Where were they all? Why should I care for them, - poor
Kanakas and sailors, the refuse of civilization, the outlaws
and beach-combers of the Pacific! Time and death seemed to
transfigure them. Doubtless nearly all were dead; but how had
they died, and where? In hospitals, in fever-climes, in dens
of vice, or falling from the mast, or dropping exhausted from
the wreck, -
"When for a moment, like a drop of rain,
He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan,
Without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown."
The light-hearted boys are now hardened middle-aged men, if the
seas, rocks, fevers, and the deadlier enemies that beset a sailor's
life on shore have spared them; and the then strong men have bowed
themselves, and the earth or sea has covered them.
Even the animals are gone, - the colony of dogs, the broods of
poultry, the useful horses; but the coyotes bark still in the
woods, for they belong not to man, and are not touched by his
changes.
I walked slowly up the hill, finding my way among the few bushes,
for the path was long grown over, and sat down where we used to
rest in carrying our burdens of wood, and to look out for vessels
that might, though so seldom, be coming down from the windward.
To rally myself by calling to mind my own better fortune and nobler
lot, and cherished surroundings at home, was impossible.
