A Book of Discovery Part 25

"These white men must have fallen from the clouds," they said. "How else could they have reached us through the woods and rapids which even we find it hard to pa.s.s?" Champlain wanted to get to the upper waters of the Ottawa River, to the land of the cannibal Nip.i.s.sings, who dwelt on the lake that bears their name; but they were enemies, and the natives refused to advance into their country.

Two years later he accomplished his desire, and found himself at last in the land of the Nip.i.s.sings. He crossed their lake and steered his canoes down the French river. Days pa.s.sed and no signs of human life appeared amid the rocky desolation, till suddenly three hundred savages, tattooed, painted, and armed, rushed out on them. Fortunately they were friendly, and it was from them that Champlain learned the good news that the great freshwater lake of the Hurons was close at hand.

What if the Friar Le Caron, one of Champlain's party, had preceded him by a few days, Champlain was the first white man to give an account of it, if not the first to sail on its beautiful waters. For over one hundred miles he made his way along its eastern sh.o.r.es, until he reached a broad opening with fields of maize and bright patches of sunflower, from the seeds of which the Indians made their hair-oil. After staying a few days at a little Huron village where he was feasted by friendly natives, Champlain pushed on by Indian trails, pa.s.sing village after village till he reached the narrow end of Lake Simcoe. A "shrill clamour of rejoicing and the screaming flight of terrified children" hailed his approach. The little fleet of canoes pursued their course along the lake and then down the chain of lakes leading to the river Trent.

The inhabited country of the Hurons had now given place to a desolate region with no sign of human life, till from the mouth of the Trent, "like a flock of venturous wild fowl," they found themselves floating on the waters of Lake Ontario, across which they made their way safely.

It was a great day in the life of Champlain when he found himself in the very heart of a hostile land, having discovered the chain of inland lakes of which he had heard so much. But they were now in the land of the Iroquois--deadly foes of the Hurons. There was nothing for it but to fight, and a great battle now took place between the rival tribes, every warrior yelling at the top of his voice. Champlain himself was wounded in the fray, and all further exploration had to be abandoned.

He was packed up in a basket and carried away on the back of a Huron warrior. "Bundled in a heap," wrote the explorer, "doubled and strapped together after such a fashion that one could move no more than an infant in swaddling clothes, I never was in such torment in my life, for the pain of the wound was nothing to that of being bound and pinioned on the back of one of our savages. As soon as I could bear my weight, I got out of this prison." How Champlain wintered with the Hurons, who would not allow him to return to Quebec, how he got lost while hunting in one of the great forests in his eagerness to shoot a strange-looking bird, how the lakes and streams froze, and how his courage and endurance were sorely tried over the toilsome marches to Lake Simcoe, but how finally he reached Montreal by way of Nip.i.s.sing and the Ottawa River, must be read elsewhere. Champlain's work as an explorer was done. Truly has he been called the Father of New France. He had founded Quebec and Montreal; he had explored Canada as no man has ever done before or since. Faithful to the pa.s.sion of his life, he died in 1635 at Quebec--the city he had founded and loved.

CHAPTER XLI

EARLY DISCOVERERS OF AUSTRALIA

While the French and English were feverishly seeking a way to the East, either by the North Pole or by way of America, the Dutch were busy discovering a new land in the Southern Seas.

And as we have seen America emerging from the mist of ages in the sixteenth century, so now in the seventeenth we have the great Island Continent of Australia mysteriously appearing bit by bit out of the yet little-known Sea of the South. There is little doubt that both Portuguese and Spanish had touched on the western coast early in the sixteenth century, but gave no information about it beyond sketching certain rough and undefined patches of land and calling it Terra Australis in their early maps; no one seems to have thought this mysterious land of much importance. The maritime nations of that period carefully concealed their knowledge from one another. The proud Spaniard hated his Portuguese neighbour as a formidable rival in the race for wealth and fame, and the Dutchman, who now comes on the scene, was regarded by both as a natural enemy by land or sea.

Magellan in 1520 discovered that the Terra Australis was not joined to South America, as the old maps had laid down; and we find Frobisher remarking in 1578 that "Terra Australis seemeth to be a great, firm land, lying under and about the South Pole, not thoroughly discovered.

It is known at the south side of the Strait of Magellan and is called Terra del Fuego. It is thought this south land about the pole Antarctic is far bigger than the north land about the pole Arctic; but whether it be so or not, we have no certain knowledge, for we have no particular description thereof, as we have of the land about the North Pole."

[Ill.u.s.tration: AN EARLY MAP OF "TERRA AUSTRALIS," CALLED "JAVA LA GRANDE" IN ITS SUPPOSED EASTERN PART. From the "Dauphin" map of 1546.

There was then supposed to be a great mainland of Java, separated from the island of "Java Minor" by a narrow strait. See the copy of the whole of this map in colour, where it will be seen that the "Terra Australis" was supposed to stretch from east to west.]

And even one hundred years later the mystery was not cleared up. "This land about the straits is not perfectly discovered whether it be continent or islands. Some take it for continent, esteeming that Terra Australis or the Southern Continent may for the largeness thereof take a first place in the division of the whole world."

The Spaniards were still masters of the sea, when one Lieutenant Torres first sailed through the strait dividing Australia from New Guinea, already discovered in 1527. As second in command, he had sailed from America under a Spaniard, De Quiros, in 1605, and in the Pacific they had come across several island groups. Among others they sighted the island group now known as the New Hebrides. Quiros supposed that this was the continent for which he was searching, and gave it the name of "Terra Australis del Espirito Santo." And then a curious thing happened. "At one hour past midnight," relates Torres in his account of the voyage, "the _Capitana_ (Quiros' ship) departed without any notice given us and without making any signal."

After waiting for many days, Torres at last set sail, and, having discovered that the supposed land was only an island, he made his way along the dangerous coast of New Guinea to Manila, thus pa.s.sing through the straits that were afterwards named after him, and unconsciously pa.s.sing almost within sight of the very continent for which he was searching.

This was the end of Spanish enterprise for the present. The rivals for sea-power in the seventeenth century were England and Holland.

Both had recently started East India Companies, both were keen to take a large part in East Indian trade and to command the sea. For a time the Dutch had it all their own way; they devoted themselves to founding settlements in the East Indies, ever hoping to discover new islands in the South Seas as possible trade centres. Scientific discovery held little interest for them.

As early as 1606 a Dutch ship--the little _Sun_--had been dispatched from the Moluccas to discover more about the land called by the Spaniards New Guinea, because of its resemblance to the West African coast of Guinea. But the crews were greeted with a shower of arrows as they attempted a landing, and with nine of their party killed, they returned disheartened.

A more ambitious expedition was fitted out in 1617 by private adventurers, and two ships--the _Unity_ and the _Horn_--sailed from the Texel under the command of a rich Amsterdam merchant named Isaac Le Maire and a clever navigator, Cornelius Schouten of Horn. Having been provided with an English gunner and carpenter, the ships were steered boldly across the Atlantic. Hitherto the object of the expedition had been kept a secret, but on crossing the line the crews were informed that they were bound for the Terra Australis del Espirito Santo of Quiros. The men had never heard of the country before, and we are told they wrote the name in their caps in order to remember it. By midwinter they had reached the eastern entrance of the Straits of Magellan, through which many a ship had pa.s.sed since the days of Magellan, some hundred years before this. Unfortunately, while undergoing some necessary repairs here, the little _Horn_ caught fire and was burnt out, the crews all having to crowd on to the _Unity_.

Instead of going through the strait they sailed south and discovered Staaten Land, which they thought might be a part of the southern continent for which they were seeking. We now know it to be an island, whose heights are covered with perpetual snow. It was named by Schouten after the Staaten or States-General of Holland. Pa.s.sing through the strait which divided the newly discovered land from the Terra del Fuego (called later the Straits of Le Maire after its discoverer), the Dutchmen found a great sea full of whales and monsters innumerable.

Sea-mews larger than swans, with wings stretching six feet across, fled screaming round the ship. The wind was against them, but after endless tacking they reached the southern extremity of land, which Schouten named after his native town and the little burnt ship--_Horn_--and as Cape Horn it is known to-day.

But the explorers never reached the Terra Australis. Their little ship could do no more, and they sailed to Java to repair.

Many a name on the Australian map to-day testifies to Dutch enterprise about this time. In 1616, Captain Dirck Hartog of Amsterdam discovered the island that bears his name off the coast of Western Australia.

A few years later the captain of a Dutch ship called the _Lewin_ or _Lioness_ touched the south-west extremity of the continent, calling that point Cape Lewin. Again a few years and we find Captain Nuyts giving his name to a part of the southern coast, though the discovery seems to have been accidental. In 1628, Carpentaria received its name from Carpenter, a governor of the East India Company. Now, one day a ship from Carpenter's Land returned laden with gold and spice; and though certain men had their suspicions that these riches had been fished out of some large ship wrecked upon the inhospitable coast, yet a little fleet of eleven ships was at once dispatched to reconnoitre further. Captain Pelsart commanded the _Batavia_, which in a great storm was separated from the other ships and driven alone on to the shoals marked as the Abrolhos (a Portuguese word meaning "Open your eyes," implying a sharp lookout for dangerous reefs) on the west coast of Australia. It was night when the ship struck, and Captain Pelsart was sick in bed. He ran hastily on to the deck. The moon shone bright.

The sails were up. The sea appeared to be covered with white foam.

Captain Pelsart charged the master with the loss of the ship, and asked him "in what part of the world he thought they were."

"G.o.d only knows that," replied the master, adding that the ship was fast on a bank hitherto undiscovered. Suddenly a dreadful storm of wind and rain arose, and, being surrounded with rocks and shoals, the ship was constantly striking. "The women, children, and sick people were out of their wits with fear," so they decided to land these on an island for "their cries and noise served only to disturb them."

The landing was extremely difficult owing to the rocky coast, where the waves were dashing high. When the weather had moderated a bit, Captain Pelsart took the ship and went in search of water, thereby exploring a good deal of coast, which, he remarked, "resembled the country near Dover." But his exploration amounted to little, and the account of his adventures is mostly taken up with an account of the disasters that befell the miserable party left on the rock-bound islands of Abrolhos--conspiracies, mutinies, and plots. His was only one of many adventures on this unknown and inhospitable coast, which about this time, 1644, began to take the name of New Holland.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE WRECK OF CAPTAIN PELSART'S SHIP THE _BATAVIA_ ON THE COAST OF NEW HOLLAND, 1644. From the Dutch account of Pelsart's _Voyages_, 1647.]

CHAPTER XLII

TASMAN FINDS TASMANIA

At this time Anthony Van Diemen was governor at Batavia, and one of his most trusted commanders was Abel Tasman. In 1642, Tasman was given command of two ships "for making discoveries of the Unknown South Land," and, hoisting his flag on board the _Sea-Hen_, he sailed south from Batavia without sighting the coast of Australia. Despite foggy weather, "hard gales, and a rolling sea," he made his way steadily south. It was three months before land was sighted, and high mountains were seen to the southeast. The ship stood in to sh.o.r.e. "As the land has not been known before to any European, we called it Anthony Van Diemen's Land in honour of our Governor-General, who sent us out to make discoveries. I anch.o.r.ed in a bay and heard the sound of people upon the sh.o.r.e, but I saw n.o.body. I perceived in the sand the marks of wild beasts' feet, resembling those of a tiger."

Setting up a post with the Dutch East India Company's mark, and leaving the Dutch flag flying, Tasman left Van Diemen's Land, which was not to be visited again for over one hundred years, when it was called after its first discoverer. He had no idea that he was on an island.

Tasman now sailed east, and after about a week at sea he discovered a high mountainous country, which he named "Staaten Land." "We found here abundance of inhabitants: they had very hoa.r.s.e voices and were very large-made people; they were of colour between brown and yellow, their hair long and thick, combed up and fixed on the top of their heads with a quill in the very same manner that j.a.panese fastened their hair behind their heads."

Tasman anch.o.r.ed on the north coast of the south island of New Zealand, but canoes of warlike Maoris surrounded the ships, a conflict took place in which several Dutch seamen were killed, the weather grew stormy, and Tasman sailed away from the bay he named Murderer's Bay--rediscovered by Captain Cook about a hundred years later.

"This is the second country discovered by us," says 'Tasman. "We named it Staaten Land in honour of the States-General. It is possible that it may join the other Staaten Land (of Schouten and Le Maire to the south of Terra del Fuego), but it is uncertain; it is a very fine country, and we hope it is part of the unknown south continent." Is it necessary to add that this Staaten Land was really New Zealand, and the bay where the ships anch.o.r.ed is now known as Tasman Bay? When the news of Tasman's discoveries was noised abroad, all the geographers, explorers, and discoverers at once jumped to the conclusion that this was the same land on whose coast Pelsart had been wrecked. "It is most evident,"

they said, "that New Guinea, Carpentaria, New Holland, Van Diemen's Land make all one continent, from which New Zealand seems to be separated by a strait, and perhaps is part of another continent answering to Africa as this plainly does to America, making indeed a very large country."

After a ten months' cruise Tasman returned to Batavia. He had found Van Diemen's Land and New Zealand, without sighting Australia.

A second expedition was now fitted out. The instructions for the commodore, Captain Abel Jansen Tasman, make interesting reading. The orders are detailed and clear. He will start the end of January 1644, and "we shall expect you in July following attended with good success."

"Of all the lands, countries, islands, capes, inlets, bays, rivers, shoals, reefs, sands, cliffs, and rocks which you pa.s.s in this discovery you are to make accurate maps--be particularly careful about longitude and lat.i.tude. But be circ.u.mspect and prudent in landing with small craft, because at several times New Guinea has been found to be inhabited by cruel, wild savages. When you converse with any of these savages behave well and friendly to them, and try by all means to engage their affection to you. You are to show the samples of the goods which you carry along with you, and inquire what materials and goods they possess. To prevent any other European nation from reaping the fruits of our labour in these discoveries, you are everywhere to take possession in the name of the Dutch East India Company, to put up some sign, erect a stone or post, and carve on them the arms of the Netherlands. The yachts are manned with one hundred and eleven persons, and for eight months plentifully victualled. Manage everything well and orderly, take notice you see the ordinary portion of two meat and two pork days, and a quarter of vinegar and a half-quarter of sweet oil per week."

[Ill.u.s.tration: VAN DIEMAN'S LAND AND TWO OF TASMAN'S SHIPS. From the map drawn by Tasman in his "Journal."]

He was to coast along New Guinea to the farthest-known spot, and to follow the coast _despite adverse winds_, in order that the Dutch might be sure "whether this land is not divided from the great known South Continent or not."

What he accomplished on this voyage is best seen in "The complete map of the Southern Continent surveyed by Captain Abel Tasman," which was inlaid on the floor of the large hall in the Stadthouse at Amsterdam.

The Great South Land was henceforth known as New Holland.

CHAPTER XLIII

DAMPIER DISCOVERS HIS STRAIT

It was not long before the great stretch of coast-line carefully charted by Tasman became known to the English, and while the Dutch were yet busy exploring farther, Dampier--the first Englishman to visit the country--had already set foot on its sh.o.r.es.

"We lie entirely at the mercy of the Dutch East India Company's geography for the outline of this part of the coast of New Holland: for it does not appear that the ships of any other nation have ever approached it," says an old history of the period.

Some such information as this became known in South America, in which country the English had long been hara.s.sing the Spaniards. It reached the ears of one William Dampier, a Somersetshire man, who had lived a life of romance and adventure with the buccaneers, pillaging and plundering foreign ships in these remote regions of the earth. He had run across the Southern Pacific carrying his life in his hand. He had marched across the isthmus of Panama--one hundred and ten miles in twenty-three days--through deep and swiftly flowing rivers, dense growths of tropical vegetation full of snakes, his only food being the flesh of monkeys. Such was the man who now took part in a privateering cruise under Captain Swan, bound for the East Indies.