Narrative of the Voyages Round the World Part 21

The Hospodin Ivaskin from Verchnei had been desired by Mayor Behm to attend the English officers on their return to the harbour, in order to be their interpreter. He now came. He was an exile; and was of a considerable family in Russia; his father was a general, and he himself, after having received his education partly in France and partly in Germany, had been page to the Empress Elizabeth, and ensign in her guards. At the age of sixteen, he was _knowted_, had his nose slit, and was banished, first to Siberia, end afterward to Kamtschatka, where he had lived thirty-one years. He bore in his whole figure the strongest marks of old age, though he had scarcely reached his fifty-fourth year. No one there knew the cause of his banishment, but they took it for granted, that it must have been for something very atrocious, as two or three of the commanders of Kamtschatka, had in vain endeavoured to get him recalled since the present empress's reign. For the first twenty years he had not tasted bread, nor been allowed subsistence of any kind, but had lived during that period among the Kamtschatdales, on what his own activity and toil in the chase could procure him. Afterward, he had a small pension granted him. This Major Behm by his intercession had caused to be increased to one hundred roubles a year, which is the common pay of an ensign in all parts of the empress's dominions, except in this province, where the pay of all the officers is double.

This gentleman joined Captains Gore and King on a bear-hunting party on the 17th, for two days; in which, first from the party being too large, and the unavoidable noise that was the consequence of it, and next, from the unfavourable weather after they separated, they were wholly unsuccessful.

On the 22nd, the anniversary of his majesty's coronation, and when they were sitting down to as handsome a feast as their situation would admit of, in honour of the day, the arrival of Captain Shmalelf from Bolcheretsk was announced. He partook of their festivities, and set off on his return on the 25th. Before his departure, he reinstated the serjeant in the command of the place, and took with him the sub-lieutenant who had superseded him. Captain King accompanied Captain Shmalelf to the entrance of Awatska river, and on Sunday, the 26th, attended him to church at Paratounea. The church is of wood, and by far the best building in the country round about the bay. It is ornamented by many paintings, particularly with two pictures of St.

Peter and St. Paul, presented by Beering, and which, in the real richness of their drapery, would carry off the prize from the first of European performances; for all the princ.i.p.al parts of it are made of thick plates of solid silver, fastened to the canva.s.s, and fashioned into the various foldings of the robes.

The next day another hunting party was set on foot, under the direction of the clerk of the parish, who was a celebrated bear-hunter. The produce was a female bear, beyond the common size, which they shot in the water, and found dead the next morning in the place to which she had been watched. The mode of hunting these animals by the natives is as follows: When they come to the ground frequented by the bears, their first step is to look for their tracks: these are found in the greatest numbers leading from the woods down to the lakes, and among the long sedgy gra.s.s and brakes by the edge of the water. The place of ambuscade being determined on, the hunters next fix in the ground the crutches upon which their firelocks are made to rest, pointing them in the direction they mean to shoot. This done, they kneel, or lie down, and, with their bear-spears by their side, wait for the game. These precautions, which are chiefly taken in order to make sure of their mark, are, on several accounts, highly expedient. For, in the first place, ammunition is so dear in Kamtschatka, that the price of a bear will not purchase more of it than is sufficient to load a musket four or five times; and, what is more material, if the bear be not rendered incapable of pursuit by the first shot, the consequences are often fatal. He immediately makes towards the place whence the noise and smoke issue, and attacks his adversaries with great fury. It is impossible for them to reload, as the animal is seldom at more than twelve or fifteen yards' distance when he is fired at: so that, if he does not fall, they immediately put themselves in a posture to receive him upon their spears, and their safety greatly depends on their giving him a mortal stab as he first comes upon them. If he parries the thrust (which bears, by the extraordinary strength and agility of their paws, are often enabled to do) and thereby breaks in upon his adversaries, the conflict becomes very unequal, and it is well if the life of one of the party alone suffice to pay the forfeit.

On the 1st of October, the cattle arrived from Verchnei, and the 3rd, being the nameday of the empress, Captain Gore invited the priest of Paratounea, Ivaskin, and the serjeant, to dinner, and an entertainment was also provided for the inferior officers of the garrison, for the _toions_ of Paratounea and Petropaulowska, and for the better sort of the Kamtschatdale inhabitants. The rest of the natives of every description were invited to partake with the ships' companies, who had a pound of good fat beef served up to each man, and what remained of their spirits was made into grog, and divided amongst them.

On the 5th, our navigators received from Bolcheretsk a fresh present of tea, sugar, and tobacco. They were ready for sea, but the weather prevented them from leaving the bay till the 9th. Just before they weighed anchor, the drummer of the marines belonging to the Discovery deserted, having been last seen with a Kamtschatdale woman, to whom his messmates knew he had been much attached, and who had often been observed persuading him to stay behind. This man had been long useless to them, from a swelling in his knee, which rendered him lame, but this made them the more unwilling to leave him behind, to become a burden both to the Russians and himself. Some of the sailors were therefore sent to a well-known haunt of his in the neighbourhood, where they found him and his woman. On the return of the party with the deserter, the vessels weighed, and came out of the bay.

Awatska Bay has within its mouth a n.o.ble basin of twenty-five miles in circuit, with the capacious harbours of Tareinska to the west, Rakoweena to the east, and the small one of St. Peter and St. Paul to the north. The last mentioned is a most convenient little harbour. It will hold with ease half-a-dozen ships moored head and stern, and is fit for giving them any kind of repairs. The south side is formed by a low sandy neck, exceedingly narrow, on which the ostrog is built. The deepest water within is seven fathoms, and in every part over a muddy bottom. There is a watering-place at the head of the harbour.

The commerce of this country, as far as regards the exports, is entirely confined to furs and carried on by a company of merchants inst.i.tuted by the empress. Besides these, there are many inferior traders (particularly Cossacks) scattered through the country.

Formerly this commerce was altogether carried on by barter, but lately every article is bought and sold for ready money only. Our sailors brought a great number of furs with them from the coast of America, and were both astonished and delighted with the quant.i.ty of silver the merchants paid down for them; but on finding neither ginshops to resort to, nor tobacco, nor any thing else that they cared for, to be had for money, the roubles soon became troublesome companions, and often to be seen kicked about the decks.

The articles of importation are princ.i.p.ally European, several likewise come from Siberia, Bucharea, the Calmucks, and China. They consist of course woollen and linen cloths, yarn stockings, bonnets and gloves, thin Persian silks, cottons and nankeens, handkerchiefs, bra.s.s and copper pans, iron stoves, files, guns, powder and shot, hardware, looking-gla.s.ses, flour, sugar, tanned hides, &c. Though the merchants have a large profit upon these important goods, they have still a larger upon the furs of Kiachta, upon the frontiers of China, which is the great market for them. The best sea-otter skins sell generally in Kamtschatka for about thirty roubles each. The Chinese merchant at Kiachta purchases them at more than double that price, and sells them again at Pekin at a great advance, whence a farther profitable trade is made with some of them to j.a.pan. If, therefore, a skin is worth thirty roubles in Kamtchatka, to be transported first to Okotzk, thence by land to Kiachta, a distance of 1364 miles; thence to Pekin, 760 miles more; and after that to be conveyed to j.a.pan, what a prodigiously advantageous trade might be carried on direct to j.a.pan, which is about a fortnight or three weeks' sail from Kamtschatka!

It was now resolved, in consequence of the lat.i.tude given by the instructions of the Board of Admiralty, to run along the Kuriles, and to survey the eastern coasts of the j.a.panese islands, previous to returning homewards; and Captain Gore gave orders for Macao to be the place of rendezvous in case of separation.

They coasted along the peninsula of Kamtschatka with variable weather, and on the 12th, at six in the afternoon, they saw, from the mast head, Cape Lopatka, the southernmost extremity of the peninsula. This point of land, which is a low flat cape, formed a marked object in the geography of the eastern coast of Asia, and by an accurate observation and several good angles, they determined its precise situation to be in lat.i.tude 51 0', and longitude 156 45'. At the same time they saw too the first of the Kurile islands, called Shoomsha, and on the next day they saw the second, Paramousir; the latter is the largest of the Kuriles subject to Russia; but the gale increasing from the west, they were never able to approach it nearer than to observe its general aspect, which was very high land, almost entirely covered with snow; and to ascertain its situation; which was found to be 10' west longitude from Lopatka, and its lat.i.tude 50 46' at the north, and 49 58' at the south end.

On the 14th and 15th, the wind blowing steadily from the westward, they were obliged to stand to the southward, and were consequently hindered from seeing any more of the Kurile islands. In the situation they then found themselves, they were almost surrounded by the supposed discoveries of former navigators. To the southward and south-west were placed, in the French charts, a group of five islands, called the three Sisters, Zellany, and Zunasher. They were about ten leagues, according to the same maps, to the westward of the land of De Gama; and as the Company's Land, Staten Island, and the famous land of Jesso, were also supposed to lie nearly in the same direction, this course was deemed to deserve the preference, and they hauled round to the westward, the wind having shifted to the north. A succession of gales, however, and now and then a storm, that reduced them to their courses, drove them too much to the southward, prevented them from falling in even with the southernmost of the Kurile islands, and obliged them at last to give up all further thoughts of discovery to the north of j.a.pan.

On the 22nd, the gale having abated, they let out the reefs of the topsails and made more sail. At noon they were in lat.i.tude 40 58', and longitude 148 17', and two small land birds being taken on board, plainly indicated they could not be any great distance from the land; they therefore hauled up to the west-north-west, in which direction the southernmost islands seen by Spanberg, and said to be inhabited by hairy men, lay at the distance of about fifty leagues. They saw several other signs of land; but, on the 24th, the wind shifted to the north, and blew a fresh gale, so that they finally gave up all further search for islands to the north of j.a.pan, and shaped their course west-south-west, for the north part of that island.

On the 26th, at daybreak, they descried high land to the westward, which proved to be j.a.pan. The country consisted of a double range of mountains; it abounded with wood, and had a pleasing variety of hills and dales. They saw the smoke of several towns, and many houses near the sh.o.r.e, in pleasant and cultivated situations. They stood off and on, according as the weather permitted them, till the 28th in the afternoon, when they lost sight of the land, and from its breaking off so suddenly, they conjectured that what they had before seen was a cl.u.s.ter of islands, lying off the main land of j.a.pan. The next day they saw land again, eleven leagues to the southward. The coast appeared straight and unbroken; towards the sea it was low, but rose gradually into hills of a moderate height, whose tops were tolerably even, and covered with wood.

At nine o'clock, the wind shifting to the southward, they tacked and stood off to the east, and soon after they saw a vessel close in with the land, standing along sh.o.r.e to the northward, and another in the offing, coming down before the wind. Objects of any kind, belonging to a country so famous and yet so little known, excited a general curiosity, and every soul on board was upon deck in an instant, to gaze at them. The vessel to windward pa.s.sed ahead of them at the distance of about half a mile. It would have been easy to have spoken with her; but perceiving, by her manoeuvres, that she was much frightened, Captain Gore was not willing to augment her terrors, and thinking that they should have many better opportunities of communicating with the j.a.panese, suffered her to go off without interruption. There appeared to be about six men on board, and, according to the best conjectures that could be formed, the vessel was about forty tons burden. She had but one mast, on which was hoisted a square sail, extended by a yard aloft, the braces of which worked forward. Halfway down the sail came three pieces of black cloth, at equal distances from each other. The vessel was higher at each end than in the midship, and from her appearance and form she did not appear to be able to sail otherwise than large.

Soon after the wind increased so much, that our navigators were reduced to their courses; and the sea ran as high as any one on board ever remembered to have seen it. If the j.a.penese vessels are, as Kaempfer describes them, open in the stern, it would not have been possible for those they saw to have survived the fury of the storm; but as the appearance of the weather, all the preceding part of the day, foretold its coming, and one of the sloops had, notwithstanding, stood far out to sea, it was concluded they were perfectly capable of bearing a gale of wind.

Our navigators were blown off the land by this gale, but on the 30th they saw it again, at the distance of about fifteen leagues, appearing in detached parts, but it could not be determined whether they were small islands, or parts of j.a.pan.

On the 1st of November, they saw a number of j.a.panese vessels close in with the land, several seemingly engaged in fishing, and others standing along sh.o.r.e. They discovered to the westward a remarkably high mountain, with a round top, rising far inland. As this was the most remarkable hill on the coast, they wished to have settled its situation exactly; but only having had a single view, they were obliged to be contented with such accuracy as their circ.u.mstances would allow.

Its lat.i.tude was reckoned to be 35 20', and its longitude 140 26'.

As the Dutch charts made the coast of j.a.pan extend about ten leagues to the south-west of White Paint (supposed to be the southernmost land then in sight) our navigators stood off to the eastward, to weather the point. At midnight they again tacked, expecting to fall in with the land to the southward, but were surprised to find, in the morning, that during eight hours, in which they supposed they had made a course of nine leagues to the south-west, they had in reality been carried eight leagues in a direction diametrically opposite. Whence they calculated that the current had set to the north-east by north, at the rate of at least five miles an hour.

On the 3rd of November, they were again blown off the land by a heavy gale, and found themselves upwards of fifty leagues off, which circ.u.mstances, together with the extraordinary effect of the currents they had experienced, the late season of the year, the unsettled state of the weather, and the little likelihood of any change for the better, made Captain Gore resolve to leave j.a.pan altogether, and proceed in the voyage for China.

On the 4th and 5th, our navigators, continuing their course to the south-east, pa.s.sed great quant.i.ties of pumice-stone. These stones appeared to have been thrown into the sea by eruptions of various dates, as many of them were covered with barnacles, and others quite bare.

On the 13th, they had a most violent gale from the northward. In the morning of the 13th, the wind, shifting to the north-west, brought with it fair weather; but, though they were, at that time, nearly in the situation given to the island of San Juan, they saw no appearance of land. They continued to pa.s.s much pumice-stone; indeed the prodigious quant.i.ties of that substance which floated in the sea, between j.a.pan and the Bashee Islands, seemed to indicate that some great volcanic convulsion must have happened in that part of the Pacific Ocean.

On the 14th, they discovered two islands, and on the next day a third; but Captain Gore, finding that a boat could not land without some danger, from the great surf that broke on the sh.o.r.e, kept on his course to the westward. The middle island is about five miles long; the south point is a high barren hill, presenting an evident volcanic crater. The earth, rock, or sand, for it was not easy to distinguish of which its surface was composed, exhibited various colours, and a considerable part was conjectured to be sulphur, and some of the officers on board the Resolution thought they saw steams rising from the top of the hill. From these circ.u.mstances, Captain Gore gave it the name of _Sulphur Island_. A long narrow neck of land connects the hill with the south end of the island, which spreads out into a circ.u.mference of three or four leagues, and is of moderate height. The north and south islands appeared to be single mountains of a considerable height. Sulphur Island is in the lat.i.tude 24 48', longitude 141 12'. The north island in lat.i.tude 25 14', longitude 141 10', and the south island in lat.i.tude 24 22', and longitude 141 20'.

Hence our navigators proceeded for the Bashee Islands, hoping to procure at them such a supply of refreshment as would help to shorten their stay at Macao; but Captain Gore, being guided by the opinions of Commodore and Captain Wallis, as to the situation of these islands, which differ materially from Dampier's, they were foiled in their endeavours to find them, although, in the day time, the ships spread two or three leagues from each other, and in the night, when under an easy sail.

On the 27th, being in longitude 118 30', and having got to the westward of the Bashees, according to Mr. Byron's account, our navigators hauled their wind to the north west, hoping to weather the Prata shoals but at four in the morning of the 28th, the breakers were close under their lee; at daylight they saw the island of Prata, and finding they could not weather the shoal, ran to leeward of it. As they pa.s.sed the south side, they saw two remarkable patches on the edge of the breakers, that looked like wrecks. On the south-west side of the reef, and near the south end of the island, they thought they saw openings in the reefs which promised safe anchorage.

In the forenoon of the 29th, they pa.s.sed several Chinese fishing boats; and the sea was covered with wrecks of boats that had been lost, as they conjectured, in the late boisterous weather. They were in lat.i.tude 22 1', having run 110 miles since the preceding noon.

On the 30th, they ran along the Lema Islands, and got a Chinese pilot on board. In obedience to the instruction given to Captain Cook by the Admiralty, the captains now required of the officers and men of both ships to give up their journals, and what other papers they had to their possession relative to the voyage, which was cheerfully complied with; and at nine o'clock in the evening of the following day, they anch.o.r.ed three leagues from Macao.

Here, upon sending on sh.o.r.e to negotiate for supplies of provisions, &c. they first received intelligence of the occurrences in Europe, during the protracted period of their absence. On the 4th of December, they stood into the Typa, and moored with the stream-anchor and cable to the westward.

Captain King was sent up to Canton to expedite the supplies that were wanted, and experienced every possible a.s.sistance from the supercargoes and gentlemen of the Company's factory there. The purchase of the provisions and store wanted was completed on the 26th, and the whole stock was sent down on the following day by a vessel which Captain Gore had engaged for the purpose. Twenty sea-otter skins were sold at Canton, by Captain King, for eight hundred dollars. At the ships a brisk trade was carried on in the same article, by both officers and seamen. The sea-otter skins every day rose in value, and a few prime skins, which were clean and well preserved, were sold for one hundred and twenty dollars each. The whole amount of the value, in specie and goods, that was got for the furs in both ships, did not fall short of two thousand pounds sterling, and it was generally supposed, that at least two-thirds of the quant.i.ty originally obtained from the Americans were spoiled or worn out, or had been given away or sold at Kamtschatka. In consequence hereof, the rage with which the seamen were possessed to return to Cook' River, and by another cargo of skins to make their fortunes, was, at one time, not far short of mutiny. The numerous voyages that have since been undertaken for the prosecution of the trade here suggested, have rendered it familiar to the merchants both of Britain and of America; and, though it has not latterly been productive of advantages equal to those which were realized by the first adventurers, is still a branch of commerce that is successfully pursued.

The barter which had been carrying on with the Chinese for their sea-otter skins, produced a very whimsical change in the dress of the crews. On their arrival in the Typa, nothing could exceed the ragged appearance both of the younger officers and seamen; almost the whole of their original stock of European clothes having been long worn out, or patched up with skins, or the various manufactures they had met with in the course of their discoveries. These were now again mixed and eked out with the gaudiest silks and cottons of China.

On the 11th of January, two seamen belonging to the Resolution ran off with a six oared cutter, and were never after heard of. It was supposed that they had been seduced by the prevailing notion of making a fortune by returning to the fur islands.

On account of the war between England and America, with France and Spain as her allies, of which they received intelligence at Canton, they put themselves in the best posture of defence, the Resolution mounting sixteen guns, and the Discovery ten. They had reason, however, to believe, from the generosity of their enemies, that these precautions were superfluous: being informed that instructions had been found on board all the French ships of war captured in Europe, directing their commanders, in case of falling in with the ships that sailed under the command of Captain Cook, to suffer them to proceed without molestation; and the same orders were also said to have been given by the American Congress to the vessels employed in their service. In return for these liberal concessions, Captain Gore resolved to refrain from availing himself of any opportunities of capture, and to preserve throughout the remainder of the voyage, the strictest neutrality.

On the 12th of January, 1780, our navigators got under sail from Macao; on the 19th, they saw Pulo Sapata, and on the 20th, descried Pulo Condore, and anch.o.r.ed in the harbour at the south-west end of the island. The town is situated at the east end, and here they procured eight buffaloes, with other refreshments. From the untractableness and prodigious strength of the buffaloes, it was both a tedious and difficult operation to get them on board. The method of conducting them was by pa.s.sing ropes through their nostrils and round their horns; but, having been once enraged at the sight of our men, they became so furious that they sometimes broke the trees to which they were often under the necessity of being tied; sometimes they tore asunder the cartilage of the nostril through which the ropes ran, and got loose. On these occasions, all the exertions of the men to recover them would have been ineffectual, without the a.s.sistance of some young boys, whom these animals would permit to approach them, and by whose little management their rage was soon appeased. A circ.u.mstance respecting these animals, which was thought no less singular than their gentleness toward, and, as it should seem, affection for, little children, was, that they had not been twenty-four hours on board, before they became the tamest of all creatures. Captain King kept two of them, a male and a female, for a considerable time, which became great favourites with the sailors; and thinking that a breed of animals of such strength and size, some of them weighing when dressed, seven hundred pounds, would be a valuable acquisition, intended to have brought them with him to England, but his intention was frustrated by an incurable hurt which one of them received at sea.

Our navigators remained here till the 28th of January, when they unmoored and proceeded on their homeward voyage, pa.s.sing through the Straits of Banea, and of Sunda, without any occurrence worthy of particular remark. They saw two or three Dutch ships in the Straits of Sunda. They watered at Prince's Island at the entrance of the Straits, and got a supply of fowls and turtle there.

From the time of their entering the Straits of Banea, they began to experience the powerful effects of the pestilential climate, and malignant putrid fevers, with obstinate coughs and dysenteries, prevailed amongst the crews, happily, however, without one fatal termination.

On the 18th of February they left the Straits of Sunda; in the night between the 25th and 26th, they experienced a most violent storm, during which almost every sail they had bent was split to rags, and the next day they were obliged to bend their last suit of sails, and to knot and splice the rigging, their cordage being all expended.

On the 7th of April they saw the land of Africa, and on the 9th, they fell in with an English East India packet, that had left Table Bay three days before. On the evening of the 12th, they dropped anchor in False Bay, and the next morning stood into Simon's Bay.

Having completed their victualling, and furnished themselves with the necessary supply of naval stores, our navigators sailed out of the bay on the 9th of May. On the 12th of June, they pa.s.sed the equator for the fourth time during the voyage. On the 12th of August they made the western coast of Ireland, and, after a fruitless attempt to put into Port Galway, they were obliged, by strong southerly winds, to steer to the northward; and, on the 26th of August, both ships came to an anchor in Stromness, in the Orkneys, whence Captain King was dispatched by Captain Gore, to acquaint the board of Admiralty with their arrival. On the first of October, the ships arrived safe at the Nore, after an absence of four years, two months, and twenty-two days.

THE MORAI.

AN ODE.

BY MISS HELEN MARIA WILLIAMS.

Fair Otaheite, fondly bless'd By him, who long was doom'd to brave The fury of the polar wave, That fiercely mounts the frozen rock Where the harsh sea bird rears her nest, And learns the raging surge to mock-- There, Night, that loves eternal storm.

Deep and lengthen'd darkness throws, And untried Danger's doubtful form Its half seen horror shews!

While Nature, with a look so wild, Leans on the cliffs in chaos piled; That here, the awed, astonish'd mind Forgets, in that o'erwhelming hour, When her rude hands the storms unbind, In all the madness of her power; That she who spreads the savage gloom, That _she_ can dress in melting grace, In sportive Summer's lavish bloom, The awful terrors of her face; And wear the sweet perennial smile That charms in Otaheite's isle.

Yet, amid her fragrant bowers.

Where Spring, whose dewy fingers strew O'er other lands some fleeting flowers, Lives, in blossoms ever new; Whence arose that shriek of pain?

Whence the tear that flows in vain?-- Death! thy unrelenting hand Tears some transient human band-- Eternity! rich plant that blows Beneath a brighter, happier sky.

Time is a fading branch, that grows On thy pure stem, and blooms to die.

What art thou, Death?--terrific shade.