A Book of Discovery Part 28

It was not till 26th April that Cook at last managed to start forward again, but a two days' hard gale drove him from the coast and onwards to a wide inlet to which he gave the name of Prince William's Sound.

Here the natives were just like the Eskimos in Hudson's Bay. The ships now sailed westward, doubling the promontory of Alaska, and on 9th August they reached the westernmost point of North America, which they named Cape Prince of Wales. They were now in the sea discovered by Behring, 1741, to which they gave his name. Hampered by fog and ice, the ships made their way slowly on to a point named Cape North. Cook decided that the eastern point of Asia was but thirteen leagues from the western point of America. They named the Sound on the American side Norton Sound after the Speaker of the House of Commons. Having pa.s.sed the Arctic Circle and penetrated into the Northern Seas, which were never free from ice, they met Russian traders who professed to have known Behring. Then having discovered four thousand miles of new coast, and refreshed themselves with walrus or sea-horse, the expedition turned joyfully back to the Sandwich Islands.

On the last day of November, Cook discovered the island of Owhyhee (Hawaii), which he carefully surveyed, till he came to anchor in Karakakooa Bay.

The tragic death of Captain Cook at the hands of these natives is well known to every child. The reason for his murder is not entirely understood to-day, but the natives, who had hitherto proved friendly, suddenly attacked the English explorer and slew him, and "he fell into the water and spoke no more."

[Ill.u.s.tration: CAPTAIN COOK, THE DISCOVERER OF THE SANDWICH ISLANDS, WITH HIS SHIPS IN KEALAKEKUA BAY, HAWAII, WHERE HE WAS MURDERED. From an engraving in the Atlas to _Cook's Voyages_, 1779.]

Such was the melancholy end of England's first great navigator--James Cook--the foremost sailor of his time, the man who had circ.u.mnavigated New Zealand, who had explored the coast of New South Wales, named various unknown islands in the Pacific Ocean, and discovered the Sandwich Islands. He died on 14th February 1779. It was not till 11th January 1780 that the news of his death reached London, to be recorded in the quaint language of the day by the _London Gazette_.

"It is with the utmost concern," runs the announcement, "that we inform the Public, that the celebrated Circ.u.mnavigator, Captain Cook, was killed by the inhabitants of a new-discover'd island in the South Seas.

The Captain and crew were first treated as deities, but, upon their revisiting that Island, hostilities ensued and the above melancholy scene was the Consequence. This account is come from Kamtchatka by Letters from Captain Clerke and others. But the crews of the Ships were in a very good state of health, and all in the most desirable condition. His successful attempts to preserve the Healths of his Crews are well known, and his Discoveries will be an everlasting Honour to his Country."

_Cook's First Voyages_ were published in 1773, and were widely read, but his account of the new country did not at once attract Europeans to its sh.o.r.es. We hear of "barren sandy sh.o.r.es and wild rocky coast inhabited by naked black people, malicious and cruel," on the one hand, "and low sh.o.r.es all white with sand fringed with foaming surf," with hostile natives on the other.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "THE UNROLLING OF THE CLOUDS"--VI. The world as known after the voyages of Captain Cook (1768-1779).]

It was not till eighteen years after Cook's death that Banks--his old friend--appealed to the British Government of the day to make some use of these discoveries. At last the loss of the American colonies in 1776 induced men to turn their eyes toward the new land in the South Pacific. Banks remembered well his visit to Botany Bay with Captain Cook in 1770, and he now urged the dispatch of convicts, hitherto transported to America, to this newly found bay in New South Wales.

So in 1787 a fleet of eleven ships with one thousand people on board left the sh.o.r.es of England under the command of Captain Phillip. After a tedious voyage of thirty-six weeks, they reached Botany Bay in January 1788.

Captain Phillip had been appointed Governor of all New South Wales, that is from Cape York to Van Diemen's Land, still supposed to be part of the mainland. But Phillip at once recognised that Botany Bay was not a suitable place for a settlement. No white man had described these sh.o.r.es since the days of Captain Cook. The green meadows of which Banks spoke were barren swamps and bleak sands, while the bay itself was exposed to the full sweep of violent winds, with a heavy sea breaking with tremendous surf against the sh.o.r.e.

"Warra, warra!" (begone, begone), shouted the natives, brandishing spears at the water's edge as they had done eighteen years before.

In an open boat--for it was midsummer in these parts--Phillip surveyed the coast; an opening marked Port Jackson on Cook's chart attracted his notice and, sailing between two rocky headlands, the explorer found himself crossing smooth, clear water with a beautiful harbour in front and soft green foliage reaching down to the water's edge.

Struck with the loveliness of the scene, and finding both wood and water here, he chose the spot for his new colony, giving it the name of Sydney, alter Lord Sydney, who as Home Secretary had appointed him to his command.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PORT JACKSON AND SYDNEY COVE A FEW YEARS AFTER COOK AND PHILLIP. From the Atlas to the _Voyage de l'Astrolabe_.]

"We got into Port Jackson," he wrote to Lord Sydney, "early in the afternoon, and had the satisfaction of finding the finest harbour in the world, in which a thousand sail of the line may ride in perfect security."

"To us," wrote one of his captains, "it was a great and important day, and I hope will mark the foundation of an empire."

But, interesting as it is, we cannot follow the fortunes of this first little English colony in the South Pacific Ocean.

The English had not arrived a day too soon. A few days later the French explorer, La Perouse, guided hither by Cook's chart, suddenly made his appearance on the sh.o.r.es of Botany Bay. The arrival of two French men-of-war caused the greatest excitement among the white strangers and the black natives.

La Perouse had left France in 1785 in command of two ships with orders to search for the North-West Pa.s.sage from the Pacific side--a feat attempted by Captain Cook only nine years before--to explore the China seas, the Solomon Islands, and the Terra Australis. He had reached the coast of Alaska in June 1786, but after six weeks of bad weather he had crossed to Asia in the early part of the following year.

Thence he had made his way by the Philippine Islands to the coasts of j.a.pan, Korea, and "Chinese Tartary." Touching at Quelpart, he reached a bay near our modern Vladivostock, and on 2nd August 1787 he discovered the strait that bears his name to-day, between Saghalien and the North Island of j.a.pan. Fortunately, from Kamtchatka, where he had landed, he had sent home his journals, notes, plans, and maps by Lesseps--uncle of the famous Ferdinand de Lesseps of Suez Ca.n.a.l fame.

On 26th January 1788 he landed at Botany Bay. From here he wrote his last letter to the French Government. After leaving this port he was never seen again. Many years later, in 1826, the wreck of his two ships was found on the reefs of an island near the New Hebrides.

CHAPTER XLVII

BRUCE'S TRAVELS IN ABYSSINIA

Perhaps one of the strangest facts in the whole history of exploration is that Africa was almost an unknown land a hundred years ago, and stranger still, that there remains to-day nearly one-eleventh of the whole area still unexplored. And yet it is one of the three old continents that appear on every old chart of the world in ancient days, with its many-mouthed Nile rising in weird spots and flowing in sundry impossible directions. Sometimes it joins the mysterious Niger, and together they flow through country labelled "Unknown" or "Desert" or "Negroland," or an enterprising cartographer fills up vacant s.p.a.ces with wild animals stalking through the land.

The coast tells a different tale. The west sh.o.r.es are studded with trading forts belonging to English, Danes, Dutch, and Portuguese, where slaves from the interior awaited shipment to the various countries that required negro labour. The slave trade was the great, in fact the only, attraction to Africa at the beginning of the eighteenth century. In pursuit of this, men would penetrate quite a long way into the interior, but through the long centuries few explorers had travelled to the Dark Continent.

Towards the end of the century we suddenly get one man--a young Scottish giant, named James Bruce, thirsting for exploration for its own sake.

He cared not for slaves or gold or ivory. He just wanted to discover the source of the Nile, over which a great mystery had hung since the days of Herodotus. The Mountains of the Moon figure largely on the Old World maps, but Bruce decided to rediscover these for himself.

Herodotus had said the Nile turned west and became the Niger, others said it turned east and somehow joined the Tigris and Euphrates. Indeed, such was the uncertainty regarding its source that to discover the source of the Nile seemed equivalent to performing the impossible.

James Bruce, athletic, daring, standing six feet four, seemed at the age of twenty-four made for a life of travel and adventure. His business took him to Spain and Portugal. He studied Arabic and the ancient language of Abyssinia. He came under the notice of Pitt, and was made consul of Algiers. The idea of the undiscovered sources of the Nile took strong hold of Bruce's imagination.

"It was at this moment," he says, "that I resolved that this great discovery should either be achieved by me or remain--as it has done for three thousand years--a defiance to all travellers."

A violent dispute with the old bey of Algiers ended Bruce's consulate, and in 1765, the spirit of adventure strong upon him, he sailed along the North African coast, landed at Tunis, and made his way to Tripoli.

On the frontier he found a tribe of Arabs set apart to destroy the lions which beset the neighbourhood. These people not only killed but ate the lions, and they prevailed on Bruce to share their repast. But one meal was enough for the young explorer.

In burning heat across the desert sands he pa.s.sed on. Once a great caravan arrived, journeying from Fez to Mecca, consisting of three thousand men with camels laden with merchandise. But this religious pilgrimage was plundered in the desert soon after. Arrived at Bengazi, Bruce found a terrible famine raging, so he embarked on a little Greek ship bound for Crete. It was crowded with Arabs; the captain was ignorant; a violent storm arose and, close to Bengazi, the ship struck upon a rock. Lowering a boat, Bruce and a number of Arabs sprang in and tried to row ash.o.r.e. But wave after wave broke over them, and at last they had to swim for their lives. The surf was breaking on the sh.o.r.e, and Bruce was washed up breathless and exhausted. Arabs flocking down to plunder the wreck, found Bruce, and with blows and kicks stripped him of all his clothes and left him naked on the barren sh.o.r.e. At last an old Arab came along, threw a dirty rag over him, and led him to a tent, whence he reached Bengazi once more, and soon after crossed to Crete.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A NILE BOAT, OR CANJA. From Bruce's _Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile_.]

It was not till July 1768 that the explorer at last reached Cairo _en route_ for Abyssinia, and five months later embarked on board a Nile boat, or canja. His cabin had close latticed windows made not only to admit fresh air, but to be a defence against a set of robbers on the Nile, who were wont to swim under water in the dark or on goatskins to pilfer any pa.s.sing boats. Then, unfurling her vast sails, the canja bore Bruce on the first stage of his great journey. The explorer spent some time in trying to find the lost site of old Memphis, but this was difficult. "A man's heart fails him in looking to the south," he says; "he is lost in the immense expanse of desert, which he sees full of pyramids before him. Struck with terror from the unusual scene of vastness opened all at once upon leaving the palm trees, he becomes dispirited from the effect of the sultry climate."

For some days the canja, with a fair wind, stemmed the strong current of the Nile. "With great velocity" she raced past various villages through the narrow green valley of cultivation, till the scene changed and large plantations of sugar-canes and dates began. "The wind had now become so strong that the canja could scarcely carry her sails; the current was rapid and the velocity with which she dashed against the water was terrible." Still she flew on day after day, till early in January they reached the spot "where spreading Nile parts hundred-gated Thebes." Solitude and silence reigned over the magnificent old sepulchres; the hundred gates were gone, robbers swarmed, and the traveller hastened away. So on to Luxor and Karnac to a great encampment of Arabs, who held sway over the desert which Bruce had now to cross. The old sheikh, whose protection was necessary, known as the Tiger from his ferocious disposition, was very ill in his tent. Bruce gave him some lime water, which eased his pain, and, rising from the ground, the old Arab stood upright and cried: "Cursed be those of my people that ever shall lift up their hand against you in the desert."

He strongly advised Bruce to return to Kenne and cross the desert from there instead of going on by the Nile. Reluctantly Bruce turned back, and on 16th February 1769 he joined a caravan setting out to cross the desert to the sh.o.r.es of the Red Sea.

"Our road," he says, "was all the way in an open plain bounded by hillocks of sand and fine gravel--perfectly hard, but without trees, shrubs, or herbs. There are not even the traces of any living creature, neither serpent, lizard, antelope, nor ostrich--the usual inhabitants of the most dreary deserts. There is no sort of water--even the birds seem to avoid the place as pestilential--the sun was burning hot."

In a few days the scene changed, and Bruce is noting that in four days he pa.s.ses more granite, porphyry, marble, and jasper than would build Rome, Athens, Corinth, Memphis, Alexandria, and half a dozen more.

At last after a week's travel they reached Cossier, the little mud-walled village on the sh.o.r.es of the Red Sea. Here Bruce embarked in a small boat, the planks of which were sewn together instead of nailed, with a "sort of straw mattress as a sail," for the emerald mines described by Pliny, but he was driven back by a tremendous storm.

Determined to survey the Red Sea, he sailed to the north, and after landing at Tor at the foot of Mount Sinai, he sailed down the bleak coast of Arabia to Jidda, the port of Mecca.

[Ill.u.s.tration: AN ARAB SHEIKH. From Bruce's _Travels_.]

By this time he was shaking with ague and fever, scorched by the burning sun, and weather-beaten by wind and storm--moreover, he was still dressed as a Turkish soldier. He was glad enough to find kindly English at Jidda, and after two months' rest he sailed on to the Straits of Babelmandeb. Being now on English ground, he drank the King's health and sailed across to Masuah, the main port of Abyssinia. Although he had letters of introduction from Jidda he had some difficulty with the chief of Masuah, but at last, dressed in long white Moorish robes, he broke away, and in November 1769 started forth for Gondar, the capital of Abyssinia.

It was nearly one hundred and fifty years since any European of note had visited the country, and it was hard to get any information.

His way led across mountainous country--rugged and steep. "Far above the top of all towers that stupendous ma.s.s, the mountain of Taranta, probably one of the highest in the world, the point of which is buried in the clouds and very rarely seen but in the clearest weather; at other times abandoned to perpetual mist and darkness, the seat of lightning, thunder, and of storm." Violent storms added to the terrors of the way, trees were torn up by the roots, and swollen streams rushed along in torrents.

Bruce had started with his quadrant carried by four men, but the task of getting his c.u.mbersome instruments up the steep sides of Taranta was intense. However, they reached the top at last to find a huge plain, "perhaps one of the highest in the world," and herds of beautiful cattle feeding. "The cows were completely white, with large dewlaps hanging down to their knees, white horns, and long silky hair." After ninety-five days' journey, on 14th February Bruce reached Gondar, the capital, on the flat summit of a high hill.

Here lived the King of Abyssinia, a supposed descendant of King Solomon; but at the present time the country was in a lawless and unsettled condition. Moreover, smallpox was raging at the palace, and the royal children were smitten with it. Bruce's knowledge of medicine now stood him again in good stead. He opened all the doors and windows of the palace, washed his little patients with vinegar and warm water, sent away those not already infected, and all recovered. Bruce had sprung into court favour. The ferocious chieftain, Ras Michael, who had killed one king, poisoned another, and was now ruling in the name of a third, sent for him. The old chief was dressed in a coa.r.s.e, dirty garment wrapped round him like a blanket, his long white hair hung down over his shoulders, while behind him stood soldiers, their lances ornamented with shreds of scarlet cloth, one for every man slain in battle.

Bruce was appointed "Master of the King's horse," a high office and richly paid.

But "I told him this was no kindness," said the explorer. "My only wish was to see the country and find the sources of the Nile."

But time pa.s.sed on and they would not let him go, until, at last, he persuaded the authorities to make him ruler over the province where the Blue Nile was supposed to rise. Amid great opposition he at last left the palace of Gondar on 28th October 1770, and was soon on his way to the south "to see a river and a bog, no part of which he could take away"--an expedition wholly incomprehensible to the royal folk at Gondar. Two days' march brought him to the sh.o.r.es of the great Lake Tsana, into which, despite the fact that he was tremendously hot and that crocodiles abounded there, the hardy young explorer plunged for a swim. And thus refreshed he proceeded on his way. He had now to encounter a new chieftain named Fasil, who at first refused to give him leave to pa.s.s on his way. It was not until Bruce had shown himself an able horseman and exhibited feats of strength and prowess that leave was at last granted. Fasil tested him in this wise. Twelve horses were brought to Bruce, saddled and bridled, to know which he would like to ride. Selecting an apparently quiet beast, the young traveller mounted.