BYRON AT KING GEORGE'S ISLAND.CHAPTER XLI.THE FIRST SCIENTIFIC VOYAGE OF CIRCUMNAVIGATION—THE DOLPHIN AND TAMAR—BYRON IN PATAGONIA—FALKLAND ISLANDS—ISLANDS OF DISAPPOINTMENT—ARRIVAL AT TINIAN—BYRON VERSUS ANSON—THE VOYAGE HOME—WALLIS AND CARTERET—THEIR OBSERVATIONS IN PATAGONIA—WALLIS AT TAHITI—A DESPERATE BATTLE—NAILS LOSE THEIR VALUE—A TAHITIAN ROMANCE—PITCAIRN'S ISLAND—QUEEN CHARLOTTE'S ISLANDS—NEW BRITAIN—THE VOYAGE HOME—A MAN-OF-WAR DESTROYED BY FIRE.In the year 1764, England was at peace with all the world, and his majesty George III. conceived an idea which till then had penetrated no royal brain,—that of sending out vessels upon voyages of discovery in the single view of extending the domain of science and contributing to the advance of geographical knowledge. Voyages had previously been undertaken for purposeseither of conquest, colonization, pillage, or privateering; and discovery had usually been the result of accident, and was generally subordinate to the grand business of plunder and rapine. The king at once executed his design by giving the command of the Dolphin and Tamar—the former a man-of-war of twenty-four guns, and the latter a sloop of sixteen—to Commodore John Byron, who had been one of the wrecked captains of Anson's fleet in 1740. The vessels sailed from Plymouth on the 3d of July. Nothing of moment occurred during their passage to Rio Janeiro, if we except the fact that Byron noticed that no fish would come near his ship, though the sea was alive with them at a little distance,—a circumstance which he attributed to the Dolphin's copper sheathing. She was the first vessel upon which the experiment of coppering the bottom had been tried.Upon the Patagonian coast, Byron saw a party of the natives on horseback, one of whom, who dismounted, he describes as follows:—"He was of a gigantic stature, and seemed to realize the tales of monsters in human shape: he had the skin of some wild beast thrown over his shoulders, as a Scotch Highlander wears his plaid. Round one eye was a large circle of white; a circle of black surrounded the other, and the rest of his face was streaked with paint of different colors. His height could not be less than seven feet. This frightful Colossus and his whole company conducted themselves in a peaceable and orderly manner which certainly did them honor." Byron entered Magellan's Strait in December. During an anchorage here, a part of the men slept on shore: they were always awakened from their first slumber by the roaring of wild beasts, which the darkness of the night and the loneliness of their situation rendered horrible beyond description. The animals were prevented from invading the tent by the kindling of large fires.Having determined to await the arrival of the Florida,—a store-ship which was to follow him,—Byron returned into theAtlantic and discovered a group of islands, of which he took possession for King George III. by the name of the Falkland Islands. Here the seals and penguins were so numerous that it was impossible to walk upon the beach without first driving them away. The men were also compelled to do battle and fight hand-to-hand encounters with enormous and formidable sea-lions, and with animals as large as a mastiff and as fierce as a wolf. On returning to Port Desire, in February, 1765, the whales about the ship rendered the navigation dangerous, and one of them blew a jet of water over the quarterdeck. The Florida arrived about the same time, and the Dolphin and Tamar took from her all the provisions they could store. They then entered the Strait, and, for seven weeks and two days, struggled with the terrible weather which at the period of the spring equinox prevails in that tempestuous region. They made Cape Deseado on the 8th of April, and soon after entered the South Sea.Turning to the north as far as Juan Fernandez, and then making a long stretch to the west, Byron discovered, on the 7th of June, in 14° 5' south latitude and in 145° west longitude, a group of islands covered with delightful groves and evidently producing cocoanuts and bananas in abundance. Turtles were seen upon the shore; and the whole aspect of the island was tropical and attractive in the extreme. But a violent surge broke upon every point of the coast, and the steep coral rocks which formed the shore rendered it unsafe to anchor. The sailors, prostrated with scurvy, stood gazing at this little paradise with sensations of bitter regret; and Byron accordingly named the group the Islands of Disappointment. Two days later, however, he discovered another group, to which he gave the name of King George's Islands. Here the savages, in attempting to repel an invasion of their domain, provoked reprisals, and two or three of them were killed: one, being pierced by three balls which went quite through his body, took up a large stone and died in the act of throwing it. Byron obtained several boatloadsof cocoanuts and a large quantity of scurvy-grass. After discovering and naming Prince of Wales' and Duke of York's Islands, Byron bore away for the Ladrones, a month's sail to the west.In due time, and after a voyage accomplished without incident, the two vessels arrived at the Ladrone island of Tinian, already famous from the glowing description given of it by Lord Anson. They anchored not far from the spot where the Centurion had lain, and in water so clear that they could see the bottom at the depth of one hundred and forty-four feet. Byron gives a very different account of the island from that furnished by Anson,—a fact attributable to the circumstance that he visited it during the rainy season. The undergrowth in the woods was so thick, he says, that they could not see three yards before them: the meadows were covered with stubborn reeds higher than their heads, and which cut their legs like whipcord. Every time they spoke they inhaled a mouthful of flies. In the Centurion's well they found water that was brackish and full of worms. Centipedes bit and scorpions bled. The ships rolled at anchor as never ships rolled before. The rains were incessant. The heat was suffocating, being only nine degrees less than the heat of the blood at the heart. Anson's cattle were very shy; for it took six men three days and three nights to capture and kill a bullock, whose flesh, when dragged home to the tents, invariably proved to be fly-blown and useless.After a stay of nine weeks at Tinian, Byron weighed anchor on the 30th of September, with a cargo of two thousand cocoanuts. On the 5th of October, he touched at the Malay island of Timoan. The inhabitants were inclined to drive hard bargains and to part with as few provisions as possible. They were even offended at the sailors hauling the seine and taking fish upon their coast. Leaving this ungenerous island, they met with a fortnight of light winds, dead calms, and violent tornadoes, accompanied with rain, thunder, and lightning. On the19th of October, they hailed an English craft belonging to the East India Company and bound from Bencoolen to Bengal. The master sent them a sheep, a turtle, a dozen fowls, and two gallons of arrack. With this assistance Byron easily reached Java, where he took in stores of rice and arrack. Nothing of moment occurred during the run home, except the incident of a collision between the Dolphin and a whale, in which the latter appeared to be the greatest sufferer, as the water was deeply tinged with blood. Byron arrived at Deal on the 7th of May, 1766. Each ship had lost six men, including those that were drowned. This number was so inconsiderable that it was deemed probable that more of them would have died had they remained on shore. Byron, having discharged all the duties devolving on him during this voyage with prudence and energy, could not be held responsible for the poverty of the scientific results obtained,—a circumstance owing to the absence of scientific men, naturalists, mathematicians, astronomers, &c. The Government resolved to make another effort, and to equip the expedition in a style more adequate to its necessities. The Dolphin was immediately refitted and furnished for a voyage to be made in the same seas under Captain Samuel Wallis. The Swallow, a sloop of fourteen guns, was appointed to be her consort, instead of the lumbering Tamar, and Captain Carteret, who had accompanied Byron, was ordered to command her. The Prince Frederick was appointed to accompany them as store-ship. They left Plymouth in company on the 22d of August, 1766.The run to Magellan's Strait offers no points of interest. They entered into amicable relations with the Patagonians. These people, who, from Magellan's and Byron's accounts, had obtained the reputation of being giants of seven feet, were measured with a rod by Wallis. The tallest were six feet six, while their average height was from five feet ten to six feet. He invited several of them on board, where, following the example of Magellan, he showed one of them a looking-glass. "This,however," he says, "excited little astonishment, but afforded them infinite diversion." The Prince Frederick took on board, by Wallis' order, several thousand young trees, which had been carefully removed with their roots and the earth about them, and transported them to the Falkland Islands, where there was no growth of wood. Captain Carteret climbed a mountain in the hope of obtaining a view of the South Sea: he erected a pyramid, in which he deposited a bottle containing a shilling and a paper,—a memorial which, he remarked, might possibly remain there as long as the world endured. At other points the land was bare, covered with snow, or piled to the clouds with rocks, looking like the ruins of nature doomed to everlasting sterility and desolation.A storm now disabled both ships, and Carteret found the Swallow to be almost unmanageable. From this time forward, during the passage of the Strait, the inhabitants they met seemed to be the most miserable of human beings,—half frozen, half fed, half clothed. After four months' dangerous and tedious navigation, they issued from the Strait into the ocean on the 11th of April, 1767, bidding farewell to a region where in the midst of summer the weather was tempestuous, "where the prospect had more the appearance of chaos than of nature, and where, for the most part, the valleys were without herbage and the hills without wood." A storm here separated the Dolphin and the Swallow, and from this point the adventures of Wallis and Carteret form two distinct narratives. We shall follow the course of the Dolphin, and then return to that of the Swallow.Wallis sailed to the northwest for two months without incident, discovering Whitsun Island and Queen Charlotte's Island in mid-ocean. At last, on the 19th of June, he touched at Quiros' island of Sagittaria: it had been lost for a century and a half, and its existence even was doubted. The Dolphin was soon surrounded by hundreds of canoes, containing at least eight hundred people. They did not manifest hostile intentions,however, contenting themselves with petty thefts. Wallis sent his boats to sound for an anchorage, and, observing the canoes gather around them, fired a nine-pounder over their heads. A skirmish followed, which resulted in the wounding of several on both sides. But, on Wallis' attempting to enter the Bay of Matavai, the islanders offered a determined resistance: three-hundred canoes, manned by two thousand warriors, surrounded him and attacked him with a hail of stones. Repulsed for a time, they twice rallied, and hurled stones weighing two pounds on board, by means of slings. At last a cannon-ball cut the canoe bearing the chief in halves, whereupon canoes and warriors disappeared with the utmost precipitation. The ship was now warped up to the shore, and the boats landed without opposition. Mr. Furneaux, the lieutenant, took possession of the island for his majesty, in honor of whom he called it King George the Third's Island. The water proving to be excellent, rum was mixed with it, and every man drank his majesty's health. The natives choosing to make a demonstration at midnight, Wallis cleared the coast with his guns, and sent the carpenters ashore with their axes, to destroy all the canoes which in their precipitation they had left. Fifty canoes, some of them sixty feet long, were thus broken up. These measures brought the savages to terms, and boughs of plantains were soon exchanged and vows of friendship pantomimically expressed. Trade was established, and a tent erected at the watering place. The crew now lived sumptuously upon fruits and poultry, and in a fortnight the commander hardly knew them for the same people. This, as we have said, was the island which Cook was to render famous under the name of Tahiti.It was not long before it was discovered that nails, the principal medium of exchange, seemed to have lost their value with the islanders. Bringing forth large spikes from their pockets, they intimated that they desired nails of a similar size and strength. It was now ascertained that the sailors, having nonails of their own, had drawn all the stout hammock-pins, and had ripped out the belaying cleats. Every artifice was practised to discover the thieves, but without success.On the 11th of July, a tall woman of pleasing countenance and majestic deportment came on board. She proved to be Oberea, sovereign of the island. She seemed quite fascinated by Wallis, who was recovering from a severe illness, and invited him to go on shore and perfect his convalescence. He accepted the invitation, and the next day called upon her at her residence,—an immense thatched roof raised upon pillars. She ordered four young girls to take off his shoes and stockings and gently chafe his skin with their hands. While they were doing this, the English surgeon who accompanied Wallis took off his wig to cool himself. Every eye was at once fixed upon this prodigy of nature. The whole assembly stood motionless in silent astonishment. They would not have been more amazed, says Wallis, had they discovered that the surgeon's limbs had been screwed on to the trunk. Oberea accompanied Wallis on his way back to the shore, and whenever they came to a little puddle of water she lifted him over it.It was now discovered that one Francis Pinckney, a seaman, had drawn the cleats to which the main-sheet was belayed, and had then removed and bargained away the spikes. Wallis called the men together, explained the heinousness of the offence, and ordered Pinckney to be whipped with nettles while he ran the gauntlet three times round the deck. To prevent the ship from being pulled to pieces and the price of provisions from being disproportionately raised, he directed that no man should go ashore except the wooders and waterers.Oberea now became romantic and tender. She tied wreaths of plaited hair around Wallis' hat, giving him to understand that both the hair and workmanship were her own. She made him presents of baskets of cocoanuts, and of sows big with young. She said he must stay twenty days more; and, whenhe replied that he should depart in seven days, she burst into tears, and was with great difficulty pacified. When the fatal hour arrived, she threw herself down upon the arm-chest and wept passionately. She was with difficulty got over the side into her canoe, where she sat the picture of helpless, unutterable woe. Wallis tossed her articles of use and ornament, which she silently accepted without looking at them. He subsequently bade her adieu more privately on shore. A fresh breeze sprang up, and the Dolphin left the island on the 27th of July.PARTING OF WALLIS AND OBEREA.On his way to Tinian he discovered several islands, one of which the officers did their commander the honor of calling Wallis' Island. At Tinian they found every article mentioned by Lord Anson, though it required no little time and labor to noose a bullock or bag a banana. When they left, each man had laid in five hundred limes. On the passage to Batavia, and thence to Table Bay, the sick-list was very large, and several men were lost by disease and accident. At the Cape, the crewwere attacked by the small-pox, and a pest-tent was erected upon a spacious plain. The infection was not fatal in any instance. The Dolphin anchored in the Downs on the 20th of May, 1768. Wallis was enabled to communicate a paper to the Royal Society in time for that body to give to Lieutenant Cook, then preparing for his first voyage, more complete instructions by which to govern his movements.We must now return to the Swallow, commanded by Philip Carteret, and, as far as the Strait of Magellan, the consort of the Dolphin. A storm, as we have said, separated them; and, while Wallis sailed to the northwest, Carteret was driven due north. He was surprised to find Juan Fernandez fortified by the Spanish, and did not think it prudent to attempt a landing. Sailing now due west, he discovered an island to which he gave the name of Pitcairn, in honor of the young man who first saw it. This island we shall have occasion to mention more particularly hereafter, as it became the scene of the romantic adventures of the mutineers of the Bounty. The vessel had now become crazy, and leaked constantly. The sails were worn, and split with every breeze. The men were attacked by the scurvy; and Carteret began to fear that he should get neither ship nor crew in safety back to England.At last, on the 12th of August, land was discovered at daybreak, which proved to be a cluster of islands, of which Carteret counted seven. Ignorant that Mendana had discovered them in 1595, nearly two centuries previously, and had given them the name of Santa Cruz, Carteret took possession of them, naming them Queen Charlotte's Islands and giving a distinctive appellation to each member of the archipelago. Cocoanuts, bananas, hogs, and poultry were seen in abundance as they sailed along the shore; but every attempt to land ended in bloodshed and repulse. They now steered to the northwest, and, on the 26th of August, saw New Britain and St. George's Bay, discovered and named by Dampier. Anchoring temporarily, and againwishing to weigh anchor, Carteret found, to his dismay, that the united strength of the whole ship's company was insufficient to perform the labor. They spent thirty-six hours in fruitless attempts, but, having recruited their strength by sleep, finally succeeded. They had neither the strength to chase turtle nor the address to hook fish. Cocoanut-milk gradually revived the men, who also received benefit from a fruit resembling a plum.The wind not allowing Carteret to follow Dampier's track around New Britain, the idea struck him that St. George's Bay might in reality be a channel dividing the island in twain. This the event proved to be correct. On his way through, he noticed three remarkable hills, which he called the Mother and Daughters, the Mother being the middlemost and largest. Leaving the southern portion of the island in possession of its old name, New Britain, he called the northern portion New Ireland. On leaving the channel, the vessel was in such a state that no time or labor could be any longer devoted to science or geography: the essential point was to reach some European settlement. Carteret discovered numerous islands and groups, and, after touching at Mindanao, arrived at Macassar, on the island of Celebes, in March, 1768. He had buried thirteen of his men, and thirty more were at the point of death: all the officers were ill, and Carteret and his lieutenant almost unfit for duty. The Dutch refused him permission to land, and Carteret determined to run the ship ashore and fight for the necessaries of life, to which their situation entitled them, and which they must either obtain or perish. A boat, bearing several persons in authority, put out to them, and commanded them to leave at once, at the same time giving them two sheep and some fowls and fruit. Carteret showed them the corpse of a man who had died that morning, and whose life would probably have been saved had provisions been at once afforded him. This somewhat shocked them; and they inquired very particularly whether he had been among the Spice Islands, and, upon receiving a negative reply,which they appeared to believe, directed him to proceed to a bay not far distant, where he would find shelter from the monsoon and provisions in abundance. He proceeded, therefore, to Bonthain, where he altered his reckoning, having lost about eighteen hours in coming by the west, while the vessels that had come by the east had gained about six. He stayed here two months, with difficulty obtaining natives to replace the many seamen he had lost. On the passage from Bonthain to Batavia, the ship leaked so fast that the pumps, which were kept constantly at work, were hardly able to keep her free. He arrived at Batavia on the 2d of June. Here the Dutch authorities again placed every obstacle in his way; and it was the last week in July before he could heave down the ship for repairs. These being completed, he set sail for England.On the 30th of January, 1769, he touched at Ascension, where it was the custom, as the island was uninhabited, for every ship to leave a letter in a bottle, with the date, name, destination, &c. With this custom Carteret of course complied. Three weeks afterwards, he was overhauled by a ship bearing French colors and sailing in the same direction as himself. Carteret was very much surprised to hear the French captain call him and his ship by name: he was still more surprised to hear that the Dolphin had already returned to England, and had reported his—Carteret's—probable loss in Magellan's Strait. "How did you learn the name of my ship?" shouted Carteret through his trumpet. "From the bottle at Ascension," was the reply. "And how did you hear of the opinion formed in England of our fate?" "From the French gazette at the Cape of Good Hope." "And who may you be, pray?" "A French East Indiaman, Captain Bougainville." The vessel was La Boudeuse, whose voyage round the world we shall narrate in the following chapter. The Swallow anchored at Spithead on Saturday, the 20th of March, having been absent three years wanting two days. No navigator had yet done so much with resources soinsufficient: Carteret's discoveries were of the highest interest in a geographical point of view. He was a worthy predecessor of Cook; and his achievements with a crazy ship and a disabled crew prepared the public mind for the researches which his already distinguished successor would be enabled to make with the carefully equipped expedition which had lately started under his command.A harrowing incident which occurred at sea about this time produced a painful sensation throughout Europe. The French man-of-war Le Prince, being on her way from Lorient to Pondicherry by way of Cape Horn, was discovered to be on fire. Smoke was noticed ascending almost imperceptibly from one of the hatchways. The usual measures were promptly taken, eighty marines being placed on duty with loaded muskets to enforce obedience from the crew. The pumps and buckets were totally inadequate to master the now raging flames; while the fresh water, set running from the casks, was of equally little service. The yawl, by the captain's orders, had been lowered: seven men seized it and rowed rapidly away. Of the other boats, two were burned, and one was swamped as it touched the water. The consternation now became general; and the despairing shrieks of the dying, mingled with the cries of the affrighted animals on board, rendered the scene one of terrible confusion. The chaplain went about, granting a general absolution, and extending the remission of their sins even to those who, to avoid death by fire, committed suicide by leaping into the sea. There were six women on board, two of them the cousins of the captain. They were lowered into the water upon hen-coops, the captain bidding them an eternal farewell, as it was his duty and his determination to perish with the ship.The water was now alive with human beings, clinging to spars, oars, barrels, and other floating materials. Upon one spar were nine men, who had escaped the fury of one element, and were calmly awaiting the fate which they were expecting from another. They were destined to die by neither, but in a manner, if any thing, more horrible. The flames, reaching the cannon, which by some fatal coincidence were loaded, discharged them one by one. A ball, striking the spar by which these nine devoted men were kept afloat, ploughed its way through them all, killing several outright and mortally wounding the rest. Not one escaped. The mast now fell into the sea, making terrible havoc among those within its reach; while at every moment a gun launched its reckless metal upon the water. The chaplain, clinging to a bit of charred wood, edified all who heard him by his piety and resignation. Once he tried to sink, but was brought back by the first lieutenant. "Let me go," said he; "I am full of water, and it cannot avail to prolong my sufferings." "In his holy company," says the lieutenant, in his narrative, "I passed three hours: during which time I sawone of the captain's cousins give up the effort to keep herself afloat, and fall back and drown." This lieutenant, surviving the rest, hailed the seven men in the yawl, by whom he was taken in, as were also the pilot and the quartermaster. These ten persons were all that were saved out of the three hundred who composed the vessel's crew. The frigate soon blew up; and, after this frightful scene of her expiring agony, all relapsed into silence.The lieutenant assumed the command of the boat, and, rowing to the remains of the wreck, ordered a search for stores and other articles of which they had pressing need. They found a keg of brandy, fifteen pounds of salt pork, a piece of scarlet cloth, twenty yards of coarse linen, and a quantity of staves and ropes. With the scarlet and an oar they made a mast and sail, with a key they made a pulley, and with a stave a rudder. With this equipment, and without astronomical instruments, they started upon their adventurous voyage, being six hundred miles distant from the coast of Brazil.Favored by a brisk breeze, they sailed during eight days, making seventy-five miles every twenty-four hours. They were nearly naked, and suffered terribly from exposure to the rays of a tropical July sun. On the sixth day, a light rain gave them the hope of satisfying their devouring thirst. They licked the drops from the sail, but found them already bitterly impregnated with salt. They suffered as much from hunger as thirst; for the salt pork, which had been found to cause blood-spitting, had been abandoned on the fourth day. A draught of brandy from time to time revived them somewhat, but burned their stomachs without moistening them, causing them pain rather than satisfaction. On the eighth night, the lieutenant passed ten hours at the helm, not one of the remaining nine having the strength to relieve him. It was not possible they could survive another day. The dawn of the 3d of August brought with it the blessed sight of land, and, collecting all their strength, to avoidbeing wrecked by the currents, tides, and reefs, they landed in safety late in the afternoon. The men rushed upon the beach, and, in their joy, rolled in the sand, and mingled thanksgivings with their shouts of joy. They no longer appeared like human beings, suffering having rendered their faces frightful to behold. The lieutenant twisted a piece of red cloth about his loins to show his rank to such inhabitants as they might fall in with. A rapidly-flowing stream being discovered, they all rushed into it, and lapped, rather than drank, its beneficent waters.The place where they were was a Portuguese settlement, and they were hospitably received by the colonists, who gave them shirts and manioc in abundance. Proceeding to Pernambuco, where a Portuguese fleet was stationed, they were welcomed with kindness by the officers, the lieutenant being admitted to the admiral's mess, and the men being distributed among the ships and placed on full pay. They were soon restored to their country, and the lieutenant communicated to the Government an official account of the disaster.CHAIN OF PHOSPHORESCENT SELPAS.BOUGAINVILLE.CHAPTER XLII.COLONIZATION OF THE FALKLAND ISLANDS—ANTOINE DE BOUGAINVILLE—HIS VOYAGE AROUND THE WORLD—ADVENTURE AT MONTEVIDEO—THE PATAGONIANS—TAKING POSSESSION OF TAHITI—FRENCH GALLANTRY—CEREMONIES OF RECEPTION—SOJOURN AT THE ISLAND—AOTOUROU—THE FIRST FEMALE CIRCUMNAVIGATOR—FAMINE ON BOARD—REMARKABLE CASCADE—ARRIVAL AT THE MOLUCCAS—INCIDENTS THERE—RETURN HOME.Several years before the period of which we are speaking, the French Government had colonized the Falkland Islands, lying off the eastern coast of Patagonia. The establishment lasted barely three years, and, in an agricultural point of view, was a complete and disastrous failure. The Spanish crown subsequently claimed these islands as belonging to the continent of South America, and the King of France was easily inducedto abandon them. Captain Louis-Antoine de Bougainville was instructed, in 1766, to proceed to the islands, and there, in the name of his French majesty, cede them to the Spanish authorities who would be sent out for the purpose. He was then to continue on, by the Strait of Magellan and the Pacific, to the East Indies, and thence to return home. Should he accomplish this task, he would be the first French circumnavigator of the globe.Bougainville received the command of the frigate La Boudeuse, carrying twenty-six twelve-pounders, and was to be joined at the Falklands by the store-ship l'Étoile. He sailed from Brest on the 5th of December, the Prince of Nassau-Singhen, who had been allowed to accompany the expedition, being on board. They arrived at Montevideo early in February, 1767, and found there the two Spanish frigates to whose commander Bougainville was to surrender the Falkland Islands, and with whom he sailed in company on the 28th of the month. They met with severe weather, but arrived safely at their destination towards the close of March. The settlement was made over to the Spaniards on the 1st of April: the Spanish colors were planted and saluted at sunrise and sunset. The French inhabitants were informed they might either remain or return: a portion embarked with the garrison for Montevideo, on their way back to France.Bougainville waited at the islands till the end of May for the store-ship, which was to join him at this point, and then returned to Rio Janeiro, where he hoped to get tidings of her. She had but just arrived, bringing salt meat and liquor sufficient for fifteen months, but no bread or vegetables. So he was forced to go, in quest of these provisions, back to Montevideo. From here he went to Buenos Ayres, on the opposite side of the bay formed by the mouths of the La Plata, making the journey, however, overland, as a contrary wind prevented his proceeding by water. At night, he and his party slept in leathern tents, while tigers howled around them on every side. Comingto the river St. Lucia, which is wide, deep, and rapid, they were at a loss how to cross it. At last their guide procured a hollow canoe, the master of which fastened a horse on each side of the bow, and then boldly assumed the reins. He supported the heads of the horses above the water and drove them safely across it. The Frenchmen landed on the opposite side dry-shod.A FERRY BOAT AT BUENOS AYRES.It was not till the 14th of November that the Boudeuse and Étoile, having taken in supplies of biscuit and bread, sailed, for the last time, from Montevideo. They made the entrance of the Strait of Magellan a fortnight afterwards. On the 8th of December, they saw a number of Patagonians, who had kept up fires all night, hoisting a white flag on an eminence,—a flag which some European ship had evidently given them as a pledge of alliance. Bougainville went on shore, where some thirty natives received him with every mark of good will. They embraced him and his party, shook hands with them, and imitated the report of muskets with their mouths, showing that they were accustomed to fire-arms. They aided the botanist in collecting plants and simples, and one of them applied to the physician for a prescription for his inflamed eye. They asked for tobacco, and swallowed small draughts of brandy, blowing with their mouths after the draught and uttering a tremulous inarticulate sound. They begged them to remain over night, and, upon theinvitation being politely declined, accompanied them with ceremony to the shore.BOUGAINVILLE IN MAGELLAN'S STRAIT.Bougainville, with three of his officers, spent some hours in taking soundings near Cape Froward. Perceiving a small flat rock, which barely afforded them standing-room, they mounted upon it, hoisted their colors, and shouted Vive le Roi! The coast now resounded for the first time, says Bougainville, with this compliment to his majesty. Upon which an English commentator remarks "that it is a striking instance of the vanity by which the French nation is distinguished." The vessels, being retarded by constant head-winds and harassed by violent storms, occupied fifty-two days in threading the channel, and the month of January, 1768, was well advanced before they discovered the boundless expanse of the Pacific.Sailing to the northwest, they passed several low, half-drowned islands, one of which Bougainville called Harp Island. A cluster of reefs he called the Dangerous Archipelago. Sorethroats now troubling the crew, he attributed them to the snow-water of the Strait, and cured them by putting a pint of vinegar and a dozen red-hot bullets into the daily water-cask. He combated the scurvy by employing lemonade prepared from a concentration in the form of powder. He made fresh water from salt water by means of a distilling apparatus which furnished a barrelful every night. In order to economize their drinking-water, their bread was kneaded with water dipped up from the sea. On the 4th of April, they discovered land; and fires burning during the night over a wide extent of coast showed them that it was inhabited and populous. In the morning a canoe propelled by twelve naked men approached. The chief, with a prodigious growth of hair which stood like bristles divergent on his head, offered the commander a cluster of bananas, indicating that this was the olive-branch in use in Tahiti,—the island at which the ships had now arrived. Presents were exchanged and an alliance effected.The vessels were now surrounded with canoes laden with cocoanuts and bananas, and a brisk and tolerably honest trade was driven by the natives and the strangers. The aspect of the coast—the mountains covered with foliage to their very summits, the lowlands interspersed with meadows and with plantations of tropical fruit, cascades pouring down from the rocks into the sea, streams flowing among lovely clusters of huts situated upon the shore—offered an enchanting scene to the wearied crews. While the Boudeuse was casting her anchor, canoes filled with women came around her. "These," adds Bougainville, with characteristic French gallantry, "are not inferior for agreeable features to most European women. It was very difficult, amidst such a sight, to keep at their work four hundred young sailors who had seen none of the fair sex for six months. The capstan was never hove with more alacrity than on this occasion."The captain and several officers now went on shore, where they were received with high glee by all, with the exception of avenerable man, apparently a philosopher, "whose thoughtful and suspicious air seemed to show that he feared the arrival of a new race of men would trouble those happy days which he had spent in peace." A poet, reclining beneath a tree, sang them a song to the accompaniment of a flute which a musician blew, not with his mouth, but with one of his nostrils. In return for this entertainment, the strangers gave, at night, an exhibition of sky-rockets, witch-quills, and other pyrotechnics. The chief, learning that the Prince of Nassau was a man of royal blood, offered him a wife; but, as the lady was advanced in years and correspondingly mature in appearance, the prince plead a previous union and escaped.The vessels stayed here a fortnight, cutting wood and drawing water. They lost six anchors during their sojourn, and twice narrowly missed utter shipwreck,—"the worst consequence of which would have been to pass the remainder of their days on an isle adorned with all the gifts of nature, and to exchange the sweets of the mother-country for a peaceable life exempt from cares." The islanders expressed infinite regret at their departure,—one of them, Aotourou by name, being unable to endure the separation, and asking permission to go with them. He gave his young wife three pearls which he had in his ears, kissed her, and went on board the ship. Bougainville quitted the island on the 16th of April, no less surprised at the sorrow the inhabitants testified at his departure than at their affectionate confidence on his arrival.He directed his course so as to avoid the Pernicious Isles, warned by the disasters of Roggewein to avoid them. Aotourou pointed at night to the bright star in Orion's shoulder, indicating that they should guide their course by it, and that in two days it would bring them to a fertile island where he had friends and children. Being vexed that no attention was paid to his advice, he rushed to the helm, seized the wheel, and endeavored to put the ship about. In the morning he climbed to the mast-head, andsought, in the distant horizon, the favored land of which he had spoken.The vessels kept on steadily to the westward, passing through Navigator's Islands and the group which Quiros had named Espiritu Santo. To the latter Bougainville gave the name of Grandes Cyclades,—one, however, not destined to be long retained. He was at this time informed that Baré, the servant of M. de Commerçon, the botanist of the Étoile, was a woman. He went on board the store-ship to make investigations. He thought the report incredible, as Baré was already an expert botanist, and had acquired the name, during his excursions with his master among the snows of Magellan's Strait,—where he carried provisions, fire-arms, and bundles of plants,—of being his beast of burden. The first suspicion of him occurred at Tahiti, where the natives, with the keen intuition of savages, cried out in their dialect, "It is a woman!" and insisted on paying her the attentions due to her sex. When Bougainville went on board the Étoile, Baré, bathed in tears, admitted that she was a woman. She said she was an orphan, had served before in men's clothes, and that the idea of a voyage around the world had inflamed her curiosity. Bougainville does her the justice to state that she always behaved on board with the most scrupulous modesty. She was not handsome, and was twenty-seven years of age. She was the first woman that ever circumnavigated the globe.It was not long before the provisions began to give out, and the crew were put upon half rations. The commander was soon obliged to forbid the eating of old leather, as it was becoming as scarce as biscuit and was quite as necessary. The butcher shed tears upon sacrificing a favorite goat, and Bougainville turned away his head as that sanguinary personage, with equally cruel intent, whistled to a young Patagonian dog. Breakers, reefs, and channels, where the tide ran fast and dangerously, indicated the presence of land, to which was given the name of Louisiade. This is a group of islands inhabited by Papuans.On the coast of New Britain, at an uninhabited spot which Bougainville named Port Praslin, he obtained a supply of inferior provisions, such as thatch-palms, cabbage-trees, and mangle apples. A species of aromatic ivy was likewise found, in which the physicians discovered anti-scorbutic properties; and a store of it was therefore laid in. An immense cascade, which furnished the vessels with fresh water, is enthusiastically described by Bougainville. After a stay of eight days at Port Praslin, during which time the heavens were black with continual tempests, the vessels profited by a change of wind and continued their westerly course. The field-tents were cut up, and trousers made from them were distributed to the two ships' companies. Another ounce was taken from the daily allowance of bread. From time to time canoes would shoot out from the coast of New Britain; but the hostility and treachery of the natives rendered all efforts to obtain food from them unavailing.CASCADE AT PORT PRASLIN.On the 1st of September, Bougainville made the island of Boero, one of the Moluccas, where he knew the Dutch had a small factory and a weak garrison. All his men were now sick, without exception. The provisions remaining were so nauseous that, as he says, "the hardest moments of the sad days we passed were those when the bell gave us notice to take in this disgusting and unwholesome food. But now our misery was to have an end. Ever since midnight a pleasant scent exhaled from the aromaticplants with which the Moluccas abound; the aspect of a considerable town, situated in the bottom of the gulf, of ships at anchor there, and of cattle rambling through the meadows, caused transports which I have doubtless felt, but which I can not here describe."It was found that the Dutch East India Company reigned supreme, and that the governor was disposed to keep to the letter of his instructions, which forbade him to receive any ships but those of the monopoly. Bougainville was obliged to plead the claims of hunger and considerations of humanity before the authorities would listen to him. They then furnished him with rice, poultry, sago, goats, fish, eggs, fruit, and venison, the latter being the flesh of stags introduced and acclimated by the Dutch. Henry Inman, the Dutch governor, though placed in a critical position by this arrival, behaved as became an honorable and generous man. He first did his duty towards his superiors, and then towards fellow-creatures in distress. Aotourou, the Tahitian, not being taken ashore by the commander on his first visit, imagined that it was because he was bow-legged and knock-kneed, and begged some of the sailors to stand upon his legs and straighten them out.During the run back to France, by way of the Cape of Good Hope, St. Helena, and the Cape Verd Islands, nothing happened which requires mention here. Bougainville entered the port of St. Malo on the 16th of March, 1769, having been absent two years and four months, and having lost but seven men during the voyage. He was the first Frenchman who ever went round the world in one ship,—one Gentil de la Barbinais, a pirate, having accomplished a voyage of circumnavigation in several ships, some fifty years before. He sustained his claim to this honor by publishing, two years afterwards, a narrative of his expedition, written in an animated and graceful style, and which established his reputation as a sailor and explorer.CAPTAIN JAMES COOK.CHAPTER XLIII.EXPEDITION DESPATCHED AT THE INSTANCE OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY—LIEUTENANT JAMES COOK—INCIDENTS OF THE VOYAGE—A NIGHT ON SHORE IN TERRA DEL FUEGO—ARRIVAL AT TAHITI—THE NATIVES PICK THEIR POCKETS—THE OBSERVATORY—A NATIVE CHEWS A QUID OF TOBACCO—THE TRANSIT OF VENUS—TWO OF THE MARINES TAKE UNTO THEMSELVES WIVES—NEW ZEALAND—ADVENTURES THERE—REMARKABLE WAR-CANOE—CANNIBALISM DEMONSTRATED—THEORY OF A SOUTHERN CONTINENT SUBVERTED—NEW HOLLAND—BOTANY BAY—THE ENDEAVOR ON THE ROCKS—EXPEDIENT TO STOP THE LEAK—A CONFLAGRATION—PASSAGE THROUGH A REEF—ARRIVAL AT BATAVIA—MORTALITY ON THE VOYAGE HOME—COOK PROMOTED TO THE RANK OF COMMANDER.In the year 1768, the Royal Society of England induced the Government to equip and despatch a vessel to the South Seas. The reader may perhaps imagine—and, from what has preceded in this volume, he would be amply justified in so doing—that its purpose was plunder, and its object either the capture of the Manilla galleon or the sack and pillage of the luckless town ofPaita. Thirty years, however, have elapsed since the voyage of Anson,—the last of the royal buccaneers. The vessel whose career we are now to chronicle sought neither capture, nor spoil, nor prize-money. It was a peaceful ship, with a peaceful name,—the Endeavor: her commander bore a name to be rendered illustrious by peaceful deeds, and he was bound upon a peaceful errand. James Cook, an officer of forty years of age, who had rendered efficient service in America, at the capture of Quebec, and who had shown himself a capable astronomer, was instructed to proceed to the island named Sagittaria by Quiros, and King George the Third's Island by Wallis, there to observe and record the transit of the planet Venus over the disk of the sun. The position of the island as reported by Wallis was deemed to be exceedingly favorable for such an observation. Cook was promoted to the rank of lieutenant; Charles Green was attached to the ship in the capacity of astronomer, Joseph Banks and Solander—the latter a Swede and a pupil of Linnæus—in that of naturalists, Buchan as draughtsman, and Parkinson as painter. The vessel sailed from Plymouth Sound, with a fair wind, on the 25th of August.The voyage to Rio Janeiro was enlivened by many incidents now of quite ordinary occurrence, but novel and interesting to navigators one hundred years ago. They saw flying-fish whose scales had the color and brightness of burnished silver. They caught a specimen of that species of mollusk which sailors call a Portuguese Man-of-War,—a creature ornamented with exquisite pink veins, and which spreads before-the wind a membrane which it uses as a sail. They observed that luminous appearance of the sea now familiar to all, but then a startling novelty. They were of opinion that it proceeded from some light-emitting animal: they threw over their casting-net, and drew up vast numbers of medusæ, which had the appearance of metal heated to a glow and gave forth a white and silvery effulgence. At Rio Janeiro the viceroy regarded them with strong suspicion, and refused toallow Mr. Banks to collect plants upon the shore. He could not understand the transit of Venus over the sun, which he was told was an astronomical phenomenon of great importance,—having gathered the idea from his interpreter that it was the passage of the North Star through the South Pole. On Wednesday, the 7th of December, they again weighed anchor, and left the American dominions of the King of Portugal, the air at the time being laden with butterflies, and several thousands of them hovering playfully about the mast-head.Towards the 1st of January, 1769, the sailors began to complain of cold, and each of them received a Magellanic jacket. On the 11th, in the midst of penguins, albatrosses, sheer-waters, seals, whales, and porpoises, they descried the Falkland Islands, and, soon after, the coast of Terra del Fuego. On the 15th, ten or twelve of the company went on shore, and were met by thirty or forty of the natives. Each of the latter had a small stick in his hand, which he threw away, seeming to indicate by this pantomime a renunciation of weapons in token of peace. Acquaintance was then speedily made: beads and ribbons were distributed, and a mutual confidence and good-will produced. Conversation ensued,—if speaking without conveying a meaning, and listening without comprehending, can be called so. Three Indians accompanied the strangers back to the ship. One of them, apparently a priest, performed a ceremony of exorcism, vociferating with all his force at each new portion of the vessel which met his gaze, seemingly for the purpose of dispelling the influence of magic which he supposed to prevail there.A botanical party under Solander and Banks attempted an excursion into the interior, for the purpose of obtaining specimens of the plants of the country. The snow lay deep upon the ground, and the weather was very severe. An accident rendered it impossible for them to return to the ship; and they were compelled to pass the night, without shelter, among the mountains. Solander well knew that extreme cold, when joinedwith fatigue, produces a torpor and sleepiness which are almost irresistible: he therefore conjured the company to keep moving, whatever pain it might cost them. "Whoever sits down," said he, "will sleep; and whoever sleeps will wake no more." He was the first to find the inclination, against which he had warned others, unconquerable, and he insisted upon being suffered to lie down upon the snow. He declared that he must obtain some sleep, though he had but just spoken of the perils with which sleep was attended. He soon fell into a profound slumber, in which he remained five minutes. He was then awakened, upon the reception of the news that a fire had been kindled. He was roused with great difficulty, and found that he had almost lost the use of his limbs, his muscles being so shrunk that his shoes fell from his feet. Richmond, a black servant, slept and never woke: two others, overcome with languor, made their bed and shroud in the snow. Such are the terrible effects of cold in the Land of Fire.On the 22d of January, Cook weighed anchor and commenced the passage through the Straits of Lemaire; on the 26th, he doubled Cape Horn and entered the Pacific Ocean. He sailed for many weeks to the westward, making many of the islands which had been discovered the year before by the French navigator Bougainville, and himself discovering others. On the 11th of April, he arrived at King George's Island, his destination, and the next morning came to anchor in Port Royal Bay, in thirteen fathoms' water. The natives brought branches of a tree, which seemed to be their emblem of peace, and indicated by their gestures that they should be placed in some conspicuous part of the ship's rigging. They then brought fish, cocoanuts, and bread-fruit, which they exchanged for beads and glass. The ship's company went on shore, and mingled in various ceremonies instituted for the purpose of promoting fellowship and good-will. During one of these, Dr. Solander and Mr. Markhouse—the latter a midshipman—suddenly complained that their pockets had beenpicked. Dr. Solander had lost an opera-glass in a shagreen case, and Mr. Markhouse had been relieved of a valuable snuff-box. A hue and cry was raised, and the chief of the tribe informed of the theft. After great effort and a long delay, the shagreen case was recovered; but the opera-glass was not in it. After another search, however, it was found and restored. The savages, upon being asked the name of their island, replied, O-Tahiti,—"It is Tahiti." The present mode of writing it, therefore,—Otaheite,—is erroneous: Tahiti is the proper spelling.Cook now made preparations for observing the transit of Venus. He laid out a tract of land on shore, and received from the chief of the natives a present of the roof of a house, as his contribution to science. He erected his observatory under the protection of the guns of his vessel, being somewhat suspicious of the object of such constant offerings of branches as the inhabitants insisted upon making. Mr. Parkinson, the painter, found it difficult to prosecute his labors; for the flies covered his paper to such a depth that he could not see it, and eat off the color as fast as he applied it. The music of the country, as the party gathered from a serenade played in their honor, was at once eccentric and laborious. The favorite instrument was a sort of German flute, which sounded but four semitones. The performer did not apply this apparatus to his mouth, but, stopping up one of his nostrils with his thumb, blew into it with the other, as Bougainville had already had occasion to observe.One day Mr. Banks was informed that an Indian friend of his, Tubourai by name, was dying, in consequence of something which the sailors had given him to eat. He hastened to his hut, and found the invalid leaning his head against a post in an attitude of the utmost despondency. The islanders about him intimated that he had been vomiting, and produced a leaf folded up with great care, which they said contained some of the poison from the fatal effects of which he was now expiring. He had chewed the portion he had taken to powder, and had swallowedthe spittle. During Mr. Banks's examination of the leaf and its contents, he looked up with the most piteous aspect, intimating that he had but a short time to live. The deadly substance proved to be a quid of tobacco. Mr. Banks prescribed a plentiful dose of cocoanut-milk, which speedily dispelled Tubourai's sickness and apprehensions.On the 1st of May, the astronomical quadrant was taken on shore for the first time and deposited in Cook's tent. The next morning it was missing, and a vigorous search was instituted. It had been stolen by the natives and carried seven miles into the interior. Through the intervention of Tubourai it was recovered and replaced in the observatory.Thus far the integrity of Tubourai had been proof against every temptation. He had withstood the allurements of beads, hatchets, colored cloth, and quadrants, but was finally led astray by the fascinations of a basket of nails. The basket was known to have contained seven nails of unusual length, and out of these seven five were missing. One was found upon his person; and he was told that if he would bring back the other four to the fort the affair should be forgotten. He promised to do so, but, instead of fulfilling his promise, removed with his family to the interior, taking the nails and all his furniture with him.The transit of Venus was observed, with perfect success, on the 3d of June, by means of three telescopes of different magnifying powers, by Cook, Dr. Solander, and Mr. Green. Not a cloud passed over the sky from the rising to the setting of the sun. A party of natives contemplated the process in solemn silence, and were made to understand that the strangers had visited their island for the express purpose of witnessing the immersion of the planet.The ship was to leave Tahiti on the 10th of June, and the time was now spent in preparations for departure. On the evening of the 9th, it was discovered that two marines, Webb and Gibson, had gone ashore, and were not to be found. It was ascertained thatthey had married two young girls of the island, with whom they had been in the habit of having stolen interviews, and to whom they were very much attached. They were recovered with much difficulty, and compelled, by the stern laws of the naval service, to leave their wives behind them. The vessel sailed on the 13th, an Indian named Tupia having been gratified in his desire to accompany Cook upon his voyage. As the anchor was weighed, he ascended to the mast-head, weeping, and waving a handkerchief to his friends in the canoe. The latter vied with each other in the violence of their lamentations, which was considered by the English as more affected than genuine.Lieutenant Cook now discovered, successively, the various islands which he regarded as forming an archipelago, and to which he gave the name of Society Islands. He left the last of them on the 15th of August, and on the 25th celebrated the anniversary of their leaving England by taking a Cheshire cheese from a locker and tapping a cask of porter. On the 30th, they saw the comet of that year, Tupia remarking with some agitation that it would foment dissensions between the inhabitants of the two islands of Bolabola and Ulieta, who would seem, from this, to have been peculiarly susceptible to meteorological influences. On the 7th of October, they discovered land, and anchored in an inlet to which they gave the name of Poverty Bay. This was the northeast coast of New Zealand,—an island discovered in 1642 by Tasman, and which had not been seen since, a space of one hundred and twenty-seven years. The natives received them with distrust, and several of them were somewhat unnecessarily killed by musket-shots. All efforts to enter into amicable relations with them failed, and Cook determined to make another attempt at some other point of the coast. Here a bloody fight took place, which resulted in the capture of three young savages by Cook's men. They expected to be put to death, and, when relieved from their apprehension by the kindness with which they were treated, were suddenly seized with a voracious appetite, andseemed to be in the highest possible spirits. During the night, however, they gave way to grief, sighed often and deeply, and sang low and solemn tunes like psalms. The next morning they were brilliantly decorated with beads, bracelets, and necklaces, and displayed in this guise to their countrymen on shore. The negotiation totally failed: the boys were sent home, and the ship stood away from the inhospitable shore on Wednesday, the 11th.Cook coasted along the island to the south, now alarming the natives by a single musket-shot, now dispersing a hostile fleet of a dozen well-armed canoes by a discharge of a four-pounder loaded with grape-shot, but aimed wide of the mark. At another time Tupia would be ordered to acquaint a party of shouting and dancing savages that the strangers had weapons which, like thunder, would instantaneously destroy them. Cook was badly worsted in a bargain he made with a species of New Zealand confidence-man, who came under the stern and proposed to trade. Cook offered him a piece of red baize for his bear-skin coat. The savage accepted. Cook passed over the article, upon which the islander paddled rapidly away, taking with him the baize and the bear-skin. An attempt made by a party of the natives to kidnap Tupia's servant, Tayeto,—a Tahitian like himself,—and which was near being successful, induced Cook to name the deep indentation of the sea at this point of the coast, Kidnapper's Bay.Somewhat farther to the south they found the natives more disposed to be friendly, and Mr. Banks and Dr. Solander went ashore and shot several birds of exquisite beauty. Some of the ship's company returned at night with their noses besmeared with red ochre and oil,—a circumstance which Cook explains by saying that "the ladies paint their faces with substances which are generally fresh and wet upon their cheeks and were easily transferred to the noses of those who chose to salute them. These ladies," he goes on to say, "were as great coquettes as any of the most fashionable dames in Europe, and the young ones as skittish asan unbroken filly. Each of them wore a petticoat, under which was a girdle made of the blades of highly-perfumed grass."At another point they set up the armorer's forge, to repair the braces of the tiller. They here met an old man who insisted on showing them the military exercises of the country, with a lance twelve feet long, and a battle-axe made of bone and called a patoo-patoo. An upright stake was made to represent the enemy, upon which he advanced with great fury: when he was supposed to have pierced the adversary, he split his skull with his axe. From this final act it was inferred that in the battles of this country there was no quarter. It was also ascertained that cannibalism was a constant and favorite practice. They here saw the largest canoe they had yet met with. She was sixty-eight feet and a half long, five broad, and three deep: she had a sharp keel, consisting of three trunks of trees hollowed out: the side-planks were sixty-two feet long in one piece, and quite elaborately carved in bas-relief: the figure-head was also a masterpiece of sculpture.A NEW ZEALAND CANOE.The expedition had thus far been sailing to the southward. Dissatisfied with the results, and finding it difficult to procure water in sufficient quantities, Cook put about, determining to follow the coast to the northward. He named a promontory in the neighborhood Cape Turnagain. Another promontory, more tothe north, where a huge canoe made a hasty retreat, he called Cape Runaway. On the 9th of November, the transit of Mercury was successfully observed, and the name of Mercury Bay given to the inlet where the observation was made. Two localities, for reasons which will be obvious, were called Oyster Bay and Mangrove River. Before leaving Mercury Bay, Cook caused to be cut, upon one of the trees near the watering-place, the ship's name, and his own, with the date of their arrival there, and, after displaying the English colors, took formal possession of it in the name of his Britannic Majesty King George the Third.On the 17th of December, they doubled North Cape, which is the northern extremity of the island, and commenced descending its western side. The weather now became stormy and the coast dangerous, so that the vessel was obliged to stand off to great distances, and intercourse with the natives was very much interrupted. At one point, however, the English satisfied themselves that the inhabitants ate human flesh,—the flesh, at least, of enemies who had been killed in battle. An Indian, to convince Mr. Banks of the truth of this, seized the bone of a human fore-arm divested of its flesh, bit and gnawed it, drawing it through his mouth, and indicating by signs that it afforded him a delicious repast. The bone was then returned to Mr. Banks, who took it on board ship with him as a trophy and a souvenir. He was afterwards told that the New Zealanders ate no portion of the heads of their enemies but the seat of the intellect, and was assured that as soon as a fight should take place they would treat him to the sight of a banquet of brains.By the end of March, 1770, the ship had circumnavigated the two islands forming what is now known as New Zealand, and had therefore proved—what was before uncertain—that it was insular, and not a portion of any grand Southern mainland. The whole voyage, in fact, had been unfavorable to the notion of a Southern continent, for it had swept away at least three-quarters of the positions upon which it had been founded. Ithad also totally subverted the theory according to which the existence of a Southern continent was necessary to preserve an equilibrium between the Northern and Southern hemispheres; for it had already proved the presence of sufficient water to render the Southern hemisphere too light, even if all the rest should be land.The vessel left New Zealand on the 31st of March, sailing due west, and, on the 18th of April, Mr. Hicks, the first lieutenant, discovered land directly in the ship's path. This was the most southerly point of New Holland, and was called, from its discoverer, Point Hicks. Cook followed the coast for many days to the northward; and it was only on the third that he learned, from ascending smoke, that the country was inhabited. On the thirteenth, he saw a party of natives walking briskly upon the shore. These subsequently retired, leaving the defence of the coast to two persons of very singular appearance. Their faces had been dusted with a white powder, and their bodies painted with broad streaks of the same color, which, passing obliquely over their breasts and backs, looked not unlike the cross-belts worn by civilized soldiers: the same kind of streaks were also drawn round their legs and thighs, like broad garters. Each of them held in his hand a weapon two feet and a half long. The landing party detached by Cook numbered forty men; and one of the musketeers was ordered to show the two champions the folly of resistance, by lodging a charge of small shot in their legs. The wooders and waterers then went ashore, and with some difficulty obtained the necessary supplies.Early in May, Cook landed at a spot to which, from a casual circumstance, he gave the name ofBotany Bay,—a name now famous the world over. Mr. Banks and Dr. Solander collected here large quantities of plants, flowers, and branches of unknown trees; and it was this incident that furnished the pastoral appellation to the Retreat for Transported Criminals. They found the woods filled with birds of the most exquisite beauty; theshallow coasts were haunted with flocks of waterfowl resembling swans and pelicans; the mud-banks harbored vast quantities of oysters, muscles, cockles, and other shell-fish. The inhabitants went totally naked, would never parley with the strangers, and did not seem to understand the Tahitian dialect of Tupia.At a place which, in consequence of the difficulty of procuring fresh water, received the name of Thirsty Sound, the watering party met with singular adventures. They found walking exceedingly difficult, owing to the ground being covered with a kind of grass, the seeds of which were very sharp and bearded backwards, so that when they stuck into their clothes they worked forward by means of the beard till they pierced the flesh. Mosquitos stung them at every pore. The air was so filled with butterflies that they saw, smelt, tasted, and breathed butterflies. Black ants swarmed upon the trees, eating out the pith from the small branches and then inhabiting the pipe which had contained it; and yet the branches, thus deprived of their marrow and occupied by millions of insects, bore leaves, flowers, and even fruit. They saw a species of fish resembling a minnow, which appeared to prefer land to water: it leaped before them, by means of its breast-fins, as nimbly as a frog; when found in the water it frequently jumped out and pursued its way upon the dry ground; in places where small stones were standing above the surface of the water at a little distance from each other, it chose rather to leap from stone to stone than to pass through the water. They saw several of them proceed dry-shod over large puddles in this ingenious and unusual manner. The ship left Thirsty Sound on the 31st of May.On the night of Sunday, the 10th of June, the vessel struck at high tide upon a rock which lay concealed in seventeen fathoms' water, and beat so violently against it that there seemed little hope of saving her. Land was twenty-five miles off, with no intervening island in sight. The sheathing-boards were soon seen to be floating away all around, and the false keelwas finally torn off. The six deck-guns, all the iron and stone ballast, casks, staves, oil-jars, decayed stores, to the weight of fifty tons, were thrown overboard with the utmost expedition. To Cook's dismay, the vessel, thus lightened, did not float by a foot and a half at high tide,—so much did the day tide fall short of that of the night. They again threw overboard every thing which it was possible to spare; but the vessel now began to leak, and it was feared she must go to the bottom as soon as she ceased to be supported by the rock,—so that the floating of the ship was anticipated not as a means of deliverance, but as an event that would precipitate her destruction. The ship floated at ten o'clock, and was heaved into deep water: there were nearly four feet of water in the hold. The leak was held at bay for a time; but the men were finally exhausted, and threw themselves down upon the deck, flooded as it was to the depth of three inches by water from the pumps. The vessel was finally saved by the following expedient, proposed and executed by Mr. Markhouse. He took a lower studding-sail, and having mixed together a large quantity of oakum and wool, chopped pretty small, stitched it down in handfuls upon the sail as tightly as possible. The sail was then hauled under the ship's bottom by ropes; and, when it came under the leak, the suction which carried in the water carried in with it the oakum and the wool. The leak was so far reduced that it was easily kept under by one pump. The vessel was finally got ashore and beached in Endeavor River: the surrounding localities were fitly named Tribulation Bay, Weary Point, and the Islands of Hope.The repairs of the vessel occupied many weeks,—the officers and crew occupying themselves in the mean time in fishing, in endeavors to obtain interviews with the natives, and in excursions for botanical or geological purposes. On the 14th of July, Mr. Gore killed an animal which had excited the interest and curiosity of the English in the highest degree, being totally unlike any animal then known. The name given by the natives tothis creature was "kangaroo." He was dressed the next day for dinner, and proved most excellent fare.A party of natives in the neighborhood having been rendered hostile by the refusal of a pair of fat turtle belonging to the ship, they snatched a brand from under a pitch-kettle which was boiling, and, making a circuit to the windward of the few articles on shore, set fire to the grass in their way. This grass, which was five or six feet high and as dry as stubble, burned with amazing fury. The fire made rapid progress towards a tent where the unhappy Tupia was lying sick of the scurvy, scorching in its course a sow and two pigs. Tupia and the tent were saved in the nick of time: the armorer's forge, or such parts of it as would burn, was consumed. The powder, which had been taken ashore, had been transported back to the magazine but two days before. At night, the hills on every side were discovered to be on fire,—the conflagration having spread with wonderful celerity. On the 3d of August, the ship sailed from Endeavor River, the carpenter having at last completed the necessary repairs.The ship now coasted along the edge of a reef which stretched out some twenty miles from the shore. This became suddenly of so formidable an aspect, and the winds and waves rolled them towards it with such sure and fatal speed, that the boats were got out and sent ahead to tow, and finally succeeded in getting the ship's head round. The surf was now breaking to a tremendous height within two hundred yards: the water beneath them was unfathomable. An opening in the reef was now discovered, and the dangerous expedient of forcing the ship through it was successfully tried. They anchored in nineteen fathoms' water, over a bottom of coral and shells. The opening through the reef received the name of Providential Channel.They sailed to the northward many days within the reef, till they at last found a safe passage out. Cook then for the last time hoisted English colors upon the eastern coast, which he wasconfident no European had seen before, and took possession of its whole extent, from south latitude thirty-eight to latitude ten. He claimed it, in behalf of his Majesty King George the Third, by the name of New South Wales, with all its bays, rivers, harbors, and islands. Three volleys of small-arms were then fired, and the spot upon which the ceremony was performed was named Possession Island. The ship passed out to the westward, finding open sea to the north of New Holland,—a circumstance which gave great satisfaction to all on board, as it showed that New Holland and New Guinea were separate islands, and not, as had been imagined, different parts of the supposed Southern continent. On Thursday, the 24th of August, the ship left New Holland, steering towards the northwest, with the intention of making the coast of New Guinea.Early in September they arrived among a group of islands which they supposed to lie along the coast of New Guinea. As they attempted to land, Indians rushed out of the thickets upon them, with hideous shouts, one of them throwing something from his hand which burned like gunpowder but made no report. Their numbers soon increased, and they discharged these noiseless flashes by four and five at a time. The smoke resembled that of a musket; and, as they held long hollow canes in their hands, the illusion would have been perfect had the combustion been accompanied by concussion. Those on board the ship were convinced the natives possessed fire-arms, supposing that the direction of the wind prevented the sound of the discharge from reaching them. Cook determined to lose no time in this latitude, having accomplished what he considered as of paramount importance; that is, he had sailed between the two lands of New Holland and New Guinea, and had thus established their insular character beyond any possibility of controversy.He now sailed to the west, and anchored, on the 8th of October, at Batavia, in Java. Here he laid up the ship for repairs. "What anxieties we had escaped," he writes, "in our ignorance that alarge portion of the keel had been diminished to the thickness of the under leather of a shoe!" But the ship's company, which had been so wonderfully preserved from the perils of the sea, were destined to undergo the rude attacks of disease upon land. Markhouse, the surgeon, Tupia and Tayeto, the Tahitians, and four sailors, were rapidly carried off by fever. On the 27th of December, the ship weighed anchor, the sick-list including forty names. Before doubling the Cape of Good Hope, she lost Sporing, one of the assistant naturalists, Parkinson, the artist, Green, the astronomer, Molineux, the master, besides the second lieutenant, four carpenters, and ten sailors. Cook was forced to wait a month at the Cape; and on the 12th of July, 1771, he cast anchor in the Downs, after a cruise of three eventful years. His crew was decimated and his ship no longer sea-worthy. The skill and enterprise displayed by Cook, and the important results attained by the voyage, induced the Government to raise him to the rank of commander. We shall follow him upon his second voyage, in the next chapter.CAPE PIGEON.
BYRON AT KING GEORGE'S ISLAND.CHAPTER XLI.THE FIRST SCIENTIFIC VOYAGE OF CIRCUMNAVIGATION—THE DOLPHIN AND TAMAR—BYRON IN PATAGONIA—FALKLAND ISLANDS—ISLANDS OF DISAPPOINTMENT—ARRIVAL AT TINIAN—BYRON VERSUS ANSON—THE VOYAGE HOME—WALLIS AND CARTERET—THEIR OBSERVATIONS IN PATAGONIA—WALLIS AT TAHITI—A DESPERATE BATTLE—NAILS LOSE THEIR VALUE—A TAHITIAN ROMANCE—PITCAIRN'S ISLAND—QUEEN CHARLOTTE'S ISLANDS—NEW BRITAIN—THE VOYAGE HOME—A MAN-OF-WAR DESTROYED BY FIRE.In the year 1764, England was at peace with all the world, and his majesty George III. conceived an idea which till then had penetrated no royal brain,—that of sending out vessels upon voyages of discovery in the single view of extending the domain of science and contributing to the advance of geographical knowledge. Voyages had previously been undertaken for purposeseither of conquest, colonization, pillage, or privateering; and discovery had usually been the result of accident, and was generally subordinate to the grand business of plunder and rapine. The king at once executed his design by giving the command of the Dolphin and Tamar—the former a man-of-war of twenty-four guns, and the latter a sloop of sixteen—to Commodore John Byron, who had been one of the wrecked captains of Anson's fleet in 1740. The vessels sailed from Plymouth on the 3d of July. Nothing of moment occurred during their passage to Rio Janeiro, if we except the fact that Byron noticed that no fish would come near his ship, though the sea was alive with them at a little distance,—a circumstance which he attributed to the Dolphin's copper sheathing. She was the first vessel upon which the experiment of coppering the bottom had been tried.Upon the Patagonian coast, Byron saw a party of the natives on horseback, one of whom, who dismounted, he describes as follows:—"He was of a gigantic stature, and seemed to realize the tales of monsters in human shape: he had the skin of some wild beast thrown over his shoulders, as a Scotch Highlander wears his plaid. Round one eye was a large circle of white; a circle of black surrounded the other, and the rest of his face was streaked with paint of different colors. His height could not be less than seven feet. This frightful Colossus and his whole company conducted themselves in a peaceable and orderly manner which certainly did them honor." Byron entered Magellan's Strait in December. During an anchorage here, a part of the men slept on shore: they were always awakened from their first slumber by the roaring of wild beasts, which the darkness of the night and the loneliness of their situation rendered horrible beyond description. The animals were prevented from invading the tent by the kindling of large fires.Having determined to await the arrival of the Florida,—a store-ship which was to follow him,—Byron returned into theAtlantic and discovered a group of islands, of which he took possession for King George III. by the name of the Falkland Islands. Here the seals and penguins were so numerous that it was impossible to walk upon the beach without first driving them away. The men were also compelled to do battle and fight hand-to-hand encounters with enormous and formidable sea-lions, and with animals as large as a mastiff and as fierce as a wolf. On returning to Port Desire, in February, 1765, the whales about the ship rendered the navigation dangerous, and one of them blew a jet of water over the quarterdeck. The Florida arrived about the same time, and the Dolphin and Tamar took from her all the provisions they could store. They then entered the Strait, and, for seven weeks and two days, struggled with the terrible weather which at the period of the spring equinox prevails in that tempestuous region. They made Cape Deseado on the 8th of April, and soon after entered the South Sea.Turning to the north as far as Juan Fernandez, and then making a long stretch to the west, Byron discovered, on the 7th of June, in 14° 5' south latitude and in 145° west longitude, a group of islands covered with delightful groves and evidently producing cocoanuts and bananas in abundance. Turtles were seen upon the shore; and the whole aspect of the island was tropical and attractive in the extreme. But a violent surge broke upon every point of the coast, and the steep coral rocks which formed the shore rendered it unsafe to anchor. The sailors, prostrated with scurvy, stood gazing at this little paradise with sensations of bitter regret; and Byron accordingly named the group the Islands of Disappointment. Two days later, however, he discovered another group, to which he gave the name of King George's Islands. Here the savages, in attempting to repel an invasion of their domain, provoked reprisals, and two or three of them were killed: one, being pierced by three balls which went quite through his body, took up a large stone and died in the act of throwing it. Byron obtained several boatloadsof cocoanuts and a large quantity of scurvy-grass. After discovering and naming Prince of Wales' and Duke of York's Islands, Byron bore away for the Ladrones, a month's sail to the west.In due time, and after a voyage accomplished without incident, the two vessels arrived at the Ladrone island of Tinian, already famous from the glowing description given of it by Lord Anson. They anchored not far from the spot where the Centurion had lain, and in water so clear that they could see the bottom at the depth of one hundred and forty-four feet. Byron gives a very different account of the island from that furnished by Anson,—a fact attributable to the circumstance that he visited it during the rainy season. The undergrowth in the woods was so thick, he says, that they could not see three yards before them: the meadows were covered with stubborn reeds higher than their heads, and which cut their legs like whipcord. Every time they spoke they inhaled a mouthful of flies. In the Centurion's well they found water that was brackish and full of worms. Centipedes bit and scorpions bled. The ships rolled at anchor as never ships rolled before. The rains were incessant. The heat was suffocating, being only nine degrees less than the heat of the blood at the heart. Anson's cattle were very shy; for it took six men three days and three nights to capture and kill a bullock, whose flesh, when dragged home to the tents, invariably proved to be fly-blown and useless.After a stay of nine weeks at Tinian, Byron weighed anchor on the 30th of September, with a cargo of two thousand cocoanuts. On the 5th of October, he touched at the Malay island of Timoan. The inhabitants were inclined to drive hard bargains and to part with as few provisions as possible. They were even offended at the sailors hauling the seine and taking fish upon their coast. Leaving this ungenerous island, they met with a fortnight of light winds, dead calms, and violent tornadoes, accompanied with rain, thunder, and lightning. On the19th of October, they hailed an English craft belonging to the East India Company and bound from Bencoolen to Bengal. The master sent them a sheep, a turtle, a dozen fowls, and two gallons of arrack. With this assistance Byron easily reached Java, where he took in stores of rice and arrack. Nothing of moment occurred during the run home, except the incident of a collision between the Dolphin and a whale, in which the latter appeared to be the greatest sufferer, as the water was deeply tinged with blood. Byron arrived at Deal on the 7th of May, 1766. Each ship had lost six men, including those that were drowned. This number was so inconsiderable that it was deemed probable that more of them would have died had they remained on shore. Byron, having discharged all the duties devolving on him during this voyage with prudence and energy, could not be held responsible for the poverty of the scientific results obtained,—a circumstance owing to the absence of scientific men, naturalists, mathematicians, astronomers, &c. The Government resolved to make another effort, and to equip the expedition in a style more adequate to its necessities. The Dolphin was immediately refitted and furnished for a voyage to be made in the same seas under Captain Samuel Wallis. The Swallow, a sloop of fourteen guns, was appointed to be her consort, instead of the lumbering Tamar, and Captain Carteret, who had accompanied Byron, was ordered to command her. The Prince Frederick was appointed to accompany them as store-ship. They left Plymouth in company on the 22d of August, 1766.The run to Magellan's Strait offers no points of interest. They entered into amicable relations with the Patagonians. These people, who, from Magellan's and Byron's accounts, had obtained the reputation of being giants of seven feet, were measured with a rod by Wallis. The tallest were six feet six, while their average height was from five feet ten to six feet. He invited several of them on board, where, following the example of Magellan, he showed one of them a looking-glass. "This,however," he says, "excited little astonishment, but afforded them infinite diversion." The Prince Frederick took on board, by Wallis' order, several thousand young trees, which had been carefully removed with their roots and the earth about them, and transported them to the Falkland Islands, where there was no growth of wood. Captain Carteret climbed a mountain in the hope of obtaining a view of the South Sea: he erected a pyramid, in which he deposited a bottle containing a shilling and a paper,—a memorial which, he remarked, might possibly remain there as long as the world endured. At other points the land was bare, covered with snow, or piled to the clouds with rocks, looking like the ruins of nature doomed to everlasting sterility and desolation.A storm now disabled both ships, and Carteret found the Swallow to be almost unmanageable. From this time forward, during the passage of the Strait, the inhabitants they met seemed to be the most miserable of human beings,—half frozen, half fed, half clothed. After four months' dangerous and tedious navigation, they issued from the Strait into the ocean on the 11th of April, 1767, bidding farewell to a region where in the midst of summer the weather was tempestuous, "where the prospect had more the appearance of chaos than of nature, and where, for the most part, the valleys were without herbage and the hills without wood." A storm here separated the Dolphin and the Swallow, and from this point the adventures of Wallis and Carteret form two distinct narratives. We shall follow the course of the Dolphin, and then return to that of the Swallow.Wallis sailed to the northwest for two months without incident, discovering Whitsun Island and Queen Charlotte's Island in mid-ocean. At last, on the 19th of June, he touched at Quiros' island of Sagittaria: it had been lost for a century and a half, and its existence even was doubted. The Dolphin was soon surrounded by hundreds of canoes, containing at least eight hundred people. They did not manifest hostile intentions,however, contenting themselves with petty thefts. Wallis sent his boats to sound for an anchorage, and, observing the canoes gather around them, fired a nine-pounder over their heads. A skirmish followed, which resulted in the wounding of several on both sides. But, on Wallis' attempting to enter the Bay of Matavai, the islanders offered a determined resistance: three-hundred canoes, manned by two thousand warriors, surrounded him and attacked him with a hail of stones. Repulsed for a time, they twice rallied, and hurled stones weighing two pounds on board, by means of slings. At last a cannon-ball cut the canoe bearing the chief in halves, whereupon canoes and warriors disappeared with the utmost precipitation. The ship was now warped up to the shore, and the boats landed without opposition. Mr. Furneaux, the lieutenant, took possession of the island for his majesty, in honor of whom he called it King George the Third's Island. The water proving to be excellent, rum was mixed with it, and every man drank his majesty's health. The natives choosing to make a demonstration at midnight, Wallis cleared the coast with his guns, and sent the carpenters ashore with their axes, to destroy all the canoes which in their precipitation they had left. Fifty canoes, some of them sixty feet long, were thus broken up. These measures brought the savages to terms, and boughs of plantains were soon exchanged and vows of friendship pantomimically expressed. Trade was established, and a tent erected at the watering place. The crew now lived sumptuously upon fruits and poultry, and in a fortnight the commander hardly knew them for the same people. This, as we have said, was the island which Cook was to render famous under the name of Tahiti.It was not long before it was discovered that nails, the principal medium of exchange, seemed to have lost their value with the islanders. Bringing forth large spikes from their pockets, they intimated that they desired nails of a similar size and strength. It was now ascertained that the sailors, having nonails of their own, had drawn all the stout hammock-pins, and had ripped out the belaying cleats. Every artifice was practised to discover the thieves, but without success.On the 11th of July, a tall woman of pleasing countenance and majestic deportment came on board. She proved to be Oberea, sovereign of the island. She seemed quite fascinated by Wallis, who was recovering from a severe illness, and invited him to go on shore and perfect his convalescence. He accepted the invitation, and the next day called upon her at her residence,—an immense thatched roof raised upon pillars. She ordered four young girls to take off his shoes and stockings and gently chafe his skin with their hands. While they were doing this, the English surgeon who accompanied Wallis took off his wig to cool himself. Every eye was at once fixed upon this prodigy of nature. The whole assembly stood motionless in silent astonishment. They would not have been more amazed, says Wallis, had they discovered that the surgeon's limbs had been screwed on to the trunk. Oberea accompanied Wallis on his way back to the shore, and whenever they came to a little puddle of water she lifted him over it.It was now discovered that one Francis Pinckney, a seaman, had drawn the cleats to which the main-sheet was belayed, and had then removed and bargained away the spikes. Wallis called the men together, explained the heinousness of the offence, and ordered Pinckney to be whipped with nettles while he ran the gauntlet three times round the deck. To prevent the ship from being pulled to pieces and the price of provisions from being disproportionately raised, he directed that no man should go ashore except the wooders and waterers.Oberea now became romantic and tender. She tied wreaths of plaited hair around Wallis' hat, giving him to understand that both the hair and workmanship were her own. She made him presents of baskets of cocoanuts, and of sows big with young. She said he must stay twenty days more; and, whenhe replied that he should depart in seven days, she burst into tears, and was with great difficulty pacified. When the fatal hour arrived, she threw herself down upon the arm-chest and wept passionately. She was with difficulty got over the side into her canoe, where she sat the picture of helpless, unutterable woe. Wallis tossed her articles of use and ornament, which she silently accepted without looking at them. He subsequently bade her adieu more privately on shore. A fresh breeze sprang up, and the Dolphin left the island on the 27th of July.PARTING OF WALLIS AND OBEREA.On his way to Tinian he discovered several islands, one of which the officers did their commander the honor of calling Wallis' Island. At Tinian they found every article mentioned by Lord Anson, though it required no little time and labor to noose a bullock or bag a banana. When they left, each man had laid in five hundred limes. On the passage to Batavia, and thence to Table Bay, the sick-list was very large, and several men were lost by disease and accident. At the Cape, the crewwere attacked by the small-pox, and a pest-tent was erected upon a spacious plain. The infection was not fatal in any instance. The Dolphin anchored in the Downs on the 20th of May, 1768. Wallis was enabled to communicate a paper to the Royal Society in time for that body to give to Lieutenant Cook, then preparing for his first voyage, more complete instructions by which to govern his movements.We must now return to the Swallow, commanded by Philip Carteret, and, as far as the Strait of Magellan, the consort of the Dolphin. A storm, as we have said, separated them; and, while Wallis sailed to the northwest, Carteret was driven due north. He was surprised to find Juan Fernandez fortified by the Spanish, and did not think it prudent to attempt a landing. Sailing now due west, he discovered an island to which he gave the name of Pitcairn, in honor of the young man who first saw it. This island we shall have occasion to mention more particularly hereafter, as it became the scene of the romantic adventures of the mutineers of the Bounty. The vessel had now become crazy, and leaked constantly. The sails were worn, and split with every breeze. The men were attacked by the scurvy; and Carteret began to fear that he should get neither ship nor crew in safety back to England.At last, on the 12th of August, land was discovered at daybreak, which proved to be a cluster of islands, of which Carteret counted seven. Ignorant that Mendana had discovered them in 1595, nearly two centuries previously, and had given them the name of Santa Cruz, Carteret took possession of them, naming them Queen Charlotte's Islands and giving a distinctive appellation to each member of the archipelago. Cocoanuts, bananas, hogs, and poultry were seen in abundance as they sailed along the shore; but every attempt to land ended in bloodshed and repulse. They now steered to the northwest, and, on the 26th of August, saw New Britain and St. George's Bay, discovered and named by Dampier. Anchoring temporarily, and againwishing to weigh anchor, Carteret found, to his dismay, that the united strength of the whole ship's company was insufficient to perform the labor. They spent thirty-six hours in fruitless attempts, but, having recruited their strength by sleep, finally succeeded. They had neither the strength to chase turtle nor the address to hook fish. Cocoanut-milk gradually revived the men, who also received benefit from a fruit resembling a plum.The wind not allowing Carteret to follow Dampier's track around New Britain, the idea struck him that St. George's Bay might in reality be a channel dividing the island in twain. This the event proved to be correct. On his way through, he noticed three remarkable hills, which he called the Mother and Daughters, the Mother being the middlemost and largest. Leaving the southern portion of the island in possession of its old name, New Britain, he called the northern portion New Ireland. On leaving the channel, the vessel was in such a state that no time or labor could be any longer devoted to science or geography: the essential point was to reach some European settlement. Carteret discovered numerous islands and groups, and, after touching at Mindanao, arrived at Macassar, on the island of Celebes, in March, 1768. He had buried thirteen of his men, and thirty more were at the point of death: all the officers were ill, and Carteret and his lieutenant almost unfit for duty. The Dutch refused him permission to land, and Carteret determined to run the ship ashore and fight for the necessaries of life, to which their situation entitled them, and which they must either obtain or perish. A boat, bearing several persons in authority, put out to them, and commanded them to leave at once, at the same time giving them two sheep and some fowls and fruit. Carteret showed them the corpse of a man who had died that morning, and whose life would probably have been saved had provisions been at once afforded him. This somewhat shocked them; and they inquired very particularly whether he had been among the Spice Islands, and, upon receiving a negative reply,which they appeared to believe, directed him to proceed to a bay not far distant, where he would find shelter from the monsoon and provisions in abundance. He proceeded, therefore, to Bonthain, where he altered his reckoning, having lost about eighteen hours in coming by the west, while the vessels that had come by the east had gained about six. He stayed here two months, with difficulty obtaining natives to replace the many seamen he had lost. On the passage from Bonthain to Batavia, the ship leaked so fast that the pumps, which were kept constantly at work, were hardly able to keep her free. He arrived at Batavia on the 2d of June. Here the Dutch authorities again placed every obstacle in his way; and it was the last week in July before he could heave down the ship for repairs. These being completed, he set sail for England.On the 30th of January, 1769, he touched at Ascension, where it was the custom, as the island was uninhabited, for every ship to leave a letter in a bottle, with the date, name, destination, &c. With this custom Carteret of course complied. Three weeks afterwards, he was overhauled by a ship bearing French colors and sailing in the same direction as himself. Carteret was very much surprised to hear the French captain call him and his ship by name: he was still more surprised to hear that the Dolphin had already returned to England, and had reported his—Carteret's—probable loss in Magellan's Strait. "How did you learn the name of my ship?" shouted Carteret through his trumpet. "From the bottle at Ascension," was the reply. "And how did you hear of the opinion formed in England of our fate?" "From the French gazette at the Cape of Good Hope." "And who may you be, pray?" "A French East Indiaman, Captain Bougainville." The vessel was La Boudeuse, whose voyage round the world we shall narrate in the following chapter. The Swallow anchored at Spithead on Saturday, the 20th of March, having been absent three years wanting two days. No navigator had yet done so much with resources soinsufficient: Carteret's discoveries were of the highest interest in a geographical point of view. He was a worthy predecessor of Cook; and his achievements with a crazy ship and a disabled crew prepared the public mind for the researches which his already distinguished successor would be enabled to make with the carefully equipped expedition which had lately started under his command.A harrowing incident which occurred at sea about this time produced a painful sensation throughout Europe. The French man-of-war Le Prince, being on her way from Lorient to Pondicherry by way of Cape Horn, was discovered to be on fire. Smoke was noticed ascending almost imperceptibly from one of the hatchways. The usual measures were promptly taken, eighty marines being placed on duty with loaded muskets to enforce obedience from the crew. The pumps and buckets were totally inadequate to master the now raging flames; while the fresh water, set running from the casks, was of equally little service. The yawl, by the captain's orders, had been lowered: seven men seized it and rowed rapidly away. Of the other boats, two were burned, and one was swamped as it touched the water. The consternation now became general; and the despairing shrieks of the dying, mingled with the cries of the affrighted animals on board, rendered the scene one of terrible confusion. The chaplain went about, granting a general absolution, and extending the remission of their sins even to those who, to avoid death by fire, committed suicide by leaping into the sea. There were six women on board, two of them the cousins of the captain. They were lowered into the water upon hen-coops, the captain bidding them an eternal farewell, as it was his duty and his determination to perish with the ship.The water was now alive with human beings, clinging to spars, oars, barrels, and other floating materials. Upon one spar were nine men, who had escaped the fury of one element, and were calmly awaiting the fate which they were expecting from another. They were destined to die by neither, but in a manner, if any thing, more horrible. The flames, reaching the cannon, which by some fatal coincidence were loaded, discharged them one by one. A ball, striking the spar by which these nine devoted men were kept afloat, ploughed its way through them all, killing several outright and mortally wounding the rest. Not one escaped. The mast now fell into the sea, making terrible havoc among those within its reach; while at every moment a gun launched its reckless metal upon the water. The chaplain, clinging to a bit of charred wood, edified all who heard him by his piety and resignation. Once he tried to sink, but was brought back by the first lieutenant. "Let me go," said he; "I am full of water, and it cannot avail to prolong my sufferings." "In his holy company," says the lieutenant, in his narrative, "I passed three hours: during which time I sawone of the captain's cousins give up the effort to keep herself afloat, and fall back and drown." This lieutenant, surviving the rest, hailed the seven men in the yawl, by whom he was taken in, as were also the pilot and the quartermaster. These ten persons were all that were saved out of the three hundred who composed the vessel's crew. The frigate soon blew up; and, after this frightful scene of her expiring agony, all relapsed into silence.The lieutenant assumed the command of the boat, and, rowing to the remains of the wreck, ordered a search for stores and other articles of which they had pressing need. They found a keg of brandy, fifteen pounds of salt pork, a piece of scarlet cloth, twenty yards of coarse linen, and a quantity of staves and ropes. With the scarlet and an oar they made a mast and sail, with a key they made a pulley, and with a stave a rudder. With this equipment, and without astronomical instruments, they started upon their adventurous voyage, being six hundred miles distant from the coast of Brazil.Favored by a brisk breeze, they sailed during eight days, making seventy-five miles every twenty-four hours. They were nearly naked, and suffered terribly from exposure to the rays of a tropical July sun. On the sixth day, a light rain gave them the hope of satisfying their devouring thirst. They licked the drops from the sail, but found them already bitterly impregnated with salt. They suffered as much from hunger as thirst; for the salt pork, which had been found to cause blood-spitting, had been abandoned on the fourth day. A draught of brandy from time to time revived them somewhat, but burned their stomachs without moistening them, causing them pain rather than satisfaction. On the eighth night, the lieutenant passed ten hours at the helm, not one of the remaining nine having the strength to relieve him. It was not possible they could survive another day. The dawn of the 3d of August brought with it the blessed sight of land, and, collecting all their strength, to avoidbeing wrecked by the currents, tides, and reefs, they landed in safety late in the afternoon. The men rushed upon the beach, and, in their joy, rolled in the sand, and mingled thanksgivings with their shouts of joy. They no longer appeared like human beings, suffering having rendered their faces frightful to behold. The lieutenant twisted a piece of red cloth about his loins to show his rank to such inhabitants as they might fall in with. A rapidly-flowing stream being discovered, they all rushed into it, and lapped, rather than drank, its beneficent waters.The place where they were was a Portuguese settlement, and they were hospitably received by the colonists, who gave them shirts and manioc in abundance. Proceeding to Pernambuco, where a Portuguese fleet was stationed, they were welcomed with kindness by the officers, the lieutenant being admitted to the admiral's mess, and the men being distributed among the ships and placed on full pay. They were soon restored to their country, and the lieutenant communicated to the Government an official account of the disaster.CHAIN OF PHOSPHORESCENT SELPAS.
BYRON AT KING GEORGE'S ISLAND.
BYRON AT KING GEORGE'S ISLAND.
BYRON AT KING GEORGE'S ISLAND.
THE FIRST SCIENTIFIC VOYAGE OF CIRCUMNAVIGATION—THE DOLPHIN AND TAMAR—BYRON IN PATAGONIA—FALKLAND ISLANDS—ISLANDS OF DISAPPOINTMENT—ARRIVAL AT TINIAN—BYRON VERSUS ANSON—THE VOYAGE HOME—WALLIS AND CARTERET—THEIR OBSERVATIONS IN PATAGONIA—WALLIS AT TAHITI—A DESPERATE BATTLE—NAILS LOSE THEIR VALUE—A TAHITIAN ROMANCE—PITCAIRN'S ISLAND—QUEEN CHARLOTTE'S ISLANDS—NEW BRITAIN—THE VOYAGE HOME—A MAN-OF-WAR DESTROYED BY FIRE.
In the year 1764, England was at peace with all the world, and his majesty George III. conceived an idea which till then had penetrated no royal brain,—that of sending out vessels upon voyages of discovery in the single view of extending the domain of science and contributing to the advance of geographical knowledge. Voyages had previously been undertaken for purposeseither of conquest, colonization, pillage, or privateering; and discovery had usually been the result of accident, and was generally subordinate to the grand business of plunder and rapine. The king at once executed his design by giving the command of the Dolphin and Tamar—the former a man-of-war of twenty-four guns, and the latter a sloop of sixteen—to Commodore John Byron, who had been one of the wrecked captains of Anson's fleet in 1740. The vessels sailed from Plymouth on the 3d of July. Nothing of moment occurred during their passage to Rio Janeiro, if we except the fact that Byron noticed that no fish would come near his ship, though the sea was alive with them at a little distance,—a circumstance which he attributed to the Dolphin's copper sheathing. She was the first vessel upon which the experiment of coppering the bottom had been tried.
Upon the Patagonian coast, Byron saw a party of the natives on horseback, one of whom, who dismounted, he describes as follows:—"He was of a gigantic stature, and seemed to realize the tales of monsters in human shape: he had the skin of some wild beast thrown over his shoulders, as a Scotch Highlander wears his plaid. Round one eye was a large circle of white; a circle of black surrounded the other, and the rest of his face was streaked with paint of different colors. His height could not be less than seven feet. This frightful Colossus and his whole company conducted themselves in a peaceable and orderly manner which certainly did them honor." Byron entered Magellan's Strait in December. During an anchorage here, a part of the men slept on shore: they were always awakened from their first slumber by the roaring of wild beasts, which the darkness of the night and the loneliness of their situation rendered horrible beyond description. The animals were prevented from invading the tent by the kindling of large fires.
Having determined to await the arrival of the Florida,—a store-ship which was to follow him,—Byron returned into theAtlantic and discovered a group of islands, of which he took possession for King George III. by the name of the Falkland Islands. Here the seals and penguins were so numerous that it was impossible to walk upon the beach without first driving them away. The men were also compelled to do battle and fight hand-to-hand encounters with enormous and formidable sea-lions, and with animals as large as a mastiff and as fierce as a wolf. On returning to Port Desire, in February, 1765, the whales about the ship rendered the navigation dangerous, and one of them blew a jet of water over the quarterdeck. The Florida arrived about the same time, and the Dolphin and Tamar took from her all the provisions they could store. They then entered the Strait, and, for seven weeks and two days, struggled with the terrible weather which at the period of the spring equinox prevails in that tempestuous region. They made Cape Deseado on the 8th of April, and soon after entered the South Sea.
Turning to the north as far as Juan Fernandez, and then making a long stretch to the west, Byron discovered, on the 7th of June, in 14° 5' south latitude and in 145° west longitude, a group of islands covered with delightful groves and evidently producing cocoanuts and bananas in abundance. Turtles were seen upon the shore; and the whole aspect of the island was tropical and attractive in the extreme. But a violent surge broke upon every point of the coast, and the steep coral rocks which formed the shore rendered it unsafe to anchor. The sailors, prostrated with scurvy, stood gazing at this little paradise with sensations of bitter regret; and Byron accordingly named the group the Islands of Disappointment. Two days later, however, he discovered another group, to which he gave the name of King George's Islands. Here the savages, in attempting to repel an invasion of their domain, provoked reprisals, and two or three of them were killed: one, being pierced by three balls which went quite through his body, took up a large stone and died in the act of throwing it. Byron obtained several boatloadsof cocoanuts and a large quantity of scurvy-grass. After discovering and naming Prince of Wales' and Duke of York's Islands, Byron bore away for the Ladrones, a month's sail to the west.
In due time, and after a voyage accomplished without incident, the two vessels arrived at the Ladrone island of Tinian, already famous from the glowing description given of it by Lord Anson. They anchored not far from the spot where the Centurion had lain, and in water so clear that they could see the bottom at the depth of one hundred and forty-four feet. Byron gives a very different account of the island from that furnished by Anson,—a fact attributable to the circumstance that he visited it during the rainy season. The undergrowth in the woods was so thick, he says, that they could not see three yards before them: the meadows were covered with stubborn reeds higher than their heads, and which cut their legs like whipcord. Every time they spoke they inhaled a mouthful of flies. In the Centurion's well they found water that was brackish and full of worms. Centipedes bit and scorpions bled. The ships rolled at anchor as never ships rolled before. The rains were incessant. The heat was suffocating, being only nine degrees less than the heat of the blood at the heart. Anson's cattle were very shy; for it took six men three days and three nights to capture and kill a bullock, whose flesh, when dragged home to the tents, invariably proved to be fly-blown and useless.
After a stay of nine weeks at Tinian, Byron weighed anchor on the 30th of September, with a cargo of two thousand cocoanuts. On the 5th of October, he touched at the Malay island of Timoan. The inhabitants were inclined to drive hard bargains and to part with as few provisions as possible. They were even offended at the sailors hauling the seine and taking fish upon their coast. Leaving this ungenerous island, they met with a fortnight of light winds, dead calms, and violent tornadoes, accompanied with rain, thunder, and lightning. On the19th of October, they hailed an English craft belonging to the East India Company and bound from Bencoolen to Bengal. The master sent them a sheep, a turtle, a dozen fowls, and two gallons of arrack. With this assistance Byron easily reached Java, where he took in stores of rice and arrack. Nothing of moment occurred during the run home, except the incident of a collision between the Dolphin and a whale, in which the latter appeared to be the greatest sufferer, as the water was deeply tinged with blood. Byron arrived at Deal on the 7th of May, 1766. Each ship had lost six men, including those that were drowned. This number was so inconsiderable that it was deemed probable that more of them would have died had they remained on shore. Byron, having discharged all the duties devolving on him during this voyage with prudence and energy, could not be held responsible for the poverty of the scientific results obtained,—a circumstance owing to the absence of scientific men, naturalists, mathematicians, astronomers, &c. The Government resolved to make another effort, and to equip the expedition in a style more adequate to its necessities. The Dolphin was immediately refitted and furnished for a voyage to be made in the same seas under Captain Samuel Wallis. The Swallow, a sloop of fourteen guns, was appointed to be her consort, instead of the lumbering Tamar, and Captain Carteret, who had accompanied Byron, was ordered to command her. The Prince Frederick was appointed to accompany them as store-ship. They left Plymouth in company on the 22d of August, 1766.
The run to Magellan's Strait offers no points of interest. They entered into amicable relations with the Patagonians. These people, who, from Magellan's and Byron's accounts, had obtained the reputation of being giants of seven feet, were measured with a rod by Wallis. The tallest were six feet six, while their average height was from five feet ten to six feet. He invited several of them on board, where, following the example of Magellan, he showed one of them a looking-glass. "This,however," he says, "excited little astonishment, but afforded them infinite diversion." The Prince Frederick took on board, by Wallis' order, several thousand young trees, which had been carefully removed with their roots and the earth about them, and transported them to the Falkland Islands, where there was no growth of wood. Captain Carteret climbed a mountain in the hope of obtaining a view of the South Sea: he erected a pyramid, in which he deposited a bottle containing a shilling and a paper,—a memorial which, he remarked, might possibly remain there as long as the world endured. At other points the land was bare, covered with snow, or piled to the clouds with rocks, looking like the ruins of nature doomed to everlasting sterility and desolation.
A storm now disabled both ships, and Carteret found the Swallow to be almost unmanageable. From this time forward, during the passage of the Strait, the inhabitants they met seemed to be the most miserable of human beings,—half frozen, half fed, half clothed. After four months' dangerous and tedious navigation, they issued from the Strait into the ocean on the 11th of April, 1767, bidding farewell to a region where in the midst of summer the weather was tempestuous, "where the prospect had more the appearance of chaos than of nature, and where, for the most part, the valleys were without herbage and the hills without wood." A storm here separated the Dolphin and the Swallow, and from this point the adventures of Wallis and Carteret form two distinct narratives. We shall follow the course of the Dolphin, and then return to that of the Swallow.
Wallis sailed to the northwest for two months without incident, discovering Whitsun Island and Queen Charlotte's Island in mid-ocean. At last, on the 19th of June, he touched at Quiros' island of Sagittaria: it had been lost for a century and a half, and its existence even was doubted. The Dolphin was soon surrounded by hundreds of canoes, containing at least eight hundred people. They did not manifest hostile intentions,however, contenting themselves with petty thefts. Wallis sent his boats to sound for an anchorage, and, observing the canoes gather around them, fired a nine-pounder over their heads. A skirmish followed, which resulted in the wounding of several on both sides. But, on Wallis' attempting to enter the Bay of Matavai, the islanders offered a determined resistance: three-hundred canoes, manned by two thousand warriors, surrounded him and attacked him with a hail of stones. Repulsed for a time, they twice rallied, and hurled stones weighing two pounds on board, by means of slings. At last a cannon-ball cut the canoe bearing the chief in halves, whereupon canoes and warriors disappeared with the utmost precipitation. The ship was now warped up to the shore, and the boats landed without opposition. Mr. Furneaux, the lieutenant, took possession of the island for his majesty, in honor of whom he called it King George the Third's Island. The water proving to be excellent, rum was mixed with it, and every man drank his majesty's health. The natives choosing to make a demonstration at midnight, Wallis cleared the coast with his guns, and sent the carpenters ashore with their axes, to destroy all the canoes which in their precipitation they had left. Fifty canoes, some of them sixty feet long, were thus broken up. These measures brought the savages to terms, and boughs of plantains were soon exchanged and vows of friendship pantomimically expressed. Trade was established, and a tent erected at the watering place. The crew now lived sumptuously upon fruits and poultry, and in a fortnight the commander hardly knew them for the same people. This, as we have said, was the island which Cook was to render famous under the name of Tahiti.
It was not long before it was discovered that nails, the principal medium of exchange, seemed to have lost their value with the islanders. Bringing forth large spikes from their pockets, they intimated that they desired nails of a similar size and strength. It was now ascertained that the sailors, having nonails of their own, had drawn all the stout hammock-pins, and had ripped out the belaying cleats. Every artifice was practised to discover the thieves, but without success.
On the 11th of July, a tall woman of pleasing countenance and majestic deportment came on board. She proved to be Oberea, sovereign of the island. She seemed quite fascinated by Wallis, who was recovering from a severe illness, and invited him to go on shore and perfect his convalescence. He accepted the invitation, and the next day called upon her at her residence,—an immense thatched roof raised upon pillars. She ordered four young girls to take off his shoes and stockings and gently chafe his skin with their hands. While they were doing this, the English surgeon who accompanied Wallis took off his wig to cool himself. Every eye was at once fixed upon this prodigy of nature. The whole assembly stood motionless in silent astonishment. They would not have been more amazed, says Wallis, had they discovered that the surgeon's limbs had been screwed on to the trunk. Oberea accompanied Wallis on his way back to the shore, and whenever they came to a little puddle of water she lifted him over it.
It was now discovered that one Francis Pinckney, a seaman, had drawn the cleats to which the main-sheet was belayed, and had then removed and bargained away the spikes. Wallis called the men together, explained the heinousness of the offence, and ordered Pinckney to be whipped with nettles while he ran the gauntlet three times round the deck. To prevent the ship from being pulled to pieces and the price of provisions from being disproportionately raised, he directed that no man should go ashore except the wooders and waterers.
Oberea now became romantic and tender. She tied wreaths of plaited hair around Wallis' hat, giving him to understand that both the hair and workmanship were her own. She made him presents of baskets of cocoanuts, and of sows big with young. She said he must stay twenty days more; and, whenhe replied that he should depart in seven days, she burst into tears, and was with great difficulty pacified. When the fatal hour arrived, she threw herself down upon the arm-chest and wept passionately. She was with difficulty got over the side into her canoe, where she sat the picture of helpless, unutterable woe. Wallis tossed her articles of use and ornament, which she silently accepted without looking at them. He subsequently bade her adieu more privately on shore. A fresh breeze sprang up, and the Dolphin left the island on the 27th of July.
PARTING OF WALLIS AND OBEREA.
PARTING OF WALLIS AND OBEREA.
PARTING OF WALLIS AND OBEREA.
On his way to Tinian he discovered several islands, one of which the officers did their commander the honor of calling Wallis' Island. At Tinian they found every article mentioned by Lord Anson, though it required no little time and labor to noose a bullock or bag a banana. When they left, each man had laid in five hundred limes. On the passage to Batavia, and thence to Table Bay, the sick-list was very large, and several men were lost by disease and accident. At the Cape, the crewwere attacked by the small-pox, and a pest-tent was erected upon a spacious plain. The infection was not fatal in any instance. The Dolphin anchored in the Downs on the 20th of May, 1768. Wallis was enabled to communicate a paper to the Royal Society in time for that body to give to Lieutenant Cook, then preparing for his first voyage, more complete instructions by which to govern his movements.
We must now return to the Swallow, commanded by Philip Carteret, and, as far as the Strait of Magellan, the consort of the Dolphin. A storm, as we have said, separated them; and, while Wallis sailed to the northwest, Carteret was driven due north. He was surprised to find Juan Fernandez fortified by the Spanish, and did not think it prudent to attempt a landing. Sailing now due west, he discovered an island to which he gave the name of Pitcairn, in honor of the young man who first saw it. This island we shall have occasion to mention more particularly hereafter, as it became the scene of the romantic adventures of the mutineers of the Bounty. The vessel had now become crazy, and leaked constantly. The sails were worn, and split with every breeze. The men were attacked by the scurvy; and Carteret began to fear that he should get neither ship nor crew in safety back to England.
At last, on the 12th of August, land was discovered at daybreak, which proved to be a cluster of islands, of which Carteret counted seven. Ignorant that Mendana had discovered them in 1595, nearly two centuries previously, and had given them the name of Santa Cruz, Carteret took possession of them, naming them Queen Charlotte's Islands and giving a distinctive appellation to each member of the archipelago. Cocoanuts, bananas, hogs, and poultry were seen in abundance as they sailed along the shore; but every attempt to land ended in bloodshed and repulse. They now steered to the northwest, and, on the 26th of August, saw New Britain and St. George's Bay, discovered and named by Dampier. Anchoring temporarily, and againwishing to weigh anchor, Carteret found, to his dismay, that the united strength of the whole ship's company was insufficient to perform the labor. They spent thirty-six hours in fruitless attempts, but, having recruited their strength by sleep, finally succeeded. They had neither the strength to chase turtle nor the address to hook fish. Cocoanut-milk gradually revived the men, who also received benefit from a fruit resembling a plum.
The wind not allowing Carteret to follow Dampier's track around New Britain, the idea struck him that St. George's Bay might in reality be a channel dividing the island in twain. This the event proved to be correct. On his way through, he noticed three remarkable hills, which he called the Mother and Daughters, the Mother being the middlemost and largest. Leaving the southern portion of the island in possession of its old name, New Britain, he called the northern portion New Ireland. On leaving the channel, the vessel was in such a state that no time or labor could be any longer devoted to science or geography: the essential point was to reach some European settlement. Carteret discovered numerous islands and groups, and, after touching at Mindanao, arrived at Macassar, on the island of Celebes, in March, 1768. He had buried thirteen of his men, and thirty more were at the point of death: all the officers were ill, and Carteret and his lieutenant almost unfit for duty. The Dutch refused him permission to land, and Carteret determined to run the ship ashore and fight for the necessaries of life, to which their situation entitled them, and which they must either obtain or perish. A boat, bearing several persons in authority, put out to them, and commanded them to leave at once, at the same time giving them two sheep and some fowls and fruit. Carteret showed them the corpse of a man who had died that morning, and whose life would probably have been saved had provisions been at once afforded him. This somewhat shocked them; and they inquired very particularly whether he had been among the Spice Islands, and, upon receiving a negative reply,which they appeared to believe, directed him to proceed to a bay not far distant, where he would find shelter from the monsoon and provisions in abundance. He proceeded, therefore, to Bonthain, where he altered his reckoning, having lost about eighteen hours in coming by the west, while the vessels that had come by the east had gained about six. He stayed here two months, with difficulty obtaining natives to replace the many seamen he had lost. On the passage from Bonthain to Batavia, the ship leaked so fast that the pumps, which were kept constantly at work, were hardly able to keep her free. He arrived at Batavia on the 2d of June. Here the Dutch authorities again placed every obstacle in his way; and it was the last week in July before he could heave down the ship for repairs. These being completed, he set sail for England.
On the 30th of January, 1769, he touched at Ascension, where it was the custom, as the island was uninhabited, for every ship to leave a letter in a bottle, with the date, name, destination, &c. With this custom Carteret of course complied. Three weeks afterwards, he was overhauled by a ship bearing French colors and sailing in the same direction as himself. Carteret was very much surprised to hear the French captain call him and his ship by name: he was still more surprised to hear that the Dolphin had already returned to England, and had reported his—Carteret's—probable loss in Magellan's Strait. "How did you learn the name of my ship?" shouted Carteret through his trumpet. "From the bottle at Ascension," was the reply. "And how did you hear of the opinion formed in England of our fate?" "From the French gazette at the Cape of Good Hope." "And who may you be, pray?" "A French East Indiaman, Captain Bougainville." The vessel was La Boudeuse, whose voyage round the world we shall narrate in the following chapter. The Swallow anchored at Spithead on Saturday, the 20th of March, having been absent three years wanting two days. No navigator had yet done so much with resources soinsufficient: Carteret's discoveries were of the highest interest in a geographical point of view. He was a worthy predecessor of Cook; and his achievements with a crazy ship and a disabled crew prepared the public mind for the researches which his already distinguished successor would be enabled to make with the carefully equipped expedition which had lately started under his command.
A harrowing incident which occurred at sea about this time produced a painful sensation throughout Europe. The French man-of-war Le Prince, being on her way from Lorient to Pondicherry by way of Cape Horn, was discovered to be on fire. Smoke was noticed ascending almost imperceptibly from one of the hatchways. The usual measures were promptly taken, eighty marines being placed on duty with loaded muskets to enforce obedience from the crew. The pumps and buckets were totally inadequate to master the now raging flames; while the fresh water, set running from the casks, was of equally little service. The yawl, by the captain's orders, had been lowered: seven men seized it and rowed rapidly away. Of the other boats, two were burned, and one was swamped as it touched the water. The consternation now became general; and the despairing shrieks of the dying, mingled with the cries of the affrighted animals on board, rendered the scene one of terrible confusion. The chaplain went about, granting a general absolution, and extending the remission of their sins even to those who, to avoid death by fire, committed suicide by leaping into the sea. There were six women on board, two of them the cousins of the captain. They were lowered into the water upon hen-coops, the captain bidding them an eternal farewell, as it was his duty and his determination to perish with the ship.
The water was now alive with human beings, clinging to spars, oars, barrels, and other floating materials. Upon one spar were nine men, who had escaped the fury of one element, and were calmly awaiting the fate which they were expecting from another. They were destined to die by neither, but in a manner, if any thing, more horrible. The flames, reaching the cannon, which by some fatal coincidence were loaded, discharged them one by one. A ball, striking the spar by which these nine devoted men were kept afloat, ploughed its way through them all, killing several outright and mortally wounding the rest. Not one escaped. The mast now fell into the sea, making terrible havoc among those within its reach; while at every moment a gun launched its reckless metal upon the water. The chaplain, clinging to a bit of charred wood, edified all who heard him by his piety and resignation. Once he tried to sink, but was brought back by the first lieutenant. "Let me go," said he; "I am full of water, and it cannot avail to prolong my sufferings." "In his holy company," says the lieutenant, in his narrative, "I passed three hours: during which time I sawone of the captain's cousins give up the effort to keep herself afloat, and fall back and drown." This lieutenant, surviving the rest, hailed the seven men in the yawl, by whom he was taken in, as were also the pilot and the quartermaster. These ten persons were all that were saved out of the three hundred who composed the vessel's crew. The frigate soon blew up; and, after this frightful scene of her expiring agony, all relapsed into silence.
The lieutenant assumed the command of the boat, and, rowing to the remains of the wreck, ordered a search for stores and other articles of which they had pressing need. They found a keg of brandy, fifteen pounds of salt pork, a piece of scarlet cloth, twenty yards of coarse linen, and a quantity of staves and ropes. With the scarlet and an oar they made a mast and sail, with a key they made a pulley, and with a stave a rudder. With this equipment, and without astronomical instruments, they started upon their adventurous voyage, being six hundred miles distant from the coast of Brazil.
Favored by a brisk breeze, they sailed during eight days, making seventy-five miles every twenty-four hours. They were nearly naked, and suffered terribly from exposure to the rays of a tropical July sun. On the sixth day, a light rain gave them the hope of satisfying their devouring thirst. They licked the drops from the sail, but found them already bitterly impregnated with salt. They suffered as much from hunger as thirst; for the salt pork, which had been found to cause blood-spitting, had been abandoned on the fourth day. A draught of brandy from time to time revived them somewhat, but burned their stomachs without moistening them, causing them pain rather than satisfaction. On the eighth night, the lieutenant passed ten hours at the helm, not one of the remaining nine having the strength to relieve him. It was not possible they could survive another day. The dawn of the 3d of August brought with it the blessed sight of land, and, collecting all their strength, to avoidbeing wrecked by the currents, tides, and reefs, they landed in safety late in the afternoon. The men rushed upon the beach, and, in their joy, rolled in the sand, and mingled thanksgivings with their shouts of joy. They no longer appeared like human beings, suffering having rendered their faces frightful to behold. The lieutenant twisted a piece of red cloth about his loins to show his rank to such inhabitants as they might fall in with. A rapidly-flowing stream being discovered, they all rushed into it, and lapped, rather than drank, its beneficent waters.
The place where they were was a Portuguese settlement, and they were hospitably received by the colonists, who gave them shirts and manioc in abundance. Proceeding to Pernambuco, where a Portuguese fleet was stationed, they were welcomed with kindness by the officers, the lieutenant being admitted to the admiral's mess, and the men being distributed among the ships and placed on full pay. They were soon restored to their country, and the lieutenant communicated to the Government an official account of the disaster.
CHAIN OF PHOSPHORESCENT SELPAS.
CHAIN OF PHOSPHORESCENT SELPAS.
CHAIN OF PHOSPHORESCENT SELPAS.
BOUGAINVILLE.CHAPTER XLII.COLONIZATION OF THE FALKLAND ISLANDS—ANTOINE DE BOUGAINVILLE—HIS VOYAGE AROUND THE WORLD—ADVENTURE AT MONTEVIDEO—THE PATAGONIANS—TAKING POSSESSION OF TAHITI—FRENCH GALLANTRY—CEREMONIES OF RECEPTION—SOJOURN AT THE ISLAND—AOTOUROU—THE FIRST FEMALE CIRCUMNAVIGATOR—FAMINE ON BOARD—REMARKABLE CASCADE—ARRIVAL AT THE MOLUCCAS—INCIDENTS THERE—RETURN HOME.Several years before the period of which we are speaking, the French Government had colonized the Falkland Islands, lying off the eastern coast of Patagonia. The establishment lasted barely three years, and, in an agricultural point of view, was a complete and disastrous failure. The Spanish crown subsequently claimed these islands as belonging to the continent of South America, and the King of France was easily inducedto abandon them. Captain Louis-Antoine de Bougainville was instructed, in 1766, to proceed to the islands, and there, in the name of his French majesty, cede them to the Spanish authorities who would be sent out for the purpose. He was then to continue on, by the Strait of Magellan and the Pacific, to the East Indies, and thence to return home. Should he accomplish this task, he would be the first French circumnavigator of the globe.Bougainville received the command of the frigate La Boudeuse, carrying twenty-six twelve-pounders, and was to be joined at the Falklands by the store-ship l'Étoile. He sailed from Brest on the 5th of December, the Prince of Nassau-Singhen, who had been allowed to accompany the expedition, being on board. They arrived at Montevideo early in February, 1767, and found there the two Spanish frigates to whose commander Bougainville was to surrender the Falkland Islands, and with whom he sailed in company on the 28th of the month. They met with severe weather, but arrived safely at their destination towards the close of March. The settlement was made over to the Spaniards on the 1st of April: the Spanish colors were planted and saluted at sunrise and sunset. The French inhabitants were informed they might either remain or return: a portion embarked with the garrison for Montevideo, on their way back to France.Bougainville waited at the islands till the end of May for the store-ship, which was to join him at this point, and then returned to Rio Janeiro, where he hoped to get tidings of her. She had but just arrived, bringing salt meat and liquor sufficient for fifteen months, but no bread or vegetables. So he was forced to go, in quest of these provisions, back to Montevideo. From here he went to Buenos Ayres, on the opposite side of the bay formed by the mouths of the La Plata, making the journey, however, overland, as a contrary wind prevented his proceeding by water. At night, he and his party slept in leathern tents, while tigers howled around them on every side. Comingto the river St. Lucia, which is wide, deep, and rapid, they were at a loss how to cross it. At last their guide procured a hollow canoe, the master of which fastened a horse on each side of the bow, and then boldly assumed the reins. He supported the heads of the horses above the water and drove them safely across it. The Frenchmen landed on the opposite side dry-shod.A FERRY BOAT AT BUENOS AYRES.It was not till the 14th of November that the Boudeuse and Étoile, having taken in supplies of biscuit and bread, sailed, for the last time, from Montevideo. They made the entrance of the Strait of Magellan a fortnight afterwards. On the 8th of December, they saw a number of Patagonians, who had kept up fires all night, hoisting a white flag on an eminence,—a flag which some European ship had evidently given them as a pledge of alliance. Bougainville went on shore, where some thirty natives received him with every mark of good will. They embraced him and his party, shook hands with them, and imitated the report of muskets with their mouths, showing that they were accustomed to fire-arms. They aided the botanist in collecting plants and simples, and one of them applied to the physician for a prescription for his inflamed eye. They asked for tobacco, and swallowed small draughts of brandy, blowing with their mouths after the draught and uttering a tremulous inarticulate sound. They begged them to remain over night, and, upon theinvitation being politely declined, accompanied them with ceremony to the shore.BOUGAINVILLE IN MAGELLAN'S STRAIT.Bougainville, with three of his officers, spent some hours in taking soundings near Cape Froward. Perceiving a small flat rock, which barely afforded them standing-room, they mounted upon it, hoisted their colors, and shouted Vive le Roi! The coast now resounded for the first time, says Bougainville, with this compliment to his majesty. Upon which an English commentator remarks "that it is a striking instance of the vanity by which the French nation is distinguished." The vessels, being retarded by constant head-winds and harassed by violent storms, occupied fifty-two days in threading the channel, and the month of January, 1768, was well advanced before they discovered the boundless expanse of the Pacific.Sailing to the northwest, they passed several low, half-drowned islands, one of which Bougainville called Harp Island. A cluster of reefs he called the Dangerous Archipelago. Sorethroats now troubling the crew, he attributed them to the snow-water of the Strait, and cured them by putting a pint of vinegar and a dozen red-hot bullets into the daily water-cask. He combated the scurvy by employing lemonade prepared from a concentration in the form of powder. He made fresh water from salt water by means of a distilling apparatus which furnished a barrelful every night. In order to economize their drinking-water, their bread was kneaded with water dipped up from the sea. On the 4th of April, they discovered land; and fires burning during the night over a wide extent of coast showed them that it was inhabited and populous. In the morning a canoe propelled by twelve naked men approached. The chief, with a prodigious growth of hair which stood like bristles divergent on his head, offered the commander a cluster of bananas, indicating that this was the olive-branch in use in Tahiti,—the island at which the ships had now arrived. Presents were exchanged and an alliance effected.The vessels were now surrounded with canoes laden with cocoanuts and bananas, and a brisk and tolerably honest trade was driven by the natives and the strangers. The aspect of the coast—the mountains covered with foliage to their very summits, the lowlands interspersed with meadows and with plantations of tropical fruit, cascades pouring down from the rocks into the sea, streams flowing among lovely clusters of huts situated upon the shore—offered an enchanting scene to the wearied crews. While the Boudeuse was casting her anchor, canoes filled with women came around her. "These," adds Bougainville, with characteristic French gallantry, "are not inferior for agreeable features to most European women. It was very difficult, amidst such a sight, to keep at their work four hundred young sailors who had seen none of the fair sex for six months. The capstan was never hove with more alacrity than on this occasion."The captain and several officers now went on shore, where they were received with high glee by all, with the exception of avenerable man, apparently a philosopher, "whose thoughtful and suspicious air seemed to show that he feared the arrival of a new race of men would trouble those happy days which he had spent in peace." A poet, reclining beneath a tree, sang them a song to the accompaniment of a flute which a musician blew, not with his mouth, but with one of his nostrils. In return for this entertainment, the strangers gave, at night, an exhibition of sky-rockets, witch-quills, and other pyrotechnics. The chief, learning that the Prince of Nassau was a man of royal blood, offered him a wife; but, as the lady was advanced in years and correspondingly mature in appearance, the prince plead a previous union and escaped.The vessels stayed here a fortnight, cutting wood and drawing water. They lost six anchors during their sojourn, and twice narrowly missed utter shipwreck,—"the worst consequence of which would have been to pass the remainder of their days on an isle adorned with all the gifts of nature, and to exchange the sweets of the mother-country for a peaceable life exempt from cares." The islanders expressed infinite regret at their departure,—one of them, Aotourou by name, being unable to endure the separation, and asking permission to go with them. He gave his young wife three pearls which he had in his ears, kissed her, and went on board the ship. Bougainville quitted the island on the 16th of April, no less surprised at the sorrow the inhabitants testified at his departure than at their affectionate confidence on his arrival.He directed his course so as to avoid the Pernicious Isles, warned by the disasters of Roggewein to avoid them. Aotourou pointed at night to the bright star in Orion's shoulder, indicating that they should guide their course by it, and that in two days it would bring them to a fertile island where he had friends and children. Being vexed that no attention was paid to his advice, he rushed to the helm, seized the wheel, and endeavored to put the ship about. In the morning he climbed to the mast-head, andsought, in the distant horizon, the favored land of which he had spoken.The vessels kept on steadily to the westward, passing through Navigator's Islands and the group which Quiros had named Espiritu Santo. To the latter Bougainville gave the name of Grandes Cyclades,—one, however, not destined to be long retained. He was at this time informed that Baré, the servant of M. de Commerçon, the botanist of the Étoile, was a woman. He went on board the store-ship to make investigations. He thought the report incredible, as Baré was already an expert botanist, and had acquired the name, during his excursions with his master among the snows of Magellan's Strait,—where he carried provisions, fire-arms, and bundles of plants,—of being his beast of burden. The first suspicion of him occurred at Tahiti, where the natives, with the keen intuition of savages, cried out in their dialect, "It is a woman!" and insisted on paying her the attentions due to her sex. When Bougainville went on board the Étoile, Baré, bathed in tears, admitted that she was a woman. She said she was an orphan, had served before in men's clothes, and that the idea of a voyage around the world had inflamed her curiosity. Bougainville does her the justice to state that she always behaved on board with the most scrupulous modesty. She was not handsome, and was twenty-seven years of age. She was the first woman that ever circumnavigated the globe.It was not long before the provisions began to give out, and the crew were put upon half rations. The commander was soon obliged to forbid the eating of old leather, as it was becoming as scarce as biscuit and was quite as necessary. The butcher shed tears upon sacrificing a favorite goat, and Bougainville turned away his head as that sanguinary personage, with equally cruel intent, whistled to a young Patagonian dog. Breakers, reefs, and channels, where the tide ran fast and dangerously, indicated the presence of land, to which was given the name of Louisiade. This is a group of islands inhabited by Papuans.On the coast of New Britain, at an uninhabited spot which Bougainville named Port Praslin, he obtained a supply of inferior provisions, such as thatch-palms, cabbage-trees, and mangle apples. A species of aromatic ivy was likewise found, in which the physicians discovered anti-scorbutic properties; and a store of it was therefore laid in. An immense cascade, which furnished the vessels with fresh water, is enthusiastically described by Bougainville. After a stay of eight days at Port Praslin, during which time the heavens were black with continual tempests, the vessels profited by a change of wind and continued their westerly course. The field-tents were cut up, and trousers made from them were distributed to the two ships' companies. Another ounce was taken from the daily allowance of bread. From time to time canoes would shoot out from the coast of New Britain; but the hostility and treachery of the natives rendered all efforts to obtain food from them unavailing.CASCADE AT PORT PRASLIN.On the 1st of September, Bougainville made the island of Boero, one of the Moluccas, where he knew the Dutch had a small factory and a weak garrison. All his men were now sick, without exception. The provisions remaining were so nauseous that, as he says, "the hardest moments of the sad days we passed were those when the bell gave us notice to take in this disgusting and unwholesome food. But now our misery was to have an end. Ever since midnight a pleasant scent exhaled from the aromaticplants with which the Moluccas abound; the aspect of a considerable town, situated in the bottom of the gulf, of ships at anchor there, and of cattle rambling through the meadows, caused transports which I have doubtless felt, but which I can not here describe."It was found that the Dutch East India Company reigned supreme, and that the governor was disposed to keep to the letter of his instructions, which forbade him to receive any ships but those of the monopoly. Bougainville was obliged to plead the claims of hunger and considerations of humanity before the authorities would listen to him. They then furnished him with rice, poultry, sago, goats, fish, eggs, fruit, and venison, the latter being the flesh of stags introduced and acclimated by the Dutch. Henry Inman, the Dutch governor, though placed in a critical position by this arrival, behaved as became an honorable and generous man. He first did his duty towards his superiors, and then towards fellow-creatures in distress. Aotourou, the Tahitian, not being taken ashore by the commander on his first visit, imagined that it was because he was bow-legged and knock-kneed, and begged some of the sailors to stand upon his legs and straighten them out.During the run back to France, by way of the Cape of Good Hope, St. Helena, and the Cape Verd Islands, nothing happened which requires mention here. Bougainville entered the port of St. Malo on the 16th of March, 1769, having been absent two years and four months, and having lost but seven men during the voyage. He was the first Frenchman who ever went round the world in one ship,—one Gentil de la Barbinais, a pirate, having accomplished a voyage of circumnavigation in several ships, some fifty years before. He sustained his claim to this honor by publishing, two years afterwards, a narrative of his expedition, written in an animated and graceful style, and which established his reputation as a sailor and explorer.
BOUGAINVILLE.
BOUGAINVILLE.
BOUGAINVILLE.
COLONIZATION OF THE FALKLAND ISLANDS—ANTOINE DE BOUGAINVILLE—HIS VOYAGE AROUND THE WORLD—ADVENTURE AT MONTEVIDEO—THE PATAGONIANS—TAKING POSSESSION OF TAHITI—FRENCH GALLANTRY—CEREMONIES OF RECEPTION—SOJOURN AT THE ISLAND—AOTOUROU—THE FIRST FEMALE CIRCUMNAVIGATOR—FAMINE ON BOARD—REMARKABLE CASCADE—ARRIVAL AT THE MOLUCCAS—INCIDENTS THERE—RETURN HOME.
Several years before the period of which we are speaking, the French Government had colonized the Falkland Islands, lying off the eastern coast of Patagonia. The establishment lasted barely three years, and, in an agricultural point of view, was a complete and disastrous failure. The Spanish crown subsequently claimed these islands as belonging to the continent of South America, and the King of France was easily inducedto abandon them. Captain Louis-Antoine de Bougainville was instructed, in 1766, to proceed to the islands, and there, in the name of his French majesty, cede them to the Spanish authorities who would be sent out for the purpose. He was then to continue on, by the Strait of Magellan and the Pacific, to the East Indies, and thence to return home. Should he accomplish this task, he would be the first French circumnavigator of the globe.
Bougainville received the command of the frigate La Boudeuse, carrying twenty-six twelve-pounders, and was to be joined at the Falklands by the store-ship l'Étoile. He sailed from Brest on the 5th of December, the Prince of Nassau-Singhen, who had been allowed to accompany the expedition, being on board. They arrived at Montevideo early in February, 1767, and found there the two Spanish frigates to whose commander Bougainville was to surrender the Falkland Islands, and with whom he sailed in company on the 28th of the month. They met with severe weather, but arrived safely at their destination towards the close of March. The settlement was made over to the Spaniards on the 1st of April: the Spanish colors were planted and saluted at sunrise and sunset. The French inhabitants were informed they might either remain or return: a portion embarked with the garrison for Montevideo, on their way back to France.
Bougainville waited at the islands till the end of May for the store-ship, which was to join him at this point, and then returned to Rio Janeiro, where he hoped to get tidings of her. She had but just arrived, bringing salt meat and liquor sufficient for fifteen months, but no bread or vegetables. So he was forced to go, in quest of these provisions, back to Montevideo. From here he went to Buenos Ayres, on the opposite side of the bay formed by the mouths of the La Plata, making the journey, however, overland, as a contrary wind prevented his proceeding by water. At night, he and his party slept in leathern tents, while tigers howled around them on every side. Comingto the river St. Lucia, which is wide, deep, and rapid, they were at a loss how to cross it. At last their guide procured a hollow canoe, the master of which fastened a horse on each side of the bow, and then boldly assumed the reins. He supported the heads of the horses above the water and drove them safely across it. The Frenchmen landed on the opposite side dry-shod.
A FERRY BOAT AT BUENOS AYRES.
A FERRY BOAT AT BUENOS AYRES.
A FERRY BOAT AT BUENOS AYRES.
It was not till the 14th of November that the Boudeuse and Étoile, having taken in supplies of biscuit and bread, sailed, for the last time, from Montevideo. They made the entrance of the Strait of Magellan a fortnight afterwards. On the 8th of December, they saw a number of Patagonians, who had kept up fires all night, hoisting a white flag on an eminence,—a flag which some European ship had evidently given them as a pledge of alliance. Bougainville went on shore, where some thirty natives received him with every mark of good will. They embraced him and his party, shook hands with them, and imitated the report of muskets with their mouths, showing that they were accustomed to fire-arms. They aided the botanist in collecting plants and simples, and one of them applied to the physician for a prescription for his inflamed eye. They asked for tobacco, and swallowed small draughts of brandy, blowing with their mouths after the draught and uttering a tremulous inarticulate sound. They begged them to remain over night, and, upon theinvitation being politely declined, accompanied them with ceremony to the shore.
BOUGAINVILLE IN MAGELLAN'S STRAIT.
BOUGAINVILLE IN MAGELLAN'S STRAIT.
BOUGAINVILLE IN MAGELLAN'S STRAIT.
Bougainville, with three of his officers, spent some hours in taking soundings near Cape Froward. Perceiving a small flat rock, which barely afforded them standing-room, they mounted upon it, hoisted their colors, and shouted Vive le Roi! The coast now resounded for the first time, says Bougainville, with this compliment to his majesty. Upon which an English commentator remarks "that it is a striking instance of the vanity by which the French nation is distinguished." The vessels, being retarded by constant head-winds and harassed by violent storms, occupied fifty-two days in threading the channel, and the month of January, 1768, was well advanced before they discovered the boundless expanse of the Pacific.
Sailing to the northwest, they passed several low, half-drowned islands, one of which Bougainville called Harp Island. A cluster of reefs he called the Dangerous Archipelago. Sorethroats now troubling the crew, he attributed them to the snow-water of the Strait, and cured them by putting a pint of vinegar and a dozen red-hot bullets into the daily water-cask. He combated the scurvy by employing lemonade prepared from a concentration in the form of powder. He made fresh water from salt water by means of a distilling apparatus which furnished a barrelful every night. In order to economize their drinking-water, their bread was kneaded with water dipped up from the sea. On the 4th of April, they discovered land; and fires burning during the night over a wide extent of coast showed them that it was inhabited and populous. In the morning a canoe propelled by twelve naked men approached. The chief, with a prodigious growth of hair which stood like bristles divergent on his head, offered the commander a cluster of bananas, indicating that this was the olive-branch in use in Tahiti,—the island at which the ships had now arrived. Presents were exchanged and an alliance effected.
The vessels were now surrounded with canoes laden with cocoanuts and bananas, and a brisk and tolerably honest trade was driven by the natives and the strangers. The aspect of the coast—the mountains covered with foliage to their very summits, the lowlands interspersed with meadows and with plantations of tropical fruit, cascades pouring down from the rocks into the sea, streams flowing among lovely clusters of huts situated upon the shore—offered an enchanting scene to the wearied crews. While the Boudeuse was casting her anchor, canoes filled with women came around her. "These," adds Bougainville, with characteristic French gallantry, "are not inferior for agreeable features to most European women. It was very difficult, amidst such a sight, to keep at their work four hundred young sailors who had seen none of the fair sex for six months. The capstan was never hove with more alacrity than on this occasion."
The captain and several officers now went on shore, where they were received with high glee by all, with the exception of avenerable man, apparently a philosopher, "whose thoughtful and suspicious air seemed to show that he feared the arrival of a new race of men would trouble those happy days which he had spent in peace." A poet, reclining beneath a tree, sang them a song to the accompaniment of a flute which a musician blew, not with his mouth, but with one of his nostrils. In return for this entertainment, the strangers gave, at night, an exhibition of sky-rockets, witch-quills, and other pyrotechnics. The chief, learning that the Prince of Nassau was a man of royal blood, offered him a wife; but, as the lady was advanced in years and correspondingly mature in appearance, the prince plead a previous union and escaped.
The vessels stayed here a fortnight, cutting wood and drawing water. They lost six anchors during their sojourn, and twice narrowly missed utter shipwreck,—"the worst consequence of which would have been to pass the remainder of their days on an isle adorned with all the gifts of nature, and to exchange the sweets of the mother-country for a peaceable life exempt from cares." The islanders expressed infinite regret at their departure,—one of them, Aotourou by name, being unable to endure the separation, and asking permission to go with them. He gave his young wife three pearls which he had in his ears, kissed her, and went on board the ship. Bougainville quitted the island on the 16th of April, no less surprised at the sorrow the inhabitants testified at his departure than at their affectionate confidence on his arrival.
He directed his course so as to avoid the Pernicious Isles, warned by the disasters of Roggewein to avoid them. Aotourou pointed at night to the bright star in Orion's shoulder, indicating that they should guide their course by it, and that in two days it would bring them to a fertile island where he had friends and children. Being vexed that no attention was paid to his advice, he rushed to the helm, seized the wheel, and endeavored to put the ship about. In the morning he climbed to the mast-head, andsought, in the distant horizon, the favored land of which he had spoken.
The vessels kept on steadily to the westward, passing through Navigator's Islands and the group which Quiros had named Espiritu Santo. To the latter Bougainville gave the name of Grandes Cyclades,—one, however, not destined to be long retained. He was at this time informed that Baré, the servant of M. de Commerçon, the botanist of the Étoile, was a woman. He went on board the store-ship to make investigations. He thought the report incredible, as Baré was already an expert botanist, and had acquired the name, during his excursions with his master among the snows of Magellan's Strait,—where he carried provisions, fire-arms, and bundles of plants,—of being his beast of burden. The first suspicion of him occurred at Tahiti, where the natives, with the keen intuition of savages, cried out in their dialect, "It is a woman!" and insisted on paying her the attentions due to her sex. When Bougainville went on board the Étoile, Baré, bathed in tears, admitted that she was a woman. She said she was an orphan, had served before in men's clothes, and that the idea of a voyage around the world had inflamed her curiosity. Bougainville does her the justice to state that she always behaved on board with the most scrupulous modesty. She was not handsome, and was twenty-seven years of age. She was the first woman that ever circumnavigated the globe.
It was not long before the provisions began to give out, and the crew were put upon half rations. The commander was soon obliged to forbid the eating of old leather, as it was becoming as scarce as biscuit and was quite as necessary. The butcher shed tears upon sacrificing a favorite goat, and Bougainville turned away his head as that sanguinary personage, with equally cruel intent, whistled to a young Patagonian dog. Breakers, reefs, and channels, where the tide ran fast and dangerously, indicated the presence of land, to which was given the name of Louisiade. This is a group of islands inhabited by Papuans.
On the coast of New Britain, at an uninhabited spot which Bougainville named Port Praslin, he obtained a supply of inferior provisions, such as thatch-palms, cabbage-trees, and mangle apples. A species of aromatic ivy was likewise found, in which the physicians discovered anti-scorbutic properties; and a store of it was therefore laid in. An immense cascade, which furnished the vessels with fresh water, is enthusiastically described by Bougainville. After a stay of eight days at Port Praslin, during which time the heavens were black with continual tempests, the vessels profited by a change of wind and continued their westerly course. The field-tents were cut up, and trousers made from them were distributed to the two ships' companies. Another ounce was taken from the daily allowance of bread. From time to time canoes would shoot out from the coast of New Britain; but the hostility and treachery of the natives rendered all efforts to obtain food from them unavailing.
CASCADE AT PORT PRASLIN.
CASCADE AT PORT PRASLIN.
CASCADE AT PORT PRASLIN.
On the 1st of September, Bougainville made the island of Boero, one of the Moluccas, where he knew the Dutch had a small factory and a weak garrison. All his men were now sick, without exception. The provisions remaining were so nauseous that, as he says, "the hardest moments of the sad days we passed were those when the bell gave us notice to take in this disgusting and unwholesome food. But now our misery was to have an end. Ever since midnight a pleasant scent exhaled from the aromaticplants with which the Moluccas abound; the aspect of a considerable town, situated in the bottom of the gulf, of ships at anchor there, and of cattle rambling through the meadows, caused transports which I have doubtless felt, but which I can not here describe."
It was found that the Dutch East India Company reigned supreme, and that the governor was disposed to keep to the letter of his instructions, which forbade him to receive any ships but those of the monopoly. Bougainville was obliged to plead the claims of hunger and considerations of humanity before the authorities would listen to him. They then furnished him with rice, poultry, sago, goats, fish, eggs, fruit, and venison, the latter being the flesh of stags introduced and acclimated by the Dutch. Henry Inman, the Dutch governor, though placed in a critical position by this arrival, behaved as became an honorable and generous man. He first did his duty towards his superiors, and then towards fellow-creatures in distress. Aotourou, the Tahitian, not being taken ashore by the commander on his first visit, imagined that it was because he was bow-legged and knock-kneed, and begged some of the sailors to stand upon his legs and straighten them out.
During the run back to France, by way of the Cape of Good Hope, St. Helena, and the Cape Verd Islands, nothing happened which requires mention here. Bougainville entered the port of St. Malo on the 16th of March, 1769, having been absent two years and four months, and having lost but seven men during the voyage. He was the first Frenchman who ever went round the world in one ship,—one Gentil de la Barbinais, a pirate, having accomplished a voyage of circumnavigation in several ships, some fifty years before. He sustained his claim to this honor by publishing, two years afterwards, a narrative of his expedition, written in an animated and graceful style, and which established his reputation as a sailor and explorer.
CAPTAIN JAMES COOK.CHAPTER XLIII.EXPEDITION DESPATCHED AT THE INSTANCE OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY—LIEUTENANT JAMES COOK—INCIDENTS OF THE VOYAGE—A NIGHT ON SHORE IN TERRA DEL FUEGO—ARRIVAL AT TAHITI—THE NATIVES PICK THEIR POCKETS—THE OBSERVATORY—A NATIVE CHEWS A QUID OF TOBACCO—THE TRANSIT OF VENUS—TWO OF THE MARINES TAKE UNTO THEMSELVES WIVES—NEW ZEALAND—ADVENTURES THERE—REMARKABLE WAR-CANOE—CANNIBALISM DEMONSTRATED—THEORY OF A SOUTHERN CONTINENT SUBVERTED—NEW HOLLAND—BOTANY BAY—THE ENDEAVOR ON THE ROCKS—EXPEDIENT TO STOP THE LEAK—A CONFLAGRATION—PASSAGE THROUGH A REEF—ARRIVAL AT BATAVIA—MORTALITY ON THE VOYAGE HOME—COOK PROMOTED TO THE RANK OF COMMANDER.In the year 1768, the Royal Society of England induced the Government to equip and despatch a vessel to the South Seas. The reader may perhaps imagine—and, from what has preceded in this volume, he would be amply justified in so doing—that its purpose was plunder, and its object either the capture of the Manilla galleon or the sack and pillage of the luckless town ofPaita. Thirty years, however, have elapsed since the voyage of Anson,—the last of the royal buccaneers. The vessel whose career we are now to chronicle sought neither capture, nor spoil, nor prize-money. It was a peaceful ship, with a peaceful name,—the Endeavor: her commander bore a name to be rendered illustrious by peaceful deeds, and he was bound upon a peaceful errand. James Cook, an officer of forty years of age, who had rendered efficient service in America, at the capture of Quebec, and who had shown himself a capable astronomer, was instructed to proceed to the island named Sagittaria by Quiros, and King George the Third's Island by Wallis, there to observe and record the transit of the planet Venus over the disk of the sun. The position of the island as reported by Wallis was deemed to be exceedingly favorable for such an observation. Cook was promoted to the rank of lieutenant; Charles Green was attached to the ship in the capacity of astronomer, Joseph Banks and Solander—the latter a Swede and a pupil of Linnæus—in that of naturalists, Buchan as draughtsman, and Parkinson as painter. The vessel sailed from Plymouth Sound, with a fair wind, on the 25th of August.The voyage to Rio Janeiro was enlivened by many incidents now of quite ordinary occurrence, but novel and interesting to navigators one hundred years ago. They saw flying-fish whose scales had the color and brightness of burnished silver. They caught a specimen of that species of mollusk which sailors call a Portuguese Man-of-War,—a creature ornamented with exquisite pink veins, and which spreads before-the wind a membrane which it uses as a sail. They observed that luminous appearance of the sea now familiar to all, but then a startling novelty. They were of opinion that it proceeded from some light-emitting animal: they threw over their casting-net, and drew up vast numbers of medusæ, which had the appearance of metal heated to a glow and gave forth a white and silvery effulgence. At Rio Janeiro the viceroy regarded them with strong suspicion, and refused toallow Mr. Banks to collect plants upon the shore. He could not understand the transit of Venus over the sun, which he was told was an astronomical phenomenon of great importance,—having gathered the idea from his interpreter that it was the passage of the North Star through the South Pole. On Wednesday, the 7th of December, they again weighed anchor, and left the American dominions of the King of Portugal, the air at the time being laden with butterflies, and several thousands of them hovering playfully about the mast-head.Towards the 1st of January, 1769, the sailors began to complain of cold, and each of them received a Magellanic jacket. On the 11th, in the midst of penguins, albatrosses, sheer-waters, seals, whales, and porpoises, they descried the Falkland Islands, and, soon after, the coast of Terra del Fuego. On the 15th, ten or twelve of the company went on shore, and were met by thirty or forty of the natives. Each of the latter had a small stick in his hand, which he threw away, seeming to indicate by this pantomime a renunciation of weapons in token of peace. Acquaintance was then speedily made: beads and ribbons were distributed, and a mutual confidence and good-will produced. Conversation ensued,—if speaking without conveying a meaning, and listening without comprehending, can be called so. Three Indians accompanied the strangers back to the ship. One of them, apparently a priest, performed a ceremony of exorcism, vociferating with all his force at each new portion of the vessel which met his gaze, seemingly for the purpose of dispelling the influence of magic which he supposed to prevail there.A botanical party under Solander and Banks attempted an excursion into the interior, for the purpose of obtaining specimens of the plants of the country. The snow lay deep upon the ground, and the weather was very severe. An accident rendered it impossible for them to return to the ship; and they were compelled to pass the night, without shelter, among the mountains. Solander well knew that extreme cold, when joinedwith fatigue, produces a torpor and sleepiness which are almost irresistible: he therefore conjured the company to keep moving, whatever pain it might cost them. "Whoever sits down," said he, "will sleep; and whoever sleeps will wake no more." He was the first to find the inclination, against which he had warned others, unconquerable, and he insisted upon being suffered to lie down upon the snow. He declared that he must obtain some sleep, though he had but just spoken of the perils with which sleep was attended. He soon fell into a profound slumber, in which he remained five minutes. He was then awakened, upon the reception of the news that a fire had been kindled. He was roused with great difficulty, and found that he had almost lost the use of his limbs, his muscles being so shrunk that his shoes fell from his feet. Richmond, a black servant, slept and never woke: two others, overcome with languor, made their bed and shroud in the snow. Such are the terrible effects of cold in the Land of Fire.On the 22d of January, Cook weighed anchor and commenced the passage through the Straits of Lemaire; on the 26th, he doubled Cape Horn and entered the Pacific Ocean. He sailed for many weeks to the westward, making many of the islands which had been discovered the year before by the French navigator Bougainville, and himself discovering others. On the 11th of April, he arrived at King George's Island, his destination, and the next morning came to anchor in Port Royal Bay, in thirteen fathoms' water. The natives brought branches of a tree, which seemed to be their emblem of peace, and indicated by their gestures that they should be placed in some conspicuous part of the ship's rigging. They then brought fish, cocoanuts, and bread-fruit, which they exchanged for beads and glass. The ship's company went on shore, and mingled in various ceremonies instituted for the purpose of promoting fellowship and good-will. During one of these, Dr. Solander and Mr. Markhouse—the latter a midshipman—suddenly complained that their pockets had beenpicked. Dr. Solander had lost an opera-glass in a shagreen case, and Mr. Markhouse had been relieved of a valuable snuff-box. A hue and cry was raised, and the chief of the tribe informed of the theft. After great effort and a long delay, the shagreen case was recovered; but the opera-glass was not in it. After another search, however, it was found and restored. The savages, upon being asked the name of their island, replied, O-Tahiti,—"It is Tahiti." The present mode of writing it, therefore,—Otaheite,—is erroneous: Tahiti is the proper spelling.Cook now made preparations for observing the transit of Venus. He laid out a tract of land on shore, and received from the chief of the natives a present of the roof of a house, as his contribution to science. He erected his observatory under the protection of the guns of his vessel, being somewhat suspicious of the object of such constant offerings of branches as the inhabitants insisted upon making. Mr. Parkinson, the painter, found it difficult to prosecute his labors; for the flies covered his paper to such a depth that he could not see it, and eat off the color as fast as he applied it. The music of the country, as the party gathered from a serenade played in their honor, was at once eccentric and laborious. The favorite instrument was a sort of German flute, which sounded but four semitones. The performer did not apply this apparatus to his mouth, but, stopping up one of his nostrils with his thumb, blew into it with the other, as Bougainville had already had occasion to observe.One day Mr. Banks was informed that an Indian friend of his, Tubourai by name, was dying, in consequence of something which the sailors had given him to eat. He hastened to his hut, and found the invalid leaning his head against a post in an attitude of the utmost despondency. The islanders about him intimated that he had been vomiting, and produced a leaf folded up with great care, which they said contained some of the poison from the fatal effects of which he was now expiring. He had chewed the portion he had taken to powder, and had swallowedthe spittle. During Mr. Banks's examination of the leaf and its contents, he looked up with the most piteous aspect, intimating that he had but a short time to live. The deadly substance proved to be a quid of tobacco. Mr. Banks prescribed a plentiful dose of cocoanut-milk, which speedily dispelled Tubourai's sickness and apprehensions.On the 1st of May, the astronomical quadrant was taken on shore for the first time and deposited in Cook's tent. The next morning it was missing, and a vigorous search was instituted. It had been stolen by the natives and carried seven miles into the interior. Through the intervention of Tubourai it was recovered and replaced in the observatory.Thus far the integrity of Tubourai had been proof against every temptation. He had withstood the allurements of beads, hatchets, colored cloth, and quadrants, but was finally led astray by the fascinations of a basket of nails. The basket was known to have contained seven nails of unusual length, and out of these seven five were missing. One was found upon his person; and he was told that if he would bring back the other four to the fort the affair should be forgotten. He promised to do so, but, instead of fulfilling his promise, removed with his family to the interior, taking the nails and all his furniture with him.The transit of Venus was observed, with perfect success, on the 3d of June, by means of three telescopes of different magnifying powers, by Cook, Dr. Solander, and Mr. Green. Not a cloud passed over the sky from the rising to the setting of the sun. A party of natives contemplated the process in solemn silence, and were made to understand that the strangers had visited their island for the express purpose of witnessing the immersion of the planet.The ship was to leave Tahiti on the 10th of June, and the time was now spent in preparations for departure. On the evening of the 9th, it was discovered that two marines, Webb and Gibson, had gone ashore, and were not to be found. It was ascertained thatthey had married two young girls of the island, with whom they had been in the habit of having stolen interviews, and to whom they were very much attached. They were recovered with much difficulty, and compelled, by the stern laws of the naval service, to leave their wives behind them. The vessel sailed on the 13th, an Indian named Tupia having been gratified in his desire to accompany Cook upon his voyage. As the anchor was weighed, he ascended to the mast-head, weeping, and waving a handkerchief to his friends in the canoe. The latter vied with each other in the violence of their lamentations, which was considered by the English as more affected than genuine.Lieutenant Cook now discovered, successively, the various islands which he regarded as forming an archipelago, and to which he gave the name of Society Islands. He left the last of them on the 15th of August, and on the 25th celebrated the anniversary of their leaving England by taking a Cheshire cheese from a locker and tapping a cask of porter. On the 30th, they saw the comet of that year, Tupia remarking with some agitation that it would foment dissensions between the inhabitants of the two islands of Bolabola and Ulieta, who would seem, from this, to have been peculiarly susceptible to meteorological influences. On the 7th of October, they discovered land, and anchored in an inlet to which they gave the name of Poverty Bay. This was the northeast coast of New Zealand,—an island discovered in 1642 by Tasman, and which had not been seen since, a space of one hundred and twenty-seven years. The natives received them with distrust, and several of them were somewhat unnecessarily killed by musket-shots. All efforts to enter into amicable relations with them failed, and Cook determined to make another attempt at some other point of the coast. Here a bloody fight took place, which resulted in the capture of three young savages by Cook's men. They expected to be put to death, and, when relieved from their apprehension by the kindness with which they were treated, were suddenly seized with a voracious appetite, andseemed to be in the highest possible spirits. During the night, however, they gave way to grief, sighed often and deeply, and sang low and solemn tunes like psalms. The next morning they were brilliantly decorated with beads, bracelets, and necklaces, and displayed in this guise to their countrymen on shore. The negotiation totally failed: the boys were sent home, and the ship stood away from the inhospitable shore on Wednesday, the 11th.Cook coasted along the island to the south, now alarming the natives by a single musket-shot, now dispersing a hostile fleet of a dozen well-armed canoes by a discharge of a four-pounder loaded with grape-shot, but aimed wide of the mark. At another time Tupia would be ordered to acquaint a party of shouting and dancing savages that the strangers had weapons which, like thunder, would instantaneously destroy them. Cook was badly worsted in a bargain he made with a species of New Zealand confidence-man, who came under the stern and proposed to trade. Cook offered him a piece of red baize for his bear-skin coat. The savage accepted. Cook passed over the article, upon which the islander paddled rapidly away, taking with him the baize and the bear-skin. An attempt made by a party of the natives to kidnap Tupia's servant, Tayeto,—a Tahitian like himself,—and which was near being successful, induced Cook to name the deep indentation of the sea at this point of the coast, Kidnapper's Bay.Somewhat farther to the south they found the natives more disposed to be friendly, and Mr. Banks and Dr. Solander went ashore and shot several birds of exquisite beauty. Some of the ship's company returned at night with their noses besmeared with red ochre and oil,—a circumstance which Cook explains by saying that "the ladies paint their faces with substances which are generally fresh and wet upon their cheeks and were easily transferred to the noses of those who chose to salute them. These ladies," he goes on to say, "were as great coquettes as any of the most fashionable dames in Europe, and the young ones as skittish asan unbroken filly. Each of them wore a petticoat, under which was a girdle made of the blades of highly-perfumed grass."At another point they set up the armorer's forge, to repair the braces of the tiller. They here met an old man who insisted on showing them the military exercises of the country, with a lance twelve feet long, and a battle-axe made of bone and called a patoo-patoo. An upright stake was made to represent the enemy, upon which he advanced with great fury: when he was supposed to have pierced the adversary, he split his skull with his axe. From this final act it was inferred that in the battles of this country there was no quarter. It was also ascertained that cannibalism was a constant and favorite practice. They here saw the largest canoe they had yet met with. She was sixty-eight feet and a half long, five broad, and three deep: she had a sharp keel, consisting of three trunks of trees hollowed out: the side-planks were sixty-two feet long in one piece, and quite elaborately carved in bas-relief: the figure-head was also a masterpiece of sculpture.A NEW ZEALAND CANOE.The expedition had thus far been sailing to the southward. Dissatisfied with the results, and finding it difficult to procure water in sufficient quantities, Cook put about, determining to follow the coast to the northward. He named a promontory in the neighborhood Cape Turnagain. Another promontory, more tothe north, where a huge canoe made a hasty retreat, he called Cape Runaway. On the 9th of November, the transit of Mercury was successfully observed, and the name of Mercury Bay given to the inlet where the observation was made. Two localities, for reasons which will be obvious, were called Oyster Bay and Mangrove River. Before leaving Mercury Bay, Cook caused to be cut, upon one of the trees near the watering-place, the ship's name, and his own, with the date of their arrival there, and, after displaying the English colors, took formal possession of it in the name of his Britannic Majesty King George the Third.On the 17th of December, they doubled North Cape, which is the northern extremity of the island, and commenced descending its western side. The weather now became stormy and the coast dangerous, so that the vessel was obliged to stand off to great distances, and intercourse with the natives was very much interrupted. At one point, however, the English satisfied themselves that the inhabitants ate human flesh,—the flesh, at least, of enemies who had been killed in battle. An Indian, to convince Mr. Banks of the truth of this, seized the bone of a human fore-arm divested of its flesh, bit and gnawed it, drawing it through his mouth, and indicating by signs that it afforded him a delicious repast. The bone was then returned to Mr. Banks, who took it on board ship with him as a trophy and a souvenir. He was afterwards told that the New Zealanders ate no portion of the heads of their enemies but the seat of the intellect, and was assured that as soon as a fight should take place they would treat him to the sight of a banquet of brains.By the end of March, 1770, the ship had circumnavigated the two islands forming what is now known as New Zealand, and had therefore proved—what was before uncertain—that it was insular, and not a portion of any grand Southern mainland. The whole voyage, in fact, had been unfavorable to the notion of a Southern continent, for it had swept away at least three-quarters of the positions upon which it had been founded. Ithad also totally subverted the theory according to which the existence of a Southern continent was necessary to preserve an equilibrium between the Northern and Southern hemispheres; for it had already proved the presence of sufficient water to render the Southern hemisphere too light, even if all the rest should be land.The vessel left New Zealand on the 31st of March, sailing due west, and, on the 18th of April, Mr. Hicks, the first lieutenant, discovered land directly in the ship's path. This was the most southerly point of New Holland, and was called, from its discoverer, Point Hicks. Cook followed the coast for many days to the northward; and it was only on the third that he learned, from ascending smoke, that the country was inhabited. On the thirteenth, he saw a party of natives walking briskly upon the shore. These subsequently retired, leaving the defence of the coast to two persons of very singular appearance. Their faces had been dusted with a white powder, and their bodies painted with broad streaks of the same color, which, passing obliquely over their breasts and backs, looked not unlike the cross-belts worn by civilized soldiers: the same kind of streaks were also drawn round their legs and thighs, like broad garters. Each of them held in his hand a weapon two feet and a half long. The landing party detached by Cook numbered forty men; and one of the musketeers was ordered to show the two champions the folly of resistance, by lodging a charge of small shot in their legs. The wooders and waterers then went ashore, and with some difficulty obtained the necessary supplies.Early in May, Cook landed at a spot to which, from a casual circumstance, he gave the name ofBotany Bay,—a name now famous the world over. Mr. Banks and Dr. Solander collected here large quantities of plants, flowers, and branches of unknown trees; and it was this incident that furnished the pastoral appellation to the Retreat for Transported Criminals. They found the woods filled with birds of the most exquisite beauty; theshallow coasts were haunted with flocks of waterfowl resembling swans and pelicans; the mud-banks harbored vast quantities of oysters, muscles, cockles, and other shell-fish. The inhabitants went totally naked, would never parley with the strangers, and did not seem to understand the Tahitian dialect of Tupia.At a place which, in consequence of the difficulty of procuring fresh water, received the name of Thirsty Sound, the watering party met with singular adventures. They found walking exceedingly difficult, owing to the ground being covered with a kind of grass, the seeds of which were very sharp and bearded backwards, so that when they stuck into their clothes they worked forward by means of the beard till they pierced the flesh. Mosquitos stung them at every pore. The air was so filled with butterflies that they saw, smelt, tasted, and breathed butterflies. Black ants swarmed upon the trees, eating out the pith from the small branches and then inhabiting the pipe which had contained it; and yet the branches, thus deprived of their marrow and occupied by millions of insects, bore leaves, flowers, and even fruit. They saw a species of fish resembling a minnow, which appeared to prefer land to water: it leaped before them, by means of its breast-fins, as nimbly as a frog; when found in the water it frequently jumped out and pursued its way upon the dry ground; in places where small stones were standing above the surface of the water at a little distance from each other, it chose rather to leap from stone to stone than to pass through the water. They saw several of them proceed dry-shod over large puddles in this ingenious and unusual manner. The ship left Thirsty Sound on the 31st of May.On the night of Sunday, the 10th of June, the vessel struck at high tide upon a rock which lay concealed in seventeen fathoms' water, and beat so violently against it that there seemed little hope of saving her. Land was twenty-five miles off, with no intervening island in sight. The sheathing-boards were soon seen to be floating away all around, and the false keelwas finally torn off. The six deck-guns, all the iron and stone ballast, casks, staves, oil-jars, decayed stores, to the weight of fifty tons, were thrown overboard with the utmost expedition. To Cook's dismay, the vessel, thus lightened, did not float by a foot and a half at high tide,—so much did the day tide fall short of that of the night. They again threw overboard every thing which it was possible to spare; but the vessel now began to leak, and it was feared she must go to the bottom as soon as she ceased to be supported by the rock,—so that the floating of the ship was anticipated not as a means of deliverance, but as an event that would precipitate her destruction. The ship floated at ten o'clock, and was heaved into deep water: there were nearly four feet of water in the hold. The leak was held at bay for a time; but the men were finally exhausted, and threw themselves down upon the deck, flooded as it was to the depth of three inches by water from the pumps. The vessel was finally saved by the following expedient, proposed and executed by Mr. Markhouse. He took a lower studding-sail, and having mixed together a large quantity of oakum and wool, chopped pretty small, stitched it down in handfuls upon the sail as tightly as possible. The sail was then hauled under the ship's bottom by ropes; and, when it came under the leak, the suction which carried in the water carried in with it the oakum and the wool. The leak was so far reduced that it was easily kept under by one pump. The vessel was finally got ashore and beached in Endeavor River: the surrounding localities were fitly named Tribulation Bay, Weary Point, and the Islands of Hope.The repairs of the vessel occupied many weeks,—the officers and crew occupying themselves in the mean time in fishing, in endeavors to obtain interviews with the natives, and in excursions for botanical or geological purposes. On the 14th of July, Mr. Gore killed an animal which had excited the interest and curiosity of the English in the highest degree, being totally unlike any animal then known. The name given by the natives tothis creature was "kangaroo." He was dressed the next day for dinner, and proved most excellent fare.A party of natives in the neighborhood having been rendered hostile by the refusal of a pair of fat turtle belonging to the ship, they snatched a brand from under a pitch-kettle which was boiling, and, making a circuit to the windward of the few articles on shore, set fire to the grass in their way. This grass, which was five or six feet high and as dry as stubble, burned with amazing fury. The fire made rapid progress towards a tent where the unhappy Tupia was lying sick of the scurvy, scorching in its course a sow and two pigs. Tupia and the tent were saved in the nick of time: the armorer's forge, or such parts of it as would burn, was consumed. The powder, which had been taken ashore, had been transported back to the magazine but two days before. At night, the hills on every side were discovered to be on fire,—the conflagration having spread with wonderful celerity. On the 3d of August, the ship sailed from Endeavor River, the carpenter having at last completed the necessary repairs.The ship now coasted along the edge of a reef which stretched out some twenty miles from the shore. This became suddenly of so formidable an aspect, and the winds and waves rolled them towards it with such sure and fatal speed, that the boats were got out and sent ahead to tow, and finally succeeded in getting the ship's head round. The surf was now breaking to a tremendous height within two hundred yards: the water beneath them was unfathomable. An opening in the reef was now discovered, and the dangerous expedient of forcing the ship through it was successfully tried. They anchored in nineteen fathoms' water, over a bottom of coral and shells. The opening through the reef received the name of Providential Channel.They sailed to the northward many days within the reef, till they at last found a safe passage out. Cook then for the last time hoisted English colors upon the eastern coast, which he wasconfident no European had seen before, and took possession of its whole extent, from south latitude thirty-eight to latitude ten. He claimed it, in behalf of his Majesty King George the Third, by the name of New South Wales, with all its bays, rivers, harbors, and islands. Three volleys of small-arms were then fired, and the spot upon which the ceremony was performed was named Possession Island. The ship passed out to the westward, finding open sea to the north of New Holland,—a circumstance which gave great satisfaction to all on board, as it showed that New Holland and New Guinea were separate islands, and not, as had been imagined, different parts of the supposed Southern continent. On Thursday, the 24th of August, the ship left New Holland, steering towards the northwest, with the intention of making the coast of New Guinea.Early in September they arrived among a group of islands which they supposed to lie along the coast of New Guinea. As they attempted to land, Indians rushed out of the thickets upon them, with hideous shouts, one of them throwing something from his hand which burned like gunpowder but made no report. Their numbers soon increased, and they discharged these noiseless flashes by four and five at a time. The smoke resembled that of a musket; and, as they held long hollow canes in their hands, the illusion would have been perfect had the combustion been accompanied by concussion. Those on board the ship were convinced the natives possessed fire-arms, supposing that the direction of the wind prevented the sound of the discharge from reaching them. Cook determined to lose no time in this latitude, having accomplished what he considered as of paramount importance; that is, he had sailed between the two lands of New Holland and New Guinea, and had thus established their insular character beyond any possibility of controversy.He now sailed to the west, and anchored, on the 8th of October, at Batavia, in Java. Here he laid up the ship for repairs. "What anxieties we had escaped," he writes, "in our ignorance that alarge portion of the keel had been diminished to the thickness of the under leather of a shoe!" But the ship's company, which had been so wonderfully preserved from the perils of the sea, were destined to undergo the rude attacks of disease upon land. Markhouse, the surgeon, Tupia and Tayeto, the Tahitians, and four sailors, were rapidly carried off by fever. On the 27th of December, the ship weighed anchor, the sick-list including forty names. Before doubling the Cape of Good Hope, she lost Sporing, one of the assistant naturalists, Parkinson, the artist, Green, the astronomer, Molineux, the master, besides the second lieutenant, four carpenters, and ten sailors. Cook was forced to wait a month at the Cape; and on the 12th of July, 1771, he cast anchor in the Downs, after a cruise of three eventful years. His crew was decimated and his ship no longer sea-worthy. The skill and enterprise displayed by Cook, and the important results attained by the voyage, induced the Government to raise him to the rank of commander. We shall follow him upon his second voyage, in the next chapter.CAPE PIGEON.
CAPTAIN JAMES COOK.
CAPTAIN JAMES COOK.
CAPTAIN JAMES COOK.
EXPEDITION DESPATCHED AT THE INSTANCE OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY—LIEUTENANT JAMES COOK—INCIDENTS OF THE VOYAGE—A NIGHT ON SHORE IN TERRA DEL FUEGO—ARRIVAL AT TAHITI—THE NATIVES PICK THEIR POCKETS—THE OBSERVATORY—A NATIVE CHEWS A QUID OF TOBACCO—THE TRANSIT OF VENUS—TWO OF THE MARINES TAKE UNTO THEMSELVES WIVES—NEW ZEALAND—ADVENTURES THERE—REMARKABLE WAR-CANOE—CANNIBALISM DEMONSTRATED—THEORY OF A SOUTHERN CONTINENT SUBVERTED—NEW HOLLAND—BOTANY BAY—THE ENDEAVOR ON THE ROCKS—EXPEDIENT TO STOP THE LEAK—A CONFLAGRATION—PASSAGE THROUGH A REEF—ARRIVAL AT BATAVIA—MORTALITY ON THE VOYAGE HOME—COOK PROMOTED TO THE RANK OF COMMANDER.
In the year 1768, the Royal Society of England induced the Government to equip and despatch a vessel to the South Seas. The reader may perhaps imagine—and, from what has preceded in this volume, he would be amply justified in so doing—that its purpose was plunder, and its object either the capture of the Manilla galleon or the sack and pillage of the luckless town ofPaita. Thirty years, however, have elapsed since the voyage of Anson,—the last of the royal buccaneers. The vessel whose career we are now to chronicle sought neither capture, nor spoil, nor prize-money. It was a peaceful ship, with a peaceful name,—the Endeavor: her commander bore a name to be rendered illustrious by peaceful deeds, and he was bound upon a peaceful errand. James Cook, an officer of forty years of age, who had rendered efficient service in America, at the capture of Quebec, and who had shown himself a capable astronomer, was instructed to proceed to the island named Sagittaria by Quiros, and King George the Third's Island by Wallis, there to observe and record the transit of the planet Venus over the disk of the sun. The position of the island as reported by Wallis was deemed to be exceedingly favorable for such an observation. Cook was promoted to the rank of lieutenant; Charles Green was attached to the ship in the capacity of astronomer, Joseph Banks and Solander—the latter a Swede and a pupil of Linnæus—in that of naturalists, Buchan as draughtsman, and Parkinson as painter. The vessel sailed from Plymouth Sound, with a fair wind, on the 25th of August.
The voyage to Rio Janeiro was enlivened by many incidents now of quite ordinary occurrence, but novel and interesting to navigators one hundred years ago. They saw flying-fish whose scales had the color and brightness of burnished silver. They caught a specimen of that species of mollusk which sailors call a Portuguese Man-of-War,—a creature ornamented with exquisite pink veins, and which spreads before-the wind a membrane which it uses as a sail. They observed that luminous appearance of the sea now familiar to all, but then a startling novelty. They were of opinion that it proceeded from some light-emitting animal: they threw over their casting-net, and drew up vast numbers of medusæ, which had the appearance of metal heated to a glow and gave forth a white and silvery effulgence. At Rio Janeiro the viceroy regarded them with strong suspicion, and refused toallow Mr. Banks to collect plants upon the shore. He could not understand the transit of Venus over the sun, which he was told was an astronomical phenomenon of great importance,—having gathered the idea from his interpreter that it was the passage of the North Star through the South Pole. On Wednesday, the 7th of December, they again weighed anchor, and left the American dominions of the King of Portugal, the air at the time being laden with butterflies, and several thousands of them hovering playfully about the mast-head.
Towards the 1st of January, 1769, the sailors began to complain of cold, and each of them received a Magellanic jacket. On the 11th, in the midst of penguins, albatrosses, sheer-waters, seals, whales, and porpoises, they descried the Falkland Islands, and, soon after, the coast of Terra del Fuego. On the 15th, ten or twelve of the company went on shore, and were met by thirty or forty of the natives. Each of the latter had a small stick in his hand, which he threw away, seeming to indicate by this pantomime a renunciation of weapons in token of peace. Acquaintance was then speedily made: beads and ribbons were distributed, and a mutual confidence and good-will produced. Conversation ensued,—if speaking without conveying a meaning, and listening without comprehending, can be called so. Three Indians accompanied the strangers back to the ship. One of them, apparently a priest, performed a ceremony of exorcism, vociferating with all his force at each new portion of the vessel which met his gaze, seemingly for the purpose of dispelling the influence of magic which he supposed to prevail there.
A botanical party under Solander and Banks attempted an excursion into the interior, for the purpose of obtaining specimens of the plants of the country. The snow lay deep upon the ground, and the weather was very severe. An accident rendered it impossible for them to return to the ship; and they were compelled to pass the night, without shelter, among the mountains. Solander well knew that extreme cold, when joinedwith fatigue, produces a torpor and sleepiness which are almost irresistible: he therefore conjured the company to keep moving, whatever pain it might cost them. "Whoever sits down," said he, "will sleep; and whoever sleeps will wake no more." He was the first to find the inclination, against which he had warned others, unconquerable, and he insisted upon being suffered to lie down upon the snow. He declared that he must obtain some sleep, though he had but just spoken of the perils with which sleep was attended. He soon fell into a profound slumber, in which he remained five minutes. He was then awakened, upon the reception of the news that a fire had been kindled. He was roused with great difficulty, and found that he had almost lost the use of his limbs, his muscles being so shrunk that his shoes fell from his feet. Richmond, a black servant, slept and never woke: two others, overcome with languor, made their bed and shroud in the snow. Such are the terrible effects of cold in the Land of Fire.
On the 22d of January, Cook weighed anchor and commenced the passage through the Straits of Lemaire; on the 26th, he doubled Cape Horn and entered the Pacific Ocean. He sailed for many weeks to the westward, making many of the islands which had been discovered the year before by the French navigator Bougainville, and himself discovering others. On the 11th of April, he arrived at King George's Island, his destination, and the next morning came to anchor in Port Royal Bay, in thirteen fathoms' water. The natives brought branches of a tree, which seemed to be their emblem of peace, and indicated by their gestures that they should be placed in some conspicuous part of the ship's rigging. They then brought fish, cocoanuts, and bread-fruit, which they exchanged for beads and glass. The ship's company went on shore, and mingled in various ceremonies instituted for the purpose of promoting fellowship and good-will. During one of these, Dr. Solander and Mr. Markhouse—the latter a midshipman—suddenly complained that their pockets had beenpicked. Dr. Solander had lost an opera-glass in a shagreen case, and Mr. Markhouse had been relieved of a valuable snuff-box. A hue and cry was raised, and the chief of the tribe informed of the theft. After great effort and a long delay, the shagreen case was recovered; but the opera-glass was not in it. After another search, however, it was found and restored. The savages, upon being asked the name of their island, replied, O-Tahiti,—"It is Tahiti." The present mode of writing it, therefore,—Otaheite,—is erroneous: Tahiti is the proper spelling.
Cook now made preparations for observing the transit of Venus. He laid out a tract of land on shore, and received from the chief of the natives a present of the roof of a house, as his contribution to science. He erected his observatory under the protection of the guns of his vessel, being somewhat suspicious of the object of such constant offerings of branches as the inhabitants insisted upon making. Mr. Parkinson, the painter, found it difficult to prosecute his labors; for the flies covered his paper to such a depth that he could not see it, and eat off the color as fast as he applied it. The music of the country, as the party gathered from a serenade played in their honor, was at once eccentric and laborious. The favorite instrument was a sort of German flute, which sounded but four semitones. The performer did not apply this apparatus to his mouth, but, stopping up one of his nostrils with his thumb, blew into it with the other, as Bougainville had already had occasion to observe.
One day Mr. Banks was informed that an Indian friend of his, Tubourai by name, was dying, in consequence of something which the sailors had given him to eat. He hastened to his hut, and found the invalid leaning his head against a post in an attitude of the utmost despondency. The islanders about him intimated that he had been vomiting, and produced a leaf folded up with great care, which they said contained some of the poison from the fatal effects of which he was now expiring. He had chewed the portion he had taken to powder, and had swallowedthe spittle. During Mr. Banks's examination of the leaf and its contents, he looked up with the most piteous aspect, intimating that he had but a short time to live. The deadly substance proved to be a quid of tobacco. Mr. Banks prescribed a plentiful dose of cocoanut-milk, which speedily dispelled Tubourai's sickness and apprehensions.
On the 1st of May, the astronomical quadrant was taken on shore for the first time and deposited in Cook's tent. The next morning it was missing, and a vigorous search was instituted. It had been stolen by the natives and carried seven miles into the interior. Through the intervention of Tubourai it was recovered and replaced in the observatory.
Thus far the integrity of Tubourai had been proof against every temptation. He had withstood the allurements of beads, hatchets, colored cloth, and quadrants, but was finally led astray by the fascinations of a basket of nails. The basket was known to have contained seven nails of unusual length, and out of these seven five were missing. One was found upon his person; and he was told that if he would bring back the other four to the fort the affair should be forgotten. He promised to do so, but, instead of fulfilling his promise, removed with his family to the interior, taking the nails and all his furniture with him.
The transit of Venus was observed, with perfect success, on the 3d of June, by means of three telescopes of different magnifying powers, by Cook, Dr. Solander, and Mr. Green. Not a cloud passed over the sky from the rising to the setting of the sun. A party of natives contemplated the process in solemn silence, and were made to understand that the strangers had visited their island for the express purpose of witnessing the immersion of the planet.
The ship was to leave Tahiti on the 10th of June, and the time was now spent in preparations for departure. On the evening of the 9th, it was discovered that two marines, Webb and Gibson, had gone ashore, and were not to be found. It was ascertained thatthey had married two young girls of the island, with whom they had been in the habit of having stolen interviews, and to whom they were very much attached. They were recovered with much difficulty, and compelled, by the stern laws of the naval service, to leave their wives behind them. The vessel sailed on the 13th, an Indian named Tupia having been gratified in his desire to accompany Cook upon his voyage. As the anchor was weighed, he ascended to the mast-head, weeping, and waving a handkerchief to his friends in the canoe. The latter vied with each other in the violence of their lamentations, which was considered by the English as more affected than genuine.
Lieutenant Cook now discovered, successively, the various islands which he regarded as forming an archipelago, and to which he gave the name of Society Islands. He left the last of them on the 15th of August, and on the 25th celebrated the anniversary of their leaving England by taking a Cheshire cheese from a locker and tapping a cask of porter. On the 30th, they saw the comet of that year, Tupia remarking with some agitation that it would foment dissensions between the inhabitants of the two islands of Bolabola and Ulieta, who would seem, from this, to have been peculiarly susceptible to meteorological influences. On the 7th of October, they discovered land, and anchored in an inlet to which they gave the name of Poverty Bay. This was the northeast coast of New Zealand,—an island discovered in 1642 by Tasman, and which had not been seen since, a space of one hundred and twenty-seven years. The natives received them with distrust, and several of them were somewhat unnecessarily killed by musket-shots. All efforts to enter into amicable relations with them failed, and Cook determined to make another attempt at some other point of the coast. Here a bloody fight took place, which resulted in the capture of three young savages by Cook's men. They expected to be put to death, and, when relieved from their apprehension by the kindness with which they were treated, were suddenly seized with a voracious appetite, andseemed to be in the highest possible spirits. During the night, however, they gave way to grief, sighed often and deeply, and sang low and solemn tunes like psalms. The next morning they were brilliantly decorated with beads, bracelets, and necklaces, and displayed in this guise to their countrymen on shore. The negotiation totally failed: the boys were sent home, and the ship stood away from the inhospitable shore on Wednesday, the 11th.
Cook coasted along the island to the south, now alarming the natives by a single musket-shot, now dispersing a hostile fleet of a dozen well-armed canoes by a discharge of a four-pounder loaded with grape-shot, but aimed wide of the mark. At another time Tupia would be ordered to acquaint a party of shouting and dancing savages that the strangers had weapons which, like thunder, would instantaneously destroy them. Cook was badly worsted in a bargain he made with a species of New Zealand confidence-man, who came under the stern and proposed to trade. Cook offered him a piece of red baize for his bear-skin coat. The savage accepted. Cook passed over the article, upon which the islander paddled rapidly away, taking with him the baize and the bear-skin. An attempt made by a party of the natives to kidnap Tupia's servant, Tayeto,—a Tahitian like himself,—and which was near being successful, induced Cook to name the deep indentation of the sea at this point of the coast, Kidnapper's Bay.
Somewhat farther to the south they found the natives more disposed to be friendly, and Mr. Banks and Dr. Solander went ashore and shot several birds of exquisite beauty. Some of the ship's company returned at night with their noses besmeared with red ochre and oil,—a circumstance which Cook explains by saying that "the ladies paint their faces with substances which are generally fresh and wet upon their cheeks and were easily transferred to the noses of those who chose to salute them. These ladies," he goes on to say, "were as great coquettes as any of the most fashionable dames in Europe, and the young ones as skittish asan unbroken filly. Each of them wore a petticoat, under which was a girdle made of the blades of highly-perfumed grass."
At another point they set up the armorer's forge, to repair the braces of the tiller. They here met an old man who insisted on showing them the military exercises of the country, with a lance twelve feet long, and a battle-axe made of bone and called a patoo-patoo. An upright stake was made to represent the enemy, upon which he advanced with great fury: when he was supposed to have pierced the adversary, he split his skull with his axe. From this final act it was inferred that in the battles of this country there was no quarter. It was also ascertained that cannibalism was a constant and favorite practice. They here saw the largest canoe they had yet met with. She was sixty-eight feet and a half long, five broad, and three deep: she had a sharp keel, consisting of three trunks of trees hollowed out: the side-planks were sixty-two feet long in one piece, and quite elaborately carved in bas-relief: the figure-head was also a masterpiece of sculpture.
A NEW ZEALAND CANOE.
A NEW ZEALAND CANOE.
A NEW ZEALAND CANOE.
The expedition had thus far been sailing to the southward. Dissatisfied with the results, and finding it difficult to procure water in sufficient quantities, Cook put about, determining to follow the coast to the northward. He named a promontory in the neighborhood Cape Turnagain. Another promontory, more tothe north, where a huge canoe made a hasty retreat, he called Cape Runaway. On the 9th of November, the transit of Mercury was successfully observed, and the name of Mercury Bay given to the inlet where the observation was made. Two localities, for reasons which will be obvious, were called Oyster Bay and Mangrove River. Before leaving Mercury Bay, Cook caused to be cut, upon one of the trees near the watering-place, the ship's name, and his own, with the date of their arrival there, and, after displaying the English colors, took formal possession of it in the name of his Britannic Majesty King George the Third.
On the 17th of December, they doubled North Cape, which is the northern extremity of the island, and commenced descending its western side. The weather now became stormy and the coast dangerous, so that the vessel was obliged to stand off to great distances, and intercourse with the natives was very much interrupted. At one point, however, the English satisfied themselves that the inhabitants ate human flesh,—the flesh, at least, of enemies who had been killed in battle. An Indian, to convince Mr. Banks of the truth of this, seized the bone of a human fore-arm divested of its flesh, bit and gnawed it, drawing it through his mouth, and indicating by signs that it afforded him a delicious repast. The bone was then returned to Mr. Banks, who took it on board ship with him as a trophy and a souvenir. He was afterwards told that the New Zealanders ate no portion of the heads of their enemies but the seat of the intellect, and was assured that as soon as a fight should take place they would treat him to the sight of a banquet of brains.
By the end of March, 1770, the ship had circumnavigated the two islands forming what is now known as New Zealand, and had therefore proved—what was before uncertain—that it was insular, and not a portion of any grand Southern mainland. The whole voyage, in fact, had been unfavorable to the notion of a Southern continent, for it had swept away at least three-quarters of the positions upon which it had been founded. Ithad also totally subverted the theory according to which the existence of a Southern continent was necessary to preserve an equilibrium between the Northern and Southern hemispheres; for it had already proved the presence of sufficient water to render the Southern hemisphere too light, even if all the rest should be land.
The vessel left New Zealand on the 31st of March, sailing due west, and, on the 18th of April, Mr. Hicks, the first lieutenant, discovered land directly in the ship's path. This was the most southerly point of New Holland, and was called, from its discoverer, Point Hicks. Cook followed the coast for many days to the northward; and it was only on the third that he learned, from ascending smoke, that the country was inhabited. On the thirteenth, he saw a party of natives walking briskly upon the shore. These subsequently retired, leaving the defence of the coast to two persons of very singular appearance. Their faces had been dusted with a white powder, and their bodies painted with broad streaks of the same color, which, passing obliquely over their breasts and backs, looked not unlike the cross-belts worn by civilized soldiers: the same kind of streaks were also drawn round their legs and thighs, like broad garters. Each of them held in his hand a weapon two feet and a half long. The landing party detached by Cook numbered forty men; and one of the musketeers was ordered to show the two champions the folly of resistance, by lodging a charge of small shot in their legs. The wooders and waterers then went ashore, and with some difficulty obtained the necessary supplies.
Early in May, Cook landed at a spot to which, from a casual circumstance, he gave the name ofBotany Bay,—a name now famous the world over. Mr. Banks and Dr. Solander collected here large quantities of plants, flowers, and branches of unknown trees; and it was this incident that furnished the pastoral appellation to the Retreat for Transported Criminals. They found the woods filled with birds of the most exquisite beauty; theshallow coasts were haunted with flocks of waterfowl resembling swans and pelicans; the mud-banks harbored vast quantities of oysters, muscles, cockles, and other shell-fish. The inhabitants went totally naked, would never parley with the strangers, and did not seem to understand the Tahitian dialect of Tupia.
At a place which, in consequence of the difficulty of procuring fresh water, received the name of Thirsty Sound, the watering party met with singular adventures. They found walking exceedingly difficult, owing to the ground being covered with a kind of grass, the seeds of which were very sharp and bearded backwards, so that when they stuck into their clothes they worked forward by means of the beard till they pierced the flesh. Mosquitos stung them at every pore. The air was so filled with butterflies that they saw, smelt, tasted, and breathed butterflies. Black ants swarmed upon the trees, eating out the pith from the small branches and then inhabiting the pipe which had contained it; and yet the branches, thus deprived of their marrow and occupied by millions of insects, bore leaves, flowers, and even fruit. They saw a species of fish resembling a minnow, which appeared to prefer land to water: it leaped before them, by means of its breast-fins, as nimbly as a frog; when found in the water it frequently jumped out and pursued its way upon the dry ground; in places where small stones were standing above the surface of the water at a little distance from each other, it chose rather to leap from stone to stone than to pass through the water. They saw several of them proceed dry-shod over large puddles in this ingenious and unusual manner. The ship left Thirsty Sound on the 31st of May.
On the night of Sunday, the 10th of June, the vessel struck at high tide upon a rock which lay concealed in seventeen fathoms' water, and beat so violently against it that there seemed little hope of saving her. Land was twenty-five miles off, with no intervening island in sight. The sheathing-boards were soon seen to be floating away all around, and the false keelwas finally torn off. The six deck-guns, all the iron and stone ballast, casks, staves, oil-jars, decayed stores, to the weight of fifty tons, were thrown overboard with the utmost expedition. To Cook's dismay, the vessel, thus lightened, did not float by a foot and a half at high tide,—so much did the day tide fall short of that of the night. They again threw overboard every thing which it was possible to spare; but the vessel now began to leak, and it was feared she must go to the bottom as soon as she ceased to be supported by the rock,—so that the floating of the ship was anticipated not as a means of deliverance, but as an event that would precipitate her destruction. The ship floated at ten o'clock, and was heaved into deep water: there were nearly four feet of water in the hold. The leak was held at bay for a time; but the men were finally exhausted, and threw themselves down upon the deck, flooded as it was to the depth of three inches by water from the pumps. The vessel was finally saved by the following expedient, proposed and executed by Mr. Markhouse. He took a lower studding-sail, and having mixed together a large quantity of oakum and wool, chopped pretty small, stitched it down in handfuls upon the sail as tightly as possible. The sail was then hauled under the ship's bottom by ropes; and, when it came under the leak, the suction which carried in the water carried in with it the oakum and the wool. The leak was so far reduced that it was easily kept under by one pump. The vessel was finally got ashore and beached in Endeavor River: the surrounding localities were fitly named Tribulation Bay, Weary Point, and the Islands of Hope.
The repairs of the vessel occupied many weeks,—the officers and crew occupying themselves in the mean time in fishing, in endeavors to obtain interviews with the natives, and in excursions for botanical or geological purposes. On the 14th of July, Mr. Gore killed an animal which had excited the interest and curiosity of the English in the highest degree, being totally unlike any animal then known. The name given by the natives tothis creature was "kangaroo." He was dressed the next day for dinner, and proved most excellent fare.
A party of natives in the neighborhood having been rendered hostile by the refusal of a pair of fat turtle belonging to the ship, they snatched a brand from under a pitch-kettle which was boiling, and, making a circuit to the windward of the few articles on shore, set fire to the grass in their way. This grass, which was five or six feet high and as dry as stubble, burned with amazing fury. The fire made rapid progress towards a tent where the unhappy Tupia was lying sick of the scurvy, scorching in its course a sow and two pigs. Tupia and the tent were saved in the nick of time: the armorer's forge, or such parts of it as would burn, was consumed. The powder, which had been taken ashore, had been transported back to the magazine but two days before. At night, the hills on every side were discovered to be on fire,—the conflagration having spread with wonderful celerity. On the 3d of August, the ship sailed from Endeavor River, the carpenter having at last completed the necessary repairs.
The ship now coasted along the edge of a reef which stretched out some twenty miles from the shore. This became suddenly of so formidable an aspect, and the winds and waves rolled them towards it with such sure and fatal speed, that the boats were got out and sent ahead to tow, and finally succeeded in getting the ship's head round. The surf was now breaking to a tremendous height within two hundred yards: the water beneath them was unfathomable. An opening in the reef was now discovered, and the dangerous expedient of forcing the ship through it was successfully tried. They anchored in nineteen fathoms' water, over a bottom of coral and shells. The opening through the reef received the name of Providential Channel.
They sailed to the northward many days within the reef, till they at last found a safe passage out. Cook then for the last time hoisted English colors upon the eastern coast, which he wasconfident no European had seen before, and took possession of its whole extent, from south latitude thirty-eight to latitude ten. He claimed it, in behalf of his Majesty King George the Third, by the name of New South Wales, with all its bays, rivers, harbors, and islands. Three volleys of small-arms were then fired, and the spot upon which the ceremony was performed was named Possession Island. The ship passed out to the westward, finding open sea to the north of New Holland,—a circumstance which gave great satisfaction to all on board, as it showed that New Holland and New Guinea were separate islands, and not, as had been imagined, different parts of the supposed Southern continent. On Thursday, the 24th of August, the ship left New Holland, steering towards the northwest, with the intention of making the coast of New Guinea.
Early in September they arrived among a group of islands which they supposed to lie along the coast of New Guinea. As they attempted to land, Indians rushed out of the thickets upon them, with hideous shouts, one of them throwing something from his hand which burned like gunpowder but made no report. Their numbers soon increased, and they discharged these noiseless flashes by four and five at a time. The smoke resembled that of a musket; and, as they held long hollow canes in their hands, the illusion would have been perfect had the combustion been accompanied by concussion. Those on board the ship were convinced the natives possessed fire-arms, supposing that the direction of the wind prevented the sound of the discharge from reaching them. Cook determined to lose no time in this latitude, having accomplished what he considered as of paramount importance; that is, he had sailed between the two lands of New Holland and New Guinea, and had thus established their insular character beyond any possibility of controversy.
He now sailed to the west, and anchored, on the 8th of October, at Batavia, in Java. Here he laid up the ship for repairs. "What anxieties we had escaped," he writes, "in our ignorance that alarge portion of the keel had been diminished to the thickness of the under leather of a shoe!" But the ship's company, which had been so wonderfully preserved from the perils of the sea, were destined to undergo the rude attacks of disease upon land. Markhouse, the surgeon, Tupia and Tayeto, the Tahitians, and four sailors, were rapidly carried off by fever. On the 27th of December, the ship weighed anchor, the sick-list including forty names. Before doubling the Cape of Good Hope, she lost Sporing, one of the assistant naturalists, Parkinson, the artist, Green, the astronomer, Molineux, the master, besides the second lieutenant, four carpenters, and ten sailors. Cook was forced to wait a month at the Cape; and on the 12th of July, 1771, he cast anchor in the Downs, after a cruise of three eventful years. His crew was decimated and his ship no longer sea-worthy. The skill and enterprise displayed by Cook, and the important results attained by the voyage, induced the Government to raise him to the rank of commander. We shall follow him upon his second voyage, in the next chapter.
CAPE PIGEON.
CAPE PIGEON.
CAPE PIGEON.