The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket: Comprising the details of a mutiny and atrocious butchery on board the American brig Grampus, on her way to the South Seas, in the month of June, 1827.Poe, Edgar Allan
General
The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket: Comprising the details of a mutiny and atrocious butchery on board the American brig Grampus, on her way to the South Seas, in the month of June, 1827.
Poe, Edgar Allan
Sea stories; Stowaways -- Fiction; Whaling ships -- Fiction; Young men -- Fiction
This village, if it were worthy of the name, lay in a valley of some
depth, and could only be approached from the southward, the precipitous
ledge of which I have already spoken cutting off all access in other
directions. Through the middle of the valley ran a brawling stream of
the same magical-looking water which has been described. We saw several
strange animals about the dwellings, all appearing to be thoroughly
domesticated. The largest of these creatures resembled our common hog
in the structure of the body and snout; the tail, however, was bushy,
and the legs slender as those of the antelope. Its motion was
exceedingly awkward and indecisive, and we never saw it attempt to run.
We noticed also several animals very similar in appearance, but of a
greater length of body, and covered with a black wool. There were a
great variety of tame fowls running about, and these seemed to
constitute the chief food of the natives. To our astonishment we saw
black albatross among these birds in a state of entire domestication,
going to sea periodically for food, but always returning to the village
as a home, and using the southern shore in the vicinity as a place of
incubation. There they were joined by their friends the pelicans as
usual, but these latter never followed them to the dwellings of the
savages. Among the other kinds of tame fowls were ducks, differing very
little from the canvass-back of our own country, black gannets, and a
large bird not unlike the buzzard in appearance, but not carnivorous.
Of fish there seemed to be a great abundance. We saw, during our visit,
a quantity of dried salmon, rock cod, blue dolphins, mackerel,
blackfish, skate, conger eels, elephant-fish, mullets, soles,
parrotfish, leather-jackets, gurnards, hake, flounders, paracutas, and
innumerable other varieties. We noticed, too, that most of them were
similar to the fish about the group of the Lord Auckland Islands, in a
latitude as low as fifty-one degrees south. The Gallipago tortoise was
also very plentiful. We saw but few wild animals, and none of a large
size, or of a species with which we were familiar. One or two serpents
of a formidable aspect crossed our path, but the natives paid them
little attention, and we concluded that they were not venomous.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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