SIR WALTER RALEIGH.CHAPTER XXIX.THE FICTION OF EL DORADO—MANOA—DESCRIPTION OF ITS FABLED SPLENDORS—ATTEMPTS OF THE SPANIARDS TO DISCOVER IT—SIR WALTER RALEIGH—HIS VOYAGE TO GUIANA—HIS ACCOUNT OF THE ORINOCO—HIS DESCRIPTION OF THE SCENERY—HIS RETURN—HIS SECOND VOYAGE—EXPEDITION TO NEWFOUNDLAND—HIS DEATH—MODERN INTERPRETATION OF THE LEGEND OF EL DORADO.The mines of the precious metals which the Spaniards had discovered in Peru, the wealth which they annually brought home in treasure-ships to the mother-country, together with the exaggerated accounts given by Spanish authors respecting the splendor and the civilization of the empire of the Incas, had now begun to excite the cupidity and inflame the imagination of every other people in Europe. It was known that, at the timeof the conquest of Peru by Pizarro, a large number of the natives escaped into the interior; and rumor added that one of the sons of the reigning Inca had withdrawn across the continent to a region situated between the Amazon and the Orinoco and called by the general name of Guiana. Here he had founded, it was added, an empire more splendid than that of Peru: its capital city, Manoa, only one European had seen. This was a Spaniard, a marine on board a man-of-war, who, according to the legend, had allowed a powder-magazine to explode and was condemned to death for his carelessness. This penalty was commuted, however, and he was placed in a boat at the mouth of the Orinoco, with orders to penetrate into the interior. He stayed seven months at Manoa, and then escaped to Porto Rico. He gave the following account of the city and kingdom, the latter being called, he said, El Dorado, or The Gilded:The columns of the emperor's palace were of porphyry and alabaster, the galleries of ebony and cedar, and golden steps led to a throne of ivory. The palace, which was built of white marble, stood upon an island in a lake or inland sea. Two towers guarded the entrance: between them was a pillar twenty-five feet in height, upon which was a huge silver moon. Beyond was a quadrangle planted with trees, and watered by a silver fountain which spouted through four golden pipes. The gate of the palace was of copper. Within, four lamps burned day and night before an altar of silver upon which was a burnished golden sun. Three thousand workmen were employed in the Street of the Silversmiths.The name of El Dorado, as applied to the kingdom of which Manoa was the metropolis, may refer to its wealth and splendor, or it may be derived from a habit attributed by some to the emperor, by others to the high-priests, and even to the inhabitants generally when in a state of intoxication. This custom was to cause themselves to be anointed with a precious and fragrant gum, after which gold-dust was blown upon themthrough tubes, till they were completely incrusted with gold. This attire was naturally considered sumptuous, and, in connection with the abundance of precious metals afforded by the country, may have given rise to the title of El Dorado. The legend, in either case, is a worthy companion to Ponce de Leon's Fountain of Youth.No geographical fiction ever caused such an expenditure of blood and treasure as this. The Spaniards alone lost, in their attempts to discover the city of Manoa, more lives and money than in effecting any of their permanent conquests. New adventurers were always ready to start, upon the discomfiture or destruction of those who had gone before; and no disappointment suffered by the latter could daunt the hopes of those who believed the discovery reserved for them. The Spanish priests regarded the mania as a device of the Evil One to lure mankind to perdition.The greater portion of these persons were adventurers, soldiers of fortune, and Quixotic knights-errant. The most distinguished of the converts to a belief in the existence of an El Dorado, however, it would be unjust to class among them. Sir Walter Raleigh, an Englishman of the highest talent and character, after having enjoyed the favor of Queen Elizabeth for twenty years, lost it by an intrigue with a lady of the palace. Though he repaired the injury by marrying the lady, he found he could not expect to be restored to grace except by performing some exploit which should add new lustre to his name. He had long been filled with admiration at the courage and perseverance exhibited by the Spaniards in the pursuit of their romantic and brilliant chimera. As he himself firmly believed it to be a reality, he determined to make an attempt himself. A part of his design was to colonize Guiana, and thus to extend the sphere of the industrial and commercial arts of England. He was familiar with the sea, as he had alreadysent out several expeditions for the colonization of Virginia in America.He sailed from Plymouth in February, 1595, with five vessels and a hundred soldiers. In order to reach the capital city of Guiana, it was necessary to ascend the Orinoco, the navigation of which was completely unknown to the English. As the ships drew too much water, a hundred men embarked with Raleigh in boats and proceeded up the stream. In these they remained for a month, exposed to all the extremes of a tropical climate,—sometimes to the heats of a burning sun, and again to violent and torrential rains. Raleigh's account of their progress through the labyrinth of islands and channels at the river's mouths, of their precarious supplies of food and water, the appearance of the country and the manners of the natives, and, finally, of their entrance into the grand bed of the superb Orinoco, has been admired for its descriptive beauty as well as ridiculed for its extravagant credulity. Indeed, it is doubted by many whether Raleigh really believed the stories which he put in circulation. We quote a passage:"Those who are desirous to discover and to see many nations," he writes, "may be satisfied within this river; which bringeth forth so many arms and branches leading to several countries and provinces, above two thousand miles east and west, and of these the most either rich in gold, or in other merchandises. The common soldier shall here fight for gold, and pay himself, instead of pence, with plates of gold half a foot broad, whereas he breaketh his bones in other wars for provant and penury. Those commanders and chieftains who shoot at honor and abundance shall find here more rich and beautiful cities, more temples adorned with golden images, more sepulchres filled with treasure, than either Cortez found in Mexico or Pizarro in Peru; and the shining glory of this conquest will eclipse all those so-far-extended beams of the Spanish nation. There is no country which yieldeth more pleasure to the inhabitants, for those commondelights of hunting, hawking, fishing, fowling, and the rest, than Guiana does. I am resolved that, both for health, good air, pleasure, and riches, it cannot be equalled by any region in the East or West. To conclude: Guiana is a country that hath yet her maidenhead, never sacked, turned, nor wrought. The face of the earth hath not been torn, nor the virtue and salt of the soil spent; the graves have not been opened for gold, the mines not broken with sledges, nor the images pulled down out of their temples. It hath never been entered by any army of strength, nor conquered by any Christian prince.... I trust that He who is Lord of lords will put it into her heart who is Lady of ladies to possess it. If not, I will judge those most worthy to be kings thereof that by her grace and leave will undertake it of themselves."Raleigh ascended the stream nearly two hundred miles, when the rapid and terrific rise of its waters compelled him to return. He took formal possession of the country, and made the caciques swear allegiance to Queen Elizabeth. He returned to England during the summer, having been but five months absent. It was then that he published the narrative from which we have quoted.His restoration to favor precluded any further prosecution of his designs on Guiana during the reign of Elizabeth. He was imprisoned for thirteen years during the reign of James, her successor, for the crime of high-treason and supposed participation in the plot to place Lady Arabella Stuart on the throne. In 1617, he equipped a fleet of thirteen vessels in which to proceed to Guiana for the purpose of again seeking El Dorado. The fleet arrived in safety, but Raleigh was too unwell to ascend the Orinoco in person. Captain Keymis led the exploring party, and, upon being compelled to return to the ship without success, and with the news of the death in battle of Sir Walter's eldest son, committed suicide. Raleigh sailed to Newfoundland to victual and refit; but a mutiny of the crews forced him to returnto England, where he was beheaded for the crime already punished by thirteen years' confinement.Modern historians and travellers, and men of judgment and intelligence who have inhabited the regions at the mouth of the Orinoco, have not hesitated to avow their opinion that the story of El Dorado is not without some sort of foundation in fact. Humboldt accounts for it geologically, and holds the ardent imagination of the Indians to be answerable for the fable. He conjectures that there may be islands and rocks of micaslate and talc in and around Lake Parima, which, reflecting from their surfaces and angles the glowing rays of the sun, may have been transformed by the extravagant fancy of the natives into the gorgeous temples and palaces of a gilded metropolis. He attempted to penetrate to the spot, but was prevented by a tribe of Indian dwarfs. No European has ever yet visited this celebrated locality: its great distance from the sea, the trackless forests, the wild beasts and barbarian inhabitants, have repelled both the conqueror and the explorer, so that it is not known to this day what degree or what kind of authority exists for the extraordinary story in question. But, inasmuch as Cortez passed within ten miles of the wonderful city of Copan without hearing of it, the supposition that there may be aboriginal cities in the unexplored regions of South America, affording, perhaps, basis sufficient for the tale of El Dorado without its exaggerations, is neither impossible nor improbable. The magnificent ruins lately discovered in Yucatan, where they were not expected, seem to argue the existence of others in regions where positive and persistent tradition has located them.NATIVE OF THE SOLOMON ISLANDS.CHAPTER XXX.DISCOVERY OF THE SOLOMON ISLANDS BY MENDANA—HE SEEKS FOR THEM AGAIN THIRTY YEARS LATER—QUIROS—THE MARQUESAS ISLANDS—THE WOMEN COMPARED WITH THOSE OF LIMA—STRANGE FRUITS—CONVERSIONS TO CHRISTIANITY—ARDUOUS VOYAGE—SANTA CRUZ—MENDANA EXCHANGES NAMES WITH MALOPÉ—HOSTILITIES—WAR, AND ITS RESULTS—DEATH OF MENDANA—QUIROS CONDUCTS THE SHIPS TO MANILLA.The progress of discovery now recalls us to Spain. About the year 1567, one Alvaro Mendana de Neyra, who had thus far lived in complete obscurity, followed his uncle Don Pedro de Castro to Lima, in Peru, where he had been appointed governor. Mendana, disdaining commerce, and feeling little inclination to lead a monotonous life on shore, after the taste he had had during the passage of a roving existence upon the water, resolved to undertake the discovery of new lands in the name of the Kingof Spain. His uncle encouraged him in his design and furnished him with the necessary funds. Mendana set sail from Callao on the 11th of January, 1568. He proceeded fourteen hundred and fifty leagues to the west, and discovered a group of islands in about 10° south latitude. One of them, to which he gave the name of Isabella, is distinguished as having been the scene of the first celebration of a Catholic mass in the Pacific Ocean. He sailed round another of the group, St. Christopher, and, after several disastrous encounters with the natives, returned to Callao. This voyage, the most important undertaken by the Spanish since the discovery of America, gave rise to multitudes of fables, with which the historians and chroniclers of Spain filled the minds of the people during the century which followed. The islands discovered by Mendana were represented as enormously rich in gold and the precious metals. The name of Solomon was given to the group,—a name which was thought to be eminently suited to so luxurious an archipelago, having formerly been that of a luxurious prince. As in those days the art of scientific navigation was in its infancy, and as latitude and longitude were not fixed with any great degree of precision, the position of the Solomon Islands was very loosely marked down by Mendana, and the question of their locality became, and for a long time remained, one of the most puzzling questions in geography.Mendana sent home to the Spanish Government brilliant accounts of his discoveries, and solicited the means of prosecuting them still further. War and other engagements prevented the ministry from attending to his requests till the year 1595, when he obtained the command of an expedition having for its object the colonization of St. Christopher. He sailed from Callao in April with four ships carrying four hundred men: his wife, Isabel de Barretos, and three of his brothers-in-law, accompanied him. Pedro Fernandez de Quiros, of whom we shall afterwards speak more particularly, was the pilot of the fleet. Theystopped at Paita, where they watered and enlisted four hundred additional men, and on the 16th of June finally started in quest of the long-lost islands. A month afterwards, being in latitude 11° south, Mendana discovered a group of three islands, to which he gave a collective name as well as individual names. He called them Las Marquesas de Mendoça, in honor of the Marquis of Mendoça, a Spaniard of distinction. They are still known as the Marquesas Islands. The natives manifested a remarkably thievish disposition, and received several rounds of grape for pilfering the jars of the watering party who had gone ashore. Though the chronicler draws a comparison in speaking of the women, he yet skilfully contrives to compliment all parties mentioned. He says, "Very fine women were seen here. Many thought them as beautiful as those of Lima, but whiter and not so rosy; and yet there are very beautiful at Lima. They have delicate hands, genteel body and waiste, exceeding much in perfection the most perfect of Lima; and yet there are very beautiful at Lima. The temperament, health, strength, and corpulency of these people tell what is the climate they live in: clothes could well be borne with night and day; the sun did not molest much; there fell some small showers of rain. Our people never perceived lightning or dew, but great dryness, so that, without hanging up, they found dry in the morning the things which were left wet on the ground at night." A singular fruit was noticed, which the men eat green, roasted, boiled, and ripe. It had neither stone nor kernel, and the Spaniards called it blanc-mange. They likewise admired another fruit "inclosed in prickles like chestnuts, and which resembled chestnuts in taste, but was much bigger than six chestnuts together." Mendana ordered a grand mass to be said, during which the islanders remained on their knees with great silence and attention.Mendana took possession of the islands in the king's name, and sowed maize in many spots which he thought favorable to its growth. The chaplain taught one of the natives to blesshimself and say Jesus Maria. This being done, the shallop being refitted, three crosses erected, and wood and water having been stored, the squadron set sail again for the still-missing archipelago. The soldiers soon became despondent, and the crews were placed upon short allowance. Fourteen hundred leagues from Lima they saw a desert island, which they called St. Bernardo; and at fifteen hundred and thirty-five leagues' distance they named an island the Solitary, "as it was alone." Thus they continued their course, "many people giving their sentiments, and saying they knew not whither they were going nor what they were coming to, and other such things, which could not fail of giving pain." At last, when eighteen hundred leagues from Lima, they fell in with a large island, one hundred miles in circuit, which Mendana named Santa Cruz—since called Egmont Island by Carteret. Here was a volcano, "of a very fine-shaped hill, from the top whereof issues much fire, and which often makes a great thundering inside." Fifty small boats rigged with sails came out to the ship. The men were black, with woolly hair, dyed white, red, and blue. Their teeth were tinged red, and their faces and bodies marked with streaks. Their arms were bound round with bracelets of black rattan, while their necks were decorated with strings of beads and fishes' teeth. Mendana at once took them for the people he sought. He spoke to them in the language he had learned upon his first voyage; but they neither understood him, nor he them. Without provocation, they discharged a shower of arrows at the ship, which lodged in the sails and the rigging,—without, however, doing any mischief. The soldiers fired in return, killing one and wounding many more.Friendly relations were soon restored, and a savage, apparently of high rank, visited the admiral in his ship. He was lean and gray-headed, and his skin was of the "color of wheat." He inquired who was the chief of the new-comers. The admiral received him with cordiality, and gave him to understandthat he was. The Indian said his name was Malopé. The admiral replied that his was Mendana. Malopé at once rejoined that he would be Mendana, and that the admiral should be Malopé. He manifested much gratification at this exchange, and, whenever he was called Malopé, said, "No: Mendana;" and, pointing to the admiral, said that was Malopé. This was probably the first instance of an exchange of names—one of the most solemn acts of friendship with certain tribes of the Pacific Islanders—being effected between a European and a savage. The natives soon learned to shake hands, to embrace, to say "friend," to shave with razors, and to pare their nails with scissors. This state of amity did not last long, however, and a trivial circumstance caused suspicion, and finally hostility. The savages commenced with arrows, and the Spaniards retaliated with fire and sword. In the evening, Malopé came to the shore, and, in a loud voice, called the admiral by the name of Malopé, and, smiting his breast, declared himself to be Mendana. He said the attack had been begun by another tribe, not his, and proposed they should all sally forth against them. To this Mendana did not accede, but, landing his men, proceeded to found a colony.At this point the details furnished by the several chroniclers of the expedition become vague and unsatisfactory. It appears that Malopé was killed in a skirmish; that the natives were not content with merely lamenting his death, but withheld all supplies from the Spaniards; that Mendana caused two mutineers to be beheaded and another to be hung. A war of extermination now commenced, and a state of sedition, misery, and want ensued, which brought Mendana rapidly to the grave. He died of disappointment and regret, in October, 1595. His successor, being wounded, died in November. The crew, worn out with fatigue and sickness, and being reduced to such an extent that twenty resolute Indians could have destroyed them, resolved to suspend the enterprise and re-embark. They took inwood and water, and sailed on the 7th of November. Quiros maintained discipline among a mutinous crew, and, after almost superhuman efforts to navigate his crazy ships upon an unknown sea, arrived with the remains of the expedition at Manilla. From thence Quiros—whose adventures and discoveries we shall soon have occasion to narrate—returned to Acapulco, in Mexico, and thence to Lima, where he petitioned the viceroy for the means of continuing the researches of Mendana. As he did not set sail till 1606, we must first attend to the various enterprises undertaken in the interval.THE ISLANDERS BEFORE A BREEZE.THE DUTCH AT WALRUS ISLAND.CHAPTER XXXI.ATTEMPTS OF THE DUTCH TO DISCOVER A NORTHEAST PASSAGE—VOYAGE OF WILHELM BARENTZ—ARRIVAL AT NOVA ZEMBLA—WINTER QUARTERS—BUILDING A HOUSE—FIGHTS WITH BEARS—THE SUN DISAPPEARS—THE CLOCK STOPS, AND THE BEER FREEZES—THE HOUSE IS SNOWED UP—THE HOT-ACHE—FOX-TRAPS—TWELFTH NIGHT—RETURN OF THE SUN—THE SHIPS PROVE UNSEAWORTHY—PREPARATIONS TO DEPART IN THE BOATS—DEATH OF BARENTZ—ARRIVAL AT AMSTERDAM—RESULTS OF THE VOYAGE.In the year 1514, the Dutch resolved to seek a northeast passage by water to the Indies, across the Polar regions of Europe. Their first two attempts were attended with so little success that the States-General abandoned the undertaking, contenting themselves with promising a reward to the navigator who should find a practicable route. In 1596, the city of Amsterdam took up the matter where the Government had left it, and equipped two vessels, the chief command of which was given to Wilhelm Barentz. He started on the 10th of May, and passed the islands of Shetland and Feroë on the 22d. Not long after, the fleet saw with wonder one of the phenomena peculiar to the Arctic regions,—three mock suns, with circular rainbows connecting them by a luminous halo. On the 9th of June, they discovered two islands, to which they gave the namesof Bear and Walrus Islands. They kept on, to the usual Arctic accompaniment of icebergs, seals, auroræ boreales, whales, and white bears, till they came to a land which they named Spitzbergen, or Land of Sharp-peaked Mountains.On the 17th of July, they arrived at Nova Zembla,—discovered in 1553 by Willoughby,—and here the two ships were accidentally separated. In August, the vessel of Barentz was embayed in drifting ice, and no efforts could release her from her dangerous position. Winter was coming on, and the crew, despairing of saving the ship, which was now groaning and heaving under the pressure of the ice, resolved to build a house upon the land, "with which to defend themselves from the colde and wilde beasts." They were fortunate enough to find a large quantity of drift-wood, which had evidently floated from a distance, as the icy soil around them yielded neither tree nor herb. The work began and continued in the midst of constant fights with bears and the arduous labor of dragging stores from the ship upon hand-sleds. The cold was so extreme that their skin peeled off upon touching any iron utensil. Snow storms interrupted the progress of the house, for which they were soon obliged to obtain materials by breaking up the ship. One of the men, being pursued by a bear, was only saved by the latter's waiting to contemplate the body of one of his fellow-bears, which the sailors had killed and left to freeze stiff in an upright position.On the 12th of October, half the crew slept in the house for the first time: they suffered greatly from cold, as they had no fire, and because, as the narrative quaintly remarks, "they were somewhat deficient in blankets." The roof was thatched, by the end of October, with sail-cloth and sea-weed. On the 2d of November, the sun raised but half his disk above the horizon: the bears disappeared with the sun, and foxes took their place. The clock having stopped, and refusing to proceed, even with increased weights, day could not be distinguished from night,except by the twelve-hour-glass. The beer, freezing in the casks, became as tasteless as water. Half a pound of bread a day was served out to each man: the provisions of dried fish and salt meat remained still abundant. The chimney would not draw, and the apartment was filled with a blinding smoke,—which the crew were obliged to endure, however, or die of cold. The surgeon made a bathing-tub from a wine-pipe, in which they bathed four at a time. They were several times snowed up, and the house was absolutely buried. Though half a league from the sea, they heard the horrible cracking and groaning of the ice as the bergs settled down one upon the other, or as the huge mountains burst asunder. On one occasion, unable to support the cold, they made a fire in their house with coal brought from the ship. It was the first moment of comfort they had enjoyed for months. They kept up the genial heat until several of the least vigorous of the men were seized with dizziness and with the peculiar pains known as the hot-ache. Gerard de Veer, the chronicler of the expedition, caught in his arms the first man that fell, and revived him by rubbing his face with vinegar. He adds, "We had now learned that to avoid one evil we should not rush into a worse one."THE DUTCH IN WINTER QUARTERS.They set traps all around their cabin, with which they caught on an average a fox a day. They eat the flesh, and with the skins made caps and mittens. They had the good fortune tokill a bear nine feet long, from which they obtained one hundred pounds of lard. This they found useful, not as pomatum, but as the means of burning their lamp constantly, day and night, as if it were an altar and they the vestal virgins. On the 19th of December, they congratulated themselves that the Arctic night was just one-half expired; "for," says the narrative, "it was a terrible thing to be without the light of the sun, and deprived of the most excellent creature of God, which enliveneth the entire universe." On Christmas eve it snowed so violently that they could not open the door. The next day there was a white frost in the cabin. While seated at the fire and toasting their legs, their backs were frozen stiff. They did not know by the feeling that they were burning their shoes, and were only warned by the odor of the shrivelling leather. They put a strip of linen into the air, to see which way the wind was: in an instant the linen was frozen as hard as a board, and became, of course, perfectly useless as a weathercock. Then the men said to each other, "How excessively cold it must be out of doors!"The 5th of January was Twelfth Night, and the hut was buried under the snow. In the midst of their misery, they asked the captain's leave to celebrate the hallowed anniversary. With flour and oil they made pancakes, washing them down with wine saved from the day before and borrowed in advance from the morrow. They elected a king by lot, the master gunner being indicated by chance as the Lord of Nova Zembla. On the 8th, the twilight was observed to be slightly lengthening, and, though the cold increased with the returning sun, they bore it with cheerfulness. They noticed a tinge of red in the atmosphere, which spoke of the revival of nature. They visited the ship, and found the ice a foot high in the hold: they hardly expected ever to see her float again. The difficulty of obtaining fuel was now such, that many of the men thought it would be easier and shorter to lie down and die than make such dreadful efforts to prolong life. To save wood during the daytime,they played snow-ball, or ran, or wrestled, to keep up the circulation.On the 24th of January, Gerard de Veer declared he had seen the edge of the sun: Barentz, who did not expect the return of the luminary for fourteen days, was incredulous, and the cloudy state of the weather during the succeeding three days prevented the bets which were made upon the subject from being settled. On the 27th, they buried one of their number in a snow grave seven feet deep, having dug it with some difficulty, the diggers being constantly obliged to return to the fire. One of the men remarking that, even were the house completely blocked up fifteen feet deep, they could yet get out by the chimney, the captain climbed up the chimney, and a sailor ran out to see if he succeeded. He rushed back, saying he had seen the sun. Everybody hastened forth and "saw him, in his entire roundness," just above the horizon. It was then decided that de Veer had seen the edge on the 24th, and they "all rejoiced together, praising God loudly for the mercy."Another season of snow now set in, while, at the same time, the ice that bound the ship began to break up, so that the men feared she would escape and float away while they were blockaded in the house. They were obliged to make themselves shoes of worn-out fox-skin caps, as the leather was frozen as hard as horn. On the night of the 6th of April, a bear ascended to the roof of the house by means of the embankments of snow, and, attacking the chimney with great violence, was very near demolishing it. On the 1st of May, they eat their last morsel of meat, relying henceforth on what they might entrap or kill.It was now decided that even if the ship should be disengaged she would be unfit to continue the voyage. Their only hope lay in the shallop and the long-boat, which they endeavored to prepare for the sea, in the midst of interruptions from bears, who "were very obstinate to know how Dutchmen tasted."As late as the 5th of June, it snowed so violently that they could only work within-doors, where they got ready the sails, oars, rudder, &c. On the 12th, they set to work with axes and other tools to level a path from the ship to the water,—a distance of five hundred paces. On the 13th, Barentz wrote a brief account of their voyage and sojourn, placed it in a musket-barrel, and attached it to the fireplace in the house, for the information of future navigators. They then dragged, with infinite labor, the boats to the water, together with barrels and boxes of such stores as their now impoverished ship could yield. They bade adieu to their winter quarters on the 14th, at early morning, "with a west wind and under the protection of Heaven." Barentz, who had been a long time ill, died on the 20th, while opposite Icy Cape, the northernmost point of Nova Zembla. His loss was deeply regretted; but their "grief was assuaged by the reflection that none can resist the will of God."The men were often obliged to drag the boats across intervening fields of ice; and sometimes, when the wind was contrary, they drew them up on a floating bank, and, making tents of the sails, camped out, as if on military service. The sentinels frequently challenged bears, and, on one occasion, three coming together and one being killed, the surviving two devoured their fallen companion. Through dangers and difficulties then unparalleled in navigation, they struggled hopefully on, descending the western coast of Nova Zembla towards the northern shores of Russia and Lapland. On the 16th of August, they met a Russian bark, which furnished them with such provisions as the captain could spare. On the 20th, they touched the coast of Lapland upon the White Sea, where they found thirteen Russians living in miserable huts upon the fish which they caught. On the 2d of September, they arrived at Kola, in Lapland, where they found three Dutch ships, one of which was their consort, which had been separated from them ten months before. Having no further use for their boats, they carriedthem with ceremony to the "Merchants' House," or Town-Hall, where they dedicated them to the memory of their long voyage of four hundred leagues over a tract never traversed before, and which they had accomplished in open boats. They started at once for home, and arrived on the 1st of November at Amsterdam, twelve in number. The city was greatly excited by the news of their return, for they had long since been given up for dead. The chancellor and the "ambassador of the very illustrious King of Denmark, Norway, the Goths and the Vandals" were at that moment at dinner. The voyagers were summoned to narrate their adventures before them,—which they did, "clad in white fox-skin caps."No voyage had hitherto been so fruitful in incident, peril, and displays of persevering courage and fortitude. Though it resulted in no discovery except that of the western coast of Nova Zembla, it served the useful purpose of demonstrating the difficulty, if not the impossibility, of effecting a northeast passage.FEMALE OTTER AND HER YOUNG.THE FUNERAL OF MAHU AT BRAVA ISLAND.CHAPTER XXXII.THE FIVE SHIPS OF ROTTERDAM—BATTLE AT THE ISLAND OF BRAVA—SEBALD DE WEERT—DISASTERS IN THE STRAIT OF MAGELLAN—THE CREW EAT UNCOOKED FOOD—THE FLEET IS SCATTERED TO THE WINDS—ADVENTURES OF DE WEERT—A WRETCHED OBJECT—RETURN TO HOLLAND—VOYAGE OF OLIVER VAN NOORT—BARBAROUS PUNISHMENT—THE EMBLEM OF HOPE BECOMES A CAUSE OF DESPAIR—FIGHT WITH THE PATAGONIANS—ARREST OF THE VICE-ADMIRAL—HIS PUNISHMENT—DESCRIPTION OF A CHILEAN BEVERAGE—CAPTURE OF A SPANISH TREASURE-SHIP—A PILOT THROWN OVERBOARD—SEA-FIGHT OFF MANILLA—RETURN HOME, AFTER THE FIRST DUTCH VOYAGE OF CIRCUMNAVIGATION.The Dutch, who had now succeeded the Portuguese in the possession and control of the East Indies, had, up to the year 1598, made all their voyages thither by the Portuguese route,—the Cape of Good Hope. In this year, two fleets fitted out by them were directed to proceed by the Strait of Magellan andacross the South Sea. The first of these expeditions is known as that of the Five Ships of Rotterdam, one of the five, however, becoming separated, and forming a distinct enterprise, under Sebald de Weert: the second was the voyage of Oliver Van Noort. We shall narrate them in order of time.The Five Ships of Rotterdam were equipped at the charge of several merchants called the Company of Peter Verhagen. The flag-ship, commanded by Jacob Mahu, was named the Hope; another, commanded by Sebald de Weert, was the Good News, or Glad Tidings, or Merry Messenger,—all these names being given in the various translations. They sailed from Goree, in Holland, on the 27th of June, 1598.They were off the island of Brava—one of the Cape Verds,—on the 11th of September, and sent boats ashore with empty casks in search of water. The men were accosted by some Portuguese and negroes, who told them that French and English ships were accustomed to water there, but always remained under sail. Sebald de Weert noticed four or five ruinous huts, and found them full of maize, which he at once proceeded to appropriate,—an act which the Portuguese endeavored to resent; but the Dutch flag-ship silenced their feeble resistance with her guns. The death of Mahu now caused a transfer of captains, by which Sebald de Weert left the Glad Tidings for the Good Faith. The fleet lost thirty men by the scurvy during the passage across the Atlantic. They anchored off the Rio de la Plata early in March, 1599, and observed the sea to be as red as blood. The water was examined, and found to be full of small worms, which jumped about like fleas, and which were supposed to have been shaken off by whales in their gambols, as the lion shakes dew-drops from his mane.On the 6th of April, they entered the Strait of Magellan, and were compelled to pass the Antarctic winter there,—that is, till late in August. Gales of wind followed each other in quick succession; and the anchors and cables were so much damagedthat the crews were kept in continual labor and anxiety. The scarcity of food was such that the people were sent on shore every day at low water, frequently in rain, snow, or frost, to seek for shell-fish or to gather roots for their subsistence. These they devoured in the state in which they were found, having no patience to wait to cook them. One hundred and twenty men were buried during this disastrous winter.On the evening of September the 3d, the whole fleet, including a shallop of sixteen tons, named the Postillion, which had been put together in the Strait, entered the South Sea. A storm soon separated them, leaving the Fidelity and Faith as consorts, and scattering the rest in every direction. The adventures of the Fidelity and Faith, however, require that we should follow them in their fortunes around the world. De Weert found his ship almost unseaworthy, without a master, short of hands, and with two pilots quite too old to be efficient. After weathering another storm, which nearly sent the vessels to the bottom, both captains resolved to return to the Strait and to wait there in some safe bay for a favorable wind. On the 27th, they arrived at the mouth of the Strait, and were drifted by the current some seven leagues inland.As the Antarctic summer was now approaching, they were in hopes of fair weather; yet during the two months of their stay they hardly had a day in which to dry their sails. The seamen began to murmur, alleging that there would not be sufficient biscuit for their return to Holland if they remained here longer. Upon this de Weert went into the bread-room, as if to examine the store, and, on coming out, declared, with a cheerful countenance, that there was biscuit enough for eight months, though in reality there was barely enough for four. On the 3d of December, they succeeded in leaving the Strait, but, by some mismanagement, anchored a league apart, with a point of land between them which intercepted the view. A gale of wind forced the Fidelity from her anchors, and she was compelledto proceed upon the voyage alone. On her arrival at the Moluccas she was attacked and captured by the Portuguese.Sebald de Weert was thus left without a consort and almost without a crew. When leaving the Strait, and towing the only remaining boat astern, the rope broke, and the boat went adrift and was not again recovered. The next morning they saw a boat rowing towards them, which proved to belong to another Dutch fleet, under Oliver Van Noort, bound to the South Sea and the East Indies. De Weert endeavored to sail in company with them; but the reduced condition of his crew—but forty-eight men remaining out of one hundred and ten—rendered it impossible. He finally abandoned all attempts to prosecute the voyage, and, profiting by the west winds, returned through the Strait to the Atlantic. He anchored at the Penguin Islands, where a large number of birds were taken and salted. Some of the seamen who were on shore discovered a Patagonian woman among the rocks, where she had endeavored to conceal herself. The chronicle thus speaks of her:—"A state more deeply calamitous than that to which this woman was reduced, the goodness of God has not permitted to be the lot of many. The ships of Van Noort had stopped at this island about seven weeks before, where this woman was one of a numerous tribe of Patagonians; but they were savagely slaughtered by Van Noort's men. She was wounded at the same time, but lived to mourn the destruction of her race, the solitary inhabitant of a rocky, desolate island." De Weert presented her with a knife, but left her without any means of changing her situation, though she made it understood that she wished to be transported to the continent.On the 21st of January, 1600, he left the Strait by the eastern entrance, and bent his course homewards. Six months afterwards he entered the channel of Goree, in Holland, having lost sixty-nine men during the voyage. The ship had been absent two years and sixteen days, the greater part of whichhad been misemployed. She had been only twenty-four days in the South Sea, and had spent nine months in the Strait of Magellan and the remainder in the passage out and back. The Faith was, nevertheless, more fortunate than her companions; for she was the only ship of the five which sailed under Jacob Mahu which ever reached home again. The Charity was abandoned at sea; the Hope was plundered by the Japanese at Bungo; the Glad Tidings was taken by the Spaniards at Valparaiso; and, as we have said, the Fidelity fell into the hands of the Portuguese at the Spice Islands. The Postillion shallop, which had been launched in the Strait, was never heard of after she entered the Pacific Ocean.The plan of the South Sea Expedition under Oliver Van Noort was in all respects similar to that of Mahu and de Weert, and the equipment was made at the joint expense of a company of merchants. The vessels fitted out were the Mauritius, whose tonnage is not mentioned,—in which sailed, as admiral, Van Noort, who was a native of Utrecht, and an experienced seaman,—the Hendrick Frederick, and two yachts, the whole being manned by two hundred and forty-eight men. The instructions to the admiral were to sail through Magellan's Strait to the South Sea, to cruise off the coast of Chili and Peru, to cross over to the Moluccas to trade, and then, returning home, to complete the circumnavigation of the globe. He sailed on the 13th of September, three months after the departure of the Five Ships of Rotterdam.At Prince's Island, near the coast of Guinea,—a station held by the Portuguese,—Van Noort's flag of truce was not respected by the garrison, and two Hollanders were killed and sixteen wounded. Van Noort revenged this outrage by burning all the sugar-mills which he dared to approach. He set one of his pilots ashore upon Cape Gonçalves for mutinous practices. He made the coast of Brazil early in February, 1519; but it was determined in council that, as the Southern winter was so near athand, they would hibernate at St. Helena. They sailed eastward, and spent three months in searching for the island; but in vain. At the end of May, they unexpectedly found themselves again upon the coast of Brazil; but the Portuguese opposed their landing. On the 18th of June, the council of war sentenced two men, a constable and a gunner, "to be abandoned in any strange country where they could hereafter be of service," for mutiny; and another seaman was sentenced to be fastened, by a knife through the hand, to the mast, there to remain till he should release himself by slitting his hand through the middle. This barbarous sentence was carried into execution.After burning one of the yachts which proved unfit for service, the fleet proceeded towards the Strait, and, on the 4th of November, anchored off Cape Virgin. Here Van Noort's ship lost three anchors, and the admiral wrote to the vice-admiral to furnish him one of his. The latter refused, saying that he was as much master as Van Noort,—a piece of impertinence which the admiral declared he would punish upon the first convenient opportunity. The vessels entered the Strait four times, and were as often forced back by the violence of the wind. On the 27th, they arrived at the two Penguin Islands. It was here that the transaction occurred to which we have alluded under Sebald de Weert. It happened as follows:On the smallest of the islands some natives were seen, who made signs to the Dutch not to advance, and threw them some penguins from the cliffs. Seeing that the strangers continued to approach, they shot arrows at them, which the Dutch returned with bullets. The savages fled for refuge to a cavern where they had secreted their women and children. The Dutch pursued them, and used their fire-arms with unrelenting ferocity, receiving little or no damage from the feeble missiles of the natives. The latter continued to fight in defence of their women and children with undiminished courage, and not till the last man of them was killed did the Hollanders obtain an entrance.Within they found a number of wretched mothers who had formed barricades of their own bodies to protect their children. Of these they killed several and wounded more. Seven weeks after, as has been said, Sebald de Weert found the tribe exterminated and but one woman surviving. Six children were taken by Van Noort on board of the fleet. One of the boys afterwards learned to speak the Dutch language, and from him were obtained several slender items of information respecting the tribe to which he had belonged, but which were far from compensating for the flagrant act of cruelty which had led to the capture of his fellow-exiles and himself.AFFRAY BETWEEN THE DUTCH AND PATAGONIANS.The men went ashore near Cape Froward, and some of them ate of an herb which drove them "raging mad." During an anchorage here, the carpenters built a boat thirty-seven feet long in the keel; the blacksmith set up his forge, while the wooders made charcoal from trees which they felled. A light wind springing up, the vice-admiral, without receiving orders,fired a gun and got under way, and, though the admiral remained stationary, continued sailing on and firing guns, as if he had been commander-in-chief. Such, said Van Noort, is the effect, upon a vice-admiral, of having a larger number of anchors than his superior. He caused him to be arrested and to be tried upon the charge of exciting mutiny by insubordinate conduct, and allowed him three weeks to prepare his defence. At this period the number of deaths in the fleet had amounted to ninety-seven persons.When the three weeks expired, the vessels were still in the Strait, and the council was assembled on board the admiral's vessel, to hear the defence of the prisoner, which proved insufficient for his acquittal, and he was condemned to be set on shore and abandoned in the Strait. This sentence was publicly read on board the different ships, and, on the 26th of January, 1600, Jacob Claesz was carried in a boat to the shore, with a small stock of bread and wine. He was thus left to shift for himself among the wild beasts and still more savage inhabitants. Van Noort ordered a prayer and exhortation to be read in the fleet during the execution of this terrible verdict.Being still at anchor in the Strait in the middle of February, the admiral announced his determination to persevere two months longer, and, if it were still impossible to reach the Pacific by the west, to turn eastward and reach it by the Cape of Good Hope. On the 29th, the wind having veered, Van Noort, with two ships and a yacht, after a tedious navigation of a year and a half, finally entered the Great South Sea. A storm compelled the admiral to cast loose and abandon the long-boat which had been built at Cape Froward, and forced the new vice-admiral to part company. His ship was never seen again. During an anchorage upon the coast of Chili, one of the sailors whom we have already mentioned as sentenced to be abandoned upon any coast where they could be of service, was sent ashore to open negotiations with the natives. If he succeeded and returned insafety, his sentence was to be remitted. He was favorably received, and a regular trade was established. The official narrative of the voyage thus describes the hospitality of the people:—"An elderly woman brought us an earthen vessel full of a drink of a sharp taste, of which we drank heartily. This drink is made of maize and water, and is brewed in the following manner: old women who have lost their teeth chew the maize, which, being thus mixed with their saliva, is put into a tub, and water is added to it. They have a superstitious opinion that the older the women are who chew the maize, by so much will the beverage be the better. And with this drink the natives get intoxicated and celebrate their festivals."Soon after, Van Noort's ship gave chase to a Spaniard, which it was important to take, lest she might spread the alarm along the coast. She proved to be the Good Jesus, and to be stationed there expressly to give early notice of the arrival of strange sails. She was taken, and a prize-master placed on board to navigate her. One of the prisoners stated afterwards, that ten thousand pounds' weight of gold had been thrown overboard during her flight; and this was corroborated by the pilot, who at first denied it, but, upon being put to the torture, confessed. Van Noort now steered for the Philippines, by way of the Ladrones. On the 30th of June, the pilot of the Good Jesus, who ate at the admiral's table, was taken ill, and accused Van Noort of wishing to poison him, and maintained the charge in presence of the officers. He was sentenced to be cast head foremost into the sea,—the established Dutch mode of punishing pirates. "We therefore threw him overboard," says the journal, "and left him to sink, to the end that he should not ever again reproach us with any treachery." The Good Jesus now lost her rudder, and, being very leaky, was abandoned in mid-ocean.While Van Noort was thus making his way towards Manilla, preparations were making at that place for defence. Cavite, the port, was fortified; two galleons were ordered to be armedand equipped. The Dutch squadron arrived off the entrance of the bay on the 24th of November, and Van Noort determined to remain there till February, to intercept all vessels bound in. He soon stopped a Japanese vessel, laden with iron and hams. He allowed her to proceed, having first purchased a wooden anchor. He remarks in the journal that he saw Japanese scimetars which could cut through three men at a blow, and that slaves were kept for the purpose of furnishing the necessary proof of their temper to purchasers. He next took a Spanish vessel laden with cocoanut wine, and a Chinese junk laden with rice. The cargoes were transferred and the vessels sunk.Early on the morning of the 14th of December, the two galleons were seen bearing down upon the Dutch squadron, now reduced to two sails,—the Mauritius, with fifty-five men, and the Concord, with twenty-five. The Spanish ships are supposed to have had two hundred men apiece. They steered directly for the enemy, but could not return their fire, as the wind from the starboard compelled them to keep their lee ports shut. The Spanish admiral ran his ship directly upon the Dutch admiral, and his men at once overpowered the latter by the mere force of numbers. The Dutch retreated from the deck, and harassed the Spaniards from their close quarters. The colors of the Mauritius were struck, upon which the captain of the Concord, thinking his superior had surrendered, endeavored to escape, being closely pursued by the Spanish vice-admiral.The Dutch admiral, however, was not captured yet. The Spaniards having remained masters of the open deck for six hours, Van Noort told his men they must go up and expel the enemy, or he would fire the magazine and blow up the ship. The Spanish account says that they were at this moment themselves forced to disengage their ship and withdraw their men, as the after-part of the Hollander had taken fire. At all events, the two vessels were cleared and the engagement renewed with cannon. The Spanish vessel took in water so fast that she wentdown not long after. The Dutch rowed about in boats among the struggling Spaniards, stabbing and knocking them on the head. In retaliation for this, the officers and crew of the Concord, which was easily taken by the Spanish vice-admiral, were conveyed to Manilla and executed as pirates and rebels. In Van Noort's ship only five men were killed, twenty-six being wounded more or less severely. He continued on his way with one vessel only, touching at Borneo, Java, and Mauritius. At the latter place, where he found other vessels at anchor, his men met with very pleasant entertainment, and on one occasion ten of them dined in an inverted tortoise-shell, the first inhabitant having withdrawn to furnish the new occupants with both soup and sitting-room.THE TWO ADMIRALS AT CLOSE QUARTERS.Van Noort arrived at Rotterdam on the 26th of August, 1601, where he was received with the utmost joy, having been absent a fortnight short of three years. His was the first Dutch vessel that circumnavigated the globe, and the only one of the nineships that sailed from Holland in 1598 in that design which succeeded in fulfilling it. The voyage contributed nothing to geography, but, in spite of the instances of barbarity with which it abounded, added to the warlike and commercial reputation of the country, and therefore met with favor from both Government and people.A DUTCH PICNIC IN THE MAURITIUS.HEAD OF A TURTLE.
SIR WALTER RALEIGH.CHAPTER XXIX.THE FICTION OF EL DORADO—MANOA—DESCRIPTION OF ITS FABLED SPLENDORS—ATTEMPTS OF THE SPANIARDS TO DISCOVER IT—SIR WALTER RALEIGH—HIS VOYAGE TO GUIANA—HIS ACCOUNT OF THE ORINOCO—HIS DESCRIPTION OF THE SCENERY—HIS RETURN—HIS SECOND VOYAGE—EXPEDITION TO NEWFOUNDLAND—HIS DEATH—MODERN INTERPRETATION OF THE LEGEND OF EL DORADO.The mines of the precious metals which the Spaniards had discovered in Peru, the wealth which they annually brought home in treasure-ships to the mother-country, together with the exaggerated accounts given by Spanish authors respecting the splendor and the civilization of the empire of the Incas, had now begun to excite the cupidity and inflame the imagination of every other people in Europe. It was known that, at the timeof the conquest of Peru by Pizarro, a large number of the natives escaped into the interior; and rumor added that one of the sons of the reigning Inca had withdrawn across the continent to a region situated between the Amazon and the Orinoco and called by the general name of Guiana. Here he had founded, it was added, an empire more splendid than that of Peru: its capital city, Manoa, only one European had seen. This was a Spaniard, a marine on board a man-of-war, who, according to the legend, had allowed a powder-magazine to explode and was condemned to death for his carelessness. This penalty was commuted, however, and he was placed in a boat at the mouth of the Orinoco, with orders to penetrate into the interior. He stayed seven months at Manoa, and then escaped to Porto Rico. He gave the following account of the city and kingdom, the latter being called, he said, El Dorado, or The Gilded:The columns of the emperor's palace were of porphyry and alabaster, the galleries of ebony and cedar, and golden steps led to a throne of ivory. The palace, which was built of white marble, stood upon an island in a lake or inland sea. Two towers guarded the entrance: between them was a pillar twenty-five feet in height, upon which was a huge silver moon. Beyond was a quadrangle planted with trees, and watered by a silver fountain which spouted through four golden pipes. The gate of the palace was of copper. Within, four lamps burned day and night before an altar of silver upon which was a burnished golden sun. Three thousand workmen were employed in the Street of the Silversmiths.The name of El Dorado, as applied to the kingdom of which Manoa was the metropolis, may refer to its wealth and splendor, or it may be derived from a habit attributed by some to the emperor, by others to the high-priests, and even to the inhabitants generally when in a state of intoxication. This custom was to cause themselves to be anointed with a precious and fragrant gum, after which gold-dust was blown upon themthrough tubes, till they were completely incrusted with gold. This attire was naturally considered sumptuous, and, in connection with the abundance of precious metals afforded by the country, may have given rise to the title of El Dorado. The legend, in either case, is a worthy companion to Ponce de Leon's Fountain of Youth.No geographical fiction ever caused such an expenditure of blood and treasure as this. The Spaniards alone lost, in their attempts to discover the city of Manoa, more lives and money than in effecting any of their permanent conquests. New adventurers were always ready to start, upon the discomfiture or destruction of those who had gone before; and no disappointment suffered by the latter could daunt the hopes of those who believed the discovery reserved for them. The Spanish priests regarded the mania as a device of the Evil One to lure mankind to perdition.The greater portion of these persons were adventurers, soldiers of fortune, and Quixotic knights-errant. The most distinguished of the converts to a belief in the existence of an El Dorado, however, it would be unjust to class among them. Sir Walter Raleigh, an Englishman of the highest talent and character, after having enjoyed the favor of Queen Elizabeth for twenty years, lost it by an intrigue with a lady of the palace. Though he repaired the injury by marrying the lady, he found he could not expect to be restored to grace except by performing some exploit which should add new lustre to his name. He had long been filled with admiration at the courage and perseverance exhibited by the Spaniards in the pursuit of their romantic and brilliant chimera. As he himself firmly believed it to be a reality, he determined to make an attempt himself. A part of his design was to colonize Guiana, and thus to extend the sphere of the industrial and commercial arts of England. He was familiar with the sea, as he had alreadysent out several expeditions for the colonization of Virginia in America.He sailed from Plymouth in February, 1595, with five vessels and a hundred soldiers. In order to reach the capital city of Guiana, it was necessary to ascend the Orinoco, the navigation of which was completely unknown to the English. As the ships drew too much water, a hundred men embarked with Raleigh in boats and proceeded up the stream. In these they remained for a month, exposed to all the extremes of a tropical climate,—sometimes to the heats of a burning sun, and again to violent and torrential rains. Raleigh's account of their progress through the labyrinth of islands and channels at the river's mouths, of their precarious supplies of food and water, the appearance of the country and the manners of the natives, and, finally, of their entrance into the grand bed of the superb Orinoco, has been admired for its descriptive beauty as well as ridiculed for its extravagant credulity. Indeed, it is doubted by many whether Raleigh really believed the stories which he put in circulation. We quote a passage:"Those who are desirous to discover and to see many nations," he writes, "may be satisfied within this river; which bringeth forth so many arms and branches leading to several countries and provinces, above two thousand miles east and west, and of these the most either rich in gold, or in other merchandises. The common soldier shall here fight for gold, and pay himself, instead of pence, with plates of gold half a foot broad, whereas he breaketh his bones in other wars for provant and penury. Those commanders and chieftains who shoot at honor and abundance shall find here more rich and beautiful cities, more temples adorned with golden images, more sepulchres filled with treasure, than either Cortez found in Mexico or Pizarro in Peru; and the shining glory of this conquest will eclipse all those so-far-extended beams of the Spanish nation. There is no country which yieldeth more pleasure to the inhabitants, for those commondelights of hunting, hawking, fishing, fowling, and the rest, than Guiana does. I am resolved that, both for health, good air, pleasure, and riches, it cannot be equalled by any region in the East or West. To conclude: Guiana is a country that hath yet her maidenhead, never sacked, turned, nor wrought. The face of the earth hath not been torn, nor the virtue and salt of the soil spent; the graves have not been opened for gold, the mines not broken with sledges, nor the images pulled down out of their temples. It hath never been entered by any army of strength, nor conquered by any Christian prince.... I trust that He who is Lord of lords will put it into her heart who is Lady of ladies to possess it. If not, I will judge those most worthy to be kings thereof that by her grace and leave will undertake it of themselves."Raleigh ascended the stream nearly two hundred miles, when the rapid and terrific rise of its waters compelled him to return. He took formal possession of the country, and made the caciques swear allegiance to Queen Elizabeth. He returned to England during the summer, having been but five months absent. It was then that he published the narrative from which we have quoted.His restoration to favor precluded any further prosecution of his designs on Guiana during the reign of Elizabeth. He was imprisoned for thirteen years during the reign of James, her successor, for the crime of high-treason and supposed participation in the plot to place Lady Arabella Stuart on the throne. In 1617, he equipped a fleet of thirteen vessels in which to proceed to Guiana for the purpose of again seeking El Dorado. The fleet arrived in safety, but Raleigh was too unwell to ascend the Orinoco in person. Captain Keymis led the exploring party, and, upon being compelled to return to the ship without success, and with the news of the death in battle of Sir Walter's eldest son, committed suicide. Raleigh sailed to Newfoundland to victual and refit; but a mutiny of the crews forced him to returnto England, where he was beheaded for the crime already punished by thirteen years' confinement.Modern historians and travellers, and men of judgment and intelligence who have inhabited the regions at the mouth of the Orinoco, have not hesitated to avow their opinion that the story of El Dorado is not without some sort of foundation in fact. Humboldt accounts for it geologically, and holds the ardent imagination of the Indians to be answerable for the fable. He conjectures that there may be islands and rocks of micaslate and talc in and around Lake Parima, which, reflecting from their surfaces and angles the glowing rays of the sun, may have been transformed by the extravagant fancy of the natives into the gorgeous temples and palaces of a gilded metropolis. He attempted to penetrate to the spot, but was prevented by a tribe of Indian dwarfs. No European has ever yet visited this celebrated locality: its great distance from the sea, the trackless forests, the wild beasts and barbarian inhabitants, have repelled both the conqueror and the explorer, so that it is not known to this day what degree or what kind of authority exists for the extraordinary story in question. But, inasmuch as Cortez passed within ten miles of the wonderful city of Copan without hearing of it, the supposition that there may be aboriginal cities in the unexplored regions of South America, affording, perhaps, basis sufficient for the tale of El Dorado without its exaggerations, is neither impossible nor improbable. The magnificent ruins lately discovered in Yucatan, where they were not expected, seem to argue the existence of others in regions where positive and persistent tradition has located them.
SIR WALTER RALEIGH.
SIR WALTER RALEIGH.
SIR WALTER RALEIGH.
THE FICTION OF EL DORADO—MANOA—DESCRIPTION OF ITS FABLED SPLENDORS—ATTEMPTS OF THE SPANIARDS TO DISCOVER IT—SIR WALTER RALEIGH—HIS VOYAGE TO GUIANA—HIS ACCOUNT OF THE ORINOCO—HIS DESCRIPTION OF THE SCENERY—HIS RETURN—HIS SECOND VOYAGE—EXPEDITION TO NEWFOUNDLAND—HIS DEATH—MODERN INTERPRETATION OF THE LEGEND OF EL DORADO.
The mines of the precious metals which the Spaniards had discovered in Peru, the wealth which they annually brought home in treasure-ships to the mother-country, together with the exaggerated accounts given by Spanish authors respecting the splendor and the civilization of the empire of the Incas, had now begun to excite the cupidity and inflame the imagination of every other people in Europe. It was known that, at the timeof the conquest of Peru by Pizarro, a large number of the natives escaped into the interior; and rumor added that one of the sons of the reigning Inca had withdrawn across the continent to a region situated between the Amazon and the Orinoco and called by the general name of Guiana. Here he had founded, it was added, an empire more splendid than that of Peru: its capital city, Manoa, only one European had seen. This was a Spaniard, a marine on board a man-of-war, who, according to the legend, had allowed a powder-magazine to explode and was condemned to death for his carelessness. This penalty was commuted, however, and he was placed in a boat at the mouth of the Orinoco, with orders to penetrate into the interior. He stayed seven months at Manoa, and then escaped to Porto Rico. He gave the following account of the city and kingdom, the latter being called, he said, El Dorado, or The Gilded:
The columns of the emperor's palace were of porphyry and alabaster, the galleries of ebony and cedar, and golden steps led to a throne of ivory. The palace, which was built of white marble, stood upon an island in a lake or inland sea. Two towers guarded the entrance: between them was a pillar twenty-five feet in height, upon which was a huge silver moon. Beyond was a quadrangle planted with trees, and watered by a silver fountain which spouted through four golden pipes. The gate of the palace was of copper. Within, four lamps burned day and night before an altar of silver upon which was a burnished golden sun. Three thousand workmen were employed in the Street of the Silversmiths.
The name of El Dorado, as applied to the kingdom of which Manoa was the metropolis, may refer to its wealth and splendor, or it may be derived from a habit attributed by some to the emperor, by others to the high-priests, and even to the inhabitants generally when in a state of intoxication. This custom was to cause themselves to be anointed with a precious and fragrant gum, after which gold-dust was blown upon themthrough tubes, till they were completely incrusted with gold. This attire was naturally considered sumptuous, and, in connection with the abundance of precious metals afforded by the country, may have given rise to the title of El Dorado. The legend, in either case, is a worthy companion to Ponce de Leon's Fountain of Youth.
No geographical fiction ever caused such an expenditure of blood and treasure as this. The Spaniards alone lost, in their attempts to discover the city of Manoa, more lives and money than in effecting any of their permanent conquests. New adventurers were always ready to start, upon the discomfiture or destruction of those who had gone before; and no disappointment suffered by the latter could daunt the hopes of those who believed the discovery reserved for them. The Spanish priests regarded the mania as a device of the Evil One to lure mankind to perdition.
The greater portion of these persons were adventurers, soldiers of fortune, and Quixotic knights-errant. The most distinguished of the converts to a belief in the existence of an El Dorado, however, it would be unjust to class among them. Sir Walter Raleigh, an Englishman of the highest talent and character, after having enjoyed the favor of Queen Elizabeth for twenty years, lost it by an intrigue with a lady of the palace. Though he repaired the injury by marrying the lady, he found he could not expect to be restored to grace except by performing some exploit which should add new lustre to his name. He had long been filled with admiration at the courage and perseverance exhibited by the Spaniards in the pursuit of their romantic and brilliant chimera. As he himself firmly believed it to be a reality, he determined to make an attempt himself. A part of his design was to colonize Guiana, and thus to extend the sphere of the industrial and commercial arts of England. He was familiar with the sea, as he had alreadysent out several expeditions for the colonization of Virginia in America.
He sailed from Plymouth in February, 1595, with five vessels and a hundred soldiers. In order to reach the capital city of Guiana, it was necessary to ascend the Orinoco, the navigation of which was completely unknown to the English. As the ships drew too much water, a hundred men embarked with Raleigh in boats and proceeded up the stream. In these they remained for a month, exposed to all the extremes of a tropical climate,—sometimes to the heats of a burning sun, and again to violent and torrential rains. Raleigh's account of their progress through the labyrinth of islands and channels at the river's mouths, of their precarious supplies of food and water, the appearance of the country and the manners of the natives, and, finally, of their entrance into the grand bed of the superb Orinoco, has been admired for its descriptive beauty as well as ridiculed for its extravagant credulity. Indeed, it is doubted by many whether Raleigh really believed the stories which he put in circulation. We quote a passage:
"Those who are desirous to discover and to see many nations," he writes, "may be satisfied within this river; which bringeth forth so many arms and branches leading to several countries and provinces, above two thousand miles east and west, and of these the most either rich in gold, or in other merchandises. The common soldier shall here fight for gold, and pay himself, instead of pence, with plates of gold half a foot broad, whereas he breaketh his bones in other wars for provant and penury. Those commanders and chieftains who shoot at honor and abundance shall find here more rich and beautiful cities, more temples adorned with golden images, more sepulchres filled with treasure, than either Cortez found in Mexico or Pizarro in Peru; and the shining glory of this conquest will eclipse all those so-far-extended beams of the Spanish nation. There is no country which yieldeth more pleasure to the inhabitants, for those commondelights of hunting, hawking, fishing, fowling, and the rest, than Guiana does. I am resolved that, both for health, good air, pleasure, and riches, it cannot be equalled by any region in the East or West. To conclude: Guiana is a country that hath yet her maidenhead, never sacked, turned, nor wrought. The face of the earth hath not been torn, nor the virtue and salt of the soil spent; the graves have not been opened for gold, the mines not broken with sledges, nor the images pulled down out of their temples. It hath never been entered by any army of strength, nor conquered by any Christian prince.... I trust that He who is Lord of lords will put it into her heart who is Lady of ladies to possess it. If not, I will judge those most worthy to be kings thereof that by her grace and leave will undertake it of themselves."
Raleigh ascended the stream nearly two hundred miles, when the rapid and terrific rise of its waters compelled him to return. He took formal possession of the country, and made the caciques swear allegiance to Queen Elizabeth. He returned to England during the summer, having been but five months absent. It was then that he published the narrative from which we have quoted.
His restoration to favor precluded any further prosecution of his designs on Guiana during the reign of Elizabeth. He was imprisoned for thirteen years during the reign of James, her successor, for the crime of high-treason and supposed participation in the plot to place Lady Arabella Stuart on the throne. In 1617, he equipped a fleet of thirteen vessels in which to proceed to Guiana for the purpose of again seeking El Dorado. The fleet arrived in safety, but Raleigh was too unwell to ascend the Orinoco in person. Captain Keymis led the exploring party, and, upon being compelled to return to the ship without success, and with the news of the death in battle of Sir Walter's eldest son, committed suicide. Raleigh sailed to Newfoundland to victual and refit; but a mutiny of the crews forced him to returnto England, where he was beheaded for the crime already punished by thirteen years' confinement.
Modern historians and travellers, and men of judgment and intelligence who have inhabited the regions at the mouth of the Orinoco, have not hesitated to avow their opinion that the story of El Dorado is not without some sort of foundation in fact. Humboldt accounts for it geologically, and holds the ardent imagination of the Indians to be answerable for the fable. He conjectures that there may be islands and rocks of micaslate and talc in and around Lake Parima, which, reflecting from their surfaces and angles the glowing rays of the sun, may have been transformed by the extravagant fancy of the natives into the gorgeous temples and palaces of a gilded metropolis. He attempted to penetrate to the spot, but was prevented by a tribe of Indian dwarfs. No European has ever yet visited this celebrated locality: its great distance from the sea, the trackless forests, the wild beasts and barbarian inhabitants, have repelled both the conqueror and the explorer, so that it is not known to this day what degree or what kind of authority exists for the extraordinary story in question. But, inasmuch as Cortez passed within ten miles of the wonderful city of Copan without hearing of it, the supposition that there may be aboriginal cities in the unexplored regions of South America, affording, perhaps, basis sufficient for the tale of El Dorado without its exaggerations, is neither impossible nor improbable. The magnificent ruins lately discovered in Yucatan, where they were not expected, seem to argue the existence of others in regions where positive and persistent tradition has located them.
NATIVE OF THE SOLOMON ISLANDS.CHAPTER XXX.DISCOVERY OF THE SOLOMON ISLANDS BY MENDANA—HE SEEKS FOR THEM AGAIN THIRTY YEARS LATER—QUIROS—THE MARQUESAS ISLANDS—THE WOMEN COMPARED WITH THOSE OF LIMA—STRANGE FRUITS—CONVERSIONS TO CHRISTIANITY—ARDUOUS VOYAGE—SANTA CRUZ—MENDANA EXCHANGES NAMES WITH MALOPÉ—HOSTILITIES—WAR, AND ITS RESULTS—DEATH OF MENDANA—QUIROS CONDUCTS THE SHIPS TO MANILLA.The progress of discovery now recalls us to Spain. About the year 1567, one Alvaro Mendana de Neyra, who had thus far lived in complete obscurity, followed his uncle Don Pedro de Castro to Lima, in Peru, where he had been appointed governor. Mendana, disdaining commerce, and feeling little inclination to lead a monotonous life on shore, after the taste he had had during the passage of a roving existence upon the water, resolved to undertake the discovery of new lands in the name of the Kingof Spain. His uncle encouraged him in his design and furnished him with the necessary funds. Mendana set sail from Callao on the 11th of January, 1568. He proceeded fourteen hundred and fifty leagues to the west, and discovered a group of islands in about 10° south latitude. One of them, to which he gave the name of Isabella, is distinguished as having been the scene of the first celebration of a Catholic mass in the Pacific Ocean. He sailed round another of the group, St. Christopher, and, after several disastrous encounters with the natives, returned to Callao. This voyage, the most important undertaken by the Spanish since the discovery of America, gave rise to multitudes of fables, with which the historians and chroniclers of Spain filled the minds of the people during the century which followed. The islands discovered by Mendana were represented as enormously rich in gold and the precious metals. The name of Solomon was given to the group,—a name which was thought to be eminently suited to so luxurious an archipelago, having formerly been that of a luxurious prince. As in those days the art of scientific navigation was in its infancy, and as latitude and longitude were not fixed with any great degree of precision, the position of the Solomon Islands was very loosely marked down by Mendana, and the question of their locality became, and for a long time remained, one of the most puzzling questions in geography.Mendana sent home to the Spanish Government brilliant accounts of his discoveries, and solicited the means of prosecuting them still further. War and other engagements prevented the ministry from attending to his requests till the year 1595, when he obtained the command of an expedition having for its object the colonization of St. Christopher. He sailed from Callao in April with four ships carrying four hundred men: his wife, Isabel de Barretos, and three of his brothers-in-law, accompanied him. Pedro Fernandez de Quiros, of whom we shall afterwards speak more particularly, was the pilot of the fleet. Theystopped at Paita, where they watered and enlisted four hundred additional men, and on the 16th of June finally started in quest of the long-lost islands. A month afterwards, being in latitude 11° south, Mendana discovered a group of three islands, to which he gave a collective name as well as individual names. He called them Las Marquesas de Mendoça, in honor of the Marquis of Mendoça, a Spaniard of distinction. They are still known as the Marquesas Islands. The natives manifested a remarkably thievish disposition, and received several rounds of grape for pilfering the jars of the watering party who had gone ashore. Though the chronicler draws a comparison in speaking of the women, he yet skilfully contrives to compliment all parties mentioned. He says, "Very fine women were seen here. Many thought them as beautiful as those of Lima, but whiter and not so rosy; and yet there are very beautiful at Lima. They have delicate hands, genteel body and waiste, exceeding much in perfection the most perfect of Lima; and yet there are very beautiful at Lima. The temperament, health, strength, and corpulency of these people tell what is the climate they live in: clothes could well be borne with night and day; the sun did not molest much; there fell some small showers of rain. Our people never perceived lightning or dew, but great dryness, so that, without hanging up, they found dry in the morning the things which were left wet on the ground at night." A singular fruit was noticed, which the men eat green, roasted, boiled, and ripe. It had neither stone nor kernel, and the Spaniards called it blanc-mange. They likewise admired another fruit "inclosed in prickles like chestnuts, and which resembled chestnuts in taste, but was much bigger than six chestnuts together." Mendana ordered a grand mass to be said, during which the islanders remained on their knees with great silence and attention.Mendana took possession of the islands in the king's name, and sowed maize in many spots which he thought favorable to its growth. The chaplain taught one of the natives to blesshimself and say Jesus Maria. This being done, the shallop being refitted, three crosses erected, and wood and water having been stored, the squadron set sail again for the still-missing archipelago. The soldiers soon became despondent, and the crews were placed upon short allowance. Fourteen hundred leagues from Lima they saw a desert island, which they called St. Bernardo; and at fifteen hundred and thirty-five leagues' distance they named an island the Solitary, "as it was alone." Thus they continued their course, "many people giving their sentiments, and saying they knew not whither they were going nor what they were coming to, and other such things, which could not fail of giving pain." At last, when eighteen hundred leagues from Lima, they fell in with a large island, one hundred miles in circuit, which Mendana named Santa Cruz—since called Egmont Island by Carteret. Here was a volcano, "of a very fine-shaped hill, from the top whereof issues much fire, and which often makes a great thundering inside." Fifty small boats rigged with sails came out to the ship. The men were black, with woolly hair, dyed white, red, and blue. Their teeth were tinged red, and their faces and bodies marked with streaks. Their arms were bound round with bracelets of black rattan, while their necks were decorated with strings of beads and fishes' teeth. Mendana at once took them for the people he sought. He spoke to them in the language he had learned upon his first voyage; but they neither understood him, nor he them. Without provocation, they discharged a shower of arrows at the ship, which lodged in the sails and the rigging,—without, however, doing any mischief. The soldiers fired in return, killing one and wounding many more.Friendly relations were soon restored, and a savage, apparently of high rank, visited the admiral in his ship. He was lean and gray-headed, and his skin was of the "color of wheat." He inquired who was the chief of the new-comers. The admiral received him with cordiality, and gave him to understandthat he was. The Indian said his name was Malopé. The admiral replied that his was Mendana. Malopé at once rejoined that he would be Mendana, and that the admiral should be Malopé. He manifested much gratification at this exchange, and, whenever he was called Malopé, said, "No: Mendana;" and, pointing to the admiral, said that was Malopé. This was probably the first instance of an exchange of names—one of the most solemn acts of friendship with certain tribes of the Pacific Islanders—being effected between a European and a savage. The natives soon learned to shake hands, to embrace, to say "friend," to shave with razors, and to pare their nails with scissors. This state of amity did not last long, however, and a trivial circumstance caused suspicion, and finally hostility. The savages commenced with arrows, and the Spaniards retaliated with fire and sword. In the evening, Malopé came to the shore, and, in a loud voice, called the admiral by the name of Malopé, and, smiting his breast, declared himself to be Mendana. He said the attack had been begun by another tribe, not his, and proposed they should all sally forth against them. To this Mendana did not accede, but, landing his men, proceeded to found a colony.At this point the details furnished by the several chroniclers of the expedition become vague and unsatisfactory. It appears that Malopé was killed in a skirmish; that the natives were not content with merely lamenting his death, but withheld all supplies from the Spaniards; that Mendana caused two mutineers to be beheaded and another to be hung. A war of extermination now commenced, and a state of sedition, misery, and want ensued, which brought Mendana rapidly to the grave. He died of disappointment and regret, in October, 1595. His successor, being wounded, died in November. The crew, worn out with fatigue and sickness, and being reduced to such an extent that twenty resolute Indians could have destroyed them, resolved to suspend the enterprise and re-embark. They took inwood and water, and sailed on the 7th of November. Quiros maintained discipline among a mutinous crew, and, after almost superhuman efforts to navigate his crazy ships upon an unknown sea, arrived with the remains of the expedition at Manilla. From thence Quiros—whose adventures and discoveries we shall soon have occasion to narrate—returned to Acapulco, in Mexico, and thence to Lima, where he petitioned the viceroy for the means of continuing the researches of Mendana. As he did not set sail till 1606, we must first attend to the various enterprises undertaken in the interval.THE ISLANDERS BEFORE A BREEZE.
NATIVE OF THE SOLOMON ISLANDS.
NATIVE OF THE SOLOMON ISLANDS.
NATIVE OF THE SOLOMON ISLANDS.
DISCOVERY OF THE SOLOMON ISLANDS BY MENDANA—HE SEEKS FOR THEM AGAIN THIRTY YEARS LATER—QUIROS—THE MARQUESAS ISLANDS—THE WOMEN COMPARED WITH THOSE OF LIMA—STRANGE FRUITS—CONVERSIONS TO CHRISTIANITY—ARDUOUS VOYAGE—SANTA CRUZ—MENDANA EXCHANGES NAMES WITH MALOPÉ—HOSTILITIES—WAR, AND ITS RESULTS—DEATH OF MENDANA—QUIROS CONDUCTS THE SHIPS TO MANILLA.
The progress of discovery now recalls us to Spain. About the year 1567, one Alvaro Mendana de Neyra, who had thus far lived in complete obscurity, followed his uncle Don Pedro de Castro to Lima, in Peru, where he had been appointed governor. Mendana, disdaining commerce, and feeling little inclination to lead a monotonous life on shore, after the taste he had had during the passage of a roving existence upon the water, resolved to undertake the discovery of new lands in the name of the Kingof Spain. His uncle encouraged him in his design and furnished him with the necessary funds. Mendana set sail from Callao on the 11th of January, 1568. He proceeded fourteen hundred and fifty leagues to the west, and discovered a group of islands in about 10° south latitude. One of them, to which he gave the name of Isabella, is distinguished as having been the scene of the first celebration of a Catholic mass in the Pacific Ocean. He sailed round another of the group, St. Christopher, and, after several disastrous encounters with the natives, returned to Callao. This voyage, the most important undertaken by the Spanish since the discovery of America, gave rise to multitudes of fables, with which the historians and chroniclers of Spain filled the minds of the people during the century which followed. The islands discovered by Mendana were represented as enormously rich in gold and the precious metals. The name of Solomon was given to the group,—a name which was thought to be eminently suited to so luxurious an archipelago, having formerly been that of a luxurious prince. As in those days the art of scientific navigation was in its infancy, and as latitude and longitude were not fixed with any great degree of precision, the position of the Solomon Islands was very loosely marked down by Mendana, and the question of their locality became, and for a long time remained, one of the most puzzling questions in geography.
Mendana sent home to the Spanish Government brilliant accounts of his discoveries, and solicited the means of prosecuting them still further. War and other engagements prevented the ministry from attending to his requests till the year 1595, when he obtained the command of an expedition having for its object the colonization of St. Christopher. He sailed from Callao in April with four ships carrying four hundred men: his wife, Isabel de Barretos, and three of his brothers-in-law, accompanied him. Pedro Fernandez de Quiros, of whom we shall afterwards speak more particularly, was the pilot of the fleet. Theystopped at Paita, where they watered and enlisted four hundred additional men, and on the 16th of June finally started in quest of the long-lost islands. A month afterwards, being in latitude 11° south, Mendana discovered a group of three islands, to which he gave a collective name as well as individual names. He called them Las Marquesas de Mendoça, in honor of the Marquis of Mendoça, a Spaniard of distinction. They are still known as the Marquesas Islands. The natives manifested a remarkably thievish disposition, and received several rounds of grape for pilfering the jars of the watering party who had gone ashore. Though the chronicler draws a comparison in speaking of the women, he yet skilfully contrives to compliment all parties mentioned. He says, "Very fine women were seen here. Many thought them as beautiful as those of Lima, but whiter and not so rosy; and yet there are very beautiful at Lima. They have delicate hands, genteel body and waiste, exceeding much in perfection the most perfect of Lima; and yet there are very beautiful at Lima. The temperament, health, strength, and corpulency of these people tell what is the climate they live in: clothes could well be borne with night and day; the sun did not molest much; there fell some small showers of rain. Our people never perceived lightning or dew, but great dryness, so that, without hanging up, they found dry in the morning the things which were left wet on the ground at night." A singular fruit was noticed, which the men eat green, roasted, boiled, and ripe. It had neither stone nor kernel, and the Spaniards called it blanc-mange. They likewise admired another fruit "inclosed in prickles like chestnuts, and which resembled chestnuts in taste, but was much bigger than six chestnuts together." Mendana ordered a grand mass to be said, during which the islanders remained on their knees with great silence and attention.
Mendana took possession of the islands in the king's name, and sowed maize in many spots which he thought favorable to its growth. The chaplain taught one of the natives to blesshimself and say Jesus Maria. This being done, the shallop being refitted, three crosses erected, and wood and water having been stored, the squadron set sail again for the still-missing archipelago. The soldiers soon became despondent, and the crews were placed upon short allowance. Fourteen hundred leagues from Lima they saw a desert island, which they called St. Bernardo; and at fifteen hundred and thirty-five leagues' distance they named an island the Solitary, "as it was alone." Thus they continued their course, "many people giving their sentiments, and saying they knew not whither they were going nor what they were coming to, and other such things, which could not fail of giving pain." At last, when eighteen hundred leagues from Lima, they fell in with a large island, one hundred miles in circuit, which Mendana named Santa Cruz—since called Egmont Island by Carteret. Here was a volcano, "of a very fine-shaped hill, from the top whereof issues much fire, and which often makes a great thundering inside." Fifty small boats rigged with sails came out to the ship. The men were black, with woolly hair, dyed white, red, and blue. Their teeth were tinged red, and their faces and bodies marked with streaks. Their arms were bound round with bracelets of black rattan, while their necks were decorated with strings of beads and fishes' teeth. Mendana at once took them for the people he sought. He spoke to them in the language he had learned upon his first voyage; but they neither understood him, nor he them. Without provocation, they discharged a shower of arrows at the ship, which lodged in the sails and the rigging,—without, however, doing any mischief. The soldiers fired in return, killing one and wounding many more.
Friendly relations were soon restored, and a savage, apparently of high rank, visited the admiral in his ship. He was lean and gray-headed, and his skin was of the "color of wheat." He inquired who was the chief of the new-comers. The admiral received him with cordiality, and gave him to understandthat he was. The Indian said his name was Malopé. The admiral replied that his was Mendana. Malopé at once rejoined that he would be Mendana, and that the admiral should be Malopé. He manifested much gratification at this exchange, and, whenever he was called Malopé, said, "No: Mendana;" and, pointing to the admiral, said that was Malopé. This was probably the first instance of an exchange of names—one of the most solemn acts of friendship with certain tribes of the Pacific Islanders—being effected between a European and a savage. The natives soon learned to shake hands, to embrace, to say "friend," to shave with razors, and to pare their nails with scissors. This state of amity did not last long, however, and a trivial circumstance caused suspicion, and finally hostility. The savages commenced with arrows, and the Spaniards retaliated with fire and sword. In the evening, Malopé came to the shore, and, in a loud voice, called the admiral by the name of Malopé, and, smiting his breast, declared himself to be Mendana. He said the attack had been begun by another tribe, not his, and proposed they should all sally forth against them. To this Mendana did not accede, but, landing his men, proceeded to found a colony.
At this point the details furnished by the several chroniclers of the expedition become vague and unsatisfactory. It appears that Malopé was killed in a skirmish; that the natives were not content with merely lamenting his death, but withheld all supplies from the Spaniards; that Mendana caused two mutineers to be beheaded and another to be hung. A war of extermination now commenced, and a state of sedition, misery, and want ensued, which brought Mendana rapidly to the grave. He died of disappointment and regret, in October, 1595. His successor, being wounded, died in November. The crew, worn out with fatigue and sickness, and being reduced to such an extent that twenty resolute Indians could have destroyed them, resolved to suspend the enterprise and re-embark. They took inwood and water, and sailed on the 7th of November. Quiros maintained discipline among a mutinous crew, and, after almost superhuman efforts to navigate his crazy ships upon an unknown sea, arrived with the remains of the expedition at Manilla. From thence Quiros—whose adventures and discoveries we shall soon have occasion to narrate—returned to Acapulco, in Mexico, and thence to Lima, where he petitioned the viceroy for the means of continuing the researches of Mendana. As he did not set sail till 1606, we must first attend to the various enterprises undertaken in the interval.
THE ISLANDERS BEFORE A BREEZE.
THE ISLANDERS BEFORE A BREEZE.
THE ISLANDERS BEFORE A BREEZE.
THE DUTCH AT WALRUS ISLAND.CHAPTER XXXI.ATTEMPTS OF THE DUTCH TO DISCOVER A NORTHEAST PASSAGE—VOYAGE OF WILHELM BARENTZ—ARRIVAL AT NOVA ZEMBLA—WINTER QUARTERS—BUILDING A HOUSE—FIGHTS WITH BEARS—THE SUN DISAPPEARS—THE CLOCK STOPS, AND THE BEER FREEZES—THE HOUSE IS SNOWED UP—THE HOT-ACHE—FOX-TRAPS—TWELFTH NIGHT—RETURN OF THE SUN—THE SHIPS PROVE UNSEAWORTHY—PREPARATIONS TO DEPART IN THE BOATS—DEATH OF BARENTZ—ARRIVAL AT AMSTERDAM—RESULTS OF THE VOYAGE.In the year 1514, the Dutch resolved to seek a northeast passage by water to the Indies, across the Polar regions of Europe. Their first two attempts were attended with so little success that the States-General abandoned the undertaking, contenting themselves with promising a reward to the navigator who should find a practicable route. In 1596, the city of Amsterdam took up the matter where the Government had left it, and equipped two vessels, the chief command of which was given to Wilhelm Barentz. He started on the 10th of May, and passed the islands of Shetland and Feroë on the 22d. Not long after, the fleet saw with wonder one of the phenomena peculiar to the Arctic regions,—three mock suns, with circular rainbows connecting them by a luminous halo. On the 9th of June, they discovered two islands, to which they gave the namesof Bear and Walrus Islands. They kept on, to the usual Arctic accompaniment of icebergs, seals, auroræ boreales, whales, and white bears, till they came to a land which they named Spitzbergen, or Land of Sharp-peaked Mountains.On the 17th of July, they arrived at Nova Zembla,—discovered in 1553 by Willoughby,—and here the two ships were accidentally separated. In August, the vessel of Barentz was embayed in drifting ice, and no efforts could release her from her dangerous position. Winter was coming on, and the crew, despairing of saving the ship, which was now groaning and heaving under the pressure of the ice, resolved to build a house upon the land, "with which to defend themselves from the colde and wilde beasts." They were fortunate enough to find a large quantity of drift-wood, which had evidently floated from a distance, as the icy soil around them yielded neither tree nor herb. The work began and continued in the midst of constant fights with bears and the arduous labor of dragging stores from the ship upon hand-sleds. The cold was so extreme that their skin peeled off upon touching any iron utensil. Snow storms interrupted the progress of the house, for which they were soon obliged to obtain materials by breaking up the ship. One of the men, being pursued by a bear, was only saved by the latter's waiting to contemplate the body of one of his fellow-bears, which the sailors had killed and left to freeze stiff in an upright position.On the 12th of October, half the crew slept in the house for the first time: they suffered greatly from cold, as they had no fire, and because, as the narrative quaintly remarks, "they were somewhat deficient in blankets." The roof was thatched, by the end of October, with sail-cloth and sea-weed. On the 2d of November, the sun raised but half his disk above the horizon: the bears disappeared with the sun, and foxes took their place. The clock having stopped, and refusing to proceed, even with increased weights, day could not be distinguished from night,except by the twelve-hour-glass. The beer, freezing in the casks, became as tasteless as water. Half a pound of bread a day was served out to each man: the provisions of dried fish and salt meat remained still abundant. The chimney would not draw, and the apartment was filled with a blinding smoke,—which the crew were obliged to endure, however, or die of cold. The surgeon made a bathing-tub from a wine-pipe, in which they bathed four at a time. They were several times snowed up, and the house was absolutely buried. Though half a league from the sea, they heard the horrible cracking and groaning of the ice as the bergs settled down one upon the other, or as the huge mountains burst asunder. On one occasion, unable to support the cold, they made a fire in their house with coal brought from the ship. It was the first moment of comfort they had enjoyed for months. They kept up the genial heat until several of the least vigorous of the men were seized with dizziness and with the peculiar pains known as the hot-ache. Gerard de Veer, the chronicler of the expedition, caught in his arms the first man that fell, and revived him by rubbing his face with vinegar. He adds, "We had now learned that to avoid one evil we should not rush into a worse one."THE DUTCH IN WINTER QUARTERS.They set traps all around their cabin, with which they caught on an average a fox a day. They eat the flesh, and with the skins made caps and mittens. They had the good fortune tokill a bear nine feet long, from which they obtained one hundred pounds of lard. This they found useful, not as pomatum, but as the means of burning their lamp constantly, day and night, as if it were an altar and they the vestal virgins. On the 19th of December, they congratulated themselves that the Arctic night was just one-half expired; "for," says the narrative, "it was a terrible thing to be without the light of the sun, and deprived of the most excellent creature of God, which enliveneth the entire universe." On Christmas eve it snowed so violently that they could not open the door. The next day there was a white frost in the cabin. While seated at the fire and toasting their legs, their backs were frozen stiff. They did not know by the feeling that they were burning their shoes, and were only warned by the odor of the shrivelling leather. They put a strip of linen into the air, to see which way the wind was: in an instant the linen was frozen as hard as a board, and became, of course, perfectly useless as a weathercock. Then the men said to each other, "How excessively cold it must be out of doors!"The 5th of January was Twelfth Night, and the hut was buried under the snow. In the midst of their misery, they asked the captain's leave to celebrate the hallowed anniversary. With flour and oil they made pancakes, washing them down with wine saved from the day before and borrowed in advance from the morrow. They elected a king by lot, the master gunner being indicated by chance as the Lord of Nova Zembla. On the 8th, the twilight was observed to be slightly lengthening, and, though the cold increased with the returning sun, they bore it with cheerfulness. They noticed a tinge of red in the atmosphere, which spoke of the revival of nature. They visited the ship, and found the ice a foot high in the hold: they hardly expected ever to see her float again. The difficulty of obtaining fuel was now such, that many of the men thought it would be easier and shorter to lie down and die than make such dreadful efforts to prolong life. To save wood during the daytime,they played snow-ball, or ran, or wrestled, to keep up the circulation.On the 24th of January, Gerard de Veer declared he had seen the edge of the sun: Barentz, who did not expect the return of the luminary for fourteen days, was incredulous, and the cloudy state of the weather during the succeeding three days prevented the bets which were made upon the subject from being settled. On the 27th, they buried one of their number in a snow grave seven feet deep, having dug it with some difficulty, the diggers being constantly obliged to return to the fire. One of the men remarking that, even were the house completely blocked up fifteen feet deep, they could yet get out by the chimney, the captain climbed up the chimney, and a sailor ran out to see if he succeeded. He rushed back, saying he had seen the sun. Everybody hastened forth and "saw him, in his entire roundness," just above the horizon. It was then decided that de Veer had seen the edge on the 24th, and they "all rejoiced together, praising God loudly for the mercy."Another season of snow now set in, while, at the same time, the ice that bound the ship began to break up, so that the men feared she would escape and float away while they were blockaded in the house. They were obliged to make themselves shoes of worn-out fox-skin caps, as the leather was frozen as hard as horn. On the night of the 6th of April, a bear ascended to the roof of the house by means of the embankments of snow, and, attacking the chimney with great violence, was very near demolishing it. On the 1st of May, they eat their last morsel of meat, relying henceforth on what they might entrap or kill.It was now decided that even if the ship should be disengaged she would be unfit to continue the voyage. Their only hope lay in the shallop and the long-boat, which they endeavored to prepare for the sea, in the midst of interruptions from bears, who "were very obstinate to know how Dutchmen tasted."As late as the 5th of June, it snowed so violently that they could only work within-doors, where they got ready the sails, oars, rudder, &c. On the 12th, they set to work with axes and other tools to level a path from the ship to the water,—a distance of five hundred paces. On the 13th, Barentz wrote a brief account of their voyage and sojourn, placed it in a musket-barrel, and attached it to the fireplace in the house, for the information of future navigators. They then dragged, with infinite labor, the boats to the water, together with barrels and boxes of such stores as their now impoverished ship could yield. They bade adieu to their winter quarters on the 14th, at early morning, "with a west wind and under the protection of Heaven." Barentz, who had been a long time ill, died on the 20th, while opposite Icy Cape, the northernmost point of Nova Zembla. His loss was deeply regretted; but their "grief was assuaged by the reflection that none can resist the will of God."The men were often obliged to drag the boats across intervening fields of ice; and sometimes, when the wind was contrary, they drew them up on a floating bank, and, making tents of the sails, camped out, as if on military service. The sentinels frequently challenged bears, and, on one occasion, three coming together and one being killed, the surviving two devoured their fallen companion. Through dangers and difficulties then unparalleled in navigation, they struggled hopefully on, descending the western coast of Nova Zembla towards the northern shores of Russia and Lapland. On the 16th of August, they met a Russian bark, which furnished them with such provisions as the captain could spare. On the 20th, they touched the coast of Lapland upon the White Sea, where they found thirteen Russians living in miserable huts upon the fish which they caught. On the 2d of September, they arrived at Kola, in Lapland, where they found three Dutch ships, one of which was their consort, which had been separated from them ten months before. Having no further use for their boats, they carriedthem with ceremony to the "Merchants' House," or Town-Hall, where they dedicated them to the memory of their long voyage of four hundred leagues over a tract never traversed before, and which they had accomplished in open boats. They started at once for home, and arrived on the 1st of November at Amsterdam, twelve in number. The city was greatly excited by the news of their return, for they had long since been given up for dead. The chancellor and the "ambassador of the very illustrious King of Denmark, Norway, the Goths and the Vandals" were at that moment at dinner. The voyagers were summoned to narrate their adventures before them,—which they did, "clad in white fox-skin caps."No voyage had hitherto been so fruitful in incident, peril, and displays of persevering courage and fortitude. Though it resulted in no discovery except that of the western coast of Nova Zembla, it served the useful purpose of demonstrating the difficulty, if not the impossibility, of effecting a northeast passage.FEMALE OTTER AND HER YOUNG.
THE DUTCH AT WALRUS ISLAND.
THE DUTCH AT WALRUS ISLAND.
THE DUTCH AT WALRUS ISLAND.
ATTEMPTS OF THE DUTCH TO DISCOVER A NORTHEAST PASSAGE—VOYAGE OF WILHELM BARENTZ—ARRIVAL AT NOVA ZEMBLA—WINTER QUARTERS—BUILDING A HOUSE—FIGHTS WITH BEARS—THE SUN DISAPPEARS—THE CLOCK STOPS, AND THE BEER FREEZES—THE HOUSE IS SNOWED UP—THE HOT-ACHE—FOX-TRAPS—TWELFTH NIGHT—RETURN OF THE SUN—THE SHIPS PROVE UNSEAWORTHY—PREPARATIONS TO DEPART IN THE BOATS—DEATH OF BARENTZ—ARRIVAL AT AMSTERDAM—RESULTS OF THE VOYAGE.
In the year 1514, the Dutch resolved to seek a northeast passage by water to the Indies, across the Polar regions of Europe. Their first two attempts were attended with so little success that the States-General abandoned the undertaking, contenting themselves with promising a reward to the navigator who should find a practicable route. In 1596, the city of Amsterdam took up the matter where the Government had left it, and equipped two vessels, the chief command of which was given to Wilhelm Barentz. He started on the 10th of May, and passed the islands of Shetland and Feroë on the 22d. Not long after, the fleet saw with wonder one of the phenomena peculiar to the Arctic regions,—three mock suns, with circular rainbows connecting them by a luminous halo. On the 9th of June, they discovered two islands, to which they gave the namesof Bear and Walrus Islands. They kept on, to the usual Arctic accompaniment of icebergs, seals, auroræ boreales, whales, and white bears, till they came to a land which they named Spitzbergen, or Land of Sharp-peaked Mountains.
On the 17th of July, they arrived at Nova Zembla,—discovered in 1553 by Willoughby,—and here the two ships were accidentally separated. In August, the vessel of Barentz was embayed in drifting ice, and no efforts could release her from her dangerous position. Winter was coming on, and the crew, despairing of saving the ship, which was now groaning and heaving under the pressure of the ice, resolved to build a house upon the land, "with which to defend themselves from the colde and wilde beasts." They were fortunate enough to find a large quantity of drift-wood, which had evidently floated from a distance, as the icy soil around them yielded neither tree nor herb. The work began and continued in the midst of constant fights with bears and the arduous labor of dragging stores from the ship upon hand-sleds. The cold was so extreme that their skin peeled off upon touching any iron utensil. Snow storms interrupted the progress of the house, for which they were soon obliged to obtain materials by breaking up the ship. One of the men, being pursued by a bear, was only saved by the latter's waiting to contemplate the body of one of his fellow-bears, which the sailors had killed and left to freeze stiff in an upright position.
On the 12th of October, half the crew slept in the house for the first time: they suffered greatly from cold, as they had no fire, and because, as the narrative quaintly remarks, "they were somewhat deficient in blankets." The roof was thatched, by the end of October, with sail-cloth and sea-weed. On the 2d of November, the sun raised but half his disk above the horizon: the bears disappeared with the sun, and foxes took their place. The clock having stopped, and refusing to proceed, even with increased weights, day could not be distinguished from night,except by the twelve-hour-glass. The beer, freezing in the casks, became as tasteless as water. Half a pound of bread a day was served out to each man: the provisions of dried fish and salt meat remained still abundant. The chimney would not draw, and the apartment was filled with a blinding smoke,—which the crew were obliged to endure, however, or die of cold. The surgeon made a bathing-tub from a wine-pipe, in which they bathed four at a time. They were several times snowed up, and the house was absolutely buried. Though half a league from the sea, they heard the horrible cracking and groaning of the ice as the bergs settled down one upon the other, or as the huge mountains burst asunder. On one occasion, unable to support the cold, they made a fire in their house with coal brought from the ship. It was the first moment of comfort they had enjoyed for months. They kept up the genial heat until several of the least vigorous of the men were seized with dizziness and with the peculiar pains known as the hot-ache. Gerard de Veer, the chronicler of the expedition, caught in his arms the first man that fell, and revived him by rubbing his face with vinegar. He adds, "We had now learned that to avoid one evil we should not rush into a worse one."
THE DUTCH IN WINTER QUARTERS.
THE DUTCH IN WINTER QUARTERS.
THE DUTCH IN WINTER QUARTERS.
They set traps all around their cabin, with which they caught on an average a fox a day. They eat the flesh, and with the skins made caps and mittens. They had the good fortune tokill a bear nine feet long, from which they obtained one hundred pounds of lard. This they found useful, not as pomatum, but as the means of burning their lamp constantly, day and night, as if it were an altar and they the vestal virgins. On the 19th of December, they congratulated themselves that the Arctic night was just one-half expired; "for," says the narrative, "it was a terrible thing to be without the light of the sun, and deprived of the most excellent creature of God, which enliveneth the entire universe." On Christmas eve it snowed so violently that they could not open the door. The next day there was a white frost in the cabin. While seated at the fire and toasting their legs, their backs were frozen stiff. They did not know by the feeling that they were burning their shoes, and were only warned by the odor of the shrivelling leather. They put a strip of linen into the air, to see which way the wind was: in an instant the linen was frozen as hard as a board, and became, of course, perfectly useless as a weathercock. Then the men said to each other, "How excessively cold it must be out of doors!"
The 5th of January was Twelfth Night, and the hut was buried under the snow. In the midst of their misery, they asked the captain's leave to celebrate the hallowed anniversary. With flour and oil they made pancakes, washing them down with wine saved from the day before and borrowed in advance from the morrow. They elected a king by lot, the master gunner being indicated by chance as the Lord of Nova Zembla. On the 8th, the twilight was observed to be slightly lengthening, and, though the cold increased with the returning sun, they bore it with cheerfulness. They noticed a tinge of red in the atmosphere, which spoke of the revival of nature. They visited the ship, and found the ice a foot high in the hold: they hardly expected ever to see her float again. The difficulty of obtaining fuel was now such, that many of the men thought it would be easier and shorter to lie down and die than make such dreadful efforts to prolong life. To save wood during the daytime,they played snow-ball, or ran, or wrestled, to keep up the circulation.
On the 24th of January, Gerard de Veer declared he had seen the edge of the sun: Barentz, who did not expect the return of the luminary for fourteen days, was incredulous, and the cloudy state of the weather during the succeeding three days prevented the bets which were made upon the subject from being settled. On the 27th, they buried one of their number in a snow grave seven feet deep, having dug it with some difficulty, the diggers being constantly obliged to return to the fire. One of the men remarking that, even were the house completely blocked up fifteen feet deep, they could yet get out by the chimney, the captain climbed up the chimney, and a sailor ran out to see if he succeeded. He rushed back, saying he had seen the sun. Everybody hastened forth and "saw him, in his entire roundness," just above the horizon. It was then decided that de Veer had seen the edge on the 24th, and they "all rejoiced together, praising God loudly for the mercy."
Another season of snow now set in, while, at the same time, the ice that bound the ship began to break up, so that the men feared she would escape and float away while they were blockaded in the house. They were obliged to make themselves shoes of worn-out fox-skin caps, as the leather was frozen as hard as horn. On the night of the 6th of April, a bear ascended to the roof of the house by means of the embankments of snow, and, attacking the chimney with great violence, was very near demolishing it. On the 1st of May, they eat their last morsel of meat, relying henceforth on what they might entrap or kill.
It was now decided that even if the ship should be disengaged she would be unfit to continue the voyage. Their only hope lay in the shallop and the long-boat, which they endeavored to prepare for the sea, in the midst of interruptions from bears, who "were very obstinate to know how Dutchmen tasted."As late as the 5th of June, it snowed so violently that they could only work within-doors, where they got ready the sails, oars, rudder, &c. On the 12th, they set to work with axes and other tools to level a path from the ship to the water,—a distance of five hundred paces. On the 13th, Barentz wrote a brief account of their voyage and sojourn, placed it in a musket-barrel, and attached it to the fireplace in the house, for the information of future navigators. They then dragged, with infinite labor, the boats to the water, together with barrels and boxes of such stores as their now impoverished ship could yield. They bade adieu to their winter quarters on the 14th, at early morning, "with a west wind and under the protection of Heaven." Barentz, who had been a long time ill, died on the 20th, while opposite Icy Cape, the northernmost point of Nova Zembla. His loss was deeply regretted; but their "grief was assuaged by the reflection that none can resist the will of God."
The men were often obliged to drag the boats across intervening fields of ice; and sometimes, when the wind was contrary, they drew them up on a floating bank, and, making tents of the sails, camped out, as if on military service. The sentinels frequently challenged bears, and, on one occasion, three coming together and one being killed, the surviving two devoured their fallen companion. Through dangers and difficulties then unparalleled in navigation, they struggled hopefully on, descending the western coast of Nova Zembla towards the northern shores of Russia and Lapland. On the 16th of August, they met a Russian bark, which furnished them with such provisions as the captain could spare. On the 20th, they touched the coast of Lapland upon the White Sea, where they found thirteen Russians living in miserable huts upon the fish which they caught. On the 2d of September, they arrived at Kola, in Lapland, where they found three Dutch ships, one of which was their consort, which had been separated from them ten months before. Having no further use for their boats, they carriedthem with ceremony to the "Merchants' House," or Town-Hall, where they dedicated them to the memory of their long voyage of four hundred leagues over a tract never traversed before, and which they had accomplished in open boats. They started at once for home, and arrived on the 1st of November at Amsterdam, twelve in number. The city was greatly excited by the news of their return, for they had long since been given up for dead. The chancellor and the "ambassador of the very illustrious King of Denmark, Norway, the Goths and the Vandals" were at that moment at dinner. The voyagers were summoned to narrate their adventures before them,—which they did, "clad in white fox-skin caps."
No voyage had hitherto been so fruitful in incident, peril, and displays of persevering courage and fortitude. Though it resulted in no discovery except that of the western coast of Nova Zembla, it served the useful purpose of demonstrating the difficulty, if not the impossibility, of effecting a northeast passage.
FEMALE OTTER AND HER YOUNG.
FEMALE OTTER AND HER YOUNG.
FEMALE OTTER AND HER YOUNG.
THE FUNERAL OF MAHU AT BRAVA ISLAND.CHAPTER XXXII.THE FIVE SHIPS OF ROTTERDAM—BATTLE AT THE ISLAND OF BRAVA—SEBALD DE WEERT—DISASTERS IN THE STRAIT OF MAGELLAN—THE CREW EAT UNCOOKED FOOD—THE FLEET IS SCATTERED TO THE WINDS—ADVENTURES OF DE WEERT—A WRETCHED OBJECT—RETURN TO HOLLAND—VOYAGE OF OLIVER VAN NOORT—BARBAROUS PUNISHMENT—THE EMBLEM OF HOPE BECOMES A CAUSE OF DESPAIR—FIGHT WITH THE PATAGONIANS—ARREST OF THE VICE-ADMIRAL—HIS PUNISHMENT—DESCRIPTION OF A CHILEAN BEVERAGE—CAPTURE OF A SPANISH TREASURE-SHIP—A PILOT THROWN OVERBOARD—SEA-FIGHT OFF MANILLA—RETURN HOME, AFTER THE FIRST DUTCH VOYAGE OF CIRCUMNAVIGATION.The Dutch, who had now succeeded the Portuguese in the possession and control of the East Indies, had, up to the year 1598, made all their voyages thither by the Portuguese route,—the Cape of Good Hope. In this year, two fleets fitted out by them were directed to proceed by the Strait of Magellan andacross the South Sea. The first of these expeditions is known as that of the Five Ships of Rotterdam, one of the five, however, becoming separated, and forming a distinct enterprise, under Sebald de Weert: the second was the voyage of Oliver Van Noort. We shall narrate them in order of time.The Five Ships of Rotterdam were equipped at the charge of several merchants called the Company of Peter Verhagen. The flag-ship, commanded by Jacob Mahu, was named the Hope; another, commanded by Sebald de Weert, was the Good News, or Glad Tidings, or Merry Messenger,—all these names being given in the various translations. They sailed from Goree, in Holland, on the 27th of June, 1598.They were off the island of Brava—one of the Cape Verds,—on the 11th of September, and sent boats ashore with empty casks in search of water. The men were accosted by some Portuguese and negroes, who told them that French and English ships were accustomed to water there, but always remained under sail. Sebald de Weert noticed four or five ruinous huts, and found them full of maize, which he at once proceeded to appropriate,—an act which the Portuguese endeavored to resent; but the Dutch flag-ship silenced their feeble resistance with her guns. The death of Mahu now caused a transfer of captains, by which Sebald de Weert left the Glad Tidings for the Good Faith. The fleet lost thirty men by the scurvy during the passage across the Atlantic. They anchored off the Rio de la Plata early in March, 1599, and observed the sea to be as red as blood. The water was examined, and found to be full of small worms, which jumped about like fleas, and which were supposed to have been shaken off by whales in their gambols, as the lion shakes dew-drops from his mane.On the 6th of April, they entered the Strait of Magellan, and were compelled to pass the Antarctic winter there,—that is, till late in August. Gales of wind followed each other in quick succession; and the anchors and cables were so much damagedthat the crews were kept in continual labor and anxiety. The scarcity of food was such that the people were sent on shore every day at low water, frequently in rain, snow, or frost, to seek for shell-fish or to gather roots for their subsistence. These they devoured in the state in which they were found, having no patience to wait to cook them. One hundred and twenty men were buried during this disastrous winter.On the evening of September the 3d, the whole fleet, including a shallop of sixteen tons, named the Postillion, which had been put together in the Strait, entered the South Sea. A storm soon separated them, leaving the Fidelity and Faith as consorts, and scattering the rest in every direction. The adventures of the Fidelity and Faith, however, require that we should follow them in their fortunes around the world. De Weert found his ship almost unseaworthy, without a master, short of hands, and with two pilots quite too old to be efficient. After weathering another storm, which nearly sent the vessels to the bottom, both captains resolved to return to the Strait and to wait there in some safe bay for a favorable wind. On the 27th, they arrived at the mouth of the Strait, and were drifted by the current some seven leagues inland.As the Antarctic summer was now approaching, they were in hopes of fair weather; yet during the two months of their stay they hardly had a day in which to dry their sails. The seamen began to murmur, alleging that there would not be sufficient biscuit for their return to Holland if they remained here longer. Upon this de Weert went into the bread-room, as if to examine the store, and, on coming out, declared, with a cheerful countenance, that there was biscuit enough for eight months, though in reality there was barely enough for four. On the 3d of December, they succeeded in leaving the Strait, but, by some mismanagement, anchored a league apart, with a point of land between them which intercepted the view. A gale of wind forced the Fidelity from her anchors, and she was compelledto proceed upon the voyage alone. On her arrival at the Moluccas she was attacked and captured by the Portuguese.Sebald de Weert was thus left without a consort and almost without a crew. When leaving the Strait, and towing the only remaining boat astern, the rope broke, and the boat went adrift and was not again recovered. The next morning they saw a boat rowing towards them, which proved to belong to another Dutch fleet, under Oliver Van Noort, bound to the South Sea and the East Indies. De Weert endeavored to sail in company with them; but the reduced condition of his crew—but forty-eight men remaining out of one hundred and ten—rendered it impossible. He finally abandoned all attempts to prosecute the voyage, and, profiting by the west winds, returned through the Strait to the Atlantic. He anchored at the Penguin Islands, where a large number of birds were taken and salted. Some of the seamen who were on shore discovered a Patagonian woman among the rocks, where she had endeavored to conceal herself. The chronicle thus speaks of her:—"A state more deeply calamitous than that to which this woman was reduced, the goodness of God has not permitted to be the lot of many. The ships of Van Noort had stopped at this island about seven weeks before, where this woman was one of a numerous tribe of Patagonians; but they were savagely slaughtered by Van Noort's men. She was wounded at the same time, but lived to mourn the destruction of her race, the solitary inhabitant of a rocky, desolate island." De Weert presented her with a knife, but left her without any means of changing her situation, though she made it understood that she wished to be transported to the continent.On the 21st of January, 1600, he left the Strait by the eastern entrance, and bent his course homewards. Six months afterwards he entered the channel of Goree, in Holland, having lost sixty-nine men during the voyage. The ship had been absent two years and sixteen days, the greater part of whichhad been misemployed. She had been only twenty-four days in the South Sea, and had spent nine months in the Strait of Magellan and the remainder in the passage out and back. The Faith was, nevertheless, more fortunate than her companions; for she was the only ship of the five which sailed under Jacob Mahu which ever reached home again. The Charity was abandoned at sea; the Hope was plundered by the Japanese at Bungo; the Glad Tidings was taken by the Spaniards at Valparaiso; and, as we have said, the Fidelity fell into the hands of the Portuguese at the Spice Islands. The Postillion shallop, which had been launched in the Strait, was never heard of after she entered the Pacific Ocean.The plan of the South Sea Expedition under Oliver Van Noort was in all respects similar to that of Mahu and de Weert, and the equipment was made at the joint expense of a company of merchants. The vessels fitted out were the Mauritius, whose tonnage is not mentioned,—in which sailed, as admiral, Van Noort, who was a native of Utrecht, and an experienced seaman,—the Hendrick Frederick, and two yachts, the whole being manned by two hundred and forty-eight men. The instructions to the admiral were to sail through Magellan's Strait to the South Sea, to cruise off the coast of Chili and Peru, to cross over to the Moluccas to trade, and then, returning home, to complete the circumnavigation of the globe. He sailed on the 13th of September, three months after the departure of the Five Ships of Rotterdam.At Prince's Island, near the coast of Guinea,—a station held by the Portuguese,—Van Noort's flag of truce was not respected by the garrison, and two Hollanders were killed and sixteen wounded. Van Noort revenged this outrage by burning all the sugar-mills which he dared to approach. He set one of his pilots ashore upon Cape Gonçalves for mutinous practices. He made the coast of Brazil early in February, 1519; but it was determined in council that, as the Southern winter was so near athand, they would hibernate at St. Helena. They sailed eastward, and spent three months in searching for the island; but in vain. At the end of May, they unexpectedly found themselves again upon the coast of Brazil; but the Portuguese opposed their landing. On the 18th of June, the council of war sentenced two men, a constable and a gunner, "to be abandoned in any strange country where they could hereafter be of service," for mutiny; and another seaman was sentenced to be fastened, by a knife through the hand, to the mast, there to remain till he should release himself by slitting his hand through the middle. This barbarous sentence was carried into execution.After burning one of the yachts which proved unfit for service, the fleet proceeded towards the Strait, and, on the 4th of November, anchored off Cape Virgin. Here Van Noort's ship lost three anchors, and the admiral wrote to the vice-admiral to furnish him one of his. The latter refused, saying that he was as much master as Van Noort,—a piece of impertinence which the admiral declared he would punish upon the first convenient opportunity. The vessels entered the Strait four times, and were as often forced back by the violence of the wind. On the 27th, they arrived at the two Penguin Islands. It was here that the transaction occurred to which we have alluded under Sebald de Weert. It happened as follows:On the smallest of the islands some natives were seen, who made signs to the Dutch not to advance, and threw them some penguins from the cliffs. Seeing that the strangers continued to approach, they shot arrows at them, which the Dutch returned with bullets. The savages fled for refuge to a cavern where they had secreted their women and children. The Dutch pursued them, and used their fire-arms with unrelenting ferocity, receiving little or no damage from the feeble missiles of the natives. The latter continued to fight in defence of their women and children with undiminished courage, and not till the last man of them was killed did the Hollanders obtain an entrance.Within they found a number of wretched mothers who had formed barricades of their own bodies to protect their children. Of these they killed several and wounded more. Seven weeks after, as has been said, Sebald de Weert found the tribe exterminated and but one woman surviving. Six children were taken by Van Noort on board of the fleet. One of the boys afterwards learned to speak the Dutch language, and from him were obtained several slender items of information respecting the tribe to which he had belonged, but which were far from compensating for the flagrant act of cruelty which had led to the capture of his fellow-exiles and himself.AFFRAY BETWEEN THE DUTCH AND PATAGONIANS.The men went ashore near Cape Froward, and some of them ate of an herb which drove them "raging mad." During an anchorage here, the carpenters built a boat thirty-seven feet long in the keel; the blacksmith set up his forge, while the wooders made charcoal from trees which they felled. A light wind springing up, the vice-admiral, without receiving orders,fired a gun and got under way, and, though the admiral remained stationary, continued sailing on and firing guns, as if he had been commander-in-chief. Such, said Van Noort, is the effect, upon a vice-admiral, of having a larger number of anchors than his superior. He caused him to be arrested and to be tried upon the charge of exciting mutiny by insubordinate conduct, and allowed him three weeks to prepare his defence. At this period the number of deaths in the fleet had amounted to ninety-seven persons.When the three weeks expired, the vessels were still in the Strait, and the council was assembled on board the admiral's vessel, to hear the defence of the prisoner, which proved insufficient for his acquittal, and he was condemned to be set on shore and abandoned in the Strait. This sentence was publicly read on board the different ships, and, on the 26th of January, 1600, Jacob Claesz was carried in a boat to the shore, with a small stock of bread and wine. He was thus left to shift for himself among the wild beasts and still more savage inhabitants. Van Noort ordered a prayer and exhortation to be read in the fleet during the execution of this terrible verdict.Being still at anchor in the Strait in the middle of February, the admiral announced his determination to persevere two months longer, and, if it were still impossible to reach the Pacific by the west, to turn eastward and reach it by the Cape of Good Hope. On the 29th, the wind having veered, Van Noort, with two ships and a yacht, after a tedious navigation of a year and a half, finally entered the Great South Sea. A storm compelled the admiral to cast loose and abandon the long-boat which had been built at Cape Froward, and forced the new vice-admiral to part company. His ship was never seen again. During an anchorage upon the coast of Chili, one of the sailors whom we have already mentioned as sentenced to be abandoned upon any coast where they could be of service, was sent ashore to open negotiations with the natives. If he succeeded and returned insafety, his sentence was to be remitted. He was favorably received, and a regular trade was established. The official narrative of the voyage thus describes the hospitality of the people:—"An elderly woman brought us an earthen vessel full of a drink of a sharp taste, of which we drank heartily. This drink is made of maize and water, and is brewed in the following manner: old women who have lost their teeth chew the maize, which, being thus mixed with their saliva, is put into a tub, and water is added to it. They have a superstitious opinion that the older the women are who chew the maize, by so much will the beverage be the better. And with this drink the natives get intoxicated and celebrate their festivals."Soon after, Van Noort's ship gave chase to a Spaniard, which it was important to take, lest she might spread the alarm along the coast. She proved to be the Good Jesus, and to be stationed there expressly to give early notice of the arrival of strange sails. She was taken, and a prize-master placed on board to navigate her. One of the prisoners stated afterwards, that ten thousand pounds' weight of gold had been thrown overboard during her flight; and this was corroborated by the pilot, who at first denied it, but, upon being put to the torture, confessed. Van Noort now steered for the Philippines, by way of the Ladrones. On the 30th of June, the pilot of the Good Jesus, who ate at the admiral's table, was taken ill, and accused Van Noort of wishing to poison him, and maintained the charge in presence of the officers. He was sentenced to be cast head foremost into the sea,—the established Dutch mode of punishing pirates. "We therefore threw him overboard," says the journal, "and left him to sink, to the end that he should not ever again reproach us with any treachery." The Good Jesus now lost her rudder, and, being very leaky, was abandoned in mid-ocean.While Van Noort was thus making his way towards Manilla, preparations were making at that place for defence. Cavite, the port, was fortified; two galleons were ordered to be armedand equipped. The Dutch squadron arrived off the entrance of the bay on the 24th of November, and Van Noort determined to remain there till February, to intercept all vessels bound in. He soon stopped a Japanese vessel, laden with iron and hams. He allowed her to proceed, having first purchased a wooden anchor. He remarks in the journal that he saw Japanese scimetars which could cut through three men at a blow, and that slaves were kept for the purpose of furnishing the necessary proof of their temper to purchasers. He next took a Spanish vessel laden with cocoanut wine, and a Chinese junk laden with rice. The cargoes were transferred and the vessels sunk.Early on the morning of the 14th of December, the two galleons were seen bearing down upon the Dutch squadron, now reduced to two sails,—the Mauritius, with fifty-five men, and the Concord, with twenty-five. The Spanish ships are supposed to have had two hundred men apiece. They steered directly for the enemy, but could not return their fire, as the wind from the starboard compelled them to keep their lee ports shut. The Spanish admiral ran his ship directly upon the Dutch admiral, and his men at once overpowered the latter by the mere force of numbers. The Dutch retreated from the deck, and harassed the Spaniards from their close quarters. The colors of the Mauritius were struck, upon which the captain of the Concord, thinking his superior had surrendered, endeavored to escape, being closely pursued by the Spanish vice-admiral.The Dutch admiral, however, was not captured yet. The Spaniards having remained masters of the open deck for six hours, Van Noort told his men they must go up and expel the enemy, or he would fire the magazine and blow up the ship. The Spanish account says that they were at this moment themselves forced to disengage their ship and withdraw their men, as the after-part of the Hollander had taken fire. At all events, the two vessels were cleared and the engagement renewed with cannon. The Spanish vessel took in water so fast that she wentdown not long after. The Dutch rowed about in boats among the struggling Spaniards, stabbing and knocking them on the head. In retaliation for this, the officers and crew of the Concord, which was easily taken by the Spanish vice-admiral, were conveyed to Manilla and executed as pirates and rebels. In Van Noort's ship only five men were killed, twenty-six being wounded more or less severely. He continued on his way with one vessel only, touching at Borneo, Java, and Mauritius. At the latter place, where he found other vessels at anchor, his men met with very pleasant entertainment, and on one occasion ten of them dined in an inverted tortoise-shell, the first inhabitant having withdrawn to furnish the new occupants with both soup and sitting-room.THE TWO ADMIRALS AT CLOSE QUARTERS.Van Noort arrived at Rotterdam on the 26th of August, 1601, where he was received with the utmost joy, having been absent a fortnight short of three years. His was the first Dutch vessel that circumnavigated the globe, and the only one of the nineships that sailed from Holland in 1598 in that design which succeeded in fulfilling it. The voyage contributed nothing to geography, but, in spite of the instances of barbarity with which it abounded, added to the warlike and commercial reputation of the country, and therefore met with favor from both Government and people.A DUTCH PICNIC IN THE MAURITIUS.HEAD OF A TURTLE.
THE FUNERAL OF MAHU AT BRAVA ISLAND.
THE FUNERAL OF MAHU AT BRAVA ISLAND.
THE FUNERAL OF MAHU AT BRAVA ISLAND.
THE FIVE SHIPS OF ROTTERDAM—BATTLE AT THE ISLAND OF BRAVA—SEBALD DE WEERT—DISASTERS IN THE STRAIT OF MAGELLAN—THE CREW EAT UNCOOKED FOOD—THE FLEET IS SCATTERED TO THE WINDS—ADVENTURES OF DE WEERT—A WRETCHED OBJECT—RETURN TO HOLLAND—VOYAGE OF OLIVER VAN NOORT—BARBAROUS PUNISHMENT—THE EMBLEM OF HOPE BECOMES A CAUSE OF DESPAIR—FIGHT WITH THE PATAGONIANS—ARREST OF THE VICE-ADMIRAL—HIS PUNISHMENT—DESCRIPTION OF A CHILEAN BEVERAGE—CAPTURE OF A SPANISH TREASURE-SHIP—A PILOT THROWN OVERBOARD—SEA-FIGHT OFF MANILLA—RETURN HOME, AFTER THE FIRST DUTCH VOYAGE OF CIRCUMNAVIGATION.
The Dutch, who had now succeeded the Portuguese in the possession and control of the East Indies, had, up to the year 1598, made all their voyages thither by the Portuguese route,—the Cape of Good Hope. In this year, two fleets fitted out by them were directed to proceed by the Strait of Magellan andacross the South Sea. The first of these expeditions is known as that of the Five Ships of Rotterdam, one of the five, however, becoming separated, and forming a distinct enterprise, under Sebald de Weert: the second was the voyage of Oliver Van Noort. We shall narrate them in order of time.
The Five Ships of Rotterdam were equipped at the charge of several merchants called the Company of Peter Verhagen. The flag-ship, commanded by Jacob Mahu, was named the Hope; another, commanded by Sebald de Weert, was the Good News, or Glad Tidings, or Merry Messenger,—all these names being given in the various translations. They sailed from Goree, in Holland, on the 27th of June, 1598.
They were off the island of Brava—one of the Cape Verds,—on the 11th of September, and sent boats ashore with empty casks in search of water. The men were accosted by some Portuguese and negroes, who told them that French and English ships were accustomed to water there, but always remained under sail. Sebald de Weert noticed four or five ruinous huts, and found them full of maize, which he at once proceeded to appropriate,—an act which the Portuguese endeavored to resent; but the Dutch flag-ship silenced their feeble resistance with her guns. The death of Mahu now caused a transfer of captains, by which Sebald de Weert left the Glad Tidings for the Good Faith. The fleet lost thirty men by the scurvy during the passage across the Atlantic. They anchored off the Rio de la Plata early in March, 1599, and observed the sea to be as red as blood. The water was examined, and found to be full of small worms, which jumped about like fleas, and which were supposed to have been shaken off by whales in their gambols, as the lion shakes dew-drops from his mane.
On the 6th of April, they entered the Strait of Magellan, and were compelled to pass the Antarctic winter there,—that is, till late in August. Gales of wind followed each other in quick succession; and the anchors and cables were so much damagedthat the crews were kept in continual labor and anxiety. The scarcity of food was such that the people were sent on shore every day at low water, frequently in rain, snow, or frost, to seek for shell-fish or to gather roots for their subsistence. These they devoured in the state in which they were found, having no patience to wait to cook them. One hundred and twenty men were buried during this disastrous winter.
On the evening of September the 3d, the whole fleet, including a shallop of sixteen tons, named the Postillion, which had been put together in the Strait, entered the South Sea. A storm soon separated them, leaving the Fidelity and Faith as consorts, and scattering the rest in every direction. The adventures of the Fidelity and Faith, however, require that we should follow them in their fortunes around the world. De Weert found his ship almost unseaworthy, without a master, short of hands, and with two pilots quite too old to be efficient. After weathering another storm, which nearly sent the vessels to the bottom, both captains resolved to return to the Strait and to wait there in some safe bay for a favorable wind. On the 27th, they arrived at the mouth of the Strait, and were drifted by the current some seven leagues inland.
As the Antarctic summer was now approaching, they were in hopes of fair weather; yet during the two months of their stay they hardly had a day in which to dry their sails. The seamen began to murmur, alleging that there would not be sufficient biscuit for their return to Holland if they remained here longer. Upon this de Weert went into the bread-room, as if to examine the store, and, on coming out, declared, with a cheerful countenance, that there was biscuit enough for eight months, though in reality there was barely enough for four. On the 3d of December, they succeeded in leaving the Strait, but, by some mismanagement, anchored a league apart, with a point of land between them which intercepted the view. A gale of wind forced the Fidelity from her anchors, and she was compelledto proceed upon the voyage alone. On her arrival at the Moluccas she was attacked and captured by the Portuguese.
Sebald de Weert was thus left without a consort and almost without a crew. When leaving the Strait, and towing the only remaining boat astern, the rope broke, and the boat went adrift and was not again recovered. The next morning they saw a boat rowing towards them, which proved to belong to another Dutch fleet, under Oliver Van Noort, bound to the South Sea and the East Indies. De Weert endeavored to sail in company with them; but the reduced condition of his crew—but forty-eight men remaining out of one hundred and ten—rendered it impossible. He finally abandoned all attempts to prosecute the voyage, and, profiting by the west winds, returned through the Strait to the Atlantic. He anchored at the Penguin Islands, where a large number of birds were taken and salted. Some of the seamen who were on shore discovered a Patagonian woman among the rocks, where she had endeavored to conceal herself. The chronicle thus speaks of her:—"A state more deeply calamitous than that to which this woman was reduced, the goodness of God has not permitted to be the lot of many. The ships of Van Noort had stopped at this island about seven weeks before, where this woman was one of a numerous tribe of Patagonians; but they were savagely slaughtered by Van Noort's men. She was wounded at the same time, but lived to mourn the destruction of her race, the solitary inhabitant of a rocky, desolate island." De Weert presented her with a knife, but left her without any means of changing her situation, though she made it understood that she wished to be transported to the continent.
On the 21st of January, 1600, he left the Strait by the eastern entrance, and bent his course homewards. Six months afterwards he entered the channel of Goree, in Holland, having lost sixty-nine men during the voyage. The ship had been absent two years and sixteen days, the greater part of whichhad been misemployed. She had been only twenty-four days in the South Sea, and had spent nine months in the Strait of Magellan and the remainder in the passage out and back. The Faith was, nevertheless, more fortunate than her companions; for she was the only ship of the five which sailed under Jacob Mahu which ever reached home again. The Charity was abandoned at sea; the Hope was plundered by the Japanese at Bungo; the Glad Tidings was taken by the Spaniards at Valparaiso; and, as we have said, the Fidelity fell into the hands of the Portuguese at the Spice Islands. The Postillion shallop, which had been launched in the Strait, was never heard of after she entered the Pacific Ocean.
The plan of the South Sea Expedition under Oliver Van Noort was in all respects similar to that of Mahu and de Weert, and the equipment was made at the joint expense of a company of merchants. The vessels fitted out were the Mauritius, whose tonnage is not mentioned,—in which sailed, as admiral, Van Noort, who was a native of Utrecht, and an experienced seaman,—the Hendrick Frederick, and two yachts, the whole being manned by two hundred and forty-eight men. The instructions to the admiral were to sail through Magellan's Strait to the South Sea, to cruise off the coast of Chili and Peru, to cross over to the Moluccas to trade, and then, returning home, to complete the circumnavigation of the globe. He sailed on the 13th of September, three months after the departure of the Five Ships of Rotterdam.
At Prince's Island, near the coast of Guinea,—a station held by the Portuguese,—Van Noort's flag of truce was not respected by the garrison, and two Hollanders were killed and sixteen wounded. Van Noort revenged this outrage by burning all the sugar-mills which he dared to approach. He set one of his pilots ashore upon Cape Gonçalves for mutinous practices. He made the coast of Brazil early in February, 1519; but it was determined in council that, as the Southern winter was so near athand, they would hibernate at St. Helena. They sailed eastward, and spent three months in searching for the island; but in vain. At the end of May, they unexpectedly found themselves again upon the coast of Brazil; but the Portuguese opposed their landing. On the 18th of June, the council of war sentenced two men, a constable and a gunner, "to be abandoned in any strange country where they could hereafter be of service," for mutiny; and another seaman was sentenced to be fastened, by a knife through the hand, to the mast, there to remain till he should release himself by slitting his hand through the middle. This barbarous sentence was carried into execution.
After burning one of the yachts which proved unfit for service, the fleet proceeded towards the Strait, and, on the 4th of November, anchored off Cape Virgin. Here Van Noort's ship lost three anchors, and the admiral wrote to the vice-admiral to furnish him one of his. The latter refused, saying that he was as much master as Van Noort,—a piece of impertinence which the admiral declared he would punish upon the first convenient opportunity. The vessels entered the Strait four times, and were as often forced back by the violence of the wind. On the 27th, they arrived at the two Penguin Islands. It was here that the transaction occurred to which we have alluded under Sebald de Weert. It happened as follows:
On the smallest of the islands some natives were seen, who made signs to the Dutch not to advance, and threw them some penguins from the cliffs. Seeing that the strangers continued to approach, they shot arrows at them, which the Dutch returned with bullets. The savages fled for refuge to a cavern where they had secreted their women and children. The Dutch pursued them, and used their fire-arms with unrelenting ferocity, receiving little or no damage from the feeble missiles of the natives. The latter continued to fight in defence of their women and children with undiminished courage, and not till the last man of them was killed did the Hollanders obtain an entrance.Within they found a number of wretched mothers who had formed barricades of their own bodies to protect their children. Of these they killed several and wounded more. Seven weeks after, as has been said, Sebald de Weert found the tribe exterminated and but one woman surviving. Six children were taken by Van Noort on board of the fleet. One of the boys afterwards learned to speak the Dutch language, and from him were obtained several slender items of information respecting the tribe to which he had belonged, but which were far from compensating for the flagrant act of cruelty which had led to the capture of his fellow-exiles and himself.
AFFRAY BETWEEN THE DUTCH AND PATAGONIANS.
AFFRAY BETWEEN THE DUTCH AND PATAGONIANS.
AFFRAY BETWEEN THE DUTCH AND PATAGONIANS.
The men went ashore near Cape Froward, and some of them ate of an herb which drove them "raging mad." During an anchorage here, the carpenters built a boat thirty-seven feet long in the keel; the blacksmith set up his forge, while the wooders made charcoal from trees which they felled. A light wind springing up, the vice-admiral, without receiving orders,fired a gun and got under way, and, though the admiral remained stationary, continued sailing on and firing guns, as if he had been commander-in-chief. Such, said Van Noort, is the effect, upon a vice-admiral, of having a larger number of anchors than his superior. He caused him to be arrested and to be tried upon the charge of exciting mutiny by insubordinate conduct, and allowed him three weeks to prepare his defence. At this period the number of deaths in the fleet had amounted to ninety-seven persons.
When the three weeks expired, the vessels were still in the Strait, and the council was assembled on board the admiral's vessel, to hear the defence of the prisoner, which proved insufficient for his acquittal, and he was condemned to be set on shore and abandoned in the Strait. This sentence was publicly read on board the different ships, and, on the 26th of January, 1600, Jacob Claesz was carried in a boat to the shore, with a small stock of bread and wine. He was thus left to shift for himself among the wild beasts and still more savage inhabitants. Van Noort ordered a prayer and exhortation to be read in the fleet during the execution of this terrible verdict.
Being still at anchor in the Strait in the middle of February, the admiral announced his determination to persevere two months longer, and, if it were still impossible to reach the Pacific by the west, to turn eastward and reach it by the Cape of Good Hope. On the 29th, the wind having veered, Van Noort, with two ships and a yacht, after a tedious navigation of a year and a half, finally entered the Great South Sea. A storm compelled the admiral to cast loose and abandon the long-boat which had been built at Cape Froward, and forced the new vice-admiral to part company. His ship was never seen again. During an anchorage upon the coast of Chili, one of the sailors whom we have already mentioned as sentenced to be abandoned upon any coast where they could be of service, was sent ashore to open negotiations with the natives. If he succeeded and returned insafety, his sentence was to be remitted. He was favorably received, and a regular trade was established. The official narrative of the voyage thus describes the hospitality of the people:—"An elderly woman brought us an earthen vessel full of a drink of a sharp taste, of which we drank heartily. This drink is made of maize and water, and is brewed in the following manner: old women who have lost their teeth chew the maize, which, being thus mixed with their saliva, is put into a tub, and water is added to it. They have a superstitious opinion that the older the women are who chew the maize, by so much will the beverage be the better. And with this drink the natives get intoxicated and celebrate their festivals."
Soon after, Van Noort's ship gave chase to a Spaniard, which it was important to take, lest she might spread the alarm along the coast. She proved to be the Good Jesus, and to be stationed there expressly to give early notice of the arrival of strange sails. She was taken, and a prize-master placed on board to navigate her. One of the prisoners stated afterwards, that ten thousand pounds' weight of gold had been thrown overboard during her flight; and this was corroborated by the pilot, who at first denied it, but, upon being put to the torture, confessed. Van Noort now steered for the Philippines, by way of the Ladrones. On the 30th of June, the pilot of the Good Jesus, who ate at the admiral's table, was taken ill, and accused Van Noort of wishing to poison him, and maintained the charge in presence of the officers. He was sentenced to be cast head foremost into the sea,—the established Dutch mode of punishing pirates. "We therefore threw him overboard," says the journal, "and left him to sink, to the end that he should not ever again reproach us with any treachery." The Good Jesus now lost her rudder, and, being very leaky, was abandoned in mid-ocean.
While Van Noort was thus making his way towards Manilla, preparations were making at that place for defence. Cavite, the port, was fortified; two galleons were ordered to be armedand equipped. The Dutch squadron arrived off the entrance of the bay on the 24th of November, and Van Noort determined to remain there till February, to intercept all vessels bound in. He soon stopped a Japanese vessel, laden with iron and hams. He allowed her to proceed, having first purchased a wooden anchor. He remarks in the journal that he saw Japanese scimetars which could cut through three men at a blow, and that slaves were kept for the purpose of furnishing the necessary proof of their temper to purchasers. He next took a Spanish vessel laden with cocoanut wine, and a Chinese junk laden with rice. The cargoes were transferred and the vessels sunk.
Early on the morning of the 14th of December, the two galleons were seen bearing down upon the Dutch squadron, now reduced to two sails,—the Mauritius, with fifty-five men, and the Concord, with twenty-five. The Spanish ships are supposed to have had two hundred men apiece. They steered directly for the enemy, but could not return their fire, as the wind from the starboard compelled them to keep their lee ports shut. The Spanish admiral ran his ship directly upon the Dutch admiral, and his men at once overpowered the latter by the mere force of numbers. The Dutch retreated from the deck, and harassed the Spaniards from their close quarters. The colors of the Mauritius were struck, upon which the captain of the Concord, thinking his superior had surrendered, endeavored to escape, being closely pursued by the Spanish vice-admiral.
The Dutch admiral, however, was not captured yet. The Spaniards having remained masters of the open deck for six hours, Van Noort told his men they must go up and expel the enemy, or he would fire the magazine and blow up the ship. The Spanish account says that they were at this moment themselves forced to disengage their ship and withdraw their men, as the after-part of the Hollander had taken fire. At all events, the two vessels were cleared and the engagement renewed with cannon. The Spanish vessel took in water so fast that she wentdown not long after. The Dutch rowed about in boats among the struggling Spaniards, stabbing and knocking them on the head. In retaliation for this, the officers and crew of the Concord, which was easily taken by the Spanish vice-admiral, were conveyed to Manilla and executed as pirates and rebels. In Van Noort's ship only five men were killed, twenty-six being wounded more or less severely. He continued on his way with one vessel only, touching at Borneo, Java, and Mauritius. At the latter place, where he found other vessels at anchor, his men met with very pleasant entertainment, and on one occasion ten of them dined in an inverted tortoise-shell, the first inhabitant having withdrawn to furnish the new occupants with both soup and sitting-room.
THE TWO ADMIRALS AT CLOSE QUARTERS.
THE TWO ADMIRALS AT CLOSE QUARTERS.
THE TWO ADMIRALS AT CLOSE QUARTERS.
Van Noort arrived at Rotterdam on the 26th of August, 1601, where he was received with the utmost joy, having been absent a fortnight short of three years. His was the first Dutch vessel that circumnavigated the globe, and the only one of the nineships that sailed from Holland in 1598 in that design which succeeded in fulfilling it. The voyage contributed nothing to geography, but, in spite of the instances of barbarity with which it abounded, added to the warlike and commercial reputation of the country, and therefore met with favor from both Government and people.
A DUTCH PICNIC IN THE MAURITIUS.
A DUTCH PICNIC IN THE MAURITIUS.
A DUTCH PICNIC IN THE MAURITIUS.
HEAD OF A TURTLE.
HEAD OF A TURTLE.
HEAD OF A TURTLE.