A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels Volume Xv Part 32

From these sources of authentic information, we are enabled to draw every necessary material to correct what is erroneous, and to ill.u.s.trate what, otherwise, would have remained obscure, in this part of Captain Cook's journal. We shall take occasion to do this in separate notes on the pa.s.sages as they occur, and conclude this tedious, but, it is hoped, not unnecessary, detail of facts, with one general remark, fully expressive of the disadvantages our author laboured under. He never saw that part of the coast upon which the French had been in 1772; and he never knew that they had been upon another part of it in 1773, which was the very scene of his own operations. Consequently, what he knew of the former voyage, as delineated upon Crozet's chart, only served to perplex and mislead his judgment; and his total ignorance of the latter, put it out of his power to compare his own observations with those then made by Kerguelen; though we, who are better instructed, can do this, by tracing the plainest marks of coincidence and agreement.--D.]

My instructions directing me to examine it, with a view to discover a good harbour, I proceeded in the search; and on the 16th, being then in the lat.i.tude of 48 45', and in the longitude of 52 E., we saw penguins and divers, and rock-weed floating in the sea. We continued to meet with more or less of these every day, as we proceeded to the eastward; and on the 21st, in the lat.i.tude of 48 27' S., and in the longitude of 65 E., a very large seal was seen. We had now much foggy weather, and as we expected to fall in with the land every hour, our navigation became both tedious and dangerous.

At length, on the 24th, at six o'clock in the morning, as we were steering to the eastward, the fog clearing away a little, we saw land,[97] bearing S.S.E., which, upon a nearer approach, we found to be an island of considerable height, and about three leagues in circuit.[98] Soon after, we saw another of the same magnitude, one league to the eastward;[99] and between these two, in the direction of S.E., some smaller ones.[100] In the direction of S. by E. 1/2 E., from the E. end of the first island, a third[101] high island was seen. At times, as the fog broke away, we had the appearance of land over the small islands; and I had thoughts of steering for it, by running in between them. But, on drawing nearer, I found this would be a dangerous attempt, while the weather continued foggy. For if there should be no pa.s.sage, or if we should meet with any sudden danger, it would have been impossible for us to get off; the wind being right a-stern, and a prodigious sea running, that broke on all the sh.o.r.es in a frightful surf. At the same time, seeing another island in the N.E. direction, and not knowing but that their might be more, I judged it prudent to haul off, and wait for clearer weather, lest we should get entangled amongst unknown lands in a thick fog.

[Footnote 97: Captain Cook was not the original discoverer of these small islands which he now fell in with. It is certain that they had been seen and named by Kerguelen, on his second voyage, in December 1773. Their position, relatively to each other, and to the adjoining coasts of the greater land, bears a striking resemblance to Kerguelen's delineation of them; whose chart, however, the public may be a.s.sured, was unknown in England till after that accompanying the account of this third voyage had been engraved.--D.]

[Footnote 98: This is the isle to which Kerguelen gave the name of Croy, or Crouy. Besides delineating it upon his chart, he has added a particular view of it, exactly corresponding with Captain Cook's account of its being of considerable height.--D.]

[Footnote 99: Kerguelen called this Isle Rolland, after the name of his own ship. There is also a particular view of it on the French chart.--D.]

[Footnote 100: The observations of the French and English navigators agree exactly as to the position of these smaller isles.--D.]

[Footnote 101: The situation of Kerguelen's Isle de Clugny, as marked on this chart, shews it to be the third high island seen by Captain Cook.--D.]

We did but just weather the island last mentioned. It is a high round rock, which was named Bligh's Cap. Perhaps this is the same that Monsieur de Kerguelen called the Isle of Rendezvous;[102] but I know nothing that can rendezvous at it, but fowls of the air; for it is certainly inaccessible to every other animal.

[Footnote 102: This isle, or rock, was the single point about which Captain Cook had received the least information at Teneriffe; and we may observe how sagacious he was in tracing it. What he could only speak of as probable, a comparison of his chart with that lately published by Kerguelen, proves to be certain; and if he had even read and copied what his predecessor in the discovery says of it, he could scarcely have varied his account of its shape. Kerguelen's words are, "Isle de Reunion, qui n'est qu'une Roche, nous servoit de Rendezvous, ou de point de ralliement; et ressemble a un coin de mire."--D.]

At eleven o'clock the weather began to clear up, and we immediately tacked, and steered in for the land. At noon, we had a pretty good observation, which enabled us to determine the lat.i.tude of Bligh's Cap, which is the northernmost island, to be 48 29' S., and its longitude 68 40' E.'[103] We pa.s.sed it at three o'clock, standing to the S.S.E., with a fresh gale at W.

[Footnote 103: The French and English agree very nearly (as might be expected) in their accounts of the lat.i.tude of this island; but the observations by which they fix its longitude vary considerably. The pilot at Teneriffe made it only 64 57' E. from Paris, which is about 67 16' E. from London; or 1 24' more westerly than Captain Cook's observations fix it. Monsieur de Pages says it is 66 47' E. from Paris, that is, 69 6' E. from London, or twenty-six miles more easterly than it is placed by Captain Cook. Kerguelen himself only says that it is about 68 of E. longitude, _par_ 68 _de longitude_.--D.]

Soon after we saw the land, of which we had a faint view in the morning; and at four o'clock it extended from S.E. 1/2 E., to S.W. by S., distant about four miles. The left extreme, which I judged to be the northern point of this land, called, in the French chart of the southern hemisphere, Cape St Louis,[104] terminated in a perpendicular rock of a considerable height; and the right one (near which is a detached rock) in a high indented point.[105] From this point the coast seemed to turn short round to the southward, for we could see no land to the westward of the direction in which it now bore to us, but the islands we had observed in the morning; the most southerly[106] of them lying nearly W.

from the point, about two or three leagues distant.

[Footnote 104: Hitherto, we have only had occasion to supply defects, owing to Captain Cook's entire ignorance of Kerguelen's second voyage in 1773; we must now correct errors, owing to his very limited knowledge of the operations of the first voyage in 1772. The chart of the southern hemisphere, his only guide, having given him, as he tells us, the name of Cape St Louis (or Cape Louis) as the most northerly promontory then seen by the French; and his own observations now satisfying him that no part of the main land stretched farther north than the left extreme now before him; from this supposed similarity of situation, he judged that his own perpendicular rock must be the Cape Louis of the first discoverers. By looking upon the chart originally published with this voyage, we shall find Cape Louis lying upon a different part of the coast; and by comparing this chart with that published by Kerguelen, it will appear, in the clearest manner, that the northern point now described by Captain Cook, is the very same to which the French have given the name of Cape Francois--D.]

[Footnote 105: This right extreme of the coast, as it now shewed itself to Captain Cook, seems to be what is represented on Kerguelen's chart under the name of Cape Aubert. It may be proper to observe here, that all that extent of coast lying between Cape Louis and Cape Francois, of which the French saw very little during their first visit in 1772, and may be called the N.W. side of this land, they had it in their power to trace the position of in 1773, and have a.s.signed names to some of its bays, rivers, and promontories, upon their chart.--D.]

[Footnote 106: Kerguelen's Isle de Clugny.--D.]

About the middle of the land there appeared to be an inlet, for which we steered; but, on approaching, found it was a bending in the coast, and therefore bore up, to go round Cape St Louis.[107] Soon after, land opened off the cape, in the direction of S. 53 E., and appeared to be a point at a considerable distance; for the trending of the coast from the cape was more southerly. We also saw several rocks and islands to the eastward of the above directions, the most distant of which was about seven leagues from the cape, bearing S. 88 E.[108] We had no sooner got off the cape, than we observed the coast, to the southward, to be much indented by projecting points and bays; so that we now made sure of soon finding a good harbour. Accordingly, we had not run a mile farther, before we discovered one behind the cape, into which we began to ply; but after making one board, it fell calm, and we anch.o.r.ed at the entrance in forty-five fathoms water, the bottom black sand; as did the Discovery soon after. I immediately dispatched Mr Bligh, the master, in a boat to sound the harbour; who, on his return, reported it to be safe and commodious, with good anchorage in every part; and great plenty of fresh-water, seals, penguins, and other birds on the sh.o.r.e; but not a stick of wood. While we lay at anchor, we observed that the flood tide came from the S.E., running two knots, at least, in an hour.

[Footnote 107: Cape Francois, as already observed.--D.]

[Footnote 108: The observations of the French, round Cape Francois, remarkably coincide with Captain Cook's in this paragraph; and the rocks and islands here mentioned by him, also appear upon their chart.--D.]

At day-break, in the morning of the 25th, we weighed with a gentle breeze at W,; and having wrought into the harbour, to within a quarter of a mile of the sandy beach at its head, we anch.o.r.ed in eight fathoms water, the bottom a fine dark sand. The Discovery did not get in till two o'clock in the afternoon, when Captain Clerke informed me, that he had narrowly escaped being driven on the S. point of the harbour, his anchor having started before they had time to shorten in the cable. This obliged them to set sail, and drag the anchor after them, till they had room to heave it up, and then they found one of its palms was broken off.

As soon as we had anch.o.r.ed, I ordered all the boats to be hoisted out, the ship to be moored with a kedge-anchor, and the water-casks to be got ready to send on sh.o.r.e. In the mean time I landed, to look for the most convenient spot where they might be filled, and to see what else the place afforded.

I found the sh.o.r.e, in a manner, covered with penguins and other birds, and seals. These latter were not numerous, but so insensible of fear, (which plainly indicated that they were unaccustomed to such visitors,) that we killed as many as we chose, for the sake of their fat, or blubber, to make oil for our lamps, and other uses. Fresh water was in no less plenty than were birds; for every gully afforded a large stream.

But not a single tree, or shrub, nor the least sign of any, was to be discovered, and but very little herbage of any sort. The appearances, as we sailed into the harbour, had flattered us with the hope of meeting with something considerable growing here, as we observed the sides of many of the hills to be of a lively green. But I now found that this was occasioned by a single plant, which, with the other natural productions, shall be described in another place. Before I returned to my ship, I ascended the first ridge of rocks, which rise in a kind of amphitheatre above one another. I was in hopes, by this means, of obtaining a view of the country; but before I reached the top, there came on so thick a fog, that I could hardly find my way down again. In the evening, we hauled the seine at the head of the harbour, but caught only half a dozen small fish. We had no better success next day, when we tried with hook and line. So that our only resource here, for fresh provisions, were birds, of which there was an inexhaustible store.

The morning of the 26th proved foggy, with rain. However, we went to work to fill water, and to cut gra.s.s for our cattle, which we found in small spots near the head of the harbour. The rain which fell swelled all the rivulets to such a degree, that the sides of the hills, bounding the harbour, seemed to be covered with a sheet of water. For the rain, as it fell, run into the fissures and crags of the rocks that composed the interior parts of the hills, and was precipitated down their sides in prodigious torrents.

The people having wrought hard the two preceding days, and nearly completed our water, which we filled from a brook at the left corner of the beach, I allowed them the 27th as a day of rest, to celebrate Christmas. Upon this indulgence, many of them went on sh.o.r.e, and made excursions, in different directions, into the country, which they found barren and desolate in the highest degree. In the evening, one of them brought to me a quart bottle which he had found, fastened with some wire to a projecting rock on the north side of the harbour. This bottle contained a piece of parchment, on which was written the following inscription:

_Ludovico XV. Galliarum rege, et d.[109] de Boynes regi a Secretis ad res maritimas annis 1772 et 1773.

[Footnote 109: The (d.), no doubt, is a contraction of the word _Domino_. The French secretary of the marine was then Monsieur de Boynes.--D.]

From this inscription, it is clear, that we were not the first Europeans who had been in this harbour. I supposed it to be left by Monsieur de Boisguehenneu, who went on sh.o.r.e in a boat on the 13th of February, 1772, the same day that Monsieur de Kerguelen discovered this land, as appears by a note in the French chart of the southern hemisphere, published the following year.[110]

[Footnote 110: On perusing this paragraph of the journal, it will be natural to ask, How could Monsieur de Boisguehenneu, in the beginning of 1772, leave an inscription, which, upon the very face of it, commemorates a transaction of the following year? Captain Cook's manner of expressing himself here, strongly marks, that he made this supposition, only for want of information to enable him to make any other. He had no idea that the French had visited this land a second time; and, reduced to the necessity of trying to accommodate what he saw himself, to what little he had heard of their proceedings, he confounds a transaction which we, who have been better instructed, know, for a certainty, belongs to the second voyage, with a similar one, which his chart of the southern hemisphere has recorded, and which happened in a different year, and at a different place.

The bay, indeed, in which Monsieur de Boisguehenneu landed, is upon the west side of this land, considerably to the south of Cape Louis, and not far from another more southerly promontory, called Cape Bourbon; a part of the coast which our ships were not upon. Its situation is marked upon the chart constructed for this voyage; and a particular view of the bay du Lion Marin, (for so Boisguehenneu called it,) with the soundings, is preserved by Kerguelen.

But if the bottle and inscription found by Captain Cook's people were not left here by Boisguehenneu, by whom and when were they left? This we learn most satisfactorily, from the accounts of Kerguelen's second voyage, as published by himself and Monsieur de Pages, which present us with the following particulars:--"That they arrived on the west side of this land on the 14th of December, 1773; that steering to the N.E., they discovered, on the 16th, the Isle de Reunion, and the other small islands as mentioned above; that, on the 17th, they had before them the princ.i.p.al land, (which they were sure was connected with that seen by them on the 14th,) and a high point of that land, named by them Cape Francois; that beyond this cape, the coast took a south-easterly direction, and behind it they found a bay, called by them Baie de l'Oiseau, from the name of their frigate; that they then endeavoured to enter it, but were prevented by contrary winds and blowing weather, which drove them off the coast eastward; but that, at last, on the 6th of January, Monsieur de Rosnevet, captain of the Oiseau, was able to send his boat on sh.o.r.e into this bay, under the command of Monsieur de Rochegude, one of his officers, who took possession of that bay, and of all the country, in the name of the King of France, with all the requisite formalities."

Here then we trace, by the most unexceptionable evidence, the history of the bottle and inscription; the leaving of which was, no doubt, one of the requisite formalities observed by Monsieur de Rochegude on this occasion. And though he did not land till the 6th of January 1774, yet, as Kerguelen's ships arrived upon the coast on the 14th of December 1773, and had discovered and looked into this very bay on the 17th of that month, it was with the strictest propriety and truth that 1773, and not 1774, was mentioned as the date of the discovery.

We need only look at Kerguelen's and Cook's charts, to judge that the Baie de l'Oiseau, and the harbour where the French inscription was found, is one and the same place. But besides this agreement as to the general position, the same conclusion results more decisively still, from another circ.u.mstance worth mentioning: The French, as well as the English visitors of this bay and harbour, have given us a particular plan of it; and whoever compares them, must be struck with a resemblance that could only be produced by copying one common original with fidelity. Nay, even the soundings are the same upon the same spots in both plans, being forty-five fathoms between the two capes, before the entrance of the bay; sixteen fathoms farther in, where the sh.o.r.es begin to contract; and eight fathoms up, near the bottom of the harbour.

To these particulars, which throw abundant light on this part of our author's journal, I shall only add, that the distance of our harbour from that where Boisguehenneu landed in 1772, is forty leagues. For this we have the authority of Kerguelen, in the following pa.s.sage:--"Monsieur de Boisguehenneu descendit le 13 de Fevrier 1772, dans un baie, qu'il nomme Baie du Lion Marin, & prit possession de cette terre au nom de Roi; il n'y vit aucune trace d'habitants. Monsieur de Rochegude, en 1774, a descendu dans un autre baie, que nous avons nomme Baie de l'Oiseau, & cette seconde rade est a quarantes lieues de la premiere. Il en a egalement pris possession, & il n'y trouva egalement aucune trace d'habitants." _Kerguelen_, p. 92.--D.]

As a memorial of our having been in this harbour, I wrote on the other side of the parchment,

_Naves Resolution et Discovery de Rege Magnae Britanniae, Decembris_ 1776.

I then put it again into a bottle, together with a silver two-penny piece of 1772; and having covered the mouth of the bottle with a leaden cap, I placed it the next morning in a pile of stones erected for the purpose, upon a little eminence on the north sh.o.r.e of the harbour, and near to the place where it was first found, in which position it cannot escape the notice of any European, whom chance or design may bring into this port. Here I displayed the British flag, and named the place Christmas Harbour, from our having arrived in it on that festival.

It is the first or northernmost inlet that we meet with on the S.E. side of the Cape St Louis,[111] which forms the N. side of the harbour, and is also the northern point of this land. The situation alone is sufficient to distinguish it from any of the other inlets; and, to make it more remarkable, its S. point terminates in a high rock, which is perforated quite through, so as to appear like the arch of a bridge. We saw none like this upon the whole coast.[112] The harbour has another distinguishing mark within, from a single stone or rock, of a vast size, which lies on the top of a hill on the S. side, near its bottom; and opposite this, on the N. side, there is another hill, much like it, but smaller. There is a small beach at its bottom, where we commonly landed; and, behind it, some gently rising ground, on the top of which is a large pool of fresh-water. The land on both sides of the inlet is high, and it runs in W., and W.N.W., about two miles. Its breadth is one mile and a quarter, for more than half its length, above which it is only half a mile. The depth of water, which is forty-five fathoms at the entrance, varies, as we proceed farther in, from thirty to five and four fathoms. The sh.o.r.es are steep; and the bottom is every where a fine dark sand, except in some places close to the sh.o.r.e, where there are beds of sea-weed, which always grows on rocky ground. The head of the harbour lies open only to two points of the compa.s.s; and even these are covered by islands in the offing, so that no sea can fall in to hurt a ship. The appearances on sh.o.r.e confirmed this; for we found gra.s.s growing close to high-water mark, which is a sure sign of a pacific harbour.[113] It is high-water here, at the full and change days, about ten o'clock; and the tide rises and falls about four feet.

[Footnote 111: Cape Francois, for reasons already a.s.signed.--D.]

[Footnote 112: If there could be the least doubt remaining, of the ident.i.ty of the Baie de l'Oiseau and Christmas Harbour, the circ.u.mstance of the perforated rock, which divides it from another bay to the south, would amount to a strict demonstration. For Monsieur de Pages had observed this discriminating mark before Captain Cook. His words are as follows:--"L'on vit que la cote de l'Est, voisine du Cap Francois, avoit deux baies; elles etoient separees par une pointe tres reconnoissable par sa forme, _qui representoit une porte cochere, au travers de laquelle l'on voyoit le jour_."--Voyages du M. de Pages, vol. ii. p. 67.

Every one knows how exactly the form of a _porte cochere_, or arched gateway, corresponds with that of the arch of a bridge. It is very satisfactory to find the two navigators, neither of whom knew any thing of the other's description, adopting the same idea; which both proves that they had the same uncommon object before their eyes, and that they made an accurate report.--D.]

[Footnote 113: In the last note, we saw how remarkably Monsieur de Pages and Captain Cook agree about the appearance of the south point of the harbour; I shall here subjoin another quotation from the former, containing his account of the harbour itself, in which the reader may trace the same distinguishing features observed by Captain Cook in the foregoing paragraph.

"Le 6, l'on mit a terre dans la premiere baie a l'Est du Cap Francois, & l'on prit possession de ces contrees. Ce mouillage consiste en une pet.i.te rade, qui a environs quatres encablures, ou quatre cents toises de profondeur, sur un tiers en sus de largeur. En dedans de cette rade est un pet.i.t port, dont l'entree, de quatres encablures de largeur, presente au Sud-Est. La sonde de la pet.i.te rade est depuis quarante-cinq jusqu'a trente bra.s.ses; et celle du port depuis seize jusqu'a huit. Le fond des deux est de sable noir et vaseux. La cote des deux bords est haute, & par une pente tres rude; elle est couverte de verdure, & il y a une quant.i.te prodigieuse d'Outardes. Le fond du port est occupe par un monticule qui laisse entre lui, et la mer une plage de sable. Une pet.i.te riviere, de tres bonne eau, coule a la mer dans cet endroit; & elle est fournie par un lac qui est un peu au loin, au dessus du monticule. Il y avoit sur le plage beaucoup de pinguoins & de lions marins. Ces deux especes d'animaux ne fuyoient pas, & l'on augura que le pays n'etoit point habite; la terre rapportoit de l'herbe large, noire, & bien nourrie, qui n'avoit cependant que cinque pouces ou plus de hauteur.

L'on ne vit aucun arbre, ni signe l'habitation."--_Voyage du Monsieur de Pages_, tom. ii. p. 69, 70.--D.]

After I had finished this business of the inscription, I went in my boat round the harbour, and landed in several places, to examine what the sh.o.r.e afforded; and, particularly, to look for drift wood. For, although the land here was totally dest.i.tute of trees, this might not be the case in other parts; and if there were any, the torrents would force some, or, at least, some branches, into the sea, which would afterward throw them upon the sh.o.r.es, as in all other countries where there is wood, and in many where there is none: But throughout the whole extent of the harbour, I found not a single piece.

In the afternoon, I went upon Cape St Louis,[114] accompanied by Mr King, my second lieutenant. I was in hopes, from this elevation, to have had a view of the sea-coast, and of the islands lying off it. But, when I got up, I found every distant object below me hid in a thick fog. The land on the same plain, or of a greater height, was visible enough, and appeared naked and desolate in the highest degree, except some hills to the southward, which were covered with snow.

[Footnote 114: Cape Francois.--D.]

When I got on board, I found the launch hoisted in, the ships unmoored, and ready to put to sea; but our sailing was deferred till five o'clock the next morning, when we weighed anchor.[115]

[Footnote 115: The reader is probably not a little wearied with Dr Douglas's minute comparisons of Kerguelen's and Cook's accounts of the lands in question, which indeed seem unworthy of so much concern. It was of consequence, however, to guard our navigator's reputation; and some persons may relish the discussion, as exhibiting the ac.u.men and good sense which the detector of the infamous Lauder, and the author of "The Criterion," so eminently possessed.--E.]

SECTION V.