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Un des symboles suivants apparaitra sur la dnrniAra image de cheque microfiche, seior le cat! le symbols — ^ signifie "A SUIVRE", le symbols Y signifie "FIN". Meps, plates, charts, etc., may be filmed at different reduction ratios. Those too large to be entirely included in one exposure are filmed beginning in the upper left hand corner, left to right and top to bottom, as meny frames as required. The following diagrams illustrate the method: Les cartes, plenches, tableaux, etc.. peuvent Atre filmis A des taux de reduction diffArents. Lorsque le document est trop grand pour Atre raproduit en un seul clichA. il est film* A partir de Tangle sup6rieur geuchd, de gauche A droite, et de haut en bas. en prenant le nombre d'images nAcesssire. Les diagrammas suivants illustrent la mAthode. -'1 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 S 6 THE STRAITS OF MAGELLAN AND EASTERN SHORES OF THE PACIFIC OCEAN. BY STAFF-COMMANDER A. W. MILLEB, E.Jf. PORTSMOUTH : GRIFFIN & Co., 2, THE HARD, (Publisti^n by Appointment, to H.R.H. the Duke of Ediftbur.u I London Agents; SIMPKIN, MARSHALL & Co 1S84 }\ PREFACE. <.jsaf^ycljfi5jje«'!^s»an^^ 36198 prcv!Nc:al_ L-.nr^A • VICTORIA, B. G, n •/ J'reface. capped mountains for the last ten years, and will probabl) go on doing the same thing ard telling the same "yarns" till he shall either "lose the number of his mess," or we find him keeping a small beer shoj) down Poplar way or just upon the outskirts of Southampton. But do we wish to know about those few remaining ruins at Port Famine ; of the persever ance of a Sarmiento ; of the lieroic deeds of a Cordova ; of the many battles fought and won before C'hili and Peru threw off the yoke which had cost so much blood to place it upon their shoulders : of the ancient cities ol Central America ; or the early history of California, and the two hundred years of mission work which have, one might almost say, been swal lowed up in its dry and arid soil — it is not only one book wc must apply to, but dozens. And so, my dear readers, having spent a good ten years of my life wandering about the "Straits of Magellan and Eastern shores of the Pacific," and feeling a certain affection for my old cruising ground, to say nothing of a sort of sneak- ing idea that I may be able to interest a few of my leaders in the subject, I have ventured to string together a few- historical facts and modern incidents, bearing upon the title which I have chosen, and which I hope may find favour in the eyes of such as may deem my little book worthy of their leisure '.loments. In treating my subject, I propose to begin at the Straits of Magellan as the entrance or high road to the Pacific, for in these days of steam navigation, they play a most important part in the list of navigable waters ; and from there, to pro- ceed up the coasts of Chili, Peru, Central America, Mexico, California, and British Columbia, or "the eastern shores of the Pacific. A. W. M. i r II E Straits of Magellan and Eastern Shores of tbe Pacific Ocean. BT STAFF-COMMANDER A. W. MILLER, R.N. CHAPTER I. Organization of Enterprize. In the early part of the sixteenth century the Pacific, or South Sea as it was then called, although fairly well known in the ini.iiediate vicinity of Panama and Central America to the Spaniards, who were at that time in possession of the greater part of the Central American States, was but little known to the outside world, and indeed was only known to the Spaniards as a vast sea supposed to be entirely sur- rounded by land, except about the East Indies, where they knew there was an inlet. Now at this time the passage by the East Indies was held by the Portugese, who were extremely jealous of any inter- ference on the part of the Spaniards and imposed very heavy dues on the few, I may say the very few, ships that attempted to come that way into the Pacific. The Moluccas and Philippine Islands, however, belonged to the Spaniards and they had to pass through the East Indies to get there. Magellan, who was Portugese by birth, and had already been out to the East Indies on a voyage of discovery, volun- teered the information to the King of Spain that there was, 6 Mageilafu preparations Jor starting^ in his opinion, a way of getting to the Pacific to the south- ward of the continent of South America. The King met him more than halfway, and (notwithstanding the bitter opposition of the Portugese government, who were most jealous of one of their own nation aiding the Spaniards, as they thought, to rival them in their much valued spice trade), engaged him to discover it, supplying him with ships, men, and money — but stipulated only that the credit should belong to Spaiu. Accordingly in the year 1519 Magellan sailed with a fleet of five ships to circumnavigate the world, for he was bound for the Moluccas by South America, and to return home by the Cape of Good Hope. Before starting on so perilous an enterprize, and one ot such importance both to trade, and the prestige of the country, of course great preparations had to be made, the ships were stored and victualed for two years, each carried a captain, pilot, and ma together with other subordinate officers, and in all the tonnage amounted to about 450, and the number of men and officers 270; his largest ship only measuring 140 tons, the smallest 60. In the agreement drawn up between Magellan and the King (Charles V.), he (Magellan) was, in case more than six Islands should be discovered, allowed to mark out two from which he was to take one fifteenth part of all the net profits and duties of the King, after the expenses had been deducted, also one fifth of all the net profits of the voyage after ex- penses had been deducted. He was also allowed to trade to the amount of one thousand ducats a year. As an instance of the bitter feeling against Magellan on the part of his own countrymen, and at the same time the slender basis on which he had to navigate, I give an extract r s •I Sailing intc unknown ivaters 7 from a letter written at the time to Don Manuel (King o( Portugal), by one Sebastian Alvarez,, the King's factor in Castille. ** From Cape Frio until the Islands of Molucca through- '"out this navigation, there are no lands laid down in the "maps they carry with them. Please God the Almighty tliat *'they may make such a voyage as did the Cortereals." The voyage alluded to was one in which the unfortunate navi- gators never returned to tell their tale ! This Sebastian Alvarez, it is said, was the instigator of a mutiny which broke out soon afterwards, when the fleet had arrived at Port J ulian. About the beginning of 15 19 Magellan sailed with his five ships and calling at the Canary Islands and Cape de Verdes, shaped course for Cape Frio on the coast of Brazil. After some storms and bad weather they arrived at the present harbour of Rio de Janeiro about the end of March, and having " refreshed their crews " again sailed, this time into unknown waters, for as Alvarez wrote, their charts gave no land south of Cape Frio or perhaps more properly Riode Janeiro. For many days they sailed to the southward and at last arrived at Cape Santa Maria ; this ^they took for the long expected strait which was to lead them through to the South Sea, but great was their chagrin when they discovered it was what is now known as the Rio de la Plata that they had entered. ^Magellan named it Rio San Cli/istopher. Soon after this they arrived at Port St. Julian, and here Magellan determined to pass the winter as the season had already become very boisterous. * It was suggested to Magellan before he sailed that he pnight find a channel through to the South Sea by entering at this river. Mode of siii^nti/ing. I According to Pigapheta, a Knight of Rhodes, Magellan's arrangements for the governance of his fleet were not the least wonderful thing in the life and actions of this great navigator. His fliei ( ')uld be manfcuvred both by day or night signals, his arrangement for the watches to be kept, the division. il regulations, the messing of the men, all showed a master mind in the art of command ; and his system of night signals showed ingenuity of a rare sort. This latter will be easily understood by the naval man, as they somewhat approached our present flashing system. The light was supplied by a torch, composed in most cases of dried reeds, j)reparcd by softening them first in water then drying them in the sun, these wiien steeped for a while in oil, gave a good light, and would be lit up one, two, three, or four at a tiuie, according to the signal required. One signal will suffice as an example, I give it in the ([uaint words of the historian already mentioned : — " Likewise when the captain wished the other ships to lower the sail, he had four lights shown, which, shortly after he had put out and then showed a single one, which was a signal that he wished to stop there and turn, so as the other ships might do as he did.'" Our present signals to shorten sail and wear ship could scarcely be executed in less time ! During Magellan's stay in Port St. Julian, a mutiny broke out, which came well nigh cutting short the voyage that was to make his name so famous and to add so much to nautical knowledge Three of his ships gave out that they intended to go no further but would take him back to Castille for they believed he was only leading them on to destruction ; one Luis de Mendoza, who was treasurer of the whole fleet, was Mutiny on hoard. captain of one of these ships, and (la:,par de Queixada of another, the fcvimer the Victoria, the latter the Conception. Under the circumstah. es we need not be astonished if wc find Magellan had recourse to strong measures to save hi^ expedition being brouiiht to surh a disgraceful termination. Having heard of their intentions from one Ambrosio Fernandez his chief constable, be ordered him to pick out six of the best men of his crew, to arm them well, and then to repair on board Mendoza's ship as if to treat with him, but really to stab him ; this Magellan foresaw would go far towards ([uelling the mutiny of itself, but ;ike a wise general never lost sight of the fact that a reserve nught be wanted. The fleet it would seem were moored in line, so that Magell in had, with the flood tide, Mendoza's ship astern of him and that of (Queixada ahead : he ordered a strong hawser to be attached to the cable of his own ship and the crew to arm themselves and prepare to board ; when the flood tide was at its strongest, Fernandez set forth on his perilous ad- venture, but, as he had expected, Mendoza would not let him come onboard, after some talk however, during which Fernandez showed liim that he was only one man against so many, and that it was absurd to think that he could do him any harm, he was allowed on board, no sooner had his feet touched the deck than he seized Mendoza in his arms, ex- claiming " on behalf of the Emperor you are arrested," the boat's crew, well armed, rushed on deck to the constable's assistance ; and so surprised were the crew ot the Victoria at this daring attempt, that it was some moments before they fully appreciated the position. Meantime Magellan had veered away the hawser attached to his cable, and the flood tide had brought his ship alongside •m r 10 Discovery of the Straits. li: ' that of Mendoza ; to board with his own men and take the whole of Mendoza's crew prisoners was only the work of a few moments, but in the meantiiiie Mendoza himself had been stabbed by Fernandez, and as far as the Victoria was con- cerned the mutiny was at an end. As the tide turned, Magellan allowed his ship to swing round on Queixada's, and by boarding her in a similar manner, made his crew also prisoners, and the mutiny was at an end. Five men of the Conception^ ringleaders in the affair were hung, and a few days afterwards Queixada himself de- capitated, both he and Mendoza being quartered and exposed to the whole fleet as a warning to all mutineers. Magellan stayed with his fleet four months at Port St. Julien, during which time they saw many of the natives of what is now called Patagonia. These men were of immense size, and startled the Spaniards at first not a little, but proved to be very peaceably inclined, and they soon became good friends. From the fact of their wearing very clumsy shoes, or more properly mocassins, made from the skin of the guanaco, Magellan gave them the name of the Patagones or Clumsy Feet, hence the name which has adhered to them and to their country ever since. About the middle of October, Magellan sailed from Port St. Julien, and in the course of a few days, to his great delight, discovered the Straits which ever since have borne his name. Magellan called the northern point of entrance Cape Virgins as it v/as the day of the eleven thousand Virgins on which he discovered it. They anchored in a small bay a little distance beyond the cape, and Magellan sent one of the smaller ships, the St. Antonio^ commanded by his cousin, Alvaro de Mesquita, to survey the entrance ; this vessel, much The •* St. Antonio " returns to S/xiin. 11 to Magellan's grief, never returned, and after a few days' delay he concluded she had been wrecked and proceeded on his voyage ; widely different however was the fate of Alvaro de Mesquita. The pilot of his ship, a Portugese namod Gomez, it appears had from the very first been very jealous of the honour conferred on Magellan by the King of Spain, for he himself had offered his services in a like manner, but these had been rejected; he therefore determined to be revenged — accident favoured his designs. While entering the first narrows the ebb tide began to set out and its well known strength carried them back, and to the southward, out of sight of Magellan and the rest of the fleet. Here was the chance which Gomez had longed for ; he at once began inciting the crew to mutiny against Mesriuita, and offered himself to take ihem all back safe to Spain ; his words soon won over the fickle crew to his side, Mesquita was put in irons and the course of the St. Antonio shaped for Spain. On the arival of the St. Antonio at home Gomez reported that Magellan was mad, and that he knew neither where the Moluccas were, nor the way to get to them, and so they had left him. He also reported that Alvaro de Mesquita had advised the harsh measures Magellan had adopted in quelling the mutiny, and so brought him very near meeting a similar end to the mutineers themselves. In passing through the Straits they noticed many fires on the tops of the hills on the south side ; these they at first took for small volcanoes, but were afterwards proved to be fires lit by the natives, a mode of signaling the approach of a stranger which they retain to this day. From this fact Magellan gave the place the name of " Tierra del Fuego," or Land of Fire. f 12 Morals of the Fue^ians. I The natives of Tierra del Fuego are described by Darwin as cannibals in war time — that is, they eat their prisoners of war — but at other times they are not so, unless very hard pressed for food, when, he says, they kill their old women by holding them over a wood fire and choking them, when they cook and eat them. But T think since the days of the "Beagle" and "Adventure" good Bishop Stirling has taught many of the Fuegians that this is not quite what is meant by the command " Honour thy father and mother," although from a little story that was told me some time ago by a gentleman of my acquaintance, you will see that, if filial affection is not a strong point amongst the Fuegians, neither has maternal affection the power which we are accustomed to ascribe to it. My friend was passing through the Straits of Magellan in a steamer which he commanded some two years ago, and on nearing the southern shore a canoe full of the natives put off to barter skins and arrows, &c., for biscuit and tobacco, as they usually do when they get the chance. Amongst the inmates of the canoe was a woman and her child, of which she seemed very fond. Captain F — had an old umbrella in his hand which he had brought up for barter. " Makee chop dat bull chilo," said he to the woman. He had been in China and thought "Pigeon" English as good as any other langua ge to a Fuegian. To enhance the value of the old umbrella which he was tendering in exchange for the child, he slowly opened and shut it as he spoke ; the lady however was obdurate, and would have none of it. A prolonged Oh-h-h ! however from the other inmates of the canoe showed that he had made a decided hit, and much \ Fuegians as thieves. 13 guttural conversation followed, which unfortunately, for want of a Fuegian dictionary, he was unable to gather the mean- ing of; but she seemed to be catching it pretty hot for her want of commercial enterprise. « The lady began to waver. Captain F— renewed his offer, again opening up the umbrella. Maternal affection was slipping down hill at a fearful pace; and when the umbrella was triumphantly held aloft over his head, the captain's victory was complete; the baby was passed on board, and great was the lady's disgust when told the whole thing was only a joke, and she had to receive her child back again, instead of the much coveted umbrella. The Fuegian's ordinary mode of living is in canoes, their wigwams being only temporary structures made by sticking a few wands in the ground in a semicircular form and covering them with skins or leaves ; their mode of feeding is filthy in the extreme, shell fish, sea eggs and berries forming their principal articles of food, but a putrid seal or whale is con- sidered a great luxury and will furnish the occasion of a great feast. King in his " Voyage of the ' Adventure ' and ' Beagle,' " describes them as the most clever thieves he had ever come across, and in all .heir communications with them, would place some one to watch lest they should help themselves to something that was not intended for barter. Byron gives them the same character, and on one occasion actually had his own hat stolen off his head. So nimble were they on foot, that if the theft took place on shore, even the swiitest of his men could not overtake them to recover their property. 14 Dexterity of the Fuegians. i ■ Their wonderful dexterity with the sling and stone greatly surprised King and his followers. On one occasion one of them standing near the water was asked to sling a stone at a canoe some little distance off ; he chose a pebble about the size of a pigeon's egg and placing it in the sling, swung it round his head as if to throw it at the canoe, but suddenly turning round in the opposite direction, slung it with great force against a tree close by— so ^vell had he calculated the angle at which it would fly off, that the stone fell within a foot or two of the canoe. During the "Adventure's" stay at San Nicolas Bay on their first visit to the Straits, they had much traffic with a tribe of Fuegians who had come over from the other side of the Straits, and frequently the women offered their children in barter for beads, knives &c., and when at last the ship was leaving the anchorage, one young man who had evidently made a good thing by his speculation, even offered the captain his wife if he would only stay, she on her part being nothing loth to second her husband's proposal. Indeed, wife, canoe, children, dogs, and household furniture might have all been bought for a few knives and buttons. Magellan seems by all accounts to have made but little attempt to survey the straits he had discovered, his object being rather to push on his voyage to the Moluccas ; as he says himself, " seeing the country was rocky and stark with eternal cold, it would be useless to waste many days in examining it." And indeed as recently as 1802, the same opinion seems to have been held, for in the *^ Naval Gazetteer" of that year, I find the only notice of the straits, after mentioning by whom and when they were discovered, is that " as a long and V 'k Appearance of the Coast, 15 intricate navigation, it is not likely they will ever be of any service, and therefore a particular description may well be spared ! " He cleared the straits in 37 days, after much bad weather, and shaped his course for Zebu, where he was killed, poor man, in battle. I r it CHAPTER II. Loyasa^s Expedition. The next expedition to the Straits of Magellan of which we have any notice was in 1525; it consisted of six ships under the command of a Spaniard named Loyasa, he took five months getting out to the straits and no less a time than four months getting through them, but this, considering the crazy cockle-shells that men used to go about the world in in those days is not quite so sui prising as at first sight may appear, for, although the distance is less than four hundred miles, the winds are generally from the westward, or against a ship going through to the Pacific, and are sometimes of such a furious nature as to drive ships back many miles to seek shelter behind some friendly point or headland. I have been as many as nine days going through the Straits of Magellan in a powerful steamer. As soon as Loyasa arrived in the open ocean he met with a violent gale, which separated him from two of his smaller craft ; these being of only 8 and 1 5 tons respectively, had very little stowage room for provisions, and were dependent in a great measure for them on the larger ships. Guivara, who was in command of the larger of these little vessels, seeing that, under the circumstances, death by starvation was not at all improbable, determined to shape his course for new Spain, as the Central American Provinces were then called. This voyage took them five weeks, during - which time their sufferings from hunger were extreme, GuivarA had on board his vessel a few fowls which used to lay eggs, and so great was the value set upon these articles of food, that the captain of the smaller vessel offered him Murder of Alcazava. 17 looo ducats for the fowls, which was refused. After five weeks of the most terrible privatiorf the poor wretches landed in the Gulf of Tehuantepie, more dead than alive.* It was eight or nine years after this that a Spaniard called Alcazava, at his own expense, fitted out three ships for an expedition through the Straits to the South Sea, hoping to repay himself by saving the enormous dues charged by the Portugese in the East Indies. They got through the Straits without much trouble, but met with such bad weather on reaching the open ocean, that they put back again to a port on the coast of Patagonia, probably St. Julien, where they spent the winter. While there, Alcazava sent an expedition inland, under Isla, his second in command; they took with them only. three weeks* pro\'isions, but at the instigation of some Indians who were acting as guides, and who told them of great wealth to be had by pushing on to a town they said was only a short way off, they went much further than was intended, and finding neither town nor provisions, were in great distress. They returned, having lost more than half their number, only to find that those who had remained behind had mutined, murdered Alcazava, and were on the point of sailing on a piratical expedition. At first they would have nothing to do with Isla and his men, but before sailing, some of the mutineers, seeing their countrymen in such a sorry plight, relented, and finally gave thetnselves up to Isla, who took the most prompt measure for preventing a recurrence of such a state of affairs by hanging all the mutineers. He then returned to Spain. * This is not a likely story, but I give it to the reader for what it is worth. B 18 First Court- Martial. J A i.ii For nearly fifty years after this the Straits of Magellan seem to have been a dead letter to the whole world — indeed, people even began to believe t hat they had been filled up by some hugh convulsion of nature. In the year 1577, however, our own Sir Francis Drake appears upon the scene, and awakened the Spaniards in rather a rude manner to the fact that they still existed. He sailed with a fleet of five ships, the largest of which was only 100 tons burthen, for the South Sea, ina the Straits of Magellan, with the object of harrassing the Spanish colonies on its eastern shores ; for at that time the whole of the coast line from Patagonia to California was under Spanish Rule. Drake had a fairly prosporous voyage, and having arrived at Port St. Julien, determined to winter there. Here was held the first specimen on record of the naval court-martial. A gentleman named Doughty, of whom Drake was particularly fond, had been fomenting or trying to foment disaffection in the fleet, thus repaying Drake's kindness by trying to undermine the whole expedition by which he was to make his name and fortune. Drake has been accused of much harshness in his treat- ment of Doughty on this occasion, but as a matter of fact, so little did he believe Doughty to be capable of such ingratitude, that it was months after the matter had been first reported to him, before he would take any steps even to verify what was said; and even then, instead of investigating it himself, he put it into the hands of those who must have been as impartial as it was possible for any one to be on the subject, for we are told by Fletcher, Drake's chaplain-general, that " he assembled together all the captains and gentlemen, more than forty in number, the chiefest of place and judg- t I Sentence of Court-Martial, 19 t ment in ihe whole fleet," to take part in the trial, and these it was wno weighed the evidence, and gave the verdict against Doughty, sentti; ^ing him in the quaint language of the time : ** He has deserved death," they said ** and it stands by no means with our safety to let him live." Drake gave him his choice of three modes of having the sentence carried out ; first to be left with a few days' pro- visions among the natives ; second to be executed then and there ; and third to be sent home and dealt with by the authorities in England. Of these he chose the second, only requesting that he might suffer death as a gentleman, and we have ample proof, if the writings of Fletcher are to be credited, that Doughty himself considered lie was fairly and even leniently treated, for on being told of the verdict of the court and their sentence, " he most humbly thanked the General (Drake) for his clemency, extended towards him in such ample sort." He was accordingly beheaded on one of the islands near, having previously, as we are told, " supped in the most friendly sort with the general." During their passage through the Straits of Magellan Drake and his fleet, now reduced to three ships, seem to have had but little intercourse with the natives : Fletcher, on one occasion, goes somewhat into raptures over a canoe they came across, and gives such a glowing description of it that my readers must excuse me if I retail it to them in his own quaint language: — " This canoe, or boat, was made of the bark of divers trees, having a prow, and a stern standing up, and semi- circle-wise yielding inwards, of one form and fashion, the body whereof was a most dainty mould, bearing in it most comely proportion and excellent workmanship, insomuch as to our General and us it seemed never to have been done B2 20 Drake cleared the Straits. H without the cunning and expert judgment of art ; and that not for the use of so rude and barbarous a people, but for the pleasure of some great and noble personage, yea, of some prince !" Whatever admiration they had for the boat, its inmates bore no share in, for they are only spoken of as " mean and barbarous creatures." Drake cleared the Straits in the marvellously short period of sixteen days^ and anchored in a port at the western entrance, probably Port Mercy, where in one of the terrific squalls so well-known to the navigator of these regions, he parted his cable and had to put to sea. A continuation of bad weather drove him considerably to the southward of the Straits and separated him from the one remaining vessel he had with him out of his fleet of five. After some weeks of knocking about on the most dangerous and inhospitable coast, they, as Drake himself says, "fell in with the utter mcst part of the land which is towards the South Pole, where the Atlantic and the South Sea meet in one large and free acope. And it is a curious tact, that although the Straits of Magellan had been known for more than fifty years as a route to the South Sea, no one had ever tried to discover what Drake found out by pure accident, viz., that only four or five degrees south of the Straits there was an end of the vast continent of South America. Drake's appearance in the Pacific drew once more the attention or the Spaniards to the existence of the Straits, and Sarmiento, a man whose name is well-known in connection with that part of the world, sailed from Lima on a voyage of discovery ; he surveyed the Straits, entering them by what ') Sarmiento's Expedition. 21 i is known now as the Smyth's Channel route,* that is, the inland channels all along inside the numerous islands extend- ing from the western entrance to the Straits of Magellan up to the Gulf of Penas. Returning to Spain, he gave the most glowing account of the facility with which they might be fortified and colonized. After much persuasion he induced the Spanish Government, to take the matter in hand, and in 1579 sailed with a fleet of 23 ships and 3,500 colonists ; of all these but 5 ships and 400 colonists reached the Straits, the rest having put back when they found what a long sea voyage was before them. He landed his 400 settlers at a place now called Gregory Bay, some little distance inside the entrance to the Straits, and leaving 300 of them there marched with the remainder to Port San Felipe, or as it is better known now Port Famine. Here he arrived after a most harrassing journey of more than a month with men, women, guns, horses and pro- visions, and established the colony of San Felipe, building forts at each of these places ; soon, however, the provisions they had brought with them began to fail, and starvation stared them in the face. One ship, the Trinidad^ had been run on shore and lost on first entering the Straits, so his fleet was reduced to four ; of these, a Spaniard named Ribera, who was his second in command, carried off three and returned to Spain. Thus was Sarmiento himself left with only one ship the Maria to complete his work of colonization. * He entered at what is known as the Trinidad Channel, but did not go through that way to the Straits of Magellan as will be seen hereafter. 1 1 22 Loss of Colonists by Pcstiieme, fc Left in this strait he determined to visit the colony at Gregory Bay, which was at th.it time called Jesus, but owing to the very strong current and a gale blowing from the west- ward at the same" time, he was blown out to sea, and after many days of beating about trying to recover the Straits, he finally bore up for Rio de Janeiro. There he arrived in safety and chartered a ship to take flour and provisions down to the Straits colonies. When she had sailed he i)roceeded to Bahia, (which place was at that time a small Portuguese settlement), to procure two large boats, but in entering the bay the Maria was lost and the crew with diFculty saved their lives. Sarmiento purchased a vessel of about ^>o tons at Bahia, and having provisioned her and taken in a large supply of arms and ammunition, sailed in her for the Straits, but on the way down met with such furious gales that he was obliged to put into Rio. Here, to his great mortification, he found the vessel which he had chartered three months before, put back from stress of weather. He finally determined to go back to Spain and endeavour to get succour and supplies for his unhappy colonies : well had it been for them had he gone down to the Straits and picked them all up and taken them with him, for by degrees they began to die off from hunger and the intense cold, until at last the deaths were so numerous that the living could not bury the dead. As might have been expected, a pestilence soon broke out, and the few remaining colonists took to the woods, where, with but two exceptions, they all miserably perished. On his way home to Spain, Sarmiento was taken prisoner by one of our own ships, and so long was it before he e;ot back Expedition by Cavendish. 23 to Spain, that his miserable colony had disai)i)eare(l from the face of the earth before the help arrived which was after- wards sent out. In 1586, an Englishman named Cavendish, who had fitted out a ship at his own expense to make a voyage to the Pacific through the Straits, picked ui) one of Sarmiento's men, one of twenty four who were tlien on their way back to the Rio de la Plata, the only .survivors of Sarmiento's ill fated colony. He took the man on board and promised to return for the remainder, who were encam[)ed a little way from Gregory Bay, but never fulfilled his promise, and it is more than probable the remnant miserably i)erished, as their brethren had done, of starvation. Cavendish found the fort in good repair at San Felipe, but the guns had been buried ; these, however, he dug up, and brought home to England.* He is said to have made so much by this voyage to the South Sea, during which he captured no less than eighteen Spanish vessels of one sort and another, that he entered Plymouth Sound with sails made of silk; but the truth is that his sails were all blown away in a gale off the western Islands, and he had been obliged to make a new set as best he could out oi the material at hand ; that which seemed to him best for the purpose was some cloth of " silk grass " taken out of one of the Spanish ships, which had a beautiful colour, and a gloss just like silk ; hence the idea that his sails were of that mateiial. His voyage was not just one in which he could use "sails of silk and ropes of sendal !" After this voyage of Cavendish numerous expeditions were fitted out for the South Sea, amongst the most noteworthy of * Anelrew Merrick picked up the last of these unhappy survivors in 1859. I ^^ 24 Dreadful privations and hardships. which may be mentioned those of Van Noort and de VVeert, both of whom passed through the Magellan Straits. The accounts given by those worthies of the hardships endured both from bad weather and want of food only testify to the truth of those who had gone before them. We read of them living on mussels and limpets, and salt- ing down penguins as affording "a wholesome and agreeable dish, when a sufficient quantity of flour could be obtained to make a pie !" Scurvey was of course the natural accompani- ment to all this, and one cannot but admire the pluck and character of men who, when they had buried 120 of their shipmates in one of the bays at the western entrance to the Straits, offered up prayer to God for their future guidance and stood boldly out to sea, determined to "do or die !" In Van Noort's passage through the Straits, he found it necessary to put his second in command, one James Claasz, on shore and leave him there, " for many crimes." This would seem a hard thing to do, but it was not an infrequent punishment in those days. Discipline beems to have been maintained at rather a severe cost sometimes. De Weert hung one of his seamen for breaking into the cook's pantry and stealing therefrom some loaves of bread, and another for stealing a bottle of oil ! Indeed, so great was the temptation to steal the food from one another, even at meal times, that the Captains of the ships were ordered to attend when the men were at dinner with a cane^ to see that order was maintained, and that each man got no more than his proper quantity of food ! Before leaving de Cordes Bay (the place where they had buried the 120 men) the /Vdmiral called all his Captains Loss of Mission Station. 25 together and •* after prayer and a sermon " established an order of knighthood, of which he made six of his principle officers members, all swearing on oath " never to do anything against their honour or reputation, whatever danger or extremities they should be exposed to, not even excepting death itself !" Who that now passes through the Straits of Magellan in the magnificent and well found steamers of the Pacific Steam Navigation Company or other of the fine steamers of the day, can read of these devoted men without wonder and admiration ? Of the many harbours and anchorages in the Straits, Port Famine is the one round which the greatest interest seems to centre, and yet, notwithstanding the amount of hardship and privation connected with its history, the bay is alive with fish, the duck shooting up the Sedgar River is pro- verbial, and I am told that there are deer not very far inland. During a stay of three rHys there in one of Her Majesty's ships, some thirty or forty brace of duck fell to our guns, and in one hour-and-a-half a seining party took nearly a ton of smelt ! Byron and King both speak of it as affording abundance of fish, and both wood and water are plentiful. Notwith- standing all this its whole history from beginning to end seems fraught with misery. A small mission station was established there about the beginning of this century, but only lasted a few months ; the Indians, whom they had come to try and civilize, fell upoi.. them and massacred not only the missionaries, but those of their own countrymen who had joined with them as well. 26 Shooting expedition from H.M.S. " Chanticleer.^^ % > ; The Chilians in 1843 founded a colony and penal settle- ment there, which for a time seemed fairly prosperous, but after about two years the convicts rose in the middle of the night, murdered the governor and all the free inhabitants, seized three ships that were lying in the bay, murdered all of the crews who would not join them, and sailed on a piratical exepdition. We have the satisfaction of knowing that they were afterwards captured and keel-hauled, those who survived this terrible punishment bemg hanged. After this outbreak at Port Famine the colony was removed to Sandy Point. One more sad story about Port Famine and I have done with it. In 1867 H.M.S. "Chanticleer," in passing through the strait to the Pacific, stopped at Port Famine for target practise and to cut wood. While there a party of officers and men went on shore on a shooting expedition, but on arriving at the camping ground found that several things had been forgotten. Two men, however, volunteered to go off in a small boat they had with them. They got on board safely, and having got the things required, started again for the shore. When about half-way to shore, it suddenly came on to blow hard from N.W., and the poor fellows, after vainly trying to reach the shore, determined to put back to the ship. Of course, those on shore, when the boat did not turn up, concluded that it was blowing too strong, and they had remained on board, whilst those on board hoped that they might have reached the shore. What was their horror next day when the shooting party returned, to find that the dingy with its two occupants had entirely disappeared. Every search was made for them, the ship was steamed slowly up and down the Straits, looking in at every nook, boats were Rescue of Sailors by the " Sheanvaier" 27 i ^ sent in every direction, but not a trace could be found of either the beat or the men; and after a week of fruitless search, the ship had to sail for Valparaiso, without having found the slightest clue to their fate. Six weeks after this the Shcarivater in passing through the Straits of Magellan on her homeward voyage, picked up the men in the most deplorably emaciated state at Port Famine. It was some days before either of them was able to tell their story from sheer exhaustion. It appears that when they found the gale increasing and saw that it would be impossible to reach the shore, they tried to return to the ship, but the wind was too much for them, they missed her, and were carried about ten miles down the straits, and their little boat was dashed to pieces on the southern shore. From this position they could see the ship steaming about in search of them, but could neither make themselves seen nor heard, the bush being so thick that it entirely hid them from view. When they saw the ship finally hoist up her boats and steam away on her voyage, their feelings of anguish were indescribable; but the first thing they did was to shake hands and swear a solemn oath that whoever died first the other would bury him, and that no pangs of thirst or hunger should so far make them forget that they were Christians as to turn cannibals. After a few days wandering about and living on shell-fish and berries, they fell in with a family of Indians in a canoe, who treated them very kindly, and took them across the Straits to Port St. Nicholas, whence they determined to walk to Sandy Point. They got as far as Port Famine after ■3* ''1 1 I'.i ' m 28 Scenery of the Straits, terrible hardships, keeping up a bare subsistence on shell-fish and an occasional penguin, and on the very spot where they had pitched their camp six weeks before, they lay down in sheer exhaustion, as they thought, to die. The Sheerwater happened just then to be returning to England through the straits and put in for the night at Port Famine. As was the case in the Chanticleer^ a shooting party was organized, and before they had gone far came upon the two unfortunate fellows of whom I have just been speak ing — and there, on the grassy patch near St. Ann's Head, where so many of Sarmeinto's unhappy colony perished from cold and starvation, these two men thanked God for their timely rescue ! I feel that this chapter would be incomplete, did I not say something about the scenery of the Straits, before taking leave of them for a warmer region. There is a grandeur about those bold headlands and rugged outlines seldom met with elsewhere ; and whether we see them in all the glorious tints of sunset, as we steam swiftly through the unruffled straits, or view them with fear and trembling as we catch a glimpse of them, towering almost above us, amidst the pelting hail or the driving snow storm, the sight is equally grand. The glacier sparkling in the sunshine like a mine of diamond, or frowning through the storm, has equal charms for the true lover of nature : the one is beautiful, the other is sublime ! After passing the first and second narrows the scenery changes from undulating grassy slopes to high, bold, wooded land, and although there is a great sameness in the scenery at the eastern entrance, we find even there something to Sf» Jerome. 29 admire in the bold white cliflfs of Cape Virgins and Possession Bay, and feel a thrill of pleasure as we are whisked through the narrows at a rate of i8 or 20 miles an hour. But it is only when we pass Sandy Point that the really fine scenery of the Straits begins ; and as we look southward past Mount Tarn, and San Filipe, on the right, with Cape Froward and Mount Sarmeinto (deservedly named after that adventurous spirit) in the distance, the prospect is grand in the extreme. The numerous channels leading southward after passing Cape Froward give the land on the south side a very rugged appearance, and the Glaciers on either side are very fine. Passing on toward English and Crooked Reach, we get a peep into a channel called (I think) St. Jerome. " Here," says Cordova, " the Straits begin to assume a truly horrible aspect," and indeed during nine months out of the twelve, I believe this is the case : the mist enveloped mountains on either side ; the wild angry looking clouds overhead ; the dark, sullen looking water, getting darker and more sullen as the eye follows it up the arm, till mountains, clouds, and water are lost in one black, angry mass, only relieved by the white foam into which the water is lashed every now and then by the fierce squalls sweeping down the mountains' sides from the ice-fields on their summits ! But St. Jerome is not always thus boisterous, I have seen him in his calmer moods as well as in his fury, and one could scarcely look on a more lovely picture. The scenery west of Crooked Reach is more rocky, and the trees more stunted than those to the eastward, and the Glaciers are still more grand; that over Port Cherroukie Ill 111 'Pi 30 Magnificieut Rock Scenery. being of immense size ; as we near the western entrance to the Straits the rock scenery becomes magnificent, and the Ir glimpse we get as we launch out into the South Pacific is almost the grandest, particularly if it is a wild winter sun- rise, a?id we have a full poivcr steamer under us! \r I i CHAPTER III. Smyth\s Channel Route. Passing northward from the Straits of Migellan inside the Adelaide Arch, Hanover, Madre, and Wellington Islands, which lie off the western shore of Patagonia, we have what is known as the "Smyth's Channel Route" to Ciiili, Peru, (S:c. These channels are used by steamers a good deal, as by doing so they avoid much bad weather outside the western entrance of the Straits ; but they are in many places narrow and tortuous, and it is of course, just in those parts that the tides are strongest ; so the great bulk of the vessels passing through the Straits of Magellan, particularly long steamers, leave them at Cape Pillar. As showing a specimen however, of the advantages of the inland channel where practicable, > I may quote from Captain Stokes, of H. M.S. Beagle, when surveying in those parts ; after describing most graphically the difficulties he encountered in making his way across a narrow neck of land which separated the inner channels from the Pacific Ocean, he says : *' It would be in vain to attempt to describe adequately the contrast to the late quiet scene exhibited by the view we met on emerging from the dark wood. The inlet where we left our boats, resembled a calm and sequestered mountain- lake, without a ripple on its water : the shore on which we now stood was that of a horrid rock-bound coast, lashed by the awful surf of a boundless ocean, impelled by almost unceasing west winds ! " 32 Examination of Channels by Sarmient These channels were first examined by Sarmienio on his way to the Straits of Magellan after the appearance of Drake in the South Seas. He at first intended to enter at the Gulf of Penas, but by some neglect on the part of his pilot over- ran the mark, and made the land near what is known as Trinidad Channel — indeed it was so named by him — and anchored in Rosario harbour. Here, as was the custom with all those old discoverers, he took formal possession, as his historian says, " With great religious fervour, * In the name of the Holy Trinity and of the King of Spain,* " of all the land and waters which he had discovered. He landed all his Principal officers and most of his men, and having chanted the Te Deum, set up a large cross and proclaimed in a loud voice that he took possession, amongst other measures, "Para anunciada y sembrada la palabra del sancto evangelia entre estas barbaras Naciones, y para exterpacion del Demonio, y de toda Idolatria ! " We know how Spain has fulfilled this part of the contract. ij ! ^f ' " 1 ! ; Si I ; Jarmiento, leaving one of his ships at Rosario, proceeded with the other and the boats to examine what are known as Trinadad, Concepcion, and Innocents Channels, and spent altogether more than three months plotting and surveying the various creeks and harbours both north and south of Trina- dad Channel. His chief object was of course, to find a passage by which he could get down to the Straits of Magellan, but this he failed to do, although he must frequently^ have been absolutely in the channel itself— it looked however,, so narrow and contracted, that he did not think it worth examining. Building of Schooner " Guia" 33 The carpenters of both ships in the mean time, had been building a small schooner which Sarmiento called the "Guia," and which when completed rendered valuable assistance in the survey of these channels. It is after this boat that the narrows connecting Innocents and Sarmiento (Channels ncre named, when discovered and surveyed more than a hundred years afterwards by the officers of the Beagle. So great was the diversity of opinion as to the existence of any channel to the southward, that Sarmiento ordered all his pilots and principal officers to send into him their opinions in writing^ on the subject. One only recommended that the search for a passage to the southward should be continued, all the rest gave it as their opinion that none existed, so he felt bound to go by the voice of the majority and determined to make the Straits of Magellan by the outer passage ; this he did after a few days' sail from Rosario, but unfortunately, on the way down the Guia was lost. Sarmiento wished to change the name of the Straits of Magellan to that of " Madre de Dios," but without success. So little was known of these regions after Sarmiento's short account of them that Burney {1S02) in speaking of the Gulf of Trinidad says : " No account has appeared of any European having been within this gulf since the voyage of Sarmiento." During the three or four months that Sarmiento stayed at Trinidad and the other channels in its neighbourhood, they saw very few natives, and only on rare occasions any other signs of life ; he gives a list of the birds that they came across, but they were very few in number, and mostly unfit for food. Animals they saw none, although the fact of his having named a iiill " La Torra" would seem to indicate either that it was II, , MJU ('I ;{ ,1 M I I i ' : J ' 34 Scarcity of Animal life. like a fox, or that they had seen a fox there. Among the birds he mentions is one of a species which he calls " Rabos de Juncos," having one long feather in its tail, and in its description somewhat resembling the tropic bird, but I never heard of any one else finding one of these species there, indeed, from their very name, one would fancy it very much ou" of its element in those inclement regions. In the woods he found a few wood pigeons, and on the rocks, at intervals a few of the hair seal, but none of any valuable fur ; the harbours they visited also had but ^q\\ fish in them, so that they were only able to replenish their stock of provisions by a few shell fish. He has left however some valuable information about the harbour and straits he ex- amined. Altogether most of the information we have about them is supplied from the voyages of the Adventure and Beagle, and more recently from those of the Massara and Alert. Having passed through the Smyth's Channel, which ex- tends about sixty miles north from the Magellan Straits, and in which the islands are low and very thickly packed together, we come agiin amongst high mountainous ranges, and at the back of Collingwood Strait there is a magnificent glacier, the finest I think, in the whole Strait. Near it on the west shore (Newton Island) is a beautiful litde anchorage called " Columbus Cove," where I have twice anchored for the night in one of Her Majesty's ships. On one of these occasions I took the opportunity of spending an hour's day- light which remained, on shore, and was much surprised at the wild luxuriance of the underwood and shrubs ; the moss in some places was more than a foot thick ; one fuchsia tree that I came upon in full flower was fully fifteen feet high, and altogether the scene was worthy of Fairy-land. The Giiia Narrows. 35 I Passing on to the north tliis route takes us through Sarmiento, Innocents, Concepcion, and wide channels. Before coming to Innocents' Channel we pass through a part of the Strait which is very much contracted, the distance from shore to shore being only about a caMe-and-a half (300 yards), and where the tide runs with great force ; this is called the " Guia Narrows," named after the small decked boat that Sarmiento l)uilt. The scenery alxnit them is very fine, and there is something very pleasant and exhilarating in being whirled through the Narrows at such a speed, for few attempt it unless u>ith the tide. There is however throughout the whole of these channels a terrible want of animal life : — the scenery is beautiful, the foliage and underwood most luxuriant, the peaks and glaciers majestic, but the utter stillness and want of life is at times quite appalling — not a bird, not a fish, not even a native with his canoe. Nothing in my experience has ever ecpialled the awful stillness of a calm night passed in one of the beautiful anchorages which abound all through these chan- nels, unless there be a waterfall near it is the absolute stillness of death, and the plaintive echo of the sentry's " All's Well," has a sort of mocking sound as it reverberates from hill to hill, getting fainter and fainter as it recedes up the valley, and finally dies away in the dim distance ; as if even it must leave such utter solitude : — '* So coldly sweet, so deadly fair, '* We start, for soul is wanting there ! After passing through the " Guia " Narrows we come to that part of the channel first surveyed by Sarmiento, Inno- cents and Concepcion Channels, from which there are several leading out into the open ocean, and formed by numerous. C2 3G Discoi'ery of hutiian remains. Mi ) I L* i I ; islands, the largest of which is *' Madre " Island, these for the most part are low and uninteresting, but even round this desolate looking spot a thrilling interest centres for some, did they but know the secrets of those wild and pathless woods : — While at anchor here some fifteen years ago in one of Her Majesty's ships, cutting wood for steaming pur[)oses, as most ships do in order to save their coal, we sent a sealing party on shore as there seemed a nice beach for getting a haul ; some of the party strolled a little way into the wood, and suddenly came upon the remains of a small wood hut, evidently put up by civilized hands, they entered it and were shocked to find a human skull and a few bones, together with some remnants of clothing. The shape and thickness of the skull showed that it had not been an Indian, which indeed both the formation of the hut and the presence of the fragments of clothing went far to prove, and it was only too evident that some poor wretch, perhaps the sole survivor from some shipwreck, perhaps a mutineer, who knows, had wandered here and died. Who can tell of the hardships and privations he must have endured before he built this rude mausoleum and lay down there to die ! His story will never be known, but doubtless some aching heart mourned his absence, and shuddered at his unknown fate ! After passing into wide channel the land again becomes high and rugged, and Double Peak and Cathedral Mount on the south end of Wellington Island show out very grandly, the latter viewed from the eastward forming the exact repre- sentation of a cathedral roof and spire. Here the channel is divided into two by Saumarez Island, the one to the west being called Chasm Reach, a name well chosen, for the m. \\ Finding of Indian Wi^ihim. 37 cliffs on cither side rising to the height of six or seven hundred feet present a most imposing and awful appearance. The east side of this island is the most beautiful piece of cliff scenery I ever saw ; it rises perpendicularly from the water's edge to an altitude of eight hundred feet, in every conceivable colour, great trees growing out of its fissures look like mere shrubs, and the foaming cascades pouring from its summit are lost in spray before they reach the water at its foot. Steaming along beneath it one could not but be struck with awe and admiration at this magnificent cliff towering above us, more than five times the height of our own mast- heads ! Near the north end of Saumarez Island, on the main land, is a beautiful little anchorage called Port Grappler, where we found the remains of some Indian wigwams, and judging by the number of shells lying about the family must have been a pretty large one ; but there was not a creature near at the time of our visit, nor had there been for months from the the appearance of the wigwams. I fear that we must now hurry on towards the end of these interesting channels, for considering the compass of my little work I feel that I have already lingered too long over this portion of it : — but there is so much of interest attached to these, until lately, almost unknown regions, that I hope my gentle reader will not deem me prolix in thus having dwelt upon the history of a part of the globe so very little known to the great majority of mankind. It is so closely connected however with the names of many of our great discoverers in the past ; and so generally used by that part of the commercial world which takes the south sea as the base of its operations in the present time ; I I !i 38 Wreck of the *' Wager:' that 1 am fain to believe tliat its history only requires to he better known to be thoroughly appreciated, and with it, the gallant workc and noble deeds and characters of tiiose brave discoverers Avho, taking their lives in their hands went forth, sometimes with a mutinous crew, in vessels badly built and worse found, to brave the rigours of a region, even to the present day, proverbial for its storms and dangers ! Before passing however away from ther>e regions alto- gether, there is a notai)le shipwreck about which I must say a few words, closely connected with the northern entrance to the Smyth Channel Route. Passing tlirough the Messier Channel we come to the northern entrance to this route, and out into the Gulf of Penas, r^^ the southern part of which is a small island named after the ship of whose wreck I am about to speak, the Wager. She was one of Anson's fleet fitted out in 1740, and had formerly been an East Indiaman, From the first she was but an indifferent sailor, badly manned, her rigging and sails old, and far too heavily laden wi n the stores and provisions she was taking out for the fleet, for it was as store ship that she accompanied them. After rounding Cape Horn she got separated from the fleet in a heavy N. VV. gale, and " not having seen the sun for many days " were considerably out in their reckoning, they were howevc* making the best of dieir way as they thouglit for v^aldivia, which was their f^rst rendezvous, when suddenly *-hey found themselves on a lee shore in the Gulf of Penas. DyTon in his description of the shipwre^,k says of their last night, *' The night came on dreadful beyond des- cription, in wliich, attempting to throw out our topsails to claw off shore they were immediately blown from the yards." Narative of Survivors. 39 Only those who have experienced the situation can tell what dreadful meaning is attached to these few words ! destruc- tion was inevitable. At four in the morning the ship struck heavily on a rock which knocked her rudder away, but by steering with the braces they managed to run her in " between two great rocks," where she stuck hard and fast — the rocks however sheltering them from the great violence of the sea. 7'he story is unfortunately only one of many under similar circumstances. Most of the crew gave up all hope, broke open the store rooms and soon got helplessly drunk ; many poor wretches down with the scurvy were drowned, being unable to help themselves in the mountainous seas that were breaking over the ship. The officers and those of the crew vho remained sober managed with great difficulty to get the loats out, and many of them got safe to the shore, taking with them what few things they could lay their hands on in tie way of provisions, &c. Next day the sea had gone down somewhat, and the beats were sent off for those men who had been left behind, the wreck ha\ ing held together wonderfully notwithstanding the heav}' sea that nad been breaking over her. Ail the men and some provisions and sails were landed, and of these latter tents were constructed on the beach. As long as the ship held together parties were sent on board every day to bring away what they could, but this must have been fearful work, for the upper deck only was above water, and Byron says ii his narrative that in these daily visits they were obliged to " procure such things as were within their reach by means of large hooks attached to poles, in which business they were much incommoded by the d^ad bodies floating about between decks. In l\\ (1 I I :i 'i I 40 Vist'f of Indians. After a few days the wreck broke up and the beach was strewn with the debris and the dead bodies of those who had perished on the first night, not having been able to get up from between decks. Few provisions however seem to have been saved, as we read of their being put to terrible straits for food. On one occasion a boy who had picked up the liver of one of the drowned men whose body had been torn to pieces amongst the waves and rocks was with difficulty restrained from eating it ! To add to the trials of Captain Cheape and his officers the greater part of the crew were almost in a state of open mutiny, as they considered now the ship was lost, the authority of the captain and officers was at an end, so they did very much as they pleased : ten of them built a boat for themselves out of the planking washed on shore from the wreck, and went away a? they said " to find their way home," they were never heard of again. About three weeks after the wreck a party of Indians in three or four canoes paid them a visit and seemed ver} friendly. They bartered their dogs for iron and other metal articles, which they seemed very anxious to obtain, and iS food was the grand desideratum of the ha'ii-starved wretches once the crew of the Wager ^ they were glad to barter anything for It. These Indians crossed to the mainland for a few days, having promised to bring with them some meat to Wsger Island on the'^ return, and in the course of about four cays returned with three sheep. Where they came from no one could make out, as ro one understood what they said, but it was not of so much importance to them where they came from as that they were there, they very soon shared the same fate as the dogs, and mutton broth was the order of the day till they were consumed ' r Four Marines left behind. 41 # By far the ^.-eater part of the crew were anxious to pass down the channel which they could see inside the islands to the south, and endeavour to reach the Straits of Magellan that way, and so to the River Plate, but this Captain Cheape would not hear of, so one day they took the law in their own hands and carried off the long boat, which had been length- ened and built upon, and actually did get as far as Montevidio in her I believe, leaving about twenty of their shipmates with but two small boats, the barge and yawl, to do as they pleased. Soon after this the remnant passed over the Gulf of Penas, and made Port Otway, just inside Cape Tres Montes ; here they remained some days trying to augment their slender store of provisions by killing seals and penguins and a few small birds they saw, they then started with a view to passing round the Cape and getting to the northward towards Valdivia, for Captain Cheape had not given up the idea that he might make the rendezvous even yet. The sea and wind however were so much against them that three or four times they had to pat back, and fin?Uy the men began to lose heart ; the yawl was lost in a heavy sea one night dr<)\\ ning two men, and with the extra number in the barge th. ' i'ound themselves like to founder in her also when there \va; r.i'.y sea on. Finally they determined to go back to Wager Island, and finding that it was impossible for all to go in the barge they drew lots as to who should stay, the lot fell to four marines, and so hard was the life they were leading that, with all its consequent horrors, they offered no objection to being left •jehind. These men were well supplied with arms and ammunition, and were landed on an island which has ever since been 42 I Discovery of Indian corpses. called " Marine " Island. When the barge finally sailed away they stood upon the beach and giving three cheers, cried out " God bless the King," then took to the woods. They were never heard of again ! On their way to Wager Island in the barge they coasted round the gulf, putting in every night at any little cove they came across, sometime staying a few days looking for shell fish, sea eggs, &c., to eke out their provisions. At one of these halting places, the doctor, while hunting for food came upon a small opening in the side of the hill, which showed signs of having been at c' t time cleared and used, he crawled in on hands and knee:^ some little distance, and at last came out in a large cave lit by a small apeiture in the roof. In the middle of this chamber he found to his astonishment a kind of bier made of planks, on which were laid out six corpses (Indians) still in good preservation ; although they had been there evidently for a long time, the coldness and severity of the climate had preserved them from decay ! On another bier of a similar nature near the side of the cave he found six more. These he conjectured must be the bodies of some of their great men or chiefs, but how long they had lain there was impossible to say, as the flesh, although showing no sign of decay, was perfectly dried up. On their arrival at Wager Island (after an absence of two months from it) they found that the door of one ot the tem- porary huts which they had built, had been fastened up, and on breaking it open found that quantities of old iron from the wreck had been stored there ; by whom of course they could not tell, but they supposed, what was afterwards proved correct, that the Indians who had visited them at first must have returned, and stored the iron there with a view to again paying the Island a visit and carrying it off. I i Privations of the creivs. 43 By this time they were reduced to the pitiable necessity of living ahnost entirely on shell fish, and so great wns the scarcity of even this meagre diet, that it began to be whis- pered among them that one of their number would soon have go to teed the rest ! Fortunately just at this juncture a cask of salt beef, broken and battered and half rotten, was found amongst the rocks, this lasted them for some time as their numbers were now reduced to eleven, and before they had come to the end of it the Indians returned for their old iron, and were not a little astonished to find the island again occupied. Their chief, or caci([ue, was a man very su[)erior to the Indians they had met hitherto, and spoke to them in the Spanish language, of wliich the doctor understood a liltle. He told them that he was a christian and served the King of Spain, and that if they would give him the barge when they arrived there, he would convey them all to Chiloe Island where there was a small Spanish garrison and a governor. To this Captain Cheape and his followers gladly agreed, and in the course of a few days the barge and the three canoes were got read}', and with very little regret they all left Wager Island for the second time. From the very sketchy nature of the charts of those regions at that time, it is scarcely possible to trace their wanderings on the way to Chiloe, nor indeed is it necessary to do so, but it is more than probable that they passed up inside Tavier and the other islands on the east shore of the Gulf ot Penas, and made a final landing at its N. E. corner. Here to the great disgust of the cacic^ue, the six seamen who were of the party, took possession of the barge and made off with her to follow the same track their shipmates had taken 44 Return to Santiago. I !!• before them. They were never heard of again ; and now out of one-hundred-and-thirty who got safe to shore from the wreck nearly a year before but five were left in the captain's party, these were Lieut. Hamilton, Mr. Elliott, Surgeon, and Messrs. Byron and Campbell, Midshipmen. The cacique, notwithstanding the loss of the barge, on condition that a gun belonging to the doctor and some other articles were given to him, still promised to conduct them to Chiloe, which after a month of the greatest hardship and prolonged starvation he succeeded in doing. From Chiloe they were sent on under escort to Valparaiso and thence to Santiago. Byron in his " Narrative of the Loss of the Wager ^^ a well written and most interesting account of all their sufferings and experiences, gives most favourable accounts of their reception by the Spaniards, and the kindness shown to them ; and his terse but graphic description of the journey with the Indians from Wager Island to Chiloe is most thrilling. Space will not admit of my giving more copious extracts from it, but I cannot do better then recommend those who may wish for a fuller description of this terrible shipwreck, to give it a perusal. \ I CHAPTER IV. Chili—before atid after t/ie Conquest. Of the early history of Chih, that is before the appear- ance of the Spaniards amongst them, there is not much known positively, as up to this time the art of writing was unknown to them, and of monuments of antiquity they had none. Their state of civilization, however, at this period was far in advance of the miserable creatures we have seen living in canoes in the straits of Magellan, and of their civil and religious institutions, we catch a glimpse from the writings of Molina, a Jesuit Priest, who was for thirty years resident in the country, and to whose patient study of both the people and the country, we are much indebted for almost all we know of their history, even for some years after the Spanish conquest— but beyond a very sketchy outline of their manners and customs, very little is known of Chili's interior to the fifteenth century. The tradition of the origin of their race is but a faint shadowing forth of the story of Adam and Eve, only there were two men and their wives instead of one. There is a hint at a flood in which four men only and their wives were saved, by climbing to the top of a high mountain, which, when the floods were likely to submerge it, floated up and carried them for many days above the devouring elements. Their religion, amongst much that was wrong and childish, contained however the germs of truth, they believed in the existence of both a good and a bad spirit, but it was only to the latter that they addressed any prayers, con- I ^ "■■I ■ III i^ I ■ii 46 Funeral rites. sidcring that the good spirits having all that they could possibly desire, ought not to want anything from them. The evil spirits however had it in their power to torment and harm them, so they deemed it necessary to propitiate them^ at times even offering sacrifice and burning tobacco, which they deemed the incense most agreeable to them. They believed also in the immortality of the soul, and that man was composed of two substances essentially different, the body which remained here on earth, and the soul which at death took its departure towards the west, beyond the sea. As to the existence of the soul after death, they believed that it lived much the same sort of life that it had already gone through here on earth — the same loves and hates, 1)attles and troubles as hitherto, and to such a length did they carry this idea, that they firmly belie^ed when an enemy's soul appeared in this second state a terrible fight ensued, and that storms and thunder, and lightening were caused by the combatants rushing to and fro ! Their funeral obsequies are here well worthy of notice as affording a specimen of those of almost all the American tribes of Indians ; they are most graphically described by- Molina : — As soon as one of their nation dies his friends and relations seat themselves around the body, and keep up- a most dismal mood for some time— after this the body is dressed in all the warriors best trappings and laid upon a bier, where it remains all night, his friends meanwhile eating and drinking around him — next day he is borne to the family burial place, by his nearest relatives, two young men riding as fast as they can in front, and the women of the tribe following, chanting and making wailing for the dead.. f lil 1 • ■ The Chilian Language. 47 On arrival at the burial place the corpse is laid upon the ground, and surrounded by his arms, provisions and wine ; in the case of a chief his favorite horse is killed also, and buried with him, in order that he may have the use of him in the spirit land. •* They buried the dark chief, they free'd *' Besiufferings were great from the cold and wet in the Andes, they Wv?re still greater from the heat and drought on his return march, which lay directly through the desert of Atacama, an immense extent of the most barren plain, where there is not a drop of water for 120 miles, nothing but burning sand or bare rock, and where to this day the road is strewn with the bones of dead cattle and mules which have perished on the way either north or south. So hot is the sand of this desert that it is said the Guanaco hunters have actually to put leather shoes on the feet o^" their dogs before letting them loose ! We have all heard of *' Puss in Boots," but she was a mere circumstance, compared with these Atacama dogs in their shoes ! After a deal of hardship Almagro reached Cusco, which was then only defended by Pizarro's two brothers ; at the head of about fifty Spaniards, he soon drove off the Indians and estabhshed himself as Governor of the town, but instead of treating these two men who had defended the place so well as friends, he only saw in them a stumbling block to his appropriating the town to himself, which he had long intended to do, and kept them close prisoners in consequence There appears to have been at this time much jealousy between Pizarro and Almagro, and hearing of the latter's Ttl I! i H ll I V ^ ■ 60 Threatened Battle. cruel treatment of his brothers, Pizarro formed a large force with the intention of himself marching them against Almagro; in the hope of inducing him to forego this attack, Almagro, greatly against the advice of his second in command, Orgonez, liberated both the Pizarros, on conditions that they would leave the country within six weeks, and never return. This they promised faithfully to do, but on arrival at their brother's camp, Hernando was easily persuaded to take command himself of the expedition to be sent against Almagro. At this time Almagro himself was so ill that he was unable to take command in person of the defending force ; it therefore devolved on Orgonez, who marched his men out into a valley about three miles from Cusco, and there waited the arrival of Hernando Pizarro, and his troops. Soon they were seen emerging from the mountain passes, and advancing slowly across the plains, halted on the opposite side of a small stream which covered the front of Orgonez. As the sun had by this time set, Hernando determined to defer the engagement till daylight. What a picture is presented by these two opposing forces albeit of the same nation and blood, but bearing in their bosoms the most inveterate hatred to each other, camped on the opposite side of a small stream in the midst of a smiling valley, the sunset still lingering on the peaks of the surrounding mountains, and lighting up the lurking places of thousands of Indians who had, forgetting their own petty jealousies, taken up their position there to witness the dis- comfiture of their own common foe ! Return of Hernando to Spain. 51 ge force dmagro; Llmagro, mmand, ms that d never 1 arrival aded to against he was I force ; nen out d there s. Soon es, and )pposite rgonez. ined to I forces in their :amped St of a 5 of the places n petty ;he dis- " The night " says Prcscott " passed away in silence, unbroken by the vast assembly which covered the surround ing hill-tops. Nor did the soldiers of the hostile camps, although keeping watch within hearing of one another, and with the same blood flowing in their veins, attempt any communication — so deadly was the hate in their bosoms !" At day break next morning ihey met in mortal combat, and after a fierce struggle of an hour and a half, Almagro's troops were totally routed. Hernando Pi/arro entered Cusco, and took Almagro prisoner, soon afterwards trying him on a charge of high treason, on which charge he was convicted and sentenced to death. His corpse was beheaded by Hernando Pizarro's orders, in the grand Plaza of Cusco, but to save him the ignominy of a public death, he had been i)reviously strangled in prison. This summary proceeding on the part of his brother, though secretly winked at by Pizarro was not o[)enly approved, as he felt that one who had rendered such service to the state as Almagro had done, could not be thus hurried out of sight without the home government taking cognizance of it. He (Pizarro) therefore advised his brother's imme- diate return to Spain, to there explain away any inconvenient inquiries which the home authorities might be inclined to make. So much in the wrong did Hernando feel himself to be that he took the route through Mexico to Spain instead of that through Panama, to avoid any explanation to the Viceroy at that place. On h's arrival in Spain he met with the coldest reception, and was eventually imprisoned in the fortress of Medina del Campo, where he remained almost D2 1 1 1 ■ i II . 1! 1 1 li I i i i' 1 ■ ! 1 i 1 ■ i K T - ' iaaaiii I i! ij li': i i' ! I I ' 1 1 I-; ;• IM 52 Jlidldin^ of towns by Valdivia. forgotten by tlie outside worH for upwards of twenty years. He was then liberated, but was by that time an old and decrepit man, broken alike in health and spirit ! After the death of Almagro, Pizarro sent one Pedro de Valdivia co govern the new colony of Chili, but this he found to be no easy matter. The natives attacked and burnt Santiago, and it was only after many pitched battles that he was able to establish the Spanish rule as far South as Concepcion. He built tlie city of Coquimbo or la Serena, but this was at once attacked and burnt by the natives, as it was twice afterwards " by the English and other Pirates," as we ^TQ informed by Frezier in his '' voyages to the Sor.th- sea." After ?. time however he received reinf ,rcements by sea from Peru, and gradually established himself on the coast. Penco, afterwards called Concepcion, was the scene of a very hotly contested battle in which Valdivia himself nearly- lost his life. During a second battle on the same ground, in which some unaccountable panic struck the Araucanians and caused them to fly in disorder ; it was asserted by the Spaniards that St. James had been seen in the hottest of the fight, mounted on a wliite horse, and with a flaming sword in his hand, fighting for them, and striking terror into their enemies. The native town of Penco was about this time destroyed, and the city of Concepcion built on its site and strongly fortified. Valdivia also built the towns of Villarica, Angot, Imperial, and Vald.via, named after himself. Plis brilliant career however, was drawing to its tragic end, a new Araucanian general named Caupolican had been chosen to i Death of Valdivia, 53 tlie command of the army, and lie determined to drive their enemy out of the country. The name of CaupoUcan is one well lemepr/uered thvoughout Chili, both in history and in song, for the deeds of valour done in those days. He attacked the Spaniards with great ferocity at the fortress of Arauco, and totally, routed them. In this engagement Valdivia himself was taken prisoner and being brought before Caupolican, pleaded hard that his life might be spared, to this, the Indian general seemed inclined to consent, when suddenly an old chief, standing near, enraged to hear them talk of sparing his life, dashed his brains out with his war club. The death of Valdivia, howe\er, was by no means the signal for a cessation of hostilities, the war between the Araucanians and the Spaniards raged with redoubled fury and in many cases to the great disadvantage of the latter. Even at the time of the grand revolution v.hich once more restored Chili to the dignity of a free country, two hundred years afterwards, these brave and warlike people held in check the usually victorious arms of Spain. In 1818 Chili threw off the Spanish yoke; Lord Dun- donaid, then a captain in cur own navy, took service with them, and after many brilliant deeds, h.ad the satisfaction of seeing them freed mainly by his insivumentality. Since then they have been the most flourishing of all the Soutii American Republics, and altlHv.igh tliey have hsd their revolutions, as well as their neighbours, they 'nave been few and far between, the last having taken place in 1859, in which I myself was an eye witness of the lasi and decisn'e battle. It took place near Ccquimbo, a porL about 150 miles north of Valparaiso. The le-koUiJoriists, under one Gallo W^ ■ 1 1 '^ 'I'i f i 1 A 1= [t ^ I' ! I* i < ■i 54 Dealh of General Vidaiiri. had gained a victory over the government troops a short time before, and had entrenched themselves on some heights near this town, expecting that the next attack would be by sea. Instead of this, however, one fine morning the govern- ment troops, to the number of about 4000, under a general Vidauri came upon them by land ; the battle commenced about 10 o'clock and from the first there was little doubt as to how it would go, as the rebels were less than half in numbers and badly equipped. By noon they were in full retreat, and Vidauri had struck the blow which put the finishing touch to tlie last revolution of Chili. It is true that some little time after this there was some- thing very much like a revolution took place in the grand plaza of Valparaiso during the election for president, when this noble old man, Vidauri, paid the price of his life to save his country ; but, as it never went furthe*" than the plaza at Valparaiso, it can scarcely be dignified with the name of a revolution. I think it was a year, or may be more, after the battle of Serana or Coquimbo that this took place. General Vidauri was attending Mass in a church in the plaza at the time, wh'^'n a note was banded to him stating that the soldiers had declared for Mont and were in a very excited state in the square ; he, poor man, thinking to qniet them by his presence, rushed out, against the advice and entreaties of his friends, without either hat or sword, and together with some others, tried to make them lay down their arms and return to barracks, when suddenly some cowardly ruffian on the extreme left opened fire on him and shot the poor old man dead. This dastardly act seemed to strike the whole crowd dumb, the Civil War averted. 55 soldiers returned to their barracks, the crowd dispersed, and for the second time Vidauri saved his country from the horrors of a civil war. r § ■i: ' ''!* 1 CHAPTER V. Scenery, Mines, d^^., oj Chili. There is perhaps in no country on the eastern shore of the Pacific, so great a variety of scenery as in Chili. Extending as it does from the northern boundary of Patagonia to about latitude 23° south, and from the coast to the eastern side of the Andes, it embraces every description of scene, except jDerhaps the higlily tropical ; from the grain yielding plains of the south, to the arid heights of the north, whose soil is one vast bed of Nitrate and Chemicals ; from the thundering cataracts of the Andes to the vine clad valleys nearer the coast. Her mountains produce the richest copper ore in the w<^rld ; in the south is found abundance of coal, almost every English and many tropical fruits grow in rich profusion. The Chili cattle and horses are proverbial both for size and quality ; and indeed nature seems to have supplied her in a truly lavish mannei, with everything that man can wish for. The natives themselves are a peaceable and industrious people, extending their hospitality to all and sundry who come amongst them, as all who have travelled in their country can truly testify ; and Captain Hall, of H.M.S. " Conway," in his interesting account of tha! ship's cruise on the Chilian and Peruvian coasts, gives many instances of absolute self-denial on the part of the Chilians, in order that they might entertain in a fitting manner men whom they knew nothing of, and who probably they would never see again. While on that coast myself I have often experienced the genuine hospitality of both the upper and the lower k> Hospitality of the Chiiiafis. 57 I «l classes, for this trait in their cliaracter is by no means confined to the rl^.her inhabitants. And the peasant; girl will hand a glass of nilik to the dusty wayfarer who asks a drink, with a smile, and a grace worthy any station in life ; and rare indeed are the occasions in which he will not be asked to alight and rest himself after his journey, the busy house-wife meantime dusting a chair, or more frequently a wooden stool, for him to sit upon, while the bright eyed boy of five or six years old looks after the horse, and generally takes a canter on him if he can manage to scramble on his back : the smiling maiden meanwhile will have taken down her guitar from the wall, and if the traveller lists will sooth him with one of their numerous national songs. The fare is homely, the room probably very small and dingy, the floor is the bare earth, and the furniture of the poorest ; but he will mount his steed feeling all the better for those ten minutes spent in that genial atmosphere, and will ride off blessing the kindly and hospitable race who can with so little fuss and ostentation make him feel so perfectly at Jiome amongst diem ! and as they wave him a graceful " Adios Caballero," he cannot but be struck v/ith the kind and warm hearted reception accorded by tiiese simple minded people to him, a perfect stranger. Tlie copper mines of Chili are one of her principal sources of wealth, as also of employment for her working classes. Many thousands of the natives are thus kept at work ; and as I had tlie opportunity of visiting one of the richest and tlie largest in the country, while on the coast in 1866, perhaps a few remarks about it here may not be considered out of place. ■^ ' >\ nil I ■ f I ■ i 58 Vt'sif to Copper Mines. The Manager Mr. W., had kindly asked the Captain and Ofificers of H.M.S. C, to make up a party and visit him at his mine, on the Tomaia Hill, so accordingly on the day appointed Captain H., and four others, myself amongst the number, started on our journey inland. Our programme was to proceed the first day by rail and horse to the mines at Panulcillo, and thence next day or the day after- to Tomaia. After an early breakfast we left Coquimbo by train which took us up to the beautiful valley of Serena, as far as a station called Las Cardos, where, owing to the very steep nature of the remainder of the line it was necessary to change into a smaller carriage. Until quite recently this was the steepest gradient in Chili, but now I believe that of the Tongoy and Tomaia railway exceeds it. The line up the Questa from Las Cardos in some parts rises as much as one foot in nineteen, and makes no less than eleven turnings before arriving at the top ; of course in coming down no engine is required, and it is necessary to be very careful in using the breaks, for I was told that on one occasion a mineral train " took charge," and attained such a velocity that the breaks gave away, and after passing about five or six of the turnings which are very sharp, was precipitated down the whole of the remainder of the hill ! Eleven men were killed, one only out of twelve coming down in the train escaped with his life. About three in the afternoon we arrived at the hospitable doors of Mr. H., the Manager of the Panulcillo mine, and were nothing averse to the tankards of shandy-gaff and the baths we found waiting us, which together with the kindly welcome of Mr. and Mrs. H., went far towards obliterating Pleasant Evening 59 the remembrance of the hot and dusty journey from the port. By the time we had seen the garden, of which Mrs. H. was justly proud, and the house, stables, horses and the innumer- able curiosities there are to be seen about a Chilian country house, it was too late to see anything of the mines so we determined to take next day for this, and proceed on the following to Tomaia. It was a sweet little spot that house at Panulcillo ; nestled in its garden, covered with creepers, and surrounded with the most beautiful flowers and shrubs, it seemed quite an earthly paradise, midst the barren hills which surrounded it, for up amongst these copper hills there is not much vegetation unless brought there by artificial means. As was usual at tliat time in Chili amongst the commer- cial and mining houses, all the Clerks lived with the Manager at Panulcillo, so, as will be readily conceived, we formed a large and I may say a jovial party that evening at dinner ; and the scene afterwards from the verandah, while revelling in some of Mr. H's Havana s, and Mrs. H's exquisite rendering of Mendelssohn, put the finishing touch to a most enjoyable if rather a tiring day. There in front, through the trellis work of the verandah, and its flowering creepers we could see the garden spread out in the moonlight, and further on in the distance the fitful glare of the smelting furnaces ; on either side of the valley rose hills which if barren by daylight, were all the more picturesque under the influence of the "Chaste cold moon." While far away in the dim distance rose the snowy ranges of the Cordelleras ! " Tired nature's sweet restorer," however soon came to dissipate the scene, beautiful as it was, and most of us crawled off to our rooms long before midnight. 60 Mines at PanulHllo The mines at Paimlcillo we had amjjle time to examine, as they are neither deep nor extensive, but as the ore is not only dug out but partly smelted and calcined on the premises and the miners almost entirely housed and fed on the estate, there was much of interest to see, especially amongst these, I may mention the bakery in which bread is baked for about 800 people daily. T)ie owner of the mines, Mr. L., who when not in England lives on his noble estate of La Compania, near Serena, and whose freehanded hospitality most strangers and naval ofiicers visiting Coquhnbo know well, is most liberal to his workmen, and when in Chili himself looks closely into their wants, as well as into the working of his estate, and the consecpience is that his men are well cared for and contented. The morning of our third day at Panulcillo saw us once more in the saddle, and havL:jg yaid good-bye to our kind friends at " La Casa," r.s tlie ijianager's house is termed, we started on the road to T. (, . r4i •'! I 70 Alexatider Selkirk. r. .1 - ii J' were first taken there by Fernandez, and this was probably the case as every one visiting the Island since his time speaks of them as being very plentiful on the Island. In the year 1681 a Mosquito Indian was left on the island by a party of buccaneers of whom Dampier was one, and lived there for two years, after which time he was taken off by Dampier himself, who was then (1684) in command of a vessel of 26 guns called the " St. George," who together with her consort the " Cinque Ports " of 16 guns visited the island. It was from this latter vessel some months later that Alexander Selkirk was landed on the island at his own request, having had a quarrel with the captain, one Stradling and upon whose thrilling narrative De Foe built up the romance already mentioned. Selkirk wlien landed was allowed to take with him books, clothes and provisions together with a gun and a small quantity of powder and shot, but these latter were very soon expended, and he found himself reduced to the necessity of chasing the goats on foot to keep up his supply of provisions. Custom soon gave him the necessary fleetness, and after a little time he could run down a goat whenever he wanted one. The present inhabitants of the island point out a cave which he is said to have inhabited till he built himself a hut but if it was so thickly populated in his time as I found it on an occasion which I shall presently mention, he must have slept like the Squires of Herman Daza " more than nine under one blanket," it is quite probable however that he may have kept his tame goats and live stock there, and this might perhaps account for its present populous state ! After remaining for more than four years on the island, it^ fi^m^ Lord Anson at Juan Fernandez, 71 Selkirk was taken off by the privateers " Duke " and " Duchess " of Bristol, in one of which ships Dampier himself was pilot. About the year 1720 one Shelvock and his crew were wrecked on the island, and remained some months there living in huts near the site occupied by the present settlement ; on several occasions during their stay there, they beat off the ciews of Spanish vessels sent to take them prisoners ; as did also five men left there on a former occasion by Captain Stradling. Lord Anson in 1741 found the island of Juan Fer- nandez a most welcome resting place and sanatorium for his fleet after their voyage round Cape Horn, and indeed had it not been for the temporary asylum offered to his sick crew by this deUghtful island, he himself declares they must have either abandoned their ships, or died on board them of scurvey, indeed so reduced in numbers were they in the " Centurion," Anson's own flagship, that once having let go the anchor, all their power was not sufUcient to raise it again. The seamen, sick and well, hailed with delight the grassy slopes and woods, and Sc eams of this beautiful island ; and many a poor wretch who a short time before thought his hours were numbered found in them a new lease of life. While at Juan Fernandez in H.M.S. "Amethyst" during the year 1876 I paid a visit together with some others to what is known as Robinson Crusoe's cave, and spent the night in its vicinity. The road to it is beauti ful, though XI her difficult, being about five or six miles across the numerous ridges which extend from the M« i'i . I i : V , i I 1! 72 Trip to Robinson Crusot^s cave. A "." 'f- I V < Mi middle of the island to the sea ; and the latter pait over steep grassy slopes, which terminated in a precipice of about two or three hundred feet going sheer down to the sea, into which a false step or a rolling stone may precipitate one without much warning. After a toilsome walk, or rather scramble, of about two hours we arrived at the cave into which we marched, and were about to seat ourselves for a rest, but were soon dissuaded from so doing by loud cries from our guide of *^ Poulgas," " Poulgas " and to our disgust we found that we were up to our knees in fleas ! there was nothing more for it but to beat a retreat which we did. and took refuge for the night in a small hut we found close by. This was the temporary abode of two wood cutters from the settlement, but they hospitably resigned it in our favour. In the valley in which we now found ourselves, we came upon numerous peach and apricot trees, but the fruit was not ripe ; in another valley however we found abundance of cherries growing wild, and in very good condition; these were most likely trees planted by Lord Anson when here. The tree ferns and wild rhubarb, which latter grows to an enormous size, we found also, together with the most luxurient tropical plants and trees, the common bracken fern growing nearly as high as a man's head. These woodmen had come round from the settlement at Cumberland Bay to cut the Junta wood which is a kind of palm, having a stem about the size of a cocoanut tree but with only pith inside it. The outside of the stem is a hard black wood with a large .11. hi k^ Prairie on fire — a boy lost. 73 fibre and takes a remarkably high polish ; it is used for walking canes and smaller pieces of furniture, and is sent in large quantities to Valparaiso. What with rain, mosquitoes, and fleas there was not much sleep obtained by any of us even in the wood- cutters' hut, but under the circumstances nobody expected very much, so we were not disappointed. After a break- fast such as only those who have camped out can make, and having had a very refreshing dip in the sea, we returner' o the settlement, and proceeded towards what is ki. Selkirk's look out, which is a small piece of level ground between two very high peaks and which is itself about 1400 feet above the sea. The view from this spot (when not enveloped in mist) is truly grand but that which met our gaze on this occasion was scarcely what we had expected. At the foot of the descent on the south-west side of the ridge or backbone of the island, there extends a large grassy plain right to its further end almost without a break ; when we arrived at Selkirk's look out, we found the whole of this plain in a blaze, and as it went rolling and crackling away before the wind, one could easily imagine the small chance of escape any one would have who happened to be to leeward of such a conflagration ;. judge of our horror on returning to the ship to find that a boy who had strayed away from a party of liberty men was missing, and was supposed to have been either over- taken by this fire, or to have been driven by it over one of the clifls on the south side of the island. Parties were sent out next day in every direction, and large rewards I m 74 Sir Francis Drake in the Pacific. offered to the natives who with tlieir dogs aided very willingly in the search for the poor lad ; but after the third day we were reluctantly obliged to give him up and sail for Val})araiso having heard nothing of his fate. Some months afterward we returned to the Island but the inhabitants who had been frequently out in search had seen nothing of him ; and it is only too probable that he, in trying to avoid the fire had fallen over the cliffs into the sea, adding one more to the many tragic events in the history of Juan Fernandez. We must now return just for a moment to the Straits of Magellan and pick up Sir Francis Drake, whom we left near " the uttermost part of the earth which is towards the South Pole." From the Straits of Magellan he sailed for Valparaiso, where he found a large Spanish ship, which he at once attacked and captured, taking no less than 60,000 pesos of gold out of her. He then sacked the town and took on board a pilot for Lima, or rather Callao, for which port he then sailed, touching at and sacking Arica and several other towns on the way, by way of intimating his presence to the Spaniards. In due time he arrived at Callao, where he destroyed no less than 17 ships, first taking an immense (quantity of treasure out of them, and hearing that the " Cacafuego," a large silver laden ship, had only sailed a few days previously, he hastened after her. Shortly after leaving Payla he came up with and captured her, taking from her no less a sum than ;^ 150,000 in gold and silver^ In rooting out their common enemy Drake and his followers always managed to " save the best of the sheep ' Spanish galleon taken by Anson. T.-i and oxen," but the burnt ofifering was generally the empty hull of the vessel they had taken. Lord Anson after leaving Juan Fernandez cruised for some time with his fleet on the coast of Chili, but finding that they took few prizes made his way further north. Off the coast of Peru he took several small vessels, and having from one of them obtained the welcome news that there was a considerable amount of treasure at Payta, determined to attack the town ; this he did on the 13th November, 1741 by a night boat attack, and so great was the surprise that 50 men took the whole town with only the loss of one man killed and two wounded. Having taken on board all the treai^ure they could lind which amounted to over ;£"3o,ooo, Anson burnt the town to the ground and sailed for the island of Quibo to take in wood and water preparatory to his watch off the coast of Mexico for the Spanish galleon which came every year from Manilla to Acapulco, and which his great object was to capture. This however he did not succeed in doing till June, 1743 somewhere near Manilla. Valparaiso was sacked and four ships taken and burnt in the year 1594 by Hawkins, who soon after fought and got clear away from six Spanish ships which were sent to capture him. After committing great havoc on the coast for some months, he was finally captured by three Spanish ships of the first class after a fight of three days, in which he received no less than six wounds. Serena was twice sacked and destroyed during the time of the Spaniards, once by Dampier and once by a Frenchman. And indeed most of the towns on the 76 The Buccaneers, I coast have at one time or another been sacked or taken either by our own cruisers or by the numerous buccaneers who used to infest the whole of this coast as well as the West Indies at this time. These buccaneers were principally French and English who had banded them- selves together against their common enemy the Spaniards and who at the present day would be considered neither more nor less than pirates ; but in those days the Spaniard was considered fair game for all freebooters, and their colonies and trade, both in the West Indies and the Pacific Ocean, were much harassed by them. The names of Morgan, Dampier and Oxenham were amongst the most daring and adventurous, and Sir Walter Scott has beautifully expressed the dread in which these buc- caneers were held wherever they were known^ in his charming poem, " Rockeby," when he says :— " Panama's maid shall oft turn pale When Risingham inspires the tale ; And Chili's matrons long shall tame The wayward child with Bertram's name ! " I have not come across either the names of Bertram or Risingham amongst those of the buccaneers, but " what is there in a name ? " Dampier, who had been formerly one of Morgan's followers, and about three hundred others, after seeing the success which attended the sacking of Panama, determined to cross the Isthmus again and try their ventures in the South sea, and so well did they succeed that in the course of a short time they had a fleet of four or five ships, and the bay of Panama was the scene of many a barbarous act and plundering expedition. After F Ghost ^^on sentry:' 77 a time they sailed for the coasts of Peru and Cliili, where they committed the most shocking ravages, both on ships and towns, and, as may be supposed amassed great wealth. The island of Juan Fernandez and Gorgona were much frequented by them, as there they could divide their plunder unmolested. It is said that at Gorgona Island and the Galapagos the buccaneers used to bury large quantities of their plunder, and as they had a sort of superstition that if a spirit could be got to watch over it, it would not be discovered, they used on these occasions to kill a negro, amidst much feasting and rejoicing, in order that his ghost might scare away marauders from their treasure. This was all very well for the buccaneers, but not quite so nice for the negro. What was fun for the boys, you know, was death to the frogs. ^ II In ■^' « II H I CHAPTER VII. Peru, Central America, 6^r. In 1824 Peru and Bolivia followed the example of Chili and declared their independence. And as the power of Spain on the Pacific coast had become considerably weakened, they did not find it such a difficult matter as the Chilians before them ; they became independent republics after having been Spanish colonies for nearly 300 years. All who have read Prescott's admirable work, the " Conquest of Peru," will know quite as much as I can tell them perhaps about it ; but for the sake of those who have not, I must just glance at it for a moment. This conquest was effected by one Francesco Pizarro, of whom mention has already been made. In 1531 he sailed from Panama with only three ships and less than 200 men to commence this great undertaking. His first expedition, which took place in 1527, was rather a failure. When they got as far as Gorgona Island most of his followers deserted him and went back to Panama; and it is said that he drew a line in the sand with his sword, desiring everyone who did not wish to go with him to step over it to the North, which all did but twelve. With these twelve and a small vessel he made a voyage to the coast of Peru, and he came back with such glowing accounts of the wealth and riches to be obtained there that people flocked to join him. In 1531 he succeeded in fitting out the expedition with which he finally accom- A room full of gold. n plished the conquest. He marched straight for the capital, determining to follow the example of Cortes in Mexico^ and make their king or Inca his prisoner, if possible, by fair means or foul. He sent to the Inca noessages to the effect that he was simply an ambassador from the king of Spain, and under this pretext was admitted right into the Capital, Caxamalca. The Inca in great state visited him at the palace, which by his orders had been placed at the disposal of Pizarro, bringing with him handsome presents for the king of Spain — when what was his surprise and rage to find himself made prisoner in his own palace ! Of course, a fierce battle ensued, but with the king as a hostage and the far superior arms of the Spaniards, the natives were soon convinced they were maintaining an unequal war. Terms of peace where offered, and for a very large sum of money Atahualpa the Inca was to be liberated. The ransom agreed upon was what we should in these days consider a fabulous amount, being nothing less than a room 22 feet by 17 feet filled with gold as high as a man could reach, and two other rooms filled with silver. Of course, so large an amount of gold took a long time to collect, and Pizarro, finding he was by this time joined by large bands of adventurers from Panama, broke faith with the Inca, seized the treasure already amassed, tried the unfortunate Inca on some frivolous charge, and condemned him to be \ urnt at the stake. This, however, was m'tigated to strangulation on his consenting to become is 80 Lord Cochrane cuts out the *' Esmeralda.'^ '^! r 1 1 u^ !: a Christian. From this time Pizarro gr.idually extended his power until the whole of Peru came under his rule and became a Spanish colony. During the war for independence Callao Castie played a very important part, being very strong and mounting some forty large brass guns, from under which Lord Dundonald in the most daring and gallant manner cut out the Spanish frigate " Esmeralda " on one occasion. As this ves'-4 was lying under batteries mounting near- ly 200 guns, and behind a boom of great strength, supported by two block-ships and no less than twenty-seiien gun-boats, the cutting out was no easy matter ; of course it had to be undertaken at night. Cochrane chose 250 men for the attack, and at ten o'clock on the night of the 5th November, 1820, they started on their perilous enterprize. About mid- night, they came upon the boom and fortunately found a small opening in it through which the whole of his seventeen boats passed. They then made straight for the ** Esmeralda," and, in a few minutes, the whole of his men were scrambling up her sides ; a fierce struggle ensued, but in a little more than a quarter of an hour, the frigate was in their hands. Cochrane, on first planting his foot on her deck, was knocked over-board, and on regaining a footing, was shot through the thigh^ but nothing daunted, he pressed on, although, as he himself says, " he found some difficulty in doing so ! " In this action Cochrame lost ii men killed, and thirty wounded, the Spaniards in all lost 160 men. By the time the frigate wa'- captured the men who had been" told off" J Discovery of the Pacific Ocean. 8: to loose the sails had got her under canvas, and although the batteries on shore had by this time opened fire on hei, Cochrane slipped the cables, and came out without sustaining any damage, from either their guns or those of the gun-hoats, before mentioned. In 1835, Callao Castle was completely dismantled and the guns sold, as the then president said he had not an officer whom he could trust in command of so formidable a place. He had probably good cause for suspecting the loyalty of his officers, as he himself had gained the president-ship by having rebelle.' while in command of that identical fortress. The Spaniards seem to have had but little difficulty in establishing themselves in Central America, although from the fact of their occupation of it so many other important conquests followed. It was about the year 1500 that they first appeared there, when as yet the Great Pacific was unknown, and it was not till 151 2, or thereabouts, that it was discovered. One Balboa was made governor of the Province of Daricn at that time, and he determined to march south in search of the great Sea which the Indians spoke of and seemed to be quite familiar with. Under their direction he marched across the Isthmus of Panama, and after nearly a month's hard labour, he discovered the vast ocean now known as the Pacific. He founded a town on the spot from which he first saw it, which he called Nata, some little distance from the present city of Panama, but it now only consists of a few fishermen's huts. The site of the first city of 11 82 Conquest of Mexico. >: n Panama was about three miles to the eastward of the present town, and the ruins of it may be seen to this day^ but the rapid growth of tropical vegetation has almost entirely hidden it from view. It was sacked and burned in 1670 by the buccaneer Morgan, who carried off from it no less than 170 mule loads of plunder, chiefly gold and silver in one form or another. About the same time that Magellan discovered his Straits, one Hernando Cortes started on the far-famed conquest of Mexico. He landed in August, 1519, and having burnt his ships, bailt the present town of Vera Cruz, he then set out on his march inland, for that capital of which from Indians and others he had heard so much. The Tlascalans, a very warlike race, who had given great trouble to the government of Montezuma, he conquered first, and then marched on to Mexico, where he set the example, which was followed so carefully by Pizarro in Peru, and by treachery and threats took poss- ession of the great Montezuma himself His first attack on Mexico, however, was not very successful, and he had to retire for a short time before the overpowering numbers of Indians ; he soon, however, laid siege to it again, and after some months finally captured it. The city of Mexico, we are told, was one of the finest then known, rivalling in beauty even Naples and Venice. The Mexicans themselves seem to have been by all accounts, a fine race, and, but for their barbarous human sacrifices, almost civilized. The temples on which the human sacrifices were offered, are well descrii)ed by l*rescott. Human Sacrifice. 83 He says ''they were solid masses of earth, cased with brick or stone, and in their form somewhat resembling the pyramidal structures of ancient Egypt. They were distributed into four or five stories each of smaller dimen- sions than that below. The ascent was by a flight of steps at an angle of the pyramid, on the outside ; this led to a sort of terrace or gallery at the base of the second story, which passed quite round the building to another flight of stairs as before, leading to a similar terrace, so that one had to make the circuit of the temple several times before reaching the summit." Some of these temples were of enormous size, the great temple of Mexico being more than 600 feet in length. On the top of these enormous pyramids was the sacrificial altar, and it was on top and not inside the temple that all the religious ceremonies took place. On this altar, the miserable victim for sacrifice was bound, and amidst the beating of the "Tambour of the gods," and the shouting of the crowd beneath, his heart was torn reeking from his body, his breast being cut open in the most cruel and barbarous manner. Excepting cases of war, these human sacrifices took place only once in the year, when one chief victim and a hundred slaves were sacrificed. This chief victim just spoken of was generally a youth of very prepossessing appearance chosen by the priests ; but often with his own consent, so great was their certainty that thereby they insured themselves eternal happi- ness hereafter. He was taken charge of by the priests and ted and clothed in the most sumptuous manner for twelve months, during F2 1 re ^t \\ Hi' ^■1 !'^ liil 84 T/ig last oj the Astic Priests. which time he lived in idle dalliance with twelve of the most beautiful maidens to be found, as his wives, and kept in all the luxury which the well known wealth of the priests could purchase him. On the day of sacrifice he was clothed in his most gorgeous robes and crowned with flowers, his wives accompanied him to the temple chanting and singing as they ascended the winding stairs ; at each turning of the stairs one left him, and as he approached the top he threw off his crown of flowers, and one by one his garments, till arriving at the altar he was stripped of his remaining clothes and sacrificed as already described ; the body being afterwards buried in the interior of the temple. The hundred slaves however were not allowed this latter privilege, but were flayed and eaten by their owners and their friends, after being sacrificed with rites and barbarous ceremonies too horrible to speak of. It was with men such as these that Cortez had to deal in his conquest of Mexico ; and it is said that after his first retreat from the city, where many of his men had been taken prisoners, they used nightly to hear the horrid booming of the " Tambour," too surely announcing the sacrifice of some of their own unfortunate countrymen. Southey has vividly portrayed the miserable death of the last of these priests in the last book of his " Madoc." Lezozomoc apparently had gone to the top of a Volcano to catch the first gleam of sunrise, when an eruption took place. "On the utmost pinnacle he stands, and sees ** The lava lioods l)eiieath him : and his hour " Is come. The fiery shower, descending heaps "Ked ashes round ; they fall like drifting sno\v|i, *' And bury and consume the accursed priest." The Apache Indians 86 One hundred years before the conq -.est by Cortcz, a Welsh prince called Madoc is said to have landed in Mexico and actually driven the Astecs from their original capital, called Aztlan, to the luxuriant* valley in which the present city of Mexico stands. Whether this is a fable, or whether there are the germs of truth in it, [ don't know, but I believe to this day there are Indians on the north-east border of Mexico said to be descended from these Welshmen, and who are called the Welsh Indians. After the conquest by Cortcz, the Astec race very quickly disappeared from their old haunts, and it is believed by many that the line of country they took was to the north- west, carrying with them the most inveterate hatred to the white man, which is still shown by that race of the Mexican Indians called the Apaches, a wild and cruel tribe who inhabit the mountains away at the nortli-c.;st corner of the Gulf of California, and who are very much dreaded by the natives to this day. It is said that amongst them are kept up all the barbarous rites and ceremonies of the Astec race, and it is certain that i^yN^ if any of the many prisoners they have taken in their numerous raids on Guaymas and the neighbouring towns have ever returned to tell their tale. When we recall the horrible rites and barbarous sacrifices that used to take place in old Mexico their probable fate is too terrible to think vf. * Of the coas: of Central America and Mexicp there is not ?,i uch to be sai(J, even if we had time. Revolutions are the order of the day, and where Hiat is the rase the countries can carcely be expected to be very prosperous, i^s an w 1 y i- ;i 8e T/ie President in petticoats. instance, during a period of five years I visited the port of La Union, in Salvador, three times, and each time a revolution was going on, and twice tlie ship that I was in had to offer an asylum to the President, who came off, on the first occasion, in a dress borrowed from the French consul's wife ! Just at the entrance of port La Union is a very large, but now extinct, volcano called Cosiguina, which in the year 1835, just a few hours after the earthquake and tidal wave had destroyed Concepcion and Talcahuana, 3,000 miles distant, broke out into enaption, which lasted for several days, with the most disastrous effects. The whole surround- ing country for miles and miles was covered with the fine dust and lava it threw out, and it is said that a ship four hundred miles at sea, had her decks and rigging covered with a fine volcanic dust supposed to have been thrown up from Cosiguina. A most peculiar feature, and one well worthy of a few remarks, throughout the whole of Central America and Mexico is their ruined ancient cities. These vast structures, for centuries entirely deserted and almost unknown, rise up in tiie path of the explorer of these regions like phantoms of departed grandeur, to tell him of a race long since extinct, but of whose civilization they themselves remain a lasting monument. Their history is buried in oblivion like that of the race who once inhabited them ; and we have only the ruins of their habitations left as evidence of a strength and genius which could only have belonged to a civilized people. The Pubelo ruins of Zumi and Cevola in Northern Mexico are grand and interesting, but have not the antiquity of those found farther south, nor indeed are they of the same J Ancient Cities of Central America. ^1 character. In Central Mexico they assume grander pro- portions and are of far greater antiquity. At Tulha the ancient capital of the Tolte^s ; at Xochicatco and Cholulu are some grand remains of old temples and pyramids ; that of Cholulu covering an area of forty-five acres, and as Dupaix says *' thousands of other monuments unrecorded by the antiquaries invest every sierra and valley of Mexico with profound interest ! " But it is when we come to Central America that those of the deepest interest and greatest antiquity appear — Palenque, Copan, Mitla, Chichien-Itza, Uxmal, and many more, the names and even the existence of which, at the time of the Spanish Conquest, were as unknown to the natives of the surrounding country as they were to the Spaniards themselves. Space will only admit of my touching thus briefly on this interesting subject ; for descriptions of the mounds and ruins I must refer my readers to the volume I have already mentioned by Baldwin or those of Brasseur de Bourbourg, to whose researches in this part of the world we are indebted for most of the little known about it. Almost inseparably connected with these ancient cities of Central America and Mexico, are the traces of that race so long extinct and so thoroughly unknown who are no\v termed the " Mound Builders." On the banks of the Missi.'jsippi the Missouri and Ohio, there are such remains of them as to show that they were no rude barbarians, these forgotten races, but men of a calibre such as we find amongst the ancient Egyptians or Chaldeans ; and the extent and manipulation of their works show a knowledge not only of house-building and 88 The " Mound Buiiders." :i road-making, but of fortifications, arts, and sciences, for which we are little in the habit of giving them credit. The great mound at Miamisburg, Ohio, the Cedar Bank and Hopeton works in the same country ; and the curiously- shaped works of Michigan, Iowa, Wisconsin, which in most cases seem to have taken the shape of birds and beasts, are evidences of a people far superior to any that we are accustomed to connect with America before its civilization from the East — but who they were or from whence they came,, must for ever remain a mystery. Evidences however of their scientific knowledge are not wanting. During some excavations in Western Virginia, several stone tubes carved out of Steatite were discovered, the exact counterparts of which were found represented in a cutting on a large stone in Mexico, where i.he figure of a man was drawn examining the heavens through one of them, and having several astronomical devices sculptured underneath, thus showing tliat astronomy was not unkno\vn amongst them. There are also many proofs of their mining and agricultural capabilities. Arguing from the extreme state of decay in which the very few skeletons that remp^'n of these " Mound Builders'' have been found, Mr. Ba^ vin in his " Ancient America " (a book which all who feel an interest in this subject should read) puts down the period of their existence in America at two thousand years prior to its discovery by Columbus. In the great mound of Miamisburg when it was first discovered in the " primeval " forests of Ohio, a tree whose age was calculated at not less than eight hundred years, was found Forgotten Races. 89 growing on its summit. How many centuries had that mound been there before this tree began to grow ! It is supposed by many writers on the subject that the ancient cities of Central America were built and inhabited by these Mound Builders, others suppose them to have been the work of the Toltees after their disappearance from Mexico, but this would give them a much more recent date than that to which they would seem o belong. Their whole history is wrapped in obscurity and most that has been written about them is pure conjecture. Who built these wondrous structures now mouldering to decay, none can tell, nor is there a trace of what became of them— of their civil and religious institutions we know nothing, nor can we even guess at their origin, but of their high state of civilization there can be no doubt. As we traverse the present sandy and ill-made roads of Central America and view the natives living in their palm thatched bamboo huts, with not a thought above a cigarette or a glass of " Agua dienta " ; knowing nothing and caring nothing for the grandeur of their predecessors in the land, one cannot help contrasting its present state with what must have been in the lost and forgotten civilization of many centuries ago, of which those magnificient ruins " unique extraordinary, and mournfully beautiful," buried in the midst of tropical forest are now all that remains to show us what it once had been ! > ?'■ CHAPTER VIII. California^ Vancouvers Island^ &*c. « ■i I- ■1 n ».,' ' I During the time of the Spaniards Acapulco and San Bias seem to have been the two principal seaports. It was from the former that the famous galleon used annually to sail for Manilla, which Anson took during his voyage in the Pacific. It was from this port also that expeditions used to be sent out to examine the coast to the northward, in one of which - the town of Montery was founded, under whose walls the famous Victor Galbraith was shot for mutiny. A Spaniard, called Juan de Fuca, about this time was sent to look for a passage, which was even then supposed to exist through to the Atlantic Ocean. After working up the coast of California to about the forty-eighth parallel of lati- tude, he came across the straits which still bear his name, and which separate the southern part of the island of Vancouver from the neighbouring province of Oregon ; he entered these, and having after much toil passed through the inland waters separating Vancouver Island from the mainland, he came out in what is now known as Queen Charlotte Sound, and immediately concluded that this was Hudson Bay that he had arrived at, so without more ado he turned back by the way he came, and returned to Acapulco, reporting that he had discovered the north east passage. After this the Spaniards sent several expeditions to look for this wonderful passage which Juan de Fuca had dis- covered into the Atlantic, but none of them ever got to Spain by that route, and most of them returned to Mexico, ' Old San Bias. 91 having added little if anything to the discoveries of Juan de Fuca. Even Captain Cook in his voyage on the west coast of North America failed to discover these Straits ; but this was probably from his want of belief in their existence, for he says himself on arriving at about the latitude 48)^^', " It is in this very latitude that geographers have placed the pretended Straits of Juan de Fuca. We saw nothing like it, nor is there any probability that ever any such thing existed." At San Bias there are some fine remains of the old Spanish town, which was built about a mile from the present port of that name, upon a hill the south side of which is quite precipitous. It must have been of considerable size and boasis a fine old church, in which as late as the year 1859 services used to be held. The town however has been deserted now for over fifty years, owing to its unhealthy situation, and the scarcity of water, and with the excep- tion of a few of the houses near the salt water Estero on which it is built, in which a few fishermen live, the whole town is going fast to decay, and so rapid is the growth of the vegetation that were it is not kept cut down, the ruined houses would be entirely hidden by it. In the wall of one of them called the " Casa de Tesoridia," I saw a tree growing whose stem could not have been much less than eighteen inches in diameter ! The present port has no buildings of any extent ; but it boasts a very large cigar manufactory, from which thousands ■of boxes of cigars are annually shipped to Havanna, and thence to Eurone under that name. There are the remains of an old Rope- Walk and some other Dock-yard buildings near the beaci :, but these are almost entirely hidden now by ^, •^■V^< IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) 1.0 1.1 I^|2j8 |Z5 ^ U£ 12.0 IL25 III 1.4 1^ ->>' y m '/ /i Photographic Sciences Corporation 23 WIST MAIN STiEIT WEBSTM.N.Y. UStO (716)«7a-4S03 "^U"" '^ ^ 92 Shooting on the Coast. Vi I, 1 ' f't. Il trees and brushwood. The ancient glory of San Bias has departed, and its trade has now in a great measure been absorbed by its more fortunately situated rival Mazatlan, which is really a fine town with a moderately good harbour, and many large and handsome houses. Further up the Coast of Mexico on the shores of the Gulf of California are numerous towns which were once of some note, but now have mostly dwindled very far down the scale in the commercial world. The most flourishing amongst these is Guaymas, which has still a very considerable trade, and ships a large quantity of silver from the mines of Hermosillo every month. All along this coast the sportsman will find ample recom- pense tor his labour. At San Bias and Mazatlan, Chacha- laca and duck are very plentiful, wild turkeys, quail and sand doves a little farther north, and at v^khiymas, hares, qtiail and deer, the first oi an enormous size> abound. While I was at the last mentioned place, some years ago, a party of four loaded a donkey with hares from one day's shooting, at the village of San Jose di Guaymas, after leaving enough to provision the ranch at which they had been staying, for three or four days. About the middle of the last century a Mission was sent from Mexico, to civilize the Indians on the west coast of California, under two men, Fathers Crespin and Junipero, to whose zeal and unflagging energy many of the present settlements on the coast owe their first existence. They founded the Mission of San Diego in 1769, and from there divided into two companies — one to go by sea in two small vessels, the other by land up the coast. Those in the vessels Missicns of California, 93 while looking for the Port of Monterey, which had been discovered and settled by Viscayno about the year 1600, and so named in honor of ths Viceroy of Mexico ; came upon the magnificent harbour of San Francisco, or rather Sanfrancisco as it is now spelt, and established the Missi'>n there which lasted till about the year 1846, when the American flag was first hoisted at Monterey, and this part of the coast formally taken possession of by the United States. Ti\e Mission was then done away with. One after another, these two men, going from place to place like the apostles of old, established the numerous Mission Stations on the coast of California, Santa Barbara, La Purissima, Santa Cruz, San Fernando Rey San Luis Rey, San Jose, San Juan Baptista and others, many of which became large and flourishing settlements as well as religious est2l!()lishments. In 1827 the mission of San Luis Rey then had over 20,000 head of cattle and as many sheep, and occupied over 200,000 acres of land, they also at this time possessed the finest church in CalifOiiaa. How many that now look upon the present populous and thriving town of Sanfrancisco, its harbour full of the ships of all nations, its markets heaped to overflowing with the produce of the country, and its streets of stately anH magnificent buildings, a very centre of mercantile prosperity ; will even think, or care to think, of the two weary and footsore priests, and the ten or twelve ragged and worn individuals they called their " body guard," planting their cross in the sand hills and uttering their prayers to St. Francis for the success ot this new mission ; and yet it is to them the credit of its foundation is due 1 n Vancouver Island. R 1,' i:i. a ! In 1792 Vancouver was sent out to settle some disputes about the territory near Nootka Sound, and with orders to survey the coast about there. After settling the disputed points, he entered the Straits of Juan de Fuca, and circum- navigated the island which now bears his name. Until the year 1843 Vancouver Island was scarcely even, settled, although for fifty years it had been formally taken possession of as a British Colony ; about that time however the Hudson Bay Company formed a settlement there, the present city of Victoria, which grew rapidly; and when in 1858 gold was discovered in the Frazer River, there would be as many as three or four steamers a week from Sanfrancis- co bringing passengers of every grade and description ; and as Victoria Harbour is small and confined that of Fsquimalt (about three miles west of Victoria) began to be used, and a settlement was soon formed there also. From this time Vancouvei increased immensely both in commercial and political importance, and settlers as well as every description of trade and profession flocked thither to try their fortune. The gold fever has cooled down now, but Vancouver Island still stands well as a colony ; and when the long- talked-of Canadian Railway is finished, must become a most important part of the Dominion. In 1876 Lord Dufferin, then Governor General of Canada, wishing to visit the settlements in and North of Vancouver Island, as also to determine a site for the termi- nus of the above-mentioned railway, H.M.S. **Amethyst" was placed at his disposal ; and we, in conducting him to the various ports, had an opportunity of seeing much that under Island Waters — Metla-Katla Mission. 95 ' ordinary circumstances is .not seen by naval officers or in- deed by any one else. I had also on a previous occasion (1864) visited the inland waters north of Vancouver as far as Bella-Coola village in north Bentink Arm. These channels much resemble those already described on the West Coast of Patagonia, but are much more thickly populated ; indeed some very large villages exist in Bentink Arm, notably that of Bella-Coola the population of which was estimated at about two thousand when I was there. The village is about four miles up the river of the same name, which is both broad and rapid, and across which the natives have built a very perfect salmon weir. In the season they take enormous quantities of salmon, which they cure and dry in the sun for their winter supply of provisions. Further to the north is the well-known niission station and village of Metla-Katla, whose missionary Mr. Duncan, has been doing a noble work for over twenty years amongst these tribes. All honor is due to this noble and accomplisht^d gentleman for the zealous and faithful manner in which he has performed his work. He can now call together no less than six tribes, two of whom were formerly considered the most warlike and savage '>n that part of the coast, amongst whom his word, if not absolutely law, at least goes a long away towards swaying them in the right direction. Tiie village is now entirely modelled on the English principle, containing many neat little wooden cottages with gardens surrounding them, a really handsome wooden church, and a large school- house, all built by the Indians under the able direction of Mr. Duncan himself, who is not only their parson, law-giver and doctor, but architect and builder also. One of the most ii " f tffr t I r- ^ M [»'L ... 9G Reuption of Lord Duffertn, interesting spectacles on thje occasion of our visit was their reception of Her Majesty's representative and his charming Countess. It was the height of the fishing and hunting season when we were there, so most of the men except the old and the very young, were absent as they generally are at that season on tlieir hunting and fishing grounds ; but the school children and such as remained in the village, were drawn up at the landing place and their Excellencies walked up the little landing stage between two rows of as neatly dressed children as many an English Sunday school can boast ; and when arrived in front of the school-house, the whole, old and young, stood up on the grass and sang ** God Save the Queen" in thoroughly good English! They then sang several simple part songs in English with great taste, and showing no little pains-taking on the part of their conductor, {none else than Mr. Duncan,) finishing with a very pretty National Hymn to the tune of " Home Sweet Home " " Sweet Metla-Katla," composed I believe also by Mr. Duncan himself ! In a few days we crossed to Queen Charlotte Islands and took a peep at one of their largest villages called •* Skidegate." How dififerent this to the orderly and trim appearance at Metla-Katla. No school-house, no church, no missionary, and as far as we could see at first no in- habitants ; this last however W4S sadly accounted for after we had landed, when we found that the whole village had been almost depopulated within the last few months by a most virulent attack of small pox — whole houses had been Village depopulated by Smallpox. 97 leir M"g )• emptied by this terrible scourge, and many families entirely obliterated. These Indians have a curious custom : when a family becomes entirely extinct they remove the roof and boarding at the sides of their houses (which are sometimes very large, as the whole family, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins, and even the most distant relations live under the same roof) and leave only the skeleton or frame work of the house standing : in this they place the canoes of the departed covering them up with matting and leaves, in order that their owners may have the use of them when they require them in the spirit land to which they have gone. We saw many houses treated thus, and scarcely one in the village was without the Indian headstone or post in front of it, which shows that the head of the family is dead ; these are curiously carved trees, sometimes of great height, setting forth in picture writing the various virtues or pursuits of the departed : one which I well remember that of the " Medicine Man," had a hideous representation of a man eating a child carved upon it ! In wandering amongst the deserted houses I came by chance upon an old Indian woman, who was standing in an aimless and listless manner near a grave which was ap- paren ;ly not more than a few months old : on addressing her in the few words of Chinook at my command she at first seemed quite dazed, but after a time began to tell us, as well as we could understand, about the death of her daughter " Three Moons ago," and whose early demise she seemed to mourn with heartfelt sorrow. " One touch of nature makes the whole world kin." There was nothing poetic about this G w if !-! m m ■ 98 " ^«^ /oucA of nature makes the whole world kinV poor old witliered creature weeping at the early grave of her child ,- there was no romance in her appearance or actions as her shrivelled face contracted under her emotion, and she beat her breast with those hard fleshless hands — but in every word there was the ring of truth, in every action feeling which none of us could doubt. Here, in the wild woods amidst the ruins of a deserted Indian village, " one touch of nature " had appeared to show that the same feelings can exist under the roofless skeleton of an Indian hut, as we find in the gilded halls of civilization, and as we passed on towards our boat, we could still hear her lament ** Nica Papoose ! Nica Papoose ! Hyas Klosh tum-tum ! " (My own child ! My own good hearted child ! ") and as if remembering her loss once more, sank on the grave with one long wail, " Halo Papoose ! " (" I have no child now ! ") While speaking to us she kept pointing constantly upwards, as if to express a conviction that it was there her child had gone. Some day perhaps, the mother and daughter may meet again. On the way back through Ae village, we met a girl of about eighteen, evidently either English or German, on addressing her in English she only smiled, but apparently did not understand a word of what wc said. There was nothing of the Indian about her except the language she spoke, and we all felt sure that some sorrowing settler had lamented the loss of her as a child years ago, when she was probably stolen by these her now adopted people. Outside the Island of Vancouver are several deep inlets, such as Barkley Sound, Clayoquot Sound, and others, all these are thickly populated with Indians, but as.yet there are \ ,: 1% i 99 West Coast of Vancouver Island. i very few white settlements on the west coast of the island; some day, however, not far distant, the red man will be driven out to make room for the white, and the massive remains of their wooden houses, in the construction of which some of the largest trees of the forest are used will be cut up and serve to kindle the settler's fire. Much more might be said of this interesting part of the world \ of its inland waters, its native tribes, the exhausted gold diggings of the Frazer River, and the newly discovered ones of the Skeena and Stickeen, but for reasons which I need not mention here, I have been obliged to limit this work to very small compass. For this reason also I am obliged to leave unsaid much that I had intended to notice in connection with the deeds of our brave discoverers in these regions — Drake, Anson, Cook, Blyth, Vancouver, and others. But in reading of these devoted men and their works on the one hand, and seeing the enormous amount of trade now carried on in the Fc*cific under the English flag on the other, almost prophetic force is given to those words put by Kingsley into the mouth of one of his heroes, " It is through the deeds of such powerful souls as these that this vast ocean, the sovereignty of which is now usurped by Spain alone, shall some day, please God, be free to English keels as ever were the waters of the Thames." I feel that I cannot conclude better than by finishing the quotation, and expressing with Amyass Lee the hope that " England may never want for those brave and pious mariners, who will hold their lives as worthless, in the service of their God, their country, and their queen." I * ■•'! : Hi PRINTED F IIFFIN & CO., 2, THE HARD, PORTSMOUTH. 13 TSMOUTH. 5