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HISTORY OF THE SEA.
i
GRAPHIC DESCRIPTION OF MARITIME ADVENTURES,
ACHIEVEMENTS, EXPLORATIONS, DISCOV-
ERIES AND INVENTIONS,
INCLUDING
Hazards and Perils of Early Navigators, Cruelties and Experiences ot
Noted Buccaneers, Conquests and Prizes of the great Pirates,
Discoveries and Achievements of the great Captains, Conllicts
with Savages, Cannibals, Robbers, etc., Arctic Explora-
tions and Attendant Sufferings, Growth of Com-
merce, Rise and Progress of Ship Building,
Ocean Navigation, Naval Power, etc., etc.
COVERING THE MANY CENTURIES OF DEVELOPMENT IN SCIENCE
AND CIVILIZATION FROM
fSeeARK TO THE PRESENT TIME.
BY
F, B. GOODRIOH,
AUTHOR OF ‘‘ LETTERS OF DICK TINTO,” “‘ THE COURT OF NAPOLEON,” ETC.
TO WHICH IS ADDED
An Account of Adventures beneath the Sea; Diving, Dredging, Deep Sea Soundiug,
Latest Submarine Uxplorations, ete., etc, prepared with great care by
EDWARD HOWLAND, Ese.,
AUTHOR OF MANY POPULAR WORKS.
OVER 250 SPIRITED ILLUSTRATIONS.
GUELPH, ONTARIO:
J. W. LYON & COMPANY, PUBLISHERS,
| 1880.
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CONTENTS.
FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES TO THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE CHRISTIAN ERA,
PAGE
CHAPTER I.—The Purpose of this Work—The Ocean in the Scriptural Period
—The Marvels of the Sea—The Classic Legends—The Fantastic Notions enter-
tained of the North and the Equator—The Giant of the Canaries—The Sea of
Sea-Weed—The Spectre of the Cape—The Gradual Surrender of the Secrets of
the Sea—It becomes the Highway of Nations—-Its Present Aspect—Its Poetical
Siemraicance——-Its Morak Lessons s.......50.cccadscs soccesses secsscctevedcovecssenssaces basses 19
CHAPTER II.—The Origin of Navigation—The Nautilus—The Split Reed and
Beetle—The Beaver floating upon a Log—The Hollow Tree—The First Canoe
—The Floating Nutshell—The Oar—The Rudder—The Sail—The Tradition of
PB CRE MESES ISOM b oo corslt hae co sbuused Modecersinsetaosctbete oddodessescaeces eee et us esieuess 33
CHAPTER IIi.—'lhe Flood and the Building of the 4rs—The Arguments of
Infidelity against a Universal Deluge—The Material of which the Ark was
built—Its Capacity, Dimensions, and Form—lIts Proportions copied in Modern
MCR ME SLO MUNCES ce ctvetot dates ucdcudecs séseb avueetoes sepwcestgeea tes aseovetssr aosehesacleeosssvea 37
CHAPTER IV.—The Ships, Commerce, and Navigation of the Pheenicians——
Their Trade with Ophir—Sidon and Tyre—Their Voyage round Africa—New
Tyre—A Patriotic Phoenician Captain—The Egyptians as a Maritime People
—Their Ships and Commerce—The Jews—Their Geography—lIdeas upon the
Shape of the Earth—The World as known to the Hebrews.............ce0sessscees 50
CHAPTER V.—The Early Maritime History of the Greeks—The Expedition of
the Argonauts—The Vessels used in the Trojan War—Ship-Building in the
Time of Homer—The Poetic Geography of the Greeks—The Palace of the
Sun—The Marvels of a Voyage out of Sight of Land—The Geography of
Hesiod—Of Anaximander—Of Thales, Herodotus, Socrates, and Eratosthenes
——The Great Ocean is named the Atlantic ............coessscccessnccesveceresses consceacs Ag
CHAPTER VI.—Construction of Greek Vessels--The Prow, Poop, Rudder,
Oars, Masts, Sails, Cordage, Bulwarks, Anchors—Biremes, Triremes, Quadri-
remes, Quinqueremes—The Grand Galley of Ptolemy Philopator—Roman Ves-
sels—Their Navy—Mimic Sea-Fights—The Five Voyages of Antiquity......... 69
CHAPTER VII.—The Voyage of Hanno the Carthaginian—He sees Crocodiles,
Apes, and Volcanoes-—The Voyage of Himilcon to Al-Bion—The Voyage and
Ignominious Fate of Sataspes the Persian—The Voyage of Pytheas the Pho-
cian—The Sacred Promontory—A New Atmosphere—Amber—Return Home
—The Veracity of Pytheas’ Narrative—The Expedition of Nearchus the
5
6 CONTENTS.
PAGE
Macedonian—Strange Phenomena in the Heavens—The Icthyophagi— Houses
built of the Bones of Whales—Fish Flour—A Battle with Whales—An Unex-
pected Meeting—- The Distance traversed by Nearchus—The Voyage of
Eudoxus along the African Coast—State of Navigation at the Opening of the
Christian Era........ 6 CaO HEEESepoankecboidonndestDe isiresbise ssieaiva apa seiewes'siores ete saeeme eaeceeens
FROM THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE CHRISTIAN ERA TO THE APPLICATION
THE MAGNETIC NEEDLE TO EUROPEAN NAVIGATION, A.D. 1300.
CHAPTER VIII.—Navigation during the Roman Empire—The Rise of Venice
and Genoa—-The Crusades—Their Effect upon Commerce—Wedding of the
Adriatic—Creation of the French Navy—Introduction of Eastern Art into
Europe—Maps of the Middle Ages—Remote Effect of the Crusades upon
Geographical Bolenee..soscsousesducslsorselaverasiecert sstbeo inc vsee Ae
CHAPTER IX.—The Scandinavian Sailors—Their Piracies and Commerce—
The Anglo-Saxons—Alfred the Great a Ship-Builder—The Voyage of Beowulf
—Discovery of Iceland by the Danes—Discovery of Greenland—The Voyage
of Bjarni and Leif to the American Continent—Their Discovery of Newfound-
land, Nova Scotia, Nantucket, and Massachusetts—Adventures of Thorwald
and Thorfinn—Comparison of the Discoveries of the Northmen with those of
Columbus... Jesse petscscssieserssceuseve-nsvadeoeas sesh ipoaesa pe ccs entaeraieaeeaee eet eae a
CHAPTER X.—The Travels of Marco Polo—The First Mention of Japan in His-
tory—Kublai Khan—Marco Polo’s Voyage from Amoy to Ormuz—Malacca—
Sumatra—Pygmies—Singular Stories of Diamonds—The Roec—Polo not recog-
nised upon his Return—His Imprisonment—The Publication of his Narrative
—The Interest awakened in China, Japan, and the Islands of Spices............
CHAPTER XI.—The First Mention of the Loadstone in History—Its Early
Names—The First Mention of its Directive Power—A Poem upon the Compass
Six Hundred Years Old—Friar Bacon’s Magnet—The Loadstone in Arabia—
An Eye-Witness of its Efficiency in the Syrian Waters in the Year 1240—The
Magnet in China—LHarly Mention of it in Chinese Works—The Variation
noticed in the Twelfth Century—Other Discoveries made by the Chinese—
Modern Errors—Flavio Gioia—The Arms of Amalfi—All Records lost of the
First Voyage made with the Compass by a Huropean Ship.........0..sscsesscreceees
79
OF
96
104
113
FROM THE APPLICATION OF THE MAGNETIC NEEDLE TO EUROPEAN NAVIGATION
TO THE FIRST VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD UNDER MAGELLAN: 1300-1519.
CHAPTER XII.—The Portuguese on the Coast of Africa—The Spaniards and
the Canary Isles—Don Henry of Portugal—The Terrible Cape, now Cape
Bojador—The Sacred Promontory—Discovery of the Madeiras—A Dreadful
Phenomenon—A Prolific Rabbit and a Wonderful Conflagration—Hostility of
the Portuguese to further Maritime Adventure—The Bay of Horses—The First
Gold-Dust seen in Hurope—Discovery of Cape Verd and the Azores—The
Europeans approach the Equator—Journey of Cada-Mosto—Death of Don
Henry—Progress of Navigation under the Auspices of this Prince...........000.
128
CONTENTS. t
si PAGE
CHAPTER XIII.—The Portuguese cross the Equator from Guinea to Congo—
John II. conceives the idea of a Route by Sea to the Indies—His Artifices to
prevent the Interference of other Nations—The Overland Journey of Covillam
to India—The Voyage of Bartholomew Diaz—The Doubling of the Tremen-
dous Cape—Its Baptism by the King—Injurious Effects of Success upon Por-
PMEMESCE ATM DULLOM Gs seoceacesismniscclensces vemarcsee vases ences EPO SIR eet ae Ona 139
CHAPTER XIV.—Birth of Christopher Columbus—His Early Life and Eluca-
tion—His First Voyage—His Marriage—His Maritime Contemplations—He
makes Proposals to the Senate of Genoa, the Court of Venice, and the King
of Portugal—The Duplicity of the latter—Columbus visits Spain—Juan de
Marchena—Columbus repairs to Cordova—His Second Marriage—His Letter
to the King—The Junto of Salamanca—Columbus resolves to shake the dust
of Spain from his feet—Marchena’s Letter to Isabella— The Queen gives
Audience to Columbus—The Conditions stipulated by the latter—Isabella
accepts the Enterprise, while Ferdinand remains aloof............ccceccssceccecseeees 143
CHAPTER XV.—The Port of Palos—The Superstition of its Mariners—The
Hand of Satan—A Bird which lifted Vessels to the Clouds—The Pinta and
the Nina—The Santa Maria—Capacity of a Spanish Carayel—The three Pin-
zons—The Departure—Columbus’ Journal—The Helm of the Pinta unshipped
—The Variation of the Needle—The Appearance of the Tropical Atlantic—
Floating Vegetation—The Sargasso Sea—Alarm and threatened Mutiny of
the Sailors—Perplexities of Columbus—Land! Land! a False Alarm—Indi-
cations of the Vicinity of Land—Murmurs of the Crews—Open Revolt quelled
by Columbus—Floating Reeds and Tufts of Grass—Land at last—The Vessels
DOME ESTILO: Mibets aici! scielaaislcbtorewosisiasioas vase ssisiselew Are eja os vlan clean ewicelgdatsts asec ve enlastoeeid » 152.
CHAPTER XVI.—Discovery of Guanahani—Ceremonies of taking Possession—
Exploration of the Neighboring Islands—Search for Gold—Cuba supposed by
Columbus to be Japan—The Cannibals—Haiti—Return Homewards—A Storm
—An Appeal to the Virgin—Arrival at the Azores—Conduct of the Portuguese
—Columbus at Lisbon—At Palos—At Barcelona—Columbus’ Second Voyage.
—Discovery of Guadeloupe, Antigoa, Santa Cruz, Jamaica—IIlness of Colum-
bus—Terrible Battle between the Spaniards and the Savages—Columbus re-
turns to Spain—His Reception by the Queen—His Third Voyage—The Region
of Calms—Discovery of Trinidad and of the Main Land—Assumpcion and:
MEAL —-COlMpPUs In CHANGE. 7.05 accaacdeldcsdesaads ssevodeoeseraweennssesliabseeersedancen 165.
CHAPTER XVII.—The Failing Health of Columbus—His Fourth Voyage—-
Martinique, Porto Rico, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama—His Search for a
Channel across the Isthmus—He predicts an Eclipse of the Moon at Jamaica:
—His Return—The Death of Isabella-—Columbus Penniless at Valladolid—His
Death—His Four Burials—The Injustice of the World towards Columbus—
Christopher Pigeon—Amerigo Vespucci—The New World named America—
Errors of Modern Historians—The District of Columbia—John Cabot in
Labrador—Sebastian Cabot in Hudson’s Bay—Vincent Yanez Pinzon at the:
Mica dL ROM DOM ENTMA OTR fier /ii.ce utente escis dee sccm vudvaeosctac vastectrvartasoonssatceensees és 178
CHAPTER XVIII.—Portuguese Navigation under Emmanuel—Popular Preju-
dices—The Lusiad of Camoens—Vasco da Gama—Maps of Africa of the Period
—Preparations for an Indian Voyage—Religious Ceremonies—-The Departuro
-—Rendezvous at the Cape Verds—Landing upon the Coast—The Natives—An
Invitation to Dinner, and its Consequences—A Storm—Miutiny—The Spectre.
Rit NGM OMe suis atic wos scones cone erostesiamatlicentisle« vallsonee «hee nate Gdee'bt om carn ce deusioevecsas 190
8 CONTENTS.
PAGH
CHAPTER XIX.—Da Gama and the Negroes—The Hottentots and Caffres—
Adventure with an Albatross--The River of Good Promise—Mozambique—
Treachery of the Natives—Mombassa—Melinda, and its Amiable King—Fes-
tivities—The Malabar Coast—Calicut—The Route to the Indies discovered.... 200
CHAPTER XX.—The Moors in Hindostan—Condition of the Country upon the
Arrival of Da Gama—Hostility of the Moors—They prejudice the King of
Calicut against the Portuguese—Consequent Hostilities—Da Gama sets out
upon his Return—Wild Cinnamon—A Moorish Pirate disguised as an Italian
Christian—A Tempestuous Voyage—Wreck of the San Rafael—Honors and
Titles bestowed upon Da Gama—An Expedition fitted out under Alvarez
‘Cabral—Accidental Discovery of Brazil—Comets and Water-Spouts—Loss of
Four Vessels—A Bazaar established at Calicut—Attack by the Moors—Cabral
withdraws to Cochin—Visits Cananor and takes in a Load of Cinnamon—Is
‘received with Coldness upon his Return—Vasco da Gama recalled into the
Service by the King—His Achievements at Sofala, Cananor, and Calicut—He
hangs Fifty Indians at the Yard-Arm—Protects Cochin and threatens Calicut
—Withdraws to Private Life. ......,..sccseesns res coense sap a0 Sin’ ooigeeap slo maids pity anata 209
CHAPTER XXI.--Spread of the Portuguese East Indian Empire——Alphonzo
d’Albuquerque—-Immense Sacrifice of Life—Ancient Route of the Spice-Trade
with EHurope—Commerce by Caravans—Revolution produced by opening the
New Route——-Francesco Almeida—Discovery of Ceylon—Tristan d’Acunha——
The Portuguese Mars—His Views of Empire—-An Arsenal established at Goa
—Reduction.of Malacca—-Siam and Sumatra send Embassies to Albuquerque
——-The Island of Ormuz——Death of Albuquerque—--Extent of the Portuguese
Dominion—Ormuz becomes the great Emporium of the East—Fall of the
Portuguese EM pire... dacssssiiecsnconansonsafpseqsieasaracindoaessRendpananicns are aa seee tea 219
‘CHAPTER XXII.--Ponce de Leon--The Fountain of Youth——Discovery of
Florida—The Martyrs and the Tortugas--The Bahama Channel— Vasco
Nufiez de Balboa—He goes to Sea in a Barrel——-Marries a Lady of the Isth-
mus——His Search for Gold——Hears of a Mighty Ocean——-Undertakes to reach it
——-Preparations for the Expedition——Leoncico the Bloodhound—-Battle with a
Cacique—Ascent of the Mountains—Balboa mounts to the Summit alone—The
First Sight of the Pacific—Ceremonies of taking Possession—Balboa up to his
Knees in the Ocean—-Every one tastes the Water--A Voyage upon the
Pacific, and a Narrow Escape--Ignominious Fate of Balboa—Juan Diaz de
Solis—Discovers the Rio de la Plata—His Horrible Death by Cannibals......... 225
‘CHAPTER XXIII.—Remarkable Foresight of the Court of Rome—A Papal.
Bull—Ferdinand Magellan—He offers his Services to Spain—His Plans—His
Fleet—Pigafetta the Historian—An Inauspicious Start—Teneriffe and its
Legends—St. Elmo’s Fire—The Crew make Famous Bargains with the Can-
nibals—Heavy Price paid for the King of Spades—Patagonian Giants—Piga-
fetta’s Exaggerations—The Healing Art in Patagonia—The Tragedy of Port
Julian—Discovery of a Strait—The Open Sea—Cape Deseado—The Ocean
named Pacific-—-Ravages of the Scurvy--A Patagonian Paul—The Needle be-
comes Lethargic— Discovery of the Ladrones—-The First Cocoanut—A Catholic
Ceremony upon a Pagan Island........... iss Aueiliv wcuegrhn tithalz cares aittiaaeveeetaarwakte peace a 287
CHAPTER XXIV.-—-Discovery of the Philippines-—-The King of Zubu wishes
the King of Spain to pay Tribute-—He finally abandons the idea—-A whole
Island converted t> Christianity--Magellan performs a Miracle--A Dumb
CONTENTS. 9
PAGE
Man recovers his Speech—Magellan invades a Refractory Island—His Death
—Attempts to recover his Body—The Christian Island returns to Idolatry—
The Ships arrive at Borneo—The Sailors drink too freely of Arrack—Festi-
yities and Treachery—Vivid Imagination of Pigafetta—The Fleet arrives at
the Moluccas—The King of Tidore—A Brisk Trade in Cloves-—The Spice-
Tariff—The Vittoria sails Homeward—Pigafetta is again imaginative—Arrival
at the Cape Verds—Loss of One Day—Completion of the First Voyage of Cir-
cumnavigation—Pigafetta’s Romance becomes Veritable History..........:.006, 248
FROM THE FIRST VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD TO THE DISCOVERY OF
CAPE HORN: 1519-1616. ‘
CHAPTER XXV.—Voyage of Jacques Cartier—Maritime Projects of Francis I.
of France—Gulf of St. Lawrence—A Quick Trip Home—Second Voyage—
Canada, Quebec, Montreal—A Captive King—Voyage of Sir Hugh Willoughby
and Richard Chancellor—Discovery of Nova Zembla—Disastrous Winter—
Fate of the Expedition—Martin Frobisher—His Voyage in Quest of a North-
west Passage—Greenland—Labrador—Frobisher’s Straits—Exchange of Cap-
tives—Supposed Discovery of Gold—Second Voyage—A Cargo of Precious
Earth taken on Board—Meta Incognita—Third Voyage—A Mortifying Con-
CHO TMB NTR creiceta ahotahicis cree ciate o Sia iote st stoerotitulcaleiuicid ta sa'did velteiatiAaieSactecselsiaalete site wueieds ellen dats 257
CHAPTER XXVI.—Origin of English Piracy—Sir John Hawkins—Francis
Drake—His First Voyage to the Spanish Main—Commission granted by
Queen Elizabeth—Expedition against the Spanish Possessions—Exploits at
Mogador and Santiago—Crossing the Line—Arrival in Patagonia—Trial and
Execution of Doughty—Passage through Magellan’s Strait—Adventures of
William Pitcher and Seven Men—Cape Horn—Arrival at Valparaiso—Rifling
of a Catholie Church............ Rlesiserslecloae tle ets elon eGeal nov cule oi tnioedeldakwseirercesieehicc sls ax cls 267
CHAPTER XXVII.—Drake’s Exploit with a Sleeping Spaniard—His Achieve-
ments at Callao—Battle with a Treasure-Ship—Drake gives a Receipt for her
Cargo—lIndites a Touching Epistle—His Plans for Returning Home—Fresh
Captures—Performances at Guatulco and Acapuleo—Drake dismisses his
Pilot—Exceeding Cold Weather—Drake regarded asa God by the Califor-
nians—Sails for the Moluccas—Visits Ternate and Celebes—The Pelican upon
a Reef—The Return Voyage—Protest of the Spanish Ambassador—He styles
Drake the Master-Thief of the Unknown World—Queen Elizabeth on board
the Pelican—Drake’s Use of his Fortune—His Death—The Voyage of John
WANE OBL OPNOMUMAVESE seictacacsdcereicenies dsssesseaeceedisdsenvtwodes seb ieevercsssscdeseteacs 279
CHAPTER XXVIII.—Policy of Queen Elizabeth—Thomas Cavendish—His
First Voyage—Exploits upon the African and Brazilian Coasts—Port Desire
—Port Famine—Battles with the Araucanians—Capture of Paita—Robhery
of a Church—Repeated Acts of Brigandage—Capture of the Santa Anna—The
Return Voyage—Cavendish’s Account of the Expedition—The Spanish Armada
—Preparations in England—The Conflict—Total Rout of the Invincibles—
Procession in Commemoration of the Event........-.ssessssss-cseverssesssecsesssecess 288
10 CONTENTS,
; PAGE
CHAPTER XXIX.—The Fiction of El Dorado—Manoa—Description of its
Fabled Splendors—Attempts of the Spaniards to Discover it—Sir Walter Ra-
leigh—His Voyage to Guiana—His Account of the Orinoco—His Description
of the Scenery—His Return—His Second Voyage —Expedition to Newfound-
land—His Death—Modern Interpretation of the Legend of El Dorado.......... 297
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—Cohversions to Chris-
tianity—Arduous Voyage—Santa Cruz—Mendana exchanges Names with
Malopé—Hostilities—War, and its Results—Death of Mendana—Quiros con-
ducts the Ships +o Manilla ........0..0cssscdeeccneiconnescps velvenssine ice nei cate 305
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—Pre-
parations to Depart in the Boats—Death of Barentz—Arrival at Amsterdam
—Results of the, VoOyawescnc.cssetsadeseos transesssaitesssecastuanecsisyossnceaee sane eemeeeE - 312
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 Chilian Beverage—Capture of a Spanish Treasure-Ship—
A Pilot thrown Overboard—Sea-Fight off Manilla—Return Home, after the ;
First Dutch Voyage of Circumnavigation..........sscsosscossssetecees cesses secees esses 323
CHAPTER XXXIII.—Quiros’ Theory cf a Southern Continent—His Arguments
and Memorials—His First Voyage—Discoveries—Encarnacion—Sagittaria, or
Tahiti—Description of these Islands—Manicolo—Espiritu Santo—Its Produc-
tions and Inhabitants—Quiros before the King of Spain—His Belief in his
Discovery of a Continent—His Disappointment—Renewed Solicitations—
Death of Quiros—Discoveries of Torrés—The Muscovy Company of London—
Henry Hudson—His Voyages to Spitzbergen and Nova Zembla—His Voyage
to America—Casts Anchor at Sandy Hook—Ascends the Hudson River as far
as the Site of Albany—His Voyage to Iceland and Hudson’s Bay—Disastrous
Winter—Mutiny—Hudson set adrift—His Death...............sccececcccscscssecesens . 3836
CHAPTER XXXIV.—The Fleet of Joris Spilbergen—Arrival in Brazil—Adven-
tures in the Strait of Magellan—Trade at Mocha Island—Treachery at Santa
Maria—Terrible Battle between the Dutch and Spanish Fleets—Ravages of
the Coast—Skirmishes upon the Land—Spilbergen sails for Manilla—Arrival
at Ternate—His Return Home—The Voyage of Schouten and Lemaire—
Lemonade at Sierra Leone—A Collision at Sea—Discovery of Staten Land—
Cape Horn—Lemaire’s Strait—Arrival at Batavia—Confiscation of the Ships
—General Results of the Voyage—The Voyage of William Baffin—Arctic
Researches during the Seventeenth Century.......cecsesevees Petecale a eheaaee Sse OLS
CONTENTS. . tue. 8:
FROM THE DISCOVERY OF CAPE HORN TO THE APPLICATION OF STEAM TO
NAVIGATION : 1616-1807.
PAGE
CHAPTER XXXV.—A Famous Vessel—The Mayflower—Her Appearance—The
Speedwell—Departure of the Two Ships—Alleged Unseaworthiness of the
Speedwell---The Mayflower sails alone—The Equinoctial—Consultations—
A Remedy applied—First View of the Land—Subsequent History and Fate
Tmo Ua SMTONV ETI s.2s Hones seeslolirasineidedusies.<s evs ceidaisiieps slocdesiveldcieajs's ovis e(eainasiavievewsssestoss 361
CHAPTER XXXVI.—Discovery of New Holland—Tasman ordered to survey
the Island—Discovery of Van Diemen’s Land—Of New Zealand—Murderers’
Bay—The Friendly Islands—The Feejees—New Britain—An Earthquake at
Sea—A Copious Language—Circumnavigation of New Holland—Return to
Batavia—Results of the Voyage—Dutch Opinions of Tasman’s Merit............ 369
CHAPTER XXXVII.—Piracy—Origin of the Buccaneers—Their Manner of
Life—Dress—Occupation—The Island of Tortuga their Head-Quarters—
Their Religious Scruples—Manner of dividing Spoils—The Exterminator—
The Observance of the Sabbath—Exploits of Henry Morgan—Impotence of
the Spaniards—Career of William Dampier-—His First Piratical Cruise—Ad-
ventures by Land and Sea—Description of the Plantain-Tree—Lingering
Deaths by Poison—Reproaches of Conscience—The New-Hollanders—Dam-
pier’s Dangerous Voyage in an Open Boat—Piracy upon the American Coast
—William Kidd sent against the Pirates—He turns Pirate himself—His Ex-
ploits, Detection, and Execution— His Buried Treasures— Wreck of the
WME eel te ATAU“ SMUD Scsce ccc enccaterersecescase sieaseiysicneeguecorsselcevasievissacsisedesess esos vvese 374
CHAPTER XXXVIII.—The Voyage of Woodes Rogers—Desertion checked
by a Novel Circumstance—A Light seen upon the Island of Juan Fernandez
—A Boat sent to Reconnoitre—Alexander Selkirk discovered—His History
and Adventures—His Dress, Food, and Occupations—He ships with Rogers
as Second Mate—Turtles and Tortoises—Fight with a Spanish Treasure-Ship
—Profits of the Voyage—The South Sea Bubble—Its Inflation and Collapse
Se MC UCM OS OMMEVEI Ola eance ae es Sain ive.tss5siccaness saccseorerhc baa cUrne Seles tecatvosactees 397
CHAPTER, XXXIX.—The Dutch West India Company—Renewed Search for
the Terra Australis Incognita—Jacob Roggewein-——His Voyage of Discovery
—Brush with Pirates—Arrival at Juan Fernandez—Easter Island—Its In-
habitants—Entertainment of one on board the Ship—A Misunderstanding—
Pernicious and Recreation Islands—Glimpse of the Society Islands—A Famine
in the Fleet—Arrival at New Britain—Confiscation of the Ship at Batavia—
Decision of the States-General—Vitus Behring—Behring’s Strait—Description
of the Scene—Death of Behring—Subsequent Survey of the Strait...........06 - 409
CHAPTER XL.—Piratical Voyage under George Anson—Unparalleled Mor-
tality—Arrival and Sojourn at Juan Fernandez—A Prize—Capture of Paita—
Preparations to attack the Manilla Galleon— Disappointment— Fortunate
Arrival at Tinian—Romantic Account of the Island—A Storm—Anson’s Ship
driven out to Sea—The Abandoned Crew set about building a Boat—Return
of the Centurion—Battle with the Manilla Galleon—Anson’s Arrival in Eng-
Faud ine Proceeds of the Cruisers <isice ee cresinonveateress faites pdeavevscasaealesese: tee, 419
12 _ CONTENTS.
CHAPTER XLI.—The First Scientific Voyage of Circumnavigation—The Dol-
phin and Tamar—Byron in Patagonia—Falkland Islands—Islands of Disap-
pointment—Arrival at Tinian—Byron versus Anson—The Voyage Home—
Wallis and Carteret—Their Observations in Patagonia—Wallis at Tahiti—
A Desperate Battle—Nails lose their Value—A Tahitian Romance—Pitcairn’s
Island — Queen Charlotte’s Islands— New Britain— The Voyage Home—
A Man-of-War Destroyed by: Bites. th.d.sccscsdsedscetecusenccuedestiesouraen i oid staaeeeeaees ‘
CHAPTER XLII.—Colonization of the Falkland Islands—Antoine de Bougain-
ville—His Voyage around the World—Adventure at Montevideo—The Pata-
gonians—Taking Possession of Tahiti—French Gallantry—Ceremonies of
Reception—Sojourn at the Island—Aotourou—The First Female Circumnavi-
gator—Famine on Board—Remarkable Cascade—Arrival at the Moluccas—
Incidents there— Return’ Home. tess veisdesnsiesicds''se devncsieed achipn hahed anata atusbianee Seaee
CHAPTER XLIII.—Expedition despatched at the Instance of the Royal So-
ciety—Lieutenant James Cook—Incidents of the Voyage—A Night on Shore
in Terra del Fuego-—Arrival at Tahiti—The Natives pick their Pockets—The
Observatory—A Native chews a Quid of Tobacco—The Transit of Venus—
Two of the Marines take unto themselves Wives—New Zealand—Adventures
there — Remarkable War-Canoe — Cannibalism demonstrated — Theory of a
Southern Continent subverted—New Holland—Botany Bay—The Endeavor
on the Rocks— Expedient to stop the Leak—A Conflagration — Passage
through a Reef—Arrival at Batavia—Mortality on the Voyage Home—Cook
promoted to the Rank of Commanders. .c.cic.d.sesecevdeds ecidvacene abscuesels veeaceshs teams
CHAPTER XLIV.—Cook’s Second Voyage—A Storm—Separation of the Ships
—Aurora Australis—New Zealand—Six Water-Spouts at once—Tahiti again
—Petty Thefts of the Natives—Cook visits the Tahitian Theatre—Omai—
Arrival at the Friendly Islands—The Fleet witness a Feast of Human Flesh
—The New Hebrides—New Caledonia— Return Home— Honors bestowed
upon Cookves: adase sina b chisdbeeb dis deadly do Snialdslals tin ob ta'tal aise eoremente cians cisdie: why ance =
CHAPTER XLV.—Cock’s Third Voyage—The Northwest Passage—Omai—His
Reception at Home—The Crew forego their Grog—Discovery of the Sandwich
Islands—Nootka Sound—The Natives—Cape Prince of Wales—Two Conti-
nents in Sight—Icy Cape—Return to the Sandwich Islands—Cook is deified
—Interview with Tereoboo—Subsequent Difficulties—A Skirmish—Pitched
Battle and Death of Cook-—Recovery of a Portion of his Remains—Funeral
Ceremonies— Life and Services of Cook........csccccsccsccesescecsssses sosssesesens aes
CHAPTER XLVI.—Louis XVI. and the Science of Navigation—Voyage of
Lapérouse—Arrival at Easter Island—Address of the Natives—Owhyhee—
Trade at Mowee—Survey of the American Coast—A Remarkable Inlet—Dis-
tressing Calamity — Sojourn at Monterey — Run across the Pacific— The
Japanese Waters—Arrival at Petropaulowski—Affray at Navigators’ Isles—
Lapérouse arrives at Botany Bay, and is never seen again, alive or dead—
Voyages made in Search of him—D’‘Entrecasteaux—Dillon—D Urville—Dis-
covery of numerous Relics of the Ships at Manicolo—Theory of the Fate of
Lapéronse—Frection of a Monument to his Memory.........ssscceeeececeeecececeece
CHAPTER XJ,VII.-—-The Transplantation of the Bread-Fruit Tree—The Voyage
of the Bounty—A Mutiny—Bligh, the Captain, with Eighteen Men, cast adrift
in the Laonch—Incidents of the Voyage from Tahiti to Timor—Terrible
PAGE
436
452
463
482
494
912
CONTENTS.
P
Sufferings and a Marvellous Escape—Arrival of the Mutineers at Tahiti—
Their Removal to Pitcairn’s Island—Subsequent History—Voyage of Van-
couver—Algerine Piracy—Burning of the Philadelphia—Proud Position of
the United States...... PASS ete stasis aeccess Medea s te Me EMR COLE te Cad acocinetesdcledbesseed
CHAPTER XLVIII.—Application of Steam to Navigation—Robert Fulton—
Chancellor Livingston—Launch of the Clermont—She crosses the Hudson
River—Her Voyage to Albany—Description of the Scene—Fulton’s own Ac-
count—Legislative Protection granted to Fulton—The Pendulum-Engine—
Construction of other Steainboats—The Steam-Frigate Fulton the First—The
First Ocean-Steamer, the Savannah—<Account of her Voyage—Misapprehen-
13
AGK
524
sions upon the Subject. ....ceccccssescseees Weblona suse sceneeaearaeessassreissesiseceseveanes) O40
FROM THE APPLICATION OF STEAM TO NAVIGATION TO THE LAYING OF
THE ATLANTIC CABLE: 1807-1858.
CHAPTER XLIX.—Arctiec Explorations—Russian Researches under Krusen-
stern and Kotzebue—Freycinet— Ross—The Crimson Cliffs—Lancaster Sound
—Buchan and Franklin—Parry—The Polar Sea—Winter Quarters—Return
Home—Duperrey—Episodes in the Whale-Fishery—Parry’s Polar Voyage—
Boat-Sledges—Method of Travel—Disheartening Discovery—82° 43’ North... 551
CHAPTER L.—Ross’s Second Voyage—The North Magnetic Pole—D’Urville—
Enderby’s Land—Back's Voyage in the Terror—The Great Western and Sirius
—United States’ Exploring Expedition—The Antarctic Continent—Sir John
Franklin’s Last Voyage in the Erebus anc Terror—Efforts made to relieve
him—Discovery of the Scene of his First Winter Quarters—The Grinnell Ex-
pedition—The Advance and Rescue—Licutenant de Haven—Dr. Kane—Return
of the Expedition........ o cnpocvoecvssesesversecscces coctonscescesseus eisvelewisetcevesirtecesees *
CHAPTER LI.—Kennedy’s Expedition—Sir Edward Belcher—McClure—Dis.
covery of the Northwest Passage—Junction of McClure and Kellett—Episode
of the Resolute—Commodore Perry’s Expedition—Decisive Traces of the Fate
of Sir John Franklin—The Leviathan....... Seceeetes ste Maree noun saeceiacsomen-nsyietase :
CHAPTER LII.—The Second Grinnell Expedition—The Advance in Winter
Quarters--Total Darkness—Sledge-Parties—Adventures—The First Death—
Tennyson’s Monument—Humboldt Glacier—The Open Polar Sea—Second
Winter—Abandonment of the Brig—The Water Again—Upernavik—Rescue
by Captain Hartstene—Death and Services of Dr. Kane—Lord Dufferin’s
Visit to Iceland—Description of its Capital—Huts of the Icelanders—General
Intelligence—Jon Thorlakson........ccosssssssseesee se cesecanes sovceeees serneecasecenen oes
CHAPTER LIII.—Charles Francis Hall’s last Arctic Expedition in the Polaris
—The Preparation for the Expedition—The high hope with which it started
—The first News from it—Picked up on the Floating Ice—The Tigress sent
in search--Her Failure to find the Explorers—Hall’s Death—The Polaris
Abandoned and Sunk—Journal of a Voyage on Floating Ice—Attempt to lay
the Atlantic Cable.......0+ cscsce coccevecs Pearse eran Ser ct MA are Pier stall a LIS a stelle ee'g'e's Seve
CHAPTER LIV.—Second and Third Attempts to lay the Atlantic Cable—The
Failure in the Month of June—Description of the Cable—The Voyage of the
Niagara—The Continuity—All Right again—Change from one Coil to An-
567
586
594
609
14 CONTENTS.
other—The Knights of the Black Hand—Unfavorable Symptoms—The Ingu-
lation broken—The Third of August—An Anxious Moment—Land discovered
—Trinity Bay—Mr. Field visits the Telegraph Station—The Operators taken
by Surprise—Landing of the Cable—Impressive Ceremony—Captain Hudson -
returns Thanks to Heaven—The Voyage of the Agamemnon—The Queen’s
Message—The Sixteenth of August—Deep-Sea Telegraphing—The Equator
and the Cable ...0...ssse.dases senldsteniawostes eo nemesis Gets sisid annidiamresonnasallenih Spaces cee tanta ae
CHAPTER LV.—Diving—The first diving-bell—Fixed apparatus supplied with
compressed air—The submarine hydrostat—Operations at Hell Gate—Diving
apparatus—Submarine explosions—Improved diving dresses—Their use—
Work of various kinds done with them—Instances of this—Seeking the treas-
ure of the Hussar—Sunken ships in Sebastopol—Operations in Mobile—The
dry-dock at Pensacola Bay—The beauties of the submarine world—Habits of
the fish—Possible depth of descent
SO CCOe LO LOES FOSEEE COFFS COFEES FF OFOS eeseoesss FOSESS COLESE
CHAPTER LVI.—Fishing—The ocean as a field—The crops it yields—The
sponge—Transplanting sponges—Coral fisheries—The coral an animal—The
discovery of this—Oyster fishery——The oyster a social animal—The young
oyster—Oyster culture—Dredging for oysters—The American oyster fishery—-
Pearl oysters—The value of the pearl fishery—Shark fishing—Cuttle fish......
CHAPTER LVII.—Dredging in modern times—What it has taught us—Deep-
sea soundings—First attempts—Implements used for it—The chance for in-
ventors—The temperature of the sea—Deep-sea temperature—Self-regulating
thermometers—Serial temperature soundings—Animal life of the sea—Deep-
sea dredging—The dredging apparatus of the Porcupine............... osceede saan
CHAPTER LVIII.—The development of ship building—New models for ships
—Steam ship navigation—Monitors—Iron-plated frigates—Tin-clads—Rams
—Torpedo boats—Their use in the Confederacy—Life rafts—Yacht building
—Ocean yacht race—The cost of a yacht........0000 dobawa cteaeeteteme st nsttect teemee ae
CHAPTER LIX.—Our knowledge of the earth and sea—How it has increased
—The earth the daughter of the ocean—The opinion of science—The mean
depth of the ocean—The extent of the ocean—Its volume—Specific gravity
of sea-water—Constitution of salt-water—The silver in the sea—The waves
of the sea—The currents of the ocean—The tides—The aquarium—The com-
meree of modern times—The spread Of Ppeace.....ccccssccssscesccscecces senserscsscees
634
651
683
716
737
766
LSE OF TLLUS TRATIONS.
Page
Perils of the Sea..... Frontispiece.
Peainieie WEIGEL. 6d... eee 8s 18
Pelamdvol Gavan: foes os os ce ee os ky)
Marvels as described by the early
INFIVAGALONS: bo as ble cec ee eg se 21
BE MEGMISLOL, | ois 6p 0.0 0:64 $05 bois 23
rainy, POUL y's 6 sence io be ecce ss 30
The First Navigator.........++. 33
Modern Row. Boat.....+.<2. 6. 35
Ideal Scene before the Deluge... 38
Destruction by the Deluge...... Al
The Deluge and the Ark........ 45
Noetulius -Maliaris............. 49
Supposed form of the ship Argo.. 58
The World, according to Homer. 65
The Earth, according to Anaxi-
HINT: RO A ere eed 66
Mhe Great. Penguin../......... 68
Greek Vessel of the 6th Century. 69
The Ptolemy Philopator........ 76
Common, Penguins. -...0...4% 5 78
The Sacred Promontory........ 82
Plan of Pythias’ Voyage........ 83
Plan of the Voyage of Nearchus. 87
Supposed form of the ships of
INEAGCUNIS I: C6 sire ee slr eed oe 95
Venetian Galley of the 10th Cen-
UMIBV Ae ra tape] Made eared ced Vist lec eS! os ¢-alerg 96
Wedding the Adriatic.......... 99
PCO ee ee ia i ea 103
Danish vessel of the 10th Century 104
The Northmen of America...... 109
Wishing for Herrings........... 112
Japanese Idols... 6.0...0)e)... 115
Japanese Grandeur............ 115
Ancient Chinese Compass....... 119
iiiiese Mk bss ee ss ole we 125
Ship of the 14th Century....... 127
Page
TROT GLUieL OF Sie tele Fo cieu be tecs 6) oe 128
Caper Boyadors wisest cca edelccs seat Low)
Cape eran aces a ee eel 136
SeaaSiwallow wanes se ace eee 138
Christopher Columbus.......... 143
Colombo, the Naval Warrior.... 145
Witoket) Aistemia ist, ssiaiaca sles tres 152
Head of the Merganser......... 153
Imagined Monsters of unknown
SOAS garter tebsa sh iatsriees hie af ahciete Stele 1595
The Fleet of Columbus......... 157
Columbus taking possession of
Guawelranicn erent 165
The Nina homeward bound..... 167
Reception of Columbus by Ferdi-
mand, ete... ..).. Tee
Scene in fertile Cuba............ 173
Mouth of the Orimocows)..'5. 4... 176
Columbus in chains at Cadiz.... 178
ANIC 2) itch 6\0}0 eee ene aie renee mnt? eth 180
Hteriny) Vil ee gs ese siete wos 4 187
‘PheeBhactonir stakes. a, Fale 189
Vasco. da Gamayes)s.. cies tee 190
Map of Africa, drawn 1497...... 198
Phosphoreseence’.;. os... 80. : 198
Spectre of the Cape............ 199
The Man overboard, and the Al-
AER OSH...) Noite oral eek corer nee: 200
Mozambique. .s). 4.233 825 1. 204
The San Raphael and Caraval.... 204
Calicut in the 16th Century..... 208
| Wreck of the San Raphael...... 209
Da Gamais FlagShip.........-. 216
Vessels employed in the Spice
Trade in the 16th Century.... 219
Ponce de Leon and the Fountain ©
of Youth
eeoeee*eeececee © ee 8 © 2
eo easceece ee
16
Page
Balboa discovering the Pacific
Balboa taking possession of the
Pacttte Oeeaa. 6 cc's nae eee:
Fate of De Solis and his compan-
FONG fie. ep ae eee pe re eR ee Pe 236
Ferdinand Magellan............ 237
Cape Virgin, east end Magellan’s
Straits sco 1c cm sre © soda eee 243
TAWA IATAR co's cee eee ree ee 247
Natives of Borneo prepare to at-
tack Magellan (yo s-icnect antec 248
Pidlore cic S ete aa vie ere 254
Scene on the Canadian Coast.... 258
Erancis Drake civinciie'caj-eteieeses 267
@ueen Bessrs). fava. deere 270
Dake and his Raft... i. woes. o< 272
Drake and the Patagonians..... 273
Drake condemning Doughty.... 274
Ben A erin ON eO9 5.2... wcos-se erate oe 278
Drake at Acapuleo....2..6 00> +5 282
Natives of California.........:. 284
British Ship of War, 1578...... 288
Gavendish in Bravily eco. 2 a... 289
Ports amine: anit. eos poe eee 290
Hull of a vessel of the Armada. 294
Procession in honor of the defeat
of the Anma@as..'00 955 ke a. 296
Sir Walter Raleigh............ 297
Sieve Se a ole pcinetis's sete ote ae 301
Native of the Solomon Islands .. 305
Hgmont. Island... 2... <i). 5-4-6 309
The islanders, .'... 23 eee. 2 ay 311
The Dutch at Walrus Island.... 312
Reset by Bears tS sacenkiee eet. 314
Settine Fox Uraps ee sso oscisy. 315
The Dutch in Winter Quarters. . 316
Fighting off the Bears......... 318
Getting Boats and Barrels to the
Getting over fields of Ice....... 321
The female Otter and her young. 323
Funeral of Mahu at Brava Island. 323
Affray between the Dutch and
Patagonians.......-+.s++2++- 329
Natives going to trade.......... 331
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
Page
The Two Admirals at close quar-
GENS. coy once «ores bee 333
A Dutch Pic-Nic in the Mauri-
Scene on the Salvador river..... 340
Hudson’s vessel, The Half Moon,
off Sandy Hook «2.98. sakes 344
Pushing on through the Ice..... 346
Dutch vessel trading at the La-
dranes;..:). ...). ssn beans 049
Conflict between the Dutch and
Spanish Fleets....... 22-2... 302
The Dutch surprised by the
Spaniards, ..... «0k 7s ceeeeee 303
Cape: Horn: .:: os..54 509 eee 307
The Concord at Fly Island...... 358
Arctic Gullead ets.405 2a reer 360
Speedwell and Mayflower......... 362
Struggling with the waves...... 365
Cod Fish). 52.31.02. ose eee 368
Tasman’s vessel, The Zeehaan.... 369
Murderer’s. Bay 3). : 4.waee are 371
Natives of Murderer’s Bay...... 372
A Buccaneer... «1:42 374
Boats used in the Philippian
Islands... 12644) -..2 eee 383
Forest scene in Mindano........ 385
Surf Bathing by Natives........ 386
Polynesian Canoe with its Out-
TiPVere ijt. cede eee 388
Dampier’s Boat in a Storm...... 389
Wreck of the Pirate Ship, Whidah 396
Home of Alexander Selkirk.... 397
Selkirk watching the Spaniards... 399
Selkirk out Hunting.....:..... 401
Making Clothes of Goatskins.... 402
Catching Turtles.) 0°2.@. eee eee 404
Natives breaking Turtles’ Eggs.. 405
Mirage at Behring’s Straits..... 417
Bord. Anson;...'. 2... . «hese 419
Bombardment of Paita......... 423
Anson’s Encampment at Firman. 427
The Centurion and the Treasure
Ship....-.....-. Cas lobe tor aheemenete 433
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. i7/
Page
Byron at King George’s Island. .
Parting of Wallis and Oberea.. .
Burning of the Le Prince.......
Chain of Phosphorescent Salpas..
Sou oeiio\ alll een aera
A Ferry Boat at Buenos Ayres. .
Bougainville at Magellan’s Straits.
Cascade at Port Praslin.........
Camte dames COOK. 0c ey os
vp veo EUSM. wet ce 3 oe i. ss
1S CRS
Pee NMR SMe ay csr, otras vob int wr one govele
(he Dancing Savages............-.
A New Zealand Canoe..........
BME TGOW es diac, < tien. scid es aye sale
12 T1211) re
CCG) SC ea eo ae
MaperPigeon....... ie eee -
Miomaced by Ace... ye. ees
Cook’s ship beset by Water-
Canoes of the Friendly Islands. .
Bewanmibal Meast..............
New Caledonian double Ganoe.. . *
Sandwich Island King to visit
CCI RSs oid oe ae
Habitations in Nootka Sound....
Man of the Sandwich Islands... .
Woman of Sandwich Islands....
Fight witli the Natives..........
]LANC@ROLRE ME ASE he ane ree
Laperouse’s Disaster at French-
[JORG Seceng 66 oo oh ey CIeEpie cer
Remnants of the wreck ........
Consecration of the Cenotaph ...
Scene in Terra del Fuego.......
Colonists of Pitcairn’s Island....
A Deserted Village............
The Discovery on a Rock.......
Burning of the Philadelphia ....
The Clermont, the first steamboat.
The Savannah, the first ocean
SUCRE nd. lb 60.8 OO ClO OMIOO
Head of a White Bear.........
Reception of Otzebue at Otdia ..
2,
436
444
449
451
452
454
455
459
461
462
463
464
471
472
475
478
479
481
483
485
487
489
490
491
492
494
498
500
502
503
508
612
517
522
523
524
530
033
534
538
540
549
dol
552
Page
Attacked by Walruses.......... 535
Maikcimea NV@LEUS ahiape ial eys satere «cole 556
NVaite Bearsy ox sinst fon ost omits 558
pea rons omtme lice servi) .5- 561
Cotomr Winey eeu seedy slain eine =: 562
Cribb mex O Ulysse ei eis) anseieye ies 562
The Navigators frozen in....... 567
The Victory ina Gale.......... 568
Floating Ice Mountains ........ 574
Drs Kamer ace tanta est enarery ei, 580
Dr. Kane passing through Devil’s
SINGH NMR peat tee fren ee herd once ee 581
MING SCaMe spo cies tre ease Nae ates 585
JlapanesesVesselrs a. <p =. 591
Mes Weviat lan. se,. ees gstaas 593
Cape Alexander, the Arctic Gi-
borealis gett ene Pacset ts ates ae 594
Gihaosae ure cer ee ales sao oe 596
Walle Wop. Weamn es 0.52 ste et 598
Open Polamiwedne., sac 599
Seeking Eider Down............ 603
Capital of Beelands 2 12. - 605
Church; at Vhingvalla: <22).. <2: 606
Dione Waorlakso@lns, pice ut: ci. 607
Map of Polaris Expedition..... 608
Ofieersohpeolamis; veya | ee. 611
Aurora in Greenland .:........+ 614
Drttine: meythelices 2n1.-. 4c) 615
Sealine -anvlceberg.. 3.3225. - 2. 617
INest-of the Rolar Bear... 2...) 619
JBOD. ein S we AARNE oD cmc iae 622
AmpArctie Channels yoo iain ci. 2 628
The Telegraphic Fleet ......... 631
Tlauling the Cable ashore...... 632
Banding ther@abler.. saver. s..sqets 634
The Cable in the bed of the
Oe ain eee Tags fale oe terete 633
Sections of Atlantic Cable...... 6385
(he Telesrapn Euatesu. =. .- -.. 642
The Aganemnon in a Gale...... 648
Diane elles teeter oie er ue 652
Fixed Apparatus supplied with
Compressed Auntie: -).,-12--)5.4.- 653
Payerne’s Submarine Hydrostat. 655
Mushroom rill. ey. ic cota « 658
Ready toigordewns: :.. 1...) .1.--t: 660
Putting in the Charges......... 662
Grappling Machine. 2°. ..%).04,. 663
¥
18
Page |
Divers dressed in their Apparatus 664
Divers finding a Box of Gold... 665
Arming the Diver. ............ 668 |
Casting off the Diver .......... 669 |
Divertdown:s «2-2 Seven en eee 670
Cannon, bell, and bones, brought
ip: from -the: Wirecksq. <-4.0 \/22. 671
Salvage of Russian Ships....... 672
Caulking a Nessely.\)Vgecteete 673
The Northern-Diver ......-......... 682
Star ish: . bho. clas eee elo 683
Sponge. Fishing ............+4. 684
Coral Fishing off coast of Sicily. 687
Leaf ‘Butterfly: iu. - «eho 5 he 689
Shells of Ocean’? .-... ststak oe oe 691
Faggots suspended to receive
Oyster Spats x ..s0% sb pdanee 694
Dredging-for Oysters... -<.5+-- 697
A Shell containing Chinese Pearls 698
Pearl Fisher in’ danger. ..°.,. +. 700
Shark Wisin. Gist Soc aeeeyel- 704
Cuttle fish making his Cloud.... 706
Wobstetes 6 < esha eae te teks 709
Conflict of Hermit Crabs ....... wt
Sear Anemomesic i 22) ae oe 713
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
Page
Red Coral < ).. tan 4. eee 715
Dredging. ..\.2:..5 ) eee 716
Brooks’ Deep Sea Sounding Ap-
paratus. ..:. 0 fe.e eee
Striking the Sea Bottom
| Bull Dog Sounding Machine. ... 723
Massey’s Sounding Machine .... 724
The stern of the Porcupine...... 732
Madrepores: .\.);..... Aoteckiee eae 736
Sail boat in.a Gale -2v-Ceee eee 737
Pennsylvania and Ohio. on the
Stocks 0... «ices atone ae 739:
Monitors:.:......2¢ 3 33) ae 742
Plans of the Monitors.......... 743
Sts Mots cet nas agi osa eee 744
Double. Ender..:. 7. 2:3. se eee 745
Minnehaha, or Tin Clad........ TAT
The Ram Tronsides. -..<...222%. 749:
Torpedo Explosion ...........- 7ol
Life Raft.’ sce . 3.0 eee 755:
Ocean Yacht Race, Henrietta,
- Vesta and Fleetwing.......... 788
Fancy Sail Race ...-........-+- 759
Light ‘Ship’. : <=. seec-«p eee 774
¥
Z —— hin
A -— =. 5
— WW
LV
Yi
Gi
LG MM
THE HAND OF SATAN UPON THE SEA OF DARKNESS.
FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES TO THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE
CHRISTIAN ERA.
CHAPTER I.
THE PURPOSE OF THIS WORK—THE OCEAN IN THE SCRIPTURAL PERIOD—THE
MARVELS OF THE SEA—THE CLASSIC LEGENDS—THE FANTASTIC NOTIONS
ENTERTAINED OF THE NORTH AND THE EQUATOR—THE GIANT OF THE CANA-
RIES—THE SEA OF SEA-WEED—THE SPECTRE OF THE CAPE—THE GRADUAL
SURRENDER OF THE SECRETS OF THE SEA—IT BECOMES THE HIGHWAY OF
NATIONS—ITS PRESENT ASPECT—ITS POETICAL SIGNIFICANCE—ITS MORAL
LESSONS.
A History of the ocean from the Flood to the Atlantic Tele-
graph, with a parallel sketch of shipbuilding from the Ark to
the Iron Clad; a narrative of the rise of commerce, from
the days when Solomon’s ships traded with Ophir, to the time
when the steam whistle is heard on every open sea; a con-
secutive chronicle of the progress of navigation, from the day
19
20 HISTORY OF THE SEA. —
when the timid mariner hugged the coast by day and prudently —
cast anchor by night, to the time when the steamship, appa-
rently endowed with reason, or at least guided by instinct, seems
almost to dispense with the aid of man,—such a theme seems
to offer topics of interest which it would be difficult to find in
any other subject. The reader will readily perceive its scope
when we have briefly rehearsed what the sea once was to man,
and what it now is,—the purpose of the work being to narrate
how from the one it has become the other.
In early times, in the scriptural and classic periods, the great
oceans were unknown. Mankind—at least that portion whose
history has descended to us—dwelt upon the borders of an in-
land, mediterranean sea. They had never heard of such
an expanse of water as the Atlantic, and certainly had never
seen it. The land-locked sheet which lay spread out at their
feet was at all times full of mystery, and often even of dread
and secret misgiving. Those who ventured forth upon its
bosom came home and told marvellous tales of the sights they.
had seen and the perils they had endured. Homer's heroes
returned to Ithaca with the music of the sirens in their ears and
the cruelties of the giants upon their lips. The Argonauts saw
whirling rocks implanted in the sea, to warn and repel the
approaching navigator; and, as if the mystery of the waters had
tinged with fable even the dry land beyond it, they filled the
Caucasus with wild stories of enchantresses, of bulls that breathed
fire, and of a race of men that sprang, like a ripened harvest,
from the prolific soil. If the ancients were ignorant of the
shape of the earth, it was for the very reason that they were
ignorant of the ocean. Their geographers and _ philosophers,
whose observations were confined to fragments of Europe, Asia,
and Africa, alternately made the world a cylinder, a flat sur-
face begirt by water, a drum, a boat, a disk. The legends
that sprang from these confused and contradictory notions made
the land a scene of marvels and the water an abode of terrors.
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DD, HISTORY OF THE SEA.
At a later period, when, with the progress of time, the love
of adventure or the needs of commerce had drawn the navigator
from the Mediterranean through the Pillars of Hercules into
the Atlantic, and when some conception of the immensity of the
waters had forced itself upon minds dwarfed by the contracted
limits of the inland sea, then the ocean became in good earnest
a receptacle of gloomy and appalling horrors, and the marvels
narrated by those fortunate enough to return told how deeply
the imagination had been stirred by the new scenes opened to
their vision. Pytheas, who coasted from Marseilles to the
Shetland Isles, and who there obtained a glance at the bleak
and wintry desolation of the North Sea, declared, on reaching
home, that his further progress was barred by an immense black
mollusk, which hung suspended in the air, and in which a ship
would be inextricably involved, and where no man could breathe.
The menaces of the South were even more appalling than the
perils of the North; for he who should venture, it was said,
across the equator into the regions of the Sun, would be —
changed into a negro for his rashness: besides, in the popular
belief, the waters there were not navigable. Upon the quaint
charts of the Middle Ages, a giant located upon the Canary
Islands forbade all farther venture westward, by brandishing his
formidable club in the path of all vessels coming from the east.
Upon these singular maps the concealed and treacherous horrors
of the deep were displayed in the grotesque shapes of sea-
monsters and distorted water-unicorns, which were represented
as careering through space and waylaying the navigator.
Even in the time of Columbus, and when the introduction of
the compass into European ships should have somewhat dimi-
nished the fantastic terrors of the sea, we find that the Arabians,
the best geographers of the time, represented the bony and
gnarled hand of Satan as rising from the waves of the Sea of .
Darkness,—as the Atlantic was then called,—ready to seize and
engulf the presumptuous mariner. The sailors of Columbus,
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SEA MONSTER NOW KNOWN AS THE ARGONAUT.
2
24 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
on reaching the Sargasso Sea, where the collected weeds offered
an impediment to their progress, thought they had arrived at
the limit of navigation and the end of the world. Five years
later, the crew of da Gama, on doubling the Cape of Good
Hope, imagined they saw, in the threatening clouds that gathered
about Table Rock, the form of a spectre waving off their vessel
and crying woe to all who should thus invade his dread dominion.
The Neptune of the classics, in short, who disported himself in
the narrow waters of the Mediterranean, and of whose wrath
we have read the famous mythologic accounts, was a deity
altogether bland and debonnaire compared to the gloomy and
revengeful monopolist of the seas, such as the historians and
geographers of the Middle Ages painted him.
And now Columbus had discovered the Western Continent,
da Gama had found an ocean route to the Indies, and Magellan,
sailing around the world, had proved its sphericity and approached
the Spice Islands from the east. or centuries, now, the two
great oceans were the scenes of grand and useful maritime
expeditions. The tropical islands of the Pacific arose, one by
one, from the ‘bosom of the sea, to reward the navigator or
relieve the outcast. The Spanish, by dint of cruelty and
rapacity, filled their famous Manilla galleons and Acapulco
treasure-ships with the spoils of warfare and the legitimate
fruits of trade. The English, seeking to annoy a nation with
whom, though not at war, they were certainly not at peace,
sent against their golden fleets the piratical squadrons of Anson,
Drake, and Hawkins. For years property was not safe upon the
sea, and trading-ships went armed, while the armed vessels of
nations turned buccaneers. The Portuguese and Dutch colonized
the coasts and islands of India, Spain sent Cortez and Pizarro
to Mexico and Peru, and England drove the Puritans across a
stormy sea to Plymouth. Commerce was spread over the world,
and Civilization and Christianity were introduced into the
desert and: the wilderness. Two centuries more, and steam
a
OCEAN STEAM FERRY. 25
made the Atlantic Ocean a ferry-transit, and the electric tele-
graph has now made its three thousand miles of salt water but
as one link in that girdle which Shakspeare foresaw and which
Puck promised to perform. The cable is complete and in
working-order from New Orleans to Sebastopol. -
Having thus rapidly described what the ocean once was in
man’s estimation, and having cursorily traced the steps by
which it has taken its place in the world’s economy, it remains
for us to say what the ocean now is, and what place it now
holds. It is the peaceful Highway of Nations,—a highway with-
out tax or toll. Were the noble idea of the late Secretary Marcy
adopted by all nations, private property upon the sea would he
sacred even in time of war. If the distances be considereil,
the sea is the safest and most commodious route from spot ti
spot, whether for merchandise or man. It has given up its
secrets, with perhaps the single exception of its depth, and, lke
the lightning and the thunderbolt, has submitted to the yoke.
Though still sublime in its immensity and its power, it has lost
those features of character which once made it mysterious and
fantastic, and has become the sober and humdrum pathway of
traffic. Mail-routes are as distinctly marked upon its surface as
the equator, or the meridian of Greenwich: steamships leave
their docks punctually at the stroke of noon. The monsters.
that plough its waters have been hunted by man till the race 1s
well nigh exhausted; for the leviathan which frightened the
ancients is the whale which has illuminated the moderns. The
chant of the sirens is hushed, and in its place are heard the
clatter of rushing paddle-wheels, the fog-whistle on the banks, the
song of the forecastle, the yo-ho of sailors toiling at the ropes,
the salute in mid-ocean,—sometimes—alas !—the minute-gun at
sea. ‘The romance and fable that once had here their chosen
home, have fled to the caves and taken refuge amid the grottos ;
and the legends that were lately told of the ocean would now
be out of place even in a graveyard or a haunted house.
26 | HISTORY OF THE SEA.
The sailor, to whom once the route was trackless and un-
trodden, now consults a volume of charts which he has obtained
from the National Observatory, and finds his course laid out
upon data derived from analogy and oft-repeated experience.
He takes this or that direction in accordance with known facts
of the prevalence of winds or the motion of currents. He
keeps a record of his own experience, that in its turn it may
be useful to others. He has plans and surveys which give him
the bearings of every port, the indentations of every coast, the
soundings of every pass. Beacons warn him of reefs and
sunken rocks, and buoys mark out his course through the shal-
lows of sounds and straits. A modern light-house costs a million
dollars, and a breakwater involves the finances of a state. If a
new light-house is erected, or is the warning lamp for any reason
discontinued, upon any coast, the fact 1s made known to the
commerce of all nations by a ‘‘ Notice to Mariners,” inserted in
the marine department of the newspapers most likely to meet
their eye. A vessel at sea is safer from spoliation than is the
traveller upon the high road or the sojourner in a city; for
there are robbers and depredators everywhere upon the land,
while there is not a pirate on the ocean. There are well-laden
treasure-ships in the Panama and California waters, as in the
times of Drake and Anson; but the world is much older than it
was, and buccaneers and flibustiers now only infest the land.
In short, the ocean, once a formidable and repellant element,
now furnishes Christian food and healthful employment to
millions. Instead of serving to affright and appall the dwellers
upon the continents which it surrounds, it renders their atmo-
sphere more respirable, it affords them safe conveyance, and
raises for them a school of heroes. The ocean, then, has a
history: it has a past worth narrating, adventures worth telling,
and it has played a part in the advancement of science, in the
extension of geographical knowledge, in the spread of civiliza-
tion and the progress of discovery, which it is eminently worth
MYSTERY OF THE SEA. A
our while to ponder and digest. Its gradual submission to in-
vasion from the land, its successive surrender of the islands in
the tropics and the ice-mountains at the poles, its slow but
certain release of its secrets, its final abandonment of its ex-
clusiveness, form—with a multitude of attendant incidents, acci-
dents, battles, disasters, shipwrecks, famines, robberies, mutinies,
piracies—the theme and purpose of these pages.
Although the ocean has lost its terrors and has given up its
dominion of dread over the mind of man, it is still poetic, and
has been often made to assume a profound moral significance
and furnish apt religious illustrations. In this connection, we
cannot do better than to quote, from Dr. Greenwood’s “‘ Poetry
and Mystery of the Sea,” a passage which strongly and beauti-
fully enforces this view :—
‘¢¢'The sea is his, and He madc it,’ cries the Psalmist of
Israel, in one of those bursts of enthusiasm in which he so
often expresses the whole of a vast subject by a few simple
words. Whose else, indeed, could it be, and by whom else could
it have been made? Who else can heave its tides and appoint
iis bounds? Who else can urge its mighty waves to madness
with the breath and wings of the tempest, and then speak to it
again in a master’s accents and bid it be still? Who else could
have peopled it with its countless inhabitants, and caused it to
bring forth its various productions, and filled it from its deepest
bed to its expanded surface, filled it from its centre to its re-
motest shores, filled it to the brim with beauty and mystery and
power!’ Majestic Ocean! Glorious Sea! No created being
rules thee or made thee.
‘‘What is there more sublime than the trackless, desert, all-
surrounding, unfathomable sea? What is there more peacefully
sublime than the calm, gently-heaving, silent sea? What is
there more terribly sublime than the angry, dashing, foaming
sea? Power—resistless, overwhelming power—is its attribute
and its expression, whether in the careless, conscious grandeur
28 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
of its deep rest, or the wild tumult of its excited wrath. It is
awful when its crested waves rise up to make a compact with
the black clouds and the howling winds, and the thunder and
the thunderbolt, and they sweep on, in the joy of their dread
alliance, to do the Almighty’s bidding. And it is awful, too,
when it stretches its broad level out to meet in quiet union the
bended sky, and show in the line of meeting the vast rotundity
of the world. . There is majesty in its wide expanse, separating
and enclosing the great continents of the earth, occupying two-
thirds of the whole surface of the globe, penetrating the land
with its bays and secondary seas, and receiving the constantly-
pouring tribute of every river, of every shore. There -is
majesty in its fulness, never diminishing and never increasing.
There is majesty in its integrity,—for its whole vast substance is
uniform in its local unity, for there is but one ocean, and the
inhabitants of any one maritime spot may visit the inhabitants
of any other in the wide world. Its depth is sublime: who can
sound it? Its strength is sublime: what fabric of man can
resist it? Its voice is sublime, whether in the prolonged
song of its ripple or the stern music of its roar,—whether it
utters its hollow and melancholy tones within a labyrinth of
wave-worn caves, or thunders at the base of some huge promon-
tory, or beats against a toiling vessel’s sides, lulling the voyager
to rest with the strains of its wild monotony, or dies away, with
the calm and fading twilight, in gentle murmurs on some
sheltered shore.
‘‘ The sea possesses beauty, in richness, of its own; it borrows
it from earth, and air, and heaven. The clouds lend it the
various dyes of their wardrobe, and throw down upon it the
broad masses of their shadows as they go sailing and sweeping
by. The rainbow laves in it its many-colored feet. The sun
loves to visit it, and the moon and the glittering brotherhood of
planets and stars, for they delight themselves in its beauty.
The sunbeams return from it in showers of diamonds and
_A BIRDS-EYE VIEW. 29
glances of fire; the moonbeams find in it a pathway of silver,
where they dance to and fro, with the breezes and the waves,
through the livelong night. It has a light, too, of its own,—a
soft and sparkling light, rivaling the stars; and often does the
ship which cuts its surface leave streaming behind a Milky Way
of dim and uncertain lustre, like that which is shining dimly
above. It harmonizes in its forms and sounds both with the
night and the day. It cheerfully reflects the light, and it unites
solemnly with the darkness. It imparts sweetness to the music
of men, and grandeur to the thunder of heaven. What land-
scape is so beautiful as one upon the borders of the sea? The
spirit of its loveliness is from the waters where it dwells and
rests, singing its spells and scattering its charms on all tlie
coasts. What rocks and cliffs are so glorious as those which
are washed by the chafing sea? What groves and fields and.
dwellings are so enchanting as those which stand by the reflect-
ing sea ?
“If we could see the great ocean as it can be seen by no
mortal eye, beholding at one view what we are now obliged to
visit in detail and spot by spot,—if we could, from a flight far
higher than the eagle’s, view the immense surface of the deep
all spread out beneath us like a universal chart,—what an in-
finite variety such a scene would display! Here a storm would
be raging, the thunder bursting, the waters boiling, and rain
and foam and fire all mingling together; and here, next to this
scene of magnificent confusion, we should see the bright blue
waves glittering in the sun and clapping their hands for very
gladness. Here we should see a cluster of green islands set
like jewels in the bosom of the sea; and there we should see
broad shoals and gray rocks, fretting the billows and threaten-
ing the mariner. Here we should discern a ship propelled by
the steady wind of the tropics, and inhaling the almost visible
odors which diffuse themselves around the Spice Islands of the
Kast; there we should behold a vessel piercing the cold barrier
30 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
of the North, struggling among hills and fields of ice, and contend-
ing with Winter in his own everlasting dominion. Nor are the
ships of man the only travellers we shall perceive upon this
mighty map of the ocean. F locks of sea-birds are passing and
Sz
THE STORMY PETREL.
repassing, diving for their food or for pastime, migrating from
shore to shore with unwearied wing and undeviating instinct,
or wheeling and swarming around the rocks which they make
alive and vocal by their numbers and their clanging cries.
‘We shall behold new wonders and riches when we investigate
WONDERS AND ‘RICHES OF THE SEA. ol
the sea-shore. We shall find both beauty for the eye and food
for the body, in the varieties of shell-fish which adhere in
myriads to the rocks or form their close dark burrows in the
sands. In some parts of the world we shall see those houses of
stone, which the little coral-insect rears up with patient in-
dustry from the bottom of the waters, till they grow into for-
midable rocks and broad forests whose branches never wave
and whose leaves never fall. In other parts we shall see those
pale, glistening pearls which adorn the crowns of princes and
are woven in the hair of beauty, extorted by the relentless
grasp of man from the hidden stores of ocean. And spread
round every coast there are beds of flowers and thickets of
plants, which the dew does not nourish, and which man has not
sown, nor cultivated, nor reaped, but which seem to belong to
the floods alone and the denizens of the floods, until they are
thrown up by the surges, and we discover that even the dead
spoils of the fields of ocean may fertilize and enrich the fields
of earth. They have a life, and a nourishment, and an economy
of their own; and we know little of them, except that they are
there, in their briny nurseries, reared up into luxuriance by
- what would kill, like a mortal poison, the vegetation of the land.
‘There is mystery in thesea. There is mystery in its depths.
It is unfathomed, and, perhaps, unfathomable. .Who can tell,
who shall know, how near its pits run down to the central core
of the world? Who can tell what wells, what fountains, are
there, to which the fountains of the earth are but drops? Who
shall say whence the ocean derives those “aexhaustible supplies
of salt which so impregnate its wates that all the rivers of
the earth, pouring into it from ture time of the creation, have
not been able to freshen them? What undescribed monsters,
what unimaginable shapes, may be roving in the profoundest
places of the sea, never seeking—and perhaps, from their
nature, never able to seek—the upper waters and expose them-
selves to the gaze of man! What glittering riches, what heaps
an HISTORY OF THE SEA.
of gold, what stores of gems, there must be scattered in lavish
profusion in the ocean’s lowest bed! What spoils from all cli-
mates, what works of art from all lands, have been engulfed
by the insatiable and reckless waves! Who shall go down to
examine and reclaim this uncounted and idle wealth? Who
bears the keys of the deep?
‘And oh! yet more affecting to the heart and mysterious to
the mind, what companies of human beings are locked up in
that wide, weltering, unsearchable grave of the sea! Where
are the bodies of those 1ost ones over whom the melancholy
waves alone have been chanting requiem? What shrouds were
wrapped round the limbs of beauty, and of manhood, and of
placid infancy, when they were laid on the dark floor of that
secret tomb? Where are the bones, the relics, of the brave and
the timid, the good and the bad, the parent, the child, the wife,
the husband, the brother, the sister, the lover, which have been
tossed and scattered and buried by the washing, wasting,
wandering sea’ The journeying winds may sigh as year after
year they pass over their beds. The solitary rain-cloud may
weep in darkness over the mingled remains which lie strewed in
that unwonted cemetery. But who shall tell the bereaved to
what spot their affections may cling? And where shall human
tears be shed_throughout that solemn sepulchre? It is mystery
all. When shall it be resolved? Who shall find it out? Who
but He to whom the wildest waves listen reverently, and to .
whom all nature bows; He who shall one day speak, and be
heard in ocean’s profoundest caves; to whom the deep, even the
lowest deep, shall give up its dead, when the sun shall sicken,
and the earth and the isles shall languish, and the heavens be
rolled together like a scroll, and there shall be No MoRE SEA!”
It now remains for us to investigate the origin of navigation,
as preliminary to our subject, and then to commence the task
before us with the history of Noah, the first seaman, and the
Ark, the vessel he commanded. | |
im
vil Hh
Ait HEH AN
THE FIRST NAVIGATOR.
CHAPTER II.
SHE ORIGIN OF NAVIGATION—THE NAUTILUS—THE SPLIT REED AND BERTLE—
THE BEAVER FLOATING UPON A LOG—THE HOLLOW TREE—THE FIRST CANOE
—THE FLOATING NUTSHELL—THE OAR—THE RUDDER—THE SAIL—THE TRA-
DITION OF THE FIRST SAIL-BOAT.
THE origin of navigation is unknown. It has baffled the re-
search of antiquaries, for the simple reason that men sailed
upon the sea before they committed the records of their history
to paper, or that such records, if any existed, were swept away
and lost in the periods of anarchy which succeeded. Imagi-
nation has suggested that the nautilus, or Portuguese man-of-
war, raising its tiny sail and floating off before the breeze, first
pointed out to man the use which might be made of the wind as:
a propelling force; that a split reed, following the current of
some tranquil stream and transporting a beetle over its glassy
surface, was the first canoe, while the beetle was the first sailor.
: Mythology represents Hercules as sailing in a boat formed of
the hide of a lion, and translates ships to the skies, where they
still figure among the constellations. Fable makes Atlas claim
the invention of the oar, and gives to Tiphys, the pilot of the
Argo, the invention of the rudder. The attributing of these
discoveries and improvements to particular individuals doubt-
less afforded pastime to poets in ages when poetry was more
a 33
vil HISTORY OF THE SEA.
popular than history. Instead of trusting to these fanciful
authorities, we may form a very rational theory upon the matter
in the following manner :— :
Whether it was an insect that floated on a leaf across a
rivulet and was stranded on the bank, or a beaver carried down
a river upon a log, or a bear borne away upon an iceberg, that
first awakened man to the conception of trusting himself
fearlessly upon the water, it is highly probable that he learned
from animals, whose natural element it is, the manner of sup-
porting his body upon it and of forcing his way through it. A
frog darting away from the rim of a pond and striking out with
his fore-legs may have suggested swimming, and the beaver
floating on a log may have suggested following his example.
The log may not have been sufficiently buoyant, and the adven-
turer may have added to its buoyancy by using his arms and
legs. Even to this day the Indians of our own country cross
a rapid stream by clasping the trunk of a tree with the left leg
and arm and propelling themselves with the right. Thus the
first step was taken; and the second was either to place several
logs together, thus forming a raft, and raising its sides, or to
make use of a tree hollowed out by nature. Many trees grow
hollow naturally, such as oaks, limes, beeches, and willows; and
it would not require a degree of adaptation beyond the capacity
of a savage, to fit them to float and move upon the water. The
next step was probably to hollow out by art a sound log, thus
imitating the trunk which had been eroded by time and decay.
And, in making this step from the sound to the hollow log, the
primitive mariners may have been assisted by observing how an
empty nut-shell or an inverted tortoise-shell floated upon the
water, preserving their inner surface dry and protecting such
objects as their size enabled them to carry. It has been aptly
remarked that this first step was the greatest of all,—‘ for the
transition from the hollow tree to the ship-of-the-line is not so
difficult as the transition from nonentity to the hollow tree.”
EARLY NAVIGATORS. 35
_ The first object for obtaining motion upon the water must
evidently have been to enable the navigator to cross a river,—not
to ascend or descend it; as it is apparent he would not seek the
means of following or stemming its current while the same
purpose could be more easily served by walking along the shore.
It is not difficult to suppose that the oar was suggested by the
legs of a frog or the fins of a fish. The early navigator, seated
in his hollow tree, might at first seek to propel himself with his
hands, and might then artificially lengthen them by a piece
of wood fashioned in imitation of the hand and arm,—a long
pole terminating in a thin flat blade. Here was the origin of
the modern row-boat, one of the most graceful inventions of man.
NSA
SS =
From the oar to the rudder the transition was easy, for the
oar is in itself a rudder, and was for a long time used as one.
It must have been observed at an early day that a canoe in
motion was diverted from its direct course by plunging an oar
into the water and suffering it to remain there. It must have
been observed, too, that an oar in or towards the stern was more
effective in giving a new direction to the canoe than an oar in
any other place. It was a natural suggestion of prudence, then,
to assign this duty to one particular oarsman, and to place him
altogether at the stern.
The sail is not so easily accounted for. An ancient tradition
relates that a fisherman and his sweetheart, allured from the
shore in the hope of discovering an island, and surprised by a
tempest, were in imminent danger of destruction. Their only oar
36 HISTORY OF THE SEA,
was wrenched from the grasp of the fisherman, and the frail
bark was thus left to the mercy of the waves. The maiden
raised her white veil to protect herself and her lover from
the storm; the wind, inflating this fragile garment, impelled
them slowly but surely towards the coast. Their aged sire, the
tradition continues, suddenly seized with prophetic inspiration,
exclaimed, “‘ The future is unfolded to my view! Art is ad-
vancing to perfection! My children, you have discovered a
powerful agent in navigation. All nations will cover the ocean
with their fleets and wander to distant regions. Men, differing
in their manners and separated by seas, will disembark upon
peaceful shores, and import thence foreign science, superfluities,
and art. Then shall the mariner fearlessly cruise over the
immense abyss and discover new lands and unknown seas!”
Though we may admire the foresight of this patriarch, we
cannot applaud him for choosing a moment so inopportune for
exercising his peculiar gift: it would certainly have been more
natural to afford some comfort to his weather-beaten children.
The legend even goes on to state that he at once fixed a pole
in the middle of the canoe, and, attaching to it a piece of cloth,
invented the first sail-boat. Mythology assigns a different,
though similar, origin to the invention :—Iris, seeking her son
in a bark which she impelled by oars, perceived that the wind
inflated her garments and gently forced her in the direction in
which she was going.
No research would bring the investigator to conclusions
more satisfactory than these. The fact would still remain,
that the first mention in profane history of constructions moving
upon the water, is many centuries subsequent to the period
in which the idea of building such constructions must be pre-
sumed to have been first conceived. It would consequently be
idle to devote more space to this subject ; and we proceed at
once, therefore, to the first of recorded ventures upon the sea.
SN ENO AD SEB By
CHAPTER IIL.
THE FLOOD AND THE BUILDING OF THE ARK—THE ARGUMENTS OF INFIDELITY
AGAINST A UNIVERSAL DELUGE—THE MATERIAL OF WHICH THE ARK WAS
BUILT—ITS CAPACITY, DIMENSIONS, AND FORM—ITS PROPORTIONS COPIED IN
MODERN OCEAN STEAMERS.
THE earliest mention of the sea made in history occurs in the
first chapter of Genesis. During the period of chaos, and before
the creation of light, darkness was upon the face of the deep,
and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
Upon the third day the waters under the heavens were gathered
together in one place and were called Seas; the dry land appeared
and was called Harth. The waters were commanded to bring
forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life; and, upon
the creation of man in the image of God, dominion was given him
over the fish of the sea, the fowl of the air, and every creeping
thing that creepeth upon the earth.
In the year of the world 1556-—according to the generally
accepted computation—God determined to destroy man and all.
creeping things and the fowls of the air, for He said, “It
repenteth me that I have made them.’ Noah alone found
grace in the eyes of the Lord, and was instructed to build him
an ark of gopher-wood three hundred cubits in length, fifty in
breadth, and thirty in height. It was to consist of three stories,
divided into rooms, to contain one door and one window, and
was to be smeared within and without with pitch. Noah was
engaged one hundred years in constructing the ark,—from the
age of five hundred to that of six hundred years,—and when it
37
| : Mh
i
i
(in
“i
LDEAL SCENE BEFORE THRE DELUGE.
HISTORY OF THE DELUGE. 39
was fully completed he gathered his family into it, with pairs of
all living creatures. Then were the fountains of the great deep
broken up and the windows of heaven opened. The rains de-
scended during forty days and forty nights. The waters arose
and lifted up the ark from the earth. The mountains were covered
to a depth of twenty-two feet, and all flesh died that moved
upon the earth: Noah alone remained alive, and they that were
with him in the ark.
The flood commenced in the second month of Noah’s six
hundredth year. During five months the waters prevailed; in
the seventh the ark rested upon the summit of Mount Ararat.
In the tenth month the tops of the mountains were seen; in the
eleventh Noah sent forth a dove, which speedily returned, hay-
ing found no rest for the sole of her foot; on the seventeenth day
he again sent forth the dove, which returned, bringing an olive-
leaf in her bill, and, being again sent forth, returned no more.
On the first day of the first month of his six hundred and first
year, Noah removed the covering of the ark and saw that the face
of the ground was dry. ‘Toward the close of the second month
the earth was dried, and Noah went forth with his sons, his wife,
and his sons’ wives. He built an altar and offered burnt-offer-
ings of every beast and fowl to the Lord. God then made a
promise to Noah that he would no more destroy the earth by
flood, and stretched the rainbow in the clouds in token of this
solemn covenant between himself and the children of men.
Such is the scriptural history of the Deluge,—the first great
chronological event in the annals of the world after the Creation.
The investigations of philosophy and of infidelity into the
accuracy of the Mosaic account have resulted in furnishing
confirmation of the most direct and positive kind. The prin-
cipal objections of cavillers turn upon three points: Ist, the
absence of any concurrent testimony by the profane writers of
antiquity; 2d, the apparent impossibility of accounting for
the quantity of water necessary to overflow the whole earth to
40 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
the depth stated; and, 3d, the needlessness of a universal
deluge, as the same purpose might have been answered by a
partial one. These objections may be briefly considered here.
1. The absence of positive testimony from profane historians.
However true it may be that there is no consecutive account of
the Deluge except that given in the Bible, it is, certain that
records relating to the ark had been preserved among the
early nations of the world and in the general system of Gentile
mythology. Plutarch mentions the dove that was sent forth
from the ark. The Greek fable of Deucalion and Pyrrha is
absolutely the same as the scriptural narrative of Noah and his
wife. The Egyptians carried their deity, upon occasions of
solemnity, in an ark or boat, and this ark was called ‘ Baris,”
from the name of a mountain upon which, doubtless, in their
own legend, the Egyptian ark had rested, as did the scriptural
ark upon Mount Ararat. The Temple of Sesostris was
fashioned after the model of the ark, and was consecrated to
Osiris at Theba. This name of Theba given to a city is an
important point, for Theba was the appellation of the ark
itself. The same name was borne by numerous cities in
Beeotia, Attica, Ionia, Syria, and Italy; and the city of Apa-
mea, in Phrygia, was originally called Kibotos, or Ark, in
memory of the Deluge. ‘This fact shows that the tradition of
the Deluge was preserved in Asia Minor from a very remote
antiquity. In India, ancient mythological books have been
shown to contain fragmentary accounts of some great overflow
corresponding in a remarkable degree with that given by Moses.
The Africans, the Chinese, and the American Indians even,
have traditions of a flood in the early annals of the world, and
of the preservation of the human race and of animated nature
by means of an ark. It is impossible to account for the univer-
sality of this legend, unless the fact of the Deluge be admitted.
2. The apparent material impossibility of producing water
in sufficient quantity to overflow the earth. The means by
‘UDnTad GHL Ad NOLLOOULsad
42, HISTORY OF THE SEA.
which the flood was produced are stated in the Mosaic narrative:
the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the windows
of heaven were opened; that is, the water rushed out from the
bowels of the earth, where it had been confined, and the clouds
poured forth their rains. This would seem to be a sufficient
explanation, if any explanation of an event clearly miraculous
and supernatural be necessary at all. It has been discovered, |
however, that the Deluge might have been caused, and might at
any time be repeated, by a very simple process. It has been
demonstrated that the various seas and oceans which invest the
two principal hemispheres, contain water enough to overflow the
land and cover the highest mountains to the depth of twenty-two.
feet, were their temperature merely raised to a degree equal to
that of the shallow tropical seas! Were the Atlantic and
Pacific Oceans suddenly warmed to a point perfectly compatible
with the maintenance of animal life, they would expand suf-
ficiently to overflow the Cordilleras and the Alps.
3. The needlessness of a universal deluge, as a partial one
would have answered all purposes. That the Deluge was
universal is distinctly stated by Scripture. Had not God
intended it to be so, he would hardly have instructed Noah
to spend a hundred years in the construction of an ark: a spot
of the earth yet uninhabited by man might have been desig-
nated, where Noah could have gathered his family; there would
have been no necessity for shutting up pairs of all animals in
the ark with which to re-stock the earth, for they could have
been easily brought from the parts of the earth not overflowed
into those that were. Then we are told that the water
ascended twenty-two feet above the highest mountains,—a
distinct physical proof that the whole earth was inundated, for
water then, as now, would seek its level, and must, by the laws
of gravity, spread itself over the rest of the earth, unless,
indeed, it were retained there by a miracle; and in this case
Moses would certainly have mentioned it, as he did the suspen-
a a
MATERIALS OF THE ARK. 43.
sion of the laws of nature in the case of the waters of the Red
Sea. Then, again, had the Deluge been partial and confined to
the neighborhood of the Euphrates and Tigris, it would be
impossible to account for the fact that in remote countries—in
Italy, France, Germany, England, the United States—there
have been found, in places far from the sea, and upon the tops
of high mountains, the teeth and bones of animals, fishes in an
entire condition, sea-shells, ears of corn, &c., petrified. The
explanation of this has always been derived from the circum-
stance of a universal deluge. The fact, too, already mentioned,
that the Chinese, the Greeks, and the Indians have traditions
of «a deluge, seems to be conclusive evidence that that terrible
dispensation was not confined to the district which was at that.
period scriptural ground, but visited alike Palestine and Peru,
Canaan and Connecticut.
We now return to the ark, the period of whose completion
we have already given,—the year of the world 1656, or the year
before Christ 2348. Three points are now to be considered :—
the material of which it was built, its capacity and dimensions,
and its form.
1. The Material of which it was built. The Mosaic account
says expressly that it was built of gopher-wood; but it has
never been satisfactorily determined what wood is meant by the
term ‘‘ gopher.’ Numerous interpretations have been placed upon
it: by one authority it is rendered “timber squared by the
workman ;”’ by another, “timber made from trees which shoot
?
out quadrangular branches in the same horizontal line,” such
as cedar and fir; by another, “smoothed or planed timber;” by
another, ‘‘ wood that does not readily decay,” such as boxwood
or cedar; by another, ‘‘the wood of such trees as abound with
resinous, inflammable juices,” as the cedar, fir, cypress, pine, Kc.
That the ark was built of cedar would seem to be probable,
from the fact that this wood corresponds more than any other
with the numerous significations given to the term “gopher,” as
44 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
it is quadrangular in its branches, durable, almost incorruptible,
resinous, and highly inflammable; from the fact, too, that it is
abundant in Asia, and known to have been employed by the
Assyrians and Egyptians in the construction of ships. One or
two authorities, however, maintain that the ark was made of
the wood of the cypress, their grounds being that the cypress
was considered by the ancients the most durable wood against
rot and worms; that it abounded in Assyria, where the ark was
probably built; and that it was frequently employed in the
construction of ships, especially by Alexander, who built a
whole fleet from the cypress groves in the neighborhood of
Babylon. |
2. Its Capacity and Dimensions. The proportions of the
ark, as given in the sacred volume, have been examined and com-
pared with the greatest precision by the most learned and accu-
rate calculators; and, assuming the cubit to have been of the
value of eighteen inches of the present day, it follows that the ark
was four hundred and fifty feet long, by seventy-five wide, by forty-
five high.’ From these data its burden has been deduced, and is
now understood to have been forty-two thousand four hundred
and thirteen tons. Such a construction weuld have allowed
ample room for the eight persons who were to inhabit it,—Noah
and his wife, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and their wives,—about
two handred and fifty pair of four-footed beasts, the fowls of the
air, such reptiles and insects as could not live under water, together
with the food necessary for their subsistence fora twelvemonth. It
has been doubted whether Noah took with him into the ark speci-
mens of all living creatures. It is reasonable to suppose that, as
the world was nearly seventeen centuries old, the animal creation
had spread itself over a large portion of the antediluvian earth,
and that certain species had consequently become indigenous in
certain climates. It is therefore probable that many species
were not to be found in the country where Noah dwelt and
where he built the ark. We are not told in the Bible that any
——=
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SaaS SS
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: =}
A6 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
kind of animals were brought from a distance,—a fact which
renders it probable that Noah only saved pairs of the species
which had become natives of the territory which he inhabited.
This would be to suppose that many species perished in the flood
and were consequently never renewed,—a supposition which de-
rives strong support from the numerous discoveries made in
modern times of the exuviz of animals which no longer exist,
and whose destruction is attributed to the Deluge. A list of
such extinct species was drawn up by Cuvier. |
The presumptive evidence which may be adduced in support
of the scriptural history of the preparation of the ark is very
strong; it is, indeed, the only solution of an otherwise insuper-
able difficulty. The early records of the whole Gentile world,
as has been stated, concur in declaring the fact of a universal
deluge; and yet the human race and all the more useful and
important species of animals survived it. Now, the people of
those times had no ships and were totally unacquainted with
navigation: it is evident, therefore, that they were not saved by
vessels in ordinary use. Hven though we were to suppose them
possessed of shipping, it is impossible to believe that they
would or could have provisioned them for a year’s cruise, unless
we suppose them to have been forewarned precisely as Moses
relates; and it 1s certainly as easy to believe the whole of the
Bible narrative asa portion. Sucha structure as the ark, for the
preservation and sustenance of the human race and of the animal
kingdom, seems, then, to have been absolutely indispensable.
3. Its Form. From the dimensions given in the sixth chapter
of Genesis, it is evident that the ark had the shape of an oblong
square, with a sloping roof and a flat bottom; that it was fur-
nished with neither helm, mast, nor oars; that it was intended
to lie upon the water without rolling, and formed to float rather
than to sail. Its proportions, it has been remarked, nearly
agree with those of the human figure,—three hundred cubits in
length being six times its breadth, fifty cubits, and the average
= a a a
WAS THE DELUGE REAL? 47
length of the human frame being to its width as six is to one.
Now, the body of a man lying in the water flat on his back will
float with little or no exertion. It would appear, therefore, that
similar proportions would suit a vessel whose purpose was floating
only. It is not necessary to suppose that the ark had to contend
with either storm or wind. ‘The waves of water lying to the
depth of a few fathoms upon a submerged continent could not,
at any rate, be compared in violence to those of the ocean.
The gathering of the flood lasted but forty days, and although
the ark floated for a year, nearly eleven months were occupied
in the subsidence of the water. It is probable that the ark was
gradually and slowly surrounded by the advancing tide, was
quietly lifted up upon its surface, that it hovered about the spot
where it was constructed, and finally, upon the disappearance of
the water, settled as quietly back upon its broad basis and pro-
jecting supports.
It is a curious fact that many minds which have refused to
accept the evidences of a communication between God and man
mm the instances of Moses and of our Savior, admit the strong
probability of a communication having passed from God to
Noah. The chain of argument is indeed exceedingly strong.
Mr. Taylor thus seeks to establish the fact that the Deity did,
in the case of Noah, condescend to make known his intentions
to man. ‘‘ Was the Deluge,” he asks, “‘a real occurrence? All
mankind acknowledge it. Wherever tradition has been main-
tained, wherever written records are preserved, wherever com-
memorative rites have been instituted, what has been their
subject? The Deluge :—deliverance from destruction by a flood.
The savage and the sage agree in this: North and South, Hast
and West, relate the danger of their great ancestor from over-
whelming waters. But he was saved: and how? By personal
exertion? By long-continued swimming? By concealment in
the highest mountains? No: but by enclosure in a large float-
ing edifice of his own construction. But this labor was long:
48 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
it was not the work of a day: he must have foreseen so as-
tonishing an event a considerable time previous to its actual
occurrence. Whence did he receive this foreknowledge? Did
the earth inform him that at twenty, thirty, forty years’ distance
it would disgorge a flood? Surely not. Did the stars announce
that they would dissolve the terrestrial atmosphere in terrific
rains? Surely not. Whence, then, had Noah his foreknowledge?
Did he begin to build when the first showers descended? It was
too late. Had he been accustomed to rains, formerly? Why .
think them now of importance? Had he never seen rain?
What could induce him to provide against it? Why this year
more than last year? Why last year more than the year before ?
These inquiries are direct: we cannot flinch from the fact.
Erase it from the Mosaic records, still it is recorded in Greece,
in Egypt, in India, in Britain; it is registered in the very sacra
of the pagan world. Go, infidel, take your choice of difficulties:
either disparage all mankind as fools, as willing dupes. to
superstitious commemoration, or allow that this fact, this one
fact, is established by testimony abundantly sufficient; but re-
member that if it be established, it implies a communication
from God to man. Who could inform Noah? Why did not
that great patriarch provide against fire? against earthquakes?
against explosions? Why against water? why against a deluge?
Away with subterfuge! confess frankly it was the dictation of
Deity. Say that He only who made the world could predict the
time and causes of this devastation, that He only could excite
the hope of restoration, or suggest a method of deliverance.”
It is a remarkable fact, and one which goes far to support the
argument often urged to combat the opinions of atheists, that the
ark could not have been built by man, unassisted by the divine
intelligence, at that age of the world,—that the ark, the first
and largest ship ever built, had precisely the same proportions
as the ocean steamers of our own day. Its dimensions were, as
we have said, three hundred cubits, by fifty, by thirty. Those of
A TOAST TO NOAH. 49
several of the fleetest Atlantic mail steamers are three hundred
feet in length, fifty feet in breadth of beam, and twenty-eight
and a half in depth. They have, like the ark, upper, lower, and
middle stories. It is, to say the least, singular, that the ship-
builders of the present day, neglecting the experience acquired
by man from forty-two centuries spent more or less upon the
sea, should so directly and unreservedly return to the model of
the vessel constructed to outride the Flood. It was therefore
with obvious propriety that, at one of the late convivial meet-
ingsin England during the preparations for laying the telegraphic
cable, after due honor had been paid to the celebrities of the
occasion and the moment, after the health of the Queen and the.
memory of Columbus had been pledged and drunk, a toast was
offered to our great ancestor Noah. Though the proposition
was received with hilarity and the idea seemed to savor some-
what of a jest, yet the patriarch’s claims, as the first admiral
on record, to being the father of seamen and the great originator
of navigation, were willingly and vociferously acknowledged.
After this recognition—which must, from the circumstances, be
regarded as in some measure official and conclusive—we could
not consistently have ventured to withhold from him the first
place in this record of the triumphs of thirty centuries.
4
CHAPTER IV.
THE SHIPS, COMMERCE, AND NAVIGATION OF THE PH@NICIANS—THEIR TRADE
WITH OPHIR—SIDON AND TYRE—THEIR VOYAGE ROUND AFRICA—NEW TYRE—A
PATRIOTIC PH@NICIAN CAPTAIN—THE EGYPTIANS AS A MARITIME PEOPLE—
THEIR SHIPS AND COMMERCE—THE JEWS—THEIR GEOGRAPHY—IDEAS UPON THE
SHAPE OF THE EARTH—THE WORLD AS KNOWN TO THE HEBREWS.
It is upon the shores of the Mediterranean, alike the sea of
the Bible and of mythology, of Mount Ararat and Mount
Olympus,—among the Pheenicians, the Egyptians, and the
Hebrews,—that we must look for the earliest traces of navigation
and commerce. ‘The most cursory inspection of a map of
Palestine, Phcenicia, and Egypt will show how admirably these
countries were situated for trade both by land and sea. The
Phoenicians, though confined to the narrow slip of land between
Mount Lebanon and the Mediterranean, possessed a safe coast
and the admirable harbor of Sidon, while their mountains fur-
nished them an abundant supply of the best woods for ship-
building. The confined limits of their own territory prevented
them from being themselves producers or manufacturers,—a cir-
cumstance which naturally led them to be the carriers of pro-
ducing and manufacturing nations whose maritime advantages
were inferior to their own. The fact, also, that the Jews were
prevented by their government, laws, and religion from engaging
extensively in commerce, and that the Egyptians were character-
istically averse to the sea, augmented the commercial supre-
macy of the Phcenicians,—a supremacy recognised both in the
sacred writings and in profane records.
D0
CIRCUMNAVIGATION OF AFRICA. - 51
It is now generally conceded that the date of the maritime
enterprises which rendered the Phoenicians famous in antiquity
must be fixed between the years 1700 and 1100 before Christ.
The renowned city of Sidon was the centre from which their
expeditions were sent forth. What was the specific object of
these excursions, or in what order of time they took place, is but
imperfectly known: it would appear, however, that their adven-
turers traded at first with Cyprus and Rhodes, then with Greece,
Sardinia, Sicily, Gaul, and the coast of Spain upon the Mediter-
ranean. About 1250 B.c., their ships ventured cautiously
beyond the Straits of Gibraltar, and founded Cadiz upon a
coast washed by the Atlantic. A little later they founded
establishments upon the western coast of Africa. Homer as-
serts that at the Trojan War, 1194 B.c.,the Phoenicians fur-
nished the belligerents with many articles of luxury and con-
venience ; and we are told by Scripture that their ships brought
gold to Solomon from Ophir, in 1000 B.c. Tyre seems now to
have superseded Sidon, though at what period is not known. It
had become a flourishing imart before 600 B.c.; for Ezekiel,
who lived at that time, has left a glowing and picturesque de-
scription of its wealth, which must have proceeded from a long-
established commerce. He enumerates, among the articles used
in building the Tyrian ships, the fir-trees of Senir, the cedars of
Lebanon, the oaks of Bashan, the ivory of the Indies, the linen
of Egypt, and the purple of the Isles of Elishah. He mentions,
as brought to the great emporium from Syria, Damascus, Greece,
and Arabia, silver, tin, lead, and vessels of brass; slaves, horses,
mules; carpets, ebony, ivory, pearls, and silk; wheat, balm,
honey, oil, and gum; wine, wool, and iron.
It is about this period —600 B.c.—that the Phoenicians, though
under Egyptian commanders, appear to have performed a voyage
which, if authentic, may justly be regarded as the most important
in their annals,—a circumnavigation of Africa. The extent of
this unknown region, and the peculiar aspects of man and nature
52 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
there, had already drawn toward it in a particular degree the
attention of the ancient world. The manner in which its coasts
converged, south of the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, sug- —
gested the idea of a peninsula, the circumnavigation of which
might be effected even by the limited resources of the early
naval powers. The first attempt in this direction originated in
a quarter which had been accustomed, from its agricultural avo-
cations, to hold itself aloof from every species of maritime
enterprise. It was undertaken by order of Necho, king of
Kgypt,—the Pharaoh Necho of the Scriptures,—and is recorded
by Herodotus as follows:
‘‘When Necho had desisted from his attempts to join the
Red Sea with the Mediterranean by means of a canal at the
Isthmus of Suez, he despatched some vessels, under the guidance
of Phoenician pilots, with orders to sail down the Red Sea and
follow the coast of Africa: they were to return to Egypt by the
Pillars of -Hercules and the Mediterranean. The Phoenicians,
therefore, taking their course by way of the Red Sea, sailed
onward to the Southern Ocean. Upon the approach of autumn
they landed in Libya and planted corn in the place where ther
first went ashore. When this was ripe they cut it down and
set sail again. Having in this manner consumed two years,
in the third they passed the Pillars of Hercules and returned to
Egypt. This story may be believed by others, but to me it
appears incredible, for they affirm that when they sailed round
Libya they had the sun on their right hand.”
In the time of Herodotus, the Greeks were unacquainted
with the phenomenon of a shadow falling to the south,—one
which the Phoenicians would naturally have witnessed had they
actually passed the Cape of Good Hope, for the sun would have
been on their right hand, or in the north, and would thus have
projected shadows tothe south. As this story was not one likely
to have been invented in the time of Necho, it is the strongest
proof that could be adduced of the reality of the voyage. Doubts
PHENICIAN TRADERS. 53
have been raised in modern times upon the accuracy of the
narrative; but the objections are considered as having been
refuted by Rennell and Heeren. Bartholomew Diaz has the
credit of having discovered and having been the first to double
the Cape of Good Hope, in 1486: it is clear that, if the claims
of the Phcenician pilots are to be regarded, Diaz was preceded
in this path at least twenty centuries.
Soon after the date of this voyage, Tyre was besieged and
destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar. The inhabitants succeeded in
escaping with their property to an island near the shore, where
they founded New Tyre, which soon surpassed, both in com-
merce and shipping, the city they had abandoned. The
Pheenicians seem now to have advanced with their system of
colonization farther to the south upon the coast of Africa,
and farther to the north upon the coast of Spain. They dis-
covered the Cassiterides—now the Scilly Islands—upon the
coast of Cornwall, and retained the monopoly of the trade in
the tin which they found there. They carried spices and
perfumes, obtained from Arabia, to Greece, where they were
employed for sacrifice and incense. They also sold there the
manufactures, purple, and jewels of Tyre and Sidon. From
Spain they obtained silver, corn, wine, oil, wax, wool, and
fruits. They procured amber in some place which they visited
in the North,—doubtless the shores of the Baltic. As the value
of this article was equal to that of gold, they desired to retain
the monopoly of the trade and to keep all knowledge of the
regions yielding it from their commercial rivals. Hence the
secret was most carefully hoarded. |
A remarkable circumstance connected with the maritime
history of the Pheenicians was their jealousy of the influence of
foreigners. When a strange ship was observed to keep them com-
pany at sea, they would either outsail her, or at night change their
course and disappear. On one occasion a Phcenician captain,
finding himself pursued by a Roman vessel, ran his ship aground
54 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
and wrecked her, rather than lose the secret which a capture
would have revealed. This act was deemed so patriotic that the
government rewarded him, and compensated him for the loss of
his vessel. New Tyre was destroyed by Alexander the Great,
324 B.c. The inhabitants were either put to death or sold as
slaves, and thus the maritime glory of the Phoenicians came
to an untimely end.
Little is known of the construction and equipment of Phe-
nician ships. ~All that can be said with certainty is, that there
were two kinds,—those employed in commerce and those used for
war,—a distinction, indeed, which all nations, both ancient and
modern, have found it convenient to make. The hulls of the
trading-vessels were round, that they might carry more goods,
while the fighting-ships were longer and sharpat the bottom. In
other respects they probably resembled the vessels of Greece
and Rome, for which they undoubtedly furnished models. Of
these fuller details have reached us, and we shall speak of
them in their place. The Phoenicians were better astronomers
than the unskilful navigators who had preceded them; for,
while these attempted to guide their course by the imperfect aid
of the constellation known as the Great Bear,—some of whose
stars are forty degrees from the pole,—the Phoenicians were the
first to apply to maritime purposes the Lesser Bear,—the group
which has furnished to more modern navigation the North or
Polar Star. It is not probable that they fixed upon this
particular star, for at that period—1250 years B.c.—it was
eighteen degrees from the pole, too distant to serve any positive
astronomical purpose.
We come now to the Egyptians as a maritime people in the
earliest historical periods, of whom we have incidentally said
that they were characteristically disinclined to enter with spirit
into any maritime enterprises, whether for commerce or war.
This may have been owing to the want of proper timber, to
the insalubrity of the sea-coasts, and to the absence of good
EGYPTIAN: SHIPS. 55
harbors; while the advantages presented by the Nile for inter-
course and traffic with the interior precluded the necessity of
resorting to commerce by sea. Sesostris, who lived about 1650
years before Christ, is supposed to have been the first king who
overcame the dislike of the Egyptians to the water. Herodotus
assigns him a large fleet in the Red Sea, and other historians
attribute to him fleets upon the Mediterranean. Upon his death,
his subjects relapsed into their former aversion for commerce.
Bocchoris, 700 B.c., imitated and revived his legislation upon
the subject; and during the reign of Psammeticus the ports of
Egypt were first opened to foreign ships, and intercourse with
the Greeks was for the first time encouraged. It was Necho,
the successor of Psammeticus, who employed, 600 B.c., the
Phenicians in the voyage around Africa of which we have
spoken ; and this enterprise bespeaks a monarch bent on mari-
time discovery. Apries, the grandson of Necho, took the city
of S:don by storm and defeated the Phoenicians ina sea-fight. It
is probable that the Egyptians, had they continued independent,
would have become distinguished as a commercial people; but
seventy years afterwards they were conquered by the Persians,
and became successively subject to the Macedonians and Romans.
We possess but little knowledge of the construction and
equipment of the Egyptian ships. According to Herodotus,
they were built of planks of the thorn-tree, fastened together,
like tiles, with a great number of wooden pins, and were entirely
without ribs. On the inside papyrus was used for stopping
the crevices. The sails were made of the papyrus, or of twisted
rushes. These vessels were always towed up the Nile, while
they descended the stream in the following manner. The cur-
rent not acting with sufficient force upon their flat bottoms, the
suilors hung a bundle of tamarisk over the prow and let it down
under the keel by a rope: the stream, bearing upon this bundle,
carried the boat along with great celerity.
The Jews, whose country was ill situated for commerce by
56 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
sea, were even more averse than the Egyptians to intercourse
with foreigners and to maritime occupations. Joppa was the
only seaport of Judea and Jerusalem, and into it many of the |
articles used by Solomon in the construction of the Temple were
imported. During Solomon’s reign, he employed the ships of
his ally, Hiram, King of Tyre, in commercial avocations, for
which his own people were not fitted. It is among the Jews,
whose history is given in the Scripture with so much detail, that
we should naturally look for the earliest geographical records.
The sacred writers, however, seem to have entertained no idea
of any system of geography, having been occupied with the
affairs of the world to come, to the total exclusion of the concerns
of the mundane earth. They do not even allude to any such
branch of learning as being then in existence. It is clear that
the Hebrews never attempted to form any theory upon the
structure and shape of the globe. Their ideas with regard to
the boundaries of the known world may be vaguely inferred
from the tenth chapter of Genesis, from the chapters treating
of the commerce of Tyre, and from various detached allusions
in the prophets.
The idea, common to all uninstructed people, that the earth is
a flat surface and the heaven a firmament or curtain spread over
it, prevails throughout the Bible. The abode of darkness and
of the shadow of death was conceived to be a deep pit beneath
it. One sacred writer speaks of the earth as being “hung upon
?
nothing ;’’ another speaks of the ‘pillars of the earth,” and
another of the “ pillars of heaven.’’ These allusions show suf-
ficiently that, though the writers of those days were impressed
by the external view of the grand scenes of nature, they did not
endeavor to group them into any regular system.
The localities always alluded to as being at the farthest
bounds of their geographical knowledge are Tarshish, Ophir,
the Isles, Sheba, Dedan, The River, Gog, Magog, and the North.
The first has given rise to infinite discussion. The best theory
THE ENDS OF THE EARTH. tay)
makes it the name of Carthage, and gives it, by extension, to
the whole continent of Africa. Ophir is probably Sofala, on the
eastern coast of Africa. The Isles are thought to have been
the southern coasts and promontories of Europe, Greece, Italy,
&e., which were supposed at that period to be insular. Sheba
was Sabeea, or Arabia Felix. Dedan 1s supposed to have been a
port in the Persian Gulf. The River was the Euphrates, be-
yond which were tracts indefinitely known as Elam and Media,
and still beyond a region known as ‘‘The Ends of the Earth.”
Gog, Magog, and the North have been usually supposed to refer
to the inhabitants of Scythia and Sarmatia, and the hyperborean
nations in general, though a later and more natural theory makes
them refer to the migratory shepherds and warriors of Cappa-
docia, Phrygia, and Galatia. It thus appears that the primitive
Israelites knew little beyond the limits of their own country,
Egypt, and the regions lying between the Mediterranean, or the
Sea, and the Euphrates. A knowledge of the water, we have
already remarked, is essential to the formation of any correct and
adequate idea of the shape and extent of the land. The Jews
had never ventured forth upon the sea for the discovery of
new regions, and were, in consequence, ignorant even of that in
which they dwelt. We shall find that the Greeks and Romans,
whose maritime history we shall now briefly narrate, approached
the truth in regard to the form and extent of the world, pre-
cisely as their commerce expanded and their ambition for con-
quest and colonization augmented.
= Ea i=
iT
SUPPOSED FORM OF THE SHIP ARGO, (FROM AN ANCIENT BAS-RELIEF.)
CHAPTER V.
THE EARLY MARITIME HISTORY OF THE GREEKS—THE EXPEDITION OF THE AR@O-
NAUTS—THE VESSELS USED IN THE TROJAN WAR—SHIP-BUILDING IN THE TJME
OF HOMER—THE POETIC GEOGRAPHY OF THE GREEKS—THE PALACE OF THE SUN
—THE MARVELS OF A VOYAGE OUT OF SIGHT OF LAND—THE GEOGRAPHY OF
HESIOD—OF ANAXIMANDER—OF THALES, HERODOTUS, SOCRATES, AND ERATOS-
THENES—THE GREAT OCEAN IS NAMED THE ATLANTIC.
At what period the Greeks began to build vessels and to ven-
ture upon the waters washing their coasts and girding their
numerous archipelagoes, is not known: it is certain, at any rate,
that the commencement of navigation with them, as with all
other nations, must be referred to a time much anterior to the
ages of which we have any record. Long voyages are men-
tioned as having taken place at periods so early that they must
be considered mythical. The first maritime adventure which
lays any claim to authenticity, and the most celebrated in ancient
times, is the expedition of the Argonauts to Colchis. Though
this enterprise is by many learned authorities deemed fabulous,
we shall nevertheless consider three points connected with it,—
the probable era of the voyage, its supposed object, and the
various routes by which the adventurers are said to have returned.
The date of the expedition, if it took place at all, may be
58
OE ee, ae
THE GOLVEN FLEECE. 59
safely fixed at the year 1250 B.c. A theory propounded by
Sir Isaac Newton would connect it with the year 937; but this
is regarded with less favor than the earlier date. Its alleged
object was the Golden Fleece; but what this was can only be
conjectured. It is hardly likely that the people of that age
would have been tempted by the prospect of commercial advan-
tages by opening a trade with the Kuxine Sea. It is quite as un-
likely that they would have undertaken so dangerous a voyage for
the purpose of plunder, better opportunities for which existed
much nearer home. ‘The supposition that the Golden Fleece was
a parchment containing thesecret of transmuting the baser metals
into gold, and the opinion that the Argonauts went in quest of
skins and rich furs, hardly require discussion. There seems,
indeed, no adequate motive but a desire to obtain the precious
metals, which were believed to be furnished in abundance by the
mines near the Black Sea. Why these mines were symbolized
under the appellation of a golden fleece it is not easy to say,
and no satisfactory reason has ever been suggested. The most
probable is that the gold dust was supposed to be washed down
the sides of the Caucasus Mountains by torrents, and caught by
fleeces of wool placed among the rocks by the inhabitants.
Jason, the son of the King of Thessaly, being deprived of his
inheritance, and having resolved to seek his fortune by some
remote and hazardous expedition, was induced to go in quest of
the Golden Fleece in Colchis. He enlisted fifty men, and em-
ployed a person named Argus to build him a ship, which from him
was called Argo, the adventurers being named Argonauts. The
Argo is described as a pentecontoros,—that is, a vessel with fifty
oars. The number of the Argonauts is usually stated at fifty,
though one authority asserts that they numbered one hundred.
They started from Iolcos in Thessaly, and with a south wind
sailed east by north. The narrative of the expedition is full of
wonders. They landed at the island of Lemnos, where they found
that the women had just murdered their husbands and fathers.
60 HISTORY OF THE SEA,
The Argonauts supplied the place of the assassinated relatives,
and Jason had two sons by one of the bereaved Lemnians.
When the vessel arrived at the entrance to the Euxine,—the
narrow strait now-called the Bosphorus,—they built a temple,
and implored the protection of the gods against the Symplegades,
or Whirling Rocks, which guarded the passage. A seer named
Phineas was consulted upon the probability of their sailing
through unharmed. The rocks were imagined to float upon the
waves, and, when any thing attempted to pass through, to seize
and crush it. According to Homer,—
‘*No bird of air, no dove of swiftest wing,
That bears ambrosia to th’ ethereal king,
Shuns the dire rocks: in vain she cuts the skies:
The dire rocks meet, and crush her as she flies.”’
Phineas advised them to loose a dove, to mark its flight, and to
judge from its fate of the destiny reserved for them. They
did so, determined to push boldly on if the bird got through in
safety. The pigeon escaped with the loss of some of its tail-
feathers. The Argo dashed onward, and cleared the formidable
rocks with the loss of a few of its stern ornaments. From this
time forward, the legend adds, the Symplegades remained fixed,
and were no longer a terror to navigators.
The Argonauts, after entering the Black Sea, sailed due east,
to the mouth of the river Phasis, now the Rione. etes, the
king, promised to give Jason the fleece upon certain conditions.
These he was enabled to fulfil by the aid of Medea, a sorceress,
and daughter of Aletes. They then fled together to Greece.
The route followed by the Argonauts upon their return is differ-
ently given by the various poets who have told the story and
the commentators who have illustrated it. By one they are
represented as sailing up some river across the continent to
the Baltic, and thence homeward along the coasts of France
and Spain, and through the Straits of Gibraltar. It is needless
to say that there is no river which flows between the Euxine
THE TROJAN WAR. ; 61
and the Baltic. Other tracks laid down are equally prepos-
terous in the eyes of modern geography. Herodotus adopts the
tradition that they returned by the same way they went,—the
only way, indeed, they could have returned,—by water. The
reader, in view of the romantic embellishments with which this
story is loaded, and of the strong doubts resting upon it as an
historical event, must choose, from among the various theories
we have given, the one he deems the most satisfactory.
One generation after the date we have assigned to this expe-
dition occurred the Trojan War. In the year 1194 B.c., all the
Greek states, with Agamemnon at their head, united to revenge
the insult offered to Menelaus, King of Sparta, by the Trojan
prince Paris, who had carried off the king’s wife Helen. During
the interval the Greeks, if the Homeric account is to be believed,
had made great advances in the arts of ship-building and navi-
gation; for in a very short time eleven hundred and fifty ships
were collected at Aulis, the general rendezvous. The Beeotians
furnished fifty, and the other states contributed in proportion.
Each of them contained one hundred and twenty warriors; they
must therefore have been vessels of considerable magnitude.
All the ships are described as having masts which could be
taken down as occasion required. The sail could only be used
when the wind was directly astern. The delicate art of sailing in
the wind’s eye, or of making to the north with a north wind,
was not yet understood. ‘The principal propelling power lay in
the oars, which turned in leathern thongs as a key in its hole.
Homer represents the ships to have been black, from the color
of the pitch with which they were smeared. The sides near the
prow were often painted red, whence vessels are sometimes
called by the poets red-cheeked. On their arrival upon the
Trojan coast, the Greeks drew their fleet up on the land and
anchored them by means of large stones. They then surrounded
them with fortifications, to protect them from the enemy.
Homer, who lived two centuries later,—1000 B.c.,—has left us
62 . HISTORY OF THE SEA.
a tolerably full account of the ship-building, navigation, and geo-
graphy of his time. The following passage from the Odyssey, as
rendered into English by Cowper, is regarded by antiquaries as
important, showing, as it does, the point at which the art of ship-
building had now arrived. Ulysses, having been wrecked upon an
island, is enabled to build a ship by the aid of the nymph Calypso.
‘« She gave him, fitted to the grasp, an axe
Of iron, ponderous, double-edged, with haft
Of olive-wood inserted firm, and wrought
With curious art. Then, placing in his hand
A polish’d adze, she led herself the way
To her isle’s utmost verge, where loftiest stood
The alder, poplar, and cloud-piercing fir,
Though sapless, sound, and fitted for his use
As buoyant most. To that once verdant grove
His steps the beauteous nymph Calypso led,
And sought her home again. Then slept not he,
But, swinging with both hands the axe, his task
Soon finish’d: trees full twenty to the ground
He cast, which dextrous with his adze he smoothed,
The knotted surface chipping by a line.
Meantime the lovely goddess to his aid
Sharp augers brought, with which he bored the beams,
Then placed them side by side, adapting each
To other, and the seams with wadding closed.
Broad as an artist skill’d in naval works
The bottom of a ship of burthen spreads,
Such breadth Ulysses to his raft assign’d.
He decked her over with long planks, upborne
On massy beams: he made the mast, to which
He added, suitable, the yard: he framed
Rudder and helm to regulate her course:
With wickerwork he border’d all the length
For safety, and much ballast stow’d within.
Meantime Calypso brought him, for a sail,
Fittest materials, which he also shaped,
And to it all due furniture annex’d
Of cordage strong, foot-ropes, and ropes aloft ;
Then heaved her down with levers to the deep.”
5
4
‘
,
:
4
¢
HOMER’S GEOGRAPHICAL KNOWLEDGE. 63
Besides the facts contained in this passage, it is worth re-
marking that Homer seems to regard ship-builders with no
little consideration, inasmuch as he calls them “ artists.”
_ The Greeks, like the Hebrews, were jgnerant of the real
figure of the earth. It is in Homer that we find the first
written trace of the widely prevalent idea that the earth is a
flat surface begirt on every side by the ocean. This was a
natural belief in a region almost insular, like Greece, where the
visible horizon and an enveloping sea suggested the idea of a flat
circle. Homer took the lead among the poetic geographers of
Greece, and his authority gave to the subject a fanciful cast,
the traces of which are not yet obliterated. Beneath the earth
he placed the fabled regions of Elysium and Tartarus: above
the whole rose the grand arch of the heavens, which were sup-
posed to rest on the summits of the highest mountains. The
sun, moon, and stars were believed to rise from the waves of
the sea, and to sink again beneath them on their return from
the skies. |
Homer’s distribution of the land was even more fantastic.
Beyond the limits of Greece and the western coasts of Asia
Minor his knowledge was uncertain and obscure. He had
heard vaguely of Thebes, the mighty capital of Egypt, and in
his verse sang of its hundred gates and of the countless hosts
it sent forth to battle. The Ethiopians, who lived beyond, were
deemed to be the.most remote dwellers upon the habitable earth.
Towards the centre of Africa were the stupendous ridges of the
Atlas Mountains: Homer deified the highest peak, and made it
a giant supporting upon his shoulders the outspreading canopy
of the heavens. The narrow passage leading from the Mediter-
ranean to the Atlantic, and now known as the Straits of Gibral-
tar, was believed to have been discovered by Hercules, and the
mountains on either side—Gibraltar and Ceuta-—were, from
him, called the Pillars of Hercules.
Colchos, upon the Black Sea, was believed to be an ocean-
64 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
city, and here Greek fancy located the Palace of the Sun. It
was here that the charioteer of the skies gave rest to his
coursers during the night, and from whence in the morning
he drove them forth again. Colchos, therefore, was Homer’s
eastern confine of the globe. On the north, Rhodope, or the
Riphean Mountains, were supposed to enclose the hyperborean
limits of the world. Beyond them dwelt a fabled race, seated in
the recesses of their valleys and sheltered from the contests of
the elements. They, were represented as exempt from all ills,
physical and moral, from sickness, the changes of the seasons,
and even from death. A race directly the converse of the ideal
hyperboreans were the Cimmerians, located at the mouth of
the Sea of Azof, who are described by Homer as dwelling in
perpetual darkness and never visited by the sun. He imagined
the existence of numerous other nations, who long continued to
hold a place in ancient geography. The Cyclops, who had but
one eye, were placed in Sicily; the Arimaspians, similarly
afflicted, inhabited the frontiers of India ; the Pigmies, or
Dwarfs, who fought pitched battles with the cranes, were sup-
posed to dwell in Africa, in India, and, in fact, to occupy the
whole southern border of the Earth.
In the time of Homer, all voyages in which the mariner lost
sight of land were considered as fraught with the extremest
peril. No navigator ever visited Africa or Sicily from choice,
but only when driven there by tempest and typhoon, and then his
woes usually terminated in shipwreck: a return was not merely
a marvel, but a miracle. Homer made Sicily the principal
scene of the lamentable adventures of Ulysses, and sufficient
traces are furnished by the Odyssey of the distorted and ex-
aggerated notions entertained in the poet’s time of the character
of places reached by a voyage at sea. The existence of monsters
of frightful form and size, such as Polyphemus, who watched
for the destruction of the mariner and even roasted and de-
voured his quivering limbs; of treacherous enchantresses, such
POETIC GHOGRAPHY. 65
as Circe, who lured but to ensnare; of amiable goddesses, like
Calypso, who offered immortality in exchange for love,—was
doubtless believed by Homer, though we must make some
allowance for poetical license. At any rate, the invention of
these fables is not to be attributed to Homer, who, at the most,
gave a highly-colored repetition of the terrific reports brought
back from those formidable coasts by the few who had been
fortunate enough to return. It was thus that an ideal and
poetic character was communicated to the science of geography
by the fables with which Homer tinged his narrative. In the
early ages of the world, science and poetry were twin sisters :
every poet was a savant, and every savant was a poet.
As far as his ideas can be reduced to a system, the earth
was a flat disk, around which flowed the river Ocean. The
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THE WORLD ACCORDING TO HOMER.
accompanying plan will enable the reader to form an adequate
conception of the Homeric geography. The radius of the
territories described by Homer with any degree of »recision
was hardly three hundred miles in length.
4)
66 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
Hesiod, who lived a century after Homer, thus states ‘the
scientific attainments of his time:—‘‘The space between the
heavens and the earth is exactly the same as that between the
earth and Tartarus beneath it. A brazen anvil, if tossed from
heaven, would fall during nine days and nine nights, and would
reach the earth upon the tenth day. Were it to continue its
course towards the abode of darkness, it would be nine days
and nine nights more in accomplishing the distance.” It is
worth while remarking that this statement is at variance with
that of Homer, who makes Vulcan, when precipitated from
heaven by Jupiter, land at Lemnos in a single day: he had
travelled, therefore, nearly twenty times faster than one of his
own anvils. Hesiod intended to convey, by this illustration, an
imposing idea of the loftiness of the heavens. In the eyes of
modern astronomy, nothing can be more paltry. The time that
an anvil thrown from Halcyon, the brightest star of the Pleiades,
towards our globe, would require to reach it, may perhaps
be imagined from the fact that the rays of light emitted by
Halcyon travel five centuries before they strike the earth! It
is thus that the positive revelations of modern science surpass
in marvels the most daring inventions of ancient fable.
THE EARTH ACCORDING TO ANAXIMANDER.
Anaximander, four hundred years after Homer, held that
the earth, instead of being flat, was in the form of a cylinder,
convex upon its upper surface. Its diameter was three times
greater than its height; and its form was round, as if it had
HERODOTUS’* THEORY. 67
been shaped by a turner’s lathe. The Oracle of Delphi was the
centre of his system.
Somewhat later, Thales, one of the Seven Sages, declared his
belief that the earth was spherical, and remained suspended in
mid air without support of any kind. This frightful doctrine
made few proselytes: it was not likely, indeed, that any one
but a sage would adopt a theory which made him the inhabitant
of a globe abandoned and isolated in the midst of space.
In the fifth century before Christ, Herodotus, the most cele-
brated traveller of antiquity, and consequently capable of form-
ing rational ideas upon the subject of geography, rectified many
errors which had crept into the popular belief, though Homer was
still considered infallible by the masses of the people. “I
know of no such river as the ocean,’’ he says, ironically: “this
denomination seems to be a pure invention of Homer and the
old poets. I cannot help laughing when I hear of the river:
Ocean, and of the spherical form of the earth, as if it were the
work of a turner.” He displaced the centre of the inhabited
surface, which the Greeks had at first made Mount Olympus
and afterwards Delphi, making Rhodes the fortunate possessor
of the privilege. Socrates, a century later, (400 B.c.,) asserted
that the earth was in the form of a globe, sustained in the middle
of the heavens by its own equilibrium.
About the year 230 B.c., Eratosthenes, a Greek of Cyrene,
succeeded in reducing geography to a system, under the patron-
age of the Ptolemies of Egypt, which gave him access to the
immense mass of materials gathered by Alexander and his suc-
cessors and accumulated at the Alexandrian Library. The
spherical form of the earth was now quite generally considered
by scientific men to be the correct theory, though it could
never be substantiated till some navigator, sailing to the east,
should return by the west. Eratosthenes, proceeding upon this
principle, made it his study to adjust to it all the known features
of the globe. The great ocean of Homer and Herodotus,
68 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
surrounding the world, still remained in his system. He com-
pared, however, the magnitude of the regions known in his time
with what he conceived to be the whole circumference, and
became convinced that only a third part of the space was filled
up. He conjectured that the remaining space might consist of
one great ocean, which he called the Atlantic, from Mount Atlas,
which was fancifully believed to support the globe. He supposed,
too, that lands and islands might be discovered in it by sailing
towards the west. F
We shall now proceed to give such a description of the vessels
used by the Greeks after the time of Homer, as the confused
and incomplete data which have reached us will enable us te
furnish.
THE GREAT PENGUIN.
A GREEK VESSEL OF THE SiXTH CENTURY B.C.
CHAPTER VI.
CONSTRUCTION OF GREEK VESSELS—THE PROW, POOP, RUDDER, OARS, MASTS,
SAILS, CORDAGE, BULWARKS, ANCHORS—BIREMES, TRIREMES, QUADRIREMES,
QUINQUEREMES—THE GRAND GALLEY OF PTOLEMY PHILOPATOR—ROMAN VES-
SELS—THEIR NAVY—MIMIC SEA-FIGHTS—THE FIVE -VOYAGES OF ANTIQUITY.
THE pRow or foredeck of Greek vessels was ornamented on
both sides by figures in mosaic or painted. An eye on each side
of the cutwater, as is represented above, was a very common
embellishment. A projection from the head of the prow, pointed
or covered with brass, and intended to damage an enemy upon
collision, was often in the shape of a wild beast, or helmet, or
even the neck of a swan. Below this was the rostrum or beak,
which consisted of a beam armed with sharp and solid irons.
They were at first above the water; but their efficiency was after-
wards increased by putting them below the water-line and ren-
dering them invisible. The commanding officer of the prow was
next in rank to the helmsman, and had charge of the rigging
and the control of the rowers.
The DECK proper, or middle deck, appears to have been raised
above the bulwark, or at least upon a line with its upper edge,
thus enabling the soldiers to see far around them and hurl their
darts at the enemy from a commanding position.
+ 69
70 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
The Poop, or stern, was usually higher than the rest of the
_ vessel, and upon it the helmsman had his elevated seat. It was
rounder than the prow, though its extremity was likewise sharp.
It was embellished in various ways, but especially with the figure
of the tutelary goddess or deity of the vessel. Over the helms-
man was a roof, and above that an elegant ornament, rising
from the stern and bending gracefully over him. In conse-
quence of its conspicuous place and beautiful form, this ornament,
named an aplustre, was considered emblematic of the sea, and
was carried off by the victor in a naval engagement, as a stand-
ard or a scalp in more modern times.
The RUDDER was a singular contrivance. The origin of this
very useful invention is attributed by Pliny, as we have said, to
Tiphys, of the Argo,—a doubtful pilot of a doubtful vessel.
Previous to this, vessels must have been guided by the same oars |
which propelled them. The Grecian rudder was a long oar with
a very broad blade, inserted, not at the extremity of the stern,
but at either side where it begins to curve; and a ship usually
had two, both being managed by the same man. In large ships
they were connected by a pole which kept them parallel and
gave to both the position in which either was turned. The rudder
seems to have been considered an emblem, as it frequently oc-
curs on gems, coins, and cameos. Thus a Triton is found repre-
sented as blowing a shell and holding a rudder over his shoulder.
A tiller and cornucopia are frequently seen in juxtaposition. A
cameo, still preserved, shows a Venus Anadyomene leaning with
her left arm upon a rudder the same height as herself, and
thereby indicating, as is supposed, her own maritime origin.
The oars, bearing a name which at first signified only the
blade, but was afterwards applied to all oars except the rudder,
varied in size as they were used by a higher or lower rank of
rowers. A trireme may be said to have had one hundred and
seventy oars, a quinquereme three hundred, and even four hun-
dred. The lower part of the holes through which the oars
‘
GRECIAN SHIPS. 74
passed appears to have been covered with leather, which also
extended a little way outside the hole. In vessels mounting five
ranks of oars, the upper ones were of course much larger than
the lower ones, and we therefore find it stated by Greek authors
that the lower rank of rowers, having the shortest oars and con-
sequently the easiest work, received the smallest salary, while
those who had the largest oars and the heaviest work received
the largest salary. They sat upon benches attached to the ribs
of the vessel, each oar being managed by one man.
The masts of Grecian vessels, of which there were one, two,
and three, were usually made of the fir-tree. A vessel with
thirty rowers had two masts, the smaller being near the prow.
In three-masted vessels the largest mast was nearest the stern.
The part of the mast immediately above the yard formed a
structure similar to a drinking-cup, and the sailors ascended into
it in order to manage the sails, to obtain a wider view, and to
discharge missiles. In large ships these were made of bronze
and would hold three men: they were furnished with pulleys for
hoisting stones and projectiles from below. The portion of the
mast above the cup, or carchestum, was called the distaff, and
corresponded to the modern topmast. The sail was hoisted, as
at present, by means of pulleys and a hoop sliding up and down
the mast.
The SAILS were usually square. It was not common to fur-
nish more than one sail to one ship, and it was then attached:
with the yard to the great mast. Sometimes each of the two
masts of a trireme had two sails, which were spread the one over
the other, those of the foremast being used only on occasions
when great speed was required. It does not appear that the
triangular or lateen sail, so prevalent afterwards among the
Romans, was ever used by the Greeks. In Homer’s time, sails
were of linen. Subsequently, sail-cloth was made of hemp,
rushes, and leather. Originally white, the sails of the ancients
were afterwards dyed of various colors. Those of Alexander’s
TD, HISTORY OF THE SEA.
Indus fleet, of which we shall hereafter speak more particularly,
were blue, white, and yellow. Those of pirates were sea-green,
and those of Cleopatra, at the battle of Actium, were purple.
The CORDAGE used was of various sizes and strength. In the
first place, thick and broad ropes ran in a horizontal direction
around the ship from stem to stern, for the purpose of binding
the whole fabric strongly together. They ran around in several
circles and at fixed distances from each other. Their number
varied according to the size of the ship, a trireme usually requir-
ing four, and six in case they were intended for very boisterous
weather. These ropes were always held in readiness in the Attic
arsenals. A second-sized rope was used for the anchors, while
those attached to the masts, sails, and yards were altogether
lighter and made with greater care. One of these ran from the
top of the mainmast to the prow, corresponding to the modern
mainstay. |
The BULWARKS were artificially elevated beyond the height
intended by the builder of the frame by means of a wickerwork
covered with skins. These served as a protection from high
waves, and also as a breastwork against the enemy. They appear
to have been fixed upon the upper edge of the wooden bulwark,
and to have been removed when not wanted. Lach galley had
’
four, two of which were ‘white,’ and two ‘“‘made of hair.”
What these distinctions were is quite. unknown.
The aneHors of Greek vessels, in the earlier periods, were
stones or erates of sand, but soon came to be made of iron, and
to be formed with teeth or flukes. The Greeks used the several
expressions of lowering, casting, and weighing anchor precisely
as we do, and the elliptical phrase “‘to weigh’ meant then, as now,
to ‘set sail.’’ Hach ship had several anchors: we learn, from the
twenty-seventh chapter of Acts, that the vessel of St. Paul had
four. The last and heaviest anchor was considered “sacred,”
in the same way as it is now regarded as ‘“‘a last hope.” The
sailors, in casting it, recommended themselves to the protection
DECKED SHIPS. 13
of the gods; and it was rather a pretext for resorting to prayer
than an instrument reliable from its strength and weight. ‘In
our day,” says an eminent writer upon the art of ship-building,
‘“when every thing is calculated and weighed, and, even in this
most poetic of professions, tends to the driest and most prosaic
‘materialism, instead of the sacred anchor, cast in the midst of
prayer and sacrifice, we have the anchor of eight thousand
pounds.” With all proper deference to the religious spirit of
this learned commentator, we may remark, without irreverence,
that even the most ‘poetic’ of mariners would prefer a single
modern best bower to a dozen of the sacred anchors of the
Greeks; and it can hardly be doubted that, if the latter them-
selves had been acquainted with the “anchor of eight thousand
pounds,” they would have dispensed with both prayer and
sacrifice. Heaven helps those who help themselves.
Every Greek vessel had a distinctive name, which was usually
of the feminine gender, and often that of some popular heroine.
In many cases, the name of the builder was added.
After the Trojan War, the establishment of Greek colonies
upon foreign coasts, the commercial intercourse with these
colonies, and the very prevalent practice of piracy, contributed
largely to the improvement of ships and of navigation. For
many years no innovation was made upon the custom of employ-
ing ships with one rank of rowers on each side. The Erythrzean
Greeks are supposed to have invented the biremes, with two
ranks, and the Corinthians the triremes, with three. Themis-
tocles, in the fifth century B.c., persuaded the Athenians to
build two hundred triremes, for the purpose of attacking
Augina. Even at this period, vessels were not provided with
complete decks, some having partial decks, and some none at
all, the only protection for the men consisting in the bulwark.
The invention of decked ships is ascribed to the Thasians.
After Alexander the Great, the Rhodians became the greatest
maritime power in Greece. The Colossus of Rhodes, a brazen
74 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
statue of Apollo, one hundred feet high, seems to have been
erected in assertion of their commercial supremacy, for the
legend is that it stood across the mouth of the harbor, and that
vessels passed between its legs.
Navigation still remained what it had been before, the Greeks
seldom venturing into the open sea, and considering it necessary
to remain in sight of the coast by day and to observe the rising
and setting of the stars by night, in order to replace the land-
marks no longer visible in the darkness. In winter, navigation
was suspended altogether. Rather than double a cape, they would
drag their vessel across a neck of land from one sea to another,
by machines contrived for the purpose. This was frequently
done across the Isthmus of Corinth. The ordinary size of a
war-galley or trireme may be inferred from the fact that its
complement of men was two hundred and thirty; and its speed
in smooth water and with a favorable wind may be stated as
very nearly that of a modern steamboat.
Dionysius of Syracuse (405 B.c.) is said to have built the first
quadrireme and quinquereme in Greece,—inventions which he
probably obtained from the Carthaginians and Salaminians.
Alexander the Great built ships with twelve and thirty ranks
of oars. Ptolemy Philopator, of Egypt, is said to have con-
structed one of forty, after a Greek model. Callixenus has
left a description of this vessel; and this, having been tran-
scribed by Plutarch and Athenzeus, was, until very lately, thus
supported by competent authority, regarded as quite authentic.
Late investigations have shown conclusively that the yessel,
with the proportions given, never could have existed. She was
said to have had forty tiers of oars, one above the other. It is
clear that the uppermost tiers must have been of enormous
length to reach the water, and we find their length stated, in
consequence, at seventy feet. Sixty feet of this length must
naturally have been without the vessel, leaving ten feet of —
handle within. As the strength of no one man would be sufli-
PTOLEMY’S GALLEY. 75
cient to manage an oar thus unequally poised, the fabulists
assert that the handles were made of lead, that the equilibrium
might be restored. What the story thus gains in weight, how-
ever, it certainly loses in credibility. Oars of seventy feet
were out of the question, even in the heroic ages. Their
number was equally extraordinary, for they counted no less
than four thousand, and were managed by four thousand men.
Besides these, there were two thousand eight hundred and fifty
combatants collected in castles and behind her bulwarks. She
had four rudders, each forty-five feet long, and a double prow.
This last feature would have been an impediment instead of an
advantage, as the re-entering angles of the two prows would
have presented a very violent resistance to the water, which,
in its turn, would have exerted a great power to separate them.
Her stern was said to have been decorated with resplendent
paintings of terrible and fantastic animals, her oars to have
protruded through masses of foliage, and, as if she was not
already overladen, her hold was declared to have contained
huge quantities of grain. A critical comparison has shown that
this famous galley could not have turned her head from west to
east without describing an enormous orbit and occupying a full
hour in the manceuvre. Indeed, had the Egyptians been foolish
enough to build such a ship, they would not have been fortunate
enough to navigate her.
Nevertheless, as it is quite clear that Ptolemy did construct a
galley of unusual size and capacity, modern commentators have
earnestly sought to explain away the glaring exaggerations and
impossibilities of the description given by Callixenus. The
chief difficulty lay in the forty tiers of oars and in the four
thousand oarsmen. The engraving upon the opposite page gives
a representation of the Ptolemy, as she may reasonably be sup-
posed to have appeared. Instead of forty ties, she has, when
thus restored, forty groups of oars: with this substitution, and
a liberal diminution in the aggregate number, it is not impro-
fi
————
————————
— SV EE
ROMAN NAVAL WARS. 77
bable that she may have existed, and floated even. It is not,
however, pretended by Callixenus that she was ever useful in
war: she seems to have been regarded as a curiosity and a
spectacle. She was, in fact, the Leviathan of antiquity,—
the original “‘ Triton among the minnows.”’
The Romans obtained the models of their vessels from the
Greeks, though they remained almost entirely unacquainted with
the sea till the third century before Christ. They then had no
fleet, and few or no ships for any peaceful or commercial use.
Livy mentions the appointment of naval decemvirs about the
year 500 B.c. But it was not till 260 B.c. that Rome became a
maritime power. It was now seen that she could not maintain
herself against Carthage without a navy, and the senate
ordered the immediate construction of a fleet. Triremes would
have been of little avail against the high-bulwarked quinque-
remes of the Carthaginians. It so happened, very fortunately
for them, that a vessel of the largest class, belonging to Carthage,
was wrecked upon the coast of Bruttium, and thus furnished
them a model. They built, after this design, over one hundred
vessels, the greater part of them quinqueremes, the whole being
completed in sixty days after the trees were cut down. Thus
built of green timber, they were unsound and clumsy. Still, to
their own astonishment, they achieved a naval victory, capturing
fifty of the enemy’s vessels. Seventeen of their own were
taken and destroyed by the Carthaginians off Messina. It was
not long before the Romans completely crippled the maritime ~
power of their African foe. From this time forward they con-
tinued to maintain a powerful navy, and built vessels with six
and even ten ranks of oars. The construction of their vessels
differed little from that of the Greeks, with the exception of the
destructive engines of war and the towers and platforms with
which they furnished them.
During the Imperial period, the Romans took great delight in
witnessing representations of fights at sea, and their emperors
78 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
were equally fond of exhibiting them. The first spectacle of
this kind, or naumachia, was given by Julius Cesar upon a
lake dug for the purpose in the Campus Martius. Augustus
caused a lake or ‘“‘stagnum’’ to be made for a similar use.
This remained as the permanent scene of such exhibitions. The
combatants in these fights were usually captives or criminals
condemned to death, who fought as in gladiatorial combats,
until one side was exterminated or spared by imperial clemency.
In a naumachia given by Nero, there were sea-monsters
swimming about in the artificial lake. Claudius ordered a naval
battle upon Lake Fucinus, in which one hundred ships and nine-
teen thousand combatants were engaged. Troops of nereids were
seen swimming about, and the signal for attack was given by a
silver Triton, who was made, by means of machinery, to blow the
alarum upon a trumpet.
We now proceed to narrate, in chronological order, the very
few voyages of discovery made previous to the Christian era.
These were those of Hanno to Sierra Leone, of Sataspes to
Sahara, of Nearchus from the Indus to the Tigris, of Pytheas
from Massilia to Shetland, and of Eudoxus from Cadiz to the
Equator.
THE COMMON PENGUIN.
CHAPTER VIL.
THE VOYAGE OF HANNO THE CARTHAGINIAN—HE SEES CROCODILES, APES,
AND VOLCANOES—THE VOYAGE OF HIMILCON TO AL-BION—THE VOYAGE AND
IGNOMINIOUS FATE OF SATASPES THE PERSIAN—THE VOYAGE OF PYTHEAS
THE PHOCIAN—THE SACRED PROMONTORY—A NEW ATMOSPHERE—AMBER—~
RETURN HOME—THE VERACITY OF PYTHEAS’ NARRATIVE—THE EXPEDITION OF
NEARCHUS THE MACEDONIAN—STRANGE PHENOMENA IN THE HEAVENS—THE
ICTHYOPHAGI—HOUSES BUILT OF THE BONES OF WHALES-——FISH FLOUR—A
BATTLE WITH WHALES—AN UNEXPECTED MEETING:—THE DISTANCE TRAVERSED
BY NEARCHUS—THE VOYAGE OF EUDOXUS ALONG THE AFRICAN COAST—STATE
OF NAVIGATION AT THE OPENING OF THE CHRISTIAN ERA.
AT a period which it is no longer possible to settle with pre-
cision, but certainly anterior to the fifth century B.c., the
Carthaginians, then in the height of their maritime and com-
mercial prosperity, ordered a navigator by the name of Hanno
to make a voyage beyond the Pillars of Hercules, and to found
cities along the western shore of Africa. He set sail with a
fleet of sixty vessels, each of which was impelled by fifty oars.
He carried with him thirty thousand men and women, with abun-
dant supplies and provisions. Within a week after passing the
straits, they founded a city and erected a temple to Neptune; they
also established five trading stations along the coast. They saw
a race of people called Lixitze, with whom they formed ties of
friendship, and by whom they were furnished with interpreters.
Continuing their course, they found another race dressed in the
skins of wild beasts, who repelled them from the shore with
stones and other missiles. They next came to the mouth of
a river which was filled with crocodiles and hippopotami. They
79
80 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
soon arrived at a coast edged with high mountains covered with
trees, the wood of which was odoriferous and variously tinted.
Beyond was an immense opening of the sea, bordered by
plains on which they saw many blazing fires. Then they
came to a large bay, in which was an island enclosing a salt-
water lake, in which, again, was another island. Entering this
lake in the night, they saw huge fires burning and heard the
sounds of musical instruments and the cries of innumerable
human beings. They next reached the fiery region of Thymia-
mata, whence torrents of flame poured down into the sea. Here
the heat of the earth was such that the foot could not rest
upon it. After four days’ farther sail, they again found the
land at night enveloped in flames. In the midst of these fires
appeared one much more lofty than the rest: this, when seen by
daylight, proved to be a very tall mountain, called the Chariot
of the Gods. They soon met with a rude description of people,
who had rough skins, and among whom the females were much
more numerous than the males: the interpreters called them
Gorille. They endeavored to catch some of them, but only
succeeded in capturing three females, who made so violent a re-
sistance, that they were obliged to kill them and strip off their
skins, which they carried back to Carthage. Being out of
provisions at this point, they were unable to pursue their
voyage, and returned home.
This narrative, as given by Hanno himself, hardly fills two
octavo pages: volumes of commentaries have been written upon
it by geographers and antiquaries. The most probable of the
various hypotheses formed upon it, is, that Hanno’s voyage
extended to Sherbro Sound, a little south of Sierra Leone.
The features of man and nature, as described by Hanno, are to -
be found in Tropical Africa only: Ethiopians or negroes ;
Gorillze, who are clearly apes, or orang-outangs; rivers so large
as to contain crocodiles and river-horses. The great conflagra-
tions of the grass, too, and the music and dancing prolonged
re ae eS ae nr
vO ee ee
“HARMO’S VOYAGES. 81
through the night, are phenomena which have been observed
only in the negro territories. But this hypothesis is not
accepted by all geographers, one of whom gives to Hanno’s
course an extent of three thousand miles, while another lmits
it to less than seven hundred.
While Hanno was thus exploring the western coast of Africa,
another Carthaginian, named Himilcon, was sent by his country-
men to the North of Europe. From a very vague description
of his voyage given in a Latin poem entitled Ora Maritima, it
is plain that he crossed the Bay of Biscay, and found, upon
islands, as is asserted, but probably upon the mainland, a race
of athletic people who went fearlessly to sea in barks made of
skins sewed together. They crossed, in the space of two days,
to a place called the Sacred Island, (Ireland,) which was not far
from another island, named Al-Bion, (England.) No further
details of this expedition have been preserved.
Upon the establishment of the Persian sway over the eastern
coasts of the Mediterranean, towards the close of the fifth
century B.c., the exploration of Africa became the peculiar
province of the Persian monarchs. But this nation labored
under an unconquerable aversion for the sea, and the only mari-
time effort of theirs on record was entirely casual in its origin,
and futile in its results. It was as follows, as recorded by
Herodotus:
Sataspes, a Persian nobleman, having committed a crime
punishable with death, was condemned by Xerxes to be cruci-
fied. One of his friends persuaded the monarch to commute
the sentence into a voyage around Africa, which, he said, was
much more severe, and might result advantageously to the
nation. Sataspes obtained a vessel and recruited a crew in
Kgypt, and, sailing through the Pillars of Hercules, bent his
course southward. He is represented as having beat about for
many weeks, and probably reached the shores of the Great
Saharan Desert. The aspect of this formidable and tempest-
6
82 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
lashed coast might well appall an amateur navigator accustomed
to the luxurious: indolence of a Persian court. He seems to
have preferred crucifixion to circumnavigation, for he at once
measured back his course to the Straits. He gave an incoherent
account of his adventures to Xerxes, attributing his failure to
the interference of an insurmountable obstacle, the nature of
which he was unable to explain. Xerxes would listen to no
excuse, and ordered the original sentence to be executed forth-
with. Authorities differ as to the fate of Sataspes,—one assert-
ing that he suffered the ignominious death to which he was con-
demned, and another alleging that he made his escape to the
island of Samos.
A colony which had been established at Massilia—now Mar-
seilles—about six hundred years before Christ, by the Phocians,
was, in the year 240 B.c., at the height of its commercial pros-
perity. The citizens, being desirous of extending their maritime
relations, sent, at this period, upon an expedition to the North of
DISCOVERY OF GREAT BRITAIN. 83
Europe, through the Pillars of Hercules, a learned geographer
and astronomer by the name of Pytheas. He started with a
single ship, the finances of the city not permitting a larger outlay
Or means.
He passed the Pillars on the sixteenth day from Massilia ;
and on the twentieth he arrived at the Sacred Promontory, the
extreme western point of Iberia or Spain. A temple to
Hercules had been erected at this spot. The inhabitants of the
promontory declared, during the time of Pytheas, and, indeed,
for two hundred years afterwards, that as the sun plunged at
evening into the sea, they heard a hissing like that of a red-
hot body suddenly dropped into water.
_ Following the coasts of Iberia and of Celtica, he came to the
point of land now known as Finisterre, in France, and the
promontory Calbium. Turning to the east, he was surprised to
~ xt
wo
Pe.
PLAN OF PYTHEAS? VOYAGE.
find himself in a wide gulf, with Celtica on his right, and an
immense island on his left. The gulf was the British Channel,
and the island the Al-Bion that Himilcon had vaguely dis-
cerned some centuries before. It was at this point that Pytheas
may be said to have begun his career; and the discovery of
Great Britain may safely be attributed to him.
He described the island as having the form of an isosceles
triangle, as may be seen upon the foregoing plan. Three pro-
montories formed the three angles,—Belerium being now Land’s
84 HISTOKY vi THE SEA.
End, Cantium Cape Pepperness, and Orcas Duncansby Head.
He found the inhabitants of the southern coast industrious and
sociable, peaceable, honest, and sober. They raised wheat and
worked rich mines of tin. As he sailed northward, along the
eastern coast, he noticed that the days grew sensibly longer ;
and at Point Orcas, nineteen hours elapsed between the rising and
the setting of the sun. He sailed still northward, and six days
after leaving Orcas he came to an island, or a continent,—he
knew not which,—which he called Thule. As he found he could
go no farther to the north, he spoke of this spot as Ultima
Thule, an expression which has passed into the figurative lan-
guage of all modern nations as one denoting any remote point.
Thule is generally considered to have been Shetland, although
theories have been ardently advocated making it respectively
Iceland, Sweden, and Jutland.
The narrative of Pytheas, which has been thus far clear and
reliable, assumes at this point a very fabulous aspect. He
declares that north of Thule there was neither earth, nor
sea, nor air. A sort of dense concretion of all the elements
occupied space and enveloped the world. He compared it to
the thick, viscid animal substance called pulmo marinus, a sort
of mollusk or medusa. He said that this substance was the
basis of the universe, and that in it earth, air, and sky hung, as
it were, suspended. This illusion has been explained by the
dreary spectacle of fogs, mists, rains, and tempests which at
this point of his voyage must have met the gaze of the daring
navigator. It would have been difficult for any mind, in those
carly ages, to have been on its guard against the sinister
impressions likely to result from the contemplation of a scene
so appalling. It must be remembered that Pytheas was accus-
tomed to the pure and transparent atmosphere, the dazzling
sky, and the phosphorescent waters of the Mediterranean. It
would have been astonishing if a man educated among the
splendors of an almost tropical climate had not been oppressed
a ois
ULTIMA THULE. 85
by influences so gloomy. It was the belief of all early navi-
gators that a point would be found somewhere without the Pillars
of Hercules beyond which it would be impossible to penetrate.
While timid adventurers declared they had arrived at this point
hardly a week’s sail from the Straits, and declared that an atmo-
sphere of mist, darkness, and gigantic sea-weed barred their
passage, Pytheas did not allow his imagination to be affected
or his courage to be shaken till he found himself in presence
of the sombre and formidable scenery of what, with true geo-
graphical propriety, he denominated ‘‘Thule and her utmost
isles.”
Leaving his animal atmosphere behind him, Pytheas returned
to Orcas and from thence to Cantium. Instead of following his
former track through the British Channel homeward, he turned
to the eastward, and arrived, in a few days’ sail, at the mouth of
the Rhine. He found the country here inhabited by a race
of fierce barbarians. Upon the shores of a vast gulf, beyond,
dwelt the Teutons and the Guttones. In this gulf was an island
named Abalcia, upon whose shores the waves deposited, in spring,
immense quantities of yellow amber, which the inhabitants
burned instead of wood, or sold for fuel to their neighbors the ~
Teutons. Pytheas pursued his voyage as far as a river named
Tanais, now supposed to be either the Elbe or the Oder. He
considered this stream to be the eastern boundary of Celtica,
in which he included Germania. He now turned his face home-
ward, and, coasting along the shores of Celtica and Iberia,
arrived without accident or adventure at Massilia. He had
sailed one hundred and eighty-six thousand stadia, or eleven
thousand miles: the duration of the expedition was less than
a year.
Geographers subsequent to Pytheas strove zealously to dis-
credit his assertions. One denied the voyage altogether; another
questioned the veracity of the narrative. Strabo was particu-
larly hostile to Pytheas, whom he said he would prove “a liar
86 HISTORY OF THE SEA,
of the first magnitude.’’ He was thus led to make long quota-
tions from his descriptions for the purpose of refuting them. As
the original account given by Pytheas is not extant, the world is
indebted to the skepticism of Strabo for all that it knows of one
of the most interesting and daring maritime enterprises of
antiquity.
In the year 326 before Christ, Alexander of Macedon, having
accomplished the conquest of Persia, and having invaded Hin-
dostan by the north, found himself compelled, by a mutiny of
his troops, to arrest his course upon the eastern bank of the
river Indus. He was here seized with a desire to explore the
lower course of that river, and afterwards the southern shores
of Asia, a tract of coast with which the Greeks were entirely
unacquainted. The object of the expedition was partly explo-
ration, and partly to convey a portion of the army back to
Babylon upon the river Euphrates. The dangers of the enter-
prise and the improbability of success deterred the greater part
of the naval officers from attempting it, as neither the Arabian
Sea nor the Persian Gulf had ever been traversed before.
Nearchus, the admiral of the fleet, proposed several candidates
‘for the perilous honor, who variously excused themselves.
Nearchus at last proffered his own services, which, after some
hesitation, were accepted. This selection of a commander
tranquillized the soldiers and sailors intended for the expedition ;
for they felt that Alexander would not have sent his intimate
friend upon a voyage from which he would not be likely to
return. The splendor of the preparations, the beauty of the
vessels, the confidence of the officers, also went far towards dissi-
pating their fears. At the word of Alexander, says a modern
poet,—
«The pines descend; the thronging masts aspire;
The novel sails swell beauteous o’er the curves
Of Indus: to the moderator’s song
The oars keep time, while bold Nearchus guides
Aloft the gallies. On the foremost prow
e
VOYAGE OF NEARCHUS. 87
The monarch from his golden goblet pours
A full libation to the gods, and calls
By name the mighty rivers through whose course
He seeks the sea.”’
Alexander accompanied his fleet to the delta of the Indus, from
whence he obtained a view of the gulf. He then returned to
lead his men across Gedrosia, Caramania, and Persis to Babylon.
‘Nearchus then set sail, after offering sacrifices to Neptune and
Jupiter Salvator, and ordering a series of games and gymnastic
exercises. The voyage thus undertaken was an event of real im-
portance in the history of navigation: it opened*a route between
Europe and the extremities of Asia. It was the source of the
discoveries made in later times by the Portuguese, and the pri-
mary, though remote, cause of the successful establishment of
the British in India. |
PLAN OF THE VOYAGE OF NEARCHUS.
At the very mouth of the river they met a formidable
obstacle,—a rocky bar over which the waves broke with extreme
violence. Through this bar, in its softest parts, they cut a
canal one-third of a mile in length, and at high tide passed
through it with the fleet. They had hardly reached the open
ocean before a heavy gale drove them into an indentation of
land protected by an island: to this natural harbor Nearchus
gave the name of Alexander. Here he caused a camp to be
laid out and entrenched, and remained for twenty- -four days, the
soldiers subsisting chiefly on shell-fish. When the gale abated
88 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
they again embarked, meeting with constant adventures and
difficulties upon their way. One day they would pass through
huge menacing rocks, so near that they touched them with their
oars on either side. On another they would be compelled, on
landing for water, to ascend for miles into the interior before
finding fresh-water sources. A storm caused two galleys and a
vessel to founder, the crews of which, however, sueceeded in
swimming to shore. Nearchus caused his whole army to land
at this point, for they needed repose, and his shattered fleet
required repairs. He met with Leonatus, whom Alexander had
detached from the main body of the army to follow the coasts
and keep up a communication with Nearchus. Wheat was also
sent to this spot by Alexander for the fleet, and each vessel
took a supply sufficient for ten days. Nearchus exchanged such
sailors and soldiers as had proved inefficient, for fresh men
selected from the division of Leonatus.
At this point the narrative becomes strongly tinged with the
usual exaggerations of the early navigators. Nearchus asserts
that he observed strange phenomena in the heavens. When the
sun was in the meridian, he says, no shadow was projected, and
the stars which they were accustomed to see above them were
now crouching close to the horizon; others, that had never before
disappeared from the sky, now rose and set at intervals. The
assertion in regard to shadows at noon is: evidently a fabri-
cation. Enough was known of astronomy and the motions of
the heavenly bodies, in the time of Nearchus, to convince the
learned that there must be a point where no shadow would
be cast by a body directly beneath the sun at the summer sol-
stice; and Nearchus, with a vanity quite usual in the conquerors
and adventurers of those times, chose to assert, and he perhaps
believed, that he had seen this singular phenomenon. Two
circumstances will show the inaccuracy of his statement. The
alleged appearance took place in the middle of the month of
November, and twenty-five degrees north of the equator. Hvyen
TEAM Se 3
PRODIGIOUS WHALES. 89.
had Nearchus been at this spot in midsummer, he would have
seen shadows of very respectable length. Upon the coast of
Gedrosia he found a people called Icthyophagi, or Fish-eaters.
The mutton here tasted of fish, and Nearchus discovered that
the sheep eat, fish as well as the inhabitants, for the land yielded
no pasturage.
In one of the villages of the Fish-eaters Nearchus engaged
a pilot who undertook to guide him as far as Caramania. The
aspect of the coast now became less repulsive, and palm-trees,
myrtles, and flowers grew wild upon the hill-sides. Such was
the delight of the Macedonians at this sight, that they landed
and wove garlands and wreaths of the foliage for the wives and
daughters of the natives. Farther on, at a spot where the in-
habitants made them presents of roasted tunny-fish—the first
cooked fish they had yet received from the Icthyophagi—and
where they noticed wheat-fields, they landed, and, after taking
possession of the village, demanded the surrender of all their
wheat. The people made a feeble resistance, and then gave up
all the flour they possessed,—not wheat flour, but fish flour,—
flour made by reducing fish to powder, as we make flour by
pulverizing the kernels of wheat.
The coast again becoming almost desert, the crew were obliged
to eat the tender buds of palm-trees, and on one occasion
were glad to devour seven camels which they were fortunate
enough to encounter. Besides the dangers of famine, Nearchus
had to contend with legions of whales, many of them one hun-
dred and fifty feet long,—a prodigious size for inland seas like
the Persian Gulf. One day he noticed a jet of water of great
height and violence, and soon the air was filled with spray
tossed up by a sportive herd of these monsters. The frightened
sailors let drop their oars: but Nearchus encouraged them and
dissipated their fears. He placed the vessels of the fleet abreast
in a single line, and ordered them to advance simultaneously at
full speed, as in a naval combat, and, upon approaching the
90 ' HISTORY OF THE SEA.
whales, to terrify them by shouts and the din of trumpets. At
a given signal, the vessels started and dashed forward upon the
cetaceous army: the whales plunged into the abysses of the water,
and, reappearing at the sterns of the fleet, sent up a shower of
spirts in derision of their timorous enemy. Nearchus found
these fish so abundant that large numbers of them were stranded
in every storm: the inhabitants built houses of their bones,
using the larger bones for posts, planks, and doors; the jaw-
bones furnished an excellent thatch, or roofing material. He
also saw huts constructed of the back-bones of smaller fish.
The fleet now reached the coast of Caramania, after passing
an island supposed to be inhabited by an enchantress very much
like the Circe of the Greek fable, who was said to seduce navi-
gators by the promise of voluptuous pleasures and then change
them into fish. Nearchus now found his distresses nearly at an
end, as the soil was productive of grain and fruit, and as the -
streams yielded an abundance of water. He soon came in view
of a vast promontory on the Arabian side, (Cape Mussendoun,)
which seemed completely to close the entrance to the Persian
Gulf. The sailors, weary of their long voyage, earnestly be-
sought Nearchus to land here and to march across the country
to Babylon. Nearchus insisted that this would not be fulfilling
the intentions of Alexander, whose command it was to survey
every portion of the coast from the Indus to the Euphrates.
They doubled the cape, therefore, and entered the Persian Gulf.
Keeping close to the northern shore, they came at last to a tract
of territory inhabited by friendly races and yielding an abun-
dance of every fruit except the olive. They landed at the mouth
of the Anamis,—the modern Minab,—and refreshed themselves
after their long hardships. They reposed under the shade of palms,
and conversed gayly of the dangers they had escaped and the
wonders they had seen. A party wandered from the coast towards
the interior, and, to their surprise and joy, met a man clothed
in the Greek chlamys and speaking the Greek language. They
%
ALEXANDER AND NEARCHUS. 91
asked him who he was and what country he was from. He re-
plied that he belonged to the army of Alexander, and that the
camp was not far off. Transported with delight, they took the
stranger to Nearchus, whom he told that Alexander was at five
days’ journey from the sea.
Nearchus, upon receiving this intelligence, caused his ships to
be drawn on shore, a rampart to be built round them, and repairs
to be commenced upon them, while he, Archius, a lieutenant,
and six sailors should set out to find the camp of the king. As
they approached the outposts, soldiers sent forward to meet
them by Alexander, who had been informed of their coming, did
not recognise them, on account of their changed dress and hag-
gard aspect. Alexander received them with kindness, but in
deep sorrow, for he had conceived the idea that the eight persons
before him were all that had survived the perils of the sea.
‘You two have returned,” he said, ‘“‘you and Archius, safe and
sound, and this alone renders the loss of my fleet endurable:
tell me in what manner perished my vessels and my army.”
Upon learning the safety of the entire expedition, he is said to
have burst into a flood of tears, and to have sworn that he de-
rived more pleasure from this event than from the entire con-
quest of Asia. He offered sacrifices to Jupiter, Hercules, Apollo,
and Neptune. He then proposed that Nearchus should repose
from his trials, and that another should conduct the fleet to Susa,
the capital of Susiana. Nearchus thought it unjust, however,
that the glory of completing a task which he had so successfully
begun should be taken from him, and retained the command.
He was obliged to fight his way back to the sea through warlike
and hostile tribes.
The rest of the voyage, along the coasts of Caramania and
Persis,—the modern Fars,—was comparatively easy, orders
having been given by Alexander that Nearchus should find at
intervals supvlies of every species of provisions. On _ the
24th of February, in the year 325: B.c., the fleet arrived at
92 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
the mouth of the Euphrates. - Nearchus learned that Alexander
had already reached Susa, which was situated some forty miles
towards the interior upon the borders of the Tigris. He there-
fore ascended that river, and, at a bridge newly thrown over it
for the passage of Alexander’s army, the junction of the long-
separated naval and land forces took place. Nearchus received
a crown of gold for his success in the expedition; the pilot was
rewarded with a crown of smaller size, and the debts of the
army were discharged by Alexander.
The voyage had occupied nearly five months, and the distance
sailed was not far from fifteen hundred miles, if the sinuosities
and indentations of the coast are included, and twelve hundred
in a straight line. Half of this period of five months must be
considered to have been spent upon the land, in surveys of the
coast, in repairs of the vessels, and in forays in search of food
and water. ‘The same route is now usually traversed by mer-
chant vessels in the space of three weeks. Nothing can give a
better idea of the immense service Nearchus was thought to
have rendered the state, than the fact that it was in the con-
vivialities of a banquet in his honor, a year later, that Alexander
abandoned himself to the excesses which resulted in his death.
EKudoxus, the next navigator in chronological order, was a
native of Cyzicus, in Mysia, and was sent by its citizens,
in the third century B.c., upon a mission connected with the
promotion of geographical science, to Alexandria, then the seat
of maritime enterprise. He became strongly imbued with the
spirit of exploration and investigation which reigned there, and
succeeded in inducing Ptolemy Huergetes, the reigning king, to
fit out a naval armament, and to send it under his command
upon an expedition down the Arabian Gulf or Red Sea. He
appears to have made a successful voyage, for he returned with
a cargo of aromatics and precious stones. It is supposed that
he sailed down the Red Sea, and, passing out by the Straits of
Babelmandel, followed the southern coast of Arabia as far as
3 Pe ee
Mtsen seis: ros SS ene ey
THE PROBLEM OF ANTIQUITY. 93
the Persian Gulf: it is altogether unlikely that he reached the
shores of India. Euergetes plundered him of his wealth upon
his return, but died soon after, leaving the throne to his widow
Cleopatra.
The queen took Eudoxus into favor, and sent him upon a
fresh voyage. He seems to have been driven by unfavorable
winds upon the coast of Abyssinia, where he made advan-
tageous bargains with the inhabitants. He rescued from the
water a fragment of a wreck,—the prow of a vessel which, from
a sculpture representing the figure of a horse, seemed to have
come from the West. This prow was exhibited by Eudoxus
in the harbor of Alexandria, and was declared by some mari-
ners from Cadiz to be of the precise form peculiar to large vessels
which went from that port to fish upon the coast of Mauritania, or
Morocco. It was evident, therefore, to the ardent mind of Eu-
doxus, that this fragment of a wrecked vessel, left to the mercy of
the waves, had performed the grand maritime problem of antiquity,
—the circuit of Africa. He abandoned himself with enthusiastic
credulity to the enticing hope that he might himself succeed in
achieving this darling object of the ambition of princes, kings,
and states.
He determined to renounce the deceitful patronage of courts,
and to start with a new expedition from Cadiz. He went thither
by way of Massilia and other trading settlements, and urged
all who were animated by the spirit of progress to follow him.
He thus succeeded in equipping an armada, consisting of one
ship and two large boats, on board of which were not only goods
and provisions and the necessary crews, but artisans, scientific
men, and musicians. The very ardor and extravagance of their
hopes, and perhaps, too, the undue gayety in which they took
their departure, unfitted them to encounter the dangers and
hardships of African discovery. The crew were frightened
at the swell of the open sea through which Eudoxus wished
to make his way, and insisted upon following the shore, accord-
94 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
ing to the usual cautious method of those days. The con.
Sequence was that the ship was stranded, and the cargo was
with difficulty saved. Hudoxus prosecuted the voyage in a
single ship of lighter construction, till he came to a race of
people who spoke, as he thought, the same language as those he
had met on the opposite side of the continent. Thinking this
discovery enough for the expedition in its now enfeebled state,
he returned to Spain and equipped another small fleet, better
fitted to buffet the waves of the open sea.
He again set forth; but the narrative, as handed down by
Strabo, breaks off at this point, and we are without information
upon the results of the enterprise. It is true that rumor and
fable have supplied the place of authentic facts, and that Eu-
doxus is described by one version as having actually circum-
navigated Africa; by another, as having come to a race of
people who were born dumb; and by another, as having fallen
in with a nation who had no mouths, but received their food
through an orifice in the ndse. These exaggerations are un-
worthy of notice; and they do not seem to have thrown dis-
credit upon the account of the earlier experience of Kudoxus,
which ranks among the most esteemed narratives of ancient
maritime adventure.
We have thus given, in some detail, descriptions of all the
noteworthy experiments in navigation previous to the birth of
Christ. Two features, it will be at once remarked, charac-
terized all these efforts:—Ist, The only reliable propelling force
continued to lie’in the oars; and, 2d, no sailor ventured out
of sight of land, unless, as when crossing the Mediterranean,
he knew that other lands lay beyond the visible horizon. We
close this division of the subject with the general observation,
that the opening of the Christian era found the world almost
entirely under Roman dominion,—one which preferred extending -
its sway by land to prosecuting discovery by sea.. The Medi-
terranean was, thus far, the only seat of commerce and the ex-
PILLARS OF HERCULES. . 95
clusive scene of navigation. Though Hanno and Eudoxus had
indeed passed the Pillars of Hercules, and had coasted along
the African shore as far as the negro territories, and though
Pytheas, proceeding to the north, had visited—still hugging
the land—the Baltic and the British Channel, their expeditions
must be considered as at once venturesome and futile, for the
age was not able to repeat them, and totally failed to make
them useful either to geography or commerce. As long as the
centre of power, of luxury, of wealth, remains within the Medi-
terranean, as long as Tyre, Sidon, Rome, Carthage, succes-
sively control the destinies of the world, so long shall we find
mankind lacking both the motive and the means to seek new
worlds, by sea, beyond. Time, however, will furnish both the
motive and the means: we shall find the one, as we proceed, in
the Spice Islands of the East, the other in the Mariner’s Com-
pass. The next division of our subject will narrate how the
contests between the Crescent and the Cross over the tomb of
Christ brought Europe and Asia into contact and acquaintance-
ship; and how the commerce and intercourse which were the
immediate consequences led to that general and absorbing inte-
rest in the sea and ships which eventually produced Columbus
and Magellan. The influence of nutmeg and cinnamon upon
the. spread of the gospel and the development of science is a
theme which we shall show to be not unworthy of earnest and
philosophical inquiry.
SUPPOSED FORM OF THE SHIPS OF NEARCHUS,
VENETIAN GALE Y, OFS HE GN Hi iGie NG UE eyes
FROM THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE CHRISTIAN ERA TO THE
APPLICATION OF THE MAGNETIC NEEDLE TO EUROPEAN NAVI-
GATION, A.D. 1300.
CHAPTER Ek.
NAVIGATION DURING THE ROMAN EMPIRE-—THE RISE OF VENICE AND GENOA—
THE CRUSADES—THEIR EFFECT UPCN COMMERCE—WEDDING OF THE ADRI-
ATIC—CREATION OF THE FRENCH NAVY—INTRODUCTION OF EASTERN ART
INTO EUROPE—MAPS OF THE MIDDLE AGES—REMOTE EFFECT OF THE CRU-
SADES UPON GEOGRAPHICAL SCIENCE,
We have taken the birth of Christ as a point of departure in
the history of navigation, merely because of the prominence of
that event in the annals of the world, not on account of any
connection that it has with the chronicles of the sea. So far
from that, the first five centuries of the Christian era are an
absolute blank in all matters which pertain to our subject. The
Roman Empire rose and fell; and its rise and fall concerned the
Mediterranean only. Not even Julius Cesar, the greatest man
in Roman history, has a place in maritime records; unless, when
crossing the Adriatic in a fishing-boat during a storm, his memo-
zable words of encouragement to the fisherman, ‘Fear nothing!
you carry Cesar and his fortunes!” are sufficient to connect him
96
PETER THE HERMIT. 97
with the sea. Neither Pompey, nor Sylla, nor Augustus, nor
Nero, nor Titus, nor Constantine, nor Theodosius, nor Attila,
can claim part or lot in the dominion of man over the ocean.
And so we glide rapidly over five centuries.
Upon the invasion of Italy by the barbarians, A.D. 476, the
Veneti, a tribe dwelling upon the northeastern shores of the
Adriatic, escaped from their ravages by fleeing to the marshes
and sandy inlets formed by the deposits of the rivers which
there fall into the gulf. Here they were secure; for the water
around them was too deep to allow of an attack from the land,
and too shallow to admit the approach of ships from the sea.
Their only resource was the water and the employments it
afforded. At first they caught fish; then they made salt, and
finally engaged in maritime traffic. Early in the seventh cen-
tury their traders were known at Constantinople, in the Levant,
and at Alexandria. Their city soon covered ninety islands,
connected together by bridges. They established mercantile
factories at Rome, and extended their authority into Istria and |
Dalmatia. In the eighth century they chased the pirates, and
in the ninth they fought the Saracens. At this period Genoa,
too, rose into notice, and the Genoese and the Venetians at once
became commercial rivals and the monopolists of the Mediter-
ranean.
And now Peter the Hermit, barefooted and penniless, in-
veighing against the atrocities of the Turks towards Christians
at Jerusalem, exhorted the warriors of the Cross to take up
arms against the infidels. He inspired all Europe with an
enthusiasm like his own, and enlisted a million followers in the
cause. The passion of the age was for war, peril, and adven-
ture; and fighting for the Sepulchre was a more agreeable
method of doing penance than wearing sackcloth or mortifying
the flesh. The First Crusade, a motley array of knights,
spendthrifts, barons, beggars, women, and children, set out upon
Sheir wild career. Then came the Second, the Third, and the
7
98 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
Fourth. Crusading was the amusement and occupation of twa
centuries. Two millions of Europeans perished in the cause
before it was abandoned. <A few words concerning its effect
upon the civilization of HKurope are necessary here, in direct
pursuance of our subject.
During their stay in Palestine the Crusaders learned, and in
a measure acquired, the habits of Eastern life. They brought
back with them a taste for the peculiar products of that region,
—jewels, silks, cutlery, perfumes, spices. A brisk commerce
through the length and breadth of the Mediterranean was the
speedy consequence. Genoa, Pisa, Florence, Venice, covered
the waters of their inland sea with sails, trafficking from the
ports of Italy to those of Syria and Egypt. In every maritime
city conquered by the Crusaders, trading-stations and bazaars
were established. Marseilles obtained from the kings of Jeru-
salem privileges and monopolies of trade upon their territory.
Venice surpassed all her rivals in the splendor and extent of
her commerce, and it was for this that the Pope, Alexander
III., sent the Doge the famous nuptial ring with which, in
assertion of his naval supremacy, ‘‘to wed the Adriatic.” The
ceremony was performed from the deck of the Bucentaur, or
state-galley, with every possible accompaniment of pomp and
parade. The vessel was crowned with flowers like-a bride, and
amid the harmonies of music and the acclamations of the spec-
tators the ring was dropped into the sea. The Republic and,
the Adriatic, long betrothed, were now indissolubly wedded.
This ceremony was repeated from year to year.
The Normans, the Danes, the Dutch, imitated the example
of the Italians, or, as they were then called, the Lombards, but
were rather occupied in conveying provisions to the armies than
in trading for their own account.
It was during the Crusades that the French navy was created.
Philip Augustus, who, on his way to Syria, and thence home
again, could not have remained insensible to the advantages of
PME ie.
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THE DOGE OF VENICE WEDDING THE ADRIATIO
99
400 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
‘possessing a strong force upon the ocean, formed, upon his
return, the nucleus of a national fleet, for the purpose of de-
fending his coasts either against pirates or foreign invasion.
While the necessity of transporting articles from the Hast to
‘supply the demand thus created in the West gave a stimulus to
commerce and navigation, manufactures were encouraged and
developed by the operation of the same cause. ‘The Italians
learned from the Greeks the art of weaving silk, which soon
resulted in the weaving of cloth of gold and silver. They
learned to mould glass in a multitude of new and curious forms.
From the manufactories of Syria, where stuffs were made of
‘camels’ hair, improvements were introduced into the manufac-
tures of Kurope, where they were woven of no other material
than lambs’ wool. Palestine also suggested to crusaders re-
turning home the advantages of windmills for grinding flour.
Arabia furnished the art of tempering arms and polishing
steel, of chasing gold and silver, of mounting stones in rich
and massive settings. Constantinople furnished the Chris-
tians with many splendid specimens of ancient art,—groups,
statues, and the Corinthian horses, and thus awakened Huropean
taste.
Nearly all the Gothic monuments of Europe which still excite
the admiration of the tourist owe their existence to this communi-
cation with the Greeks by means of the Crusades, and to the
‘wonder which seized the Frank and Lombard at the sight of the
churches and palaces of Byzantium. The Huropeans carried
‘back with them the architecture of the Saracens. Saint Mark’s
at Venice was built from the plans, and under the direction, of
an unbeliever. The Cathedral and Spire of Strasburg, with
their gigantic and yet delicate proportions, the Minster of
Amiens, the Sainte Chapelle of Paris, were constructed in close
imitation of the chef-d’ceuvres of Eastern art. Painting upon
glass was also brought from Constantinople, and the early
painters of Christendom were speedily employed in tracing in
BPs sce “
EFFECTS OF THE CRUSADES, 101
colors, upon the windows of abbeys and cathedrals, the exploits
of the Crusaders and the triumphs of the Cross.
From the Arabs and the Greeks, too, the Europeans received
their first lessons in the natural and exact sciences. Imperfect
and incomplete as were the astronomy, the botany, the mathe-
matics, and the geography of the Arabians, they were far in
advance of the same professions as understood and practised in
Europe. The languages were improved and enriched by the
association and exchange of ideas into which English, Germans,
Italians, and French were forced. The confusion of tongues,
which was as complete as at Babel, was somewhat corrected by the
harmony of interest and oneness of purpose which animated all, of
whatever name and lineage, who gathered around the Sepulchre.
It is obvious, therefore, that the effect of the Crusades, so far
as it is the object of a work like the present to trace and de-
lineate it, was to give the people of Europe a new motive for
maintaining an intercourse with the people of Asia. They had
seen their superior civilization, and sought to introduce it among
themselves. ‘They had learned to appreciate their skill in the
arts, and resolved to acclimate those arts at home. They had
accustomed themselves to many articles of luxury, which had
become articles of necessity, and which it was now essential,
therefore, to transport from the Levant, from the Red Sea, and
the Persian Gulf, to the Bay of Venice and the Gulf of Genoa.
There was a demand, in short, in the West, for the products,
the manufactures, the arts, of the Hast. Here was the origin
of the immense Kastern commerce which now fell into the hands
of the Genoese and Venetians, and which, resulting from the
Crusades, compelled us to the digression we have made. It is
not our purpose, however, to refer more at length to this com-
merce, as it was carried on upon seas which had been navigated
for twenty centuries; and we must hasten forward to the period
when new paths were laid out over the immensity of the waters.
A map, published just anterior to the First Crusade, fully dis:
102 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
plays the ignorance which then prevailed in geographical science,
The sea, as in the age of Homer, is made to surround the world
as a river, the land being divided into three parts, Europe, Asia,
and Africa. Africa and Asia ae joined together in the South,
and the Indian Ocean is an inland sea. Asia is as large as the
other two continents combined. On the east there is a small
spot indicated as the position of the Garden of Eden by the
words Hic est Paradisus. Hurope and Africa are separated
from Asia by a long canal, which may be either the Nile or the
Hellespont. Africa is still considered the land of mystery and
fable: its northern part only is considered inhabitable, the south
being even unapproachable, on account of the torrents of flame
poured on it by the sun. The Frozen Ocean, the Baltic, the White
Sea, and the Caspian, are all united. The Northern regions are
represented as forming one single island. Scandinavia is made
the birthplace and residence of the Amazons, the famous women-
warriors to whom antiquity had given a home in the Caucasus.
We shall, in due order, proceed to show that the indirect and
_remote effect of the Crusades, and of the intercourse produced
by them between two totally separated regions, was to induce
the Discovery of America, the Doubling of the Cape of Good
Hope, and the Passage of the Straits at the southern extremity
of Patagonia,—results due to CoLumBus, Vasco DA GAMA, and
MAGELLAN, every one of whom were seeking, in the voyages
which have rendered them immortal, another passage to the
Indies than that held by the Italians—so far as they could
prosecute it in vessels upon the Mediterranean. But, before
we can proceed from the coasting enterprises of the Lombards
upon the land-locked waters of their inland’ sea, to the daring
ventures of the Portuguese and Spaniards upon the raging
billows of the Tropical and South Atlantic, we must turn for a
moment to the North of Europe, and inquire into the maritime
achievements of the Anglo-Saxons and the Northmen during
the Dark and Middle Ages. |
AMAZONS OR :-WOMEN WARRIORS OF THE CAUCASUS.
103
DANISH VESSEL OF THE TENTH CENTURY: FROM AN INSCRIPTION.
CHAPTER IX.
THE SCANDINAVIAN SAILORS—THEIR PIRACIES AND COMMERCE—THE ANGLO-
SAXONS—ALFRED THE GREAT A SHIP-BUILDER—THE VOYAGE OF BEOWULF—
DISCOVERY OF ICELAND BY THE DANES—DISCOVERY OF GREENLAND—THE
VOYAGE OF BJARNI AND LEIF TO THE AMERICAN CONTINENT—THEIR DISCOVERY
OF NEWFOUNDLAND, NOVA SCOTIA, NANTUCKET, AND MASSACHUSETTS—AD-
VENTURES OF THORWALD AND THORFINN—COMPARISON OF THE DISCOVERIES
OF THE NORTHMEN WITH THOSE OF COLUMBUS.
THE nations inhabiting the borders of the Baltic and the
coasts of Norway, as well as those dwelling on the shores of the
German Ocean, were situated quite as favorably for maritime
enterprise as those upon the banks of the Mediterranean.
Though their earliest expeditions by sea were not stimulated by
the same. cause,—the desire for commercial intercourse,—
they arose from causes equally active. While the Mediter-
ranean countries possessed a fruitful soil and a balmy climate,
those of the North, under a sky comparatively ungenial, afforded
104 |
/ _—
PIRACY UPON THE SEA. 105:
‘their inhabitants but a few of the articles which they needed:
they were led, therefore, to increase their power by sea, in order to
establish themselves in more favored climes, or at least to obtain
from them by plunder what their own country could not furnish.
Thus they neglected the arts of agriculture, and became inured
to a life of piracy upon the sea. They spent their lives in plan-
ning and executing maritime expeditions. Fathers gave fleets
to their sons, and bade them seek their fortune on the ocean-
highway. The ships, at first small,—being mere barks propelled
| by twelve oars,—came at last to be capable of carrying one hun-
dred or one hundred and twenty men. They were supplied with
stones, arrows, ropes with which to overset small vessels, and
grappling-irons with which to come to close quarters.
It would be remote from our purpose to notice these piratical
excursions, were it not that they sometimes resulted in discovery
or commerce. Many of the marauders settled permanently in
England in the seventh century, and established there the
Anglo-Saxon dominion. Alfred, their most celebrated king,
obliged to defend his territory from the Danes, turned his at-
tention zealously to every thing connected with ships, commerce,
discovery, and geography, and became the first founder of that
naval power which was at a later period to be the world’s dread
and admiration. The idea of ship-building once conceived, it
was prosecuted with astonishing vigor. Alfred not only multi-
tiplied their number, but introduced material improvements.
Towards the hatter part of his reign, his fleet numbered one hun-
dred sail: it was divided into small squadrons and stationed at
various places along the coast. |
The oldest epic in any modern language, the Anglo-Saxon
poem of ‘ Beowulf,” the Sea-Goth, written in forty-three cantos,
and containing some six thousand lines, is occupied mainly in
narrating the marvellous exploits of its hero, his combats with a
pestilential fire-drake, and his slaying of ‘“‘a grim giant named
Grendel, a descendant of Cain.” It incidentally describes a
106 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
voyage made by Beowulf previous to the ninth century, and
from this we may gather a few details, at best barren and un-
satisfactory, of the equipments of a vessel in those days. In
the extract which we give, the word ‘‘sea-nose’”’ will readily be
understood as meaning headland, or promontory :
‘¢ When the king had awaited
The time he should stay,
Came many to fare
On the billows so free.
His ship they bore out
To the brim of the ocean,
And his comrades sat down
At their oars as he bade.
A word could control
His good fellows, the Shylds,
On the deck of the ship
He stood, by the mast.
Ne’er did I hear
Of a vessel appointed
Better for battle,
With weapons of war,
And waistcoats of wool,
And axes and swords.
x * * *
The ship was on the waves,
Boat under the cliffs.
The barons ready
To the prow mounted.
The chieftains bore
On the naked breast
Bright ornaments,
War-gear, Goth-like.
The men shoved off,
Men on their willing way,
The bounden wood.
Then went over the sea-waves,
Hurried by the wind,
The ship with foamy neck,
Most like a sea-fowl,
Till about one hour
Of the second day
The curved prow
Had passed onward.
So that the sailors
The land saw, |
DISCOVERY OF ICELAND. 107
The shore-cliffs shining,
Mountains steep,
And broad sea-noses.
Then was the sea-sailing
Of the Earl at an end.
God thanked he
That to him the sea-journey
Easy had been.”
In the year 863, a Dane of Swedish origin, named Gardar,
adventurously pushing off into the Northern Ocean, though
upon an object which history has not recorded, discovered the
island-rock whose appropriate name is Iceland. Eleven years
later, a navigator named Ingolf colonized the country, the
colonists, many of whom belonged to the most esteemed families
in the North, establishing a flourishing republic. The situation
of these people, isolated in the midst of an Arctic ocean, and
their relation to tht mother-country, compelled them to exert
and develop their hereditary maritime proclivities. In 877, a
sailor named Gunnbjorn saw a mountainous coast far to the
west, supposed to be now concealed or rendered inaccessible by
the descent of Arcticice. Erik the Red, who had been banished
from Norway for murder and had settled in Iceland, was in his
turn outlawed thence in 983: he sailed to the west and dis-
covered a land which he called Greenland, because, as he said,
““people will be attracted hither if the land has a good name.”’
He returned to Iceland, and, in the year 985, a large number of
ships—according to some authorities, thirty-five—followed him
to the new settlement and established themselves on its south-
western shore.
In 986, Bjarn: Herjulfson-Bjarni the son of Herjulf, in a
voyage from Iceland to Greenland, was driven a long distance
from the accustomed track. He at last saw land to the west,
and took counsel with his men as to what land it could be.
Bjarni declared it his opinion that it was not Greenland. They
sailed close in shore, and noticed that there were no mountains,
but that the land was undulating and well wooded. They left
108 HISTORY OF THE SEA,
the land on their larboard side, and sailed away for two days,
when they saw land again. They asked Bjarni if he thought
this was Greenland; and he replied that ‘‘ he thought it as little
to be Greenland as the other, as he saw no high ice-hills.” The
sailors wished to wood and water there, but Bjarni would not
consent. They sailed for three days to the north, and saw a
bold shore with high mountains and ice-hills. Bjarni would not
land, saying, ‘‘T’o me this land appears little inviting.” Sailing
for four days more to the northeast, they came to a country
which Bjarni confidently pronounced to be Greenland, where he
landed and afterwards settled. Various data furnished by this.
narrative, in the original Icelandic records, have enabled geogra-
phers to determine the various coasts thus dimly seen by Bjarni,
but upon which he did not land. They are supposed to have
been those of Long Island, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Nova
Scotia, and Newfoundland. )
In the year 994, Leif Erikson—Leif the son of Erik the Out-
law—bought Bjarni’s ship, and engaged thirty-five men to navi-
gate it, as he intended to sail upon a voyage of discovery. He
asked his father Erik to be the captain; but Hrik declined, being,
as he said, well stricken in years. They sailed away into the
sea, and discovered first the land which Bjarni had discovered
last. They went ashore, saw no grass, but plenty of icebergs,
and an abundance of flat stones. From the latter circumstance
they named the place Helluland, hellu signifying a flat stone.
There can be no doubt that the spot thus named is the modern
Newfoundland. They went on board ‘again, and proceeded on
their way. They went ashore a second time, where the land
was flat and covered with wood and white sand. ‘ This,” said
Leif, ‘“‘shall be named after its qualities, and called Markland,”
(woodland.) This is undoubtedly Nova Scotia. They sailed
again to the south for two days and came to an island which lay
to the eastward of the mainland. They observed dew upon
the grass, and this dew, upon being touched with the finger and
NORTHMEN IN AMERICA, 109
raised to the mouth, tasted exceedingly sweet. This appears to
have been Nantucket, where honey-dew is known to abound.
i
Nutty
ee
AN
THE NORTHMEN IN AMERICA.
They proceeded on through a tract of shoal water, which cor;
responds with the sound between Nantucket and Cape Cod, and
appear to have run across the mouth of Buzzard’s Bay, and to
have ascended the Pocasset River as far as Mount Hope Bay,
which they took for a lake. Here they cast anchor, and,
‘“‘bringing their skin cots from the ship, proceeded to make
booths.” They remained during the winter, finding plenty of
salmon in the river and lake. ‘The nature of the country was,
as they thought, so good, that cattle would not require house-
feeding in winter, for there came no frost, and little did the
grass wither there.’’ Their statement that on the shortest day
the sun was above the horizon from half-past seven till half-past
110 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
four enables geographers to fix the latitude of the place where
they were at 41° 43’ 10’’, which is very nearly that of Mount
Hope Bay.
One evening a man of the party was missing,—a German
named Tyrker, whom Leif regarded as his foster-father. He
determined to seek for him, and for this purpose chose twelve
reliable men. Tyrker soon returned and said that he had been a
long distance into the interior, and had found vines and grapes.
‘But is this true, my fosterer?”’ said Leif. ‘Surely is it true,”
he returned; “for I was bred up in a land where there is no
want of either vines or grapes.” The next morning Leif said to
his sailors, ‘‘We will now set about two things, in that the one
day we gather grapes, and the other cut vines and fell trees,
so from thence will be a loading for my ship.”’ The record
states that the long-boat was filled with grapes. Leif gave the
country the name of Vinland, from its vines.
To the reader of the present day it may seem that the wild
vines of Massachusetts and Rhode Island can hardly have been
so prominent a feature of the native products as to have given
a name to the whole region. But it is certain that six centuries
later the Puritans found wild maize and grapes growing there
in profusion, while the neighboring island of Martha’s Vineyard
received its name from the English for a precisely similar reason.
Upon the return of Leif to Greenland, his brother Thorwald |
thought that ‘‘these new lands had been much too little explored.”
Leif gave him his ship, and he put out to sea, with thirty men,
in the year 1002. Nothing is known of their voyage till
they came to Leif’s booths in Vinland. They laid up their ship,
caught fish for their support, and spent a pleasant winter. They
passed two years in exploring the interior, and then returned by
the north, where Thorwald was killed in a battle with the Esqui-
maux. |
But a more successful discoverer than any of these was
Thorfinn Karlsnefne,—that is, Thorfinn the Predestined Hero.
ee > ees Te or.
DARING OF THE NORTHMEN. 112
He was a wealthy merchant of Iceland, the heir vf Danish,
Swedish, and Norwegian princes. He visited Greenland in
1006, where he married Gudrida, the widow of an Icelandic
adventurer, and in 1007 sailed, in three ships and with one hun-
dred and sixty men, upon a voyage to Vinland. His wife went
with him, and, in the autumn of the same year, bore him a son
named Snorri, who was, of course, the first of EHuropean blood
born in America. From him the celebrated Swedish sculptor
Thorwaldsen was lineally descended. Thorfinn remained here
three years, and had many.communications with the aborigines.
A singular result of this relation may perhaps be traced in the
hames successively given to one spot. The Northmen called one
of their settlements Hop, and the Puritans, six centuries later,
found that the Indians called it Haup. It would appear that
they had continued, in their own tongue, the appellation
bestowed upon the place in the Norse language. The Puritans
anglicized it, and called it Mount Hope.
We have no accounts of any further voyages made by the
Northmen to America. The records were preserved in the lite-
rature of the island, but the memory of them gradually faded
away from the popular mind.
Several writers claim for these early navigators a degree of
merit beyond that which they are willing to accord to Columbus.
They reply to the argument that Byjarni’s discovery of the
American coast was merely accidental, as he had started in
search of Greenland, that Columbus’ discovery of America was
accidental also, as he started in search of Asia, and as he
believed the land to be Asia to the day of his death. ‘Besides,”’
they say, “how different were the circumstances under which
the two voyages were made! The Northmen, without compass
or quadrant, without any of the advantages of science, geo-
graphical knowledge, personal experience, or previous discoveries,
without the support of either kings or governments,—which
Columbus, however discouraged at the outset, eventually obtained,
We HISTORY OF THE SEA.
—hbut guided by the stars, and upheld by their own private
resources and a spirit of adventure which no dangers could
repress, crossed the broad Northern ocean and explored these
distant lands.”’
This is all true; and doubtless our wonder at the success with
which these early voyages were prosecuted would be augmented ‘
tenfold, could we obtain authentic information upon the charac-
ter and capacity of the ships in which they were made. Nothing
reliable exists upon this subject, except a few rude inscriptions;
and from these, as reproduced in the engravings we have given,
it would actually appear that the vessels used had no decks, and
that they were partly propelled by oars. However navigation
may have improved since the days of the Northmen, it is certain
that no sailor would now attempt an Arctic voyage in an open
boat; and when we read of the perils and sufferings of our
modern Polar adventurers, it is impossible not to be amazed at
the success with which the Danes and Norwegians, with their
slender appliances, endured and outlived them.
CHAPTER X. -
THE TRAVELS OF MARCO POLO—THE FIRST MENTION OF JAPAN It HISTOLY—
KUBLAI KHAN—MARCO POLO’S VOYAGE FROM AMOY TO ORMUZ—MALACCA—
SUMATRA—PYGMIES—SINGULAR STORIES OF DIAMONDS—THE ROC—POLO NOT
RECCGNISED UPON HIS RETURN—HIS IMPRISONMENT—THE PUBLICATION OF
HIS NARRATIVE—THE INTEREST AWAKENED IN CHINA, SAPAN, AND THE ISLANDS
OF SPICES.
THE call to arms against the Moslems fixed, as we have said,
the attention of Europe upon the Kast. The travels of Carpini,
Rubruquis, and Ascelin, in Tartary and in China, revealed the
existence of numerous tribes in localities believed to be occupied
by the ocean. Hordes of savages, we are told, and whole nations
of powerful and warlike people, emerged from the imaginary
waters of Hotis, the fabulous sea of antiquity and bed of
Aurora. Marco Polo, whose celebrated journey was performed
during the twenty years closing the thirteenth century, made
Lnown the centre and eastern extremity of Asia, Japan, a
portion of the islands of the Indian Archipelago, a part of the
continent of Africa, and, by hearsay, the large island of Mada-
gascar. We subjoin a brief account of that portion of his
travels which was prosecuted by sea. |
He became a great favorite with Kublai Khan, whose winter
capital was Khanbalik or Pekin, and served him for many years
as one of his confidential officers. He was the first European
who heard of the island of Japan, of which he speaks thus :—
“Zipangu, or Cipango, is an island in the Hastern Ocean, situated
about fifteen hundred miles from the mainland. It is quite
8 113
114 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
large. The inhabitants have fair complexions, are civilized in
their manners, though their religion is idolatry. They have gold
in the greatest abundance, but its exportation is forbidden. The
entire roof of the sovereign’s palace is stated to be covered with
a plating of gold, as we cover churches and other buildings with
lead. So famous is the wealth of this island that Kublai Khan
was fired with the desire of annexing it to his dominions. He
sent out a numerous fleet and a powerful army; but a violent
storm dispersed and wrecked the ships, and thirty thousand men
were thrown upon a desert island a few miles from Cipango.
They expected nothing but death or captivity, as they could
obtain no means of subsistence. Being attacked from Cipango,
they got in the rear of the enemy, took possession of their fleet,
and put off for the main island. They kept the colors flying
from the masts, and entered the chief city unsuspected. All
the inhabitants were gone except the women. They took pos-
session, but were closely besieged for six months, until, despair-
ing of relief, they surrendered, on condition of their lives being
spared. ‘This took place in the year 1284.’ Such was the first
intelligence of the island of Japan which ever reached the ears
of Europeans.
After a stay of seventeen years in China, Marco and his com-
pamons resolved to make an attempt to return to their native
land. Kublai Khan, however, was unwilling to part with them;
and they owed their final release to a circumstance wholly unex-
pected. An embassy from Persia had visited Pekin, and had
selected one of Kublai’s grand-daughters for the wife of their
prince. They set out with her on their journey to Persia, but,
after meeting with incredible obstacles, were obliged to return to
the Chinese capital. Marco had, at this time, just returned from
a voyage among the islands of the Indian Sea, and had laid be-
fore the khan his observations upon the feasibility of navigation
in those waters. The ambassadors sought an interview with
Marco Polo, and found that they had all a common interest,—
EUR.
GRAND
ie
——>$- >» ae
JAPANESE IDOLS.
TRAM UUUUTLUUU LIU ULE
(IM
MARCO POLO’S DESCRIPTION OF JAPANESE
116 HISTORY OF TIIE SEA.
that of getting away as speedily as possible. The khan was
forced to facilitate the departure of the envoys, though it de-
prived him of his friends the Venetians. Preparations were
made upon a grand scale for the expedition. Fourteen four-
masted ships, a part of them with crews of two hundred and
fifty men, were equipped and victualled for two years. The
khan bade the Polo party an affectionate adieu, making them
his ambassadors to the principal courts of Europe, and extorting
from them a promise to return to his service after a visit to their
own country. )
Thus honorably dismissed, they set sail from the port of
Amoy, in 1291. They coasted along the shores of Cochin China,
and came in sight of the islands of Borneo and Java, though
they did not land there. At the island of Bintan, near the Straits
of Malacca, they obtained some knowledge of the kingdom of
the Malays at the southern extremity of the peninsula. They
landed upon Sumatra, and visited many parts of the island.
Jarco thus speaks of one branch of the trade of the inha-
Intants:—‘‘It should be known that what is reported respecting
the mummies of pygmies sent to Europe from India is only an
‘ille tale, these pretended human dwarfs being manufactured in
this island in the following manner. The country produces a
large species of monkey having a countenance resembling that
of aman. ‘The Sumatrans catch them, shave off their hair, dry
and preserve their bodies with camphor and other drugs, and
prepare them generally so as to give them the appearance of
little men. They then pack them in wooden boxes and sell them
to traders, by whom they are vended for pygmies in all parts of
the world. But there are no such things as pygmies in India or
anywhere else. It is mere monkey-trade.”
From Sumatra, Marco and his companions sailed into the Bay
of Bengal, touched at the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, ar-
rived at Ceylon, and, doubling the southern point of Hindostan,
continued to the northward along its western coast. The pearl-
MARCO POLO’S NARRATIVE. 117
fishery here attracted their attention ; and Marco, in his description
of the diamonds of a kingdom named Murphili, narrates, as a
fact, a story which was afterwards incorporated in the Adven-
tures of Sinbad the Sailor,—that of pieces of meat being thrown
by the jewel-hunters into inaccessible valleys,. whence they were
brought back again by eagles and storks with quantities of
diamonds clinging tothem. But the story occurs in the writings
of one of the Christian Fathers of the fourth century, and Marco
Polo only gives it as a legend which he heard. He also alludes
to the bird called the roc, which was so large that it lifted ele.
phants into the air; its feathers measured ninety spans. The
locality frequented by these monstrous ornithological specimens
was the island of Madagascar.
The voyage appears to have ended at Ormuz, at the mouth of
the Persian Gulf, after a navigation of a year and a half. Six
hundred men of the various crews had died upon the way. There
is no mention made in history of the return of the fleet to
China, though Kublai Khan is known to have died three years
after the departure of the Venetians. After various adventures,
Marco Polo and his companions arrived in Venice, in 12984.
They had been absent twenty-one years, and their nearest rela-
tives did not know them. When they attempted to converse in
Ttalian, their use of foreign idioms and barbarous forms of expres-
sion rendered their language hardly intelligible. Possession had
been taken of their houses by some of their kindred, and they
found it difficult to expel them. Their statements were dis-
believed, till, by displaying their immense wealth and their price-
less collections of jewels and precious stones, they forced their
countrymen to give credit to adventures which must clearly have
been extraordinary, to have resulted in such acquisitions of trea-
sure. Marco’s riches gave him the name of Milione; and he is
designated, in the records of the Venetian Republic, and upon the
title-page of his work,—still extant,—as Messer Marco Milione.
He was induced to write an account of his adventures in the
118 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
following manner. A war between the Venetians and the
Genoese resulted in the capture of the galley of which he was
commander. He was imprisoned during four years at Genoa.
His surprising history becoming known, he was visited by all the
principal inhabitants, who were anxious to listen to his narrative.
The frequent necessity of repeating the same story became in-
tolerably irksome to him, and he resolved to commit it to writing.
He thus gave the first impulse to the promotion of geographical
science. He procured from Venice the original notes he had
made in the course of his travels, and, with their assistance and
that of a Genoese amanuensis, the narrative was composed in
his cell. It is a work of great research and deep interest.
Formerly read for its marvels, it is now perused as the earliest
authentic account of a region which still remains a terra incog-
nita, and whose inhabitants repel curiosity and decline mingling
with other nations upon the usual reciprocal terms of fellowship
and good-will. Marco Polo is now justly considered the founder
of the modern géography of Asia. It was long before any new
discoveries were added to those of the illustrious Venetian, but
his original statements were confirmed in many quarters:—by
Oderic, who visited India and China in 1820; by Schiltberger,
of Munich, who accompanied Tamerlane in his expeditions
through Central Asia; by Pegoletti, an Italian merchant who
went to Pekin, through the heart of Asia, in 1835; and by Cla-
vijo, in 1403, who was sent by Spain as ambassador to Samar-
cand.
Thus, a European had been to the regions of spices and had
returned. From this time forward the world was to know no
rest till the route by sea had been discovered.
ANCIENT CHINESE COMPASS.
CHAPTER XI.
TUF FIRST MENTION OF THE LOADSTONE IN HISTORY—ITS EARLY NAMES—THE
FIRST MENTION OF ITS DIRECTIVE POWER—A POEM UPON THE COMPASS SIX
HUNDRED YEARS OLD—FRIAR BACON’S MAGNET—THE LOADSTONE IN ARABIA
—AN EYE-WITNESS OF ITS EFFICIENCY IN THE SYRIAN WATERS IN THE YEAR
1240—THE MAGNET IN CHINA—EARLY MENTION OF IT IN CHINESE WORKS—
THE VARIATION NOTICED IN THE TWELFTH CENTURY—OTHER DISCOVERIES
MADE BY THE CHINESE—MODERN ERRORS—FLAV10 GIOIA—THE ARMS OF
AMALFI—ALL RECORDS LOST OF THE FIRST VOYAGE MADE WITH THE COMPASS
BY A EUROPEAN SHIP.
WE have arrived.at a momentous epoch in the history of the
sea. It was at this period that the mariner’s compass was—we
do not say invented—but introduced into European navigation.
That this admirable instrument, which, in half a century,
changed the face of the earth, by leading to the discovery of
America and thus proving the sphericity of the world, should
remain unclaimed by its author, and that we are unable to point
to him who thus blessed and benefited his race, must always be
a subject of regret. So far from being able to name the indi-
vidual to whom the invention is due, it has long been deemed
impossible to fix even upon the nation who first used the needle
at sea. We hope, however, by availing ourselves of recent re-
searches made in France, to arrive at a conclusion not only
119
120 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
satisfactory, but inevitable. In tracing the history of the com-
pass, we must naturally begin with the magnet.
The ancients were fully acquainted with the loadstone, and
with its power of attracting iron, though they were totally
ignorant of its polarity. That they were so, is evident from the
fact that the classic authors and ancient works upon navigation
and kindred subjects do not furnish one word upon the subject.
Claudian has left, in one of his idyls, a long description of the
stone, and of its peculiar, indeed, magical, affinity for iron.
Had he entertained the most distant idea that this stone coul]
communicate to a steel needle the power of indicating the north,
it is not to be supposed for an instant that he would have omittel
mentioning it. The earliest name of the loadstone was Hercules’
Stone, which was soon changed to magnes, from the fact that jt
was found in abundance in a region called Magnesia, in Lydia.
Hence our word magnet. It was not till the fourth century af
our era that the quality of repelling as well as of attracting iran
seems to have been discovered. Marcellus, the physician of Theo-
dosius the Great, is the first author who mentions this new quality.
The Romans, who acquired a knowledge of the magnet from
the Greeks, preserved the name, though several of their authors,
and Pliny among them, mention a tradition, that the magnet was
so called from a shepherd named Magnes, who was the first to
discover a mine of loadstone, by the nails in his shoes clinging
to the metal.
The first mention in European history of the polarity of the
magnetized needle, and of its importance to mariners, occurs in a
satirical French poem written in 1190 by one Guyot de Provins.
His object was to level, by implication, an invective against the
Court of Rome; and he did it in the following neat manner.
The translator has endeavored to preserve the quaint style of
the original:
‘‘ As for our Father the Pope,
I would he were like the star
i
a
i
ee
4%
ve,
+
a
q al
MENTION OF THE COMPASS. 121
Which moves not. Very well see it
The sailors who are on the watch.
By this star they go and come,
And hold their course and their way.
They call it the Polar Star.
It is fixed, very unchangeable:
All the others move,
And alter their places and turn,
But this star moves not.
They make a contrivance which cannot lie,
By the virtue of the magnet.
Aun ugly and brownish stone,
To which iron spontaneously joins itself,
They have: and they observe the right point,
After they have caused a needle to touch it,
And placed it in a rush:
They put it in the water, without any thing, mcre.
And the rush keeps it on the surface ;
Then it turns its point direct
Towards the star with such certainty,
That no man will ever have any doubt of it;
Nor will it ever for any thing go false.
When the sea is dark and hazy,
That they can neither see star nor moon,
Then they place a light by the needle,
And so they have no fear of going wrong:
Towards the star goes the point,
- Whereby the mariners have the skill
To keep the right way.
It is an art which cannot fail.”
It may be very properly inferred, from the fact that the
poet does not merely allude to the compass, but describes it and
the polar star at some length, that it was not generally known,
and, in fact, had been lately introduced into the Mediterranean.
Whence it had been introduced there, we shall learn as we
proceed.
The second historical mention of the compass occurs in a de-
scription of Palestine by Cardinal Jacques de Vitry, in the year
1218, in which is the following passage :—‘‘ The loadstone is found
in India, to which, from some hidden cause, iron spontaneously
attaches itself. ‘The moment an iron needle is touched by this
stone, it at once points towards the North Star, which, though
the other stars revolve, is fixed as if it were the axis of the
1), HISTORY OF THE SEA,
firmament: from wh; ice it has become necessary to those who
navigate the seas.”
Brunetto Latini, a grammarian of Florence, and preceptor
of Dante, settled in Paris about the year 1260, and composed a
work entitled the “Treasure,” in which he distinctly describes
thé process and the consequence of magnetizing a needle. He
also went to England, and, in a letter of which fragments have
been published, writes thus :—‘ Friar Bacon showed me a mag-
net, an ugly and black stone, to which iron doth willingly cling:
you rub a needle upon it, the which needle, being placed upon
a point, remains suspended and turns against the Star, even
though the night be stormy and neither star nor moon be seen ;
and thus the mariner is guided on his way.”’
The Italian Jesuit Riccioli, in his work upon Geography and
Hydrography, states, that before 1270, the French mariners used
‘“‘a magnetized needle, which they kept floating in a s:nall
vessel of water, supported on two tubes, so as not to sink.’
All these authors agree in fixing the period at which the use
of the needle was popularized in Europe, at the latter part of
the twelfth and the commencement of the thirteenth century.
Not one of them mentions the inventor by name, or even indi-
cates his nation. This circumstance leads to the conviction that
it was unknown to them, and that, consequently, the inventor was
not a European. The theory that the Europeans obtained it
from the Arabians, and the Arabians from the Chinese, is sup-
ported by the following facts:
A manuscript work, written by an Arabian named Bailak, a
native of Kibdjak, and entitled ‘‘The Merchant’s Guide in the
Purchase of Stones,” thus speaks of the loadstone in the year
1242:—“ Among the properties of the magnet, it 1s to be
noticed that the captains who sail in the Syrian waters, when
the night is dark, take a vessel of water, upon which they place
a needle buried in the pith of a reed, and which thus floats
upon the water. Then they take a loadstone as big as the palm
a
CHINESE COMPASS. 123
of the hand, or even smaller. They hold it near the surface of
the water, giving it a rotary motion until the needle turns upon
the water: they then withdraw the stone suddenly, when the
‘needle, with its two ends, points to the north and south. I saw
this with my own eyes, on my voyage from Tripoli, in Syria, to
Alexandria, in the year 640. [640 of the Hegira, 1240 a.p. |
‘‘T heard it said that the captains in the Indian seas substi-
tute for the needle and reed a hollow iron fish, magnetized, so
that, when placed in the water, it points to the north with its
head and to the south with its tail. The reason that the fish
swims, not sinks, is that metallic bodies, even the heaviest,
float when hollow, and when they displace a quantity of water
greater than their own weight.”
It may fairly be inferred, from this passage, that, at the time
spoken of, (1240,) the practice was already of long standing in
this quarter, and that the needle and its polarity had been
long known and employed at sea. ‘That is, the Arabs had be-
come familiar with the loadstone in 1240, while Friar Bacon re-
garded it, in England, as a huge curiosity in 1260,—twenty
years afterwards. The priority of the invention would seem to
be thus incontestably proven for the Arabs. But we shall see
speedily that it derived its origin from a region situated still
farther to the east, and many centuries earlier.
A famous Chinese dictionary, terminated in the year 121 of
our era, thus defines the word magnet :—‘‘ The name of a stone
which gives direction to a needle.’’ This is quoted in numerous
modern dictionaries. One published during the Tsin dynasty—
that is, between 265 and419—states that ships guided their course
to the south by means of the magnet. The Chinese word for
magnet— Tchi nan—signifies, Indicator of the South. It was
natural for the Chinese, when they first saw a needle point both
north and south, to take the Antarctic pole for the principal
point of attraction, for with them the south had always been
the first of the cardinal points,—the emperor’s throne and all
£24 IISTORY OF THE SEA.
the Government edifices invariably being built to face the south.
A Chinese work of authority, composed about the year 1000,
contains this passage :—“Fortune-tellers rub the point of a
needle with a loadstone to give it the power of indicating the
south.” .
A medical natural history, published in China in 1112, speaks
even of the variation of the needle,—a phenomenon first noticed
in Europe by Christopher Columbus in 1492:—‘“When,”’’ it
says, ‘‘a point of iron is touched by a loadstone, it receives the
power of indicating the south: still, it declines towards the east,
and does not point exactly to the south.’’ This observation,
made at the beginning of the twelfth century, was confirmed by
magnetic experiments made at Pekin, in 1780, by a Frenchman;
only the latter, finding the variation to be from the north, set it
down as from 2° to 2° 30/ to the west, while the Chinese, per.
sisting in calling it a variation from the south, set it down as
being from 2° to 2° 30 to the east.
Thus, the Chinese, who were acquainted with the polarity of
a magnetized needle as early as the year 121, and who noticed
the variation in 1112, may be safely supposed to have employed
it at sea in the long voyages which they made in the seventh
and eighth centuries, the route of which has come down to
us. Their vessels sailed from Canton, through the Straits of
Malacca, to the Malabar coast, to the mouths of the Indus
and the Euphrates. It is difficult to believe that, aware of
the use to which the needle might be applied, they did not so
apply it.
While thus claiming for the Chinese the first knowledge and
application of the polarity of the needle, we may say, incidentally,
that it is now certain that they made numerous other discoveries
of importance long before the Europeans. They knew the at-
tractive power of amber in the first century of our era, and a
Chinese author said, in 824, “‘The magnet attracts iron, and ~
amber attracts mustard-seed.”’ They ascribed the tides to the
INVENTION OF THE COMPASS. 12a
influence of the moon in the ninth century. Printing was in-
vented in the province of Chin about the year 920, and gun-
powder would seem to have been made there long before Berthold
Schwartz mixed it in 1330. Still, it is net necessary to resort
to the argument of analogy to support the claims of the Chi-
nese to this admirable invention: the direct evidence, as we have
rehearsed it, is amply sufficient.
| Ly) 7 :
SS
MY
y
CHINESH JUNK.
A century ago, Flavio Gioia, a captain or pilot of Amalfi, in
the kingdom of Naples, was recognised throughout Europe as
the true inventor of the compass. He lived in the beginning
of the fourteenth century, and biographers have even fixed the
date of the memorable invention at the year 1303. The prin-
cipal foundation for this assertion was the following line from a
126 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
poem by Antonio of Bologna, who lived but a short time after
Gioia :—
‘‘Pyima dedit nautis usam magnetis Amalpb's.”
Amalfi first gave to sailors the use of the magnet.
The tradition was subsequently confirmed by the statement made
by authors of repute, that the city of Amalfi, in order to comme-
morate an invention of so much importance, assumed a compass
for its coat of arms. This was believed till the year 1810, when
the coat of arms of Amalfi was found in the library at Naples.
It did not answer at all to the description given of it: instead
of the eight wings which were said to represent the four cardin+'
points and their divisions, it had but two, in which no resemblance
to a compass could be traced. Later investigations have, as we
have said, completely demolished all the arguments by which
the compass was maintained to be of European origin and of
modern date. The curious reader will find the extracts from
Chinese works whicn substantiate the Chinese claim, in a volume
upon the subject published in 1834, at Paris, by M. J. Klaproth,
and composed at the request of Baron Humboldt.
in the sketch which we are now about to give of the Portu-
guese voyages to the African coast, 1¢ will be remarked that the
compass was already introduced and acclimated. No mention
whatever is extant of the first venture made upon the Atlantic
uncer the avspices of this mysterious but unerring guide. Science
aad history must forever regret that the first European navigator
who employed it did not leave a record of the experiment.
What would be more interesting to-day than the log of the
eer.est voyage thus accomplished in European waters? The
modern reader would surely give his sympathy, unreservedly, to
a narrative in which the navigator should describe his wonaer,
his terror, his joy, when, throughout the voyage, he saw the
tremulous index point invariably north; when, upon the disper-
sion of the clouds which had concealed the Star from view, it
was found precisely where the needle indicated: when, upon its
TITHE NORTH MAGNETIC POLE. 125
being diverted from the line of direction by some curious and
perhaps incredulous experimenter, it slowly but surely returned,
remaining fixed and constant through storm and calm, at mid-
night and at noon. What would be more interesting than the
speculations of such a captain upon the cause of the marvellous
dispensation? And what more amusing than the commentaries
ZZ
Z Laid
SHIP OF FOURLBKKENIH CRNIURKY.
of the forecastle, and the learned explanations of the veteran
salts to the raw recruits? But all this absorbing lore has hope-
lessly disappeared, and the mariner’s compass will forever remain
mysterious in its principle, mysterious in its origin, mysterious
in its history. We shall have occasion to return to the subject
from another point of view, when, in describing the Arctic
voyages of the present century, we shall find James Clarke Ross
standing upon the North Magnetic Pole.
TENERIVE EE,
PROM THE APPLICATION OF THE MAGNETIC NEEDLE TO EURO-
PEAN NAVIGATION TO THE FIRST VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD
UNDER MAGELLAN—13800—1519.
CHAPTER XII.
THE PORTUGUESE ON THE COAST OF AFRICA—THE SPANIARDS AND THE CANARY
ISLES—DON HENRY OF PORTUGAL—THE TERRIBLE CAPE, NOW CAPE BOJADOR
—THE SACRED PROMONTORY—DISCOVERY OF THE MADEIRAS—A DREADFUL
PHENOMENON—A PROLIFIC RABBIT AND A WONDERFUL CONFLAGRATION—HOS-
TILITY OF THE PORTUGUESE TO FURTHER MARITIME ADVENTURE—THE BAY
OF HORSES—THE FIRST GOLD DUST SEEN IN EUROPE—DISCOVERY OF CAPE
VERD AND THE AZORES—THE EUROPEANS APPROACH THE EQUATOR—JOURNEY
OF CADA-MOSTO—DEATH OF DON HENRY—PROGRESS OF NAVIGATION UNDER
THE AUSPICES OF THIS PRINCE.
WE are now to consider at some length a series of voyages,
tedious and fruitless at first, successful in the end, undertaken
by the Portuguese, in their age of maritime heroism, to discover
128
PORTUGUESE ENTERPRISE. 129
a passage by sea to the famous commercial region of the Indies,
some general knowledge of which had been preserved since the
Persian, Macedonian, and Roman Empires. The achievements
which we are about to narrate were so surprising, so significant,
and so complete, that, as has been aptly remarked, they can
never happen again in history, unless, indeed, Providence were
to create new and accessible worlds for discovery and conquest,
or to replunge mankind for ages into ignorance and superstition.
But, before proceeding with the discoveries of the Portuguese,
we must mention a previous discovery made by accident in the
same region by the French and Spanish.
About the year 1330, a French ship was driven among a
number of islands which lay off the coast of the Desert of Sa-
hara. These had been known to the ancients as the Fortunate
Islands, and Juba of Mauritania, who is quoted by Pliny, calls
two of them by name,—Trivaria, or Snow Island, and Canaria,
or Island of Dogs. They had been lost to the knowledge of the
Europeans for a thousand years, and it was a storm which re-
vealed their existence, as we have said, to a vessel forced by
stress of weather to escape from the coast into the open sea.
The Spaniards profited by the vicinity of the group to make
discoveries and settlements among them. Trivaria became
Teneriffe, and Canaria the Grand Canary. It was here that
superstition now placed the limits of navigation, and expressed
the idea upon maps, by representing a giant armed with a
formidable club, and dwelling in a tower, as threatening ships
with destruction if they ventured farther out to sea. It is in this
immediate neighborhood that we are now about to follow the
laring and patient enterprises of the Portuguese.
Don Henry, the fifth son of John I. of Portugal, was placed
by his father, in 1415, in command of the city of Ceuta, in
Africa, which he had just conquered from the Moors. During
his stay here, the young prince acquired much information
‘relative to the seas and coasts of Western Africa, and this first
9
130 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
suggested in his mind a plan for maritime discovery, which
afterwards became his favorite and almost exclusive pursuit.
He sent a vessel upon the first voyage of exploration undeyr-
taken by any nation in modern times. The commander was
instructed to follow the western coast of Africa, and, if possible,
to pass the cape called by the Portuguese Cape Non, Nun, or
Noun. This had hitherto been considered the utmost southern
limit of navigation by the Europeans, and had obtained its
name from the negative term in the Portuguese language—im-
plying that there was nothing beyond. A current proverb
expressed the idea thus:
Whoe’er would pass the Cape of Non
Shall turn again, or else begone.
The fate of this vessel has not been reccrded; but Don Henry
continued for many years to send other vessels upen the same
errand. Several of them proceeded one hundred and eighty
miles beyond Cape Non, to another and more formidable pro-
montory, to which they gave the name of Bojador—from bojar,
to double—on account of the circuit which must be made to get
CAPE BOJADOR,
around it, as it stretches more than one hundred miles into the
ocean. ‘The tides and shoals here formed a current twenty miles ©
wide; and the spectacle of this swollen and beating surge, which
precluded all possibility of creeping along close to the coast,
PORTO SANTO DISCOVERED. 131
filled these timid navigators with terror and amazement. They
dared not venture out of sight of land, and, seized with a sudden
remembrance of the fabulous herrors of the torrid zone, they
regarded the interposition of this terrific cape as a providential
warning, and sailed hastily back to Portugal. There, with that
fancy for embellishment peculiar to sailors of all ages, they
narrated stories, or, as would be said in the present day, yarns,
calculated forever to dissuade from further ventures in the lati-
tudes of Capes Non and Bojador.
Don Henry, who had returned from Ceuta, resolved, in spite
of these obstacles, to employ a portion of his revenue as Grand
Master of the Order of Christ, in further maritime experiments.
He fixed his residence upon the Sacrum Promontorium of the
Romans, of which we have given a representation in the chapter
describing the voyage of Pytheas. Here he indulged that
passion for navigation and mathematics which he had hitherto
been compelled to neglect. In 1418, two naval officers of his
household volunteered their lives in an attempt to surmount the
perils of Bojador. Juan Gonzalez Vasco and Tristan Vax
Texeira embarked in a vessel called a barcha and resembling a
brig with topsails, and steered for the tremendous cape.
Before reaching it, however, a violent storm drove them out
to sea, and the crew, on losing sight of their accustomed), land-
marks, gave themselves up to despair. But, upon the abatement
of the tempest, they found themselves in sight of an island four
hundred miles to the west of the coast. Thus was discovered
Porto Santo, the smallest of the group of the Madeiras, and
thus was the feasibility and advantage of abandoning coasting
voyages and venturing boldly out to sea made manifest. The
adventurers returned to Portugal, and gave glowing accounts of
the fertility of the soil, of the mildness of the climate, and the
character of the inhabitants. Vessels were fitted out to colo-
nize and cultivate the island; but a singular and most untoward
event rendered it useless as a place of refreshment for navi-
132 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
gators. A single rabbit littered during the voyage, and was
let loose upon the island with her progeny: these multiplied so
rapidly that in two years they eat every green thing which its
soil produced. Porto Santo was therefore, for a time, abandoned.
During their residence there, however, Gonzalez and Vax
noticed with wonder a strange and perpetual appearance in the
horizon to the southwest. A thick, impenetrable cloud hovered
over the waves, and thence extended to the skies. Some be-
lieved it to be a dreadful abyss, and others a fabulous island,
while superstition traced amid the gloom Dante’s inscription on
the portal of the Inferno:
Abandon hope, all ye who enter here!
Gonzalez and Vax bore this state of suspense with the im-
patience of seamen, while from dawn to sunset the meteor, or
the portent, preserved its uniform sullen aspect. At last they
started in pursuit. It was urged, by a Spaniard named Juan de
Morales, that the shadows hanging in the air could be accounted
for by supposing that the soil of an island in the vicinity, being
shaded from the sun by thick and lofty trees, exhaled dense and
opaque vapors, which spread throughout the sky. As the ship
advanced, the towering spectre was observed to thicken and to
expand until it became horrible to view. The roaring of the sea
increased, and the crew called on Gonzalez to flee from the fear-
ful scene. But soon the weather became calm, and deeper
shadows were observed through the portentous gloom. Faint
images of rocks seemed to the excited crew the menacing figures
of giants. The atmosphere was now transparent; the hoarse
echo of the waves abated; the clouds dispersed, and the wood-
lands were unveiled. The seamen rested on their oars, while
Gonzalez admired the wild luxuriance of nature in a spot which
superstition had so long dreaded to approach. A rivulet, issu-
ing from a glen, whose paler verdure formed a striking contrast
with the deep green of venerable cedars, seemed to pour a
MADEIRA COLONIZED. 133
stream of milk into a spacious basin. They searched in vain
for traces of either inhabitants or cattle. The abundance of
building-wood which the island furnished suggested the name
of Madeira; and a tract covered with fennel (funcha) marked
the site of the future town of Funchal.
A modern poet thus describes in verse the scene which we
have narrated in prose :
‘< Bojador’s rocks
Arise at distance, frowning o’er the surf,
That boils for many a league without. Its course
The ship holds on, till, lo! the beauteous isle
That shielded late the sufferers from the storm
Springs o’er the wave again. Then they refresh
Their wasted strength, and lift their vows to Heaven.
But Heaven denies their further search ; for ah!
_ What fearful apparition, pall’d in clouds,
Forever sits upon the western wave,
Like night, and, in its strange portentous gloom
Wrapping the lonely waters, seems the bounds
Of nature? Still it sits, day after day,
The same mysterious vision. Holy saints!
Is it the dread abyss where all things cease ?
The favoring gales invite: the bowsprit bears
Right onward to the fearful shade: more black
The cloudy spectre towers: already fear
Shrinks at the view, aghast and breathless. Hark!
*T was more than the deep murmur of the surge
That struck the ear; whilst through the lurid gloom
Gigantic phantems seem to lift in air
Their misty arms. Yet, yet—bear boldly on:
The mist dissolves: seen through the parting haze,
Romantic rocks, like the depicted clouds,
Shine out: beneath, a blooming wilderness
Of varied wood is spread, that scents the air;
Where fruits of golden rind, thick interspersed
And pendent, through the mantling umbrage gleam
Inviting.”
Gonzalez and Vax returned at once to Lisbon, where a publie
day of audience was appointed by the king to give every cele-
brity to this successful voyage. Madcira was at once colonized
and cultivated; and it is said that Gonzalez, in order to clear a
space for his intended city of Funchal, set the shrubs and
134 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
bushes on fire, and that the flames, being communicated to the
forests, burned for seven years. The sugar-cane was planted,
and its cultivation yielded immense sums until sugar-plantations
were established in Brazil and thus interfered with the monopoly.
The attention of the islanders was then transferred to the grape,
and from that time to this Madeira has supplied the world with
a favorite—nay, almost indispensable—brand of wine. |
Don Henry had now, it would appear, surmounted the prin-
cipal obstacles opposed by ignorance or prejudice to the object of
his laudable ambition. But there were many interests threatened
by a continuance of discovery by sea. The military beheld with
jealous dislike the distinction obtained by, and now willingly
accorded to, a profession they held inferior to their own. The
nobility dreaded the opening of a source of wealth which would
raise the mercantile character, and in an equal degree lower the
assumptions and pretensions of artificial social rank. Political
economists suggested that there were barren spots in Portugal
as capable of cultivation as any desert islands in the sea or any
sandy coasts within the tropics. It was urged, too, that any
Portuguese who should pass Cape Bojador would inevitably be
changed into a negro, and would forever retain this brand of his
temerity. .
While Henry was resisting the arguments of his detractors,
his father died, and was succeeded upon the throne by his son
Edward. The latter gave every encouragement te the maritime
projects of his brother, and, in 1433, one Gilianez, having in-
curred the displeasure of Henry, determined to regain his favor
by doubling Cape Bojador. Though we are without details of
the voyage, we know at least that it was successful, and that the
historians of the time represent the feat as more remarkable
than any of the labors of Hercules. Gilianez reported that the
sea beyond Bojador was quite as navigable as the Mediterranean,
and that the climate and soil of the coast were agreeable and
fertile. He was sent the next year, with Henry’s cup-bearer,
i
ud
o
THE BAY OF HORSES. 135
Baldoza, over the same route, and they advanced ninety miles
beyond the cape with the conscious pride of being the first
Europeans who had ventured so far towards the fatal vicinity of
the equator. Though they saw no inhabitants, they noticed the
tracks of caravans.
They were ordered, in 1435, to resume their discoveries, and
to prolong their voyage till they should meet with inhabitants.
In latitude 24° north, one hundred and thirty miles beyond
Bojador, two horses were landed, and two Portuguese youths,
sixteen years of age, were directed to mount them and advance
into the interior. They returned the next morning, saying that
they had seen and attacked a band of nineteen natives. A
strong force was despatched to the cave in which they were said
to have taken shelter: their weapons only were found. This
spot was called Angra dos Cavaillos, or Bay of Horses. The
two vessels continued on forty miles farther, to a place where
they killed a large number of seals and took their skins on
board. Their provisions were now nearly exhausted, and the
expedition, having penetrated nearly two hundred miles beyond
the cape, returned to Lisbon.
The Portuguese war with Tangiers now absorbed the entire
naval and maritime resources of the country, and the plague of
Lisbon stayed for a time the patriotic enterprises of Don Henry.
In 1440-42, expeditions sent in the same direction resulted in
the capture and transfer of several Moors to Portugal, and in
the payment to their captors, as ransom, of the first GOLD DUST
ever beheld by Europeans. A river, or arm of the sea, near |
the spot where this gold was paid, received, from that circum-
stance, the name of Rvo del Ouro. This gold dust at once
operated as a sovereign panacea upon the obstinacy and irrita-
tion of the public mind. It has been well remarked that “this
is the primary date to which we may refer that turn for adven-
ture which sprang up in Europe, and which pervaded all the
ardent spirits in every country for the two succeeding centuries,
136 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
and which never ceased till it had united the four quarters of
the globe in commercial intercourse. Henry had stood alone
for almost forty years; and, had he fallen before those few ounces
of gold reached his country, the spirit of discovery might have
perished with him, and his designs have been condemned as the
dreams of a visionary.’’ The sight of the precious metal placed
the discoveries and enterprises of Don Henry beyond the reach
of detraction or prejudice. Numerous expeditions were suc-
cessively fitted out:—that of Nuno Tristan, in 1443, who dis-
covered the Arguin Islands, thirty miles to the southeast of
Cape Blanco; that of Juan Diaz and others in 1444; that of
Gonzalez da Cintra in 1445, who, with seven others, was killed
fifty miles south of the Rio del Ouro,—this being the first loss
of life on the part of the Portuguese since they had undertaken
their explorations. In 1446, a gentleman of Lisbon, by the
name of Fernandez, determined to proceed farther to the south-
ward than any other navigator, and accordingly fitted out a
vessel under the patronage of the prince. Passing the Senegal
River, he stood boldly on till he reached the most western pro-
montory of Africa, to which, from the number of green palms
which he found there, he gave the name of Cape Verd. Being
CAPE VERD.
alarmed by the breakers with which this shore is lined, he returned
to Portugal with ihe gratifying news of his discovery. In 1447,
Nuno Tristan sailed one hundred and eighty miles beyond Cape
Verd, and reached the mouth of a river, which he called the Rio
AZORES DISCOVERED. 137
Grande, now the Gambia. He was attacked by the natives with
volleys of poisoned arrows, of the effects of which all his crew and
officers died but four; and the ship was at last brought home by
these four survivors, after wandering two months upon the At-
lantic. The next expedition, under Alvaro Fernando, carried
out an antidote against the poisoned shafts of the enemy, which
successfully combated the venom, as all who were wounded re-
covered.
The Agores, or Azores, were now discovered, about nine hun-
dred miles to the west of Portugal; but some doubts exist both
as to the discoverer and the date. ‘They doubtless received their
name from the number of hawks which were seen there, Acor
signifying hawk in Portuguese. Santa Maria and San Miguel
were named from the saints upon whose days they were first
seen. ‘Terceira obtained its name from the circumstance that it
was the third that was discovered. Fayal was so called from
the beech-trees it produced; Graciosa, from its agreeable cli-
mate and fertile soil; Flores, from its flowers; and Corvo, from
its crows. The various clusters of islands which thus arose in
the Atlantic, from the Azores to Cape Verd, now formed a succes-
sion of maritime colonies and nurseries for seamen, and thus
enabled navigators to avoid the coast, where the outrages they
endured from: Moors and negroes threatened to exhaust their
patience. The ships of Don Henry had now penetrated within
ten degrees of the equator, and the outcry against venturing into
a region where the very air was fatal broke out afresh. In this
point of “view, therefore, the settlement of the Azores was a
matter of no little importance. In 1449, King Alphonso gave
his uncle, Don Henry, permission to colonize these islands. In
1457, Henry obtained for them several important privileges, the
principal of which was the exemption of their inhabitants from
any duties upon their commerce in Portuguese and Spanish ports.
In the years 1455-56-57, a Venetian, by the name of Cada-
Mosto, undertook, under the patronage of Don Henry, two
138 . . HISTORY OF THE SEA.
voyages of discovery along the African coast. The narrative
of his adventures, being in the first person, is the oldest nautical
journal extant, with the single exception of one of Alfred the
Great, still in existence. But, as it is principally occupied with
descriptions of the manners and customs of the Africans, and as
he did not proceed beyond the Rio Grande, thus adding little or
nothing to maritime discovery, an account of his voyage would
be out of place here. Don Henry died shortly after the return
of Cada-Mosto from his second voyage, and for a season this
calamity palsied the naval enterprise of his countrymen. They
had been accustomed to derive from him, not only the encourage-
ment necessary for the prosecution of such attempts, but even
sailing directions and instructions upon all matters of detail.
It can easily be conceived that the demise of this illustrious
prince should temporarily dishearten navigators and paralyze
discovery. Under his auspices the Portuguese had pushed their
discoveries from Cape Non to Sierra Leone,—from the twenty-
ninth to the eighth degree of north latitude. He died at Sagres
—the city, half ship-yard, half arsenal, which he had founded _
upon the Sacrum Promontorium.
HULU
|
SEA SWALLOW.
as
CHAPTER XIII.
THE PORTUGUESE CROSS THE EQUATOR FROM GUINEA TO CONGO—JOHN II. CON-
CEIVES THE IDEA OF A ROUTE BY SEA TO THE INDIES—HIS ARTIFICES TO
PREVENT THE INTERFERENCE OF OTHER NATIONS—THE OVERLAND JOURNEY
OF COVILLAM TO INDIA—THE VOYAGE OF BARTHOLOMEW DIAZ—THE DOUBLING
OF THE TREMENDOUS CAPE—ITS BAPTISM BY THE KING—INJURIOUS EFFECTS
OF SUCCESS UPON PORTUGUESE AMBITION.
Durine the remainder of the reign of Alphonso V.—which
~ terminated in 1481—the Portuguese advanced over the coast
and Gulf of Guinea and the adjacent islands to the northern
boundary of the great kingdom of Congo, and had therefore
arrived within six hundred and fifty marine leagues of the cape
which forms the southern point of the African continent. They
had crossed the equator, and not a man had turned black. They
had entered into a brisk gold-trade with the savages of Guinea.
John II., the son and successor of Alphonso, determined to
fortify a point called Mina, from its abundant mines, and sent
out twelve vessels with building materials and six hundred men.
The negroes at first resisted, but finally yielded their consent.
The fort was constructed and named St. Jorge da Mina; the
quarry from which the first stone was taken being the favorite
god of the tribe that inhabited the coast.
John II. now added to his other titles that of Lord of Guinea.
In the hope of opening a passage by sea to the rich spice-
countries of India, he asked the support and countenance of the
different states of Christendom. But the established mercantile
interest of these countries was naturally hostile to a project
139
140 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
which aimed at changing the route of Eastern commerce. John
next applied to the Pope for an increase of power, and obtained
from his holiness a grant of all the lands which his navigators
should discover in sailing from west to east. The grand idea of
sailing from east to west—one which implied a knowledge of the
sphericity of the globe—had not yet, to outward appearance,
penetrated the brain of either pope or layman. One Christopher
Columbus, however, was already brooding over it in secret and
in silence.
It had hitherto been customary for Portuguese navigators
to erect wooden crosses upon all lands discovered by them.
John II. now commanded them to employ stone pillars six feet
high, and to inscribe upon them, in the Latin and Portuguese
languages, the date, the name of the reigning monarch, and that
of the discoverer. Diego Cam was the first to comply with this
command; he set up a column at the mouth of the river Congo.
at which he arrived in 1484. An ambassador was sent by the
chief of the territory to Portugal, where he embraced Christianity
and was baptized by the name of John. The anxiety of the
king now increased in reference to interference by other nations:
he therefore sent to King Edward, of England, an earnest request
that he would prevent the intended voyage to Guinea of two of
his subjects, John Tintam and William Fabian, with which request
Edward saw fit to comply. The Portuguese monarch now care-
fully concealed the progress of his navigators upon the African
coast, and on all occasions magnified the perils of a Congo
voyage. He declared that every quarter of the moon produced
a tempest; that the shores were girt with inhospitable rocks;
that the inhabitants were cannibals, and that the only vessels
which could live in the waters of the torrid zone were caravels
of Portuguese build. Suspecting that three sailors who had left
Portugal for Spain intended to sell the secret to the foreign
king, he ordered them to be pursued and taken. ‘Two were.
killed, and the third was broken upon the wheel. ‘‘Let every.
THE CAPE OF GOOD HOPE. 141
man abide in his element:” said John; “I am not partial to
travelling seamen.”’
We now approach-an era of great achievements. John de-
termined, in 1486, to assist the attempts made on sea by journeys
over land. Accordingly a squadron was fitted out under Bar-
tholomew Diaz, one of the officers of the royal household, while
Pedro de Covillam and Alphonso de Payra, both well versed in
Arabic, received the following order respecting a land journey :—
‘To discover the country of Prester John, the King of Abys-
sinia, to trace the Venetian commerce in drugs and spices to its
source, and to ascertain whether it were possible for ships to sail
round the extremity of Africa to India.” They went by way
of Naples, the Island of Rhodes, Alexandria, and Cairo, to Aden
in Arabia. Here they separated, Covillam proceeding to Cananor
and Goa, upon the Malabar coast of Hindostan, and being the
first Portuguese that ever saw India. He went from there to
Sofala, on the eastern coast of Africa, and saw the Island of the
Moon, now Madagascar. He penetrated to the court of Prester
John, the King of Abyssinia, and became so necessary to the
happiness of that potentate, that he was compelled to live and
die in his dominions. An embassy sent by Prester John to
Lisbon made the Portuguese acquainted with Covillam’s adven-
tures. Long ere this, however, Bartholomew Diaz had sailed
upon the voyage which has immortalized his name. He received
the command of a fleet, consisting of two ships of fifty tons
each, and of a tender to carry provisions, and set sail towards
the end of August, 1486, steering directly to the south. It is
much to be regretted that so few details exist in reference to this
memorable expedition. We know little more than the fact that
the first stone pillar which Diaz erected was placed four hundred
miles beyond that of any preceding navigator. Striking out
boldly here into the open sea, he resolved to make a wide circuit
before returning landward. He did so; and the first land he saw,
on again touching the continent, lay ene hundred miles to the
142 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
eastward of the great southern cape, which he had passed with-
out seeing it. Ignorant of this, he still kept on, amazed that
the land should now trend to the east and finally to the north.
Alarmed, and nearly destitute of provisions, mortified at the
failure of his enterprise, Diaz unwillingly put back. What was
his joy and surprise when the tremendous and long-sought pro-
montory—the object of the hopes and desires of the Portuguese
for seventy-five years, and which, either from the distance or the
haze, had before been concealed—now burst upon his view!
Diaz returned to Portugal in December, 1487, and, in his nar-
rative to the king, stated that he had given to the formidable
promontory he had doubled the name of ‘Cape of Tempests.”’
But the king, animated by the conviction that Portugal would
now reap the abundant harvest prepared by this cheering event,
thought he could suggest a more appropriate appellation. The
Portuguese poet, Camoens, thus alludes to this circumstance:
‘«« At Lisboa’s court they told their dread escape,
And from her raging tempests named the Cape.
‘Thou southmost point,’ the joyful king exclaimed,
‘Cape oF Goop Hops be thou forever named !’”
Successful and triumphant as was this voyage of Diaz, it’
eventually tended to injure the interests of Portugal, inasmuch
as it withdrew the regards of King John from other and im-
portant plans of discovery, and rendered him inattentive to the
efforts of rival powers upon the ocean. It caused him, amid
the intoxication of the moment, to refuse the services and re-
ject the science of one who now offered to conduct the vessels
of Portugal to the Indies by an untried route. It caused him,
as we shall soon have occasion to narrate, to turn a deaf ear to
the proposals of Columbus, who had -humbly brought to Lisbon
the mighty scheme with which he had been contemptuously re-
pulsed from Genoa. We have arrived at the Great Era in Navi-
gation,—the age of Columbus, da Gama, and Magellan.
earl 2
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
CHAPTER XIV.
BIRTH OF CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS—HIS EARLY LIFE AND EDUCATION—HIS
FIRST VOYAGE—HIS MARRIAGE—-HIS MARITIME CONTEMPLATIONS—HE MAKES
PROPOSALS TO THE SENATE OF GENOA, THE COURT OF VENICE, AND THE KING
OF PORTUGAL—-THE DUPLICITY OF THE ATER ge OEUME US VISITS SPAIN—
JUAN DE MARCHENA—COLUMBUS REPAIRS TO CORDOVA-—-HIS SECOND MAR-
RIAGE—-HIS LETTER TO THE KING—-THE JUNTO OF SALAMANCA—COLUMBUS
RESOLVES TO SHAKE THE DUST OF SPAIN FROM HIS FEET—MARCHENA’S
LETTER TO ISABELLA—-THE QUEEN GIVES AUDIENCE TO COLUMBUS—TIIE
CONDITIONS STIPULATED BY. THE LATTER—ISABELLA ACCEPTS THE ENTER-
PRISE, WHILE FERDINAND REMAINS ALOOF.
CrisToFERO CoLomsBo (in Spanish Colon, in French Co-
lomb, in Latin and English Columbus) was born in Genoa, in
143
144 - HISTORY OF THE SEA.
the year 1435.* His father was a wool-comber, and Chris-
topher followed, for a time, the same occupation. He was sent,
however, at the age of ten years, to the University of Pavia,
where he seems to have studied, though with little advantage,
natural philosophy and astronomy, or, as it was then called,
astrology. Returning to his father’s bench, he worked at wool-
combing, with his brother Bartholomew, till he was fourteen
years of age. By this time the natural influence of the situa-
tion, the atmosphere, and the traditions of Genoa had awakened
in him the tastes and the ambition of a sailor. The sea had
long been the home and the life of the Genoese: it was the
theatre of their glory, and their avenue to wealth. Christopher’s
great-uncle, Colombo, commanded a fleet intrusted to him by
the king, and with which he carried on a predatory warfare
against the Venetians and Neapolitans. His nephew joined his
ship, and thus became acquainted with the whole extent of the
Mediterranean, which was at that period ploughed by the pirates
of the Archipelago and the corsairs of the Barbary States. As
the vessel went armed to the teeth, the young sailor not only
learned the art of navigation, but acquired those habits of disci-
pline and subordination, of self-command and presence of mind,
which afterwards served him in so good stead. This manner of
life lasted for many years, till Columbus, at the age of thirty,
was wrecked off the coast of Portugal, and reached, with some
difficulty, the city of Lisbon. Here he found his brother Bar-
tholomew settled, and occupying himself in drawing plans, charts,
and maps for the use of navigators. Christopher joined him, and
gained a sufficient livelihood by copying manuscripts and black-
letter books, and aiding his brother in his avocations. He soon
married an Italian lady named Felippa di Perestrello, whose
* A late French biography of Columbus, a work of profound research and
erudition, by M. Roselly de Lorgues, proves beyond a cavil the accuracy of this
assertion. The work in question was published under the auspices of the Pope.
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COLOMBO, THE NAVAL WARRIOR.
146 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
father, now dead, had been Governor of the island of Porto
Santo, one of the Madeiras. This union between the humble
son of a wool-comber and the daughter of an Italian gentle-
man is deemed, by several of the biographers of Columbus, a
strong proof of the nobility of his ancestry. After his marriage,
he left for Porto Santo,—the sterile dowry of his wife,—where
his first son, Diego, was born.
We have already seen that the period was one of the greatest
excitement and expectancy in regard to maritime discovery.
Columbus had long reflected upon the existence of land in the
west, upon the sphericity of the earth, and upon the possibility of
crossing the Atlantic. He had already conceived the idea of
reaching Asia by following the setting sun across the immensity
of the waters. His mind, too, was kindled to religious enthu-
siasm by the allusions in the Bible to the universal diffusion of
the gospel, and, in his dreams of nautical discovery, the belief
that he was. destined to be an apostle, sent to extend the domi-
nion of. the cross, predominated over more worldly aspirations.
For years, while struggling with disappointment and harassed
by poverty, he pursued this idea with the pertinacity of a mono-
maniac. When forty years old, and residing at Lisbon, he pro-
posed to the Senate of Genoa to leave the Mediterranean by
the Straits of Gibraltar and to proceed to the west, in the sea
known as the Ocean, as far as the “lands where spices bloom,”
and thus circumnavigate the earth. The Genoese, whose mari-
time knowledge was confined to the Mediterranean, and who had
no fancy for adventures upon the ocean, declined listening to the
proposition, pretexting the penury of the treasury. It would
also seem that overtures made by Columbus to the Council of
Venice were similarly rejected. For a time, therefore, he
abandoned all efforts to further his desires. In 1477, he made
a voyage to Iceland, in order to discover whether it was in-
habited, and even sailed one hundred leagues beyond it,—where,
to his astonishment, he found the sea not frozen.
DUPLICITY OF THE KING. 147
_ Upon the accession of John II. to the throne of Portugal,—a
sovereign whom we have already shown to be deeply interested
in the progress of the art of navigation,—Columbus made known
to him his opinions and his plans, assigning the extension of the
gospel as the avowed and final object of the expedition. The
subject was referred to a maritime junto and to a high council,
by both of whom it was rejected as visionary and absurd. The
king was induced, however, by one of his councillors, to equip
a caravel and send it on a voyage of discovery upon the route
traced out by Columbus, and thus obtain for himself the glory of
the expedition, if successful. Columbus was invited to hand in
tothe Government his maps and charts, together with his written
views upon the whole subject. This he did, supposing, in his.
simplicity, that another examination was to be made of the
practicability of the venture. The king despatched a caravel,
under the command of one of the ablest pilots of his marine, to.
follow the track indicated. The vessel left, but soon returned,
her crew having been appalled at sight of the boundless horizon,
and her captain having lost his courage ina storm. Columbus,
indignant at this duplicity, secretly left Lisbon and returned
home to Genoa. At this period he had the misfortune to lose
his wife Felippa, who had shared his confidence in the existence
of unknown lands, and whose encouragement had sustained him
in his disappointments. This was in the year 1484. He re- ;
newed his proposal to the Senate of Genoa, which was again
rejected. He now cast his eyes upon the other Kuropean powers,
among whom the two sovereigns of Spain, Ferdinand of Ara-
gon and Isabella of Castile, seemed to deserve the preference.
Not far from Palos, upon the Spanish coast, and in sight of
the ocean, stood, upon a promontory half hidden by pine-trees,
a monastery—known as La Rabida—dedicated to the Virgin, and
inhabited by Franciscan friars. The Superior, Juan Perez de
Marchena, offered an example of fervent piety and of theological
| erudition, at the same time that he was a skilful mathematician
148 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
and an ardent practitioner of the exact sciences. He was at
once an astronomer, a devotee, and a poet. During the hours»
of slumber, he often ascended to the summit of the abbey, and,
looking out upon the ocean,—known as the Sea of Darkness,—
would ask himself if beyond this expanse of waters there was
no land yet unclaimed by Christianity. He rejected as fabulous
the current idea that a vessel might sail three years to the west
without reaching a hospitable shore. The ocean, formidable to
others and intelligible to few, was to him the abode of secrets
which man was invited to unfold.
One day a traveller rang at the gate and asked for refresh-
ment for himself and his son. Being interrogated as to the ob-
ject of his journey, he replied that he was on his way to the
court of Spain to communicate an important matter to the king
and queen. The traveller was Christopher Columbus. How he
came to pass by this obscure monastery—which lay altogether off
his route—has never been explained. A providential guidance
had brought him into the presence of the man the best calculated
to comprehend his purpose, in a country where he was totally
without friends and with whose language he was completely un-
acquainted. A common sympathy drew them together; and
Columbus, accepting for a period the hospitality of Marchena,
made him the confidant of his views. Thus, while the colleges
and universities of Christendom still held the childish theory that
the earth was flat, and that the sea was the path to utter and
outer darkness, Columbus and Marchena, filled with a sponta-
neous and implicit faith, intuitively believed in the sphericity of
the globe and the existence of a nameless continent beyond the
ocean. In theory they had solved the great question whether
the ship which should depart by the west would come back by
the east.
Marchena gave Columbus a letter of recommendation to the
queen’s confessor, and, during his absence, promised to educate
and maintain his son Diego. Thus tranquillized in his affections,
SUSPENSE AND DISAPPOINTMENT. 149
and aided in his schemes, Columbus departed for Cordova. Here
he was destined to undergo another disappointment; for the
queen’s confessor, his expected patron, treated him as a dream-.
ing speculator and needy adventurer. He soon became again.
isolated and forgotten. In the midst of his indigence, however,
a noble lady, Beatrix Enriquez, young and beautiful, though:
not rich, noticed his manners and his language, so evidently above
his condition, and detained him at Cordova long after his hopes
were extinguished. He married her: she bore him a son, Fer-
nando, who afterwards became his father’s biographer and his-
torian. |
Columbus now wrote to the king a brief and concise letter,
setting forth his desires. It was never answered. After a mul-:
titude of similar deceptions and disappointments, Geraldini, the:
ambassador of the Pope, presented him to Mendoza, the Grand’
Cardinal, through whose influence Columbus obtained an audience:
of Ferdinand, who appointed a junto of wise men to examine:
and report upon his scheme. This junto, made up of theologians.
and not of navigators and geographers, and which sat at Sala-
manca, opposed Columbus on biblical grounds, declared the-
theory a dangerous if not heretical innovation, and finally re--
ported unfavorably. This decision was quite in harmony with.
public opinion in Salamanca, where Columbus was spoken of as.
‘Ca foreigner who asserted that the world was round like an.
orange, and that there were places where the people walked on:
their heads.” Seven years were thus wasted in solicitation, sus--
pense, and disappointment. From time to time Columbus had
reason to hope that his proposals would be reconsidered; but in
-1490 the siege of Baza, the last stronghold of the Moors, and in
1491 the marriage of Isabella, the daughter of Ferdinand and
Isabella, with Don Alonzo of Portugal, absorbed the attention
of their majesties to the exclusion of all scientific pre-occupations.
Finally, when the matter was reopened, and the junto was re-
assembled, its president, Fernando de Talavera, was instructed
150 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
‘to say that the exhaustion of the treasury necessitated the post.
ponement of the whole subject until the close of the war with
Grenada. At last, Columbus, reflecting upon the delays, re-
fusais, affronts, and suspicions of which he had been the object,
the time he had wasted, and the antechambers in which he had
waited the condescension of the great, resolved to shake the dust
of Spain from his feet, and returned to the abbey of his friend
Marchena. He arrived there bearing upon his person the im-
press of poverty, fatigue, and exhausted patience. Marchena
was profoundly annoyed by the reflection that the glory of the
future discoveries of Columbus would be thus taken from Spain
and conferred upon some rival power. Fearing, however, that
‘he had too readily lent his ear to theories which had been twice
rejected as puerile by a competent junto, he sent for an eminent
mathematician of Palos, Garcia Hernandez, a physician by pro-
fession. They then conferred together upon the subject and pro-
nounced the execution of the project feasible. The assertion that
the famous sailor Martin Alonzo Pinzon was a party to the confer-
ence would appear to be an error. Pinzon was at this period at
Rome, and did not see Columbus for a year or more afterwards.
Marchena at once wrote an eloquent letter to Queen Isabella,
and intrusted it to a pilot whose relations with the court rendered
him a safe and reliable messenger. He gave the missive into
the hands of the queen, and returned to the monastery the
‘bearer of an invitation to Marchena to repair at once to Santa
Fe, where the court then was, engaged in investing Grenada.
‘Columbus borrowed a mule for the friar, who left secretly at
midnight and arrived safely at Santa Fe. That Isabella should,
at such a moment, when engaged in war and harassed by finan-
cial embarrassments, listen to a proposition which had been twice
condemned by a learned body of men, is a circumstance which
entitles her in the highest degree to a share in the glory which
her protégé Columbus was, through her, destined to obtain.
She received Marchena graciously, and instructed him to summon
ite,
COLUMBUS’ CONDITIONS. 151
Columbus, to whom she sent twenty thousand maravedis—
seventy dollars, nearly—with which to purchase a horse and
a proper dress in which to appear before her.
Columbus arrived at Santa Fe just before the surrender of
Grenada and the termination of the struggle between the Cres-
cent and the Cross. He was present at the delivery of the keys
of the city and the abandonment of the Alhambra to Isabella
by the Moorish king, Boabdil el Chico. After the official re-
joicings, the queen gave audience to Columbus. As she already
believed in the practicability of the scheme, the only subjects to
be discussed were the means of execution, and the recompense to
be awarded to Columbus in case of success. A committee was
appointed to consider this latter point. Columbus fixed his con-
ditions as follows:
He should receive the title of Grand Admiral of the Ocean:
He should be Viceroy and Governor-General of all islands and
mainlands ne might discover :
He should levy a tax for his own benefit upon all productions
—whether spices, fruits, perfumes, gold, silver, pearls, or dia-
monds—discovered in, or exported from, the lands under his
authority :
And his titles should be transmissible in his family, forever,
by the laws of primogeniture.
These conditions, being such as would place the threadbare
solicitor above the noblest house in Spain, were treated with de-
rision by the committee, and Columbus was regarded as an in-
solent braggart. He would not abate one tittle of his claims,
though, after eighteen years of fruitless effort, he now saw all his
hopes at the point of being again dashed to earth. He mounted
his mule, and departed for Cordova before quitting Spain for-
ever.
Two friends of the queen now represented the departure of
Columbus as an immense and irreparable loss, and, by their sup-
plications and protestations, induced her once more to consider
2 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
the vast importance of the plans he proposed. Moved by their
persuasions, she declared that she accepted the enterprise, not
jointly, as the wife of the King of Spain, but independently, as
Queen of Castile. As the treasury was depleted by the drains
of war, she offered to defray the expenses with her own jewels.
A messenger was despatched for Columbus, who was overtaken
a few miles from Grenada. He at first hesitated to return ; but,
after reflecting upon the heroic determination of Isabella, who
thus took the initiative in a perilous undertaking, against the re-
port of the junto, the advice of her councillors, and in spite of
the indifference of the king, he obeyed with alacrity, and re-
turned to Santa Fe.
He was received with distinction by the court and with affec-
tionate consideration by the queen. Ferdinand remained a
stranger to the expedition. He applied his signature to the
stipulations, but caused it to be distinctly set down that the
whole affair was undertaken by the Queen of Castile, at her own
risk and peril,—thus excluding himself forever from lot or parce!
in this transcendent enterprise.
CHAPTER XY.
THE PORT OF PALOS—-THE SUPERSTITION OF ITS MARINERS—THE HAND OF
SATAN—A BIRD WHICH LIFTED VESSELS TO THE CLOUDS—THE PINTA ANB
THE NINA—THE SANTA MARIA—CAPACITY OF A SPANISH CARAVEL—THE
THREE PINZONS—-THE DEPARTURE—COLUMBUS JOURNAL—THE HELM OF
THE PINTA UNSHIPPED—THE VARIATION OF THE NEEDLE—THE APPEARANCE
OF THE TROPICAL ATLANTIC—FLOATING VEGETATION—THE SARGASSO SEA—
ALARM, AND THREATENED MUTINY, OF THE SAILORS—PERPLEXITIES OF CO-
LUMBUS—LAND! LAND! A FALSE ALARM—INDICATIONS OF THE VICINITY OF
LAND——-MURMURS OF THE CREWS—OPEN REVOLT QUELLED BY COLUMBUS—
FLOATING REEDS AND TUFTS OF GRASS—LAND AT LAST—THE VESSELS
ANCHOR OVER-NIGHT.
CotumBus received his letters-patent, granting him all the
privileges and titles he had demanded, on the 30th of April,
1492. His son Diego was made page to the prince-royal,—
a favor only accorded to children of noble families. The
harbor of Palos was chosen as the port of departure; and its
inhabitants, whose annual taxes consisted in furnishing two
caravels, armed and manned, to the Government, were in-
structed to place them, within ten days, at the orders of
Columbus. Persons awaiting trial or condemnation were to
have the privilege of escaping verdict and punishment by
embarking upon this terrible and perhaps fatal voyage.
The mariners of Palos received these tidings with dismay.
Nothing was certainly in those days more calculated to strike
with terror the cautious coaster than a voyage upon the bound-
less, endless Marz TENEBROSUM, which, in the imagination not
only of the ignorant, but even of the educated, was the home
153
154 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
of chaos, if not the seat of Erebus. Upon the maps of the -
world designed at this period, the words Mare Tenebrosum were
surrounded with figures of imps and devils, compared to which —
the Cyclops, griffins, and centaurs of mythology were modest
and benign creations. The Arabians, who were forbidden by
the Koran to depict the forms of animals, gave, as they thought,
a fitting character to the sea, by representing the hand of Satan
upon their charts, ready to clutch and drag beneath the waves
all who should be so rash as to brave the displeasure of Bahr-al-
Talmet. Besides Satan, besides the Leviathan and Behemoth, and
other similar submarine terrors, the adventurer upon the open
sea would find adversaries in the air;.and, if he escaped the blast
and the thunderbolt, it would be to fall a victim to the roc, that
gigantic bird which lifted ships into the air and crunched them
in the clouds. This roc, from terrifying the companions of
Columbus, has descended to amuse children in the nautical
romance of Sinbad the Sailor.
Time passed, and the authorities of Palos had yet furnished
nothing towards the voyage. Owners of vessels hid them in
distant creeks, and the port became gradually a desert. The
court ordered stringent measures, and at last a caravel named
the Pinta was seized and laid up for repairs. All the carpenters
turned sick, and neither rope, wood, nor tar were to be found. In
vain did Marchena, the zealous Franciscan of Palos, who was
beloved by all its inhabitants, undertake a crusade among the
seafaring population in favor of the project: the whole Anda-
lusian coast considered it chimerical and a temptation of Pro-
vidence.
Martin Alonzo Pinzon, one of three brothers, all seamen, and
who had at this period lately returned from Rome, where the
Pope’s librarian had shown-him a map bearing the representa-
tion of land in the Atlantic to the west, was introduced by Mar-
chena to Columbus. The report soon became current that the
brothers, whose credit and influence at Palos were very great,
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156 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
intended to risk the adventure on board of the caravel Nina,
belonging to the younger of the three. The mariners took
courage, and the city of Palos contributed its second carayel,
the Gallega, making three in all. This Gallega, though old
and heavy and unfit for the service, was stout and solid, and
Columbus chose her for his flag-ship, rebaptizing her, however,
the Santa Maria. Towards the end of July, the vessels were
nearly ready for sea, and Columbus retired for a period to the
monastery, where he passed his days in prayer and his nights
in contemplation. On one occasion he left the convent and
appeared among the workmen: he surprised the sailors, con-
demned by the city to accompany him to the west, engaged in
putting the rudder of the Pinta together in such a manner that
the first storm would unship it. Marchena redoubled his exhor-
tations, and at last the expedition was ready.
Popular belief has, in modern times, represented these vessels
as much smaller than they probably really were. The term
caravel, of doubtful etymology, affords no indication of their
tonnage or capacity. Caravels were used, however, to trans-
port troops, provisions, and artillery, and even to fight upon
the high seas. They were sent by Portugal to the coast of
Africa. John II. had, as we have narrated, sent a vessel to
the west in order to anticipate Columbus; and this vessel was.
a caravel. The smallest of the three—the Nina—subsequently,
when at sea, took on board fifty-six men, in addition to her own
crew, a number of cannon, and a portion of the rigging of the
Santa Maria, without lowering her water-line; and Columbus.
once threatened a Portuguese officer to take one hundred of his.
men on board the Nina and carry them to Castile. Neither she,
nor the other two caravels, were the “light barks” or “ shal-
lops” which historians have delighted to represent them. The
importance of the subject requires that we describe the three:
vessels with all the minuteness which the late researches of
which we have spoken will authorize.
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158 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
The Santa Maria measured about ninety feet at the keel.
She had four masts, two of them square-rigged, and two fur.
nished with the lateen-sails of the Mediterranean. She had
a deck extending from stem to stern, and a double deck at the
poop, twenty-six feet long,—one-third, nearly, of her entire
length. The double deck was pierced for cannon, the forward-
deck being armed with smaller pieces, used for throwing stones
and grape. From the journal of Columbus we know that he
employed, in the manceuvres, quite a complicated system of
ropes and pulleys. Hight anchors hung over her sides. She
represented in her general characteristics a modern vessel of
twenty guns. She was manned by sixty-six men, not one of
whom was from Palos,—one of them being an Englishman, and
one an Irishman,—and was commanded by Columbus.
The Pinta and the Nina were decked only forward and aft,
the space in the middle being entirely uncovered. Their
armament was equal to that of sloops of sixteen and ten guns.
respectively. Alonzo Pinzon commanded the Pinta, whose total
crew, including the officers, numbered thirty men. The youngest.
of the three Pinzons, Vincent Yanez, commanded the Nina,
with twenty-three men. The provisions of the fleet consisted
of smoked beef, salt pork, rice, dried peas and other vegetables,
herrings, wine, oil, vinegar, &c., sufficient for a year.
As the day approached and the danger grew more imminent,
the apprehension increased, and the sailors expressed a desire to
reconcile themselves with Heaven and obtain absolution for their
sins. They went in procession to the monastery of La Rabida,
with Columbus at their head, and received the, Eucharist from
the hands of the Franciscan Marchena. Columbus, while wait-
ing for the land-breeze, retired for a last time to the convent, to
meditate upon the duties before him and to peruse his favorite
book, the Gospel of St. John. At three o’clock in the morning
of the 3d of August he was awakened by the murmuring of the.
Jong wished for wind in the tops of the pine-trees which bordered.
THE EXPEDITION STARTS. 159
his cell. The coming day was Friday, a day inauspicious to
sailors, but to him a day of good omen. He arose, summoned
Marchena, from whom he received the communion, and then
descended, on foot, the steep declivity which leads to Palos.
The Santa Maria at once sent her boat to receive the admiral,
and at the sound of the preparations and the orders of the pilots,
the inhabitants awoke and opened wide their windows. Mothers,
wives and sisters, fathers and brothers, ran in confusion to the
shore, to bid a last farewell to those whom they might perhaps
never see again. ‘The royal standard, representing the Cruci-
fixion, was hoisted at the main; and Columbus, standing upon
the quarter-deck, gave the order to spread the sails in the name
of Jesus Christ. Thus commenced the most memorable venture
upon the ocean that man had then made or has made since,—
the record of whose shortest day is more stored with incident
than was the whole voyage of Jason, from the Whirling Rocks
to the Golden Fleece.
Columbus commenced his journal at once, and it is from the
passages of this narrative which are still extant, that we shall
derive an account of the voyage. He begins by declaring the
object of the expedition to be to extend the blessings of the
gospel to nations supposed to be without it. He adds, that he
shall write at night the events of the day, and each morning the
occurrences of the night. He will mark the lands he shall dis-
discover upon the chart, and will banish sleep from his eyelids
in order to watch the progress of his vessel.
All went well till Monday, when the helm of the Pinta fell te
pieces,—this accident having been a second time prepared by
her refractory owners. The fleet made the best of their way to
the Canaries, where the Pinta was repaired. They sailed again
on the 6th of September, narrowly escaping attack from three
Portuguese caravels that King John had sent against Columbus,
indignant that he should have transferred to another power the
proposal he had once made to himself.
160 HISTORY OF THE SEA,
Thus far the route had lain over the beaten track between the
continent and the Canaries, along the coast of Africa. As they
now launched into the open sea, and as the Peak of Teneriffe
sank under the horizon behind them, the heart of Columbus beat
high with joy, while the courage of his officers and men died
away within them. The Admiral kept two logs, one for himself
and one for the crew, the latter scoring a distance less than that
which they had really made, and thus keeping them in ignorance
of their actual distance from home. His course was to the
southwest. The sky, the stars, the horizon, the water, changed
visibly as they advanced. Familiar constellations disappeared,
others took their place. On the 13th of September, Columbus
observed a strange and fearful phenomenon. The needle, which
till then had been infallible, swerved from the Polar star, and
tremblingly diverged to the northwest. The next day this
variation was still more marked. Columbus took every pre-
caution to conceal a discovery so discouraging from the fleet,
and one which alarmed even him. The water now became more
limpid, the climate more bland, and the sky more transparent.
There was a delicate haze in the air, and a fragrance peculiar to
the sea in the fresh breeze. Aquatic plants, apparently newly
detached from the rocks or the bed of the ocean, floated upon the
waves. For the first time in the history of the world, the tranquil
beauties and the solemn splendors of the tropical Atlantic were
passing before the gaze of human beings. According to the journal
of Columbus, ‘‘ nothing was wanting in the scene except the song
of the nightingale to remind him of Andalusia in April.”
The proximity of land seemed often to be indicated by the
odor with which the winds were laden, by tae abundance of
marine plants, and the presence of birds. Columbus would not
alter his course, as he did not wish to abate the confidence of
his men in his own belief that land was to be found by steering
west. The floating vegetation now became so abundant that it
retarded the passage of the vessels. The sailors became seriously
THE SARGOSSO SEA, 161
alarmed. They thought themselves arrived at the limit of the
world, where an element, too unstable to tread upon, too dense to
sail through, admonished the rash stranger to take warning and
return. They feared that the caravels would be involved be-
yond extrication, and that the monsters lying in wait beneath
the floating herbage would make an easy meal of their defence-
less crews. The trade-winds, then unknown, were another cause
of anxiety; for, if they always blew to the westward, as they
appeared to do, how could the ships ever return eastward to
Europe?’ In the midst of the apprehensions excited by these
causes, which nearly drove the terrified men to mutiny, a con-
trary wind sprang up, and the revolt was thus providentially
quelled. Columbus wrote in his journal, “this opposing wind
came very opportunely, for my crew was in great agitation,
imagining that no wind ever blew in these regions by which they
could return to Spain.’’ ,
But the terrors of the ignorant men soon broke out afresh. Sea-
weed and tropical marine plants reappeared in heavy masses,
and seemed to shut in the ships among their stagnant growth.
The breeze no longer formed billows upon the surface of the
waters. The sailors declared that they were in those dismal
quarters of the world where the winds lose their impulse and
the waters their equilibrium, and that soon fierce aquatic mon-
sters would seize hold of the keels of the ships and keep them
prisoners amid the weeds. In the midst of the perplexities to
which Columbus was thus exposed, the sea became suddenly
agitated, though the wind did not increase. This revival of
motion in the element they thought relapsed into sullen inactivity,
again cheered the crew into a temporary tranquillity.*
* This tract, so thickly matted with Gulf-weed, and covering an area equal
in extent to the Mississippi Valley, has since been called by the Portuguese
the Sargasso Sea. It still exists in the same spot, and if we now hear very
little of it, it is because navigators have learned to avoid it. Lieut. Maury ac-
11
162 HISTORY OF THE SEA,
At sunset on the 25th, Alonzo Pinzon, rushing excitedly upon
the quarter-deck of the Pinta, shouted, ‘Land! land! My lord,
I was the first to see it!” The sailors of the Nina clambered
joyfully into the tops, and Columbus fell upon his knees in
thanksgiving. But the morn dissipated the illusion, and the
ocean stretched forth its illimitable expanse as before. On the
Ist of October, one of the heutenants declared with anguish that
they were seventeen hundred miles from the Canaries, intelli-
gence which terribly alarmed the crew, though they had really
made a much greater distance, being actually twenty-one hun-
dred miles from Teneriffe, according to Columbus’ private reck-
oning. .
The indications of the vicinity of land had been so often de-
ceitful, that the crew no longer put faith in them, and fell from
| discouragement into taciturnity, and from taciturnity into insub-
ordination. ‘The discontent was general, and no efforts were
made to conceal it. In their mutinous conversations, they spoke
contemptuously of Columbus as “the Genoese,” as a charlatan
and a rogue. Was it just, they said, that one hundred and
twenty men should perish by the caprice and obstinacy of one
single man, and that man a foreigner and an impostor? If he
persisted in proceeding ‘‘ towards his everlasting west, which went
on and on, and never came to an end,” he ought to be thrown
into the sea and left there. On their return they could easily
say that he had fallen into the waves while gazing at the stars.
A revolt was agreed upon between the crews of the three ships,
counts for its existence in the following manner :—‘‘ Patches of this weed are
always to be seen floating along the Gulf Stream. Now, if bits of cork, or
chaff, or any floating substance, be put in a basin, and a circular. motion be
given to the water, all the light substances will be found crowding together near
the centre of the pool, where there is the least motion, Just such a basin is
the Atlantic Ocean to the Gulf Stream, and the Sargasso Sea is the centre of
the whirl. Columbus found this weedy sea in his voyage of discovery, and
there it has remained to this day.”
SIGNS OF LAND. 163
who were on several occasions brought into communication by
the sending of boats from the one to the other. The captains
of the Pinta and the Nina were aware of what was transpiring,
but for the time being maintained a cautious neutrality. The
sea continued calm as the Guadalquivir at Seville, the air was
laden with tropical fragrance, and in twenty-four hours the fleet,
apparently at rest, glided imperceptibly over one hundred and
eighty miles. This motionless rapidity, as it were, thoroughly
terrified the crew, and, breaking out into open mutiny, they re-
fused, on the 10th of October, to go any farther westward. The
Nina and the Pinta rejoined the Santa Maria; the brothers
Pinzon, followed by their men, leaped upon her deck, and com-
manded Columbus to put his ship about and return to Palos.
At this most vital point of the narrative, our authorities are
contradictory, while the journal of Columbus himself is silent.
According to Oviedo, —a writer who obtained his information from
an enemy of Columbus,—the latter yielded to his men so far as to
propose a compromise, and to consent to return unless land was
discovered in three days’ sail. ‘To say the least, such a submis-
sion to the menaces and behests of his infuriated subalterns was
not an act compatible with the character of Columbus, with his
well known self-reliance, and his openly expressed and constantly
reiterated confidence in the Divine protection. The Catholic
biography, which we have quoted, attributes the pacification of
the revolt directly to the Divine interference, asserting that. no
human philosophy can explain this sudden and complete suspen-
sion of the prevailing exasperation and animosity. It is certain,
at any rate, that the demonstration, which began at night-fall,
had ceased long before the morning’s dawn.
And now pigeons flew in abundance about the ships, and
green canes and reeds floated languidly by. A bush, its
branches red with berries, was recovered from the water by
the Nina. A tuft of grass and a piece of wood, which appeared
to have been cut by some iron instrument, were picked up by
164 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
the Pinta. Such indications were sufficient to sustain the most
dejected. Still the sun sank to rest in a horizon whose pure
line was unbroken by land and unsullied by terrestrial vapor.
The caravels were called together, and, after the usual prayer
to the Virgin, Columbus announced to them that their trials
were at an end, and that the morrow’s light would bring with it
the realization of all their hopes. The pilots were instructed
to take in sail after midnight, and a velvet pourpoint was pro-
mised to him who should first see land. The crews which, two
days before, considered Columbus as a trickster and a cheat,
now received his word as they would a gospel from on high.
The expectation and impatience which pervaded the three ships
were indescribable. No eye was closed that night. The Pinta,
being the most rapid sailer, was a long way in advance of the
others. The Nina and the Santa Maria followed slowly, for
sail had now been shortened, in her track. Suddenly a flash
and a heavy report from the Pinta announced the joyful tidings.
A Spaniard of Palos, named Juan Rodriguez Bermejo, had seen
the land and won the velvet pourpoint. Columbus fell upon his
knees, and, raising his hands to heaven, sang the Te Deum Lau-
damus. The sails were then furled and the fleet lay to. Arms
and holiday dresses were prepared, for they knew not what the
day would bring forth, whether the land would offer hospitality
or challenge to combat. The great mystery of the ocean was to
be revealed on the morrow: in the meantime, the night and the
darkness had in their keeping the mighty secret—whether the
land was a savage desert or a spicy and blooming garden.
COLUMBUS TAKING POSSESSION GF GUANAHANE.
CHAPTER XVI
DISCOVERY OF GUANAHANI—CEREMONIES OF TAKING POSSESSION—EXPLORA-
TION OF THE NEIGHBORING ISLANDS—-SEARCH FOR GOLD—CUBA SUPPOSED BY
COLUMBUS TO BE JAPAN—THE CANNIBALS—HAIT{—RETURN HOMEWARDS—A
STORM—AN APPEAL TO THE VIRGIN—ARRIVAL AT THE AZORES—CONDUCT OF
THE PORTUGUESE—COLUMBUS AT LISBON
AT PALOS—AT BARCELONA—CO-
LUMBUS’ SECOND VOYAGE—DISCOVERY OF GUADELOUPE, ANTIGOA, SANTA
CRUZ, JAMAICA—ILLNESS OF COLUMBUS—TERRIBLE BATTLE LLL al des) THE
SPANIARDS AND THE SAVAGES—COLUMBUS RETURNS TO SPAIN—HIS RECEP-
TION BY THE QUEEN—HIS THIRD VOYAGE—THE REGION OF CALMS—DIS-
COVERY OF TRINIDAD AND OF THE MAIN LAND—ASSUMPCION AND MARGA-
RITA—COLUMBUS IN CHAINS.
On Friday, the 12th of October, 1492, the kindling dawn
revealed to the wondering eyes of our adventurers the bright
colors and early-morning beauties of an island clothed in ver-
dure, and teeming with the fruits and vegetation of mid-autumn
in the tropics. Its surface undulated gently, massive forests
skirted the spots cleared for cultivation, and the sparkling water
of a fresh lake glittered amid the luxuriant foliage which encir-
cled it. An anchorage was easily found, and Columbus, dressed
in official costume, and bearing the royal standard in his hand,
landed upon the silent and deserted shore. He planted the
standard, and, prostrating himself before it, kissed the earth he
165
‘
166 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
had discovered; he then uttered the since famous prayer, the
opening lines of which were, by order of the Spanish sovereigns,
repeated by subsequent discoverers upon all similar occasions.
He drew his sword, and, naming the land San Salvador, in memory
of the Saviour, took possession of it for the Crown of Castile.
The crews recognised Columbus as Admiral of the Ocean and
Viceroy of the Indies. The most mutinous and outrageous
thronged closely about him, and crouched at the feet of one
who, in their eyes, had already wealth and honors in his gift.
The island at which Columbus had landed was ealled by the
natives Guanahani, and is now one of the archipelago of the
Bahamas. The inhabitants had retreated to the woods at the
arrival of the strangers; but, being gradually reassured, suffered
their confidence to be won, and received from them fragments
of glass and earthen-ware as presents possessing a supernatural
virtue. Columbus took seven of them on board, being anxious
_ to convey them to Spain and offer them to the king, promising
however to return them. Then he weighed anchor and explored
the wonderful region in which these lovely islands he. New
lands were constantly, as it were, rising from the waves; the eye
could hardly number them, but the seven natives called over a
hundred of them by name. He landed successively at Concep-
cion, la Fernandine, and Isabella; at all of which he was en-
chanted by the magnificence of the vegetation, the superb
plumage of the birds, and the delicious fragrance with which the
forests and the air were filled. He sought everywhere for
traces of gold in the soil, for he hoped thus to interest Spain in
a continuance of his explorations. Such was his desire to ob-
tain a sight of the precious metal, that he passed rapidly from
island to island, indifferent to every other subject. At last, the
natives spoke of a large and marvellous land, called Cuba, where
there were spices, gold, ships, and merchants. Supposing this
to be the wonderful Cipango, described by Mareo Polo, he set
sail at once. It was now the 24th of October.
THE NINA HOMEWARD BOUND.
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167
168 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
On the 28th, at dawn, Columbus discovered an island, which,
in its extent and in its general characteristics, reminded him
strongly of Sicily, in the Mediterranean. As he approached, his
senses underwent a species of confusion from the miraculous
fertility and luxuriance of the vegetation. In his journal, he
does not attempt to describe his emotions, but, preserving the
silence of stupefaction, says simply that “he never saw any thing
so magnificent.’’ He no longer doubted that this beautiful spot
was the real Cipango. He landed, gave to the island the name
of Juana, and commenced a search for gold, which resulted in a
complete disappointment. On leaving Cuba, he gave it a name
which he thought more appropriate than Juana, styling its
eastern extremity Alpha and Omega, being, as he thought, the
region where the East Indies finished and where the West
Indies began. This error of Columbus was the cause of the
North American savages being called Indians—an error which
has been perpetuated in spite of the progress of geographical
discovery, and which will doubtless endure forever.
On the 6th of December, he discovered an island, named
Haiti by the natives, and which he called Hispaniola, as it re-
minded him of the fairest tracts of Spain. He found that the
inhabitants had the reputation with their neighbors of de-
vouring human flesh; they were called Caniba people, an epithet
which, after the necessary modifications, has passed into all
European languages. The Caribs were the nation meant. At
this point, the captain of the Pinta deserted the fleet, in order
to make discoveries on his own account. Soon after, the Santa
Maria was wrecked upon the coast of Haiti, and Columbus,
thinking that this accident was intended as an indication of the
Divine will that he should establish a colony there, built a fort of
live timber, in which he placed forty-two men. He weighed
anchor in the Nina, on the 11th of January, 1493, and shortly
after fell in with the Pinta. He pretended to believe and accept
the falsehoods and contradictions which Pinzon alleged as the
THE PILGRIMAGE BY LOT. 169
reasons for his abandonment of the fleet. The two vessels now
turned their heads east, Columbus hoping to discover a cannibal
island on his way, as he wished to carry a professor of the dis-
gusting practice to Spain.
No event of moment happened until the 12th of February, a
month afterwards, when a terrible storm burst over the hitherto
tranquil waters. Its violence increased to such a degree that
nothing remained but a desperate appeal to ‘Mary, the Mother
of God.’ <A quantity of dried peas, equal in number to the
number of men on board the Nina, were placed in a sailor’s
woollen cap, one of them being marked with a cross. He who
should draw this pea, was to go on a pilgrimage to the church
of Saint Mary at Guadeloupe, bearing a candle weighing five
pounds, in case the ship were saved. Columbus was the first to
draw, and he drew the marked pea. Other vows of this sort
were made, and, finally, one to go in procession, and with bare
feet, to the nearest cathedral of whatever land they should first
reach. The admiral, fearing that his discovery would perish °
with him, withdrew to his cabin, during the fiercest period of
the turault, and wrote upon parchment two separate and concise
narratives of his discoveries. He enclosed them both in wax,
and, placing one in an empty barrel, threw it into the sea. The
other, similarly enclosed, he attached to the poop of the Nina,
intending to cut it loose at the moment of going down. Hap-
pily, the storm subsided; and, on the 17th, the shattered vessels
arrived at the southernmost island of the Azores, belonging to
the King of Portugal. Here half the crew went in procession
to the chapel, to discharge their vow; and, while Columbus was
waiting to go with the other half, the Portuguese made a sally,
surrounded the first portion, and made them prisoners. After a
useless protest, Columbus departed with the men that remained,
having with him, in the Nina, but three able-bodied seamen.
Another storm now threw him upon the coast of Portugal, at
the mouth of the Tagus. Here he narrowly escaped shipwreck
170 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
a second time, but, with the assistance of the wonder-stricken
inhabitants, reached in safety the roads of Rostello. The king,
though jealous of the maritime renown he was acquiring for
Spain, received him with distinction and dismissed him with
presents. Columbus arrived,.in the Nina, at Palos on Friday,
the 15th of March, seven months and twelve days after his de-
parture. Alonzo Pinzon had already arrived in the Pinta, and,
believing Columbus to have perished in the storm, had written
to the court, narrating the discoveries made by the fleet, and
claiming for himself the merit and the recompense.
It is not our province to relate the history of the career of
Columbus upon land, nor have we space so to do. We can only
briefly allude to his discharge, by pilgrimages to holy shrines,
of the vows, which, three times out of four, had, by lot, devolved
upon him: to the week he spent with Marchena, and in the
silence of the cloister, at la Rabida; to the princely honors he
received in his progress to Barcelona, whither the court had
‘gone; to his reception by the king and queen, in which Ferdi-
nand and Isabella rose as he approached, raised him as he
kneeled to kiss their hands, and ordered him to be seated in
their presence.
The Spanish sovereigns soon fitted out a new expedition; and,
on the 25th of September, 1493, Columbus left the port of
Cadiz with seventeen vessels, five hundred sailors, soldiers,
citizens and servants, and one thousand colonists, three hundred
of whom had smuggled themselves on board. He sailed directly
for the Carib or Cannibal Islands, and on the 3d of November
arrived in their midst. He named one of them Maria-Galanta,
from his flag-ship; another, Guadeloupe, from one of the shrines
of Spain where he had discharged a vow. He here found
numerous and disgusting evidences of the truth of the story
that these people lived on human flesh. The island which he
named Montserrat, in honor of the famous sanctuary of that
name, had been depopulated by the Caribs. He gave to the
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172 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
next land the name of Santa Maria I’ Antigoa; it is now known
as Antigoa, simply. Another he called Santa Cruz, in honor
of the cross. Returning to Hispaniola, he found the fort de-
stroyed and the garrison massacred. Having founded the city
of Isabella upon another part of the island, he sent back twelve
of his ships to Spain, and with three of the remaining five, one
of which was the famous Nina, started upon a voyage of dis-
covery in the surrounding waters. He touched at Alpha and
Omega, and inquired of the savages where he could find gold.
They pointed to the south. Two days afterwards, Columbus
descried lofty mountains, with blue summits, upon an island to
which he gave the name of Jamaica, in honor of St. James.
Then returning to Cuba, and following the southern coast a dis-
tance sufficient to convince the three crews that it was a conti-
nent and not an island, he took possession of it as such. He
then wished to revisit the Caribbean Islands and destroy the
boats of the inhabitants, that they might no longer prey upon
their neighbors, but the direction of the winds would not permit
him to sail to the west. Returning to Isabella, he met his
brother Bartholomew, who had just arrived from Spain, bearing
a letter from the queen. He also found, to his extreme regret,
that the officers he had left in charge of the colony had tran-
scended their authority and had abandoned their duties. Mar-
garit, the commander, and Boil, the vicar, had departed in the
ship that had brought Bartholomew. Overcome by the toils and
privations he had undergone, and sick at heart at the sight of
the disasters under which the colony was laboring, he fell into a —
deep lethargy, and for a long time it was doubtful whether he
would ever awake again.
He did awake, however, but only to a poignant consciousness
of the miseries the Spanish invasion had brought upon the island.
The Spaniards and Indians had become, through the treachery
of the former, hostile during his absence, and battles, surprises,
and murders were of daily occurrence. Seeing the necessity of
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a vigorous effort in order to maintain his authority over the
natives, he led his two hundred and twenty men against a furi-
ous throng of naked, painted savages, whose numbers were de-
clared by the Spaniards to be no less than one hundred thousand.
The Indians were defeated with great slaughter, and were
subjected to the payment of tribute and to the indignity of
taxation. At this period, an officer, named Juan Aguado, sent
out by Ferdinand and Isabella upon the malicious representa-
tions of Margarit and Father Boil, to inquire into the state of
the colony and the conduct of Columbus, arrived in the island.
Columbus determined to return himself to Spain, to present in
person a justification of his course. A violent storm having de-
stroyed all-the vessels except the Nina, Columbus took the com-
mand of her, Aguado building a caravel for himself from the
wrecks of the others. They both left Isabella on the 10th of
March, 1496, taking with them the sick and disappointed, to
the number of two hundred and twenty-five, and thirty-two In-
dians, whom they forced to accompany them. They touched at
Guadeloupe for wood and water, and, after repulsing an attack
of Caribs, contrived to gain their confidence, and to obtain the
articles of which they stood in need. They left again on the
20th of April. After a long and painful voyage, in the course
of which it was proposed to throw the Indians overboard in
order to lessen the consumption of food, they arrived, without
material damage, at the port of Cadiz. Columbus wrote to the
king and queen, and during the month that elapsed before their
answer was received, allowed his beard to grow, and, disgusted
with the world, assumed the garments and the badges of a Fran-
ciscan friar. He was soon summoned to Burgos, then the resi-
dence of the court, where Isabella, forgetting the calumnies of
which he had been the object and the accusations his enemies
had heaped upon him, loaded him with favors and kindness.
Numerous circumstances prevented Columbus from requesting
the immediate equipment of another expedition. It was not
A WONDERFUL COINCIDENCE. 178
till the 30th of May, 1498, that he sailed again for his dis-
coveries in the West. He left San Lucar with six caravels, three
laden with supplies and reinforcements for the colony at Isabella,
and three intended to accompany himself upon a search for the
mainland, which he believed to exist west of Hispaniola, Cuba,
and Jamaica. On the 15th of July, in the latitude of Sierra
Leone, they came into the region of calms, where the water
seemed like molten silver beneath a tropical sun. Not a breath
of air stirred, not a cloud intercepted the fiery rays which fell
vertically upon them from the skies. The provisions decayed in
the hold, the pitch and tar boiled upon the ropes. The barrels
of wine and water opened in wide seams, and scattered their
precious contents to waste. The grains of wheat were wrinkled
and shrivelled as if roasting before the fire. For eight days this
incandescence lasted, till an east wind sprang up and wafted
them to a more temperate spot in the torrid zone.
On the 31st of July land was discovered in the west,—three
mountain peaks seeming to ascend from one and the same base.
Columbus had made a vow to give the name of the Trinity to
the first land he should discover, and this singular triune form
of the land now before them was noticed as a wonderful coinci-
dence by all on board. It was named, therefore, Trinidad ; it
lies off the northern coast of Venezuela, in the Continent of
South America. The innumerable islands, formed by the forty
mouths of the Orinoco, were next discovered, and shortly after-
wards the continent to the north, which Columbus judged to be
the mainland from the volume of water brought to the sea by
the Orinoco. Columbus was not the first to set foot upon the
New World he had discovered: being confined to his cabin by
an attack of ophthalmia, he sent Pedro de Terreros to take
possession in his stead. This discovery of the Southern portion
of the Western Continent was, however, as we shall soon have
occasion to show, subsequent to that of the Northern portion by
John Cabot, who visited Labrador in 1497.
176 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
The fleet was unable to remain in these seductive regions,
owing to the scarcity of provisions and the increasing blindness
of the admiral. He would have been glad to stay in a spot
which, in his jetter to his sovereigns, he describes as the Terres-
trial Paradise, the Orinoco being one of the four streams flowing
from it, as described in the Bible. The fact that this river
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throws from its forty issues fresh water enough to overcome the
saltness of the sea to a great distance from the shore, was one
of the circumstances which gave to this portion of the world the
somewhat marvellous and fantastic character with which the
imagination of Columbus invested it. He sailed at once from
Sede
COLUMBUS IN DESPAIR. Lee
the continent to Hispaniola, discovering and naming the islands
of Assumpeion and la Margarita. At Hispaniola he again found
famine, distress, rebellion, and panic on every side. Malversa-
tion and mutiny had brought the colony to the very verge of
ruin.
We have not space to detail the manceuvres and machinations
by which the mind of Ferdinand was prejudiced towards Co-
lumbus, and, 'in consequence of which, Francesco Bobadilla was
sent by him in July, 1500, to investigate the charges brought
against the admiral. Arrogant in his newly acquired honors,
Bobadilla took the part of the malcontents, and, placing Colum-
bus in chains, sent him back to Spain. He arrived at Cadiz on
the 20th of November, after the most rapid passage yet made
across the ocean. The general burst of indignation at the
shocking spectacle of Columbus in fetters, compelled Ferdinand
to disclaim all knowledge of the transaction. Isabella accorded
him a private audience, in which she shed tears at the sufferings
and indignities he had undergone. The king kept him waiting
nine months, wasting his time in fruitless applications for re-
dress, and finally appointed Nicholas Ovando Governor of His-
paniola in his place.
12
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COLUMBUS IN CHAINS AT CADI#Z.
CHAPTER XVII.
THE FAILING HEALTH OF COLUMBUS—HIS FOURTH VOYAGE—MARTINIQUE, PORTO .
RICCO, NICARAGUA, COSTA RICCA, PANAMA—-HIS SEARCH FOR A CHANNEL
ACROSS THE ISTHMUS—HE PREDICTS AN ECLIPSE OF THE MOON AT JAMAICA
—HIS RETURN—THE DEATH OF ISABELLA—COLUMBUS PENNILESS AT VALLA-
DOLID—HIS DEATH—HIS FOUR BURIALS--THE INJUSTICE OF THE WORLD
TOWARDS COLUMBUS—CHRISTOPHER PIGEON-—AMERIGO VESPUCCI—THE NEW
WORLD NAMED AMERICA—ERRORS OF MODERN HISTORIANS—THE DISTRICT
OF COLUMBIA—JOHN CABOT IN LABRADOR—SEBASTIAN CABOT IN HUDSON'S
BAY—VINCENT YANEZ PINZON AT THE MOUTHS OF THE AMAZON.
COLUMBUS was now advanced in years, and his sufferings and
labors had dunmed his eyesight and bowed his frame; but
his mind was yet active, and his enthusiasm in the cause of dis-
178
Reich
COLUMBUS AT PANAMA. 179
covery irrepressible. He had convinced himself, and now sought
to convince the queen, that to the westward of the regions he
had visited the land converged, leaving a narrow passage
through which he hoped to pass, and proceed to the Indies be-
yond. ‘This convergence of the land did in reality exist, but the
strait of water he expected to find was, and is, a strait of land
—the Isthmus of Panama. However, the queen approved of
the plan, and gave him four ships, equipped and victualled for
two years. Columbus had conceived the immense idea of passing
through the strait, and returning by Asia and the Cape of Gvod
Hope, thus circumnavigating the globe and proving its spherical
form. He departed from Cadiz on the 8th of May, 1502.
He touched at, and named, Martinique early in June, and after-
wards at St. Jean, now Porto Ricco. Ovando refused his request
to land at Isabella to repair his vessel and exchange one of them
for a faster sailer. Escaping a terrible storm, which wrecked
and utterly destroyed the splendid fleet in which the rapacious
pillagers of the island had embarked their ill-gotten wealth, he
was driven by the winds to Jamaica, and thence by the currents
to Cuba. Here a strong north wind enabled him to sail south
southwest, towards the latitude where he expected to find the
strait. He touched the mainland of North America at Trux-
illo, in Honduras, and coasted thence southward along the
Mosquito shore, Nicaragua, Costa Ricca, and Panama. Here he
explored every sinuosity and indentation of the shore, seeking
at the very spot where civilization and commerce now require
a canal, a passage which he considered as demanded by Nature
and accorded by Providence. He followed the isthmus as far as
the Gulf of Darien, and then, driven by a furious tropical tem-
pest, returned as far as Veragua, in search of rich gold mines
of which he had heard. The storm lasted for eight days, con-
cluding with a terrible display of water-spouts, which Columbus
is said to have regarded as a work of the devil, and to have
dispelled by bringing forth the Bible and exorcising the demon.
180 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
One of the water-spouts passed’ between the ships without in-
juring them, and spun away, muttering and terrible, to spend
its fury elsewhere.
THE WATERSPOUT,
On reaching Veragua, Columbus sent his brother up a river,
which he called Bethlehem, or by contraction Belem, to seek for
gold. His researches seeming to indicate the presence of the
precious metal, Columbus determined to establish a colony upon
the river, an attempt which was defeated by the hostility of the
natives. Their fierce resistance and the crazy state of his
vessels forced Columbus, in April, 1503, to make the best of
his way to Hispaniola with two crowded vessels, which, being
totally unseaworthy, he was obliged to run ashore at Jamaica.
There Columbus awed the natives and subdued them to obedience
and submission, by predicting an eclipse of the moon.
Thus left without a single vessel, he had no resource but to
send to Hispaniola for assistance. After a period of fifteen
months, lost in quelling mutinies and in opposing the cruelties
Ae eg
TSR
SR
ae sf
ee
BURIAL OF COLUMBUS. 181i
and exactions of the new masters of the island, he obtained a
caravel, and again sailed for Spain on the 12th of September,
1504. During the passage, he was compelled, by a severe attack
of rheumatism, to remain confined to his cabin. His tempest-
tossed and shattered bark at last cast anchor in the harbor of
San Lucar. He proceeded to Seville, where he heard, with dis-
may, of the illness, and then of the death, of his patroness
Isabella. Sickness now detained him at Seville till the spring
of 1505, when he arrived, exhausted and paralytic, before the
king. Here he underwent another courtly denial of redress.
He was now without shelter and without hope. He was com-
‘pelled to borrow money with which to pay for a shabby room
at a miserable inn. He lingered for a year in poverty and
neglect, and died at last in Valladolid, on the 20th of May,
1506. The revolting ingratitude of Ferdinand of Spain thus
caused the death, in rags, in destitution, and in infirmity, of
the greatest man that has ever served the cause of progress or
labored in the paths of science. Had we written the life of
Columbus, and not thus briefly sketched the history of his
voyages, we should have found it easy to assert and maintain.
his claim to this commanding position.
The agitation of the life of Columbus followed his remains to
the grave,—for he was buried four successive times, and his
dead body made the passage of the Atlantic. It was first de-
posited in the vaults of the Franciscan Convent of Valladolid,
where it remained seven years. In 1513, Ferdinand, now old:
and perhaps repentant, caused the coffin to be brought from
Valladolid to Seville, where a solemn service was said over it
in the grand cathedral. It was then placed in the chapel be-
longing to the Chartreux. In 1536, the coffin was transported
to the city of St. Domingo, in the island of Hispaniola. Here
it remained for two hundred and sixty years. In 1795, Spain |
ceded the island to France, stipulating that the ashes of Colum-
bus should be transferred to Spanish soil. In December of the‘
182 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
same year, the vault was opened, and the fragments which were
found—those of a leaden coffin, mingled with bones and dust
returned to dust—were carefully collected. They were carried
on board the brigantine Discovery, which transported them to
the frigate San Lorenzo, by which they were taken to Havana,
where, in the presence of the Governor-General of Cuba and
in the midst of imposing ceremonies, they were consigned to
their fourth and final resting-place.
[t will not be altogether out of place to group together here
the numerous and remarkable instances of the world’s injustice
and ingratitude towards Columbus. We have said that he died
in penury at Valladolid. A publication, issued periodically in |
that city from 1333 to 1539, chronicling every event of local
interest—births, marriages, deaths, fires, executions, appoint-
ments, church ceremonies—did not mention, or in any way al-
Iude to, the death of Columbus. Pierre Martyr, a poet of
Lombardy, once his intimate friend, and who had said, at the
time of his first voyage, that by singing of his discoveries he
would descend to immortality with him, seemed to think, later
in life, that he should peril his chances of immortality were he
to sing of his death, for his muse held her peace. In 1507, a
collection of voyages was published by Fracanzo de Montalbodo,
in which no mention was made of Columbus’ fourth voyage, and
in which Columbus himself was alluded to as still alive. In
1508, a Latin translation of this work was published, in the
preface to which Columbus was mentioned as still living in
honor at the court of Spain. Another famous work of the
time attributes the discovery of the New World, not to the
calculations and science of a man, but to the accidental wander-
ings of a tempest-driven caravel. Not ten years after the death
of Columbus, the chaplain of one of the kings of Italy, in a
work upon “‘Mersrable Events in Spain,” stated that a New
World had been discovered in the West by one PETER CoLuM-
pus. And, in the same taste and spirit, a German doctor, in
AMERIGO VESPUCCI. 183
the first German book which spoke of the New World, did not
‘once mention the name of Columbus, but, translating the proper
name as if it were a common noun, calls him Christoffel Daw-
ber, which, being translated back again, signifies CHRISTOPHER
PIGEON.
We shall now speak of that signal instance of public in-
gratitude and national forgetfulness which is universally re-
gretted, yet will never be repaired,—the giving to the New
World the name of America and not that of Columbia,—a sub-
stitution due to an obscure and ignorant French publisher of St.
Dié, in Lorraine.
Amerigo Vespucci, born at Florence fifteen years after Co-
lumbus, and the third son of a notary, appears to have been
led by mercantile tastes to Spain in 1486, where he became a
factor in a wealthy house at Seville. He abandoned the counter,
however, for navigation and mathematics, and took to the sea
for a livelihood. He was at first a practical astronomer, and
finally a pilot-major. He went four times on expeditions to
the New World, in 1499, 1500, 1501, 1502. During the first,
he coasted along the land at the mouths of the Orinoco, which
had been discovered by Columbus the preceding year. Even
had he been the first to discover the mainland,—which he was
not,—there would have been no merit in it, for he was merely a
subordinate officer on board a ship following in the track of Co-
lumbus, seven years after the latter had traced it upon the ocean
and the charts of the marine. He published an account of his
voyage. But it does not appear that he ever claimed honor as
the first discoverer, and the friendly relations he maintained
with the family of Columbus after the death of the latter show
that they did not consider him as attempting to obtain a dis-
tinction which did not belong to him. The error flowed from
another and more distant source. |
Columbus had died in 1506, and had been forgotten. In
1507, a Frenchman of St. Dié republished Vespucci’s narrative,
184 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
substituting the date of 1497 for that of 1499,—thus making it
appear that Vespucci had preceded, instead of followed, Co-
lumbus in his discovery of the mainland. He did not once men-
tion Columbus, and attributed the whole merit of the western
voyages to Vespucci. He added that he did not see why from
the name of Amerigo an appellation could not be derived for
the continent he had discovered, and proposed that of America,
as having a feminine termination like that of Europa, Asia, and
Africa, and as possessing a musical sound likely to catch the
public ear. This work was dedicated to the Emperor Maxi-
milian, and passed rapidly through editions in various lan-
guages.
Thus far no specific name had been given to the con-
tinent. Its situation was sometimes indicated upon maps by
a cross, and sometimes by the words TERRA SancT# CRUCIS,
stvE Munpus Novus, often printed in red capitals. In 1522,
for the first time, the name of America, under its French form
of Amérique, was printed upon a map at Lyons. Germany fol-
lowed, and the presses of Basle and Zurich aided the usurpa-
tion. Florence was but too eager to accept a name which flat-
tered her vanity; and, as Genoa did not protest in the name
of Columbus, Italy yielded to the current, and did a large share
in the labor of injustice. In 1570, the name of America was
for the first time engraved upon a metal globe, and from this
time forward the spoliation may be regarded as accomplished.
Columbus had been twice buried and twice forgotten; and now
his very name was lost,—-the continent he had found having
been baptized in honor of another, and his race in the male line
being extinct,—for Diego and Fernando had died without heirs.
In modern times, in our own day even, it has been a common
practice to depreciate the services of Columbus, and eminent
writers have thought it no disgrace to profess and testify igno-
rance of his history and life. Raynal, a French philosopher
of distinction, declared, about the year 1760, that the passage
THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA. 185
of the Cape of Good Hope by Vasco da Gama was a greater
achievement than the crossing of the Atlantic by Columbus.
He offered a prize for disquisitions upon the question, ‘‘ Has
the discovery of America been useful or prejudicial to the
human race?’ Buffon seems, too, to have considered the dis-
coveries of the Portuguese in the East as more important than
those of Columbus in the West. Robertson, in his History of
America, says that even without Columbus some happy acci-
dent would have discovered the New World a few years later.
Fontenelle, and many others, attribute the first notice of the
variation of the compass to Cabot in 1497, though Columbus
distinctly mentions noticing it in his journal on the 13th of
September, 1492. A late Spanish historian writes :—‘“ Co-
lumbus made nothing but discoveries in these regions; con-
quest was reserved for Cortez and Pizarro.” lLamartine makes
an error of fifteen years in stating the period of the return of
Columbus to Spain. Dumas asserts that Columbus passed ‘a
portion of his life in prison,’’—an expression he would not pro-
bably have used, knowingly, to designate a period of three
months. Granier de Cassagnac places the last voyage of Co-
lumbus in 1493, instead of 1502. St. Hilaire makes the cele-
brated Las Casas cross the sea with Columbus nine years too
soon. ‘These mis-statements, though not resulting in distortion
or misrepresentation of character, are the effects of that indif-
ference which for centuries history has manifested towards the
life, services, and death of Columbus.
Columbia is the poetic and symbolical name of America,
occurring in the National Anthem and in numerous effusions
of patriotic verse. An effort to avenge the memory of the dis-
coverer was made by giving his name, officially, to a tract bor-
rowed from Virginia and Maryland, and measuring one hundred
miles square,—the seat of the American Government. So far
from this tardy acknowledgment being a reparation, however,
it is probable that the spirit of the departed benefactor, if sum-
186 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
moned to speak, would declare it the last, and by no means the
least, of the long line of insults that an ungrateful posterity
had heaped upon his memory.
It will be proper to add to this view of the voyages of Co-
lumbus a brief account of those effected immediately afterwards
by John and Sebastian Cabot, and by Vincent Yanez Pinzon.
In the year 1496, Henry VII. of England, stimulated by the
success of Columbus, granted a patent to one Giovanni Gabotto,
a Venetian dwelling in Bristol, to go in search of unknown lands.
Little is known of this person, whose name has been Anglicized
into John Cabot, except that he was a wealthy and intelligent
merchant and fond of maritime discovery. He had three sons,
one of whom, named Sebastian, was nineteen years old at the
time of the voyage, upon which, with his brothers, he accom-
panied his father. They sailed in a ship named the Matthew,
and on the 24th of June, 1497, discovered the mainland of
America, eighteen months before Columbus set foot upon it at
the mouths of the Orinoco. For a long time it was supposed
that Cabot had landed upon Newfoundland, but it is now con-
sidered settled that Labrador was the portion of the continent
first discovered by a European. No account of the further
prosecution of the voyage has reached us, and the only official
record of Cabot’s return is an entry in the privy-purse expenses
of Henry, 10th August, 1497 :—‘“ To hym that found the New
Isle, 10/.”’ Thus, fifty days had not elapsed between the dis-
covery and its recompense in England,—a fact which shows
that Cabot returned home at once. He is supposed to have
died about the year 1499.
Sebastian Cabot, the second son, who is regarded as by far
the most scientific navigator of this family of seamen, appears
to have lived in complete obscurity during the following twelve
years. Disgusted, however, by the want of consideration of the
English authorities towards him, he accepted an invitation from
King Ferdinand to visit Spain in 1512. Here, for several
IN
§ Y
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AN
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|
HENRY VII.
187
188 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
years, he was employed in revising maps and charts, and, with
the title of Captain and a liberal salary, held the honorable
position of Member of the Council of the Indies. Yhe death
of Ferdinand and the intrigues of the enemies of Columbus
induced him to return to England in 1517. He was employed
by Henry VIII., in connection with one Sir Thomas Perte, to
make an attempt at a Northwest passage. On this voyage he is
said to have gained Hudson’s Bay, and to have given English
names to sundry places there. So few details of the expedition
have been preserved, that the latitude reached (673 degrees) is
referred by different authorities both to the north and the south.
The malice or cowardice of Sir Thomas Perte compelled Cabot
to return without accomplishing any thing worthy of being re-
corded. It was often said afterwards, that if the New World
could not be called Columbia, it would be better to name it
Cabotiana than America.
Vincent Yanez Pinzon, the youngest of the three brothers
who had accompanied Columbus upon his first voyage, deter-
mined, upon hearing, in 1499, that the continent was discovered,
on trying his fortunes at the head of an expedition, instead of in
a subordinate position. He found no difficulty in equipping four
caravels, and in inducing several of those who had seen the —
coast of Paria to embark with him as pilots. He sailed from
Palos in December, 1499, and proceeded directly to the south-—
west. During a storm which obscured the heavens he crossed
the equator, and on the disappearance of the clouds no longer
recognised the constellations, changed as-they were from those
of the Northern to those of the Southern hemisphere. Pinzon
was thus the first European who crossed the line in the Atlantic.
The sailors, unacquainted with the Southern sky, and dismayed
at the absence of the polar star, were for a time filled with
superstitious terrors. Pinzon, however, persisted, and, on the
20th of January, 1500, discovered land in eight degrees of
south latitude. He took possession for the Crown of Spain,
MOUTHS OF ‘THE AMAZON. 189
and named it Santa Maria de la Consolagion. We shall soon
have occasion to mention why this name was superseded by that
of Brazil.
Pinzon explored with amazement the huge mouths of the
Amazon, whose immense torrents, as they emptied into the sea,
freshened its waters for many leagues from the land. Sailing
to the north, he followed the coast for four hundred leagues,
and then returned to Palos, carrying with him three thousand
pounds’ weight of dye-woods and the first opossum ever seen in
Europe. 3
And now, having closed the fifteenth century with the
achievements of the Spanish in the West, we open the six-
teenth with those of the Portuguese in the East.
FEMALE OTTER AND HER YOUNG.
VG
VASCO DA GAMA,
CHAPTER XVIII.
PORTUGUESE NAVIGATION UNDER EMMANUEL—POPULAR PREJUDICES—THE LU-
SIAD OF CAMOENS—VASCO DA GAMA—MAPS OF AFRICA OF THE PERIOD—
RELIGIOUS CEREMONIES—THE DE-
PREPARATIONS FOR AN INDIAN VOYAGE
PARTURE—RENDEZVOUS AT THE CAPE VERDS—LANDING UPON THE COAST—
THE NATIVES—AN INVITATION TO DINNER, AND ITS CONSEQUENCES—A STORM
—MUTINY—THE SPECTRE OF THE CAPE.
In the year 1495, John II. of Portugal was succeeded by his
cousin, Emmanuel, into whose mind he had a-short time before
his death instilled a portion of his own zeal for maritime dis-
covery and commercial supremacy. He had especially dwelt
upon the necessity of continuing the progress of African re-
search beyond the point which Bartholomew Diaz had lately
reached, into the regions where lay the East Indies with their
wealth and marvellous productions, and thus substituting for the
tedious land-route a more expeditious track by sea. Upon his
190
FIRST EAST INDIAN EXPEDITION. 191
accession, Emmanuel found that a strong opposition existed to the
extension of Portuguese commerce and discovery. Arguments
were urged against it in his own councils, and had a marked
effect upon the public mind by heightening the danger of the
intended voyage.
In our narrative of the first Hast Indian expedition, we shall
often have occasion to quote from a poem written in commemo-
ration of it,—the Lusiad of Camoens, a semi-religious epic and the
masterpiece of Portuguese literature,—Lusiade being the poetic
and symbolical name of Portugal. Camoens describes at the
outset the hostility of the nation to further maritime adventure,
and places in the mouth of a reverend adviser of the king the |
following forcible appeal :
‘¢Oh, frantic thirst of Honor and of Fame,
The crowd’s blind tribute, a fallacious name;
What stings, what plagues, what secret scourges cursed,
Torment those bosoms where thy pride is nursed!
What dangers threaten and what deaths destroy
The hapless youth whom thy vain gleams decoy!
Thou dazzling meteor, vain as fleeting air,
What new dread horror dost thou now prepare?
Oh, madness of Ambition! thus to dare
Dangers so fruitless, so remote a war!
That Fame’s vain flattery may thy name adorn,
And thy proud titles on her flag be borne:
Thee, Lord of Persia, thee of India lord,
O’er Ethiopia vast, and Araby adored !”
Never was any expedition, whether by land or water, so un-
popular as this of King Emmanuel. The murmurs of the
cabinet were re-echoed by the populace, who were wrought upon
to such an extent that they believed the natural consequence of
an invasion of the Indian seas would be the arrival in the Tagus
of the wroth and avenging Sultan of Egypt. But Emmanvel,
who, we are told, ‘regarded Diffidence as the mark of a low
and grovelling mind, and Hope the quality of a noble and
aspiring soul,” discerned prospects of national advantage in the
scheme, and determined to pursue it to a prosperous issue.
192 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
King John, before his death, and shortly after the return of
Diaz, had ordered timber to be purchased for the construction
of ships fit to cope with the storms of the redoubtable Cape.
Emmanuel now sought a capable commander, and, after much
deliberation, fixed upon a gentleman of his own household,
Vasco da Gama by name, a native of the seaport of Sines, and
already favorably known for enterprise and naval skill. We
are told that ‘‘he was formed for the service to which he was
called,—violent indeed in his temper, terrible in anger, and
sudden in the execution of justice, but at the same time intrepid,
persevering, patient in difficulties, fertile in expedients, and
superior to all discouragement. He devoted himself to death if
‘he should not succeed, and this from a sense of religion and
loyalty.”” When the king acquainted him with the mission
intrusted to his charge, Vasco replied that he had long aspired to
the honor of conducting such an undertaking. Camoens makes
da Gama thus describe his acceptance of the honor:
‘¢<Tet skies on fire,
Let frozen seas, let horrid war, conspire :
I dare them all,’ I cried, ‘and but repine
That one poor life is all I can resign.’ ”
The most distinguished members of the Portuguese nobility
were present at this interview. The king gave da Gama, with
his own hands, the flag he was to bear,—a white cross enclosed
within a red one,—the Cross of the military Order of Christ.
Upon this he took the oath of allegiance. Emmanuel then
delivered him the journal of Covillam, with such charts as were
then in existence, and letters to all the Indian potentates who
had become known to the Portuguese. Among these was of
course one addressed to the renowned Prester John.
A map of Africa had been lately designed, in accordance
with the discoveries made by land, as we have mentioned, by
Covillam. The accompanying specimen is a fac-simile of one
which belonged to Juan de la Cosa—the pilot of Columbus.
MAP OF AFRICA. 193
Upon it the principal cities are indicated by a roughly sketched
house or church; the government is denoted by a picture of a
king, closely resembling the royal gentry in a pack of cards;
while flags, planted at intervals, indicate boundary lines and
frontier posts. The winds are represented by fabulous divinities
sitting round the world upon leathern bottles, whose sides they
are pressing to force out the air. The celebrated statue of the
Canaries is often seen flourishing his club at the top of his tower.
s
~—\—_\
am Ny
Te) slg
NEPA Se
(oN
Fy
———
oe ||
MAP OF AFRICA DRAWN IN THE YEAR 1497.
Abyssinia figures with its Prester John, his head being adorned
with a brilliant mitre. Other kingdoms are marked out by
portraits of their kings in richly embroidered costumes. The
inhabitants of Africa, in maps of the world, are represented as
giraffes, black men, and elephants. Portuguese camps are de-
noted by colored tents, while groups of light cavalry, splendidly
caparisoned, dotting the territory at numerous points, indicate
that the Portuguese army is making the tour of that mysterious
continent. These quaint specimens of chartographical art are,
13
194 HISTORY OF THE SEA:
in short, the faithful expression of the geographical science of
the age.
‘ The fleet equipped for da Gama’s voyage consisted of three
ships and a caravel,—the San Gabriel, of one hundred and
twenty tons, commanded by da Gama, and piloted by Pero
Dalemquer, who had been pilot to Bartholomew Diaz ; the San
Rafael, of one hundred tons, commanded by Paulo da Gama,
the admiral’s brother; a store-ship of two hundred tons; and
the caravel, of fifty tons, commanded. by Nicolao Coelho. Be-
sides these, Diaz, who had already been over the route, was
ordered to accompany da Gama as far as the Mina. ‘The crews
numbered in all one hundred and sixty men, among whom were
ten malefactors condemned to death, and who had consequently
nothing to hope for in Portugal. Their duty in the fleet was
to go ashore upon savage coasts and attempt to open intercourse
with the natives. In case of rendering essential service and
escaping with their lives, their sentence was to be remitted on
their return home.
A small chapel stood upon the seaside about four miles from
Lisbon. Hither da Gama and his crew repaired upon the day
preceding that fixed for their departure. They spent the night
in prayer and rites of devotion, invoking the blessing and pro-
tection of Heaven. On thé morrow, the adventurers marched to
their ships in the midst of the whole population of Lisbon, who
now thronged the shore of Belem. A long procession of priests
sang anthems and offered sacrifice. The vast multitude, catch-
ing the fire of devotion and animated with the fervor of religious
zeal, joined aloud in the prayers for their safety. The parents
and relatives of the travellers shed tears, and da Gama himself
wept on bidding farewell to the friends who gathered round him.
Camoens thus describes the emotions of the adventurers as
they gazed at the receding shore:
‘‘As from our dear-loved native shore we fly,
Our votive shouts, redoubled, rend the sky:
BAY OF ST. HELENA. 195
‘Success! Success!’ far echoes o’er the tide,
While our broad hulks the foaming waves divide.
When slowly gliding from our wistful eyes,
The Lusian mountains mingle with the skies ;
Tago’s loved stream and Cintra’s mountains cold,
Dim fading now, we now no more behold ;
And still with yearning hearts our eyes explore,
Till one dim speck of land appears no more.”’
The admiral had fixed upon the Cape Verd Islands as the
first place of rendezvous in case of separation by storm. They
_all arrived safely in eight days at the Canaries, but were here
driven widely apart by aetempest at night. The three captaing ©
subsequently joined each other, but could not find the admiral.
They therefore made for the appointed rendezvous, where, to
their great satisfaction, they found da Gama already arrived ;
‘and, saluting him with many shots of ordnance, and with
sound of trumpets, they spake unto him, each of them heartily
rejoicing and thanking God for their safe meeting and good
fortune in this their first brunt of danger and of peril.’’ Diaz
here took leave of them and returned to Portugal. Then, on the
3d of August, they set sail finally for the Cape of Good Hope..
They continued without seeing land during the months of
August, September, and October, greatly distressed by foul
weather, or, in the quaint language of those days, ‘by torments
of wind and rain.” At last, on the Tth of November, they
touched the African coast, and anchored in a capacious bay,
which they called the Bay of St. Helena, and which is not far
to the north of the Cape. Here they perceived the natives ‘to
bee lyttle men, ill favored in the face, and of color blacke; and
when they did speake, it was in such manner as though they did
alwayes sigh.”” Camoens rhapsodizes at length over this approach
to the land’; and it must be remembered that, having followed in
da Gama’s track as early as the year 15538, his descriptions of
scenery are those of an eye-witness:
‘‘ Loud through the fleet the echoing shouts prevail:
We drop the anchor and restrain the sail;
196 HISTORY OF THE SEA,
And now, descending in a spacious bay,
Wide o’er the coast the venturous soldiers stray,
To spy the wonders of the savage shore
Where strangers’ foot had never trod before.
I and my pilots, on the yellow sand,
Explore beneath what sky the shores expand.
Here we perceived our venturous keels had pass’d
Unharmed, the Southern tropic’s howling blast,
And now approached dread Neptune’s secret reign:
Where the stern power, as o’er the Austral main
He rides, wide scatters from the Polar Star
Hail, ice, and snow, and all the wintry war.”
?
¢ Trade was now commenced between da Gima and the natives,
and, by means of signs and gestures, cloth, beads, bells, and
glass were bartered for articles of food and other necessaries.
But this friendly intercourse was soon interrupted by an act of
imprudent folly on the part of a young man of the squadron.
Being invited to dine by a party of the natives, he entered one
of their huts to partake of the repast. Being disgusted at the
viands, which consisted of a sea-calf dressed after the manner
of the Hottentots, he fled in dismay. He was followed by his
perplexed entertainers, who were anxious to learn how they had
offended him. Taking their officious hospitality for impertinent
ageression, he shouted for help; and it was not long before
mutual apprehension brought on open hostilities. Da Gama and
his officers were attacked, while taking the altitude of the sun
with an astrolabe, by a party of concealed negroes armed with
‘spears pointed with horn. The admiral was wounded in the
foot, and with some difficulty effected a retreat to the ships.
He left the Bay of St. Helena on the 16th of November.
He now met with a sudden and violent change of weather,
and the Portuguese historians have left animated descriptions
of the storm which ensued. During any momentary pause in
the elemental warfare, the sailors, worn out with fatigue and
yielding to despair, surrounded da Gama, begging that he
would not devote himself and them to a fate so dreadful.
They declared that the gale could no longer be weathered, and
LEGEND OF THE SPECTRE. 197
that every one must be buried in the waves if they continued to
proceed. The admiral’s firmness remained unshaken, and a
conspiracy was soon formed against him. He was informed in
time of this desperate plot by his brother Paulo. He put the
ringleaders and pilots in irons, and, assisted by his brother and
those who remained faithful to their duty, stood night and day
to the helm. At length, on Wednesday, the 20th of November,
the whole squadron doubled the tremendous promontory. The
mutineers were pardoned and released from their manacles.
The legend of the Spectre of the Cape is given by Camoens
in full; and it is so characteristic of the age, and, as an episode,
is itself so interesting, that we cannot refrain from quoting it
entire. Da Gama is supposed to be relating his experience in
the first person :
‘‘T spoke, when, rising through the darken’d air,
Appall’d, we saw a hideous phantom glare.
High and enormous o’er the flood he tower’d,
And thwart our way with sullen aspect lower’d;
An earthly paleness o’er his cheeks was spread,
Erect uprose his hairs of wither’d red;
Writhing to speak, his sable lips disclose,
Sharp and disjoin’d, his gnashing teeths’ blue rows;
His haggard beard flow’d quivering in the wind;
Revenge and horror in his mien combined ;
His clouded front, by withering lightnings sear’d,
The inward anguish of his soul declared.
Cold, gliding horrors fill’d each hero’s breast ;
Our bristling hair and tottering knees confess’d
Wild dread. The while, with visage ghastly wan,
His black lips trembling, thus the fiend began:
‘Ye sons of Lusus, who, with eyes profane,
Have view’d the secrets of my awful reign,
Have pass’d the bounds which jealous nature drew
To veil her secret shrine from mortal view ;
Hear from my lips what direful woes attend,
And, bursting soon, shall o’er your race descend:
With every bounding keel that dares my rage,
Eternal war my rocks and storms shall wage.
The next proud fleet that through my drear domain
With daring hand shall hoist the streaming vane,
That gallant navy, by my whirlwinds toss’d,
And raging seas, shall perish on my coast.
19S HISTORY OF THE SEA.
Then he who first my secret reign descried,
A naked corpse, wide floating o’er the tide,
Shall drive. Unless my heart’s full raptures fail,
O Lusus, oft shalt thou thy children wail !
Each year thy shipwreck’d sons shalt thou deplore,
Each year thy sheeted masts shall strew my shore!’ ”
The illustration given opposite—a copy from an antique
original—represents da Gama’s ship and the Spectre of the
Cape. The table-land of the promontory is seen through the
drift of the tempest, towards the east. The ship is broached to,
her sails close-furled, with the exception of the foresail, which
has broken loosé and is flapping wildly in the hurricane. Both
the engraving and the description we have quoted from Camoens
are strikingly illustrative of those visionary horrors which per-
vaded the minds of the navigators of the period, and are also
characteristic of that peculiar cloud whose sudden envelopment
of the Cape is the sure forerunner of a storm. The artist seems
to have chosen the moment when the spectre, having uttered his
dreadful prophecy, 1s vanishing into air.
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THE MAN OVERBOARD, AND THE ALBATROSS. :
CHAPTER XIX.
DA GAMA AND THE NEGROES—THE HOTTENTOTS AND CAFFRES—ADVENTURE
WITH AN ALBATROSS—THE RIVER OF GOOD PROMISE—MOZAMBIQUE—TREACH-
ERY OF THE NATIVES—MOMBASSA—MELINDA, AND ITS AMIABLE KING—FES-
TIVITIES—THE MALABAR COAST—CALICUT—THE ROUTE TO THE INDIES DIS-
COVERED.
Da GAMA landed some two hundred miles beyond the Cape,
and, discharging the victualling-ship of her stores, ordered her
to be burned, as the king had directed. He then entered into
commercial relations with the natives, and exchanged red night-
caps for ivory bracelets. ‘Then came two hundred blacke men,
some lyttle, some great, bringing with them twelve oxen and four
sheep, and as our men went upon shore they began to play upon
four flutes, according with four sundry voices, the music where-
of sounded very wll. Which the generall hearing, commanded
200
HOTTENTOTS’ TERRITORY 201.
the trumpets to sound, and so they danced with our men. In
this pastime and feasting, and in buying their oxen and sheep,
‘the day passed over.”’ Da Gama had reason before long to sus-
pect treachery, however, and withdrew his men and resembarked.
It was in this place that a man falling overboard, and swimming
for a long time before the accident was observed, was followed
by an albatross, who hovered in the air just above him, waiting
the propitious moment when he could make a quiet meal upon
him. The man was subsequently rescued, and the albatross.
disappointed.
Da Gama now passed the rock de la Cruz, where Diaz had
erected his last pillar, and by the aid of a brisk wind escaped
the dangers of the currents and shoals. Losing sight of land,
he recovered it again on Christmas-day, and in consequence
named the spot Tierra da Natal,—a name which it still pre-
serves. From this point his course was nearly north, along the
eastern coast of the continent. Farther on he landed two of
his malefactors, with instructions to inform themselves of the
character and customs of the inhabitants, promising to call for
them on his return. On the 11th of January, 1498, he anchored
off a portion of the coast occupied by people who seemed peace-
ably and honestly disposed. They were, in fact, Caffres,—the’
fleet having passed the territory of the Hottentots. One of the
sailors, Martin Alonzo, understood their language,—a circum-
stance very remarkable, yet perfectly authenticated. As he
had not been lower than the Mina, on the western coast, and of |
course never upon the eastern at all, the inference seems in-
evitable that some of the negro tribes of Africa extend much
beyond the limits usually assigned them in modern geography.
After two days spent in the exchange of civilities of the most
courteous nature, the ships proceeded on their way,—da Gama
naming the country Tierra da Boa Gete,—Land of Good
People.
He next found, at the mouth of a large river, a tribe of
202 HISTORY OF THE SEA,
negroes who seemed to have made greater progress in civiliza-
tion than their neighbors. They had barks with sails made of
palm-leaves,—the only indication of any knowledge of navi-
gation the Portuguese had yet met with upon the African coast.
No one—not even Martin Alonzo—understood their language: as
far as could be gathered from their pantomime, they had come
from a distance where they had seen vessels as large as the San
Gabriel, whence da Gama conjectured that the Indies were not
far off. He gave to the river the name of Rzo dos bos Sinaes,
or River of Good Promise. The crew suffered greatly here
from the effects of scurvy,—many of them dying of the disease
and others succumbing under the consequences of amputation.
The ships were careened and repaired: thirty-two days were
spent in this labor. These incidents are thus graphically de-
scribed in the Lusiad :
‘‘ Far from the land, wide o’er the ocean driven,
Our helms resigning to the care of Heaven,
By hope and fear’s keen passions toss’d, we roam;
When our glad eyes behold the surges foam
Against the beacons of a shelter’d bay,
Where sloops and barges cut the watery way.
The river’s opening breast some upward plied,
And some came gliding down the sweepy tide.
Quick throbs of transport heaved in every heart,
To view this knowledge of the seaman’s art;
For here we hoped our ardent wish to gain,
To hear of India’s strand,—nor hoped in vain:
Though Ethiopia’s sable hue they bore,
No look of wild surprise the natives wore ;
Wide o’er their heads the cotton turban swell’d,
And cloth of blue the decent loins conceal’d.
Their speech, though rude and dissonant of sound,
Their speech a mixture of Arabian own’d.
Alonzo, skill’d in all the copious store
Of fair Arabia’s speech and flowery lore,
In joyful converse heard the pleasing tale,
‘That o’er these seas full oft the freyuent sail,
And lordly vessels, tall as curs, appear’d,
Which to the regions of the morning steer’d:
Whose cheerful crews, resembling ours, display
The kindred face and color of the day.’
MOZAMBIQUE. 203
Elate with joy, we raise the glad acclaim,
And River or Goop Siaens the port we name.
‘¢Our keels, that now had steer’d through many a clime,
By shell-fish roughen’d, and incased with slime,
Joyful we clean; while bleating from the field
The fleecy dams the smiling natives yield.
Alas! how vain the bloom of human joy!
How soon the blasts of woe that bloom destroy!
A dread disease its rankling horrors shed,
And death’s dire ravage through mine army spread.
Never mine eyes such dreary sight beheld!
Ghastly the mouth and gums enormous swell’d ;
And instant, putrid like a dead man’s wound,
Poison’d with fetid steam the air around.
Long, long endear’d by fellowship in woe,
O’er the cold dust we give the tears to flow ;
And in their hapless lot forebode our own,—
A foreign burial, and a grave unknown.”
The fleet joyfully left the River of Good Promise on the 24th
of February, and not long after discovered two groups of
islands. Near the coast of one of these they were followed by
eight canoes, manned by persons of fine stature, less black than
the Hottentots, and dressed in cotton cloth of various colors.
Upon their heads they wore turbans wrought with silk and gold
thread. They were armed with swords and daggers like the
Moors, and carried musical instruments which they called sag-
buts. They came on board as if they had known the strangers
before, and spoke in the Arabic tongue, repelling with disdain
the supposition that they were Moors. ‘They said that their
island was called Mozambique; that they traded with the Moors
of the Indies in spices, pearls, rubies, silver, and linen, and
offered to take the ships into their harbor. The bar permitting
their passage, they anchored at two crossbow-shots from the
town. ‘This was built of wood and thatch,—the mosques alone
being constructed of stone. It was occupied principally by
Moors, the rest of the island being inhabited by the natives, who
were the same as those of the mainland opposite. The Moors
traded with the Indies and with the African Sofala in ships
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THE SAN RAFAEL AND CARAVAL.
THE ISLAND OF MOMBASSA. 205
without decks and built without the use of nails,—the planks
being bound together by cocoa fibres, and the sails being made
of palm-leaves. They had compasses and charts.
The Moorish governor of Mozambique and the other Moors sup-
posed the Portuguese to be Turks, on account of the whiteness
of their skin. They sent them provisions, in return for which
da Gama sent the shah a quantity of red caps, coral, copper
vessels, and bells) The shah set no value upon these articles,
and inquired disdainfully why the captain had not sent him
scarlet cloth. He afterwards went on board the flag-ship, where
he was received with hospitality, though not without secret pre-
parations against treachery. The Portuguese learned from him
that he governed the island as the deputy of the King of
Quiloa; that Prester John lived and ruled a long distance
towards the interior of the mainland; that Calicut, whither da
Gama was bound, was two thousand miles to the northeast, but
that he could not proceed thither without the guidance of pilots
familiar with the navigation. He promised to furnish him with
two. Discovering subsequently, however, that the strangers
were Christians, the shah contrived a plot for their destruction.
The vessels escaped, but with only one pilot, whose treachery
throughout the voyage was a source of constant annoyance
and peril. On departing, da Gama gave the traitors a broad-
side, which did considerable damage to their village of thatch.
On the Ist of April, da Gama gave to an island which he
discovered the name of Acoutado, in commemoration of a sound
flagellation which was there administered to the pilot for telling
him it formed part of the continent,—upon which he confessed
that his purpose in thus misrepresenting the case was to wreck
and destroy the ships. On the 7th, they came to the large
island of Mombassa, where they found rice, millet, poultry,
and fat cattle, and sheep without tails. The orchards were
filled with fig, orange, and lemon trees. This island received
honey, ivory, and wax from a port upon the mainland. The
906 HISTORY OF THE SEA,
houses were built of stone and mortar, and the city was de-
fended by a small fort almost even with the water. ‘“ They have
a king,’ says the chronicle, ‘and the inhabitants are Moores,
whereof some bee white. They goe gallantly arrayed, especially
the women, apparelled in gownes of silke and bedecked with
jewells of golde and precious stones. The men were greatly
comforted, as having confidence that in this place they might
cure such as were then sick,—as in truth were almost all; in
number but fewe, as the others were dead.”
The King of Mombassa, however, was as great a rogue as the
Shah of Mozambique, from whom he had heard, by overland
communication, of what had happened in his island. During
the night following a grand interchange of civilities and of pro-
testations, da Gama was informed that a sea-monster was de-
vouring the cable. It turned out that a number of Moors were
endeavoring to cut it, that the ship might be driven ashore.
Anxious to quit this inhospitable coast, the fleet profited by the
first wind to continue their course to the north. They captured
a zambuco, or pinnace, from which they took seventeen Moors
and a considerable quantity of silver and gold. On the same
day they arrived off the town of Melinda, situated three degrees
only to the south of the equator. The city resembled the cities
of Europe, the streets being wide, and the houses being of
stone and several stories high. ‘The generall,’’ we are told,
“being come over against this citie, did rejoyce in his heart
very much, that he now sawe a citie lyke unto those of Portin-
gale, and rendered most heartie and humble thanks to God for
their good and safe arrival.’ The chief of the captured zam-
buco offered to procure da Gama a pilot to take the fleet to
Calicut, if he would permit him to go ashore. He was landed
upon a beach opposite the city. The chief performed his
promise, and induced the King of Melinda to treat the strangers
with courtesy and respect. Camoens thus describes the festivi-
ties upon the alliance:
THE SEA ROUTE TO THE GANGES. 207
‘‘With that ennobling worth whose fond employ
Befriends the brave, the monarch owns his joy;
Entreats the leader and his weary band
To taste the dews of sweet repose on land,
And all the riches of his cultured fields
Obedient to the nod of Gama yields.
‘What from the blustering winds and lengthening tide
Your ships have suffer’d, here shall be supplied ;
Arms and provisions I myself will send,
And, great of skill, a pilot shall attend.’
So spoke the king; and now, with purpled ray,
Beneath the shining wave the god of day
Retiring, left the evening shades to spread,
When to the fleet the joyful herald sped.
To find such friends each breast with rapture glows:
The feast is kindled, and the goblet flows;
The trembling comet’s irritating rays
Bound to the skies, and trail a sparkling blaze;
The vaulting bombs awake their sleeping fire,
And, like the Cyclops’ bolt, to heaven aspire;
The trump and fife’s shrill clarion far around
The glorious music of the night resound.
Nor less their joy Melinda's sons display :
The sulphur bursts in many an ardent ray,
And to the heavens ascends in whizzing gyres,
Whilst Ocean flames with artificial fires.”
During the interview which followed, the king remarked
that he had never seen any men who pleased him so much as
the Portuguese,—a compliment which da Gama acknowledged by
setting at liberty the sixteen Moors of the captured pinnace.
The king sent the promised pilot on his return; he proved to
be as deeply skilled in the art of navigation as any of the pilots
of Europe. He was acquainted with the astrolabe, compass,
and quadrant. The fleet set sail from Melinda on the 24th of
April. As they had now gone far enough towards the north,
and as India lay nearly east, they bade farewell to the coast, of
which they had hardly lost sight since leaving Lisbon, and struck
into the open sea, or rather a wide gulf of the Indian Ocean,
seven hundred and fifty leagues across. A few days after,
having crossed the line, the crew were delighted to behold again
the stars and constellations sf the Northern hemisphere. The
208 HISTORY OF THE SEA. -
voyage was rapid and fortunate; for in twenty-three days they
arrived off the Malabar coast, and, after a day or two of south-
ing, discovered the lofty hills which overhang the city of Calicut.
Da Gama amply rewarded the pilot, released the malefactors
from their fetters, and summoned the crew to prayer. The
anchor was then thrown, and a feast was spread in honor of the
day. The route by sea had been discovered from the Tagus to
the Ganges: da Gama had laid out the way from Belem to
‘Golconda. :
SW \ EERE [ESE
BA) SAS <r
ae Nee ei
CALICUT IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.
WRECK OF THE SAN RAFAEL,
CHAPTER XxX.
THE MOORS IN HINDOSTAN—CONDITION OF THE COUNTRY UPON THE ARRIVAL OF
D.. GAMA—HOSTILITY OF THE MOORS—THEY PREJUDICE THE KING OF CALI-
CUT AGAINST THE PORTUGUESE—CONSEQUENT HOSTILITIES—DA GAMA SETS
OUT UPON HIS RETURN—WILD CINNAMON—A MOORISH PIRATE DISGUISED
AS AN ITALIAN CHRISTIAN—A TEMPESTUOUS VOYAGE—WRECK OF THE SAN
RAFAEL—HONORS AND TITLES BESTOWED UPON DA GAMA-—AN EXPEDITION
FITTED OUT UNDER ALVAREZ CABRAL—ACCIDENTAL DISCOVERY OF BRAZIL—
COMETS AND WATER-SPOUTS—LOSS OF FOUR VESSELS—-A BAZAAR ESTA-
BLISHED AT CALICUT—-ATTACK BY THE MOORS—-CABRAL WITHDRAWS TO
COCHIN—VISITS CANANOR AND TAKES IN A LOAD OF CINNAMON—IS_ RE-
CEIVED WITH COLDNESS UPON HIS RETURN—VASCO DA GAMA RECALLED
INTO THE SERVICE BY THE KING—HIS ACHIEVEMENTS AT SOFALA, CANANOR,
AND CALICUT—HE HANGS FIFTY INDIANS AT THE YARD-ARM—PROTECTS
COCHIN AND THREATENS CALICUT—WITHDRAWS TO PRIVATE LIFE.
Some two hundred years before this time, the Malabar coast
of Hindostan was united under one single native prince—named
Perimal—whose capital was in the interior. It was at this period
that the Arabians discovered India. Perimal embraced the Mo-
hammedan religion, and resolved to make a pilgrimage to Mecca
and to finish his days there. He intrusted the government to
other hands, and embarked for Arabia from the spot where Cali-
cut now stands. The Arabians were led by this circurstance to
14 209
210 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
regard Calicut with peculiar veneration, and by degrees aban-
doned the former capital: it was thus that Calicut gradually
became the great spice and silk market of the Hast.
In the time of Vasco da Gama, India Proper, or Hindostan,
was divided into several independent kingdoms, such as Moul-
tan, Delhi, Bengal, Orissa, Guzarate or Cambaia, Deccan, Ca-
nara, Bisnagar, and Malabar. - The divisions of Farther India
were Ava, Brama, Pegu, Siam, Cambodia, Cochin-China, and
Tonkin. The Portuguese fleet had arrived upon the coast of
Malabar, which is the edge of the southwestern promontory of
Hindostan. It was here, and upon the western coast generally,
that the Portuguese were now enabled to plant establishments
and to form treaties of alliance and commerce.
The Moors of Arabia had already, as we have said, a foot-
hold in the country, and were alarmed at seeing Europeans
arrive by sea at the scene of a trade of which they had hitherto
held the exclusive monopoly. They succeeded in throwing ob-
stacles in the way of the Portuguese admiral, and in poisoning
the ear of the Indian zamorin, or king, against him. They
even laid a plot for the destruction of the fleet and all on board,
that no one might return to Europe to tell of the new route to
the Indies. The native monarch was induced by them to testify
dissatisfaction with the presents da Gama had brought, and to
ask for the golden statue of the Virgin that ornamented the
admiral’s ship, as a more suitable offering to one of his rank,
Da Gama replied that it was not a golden Virgin, but a wooden
one gilt; that it had nevertheless preserved him from the perils
of the sea, and that he could not part with it. After many
proofs of the hostility of the Moors and the treachery of the
natives, da Gama obtained from the zamorin the following
laconic epistle to his sovereign :—‘‘ Vasco da Gama, a gentleman
of thy house, has visited my country. His arrival has given me
pleasure. My land is full of cinnamon, cloves, pepper, and pre-
cious stones. What I desire to obtain in return from yours is
THE SON RAFAEL LOST. 211
gold, silver, coral, and scarlet.’’ With this missive da Gama
set sail upon his return early in September. The zamorin sent
sixty armed barks to attack him, but a broadside or two and a
favorable wind enabled him to make good his escape. Upona
neighboring island some of the crew discovered a large forest
of wild cinnamon. Not far from here, da Gama discovered the
Angedive, or Five Islands, and in the vicinity had a brush with
Indian pirates. An elderly person, differing in appearance
from the natives, came on board and represented himself as an
Italian Christian. He had come from the Indians of the island
of Goa, he said, to beg the admiral to go thither and trade.
This well-behaved old gentleman proved to be a sort of Moorish
buccaneer, and, upon being put to the torture, confessed that
he was a spy, and that he had been sent to reconnoitre the fleet
and count their numbers. Da Gama retained him as a trophy
to present to King Emmanuel. He finally left the Indian coast
on the 15th of October. | :
When they were fairly out at sea, the pirate-prisoner made
a complete confession, and his evident sincerity quite won da
Gama’s heart. He gave him clothes and a supply of money.
The Moor repented of his evil ways and of his pagan faith, and
forthwith embraced Christianity. He was baptized by the name
of Gaspardo da Gama.
The voyage back to Melinda, across the gulf, was disastrous
in every sense. The weather was tempestuous and hot. The
scurvy carried off thirty men in the first week, and consterna-
tion seized the officers and crew. After four months’ naviga-
tion, when hardly sixteen men able to work were left on each
vessel, they descried the African coast, thirteen leagues above
Melinda. Descending to the latter city, they were received
with joy by the king, who was anxiously awaiting their return.
They took on board an ambassador sent by him to King Em-
manuel. The San Rafael was lost upon this coast, and the
fleet thus reduced to two vessels. Da Gama discovered the
OL? HISTORY OF THE SEA,
island of Zanzibar, and received offers of service ‘from the
sovereign. He doubled the Cape successfully on the 20th of
March, and anchored soon after at the Cape Verds. Here,
during the night, Nicolao Coelho, the captain of the caravel,
slipped away, and made all haste to Portugal, in order to be
the first to carry to’ Europe the intelligence of the grand dis-
covery.
Da Gama now found that he could prosecute the voyage no
further in his disabled vessel, the San Gabriel, and chartered a
caravel in which to proceed to Lisbon. On the way his brother
Paulo died, and was buried at the island of Terceira. Vasco
arrived at Belem in September, 1499, two years and two months
after his departure. The king, informed of his approach by
the previous arrival of Coelho, sent a magnificent cortége to
conduct him to court. He overwhelmed him with honors,
wealth, and distinctions. He himself took the title of Lord of
the Conquest of Ethiopia, Arabia, Persia, and the Indies. Coelho
was ennobled, and a pension of one thousand ducats secured to
him. Of the one hundred and sixty men who departed upon
this voyage, only fifty-five had returned, and all these were
munificently rewarded for their share in the brilliant achieve-°
ments of their commander. The king ordered a series of
public festivities, which were preceded by a solemn service of
thanksgiving to Heaven for the glory vouchsafed to the Portu-
guese name and nation.
Emmanuel allowed not a week to pass before he directed the
necessary preparations to be made for fitting out another and
more powerful fleet, to follow in da Gama’s track and attempt
to colonize the Indies. He determined that da Gama should
enjoy his dignities and renown in peace, however, and intrusted
the command to one Pedro Alvarez Cabral, a gentleman of
merit and distinction. The fleet numbered thirteen vessels,
manned by twelve hundred men, among whom were eight Fran-
ciscans to convert the pagans, and some thirty condemned male-
BRAZIL VISITED. 213
factors to undertake communications with the savages. Cabral
carried a hat blessed by the Pope and deemed to possess miracu-
lous virtues. Among the captains were Bartholomew Diaz and
his brother Diego. The specific object of the expedition was
to obtain permission from the Zamorin of Calicut to establish a
trading station there, the Portuguese promising in return to
furnish him the same articles which the Moors furnished him,
and on more advantageous terms.
The squadron set sail on the 9th of March, 1500. It will
appear almost incredible that, in order to avoid the calms known
to prevail at that season off the coast of Guinea, they pro-
ceeded so far to the west that, late in April, they touched
at the continent now known as South America; where, how-
ever, Yanez Pinzon had been before them. Cabral gave to it
the name of Land of the Holy Cross; but this, as well as the
name given by Pinzon, was subsequently changed to that of
Brazil, from a species of dye-wood which grew in abundance
there. The inhabitants were friendly, and exchanged parrots
of brilliant plumage for bits of paper and cloth. Cabral put:
two of his criminals ashore and left them, with instructions to
inquire into the history of the country and the customs of its
inhabitants. He also sent one of his vessels back to Lisbon
with intelligence of the discovery.
The fleet left Brazil on the 2d of May, steering to the south-
east, in order to double the Cape. A terrible comet visible day
and night, a storm which lasted three weeks, a water-spout
reaching to the clouds,—this latter bemg a phenomenon which
the Portuguese had never before seen,—now menaced and har-
rassed them in quick succession. Four vessels were lost, and
among them that of Bartholomew Diaz, with all on board. The
rest were severely injured; but Cabral was rejoiced to find that
during the storm he had weathered the redoubtable promontory.
Encountering some Moorish vessels laden with gold, he seized
them, but not until the crews had thrown a portion of the pre-
214 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
cious metal into the sea. At Mozambique he took a pilot for
the island of Quiloa, three hundred miles to the north, whose
sovereign was enriched by his gold-trade with the African port -
of Sofala. Here he attempted to enter ito a treaty of com-
merce; but the prejudices entertained against Christians pre-
vented any concessions on the part of the Moors. At Melinda
. Cabral landed two eriminals and the presents for the king sent
out by Emmanuel. Obtaining pilots for the Indian coast, he
departed on the 7th of August, and arrived at Calicut on the
13th of September. |
From this point dates the first European establishment in
the East Indies. Stimulated by considerations of interest, the
zamorin, after many delays, granted the admiral an interview,
in which the latter stated the ardent desire of his master, the
King of Portugal, to furnish the zamorin’s subjects with all
articles of European production or manufacture, taking in
exchange the spices and jewels of the East. A market or
bazaar was at once opened, and the cargoes of the ships, being
transferred to it, were rapidly converted into cinnamon, diamonds,
and drugs.
The Moors now became seriously jealous of the activity,
power, and success of their rivals. They resorted to every
means to excite the hostility of the zamorin and his subjects
against them. They attacked and destroyed the Portuguese
market, plundering it of goods to the amount of four thousand
ducats. The inconstant zamorin offering neither apology nor
restitution, Cabral determined on vengeance. He boarded two
large Moorish vessels, killed six hundred men, and salted down
three elephants for food. He then bombarded the town: palaces,
temples, and storehouses crumbled to dust beneath the thunders
ot the artillery. The zamorin fled, and Cabral withdrew with
his victorious fleet to Cochin, a rich eapital one hundred and
fifty miles to the south of Calicut, where pepper was abundant
and the king -was poor. Trimumpara, the monarch, was in-
THE FLEET RETURNS. 915
formed of the summary vengeance wreaked by the fleet upon
his brother of Calicut, and at once offered the strangers hospi-
tality and protection. The admiral sent him a silver basin full
of saffron and a silver vial filled with rose-water. Trade and
barter rapidly loaded the ships with the fragrant commodities
of the country. A fleet of twenty-five sail now appeared in the
offing, and Trimumpara told Cabral that their object was to
attack him, and that they were sent by the zamorin of Calicut.
Cabral, having been separated from his most efficient ship, de-
termined not to venture a combat, and made for the north, cast-
ing anchor before Cananor, a town a little above Calicut. Here
he found a commodious roadstead, an independent prince, and
a soil abounding in ginger, cardamom-seeds, tamarinds, and
cinnamon. Of the latter article he took four hundred quintals.
The king, judging, from the insignificance of this purchase, that
he was short of money, offered him a further supply upon credit.
Cabral expressed his sense of appreciation of this generosity,
but declined the proposition. The fleet now sailed homewards:
one of the vessels was lost upon the African coast, and, taking
fire, was destroyed with its contents. The six ships remaining
of the twelve which had left Brazil, arrived at Lisbon on the
dist of July, 1501. Cabral was received with coldness by the
king, partly on account of the loss of ships and men he had met
with, and partly on account of his failure at Calicut, to which
place he,—the king,—relying on Cabral’s success, had sent out,
three months previous to his return, a fleet of four vessels under
Juan de Nueva. This expedition was singularly happy in its re-
sults,—Nueva lading his vessels to great advantage at Cananor, and
discovering the island of St. Helena upon his homeward voyage.
it was now evident to the Portuguese that without the em-
ployment of force it would be impossible to obtain a permanent
foothold in the Indies. After listening to a deliberation as to
whether it were not best to abandon the attempt altogether,
Emmanuel ordered the equipment of a grand fleet of twenty
SSS—S===—==—=—==_==———— aE
Se ae
4
DA GAMA’S FLAG-SHIP.
216
CALICUT DESTROYED. J big
vessels, to be placed under the command of Vasco da Gama,
who consented to resume active life. It was to be divided into
three portions: the first, consisting of ten sail, under da Gama,
was to undertake the subjugation of the refractory kings of
Malabar; the second, of five sail, under Vincent Sodrez, was
to guard the entrance of the Red Sea into the Indian Ocean,
and thus prevent the Turks and Moors from trading with the
ports of Africa and Hindostan; and the third, of five vessels,
under Stefano da Gama, was to be detailed upon any service
the admiral might direct. They sailed early in 1502, and
formed a treaty of alliance and commerce with the king of
Sofala, without difficulty. Da Gama obtained from the king
of Quiloa an engagement to pay to the crown of Portugal an
annual tribute in gold fresh from the mine. Upon the Indian
coast near Cananor, he fell in with an Egyptian vessel of the
largest size, laden with costly merchandise and crowded with
Moors of high rank on their way to Mecca. He attacked,
plundered, and burned her: three hundred men and women
perished in the flames, in the sea, or by the sword. Twenty
children were saved and conveyed to the ship of da Gama, who
made a vow to educate them as Christians, in atonement for the
apostasy of one Portuguese who had become a Mohammedan.
After this sanguinary lesson, da Gama found no obstacles to
the establishment of a trading station at Cananor, where his
fleet landed a portion of their cargoes. He then sailed to
Calicut, determined to inflict summary vengeance upon the
faithless and treacherous zamorin.
Not far from the coast he seized a number of boats in which
were fifty Indians. He sent word to the zamorin that, unless
satisfaction were given for the late destruction of the Portu-
guese bazaar before noon, he would attack the city with fire and
sword, and would begin with his fifty prisoners. The time having
expired, the unfortunate captives were hung simultaneously at
the yard-arms of the various vessels. The town was then reduced
218 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
to ashes. A squadron was left to sweep the Moorish vessels
from the seas, and da Gama proceeded down the coast to Cochin,
the city of the friendly Trimumpara. Presents and compliments
were here exchanged,—the offerings of the King of Portugal
being a golden crown, vases of embossed silver, a rich tent, a
piece of scarlet satin, and a bit of sandal-wood, while those of
his majesty of Cochin were a Moorish turban of silver thread,
two gold bracelets set with precious stones, two large pieces of
Bengal calico, and a stone said to be a specific against poison,
and taken from the head of an animal called bulgedolph,—a
fabulous creature, declared by some to be a serpent and by
others to be a quadruped.
An apology was now received from the zamorin, and da Gama
returned to Calicut with only one vessel. Seeing him thus
single-handed, the zamorin sent thirty-three armed canoes
against him, and, without the prompt assistance of Sodrez’
cruising squadron, da Gama -would inevitably have perished.
The zamorin now threatened Trimumpara with his vengeance if
he continued to harbor the Portuguese and to trade with Chris-
tian infidels. Da Gama promised Trimumpara the assistance
and alliance of the King of Portugal, and set sail with well-
laden vessels. He met the zamorin’s fleet of twenty-nine
sail, and, having captured two, put the rest to flight with great
slaughter. In the two that were taken he found an immense
quantity of porcelain and Chinese stuffs, together with an
enormous golden idol, with emeralds for eyes, a robe of beaten
gold for a vestment, and rubies for buttons. Leaving Sodrez and
his fleet to defend Cochin against Calicut and to exterminate
the traders from Mecca, da Gama returned with thirteen vessels
to Portugal. The king conferred upon him the titles of Admiral!
of the Indian Ocean and Count de Vidigueira. He again
withdrew to privacy, and did not a second time emerge into
public life till the year 1524, when the interests of the country
under John III. again reclaimed his services in the East.
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VESSELS EMPLOYED IN THE SPICE-TRADE: SIXTEENTH CENTURY.
CHAPTER XXI.
SPREAD OF THE PORTUGUESE EAST INDIAN EMPIRE—ALPHONZO D’ ALBUQUER=
QUE—IMMENSE SACRIFICE OF LIFE—ANCIENT ROUTE OF THE SPICE-TRADE
WITH EUROPE—COMMERCE BY CARAVANS—REVOLUTION PRODUCED BY OPEN-
ING THE NEW ROUTE—FRANCESCO ALMEIDA—DISCOVERY OF CEYLON—TRISTAN
D’ACUNHA—THE PORTUGUESE MARS—-HIS VIEWS OF EMPIRE—AN ARSENAL
ESTABLISHED AT GOA—-REDUCTION OF MALACCA—-SIAM AND SUMATRA SEND
EMBASSIES TO ALBUQUERQUE—THE ISLAND OF ORMUZ—DEATH OF ALBU-
QUERQUE—EXTENT OF THE PORTUGUEEE DOMINION—ORMUZ BECOMES THE
GREAT EMPORIUM OF THE EAST—FALL OF THE PORTUGUESE EMPIRE.
HAvineé narrated, in the preceding chapters, the incidents
which led to the circumnavigation of Africa, and having de-
scribed the several voyages which introduced the Europeans into
the East, by the néw route of the Indian Ocean and the Cape
of Tempests, we must briefly allude to the sequel,—the spread
of European commerce among the islands and seaports of this
highly favored region. Alphonzo and Francesco d’ Albuquer-
que, with a fleet of nine vessels, and Edoardo Pacheco, with
three vessels, carried terror and revenge to the Malabar coast:
forts were built to protect the Portuguese commerce, kings were
forced to pay tribute, fleets were swept from the seas; and, as a
proverb of the time expressed it, pepper began to cost blood.
Again the King of Portugal sent out a formidable squadron,—
219
220 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
thirteen ships of the line, the largest yet constructed, under
Lopez Soarez. Sea-battles now took place, in which the pro-
portions of the slain were one thousand infidels to seventy-five
Portuguese,—in which a single European vessel contended suc-
cessfully with myriads of the native barks. The sacrifice of
life was truly awful; but. gradually the whole eastern coast of
Africa, and, opposite to it, the whole western coast of India,
fell under Portuguese sway.
The entire commerce of this quarter of the world was of
course revolutionized by these discoveries and conquests. Be-
fore this period the productions of the East had been carried to
Europe in the following manner. The city of Malacca, in the pen-
insula of the same name, was the central market to which came
the camphor of Bornee, the cloves of the Moluccas, the nutmegs
of Banda, the pepper of Sumatra, the gums, drugs, and per-
fumes of China, Japan, and Siam. These products were taken
by water, either in the clumsy boats of the natives or the more
solid vessels of the Moors, to the ports of the Red Sea, were
landed at Tor or at Suez, whence they were transported by cara-
vans to Cairo, and thence by the Nile to Alexandria, where
they were placed on board of vessels bound to all the ports of
Europe. Those intended for Armenia, Trebizonde, Aleppo,
Damascus, were taken by the Persian Gulf to Bassorah, and
thence distributed by caravans. The Venetians and Genoese
took their portion at Beyrout, in Syria. The East Indians
preferred the manufactures of Europe to gold and silver, and
consequently the trade was generally in the form of barter
and exchange. In addition to the products of Farther India
which we have mentioned must be added those of India
Proper,—the fabrics of Bengal, the pearls of Orissa, the
diamonds of Golconda, the cinnamon of Ceylon, the pepper of
Malabar.
Thus, not only thousands of laborers, sailors, conductors of
caravans, saw themselves suddenly deprived of their livelihood
THE NEW COURSE OF COMMERCE. 221
by this diversion of the traffic into the hands of the Portuguese,
but rich cities lost: their revenues and princes lost their tribute.
While the Venetians resolved to appeal to arms, the Sultan of
Egypt addressed a protestation to Rome. But the King of
Portugal tranquillized the Pope by declaring his intention of
extending the jurisdiction of the apostolic faith, and he prepared
to resist violence by sending out, in 1507, Don Francesco Al-
meida, with twenty-two ships and fifteen hundred regular
soldiers: he bestowed upon the new commander the title of
Viceroy of the Indies. “Almeida deposed the King of Quiloa,
and crowned another of his own appointment; he built a fort in
twenty days, garrisoned it with one hundred and fifty men, and
left a brigantine and a caravel to scour and protect the coast.
He bombarded Mombassa, killed fifteen hundred men and lost
five. He erected forts and established trading stations at
Onor, Cananor, Surat and Calicut, upon the Malabar coast.
To the important point of Sofala, upon the African coast,
Emmanuel sent a distinct expedition of six ships, under Pedro
da Nayha and Juan da Quiros, who compelled the king to admit
their nation to a share in the famous gold mines which consti-
tuted his kingdom and his wealth. In 1508, Lorenzo, the son
of Almeida, while chasing the flying Moors with six men-of-
war, discovered the island of Ceylon, to the south of Hindostan.
Here he found the Moors and natives loading vessels with ele-
phants and cinnamon.
Again King Emmanuel, drawing upon resources which seemed
almost inexhaustible, sent out thirteen vessels, with thirteen
hundred men, under Tristan d’Acunha. This fleet was driven
to the coast of Brazil, and upon the way thence to the Cape of
Good Hope the commander discovered the islands which now
bear his name. He burned and pillaged the town of Oja, near
Melinda; he reduced a neighboring shah to the payment of an
annual tribute of six hundred golden ducats. His soldiers
would not give the captured women of Brava time to remove
922, HISTORY OF THE SEA.
their bracelets and ear-rings, ‘but in their ruthless haste cut off
their arms and ears.
It was now evident to the King of Portugal that his rule in
the East could not be consolidated and extended by the same
means which had obtained him his first foothold upon the
coast,—chance, intrepidity, and unscrupulous violence. What
was required was a carefully conceived system of government,
and a man capable of administering it. Emmanuel’s choice fell
upon Alphonzo d’ Albuquerque, whose services in the East had
already been meritorious, and to whom, in 1509, he gave the title
and power of viceroy. Albuquerque, whose courage obtained for
him the name of the Portuguese Mars, ranks, by his talents, his
severe virtues, and his disinterested zeal, among the greatest
men whom the world has produced. He at once formed the
plan of founding an empire which should extend from the Per-
sian Gulf to the peninsula of Malacca; and, determining to
abandon Calicut, which had thus far been looked upon as the
best point for an arsenal, he selected the island of Goa, a little
~ to the north, captured it, and made its admirable harbor a Por-
tuguese roadstead and its town a Portuguese capital. He built
bazaars and citadels along the coast from north to south, and
then turned his eyes towards Malacca,—a magnificent country,
ruled by a despot and inhabited by slaves. As we have said, its
principal seaport was the central resort of the ships of China,
Japan, Bengal, the Philippines and the Moluccas, Coromandel,
Persia, Arabia, and Malabar.
The Portuguese had first visited Malacca two years pre-
viously, Emmanuel having sent one Siguiera to make a treaty
with the king. He had been perfidiously treated, and Albuquer-
que now, in 1511, appeared before the city to call the monarch
to account. A long and obstinat> battle resulted in the defeat
of the natives and the unconditional surrender of the peninsula.
The Kings of Siam, Sumatra, and Pegu sent ambassadors to
Albuquerque, asking the honor of his friendship. He built a
PORTUGUESE EMPIRE IN THE EAST. 293
citadel and returned to Cochin. But, as he left one spot to
repair to another, revolt was sure to follow; and, as the Vene-
tians now joined the Moors to repel the Portuguese, he saw that
his dominion could not be complete till he controlled the naviga-
tion of the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf. The city of Aden,
in Arabia, was the key to the Red Sea, commanding, as it did,
the Straits of Babelmandel; and the island of Ormuz was the
key to the Persian Gulf. He failed to take Aden, but he suc-
ceeded easily with Ormuz, whose king acknowledged himself
the vassal of Emmanuel. Albuquerque then formed a gigantic
plan in reference to the Red Sea. Unable to command it by
the capture of Aden, he determined to ruin Suez, at the other
extremity of the sea, by forming an alliance with the King of
Ethiopia, and inducing that monarch to dig a new course for the
Nile and make it empty into the Red Sea instead of into the
Mediterranean, thus rendering Egypt uninhabitable and Suez
desert. The invasion of Egypt by the Turks, however, pre-
vented the accomplishment of this undertaking. Thus the
people and kings of the East everywhere gave way before the
grand plans and deeds of Albuquerque, whom they both feared
for his energy and loved for his justice. When, in 1515, he
died at Goa, disgraced by his king and worn out by a thankless
service, the heathen monarchs wept over his grave, and for
many years went in pilgrimage to his tomb, asking his protec-
tion against the cruelty or injustice of his successors.
The Portuguese, in little more than fifty years from the first
expedition of Vasco da Gama, had established an empire in
these seas of truly wonderful extent and power. They held
exclusive possession of the Malabar and Coromandel coasts of
India Proper, were masters of the Bay of Bengal, ruled the
peninsula of Malacca, and held tributary the islands of Ceylon,
Sumatra, Java, and the Moluccas. To the westward, towards
Africa, their authority extended as far as the Persian boundary,
and over all the islands of the Persian Gulf. In Arabia, even,
224 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
they had tributaries and allies, and no Arabian prince dared
confess himself their enemy. They exercised an influence in
the Red Sea: and upon the eastern coast of Africa, they were
the masters of Quiloa, Sofala, Mozambique, and Melinda.
As Albuquerque had foreseen, Ormuz—from its fortunate
situation, as an emporium of trade, at the mouth of the Persian
Gulf—became the most important of the Portuguese conquests.
The island was by nature little more than a barren rock, and was
entirely destitute of water. Its wealth and splendor, however,
during the period of its commercial supremacy, gave the world
an example of the power of trade which had never yet been
witnessed. The trading season lasted from January to March
and from August to November: during these months, the houses
fronting on the streets were opened like shops, and decorated with
piles of porcelain and Indian curiosities, and perfumed with
fragrant dwarf shrubs set in gilded vases. Camels laden with
skins of water stood at the corners of the streets. The richest
wines of Persia and the most costly odors of Asia were offered
in profusion to those who visited the city to trade. Thick awn-
ings stretched from roof to roof across the promenades, ex-
cluding the rays of the sun. The luxury and magnificence
of the place seemed to flow rather from the lavish extravagance
of an idle prince than from the legitimate pomp of a stirring
and active commercial population. |
In 1580, Portugal was conquered and annexed to Spain, and
the Portuguese Empire in the East at once declined, and the
Dutch Empire sprang up upon its ruins. Ormuz was plundered
_y the Persians and English united in 1662: the very stones of
which its edifices were built were carried away as ballast, and
it speedily sank back into its primitive state—a barren and
desolate rock. Hardly a vestige of the proud city now remains
to vindicate history in its record that here once stood one of
the most famous emporiums of commerce and most frequented
resorts of man.
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PONCE DE LEON AND THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH,
CHAPTER XXII.
PONCE DE LEON—THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH—DISCOVERY OF FLORIDA—THE MAR
TYRS AND THE TORTUGAS—THE BAHAMA CHANNEL—VASCO NUNEZ DE BALBOA
—HE GOES TO SEA IN A BARREL—MARRIES A LADY OF THE ISTHMUS—HIS
SEARCH FOR GOLD—HEARS OF A MIGHTY OCEAN—UNDERTAKES TO REACH IT
—FREPARATIONS FOR THE EXPEDITION—LEONCICO THE BLOODHOUND—BATTLE
WITH A CACIQUE—ASCENT OF THE MOUNTAINS—BALBOA MOUNTS TO THE
SUMMIT ALONE—THE FIRST SIGHT OF THE PACIFIC—-CEREMONIES OF TAKING
POSSESSION—BALBOA UP TO HIS KNEES IN THE OCEAN—EVERY ONE TASTES
THE WATER—A VOYAGE UPON THE PACIFIC, AND A NARROW ESCAPE—IGNO-
MINIOUS FATE OF BALBOA—JUAN DIAZ DE SOLIS—DISCOVERS THE RIO DE
LA PLATA—HIS HORRIBLE DEATH BY CANNIBALS.
WE now return, in due chronological progression, to the dis-
coveries of the Spaniards in the West. We have not space te
describe, or even to mention, all the successive expeditions made
to various points of the great American Continent: we select,
therefore, only the more important and interesting episodes
among the Spanish maritime achievements. Three heroes will
15
225
226 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
occupy our attention from 1510 to 1514,—Ponce de Leon, Juan
Diaz de Solis, and Vasco Nuiiez de Balboa.
Juan Ponce, surnamed de Leon from his native province, was
one of the Spanish captains who emigrated to Hispaniola shortly
after its discovery by Columbus. After an active and pros-
perous career, he found himself, in 1510, by the withdrawal of
the king’s favor, without place or occupation. He was, however,
rich, and resolved to attempt to regain his credit by means of
discoveries. He was avaricious, too, and would willingly have
augmented his already large possessions. He had heard from
the Indians of Cuba of the existence, to the north of His-
paniola, of an island named Bimini, where, they asserted, was |
a spring whose waters had the virtue of restoring youth to
the aged and vigor to the decrepit. Ponce thought that if
he could discover and seize this fountain it would be an imex-
haustible source of revenue to him, as he could levy a tax
upon all who derived benefit from its influence. He deter-
mined to set out in search of it, and fitted out two stout ships
at his own expense. With these he left St. Genevieve, in Porto
Rico, on the Ist of March, 1512, and steered boldly through
the intricate group of the Lucayos. Wherever he stopped, he
drank of all the running streams and standing pools, whether
their waters were fresh or stagnant, that he might not miss the
famous spring. He inquired of all the natives he met where he
could find the wondrous Fountain of Youth.
At last he discovered a land till then unknown to Europeans.
Early in April, and in Easter week, he touched what he sup-
posed was an island, but what in reality was a portion of the
continent. As the landscape was covered with flowers, he named
the spot ‘ Florida.” He had several severe fights with the In-.
dians, one of whom he made prisoner, that he might learn Span-
ish and give him information concerning the country. He now
sailed to the south and doubled Cape Florida en the 8th of May,
which, on account of the currents, he named Cabo de las Corri-
PONCE DE LEON. Dard
entes. On the 15th, he sailed along a line of small islands as far
as two white ones, and called the whole group Los Martyros, or
The Martyrs, from the high rocks at a distance which had
the appearance of men undergoing crucifixion. The name
was singularly applicable, for the large number of seamen
who have since been wrecked upon these islands has made them
in reality a place of martyrdom. He discovered another group
to the southwest, which he called the Tortugas, as his men took
one hundred and seventy tortoises upon one of them in a short
time, and might have had more if they would. Ponce de Leon
continued ranging about here till September, when he returned
to Porto Rico, sending one of his ships to Bimini—the smallest
of the Bahamas—to see if he could discover the spring. The
vessel went and returned, the captain, Perez de Ortubia, re-
porting that the island was pleasantly diversified with hills,
groves, and rivers, but that none of the latter possessed any un-
usual charm. |
One great advantage which resulted from the voyage of Ponce
de Leon was the discovery, by his second captain, Ortubia, of
the passage now known as the Bahama Channel, by which ships
bound from Havana to Spain pass out into the Atlantic Ocean.
This new passage became the universal track even during Ponce
de Leon’s life. Upon his return to court, he was well rewarded.
for his discoveries both by land and sea, but his gathering years
caused him often to regret that he had missed the Fountain of
Youth.
We have now to relate the manner in which the Pacific Ocean,
which had rolled for centuries in its accustomed bed, unknown
to Europeans, was first seen by Continental eyes. The islands
discovered by Columbus were still under the exclusive dominion
of the Spaniards; Hispaniola was the central point of their
operations of discovery and conquest. Settled here, upon a
farm, was a man, still in the prime of life, named Vasco Nunez
de Balboa. He was a native of Xeres, in Spain, and had
228 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
eagerly enlisted in the late voyages of adventure. He was
known to be a mere soldier of fortune, and of loose, prodigal
habits, and is described as an ‘‘egregius digladiator,”’ or adroit
swordsman. His farm had involved him in debt; and, to phoape
his embarrassments and elude his creditors, he caused himself, in
1511, to be nailed up in a cask, to be labelled “victuals for the
voyage,’ and to be conveyed on board a ship starting upon an
expedition to the mainland.. When the vessel was out of sight
of the shore, he emerged from the cask, and appeared before
the surprised captain, Hernandez de Enciso. Being tall and
muscular, evidently inured to hardships and of intrepid disposi-
tion, he found favor with the captain, especially when he told
him that a venerable priest had asserted “‘that God reserved him
for great things.”’
In the course of two years, Balboa had acquired authority
over a tract of the Isthmus of Darien, and had married the
young and beautiful daughter of the Cacique of Coyba. After
a victory obtained over one of the neighboring monarchs,
from whom four thousand ounces of gold and a quantity of
golden utensils had been extorted, Balboa ordered one-fifth
to be set apart for himself and the rest to be shared among
his followers. While the Spaniards were dividing it by weight,
a dispute arose respecting the fairness of the award, when the
Indian who had given the gold spoke to the disputants as
follows :
‘Why should you quarrel for such a trifle? If gold is to you
so precious that you abandon your homes for it and invade the
peaceful lands of others, I will tell you of a region where you
may gratify your wishes to the utmost. Beyond those lofty moun-
tains lies a mighty sea, which from their summits may be easily
discerned. It is navigated by people who have vessels almost
as large as yours, and, like them, furnished with sails and oars.
All the ‘streams which flow from these mountains into the sea
abound in gold: the kings who reign upon its borders eat and
BALBOA HEARS OF THE PACIFIC. 229
drink out of golden vessels. Gold, in fact, is as common there
ag iron among you Spaniards.”’
Fired by this discourse, Balboa inquired whether it would be
difficult to penetrate to this sea and its golden shores. ‘The
task,” the prince replied, ‘is arduous and dangerous. Power-
ful caciques will oppose you with their warriors; fierce canni-
bals will attack you, and devour those whom they kill. To
<
BALBOA AND THE INDIAN.
accomplish your enterprise, you will require at least a thousand
men, armed like those you have with you now.” ‘To prove his
sincerity, the prince offered to accompany Balboa upon the ex-
pedition, at the head of his warriors. This was the first in-
timation received by a European of the splendid expanse of
water which was so soon to receive the name of Pacific. It
exerted an immediate and radical change upon the character
and conduct of Balboa. The soldier of fortune became ani-
mated by an honorable and controlling ambition; the restless
and reckless desperado saw before him a glorious path to immor-
tality. He baptized the prince who had given him information
230 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
60 priceless, and proceeded to Darien to obtain the means of
accomplishing his scheme.
For a long time he was baffled. A terrific tempest laid waste
the fields and devastated the harvests. He sent to Hispaniola
for men and provisions; but the emissary was wrecked upon the
coast of Jamaica. He wrote to Don Diego Columbus, who
governed at San Domingo, informing him of the existence of a
new ocean, bordered with shores of gold, and asking for a thou-
sand men with whom to prosecute its discovery. He forwarded
the sum of fifteen thousand crowns in gold, to be transmitted to
the king as his royal fifths. Many of his followers, too, sent
sums intended for their creditors in Spain.
While waiting for a reply, Balboa learned indirectly that he
had fallen into disfavor with the king. One brilliant achieve-
ment might restore him to consideration and forever fix him in
the good graces of the monarch. He chose one hundred and
ninety of the most vigorous and resolute of his men, and took
with him a number of bloodhounds. His own peculiar body-
guard was a dog named Leoncico,—one of the numerous progeny
sired by the famous warrior-dog of Juan Ponce de Leon. Leon-
cico was covered with scars received in his innumerable fights
with the natives. Balboa often lent him to others, and received
for his services the same share of booty an able-bodied man
would have claimed. lLeoncico had earned for his master in
this way several thousands of dollars.
On the Ist of September, 1515, Balboa embarked with his
followers in a light brigantine and nine canoes, and ascended a
stream which was navigable as far as Coyba. Here he received
accessions of men, and, having sent back those who were ill
or disabled, prepared to penetrate the wilderness on foot. In
a battle with a cacique named Quaragua, he slew six hundred
of the natives. Some were transfixed with lances, others hewn
down with swords, and others torn to pieces by the bloodhounds.
He advanced hardly seven miles a day, but at last reached a
THS PACIFIC DISCOVERED 231
village lying at the foot of the mountain that commanded the
long wished for prospect. Only sixty-seven men out of two
hundred remained to make this last grand effort. Balboa
ordered them to retire early to repose, that they might be ready
at the cool hour of dawn. They set forth at daybreak on the
morning of the 26th of September. In a short time they
emerged from the forests, and arrived at the upper regions of
the mountain, leaving the bald summit still to be ascended.
Balboa ordered them to halt, that he might himself be alone
to enjoy the scene and the first to discover the ocean. He
reached the peak, and there the magnificent sight burst upon his
view. The water was still at the distance of two days’ journey ;
but there it lay, beyond the intervening space, grand, bound-
less, and serene. He fell upon his knees, and returned thanks
to God. He summoned his followers to ascend, and. thus ad-
dressed them :—‘‘ Behold, my friends,’’ he said, ‘‘the glorious
sight which we have so ardently longed for. Let us pray to
God that he will aid and guide us to conquer the sea and land
which we have discovered, and in which no Christian has ever
entered to preach the holy doctrine of the Evangelists. By the
favor of Christ you will thus become the richest Spaniards that
have ever come to the Indies.” The priest attached to the
expedition chanted that impressive anthem, the Te Deum; and
the Spaniards, in whom religious fervor and the thirst for pillage
252 HISTORY OF THE SEA,
seemed to be mingled in equal proportions, joined in the chorus
yith heart and voice.
Balboa now called upon all present to witness that he took
possession of the sea, its islands and surrounding lands, in the
name of the sovereigns of Castile; and the notary of the expe-
dition made a record to that effect, to which all present, to the
number of sixty-seven men, signed their names. Balboa then
caused a tall tree to be cut down and fashioned into the form of
a cross: this he erected on the spot whence he had first beheld
the ocean. A mound of stone was likewise piled up as a monu-
ment, and the names of Ferdinand and Juana were carved upon
the neighboring trees.
A scouting party under Alonzo Martin, sent by Balboa to
discover the best route to the sea, came after two days’ journey
to a beach, upon which were two canoes, stranded as it were,
and apparently out of the reach of water. But the tide soon
came rushing in, and floated them; upon which Alonzo Martin
stepped into one of them, and was thus the first Kuropean who
embarked upon the ocean which Balboa had discovered and which
Magellan was to name. JBalboa soon arrived upon the coast :
the tide had ebbed, and the water was nearly two miles distant.
But it soon returned, invading the ‘place where the Spaniards
were seated. Upon this Balboa arose, and, taking a banner
representing the Virgin and Child and bearing the arms of
Castile and Leon, marched knee-deep into the water, and, waving
the flag, pronounced the following act of taking possession :
“Long live the high and mighty monarchs Don Ferdinand
and Donna Juana, sovereigns of Castile, Leon, and Aragon, in
whose name I take real and actual and corporeal possession of
these seas, and lands, and coasts, and ports, and islands of the
South, and all thereunto annexed; and of the kingdoms and pro-
vinces which do or may appertain to them in whatever manner
or by whatever right or title, ancient or modern, in times past,
present, or to come, without any contradiction; and if other
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233
934 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
prince or captain, Christian or infidel, or if any law, condition,
or sect whatsoever, shall pretend any right to these lands and
seas, I am ready to maintain and defend them in the name of
the Castilian sovereigns, whose is the empire and dominion over
these Indies, islands, and terra firma, Northern and Southern,
with all their seas, both at the Arctic and Antartic poles, on
either side of the equinoctial line, whether within or without the
tropics of Cancer and Capricorn, both now and in all time, as
long as the world endure, and until the final day of judgment
of all mankind.”
As may be supposed, no one appeared to dispute these for-
midable pretensions, and no champion entered the lists in behalf
_of the original owners of the seas, islands, and surrounding
lands in question; so that Balboa called upon his companions to
bear witness that.he had duly and uninterruptedly taken posses-
sion. ‘The notary drew up the necessary legal document, which
was signed by all present. Then they all tasted the water,
which, from its saltness, they felt assured was the ocean. Bal-
boa carved a cross on a tree whose roots were below high-water
mark, and, lopping off a branch with his sword, bore it away as
a trophy.
Balboa now wished to perform a voyage upon the bosom of
the new-found ocean. In spite of the advice of friendly In-
dians, who represented the season as stormy, he embarked with
sixty of his men in nine canoes. <A tempest compelled them to
seek refuge upon an island. In the night the tide completely
submerged it, and rose to the girdles of the Spaniards. Their
canoes were broken to pieces, and at low tide they managed
with great difficulty to effect their escape to the mainland.
After numerous forays against the caciques ruling the neigh;
boring tribes, Balboa arrived at the Darien River, on the 19th
of January, 1514, after having accomplished one of the most
remarkable feats on record, and after an expedition which must
ever be memorable among deeds of intrepidity and adventure.
BALBOA BEHEADED. 935
The king created him Adelantado of the South Sea, and Go-
vernor of Panama and Coyba, but subject to Pedrarias, the
Governor of Darien. The latter regarded him as his rival,
and, by a successful series of treacherous arts, brought against
him a well-contrived charge of treason to the king. He was
reluctantly found guilty by the alcalde, and by Pedrarias con-
demned to be beheaded, as a traitor and usurper of the terri-
tories of the crown. The execution took place in the public
square of a small town near Darien, and was witnessed by
Pedrarias from between the reeds of the wall of a house some
twelve paces from the scaffold. Balboa and four of his officers
were beheaded in quick succession during the brief twilight of a
tropical evening. Pedrarias confiscated Balboa’s property, and
ordered his head to be impaled upon a pole and exposed upon
the public square till decomposition should ensue.
Thus perished, at the age of forty-two years,—the victim of the
meanest envy and the most odious treachery,—a man who will
be ever remembered as one of the most illustrious of the early
discoverers. Events transformed him from a rash and turbulent
adventurer into a discreet and patriotic captain; and, from the
moment when he feit that he had drawn the attention of the
world upon him, his conduct was that of a man born and pre-
‘destined to greatness. He fell in the zenith of his glory, a
worthy cotemporary of Columbus, da Gama, and Magellan.
Juan Diaz de Solis, who, with Yanez Pinzon, Amerigo Ves-
pucci, and Juan de la Cosa, the pilot of Columbus, was a member
of the Spanish council appointed to deliberate upon discoveries
yet to be made, sailed to South America in 1514, and, doubling
Capes St. Roque, St. Augustin, and Frio, entered the bay upon
which now stands the city of Rio Janeiro, and was probably the
first Kuropean to set foot upon the coast thus far to the south.
He supposed the bay to be the mouth of a passage through to
the South Sea so lately discovered by Balboa. He proceeded
to the south, ascertaining the position of every headland and
236 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
indentation with all the precision the instruments and science of
the time would, permit. At last he found a great opening of
the sea towards the west: he took possession of the northern
coast for the King of Spain, and named the gulf Fresh-Water
Sea. Subsequently, finding that it was a river, and that silver-
mines existed there, he named the stream Rio de la Plata. The
Indians called it Paraguaza. He found the country fertile and
attractive, and an abundance of the wood which had given to
the whole region the name of Brazil. He ‘went on shore with a
small party, but soon fell into an ambuscade laid for them by
FATE OF DE SOLIS AND HIS COMPANIONS.
the natives. Solis and five of his companions were taken,
killed, roasted, and devoured by the horrible cannibals who in-
habited the country. The Spaniards who remained on board
the ships witnessed the shocking catastrophe, which so appalled
and horrified them that they fled in dismay and sailed hastily
back to Spain.
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FERDINAND MAGELLAN.
CHAPTER XXIII. Z
REMARKABLE FORESIGHT OF THE COURT OF ROME—A PAPAL BULL—FERDINAND
MAGELLAN—HE OFFERS HIS SERVICES TO SPAIN—HIS PLANS—HIS FLEET—
PIGAFETTA THE HISTORIAN—AN INAUSPICIOUS START—TENERIFFE AND ITS
LEGENDS—ST. ELMO’S FIRE—THE CREW MAKE FAMOUS BARGAINS WITH THE
CANNIBALS—HEAVY PRICE PAID FOR THE KING OF SPADES—PATAGONIAN
GIANTS—PIGAFETTA’S EXAGGERATIONS—THE HEALING ART IN PATAGONIA—
THE TRAGEDY OF PORT JULIAN—DISCOVERY OF A STRAIT—THE OPEN SEA—
CAPE DESEADO—THE OCEAN NAMED PACIFIC—-RAVAGES OF THE SCURVY—A
PATAGONIAN PAUL—THE NEEDLE BECOMES LETHARGIC—DISCOVERY OF THE
LADRONES—THE FIRST COCOANUT
A CATHOLIC CEREMONY UPON A PAGAN
ISLAND. |
THE Pope of Rome, whose authority was at this period
supreme among the princes who were in communion with the
‘Church, now thought proper to anticipate a possible collision
237
238 / HISTORY OF THE SEA,
between Spain and Portugal, the two monopolists of commerce
and discovery. He declared by a bull, or papal decree, that all
hew countries which should be thereafter discovered to the east
of the Azores were to belong to the crown of Portugal, while
all that were discovered to the west should be the property of
Spain. Thus, a potentate who claimed to be infallible issued a
decree based upon the pontifical conviction that the world was
flat, even after the very solid arguments to the contrary of
Columbus and da Gama. His Holiness, in his wisdom, imagined
that one nation might sail to the right, the other to the left, and
go on forever: he did not foresee, what was now almost palpable
to every eye but that of Roman infallibility, that the Spaniards
and the Portuguese would at last meet at the antipodes. There,
in time, they did meet, and the very pretty dispute which arose
in consequence we shall narrate in the sequel. But a more
immediate effect of the decree was this:—a Spaniard, if he felt
himself neglected or maltreated by his own sovereign, would
offer his services to the Portuguese king, confident of employment
at his hands, as the latter would thus weaken Spain and profit
by discoveries made by her subjects. A Portuguese, if similarly
agerieved, would in the same way desert to the Spanish king
and accept service from the Spanish crown.
It so happened that one Fernao Magalhaens, known in
English as Ferdinand Magellan, a Portuguese by birth, and
who had served with distinction in the East Indies under Albu-
querque, addressed himself to the court of Lisbon for the re-
compense which was his due. His application was treated with
disdain. He forthwith withdrew to Spain with a learned man
who had been similarly neglected, one Ruy Falero, an astronomer,
whom the Portuguese regarded as a conjurer and charlatan.
Magellan made overtures for new discoveries to Cardinal
Ximenes, then Prime Minister of Spain, and in reality its ruler
during the absence of Charles V. The Portuguese ambassador
sought by every means in his power to baffle his designs, and
AN ASTROLOGICAL PROPHESY. 239
demanded of the court that he and Falero should be given up
as deserters. He even offered Magellan a reward if he would
desist from his purpose, or, at least, execute it in the service of
Portugal. But the cardinal listened with favor to the plan
presented by Magellan, which was briefly as follows:
Columbus, who started upon his voyage to the west in order
to reach the East Indies by a western route, had failed in his
object, discovering instead an intermediate continent. Magellan
now proposed to seek the Portuguese Moluccas, or Spice Islands,
by sailing, if possible, from the Atlantic Ocean into the South
Sea, discovered by Balboa five years before. His idea was to
attempt to find a passage through the mainland of South Ame-
rica by the Rio de la Plata, or some other channel opening upon
its eastern coast. Should this succeed, Spain would possess the
East Indies as well as the West, since, if the Moluccas were
discovered by way of the west, even though situated to the east,
they would fall expressly within the allotment made by the late
papal bull. Magellan thought the world was round, in defiance
of the pontifical declaration that it was flat.
In accordance with this proposal, the Spanish crown agreed to
equip a fleet of five vessels and to give the command of it to
Magellan. It was furthermore agreed that he should have a
twentieth part of the clear profit of the expedition, and that
the government of any islands he might discover should be
vested in him and his heirs forever, with the title of Adelantado.
The five vessels were accordingly fitted out at Seville, Magellan’s
flag-ship being named the Trinidada. They were manned by
two hundred and thirty-seven men, thirty of whom were able-
_bodied Portuguese seamen, upon whom Magellan principally
relied. The astronomer Falero declined accompanying him.
having, in his astrological calculations, foreseen that the voyage
would be fatal to him. A certain San Martino, of Seville, who
went in his stead, was, as will be seen, assassinated in his place at
the island of Zubu. An Italian gentleman, named Pigafetta, wag
240 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
permitted by the cardinal to form part of Magellan’s suite. He
afterwards became the historian of the voyage.
The fleet set sail from Seville on the 10th of August, 1519,
its departure being announced by a discharge of artillery.
Seville is nearly one hundred miles from the sea, by the river
Guadalquivir, the seaport of which is San Lucar, whence they
finally departed on the 20th of September. It would be difficult
to imagine circumstances more inauspicious than those under
which Magellan left the shores of Europe. The course he was
to follow was unexplored: so rash was the attempt considered,
that he dared not communicate to his men the real object of the
expedition. The season was already advanced, and he would-in
all probability arrive in high southern latitudes at the coldest
period of the year. To the perils naturally incident to such a
voyage was to be added the unfortunate fact that the commanders
of the other four ships were Spaniards, and consequently inimi-
cal to Magellan, who, though in the service of Spain, was of
Portuguese birth.
In six days the squadron reached Teneriffe ; of this island
Pigafetta relates several curious legends current at that time.
It never rained there, he says, and there was neither river nor
spring in the island. The leaves of a tree, however, which was
constantly surrounded by a thick mist, distilled excellent water,
which was collected in a pit at its foot, whither the inhabitants
and wild beasts repaired to quench their thirst. Early in
October the fleet passed between Cape Verd and its islands, and
coasted along the shores of Guinea and Sierra Leone. Here
they met with contrary winds, sharks, and dead calms. One
dark night, during a violent tempest, the St. Elmo fire blazed
for two hours upon their topmast. This, which is now known to
be an effect of electricity, which the ancient idolaters believed
to be Castor and Pollux, which Catholics in Magellan’s time
regarded as a saint, and which English sailors call Davy Jones,
was a great consolation to the Portuguese during the storm.
THE NATIVES OFFENDED. QA1
At the moment when it disappeared it diffused a light so re-
splendent that Pigafetta was almost blinded and gave himself
up for lost; but, he adds, “‘the wind céased momentaneously.”’
Passing the equinoctial line and losing sight of the polar star,
Magellan steered south-southwest; and in the middle of De-
cember struck the coast of Brazil. His men made excellent
bargains with the natives. Tor a small comb they obtained two
geese; for a piece of glass, as much fish as would feed ten men;
for a ribbon, a basket of potatoes,—a root then so little known
that Pigafetta describes it as resembling a turnip in appearance
‘and a roasted chestnut in taste. A pack of playing-cards was
a fortune, for a sailor bought six fat chickens with the king of
spades. The fleet remained thirteen days at anchor, and then
pursued its way to the southward along the territory of the can-
nibals who had lately devoured de Solis. Stopping at an island
in the mouth of a river sixty miles wide, they caught, in one
hour, penguins sufficient for the whole five ships. Magellan
anchored for the winter in a harbor found in south latitude 49°
and called by him Port Julian. Two months elapsed before the
country was discovered to be inhabited. At last a man of
gigantic figure presented himself upon the shore, capering in
the sands in a state of utter nudity, and violently casting dust
upon his head. A sailor was sent ashore to make similar ges-
tures, and the giant was thus easily led to the spot where Ma-
gellan had landed. The latter gave him cooked food to eat and
presented him, incidentally, with a large steel mirror. The
savage now saw his likeness for the first time, and started back
in such fright that he knocked over four men. He and several
of his companions, both men and women, subsequently went on
board the ships, and constantly indicated by their gestures that
they supposed the strangers to have descended from heaven.
One of the savages became quite a favorite: he was taught to
pronounce the name of Jesus and to repeat the Lord’s prayer,
and was even baptized by the name of John by the chaplain.
16 .
242 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
This profession of Christianity did the poor pagan no good, for
he soon disappeared,—murdered, doubtless, by his people, in
conseqence of his attachment to the foreigners.
The whole description given by Pigafetta of these savages,
whom Magellan called Patagonians,—from words indicating the
resemblance of their feet, when shod with the skin of the lama,
to the feet of a bear,—is now known to be much exaggerated.
It is certain that they were by no means so gigantic as he
represented them. He adds that they drank half a pail of water
at a draught, fed upon raw meat, and swallowed mice alive; that
when they were sick and needed bleeding they gave a good
chop with some edged tool to the part affected; when they
wished to vomit they thrust an arrow half a yard down their
throat. The headache was cured by a gash in the forehead.
A fearful tragedy was enacted in Port Julian. The four
Spanish captains conspired to murder Magellan. The plot was
discovered and the ringleaders were brought to trial. Two were
hung, another was stabbed to the heart, while a number of their
accomplices were left among the Patagonians. Magellan quitted
Port Julian in August, 1520, having planted a cross on a neigh-
boring mountain and taken solemn possession of the country in
the name of the King of Spain. On the 14th of September, he
discovered a fresh-water river, which he named Santa Cruz, in
honor of the anniversary of the exaltation of the cross. Here
the crew, by Magellan’s order, made confession and received the
holy communion.
On the 21st of October, Magellan made the great discovery
which has immortalized his name. He reached a strait commz-
nicating between the Atlantic Ocean and the South Sea: con-
sulting the calendar for a name, he called it in honor of the
day, the Strait of the Eleven Thousand Virgins. It is now
Magellan’s Strait. It was enclosed between lofty mountains
covered with snow; the water was so deep that it afforded no
anchorage. The crew were so fully persuaded that it possessed
A PATAGONIAN GIANT. 243
no western outlet, that, had it not been for Magellan's confidence
and persistence, they would never have ventured to explore it.
The strait was found to vary in breadth from one mile to ten,
and to be four hundred and forty miles in length. During the
first night spent in the strait, the Santo Antonio, piloted by one
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Emmanuel Gomez, who hated Magellan, found her way back
into the Atlantic, and returned at once to Spain. The pilot’s
object was principally to be the first to tell the news of the dis-
covery, and to carry to Europe a specimen of a Patagonian
giant, one of whom he had on board of his vessel. On his way
he stopped at Port Julian and took up two of the conspirators
who had been abandoned there. The Patagonian was unable to
bear the change of climate, and died of the heat on crossing the
line,
One of Magellan’s remaining four vessels was sent on in
advance of the others to reconnoitre a cape which seemed to
terminate the channel. ‘The vessel returned, announcing that
the strait indeed terminated at this cape and that beycnd lay
244 HISTORY OF THE SEA,
the open sea. “‘We wept for joy,” says Pigafetta: “‘the cape was
denominated Cabo Deseado,—Wished-for Cape,—for in good
truth we had long wished to see it.’’ The sight gave Magellan
the most unbounded joy, for he was now able practically to de-
monstrate the truth of the theory he had advanced,—that it was
possible to sail to the Kast Indies by way of the west. He
now named the famous strait the Strait of the Patagonians, but
a sense of justice induced the Europeans to change its name and
to call it the Strait of Magellan. At every mile or two he
found a safe harbor with excellent water, cedar-wood, sardines,
and shell-fish, together with an abundance of sweet celery,—a
specific against the scurvy.
On the 28th of November, the squadron, reduced to three
ships by the loss of the Santiago, left the strait and launched
into the Great South Sea, to which, from the steady and gentle
winds that propelled them over waters almost unruffled, Magellan
gave the name of Pacific,—a name which it has ever since re-
tained. They sailed on and on during the space of three months
and twenty days, seeing no land, with the exception of two sterile
and deserted islands which they named the Unfortunate. During '
all this time they tasted no fresh provisions. Their biscuit was
little better than dust and smelled intolerably, being impregnated
with the effluvia of mice. The water was putrid and offensive.
The crew were so far reduced that they were glad to eat leather,
which they were obliged to soak for four or five days in the sea
in order to render it sufficiently supple to be broiled, chewed,
and digested. Others lived on sawdust, while mice were sought
after with such avidity that they were sold for half a ducat
apiece.
Scurvy now began to make its appearance, and nineteen of
the sailors died of it. The gums of many were swollen over
their teeth, so that, unable to masticate their leathern viands,
they perished miserably of starvation. Those who remained alive
became weak, low-spirited, and helpless. The Patagonian taken
NATIVE THIEVES. 245
on board the Trinidada at Port Julian was attacked by the
disease. Pigafetta, seeing that he could not recover, showed
him the cross and reverently kissed it. The Patagonian besought
him by gestures to forbear, as the dernon would certainly enter
his body and cause him to burst. When at death’s door, how-
ever, he called for the cross, which he kissed: he then begged
to be baptized, and was received into the bosom of the Church
under the name of Paul.
The vessels kept on and on, seeing no fish but sharks, and
finding no bottom along the shores of the stunted islands which
they passed. The needle was so irregular in its motion that it
required frequent passes of the loadstone to revive its energy.
No prominent star appeared to serve as an Antarctic Polar guide.
‘Two stars, however, were discovered, which, from the smallness
of the circle they described in their diurnal course, seemed to
be near the pole. ‘‘ We traversed,” says Pigafetta, ‘‘a space
of from sixty to seventy leagues a day; and, if God and His
~ Holy Mother had not granted us a fortunate voyage, we should
all have perished of hunger in so vast a sea. Ido not think
any one for the future will venture upon a similar voyage.” It
was, indeed, nearly sixty years before Drake, the second
circumnavigator, entered the Pacific Ocean.
Early in March, 1521, Magellan fell in with a cluster of
islands, where he and his men went ashore to refresh themselyes
after the fatigues and privations of their voyage. The in-
habitants, however, were great thieves, penetrating into the
cabins of the vessels and taking every thing on which they could
lay their hands. Magellan, exasperated at length, landed with
forty men, burned a village and killed seven of the natives.
The latter, when pierced with arrows through and through,—a
weapon they had never seen before,—would draw them out by
either end and stare at them till they died. Magellan gave the
name of Ladrones to these islands,—a name which they retain
in modern geography, though, in the time of Philip IV. of
246 HISTORY OF THE SEA,
Spain, they were called the Marianne Isles, in honor of Maria,
his queen.
At another island the crew received from the inhabitants the
first present of cocoanuts made to a European of which any
record exists. Pigafetta describes this now world-famous fruit
in a manner which shows that he considered it a most wonderful
novelty. We extract a portion of his description:—‘ Cocoa-
nuts,” he says, “‘are the fruit of a species of palm-tree, which
furnishes the people with bread, wine, oil, vinegar, and physic.
‘'o obtain wine, they make an incision in the top of the tree,
penctrating to the pith, from which drops a liquor resembling
white must, but which is rather tart. This liquor is caught in
the hollow of a reed the thickness of a man’s leg, which is sus-
pended to the tree and is carefully emptied twice a day. The
fruit is of the size of a man’s head, and sometimes larger. Its
outward rind is green and two fingers thick: it is composed of
filaments of which they make cordage for their boats. Beneath
this is a shell harder and thicker than that of the walnut. This
they burn and pulverize, using the powder as a remedy in several
distempers. Within, the shell is lined with a white kernel about
as thick as a finger, which is eaten, instead of bread, with meat
and fish. In the centre o- the nut, encircled by the kernel, a.
sweet and limpid liquor is found, of a corroborative nature.
This liquor, poured into a glass and suffered to stand, assumes
the consistence of an apple. The kernel and liquor, if left to
ferment and afterwards boiled, yield an oil as thick as butter.
To obtain vinegar, the liquor itself is exposed to the sun, and
the acid which results from it resembles that vinegar we make
from white wine. <A family of ten persons might be supported
from two cocoanut-trees, by alternately tapping each every
week, and letting the other rest, that a perpetual drainage of
liquor may not kill the tree. We were told that a cocoanut-
tree lives a century.” |
At another island, Pigafetta asserts that, by sifting the earth
A DEFENCE FROM LIGHTNING. 247
he found lumps of gold as large as walnuts and some as big as
eggs even, and that all the vessels used by the king at his table
were of the same precious metal. These are believed to have
been gross falsehoods of Pigafetta’s invention, in a view to pro-
cure for himself the command of a subsequent voyage of dis-
covery. Magellan gratified two island-kings with the spectacle
of a grand Catholic ceremony. He sprinkled them with sweet-
scented water, and offered them the cross to kiss. On the
elevation of the host he caused them to adore the Eucharist
with joined hands. At this moment a discharge of artillery,
arranged beforehand, was fired from the ships. The entertain-
ment concluded with a hornpipe and sword-dance,—an exhibition
which seemed to please the two kings highly. A large cross
was then brought, garnished with nails and a crown of thorns.
It was set up upon a high mountain, as a signal to all Christian
navigators that they would be well treated in the island. The
kings were also assured that if they prayed to it devoutly it
would defend them from lightning and tempests. They had
evidently suffered severely from the vagaries and violence of the
electric fluid, and were delighted to be thus easily protected
against its pernicious and destructive influence.
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THE NATIVES OF BORNEO PREPARE TO ATTACK MAGELLAN,
CHAPTER XXIV.
DISCOVERY OF THE PHILIPPINES—THE KING OF ZUBU WISHES THE KING OF
SPAIN TO PAY TRIBUTE—HE FINALLY ABANDONS THE IDEA—A WHOLE ISLAND
CONVERTED TO CHRISTIANITY—MAGELLAN PERFORMS A MIRACLE—A DUMB
MAN RECOVERS HIS SPEECH—-MAGELLAN INVADES A REFRACTORY ISLAND—
HIS DEATH—ATTEMPTS TO RECOVER HIS BODY—THE CHRISTIAN ISLAND RE-
TURNS TO IDOLATRY—THE SHIPS ARRIVE AT BORNEO—THE SAILORS DRINK
TOO FREELY OF ARRACK-—FESTIVITIES AND TREACHERY—VIVID IMA-
GINATION OF PIGAFETTA—THE FLEET ARRIVES AT THE MOLUCCAS—THE
KING OF TIDORE—A BRISK TRADE IN CLOVES—THE SPICE-TARIFF—THE
VITTORIA SAILS HOMEWARD—PIGAFETTA IS AGAIN IMAGINATIVE—ARRIVAL
AT THE CAPE VERDS—LOSS OF ONE DAY—COMPLETION OF THE FIRST
VOYAGE OF CIRCUMNAVIGATION-——PIGAFETTA’S ROMANCE BECOMES VERITABLE
HISTORY.
On the 7th of April the squadron entered the harbor of the
island of Zubu, one of a group which has since been named the
Philippines. Magellan sent a messenger to the king to ask an ex-
248
MAGELLAN COMES TO THE NATIVES. 249
change of commodities. The king observed that it was customary
for all ships entering his waters to pay tribute, to which the
' messenger replied that the Spanish admiral was the servant of
so powerful a sovereign that he could pay tribute to no one.
The king promised to give an answer the next day, and, in the
mean time, sent fruit and wine on board the ships. Magellan had
brought with him the king of Massana, a neighboring island,
and this monarch soon convinced the king of Zubu that, instead
of asking tribute, he would be wise to pay it. A treaty of peace
and perpetual amity was soon established between his majesty of
Spain and his royal brother of Zubu. 7
Pigafetta here introduces a ridiculous and incredible story of
the conversion of these islands to Christianity by Magellan. It
is as follows:—Magellan, being much displeased at learning that
parents attaining a certain age in this island were treated dis-
respectfully by their children, told them that the Almighty,
who created heaven and earth, had strictly commanded children
to honor their parents and had threatened with eternal fire those
who transgressed this commandment. He added other observa-
tions from Holy Writ, which afforded the islanders much pleasure,
and inspired them with the desire of being instructed in the true
religion. Magellan assured them that before departing he would
baptize them all, if they could convince him that they accepted
the boon, not through any dread with which he might have in-
spired them, or through any expectation of temporal advantage,
but from a spontaneous emotion, and of their own will. They
convinced him easily of the spontaneity of their feelings, where-
upon Magellan wept for joy and embraced them all. Sunday,
the 16th of April, was fixed upon for the ceremony. A scaffold
was raised and covered with tapestry and branches of palm. A
general salute was fired by the squadron. Magellan then told
the king that one of the advantages which would accrue to him
from embracing Christianity would be that he would be strength-
ened, and would more easily overcome his enemies. The king
250 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
replied that even without this consideration he felt disposed to
become a Christian. Hight hundred persons were then baptized,
the queen receiving the name of Jane, after the mother of the
Emperor of Spain. She begged an infant Jesus of Pigafetta,
with which to replace her idols. This remarkable story con-
cludes with a statement that one village of idolaters absolutely
refused to be converted, and that Magellan therefore burned
their houses, erecting a cross upon the ruins. Not content with
this, Pigafetta next makes Magellan perform a miracle. The
king’s brother was very sick, and had totally lost his speech.
The admiral said that if all the idols remaining in the island
were burned, and if the prince were baptized, he would pledge
his head that he would recover. Magellan then baptized the
invalid, together with his two wives and ten daughters. The
captain ‘‘then asked him how he found himself, and he answered,
of a sudden recovering his speech, that, thanks to the Lord, he
found himself very well. We were all of us ocular witnesses
of this miracle. The captain then, with greater fervor than
the rest of us, returned praise to God.” Idols were now com-
mitted to the flames in vast numbers, and temples built upon
the margin of the sea were demolished. The new Christians
went about the island crying, at the top of their voice, ‘‘ Viva la
Castilla!” in honor of the King of Spain.
On the 26th of April, Magellan learned that a neighboring
chief, named Cilapolapu, refused to acknowledge the authority
of the King of Spain, and remained in open profession of
paganism in the midst of a Christian community. He deter-
mined to lend his assistance to the converted chiefs to reduce
and subjugate this stubborn prince. At midnight, boats left
the ships, bearing sixty men armed with helmets and cuirasses.
The natives followed in twenty canoes. They reached the re-
bellious island—Matan by name—three hours before daybreak.
Cilapolapu was notified that’ he must obey the Christian King
of Zubu or feel the streneth of Christian lances. The islanders
DEATH OF MAGELLAN. 251
replied that they had lances too. The invaders waited for day-
light, and then, jumping into the water up to their thighs, waded
to shore. The enemy was fifteen hundred in number, formed
into three battalions: two of these attacked them in the flank,
the third in the front. The musketeers fired for half an hour
without making the least impression. ‘Trusting to the superiority
of their numbers, the natives deluged the Christians with showers
of bamboo lances, staves hardened in the fire, stones, and even
dirt. A poisoned arrow at last struck Magellan, who at once
ordered a retreat in slow and regular order. The Indians now
perceived that their blows took effect when aimed at the nether
limbs of their foe, and profited by this observation with telling
effect. Seeing that Magellan was wounded, they twice struck his
helmet from his head. He and his small band of men continued
fighting for more than an hour, standing in the water up to their
knees. Magellan was now evidently failing, and the islanders,
perceiving his weakness, pressed upon him in crowds. One of
them cut him violently across the left leg, and he fell on his
face. He was immediately surrounded and belabored with
sticks and stones till he died. His men, every one of whom
was wounded, unable to afford him succor or avenge his death,
escaped to their boats upon his fall.
‘“‘Thus,’’ says Pigafetta, ‘“‘ perished our guide, our light, and
our support. But his glory will survive him. He was adorned
with every virtue: in the midst of the greatest adversity, he
constantly possessed an immovable firmness. At sea he sub-
jected himself to the same privations as his men. Better skilled
than any one in the knowledge of nautical charts, he was a
perfect master of navigation, as he proved in making the tour of
the world,—an attempt on which none before him had ventured.”
Though Magellan only made half the circuit of the earth on this
occasion, yet it may be said with reason that he was the first to
circumnavigate the globe, from the fact that the way home from
Die, HISTORY OF THE SEA.
the Philippines was perfectly well known to the Portuguese, and
that Magellan had already been at Malacca.
An attempt was made in the afternoon to recover the body
of Magellan by negotiation; but the islanders sent answer that
no consideration could induce them to part with the remains of
a man like the admiral, which they should preserve as a monu-
ment of their victory. Two governors were elected in his stead,
Odoard Barbosa and Juan Serrano. The latter, together with
San Martino, the astronomer, and a number of officers, having
been decoyed on shore by the converted king, were murdered
by him in cold blood. He had seen the inferiority of Christians
to savages in war, and, being doubtless disgusted with the boast-
ful pretences of Christianity, had, upon Magellan’s death, re-
nounced it and returned again to idolatry. Juan Serrano was
seen upon the shore, bound hand and foot: he begged the people
in the ships to treat for his release; and, upon this being refused,
he uttered deep imprecations, and appealed to the Almighty to
call to account on the great day of judgment those who refused
to succor him in his hour of need. They put to sea, leaving
the unfortunate Serrano to his miserable fate.
_ Odeard Barbosa, now sole commander, ordered the Concepgion,
one of the three ships, to be burned, transferring its men, am-
munition, and provisions to the other two. After landing at
various islands, he came to the rich settlement of Borneo, on
the 9th of July. The king, who was a Mohammedan and kept a
magnificent court, sent out to them a beautiful canoe, adorned
with gold figures and peacocks’ feathers. In it were musicians
playing upon the bagpipe and drum. Hight officers of the
island brought to the captain a vase full of betel areca to chew,
a quantity of orange-flowers and jessamine, some sugarcane,
and three goblets of a distilled liquor which they called arrack,
and upon which the sailors became intoxicated. Permission was
granted the visitors to wood and water on the island and to
trade with the netives. An interview with the king was like-
WALKING LEAVES. 253
wise accorded, which took place with every possible ceremony,~
processions of elephants, presents of cinnamon, and illumina-
tions of wax flambeaux. Notwithstanding these professions of
friendship, the squadron was obliged to leave Borneo very sud-
denly, in consequence of the appearance of one hundred armed
canoes, which they imagined to be bent upon a hostile expedition.
Among the wonders of Borneo, Pigafetta mentions two pearls
as large as hens’ eggs, and so round that if placed upon a
polished table they never remained at rest, and cups of perce-
lain possessing the power to denote the presence of poison, by
breaking if any were put intc them. At a neighboring island
where the fleet remained undergoing repairs for six weeks,
Pigafetta saw a sight which he thus describes :—‘“‘ We here found
a tree whose leaves, as they fall, become animated and walk
about. They resemble the leaves of the mulberry-tree. Upon
being touched they make away, but when crushed they yield no
blood. I kept one in a box for nine days, and, on opening the
box, found the leaf still alive and walking round it. I am of
opinion they live on air.’”’ Pigafetta’s mistake here was in
stating that a leaf resembled an insect: he should have spoken
of the curiosity as an insect resembling a leaf. It is now known
to naturalists as a species of locust.
On the 6th of ‘November, they espied a cluster of five
islands, which their pilots, obtained at their last station, declared
to be the famous Moluccas. They had therefore proved the
world to be round, for vessels sailing to the west from Spain
had now met vessels sailing thence to the east. They returned
thanks to God, and fired a round from their great guns. They
had been at sea twenty-six months, and had at last, after
visiting an infinity of islands, reached those in quest of which
they had embarked in the expedition. On the 8th, three hours
before sunset, they entered the harbor of the island of Tidore.
They came to anchor in twenty fathoms’ water, and discharged
all their cannon. The king, shaded by a parasol of silk, came
i]
254 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
the next day to visit them, said he had dreamed of their approach-
ing visit, had consulted the moon in reference to this dream,
and was now delighted to see it confirmed. He added that he
was happy in the friendship of the King of Spain, and was
proud to be his vassal. This potentate, whose name was Rajah
Soultan Manzour, was a Mohammedan: he was ‘‘an eminent
astrologer,” and had numerous wives and twenty-six children.
TN DIOURVET
On the 12th, a shed was erected in the town of Tidore by
the Spaniards, whither they carried all the merchandise they
intended to barter for cloves. A tariff of exchange was then
drawn up. Ten yards of red cloth were to be worth four
hundred pounds of cloves, as were also fifteen yards of inferior
cloth, fifteen axes, thirty-five glass tumblers, twenty-six yards
of linen, one hundred and fifty pairs of scissors, three gongs, or
a hundredweight of copper. As the stock of articles brought
by the strangers diminished, however, their value naturally rose,
and a yard of ribbon would buy a quintal of cloves: in fact,
AN EAR FOR A BLANKET. 255
every thing with which the ships could dispense on their return-
voyage was bartered for cloves. They were soon so deeply
laden that they hardly had room in which to stow their water.
The Trinidada, becoming leaky, was left behind, Juan Carvajo,
her pilot, and fifty-three of the crew, remaining with her. The
Vittoria bade adieu to her consort on the 21st of December,
the two vessels exchanging a parting salute. The number of
Europeans on board of the Vittoria was now reduced to forty-
six; and the fleet, which formerly consisted of five sail, was now
reduced to one.
As the Vittoria made her way through the thick archipelagoes
of islands which dot the seas in these latitudes, her Molucea
- pilot told Pigafetta amazing stories of their inhabitants. In
Aracheto, he said, the men and women were but a foot and
a half high; their food was the pith of a tree; their dwellings
were caverns under ground; their ears were as long as their
bodies, so that when they lay down one ear served as a mat-
tress and the other as a blanket!
In order to double the Cape of Good Hope, the captain
ascended as high as the forty-second degree of south latitude:
he remained wind-bound for nine weeks opposite the Cape.
The crew were now suffering from sickness, hunger, and thirst.
After doubling the Cape, they steered northwest for two
months, losing twenty-one men on the way. Pigafetta noticed
that, on throwing the dead into the sea, the Christians floated
with their faces turned towards heaven, while the Moham-
medans they had engaged turned their faces the other way! At
last, on the 9th of July, 1522, the vessel made the Cape Verds.
These were in the possession of the Portuguese; and it was a
very hazardous thing for the Spaniards to put themselves in
their power. However, they represented themselves as coming
from the west and not from the east, and made known their
necessities. Their long-boat was laden twice with rice in ex-
change for various articles. On its third trip the crew was
256 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
detained,—the Portuguese having discovered that the Vittoria
was one of Magellan’s fleet. She was compelled to abandon
the men as prisoners, and sailed away,—her whole equipment
now numbering eighteen hands, all of them, except Pigafetta,
more or less disabled. The latter, to discover if his journal
had been regularly kept, had inquired at the islands what day
it was, and was told it was Thursday. This amazed him, as his
reckoning made it Wednesday. He was soon convinced there
was no mistake in his account; as, having sailed to the westward
and followed the course of the sun, it was evident that, in cir-
cumnavigating the globe, he had seen it rise once less than
those who had remained at home, and thus, apparently, had lost
a day.
On Saturday, the 6th of September, the Vittoria entered the
Bay of San Lucar, having been absent three years and twenty-
seven days, and having sailed upwards of fourteen thousand six
hundred leagues. On the 8th, having ascended the Guadal-
quivir, she anchored off the mole of Seville and discharged all
her artillery. On the 9th, the whole crew repaired, in their
shirts and barefooted, and carrying tapers in their hands, to
the Church of Our Lady of Victory, as in hours of danger they
had often vowed to do. The captain of the Vittoria, Juan Se-
bastian Cano, was knighted by Charles V., who gave him for
his coat of arms the terrestial globe, with a motto commemo-
rating the voyage. Pigafetta presented to Charles V. of Spain,
to King John of Portugal, to the Queen Regent of France, and
to Philippe, Grand Master of Rhodes, journals and narratives
of the expedition. From the latter, the most complete, we
have extracted the foregoing account,—taking care, however,
to correct its errors, and to point out the numerous instances in
which its author was indebted to his imagination for his facts.
FROM THE FIRST VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD TO THE ODIS-
COVERY OF CAPE HORN; 1519—1616.
CHAPTER XXV. |
VOYAGE OF JACQUES CARTIER—MARITIME PROJECTS OF FRANCIS I. OF FRANCE
—GULF OF ST. LAWRENCE—A QUICK TRIP HOME—SECOND VOYAGE—CANADA,
QUEBEC, MONTREAL—A CAPTIVE KING—VOYAGE OF SIR HUGH WILLOUGHBY
AND RICHARD CHANCELLOR—DISCOVERY OF NOVA ZEMBLA—DISASTROUS
WINTER—-FATE OF THE EXPEDITION—MARTIN FROBISHER—HIS VOYAGE IN
QUEST OF A NORTHWEST PASSAGE—GREENLAND—LABRADOR—FROBISHER’S
STRAITS—EXCHANGE OF CAPTIVES—SUPPOSED DISCOVERY OF GOLD—SECOND
VOYAGE—A CARGO OF PRECIOUS EARTH TAKEN ON BOARD——META INCOGNITA
—THIRD VOYAGE—A MORTIFYING CONCLUSION.
It would appear natural for the Spaniards to have sought to_
derive immediate profit from their discovery of a western pas-
sage to the South Sea. They did not do so, however; and a
generation was destined to pass away before a second European
vessel should enter Magellan’s Strait. We must for a time,
therefore, leave the Spanish and Portuguese in quiet posses-
sion of their Indian and American commerce, and turn to the
several transatlantic and Arctic enterprises undertaken at this
period by the French and English.
Jacques Cartier, a native of St. Malo in France, had, in
1534, finished his apprenticeship as a sailor. He conceived
the idea of seeking a passage to China and the Spice Islands
to the north of the Western Continent, and in the vicinity of
the Pole. This was the origin of the various efforts made in
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ADAM'S WILL AND TESTAMENT. 259
quest of the renowned Northwest Passage. He also thought it
incumbent upon France to assert her right to a share in the
explorations and discoveries which were making Portugal and
Spain both famous and rich. He caused his project to be laid
before Francis I., who had long viewed with jealousy the suc-
cessful expeditions of other powers, and who is said once to have
exclaimed, ‘‘Where is the will and testament of our father
Adam, which disinherits me of my share in these possessions in
favor of Spain and Portugal?’ He at once approved the pro-
position; and, on the 20th of April, 1534, Cartier left St. Malo
with two ships of sixty tons each. No details of the outward
voyage have reached us. It was rapid and prosperous, however,
for the ships anchored in Bonavista Bay, upon the eastern coast
of Newfoundland, on the twentieth day.
Proceeding to the north, he discovered Belle Isle Straits, and
through them descended to the west into a gulf which he called
St. Lawrence, having Newfoundland on his left and Labrador
on his right. He thus assured himself of the insular character
of Newfoundland. He discovered many of the islands and
headlands in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and some of them bear
to this day the names he gave them. He had interviews with
several tribes of natives, and took possession of numerous lands
in the name of the King of France. In the middle of August
east winds became prevalent and violent, and it was impossible
to ascend the St. Lawrence River, at the mouth of which they
now were. A council was held, and a return unanimously de-
cided upon. They arrived safely at St. Malo, after a rapid and
prosperous voyage.
Francis I. immediately caused three ships, respectively of one
hundred and twenty, sixty, and forty tons, to be equipped, and de-
spatched Cartier upon a second voyage of exploration, with the
title of Royal Pilot. He started in May, 1535, and after a stormy
voyage of two months arrived at his anchorage in Newfound-
land. From thence he proceeded to the mouth of the St. Law-
260 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
rence, which he calls by its Indian name of Hochelaga. Here
he was told by the savages that the river led to a country called
Canada. He ascended the stream in boats, passed a village
named Stadacone,—the site of the present city of Quebec,—and
arrived at the Indian city of Hochelaga, which, from a high
mountain in the vicinity, he named Mont Royal,—now Mon-
treal. He went no farther than the junction of the Ottawa and
the St. Lawrence, and then returned. He remained at Stada-
cone through the winter, losing twenty-five of his men by a con-
tagious distemper then very little known,—the scurvy.
Cartier returned to France in July, 1586, taking with him
a Canadian king, named Donnaconna, and nine other natives,
&
who had been captured and brought on board by compulsion.
They were taken to Europe, where Donnaconna died two years
afterwards: three others were baptized in 1538, Cartier stand-
ing sponsor for one of them. They seem to have all been dead
in 1541, the date of Cartier’s third voyage. The king ordered
five ships to be prepared, with which Cartier again started for
the scene of his discoveries. The narrative of this expedition is
lost; but it appears to have resulted in few or no incidents of in-
terest. Cartier was ennobled upon his return in 1542, and lived
ten years to enjoy his new dignity. His descriptions of the
scenery, products, and Indians of Canada are graphic and correct.
In the year 1553, “the Mystery and Company of English
merchants adventurers for the discovery of regions, dominions,
islands, and places unknown’’—at the head of whom was Se-
bastian Cabot—fitted out an expedition of three vessels, and
gave the chief command to Sir Hugh Willoughby, “by reason
of his goodly personage, as also for his singular skill in the
services of war.’’ King Edward VI. confirmed the appointment
in “a license to discover strange countries.”’ ;
The fleet consisted of the Buona Speranza, of one hundred
and seventy tons, commanded by Sir Hugh, with thirty-eight
men, the Hdward Buonaventura, of one hundred and sixty
NOVsz ZEMBLA* DISCOVERED. 261
tons, commanded by Richard Chancellor, pilot-major of the ex-
pedition, with fifty-four men, and the Buona Confidentia, of
ninety tons, with twenty-four men. ‘The ships were victualled
for fifteen months. On board of them were eighteen mer-
chants interested in the discovery of a northeast passage to
India,—a route, therefore, attempted by the English previous to
that by the northwest, as the voyage of Sebastian Cabot can
hardly be considered a serious effort. A council of twelve, in
whom was vested the general direction of the voyage, was
composed of the admiral, pilot-major, and other officers.
The squadron sailed from Deptford on the 10th of May, 1553,
and fell in with the Norwegian coast on the 14th of July. On the
30th, while near Wardhus, the most easterly station of the Danes
in Finmark, Chancellor’s vessel was driven off in a storm, and
was not seen again by the two others. The latter appear to have
been tossed about in the North Sea for two months, in the course
of which they landed at some spot on the western coast of Nova
Zembla, being the first Europeans to visit that uninhabited waste.
On the 18th of September they entered a harbor in Lapland
formed by the mouth of the river Arzina. Here they remained
a week, seeing seals, deer, bears, foxes, “‘ with divers strange
beasts, such as ellans and others, which were to us unknown
and also wonderful.” It was now the Ist of October, and the
Arctic winter was far advanced. They resolved to winter there,
first sending out parties in search of inhabitants. Three men
went three days’ journey to the south-southwest, but returned
without having seen a human being. Others who went to the
west and the southeast returned equally unsuccessful.. This is
the last positive intelligence we have of the fate of these hardy
and unfortunate explorers. A will, however, alleged to have
been made by one Gabriel Willoughby, and signed by Sir
Hugh, bearing the date of January, 1554, shows, if authentic,
that at least two of the party were alive at that period.
Purchas, one of the oldest authorities upon navigation and
262 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
travels extant, says that the Buona Speranza was discovered
in the following spring by a party of Russians, who found all
the crew frozen to death. In 1557, a Drontheim skipper told
an Englishman, at Kegor, that he had bought the sails of the
Buona ,Confidentia; but it is not known where she was lost, or
what was the fate of the crew. The will of which we have
spoken, and a fragmentary diary attributed to Sir Hugh, were
found by the Russians, and were restored to the kinsmen of the
adventurers in England.
The Edward Buonaventura, commanded by Chancellor, and
which was separated from her consorts off Wardhus, reached
Archangel, on the White Sea, in Russia, in safety, and laid
the foundation of a commercial intercourse between Russia
and England. On his return, his ship was lost on the coast
of Scotland, and he himself, with several of his crew, drowned.
Thus, of the three ships despatched, not one ever reached
home; and of the officers, merchants, and men, none survived
to revisit their country, except, a few of the common sea-
men of the Edward Buonaventura. The advantages acquired
at such a cost of human life were limited to the barren
discovery of the ice-clad coast of Nova Zembla. Nothing
had been effected towards the accomplishment of a Northeast
Passage. |
Martin Frobisher, a seaman of experience and enterprise,
was the first Englishman to cherish the project of attempting
to penetrate to Asia by the channel supposed to exist to the
north of America. He communicated his design to his friends,
and spent fifteen years in fruitless efforts to enlist capital and
energy in the cause. Sailors, financiers, merchants, statesmen,
—all regarded the scheme as visionary and hopeless. At last
Lord Dudley, the favorite of Elizabeth, interested himself in
Frobisher’s success, and from that moment he experienced little
difficulty in accomplishing his object. He formed a company,
amassed the requisite sums of money, and purchased three small
MARTIN FROBISHER’S VOYAGE. 2638
_-vessels,—two barks of twenty-five tons each, the Gabriel and
the Michael, and a pinnace of ten tons. This valiant little fleet
weighed anchor at Deptford on the 8th of June, 1576, and,
passing the court assembled at Greenwich, discharged their
ordnance, and made as imposing an appearance as their limited
outfit would allow. Queen Elizabeth waved her hand at the
commander from a window, and, bidding him farewell, wished
him success and a happy return. On the 25th he passed the
southern point of Shetland,—known as Swinborn Head. He
anchored here to repair a leak and to take in fresh water. On
the 10th of July, he descried the coast of Greenland, “rising
like pinnacles of steeples, and all covered with snow.” The crew
made efforts to go ashore, but could find no anchorage for the
vessels, or landing-place for the boats. On the 28th, Frobisher
saw dimly, through the fog, what he supposed to be the coast
of Labrador, enveloped in ice. On the 31st he saw land for —
the third time, and on the 11th of August entered a strait to
which he gave his name.
He ascended this strait a distance of one hundred and fifty
miles. It was not till the eighth day that he saw any inhabit-
ants. He then found that the country was sparsely settled by
a race resembling Tartars. He went ashore and established
friendly relations with a colony of nineteen persons, to each one
of whom he gave a “‘threaden point,”—in other words, a needle
and thread. A few days afterwards, five of the crew were taken
by the natives and their boat destroyed. The inlet in which
this happened was called Five Men’s Sound. The next morning
the vessels ran in-shore, shot off a fauconet and sounded a
trumpet, but heard nothing of the lost sailors. However, Fro-
bisher caught one of the natives in return, having decoyed him
by the tinkling of a bell. When he found himself in captivity,
we are told that “from very choler and disdain he bit his tongue
in twain within his mouth: notwithstanding, he died not thereof,
but lived until he came to England, and then he died of cold
264 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
which he had taken at sea.”” On the 26th of August, Frobisher
weighed anchor and started to return to England, the snow lying
a foot deep upon the decks. He arrived at Yarmouth on the
Ist of October.
One of Frobisher’s sailors had brought with him a bit of
shining black stone, which, upon examination, was found to
yield an infinitesimal quantity of gold. The Northwest Passage
became now a matter of secondary interest, the mines of Fro-
bisher’s Strait promising a more speedy and abundant return.
The society he had formed determined to send him out anew, in
vessels better equipped and provisioned for a longer period. He
left Blackwall on the 26th of May, 1577, in her Majesty’s ship
Aide, of one hundred and eighty tons, followed by the Gabriel and
Michael, his ostensible object being to discover ‘¢ America to be
an island environed with the sea, wherethrough our merchants
may have course and recourse with their merchandise, from
these our northernmost parts of Europe to those oriental coasts
of Asia, to their no little commodity and profit that do or shall
frequent the same.” The fleet passed the Orkneys on the 8th
of June. |
For. a month they sailed to the westward, the season of the
year being that when, in those latitudes, a bright twilight takes
the place of the light of day during the few hours that the sun
is below the horizon; so that the crew had ‘the fruition of their
books and other pleasures,—a thing of no small moment to such
as wander in unknown seas and long navigations, especially when
both the winds and raging surges do pass their common and
wonted course.” Throughout the voyage they met huge fir-
trees, which they supposed to have been uprooted by the winds,
driven into the sea by floods, and borne away by the currents.
On the 4th of July they made the coast of Greenland. The
chronicler of this voyage, who had doubtless lately visited tro-
pical latitudes, remarks that here, “‘in place of odoriferous and
fragrant smells of sweet gums and pleasant notes of musical
FROBISHER’S THIRD VOYAGE. 265
birds, which other countries in more temperate zones do yield,
we tasted in July the most boisterous boreal blasts.’’ In the
middle of the month they entered Frobisher’s Strait. On either
side the land lay locked in the embrace of winter beneath a
midsummer sun. Frobisher would not believe that the cold was
sufficiently severe to congeal the sea-water, the tide rising and
falling a distance of twenty feet. Ten miles from the coast he
had seen fresh-water icebergs, and concluded that they had been
formed upon the land and by some accidental cause detached.
He reconnoitred the coast in a pinnace, and penetrated some
distance into the interior, returning with accounts of supposed
riches which he had discovered in the bowels of barren and
frozen mountains. A cargo of two hundred tons of the precious
earth was taken on board of one of the vessels. On the 20th
of August, says the narrative, “‘it was high time to leave: the
men were well wearied, their shoes and clothes well worn;
their basket-bottoms were torn out and their tools broken.
Some, with overstraining themselves, had their bellies broken,
and others their legs made lame. About this time, too, the
water began to congeal and freeze about our ships’ sides o’ nights.”
The fleet, which had troubled itself very little with the North-
west Passage, at once set sail to the southeast, and arrived in
England towards the end of September.
The specimens of ore were assayed and found satisfactory,
and Frobisher’s reports upon the route to China were received
with favor. The queen gave the name of Meta Incognita, or
Unknown Boundary, to the region explored. The Government
determined to build a fort in Frobisher’s Strait and send a gar-
rison and a corps of laborers there. In the mean time, Frobisher
was despatched a third time with the same three vessels, and
with a convoy of twelve freight-ships which were to return laden
with Labrador ore. They set sail on the 31st of May, 1578,
and made Greenland on the 20th of June. In July they entered
the strait, where they were in imminent danger from storms and
266 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
ice. The bark Denis, being pretty well bruised and battered,
became ‘‘so leaky that she would no longer tarry above the
water, and sank; which sight so abashed the whole fleet, that
we thought verily we should have tasted the same sauce.” Boats
were, however, manned, and the drowning crew were saved. The
storm increased, and the ice pressed more and more upon then,
so that they took down their topmasts. They cut their cables
to hang overboard for fenders, ‘‘somewhat to ease the ships’
sides from the great and dreary strokes of the ice. Thus we
continued all that dismal and lamentable night, plunged in this
perplexity, looking for instant death; but our God, who never
leaveth them destitute which faithfully call upon him, although
he often punisheth for amendment sake, in the morning caused
the wind to cease and the fog to clear. Thus, after punishment,
consolation ; and we, joyful wights, being at liberty, hoisted our
sails and lay beating off and on.”’ |
At last, at the close of July, such of the vessels as had not
been separated from Frobisher’s ship entered the Countess of
Warwick’s Sound, and commenced the work of mining and
lading. The miners were from time to time molested by the
natives, but lost no lives. They put on board of their several
ships five hundred tons of ore, and, on the 1st of September,
sailed with their precious freight to England, where they arrived
in thirty days. The ore turned out to be utterly valueless,—a
result so mortifying that it disgusted the English for many years
with mining enterprises and with voyages of discovery. We
shall hear of Frobisher again, in connection with Francis Drake,
and in the conflict with the Spanish Armada.
The engraving upon the opposite page, which is copied from
an original of the period, represents a portion of the royal fleet
of England in the time of Henry VIII. The king is embarking
at Dover previous to meeting Francis of France at the Field of
the Cloth of Gold. This pageantry at sea was a fitting prelude
to the festivities which followed upon the land.
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CHAPTER XXVI.
ORIGIN OF ENGLISH PIRACY—SIR JOHN HAWKINS—FRANCIS DRAKE—HIS FIRS%
VOYAGE TO THE SPANISH MAIN—COMMISSION GRANTED BY QUEEN ELIZABETH
—EXPEDITION AGAINST THE SPANISH POSSESSIONS—EXPLOITS AT MOGADOR
AND SANTIAGO—CROSSING THE LINE—ARRIVAL IN PATAGONIA-—TRIAL AND
EXECUTION OF DOUGHTY—PASSAGE THROUGH MAGELLAN’S STRAIT—ADVEN-
TURES OF WILLIAM PITCHER AND SEVEN MEN—CAPE HORN—ARRIVAL AT
VALPARAISO—RIFLING OF A CATHOLIC CHURCH.
We have thus shown that, while the Spanish and Portuguese
had succeeded triumphantly in their maritime expeditions, the
English had disastrously failed in theirs. The tropics were held
in exclusive possession by the two former nations ; and the only two
known routes by which ships could sail thither were also in their
267
268 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
power. ‘These two nations were Catholic: England was Pro-
testant, and disinherited therefore, as it seemed, of her lawful
share in the riches of the world. She had thus far wasted her
means and endangered the lives of her citizens in fruitless at-
tempts to find a route for herself, by the northwest or the north-
east, to the lands of gold and gums. Baffled in these efforts,
she permitted, if she did not encourage, a certain class of her
subjects to engage in a system of warfare against Spain which
can be characterized by no milder term than piracy. Still,
those who resorted to it adduced ready arguments to prove that,
so far from engaging in piratical practices, they were employed
in open warfare and an honest cause. Spain and England were
in a state of manifest enmity, they urged, more bitter on both
sides than if they had been avowedly at war. No English sub-
ject trading in the Spanish dominions was safe unless he were a
Roman Catholic, or unless, being a heretic, he succumbed to the
menaces or the tortures of the Holy Inquisition. These out-
rages were resented by the English people before they were
taken up by the British Government; and the injured parties,
calling to their aid all persons of adventurous spirit or shattered
fortunes, set out upon the sea, if not with the commission, at
least with the connivance, of the crown, to avenge their wrongs
themselves. They did not consider themselves to be pirates,
because of this tacit sanction given by the Government, because
of the fact that they carried on hostilities, not against all who
traversed the sea, but against the Spaniards only, and because
of the risk they ran,—for if taken by the enemy they had no
mercy to expect. It thus became the fashion in England for
men of desperate fortunes and damaged character to seek to
retrieve the one and redeem the other by cruising against the
Spaniards. :
Among the earlier adventurers of this stamp was one Sir
John Hawkins. His exploits were for a time brilliant and suc-
cessful: at last, however, they were disastrous, and one of his
DRAKE'S NEW: RESOLVE. 269
young kinsmen, Francis Drake by name, was discreditably in-
volved. The latter had embarked his whole means in this
adventure, and lost in it all his money and no little reputation,—
for he disobeyed orders and deserted his benefactor and superior
in the hour of need. He brought his vessel,—the Judith, of fifty
tons,—however, safely home.
Drake now resolved to engage permanently in the lawless but
exciting career of which he had lately witnessed several in-
teresting episodes. It was long before he could obtain the
means of fitting out an expedition under his own command.
He at last bought and equipped two vessels,—one of two hundred
and fifty tons, the other of seventy,—manned them with seventy-~
three men, and sailed for the Spanish dominions in America.
He attacked and took the town of Nombre de Dios, on the
Isthmus of Darien, but was soon obliged to retreat. He after-
wards took Venta Cruz, on the same isthmus, and had the
good fortune to fall in with three convoys of mules laden with
gold and silver, going from Panama to Nombre de Dios. He
carried off the gold and buried the silver. From the summit
of a mountain he obtained a sight of the Pacific Ocean or South
Sea, which so kindled his enthusiasm that he uttered a fervent
prayer that he might be the first Englishman who should sail
upon it. He was already the first Englishman who had beheld it.
On his return to England with his treasure, he entered for a
time the volunteer service against Ireland, while waiting an
opportunity to execute the grand project he had formed. At
last, Sir Christopher Hutton, Vice-Chamberlain and Counsellor
of the Queen, presented him to Elizabeth, to whom Drake im-
parted his scheme of ravaging the Spanish possessions in the
South Sea. The queen listened; but whether she gave him a
commission, or merely assured him of her favorable sentiments,
is a disputed point. It is alleged that she gave him a sword and
pronounced these singular words:—‘‘ We. do account that he
which striketh at thee, Drake, striketh at us!” We fitted out
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270
TRAFFIC WITH THE MOORS. 271
an expedition, at his own cost and with the help of friends and
partners in the enterprise, consisting of five ships,—the largest,
the Pelican, his flag-ship, of one hundred tons, and the smallest
of fifteen. These vessels were manned by one hundred and
fifty-four men. They carried out the frames of four pinnaces,
to be put together as occasion required, and, after the example
of the Portuguese in their first Eastern voyages, took with
them specimens of the arts and civilization of their country,
with which to operate upon the minds of the people with whom
they.should come in contact. They sailed in November, 1577,
but were driven back by a tempest. The expedition ee
got to sea on the 13th of December.
At the island of Mogador, off the coast of Barbary, Drake
attempted to traffic with the Moors, and in an exchange of
hostages lost a man, who was taken by the natives: they then
refused to trade, and Drake, after a vain effort to recover the
sailor, left the island, and followed the African coast to the
southward. Between Mogador and Cape Blanco he took several
Spanish barks called canters,—one of which, measuring forty
tons, he admitted into his fleet, sending his prisoners off in the
Christopher, the pinnace of fifteen: tons and one of the original
five vessels. He landed on the island of Mayo, where the inhabit-
ants salted their wells, forsook their houses, and drove away
‘their goats. Off the island of Santiago he took a Portuguese
vessel bound for Brazil, carrying numerous passengers and
laden with wine. He kept the pilot, Nuno da Sylva, gave the
passengers and crew a pinnace, and transferred the wine to the
Pelican. The prize he made one of the fleet, having given her
a crew of twenty-eight men.
At Cape Verd Drake left the African shore, and, steering
steadily to the southwest, was nine weeks without seeing land.
When near the equator, he prepared his men for the change of
climate by bleeding them all himself. He made the coast of
Brazil on the 4th of April, 1578,—the savage inhabitants
272, HISTORY OF THE SEA.
making large bonfires at their approach, for the purpose, as
he learned from Sylva, of inducing their devils to wreck the
ships upon their coast. On the 27th he entered the Rio de la
Plata, and, sailing up the stream till he found but three fathoms’
water, filled his casks by the ship’s side. The same night,
the Portuguese prize, now named the Mary, and commanded by
John Doughty, parted company, as did two days afterwards the
Spanish canter, which had been named the Christopher, after
the pinnace for which she had been exchanged. Drake, be-
lieving them to have concealed themselves in shoal water, built
a raft and set sail in quest of them.
DRAKE AND HIS RAFT.
Early in June, Drake landed on the coast. of Patagonia,
where he broke up the Swan, of fifty tons, for firewood, having
taken every thing out of her which could be of any use,—his
object being to lessen the number of ships and the chances of
separation, and to render his force more compact. His men
easily killed two hundred and fifty seals in an hour, which fur-
nished them with very tolerable eating. They entered into very
pleasant relations with the natives, delighting them with the
sound of their trumpets, intoxicating them with Canary wine,
and dancing with them in their own savage and extravagant
manner. The natives gave Drake a vexatious proof of their
agility and address, by stealing his hat from his head and baffling
every effort made to recover it. Shortly after sailing from this
A TRAGICAL EVENT. Paries)
spot, named by Drake Seal Bay, the fleet fell in with the Chris-
topher again, which Drake ordered to be unloaded and set adrift.
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DRAKE AND THE PATAGONIANS.
Me soon met the Portuguese Mary, and on the 20th the whole
squadron anchored in the harbor named Port Julian by Ma-
gellan. Intercourse was attempted with the Indians, but was
stopped on account of a fray begun by the savages, in which
two of the English and one of their own party were killed.
The natives made no further attempt to molest the strangers
during their two months’ stay in the harbor.
A very tragical event now followed. Magellan had in this
place, as we have stated, quelled a dangerous mutiny, by hanging
several of a disobedient and rebellious company. The gibbet
was still standing, and beneath it the bones of the executed were
now bleaching. Drake apprehended a similar peril, and was led
to inquire into the actions of John Doughty. He found, in his
investigations, that Doughty had embarked in the enterprise
rather in the hope of rising to the chief command than of re-
maining what he started,—a gentleman volunteer: he had views,
18
274 | HISTORY OF THE SEA
it seemed, of supplanting Drake by exciting a mutiny, and of
sailing off in one of the ships upon his own account. The com.
pany were called together and made acquainted with the parti-
culars; Doughty was tried for attempting to foment a mutiny,
found guilty, and condemned to death by forty commissaries
chosen from among the various crews. Doughty partook of
DRAKE CONDEMNING DOUGHTY.
the communion with Drake and several of his officers, dined at
the same table with them, and, in the last glass of wine he ever
raised to his lips, drank their healths and wished them farewell.
He walked to the place of execution without displaying unusual
emotion, embraced the general, took leave of the company,
offered up a prayer for the queen and her realm, and was then
beheaded near Magellan’s gibbet. Drake addressed the com-
pany, exhorting them to unity and obedience, and ordered them
to prepare to receive the holy communion on the followig Sab-
bath, the first Sunday in the month.
This tragedy has been embellished by many fanciful ad-
ditions on the part of Drake’s apologists, and upon the part
of his calumniators by many false statements. It is said by
the former that Drake, after Doughty’s condemnation, offered
him the choice of three alternatives,—either to be executed m
Patagonia, to be set ashore and left, or to be sent back to Eng-
land, there to answer for his acts before the Lords of her Ma-
jesty’s Council; and that Doughty replied that he would not
A DIFFICULT QUESTION, 275:
endanger his soul by being left among savage infidels ;. that, as
for returning to England, if any one could be found willing to
accompany him on so disgraceful an errand, the shame of the
return would be more grievous than death; that he therefore
preferred ending his life where he was,—a choice from which no
argument could persuade him. These assertions can hardly be
correct, as nothing of the kind is set forth in the account of
the voyage given by Fletcher, the chaplain of the expedition.
It is highly improbable that Doughty, if conscious of innocence,
would have rejected the offer of a trial in England; while it is
unlikely that the offer was ever made, as Drake could ill spare
a ship in which to send the prisoner home. Different opinions are
held in the matter by different writers. Admiral Burney thought
the statements too imperfect for forming, and the whole matter
too delicate to express, an opinion. Dr. Johnson wrote thus on
the subject :—‘‘ What designs Doughty could have formed with
any hope of success, or to what actions worthy of death he could
have proceeded without accomplices, it is difficult to imagine.
Nor, on the other hand, does there appear any temptation, from
either hope, fear, or interest, that might induce Drake, or any
commander in his state, to put to death an innocent man
on false pretences.’’ Southey, in his Lives of the Admirals, is
disposed to consider Drake as justified in making a severe ex-
ample. Harris is of opinion that the act was ‘‘the most rash
and blameworthy of the admiral’s career.” Sylva, Drake’s
Portuguese pilot, once said that Doughty was punished for
attempting to abandon the expedition and return to England,
and thus evidently thought that a sufficient motive existed for
his execution. And it is worth remarking that the Spaniards,
who never neglected an opportunity of loading Drake with ob-
loquy, extolled ‘him in this case for his vigilance and decision.
Doughty was buried on an island in the harbor, together with
the bodies of the two men slain in the fray with the savages.
The Portuguese prize, being now found leaky and trouble-
276 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
some, was broken up, the fleet being thus reduced to three.
On the 21st of August, Drake entered Magellan’s Strait,—
being the second commander who ever performed the voyage
through it. He cleared the channel in sixteen days, and entered
the South Sea on the 6th of September. Here the Marygold
was lost in a terrible storm, and the Elizabeth, being separated
from Drake’s vessel, wandered about in search of him for a time
and then sailed for England, where her captain was disgraced
for having abandoned his commander. Drake was driven from
the Bay of Parting of Friends, as he named the spot in which
he lost sight of the Elizabeth, and was swept southward to the
coast of Terra del Fuego, where he was forced from his anchor-
age and obliged to abandon the pinnace, with eight men in it
and one day’s provisions, to the mercy of the winds.
The miseries endured by these eight men are hardly equalled
in the annals of maritime disaster. They gained the shore,
salted and dried penguins for food, and coasted on till they
reached the Plata. Six of them landed, and, of these six, four
were taken prisoners by the Indians. The other two were
wounded in attempting to escape to the boat, as were the two
who were left in charge. These four succeeded in reaching an
island nine miles from the coast, where two of them died of
their wounds. ‘The other two lived for two months upon crabs
and eels, and a fruit resembling an orange, which was the only
~ means they had of quenching their thirst. One night their boat
was dashed to pieces against the rocks. Unable longer to en-
dure the want of water, they attempted to paddle to land upon
a plank ten feet long. This was the laborious work of three
days and two nights. They found a rivulet of fresh water; and
one of them, William Pitcher, unable to resist the temptation
of drinking to excess, died of its effects in half an hour. His
companion was held in captivity for nine years by the Indians,
when he was permitted to return to England.
Drake, after the loss of the pinnace, was driven again to the
A PRIZE CAPTURED. Dis
southward, and, in the quaint language of the times, “fell in
with the uttermost part of the land towards the South Pole,
where the Atlantic Ocean and the South Sea meet in a large
and free scope.’’ He saw the cape since called Cape Horn,
and anchored there: he gave the name of Elizabethides to all
the islands lying in the neighborhood. As he neither doubled
nor named this cape, it remained for the daring navigators
Schouten and Lemaire to demonstrate its importance, by pass-
ing around it from one ocean into the other, which Drake, it
will be observed, had not done. He went ashore, however, and,
leaning over a rock which extended the farthest into the sea,
returned to the ship and told the crew that he had been farther
south than any man living. He anchored at the island of
Mocha on the 29th of November, having coasted for four weeks
to the northward along the South American shore. He landed
with ten men, and was attacked by the Indians, who took them
for Spaniards. Two of his men were killed, all of them dis-
abled, and he himself badly wounded with an arrow under the
right eye. Not one of the assailants was hurt. Drake made
no attempt to take vengeance for this unprovoked attack, as it
was evident it was begun under the mistaken idea that they
were Spaniards, whose atrocities had made every native of the
country their enemy. He sailed for Peru on the same day.
Early in December he learned, from an Indian who was found
fishing in his canoe, that he had passed twenty miles beyond
the port of Valhario,—now Valparaiso ; and that in this port lay
a Spanish ship well laden. Drake sailed for this place, where
he found the ship riding at anchor, with eight Spaniards and
three negroes on board. These, taking the new-comers for
friends,—for the Spaniards had never yet seen an enemy in
this ocean,—welcomed them with drum and trumpet, and
opened a jar of Chili wine in which to drink their health.
Thomas Moore, the former captain of the Christopher pinnace,
was the first to board the unsuspecting craft. He laid lustily
278 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
about him, upon which the principal Spaniard crossed himself
and jumped overboard. The rest were easily secured under the
hatches. The prize was rifled, and one thousand seven hundred
and seventy jars of Chili wine, sixty thousand pieces of gold,
and a number of strings of pearls, were taken from her. The
miserable town, consisting of nine families, who at once fled to
the interior, was next ransacked. A poor little church was
robbed of a silver chalice, two cruets, and a cloth with which
the altar was spread. A warehouse was forced to disgorge its
store of Chili wine and cedar planks. Thus did Drake, armed
with the sanction of Elizabeth, Queen of England, plunder a
handful of inoffensive men securely anchored in a peaceful
roadstead, who saluted their coming with music and with wine.
Thus did Drake commit sacrilege in a Christian church, and
furnish the mess-room of his ship from the spoils of a Catholic
altar. Even Southey admits that, in this affair, Drake deserves
no other name than that of pirate. And we shall see that he de-
served it equally well throughout his stay upon the coast.
CHAPTER XXVIL
PRAKE’S EXPLOIT WITH A SLEEPING SPANI1RD—-HIS ACHIEVEMENTS AT CALLAO
—BATTLE WITH A TREASURE-SHIP—DRAKE GIVES A RECEIPT FOR HER CARGO
—INDITES A TOUCHING EPISTLE—HiIS PLANS FOR RETURNING HOME—FRESH
CAPTURES—PERFORMANCES AT GUATULCO AND ACAPULCO—DRAKE DISMISSES
HIS PILOT—-EXCEEDING COLD WEATHER—DRAKE REGARDED AS A GOD BY THE
CALIFORNIANS—SAILS FOR THE MOLUCCAS—VISITS TERNATE AND CELEBES—
THE PELICAN UPON A REEF—THE RETURN VOYAGE—PROTEST OF THE SPANISH
AMBASSADOR—HE STYLES DRAKE THE MASTER-THIEF OF THE UNKNOWN WORLD
—QUEEN ELIZABETH ON BOARD THE PELICAN—-DRAKE’S USE OF HIS FORTUNE
—HIS DEATH—THE VOYAGE OF JOHN DAVIS TO THE NORTHWEST.
A FORTNIGHT after leaving Valparaiso, Drake anchored at
the mouth of the Coquimbe. The watering party sent ashore
had barely time to escape from a body of five hundred horse and
foot. At another place, called Tarapaca, the waterers found a
Spaniard lying asleep, and took from him thirteen bars of silver
of the value of four thousand ducats. Southey states, as if it
were a trait of magnanimity, that no personal injury was offered
to the sleeping man. They next captured eight lamas, each
carrying a hundred pounds of silver. At Arica they found two
ships at anchor, a single negro being on board of each: from
the one they took forty bars of silver, and from the other two
hundred jars of wine. As the Pelican was more than a match for
the two negroes, the latter wisely offered no resistance. Drake
arrived at Callao, the port of Lima,—Lima being the capital of
Peru,—before it was known that an enemy’s ship had entered
the waters of the Pacific. He immediately boarded a bark laden
with silk, which he consented to leave unmolested on condition
279
280 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
that the owner would pilot him into Callao, which he did. Here
Drake found seventeen ships, twelve of which had sent their
sails ashore, so that they were as helpless as logs. He rifled
them of their silver, silk, and linen, and then cut their cables
and let them drift out to sea. Learning that a richly-laden
treasure-ship, named the Cacafuego, had lately sailed for Paita,
he at once gave chase. He stopped a vessel bound for Callao;
and such was his thirst for gain, that he took from it a small
silver lamp, the only article of value on board. In a ship bound
to Panama he found forty bars of silver, eighty pounds of gold,
and a golden crucifix set with large emeralds. Soon after cross-
ing the line, the Cacafuego was discovered ten miles to seaward,
by Drake’s brother John. The-Pelican’s sailing qualities were
now improved by what Sylva, the pilot, calls a ‘pretty device.”
Empty jars were filled with water and hung with ropes over the
stern, in order to lighten her bow. The Spaniard, not dreaming
of an enemy, made towards her, whereupon Drake gave her
three broadsides, shot her mainmast overboard, and wounded her
captain. She then surrendered. Drake took possession, sailed
with her two days and two nights from the coast, and then lay
to to rifle her. He took from her an immense quantity of pearls
and precious stones, eighty pounds of gold, twenty-six tons of
silver in ingots, a large portion of which belonged to the king,
and thirteen boxes of coined silver. The value of this prize
was not far from one million of dollars. Then, as if he had
been engaged in a legal commercial transaction, Drake asked
the captain for his register of the cargo, and wrote a receipt in
the margin for the whole amount!
The prize, thus lightened of her metallic cargo, was then
allowed to depart. Her captain received from Drake a letter of
safe conduct in case he should fall in with the Elizabeth or the
Mary. This letter is remarkable for its deep and touching piety.
After recommending the despoiled captain to the friendly notice
of Winter and Thomas, Drake concludes thus:—‘‘I commit you
RETURNING WITH bOOTY. 281
all to the tuition of Him that with his blood hath redeemed us,
and am in good hope that we shall be in no more trouble, but
that he will help us in adversity; desiring you, for the passion
of Christ, if you fall into any danger, that you will not despair
of God's mercy, for he will defend you and preserve you from
all peril, and bring us to our desired haven: to whom be all
honor, and praise, and glory, forever and ever. Amen.
‘‘Your sorrowful captain,
‘Whose heart is heavy for you,
“Francis Drake.”
Drake now considered his object in these seas as accomplished:
the indignities offered by the Spaniards to his queen and country
were avenged, and their commerce was well-nigh annihilated.
He next examined the various plans of returning home with his
booty. He thought it impossible to go back by the way he had
come: the whole coast of Chili and Peru was in alarm, and ships
had undoubtedly been despatched to intercept him. Moreover, the
season (for it was now February, 1579) was unfavorable either
for passing the Strait or for doubling the Cape. He might have
followed the course of Magellan, and thus have circumnavigated
the globe; but this seemed but a paltry imitation to his daring
and inventive mind. He conceived the idea of discovering a
Northwest Passage and returning to England by the North Polar
Sea. He therefore sailed towards the north, making the coast of
Nicaragua in the middle of March. Here he captured a small
craft laden with sarsaparilla, butter, and honey. A neighboring.
island supplied him with wood and fish: alligators and monkeys
also abounded there. A vessel from Manilla, which he captured
while her crew were asleep, contributed to his stores large quan-
tities of muslin, Chinese porcelain, and silks. A negro taken
from this vessel piloted him into the haven of Guatulco, on the
coast of Mexico, inhabited by seventeen Spaniards and a few
negroes. Drake ransacked this place, but boasts of no other
booty than a bushel ‘of silver coins and a gold chain that Thomas
/
282 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
Moon took from the person of the escaping governor. At Aca-
pulco he found a few Spaniards engaged in trying and condemn-
ing a parcel of the unhappy natives. He broke up the court,
and sent both judges and prisoners on board his vessel.
i RRS SS === SS
DRAKE INTERRUPTING THE COURSE OF JUSTICE AT ACAPULCO,
Before leaving Acapulco, Drake put the pilot, Nuno da Sylva,
whom he had taken at the Cape Verds, on board a ship in the
harbor, to find his way back to Portugal as best he could. He
then sailed four thousand five hundred miles in various direc-
tions, till he found himself in a piercingly cold climate, where the
meat froze as soon as it was removed from the fire. This was in
latitude forty-eight north. So he sailed back again ten degrees
and anchored in an excellent harbor on the California coast.
This harbor is considered by numerous authorities as the present
Bay of San Francisco. The natives, who had been visited but
_ once by Kuropeans,—under the Portuguese Cabrillo, thirty-seven
/ years before,—had not learned to distrust them, and readily
entered into relations of commerce and amity with Drake’s
party. From the Indians the latter obtained quantities of an
herb which they called tabak, and which was undoubtedly tobacco.
The Californians soon came to regard the strangers as gods, and
did them religious honors. The king resigned to Drake all title
to the surrounding country, and offered to become his subject.
So he took possession of the crown and dignity of the said ter-
ritory in the name and for the use of her majesty the queen.
The Californians, we are told, accompanied this act of surrender
ie:
NEW ALBION. 283
with a song and dance of triumph, “because they were not only
visited of gods, but the great and chief god was now become
their god, their king and patron, and themselves the only happy
and blessed people in all the world.”” Drake named the country
New Albion, in honor of Old Albion or England. He set up
a monument of the queen’s ‘“‘right and title to the same, namely,
a plate nailed upon a fair great post, whereon was engraved her
majesty’s name, with the day and year of arrival.” After
remaining five weeks in the harbor, Drake weighed anchor, on
the 23d of July, resolved to abandon any further attempt in
northern latitudes, and to steer for the Moluccas, after the
example of Magellan.
On the 13th of October he discovered several islands in latitude
eight degrees north, and was soon surrounded with canoes laden
with cocoanuts and fruit. These canoes were hollowed out of a
single log with wonderful art, and were as smooth as polished horn,
and decorated throughout with shells thickly set. The ears of
the natives hung down considerably from the weight of the
ornaments worn in them. Their nails were long and sharp, and
were evidently used as a weapon. ‘Their teeth were black as
jet,—an effect obtained by the use of the betel-root. These
people were friendly and commercially inclined. Drake visited
other groups, where the principal occupation of the natives was
selling cinnamon to the Portuguese. At Ternate, one of the
Moluccas, the king offered the sovereignty of the isles to Drake,
and sent him presents of ‘imperfect and liquid sugar,’—
molasses, probably,—“‘rice, poultry, cloves, and meal which they
called sagu, or bread made of the tops of certain trees, tasting in
the mouth like sour curds, but melting like sugar, whereof they
made certain cakes which may be kept the space of ten years,
and yet then good to be eaten.” Drake stayed here six days,
laid in a large stock of cloves, and sailed on the 9th of November.
At a small island near Celebes, where he set up his forge and
caused the ship to be carefully repaired, he and his men saw
=
=
NATIVES OF CALIFORNIA.
264
STRANDED UPON A ROCKY SHOAL. 285
sights which they have described in somewhat exaggerated
terms :—“‘tall trees without branches except a tuft at the very
top, in which swarms of fiery worms, flying in the air, made a
show as if every twig had been a burning candle; bats bigger
than large hens,—a very ugly poultry ; cray-fish, or land-crabs,
one of which was enough for four men, and which dug huge
caves under the roots of trees, or, for want of better refuge,
would climb trees and hide in the forks of the branches.”’ This
spot was appropriately named Crab Island.
On the 9th of January, 1580, the ship ran upon a rocky shoal °
- and stuck fast. The crew were first summoned to prayers, and
then ordered to lighten the ship. Three tons of cloves were
thrown over, eight guns, and a quantity of meal and pulse. One
authority says distinctly that no gold or silver was thrown into
the water, though it was the heaviest part of the cargo; another
authority asserts the contrary in the following passage :—
“Conceiving that the best way to lighten the ship was to ease
their consciences, they humbled themselves by fasting, after-
wards dining on Christ in the sacrament, expecting no other
than to sup with him in heaven. Then they cast out of their ship
six great pieces of ordnance, threw overboard as much wealth
as would break the heart of a miser to think of it, with much
sugar and packs of spices, making a caudle of the sea round
about.” The ship was at last freed, and started again on her
way. Her adventures from this point offer no very salient
features: she stopped at Java, the Cape of Good Hope, and
Sierra Leone. In the latter place Drake saw troops of ele-
phants, and oysters fastened on to the twigs of trees and hang-
ing down into the water in strings.
Drake arrived at Plymouth after a voyage of two years and
ten months. Like Magellan, he found he had lost a day in
his reckoning. He immediately repaired to court, where he was
graciously received, his treasure, however, being placed in se-
questration, to answer such demands as might be made upon it.
286 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
Drake was denounced in many quarters as a pirate, while in
others collections of songs and epigrams were made, celebrating
him and his ship in the highest terms. The Spanish ambassador,
Bernardino de Mendoza, who called him the Master-Thief of the
Unknown World, demanded that he should be punished accord-
ing to the laws of nations. Elizabeth firmly asserted her right
of navigating the ocean in all parts, and denied that the Pope’s
grant of a monopoly in the Indies to the Spaniards and Portu-
guese was of any binding effect upon her. She yielded, how-
ever, so far as to restore, to the agent of several of the merchants
whom Drake had despoiled, large sums of money. Enough re-
mained, however, to make the expedition a remunerating one
for the captors. The queen then, in a pompous and solemn
ceremony, gave to the entire affair an official and govern-
mental ratification. She ordered Drake’s ship to be drawn
up in a little creek near Deptford, to be there preserved as a
monument of the most memorable voyage the English had ever
yet performed. She went on board of her, and partook of
a banquet there with the commander, who, kneeling at her
feet, rose up Sir Francis Drake. The Westminster students
“inscribed a Latin quatrain upon the mainmast, of which the
following lines are a translation:
‘<Sir Drake, whom well the world’s end knows, which thou didst compass round,
And whom both poles of heaven saw,—which north and south do bound,—
The stars above will make thee known, if men here silent were :
The sun himself cannot forget his fellow-traveller.”
The ship remained at Deptford till she decayed and fell to pieces:
a chair was made from one of her planks and presented to the
University of Oxford, where it is still to be seen.
Such was the first voyage around the world accomplished by
an Englishman. Drake’s success awakened the spirit and genius
of navigation in the English people, and may be said to have
contributed in no slight degree to the naval supremacy they
afterwards acquired. If, in accordance with the manner of the
THE NORTH-WEST PASSAGE. 287
times, he was quite as much a pirate as a navigator, and mingled
plunder and piety, prayer and pillage, in pretty equal pro-
portions, and is to be judged accordingly, he at least made a
noble use of the fortune he had acquired, in aiding the queen
in her wars with Spain, and in encouraging the construction of
public works. He built, with his own resources, an aqueduct
twenty miles in length, with which to supply Plymouth with
water. He died at sea, while commanding an expedition against
the Spanish West India Islands. He wrote no account of his
adventures and discoveries. A volume published by Nuno da
Sylva, his Portuguese pilot, whose statements were confirmed by
the officers, has served as the basis of the various narratives in
existence.
We may briefly allude here to an attempt made in 1585, under
the auspices of the English Government, by John Davis, a sea-
man of acknowledged ability, with two ships,—the Sunshine and
Moonshine,—to discover the Northwest Passage. After a voyage
of six weeks, he saw, in north latitude 60°, a mountainous and
ice-bound promontory. It was the southwestern point of Green-
land, and he gave it the name of Cape Desolation, which it still
retains. He now sailed to the northwest, discovered islands,
coasts, and harbors, to which he gave appropriate appellations.
He thus was the first to enter the strait which bears his name,
and beyond which Baffin, thirty years later, was to discover the
vast bay which, in its turn, was to bear his name. Davis made
two subsequent voyages to these waters in search of a passage
across the continent, but, with the exception of the discovery
of Davis’ Strait, effected nothing which needs to be chronicled
here. This single discovery, however, was one of the utmost
importance, as it served to stimulate research and to encourage
further effort in this direction. More than two centuries were
nevertheless destined to elapse before success was to be attained.
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CHAPTER XXVIII.
POLICY OF QUEEN ELIZABETH—THOMAS CAVENDISH—HIS FIRST VOYAGE—EX-
PLOITS UPON THE AFRICAN AND BRAZILIAN COASTS—PORT DESIRE—PORT
FAMINE—BATTLES WITH THE ARAUCANIANS—CAPTURE OF PAITA—-ROBBERY
OF A CHURCH—REPEATED ACTS OF BRIGANDAGE—CAPTURE OF THE SANTA
ANNA—THE RETURN VOYAGE—CAVENDISH’S ACCOUNT OF THE EXPEDITION—
THE SPANISH ARMADA—PREPARATIONS IN ENGLAND—THE CONFLICT—TOTAL
ROUT OF THE INVINCIBLES—PROCESSION IN COMMEMORATION OF THE EVENT.
QuEEN ExizaBeTH had found it to her advantage to en-
courage displays of public spirit in private individuals, and to
excite the nobles and persons of fortune who were ambitious
of distinction, as well as the indigent in search of employment,
to hazard, the one their wealth, the other their lives, in the
national service. She thus derived benefit from a class of peo-
288
THOMAS. CAVENDISH. . 289
ple who had been of little use in any other reign. Many gentle-
men of rank and position devoted a portion of their means to
harassing the Spanish at sea, to prosecuting discovery in distant
quarters, and to planting colonies upon savage coasts. Among
the most distinguished of these was Thomas Cavendish, of
Trimley, near Ipswich.
This gentleman was of an honorable family, and possessed a
large estate. He equipped, in 1586, three ships of the requisite
burden,—the largest, the Desire, being of one hundred and forty
tons, the lesser, the Content, being of sixty, and the least, the
Hugh Gallant, a bark of forty tons. He provisioned them for
two years, and manned them with one hundred and twenty-three
officers and men, some of whom had served under Sir Francis
Drake. His patron, Lord Hunsdon, procured him a commis-
sion from Queen Elizabeth, thus assimilating his vessels to
those of the navy, and rendering his contemplated piracies
legitimate. Cavendish sailed from Plymouth on the 21st of
July, directing his course to the south and touching upon the
coasts of Guinea and Sierra Leone. Here the crew destroyed a
negro town, in revenge for the death of one of their men, whom
the inhabitants had killed with a poisoned arrow. ‘Their course
across the Atlantic to the. Brazilian shore offers no remarkable
LA,
CAVENDISH IN BRAZIL.
features. They erected their forge upon an island, where they
healed their sick and built a pinnace. Anchoring in a harbor
on the Patagonian coast, Cavendish named it Port Desire, after
19
290 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
his flag-ship,—a name which it still retains. He seems to have
considered the savages to be giants, and asserts that he saw
footprints eighteen inches long. He entered the Strait at the
commencement of January, 1587, and soon discovered a mise-
rable and forlorn settlement of Spaniards. These numbered
twenty-three men, being all that remained of four hundred who
had been left there three years before, by Sarmiento, to colonize
the Strait. They had lived in destitution for the last eighteen
months, being able to procure no other food than a scanty sup-
ply of shell-fish, except when they surprised a thirsty deer or
seized an unsuspecting swan. They had built a fortress, in
order to exclude all other nations but their own from the passage
of the Strait, but had been compelled to leave it, owing to the
intolerable stench proceeding from the carcasses of their un-
happy companions who died of want or disease. Cavendish
took the survivors on board, and named the spot upon which
the fortress was built Port Famine.
: pean sre
EGE Pe
PORT FAMINE.
Cavendish entered the Pacific late in February, after a tem-
pestuous passage from the Atlantic side. Landing upon the
Chilian coast, in the country of the Araucanians, he received
a warm reception from the natives, who mistook his men for
Spaniards, by whom the territory had been repeatedly invaded
in search of gold. He afterwards undeceived them, and found
them willing to satisfy his wants when convinced that they did
not belong to that avaricious and cruel people. In another
STEALING CHURCH BELLS. 291
place, inhabited by a Spanish colony, he fought a pitched battle
with two hundred horsemen, driving those who were not slain
back to the mountains. At another spot farther north, the In-
dians brought him wood and water on their backs. In May he
captured two prizes, taking out of them twenty thousand pounds’
worth of sugar, molasses, calico, marmalade, and hens, and then
burning them to the water's edge. He seized upon the town
of Paita, which he ransacked and burned, carrying off a large
quantity of household goods and twenty-five pounds’ weight of
pieces-of-eight, or Spanish dollars. Off the island of Puna he.
fell in with a ship of two hundred and fifty tons; but, being dis-.
appointed at finding her empty, he sank her out of sheer spite.
The inhabitants of Puna were Christians, having followed the-
example of their cacique, who had married a Spanish woman and.
had thereupon made a profession of her religion. They were rich
and industrious. Cavendish pillaged the island, burned the:
church, and carried off its five bells. Being attacked by the
Spaniards and natives combined, he fought a long and bloody
battle, after which he ravaged the fields and orchards, burned
four ships on the stocks, and left the town of three hundred
houses a heap of rubbish. He took a coasting-ship, rifled and
scuttled her, and compelled her captain to become his pilot.
He continued this course of brigandage and piracy all along the
South American and Mexican coasts, destroying towns, pillaging
custom-houses, and burning vessels.
Karly in November, Cavendish, who had been told by the
pilot he had taken that a vessel from the Philippines was ex-
pected, richly laden, at Acapulco, lay in wait for her off the
headland of California. She was discovered on the 4th, bearing
in for the Cape. She was the Santa Anna, of seven hundred
tons, belonging to the King of Spain, and commanded by the
Admiral of the South Sea. Cavendish gave chase, and, after a
broadside and a volley of small-arms, boarded her. He was
repulsed, but renewed the action with his guns and musketry.
292 HISTORY OF THE SEA,
The Spaniard was soon forced to surrender, and her officers,
going on board the Desire, gave an account of her contents,—
which they stated at thirty thousand dollars in gold, with im
mense quantities of damasks, silks, satins, musk, and provisions.
This glorious prize was divided by Cavendish, a mutiny being
very nearly the result: it was, however, prevented by the gene-
rosity of the commander. The prisoners were set on shore with
sufficient means of defence against the Indians; the Santa Anna
was burned, together with five hundred tons of her goods; and
Cavendish then set sail for the Ladrone Islands, five thousand
five hundred miles distant.
He arrived at Guam, one of the group, in forty-five days, and
from thence prosecuted his homeward voyage, through the Phi-
lippine Islands and the Moluccas, to Java. He passed the months
of April and May, 1588, in crossing the Indian Ocean to the
Cape of Good Hope. He touched at St. Helena early in June,
and, when near the Azores, in September, heard from a Flemish
ship the news of the total defeat of the great Spanish Armada.
He lost nearly all his sails in a storm off Finisterre, and re-
placed them by sails of silken grass, which he had taken from
his prizes in the South Sea. The voyage of Cavendish was the
third that had been performed round the world, and was the
shortest of the three,—being accomplished in eight months’ less
time than that of Drake.
Cavendish at once wrote a letter to Lord Hunsdon, in which
occurs the following brief relation of his achievements :—“ It
hath pleased the Almighty to suffer me to encompass all the
whole globe of the world. JI navigated along the coasts of
Chili, Peru, and New Spain, where I made great spoils. I
burned and sank nineteen sail of ships, great and small. All
the towns and cities that ever I landed at I burned and spoiled,
and, had I not been discovered upon the coast, I had taken
a great quantity of treasure. . . . All which services, together _
with myself, I humbly prostrate at her majesty’s feet, desiring
THE INVINCIBLE ARMADA. 293.
the Almighty long to continue her reign among us; for at this.
day she is the most famous and victorious prince that liveth in
the world. Thus, humbly desiring pardon for my tediousness,
I leave your lordship to the tuition of the Almighty.”
Cavendish spent his immense wealth in equipping vessels for
a second voyage, which ended disastrously, and in which, after
being beaten by the Portuguese off the coast of Brazil, he died
of shame and grief. He ranks as one of the most enterprising,
diligent, and cautious of the early English navigators, though,
of course, he must be regarded as an arrant buccaneer.
From what we have said of the piracies of the English, and
of their encroachments upon the domain of the Spanish, and
of the ardent desire of the latter to retain the monopoly of the
trade with the natives of America and to hold the exclusive
right to rob and slay them at their pleasure, the reader will be
prepared for the imposing but bombastic attempt made by Spain
against England in 1588. Philip II. determined to put forth his.
strength, and his fleet was named, before it sailed, ‘“‘The most:
Fortunate and Invincible Armada.”’ It was described in official!
accounts as consisting of one hundred and thirty ships, manned.
by eight thousand four hundred and fifty sailors, and carrying
nineteen thousand soldiers, two thousand galley-slaves, and two
thousand six hundred pieces of brass. The vessels were named.
from Romish saints, from the various appellations of the Trinity,
from animals and fabulous monsters,—the Santa Catilina, the:
Great Griffin, and the Holy Ghost being profanely intermixed.
In the fleet were one hundred and twenty-four volunteers of
noble family, and one hundred and eighty almoners, Domini-
cans, Franciscans, and Jesuits. Instruments of torture were
placed on board in large quantities, for the purpose of assisting
in the great work of reconciling England to Romanism. The
Spaniards and the Pope had resolved that all who should
defend the queen and withstand the invasion should, with
all their families, be rooted out, and their places, their honors,
D9 4 HISTORY OF THE SEA,
‘their titles, their houses, and their lands, be bestowed upon the
«conquerors.
Elizabeth and her councillors heard these ominous denuncia-
‘tions undismayed, and adequate preparations were made to re-
ceive the crusaders. London alone furnished ten thousand men,
and held ten thousand more in reserve: the whole land-force
‘amounted to sixty-five thousand. The fleet numbered one
hundred and eighty-one vessels,—fifty more in number than the
Armada, but hardly half as powerful in tonnage. Eighteen of
these vessels were volunteers, and but one of the one hundred
-and eighty-one was of the burden of eleven hundred tons.
‘The Lord High-Admiral of England, Charles, Lord Howard of
‘Effingham, commanded the fleet, with Drake, Hawkins, and
‘Frobisher in command of the various divisions. A form of
‘prayer was published, and the clergy were enjoined to read it
-on Wednesdays and Fridays in their parish churches. In this,
Elizabeth was compared to Deborah, preparing to combat the
pride and might of Sisera-Philip. The country awaited the
arrival of the Spaniards in anxiety, and yet with confidence.
The Armada sailed from the Tagus late in May, with the
solemn blessing of the Church, and patronized by every influep
HULL OF A VESSEL OF THE ARMADA.
tial saint in the calendar. A storm drove it back with loss, and
it did not sail again till the 12th of July. It was descried off
Plymouth on the 20th, “with lofty turrets like castles, in front
like a half-moon; the wings thereof spreading out about the
DRAKE’S GOOD LUCK. 295
length of seven miles, sailing very slowly, though with full sails,
the winds being as it were weary with wafting them, and the
ocean groaning under their weight.”” The English suffered them
to pass Plymouth, that they might attack them in the rear.
They commenced the fight the next day, with only forty ships.
The Spaniards, during this preliminary action, found their ships
‘“‘very useful to defend, but not to offend, and better fitted to
stand than to move.’”’ Drake, with his usual luck, captured a
galleon in which he found fifty-five thousand ducats in gold.
This sum was divided among his crew. Skirmishing and de-
tached fights continued for several days, the Spanish ships being
found, from their height and thickness, inaccessible by boarding
or ball. They were compared to castles pitched into the sea.
The lord-admiral was consequently instructed to convert eight
of his least efficient vessels into fire-ships. The order arrived
as the enemy’s fleet anchored off Calais, and thirty hours after-
wards the eight ships selected were discharged of all that was
worth removal and filled with combustibles. Their guns were
heavily loaded, and their sides smeared with rosin and wild-fire.
At midnight they were sent, with wind and tide, into the heart
of the invincible Armada. A terrible panic seized the affrighted
crews: remembering the fire-ships which had been used but lately
in the Scheldt, they shouted, in agony, ‘The fire of Antwerp!
The fire of Antwerp!’ Some cut their cables, others slipped
their hawsers, and all put to sea, ‘“‘happiest they who could first
be gone, though few could tell what course to take.’’ Some were
wrecked on the shallows of Flanders; some gained the ocean ;
while the remainder were attacked and terribly handled by
Drake. The discomfited Spaniards resolved to return to Spain
by a northern circuit around England and Scotland. The
English pursued, but the exhausted state of their powder-maga-
zines prevented another engagement. The luckless Armada
never returned to Spain. A terrific storm drove the vessels
upon the Irish coast and upon the inhospitable rocks of the
296 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
Orkneys. Thirty of them were stranded near Connaught: two
had been cast away upon the shores of Norway. In all, eighty-
one ships were lost, and but fifty-three reached home. Out
of thirty thousand soldiers embarked, fourteen thousand were
missing. Philip received the calamity as a dispensation of
Providence, and ordered thanks to be given to God that the
disaster was no greater.
A day of thanksgiving was proclaimed in England, inasmuch
as “the boar had put back that sought to lay her vineyard
waste.” Some time afterwards, the queen repaired in public
procession to St. Paul’s. The streets were hung with blue cloth;
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PROCESSION IN HONOR OF THE DEFEAT OF THE ARMADA.
the royal chariot was a throne with four pillars and a canopy
overhead, drawn by white horses. Elizabeth knelt at the
altar and audibly acknowledged the Almighty as her deliverer
from the rage of the enemy. The people were exhorted to
render thanks to the Most High, whose elements—fire, wind, and
storm—had wrought more destruction to the foe than the valor
of their navy or the strength of their wooden walls.
SIR WALTER RALEIGH.
CHAPTER XXIX.
THE FICTION OF EL DORADO—MANOA—DESCRIPTION OF ITS FABLED SPLEN-
DORS—ATTEMPTS OF THE SPANIARDS TO DISCOVER IT—SIR WALTER RALEIGH—
HIS VOYAGE TO GUIANA—HIS ACCOUNT OF THE ORINOCO—HIS DESCRIP-
TION 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 time
297
298 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
of 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, how-
ever, 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 inhabit-
ants 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 them
SIR WALTER RALEIGH. 299
through tubes, till they were completely incrusted with gold.
This attire was naturally considered sumptuous, and, in connec-
tion 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 ad-
venturers were always ready to start, upon the discomfiture or
destruction of those who had gone before; and no disappoint-
ment 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 be-
lieved it to be a reality, he determined to make an attempt him-
self. 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 already
300 HISTORY OF THE SBA.
sent 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 ap-
pearance of the country and the manners of the natives, and,
finally, of their entrance into the grand bed of the superb Ori-
noco, has been admired for its descriptive beauty as well as ridi-
culed 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 abun-
dance shall find here more rich and beautiful cities, more tem-
ples adorned with golden images, more sepulchres filled with trea-
sure, 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 com-
GAS:
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302 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
mon delights 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.”’ fi
Raleigh ascended the stream nearly two hundred miles, when.
the rapid and terrific rise of its waters compelled him to re-
turn. 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 ab-
sent. 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 participa-
tion in the plot to place Lady Arabella Stuart on the throne.
In 1617, he equipped a fleet of thirteen vessels in which to pro-
ceed 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 re-
SCENE IN GUIANA,
304 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
turn to 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 at-
tempted to penetrate to the spot, but was prevented by a tribe
of Indian dwarfs. No European has ever yet visited this cele-
brated 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 exaggera-
tions, is neither impossible nor improbable. The magnificent
ruins lately discovered in Yucatan, where they were not ex-
pected, 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 CHRIS=
TIANITY—ARDUOUS VOYAGE
SANTA CRUZ—MENDANA EXCHANGES NAMES WITH
MALOPE—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 King
20 305
306 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
of 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 enor-
mously 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 for-
merly 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 ac-
counts 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. They
THE BEAUTIFUL WOMEN OF LIMA. 307
stopped 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 Mendoga, in honor of the
Marquis of Mendoga, 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 per-
fection the most perfect of Lima; and yet there are very beau-
tiful at Lima. The temperament, health, strength, and corpu-
lency of these people tell what is the climate they live in: cloaths
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 bless
308 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
himself 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, kill-
ing one and wounding many more.
Friendly relations were soon restored, and a savage, ap-
parently 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 ad-
miral received him with cordiality, and gave him to understand
AN INTERCHANGE OF NAMES. 309:
that he was. The Indian said his name was Malopé. The ad-:
miral replied that his was Mendana. Malopé at once rejoined’
that he would be Mendana, and that the admiral should be.
EGMONT ISLAND.
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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
310 HISTORY OF THE SEA,
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.
Ki
YA
A
THE ISLANDERS’ DOUBLE CRAFT.
The savages commenced with arrows, and the Spaniards re.
taliated 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 Men-
dana. He said the attack had been begun by another tribe,
not his, and proposed they should all sally forth against them.
A WAR OF EXTERMINATION. 31]
To this Mendana did not accede, but, landing his men, pro-
ceeded 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. Hs suc-
cessor, 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, re-
solved to suspend the enterprise and re-embark. They took in
wood 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
shali 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
dic »ot set sail till 1606, we must first attend to the various
enterp-.ses undertaken in the interval.
lit
“6
ut i,
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—BUILD”
ING 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 Feroé 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 names
312
FROZEN UP. Sie
of Bear and Walrus Islands. They kept on, to the usual Arctic
accompaniment of icebergs, seals, aurorze boreales, whales, and
white bears, till they came to a land which they named Spitz-
jergen, or Land of Sharp-peaked Mountains.
On the 17th of July, they arrived at Nova Zembla,—dis-
covered 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 dis-
tance, 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 in-
‘errupted 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,
HISTORY OF THE SEA.
314
The beer, freezing in the
except by the twelve-hour-glass.
Half a pound of bread a
day was served out to each man: the provisions of dried fish and
casks, became as tasteless as water.
salt meat remained still abundant.
The chimney would not
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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
BURIED “IN SNOW. 315
| 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
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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
316 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
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.”’
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 to
kill 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
bf
night was just one-half expired; ‘‘for,’’ says the narrative, ‘it.
was a terrible thing to be without the light of the sun, and de-
prived 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 in-
stant 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
RETURN OF THE SUN. BIT
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 atmo-
sphere, 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 obtain-
ing fuel was now such, that many of the men thought it would
be easier and shorter to lie down and die than make such dread-
ful efforts to prolong life. ‘To save wood during the daytime,
they played snow-ball, or ran, or wrestled, to keep up the circu-
lation. :
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 chim-
ney, 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 as-
318 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
cended 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 Ist of May, they eat their
last morsel of meat, relying henceforth on what they might
entrap or kill.
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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,
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other tools to level a path from the ship to the water,—a distance
ADIEU TO WINTER QUARTERS.
On the 1
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, Xc.
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GETTING BOATS, BARRELS, ETC., TO THE WATER.
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 infor-
of five hundred paces.
HISTORY OF THE SEA.
320
They then dragged, with infinite
mation of future navigators.
, together with barrels and boxes
labor, the boats to the water
ship could yield.
of such stores as their now impoverished
They bade adieu to their winter quarters on the 14th, at early
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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.
O21
CAMPING OUT.
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 in-
tervening fields of ice;
and sometimes, when the wind was
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contrary, they drew them up on a floating bank, and, making
The
quently challenged bears, and, on one occasion,
tents of the sails, camped out, as if on military service.
sentinels fre
2)
O22 HISTORY OF THE SEA,
three coming together and one being killed, the surviving two
devoured their fallen companion. Through dangers and dif-
ficulties then unparalleled in navigation, they struggled hope-
fully 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 carried
them 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 Amster-
dam, 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 illus-
trious 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.
THE FUNERAL OF MAHU AT BRAVA ISLAND.
CHAPTER XXXII.
FHE 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—ADVEN-
TURES OF DE WEERT—A WRETCHED OBJECT—-RETURN TO HOLLAND—VOYAGB:
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 CHILIAN BEVE-
RAGE—CAPTURE OF A SPANISH TREASURE-SHIP—A PILOT THROWN OVER-
BOARD—SEA-FIGHT OFF MANILLA—RETURN HOME, AFTER THE FIRST DUTCH
VOYAGE OF CIRCUMNAVIGATION.
Tue 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 and
323
324 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
across 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 Eng-
lish 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 pas-
sage 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 anchcrs and cables were so much damaged
THE FLEET. SCATTERED. 325
that 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
vaptains resolved to return to the Strait and to wait there in
home safe bay for a favorable wind. On the 27th, they arrived
it 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 com-
326 HISTORY OF THE SEA,
yelled to 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 Hast 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 nume-.
rous 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 inhabit-
ant of a rocky, desolate island.” De Weert presented her with
a knife, but left her without any means of changing her situa-
tion, though she made it understood that she wished to be trans-
ported 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 which
THE SOUTH SEA. EXPEDITION. onl:
had 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 cir-
cumnavigation of the globe. He sailed on the 13th of Septem-
ber, 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 Gongalves for mutinous practices. He
made the coast of Brazil early in February, 1519; but it was de-
termined in council that, as the Southern winter was so near at
328 HISTORY OF THE SEA,
fand, they would hibernate at St. Helena. They sailed east-
ward, 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 sen-
tenced 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 No-
vember, 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 re-
turned 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.
FLAGRANT ACT OF CRUELTY. 329
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 ex-
a Aa
l)
od
SE
GZ
AFFRAY BETWEEN THE DUTCH AND PATAGONIANS.
terminated 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
vere 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.
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,
330 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
fired a gun and got under way, and, though the admiral re-
mained 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 con-
duct, 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 insuf-
ficient 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 hal., 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 in
CAPTURE OF THE GOOD JESUS. del
safety, his sentence was to be remitted. He was favorably re-
ceived, and a regular trade was established. ‘The official narra-
tive of the voyage thus describes the hospitality of the people :—
‘ACVUL OL LAO ONIOD SHAILVN
6 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
oon HISTORY OF THE SEA.
thus mixed with their saliva, is put into a tub, and water is added
toit. 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 La-
drones. 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. Cayvite,
‘he port, was fortified; two galleons were ordered to be armed
and 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.
A DESPERATE NAVAL CONTEST, B33)
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.
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Early on the morning of the 14th of December, the two gal-
leons 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,
334 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
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 them-
selves 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 went
down 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 Con-
cord, 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.
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 nine
ships 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
RESULTS OF THE VOYAGE. 335
it abounded, added to the warlike and commercial reputation of
the country, and therefore met with favor from both Government
and people.
KG
we
A DUTCH PICNIC IN THE MAURITIUS.
(i
WOMAN AND CHILD OF ESPIRITU SANTO.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
QUIROS’ THEORY OF A SOUTHERN CONTINENT—HIS ARGUMENTS AND MEMORIALS
—HIS FIRST VOYAGE—DISCOVERIES—ENCARNAGION—SAGITTARIA, OR TAHITI
— DESCRIPTION OF THESE ISLANDS—MANICOLO—ESPIRITU SANTO—ITS PRODUC-
TIONS AND INHABITANTS—QUIROS BEFORE THE KING OF SPAIN—HIS BELIEF
IN HIS DISCOVERY OF A CONTINENI—-HIS DISAPPOINTMENT—RENEWED SOLI-
CITATIONS—DEATH OF QUIROS—DISCOVERIES OF TORRES—THE MUSCOVY COM-
HENRY HUDSON—HIS VOYAGES TO SPITZBERGEN ANT NOVA
PANY OF LONDON
ZEMBLA—HIS VOYAGE TO AMERICA—CASTS ANCHOR AT SANDY HOOK—ASCENDS
THE HUDSON RIVER AS FAR AS THE SITE OF ALBANY—HIS VOYAGE TO ICELAND
AND HUDSON’S BAY—DISASTROUS WINTER—MUTINY—HUDSON SET ADRIFT—
HIS DEATH.
WE have said, in a preceding chapter, that Pedro Fernandez
de Quiros was the pilot of Mendana’s second expedition. During
the voyage he had reflected deeply upon the probability of the
existence of a Southern continent: on his return to Peru, he
336
ANTARCTIC EXPEDITION. 337
asserted it, and devoted the remainder of his life to the prose-
éution of a plan of discovery. He was the first to bring for-
ward scientific arguments in support of the theory,—one which,
by the way, was destined to agitate and interest the world for
two centuries, till its final overthrow by Cook. He presented
two memorials to Don Luis de Velasco, the viceroy, praying for
ships, men, and other necessaries, with which “to plough up the
waters of the unknown sea, and to seek out the undiscovered
lands around the Antarctic Pole, the centre of that horizon.”’
Ilis arguments were many of them profound, and made a deep
impression upon the viceroy, who replied, however, that Quiros’
desires exceeded the limits of his authority. He nevertheless
despatched him with strong recommendations to the court of
Spain. Philip IIL gave favorable attention to his projects, and
ordered that Quiros should go in person upon an expedition
‘among these hidden provinces and severed regions,—an expedi-
tion destined to win souls to heaven and kingdoms to the crown
of Spain.” Quiros returned to Lima ‘with the most honorable
schedules which had ever passed the Council of State.”” He pre-
sented his papers to the viceroy, and, forgetting the obstacles and
discouragements he had met with during eleven years, entered
on his new and arduous labors. He built three ships, and em-
barked on the 20th of December, 1605, holding his course west
by south.
One thousand leagues from Peru, he discovered a small island
which he named Encarnacion: to others, of little importance and
uninhabited, he gave the names of Santelmo, St. Miguel, and
Archangel: the tenth he called Dezena. On the 10th of Febru-
ary, 1606, land was seen from the topmast-head, and, to the
joy of all, columns of smoke—an unmistakable sign that the
Jand was inhabited—were perceived ascending at numerous
yoints. A boat advanced to the surf, through which it seemed
impossible to gain the shore. A young man, Francisco Ponce
by name, stripped off his clothes, saying that, if they should
22
338 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
thus turn their faces from the first danger which offered, there
would be no hope of eventual success. He threw himself into
the sea, and, after a fierce struggle with the receding waves,
clambered up a rock to a spot where one hundred Indians were
awaiting him. They seemed pleased with his resolution, and
frequently kissed his forehead. Peace was made, and a safe
anchorage was pointed out. The island thus discovered subse-
quently became, for many reasons, the most famous in the whole
Pacific Ocean. Quiros called it Sagittaria; but it is now known
as Tahiti or Otaheite. We shall have occasion hereafter to
describe at length this lovely oasis in the desert of the waters.
SCENE IN TAHITI.
The fleet stayed here but two days, and then continued on its
way. Quiros discovered several islands which have not been
seen again from that time to this. To one of them he gave the
name of Isla de la Gente Hermosa,—lIsland of Handsome People.
Convinced that the mainland must be near, he kept on in search: -
A TROPICAL CLIMATE. 339
of what he called the ‘“‘mother of so many islands.” At one
named Taumaco he: seized four natives to serve him as guides
and interpreters, and carried them away. He has been much
blamed for this act of treachery towards a people who treated
him with kindness and hospitality. Three of the four jumped
overboard during the two days following, and escaped to islands
in the vicinity. The chief of the island where he had taken
them had informed him that, if he would change his course from
the west to the south, he would come to a large tract, fertile and
inhabited, named Manicolo. Following this advice, he discovered
the islands of Tucopia and Nuestra Senora de la Luz. It is
doubtful whether either of these has been seen by subsequent
navigators. On the 26th of April, he made a land which he
took to be the continent of which he was in search, and to which
he gave the name of Tierra Austral del Espiritu Santo. Bou-
gainville and Cook, who arrived here a century and a half after-
wards, thought themselves justified, by acquiring the certitude
that it was a group of islands and not a continent, in christening
them anew,—Bougainville naming them the Grandes Cyclades,
and Cook the New Hebrides.
Quiros has left an admirable picture of this fertile and de-
lightful spot. ‘The rivers Jordan and Salvador,” he says,
“‘give no small beauty to their shores, for they are full of odori-
ferous flowers and plants. Pleasant and agreeable groves front
the sea in every part: we mounted to the tops of mountains and
perceived fertile valleys and rivers winding amongst green mea-
dows. The whole is a country which, without doubt, has the
advantage over those of America, and the best of the European
will be well if itis equal. It is plenteous of various and delicious
fruits, potatoes, yams, plantains, oranges, limes, sweet basil, nut-
megs, and ebony, all of which, without the help of sickle, plough,
or other artifice, it yields in every season. There are also cattle,
birds of many kinds and of charming notes, honey-bees, parrots,
doves, and partridges. The houses wherein the Indians live are
Ml
|
thar
‘
6
‘ll
‘UTAIN UOGVATVS AHL NO ANAS
A
QUIROS RETURNS TO SPAIN. 341
thatched and low, and they of a black complexion. There are
earthquakes,—sign of a mainland.’”’ The Spaniards found. it
impossible to make peace with the natives, and the few days
which they spent there were passed in wrangling and blood-
shed.
The achievements and discoveries of Quiros properly end here.
His ships were separated, and his own crew disabled by the effects
of poisonous fish which they had eaten. He called a council of
his officers, and asked their opinion upon a choice of courses,—
a prosecution of the voyage to China, or a return to Mexico.
The latter was decided upon. Quiros arrived at Acapulco nine
months after his departure from Callao.
He soon returned to Spain, where he presented a memorial
to Philip III. upon the results of his voyage, and the advantage
of further efforts in the same direction. His grand argument
in favor of the theory that he had discovered an Austral con-
tinent was drawn from the statements of Pedro,—the only one
of the four kidnapped savages of Taumaco who had remained
on board. A subsequent memorial shows the fate with which
all his representations to Philip met:—‘“‘I, Captain Pedro Fer-
nandez de Quiros, say that with this I have presented to your
majesty eight memorials touching the country of Australia In-
cognita, without to this time any resolution being taken with
me, nor any reply made me, nor hope given to assure me that
I shall be despatched,—-having now been fourteen months in this
court, and having been fourteen years engaged in this cause
without pay or any other advantage in view but the success of
it alone; wherewith, and through infinite contradictions, I have
gone by land and sea twenty-two thousand leagues, spending all
my estate and incommoding my person, suffering so many and
such terrible things that even to myself they appear incredible:
and all this has come to pass, that this work of so much good-
ness and benevolence should not be abandoned. In whose name,
and all for the love of God, I beg your majesty not to neglect
342 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
these innumerable benefits, which shall last as long as the world
subsists, and then be eternal.”’
Quiros then enters into a detailed description of the islands
and the continent he had seen. Their extent, he said, was as
much as that of Europe, Asia Minor, England, and Ireland.
They had no such turbulent neighbors as the Turks or the
Moors. The people were intelligent and capable of civilization.
Bread grew upon the trees. The palm yielded spirits, vinegar,
honey, whey, and toddy. The green cocoanut served instead
‘of artichoke; when ripe, for meat and cream; and, when old,
for oil, wax, and balsams. The shells furnished cups and bottles.
The fibres afforded oakum, cordage, and the best slow match.
The leaves furnished sails, matting, and thatch. The garden-
stuffs of the country were pumpkins, parsley, ‘‘ with intimation of
beans.”’ The flesh was hogs, fowls, capons, partridges, geese,
turkeys, ringdoves, and goats, “with intimation of cows and
buffaloes.”” The riches were silver, pearls, and gold. The
spices were nutmegs, mace, pepper, and ginger, ‘‘ with intimation
of cinnamon and cloves.” There was ebony, and infinite woods
for ship-building. At daybreak the harmony of thousands of
birds trembled upon the air,—nightingales, blackbirds, larks, gold-
finches, and swallows,—besides the chirping of grasshoppers and -
crickets. Every morning and evening the breeze was laden
with fragrant scents wafted from orange-flowers and sweet
basil. This enthusiastic document concludes thus:—‘‘I can
show this in a company of mathematicians, that this land will
presently accommodate and sustain two hundred thousand Spa-
niards. _ None of our men fell sick from over-work, or sweating,
or getting wet. Fish and flesh kept sound two or more days.
I saw neither sandy ground, nor thistles, nor prickly trees, nor
mangrovy swamps, nor snow on the mountains, nor crocodiles in
the rivers, nor ants in the dust, nor mosquitos in the night.
‘Acquire, sire, since you can with a little money, which will
be required but once,—acquire heaven, eternal fame, and that
HUDSON’S EXPEDITION. 343
new world with all its promises. Order the galleons to be
ready, sire; for I have many places to go to, and much to pro-
vide and to do. Let it be observed that in all I shall be found
very submissive to reason, and will give satisfaction in every
thing.”
These stirring appeals were disregarded by the feeble suc-
cessor of Charles V.; and Quiros, who, though a Portuguese by
birth, is often styled the last of the Spanish heroes, died at
Panama on his way back to Lima.
We mentioned the dispersion of Quiros’ fleet after leaving
Espiritu Santo. We must recur for a moment to this incident,
in order to follow the ship of Luis Vaez de Torrés, the second
incommand. He proceeded on his voyage to the southwest,
and saw enough of Espiritu Santo to convince him that it was
not a continent. He would have circumnavigated it had the
season permitted. Standing finally to the northward, he fell in
with numerous islands rich in pearls and spices, and ‘coasted
for eight hundred leagues along the southern shore of some land
to him unknown.” ‘This can have been no other shore than
that of Papua or New Guinea; and it is considered positive that
he was the first European to see this since famous and remark-
able island. He found this whole sea to be filled with groups
of islands producing spices and the usual tropical fruits. He
made his way to the Philippines, where he rendered an account
of his adventures since his separation from Quiros.
While these distinguished navigators were thus searching the
regions lying about the equator, another adventurer, equally
enterprising, was endeavoring to reach the Pole. Henry Hud-
son, a seaman renowned for his hardy and daring achievements,
was appointed, in 1607, by the Muscovy Company of London,
to the command of a vessel intended to penetrate to China by
the Arctic seas to the north of Europe. His crew consisted
of ten men and a boy. He advanced as far as Greenland, and
returned by Spitzbergen,—being convinced that the ice formed
344 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
an insurmountable barrier against farther progress. Ie again set
out in 1608, and, keeping more to the eastward, passed to the
north of Norway, Sweden, and Russia as far as Nova Zembla.
The ice again stopped him, and he returned,—persuaded that
the northeastern passage did not exist. The next year he was
again sent upon the same errand; but, being still unsuccessful,
he crossed the Atlantic to America. He coasted along the con-
tinent as far as Chesapeake Bay, and then returned to the
north, entering Delaware Bay and arriving in sight of the high-
lands of Neversink on the 2d of September. This he pronounced
a ‘“‘good land to fall in with, and a pleasant land to see.” The
next morning he passed Sandy Hook, and came to anchor in
what is now the Lower Bay of New York. ‘What an event,”
says Everett, ‘‘in the history of American population, enter-
prise, commerce, intelligence and power, was the dropping of
that anchor at Sandy Hook!”
“Here he lingered a week,” continues the same author, ‘in
friendly intercourse with the natives of New Jersey, while a
boat’s company explored the waters up to Newark Bay. And
now the great question:—Shall he turn back, or ascend the
stream? Hudson was of a race not prone to turn back, by sea
or land. On the 11th of September, he raised the anchor of
the Half-Moon, and passed through the Narrows, beholding on
both sides ‘as beautiful a land as one could tread on;’ the ship
floating cautiously and slowly up the noble stream,—the first that. -
ANCHORS NEAR ALBANY. 345
ever rested on its bosom. He passed the Palisades, Nature’s
dark basaltic Malakoff; forced the iron gateway of the High-
lands; anchored on the 14th near West Point; swept around and
upwards the following day, by grassy meadows and tangled slopes,
hereafter to be covered with smiling villages, by elevated banks
and woody heights, the destined sites of towns and cities,—of
Newburgh, Poughkeepsie, Catskill; on the evening of the 15th
arrived ‘opposite the mountains which rise from the river’s side,’
where he found ‘a very loving people and very old men;’ and,
the day following, sailed by the spot hereafter to be honored by
his own illustrious name. One more day wafts him up between
Schodac and Castleton; and here he landed and passed a day
with the natives, greeted with all sorts of barbarous hospitality,
—the land ‘the finest for cultivation he ever set foot on.’ On
the following morning, with the early flood-tide, the Half-Moon.
ran higher up, and came to anchor in deep water, near the site
of the present city of Albany. Happy if he could have closed
his gallant career on the banks of the stream which so justly
bears his name, and thus have escaped the sorrowful and mys-
terious catastrophe which awaited him the next year.”
He soon after returned to England; and, not being discouraged,
nor finding it difficult to obtain the means of continuing his
maritime adventures, he set sail, in 1610, in a vessel of fifty-five
tons’ burden, manned by twenty-three men and victualled for
six months. He touched at the Orkneys and anchored at Ice-
land. Mount Hecla revealed to nim the magnificence of a volcano
in travail, and the Hot Springs obligingly cooked his food. He
passed Greenland, where the sun set in the north. In the course
of June and July, he passed to the northward of Labrador, and
followed the strait which now bears his name. In spite of ice and
disturbances among his crew, which at times assumed. the cha-
racter of a mutiny, he pushed on into the great inland sea known
as Hudson’s Bay. For a long time he did not know that it was
a bay, and naturally was led to hope that he was on the point
5346 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
of attaining the object of all his efforts,—a passage by the
northwest to China. The extent of its surface amply justified
him in these expectations, for it is the largest inland sea in the
world, with the exception of the Mediterranean.
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On the 1st of November, after seeking winter quarters, his
“fl
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’
1
men found a suitable spot for beaching their vessel. Ten days
afterwards, they were frozen in, with provisions hardly sufficient
to last, upon the most meagre allowance, till they could expect a
PREPARING TO RETURN. 347
release from the ice. A reward was offered to those who added
to the general stock by catching either birds or fish, or animals
serviceable for food. A house was built; but the season was so
far advanced that it could not be rendered fit to dwell in. The
winter was severe, and the men lived at first upon partridges,
then upon swans and teal, and finally upon moss and frogs.
They assuaged the pain of their frozen limbs by applying to
them a hot decoction made from buds containing a balsam-like
substance resembling turpentine. Towards spring, they ob-
tained furs from the natives, in exchange for hatchets, glass,
and buttons. |
When the ice broke up, they prepared to return,—the last
ration of bread being exhausted on the day of their departure.
A report was circulated among the crew that Hudson had
concealed a quantity of bread for his own use, and a mutiny,
fomented by a man named Green, broke out on the 21st of June.
Hudson was seized and his hands bound. Together with the
sick, and those whom the frost had deprived of the use of their
limbs, he was put into the shallop and set adrift. Neither he,
nor the boat, nor any of its crew, were ever heard of again.
The wretched mutineers made the best of their way home in
she ship they had thus foully obtained. Not one of the ring-
leaders lived to reach the land. The rest, after suffering the
most awful extremities of famine, finally gained the shore.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
THE FLEET OF JORIS SPILBERGEN—ARRIVAL IN BRAZIL—-ADVENTURES IN THE
STRAIT OF MAGELLAN—TRADE AT MOCHA ISLAND—TREACHERY Ar SANTA
MARIA—TERRIBLE BATTLE BETWEEN THE DUTCH AND SPANISH FLEETS—
RAVAGES OF THE COAST—SKIRMISHES. UPON THE LAND—SPILBERGEN SAILS
FOR MANILLA—ARRIVAL AT TERNATE—HIS RETURN HOME—THE VOYAGE OF
SCHOUTEN AND LEMAIRE—LEMONADE AT SIERRA LEONE—A COLLISION AT
SEA—DISCOVERY OF STATEN LAND—CAPE HORN—LEMAIRE’S STRAIT—AR-
RIVAL AT BATAVIA—CONFISCATION OF THE SHIPS—GENERAL RESULTS OF
THE VOYAGE—THE VOYAGE OF WILLIAM BAFFIN—ARCTIC RESEARCHES DURING
THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.
We have said, in a former chapter, that the Dutch succeeded
the Portuguese in the possession of the East Indies. During
the struggle between these two powers for supremacy over the
Spice Islands, the Dutch East India Company resolved to make
@ vigorous effort to reach the Moluccas by the Strait of Ma-
gellan. They equipped a fleet of six ships, for the purpose of
exploring a new route. ‘These vessels were named the Great
Sun, the Half-Moon, the Morning Star, the Huntsman, and
the Sea Mew, and were placed under the command of Joris
Spilbergen as admiral, who had already conducted a Dutch
fleet to the Indies. He received his commission from their
Mightinesses the States-General. He sailed from the Texel
on the 8th of August, 1614.
While upon the South American coast, a mutiny broke out in
the Sea Mew, and the two ringleaders were condemned to be cast
into the sea,—a sentence which was rigorously executed. They
entered the Strait of Magellan on the 28th of February, 1615,
but were forced out again by adverse currents. They entered
again on the 2d of April, and saw men of gigantic stature
upon the hills, dead. bodies wrapped in the skins of penguins,
and shrubs producing sweet blackberries. The mountains were
covered with snow, yet the woods were filled with parrots.
348 |
MUTINEERS EXECUTED. 349
Water-cresses, and a tree whose bark had a biting taste, induced
them to give to an inlet the name of Pepper Haven. The natives
bartered ornaments of mother-of-pearl for knives and wine. The
vessels entered the South Sea on the 6th of May, and on the
25th anchored off Mocha Island, half a league from the coast
of , Chili.
DUTCH VESSEL TRADING AT THE LADRONES.
The natives were delighted to learn that the strangers were
the enemies of the Spaniards their oppressors, and to see that
their ships were so large and well armed. The chief of the
island visited the admiral’s ship and remained his guest all
night. A hatchet was the price fixed upon for two fat sheep ;
and a hundred were obtained at this rate. The natives would
not permit the Dutch to see their women, and at last, when they
had disposed of all the provisions and live stock they had to
spare, made signs for them to re-enter their ships and depart,
with which reasonable request Spilbergen at once complied.
On the 29th, the vessels anchored off the island of Santa
350 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
Maria, and, though there were Spaniards upon it, negotiations
were opened. ‘The Dutch officers were invited by a Spaniard
to dine on shore, and, having accepted and assembled for the
purpose, were either led to suspect treachery, or were convinced
that they were strong enough to help themselves without negotia-
tion. They summoned soldiers from the ships, burned a number
of houses, and carried off five hundred sheep. The Spaniard
who was to have been their host, but who was now their prisoner,
informed them that the Viceroy of Peru had been for some
months aware of their approach, and that a strong force was pre-
pared at Lima to attack them. Spilbergen determined to go in
search of the Spanish fleet: the gunners were ordered to have
every thing in readiness for battle, and military regulations were
promulgated,—every one, from the admiral to the swabs, being
determined to do or die. One of the orders was that ‘during
the action the decks were to be continually wetted, that accidents
might not happen from ignited powder.”
At Concepcion, the Dutch landed and set fire to a number of
houses; at Valparaiso, the Spaniards burned one of their own
vessels, that she might not fall into the enemy’s hands. At
Arica—the seaport to which the Potosi silver was brought to be
shipped to Panama—they took a small ship laden with treasure.
On the evening of the 16th of July, the Spanish fleet, of eight
sail, appeared in sight. The Jesu Maria, the flag-ship, had no
less than four hundred and sixty men, and mounted twenty-four
guns; and the whole squadron were in the same proportion better
provided with men than artillery. Don Rodrigo de Mendoga
was the commander. He insisted upon an immediate attack by
night, saying that “‘ any two of his ships could take all England, and
much more these hens of Holland, who must be spent and wasted
by so long a voyage.” About ten at night, the Spanish admiral
and the Dutch admiral closed,—-the Jesu Maria and the Great
Sun. They hailed each other, and some conversation passed
before a shot was fired. The attack was then commenced by
ee oe
THE TOWN OF PAITA BURNED. 381
the musketry, seconded by the great guns. The ships of both
fleets came up in succession and joined battle. The pomp and
circumstance of war were not neglected, for the braying of the
cannon was accompanied by the sounding of tambours and
trumpets. The Spanish San Francisco received a broadside
which the Great Sun could spare from the Jesu Maria, and soon
after went to the bottom. The Sun sent out one of her boats
for a rescue; but it was mistaken by the Huntsman for an
enemy’s boat, und was blown out of the water by a cannon-shot.
The night becoming very dark, the fleets were gradually sepa-
rated. The next morning five of the Spanish ships sent word
to their admiral that they were going to escape if they could.
The Spanish admiral and vice-admiral were lashed together for
mutual support, and were, in this condition, attacked by the
Great Sun and the Half-Moon. The Spanish seamen several
times hung out a white flag in token of surrender, which was as
often cut down by their officers, who chose rather to die than
yield, especially as they had sworn to the Viceroy of Peru to
bring him all the Hollanders in chains. At nightfall, the Jesu
Maria cut herself loose and fled from pursuit; but her leaks and
damages were so- serious that she went to the bottom before
dawn. This decided the victory in favor of the Dutch, who are
accused of allowing many of the enemy to drown who might
easily have been saved.
The victorious fleet sailed directly for Callao; but the Spanish
shipping in the port was so well protected by batteries that it
was not thought prudent to attack them. Soon after, a vessel
laden with salt and sugar was captured and the cargo distributed.
The town of Paita was plundered and burned. No money or
treasure is mentioned among the booty. ~ Keeping a sharp
watch for the fleet of Panama, which the Dutch did not care to
meet or engage, they proceeded to the north, and, on the 11th
of October, entered the harbor of Acapulco, in Mexico or New
Spam. Negotiations were entered into and a treaty was made,
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the Dutch agreeing to release all their prisoners, and the Spanish
to furnish them with oxen, sheep, poultry, fruit, water, and wood.
Thus the Spaniards saved their town at a small expense, and
the Dutch found refreshments which they could have obtained
‘in no other way.
On the 10th of November, they anchored at the mouth of a
river reported by their prisoners to abound in fish, while its
banks produced citron and other fruit trees. Boats were sent
to examine it. The Dutch noticed that the footprints upon the
shore were the prints of shoes, and not of fect as Nature made
them. Suspecting, therefore, the presence of Spaniards, they
did not disembark, but returned to the ship. The next day the
admiral landed with two hundred men, and was at once attacked
by a strong body of Spaniards concealed in the woods. The
latter were repulsed with loss, but Spilbergen withdrew his men
to the ships, as his ammunition was nearly exhausted.
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On the 2d of December, the fleet left the American coast
and directed their course west by south for the Ladrone Islands.
The next year—1616—was ushered in with distempers that
proved fatal to many of the seamen. On the 23d of January,
they came in sight of the Ladrones, where they stopped two days
to traffic with the natives for flesh, fish, fruit, and fowl. The
Bavages were, as usual, treacherous and given to thieving, aud
at times required the chastisement of powder and ball. The
fleet touched at the Philippines early in February, but the In-
22
$54 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
dians refused to trade with them, as they were enemies of the
Spaniards. They entered the Straits of Manilla, and anchored
before the island of Mirabelles, remarkable for two rocks which
tower to a vast height into the air. The Dutch took several
barks laden with the tribute of numerous adjacent places to the
city of Manilla. They gained intelligence of a fleet of twelve
ships and four galleys, manned by two thousand Spaniards, be-
sides Indians and Chinese, sent to drive their countrymen from
the Moluccas and to reduce those islands to the dominion of
Spain. On this news, they discharged all their prisoners, and
made preparations to meet the Manilla fleet and to proceed to
the assistance of their friends. They arrived on the 29th of
March at Ternate, one of the principal islands of the group,
where the Dutch possessed a trading-station. They were re-
ceived with joy by their countrymen.
Spilbergen was now detained nine months in the Molucca and
neighboring islands, in the service of the Hast India Company.
A narrative of his transactions here would be foreign to the pur-
pose of this work. He left the ships in which he had hitherto
sailed in India, and returned to Holland in the Amsterdam.
His voyage produced no new discoveries in the South Sea; but
the Directors of the Company bestowed upon him the highest
praise for his prudent management and timely energy. The
Company may be said to have dated their grandeur from the day
of his return, both as regards power and wealth,—the first re-
sulting from his successful circumnavigation of the globe, the |
latter from their conquests in the Moluccas, in which he took a
prominent part, and of which he brought home the first intelli-
gence.
The Dutch East India Company held from the Government
the exclusive privilege of trading in the Great South Sea,—all
private citizens being prohibited from entering those waters by
the Cape of Good Hope on the east or the Strait of Magellan
on the west. This prohibition stimulated ra:ner than checked
A NEW PASSAGE TU THE PACIFIC. 355
the commercial ardor of the country, and it soon became the |
study of navigators and merchants to discover some safe means
of eluding the law, it being hard, they said, that Government
should close up the channels which Nature had left free. Isaac
Lemaire, a rich trader of Amsterdam, was the first to whom the
idea occurred of seeking another passage from the Atlantic to
the Pacific than the Strait of Magellan. He imparted his views
to William Cornelison Schouten, who had been three times to
the Hast Indies in the different capacities of supercargo, pilot,
and master. He too was convinced that to the south of Terra
del Fuego lay another passage from one ocean to the other.
Could they find this passage, they might legally trespass upon
the monopoly held by the Company. They determined to at-
tempt the discovery, and Lemaire advanced half the necessary
funds, Schouten and his friends furnishing the other half. Two
ships were fitted out, the larger,—the Concord,—of three hun-
dred and sixty tons, being manned by sixty-five men, and pierced
for twenty-nine guns of small calibre; the Horn, of one hundred
and ten tons, carrying eight cannons, four swivels, and twenty-
twomen. Schouten was master and pilot of the expedition, and
James Lemaire, the son of Isaac, supercargo. The object of
the voyage was kept a profound secret, the officers and men
being bound by their articles to go wherever they should be
required, and, in compensation for this unusual condition, re-
celving a considerable advance upon the ordinary wages. The
little fleet was equipped in the port of Horn, and left the Texel
on the 14th of June, 1615, proceeding towards the coast of
Africa.
On the 380th of August, they cast anchor in the roads of
Sierra Leone, where they drove a brisk trade in lemons, easily
purchasing a thousand for a handful of worthless glass beads.
Fresh water was obtained by holding casks under a bountiful
cascade, and thus easily were the materials for lemonade pro-
cured in this favored spot. They then made directly for the
306 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
southwest. While in the middle of the Atlantic, the crew of
the Concord were startled by her receiving a violent blow upon
her bottom, although no rock was visible. ‘The color of the sea
around them changed suddenly to red, as if a fountain of
blood had been discharged into it. A large horn, of a substance
resembling ivory, and solid, not hollow, was subsequently found
in the ship’s side, having passed through three of her planks
and entered the wood to the depth of a foot, leaving at least a
foot more upon the outside. The vessel had evidently been in
collision with a narwhal or sea-unicorn, and the broken horn and
the crimsoned water plainly showed which had suffered most
from the shock. ;
Late in October, the ships’ companies were informed of the
design of the voyage, and readily consented to engage in a
scheme which promised both distinction and emolument. larly
in December, they made the coast of Patagonia, some three
hundred miles to the north of Magellan’s Strait. Here the 7
IIorn, the smaller of the two vessels, caught fire by accident
and was destroyed. Her iron-work, guns, and anchors were
transferred to the Concord. On the 24th, the Concord passed
the Strait of Magellan, and was soon in the latitude where
Schouten and Lemaire hoped to make their grand discovery.
While Terra del Fuego was still in sight upon their right hand,
they noticed a high, rugged island upon their left, which tkey
named Staten Land, or Land of the States. The ship passed
between the two, and s*on after rounded the promontory which
advanced the farthest into the sea, to which, in honor of the port
from which the expedition had sailed, Schouten gave the name
of Cape Horn. He then launched into the South Sea, being
the first who passed completely round the South American con-
tinent. Lemaire claimed the honor of giving his name to the
strait which had brought them to the Cape,—one which clearly
belonged to Schouten, as the leader and pilot of the expedition.
The strait is still known by the name of the supercargo, geo-
A CASE OF GEOGRAPHICAL INJUSTICE. Dad
graphers having consecrated, by silence, this manifest act of
injustice.
Altering their course to the northward, they soon recognised
the mouth of Magellan’s Strait,—which rendered their discovery
complete. They returned thanks to God for their success, and
CAPE HORN.
passed the wine cup three times round the company. Schouten
then made for the island of Juan Fernandez, where he hoped to
give rest and refreshment to his sickly and wearied crew. The
currents and the winds would not permit him to land; and he was
compelled to start across the Pacific in a crazy ship and with a
disabled company. Like Magellan, who traversed this ocean
without seeing any of the important islands which, just below
the line, extend from America to Asia, forming, as it were, a
girdle from shore to shore, Schouten discovered but a few in-
significant rocks and reefs, passing between and at a distance
from the great archipelagoes which dot the Pacific in this latt
358 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
tude. At one of these. spots his men met an enemy more
numerous and formidable than any tribe of savages. Innume-
rable myriads of flies followed them from the shore to the ship,
so that they came on board absolutely black with the winged
and buzzing infliction. The flies enveloped the vessel in a thick
and melodious cloud, from which the sailors were glad to escape
with the first favoring breeze. Schouten consulted geographical
propriety by naming the scene of this adventure Fly Island.
THE GONCO RID SAT FEY -1SLAND.
Early in July, 1616, they arrived at the Moluccas, and went
ashore upon the island of Gilolo, where they procured poultry,
tortoises, rice, and sago. They next touched at Ternate, where
they were kindly entertained by the Dutch authorities. They
sold their two pinnaces, still upon the deck of the Concord,
together with what had been saved from the Horn; they
received in return thirteen hundred and fifty reals. With
‘this they purchased a large quantity of rice, a ton of vinegar,
as much Spanish wine, and three tons of biscuit. They then
a ee
THE DISCOVERY OF BAFFIN’S BAY. DOO
sailed for Java, and cast anchor in the harbor of Jacatra—now
Batavia—sixteen months after quitting the Texel, having lost
but three men upon the voyage. The expedition properly ter-
minates here; for Jan Petersen Coen, President for the Dutch
East India Company at Bantam, in Java, confiscated their ship
and cargo as forfeited for illegally sailing within the boundaries
of the Company's charter. He sent Schouten and Lemaire to
Holland, however, that they might plead their cause before a
competent court. Lemaire died on his way home, overcome with
grief and vexation at the disastrous end of a voyage which had
been so successful till the seizure of the ship. Schouten: made
several subsequent voyages to the Hast Indies, and died, in 1625,
in the island of Madagascar. His name is little known, and his
memory has almost passed away, although to him clearly belongs
the credit of improving upon Magellan’s discovery by furnish-
ing a safer route to the commerce of the world and substituting
the doubling of Cape Horn for the threading of the Strait.
During this same year, the English made their last attempt
for nearly two centuries in the Arctic waters of America.
William Baffin, who had accompanied Hudson in one of his.
earlier voyages, embarked in the capacity of pilot on board
the Discovery,—a vessel bound for the northwest and com-
manded by one Robert Bylot. The crew consisted of fourteen
men and two boys. Passing through Davis’ Strait, they came
to the vast bay which now bears Baffin’s name. They found it
to be eight hundred miles long and three hundred wide. They
ascended to the north as far as the seventy-eighth degree of
latitude, where the bay seemed to taper off in a strait or sound,
which they called Thomas Smith’s Sound. Here Baffin observed
the greatest variation of the needle known at that time,—fifty-
six degrees to the west. The charts of Baffin are lost; but
several of his journals are extant, and contain numerous astro-
nomical and hydrographic observations, which have since been
fully verified by the superior instruments of modern science.
360 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
Baffin saw the opening to the west which Ross, two centuries
later, was to call Lancaster Sound, and through which Parry
was to penetrate to Melville Island and to the Polar Sea. He
was convinced that a northwest passage existed, though he
never made a second voyage in search of it. For one hundred
and sixty years, now, the Arctic waters of the American con-
tinent were left undisturbed by adventurers from Europe. Their
icy coasts remained unvisited till the middle of the eighteenth
century, when the energies of Knglish navigators were roused
into activity by the reward offered by Parliament,—twenty
thousand pounds to him who should sail to China by the north-
west,
ARCTIC GULL IN PURSUIT.
/
FROM THE DISCOVERY OF CAPE NORN TO TIE APPLICATION OF
STEAM TO NAVIGATION ; 1616—1S07.
CHAPTER XXXV.
A FAMOUS VESSEL—THE MAYFLOWPR—UHER APPEARANCDI—THE SPEEDWELIL—
DEPARTURE OF THE TWO SHIPS—ALLEGED UNSEAWORTILINESS OF TIRE
SPEEDWELL—THE MAYFLOWER SAILS ALONE
THE UQUINOCTIAL—CONSULTA-
TIONS—A REMEDY APPLIED—FIRST VIEW OF THE LAND—SULBSEQUENT UISTORY
AND FATE OF THE MAYFLOWER.
We have now to narrate the incidents of a voyage without
precedent, in one point of view, in maritime annals, and to
chronicle the adventures of a ship which may be safely said to
have achieved a fame beyond that of any other that ever
ploughed the ocean. When we mention the name of the May-
flower, in which the Pilgrim Fathers proceeded from South-
ampton Water to Plymouth Rock, we are sure that the distinc-
tion which we claim for this feeble vessel will be contested by
none,—not even by those who would gladly accord the supremacy
of the seas to the Nina of Columbus or the Vittoria of Ma-
gellan. The details of the voyage are few and unsatisfactory ;
but the vivid imagination of historians and orators has amply
supplied their place.
The Mayflower was built in England, at a time when English
commerce could bear no comparison with that of Holland, and
when the trade with the latter power employed six hundred Dutch
ships to one hundred of English build. They were picturesque
361
362 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
in appearance, though tub-like and clumsy, the hull being
broad-bottomed and capacious, while the lofty cabins, towering
high both fore and aft,—a style now obsolete in Europe, but
still prevailing in the Red Sea and the Levant,—caused them
to roll heavily in rough water. The Mayflower was a high-
sterned, quaint, but staunch little vessel of one hundred and
eighty tons, and was built for one of the trading companies
lately chartered by the Government. The Dutch portion of
the emigration had already embarked at Delfthaven in the
Speedwell, of sixty tons, and both vessels were, on the Ist of
August, 1620, anchored before the old towers of Southampton.
The pilgrims were then regularly organized for the voyage,
being distributed according to rules laid down and accepted
i: :
SPEEDWELL AND MAYFLOWER.
by all. The larger number were of course received on voard
the Mayflower. On the 5th of August, both vessels weighed
anchor, and sailed down the beautiful estuary of Southampton.
THE VOYAGE OF THE MAYFLOWER. 363:
Water: passing the Isle of Wight and the rocks known as the
Needles, they entered the English Channel.
They were no sooner launched upon the fretful waters of this
confined strait than their disasters began. The captain of the
Speedwell, who had engaged to remain a year abroad with the
vessel, actuated either by cowardice or by dissatisfaction with the
enterprise, declared that his ship was leaky, and that she could
not proceed to sea. Dartmouth Harbor offered an opportunity
for effecting the necessary repairs, and here a week was spent:
the Speedwell was then pronounced quite sound by the carpen-
ters and surveyors. They again set sail; but the captain of the
Speedwell soon profited by the vicinity of Plymouth to assert
a second time that he was ready to founder. He ran into
port, and the Mayflower followed. No special cause was dis-
covered for the apprehensions of the captain; but it was decided
that the Speedwell should be sent back to London as unsea-
worthy, with such of her passengers as were disheartened, the
remainder being transferred to the larger ship. One hundred
and one persons—some of them aged and infirm, and several of
them women soon to become mothers—were thus imprisoned, as
it were, in a vessel much too small to accommodate them; while
the delays resulting from the treachery or stratagem practised
by the captain of the Speedwell had already proved so serious,
that it was the 6th of September before the Mayflower, with her
crowd of suffering passengers, could continue the voyage thus
inauspiciously commenced. 3
The wind was east by north, blowing, according to the jour-
nal, ‘‘a fine small gale,’’ when the Mayflower started from Ply-
mouth upon her lonely way. The solitude of the ocean—in this
latitude almost a trackless waste—lay stretched out before them.
The prosperous gale soon gave way to the equinoctial storm,
and a terrible head-wind from the northwest compelled the little
bark to struggle anxiously with waves which threatened to
engulf her. She was soon sorely shattered: her upper works
364 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
were strained, and one of the main beams amidships was bent
and cracked. A consultation was held between the seamen anc
passengers, and the question was seriously debated whether it
would not be better to put back. It was fortunately discovered,
however, that one of the Dutch pilgrims had accidentally
brought on board a large iron screw, and this served to rivet the;
defective beam. The ship proceeded on her course, struggling
with westerly gales and tempestuous seas. For whole days
together she was compelled to lic to, or to secud with bare poles.
“Methinks,” says Everett, ‘‘I see the adventurous vessel, the
Mayflower of a forlorn hope, freighted with the prospects of a
future State and bound across the unknown sea. I behold it
pursuing, with a thousand misgivings, the uncertain, tedious
voyage. Suns rise and set, weeks and months pass; and winter
surprises them on the deep, but brings them not the sight of the
wished-for shore. I sec them now, scantily supplied with pro-
visions, crowded almost to suffocation in their ill-stored prison,
delayed by calms, pursuing a circuitous route, and now driven
in fury before the raging tempest on the high and giddy waves.
The awful voice of the storm howls through the rigging; the
laboring masts scem straining from their base; the dismal sound
of the pumps is herd; the ship leaps, as it were, madly from
billow to billow; the ocean breaks and settles with engulfing
floods over the floating deck, and beats, with deadening, shiver-
ing weight, against the staggered vessel.”’ Only one death
occurred during this terrible voyage,—a loss in numbers which
was made good by the birth of a boy, to whom was given the
name of Oceanus Hopkins.
Sixty-four days had passed, and the 9th of November had
dawned. Upon this date the tempest-tossed pilgrims obtained
their first view of the American coast. ‘‘To the storm-ridden
voyager,” writes one of their descendants, ‘exhausted by con-
finement and suffering, the sight of any shore, however wild, the
E WAVES.
STRUGGLING WITH TH
o
366 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
aromatic fragrance that blows from the land, are inexpressibly
sweet and refreshing: |
Lovely seems any object that shall sweep
Away the vast—salt—dread—eternal deep!
And thus we find that the low sand-hills of Cape Cod, covered
with scrubby woods that descended to the margin of the sea,
seemed, at the first glance, a perfect paradise of verdure to the
eyes of these poor sea-beaten wanderers.”
The orator and statesman from whom we have already quoted
thus eloquently alludes to the providential circumstances attend-
ing the arrival of the Mayflower upon the American shore:—
“‘Let us go up in imagination to yonder hill and look out upon
the November scene. That single dark speck, just discernible
through the perspective glass on the waste of waters, is the
fated vessel. The storm moans through her tattered canvas,
as she creeps, almost sinking, to her anchorage in Provincetown
Harbor; and there she lies, with all her treasures, not of silver
and gold,—for of them she has none,—but of courage, of patience,
of zeal, of high spiritual daring. So often as I dwell in imagi-
nation on this scene,—when I consider the condition of the
Mayflower, utterly incapable as she was of living through
another gale,—when I survey the terrible front presented by our
coast to the navigator who, unacquainted with its channels and
roadsteads, should approach it in the stormy season,—I dare not
call it a mere piece of good fortune that the general north and
south wall of the shore of New England should be broken by
this extraordinary projection of the Cape, running out into the
ocean a hundred miles, as if on purpose to receive and encircle
the precious vessel. As I now see her, freighted with the des-
tinies of a continent, barely escaped from the perils of the deep,
approaching the shore precisely where the broad sweep of this
most remarkable headland presents almost the only point at
which, for hundreds of miles, she could with any ease have made
a harbor, and this perhaps the very best on the seaboard, I feel
GObD’S PROVIDENCE. 367
my spirit raised above the sphere of mere natural agencies. I
see the mountains of New England rising from their rocky
thrones: they rush forward into the ocean, settling down as
they advance; and there they range themselves, a mighty bul-
wark, around the Heaven-directed vessel. Yes! the everlasting
God himself stretches out the arm of his mercy and his power
in substantial manifestations, and gathers the meek company of
his worshippers as in the hollow of his hand.”
‘“‘T see the pilgrims,” he continues, ‘‘escaped from their perils,
Janded at last, after a two months’ passage, on the ice-clad rocks
of Plymouth, weak and weary from the voyage,—without shelter,
without means, surrounded by hostile tribes. Shut now the
volume of history, and tell me, on any principle of human pro-
bability, what shall be the fate of this handful of adventurers.
Tell me, man of military science, in how many months were
they all swept off by the thirty savage tribes enumerated within
‘the early limits of New England? Tell me, politician, how long
did this shadow of a colony, on which your conventions and
treaties had not smiled, languish on the distant coast? Student
of history, compare for me the baffled projects, the deserted
settlements, the abandoned adventures, of other times, and
find the parallel of this. Was it the winter’s storm, or disease,
or labor and spare meals, or the tomahawk—that hurried this
forsaken company to their melancholy fate? And is it possible
that neither of these causes, that not all combined, were able to
blast this bud of hope? Is it possible that from a beginning so
feeble, so frail, so worthy not so much of admiration as of
pity, there has gone forth a progress so steady, a growth so
wonderful, an expansion so ample, a reality so important, a
promise, yet to be fulfilled, so glorious?”
The Mayflower remained in Plymouth Harbor, and was the
home of the women and children during the severe winter of
1620-21. She rode out the storm at her anchorage,—though
she was placed in great danger by a gale upon the 4th of
368 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
February, her want of ballast—unladen as she was—rendering
her light ag a cockle-shell. With the opening of spring, the
captain determined to return to England, and offered to carry
back any of the colonists who might be disheartened by the
calamities which had overtaken them,—for they had buric:
half their number. But their sufferings had endeared the soil
to them, and not one embraced the opportunity of returning.
The Mayflower left Plymouth on the 5th of April, 1621, and
made the run home to London in thirty days. She seems to
have performed several voyages back and forth, and, in 1680,
arrived in the harbor of Charlestown, with a portion of Win-
throp’s company of emigrants. Her subsequent history is very
uncertain; and all attempts to ascertain it have been baffled by
the circumstance that several ships bore the name of Mayflower,
and no reliable means exist of distinguishing her of Pilgrim
celebrity from others of obscurer fame.
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TASMAN’S VESSEL,—THE ZEEHAAN.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
DISCOVERY OF NEW HOLLAND—TASMAN ORDERED TO SURVEY THE ISLAND—
DISCOVERY OF VAN DIEMEN’S LAND—OF NEW ZEALAND—-MURDERERS’ BAY—
THE FRIENDLY ISLANDS—THE FEEJEES—NEW BRITAIN—AN EARTHQUAKE AT
SEA—A COPIOUS LANGUAGE—CIRCUMNAVIGATION OF NEW HOLLAND—RETURN
TO BATAVIA—RESULTS OF THE. VOYAGE—DUTCH OPINIONS OF TASMAN’S
MERIT.
THE Council of the Dutch Hast India Company thought
proper, in 1642, to order a complete and precise survey of the
lands accidentally discovered during the previous fifty years by
vessels trading between Holland and Batavia, in Java. These
had touched, at intervals, at numerous points upon the conti-
nental island of New Holland,—Hertog at Endracht’s Land in
1616, and De Witt, Van Nuyts, and Carpenter at other points,
somewhat later. It was eminently desirable that a scientific
navigator should visit and render an account of this region, of
24 369
370 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
which only casual glimpses had thus far been obtained. Cap-
tain Abel Jansen Tasman was intrusted with this duty by Van
Diemen, Governor-General of the Company. He left Batavia
in August with two vessels, the Zeehaan and the Heemskirk,
and proceeded towards the south and southeast. During this
portion of the voyage the needle was in such continual agita-
tion, unwilling to remain in any of the eight points and boxing
the whole compass in twenty-four hours, that Tasman was led
to believe large mines of loadstone to exist in the vicinity. On
the 24th of November he discovered land, and gave to it the
name of Van Diemen’s Land,—a name which it has retained,
though in honor of its discoverer it is often, of late years, called
Tasmania. He saw no inhabitants, though he fancied he heard
human voices. He noticed two trees, fifteen feet in girth and
sixty feet in height from the ground to the branches. Up the
trunks of these trees steps, five feet apart, had been cut in the
bark. By these the natives, apparently of prodigious size, had
climbed into the foliage and robbed the birds’ nests of their
eggs. Though a sound resembling that of a trumpet had been
heard, though tracks of wild beasts were fresh in the sand, and
though smoke ascended from the interior in several places,
no living creature was seen. Tasman set up a post, upon which
every man of the company cut his name, and upon the top of
which a flag was hoisted, and then set out in quest of the Solo-
mon Islands, which he supposed to lie to the east.
On the 15th of September he discovered a high, mountainous
country, to which he gave the name of Staten Land,—Land of
the States, [of Holland.] Its present name is New Zealand. He
coasted along the shore to the northeast, and anchored in a fine
bay, though he did not disembark. The savages, who were shy
at first, at last ventured on board the Heemskirk, in order to
trade. Tasman, suspicious of their intentions, sent a boat with
seven men from the Zeehaan, to put the crew of his consort
upon their guard. These seven men, being without arms, were
THE FRIENDLY ISLANDS. BA
attacked: three of them were killed, and the other four forced
to swim for their lives. The two vessels opened their fire upon
the canoes of the islanders, and Tasman branded the spot with
a name which still exists upon the charts,—Murderers’ Bay.
oe
MURDERERS’ BAY.
On the 21st of January, 16438, he saw three islands, in latitude
21° south: he named them Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and Middle.
bourg. The inhabitants were peaceable and friendly, were un-
acquainted with the use of weapons, and very skilful in stealing.
The natives called Amsterdam Tonga-Tabou; Rotterdam, Ana-
Mocka; and Middlebourg, Hoa. These are now the principal
members of the group known as the Friendly Islands. They
remained unvisited by Europeans from the time of Tasman, in
1648, to the second voyage of Cook, in 1773,—a space of one
hundred and thirty years. Cook found traditions still existing
respecting Tasman’s ships; and a nail was shown him which had
been left by the Dutch navigator. Proceeding to the north and
then to the west, Tasman discovered a group of twenty islands,
girt with shoals and sands. He named them Prince William’s
Islands and Heemskirk’s Shallows. These now form the eastern
portion of the Feejee archipelago. They remained unvisited for
a century and a half, until the people of the Friendly Islands
spoke of them to Cook and his successors and induced them to
visit them.
Tasman now feared that the currents and winds had driven
him more to the westward than he had supposed; for he had
ibs HISTORY OF THE SEA
not seen the sun for many weeks, and was consequently without
reliable observations. Ee resolved to make for the north, and
then for the western coast of New Guinea, in order not to be
driven to the south of the island and pass it without seeing it.
NATIVES OF MURDERERS’ BAY.
On the Ist of April, he saw the coast of what he supposed was
New Guinea, but which was in reality New Britain. Here an
earthquake terrified the seamen, for the shock caused them to
fear they had struck upon a rock; but the lead did not reach
the bottom. On the 20th, they passed a burning island, noticed
by late navigators, and perceived flames issuing from lofty moun-
tains. The water was full of shrubs, bamboos, and small trees,
carried by the rivers to the sea. The discharge of fresh water
by these rivers was such that it almost corrected the salt of the
ocean. The natives showed Tasman some ginger, and sold him
hogs and cocoanuts. At the island of Moa he found the inha-
bitants speaking a language so copious, that they could at once
repeat, intelligibly, the words of any other language. Tasman
did not find it so easy to speak theirs, however, as the letter r
occurred once or more in every syllable. He purchased, for
knives made of the iron hoops of water-casks, six thousand
cocoanuts and a hundred bunches of bananas, or Indian figs.
On the 18th of May, Tasman reached the western extremity
of New Guinea, having sailed entirely round the continent or
island of Australia. He arrived at Batavia, whence he had
AUSTRALIA CIRCUMNAVIGATED. i)
started, after an absence of ten months. His expedition was the
clearest and most precise of the several voyages which had been
made for the discovery of the Terra Australis Incognita: few
voyages, since that of Magellan, had contributed more to geo-
graphical science; for, by reducing the limits of the Terra Aus-
tralis, as he did by circumnavigating the supposed continent,
he did much to rid geography of its most important error.
Tasman made a second voyage in 1644; but his journals and
his track have been completely lost,—probably by design, as
the Dutch did not make geographical researches in the interest
of the world, but exclusively in that of the East India Com-
pany. By his second voyage he is believed to have determined
the extent of the great Gulf of Carpentaria, which so profoundly
indents the northern coast of New Holland. The portion of his
discoveries relative to New Zealand and the Friendly Islands
has been completed by Cook; that relative to Van Diemen’s
Land by d’Entrecasteaux, in his voyage in search of Lapé-
rouse. The fragments which remain of Tasman’s journals attest
his reasoning powers, his nautical experience, and his unerring
judgment. The Dutch never published his own account of his
adventures, and the few extracts which have become public
crept by accident and stealth into later works and journals
of discovery. A Dutch writer thus alludes to the indifference
manifested by his countrymen in regard to Tasman :—‘‘ We do
not know when he was born, when he went to India, or when he
returned. In our grand biographical dictionaries, where you
will find every puerile detail respecting such and such musty
savant, only known as a professor at some university or as
a quarrelsome skirmisher of the Republic of Letters, there is
no room, it seems, for the first navigator of his age.” The
English have proposed of late to substitute a name of their own
for that of Van Diemen’s Land; but the appellation of Tas-
mania is beginning, as we have said, for evident reasons of pro-
priety to find a place upon modern charts and maps.
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SYSSR SS AN ME
A BUCCANEER.
CHAPTER XXXViII.
PIRACY—ORIGIN OF THE BUCCANEERS—THEIR MANNER OF LIFE—DRESS—OCCU-
PATION—THE ISLAND OF TORTUGA THEIR HEAD-QUARTERS—THEIR RELIGIOUS
SCRUPLES—MANNER OF DIVIDING SPOILS—THE EXTERMINATOR—THE OBSERV-
ANCE OF THE SABBATH—EXPLOITS OF HENRY MORGAN—IMPOTENCE OF THE
SPANIARDS—CAREER OF WILLIAM DAMPIER—HIS FIRST PIRATICAL CRUISE—
ADVENTURES BY LAND AND SEA—DESCRIPTION OF THE PLANTAIN-TREE—
LINGERING DEATHS BY POISON——-REPROACHES OF CONSCIENCE—THE NEW-
HOLLANDERS—DAMPIER’S DANGEROUS VOYAGE IN AN OPEN BOAT—PIRACY
UPON THE AMERICAN COAST—WILLIAM KIDD SENT AGAINST THE PIRATES—
HE TURNS PIRATE HIMSELF—HIS EXPLOITS, DETECTION, AND EXECUTION—
HIS BURIED TREASURES—WRECK OF THE WHIDAH PIRATE-SHIP.
It is necessary to pause at this period m our review of the
grand maritime expeditions which successively left the various
374 ‘
THE BUCCANEERS. - ote
seaports of the world, in order to refer to a practice which was
now rendering commerce hazardous and the whole highway of
the seas insecure,—piracy. Besides the numerous isolated ad-
venturers who preyed upon the vessels of any and every nation
which fell in their way, a powerful association or league of
robbers, who infested particularly the West India Islands and
the Caribbean Sea, and who bore the name of Buccaneers, be-
came, during the century of which we are now speaking, the
peculiar dread of Spanish ships. We shall describe this fra-_
ternity in some detail. The term buccaneer is a corruption of
the French word boucanier, which in its turn was made from the
Caribbean noun boucan, being the flesh of cattle dried and pre-
served in a peculiar manner. The French also called them
flibustiers, this word being a corruption of the English word
freebooters; and this French word has been still further tortured
into ‘‘ Filibusters,’—a term now applied to such Americans as
desire violently to extend the area of freedom.
The buccaneers were principally natives of Great Britain and
France, and first attract notice in the island of St. Domingo.
The Spaniards would not allow any other nation than their own
to trade in the West Indies, and pursued and murdered the
English and French wherever they found them. Every foreigner
discovered among the islands or on the coast of the American
continent was treated as a smuggler and a robber; and it was
not long before they became so, and organized themselves into
an association capable of returning cruelty by cruelty. The
Spaniards employed coast-guards to keep off interlopers, the
commanders of which were instructed to massacre all their
prisoners. This tended to produce a close alliance, offensive
and defensive, among the mariners of all other nations, who in
their turn made descents upon the coasts and ravaged the
weaker Spanish towns and settlements. A permanent state
of hostilities was thus established in the West Indies, indepen-
dent of peace or war at home. After the failure of the mines
376 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
of St. Domingo and its abandonment by the Spaniards, it was
taken possession of, early in the sixteenth century, by a number
of French wanderers who had been driven out of St. Chris-
topher ; and their numbers were soon augmented by adventurers
from all quarters.
As they had neither wives nor children, they generally lived
together by twos for mutual protection and assistance: when
one died, the survivor inherited his property, unless a will was
found bequeathing it to some relative in Europe. Bolts, locks,
and all kinds of fastenings were prohibited among them, the
maxim of ‘‘ honor among thieves” being considered a more efficient
safeguard. The dress of a buccaneer consisted of a shirt dipped
in the blood of an animal just slain, a leathern girdle in which
hung pistols and a short sabre, a hat with feathers,—but without
a rim, except a fragment in guise of a visor to pull it on and off,—
and shoes of untanned hide, without stockings. Hach man had
a heavy musket and usually a pack of twenty or thirty dogs.
Their business was, at the outset, cattle-hunting; and they sold
hides to the Dutch who resorted to the island to purchase them.
They possessed servants and slaves, consisting of persons de-
coyed to the West Indies and induced to bind themselves for a
certain number of years. They treated them with great severity.
The following epigrammatic conversation is reported as having
taken place between an apprentice and a buccaneer. ‘‘ Master,”’
said the servant, ‘“‘God has forbidden the practice of working on
the Sabbath: does he not say, ‘Six days shalt thou labor; and on
the seventh shalt thou rest’?’’ ‘ But I say unto thee,” returned
the buccaneer, “‘six days shalt thou kill cattle; and on the
seventh shalt thou carry their hides to the shore.”’
The Spaniards inhabiting other portions of St. Doran. con-
ceived the idea of ridding the island of the buccaneers by de-
stroying all the wild cattle; and this was carried into execution
by a general chase. The buccaneers abandoned St. Domingo
and took refuge in the mountainous and well-wooded island of
DOINGS OF THE BUCCANEERS. SW
Tortuga, of which they made themselves absolute lords and
masters. The advantages of the situation brought swarms of
adventurers and desperadoes to the spot; and from cattle-hunters
the buccaneers became pirates. ‘They made their cruises in open
boats, exposed to all the inclemencies of the weather, and cap-
tured their prizes by boarding. They attacked indiscriminately
the ships of every nation, feeling especial hostility and exercising
peculiar cruelty towards the Spaniards. They considered them-
selves to be justified in this by the oppression of the Mexicans
and Indians by Spanish rulers, and, quieting their consciences
by thus assuming the character of avengers and dispensers of
poetic justice, they never embarked upon an expedition without
publicly offering up prayers for success, nor did they ever return
laden with spoils without as publicly giving thanks for their good
fortune.
They seldom attacked any European ships except those home-
ward bound,—which were usually well freighted with gold and
silver. They pursued the Spanish galleons as far as the Ba-
hamas; and if, on the way, a ship became accidentally separated
from the convoy, they instantly attacked her. The Spaniards
held them in such terror that they usually surrendered on coming
to close quarters. The spoil was equitably divided, provision
being first made for the wounded. The loss of an arm was rated
at six hundred dollars, and other wounds in proportion. The
commander could claim but one share,—although, when he had
acquitted himself with distinction, it was usual to compliment
him by the addition of several shares. When the division was
effected, the buccaneers abandoned themselves to all kinds of
rioting and licentiousness till their wealth was expended, when
they started in pursuit of new booty.
The buccaneers now rapidly increased in strength, daring, and
numbers. They sailed in larger vessels, and undertook enter-
prises requiring great energy and audacity. Miguel de Basco
captured, under the guns of Portobello, a Spanish galleon valued
378 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
at a million of dollars. In Europe, immense editions of books
were published, giving accounts of the barbarities committed by
the Spaniards and of the holy reprisals waged against them by
the buccaneers. A Frenchman by the name of Montbars, on
reading these narratives, conceived so deadly a hatred for the
Spaniards, and, after becoming a buccaneer, killed so many
of them, that he obtained the title of ‘‘The Exterminator.”’
His audacity was only equalled by his love of shedding Spanish
blood, by which he believed himself to be avenging the unhappy
victims of Spanish colonization.
Other men joined the ‘Brethren of the Coast’’—as they were
sometimes called—from less ferocious motives. Raveneau de
Lussan joined the association because he was in debt, and in
consequence of a conviction entertained by him that ‘“ every
honest man ought in conscience to pay his creditors.” Many
of the buccaneers were men of a religious temperament; or, at
least, they thought that proper respect should be paid to ap-
pearances, and that due deference should be had towards the
prejudices of society. It was doubtless from such sentiments
as these that Captain Daniel shot one of his crew in church
for behaving irreverently during mass, that Captain Sawkins
threw a pair of dice overboard on finding them contributing to
a game of chance on Sunday, and that Captain Watling ordered
his men to regard, as the very first rule of their association,
that which instructed them to keep holy the Sabbath day.
But the fame of all the buccaneer commanders was eciipsed by
that of Henry Morgan, a Welshman. The boldest and most
astonishing of his exploits was his forcing his way across. the
Isthmus of Darien from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean.
His object was to plunder the rich city of Panama: his expedi-
tion, however, opened the way to the great Southern Sea, where
the buccaneers laid the foundation of much of our geographical
knowledge of that ocean. He first took the castle of San Lo-
renzo, at the mouth of the river Chagres, where out of three
MORGAN’S EXPEDITION. O79
hundred and fourteen Spaniards he put two hundred to death.
He left five hundred men in the castle, one hundred and fifty on
board of his thirty-seven ships, and with the rest—who, after
deducting the killed and wounded, amounted to about twelve
hundred men—began his progress through a wild and trackless
country which was then known only to the native Indians. On
the tenth day, after a desperate combat with the Spaniards, he
took and plundered Panama, which then consisted of about seven
thousand houses. His cruelties here were abominable. He im-
-prisoned one of his female captives, with whom he had fallen
‘n love but who repelled his advances, causing her to be cast
into a dungeon and to be insufficiently supplied with food. But
his men murmured at the delay, and he was compelled to depart.
He returned to the mouth of the Chagres with an enormous
booty, and, after defrauding the fleet of their share of the spoils,
sailed for Jamaica, which was already an English colony. He
was made Deputy Governor of the island by Charles II., by
whom he was also knighted. He proved an efficient officer,
and gave no quarter to the buccaneers !
Morgan’s expedition had pointed out a short way to the South
Sea; and in 1680, some three hundred English buccaneers
started from the Atlantic side to cross the isthmus. They
formed an alliance with the Darien Indians, who furnished them
a quantity of canoes upon the Pacific side. They launched out —
in these into the Bay of Panama, attacked three large armed
ships, took two of them, and began cruising in them. They
captured vessels and plundered towns along the coast. Some —
of them remained a long time in the South Sea, and made
many discoveries of undoubted benefit to mankind.
The Spaniards never dared to defend themselves unless they
greatly outnumbered their assailants, and even then they were
usually routed with ease. They had become so enervated by
luxury that they had lost all military spirit and’ had well-nigh
forgotten the use of arms. They had acquired from the monks
580 ITISTORY OF TIE SEA,
the idea that the buccaneers were devils, cannibals, and beings
of monstrous form. They revenged themselves upon the enemy
whom they dared not meet by mangling and subjecting to mimic
tortures such dead bodies of the invaders as were left behind,—
an exhibition of impotent rage which only excited the buc-
caneers to fresh cruelties.
One of the English buccaneers—William Dampier—became
subsequently an eminent discoverer, author, and philosopher.
After receiving a collegiate education, he went to sea in northern
latitudes, which for a time disgusted him with a maritime life.
A voyage to the East Indies, the superintendence of a plantation
in Jamaica, and three years spent among the logwood-cutters of
Campeachy, gave him a strong bias for the tropical waters. In
Campeachy he became acquainted with some of the buccaneers,
whose descriptions of their adventures kindled in him a fond-
ness for a roving and piratical life. He joined an expedition
under Captain John Cooke: an English pilot named Cowley
was engaged as master, and embarked in complete ignorance of
the nature of the voyage. They sailed in August, 1688, in the
Revenge, mounting eight guns and manned by fifty-two men.
Cowley was told the first day that the vessel’s mission was
trade and her destination St. Domingo; on the second, he was
informed that piracy was her object and Guinea her market.
Stopping at the Cape Verd Islands, they resolved to go to
Santiago, in the hope of finding some ship in the road, and in-
tending to cut her cable and run away with her. They saw a
ship at anchor, and approached her with hostile intent. They
were not far off when her company struck her ports and ran out
her lower tier of guns. Cooke bore away as fast as he could,
convinced that he was unable to cope with a Dutch East India-
man of fifty guns and four hundred men. Some time after,
when off Sierra Leone, they fell in with a newly built ship of
forty guns, well furnished with water, provisions, and brandy,
which they boarded and captured. They named her the Re-
BURNING PAITA. 3sl
venge, and continued thei voyage in her, destroying their
original vessel. From here they crossed the Atlantic to the
Patagonian coast. They doubled Cape Horn during a tre-
mendous storm of rain, which furnished them with twenty-three
barrels of fresh water. The weather was at this time so cold
that the men could drink three quarts of burnt brandy in
twenty-four hours without being intoxicated. They joined com-
pany in the Pacific with the Nicholas, of twenty-six guns,
Captain John Eaton, and started together upon an attempt
against the Peruvian coast. They captured three flour-ships,
and learned from the prisoners that their presence was known
to the Peruvian authorities. Their design upon the coast was
therefore abandoned. ‘They carried their prizes to the Galla-
pagos or Tortoise Islands, where they might store their captured
provisicns in a secure place. They arrived and anchored there
on the 31st of May, 1684.
Proceeding to the northward, they descried the coast of
Mexico early in July, where Cooke, who had been ill for some
months, died and was buried. Edward Davis, quartermaster,
was elected captain in his stead. The two ships separated on
the 2d of September, the Nicholas withdrawing from the part-
nership. Davis and Dampier remained in the Revenge, and
were soon joined by the Cygnet, a richly-loaded vessel designed
for trading on this coast. Her captain lightened her by throw-
ing his unsalable cargo overboard. They attacked Paita in
the month of November, but found it evacuated. They held
the town for six days, hoping the inhabitants would ransom it;
but, as this hope was disappointed, they set the town on fire.
On the 1st of January, 1685, they captured a package of letters
sent by the President of Panama to hasten the captains of the
silver-fleet from Lima, as the coast was believed to be clear.
Being particularly desirous that the silver-fleet should share
this belief, they suffered the letter-bearers to continue their
voyage and resolved to lie in wait for the ships. In the mean
382 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
time they captured several prizes, and manned them with bucca-
neers that they met, from time to time, engaged in small enter-
prises on separate accounts. By the end of May, their fleet
consisted of ten sail, two of them being ships of war, carrying
fifty-two guns and nine hundred and sixty men. The Spanish
fleet-—consisting of fourteen sail, eight of them men-of-war, and
two of them fire-ships, the whole manned by three thousand
men—now hove in sight. The admiral of the fleet deceived
the buccaneers at night, by hoisting a light upon the topmast
of an abandoned bark, by which they were, decoyed into a posi-
tion which gave the Spaniards the next day all the-advantage
of the wind. Thus was the grand scheme adroitly frustrated.
Having thus failed at sea, they agreed to try their fortune on
land, and chose the city of Leon, on the coast of Nicaragua.
Four hundred and seventy men were landed for this purpose.
They were met and opposed by five hundred foot and two hun-
dred horse, both of which arms of the service retreated in con-
fusion at the first collision. As they refused to ransom the city
for thirty thousand dollars, it was set on fire. A Spanish gen-
tleman, who had been captured by the buccaneers, was released
upon his promise to deliver one hundred and fifty oxen at Rea-
lejo, the next place which they intended to attack. Realejo was
taken, but yielded them little of value except five hundred bags
of flour, with some pitch, tar, and cordage, and the one hundred
and fifty promised oxen. Captains Davis and Swan now agreed
to separate,—the former wishing to return to Peru, and the
latter desiring to visit the northern coasts of Mexico. Dampier
remained with Swan in the Cygnet.
Towards the middle of September they came in sight of the
sity and volcano of Guatemala. Dampier landed at the port of
Guatulco with one hundred and forty men, and marched fourteen
miles to attack an Indian village, where they found nothing but
vanilla beans drying in the sun. They endeavored to: cut out
a Lima bullion-ship lying off Acapulco, but failed. Not far
SAILING FOR THE EAST INDIES. 383
from here they robbed a caravan of sixty mules, laden with
flour, chocolate, cheese, and earthenware. They found and
appropriated an abundance of maize, sugar, salt, and salt fish.
Dampier, being afflicted with the dropsy, was cured—or, at least,
much benefited—by being buried up to his neck for half an hour
in the sand in California. A profuse perspiration, which was
thus brought on, was the commencement of his convalescence.
Swan and Dampier were now convinced that the commerce
of this region was not carried on by sea, but by land, by means
of mules and caravans. They therefore resolved to try their
fortune in the Hast Indies. They sailed from California on the
31st of March, 1686. They made the island of Guam, after a
voyage of six thousand miles, in seven weeks, having but three
‘days’ provisions left, and the men having begun to talk of eating
Captain Swan when these were exhausted. They found the
island defended by a small fort mounting six guns, and con-
taining a garrison of thirty men with a Spanish governor,—this
being solely for the convenience of the Manilla galleons on
their annual voyages from Acapulco to Manilla. The governor,
being deceived as to the character of the ship, sent the captain
some hogs, cocoanuts, and rice, and fifty pounds of Manilla
tobacco.
They learned here, from the friar belonging to the garrison,
BOATS USED IN THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS,
that Mimdanao, one of the Philippine Islands, was very fertile and
productive, and that the natives, who were Mohammedans, were
384 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
at war with the Spaniards. They therefore resolved to go there,
and left Guam on the 2d of June. After seeing Luzon, (Matan,}
where Magellan was killed, they anchored off Mindanao, the
largest of the Philippines with the exception of Luzon. Though
mountainous, Dampier found its soil ‘‘deep, black, and extra-
ordinary fat and fruitful.’’ The valleys were moistened with
pleasant brooks ‘‘and small rivers of delicate water, and in the
heart of the country were mountains that yielded good gold.”
Dampier’s description of the plantain-tree is often quoted as
a fine specimen of descriptive writing. ‘‘It is,” he says, ‘‘the
king of all fruit, not excepting the cocoanut. The tree is three
feet round and twelve feet high: it is not raised from seed, but
from the roots of old trees. As soon as the fruit is ripe the tree
decays; but suckers at once spring up and bear in a twelve-
month. It comes up with two leaves, within which, by the time
it is a foot high, two more spring up, and in a short time two
more, and so on. When full grown, the leaves are seven or
eight feet long and a foot and a half broad. The stem of the
leaf is as big asa mansarm. The fruit-stem shoots out at the
top of the full-grown tree,—first blossoming, and then bearing.
The Spaniards give it the pre-eminence over all other fruit, as
most conducive to life. It grows in a cod about seven inches
long and three inches thick. The shell or rind is soft, and, when
ripe, yellow. The fruit within is of the consistency of butter
in winter. It has a very delicate flavor, and melts in the mouth
like marmalade. It is pure pulp, without kernel, seed, or stone.
A large plantation of these trees will yield fruit throughout the
year, and will furnish the exclusive food of a family. The mar-
kets of Havana, Carthagena, Portobello, &c. are full of the fruit ;
anc. they are sold at the price of threepence a dozen. When
used as bread, it is roasted or boiled before it is quite ripe; and
sometimes a roasted plantain is, as it were, buttered with a ripe
raw plantain. An English bag-pudding may be made wgth half
a dozen ripe fruit; and, again, plantains sliced and dried in the
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386 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
sun taste like figs, and may be preserved in any climate. Green
plantains dried and grated furnish an excellent flour for bread
or puddings. The Mosquito Indians squeeze a plantain into a
calabash of water and drink it: they call it mishlaw, and it re-
resembles lambs’-wool made of apples and ale. It drinks brisk
and cool, and is very pleasant.’’ Such was the plantain two
centuries ago. fj
The Sultan of Mindanao received the strangers with favor,
and would gladly have induced them to settle upon the island
and form the nucleus of an English trading station. Dampier
would have remained, but the majority were against him. After
a time, a mutiny broke out,—the principal cause being the want
of active employment; and, as Captain Swan manifested no
energy or address in quelling it, he and thirty-six men were left
at Mindanao, the rest escaping with the ship. Dampier here
remarks that they had buried sixteen men upon the island, who
had died by poison,—the natives revenging the slightest dal-
liance with their women with a deadly, though lingering, dose or
potion. Some of the mutineers that ran off with the vessel died
of poison administered at Mindanao four months afterwards.
Gi)
a
a
SURF BATHING BY NATIVES,
Read, the new captain, and Dampier, cruised for some time
among the Philippine Islands. At one of these they saw an
extraordinary display of surf-bathing on the part of the natives.
The art seemed to be practised as well by the women as the
men, and children in arms were taught to gambol in the water
THE NATIVES OF NEW HOLLAND. 387
as if it were their native element, and as if they were born
web-footed.
On the 4th of January, 1688, they touched at New Holland,—
then known to be a vast tract of land, and by all except the
Dutch supposed to be a continent. Here they found a mise-
rable race of people, compared to whom Dampier declares the
Hodmapods, though a nasty race, to be gentlemen and Chris-
tians. They lived wretchedly on cockles, muscles, and shell-
fish. They were tall, straight-bodied, and thin, with small, long
limbs. They had bottle noses, big lips, and wide mouths. They
held their eyelids half closed, to keep the flies out. Their hair
was not long and lank, like that of Indians, but black, short,
and curled, like that of negroes. A bit of the rind of a tree
and a handful of grass formed their only clothmg. The crew
landed several times, and brought the natives to some degree of
familiarity by giving them a few old clothes; but they could not
prevail upon them to assist them in carrying water or any other
burden. When the savages found that the ragged jackets and
breeches which had been given them were intended to induce
them to work, they took them off and laid them down upon the
shore. )
Dampier was now tired of wandering about the world with
this mad crew, none of whom—not even the captain—had any
settled purpose or object in view. Read was afraid that Dampier —
would desert, and when off Sumatra executed a scheme which
he hoped would render it impossible. He gave chase to a small
sail which was discovered making for Acheen in Sumatra.
Taking on board the four Malays who manned her and the
cocoanuts with which she was laden, he cut a hole in her bottom
and turned her loose. ‘This he did in order to render Dampier
and any others who might be disaffected afraid to trust them-
selves among a people who had been thus robbed and abused.
At one of the Nicobar Islands, however, Dampier escaped, and
two Englishmen and one Portuguese followed him. The four
388 HISTORY OF THE SEA,
sailors of Acheen were also put ashore. The whole eight joined
company, purchased a canoe, for which they gave an axe in
exchange, and set off to row to Acheen. They had* not pro-
ceeded half a mile before the canoe overset. They swam
ashore, dragging the canoe and their chests, and spent. three
days in making repairs. The Acheenese fitted the canoe with
that universal Polynesian apparatus,—an outrigger, or balancer,
on each side,—by which capsizing is rendered impossible. They
POLYNESIAN CANOE, WITH ITS OUTRIGGER.
felled a mast in the woods and made a substantial sail with
mats. They put off again, following the shore for several days.
At length they ventured forth upon the open sea, with one
hundred and fifty miles of dangerous navigation before them.
‘They rowed with four oars, taking their turns,—Dampier and
Hall, one of the Englishmen, relieving each other at the tiller,
none of the rest being able to steer. The current against them
was very strong, sd that, when looking in front for Sumatra,
Nicobar, to their dismay, was still visible behind them. A dense
halo round the sun, portending a storm, now caused great
anxiety to Dampier. The wind freshened till it blew a gale,
and they reefed the sail one-half of its surface. The light
bamboo poles supporting the outriggers bent as if they would
break; and, if they had broken, the destruction of the boat
would have been inevitable. Putting away directly before the
wind, they ran off their course for six hours, the outriggers being
very much relieved by this change of direction.
A TERRIBLE STORM. 389:
Dampier’s description of this storm is graphic and quaint..
“The sky looked very black,’ he writes, ‘‘being covered with.
dark clouds. The winds blew hard and the seas ran high. The:
sea was already roaring in a white foam about us,—a dark night
coming on, and no land in sight to shelter us, and our little ark
in danger to be swallowed by every wave; and, what was worst of
all, none of us thought ourselves prepared for another world. I
had been in many eminent dangers before now; but the greatest
of them all was but a play-game compared to this. I must
confess that I was in great conflicts of mind at this time. Other
dangers came not upon me with such a leisurely and dreadful
solemnity: a sudden skirmish or engagement or so was nothing
when one’s blood was up and pushed forward with eager expecta-
tions: But here I had a lingering view of approaching death,
and little or no hopes of escaping it; and I must confess that.
ZZAN.
!
DAMPIER’S BOAT IN THE STORM.
my courage, which I had hitherto kept up, failed me here. I
had long ago repented me of my roving course of life, but never
390 ' HISTORY OF THE SEA,
with such concern as now. I composed my mind as well as I
could in the hope of God’s assistance; and, as the event showed,
I was not disappointed of my hopes.”’
The preceding representation of the storm is copied from an
engraving one hundred and fifty years old, which appeared in the
narrative published by Dampier himself. Were it not for this
fact, we should not have reproduced it,—as it is very inaccurate,
and does not give the outriggers, by which alone the canoe was
maintained afloat.
About eight o’clock in the morning one of the Malays cried
out, Pulo Way, which Dampier and Hall took to be good Eng-
lish, meaning ‘‘ Pull away.” He pointed to the horizon, where
land was just appearing in sight. This was the island of Pulo
Way, at the northwest end of Sumatra. It lay to the south;
and, in order to make it with a strong west wind, “ they trimmed
their sail no bigger than an apron,” and, relying upon their out-
riggers, made boldly for the shore, which they reached the next
morning, the 21st of May. ‘The supposed island turned out to
be the Golden Mountain of Sumatra. They landed, and, after
being hospitably received by the natives, arrived at Acheen early
in June.
At this point the history of Dampier’s adventures as a cir-
cumnavigator comes properly to an end. He published a nar-
rative of his career, which he dedicated to Charles Montague,
President of the Royal Society, and which brought him into
favorable notice. His descriptions have been long admired for
their graphic force; while his treatises on winds, tides, and cur-
rents show a remarkable degree of observation and science for
that age of the world. His account of the Philippine Islands |
and of New Holland is still printed complete in the numerous
collections of voyages that are constantly thrown off by the
English and Continental presses. Such was the remarkable
career of a man who, though without the ferocity and barbarous
habits of the buccaneers, was in every sense of the word a
CAPTAIN KIDD’S HISTORY. 391
pirate and a freebooter. We shall shortly have occasion to
mention him again.
We must now refer to another species of piracy,—privateer-
ing. This did not enjoy the same repute as in the days of
Drake and Hawkins; but several circumstances conspired to
render it a calling permissible, if not legitimate. England and
France were at war; and private armed vessels, bearing com-
missions from James II. and William III. against the French,
roved the seas and robbed all defenceless ships which fell in
their way. They attacked even the vessels of Great Britain,
and from privateers became pirates. Many of the Colonial
Atlantic ports of America received them and shared in their
spoils. Fletcher, the Governor of New York, was bribed to
befriend and protect them, while the officers under him were
regular contributors to the funds with which corsairs were
bought and equipped.
The English Government determined to suppress this ne-
farious practice, and removed Fletcher in 1695, sending the
Karl of Bellamont to replace him. The latter suggested that’
a frigate be fitted out to assist him in the attempt; but England
could spare none of her naval force from the war with France.
A proposition, however, to purchase and arm a private ship for
the service was received with favor, and several nobles, together
with Bellamont and Colonel Richard Livingston, of New York,
contributed a fund of six thousand pounds sterling. Livingston
recommended, to command the vessel, one William Kidd, who
had been captain of a merchant-vessel sailing between London
and New York, and of a privateer against the French. Kidd
was placed in command, and Livingston became his security for
the share he agreed to contribute,—six hundred pounds ster-
ling. To give character to the enterprise, a commission was
issued under the great seal of England and signed by the king,
William III., directed to “‘the trusty and well-beloved Captain
Kidd, commander of the ship Adventure Galley.’’ This vessel
392 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
carried thirty guns and sixty men. Kidd departed from Ply-
mouth in April, 1696, and arrived off the American coast in
July following. He occasionally entered the port of New York,
where he was cordially received, as he was considered useful in
orotecting its commerce. For this service the Assembly voted
nim the sum of two hundred and fifty pounds sterling.
He now added ninety-five men to his crew, who shipped to go
to Madagascar in pursuit of pirates. He then sailed for the
Kast Indies, and, while on his way, resolved, possessing as he
did a vessel manned and equipped like a frigate, to turn pirate
himself. He seems to have found ready listeners in the licen-
tious creatures of whom he had composed his crew. He arrived
off the Malabar coast, in Hindostan, where he pillaged vessels
manned by Indian, Arab, and Christian crews. He lay in wait
for a convoy laden with treasure, but, finding it well guarded,
abandoned the attempt. He landed from time to time, burned
settlements, murdered and tortured the inhabitants, and placed
a price upon the heads of such persons as he thought their
friends would ransom. He was once pursued by two Portu-
guese men-of-war, whom he fought and then contrived to elude.
He captured a merchantman named the Quedagh, and, refusing
the offered ransom of thirty thousand rupees, sold her and her
cargo at a pirates’ rendezvous for forty thousand dollars. He
exchanged the Adventure for a larger vessel, and established
himself at Madagascar. Here he lay in ambush, plundering the
flags of every nation. He made himself dreaded, as a bloody,
cruel, and remorseless bandit, from Malabar and the Red Sea
across the Atlantic to the West Indies and the American coast.
He arrived at New York in 1698, laden, it is asserted, with
more spoil than ever fell to the lot of any other individual. He
found Bellamont Governor in place of Fletcher, and deemed it
necessary to conceal his treasures. He sailed along the shore
of Long Island as far as Gardiner’s Island, at the eastern end.
He here disembarked, and, in the presence of Mr. John Gar-
A
q
CAPTAIN KIDD’S EXECUTION. 393
diner, the owner of the island, whom he placed under the most
solemn injunction to secrecy, buried a quantity of gold, silver,
and precious stones.
After satisfying his crew by such a division of the remainder
as they considered equitable, he dismissed them, and had the
audacity to appear in the streets of Boston in the dress of a
gentleman of leisure. Bellamont, who was Governor of Massa-
chusetts and New Hampshire as well as of New York, met him,
caused his arrest, and sent him to England for trial. He was
arraigned for the murder of the gunner of his ship, whom he
had killed with a bucket. Being convicted, he was hung in
chains at Execution Dock on the 12th of May, 1701. The
ballad which was written upon his death has survived, and is a
favorable specimen of doggerel versification. We subjoin the
most striking stanzas :
My name was William Kidd when [I sail’d, when I sail’d;
My name was William Kidd when [ sail’d;
My name was William Kidd, God’s laws I did forbid,
And so wickedly I did, when I sail’d.
I cursed my father dear when I sail’d, when I sail’d;
I cursed my father dear when I sail’d ;
I cursed my father dear, and her that did me bear,
And so wickedly did swear, when I sail’d.
I’d a Bible in my hand when I sail’d, when I sail’d $
I'd a Bible in my hand when I sail’d;
I'd a Bible in my hand, by my father’s great command,
- And I sunk it in the sand, when I sail’d.
I murder’d William Moore as I sail’d, as I sail’d ;
I murder’d William Moore as I sail’d;
I murder’d William Moore, and left him in his gore,
Not many leagues from shore, as I sail’d.
And being cruel still, as I sail’d, as I sail’d,
And being cruel still, as I sail’d,
And being cruel still, my gunner I did kill,
And his precious blood did spill, as I sail’d.
My mate was sick and died as I sail’d, as I sail’d;
My mate was sick and died as I sail’d ;
394
HISTORY OF THE SEA.
My mate was sick and died, which me much terrified,
When he call’d me to his bedside, as I sail’d.
And unto me he did say, See me die, see me die;
And unto me he did say, See me die ;
And unto me he did say, Take warning now by me,
There comes a reckoning day: you must die.
I thought I was undone, as I sail’d, as I sail’d;
I thought I was undone, as I sail’d;
I thought I was undone, and my wicked glass had run,
But my health did soon return, as I sail’d.
My repentance lasted not as I sail’d, as I sail’d;
My repentance lasted not as I sail’d;
My repentance lasted not; my vows I soon forgot ;
Damunation’s my just lot, as I sail’d.
I spied three ships of Spain as I sail’d, as I sail’d;
I spied three ships of Spain as I sail’d;
I spied three ships of Spain, I fired on them amain,
Till most of them were slain, as [ sail’d.
I'd ninety bars of gold as I sail’d, as I sail’d;
I’d ninety bars of gold as I sail’d ;
I'd ninety bars of gold, and dollars manifold,
With riches uncontroll’d, as I sail’d.
Then fourteen ships I saw as I sail’d, as I sail’d ;
Then fourteen ships I saw as I sail’d ;
Then fourteen ships I saw, and brave men they were,
Ah, they were too much for me, as I sail’d.
Thus being o’ertaken at last, I must die, I must die;
Thus being o’ertaken at last, I must die ;
Thus being o’ertaken at last, and into prison cast,
And sentence being pass’d, I must die.
Farewell the raging sea, I must die, I must die;
Farewell the raging main, I must die;
Farewell the raging main, to Turkey, France, and Spain,
I shall ne’er see you again: I must die.
To Newgate now I’m cast, and must die, and must die;
To Newgate now I’m cast, and must die;
To Newgate now I’m cast, with a sad and heavy heart,
To receive my just desert: I must die.
To Execution Dock I must go, I must go;
To Execution Dock I must go;
CAPTAIN KIDD’S TREASURE. 398
To Execution Dock will many thousancs flock,
But I must bear the shock: I must die.
Come, all you young and old, see me die, see me die;
Come, all you young and old, see me die;
Come, all you young and old, you’re welcome to my gold,
For by it I’ve lost my soul, and must die.
Bellamont, having in some way learned that treasure had been
concealed upon Gardiner’s Island, sent commissioners to secure
it. They found a box containing seven hundred and thirty-
eight ounces of gold, eight hundred and forty-seven ounces of
silver, a bag of silver rings, a bag of unpolished stones, a
quantity of agates, amethysts, and silver buttons. For this
they gave a receipt to Mr. Gardiner, which is still preserved by
the family. Other sums were discovered at various periods in
the possession of persons who had had relations with Kidd; but
the soil of Long Island never yielded up any other booty than
the box which we have mentioned.
It was natural that the knowledge that Kidd had buried a
portion of his spoil, that his companions had shared his good
fortune according to their rank, that the vicinity of New York
was the rendezvous of pirates for years,—it was natural that
this knowledge should induce the prevalent belief that it was
the custom among them thus to conceal their booty, and that
the spot chosen by Kidd was, perhaps, the scene of the deposits
of the entire gang. It was evident, too, that, unless rumor had
greatly exaggerated the value of Kidd’s ill-gotten gains, the box
of gold and silver reckoned in ounces was but a tithe of what
he had buried. It was thus that was created that feverish ex-
citement which stimulated eager searchers for piratical store
along the coasts of New York and Massachusetts, and particu-
larly among the islets of the Sound. This search has been
again and again renewed, and even now, at the distance of a
century and a half, the hope of discovering the abandoned
wealth of the great pirate is not altogether extinct.
Romances, ballads, and tales without number have been
396 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
written upon the adventures of Captain Kidd, his fate, and his
money. The most remarkable of these is the ‘‘ Gold-Bug’”’ of
Edgar A. Poe, which details the incidents of an imaginary effort
made to recover the treasure the corsair had entombed.
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Piracy did not disappear with Kidd. The coasts of the Caro-
linas were for a long time infested with freebooters, though at
various times some fifty of them were hung in Charleston. In
1717, the famous and dreaded privateer Whidah was wrecked
upon the shores of Cape Cod. This vessel carried twenty-three
guns, one hundred and thirty men, and was commanded by
Samuel Bellamy. The dead bodies of all but six floated ashore:
these six were taken alive and executed. ‘This was a severe loss
to the pirates. But the decisive blow against them was not struck
till 1723. The British man-of-war Greyhound captured a craft
with twenty-five men and carried them into Rhode Island.
They were tried, found guilty, and hung, at Newport, in July.
This was the end of piracy in the American waters.
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HOME OF ALEXANDER SELKIRK.,
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
THE VOYAGE OF WOODES ROGERS—DESERTION CHECKED BY A NOVEL CIRCUM-
STANCE—A. LIGHT SEEN UPON THE ISLAND OF JUAN FERNANDEZ—A BOAT
SENT TO RECONNOITRE—ALEXANDER SELKIRK DISCOVERED—HIS HISTORY AND
ADVENTURES—HIS DRESS, FOOD, AND OCCUPATIONS—HE SHIPS WITH ROGERS
AS SECOND MATE—TURTLES AND TORTOISES—FIGHT WITH A SPANISH TREA-
SURE-SHIP—PROFITS OF THE VOYAGE—THE SOUTH SEA BUBBLE—ITS INFLA-
TION AND COLLAPSE—MEASURES OF RELIEF.
A. COMPANY of merchants of Bristol fitted out two ships in
1708—the Duke and Duchess—to cruise against the Spaniards
in the South Sea. The Duke was commanded by Woodes Rogers,
the Duchess by Stephen Courtney. William Dampier, whose
name had long been a terror to the Spaniards, was pilot to the
larger ship. They left Bristol on the 14th of July, with fifty-
six guns and three hundred and thirty-three men, and with
397
398 | HISTORY OF THE SEA. °*:
double the usual number of officers, in order to prevent the
mutinies so common in privateers.
Nothing of moment occurred till the vessels anchored at Isola
Grande, off the coast of Brazil. Here two men deserted, but
were so frightened in the night by tigers, as they supposed, but
in reality by monkeys and baboons, that they took refuge in the
sea and shouted till they were taken on board. The two ships
passed through Lemaire’s Strait and doubled Cape Horn, and, on
the 31st of January, 1709, made the island of Juan Fernandez.
During the night a light was observed on shore, and Captain
Rogers made up his mind that a French fleet was riding at.
anchor, and ordered the decks to be cleared for action. At day-
light the vessels stood in towards the land; but no French fleet—
not even a single sail—was to beseen. A yawl was sent forward
to reconnoitre. As it drew near, a man was seen upon the shore
waving a white flag; and, on its nearer approach, he directed.
the sailors, in the English language, to a spot where they could
best effect a landing. He was clad in goat-skins, and appeared.
more wild and ragged than the original owners of his apparel.
His name has long been known throughout the inhabited world,
and his story is familiar in every language. We need hardly
say that his name was Alexander Selkirk, and that his adven-
tures furnished the basis of the romance of Robinson Crusoe.
Alexander Selkirk was a Scotchman, and had been left upon
the island by Captain Stradling, of the Cinqueports, four years.
and four months before. During his stay he had seen several
ships pass by, but only two came to anchor at the island. They
were Spaniards, and fired at him; but he escaped into the woods.
He said he would have surrendered to them had they been
French; but he chose to run the risk of dying alone upon the
island rather than fall into the hands of Spaniards, as he feared.
they would either put him to death or make him a slave in their
mines. ‘He told us,” says Rogers, ‘‘that he was born in Largo,
in the county of Fife, and was bred a sailor from his youth.
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SELKIRK WATCHING THE SPANIARDS. 399
400 HISTORY OF THE SEA, |
The reason of his being left here was a difference with his cap-
tain, which, together with the fact that the ship was leaky, made
him willing to stay behind; but when at last he was inclined to go |
with the ship the captain would not receive him. He took with
him his clothes and bedding, with a firelock and some powder
and bullets, some tobacco, a knife, a kettle, a Bible, with other
books, and his mathematical instruments. He diverted himself
and provided for his sustenance as well as he could, but had much
ado to bear up against melancholy for the first eight months,
and was sore distressed at being left alone in so desolate a place.
He built himself two huts of pimento-trees, thatched with long
grass and lined with goat-skins,—killing goats as he needed
them with his gun, as long as his powder lasted. When that
was all spent, he procured fire by rubbing two sticks of pimento
wood together. He slept in his large hut and cooked his
victuals in the smaller, and employed himself in reading, pray-
ing, and singing psalms,—so that, he said he was a better
Christian during his solitude than he had ever been before, or
than, he was afraid, he should ever be again. |
‘“‘At first he never ate but when constrained by hunger,—
partly from grief, and partly for want of bread and salt.
Neither did he go to bed till he could watch no longer,—the
pimento wood serving him both for fire and candle, as it burned
very clear and refreshed him by its fragrant smell. His fish
he sometimes boiled, and at other times broiled, as he did his
goats’ flesh, of which he made good broth; for they are not as
rank as our goats. Having kept an account, he said he had
killed five hundred goats while on the island, besides having
caught as many more, which he marked on the ear and let them
go. When his powder failed, he ran them down by speed of
foot; for his mode of living, with continual exercise of walking
and running, cleared him of all gross humors, so that he could
run with wonderful swiftness through the woods and up the hills
and rocks.
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‘‘He came at length to relish his meat well enough without
salt. In the proper season he had plenty of good turnips,
which had been sowed there by the crew of the ship and had
now spread over several acres of ground. The cabbage-palm
furnished him with cabbage in abundance, and the fruit of the
pimento—the same as Jamaica pepper—with a pleasant season-
ing for his food. He soon wore out his shoes and other clothes
by running in the woods; and, being forced to shift without, his
feet became so hard that he ran about everywhere without in-
convenience, and could not again wear shoes without suffering
from swelled feet. After he had got the better of his melan-
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choly, Le sometimes amused himself with carving his name on
the trees, together with the date.of his arrival and the duration
of his solitude. At first he was much pestered with cats and
rats, which had bred there in great numbers from some of each
A WILD: LIFE. 403
species which had got on shore from ships that had wooded and
watered at the island. The rats gnawed his feet and clothes
when he was asleep, which obliged him to cherish the cats, by
feeding them with goats’ flesh, so that many of them became so
tame that they used to lie beside him in hundreds, and soon
delivered him from the rats. He also tamed some kids, and, for
his diversion, would sometimes sing and dance with them and
his cats. So that by the favor of Providence and the vigor of
youth—for he was now only thirty years of age—he came at
length to conquer all the inconveniences of his solitude, and to
be quite easy in his mind.
‘‘When his clothes were worn out, he made himself a coat
and a cap of goat-skins, which he stitched together with thongs
of the same cut out with his knife,—using a nail by way of a
needle or awl. When his knife was worn out, he made others
as well as he could of old hoops that had been left upon the
shore, which he beat out thin between two stones and grinded
to an edge on a smooth stone. Having some linen cloth, he
sewed himself some shirts by means of a nail for a needle,
stitching them with worsted which he pulled out from his old
stockings; and he had the last of his shirts on when we found
him. At his first coming on board, he had so much forgotten
his language, for want of use, that we could scarcely understand
him, as he seemed to speak his words only by halves. We
offered him a dram, which he refused, having drunk nothing but
water all the time he had been upon the island; and it was some
time before he could relish our provisions. He had seen no
venomous or savage creature on the island, nor any other animal
than goats, bred there from a few brought by Juan Fernandez,
a Spaniard who settled there with a few families till the oppo-
site continent of Chili began to submit to the Spaniards, when
they removed there as more profitable.”’
Captain Rogers remained here a fortnight, refitting his ship.
The “governor,” as his men called Selkirk, never failed to pro-
404 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
cure two or three goats a day for the sick. They boiled up and
refined eighty gallons of seal-oil, in order to save their candles.
On the 13th of February, it was determined that two men from
the Duke should sail on board the Duchess, and two from the
Duchess on board the Duke, to see that justice was reciprocally
done by each ship’s company to the other in the division of
prizes; and on the 14th the anchors were weighed, Alexander
Selkirk shipping on board the Duke as second mate. |
When off the Lobos Islands, they took a prize, which they
named The Beginning. They learned from their prisoners that
the widow of the late Viceroy of Peru was soon to embark at
Callao for Acapulco, with her family and riches; and they
determined to lie in wait for her. Inthe mean time they landed
and took the town of Guayaquil, but consented to its ransom
for thirty thousand dollars. They also seized thirteen small
vessels, from which they took meal, onions, quinces, pomegra-
nates, oil, indigo, pitch, sugar, gunpowder, and rice.
At the Gallapagos Islands they laid in a large stock of sea-
turtles and land-tortoises, some of the former weighing four
hundred pounds, while the latter laid eggs in profusion upon the
decks. Some of the men affirmed that they had seen one four
feet high, that two of their party had mounted on its back, and _
that it easily carried them at its usual slow pace, not appearing
to regard their weight. The natives break and devour great
quantities of the eggs, of which they are intensely fond.
Having made the coast of Mexico, and having determined to
wait only eight days either for the Manilla galleon or the ship
of the viceroy’s widow, they were rejoiced to descry, on the
morning of the 22d of December, the Spanish treasure-ship
on the weather bow. Preparations were made for action, and
a large kettle of chocolate was boiled for the crew in liew
of spirituous liquor. Prayers were then said, but were inter-
rupted, before they were concluded, by a shot from the enemy.
She had barrels hung at her yard-arm, which seemed to warn
CAPTURE OF A TREASURE SHIP. 405
the English of an explosion if they attempted to board. The
engagement commenced at eight, and lasted an hour, after which
she struck and surrendered. She bore the imposing name of
Nuestra Sefiora de la Encarnacion Disenganio, and mounted
twenty guns. Nine of her men were killed and nine wounded.
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Of the men of the Duke—the only ship of Rogers’ fleet en-
gaged—but two were wounded, Captain Rogers himself, who
lost a portion of his upper jaw and two of his teeth, being one.
406 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
The name of the prize was changed from Our Lady, &c. to The
Bachelor, and she was equipped as a member of the squadron,
which now sailed immediately for the Ladrone Islands.
They arrived at Guam on the 10th of March, 1710, where
their wants were amply supplied, cocoanuts being furnished in
abundance at the rate of one dollar a hundred. Captain Rogers
bought one of the sailing proas of the islanders, which he had
seen sail at the rate of twenty miles an hour. He carried it to
England, intending to put it in the canal at St. James’ Park as
a curiosity. At the Cape of Good Hope they joined a number
of homeward-bound ships, and sailed in company, early in April,
forming a fleet of sixteen Dutch and nine English ships. Rogers
and his consorts anchored at Erith, in the Thames, on the 14th
of October.
This voyage is the last in which Dampier is known to have
been engaged, and what became of him afterwards has never
been ascertained. It would not be easy to name, before the
time of Cook, a navigator to whom the merchant and mariner
are so much indebted. His style was unassuming, as free from
affectation as was the narrative itself from invention. Dean
Swift made Captain Lemuel Gulliver hail Dampier as cousin.
The outfit of this voyage amounted to £15,000, and the gross
profits to £170,000. One third of this, or £57,000, was divided
among the officers and seamen. In view of this enormous return
for a two years’ voyage, we can hardly wonder at the fact that
in this age, and during a long succeeding period, nearly all navi-
gation was privateering, and that all ventures upon the seas
appear to the reader of the present day as little better than the
marauding excursions of corsairs and buccaneers.
This is the proper place for speaking of the famous Company
formed for carrying on trade with the Spanish possessions in
the Pacific, which received, upon its calamitous failure, the name
of South Sea Bubble. This Company was formed, chartered,
and prospered and fell, soon after the return of Rogers and
SPECULATIVE COMPANIES. — 407
Dampier. It originated in 1711, with Harley, the Lord Trea- |
surer, his object being to improve public credit, and to provide
for the payment of the floating debt, amounting to £10,000,000.
He allured the nation’s creditors by promising them the mono-
poly of trade with the Spanish coast in America. They greedily
swallowed the glittering bait, and dreamed of El Dorado and
Peruvian Golcondas. This spirit spread throughout the nation,
and, in 1719, rose to a fever heat of speculation. Sir John
Blunt, once a scrivener, now a prominent South Sea Director,
conceived the idea of consolidating all the public funds into one,
and made the proposal to the Government. The Bank of Eng-
land and the South Sea Company displayed the utmost eagerness
to outbid each other in the offers made for this magnificent pri-
vilege. The South Sea Company finally bid seven millions and
a half, and the bill then passed the two houses of Parliament
triumphantly. The Directors immediately opened a subscription
of a million, and then a second, both of which were eagerly filled.
Every engine was set at work to delude the public: mysterious
rumors were rife of secret treasures in America, of overtures
made to Stanhope to exchange Gibraltar for a diamond-mine in
Peru, and of inexhaustible piles of wealth which were only
waiting to be snatched up by the fortunate subscribers to the
South Sea stock. The Directors began to quote dividends of
twenty, thirty, fifty per cent. They claimed that, being the only
national creditor, they could soon dictate to Parliament and rule
the country. The stock rose from one hundred and twenty-six
to one thousand. The mania was universal,—statesmen, washer-
- women, Churchmen, Dissenters, ladies of high and low degree,
being all smitten alike.
Other bubbles were started by other companies, some of them
for the most extravagant objects, such as The Company to make
Salt Water Fresh, to Build Hospitals for Bastards, to Obtain
Silver from Lead, to Extract Oil from the Seeds of Sunflowers,
to Import Jackasses from Spain and thus improve the Breed of
+08 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
English Mules, to Trade in Human Hair, and for a multitude
of other equally absurd purposes. The subscriptions thus
opened amounted at one period to no less than three hundred
millions sterling.
These projects, which rose rapidly one after another and danced
in prismatic radiance before the public view, were regarded with
jealous eyes by the South Sea Directors, who wished to have a
monopoly of the trade in public credulity. They therefore ap-
plied for writs of “scire facias” against their managers, and,
by showing them to be frauds, suppressed them. But in thus
destroying the national confidence in bubbles generally they
seriously undermined that enjoyed by their own. Distrust was
now excited, and every one became anxious to convert his
bonds into money; and then the enormous disproportion be-
tween the promises to pay on paper and the means to redeem in
coin became evident to all. The stock fell at once, as the basis
which sustained it was proved to be altogether imaginary.
Thousands of families were reduced to beggary, and the rage,
resentment, and disappointment were bitter and universal. The
Company sank into nothingness as rapidly as it had risen to
notoriety. Parliament passed a bill by which public-confidence
was in a measure restored, while the estates of the Directors
and officers were confiscated and applied to the relief of the
sufferers. The proposed commerce with the Spanish American
provinces was naturally never opened, and the next expedition
of the English to that quarter, so far from being a voyage for
trade, was a very formidable excursion for plunder,—that of
Lord Anson, in 1740. We shall refer to this at length in its
proper place. |
CHAPTER XXXIX.
THE DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY—-RENEWED SEARCH FOR THE TERRA AUS-
TRALIS INCOGNITA—JACOB ROGGEWEIN—HIS VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY—BRUSH
WITH PIRATES—ARRIVAL AT JUAN FERNANDEZ—EASTER ISLAND—ITS INHA-
BITANTS—-ENTERTAINMENT OF ONE ON BOARD THE SHIP—A MISUNDERSTAND-=
ING—PERNICIOUS AND RECREATION ISLANDS—GLIMPSE OF THE SOCIETY ISLANDS
—A FAMINE IN THE FLEET—ARRIVAL AT NEW BRITAIN—CONFISCATION OF
‘THE SHIP AT BATAVIA—DECISION OF THE STATES-GENERAL—VITUS BEHRING—
BEHRING’S STRAIT—DESCRIPTION OF THE SCENE—DEATH OF BEHRING—
SUBSEQUENT SURVEY OF THE STRAIT.
THE monopoly of the Dutch East India Company had been
somewhat disturbed, as early as the year 1621, by the formation
and charter of the Dutch West India Company. The latter
held the exclusive commerce of the African coast from the
tropic of Cancer to the Cape of Good Hope, and that of the
American coast both upon the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. In
1674, its power and influence were somewhat extended by a
fresh grant of privileges and an increase of capital. It was ne-
cessary for any one proposing a new scheme of commerce within
the limits under their control, to apply to the Company for
permission to execute it. A mathematician by the name of
Roggewein, a native of the province of Zealand, formed a
project, in 1696, for the discovery of the vast continent and
409
410 HISTORY OF THE SEA,
islands supposed to exist in the South under the name of Terra
Australis Incognita. He died, however, before any step was
taken by the Company in furtherance of his designs. His son,
Jacob Roggewein, renewed the application in 1721, presenting
a memorial, in accordance with which immediate orders were
given for equipping three vessels,—the Eagle, of thirty-six
guns, the Tienhoven, of twenty-eight, and the African galley, of
fourteen. Roggewein was made admiral, and two hundred and
seventy-one men were embarked upon the three ships. They
sailed from the Texel on the 21st of August, 1721.
When approaching the Canaries, they saw a fleet of five sail,
carrying white, red, and black colors, which caused the admiral
to suspect them to be pirates. He gave the signal for action,
when the enemy struck their red flag and hoisted a black one,
on which was a death’s-head with a powder-horn and cross-
bones. A brisk encounter succeeded; and, after two hours, the
pirates spread their canvas and bore away with all speed.
Roggewein did not follow them,—as all ships of the West and
East India Companies had strict orders to pursue their course
and never to give chase. He had a long and painful passage
across the Atlantic,—the crews suffering from heat, hunger,
thirst, and the scurvy. Many of the men had high fevers, and
some of them fits like the epilepsy.
During a terrible hurricane on the 21st of December, the
Tienhoven parted company, and the Eagle and the African gal-
ley kept on together as far as the Strait of Magellan. In this
latitude, Roggewein saw the group of islands which a French
privateer had named Islands of St. Louis, but which some Dutch
traders had subsequently called the New Islands. Roggewein
baptized the group anew, and, thinking that if it should ever be
inhabited the people would be the antipodes of the Dutch, gave
it the name of Belgia Australis. He determined to make the
passage through Lemaire’s Strait, and, being propelled by a
favorable wind and rapid currents, attained the western coast of
DISCOVERIES IN THE PACIFIE. All
America in six days’ time. Whenever the weather was clear
the nights were exceedingly short; for, though it was the middle
of January, the Antarctic summer was at its height. On arriving
at the island of Juan Fernandez, Roggewein was surprised and
rejoiced to see the Tienhoven safe at the rendezvous. The three
captains dined together the next day, and made merry over their
mutual convictions of each others’ unhappy shipwreck. —
After a considerable run to the westward, Roggewein dis-
covered, on the 14th of April, 1722, an island sixteen leagues
in extent, to which he gave the name of Easter Island, in com-
memoration of the day. This was one of the most important
discoveries ever made in the Pacific; and Easter Island is, for
many reasons, one of the most famous oases in that desert of
water. Roggewein thus speaks of his first adventure there :—
“One of the inhabitants came out to us, two miles from shore,
in a canoe. We gave him a piece of cloth, for he was quite
naked. He was also offered beads and other toys: he hung
them all, with a dried fish, about his neck. His body was all
painted with every kind of figures. He was brown: his ears
were extremely long and hung down to his shoulders, occa-
sioned, doubtless, by wearing large, heavy-ear-rings. He was
tall, strong, robust, and of an agreeable countenance. He was
gay, brisk, and easy in his behavior and manner of speaking.
A glass of wine was given to him: he took it, but, instead of
drinking it, threw it in his eyes, which surprised us very
much. We then dressed him and put a hat upon his head; but
he wore it very awkwardly. After he was regaled with food,
the musicians were ordered to play on different instruments:
the symphony made him very merry, and he began to leap and
dance. We sent him back with presents, that the others might
know in what manner we had received him. He seemed to leave
us with regret, praying with great violence and uttering the
word ‘Odorraga! odorraga!’ The next day large numbers of
his countrymen came to our new anchorage, bringing us fowls
412 HISTORY OF TUE SEA.
and roots. At sunrise they prostrated themselves with their
faces towards the east, and lighted fires as morning burnt-offer-
ings to their idols, of which there were many upon the coast.”
Of these supposed idols we shall speak hereafter.
During the landing, in which one hundred and fifty of the
crew took part, an islander was accidentally shot; and sub-
sequently, as some of them touched, from curiosity, the Dutch
fire-arms, a volley of bullets was discharged at them, and among
the killed was the man who had first gone on board the admi-
ral’s ship. The consternation and grief of the natives was very’
' great: they brought all kinds of provisions as ransom for the
dead bodies. They threw themselves upon their knees, and
offered branches of palms in sign of peace. The Dutch carried
their outrages no further, but exchanged assurances of good
will. They gave sixty yards of painted cloth for eight hundred
fowls, some bundles of sugarcane, and a large quantity of plan-
tains, cocoanuts, figs, and potatoes. Roggewein was of opinion
that the island might be colonized to advantage, as the air was
wholesome and the soil rich: the low lands seemed fitted to pro-
duce corn, and the higher grounds well adapted to vineyards.
He intended to land with a sufficient force to make a general
survey; but, in the mean time, a west wind forced him from his
anchorage and drove him out to sea.
He soon found himself in the wide tract which had obtained
the name of Bad Sea, on account of the brackish water of one
of its islands. Through this region he sailed eight hundred
leagues, and, by a change of wind, was driven with his consorts
among a number of islands, by which they were considerably
embarrassed. The Africa, which drew the least water, was sent
in advance, but soon got upon the rocks and fired signals of dis-
tress. Night came on, and the natives, alarmed by the reports,
kindled fires and came in crowds to the shore. The Dutch,
whose confusion of mind seems to have been extreme, fired upon
them without ceremony, that they might have as few dangers as
BOWMAN’S ISLANDS DISCOVERED. 418
possible to contend with at once. In the morning the Africa
was found to. be jammed between two rocks, from whence she
could not be disengaged. She was therefore abandoned. The
island upon which she was lost was named Pernicious Island.
Five men deserted here, and were left behind. Hight leagues
from Pernicious, an island, discovered at daybreak, was named
Aurora; and another, seen at sunset, was called Vesper. At
another, which they named the Island of Recreation, a party
sent on shore for salad and scurvy-grass for the sick had so
desperate an encounter with the natives, that, when a second
landing was proposed, not a man could be prevailed upon to
make the dangerous attempt.
Roggewein was now convinced that no Terra Incognita was
to be discovered in the latitude he had kept, and therefore re-
solved, in accordance with his instructions, to return home by
way of the Hast Indies. His crews were so reduced that a
further loss of twenty men would compel him to abandon one
of his remaining vessels. The officers regretted this decision ;
for they were anxious to visit the lands named Solomon’s Islands
by Mendana on account of their supposed wealth; but they
were now compelled to return by way of New Britain, the Mo-
luccas, and the Kast Indies.
Not far from Recreation Island, a group was discovered by
the captain of the Tienhoven, and was named, from him, Bow-
man’s Islands. The natives came off to the ships with fish,
cocoanuts, and plantains. They were generally white, except
that some were bronzed by the heat of the sun. They appeared
' gentle and humane: their bodies were not painted, and were
clothed from the waist downward with fringes of woven silk.
Around their necks they wore strings of odoriferous flowers.
Roggewein describes them as altogether the most civilized and
honest nation he had seen in the South Sea:—‘“‘ Charmed with
our arrival, they received us as divinities, and testified afterwards
great regret when they perceived we were preparing to depart :
se: ae HISTORY OF THE SEA,
sadness was painted in their countenance as we left.’’ These
islands are supposed to have been the most northerly of the
group now known as the Society Islands.
During the long run to New Britain, the frightful effects of
bad provisions were made painfully manifest, for the salt meat
had long been decayed, the bread was full of maggots, and the
water intolerably putrid. The scurvy began to cut off four
and five men a day. Cries and groans were incessantly heard
in all parts of the ship: those who were well fainted at the
stench of the carcasses. Some were reduced to skeletons, so.
that the skin cleaved to their bones, while others swelled to a
monstrous and disgusting size. The journal says that ‘an ana-
baptist of twenty-five years old called out continually to be
baptized, and when told, with a sneer, that there was no parson
on board, became quiet, and died with great resignation.” At last
the high land of New Britain put an end to their miseries,—
for which there was no cure on earth except fresh meat, green
vegetables, and pure water.
The expedition intrusted to Roggewein having proved abortive
by the failure to find a Southern continent, we shall follow his
adventures no farther. It will suffice to say that his ships were
confiscated at Batavia by the Dutch East India Company,—a
proceeding which the West India Company resented by com-
mencing an action for damages. After a long litigation, the
States-General decreed that the former Company should furnish
the latter with two ships better than those confiscated, should
refund the full value of their cargoes, should pay the wages of
both crews to the day of their return to Holland, together with
the costs, and a heavy fine by way of punishment for having so
manifestly abused their authority.
We come now to the first expedition at sea made by Russia
for the purpose of extending and promoting the science of geo-
graphy. Vitus Behring was a Dane in the Russian service,
having been tempted by the encouragements held out to foreign
THE DISCOVERY OF BEHRING’S STRAIT _ 415
mariners by Peter the Great. He had risen to the rank of
captain in 1725, when the Empress Catherine, who was anxious
to promote discovery in the Northeast of Asia and to settle the
question, then doubtful, as to the existence of a strait between
Asia and America, appointed him to the command of an expe-
dition fitted out for that purpose. During a period of seven
years, having travelled overland to Kamschatka, he explored
rivers, sounded and surveyed the coasts, and sailed as far to the
northward as the season and the strength of his very inferior
boats would permit. In 1732, he was made captain-commander,
and the next year was ordered to conduct an expedition fitted
out on a very extensive scale for purposes of discovery. In
1740, he reached Okhotsk, where vessels had previously been
built for him. He sailed for Awatska Bay, where he founded
the settlement of Petropaulowski, known in English as the Har-
bor of Peter and Paul. Sailing to the northward, he landed upon
the American coast, giving name to Mount St. Elias, and then,
returning to the westward, struck the continent of Asia, finding
a strait fifty miles wide between the two continents at the point
where they approach each other the nearest. This, in honor of
its discoverer, is called Behring’s Strait.
The following description of this scene of desolation, as it first
broke upon Behring’s eye, is due to the imagination of Eugene
Sue:—‘‘ The month of September,” he says, ‘‘is at its close. The
equinox has come with darkness, and sullen night will soon
displace the short and gloomy days of the Pole. The sky, of a
dark violet. color, is feebly lighted by a sun which dispenses no
heat, and whose white disk, scarcely elevated above the horizon,
pales before the dazzling brightness of the snow. To the north,
this desert is bounded by a coast bristling with black and gigantic
rocks. At the foot of their Titanic piles hes motionless the vast
ice-bound ocean. ‘To the east appears a line of darkish green,
whence seem to creep forth numerous white and glassy icebergs..
.This is the channel which now bears the name of Behring. Be--
416 HISTORY OF THE SEa.
yond it, and towering above it, are the vast granitic masses of
Cape Prince of Wales, the extreme point of North America.
These desolate latitudes are beyond the pale of the habitable
world. ‘The piercing cold rends the very stones, cleaves the trees,
and bursts the ground, which groans in producing the germs of
its icy herbage. A few black pines, the growth of centuries,
pointing their distorted tops in different directions of the solitude,
like crosses in a churchyard, have been torn up and hurled
around in confusion by the storm. ‘The raging hurricane, not
content with uprooting trees, drives mountains of ice before it, and
dashes them, with the crash of thunder, the one against the other.
‘“¢ And now a night without twilight has succeeded to the day,
—dark, dark night! The heavy cupola of the sky is of so deep
a blue that it appears black, and the Polar stars are lost in the
depths of an obscurity which seems palpable to the touch.
Silence reigns alone. But suddenly a feeble glimmer appears
in the horizon. At first it is softly brilliant, blue as the light
which precedes the rising of the moon; then the effulgence in-
creases, expands, and assumes a roseate hue. Strange and con-
fused sounds are heard,—sounds like the flight of huge night
birds as they flap their wings heavily over the plain. These are
the forerunners of one of those imposing phenomena which
strike with awe all animated nature. An aurora borealis, that
magnificent spectacle of the Polar regions, is at hand. In
the horizon there appears a semicircle of dazzling brightness.
From the centre of this glowing hemisphere radiate blazing
columns and jets of light, rising to measureless heights and
illumining heaven, earth, and sea. They glide along the snows
of the desert, empurpling the blue tops of the ice-mountains
and tinging with a deepened red the tall black rocks of the two.
continents. Having thus reached the fulness of its splendor,
the aurora grows gradually pale, and diffuses its effulgence in a
luminous mist. At this moment, from the fantastic illusions of
the mirage, frequent in those latitudes, the American coast, -
MIRAGE AT BEHRING’S STRAITS.
418 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
though separated from that of Asia by the interposition of an
arm of the sea, suddenly approaches so near it that a bridge
might be thrown from one world to the other. Did human
beings inhabit those regions and breathe the pale-blue vapors
which pervade them, they might almost converse across the
uarrow inlet which serves to divide the continents. But now
the aurora fades away, and the deceptive mirage sinks back
into the shadowy realms from whence it came. Fifty miles of
sullen waters roll again between the continents, and a three
months’ night settles over the ghastly and appalling scene.”
It is not improbable that Behring passed to the north of Hast
Cape, the promontory on the Asiatic side, into the Arctic
Ocean beyond. He was soon compelled to return, owing to the
disabled condition of his vessel, which was wrecked upon an
island on the 3d of November, 1741. This island, which was
little better than a naked rock, afforded neither food nor shelter ;
and Behring, suffering from the scurvy and sinking from disap-
pointment, lay down in a cleft of the rock to die. The sand
collected and drifted about him, half burying him alive. He would
not suffer it to be removed, as it afforded him a grateful warmth.
He died in this wretched condition on the 8th of December. The
next summer, the few of his crew who survived the winter built
a vessel from the timber of the wreck: in this they reached Kam-
schatka and made known the miserable fate of their commander.
Though Behring settled the fact of the existence of the strait
which bears his name, it was reserved for Captain Cook to
survey the entire length of both coasts. This he did with a
precision and accuracy which left nothing for after-voyagers to
perform, and which has made the geography of this remote and
barbarous region as familiar as that of the Atlantic shores of
America. The island upon which Behring died, and which was
then uninhabited and without a shrub upon its surface, is now
an important trading station, and affords comfortable winter
quarters to vessels from Okhotsk and Kamschatka.
LORD ANSON,
CHAPTER XL.
PIRATICAL VOYAGE UNDEB GEORGE ANSON—UWNPARALLELED MORTALITY—AR-
RIVAL AND SOJOURN AT JUAN FERNANDEZ—A PRIZE—CAPTURE OF PAITA—
PREPARATIONS TO ATTACK THE MANILLA GALLEGN—DISAPPOINTMENT—FOR-
TUNATE ABKRIVAL AT TINIAN—ROMANTIC ACCOUNT OF THE EFSLAND—A STORM
ANSON’S SHIF DRIVEN OUT TO SEA—THE ABANDONED CREW SET ABOUT
BUILDING A BOAT—-RETURN OF THE CENTURION—-BATTLE WITH THE MANILLA
GALLEQN——ANSON’S ARRIVAL IN ENGLAND—THE PROCEEDS OF THE CRUISE.
THE statesmen of England had now become penetrated with
the idea that, in order to consolidate their territorial supremacy,
they must make their country the undisputed mistress of the
seas. War was declared against Spain in 1739, and the king
determined to attack that power in her distant settlements and.
deprive her, if possible, of her possessions in America, and
especially in Peru. It was supposed that the principal resources
419
420 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
of the enemy would be by this means cut off, and that the
Spanish would be reduced to the necessity of suing for peace,
deprived as they would be of the returns of that treasure by
which alone they could be enabled to support the drains of a
foreign war. <A fleet of six vessels, manned by fourtcen hundred
men and accompanied by two victualling-ships, was placed under
the command of George Anson, a captain in the naval service.
The flag-ship was the Centurion, mounting sixty guns and
carrying four hundred men. On their way out from Spithead,
on the 18th of September, 1740, the fleet was joined by an
immense convoy of trading ships, which were to keep them
company a portion of the way,—numbering in all eleven men-of-
war and one hundred and fifty sail of merchantmen.
The squadron passed through Lemaire’s Strait on the 7th
of March, 1741. ‘‘We could not help persuading ourselves,”
writes Anson, ‘that the greatest difficulty of our voyage was
now at an end, and that our most sanguine dreams were upon
the point of being realized; and hence we indulged our imagi-
nations in those romantic schemes which the fancied possession
of the Chilian gold and Peruvian silver might be conceived
to inspire. Thus animated by these flattering delusions, we
passed those memorable straits, ignorant of the dreadful calami-
ties which were then impending and just ready to break upon
us,—ignorant that the time drew near when the squadron would
be separated never to unite again, and that this day of our
passage was the last cheerful day that the greater part of us
would ever live to enjoy.” |
The sternmost ships were no sooner clear of the Strait, than
the tranquillity of the sky was suddenly disturbed, and all the
presages of a threatening storm appeared in the heavens and
upon ‘the waters. The winds were let loose upon the unfortu-
nate fleet, and for three long months blew upon them with
unrelenting fury. The Severn and Pearl parted company and
were never seen again. During the month of April, forty-three
THE EFFECT OF SCURVY. 421
of the crew of the Centurion died of the scurvy; and during the
passage from the Strait to the island of Juan Fernandez the
flag-ship lost, by this disease, by accident, and by tempest, two
hundred and fifty men; and she could not at last muster more
than six foremast-men capable of doing duty. On the 22d of
May, all the various disasters, fatigues, and terrors which had
previously attacked the Centurion in succession now combined
in a simultaneous onset, and seem to have conspired for her
destruction. A terrific hurricane from the starboard quarter
split all her sails and broke all her standing rigging, endangered
the masts, and shifted the ballast and stores. ‘The air was filled
with fire, and the officers and men upon the decks were wounded
by exploding flashes which coursed and darted from spar to spar.
Thus crippled and disabled, with five men dying every day,
and not ten of the crew able to go aloft, the Centurion, sepa-
rated from her consorts, and supposing them to have perished
in the storm, made the best of her weary way to the island of
Juan Fernandez, where she arrived at daybreak on the 9th of
June, after losing eighty more men from the scurvy.
‘The aspect of this diversified country would at all times,”
says Anson, ‘‘have been delightful; but in our distressed situa-
tion, languishing as we were for the land and its vegetable
productions,—an inclination attending every stage of the sea-
scurvy,—it 1s scarcely credible with what transport and eager-
ness we viewed the shore, and with how much impatience we
longed for the greens and other refreshments which were then
in sight, and particularly the water. Even those among the
diseased who were not in the very last stages of the distemper
exerted the small remains of strength which were left them,
and crawled up to the deck to feast themselves with this reviving
prospect. Thus we coasted the shore, fully employed in the
contemplation of this enchanting landskip.”’
In his description of the island, Anson speaks of the former
residence of Alexander Selkirk upon it, and says, “Selkirk
429, HISTORY OF THE SEA.
tells us, among other things, that, as he often caught more goats
than he wanted, he sometimes marked their ears and let them go.
This was about thirty-two years before our arrival at the island
Now, it happened that the first goat that was killed by our
people had his ears slit; whence we concluded that he had
doubtless been formerly under the power of Selkirk. He was
an animal of a most venerable aspect, dignified with an exceed-
ing majestic beard and with many other symptoms of antiquity.”
The Centurion was soon joined by the Tryal sloop of war,
by the Gloucester, and the victualler Anna Pink: the other
members of the squadron were never heard of again. Upon
the island, which was entirely deserted, Anson thought he dis-
covered appearances which indicated the recent presence there of
a Spanish force; and,as they might return, every effort was made
to get the ships and the men in position to cope with them on
equal terms. While refitting, a sail was discovered upon the
distant horizon, and the Centurion started out in pursuit of her.
Anson took her for a Spanish man-of-war, and ordered. the
officers’ cabin to be knocked down and thrown overboard, and
the decks to be cleared for action. She proved, however, to be
an unarmed merchantman sailing under Spanish colors. She
surrendered without delay, and proved to be the Monte Carmelo,
bound from Callao to Valparaiso, with a cargo of sugar and blue
cloth, and, what was infinitely more acceptable to Anson and his
crew, eighty thousand dollars in Spanish coin. The Centurion
then returned with her prize to Juan Fernandez. ‘The spirits
of the English were greatly raised by this capture, and their
despondency dissipated by so tangible an earnest of success.
The repairs upon all the vessels were hastily completed, and,
while they were sent to cruise in different directions in search
of Spanish merchantmen, the Centurion and the Carmelo sailed,
on the 19th of September, for the general rendezvous at Val-
paraiso.
In November, Anson determined to attack, with the force of
PAITA DESTROYED. 423
his two vessels, the unfortunate seaport of Paita, in Peru,—
which, as may be seen from our narrative, was invariably at-
tacked by every successive depredator. The town was taken with
BOMBARDMENT OF PAITA.
the utmost ease,—the governor, who was in bed at the time of
the surprise, running away half naked in the utmost precipitation,
and leaving his wife, hardly seventeen years old, and to whom he
had been married but three days, to take care of herself. The
custom-house, where the treasure lay, was seized upon and its
contents transported to the ship. Anson, not satisfied with this,
sent word to the governor, who had come to a halt on a distant
hill, that he would listen to proposals for ransom. The governor,
who was somewhat arrogant for a magistrate who had made so
signala display of poltroonery, did not deign to return an answer
to these overtures: he collected together his people, however,
and prepared to storm the city, but, upon second thoughts,
prudently abstained. Pitch, tar, and other combustibles were
now distributed by Anson’s men among the houses of Paita ;
the cannon in the fort were spiked, and fire was then set to the
town, which was speedily reduced to ashes. The loss of the
Spaniards by the fire, in broadcloths, silks, velvets, cambrics,
was represented by them to the court of Madrid as amounting
to a million and a half of dollars. Anson’s ships carried away
with them, in plate, coin, and jewels, about one hundred and
fifty thousand dollars more. Soon after leaving Paita, they fell
424. HISTORY OF THE SEA.
in with a launch laden with jars of cotton. The people on
board said they were very poor; but, as they were found dining
on pigeon pie served up in silver dishes, it was thought advisable
to search for the sources of this opulence. The jars of cotton
were found to contain sixty thousand dollars in double doubloons.
Anson now determined to steer for the southern parts of Cali-
fornia, there to cruise for the galleon due at Acapulco from Ma-
nilla towards the middle of January. He did not arrive there
till the Ist of February, 1742; but, being assured by some of his
Spanish prisoners that the galleon was often a month behind
her average time, he stood on and off, waiting with feverish
impatience for an arrival whose value he estimated in round
millions. He soon learned, from some negroes whom he cap-
tured, that the galleon had arrived on the 9th of January.
They added, however, that she had delivered her cargo, and
that the Viceroy of Mexico had fixed her departure from Aca-
pulco, on her return, for the 14th of March. This news was
joyfully received by Anson and his men, as it was much more
advantageous for them to seize the specie which she had received
for her cargo than to seize the cargo itself.
It was now the 19th of February, and the galleon was not to
leave port till the 14th of March, or, according to the old style
followed by Anson, the 3d of March. The interval was em-
ployed in scrubbing the ships’ bottoms, in bringing them into
the most advantageous trim, and in regulating the orders,
signals, and positions to be observed when the famous ship
should appear in sight. The positions held were as follows.
The squadron was stationed forty miles from shore,—an offing
quite sufficient to escape observation: it consisted of the Centu-
rion, the Gloucester, and three armed prizes: these were ar-
ranged in a circular line, and each ship was nine miles distant
from the next, the two vessels at the extremes being, therefore,
thirty-six miles apart. As the galleon could be easily discerned
twenty miles outside of either extremity, the whole sweep of
PRIZES SUNK. 495
the squadron was seventy-five miles, the various vessels com-
posing it being so connected by signals as to be readily informed
of what was seen in any part of the line. The Centurion and
the Gloucester were alone intended to come to close quarters,
or, indeed, to engage in the action at all: they were therefore
strengthened by accessions from the others.
The calls of hunger and all other duties were neglected on
the 3d of March: all eyes were strained in the direction of
Acapulco, and voices continually exclaimed that they saw one
of the cutters returning with a signal. To their extreme vexa-
tion and dismay, both that day and the next passed without
bringing news of the galleon. A fortnight went by; and Anson
at last came to the melancholy conclusion that his presence
upon the coast had been discovered, and that an embargo had
been laid upon the object of all their hopes. He afterwards
(discovered that his presence was suspected, but not known, but
that the wary Spaniards had frustrated his schemes by detain-
ing the galleon till the succeeding year. With a heavy heart,
the admiral gave orders for the departure of the fleet from the
American coast, in prosecution of the plans drawn up previous
to his leaving England. He sailed early in May with the Cen-
turion and Gloucester only, having scuttled and destroyed his
three prizes on the enemy’s coast.
A terrible attack of scurvy soon reduced both vessels to half
their working force, and a storm of unusual violence completely
disabled the Gloucester. She held out, however, till the middle
of August, when her stores, her prize-money, and her sick were
with great difficulty removed to the Centurion, which was herself
in a crazy and well-nigh desperate condition. The Gloucester
was set on fire, lest her wreck might fall into the hands of the
Spaniards: she continued burning through the night, firing her
guns successively as the flames reached them: the magazine
exploded at daylight.
The Centurion kept on her way, losing eight, nine, and ten
496 : HISTORY OF THE SEA.
men every twenty-four hours. <A leak was discovered, which all
the skill of the carpenters failed to stop. The ship and men
were ina condition bordering on positive despair. Under these
ce rcumstances, the sight of two distant islands revived for a time
their drooping spirits. But these islands were bare and unin-
habited rocks, affording neither anchorage nor fresh water. The
reaction produced by this disappointment was evident in the
renewed ravages of the relentless scurvy. ‘‘And now,”’ says
Anson, ‘‘the only possible circumstance which could secure the
7, was the acci-
few of us which remained alive from perishing,
dental falling in with some other of the Ladrone Islands better
prepared for our accommodation; but, as our knowledge of them
was extremely imperfect, we were to trust entirely to chance for
our guidance. Thus, with the most gloomy persuasion of an
approaching destruction, we stood from the island-rock of Ana-
tacan, having all of us the strongest apprehensions either of
dying of the scurvy, or of being destroyed with the ship, which,
for want of hands to work her pumps, might in a short time be
expected to founder.”
On the 27th of August, the Centurion came in sight of a
fertile and, as Anson supposed, inhabited island, which he after-
wards found to be one of the Ladrones and named Tinian. Fearing
the inhabitants to be Spaniards, and knowing himself to be in-
capable of defence, Anson showed Spanish colors, and hoisted
a red flag at the foretopmast head, intending by this to give his
vessel the appearance of the Manilla galleon, and hoping to
decoy some of the islanders on board. The trick succeeded, and
a Spaniard and four Indians were easily taken, with their boat.
The Spaniard said the island was uninhabited, though it was one
of an inhabited group: he affirmed that there was plenty of fresh
water, that cattle, hogs, and poultry ran wild over the rocks,
that the woods afforded sweet and sour oranges, limes, lemons,
and cocoanuts, besides a peculiar fruit which served instead of
bread; that, from the quantity and goodness of the productions
A STOREHOUSE AND HOSPITAL. 427
of the island, the Spaniards of the neighboring station of Guam
used it as a storehouse and granary from whence they drew in-
exhaustible supplies.
A portion of this relation Anson could verify upon the spot:
he discovered herds of cattle feeding in security upon the island,
and it was not difficult to fill, in imagination, the rich forests
which clothed it, with tropical fruits and all the varied produc-
tions of those beneficent climes. On landing, he at once con-
verted a storehouse filled with jerked beef into an hospital for
the sick: in this he deposited one hundred and twenty-eight of
his invalids. The salutary effect of land-treatment and vege-
table food was such that, though twenty-one died on the first
day, only ten others died during the two months that the Cen-
turion remained at anchor in the harbor.
=| Vier
Niet: ea
ANSON’S ENCAMPMENT AT TINEAN.
Anson gives a romantic account of the happy island of Tinian
The vegetation was not luxuriant and rank, but resembled the
clean and uniform lawns of an English estate. The turf was
composed of clover intermixed with a variety of flowers. The
woods consisted of tall and wide-spreading trees, imposing in their
aspect or inviting in their fruit. Three thousand cattley milk-
white with the exception of their ears, which were black, grazed
in a single meadow. The clamor and paradings of domestic
poultry excited the idea of neighboring farms and villages.
Both the cattle and the fowls were easily run down and captured,
so that the Centurion husbanded her ammunition. The hogs were
428 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
hunted by dogs trained to the pursuit, a number of which had
been left by the Spaniards of Guam: they readily transferred.
their services and their allegiance to the English invaders. The
island also produced in abundance the very best specifics for
scorbutic disorders,—such as dandelion, mint, scurvy-grass, and
sorrel. The inlets furnished fish of plethoric size and inviting
taste; the lakes abounded with duck, teal, and curlew, and in -
the thickets the sportsmen found whole coveys of whistling
plover. |
On the night of the 22d of September a violent storm drove
the Centurion from her anchorage, sundering her cables like
packthread. Anson was on shore, down with the scurvy; several
of the officers, and a large part of the crew, amounting in all
to one hundred and thirteen persons, were on shore with him.
This catastrophe reduced all, both at sea and on land, to the
utmost despair: those in the ship were totally unprepared to
struggle with the fury of the winds, and expected each moment
to be their last; those on shore supposed the Centurion to be
lost, and conceived that no means were left them ever to depart
from the island. As no European ship had probably anchored
here before, it was madness to expect that chance would send
another in a hundred ages to come Besides, the Spaniards of
Guam could not fail to capture them ere long, and, as their
letters of marque were gone in the Centurion, they would un-
doubtedly be treated as pirates.
In this desperate state of things, Anson, who preserved, to
all outward appearance, his usual composure, projected a scheme
for extricating himself and his men from their forlorn situation.
In case the Centurion did not return within a week, he said, it
would be fair to conclude, not that she was wrecked, but that
she had been driven too far to the leeward of the island to be
able to return to it, and had doubtless borne away for Macao.
Their policy, therefore, was to attempt to join her there. To
effect this, they must haul the Spanish bark, which they had
COCOANUT MILK. 429
captured on their arrival, ashore, saw her asunder, lengthen her
twelve feet,—which would give her forty tons’ burden and enable
her to carry them all to China. The.carpenters, who had been
fortunately left on the island, had been consulted, and had pro-
nounced the proposal feasible. The men, who at first were
unwilling to abandon all hope of the Centurion’s return, at last
saw the necessity of active co-operation, and went zealously to
work.
The blacksmith, with his forge and tools, was the first to com-
mence his task; but, unhappily, his bellows had been left on
board the ship. Without his bellows he could get no fire; without
fire he could mould no iron; and without iron the carpenters
could not rivet a single plank. But the cattle furnished hides
in plenty, and these hides were imperfectly tanned with the help
of a hogshead of lime found in the jerked-beef warehouse: with
this improvised leather, and with a gun-barrel for a pipe, a pair
of bellows was constructed which answered the intention tolerably
well. Trees were felled and sawed into planks, Anson working
with axe and adze as vigorously as any of his men. The juice
of the cocoanut furnished the men a natural and abundant grog,
and one which had this advantage over the distilled mixture to
which that name is usually applied,—that it did not intoxicate
them, but kept them temperate and orderly. When the main
work had been thus successfully started, it was found, on consul-
tation, that the tent on shore, some cordage accidentally left by
the Centurion, and the sails and rigging already belonging to
the bark, would serve to equip her indifferently when she was
lengthened. Two disheartening circumstances were now dis-
covered: all the gunpowder which could be collected by the
strictest search amounted to just ninety charges,—considerably |
less than one charge apiece to each member of the company:
their only compass was a toy, such as are made for the amuse-
ment of school-boys. Their only quadrant was a crazy instru-
ment which had been thrown overboard from the Centurion with
430 HISTORY OF. THE SEA.
other lumber belonging to the dead, and which had providentially
been washed ashore. It was examined by the known latitude
of the island of Tinian, and answered in a manner which con-
vinced Anson that, though very bad, it was at least better than
nothing.
On the 9th of October—the seventeenth day from the depar.
ture of the ship—matters were in such a state of forwardness
that Anson was able to fix the 5th of November as the date of
their putting to sea upon their voyage of two thousand miles.
But a happier lot was in store for them. -On the 11th, a man
working upon a hill suddenly cried out, in great ecstasy, “‘ The
ship! the ship!’ The commodore threw down his axe and
rushed with his men—all of them in a state of mind bordering
on frenzy—to the beach. By five in the afternoon the Cen-
turion—for it was she—was visible in the offing: a boat with
eighteen men to reinforce her, and with meat and refreshments
for the crew, was sent off to her. She came happily to anchor
in the roads the next day, and the commodore went on board,
where he was received with the heartiest acclamations. The
vessel had, during this interval of nineteen days, been the sport
of storms, currents, leakages, and false reckonings; she had but
one-fourth of her complement of men; and when, by a happy
accident of driftage, she came in sight of the island, the crew
were so weak they could with difficulty put the ship about.
The reinforcement of eighteen men was sent at the very moment
when, in sight of the long wished-for haven, the exhausted
sailors were on the point of abandoning themselves to despair.
Fifty casks of water, and a large quantity of oranges, lemons,
and cocoanuts were now hastily put on board the Centurion.
On the 21st of October, the bark (so lately the object of all the
commodore’s hopes and fears) was set on fire and destroyed.
The vessel then weighed anchor, and took leave of the island of
Tinian,—an island which, in the language of Anson, ‘whether
we consider the excellence of its productions, the beauty of its
REPAIRING FOR THE PRIZE. 431
appearance, the elegance of its woods and lawns, the healthiness
of its air, and the adventures it gave rise to, may in all these
views be justly styled romantic.” After a smooth run of twenty
days, the Centurion came to an anchor on the 12th of Novem-
ber, in the roads of Macao,—thus, after a fatiguing cruise of two
years, arriving at an amicable port and in a civilized country,
where naval stores could be procured with ease, and, above all,
where the crew expected the inexpressible satisfaction of receiv-
ing letters from their friends and families.
The Centurion remained more than five months at Macao,
where she was careened, thoroughly overhauled, and refitted.
The crew was reinforced by entering twenty-three men, some of
them being Lascars, or Indian sailors, and some of them Dutch.
On the 19th of April, the admiral got to sea, having announced
that he was bound to Batavia and from thence to England,
and, in order to confirm this delusion, having taken letters on
board at Canton and Macao directed to dear friends in Batavia.
But his real design was to cruise off the Philippine Isles for the
returning Manilla galleon. Indeed, as he had the year before
prevented the sailing of the annual ship, he had good reason to
believe that there would this year be two. He therefore made
all haste to reach Cape Espiritu Santo, the first land the gal-
leons were accustomed to make. ‘They were said to be stout
vessels, mounting forty-four guns and carrying five hundred
hands; while he himself had but two hundred and twenty-seven
hands, thirty of whom were boys. But he had reason to expect
that his men would exert themselves to the utmost in view of
the fabulous wealth to be obtained.
The Centurion made Cape Espiritu Santo late in May, and
from that moment forward her people waited in the utmost im-
patience for the happy crisis which was to balance the account
of their past calamities. They were drilled every day in the
working of the guns and in the use of their small-arms. The
vessel kept at a distance from the cape, in order not to be dis-
432 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
covered. But, in spite of all precautions, she was seen from
the land, and information of her presence was sent to Manilla,
where a force consisting of two ships of thirty-two guns, one of
twenty guns, and two sloops of ten guns, was at once equipped:
it never sailed, however, on account of the monsoon.
On the 20th of June, at sunrise, the man at the masthead of
the Centurion discovered a sail in the southeast quarter. A
general joy spread through the ship, and the commodore in-
stantly stood towards her. At eight o'clock she was visible
from the deck, and proved to be the famous Manilla galleon.
She did not change her course, much to Anson’s surprise, but
continued to bear down upon him. It afterwards appeared that
she recognised the hostile sail to be the Centurion, and resolved
to fight her.’ She soon hauled up her foresail, and brought to
under topsails, hoisting Spanish colors. Anson picked out
thirty of his choicest hands and distributed them into the tops
as marksmen. Instead of firing broadsides with intervals be-
tween them, he resolved to keep up a constant but irregular fire,
thus baffling the Spaniards if they should attempt their usual
tactics of fallg down upon the decks during a broadside and
working their guns with great briskness during the intermission.
At one o'clock, the Centurion, being within gunshot of the
enemy, hoisted her pennant. The Spaniard now, for the first
time, began to clear her decks, and tumbled: cattle, sheep, pigs,
goats, and poultry promiscuously into the sea. Anson gave orders
to fire with the chase-guns: the galleon retorted with her stern-
chasers. During the first half-hour he lay across her bow,
traversing her with nearly all his guns, while she could bring
hardly half a dozen of hers to bear. The mats with which the
galleon had stuffed her netting now took fire, and burned
violently, terrifying the Spaniards and alarming the English,
who feared lest the treasure would escape them. However, the
Spaniards at last cut away the netting and tossed the blazing
mass into the sea among the struggling and roaring cattle. The
TWO MILLIONS CAPTURED. 433
Centurion swept the galleon’s decks, the topmen wounding or
killing every officer but one who appeared upon the quarter, and
totally disabling the commander himself. The confusion of the
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Spaniards was now plainly visible from the Centurion. The
officers could no longer bring the men up to the work; and, at
about three in the afternoon, she struck her colors and sur-
rendered.
The galleon, named the Nostra Signora de Cabadonga,
proved to be worth, in hard money, one million and a quarter of
dollars.
She lost sixty-seven men in the action, besides eighty-
four wounded; while the Centurion lost but two men, and had
but seventeen wounded, all of whom recovered but one.
“Of so
little consequence,’ remarks Anson, ‘‘are the most destructive
arms in untutored and unpractised hands.”’
The seizure of the
Manilla treasure caused the greatest transport to the Centurion’s
28
434 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
men, who thus, after reiterated disappointments, saw their wishes
at last accomplished.
The specie was at once removed to the Centurion, the Caba-
donga being appointed by Anson to be a post-ship in his ma-
jesty’s service, and the command being given to Mr. Saumarcez,
the first lieutenant of the Centurion. The two vessels then
stood for the Canton River, and arrived off Macao on the 11th
of July. On the way, Anson reckoned up not only the value
of the prize just captured, but the total amount of the losses
his expedition had caused the crown of Spain since it left the
English shores. The galleon was found to have on board one
million three hundred and thirteen thousand eight hundred and
forty-three dollars, and thirty-five thousand six hundred and
eighty-two ounces of virgin silver, besides. cochineal and other
commodities. This, added to the other treasure taken in pre-
vious prizes, made the sum total of Anson’s captures in money
not far from two millions,—independent of the ships and mer-
chandise which he had either burned or destroyed, and which he
set down as three millions more; to which he added the expense
of an expedition fitted out by the court of Spain, under one
Joseph Pizarro, for his annoyance, and which, he learned from
the galleon’s papers, had been entirely broken up,and destroyed.
‘‘The total of all these articles,’ he writes, ‘‘will be a most
exorbitant stm, and is the strongest proof of the utility of my
expedition, which, with all its numerous disadvantages, did yet
prove so extremely prejudicial to the enemy.”
At Macao, Anson sold the galleon for six thousand dollars,
which was much less than her value. He was very anxious to
get to sea at once, that he might be himself the first. messenger
of his good fortune and thereby prevent the enemy from forming
any projects to intercept him. The Centurion weighed anchor
from Macao on the 15th of December, 1748: she touched at
the Cape of Good Hope on the 11th of March, 1744, where the
commodore sojourned a fortnight, in a spot which he considered
THE ACCOUNT OF ANSON’S TRIP. 435
as not disgraced by a comparison with the valleys of Juan Fer-
naudez or the lawns of Tinian. The fortuitous escapes and
remarkable adventures which had characterized the career of his:
famous ship continued till she saluted the British forts. The
French had espoused the cause of Spain; and a large French
fleet was cruising in the Chops of the Channel at the moment
when the Centurion crossed it. The log afterwards proved
that she had run directly through the hostile squadron, con-
cealed from view by a dense and friendly fog. She arrived safe
at Spithead, on the 15th of June, after an absence of three
years and nine months. Anson caused the captured wealth to
be transported to London, upon thirty-two wagons, to the sound!
of drum and fife. The two millions were divided, according to:
the laws which regulate the distribution of prize-money, between
Anson, his officers and men,—the crown abandoning every
penny to those who had suffered and fought for it. Anson was.
now the richest man in the naval service. The sympathy and.
applause bestowed upon him by the public may be imagined from:
the fact that the narrative of his voyage went through four im-
mense editions in a single year, was translated into seven:
Kuropean languages, and met with a far greater success than
had ever fallen to the lot of any maritime journal.
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COAPTER. XGE
THE FIRST SCIENTIFIC VOYAGE OF CIRCUMNAVIGATION—THE DOLPHIN AND
TAMAR—BYRON IN PATAGONIA—FALKLAND ISLANDS—ISLANDS OF DISAPPOINT-
MENT—ARRIVAL AT TINIAN—BYRON VERSUS ANSON—THE VOYAGE HOME—
WALLIS AND CARTERET—THEIR OBSERVATIONS IN PATAGONIA—WALLIS AT
‘TAHITI—A DESPERATE BATTLE—NAILS LOSE THEIR VALUE—A TAHITIAN RO-
MANCE—PITCAIRN’S ISLAND—QUEEN ‘CHARLOTTE’S ISLANDS—NEW BRITAIN—
THE VOYAGE HOME—A MAN-OF-WAR DESTROYED BY FIRE.
In the year 1764, England was at peace with all the world,
and his majesty George III. conceived an idea which till then
had penetrated no royal brain,—that of sending out vessels upon
voyages of discovery in the single view of extending the domain
of science and contributing to the advance of geographical
knowledge. Voyages had previously been undertaken for pur-
436
PATAGONIANS ON HORSEBACK. 437
poses either of conquest, colonization, pillage, or privateering 5
and discovery had usually been the result of accident, and was
generally subordinate to the grand business of plunder and
rapine. The king at once executed his design by giving the
command of the Dolphin and Tamar—the former a man-of-war
of twenty-four guns, and the latter a sloop of sixteen—to Com-
modore John Byron, who had been one of the wrecked captains
of Anson’s fleet in 1740. The vessels sailed from Plymouth
on the 3d of July. Nothing of moment occurred during their
passage to Rio Janeiro, if we except the fact that Byron noticed
that no fish would come near his ship, though the sea was alive
with them at a little distance,—a circumstance which he attri-
buted to the Dolphin’s copper sheathing. She was the first
vessel upon which the experiment of coppering the bottom had
been tried.
Upon the Patagonian coast, Byron saw a party of the natives
on horseback, one of whom, who dismounted, he describes as
follows :—“ He was of a gigantic stature, and seemed to realize
the tales of monsters in human shape: he had the skin of some
wild beast thrown over his shoulders, as a Scotch Highlander
wears his plaid. Round one eye was a large circle of white;
a circle of black surrounded the other, and the rest of his face
was streaked with paint of different colors. His height could
not be less than seven feet. This frightful Colossus and his
whole company conducted themselves in a peaceable and orderly
_ manner which certainly did them honor.”” Byron entered Ma-
gellan’s Strait in December. During an anchorage here, a part
of the men slept on shore: they were always awakened from
their first slumber by the roaring of wild beasts, which the
darkness of the night and the loneliness of their situation
rendered horrible beyond description. The animals were pre-
vented from invading the tent by the kindling of large fires.
Having determined to await the arrival of the Florida,—a
store-ship which was to follow him,—Byron returned into the
438 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
Atlantic and discovered a group of islands, of which he took
possession for King George III. by the name of the Falkland
Islands. Here the seals and penguins were so numerous that it
was impossible to walk upon the beach without first driving them
away. ‘Tne men were also compelled to do battle and fight hand-
to-hand encounters with enormous and formidable sea-lions, and
with animals as large as a mastiff and as fierce as a wolf. On
returning to Port Desire, in February, 1765, the whales about
the ship rendered the navigation dangerous, and one of them
blew a jet of water over the quarterdeck. The Florida arrived
about the same time, and the Dolphin and Tamar took from her
all the provisions they could store. They then entered the Strait,
and, for seven weeks and two days, struggled with the terrible
weather which at the period of the spring equinox prevails in
that tempestuous region. They made Cape Deseado on the
8th of April, and soon after entered the South Sea.
Turning to the north as far as Juan Iernandez, and then
making a long stretch to the west, Byron discovered, on the 7th
of June, in 14° 5’ south latitude and in 145° west longitude, a
group of islands covered with delightful groves and evidently
producing cocoanuts and bananas in abundance. Turtles were
seen upon the shore; and the whole aspect of the island was.
tropical and attractive in the extreme. But a violent surge
broke upon every point of the coast, and the steep coral rocks
which formed the shore rendered it unsafe to anchor. The
sailors, prostrated with scurvy, stood gazing at this little para-
dise with sensations of bitter regret; and Byron accordingly
named the group the Islands of Disappointment. ‘I'wo days
later, however, he discovered another group, to which he gave the
name of King George’s Islands. Here the savages, in attempt-
ing to repel an invasion of their domain, provoked reprisals, and
two or three of them were killed: one, being pierced by three
balls which went quite through his body, took up a large stone
and died in the act of throwing it. Byron obtained several boat-
Sy
TORTURED BY INSECTS. 439
loads of cocoanuts and a large quantity of scurvy-grass. After
discovering and naming Prince of Wales’ and Duke of York’s
Islands, Byron bore away for the Ladrones, a month’s sail to
the west.
In due time, and after a voyage accomplished without incident,
the two vessels arrived at the Ladrone island of Tinian, already
famous from the glowing description given of it by Lord Anson.
They anchored not far from the spot where the Centurion had lain,
and in water so clear that they could see the bottom at the depth
of one hundred and forty-four feet. Byron gives a very different
account of the island from that furnished by Anson,—a fact attri.
butable to the circumstance that he visited it during the rainy
season. ‘The undergrowth in the woods was so thick, he says,
that they could not see three yards before them: the meadows
were covered with stubborn reeds higher than their heads, and
which cut their legs like whipcord. Every time they spoke
they inhaled a mouthful of flies. In the Centurion’s well they
found water that was brackish and full of worms. Centipedes
bit and scorpions bled. The ships rolled at anchor as never
ships rolled before. The rains were incessant. The heat was
suffocating, being only nine degrees less than the heat of the
blood at the heart. Anson’s cattle were very shy; for it took
six men three days and three nights to capture and kill a
bullock, whose flesh, when dragged home to the tents, invariably
proved to be fly-blown and useless.
After a stay of nine weeks at Tinian, Byron weighed anchor
on the 80th of September, with a cargo of two thousand cocoa-
nuts. On the dth of October, he touched at the Malay island
of Timoan. ‘The inhabitants were inclined to drive hard bar-
gains and to part with as few provisions as possible. They were
even offended at the sailors hauling the seine and taking fish
upon their coast. Leaving this ungenerous island, they met
with a fortnight of light winds, dead calms, and violent tor-
nadoes, accompanied with rain, thunder, and lightning. On the
440 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
19th of October, they hailed an English craft belonging to the
Kast India Company and bound from Bencoolen to Bengal.
Tue master sent them a sheep, a turtle, a dozen fowls, and two
gallons of arrack. With this assistance Byron easily reached
Java, where he took in stores of rice and arrack. Nothing of
moment occurred during the run home, except the incident of a
collision between the Dolphin and a whale, in which the latter
appeared to be the greatest sufferer, as the water was deeply
tinged with blood. Byron arrived at Deal on the 7th of May,
1766. Each ship had lost six men, including those that were
drowned. This number was so inconsiderable that it was deemed
probable that more of them would have died had they remained
on shore. Byron, having discharged all the duties devolving on
him during this voyage with prudence and energy, could not be
held responsible for the poverty of the scientific results obtained,
—a circumstance owing to the absence of scientific men, natu-
ralists, mathematicians, astronomers, &c. The Government re-
solved to make another effort, and to equip the expedition in a
style more adequate to its necessities. The Dolphin was im-
mediately refitted and furnished for a voyage to be made in the
same seas under Captain Samuel Wallis. The Swallow, a sloop
of fourteen guns, was appointed to be her consort, instead of the
lumbering Tamar, and Captain Carteret, who had accompanied
Byron, was ordered to command her. The Prince Frederick was
appointed to accompany them as store-ship. They left Plymouth
in company on the 22d of August, 1766.
The run to Magellan’s Strait offers no points of interest. They
entered into amicable relations with the Patagonians. These
people, who, from Magellan’s and Byron’s accounts, had obtained
the reputation of being giants of seven feet, were measured with
a rod by Wallis. The tallest were six feet six, while their
average height was from five feet ten to six feet. He invited
several of them on board, where, following the example of
Magellan, he showed one of them a looking-glass. ‘This,
£
TREES TRANSPLANTED. 441
however,” he says, ‘‘excited little astonishment, but afforded
them infinite diversion.”’ The Prince Frederick took on board,
by Wallis’ order, several thousand young trees, which had been
carefully removed with their roots and the earth about them,
and transported them to the Falkland Islands, where there was
no growth of wood. Captain Carteret climbed a mountain in
the hope of obtaining a view of the South Sea: he erected a
pyramid, in which he deposited a bottle containing a shilling and
a paper,—a memorial which, he remarked, might possibly remain
there as long as the world endured. At other points the land
was bare, covered with snow, or piled to the clouds with rocks,
looking like the ruins of nature doomed to everlasting sterility
and desolation.
_A storm now disabled both ships, and Carteret found the
Swallow to be almost unmanageable. From this time forward,
during the passage of the Strait, the inhabitants they met seemed
to be the most miserable of human beings,—half frozen, half
fed, half clothed. After four months’ dangerous and tedious
navigation, they issued from the Strait into the ocean on the
1ith of April, 1767, bidding farewell to a region where in the
midst of summer the weather was tempestuous, ‘where the
prospect had more the appearance of chaos than of nature, and
where, for the most part, the valleys were without herbage and
the hills without wood.”’ A storm here separated the Dolphin
and the Swallow, and from this point the adventures of Wallis
and Carteret form two distinct narratives. We shall follow the
course of the Dolphin, and then return to that of the Swallow.
Wallis sailed to the northwest for two months without inci-
dent, discovering Whitsun Island and Queen Charlotte’s Island
in mid-ocean. At last, on the 19th of June, he touched at
Quiros’ island of Sagittaria: it had been lost for a century
and a half, and its existence even was doubted. The Dolphin
was soon surrounded by hundreds of canoes, containing at least
eight hundred peovle. They did not manifest hostile intentions,
449 HISTORY OF THE SEA,
however, contenting themselves with petty thefts. Wallis sent
his boats to sound for an anchorage, and, observing the canoes
gather around them, fired a nine-pounder over their heads. A
skirmish followed, which resulted in the wounding of several
on both sides. But, on Wallis’ attempting to enter the Bay of
Matavai, the islanders offered a determined resistance: three
hundred canoes, manned by two thousand warriors, surrounded
him and attacked him with a hail of stones. Repulsed for a
time, they twice rallied, and hurled stones weighing two pounds
on board, by wmeans of slings. At last a cannon-ball cut the
canoe bearing the chief in halves, whereupon canoes and war-
riors disappeared with the utmost precipitation. The ship was
now warped up to the shore, and the boats landed without oppo-
sition. Mr. Furneaux, the lieutenant, took possession of the
island for his majesty, in honor of whom he caled it King
George the Third’s Island. The water proving to be excellent,
rum was mixed with it, and every man drank his majesty’s
health. The natives choosing to make a demonstration at mid-
night, Wallis cleared the coast with his guns, and sent the
carpenters ashore with their axes, to destroy all the canoes
which in their precipitation they had left. Fifty canoes, some
of them sixty feet long, were thus broken up. These measures
brought the savages to terms, and boughs of plantains were soon
exchanged and vows of friendship pantomimically expressed.
Trade was established, and a tent crected at the watering place.
The crew now lived sumptuously upon fruits and poultry, and
in a fortnight the commander hardly knew them for the same
people. This, as we have said, was the island which Cook was
to render famous under the name of Tahiti.
It was not long before it was discovered that nails, the prin-
cipal medium of exchange, seemed to have lost their value with
the islanders. Bringing forth large spikes from their pockets,
they intimated that they desired nails of a similar size and
strength. It was now ascertained that the sailors, having no
AN ENAMORED QUEEN. 448
nails of their own, had drawn all the stout hammock-pins, and
had ripped out the belaying cleats. Every artifice was prac-
tised to discover the thieves, but without success.
On the 11th of July, a tall woman of pleasing countenance and
majestic deportment came on board. She proved to be Oberea,
sovereign of the island. She seemed quite fascinated by Wallis,
who was recovering from a severe illness, and invited him to go
on shore and perfect his convalescence. He accepted the in-
vitation, and the next day called upon her at her residence,—an
immense thatched roof raised upon pillars. She ordered four
young girls to take off his shoes and stockings and gently chafe
his skin with their hands. While they were doing this, the
English surgeon who accompanied Wallis took off his wig to
cool himself. Hvery eye was at once fixed upon this prodigy
of nature. The whole assembly stood motionless in silent as-
tonishment. They would not have been more amazed, says
Wallis, had they discovered that the surgeon’s. limbs had been
screwed on to the trunk. Oberea accompanied Wallis on his
way back to the shore, and whenever they came to a little
puddle of water she lifted him over it. |
It was now discovered that one Francis Pinckney, a seaman,
had drawn the cleats to which the main-sheet was belayed, and
had then removed and bargained away the spikes. Wallis called
the men together, explained the heinousness of the offence,
and ordered Pinckney to be whipped with nettles while he ran
the gauntlet three times round the deck. To prevent the ship
from being pulled to pieces and the price of provisions from
being disproportionately raised, he directed that no man should
go ashore except the wooders and waterers.
Oberea now became romantic and tender. She ticd wreaths
of plaited hair around Wallis’ hat, giving him to understand
that both the hair and workmanship were her own. She made
him presents of baskets of cocoanuts, and of sows big with
young. She said he must stay twenty days more; and, when
444 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
he replied that he should depart in seven days, she burst into.
tears, and was with great difficulty pacified. When the fatal
hour arrived, she threw herself down upon the arm-chest and.
wept passionately. She was with difficulty got over the side
into her canoe, where she sat the picture of helpless, unutter-
able woe. Wallis tossed her articles of use and ornament, which
she silently accepted without looking atthem. He subsequently
bade her adieu more privately on shore. A fresh breeze sprang
ap, and the Dolphin left the island on the 27th of July.
—_
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PARTING OF WALLIS AND OBEREA.
On his way to Tinian he discovered several islands, one of
which the officers did their commander the honor of calling
Wallis’ Island. At Tinian they found every article mentioned
by Lord Anson, though it required no little time and labor to.
noose a bullock or bag a banana. When they left, each man
had laid in five hundred limes. On the passage to Batavia, and
thence to Table Bay, the sick-list was very large, and several
men were lost by disease and accident. At the Cape, the crew
“a
SEPARATED BY A STORM. 445
were attacked by the small-pox, and a pest-tent was erected upon
a spacious plain. The infection was not fatal in any instance.
The Dolphin anchored in the Downs on the 20th of May, 1768.
Wallis was enabled to communicate a paper to the Royal So-
ciety in time for that body to give to Lieutenant Cook, then pre-
paring for his first voyage, more complete instructions by which
to govern his movements.
We must now return to the Swallow, commanded by Philip
Carteret, and, as far as the Strait of Magellan, the consort of
the Dolphin. <A storm, as we have said, separated them; and,
while Wallis sailed to the northwest, Carteret was driven due
north. He was surprised to find Juan Fernandez fortified by
the Spanish, and did not think it prudent to attempt a landing.
Sailing now due west, he discovered an island to which he gave
the name of Pitcairn, in honor of the young man who first saw
it. This island we shall have occasion to mention more particu-
larly hereafter, as it became the scene of the romantic adven-
tures of the mutineers of the Bounty. The vessel had now
become crazy, and leaked constantly. The sails were worn,
and split with every breeze. The men were attacked by the
scurvy; and Carteret began to fear that he should get neither
ship nor crew in safety back to England.
At last, on the 12th of August, land was discovered at day-
break, which proved to be a cluster of islands, of which Carteret
counted seven. Ignorant that Mendana had discovered them in
1595, nearly two centuries previously, and had given them the
name of Santa Cruz, Carteret took possession of them, naming
them Queen Charlotte’s Islands and giving a distinctive appella-
tion to each member of the archipelago. Cocoanuts, bananas,
hogs, and poultry were seen in abundance as they sailed along
the shore; but every attempt to land ended in bloodshed and
repulse. They now steered to the northwest, and, on the 26th
of August, saw New Britain and St. George’s Bay, discovered
and named by Dampier. Anchoring temporarily, and agaix
446 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
wishing to weigh anchor, Carteret found, to his dismay, that
the united strength of the whole ship’s company was insufficient
to perform the labor. They spent thirty-six hours in fraitless
attempts, but, having recruited their strength by sleep, finally
succeeded. ‘They had neither the strength to chase turtle nor
the address to hook fish. Cocoanut-milk gradually revived the
men, who also received benefit from a fruit resembling a plum.
The wind not allowing Carteret to follow Dampier’s track
around New Britain, the idea struck him that St. George’s Bay
might in reality be a channel dividing the island in twain.
This the event proved to be correct. On his way through,
he noticed three remarkable hills, which he called the Mother
and Daughters, the Mother being the middlemost and largest.
Leaving the southern portion of the island in possession of its
old name, New Britain, he called the northern portion New
Ireland. On leaving the channel, the vessel was in such a state
th:t no time or labor could be any longer devoted to science or
geography: the essential point was to reach some Kuropean set-
tlement. Carteret discovered numerous islands and groups, and,
after touching at Mindanao, arrived at Macassar, on the island
of Celebes, in March, 1768. Ie had buried tlirteen of his men,
and thirty more were at the point of death: all the officers were
ill, and Carteret and his heutenant almost unfit for duty. The
Dutch refused him permission to land, and Carteret determined
to run the ship ashore and fight for the necessaries of life, to
which their situation entitled them, and which they must either
obtain or perish. A boat, bearing several persons in authority,
put out to them, and commanded them to leave at once, at the
same time giving them two sheep and some fowls and fruit.
Carteret showed them the corpse of a man who had died that
morning, and whose life would probably have. been saved had
oO?
provisions been at once afforded him. This somewhat shocked
them; and they inquired very particularly whether he had been
among the Spice Islands, and, upon receiving a negative reply,
A RECORD LEFT IN A BOTTLE. 447
which they appeared to believe, directed him to proceed to a
bay not far distant, where he would find shelter from the
monsoon and provisions in abundance. He proceeded, therefore,
to Bonthain, where he altered his reckoning, having lost about
eighteen hours in coming by the west, while the vessels that
had come by the east had gained about six. ie stayed here
two months, with difficulty obtaining natives to replace the many
seamen he had iost. On the passage from Bonthain to Batavia,
the ship leaked so fast that the pumps, which were kept con-
stantly at wore, were hardly able to keep her free. He arrived
at Batavia on the 2d of June. Here the Dutch authorities again
placed every obstacle in his way ; and it was the last week in July
before he could heave down the ship for repairs. These being
completed, he set sail for England.
On the 30th of January, 1769, he touched at Ascension, where
it was the custom, as the island was uninhabited, for every ship
toleave a letter in a bottle, with the date, name, destination, &c.
With this custom Carteret of course complied. Three weeks
afterwards, he was overhauled by a ship bearing French colors
and sailing in the same direction as himself. Carteret was very
much surprised to hear the French captain call him and his
ship by name: he was still more surprised to hear that the
Dolphin had already returned to England, and had reported
his—Carteret’s—probable loss in Magellan’s Strait. ‘‘ How did.
you learn the name of my ship?” shouted Carteret through his
9
trumpet. ‘From the bottle at Ascension,’ was the reply.
“And how did you hear of the opinion formed in England of
our fate?” ‘‘From the French gazette at the Cape of Good
ITope.” “‘And who may you be, pray?” ‘A French East
Indiaman, Captain Bougainville.”” The vessel was La Boudeuse,
whose voyage round the world we shall narrate in the following
chapter. The Swallow anchored at Spithead on Saturday, the
20th of March, having been absent three years wanting two
days. No navigator had yet done so much with resources so
448 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
insufficient: Carteret’s discoveries were of the highest interest
in a geographical point of view. He was a worthy predecessor
of Cook; and his achievements with a crazy ship and a disabled
crew prepared the public mind for the researches which his
already distinguished successor would be enabled to make
with the carefully equipped expedition which had lately started
under his command.
A harrowing incident which occurred at sea about this time
produced a painful sensation throughout Europe. The French
man-of-war Le Prince, being on her way from Lorient to Pon-
dicherry by way of Cape Horn, was discovered to be on fire.
Smoke was noticed ascending almost imperceptibly from one
of the hatchways. The usual measures were promptly taken,
eighty marines being placed on duty with loaded muskets to
enforce obedience from the crew. ‘The pumps and buckets were
totally inadequate to master the now raging flames; while the
fresh water, set running from the casks, was of equally little
service. The yawl, by the captain’s orders, had been lowered:
seven men seized it and rowed rapidly away. Of the other
boats, two were burned, and one was swamped as it touched the
water. The consternation now became general; and the despair-
ing shrieks of the dying, mingled with the cries of the affrighted
animals on board, rendered the scene one of terrible confusion.
The chaplain “went about, granting a general absolution, and
extending the remission of their sins even to those who, to
avoid death by fire, committed suicide by leaping into the sea.
There were six women on board, two of them the cousins of the
captain. They were lowered into the water upon hen-coops, the
captain bidding them an eternal farewell, as it was his duty and
his determination to perish with the ship.
The water was now alive with human beings, clinging to
spars, oars, barrels, and other floating materials. Upon one spar
were nine men, who had escaped the fury of one element, and
were calmly awaiting the fate which they were expecting from
BURNING OF THE SHIP. 449
snother. They were destined to die by neither, but in a manner,
if any thing, more horrible. The flames, reaching the cannon,
which by some fatal coincidence were loaded, discharged them
one by one. A ball, striking the spar by which these nine
devoted men were kept afloat, ploughed its way through them
all, killing several outright and mortally wounding the rest.
Not one escaped. ‘The mast now fell into the sea, making
terrible havoc among those within its reach; while at every
moment a gun launched its reckless metal upon the water.
The chaplain, clinging to a bit of charred wood, edified all who
heard him by his picty and resignation. Once he tried to sink,
but was brought back by the first heutenant. ‘Let me go,”
said he; ‘I am full of water, and it cannot avail to prolong
my sufferings.’ ‘In his holy company,” says the lieutenant, in
his narrative, “I passed three hours: during which time I saw
450 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
one of the captain’s cousins give up the effort to keep herself
afloat, and fall back and drown.”’ This lieutenant, surviving
the rest, hailed the seven men in the yawl, by whom he was
taken in, as were also the pilot and the quartermaster. These
ten persons were all that were saved out of the three hundred
who composed the vessel’s crew. The frigate soon blew up; and,
after this frightful scene of her expiring agony, all relapsed into
silence.
The lieutenant assumed the command of the boat, and, rowing
to the remains of the wreck, ordered a search for stores and
other articles of which they had pressing need. They found a
keg of brandy, fifteen pounds of salt pork, a piece of scarlet
cloth, twenty yards of coarse linen, and a quantity of staves
and ropes. With the scariet and an oar they made a mast and
sail, with a key they made a puiley, and with a stave a rudder.
With this equipment, and without astronomical instruments,
they started upon their adventurous voyage, being six hundred
miles distant from the coast of Brazil.
Here, at night, while sailing quietly along, they were aston-
ished at the brilliant chains of phosphorescence which made the
whole sea appear as though on fire. There were no flames, but
over the whole surface of the water, winding and intertwisted |
chains of glowing light were spread, forming a scene of marvel-
lous beauty. To them the appearance was inexplicable.
Favored by a brisk breeze, they sailed. during eight days,
making seventy-five miles every twenty-four hours. ‘They were
nearly naked, and suffered terribly from exposure to the rays of
a tropical July sun. On the sixth day, a light rain gave them
the hope of satisfying their devouring thirst. They licked the
drops from the sail, but found them already bitterly impregnated
with salt. They suffered as much from hunger as thirst; for the
salt pork, which had been found to cause blood-spitting, had been
abandoned on the fourth day. A draught of brandy from time
to time revived them somewhat, but burned their stomachs with-
A FORTUNATE hESUUE. A451
out moistening them, causing them pain rather than satisfaction.
On the eighth night, the lieutenant passed ten hours at the
helm, not one of the remaining nine having the strength to
relieve him. It was not possible they could survive another
day. The dawn of the 38d of August brought with it the
blessed sight of land, and, collecting all their strength, to avoid
being wrecked by the currents, tides, and reefs, they landed in
safety late in the afternoon. ‘The men rushed upon the beach,
and, in their joy, rolled in the sand, and mingled thanksgivings
with their shouts of joy. They no longer appeared like human
beings, suffering having rendered their faces frightful to beheld.
CHAIN OF PHOSPHORESCENT SELPAS*S
The place where they were was a Portuguese settlement,
and they were hospitably received by the colonists, who gave
them shirts and manioc in abundance. Proceeding to Per-
riambuco, where a Portuguese fleet was stationed, they were
welcomed with kindness by the officers, the lieutenant being
admitted to the admiral’s mess, and the men being distributed
among the ships and placed on full pay. They were sovn re-
stored to their country, and the lieutenant communicated to the
Government an official account of the disaster.
SR
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BOUGAINVILLE.
CHAPTER XLII.
COLONIZATION OF THE FALKLAND ISLANDS-—ANTOINE DE BOUGAINVILLE—HIS
VOYAGE AROUND THE WORLD—ADVENTURE AT MONTEVIDEO—THE PATA-
GONIANS—TAKING POSSESSION OF TAHITI—-FRENCH GALLANTRY—CEREMONIES
OF RECEPTION—SOJOURN AT THE ISLAND—-AOTOUROU—THE FIRST FEMALE
CIRCUMNAVIGATOR—FAMINE ON BOARD—REMARKABLE CASCADE—ARRIVAL AT
THE MOLUCCAS—INCIDENTS THERE—RETURN HOME.
SEVERAL years before the period of which we are speaking,
the French Government had colonized the Falkland Islands,
lying off the eastern coast of Patagonia. ‘The establishment
lasted barely three years, and, in an agricultural point of view,
was a complete and disastrous failure. The Spanish crown
subsequently claimed these islands as belonging to the continent
of South America, and the King of France was easily induced
452
BOUGAINVILLE’S VOYAGE. 453
to abandon them. Captain Louis-Antoine de Bougainville was
instructed, in 1766, to proceed to the islands, and there, in the
name of his French majesty, cede them to the Spanish authorities
who would be sent out for the purpose. He was then to con-
tinue on, by the Strait of Magellan and the Pacific, to the East
Indies, and thence to return home. Should he accomplish this
task, he would be the first French circumnavigator of the globe.
Bougainville received the command of the frigate La Bou-
deuse, carrying twenty-six twelve-pounders, and was to be
joined at the Falklands by the store-ship l'Etoile. He sailed
from Brest on the 5th of December, the Prince of Nassau-
Singhen, who had been allowed to accompany the expedition,
being on board. They arrived at Montevideo early in February,
1767, and found there the two Spanish frigates to whose com-
mander Bougainville was to surrender the Falkland Islands, apd
with whom he sailed in company on the 28th of the month. They
met with severe weather, but arrived safely at their destination
towards the close of March. The settlement was made over to
the Spaniards on the Ist of April: the Spanish colors were
planted and saluted at sunrise and sunset. The French inha-
bitants were informed they might either remain or return: a
portion embarked with the garrison for Montevideo, on their
way back to France.
Bougainville waited at the islands till the end of May for
the store-ship, which was to join him at this point, and then
returned to Rio Janeiro, where he hoped to get tidings of her.
She had but just arrived, bringing salt meat and liquor sufl-
cient for fifteen months, but no bread or vegetables. So he
was forced to go, in quest of these provisions, back to Monte-
video. From here he went to Buenos Ayres, on the opposite side
of the bay formed by the mouths of the La Plata, making the
journey, however, overland, asa contrary wind prevented his pro-
ceeding by water. At night, he and his party slept in leathern
tents, while tigers howled around them on every side. Coming
454 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
to the river St. Lucia, which is wide, deep, and rapid, they
were at a loss how to cross it. At last their guide procured a
hollow canoe, the master of which fastened a horse on each
side of the bow, and then boldly assumed the reins. He sup-
A FERRY BOAT AT BUENOS AYRES.
ported the heads of the horses above the water and drove them
safely across it. The Frenchmen landed on the opposite side
dryshod. |
It was not till the 14th of November that the Boudeuse and
Ktoile, having taken in supplies of biscuit and bread, sailed, for
the last time, from Montevideo. ‘They made the entrance of ,
the Strait of Magellan a fortnight afterwards. On the 8th of
December, they saw a number of Patagonians, who had kept
up fires all night, hoisting a white flag on an eminence,—a flag
which some European ship had evidently given them as a pledge
of alliance. Bougainville went on shore, where some thirty
natives received him with every mark of good will. They em-
braced him and his party, shook hands with them, and imitated
the report of muskets with their mouths, showing that they were
accustomed to fire-arms. They aided the botanist in collecting
plants and simples, and one of them applied to the physician
for a prescription for his inflamed eye. They asked for tobacco,
and swallowed small draughts of brandy, blowing with their
mouths after the draught and uttering a tremulous’ inarticulate
sound. They begged them to remain over night, and, upon the
TAKING POSSESSION FOR THE KING. 455 '
invitation being politely declined, accompanied them with cere-
mony to the shore.
Bougainville, with three of his officers, spent some hours in
taking soundings near Cape Froward. Perceiving a small flat
rock, which barely afforded them standing-room, they mounted
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BOUGAINVILLE IN MAGELLAN’S STRAIT.
upon it, hoisted their colors, and shouted Vive le Roi! The
coast now resounded for the first time, says Bougainville, with
this compliment to his majesty. Upon which an English com-
mentator remarks “‘that it is a striking instance of the vanity
by which the French nation is distinguished.” The vessels,
being retarded by constant head-winds and harassed by violent
storms, occupied fifty-two days in threading the channel, and
the month of January, 1768, was well advanced before they
discovered the boundless expanse of the Pacific.
Sailing to the northwest, they passed several low, half-drowned
islands, one of which Bougainville called Harp Island. A
cluster of reefs he called the Dangerous Archipelago. Sore
456 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
throats now troubling the crew, he attributed them to the snow-
water of the Strait, and cured them by putting a pint of vinegar
and a dozen red-hot bullets into the daily water-cask. He com-
bated the scurvy by employing lemonade prepared from a con-
centration in the form of powder. He made fresh water from
salt water by means of a distilling apparatus which furnished a
barrelful every night. In order to economize their drinking-
water, their bread was kneaded with water dipped up from the
sea. On the 4thof April, they discovered land; and fires burn-
ing during the night over a wide extent of coast showed them
that it was inhabited and populous. In the morning a‘canoe pro-
pelled by twelve naked men approached. The chief, with a pro-
digious growth of hair which stood like bristles divergent on his
head, offered the commander a cluster of bananas, indicating that
this was the olive-branch in use in Tahiti,—the island at which
the ships had now arrived. Presents were exchanged and an
alliance effected.
The vessels were now surrounded with canoes laden with
cocoanuts and bananas, and a brisk and tolerably honest trade
was driven by the natives and the strangers. The aspect of the
coast—the mountains covered with foliage to their very summits,
the lowlands interspersed with meadows and with plantations of
tropical fruit, cascades pouring down from the rocks into the sea,
streams flowing among lovely clusters of huts situated upon the
shore—offered an enchanting scene to the wearied crews. While
the Boudeuse was casting her anchor, canoes filled with women 3
came around her. ‘‘These,’’ adds Bougainville, with charac-
teristic French gallantry, “‘are not inferior for agreeable fea-
tures to most European women. It was very difficult, amidst
such a sight, to keep at their work four hundred young sailors
who had seen none of the fair sex for six months. The capstan
was never hove with more alacrity than on this occasion.”’
The captain and several officers now went on shore, where
they were received with high glee by all, with the exception of a
A NATIVE LEAVES WITH 1HEM. 457
venerable man, apparently a philosopher, ‘‘ whose thoughtful and
suspicious air seemed to show that he feared the arrival of a new
race of men would trouble those happy days which he had spent
in peace.” A poet, reclining beneath a tree, sang them a song
to the accompaniment of a flute which a musician blew, not with
his mouth, but with one of his nostrils. In return for this en-
tertainment, the strangers gave, at night, an exhibition of sky-
rockets, witch-quills, and other pyrotechnics. The chief, learn-
ing that the Prince of Nassau was a man of royal blood, offered
him a wife; but, as the lady was advanced in years and corre-
spondingly mature in appearance, the prince plead a previous
union and escaped.
The vessels stayed here a fortnight, cutting wood and drawing
water. They lost six anchors during their sojourn, and twice
narrowly missed utter shipwreck,—‘“‘ the worst consequence of
which would have been to pass the remainder of their days on
an isle adorned with all the gifts of nature, and to exchange the
sweets of the mother-country for a peaceable life exempt from
cares.” The islanders expressed infinite regret at their de-
parture,—one of them, Aotourou by name, being unable to
endure the separation, and asking permission to go with them.
He gave his young wife three pearls which he had in his ears,
kissed her, and went on board the ship. Bougainville quitted
the island on the 16th of April, no less surprised at the sorrow
the inhabitants testified at his departure than at their affection-
ate confidence on his arrival.
He directed his course so as to avoid the Pernicious Isles,
warned by the disasters of Roggewein to avoid them. Aotourou
pointed at night to the bright star in Orion’s shoulder, indicating
that they should guide their course by it, and that in two days
it would bring them to a fertile island where he had friends and
children. Being vexed that no attention was paid to his advice,
he rushed to the helm, seized the wheel, and endeavored to put
the ship about. In-the morning he climbed to the mast-head, and
458 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
sought, in the distant horizon, the favored land of which he had
spoken.
The vessels kept on steadily to the westward, passing through
Navigator’s Islands and the group which Quiros, had named
Espiritu Santo. To the latter Bougainville gave the name of
Grandes Cyclades,—one, however, not destined to be long re-
tained. He was at this time informed that Baré, the servant of
M. de Commergon, the botanist of the Etoile, ‘was a woman.
He went on board the store-ship to make investigations. He
thought the report incredible, as Baré was already an expert
botanist, and had acquired the name, during his excursions with
his master among the snows of Magellan’s Strait,—where he
carried provisions, fire-arms, and bundles of plants,—of being his
beast of burden. The first suspicion of him occurred at Tahiti,
where the natives, with the keen intuition of savages, cried out
in their dialect, ‘It is a woman!’ and~ insisted on paying her
the attentions due to her sex. When Bougainvile went on
board the Etoile, Baré, bathed in tears, admitted that she was a
woman. .She said she was an orphan, had served before in men’s
clothes, and that the idea of a voyage around the world had
inflamed her curiosity. Bougainville does her the justice to
state that she always behaved on board with the most scrupulous
modesty. She was not handsome, and was twenty-seven years of
age. She was the first woman that ever circumnavigated the globe.
It was not long before the provisions began to give out, and
the crew were put upon half rations. ‘The commander was soon
obliged to forbid the eating of old leather, as it was becoming as
scarce as biscuit and was quite as necessary. The butcher shed
tears upon sacrificing a favorite goat, and Bougainville turned
away his head as that sanguinary personage, with equally cruel
intent, whistled to a young Patagonian dog. Breakers, reefs,
and channels, where the tide ran fast and dangerously, indicated
the presence of land, to which was given the name of Louisiade.
This is a group of islands inhabited by Papuans.
HOSTILE AND TREACHEROUS NAVSIVES. 459
On the coast of New Britain, at an uninhabited spot which
Bougainville named Port Praslin, he obtained a supply of inferior
provisions, such as thatch-palms, cabbage-trees, and mangle
apples. A species of aromatic ivy was likewise found, in which
the physicians discovered anti-scorbutic properties; and a store
of it was therefore laid in. An immense cascade, which fur-
nished the vessels with fresh water, is enthusiastically described
by Bougainville. After a stay of eight days at Port Praslin,
CASCADE AT PORT PRASLIN.
during which time the heavens were black with continual tem-
pests, the vessels profited by a change of wind and continued
their westerly course. The field-tents were cut up, and trousers
made from them were distributed to the two ships’ companies.
Another ounce was taken from the daily allowance of bread.
From time to time canoes would shoot out from the coast of New
Britain ; but the hostility and treachery of the natives rendered
all efforts to obtain food from them unavailing.
On the 1st of September, Bougainville made the island of
Boero, one of the Moluccas, where he knew the Dutch had a small
factory and a weak garrison. All his men were now sick, without
exception. The provisions remaining were so nauseous that,
as he says, ‘“‘the hardest moments of the sad days we passed
were those when the bell gave us notice to take in this disgusting
and unwholesome food. But now our misery was to have an end.
Ever since midnight a pleasant scent exhaled from the aromatic
460 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
plants with which the Moluccas abound; the aspect of a con-
siderable town, situated in the bottom of the gulf, of ships at
anchor there, and of cattle rambling through the meadows,
caused transports which I have doubtless felt, but which I can
not here describe.”’
It was found that the Dutch East India Company reigned
supreme, and that the governor was disposed to keep to the
letter of his instructions, which forbade him to receive any ships
but those of the monopoly. Bougainville was obliged to plead
the claims of hunger and considerations of humanity before the
authorities would listen to him. They then furnished him with
rice, poultry, sago, goats, fish, eggs, fruit, and venison, the latter
being the flesh of stags introduced and acclimated by the Dutch.
Henry Inman, the Dutch governor, though placed in a critical
position by this arrival, behaved as became an honorable and
generous man. He first did his duty towards his superiors, and
then towards fellow-creatures in distress. Aotourou, the Tahi-
tian, not being taken ashore by the commander on his first visit,
imagined that it was because he was bow-legged and knock-kneed,
and begged some of the sailors to stand upon his legs and
straighten them out.
During the run back to France, by way of the Cape of Good
Hope, St. Helena, and the Cape Verd Islands, nothing happened
which requires mention here. Bougainville entered the port of
St. Malo on the 16th of March, 1769, having been absent two
years and four months, and having lost but seven men during
the voyage. He was the first Frenchman who ever went round
the world in one ship,—one Gentil de la Barbinais, a pirate,
having accomplished a voyage of circumnavigation in several
ships, some fifty years before. He sustained his claim to this
honor by publishing, two years afterwards, a narrative of his
expedition, written in an animated and graceful style, and which
established his reputation as a sailor and explorer.
Uh
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CAPTAIN JAMES COOK,
CHAPTER XLIII.
EXPEDITION DESPATCHED AT THE INSTANCE OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY—LIEUTENANT
JAMES COOK—INCIDENTS OF THE VOYAGE—A NIGHT ON SHORE IN TERRA
DEL FUEGO—ARRIVAL AT TAHITI—THE NATIVES PICK THEIR POCKETS—THE
OBSERVATORY—A NATIVE CHEWS A QUID OF TOBACCO—THE TRANSIT OF VENUS
—TWO OF THE MARINES TAKE UNTO THEMSELVES WIVES—NEW ZEALAND—
ADVENTURES THERE—REMARKABLE WAR-CANOE—CANNIBALISM DEMONSTRATED
—THEORY OF A SOUTHERN CONTINENT SUBVERTED—NEW HOLLAND—BOTANY
BAY—THE ENDEAVOR ON THE ROCKS—EXPEDIENT TO STOP THE LEAK—A CON-
FLAGRATION—PASSAGE THROUGH A REEF—ARRIVAL AT BATAVIA—MORTALITY
ON THE VOYAGE HOME—COOK PROMOTED TO THE RANK OF COMMANDER.
In the year 1768, the Royal Society of England induced the
Government to equip and despatch a vessel to the South Seas.
The reader may perhaps imagine—and, from what has preceded
in this volume, he would be amply justified in so doing—that its
purpose was plunder, and its object either the capture of the
Manilla galleon or the sack and pillage of the luckless town of
461
462 rlISTORY OF THE SEA.
Paita. Thirty years, however, have elapsed since the voyage of
Anson,—the last of the royal buccaneers. The vessel whose
career we are now to chronicle sought neither capture, nor spoil,
nor prize-money. It was a peaceful ship, with a peaceful name,
—the Endeavor: her commander bore a name to be rendered
illustrious by peaceful deeds, and he was bound upon a peaceful
errand. James Cook, an officer of forty years of age, who had
rendered efficient service in America, at the capture of Quebec,
and who had shown himself a capable astronomer, was instructed
to proceed to the island named Sagittaria by Quiros, and King
FLYING ISH.
George the Third’s Island by Wallis, there to observe and record
the transit of the planet Venus over the disk of the sun. The
position of the island as reported by Wallis was deemed to be
exceedingly favorable for such an observation. Cook was -pro-
MANY NOVEL INCIDENTS. 463
moted to the rank of lieutenant; Charles Green was attached to
the ship in the capacity of astronomer, Joseph Banks and Solander
—the latter a Swede and a pupil of Linnzeus—in that of natural-
ists, Buchan as draughtsman, and Parkinson as painter. The
vessel sailed from Plymouth Sound, with a fair wind, on the
25th of August.
The voyage to Rio Janeiro was enlivened by many incidents
now of quite ordinary occurrence, but novel and interesting to
navigators one hundred years ago. They saw flying-fish whose
scales had the color and brightness of burnished silver. They
caught a specimen of that species of mollusk which sailors call a
= == =
: —— = =
= — —_ = |
ae a :
PORPOISE.
Portuguese Man-of-War,—a creature ornamented with exquisite
pink veins, and which spreads before the wind a membrane which
it uses as a sail. They observed that luminous appearance of
the sea now familiar to all, but then a startling novelty. They
were of opinion that it proceeded from some light-emitting animal ;
they threw over their casting-net, and drew up vast numbers of
medusze, which had the appearance of metal heated to a glow
SEA.
HE
T
OF
HISTORY
464
O
ed to
Ir
ce. At Rio Janel
ffulgen
Nias
lver
ith stron
i
ite and s
ave forth a wh
and ¢
and refus
10N,
1C
g¢ susp
egarded them w
iceroy r
the v
i
SEA BIRDS.
SEARCHING BOTANICAL SPECIMENS. 465
allow Mr. Banks to collect plants upon the shore. He could not
understand the transit of Venus over the sun, which he was told
was an astronomical phenomenon of great importance,—having
gathered the idea from his interpreter that it was the passage of
the North Star through the South Pole. On Wednesday, the
7th of December, they again weighed anchor, and left the Ameri-
can dominions of the King of Portugal, the air at the time being
laden with butterflies, and several thousands of them hovering
playfully about the mast-head.
Towards the Ist of January, 1769, the sailors began to com-
plain of cold, and each of them received a Magellanic jacket.
On the 11th, in the midst of penguins, albatrosses, sheer-waters,
seals, whales, and porpoises, they descried the Falkland Islands,
and, soon after, the coast of Terra del Fuego. On the 15th, ten
or twelve of the company went on shore, and were met by
thirty or forty of the natives. Each of the latter had a small
stick in his hand, which he threw away, seeming to indicate by
this pantomime a renunciation of weapons in token of peace.
Acquaintance was then speedily made: beads and ribbons were
distributed, and a mutual confidence and good-will produced.
Conversation ensued,—if speaking without conveying a meaning,
and listening without comprehending, can be called so. Three
Indians accompanied the strangers back to the ship. One of
them, apparently a priest, performed a ceremony of exorcism,
vociferating with all his force at each new portion of the vessel
which met his gaze, seemingly for the purpose of dispelling the
influence of magic which he supposed to prevail there.
A botanical party under Solander and Banks attempted an
excursion into the interior, for the purpose of obtaining speci-
mens of the plants of the country. The snow lay deep upon
the ground, and the weather was very severe. An accident
rendered it impossible for them to return to the ship; and they
were compelled to pass the night, without shelter, among the
mountains. Solander well knew that extreme cold, when joined
30
466 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
with fatigue, produces a torpor and sleepiness which are almost
irresistible: he therefore conjured the company to keep moving,
whatever pain it might cost them. ‘*‘ Whoever sits down,” said
he, ‘‘ will sleep ; and whoever sleeps will wake no more.” He
was the first to find the inclination, against which he had
warned others, unconquerable, and he insisted upon being suffered
to lie down upon the snow. He declared that he must obtain
some sleep, though he had but just spoken of the perils with which
sleep was attended. He soon fell into a profound slumber, in
which he remained five minutes. He was then awakened, upon
the reception of the news that a fire had been kindled. He was
roused with great difficulty, and found that he had almost lost
the use of his limbs, his muscles being so shrunk that his shoes
fell from his feet. Richmond, a black servant, slept and never
woke: two others, overcome with languor, made their bed and
shroud in the snow. Such are the terrible effects of cold in the
Land of Fire.
On the 22d of January, Cook weighed anchor and commenced
the }assage through the Straits of Lemaire; on the 26th, he
doubled Cape Horn and entered the Pacific Ocean. He sailed
for many weeks to the westward, making many of the islands
which had been discovered the year before by the French navi-
gator Bougainville, and himself discovering others. On the
11th of April, he arrived at King George’s Island, his destina-
tion, and the next morning came to anchor in Port Royal Bay, in
thirteen fathoms’ water. The natives brought branches of a tree,
which seemed to be their emblem of peace, and indicated by their
gestures that they should be placed in some conspicuous part of
the ship’s rigging. They then brought fish, cocoanuts, and bread-
. fruit, which they exchanged for beads and glass. The ship’s
company went on shore, and mingled in various ceremonies insti-
tuted for the purpose of promoting fellowship and good-will.
During one of these, Dr. Solander and Mr. Markhouse—the latter
a midshipman—suddenly complained that their pockets had been
POISONED BY TOBACCO. 467
picked. Dr. Solander had lost an opera-glass in a shagreen case,
and Mr. Markhouse had been relieved of a valuable snuff-box.
A hue and cry was raised, and the chief of the tribe informed
of the theft. After great effort and a long delay, the shagreen
case was recovered; but the opera-glass was not in it. After
another search, however, it was found and restored. The
savages, upon being asked the name of their island, replied,
O-Tahiti,-—“ It is Tahiti.” The present mode of writing it, there-
- fore,—Otaheite,—is erroneous: Tahiti is the proper spelling.
Cook now made preparations for observing the transit of
Venus. He laid out a tract of land on shore, and received from
the chief of the uatives a present of the roof of a house, as his
contribution to science. He erected his observatory under the pro-
tection of the guns of his vessel, being somewhat suspicious of the
object of such constant offerings of branches as the inhabitants
insisted upon making. Mr. Parkinson, the painter, found it diffi-
cult to prosecute his labors; for the flies covered his paper to
such a depth that he could not see it, and eat off the color as
fast as he applied it. The music of the country, as the party
gathered from a serenade played in their honor, was at once
eccentric and laborious. The favorite instrument was a sort of
German flute, which sounded but four semitones. The performer
did not apply this apparatus to his mouth, but, stopping up one
of his nostrils with his thumb, blew into it with the other, as
Bougainville had already had occasion to observe.
One day Mr. Banks was informed that an Indian friend of
his, Tubourai by name, was dying, in consequence of something
which the sailors had given him to eat. He hastened to his hut,
and found the invalid leaning his head against a post in an atti-
tude of the utmost despondency. ‘The islanders about him inti-
mated that he had been vomiting, and produced a leaf folded up
with great care, which they said contained some of the poison
from the fatal effects of which he was now expiring. He had
chewed the portion he had taken to powder, and had swallowed
468 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
the spittle. During Mr. Banks’s examination of the leaf and its
contents, he looked up with the most piteous aspect, intimating
that he had but a short time to live. The deadly substance
proved to be a quid of tobacco. Mr. Banks prescribed a plenti-
ful dose of cocoanut-milk, which speedily dispelled Tuboureai’s
sickness and apprehensions.
On the Ist of May, the astronomical quadrant was taken on
shore for the first time and deposited in Cook’s tent. The next
morning it was missing, and a vigorous search was instituted. It
had been stolen by the natives and carried seven miles into
the interior. Through the intervention of Tubourai it was
recovered and replaced in the observatory.
Thus far the integrity of Tubourai had been proof against
every temptation. He had withstood the allurements of beads,
hatchets, colcred cloth, and quadrants, but was finally led astray
by the fascinations of a basket of nails. The basket was known
to have contained seven nails of unusual length, and out of these
seven five were missing. One was found upon his person; and
he was told that if he would bring back the other four to the -
fort the affair should be forgotten. He promised to do so, but,
instead of fulfilling his promise, removed with his family to the
interior, taking the nails and all his furniture with him.
The transit of Venus was observed, with perfect success, on
the 3d of June, by means of three telescopes of different magni-
fying powers, by Cook, Dr. Solander, and Mr. Green. Not a
cloud passed over the sky from the rising to the setting of the
sun. <A party of natives contemplated the process in solemn
silence, and were made to understand that the strangers had
visited their island for the express purpose of witnessing the 1m-
mersion of the planet.
The ship was to leave Tahiti on the 10th of June, and the time
was now spent in preparations for departure. On the evening
of the 9th, it was discovered that two marines, Webb and Gibson,
had gone ashore, and were not to be found. It was ascertained that
SOCIETY ISLANDS DISCOVERED. 469
they had married two young girls of the island, with whom they
had been in the habit of having stolen interviews, and to whom
they were very much attached. They were recovered with much
difficulty, and compelled, by the stern laws of the naval service,
to leave their wives behind them. ‘The vessel sailed on the 13th,
an indian named Tupia having been gratified in his desire to
accompany Cook upon his voyage. As the anchor was weighed,
he ascended to the mast-head, weeping, and waving a handker-
chief to his friends in the canoe. The latter vied with each other
in the violence of their lamentations, which was considered by
the English as more affected than eenuine.
Lieutenant Cook now discovered, successively, the various
islands which he regarded as forming an archipelago, and to which
he gave the name of Society Islands. He left the last of them on
the 15th of August, and on the 25th celebrated the anniversary
of their leaving England by taking a Cheshire cheese from a
locker and tapping a cask of porter. On the 30th, they saw the
comet of that year, Tupia remarking with some agitation that
it would foment dissensions between the inhabitants of the two
islands of Bolabola and Ulieta, who would seem, from this, to
have been peculiarly susceptible to meteorological influences. |’
On the 7th of October, they discovered land, and anchored in an
inlet to which they gave the name of Poverty Bay. This was
the northeast coast of New Zealand,—an island discovered in
1642 by Tasman, and which had not been seen since, a space
of one hundred and twenty-seven years. The natives received
them with distrust, and several of them were somewhat unneces-
sarily killed by musket-shots. All efforts to enter into amicable
relations with them failed, and Cook determined to make another
attempt at some other point of the coast. Here a bloody fight
took place, which resulted in the capture of three young savages
by Cook’s men. They expected to be put to death, and, when
relieved from their apprehension by the kindness with which they
were treated, were suddenly seized with a voracious appetite, and
470 HISTORY OF THE SEA,
seemed to be in the highest possible spirits. During the night,
however, they gave way to grief, sighed often and deeply, and sang
low and solemn tunes like psalms. The next morning they were
brilliantly decorated with beads, bracelets, and necklaces, and —
displayed in this guise to their countrymen on shore. The nego-
tiation totally failed: the boys were sent home, and the ship
stood away from the inhospitable shore on Wednesday, the 11th.
Cook coasted along the island to the south, now alarming the
natives by a single musket-shot, now dispersing a hostile fleet of
a dozen well-armed canoes by a discharge of a four-pounder
loaded with grape-shot, but aimed wide of the mark. At another
time ‘Tupia would be ordered to acquaint a party of shouting and
dancing savages that the strangers had weapons which, lke
thunder, would instantaneously destroy then. Cook was badly
worsted in a bargain he made with a spccies of New Zealand
confidence-man, who came under the stern and proposed to trade.
Cook offered him a piece of red baize for his bear-skin coat. The
savage accepted. Cook passed over the article, upon which the
islander paddled rapidly away, taking with him the baize and the
bear-skin. An attempt made by a party of the natives to kidnap
Tupia’s servant, Tayeto,—a Tahitian like himself,—and which
was near being successful, induced Cook to name the deep
indentation of the sea at this point of the coast, Kidnapper’s
‘Bay.
Somewhat farther to the south they found the natives more
disposed to be friendly, and Mr. Banks and Dr. Solander went
ashore and shot several birds of exquisite beauty. Some of the
ship’s company returned at night with their noses besmeared with
red ochre and oil,—a circumstance which Cook explains by saying
that ‘‘the ladies paint their faces with substances which are gene-
rally fresh and wet upon their cheeks and were easily transferred
to the noses of those who chose to salute them. These ladies,”
he goes on to say, ‘‘ were as great coquettes as any of the most
fashionable dames in Europe, and the young ones as skittish as
i ‘it
H lh i
a
(COE
THE DANCING SAVAGES.
472 . HISTORY OF TIIE SEA.
an unbroken filly. Each of them wore a petticoat, under which
was a girdle made of the blades of highly-perfumed grass.”
At another point they set up the armorer’s forge, to repair
the braces of the tiller. They here met an old man who insisted
on showing them the military exercises of the country, with a
lance twelve feet long, and a battle-axe made of bone and called
a patoo-patoo. An upright stake was made to represent the
enemy, upon which he advanced with great fury: when he was
supposed to have pierced the adversary, he split his skull with his
axe. From this final act it was inferred that in the battles of
this country there was no quarter. It was also ascertained that
cannibalism was a constant and favorite practice. They here
saw the largest canoe they had yet met with. She was sixty-
eight feet and a half long, five broad, and three deep: she had
a sharp keel, consisting of three trunks of trees hollowed out: the
A NEW ZEALAND CANOE,
side-planks were sixty-two feet long in one piece, and quite elabo-
rately carved in bas-relief: the figure-head was also a master-
piece of sculpture.
The expedition had thus far been sailing to the southward.
Dissatisfied with the results, and finding it difficult to procure
water in sufficient quantities, Cook put about, determining to fol-
low the coast to the northward. He named a promontory in the
neighborhood Cape Turnagain. Another promontory, more to
PROOF OF CANNIBALISM. AT3
the north, where a huge canoe made a hasty retreat, he called
Cape Runaway. On the 9th of November, the transit of Mer-
cury was successfully observed, and the name of Mercury Bay
given to the inlet where the observation was made. ‘Two locali-
ties, for reasons which will be obvious, were called Oyster Bay
and Mangrove River. Before leaving Mercury Bay, Cook caused
to be cut, upon one of the trees near the watering-place, the ship’s
name, and his own, with the date of their arrival there, and,
after displaying the English colors, took formal possession of it
in the name of his Britannic Majesty King George the Third.
On the 17th of December, they doubled North Cape, which
is the northern extremity of the island, and commenced de-
scending its western side. The weather now became stormy
and the coast dangerous, so that the vessel was obliged to stand
off to great distances, and intercourse with the natives was very
much interrupted. At one point, however, the English satisfied
themselves that the inhabitants ate human flesh,—the flesh, at
least, of enemies who had been killed in battle. An Indian, to
convince Mr. Banks of the truth of this, seized the bone of a
human fore-arm divested of its flesh, bit and gnawed it, draw-
ing it through his mouth, and indicating by signs that it afforded
him a delicious repast. The bone was then returned to Mr.
Banks, who took it on board ship with him as a trophy and a
souvenir. [He was afterwards told that the New Zealanders ate
no portion of the heads of their enemies but the seat of the in-
tellect, and was assured that as soon as a fight should take place
they would treat him to the sight of a banquet of brains.
By the end of March, 1770, the ship had circumnavigated
the two islands forming what is now known as New Zealand,
and had therefore proved-—what was before uncertain—that it
was insular, and not a portion of any grand Southern mainland.
The whole voyage, in fact, had been unfavorable to the notion
of a Southern continent, for it had swept away at least three-
quarters of the positions upon which it had been founded. It
A474 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
had also totally subverted the theory according to which the
existence of a Southern continent was necessary to preserve an
equilibrium between the Northern and Southern hemispheres ; for
it had already proved the presence of sufficient water to render
the Southern hemisphere too light, even if all the rest should be
land.
The vessel left New Zealand on the 31st of March, sailing
due west, and, on the 18th of April, Mr. Hicks, the first leu-
tenant, discovered land directly in the ship’s path. This was
the most southerly point of New Holland, and was called, from
its discoverer, Point Hicks. Cook followed the coast for many
days to the northward; and it was only on the third that he
learned, from ascending smoke, that the country was inhabited.
On the thirteenth, he saw a party of natives walking briskly
upon the shore. These subsequently retired, leaving the defence
of the coast to two persons of very singular appearance. Their
faces had been dusted with a white powder, and their bodies
painted with broad streaks of the same color, which, passing
obliquely over their breasts and backs, looked not unlike the
cross-belts worn by civilized soldiers: the same kind of streaks
were also drawn round their legs and thighs, like broad garters.
Each of them held in his hand a weapon two feet and a half
long. The landing party detached by Cook numbered forty
men; and one of the musketeers was ordered to show the two
champions the folly of resistance, by lodging a charge of small
shot in their legs. The wooders and waterers then went ashore,
and with some difficulty obtained the necessary supplies.
Early in May, Cook landed at a spot to which, from a casual
circumstance, he gave the name of Borany Bay,—a name now
famous the world over. Mr. Banks and Dr. Solander collected
here large quantities of plants, flowers, and branches of unknown
trees ; and it was this incident that furnished the pastoral appel-
lation to the Retreat for Transported Criminals. They found
the woods filled with birds of the most exquisite beauty; the
475
FLOCKS OF WATERFOWL.
shallow coasts were haunted with flocks of waterfowl resembling
> a
SS
The inhabitants
went totally naked, would never parley with the strangers, and
-banks harbored vast quantities of
the mud
Hi
|
oysters, muscles, cockles, and other shell-fish.
nd pelicans ;
a
did not seem to understand the Tahitian dialect of Tupia.
Swans
WATERFOWL.
476 HISTORY OF THE SEA,
At a place which, in consequence of the difficulty of pro-
curing fresh water, received the name of Thirsty Sound, the
watering party met with singular adventures. They found
walking exceedingly difficult, owing to the ground being covered
with a kind of grass, the seeds of which were very sharp and
bearded backwards, so that when they stuck into their clothes
they worked forward by means of the beard till they pierced the
flesh. Mosquitos stung them at every pore. The air was so
filled with butterflies that they saw, smelt, tasted, and breathed
butterflies. Black ants swarmed upon the trees, eating out the
pith from the small branches and then inhabiting the pipe which
had contained it; and yet the branches, thus deprived of their
marrow and occupied by millions of insects, bore leaves, flowers,
and even fruit. They saw a species of fish resembling a minnow,
which appeared to prefer land to water: it leaped before them,
by means of its breast-fins, as nimbly as a frog; when found in
the water it frequently jumped out and pursued its way upon
the dry ground; in places where small stones were standing
above the surface of the water at a little distance from each
other, it chose rather to leap from stone to stone than to pass
through the water. They saw several of them proceed dry-shod
over large puddles in this ingenious and unusual manner. The
ship left Thirsty Sound on the 31st of May.
On the night of Sunday, the 10th of June, the vessel struck
at high tide upon a rock which lay concealed in seventeen
fathoms’ water, and beat so violently against it that there
seemed little hope of saving her. Land was twenty-five miles
off, with no intervening island in sight. The sheathing-boards
were soon seen to be floating away all around, and the false keel
was finally torn off. The six deck-guns, all tne tron and stone
ballast, casks, staves, oil-jars, decayed stores, to the weight of
fifty tons, were thrown overboard with the utmost expedition.
To Cook’s dismay, the vessel, thus lightened, did not float by a
A LEAK STOPPED. A77
foot and a half at high tide,—so much did the day tide fall short
of that of the night. They again threw overboard every thing
which it was possible to spare; but the vessel now began to leak,
and it was feared she must go to the bottom as soon as she
ceased to be supported by the rock,—so that the floating of the
ship was anticipated not as a means of deliverance, but as an
event that would precipitate her destruction. The ship floated
at ten o'clock, and was heaved into deep water: there were
nearly tour feet of water in the hold. The leak was held at bay
for a time; but the men were finally exhausted, and threw them-
selves down upon the deck, flooded as it was to the depth of
three inches by water from the pumps. The vessel was finally
saved by the following expedient, proposed and executed by Mr.
Markhouse. He took a lower studding-sail, and having mixed
together a large quantity of oakum and wool, chopped pretty
small, stitched it down in handfuls upon the sail as tightly as
possible. The sail was then hauled under the ship’s bottom by
ropes; and, when it came under the leak, the suction which car-
ried in the water carried in with it the oakum and the wool.
The leak was so far reduced that it was easily kept under by
one pump. The vessel was finally got ashore and beached in
Endeavor River: the surrounding localities were fitly named
Tribulation Bay, Weary Point, and the Islands of Hope.
The repairs of the vessel occupied many weeks,—the officers
and crew occupying themselves in the mean time in fishing, in
endeavors to obtain interviews with the natives, and in excur-
sions for botanical or geological purposes. On the 14th of July,
Mr. Gore killed an animal which had excited the interest and
curiosity of the English in the highest degree, being totally un-
like any animal then known. The name given by the natives to
this creature was “‘kangaroo.” He was dressed the next lay
for dinner, and proved most excellent fare.
A party of natives in the neighborhood having been render ed
hostile by the refusal of a pair of fat turtle belonging to the
478 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
ship, they snatched a brand from under a pitch-kettle which was
boiling, and, making a circuit to the windward of the few articles
on shore, set fire to the grass in their way. This grass, which
was five or six feet high and as dry as stubble, burned with
amazing fury. The fire made rapid progress towards a tent
where the unhappy Tupia was lying sick of the scurvy, scorch-
ing in its course a sow and two pigs. Tupia and the tent were
Za
KANGAROO,
saved in the nick of time: the armorer’s forge, or such parts of
it as would burn, was consumed. The powder, which had been
taken ashore, had been transported back to the magazine but
two days before. At night, the hills on every side were dis-
covered to be on fire,—the conflagration having spread with
wonderful celerity. On the 3d of August, the ship sailed from
Endeavor River, the carpenter having at last completed the
necessary repairs.
oe aaa Dee =
A FORMIDABLE REEF, A479
The ship now coasted along the edge of a reef which stretched
out some twenty miles from the shore. This became suddenly
of so formidable an aspect, and the winds and waves rolled them
towards it with such sure and fatal speed, that the boats were
got out and sent ahead to tow, and finally succeeded in getting
the ship’s head round. ‘The surf was now breaking to a tremen-
dous height within two hundred yards: the water beneath them
was unfathomable. An opening in the reef was now discovered,
and the dangerous expedient of forcing the ship through it
was successfully tried. They anchored in nineteen fathoms’
CORAL REEF.
water, over a bottom of coral and shells. The opening through
the reef received the name of Providential Channel.
They sailed to the northward many days within the reef, till
they at last found a safe passage out. Cook then for the last
time hoisted English colors upon the eastern coast, which he was _
‘confident no European had seen before, and took possession of its
whole extent, from south latitude thirty-eight to latitude ten. He
claimed it, in behalf of his Majesty King George the Third, by the
480 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
name of New South Wales, with all its bays, rivers, harbors, and
islands. Three volleys of small-arms were then fired, and the
spot upon which the ceremony was performed was named Pos-
session Island. The ship passed out to the westward, finding
open sea to the north of New Holland,—a circumstance which
gave great satisfaction to all on board, as it showed that New
Holland and New Guinea were separate islands, and not, as had
been imagined, different parts of the supposed Southern conti-
nent. On Thursday, the 24th of August, the ship left New
Holland, steering towards the northwest, with the intention of
making the coast of New Guinea.
Early in September they arrived among a group of islands
which they supposed to lie along the coast of New Guinea. As
they attempted to land, Indians rushed out of the thickets upon
them, with hideous shouts, one of them throwing something from
his hand which burned like gunpowder but made no report.
Their numbers soon increased, and they discharged these noise-
less flashes by four and five at a time. The smoke resembled
that of a musket; and, as they held long hollow canes in their
hands, the illusion would have been perfect had the combustion
been accompanied by concussion. Those on board the ship were
convinced the natives possessed fire-arms, supposing that the
direction of the wind prevented the sound of the discharge from
reaching them. Cook determined to lose no time in this latitude,
having accomplished what he considered as of paramount import-
ance; that is, he had sailed between the two lands of New Hol-
jand and New Guinea, and had thus established their insular
character beyond any possibility of controversy. |
Fe now sailed to the west, and anchored, on the 8th of October,
at Batavia, in Java. H>re he laid up the ship for repairs. ‘What
anxieties we had escaped,’’ he writes, ‘“‘in our ignorance that a
targe portion of the keel had been diminished to the thickness
of the under leather of a shoe!’ But the ship’s company,
LAID UP FOR REPAIRS. 481
which had been so wonderfully preserved from the perils of the
sea, were destined to undergo the rude attacks of disease upon
land. Markhouse, the surgeon, Tupia and Tayeto, the Tahitians,
and four sailors, were rapidly carried off by fever. On the 27th
of December, the ship weighed anchor, the sick-list including
forty names. Before doubling the Cape of Good Hope, she lost
Sporing, one of the assistant naturalists, Parkinson, the artist,
Green, the astronomer, Molineux, the master, besides the second
lieutenant, four carpenters, and ten sailors. Cook was forced
to wait a month at the Cape; and on the 12th of July, 1771,
he cast anchor in the Downs, after a crnise of three eventful
years. His crew was decimated and his ship no longer sea-
worthy. The skill and enterprise displayed by Cook, and the
important results attained by the voyage, induced the Govern-
ment to raise him to the rank of commander.
PIGEON OF THE CAPE OF GOOD HOPE,
31
CHAPTER XLIV.
COOK’S SECOND VOYAGE---- STORM—SEPARATION OF THE SHIPS—AURORA AUS-
TRALIS—NEW ZEALAND—SIX WATER-SPOUTS AT ONCE—TAHITI AGAIN—PETTY
THEFTS OF THE NATIVES—COOK VISITS THE TAHITIAN THEATRE—OMAI—
ARRIVAL AT THE FRIENDLY ISLANDS—THE FLEET WITNESS A FEAST OF HUMAN
' FLESH—THE NEW HEBRIDES—NEW CALEDONIA—RETURN HOME—HONORS BE-
STOWED UPON COOK.
- Tue English Government now determined to despatch an expe-
dition in search of the supposed Southern or Austral continent.
A Frenchman, by the name of Benoit, had seen in 1709, to the
south of the Cape of Good Hope, in latitude 54° and in longi-
tude 11° East, what he believed to be land, naming it Cape Cir-
cumcision. Cook was placed in command of the Resolution and
Adventure, and instructed to endeavor to find this cape and
satisfy himself whether it formed part of the great continent in
question. He left Plymouth on the 18th of July, 1772, and the
Cape of Good Hope on the 22d of November.
A terrific gale soon drove both vessels from their course,
washed overboard their live-stock, and well-nigh disabled the Reso-
lution. The cold increased suddenly, and drawers and fearnaughts
were served in abundance to the crew. Immense ice-islands now
occupied the horizon, and the sea, dashing over them to the height
of sixty feet, filled the air with its ceaseless roar. On Sunday,
the 13th of December, they were in the latitude of Cape Circum-
cision, but ten degrees cast of it. For weeks they kept in
high Southern latitudes, now menaced by towering peaks of ice,
now enclosed by immense fields and floating masses, till, towards
the Ist of February, 1778, Cook came to the unwelcome conclu-
sion that the cape discovered by Benoit was nothing more than
a huge tract of ice, which, bemg chained to no anchorage and
subject to no latitude, he had no reason to expect to find in the
‘spot where the credulous Frenchman had discovered it sixty
years before.
482
“HOI AT AAOYNIN
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484 HISTORY OF THE SEA,
_ On the 8th of February, the Resolution lost sight of the Ad-
venture, and cruised three days in search of her, firing guns and
burning false fires, but without success. On the 17th, between
midnight and three in the morning, Cook saw lights in the sky
similar to those seen in high Northern latitudes and known by
the name of Aurora Borealis: the Aurora Australis had never
been seen before. It sometimes broke out in spiral rays and in
a circular form; its colors were brilliant, and it diffused its light
throughout the heavens. On the 24th, a tremendous gale, accom-
panied with snow and sleet, made great havoc among the ice-
islands, breaking them up, and largely increasing the number of
floating and insidious enemies the ship had to contend with.
These dangers were now, however, so familiar to the crew, that
the apprehensions they caused were never of long duration, and
were in some measure compensated by the seasonable supplies of
water the ice-islands afforded them, and without which they
would have been greatly distressed.
On the 16th of March, Cook found himself in latitude 59°,
longitude 146° Hast. He now determined to quit this quarter,
where he was convinced he should find no land, and .proceed to
New Zealand to look for the Adventure and to refresh his crew.
On the 26th, he anchored in Dusky Bay, New Zealand, after
having been one hundred and seventeen days at sea, and having
sailed eleven thousand miles without once seeing land. This point,
the most southerly of New Zealand, had never been visited by a
Kuropean before.
While coasting to the northward, towards Queen Charlotte’s.
Sound, where he expected to find the Adventure, Cook suddenly
observed six water-spouts between his vessel and the land. Five
of them soon spent themselves; the sixth started from a point three
miles distant, and passed within fifty yards of the stern of the
Resolution, though she felt no shock. The diameter of its base
was about sixty feet : within this space the sea was much agitated
DANGEROUS WATER-SPOUTS 485
and foamed up to a great height. From this a tube was formed,
by which the water and air were carried up in a spiral stream
to the clouds, from whence the water did not descend again,
being dispersed in the upper regions of the atmosphere. “TI
have been told,” says Cook, ‘that the firing of a gun will dissi-
pate water-spouts ; and I am sorry that we did not try the experi-
ment, as we were near enough and had a gun ready for the
purpose; but as soon as the danger was past I thought no more
about it.”’
\
\ ‘\
AN
BESET BY WATERSPOUTS.
On the 18th of May, the Resolution discovered the Adventure
in Queen Charlotte’s Sound: the crews of the two ships were
overjoyed at meeting each other after a separation of fourteen
weeks. The captain of the latter had seen upon the coast some
natives of the tribe which had furnished Tupia to Cook’s vessel
upon his first voyage. They seemed quite concerned when
informed that he had died at Batavia, and were anxigns to
SF nD,
136 HISTORY OF THE SEA,
know whether he had been killed, and whether he had been
buried or eaten.
Before leaving the island, potatoes, turnips, carrots, and
parsnips were planted in spots favorable to their growth, and
the natives were made to understand their value as esculent
roots. A ewe and ram were sent ashore from the Resolution,—
the last pair of the large stock put on board at the Cape of
Good Hope; but they probably ate a poisonous plant during
the night, for they were found dead in the morning. The
Adventure put ashore a boar and two sows, in the hope that
they would multiply and replenish the island.
The two ships sailed in company from New Zealand ox the
7th of June, their purpose being to proceed to the eastward in
search of land as far as longitude 140° West, between the lati-
tudes of 41° and 46° South. Dtiring a long cruise, Cook saw
nothing which induced in him the belief that they were in the
neighborhood of any continent between the meridian of New
Zealand and America. A fact which militated against it was,
that they had, as is usual in all great oceans, large billows from
every direction in which the wind blew a fresh gale. These bil-
lows never ceased with the cause which first put them in motion,
—a sure indication that no land was near. They constantly
passed low and half-submerged islands,—now consisting of coral
shoals fretting the waves into foam, and now of islets clothed
with verdure. On the 17th of August they arrived at Tahiti,
after an entirely fruitless voyage.
The thieving and cheating propensities of the natives .ap-
peared in bold relief during the sojourn of the English
upon their coast. The latter sometimes paid in advance for
promised supplies of hogs and fowls, in which case they were
sure never to get them,—the wary trader making off with his
axe, shirt, or nails, and dispensing with the necessity of fulfill-
ing This engagement. The practice of overreaching was not
confined to the underlings of society, but extended even to the
A ROYAL DANCK. 487
chiefs. A potentate of high warlike renown came one day to
the side of the Resolution, and offered for sale a superb bundle
of cocoanuts, which was readily bought by one of the officers.
On untying it, it was found to consist of fruit which they had
already once bought, and which had been tapped, emptied
of the milk, and thrown overboard. The dishonest dignitary
sat in his canoe at a distance, indicating by the glee and vigor
of his pantomime that he enjoyed in a supreme degree the bril-
liant success of this mercantile fraud.
At another part of the coast, Cook and his officers were in-
vited by Otoo, the king, to visit the theatre, where a play was
to be enacted with music and dancing. The performers were
five men and one woman, who was no less a personage than the
king’s sister. The instruments consisted of three drums only,
OTOO.
wud the music lasted about an hour and a half. The meaning
of the play was not apparent to the English, except that it
abuunded in local allusions.—the name of Cook constantly re-
488 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
curring. The dancing-dress of the lady was very elegant, being
ornamented with long tassels made of feathers, hanging from
the waist downwards.
Cook left Tahiti early in September, taking with him a
young savage named Poreo, who was smitten with a desire to
visit foreign parts. At the neighboring island of Huaheine, a
native named Omai, belonging to the middle class, was also
taken on board. Cook thus speaks of him two years later :—
‘‘OQmai has most certainly a good understanding, quick parts,
and honest principles: he has a natural good behavior, which —
renders him acceptable to the best company, and a proper de-
gree of pride, which teaches him to avoid the society of persons
of inferior rank. He has passions of the same kind as other
young men, but has judgment enough not to indulge them to an
improper excess.” Omai was taken back to Huaheine by Cook
when he started upon his third voyage of discovery, in 1776.
We shall have occasion hereafter to chronicle the incidents of
this restoration.
Cook arrived at Middlebourg, one of the Friendly Islands,
early in October. Two canoes, rowed by three men each, came
boldly alongside; and some of them entered the ship without
hesitation. One of them seemed to be a chief, by the authority
he exerted, and accordingly received a present of a hatchet and
five nails.. Tioony—such was this potentate’s name—was thus
cheaply conciliated. Cook and a party soon embarked in a
boat, accompanied by Tioony, who conducted them to a little
creek, where a landing was easily effected. Tioony brandished
a branch of the tree of peace in his right hand, extending his
left towards an immense crowd of natives, who welcomed the
English on shore with loud acclamations. Not one of them
carried a weapon of any sort: they thronged so thickly around
the boat that it was difficult to get room to land. They seemed
more desirous to give than receive; and many threw whole bales
ef eloth and armfuls of fruit into the boat, and then retired
‘A SINGULAR BEVERAGE. 489
without either asking or waiting for an equivalent. Tioony then
conducted the strangers to his house, which was situated upon
a fine plantation beneath the shade of shaddock-trees. The
floor was laid with mats. Bananas and cocoanuts were set
TIOONY.
before them to eat, and a beverage was prepared for them to
drink. This was done in the following manner:—Pieces of a
highly-scented root were vigorously masticated by the natives ;
the chewed product was then deposited in a large wooden bowl
and mixed with water. As soon as it was properly strained,
cups were made of green leaves which held nearly half a pint,
and presented to the English. No one tasted the contents but
Cook,—the manner of brewing it having quenched the thirst of
490 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
every one else. In this island, as well as in the neighboring
one of Amsterdam, the people—both men and women—were
observed to have lost one or both of their little fingers. Cook
endeavored in vain to discover the reason of this mutilation; but
no one would take any pains to inform him.
Cook noticed with interest the sailing canoes of these islands.
A remarkable feature was the sail,—which, being suspended by
its spar from a forked mast, could be so turned that the prow
CANOES OF THE FRIENDLY ISLANDS.
of the boat became its stern, and vice versd. They sailed with
- equal rapidity in either direction.
On his return to New Zealand in November, Cook found that
his efforts to introduce new plants and animals had been frus-
trated by the natives. One of the sows had been incapacitated
by a scvere cut in one of ner hind-iegs; the other sow and the
boar had been sedulously kept separate. The two goats had
been killed by a fellow named Gobiah, and the potatoes had
been dug up. Cook here had the satisfaction of beholding
a feast of human flesh. <A portion of the body of a young man
of twenty years was broiled and eaten by one of the natives
with evident relish. Several of the ship’s crew were rendered
sick by the disgusting sight.
The Adventure separated from her consort at this point; nor
was she again seen during the remainder of the voyage. Cook
left New Zealand early in December for a last attempt in the
Southern Ocean. On the 12th he saw the first ice, and on the
A VAST UNEXPLORED SEA, 491
23d, in latitude 67°, found his passage obstructed by such quan-
tities that he abandoned all hopes of proceeding any farther in
that direction, and resolved to return to the north. As he was
in the longitude of 187°, it was clear that there must be a vast
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space of sea to the north unexplored,—a space of twenty-four
degrees, in which a large tract of land might possibly lie.
Late in February, 1774, Cook was taken ill of bilious colics
' 492 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
and for some days his life was despaired of. The crew suffered
severely from scurvy. On the 11th of March, they fell in with
Roggewein’s Kaster Island, which they recognised by the gigantic
statues which lined the coast. They noticed a singular dispro-
portion in the number of the males and females, having counted
in the island some seven hundred men and only thirty women.
Early in April, Cook arrived among the Marquesas Islands,
discovered in 1595 by Mendana. On the 22d, he arrived at
Point Venus, in Tahiti, where he had observed the transit in
1769, and of which the longitude was known: he was able,
therefore, to determine the error of his watch, and to fix anew
its rate of going. The natives, and especially Otoo, the king,
expressed no little joy at seeing him again. On leaving Ta-
hiti, Cook visited in detail the islands named Espiritu Santo by .
Quiros and Grandes Cyclades by Bougainville.. As he deter-
mined their extent and position, he took the liberty of changing
their name to that of the New Hebrides.
Cook now discovered the large island of New Caledonia,
whose inhabitants he mentions as possessing an excellent cha-
racter. Subsequent navigators, however, ascertained them to be
cannibals. They were much lower in the scale of intelligence
than the Tahitians. Their canoes were of the most clumsy
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NEW CALEDONIAN DOUBLE CANOE.
description, and were generally propelled in pairs by poles.
Cook was unable to obtain provisions; and, as his crew were
now suffering from famine, he returned to New Zealand, where
ARRIVAL HOME. 493.
he arrived on the 18th of October. He left again on the 10th
of November, and anchored on the 21st of December in Christ-
mas Sound, in Terra del Fuego. He doubled Cape Horn, dis-
covered numerous islands of little importance, and finally headed
the vessel for the Cape of Good Hope. He anchored in Table
Bay on the 19th of March, 1775. He here found news of the
Adventure, which had already passed the Cape on her way
home. On the-30th of July, Cook landed at Plymouth, after
an absence of three years and eighteen days. During this space
of time he had lost but four men, and only one of these four by
sickness. He was promoted to the rank of captain, was elected
a member of the Royal Society of London, and received the
Godfrey Copley gold medal in testimony of the appreciation in
which his efforts to preserve the health of his crew were held by
the Government. He was now forty-seven years of age.
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A SANDWICH ISLAND KING PROCEEDING TO VISIT COOK.
CHAPTER XLV.
COOK’S THIRD YVOYAGE—THE NORTHWEST PASSAGE—OMAI—IIIS RECEPTION AT
HOME—TIIE CREW FOREGO THEIR GROG—DISCOVERY OF THE SANDWICIL ISLANDS
—NOOTKA SOUND—THE NATIVES—CAPE PRINCE OF WALES—TWO CONTINENTS
IN SIGHT—ICY CAPE—RETURN TO THE SANDWICH ISLANDS—COOK IS DEIFIED
—INTERVIEW WITH TEREOBOO—SUBSEQUENT DIFFICULTIES—A SKIRMISH—
PITCHED BATTLE AND DEATH OF COOK—RECOVERY OF A PORTION Or IIs
REMAINS—FUNERAL CEREMONIES—LIFE AND SERVICES OF COOK.
Coox might justly have retired at this period to private life,
to enjoy his well-earned reputation. But the grand question
of the Northwest Passage, now agitated by the press and the
public, induced him once more to tempt the perils of foreign
adventure. As every effort to force a passage through Bafiin's
or Iludson’s Bay had signally failed, it was determined te
make the experiment through Behring’s Straits. On the 9th
494
A FORMIDABLE STORY. 495
of February, 1776, Cook received the command of the sloop-of-
war Resolution,—the vessel in which he had made his last voyage,
—the Discovery, of three hundred tons, being appointed to
accompany the expedition. Both ships were equipped in a
manner befitting the nature of their mission: they were well
supplied with European animals and plants, which they were
to intreduce into the islands of the Pacific. Omai, the young
Tahitian whom Cook had brought to England, was placed on
board the Resolution, as it was not likely another opportunity
would occur of sending him home. Je left London with regret ;
put the consciousness that the treasures he carried with him
would raise him to an enviable rank among his countrymen
operated by degrees to alleviate his sorrow. ~The Resolution
sailed from Plymouth on the 12th of July, and was followed, on
the 10th of August, by the Discovery: both vessels joined com-
pany, carly in November, at the Cape of Good Hope.
As we have already been frequently over the track now for
the third time traversed by Cook, we shall merely give his route,
without detailing his adventures, which did not materially differ
from those of his former voyages. Ile arrived at Van Diemen’s
Land in December, and passed a fortnight of the month of
February, 1777, in Queen Charlotte’s Sound, New Zealand.
Soon after he discovered an island which the natives called
Mangya: he noticed that the inhabitants, for want of a better
pocket, slit the lobe of their ear and carried their knife in it.
At another island of the same group, Omai extricated himself
and a party of English from a position of great danger by
giving the natives an exaggerated account of the instruments
of war used on board the two ships anchored in the offing.
‘“These instruments,” he said, ‘were so huge that several
people could sit conveniently within them; and one of them was
sufficient to crush the whole island at a shot.” Had it not been
for this formidable story, Omai thought the party would have
deen detained on shore all night. At one of the Society Islands
496 HISTORY OF THE SEA,
Cook planted a pineapple and sowed some melon-seeds. He
was somewhat encouraged to hope that endeavors of this kind
would not be fruitless, for upon the same day the natives served
up at his dinner a dish of turnips, being the produce of the seeds
he had left there during his last voyage.
The Resolution soon anchored off Tahiti, and Cook noticed
particularly the conduct of Omai, now about to be restored to his
home and his friends. A chief named Ootu, and Omai’s brother-
in-law, came on board. There was nothing either tender or strik-
ing in their meeting. On the contrary, there seemed to be a
perfect indifference on both sides, till Omai, having taken his
brother down into the cabin, opened the drawer where he kept
his red feathers and gave him three of them. Ootu, who would
hardly speak to Omai before, now begged that they might be
friends. Omai assented, and ratified the bargain with a present
of feathers; and Ootu, by way of return, sent ashore for a hog.
But it was evident to the English that it was not the man, but
his property, they were in love with. “Such,” says Cook, ‘was
Omai’s first reception among his countrymen. Had he not
shown to them his treasure of red feathers, I question much
whether they would have bestowed even a cocoanut upon him.
I own I never expected it would be otherwise.”
The important news of the arrival of red feathers was con-
veyed on shore by Omai’s friends, and the ships were surrounded
early the next morning by a multitude of canoes crowded with
people bringing hogs and fruit to market. At first a quantity
of feathers not greater than might be plucked from a tomtit.
would purchase a hog weighing fifty pounds; but such was the
quantity of this precious article on board that its value fell five
hundred per cent. before night. Omai was now visited by his
sister ; and, much to the credit of them both, their meeting was
marked by expressions of the tenderest affection. Cook foresaw,
however, that Omai would soon be despoiled of every thing he
had if left among his relatives: so it was determined to esta-
DISCOVERY OF THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 497
blish him at the neighboring island of Huaheine. A large lot
of land was obtained there from the chief, and the carpenters of
the two ships set about building him a house fit to contain the
European commodities that were his property. Cook told the
natives that if Omai were disturbed or harassed he should
upon his next visit make them feel the weight of his resent-
ment. Omai took possession of his mansion late in October,
and on Sunday, November 2, bade adieu to the officers of the
ship. He sustained himself in this trying ordeal till he came
to Cook, and then gave way to a passionate burst of tears.
He wept abundantly while being conveyed on shore. ‘It was
no small satisfaction to reflect,’’ writes Cook, “‘that we had
brought him back safe to the spot from which he was taken.
And yet such is the strange nature of human affairs that it is
probable we left him in a less desirable situation than he was
in before his connection with us. He had tasted the sweets
of civilized life, and must now become more miserable from
being obliged to abandon all thoughts of continuing them.”
The career and destiny of Omai were perhaps more remarkable
than those of any other savage: he was cherished by Cook,
painted by Reynolds, and apostrophized by Cowper.
During the stay of the vessels at the Society Islands, Cook in-
duced the crews to give up their grog and use the milk of cocoa-
nuts instead. He submitted it to them whether it would not be
injudicious, by drinking their spirits now, to run the risk of
having none left in a cold climate, where cordials would be most
needed, and whether they would not be content to dispense
with their grog now, when they had so excellent a liquor as that
of cocoanuts to substitute in its place. The proposal was
unanimously agreed to, and the grog was stopped except on
Saturday nights.
Early in February, 1778, Cook made a most important dis-
covery,—that of the archipelago now known as the Sandwich
Islands, so named by Cook in honor of the Earl of Sandwich,
32
OMAI.
498
NATIVES OF NOOTKA SOUND. 499
First Lord of the Admiralty. He visited five of these islands,
one of which was Oahu. He found a remarkable similarity of
manners and coincidence of language with those of the Society
Islands, and in his journal asks the following question :—‘“‘ How »
shall we account for this nation having spread itself in so many
detached islands, so widely separated from each other, in every
quarter of the Pacific Ocean? We find it from New Zealand
in the south to the Sandwich Islands in the north! And, in
another direction, from Easter Island to the New Hebrides!
That is, over an extent of three thousand six hundred miles
north and south, and five thousand miles east and west !”
From the Sandwich Islands Cook sailed to the northeast,
and on the 7th of March struck the coast of America, upon the
shores of the tract named New Albion by Sir Francis Drake.
The skies being very threatening, he gave the name of Cape
Foulweather to a promontory forming the northern extremity.
Late in March the two vessels entered a broad inlet, to which
Cook gave the name of King George’s Sound; but it is better
known now by its original name of Nootka Sound. Cook
found the natives friendly and willing to sell and buy. They
were under the common stature, their persons being full and
plump without corpulence, their faces round, with high promi-
nent cheeks, noses flattened at the base with wide nostrils, low
forehead, small black eyes, thick round lips, and well-set though
not remarkably white teeth. The color of their skin, when not
incrusted with paint or dirt, was nearly as white as that of
Europeans, and of that pale effete cast which distinguishes the
Southern nations of Kurope. A remarkable sameness charac-
terized the countenances of the whole nation, the expression of
all being dull and phlegmatic. It was not easy to distinguish
the women from the men; and not a female was seen, even
among those in the prime of life, who had the least pretensions
to being called handsome.
Cook gives a very long and detailed account of the manners
500 HISTORY OF THE SEA,
and customs of these people, their habitations, weapons, food,
domestic animals, language, and religious views, and concludes
by remarking that they differ so essentially in every respect
from the inhabitants of the various Pacific islands that it is
HABITATIONS IN NOOTKA SOUND.
impossible to suppose their respective progenitors were united
in the same tribe, or had any intimate connection when they
emigrated from their original settlements into the places where
their descendants were now found.
Cook left Nootka Sound on the 26th of April, and early in
May entered a deep inlet, to which he gave the name of Prince
William’s Sound. Proceeding on his course, as he supposed,
toward Behring’s Strait, he was surprised to find various in-
dications that he was no longer in the sea, but ascending a wide
and rapidly-flowing river. He was, however, encouraged to
proceed by finding the water as salt as that of the ocean.
Having traced the stream a distance of two hundred miles
from its entrance, without seeing the least appearance of its
source, and despairing of finding a passage through it to the
Northern seas, Cook determined to return. Mr. King, one of
the officers, was sent on shore to display the flag and take
possession of the country and river in his majesty’s name, and
to bury in the ground a bottle containing some pieces of Eng-
lish coin of the year 1772. The vessels left the river—after-
ward named, by order of Lord Sandwich, Cook’s River—on the
oth of June.
MEETING: WITH ICE 501
On the 9th of August, Cook arrived at a point of land, in
north latitude 66°, which he called Cape Prince of Wales,
and which is the western extremity of North America. Had
he sailed directly north from this spot, he would have passed
through Behring’s Straits. But the attraction of two small
islands drew hin to the westward, and by nightfall he anchored
in a bay on the coast of Asia, having in the course of twenty-
four hours been in sight of the two continents. On the 12th,
while sailing to the north, both continents were in sight at the
same moment. On the 17th, a brightness was perceived in the
northern horizon, like that reflected from ice, commonly called
the blink. But it was thought very improbable that they should
meet with ice so soon. Still, the sharpness of the air and
gloominess of the weather seemed to indicate some sudden
change. The sight of a large field of ice soon left no doubt as
to the cause of the brightness of the horizon. At half-past two,
being in latitude 71° and in twenty-two fathoms water, Cook
found himself close to the edge of the ice, which was as com-
pact as a wall and twelve feet out of water. It extended to
the north as far as the eye could reach. A point of land upon
the American coast obtained the name of Icy Cape. |
The season was now so far advanced that Cook abandoned
all attempts to find a passage through to the Atlantic this year,
and directed his attention to the subject of winter quarters.
Discovering a deep. inlet upon the American side, he named it
Norton’s Sound, in honor of Sir Fletcher Norton, Speaker of the
House of Commons. At Oonalaska, an island some distance to
the south, he fell in with three Russian carriers, who had some
store-houses and a sloop of thirty tons’ burden. They appeared
to have a thorough knowledge of the attempts which had been
made by their countrymen, Kamschatka, Behring, and others, to
navigate the Frozen Ocean.
On the 26th of October, Cook left Oonalaska for the Sandwich
Islands, intending to spend the winter months there, and then to
5GO2 HISTORY OF THE SEA,
if, ey
yl, Mf Md MAN \
Wd , a,
MAN OF THE SANDWICH ISLANDS.
direct his course to Kamschatka, arriving there by the middle of
May in the ensuing year. On the 26th of November, the two
ships anchored at the archipelago of the Sandwich Islands and
discovered several new members of the group. At Owhyhee,
Cook found the natives more free from reserve and suspicion
than any other tribe he had met; nor did they even once
attempt a fraud or a theft. Cook’s confidence, already great,
was still further augmented by a singular, if not grotesque,
incident.
The priests of the island resolved to deify the captain, under
the name of Orono. One evening, as he landed upon the beach,
he was received by four men, who immediately swathed him in |
red cloth, and then conducted him to a sort of sacrificial altar,
where, by means of an indescribable ceremony, consisting of
rapid speeches, offerings of putrid hogs and sugarcanes, invo-
CGOK DEIFIED. 502
WOMAN OF THE SANDWICH ISLANDS.
cations, processions, chants, and prostrations, they conferred
upon him a celestial character and the right to claim adoration.
At the conclusion, a priest named Kaireekeea took part of the
kernel of a cocoanut, which he chewed, and with which he then
rubbed the captain’s face, head, hands, arms, and shoulders.
Ever after this, when Cook went ashore, a priest preceded
him, shouting that Orono was walking the earth, and calling
upon the people to humble themselves before him. Presents
of pigs, cocoanuts, and bread-fruit were constantly made to him,
and an incessant supply of vegetables sent to his twe ships: no
return was ever demanded or even hinted at. The offerings
seemed to be made in discharge of a religious duty, and had
much the nature of tribute. When Cook inquired at whose
charge all this munificence was displayed, he was told that the
expense was borne by a great man, named Kaoo, the chief of
5OA4. HISTORY OF THE SEA.
the priests, and grandfather of Kaireekeea: this Kaoo was now
absent, attending Tereoboo, the king of the island.
The king, upon his return, set out from the village in a large
canoe, followed by two others, and paddled toward the ships in
great state. Tereoboo gave Cook a fan, in return for which
Cook gave Tereoboo a clean shirt. Heaps of sugarcane and
bread-fruit were then given to the ship’s crew, and the cere-
monies were concluded by an exchange of names between the
captain and the king,—the strongest pledge of wie among
the inhabitants of the Pacific islands.
It was not long before Tereoboo and his chiefs became very
anxious that the English should bid them adieu. They ima-
gined the strangers to have come from some country where
provisions had failed, and that their visit to their island was
merely for the purpose of filling their stomachs. ‘It was
ridiculous enough to see them stroke the sides and pat the
bellies of our sailors,” says King, the continuator of Cook’s
journal, ‘and telling them that it was time for them to go,
but that if they would come again the next bread-fruit season
they should be better able to supply their wants. We had
now been sixteen days in the bay; and, considering our enor-
mous consumption of hogs and vegetables, it need not be
wondered that they should wish to see us take our leave.”’
When Tereoboo learned that the ships were to sail on the next
day but one, he ordered a proclamation to be made through the
villages, requiring the people to bring in presents to Orono, who
was soon to take his departure.
On the 4th of February, 1779, the vessels unmoored and
sailed out of the harbor, after having received on board a
present of vegetables and live stock which far exceeded any
that had been made them either at the Friendly or Society
Islands. The weather being, however, extremely unfavorable,
they were compelled to return for shelter, and on the 11th
dropped anchor in nearly the same spot as before. The fore-
A THEFT AND THE RESULT. 505
mast was found to be much damaged, the heel being exceedingly
rotten, having a large hole up the middle of it capable of hold-
ing four or five cocoanuts. The reception of the ships was very
different from what it had been on their first arrival: there
were no shouts, no bustle, no confusion. The bay seemed de-
serted, though from time to time a solitary canoe stole stealthily
along the shore.
Toward the evening of the 13th, a theft committed by a party
of the islanders on board the Discovery gave rise to a disturbance
of a very serious nature. Pareea, a personage of some author-
ity, was accused of the theft, and a scuffle ensued, in which
FIGHT WITH ISLANDERS.
Pareea was knocked down by a violent blow on the head with
an oar. ‘The natives immediately attacked the crew of the
pinnace with a furious shower of stones and other missiles, and
forced them to swim off with great precipitation to a rock at
some distance from the shore. The pinnace was immediately
ransacked by the islanders, and would have been demolished,
but for the interposition of Pareea, who, upon the recognition of
his innocence, joined noses with the officers and seemed to have
forgotten the blow he had received.
When Captain Cook heard of what had happened, he ex-
pressed some anxiety, and said that it would not do to allow
the islanders to imagine that they had gained an advantage.
It was too late to take any steps that evening, however. A
double guard was posted at the observatory, and at midnight
506 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
one of the sentinels, observing five savages creeping toward him,
fred over their heads and put them to flight. The cutter of the
Discovery was stolen, toward morning, from the buoy where it
was moored. At daylight, Cook loaded his double-barrelled
gun and ordered the marines to prepare for action. It had
been his practice, when any thing of consequence was lost, to
get the king or several of the principal men on board, and to
keep them as hostages till it was restored. His purpose was to
pursue the same plan now. He gave orders to seize and stop
all canoes that should attempt to leave the bay. The boats of
both ships, well manned and armed, were therefore stationed
across the mouth of the harbor. Cook went ashore in the
pinnace, obtained an interview with the king, satisfied himself
that he was in no wise privy to the theft committed, and invited
him to return in the boat and spend the day on board the
Resolution. Tereoboo readily consented, and, having placed
his two sons in the pinnace, was on the point of following them,
when an elderly woman, the mother of the boys, and a younger
woman, the king’s favorite wife, besought him with tears and
entreaties not to go on board. Two chiefs laid hold of him,
insisting that he should go no farther. The natives now col-
lected in prodigious numbers and began to throng around
Captain Cook and their king. Cook, finding that the alarm
had spread too generally, and that it was in vain to think of
kidnapping the king without bloodshed, at last gave up the
point. 3
Thus far, the person and life of Cook do not appear to have
been in danger. An accident now happened which gave a fatal
turn to the affair. The ships’ boats, in firing at canoes attempt-
ing to escape, had unfortunately killed a chief of the first rank.
The news of his death arrived just at the moment when Cook,
after leaving the king, was walking slowly toward the shore.
It caused an immediate and violent ferment: the women and
children were at once sent off: the warriors put on their breast-
DEATH OF CAPTAIN COOK. 507
mats and armed themselves with spears and stones. One of the
natives went up to Cook, flourishing a long iron spike by way
of defiance, and threatening him with a large stone. Cook
ordered him to desist, but, as the man persisted in his insolence,
was at length provoked to fire a load of small shot. As the
shot did not penetrate the. matting, the natives were encouraged,
by seeing the discharge to be harmless, to further aggression.
Several stones were thrown at the marines: their lieutenant,
Mr. Phillips, narrowly escaped being stabbed by knocking down
the assailant with the butt end of his musket. Cook now fired
his second barrel, loaded with ball, and killed one of the fore-
most of the natives. A general attack with stones and a
discharge of 3 musketry immediately followed. The islanders,
contrary to the expectations of the English, stood the fire with
great firmness, and, before the marines had time to reload,
broke in upon them with demoniacal shouts. Four marines
were instantly killed; three others were dangerously wounded;
Phillips received a stab between the shoulders, but, having for-
tunately reserved his fire, shot the man who had wounded him
just as he was going to repeat the blow.
The last time that Cook was seen distinctly, he was standing
at the water’s edge, calling out to the people in the boats to
cease firing. It is supposed that he was desirous of stopping
further bloodshed, and wished the example of desisting to proceed .
from his side. His humanity proved fatal to him; and he lost
his life in attempting to save the lives of others. It was
noticed that while he faced the natives none of them offered
him any violence, deterred, perhaps, by the sacred character
he bore as an Orono; but the moment he turned round to give
his orders to the men in the boats, he was stabbed in the back
and fell, face foremost, into the water. The islanders set up a
deafening yell and dragged his body on shore, where the dagger
with which he had been killed was eagerly snatched by the
508 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
savages from each others hands, each one manifesting a brutal
eagerness to have a share in his destruction.
“Thus fell.’ writes King, “our great and excellent com-
mander. After a life of so much distinguished and successful
enterprise, his death, as regards himself, cannot be reckoned
premature, since he lived to finish the work for which he seemed
designed, and was rather removed from the enjoyment than
cut off from the acquisition of glory. How sincerely his loss
was felt and lamented by those who had so long found their
general security in his skill and conduct, and every consolation
in their hardships in his tenderness and humanity, it is neither
necessary nor possible for me to describe: much less shall I
attempt to paint the horror with which we were struck, and the
universal dejection and dismay which followed so dreadful and
unexpected a calamity.”
When the consternation consequent upon the loss of their com-
mander had in some measure subsided, Clarke, the captain of
the Discovery, assumed the chief command of the expedition.
The ships were in such a bad condition, and the discipline
became so relaxed upon the withdrawal of the master-mind,
that it was decided to employ pacific measures, rather than a
display of vigorous resentment, to obtain the restitution of the
remains of Cook and of the four massacred soldiers. The
moderation of the English produced no effect, however, the
natives using the bodies of the marines in sacrificial burnt-
offerings to their divinities. As they considered that of Cook
as of a higher order, they cut it carefully in pieces, sending
bits of it to different parts of the island. Upon the evening of
the 15th, two priests brought clandestinely to the ship the
portion they had received for religious purposes,—flesh without
bone, and weighing about nine pounds. They said that this
was all that remained of the body, the rest having been cut to
pieces and burned: the head, however, and all the bones,
REVENGE FOR COOK’S DEATH. 509
except what belonged to the trunk, were in tne possession of
Tereoboo.
The natives on shore passed the night in feasts and re-
joicings, seeking evidently to animate and inflame their courage
previous to the expected collision. The next day, about noon,
finding the Hnglish persist in their inactivity, great bodies of
them, blowing their conch-shells and strutting about upon the
shore in a blustering and defiant manner, marched off over the
hills and never appeared again. Those who remained com-
pensated for the paucity of their numbers by the insolence of
their conduct. One man came within musket-shot of the
Resolution and waved Cook’s hat over his head, his country-
men upon the water’s edge exulting in his taunts and jeers.
The watering-party sent upon their daily duty were annoyed
to such an extent that they only obtained one cask of water in
an afternoon. An attack upon the village was in consequence
decided upon, and was executed by the marines in a vigorous
and effective manner. -A sanguinary revenge was taken for
the death of their commander: many of the islanders were
slain, and their huts were burned to the ground. ‘This severe
lesson was necessary, for the natives were strongly of opinion
that the English tolerated their provocations because they
were unable to suppress them, and not from motives of hu-
manity. At last, a chief named Happo, a man of the very
first consequence, came with presents from Tereoboo to sue for
yeace. The presents were received, but answer was returned
that, until the remains of Captain Cook were restored, no peace
would be granted.
On Saturday, the 20th, a long procession was seen to descend
the hill toward the beach. Hach man carried a sugarcane or
two upon his shoulders, with bread-fruit and plantains in his
hand. They were preceded by two drummers, who planted a
staff with a white flag upon it by the water’s edge and drummed
vigorously, while the rest advanced one by one and deposited
510 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
their presents upon the ground. Eappo, in a long feathered
cloak, and with a bearing of deep solemnity, mounted upon a
rock and made signs for a boat. Captain Clarke went ashore
in the pinnace, ordering Lieutenant King to attend him in
the cutter. Happo went into the pimnace and delivered to the
captain a quantity of bones wrapped up in a large quantity of
fine new cloth and covered witha spotted cloak of black and
white feathers. The bundle contained the hands of the unfor-
tunate commander entire; the skull, deprived of the scalp and
the bones that form the face; the scalp, detached, with the hair
cut short, and the ears adhering to it; the bones of both arms,
the thigh and leg bones, but without the feet. The whole bore
evident marks of having been in the fire, with the exception of
the hands, the flesh of which was left upon them,—with several
large gashes crammed with salt, apparently for the purpose of
preventing decomposition. The lower jaw and feet; which were
wanting, had been seized by different chiefs, Happo said, and
‘Tereoboo was using every means to recover them.
The next morning Happo came on board, bringing with him
the missing bones, together with the barrels of Cook’s gun, his
shoes, and several other trifles that had belonged to him. Eappo
was dismissed with orders to ‘‘taboo’’ the bay—that is, to place
it under interdict—during the performance of the funeral cere-
monies. This was done: not a canoe ventured out upon the
water during the remainder of the day, and, in the midst of
the silence and solemnity of the scene, the bones were placed
in a coffin and the service of the Church of: England read over
them. They were then committed to the deep, beneath the
booming thunders of the artillery of both vessels. ‘‘ What our
feelings were on this occasion,” says King, “‘I leave the world
to conceive: those who were present know that it is not in
my power to express them.”
No one. man ever contributed more to any science than did |
Captain Cook to that of geography. We have seen that on his
THE RESULTS OF COOK’S VOYAGES. 511
first voyage he discovered the Society Islands, determined the
insular character of New Zealand, discovered the straits which
cut that island in halves, and made a complete survey of both
portions. He explored the eastern coast of New Holland, gave
Botany Bay its name, and surveyed an extent of upward of two
thousand miles. In his second voyage he resolved the problem
of a Southern continent, having traversed that hemisphere in
such a manner as to leave no probability of its existence, unless
near the Pole, out of the reach of navigation and beyond the
habitable limits of the globe. He discovered New Caledonia,
the largest island in the South Pacific except New Zealand ;
he settled the situations of numerous old discoveries, rectifying
their longitude and remodelling all the charts. On his third
voyage he discovered, to the north of the equator, the group
called the Sandwich Islands,—a discovery which, all things
considered, and from their situation and products, may be said
to be the most important acquisition ever made in the Pa-
cific. He explored what had hitherto remained unknown of the
western coast of America,—an extent of three thousand five.
hundred miles,—and ascertained the proximity of the two great
continents of Asia and America. ‘In short,” says King, ‘if
we except the Sea of Amur, and the Japanese Archipelago,
which still remain imperfectly known to the Europeans, he has
completed the hydrography of the habitable globe.” After
Christopher Columbus, Cook acquired, and now, at a distance
of nearly a century, still enjoys, the highest degree of popularity
which ever fell to the lot of a navigator and discoverer.
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LAPEROUSE.
CHAPTER XLVI.
LOUIS XVI. AND THE SCIENCE OF NAVIGATION—VOYAGE OF LAPEROUSE—ARRIVAL
AT EASTER ISLAND——ADDRESS OF THE NATIVES—OWHYHEE—TRADE AT MOWEE
—SURVEY OF THE AMERICAN COAST—A REMARKABLE INLET—DISTRESSING
CALAMITY—SOJOURN AT MONTEREY—RUN ACROSS THE PACIFIC—-THE JAPANESE
WATERS—ARRIVAL AT PETROPAULOWSKI—AFFRAY AT NAVIGATORS’ ISLES—
LAPEROUSE ARRIVES AT BOTANY BAY, AND IS NEVER SEEN AGAIN, ALIVE OR
DEAD —VOYAGES MADE IN SEARCH OF HIM—D’ENTRECASTEAUX — DILLON —
D’ URVILLE—DISCOVERY OF NUMEROUS RELICS OF THE SHIPS AT MANICOLO—
THEORY OF THE FATE OF LAPEROUSE—ERECTION OF A MONUMENT TO HIS
MEMORY.
Louis XVI., King of France, became at this period deeply
/
interested in the study of the science of geography and naviga-
tion. Upon the perusal of the voyages, discoveries, and services
of Cook, he conceived the idea of admitting the French nation
512
Al 9 ss scye
LAPEROUSE’S VOYAGE. 518
to a share in the glory which the English were reaping from
maritime adventure and exploration. He drew up a plan of
campaign with his own hand, ordered the two frigates Boussole:
and Astrolabe to be prepared for sea, and gave the command.
of the expedition to Jean-Francois Galaup de la Pérouse,—
better known as Lapérouse. The vessels were supplied with
every accessory of which they could possibly have need. The
instructions and recommendations received from the Academy
of Sciences fill a quarto volume of four hundred pages. The
fleet sailed from Brest on the Ist of August, 1785, and arrived
at Concepcion, in Chili, late in February, 1786. }
After a short stay here, the two frigates again put to sea,
and, early in April, anchored in Cook’s Bay, in Easter Island.
Here the two commanders landed, accompanied by about seventy
persons, twelve of whom were marines armed to the teeth.
Five hundred Indians awaited them at the shore, the greater |
part of them naked, painted, and tattooed, others wearing
pendent bunches of odoriferous herbs about their loins, and.
others still being covered with pieces of white and yellow cloth.
None of them were armed, and, as the boats touched the land,
they advanced with the utmost alacrity to aid the strangers in
their disembarkation. The latter marked out a circular space,
where they set up a tent, and enjoined it strongly upon the
islanders not to intrude upon this enclosure. The number of
the natives had now increased to eight hundred, one hundred.
and fifty of whom were women. While the latter would seek,
by caresses and agreeable pantomime, to withdraw the attention:
of the Frenchmen from passing events, the men would slyly
pick their pockets. Innumerable handkerchiefs were pilfered
in this way; and the thieves, emboldened by success, at last
seized their caps from their heads and rushed off with them.
It was noticed that the chiefs were the most adroit and success-
Cal plunderers, and that though, for appearance’ sake, they
sometimes ran after an offender, promising to bring him back,
33
514. HISTORY OF THE SEA.
_ 1¢ was evident that they were running as slowly as they could,
and that their object was rather to facilitate than to prevent
their escape. Lapérouse was not saved from spoliation by his
rank: a polite savage, having assisted him over an obstruction
in the path, removed his chapeau and fled with the utmost
rapidity. On re-embarking to return to the ships, only three
persons had handkerchiefs, and only two had caps. Lapérouse
stayed but a day on this island, having nothing to gain and
every thing to lose. There was no fresh water to be found, the
natives drinking sea-water, like the albatrosses of Cape Horn.
In return for the hospitality with which they had been received,
Lapérouse caused several fertile spots to be sown with beets,
cabbages, wheat, carrots, and squashes, and even with orange,
lemon, and cotton seeds. ‘‘In short,’’ says Lapérouse, “we
loaded them with presents, overwhelmed with caresses the
young and children at the breast; we sowed their fields with
useful grains; we left kids, sheep, and hogs to multiply upon
their island; we asked nothing in exchange; and yet they
robbed us of our hats and handkerchiefs, and threw stones at
us when we left.’’ The following reflection, which concludes
Lapérouse’s account of Easter Island, could only have pro-
ceeded from a Frenchman :—‘“‘I decided to depart during the
night, flattering myself that when, upon the return of day, they
‘should find our vessels gone, they would attribute our departure
to our just resentment at their conduct, and that this conclusion
might render them better members of society.”’
Lapérouse now sailed to the northeast, intending to touch at
the Sandwich Islands,—a distance of five thousand miles. He
hoped to make some discovery during this long stretch, and
placed sailors in the tops, animated by the promise of a prize
to discover as many islands as possible. In the furtherance of
this design, the two frigates sailed ten miles apart,—by which
the visible horizon was considerably extended. Lapérouse was
destined, however, to owe his celebrity to his misfortunes and
al
LAPEROUSE AT OWHYHEE. O15
not to his discoveries: he arrived, on the 28th of May, at
Owhyhee, without once making land. ‘The aspect of the
island,’ he writes, ‘‘was charming. But the sea beat with such
violence upon the coast, that, like Tantalus, we could only long
for and devour with our eyes that which it was impossible for
us to reach.” This prospect was aggravated by the sight of
one hundred and fifty canoes laden with pigs and fruit which put
out from the shore: forty of them were capsized in attempting
to come alongside while the frigates were under full sail. The
water was full of swimming savages, struggling pigs, and tempt-
ing cocoanuts ; but the necessity of making an anchorage before
nightfall compelled them to seek another portion of the island.
On the 30th of May, Lapérouse landed upon the island of
Mowee, where he found the savages mild, polite, and com-
* mercially inclined. Exchanges of pigs and medals were made
with great success. Lapérouse abstained from taking possession
of the island in the name of the King of France,—Cook not
having visited Mowee,—inasmuch as he considered Huropean
usages in this respect extremely ridiculous. ‘‘ Philosophers
must often have wept,’ he writes, ‘‘at seeing men, simply be-
cause they have cannon and bayonets, count sixty thousand of
their fellow-creatures as nothing, and look upon a land which
its inhabitants have moistened with their sweat and fertilized
with the bones of their ancestors for centuries as an object of
legitimate conquest.”’ |
On the 23d of June, in latitude 60° north, Lapérouse struck
the American coast: he recognised at once Behring’s Mount
St. Elias, whose summit pierced the clouds. From this point
southward as far as Monterey, in Mexico, lay an extent of
coast which Cook had seen but not surveyed. The exploration
of this coast was a work essential to the interests of navigation
and of commerce; and, though the season only allowed him
three months, he undertook and executed it in a manner credit-
able to the navy of France. He discovered a harbor that had
516 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
escaped the notice of preceding navigators. This harbor or bay
seems to have been a remarkable place. The water is unfathom-
able, and is surrounded by precipices which rise perpendicularly
from the water’s edge into the regions of eternal snow. Nota
blade of grass, not a green leaf, grows in this desolate and
sterile spot. No breeze blows upon the surface of the bay: its
tranquillity is never troubled except by the fall of enormous
masses of ice from numerous overhanging peaks. The air is
so still and the silence so profound that the noise made by a
bird in laying an egg in the hollow of a rock is distinctly heard
at the distance of a mile and a half. To this wonderful bay
Lapérouse gave the name of Frenchport.
A painful accident occurred as the vessels, after a somewhat
prolonged stay, were about departing from the spot. Three
boats, manned by twenty-seven men and officers, were sent to
make soundings in the bay, in order to complete the shart of
the survey. They had strict orders to avoid a certain dan-
gerous current, but became involved in it unawares. Two
boats’ crews perished, consisting of twenty-one men, the greater
part of them under twenty-five years of age. Two brothers, by
the name of Laborde, whom their superior officers never sepa-
rated, but always sent together on missions of peril, were among
the victims of the disaster. A monument was erected to their
“memory, and a record buried in a bottle beneath it. The
inscription was thus conceived :—
‘¢ At the entrance of this bay twenty-one brave sailors perish’d:
Whoever you may be, mingle your tears with ours.”
On the 13th of September, Lapérouse arrived at Monterey,
after a cursory examination of the coast, determining its direc-
tions, but without exploring its sinuosities and inlets. The
Spanish commander of the fort and of the two Californias
had received orders from Mexico to extend all possible hospi-
tality to the adventurers. He executed his instructions to the
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LAPEROUSE’S DISASTER AT FRENCHPORT,
518 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
letter, sending immense quantities of fresh beef, eggs, milk,
vegetables, and poultry on board, and then declining to hand in
the bill. On the 24th, every thing being in readiness, the ves-
sels started upon their route across the Pacific, the intention of
Lapérouse being to make for Macao, on the Chinese coast. He
hoped on his way to make many discoveries of islands upon this
unknown sea,—the Spaniards, in their single beaten track from
Acapulco to Manilla, never varying more than thirty miles to
the north or south of their usual and average latitude. He also
hoped not to find, in the longitude marked against it, a very
doubtful island named Nostra Sefiora de la Gorta, that he might
erase it from the charts. This he was unable to do, for the
winds did not allow him to pass within a hundred miles of its
supposed position. When half-way across the Pacific, he dis-
covered a naked, barren rock, to which he gave the name of
Necker, after the French Minister of Finance. He arrived
at Macao on the 3d of January, 1787, after a voyage entirely
free from incident or adventure. He spent three months here
and at Manilla, and finally, on the 10th of April, started for
the scene of the most important portion of his mission,—the
coasts of Tartary and of Japan,—the waters which separate the
mainland of the former from the islands of the latter being
very imperfectly known to Huropeans.
Karly in June, Lapérouse entered a sea never before ploughed
by a European keel; and, as it was only known from Japanese
or Corean charts, published by the Jesuits, it was his first object
either to verify their surveys or to correct their errors. As
the Jesuits travelled and made their calculations by land, La-
pérouse added hydrographic details and observations to their data,
which he found quite generally correct. His voyage in these
latitudes set many doubts at rest. After several months spent
in these labors, the expedition arrived at Petropaulowski in
September of the same year. The officers were grievously
disappointed in not finding letters and despatches from France,
THE VALUE OF GLASS BEADS. 519
but one evening, during a Kamschatka gala ball, the arrival of a
courier from Okhotsk was announced, and the ball was inter-
rupted that the mail might be opened and delivered. The news
was favorable for all, though, after so long an absence, it was
natural that there should be evil tidings for some among so
many. Lapérouse learned that he had been promoted in rank;
and the Governor of Okhotsk caused this event to be celebrated
by a grand discharge of artillery. M. de Lesseps, the inter-
preter attached to the expedition, was detached from it at this
point by Lapérouse and sent across the continent by way of
Okhotsk, Irkoutsk, and Tobolsk to St. Petersburg, and thence to
Paris, with the ships’ letters and Lapérouse’s journal. It is
from this journal, published at Paris, that we have obtained the
details of the expedition as we have thus far chronicled them.
The track of Lapérouse was now directly south, through the
heart of the Pacific Ocean. He touched, on the 9th of De-
cember, at Maouna, one of Navigator’s Isles. The vessels were
at once surrounded by a hundred or more canoes filled with pigs
and fruit, which the natives would only exchange for glass
beads, which in their eyes were what diamonds are to Huropeans.
Delangle, the captain of the Astrolabe, went ashore with the
watering party. The islanders made no objection to their
landing their casks; but as the tide receded, leaving the boats
high and dry upon the beach, they became troublesome, and
finally forced Delangle to a trial of his muskets. Jor this they
took a sanguinary vengeance. Delangle was killed by a single
blow from a club, as was Lamanon, the naturalist. Hleven marines
were savagely murdered, cither with stones or heavy sticks,
while twenty were seriously wounded. The rest escaped by
swimming. Lapérouse did not feel himself sufficiently strong to
attempt reprisals. The natives hurled stones with such force
and accuracy that they were more than a match for as many
musketeers. Besides, he had lost thirty-two men and two
boats, and his situation generally was such that the slightest
520 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
mischance would now compel him to disarm one frigate in order
to refit the other. It was late in January, 1788, that he arrived
at Botany Bay, in New Holland,—the last place in which he
was ever seen, alive or dead.
His last letter to the Minister of Marine was dated at Botany
Bay, the Tth of February. In this he stated the route by
which he intended to return home, and the dates of his antici-
pated arrivals at various points. His plan was to visit the
Friendly Islands, New Guinea, and Van Diemen’s Land, and to
be at the Isle of France, near Madagascar, at the beginning of
December. His letter arrived in due course at Paris, where the
public mind was too much agitated by the throes of revolution
to pay much heed to matters of such remote interest. At last,
in the year 1791, the Society of Natural History called the
attention of the Constituent Assembly to the fate of Lapérouse
and his companions. The hope of recovering at least some
wreck of an expedition undertaken to promote the sciences
induced the Assembly to send two other ships to Botany Bay,
with orders to steer the same course from that place that
Lapérouse had traced out for himself. Some of his followers,
it was thought, might have escaped from the wreck, and might
be confined on a desert island or thrown upon some savage
coast. Two ships were therefore fitted out, and placed under
the command of Rear-Admiral d’Entrecasteaux.
The ships returned in two years, without having obtained the
slightest clue to the fate of Lapérouse: their commander had
died of scurvy at Java. At the Friendly Islands, the first
landing that Lapérouse was to make after leaving Botany Bay,
the inhabitants, who remembered Cook perfectly, and who knew
the difference between French and English, declared that La-
pérouse had not visited them. As they were the most civilized
and hospitable of all the Pacific islanders, it was thought 1m-
probable that he had ever sailed as far as the very first station
of his route,—an opinion which was confirmed by finding no
IN SEARCH OF LAPEROUSE. 52
trace of him at any subsequent point of his intended track. No
floating remnants of wood or iron work were anywhere dis-
covered; and the public mind gradually settled into the convic-
tion that the two unfortunate vessels were lost upon their
passage from Botany Bay to the Friendly Islands. The cause
was supposed to be neither fire, nor leakage, nor the effects of a
stress of weather,—causes which could hardly be fatal at the
same moment to two vessels. It was generally believed that,
as the Boussole and Astrolabe were accustomed to keep as near
each other as possible during the night, they both simultaneously
dashed upon a hidden quicksand. In this manner, one vessel
would not have been able to take warning in time by the dis-
aster of the other. |
In the year 1813, one Captain Dillon, in the: service of the
British Hast India Company, putting in at one of the Feejee
Islands, found there two foreign sailors, one of whom was a
Prussian, the other a Lasear. At their request he transported
them to the neighboring island of Tucopia, where he left them,
the natives expressing no hostility toward them nor objections
to their stay. In 1826,—thirteen years afterward,—Captain
Dillon again touched at Tucopia, where he found them comfort-
able and contented. The Lascar sold the armorer a silver
sword-hilt of French manufacture and bearing a cipher en-
graved upon it. It resulted from Dillon’s inquiries that the
natives had obtained many articles of iron and other metals
from a distant island named Manicolo, where, as they said, two
European ships had been wrecked forty years before. It imme-
diately occurred to Dillon that this circumstance was connected
with the loss of the vessel of Lapérouse, whose fate still remained
involved in uncertainty. Aware of the interest felt in Europe
in the fate of the unfortunate navigator, he sailed with the
Prussian to Manicolo, but, being prevented from landing by the
surf and the coral reef, bore away to New Zealand and pro-
ceeded on his voyage.
522 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
In 1827, Dumont d@’ Urville was sent out by the French Govern-
ment in the sloop-of-war Astrolabe to explore the great archi-
pelagoes of the Pacific, with incidental authority to follow up any
clue he might discover to the fate of Lapérouse. At Hobart
Town, in Van Diemen’s Land, he heard some account of the
efforts made by Dillon, and determined to conclude what he had
begun. He sailed at once for Manicolo, and, after examining
the eastern coast of the island without success, proceeded to the
western. Here he found numerous articles of Kuropean manu-
facture in possession of the savages, who steadfastly refused to
say whence they had obtained them or to point out the scene of
any catastrophe or shipwreck. At last, the offer of a piece of
red cloth induced a painted islander to conduct a boat’s crew to
the spot which is now regarded as that at which the lamented
commander and his vessels met their untimely fate. Scattered
REMNANTS OF THE WRECK.
about in the bed of the sea, at the depth of about twenty feet,
lay anchors, cannon, and sheets of lead and copper sheathing,
completely corroded and disfigured by rust. They succeeded in
recovering many of them from the water,—an anchor of four-
teen hundred pounds, a small cannon coated with coral, and_
two brass swivels, in a good state of preservation. Thus pos-
sessed of evidence which after the lapse of forty years must be
considered as conclusive, d’Urville erected near the anchorage
a cenotaph to the memory of the hapless navigator. It was
placed in a small grove, and consecrated by a salute of twenty-
one guns and three volleys of musketry.
ERECTING A MONUMENT. O26
The islanders were now profuse in their explanations of the
‘circumstances attending the calamity. As far as d’Urville
SS aaa
j I
ah
MM
iy MTU
CONSECRATION OF THE CENOTAPH,
could interpret their language and their pantomime, the ships
struck upon the reef during a gale in the night. One speedily
sank, only thirty of her crew escaping; the other remained for
a time entire, but afterwards went to pieces, her whole crew
having been saved. From her timbers they constructed a
schooner, in which labor they occupied seven moons or months,
and then sailed away and never returned. What befell them
after their second embarkation, what was the fate of their daring
little vessel,—if indeed any such was ever built,—no one has
survived to tell. Jt is safe to believe that both vessels were
lost upon the island of Vanikoro, now one of the archipelago
of the New Hebrides. It is supposed that Lapérouse was the
first European navigator that visited it, Dillon the second, and
d’Urville the third.
SS
SCENE UN=shE RRA DEE FUEGO:
CHAPTER XLVII.
THE TRANSPLANTATION OF THE BREAD-FRUIT TREE—THE VOYAGE OF tek
BOUNTY—A MUTINY—BLIGH, THE CAPTAIN, WITH EIGHTEEN MEN, CAST ADRIFT
IN THE LAUNCH—INCIDENTS OF THE VOYAGE FROM TAHITI TO TIMOR—
TERRIBLE SUFFERINGS AND A MARVELLOUS ESCAPE— ARRIVAL OF THE
MUTINEERS AT TAHITI— THEIR REMOVAL TO PITCAIRN’S ISLAND — SUBSE-
QUENT HISTORY—VOYAGE OF VANCOUVER—ALGERINE PIRACY—BURNING OF
THE PHILADELPHIA—PROUD POSITION OF THE UNITED STATES.
In the year 1787, the merchants and planters of England,
interested in his Majesty's West India possessions, petitioned
the king to cause the bread-fruit tree to be introduced into
these islands; and, in accordance with this request, the armed
transport Bounty, of two hundred and fifteen tons, was pur-
chased and docked at Deptford to be furnished with the proper
fixtures Lieutenant William Bligh, who had been round the
O24
THE MUTINY OF THE BOUNTY. 52S
e
world with Cook, was appointed to command her. Her cabin
was fitted with a false floor cut full of holes sufficient to receive
one thousand or more garden-pots. She was victualled for
fifteen months, and laden with trinkets for the South Sea
Islanders. Her destination was Tahiti by way of Cape Horn.
She sailed late in December, 1787. —
After a three months’ tempestuous passage, she made the
eastern coast of Terra del Fuego. She contended thirty days
here with violent westerly gales, seeking either to thread the
strait or double the cape. Finding either course impossible,
Bligh ordered the helm to be put a-weather, having resolved
to cross the South Atlantic and approach Tahiti from the
westward,—a determination which was successfully executed.
Bligh gave directions to all on board not to inform the natives
of the object of their visit, lest, by the natural law of supply
and demand, the price-current of bread-fruit trees should sud- |
denly rise. He contrived to make the chiefs believe that he was
doing them a favor in conveying specimens of their plants to the
great King of England. A tent was erected on shore to receive
the trees, some thirty of which were potted every day. On the
4th of April, 1789, the vessel set sail, with one thousand and
fifteen roots in pots, tubs, and boxes.
It was now that an event took place which rendered the cruise
of the Bounty one of the most extraordinary in the annals of the
sea. A mutiny, which had been planned in secrecy, broke out
on the 27th. The whole crew were engaged in it, with the ex-
ception of eighteen men. Bligh, with these eighteen,—most of
them officers,—was hurried into the launch, which was cut loose,
with one hundred and fifty pounds of bread, twenty-eight gallons
of water, a little rum and wine, with a quadrant and compass.
A few pieces of pork, some cocoanuts, and four cutlasses, were
thrown at them as they were cast adrift. Some of the mutineers
laughed at the helpless condition of the launch; while others
expressed their ecafideace in Bligh’s resources by exclaiming,
526 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
with oaths, ‘“‘Pshaw! he’ll find his way home if you give him
pencil and paper!” ‘Blast him! he’ll have a vessel built in
a month !” .
Bligh was convinced that, defenceless and unarmed as they
were, they had nothing to hope from the mhabited islands of
the surrounding waters. He told the crew that no chance of
relief remained except at Timor, where there was a Dutch
colony, at a distance of three thousand five hundred miles.
They all agreed, and bound themselves by a solemn promise, to
live upon one ounce of bread and a gill of water a day. They
then bore away across this unknown and barbarous sea, in a
boat twenty-three feet long from stem to stern, deep-laden with
nineteen men, and barely supplied with food for two. ‘There is
nothing in maritime annals more worthy of a place in a work
treating of ‘‘ Man upon the Sea” than is this marvellous voyage
from Tahiti to Timor. |
The first thing done was to return thanks to God for their
preservation and to invoke His protection during the perils they
were to encounter. The sun now rose fiery and red, foreboding
a severe gale, which, before long, blew with extreme severity.
The sea curled over the stern, obliging them to bale without
cessation. The bread was in bags, and in danger of being
soaked and spoiled. Unless this could be prevented, starvation
was inevitable. Every thing was thrown overboard that could
be spared,—even to suits of clothes: the bread was then secured
in the carpenter’s chest. A teaspoonful of rum and a fragment
of bread-fruit—collected from the floor of the boat, where it had
been crushed in the confusion of departure—was now served to
each man. ee
They constantly passed in sight of islands, upon which they
did not dare to land. They kept on, alternately performing
prayers, dining on damaged bread, and sipping infinitesimal
quantities of rum or other cordial. On grand occasions, Bligh
served out as the day’s allowance a quarter of a pint of cocoa-
MEASURING RATIONS. 527
nut-milk and two ounces of the meat. One half of the men
watched while the other half slept with nothing to cover them
but the heavens. They could not stretch out their limbs, for
there was not room: they became dreadfully cramped, and at
last the dangers and pains of sleep were such that it became an
additional misery in their catalogue of sorrows. A heavy thun-
der-shower enabled them to quench their thirst for the first time
and to increase their stock of water to thirty-four gallons; but,
in compensation, it wet them through and caused them to pass
a cold and shivering night. The next day the sun came out,
and they stripped and dried their clothes. Bligh thought the
men needed additional creature comfort under these dismal cir-
cumstances, and issued to each an ounce and a half of pork,
an ounce of bread, a teaspoonful of rum, and half a pint of
cocoanut-milk. They kept a fishing-line towing from the stern ;
but in no one instance did they catch a fish.
Bligh now became convinced that in serving ounces of bread
by guess-work he was dealing out overmeasure, and that if he
continued to do so his stores would not last the eight weeks he
had intended they should. So he made a pair of scales of two
cocoanut-shells, and, having accidentally found a pistol-ball,
twenty-five of which were known to weigh a pound, or sixteen
ounces, he adopted it as the measure of one ration of bread.
The men were thus reduced from one ounce to two hundred and
seventy-two grains. Another thunder-shower now came on, and
they caught twenty gallons of water. The usual consolation
of a thimbleful of rum was served when the storm was over,
together with one mouthful of pork. The men soon began to
complain of pains in the bowels; and nearly all had lost in a
measure the use of their limbs. Their clothes would not dry
when taken off and hung upon the rigging, so impregnated was
the atmosphere with moisture. On the fifteenth day they dis-
covered a number of islands, which, though forming part of
the group of the New Hebrides, had been seen neither by Cook
528 HISTORY OF THE SEA,
nor Bougainville, and thus, in the midst of their agonies, the
barren satisfaction of contributing to geographical science was,
as it were in derision, awarded to them. The men now clamored -
for extra allowances of pork and rum,—which Bligh sternly re-
fused, administering his bullet-weight of bread with the severest
ceremony.
‘“‘At dawn of the twenty-second day,” says Bligh, “some
of my people seemed half dead: our appearances were horrible,
and I could look no way but I caught the eye of some one in
distress. Extreme hunger was now too evident; but no one
suffered from thirst, nor had we much inclination to drink,—that
desire, perhaps, being satisfied through the skin. Every one
dreaded the approach of night. Sleep, though we longed for it,
afforded no comfort: for my own part, I almost lived without it.”’
Bligh now examined the remaining bread, and found sufficient
to last for twenty-nine days; but, as he might be compelled to
avoid Timor and go to Java, it became ‘necessary to make the
stock hold out for forty days. He therefore announced that
supper would hereafter be served without bread!
A great event happened on the twenty-seventh day. A
noddy—a bird as large as a small pigeon—was caught as it flew
past the boat. Bligh divided it, with the entrails, into nineteen
portions, and distributed it by lots. It was eaten, bones and
all, with salt water for sauce. The next day a booby—which is as
large as a duck—was caught, and was divided and devoured like
the noddy, even to the entrails, beak, and feet. The blood was
given to three of the men who were the most distressed for want of
food. On the thirtieth day they landed upon the northern shore
of New Holland, and gave thanks to God for his gracious pro-
tection through a series of disasters and calamities then almost.
unparalleled. |
They found oysters upon the rocks, which they opened with-
out detaching them. A fire was made by the help of a magni-
fying-glass; and then, with the aid of a copper pot found in the.
A FORTUNATE ESCAPE. 529
boat, a delicious stew of oysters, pork, bread, and cocoanut was
cooked, of which every man received a full pint. Spring water
was obtained by digging where a growth of wire grass indicated
a moist situation. The soft tops of palm-trees and fern-roots
furnished them a very palatable addition to their mess. After
Jaying in sixty gallons of water and as many oysters as they
could collect, they re-embarked, after having slept two nights
on land and having been greatly benefited thereby. Keeping to
the northwestward, and coasting along the shore, they landed
from time to time in search of food. On the 2d of June, the
watch of the gunner, which had been the only one in the com-
pany successfully to resist the influences of the weather, finally
stopped, so that sunrise, noon, and sunset were now the only
definite points in the twenty-four hours. On the next day,
having followed the northeastern shore of New Holland as
far as it lay in their route, they once more launched into the
open sea.
On Thursday, the 11th, they passed, as Bligh supposed, the
meridian of the eastern point of Timor,—a fact which diffused
universal joy and satisfaction. On Friday, at three in the
morning, the island was faintly visible in the west, and by day-
light it lay but five miles to the leeward. They had ran three
thousand six hundred and eighteen miles in an open boat in
forty-one days, with provisions barely sufficient for five. Though
life had never been sustained upon so little nourishment for so
long a time, and under equal circumstances of exposure and
suffering, not a man perished during the voyage. Their wants
were most kindly supplied by the Dutch at Coupang, and every _
necessary and comfort administered with a most liberal hand.
On his return to England, Bligh published a narrative of his
voyage and of the mutiny, which was soon translated into all
the languages of Europe. He ascribed the revolt to the desire
of the crew to lead an idle and luxurious life at Tahiti, though sub-
sequent developments, and his own outrageous and brutal conduct
34
530 HISTORY OF THE SEA,
when Governor of New South Wales, proved quite conclusively
that his cruelties and tyranny had rendered him odious and
intolerable. The British Government could not allow such a
transaction upon the high seas to pass unpunished, and de-
spatched the frigate Pandora, Captain Edwards, to Tahiti in
the month of August. Only ten of the mutineers were found,
the rest having withdrawn to another island through fear of
discovery, as we shall now relate, merely stating that the ten
persons taken were conveyed to England, where they were tried
and executed. |
John Adams, one of the mutineers, being apprehensive that
the English Government would make an attempt to punish the.
revolt, resolved to escape to some neighboring and uninhabited
island, and there establish a colony. With eight Englishmen,
one of whom was Christian, the ringleader in the mutiny, their
Tahitian wives, and a few islanders of both sexes, he sailed in
the Bounty to Pitcairn’s Island, which had been lately seen by
Carteret. They arrived there in 1790, and, having unladen the
vessel, burned her. A settlement was formed, which prospered in
spite of the continual quarrels between the males of the two races.
This hostility resulted, in three years, in the extinction of the
COLONISTS OF PITCAIRN’S ISLAND.
savages, leaving upon the island Adams, three Englishmen, ten
women of Tahiti, and the children, some twenty in number.
One of the Englishmen, having succeeded in distilling brandy
THE FATE OF THE COLONY. 531
from a root which grew in abundance, drank to excess and
threw himself headlong from a rock into the sea. Another was
slain for entertaining designs upon the wife of the only remain-
ing Englishman except Adams. Thus, in 1799, Adams and
Young were the only males of the original colony surviving.
They began to reflect upon their duties toward their children
and those of their companions: they commenced holding re-
ligious services morning and evening, and instructed the rising
generation in such rudimental branches of education as their
own learning would permit. Young died in 1801, and Adams
became the administrator and patriarch of the colony. He was
assisted by the Tahitian women, who showed a remarkable ca-
pacity for civilization and aptitude for refinement. An English
frigate, the Briton, touched at Pitcairn in 1814, and her captain
offered to take Adams back to England, promising him to pro-
cure his pardon from the king. But the forty-seven persons,
women and children, forming the settlement, besought their
patriarch not to leave them. In 1825, Captain Beechey
visited the island, and found the population increased to sixty-
six. Adams was sixty years old, but still vigorous and active.
He begged Beechey to marry him, according to the rites of the
English Church, to the woman with whom he had lived, and
who was now infirm and blind. Beechey gladly acceded to
the request. Soon after, an English missionary, named Buffet,
went out to Pitcairn to assist Adams in the discharge of his
duties and to succeed him upon his death. The latter event
occurred in 1829. Vessels occasionally stopped at: Pitcairn,
and the English Government was thus kept informed of the
progress of its interesting colony.
In 1856, the descendants of the original settlers, having in-
creased so much as to outgrow the resources of their sea-girt
home, abandoned Pitcairn’s Island, and transferred themselves,
with their goods and chattels, to Norfolk Island, directly west
and toward New South Wales. They numbered one hundred
532 HISTORY OF THX SEA>
and ninety-nine in all, the oldest man being sixty-two, and th.
oldest woman eighty. Charles Christian is the grandson ot
Christian the ringleader. Their new home contains about four.
teen thousand acres, and is well watered, fertile, and healthy,
the soil producing abundantly both European and tropical fruits,
vegetables, grains, and spices. The history of the present
colony, the offspring in the third generation of European
fathers and Tahitian mothers, is as remarkable as any tale in
romance or any legend in mythology.
In the year 1790,—to return to chronological order,—the
British Government determined to make one more attempt to
discover a channel of communication -between the Atlantic and
Pacific to the north of the American continent, and selected to
command the expedition Lieutenant George Vancouver, who
had accompanied Cook on his second and third voyages. He
was raised to the rank of captain and placed at the head of
an expedition consisting of the sloop-of-war Discovery and the
armed tender Chatham. He left Falmouth on the Ist of April,
1791; and, as the Admiralty had designated no route by which
to proceed to the Pacific, he decided to go by way of the Cape
of Good Hope. He arrived here without adventure in July,
and, late in September, struck the southern coast of New Hol-
land at a cape to which he gave the name of Chatham, from the
President of the Board of Admiralty.
The two vessels coasted to the eastward, surveying the in-
dentations and giving names to all points of interest. A harbor
being discovered, it received the name of King George the
Third’s Sound, and Vancouver took possession of the land in
the name of his Gracious Majesty. A wretched hovel, three
feet high, in the form of a bee-hive cut through the centre from
the apex to the base, and constructed of slender twigs, here
revealed the presence of inhabitants; while the singular appear-
ance of the trees and the vegetation, which had evidently under-
gone the action of fire,—the shrubs being completely charred
A DESERTED VILLAGE. 533
and the grass having been shrivelled by the heat,—showed that,
miserable as they certainly were, they were acquainted with the
uses and abuses of fire. At last they discovered a deserted vil-
lage, consisting of some two dozen huts or hives, which had
A DESERTED VILLAGE.
apparently been the residence of a considerable tribe. They
gratified their curiosity by contemplating and investigating
these humiliating efforts of human ingenuity.
Continuing to the eastward, Vancouver touched at New
Zealand, and arrived at a spot where he had been with Cook
eighteen years before. An inlet which Cook had been unable
to explore, and which he had named in consequence ‘‘ Nopopy
KNOWS WILAT,” was explored by Vancouver and called by him
““SOMEBODY KNOWS WHAT.’’ Running to the north, he dis-
covered an island whose inhabitants spoke the language of the
great South Sea nation and who seemed perfectly acquainted
with the uses of iron, though they had little or none of that
metal. A Sandwich Islander, whom Vancouver had brought
from London as an interpreter, and who was named Towerezoo,
was of very little assistance; for he had been so long absent
that he now spoke English much better than his mother-tongue,
and spoke the latter no better than Vancouver. The island
appeared to go by the name of Oparo, by which Vancouver
thought fit to distinguish it till it should be found more pro-
perly entitled to another. The two vessels arrived in December
at Tahiti, and anchored in Matavai Bay. The chronometers
934 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
were landed, in order to correct them by the known longitude
of the island; the sails were unbent, the topmasts struck, for a
thorough examination of the rigging. The Discovery went by
accident upon a rock, and was for a while in great danger. On
THE SHIP DISCOVERY ON A ROCK.
Sunday, the Ist of January, 1792, every one had as much fresh
pork and plum-pudding as he could eat, and a double allowance
of grog was served in which to drink the time-honored toast.
The formula, however, was slightly altered to suit the state of
the case: the gunner of the Discovery being the only married
man of the party, the toast given was SWEETHEARTS AND
Wire!
On the 24th of January, the two ships turned their head to
the northward, now for the first time commencing the voyage
in view of which the expedition had been equipped. They ran
the two thousand five hundred miles that lay between them and
the Sandwich Islands in the space of five weeks, and anchored
off Owhyhee on the Ist of March. They touched the American
coast, or that part of it known as New Albion, in 39° north
latitude, which Vancouver now explored and surveyed. In
August he entered Nootka, where, in accordance with his in-
structions, he was to receive from the Spanish authorities the
formal cession of the colony they had established. He found
his Catholic Majesty's brig Active already there, commanded
by Seiior Don Juan Francisco de la Rodega y Quadra. The
two commanders agreed to honor each other by a mutual salute
VANCOUVER’S: LABORS. 935
of thirteen guns, which was done; while other courtesies were
cordially exchanged. The ceremony then took place. Van-
couver now returned to Owhyhee, and the king, smitten by a
sudden and vehement attachment for the English, proposed to
make over the island to the dominion of the King of England.
All the insular dignitaries assembled on the decks of the Dis-
covery, and the surrender was made in the midst of speeches
and cannonades. Vancouver did not seem to have been deeply
impressed with the importance of this event. The solemnity
of the transaction was not increased by the circumstance that it
took ‘place upon the spot where Cook had so recently been
massacred. |
Returning to the north, Vancouver continued his surveys and
explorations of the American coast as far as the fifty-sixth
degree of latitude. He terminated his operations on the 22d
of August, at Port Conclusion, where an additional allowance
of grog was served, that the day might be celebrated with
proper festivity. He returned to Hurope with the certitude
that no passage existed from the North Pacific across the
American continent into the Atlantic. His surveys remain as
a monument of his activity, skill,‘and perseverance. The pre-
sent charts of the coast of North America upon the Pacific are
based upon them. More than nine thousand miles of shore,
with its headlands, capes, rivers, bays, promontories, and laby-
rinths of islands, had been carefully explored by surveying
parties in boats, in superintending which Vancouver injured his
health and brought on the decline which terminated in his
death, in the year 1798, at the early age of forty-eight.
We have now to record the remarkable series of acts by
which the United States of America, in the twenty-fifth year
of their existence as a nation, put an end to a humiliation to
which the commercial powers of Europe had submitted for cen-
turics. From the time when the Spanish Moors, driven out of
Granada by Ferdinand the Catholic, settled on the opposite
036 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
coast and commenced the practice of pirucy, the Barbary
States, Tunis, Tripoli, and Algiers, had been united against
all Christian commerce in the Mediterranean. Emboldened by
impunity, they extended their operations into the Atlantic,
seizing the vessels of all nations who did not pay them tribute.
England under Cromwell, and France under Louis XIV., how-
ever, caused their flags to be respected. The Dutch, Danes,
and Swedes, by paying an annual tax, purchased exemption
from seizure,—thus giving the sanction of a treaty to the
outrage and consenting to wear an odious badge of servitude.
Russia and Austria were protected by special agreements. —
During the early years of the American Republig, Tripoli
intimated to the Government the propriety of paying tribute.
Jefferson replied, in 1800, by declaring war against Tripoli,
and sent out an armed naval force under Commodore Dale.
This officer, with two frigates and a sloop-of-war, blockaded
Tripoli, preventing the cruisers from getting to sea, and thus
protecting our commerce. Commodore Preble followed with
seven vessels in 1803. . In October, one of his ships,—the
Philadelphia, Captain Bainbridge,—engaged in reconnoitring
the harbor of Tripoli, grounded and was forced to surrender.
The officers were treated as prisoners of war, the sailors as
slaves. The vessel was floated and moored in the harbor,
strongly manned by Tripolitans, whose naval force was thus
unexpectedly augmented.
The American squadron rendezvoused at Syracuse, in Sicily,
—somewhat over a day’s sail from Tripoli. A young lieutenant
under Preble, named Decatur, formed a plan for destroying the
Philadelphia and thus reducing the Tripolitans again to their
ordinary naval strength. Preble consented to the scheme, and
Decatur armed a ketch which he had captured, and with it
entered, in February, 1804, under cover of the night, the har-
bor of Tripoli. He had with him an old pilot who spoke .the
Tripolitan language. On approaching the Philadelphia, they
THE PHILADELPHIA FIRED. 537
were challenged; but the pilot replied that he had lost his
anchor and merely wished to fasten his vessel to the frigate till
morning. A boat was sent ashore by the Tripolitans to ask
permission, and then Decatur and his men leaped upon the
deck. They rushed upon the affrighted corsairs, fifty in num-
ber, and drove them into the sea. They set fire to the Phila-
delphia, and, by the light of the blaze, escaped without the loss
of a single man. One sailor was. wounded by receiving upon
his arm a blow from a sabre with which the turbaned pirate
meant to decapitate Decatur.
The Tripolitans were enraged at the loss of their prize, and
treated Bainbridge and his enslaved crew with greater severity
than ever. Three times did Preble enter the harbor of Tripoli
with his fleet and open his broadsides against the town, destroy-
ing some of the shipping, but making ho material impression.
At last, a series of brilliant actions upon land under General
Eaton, whose army consisted of nine Americans, twenty Greeks,
and five hundred Egyptians, and the arrival of the frigate Con-
stitution in June, 1805, forced the Bashaw of Tripoli to come to
terms; and he released his prisoners and abandoned forever the
levying of tribute upon American ships. Peace was at once
concluded.
In 1812, the United States being at war with England, the
Dey of Algiers thought our Government would be unable to
cope with two enemies upon the ocean, and determined to re-
sume piracy on our vessels. He pretexted the unsatisfactory
quality of a cargo of military stores furnished by our Govern-
ment, and ordered the American agent to leave the capital.
Depredations were immediately recommenced: our vessels were
plundered and confiscated and their crews enslaved. The Pre-
sident suggested the importance of taking measures of preven-
tion, in his message to Congress in December, 1814, and, after
the-signing of the treaty of peace with England, despatched two
squadrons to the Mediterranean, under Decatur and Bainbridge,
‘YVIHATHAVIIHd FHL JO DNINUOE
)
wil
SSS
SSE >
SSS EA
ALGERIAN SLAVERY ENDED. 539
both now commodores. The former captured, in June, an
Algerine frigate of forty-four guns and a brig of twenty-two.
He then sailed for Algiers. The American navy had earned
an enviable distinction in the war with England, and the sight
of our gallant fleet inspired the dey with a salutary terror. He
consented to the terms imposed by Decatur, which were to give
up all captured men and property, to pay six million dollars
for previous exactions, and to exempt our commerce from tribute
for all time to come. A treaty was signed on the 4th of July,
—an auspicious date for so honorable an achievement.
The proud position thus attained by the United States
attracted the attention of Europe. Our Government had ex-
torted expressions of submission from the corsairs such as no
other power had ever obtained. The Congress of Vienna dis-
cussed the subject, and it was resolved that from that time for:
ward Christian slavery in Algiers was suppressed. The English
sent Lord Exmouth to bombard that city, and compelled the
dey to submit to conditions like those imposed by Decatur.
The Algerines were not yet broken, however. They placed
their city in a formidable state of defence, and then proceeded
to intercept the trade of the French. The French Government
declared war,—a measure which resulted in the capture of
Algiers in 1830 and in the seizure of Abd-el-Kader in the
winter of 1847-48. These events have led to the colonization
of the territory by the French and to the partial extinction
of the Algerine people. Piracy in the Mediterranean may
safely be said to be at an end forever.
m *
ae
CHAPTER XLVIII.
APPLICATION OF STEAM TO NAVIGATION—ROBERT FULTON—CHANCELLOR LIVING:
STON—LAUNCH OF THE CLERMONT—SHE CROSSES THE HUDSON RIVER—HER
VOYAGE TO ALBANY—DESCRIPTION OF THE SCENE—FULTON’S OWN ACCOUNT—
LEGISLATIVE PROTECTION GRANTED TO FULTON—THE PENDULUM-ENGINE—
CONSTRUCTION OF OTHER STEAMBOATS—THE STEAM-FRIGATE FULTON THE
FIRST—THE FIRST OCEAN-STEAMER, THE SAVANNAH—ACCOUNT OF HER VOYAGE
—MISAPPREHENSIONS UPON THE SUBJECT.
In the year 1807, a new agent was introduced into the science
of navigation,—one which was destined to effect as great a
change in the duration of a voyage at sea as the compass had
effected in its practicability. Steam was applied to a boat upon
the Hudson, and the Clermont, propelled by wheels, steamed
from Jersey City to Albany. Though this was an event that
immediately concerned river-navigation, and though twelve
years were to elapse before the accomplishment of the first
ocean steam-yoyage, we cannot with propriety omit an account
of the conception, construction, and success of the first river-
steamboat.
THE CLERMONT: THE FIRST STEAMBOAT.
Robert Fulton was born in Lancaster county, Pennsylvania,
in the year 1765. He manifested a genius for mechanics at an
early age, though portrait-painting was his first profession. He
540
—
THE FIRST STEAMBOAT. 541
spent many years in England and France, and conceived the
idea of a vessel propelled by steam in 1793. He received no
countenance from Napoleon, and returned to the United States
in December, 1806. His mind was now occupied with two
projects,—the invention of submarine explosives and the con-
struction of a steamboat. He published a work entitled ‘ Tor-
pedo War,” with the motto, ‘“‘ The liberty of the seas will be the
happiness of the earth.”’ He renewed his acquaintance with
Chancellor Livingston, whom he had known when ambassador
to Paris. This gentleman had long had entire faith in the
practicability of steam-navigation, and as early as 1798 had
obtained from the Legislature of New York a monopoly of all
such navigation upon the waters of the State, provided he
would within twelve months build a boat which should go four
miles an hour by steam. When they met in America, in 1806,
the two entered into a partnership and commenced the con-
struction of a boat. Finding the expenses unexpectedly heavy,
they offered to sell one-third of their patent; but no one would
invest in an enterprise universally deemed hopeless. The boat
was nevertheless launched, in the spring of 1807, from the ship-
yard of Charles Brown, on the Hast River. She was supplied
with an engine built in England, and was driven by steam, in
August, from the New York side to the Jersey shore. The
incredulous crowd who had assembled to laugh stayed to wonder
and applaud.
The Clermont soon after sailed for Albany, her departure
having been announced in the newspapers as a grand and un-
equalled curiosity. ‘She excited,’’ says Colden, in his Life of
Fulton, “‘the astonishment of the inhabitants of the shores of
the Hudson, many of whom had not heard even of an engine,
much less of a steamboat. There were many descriptions of
the effects of her first appearance upon the people of the bank
of the river: some of these were ridiculous, but some of them
were of such a character as nothing but an object of real
542 HISTORY OF THE SEA,
grandeur could have excited. She was described, by some who
had indistinctly seen her passing in the night, as a monster
moving on the waters, defying the winds and tide, and breathing
flames and smoke. She had the most terrific appearance from
other vessels which were navigating the river when she was
making her passage. The first steamboat—as others yet do—
used dry pine wood for fuel, which sends forth a column of
ignited vapor many feet above the flue, and whenever the fire
is stirred a galaxy of sparks fly off, and in the night have a
very brilliant and beautiful appearance. This uncommon light
first attracted the attention of the crews of other vessels. Not-
withstanding the wind and tide, which were adverse to its ap-
proach, they saw with astonishment that it was rapidly coming
toward them; and when it came so-near that the noise of the
machinery and paddles was heard, the crews—if wliat was said
in the newspapers of the time be true—in some instances shrunk
beneath their decks from the terrific sight and left their vessels
to go on shore, whilst others prostrated themselves and besought
Providence to protect them from the approaches of the horrible
monster which was marching on the tide and lighting its path
by the fires which it vomited.”
Fulton himself wrote the following account of the trip up the
river and back, and published it in the American Citizen :—“I
left New York on Monday at one o’clock, and arrived at Cler-
mont, the seat of Chancellor Livingston, at one o’clock on Tues-_
day: time, twenty-four hours; distance, one hundred and ten
miles. On Wednesday, I departed from the chancellor's at
nine in the morning, and arrived at Albany at five in the
afternoon: time, eight hours; distance, forty miles. The sum
is one hundred and fifty miles in thirty-two hours,—equal to
near five miles an hour.
“On Thursday, at nine o’clock in the morning, I left Albany,
and arrived at the chancellor’s at six in the evening: I started
from thence at seven, and arrived at New York at four in the
MONOPOLY OF STEAMBOATING. 543
afternoon; time, thirty hours; space run through, one hundred
and fif y m.les,—equal to five miles an hour. Throughout my
whole way, both guing and returning, the wind was ahead: no
advantage could be derived from my sail: the whole has there-
fore been performed by the power of the steam-engine.’’
In a letter to one of his friends, Fulton wrote:—‘“ I overtook
many sloops and schooners beating to windward, and parted
with them as if they had been at anchor. The power of pro-
pelling boats by steam is now fully proved. The morning I left
New York there were not perhaps thirty persons who believed that
the boat would even move one mile an hour, or be of the least
utility ; and while we were putting off from the wharf, which
was crowded with spectators, I heard a number of sarcastic
remarks. This is the way in which ignorant men compliment
what they call philosophers. and projectors. . . . Although the
prospect of personal emolument has been some inducement to
me, yet I feel infinitely more pleasure in reflecting on the im-
mense advantage that my country will derive from the inven-:
tion.” |
The Clermont was now advertised as a regular passenger-
boat upon the Hudson. She met with numerous accidents
during the season; and her obvious defects would have been
remedied by the application of as obvious improvements by Fulton
himself, had not other persons anticipated him by taking out
patents for improvements which they themselves proposed. They
thus caused him infinite annoyance, and even contested his right
as an inventor. Shipmasters, too, who looked upon his boat as
-an intruder upon their domain, ran their vessels purposely foul
of her on more than one occasion. The Legislature saw fit to
counteract the effects of this hostility by passing an act pro-
longing Livingston and Fulton’s privilege five years for every
additional boat established,—the whole time, however, not to
exceed thirty years. It also made all combinations to destroy
the Clermont offences punishable by fine and imprisonment.
544 HISTORY OF THE SEA,
Thus protected, the Clermont ran throughout the season,
always well laden with passengers. In the winter she was
enlarged and improved. The wheel-guards were strengthened,
and became a prominent and essential feature of the boat.
The rudder was replaced by one of much larger dimensions,
and a steering-wheel towards the bow was substituted for the
ordinary tiller. The accommodations for passengers were made
much more comfortable,—luxurious even,—and the public taste
was consulted in the application of numerovs coats of rather
gaudy paint. She then commenced her trips for the season
of 1808. She started regularly at the appointed hour,—at first
much to the discontent of travellers who had before been waited
for by both sloops and stages. At the end of the season the
Clermont was altogether too small for the crowds who thronged
to take passage. ‘Two boats, the Car of Neptune and the
Paragon, were therefore soon added to the line.
Fulton, menaced by constant contestation of his rights, took
out a patent in 1809 from the General Government, and another,
for improvements, in 1811. His system was so simple—the
adaptation of paddle-wheels to the axle of the crank of Watt’s
engine—that it seemed then, as it has proved since, almost im-
possible by any specifications effectually to protect it. The famous
Pendulum Company caused Fulton for a time much trouble.
They built a boat the wheels of which were to be moved by a
pendulum. While she was upon the stocks and the wheels
were resisted only by the air, the labor of a few men made
them turn regularly and rapidly; but when she was launched,
and the pendulum encountered the resistance of the water,
neither pendulum, wheels, nor boat would stir. The Pendulum
Company were aghast at this phenomenon, and clearly saw that
if the boat was to be moved by the wheels, and the wheels by
the pendulum, something must be devised of sufficient power to
move the pendulum. There was nothing, evidently, but the
steam-engine; and so they copied Fulton’s. Lawsuits followed;
STEAM FERRY-BOATS. 545
and in his argument in behalf of Fulton Mr. Emmet thus
spoke of the Pendulum gentlemen :—‘‘ They are men who never
waste health and life in midnight vigils and painful study ; whe
never dream of science in the broken slumbers of an exhausted
mind; who bestow upon the construction of a steamboat just as
much mathematical calculation and philosophical research as on
the purchase of a sack of wheat or a barrel of ashes.” Fulton
gained his cause, and the boat which was to go by clock-work
was prohibited from going even by steam.
In 1812, Fulton built the Fire-Fly; and, as the town of New-
burgh, half-way to Albany, offered sufficient traffic to support
at least one boat, she was placed upon that route. In the same
year he constructed two ferry-boats for crossing the Hudson,
making them with rudder and bow at either end. He also
contrived floating docks for their reception, and a method
of stopping them without concussion. In 18138, he built a
steam-vessel of four hundred tons and unusual strength, to
ply in Long Island Sound between New York and New
Haven. She was the first steamboat constructed with a round
bottom. We quote a passage referring to her from a work
published in 1817 :—“‘ During a great part of her route she
would be as much exposed as she could be on the ocean: it
was therefore necessary to make her-a perfect sea-boat. She ~
passes daily, and at all times of the tide, the dangerous strait
of Hell-Gate, where for the distance of nearly a mile she often
encounters a current running at the rate of at least six miles an
hour. For some distance she has within a few yards of her, on
each side, rocks and whirlpools which rival Scylla and Charybdis
even as they are poetically described. This passage, previously
to its being navigated by this vessel, was always supposed to be
impassable except at certain stages of the tide; and many a
shipwreck has been occasioned by a small mistake in the time.
The boat passing through these whirlpools with rapidity, while
the angry waters are foaming against her bows and appear to
35
546 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
raise themselves in obstinate resistance to her passage, is a
proud triumph of human ingenuity. The owners, as the highest
tribute they had in their power to offer to his genius, and as an
evidence of the gratitude they owed him, called her the Fulton.”
Early in 1814, the United States and England being at war,
Fulton conceived the idea of a steam vessel-of-war, capable of
carrying a strong battery, with furnaces for redhot shot, and
sailing four miles an honr. Congress authorized the construc-
tion of such a floating battery, and the keel was laid on the
18th of June. The vessel was launched on the 27th of October
the same year, in the midst of excited and applauding throngs.
Before she sailed, however, her engineer and builder had been
removed to another sphere: Fulton died on the 24th of Febru-
ary, 1815. The Legislature paid an unusual tribute to his
memory: they resolved to wear mourning for three weeks.
This manifestation of regret for the loss of a man who had
never held office nor served his country in any public capacity
was entirely unprecedented. |
On the 4th of July, the steam-frigate made a trial trip, and,
with her engines alone, sailed fifty-three miles in eight hours
and twenty minutes. The following description of the Fulton
the First, as she was called, is given by the committee appointed
’ to examine her in behalf of Congress :—‘“‘She is a structure
resting on two boats and keels separated from end to end by a
channel fifteen feet wide and sixty-six feet long. One boat con-
tains the caldrons of copper to prepare her steam; the cylinder
of iron, its piston, lever, and wheels, occupy part of the other.
The water-wheel revolves in the space between them. The>
main or gun deck supports the armament, and is protected by a
parapet, four feet ten inches thick, of solid timber, pierced by
embrasures. Through thirty port-holes as many thirty-two
pounders are intended to fire redhot shot, which can be heated
with great safety and convenience. Her upper or spar deck,
upon which several thousand men might parade, is encompassed
a?
_.<— wr
A STEAM PROPELLER. 547
by a bulwark, which affords safe quarters: she is rigged with
two stout masts, each of which supports a large lateen yard
and sails: she has two bowsprits and jibs, and four rudders, one
at each extremity of each boat, so that she can be steered with
either end foremost: her machinery is calculated for the addi-
tion of an engine which will discharge an immense column of
water, which it is intended to throw upon the decks and through
the port-holes of an enemy and thereby deluge her armament
and ammunition. If in addition to all this we suppose her to
be furnished, according to Mr. Fulton’s intention, with hundred-
pound Columbiads, two suspended from each bow so as to dis-
charge a ball of that size into an enemy’s ship ten or twelve feet
below her water-line, it must be allowed that she has the ap-
pearance, at least, of being the most formidable engine for war-
fare that human ingenuity has contrived.”’
Such was the first step towards the establishment of a steam-
navy. Forty years afterwards, George Steers built the pro-
peller-frigate Niagara; and the reader, by comparing the two
vessels, will have an adequate idea of the immense strides
made in naval mechanics and engineering during the lapse of
less than half a century. In Europe the size and qualities of
the Fulton the First were at the time ludicrously exaggerated,
as will be seen from the following passage from a Scotch treatise
on steamships. After magnifying her proportions threefold,
the author continues :—‘“‘The thickness of her sides is thirteen
feet of alternate oak plank and cork wood: she carries forty-
four guns, four of which are hundred-pounders; quarter-
deck and forecastle guns, forty-four-pounders; and, further to
annoy an enemy attempting to board, can discharge one hun-
dred gallons of boiling water in a minute, and, by mechanism,
brandishes three hundred cutlasses with the utmost regularity
over her gunwales, works also an equal number of heavy iron
spikes of great length, darting them from her sides with pro-
digious force and withdrawing them every quarter of a minute!”
548 HISTORY OF THE SEA,
I'he frigate made a second experimental trip, on the 11th of
September, with her armament and stores on board, her draught
of water being eleven feet. She changed her course by re-
versing the motion of ker wheels. She fired salutes as she
passed the forts, and performed manceuvres around the United
States frigate Java. The machinery was not affected in the
slightest degree by the detonation of her guns. Her average
speed was five and a half miles an hour,—Fulton having con-
tracted to obtain three miles an hour only. The city of New
York now felt itself invulnerable; but the cessation of hostilities,
which occurred soon after, precluded the necessity of employing
her as a means of defence. It is probable that such a con-
trivance, even in the present advanced state of naval warfare,
would be found useful in protecting the mouths of harbors,—
not as a frigate, but as a floating battery or movable fortress.
The fact that this vessel was built by Fulton makes him the
father not only of steam-navigation, but of the steam-navies
of the world as well. We shall have occasion to chronicle at
intervals, as we progress in our record, the successive steps of
improvement in the science, till we arrive at the era of steam
floating palaces upon American rivers, of steam pleasure-yachts
owned by American merchants, of commercial steam-leviathans,
American and English, bearing the names of continents and
oceans, and of the peerless steam-frigate to which we have
already alluded,—“ a noble ship with a noble name, bound, in
1857, upon the noblest of missions.”
The history of the first ocean-steamer is very incompletely —
and unsatisfactorily told. in the annals of the time. The fol-
lowing is the substance of all that has been preserved of the
first transatlantic steam-voyage on record :
The Savannah, a steamer of three hundred and fifty tons,
intended to ply between New York and Liverpool, under the
command of Captain Moses Rodgers, was launched at New
York on the 22d of August, 1818. She made a preliminary
ms
*
J
AN OCEAN STEAMER. 549
voyage to the city whose name she bore, in April, 1819, where
she arrived in seven days, after a very boisterous passage. She
was several times compelled to take in her wheels—having
machinery for the purpose—and rely upon her sails, which was
done with all the promptitude and safety anticipated. This
trial trip left no doubt that she would successfully accomplish
the object for which she was built. She left Savannah for
Liverpool soon after, and the New York newspapers of the
second week in June announced that she had been spoken
at sea, all well. In the log-book of the Pluto, which arrived
soon after at Baltimore from Bremen, occurred the following
passage :
“June 2.—Clear weather and smooth sea: lat. 42°, long.
59°, spoke and passed the elegant steamship Savannah, eight
THE SAVANNAH: THE FIRST OCEAN-STEAMER
days out from Savannah to St. Petersburg by way of Liver-
pool. She passed us at the rate of nine or ten knots; and the
captain informed us she worked remarkably well, and the
greatest compliment we could bestow was to give her three
cheers, as the happiest effort of mechanical genius that ever
appeared on the Western ocean. She returned the compli-
ment.”’
Niles’ New York Register of the 21st of August contains
the following paragraph in italics at the head of its column
of foreign news:—‘‘The steamship Savannah, Captain Moses
500 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
Rodgers,—the first that ever crossed the Atlantic,—arrived at
Liverpool in twenty-five days from Savannah, all well, to the
great astonishment of the people of that place. She worked
her engine eighteen days.” The next record of her movements
is that she sailed in August for St. Petersburg, passing Elsinore
on the 13th, and that the British ‘‘wesely supposed her visit to
be somehow connected with the ambitious views of the United
States.” She arrived back at Savannah in November, in fifty
days from St. Petersburg v/@ Copenhagen and Arendal in Nor-
way, all well, and, in the language of Captain Rodgers, “ with
neither a screw, bolt, or a rope-yarn parted, though she encoun-
tered a very heavy gale in the North Sea.”’ She left Savannah
for Washington on the 4th of December, losing her boats and
anchors off Cape Hatteras.
It is a singular fact, and one not creditable to the English,
that many of their works treating of inventions and the pro-
gress of the arts and sciences entirely overlook this voyage
out and back of the Savannah, and uniformly make the British
steamers Sirius and Great Western the pioneers, in 1837, in the
great work of ocean steam-navigation. ‘The authors of these
works err either through design or ignorance, and in either
case display a marked unfitness for their vocation. Were they
to consult the London and Liverpool newspapers of the time,
they would find ample record of the accomplishment of a steam-
voyage nearly twenty years before the period to which they
assion it. We have said enough, however, to prove that the
first steam-vessel that crossed the ocean was built in New York,
and that Moses Rodgers, her captain, was an American citizen.
When we arrive at the year in which the two British steamers
inaugurated steam commercial intercourse between the hemi-
spheres, we shall record it, with due acknowledgment of its im-
portance; but we repeat the assertion that, as the first river-
steamer was the Clermont, the first Atlantic steamer was the
Savannah: both one and the other were built in New York.
Zz
EZ
SS °
HEAD OF WHITE BEAR.
FROM THE APPLICATION OF STEAM TO NAVIGATION TO THE
LAYING OF THE. ATLANTIC CABLE: 1807-1857.
CHAPTER XILUIX.
ARCTIC EXPLORATIONS — RUSSIAN RESEARCHES UNDER KRUSENSTERN AND
KOTZEBUE — FREYCINET—ROSS—THE CRIMSON CLIFFS—LANCASTER SOUND—
BUCHAN AND FRANKLIN—PARRY—THE POLAR SEA—WINTER QUARTERS —
RETURN HOME —DUPERREY — EPISODES IN THE WHALE-FISHERY — PARRY’S
POLAR VOYAGE—BOAT-SLEDGES—METHOD OF TRAVEL—-DISHEARTENING DIS-
COVERY—82° 43’ NORTH.
WE have now entered the nineteenth century. From this time
forward we shall find little or no romantic interest attaching to
the history of the sea, with the single exception of that of the
Arctic waters. The epoch of adventure stimulated by the thirst
for gold has long since passed: there are no more continents to
be pursued, and few islands to be unbosomed from the deep.
There was once a harvest to be reaped; but there remain
henceforward but scanty leavings to be gleaned. ‘The navi-
gator of the present century cannot hope to acquire a rapid
fame by brilliant discoveries: he must be content if he obtain a
tardy distinction by patient observation and minute surveys,—
a task far more useful than showy, and, while less attractive,
much more arduous. Our narrative, therefore, of the remaining
maritime enterprises will be correspondingly succinct. The
reader’s interest, as we have said, will attach almost exclu-
sively to the Polar adventures of the heroes o€ the Northwest
5ol
552 HISTORY. OF THE SEA.
Passage: of Ross, who saw the Crimson Cliffs; of Parry, who
discovered the Polar Sea; of James Clarke Ross, who stood
upon the North Magnetic Pole; of McClure, who threaded the
Northwest Passage: of Franklin and of Kane, the martyrs to
Arctic science. Though we shall dwell more particularly upon
these voyages, we shall nevertheless mention in due order those
undertaken for other purposes in all quarters of the globe.
In 1803, Alexander of Russia determined to enter the career
of maritime discovery and geographical research. He sent
Captain Krusenstern upon a voyage round the world, in the
London-built ship Nadeshda. Nothing resulted from this
voyage except the augmented probability that Saghalien was
not an island, but a peninsula joined to the mainland of China
by an isthmus of sand. °
In 1815, the Russian Count Romanzoff fitted out an expedi-
tion at his own expense for the advancement of geographical
science. The specific object of the voyage was to explore the
American coast both to the north and south of Behring’s Straits,
and to seek a connection thence with Baffin’s Bay. The com-
mand was given to Otto Von Kotzebue, a son of the distin-
guished German dramatist Kotzebue. In Oceanica he discovered
an uninhabited archipelago, which he named Rurick’s Chain,
2s Zo
RECEPTION OF KOTZEBUE AT OTDIA.
from one of his Wessels In Kotzebue Gulf, northeast of Behring’s
Straits, he discovered an island which was supposed to contain.
A SCIENTIFIC EXPEDITION. 553
immense? quantities of iron, from the violent oscillations of the
needle. Upon a second visit to Otdia, one of the Rurick
Islands, in 1824, the inhabitants remembered him upon his
shouting the syllables Zotobu,—their manner of pronouncing
his name. They received him with great joy, rushing into the
water up to their hips: they then lifted him out of his boat and
carried him dry-shod to the shore.
In 1817, Louis XVIII. sent Captain Freycinet upon the first
voyage which, though undertaken for the advancement of science,
had neither hydrography nor geography for its object. Its
purpose was to determine the form of the globe at the South
Pole, the observation of magnetic and atmospheric phenomena,
the study of the three kingdoms of nature, and the investigation
of the resources and languages of such indigenous people as the
vessel should visit. The expedition was conducted with skill; but
its results, being purely scientific, do not require mention here.
In the winter of 1816, the whalers returning from the Green-
land seas to England reported the ice to be clearer than they
had ever known it before. The period seemed favorable for a
renewal of Arctic exploration; and in 1818 the Admiralty
fitted out two vessels—the Isabella and Alexander—for the
purpose. Captain John Ross was sent in the first to discover a
northwest passage, and Lieutenant Edward Parry in the second,
to penetrate if possible to the Pole. Their instructions required
them to examine with especial care the openings at the head
of Baffin’s Bay. Sailing on the 18th of April, they reached
the coast of Greenland on the 17th of June. They saw tribes
of Esquimaux who had never seen men of any race but their
own, and who felt and testified an indescribable alarm at the
sight of the adventurers. It was subsequently proved that
what they feared was contagion. Quite at the northern ex-
tremity of the bay, Ross observed the phenomenon which has
given so romantic, almost legendary, a character to his voyage,
—that of red snow He saw a range of peaks clothed in a
5db4 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
garb which appeared as if borrowed from the looms and dyes
of Tyre. The spot is marked upon the maps as ‘‘'The Crimson
Cliffs.”’ The color was at the time supposed to be a quality
inherent in the snow itself; but subsequent investigations have
established its vegetable origin.
The ships were now at the northern point of Baffin’s es
among the numerous inlets which Baffin had failed to explore.
They all appeared to be blocked up with ice, and none of them
held out any flattering promise of conccaling within itself the
long-sought Northwest Passage. Smith’s Strait, where the bay
ends, was carefully examined; but it proved to be enclosed by
ice. Iteturning towards the south by the western coast of the
bay, they arrived at the entrance of Lancaster Sound on the
30th of August, just as the sun, after shining unceasingly for
nearly three months, was beginning to dip under the horizon.
The vessels sailed up the sound some fifty miles, through a sea
clear from ice, the channel being surrounded on either hand by
mountains of imposing elevation. It was here that Ross com-
mitted the fatal mistake which was to cloud his own reputation
and to put Parry, his second, forward as the first of Arctic
navigators. IIe asserted, and certainly believed, that he saw a
high ridge of mountains stretching directly across the passage.
This, he thought, rendered farther progress impracticable, and
the order was given to put the ships about. Ross returned to
England, convinced that Baffin was correct in regarding Lan-
- easter Bay as a bay only, without any strait beyond. It was
destined that Parry should thread this strait and find the Polar
Sea beyond.
In the same year the British Gosecnmens sent an expedition
under Captain Buchan and Lieutenant—afterwards Sir J ohn—
Franklin, to endeavor to reach the Pole. The objects were to
make experiments on the elliptical figure of the earth, on mag-
netic and meteorological phenomena, and on the refraction of the
atmosphere in high latitudes. The two vessels—the Dorothea
HERDS OF WALRUSES. 555
and Trent—sailed in April, 1818, and made their way towards
Magdalena Bay, in Spitzbergen. In latitude 74° north, near an
island frequented by herds of walruses, a boat’s crew was
attacked by a number of these animals, and only escaped
destruction by the presence of mind of the purser. He seized
a loaded musket, and, plunging the muzzle into the throat of the
leader of the school, discharged its contents into his bowels.
As the walrus sinks as soon as he 1s dead, the mortally-wounded
animal at once began to disappear beneath the water. His
! ATTACKED BY WALRUSES.
companions abandoned the combat to support their chief with
their tusks, whom they hastily bore away from the scene of
action.
The climate here was mild, the atmosphere pure and brilliant,
and the blue of the sky as intense as that of Naples. Alpine
plants, grasses, moss, and lichens, flourished in abundance, and
afforded browsing pasturage to reindeer at the height of fifteen
hundred feet above the sea. The shores were alive with awks,
divers, cormorants, gulls, walruses, and seals. Hider-ducks,
Al
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COLLISION WITH ICEBERGS. 557
foxes, and bears preyed and prowled upon the ice; and the sea
furnished a home to jaggers, kittiwakes, and whales. Having
ascended as high as 80° 34’ N., and finding it impossible to
penetrate farther to the north, Buchan resolved to quit the
waters of Spitzbergen and stand away for those of Greenland.
A pack of floating icebergs, upon which the waves were beating
furiously, beset the ships. The Trent came violently in colli-
sion with a mass many hundred times her size. Every man on
board lost his footing; the masts bent at the shock, while the
timbers cracked beneath the pressure. This accident rendered
a prosecution of the voyage impracticable, and the two ships.
returned to England, where they arrived in October. The ex-
pedition thus failed of the main object it was intended to
accomplish. |
As we have already remarked, Ross neglected the oppor-
tunity afforded him of penetrating to the interior of Lancaster
Sound,—thus leaving for another the glory of attaching his
name to the discoveries to be made there. The Government,
being dissatisfied with his management, and being encouraged
by Lieutenant Parry to believe that the supposed chain of
mountains barring the passage had no existence but in Ross’s
imagination, gave him the command of two ships, strongly
manned and amply stored, for the prosecution of discovery in
that direction. He left England on the 11th of May, 1819,
with the ship Hecla and the gun-brig Griper. On the 15th of
June he unexpectedly saw land,—which proved to be Cape
Farewell, the southern point of Greenland, though at a distance
of more than a hundred miles. The ships were immovably
“beset”? by ice on the 25th: their situation was utterly help-
less, all the power that could be applied not availing to turn
their heads a single degree of the compass.
The officers and men occupied themselves in various manners
during this period of inaction. Observations were made on the
dip and variation of the magnetic needle, and lunar distances
558 OC, HISTORY OF THE SEA.
were calculated. White bears were enticed within rifle-distance
by the odor of fried red-herrings, and then easily shot. On the
N
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30th the ice slackened, and, after eight hours’ incessant labor,
both ships were moved into the open sea. On the 12th, Parry
obtained a supply of pure water which was flowing from an ice-
berg, and the sailors shook from the ropes and rigging several
eg ee eee
to ~ tian!
ihe
ENTERING LANCASTER SOUND. 559
tons’ weight of congealed fog. The passage to Lancaster Sound
was laborious, and was only effected by the most persevering
efforts on the part of all.
An entrance into the sound was effected on the Ist of August;
and Parry felt, as did the officers and men, that this was the
point of the voyage which was to determine the success or
failure of the expedition. Reports, all more or less favorable,
were constantly passed down from the crow’s nest to the quarter-
deck. The weather was clear, and the ships sailed in perfect
safety through the night. Towards morning all anxiety respect-
ing the alleged chain of mountains across the inlet was at an
end; for the two shores were still forty miles apart, at a distance
of one hundred and fifty miles from the mouth of the channel.
The water was now as free from ice as the Atlantic; and they
began to flatter themselves that they had fairly entered the
Polar Sea. A heavy swell and the familiar ocean-like color
which was now thought to characterize the water were also
encouraging circumstances. ‘The compasses became so sluggish
and irregular that the usual observations upon the variation of
the needle were abandoned. The singular phenomenon was soon
for the first time witnessed of the needle becoming so weak as
to be completely controlled by local attraction, so that it really
pointed to the north pole of the ship,—that is, to the point
where there was the largest quantity of iron.
Ice for a time prevented the farther western progress of the
ressels, and they sailed one hundred and twenty miles to the
south, in a sound which they called Prince Regent’s Inlet.
Parry suspected, though incorrectly, that this inlet communi-
cated with Hudson’s Bay. Returning to the mouth of the inlet,
he found the sea to the westward still encumbered with ice; but
a heavy blow, accompanied with rain, soon broke it up and dis-
persed it. They proceeded slowly on, naming every cape and
bay which they passed: an inlet of large size they called Wel-
lington, “after his Grace the Master of the Ordnance.” Being
560 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
now convinced that the passage through which they had thus
far ascended was a strait connecting two seas, Parry gave it the
name of Barrow’s Strait, after Mr. Barrow, Secretary of the
Admiralty. The prospects of success during the coming six
weeks were now felt by the commander of the expedition to be
“truly exhilarating.”’
The propriety of using this expression will be more appa-
rent, when it is remembered that the party were Englishmen,
and that the “exhilaration” arose most probably in a great
measure from the excellent chance for hunting which the sea
lions swarming in that locality appeared to promise.
An island—by far the largest Parry had seen in these waters
—appeared early in September, and the men worked their
arduous way along its southern coast, till, on the 4th, they
reached the longitude of 110° west. The two ships then be-
came entitled to the sum of £5000,—the reward offered by
Parliament to the first of his Majesty’s subjects that should
penetrate thus far to the westward within the Arctic Circle.
The island was called Melville Island, from the First Lord
of the Admiralty. In a bay named The Bay of the Hecla and
Griper, the anchor was dropped for, the first time since leaving
England; the ensigns and pennants were hoisted, and the Bri-
‘tish flag waved in a region believed to be without the pale of the
habitable world.
The summer was now at its close, and it became necessary
to make a selection of winter quarters. A harbor was found,
a passage-way cut through two miles of ice, and the ships settled
in five fathoms’ water: they were soon firmly frozen in at a
cable’s-length from the shore. Hunting, botanizing, excursions
upon the island, experiments in an observatory erected on shore,
and amateur theatricals, afforded some relief from the unavoid-
able inactivity to which officers and crew were now condemned.
Parry had named the group of islands of which Melville is the
a
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SEA LIONS UPON ICE.
562 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
largest, the North Georgian Islands, in honor of King George;
and during the days of constant darkness a weekly news-
)
I
TAN eee
"
SSS
CUTTING IN.
paper, entitled ‘“‘The North .Georgia Gazette and Winter
Chronicle,” was edited by Captain Sabine, the astronomer.
The sun reappeared on the 3d of February, 1820, after an
absence of ninety-one days. The theatre was soon closed and
the newspaper discontinued. The ice around the ships was
seven feet thick, though by the middle of May the crews had
cut it away so as to allow the ships to float, and had sawed a
channel for their boats. On the Ist of August, there was not
CUTTING OUT.
the slightest symptom of a thaw; on the 2d, the ice broke up
and disappeared with a suddenness altogether inexplicable.
Parry determined to return home at once, and arrived at Leith,
in Scotland, towards the close of October. He was received
with great favor, and was rewarded for his signal services by
promotion to the rank of captain.
PERILS OF THE WHALE-FISHING. 563
Parry made a second voyage in 1821, with instructions to
seek a passage by Hudson’s Strait instead of by Lancaster Sound.
It was totally unsuccessful. He made a third attempt, in 1824,
with the Fury and the Hecla. The Fury was lost in Lancaster
Sound, and Parry returned baffled and for a time disheartened.
In 1822, a French captain, named Duperrey, made a voyage,
under the orders of the Government, which is in many respects
the most-remarkable on record. He sailed seventy-five thou-
sand miles in thirty-one months, without losing a man or
having a single name upon the sick-list; nor did the ship once
need repairs. The discoveries made were not important, but
the surveys effected and the observations upon terrestrial mag-
netism recorded were interesting and valuable.
At about this period, the perils incident to the whale-
fishery were strangely augmented by a circumstance which we
cannot forbear mentioning. The whale, whose intellectual
faculties had been sharpened by the warfare waged against.
him for two hundred years, was suddenly found to be animated
by a new and vehement passion,—that of revenge. ‘Mocha
Dick,” who earned a terrible reputation for ferocity, only suc-
cumbed after many years of successful resistance. His body
proved to be covered with scars, his flesh bristled with harpoons,
and his head was declared to be wonderfully expressive of “old
age, cunning, and rapacity.’’ Not long after this, a sperm--
whale was wounded by a boat’s crew from the Essex. A
brother leviathan, eighty-five feet long, approached the ship
within twenty rods, eyed it steadfastly for a moment, and then
withdrew, as if satisfied with his observations. He soon returned
at full speed: he struck the ship with his head, throwing the
men flat upon their faces. Gnashing his jaws together as if
wild with rage, he made another onset, and, with every appear-
ance of an avenger of his race, stove in the vessel’s bows. This
was the first example on record of the whale’s displaying posi-
tive design in seeking an encounter. He certainly acted from
564 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
the promptings of revenge, and, moreover, directed his attacks
upon the weakest part of tne ship.
The whale of Captain Deblois, of the ship Ann Alexander, was
a stil! more remarkable animal. When harpooned, instead of
seeking to escape, he turned upon the boat, and, in the language
of an eye-witness, ‘‘chawed it to flinders.”” The second boat
met the same fate. The whale then dashed upon the ship, and
broke through her timbers, letting the water in in torrents. In an
hour the vessel lay a wreck upon the ocean. Four months after-
wards, the crew of the Rebecca Sims captured a whale of large
size but of enfeebled energies. He was found to have a damaged
head, with large fragments of a ship’s fore-timbers buried in
his flesh; while two harpoons, sunk almost to his vitals, and
labelled ‘Ann Alexander,” designated him as the fierce but
now exhausted antagonist of Captain Deblois, of New Bedford.
In 1827—to return to the Arctic explorations—a new idea
was broached with reference to the Pole and the most likely
method of reaching it. Captain Parry, despairing of getting
there in ships, conceived the plan of constructing boats with run-
ners, which might be dragged upon the ice, or, in case of need,
be rowed through the water. The Government approved of the
idea, and two boats were specially constructed for the service :
each one, with its furniture and stores, weighed three thousand
seven hundred and fifty-three pounds. They were placed on
board the sloop-of-war Hecla; and the expedition left the Nore .
on the 4th of April, 1827, for Spitzbergen. At Hammersfeld,
in Norway, they took on board eight reindeer and a quantity
of moss for their fodder.
After experiencing a series of tremendous gales, being beset
in the ice till the 8th of June, the Hecla was safely anchored
on the northern coast of Spitzbergen, in Hecla Cove. Parry
gave his instructions to his lieutenants, Foster and Crozier, and
on the 22d left the ship in the two boats, having named them
the Enterprise and Endeavor, with provisions for seventy-one
A HAZARDOUS VOYAGE. 565
days. The ice appeared so rugged that the reindeer promised.
to be of little assistance, and were consequently left behind.
The following is an abridged account of the extraordinary
method of travelling adopted upon this singular voyage:
‘‘Tt was my intention,” says Parry, ‘to travel by night and
rest by day, thus avoiding the glare resulting from the sun
shining from his highest altitudes upon the snow; and pro-
ceeding during the milder light shed during his vicinity to the
horizon,—for of course, during the summer, he never set at all.
This practice so completely inverted the natural order of things
that the officers, though possessing chronometers, did not know
night from day. When we rose in the evening, we commenced
our day by prayers; after which we took off our raccoon-skin
sleeping-dresses, and put on our box-cloth travelling-suits. We
breakfasted upon warm cocoa heated with spirits of wine—our
only fuel—and biscuit: we then travelled five hours, and stopped
to dine, and again travelled four, five, or six hours, according
to circumstances. It then being early in the morning, we
halted for the night, selecting the largest surface of ice we:
happened to be near for hauling the boat on. Every man then:
put on dry stockings and fur boots, leaving the wet ones—which.
were rarely found dry in the morning—to be resumed after:
their slumbers. After supper the officers and men smoked!
their pipes, which served to dry the boat and awnings, and!
often raised the temperature ten degrees. A watch was set to:
look out for bears, each man alternately doing this duty for one:
hour. It now being bright day, the evening was ushered in:
with prayers. After seven hours’ sleep, the man appointed to
boil the cocoa blew a reveillé upon the bugle, and EOL & at night-
fall the day was recommenced.”’
The difficulty of travelling was much greater than had been
anticipated. The ice, instead of being solid, was composed of
small, loose, and rugged masses, with pools of water between
them. In their first eight days they made but eight miles’
566 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
morthing. At one time the men dragged the boats only one
hundred and fifty yards in two hours. On the 17th of July
they reached the latitude of 82° 14’ 28’’,—the highest yet
attained. On the 18th, after eleven hours’ exhausting labor,
they advanced but two miles; and on the 20th, having appa-
rently accomplished twelve miles in three days, an observation
revealed the alarming fact that they had really advanced but
five. The terrible truth burst upon Parry and his officers: the
ice over which they were with such effort forcing their weary
way was actually drifting to the south! This intelligence was
concealed from the men, who had no suspicion of it, though
they often laughingly remarked that they were a long time
getting to this eighty-third degree. They were at this time in
82° 43’ 5/’. The next observation extinguished the last ray
of hope: after two days’ labor, they found themselves in 82°
40’. The drift was carrying them to the south faster than
their own exertions took them to the north! In fact, the drift
ran four miles a day. It was evidently hopeless to pursue the
journey any farther. The floe upon which they slept at night
rolled them back to the point they had quitted in the morning.
Parry acquainted the men with the disheartening news, and
granted them one day’s rest.
The ensigns and pennants were now displayed, the party
feeling a legitimate pride in having advanced to a point never
‘before reached by human beings, though they had failed in an
enterprise now proved beyond the pale of possibility. They
returned without incident of moment to England. Parry did
not totally abandon the idea of eventually reaching the Pole
over the ice, and as late as 1847 was of the opinion that at
a different season of the year, before drifting comes on, the
project may yet be realized. Still, no mortal man has ever
yet set foot upon the pivot of the axis of the globe; and it is
not venturing too much to predict that no man ever will.
NAVIGATORS FROZEN IN.
CHAPTER L.
®ROSS’S SECOND VOYAGE—THE NORTH MAGNETIC POLE—D’URVILLE--ENDERBY’S
LAND—BACK’S VOYAGE IN THE TERROR—THE GREAT WESTERN AND SIRIUS—
UNITED STATES’ EXPLORING EXPEDITION—THE ANTARCTIC CONTINENT—SIR
JOHN FRANKLIN’S LAST VOYAGE IN THE EREBUS AND TERROR—ETFORTS MADE
TO RELIEVE HIM—DISCOVERY OF THE SCENE OF HIS FIRST WINTER QUARTERS
—THE GRINNELL EXPEDITION—THE ADVANCE AND RESCUE—LIEUTENANT DE
HAVEN—DR. KANE—RETURN OF THE EXPEDITION.
In the year 1828, Sir John Ross applied to the Government
for the means of making a second voyage to the Arctic waters
of America, and was refused. The next year, Mr. Sheriff
Booth, a gentleman of liberal spirit, offered to assume the pecu-
miary responsibilities of the expedition, and empowered Ross to
make what outlay he thought proper. He bought and equipped
the Victory, a packet-ship plying between Liverpool and the
Isle of Man. She had a small high-pressure engine, and paddle-
‘wheels which could be lifted out of the water. She sailed in
May, 1829. We shall give but a brief account of the incidents
of the voyage till we arrive at the event which has made James
Clarke Ross, the nephew of Sir John, illustrious,—the discovery
of the North Magnetic Pole,—that mysterious spot towards
which forever points the needle of the mariner’s compass.
While in Baffin’s Bay, in June, the Victory lost her fore-
567
568 HISTORY OF THE SEA,
topmast in a gale; two of the sailors who were reefing the top-
sails had barely time to escape with their lives. Proceeding
THE VICTORY IN A GALE,
through Lancaster Sound, and then descending to the south
into Prince Regent’s Inlet, Ross arrived, after coasting three
hundred miles of undiscovered shore, at a spot which he thought.
would furnish commodious winter quarters. The whole terri-
tory received the name of Boothia, in honor of the patron of the
expedition. Here they remained eleven months, beset by ice;
_not even during the months of July and August, 1830, did the
ship stir from the position in which she was held fast. At last,
on the 17th of September, she was found to be free, and the
delighted crew prepared for a speedy deliverance. The unfor-
tunate vessel sailed only three miles, however, when she was
again firmly frozen in. The.engine, which had proved a
wretched and most inefficient contrivance, was taken out and
carried ashore,—an event which was hailed with pleasure by
all. ‘I believe,” says Ross, ‘‘that there was not a man who
ever again wished to see its minutest fragment.” Another
year of monotony and silence now stared the weather-bound
navigators in the face. Six months elapsed before even a land-
excursion could be attempted; but in May, 1831, occurred the
great discovery to which we have referred.
Commander James Clarke Ross was the second officer of the
ship. He started in April, with a party, to make explorations
inland. The dipping-needle had long varied from 88° to 89°,
THE NORTH MAGNETIC POLE. 569
—thus pointing nearly downwards,—90° being, of course, the
amount of variation from the horizontal line of the ordinary
compass which would have made it directly vertical. Com-
mander Ross was extremely desirous to stand upon the wonder-
ful spot where such an effect would be observed, and joined a
number of Esquimaux who were proceeding in the direction
where he imagined it lay. He determined, if possible, so to set
his foot that the Magnetic Pole should le between him and the
centre of the earth. Arriving at a place where the dipping-
needle pointed to 89° 46’, and being therefore but fourteen
miles from its calculated position, he could no longer brook the
delay attendant upon the transportation of the baggage, and
set forward upon a rapid march, taking only such articles as
were strictly necessary. The tremendous spot was reached at
eight in the morning of the Ist of June. The needle marked
89° 59’,—one minute from the vertical,—a variation almost
imperceptible. We give the particulars of this most interesting
event in the words of the discoverer himself:
‘“‘T believe I must leave it to others to imagine the elation of
mind with which we found ourselves now at length arrived at
this great object of our ambition: it almost seemed as if we had
accomplished every thing we had come so far to see and do,—as
if our voyage and all its labors were at an end, and that nothing
now remained for us but to return home and be happy for the
remainder of our days.
‘‘We could have wished that a place so important had pos-
sessed more of mark or note. It was scarcely censurable to
regret that there was not a mountain to indicate a spot to which
so much of interest must ever be attached; and I could even
have pardoned any one among us who had been so romantic or
absurd as to expect that the Magnetic Pole was an object as
conspicuous and mysterious as the fabled mountain of Sinbad,—
that it even was a mountain of iron or a magnet as large as Mont
Blane. But Nature had here erected no monument to denote
570 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
the spot which she had chosen as the centre of one of her
greatest powers.
“As soon as I had satisfied my own mind, I made known to
the party the gratifying result of all our joint labor; and it was
then that, amidst mutual congratulations, we fixed the British
flag on the spot and took possession of the North Magnetic
Pole and its adjoining territory in the name of Great Britain
and King William the Fourth. We had abundance of materials
for building, in the fragments of limestone which covered the
beach; and we therefore erected a cairn of some magnitude,
under which we buried a canister containing a record of the
interesting fact,—only regretting that we had not the means
of constructing a pyramid of more importance and of strength
sufficient to withstand the assaults of time and the Esquimaux.
Had it been a pyramid as large as that of Cheops, I am not
sure that it would have done more than satisfy our ambition
under the feelings of that exciting day. ‘The latitude of this
spot is T0° 5’ 17’, and its longitude 96° 46’ 45” west from
Greenwich.”
We must remark in this connection that the fixation of the
latitude of the Magnetic Pole was the only important element
of this discovery ; for, as the Magnetic Pole revolves about the
North Pole at the rate of 11’ 4’’ a year, it consequently changes
its annual longitude by that amount. A quarter of a century
has elapsed since its longitude was settled for the year 1831;
and this lapse of time involves a change of place of between
four and five degrees. It requires no less than eighteen hun-
dred and ninety years to accomplish the cycle of revolution.
The latitude of the Pole of course remains unchanged. It will
always be sufficient glory for Ross to have stood upon the spot
where the Pole then was: the fact that the spot then so mar-
vellous has since ceased to be so is assuredly no cause for
detracting from his merit. After this discovery the party
returned to the ship.
LAND JOURNEY IN THE ARCTIC REGIONS. oil
In September the ice broke up, and the Victory, which had
the previous year sailed three miles, this year sailed four. She
was again immediately frozen in: the men’s courage gave way,
and the scurvy began to appear. Their only hope of a final
deliverance seemed to be to proceed overland to the spot where
the Fury had been lost under Parry in 1824, and to get her
supplies and boats. The distance was one hundred and eighty
miles to the north. They drank a parting glass to the Victory
on the 29th of May, 1832, and nailed her colors to the mast.
After a laborious journey of one month, they reached Fury
Beach, where they found three of the boats washed away, but
several still left. These were ready for sea on the Ist of
August, when the whole party embarked. They were com-
pelled to return in October, and made preparations for their
fourth Polar winter. ‘The season was one of great severity:
in February, 1833, the first death by scurvy took place. Ross
himself and several of the seamen were attacked by the disease.
It was not till August that the boats were again able to move.
They reached Barrow’s Strait on the 17th, and on the morning
of the 26th descried a sail. They made signals by burning wet
powder, and succeeded in attracting the stranger’s attention.
She was a whaler, and had been formerly commanded by Ross
himself. Thus they were rescued. After a month’s delay, the
vessel, now filled to its utmost capacity with blubber, sailed for
Hull, in England. There Ross and his officers received a public
entertainment from the mayor and corporation. The former
then repaired to London, reported himself to the Secretary of
the Admiralty, and obtained an audience of the king. His
Majesty accepted the dedication of his journal, and allowed
him to add the name of William the Fourth to the Magnetic
Pole. He learned that he had been given up for lost long
since, and that parties had been sent out in search of him.
All concerned in this interesting expedition were rewarded
b~ Parliament. Mr. Booth was shortly after knighted; Com-
5(2 HISTORY OF THE SEA,
mander Ross was made post-captain; the other officers re-
ceived speedy promotion; and Government. paid the crew the
wages which had accrued beyond the period of fifteen months
for which they were engaged,—amounting in all to £4580. A
select committee of the House of Commons was appointed to
consider the claims of Captain Ross himself, and concluded its
labors by recommending that a sum of £5000 be voted to him
by Parliament. ,
In 1825, Captain d’Urville was sent by Charles X. of France
upon a voyage similar to those performed by Freycinet and
Duperrey. As we have already had occasion to say, this officer
was fortunate enough to return to France with the positive
proofs of the destruction of the vessels of Lapérouse upon the
island of Vanikoro. He surveyed the whole of the Feejee
archipelago, and restored upon French maps its native name
of Viti. The results of d’Urville’s labors are comprised in
twelve octavo volumes, sixty-three charts, twelve plans, eight
hundred and sixty-six designs representing the various island
nations, their arms, dwellings, &c., and four hundred landscapes
and marine views. Admiral d’Urville ranks as the first French
navigator of this century.
In 1830, two rich shipping-merchants of London, by the
name of Enderby, sent Captain Biscoe to the Antarctic Ocean
to fish for seals, in the brig Tula and the cutter Lively, giving
him directions to seek for land in high southern latitudes. In
February, 1831,—being then as far south as the sixty-ninth
parallel and in 12° west,—he saw distinct and positive signs of
land. On the 27th, in 66° of latitude and 47° of longitude, he
convinced himself of the existence of a long reach of land; but
huge islands of ice prevented his approaching it. The magni-
ficence of the aurora australis, appearing now under the forms
of grand architectural columns and now as the fringes of
tapestry, drew the attention of the sailors so constantly towards.
the heavens that they neglected to watch the ship’s track amid
FIRST OCEAN STEAMER. ie
mountains of floating and tumbling ice. Captain Biscoe gave
to the discovery the name of Enderby’s Land. Farther to the
west he discovered an island, which he named Adelaide, in
honor of the Queen of England. It presents an imposing
appearance,—a tall peak burying itself in the clouds and often
peering out above them. Its base is surrounded with a dazzling
girdle of snow and ice, which extends, though sapped and exca-
vated by the action of the waves, some nine hundred feet into
- the sea.
In 1836, the English Government appointed Captain George
_ Back—who had lately been upon a land-expedition in the
American Arctic regions in search of Captain and Commander
Ross—to the since celebrated ship Terror, for the purpose of
determining the western coast-line of Prince Regent’s Inlet. The
voyage, though entirely unsuccessful, is one of the most remark-
able on record,—showing as it did a power of resistance and
endurance in a ship which till then was not believed to belong
either to iron or heart of oak. Back proceeded no farther than
Baffin’s Bay, the Terror remaining for ten months fast in the
gripe of its “cradle” or ‘‘ice-wagon,’’ as the men called the
_ huge floating berg upon which she rested. He was knighted on
his return, and his sturdy ship was put out of commission and
docked. It is a subject of regret that so splendid a specimen
of marine architecture, as far as strength and solidity are con-
cerned, should have met the fate which she has encountered.
Where she is no mortal knows, except perhaps a few inaccessible
Esquimaux; for she has perished with her lost consort, the
Erebus, and their hapless commander, Sir John Franklin.
In the year 1838, on the 26d of April, two ocean-steamers—
the first with the exception of the Savannah—entered the harbor
of New York. They were the Sirius and the Great Western.
They had been expected, and their arrival was the signal for
general rejoicings and the theme of universal congratulation.
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FLOATING ICE MOUNTAINS,
TRIUMPH OF STEAM NAVIGATION. 519
the wharves to view. the unwonted spectacle. The Sirius was a
vessel of seven hundred tons and three hundred and twenty
horse-power, and had previously plied between Liverpool and
Cork. She had left the latter port on the 4th of April, and
had therefore been nineteen days upon the passage. The Great
Western was a new ship: she was of thirteen hundred and forty
tons; her extreme length was two hundred and thirty-six feet ;
her depth of hold, twenty-three feet; breadth of beam, thirty-
five feet; diameter of wheels, twenty-eight feet; length of
paddle-boards, ten feet; diameter of cylinder, six feet; length
of stroke, seven feet. She had four boilers, and could carry
eight hundred tons of csal,—sufficient for twenty-six days’ con-
sumption. She had left Bristol on the 8th of April, and had
accomplished the voyage in fifteen days and five hours. Her
mean daily rate was two hundred and forty miles, or nine
miles an hour, with unfavorable weather and strong head-winds.
She was expected to stop either at the Azores or at Halifax,
but succeeded in making the passage direct. She consumed
but four hundred and fifty tons of coal out of six hundred.
This event was looked upon by all as an earnest of the complete
triumph of ocean steam-navigation; and the Great Western is
regarded by the people of the two countries as the pioneer ship
among the many noble vessels that have plied upon the great
Atlantic ferry. The Britannia—the first vessel of the Cunard
line to cross the ocean—arrived at Boston on the 18th of July,
1840, after a passage of fourteen days and eight hours.
In this same year, (1838,) the United States’ Exploring Ex-
pedition,—consisting of the Vincennes, a sloop-of-war of twenty
guns, Lieutenant Charles Wilkes, commander-in-chief; the
Peacock, eighteen-gun sloop-of-war, William L. Hudson, com-
manding; the Porpoise, ten-gun brig; the Relief, exploring
vessel; and the schooners Flying-Fish and Sea-Gull,—sailed
from Hampton Roads. Its objects were to explore the Southern
and Pacific Oceans; to ascertain, if possible, the situation of
576 HISTORY OF THE SEA,
that part of the Antarctic continent supposed to lie to the south
of New Holland, and to make researches and surveys of im-
portance to ships navigating the Polynesian seas. The squadron
was absent four years, and accomplished a vast amount of
arduous labor interesting to science and invaluable to com-
merce. We propose to speak only of what became afterwards
its prominent feature,—the supposed discovery of an Antarctie
continent. |
On the 15th of February, 1840, land was seen in longitude
106° 40’ E. and latitude 65° 57’ 8. The next day the ships
were within seven miles of it, and, ‘‘by measurement, the extent
of the coast of the Antarctic continent then in sight was made
seventy-five miles.’’ The men landed on an ice-island, where they
found stones, boulders, gravel, sand, and clay. Everybody wished
to possess a piece of the Antarctic continent; and many frag-
ments of red sandstone and basalt were carried away. The island
was believed to have been detached from the neighboring land.
Subsequent voyages, however, have thrown great doubts upon
the accuracy of these assertions. James Clarke Ross, who was
sent with the Erebus and Terror, in 18359, to the South Pole,
was informed at Van Diemen’s Land of Wilkes’ alleged dis-
covery. He reached the spot in January, 1841, and, instead of
an Antarctic continent, found water five hundred fathoms deep.
The existence of such a continent, therefore, must be regarded
as altogether hypothetical. ‘It is natural,” says the London
Athenzeum, ‘‘that a commander of his country’s first scientific
expedition should wish to make the most of it; but Science is
so august in her nature and so severe in her rules that she de-
clines recording in her archives any sentence as truth on which
there rests the slightest liability of doubt: in all such cases she
prefers the Scotch verdict,—‘ Not proven.’ ”
Though at this period the discovery of a Northwest Passage
—if one existed—was no longer expected to afford a short and
commodious commercial route to the Indies and to China, yt
FATE OF FRANKLIN. 577
the scientific and romantic interest of the subject still exerted a
powerful effect on both nations and Governments. Great Britain
resolved to make one last attempt, and, selecting two vessels
whose fame was now world-wide, appointed Sir John Franklin
to their command,—the Erebus being his flag-ship, with Captain
Crozier, as his second, in the Terror. The officers and crew, all
told, numbered one hundred and thirty-eight picked and reso-
lute men. ‘The instructions given to Franklin were to proceed,
with a store-ship ordered to accompany him, as far up Davis’
Straits as that vessel could safely go, there to transfer her pro-
visions and send her home. He was then to get into Baffin's
Bay, enter Lancaster Sound, thread Barrow’s Straits, and fol-
low Parry’s track due west to Melville Island, in the Polar Sea.
Here the instructions, with an assurance which seems incredible
now, begged the whole question of a Northwest Passage, and
directed him to proceed the remaining nine hundred miles which
separate that point from Behring’s Strait,—a region which it
was hoped would be found free from obstruction. He was not
to stop to examine any opening to the northward, but to push
resolutely on to Behring’s Strait, and return home by the
Sandwich Islands and Panama. He sailed from the Thames on
the 19th of May, 1845. He received the store-ship’s cargo in
Davis’ Straits, and then despatched her home. Tis two ships
were seen by a whaler named the Prince of Wales on the 26th
of July: they were in the very middle of Baffin’s Bay, moored
to an iceberg and waiting for open water.
Two years passed away, and, nothing being heard from them,
the public anxiety respecting them became very great. The
Government determined to attempt their rescue, and sent out
three several expeditions in 1848. The two first—one overland
to the Polar Sea, under Richardson and Rae, another by
Behring’s Strait, in the ships Herald and Plover — totally
failed of success, as they were founded upon the supposition
that Franklin had advanced farther westward than Parry in
37
578 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
1820,—a supposition altogether unlikely. The third—consist-
ing of the Enterprise and Investigator, under Captain Sir
James Clarke Ross—was equally unsuccessful, though con-
ducted in a quarter where success was at least possible. At
Port Leopold, at the mouth of Prince Regent’s Inlet, Ross
formed a large depdt of provisions,—the locality having been
admirably chosen, being upon Parry’s route to the Polar Sea,
and upon any track Franklin would be likely to take on his
way back, in case he had already advanced beyond it... .His
men built a house upon shore of their spare spars, and covered it
with such canvas as they could dispense with. They lengthened
the Investigator’s steam-launch, so that it would be capable of
carrying Franklin and his crew safely to the whalers’ rendez-
vous, and left it. They then made their way through the ice
fo Davis’ Straits, and arrived in England early in November,
1849.
The probable fate of Franklin now absorbed all minds, and
the Admiralty, Parliament, the public, and the press eagerly
discussed every theory which would account for his prolonged
absence, and every means by which succor could be sent to him.
The Admiralty offered a reward of one hundred guineas for
accurate information concerning him. Lady Franklin offered
the stimulus of £2000, and a second of £3000, to successful
search; and the British Government sought to enlist the ser-
vices of the whalers by announcing a bonus of £20,000. A
vessel was sent to land provisions and coal at the entrance to
Lancaster Sound. Three new expeditions were sent out in
1850 by the Government, besides one by public subscription,
assisted by the Hudson Bay Company, under Sir John Ross,
and another by Lady Franklin. They accomplished wonders
of seamanship, and their crews endured the most harassing
trials; but we have no space to chronicle any thing beyond the
finding of a few distinct but unproductive traces of the missing
adventurers, which occurred in the following manner :
GRINNELL EXPEDITION. 579
Captain Ommaney, of the Assistance and Intrepid, landed
on Cape Riley, in Wellington Channel, late in August.
There he observed sledge-tracks and a pavement of small
stones which had evidently been the floor of a tent. Around
were a numbcr of birds’ bones and fragments of meat-tins.
Upon Beechey Island, three miles distant, were found a cairn
or mound constructed of layers of meat-tins filled with gravel,
the embankment of a house, the remains of a carpenter’s
shop and an armorer’s forge, with remnants of rope and
clothing ; a pair of gloves laid out to dry, with stones upon
them to prevent their blowing away. The oval outline of a —
garden was still distinguishable. But the most interesting and
valuable result of these investigations was the finding of three
sraves with inscriptions, one of which will show the tenor of
the whole:
‘Sacred to the memory of William Braine, R.M., of H.M.S.
Erebus, who died April 8, 1846, aged thirty-two years.
Choose ye this day whom ye will serve.—Josh. xxiv. 15.”
This and one of the other inscriptions, dated in January,
seemed to fix at this spot the first winter quarters of Franklin,
—for 1845-46. They also show that but three men died during
the winter; and three out of one hundred and thirty-eight is
not a high proportion of mortality. The seven hundred empty
meat-tins seemed to show that the consumption of meat had
been moderate; for the ships started with twenty-four thousand
canisters. This was the substance of the intelligence obtained
during this year of the fate of the wanderers; and it was, as
will be noticed, already five years old.
An expedition was also fitted out for the search in 1850,
under the combined auspices of. Henry Grinnell, Esq., a mer-
chant of New York, and the United States Navy Department,
—the former furnishing the ships and the means, the latter the
men and the discipline. Two hermaphrodite brigs,—the Advance
and Rescue,—of one hundred and forty-four and ninety tons
580 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
respectively, manned by thirty - eight men, all told, and
strengthened for Arctic duty beyond all precedent, were pre-
pared for the service. They were placed under the command
of Lieutenant De Haven,—Dr. E. K. Kane, of the Navy, being
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appointed surgeon and naturalist to the squadron. They sailed
from New York on the 23d of May, and in less than a month
descried the gaunt coast of Greenland at the moment when the
distinction between day and night began to be lost. The
Danish inhabitants of the settlement at Lievely made them
such presents of furs as their own scanty wardrobes permitted.
Two. sailors, complaining of sickness, were landed at Disco
Island, thence to make the best of their way home.
Thus far the weather had been favorable, and they passed
the seventy-fourth degree without meeting ice. On the 7th of
581
SSING THROUGH DEVIL'S NIP.
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582 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
July, being still in Baffin’s Bay, they encountered the pack:
It was summer-ice, consisting of closely-set but separate floes.
They could not make over three miles a day headway through
it,—which they considered a useless expenditure of labor.
They remained beset for twenty-one days, when the pack
opened in various directions. The ships now reached Melville
Bay, on the east side of Baffin’s Bay,—Lancaster Sound,
through which they were to pass, being upon the west. Mel-
ville Bay, from the fact that it is always crowded with ice-
bergs, and presents in a bird's-eye view all the combined hor-
rors and perils of Arctic navigation, has received the appellation
of the “ Devil’s Nip.” Across this formidable indentation the
two vessels made their weary way, occupying five weeks in the
transit. A steam-tug would have towed them across in forty-
eight hours. In the middle of August the vessels entered Lan-
caster Sound, and, on the morning of the 21st, overhauled the
Felix, engaged in the search, under the veteran Sir John Ross.
The next day, the Prince Albert, one of Lady Franklin’s ships,
was seen, and, soon after, the intelligence was received of the
discovery of traces of Franklin and his men. The navigators
of both nations visited Beechey Island and saw there the evi-
dences which we have already mentioned. The Advance and
Rescue now strove in vain to urge their way to Wellington
Channel. The sun travelled far to the south, and the brief
summer was rapidly coming to a close. The cold increased,
and the fires were not yet lighted below. On the 12th of Sep-
tember the Rescue was swept from her moorings by the ice and
partially disabled. The pack in which they were enveloped,
though not yet beset, was evidently drifting they knew not
whither. The commander, convinced that all westward pro-
gress was vain for the season, resolved to return homeward.
The vessels’ heads were turned eastward, and slowly forced a
passage through. the reluctant ice... On the evening of the 14th
of September, Dr. Kane was endeavoring, with the thermometer
PREPARATIONS FOR WINTER. 583 —
far below zero, to commit a few words to his journal, when he
heard De Haven’s voice. ‘Doctor,’ he said, ‘‘the ice has
caught us: we are frozen up.”
The Advance was now destined to undergo treatment similar
to that suffered by the Terror under Captain Back. For eight
mortal months she was carried, cradled in the ice, backwards
and forwards in Wellington Channel, wherever the winds and
currents listed. At first, before the ice around them had
become solid, they were exposed to constant peril from ‘“‘nips”
of floating and besieging floes; but these huge tablets soon
became a protection by themselves receiving and warding off
subsequent attacks. Harly in October, the vessels were more
firmly fixed than a jewel in its setting.
They now made preparations for passing the winter. The
two crews were collected in the Advance. Until the stoves
could be got up, a lard-lamp was burned in the cabin, by which
the temperature was raised to 12° above zero. The condensed
moisture upon the beams from so many breaths caused them to
drip perpetually, till canvas gutters were fitted up, which carried
off a gallon of water a day. The three stoves were soon ready,
and these, together with the cooking-galley, diffused warmth
through the common room formed by knocking the forecastle
and cabin into one. Light was furnished by four argand and
three bear’s-fat lamps. The entire deck of the Advance was
covered with a housing of thick felt. On the 9th of November
their preparations were fairly completed.
The sun ceased to rise after the 15th of November: after
that, the east was as dark at nine in the morning as at mid-
night; at eleven there was a faint twilight, and at noon a streak
of brown far away to the south. The store-room would have
furnished an amateur geologist with an admirable cabinet, so
totally were the eatables and drinkables changed in appearance
by the cold. ‘Dried apples and peaches assumed the appear-
ance of chalcedony; sour-krout was mica, the lamine of which
584 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
were with difficulty separated by a chisel; butter and lard were
passable marble; pork and beef were rare specimens of Floren-
tine mosaic; while a barrel of lamp-oil, stripped of the staves,
resembled a sandstone garden-roller.”’
The crews soon began to suffer in health and spirits: their
faces becanie white, like celery kept from the light. They had
strange dreams and heard strange sounds. The scurvy ap-
peared, and old wounds bled afresh. Dr. Kane endeavored to
combat the disease by acting upon the imagination of the suf-
ferers. He ordered an old tar with a stiff knee to place the
member in front of a strong magnet and let it vibrate to and
fro like a pendulum. <A wonderful and complete cure was thus
effected. He practised all sorts of amiable deceptions upon his
patients,—making them take medicine in salad and gargles in
beer. Not a man was lost during the voyage.
From time to time fissures would open in the ice around
them with an explosion like that of heavy artillery. It became
necessary to make preparations for abandoning the vessel, and
sledges, boats, and provisions were gotten ready for an emer-
gency. The men were drilled to leave the ship in a mass at
the word of command. The crisis seemed to be upon them
many a time and oft; but the Advance held firmly together,
and the ice around her gradually became solid as granite again.
Dr. Kane lectured at intervals on scientific subjects, till the
return of light brought with it a return of hope and animal
spirits. On the 29th of January, 1851, the sun rose above the
horizon, after an absence of eighty-six days. ‘‘ Never,” says
Dr. Kane, ‘till the grave-clod or the ice covers me may I
forego this blessing of blessings again! I looked at him
thankfully, with a great globus in my throat.”
The ice-pack did not open till the close of March. Previous
to this, all the successive symptoms of the coming thaw pre-
sented themselves. The ice began to emoke, and the surface
became first moist and then soft. It was soon too warm to
i
:
ARRIVAL AT BROOKLYN. 585
skate, and the cabin-lamps, that had burned for four months
without cessation, were extinguished. The mercury rose to
32°; the housings were removed from the Advance, and the
Rescue’s men returned to their deserted ship. The saw was put
in motion early in May; but the grand disruption of the ice,
which was either to free the ships or crush them, did not occur
till the Sth of June. It was five o’clock in the afternoon when
the first crack was heard, and the water, spirting up, was seen
following the track of the fissure. In half an hour the ice was
seamed with cracks in every direction, some of them spreading
into rivers twenty feet across. The Rescue was released at
once: the coating of the Advance held on for three days more,
parting at last under the weight of a single man. The liberated
ships soon made the Greenland coast, at Godhavn, where they
spent five days in reposing, in celebrating the Fourth of July,
and in splicing the main-brace,—this latter being a convivial,
and not a mechanical, operation. The vessels arrived safely at
the Brooklyn Navy-Yard on the 1st of October, Lol. pike
vessels were restored to Mr. Grinnell, with the stipulation that
the Secretary of.the Navy might claim them, in case of need,
for further search in the spring.
THE SEAL.
CHAPTER LI.
KENNEDY’S EXPEDITION—SIR EDWARD BELCHER—MCCLURE—DISCOVERY OF THE:
NORTHWEST PASSAGE—JUNCTION OF McCLURE AND KELLETT—EPISODE OF
THE RESOLUTE—COMMODORE PERRY’S EXPEDITION—DECISIVE TRACES OF THE
FATE OF SIR JOHN FRANKLIN—THE LEVIATHAN.
ENcouRAGED by the discovery of traces of her husband, Lady
Franklin caused the Prince Albert, upon her return with the
intelligence, to be at once refitted for another Arctic voyage.
The expedition, though conducted with consummate skill by
William Kennedy, late of the Hudson’s Bay Company, and
Lieutenant Bellot, of the French Navy, his second, totally
failed of success. It returned in October, 1853. In the mean
time, another and more imposing expedition—that under Sir
Edward Belcher—had sailed for the Polar regions. The
squadron consisted of five vessels,—the Assistance, with the
steamer Pioneer, the Resolute, with the steamer Intrepid, and
the North Star storeship. They sailed on the 28th of April,
1852, and arrived at their head-quarters at Beechey Island—
the scene of Franklin’s hibernation in 1846—on the 10th of
August. The North Star remained here with the stores, while
the two ships, with their respective tugs, started upon distinct
voyages of exploration,—Sir Edward Belcher, in the Assist-
ance, standing up Wellington Channel, and Captain Kellett, in
the Resolute, proceeding to Melville Island. The latter was
instructed to seek at this point for intelligence of Captains
McClure and Collinson, who had been sent to Behring’s Strait
in 1850, in order to force their way eastward from thence, and
586
THE NORTHWEST PASSAGE, 587
who had not since been heard of. As the interest of Sir
Edward Belcher’s expedition centres entirely in the junction
effected by Kellett with McClure, we revert to the adventures
of the latter explorer, now distinguished as the discoverer of
the Northwest Passage.
Collinson and McClure sailed in the Enterprise and Investi-
gator for Behring’s Strait ved Cape Horn on the 20th of
January, 1850. They arrived at the strait in July. The
Enterprise, being foiled in her efforts to get through the ice,
‘turned about and wintered at Hong-Kong. McClure, in the
Investigator, kept gallantly on through the strait, and, during
the month of August, advanced to the southeast, into the heart
of the Polar Sea, along a coast never yet visited by a ship, and
on the 21st of August arrived at the mouth of Mackenzie River,
discovered by Mackenzie in his land-expedition in 1789 to
determine the northern coast-line of America. He had now
passed the region visited and surveyed in former years by
Franklin, Back, Rae, and others, in overland explorations, and
on the 6th of September arrived at a point considerably to the
east of any land marked upon the charts. He now began to
name the islands, headlands, and indentations. On the 9th,
the ship was found to be but sixty miles to the west of the spot
to which Parry, sailing westward, had carried his ship in 1820.
Could he but sail these sixty miles his name would be immortal.
‘¢T cannot,” he writes, ‘‘describe my anxious feelings. Can it
be possible that this water communicates with Barrow’s Straits
and shall prove to be the long-sought Northwest Passage ?
Can it be that so humble a creature as [am will be permitted
to perform what has baffled the talented and wise for hundreds
of years?” On the 17th, the Investigator reached the longi-
tude of 117° 10’ west,—thirty miles from the waters in which
Parry wintered with the Hecla and Griper in a harbor of Mel-
ville Island. Alas! the vessel went no farther east: the ice
drifted perceptibly to the west, and it was fated that these
988 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
thirty miles should remain, as they had remained for ages, as
2
impassable to ships as the Isthmus of Suez.
The Investigator passed the winter heeled four degrees to
’
port and elevated a foot out of water by a “nip,” in which
position she rested quietly for months. Late in October, a
sledge-party of six men, headed by McClure, started to tra.
verse on foot the distance which it was forbidden their ship to
cross. On the 25th, they saw the Polar Ocean ice. The next
morning, before daybreak, they ascended a hill six hundred
feet high, convinced that the dawn would reveal them the
previous surveys of Sir Edward, and make them the discoverers
of the Northwest Passage, by connecting their voyage from the
west with his from the east. The return of day showed their
anticipations to be correct: Melville Strait was visible to the
north, and between it and them, though there was plenty of
ice, there was no intervening land. ‘They had discovered the
Passage,—that is, an ice-passage, which of course involved a
water-passage when the state of the atmosphere permitted it.
Though they regretted bitterly that they could not get their
ship through, their only remaining course was to send one of
their party home by the well-known route through Barrow’s
Straits, and thus prove the existence of the passage by the
return of one who had made it. They erected a cairn and left
a record of their visit, and then commenced their homeward
journey to the ship. McClure becam? separated from his com-
panions, and nearly perished in the snow. THe arrived in
safety. however, and the grand discovery was duly celebrated
and the main-brace properly spliced. Numerous searching-
parties were now from time to time sent out, and in the middle
of July the ice broke up and the Investigator was released.
She drifted five miles more to the east,—thus reducing the dis-
tance of separation to twenty-five miles. Here she was again
firmly and inextricably frozen in. Another and another winter —
passed; and it was not till the spring of 1853 that relief
A GLAD SURPRISE. 589
reached them. In order to make a consecutive story, we must
return to that portion of Sir Edward Belcher’s squadron which,
under Captain Kellett, was sent to Melville Island, and which
arrived there late in 1852. At this period, Kellett, in the
Resolute, and McClure, in the Investigator, were about one
hundred and seventy miles apart.
A sledge-party sent out by Kellett discovered, with the
wildest delight, in October, 1852, a cairn in which McClure
had deposited, the April previous, a chart of his discoveries.
They were compelled to wait the winter through ; and it was not
till the 10th of March that Kellett ventured to send a travelling-
party in quest of the Investigator. The communication was
effected on the 6th of April, 1853. McClure thus describes it:
“While walking near the ship, in conversation with the first
lieutenant, we perceived a figure coming rapidly towards us
from the rough ice at the entrance of the bay. He was cer-
tainly unlike any of our men; but, recollecting that it was
possible some one might be trying a new travelling-dress pre-
paratory to the departure of our sledges, and certain that no
one else was near, we continued to advance. The stranger
came quietly on: had the skies fallen upon us we could hardly
have been more astonished than when he called out, ‘I’m
Lieutenant Pim, late of the Herald, now of the Resolute.
Captain Kellett is in her, at Dealy Island.’
“To rush at and seize him by the hand was the first im-
pulse ; for the heart was too full for the tongue to speak. The
news flew with lightning rapidity: the ship was all in commo-
tion; the sick, forgetful of their maladies, leaped from their
hammocks; the artificers dropped their tools, and the lower
deck was cleared of men; for they all rushed for the hatchway,
to be assured that a stranger was actually among them and that
his tale was true. Despondency fled the ship, and Lieutenant
Pim received a welcome—pure, hearty, and grateful—that he
will surely remember and cherish to the end of his days.”
590 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
It was now decided to abandon the Investigator, immovably |
fixed as she was in the ice. Her colors were hoisted on the 3d
of June, and she was left alone in Mercy Bay. The officers
and crew arrived on board the Resolute on the 17th. McClure
sent Lieutenant Gurney Cresswell, with despatches for the
Admiralty, by sledges, down to Beechey Island, where he
found a Government vessel and at once sailed for England.
Though he had not made the Northwest Passage, he had at
least crossed the American continent within the Arctic Cirele ;
and this had yet been done by no mortal man. |
Kellett and McClure remained for many months in the Reso-
lute and Intrepid, beset in the ice. They received instructions
from Belcher, in April, 1854, to abandon their ships. The
latter were placed in a condition to be occupied by any Arctic
searching-party,—the furnaces of the steamer being left ready
to be lighted. Sir Edward Belcher had also been compelled to
abandon his vessels, the Assistance and Pioneer: the four
crews met at Beechey Island, and embarked on board their
storeship, the North Star, which had been laid up for two
years. They arrived in Engiand late in September. The
reader will at once recognise the Resolute as the ship which
was found in Baffin’s Bay, in 1855, by Captain Buddington,
of the New London whaler George Henry. She had forced
her way, unaided by man, through twelve hundred miles of
Arctic ice. The incidents of her arrival at New London, of
the abandonment to the American sailors of all claim upon her
by the British Government, of her purchase by the United
States Congress from her new owners, her re-equipment at the
Brooklyn Navy-Yard, and her restoration to the English Navy
by Captain Hartstene, U.S.N., are still fresh, in the minds
of all.
In the year 1853, an expedition sent by the United States
under Commodore Perry ventured into waters never before
ploughed by vessels of a Christian nation. On the 8th of
ll ee ea
TREATY WITH JAPAN. 591
July, the precipitous southern coast of Niphon—the largest
island of the Japanese group—loomed up through the fog.
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The American steamers entered the Bay of Jeddo, eight miles
wide at the mouth but spreading to a width of twelve beyond.
They were now land-bound, with the shores of an empire
almost fabulous enclosing them on every side. Though
peremptorily forbidden to anchor, though surrounded by
myriads of boats filled with men eager for a conflict, though
menaced by forts which seemed formidable till examined
through the glass, the fleet kept on, and finally, by dint of
persistence and several salutary displays of power, the commo-
dore, having at his disposal the national steamers Susquehanna,
Mississippi, and Powhatan, the frigate Saratoga, and the ships
Macedonian, Vandalia, Lexington, and Southampton, wrung
from the sullen monopolists a treaty opening to American trade
the port of Simoda, in Niphon, and that of Hakodadi, in Jesso.
It now remains for the Americans to lead the Japanese, by
592 HISTORY OF THE SEA,
judicious and honorable treatment, to experience and acknow,
ledge the benefits of commerce and intercourse with the nations
of Christendom.
To return once more to the Arctic researches. Soon after
the return of Belcher and McClure to England, decisive intelli-
gence of Franklin and his party was received in England. Dr.
Rae, who had been engaged for a year past in a search by
land, had met a party of Esquimaux who were in possession of
numerous articles which had belonged to Franklin and his men.
They stated that in the spring of 1850 they had seen forty
white men, near King William’s Land, dragging a boat and
sledges over the ice. They were thin and short of provisions :
their officer was a tall, stout, middle-aged man. Some months
later the natives found the corpses of thirty persons upon the
mainland, and five dead bodies upon a neighboring island.
They described the bodies as mutilated; whence Dr. Rae in-
ferred that the party had been driven to the horrible resource
of cannibalism. The presence of the bones and feathers of
geese, however, showed that some had survived till the arrival
of wild-fowl, about the end of May. Dr. Rae purchased such
articles of the natives as would best serve to identify their late
possessors. All furnished decisive testimony; but a round
silver plate gave peculiarly strong evidence, bearing as it did
the following inscription :—“ Sir John Franklin, K.C.B.” The
slight clue thus yielded of his fate was the last which has thus
far been obtained; and it will doubtless be the only one till the
Arctic seas give up their dead. The expedition of Dr. Kane
had, however, already sailed from New York.
_ It was while these events were transpiring that the keel of the
mammoth steam-vessel—known at first as the Great Eastern,
and afterwards as the Leviathan—was laid, at Milwall, on the
Thames. We refer the reader to the engraving on the opposite
page for a view of this “village adrift.”
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CAPE ALEXANDER: THE ARCTIC GIBRALTAR.
CHAPTER LIL
THE SECOND GRINNELL EXPEDITION—THE ADVANCE IN WINTER QUARTERS—
TOTAL DARKNESS — SLEDGE-PARTIES — ADVENTURES—THE FIRST DEATH —
TENNYSON’S MONUMENT—HUMBOLDT GLACIER—THE OPEN POLAR SEA—SECOND
WINTER— ABANDONMENT OF THE BRIG—THE WATER AGAIN—UPERNAVIK—
RESCUE BY CAPTAIN HARTSTENE— DEATH AND SERVICES OF DR, KANE—
ATTEMPT TO LAY THE ATLANTIC CABLE—CONCLUSION.
‘)-
THE Government of the United States forwarded to Dr.
Kane, in the month of December, 1852, an order “to conduct
;
:
p
an expedition to the Arctic Seas in search of Sir John
Franklin.” The brig Advance was again placed at his dis-
posal by Mr. Grinnell, and manned by eighteen picked men.
Dr. Kane’s plan was to enter Smith’s Sound at the top of
Baffin’s Bay,—into which, alone of the Arctic explorers, Cap-
594
FROZEN IN. 595
tain Inglefield had penetrated in August, 1852, in the Isabel,—
to reach, if possible, the supposed northerly open sea, where he
hoped to find traces of the missing navigators. He sailed from
New York on the 30th of May, 1853, touched at Fiskernaes, in
Greenland, on the 1st of July, where he engaged the services
of Hans Cristian, a native Esquimaux of nineteen years.
Through ice and fog the vessel forced her way, and on the 7th
of August doubled Cape Alexander, a promontory opposite
another named Cape Isabella,—the two being the headlands
of Smith’s Strait, and styled by Dr. Kane the Arctic Pillars
of Hercules.
The vessel closed with the ice again the next day, and was
forced into a landlocked cove. Every effort to force her through
the floes was tried, without success, and, after undergoing the
most appalling treatment from the wind, waves, and ice com-
bined, the brig was warped into winter quarters, in Rensselaer
Bay, on the 22d of August, and was frozen in on September 10.
There she lies to this hour,—‘‘to her a long resting-place
indeed,” writes Kane; ‘‘for the same ice is around her still.”
This was in latitude 78° 37’ N.,—the most northerly winter
quarters ever taken by Christians, except in Spitzbergen, which
has the advantage of an insular climate. An observatory was
erected, a thermal register kept hourly, and magnetic observa-
tions recorded. Parties were sent out to establish provision-
depdts to the north, to facilitate researches in the spring.
Three depdts or “caches” were made, the most distant being
in latitude 79° 12’: in this they deposited six hundred and
seventy pounds of pemmican and forty of meat-biscuit. These
operations were arrested by darkness in November, and the
crew prepared to spend one hundred and forty days without the
light of the sun. The first number of the Arctic newspaper,
‘The Ice-Blink,” appeared on the 21st. The thermometer
fell to 67° below zero. Chloroform froze, and chloric ether
became solid. The air had a perceptible pungency upon
596 HISTORY OF THE SEA,
inspiration: all inhaled it guardedly and with compressed
lips. ‘Che 22d of December brought ‘with it the midnight of
the ycar: the fingers could not be counted a foot from the
eyes. Nothing remained to indicate that the Arctic world had
a sun. The men during this their first winter kept up their
spirits wonderfully ; but most of the dogs died of diseases of the
brain brought on by the depressing influences of the darkness.
The first traces of returning light were observed on the ast
of January, when the southern horizon had a distinct orange tint.
Towards the close of February the sun silvered the tall icebergs
between the headlands of the bay: his rays reached the deck
on the 28th, and perpetual day returned with the month of
March. The men found their faces badly mottled by scurvy-
spots, and they were nearly all disabled for active work. But
is had
-
~
i
“CHAOS,”?
six dogs remained out of forty-four. ‘“‘No language can
describe,” says Kane, “the chaos at the base of the rock on.
-
4
SUFFERING FROM EXTREME COLD. 597
which the storehouse had been built. Fragments of ice had
been tossed into every possible confusion, rearing up in fantastic
equilibrium, surging in long inclined planes, dipping into dark
valleys, and piling in contorted hills.’’ A sledge-party was
sent out on the 19th to deposit a relief cargo of provisions; on
the 31st, three of its members returned, swollen, haggard, and
almost dumb. They had left four of their number in a tent,
disabled and frozen. Dr. Kane at once started with a rescue
of nine men, and, after an unbroken march of twenty-one
hours, came in sight of a small American flag floating upon a
hummock. They were received with an explosion of welcome.
The return with the sledge laden with the weight of eleven
-hundred pounds was effected at the expense of tremendous
efforts of energy and endurance.
While still nine miles from their half-way tent, they felt the
peculiar lethargic sensation of extreme cold,—symptoms which
Kane compares to the diffused paralysis of the electro-galvanic
shock. Bonsall and Morton asked permission to go to sleep,
at the same time denying that they were cold. Hans lay down
under a drift, and in a few moments was stiff. An immediate
halt was necessary. The tent was pitched, but no one had the
strength to light a fire. ‘They could neither eat nor drink.
The whiskey froze at the men’s feet. Kane gave orders to them
to take four hours’ rest and then follow him to the half-way
tent, where he would have ready a #re and some thawed pem-
mican. He then pushed on with William Godfrey. They were
both in a state of stupor, and kept themselves awake by a con-
tinued articulation of incoherent words. Kane describes these
hours as the most wretched he ever went through. On arriving
at the tent, they found that a bear had overturned it, tossing
the pemmican into the snow. They crawled into their reindeer
sleeping-bags and slept for three hours in a dreamy but intense
slumber. On awaking, they melted snow-water and cooked
some soup; and on the arrival of the rest of the party they all
598 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
took the refreshment and pushed on towards the brig. Their
strength soon failed them again, and they began to lose their
self-control. Kane tried the experiment of a three minutes’
sleep, and, finding that it refreshed him, timed the men in their
turns. Doses of brandy, and, finally, the distant sight of the
brig, revived and encouraged them. The last mile was accom-
plished by instinct, as none of the men remembered it after-
wards: they staggered into the cabin delirious and muttering
with agony.
Death now entered the devoted camp: Jefferson Baker died
of lockjaw on the 7th of April. A meeting with a party of
Esquimaux now enabled Kane to reinforce his dog-team, and
WILD DOG TEAM.
encouraged him to start, late in April, upon his grand sledge-
excursion to the north. It failed, however, completely. Kane
became delirious on the 5th of May, and fainted every time he
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KANE’S OPEN POLAR SEA,
599
:
000 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
was taken from the tent to the sledge. He was conveyed back
to the brig, and from the 14th to the 20th lay hovering between
life and death. Short as the expedition was, however, several
remarkable discoveries were made. ‘*'Tennyson’s Monument’’
was the name given to a solitary column of greenstone, four
hundred and eighty feet high, rising from a pedestal two hun-
dred and eighty feet high,—both as sharply finished as if they
had been cast for the Place Vendéme. But the most wonderful
feature was the Great Glacier of Humboldt,—an ice-ocean of
boundless dimensions, in which a complete substitution had been
effected of ice for water. ‘ Imagine,’’ Kane writes, “ the centre
of the continent of Greenland occupied through nearly its whole
extent by a deep unbroken sea of ice that gathers perennial
increase from the water-shed of vast snow-covered mountains
and all the precipitations of the atmosphere upon its own sur-
face. Imagine this moving onward like a great glacial river,
seeking outlets at every fiord and valley, rolling icy cataracts
into the Atlantic and Greenland seas, and, having at last
reached the northern limit of the land that has borne it up,
pouring out a mighty frozen torrent into unknown Arctic
space. . . . Here was a plastic, moving, semi-solid mass, oblite-
rating life, swallowing rocks and islands, and ploughing its way
with irresistible march through the crust of an investing sea.”
Other sledge-parties were from time to time sent out. One
of six men left the brig on the 3d of June, keeping to the north
and reaching Humboldt Glacier on the 15th. Four returned to
the ship on the 27th, one of them entirely blind. Hans Christian
and William Morton kept on, and finally, in north latitude 81°
22’, sighted open water,—an open Polar sea. To the cape at
which the land terminated Morton gave the name of Cape Con-
stitution. A lofty peak on the opposite side of the channel, but
a little farther to the north, and the most remote northern land
known upon our globe, was named Mount Edward Parry, from
the great pioneer of Arctic travel.
:
f
HANS’ FORLORN-HOPE EXCURSION. 601
A second winter now stared the explorers in the face. “It
is horrible,’ says Kane, “to look forward to another year of
disease and darkness, without fresh food or fuel.’’ Still, pre-
parations were made for the direful extremity. Willow-stems
and sorrel were collected as antiscorbutics. Lumps of turf,
frozen solid, were quarried with crowbars, and with them the
ship’s sides were embanked. During the early months a com-
munication was kept up with the nearest Esquimaux station,
seventy-five miles distant, and thus scanty supplies of fox,’
walrus, seal, and bear meat were occasionally obtained. These
failed, however, during the months of total darkness. arly in
February, Kane wrote in his journal :—‘“ We are contending at
odds with angry forces close around us, without one agent or
influence within eighteen hundred miles whose sympathy is on
our side.” On the 4th of March, the last fragment of fresh
meat was served, and the whole crew would have perished
miserably of starvation, had it not been for the successful issue
of a forlorn-hope excursion to the Htah Esquimaux station
undertaken by Hans and two dogs. Dr. Kane ate rats, and
thereby escaped the scurvy. The bunks were warmed by oil-
lamps, after the Esquimaux fashion: the beds and the men’s
faces became in consequence black and greasy with soot. The
sufferings endured by the party were perhaps the most dreadful
to which Arctic adventurers have ever been subjected.
The abandonment of the brig had been resolved upon before
the setting in of winter, and the misery of the hours of darkness
had been in some measure alleviated by the progress of the
preparations for that event,—in making clothing, canvas moc-
casins, seal-hide boots, and in cutting water-tight shoes from
the gutta-percha speaking-tube. Provision-bags were made of
sail-cloth rendered impervious by coats of tar. Into these the
bread was pressed by beating it to powder with a capstan-bar.
Pork-fat and tallow were melted down and poured into other
bags to freeze. The three boats—none of them sea-worthy—
602 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
were strengthened, housed, and mounted on sledges rigged with
shoulder-belts to drag by: one of them they expected to burn.
for fuel on reaching water. ‘The powder and shot, upon which
their lives depended, were distributed in canisters: Kane took
the percussion-caps into his own possession, as more precious :
than gold. The 17th of May was fixed upon for the departure.
The farewell to the brig was made with due solemnity. The
day was Sunday, and prayers and a chapter of the Bible were
read. Kane then stated in an address the necessities under
which the ship was abandoned and the dangers that still awaited
them. He believed, however, that the thirteen hundred miles
of ice and water which lay between them and North Greenland
could be traversed with safety for most and hope for all. A
brief memorial of the reasons compelling the desertion of the
vessel was fastened to a stanchion near the gangway, to serve
as their vindication in case’they were lost and the brig was ever
visited. The flags were hoisted and hauled down again, and
the men scrambled off over the ice to the boats, no one thinking
of the mockery of cheers.
We have not space to detail the perils, adventures, and
narrow escapes from starvation of this hardy party in their
romantically dangerous escape to the south. On the 16th of
June, the boats and sledges approached the open water. ‘‘We
see its deep-indigo horizon,’ writes Kane, ‘‘and hear its roar
against the icy beach. Its scent is in our nostrils and our
hearts.” The boats, which were split with frost and warped by
sunshine, had to be calked and swelled before they were fit for
use. The embarkation was effected on the 19th: the Red Eric,
the smallest of the three boats, swamped the first day. They
spent their first night in an inlet in the ice. Sometimes they would
sail through creeks of water for many successive hours: then
would follow days of weary tracking through alternate ice and
water. During a violent storm, they dragged the boats upon a
narrow shelf of ice, and found themselves within a cave which
WELCOMED BY FRIENDS. 603
myriads of eider had made their breeding-ground. They re-
mained three days in this crystal retreat, and gathered three
thousand eggs. They doubled Cape Dudley Digges on the 11th
of June, and spent a week at Providence Halt, luxuriating on
a dish composed of birds sweeter and juicier than canvas-backs
and a salad made of raw eggs and cochlearia. The coast now
trended to the east; the wide expanse of Melville Bay lay
between them and Upernavik,—that Danish outpost of civiliza-
tion. The party was at one moment in the actual agonies of
starvation, when a lucky shot at a sleeping seal saved them
from the dreaded extremity. They soon saw a kayak—a native
boat—in which one Paul Zacharias was seeking eider-doy1
SEEKING EIDER DOWN.
among the islands. Not long after, the single mast of a smal
shallop—the Upernavik oil-boat—loomed up through the fog.
They landed the next day in the midst of a crowd of children,
and drank coffee that night before hospitable Danish firesides.
604 HISTORY OF THE SEA,
A Danish vessel—the Mariane—was to return to Denmark
on the 4th of September, and at that date Kane and his party
embarked on board of her, the captain engaging to drop them
at the Shetland Islands. On the 11th they arrived at God-
havn, and there, at the very moment of their final departure,
Captain Hartstene’s relief-squadron was sighted in the offing.
With the rescue of the adventurers closes our record of Arctic
peril and discovery.
Dr. Kane fell a victim to his zeal in the arduous paths of
science. He died, on the 16th of February, 1857, at Havana,
where he was seeking to recuperate his debilitated system be-
neath a tropical sun. _ His loss was sincerely lamented by the
whole country. No commander was ever better fitted by nature
for the task confided to him; and no historian ever chronicled’
the results of his own labors in language more enthralling or in
a style more commanding and picturesque.
The general interest occasioned by the various polar expe-
ditions can hardly be better shown than by a reference to the
pleasure excursions made in their own yachts, by various ama-
teur explorers in search of the excitement necessarily incident
to expeditions of this kind. Lord Dufferin, who was recently
the Governor-General of Canada, in his account of a visit of this
kind made by himself to Iceland, gives a vivid account of the
lives past by the hardy settlers of this extreme northerly outpost |
of civilization.
Reykjavik, the present capital of Iceland, is a comparatively
modern settlement, which has obtained its modern importance
at the expense of both Thingvalla and Skalholt, formerly the
seat of the parliament and the capital. In 1797 the legislature
was transferred here, and it was made the seat of the ecclesi-
astical organization of the island. It contains about 1400
inhabitants, is the chief seat of the large fish trade of Iceland,
and has an annual fair in July, to which traders resort from
circle of fifty leagues. The houses in which the majority of the
HUTS OF THE. ICELANDERS. 605
Icelanders live are in fact nothing more than huts, with seldom
more than a single room. The walls are built roughly of °
stones, with layers of turf between them to take the place of
mortar. The roof is made of such wood as can be obtained,
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covered over with turf and sods. The floor is of earth; small
windows are found in some of them, but most generally the
dependence for light is a hole in the roof covered with a piece
of transparent skin, or a bit of glass. A few stones placed
roughly together do duty for the hearth, while the chimney is
either a simple hole in the roof, or, if more carefully made,
consists of a barrel, or cask, with the two heads out, placed in
the hole in the roof. Ventilation or cleanliness. are modern
luxuries which are wholly disregarded, and on either side of
the room are ranged the bunks in which the twenty or more
inmates arrange themselves for sleeping.
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.
606 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
Where a cluster of such huts are gathered there is generally
‘a church. The cnurch at Thingvalla affords a favorable
specimen of these structures. :
This building is one story high, and about ten by fifteen feet
in size. These churches, which are quite frequently met with,
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CHURCH AT THINGVALLA.
wherever a cluster of huts are to be found, are used also for
the accommodation of strangers and travellers. They are by no
means either cleanly or sweet-smelling, but are infinitely to be
preferred as a resting-place to the accommodation such as the
huts furnish. The clergymen are a devoted set of men, but are
necessarily, while their parishioners are themselves so poor,
poorly paid for their devotion, and obliged to work hard them-
selves to eke out a living. They tend cattle, work at hay-.
making, which is quite a business in Tceland, and are almost
witnout exception blacksmiths, and the best at this trade in
the country. This accomplishment is an important one, since
the rocks and lava splinters would speedily ruin the horses’
GENERAL LITERARY CULTURE. 607
feet, if they were not admirably shod. To every church a
smithy is attached, and as the chureh is the chief place of resort
of the peasantry, the pastor has constant employment in
keeping the shoes of his parishioners’ horses in good order.
Though their lot is one of great poverty and hardship, yet
“mong these devoted men instances of learning and even of genius
are not uncommon. As a striking instance of this the pastor
of Thingvalla, Jon Thor- et i :
ail.
lakson, may be mentioned.
He is a poet, and in a few
- Icelandic verses has thus
touchingly alluded to his
condition : A \Y N Nu
‘\\ wt FANN
A
“ Ever since I came into
this world I have been
wedded to poverty.
AN
RN
She has now for sev- 7)
ee
Se
enty years, less two, clasped we
\
-me to her bosom. :
\ \
“Only to him who i ‘
joined us, is it known jj
LPTs ~ aam me —
whether we shall ever be |i
parted.”
Though his income from
his pastorate amounted to
less than thirty dollars a eee kN
year, and he was consequently forced to supplement his income
by continuous hard physical labor, yet he translated into Ice-
landic verse Pope’s Essay on Man, and at seventy years of age
completed a metrical version of Milton’s Paradise Lost.
During his lifetime only the three first books were printed by
the Icelandic Literary Society, when its completion was pre-
vented by the dissolution of the society, and the publication was
not fully made until 1828, some years after his death.
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MAP OF POLARIS EXPEDITION,
CHAPTER LIIL
CHARLES FRANCIS HALL’S LAST ARCTIC EXPEDITION IN THE POLARIS—
THE PREPARATION FOR THE EXPEDITION—THE HIGH HOPE WITH WHICH
IT STARTED—THE FIRST NEWS FROM IT—PICKED UP ON THE FLOATING
ICE—THE TIGRESS SENT IN SEARCH—HER FAILURE TO FIND THE EX-
PLORERS—HALL’S DEATH—THE POLARIS ABANDONED AND SUNK—JOUR-
NAL OF A VOYAGE ON FLOATING ICE.
On June 29th, 1871, Charles Francis Hall sailed from New
York on an expedition he had enthusiastically urged, and by
which he hoped to reach the pole. After months of urging,
the government had been prevailed upon to grant its aid, and
with the assistance of private individuals careful preparations
had been made in order to provide all that experience could.
advise to ensure success. A screw steamer, rigged as a schooner,
had been purchased. She was of 400 tons capacity, and her
name was changed from the Periwinkle to the Polaris. Her
sides were strengthened by adding a sheathing of oak planking,
six inches thick ; her bows were made solid, covered with iron
plates, and an iron point added. Her screw was so rigged
that it could be unshipped when there was any danger from ice.
She was also provided with a double set of sails, spars, blades
for the propeller, another rudder, and other appliances. Speci»
attention was given to her supply of small boats. One of these,
capable of carrying four tons, weighed only two hundred and
fifty pounds, and was so arranged that in a few moments it could
39 609
610 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
be folded up, packed on a sledge, and transported over the ice,
and easily shipped again in clear water. Every appliance was
also provided for the safety, the comfort, and the sanitary con-
dition of her crew.
Hall had prepared himself for such an undertaking by pre-
vious Arctic expeditions. In one of these he had remained four
years among the Esquimaux, living entirely among them,
learning their language, and becoming so habituated to their
method and mode of living that, after his return, he confessed to
a liking for whale oil as a beverage, and that he considered a
piece of whale blubber one of the chief of luxuries. As a dis-
ciplinarian his reputation was certainly good, and unquestionably
he had the faculty of attaching to himself the men under his
command, —
The rest of the crew for the Polaris was carefully selected.
The post of sailing-master was given to Sydney O. Buddington,
who had commanded the vessel in which Hall had made his
previous expedition. For the position of assistant navigator
George EK. Tyson was selected. The first mate was Hubbard
C. Chester, and the second mate William Morton, who had
been with Kane. ‘The scientific portion of the expedition con-
sisted of Kmil Bessels as chief; Emil Schuman, chief engineer ;
Frederick Meyer, meteorologist; and R. D. W. Bryan, as
astronomer and chaplain. Bessels had before taken part in an
Arctic expedition sent out by the Prussian government. An
Esquimaux, Ebierbing, who had returned with Hall from his
previous expedition, went with the expedition as interpreter.
He was accompanied by his wife and their little child. The
crew consisted of seventeen men, of whom about one-half were
Germans, or Scandinavians, At Greenland another Esquimaux,
Hans Christian, was taken aboard, to serve as dog-driver.
With him came his wife and three children, so that the entire
company consisted of forty persons.
On the 24th of August, 1871, a dispatch was sent by Hall
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OFFICERS OF THE POLARIS.
611
612 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
from Tessuisac, Greenland, in latitude 73° 30’, from which the
following extracts are of interest. The dispatch was dated on
the 22d, and additions were made to it on the 24th. The dis-
patch begins: “The prospects of the expedition are fine; the
weather beautiful, clear, and exceptionally warm. Every prepa-
ration has been made to bid farewell to civilization for several
years, if need be, to accomplish our purpose. Our coal-bunkers
are not only full, but we have fully ten tons on deck, beside
wood, planks, tar, and rosin in considerable quantities, that can
be used for steaming purposes in case of any emergency. Never
was an Arctic expedition more completely fitted out than this.
The progress of the Polaris so far has been quite favorable,
making exceedingly good passages from port to port. The
actual steaming or sailing time from Washington to New York
was sixty hours; and from that place to this—the most north-
erly civilized settlement of the world, unless there be one for us
to discover at or near the North Pole—has been twenty days,
seven hours, and thirty minutes. There is every reason to
rejoice that everything pertaining to the expedition, under the
rulings of high Heaven, is in a far more prosperous condition
than I had hoped or prayed for. We are making every effort
to leave here to-morrow.
“August 23d, evening—We did not get under way to-day,
as expected, because a heavy, dark fog has prevailed all day,
and the same now continues. The venture of steaming out into
a sea of undefined reefs and sunken rocks, under the present
circumstances, could not be undertaken.
“August 24th, 1 p. Mi—The fog still continues, and I decide
that we cannot wait longer for its dispersion ; for a longer delay
will make it doubtful of the expedition securing the very high
latitude I desire to obtain before entering into winter quarters.
A good pilot has offered to do his very best in conducting the
Polaris outside of the most imminent danger of the reefs and
rocks. Now at half-past one Pp. M., the anchor of the Polaris
ADIEU TO CIVILIZATION. 613
has just been weighed, and not again will it go down till, as I
trustand pray, a higher, a far higher latitude has been attained than
ever before by civilized man. Governor Elberg is about accom-
panying us out of the harbor and seaward. He leaves us when
_ the pilot does. He has rendered to this expedition much service,
and long will I remember him for his great kindness. I am
sure you and my country will fully appreciate the hospitality
and co-operation of the Danish officials in Greenland as relating
to our North Polar Expedition.
“ Now, at a.quarter past two, the Polaris bids adieu to the
civilized world. Governor Elberg leaves us, promising to take
these dispatches back to Upernavik, and to send them to our
minister at Copenhagen by the next ship, which opportunity
may not be till next year. God be with us!”
This dispatch was not forwarded from Greenland until the
next year; for the yearly vessel which plies between Greenland
and Copenhagen serving as the only regular communication be-
tween this desolate country and the rest of the world, had sailed
before it was brought back by the governor. It was almost a
year before it was received by the American minister at Copen-
hagen, and by him forwarded to our government, and thus
made public. |
From the ice-bound coast of Greenland, Hall hid sailed to
the north, his hopes lighting up the future, as the aurora glori-
fies that frozen, ice-bound land.
These splendidly brilliant displays, as the illustration shows,
fill the whole heavens, while the earth is covered with frozen
ice and snow. At times bright bands, red at the horizon, green
in their middle, and light yellow at their upper ends, shoot to
the zenith, filling the real desolation of the scene with an unreal
glory. For nearly a year after the reception of this dispatch,
to the public mind the future of the Polaris expedition, lit up
by Hall’s hopeful enthusiasm, seemed as brilliant as does the
dreary scene of Greenland under the magical light of the aurora.
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AURORA SEEN IN GREENLA
614
THE SURVIVORS RESCUED, — 615
Not until 1873 was any further information received from
the expedition. On the 30th of April of that year, the steamer
Tigress, engaged in the sealing business, while coasting along
Labrador, in about latitude 53°, came across a patch of floating:
ice, some twenty feet square, upon which were a cluster of
human beings. On being rescued from their perilous position
they proved to be a part of the company of the Polaris.
There were nineteen of them in all, consisting of Tyson, the
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DRIFTING IN THE ICE.
assistant engineer, Meyer, the meteorologist, Jackson, the cook,
the steward, and five seamen. With these were Ebierbing, the
Esquimaux, with his wife and child, and Hans Christian, the
Esquimaux taken on at Greenland, with his wife and four
children, the youngest only eight months old, six of which had
been spent drifting at sea upon this cake of ice. The Tigress
landed them at St. J ohn’s, Newfoundland, from which point the
telegraph announced the fact of their rescue to the world, and
616 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
the government sent a steamer to bring them to Washington.
Here they were examined by a commission, and their story,
which had been already gathered by a correspondent at St.
John’s, made public. A diary of their experience upon the ice
had been kept by John Heron, the steward, from which extracts
will be given further on. They brought the news of Hall’s
death and burial. He had died November 8th, 1871, a little
more than a week after his return to the Polaris, then in winter
quarters in a cove on the Greenland shore, in latitude 81° 38’,
and named Polaris Bay. After leaving Tessuisac, the Polaris
passed Northumberland Island, and through Smith’s Sound,
into Kane’s Sea, the body of water which had been supposed by
Kane and Hayes to be the open Polar Sea. Steaming up this
sea to a point which Hall’s reckoning made 82° 29’, and Meyer
‘subsequently 82° 16’, the difference between the two being only
about fifteen miles, the channel was found blocked, on the 30th
of August, by heavy masses of floating ice. Here, while de-
bating where it would be best to winter, the ice closing round
the Polaris drifted her back four days, until, on the 3d of Sep-
tember, the pack opened, and allowed her to enter a small cove
on the Greenland shore.
This cove was protected by an immense iceberg, and here it
was determined to winter. This cove was called Polaris Bay,
and was in latitude 81° 38’. The iceberg that sheltered it was
christened Providence berg. Upon this, Hall, on the evening
of September 3d, landed, and raised the American flag.
If the calculations are correct, Polaris Bay is three minutes,
or about three miles, further north than the point reached by
Hayes on the opposite side of the strait, and about two hundred
miles further north than the point which Kane made his winter
quarters. Upon this iceberg an observatory was built, and a
series of scientific observations begun. Hall, eager to press
forward, could not rest quiet, with the prospect of remaining
here inactive the rest of the winter, and kezan his preparations
HALL’S LAST REPORT. 617
for pushing further north by means of sledges. All being pre-
pared, he set ont on the 10th of October, taking with him two
sleds drawn by fourteen dogs, and carrying with him the mate,
Chester, and the two Esquimaux, Ebierbing and Hans. His
intention was to spend two weeks in this expedition, the first to
be used in pushing forward, and the second in returning. The
following dispatch was found in his writing-desk, and was first
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SCALING AN ICEBERG.
read in Washington, in June, 1873. It is probably the last
report he ever wrote:
“Sixth Snow-House Encampment, latitude 82° 3’, longitude
61° 20’, October 20th, 1871.
“Myself and party left the ship in winter quarters, Thank
God Harbor, to discover, if possible, a feasibie route inland for
my sledge journey, next spring, to reach the North Pole, pur-
posing to adopt such a route, if found better than a route over
the old floes and hummocks of the strait. We arrived here on
the afternoon of October 17th, having discovered a lake and
river on our way. Along the latter our route, a most serpen-
618 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
tine one, which led us to this bay from the top of an iceberg
near the mouth of the river, we could see that this bay extended
to the eastward and southward about fifteen miles. On arriv-
ing here, we found the mouth of the bay open, the water having
numerous seals in it, bobbing up their heads. This open water
making close to both headlands, and the ice of Robeson Strait
being on the move, debarred all chance of extending our jour-
ney up the strait. The mountainous land (none other being:
about here) will not admit of our journeying further north, and
we commence our return to-morrow morning. ‘To-day we are
. storm-bound at this, our sixth encampment. We can see the
land extending on the west side of the strait to the north about.
seventy miles, thus making the land we discovered as far as
latitude 83° 5’ N. There is the appearance of land further
north, and extending more easterly, but a peculiarly-dark nim-
bus cloud prevents my making a full.determination. Up to
the time I and my party left the ship all have been well, and
continue with high hopes of accomplishing our great mission,
We find this a much warmer country than we expected. The
mountains on either side of Kennedy Channel and Robeson
Strait were found entirely bare of snow and ice, with the ex-
ception of a glacier that we saw commencing in about latitude
80° 30’ N., on the east side of the strait, and extending in an
easterly direction as far as can be seen from the mountains near
Polaris Bay. We have found that the country abounds with
live seals, game, geese, ducks, musk cattle, rabbits, wolves,
foxes, bears, partridges, lemmings, etc., ete. Our long Arctic.
night commenced October 13th, having seen only the upper
limb of the sun above the glacier at meridian, October 13th.
This dispatch I finish at this moment, twenty-three minutes
past eight P. M., having written it with ink, in our snow-hut..
Thermometer outside, 7°; yesterday, all day, 20°-23°.”
The illustration of the nest of the polar bear shows how
instinct teaches her to provide for her young. Selecting a place:
HALL TAKEN: VERY ILL. 619
where the snow will cover her she patiently remains, until, cov-
ered by the storms, she gives birth to her young; the warmth
of their bodies enlarging the hole in which they lie warm,
and their breath keeping an air hole open to the upper atmos
phere.
Having returned to the Polaris in a shorter time than he
NEST OF THE POLAR BEAR.
had counted upon, Hall thanked the men for having behaved
so well during his absence, refused all kind of refreshment
except a cup of coffee, and retired to rest after having taken a
hot sponge bath. The next morning he felt very unwell; the
principal symptoms being a burning in the throat and vomiting.
For a week the illness increased, being accompanied with tem-
620 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
porary paralysis and partial delirium. Still he seemed to get
better, but on the night of the 8th of November he became
worse, and died that night. It would seem that he had a
suspicion he was poisoned in the cup of coffee he drank, but
this was probably simply the delirium which became more
marked soon after, and during which he fancied every one was
trying to kill him. The report of the commission who care-
fully examined all the testimony available said that: “From
personal examination of all the witnesses, we reach the unan-
imous opinion that the death of Captain Hall resulted naturally,
from disease, without fault on the part of any one. During
his illness he was under the medical care of Dr. Bessels, and as
none of the persons now here are capable of giving a more
particular account of the nature and symptoms of his fatal
sickness, the return of the Polaris must be awaited for precise
information.”
After the death of Hall, according to -the instructions sent
with the expedition, the command passed to Captain Bud-
dington. The Polaris remained in her winter position, and the
season passed without any serious suffering for food, or from
cold on the part of the company. Scientific observations were
regularly made, a considerable portion of the coast was sur-
veyed, and quite a collection made of the skins and skeletons
of the various game captured and shot by the Esquimaux.
About three weeks after Captain Hall’s death, a violent wind
caused the Polaris to drag her anchors, and forced her against
the protecting iceberg, to which she was made fast, and remained
so until August, when she got free from the position on the
berg into which her bow had been forced by the ice floe during
the winter. In June Captain Buddington ordered a boat expe-
dition along the coast, which penetrated north nearly as far as.
Hall had reached with his sledges.
In August, the Polaris being free, Captain Buddington
resolved to return, and set out, steaming carefully down the
LEFT UPON THE ICE. 621
shore, but after a day’s progress the vessel being caught in the
floating ice, was made fast to a large floe, and drifted slowly
up and down the sound for nearly two months. On _ the
15th of October, 1872, a violent gale drove the floating ice
under her, so as to raise her from the water and throw her
on her beam ends. To provide against all possible contingen-
cies, a store of provisions was thrown out upon the ice, and half
the crew was ordered out to carry them up upon the ice. The
boats were all lowered also, when the gale increasing during
the night the Polaris broke away from her fastening to the floe,
and drifted away, leaving the nineteen persons, whose fortunate
discovery we have noted, on the ice. During the night these
persons thus left labored to preserve the provisions which had
been put out.
After following the subsequent fortune of the Polaris, we
will return to the narration of that of these nineteen persons,
whose fortunate preservation we have already noticed. As we
have seen, in July, 1873, the Tigress had been dispatched from
New York to search for the Polaris, on the reception of the
news of the rescue of nineteen of her crew from the floating
ice. On the 10th of September a telegram from St. John’s,
Newfoundland, brought the news that the place where the
Polaris had passed the preceding winter had been visited, but
that the vessel itself had disappeared, and was supposed to be
lost, and that the crew had gone south in boats they had con-
structed. About a week later a telegram from Dundee, Scot-
land, brought the news that the rest of the crew of the Polaris
had been all safely landed in Dundee from a whaling ship
which had picked them up. Of this, however, the crew of the
Tigress being ignorant, the search was continued.
On the 14th of August the Tigress had reached the spot in
which it was supposed the crew of the Polaris had spent the
winter, and a boat was sent to investigate. Landing on the
shore they saw dimly through the fog a hut at a short distance,
622 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
and a party of Esquimaux coming towards them. From these
1» was learned that, returning from a hunting expedition, they
had found the ship fastened to the shore, and the crew living
in the hut they had constructed. That having resolved to leave
the ship, the head man had given them the ship, and the party
had started off towards the south. Soon after the white men
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had gone, a gale had broken the ship away from her fastenings
and she had drifted a mile or two away and finally sunk in
shallow water. A visit to the hut confirmed the story of these
Esquimaux. ‘The hut was a comfortable construction, built of
planks, roofed with sail-cloth, and provided inside with bunks,
EXPERIENCES OF THE CREW. 623
a cooking-stove and other evidences of the presence of civilized
men. Around the hut were scattered broken instruments, pro-
visions, books, papers and other signs that the place had been
inhabited and abandoned after throwing away the things they
could not take with them. The site of the camp was in lat-
itude 78° 23’ N., a little farther north than Hayes had built
his winter quarters in 1860-61. Having gathered what infor-
mation they could from the Esquimaux, and picked up such
articles as were worth carrying away, the exploring party
returned to New York, after coasting along the Greenland
shore, but finding no further traces of the presence of the
Polaris.
The details of the experience of the crew which remained on
the Polaris, after, on the 15th of October, 1872, she broke from
her moorings, leaving the nineteen persons on the ice, are as
follows: Before the Polaris broke away she was found to be
leaking badly. The strain which had been put on her by the
ice had opened her seams, and at the time all hands were en-
gaged in transferring supplies and provisions to the ice, with
the expectation of being probably forced to abandon her.
When she broke away, it was sson evident that this must be
done, and after a vigorous effort, in which hours were consumed
in forcing her through as many miles of the broken ice, she
was beached. From the timbers and planks between decks, the
hut was constructed on the shore, and all preparations made for
passing the coming winter. Though they were plentifully
supplied with provisions, yet it was evident that the consump-
tion of these was merely a question of time, so the winter was
spent in constructing two boats, out of planks and boards taken
from the Polaris, to be used when the ice should open in the
summer. About the middle of June the party embarked in
these frail boats, rowing by day, and at night dragging their
boats upon the ice. On the 20th of July they were discovered
by a whale ship, and being taken aboard were landed in
624 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
Dundee, Scotland, in the afternoon of September 17th, and the
next day, by telegraph, the news was received of their safety.
Their story corroborated that which had previously been
learned from the other survivors of the expedition, without
adding materially anything further to our information. The
scientific results of the observations have not yet been printed.
The following extracts from the diary kept by John Heron,
the steward, who was one of the party left by the Polaris on
the ice, are most interesting as the record of what was probably
the most remarkable voyage ever made, consisting, as it did, of
a six months’ voyage on floating ice:
“October 15th.— Gale from the 8. W.; ship made fast to floe;
bergs pressed in and nipped the ship until we thought she was.
going down; threw provisions overboard, and nineteen souls
got out on the floe to receive them and haul them up on the
ice. A large berg came sailing down, struck the floe, shivered
it to pieces, and freed the ship. She was out of sight in five
minutes. We were afloat on different pieces of ice. We had
two boats. Our men were picked up, myself among them, and
landed on the main floe, which we found to be cracked in many
places. We remained shivering all night. Saved very little
provisions. 16th. Morning fine; light breeze from the N. The
berg that did us so much damage half a mile to the N. E. of us..
Plenty of open water. We lost no time in launching the boats,
getting the provisions in, and pulling around the berg, when
we saw the Polaris. She had steam up and succeeded in getting
a harbor. In the evening we started with the boats for shore.
Had we reached it we could have walked on board in an hour,
but the ice set in so fast that we could not pull through it. We
had a narrow escape in jumping from piece to piece until we
reached the floe. We dragged the boat two or three hundred
yards, and made for our provisions, which were on a distant
part of the floe. We cannot see our other boat ; the snow-drift
has covered our late tracks. 23d. With the aid of a marine
STARTING FOR SHORE. 625
glass we discovered a boat, and at some distance therefrom a
tent. The ice for a few miles is very thin; but we risked it,
and returned to head-quarters, weak but thankful to God, and
rejoicing for our increase of stores. We have now eleven bags
of bread, thirteen cans of pemmican, eleven dozen cans of meats,
soups, etc., and fourteen hams. 31st. Sent Joe and Hans with
a dog team to see how the ice will staid, as we intend starting
to-morrow for shore. If the ice hold good we shail be there in
two or three days. If we reach the shore we shall live better,
as we may kill some game.
“November 2d.—Ice open and water all around us. We
started before daylight with the dogs and sled, nct xnowing
what had happened until we were nearly driven into the
water. The ice closed in a little. We tried again, and ven-
tured across on the other floe. Saved one rake, some of Joe’s
clothing, three guns, and a few other things. When the men
returned to the crack it was just opening ; they had got across
just in time, as the ice opened and the floe has not been seen
since. 38d. Building snow houses. No chance now of getting
ashore; must now give that up. 6th. Joe caught a seal, which
is a Godsend. We are having a feast to-night; three-fourths
of a pound of food toa man. Mr. Meyer made a pack of cards
for us from some thick paper, and we are now playing euchre.
We are a good deal further from land, and are drifting south
pretty smart. 16th. Joe saw three seals yesterday and a fox
track, but got nothing. We have nothing to feed our dogs on,
They got at the provisions to-day. We have shot five, leaving
four. Shot some two weeks since. We are lining our new
hut with canvas. 21st. The natives caught two seals. They
shot three, but lost one of them in the young ice. We shot
two dogs. They got at our provisions. 28th. Thanksgiving
Day. We have had a feast: four pint cans of mock turtle soup,
six pint cans of green corn made into scouch. Afternoon, three
ounces of bread and the last of our chocolate.
40
626 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
“December 2d. No open water has been seen for several days,
Cannot catch anything. Land has been seen for several days ;
cannot determine which shore it is, east or west. It has been
so cloudy we cannot select a star to go by. Some think it is the
east land; I think it is the west. Boiled some sealskin to-day
and ate it—blubber, hair, and tough skin. The men ate it; I
could not; the hair is too thick, and we have no means of get-
ting it off. 8th. All in good health. The only thing that
troubles us is hunger; that is very severe. We feel sometimes
as though we could eat each other. Very weak, but, please
God, we will weather it all. 24th. Christmas Eve. We are
longing for to-morrow, ~vhen we shall have quite a feast : half a
pound each of raw ham, which we have been saving nearly a
month for Christmas. A month ago our ham gave out, so we
saved this for the feast. Yesterday 9 degrees below zero;
to-day 4 degrees above. 25th. Christmas Day. This is a day
of jubilee at home, and certainly here for us; for beside the
approaching daylight, we have quite a feast to-day. One ounce
of bread extra per man, which made our soup for breakfast a
little thicker than for dinner. We had soup made from a
pound of seal blood, which we had saved for a month; a two
pound can of sausage meat, the last of our canned meat; a few
ounces of seal, which we saved with the blood, all cut up fine;
last of our can of apples, which we saved also for Christmas.
The whole was boiled to a thick soup, which I think was the
sweetest meal I ever ate. This, with half a pound of ham and
two ounces of bread, gave us our Christmas dinner. Then in
the evening we had our usual thin soup.
, “January 1st, 1873.—Poor dinner for New Year’s Day;
mouldy bread and short allowance. 2d. Mr. Meyer took an
observation last night: latitude 72° 10’, longitude 60° 40’.
The news was so good that I treated myself to an extra pipe of
tobacco. We are obliged to cook our’ meals over the lamp;
slow work. Thermometer 31 degrees below zero. 19th. Clear;
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A TERRIBLE GALE. G27
light wind. ‘Thermometer 39 degrees below zero. The sun
made his appearance to-day. I gave him three cheers, hoping
we will be able to start ina month. The sun has brought us
luck in the way of a seal which Joe caught.
“March 2d.—God has sent us food in abundance. Joe shot
an oogchook, one of the largest kind of seals; plenty of meat and
oil, and forty-two dovekies. 11th. Blowing a strong gale yet.
All hands were up last night, and dressed and ready for a jump,
for the ice was cracking and making a fearful noise all night.
To-day has been a fearful day; cannot see for the snow-drift.
We know the floe is broken into small pieces. We are afloat,
jumping and kicking about. 12th. Last night was a fearful
one of suspense; ice cracking and breaking ; the gale roaring,
and the water swashing ; but where? We know it is all around
us, but cannot see anything. Since one o’clock the wind has
been going down, and now I can see around. A nice picture.
Everything broken into small pieces. We are on the best
piece. The snow-houses are nearly covered. Afternoon. It
has calmed down toa fine day, with a light breeze. Joe caught
two seals, Hans one, and Captain Tyson one. Joe caught
two dovekies and the cook two, showing how good God is to us.
22d. The first day of spring. The sun shines very powerfully,
at least I think so. Thermometer ten to twelve degrees below
zero. Joe caught two seals to-day.
“April {st—A fearful night last night. Must leave our floe
at once. Got under way at 8 A. M., the boat taking in water,
and loaded too deep. Threw overboard one hundred pounds
of meat, and. must throw away all our clothes. Cannot carry
anything with us but the tent, a few skins to cover us, a little
meat, and our bread and pemmican. Made ten or fifteen miles
S., and three or four W. We landed to lighten our boat, and
pitched our tent, intending to stop all night. This piece of ice
is cracking, and not very safe. Caught a young seal as soon as
we got on the ice, and afterward two more. 20th. Started at 5
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IN IMMINENT DANGER. : 629
A.M. Worked the oars two hours; then a breeze sprung up,
and increased until it blew almost a gale. We had several
narrow escapes with our boat before we could find a piece of ice
safe enough to land on; and when we did so the boat was
making water fast. When emptied we found a hole in her side.
Apri 25th. Wind increased to a gale last night. Raining all
night and day, with snow squalls. Launched the boat at 5 a.m.
The case was desperate; running with a light, patched boat,
damaged as she is, and patched all over. But the piece of ice
we were on had wasted away so much that it would never out-
ride the gale. Our danger was very great; a gale of wind
blowing; a crippled boat overloaded, and a fearful sea running,
filled with small ice as sharp as knives. But, thank God! we
got safely through it. We are all soaking wet in everything
we have, and no chance of drying anything. We have had
neither sun nor moon nor star fora week. 29¢h. Morning calm,
water quiet. At daylight sighted the steamer five miles o/f;
launched the boat and made for her. After an hour’s pull
gained on her a good deal; another hour and we got fast in the
ice, and could go no further. Landed on a piece of ice, and
hoisted our colors on an elevated place. Fired three rounds
from our rifles and pistcls, making a considerable report, and
were answered by three shots, the steamer heading for us. She
headed for us N., then 8. E., and kept on so all day. We tried
very hard to work through the ice, but could not. Very strange.
I should think any sailing vessel, much more a steamer, could
get through with ease. She was not more than five miles from
us. Late in the evening she steamed away, bearing S.W. We
gave her up. In the evening she hove in sight again, but
further off. While looking at her another steamer hove in
sight, so that we have two sealers near—one on each side of
us; but I do not expect to be picked up by either of them.
Hans caught a seal—very small and young, a perfect baby of a
seal. Dried most of our things to-day.
630 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
“Wednesday, April 30th.—Five A. M., weather thick and
foggy. Glorious sight when the fog broke: a steamer close to
us. She sees us and bears down on us. We are saved, thank
God! Weare safe on board the Tigress, of St. John’s, Captain
Bartlett. He says the other steamer could not have seen us, as
the captain is noted for his humanity. The Tigress musters
120 men, the kindest and most obliging I have ever met.
Picked up in latitude 52° 35’ N.”
This providential escape completed a voyage made upon
floating ice of about two thousand miles, occupying one hundred
and ninety-five days. This rescue completed the history of the
Polaris, the only person lost being Hall, who had originated the
whole expedition. |
In the summer of 1857, an attempt to unite the two hemi-
spheres by means of a submerged electric cable was made under
the auspices of the New York, Newfoundland, and London Tele-
graph Company, assisted by vessels furnished by the Govern-
ments of Great Britain and the United States. Of this under-
taking—unsuccessful as it was, and fresh as it is in the minds of
all—our account will properly be brief. The idea was first con-
ceived in the year 1853, in America, and was earnestly pursued
in defiance of all obstacles, —Cyrus H. Field, Esq., Vice-President
of the Company, being one of its most zealous and indefatigable
champions. Surveys and deep-sea explorations, made by Cap-
tain Berryman, U.S.N., in the Dolphin and Arctic, in 1853 and
1856, resulted in the discovery of a submarine ledge or prairie,
at a depth varying from two to two and a half miles, extending
from Cape Race, in Newfoundland, to Cape Clear, in Ireland.
This tract received the name of the Telegraphic Plateau.
Lieutenant Maury, of the National Observatory, inferred, from
observations made in the Atlantic during a long series of years,
that both sea and air would be in the most favorable condition
for laying the wire between the 20th of July and the 10th of
August. The telegraphic fleet consisted of the U.S. steam-
[SS
—= _ —
—=—
—=
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SS
ar capt
LSsas$s“
THE TELEGRAPHIC FLEET.
632 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
frigate Niagara, Captain Hudson, to lay the first half of the
cable from Valentia Bay, in Ireland, of H.B.M. steamer Aga-
memnon, to lay the second half of the cable, and of six other
auxiliary steamers of both nations.
HAULING THE CABLE ASHORE.
The Niagara commenced shipping the cable from the factory
at Birkenhead, near Liverpool, late in June, and completed the
work in somewhat less than a month. The share of each of the
two vessels was twelve hundred and fifty miles of wire,—the
wire itself being an elaborate combination of fine copper strands
und gutta-percha coatings. The whole fleet was assembled in
Valentia Bay on the 4th of August. The Lord-Lieutenant of
lreland was already upon the ground, the guest of the Knight
of Kerry. The next evening, the shore-end of the cable was
hauled from the stern of the Niagara to shallow water by an
attendant tug named the Willing Mind, and from thence taken
ashore, in the mi!st of the cheers of the spectators, by a boat’s
erew of Americana sailors. The expedition set sail on Thursday,
the 6th. It was understood that the first message was to be
the following, from Queen Victoria to President Buchanan :—
CABLE BROKEN IN DEEP WATER. 633
‘Glory be to God on high, and on earth peace and good-will
towards men.”
All went on favorably for several days: a constant communi-
cation was kept up between the Niagara and the shore. At
four o’clock on the following Tuesday, the signals suddenly
ceased. ‘The return of the squadron confirmed the fears enter-
tained: the cable had broken in deep water. Three hundred
and thirty-five nautical miles had been laid, and the last half
of it in water over two miles in depth. The Niagara was
making at the time four miles an hour, and the cable running
THE CABLE IN THE BED OF THE OCEAN,
out at a greater speed,—from five to six miles an hour. This
was more than could be afforded, and the retard strain upon the
brakes was increased to three thousand pounds. The cable
bore the augmented pressure for a time, but finally parted, to
the dismay of the whole fleet. he vessels returned to England;
and the enterprise was abandoned for another year. Though
thus postponed, little or no doubt existed upon its ultimate suc-
cess. The exhilarating triumph which eventually attended the
efforts of the Company will form the subject of the next
chapter.
]
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LANDING THE CABLE,
CHAPTER LIV.
SECOND AND THIRD ATTEMPTS TO LAY THE ATLANTIC CABLE—THE FAILURE IN
THE MONTH OF JUNE—DESCRIPTION OF THE CABLE—THE VOYAGE OF THE
NIAGARA—THE CONTINUITY—-ALL RIGHT AGAIN-—CHANGE FROM ONE COIL TO :
ANOTHER—THE KNIGHTS OF THE BLACK HAND—UNFAVORABLE SYMPTOMS—
THE INSULATION BROKEN—THE THIRD OF AUGUST-—AN ANXIOUS MOMENT—
Le
LAND DISCOVERED—TRINITY BAY—-MR. FIELD VISITS THE TELEGRAPH STATION
-—-THE OPERATORS TAKEN BY SURPRISE—LANDING OF THE CABLE—IMPRESSIVE
CEREMONY—CAPTAIN HUDSON RETURNS THANKS TO HEAVEN—THE VOYAGE OF
4
THE AGAMEMNON—THE QUEEN’S MESSAGE—THE SIXTEENTH OF AUGUST—DEEP-
SEA TELEGRAPHING—THE EQUATOR AND THE CABLE,
Tue Atlantic Telegraph Company, undeterred by their
failure to lay the cable in 1857, resolved to make another
attempt in the summer of the following year, the American
and English Governments again placing the Niagara and the
Agamemnon at their disposal. It was decided, however, in
order to lessen the chances of unfavorable weather, that the
634
THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE CABLE. 635
two vessels should proceed to mid-ocean, should there splice
their respective ends of the wire, and that the Agamemnon
should then steam to Valentia Harbor and the Niagara to
Trinity Bay. They were each furnished with an ingenious
contrivance for paying out the cable,—the invention of Mr.
Everett, of the United States Navy. June was the month
selected, and the ships departed upon their errand. They were
absent much longer than was expected, in the event of a suc-
cessful accomplishment of their purpose. When they returned
to Queenstown, it was to tell of storm, disaster, and failure.
Still undaunted, the Company again despatched the ships. The
Niagara and Agamemnon met in mid-ocean on the 28th of
July: the splice was effected, and the task began. The Niagara
had eight hundred and eighty-two miles to sail, and eleven
hundred miles of cable; the Agamemnon, with the same quantity
of cable, had but eight hundred and thirteen miles to sail. The
Niagara had three hundred tons of coal, the Agamemnon five
hundred. At one o'clock the wire began to reel over the stern
of the Niagara, westward and homeward bound.
The following engraving will give a correct idea of the
manner in which the cable is formed. The core, or conductor,
is composed of seven copper wires wound tightly together.
. Wire—eighteen strands, seven to an inch.
. Six strands of yarn.
1
2
3. Gutta percha, three coats.
4. Conducting wires, seven in number.
5. Section of the cable, eleven-sixteenths of an inch in diameter.
The flexibility of this cable is so great that it may be tied in
a knot round the arm without injury. Its weight is eighteen
hundred and sixty pounds to the mile, and its strength such
536 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
that six miles of it may be suspended vertically in water of that
depth without breaking.
‘The sea is smooth,’—we quote the extremely interesting
journal of an eye-witness*, writing upon the first day,—‘the
barometer well up; and, if we can only do for the next seven
days as well as we have done since one o’clock, we shall be at
Newfoundland by the 5th of August, and in New York some
time between the 15th and 20th of the same month. But we
have been somewhat too hasty in our calculations, for our ship
has just slowed down, and the propeller has ceased working for
the last ten minutes. There must be something wrong to cause
this interruption. Let us take a look at the machine. The
cable still goes out, which certainly would not be the case
if it had parted. Ah! the continuity! That’s it: there’s where
the difficulty lies; and, as the electricians are the only parties
who can inform us on that point, we at once go in search of
them. <A visit to their office explains the whole matter. The
continuity is not gone altogether, but is defective,—so defective
that it is impossible to get a signal through the cable. Still,
there is not ‘dead earth’ upon it, and all hope, therefore, is
not lost. When dead earth, as it is termed, is on the con-
ductor, then, indeed, the difficulty is beyond remedy; for it
shows that the conductor must be broken and is thrown under
the influence of terrestrial magnetism. But the continuity is
not gone; and, although with darkening prospects, we are still
safe while it remains, imperfect as it is. It would be absurd to
say that the occurrence was not discouraging: it was painfully so;
for the hopes of some of us had really begun to revive, and we
were gaining confidence every hour. Now nothing could be
done. We must wait until the continuity should return or take
its final departure. And it did return, and with greater strength
than ever. At ten minutes past nine P.M., the electrician on
duty observed its failing, and at half-past eleven he had the
* Mr. John Mullaly.
“LOOK OLT NOW, MEN,” 637
gratifying intelligence for us that it was ‘all right again.’ The
machinery was once more set in motion, the cable was soon going
out at the rate of six miles an hour, and the electrical signals
were passing between the ships as regularly as if nothing had
occurred to interfere with or interrupt the continuity.”
The change of the wire from the forward main-deck coil to.
that on the deck immediately below, on the third day, is thus
described, the operation being a most delicate and perilous
one :—‘‘ At least an hour before the change was made, the
outer boundaries of the circle in which the cable lay was literally
crowded with men; and never was greater interest manifested
in any spectacle than that which they exhibited in the proceed-
ings before them. There were serious doubts and misgivings
as to the successful performance of this important part of the
work; and these only served to increase the feelitig of anxiety
and suspense with which they silently and breathlessly await
tlie critical moment. The last flake has been reached, and as
tirn after turn leaves the circle every eye is intently fixed on
tlie cable. Now there are but thirty turns remaining; and, as
the first of these is unwound, Mr. Everett, who has been in the
circle during the last half-hour, gives the order to the engineer
on duty to ‘slow down.’ In a few moments there is a perceptible
diminution in the speed, which continues diminishing till it has
reached the rate of about two miles an hour. :
‘¢« Look out now, men,’ says Mr. Everett, in his usual quiet,
self-possessed way. The men are as thoroughly wide-cwake as
they can be, and are waiting eagerly for the moment when they
shall lift the bight, or bend, of the cable and deliver it out safely.
One of the planks in the side of the cone has been loosened,
and, just as they are about taking the cable in their hands, it is
removed altogether; so that, as the last yard passes out of the
now empty circle, the line commences paying out from the
circle below, or the ‘orlop’ deck, as it is called. The men—
who are no other than the coilers, or ‘Knights of the Black
638 HISTORY OF THE SEa.
Hand,’ as they have not inappropriately been termed—have
done their work well; and the applause with which they have
been greeted by the crowd of admiring spectators is the most
gratifying testimony they can receive of the fact. They have
hardly passed the cable out of the circle before they are re-
ceived with as enthusiastic a demonstration of approval as the
rules of the navy will permit.
“Confidence is growing stronger,’’—this is the fourth day,—
‘‘and there is considerable speculation as to the time we shall
reach Newfoundland. The pilot who is to bring us into Trinity
Bay is now in great repute, and is becoming a more important
personage every day. We are really beginning to have strong
hopes that his services will be called into requisition and that
in the course of a few days more we will be in sight of land.
But the sea f& not at all so smooth as it was the day before:
it 1s, In fact, so rough as to favor the belief that there must
have been a severe gale a short time since in these latitudes.
The condition of the vessel is such as to alarm us greatly for
the safety of the cable should it come on to blow very hard,
as the large amount already paid out and the quantity of coal
consumed have lightened her so much-as to render her rather
uneasy in a heavy sea. The wind is increasing, and, although
it has not yet attained the magnitude of a gale, it is blow-
ing rather fresh for us in the present unsettled state of our
minds. Both wind and sea are nearly abeam; and the
rolling motion which the latter creates brings a strain upon
the cable which gives rise to the most unpleasant feelings.
The sea, too, seems to be getting worse every minute, and
strikes the slender wire with all its force. Every surge of the
ship affects it; and as it cuts through each wave it makes a
small white line of foam to mark its track. The sight of that
thread-like wire battling with the sea produces a feeling some-
-what akin to that with which you would watch the struggles of
a drowning man whom you have not the power of assisting.
TESTING THE CONTINUITY. 639
&
Yuu can only look on and trust either that the sea will go
down or that the cable may be able to resist the force of the
waves successfully. Of the former there is very little prospect,
but of the latter there is every reason for hope. The contest
has been going on now for several hours, and there is no more
sign of the cable parting than when it commenced. The elec-
_ tricians report the continuity perfect; and the signals which are
received at intervals from the Agamemnon show that that
vessel is getting along with her part of the work in admirable
style. What more can we desire ?”
An incident occurring upon the fifth day is thus described :—
“‘T have said that, desp:te the bad weather and heavy sea, the
paying-out process was going on well; but during the night the
continuity was again affected; and although it was restored and
became as strong as ever, yet it was for about three hours a
very unpleasant affair. It was subsequently found that the
difficulty was caused by a defect of insulation in a part of the
wardroom coil, which was cut out in time to prevent any serious
consequences. There were only a few on board the ship, how-
ever, aware of the occurrence until after the defect was re-
moved and the electrical communication was re-established be-
tween the two ships. Both Mr. Laws and Mr. De Santy—the two
electricians on the Niagara—were of the opinion that the insula-
tion was broken in some part of the wardroom coil; and, on using
the tests for the purpose of ascertaining the precise point, they
found that it was about sixty miles from the bottom of that
coil, and between three or four. hundred from the part which
was then paying out. The cable was immediately cut at this
point and spliced to a deck coil of ninety miles, which it was
intended to reserve for laying in shallow water and was there-
fore kept for Trinity Bay. About four o'clock in the morning
the continuity was finally restored, and all was going on as well
as if nothing had occurred to disturb the confidence we felt in
the success of the expedition.”
640 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
‘ e
Upon the sixth day—the 8d of August, the anniversary of
the day upon which Columbus sailed from Palos—the great work
took place of the change from ‘the fore-hold coil to that in the
wardroom, which are at least two hundred feet apart. This
occurred at eight o’clock in the morning; and, as the time was
known to all on board, there was even a larger crowd assembled
to witness it than I observed at any of the other changes. It
was considered a most critical time; and, although the opera-
tion turned out to be very simple, it was anticipated by some
with considerable uneasiness. The splice between the two coils
had been made some hours in advance, and men were stationed
all along the line of its course from the hold to the wardroom.
Mr. Everett and Mr. Woodhouse were both on hand; the best
men had been picked out to pass up the bight, when the
last turn should be reached; and one man, named Henry
Paine, a splicer, was specially appointed to walk forward with
the bight to the after or wardroom coil. As the last flake was
about to be paid out the ship was slowed down, and by the
time the last three or four turns came to be paid out she could
hardly be said to be moving through the water. The line came ~
up more slowly from the hold, until we were nearing the
bight, where it could not have been going out faster than half a
mile an hour. One more turn and the bight comes up. There
ig not a sound to be heard from the crowd who are watching it
with eager and anxious faces from every point of view. No one
speaks, or has ventured to speak for the last minute, except the
engineers, and they have very little to say, for their orders are
conveyed in the most laconic style; and the quick ‘ay, ay!’
of the men show that they understand the full value of time.
‘Now, men,’ says Mr. Everett, ‘look out for the bight,’ as
those in the hold hand it up to the men on the orlop deck, and
it is passed from hand to hand till it reaches the platform and
long passage which has been built upon the spar-deck for this
“part of the work. Here the bight arrives at last, and Paine
PICK UP THE PIECES. 641
takes it in his hand, paying out as he follows the line of the
cable to the wardroom coil. How anxiously the men watch
him as he walks that terrible distance of two hundred feet, and
think that if he should happen to trip or stumble while he holds
that bight in his hand the great enterprise may end in disaster !
It is not a difficult task; but how often have things that are so
easily performed been defeated by want of coolness! There is,
however, such an easy self-possession about the man, as he comes
slowly aft with the long black line, that inspires confidence.
All hands have deserted the decks below, and follow him as
he walks aft, and one, in his impatience to get a glimpse of hin,
has nearly fallen through the skylight of the engine-room, in
which he has smashed several panes of glass in the effort to
save. himself. ‘Pick up the pieces,’ says Paine, in a vein of
quiet humor, as he proceeds on his course without interruption,
and, coming up to the wheel, whichis immediately above the
wardroom, he straightens the bight, and the cable begins to run
out from the top of the coil on the deck beneath. His work is
done; and, as the line passes out of his hands, he receives a
round of applause from the hands of the spectators, who, but
for those terrible navy rules, would have greeted him with a
cheer that would have done his heart good. As it is, they
must give vent to their feelings in some way; and the exclama-
tions of ‘Well done!’ ‘ That’s the fellow!’ ‘Good boy, Paine!’
are not a bad compromise, after all. Besides, it might be
rather premature at this time to indulge in any triumphant
expression of feeling before we are even in sight of land.”
Upon the seventh day land was discovered from the masthead.
‘Tt is now half-past two o’clock, and we are entering Trinity
Bay at a speed of seven and a half knots an hour, paying out
the cable at a very slight increase on the same rate. The
curve which it forms between the ship and the water proves
that there is little or no strain upon it, and proves also another
thing,—that it can be run out at eight, nine, and, I believe, ten
41
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THE CABLE LAID. 643
miles with the greatest safety. This, however, as I have pre-
viously stated, cannot be done with old cable that has been
coiled so often as to have a tendency to kink; and there is—as
has been already intimated—some of this kind which we shall be
obliged to pay out before landing. A signal signifying ‘all well’
has been received from the Agamemnon, which must now be on
the point of landing her cable at Valentia Bay, Ireland, which is
about sixteen hundred and forty miles from our present position.”
At eight o’clock in the evening, while the Niagara was pro-
ceeding up Trinity Bay and was yet some eighteen miles
distant from the landing-place, Mr. Field left the ship for the
purpose of visiting the telegraph station and sending a despatch
to the United States. ‘It was near two o’clock in the morn-
ing before he arrived at the beach; and, as it was quite dark, he
had considerable difficulty in finding the path that led up to the
station. There was no house in sight, and the whole scene was
as dreary and as desolate as a wilderness at night could be. A.
silence as of the grave reigned over every thing before him;
while behind, at a distance of a mile, he could see the huge hull
of the Niagara looming up indistinctly through the gloom of
night, and the light of the lamps on her deck making the dark-
ness still darker and blacker by the contrast. He entered the
narrow road, and after a journey of what appeared to be twenty
miles he came in sight of the station, which stands about half a
mile from the beach. There. was, however, no sign of life
there; and the house in its stillness looked strangely in unison
with every thing around. It had a deserted look, as if it had
long since ceased to be the habitation of man. In vain he
looked for a door in the front; but there was no entrance there.
He looked up at the windows, in the hope, perhaps, of being
able to enter by that way; but the windows in the lower story
were beyond his reach; and the house, having been partly built
on piles, had the appearance of being raised on stilts. A
detour of the establishment, however, led to the discovery of a
644 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
door in the side; and through this he finally succeeded in effect-
ing an entrance. The noise he made in getting in, it was
natural to expect, would arouse the inmates; but there seemed
either to be no inmates to arouse, or those inmates’ were not
easily disturbed. He stopped for a moment to listen, and as he
listened he heard the breathing of sleepers in an apartment
near him. The door was immediately thrown open, and in
a few seconds the sleepers. were awake,—wide awake, and
opening their eyes wider and wider as the wonderful news fell
upon their astonished and delighted ears. They could hardly
believe the evidence of their senses, and were bewildered at
what they heard. The cable laid, when, but a few short weeks
before, they had received the news of disaster and defeat, and
they had looked only to the far-distant future for the accom-
yplishment of the great work! The cable laid, and they un-
conscious of it!—they, who had waited and watched so many
weary days and weeks for the ships they had begun to be-
jieve would never come! And they were now in the bay,
—those same ships,—within a mile of them! Can they be
dreaming? Dreaming! No. What they have heard is true,—
all true; and there is the living witness before them.
‘‘<What do you want?’ was the exclamation of the first who
was awakened, as he endeavored to rub the sleep out of his eyes.
“<T want you to get up, said Mr. Field, ‘and help us to
take the cable ashore.’
‘¢<¢To take the cable ashore ?’ re-echoed the others, who were
now just awakening, and who heard the words with a dim,
dreamy idea of their meaning; ‘to take the cable ashore ?”
“6¢ Ves,’ said Mr. Field; ‘and we want you at once.’
“They were now thoroughly aroused; and, directing Mr.
Field to the bedrooms of the other sleepers,—for there were
four or five others in the house,—they prepared themselves
with all haste to assist in landing the cable. Mr. Field found
that the telegraph office would not be open till nine o’clock
LANDING THE SHORE END. 645
that morning, and that the operator of the New York, New-
foundland, and London telegraph was absent at the time.
He also ascertained that the nearest station at which he
could find an operator was fifteen miles distant, and that the
only way of getting there was on foot. Now, fifteen miles in
Newfoundland is about equal to twice the distance in a civilized
country, and is a tolerably long walk; but it was something to
be the bearer of such news to a whole continent, and so two
of the young men willingly volunteered for the journey, bearing
with them, for transmission to New York and the whole United
States, the despatch which contained the first announcement
of the successful accomplishment of the work.”’
Upon the eighth day the cable was landed, the ships being
dressed with flags in honor of the occasion. Sixty men from
the Niagara, and forty from the British ships Gorgon and
Porcupine, took part in this task and the attendant ceremonies.
“The landing-place for the cable is a very picturesque little
beach, on which a wharf has been constructed. <A road, about
the dimensions of a bridle-path, has been cut through the forest,
and up this road, through bog and mire, you find your way to
the telegraph station, about half a mile distant. Alongside of
‘this road a trench has been dug for the cable, to preserve it
from accidents to which it might otherwise be liable.
‘“When the boats arrived at the landing, the officers and
men jumped ashore, and Mr. North, first lieutenant of the
Niagara, presented Captain Hudson with the end of the cable.
Captain Otter, of the Porcupine, and Commander Dayman, of
the Gorgon, now took hold of it, and, all the officers and men
following their example, a procession was formed along the
line. The road or path over which we had to take the cable
was a most primitive affair. It led up the side of a hill a couple
of hundred feet high, and had been cut out of the thick forest
of pines and other evergreens. In some places the turf—which
is to be found-here on the top of the highest mountains—-was so
646 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
soft with recent rains that you would sink to your ankles in it.
Well, it was up this road we had to march with the cable; and
a splendid time we had. It was but reasonable to suppose that
the three captains who headed the procession would certainly
pick out the best parts and give us the advantage of the
stepping-stones; but it appeared all the same to them; and
they plunged into the boggiest and dirtiest parts with a reck-
lessness and indifference that satisfied us they were about the
worst pilots we could have had on land, despite their well-known
abilities as navigators.
‘‘This memorable procession started at a quarter to six
o'clock, and arrived at the telegraph station about twenty
minutes after. The ascent of the hill was the worst part of the
journey; but when we got to the top the scene which opened
before us would have repaid us for a journey of twenty miles
over a still worse road. There beneath us lay the harbor, shut
in by mountains, except at the entrance from Trinity Bay; and
there, too, lay the steamers of the two greatest maritime nations
of the world. On every side lies an unbroken wilderness, and, if
we except the telegraph station, at which we will soon arrive,
not a single habitation to tell that man has ever lived here.
‘“‘ Never was such a remarkable scene presented since the
world began. Even now, at the very point of its realization, it
does not seem as if the work in which we have been engaged
has been accomplished. The continuity, however, without
which the cable would be utterly valueless, is as perfect now
as it ever was. Mr. Laws and Mr. De Santy, the two chief elec-
tricians who have accompanied us from England, have ‘ tasted’
the current, and about a dozen others at the head of the proces-
sion have done the same thing. The writer himself is a witness
on this point, and will never forget the singular acid taste which
it had. Some received a pretty strong shock,—so strong that
they willingly resigned the chance of repeating the experiment.
‘On the arrival of the procession the cable is brought up to
THE CAPTAIN S SPEECH. 647
the house and the end placed in connection with the instru-
ment. The deflection of the needle on the galvanometer gives
incontrovertible evidence that the electrical condition of the
cable is satisfactory. The question now is, Iiow shall we pro-
perly celebrate the consummation of the great event? How,
but by an acknowledgment to that Providence without whose
favor the enterprise must have ended in disaster and defeat?
Captain Hudson took up his position ona pile of boards, the
officers and men standing round amid shavings, stumps of trees,
pieces of broken furniture, sheets of copper, telegraph-batteries,
little mounds of lime and mortar, branches of trees, huge boul-
ders, and a long catalogue of other things equally incongruous.
‘“¢We have,’ said the captain, ‘just accomplished a work
which has attracted the attention and enlisted the interest of
the whole world. That work,’ he continued, ‘has been per-
formed not by ourselves: there has been an Almighty Hand
over us and aiding us; and, without the divine assistance thus
extended us, success was impossible. With this conviction firmly
impressed upon our minds, it becomes our duty to acknowledge
our indebtedness to that overruling Providence who holds the
.sea in the hollow of his hand. ‘‘ Not unto us, O Lord, not
unto us, but to thy name, be all the glory.’”’ I hope the day
will never come when, in all our works, we shall refuse to
acknowledge the overruling hand of a divine and almighty
Power. . . . There are none here, I am sure, whose hearts are
not overflowing with feelings of the liveliest gratitude to God in
view of the great work which has been accomplished through his
permission, and who are not willing to join in a prayer of
thanksgiving for its successful termination. I will therefore ask
you to join me in the following prayer, which is the same, with
a few necessary alterations, that was offered for the laying of
the cable.’ ”’
This prayer was then offered at the throne of grace by the
captain, the auditors responding at its close with an “Amen”
648 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
which showed with what profound emotion they regarded the
scene in which they were such prominent actors.
EES
SSE
SS =
SS
THE AGAMEMNON IN A GALE.
In regard to the voyage of the Agamemnon we find little to.
say which would not be a repetition of that of the Niagara,
with the exception that she experienced much less favorable
weather, and that the admirable paying-out machine invented
by our countryman, Mr. Everett, performed its delicate duty
under more trying circumstances than those to which it had
been subjected on the American frigate. The Queen’s Message
was transmitted over the wire on the 16th of August; anl,
intelligence of the fact being made known the same evening
throughout the Northern and Western States, the people gave
themselves up to the wildest demonstrations of joy. Few per-
sons of an age to appreciate the significance of the triumph
will forget that memorable night. An enterprise generally be-
lieved impossible of incalculable interest was an accomplished fact.
a
THE OCEAN CABLE. 649
We have now to follow the inventors, electricians, and com-
manders to the land, and detail the ovations of which they were
the honored objects. The public will long remember the elo-
quence of the orators who dilated upon the theme, the inspired
language in which the newspapers held forth to their amazed
subscribers, and the prophetic vein in which the clergy felt
justly entitled to indulge. Fifty years from now, those who were
boys on the 16th of August will tell, with undiminished interest,
of the tar-barrels and bonfires, the salutes and fireworks, the
illuminations and torchlight processions, which, from one end
of the country to the other, welcomed the inspiring tidings and
made the summer night gorgeous with flames and clamorous
with artillery. The cable is at length laid through the bed of
the Atlantic Ocean. Over what jagged mountain-ranges is that
slender filament carried! In what deep oceanic valleys does it
rest! Through what strange and unknown regions, among things
how uncouth and wild, must it thread its way! Still, in spite
of this first magnificent success, deep-sea telegraphing must be
regarded as in its very infancy; and doubtless many new and
even more marvellous feats will yet be performed claiming ad-
mission among the achievements of Man upon—or rather be-
neath—the Sea.
Perhaps the best among the numerous good things suggested
by the happy return of the Teiecraphic Fleet was the following
sentiment:—‘‘ THE HQUATOR AND THE CABLE: the former an
imaginary line which divides the poles, the latter a veritable
line which connects the hemispheres!”
‘‘ Far, far below ocean's neaving breast,
Where the storm-spirit ever is hush’d to rest,
The cable now lies on its snowy bed,—
The glittering ashes of ocean’s dead ;
And storms shall not break nor tempests sever
This arch of promise, for ever and ever,
Till an angel shall stand with one foot on the sea
And swear that time no longer shall be.”’
650 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
The continuity of this cable was shortly afterwards oreken,
but it had so successfully demonstrated that it was possible to
lay one that another attempt was soon organized. For this
purpose the Great Eastern, which had been found too large a
ship to be ordinarily used in trade, since her great depth pre-
vented her from entering any but the very deepest harbors,
was engaged. Her size enabled her easily to take in the cable
for the entire distance, and, starting from Ireland, she kept up
telegravhic communication with that station, without interrup-
tion, throughcut the whole of the voyage. This cable has
worked continously since that time.
Beside this, another Atlantic cable, connecting France with
the American Continent, has been laid successfully and has
worked without interruption. From England fifteen submar-
ine wires, laid across the beds of the Channel or the North Sea,
connect that country with France, Belgium and Tolland.
Sweden and Norway are connected with Germany by marine
cables across the Baltic, while Sicily and Sardinia are connected
with Italy by a cable in the bottom of the Mediterranean.
In Europe, in 1872, it was estimated that at an expense of
about $100,000,000 more than 1,300,000 miles of telegraphic
wire had been erected and counting the double and multiple
wires used on the most important lines, that a length of 621,-
000,000 miles had been stretched, a length sufficient to encircle
the entire globe, at the equator, some twenty-five times. while
the yearly increase of new lines consumed enough wire to
again encircle the earth.
CHAPTER LIV.
DIVING—THE FIRST DIVING-BELL—FIXED APPARATUS SUPPLIED WITH COMPRESSED AIR
THE SUBMARINE HYDROSTAT—OPERATIONS AT HELL GATE—DIVING APPARATUS—
SUBMARINE EXPLOSIONS—IMPROVED DIVING DRESSES—THEIR USE—WORK OF VARIOUE
KINDS DONE WITH THEM—INSTANCES OF THIS—SEEKING THE TREASURE OF THE HUS-
SAR—SUNKEN SHIPS IN SEBASTOPOL—OPERATIONS IN MOBILE—THE DRY DOCK AT PEN-
SACOLA BAY—THE BEAUTIES OF THE SUBMARIN¥Y WORLD—HABITS OF THE FISH—POS-
SIBLE DEPTH OF DESCENT.
Not only have men in modern times sought to extend their
knowledge of the sea by dredging and sounding, but with the
appliances of modern science they have attempted to plunge
themselves into its depths, and provide the conditions there for
not only remaining alive but for working. We have seen that
the divers for coral and for pearls are enabled to remain under
the surface only at the very outside two minutes, and that ever
his is’ such a strain upon the organs of the body that their
ives are materially shortened by engaging in such work. Aun
is $0 Indispensable to human life, that before any one can hope
to remain any time under the water, some arrangement must
be provided for supplying him with air.
The ancients, of course, knew that man was a breathing
651
652 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
anima! ; the v saw that each of themselves carried on this process
constantly, but what they breathed they did not know, and
they were equally ignorant of why they breathed. The dis-
covery of what the air is belongs purely to modern iumes
About a century ago the astronomer Halley first proposed the
use of the diviny-oell, and went down in one he had built, tc
the depth of about fifty feet. The diving-bell was named from
its original form, which was that of a bell, and this name i
DIVING-BELL.
still retained, though the form of the vessel is changed. The
supply of air is kept up by an air-pump worked above water.
This is, however, a clumsy appliance in which the diver is
limited only to that portioa of the bottom on which the bell
rests. Where there is either a strong current, or the bottem
is very shelving, the diving-bell is embarrassing if not danger.
ous. In one case it is said that the diver was taken from the
bell by a shark. Expert swimmers can dive from the outside,
and, passing under the lip of the bell, rise suddenly inside of
it, a feat which always surprises those who are in the bell
SUBMARINE WORK. 653
There 1s also sometimes danger that the bell may setvle in the
soft mud, and be held there by suction. Such a case once oc
curred in New York harbor, when a party had gone in the bell
as a sort of pleasure excursion. The difficulty looked threat
ening, but one of the party proposed rocking the bell, ana
doing so the water was forced under, and the bell was lifted
from the ooze.
ul
FIXED APPARATUS SUPPLIED WITH COMPRESSED AIR.
As the workmen cannot leave the bell, this difficulty if pos-
sible is obviated by moving the bell. Frequently, however,
submarine operations are to be carried on only in one spot, as
in building bridges, when the foundations of the piers are to be
laid, or in building breakwaters; laying the foundations of
light-houses, or other similar work. In such cases, structures
which in principle are the same as the diving-bell, are fre-
quently employed. The one which was used to build the piers
of the magnificent. bridge over the Rhine, near Strasbourg is
represented in the cut. Lach of the piers of this bridge rests
on a foundation composed of four large iron-caissons, cf great
weight, Hach ca*sson was open at its lower end. The upper
654 HISTORY OF THE SEA,
part supported three shafts—a middle and two 1ateral ones
All three shafts arose above the water of the river. The mid
dle shaft communicated with the open air, and the water rose
in it to the level of the river. In this a dredging machine,
driven by a steam-engine above, worked at the bottom of the
river. The other two shafts were closed at the top. The work
men entering above the stream, closed their means of ingress,
air tight, and then air was forced in until the water was forced
down, and out below, leaving the shafts free. The workmen
then descended and filled the buckets of the dredging machine.
When they wanted to ascend, they mounted to the upper part
of the shafts; the air was let off, the water mounted in the
shafts and they stepped into the open air.
The abutments of the bridge over the Hast River, which is
to connect New York and Brooklyn by a suspension bridge,
with a span high enough to not interfere with the navigation
of the river, were built with a somewhat similar device. The
towers upon each side of the river had to be so high that a
very deep foundation, going down to the original rock, had to
be laid, and the workmen engaged in building it worked in a
submarine apartment, supplied with air forced down by a steam
engine.
‘The submarine hydrostat, as it is called, is one of the most
ingenious and recent applications of the diving-bell principle.
Thirty men may work in it at once, for a number of hours,
without any inconvenience; while beside this it enables them
at will, to float or sink.
Externally, as will be seen from the upper structure in the
eut, the machine is a rectangular box, surmounted with ar.
other smaller one, entirely closed except at the bottom. ‘lhe
interior of the hydrostat consists of three principal compart-
mer:ts; the lower figure in the cut represents these in section.
The lower one, or hold, is open below, and communicates by a
shaft with the up~er compartment. Between the upper and
PAYERNE’S HYDROSTAT. 655
lower compartments is a third, communicating with the others
only by stop-cocks. The upper compartment is called the be-
tween decks, and the middle one the orlop deck. AU round
the hold and the orlop deck runs an air-tight yallery connected
with the ether compartments only by stop-cocks. The lower
part of this gallery contains the ballast, while its upper part
is fill with air or water, according as it is desired to float or
sink.
PAYERNE'S SUBMARINE HYDROSTAT.
When the hydrosiat floats, the hold and a portion of the
shaft are filled with water; while the orlop deck, its gallery
and the between decks are full of air. The workmen are in
the between decks, where are lifting and forcing pumps. When
it is desired to sink the hydrostat, the door of the shaft and
the hatch of the between decks are closed water and air-tight
The pump is then worked so as to draw water from the out-
side avf fill the orlop deck and its gallery. At the same time
the force-pump is used to force air into the hold through a
pipe eemnecting the hold and the orlop deck, and furnished
656 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
with a stop-cock. As the orlop deck, with its gallery, fills
with water the machine gets heavier and sinks, while the hold
becomes at the same time filled with air. Though the air
thus forced into the hold would tend to float the hydrostat,
this tendency is counterbalanced by the filling of the orlop
deck with water. When the hold is filled with air, the work.
men in the between decks open the shaft and descend to the
bottom. A sufficient number remain in the between decks te
haul up and dispose of the material excavated, and to attend
to the pumps which maintain the supply of air for those in
the hold. When they want to rise again, the men ascend from
the hold by the shaft to the between decks, closing the shaft
again. The air is then let from the hold to the orlop deck and
gallery; the hold fills with water, while the orlop deck and
gallery become filled with air, and the hydrostat rises to the
surface; the men open the hatch of the between decks and ob.
tain free communication with the outer world again.
The dimensions of the hydrostat are as follows: The hold
is square, the sides measuring each 26 feet, and being 6 feet 6
inches high. The orlop deck is of the same size. The be-
tween decks have the same depth, but are only 16 feet in the
sides. ‘The base of the hold therefore covers 676 square feet.
This ingenious machine has been already used with the most
perfect success in performing various work, such as cleaning
out and deepening harbors; searching for lost treasure; re-
moving obstructions in channels, and so on.
One of the most important and interesting pieces of subma
rine engineering ever done in this country was that undertaker
for removing the rocky obstructions in IIell Gate, at the en-
trance, through Long Island Sound, of New York harbor. The
first attempt to remove these was by drilling and blasting, as
in an ordinary quarry. This work was, however, quite slow,
since the current is there so rapid that operations could be car-
ried or only a few ~inutes each day at the turns of the tides.
USING GUNPOWDER. 657
The next plan was proposed by a French engineer, M. Maillefert,
who had used it with great success in the harbor of Nassau
This plan was entirely new, and had the great merit of being
surprisingly cheap compared with those then in use. It dis-
pensed with the costly and difficult process of drilling, but ex-
_ ploded the charges on the surface of the rocks to be removed,
while they were covered with the greatest depth of water.
Gunpowder burnt in the open air explodes without anything
but a harmless flash. The pressure of the atmosphere is not
enough to restrain the dispersion of the gases suddenly gener-
ated. Under water, though, it is different; its pressure con.
fines the gases and makes them act with destructive effect on
all sides. For a couple of years operations were carried on by
M. Maillefert with considerable success. But he was ham-
pered by want of means, the money that was spent being
raised by private subscriptions; and though the channel -was
greatly improved, operations were suspended. It was found,
too, that this method was of great service in breaking off iso.
lated pinnacles of jagged rock, but when the bed was reached
and the rock reduced toa large, smonth, flat surface, progress
in the work became slow, doubtful and costly. This process,
however, of exploding charges of gunpowder, under water, by
means of an electric battery is very valuable in certain situa-
tions.
In 1868 Congress appropriated $85,000 for the necds ot
Hell Gate, and bids for the work were opened to the public.
The contract was awarded to Mr. 8. F. Shelbourne, of New
York, who proposed to do the work by drilling and blasting,
the machinery to be placed on the bottom and worked bya
steam pump placed on a vessel above. The rock was to be
drilled by mushroom drill, as it was called, a diamond drill
worked by a small turbine wheel, driven by steam. This drill
was tried on the Frying Pan, one of the worst rocks obstruct-
ing the channel, but was found to be ton delicate and uncertain
42 |
658 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
nf continuous action under the trying requirements of the
rough work at Hell Gate. A striking drill was then tried, and
a machine was built and put in position, but the very day it
was to commence to work it was run against by one of the
craft so constantly crowding through Hell Gate, and destroyed.
Mr. Shelbourne then retired from any further attempt, and the
Government has undertaken it, and placed the management of
the operations in the hands of General Newton.
The plan now
undertaken is to
undermine the
whole bed of the
river at this point,
with a series of
galleries connected
by transverse gal-
leries, leaving only
so much rock standing in columns as
shall insure stability to tie roof above.
When this work is completed, these sub-
marine channels are to be caarged with
the requisite number of thousands of
nounds of nitre-glycerine, and blown
up with one grand explosion. This
enormous work is now well under way,
MUSHEROOM DRILL.
and is being rapidly pushed to comple:
tion. Work is carried on day and night, three sets
of workinen being engaged in it, each working eight hours
The drilling has thus far been done chiefly by nand, and is
very laborious. The workmen are chiefly Cornish miners, who
alone can stand the severity of such mining. They are hardly
ever dry while at work, and in the winter their clothes are fre-
quently stiffened by ice. Preparations are however maki ng to
us° machine drills operated by compressed air
SOUNDING APPARATUS. 659
The operations of this mining under the channel of the
Kast River have to be conducted with great care. Every inch
of the way has to be critically explored. Seams of decom-
posed mica have been met, through which the water of the
river ran as through a sieve. In one of the shafts such a seam
was met, through which the water poured at the rate of six
hundred gallons a minute, and could be stopped only by build-
ing a strong shield. The floor of the shaft follows a level about
thirty feet below the low-water line. The roof follows of course
the general contour of the reef, and to determine this, sound.
ings of a special kind have to be taken. The bed of the stream
is covered, except on the highest points of the reef, with a de-
posit of boulders, marl and organic matter from the sewers of
New York, sometimes tothe depth of ten or twelve feet. As
the exact profile of the solid rock must be known before the
miners can proceed, every sounding for determining this—and
more than 15,000 have been already made—must be carefully
done. The sounding apparatus consists of a float, or raft, sup-
porting a machine like a guillotine or pile driver, by which a
three-inch iron tube is driven through the overlying matter to
the rock bed. The contents of the tube are then pumped out
and an iron rod is used to determine the nature of the rock be-
low. If it is a boulder, a dull thud is heard, and the rod does
not rebound. Solid rock returns a sharp clink, and the rod
springs back. The bearings of the tube are then taken by in-
struments from the shore, and the position of the rock caleu-
1ated by a simple process.
Under the direction of General Newton, other submarine
operations are also carried on in New York Ifarbor for the re-
moval of the rocky and dangerous obstructions knownas Dia-
mond Reef, and Coentie’s Reef, which lie in the busiest part
of the harbor, directly in the track of the numerous ferry boats
plying between New York and Brooklyn, and are not only
trenblesome, but dangerous, especially at low water. ‘T'o per,
660 HISTORY OF TUE SEA.
form this work, General Newton has had a special boat built,
a scow, a low-lying, box-like craft, with a confusion of timbers,
ropes, chains, and machinery surrounding a huge dome in the
center. This vessel is very solidly built, and anchored so firmly
that the waves strike against its sides as against a wharf. This
strength is important for the work, and also to protect the ma-
chinery against the chance collision of the constantly passing
vessels in the harbor. The general purpose of the scow is
easily comprehended. Its object is to guard the drilling ma.
READY TO GO DOWN.
chinery while it is at work; to transport it when necessary, and
to support the engines for working the drills. In the center
of the scow is an octagonal well, thirty-two feet in diameter,
in which is supported an iron-wrought dome for protecting the
divers. At the top of the dome is a “telescope,” twelve feet
in diameter, with a rise and fall of six feet to adapt it to the
various stages of the tides. When the dome is in working or-
NITRO-GLYCERINE. 661
der, it stands clear of the scow, resting on self-adjusting legs,
which adapt themselves to the inequalities of the reef. When
the drills are working, the dome is down, out of sight, and the
machinery, which at the first glance seems in disorder on the
scow, is arranged in order, and is level with the deck. The en-
gines which drive the drills are supported on moveable bridges,
thrown back when the dome is up; and the drills work in
stout iron tubes passing through the dome, one in the center,
and the others arranged round it in a circle about twenty feet
in diameter. The dome, when down, serves to protect the div-
ers, so that at any time they can go down to regulate the work-
ing of the drills, or perform any other service. Without this
protection, the divers could not keep their feet, sostrong is the
current on a rising or falling tide. The divers are protected
by a diving suit; the airis furnished them by a pipe to the
back of the helmet they wear, and is forced down by an air
pump. When a set of holes are drilled, they are charged with
nitro-glycerine, and simultaneously exploded by electricity.
This simple statement serves to show how much the modern
methods of conducting such submarine operations are de
pendent upon the advance in chemistry of modern times. In
fact, hardly a single appliance used in such operations, from
the steam-engine which drives the drills, to the gutta-percha
tubes, and the india rubber suits which enable the divers to
descend below the water, but what are inventions or discoveries
which belong entirely to modern times, and enable men to-day
to perform operations which to the ancients would have really
been impossible.
The nitro-glycerine is contained in tin cartridge cases, like
mammoth candle moulds, ten feet long and from four to five
inches in diameter. They are connected with the battery by
wires. The divers go down and place these in the holes
which have been drilled, first pulling out the wooden plugs
which hav¢ heen placed in them after they were drilled, to
-
662 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
keep them from getting filled with dirt. As soonasthe charges
are placed, the diver returns to the boat, and it drops far
enough from the spot, to be safe from the effects of the ex-
plosion, and then, with a few turns of the battery, the nitro
glycerine explodes. Two muffled explosions are heard, the
one transmitted
through the water
and the _ other
through the air,
and on the instant
a volume of water
is hurled perhaps
fifty feet into the
air, while through
the mass jets of water are hurled in all
directions two or three times further,
together with fragments of rock. The
water subsides quickly, and round the
spot dead fish come floating to the top,
killed by the shock of the explosion.
At each blast the rock is broken up
over an area of four or five hundred
square feet, and the fragments are re-
moved by a grappling machine. PUTTING IN THE CHARGES.
In these submarine operations the divers use the armor
which the discovery of india rubber and the process of vul-
canizing it has made possible, enabling the diver to descend,
and leaving him liberty of movement enough to work. In
this, as in almost every other new method, there have been
gradual steps of improvement and development. During the
latter part of the last century the plan was proposed for the
diver to carry down with him a supply of air, compressed into
a reservoir which he wore on his back, inhaling the air through
a tube. Mod*ed arrangements of this method were in use
a
MERITS OF INDIA RUBBER. 663
until, in 1880, the discovery of india-rubber afforded the op-
portunity which was immediately made use of, to improve the
diving apparatus. Various improvements, some of them pro-
tected by patent rights, have been made in the construction of
this submarine armor, but as perfect a’method of making it as
any is that designed by two Frenchmen, M. Rouquarol, a min-
ing engineer, and M. Denayrouze, a lieutenant in the French
navy. One of the chief merits of this arrangement is that by
which the supply of air is furnished the diver. This appar-
atus the diver carries on his back, and it consists of a reser-
voir made of steel or iron, capable of resisting great pressure,
GRAPPLING MACHINE.
with a chamber on its top constructed to regulate the influx
of the air. A tube from this chamber, terminating in a mouth-
piece, is held between the diver’s teeth. This pipe is furnished
with a valve permitting the expulsion of air, but opposing the
entrance of water. The steel reservoir is separated from the
chamber by a conical valve opening from the air chamber in
such a way as to open only by the force of exterior pressure,
that of the air in the reservoir tending to close it. ‘The
air from the air-pump is forced into the reservoir, and from
this the diver supplies his needs as follows: The air-chamber
is clozcd by a movable lid, to which is attached the tail of the
conical valve. The diameter of the lid is a little less than the
intert-r diameter of the chamber, and it is covered with india.
u64 - HISTORY OF THE SEA. |
rubber so as to be air-tight. It yields to both interior and ex-
terior pressure, rising and falling as the case may be. When
exterior pressure is exerted on it, the valve is affected, com-
munication 1s opened between the air-chamber and the reservoir
and a portion of the compressed air from the latter flows into
the chamber. Should there be too much air in the chamber
its pressure against the movable lid keeps the valve closed.
When in use under water its operation is thus: The
diver by drawing his breath takes air from the chamber: ex-
ey 3k :
\} Wg
NS ANAK
\ =.
ith
it | s
DIVERS DRESSED IN THE APPARATUS DESCRIBED.
terior pressure is exerted on the movable lid, it falls, causes
the valve to open, and air comes from the reservoir to estab-
lish the equilibrium, when the lid rises and shuts off the com-
munication between the air-chamber and the reservoir unti!
another inspiration on the part of the diver repeats the action
just described. When the workman expires, the valve in the
respiratory tube allows the expelled air to escape into the
water. This apparatus works automatically ; though the air
pump may be worked irregularly, its action is regular. he
liver sece*ves just the quantity of air enough for a respiration.
2
FORCE PUMPS. 665
and this reaches him at a pressure equal to that to which the
rest of his body is subjected, and he is therefore able to breathe
without effort or attention. The compression of air heats it,
and the breathing of air thus heated is bad for the diver
This has been remedied by the same gentleman, by the modifi-
cation of the pumps by which the air is forced in the reservoir.
The air is cooled by being forced to pass through two layers ot
DIVERS FINDING A BOX OF GOLD IN THE PORT OF MARSEILLES.
water before it reaches the reservoir; and expanding in ils
passage into the air-chamber it becomes again cooled.
With the use of this apparatus another advantage is gained.
When the diver is down the air he expires rises in bubbles to
the surface, and by the regularity with which they rise his
condition can be easily known. If they cease, it is known -
that something must have happened, and that he should be
instantly hauled up. In the old diving dress the expired air
passed into the space between his body and the clothing and
out at a valve in the helmet, but as the excess of air supplied
to him escaped in this way also, it could not be told from this
whether the diver was alive or dead.
666 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
So common has the practice of diving become, that in all
countries it isa regular profession. A few instances of the
advantages gained by it will prove interesting.
In February, 1867, a collision took place in the port of
Marseilles between two steamers, the Ganges and the Impera-
trice. ‘The last of these lost one of her wheels, and a box of
gold in the officers’ quarters fell out and sank in the mud. The
exact spot where it feel was not known. The box was black
and not very strong. The next day an attempt was made to
recover it. A lead was sunk at the supposed spot where the
box was lost: and two lines attached to it were knotted at
distances of a yard along their length. The two divers having
descended, took each of them one of these lines in his hand,
and, using the lead asa centre, walked round in gradually
increasing circles, searching carefully every foot of their way.
After working three hours in this way they found the box,
and restored it to the delighted owner.
Another most interesting case is that of the Llussar, an
English navy vessel, which was wrecked in Tell Gate, in New
York Harbor. On the 23d of November, 1780, during the war
of the Revolution, and while New York was in the possession
of the English, a British fleet entered the harbor. Among
them, as convoys, were the Mercury and the Hussar. The
first had on board £384,000, mostly in guineas, and the second
£580,000, together amounting to about $4,800,000. This large
sum was intended to pay the English troops then in this
country. The next day the whole of this money was placed
on board the Hussar, and she got ready to proceed to New
London, Connecticut, which was then a place for the British
rendezvous. Before starting she also took on board seventy
prisoners, from the prison hulks in the bay, who were confined
with irons on the gun deck below. What it was intended todo
with these unhappy prisoners is not known, nor does it appear
from the records However, thus freighted the Hussar hauled
SINKING OF THE HUSSAR. 667
from the dock, and under the charge of a negro pilot, who, a
few days before, had safely carried a frigate through Tell
Gate, started on her way through that dangerous passage.
When she was almost through, when open water lay only a
few rods before her, she struck, drifted off, commenced to fill
rapidly, and while the question of backing her was being dis-
cussed, she struck again, and soon settled, and sliding from
the rocks, sank in ninety feet of water. The officers and crew
escaped, but the seventy prisoners, chained below to the gun
deck, sank with the vessel, without an attempt having been
made to save them.
The vessel herself was a large one, carrying thirty-two guns,
and measuring two hundred and six feet in length by fifty.
eight in width. In 1794 an expedition from England came
over to New York, and for two seasons attempted in vain to
raise the wreck by grappling, when they were forbidden to
work any longer by the Government of the United States.
In 1819 another attempt was made by an English company,
who rrosecuted their work with a diving bell. The strength
of the current here made their efforts of no avail, and they
abandoned the attempt. Since then the possible chance of
the four million dollars has tempted various other companies
to try, and in turn they each abandoned the attempt in despair
of success. Within the past four years, however, a new com-
pany has been at work, using the newly-invented submarine
armor, and during this time a sloop has been lying, dismantled
at firmly anchored, about a hundred yards from the New
York side of the East River, three-quarters of a mile above
Ward’s Island. This is the spot where the Hussar sank, with
her prow pointing north. |
The diver’s suit consists of, first, a pair of thick rubber
leggings and boots combined. These end at the waist in an
iron band furnished with iron clamps. Straps of lead weigh.
ing together ninety pourds, and which are made to fit about
668 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
his ankles and waist, are intended to give him weight enough
to withstand the current. On the upper part of his body he
wears a large copper helmet, with a strong ring-bolt on the
top, and below which, securely fastened to it, is a rubber
jacket, ending in an iron band, so constructed as to meet that
of the leggings and be tightly fastened to it. The sleeves of
\ SW S
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S42
ARMING THE DIVER.
this jacket are gathered round his wrists and tightly tied.
The jacket is of a more pliable stuff than the leggings, so as to
enable him to more easily use his hands and arms. The diver
puts on his leggings, and then a hook, attached to the end of a
rope passed over a pulley, and worked by the engine, is hooked
mto the ring on the top of the helmet, and this, with the
DIVER GOING DOWN. 669
jacket, is hoisted and let down over his head. Having workeu
himself into the sleeves, he is as helpless, with the weight of
his armor, as an old knight encased in iron was. The front
of his helmet has a glass door, covered with wire, in Ait
which is opened for him, while his companions complete his
CASTING OFF THE DIVER.
toilet by tying his jacket sleeves round his wrists; adjusting
the iron bands of his leggings and jacket, and screwing them
firmly together; and then fitting on his leaden anklets and
girdle, screwing on the pipe through which his supply of air
is provided, and then shutting the door of his helmet, and se-
curely fastening it, he is read~ to be cast off. In his hand the
670 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
diver carries down a slender cord, with which he signals his
wants when below. Ie is slowly lowered down to the bottom,
ninety feet below, where his work is pressing, since he has
only the hour before and the hour after the turn of the tide.
While he is down those above are as intent upon his welfare
Lyon \
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DIVER DOWN.
as he is himself. Ie who has the signal cord, holds the most
responsible position. There is a prearranged code of signals,
for “more air,” “pull me up,” “more tools,” “ pull up the
bucket,” and so on. TI1is work below has been the destruction
of the heavy frame work of the vessel, and right well has it
aeen done; .there is but little left of her but the worm-eaten
TREASURES DISCOVERED. 671
and water-logged knees and beams which formed her bottom
and the chief task of the diver now is, with pick and shovel, tc
break up the hard conglomerate of sand and gravel which has
been compacted by the actioa of the water and the rusting iron
The only sense the diver has to guide him in these depths 1s
that of feeling, for at this depth it is as dark as midnight. The
material he thus collects is brought to the surface in a bucket
and carefully looked over.
This work is done at the cost of the Frigate Ilassar Com
pany, an incorporated company, with a capital stock divides
CANNON BELL AND BONES BROUGHT UP FROM THE WRECK OF THE UUSSAR
into forty-eight thousand shares of one hundred dollars eact ,
corresponding to the amount of treasure said to be in the run
of the ILussar, and since 1806 it has been steadily carried on
The mass of gold has not yet been found, but from time to
time in the loads of mud and sand a gold-piece is found. A
lump of silver made of various coins, agglomerated by the ac:
tion of the water, has been brought up, having some gold coins
set init. Cannon, cannon balls, chains, manacles, piles of gun-
flints, silver plate, péwter dishes, the ship’s bell, and quantities
of glass and earthen ware, with numbers of human bones, Lave
been rescued from the deep. Various museums in the e untry
ave specimens of relics brought up from this histoue snip.
Une day a brass box was brought up, aad when opered found
672 _ HISTORY OF TUE SEA.
to be full of jewels, necklaces, ear-rings, and ‘pear-s of great
value. Being left fora moment on the deck of the salvage
schooner, it disappeared, and the second seare. for it has
proved more fruitless than the first.
During the Crimean war, a line of ships and frigates was
sunk by the Russians in the harbor of Sebastop :, in the pas-
sage between forts Catharine and Alexander. When forced
to leave the town, others remaining in the harvor were sunk,
o that at least 100 vessels, representing an estimated value of
bstween fifty and sixty millions of dollars, were sunk. To
prevent if possible the action of the sea upon their machinery
SALVAGE OF RUSSIAN SHIPS SUNK AT SEBASTOPOL.
and metallic portions, these were covered with tar or tallow.
When the war was over, an American engincer, named
Gowan, went to Russia and undertook the job of raising these
vessels, after having gone down himself in a diving suit,
DIVING IN MOBILE BAY. 673
and satisfied himself of their condition, and. that he could
recover some of them entire and others in parts. In this
work use was made of an enormous pump, raising nearly 1,000
tons of water a minute. With this, after closing as well as
could be, the port holes and other openings, another pipe for
the introduction of air was arranged, and the pump set in
action. This powerful machine emptied the vessel of water
in a very short time, so that the air flowed into it by the other
pipe, and the vessel rose of itself to the surface. An enormous
chain, cach link of which weighed over two hundred pounds,
was used to help lift them, when necessary, or alone when it
was found most easy to use alone,
CAULKING A VESSEL.
A very important use to which the submarine armor 1s
often put, is that of enabling the diver to clean the bottom of a
vessel, below water, while she is moving. This isa great con
venience, as it saves the delay and expense of being obliged
to place her ina drydock. A rope ladder, with rungs of wood
or iron, is stretched under the ship, passing down one side
and un Mee other. It is thus drawn tight, and the diver de
4
674 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
scends. A bar, tied at each ena with a rope, ending ina hook
is hung by the hooks to the rungs, and gives him a seat, leav-
ing his hands free. Ile may also fill his air-tight suit with
air, and thus be partially sustained against the side of the ship.
During the late civil war the monitor Milwaukee was
struck by a concealed torpedo in Mobile harbor and sunk.
During the war these torpedos sunk three of the monitors in
this harbor, besides several dispatch boats, which met the
same fate. The Milwaukee was sunk nearly due east from
the city, and during the continuance of hostilities’ an effort
was made to rescue her armament and her machinery. Her
guns cost the Government $30,000 each. A party of divers
were engaged, who were chiefly mechanics and engineers,
who were exempt from military service in the Confederacy,
but who sympathised fully with its cause. The duty was one
of singular danger, since it had not only those peculiar to sub-
marine diving, but as she lay within range, and hostilities still
continued, the divers while below, though safe there from.being
hit, were yet in danger of even a worse death, from the injury
which might be done to the air-pump above, upon which
their supply of air depended, and which was of necessity
exposed.
The work below was also peculiarly arduous. The hulk was
crowded with the entangled machinery of sixteen engines,
cuddies, posts, spars, levers, hatches, stanchions, - floating
trunks, boxes, and the confusion worse confounded by the
awful, mysterious gloom of the water, which is not might o1
darkness, but the absence of any ray of light to touch the
optic nerve. The sense of touch is the only reliance, and the
life-line is the only guide of the diver. The officers and raen
of the ship were anxious for the recovery of their baggage,
and offered the divers salvage for its rescue. One of the
vq
PROFITLESS LABOR. 675
officers was very anxious to obtain his trunk, which was in a
remote state-room, and offered fifty dollars reward for it.
The diver who undertook the task has described the difficul-
ties he encountered in its execution. To find the state-room
required that he should descend below the familiar turret-
chamber, through the inextricable confusion of the tangled
machinery in the engine room, groping among floating and
sunken objects. By touch alone he was to find a chest, to handle
it in that thickening gloom, to carry it, push it, move it through
that labyrinth, to a point where it could be raised, and through
all this he had to carry his life-line and his air-hose. Three
times the line became entangled in the machinery, and three
times he had patiently to follow it up, find the place, and
release it. Then the door of the state-room shut when he was
in it, and round and round that little chamber he groped, in
the dark, before he could find it again. All parts of the cham-
ber seemed the same, a smooth slimy wall, glutinous with
the jelly-like deposit of the sea-water. The line, entangled,
became, instead of a guide, a further source of error, and the
time was passing away, and life was dependent upon the con-
tinuity of the tube. There was no chance to hasten; with
tedious and patient care he must follow the life-line, find its
entanglements and slowly loosen them, then carefully taking
up the slack follow the straightened line to the door. Nor
must he forget the chest, slowly he heaves and pushes, now
at the box, now at the line, which catches on every project-
‘ing knob, handle, peg or point of the machinery. Finally,
however, his cool-headed patience is rewarded with success.
He gets the chest to the open air and restores it to its owner;
but in so doing he has made the worst mistake of all; he has
mistaken the character of the man; he never paid, or offered
to pay, the fifty dollars.
Another instance of cool determination in the unforseer
dangers of submarine diving occurred to a diver who was
676 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
engaged in the recovery of the valuable dry dock at Pensacola
Bay. In the passionate destructiveness which was so violently
manifested by the South at the commencement of the civil
war, as children in their rage destroy their own playthings, this
structure was burned to the water’s edge and sunk. Afterward
a company was formed to raise it. It was built in compartments,
and this method of construction, which originally was intended
to prevent it from sinking, now served to prevent it from
floating. Hach one of the small water-tight compartments,
now they were filled, kept it down. It was necessary to break
into the lower side of each of them, and allow the water to
flow evenly into them.
The interior of the hull was full of these boxes. Huge
beams and cross-ties intersected each other at right angles,
forming the frame-work of this honeycombed interior. It
was necessary to break through the outside of these, and it
was a most difficult and tedious job, under water. The net-
work of beams was so close that the passage between barely
admitted the diver’s body. Into one of these holes the diver
crawled. The work of tearing off the casing occupied him an
hour or more, and when it was done, he thought to back out
of his place. But he found he could not. The armor about
his head and shoulders, acting like the barb of a hook, caught
him; he could pass in, but he could not pass out. In vain
attempts to twist himself out he spent so much time that the
‘nen above began to be alarmed and increased their work at
the pump. The air came surging down, and swelled up his
armor, so that he was more effectually caught than ever.
He signalled for the pump to stop. The cock at the back of
his helmet, to let the air out, was out of his reach. [Ilis only .
chance was to open his dress round the wrists, where the
sleeves were tied. This he set out to do, but suddenly found
himself affected by breathing over the air in his armcr. The
carbonized air began to affect him, making his mind dreamy,
A NARROW ESCAPE. 677
and inducing an intense desire to sleep. This he could over-
come only by a resolute effort of his will. Meanwhile his
tugging at his wrists had been successful; the air had escaped
and lessened his bulk. With the energy of despair he makes
oue more supreme effort. It is successful, and he was drawn
to the surface dazed, drowsy and only half conscious of the
peril he had undergone.
These instances, however, are exceptional, and arose only
from their peculiar conditions. At other times there is a
pleasure in diving, thus protected ; and the divers consider it,
as it is, the only true way to visit the submarine world.
The first sensation in descending is the sudden, bursting roar
of cascades in the ears, caused by the air driven into the hel-
met’ from the air-pump. As the flexible hose has to be strong
enough to bear a pressure of twenty-five to fifty pounds to the
square inch, the force of the current can be estimated. The
drum of the ear yields to the strong external pressure. The
mouth opens involuntarily, the air rushes in the eustachian
tube and strikes the drum, which snaps back to its normal
state with a sharp, pistol-like crack. The strainis for a mo-
ment relieved, to be again renewed, and again relieved by the
same process.
Peering through the goggle eyes of glass arranged about
his helmet, the diver sees the curious, strange beauty of the
world about him, not as the bather sees it, blurred and indis-
tinct, but clearly, and in its own calm splendor. The first
thought is unspeakable admiration of the miraculous beauty
of everything about him. Above him is a pure golden can-
opy, with a rare glimmering lustrousness, something lke
the soft, dewy, effulgence which is seen when the sun-light
breaks through an afternoon’s shower. The soft delicacy of
that pure straw yellow, which prevades everything, is crossed
and lighted by tints and glimmering hues of accidental and
complementary colors, which are indescribably elegant. The
678 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
floor of the sea rises like a golden carpet inclining gently te
the surface, in appearance. This is perhaps the first thing
which calls attention to the fact that he isin a new medium, and
that the familiar light comes altered in its nature. Looking
horizontally around him a new and beautiful wealth of color
is seen. It is at first a delicate blue, but it soon deepens into
arich violet. As the eye dwells upon it, it darkens to indigo, and
deepens into a vivid blue-black, solid and adamantine. It is
all around him, he seems encased in the solid masonry of the
waters.
The transfiguration of familiar objects is curiously wonder-
ful. The hulk of the ship seems encrusted with emerald and
flossy mosses, and glittering with diamonds, gold, and all man-
ner of precious stones. A pile of brick becomes a huge. hill
of erystal, decked with jewels. A ladder becomes silver,
crusted with emeralds. The spars, the masts, and yards, when-
ever a point or angle catches the light, multiply the reflected
splendor. Every. shadow gives the impression of a bottomless
depth. The sea seems loop-holed with cavities that pierce the
solid globe. There is no gradation of perspective.
In the mouth of a great river, the light is affected with the
various densities of the different media. At the proper depth,
the line is clearly seen where these meet, sharply defined. The
salt water sinks to the bottom, and over it flows the fresh wa-
ter of the river. If this last contains much sediment, it ob
secures the depths like acloud. In freshets, this becomes a
total darkness. Even on a clear, sunshiny day, and in clear
water, the shadow of any object in the sea is unlike any shade
n the atmosphere. It throws a black curtain over what it
eovers, entirely obscuring it. Standing within the shadow, is
ike looking out from a dark tunnel; around, everything is
dark, while things in the distance can be seen clearly.
The cabin of a sunken vessel is dark beyond any ordinary
conception of darkness, nor do its windows, though they may
DRIVING A NAIL UNDER WATER. 679
be seen, alter this darkness. The distrust of his sight grows
stronger in the diver with his experience. The eye is accus-
tomed to judge of form, proportion and distance, in a thinner
medium, and is continually deceived in a denser one, until ex-
perience has taught the diver how toestimate rightly the different
impressions. Perhaps the most striking illustration of this
difference, the diver finds in trying to drive a nail under
water. If depending on sight, untaught by experience, he is
sure to fuil. Ie will instinctively strike just where the nail
is not. For this reason, even the electric light below the
water, does not furnish all that is wanting: the familiar medium
of the upper world is wanting, and this the electric light does
not supply. By practice, therefore, the diver learns to depend
entirely upon the sense of touch,and with experience, becomes
able to engage in works under the sea which require labor and
skill, with the easy assurance of a blind man who finds his
way with confidence along a crowded thoroughfare.
The conveyance of sound through water is so difficult, that
under tle sea has been called the world of silence. But this
is not strictly correct. Some fish have the power of making
sounds, and they all have simple and imperfect auditory organs.
To the diver, however, save for the cascade of air through his
air-pipe, the sea is silent. No shout, or word from above,
reaches him. A cannon shot is dull, and muffled, and if dis-
tant, he does not hear it. A sharp, quick sound, especially if
produced by striking something on the water, can be heard.
The sound of driving a nail on the ship above, or a sharp
tap on the diving-bell below, can be heard. Conversation
between two divers, below the water, is, by the ordinary
methods, impossible, but by touching their helmets together,
they can converse, the vibrations being transmitted through
the metallic substance, and to the air inside.
The diver has also a new revelation of the character and
beauty of fish and other inhabitants of the sea when he thus
680 - HISTORY OF THE SEA.
meets them at home. The exudations covering them, is the
a brilliant varnish. Their lustrous colors-are beautiful in the
fish market, but when in their native element, they are seen
full of life, nimble and playful, they appear to be the most
graceful creatures, and cannot be observed unmoved. The
eyes of the fish are visible as far as the fish can be seen, and
its whole animate existence is expressed in them. In the
minnow and sun-perch there is a fearless familiarity, a social
and frank intimacy with their novel visitor which suprises
him. They crowd around him, curiously touch him, and
regard all his movements with a frank, lively interest. Nor
are the larger fish shy. The sheep-head, red and black gro-
per, sea-trout and other well-known fish receive the diver
with fearless curiosity. In their large, round eyes he reads
evidence of intelligence and curious wonder, which at times
is startling from its entirely human expression. No faithful
dog, or pet animal could express a franker interest im its
3)
eyes.
Their curiosity is expressed, not only in their eyes, but in
their movements. They share with mankind the desire to
touch what is novel to them. A diver was approached by a
large catfish, who came up and touched him with its cold
nose. The man involuntarily threw up his hand, and struck
the palm on the fish’s sharp fin. There was an instant strug-
gle before the fish wrenched itself free, and then it only swam
off a short distance, staring with its black eyes at the intruder
as if it wished to ask who he was, and what he wanted.
A long stay by the diver in a single place enables him to
test the intelligence of the fishes who visit him. A diver,
whose occupation kept him in one spot, was continually sur
rounded, while at work, by a school of gropers, averaging
about a foot in length. Maving identified one of them whe
bad suffered from an accident, he noticed that it was a daily
visitor. After they had satisfied their first curiosity, the gro-
~~ ee or
a
‘
|
MAKING FRIENDS OF THE FISH. 681
pers apparently decided that their nove! visitor was harmless
and clumsy, but useful in assisting them to get their food.
They feed on crustacea and marine worms, which hide under
the rocks, on mosses, and other objects on the bottom. In
raising anything from the mud a dozen of these fish would
thrust their heads into the hole for their food, before the
diver had removed his hand. They followed him about, ey-
ing his motions, dashing in advance, or around in sport, and
evidently displaying a liking for their new friend. Pleased
with such unexpected familiarity, the diver brought food with
him, on his return, and fed them from his hand as one feeds a
flock of chickens. Sometimes two would get hold of the
same morsel, and then would result a trial of strength, accom-
panied with much flashing and glitter of shining scales, But
no matter how called off, their interest and curiosity remained
with the diver. They would return, pushing their noses
about him, with an apparent desire to caress him, and bob
down into the treasures of worm and shell fish his labor dis-
closed. He became convinced that they were sportive, and
indulged in play for the fun of it. This curious intimacy
was continued for weeks: that they knew and expected the
diver at his usual hour, was a conclusion he could not deny,
since they, unless driven away by some other fish who preyed
on them, were always in regular attendance during his hours
of work. |
The depth at which men can descend in a suit of submarine
armor, has been tested by experiment with the following
results: The diver can breathe, and his organs may retain
their normal condition, and he preserve his presence of mind,
to a depth of 130 feet, but when he excecds this depth by ten
or twenty feet, tha external pressure causes physiological
effects on his organs, independent of his will. One hundred
aud thirty feet is therefore the depth which experiment has
shown to be the greatest at which any prolonged submarine
682 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
work can be performed. Within this limit, security to life
is perfectly compatible with an attempt to recover any ship
or sunken treasure which will pay the expenses.
In Mobile Bay some of the most successful diving opera-
tions have been carried on. About a sunken vessel there.
it became necessary to sink a row of piles, into the bed of
-quicksand which had gathered round her. On trial the
ordinary pile-driving machine was found incompetent to do
this. Under the strokes of the falling weight the elastic
sand rebounded, and the pile was thrown out. This unex-
pected difficulty was met in a simple, but most effective way.
A suction-pump was rigged up, and the hose tied to the end
of a pile; when the pile touched the bottom the pump wxs
set to work, and the suction bored a hole in the sand, into
which the pile fell with a rapidity that was startling. When
the pile had been sufficiently sunk, the hose was withdrawn,
and the sand settling round the pile, held it as fast as though
it had been cemented in.
THE NORTHERN DIVER.
STAR FISH.
CHAPTER LV.
PHE OCEAN AS A FIELD—THE VARIOUS CROPS IT YIELDS—THE SPONGE—TRANSPLANT
ING SPONGES—CORAL FISHING—THE DISCOVERY OF THE NATURE OF CORAL—ITS RE
CEPTION BY NATURALISTS—OYSTER FISHERY—THE OYSTER A SOCIAL ANIMAL—THB
YOUNG OYSTER—OYSTER CULTURE—DREDGING FOR OYSTERS—THE AMERIOAN OYSTER
FISHERY—PEARL OYSTERS—PEARL FISHERIES—THEIR VALUE—SHARK FISHING—OUT.
TLE FISHING.
THouGH the ocean may appear to be a barren waste of
water to the farmer, it has by no means this aspect to the
fisherman. To him it is the field in which he labors, and
the crops he gathers from it are as diversified in character,
and as important for satisfying the demands of the world, as
those which the farmer raises. And further than this, the
labors of the fisherman have helped to increase our. knowledge
of the composition and character of the sea, of the habits of the
organized beings found in it, as the labors of the farmer have
done the same thing for thesoil, and the products which it bears.
In considering the various fisheries of the ocean, naturally
that of the sponge, as one of the lowest forms of animal life,
comes first in order. Science is hardly yet decided in its
views concerning the organization and development of these
obscure and complex creatures, and despite the investigations.
of modern naturalists, their position in the scale of animal
lite is still problematical, and their internal organization is stil]
<nown only imperfectly. Dr. Bowerbank in his work on
683
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SPONGE FISHING.
THE VARIETIES OF SPONGES. 685
British Sponges, published in 1866, describes nearly 200
species, but this number by no means includes themall. They
are of all sizes, and of all possible diversity of shape. At pre
sent the chief sponge fisting is carried on in the Grecian
Archipelago and on the coast of Syria. The boat’s crew con-
sists of four or five men who, between June and October, seek
the sponges under the cliffs and ledges of the rocks. Those
obtained in shallow waters are considered inferior; the best
are obtained at a depth ranging from twenty to thirty fathoms.
The poorer sponges are taken from the shallow waters with
harpoons, but are injured by this method of capture. The
others are taken by hand. The diver descends to the bottom,
and can stay there from a minute to a minute and a half, and
carefully detaches the sponges from the rocks with a knife.
Sponge fishing is also carried on in other parts of the Med-
iterranean, but without any foresight, so that the sponges will,
in time, be exhausted. To guard against this contingency, it
has been proposed to transplant and acclimatize the sponges
upon the coast of France and Algeria, where the composition
of the water is the same as that upon the coast of Syria, and
where the difference of temperature would prove no impedi.
ment to their flourishing. In fact, the farther north the
sponges grow, the finer and compacter are their tissue. By
use of a submarine boat, supplied with air by a force-pump,
it was proposed to collect such specimens, as were best suited
for the purpose, removing the rocks with them; and also to
collect the young sponges, during the monthsof April and
May, shortly after they have commenced their independent ex-
istence, and before they have anchored themselves to some
permanent abode, and transport them to a favorable locality.
The French Acclimatization Society, in 1862, gave a commission
to M. Lamiral, who had passed years in the study of sponges,
and who has published an excellent work upon their habits, to
collect the germs, and transplant them to the coast of France.
586 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
Though vp to this time, the attempts which have been maae
to do this have not met with perfect success, yet the results
already gained, show that with further experience, persever
ance will attain its desired end.
Sponges are also fished for in the Red ok On the Bahama
Banks, and in the Gulf of Mexico, sponges are taken by Mex-
icans, Spaniards, and Americans, in shallow water. A mast
is sunk at. the side of the boat, and the diver descends this;
gathering the sponges found near the bottom of the pole. |
Next in order of fishing in deep sea, comes coral fishing.
The ancients believed that the coral was a plant, but it 1s now
known that the coral is constructed by a family of polyps liv-
‘ing together, and constituting a polypidom. It abounds in the
waters of the Mediterranean where upon rocky beds like a sub.
marine forest, the red coral, the most brilliant and celebrated -
of all coral, grows at various depths, rarely less than five fath-
oms, or more thanone hundred. Hach polypidom resembles a
red leafless shrub, bearing delicate little star-shaped white
flowers. The branches and trunk of this little tree, are the
parts common to the family, the flowers are the individual
polyps. The branches show a soft, reticulated crust, or
bark, full of small holes, which are the cells of the polyps
and they are permeated by a milky juice. Beneath the crust
is the coral, hard as marble, and remarkable for its striped sur-
face, its red color, and the fine polish it will take. ‘The fishing.
is chiefly carried on by sailors from Genoa, Leghorn, and Na-
ples, and is a very laborious occupation. The barks engaged
in it are small, ranging from ten to fifteen tons. ‘The coral is
fished with an apparatus called an engine, consisting of cross
bars of wood tied and bolted together at the centre. Below
this is a large stone with nets or bags attached. Hach engine
has a number of these nets, and when let down into the sea,
they spread out. The coral grows on the tops of the rocks,
and the object is to scrape it off into these bags. By expert-
\
CORAL FISHING OFF THE COAST OF SICILY.
687
688 HISTORY OF THE SEA,
ence, the fishermen come to learn the favorable places tor cap
turing the coral. When such a spot is reached, the engine is
thrown overboard, and as soon as it reaches the bottom, the
speed of the vessel is slackened, and the capstan, for hauling it
upis manned. In this way the the engine is dragged over the
bottom, becomes entangled with the rocks, and the nets catch
the coral. Sometimes rocks of large size are brought on board.
Up to the last century the opinion of antiquity that coral
was a vegetable product was accepted by all naturalists,
though no one attempted an explanation how it grew. This
Opinion was confirmed when the Count de Marsieli announced
. his discovery of the flowers of the coral plant, and this an-
nouncement was considered the final proof of the vegetable
origin of coral. In 1723, however, Jean André de Peyssonnel,
a pupil of Marsigli’s, and a student of medicine and natural
history at Paris, was sent to Marseilles, his native place, by
the Academy of Sciences, to study the coral in its living con-
dition, and continued his studies on the northern coast of
Africa, where he was sent by the French Government.
Ile soon discovered, by a series of careful and delicate ex-
periments, that the coral was an animal product, and that the
supposed flowers were the expanded little animals who build
up the coral, and who form one of the lowest forms in the
series. of organized life on the globe. Peyssonnel says: “I
put the flower of the coral in vases full of sea-water, and I
saw that what had been taken for a flower of this pretended
plant was, in truth,only an animal, like a sea nettle or polyp
I had the pleasure of seeing the feet of the creature move
about, and having put the vase full of water, which containea
the coral, in a gentle heat over the fire, all the small animals
seemed to expand. The polyp extended his feet, and showed
what M. de Marsigli and I had taken for the petals of a flower.
The calyx of this pretended flower, in short, was the animal
wh'zh advanced and issued out of his cell.”
THE LEAF BUTTERFLY. | 689
It may seem strange that. a scientific man should find it difficult
to determine whether coral was an animal or vegetable produc-
tion, but not only do the two kingdoms at their line of division
appear to blend into each other, but nature herself appears
sometimes to take delight in imitating the characteristics of the
one kingdom in those of the other. The illustration, giving an
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THE LEAF BUTTERFLY.
instance of this, is given by Mr. Wallace, the well-known nat-
uralist. He found in Brazil this leaf butterfly, which when it
alighted resembled a leaf so exactly as to defy almost the closest
scrutiny. In the illustration the careful reader will find that
two butterflies are represented, one on the wing and the other
alighted upon the stem of the plant.
44
690 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
This discovery was received by the naturalists of the time
with contempt and ridicule; so much so that Peyssonnel, dis-
gusted, retired into obscurity, leaving his manuscripts in the
Museum of Natural History in Paris, where they still remain,
unpublished. Before his death, however, in his retirement, he
had the satisfaction of seeing his views accepted, and some of
those who had most ridiculed them on their first presentation,
become the most enthusiastic and effective advocates of them.
The gathering of shells, to be used as ornaments, and also as
the material for fancy work, is increasing very rapidly. The
illustration on the opposite page represents some of the chief
varieties which are valued highly for their exquisite shading and
brilliant coloring, which art cannot hope to surpass.
Another fishery which may be fitly mentioned here is the
oyster fishery. There are several varieties of the oyster.
Those usually eaten in France are the common oyster (Ostrea
edulis), and the horse foot oyster (O. hippopus). The oysters
of the Mediterranean are the rose-colored oyster (O. rosacea),
and the milky oyster (0. lacteola), with the small and little
known crested oyster (O. instata), and the folded oyster (0.
plicata). On the Corsican coast the oysters are called foliate
(Olamleosa). In France the Cancale and Ostend oysters are chiefly
noted. When the first of these has been fed for some time in
the parks or beds, and has assumed a greenish color, it is
known as the Narenna oyster, from the name of the park in
the Bay of Scudre. |
Natural oyster beds occur in every sea where the coast
affords the proper conditions with ashelving and not too rocky
bottom. In France the beds of Rochelle, Rochefort, the isles
of Re and Oleron, the bay of St. Brieuc, Cancale and Gran.
ville are the most famous. On the Danish coast there are
forty or fifty beds on the west coast of Schleswig, the best
lying between the small islands of Sylt, Amzon, Fohr, Pel-
worm and Nordstrand.. The oyster beds of England extend
kg
= EES
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= SSS
SHELLS OF OCEAN.
691
692 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
from Gravesend, in the estuary of the Thames and midway
along the Kentish coast, and in the estuary of the Colue and
other small streams on the Hssex coast. The Frith of Forth
is also famous for its oyster beds. The product of these beds
has diminished in recent times; according to some authorities
from too improvident and persistent dredging, but Mr. Buck-
land attributes the decrease in the yield to sudden changes in
the temperature at the critical period when the spat, or young
oysters, are just formed, rather than to over-dredging
The United States is more abundantly furnished with oyster
beds than any other country. They extend along almost the
entire coast. Those of Virginia are estimated to comprise
nearly 2,000,000 of acres. The sea-board of Georgia is famous
for its immense supplies, while the whole 115 miks of Long
Island is occupied with them.
The oyster is one of the lowest forms of the mollusk. Ite
mouth opens right into its stomach, which is surrounded by
its liver, permeated by a yellow liquid, the bile. It may thus
be said that they have their stomach and intestine in the liver,
the mouth upon the stomach and the opening of the intestine
in the back. They have a heart which circulates a colorless
blood. They breathe at the bottom of sea, having an organ
which separates from the water the small amount of oxygen
it contains. Their respiratory organs are two pair of gills, or
branchiae, curved and formed by a double series of very deli-
cate canals placed close together, resembling the teeth of a fine
comb. This apparatus, like the mouth, is hidden under the
fold of the mantle. They have no brain, but a ganglion of
nerves, a whitish substance situated near their mouths. From
this originate the nerves, which branch off to the region of
the liver and stomach; here they re-unite ina second ganglion
which is placed behind the liver. The nerves of the mouth
and its tentacles originate in the first ganglion, those of the
respiratory organs in the second. It has no sense of sight
THE OYSTER A SOCIAL ANIMAL. 693
or hearing, the sense of touch is all that it has, and this resides
in the tentacles of the mouth. Its taste, if it has any, must
be very feeble. Its powers are most limited; imprisoned for-
ever in its shell, it has no power of locomotion, and being
without any distinction of sex, its wants or desires must be
very few.
Still the oyster appears to be a social animal, and loves to
gather together in great numbers, so that despite their appa-
rently low grade of intelligence, we cannot say that they have
not sympathetic feelings. Uniting as they do both sexes in
each individual, the oyster’s organs of reproduction are visi-
ble only at the period they are in use. Their young are pro-
duced from eges, which are produced between the folds of their
mantle, and in the midst of their respiratory organs. The
number of these eges is prodigious. According to some au-
thorities the number produced by a single oyster reaches
10,000,000. Naturalists, however, at present consider this
estimate too high, and limit it at about 2,000,000 for each in:
dividual. The eggs are yellow, are hatched in the mantle, and
when the embryo leaves its parent it can breathe. The spawn.
ing time is from June to September. The oyster differs from
most shell-fish in that when the young leave the parent they
can support themselves; ordinarily the shell-fish throw out
their eggs committing them to chance for their protection. In
the spawning season an oyster bed is the most interesting
place ; each oyster is throwing out a whole army of descend-
ants, filling the water with a cloud of living dust, so that the
sea is clouded with the spat as it is called.
Under the microscope the spat is seen to be provided with
a shell, and with vibratory cils which enable it to swim.
When the current carries it against any stationary body, it imn-
mediately adheres to it, the cils disappear and the young ovs-
ter, becoming fixed, commences to develop. It takes three
years for them to attain their full size While the spat is
694 _- HISTORY OF THE SEA.
swimming about, before becoming fixed, it is said that if any- -
‘hing alarm them they seek refuge again within the maternal
-hell. Such prolific production would soon stock the whole
sea, were it not for the fact that the young are feeble swim- —
mers, and that millions of them are annually swept away and
lost by the current, or falla prey to the numerous animals
which feed upon them. |
The favorite place for the oyster is on the shore, in water
not, very deep and free from currents; here they they are very
prolific. The idea of breeding them is as old as the Romans,
and to-day the planting of oyster beds, and fishing from them
FAGGOTS SUSPENDED TO RECEIVE OYSTER SPAT.
gives occupation to thousands. Some of the oyster beds of
France which were nearly exhausted twenty ‘years ago have
been made again very productive by attention and care. The
plan of suspending faggots upon which the spawn should ad-
here, has been found very successful. From the Bay of St.
Brieuco two faggots, taken up at random, were found to contain
about 20,000 young oysters, ranging in size from one to three
inches in diameter. Their exhibition excited astonishment ;
they locked like leafy branches, each leaf being a living oyster.
In the island of Re oyster farming is in full operation. It
1s calculated that the beds contain 600 oysters to the square
yard, the majority of marketable condition, making a total of
878,000,000 in these beds alone. Inthe United States, the
te ee en ee ee
MODES OF OYSTER FISHING. 695
productiveness of the beds is almostinestimable, and yet, despite
the immense number of oysters yearly brought to market, the
demand continually outstrips the supply. The modern meth-
ods of canning have opened aso much wider market, the whole
inland country being thus opened to the supply, it is almost
impossible to overstock the market.
The peculiar green color of the oysters in Franve! which
have been planted in beds, or claries, and which is thought to
make their flavor better, arises from some cause, concerning
which naturalists differ. It seems, however, to be some kind
of disease, arising from the condition of the water in these
beds.
Oyster fishing is pursued in different ways, in different coun-
tries. Around Minorca the diver descends with a hammer in
his hand to knock the oysters from the rocks, and brings up
generally a dozen or more with each descent. On the English and
French coasts the dredge is used. This method is very destruc-
tive, since it tears the large and small together from their native
spot, and buries many also in the mud. Oysters,as we know
them, are of convenient size for making a mouthful; the largest
may have to be separated into parts before a delicate person
can swallow them, but it is only the largest which have to be
submitted to this process, and your real oyster lover has too
tender a regard for his favorite mollusk to so maltreat it. On
the coast of Coromandel, however, the oysters grow to be as
big as soup plates, and larger, the shells of some of them
ineasuring almost two feet across. These shells are frequently
used in the Catholic churches of Europe to contain the holy
water, placed near the door for the use of the faithful, and are
quite as large as big hand basins. A half-dozen such oysters
oun the half-shell, would make a feast even for the most vora.
cious oyster eater.
The oyster beds on the coast of the United States are gener:
ally in x» shallow water that they can be readily reached with
»
696 HISTORY OF THE SEA,
rakes furnished with handles fifteen to twenty feet long. A
pair of these are mounted like a giganti¢ pair of scissors, the
pivot being nearer the rakes than the other end of the poles.
Taking an end of one of these poles in each hand, the fisher-
man sinks it to the bottom, opens it, and moves the handles
until a supply of oysters is scraped up between the rakes.
‘rhen pulling up the instrument, ne empties the oysters into
the bottom of his boat, and uses his rakes again. Millions of
dollar’s worth of oysters is thus fished every year, and fleets ot
small sailing ships are constantly engaged in the traffic along
the coast.
To an European, the American oyster at first appears enor-
mous, compared with those he is accustomed to. Their flavor
also is different; they have not a peculiar coppery taste
to which he is accustomed, and which most Americans in Ku-
rope dislike at first. A little practice, however, soon enables
the European to recognize the merit of our oysters, and they
become very fond of them. Both Thackaray and Dickens,
during their visits to this country, were loud in their praises
of the excellence of the oysters. !
The pearl oyster (Meleayrina margaritifera), is one of the
most interesting and valuable of the varieties of the oyster.
The. pearls are formed of the same substance which lines the
shells of so many shell-fish, and which as nacre, or mother of
veurl, is so well known for its iridescent beauty. It is depos-
ited by the animal i”. very thin layers, and it is the interference
of the rays of light in their reflection from this varying
surface which produces the phenomena. of iridescence. It is
vasy for any one to satisfy himself of this. Press a piece of
wax upon a piece of mother of pearl, or any other iridescent
body, and the surface of the wax when removed will itself ap-
pear iridescent. It has reproduced the fine lines of the irides-
sent body. Soap bubbles, being formed of films of the soapy
water, ultaig their brilliant coloring from the sarae cause
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DREDGING FOR OYSTERS.
698 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
Brass buttons were once fashionable which showed tne same
colors. They were made by having the polished surface ruled
with microscopically fine lines. It was, however, so costly
to make them, they cost a guinea each, that they were soon
abandoned.
Pearls are the secretion of nacreous material, spread, it is
supposed over some foreign substance which has been intro-
duced into the shell, under the mantle of the mollusk. When
the pearls are deposited on the shells, they generally adhexe
A SHELL CONTAINING CHINESE PEARLS.
to it, when they originate in the body of the animal they are
free. As arule some foreign body is found in their centre
which served as the nucleus for the deposit of the secretion.
[t may be a sterile egg of the animal itself, or of a fish, or 9
grain of sand, which was washed in.
The Chinese and other nations of the East, take advantage
{ this fact in natural history, for purposes of profit. They take
up the living mollusk, and opening the shell introduce into it
glass beads, or small metallic casts, representing some one of
their gods, or other objects, and then returning the mollusk to
THE PEARL OYSTER. 699
the water, in time the animal has coated them with mother of
pearl. The illustration shows a shell into which small beads
have been introduced, and converted into pearls, together with
a dozen small figures of Buddha, the Hindoo divinity, seated,
which have been covered over with nacre also.
The pearls are at first. very small, but they increase in size
with the yearly deposit of a layer on the original centre.
Sometimes they are diaphanous, semi-transparent, lustrous and
more or less irridescent, at other times, however, they prove to
be dull, obscure, and smoky even. The pearl fisheries are
carried on in various places. They are found in the Persian
Gulf, on the coast of Arabia, in Japan, on the shores of Cali-
fornia, and in the islands of the South Sea. The most import-
ant ones are, however, those of the Bay of Bengal, the coast
of Ceylon, and elsewhere in the Indian Ocean. Previous to
1795 most of the Indian fisheries were in the hands of the
Dutch, but in 1802, after the treaty of Amiens, they passed
into the possession of the English. Sometimes the Ceylon
fisheries are undertaken by the Government, while at others
they are sold to a contractor. In either case, before they
begin, the coast is inspected by a Government official, in order _
to see that the banks are not exhausted by too frequent
fishing.
" The chief supply of mother of pearl is obtained from the
fishery in the Gulf of Manaar, a large bay on the north-east of
the island of Ceylon. It commences in February or March,
and lasts thirty days. Some two hundred and fifty boats are
engaged in it, coming for the purpose from all parts of the
coast. At ten at night a gun gives the signal for them to set
sail, and reaching the ground they commence as soon as the
ttawn affords sufficient light. Each boat carries ten rowers
and ten divers, five of whom rest while the others are engaged,
A negro to attend to the odd jobs and chores accompanies
pach DoOaL.
700 HISTORY OF THE SEA,
The divers descend from forty to fifty feet, seventy is the
utmost they can stand. Thirty seconds is the time they
usually remain under water, and the best cannot stay longer
than a minute and a half. When the fishing ground is reached
a staging, built of the oars, is rigged to project from the
Loat over the water, and to the edge of this the diving-stones
are hung, weighing from fifty to sixty pounds. The diver
stands in a stirrup upon this, or if this is wanting upon the
stone itself, holding the cord attached to it between his toes:
PEARL FISHER IN DANGER. ; ‘
with his left foot he holds the net for the reception of the
pearl-oysters. Then, pressing his nostrils firmly with his left
hand, and with his right grasping the signal cord, he is let
rapidly down to the bottom. As soon as he arrives there, he
removes his foot from the stone which is immediately drawn
up again. Then throwing himself flat upon the ground, he
hastily gathers into his net all the oysters within his reach.
When he feels he must return to the surface he pulls the sig
na’ cord with a jerk, ana is pulled up as quickly as possible.
A good diver seeks to avoid straining himself, and so stays
under water ¢alr the shortest time, seldom more than half a
PEARL FISHING. 701
minute, but he will repeat the operation sometimes as much
as fifteen or twemty times. The work is very distressing, the
increased pressure of the water affects the entire system, and
frequently on rising to the surface the water which runs from
their ears, nose and mouth is tinged with blood. The effect
is also to induce pulmonary diseases, and the divers rarely
attain old age. Sharks are also common in these waters, and
the divers are not unfrequently destroyed by these rapa-
cious monsters,who are the more attracted by the fact that the
divers, for their own convenience, are naked.
The work continues until noon, when a second gun gives
‘notice for its cessation. The boats then return with the cargo
they have gained, and are received by the proprietors on the
shore, who personally superintend their discharge, which must
be finished before dark, since anything left over night would
most certainly be stolen. :
The fisheries of Ceylon were formerly very valuable, but at
present the banks show signs of exhaustion, from over-fishing
most probably. In 1798 they are said to have produced
nearly a million dollars’ worth of pearls, but now they seldom
yield more than a hundred thousand dollars’ worth. The in-
habitants along the coast of the Bay of Bengal, the Chinese
seas, and the islands of Japan, are also engaged in the pearl
fishing. Together the yield is estimated at about four mil-
lions of dollars.
Further west, on the Persian coast, the Arabian gulf and
the Muscat shore, as well as in the Red sea, pearls are found.
In these latter countries the pearl fishing commences in
July, for during this and the next month the sea is usually
calm. When the boats have arrived over the bed, they
anchor, the water being eight or nine fathoms deep. The
divers carry their bag tied around their waists, and plug their
nostrils with cotton, then closing their mouths, are sunk by a
stone rapidly to the bottom. The pearls obtained frem the
702 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
fisheries on the Arabian coast reach a value of over a million
and a half of dollars.
Pearl fishiny is also carried on, on the coast of South Amer-
ica. Before the Spanish conquest of Mexico the fisheries ~
were situated between Acapulco and the Gulf of Tehuantepec,
but since that time other beds have been found near the islands
of Cubagua, Margarita and Panama. The yield at first was
ao promising that flourishing cities grew up in the vicinity of
these places, and during the reign of Charles V., pearls to the
value of nearly a million of dollars were sent to Spain, but
the present yield averages only about three hundred thousand
dollars.
When the oysters are taken from the boats, they are piled
up on grass mats on the shore, and left in the sun. The mol-
usks soon die, and begin to decompose. In about ten days they
are sufficiently putri fied to become soft. Then they are thrown
into tanks of sea water, opened and washed. The pearls which
adhere to the shells are taken off with pinchers; those that
are in the body of the animal are secured by passing its sub-
stance through a sieve, after boiling the flesh to make it soft.
The shells furnish the nacre, which is split off from the rough
outside with a sharp. instrument, or the outside is dissolved
from the mother of pearl by an acid. Three kinds of mother
of pearl are known in commerce, as silver face, bastard white
and bastard black; the first is the most valuable. The pearls
are the most important part of the product. Those which
adhere to the shell are always more or less irregular in their
shape, and are sold by weight. They are called baroques.
Those found in the body of the animal are called virgin pearl,
or paragons, and are round, oval or pyramid shaped. These
are sold generally singly; the price varying according to size,
lustre, clearness, etc. Months after the shells have been ex
amined, poor natives are seen diligently turning over the putri
fying mass whick has been cast aside, eagerly searching for
Re. ae te oe aes E
ae ae us
SHARK FISHING, (03
some pearl that has been overlooked; as in our cities the
ashes, barrels and gutters are searched by the same wretched
class for the refuse of luxury.
The pearls are polished by shaking them together in a bag
with nacre powder. By this process they aresmoothed and polish-
ed. Then they are assorted according to sizes by being passed
through a series of copper sieves, placed over each other, and
pierced with an increasing number of holes, growing smaller.
Thus, sieve number twenty has twenty holes in it; fifty, fifty
holes, and the last of the series of twelve, one thousand holes.
The pearls retained between twenty and eighty are called mill,
and are considered to be of the first order. Those between
one hundred and eight hundred are vivadoe, and class second.
Those which pass through all but the thousand are tool, or seed
pearls, and are third. The seed pearls are sold by measure or
weight. The larger ones are drilled, strung on a white or
blue silk thread, and exposed for sale.
In the American fisheries the oysters are opened each separ-
ately with a knife, and the animal is pressed between the
thumb and finger in the search for pearls. This process takes
longer, and is not considered as certain to find them all as
that followed in the East, but the nacre and the pearls thus
taken from the live animal are fresher and more brilliant
than from those oysters which have died and decayed. Other
mollusks also furnish pearls, but not in a regular enough supply
to justify their fishing. In fact pearls are often found in our
common oysters.
Fishing for sharks is one of the most exciting kinds of sport,
and has the further merit that its success is the destruction of
ihe most destructive inhabitant of the sea; a predatory rob.
ber, who spares none that come in his way. The prey in
which the shark most delights is, however, man himself. Hae
even manifests, according to some authorities, a preference for
Kurypeans over tue Asiatic or the Negroraces. A shark who
Zz
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SHARK FISHING.
&
8
SHARK FISHING. 705
has cnce enjoyed the luxury of human flesh is said to haunt
the neighborhood where. he obtained it. Tle follows a ship
from some instinctive feeling, and has been known to leap
into a fisherman’s boat, or throw himself against a ship in an
effort to reach a sailor who had shown himself over the bul.
warks. Theslave shivs during their voyages were constantly
followed by sharks, who battled eagerly for the corpses of the
unhappy dead which were thrown overboard. In one case it
is recorded that a corpse was hung from the yard arm, dang-
ling twenty feet above the water, and was devoured, limb by
_ limb, by a shark, who leaped that distance from the water to
obtain his horrid repast.
On the African coast the negroes boldly attack the shark in
his own element. As his mouth is placed under his head, he
has to turn round before he can seize anything, and taking
advantage of this, the negro seizes the opportunity to rip him
up with a sharp knife.
Shark fishing is regularly followed off the coast of Nan-
_tucket, for their skins and the oil they furnish. The skins
are used for various purposes in the arts. In Norway and
Iceland portions of the flesh are dried, and serve as provision
for the food of winter.
The persistancy with which a shark will follow a vessel at
sea leads to their frequently being caught. The hook is of
iron, as thick as a man’s finger, and six or eight inches long,
the point made very sharp. It is fastened with a chain five
or six feet long, to prevent the shark’s teeth from severing it.
Baited with a good sized piece of pork, and fastened toa long ~
line, it is thrown over. Sometimes in his eagerness to catch it
the shark will jump from the water, but oftener, having rro-
bably learned from experience something about the tricks of
men, he is more cautious in taking it. Often he will examine
it, swim round it, and manage to get it, without tvking the
hock aso, as often as it is offered to him rebaitcl. Ifhe,
45
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CUTTLE FISH. 707
however, swauows the hook with the bait, it still requires
some dexterity to catch him; the line must not be jerked pre-
maturely; he must be given time enough to swallow it well,
then a good jerk fixes the point of the hook, and the sport
commences for everybody but the shark. In hauling him in
it is not safe to trust only to the hook; his struggles are so
violent and his strength isso great that he may break away
Being hauled therefore to the surface, the next thing is to get
the noose of another rope round his body near the tail, or
round one of his pectoral fins. This done he may be safely
hauled on board, but even then he cannot be approached witb-
out danger, since a blow from his tail may prove fatal. In
catching sharks off the coast of Nantucket, in smacks, the.
fishermen haul them to the surface at the side of the boat,
and then kill them with blows on the head before taking them
on board.
Among the monsters of the deep, none is more terrific in
appearance than the cuttle fish. Terrible stories have been
told of the magnitude of these sea monsters. Under the name
of the Kraken marvelous tales were told of its destruction of
ships, one of them, it being said, embracing a three-masted
ship in its gigantic arms. Our illustration, however, shows
a well authenticated case of the capture of an enormous cuttle fish.
An account of the sapture was made to the French Academy
of Sciences by Lieutenant Bayer, the commander of the French
corvette Alecton, who made the capture, and M. Sabin Berthe-
lot, the French Consul at the Canary Islands. While on her
course between Teneriffe ‘and Madeira, the Alecton fell in with
a large cuttle fish measuring about fifty feet in length, without
counting itscight arms, covered with suckers. Its head, its
largest part, measured about twenty feet in circumference; its
tail consisted of two fleshy lobes or fins. Its weight was esti-
mated at 4,000 pounds. Its color was brickish red, and its
fia.t was soft and glutinous. The shots which were fired at
708 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
it passed through it without apparently producing any injury
After it was thus wounded, however, the sea was observed ta
be covered with foam and blood, and a strong odor of musk
was smelt. Harpoons were also cast into it, but they took no
hold. Finally, however, one of the harpoons stuck fast, and
the sailors succeeded in getting a running noose round tha
lower part of its body, near the tail. On attempting to haul it
on board, the rope cut it in two, the head part disappearing
and the tail portion being brought on deck.
It is supposed that the animal was either sick, or exhausted
from some cause, possibly a recent struggle with some other
marine monster, and that on this account it had left its usual
-haunts on the rocks at the bottom of the sea, since otherwise
it would have been more active than it was, or would have
discharged the inky cloud, which the cuttle fish has always at
its disposal for avoiding its enemies.
To give even the briefest notice of the varieties of singular
or noteworthy forms of life which people the sea, would require
volumes. Their variety is perhaps as great, if not greater than
those with which the land is covered. Yet the illustration of a
few of them here will be of interest. The coverings with which
the inhabitants of the sea are provided, either for their protec-
tion or defence from their enemies, are as various as those which
the land animals have. As a specimen of the shell fish, the
lobster is one of the most singular. The plates of the coat of
mail with which he is protected are as accurately adjusted for
his defence, while at the same time not to interfere with his
motions, as were those of any knight of the middle ages who
had been furnished with a suit made by the most skilful artifi-
cers of the time. His large and powerful claws, though they
seem to be clumsy tools, when we examine them as he lies on
the table of the fish market, exposed for sale, are used by him
most deftly when in his native element, either as weapons of
defence, or for feeding himself. In doing this last, he uses
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710 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
both of these claws. On examination, it will be found that one
of them is furnished with knobs, or blunt protuberances on the
two inner surfaces, while the other has sharper and more
serrated processes along these two surfaces. It is by no means
the rule that these claws hold always the same relative position.
If there was anything accidental in nature, we should say that
it was by accident that one of these claws should be either on
the right or left. But as yet the naturalists have not studied
sufficiently to decide the cause which determines that either the
right or left claw should be the one furnished with knobs.
The use made by the animal of these two claws is different; the ©
one with the blunt projections he uses for holding on by to the
branches and twigs of submarine plants, or to the substances
upon which he feeds, while with the other he cuts and minces his
food most deftly, preparing it so that it can be taken in by the
mouth. When attacked and defending itself, or fighting with
each other, it uses either claw for biting, and the wound made
with that having the sharp, serrated, or saw-like projections upon
it, is the worst.
Like the crab, the lobster sheds its shell yearly. While it is f
undergoing this process, it appears sick, and mopes. Theirnew
covering they get in a few days after casting off the old ug
one. But while the shell is soft, they seek to conceal them-
selves in some lonely spot, to avoid being made an easy prey to
their numerous enemies, who are always ready to devour them,
and who may be one of their own companions, not in so
defenceless a state. When its claws become injured, the animal
casts off the wounded member, and another grows in its place,
though never as large as the original. This singular power of
reproducing a part shows that the lobster does not stand very
high in the classification of animal life. Another evidence of
its low position in the scale of animal life is its prolifieness. The
female carries her eggs under her tail, which is broader’ than |
that of the male, and buries them in the sand. It has been
nal eS , epee
CONFLICT OF HERMIT CRA3s.
711
pp HISTORY OF THE SEA.
reported by a naturalist that he has counted twelve thousand
four hundred and forty-four eggs under the tail of a single
female lobster, who had probably a great many more still in
her body, not yet ready for protrusion. When they shed their
shell, they also shed their stomach and intestines, and are said
to eat the old ones which are replaced by new. This is a fur-
ther proof of the place this animal holds in the scale of being,
and of the rudimentary character of its functions.
Upon the bottom of the water the lobster runs upon its legs,
or small claws, with considerable rapidity. In swimming, it
uses its tail, which it also uses to jump with when alarmed.
This it does by shutting its tail with such force, that it is re-
ported they will leap, tail first, a distance of thirty feet, and in
the same way jump from the rocks upon which they may be
feeding, to the holes in which they secrete themselves with sur-
prising accuracy.
Another specimen of shell fish which is curious for its habits
is the hermit crab. This animal has a shell only upon its
claws, and to protect itself, as the rest of its body is exposed,
it seeks about on the bottom of the sea until it finds some
deserted shell it can impress into its service. With these crabs
as with men, who depend upon having houses furnished them
by others, instead of building them each for himself, there are
at times more tenants than houses, and at such times the ques-
tion of occupancy has to be settled by force. The combat
rages with great fury; the combatants strike each other and
bite with their claws, until the weakest gives up’ the contest
defeated, and retires to find another empty shell.
Since the shells thus taken possession of by the hermit crabs
do not grow in size with the natural increase of their inhabi-
tant, as the shells of shell-fish do naturally, the successful
capturer of a shell cannot congratulate himself with the assur-
ance that ne has provided himself with a permanent shelter for
his old age. Therefore when, from his increased size, the her-
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SEA ANEMONES.
714 HISTORY OF THE SBA.
mit crab finds the shell he has appropriated becoming too con-
tracted for ‘his swelling proportions, he begins to set about
house-hunting for a new tenement. Like a prudent and care-
ful househelder, however, he does not abandon his quarters
until he has found others the better suited to his wants. He
carries it about with him, even though it may be inconvenient
to do so, when engaged in house-hunting. On the beach there
is frequently the chance offered, in the places where this species
of animal is found, to observe how carefully one shell is exam-
ined, turned over, and tried, by the tenant of the old one in
his search for anew home. If after various trials of the new
house, he finds it will not suit him, he trudges away, still
carrying the old one, in search of another, and this course he
continues until his persevering search is rewarded with success.
Still lower in the scale of animal life, and so- closely
approaching the conditions of vegetable life that at the first
_ glance it is difficult to determine to which of the two divisions
they belong, are the Sea Anemones. |
Scientifically, these animals, for they are animals, are called
actinie. Attached to the ground by their base, their top is
formed by a series of tentacles, disposed in circles, around a
central opening giving access to the stomach, which fills the
whole interior of their bodies. When the anemones are feeding
and have their tentacles expanded, their various and brilliant
colors make the ground upon which they live appear like a beau-
tiful bed of gorgeous flowers. or this reason, and for the ease
with which they are kept alive, they are a favorite with the
keepers of aquaria, to which they make a most desirable addi-
tion. They are easily taken up from their natural habitat
and transferred to their new home.
Their food consists of shell fish and other marine animals,
which they capture with their tentacles and transfer to their
stomachs. The indigestible portions of the food they take into
their stomachs are rejected through the same channel by which
PECULIARITIES OF THE SEA ANEMONES. 715
it entered. The opening into their stomach is capable of great
extension, so that they can swallow a shell quite as large as
they are themselves. Though they generally pass their lives
in a stationary position, yet they have the power to detach
themselves, and move away, though very slowly, to a new posi-
tion. It is said that when they move thus, they do it by re-
versing themselves, and using their tentacles as feet. Though
they have no visible eyes, yet they appear to be sensible to light,
and will draw in their tentacles, if exposed to a too bright light,
not opening them again until the light is removed.
DREDGING.
CHUAPTER LVI.
DREDGING IN MODERN TIMES—WHAT IT HAS TAUGHT US—DEEP SEA SOUNDINGS—FIRAST
ATTEMPTS—IMPLEMENTS USED FOR IT—THE CHANCE FOR INVENTORS,
IN modern times we have learned a great deal more of the
ocean than the ancients knew, from dredging. By this means
we have become acquainted not only with the outline of the
bottom, but have also become acquainted with the temperature
of deep seas, with the varied forms of animal and vegetable
life which are present there, and have come to know, with far
greater certainty and completeness than ever before, the part
which the ocean has played and is still playing in the pre-
paration of the land. ;
By sounding, the ancients, of course, knew the depths of the
shallow waters along their coasts. It would be the most
natural thing for a sailor to tie a stone to a string, and let it
down into the water, when he wanted to know whether it was
deep enough to float his vessel, and the same means would
also be used to discover whether there were any sunken rocks
716
MEASURING THE DEEP SEA. | 7 (aw
im such harbors as he was frequenting. But the ocean, to all
antiquity, was unfathomable; they dared not attempt to cross
it, and of course did not think they could measure its depth.
Long after the ocean had been crossed by ships the belief was
still current that it was impossible to measure its depth, and
this belief was made the stronger by the unsuccessful attempts
made in mid ocean to obtain soundings with the ordinary
lead and line.
Before we arrived at a positive knowledge of the depth of
the ocean, scientific men attempted to calculate it by various
methods. Laplace, calculating the mean elevation of the land,
supposed the sea must be of about equal depth. Young, draw-
ing his deductions from the tides, calculated the depth of the
sea. This method has been recent! y used to calculate the
depth of the Pacific. A wave of a certain velocity indicates
water of such a depth. In the case of the earthquake of 1854,
in Japan, which caused a wave that extended to California, the
rate of its progress afforded an indication of the mean depth
of the sea it passed over, and authentic soundings taken since
have confirmed the general accuracy of the calculation.
The ordinary lead used for soundings is a pyramid of lead,
the bottom of which has a depression in it, which is filled
with tallow; on striking the bottom a little of the sand or mud
adheres to this tallow and is brought up to the surface. In.
this way something is learned about the depth and bottom of
the sea, but not enough to satisfy the naturalists, who inquired
whether it might not be possible to dredge the bottom of the
gea in the ordinary way, and to send down water bottles and
registering instruments to settle finally the conditions of the
deep waters, and determine with precision the composition
and temperature at great depths.
_ An investigation of this kind is beyond the powers of pri-
vate enterprise. It requires more power and sea skill than
naturalists usuallv have. It is a work for governments. That
718 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
of the United States has contributed fully its share. The
coast survey has added a great deal to our knowledge of the
deep sea, and the ships of the navy took part in the soundings
by which the existence of the plateau across the bed of the
North Atlantic, which has been used for the ocean telegraphic
cable, was proved. :
In 1868 the English government provided the vessels and
crews for the purpose of conducting deep sea dredgings, under
the direction of Dr. Carpenter and Mr. Wyville Thompson.
These expeditions have found that it is quite possible to work
with certainty, though not with such ease, at the depth of 600
fathoms, as at a depth of 100; and in 1869 it carried on deep
sea dredging at a depth of 2,435 fathoms, 14,610 feet, or very
nearly three miles, with perfect success. Dredging in such
deep water is very trying. ach haul occupied seven or eight
hours, and during the whole of this time the constant atten-
tion of the commander was necessary, who stood with his hand
on the regulator of the accumulator, ready at any moment to
ease an undue strain, by a turn of the ship's paddles. The
men, stimulated and encouraged by the cordial interest taken
by the officers in the operations, worked with a willing spirit;
but the labor of taking up three miles of rope, coming up with
a heavy strain, was very severe. The rope itself, of the very
best Italian hemp, 24 inches in circumference, witha breaking
strain of 2} tons, looked frayed out and worn, as if it could
not have been trusted to stand such an extraordinary ordeal
much longer.
The ordinary deep sea lead used for soundings weighs from
80 to 120 pounds. The samples of the bottom which it brings
up are marked upon the charts as mud, shells, gravel, ooze or
sand, thus 2,000 m. sh. s. means mud, shells and sand at 2,000
fathoms; 2,050 oz. st. means ooze and stones at 2,050 fathoms;
2,200 m.s. sh. sc. means mud, sand, shells, and scoria, at 2,200
fathoras, and soon. When no bottom is found with the lead,
2 en ae
-
DEEP SEA SOUNDING. 71!
it is entered on the chart thus:
was reached at that depth.
3,200, meaning no bottom
This method of sounding answers very well for comparatively
shallow water, but it is useless for depths much over 1,000 fath-
oms, or six thousand feet. The weight is not sufficient to
carry the line rapidly and vertically to the bottom; and if a
heavier weight is used, the ordinary sounding line is not strong
enough to draw up its own weight, and that of the lead from
a great depth, and so breaks. No impulse is felt when the
lead touches the bottom, and so the line continues running out,
and any attempt to stop it breaks it. In some cases the slack
of the line is carried along by currents, and in others it is
found that the line has been running out by its own weight
and coiling in a tangled mass on top of the lead.
These sources of error vitiate the results of very deep soundings.
Thus Lieutenant Walsh, of the U.S. schooner Taney, reported
34,000 feet without touching bottom; and the U.S. brig Dol
phin used a line 39,000 feet long without reaching bottom.
An English ship reported 46,000 Scet in the South Atlantic
and the U.S. ship Congress 50,000 feet without touching bottom
These are, however, known to be errors, so that no soundings
are entered on charts over 4,000 feet, and few over 3,000.
The U.S. Navy introduced the first great improvement in
deep soundings. This consisted in using a heavy weight and
a small line. The weight, a 32 or 68-pound shot, was rapidly
run down, and when it touched bottom, which was shown
by the sudden change in the rapidity with which the line was
run out, the line was cut and the depth estimated from the
length of cord remaining on the recl. This, however, cost the
loss of the shot and the line for each sounding.
One of the first attempts at deep sea dredging was mace in
1818, by Sir John Ross, in command of the English navy ves-
sel Isabella, on a voyage for the exploration of Baffin’s Bay
witha machine of his own invention, which he cailed a “deer
720 HISTORY OF THE SEA,
sea clamm.” It consisted of a pair of forceps, kept apart by
a bolt, and so contrived that when the bolt struck the ground
a heavy iron weight slipped down a spindle and closed the for-
ceps, which retained a portion of the mud, sand, or small
stones, from the bottom. With this instrument he sounded in
1,050 fathoms, and brought up six pounds of very soft mud,
using a whale line, made of the best hemp, and measuring
24 inches in circumference.
The cup lead is another invention. With this there is a
pointed cup at the bottom of the lead, fastened to it with a rod
upon which a circular plate of leather plays, serving asa cover
to thecup. As it strikes the bottom, the cup is driven in the
mud, and on hauling up the cover is pressed into the cup by
the water, and brings up the mud it contains. The objection
to this is that it is too crude; inits passage up, the water
washes away the mud, so that only on an average of once in
three times does the cup come up with anything in it; and
deep sea soundings take too much time, and are too valuable,
to admit so large an average of loss.
About 1854 Mr. J. M. Brooke, of the U.S. Navy, who was
at the time associated with Prof. Maury, so well known for his
labor in gathering and diffusing a knowledge of the currents
of the ocean, invented a deep sea sounding apparatus, which is
known by his name. It is still in use, and all the more recent
contrivances have been, toa great extent, only modifications and
improvements upon the original idea, that of detatching the
weight. The instrument is very simple. A 64-pound shot is
cast with a hole in it. An iron rod, with a cavity in its end,
fits loosely in the hole in the shot. Two movable arms at the
top of the rod are furnished with eyes holding ends of a sling
in which the ball hangs. The cavity at the end of the rod
is furnished with tallow, and the apparatus is let down. On
reaching the bottom, the rod is forced into the mud, the cavity
beecmes filled with it, and there being no more tension, on the
SE oe re ery SS
@FRIKING THE SEA BOTTOM.
BROOK’S DEEP SEA SOUNDING APPARATUS.
721
46
722 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
rope holding up the movable arms, they fall, disengage the
ends of the sling, and allow the ball to slide down the rod.
The rod is then withdrawn, carrying up the portion of the
bottom secured in the cavity at its foot, and leaving the ball
on the bottem. This apparatus costs a ball each time it is used,
and brings up but a small portion of the bottom, which is also
apt to be diminished on its way to the top, by the water it
passes through. ;
Commander Dayman, of the English Navy, in 1857 invented
an improvement upon Mr. Brooke’s original invention. Ife
used iron wire braces to support the sinker, as these detach
more easily than slings of rope. The shot he replaced by a
cylinder of lead, as offering less surface to the water in its de-
scent, and he fitted the cavity in the bottom of the rod with a
valve opening inward. Commander Dayman used the appa-
ratus, with these modifications, in the important series of
soundings he made in the North Atlantic, while engaged in
surveying the plateau for the ocean telegraphic cable, and re-
ports that it worked well.
The apparatus known as the bull-dog machine is an adap-
tation of Sir John Ross’ deep-sea clamms, together with
Brooke’s idea of disengaging the weight. It was invented
during the cruise of the English Navy vessel, the Bull-dog, in
1860, and the chief credit for it belongs to the assistant engineer
during that cruise, Mr. Steil. A pair of scoops are hinged
together like a pair of scissors, the handles represented bv B.
These are permanently fastened to the sounding rope, F, which
is here represented as hanging loose, by the spindle of the
scoops. Attached to this spindle is the rope, D, ending ina
ring. K represents a pair of tumbler hooks, like those used
so generally. C is a heavy weight, of iron or lead, hollow,
with a hole large enough for the ring upon D to pass through.
B is an elastic ring of India rubber, fitted to the handles of
the scorps, and designed to shut them together as soon as the
OCEAN'S STORY. i2o
weight, C, which now holds them apart, is removed. When
the bottom is reached, the scoops, open, are driven into the
ground, the tension on the rope
ceases, the tumbler hooks open
and release the weight, which
falls on its side, and allows the
elastic ring to shut the scoops,
inclosing a portion of the bot-
tom in which they have been
forced. The trouble with this
apparatus is its complicated
character; pebbles may get in
the hinge and prevent thescoops
from closing. In all apparatus
to be used for such a purpose
Ssangeseese= so ee
LEE lla 4
_the greater the simplicity the
better, and an invention, which
shall at once be simple and ef.-
fective, capable of bringing up
a pound or two from the bot-
toin at adepth of 2,000 fathoms
or more, without fail, and with-
out too much trouble, is still a
desideratum, and 11s invention
is well worth the attention of
the ingenious. —
Another arrangement, called
the Hydra sounding machine,
is intended to bring up portions
ay of the bottom and water from
SS inert
=the lowest strata reached. It
== consists of a strong brass tube,
which unscrews into four cham-
THE BULLDOG SOUNDING MACHINE. bers, closed with valves, open.
724 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
ing upward, so that in the descent the water passes thrcugh
them freely; but when it is commenced to haul up, the pres-
sure of the water closes the valves. This apparatus is also
furnished with weights to sink it, which are released, on
TU LAALLGATAVOVOVDLSBSNOOTDNNDEE=
SS VASSEYS a
4
MASSEY’S SOUNDING MACHINE.
reaching the buttun, by a similar method to those described.
This instrument was used during the deep sea sounding cruise
of the Porcupine, and never once failed. Its faults are its
complication, and that it brings uv only small samples of the
bottom Captair Calver, who used it, could always, when at
DEEP SEA SOUNDING. C25
the greates. leptps, distinctly feel the shock of the arrest of the
weight upon the bottom communicated to his hand.
Various attempts have been made to construct instruments
which should accurately determine the amount of the vertical
descent of the lead by self-registering machinery. The most
successful and the one most commonly used is Massey’s sound.
ing machine. This instrument, in its most improved form, is
shown in the accompanying cut. It consists of a heavy oval
brass shield, furnished with a ring at each end of its longer
axis. ‘To one of these a sounding rope is attached, and to
the other, the weight is fastened at about a half fathom below
the shield. A setof four brass wings or vanes are set obli-
quely to an axis, so that, like a windmill or propeller wheels,
it shall turn by the force of the water as it descends. This
axis communicates its motion to the indicator, which marks
the number of revolutions on the dial plate. One of these
dials marks every fathom, and the other every fifteen fathoms
of descent. This sounding machine answers very well in
moderately deep water, and is very valuable for correcting
soundings by the lead alone, where deep currents are sus-
pected, as it is designed to register vertical descent alone. In
very deep water it is not satisfactory, from some reason which
it is difficult to determine. The most probable explanation is
that it shares the uncertainty inherent in all instruments using
metal wheel work. Their machinery seems to get jammed in
some way, under the enormous pressure of the water, at great
depths.
To ascertain the surface temperature of the water of the sea
is simple enough. A bucket of water is drawn up, and a ther-
mometer is placed in it. With an observation of this kind
the height of the thermometer in the air should be always noted.
Until very recentiy, however, very little or nothing was known
with any certainty about the temperature of the sca at depths
below the surface. Yet this is a field of inquiry of very great
726 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
-taportance in physical geography, since an accurate determina-
tion of the temperature at different depths is certainly the best,
and frequently the only means, for determining the depth, the
width, the direction and general path of the warm ocean cur-
rents, which are the chief agents in diffusing the equatorial
heat; and more especially of those deeper currents of culd
water which return from the poles to supply their places, and
complete the watery circulation of the globe. The main cause
of this want of accurate knowledge of deep sea temperatures
is undoubtedly the defective character of the instruments which
have been hitherto employed.
The thermometer which has been generally used for making
observations on the temperature of deep water is that known
as Six’s self-regulating thermometer, inclosed in a strong vop-
per case, with valves or apertures above and bclow, to allow a
free passage of the water through the case and over the face ©
of the instrument. This registering thermometer consists of a
glass tube, bent in the form of a U. One arm terminates in a
large bulb, entirely filled with a mixture of creosote and water.
The bend in the tube contains a column of mercury, and the
other arm ends in a small bulb, partly filled with creosote and
water, but with a large space empty, or rather filled with the
vapor of the mixture and compressed air. A small steel index
witb a hair tied round it, so as to act like a spring against the
side of the tube, and keep the index at any point it may as-
sume, lies free in either arm, among the creosote, floating on
the mercury. This thermometer gives its indicatiorfs only from
the expansions and contractions of the liquid in the large full
bulb, and consequently is liable to some slight error, from the
variations of temperature upon the liquids in other parts of
the tube. When the liquid in the large bulb expands, the
column of mercury is driven upward toward the half-empty
bulb, and the limb of the tube in which it rises is graduated
from helow, upward, for increasing heat. When the liquid
DEEP SEA T'HERMOMETERS. T27
contracts in the bulb, the mercury rises in this arm of the tube,
which is graduated from above downward, but falls in the
other arm. When*the thermometer is going to be used, the
steel indices are drawn down in each limb of the tube, by a
strong magnet, till they rest, in each arm, upon the surface of
the mercury. When the thermometer is drawn up from deep
water, the height at which the lower end of the index stands
in each tube indicates the limit to which the index has been
driven by the mercury, the extreme of heat or cold to which
the instrument has been exposed. Unfortunately, the accuracy
of the ordinary Six’s thermometer cannot be depended upon
beyond a very limited depth, for the glass bulb which contains
the expanding fluid yields to the pressure of the water, and
compressing the contained fluid, gives an indication higher
than is due to temperature alone. This cause of error is not
constant, since the amount to which the bulb is compressed
depends upon the thickness and quality of the glass. Yet, as
in thoroughly well-made thermometers, the error from pressure
is pretty constant, it has been proposed to make a scale, from
an extended series of observations, which might be used to
correct the observations, and thus closely approximate tho
truth.
A better plan has been proposed, and being practically ap-
plied, has been found to work very well. This consists in
incasing the full bulb in an outer covering of glass, so that
there shall be a coating of air between the bulb and the outside
coating, and that this air being compressed by the pressure of
the water outside, shall thus protect the inside bulb. Observa-
tions taken in 1869 with thermometers constructed in this
way, as deep as 2,435 fathoms, in no instance gave the least
reason to doubt their accuracy. A modification of the metallic
thermometer, invented by Mr. Joseph Saxton, of the United
States office of weights and measures, for the use of the coas
survey, may he thus deseribed.. A ribbon cf platinum and one
728 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
of silver are soldered with silver solder to an intermediate plate
of gold, and this compound ribbon is coiled round a central
axis of brass, with the silver inside. Silver is the most expan-
sible of the metals under the influence of heat, and platinum
nearly the least Gold holds an intermediate place, and its
intervention between the platinum and silver moderates the
strain and prevents the coil from cracking. The lower end of
the coil is fixed to the brazen axis, while the upper end is fast-
ened to the base of a short cylinder. Any variation of tem-
perature causes the coil to wind or unwind, and its motion
rotates the axial stem. This motion is increased by multiply-
ing wheels, and is registered upon the dial of the instrument by
an index, which pushes before it a registering hand, moving
with sufficient friction to retain its place, when pushed for-
ward. The instrument is graduated by experiment. The
brass and silver parts are thickly gilt by the electrotype pro-
cess, so as to prevent their being acted upon by the salt water.
The box in which the instrument is protected is open to
admit the free passage of the water. This instrument seems
to answer very well for moderate depths. Upto six hundred
fathoms its error does not exceed a half degree, centigrade; at
1,500 fathoms it rises however to five degrees, quite as much
as an unprotected Six thermometer, and the error is not so con-
stant. Instruments which depend for their accuracy upon the
working of metal machinery cannot be depended upon when
subjected to the great pressure of deep soundings
For taking bottom temperatures at great depths, two or
more of the thermometers are lashed to the sounding line at a
little distance from each other, a few feet above the sounding
instrument. The lead is rapidly run down, and after the bot-
tom is reached an interval of five or ten minutes is allowed
before hauling in. In taking serial temperature soundings,
which are to determine the temperature at certain intervals of
deptr the thermometers are lashed to an ordinary deep sea
Nee ee eee ee
THE FREEZING POINT OF SALT-WATER. 729
lead, the required quantity of line for each observation of the
series ran out, and the thermometers and lead are hove each
time. The operation is very tedious; a series of such obser-
vations in the Bay of Biscay, where the depth was 850
fathoms and the temperature taken for every fifty fathoms,
occupied a whole day. In taking bottom temperatures with a
self-registering thermometer, the instrument of course simply
indicates the lowest temperature to which it has been subject-
ed, so that if the bottom stratum is warmer than any other
through which the thermometer has passed, the result would
be erroneous. This is only to be tested by serial observations;
but from these it appears, wherever they have been made,
that the temperature sinks gradually, sometimes very steadily,
sometimes irregularly from the surface to the bottom, the bot-
tom water being always the coldest.
Several important facts of very general application in phy-
sical geography have been settled by the deep sea tempera-
ture soundings which have been recently made, and the theories
formerly held on this subject shown to be erroneous. It has
been shown that in nature, as in the experiments of M. Des-
_pretz, sea water does not share in the peculiarities of fresh
water, which,as has been long known, attains its maximum
density at four degrees, centigrade; but like most other liquids
increases in densisity to its freezing point; and it has also
been shown that, owing to the movement of great bodies of
of water at different temperatures in different directions, we
may have in close proximity two ocean areas with totally
different bottom climates, a fact which, taken along with the
discovery of abundant animal life at all depths, has most im-
portant bearings upon the distribution of marine life, and
upon the interpretation of palaeontological data.
Mr. Wyville Thompson, who conducted the series of impor-
tant deep sea soundings undertaken in the Porcupine, says
very truly “It had a strange interest to see these little in.
730 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
struments, upon whose construction so much skilled labor
and consideration had been lavished, consigned to their long
and hazardous journey, and their return eagerly watched for
by a knot of thoughtful men, standing, note-book in hand,
ready to register this first message, which should throw so
much light upon the physical conditions of a hitherto unknown
world”
Up to the middle of the last century the little that was
known of the inhabitants of the bottom of the sea beyond low,
water mark, appears to have been gathered almost entirely
from the few objects thrown up on the beaches after storms
or from chance specimens brought up on sounding lines, or
by fishermen engaged in sea fishing or dredging for oysters.
From this last source, however, it was almost imposssble to
obtain specimens, since the fishermen were superstitious con-
cerning bringing home anything but the regular objects of
their industry, and from a fear that the singular things which
sometimes they drew up might be devils in disguise, with pos-
sibly the power to injure the success of their business, threw
them again, as soon as caught, back into the sea. Such super-
stitions are dying out, and in fact so singular are many of the
animals hid in the depths of the sea; their forms and general
air are so different from anything which the fishermen were
used to see, that we can hardly wonder at the fear they excited.
When, however, the attention of naturalists was turned toward
the sea, they used the dredge such as was used by the oyster
fishermen, and all the dredges now in use are simply modifica-
tions of this.
The dredge for deep sea operations is made with two scrapers,
so that it shall always present a scraping surface to the bottom,
however it may fall. The iron work should be of the very best,
and weighing about twenty pounds. The bag is about two
feet deep, and is a hand-made net of very strong twine, the
meshes half an inch totheside. As so open a net-work would
Py tae
THREE MILES OF ROPE. 731
let many small things through, the bottom of the bag, to the
height of about nine inches, is lined with a light open kind of
canvas, called by the sailors “ bread-bag.” Raw hides have
been used for inaking the dredge bag, but, though very strong,
they are apt to become too much so to another sense than
touch. It is bad economy to use too light a rope in such ope-
rations, and best to fasten it to only one arm of the dredge, the
eyes of the two arms being tied together with a thinner cord,
[n case, then, the dredge becomes entangled at the bottom, this
cord will break first, and thus releasing one of the arms of the
dredge, may so change the direction of the strain upon the rope
as to free the dredge itself.
Dredging in deep water, that is, at depths beyond 200
futhoms, is a matter of some difficulty, and can hardly be done
with the ordinary machinery at the disposal of amateurs. The
description of the apparatus used in the Porcupine, in 1869 and
’70, on her dredging cruise in the Bay of Biscay, will show
what is necessary. These arrangements are also shown in the
cut. This vessel, a gun-boat of the English navy, of 382 tons,
was fitted out specially for this work. Amidships she was
furnished with a double cylinder donkey-engine, of about twelve-
horse power, with drums of various sizes, large and small.
The large drum was generally used, except when the cord was
too heavy, and brought up the rope at a uniform rate of more
than a foot a second. A powerful derrick projected over the
port bow, and another, not so strong, over the stern. Either
of these was used. for dredging, but the one at the stern was
generally used for soundings. The arrangement for stowing
away the dredge rope was such as made its manipulation sin-
gularly easy, notwithstanding its great weight, about 5,500
pounds. A row of some twenty large pins of iron, about two
feet and a half long, projected over one side of the quarter-
deck, rising obliquely from the top of the bulwark. Hach of
these held a coil of from two to three hundred fathoms, and
I!
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A
THE STERN OF THE PORCUPINE,
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2
4
a a
DRIFTING WITH THE DREDGE. 1338
the rope was coiled continuously along the whole row. When
the dredge was going down, the rope was taken rapidly by the
men from these pins in succession, beginning from the one
nearest the dredging derrick, and in hauling up a relay of men
earried the rope from the drum of the donkey-engine and laid
it in coils on the pins, in reverse order. The length of tne
dredge rope was 8,000 fathoms, nearly three and a half miles.
Of this, 2,000 fathoms were hawser-laid, of the best Russian
hemp, 24 inches in circumference, with a breaking strain of 24
tons. The 1,000 fathoms next the dredge were hawser laid, 2
inches in circumference. Russia hemp’ seen.s to be the best
material for such a purpose. Manilla is considerably stronger
for a steady pull, but is more hkely to break at a kink.
The frame of the largest dredge used weighed 225 pounds.
The bag was double, the outside of strong twine netting, lined
with canvass. ‘Three sinkers, one of 100 pounds, and two
of 56 pounds each, were attached to the dredge rope at 500
fathoms from the dredge. A description of the sounding made
in the Bay of Biscay on the 22d of July, 1869, will give an
‘idea of the process. When the depth'had been ascertained,
the dredge was let go about 4:45 P. M., the vessel drifting
slowly before a moderate breeze. At 5:50 P. M. the whole
3,000 fathoms of rope were out. While the dredge is going
down the vessel drifts gradually to leeward; and when the
whole 3,000 fathoms of rope are out, she has moved so as to
make the line from the dredge slant. The vessel now steams
slowly to windward, and is then allowed to drift again before
the wind. The tension of the vessel’s motion, thus instead of
acting immediately on the dredge, now drags forward the
- weight, so that the dredging is carried on from the weight end
not directly from the vessel. The dredge is thus quietly
pulled along, with the lip scraping the bottom, in the position
it naturally assumes from the center of weight of its iron frame
and avms. If, on the contrary the weights were hung close to
T34 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
the dredge, and the dredge was dragged directly from the ves
sel, owing to the great weight and spring of the rope the arms
would be continually lifted up, and the lip of the dredge be
prevented from scraping. In very deep water this operation
of steaming up to windward until the dredge rope is nearly
perpendicular, after drifting for half an hour or so to leeward,
is usually repeated three or four times. At 8:50 P. M. haul-
ing-in 1s commenced, and the donkey-engine delivers the rope
at a little more than a foot a second. A few moments before
1 o’clock in the morning the weights appear, and a little after
one, eight hours after it was cast, the dredge appears and is
safely landed on deck, having in the meantime made a journey
of over eight miles. The dredge, as the res.it of this haul,
contained 11 hundred weight of characteristic pale grey Atlan-
tic ooze. The total weight brought up by the engine was as
follows:
/
2.000 fathoms of rope, ‘ 4,000
1,000 is re 1,500
5,500
Weight of rope reduced to } in water 1,375
Dredge and bag 275
Ooze 168
Weight attached 224
2.042 pounds.
Tn many of the dredgings at all depths it was found that.
while few objects of interest were brought up within the
dredge, many echinoderms, corals and sponges came to the sur.
face sticking to the outside of the dredge bag, and even to the
first few fathoms of the rope. The experiment was therefore
tried of fastening to a rod attached to the bottom of the
dredge bag, a half dozen swabs, such bundles of hemp as are
used on ship-board for washing the decks. The result was
marvelous; the tangled hemp brought up everything rough
and movable that came in its way, and swept the bottom of the.
ocean as it would have swept the deck. So successful was
this experiment, that the hempen tangles are now regarded ag
oe
a a ae
SWABING THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA. {a0
an essential adjunct to the dredge, and nearly as important as
the dredee itself, and when the ground is too rough for using
the dredge, the tangles alone are used.
The mollusca have the best chance of being caught in the
dredge; their shells ‘are comparatively small bodies mixed with
the stones on the bottom, and they enter the dredge with these —
Kehinoderms, corals and sponges, on tne contrary, are bulky
objects, and are frequently partially buried in the mud, or more
or less firmly attached, so that the dredge generally misses
them. With the tangles it is the reverse, the smvoth heavy
shells are rarely brought up, while the tangles are frequently
loaded with specimens; on one occasion not less than 20,000
exam) les came up on the tangles in a single haul.
In the Porcupine both derricks were furnished with accu-
mulators, which were found of great value. The block
through which the sounding line or dredging rope passed was
not attached directly to the derrick, but to a rope which passed
through aneye at the end of the spar, and was fixed to a
bitt on the deck. On a bight of this rope, between the block
and the bitt, the accumulator was lashed. This consists of
thirty or forty, or more, vulcanized india-rubber springs, fas-
tened together at the two extremities, and kept free from each
other by being passed through holes in two wooden ends like
barrel heads. The loop of the rope is made long enough to
permit the accumulator to stretch to double or treble its length,
but it is arrested far within its breaking point. The accumula-
tor 1s valuable in the first place as indicating roughly the
amount of strain upon the line; andin order that it may do
so with some degree of accuracy it is so arranged as to play
along the derrick, which is graduated, from trial, to the num-
ber of hundred weights of strain indicated by the greater or
less extension of the accumulator; but its more important
function is to take off the suddenness of the strain on the line
wher the vessel is pitching. The friction of one or two miles
736 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
of cord in the water is so great as to prevent its yielding to a
sudder jerk, such as is given to the attached end when the
vessel rises to a sea, and the line is apt to snap.
Th> results which have been gained by deep sea dredging
are so important that the English Government recently fitted
out another vessel, the Challenger, for such a cruise, with
every appliance.
MADREPORES.
+
7
-
CHAPTER LVII
CHE DEVELOPMENT OF SHIP Durmbine = sew MODELS FOR SHIPS—STEAM SHIP NAVIGA-
TION—MONITORS—IRON-PLATED FRIGATES—TIN CLADS—RAMS—TORPEDO BOATS—
THEIR USE IN THE CONFEDERACY—LIFE RAFTS—YACHT BUILVING—OCEAN YAORT
BACE—THE COST OF A YACHT.
FRom the oars, which were the only means of propulsion
used in the galleys of antiquity, to the sails of a subsequent
period, by which only favoring winds could be made use of,
the advance was great, but not as great asthe discovery of
steam, by which in modern times the sea is traversed wth
but little regard for the condition of the wind. To suit tne
different means used for the propulsion of these vessels, moi.
fications have been made in the manner of their constructiena,
in their form, and with sailing ships in the arrangement of
sails. When, with the successful termination of the war of the
Revolution, the United States first took its place in the wovd
as an independent nation, the commercial activity which was
the natural result of the greater political freedom resulting
from the issue of that contest, found its expression first in cur
commerce; and the self-reliance, which is the inevitable
result of liberty; the spirit of inquiry fostered by a departure
from old methods, and the abandonment of old traditions, were
displayed in the construction, the rig and the general air
of the vessels then built, as much as in the construction of the
political organization of the new republic.
So much was this the case that American vessels became
known the world over for their trim and neat appearance.
The blunt, rounded prows and heavy sterns of the English or
AT 137
738 HISTORY OF THE SEA,
Dutch vessels were replaced by American models, sharp,
nothing superfluous, and riding the waters as easy as a bird,
The American clipper ships became renowned for their quick
passages, and in transporting teas from China made fortunes
for their happy owners, by bringing to the markets the first
cargoes of the new crops. ,
The same thing occurred when steam- vessels first began to
cross the ocean. The English in their first steamers followed
the models of their largest sailing ships. They still preserved
the heavy bowsprit, projecting twenty to thirty feet in advance
of the prow, though it was not necessary, as in their sailing
ships, for balancing the pressure of the other sails. Their
steamers were therefore always heavy at the head, and when,
in a rough sea, they were driven by the power of the engine,
buried their bows in every large wave. Any one who has
crossed the Atlantic in an English steamer of twenty years ago,
must have noticed how heavily it labored in rough weather,
and how the waves broke over her bow. To take in tons of
salt water when the waves ran high, was usual; and in a pas-
sage across the Atlantic 1t was no rare thing to have the salt
encrusted on the smoke-stack, from the waves which dashed
over the bow and swept aft, reach a thickness of from one to
two inches. .
The American ship-builder, however, early saw that the
model of his craft, which was to be propelled by steam, should
differ from that of a ship depending upon its sails alone, and
governed himself accordingly. He made her sharp, for speed,
and ended her prow straight up and down, as he built the
steamboats for river navigation. The consequence was that
she rode dry through waves which would pour tons of salt
wat r upon the deck of an English model. George Steers, of
New York, a genius in naval architecture, and whose early
dea*h was deeply regretted, was the person who did the most
to 1 cing ‘nto use the present form used in the best models for
IMPROVED STEAM SHIP BUILDING, 739
ocean steamers. One of his first steamers, the Adriatic, built
for the Collins line, excited great attention at Liverpool, when
she first appeared there. It was a difficult thing for the
English to recognize the truth that their naval superiority was
in danger, but as the facts were too evident to be disregarded,
they promptly accepted the situation and sought to make the
best use of the lesson. The London Times spoke of her in
leading articles, calling upon the English ship-builders to con-
trast her with ships of their own construction. It spoke of
oy
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PENNSYLVANIA AND ONIO ON THE STOCKS.
hew she glided up the ‘Hesaass making hardly a ripple from
he. bows, so evenly and quietly she parted the water, while
an linelish steamer of her size so disturbed the stream as to
bring up the mud from the bottom. The Zimes was also
specially struck with the ease with which she was handled,
turning almest in her length, while for an English steamer
turning was an operation requiring so much more space, and
740 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
making somuch more disturbance in the water. From tiat
time to this the English have followed the American models
in the construction and equipment of their steamers, and their
example has been imitated by most other nations. |
The latest specimens of American ship building are shown
in the cut representing the Pennsylvania and Ohio on the
stocks. These vessels are the pioneers of the new line between
Philadelphia and Liverpool.
Nor is this the only change which naval architecture has
undergone. The material for ship-building, especially for sea
going steamers, has in modern times come to be chiefly iron.
Livingstone, in his book of travels in Africa, tells how, when
he was putting together on the banks of one of the rivers
there the pieces of a small iron steamer which had been sent
out to him from England, the natives gathered round, and in-
specting the work going on, jeered at him for thinking that
a boat built of such a material would float. Their whole ex-
perience with iron was that it would sink. When, however,
the steamer was completed and launched, they could hardly
express their astonishment at finding that she floated.
Though every school-boy, from his text-books cn natura.
philosophy, can explain the reasons why a ship bwi't of iron
will float, yet our ancestors would have considere! a proposi
tion to construct a ship from this material very much as the
native Africans did. Even in the constructio: of wooden
ships, iron enters now much more than it did formerly. The
knees, or bent oak beams, by which the form of the ship was
made, have become so scarce and dear that they are now fre
quently made of iron. It takes so long for an oak tree to
grow, and the demand was so great for limbs of such a natural
bend as could be used for ship-building, that even before the
use of iron for such portions of a ship, the process was in fre-
quent use of bending the beams, or knees, by steaming them
and then s~bjecting ther to great pressure. )
THE COMPARATIVE SAFETY OF IRON SHIPS. 741
[ron as a material for ships has some very great and
material advantages. It is on the whole lighter, so that an iron
ship weighs less, absolutely, than a wooden one of the same
size. Then as the knees and other timbers take up less space
when made of iron, than when made of wood, and as the thick-
ness of the sides is much less, more space is secured in an iron
ship than in a wooden one for carrying the cargo. Besides
this, a vessel built of iron can be divided into water-tight com-
partments, so that an accidental leak will damage only that
portion of the cargo contained in that compartment in which
it occurs.
This method of construction is also another factor of safety
in case of accident by collision or in any other way. Onecom-
partment may be injured so as to fill with water. while the
others, being uninjured, their buoyancy will still keep the ship
afloat. An objection, however, to the use of compartments
lies in the fact that, as they must be riveted to the sides, the
rows of holes for the rivets necessarily weaken the strength of
the sides, so that a ship with compartments, which touches on a
rock or other obstacle, at one end, is more apt to breax apart
than one without compartments, as the sides, unsupported by
the buoyancy of the water, have the less strength to support
her weight in the length. Still, all things considered, iron has
come so much in favor for the construction of large ships, that
it is in much more general use for that purpose than wood.
In the construction of an iron ship, the naval architect draws
his plans, and sends his construction drawings to the iron roll-
ing mill, where each plate is made of the exact curve and di-
mensions. The holes for the rivets are punched by machinery,
and the plates are then ready to be put together. The hull of
the vessel is made of iron bars riveted together, and the plates
are riveted to the iron upright ribs, each plate overlapping the
preceding. The ribs are placed from ten to eighteen inches
apart, and the whole structure is of iron. The simplicity of
743
v7
aN
PLANS OF THE MONITOR.
744 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
the construction of an iron ship is such, that when the plates
are ready, it can be put together with wonderful rapidity.
For constructing ships of war, iron is almost wholiy used,
and the experience of our late war has almost entirely changed
the methods and theories of naval warfare. The enormous
frigate, carrying a heavy armament of numerous guns, and
manned by a thousand men, has been replaced by a small
craft—so low in the water as to project above it only a few
inches, carrying buta single gun, or at most only two, which
are of very heavy calibre, and are mounted in a revolving
ee
ANN
AN \\
—
ST. LOUIS.
rower in the middle of the craft. The general description of
the Monitor, that it was a cheese-box on a raft, aptly describes
their appcarance.
By the introduction of the monitor as a war vessel, a oom-
plete change was wrought in naval warfare. The large hulk
of the old ships afforded only a better target for the heavy
guns of this new craft, while its own slight projection above
the weiter, and the fact that its engines and propeller were cov-
ered by the water, afforded it almost absolute security from the
enemy’s guns. Even if it was struck, the round shape of its
wor clad deck, and its revolving tower caused the balls to
All Liab er
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746 HISTORY OF THE SEA
glance off without affecting much injury. In October, 186]
forty-five days from the laying of her keel, the St Louis was
launched, being the first iron-clad ship owned by the United
States. Other vessels of similar design were rapidly brought
to completion, and these iron-elad river boats began their task
of opening the navigation of the Mississippi. The St. Louis
was built in the city of the same name, by Mr. James B. Eads,
of that city. |
The cuts represent the shape of some of the iron-clads built
for service in the western rivers, where the shallowness of the
stream made it necessary that the craft showc not draw too
much water. :
For the same reasons the “‘tin-clads,” as they were called
from the thinness of the plates with which they were covered,
were built. The “ double-enders” were also thus constructed,
in order to navigate, as necessary, either way, in the narrow
and crooked streams, where our navy performed such admir
able work during the war. :
The use of heavy artillery in naval warfare has also caused
great modifications to be made in the construction of other
naval ships than the monitors. To avoid the injury caused by
heavy artillery, the idea was suggested of plating them with
iron. The most extensive experiments of this kind were made
in England, but not with the most gratifying success. It was
found that the iron plating rendered the ships too heavy, if it
was made thick enough to be of effective service. Ina rough ©
sea the vessels rolled so heavily as to be nearly unmanageable,
while the weight of the plating on the sides acted with a lever-
age to tear the ships in halves, so that they were considered
almost unsafe. One of them, also, on her trial trip, having cap-
sized and sunk with her entire crew, public confidence in them
as serviceable vessels was entirely lost; and the advantage of
iron-plating large shins of war may be still considered as ap
Open question
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747
748 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
It has also been suggested that ships of war should be fur-
nished with a sharp beak of steel, and with such powerful
engines as should secure for them great speed, and, without
trusting at all to the use of their guns, should be used as rams
to run into and crush their adversaries. This suggestion,
which 1s practically returning to the practice of the ancients
before the invention of either gunpowder or steam, has never
yet, however, been carried out in fact. So far, therefore, the
most serviceable modern ships of war are the monitors. The
largest and most expensive of these, the Dunderberg, was not
finished until after the war was over, and was sold, with the
consent of the government, by her builder, to Russia for $1,000,-
000, and crossed the Atlantic safely, a feat which showed her
to be sea-worthy, and more worthy of confidence than any of
the armored vessels built by the English Government.
In modern times attention has also been given to construct-
ing vessels which should be navigated under the water. Ful-
ton, whose name is so inseparably connected with the intro-
duction of the steamboat, made an attempt, the first on record,
in the harbor of Brest, on the west coast of France, in 1801,
under the order of Napoleon I., to blow up an English ship
with a torpedo, a weapon of warfare which is said to have been
first suggested by Franklin, who experimented with them in
the Revolution. Fulton used, in this attempt, a submarine boat
of his own invention, the model and construction of which
have never been made public. [lis attempt being unsuccessful
the project was abandoned, as Napoleon withdrew his support
from the scheme.
During our late civil war, while the harbor of Zharleston,
South Carolina, was blockaded by the ships of the national
aavy, and the bombardment of Fort Sumter continued, attempts
were made by the besieged tu destroy the blockading ships by
torpedoes, which were to be fastened by a submarine cratt.
One of these hoats, called a “cigar hoat,” though both ends
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750 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
were pointed, is thus described: She was thirty feet long and
six feet broad, painted a lead color. Her propelling power
consisted of a six-horse engine, geared to a shaft turning a pro-
peller. At her bow was an iron bowsprit, so arranged that it
could be lowered to the required depth, and ai the end of this
the torpedo was secured. When afloat only about fifteen feet
of her length projected some fourteen inches above the water.
For fuel she used anthracite coal, and attained a speed of abcut
3ix miles an hour. Ter tonnage was about seven or eight tons,
and in this craft Lieutenant Glassells, of Virginia, volunteered
to attack the iron-clad, the Ironsides, which was the most pow-
erful ship at that time afloat in the navy, rated at from three
to four thousand tons. The Ironsides was a very heavily armed
ship, provided with eleven-inch guns, and capable of delivering
the heaviest broadside ever fired froma single ship. On the
night of the sixth of October, 1863, Lieutenant Glassells set
out on his expedition from one of the wharves of Charleston.
The sky was covered with clouds, and the night was very dark.
Tis crew consisted of a fireman and a pilot, and his offensive
armament of .a torpedo, in position, and a double-barreled fowl-
ing-piece. Being asked why he carried a gun on such an ex-
pedition, be answered: “You know I have served in the
United States navy, and I shall not attack my old comrades
like an assassin, T[ shall hail and fire into them, with this, then
Jet the torpedo do its work like an open and declared foe.”
This speech is a fair specimen of the singular mixture of honor
and disloyalty which characterized the whole secession move:
ment. This lieutenant could desert his navy, could take up
arms against his country, but could not attack one of its ships
without first giving its crew warning.
The “cigar boat” steamed silently on its course until within
about fifty yards of the Ironsides, without being discovered.
Riverything on the immense ship seemed as quiet as the grave
Suddealy. in the still night, the lieutenant cries, “ Ship ahoy |”
-_.
ee
TORPEDO ATTACK. 751
“Where away?” is the answer. ‘ We have come to attack
you,” cries the lieutenant, at the same time firing his fowling
piece, checking the engine, and directing the torpedo. It
struck, but before the ‘‘cigar boat” could retire, with a gurg-
TORPEDO EXPLOSION.
ting roar it exploded. The explosion sounded like the dis-
charge of a submerged gun. Water mixed with flame was
forced by the explosion far up above the gunwales ef tne ship,
and bearing up the bows of the smaller craft, poured back in |
752 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
torrents through the chimney, put out the fires, and rendered
the “cigar boat” helpless.
For a moment everything on board the Ironsides was in
confusion; but the discipline of the navy was equal to the
emergency. The drums beat to quarters, the guns were
manned, and the marines poured a steady fire upon the little
craft, now floating helplessly on the sea. Lieutenant Glasselis
jumped into the water, to escape death from the shower of
balls; the pilot followed him, but the fireman remained at his
post, as the boat drifted away from danger. Glassells then
called for help; the marines ceased firing, and a small boat
from the Ironsides rescued him from the water. The pilot
swam back to the “cigar boat” and he and the fireman bailed
her out, rekindled the fire, and escaped to Charleston. Glas-
sells was afterwards sent North, and under confinement his
health broke down. The Ironsides was sufficiently injured by
the explosion to be sent from her station for repairs. Mad
the torpedo struck her further below, it is thought to be prob-
able that she would have been sunk.
Another torpedo boat was also built in Charleston, upon a
different model. This was called the “fish boat.” It was
built of boiler-iron, was thirty feet long by five feet eight
inches deep, and about four and a half feet wide, amidships
Its middle section was an ellipse flattening to a wedge shape at
both ends, which were alike. It was intended to rise or sink
in the water, like a fish, and in order to do this its specific
gravity had to be kept equal that of water. In navigating
under water the boat had also
gekept upon an even keel
On her bowsprit, which projected--ten feet, the torpedo was
secured, and in order to balance the hundred and fifty pounds
this weighed, an equal amount of ballast was stowed at the
stern. ‘T'en feet from her bow she had two iron fins, one on -
each side, about four feet long, seven inches wide and three-
eighths of an inch thick. These fins were fastened to an inch
P bi cosa
THE CAREER OF THE “ FISH BOAT.” 10e
rod of iron passing through water-tight fittings in her sides,
and provided with a crank inside, so that the fins could be
worked in any direction, or at any angle, forcing the craft to
the surface, or below, or forward or backward. By working
them also in opposite directions the vessel could be turned as
a row-boat is by pulling with one oar and backing water with
the other. At the stern, midway between the top and bottom,
she was provided with a propeller, worked by a shaft, fitted
water-tight, and propelled by hand-power inside the bold. On
her deck were two round hatches, or man holes, about, ten feet
apart, and fitted with plates of such thick glass as is used in
side-walks, for cellar lights, set in iron frames, working upon
hinges, fastened on the inside, and fitting water-tight when
closed. Between these hatches were two flexible air pipes,
with air-tight valves, so that when within a foot of the surface,
by opening the valves, fresh air could be drawn into the hold
The crew depended upon the violent action of their hats, whep
the valves were open, for making a current sufficient to dis
place the fou! air, and bring in a supply of fresh.
When the boat was finished, in the first experiment made
with her, she carried a crew of eight men, and a shifting ballast
ol’ iron plates. She moved from the wharf, passed down the
r.ver, Just showing the tops of the hatches, dove under a ship
lying in the stream, rose on the other side, and returned to the
wharf. This was done successfully a second time, when the
chief of the crew left her for some purpose, and the rest of the
men, though unaccustomed to the work, undertook to perform
the experiment alone. She: + ved out, dove down, but never
came up. About a fortnight afterward she was found, raised,
the dead removed, and the whole inside disinfected, cleaned and
painted white. On the second trial she filled just as the crew
had manned her, and sunk. The captain and one other saved
themselves, but the rest of the crew, consisting of five, were
drowned in her. Another crew volunteered to man her, and
48
754 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
pn the night of the 17th of February, 1864, she set out from
-Sullivan’s Island, to which place she had run from her anchor.
age, to attack the blockading fleet, carrying a torpedo affixed
to her bowsprit.
During the whole night the bombardment of the city was
kept up, and nothing was heard of the fish boat. The next
morning a heavy fog hung over the coast, clearing up about
eight in the morning, and the sloop-of-war Housatonic was
discovered to be sunk in about six fathoms of water, her crew
swarming in her rigging for safety. The fish boat had de-
_stroyed her, and destroyed herself in doing so. This was the
first time that she had ever been used in exploding a torpedo,
and the cause of her destruction is supposed to have been as
follows: The weight of the torpedo, on her bowsprit, was
balanced by the shifting ballast in her stern, and thus she was
kept on an even keel. As soon, however, as the torpedo struck
and exploded, the balance was destroyed, her bows were lifted
by the weight in the stern, control was lost of her, and the
Housatonic, sinking from the damage done her by the explo-
sion, settled upon the “fish boat” and carried her and her crew
to the bottom.
Disastrous as these attempts at submarine navigation were,
yet they are the most successful yet made. We have seen
else where that men have, for other purposes than war, been
able to descend under the surface of the sea, and stay there
quite a time without injury; but their appliances are not ves
sels intended for navigation.
Let us turn, then, from this record of how human ingenuity
has been taxed to devise means to destroy men, to the conside
ration of the new devices made for their comfort or safety in
crossing the sea. One of the most useful of these is a life raft
or bolsa, one of which is represented in our cut. This con-
sists of three elastic cylinders, made of india-rubber cloth,
each twentv-five feetlong. When empty they are easily packed
CROSSING THE OCEAN ON A LIFE RAFT. 759
ma very small compass. For use they are blown up, and fas-
tened to a prepared staging. The cut represents one which
crossed the Atlantic in 1867, arriving at Southampton July 25,
having started ftom NewYork forty-three days before. She was
rigged with two masts secured to the staging, and her crew
consisted of three men, John Wilkes, George Miller and Jerry
Mallene. A bellows to fill the cylinders, should they require
it, was an important item in her cargo. The crew kept alter-
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nate watch, sleeping, by turns, in a tent spread on the staging.
Their supply of water they carried in casks. The experiment
of crossing the Atlantic was made to show the safety of a raft
thus constructed.
For attaining speed, and thus diminishing the tedium and
the risk of an Atlantic voyage, Mr. Wynans, of Baltimore,
has invented a cigar-shaped boat, as it is called, though it is
pointed at both ends. Various causes have hitherto prevented
his final experiment with his boat, but he hopes to be able to
756 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
make with it an average speed of at least eighteen miles an
hour. |
Crossing the Atlantic has become so common, and sea sick
ness making the trip so disagreeable and dangerous to many
people, attention has been turned to inventing a method of
construction which shall destroy the cause for this malady, bv
keeping the saloon always on a level, notwithstanding the pitch.
ing and rolling of the ship in a high sea. Mr. Bessemer, the
inventor of the new process for making steel, has invented a
boat, which he is now constructing, and which he thinks will
make it perfectly feasible to cross the Atlantic without thi
necessity of paying the usual tribute to old Neptune. Thc
general idea of his ship may be thus described: The saloor.
for passengers 1s to be balanced upon a frame work similar in
principle to that by which the lamps on ship-board are sup-
ported. An outer circle swings upon pivots at each end of 1
d,ameter, and within another circle supports the lamp, which is
swung upon pivots at right angles with those in the first. How.
exer, then, the ship may pitch or roll, the lamp remains
}erpendicular, the circles adjusting themselves to meet the
notion of the ship. This idea is to be applied in the con-
struction of the saloon, so that it will remain constantly on a
ievel, and as Mr. Bessemer has a plenty of money to construct
a dozen of ships for an experiment, the public may expect be-
{ore long to hear of a trial. ‘The first ship of the kind is
reported as on the stocks, and * be rapidly approaching com
pletion. Nor is this the only style of ship suggested to obviate
sea-sickness. A Russian, M. Alexandroiski, proposes a new
form of stationary ship-saloon, which differs from that of Mr.
Bessemer in having the cabin float in kind of a tank placed
between the engines, instead of being hung on pivots. This
invention, it is stated, has been tested by the Russian Naval
Department, and is reported to have been found entirely satis
factorv, the rolling motion of the vessel being completely
YACHT BUILDING. 157
counteracted. With the success of one or the other of these
plans, an ocean voyage, even in a rough sea, will become a
pleasure trip, like sailing in a painted ship upon a painted
ocean; the wildness of a storm even may become merely an
exciting spectacle, like looking at the representation of a hur-
ricane in a theatre, with the further advantage of having it
real and life-like.
Perhaps the change which has been brought about in our
feeling with regard to the ocean is shown more in the yacht-
ing of modern times than in anything else. The idea of mak.-
ing a trip across the Atlantic is no longer considered an almost
foolhardy undertaking, but even our yachts have made it a
field for their races, and a match across the Atlantic has be-
come not an unusual thing. The owning of yachts has become
so general among our rich men, that yacht-building has becorae
a regular branch of naval architecture, and constant improve
ments are being made in their models, and greater luxury
displayed in their fitting up. Georgé Steers, who has beeu
mentioned before for his improvements in the model of the
steamship, made his first reputation by the construction of the
yacht America, which was sent over to Englana, and proved
the fastest vessel in the regatta on the occasion of the first
World’s Fair in London. This yacht, after her victory, was
bought by an Englishman, and never used again, being left to
rot at her moorings. However, she changed the yacht models
of Hurope. si
A yacht race across the Atlantic was one of the sensations
of the year 1866. Three yachts entered the contest, the Hen-
rietta, the Fleetwing and the Vista. They started from Sandy
Hook one day in December, and though the season had been
unusually stormy, and they encountered gales almostall the way,
so that frequently they were forced to sail under bare poles,
and the Fleetwing lost several of her sailors, who were washe]
overboard, yet they arrived safe at Cowes on the same day
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atter a fourteen days’ voyage, the Henrietta winning the race
by a couple of hours, This yacht was the property of James
Gordon Bennett, Jr., the son of the owner of the New York
Herald. During the war her owner freely offered her to the
government, and she has done goodservice. After the victory
Mr. Bennett sold her for $15,000, and purchased the Fleetwing
for $65,000, re-christening her the Dauntless. This yacht, in
another ocean race in 1870, was beaten by the Cambria, an
Knglish yacht. These prices show the cost of seeking one’s
pleasure in a yacht, and yet it is only one item of the expense.
To keep one of the vessels costs more than the expenses of the
majority of the households in the country. A crew of five
men is needed, and it is a question whether, all things consid-
ered, more real substantial interest and enjoyment is not
taken by a lover of the sea and of sailing in an ordinary sail-
boat, which he and a friend or two are amply competent to
man and manage, than is taken by the owners of the most lux-
uriantly furnished yachts inthe world. Aspleasure ships, how-
ever, the yacht is all that can be desired. Many of them con-
tain spacious saloons; their cabins are almost always paneled in
costly woods, and most luxuriantly furnished, and even gas
has been provided for them. It is estimated that the yachts
of the New York club alone have cost more than $2,000,000,
and those of the whole country about $5,000,000. Much of this
is the mere luxury of ostentation; but as the real pleasures
there are in thus visiting distant lands come to be better appre-
ciated, much of this foolish expenditure will be abandoned.
CHAPTER LVIII.
UK KNOWLEDGE OF THE EARTH AND SEA—HOW IT HAS INCREASED—THE EARTH 7354
DAUGHTER OF THE OCEAN—THE OPINION OF SCIENCE—THE MEAN DEPTH OF THE -
OCKAN—THE EXTENT OF THE OCEAN—ITS VOLUME—SPECIFIC GRAVITY OF SEA-W.TEB
—CONSTITUTION OF SALT-WATER--THE SILVER IN THE SEA—THE WAVES OF Tilt
SEA—THE CURRENTS OF THE OCEAN—THE TIDES—THE AQUARIUM—THE OOMMERCE OF
MODERN TIMES—THE SPREAD OF PEACE,
Iw the preceding pages the facts have been given in a com-
prehensive though succinct form, which enable us to see how,
step by step, each one of which became possible only when
those preceding had been taken. Mankind has gained a knowl.
edge of the outlines of the sea; of the form of the earth itsell’; .
of the relative positions occupied by the water and the land;
of their action upon each other, and thus the way has been pre:
pared by the enterprize of preceding generations for the scien-
tific methods of study which characterize the modern era. The
adventurous voyagers of the early times, who, daring as they
were, hardly were bold enough to venture in their open boats,
propelled only by oars, out of the sight of land, could not be
expected to conceive that it could be possible for men, like
themselves, to ever become able to construct ships such as modern
nations construct, in which, propelled by steam, voyages should
be taken across oceans, and out of sight of land, their course
‘over the trackless waters be guided with accuracy and certainty,
to any desired point, by the compass and the observations of
the motions of the stars.
By experiment and observation the entire aspect and concep-
tion of the ocean has been changed in modern times from that
which prevailed in antiquity, or even more recently, until
within the few past generations. Though much has been done,
in the study of the ocean, toward obtaining a proper ecnseption
of its influence in the general economy of the globe, yet there
760
MODERN STUDY OF THE OCEAN, 761
is still much to be learned. Among the ancients it was gene-
rally declared in their cosmogonies that the solid portions of
the world were produced by the ocean. ‘ Water is the chief
of all,” says Pindar; “the earth is the daughter of ocean,” is
the mythological statement common to the primitive nations,
Though this poetical expression was merely based upon a
vague tradition, and can hardly be taken as the result of any
methodical study of the earth, yet modern science tends to
show that it is really true. The ocean has produced the solid
land. The study of geology, the skilled inspection of the
various strata of the land—the rocks, sand, clay, chalk, cou-
glomerates—proves that the materials of the continents have
been chiefly deposited at the bottom of the sea, and raised to
their present position by the chemical or mechanical agencies
which are constantly at work in the vast labratory of naturt:
Many rocks, as for instance the granites of Scandinavia, which
were previously believed to have been projected in a moltea
and plastic state from the interior of the earth, where they he «|
been subjected to the action of the intense heat supposed to exist’ 1
the centre of the earth, are now supposed to be in reality ancieut
sedimentary strata, slowly deposited by the sea, and upheaved
by the contraction of the crust, or by some other force of up-
heaval acting from the centre. Upon the sides of mounta‘ns, or
on their summits, now thousands of feet above the level of
the ocean, unquestionable traces of the action of the sea can
be found And the scientific observer of to-day sees all
about him evidences that the immense work of the creation of
continents, commenced by the sea in the earliest periods of
ime, is to-day continuing without relaxation or intermission,
ind with such energy that even during the short course of a
single life great changes can be seen to have been produced.
Here and there a coast, subject to the beating of the serf, is
seen to be slowly undermined, disintegrated, worn down and
carried away, while in another place the material is deposited
762 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
by the sea, and sandy beaches or promontories are built up
New rocks also, differing in appearance and constitution
from those worn away, are formed. But beside this action of
the sea upon the coasts, in constantly changing the configura-
tion of the land, modern observation has shown us that ani-
mal life is an agent constantlv at work within the sea itself,
in the formation of new lands. The innumerable minute
forms of life with which the sea swarms; the coral polyps,
the shells, the sponges, and the animalcule of all kinds, are
constantly engaged in consuming the food they find, in repro-
ducing themselves, and in dying. From the various matters
brought down to the ocean by the rivers of the land, they se-
erete their shells or other coverings; and as generation after
generation they die, these falling to the bottom form immense
banks, or plains, which some future action of upheaval will
bring above the surface to form the material for new conti
nents or islands.
Thus while the ocean prepares the materials for the future
continents in its bosom, it also furnishes the waters which wash
away the lands already existing. To the thought of modern
science the granite peaks, the snow-clad mountains, immova-
ble and eternal as they seem, are constantly disintegrating,
and partake, with every thing else in creation, the eternal
round of change which is constantly going on. From the sea,
by evaporation, rise the vapors which, condensing against the
sides of the mountains, form the glaciers; and these, slowly
sliding down toward the plains, are such efficient agents in
wearing away the mountains, grinding up their solid rocks
and preparing the gravel which the mountain streams distrib-
ute over the plains. From the sea the atmosphere receives
the moisture destined to return in rain from the clouds; to feed
the brooks whose union forms the rivers, destined again to
return to the sea the waters it provided, and thus keep up, in a
single, mighty and endless circulation, the waters of the globe
ITS PRODUCTION OF THE LAND. 763
Thus to the agency of the ocean we are indebted for our
rivers, which have played such an important part in the geo.
logical history of the earth, in the distribution of the flora
and fauna of various countries, and on the life of man him.
self. In the study also of the climates of the earth, and their
effects upon life, we find the ocean bears a most important
part. As the circulation of the atmosphere mingles the
heated air from the equator with that of the frozen regions of
the poles, so the currents of the ocean circulate about the
earth, blending the contrasts of climate, and making a harmo-
nious whole of all the different portions. Thus, instead of con-
sidering the ocean as the barren waste of desolation it appear.
ed to the ancients, to the modern thinker the ocean has, layer
by layer, deposited the land from its bosom, and now by its
vapors provides the rains which support its vegetable life,
upon which all other life depends, and creates the rivers and
the springs, which play such an important part in the modifi-
cation of the interior of continents, at the greatest distance
from the sea.
The mean depth of the whole mass of the ocean waters of
the globe is estimated at about three miles, since measure-
ments have shown that the basins of the Atlantic and Northern
Pacific are deeper than this by hundreds of thousands of
fathoms. The extent covered by the surface of the ocean has
been estimated at more than 145,000,000 of square miles, and
with this estimate, the sea is calculated to form a volume of
about two and one-half million billions of cubic yards, or about
the five hundred and sixtieth part of the planet itself. The
highest point of the land raised above the level of the sea is
much less elevated than the bottom of the sea is depressed
from the same level, so that the mass of the land above this
level can be estimated only at about a fortieth part of the mass
of the waters.
The specific gravity of sea water is greater than that of
764 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
fresh. This comes from the various matters which it holds in
solution. This difference varies with different seas; with the
quantity of matters held in solution; with the amount of eva-
poration; the size and number of rivers flowing into the
various seas; the ice melting into them; the currents, and
various other causes. The average quantity of salts held in
solution in sea water is estima‘ed at 34.40 parts in 1,000, and
this average is the same in allseas. The quantityof commun
salt held in solution is always a little more than three-quarters
(75.786) of the total mineral matter held in solution. Ths
zalt of the sea averages, if the water is evaporated, about two
inches to every fathom; so that, were the ocean dried up,’a
layer of salt about two hundred and thirty feet thick would
remain on the bottom, or the whole salt of the sea would
measure more than a thousand millions of cubic miles. This
vast quantity of salt in the sea explains how the enormorg¢
beds of rock salt were formed, when the lands now expose]
were covered by the waters.
. Beside the oxygen and hydrogen which constitute its waters,
the sea contains chlorine, nitrogen, carbon, bromine, iodine,
fluorine, sulphur, phosphorus, silicon, sodium, potassium,
boron, aluminium, magnesium, calcium, strontium, barium
From the various sea-weeds most of these substances can be
obtained. Copper, lead, zinc, cobalt, nickel and manganese
tave also been found in their ashes. Iron has also been ob-
taincd from sea water, and a trace of silver also is often
deposited by the magnetic current established between the
sheeting of ships and the salt water. Though only a trace is
‘hus found, yet it has been estimated that the whole waters of
she ocean contain in solution two million tons of silver. In
she boilers of ocean steamships, which use sea water, arsenic
. pas also been found
Sea water also retains dissolved air better than fresh water,
md the bulk of this in ocean water is generally greater by a
THE VELOCITY OF WAVES. 765
third than that found in river water. It varies from a fifth te
a thirtieth, and gradually increases from the surface to a depth
of about three hundred and twenty-five to three hundred and
eighty fathoms. The uniformity in the constitution of the
waters of the sea is chiefly caused by the action of the waves,
which finally mix and mingle the waters into a homogenious
mass. The waves of the sea are caused chiefly by the action
of the wind, and the effect continues even after the wind has
ceased. One of the grandest spectacles at sea is offered by the
regular movement of the waves in perfectly calm weather,
when not a breath of air stirs the sails. During to the Au-
tumnal calm under the Tropic of Cancer, these waves appear
with astonishing regularity at intervals of two hundred to
three hundred yards, sweep under the ship, and as far as the
eye can reach, are seen advancing and passing away, as regu
larly as the furrows in a field. Such waves are caused by th.
regularity of the trade winds. The height of the waves is
not the same in all seas. Jt is greater where the basin iv
deeper in proportion to the surface, and also as the water i:
i esher and yields easier to the impulses of the wind.
The height of waves has been variously measured. Some
ooservers have claimed to see them over one hundred feet
high, but from twenty to fifty feet is about the average of
observations on the Atlantic. The breadth of a wave is cal
¢ulated as fifteen times its height. Thus, a wave four feet high
is sixty feet broad. The inclination of the sides of the waves
varies however with the force of the wind, and with the
strength of the secondary vibrations in the water, which may
interfere with the primary ones. ‘The speed of the waves is
only apparent like the motion in a length of cloth shaken rp
and down. Floating objects do not change their relative posi-
tions, but slowly, except in rising and falling with the wave
The real movement of the sea is that of a drifting current,
which is slowly formed under the action of the wind, and this
766 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
is not rapid, but slow. Theastronomer Airey says that every
wave 100 feet wide, traversing a sea 164 fathoms in average
depth, has a velocity of nearly 2,100 feet a second, or about
fifteen and one-half miles an hour; a wave 674 feet, moving
over a sea 1,640 fathoms deep, travels more than 69 feet a
second, or nearly fifty miles an hour, and this last caleulation
may be taken as the average speed of storm waves in great
seas. As, therefore, we can calculate the velocity of waves
from their width and the known depth of the sea, we can cal-
culate the depth of the sea from the known size and velocity
of the waves. By this method the depth of the Pacific be-
tween Japan and California has been calculated from the size
and speed of an earthquake wave, which was set in motion by
an eruption in Japan. The accuracy of the calculation was
afterward established by actual soundings.
It was formerly supposed that the disturbance of the waves
did not penetrate the depth of the water, below four or six
fathoms, but this has been found, on further observation, erro-
neous. Sand and mud have been brought up from a depth of
a hundred fathoms below the surface, and experiments have
shown that waves have a vertical influence 350 times their
height. Thus a wave a foot high influences the bottom at a
depth of 50 fathoms, and a billow of the ocean 33 feet high is
felt below ata distance of 12 miles. At these great depths the
action of the wave is perhaps imaginary, but to this reason we
ean ascribe the heavy swells which are often so dangerous. A
hidden rock, far below the surface, arrests some moving wave
and causes an eddy, which, rising to the surface, produces the
“ oround swells” which suddenly rise in the neighbourhood of
submarine banks and endanger ships. This cause also explains
the tide races, which, coming from the depths of the ocean,
advance suddenly upon the beaches, destroying all that opposes
them. It is this cause which makes the pos'tion of light.
houses upon certain reefs so dangerous. The Bell Rock house,
eee ee ee
=
~~
ee re iia
Se oe eo ey
hele
CURRENTS IN THE OCBAN. 767
mn the Scott ‘sh coast, stands 112 feet above the rock, and yet it
is often covered with the waves and foam, even after the temp-
est has ceased to rage. Such light-houses are often washed
“ away ; as that at Minot’s Ledge, on the coast of Massachusetts,
has often been. In consequence the modern method of build-
ing these structures differs from that formerly inuse. The
custom was to build them of solid masonry, hoping to make
them strong enough to resist the waves. Now they are generally
built of iron lattice open work, making the bars as slender as
is consistent with the proper strength, so as to offer the least
resisting surface to the rushing water. This open frame work
is raised up high enough, if possible, to place the house and
lantern above the reach of the body of the wave.
The force of the water in such positions is prodigious.
Stephenson calculated that the sea dashed against the Bell
Rock light-house with a force of 17 tons for every square yard.
At breakwaters in exposed situations the sea has been known
to seize blocks of stone weighing tons, and hurl them asa
child would pebbles. At Cherbourg, in France, the heaviest
cannon have been displaced; and at Barra Head, in the Heb-
rides, Stephenson states that a block of stone weighing 48 tons
was driven by the breakers about two yards. At Plymouth,
England, a vessel weighing 200 tons was thrown up on the top
of the dike, and left there uninjured. At Dunkirk it has been
found that from the dash of the breakers the ground trembles
for more than a mile from the shore. Results of this kind, to
which our attention is specially directed, since they affect man’s
work, show us what must be the effect produced by the sea, in
constantly eating away theshore; altering the coast lines; chang-
mg continents, and building them up elsewhere; and suggest
‘aw much greater than what we see must have been the effects
of the sea upon the land during the countless ages in which it
has been at work.
The c~rrents in the ocean, which constitute the real v ~*"on
768 HISTORY OF THE SEA.
of its waters, are very important in the study of the influenee
of the sea upon the land. By these the circulation of the
waters of the globe is carried on. The warm water of the
- equatorial regions seeking the poles, and a counter movement
from the poles to the equator, is established. By their means
a constant mingling of the waters on the face of the whole earth
is maintained, and the wonderful similarity of its different por-
tions, in their composition, appearance, and the substances
held in solution, is produced. The chief causes of this grand
circulation are found in the heat of the sun and in the rotation
of the earth upon its axis. By the evaporation of the waters
in the tropics the surface of that portion of the ocean is esti-
mated to be lowered more than fourteen feet yearly. By this
means not only is the atmosphere provided with its store of
vapor, to be dispensed in rain upon the land, and thus returned.
again to the sea, but this lowering of the surface of the ocean,
in one part, leads to the currents flowing from the others to
n,store the equilibrium. The saine cause leading also to the
grculation of the atmosphere, produces the trade winds, which
alin producing the currents in the ocean. :
Now that by study and observation mankind have arrived
a’ the conception of the form of the earth, at its general fea-
t.zres, and can, in idea, grasp it as a whole, the opportunity 1s
,wepared for the methodical study of its parts, and their rela-
ton to each other; and this is the subject which for the first
time in the history of mankind is offered to the physical geog-
rapher, with the certainty that none of his observations can be
‘ost, but that they all are important, and can each be referred
to its proper place. Another movement of the ocean is the
tides. To the ancients, unacquainted with the form of the
earth, its position in space, or its relations with the other bodies
of the solar system, the tides were naturally inexplicable. It
has been possible only in modern times to attempt their expla-
nation. Kepler first indicated the course to be followed; and
PHENOMENA OF TIDES. 769
Descartes and Newton each gavea theory; the first that of the
pressure of the waters; the last, that of the attraction of the
sun and moon upon the waters. This last theory is the one
generally accepted, since it has been found satisfactory in most
respects; yet it still has its opponents. Now, however, that
the telegraph has been diseovered, and a means thus afforded
for instantaneous communication between observers at distant
points, it has become possible to organize a simultaneous ob-
servation of the tides at various places, and eventually this will
be done, so that the theory that the tides are caused by the at-
traction of the sun and moon will be entirely proved or rejected
according as it will be found consistent with the facts observed.
In this connection an interesting instance of the different
manner in which the ancients regarded natural phenomena,
from that in which the moderns regard the same occurrences, is
found in the fear the ancients had of the two monsters Scylla and
Charybdis, which were the fabled guardians of the Straits of
Messina. At present there are no straits in the Mediterranean
more frequented than those of Messina. By the soundings
which have been made there, these monsters had been effectu
ally destroyed, and the whirlpools are known to be produced
by the ebb and flow of the tide, causing a greater flow of water
than can be accommodated by the narrow channel. The width
of the channel is hardly two miles, and at low tide it has often
been crossed on horse-back, by swimming. The rising tide
tends toward the north, from the Ionian to the Tyrrhenian sea,
and the falling tide in the opposite. direction. Thereis a strife
between these currents, and on their confines eddies are formed
which ships avoid, but there is no danger unless the wind blows
strongly against the tide.
Besides the influence of the currents and the tides of the
ocean in altering the configuration of the land, the sea is the
home of innvmerable forms of animal life, which are constantly
laboring in the same direction. It has been truly said, that
49
770 HISTORY OF THE SEA,
a beef bone, thrown overboard by a sailor on a ship, may
form the nucleus of a new continent. The entire chalk clifts
of England were formed from the minute shells deposited by
the small animals which secreted them. At their death these
fell to the bottom, and thus slowly through the ages the de-
posit was formed. ‘The recent deep sea dredgings have shown
the sea, at all depths, is full of animal life; and as the steady
fall of snow-flakes in a winter’s storm, piled up by currents
of wind, form the drifts, or falling quietly, cover the grouad
uniformly, so the sea is full of the minute shells, which, car-
ried by currents, form banks, or, falling evenly, prepare the
plains which in the future will appear, in some upheaval, to
form new continents.
In the United States the peninsula of Florida is an evidence
of the land produced by the labor of the coral polyp. Florida
has now ceased to increase toward the east, for on this side it
touches the deep waters of the gulf, and the polyps can live
only in shallow water. The peninsula increases only on its
southern and western coasts. The cut at the end of this
chapter represents the appearance of coral islands as they
first rise to the surface, before the gathering soil provides the
conditions for covering them with the luxuriant vegetation of
the tropics.
The cut at the head of this chapter, of an aquarium, repre-
sents a new appliance of modern times, which is a most valu-
able aid in our obtaining a knowledge of the habits of the
animals living in the sea. In fresh water, as well as in salt,
the mutual relations of the vegetable and animal life serve to
keep the water from becoming stagnant. The plants secrete
the carbonic acid gas, which the animals give to the water by
breathing, and in so doing free the oxygen which the animals
reauire. In keeping therefore an aquarium, the desired poizt
is to provide such a natural proportion of vegetable and anima:
life as shall preserve this balance. In many of the larger
THE EXTENT OF MODERN COMMERCE. rial
museums of Europe, large aquariums have been built, anu an
opportunity thus afforded for the study of the various animal
forms, the habits of the vegetable growths, and their relaticns.
Some of these structures are so arranged that they surround a
room which receives its ight only through the water in the
aquaria, and thus the spectator, without disturbing the fish,
ean watch them feeding and performing all their actions.
From this arrangement of the aquaria, as the light passes
from the water to the eye, the spectator is not distubed in his
vision, as he is by trying to look into the water from above,
by the refraction of the light. A great deal that has been
learned in modern times concerning the growth of the vegeta-
tion of the sea, of the habits of the animals, of their manner of
life, their food and their growth, has been obtained from the
chance of observation afforded by the various aquaria. Beside
the positive benefits which have thus resulted from the public
aquaria, those in smaller form afford for the lover of natural
history a new and interesting way of carrying on his studies.
In this way also the habits of observation are formed in the
young, and it is fair to believe that the spirit of inquiry thus
excited will tend to increase the knowledge of the phenomena
of life, and its relations to the conditions of existence.
It has been by this course that the race itself has risen from
barbarism to its present degree of civilization, and with the
new appliances of modern times, it is evidently impossible to
limit the probabilities of advance in the future.
A few facts about the extent of our commerce will show the
difference of the spirit with which the ocean is regarded in
modern times, compared with that prevailing in anti-
quity ; and the different use we have learned to make of it, from
the time when the exchanges of the world were confined to a
few coasters, who hardly ventured out of the sight of Jand.
fo give even the most condensed summary of the world’s
comirerce to-day would require a series of volumes; buta
rire HISTORY OF THE SEA,
few figures taken from our own will enable the reader to
judge of that which is now going on all over the world, unit.
ing the most distantly separated nations; enabling them to be-
come acquainted with each other; and impressing them with
the fact that by industry alone are the material comforts >f
life to be attained, and that the task before humanity is to be-
come acquainted with the products of the world, with the
forces of which it is the theatre, and learn to control them for
our own benefit.
From the report of the Bureau of Statistics, for a portion of
1878, we learn that the imports and exports of the United
States during eight months, ending with February, 1878,
amounted to the following totals: Imported in American ves-
sels, $104,891,248; imported in foreign vessels, $317,043,490 ;
imported in land vehicles, $12,356,325. During the same period
the domestic exports in American vessels amounted to a
total of $108,246,698 ; in foreign vessels, $811,816,048 ; and in
land vehicles, $5,282, 949. At the same time the re-exporta.
tion of foreign products amounted in American vessels to
$5,147,805; in foreign vessels to $10,938,300; and in land
vehicles to $1,693,795.
The number and tonnage of American and foreign vessels
engaged in the foreign trade, which entered and cleared during
the twelve months ending with February, 1873, was as follows:
American vessels, 10,928, carrying 3,597,474 tons; foreign —
vessels, 19,220, carrying 7,622,416 tons. The report of the
Bureau for 1872, gives the following totals of the number of
vessels and their tonnage engaged in the commerce of the
United States. Upon the Atlanticand Gulf coasts, 21,940 vessels
carrying 2,916,001,058 tons. On the Western rivers, 1,476
vessels carrying 354,938,052 tons. On the Northern lakes
5,339 vessels, carrying 726,105,051 tons. On the Pacific coast,
1,094 vessels carrying 161,987,050. .
From the port of New York alone there are now thirteen
MAGNITUDL OF SHIPPING. Ula
lines of steamships plying to Europe. Of these the Anchor
line has 15 steamers, with a tonnage of 386,127 tons; the
Baltic Lloyds has 4 vessels of 9,200 tons; the Cardiff (a Welsh)
line has three vessels of 8,000 tons; the Cunard has 23 ves-
gels of 59,308 tons; the Holland (direct) line has two vessels
of 4,000 tons; the General Transatlantic (a French line) has
5 vessels of 17,000 tons; the Hamburg has 15 vessels of 45,-
000 tons; the Inman line has 12 vessels of 34,811; the Liv-
erpool and Great Western line has 7 vessels of 23,573 tons;
the North German line has 20 vessels of 60,000 tons; the
National line has 12 vessels of 50,062 tons; the State line has
3 vessels of 7,500 tons; and the White Star line has 6 vessels
of 23,064 tons. Beside these ships, the thirteen companies are
building from 30 to 40 more steamers to meet the demand for
freight.
The ocean has thus become almost a steam ferry; almost
every day a steamer leaves for Kurope. With this knowledge
of how far we have progressed in becoming acquainted with
the ocean, it will be well to consider for a moment how much
still remains for us to explore. In the middle ages, and even
down to modern times, the maps of the world represented all
unknown lands as inhabited by monsters; but every voyage
made by discoverers has contracted the limits of these fables,
until they have finally about disappeared. Still at the North
Pole and in the Antarctic regions areas extending over a space
of 2,900,000 and 8,700,000 square miles, respectively, have
been, up to this time, unvisited. The icebergs and mountains
of ice have kept them from our accurate investigations. The
difficulties of such a sea are well shown in the adjoining
ilustration. |
Discoveries have also to be made in the interiors of Africa,
Asia, South America and Australia before the civilized por-
tions of the race can claim a complete knowledge of the earth,
their common dwelling-place. Every year, however, the por-
b
:
r
LIGHT SHIP AND INCOMING VESSEL.
SAFETY OF THE MARINER. 175
fions unexplored grow smaller and smaller, so that we are
justified in believing that eventually the whole world will be
known to us, from actual observation.
Another difference which our extended knowledge of the
world has produced is this: The mariner now approaching
an unknown coast does not fear to meet monsters, but looks
out for the light-house, the light-ships, the buoys, and other
evidences of civilization, by which the dangers of the coast
are pointe’ out to the voyager. Asa contrast with some of
the pictures already given, representing the approach to
the land of the carly explorers, the illustration of the light-
ship will show how Gifferently to-day a voyage approaches its
termination. Instead of looking out for enemies, and prepar.
ing weapons for use, a package of newspapers and letters is
got ready, and the news boat, which lies ready at hand, is
prompt to seize them, and hasten with these to spread the
news of another safe arrival. It is thus that science,
which is gradually preparing the means for converting the
globe into one great organism for the benefit of mankind,
points out the way for making it the abode of that harmony,
peace and plenty which has been dreamed of by the poets of
all time. For this it is only necessary that our moral progress
should keep pace with our advance in knowledge. The globe
will never become the abode of perfect harmony until men
are united in a universal league of justics and peace. And
n aiding toward the production of this most desirable con-
summation, what has been here written will show how
important has been the part taken by the ocean.
|
Ark, 40.
records of, 40.
capacity of, 44,
form of, 46.
material of, 43.
Argonauts, 21.
expedition of, to Colchis, 58.
Armada, the invincible, 293.
Agamemnon, 61.
the, in a gale, 590.
Africa, 79.
Persian exploration of, 81.
Marco Polo in, 113.
Portuguese in, 136.
early map of, 193.
language of, 201.
da Gama’s expedition, 211.
modern discovery in, 709.
Adam’s will and testament, 259.
African hospitality, 196.
Albatross, the, 200.
Algerian slavery ended, 539.
EIN) TD ee,
——+or—__—_-
Alexander Selkirk, 400, 421.
Ararat, Mount, 40.
Atlantic Ocean unknown fo antiquity, 21,
full of terrors, 22.
named, 68.
crossed by Columbus, 160.
Atlantic Telegraph, 25.
preparations for, 49.
the fleet of, 604.
hauled ashore, 630
rate of laying, 635.
construction of, 635.
tested, 639.
completed, 643.
the plateau, 642.
return of the fleet, and ode to, 649.
Argo, the ship, 59.
Arctic regions, phenomena peculiar to, 312,
Dutch in, 322.
Parry’s expedition, 559.
land journey in, 571.
intense cold of, 595.
Capt. Ross in, 553.
Alfred the Great a ship-builder, 105. Franklin, Sir J., in, 554, 573, 582.
Alexander the Great sends out Nearchus, 86. wonders of. 596
, 596.
death of, 92.
Amerigo Vespucci, 183.
America, names for, 184.
pillars of Hercules, 595.
Aquarium, 770.
Australia, 372.
Amazon river, explored by Pinzon, 189. Azores discovered, 137.
American navy, 539. :
vessels, 772. B.
Anchors, of Grecian ships, 72. Baré, the woman sailor around the world,
Anglo-Saxons established, 105. 458.
Anaximander, the earth according to, 66. Bougainville, 453, 460.
Anson, George, account of his voyage, 420. at Magellan’s Strait, 455.
Antarctic expedition of Mendana, 337. — finds out Baré, 456.
expedition of James Clark Ross, 576, Barentz, Wilhelm, Arctic voyage of, 312,
An astrological prophecy, 239,
his death, 320.
777
778 INDEX.
Beowulf, 106.
the sea Goth, 100.
Behring, 414.
his death, 418.
Behring’s Strait discovered, 415,
mirage at, 418.
description of, 416.
Baffin, William, 359.
saw Lancas‘er Sound, 360.
Baffin’s Bay discovered, 359
Balboa (Vasco Nunez) discovers the Pacific,
231.
Balboa beheaded, 255.
Bay of horses, 135.
DBjarni, son of Herjulf, 107.
discovered Greenland, 108.
Bocchoris promotes navigation, 55.
Bosphorus, the Argonauts on the, 60.
Botany Bay discovered, 474.
Bounty, mutiny of the, 525.
Bligh, William, commands the “ Bounty,” 524.
return to England, 529.
Brazil discovered by Pinzon, visited by Cabral,
213.
visited by Magellan, 241.
Cavendish in, 289.
Bulwarks of Grecian ships, 72.
Byron, John, sails from Plymouth, 437.
his discoveries, 439.
results of his voyages, 414.
Britain first discovered, 83.
Brethren of the coast, 378.
Buccaneers, 375. .
thei dress, 376.
become pirates, 377.
their ravages, 378, 396.
Buzzard’s Bay, 109. ;
Cc:
Cable, Atlantic, history of, 630, 643.—See Atlan-
tic Telegraph.
Caulking a ship, 674.
Cannibalism, 472, 490.
Cape Bojador, perils of, 130.
Cape Cod, 199.
Cape Horn, first seen by Schouten, 356.
Cape of Good Hope, 141, 221, 486.
Cape Verd, 136, 195, 255, 271.
‘Cape Virgin, 243.
_Cabrial, Pedro Alvarez, 212.
Cabrial visits Brazil, 213.
battle with Moors, 214.
loses his ships, 215.
Cabot, Sebastian, 186.
Calicut, 208, 214.
destroyed, 217.
Carteret, Philip, commands the ‘“ Swallow,"
445.
extremities of crew, 446.
value of his discoveries, 448,
Cavendish, Thomas, his voyage, 290.
Canary Island, giant of, 22.
Chariot of the Gods, 80.
Ceylon, visited by Marco Polo, 116,
pearl fisheries of, 117.
Chalk cliffs of England, 770.
Chinese junk, 125.
Comets seen day and night, 213.
Compass, 22.
invented by Chinese, 125.
Colchos, 64. |
Colossus of Rhodes erected, 73.
Coral Island, 775.
Coral fishery, 687. .
Cod-fish, 368.
Columbus, Christopher, 22.
secret thoughts of, 140.
early life of, 144.
meets Marchena, 148.
finds favor with Isabella, 151.
first expedition of, 159.
second expedition, 170.
reception by Ferdinand and Isabella, 171,
third expedition, 175.
fourth expedition, 179.
in chains, 178.
death of, 181.
Commerce of the world, 771.
Compass, true inventor of, 125.
Columbia, District of, 185.
Cocoanut milk, 429.
Cook, Capt. James, 462.
entered the Pacific Ocean, 466.
at Tahiti, 468.
a bloody battle, 467.
among cannibals, 472.
names Botany Bay, 474.
perils in a leaking ship, 477.
his second voyage, 482.
INDEX.
Cook, among water spouts, 485.
at Friendly Islands, 488.
discovered New Caledonia, his third voy-
age, 494.
discovered Sandwich Islands, 497.
deified, 502.
death, 507.
results of his voyages, 477.
Cuttlefish, 707.
Cuba discovered by Columbus, 168..
taken possession of for Spain, 172.
Crusades, 97.
character of, 98.
effects of, 101.
D.
Dampier, William, his history, 380.
describes the plantain, 384.
his narrative, 390.
last voyage, 405.
Danish vessels of the tenth century, 104.
piratical excursions of, 105.
Da Gama, 24. :
contrasted with Columbus, 183.
his nativity, 192.
his voyage, 194.
his firmness, 197.
at the cape, 200.
in Africa, 201.
in Hindostan, 210.
overwhelmed with honors, 212.
his flag-ship, 216.
Deluge, traditions of, 43.
Delphos centre of the world, 67.
Devil’s Nip, 581.
De Solis captured and eaten by cannibals,
236.
Decked ships, invention of, 73.
Deep sea soundings, 719.
thermometer, 727.
Dionysius of Syracuse, 74.
Diego, 148.
Diaz, Bartholomew, object of his squadron,
141,
discovered the Cape of Good Hope, 142.
accompanies da Gama, 194.
lost in a storm at sea, 213.
Diving bell, 652.
apparatus of, 653.
ae
pa
Te
Diving apparatus described, 664.
Divers, ready to go down, 660.
down, 662.
arming the, 668.
finding a box, 666.
narrow escape of, 677.
making friends of fish, 681.
Diving, in Sebastopol, 673.
"in Mobile Bay, 682.
for treasure, 666.
Doge of Venice wedding the Adriatic, 99.
Driving a nail under water, 679.
Dredging for oysters, 697.
Dumont, d’Urville’s, expedition to Mexico,
522,
Dutch, 24, 224,
in Arctic regions, 312, 322.
in East Indies, 324.
first Dutch vessel circumnavigating the
globe, 335.
a battle between — and Spaniards, 351.
West India company of, 409
Duperrey’s wonderful voyage, 563.
Drake, Sir Francis, 267, 287, 295.
and the Patagonians, 273.
condemning Doughty, 274.
at Acapulco, 281.
around the world, 286.
E.
Early mention of the needle’s variations, 124.
East Indies, first European establishment in,
214.
Dutch in, 324.
Portuguese empire in, 219.
commerce of, 220.
East India Companies, 410.
Earth, according to Anaximander, 66.
Edward of Portugal sends out Gilianez, 134.
Egyptians as a maritime people, 54.
their ships, 55.
extent of their knowledge, 57.
Emmanuel of Portugal, unpopular expedition
of, 191. reve
honors da Gama, 212.
sends out other vessels, 221.
El Dorado, 298.
a temptation to navigators, 406, 407.
Enderby’s land, 573.
English, 24.
780
English, expedition of to South seas, 461
establishment in India, 409.
Ethiopians, 63.
Esquimaux, 553, 601.
Eudoxus, 92.
his efforts to circumnavigate Africa, 94.
Exports of United States, 772.
F.
Falkland Islands, 453.
Ferdinand Magellan, 237,
inauspicious circumstances, 240,
in Brazil, 241.
plot against his life, 242.
interview with a Patagonian giant, 243.
discovers the Philippine Islands, 248.
wounded by a poisoned arrow and killed
with stones, 251.
Ferry-boat of old times, 454.
First ocean steamer, 549.
First steamboat, 541.
Fish torpedo boat, 752.
Ferdinand of Spain, 152.
Flood, 39.
objections, 39.
mythological testimony to, 40.
the possibility of, 42.
universality of, 43.
Florida discovered, 226.
French navy created, 98.
French in Africa, 129.
Frobisher, Martin, voyages of, 262.
his report, 265.
Frozen up in Arctic regions, 584.
Franklin, Sir John, 577.
fate of, 578.
traces of, 582.
decisive intelligence of, 592.
Freezing point of salt water, 729.
Foreign vessels, tonnage of, 772.
Fisheries, herring, 112,
star-fish, 683.
sponge, 685.
coral, 687.
oyster, 690.
shark, 704, ~
Friendly Islands discovered, 371.
visited by Cook, 371.
Fulton, Robert, 540.
INDEX.
Ganges, 207.
Galleys, Venetian, 9€,
Greek, 72.
Ptolemy’s, 75.
Genoa, 97.
Gedrosia, 89.
Geographical science, 100.
Geography, of the Jews, 56.
of the Greeks, 63.
Gilianez, 134.
Giants of Canary Islands, 22.
of Patagonia, 243.
Glacier of Ilumboldt, 600.
Glass beads, value of, 519,
Gold, search for, 168, 265.
recovered by divers, 665.
Gold-dust first seen by Europeans, 135,
Golden Fleece, 59.
Gothic monuments, 100.
Gonzales, 132, 136.
Graciosa, 137.
Grave of the sea, 33.
Greeks, 58.
their vessels, 64, 69.
Grappling machine, 665.
Great Britain discovered, 83.
Grinnell’s expeditions, 579, 594.,
Great Western, 573.
Greenland discovered, 107.
Grecian ships’ anchors, 72.
Guanahani, 166.
Guinea, lord of, 139.
H.
Hanno’s voyage, 79.
captures gorille in Africa, 80.
Haili, 168, 172, 176.
Hesiod, 66.
Herring fishery, 112.
Hercules, pillars of, 83.
Hudson, sails from England, 348.
anchors off Sandy Hook, 344,
up the Hudson river, 345.
the fate of, 347.
Henry Morgan’s exploits, 378.
Herodotus, his idea of the earth, 67.
Hindostan, 209.
Himilcon, 81.
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INDEX.
Himilcon’s voyages, 81.
Hottentots, 203.
Homer, 61, 67.
his heroes, 20.
on ship-building, 62.
his fantastic geography, 63.
iB
Icebergs, collision with, 557.
Iceland discovered by the Danes, 107.
Island giant, 22.
Imports and exports of United States, 772.
Indies, 168, 212, 376.
Indian voyage of da Gama, 191.
Indians, origin of name, 168.
hostile to Spaniards, 174.
“Investigator,” 588.
Tron ships, 19.
first, 740.
Isabella receives Marchena, 150.
sends out Columbus, 151.
Island of Spices, 118.
J.
Japan, first mention in history, 113.
Jaques’ history of the compass, 121,
Jamaica, 172.
Japanese vessels, 591.
Jacques Cartier, 257.
Jason, 59.
Jewish navigation, 56.
geographical knowledge, 57.
John of Portugal, 144.
duplicity of, 147.
jealousy of, 159.
John Cabot, 175, 186.
John Ross’ expeditions, 553, 557, 567
Julius Ceesar, 96.
Juan Diaz di Solis, 235.
Juan Fernandez, 355, 419.
K.
Kane, Dr. E. K., appointed surgeon of Arctic
expedition, 580.
passing through Devil’s Nip, 581.
frozen in, 483.
death of, 604.
Kane’s open Polar Sea, 599.-
Kidd’s history, 391, 396.
Knowledge of the ocean, early, 26.
present, 760.
781
Kraken, 649.
Kubli Khan, 114.
L.
Lapérouse, 514,
Lapérouse at Monterey, 516.
Lady Franklin’s expedition, 586,
Ladrones, why so named, 245,
Le Prince, 448.
burning of, 449.
Leviathan, 593.
Leonatus, 88.
Leon, city of, destroyed, 382.
Lieutenant Parry, 553.
first of Arctic navigators, 554.
in Lancaster Sound, 559.
receives a reward from Parliament, 559,
in darkness, 562.
disheartened, 563.
hazardous voyage of, 565.
Life-raft, 755.
Light-ship, 774
Light-house, 24.
Lima, beautiful women of, 307.
Loadstone, 120.
Lord Anson, 419, 427.
Lord of Guinea, 1389.
Louis XIV. and navigation, 512.
M.
Madeira, 133.
Magellan, 24.
his birth, 238.
put in command of a fleet, 239.
reached Teneriffe, 240.
on coast of Brazil, 241.
discovers the strait called by his name
242.
enters South Sea, 244.
found the first cocoa-nuts on record, 216.
discovered the Philippine Islands, 249.
converts the natives, 250.
his sad death, 251.
Magnetic needle, 120.
described by Brunetto Latini, 122.
polarity of, noticed first, 124,
early use of, 124.
variation of, 160.
Marco Polo, 113.
in China, 114.
782
Marco Polo, his narrative, 117.
his story confirmed, 118.
Mariner’s compass introduced, 119.
mentioned by Arabs, 122.
by Chinese, 123.4
Mayflower, description of, 362.
voyage of, 363.
arrives in America, 366.
return, 368,
Marchena visited by Columbus, 148.
visits Isabella in the interest of Columbus,
150.
Marquesas Islands discovered, 307.
Map of the world, 102.
Masts of Grecian ships, 71.
Marseilles settled, 82.
Maury, Prof., 720.
Mare Tenebrosum, 154.
Martha’s Vineyard, 110.
Marianne Islands, 246.
Mediterranean Sea, 50.
Mendana, voyage of, 306.
discovers the Marquesas Islands, 307.
his death, 310.
Measuring the sea, 717.
Measuring rations, 527.
Mirage, 417.
Monitors, 742.
Moors, 205, 210, 214.
Morgan, Henry, the buccaneer, 378.
Mocha Dick, 530.
Mount Hope Bay, 110.
Mombassa, Island of, 205.
Mozambique, 203, 206, 214.
Mutineers executed, 348.
Mummies, how manufactured, 116,
Mutineers of the “ Bounty,’’ 525.
their settlement, 531.
Murderer’s Bay, 371.
N.
Navigation, 74.
first objects of, 35.
traditions of, 33.
Nantucket, 707.
discovered by Northmen, 109.
Natal, discovery of, 201.
Naval contests between the Dutch and Spanish,
334, 353.
INDEX.
Nearchus, voyage of, 87.
accounts of his voyage, 88.
meeting Alexander the Great in Asia, 91,
banquet in honor of, 92.
New Holland discovered, 369.
New Caledonia discovered, 492.
New York Harbor discovered, 344.
Newfoundland discovered, 108.
Necho, King of Egypt, 52.
Noah, a toast to, 49.
North magnetic pole visited by Ross, 569.
Northmen in America, 169.
Northwest passage, 588.
Nova Zembla discovered, 261.
Christmas eve in, 316.
death of Barentz in, 320.
Nova Scotia discovered, 108.
O.
Oars of Grecian ships, 70.
Oberea, Queen, 444.
Ocean, early ignorance of, 22, 154.
Satan’s hand on, 22, 154.
spectre, 197.
safety on at present, 26.
a ferry transit, 25.
described by Homer and Herodotus, 67.
mean depth of, 763.
extent of, 763.
telegraphing, 650.
sounding, 719.
currents, 767.
yacht race, 758.
Ohio on the stocks, 739.
Orinoco first ascended by Raleigh, 300.
Ormuz, its wealth, 224.
its destruction, 224.
Oyster, the, 695.
the pearl, 696.
Oyster-fishery, 690.
Open Polar Sea, 599.
ee
Paita, bombardment of, 423.
Patagonians on horseback, 437.
Parry, Edward, 553.
Pearl fisheries, 117, 699, 701.
Pearls of Orissa, 208.
what they are, 698.
pearl oyster, 699.
4
INDEX.
Pacific Ocean, first heard of by Balboa, 229
discovered, 231.
taken possessicn of by Balboa, 232.
entered by Cavendish, 290.
@ new passage to, discovered, 355
discoveries in, 411. be
Peter the Hermit, 97.
Pennsylvania on the stocks, 739.
Piracies, origin of, 267.
on the coast of Nicaragua, 382.
in open boats, 377
privateering, a species of, 391.
at Canary Islands, 410.
Pizarro, 24.
Plantain, description of, 384.
Pillars of Hercules, 79, 83.
Phosphorescence, 198, 451.
Ponce de Leon (Juan) discovers Florida, 226.
Poisoned by tobacco, 467.
Phoenician ships, 54.
Phoenicians, 50.
date of their maritime enterprise, 51.
their commerce, 51, 53.
circumnavigate Africa, 53.
jealousy of, 53.
end of their glory, 54.
Portuguese, 24.
voyages of to Africa, 128.
across the equator, 139.
under Emmanuel, 190.
their colonies, 210.
empire in the east, 223.
Printing invented, 125.
Privateering, 391.
Prodigious whales, 89.
Prester John, 141.
Philadelphia, burning of, 537.
Ptolemy’s galley, 74.
Pytheas, 22.
his voyages, 83.
discovers Great Britain, 83.
his narrative, 84.
Q.
Queen Elizabeth, 288.
kKnighting Drake, 286.
on board the Pelican, 286.
compared with Deborah, 294.
Queen Victoria’s telegraphic message, 632, 648.
Queen, an enamored, 443.
Quiros (Pedro de), expedition of, 337.
discovers Tahiti, 338.
his death, 343.
R.
Raleigh, Sir Walter, 299.
beheaded, 304.
Red Coral, 709.
Red Snow, 553.
Return of Columbus to Spain, 170.
Released from the ice, 558.
Rio Janeiro, 462.
Robert Fulton, his birth, 540.
no favor from Napoleon, 541.
his first steamer, 541.
his description of his first trip, 542.
‘his monopoly of steamboating, 543.
his rights menaced, 544.
builds the “ Fire-fly,” 545,
his death, 546.
Robinson Crusoe, 398.
Royal dance, 487.
Ross, Captain John, 553.
Ross, James Clark, 576.
Rhodians, their maritime power, 73.
Roman naval wars, 77.
naval exhibitions, 78.
Roc, the fabulous, 117.
Rudder, invention of, 70.
S.
Saile of Grecian ships, 7L
Sargasso Sea, 24, 161.
Salt water, constitution of, 764,
freezing point of, 729.
Sataspes, 81.
voyage, &L.
| Sea, earliest mention of, 37.
Sea shere, wenders of, 30.
| Sea lions on ice, 555.
Sea water, specific gravity of, 763.
| Sesostris taught Egyptians navigation, 59.
| Selkirk, Alexander, 398-403.
| Scandinavian sailors, 105.
| Schouten (William C.) commands Dutch expe-
dition, 355.
Scylla and Charybdis, 769.
Ships, of Nearchus, 95.
of the Fourteenth century, 127.
of Columbus, 156.
783
784 INDEX,
Sabine, Captain, the astronomer, 562.
Sandwich Islands named by Cook, 497,
Savannah, the steamer launched Aug., 1818, 548.
Ships, of war, 288.
Grecian, 69-73.
Shark fisheries, 704.
Shark, hammer head, 408.
Shipping, magnitude of, 773.
Smith Strait carefully examined, 554.
Signs of land, 163.
Sir Walter Raleigh, 297.
his death, 304.
Sidon, the commerce of, 51.
Silver in the sea, 764.
Simoda opened to American trade, 591.
Sinbad the sailor, 117.
Sirius, the British steamer, 550.
Sirius and Great Western enter New York, 573.
Society Islands, Cook plants a pineapple and
melon-seeds, 496.
Society of natural history, action regarding
Lapérouse, 520.
Sounding machine, 721, 723.
South America discovered, 175.
South Pole expedition, 576.
South Sea bubble, 406.
Spanish, expeditions of, 24.
their discoveries, 226.
voyages, 239.
Sponge fisheries, 685.
varieties, 685.
Spherical form of the earth, early belief in, 67.
Speedwell, the, 362.
Spectre of the cape, legend of, 197.
Sperm whale, encounter with, 563.
Spitzbergen reached by Parry, 564.
St. Elias, Mount, seen by Lapérouse, 515.
St. Halenn discovered, 215.
Strait of Magellan discovered, 242.
Star fish, 683.
Steam ferry boat, 545.
Steam propeller, 517.
Sumatra visited, 116.
Symplegades, tradition of, 60.
Submarine hydrostat, 654.
oe .
Tahiti to Timor, journey of Bligh and his com-
panions, 526,
Tahitian, Omai, the young, -495.
Tasman, Captain Abel Jansen, 370.
Tasmania, discovery of, 370.
Terra Del Fuego, 524.
Terroboo, king of Owhyhee, 504.
Terror, the celebrated ship, 573.
at the South Pole, 576.
Teneriffe, Spaniards at, 129.
Columbus passes, 160.
The earth, according to Hesiod, 66.
to Anaximander, 67.
Themistocles, 73.
The Ptolemy Philopator, 76.
The Veneti, early traders, 97.
Thorfinn, a Northman discoverer, 111.
The New World named, 184.
The first steamboat, 540.
Tides, 705. ,
Tidore, the spice trade at, 254.
Tierra De Natal, 201.
Timor, destiny of Bligh, 526.
Tin-clads, 747.
Torpedoes, 751.
explosion of, 751.
Torpedo boats, 752.
Torpedo war, Fulton’s book, 541,
Trojan wars, 61.
Trade winds, experienced by Columbus, 161,
Trent and Dorothea, sailed in 1818, 555.
Tribute paid to Cook, 503.
Tripoli, war declared by Jefferson, 536.
Tucopia, tidings of Lapérouse, 521.
Turtle, catching, 404.
U.
Ulysses in Sicily, 64.
Ultima Thule, origin of name, 84.
United States exploring expedition, 575.
Upernavik, oil boat seen, 603.
V
Valparaiso, 277, 350.
Vancouver, Lieutenant George, 532.
his death and extent of labors, 535.
Van Dieman’s land, Cook arrives, 498.
Vanikoro, supposed fate of Lapérouse, 523.
Vasco Nunez de Balboa, 227.
discovers the Pacific Ocean, 231.
takes possession of the Pacific, 233.
beheaded, 235,
=~ Cee sae
INDEX. 785
Van Dieman’s land, discovery of, 370.
Variation of the needle, earliest mention, 124,
’ Venice wedded to the sea, 98.
Victory, equipped by Ross, 567.
Vincennes, of U. 8. exploring expedition, 575.
Vinland, 110.
Voyages, early, of the Argonauts, 58,
of Hanno, 79.
of Eudoxus, 92-94.
of Himilcon, 81.
of Nearchus, 87, 91.
of Pytheas, 83.
of Beowulf, 106.
of Leif the Outlaw, 108.
of Thorwald, 110.
Ww.
Walruses attacking a boat, 555.
Waves, velocity of, 765.
Walking leaves, 253.
Water spouts, 180.
vessels lost among, 218.
six at once, 485.
War with Tripoli, 536.
Wurt (Sebald de) commands Dutch exnedition,
224
West Indies, 170, 213.
Wellington inlet named by Parry, 559.
channel, visited by Belcher, 586.
Whales, 89.
Nearchus’ expedition against, 89.
exploit of Captain Deblois with, 564.
What the sea contains, 764.
White bears, 558.
Wild dog team, 598.
Willow stems used by Kane, 601.
Work at Ilell Gate under the sea, 594.
World, an early map of, 102.
Women of Lima, their beauty, 307.
Woman sailor, the, 458.
Wreck of the pirate ship, 396.
x.
Xerxes condemns Satsspes to be crucified, 81.
VE
Yacht building, 757.
race acvoss the Atlantic, 758.
expenses of a, 759.
Z.
Zanzibar discovered by da Gama, 212.
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