The Log From the Sea of Cortez (Penguin Classics) (33 page)
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Authors: John Steinbeck
BOOK: The Log From the Sea of Cortez (Penguin Classics)
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The classic example of the effect of such protection on troops is that they invariably lost discipline and wasted their energies in weak quarrelsomeness. They were never happy, never contented, but always ready to indulge in bitter and bloody personal quarrels. Perhaps this has no emphasis. So far there has been only one state that we know of which protected its people
without
keeping them constantly alert and organized against a real or imaginary outside enemy. This was the pre-Pizarro Inca state, whose people were so weakened that a little band of fierce, hard-bitten men was able to overcome the whole nation. And of them the converse is also true. When the food supply was wasted and destroyed by the Spaniards, when the fine economy which had distributed clothing and grain was overturned, only then, in their hunger and cold and misery, did the Peruvian people become a dangerous striking force. We have little doubt that a victorious collectivist state would collapse only a little less quickly than a defeated one. In fact, a bitter defeat would probably keep a fierce conquest-ideal alive much longer than a victory, for men can fight an enemy much more successfully than themselves.
without
keeping them constantly alert and organized against a real or imaginary outside enemy. This was the pre-Pizarro Inca state, whose people were so weakened that a little band of fierce, hard-bitten men was able to overcome the whole nation. And of them the converse is also true. When the food supply was wasted and destroyed by the Spaniards, when the fine economy which had distributed clothing and grain was overturned, only then, in their hunger and cold and misery, did the Peruvian people become a dangerous striking force. We have little doubt that a victorious collectivist state would collapse only a little less quickly than a defeated one. In fact, a bitter defeat would probably keep a fierce conquest-ideal alive much longer than a victory, for men can fight an enemy much more successfully than themselves.
Islands have always been fascinating places. The old story-tellers, wishing to recount a prodigy, almost invariably fixed the scene on an island—Faëry and Avalon, Atlantis and Cipango, all golden islands just over the horizon where anything at all might happen. And in old days at least it was rather difficult to check up on them. Perhaps this quality of potential prodigy still lives in our attitude toward islands. We want very much to go back to Guardian Angel with time and supplies. We wish to go over the burned hills and snake-ridden valleys, exposed to heat and insects, venom and thirst, and we are willing to believe almost anything we hear about it. We believe that great gold nuggets are found there, that unearthly animals make their homes there, that the mountain sheep, which is said never to drink water, abounds there. And if we were told of a race of troglodytes in possession, we should think twice before disbelieving. It is one of the golden islands which will one day be toppled by a mining company or a prison camp.
Thus far, there had been no illness on board the Western Flyer. Tiny drooped a little at Puerto Refugio and confessed that he didn’t feel very well, and we held a consultation on him in the galley, explaining to him that consultation was more pleasant to us, as well as to him, than autopsy. After a great many questions, some of which might have been considered personal but which Tiny used as a vehicle for outrageous boasting, we concocted a remedy which might have cured almost anything—which was apparently what he had. Tiny emerged on deck some hours later, shaken but smiling. He said that what he had been considering love had turned out to be simple flatulence. He said he wished all his romantic problems could be solved as easily.
It was now a long time since Sparky and Tiny had been able to carry out the good-will they felt toward Mexico, and they grew a little anxious about getting to Guaymas. There was no actual complaining, but they spoke tenderly of their intentions. Tex was inhibited in his good-will by his engagement to be married, which he wouldn’t mention any more for fear we would diet him again. As for Tony, the master, he had no nerves, but the problems of finding new and unknown anchorages seemed to fascinate him. Tony would have made a great exploration captain. There would be few errors in judgment where he was concerned. The others of us were very busy all the time. We mention the health of the crew because we truly believe that the physical condition, and through it the mind, has reins on the actual collecting of animals. A man with a sore finger may not lift the rock under which an animal lives. We are likely to see more through our indigestion than through our eyes, and it seems to us that the ulcer-warped viewpoint is very often evident in animal descriptions. The man best fitted to observe animals, to understand them emotionally as well as intellectually, would be a hungry and libidinous man, for he and the animals would have the same preoccupations. Perhaps we fulfilled these requirements as well as most.
24
APRIL 3
We sailed around the northern tip of Guardian Angel and down its eastern coast. The water was clear and blue, and a large swell flowed past us. About noon we moved through a great group of Zeppelin-shaped jellyfish, ctenophores or possibly siphonophores. They were six to ten inches long, and the sea was littered with them. We slowed down and tried to scoop them up, but the tension of their bodies was not sufficient to hold them together out of water. They broke up and slithered in pieces through the dip-nets. Soon after, a school of whales went by, one of them so close that the spray from his blow-hole came over our deck. There is nothing so evil-smelling as a whale anyway, and a whale’s breath is frightfully sickening. It smells of complete decay. Perhaps the droplets were left on the boat, for it seemed to us that we could smell him for a long time after he had gone by. The great schools of tuna, so evident in the Lower Gulf, were not seen here, but a few seals lazed through the water, and on one or two occasions we nearly ran over one asleep on the surface. We felt deeply the loneliness of this sea; no ships, no boats, no canoes, no little ranches on the shore nor villages. Now we would have welcomed a fishing Indian to come aboard and eat canned fruit salad, but this is a deserted sea.
The queer shoulder of Tiburón showed to the southeast of us, and we ran down on it with the wind behind us and probably the tidal current too, for we made great speed. We went down the western coast of Tiburón and watched its high cliffs through the glasses. The cliffs are fairly sheer, and the mountains are higher than those on Guardian Angel Island. This is the island where the Seri Indians come during parts of the year. It is said of them that they are or have been cannibals, a story which has been firmly denied again and again. It is certain that they have killed many strangers, but whether or not they have eaten them does not seem to be documented. Cannibalism is a fascinating subject to most people, and in some way a sin. Possibly the deep feeling is that if people learn to eat one another the food supply would be so generous and so available that no one would be either safe or hungry. It is very curious the amount of hatred and fear that cannibalism inspires. These poor Seri Indians would not be so much feared for their murdering habits, but if in their hunger they should cut a steak from an American citizen a panic arises. Swift’s quite reasonable suggestion concerning a possible use for Irish babies aroused a storm of emotionalism out of all proportion to its feasibility. There were not, it is thought, enough well-conditioned babies at that time to have provided anything like an adequate food supply. Swift without a doubt meant it only as an experiment. If it had been successful, there would have been time enough then to think of raising more babies. It has generally been found that starvation is the greatest single cause for cannibalism. In other words, people will not eat each other if they can get anything else. To some extent this reluctance must be caused by an unpleasant taste in human flesh, the result no doubt of our rather filthy eating habits. This need not be a future deterrent, for, if other barriers are removed, such as a natural distaste for eating relatives, or a man’s gallant dislike for eating women, who in turn are inhibited by a romantic tendency—if all these difficulties should be solved it would be easy enough to improve the flavor of human flesh by special diets before slaughter and carefully prepared sauces and condiments afterwards. If this should occur, the Seri Indians, if indeed they do be cannibals, far from being loaded with our hatred, must be considered pioneers in a new field and honored as such.
Clavigero, in his
History of
[Lower]
California,
76
has an account of these Seris.
History of
[Lower]
California,
76
has an account of these Seris.
The vessel,
San Javier
[he says], which had left Loreto in September 1709 with three thousand
scudi
to buy provisions in Yaqui, was carried 180 miles above the port of its destination by a furious storm and grounded on the sand. Some of the people were drowned; the rest saved themselves in the small boat; but after landing they were exposed to another not less serious danger because that coast was inhabited by the Series who were warlike gentiles and implacable enemies of the Spaniards. For this reason they hastened to bury the money and all the possessions which were on the boat; and after embarking again in the small boat they continued with a thousand dangers and hardships to Yaqui, from where they sent the news to Loreto. In a little while the Series came to the place where the Spaniards had buried those possessions, and they dug them up and carried them away. They even removed the rudder from the vessel and they destroyed it in order to get the nails.As soon as Father Salvatierra learned of that misfortune, he left in the unseaworthy vessel, the
Rosario,
and went to the port of Guaymas. From there he sent this vessel to the place where the
San Javier
was grounded, and he himself went with fourteen Yaqui Indians in that direction over a very bad road which absolutely lacked potable water, and for this reason they suffered great thirst for two days. During the two months which he lived there, exposed to hunger and hardships and to the great danger of all their lives (while the vessel was being repaired), he won the good-will of the Series in such manner that he not only recovered all the cargo of the boat which they had stolen but induced them also to make peace with the Pimas, who were Christian neighbors of theirs and enemies whom they most hated. He baptized many of their children, he catechized the adults and inspired so much affection in them for Christianity that they immediately wanted a missionary to instruct them regularly and to baptize them and govern them in all respects.So the dominating sweetness of the character of Father Salvatierra, aided by the grace of the Master, triumphed over the ferocity of those barbarians who were so feared, not only by the other Indians, but also by the Spaniards. He wept tenderly on seeing their unexpected docility and their good inclinations, thanking God for having had that much good come from the misfortune of the vessel.
The “dominating sweetness” of the character of Father Salvatierra did not, however, change them completely, for they have gone right on killing people until recently. In this account it is also interesting to notice Clavigero’s statement that Father Salvatierra took the “unseaworthy”
Rosario.
In the long record of wrecks blowing off course, of marine disaster of every kind, it was wonderful how they were able to judge whether or not a ship was unseaworthy. A little reading of contemporary records of voyaging by these priestly and soldierly navigators indicates that they put more faith in prayer than in the compass. We think the present-day navigators of the Gulf have learned their seamanship in the same school. Some of the ships we saw at Guaymas and La Paz floated in violation of every law of physics. There must be in Heaven a small pilot-house where a worried and distraught St. Christopher spends a good deal of his time looking after the shipping of the Gulf of California with a handful of miracles.
Rosario.
In the long record of wrecks blowing off course, of marine disaster of every kind, it was wonderful how they were able to judge whether or not a ship was unseaworthy. A little reading of contemporary records of voyaging by these priestly and soldierly navigators indicates that they put more faith in prayer than in the compass. We think the present-day navigators of the Gulf have learned their seamanship in the same school. Some of the ships we saw at Guaymas and La Paz floated in violation of every law of physics. There must be in Heaven a small pilot-house where a worried and distraught St. Christopher spends a good deal of his time looking after the shipping of the Gulf of California with a handful of miracles.
Tiburón looked red to us, and the brush seemed stronger and greener than any we had seen in a long time. In some of the creases between the hills there were growths of small ground-hugging trees like our scrub-oaks. What they were, of course, we do not know. About five-thirty in the afternoon we rounded Red Bluff Point on the southwesterly corner of Tiburón and came to anchor in the lee of the long point, protected from northerly winds. The “corner” of the island is a chosen word, for Tiburón is a rough square lying plumb with the points of the compass. We searched the shore for Seris and saw none. In our usual condition of hunger, it would have been a toss-up whether Seris ate us or we ate Seris. The one who got in the first bite would have had the dinner, but we never did see a Seri.
The coast at this station was interesting; off Red Bluff Point low flat rocks shelved gradually seaward—fine collecting rocks, with many of the pot-holes which make such beautiful natural aquaria at low tide. Southward of this were long reef-like stone fingers extending outward, with shallow sand-bottom baylets between them, almost like boat slips. Next to this was a bouldery beach with stones imbedded in sand; and finally a coarse sand beach. Here again was nearly every kind of environment except mud-flat and lagoon. We began our collecting on the reef, and found the little pot-holes lovely with hydroids and coral and colored sponge and little bright algae. There were many broken-back shrimps in these pools, difficult little fellows to catch, for they are so transparent as to be almost invisible and they move with great speed by flipping their tails like lobsters. Only their stomachs and flickering gills are visible, and one can watch their insides work as though they were little glass models. We caught many of them by working our hands very slowly under them and raising them gradually to the surface.
On the reef, there were the usual
Heliasters,
anemones, and cucumbers, urchins, and a great number of giant snails,
77
of which we collected many hundreds. High up in the intertidal were many
Tegula
-like snails of the kind we found at Cape San Lucas, although here the water was clear and very cold whereas at Cape San Lucas it had been warm. There were very few Sally Lightfoots here;
Pachygrapsus,
the northern crabs, had taken their place. We took abundant solitary corals and laid in a large supply of plumularian hydroids, gathered carefully and preserved so that they might not be crushed or broken. These animals, in appearance at least, are so like plants that they indicate to the imagination a bridge between flora and fauna, just as some plants, like the tropical sensitive plants and the insect-eating plants, indicate by their apparent nervous and muscular versatility an approach from the other side.
Heliasters,
anemones, and cucumbers, urchins, and a great number of giant snails,
77
of which we collected many hundreds. High up in the intertidal were many
Tegula
-like snails of the kind we found at Cape San Lucas, although here the water was clear and very cold whereas at Cape San Lucas it had been warm. There were very few Sally Lightfoots here;
Pachygrapsus,
the northern crabs, had taken their place. We took abundant solitary corals and laid in a large supply of plumularian hydroids, gathered carefully and preserved so that they might not be crushed or broken. These animals, in appearance at least, are so like plants that they indicate to the imagination a bridge between flora and fauna, just as some plants, like the tropical sensitive plants and the insect-eating plants, indicate by their apparent nervous and muscular versatility an approach from the other side.
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