and still visit a place like this," he observed.

"My former partner on the boat is the physician," I pointed out, "but he does not support my researches. Fortunately, the captain shares my interests."

"Which is why you are not concerned that he will leave you here," he deduced.

I nodded my agreement and looked out into the darkness.

"The ancients believed that the land of the dead lay out beyond the western horizon like a great city in the sea," Pym mused. "Homer has Odysseus sail over the ocean to visit the shade of a famous prophet."

"Where knowledge fails," I suggested, "superstition fills the void."

"But what if there are unknown places on the earth even now which lead to hidden lands at its core?" His question was too passionate to be driven by idle speculation. "Virgil had the sibyl lead Aeneas to the underworld through a volcanic crater at Cumae. Perhaps there truly are places like that which our science has yet to find."

"There are no hidden continents at the core. We know that the earth is filled with molten rock!" I protested. "How else was the crater at Cumae formed?"

"But what of the South Pole?" he insisted. "No living man knows what lies there. Perhaps the oceans flow down like a waterfall and come rushing out in the North?"

I laughed then, which seemed to further incense him.

"Come with me," he commanded. "There is something in the back of this cave which you need to see."

"An entrance to hell?" I asked. I am afraid that the brandy had loosened my tongue unduly and I was tending toward mockery rather than diplomacy with my host.

He snatched up a lantern and lit it from the stove, then demanded that I follow him deep into the hollow chamber in the side of the cliff. I complied cheerfully enough, although I remained aware of the knife he carried in his belt.

"Look here! What do you make of this?" Pym held his lantern near the wall of the cave and indicated some lines of characters scratched into the stone.

On the top were two sets of symbols which looked vaguely familiar but could not be readily interpreted. They looked something like the following but with a reversed numeral four: IVIUKI 6KH4¿I. Underneath were two columns of lines which looked like tallies.

"Are they runes of some kind?" he asked.

"You think they were left by wayward Vikings?" I wondered.

"Perhaps," he responded. "It is certainly possible. Or they are some kind of coded message with numbers representing a location here on the island."

“The location of a cache of treasure or a secret entrance to the underworld," I prompted.

"Exactly!" he confirmed. "Can you make anything out of it?"

"How did you find this?" I asked. "Is this why you are out here alone on this Godforsaken isle?"

He looked somewhat abashed. "I won a map in a card game. The loser told me it would lead to a pirate's treasure of considerable value."

"And it brought you here to this cave," I concluded for him.

"Indeed," he agreed. "I have spent the last three weeks trying to decipher this inscription, but to no avail. When I first saw your ship I thought you might be after the same treasure."

"What happens if I decipher it?" I asked. "Will you tell my shipmates I drowned and wall me up in here to starve?"

His smile was not completely reassuring. "Nothing so barbaric," he said aloud. "We will be partners. Share and share alike."

I did not like the way he fingered his knife as he said this.

As I fixed my eyes on the inscription, the lantern he carried fluttered, casting a shadow over the upper edge of the top line of characters. I gave an involuntary gasp.

"It is only the impurities in the lamp oil," Pym assured me.

"Its not the lamp," I responded. "I think I can read the letters."

"What does it say?" he asked.

"Just a moment!" I leaned in closer to the writing and when the lamp flickered again I began to laugh.

"I fail to see the humor..." began Pym.

"I know what this is!" I declared. "Do you still have the map?"

"Well, yes, I have it somewhere..." he answered uncertainly.

"Is it written in square printed letters and initialed 'R.M?'" I asked, thinking of our capsized boat.

"How did you know...?" he muttered.

"I am afraid that it is not a treasure map," I informed him. "And this inscription is a naturalist's notebook,

"Carved in stone?" he objected.

"More durable perhaps than a paper one," I countered. "Except that since the stone was soft enough to scratch in, it was soft enough to crumble. Look here!"

I placed a finger along the top of the uppermost characters.

"If the top part of these lines is restored, the meaning becomes clear," I explained. "This 'IVI' is an 'M.' The 'U' is an 'O.' Then we have 'R' rather than 'K' and the final 'I' remains as it is. The word is 'MORI.'"

"I don't understand," Pym interrupted. "What does it mean?"

"It is the scientific name for the birds on this island. They belong to the genus 'Morus,' which is a Latin word borrowed from Greek. It is just like our English word 'moron.' It means 'stupid' or 'foolish' because these creatures have no fear of humans and are so easy to catch. Perhaps it would be fairer to call them 'innocent' or 'naive' rather than stupid."

"And what of the rest of it?" he asked.

"This next word, then, refers to another animal. The '6' is the bottom of a 'G' and the 'K' is 'R,' as before. As for the 'H', it is a topless 'A' and the backwards '4' is the bottom of a 'P' followed by a decapitated 'S.' The 'I' remains. It is the Latin plural ending, as in the previous word. 'GRAPSI' are the local genus of crabs."

"The marks below, then?" he prompted.

"They are just what they appear - tally marks. Someone - and I think I know who - visited this island on numerous occasions and counted the number of birds and crabs. You see how the numbers change from line to line? First there are 130 birds and 15 crabs. Then the birds decrease to 98 and the crabs number 36. On the next line the birds have held steady and the crabs have decreased. It is a Malthusian Equilibrium!"

"I have no idea what all of the means," confessed Pym, "but how do you know who carved this and made the map?"

"He is my shipmate!" I laughed. "R.M. stands for Robert McCormick. Now I know why he was so determined to prevent me from visiting this island. He was conducting a secret experiment and wanted to make sure he got the credit for it. Unfortunately, he made our boat capsize and I got here anyway."

"And the map?" continued Pym.

"He must have recorded the location of the island on it so that he could return," I surmised. "How your card playing companion acquired it, I cannot say."

"A cheat, a liar and a thief," complained Pym.

Much like you, I thought to myself.

"Well my hopes for a great discovery are obliterated," he mourned.

"No gold and no gateway the the netherworld," I agreed. "But, since you are a writer, perhaps these events will eventually inspire a new story or poem."

"I think they may already have done so," he replied enthusiastically, stroking his mustache.

The next day, Arthur Pym concealed himself in the cave as I was successfully extracted from the island. He claimed that he had arranged to be picked up by ship a few weeks hence and could use the uninterrupted time to continue a writing project. I took my leave of him with more relief than regret. At the same time, I believe Dr. McCormick welcomed my rescue with more regret than relief.

Later, at dinner on board the Beagle, after I had recounted my adventures and described my erstwhile companion to Captain FitzRoy, he asked me, “He said his name was Arthur Pym? Arthur Gordon Pym?"

"He did not provide a middle name," I answered. "Why do you ask? Do you know of him?"

He chuckled. "I know of a character in a story called that. He appears in a narrative about a sea voyage published as a serial in an American magazine. It is presented as true but is an obvious fiction authored, as I recall, by one Edgar Allan Poe. It is interesting how 'Edgar Allan Poe' has the same number of syllables as 'Arthur Gordon Pym.'"

"Well," I responded, taking a sip of port wine from the cask FitzRoy had broached in honor of my safe return, "I can only wish both of them the best of luck."