y 
 
 
GIGANTIC CUTTLE FISH. 
 
 See page G49. 
 
OCEAN'S STORY; 
 
 OR, 
 
 Triumphs of Thirty Centuries; 
 
 A GRAPHIC DESCRIPTION OF ^ 
 
 MARITIME ADVENTURES, 
 Achievements, Explorations, Discoveries and Inventions: 
 
 AND OF THE 
 
 RISE AND PROaHESS OP SHIP-BUILDING AND OCEAN NAVIGATION 
 
 FROM 
 
 THE ARK TO THE IRON STEAMSHIPS, 
 
 FRANK B. GOODRICH, Esq. 
 
 AUTHOR OF " LETTERS OF DICK TINTO," "THE COURT OF NAPOLEOn/'aC. 
 
 WITH AN ACCOUNT OF ADVENTURES BENkA TH THE SEA ; DIVING, 
 DREDGING, DEEP SEA SOUNDING, LATEST SUBMARINE EX- 
 PLORATIONS, ^c, ^c, PREPARED WITH GREAT CARE 
 
 Edward; howx^and, esq: ff^%f . ^ J, l; - 
 
 AUTHOR or: MAW Y, PCFU»I«A,R 'yyO^RKJ^. ^^ 
 
 OVER, SOO SI?IItMXEI> ILLXJSTR^TIOIVS. 
 
 •\ 
 
 SOLD BY SUBSCRIPTION. 
 
 HUBBARD BROS., PHILADELPHIA, BOSTON, AND CLNCINNATI; 
 
 Valley ruBLisiiixa Co., St. Louis and Chicago; A. L. Bancroft & Co., 
 
 San Francisco ; John Fleeharty, Davenport, Iowa ; H. A. "\V. 
 
 Blackburn, Detroit, Mich. ; G. L. Benjamin, Fon Du Lac, 
 
 Wis.; Schuyler Smith & Co., London, Ontario. 
 
 1873. 
 
^0 
 
 Sntered according to Act of Congress, in the year 187S, 
 
 By UUBBARD BROS^ 
 it) the Office of the Librarian of Congress, ai Washlngtoo. 
 
 • • • 
 
 ..••.•••j* •••••• • • 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 SECTION I. 
 
 PROM THE EARLIEST TIMES TO THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE CHRISTIAN ERA. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 CHAPTER I. — The Purpose of this Work — The Ocean in the Scriptural Period 
 The Marvels of the Sea — The Classic Legends — The Fantastic Notions enter- 
 tained of the North and the Equator — The Giant of the Canaries — The Sea of 
 Sea-Weed — The Spectre of the Cape — The Gradual Surrender of the Secrets of 
 the Sea — It becomes the Highway of Nations — Its Present Aspect — Its Poetical 
 Significance — Its Moral Lessons 19 
 
 CHAPTER II. — The Origin of Navigation — The Nautilus— The Split Reed and 
 Beetle — The Beaver floating upon a Log — The Hollow Tree — The First Canoo 
 —The Floating Nutshell— The Oar— The Rudder— The Sail— The Tradition of 
 the First Sail-Boat 31 
 
 CHAPTER IIL— The Flood and the Building of the ^rK— The Arguments of 
 Infidelity against a Universal Deluge — The IViaterial of which the Ark was 
 built — Its Capacity, Dimensions, apd Form — Its Proportions copied in Modern 
 Ocean-Steamers ....^. ..^. 3fi 
 
 CHAPTER IV.— The Ships, Commerce, and Navigation of the Phoenicians — 
 Their Trade with Ophir— Sidon and Tyre— Their Voyage round Africa— New 
 Tyre— A Patriotic Phoenician Captain — The Egyptians as a Maritime People 
 — Their Ships and Commerce — The Jews — Their Geography — Ideas upon the 
 Shape of the Earth — The World as known to the Hebrews 4fi 
 
 CHAPTER v.— The Early Maritime History of the Greeks— The Expedition of 
 the Argonauts — The Vessels used in the Trojan War — Ship-Building in the 
 Time of Homer— The Poetic Geography of the Greeks — The Palace of the 
 Sun— The Marvels of a Voyage out of Sight of Land— The Geography of 
 Hesiod— Of Anaximander — Of Thales, Herodotus, Socrates, and Eratosthenes 
 — The Great Ocean is named the Atlantic 54 
 
 CHAPTER VL— Construction of Greek Vessels— The Prow, Poop, Rudder, 
 Oars, Masts, Sails, Cordage, Bulwarks, Anchors— Bireraes, Triremes, Quadri- 
 remes, Quinqueremes— The Grand Galley of Ptolemy Philopator— Roman Ves- 
 sels—Their Navy— Mimic Sea-Fights— The Five Voyages of Antiquity 65 
 
 CHAPTER VII.— The Voyage of Ilanno the Carthaginian— He sees Crocodiles, 
 Apes, and Volcanoes— The Voyage of Himilcon to Al-Bion— The Voyage and 
 Ignominious Fate of Sataspes the Persian— The Voyage of Pytheas the Pho- 
 olan— The Sacred Promontory— A New Atmosphere— Amber-Return Home 
 — The Veracity of Pytheas' Narrative — The Expedition of Nearchus the 
 
 5 
 
 3 
 
 5a 
 
fi • • '. / \ '* .* V : : : contents. 
 
 . . , ^ . , . . ^ . ^ , , , , . . ♦ • -^ PAOl 
 
 /V^n<ea^n3ujaV9trti«^e Kh^jbrncnain the Heavens — The Icthyophagi — Houses 
 built of the Bones of Whales'— tish Flour— A Battle with Whales— An Unex- 
 pected Meeting — The Distance traversed by Nearchus — The Voyage of 
 Eudoxus along the African Coast — State of Navigation at the Opening of the 
 Christian Era 75 
 
 SECTION II. 
 
 FROM THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE CHRISTIAN ERA TO TOE APPLICATION OF 
 TUE MAGNETIC NEEDLE TO EUROPEAN NAVIGATION, A.D. 1300. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. — Navigation during the Roman Empire — The Rise of Venice 
 and Genoa — The Crusades — Their Effect upon Commerce — Wedding of the 
 Adriatic — Creation of the French Navy — Introduction of Eastern Art into 
 Europe— Maps of the Middle Ages — Remote Effect of the Crusades upon 
 Geographical Science 92 
 
 CHAPTER IX. — The Scandinavian Sailors — Their Piracies and Commerce — 
 The Anglo-Saxons — Alfred the Great a Ship-Builder — The Voyage of Beowulf 
 — Discovery of Iceland by the Danes — Discovery of Greenland— The Voyage 
 of Bjarni and Leif to the American Continent — Their Discovery of Newfound- 
 land, Nova Scotia, Nantucket, and Massachusetts — Adventures of Thorwald 
 and Thorfinn — Comparison of the Discoveries of the Northmen with those of 
 Columbus 99 
 
 CHAPTER X.— The Travels of Marco Polo— The First Mention of Japan in His- 
 tory — Kublai Khan — Marco Polo's Voyage from Amoy to Ormuz — Malacca — 
 Sumatra — Pygmies — Singular Stories of Diamonds — The Roc — Polo notrecog. 
 nised upon his Return — His Imprisonment — The Publication of his Narrative 
 — The Interest awakened in China, Japan, and the Islands of Spices 108 
 
 CHAPTER XL— The First Mention of the Loadstone in History— Its Early 
 Names — The First Mention of its Directive Power — A Poem upon the Compass 
 Six Hundred Years Old — Friar Bacon's Magnet — The Loadstone in Arabia — 
 An Eye-Witness of its Efficiency in the Syrian Waters in the Year 1240 — The 
 Magnet in China — Early Mention of it in Chinese Works — The Variation 
 noticed in the Twelfth Century — Other Discoveries made by the Chinese — 
 Modern Errors — Flavio Gioia — The Arms of Amalfi — All Records lost of the 
 First Voyage made with the Compass by a European Ship 113 
 
 SECTION III. 
 
 FROM THE APPLICATION OF THE MAGNETIC NEEDLE TO EUROPEAN NAVIGATION 
 TO THE FIRST VOYAGE ROUND TUE WORLD UNDER MAGELLAN : 1300-1519. 
 
 CHAPTER XIL— The Portuguese on the Coast of Africa— The Spaniards and 
 the Canary Isles — Don Henry of Portugal — The Terrible Capo, now Capo 
 Bojador — The Sacred Promontory — Discovery of the Madeiras — A Dreadful 
 Phenomenon — A Prolific Rabbit and a Won<lerful Conflagration — Hostility of 
 the Portuguese to further Maritime Adventure — The Bay of Horses — The First 
 Gold-Dust seen in Europe — Discovery of Cape Verd and the Azores — The 
 Europeans approach the Etjuator — Journey of Cada-Mosto — Death of Don 
 Henry — Progress of Navigation under the Auspices of this Prince 122 
 
CONTENTS. / 
 
 PAUI 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. — The Portuguese cross the Equator from Guinea to Congo — 
 John 11. conceives the idea of a Route by Sea to the Indies— His Artifices to 
 prevent the Interference of other Nations — The Overland Journey of Covillam 
 to India— The Voyage of Bartholomew Diaz— The Doubling of the Tremen- 
 dous Cape— Its Baptism by the King — Injurious Effects of Success upon Por- 
 tuguese Ambition 1'' 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. — Birth of Christopher Columbus — His Early Life and Educa- 
 tion His First Voyage — His Marriage — His Maritime Contemplations— Ho 
 
 makes Proposals to the Senate of Genoa, the Court of Venice, and the Kin;; 
 
 of Portugal The Duplicity of the latter — Columbus visits Spain — Juan de 
 
 Marchena— Columbus repairs to Cordova— His Second Marriage— His Letter 
 
 to the King The Junto of Salamanca — Columbus resolves to shake the dust 
 
 of Spain from his feet— Marchena's Letter to Isabella— The Queen gives 
 Audience to Columbus— The Conditions stipulated by the latter— Isabella 
 accepts the Enterprise, while Ferdinand remains aloof. 137 
 
 CHAPTER XV.— The Port of Palos— The Superstition of its Mariners— The 
 Hand of Satan— A Bird which lifted Vessels to the Clouds— The Pinta and 
 the Nina— The Santa Maria— Capacity of a Spanish Caravel— The three Pin- 
 zons— The Departure— Columbus' Journal— The Helm of the Pinta unshipped 
 —The Variation of the Needle— The Appearance of the Tropical Atlantic- 
 Floating Vegetation— The Sargasso Sea— Alarm and threatened Mutiny of 
 the Sailors— Perplexities of Columbus— Land ! Land ! a False Alarm— Indi- 
 cations of the Vicinity of Land— Murmurs of the Crews— Open Revolt quelled 
 by Columbus— Floating Reeds and Tufts of Grass— Land at last- The Vessels 
 ancTior over-night 
 
 CHAPTER XVI.— Discovery of Guanahani— Ceremonies of taking Possession- 
 Exploration of the Neighboring Islands— Search for Gold— Cuba supposed by 
 Columbus to be Japan— The Cannibals— Haiti— Return Homewards— A Storm 
 —An Appeal to the Virgin— Arrival at the Azores— Conduct of the Portuguese 
 —Columbus at Lisbon— At Palos— At Barcelona— Columbus' Second Voyage 
 —Discovery of Guadeloupe, Antigoa, Santa Cruz, Jamaica— Illness of Colum- 
 bus—Terrible Battle between the Spaniards and the Savages- Columbus re- 
 turns to Spain— His Reception by the Queen— His Third Voyage— The Region 
 of Calms— Discovery of Trinidad and of the Main Land— Assumption and 
 Margarita — Columbus in Chains ^^* 
 
 CHAPTER XVII.— The Failing Health of Columbus— His Fourth Voyage- 
 Martinique, Porto Rico, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama— His Search for a 
 Channel across the Isthmus— He predicts an Eclipse of the Moon at Jamaica 
 —His Return— The Death of Isabella— Columbus Penniless at Valladolid— His 
 Death— His Four Burials— The Injustice of the World towards Columbus- 
 Christopher Pigeon— Amerigo Vespucci— The New World named America- 
 Errors of Modern Historians— The District of Columbia— John Cabot in 
 Labrador— Sebastian Cabot in Hudson's Bay— Vincent Yanez Pinzon at the 
 Mouths of the Amazon ^" 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. — Portuguese Navigation under Emmanuel— Popular Preju- 
 dices — The Lusiad of Camoens — Vasco da Gama— Maps of Africa of the Period 
 — Preparations for an Indian Voyage— Religious Ceremonies— The Dcparturo 
 —Rendezvous at the Cape Verds— Landing upon the Coast- The Natives— An 
 Invitation to Dinner, and its Consequences — A Storm — Mutiny— The Spectre 
 of the Cape. ^ ^^' 
 
8 CONTENTS. 
 
 VAr,% 
 CHAPTER XIX.— Da Gama and the Negroes — The Ilottcntota and Caffres— 
 Adventure with an Albatross — The River of Good Promise — Mozambique — 
 Treachery of the Natives — Mombassa — Melinda, and its Amiable King — Fes- 
 tivities — The Malabar Coast — Calicut — The Route to the Indies discovered.... 189 
 
 CHAPTER XX. — The Moors in Hindostan — Condition of the Country upon the 
 Arrival of Da Gama — Hostility of the Moors — They prejudice the King of 
 Calicut against the Portuguese — Consequent Hostilities — Da Gama sets out 
 upon his Return — Wild Cinnamon — A Moorish Pirate disguised as an Italian 
 Christian — A Tempestuous Voyage — Wreck of the San Rafael — Honors and 
 Titles bestowed upon Da Gama — An Expedition fitted out under Alvarez 
 Cabral — Accidental Discovery of Brazil — Comets and Water-Spouts — Loss of 
 Four Vessels — A Bazaar established at Calicut — Attack by the Moors — Cabral 
 withdraws to Cochin — Visits Cananor and takes in a Load of Cinnamon — Is 
 received with Coldness upon his Return — Vasco da Gama recalled into the 
 Service by the King — His Achievements at Sofala, Cananor, and Calicut — He 
 hangs Fifty Indians at the Yard-Arm — Protects Cochin and threatens Calicut 
 — Withdraws to Private Life 197 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. — Spread of the Portuguese East Indian Empire — Alphonzo 
 d'Albuquerque — Immense Sacrifice of Life — Ancient Route of the Spice-Trade 
 with Europe — Commerce by Caravans — Revolution produced by opening the 
 New Route — Francesco Almeida — Discovery of Ceylon — Tristan d'Acunha — 
 The Portuguese Mars — His Views of Empire — An Arsenal established at Goa 
 — Reduction of Malacca — Siam and Sumatra send Embassies to Albuquerque 
 — The Island of Ormuz — Death of Albuquerque — Extent of the Portuguese 
 Dominion — Ormuz becomes the great Emporium of the East — Fall of the 
 Portuguese Empire 207 
 
 CHAPTER XXII.— Ponce de Leon— The Fountain of Youth— Discovery of 
 Florida — The Martyrs and the Tortugas — The Bahama Channel — Vasco 
 Nunez de Balboa — He goes to Sea in a Barrel — Marries a Lady of the Isth- 
 mus — His Search for Gold — Hears of a Mighty Ocean — Undertakes to reach it 
 — Preparations for the Expedition — Leoncico the Bloodhound — Battle with a 
 Cacique — Ascent of the Mountains — Balboa mounts to the Summit alone — The 
 First Sight of the Pacific — Ceremonies of taking Possession — Balboa up to his 
 Knees in the Ocean — Every one tastes the Water — A Voyage upon the 
 Pacific, and a Narrow Escape — Ignominious Fate of Balboa — Juan Diaz de 
 Solis — Discovers the Rio de la Plata — His Horrible Death by Cannibals 213 
 
 CHAPTER XXIIL— Remarkable Foresight of the Court of Rome— A Papal 
 Bull — Ferdinand Magellan — He oflFers his Services to Spain — His Plans — His 
 Fleet — Pigafetta the Historian — An Inauspicious Start — Teneriff"e and its 
 Legends — St. Elmo's Fire — The Crew make Famous Bargains with the Can- 
 nibals — Heavy Price paid for the King of Spades — Patagonian Giants — Piga- 
 fetta's Exaggerations — The Healing Art in Patagonia — The Tragedy of Port 
 Julian — Discovery of a Strait — The Open Sea — Cape Dcseado — The Ocean 
 named Pacific — Ravages of the Scurvy — A Patagonian Paul — The Needle be- 
 comes Lethargic— Discovery of the Ladrones — The First Cocoanut — A Catholic 
 Ceremony upon a Pagan Island 226 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV.— Discovery of the Philippines— The King of Zubu wishes 
 the King of Spain to pay Tribute — He finally abandons the idea — A whole 
 Island converted to Christianity — Magellan performs a Miracle — A Dumb 
 
CONTENTS. 9 
 
 PAOB 
 
 Man recovers his Speech — Magellan invades a Refractory Island — His Death 
 — Attempts to recover his Body — The Christian Island returns to Idolatry — 
 The Ships arrive at Borneo — The Sailors drink too freely of Arrack — Festi- 
 vities and Treachery — Vivid Imagination of Pigafetta — The Fleet arrives at 
 the Moluccas — The King of Tidore — A Brisk Trade in Cloves — The Spice- 
 TariflF — The Vittoria sails Homeward — Pigafetta is again imaginative — Arrival 
 at the Cape Verds — Loss of One Day — Completion of the First Voyage of Cir- 
 camnavigation — Pigafetta's Romance becomes Veritable History , 2^rt 
 
 SECTION lY, 
 
 FROM THE FIRST VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD TO THE DISCOVERY OF 
 CAPE HORX : 1519-1616. 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. — Voyage of Jacques Cartier — Maritime Projects of Francis L 
 of France — Gulf of St Lawrence — A Quick Trip Home — Second Voyage — 
 Canada, Quebec, Montreal — A Captive King — Voyage of Sir Hugh Willoughby 
 and Richard Chancellor — Discovery of Nova Zembla — Disastrous Winter — 
 Fate of the Expedition — Martin Frobisher — His Voyage in Quest of a North- 
 west Passage — Greenland — Labrador — Frobisher's Straits — Exchange of Cap- 
 tives — Supposed Discovery of Gold — Second Voyage — A Cargo of Precious 
 Earth taken on Board — Meta Incognita — Third Voyage — A Mortifying Con- 
 clusion 2i5 
 
 CHAPTER XXVL— Origin of English Piracy— Sir John Hawkins— Francis 
 Drake — His First Voyage to the Spanish Main — Commission granted by 
 Queen Elizabeth — Expedition against the Spanish Possessions — Exploits at 
 Mogador and Santiago — Crossing the Line — Arrival in Patagonia — Trial and 
 Execution of Doughty — Passage through Magellan's Strait — Adventures of 
 William Pitcher and Seven Men — Cape Horn — Arrival at Valparaiso — Rifling 
 of a Catholic Church 258 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIL— Drake's Exploit with a'Sleeping Spaniard— His Achieve- 
 ments at Callao — Battle with a Treasure-Ship — Drake gives a Receipt for her 
 Cargo — Indites a Touching Epistle — His Plans for Returning Home — Fresh 
 Captures — Performances at Guatulco and Acapulco — Drake dismisses his 
 Pilot — Exceeding Cold Weather — Drake regarded as a God by the Califor- 
 nians — Sails for the Moluccas — Visits Ternate and Celebes — The Pelican upon 
 a Reef — The Return Voyage — Protest of the Spanish Ambassador — He styles 
 Drake the Master-Thief of the Unknown World — Queen Elizabeth on board 
 the Pelican — Drake's Use of his Fortune — His Death — The Voyage of John 
 Davis to the Northwest 267 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIIL— Policy of Queen Elizabeth— Thomas Cavendish— His 
 First Voyage — Exploits upon the African and Brazilian Coasts — Port Desire 
 — Port Famine — Battles with the Araucanians — Capture of Paita — Robbery 
 of a Church — Repeated Acts of Brigandage — Capture of the Santa Anna — The 
 Return Voyage — Cavendish's Account of the Expedition — The Spanish Armada 
 — Preparations in England— The Conflict— Total Rout of the Invincibles — 
 Procession in Commemoration of the Event 278 
 
JLQ CONTENTS. 
 
 PACK 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. — The Fiction of El Dorado— Manoa— Description of its 
 Fabled Splendors— Attempts of the Spaniard* to Discover it— Sir \Valter Ra- 
 leigh His Voyage to Guiana — His Account cf the Orinoco — His De^jcrvption 
 
 of the Scenery— His Return— His Second Voyage —Expedition to Newfound- 
 laud— His Death— Modern Interpretation of the Legend of El Dorado 2S5 
 
 CHAPTER XXX.— Discovery of the Solomon Islands by Mendana — He seeks 
 for them again Thirty Years later— Quiros— The Marquesas Islands— The 
 Women compared with those of Lima— Strange Fruits— Conversions to Chris- 
 tianity Arduous Voyage — Santa Cruz — Mendana exchanges Names with 
 
 Malopg- Hostilities— War, and its Results— Death of Mendana— Quiros con- 
 ducts the Ships to Manilla 291 
 
 CHAPTER XXXL— Attempts of the Dutch to discover a Northeast Pajsage— 
 Voyage of Wilhelm Barentz— Arrival at Nova Zembla — Winter Quarters — 
 Building a House— Fights with Bears — The Sun Disappears— The Clock Stops, 
 and the Beer Freezes— The House is Snowed up— The Hot-Ache— Fox-Traps 
 —Twelfth Night— Return of the Sun— The Ships prove Unseaworthy— Pre- 
 parations to Depart in the Boats— Death of Barentz— Arrival at Amsterdam 
 — Results of the Voyage 297 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII.— The Five Ships of Rotterdam — Battle at the Island of 
 13rava— Sebald de Weert— Disasters in the Strait of Magellan— The Crew 
 eat Uncooked Food— The Fleet is scattered to the Winds— Adventures of De 
 Weert— A Wretched Object— Return to Holland— A^oyage of Oliver A'an Noort 
 ^Barbarous Punishment— The Emblem of Hope becomes a Cause of Despair 
 —Fight with the Patagonians— Arrest of the Vice-Admiral— His Punishment 
 — De°6cription of a Chilian Beverage— Capture of a Spanish Treasure-Ship- 
 A Pilot thrown Overboard— Sea-Fight off Manilla— Return Home, after the 
 First Dutch Voyage of Circumnavigation 3<>4 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII.— Quiros' Theory of a Southern Continent — His Arguments 
 and Memorials— His First Voyage— Discoveries— Encarna^ion-Sagittaria, or 
 Tahiti— Description of these Islands— Manicolo-E.^piritu Santo— Its Produc- 
 tions and Inhabitants— Quiros before the King of Spain— His Belief in his 
 Discovery of a Continent— His Disappointment— Renewed Solicitations- 
 Death of Quiros— Discoveries of Torrds— The Muscovy Company of London- 
 Henry Hudson— His Voyages to Spitzbergen and Nova Zembla— His Voyage 
 to America— Casts Anchor at Sandy Hook— Ascends the Hudson River as far 
 as the Site of Albany— His Voyage to Iceland and Hudson's Bay— Disastrous 
 Winter- Mutiny— Hudson set adrift— His Death 316 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV.— The Fleet of Joris Spilbergen— Arrival in Brazil— Adven- 
 tures in the Strait of Magellan— Trade at Mocha Island- Treachery at Santa 
 JIaria— Terrible Battle between the Dutch and Spanish Fleets— Ravages of 
 the Coast— Skirmishes upon the Land— Spilbergen sails for Manilla— Arrival 
 at Ternate— His Return Homo— The Voyage of Schouten and Lcmaire— 
 Lemonade at Sierra Leone— A CoUi<ion at Sea— Discovery of St.-.ten Land- 
 Cape Horn— Lemaire's Strait— Arrival at Batavia— Confiscation of the Ships 
 —General Results of the Voyage— The Voyage of William Baffin— Arctic 
 Researches during the Seventeenth Century S2(J 
 
CONTENTS. 11 
 
 SECTION V. 
 
 FROM THE DISCOYERY OF CAPE HORN TO THE APPLICATION OF STEAM TO 
 
 NAVIGATION : 1C16-1S07. 
 
 PAOI 
 
 CHAPTER XXXV.— A Famous Vessel— The Mayflower— Her Appearance— The 
 Speedwell — Departure of the Two Ships — Alleged Unseaworthiness of the 
 Speedwell — The Mayflower sails alone — The Equinoctial — Consultations — 
 A Remedy applied — First View of the Land — Subsequent History and Fate 
 of the Mayflower 339 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVL— Discovery of New Holland— Tasman ordered to survey 
 the Island — Discovery of Van Diemen's Land — Of New Zealand — Murderers' 
 Bay — The Friendly Islands — The Feejees — New Britain — An Earthquake at 
 Sea — A Copious Language — Circumnavigation of New Holland — Return to 
 Batavia — Results of the Voyage — Dutch Opinions of Tasman's Merit 346 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIL— Piracy— Origin of the Buccaneers— Their Manner of 
 Life — Dress — Occupation — The Island of Tortuga their Head-Quarters — 
 Their Religious Scruples — Manner of dividing Spoils — The Exterminator — 
 The Observance of the Sabbath — Exploits of Henry Morgan — Impotence of 
 the Spaniards — Career of William Dampier — His First Piratical Cruise — Ad- 
 ventures by Land and Sea — Description of the Plantain-Tree — Lingering 
 Deaths by Poison — Reproaches of Conscience — The New-Hollanders — Dam- 
 pier's Dangerous Voyage in an Open Boat — Piracy upon the American Coast 
 — William Kidd sent against the Pirates — Ho turns Pirate himself — His Ex- 
 ploits, Detection, and Execution — His Buried Treasures — Wreck of the 
 Whidah Pirate-Ship 351 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIIL— The Voyage of Woodes Rogers— Desertion checked 
 by a Novel Circumstance — A Light seenlipojfi'lhe Island of Juan Fernandex 
 — A Boat sent to Reconnoitre — Alexander Selkirk discovered — His History 
 and Adventures — His Dress, Food, and Occupations — He ships with Rogers 
 as Second Mate — Turtles and Tortoises — Fight with a Spanish Treasure-Ship 
 — Profits of the Voyage — The South Sea Bubble — Its Inflation and Collapse 
 — Measures of Relief. 373 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIX.— The Dutch West India Company— Renewed Search for 
 the Terra Australis Incognita — Jacob Roggewein — His Voyage of Discovery 
 — Brush with Pirates — Arrival at Juan Fernandez — Easter Island — Its In- 
 habitants — Entertainment of one on board the Ship — A Misunderstanding — 
 Pernicious and Recreation Islands — Glimpse of the Society Islands — A Famine 
 in the Fleet — Arrival at New Britain — Confiscation of the Ship at Batavia — 
 Decision of the States- General — Vitus Behring — Behring's Strait — Description 
 of the Scene — Death of Behring — Subsequent Survey of the Strait 383 
 
 CHAPTER XL. — Piratical Voyage under George Anson — Unparalleled Mor- 
 tality — Arrival and Sojourn at Juan Fernandez — A Prize — Capture of Paita — 
 Preparations to attack the Manilla Galleon — Disappointment — Fortunate 
 Arrival at Tinian — Romantic Account of the Island — A Storm — Anson's Ship 
 driven out to Sea — The Abandoned Crew set about building a Boat — Return 
 of the Centurion — Battle with the Manilla Galleon — Anson's Arrival in Eng- 
 land — The Proceeds of the Cruise 3W 
 
12 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAQl 
 
 CHAPTER XLL— The First Scientific Voyage of Circumnavigation— The Dol- 
 phin and Tamar — Byron in Patagonia — Falkland Islands — Islands of Disap- 
 pointment — Arrival at Tinian — Byron versus Anson — The Voyage Home — 
 Wallis and Carteret — Their Observations in Patagonia — Wallis at Tahiti — 
 A Desperate Battle — Nails lose their Value — A Tahitian Romance — Pitcairn'a 
 Island — Queen Charlotte's Islands — New Britain — The Voyage Home — 
 A Man-of-War Destroyed by Fire 410 
 
 CHAPTER XLII. — Colonization of the Falkland Islands — Antoine de Bougain- 
 ville — His Voyage around the World — Adventure at Montevideo — The Pata- 
 gonians — Taking Possession of Tahiti — French Gallantry — Ceremonies of 
 Reception — Sojourn at the Island — Aotourou — The First Female Circumnavi- 
 gator — Famine on Board — Remarkable Cascade — Arrival at the Moluccas — 
 Incidents there — Return Home 426 
 
 CHAPTER XLIII. — Expedition despatched at the Instance of the Royal So- 
 ciety — Lieutenant James Cook — Incidents of the Voyage — A Night on Shore 
 in Terra del Fuego — Arrival at Tahiti — The Natives pick their Pockets — The 
 Observatory — A Native chews a Quid of Tobacco — The Transit of Venus — 
 Two of the Marines take unto themselves Wives — New Zealand — Adventures 
 there — Remarkable War-Canoe — Cannibalism demonstrated — Theory of a 
 Southern Continent subverted — New Holland — Botany Bay — The Endeavor 
 on the Rocks — Expedient to stop the Leak — A Conflagration — Passage 
 through a Reef — Arrival at Batavia — Mortality on the Voyage Home — Cook 
 promoted to the Rank of Commander 435 
 
 CHAPTER XLIV.— Cook's Second Voyage— A Storm— Separation of the Ships 
 — Aurora Australis — New Zealand — Six Water-Spouts at once — Tahiti again 
 — Petty Thefts of the Natives — Cook visits the Tuhitian Theatre — Omai — 
 Arrival at the Friendly Islands — The Fleet witness a Feast of Human Flesh 
 — The New Hebrides — New Caledonia — Return Home — Honors bestowed 
 upon Cook 451 
 
 CHAPTER XL v.— Cook's Third Voyage— The Northwest Passage— Omai— His 
 Reception at Home — The Crew forego their Grog — Discovery of the Sandwich 
 Islands — Nootka Sound — The Natives — Capo Prince of Wales — Two Conti- 
 nents in Sight — Icy Cape — Return to the Sandwich Islands — Cook is deified 
 — Interview with Tereoboo — Subsequent Difliculties — A Skirmish — Pitched 
 Battle and Death of Cook — Recovery of a Portion of his Remains — Funeral 
 Ceremonies— - I»ife and Services of Cook 461 
 
 CHAPTER XLVL— Louis XVL and the Science of Navigation— Voyage of 
 Lap6rou8e::^Arrival at Easter Island — Address of the Natives — Owhyhee — 
 Trade at Mowee — Survey of the American Coast — A Remarkable Inlet — Dis- 
 tressing Calamity — Sojourn at Monterey — Run across the Pacific — The 
 Japanese Waters — Arrival at Potropaulowski — Affray at Navigators' Isles — 
 Lap6rouse arrives at Botany Bay, and is never seen again, alive or dead — 
 Voyages made in Search of hira — D'Entrecasteaux — Dillon — D'Urville — Dis- 
 covery of numerous Relics of the Ships at Miinicolo — Theory of the Fate of 
 Laporouse—Erection of a Monument to his Memory ^80 
 
 CHAPTER XLVIL— The Transplantation of the Broad-Fruit Tree— The Voyage 
 of the Bounty — A Mutiny — Bligh, the Captain, with Eighteen Men, oast adrift 
 in tha Launch — Incidents of the Voyage from Tahiti to Timor — Terrible 
 
CONTENTS. N^^ ; 1-1 
 
 FAO* 
 
 Sufferings and a Marvellous Escape — Arrival of the Mutineers at Tahiti — 
 Their Removal to Pitcairn's Island — Subsequent History — Voyage of Van- 
 couver — Algerine Piracy — Burning of the Philadelphia — Proud Position of 
 the United States 492 
 
 CHAPTER XLVIIL— Application of Steam to Navigation— Robert Fulton- 
 Chancellor Livingston — Launch of the Clermont — She crosses the Hudson 
 River — Her Voyage to Albany — Description of the Scene — Fulton's own Ac- 
 count — Legislative Protection granted to Fulton — The Pendulum-Engine — 
 Construction of other Steamboats — The Steam-Frigate Fulton the First — The 
 First Ocean-Steamer, the Savannah — Account of her Voyage — Misapprehen- 
 sions upon the Subject 508 
 
 SECTION VI. 
 
 FROM THE APPLICATION OF STEAM TO NAVIGATION TO THE LAYING OF 
 THE ATLANTIC CABLE: 1807-1858. 
 
 CHAPTER XLIX. — Arctic Explorations — Russian Researches under Krusen- 
 stern and Kotzebue — Freycinet — Ross — The Crimson Cliffs — Lancaster Sound 
 — Buchan and Franklin — Parry — The Polar Sea — Winter Quarters — Return 
 Home — Duperrey — Episodes in the Whale-Fishery — Parry's Polar Voyage — 
 Boat-Sledges — Method of Travel — Disheartening Discovery — 82° 43' North... 5lfl 
 
 CHAPTER L.— Ross's Second Voyage— The North Magnetic Pole— D'Urvillo— 
 Enderby's Land — Back's Voyage in the Terror — The Great Western and Sirius 
 — United States' Exploring Expedition — The Antarctic Continent — Sir John 
 Franklin's Last Voyage in the Erebus and Terror — Efforts made to relieve 
 him — Discovery of the Scene of his First Winter Quarters — The Grinnell Ex- 
 pedition — The Advance and Rescue — Lieutenant de Haven — Dr. Kane — Return 
 of the Expedition .^.55 
 
 CHAPTER LL— Kennedy's Expedition—Sir Edward Belcher— McClure— Dis- 
 covery of the Northwest Passage — Junction of McClure and Kellett — Episode 
 of the Resolute — Commodore Perry's Expedition — Decisive Traces of the Fato 
 of Sir John Franklin — The Leviathan 653 
 
 CHAPTER LIL— The Second Grinnell Expedition— The Advance in Wintc 
 Quarters — Total Darkness — Sledge-Parties — Adventures — The First Death — 
 Tennyson's Monument — Humboldt Glacier — The Open Polar Sea — Second 
 Winter — Abandonment of the Brig — The Water again — Upernavik — Rescue 
 by Captain Hartstene — Death and Services of Dr. Kane — Attempt to lay the 
 Atlantic Cable 561 
 
 CHAPTER LIIL— Second and Third Attempts to lay the Atlantic Cable— The 
 Failure in the Month of Juno — Description of the Cable — The Voyage of the 
 Niagara — The Continuity — All Right again — Change from one Coil to An- 
 other — The Knights of the Black Hand — Unfavorable Symptoms — The Insu- 
 lation broken — The Third of August — An Anxious Moment — Land discovered 
 • — Trinity Bay — Mr. Field visits the Telegraph Station — The Operators taken 
 by Surprise — Landing of the Cable — Impressive Ceremony — Captain Hud- 
 son returns Thanks to Heaven — The Voyage of the Agamemnon — The Queen's 
 Message — The Sixteenth of August — Deep-Sea Telegraphing — The Equator 
 vii the Cable.- 576 
 
14 CONTENTS. 
 
 rAos 
 
 CHAPTER LIV.— Diving— The first divingjbell— Fixed apparatus 
 supj)lied with compressed air — The submarine hydrostat — Opera- 
 tions at Hell Gate — Diving apparatus — Submarine explosions — 
 Improved diving dresses — Tlieir use — W6rkof various kindsMone 
 with them — Instances of this — Seeking the treasure of'the Hus- 
 sar — Sunken shi{)S in Sebastopol — 0])erations in Mobile — The 
 Dry Dock at Pensacola Bay — The beauties of the submarine 
 world — ?Iabits of the fish — Possible depth of descent 594 
 
 CHAPrER LV.— Fishing— The ocean as a field— The crops it yields 
 — The sponge — Transplanting sponges — Coral fisheries — The coral 
 an animal — The discovery of this — Oyster fishery — The oyster a 
 social animal — The young oyster — Oyster culture — Dredging for 
 oysters — The American oyster fishery — Pearl oysters — The value 
 of the pearl fishery — Shark fishing — Cuttle fish. 627 
 
 CHAPTER LVL— Dredging in modern times— What it has taught 
 us — Deej) sea soundings — First attempts — Implements used for 
 it — The chance for inventors — The temperature of the sea — Deep 
 sea temperature — Self-regulating thermometers — Serial tempera- 
 ture soundings — Animal life of the sea — Deep sea dredging — The 
 dredgring apparatus of the Porcupine ^'52 
 
 CHAPTER LVII. — The development of shipbuilding — New models 
 for shij)S — Steam ship navigation — Monitors— Iron-plated frigates 
 — Tin-clads — Rams — Torpedo boats — Their use in the Confederacy 
 — Life Rafts — Yacht building — Ocean yacht race — The cost of a 
 vacht 673 
 
 CHAPTER LVIIL— Our knowledge of the earth and sea— How it 
 has increased — The earth the daughter of the ocean — The opinion 
 of science — The mean depth of the ocean — The extent of the 
 ocean — Its volume — Specific gravity of sea-water — Constitution of 
 Bait-water — The silver in the sea — The waves of the sea — The 
 currents of the ocean — The tides — The aquarium — The commerce 
 of modern times — The spread of peace 68fi 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 N»- Page 
 
 1. Gigantic Cuttle Fish... Pivntispieoe. 
 
 2. Asiatic Deluge 18 
 
 3. Hand of Satan 19 
 
 4. Stormy Petrel 30 
 
 5. The First Navigator 31 
 
 6. Modern Row Boat 33 
 
 7. The Deluge and the Ark 35 
 
 8. Noctulius Miliaris 45 
 
 9. Supposed form of the ship 
 
 Argo 54 
 
 10. The World, according to Homer 61 
 
 11. The Earth, according to Anaxi- 
 
 mander 62 
 
 12. The Great Penguin 64 
 
 13. Greek Vessel of the 6th Cen- 
 
 tury 65 
 
 14. The Ptolemy Philopator 72 
 
 15. Common Penguin 74 
 
 16. The Sacred Promontory 78 
 
 17. Plan of Pythias' Voyage 79 
 
 18. Plan of the Voyage of Nearchus 83 
 
 19. Supposed form of the ships of 
 
 Nearchus 91 
 
 20. Venetian Galley of the 10th 
 
 Century 92 
 
 21. 'Wedding the Adriatic 95 
 
 22. Danish vessel of the 10th Century 99 
 
 23. The Northmen of America 104 
 
 24. Fishing for Herrings 107 
 
 25. Ancient Chinese Compass 113 
 
 26. Chinese Junk 119 
 
 27. Ship of the 14th Century 121 
 
 28. Teneriflfe 122 
 
 29. Cape Bojador 124 
 
 30. Cape Verd 130 
 
 31. Sea Swallow 132 
 
 32. Christopher Columbus 137 
 
 No. Page 
 
 33. Violet Asteria 145 
 
 34. The Fleet of Columbus 146 
 
 35. Head of the Merganser 147 
 
 36. The Nina homeward bound 157 
 
 37. Columbus taking possession of 
 
 Guanchani 158 
 
 38. Eeception of Columbus by Ferdi- 
 
 nand, etc 162 
 
 39. Columbus in chains at Cadiz 168 
 
 40. Water Spout 170 
 
 41. The Phaeton 178 
 
 42. Vasco de Gama 179 
 
 43. Map of Africa, drawn 1497 182 
 
 44. Spectre of the Cai^e 187 
 
 45. Phosphorescence 188 
 
 46. The Man overboard, and the 
 
 Albatross 189 
 
 47. Calicut in the 16th Century 196 
 
 48. Wreck of the San Haphael 197 
 
 49. De Gama's Flag Ship 204 
 
 50. Vessels employed in the Spice 
 
 Trade in the 16th Century 207 
 
 51- Ponce de Leon and the Foun- 
 tain of Youth 213 
 
 52. Balboa and the Indian 217 
 
 53. Balboa discovering the Pacific 
 
 Ocean 219 
 
 54. Balboa taking possession of the 
 
 Pacific Ocean 221 
 
 55. Fate of De Solis and his com- 
 
 panions 224 
 
 56. Ferdinand Magellan 225 
 
 57. Cape Virgin, east end Magellan's 
 
 Strait 231 
 
 58. Laminaria 235 
 
 59. Natives of Borneo prepare to at- 
 
 tack Magellan 236 
 
 15 
 
16 
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 No. Page 
 
 60. Tidore 242 
 
 61. Scene on the Canadian Coast 246 
 
 62. Henry VIII. Embarking at 
 
 Dover 255 
 
 63. Francis Drake 256 
 
 64. Drake and his Raft 200 
 
 65. Drake and the Patagonians 201 
 
 6G. Drake condemning Doughty 202 
 
 Q7. Sea Anemones 2CG 
 
 68. Drake interrupting Justin at 
 
 Aeopulco 270 
 
 69. Queen Elizabeth knighting 
 
 Drake 274 
 
 70. British Ship ofWar. 1578 276 
 
 71. Cavendish in Brazil 277 
 
 72. Port Famine. 278 
 
 73. Hull of a vessel of the Armada.. 282 
 
 74. Procession in honor of the de- 
 
 feat of the Armada 284 
 
 75. Sir Walter Raleigh 285 
 
 76. Native of the Solomon Islands.. 291 
 
 77. Islanders before a Breeze 296 
 
 78. The Dutch at Walrus Island 297 
 
 79. The Dutch in Winter quarters.. 299 
 
 80. The female Otter and her young 303 
 
 81. Funeral of Mahu at Brava 
 
 Island 304 
 
 82. Affray between the Dutch and 
 
 Patagonians 310 
 
 83. The Two Admirals at close 
 
 quarters 314 
 
 84. A Dutch Pic-Nic in the Mauri- 
 
 tius 315 
 
 8:^. Turtles Head 315 
 
 86. Woman and Child of Espiritu 
 
 Santu 316 
 
 87. Scene at Tahiti 318 
 
 88. Hudson's vessel, 77^e Half 
 
 Moon, off Sandy Hook 323 
 
 89. Dutch vessel trading at the La- 
 
 drones 326 
 
 90. Conflict between the Dutch and 
 
 Spanish Fleets 330 
 
 91. The Dutch surjjrised by the 
 
 Spaniards 331 
 
 92. Cape Horn 335 
 
 93. The Concord at Fly Island 3:36 
 
 94. Arctic Gull .'J^W 
 
 95. Speedwell and Mayflower 339 
 
 96. Cod Fish 345 
 
 97 Tasman's vessel, The Zeeluian.. 34(> 
 
 No. TtLg9 
 
 98. Murderer's Bay 349 
 
 99. Natives of Murderer's Bay 349 
 
 100. A Buccaneer 351 
 
 101. Boats used in the Philippian 
 
 Islands 360 
 
 102. Surf Bathing by Natives 362 
 
 103. Polynesian Canoe with its Out- 
 
 rigger 364 
 
 104. Dampier's Boat in a Storm 365 
 
 105. AV'reck of the Pirate Ship, MTii- 
 
 dah 372 
 
 106. Home of Alexander Selkirk.... 373 
 
 107. Selkirk and his Family 376 
 
 108. Catching Turtles 378 
 
 109. The Hammer-headed Shark .... 382 
 
 110. The Eagle and the Pirate 383 
 
 111. Mirage at Behring's Straits 391 
 
 112. Lord Anson 393 
 
 113. Bombardment of Paita 397 
 
 114. Anson's Encampment at Fir- 
 
 man 401 
 
 115. The Centurion and the Treasure 
 
 Ship 407 
 
 116. Byron at King George's Island 410 
 
 117. Parting of Wallis and Oberea 418 
 
 118. Burningof the Xe Prince 423 
 
 119. Chain of Phosphorescent Salpas 425 
 
 120. Bougainville 426 
 
 121. A Ferry Boat at "Buenos Ay res 428 
 
 122. Bougainville at Magellan's 
 
 Straits 429 
 
 123. Cascade at Port Praslin 433 
 
 124. Capt. James Cook 435 
 
 125. A New Zealand Canoe 443 
 
 126. Cape Pigeon 450 
 
 127. Cook's ship beset by Water 
 
 Spouts Aoi 
 
 128. King Otoo*s sister dancing 455 
 
 129. Reception of Cook at the 
 
 Friendly Islands A56 
 
 130. Canoes of the Friendly Islands 458 
 
 131. New Caletlonian double Canoe 460 
 
 132. Sandwich Island King to visit 
 
 Cook 461 
 
 133. Omai 465 
 
 134. Habitations in Nootka Sound 407 
 
 135. Man of the Sandwich Islands... 469 
 
 136. Woman of Sandwich Islands 470 
 
 137. Fight with the Natives 472 
 
 138. Death of Capt. Cook 474 
 
 139. I^iMirviuse 480 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 17 
 
 No. Page 
 
 140. Laperouse's Disaster at French- 
 
 port 485 
 
 141. Remnants of the wreck 490 
 
 142. Consecrationof the Cenotaph... 491 
 
 143. Scene in Terra del Fuego 492 
 
 144. ColonistsofPitcairn's Island... 498 
 
 145. A Deserted Village 501 
 
 146. The DUcovery on a Rock 502 
 
 147. Hurinng oi ih& Philadelphia.... 506 
 
 148. The Clermont, the first steam- 
 
 boat 508 
 
 149. The Savannah, the first ocean 
 
 steamer 617 
 
 150. Head of a White Bear 519 
 
 151. Reception of Otzebue at Otdia 520 
 
 152. Sea Lions upon the Ice 523 
 
 153. Attacked by Walruses 524 
 
 154. White Bears 526 
 
 155. Cutting In 529 
 
 156. Cutting Out 529 
 
 157. The Whale of Capt. de Blois... 531 
 
 158. The Navigators frozen in 535 
 
 159. The Ficiory in a Gale 536 
 
 160. Dr. Kane 547 
 
 161. Dr. Kane passing through Dev- 
 
 il's Nip 548 
 
 162. The Seal 552 
 
 163. Japanese Vessel 558 
 
 164. The Leviathan 559 
 
 165. Cape Alexander, the Arctic 
 
 Gibraltar 561 
 
 166. Chaos 563 
 
 167. Wild Dog Team 565 
 
 168. Open Polar Sea 5QQ 
 
 169. Seeking Eider Down 570 
 
 170. The Telegraphic Fleet 571 
 
 171. Hauling the Cable ashore 573 
 
 172. Landing the Cable 574 
 
 173. A hollow Wave 575 
 
 174. The Cable in the bed of the 
 
 Ocean » 576 
 
 175. Sections of Atlantic Cable 577 
 
 176. The Telegraphic Plateau 584 
 
 177. The Agamemnon in a Gale 590 
 
 178. The Seal 594 
 
 179. Diving Bell 595 
 
 180. Fixed Apparatus supplied with 
 
 Compressed Air 596 
 
 181. Payerne's Submarine Hydro- 
 
 stat 598 
 
 2 
 
 No. Pago 
 
 182. Mushroom Drill 601 
 
 183. Ready to go down 603 
 
 184. Putting in the Charges 605 
 
 185. Grappling Machine 606 
 
 186. Divers dressed in their Appa- 
 
 ratus 607 
 
 187. Divers finding a Box of Gold... 608 
 
 188. Arming the Diver 611 
 
 189. Casting off the Diver 612 
 
 190. Diver down 613 
 
 191. Cannon, bell, and bones, 
 
 brought up from the Wreck... 615 
 
 192. Salvage of Russian Ships 616 
 
 193. Caulking a Vessel 617 
 
 194. The Northern Diver 625 
 
 195. Star Fish 627 
 
 196. Sponge fishing 628 
 
 197. Coral fishing off coast of Sicily 631 
 
 198. Faggots suspended to receive 
 
 Oyster Spat 636 
 
 199. Dredging for Oysters 639 
 
 200. A Shell containing Chinese 
 
 Pearls 640 
 
 201. Pearl Fisher in danger 642 
 
 202. Shark fishing 646 
 
 203. Cuttle fish making his Cloud... 648 
 
 204. Ideal Scene 650 
 
 205. Red Coral 651 
 
 206. Dredging 652 
 
 207. Brook's Deep Sea Sounding Ap- 
 
 paratus 657 
 
 208. Bull Dog Sounding Machine... 659 
 
 209. Massey's Sounding Machine.... 660 
 
 210. The stern of the Porcttjotne Qi^S 
 
 211. Sail boat in a Gale 673 
 
 212. Pennsylvania and Ohio on the 
 
 Stocks 675 
 
 213. Monitors... 678 
 
 214. Plans of the Monitors 679 
 
 215. St. Louis 680 
 
 216. Double Ender 681 
 
 217. Minnehaha, or Tin Clad 683 
 
 218. The Ram Ironsides 685 
 
 219. Torpedo Explosion 687 
 
 220. Life Raft 691 
 
 221. Ocean Yacht Race, Henrietta, 
 
 Vesta and Fleettcing 694 
 
 222. Fancy Sail Race 695 
 
 223. Appearance of Ice at the Poles 710 
 
 224. Light Ship 711 
 
 225. A Coral Island 712 
 
THE HAND OF SATAN UPON THE SEA OF DARKNESS. 
 
 FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES TO THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE 
 
 CHRISTIAN ERA. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE PURPOSE OF THIS WORK — THE OCEAN IN THE SCRIPTURAL PERIOD — THE 
 MARVELS OP THE SEA — THE CLASSIC LEGENDS — THE FANTASTIC NOTIONS 
 ENTERTAINED OP THE NORTH AND THE EQUATOR THE GIANT OF THE CANA- 
 RIES — THE SEA OP SEA-WEED — THE SPECTRE OF THE CAPE — THE GRADUAL 
 
 SURRENDER OF THE SECRETS OF THE SEA IT BECOMES THE HIGHWAY OP 
 
 NATIONS — ITS PRESENT ASPECT — ITS POETICAL SIGNIFICANCE — ITS MORAL 
 LESSONS. 
 
 A HISTORY of the ocean from tlie Flood to tlie Atlantic Tele- 
 grapli, with a parallel sketch of shipbuilding from the Ark to 
 the Iron Clad; a narrative of the rise of commerce, from 
 the days when Solomon's ships traded with Ophir, to the time 
 when the steam whistle is heard on every open sea ; a con- 
 secutive chronicle of the progress of navigation, from the day 
 19 
 
20 OCEAN S STORY. 
 
 when the timid mariner hugged the coast by day and prudently 
 cast anchor by night, to the time when the steamship, appa- 
 rently endowed with reason, or at least guided by instinct, seems 
 almost to dispense with the aid of man, — such a theme seems 
 to offer topics of interest which it would be difficult to find in 
 any other subject. The reader will readily perceive its scope 
 when we have briefly rehearsed what the sea once was to man, 
 and what it now is, — the purpose of the work being to narrate 
 how from the one it has become the other. 
 
 In early times, in the scriptural and classic periods, the great 
 oceans were unknown. Mankind — at least that portion whose 
 history has descended to us — dwelt upon the 'borders of an in- 
 land, mediterranean sea. They had never heard of such 
 an expanse of water as the Atlantic, and certainly had never 
 seen it. The land-locked sheet which lay spread out at their 
 feet was at all times full of mystery, and often even of dread 
 and secret misgiving. Those who ventured forth upon its 
 bosom came home and told marvellous tales of the sights they 
 had seen and the perils they had endured. Homer's heroes 
 returned to Ithaca with the music of the sirens in their ears and 
 the cruelties of the giants upon their lips. The Argonauts saw 
 whirling rocks implanted in the sea, to warn and repel the 
 approaching navigator ; and, as if the mystery of the waters had 
 tinged with fable even the dry land beyond it, they filled the 
 Caucasus with wild stories of enchantresses, of bulls that breathed 
 fire, and of a race of men that sprang, like a ripened harvest, 
 from the prolific soil. If the ancients were ignorant of the 
 shape of the earth, it was for the very reason that they were 
 ignorant of the ocean. Their geographers and philosophers, 
 whose observations were confined to fragments of Europe, Asia, 
 and Africa, alternately made the world a cylinder, a flat sur- 
 face begirt by water, a drum, a boat, a disk. The legends 
 that sprang from these confused and contradictory notions made 
 the land a scene of marvels and the water an abode of terrors. 
 
THE GIANT OF THE CANARY ISLANDS. 2l 
 
 At a later period, when, with the progress of time, the love 
 of adventure or the needs of commerce had drawn the navigator 
 from the Mediterranean through the Pillars of Hercules into 
 the Atlantic, and when some conception of the immensity of the 
 waters had forced itself upon minds dwarfed by the contracted 
 limits of the inland sea, then the ocean became in good earnest 
 a receptacle of gloomy and appalling horrors, and the marvels 
 narrated by those fortunate enough to return told how deeply 
 the imagination had been stirred by the new scenes opened to 
 their vision. Pytheas, who coasted from Marseilles to the 
 Shetland Isles, and who there obtained a glance at the bleak 
 and wintry desolation of the North Sea, declared, on reaching 
 home, that his further progress was barred by an immense black 
 moUusk, which hung suspended in the air, and in which a ship 
 would be inextricably involved, and where no man could breathe. 
 The menaces of the South were even more appalling than the 
 perils of the North; for he who should venture, it was said, 
 across the equator into the regions of the Sun, would be 
 changed into a negro for his rashness: besides, in the popular 
 belief, the waters there were not navigable. Upon the quaint 
 charts of the Middle Ages, a giant located upon the Canary 
 Islands forbade all farther venture westward, by brandishing his 
 formidable club in the path of all vessels coming from the east. 
 Upon these singular maps the concealed and treacherous horrors 
 of the deep were displayed in the grotesque shapes of sea- 
 monsters and distorted water-unicorns, which were represented 
 as careering through space and waylaying the navigator. 
 Even in the time of Columbus, and when the introduction of 
 tlie compass into European ships should have somewhat dimi- 
 nished the fantastic terrors of the sea, we find that the Arabians, 
 the best geographers of the time, represented the bony and 
 gnarled hand of Satan as rising from the waves of the Sea of 
 Darkness, — as the Atlantic was then called, — ready to seize and 
 engulf the presumptuous mariner. The sailors of Columbus, 
 
22 ocean's story. 
 
 on reaching the Sargasso Sea, where the collected weeds offered 
 an impediment to their progress, thought they had arrived at 
 the limit of navigation and the end of the world. Five years 
 later, the crew of da Gama, on doubling the Cape of Good 
 Hope, imagined they saw, in the threatening clouds that gathered 
 about Table Rock, the form of a spectre waving off their vessel 
 and crying woe to all who should thus invade his dread dominion. 
 The Neptune of the classics, in short, who disported himself in 
 the narrow waters of the Mediterranean, and of whose wrath 
 we have read the famous mythologic accounts, was a deity 
 altcgether bland and debonnaire compared to the gloomy and 
 revengeful monopolist of the seas, such as the historians and 
 geographers of the Middle Ages painted him. 
 
 And now Columbus had discovered the Western Continent, 
 da Gama had found an ocean route to the Indies, and Magellan, 
 Bailing around the world, had proved its sphericity and approached 
 the Spice Islands from the east. For centuries, now, the two 
 great oceans were the scenes of grand and useful maritime 
 expeditions. The tropical islands of the Pacific arose, one by 
 one, from the bosom of the sea, to reward the navigator or 
 relieve the outcast. The Spanish, by dint of cruelty and 
 rapacity, filled their famous Manilla galleons and Acapulco 
 treasure-ships with the spoils of warfare and the legitimate 
 fruits of trade. The English, seeking to annoy a nation with 
 whom, though not at war, they were certainly not at peace, 
 Bent against their golden fleets the piratical squadrons of Anson, 
 Drake, and Hawkins. For years property Avas not safe upon the 
 sea, and trading-ships went armed, while the armed vessels of 
 nations turned buccaneers. The Portuguese and Dutch colonized 
 the coasts and islands of India, Spain sent Cortez and Pizarro 
 to Mexico and Peru, and England drove the Puritans across a 
 stormy sea to Plymouth. Commerce was spread over the world, 
 and Civilization and Christianity were introduced into the 
 desert and the wilderness. Two centuries more, and steam 
 
OCEAN STEAM FERRY. 23 
 
 made the Atlantic Ocean a ferrj-transit, and the electric tele- 
 graph has now made its three thousand miles of salt water but 
 as one link in that girdle which Shakspeare foresaw and which 
 Puck promised to perform. The cable is complete and in 
 working-order from New Orleans to Sebastopol. 
 
 Having thus rapidly described what the ocean once was in 
 man's estimation, and having cursorily traced the steps by 
 which it has taken its place in the world's economy, it remains 
 for us to say what the ocean now. is, and what place it now 
 holds. It is the peaceful Highway of Nations, — a highway with- 
 out tax or toll. Were the noble idea of the late Secretary Marcy 
 adopted by all nations, private property upon the sea would bo 
 sacred even in time of war. If the distances be considered, 
 the sea is the safest and most commodious route from spot to 
 spot, whether for merchandise or man. It has given up it;9 
 secrets, with perhaps the single exception of its depth, and, lilie 
 the lightning and the thunderbolt, has submitted to the yoke. 
 Though still sublime in its immensity and its power, it has lost 
 those features of character which once made it mysterious ajid 
 fantastic, and has become the sober and humdrum pathway of 
 traffic. Mail-routes are as distinctly marked upon its surface as 
 the equator, or the meridian of Greenwich : steamships leave 
 their docks punctually at the stroke of noon. The monsters 
 that plough its waters have been hunted by man till the race is 
 well nigh exhausted ; for the leviathan which frightened the 
 ancients is the whale which has illuminated the moderns. The 
 chant of the sirens is hushed, and in its place are heard the 
 clatter of rushing paddle-wheels, the fog-whistle on the banks, the 
 song of the forecastle, the yo-ho of sailors toiling at the ropes, 
 the salute in mid-ocean, — sometimes — alas ! — the minute-gun at 
 Bea. The romance and fable that once had here their chosen 
 home, have fled to the caves and taken refuge amid the grottos ; 
 and the legends that were lately told of the ocean would now 
 be out of place even in a graveyard or a haunted house. 
 
24: OCEAN S STORY. 
 
 The sailor, to whom once the route was trackless and un- 
 trodden, now consults a volume of charts which he has obtained 
 from the National Observatory, and finds his course laid out 
 upon data derived from analogy and oft-repeated experience. 
 He takes this or that direction in accordance with known facts 
 of the prevalence of winds or the motion of currents. He 
 keeps a record of his own experience, that in its turn it may 
 be useful to others. He has plans and surveys which give him 
 the bearings of every port, the indentations of every coast, the 
 soundings of every pass. Beacons warn him of reefs and 
 sunken rocks, and buoys mark out his course through the shal- 
 lows of sounds and straits. A modern light-house costs a million 
 dollars, and a breakwater involves the finances of a state. If a 
 new light-house is erected, or is the warning lamp for any reason 
 discontinued, upon any coast, the fact is made known to the 
 commerce of all nations by a " Notice to Mariners," inserted in 
 the marine department of the newspapers most likely to meet 
 their eye. A vessel at sea is safer from spoliation than is the 
 traveller upon the high road or the sojourner in a city; for 
 there are robbers and depredators everywhere upon the land, 
 while there is not a pirate on the ocean. There are well-laden 
 treasure-ships in the Panama and California waters, as in the 
 times of Drake and Anson ; but the world is much older than it 
 was, and buccaneers and flibustiers now only infest the land. 
 
 In short, the ocean, once a formidable and repcUant element, 
 now furnishes Christian food and healthful employment to 
 millions. Instead of serving to affright and appall the dwellers 
 upon the continents which it surrounds, it renders their atmo- 
 sphere more respirable, it affords them safe conveyance, and 
 raises for them a school of heroes. The ocean, then, has a 
 history : it has a past worth narrating, adventures worth telling, 
 and it has played a part in the advancement of science, in the 
 extension of geographical knowledge, in the spread of civiliza- 
 tion and the progress of discovery, which it is eminently worth 
 
MYSTERY OF THE SEA. 2o 
 
 our while to ponder and digest. Its gradual submission to in- 
 vasion from the land, its successive surrender of the islands in 
 the tropics and the ice-mountains at the poles, its slow but 
 certain release of its secrets, its final abandonment of its ex- 
 clusiveness, form — with a multitude of attendant incidents, acci- 
 dents, battles, disasters, shipwrecks, famines, robberies, mutinies, 
 piracies — the theme and purpose of these pages. 
 
 Although the ocean has lost its terrors and has given up its 
 dominion of dread over the mind of man, it is still poetic, and 
 has been often made to assume a profound moral significance 
 and furnish apt religious illustrations. In this connection, we 
 cannot do better than to quote, from Dr. Greenwood's "Poetry 
 and Mystery of the Sea," a passage which strongly and beauti- 
 fully enforces this view: — 
 
 "*The sea is his, and He maxic it^' cries the Psalmist of 
 Israel, in one of those bursts of enthusiasm in which he so 
 often expresses the whole of a vast subject by a few simple 
 words. Whose else, indeed, could it be, and by whom else could 
 it have been made? Who else can heave its tides and appoint 
 its bounds ? Who else can urge its mighty waves to madness 
 with the breath and wings of the tempest, and then speak to it 
 again in a master's accents and bid it be still ? Who else could 
 have peopled it with its countless inhabitants, and caused it to 
 bring forth its various productions, and filled it from its deepest 
 bed to its expanded surface, filled it from its centre to its re- 
 motest shores, filled it to the brim with beauty and mystery and 
 power ? Majestic Ocean ! Glorious Sea ! No created being 
 rules thee or made thee. 
 
 "What is there more sublime than the trackless, desert, all- 
 surrounding, unfathomable sea ? What is there more peacefully 
 sublime than the calm, gently-heaving, silent sea? What is 
 there more terribly sublime than the angry, dashing, foaming 
 sea? Power — resistless, overwhelming power — is its attribute 
 and its expression, whether in the careless, conscious grandeur 
 
26 ocean's story. 
 
 of its deep rest, or the wild tumult of its excited wrath. It is 
 awful when its crested waves rise up to make a compact with 
 the black clouds and the howling winds, and the thunder and 
 the thunderbolt, and they sweep on, in the joy of their dread 
 alliance, to do the Almighty's bidding. And it is awful, too, 
 when it stretches its broad level out to meet in quiet union the 
 bended sky, and show in the line of meeting the vast rotundity 
 of the world. There is majesty in its wide expanse, separating 
 and enclosing the great continents of the earth, occupying two- 
 thirds of the whole surface of the globe, penetrating the land 
 with its bays and secondary seas, and receiving the constantly- 
 pouring tribute of every river, of every shore. There is 
 majesty in its fulness, never diminishing and never increasing. 
 There is majesty in its integrity, — for its whole vast substance is 
 uniform in its local unity, for there is but one ocean, and tlie 
 inhabitants of any one maritime spot may visit the inhabitants 
 of any other in the wide world. Its depth is sublime : who can 
 sound it? Its strength is sublime: what fabric of man can 
 resist it ? Its voice is sublime, whether in the prolonged 
 song of its ripple or the stern music of its roar, — whether it 
 utters its hollow and melancholy tones within a labyrinth of 
 wave-worn caves, or thunders at the base of some huge promon- 
 tory, or beats against a toiling vessel's sides, lulling the voyager 
 to rest with the strains of its wild monotony, or dies away, with 
 the calm and fading twilight, in gentle murmurs on some 
 sheltered shore. 
 
 " The sea possesses beauty, in richness, of its own; it borrows 
 it from earth, and air, and heaven. The clouds lend it the 
 various dyes of their wardrobe, and throw down upon it the 
 broad masses of their shadows as they go sailing and sweeping 
 by. The rainbow laves in it its many-colored feet. The sun 
 loves to visit it, and the moon and the glittering brotherhood of 
 planets and stars, for they delight themselves in its beauty. 
 The sunbeams return from it in showers of diamonds and 
 
A BIRDS-EYE VIEW. 27 
 
 glances of fire ; the moonbeams find in it a pathway of silver, 
 where they dance to and fro, with the breezes and the waves, 
 through the livelong night. It has a light, too, of its own, — a 
 soft and sparkling light, rivaling the stars; and often does the 
 ship which cuts its surface leave streaming behind a Milky Way 
 of dim and uncertain lustre, like that which is shining dimly 
 above. It harmonizes in its forms and sounds both with the 
 night and the day. It cheerfully reflects the light, and it unites 
 solemnly with the darkness. It imparts sweetness to the music 
 of men, and grandeur to the thunder of heaven. What land- 
 scape is so beautiful as one upon the borders of the sea ? The 
 spirit of its loveliness is from the waters where it dwells and 
 rests, singing its spells and scattering its charms on all the 
 coasts. What rocks and cliffs are so glorious as those whii^h 
 are washed by the chafing sea? What groves and fields and 
 dwellings are so enchanting as those which stand by the reflec^t- 
 ing sea ? 
 
 "If we could see the great ocean as it can be seen by no 
 mortal eye, beholding at one view what we are now obliged to 
 visit in detail and spot by spot, — if we could, from a flight far 
 higher than the eagle's, view the immense surface of the dec^p 
 all spread out beneath us like a universal chart, — what an in- 
 finite variety such a scene would display ! Here a storm would 
 be raging, the thunder bursting, the waters boiling, and rain 
 and foam and fire all mingling together ; and here, next to this 
 scene of magnificent confusion, we should see the bright blue 
 waves glittering in the sun and clapping their hands for very 
 gladness. Here we should see a cluster of green islands set 
 like jewels in the bosom of the sea; and there we should see 
 broad shoals and gray rocks, fretting the billows and threaten- 
 ing the mariner. Here we should discern a ship propelled by 
 the steady wind of the tropics, and inhaling the almost visible 
 odors which diffuse themselves around the Spice Islands of the 
 East ; there we should behold a vessel piercing the cold barrier 
 
28 ocean's story. 
 
 of the North, struggling among hills and fields of ice, and contend- 
 ing with Winter in his own everlasting dominion. Nor are the 
 ships of man the only travellers we shall perceive upon this 
 mighty map of the ocean. Flocks of sea-birds are passing and 
 repassing, diving for their food or for pastime, migrating from 
 shore to shore with unwearied wing and undeviating instinct, 
 or wheeling and swarming around the rocks which they make 
 alive and vocal by their numbers and their clanging cries. 
 
 " We shall behold new wonders and riches when we investigate 
 the sea-shore. AVe shall find both beauty for the eye and food 
 for the body, in the varieties of shell-fish which adhere in 
 myriads to the rocks or form their close dark burrows in the 
 sands. In some parts of the world we shall see those houses of 
 stone which the little coral-insect rears up with patient in- 
 dustry from the bottom of the waters, till they grow into for- 
 midable rocks and broad forests whose branches never wave 
 and whose leaves never fall. In other parts we shall see those 
 pale, glistening pearls which adorn the crowns of princes and 
 are woven in the hair of beauty, extorted by the relentless 
 grasp of man from the hidden stores of ocean. And spread 
 round every coast there are beds of flowers and thickets of 
 plants, which the dew does not nourish, and which man has not 
 sown, nor cultivated, nor reaped, but which seem to belong to 
 the floods alone and the denizens of the floods, until they are 
 thrown up by the surges, and we discover that even the dead 
 spoils of the fields of ocean may fertilize and enrich the fields 
 of earth. They have a life, and a nourishment, and an economy 
 of their own ; and we know little of them, except that they are 
 there, in their briny nurseries, reared up into luxuriance by 
 what would kill, like a mortal poison, the vegetation of the land. 
 " There is mystery in the sea. There is mystery in its depths. 
 It is unfathomed, and, perhaps, unfathomable. Who can tell, 
 who shall know, how near its pits run down to the central core 
 of the world? Who can tell what wells, what fountains, are 
 
GRAVE OF THE SEA. 29 
 
 there, to which the fountains of the earth are but drops ? Who 
 shall say whence the ocean derives those inexhaustible supplies 
 of salt which so impregnate its waters that all the rivers of 
 the earth, pouring into it from the time of the creation, have 
 not been able to freshen them ? What undescribed monsters, 
 what unimaginable shapes, may be roving in the profoundest 
 places of the sea, never seeking — and perhaps, from their 
 nature, never able to seek — the upper waters and expose them- 
 selves to the gaze of man ! What glittering riches, what heaps 
 of gold, what stores of gems, there must be scattered in lavish 
 profusion in the ocean's lowest bed ! What spoils from all cli- 
 mates, what works of art from all lands, have been engulfed 
 by the insatiable and reckless waves ! Who shall go down to 
 examine and reclaina this uncounted and idle wealth? Who 
 bears the keys of the deep ? 
 
 " And oh ! yet more affecting to the heart and mysterious to 
 the mind, what companies of human beings are locked up in 
 that wide, weltering, unsearchable grave of the sea ! Where 
 are the bodies of those lost ones over whom the melancholy 
 waves alone have been chanting requiem? What shrouds were 
 wrapped round the limbs of beauty, and of manhood, and of 
 placid infancy, when they were laid on the dark floor of that 
 secret tomb? Where are the bones, the relics, of the brave and 
 the timid, the good and the bad, the parent, the child, the wife, 
 the husband, the brother, the sister, the lover, which have been 
 tossed and scattered and buried by the washing, wasting, 
 wandering sea? The journeying winds may sigh as year after 
 year they pass over their beds. The solitary rain-cloud may 
 weep in darkness over the mingled remains which lie strewed in 
 that unwonted cemetery. But who shall tell the bereaved to 
 what spot their affections may cling? And where shall human 
 tears be shed throughout that solemn sepulchre ? It is mystery 
 all. When shall it be resolved? Who shall find it out? Who 
 but He to whom the wildest waves listen reverently, and to 
 
30 
 
 oceans' story. 
 
 whom all nature bows ; He who shall one day speak, and be 
 heard in ocean's profoundest caves ; to whom the deep, even the 
 lowest deep, shall give up its dead, when the sun shall sicken, 
 and the earth and the isles shall languish, and the heavens be 
 rolled together like a scroll, and there shall be NO more sea !" 
 It now remains for us to investigate the origin of navigation, 
 as preliminary to our subject, and then to commence the task 
 before us with the history of Noah, the first seaman, and the 
 Ark, the vessel he commanded. 
 
 TUK STORMY I'ETREL. 
 
THE FIRST NAVIGATOR. 
 
 CHAPTER 11. 
 
 THE ORIGIN OF NAVIGATION — THE NAUTILUS — THE SPLIT BEED AND BEETLE — 
 
 THE BEAVER FLOATING UPON A LOG — THE HOLLOW TREE THE FIRST CANOE 
 
 THE FLOATING NUTSHELL THE OAR THE RUDDER THE SAIL THE TRA- 
 DITION OF THE FIRST SAIL-BOAT, 
 
 The origin of navigation is unknown. It has baffled the re- 
 search of antiquaries, for the simple reason that men sailed 
 upon the sea before they committed the records of their history 
 to paper, or that such records, if any existed, were swept away 
 and lost in the periods of anarchy which succeeded. Imagi- 
 nation has suggested that the nautilus, or Portuguese man-of- 
 war, raising its tiny sail and floating off before the breeze, first 
 pointed out to man the use which might be made of the wind as 
 a propelling force ; that a split reed, following the current of 
 Bome tranquil stream and transporting a beetle over its glassy 
 surface, was the first canoe, while the beetle was the first sailor. 
 Mythology represents Hercules as sailing in a boat formed of 
 the hide of a lion, and translates ships to the skies, where they 
 still figure among the constellations. Fable makes Atlas claim 
 the invention of the oar, and gives to Tiphys, the pilot of the 
 Argo, the invention of the rudder. The attributing of these 
 discoveries and improvements to particular individuals doubt- 
 less afforded pastime to poets in ages when poetry was more 
 
 31 
 
82 ocean's story. 
 
 popular than history. Instead of trusting to these fanciful 
 authorities, we may form a very rational theory upon the matter 
 in the following manner : — 
 
 Whether it was an insect that floated on a leaf across a 
 rivulet and was stranded on the bank, or a beaver carried down 
 a river upon a log, or a bear borne away upon an iceberg, that 
 first awakened man to the conception of trusting himself 
 fearlessly upon the water, it is highly probable that he learned 
 from animals, whose natural element it is, the manner of sup- 
 porting his body upon it and of forcing his way through it. A 
 frog darting away from the rim of a pond and striking out with 
 his fore-legs may have suggested swimming, and the beaver 
 floating on a log may have suggested following his example. 
 The log may not have been sufficiently buoyant, and the adven- 
 turer may have added to its buoyancy by using his arms and 
 legs. Even to this day the Indians of our own country cross 
 a rapid stream by clasping the trunk of a tree with the left leg 
 and arm and propelling themselves with the right. Thus the 
 first step was taken ; and the second was either to place several 
 logs together, thus forming a raft, and raising its sides, or to 
 make use of a tree hollowed out by nature. Many trees grow 
 hollow naturally, such as oaks, limes, beeches, and willows ; and 
 it would not require a degree of adaptation beyond the capacity 
 of a savage, to fit them to float and move upon the water. The 
 next step was probably to hollow out by art a sound log, thus 
 imitating the trunk which had been eroded by time and decay. 
 And, in making this step from the sound to the hollow log, the 
 primitive mariners may have been assisted by observing how an 
 empty nut-shell or an inverted tortoise-shell floated upon the 
 water, preserving their inner surface dry and protecting such 
 objects as their size enabled them to carry. It has been aptly 
 remarked that this first step was the greatest of all, — *' for the 
 transition from the hollow tree to the ship-of-the-line is not so 
 difficult as the transition from nonentity to the hollow tree." 
 
EARLY NAVIGATORS. 83 
 
 The first object for obtaining motion upon the water must 
 evidently have been to enable the navigator to cross a river, — not 
 to ascend or descend it; as it is apparent he would not seek the 
 means of following or stemming its current while the same 
 purpose could be more easily served by walking along the shore. 
 It is not difficult to suppose that the oar was suggested by the 
 legs of a frog or the fins of a fish. The early navigator, seated 
 in his hollow tree, might at first seek to propel himself with his 
 hands, and might then artificially lengthen them by a piece 
 of wood fashioned in imitation of the hand and arm, — a long 
 pole terminating in a thin flat blade. Here was the origin of 
 the modern row-boat, one of the most graceful inventions of man. 
 
 From the oar to the rudder the transition was easy, for the 
 oar is in itself a rudder, and was for a long time used as one. 
 It must have been observed at an early day that a canoe in 
 motion was diverted from its direct course by plunging an oar 
 into the water and suffering it to remain there. It must have 
 been observed, too, that an oar in or towards the stern was more 
 effective in giving a new direction to the canoe than an oar in 
 any other place. It was a natural suggestion of prudence, then, 
 to assign this duty to one particular oarsman, and to place him 
 altogether at the stern. 
 
 The sail is not so easily accounted for. An ancient tradition 
 
 relates that a fisherman and his sweetheart, allured from the 
 
 shore in the hope of discovering an island, and surprised by a 
 
 tempest, were in imminent danger of destruction. Their only oar 
 3 
 
34 ocean's stort. 
 
 was wrenched from the grasp of the fisherman, and the frail 
 bark was thus left to the mercj of the waves. The maiden 
 raised her white veil to protect herself and her lover from 
 the storm ; the wind, inflating this fragile garment, impelled 
 them slowly but surely towards the coast. Their aged sire, the 
 tradition continues, suddenly seized with prophetic inspiration, 
 exclaimed, "The future is unfolded to my view! Art is ad- 
 vancing to perfection ! My children, you have discovered a 
 powerful agent in navigation. All nations will cover the ocean 
 with their fleets and wander to distant regions. Men, differing 
 in their manners and separated by seas, will disembark upon 
 peaceful shores, and import thence foreign science, superfluities, 
 and art. Then shall the mariner fearlessly cruise over the 
 immense abyss and discover new lands and unknown seas I " 
 Though we may admire the foresight of this patriarch, we 
 cannot applaud him for choosing a moment so inopportune fur 
 exercising his peculiar gift : it would certainly have been more 
 natural to aff*ord some comfort to his weather-beaten children. 
 The legend even goes on to state that he at once fixed a pole 
 in the middle of the canoe, and, attaching to it a piece of cloth, 
 invented the first sail-boat. Mythology assigns a different, 
 though similar, origin to the invention : — Iris, seeking her son 
 in a bark which she impelled by oars, perceived that the wind 
 inflated her garments and gently forced her in the direction in 
 which she was going. 
 
 No research would bring the investigator to conclusions 
 more satisfactory than these. The fact would still remain, 
 that the first mention in profane history of constructions moving 
 upon the water, is many centuries subsequent to the period 
 in which the idea of building such constructions must be pre- 
 sumed to have been first conceived. It would consequently be 
 idle to devote more space to this subject ; and we proceed at 
 once, therefore, to the first of recorded ventures upon the sea. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE FLOOD AND THE BUILDING OF THE AEK — THE AE0UMENT8 OF INFIDELITY 
 
 AGAINST A UNIVERSAL DELUGE THE MATERIAL OF WHICH THE ARK WAS 
 
 BUILT — ITS CAPACITY, DIMENSIONS, AND FORM — ITS PROPORTIONS COPIED IN 
 MODERN OCEAN STEAMERS. 
 
 The earliest mention of the sea made in history occurs in the 
 first chapter of Genesis. During the period of chaos, and before 
 the creation of light, darkness was upon the face of the deep, 
 and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. 
 Upon the third day the waters under the heavens were gathered 
 together in one place and were called Seas ; the dry land appeared 
 and was called Earth. The waters were commanded to bring 
 forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life ; and, upon 
 the creation of man in the image of God, dominion was given him 
 over the fish of the sea, the fowl of the air, and every creeping 
 thing that creepeth upon the earth. 
 
 In the year of the world 1556 — according to the generally 
 
 accepted computation — God determined to destroy man and all 
 
 creeping things and the fowls of the air, for lie said, *'It 
 
 repcnteth me that 1 have made them." Noah alone found 
 
 grace in the eyes of the Lord, and was instructed to build him 
 
 an ark of gopher- wood three hundred cubits in length, fifty in 
 
 breadth, and thirty in height. It was to consist of three stories, 
 
 divided into rooms, to contain one door and one window, and 
 
 was to be smeared within and without with pitch. Noah was 
 
 engaged one hundred years in constructing the ark, — from the 
 
 age of five hundred to that of six hundred years, — and when it 
 36 
 
HISTORY OF THE DELUGE. 37 
 
 was fully completed he gathered his family into it, with pairs of 
 all living creatures. Then were the fountains of the great deep 
 broken up and the windows of heaven opened. The rains de- 
 scended during forty days and forty nights. The waters arose 
 and lifted up the ark from the earth. The mountains were covered 
 to a depth of twenty-two feet, and all flesh died that moved 
 upon the earth : Noah alone remained alive, and they that were 
 with him in the ark. 
 
 The flood commenced in the second month of Noah's six 
 hundredth year. During five months the waters prevailed ; in 
 the seventh the ark rested upon the summit of Mount Ararat. 
 In the tenth month the tops of the mountains were seen ; in the 
 eleventh Noah sent forth a dove, which speedily returned, hav- 
 ing found no rest for the sole of her foot; on the seventeenth day 
 he again sent forth the dove, which returned, bringing an olive- 
 leaf in her bill, and, being again sent forth, returned no more. 
 On the first day of the first month of his six hundred and first 
 year, Noah removed the covering of the ark and saw that the face 
 of the ground was dry. Toward the close of the second month 
 the earth was dried, and Noah went forth with his sons, his wife, 
 and his sons' wives. He built an altar and offered burnt-ofi'er- 
 ings of every beast and fowl to the Lord. God then made a 
 promise to Noah that he would no more destroy the earth by 
 flood, and stretched the rainbow in the clouds in token of this 
 solemn covenant between himself and the children of men. 
 
 Such is the scriptural history of the Deluge, — the first great 
 chronological event in the annals of the world after the Creation. 
 The investigations of philosophy and of infidelity into the 
 accuracy of the Mosaic account have resulted in furnishing 
 confirmation of the most direct and positive kind. The prin- 
 cipal objections of cavillers turn upon three points: 1st, the 
 absence of any concurrent testimony by the profane writers of 
 antiquity; 2d, the apparent impossibility of accounting for 
 the quantity of water necessary to overflow the whole earth to 
 
i3 OCEANS STORY. 
 
 the depth stated; and, 3d, the needlcssncss of a universal 
 deluge, as the same purpose might have been answered by a 
 partial one. These objections may be briefly considered here. 
 
 1. The absence of -positive testimony from profane historians. 
 However true it mAy be that there is no consecutive account of 
 the Deluge except that given in the Bible, it is certain that 
 records relating to the ark had been preserved among the 
 early nations of the world and in the general system of Gentile 
 mythology. Plutarch mentions the dove that was sent forth 
 from the ark. The Greek fable of Deucalion and Pyrrha is 
 absolutely the same as the scriptural narrative of Noah and his 
 wife. The Egyptians carried their deity, upon occasions of 
 solemnity, in an ark or boat, and this ark was called "Baris," 
 from the name of a mountain upon which, doubtless, in their 
 own legend, the Egyptian ark had rested, as did the scriptural 
 ark upon Mount Ararat. The Temple of Sesostris was 
 fashioned after the model of the ark, and was consecrated to 
 Osiris at Theba. This name of Theba given to a city is an 
 important point, for Theba was the appellation of the ark 
 itself. The same name was borne by numerous cities in 
 Boeotia, Attica, Ionia, Syria, and Italy ; and the city of Apa- 
 mea, in Phrygia, was originally called Kibotos, or Ark, in 
 memory of the Deluge. This fact shows that the tradition of 
 the Deluge was preserved in Asia Minor from a very remote 
 antiquity. In India, ancient mythological books have been 
 shown to contain fragmentary accounts of some great overflow 
 corresponding in a remarkable degree with that given by Moses. 
 The Africans, the Chinese, and the American Indians even, 
 have traditions of a flood in the early annals of the world, and 
 of the preservation of the human race and of animated nature 
 by means of an ark. It is impossible to account for the univer- 
 sality of this legend, unless the fact of the Deluge be admitted. 
 
 2. The apparent material impossibility of producing water 
 in sufficient quantity to overflow the earth. The means by 
 
TRADITIONS OF THE FLOOD. 89 
 
 wliicli the flood was produced are stated in the Mosaic narrative : 
 the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the windows 
 of heaven were opened ; that is, the water rushed out from the 
 bowels of the earth, where it had been confined, and the clouds 
 poured forth their rains. This would seem to be a sufficient 
 explanation, if any explanation of an event clearly miraculous 
 and supernatural be necessary at all. It has been discovered, 
 however, that the Deluge might have been caused, and might at 
 any time be repeated, by a very simple process. It has been 
 demonstrated that the various seas and oceans which invest the 
 two principal hemispheres, contain water enough to overflow the 
 land and cover the highest mountains to the depth of twenty-two 
 feet, were their temperature merely raised to a degree equal to 
 that of the shallow tropical seas ! Were the Atlantic and 
 Pacific Oceans suddenly warmed to a point perfectly compatible 
 with the maintenance of animal life, they would expand suf- 
 ficiently to overflow the Cordilleras and the Alps. 
 
 3. The needlessness of a universal deluge, as a partial one 
 would have answered all purposes. That the Deluge was 
 universal is distinctly stated by Scripture. Had not God 
 intended it to be so, he would hardly have instructed Noah 
 to spend a hundred years in the construction of an ark : a spot 
 of the earth yet uninhabited by man might have been desig- 
 nated, where Noah could have gathered his family ; there would 
 have been no necessity for shutting up pairs of all animals in 
 the ark with which to re-stock the earth, for they could have 
 been easily brought from the parts of the earth not overflowed 
 into those that were. Then we are told that the water 
 ascended twenty-two feet above the highest mountains, — a 
 distinct physical proof that the whole earth was inundated, for 
 water then, as now, would seek its level, and must, by the laws 
 of gravity, spread itself over the rest of the earth, unless, 
 indeed, it were retained there by a miracle; and in this case 
 Moses would certainly have mentioned it, as he did the suspen- 
 
40 ocean's story. 
 
 sion of the laws of nature in the case of the waters of the Red 
 Sea. Then, again, had the Deluge been partial and confined to 
 the neighborhood of the Euphrates and Tigris, it would be 
 impossible to account for the fact that in remote countries — in 
 Italy, France, Germany, England, the United States — there 
 have been found, in places far from the sea, and upon the tops 
 of high mountains, the teeth and bones of animals, fishes in an 
 entire condition, sea-shells, ears of corn, &c., petrified. The 
 explanation of this has always been derived from the circum- 
 stance of a universal deluge. The fact, too, already mentioned, 
 that the Chinese, the Greeks, and the Indians have traditions 
 of a deluge, seems to be conclusive evidence that that terrible 
 dispensation was not confined to the district which was at that 
 period scriptural ground, but visited alike Palestine and Peru, 
 Canaan and Connecticut. 
 
 We now return to the ark, the period of whose completion 
 we have already given, — the year of the world 1656, or the year 
 before Christ 2348. Three points are now to be considered: — 
 the material of which it was built, its capacity and dimensions, 
 and its form. 
 
 1. The Material of wliich it was built. The Mosaic account 
 says expressly that it was built of gopher-wood ; but it has 
 never been satisfactorily determined what wood is meant by the 
 term " gopher." Numerous interpretations have been placed upon 
 it: by one authority it is rendered "timber squared by the 
 workman ;" by another, " timber made from trees which shoot 
 out quadrangular branches in the same horizontal line," such 
 as cedar and fir; by another, "smoothed or planed timber;" by 
 another, "wood that does not readily decay," such as boxwood 
 or cedar; by another, "the wood of such trees as abound with 
 resinous, inflammable juices," as the cedar, fir, cypress, pine, &c. 
 That the ark was built of cedar would seem to be probable, 
 from the fact that this wood corresponds more than any other 
 with the numerous significations given to the term "gopher," as 
 
DIMENSIONS OF THE ARK. 41 
 
 it is quadrangular in its branches, durable, almost incorruptible, 
 resinous, and highly inflammable ; from the fact, too, that it is 
 abundant in Asia, and known to have been employed by the 
 Assyrians and Egyptians in the construction of ships. One o-r 
 two authorities, however, maintain that the ark was made of 
 the wood of the cypress, their grounds being that the cypress 
 was considered by the ancients the most durable wood against 
 rot and worms; that it abounded in Assyria, where the ark was 
 probably built ; and that it was frequently employed in the 
 construction of ships, especially by Alexander, who built a 
 whole fleet from the cypress groves in the neighborhood of 
 Babylon. 
 
 2. Its Capacity and Dimensions. The proportions of the 
 ark, as given in the sacred volume, have been examined and com- 
 pared with the greatest precision by the most learned and accu- 
 rate calculators ; and, assuming the cubit to have been of the 
 value of eighteen inches of the present day, it follows that the ark 
 was four hundred and fifty feet long, by seventy-five wide, by forty- 
 five high. From these data its burden has been deduced, and is 
 now understood to have been forty-two thousand four hundred 
 and thirteen tons. Such a construction would have allowed 
 ample room for the eight persons who were to inhabit it, — Noah 
 and his wife, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and their wives, — about 
 two hundred and fifty pair of four-footed beasts, the fowls of the 
 air, such reptiles and insects as could not live under water, together 
 with the food necessary for their subsistence for a twelvemonth. It 
 has been doubted whether Noah took with him into the ark speci- 
 mens of all living creatures. It is reasonable to suppose that, as 
 the world was nearly seventeen centuries old, the animal creation 
 had spread itself over a large portion of the antediluvian earth, 
 and that certain species had consequently become indigenous in 
 certain climates. It is therefore probable that many species 
 were not to be found in the country where Noah dwelt and 
 where he built the ark. We are not told in the Bible that any 
 
42 OCEAN^S STORY. 
 
 kind of animals were brought from a distance, — a fact which 
 renders it probable that Noah only saved pairs of the species 
 which had become natives of the territory which he inhabited. 
 This would be to suppose that many species perished in the flood 
 and were consequently never renewed, — a supposition which de- 
 rives strong support from the numerous discoveries made in 
 modern times of the exuviae of animals which no longer exist, 
 and whose destruction is attributed to the Deluge. A list of 
 such extinct species was drawn up by Cuvier. 
 
 The presumptive evidence which may be adduced in support 
 of the scriptural history of the preparation of the ark is very 
 strong ; it is, indeed, the only solution of an otherwise insuper- 
 able difficulty. The early records of the whole Gentile world, 
 as has been stated, concur in declaring the fact of a universal 
 deluge; and yet the human race and all the more useful and 
 important species of animals survived it. Now, the people of 
 those times had no ships and were totally unacquainted with 
 navigation : it is evident, therefore, that they were not saved by 
 vessels in ordinary use. Even though we were to suppose them 
 possessed of shipping, it is impossible to believe that they 
 would or could have provisioned them for a year's cruise, unless 
 we suppose them to have been forewarned precisely as Moses 
 relates ; and it is certainly as easy to believe the whole of the 
 Bible narrative as a portion. Such a structure as the ark, for the 
 preservation and sustenance of the human race and of the animal 
 kingdom, seems, then, to have been absolutely indispensable. 
 
 3. Its Form, From the dimensions given in the sixth chapter 
 of Genesis, it is evident that the ark had the shape of an oblong 
 nquare, with a sloping roof and a flat bottom ; that it was fur- 
 nished with neither helm, mast, nor oars; that it was intended 
 to lie upon the water without rolling, and formed to float rather 
 than to sail. Its proportions, it has been remarked, nearly 
 agree with those of the human figure, — three hundred cubits in 
 length being six times its breadth, fifty cubits, and the average 
 
WAS THE DELUGE REAL? 43 
 
 length of the human frame being to its width as six is to one. 
 Now, the body of a man lying in the water flat on his back will 
 float with little or no exertion. It would appear, therefore, that 
 similar proportions would suit a vessel whose purpose was floating 
 only. It is not necessary to suppose that the ark had to contend 
 with either storm or wind. The waves of water lying to the 
 depth of a few fathoms upon a submerged continent could not, 
 at any rate, be compared in violence to those of the ocean. 
 The gathering of the flood lasted but forty days, and although 
 the ark floated for a year, nearly eleven months were occupied 
 in the subsidence of the water. It is probable that the ark was 
 gradually and slowly surrounded by the advancing tide, was 
 quietly lifted up upon its surface, that it hovered about the spot 
 where it was constructed, and finally, upon the disappearance of 
 the water, settled as quietly back upon its broad basis and pro- 
 jecting supports. 
 
 It is a curious fact that many minds which have refused to 
 accept the evidences of a communication between God and man 
 in the instances of Moses and of our Savior, admit the strong 
 probability of a communication having passed from God to 
 Noah. The chain of argument is indeed exceedingly strong. 
 Mr. Taylor thus seeks to establish the fact that the Deity did, 
 in the case of Noah, condescend to make known his intentions 
 toman. "Was the Deluge," he asks, "a real occurrence? All 
 mankind acknowledge it. Wherever tradition has been main- 
 tained, wherever written records are preserved, wherever com- 
 memorative rites have been instituted, what has been their 
 subject? The Deluge: — deliverance from destruction by a flood. 
 The savage and the sage agree in this : North and South, East 
 and West, relate the danger of their great ancestor from over- 
 whelming waters. But he was saved : and how ? By personal 
 exertion? By long-continued swimming? By concealment in 
 the highest mountains? No: but by enclosure in a large float- 
 ing edifice of his own construction. But this labor was long : 
 
44t ocean's story. 
 
 it was not the work of a day : he must have foreseen so as-% 
 tonishing an event a considerable time previous to its actual 
 occurrence. Whence did he receive this foreknowledge ? Did 
 the earth inform him that at twenty, thirty, forty years' distance 
 it would disgorge a flood? Surely not. Did the stars announce 
 that they would dissolve the terrestrial atmosphere in terrific 
 rains ? Surely not. Whence, then, had Noah his foreknowledge ? 
 Did he begin to build when the first showers descended? It was 
 too late. Had he been accustomed to rains, formerly? Why 
 think them now of importance? Had he never seen rain? 
 What could induce him to provide against it ? Why this year 
 more than last year ? Why last year more than the year before ? 
 These inquiries are direct: we cannot flinch from the fact. 
 Erase it from the Mosaic records, still it is recorded in Greece, 
 in Egypt, in India, in Britain ; it is registered in the very sacra 
 of the pagan world. Go, infidel, take your choice of difficulties : 
 either disparage all mankind as fools, as willing dupes to 
 superstitious commemoration, or allow that this fact, this one 
 fact, is established by testimony abundantly sufficient; but re- 
 member that if it be established, it implies a communication 
 from God to man. Who could inform Noah? Why did not 
 that great patriarch provide against fire? against earthquakes? 
 against explosions? Why against water ? why against a deluge ? 
 Away with subterfuge ! confess frankly it was the dictation of 
 Deity. Say that He only who made the world could predict the 
 time and causes of this devastation, that He only could excite 
 the hope of restoration, or suggest a method of deliverance." 
 
 It is a remarkable fact, and one which goes far to support the 
 argument often urged to combat the opinions of atheists, that the 
 ark could not have been built by man, unassisted by the divine 
 intelligence, at that age of the world, — that the ark, the first 
 and largest ship ever built, had precisely the same proportions 
 as the ocean steamers of our own day. Its dimensions were, as 
 we have said, three hundred cubits, by fifty, by thirty. Those of 
 
A TOAST TO NOAH. 45 
 
 several of the fleetest Atlantic mail steamers are three hundred 
 feet in length, fifty feet in breadth of beam, and twenty-eight 
 and a half in depth. They have, like the ark, upper, lower, and 
 middle stories. It is, to say the least, singular, that the ship- 
 builders of the present day, neglecting the experience acquired 
 by man from forty-two centuries spent more or less upon the 
 sea, should so directly and unreservedly return to the model of 
 the vessel constructed to outride the Flood. It was therefore 
 with obvious propriety that, at one of the late convivial meet- 
 ings in England during the preparations for laying the telegraphic 
 cable, after due honor had been paid to the celebrities of the 
 occasion and the moment, after the health of the Queen and the 
 memory of Columbus had been pledged and drunk, a toast was 
 offered to our great ancestor Noah. Though the proposition 
 was received with hilarity and the idea seemed to savor some- 
 what of a jest, yet the patriarch's claims, as the first admiral 
 on record, to being the father of seamen and the great originator 
 of navigation, were willingly and vociferously acknowledged- 
 After this recognition — which must, from the circumstances, be 
 regarded as in some measure official and conclusive — we could 
 not consistently have ventured to withhold from him the first 
 place in this record of the triumphs of thirty centuries. 
 
 NOCTILUO VILiABJH. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 tBB SHIPS, COJIMERCE, AND NAVIOATlOIi OF THE PHCEKICIANS — THEIK TKADB 
 
 VITH OPHin SIDON AND TYRE THEIR TOYAGE ROrND AFRICA — NEW TYRE A 
 
 PATRIOTIC PH(ENICIAN CAPTAIN THE EGYPTIANS AS A MARITIME PEOPLE 
 
 THEIK SHIPS AND COMMBRCE — THE JEWS THEIK GEOGRAPHY — IPEAS UPON THK 
 
 BHAPB OF THE EAKTH THE WORLD AS KNOWN TO THE HEBREWS. 
 
 It is upon the shores of the Mediterranean, alike the sea of 
 the Bibb and of mythology, of Mount Ararat and Mount 
 Olympus, — among the Phoenicians, the Egyptians, and the 
 Hebrews, — ^that we must look for the earliest traces of navigation 
 and commerce. The most cursory inspection of a map of 
 Palestine, Phoenicia, and Egypt will show how admirably these 
 countries were situated for trade both by land and sea. The 
 Phoenicians, though confmed to the narrow slip of land betAveen 
 Mount Lebanon and the Mediterranean, possessed a safe coast 
 and the admirable harbor of Sidon, while their mountains fur- 
 nished them an abundant supply of the best woods for ship- 
 building. The confined limits of their own territory prevented 
 them from being themselves producers or manufacturers, — a cir- 
 cumstance which naturally led them to be the carriers of pro- 
 ducing and manufacturing nations whose maritime advantages 
 were inferior to their own. The fact, also, that the Jews were 
 prevented by their government, laws, and religion from engaging 
 extensively in commerce, and that the Egyptians were character- 
 istically averse to the sea, augmented the commercial supre- 
 macy of the Phoenicians, — a supremacy recognised both in the 
 
 sacred writings and in profane records. 
 46 
 
CIRCUMNAVIGATION OF AFRICA. 47 
 
 It is now generally conceded that the date of the maritime 
 enterprises which rendered the Phoenicians famous in antiquity 
 must be fixed between the years 1700 and 1100 before Christ. 
 The renowned city of Sidon was the centre from which their 
 expeditions were sent forth. What was the specific object of 
 these excursions, or in what order of time they took place, is but 
 imperfectly known: it would appear, however, that their adven- 
 turers traded at first with Cyprus and Rhodes, then with Greece, 
 Sardinia, Sicily, Gaul, and the coast of Spain upon the Mediter- 
 ranean. About 1250 B.C., their ships ventured cautiously 
 beyond the Straits of Gibraltar, and founded Cadiz upon a 
 coast washed by the Atlantic. A little later they founded 
 establishments upon the western coast of Africa. Homer as- 
 serts that at the Trojan War, 1194 B.C., the Phoenicians fur- 
 nished the belligerents with many articles of luxury and con- 
 venience ; and we are told by Scripture that their ships brought 
 gold to Solomon from Ophir, in 1000 B.C. Tyre seems now to 
 have superseded Sidon, though at what period is not known. It 
 had become a flourishing mart before 600 B.C. ; for Ezekiel, 
 who lived at that time, has left a glowing and picturesque de- 
 scription of its wealth, which must have proceeded from a long- 
 established commerce. He enumerates, among the articles used 
 in building the Tyrian ships, the fir-trees of Senir, the cedars of 
 Lebanon, the oaks of Bashan, the ivory of the Indies, the linen 
 of Egypt, and the purple of the Isles of Elishah. He mentions, 
 as brought to the great emporium from Syria, Damascus, Greece, 
 and Arabia, silver, tin, lead, and vessels of brass ; slaves, horses, 
 mules ; carpets, ebony, ivory, pearls, and silk ; wheat, balm, 
 honey, oil, and gum; wine, wool, and iron. 
 
 It is about this period — GOO B.C. — that the Phoenicians, though 
 under Egyptian commanders, appear to have performed a voyage 
 which, if authentic, may justly be regarded as the most important 
 in their annals, — a circumnavigation of Africa. The extent of 
 this unknown region, and the peculiar aspects of man and nature 
 
48 OCEAN^S STORY. 
 
 there, had already drawn toward it in a particular degree the 
 attention of the ancient world. The manner in which its coasts 
 converged, south of the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, sug- 
 gested the idea of a peninsula, the circumnavigation of which 
 might be effected even by the limited resources of the early 
 naval powers. The first attempt in this direction originated in 
 a quarter which had been accustomed, from its agricultural avo- 
 cations, to hold itself aloof from every species of maritime 
 enterprise. It was undertaken by order of Necho, king of 
 Egypt, — the Pharaoh Necho of the Scriptures, — and is recorded 
 by Herodotus as follows: 
 
 "When Necho had desisted from his attempts to join the 
 Red Sea with the Mediterranean by means of a canal at the 
 Isthmus of Suez, he despatched some vessels, under the guidance 
 of Phoenician pilots, with orders to sail down the Red Sea and 
 follow the coast of Africa : they were to return to Egypt by the 
 Pillars of Hercules and the Mediterranean. The Phoenicians, 
 therefore, taking their course by way of the Red Sea, sailed 
 onward to the Southern Ocean. Upon the approach of autumn 
 they landed in Libya and planted corn in the place where thej 
 first went ashore. When this was ripe they cut it down and 
 set sail again. Having in this manner consumed two years, 
 in the third they passed the Pillars of Hercules and returned to 
 Egypt. This story may be believed by others, but to me it 
 appears incredible, for they affirm that when they sailed round 
 Libya they had the sun on their right hand." 
 
 In the time of Herodotus, the Greeks were unacquainted 
 with the phenomenon of a shadow falling to the south, — one 
 which the Phoenicians would naturally have witnessed had they 
 actually passed the Cape of Good Hope, for the sun would havo 
 been on their right hand, or in the north, and would thus havo 
 projected shadows to the south. As this story was not one likely 
 to have been invented in the time of Necho, it is the strongest 
 proof that could be adduced of the reality of the voyage. Doubts 
 
PHGBNICIAN TRADERS. 49 
 
 • have been raised in modern times upon the accuracy of the 
 narrative ; but the objections are considered as having been 
 refuted by Rennell and Ileeren. Bartholomew Diaz has the 
 credit of having discovered and having been the first to double 
 the Cape of Good Hope, in 1486 : it is clear that, if the claims 
 of the Phoenician pilots are to be regarded, Diaz was preceded 
 in this path at least twenty centuries. 
 
 Soon after the date of this voyage. Tyre was besieged and 
 destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar. The inhabitants succeeded in 
 escaping with their property to an island near the shore, where 
 they founded New Tyre, which soon surpassed, both in com- 
 merce and shipping, the city they had abandoned. The 
 Phoenicians seem now to have advanced with their system of 
 colonization farther to the south upon the coast of Africa, 
 and farther to the north upon the coast of Spain. They dis- 
 covered the Cassiterides — now the Scilly Islands — upon the 
 coast of Cornwall, and retained the monopoly of the trade in 
 the tin which they found there. They carried spices and 
 perfumes, obtained from Arabia, to Greece, where they were 
 employed for sacrifice and incense. They also sold there the 
 manufactures, purple, and jewels of Tyre and Sidon. From 
 Spain they obtained silver, corn, wine, oil, wax, wool, and 
 fruits. They procured amber in some place which they visited 
 in the North, — doubtless the shores of the Baltic. As the value 
 of this article was equal to that of gold, they desired to retain 
 the monopoly of the trade and to keep all knowledge of the 
 regions yielding it from their commercial rivals. Hence the 
 secret was most carefully hoarded. 
 
 A remarkable circumstance connected with the maritime 
 history of the Phoenicians was their jealousy of the influence of 
 foreigners. When a strange ship was observed to keep them com- 
 pany at sea, they would either outsail her, or at night change their 
 course and disappear. On one occasion a Phoenician captain, 
 
 finding himself pursued by a Roman vessel, ran his ship aground 
 4 
 
50 ocean's story. 
 
 and wrecked her, rather than lose the secret which a capture 
 would have revealed. This act was deemed so patriotic that the 
 government rewarded him, and compensated him for the loss of 
 his vessel. New Tyre was destroyed by Alexander the Great, 
 324 B.C. The inhabitants were either put to death or sold as 
 slaves, and thus the maritime glory of the Phoenicians came 
 to an untimely end. 
 
 Little is known of the construction and equipment of Phoe- 
 nician ships. All that can be said with certainty is, that there 
 were two kinds, — those employed in commerce and those used for 
 war, — a distinction, indeed, which all nations, both ancient and 
 modern, have found it convenient to make. The hulls of the 
 trading-vessels were round, that they might carry more goods, 
 while the fighting-ships were longer and sharp at the bottom. In 
 other respects they probably resembled the vessels of Greece 
 and Rome, for which they undoubtedly furnished models. Of 
 these fuller details have reached us, and we shall speak of 
 them in their place. The Phoenicians were better astronomers 
 than the unskilful navigators who had preceded them ; for, 
 while these attempted to guide their course by the imperfect aid 
 of the constellation known as the Great Bear, — some of whose 
 stars are forty degrees from the pole, — the Phoenicians were the 
 first to apply to maritime purposes the Lesser Bear, — the group 
 which has furnished to more modern navigation the North or 
 Polar Star. It is not probable that they fixed upon this 
 particular star, for at that period — 1250 years B.C. — it was 
 eighteen degrees from the pole, too distant to serve any positive 
 astronomical purpose. 
 
 We come now to thQ Egyptians as a maritime people in the 
 earliest historical periods, of whom we have incidentally said 
 that they were characteristically disinclined to enter with spirit 
 into any maritime enterprises, whether for commerce or war. 
 This may have been owing to the want of proper timber, to 
 the insalubrity of the sea-coasts, and to the absence of good 
 
EGYPTIAN SHIPS. 61 
 
 harbors ; while the advantages presented by the Nile for inter- 
 course and trafi&c with the interior precluded the necessity of 
 resorting to commerce by sea. Sesostris, who lived about 1G50 
 years before Christ, is supposed to have been the first king who 
 overcame the dislike of the Egyptians to the water. Herodotus 
 assigns him a large fleet in the Red Sea, and other historians 
 attribute to him fleets upon the Mediterranean. Upon his death, 
 his subjects relapsed into their former aversion for commerce. 
 Bocchoris, 700 B.C., imitated and revived his legislation upon 
 the subject ; and during the reign of Psammeticus the ports of 
 Egypt were first opened to foreign ships, and intercourse with 
 the Greeks was for the first time encouraged. It was Necho, 
 the successor of Psammeticus, who employed, 600 B.C., the 
 Phoenicians in the voyage around Africa of which we have 
 spoken ; and this enterprise bespeaks a monarch bent on mari- 
 time discovery. Apries, the grandson of Necho, took the city 
 of Sidon by storm and defeated the Phoenicians in a sea-fight. It 
 is probable that the Egyptians, had they continued independent, 
 would have become distinguished as a commercial people; but 
 seventy years afterwards they were conquered by the Persians, 
 and became successivelysubject to the Macedonians and Romans. 
 
 We possess but little knowledge of the construction and 
 equipment of the Egyptian ships. According to Herodotus, 
 they were built of planks of the thorn-tree, fastened together, 
 like tiles, with a great number of wooden pins, and were entirely 
 without ribs. On the inside papyrus was used for stopping 
 the crevices. The sails were made of the papyrus, or of twisted 
 rushes. These vessels were always towed up the Nile, while 
 they descended the stream in the following manner. The cur- 
 rent not acting with sufficient force upon their flat bottoms, the 
 sailors hung a bundle of tamarisk over the prow and let it down 
 under the keel by a rope : the stream, bearing upon this bundle, 
 carried the boat along with great celerity. 
 
 The Jews, whose country was ill situated for commerce by 
 
52 OCEAN'S STORY. 
 
 sea, were even more averse than tlie Egyptians to intercourse 
 "with foreigners and to maritime occupations. Joppa was the 
 only seaport of Judea and Jerusalem, and into it many of the 
 articles used by Solomon in the construction of the Temple were 
 imported. During Solomon's reign, he employed the ships of 
 his ally, Iliram, King of Tyre, in commercial avocations, for 
 which his own people were not fitted. It is among the Jews, 
 whose history is given in the Scripture with so much detail, that 
 we should naturally look for the earliest geographical records. 
 The sacred writers, however, seem to have entertained no idea 
 of any system of geography, having been occupied with the 
 affairs of the world to come, to the total exclusion of the concerns 
 of the mundane earth. They do not even allude to any such 
 branch of learning as being then in existence. It is clear that 
 the Hebrews never attempted to form any theory upon the 
 structure and shape of the globe. Their ideas with regard to 
 the boundaries of the known world may be vaguely inferred 
 from the tenth chapter of Genesis, from the chapters treating 
 of the commerce of Tyre, and from various detached allusions 
 in the prophets. 
 
 The idea, common to all uninstructed people, that the earth is 
 a flat surface and the heaven a firmament or curtain spread over 
 it, prevails throughout the Bible. The abode of darkness and 
 of the shadow of death was conceived to be a deep pit beneath 
 it. One sacred writer speaks of the earth as being " hung upon 
 nothing;" another speaks of the "pillars of the earth," and 
 another of the "pillars of heaven." These allusions show suf- 
 ficiently that, though the writers of those days were impressed 
 by the external view of the grand scenes of nature, they did not 
 endeavor to group them into any regular system. 
 
 The localities always alluded to as being at the farthest 
 bounds of their geographical knowledge are Tarshiah, Ophir, 
 the Isles, Sheba, Dedan, The River, Gog, Magog, and the North. 
 The first has given rise to infinite discussion. The best theory 
 
THE ENDS OF THE EARTH. 63 
 
 makes it the name of Carthage, and gives it, "by extension, to 
 the whole continent of Africa. Ophir is probably Sofala, on the 
 eastern coast of Africa. The Isles are thought to have been 
 the southern coasts and promontories of Europe, Greece, Italy, 
 kc.y which were supposed at that period to be insular. Sheba 
 was Sabgea, or Arabia Felix. Dedan is supposed to have been a 
 port in the Persian Gulf. The River was the Euphrates, be- 
 yond which were tracts indefinitely known as Elam and Media, 
 and still beyond a region known as "The Ends of the Earth." 
 Gog, Magog, and the North have been usually supposed to refer 
 to the inhabitants of Scythia and Sarmatia, and the hyperborean 
 nations in general, though a later and more natural theory makea 
 them refer to the migratory shepherds and warriors of Cappa- 
 docia, Phrygia, and Galatia. It thus appears that the primitive 
 Israelites knew little beyond the limits of their own country, 
 Egypt, and the regions lying between the Mediterranean, or the 
 Sea, and the Euphrates. A knowledge of the water, we have 
 already remarked, is essential to the formation of any correct and 
 adequate idea of the shape and extent of the land. The Jews 
 had never ventured forth upon the sea for the discovery of 
 new regions, and were, in consequence, ignorant even of that in 
 which they dwelt. We shall find that the Greeks and Romans, 
 whose maritime history we shall now briefly narrate, approached 
 the truth in regard to the form and extent of the world, pre- 
 cisely as their commerce expanded and their ambition for con- 
 quest and colonization augmented. 
 
SUPPOSED FORM OF THE SHIP ARGO, (FROM AN ANCIENT BAS-RELIEF.) 
 
 CHAPTER Y. 
 
 THE EARLY MARITIME HISTORY OF THE GREEKS — THE EXPEDITION OF THE AROO- 
 
 NAUTS — THE VESSELS USED IN THE TROJAN WAR SHIP-BUILDING IN THE TIME 
 
 OF HOMER — THE POETIC GEOGRAPHY OF THE GREEKS THE PALACE OF THE SU3» 
 
 -THE MARVELS OF A VOYAGE OUT OF SIGHT OF LAND — THE GEOGRAPHY OF 
 HESIOD OF ANAXIMANDER OF THALES, HERODOTUS, SOCRATES, AND ERATOS- 
 THENES — THE GREAT OCEAN IS NAMED THE ATLANTIC. 
 
 At what period the Greeks began to build vessels and to ven- 
 ture upon the waters washing their coasts and girding their 
 numerous archipelagoes, is not known : it is certain, at any rate, 
 that the commencement of navigation with them, as with all 
 other nations, must be referred to a time much anterior to the 
 ages of which we have any record. Long voyages are men- 
 tioned as having taken place at periods so early that they must 
 be considered mythical. The first maritime adventure which 
 lays any claim to authenticity, and the most celebrated in ancient 
 times, is the expedition of the Argonauts to Colchis. Though 
 this enterprise is by many learned authorities deemed fabulous, 
 we shall nevertheless consider three points connected with it, — 
 the probable era of the voyage, its supposed object, and the 
 various routes by which the adventurers are said to have returned. 
 
 The date of the expedition, if it took place at all, may be 
 64 
 
THE GOLDEN FLEECE. 55 
 
 safely fixed at the year 1250 B.C. A theory propounded by 
 Sir Isaac Newton would connect it with the year 937 ; but this 
 is regarded with less favor than the earlier date. Its alleged 
 object was the Golden Fleece ; but what this was can only be 
 conjectured. It is hardly likely that the people of that age 
 would have been tempted by the prospect of commercial advan- 
 tages by opening a trade with the Euxine Sea. It is quite as un- 
 likely that they would have undertaken so dangerous a voyage for 
 the purpose of plunder, better opportunities for which existed 
 much nearer home. The supposition that the Golden Fleece was 
 a parchment containing the secret of transmuting the baser metals 
 into gold, and the opinion that the Argonauts went in quest of 
 skins and rich furs, hardly require discussion. There seems, 
 indeed, no adequate motive but a desire to obtain the precious 
 metals, which were believed to be furnished in abundance by the 
 mines near the Black Sea. Why these mines were symbolized 
 under the appellation of a golden fleece it is not easy to say, 
 and no satisfactory reason has ever been suggested. The most 
 probable is that the gold dust was supposed to be washed down 
 the sides of the Caucasus Mountains by torrents, and caught by 
 fleeces of wool placed among the rocks by the inhabitants. 
 
 Jason, the son of the King of Thessaly, being deprived of his 
 inheritance, and having resolved to seek his fortune by some 
 remote and hazardous expedition, was induced to go in quest of 
 the Golden Fleece in Colchis. He enlisted fifty men, and em- 
 ployed a person named Argus to build him a ship, which from him 
 was called Argo, the adventurers being named Argonauts. The 
 Argo is described as a pentecontoros, — that is, a vessel with fifty 
 oars. The number of the Argonauts is usually stated at fifty, 
 though one authority asserts that they numbered one hundred. 
 They started from lolcos in Thessaly, and with a south wind 
 sailed east by north. The narrative of the expedition is full of 
 wonders. They landed at the island of Lemnos, where they found 
 that the women had just murdered their husbands and fathers. 
 
56 ocean's story. 
 
 The Argonauts supplied the place of the assassinated relatives, 
 and Jason had two sons by one of the bereaved Lemnians. 
 When the vessel arrived at the entrance to the Euxine, — the 
 narrow strait now called the Bosphorus, — they built a temple, 
 and implored the protection of the gods against the Symplegades, 
 or Whirling Rocks, which guarded the passage. A seer named 
 Phineas was consulted upon the probability of their sailing 
 through unharmed. The rocks were imagined to float upon the 
 waves, and, when any thing attempted to pass through, to seize 
 and crush it. According to Homer, — 
 
 •' No bird of air, no dove of swiftest wing, 
 That bears ambrosia to th' ethereal king. 
 Shuns the dire rocks : in vain she cuts the skies : 
 The dire rocks meet, and crush her as she flies." 
 
 Phineas advised them to loose a dove, to mark its flight, and to 
 judge from its fate of the destiny reserved for them. They 
 did so, determined to push boldly on if the bird got through in 
 safety. The pigeon escaped with the loss of some of its tail- 
 feathers. The Argo dashed onward, and cleared the formidable 
 rocks with the loss of a few of its stern ornaments. From this 
 time forward, the legend adds, the Symplegades remained fixed, 
 and were no longer a terror to navigators. 
 
 The Argonauts, after entering the Black Sea, sailed due east, 
 to the mouth of the river Phasis, now the Rione. iEetes, the 
 king, promised to give Jason the fleece upon certain conditions. 
 These he was enabled to fulfil by the aid of Medea, a sorceress, 
 and daughter of -iEetes. They then fled together to Greece. 
 The route followed by the Argonauts upon their return is difi'cr- 
 ently given by the various poets who have told the story and 
 the commentators who have illustrated it. By one they arc 
 represented as sailing up some river across the continent to 
 the Baltic, and thence homeward along the coasts of France 
 and Spain, and through the Straits of Gibraltar. It is needless 
 to say that there is no river which flows between the Euxino 
 
THE TROJAN WAR. 67 
 
 and the Baltic. Other tracks laid down are equally prepos- 
 terous in the eyes of modern geography. Herodotus adopts the 
 tradition that they returned by the same way they went, — the 
 only way, indeed, they could have returned, — by water. The 
 reader, in view of the romantic embellishments with which this 
 story is loaded, and of the strong doubts resting upon it as an 
 historical event, must choose, from among the various theories 
 we have given, the one he deems the most satisfactory. 
 
 One generation after the date we have assigned to this expe- 
 dition occurred the Trojan War. In the year 1194 B.C., all the 
 Greek states, with Agamemnon at their head, united to revenge 
 the insult offered to Menelaus, King of Sparta, by the Trojan 
 prince Paris, who had carried off the king's wife Helen. During 
 the interval the Greeks, if the Homeric account is to be believed, 
 had made great advances in the arts of ship-building and navi- 
 gation ; for in a very short time eleven hundred and fifty ships 
 were collected at Aulis, the general rendezvous. The Boeotians 
 furnished fifty, and the other states contributed in proportion. 
 Each of them contained one hundred and twenty warriors ; they 
 must therefore have been vessels of considerable magnitude. 
 All the ships are described as having masts which could be 
 taken down as occasion required. The sail could only be used 
 when the wind was directly astern. The delicate art of sailing in 
 the wind's eye, or of making to the north with a north wind, 
 was not yet understood. The principal propelling power lay in 
 the oars, which turned in leathern thongs as a key in its hole. 
 Homer represents the ships to have been black, from the color 
 of the pitch with which they were smeared. The sides near the 
 prow were often painted red, whence vessels are sometimes 
 called by the poets red-cheeked. On their arrival upon the 
 Trojan coast, the Greeks drew their fleet up on the land and 
 anchored them by means of large stones. They then surrounded 
 them with fortifications, to protect them from the enemy. 
 
 Homer, who lived two centuries later, — 1000 B.C., — has left us 
 
58 ocean's story. 
 
 a tolerably full account of the ship-building, navigation, and geo- 
 graphy of his time. The following passage from the Odyssey, as 
 rendered into English by Cowper, is regarded by antiquaries as 
 important, showing, as it does, the point at which the art of ship- 
 building had now arrived. Ulysses, having been wrecked upon an 
 island, is enabled to build a ship by the aid of the nymph Calypso. 
 
 " She gave him, fitted to the grasp, an axe 
 Of iron, ponderous, double-edged, with haft 
 Of olive-wood inserted firm, and wrought 
 "With curious art. Then, placing in his hand 
 A polish'd adze, she led herself the way 
 To her isle's utmost verge, where loftiest stood 
 The alder, poplar, and cloud-piercing fir, 
 Though sapless, sound, and fitted for his use 
 As buoyant most. To that once verdant grove 
 His steps the beauteous nymph Calypso led, 
 And sought her home again. Then slept not he, 
 But, swinging with both hands the axe, his task 
 Soon finish'd : trees full twenty to the ground 
 He cast, which dextrous with his adze he smoothed. 
 The knotted surface chipping by a line. 
 Meantime the lovely goddess to his aid 
 Sharp augers brought, with which he bored the beams, 
 Then placed them side by side, adapting each 
 To other, and the seams with wadding closed. 
 Broad as an artist skill' d in naval works 
 The bottom of a ship of burthen spreads, 
 Such breadth Ulysses to his raft assign'd. 
 He decked her over with long planks, upborne 
 On massy beams : he made the mast, to which 
 He added, suitable, the yard : he framed 
 Rudder and helm to regulate her coift-se : 
 With wickerwork he border'd all the length 
 For safety, and much ballast stow'd within. 
 Meantime Calypso brought him, for a sail, 
 Fittest materials, which he also shaped, 
 And to it all due furniture annex' d 
 Of cordage strong, foot-ropes, and ropes aloft ; 
 Then heaved her down with levers to the deep." 
 
homer's geographical KNO'VVLEDGE. 59 
 
 Besides the facts contained in this passage, it is worth re- 
 marking that Homer seems to regard ship-buihlers with no 
 little consideration, inasmuch as he calls them "artists." 
 
 The Greeks, like the Hebrews, were ignorant of the real 
 figure of the earth. It is in Homer that we find the first 
 written trace of the widely prevalent idea that the earth is a 
 flat surface begirt on every side by the ocean. This was a 
 natural belief in a region almost insular, like Greece, where the 
 visible horizon and an enveloping sea suggested the idea of a flat 
 circle. Homer took the lead among the poetic geographers of 
 Greece, and his authority gave to the subject a fanciful cast, 
 the traces of which are not yet obliterated. Beneath the earth 
 he placed the fabled regions of Elysium and Tartarus : above 
 the whole rose the grand arch of the heavens, which were sup- 
 posed to rest on the summits of the highest mountains. The 
 sun, moon, and stars were believed to rise from the waves of 
 the sea, and to sink again beneath them on their return from 
 the skies. 
 
 Homer's distribution of the land was even more fantastic. 
 Beyond the limits of Greece and the western coasts of Asia 
 Minor his knowledge was uncertain and obscure. He had 
 heard vaguely of Thebes, the mighty capital of Egypt, and in 
 his verse sang of its hundred gates and of the countless hosts 
 it sent forth to battle. The Ethiopians, who lived beyond, were 
 deemed to be the most remote dwellers upon the habitable earth. 
 Towards the centre of Africa were the stupendous ridges of the 
 Atlas Mountains : Homer deified the highest peak, and made it 
 a giant supporting upon his shoulders the outspreading canopy 
 of the heavens. The narrow passage leading from the Mediter- 
 ranean to the Atlantic, and now known as the Straits of Gibral- 
 tar, was believed to have been discovered by Hercules, and the 
 mountains on either side — Gibraltar and Ceuta — were, from 
 him, called the Pillars of Hercules. 
 
 Colchos, upon the Black Sea, was believed to be an ocean- 
 
60 ocean's story. 
 
 city, and here Greek fancy located the Palace of the Sun. It 
 was here that the charioteer of the skies gave rest to his 
 coursers during the night, and from "whence in the morning 
 he drove them forth again. Colchos, therefore, was Homer's 
 eastern confine of the globe. On the north, Rhodope, or the 
 Riphean Mountains, were supposed to enclose the hyperborean 
 limits of the world. Beyond them dwelt a fabled race, seated in 
 the recesses of their valleys and sheltered from the contests of 
 the elements. They were represented as exempt from all ills, 
 physical and moral, from sickness, the changes of the seasons, 
 and even from death. A race directly the converse of the ideal 
 hyperboreans were the Cimmerians, located at the mouth of 
 the Sea of Azof, who are described by Homer as dwelling in 
 perpetual darkness and never visited by the sun. He imagined 
 the existence of numerous other nations, who long continued to 
 hold a place in ancient geography. The Cyclops, who had but 
 one eye, were placed in Sicily ; the Arimaspians, similarly 
 afflicted, inhabited the frontiers of India ; the Pigmies, or 
 Dwarfs, who fought pitched battles with the cranes, were sup- 
 posed to dwell in Africa, in India, and, in fact, to occupy the 
 whole southern border of the Earth. 
 
 In the time of Homer, all voyages in which the mariner lost 
 sight of land were considered as frauglit with the extrcmest 
 peril. No navigator ever visited Africa or Sicily from choice, 
 but only when driven there by tempest and typhoon, and then his 
 woes usually terminated in shipwreck : a return was not merely 
 a marvel, but a miracle. Homer made Sicily the principal 
 scene of the lamentable adventures of Ulysses, and sufficient 
 traces are furnished by the Odyssey of the distorted and ex- 
 aggerated notions entertained in the poet's time of the character 
 of places reached by a voyage at sea. The existence of monsters 
 of frightful form and size, such as Polyphemus, who watched 
 for the destruction of the mariner and even roasted and de- 
 voured his quivering limbs ; of treacherous enchantresses, such 
 
POETIC GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 61 
 
 as Circo, who lured but to ensnare ; of amiable goddesses, like 
 Calypso, who oiTered immortality in exchange for love, — was 
 doubtless believed by Homer, though we must make some 
 allowance for poetical license. At any rate, the invention of 
 these fables is not to be attributed to Homer, who, at tlie most, 
 gave a highly-colored repetition of the terrific reports brought 
 back from those formidable coasts by the few who had becr» 
 fortunate enough to return. It was thus that an ideal and 
 poetic character was communicated to the science of geography 
 by the fables with which Homer tinged his narrative. In the 
 early ages of the world, science and poetry were twin sisters : 
 every poet was a savant, and every savant was a poet. 
 
 As far as his ideas can be reduced to a system, the earth 
 was a flat disk, around which flowed the river Ocean. The 
 
 ^^Kroi^^' 
 
 THE WORLD ACCORDING TO HOMER. 
 
 accompanying plan will enable the reader to form an adequate 
 conception of the Homeric geography. The radius of the 
 territories described by Homer with any degree of r)reeisioii 
 was hardly three hundred miles in length. 
 
62 
 
 ocean's story. 
 
 Ilesiod, who lived a century after Homer, thus states the 
 scientific attainments of his time: — "The space between the 
 heavens and the earth is exactly the same as that between the 
 earth and Tartarus beneath it. A brazen anvil, if tossed from 
 heaven, would fall during nine days and nine nights, and would 
 reach the earth upon the tenth day. Were it to continue its 
 course towards the abode of darkness, it would be nine days 
 and nine nights more in accomplishing the distance." It is 
 worth while remarking that this statement is at variance with 
 that of Homer, who makes Vulcan, when precipitated from 
 heaven by Jupiter, land at Lemnos in a single day : he had 
 travelled, therefore, nearly twenty times faster than one of his 
 own anvils. Hesiod intended to convey, by this illustration, an 
 imposing idea of the loftiness of the heavens. In the eyes of 
 modern astronomy, nothing can be more paltry. The time that 
 an anvil thrown from Halcyon, the brightest star of the Pleiades, 
 towards our globe, would require to reach it, may perhaps 
 be imagined from the fact that the rays of light emitted by 
 Halcyon travel five centuries before they strike the earth ! It 
 is thus that the positive revelations of modern science surpass 
 in marvels the most daring inventions of ancient fable. 
 
 THE EARTH ACCORDING TO A N A X I M A N D E R. 
 
 Anaximander, four hundred years after Homer, held that 
 the earth, instead of being flat, was in the form of a cylinder, 
 convex upon its upper surface. Its diameter was three times 
 greater than its height; and its form was round, as if it had 
 
HERODOTUS' THEORY. 03 
 
 been shaped by a turner's lathe. The Oracle of Delphi was the 
 centre of his system. , 
 
 Somewhat later, Thales, one of the Seven Sages, declared his 
 belief that the earth was spherical, and remained suspended in 
 mid air without support of any kind. This frightful doctrine 
 made few proselytes: it was not likely, indeed, that any one 
 but a sage would adopt a theory which made him the inhabitant 
 of a globe abandoned and isolated in the midst of space. 
 
 In the fifth century before Christ, Herodotus, the most cele- 
 brated traveller of antiquity, and consequently capable of form- 
 ing rational ideas upon the subject of geography, rectified many 
 errors which had crept into the popular belief, though Homer was 
 still considered infallible by the masses of the people. " I 
 know of no such river as the ocean," he says, ironically: "this 
 denomination seems to be a pure invention of Homer and the 
 old poets. I cannot help laughing when I hear of the river 
 Ocean, and of the spherical form of the earth, as if it were the 
 work of a turner." He displaced the centre of the inhabited 
 surface, which the Greeks had at first made Mount Olympus 
 and afterwards Delphi, making Rhodes the fortunate possessor 
 of the privilege. Socrates, a century later, (400 B.C.,) asserted 
 that the earth was in the form of a globe, sustained in the middle 
 of the heavens by its own equilibrium. 
 
 About the year 230 B.C., Eratosthenes, a Greek of Gyrene, 
 succeeded in reducing geography to a system, under the patron- 
 age of the Ptolemies of Egypt, which gave him access to the 
 immense mass of materials gathered by Alexander and his suc- 
 cessors and accumulated at the Alexandrian Library. The 
 spherical form of the earth was now quite generally considered 
 by scientific men to be the correct theory, though it could 
 never be substantiated till some navigator, sailing to the east, 
 should return by the west. Eratosthenes, proceeding upon this 
 principle, made it his study to adjust to it all the known features 
 of the globe. The great ocean of Homer and Herodotus, 
 
64 
 
 OCEAN S STORY. 
 
 surrounding the world, still remained in his system. lie com- 
 pared, however, the jnagnitude of the regions known in his time 
 with what he conceived to be the whole circumference, and 
 became convinced that only a third part of the space was filled 
 up. He conjectured that the remaining space might consist of 
 one great ocean, which he called the Atlantic, from Mount Atlas, 
 which was fancifully believed to support the globe. He supposed, 
 too, that lands and islands might be discovered in it by sailing 
 towards the west. 
 
 We shall now proceed to give such a description of the vessels 
 used by the Greeks after the time of Homer, as the confused 
 and incomplete data which have reached us will enable us to 
 furnish. 
 
 THE GREAT PEMGUIH. 
 
A GREEK VESSEL OF THE SIXTH CENTURY B.C. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 CONSTRUCTION OP GBEEK VESSELS — THE PROW, POOP, RUDDER, OARS, MASTS, 
 
 SAILS, CORDAGE, BULWARKS, ANCHORS BIREMES, TRIREMES, QUADRIREMES, 
 
 QUINQUEREMES — THE GRAND GALLEY OF PTOLEMY PHILOPATOR — ROMAN VES- 
 SELS — THEIR NAVY — MIMIC SEA-FIGHTS — THE FIVE VOYAGES OP ANTIQUITY. 
 
 The prow or foredeck of Greek vessels was ornamented on 
 both sides hj figures in mosaic or painted. An eye on each side 
 of the cutwater, as is represented above, was a very common 
 embellishment. A projection from the head of the prow, pointed 
 or covered with brass, and intended to damage an enemy upon 
 collision, was often in the shape of a wild beast, or helmet, or 
 even the neck of a swan. Below this was the rostrum or beak, 
 which consisted of a beam armed with sharp and solid irons. 
 They were at first above the water ; but their efiiciency was after- 
 wards increased by putting them below the water-line and ren- 
 dering them invisible. The commanding officer of the prow was 
 next in rank to the helmsman, and had charge of the rigging 
 and the control of the rowers. 
 
 The DECK proper, or middle deck, appears to have been raised 
 
 above the bulwark, or at least upon a line with its upper edge, 
 
 thus enabling the soldiers to see far around them and hurl their 
 
 darts at the enemy from a commanding position. 
 
 5 65 
 
6Q ocean's stort. 
 
 The POOP, or stern, was usually higher than the rest of the 
 vessel, and upon it the helmsman had his elevated seat. It was 
 rounder than the prow, though its extremity was likewise sharp. 
 It was embellished in various ways, but especially with the figure 
 of the tutelary goddess or deity of the vessel. Over the helms- 
 man was a roof, and above that an elegant ornament, rising 
 from the stern and bending gracefully over him. In conse- 
 quence of its conspicuous place and beautiful form, this ornament, 
 named an aplustre, was considered emblematic of the sea, and 
 was carried off by the victor in a naval engagement, as a stand- 
 ard or a scalp in more modern times. 
 
 The RUDDER was a singular contrivance. The origin of this 
 very useful invention is attributed by Pliny, as we have said, to 
 Tiphys, of the Argo, — a doubtful pilot of a doubtful vessel. 
 Previous to this, vessels must have been guided by the same oars 
 which propelled them. The Grecian rudder was a long oar with 
 a very broad blade, inserted, not at the extremity of the stern, 
 but at either side where it begins to curve ; and a ship usually 
 had two, both being managed by the same man. In large ships 
 they were connected by a pole which kept them parallel and 
 gave to both the position in which either was turned. The rudder 
 seems to have been considered an emblem, as it frequently oc- 
 curs on gems, coins, and cameos. Thus a Triton is found repre- 
 sented as blowing a shell and holding a rudder over his shoulder. 
 A tiller and cornucopia are frequently seen in juxtaposition. A 
 cameo, still preserved, shows a Venus Anadyomene leaning with 
 her left arm upon a rudder the same height as herself, and 
 thereby indicating, as is supposed, her own maritime origin. 
 
 The OARS, bearing a name which at first signified only the 
 blade, but was afterwards applied to all oars except the rudder, 
 varied in size as they were used by a higher or lower rank of 
 rowers. A trireme may be said to have had one hundred and 
 seventy oars, a quinquererae three hundred, and even four hun- 
 dred. The lower part of the holes through which the oars 
 
GRECIAN SHIPS. 67 
 
 passed appears to have been covered with leather, which also 
 extended a little way outside the hole. In vessels mounting five 
 ranks of oars, the upper ones were of course much larger than 
 the lower ones, and we therefore find it stated by Greek authors 
 that the lower rank of rowers, having the shortest oars and con- 
 sequently the easiest work, received the smallest salary, while 
 those who had the largest oars and the heaviest work received 
 the largest salary. They sat upon benches attached to the ribs 
 of the vessel, each oar being managed by one man. 
 
 The MASTS of Grecian vessels, of which there were one, two, 
 and three, were usually made of the fir-tree. A vessel with 
 thirty rowers had two masts, the smaller being near the prow. 
 In three-masted vessels the largest mast was nearest the stern. 
 The part of the mast immediately above the yard formed a 
 structure similar to a drinking-cup, and the sailors ascended into 
 it in order to manage the sails, to obtain a wider view, and to 
 discharge missiles. In large ships these were made of bronze 
 and would hold three men : they were furnished with pulleys for 
 hoisting stones and projectiles from below. The portion of the 
 mast above the cup, or carchesium, was called the distaff, and 
 corresponded to the modern topmast. The sail was hoisted, as 
 at present, by means of pulleys and a hoop sliding up and down 
 the mast. 
 
 The SAILS were usually square. It was not common to fur- 
 nish more than one sail to one ship, and it was then attached 
 with the yard to the great mast. Sometimes each of the two 
 masts of a trireme had two sails, which were spread the one over 
 the other, those of the foremast being used only on occasions 
 when great speed was required. It does not appear that the 
 triangular or lateen sail, so prevalent afterwards among the 
 Romans, was ever used by the Greeks. In Homer's time, sails 
 were of linen. Subsequently, sail-cloth was made of hemp, 
 rushes, and leather. Originally white, the sails of the ancients 
 were afterwards dyed of various colors. Those of Alexander's 
 
C8 ocean's story. 
 
 Indus fleet, of which we shall hereafter speak more particularly, 
 were blue, white, and yellow. Those of pirates were sea-green, 
 and those of Cleopatra, at the battle of Actium, were purple. 
 
 The CORDAGE used was of various sizes and strength. In the 
 first place, thick and broad ropes ran in a horizontal direction 
 around the ship from stem to stern, for the purpose of binding 
 the whole fabric strongly together. They ran around in several 
 circles and at fixed distances from each other. Their number 
 varied according to the size of the ship, a trireme usually requir- 
 ing four, and six in case they were intended for very boisterous 
 weather. These ropes were always held in readiness in the Attic 
 arsenals. A second-sized rope was used for the anchors, while 
 those attached to the masts, sails, and yards were altogether 
 lighter and made with greater care. One of these ran from the 
 top of the mainmast to the prow, corresponding to the modern 
 mainstay. 
 
 The BULWARKS were artificially elevated beyond the height 
 intended by the builder of the frame by means of a wickerwork 
 covered with skins. These served as a protection from high 
 waves, and also as a breastwork against the enemy. They appear 
 to have been fixed upon the upper edge of the wooden bulwark, 
 and to have been removed when not wanted. Each galley had 
 four, two of which were "white," and two "made of hair." 
 What these distinctions were is quite unknown. 
 
 The ANCHORS of Greek vessels, in the earlier periods, were 
 stones or crateS of sand, but soon came to be made of iron, and 
 to be formed with teeth or flukes. The Greeks used the several 
 expressions of lowering, casting, and weighing anchor precisely 
 as we do, and the elliptical phrase "to weigh" meant then, as now, 
 to " set sail." Each ship had several anchors : we learn, from the 
 twenty-seventh chapter of Acts, that the vessel of St. Paul had 
 four. The last and heaviest anchor was considered " sacred," 
 in the same way as it is now regarded as "a last hope." The 
 Bailors, m casting it, recommended themselves to the protection 
 
DECKED SniPS. 09 
 
 of the gods ; and it was rather a pretext for resorting to prayer 
 than an instrument reliable from its strength and weight. "In 
 our day," says an eminent writer upon the art of ship-building, 
 "when every thing is calculated and weighed, and, even in this 
 most poetic of professions, tends to the driest and most prosaic 
 materialism, instead of the sacred anchor, cast in the midst of 
 prayer and sacrifice, we have the anchor of eight thousand 
 pounds." With all proper deference to the religious spirit of 
 this learned commentator, we may remark, without irreverence, 
 that even the most "poetic" of mariners would prefer a single 
 modern best bower to a dozen of the sacred anchors of the 
 Greeks ; and it can hardly be doubted that, if the latter them- 
 selves had been acquainted with the " anchor of eight thousand 
 pounds," they would have dispensed with both prayer and 
 sacrifice. Heaven helps those who help themselves. 
 
 Every Greek vessel had a distinctive name, which was usually 
 of the feminine gender, and often that of some popular heroine. 
 In many cases, the name of the builder was added. 
 
 After the Trojan War, the establishment of Greek colonies 
 upon foreign coasts, the commercial intercourse with these 
 colonies, and the very prevalent practice of piracy, contributed 
 largely to the improvement of ships and of navigation. For 
 many years no innovation was made upon the custom of employ- 
 ing ships with one rank of rowers on each side. The Erythraean 
 Greeks are supposed to have invented the biremes, with two 
 ranks, and the Corinthians the triremes, with three. Themis- 
 tocles, in the fifth century B.C., persuaded the Athenians to 
 build two hundred triremes, for the purpose of attacking 
 iEgina. Even at this period, vessels were not provided with 
 complete decks, some having partial decks, and some none at 
 all, the only protection for the men consisting in the bulwark. 
 The invention of decked ships is ascribed to the Thasians. 
 After Alexander the Great, the Rhodians became the greatest 
 maritime power in Greece. The Colossus of Rhodes, a brazen 
 
70 ocean's story. 
 
 statue of Apollo, one hundred feet high, seems to have been 
 erected in assertion of their commercial supremacy, for the 
 legend is that it stood across the mouth of the harbor, and that 
 vessels passed between its legs. 
 
 Navigation still remained what it had been before, the Greeks 
 seldom venturing into the open sea, and considering it necessary 
 to remain in sight of the coast by day and to observe the rising 
 and setting of the stars by night, in order to replace the land- 
 marks no longer visible in the darkness. In winter, navigation 
 "Was suspended altogether. Rather than double a cape, they would 
 drag their vessel across a neck of land from one sea to another, 
 by machines contrived for the purpose. This was frequently 
 done across the Isthmus of Corinth. The ordinary size of a 
 war-galley or trireme may be inferred from the fact that its 
 complement of men was two hundred and thirty; and its speed 
 in smooth water and with a favorable wind may be stated as 
 very nearly that of a modern steamboat. 
 
 Dionysius of Syracuse (405 B.C.) is said to have built the first 
 quadrireme and quinquereme in Greece, — inventions which he 
 probably obtained from the Carthaginians and Salaminians. 
 Alexander the Great built ships with twelve and thirty ranks 
 of oars. Ptolemy Philopator, of Egypt, is said to have con- 
 structed one of forty, after a Greek model. Callixenus has 
 left a description of this vessel; and this, having been tran- 
 scribed by Plutarch and Athenaeus, was, until very lately, thus 
 supported by competent authority, regarded as quite authentic 
 Late investigations have shown conclusively that the vessel, 
 with the proportions given, never could have existed. She was 
 said to have had forty tiers of oars, one above the other. It is 
 clear that the uppermost tiers must have been of enormous 
 length to reach the water, and we find their length stated, in 
 consequence, at seventy feet. Sixty feet of this length must 
 naturally have been without tlic vessel, leaving ten feet of 
 handle within. As the strength of no one man would be suffi- 
 
PTOLEMY'S GALLEY. 71 
 
 cient to manage an oar thus unequally poised, the fabulists 
 assert that the handles were made of lead, that the equilibrium 
 might be restored. What the story thus gains in weight, how- 
 ever, it certainly loses in credibility. Oars of seventy feet 
 were out of the question, even in the heroic ages. Their 
 number was equally extraordinary, for they counted no less 
 than four thousand, and were managed by four thousand men. 
 Besides these, there were two thousand eight hundred and fifty 
 combatants collected in castles and behind her bulwarks. She 
 had four rudders, each forty-five feet long, and a double prow. 
 This last feature would have been an impediment instead of an 
 advantage, as the re-entering angles of the two prows would 
 have presented a very violent resistance to the water, which, 
 in its turn, would have exerted a great power to separate them. 
 Her stern was said to have been decorated with resplendent 
 paintings of terrible and fantastic animals, her oars to have 
 protruded through masses of foliage, and, as if she was not 
 already overladen, her hold was declared to have contained 
 huge quantities of grain. A critical comparison has shown that 
 this famous galley could not have turned her head from west to 
 east without describing an enormous orbit and occupying a full 
 hour in the manoeuvre. Indeed, had the Egyptians been foolish 
 enough to build such a ship, they would not have been fortunate 
 enough to navigate her. 
 
 Nevertheless, as it is quite clear that Ptolemy did construct a 
 galley of unusual size and capacity, modern commentators have 
 earnestly sought to explain away the glaring exaggerations and 
 impossibilities of the description given by Callixenus. The 
 chief difficulty lay in the forty tiers of oars and in the four 
 thousand oarsmen. The engraving upon the opposite page gives 
 a representation of the Ptolemy, as she may reasonably be sup- 
 posed to have appeared. Instead of forty tiers, she has, when 
 thus restored, forty groups of oars: with this substitution, and 
 a liberal diminution in the aggregate number, it is not impro- 
 
ROMAN NAVAL WARS. 73 
 
 bable that she may have existed, and floated even. It is not, 
 however, pretended bj Callixenus that she was ever useful in 
 war: she seems to have been regarded as a curiosity and a 
 spectacle. She was, in fact, the Leviathan of antiquity, — 
 the original "Triton among the minnows." 
 
 The Romans obtained the models of their vessels from the 
 Greeks, though they remained almost entirely unacquainted with 
 the sea till the third century before Christ. They then had no 
 fleet, and few or no ships for any peaceful or commercial use. 
 Livy mentions the appointment of naval decemvifs about the 
 year 300 B.C. But it was not till 260 B.C. that Rome became a 
 maritime power. It was now seen that she could not maintain 
 herself against Carthage without a navy, and the senate 
 ordered the immediate construction of a fleet. Triremes would 
 have been of little avail against the high-bulwarked quinque- 
 remes of the Carthaginians. It so happened, very fortunately 
 for them, that a vessel of the largest class, belonging to Carthage, 
 was wrecked upon the coast of Bruttium, and thus furnished 
 them a model. They built, after this design, over one hundred 
 vessels, the greater part of them quinqueremes, the whole being 
 completed in sixty days after the trees were cut down. Thus 
 built of green timber, they were unsound and clumsy. Still, to 
 their own astonishment, they achieved a naval victory, capturing 
 fifty of the enemy's vessels. Seventeen of their own were 
 taken and destroyed by the Carthaginians off Messina. It was 
 not long before the Romans completely crippled the maritime 
 power of their African foe. From this time forward they con- 
 tinued to maintain a powerful navy, and built vessels with six 
 and even ten ranks of oars. The construction of their vessels 
 differed little from that of the Greeks, with the exception of tho 
 destructive engines of war and the towers and platforms with 
 which they furnished them. 
 
 During the Imperial period, the Romans took great delight in 
 witnessing representations of fights at sea, and their emperors 
 
74 ocean's stort. 
 
 were equally fond of exhibiting them. The first spectacle of 
 this kind, or naumachia^ was given by Julius Caesar upon a 
 lake dug for the purpose in the Campus Martins. Augustus 
 caused a lake or "stagnum" to be made for a similar use. 
 This remained as the permanent scene of such exhibitions. The 
 combatants in these fights were usually captives or criminals 
 condemned to death, who fought as in gladiatorial combats, 
 until one side was exterminated or spared by imperial clemency. 
 In a naumachia given by Nero, there were sea-monsters 
 Bwimming about in the artificial lake. Claudius ordered a naval 
 battle upon Lake Fucinus, in which one hundred ships and nine- 
 teen thousand combatants were engaged. Troops of nereids were 
 seen swimming about, and the signal for attack was given by a 
 silver Triton, who was made, by means of machinery, to blow the 
 alarum upon a trumpet. 
 
 We now proceed to narrate, in chronological order, the very 
 few voyages of discovery made previous to the Christian era. 
 These were those of Hanno to Sierra Leone, of Sataspes to 
 Sahara, of Nearchus from the Indus to the Tigris, of Pytheas 
 from Massilia to Shetland, and of Eudoxus from Cadiz to the 
 Equator. 
 
 THE COMMON rENOUlN. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE VOYAGE OF HANNO THE CARTHAGINIAN — HE SEES CROCODILES, APES, 
 
 AND VOLCANOES THE VOYAGE OF HIMILCON TO AL-BION THE VOYAGE AND 
 
 IGNOMINIOUS FATE OF SATASPES THE PERSIAN — THE VOYAGE OF PYTHEA8 
 
 THE PHOCIAN THE SACRED PROMONTORY A NEW ATMOSPHERE AMBER — 
 
 RETURN HOME THE VERACITY OF PYTHEAS' NARRATIVE THE EXPEDITION OF 
 
 NEARCUUS THE MACEDONIAN STRANGE PHENOMENA IN THE HEAVENS THE 
 
 ICTHYOPHAGI — HOUSES BUILT OF THE BONES OF WHALES — FISH FLOUR — A 
 / BATTLE WITH WHALES — AN UNEXPECTED MEETING — THE DISTANCE TRAVERSED 
 
 BY NEARCHUS THE VOYAGE OF EUDOXUS ALONG THE AFRICAN COAST STATE 
 
 OF NAVIGATION AT THE OPENING OF THE CHRISTIAN ERA. 
 
 At a period which it is no longer possible to settle with pre- 
 cision, but certainly anterior to the fifth century B.C., the 
 Carthaginians, then in the height of their maritime and com- 
 mercial prosperity, ordered a navigator by the name of Hanno 
 to make a voyage beyond the Pillars of Hercules, and to found 
 cities along the western shore of Africa. He set sail with a 
 fleet of sixty vessels, each of which was impelled by fifty oars. 
 He carried with him thirty thousand men and women, with abun- 
 dant supplies and provisions. Within a week after passing the 
 straits, they founded a city and erected a temple to Neptune ; they 
 also established five trading stations along the coast. They saw 
 a race of people called Lixitae, with whom they formed ties of 
 friendship, and by whom they were furnished with interpreters. 
 Continuing their course, they found another race dressed in the 
 skins of wild beasts, who repelled them from the shore with 
 stones and other missiles. They next came to the mouth of 
 a river which was filled with crocodiles and hippopotami. They 
 
 7o 
 
76 ocean's story. 
 
 soon arrived at a coast edged with high mountains covered with 
 trees, the wood of which was odoriferous and variously tinted. 
 Beyond was an immense opening of the sea, bordered by 
 pLains on which they saw many blazing fires. Then they 
 came to a large bay, in which was an island enclosing a salt- 
 water lake, in which, again, was another island. Entering this 
 lake in the night, they saw huge fires burning and heard the 
 sounds of musical instruments and the cries of innumerable 
 human beings. They next reached the fiery region of Thymia- 
 mata, whence torrents of flame poured down into the sea. Here 
 the heat of the earth was such that the foot could not rest 
 upon it. After four days' farther sail, they again found the 
 land at night enveloped in flames. In the midst of these fires 
 appeared one much more lofty than the rest : this, when seen by 
 daylight, proved to be a very tall mountain, called the Chariot 
 of the Gods. They soon met with a rude description of people, 
 who had rough skins, and among whom the females were much 
 more numerous than the males : the interpreters called them 
 Gorillce, They endeavored to catch some of them, but only 
 succeeded in capturing three females, who made so violent a re- 
 sistance, that they were obliged to kill them and strip ofl" their 
 skins, which they carried back to Carthage. Being out of 
 provisions at this point, they were unable to pursue their 
 voyage, and returned home. 
 
 This narrative, as given by Hanno himself, hardly fills two 
 octavo pages : volumes of commentaries have been written upon 
 it by geographers and antiquaries. The most probable of the 
 various hypotheses formed upon it, is, that Ilanno's voyage 
 extended to Sherbro Sound, a little south of Sierra Leone. 
 The features of man and nature, as described by Hanno, are to 
 be found in Tropical Africa only : Ethiopians or negroes ; 
 Gorillae, who are clearly apes, or orang-outangs ; rivers so largo 
 as to contain crocodiles and river-horses. The great conflagra- 
 tions of the grass, too, and the music and dancing prolonged 
 
HARMO'S VOYAGES. 77 
 
 through the night, are phenomena which have been observed 
 only in the negro territories. But this hypothesis is not 
 accepted by all geographers, one of whom gives to Hanno's 
 course an extent of three thousand miles, while another limits 
 it to less than seven hundred. 
 
 While Hanno was thus exploring the western coast of Africa, 
 another Carthaginian, named Himilcon, was sent by his country- 
 men to the North of Europe. From a very vague description 
 of his voyage given in a Latin poem entitled Ora Maritima, it 
 is plain that he crossed the Bay of Biscay, and found, upon 
 islands, as is asserted, but probably upon the mainland, a race 
 of athletic people who went fearlessly to sea in barks made of 
 skins sewed together. They crossed, in the space of two days, 
 to a place called the Sacred Island, (Ireland,) which was not far 
 from another island, named Al-Bion, (England.) No further 
 details of this expedition have been preserved. 
 
 Upon the establishment of the Persian sway over the eastern 
 coasts of the Mediterranean, towards the close of the fifth 
 century B,c., the exploration of Africa became the peculiar 
 province of the Persian monarchs. But this nation labored 
 under an unconquerable aversion for the sea, and the only mari- 
 time effort of theirs on record was entirely casual in its origin, 
 and futile in its results. It was as follows, as recorded by 
 Herodotus : 
 
 Sataspes, a Persian nobleman, having committed a crime 
 punishable with death, was condemned by Xerxes to be cruci- 
 fied. One of his friends persuaded the monarch to commute 
 the sentence into a voyage around Africa, which, he said, was 
 much more severe, and might result advantageously to the 
 nation. Sataspes obtained a vessel and recruited a crew in 
 Egypt, and, sailing through the Pillars of Hercules, bent his 
 course southward. He is represented as having beat about for 
 many weeks, and probably reached the shores of the Great 
 Saharan Desert. The aspect of this formidable and tempest- 
 
78 
 
 OCEAX'S STORY. 
 
 lashed coast might wcU appall an amateur navigator accustomed 
 to the luxurious indolence of a Persian court. He seems to 
 have preferred crucifixion to circumnavigation, for he at once 
 measured back his course to the Straits. He gave an incoherent 
 account of his adventures to Xerxes, attributing his failure to 
 the interference of an insurmountable obstacle, the nature of 
 which he Tvas unable to explain. Xerxes would listen to no 
 excuse, and ordered the original sentence to be executed forth- 
 with. Authorities differ as to. the fate of Sataspes, — one assert- 
 ing that he snifered the ignominious death to which he was con- 
 demned, and another alleging that he made his escape to the 
 island of Samos. 
 
 THE SACRED P H M O N T O R Y. 
 
 A colony which had been established at Massilia — now Mar- 
 seilles — about six hundred years before Christ, by the Phocians, 
 was, in the year 340 B.C., at the height of its commercial pros- 
 perity. The citizens, being desirous of extending their maritime 
 relations, sent, at this period, upon an expedition to the North of 
 
DISCOVERY OF GREAT BRITAIN. 
 
 79 
 
 Europe, through the Pillars of Hercules, a learned geographer 
 and astronomer by the name of Pytheas. lie started with a 
 single ship, the finances of the city not permitting a larger outlay 
 of means. 
 
 He passed the Pillars on the sixteenth day from Massilia ; 
 and on the twentieth he arrived at the Sacred Promontory, the 
 extreme western point of Iberia or Spain. A temple to 
 Hercules had been erected at this spot. The inhabitants of the 
 promontory declared, during the time of Pytheas, and, indeed, 
 for two hundred years afterwards, that as the sun plunged at 
 evening into the sea, they heard a hissing like that of a red- 
 hot body suddenly dropped into water. 
 
 Following the coasts of Iberia and of Celtica, he came to the 
 point of land now known as Finisterre, in France, and the 
 promontory Calbium. Turning to the east, he was surprised to 
 
 PLAN OF PYTHEAS' VOYAGE. 
 
 find himself in a wide gulf, with Celtica on his right, and an 
 immense island on his left. The gulf was the British Channel, 
 and the island the Al-Bion that Himilcon had vaguely dis- 
 cerned some centuries before. It was at this point that Pytheas 
 may be said to have begun his career ; and the discovery of 
 Great Britain may safely be attributed to him. 
 
 He described the island as having the form of an isosceles 
 triangle, as may be seen upon the foregoing plan. Three pro- 
 montories formed the three angles, — Belerium being now Land's 
 
80 ocean's story. 
 
 End, Cantium Cape Pepperness, and Orcas DuncansLy Head. 
 He found the inhabitants of the southern coast industrious and 
 sociable, peaceable, honest, and sober. They raised wheat and 
 "worked rich mines of tin. As he sailed northward, along the 
 eastern coast, he noticed that the days grew sensibly longer ; 
 and at Point Orcas, nineteen hours elapsed between the rising and 
 the setting of the sun. He sailed still northward, and six days 
 after leaving Orcas he came to an island, or a continent, — he 
 knew not which, — which he called Thule. As he found he could 
 go no farther to the north, he spoke of this spot as Ultima 
 Thule, an expression which has passed into the figurative lan- 
 guage of all modern nations as one denoting any remote point. 
 Thule is generally considered to have been Shetland, although 
 theories have been ardently advocated making it respectively 
 Iceland, Sweden, and Jutland. 
 
 The narrative of Pytheas, which has been thus far clear and 
 reliable, assumes at this point a very fabulous aspect. He 
 declares that north of Thule there was neither earth, nor 
 sea, nor air. A sort of dense concretion of all the elements 
 occupied space and enveloped the world. He compared it to 
 the thick, viscid animal substance called pulmo marinus, a sort 
 of mollusk or medusa. He said that this substance was the 
 basis of the universe, and that in it earth, air, and sky hung, as 
 it were, suspended. This illusion has been explained by the 
 dreary spectacle of fogs, mists, rains, and tempests which at 
 this point of his voyage must have met the gaze of the daring 
 navigator. It would have been difficult for any mind, in those 
 early ages, to have been on its guard against the sinister 
 impressions likely to result from the contemplation of a scene 
 BO appalling. It must be remembered that Pytheas was accus- 
 tomed to the pure and transparent atmosphere, the dazzling 
 sky, and the phosphorescent waters of the Mediterranean. It 
 would have been astonishing if a man educated among the 
 splendors of an almost tropical climate had not been oppressed 
 
ULTIMA TIIULE. 81 
 
 bj influences so gloomy. It was the belief of all early navi- 
 gators that a point would be found somewhere without the Pillars 
 of Hercules beyond which it would be impossible to penetrate. 
 While timid adventurers declared they had arrived at this point 
 hardly a week's sail from the Straits, and declared that an atmo- 
 sphere of mist, darkness, and gigantic sea-weed barred their 
 passage, Pytheas did not allow his imagination to be aff'ected 
 or his courage to be shaken till he found himself in presence 
 of the sombre and formidable scenery of what, with true geo- 
 graphical propriety, he denominated "Thule and her utmost 
 isles." 
 
 Leaving his animal atmosphere behind him, Pytheas returned 
 to Orcas and from thence to Cantium. Instead of following his 
 former track through the British Channel homeward, he turned 
 to the eastward, and arrived, in a few days' sail, at the mouth of 
 the Rhine. He found the country here inhabited by a race 
 of fierce barbarians. Upon the shores of a vast gulf, beyond, 
 dwelt the Teutons and the Guttones. In this gulf was an island 
 named Abalcia, upon whose shores the waves deposited, in spring, 
 immense quantities of yellow amber, which the inhabitants 
 burned instead of wood, or sold for fuel to their neighbors the 
 Teutons. Pytheas pursued his voyage as far as a river named 
 Tanais, now supposed to be either the Elbe or the Oder. He 
 considered this stream to be the eastern boundary of Celtica, 
 in which he included Germania. He now turned his face home- 
 ward, and, coasting along the shores of Celtica and Iberia, 
 arrived without accident or adventure at Massilia. He had 
 sailed one hundred and eighty-six thousand stadia, or eleven 
 thousand miles: the duration of the expedition was less than 
 a year. 
 
 Geographers subsequent to Pytheas strove zealously to dis- 
 credit his assertions. One denied the voyage altogether ; another 
 questioned the veracity of the narrative. Strabo was particu- 
 larly hostile to Pytheas, whom he said he would prove "a liar 
 
82 ocean's story. 
 
 of the first magnitude." He was thus led to make long quota- 
 tions from his descriptions for the purpose of refuting them. As 
 the original account given by Pytheas is not extant, the world is 
 indebted to the skepticism of Strabo for all that it knows of one 
 of the most interesting and daring maritime enterprises of 
 antiquity. 
 
 In the year 326 before Christ, Alexander of Macedon, having 
 accomplished the conquest of Persia, and having invaded Ilin- 
 dostan by the north, found himself compelled, by a mutiny of 
 his troops, to arrest his course upon the eastern bank of the 
 river Indus. He was here seized with a desire to explore the 
 lower course of that river, and afterwards the southern shores 
 of Asia, a tract of coast Avith which the Greeks were entirely 
 unacquainted. The object of the expedition Avas partly explo- 
 ration, and partly to convey a portion of the army back to 
 Babylon upon the river Euphrates. The dangers of the enter- 
 prise and the improbability of success deterred the greater part 
 of the naval officers from attempting it, as neither the Arabian 
 Sea nor the Persian Gulf had ever been traversed before. 
 Nearchus, the admiral of the fleet, proposed several candidates 
 for the perilous honor, who variously excused themselves. 
 Nearchus at last proffered his own services, which, after some 
 hesitation, were accepted. This selection of a commander 
 tranquillized the soldiers and sailors intended for the expedition ; 
 for they felt that Alexander would not have sent his intimate 
 friend upon a voyage from which he would not be likely to 
 return. The splendor of the preparations, the beauty of the 
 vessels, the confidence of tlie officers, also went far towards dissi- 
 pating their fears. At the word of Alexander, says a modern 
 poet, — 
 
 " The pine« descend ; the thronging masts aspire; 
 The novel sails swell beauteous o'er the curves 
 Of Indus: to the modern tor's song 
 The oars keep time, while bold Nearchus guides 
 Aloft the gallics. On the foremost prow 
 
VOYAGE OF NEARCnUS. 88 
 
 The monarch from his golden goblet pours 
 
 A full libation to the gods, and calls 
 
 By name the mighty rivers through whose course 
 
 He seeks the sea." 
 
 Alexander accompanied his fleet to the delta of the Indus, from 
 whence he obtained a view of the gulf. He then returned to 
 lead his men across Gedrosia, Caramania, and Persis to Babylon. 
 Kearchus then set sail, after offering sacrifices to Neptune and 
 Jupiter Salvator, and ordering a series of games and gymnastic 
 exercises. The voyage thus undertaken was an event of real im- 
 portance in the history of navigation : it opened a route between 
 Europe and the extremities of Asia. It was the source of the 
 discoveries made in later times by the Portuguese, and the pri- 
 mary, though remote, cause of the successful establishment of 
 the British in India. 
 
 PLAN OF THE VOYAGE OF NEARCHU5. 
 
 At the very mouth of the river they met a formidable 
 obstacle, — a rocky bar over which the waves broke with extreme 
 violence. Through this bar, in its softest parts, they cut a 
 canal one-third of a mile in length, and at high tide passed 
 through it with the fleet. They had hardly reached the open 
 ocean before a heavy gale drove them into an indentation of 
 land protected by an island : to this natural harbor Nearchua 
 gave the name of Alexander. Here he caused a camp to be 
 laid out and entrenched, and remained for twenty-four days, the 
 soldiers subsisting chiefly on shell-fish. When the gale abated 
 
M ocean's story. 
 
 they again embarked, meeting with constant adventures and 
 difficulties upon their way. One day they would pass through 
 huge menacing rocks, so near that they touched them with their 
 oars on either side. On another they would be compelled, on 
 landing for water, to ascend for miles into the interior before 
 finding fresh-water sources. A storm caused two galleys and a 
 vessel to founder, the crews of which, however, succeeded in 
 swimming to shore. Nearchus caused his whole army to land 
 at this point, for they needed repose, and his shattered fleet 
 required repairs. He met with Leonatus, whom Alexander had 
 detached from the main body r)f the army to follow the coasts 
 and keep up a communication with Nearchus. "Wheat was also 
 sent to this spot by Alexander for the fleet, and each vessel 
 took a supply sufficient for ten days. Nearchus exchanged such 
 sailors and soldiers as had proved inefficient, for fresh men 
 selected from the division of Leonatus. 
 
 At this point the narrative becomes strongly tinged with the 
 usual exaggerations of the early navigators. Nearchus asserts 
 that he observed strange phenomena in the heavens. When the 
 sun was in the meridian, he says, no shadow was projected, and 
 the stars which they were accustomed to see above them were 
 now crouching close to the horizon ; others, that had never before 
 disappeared from the sky, now rose and set at intervals. The 
 assertion in regard to shadows at noon is evidently a fabri- 
 cation. Enough was known of astronomy and the motions of 
 the heavenly bodies, in the time of Nearchus, to convince the 
 learned that there must be a point where no shadow would 
 be cast by a body directly beneath the sun at the summer sol- 
 stice; and Nearchus, with a vanity quite usual in the conquerors 
 and adventurers of those times, chose to assert, and he perhaps 
 believed, that he had seen this singular phenomenon. Two 
 circumstances will show the inaccuracy of his statement. The 
 alleged appearance took place in the middle of the month of 
 November, and twenty-five degrees north of the equator. Even 
 
PRODIGIOUS WHALES. 85 
 
 had Nearchus been at this spot in midsummer, he would have 
 seen shadows of very respectable length. Upon the coast of 
 Gedrosia he found a people called Icthyophagi, or Fish-eaters. 
 The mutton here tasted of fish, and Nearchus discovered that 
 the sheep eat fish as well as the inhabitants, for the land yielded 
 no pasturage. 
 
 In one of the villages of the Fish-eaters Nearchus engaged 
 a pilot who undertook to guide him as far as Caramania. The 
 aspect of the coast now became less repulsive, and palm-trees, 
 myrtles, and flowers grew wild upon the hill-sides. Such was 
 the delight of the Macedonians at this sight, that they landed 
 and wove garlands and wreaths of the foliage for the wives and 
 daughters of the natives. Farther on, at a spot where the in- 
 habitants made them presents of roasted tunny-fish — the first 
 cooked fish they had yet received from the Icthyophagi — and 
 where they noticed wheat-fields, they landed, and, after taking 
 possession of the village, demanded the surrender of all their 
 wheat. The people made a feeble resistance, and then gave up 
 all the flour they possessed, — not wheat flour, but fish flour, — 
 flour made by reducing fish to powder, as we make flour by 
 pulverizing the kernels of wheat. 
 
 The coast again becoming almost desert, the crew were obliged 
 to eat the tender buds of palm-trees, and on one occasion 
 were glad to devour seven camels which they were fortunate 
 enough to encounter. Besides the dangers of famine, Nearchus 
 had to contend with legions of whales, many of them one hun- 
 dred and fifty feet long, — a prodigious size for inland seas like 
 the Persian Gulf. One day he noticed a jet of water of great 
 height and violence, and soon the air was filled with spray 
 tossed up by a sportive herd of these monsters. The frightened 
 sailors let drop their oars : but Nearchus encouraged them and 
 dissipated their fears. He placed the vessels of the fleet abreast 
 in a single line, and ordered them to advance simultaneously at 
 full speed, as in a naval combat, and, upon approaching the 
 
86 OCEAN'S sroKf. 
 
 whales, to terrify them by shouts and the din of trumpets. At 
 a given signal, the vessels started and dashed forward upon the 
 cetaceous army : the whales plunged into the abysses of the water, 
 and, reappearing at the sterns of the fleet, sent up a shower of 
 spirts in derision of their timorous enemy. Nearchus found 
 these fish so abundant that large numbers of them were stranded 
 in every storm: the inhabitants built houses of their bones, 
 using the larger bones for posts, planks, and doors; the jaw- 
 bones furnished an excellent thatch, or roofing material. He 
 also saw huts constructed of the back-bones of smaller fish. 
 
 The fleet now reached the coast of Caramania, after passing 
 an island supposed to be inhabited by an enchantress very much 
 like the Circe of the Greek fable, who was said to seduce navi- 
 gators by the promise of voluptuous pleasures and then change 
 them into fish. Nearchus now found his distresses nearly at an 
 end, as the soil was productive of grain and fruit, and as the 
 streams yielded an abundance of water. He soon came in view 
 of a vast promontory on the Arabian side, (Cape Mussendoun,) 
 which seemed completely to close the entrance to the Persian 
 Gulf. The sailors, weary of their long voyage, earnestly be- 
 sought Nearchus to land here and to march across the country 
 to Babylon. Nearchus insisted that this would not be fulfilling 
 the intentions of Alexander, whose command it was to survey 
 every portion of the coast from the Indus to the Euphrates. 
 They doubled the cape, therefore, and entered the Persian Gulf. 
 Keeping close to the northern shore, they came at last to a tract 
 of territory inhabited by friendly races and yielding an abun- 
 dance of every fruit except the olive. They landed at the mouth 
 of the Anamis, — the modern Minab, — and refreshed themselves 
 after their long hardships. They reposed under the shade of palms, 
 and conversed gayly of the dangers they had escaped and the 
 wonders they had seen. A party wandered from the coast towards 
 the interior, and, to their surprise and joy, met a man clothed 
 m the Greek chlamys and speaking the Greek language. They 
 
ALEXANDER AND NEARCHUS. 87 
 
 asked him who he was and what country he was from. He re- 
 plied that he belonged to the army of Alexander, and that the 
 camp was not far off. Transported with delight, they took the 
 stranger to Nearchus, whom he told that Alexander was at five 
 days' journey from the sea. 
 
 Nearchus, upon receiving this intelligence, caused his ships to 
 be drawn on shore, a rampart to be built round them, and repairs 
 to be commenced upon them, while he, Archius, a lieutenant, 
 and six sailors should set out to find the camp of the kin^^. As 
 they approached the outposts, soldiers sent forward to meet 
 them by Alexander, who had been informed of their coming, did 
 not recognise them, on account of their changed dress and hag- 
 gard aspect. Alexander received them with kindness, but in 
 deep sorrow, for he had conceived the idea that the eight persons 
 before him were all that had survived the perils of the sea. 
 **You two have returned," he said, "you and Archius, safe and 
 sound, and this alone renders the loss of my fleet endurable : 
 tell me in what manner perished my vessels and my army.'* 
 Upon learning the safety of the entire expedition, he is said to 
 have burst into a flood of tears, and to have sworn that he de- 
 rived more pleasure from this event than from the entire con- 
 quest of Asia. He offered sacrifices to Jupiter, Hercules, Apollo, 
 and Neptune. He then proposed that Nearchus should repose 
 from his trials, and that another should conduct the fleet to Susa, 
 the capital of Susiana. Nearchus thought it unjust, however, 
 that the glory of completing a task which he had so successfully 
 begun should be taken from him, and retained the command. 
 He was obliged to fight his way back to the sea through warlike 
 and hostile tribes. 
 
 The rest of the voyage, along the coasts of Caramania and 
 Persis, — the modern Fars, — was comparatively easy, orders 
 having been given by Alexander that Nearchus should find at 
 intervals supplies of every species of provisions. On the 
 24th of February, in the year 325 B.C., the fleet arrived at 
 
88 ocean's story. 
 
 the mouth of the Euphrates. Nearchus learned that Alexander 
 had already reached Susa, which was situated some forty miles 
 towards the interior upon the borders of the Tigris. He there- 
 fore ascended that river, and, at a bridge newly thrown over it 
 for the passage of Alexander's army, the junction of the long- 
 separated naval and land forces took place. Nearchus received 
 a crown of gold for his success in the expedition ; the pilot was 
 rewarded with a crown of smaller size, and the debts of the 
 army were discharged by Alexander. 
 
 The voyage had occupied nearly five months, and the distance 
 sailed was not far from fifteen hundred miles, if the sinuosities 
 and indentations of the coast are included, and twelve hundred 
 in a straight line. Half of this period of five months must be 
 considered to have been spent upon the land, in surveys of the 
 coast, in repairs of the vessels, and in forays in search of food 
 and water. The same route is now usually traversed by mer- 
 chant vessels in the space of three weeks. Nothing can give a 
 better idea of the immense service Nearchus was thought to 
 have rendered the state, than the fact that it was in the con- 
 vivialities of a banquet in his honor, a year later, that Alexander 
 abandoned himself to the excesses which resulted in his death. 
 
 Eudoxus, the next navigator in chronological order, was a 
 native of Cyzicus, in Mysia, and was sent by its citizens, 
 in the third century B.C., upon a mission connected with the 
 promotion of geographical science, to Alexandria, then the seat 
 of maritime enterprise. He became strongly imbued with the 
 spirit of exploration and investigation which reigned there, and 
 succeeded in inducing Ptolemy Euergetes, the reigning king, to 
 fit out a naval armament, and to send it under his command 
 upon an expedition down the Arabian Gulf or Red Sea. He 
 appears to have made a successful voyage, for he returned with 
 a cargo of aromatics and precious stones. It is supposed that 
 he sailed down the Red Sea, and, passing out by the Straits of 
 Babelmandel, followed the southern coast of Arabia as far as 
 
THE PROBLEM OF ANTIQUITY. 89 
 
 the Persian Gulf: it is altogether unlikely that he reached the 
 shores of India. Euergetes plundered him of his wealth upon 
 his return, but died s^oon after, leaving the throne to his widow 
 Cleopatra. 
 
 The queen took Eudoxus into favor, and sent him upon a 
 fresh voyage. He seems to have been driven by unfavorable 
 winds upon the coast of Abyssinia, where he made advan- 
 ta<T^eou3 bargains with the inhabitants. He rescued from the 
 water a fragment of a wreck, — the prow of a vessel which, from 
 a sculpture representing the figure of a horse, seemed to have 
 come from the West. This prow was exhibited by Eudoxus 
 in the harbor of Alexandria, and was declared by some mari- 
 ners from Cadiz to be of the precise form peculiar to large vessels 
 which went from that port to fish upon the coast of Mauritania, or 
 Morocco. It was evident, therefore, to the ardent mind of Eu- 
 doxus, that this fragment of a wrecked vessel, left to the mercy of 
 the waves, had performed the grand maritime problem of antiquity, 
 — the circuit of Africa. He abandoned himself with enthusiastic 
 credulity to the enticing hope that he might himself 'succeed in 
 achieving this darling object of the ambition of princes, kings, 
 and states. 
 
 He determined to renounce the deceitful patronage of courts, 
 and to start with a new expedition from Cadiz. He went thither 
 by way of Massilia and other trading settlements, and urged 
 all who were animated by the spirit of progress to follow him. 
 He thus succeeded in equipping an armada, consisting of one 
 ship and two large boats, on board of which were not only goods 
 and provisions and the necessary crews, but artisans, scientific 
 men, and musicians. The very ardor and extravagance of their 
 hopes, and perhaps, too, the undue gayety in which they took 
 their departure, unfitted them to encounter the dangers and 
 hardships of African discovery. The crew were frightened 
 at the swell of the open sea through which Eudoxus wished 
 to make his way, and insisted upon following the shore, accord- 
 
90 ocean's story. 
 
 ing to the usual cautious method of those days. The con- 
 sequence was that the ship was stranded, and the cargo was 
 with difficulty saved. Eudoxus prosecuted the voyage in a 
 single ship of lighter construction, till he came to a race of 
 people who spoke, as he thought, the same language as those he 
 had met on the opposite side of the continent. Thinking this 
 discovery enough for the expedition in its now enfeebled state, 
 he returned to Spain and equipped another small 'fleet, better 
 fitted to buifet the waves of the open sea. 
 
 He again set forth ; but the narrative, as handed down by 
 Strabo, breaks off at this point, and we are without information 
 upon the results of the enterprise. It is true that rumor and 
 fable have supplied the place of authentic facts, and that Eu- 
 doxus is described by one version as having actually circum- 
 navigated Africa ; by another, as having come to a race of 
 people who were born dumb ; and by another, as having fallen 
 in with a nation who had no mouths, but received their food 
 through an orifice in the nose. These exaggerations are un- 
 worthy of notice ; and they do not seem to have thrown dis- 
 credit upon the account of the earlier experience of Eudoxus, 
 which ranks among the most esteemed narratives of ancient 
 maritime adventure. 
 
 We have thus given, in some detail, descriptions of all the 
 noteworthy experiments in navigation previous to the birth of 
 Christ. Two features, it will be at once remarked, charac- 
 terized all these efforts: — 1st, The only reliable propelling force 
 continued to lie in the oars ; and, 2d, no sailor ventured out 
 of sight of land, unless, as when crossing the Mediterranean, 
 he knew that other lands lay beyond the visible horizon. We 
 close this division of the subject with the general observation, 
 that the opening of the Christian era found the world almost 
 entirely under Roman dominion, — one which preferred extending 
 its sway by land to prosecuting discovery by sea. The Medi- 
 terranean was, thus far, the only seat of commerce and the ex- 
 
PILLARS OF HERCULES. 
 
 91 
 
 elusive scene of navigation. Though Ilanno and Eudoxus had 
 indeed passed the Pillars of Hercules, and had coasted along 
 the African shore as far as the negro territories, and though 
 Pytheas, proceeding to the north, had visited — still hugging 
 the land — the Baltic and the British Channel, their expeditions 
 must he considered as at once venturesome and futile, for the 
 age was not able to repeat them, and totally failed to make 
 them useful either to geography or commerce. As long as the 
 centre of power, of luxury, of wealth, remains within the Medi- 
 terranean, as long as Tyre, Sidon, Rome, Carthage, succes- 
 sively control the destinies of the world, so long shall we find 
 mankind lacking both the motive and the means to seek new 
 worlds, by sea, beyond. Time, however, will furnish both the 
 motive and the means: we shall find the one, as we proceed, in 
 the Spice Islands of the East, the other in the Mariner's Com- 
 pass. The next division of our subject will narrate how the 
 contests between the Crescent and the Cross over the tomb of 
 Christ brought Europe and Asia into contact and acquaintance- 
 ship; and how the commerce and intercourse which were the 
 immediate consequences led to that general and absorbing inte- 
 rest in the sea and ships which eventually produced Columbus 
 and Magellan. The influence of nutmeg and cinnamon upon 
 the spread of the gospel and the development of science is a 
 theme which we shall show to be not unworthy of earnest and 
 philosophical inquiry. 
 
 SUPPOSED FORM OF THE SHIPS OF NEARCHUS. 
 
VENETIAN GALLEY OF THE TENTH CENTURY. 
 
 5)Crtion ft 
 
 FROM THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE CHRISTIAN ERA TO THE 
 APPLICATION OF THE MAGNETIC NEEDLE TO EUROPEAN NAVI- 
 GATION, A.D. 1300. 
 
 CHAPTER YIII. 
 
 NAVIGATION DURING TIIK ROMAN EMPIRE — THE RISE OF VENICE AND GENOA 
 
 THE CRUSADES THEIR EFFECT UPON COMMERCE WEDDING OF THE ADRI- 
 ATIC — CREATION OF THE FRENCH NAVY INTRODUCTION OF EASTERN ART 
 
 INTO EUROPE — MAPS OF THE MIDDLE AGES — REMOTE EFFECT OF THE CRU- 
 SADES UPON GEOGRAPHICAL SCIENCE. 
 
 We have taken the birth of Christ as a point of departure in 
 the history of navigation, merely because of the prominence of 
 that event in the annals of the world, not on account of any 
 connection that it has with the chronicles of the sea. So far 
 from that, the first five centuries of the Christian era are an 
 absolute blank in all matters which pertain to our subject. The 
 Roman Empire rose and fell ; and its rise and fall concerned the 
 Mediterranean only. Not even Julius Caesar, the greatest man 
 in Roman history, has a place in maritime records ; unless, when 
 crossing the Adriatic in a fishing-boat during a storm, his memo- 
 rable words of encouragement to the fisherman, "Fear nothing! 
 
 you carry Caesar and his fortunes!" are sufficient to connect him 
 92 
 
PETER THE HERMIT. 93 
 
 with the sea. Neither Pompey, nor Sylla, nor Augustus, nor 
 Kero, nor Titus, nor Constantino, nor Theodosius, nor Attila, 
 can claim part or lot in the dominion of man over the ocean. 
 And so we glide rapidly over five centuries. 
 
 Upon the invasion of Italy by the barbarians, A.D. 47G, the 
 Veneti, a tribe dwelling upon the northeastern shores of the 
 Adriatic, escaped from their ravages by fleeing to the marshes 
 and sandy inlets formed by the deposits of the rivers which 
 there fall into the gulf. Here they were secure ; for the water 
 around them was too deep to allow of an attack from the land, 
 and too shallow to admit the approach of ships from the sea. 
 Their only resource was the water and the employments it 
 afforded. At first they caught fish; then they made salt, and 
 finally engaged in maritime traffic. Early in the seventh cen- 
 tury their traders were known at Constantinople, in the Levant, 
 and at Alexandria. Their city soon covered ninety islands, 
 connected together by bridges. They established mercantile 
 factories at Rome, and extended their authority into Istria and 
 Dalmatia. In the eighth century they chased the pirates, and 
 in the ninth they fought the Saracens. At this period Genoa, 
 too, rose into notice, and the Genoese and the Venetians at once 
 became commercial rivals and the monopolists of the Mediter- 
 ranean. 
 
 And now Peter the Hermit, barefooted and penniless, in- 
 veighing against the atrocities of the Turks towards Christians 
 at Jerusalem, exhorted the warriors of the Cross to take up 
 arms against the infidels. He inspired all Europe with an 
 enthusiasm like his own, and enlisted a million followers in the 
 cause. The passion of the age was for war, peril, and adven- 
 ture; and fighting for the Sepulchre was a more agreeable 
 method of doing penance than wearing sackcloth or mortifying 
 the flesh. The First Crusade, a motley array of knights, 
 spendthrifts, barons, beggars, women, and children, set out upon 
 their wild career. Then came the Second, the Third, and the 
 
94 ocean's stort. 
 
 Fourth. Crusading was the amusement and occupation of two 
 centuries. Two millions of Europeans perished in the cause 
 before it was abandoned. A few words concerninir its effect 
 upon the civilization of Europe arc necessary here, in direct 
 pursuance of our subject. 
 
 During their stay in Palestine the Crusaders learned, and in 
 a measure acquired, the habits of Eastern life. They brought 
 back with them a taste for the peculiar products of that region, 
 — jewels, silks, cutlery, perfumes, spices. A brisk commerce 
 through the length and breadth of the Mediterranean was the 
 speedy consequence. Genoa, Pisa, Florence, Yen.'ice, covered 
 the waters of their inland sea with sails, traffickini: from the 
 ports of Italy to those of Syria and Egypt. In every maritime 
 city conquered by the Crusaders, trading-stations and bazaars 
 were established. Marseilles obtained from the kincs of Jeru- 
 Balem privileges and monopolies of trade upon their territory. 
 Venice surpassed all her rivals in the splendor and extent of 
 her commerce, and it was for this that the Pope, Alexander 
 III., sent the Doge the famous nuptial ring with which, in 
 assertion of his naval supremacy, "to wed the Adriatic." The 
 ceremony was performed from the deck of the Bucentaur, or 
 state-galley, with every possible accompaniment of pomp and 
 parade. The vessel was crowned with flowers like a bride, and 
 amid the harmonies of music and the acclamations of the spec- 
 tators the ring was dropped into the sea. The Republic and 
 the Adriatic, long betrothed, were now indissolubly wedded. 
 This ceremony was repeated from year to year. 
 
 The Normans, the Danes, the Dutch, imitated the example 
 of the Italians, or, as they were then called, the Lombards, but 
 were rather occupied in conveying provisions to the armies than 
 in trading for their own account. 
 
 It was during the Crusades that the French navy was created. 
 Philip Augustus, who, on his way to Syria, and thence home 
 again, could not have remained insensible to the advantages of 
 
THB DOQB OF VKNICB WEDDIXQ THE ADRIATIC 
 
96 ocean's story. 
 
 possessing a strong force upon the ocean, formed, upon his 
 return, the nucleus of a national fleet, for the purpose of de- 
 fending his coasts either against pirates or foreign invasion. 
 
 While the necessity of transporting articles from the East to 
 supply the demand thus created in the West gave a stimulus to 
 commerce and navigation, manufactures were encouraged and 
 developed by the operation of the same cause. The Italians 
 learned from the Greeks the art of weaving silk, which soon 
 resulted in the weaving of cloth of gold and silver. They 
 learned to mould glass in a multitude of new and curious forms. 
 From the manufactories of Syria, where stuffs were made of 
 camels' hair, improvements were introduced into the manufac- 
 tures of Europe, where they were woven of no other material 
 than lambs' wool. Palestine also si^ggested to crusaders re- 
 turning home the advantages of windmills for grinding flour. 
 Arabia furnished the art of tempering arms and polishing 
 steel, of chasing gold and silver, of mounting stones in rich 
 and massive settings. Constantinople furnished the Chris- 
 tians with many splendid specimens of ancient art, — groups, 
 statues, and the Corinthian horses, and thus awakened European 
 taste. 
 
 Nearly all the Gothic monuments of Europe which still excite 
 the admiration of the tourist owe their existence to this communi- 
 cation with the Greeks by means of the Crusades, and to the 
 wonder which seized the Frank and Lombard at the sight of the 
 churches and palaces of Byzantium. The Europeans carried 
 back with them the architecture of the Saracens. Saint Mark's 
 at Venice was built from the plans, and under the direction, of 
 an unbeliever. The Cathedral and Spire of Strasburg, Avith 
 their gigantic and yet delicate proportions, the Minuter of 
 Amiens, the Sainte Chapelle of Paris, were constructed in close 
 imitation of the chef-d'ocuvres of Eastern art. Painting upon 
 glass was also brought from Constantinople, and the early 
 painters of Christendom were speedily employed in tracing in 
 
EFFECTS OF THE CRUSADES. 97 
 
 colors, upon the windows of abbeys and cathedrals, the exploits 
 of the Crusaders and the triumphs of the Cross. 
 
 From the Arabs and the Greeks, too, the Europeans received 
 their first lessons in the natural and exact sciences. Imperfect 
 and incomplete as were the astronomy, the botany, the mathe- 
 matics, and the geography of the Arabians, they were far in 
 advance of the same professions as understood and practised in 
 Europe. The languages were improved and enriched by the 
 association and exchange of ideas into which English, Germans, 
 Italians, and French were forced. The confusion of tongues, 
 which was as complete as at Babel, was somewhat corrected by the 
 harmony of interest and oneness of purpose which animated all, of 
 whatever name and lineage, who gathered around the Sepulchre. 
 
 It is obvious, therefore, that the effect of the Crusades, so far 
 as it is the object of a work like the present to trace and de- 
 lineate it, was to give the people of Europe a new motive for 
 maintaining an intercourse with the people of Asia. They had 
 seen their superior civilization, and sought to introduce it among 
 themselves. They had learned to appreciate their skill in the 
 arts, and resolved to acclimate those arts at home. They had 
 accustomed themselves to many articles of luxury, which had 
 become articles of necessity, and which it was now essential, 
 therefore, to transport from the Levant, from the Red Sea, and 
 the Persian Gulf, to the Bay of Venice and the Gulf of Genoa. 
 There was a demand, in short, in the West, for the products, 
 the manufactures, the arts, of the East. Here was the origin 
 of the immense Eastern commerce which now fell into the hands 
 of the Genoese and Venetians, and which, resulting from the 
 Crusades, compelled us to the digression we have made. It is 
 not our purpose, however, to refer more at length to this com- 
 merce, as it was carried on upon seas which had been navigated 
 for twenty centuries; and we must hasten forward to the period 
 when new paths were laid out over the immensity of the waters. 
 
 A map, published just anterior to the First Crusade, fully dis- 
 
98 ocean's story. 
 
 plajs the ignorance which then prevailed in geographical science. 
 The sea, as in the age of Homer, is made to surround the world 
 as a river, the land heing divided into three parts, Europe, Asia, 
 and Africa. Africa and Asia are joined together in the South, 
 and the Indian Ocean is an inland sea. Asia is as large as the 
 other two continents combined. On the east there is a small 
 spot indicated as the position of the Garden of Eden bj the 
 words Hie est Paradisus. Europe and Africa are separated 
 from Asia by a long canal, which may be either the Nile or the 
 Hellespont. Africa is still considered the land of mystery and 
 fable : its northern part only is considered inhabitable, the south 
 being even unapproachable, on account of the torrents of flame 
 poured on it by the sun. The Frozen Ocean, the Baltic, the White 
 Sea, and the Caspian, are all united. The Northern regions are 
 represented as forming one single island. Scandinavia is made 
 the birthplace and residence of the Amazons, the famous women- 
 warriors to whom antiquity had given a home in the Caucasus. 
 
 We shall, in due order, proceed to show that the indirect and 
 remote effect of the Crusades, and of the intercourse produced 
 by them between two totally separated regions, was to induce 
 the Discovery of America, the Doubling of the Cape of Good 
 Hope, and the Passage of the Straits at the southern extremity 
 of Patagonia, — results due to Columbus, Vasco da Gama, and 
 Magellan, every one of whom were seeking, in the voy«'^ges 
 which have rendered them immortal, another passage to the 
 Indies than that held by the Italians — so far as they could 
 prosecute it in vessels upon the Mediterranean. But, before 
 we can proceed from the coasting enterprises of the Lombards 
 upon the land-locked waters of their inland sea, to the daring 
 ventures of the Portuguese and Spaniards upon the raging 
 billows of the Tropical and South Atlantic, we must turn for a 
 moment to the North of Europe, and inquire into the maritime 
 achievements of the Anglo-Saxons and the Northmen during 
 the Dark and Middle Ages. 
 
DANISH VESSEL OF THE TENTH CENTURY: FROM AN INSCRIPTION. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE SCANDINAVIAN SAILORS THEIR PIRACIES AND COMMERCE — THE ANGLO- 
 SAXONS — ALFRED THE GREAT A SHIP- BUILDER THE VOYAGE OF BEOWULF — 
 
 DISCOVERY OF ICELAND BY THE DANES — DISCOVERY OF GREENLAND — THE 
 
 VOYAGE OF BJARNI AND LEIF TO THE AMERICAN CONTINENT THEIR DISCOVERT 
 
 OF NEWFOUNDLAND, NOVA SCOTIA, NANTUCKET, AND MASSACHUSETTS — AD- 
 VENTURES OF THORWALD AND THORFINN COMPARISON OF THE DISCOVERIES 
 
 OF THE NORTHMEN WITH THOSE OF COLUMBUS. 
 
 The nations inhabiting the borders of the Baltic and the 
 coasts of Norway, as well as those dwelling on the shores of the 
 German Ocean, were situated quite as favorably for maritime 
 enterprise as those upon the banks of the Mediterranean. 
 Though their earliest expeditions by sea were not stimulated by 
 the same cause, — the desire for commercial intercourse, — 
 they arose from causes equally active. While the Mediter- 
 ranean countries possessed a fruitful soil and a balmy climate, 
 
 those of the North, under a sky comparatively ungenial, afforded 
 
 99 
 
100 ocean's story. 
 
 their inhabitants but a few of the articles which thej needed : 
 they were led, therefore, to increase their power by sea, in order to 
 establish themselves in more favored climes, or at least to obtain 
 from them by plunder what their own country could not furnish. 
 Thus they neglected the arts of agriculture, and became inured 
 to a life of piracy upon the sea. They spent their lives in plan- 
 ning and executing maritime expeditions. Fathers gave fleets 
 to their sons, and bade them seek their fortune on the ocean- 
 highway. The ships, at first small, — ^being mere barks propelled 
 by twelve oars, — came at last to be capable of carrying one hun- 
 dred or one hundred and twenty men. The-y were supplied with 
 stones, arrows, ropes with which to overset small vessels, and 
 grappling-irons with which to come to close quarters. 
 
 It would be remote from our purpose to notice these piratical 
 excursions, were it not that they sometimes resulted in discovery 
 or commerce. . Many of the marauders settled permanently in 
 England in the seventh century, and established there the 
 Anglo-Saxon dominion. Alfred, their most celebrated king, 
 obliged to defend his territory from the Danes, turned his at- 
 tention zealously to every thing connected with ships, commerce, 
 discovery, and geography, and became the first founder of that 
 naval power which was at a later period to be the world's dread 
 and admiration. The idea of ship-building once conceived, it 
 was prosecuted with astonishing vigor. Alfred not only multi- 
 tiplied their number, but introduced material improvements. 
 Towards the latter part of his reign, his fleet numbered one hun- 
 dred sail : it was divided into small squadrons and stationed at 
 various places along the coast. 
 
 The oldest epic in any modern language, the Anglo-Saxon 
 poem of "Beowulf," the Sea-Goth, written in forty-three cantos, 
 and containing some six thousand lines, is occupied mainly in 
 narrating the marvellous exploits of its hero, his combats with a 
 pestilential fire-drake, and his slaying of " a grim giant named 
 Grendel, a descendant of Cain." It incidentally describes a 
 
Beowulf's voyage. lOr 
 
 voyage made by Beowulf previous to the nmii;K ceucury, and 
 from this we may gather a few details, at best barren and un- 
 satisfactory, of the equipments of a vessel in those days. In 
 the extract which we give, the word *' sea-nose" will readily be 
 understood as meaning headland, or promontory : 
 
 ** When the king had awaited 
 The time he should stay, 
 Came many to fare 
 On the billows so free. 
 His ship they bore out 
 To the brim of the ocean. 
 And his comrades sat down 
 At their oars as he bade. 
 A word could control 
 His good fellows, the Shy Ida. 
 On the deck of the ship 
 He stood, by the mast 
 Ne'er did I hear 
 Of a vessel appointed 
 Better for battle. 
 With weapons of war. 
 And waistcoats of wool. 
 And axes and swords. 
 * ■» * ♦ 
 
 The ship was on the waves. 
 Boat under the cliffs. 
 The barons ready 
 To the prow mounted. 
 The chieftains bore 
 On the naked breast 
 Bright ornaments. 
 War-gear, Goth-like. 
 The men shoved off. 
 Men on their willing way. 
 The bounden wood. 
 
 Then went over the sea-wavet, 
 Hurried by the wind. 
 The ship with foamy neck. 
 Most like a sea-fowl, 
 Till about one hour 
 Of the second day 
 The curved prow 
 Had passed onward. 
 80 that the sailors 
 The land saw. 
 
102 ocean's 6T0RY. 
 
 The shore clifFa shining, 
 Muuutains steep. 
 And broad sea- noses. 
 Then was the sea-sailing 
 Of the Earl at an end. 
 God thanked he 
 That to him the sea-journey 
 ^ Easy had been." 
 
 In the year 863, a Dane of Swedish origin, named Gardar, 
 adventurously pushing off into the Northern Ocean, though 
 upon an object which history has not recorded, discovered the 
 island-rock whose appropriate name is Iceland. Eleven years 
 later, a navigator named Ingolf colonized the country, the 
 colonists, many of whom belonged to the most esteemed families 
 in the North, establishing a flourishing republic. The situation 
 of these people, isolated in the midst of an Arctic ocean, and 
 their relation to the mother-country, compelled them to exert 
 and develop their hereditary maritime proclivities. In 877, a 
 sailor named Gunnbjorn saw a mountainous coast far to the 
 west, supposed to be now concealed or rendered inaccessible by 
 the descent of Arctic ice. E rik the Red , who had beenjbanislied 
 from Norway for murder and had settled in Iceland, was in his 
 turn outlawed thence in 983 : he sailed to the west and dis- 
 covered a land which he called Greenland, because, as he said, 
 "people will be attracted hither if the land has_a^ood_name.'* 
 He returned to Iceland, and, in the year 985, a large number of 
 ships — according to some authorities, thirty-five — followed him 
 to the new settlement and established themselves on its south- 
 western shore. 
 
 In 986, Bjarni Ilerjulfson-Bjarni the son of Herjulf, in a 
 voyage from Iceland to Greenland, was driven a long distance 
 from the accustomed track. lie at last saw land to the west, 
 and took counsel with his men as to what land it could be. 
 Bjarni declared it his opinion that it was not Greenland. They 
 sailed close in shore, and noticed that there were no mountains, 
 but that the land was undulating and well wooded. They left 
 
GREENLAND DISCOVERED. 103 
 
 the land on their larboard side, and sailed away for two days, 
 when they saw land again. They asked Bjarni if he thought 
 this was Greenland ; and he replied th»t " he thought it as little 
 to be Greenland as the other, as he saw no high ice-hills." The 
 sailors wished to wood and water there, but Bjarni would not 
 consent. They sailed for three days to the north, and saw a 
 bold shore with high mountains and ice-hills. Bjarni would not 
 land, saying, "To me this land appears little inviting." Sailing 
 for four days more to the northeast, they came to a country 
 which Bjarni confidently pronounced to be Greenland, where he 
 landed and afterwards settled. Various data furnished by this 
 narrative, in the original Icelandic records, have enabled geogra- 
 phers to determine the various coasts thus dimly seen by Bjarni, 
 but upon which he did not land.'~tThey are supposed to have 
 been those of Long Island, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Nova 
 Scotia, and Newfoundland. 
 
 In the year 994, Leif Erikson — Leif the son of Erik the Out- 
 law — bought Bjarni's ship, and engaged thirty-five men to navi- 
 gate it, as he intended to sail upon a voyage of discovery. He 
 asked his father Erik to be the captain ; but Erik declined, being, 
 as he said, well stricken in years. They sailed away into the 
 sea, and discovered first the land which Bjarni had discovered 
 last. They went ashore, saw no grass, but plenty of icebergs, 
 and an abundance of flat stones. From the latter circumstance 
 they named the place Helluland, hellu signifying a flat stone. 
 There can be no doubt that the spot thus named is the modern 
 Newfoundland. They went on board again, and proceeded on 
 their way. They went ashore a second time, where the land 
 was flat and covered with wood and white sand. "This," said 
 Leif, "shall be named after its qualities, and called Markland," 
 (woodland.) This is undoubtedly Nova Scotia. They sailed 
 again to the south for two days and came to an island which lay 
 to the eastward of the mainland. They observed dew upon 
 the grass, and this dew, upon being touched with the finger and 
 
104 
 
 ocean's story. 
 
 raised to the mouth, tasted exceedingly sweet. This appears to 
 have been Nantucket, where honey-dew is known to abound. 
 
 THE NORTHMEN IN AMERICA. 
 
 They proceeded on through a tract of shoal water, which cor- 
 responds with the sound between Nantucket and Cape Cod, and 
 appear to have run across the mouth of Buzzard's Bay, and to 
 have ascended the Pocasset River as far as Mount Hope Bay, 
 which they took for a lake. Here they cast anchor, and, 
 *' bringing their skin cots from the ship, proceeded to make 
 booths." They remained during the winter, finding plenty of 
 salmon in the river and lake. "The nature of the country was, 
 as they thought, so good, that cattle would not require house- 
 feeding in winter, for there came no frost, and little did the 
 grass wither there." Their statement that on the shortest day 
 the sun was above the horizon from half-past seven till half-past 
 
Martha's vineyard. 105 
 
 four enables geographers to fix the latitude of the place where 
 thej were at 41° 43' 10", which is very nearly that of Mount 
 Hope Bay. 
 
 One evening a man of the party was missing, — a German 
 named Tyrker, whom Leif regarded as his foster-father. He 
 determined to seek for him, and for this purpose chose twelve 
 reliable men. Tyrker soon returned and said that he had been a 
 long distance into the interior, and had found vines and grapes. 
 "But is tliis true, my fosterer?" said Leif. " Surely is it true," 
 he returned; "for I was bred up in a land where there is no 
 want of either vines or grapes." The next morning Leif said to 
 his sailors, "We will now set about two things, in that the one 
 day we gather grapes, and the other cut vines and fell trees, 
 so from thence will be a loading for my ship." The record 
 states that the long-boat was filled with grapes. Leif gave the 
 country the name of Vinland, from its vines. 
 
 To the reader of the present day it may seem that the wild 
 vines of Massachusetts and Rhode Island can hardly have been 
 so prominent a feature of the native products as to have given 
 a name to the whole region. But it is certain that six centuries 
 later the Puritans found wild maize and grapes growing there 
 in profusion, whilfe the neighboring island of Martha's Vineyard 
 received its name from the English for a precisely similar reason. 
 
 Upon the return of Leif to Greenland, his brother Thorwald 
 thought that " these new lands had been much too little explored." 
 Leif gave him his ship, and he put out to sea, with thirty men, 
 in the year 1002. Nothing is known of their voyage till 
 they came to Leifs booths in Vinland. They laid up their ship, 
 caught fish for their support, and spent a pleasant winter. They 
 passed two years in exploring the interior, and then returned by 
 the north, where Thorwald was killed in a battle with the Esqui- 
 maux. 
 
 But a more successful discoverer than any of these was 
 Thorfinn Karlsnefne, — that is, Thorfinn the Predestined Hero, 
 
106 ocean's story. 
 
 /He was a wealthy merchant of Iceland, the heir of Danish, 
 Swedish, and Norwegian princes. He visited Greenland in 
 1006, where he married Gudrida, the widow of an Icelandic 
 adventurer, and in 1007 sailed, in three ships and with one hun- 
 dred and sixty men, upon a voyage to Vinland. His wife went 
 with him, and, in the autumn of the same year, bore him a son 
 named Snorri, who was, of course, the first of European blood 
 born in America. From him the celebrated Swedish sculptor 
 Thorwaldsen was lineally descended. Thorfinn remained here 
 three years, and had many communications with the aborigines. 
 A singular result of this relation may perhaps be traced in the 
 names successively given to one spot. The Northmen called one 
 of their settlements Hop, and the Puritans, six centuries later, 
 found that the Indians called it Haup. It would appear that 
 they had continued, in their own tongue, the appellation 
 bestowed upon the place in the Norse language. The Puritans 
 anglicized it, and called it Mount Hope. 
 
 We have no accounts of any further voyages made by the 
 Northmen to America. The records Avere preserved in the lite- 
 rature of the island, but the memory of them gradually faded 
 away from the popular mind. 
 
 Several writers claim for these early navigators a degree of 
 merit beyond that which they are willing to accord to Columbus. 
 They reply to the argument that Bjarni's discovery of the 
 American coast was merely accidental, as he had started in 
 search of Greenland, that Columbus' discovery of America was 
 accidental also, as he started in search of Asia, and as he 
 believed the land to be Asia to the day of his death. "Besides," 
 they say, "how different were the circumstances under which 
 the two voyages were made ! The Northmen, without compass 
 or quadrant, without any of tlie advantages of science, geo- 
 graphical knowledge, personal experience, or previous discoveries, 
 without the support of either kings or governments, — which 
 Columbus, however discouraged at the outset, eventually obtained, 
 
VOYAGES OF THE NORTHMEN. 107 
 
 — but guided by the stars, and upheld bj their own private 
 resources and a spirit of adventure which no dangers could 
 repress, crossed the broad Northern ocean and explored these 
 distant lands." 
 
 This is all true ; and doubtless our wonder at the success with 
 which these early voyages were prosecuted would be augmented 
 tenfold, could we obtain authentic information upon the charac- 
 ter and capacity of the ships in which they were made. Nothing 
 reliable exists upon this subject, except a few rude inscriptions; 
 and from these, as reproduced in the engravings we have given, 
 it would actually appear that the vessels used had no decks, and 
 that they were partly propelled by oars. However navigation 
 may have improved since the days of the Northmen, it is certain 
 that no sailor would now attempt an Arctic voyage in an open 
 boat; and when we read of the perils and sufferings of our 
 modern Polar adventurers, it is impossible not to be araazed at 
 the success with which the Danes and Norwegians, with their 
 Blender appliances, endured and outlived them. 
 
 FISHING b'Oli iiKHlHHG, 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 THB TRAVELS OF MARCO POLO — THE FIRST MENTION OF JAPAW IS HIS^oB-f-. 
 
 KUBLAI KHAN — MARCO POLO's VOYAGE FROM AMOY TO ORMUZ MALACCA^ 
 
 SUMATRA PYGMIES — SINGULAR STORIES OF DIAMONDS — THE ROC POLO NOT 
 
 BECXJNISED UPON HIS RETURN HIS IMPRISONMENT THE PTTRLICATION OF 
 
 HIS NARRATIVE — THE INTEREST AWAKENED 1« CHINA, JAPAN, AND THE ISLANDS 
 OF SPICES. 
 
 The call to arms against the Moslems fixed, as Ave have said, 
 the attention of Europe upon the East. The travels of Carpini, 
 Rubruquis, and Ascelin, in Tartary and in China, revealed the 
 existence of numerous tribes in localities believed to be occupied 
 by the ocean. Hordes of savages, we are told, and whole nations 
 of powerful and warlike people, emerged from the imaginary 
 waters of Eous, the fabulous sea of antiquity and bed of 
 Aurora. Marco Polo, whose celebrated journey was performed 
 during the twenty years closing the thirteenth century, made 
 known the centre and eastern extremity of Asia, Japan, a 
 portion of the islands of the Indian Archipelago, a part of the 
 continent of Africa, and, by hearsay, the large island of Mada- 
 gascar. We subjoin a brief account of that portion of his 
 travels which was prosecuted by sea. 
 
 He became a great favorite with Kublai Khan, whose winter 
 
 capital was Khanbalik or Pckin, and served him for many years 
 
 as one of his confidential officers. He was the first European 
 
 who heard of the island of Japan, of which he speaks thus: — 
 
 "Zipangu, or Cipango, is an island in the Eastern Ocean, situated 
 
 about fifteen hundred miles from the mainland. It is quite 
 108 
 
EUROPE LEARNS OF JAPAN. 109 
 
 large. The inhabitants have fair complexions, are civilized in 
 their manners, though their religion is idolatry. They have gold 
 in the greatest abundance, but its exportation is forbidden. The 
 entire roof of the sovereign's palace is stated to be covered with 
 a plating of gold, as we cover churches and other buildings with 
 lead. So famous is the wealth of this island that Kublai Khan 
 was fired with the desire of annexing it to his dominions. He 
 sent out a numerous fleet and a powerful army; but a violent 
 storm dispersed and wrecked the ships, and thirty thousand men 
 were thrown upon a desert island a few miles from Cipango. 
 They expected nothing but death or captivity, as they could 
 obtain no means of subsistence. Being attacked from Cipango, 
 they got in the rear of the enemy, took possession of their fleet, 
 and put off" for the main island. They kept the colors flying 
 from the masts, and entered the chief city unsuspected. All 
 the inhabitants were gone except the women. They took pos- 
 session, but were closely besieged for six months, until, despair- 
 ing of relief, they surrendered, on condition of their lives being 
 spared. This took place in the year 1284." Such was the first 
 intelligence of the island of Japan which ever reached the ears 
 of Europeans. 
 
 After a stay of seventeen years in China, Marco and his com- 
 panions resolved to make an attempt to return to their native 
 land. Kublai Khan, however, was unwilling to part with them ; 
 and they owed their final release to a circumstance wholly unex- 
 pected. An embassy from Persia had visited Pekin, and had 
 selected one of Kublai's grand-daughters for the wife of their 
 prince. They set out with her on their journey to Persia, but, 
 after meeting with incredible obstacles, were obliged to return to 
 the Chinese capital. Marco had, at this time, just returned from 
 a voyage among the islands of the Indian Sea, and had laid be- 
 fore the khan his observations upon the feasibility of navigation 
 in those waters. The ambassadors sought an interview with 
 Marco Polo, and found that they had all a common interest, — 
 
110 ocean's story. 
 
 that of getting away as speedily as possible. The khan waa 
 forced to facilitate the departure of the envoys, though it de- 
 prived him of his friends the Venetians. Preparations were 
 made upon a grand scale for the expedition. Fourteen four- 
 masted ships, a part of them with crews of two hundred and 
 fifty men, were equipped and victualled for two years. The 
 klian bade the Polo party an affectionate adieu, making them 
 his ambassadors to the principal courts of Europe, and extorting 
 from them a promise to return to his service after a visit to their 
 own country. 
 
 Thus honorably dismissed, they set sail from the port of 
 Amoy, in 1291. They coasted along the shores of Cochin China, 
 and came in sight of the islands of Borneo and Java, though 
 they did not land there. At the island of Bintan, near the Straits 
 of Malacca, they obtained some knowledge of the kingdom of 
 the Malays at the southern extremity of the peninsula. They 
 landed upon Sumatra, and visited many parts of the island. 
 Marco thus speaks of one branch of the trade of the inha- 
 bitants: — ^'It should be known that what is reported respecting 
 the mummies of pygmies sent to Europe from India is only an 
 fdle tale, these pretended human dwarfs being manufactured in 
 this island in the following manner. The country produces a 
 large species of monkey having a countenance resembling that 
 of a man. The Sumatrans catch them, shave off their hair, dry 
 and preserve their bodies with camphor and other drugs, and 
 prepare them generally so as to give them the appearance of 
 little men. They then pack them in wooden boxes and sell them 
 to traders, by whom they are vended for pygmies in all parts of 
 the world. But there are no such things as pygmies in India or 
 anywhere else. It is mere monkey-trade." 
 
 From Sumatra, Marco and his companions sailed into the Bay 
 of Bengal, touched at the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, ar- 
 rived at Ceylon, and, doubling the southern point of Ilindostan, 
 continued to the northward along its western coast. The pearl- 
 
MARCO polo's NABIi^ATIVE. H| 
 
 fishery here attracted their attention ; and Marco, in his description 
 of the diamonds of a kingdom named Murphili, narrates, as a 
 fact, a story which was afterwards incorporated in the Adven- 
 tures of Sinbad the Sailor, — that of pieces of meat being thrown 
 by the jewel-hunters into inaccessible valleys, whence they were 
 brought back again by eagles and storks with quantities of 
 diamonds clinging to them. But the story occurs in the writings 
 of one of the Christian Fathers of the fourth century, and Marco 
 Polo only gives it as a legend which he heard. He also alludes 
 to the bird called the roc, which was so large that it lifted ele- 
 phants into the air ; its feathers measured ninety spans. The 
 locality frequented by these monstrous ornithological specimens 
 was the island of Madagascar. 
 
 The voyage appears to have ended at Ormuz, at the mouth of 
 the Persian Gulf, after a navigation of a year and a half. Six 
 hundred men of the various crews had died upon the way. There 
 is no mention made in history of the return of the fleet to 
 China, though Kublai Khan is known to have died three years 
 after the departure of the Venetians. After various adventures, 
 Marco Polo and his companions arrived in Venice, in 1295. 
 They had been absent twenty-one years, and their nearest rela- 
 tives did not know them. When they attempted to converse in 
 Italian, their use of foreign idioms and barbarous forms of expres- 
 sion rendered their language hardly intelligible. Possession had 
 been taken of their houses by some of their kindred, and they 
 found it difficult to expel them. Their statements were dis- 
 believed, till, by displaying their immense wealth and their price- 
 less collections of jewels and precious stones, they forced their 
 countrymen to give credit to adventures which must clearly have 
 been extraordinary, to have resulted in such acquisitions of trea- 
 sure. Marco's riches gave him the name of Milione ; and he is 
 designated, in the records of the Venetian Republic, and upon the 
 title-page of his work, — still extant, — as Messer Marco Milione. 
 
 He was induced to write an account of his adventures in the 
 
112 ocean's stort 
 
 following manner. A war between the Venetians and the 
 Genoese resulted in the capture of the galley of which he was 
 commander. He was imprisoned during four years at Genoa. 
 His surprising history becoming known, he was visited by all the 
 principal inhabitants, who were anxious to listen to his narrative. 
 The frequent necessity of repeating the same story became in- 
 tolerably irksome to him, and he resolved to commit it to writing. 
 He thus gave the first impulse to the promotion of geographical 
 science. He procured from Venice the original notes he had 
 made in the course of his travels, and, with their assistance and 
 that of a Genoese amanuensis, the narrative was composed in 
 his cell. It is a work of great research and deep interest. 
 Formerly read for its marvels, it is now perused as the earliest 
 authentic account of a region which still remains a terra incog- 
 nita, and whose inhabitants repel curiosity and decline mingling 
 with other nations upon the usual reciprocal terms of fellowship 
 and good-will. Marco Polo is now justly considered the founder 
 of the modern geography of Asia. It was long before any new 
 discoveries were added to those of the illustrious Venetian, but 
 his original statements were confirmed in many quarters: — by 
 Oderic, who visited India and China in 1320 ; by Schiltberger, 
 of Munich, who accompanied Tamerlane in his expeditions 
 through Central Asia; by Pegoletti, an Italian merchant who 
 went to Pekin, through the heart of Asia, in 1335 ; and by Cla- 
 vijo, in 1403, who was sent by Spain as ambassador to Samar- 
 cand. 
 
 Thus, a European had been to the regions of spices and had 
 returned. From this time forward the world was to know no 
 rest till the route by sea had been discovered. 
 
ANCIENT CHINESE COMPASS. 
 
 CIIAPTEU XL 
 
 THE FmST MENTION OF THE LOADSTONE IN HISTORY — ITS EARLY NAMES — THE 
 
 FIRST MENTION OF ITS DIRECTIVE POWER A POEM UPON THE COMPASS SIX 
 
 HUNDRED YEARS OLD — FRIAR BACON's MAGNET — THE LOADSTONE IN ARABIA 
 
 AN EYE-WITNESS OF ITS EFFICIENCY IN THE SYRIAN WATERS IN THE YEAR 
 
 1240 — THE MAGNET IN CHINA EARLY MENTION OF IT IN CHINESK WORKS — 
 
 THE VARIATION NOTICED IN THE TWELFTH CENTURY OTHER DISCOVERIES 
 
 MADE BY THE CHINESE MODERN ERRORS FLAVIO GIOIA — THE ARMS OF 
 
 AMALFI ALL RECORDS LOST OF THE FIRST VOYAGE MADE WITH THE COMPASS 
 
 BY A EUROPEAN SHIP. 
 
 We have arrived at a momentous epoch in the history of the 
 sea. It was at this period that the mariner's compass was — we 
 do not say invented — but introduced into European navigation. 
 That this admirable instrument, which, in half a century, 
 changed the face of the earth, by leading to the discovery of 
 America and thus proving the sphericity of the world, should 
 remain unclaimed by its author, and that we are unable to point 
 to him who thus blessed and benefited his race, must always be 
 a subject of regret. So far from being able to name the indi- 
 vidual to whom the invention is due, it has long been deemed 
 impossible to fix even upon the nation who first used the needle 
 at sea. We hope, however, by availing ourselves of recent re- 
 searches made in France, to arrive at a conclusion not only 
 8 in 
 
114 OCEANS STOKT. 
 
 &atisfactorj, but inevitable. In tracing the history of the com- 
 pass, we must naturally begin with the magnet. 
 
 The ancients were fully acquainted with the loadstone, and 
 with its power of attracting iron, though they were totally 
 ignorant of its polarity. That they were so, is evident from the 
 fact that the classic authors and ancient works upon navigation 
 and kindred subjects do not furnish one word upon the subject. 
 Claudian has left, in one of his idyls, a long description of the 
 stone, and of its peculiar, indeed, magical, affinity for iron. 
 Had he entertained the most distant idea that this stone could 
 communicate to a steel needle the power of indicating the north, 
 it is not to be supposed for an instant that he would have omitted 
 mentioning it. The earliest name of the loadstone was Hercules' 
 Stone, which was soon changed to magnet, from the fact that it 
 was found in abundance in a region called Magnesia, in Lydia. 
 Hence our word magnet. It was not till the fourth century of 
 our era that the quality of repelling as well as of attracting iron 
 seems to have been discovered. Marcellus, the physician of Theo- 
 dosius the Great, is the first author who mentions this new quality. 
 
 The Romans, who acquired a knowledge of the magnet from 
 the Greeks, preserved the name, though several of their authors, 
 and Pliny among them, mention a tradition, that the magnet was 
 so called from a shepherd named Magnes, who was the first to 
 discover a mine of loadstone, by the nails in his shoes clinging 
 to the metal. 
 
 The first mention in European history of the polarity of the 
 magnetized needle, and of its importance to mariners, occurs in a 
 satirical French poem written in 1190 by one Guyot de Provins. 
 His object was to level, by implication, an invective against the 
 Court of Rome ; and he did it in the following neat manner. 
 The translator has endeavored to preserve the quaint style of 
 the original : 
 
 o 
 
 •' As for our Father Ibc Pope, 
 I would ho were liko the star 
 
MENTION OF THE COMPASS. 115 
 
 Which moves not. Verj weli see it 
 
 The sailors who are on the watch. 
 
 By this star they go and come, 
 
 And hold their course and their way. 
 
 They call it the Polar Star. 
 
 It is fixed, very unchangeable: 
 
 All the others move. 
 
 And alter their places and turn. 
 
 But this star moves not. 
 
 They make a contrivance which cannot lie^ 
 
 By the virtue of the magnet. 
 
 An ugly and brownish stone. 
 
 To which iron spontaneously joins itself. 
 
 They have : and they observe the right point, 
 
 After they have caused a needle to touch it. 
 
 And placed it in a rush : 
 
 They put it in the water, without any thing mere, 
 
 And the rush keeps it on the surface ; 
 
 Then it turns its point direct 
 
 Towards the star with such certainty, 
 
 That no man will ever have any doubt of it ; 
 
 Nor will it ever for any thing go false. 
 
 When the sea is dark and hazy, 
 
 That they can neither see star nor moon. 
 
 Then they place a light by the needle, 
 
 And so they have no fear of going wrong : 
 
 Towards the star goes the point, 
 
 Whereby the mariners have the skill 
 
 To keep the right way. 
 
 It is an art which cannot fail." 
 
 It may be very properly inferred, from the fact that the 
 poet does not merely allude to the compass, but describes it and 
 the polar star at some length, that it was not generally known, 
 and, in fact, had been lately introduced into the Mediterranean. 
 Whence it had been introduced there, we shall learn as we 
 proceed. 
 
 The second historical mention of the compass occurs in a de- 
 scription of Palestine by Cardinal Jacques de Vitry, in the year 
 1218, in which is the following passage : — " The loadstone is found 
 in India, to which, from some hidden cause, iron spontaneously 
 attaches itself. The moment an iron needle is touched by this 
 stone, it at once points towards the North Star, which, though 
 the other stars revolve, is fixed as if it were the axis of the 
 
116 ;CEAN'S story. 
 
 firmament: froiu \fl< ice it has become necessary to tliose "vvho 
 navigate the seas." 
 
 Lrunetto Latini, a grammarian of Florence, and preceptor 
 of Dante, settled in Paris about the year 1260, and composed a 
 work entitled the "Treasure," in which he distinctly describes 
 the process and the consequence of magnetizing a needle. He 
 also went to England, and, in a letter of which fragments have 
 been published, writes thus: — "Friar Bacon showed me a mag- 
 net, an ugly and black stone, to which iron doth willingly cling: 
 you rub a needle upon it, the which needle, being placed upon 
 a point, remains suspended and turns against the Star, even 
 thoagh the night be stormy and neither star nor moon be seen ; 
 and thus the mariner is guided on his way." 
 
 The Italian Jesuit Riccioli, in his work upon Geography and 
 Hydrography, states, that before 1270, the French mariners used 
 " a magnetized needle, which they kept floating in a fuiall 
 vessel of water, supported on two tubes, so as not to sink.' 
 
 All these authors agree in fixing the period at which the use 
 of the needle was popularized in Europe, at the latter part of 
 the twelfth and the commencement of the thirteenth century. 
 Not one of them mentions the inventor by name, or even indi- 
 cates his nation. This circumstance leads to the conviction that 
 it was unknown to them, and that, consequently, the inventor was 
 not a European. The theory that the Europeans obtained it 
 from the Arabians, and the Arabians from the Chinese, is sup- 
 ported by the following facts : 
 
 A manuscript work, written by an Arabian named Bailak, a 
 native of Kibdjak, and entitled " The Merchant's Guide in the 
 Purchase of Stones," thus speaks of the loadstone in the year 
 1242: — "Among the properties of the magnet, it is to be 
 noticed that the captains who sail in the Syrian waters, when 
 the night is dark, take a vessel of water, upon which they place 
 a needle buried in the pith of a reed, and which thus floats 
 apon the water. Then they take a loadstone as big as the ,Dalm 
 
CHINESE COMPASS. li, 
 
 of , the hand, or even smaller. They hold it near the surface of 
 the water, giving it a rotary motion until the needle turns upon 
 the water: they then withdraw the stone suddenly, when the 
 needle, with its two ends, points to the north and south. I saw 
 this with my own eyes, on my voyage from Tripoli, in Syria, to 
 Alexandria, in the year 640. [640 of the Hegira, 1240 a.d.] 
 
 " I heard it said that the captains in the Indian seas substi- 
 tute for the needle and reed a hollow iron fish, magnetized, so 
 that, when placed in the water, it points to the north with its 
 head ^and to the south with its taiL The reason that the fish 
 swims, not sinks, is that metallic bodies, even the heaviest, 
 float when hollow, and when they displace a quantity of water 
 greater than their own weight." 
 
 It may fairly be inferred, from this passage, that, at the time 
 spoken of, (1240,) the practice was already of long standing in 
 this quarter, and that . the needle and its polarity had been 
 long known and employed at sea. That is, the Arabs had be- 
 come familiar with the loadstone in 1240, while Friar Bacon re- 
 garded it, in England, as a huge curiosity in 1260, — twenty 
 years afterwards. Tiie priority of the invention would seem to 
 be thus incontestably proven for the Arabs. But we shall see 
 speedily that it derived its origin from a region situated still 
 farther to the east, and many centuries earlier. 
 
 A famous Chinese dictionary, terminated in the year 121 of 
 our era, thus defines the word magnet : — " The name of a stone 
 which gives direction to a needle." This is quoted in numerous 
 modern dictionaries. One published during the Tsin dynasty — 
 that is, between 265 and 419 — states that ships guided their course 
 to the south by means of the magnet. The Chinese word for 
 magnet — Tchi nan — signifies, Indicator of the South. It was 
 natural for the Chinese, when they first saw a needle point both 
 north and south, to take the Antarctic pole for the principal 
 point of attraction, for with them the south had always been 
 th« first of the cardinal points, — the emperor's throne and all 
 
US OCSAN^S STORY. 
 
 the Gorernment edifices invariably being built to face the south. 
 A Chinese work of authority, composed about the year 1000, 
 contains this passage: — "Fortune-tellers rub the point of a 
 needle with a loadstone to give it the power of indicating the 
 south." 
 
 A medical natural history, published in China in 1112, speaks 
 even of the variation of the needle, — a phenomenon first noticed 
 ir. Europe by Christopher Columbus in 1492: — "When," it 
 says, "a point of iron is touched by a loadstone, it receives the 
 power of indicating the south : still, it declines towards the east, 
 and does not point exactly to the south." This observation, 
 made at the beginning of the twelfth century, was confirmed by 
 magnetic experiments made at Pekin, in 1780, by a Frenchman ; 
 only the latter, finding the variation to be from the north, set it 
 down as from 2° to 2° 30' to the west, while the Chinese, per- 
 sisting in calling it a variation from the south, set it down as 
 being from 2° to 2° 30' to the east. 
 
 Thus, the Chinese, who were acquainted with the polarity of 
 a magnetized needle as early as the year 121, and who noticed 
 the variation in 1112, may be safely supposed to have employed 
 it at sea in the long voyages which they made in the seventh 
 and eighth centuries, the route of which has come down to 
 us. Their vessels sailed from Canton, through the Straits of 
 Malacca, to the Malabar coast, to the mouths of the Indus 
 and the Euphrates. It is diflficult to believe that, aware of 
 the use to which the needle might be applied, they did not so 
 apply it. 
 
 While thus claiming for the Chinese the first knowledge and 
 application of the polarity of the needle, we may say, incidentally, 
 that it is now certain that they made numerous other discoveries 
 of importance long before the Europeans. They knew the at- 
 tractive power of amber in the first century of our era, and a 
 Chinese author said, in 324, "The magnet attracts iron, and 
 amber attracts mustard-seed." They ascribed the tides to the 
 
INVENTION OF THE COMPASS. 
 
 119 
 
 influence of the moon in the ninth century. Printing was in- 
 vented in the province of Chin about the year 920, and gun- 
 powder would seem to have been made there long before Berthold 
 Schwartz mixed it in 1330. Still, it is not necessary to resort 
 to the argument of analogy to support the claims of the Chi- 
 nese to this admirable invention: the direct evidence, as we have 
 rehearsed it, is amply sufficient. 
 
 CEIIKESE JUNK. 
 
 A century ago, Flavio Gioia, a captain or pilot of Amalfi, in 
 the kingdom of Naples, was recognised throughout Europe as 
 the true inventor of the compass. He lived in the beginning 
 of the fourteenth century, and biographers have even fixed the 
 date of the memorable invention at the year 1303. The prin- 
 cipal foundation for this assertion was the following line from a 
 
120 ocean's story. 
 
 poem by Antonio of Bologna, who lived but a short time after 
 
 Gioia: — 
 
 •'Prima dedit nautis usara magnetis Ainalpl)!s>." 
 Amalfi first gaTe to sailors the use of the magnet. 
 
 The tradition was subsequently confirmed by the statement made 
 by authors of repute, that the city of Amalfi, in order to comme- 
 morate an invention of so much importance, assumed a compasa 
 for its coat of arms. This was believed till the year 1810, when 
 the coat of arms of Amalfi was found in the library at Naples. 
 It did not answer at all to the description given of it : instead 
 of the eight wings which were said to represent the four caidin i' 
 points and their divisions, it had but two, in which no resemblance 
 to a compass could be traced. Later investigations have, as we 
 have said, completely demolished ,^11 the arguments by which 
 the compass was maintained to be of European origin and of 
 modern date. The curious reader will find the extracts from 
 Chinese works whicn substantiate the Chinese claim, in^a volume 
 upon the subject published in 1834, at Paris, by M. J. Klaproth, 
 and composed at the request of Baron Humboldt. 
 
 In the sketch which we are now about to give of the Portu- 
 guese voyages to the African coast, it will be remarked that the 
 compass was already introduced and acclimated. No mention 
 whatever is extant of the first venture made upon the Atlantic 
 under the auspices of thi's mysterious but unerring guide. Science 
 and history must forever regret that the first European navigator 
 who employed it did not leave a recovd of the experiment. 
 What would be more interesting to-day than the log of the 
 earliest voyage thus accomplished in European waters? Tlie 
 modern reader would surely give his sympathy, unreservedly, to 
 a narrative in which the navigator should describe his wonder, 
 his terror, his joy, when, throughout the voyage, he saw the 
 tremulous index point invariably north ; when, upon the dispcr- 
 bion of the clouds which had concealed the Star from view, it 
 was found precisely where the needle indicated i when, upon iU 
 
THE NORTH MAGNETIC POLE. 
 
 121 
 
 being diverted from the line of direction by some curious and 
 perhaps incredulous experimenter, it slowly but surely returned, 
 remaining fixed and constant through storm and calm, at mid- 
 night and at noon. What would be more interesting than the 
 speculations of such a captain upon the cause of the marvellous 
 dispensation? And what more amusing than the commentaries 
 of the forecastle, and the learned explanations of the veteran 
 salts to the raw recruits ? But all this absorbing lore has hope- 
 lessly disappeared, and the mariner's compass will forever remain 
 mysterious in its principle, mysterious in its origin, mysterious 
 in its history. We shall have occasion to return to the subject 
 from another point of view, when, in describing the Arctic 
 voyages of the present century, we shall find James Clarke Ross 
 standing upon the North Magnet^r Pole. 
 
 SHIP OF FOUBTEEXTH CEKTUBT. 
 
TENERIFFE, 
 
 Section ffi. 
 
 FROM THE APPLICATION OF THE MAGNETIC NEEDLE TO EURO- 
 PEAN NAVIGATION TO THE FIRST VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD 
 UNDER MAGELLAN — 1300 — 1519. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE PORTUGUESE ON THE COAST OF AFRICA — THE SPANIARDS AND THE CANARY 
 ISLES — DON HENRT OF PORTUGAL — THE TERRIBLE CAPE, NOW CAPE BOJADOR 
 
 THE SACRED PROMONTORY — DISCOVERY OF THE MADEIRAS — A DREADFUL 
 
 PHENOMENON — A PROLIFIC RABBIT AND A WONDERFUL CONFLAGRATION — HOS- 
 TILITY OF THE PORTUGUESE TO FURTHER MARITIME ADVENTURE — THE BAY 
 
 OF HORSES — THE FIRST GOLD DUST SEEN IN EUROPE DISCOVERY OF CAPE 
 
 VBRD AND THE AZORES THE EUROPEANS APPROACH THE EQUATOR JOURNEY 
 
 OF CADA-MOSTO — DEATH OF DON HENRY — PROGRESS OF NAVIGATION UNDER 
 THE AUSPICES OF THIS PRINCE. 
 
 We are now to consider at some length a series of voyages, 
 
 tedious and fruitless at first, successful in the end, undertaken 
 
 by the Portuguese, in their age of maritime heroism, to discover 
 122 
 
PORTUGUESE ENTERPRISE. 123 
 
 a passage by sea to the famous commercial region of the Indies, 
 Bome general knowledge of which had been preserved since the 
 Persian, Macedonian, and Roman Empires. The achievements 
 which we are about to narrate were so surprising, so significant, 
 and so complete, that, as has been aptly remarked, they can 
 never happen again in history, unless, indeed. Providence wer« 
 to create new and accessible worlds for discovery and conquest, 
 or to replunge mankind for ages into ignorance and superstitioii. 
 But, before proceeding with the discoveries of the Portuguese, 
 we must mention a previous discovery made by accident in the 
 same region by the French and Spanish. 
 
 About the year 1330, a French ship was driven among « 
 number of islands which lay off the coast of the Desert of Sa- 
 hara. These had been known to the ancients as the Fortunate 
 Islands, and Juba of Mauritania, who is quoted by Pliny, calls 
 two of them by name, — Trivaria, or Snow Island, and Canaria, 
 or Island of Dogs. They had been lost to the knowledge of the 
 Europeans' for a thousand years, and it was a storm which re- 
 vealed their existence, as we have said, to a vessel forced by 
 stress of weather to escape from the coast into the open sea. 
 The Spaniards profited by the vicinity of the group to make 
 discoveries and settlements among them. Trivaria became 
 Tenerifie, and Canaria the Grand Canary. It was here that 
 superstition now placed the limits of navigation, and expressed 
 the idea upon maps, by representing a giant armed with a 
 formidable club, and dwelling in a tower, as threatening ships 
 with destruction if they ventured farther out to sea. It is in this 
 immediate neighborhood that we are now about to follow the 
 iaring and patient enterprises of the Portuguese. 
 
 Don Henry, the fifth son of John I. of Portugal, was placed 
 by his father, in 1415, in command of the city of Ceuta, in 
 Africa, which he had just conquered from the Moors. During 
 his stay here, the young prince acquired much information 
 relative to the seas and coasts of Western Africa, and this first 
 
124 
 
 ocean's story. 
 
 suggested in his mind a plan for maritime discovery, which 
 afterwards became his favorite and almost exclusive pursuit. 
 He sent a vessel upon the first voyage of exploration under- 
 taken by any nation in modern times. The commander was 
 instructed to follow the western coast of Africa, and, if possible, 
 to pass the cape called by the Portuguese Cape Non, Nun, or 
 Noun. This had hitherto been considered the utmost southern 
 limit of navigation by the Europeans, and had obtained its 
 name from the negative term in the Portuguese language — im- 
 plying that there was nothing beyond. A current proverb 
 expressed the idea thus : 
 
 Whoe'er would pass the Cape of Non 
 Shall turn again, or else begone. 
 
 The fate of this vessel has not been recorded ; but Don Henry 
 continued for many years to send other vessels upon the same 
 errand. Several of them proceeded one hundred and eighty 
 miles beyond Cape Non, to another and more formidable pro- 
 montory, to which they gave the name of Bojador — from hojar^ 
 to double — on account of the circuit which must be made to get 
 
 CAPE BOJADOR. 
 
 around it, as it stretches more than one hundred miles into the 
 ocean. The tides and shoals here formed a current twenty miles 
 wide; and the spectacle of this swollen and beating surge, wliich 
 precluded all possibility of creeping along close to the coast. 
 
PORTO SANTO DISCOVERED. 12'j 
 
 filled these timid navigators with terror and amazement. They 
 dared not venture out of sight of land, and, seized with a sudden 
 remembrance of tlie fabulous horrors of the torrid zone, they 
 regarded the interposition of this terrific cape as a providential 
 warning, and sailed hastily back to Portugal. There, with that 
 fancy for embellishment peculiar to sailors of all ages, they 
 narrated stories, or, as wouhl be said in the present day, yarns, 
 calculated forever to dissuade from further ventures in the lati- 
 tudes of Capes Non and Bojador. 
 
 Don Henry, who had returned from Ceuta, resolved, in spite 
 of these obstacles, to employ a portion of his revenue as Grand 
 Master of the Order of Christ, in further maritime experiments. 
 He fixed his residence upon the Sacrum Promontorium of the 
 Romans, of which we have given a representation in the chapter 
 describing the voyage of Pytheas. Here he indulged that 
 passion for navigation and mathematics which he had hitherto 
 been compelled to neglect. In 1418, two naval officers of his 
 household volunteered their lives in an attempt to surmount the 
 perils of Bojador. Juan Gonzalez Vasco and Tristan Yax 
 Texeira embarked in a vessel called a harcha and resembling a 
 brig with topsails, and steered for the tremendous cape. 
 
 Before reaching it, however, a violent storm drove them out 
 to sea, and the crew, on losing sight of their accustomed land- 
 marks, gave themselves up to despair. But, upon the abatement 
 of the tempest, they found themselves in sight of an island four 
 hundred miles to the west of the coast. Thus was discovered 
 Porto Santo, the smallest of the group of the Madei r^^^ and 
 thus was the feasibility and advantage of abandoning coasting 
 voyages and venturing boldly out to sea made manifest. The 
 adventurers returned to Portugal, and gave glowing accounts of 
 the fertility of the soil, of the mildness of the climate, and the 
 character of the inhabitants. Vessels were fitted out to colo- 
 nize and cultivate the island; but a singular and most untoward 
 event rendered it useless as a place of refreshment for navi- 
 
12t$ ocean's story. 
 
 gators. A single rabbit littered during the voyage, and was 
 let loose upon the island with her progeny : these multiplied so 
 rapidly that in two years they eat every green thing which its 
 soil produced. Porto Santo was therefore, for a time, abandoned. 
 During their residence there, however, Gonzalez and Vax 
 noticed with wonder a strange and perpetual appearance in the 
 horizon to the southwest. A thick, impenetrable cloud hovered 
 over the waves, and thence extended to the skies. Some be- 
 lieved it to be a dreadful abyss, and others a fabulous island, 
 while superstition traced amid the gloom Dante's inscription on 
 the portal of the Inferno: 
 
 Abandon hope, all ye who enter here ! 
 
 Gonzalez and Yax bore this state of suspense with the im- 
 patience of seamen, while from dawn to sunset the meteor, or 
 the portent, preserved its uniform sullen aspect. At last they 
 started in pursuit. It was urged, by a Spaniard named Juan de 
 Morales, that the shadows hanging in the air could be accounted 
 for by supposing that the soil of an island in the vicinity, being 
 shaded from the sun by thick and lofty trees, exhaled dense and 
 opaque vapors, which spread throughout the sky. As the ship 
 advanced, the towering spectre was observed to thicken and to 
 expand until it became horrible to view. The roaring of the sea 
 increased, and the crew called on Gonzalez to flee from the fear- 
 ful scene. But soon the weather became calm, and deeper 
 shadows were observed through the portentous gloom. Faint 
 images of rocks seemed to the excited crew the menacing figures 
 of giants. The atmosphere was now transparent ; the hoarse 
 echo of the waves abated ; the clouds dispersed, and the wood- 
 lands were unveiled. The seamen rested on their oars, while 
 Gonzalez admired the wild luxuriance of nature in a spot which 
 superstition had so long dreaded to approach. A rivulet, issu- 
 ing from a glen, whose paler verdure formed a striking contrast 
 with the deep green of venerable cedars, seemed to pour a 
 
MADEIRA COLONIZED. 127 
 
 Stream of milk into a spacious basin. They searched in vain 
 for traces of either inhabitants or cattle. The abundance of 
 building-wood which the island furnished suggested the name 
 of Madeira ; and a tract covered with fennel (funcha) marked 
 the site of the future town of Funchal. 
 
 A modern poet thus describes in verse the scene which we 
 have narrated in prose : 
 
 ** Bojador's rocks 
 Arise at distance, frowning o'er the surf, 
 That boils for many a league without. Its course 
 The ship holds on, till, lo ! the beauteous isle 
 That shielded late the sufferers from the storm 
 Springs o'er the wave again. Then they refresh 
 Their wasted strength, and lift their vows to Heaven. 
 J5ut Heaven denies their further search ; for ah ! 
 TMiat fearful apparition, pall'd in clouds, 
 Forever sits upon the western wave. 
 Like night, and, in its strange portentous gloom 
 Wrapping the lonely waters, seems the bounds 
 Of nature? Still it sits, day after day. 
 The same mysterious vision. Holy saints ! 
 Is it the dread abyss where all things cease ? 
 The favoring gales invite : the bowsprit bears 
 Right onward to the fearful shade : more black 
 The cloudy spectre towers : already fear 
 Shrinks at the view, aghast and breathless. Hark ! 
 'Twas more than the deep murmur of the surge 
 That struck the ear ; whilst through the lurid gloom 
 Gigantic phantoms seem to lift in air 
 Their misty arms. Yet, yet — bear boldly on : 
 The mist dissolves : seen through the parting haze. 
 Romantic rocks, like the depicted clouds, 
 * Shine out : beneath, a blooming wilderness 
 
 Of varied wood is spread, that scents the air ; 
 Where fruits of golden rind, thick interspersed 
 And pendent, through the mantling umbrage glea^n 
 Inviting." 
 
 Gonzalez and Vax returned at once to Lisbon, where a public 
 day of audience was appointed by the king to give every cele- 
 brity to this successful voyage. Madeira was at once colonized 
 and cultivated ; and it is said that Gonzalez, in order to clear a 
 space for his intended city of Funchal, set the shrubs and 
 
128 ocean's story. 
 
 bushes on fire, and that the flames, being communicated to the 
 forests, burned for seven years. The sugar-cane was planted, 
 and its cultivation yielded immense sums until sugar-plantations 
 were established in Brazil and thus interfered with the monopoly. 
 The attention of the islanders was then transferred to the grape, 
 and from that time to this Madeira has supplied the world with 
 a favorite — nay, almost indispensable — brand of wine. 
 
 Don Henry had now, it would appear, surmounted the prin- 
 cipal obstacles opposed by ignorance or prejudice to the object of 
 his laudable ambition. But there were many interests threatened 
 by a continuance of discovery by sea. The military beheld with 
 jealous dislike the distinction obtained by, and now willingly 
 accorded to, a profession they held inferior to their own. The 
 nobility dreaded the opening of a source of wealth which would 
 raise the mercantile character, and in an equal degree lower the 
 assumptions and pretensions of artificial social rank. Political 
 economists suggested that there were barren spots in Portugal 
 as capable of cultivation as any desert islands in the sea or any 
 sandy coasts within the tropics. It was urged, too, that any 
 Portuguese who should pass Cape Bojador would inevitably be 
 changed into a negro, and would forever retain this brand of his 
 temerity. 
 
 While Henry was resisting the arguments of his detractors, 
 his father died, and was succeeded upon the throne by his son 
 Edward. The latter gave every encouragement to the maritime 
 projects of his brother, and, in 1433,one Gilianez, having in- 
 curred the displeasure of Henry, determined to regain his favor 
 by doubling Cape Bojador. Though we are without details of 
 the voyage, we know at least that it was successful, and that the 
 historians of the time represent the feat as more remarkable 
 than any of the labors of Hercules. Gilianez reported that the 
 sea beyond Bojador was quite as navigable as the Mediterranean, 
 and that the climate and soil of the coast were agreeable and 
 fertile. He was sent the next year, with Henry's cup-bearer. 
 
THE BAY OF HOUSES. 129 
 
 Baldoza, over the same route, and they advanced ninety miles 
 beyond the cape with the conscious pride of being tlie first 
 Europeans who had ventured so far towards the fatal vicinity of 
 the equator. Though they saw no inhabitants, they noticed the 
 tracks of caravans. 
 
 They were ordered, in 1435, to resume their discoveries, and 
 to prolong their voyage till they should meet with inhabitants. 
 In latitude 24° north, one hundred and thirty miles beyond 
 Bojador, two horses were landed, and two Portuguese youths, 
 sixteen years of age, were directed to mount them and advance 
 into the interior. They returned the next morning, saying that 
 they had seen and attacked a band of nineteen natives. A 
 strong force was despatched to the cave in which they were said 
 to have taken shelter: their weapons only were found. This 
 spot was called Angra dos CavaUos, or Bay of Horses. The 
 two vessels continued on forty miles farther, to a place where 
 they killed a large number of seals and took their skins on 
 board. Their provisions were now nearly exhausted, and the 
 expedition, having penetrated nearly two hundred miles beyond 
 the cape, returned to Lisbon. 
 
 The Portuguese war with Tangiers now absorbed the entire 
 naval and maritime resources of the country, and the plague of 
 Lisbon stayed for a time the patriotic enterprises of Don Henry. 
 In 1440-42, expeditions sent in the same direction resulted in 
 the capture and transfer of several Moors to Portugal, and in 
 the payment to their captors, as ransom, of the first gold dust 
 ever beheld by Europeans. A river, or arm of the sea, near 
 the spot where this gold was paid, received, from that circum- 
 stance, the name of Mio del Our o, This gold dust at once 
 operated as a sovereign panacea upon the obstinacy and irrita- 
 tion of the public mind. It has been well remarked that "this 
 is the primary date to which we may refer that turn for adven- 
 ture which sprang up in Europe, and which pervaded all the 
 ardent spirits in every country for the two succeeding centuries, 
 
130 ocean's story. 
 
 and which never ceased till it had united the four quarters of 
 the globe in commercial intercourse. Henry had stood alone 
 for almost forty years ; and, had he fallen before those few ounces 
 of gold reached his country, the spirit of discovery might have 
 perished with him, and his designs have been condemned as the 
 dreams of a visionary." The sight of the precious metal placed 
 the discoveries and enterprises of Don Henry beyond the reach 
 of detraction or prejudice. Numerous expeditions were suc- 
 cessively fitted out: — that of Nuno Tristan, in 1443, who dis- 
 covered the Arguin Islands, thirty miles to the southeast of 
 Cape Blanco ; that of Juan Diaz and others in 1444 ; that of 
 Gonzalez da Cintra in 1445, who, with seven others, was killed 
 fifty miles south of the Rio del Ouro, — this being the first loss 
 of life on the part of the Portuguese since they had undertaken 
 their explorations. In 1446, a gentleman of Lisbon, by the 
 name of Fernandez, determined to proceed farther to the south- 
 ward than any other navigator, and accordingly fitted out a 
 vessel under the patronage of the prince. Passing the Senegal 
 River, he stood boldly on till he reached the most western pro- 
 montory of Africa, to which, from the number of green palms 
 which he found there, he gave the name of Cape Verd. Being 
 
 CAPE VERD. 
 
 alarmed by the breakers with which this shore is lined, he returned 
 to Portugal with the gratifying news of his discovery. In 1447, 
 Nuno Tristan sailed one hundred and eighty miles beyond Cape 
 Verd, and reached the mouth of a river, which he called the Rio 
 
AZORES DISCOVERED. 131 
 
 Grande, now the Gambia. He was attacked by the natives with 
 volleys of poisoned arrows, of the effects of which all his crew and 
 officers died but four ; and the ship was at last brought home by 
 these four survivors, after wandering two months upon the At- 
 lantic. The next expedition, under Alvaro Fernando, carried 
 out an antidote against the poisoned shafts of the enemy, which 
 successfully combated the venom, as all who were wounded re- 
 covered. 
 
 The Agores, or Azores, were now discovered, about nine hun- 
 dred miles to the west of Portugal ; but some doubts exist both 
 as to the discoverer and the date. They doubtless received their 
 name from the number of hawks which were seen there, A^or 
 signifying hawk in Portuguese. Santa Maria and San Miguel 
 were named from the saints upon whose days they were first 
 seen. Terceira obtained its name from the circumstance that it 
 was the third that was discovered. Fayal was so called from 
 the beech-trees it produced; Graciosa, from its agreeable cli- 
 mate and fertile soil ; Flores, from its flowers ; and Corvo, from 
 its crows. The various clusters of islands which thus arose in 
 the Atlantic, from the Azores to Cape Verd, now formed a succes- 
 sion of maritime colonies and nurseries for seamen, and thus 
 enabled navigators to avoid the coast, where the outrages they 
 endured from Moors and negroes threatened to exhaust their 
 patience. The ships of Don Henry had now penetrated within 
 ten degrees of the equator, and the outcry against venturing into 
 a region where the very air was fatal broke out afresh. In this 
 point of view, therefore, the settlement of the Azores was a 
 matter of no little importance. In 1449, King Alphonso gave 
 his uncle, Don Henry, permission to colonize these islands. In 
 1457, Henry obtained for them several important privileges, the 
 principal of which was the exemption of their inhabitants from 
 any duties upon their commerce in Portuguese and Spanish ports. 
 
 In the years 1455-56-57, a Venetian, by the name of Cada- 
 Mosto, undertook, under the patronage of Don Henry, two 
 
132 
 
 ocean's story. 
 
 voyages of discovery along the African coast. The narrative 
 of his adventures, being in the first person, is the oldest nautical 
 journal extant, with the single exception of one of Alfred the 
 Great, still in existence. But, as it is principally occupied with 
 descriptions of the manners and customs of the Africans, and as 
 he did not proceed beyond the Rio Grande, thus adding little or 
 nothing to maritime discovery, an account of his voyage would 
 be out of place here. Don Henry died shortly after the return 
 of Cada-Mosto from his second voyage, and for a season this 
 calamity palsied the naval enterprise of his countrymen. They 
 had been accustomed to derive from him, not only the encourage- 
 ment necessary for the prosecution of such attempts, but even 
 sailing directions and instructions upon all matters of detail. 
 It can easily be conceived that the demise of this illustrious 
 prince should temporarily dishearten navigators and paralyze 
 discovery. Under his auspices the Portuguese had pushed their 
 discoveries from Cape Non to Sierra Leone, — from the twenty- 
 ninth to the eighth degree of north latitude. He died at Sagres 
 — the city, half ship-yard, half arsenal, which he had founded 
 upon the Sacrum Promontorium. 
 
 
 8EA SWALLOW. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 THE POETUatJESE CROSS THE EQUATOR FROM GUINEA TO CONGO JOHN II. CON- 
 CEIVES THE IDEA OF A ROUTE BY SEA TO THE INDIES HIS ARTIFICES TO 
 
 PREVENT THE INTERFERENCE OF OTHER NATIONS — THE OVERLAND JOURNEY 
 OF COVILLAM TO INDIA — THE VOYAGE OF BARTHOLOMEW DIAZ — THE DOUBLING 
 OF THE TREMENDOUS CAPE — ITS BAPTISM BY THE KING — INJURIOUS EFFECTS 
 OF SUCCESS UPON PORTUGUESE AMBITION. 
 
 During the remainder of the reign of Alphonso Y. — which 
 terminated in 1481 — the Portuguese advanced over the coast 
 and Gulf of Guinea and the adjacent islands to the northern 
 boundary of the great kingdom of Congo, and had therefore 
 arrived within six hundred and fifty marine leagues of the cape 
 which forms the southern point of the African continent. They 
 had crossed the equator, and not a man had turned black. They 
 had entered into a brisk gold-trade with the savages of Guinea. 
 John II., the son and successor of Alphonso, determined to 
 fortify a point called Mina, from its abundant mines, and sent 
 out twelve vessels with building materials and six hundred men. 
 The negroes at first resisted, but finally yielded their consent. 
 The fort was constructed and named St. Jorge da Mina; the 
 quarry from which the first stone was taken being the favorite 
 god of the tribe that inhabited the coast. 
 
 John II. now added to his other titles that of Lord of Guinea. 
 In the hope of opening a passage by sea to the rich spice- 
 countries of India, he asked the support and countenance of the 
 difi"erent states of Christendom. But the established mercantile 
 
 interest of these countries was naturally hostile to a project 
 
 133 
 
134 ocean's story. 
 
 which aimed at changing the route of Eastern commerce. John 
 next applied to the Pope for an increase of power, and obtained 
 from his holiness a grant of all the lands which his navigators 
 should discover in sailing /row west to east. The grand idea of 
 sailing from east to west — one which implied a knowledge of the 
 sphericity of the globe — had not yet, to outward appearance, 
 penetrated the brain of either pope or layman. One Christopher 
 Columbus, however, was already brooding over it in secret and 
 in silence. 
 
 It had hitherto been customary for Portuguese navigators 
 to erect wooden crosses upon all lands discovered by them. 
 John II. now commanded them to employ stone pillars six feet 
 high, and to inscribe upon them, in the Latin and Portuguese 
 languages, the date, the name of the reigning monarch, and that 
 of the discoverer. Diego Cam was the first to comply with this 
 command ; he set up a column at the mouth of the river Conoco, 
 at which he arrived in 1484. An ambassador was sent by the 
 chief of the territory to Portugal, where he embraced Christianity 
 and was baptized by the name of John. The anxiety of the 
 king now increased in reference to interference by other nations : 
 he therefore sent to King Edward, of England, an earnest request 
 that he would prevent the intended voyage to Guinea of two of 
 his subjects, John Tintam and William Fabian, with which request 
 Edward saw fit to comply. The Portuguese monarch now care- 
 fully concealed the progress of his navigators upon the African 
 coast, and on all occasions magnified the perils of a Congo 
 voyage. He declared that every quarter of the moon produced 
 a tempest ; that the shores were girt with inhospitable rocks ; 
 that the inhabitants were cannibals, and that the only vessels 
 which could live in the waters of the torrid zone were caravels 
 of Portuguese build. Suspecting that three sailors who had left 
 Portugal for Spain intended to sell the secret to the foreign 
 king, he ordered them to be pursued and taken. Two were 
 killed, and the third was broken upon the wheel. *'Let every 
 
THE CAPE OF GOOD HOPE. 135 
 
 man abide in his element:" said John; "I am not partial to 
 travelling seamen." 
 
 We now approach an era of great achievements. John de- 
 termined, in 1486, to assist the attempts made on sea by journeys 
 over land. Accordingly a squadron was fitted out under Bar- 
 tholomew Diaz, one of the officers of the royal household, while 
 Pedro de Covillam and Alphonso de Payra, both well versed in 
 Arabic, received the following order respecting a land journey: — 
 *' To discover the country of Prester John, the King of Abys- 
 sinia, to trace the Venetian commerce in drugs and spices to its 
 source, and to ascertain whether it were possible for ships to sail 
 round the extremity of Africa to India." They went by way 
 of Naples, the Island of Rhodes, Alexandria, and Cairo, to Aden 
 in Arabia. Here they separated, Covillam proceeding to Cananor 
 and Goa, upon the Malabar coast of Hindostan, and being the 
 first Portuguese that ever saw India. He went from there to 
 Sofala, on the eastern coast of Africa, and saw the Island of the 
 Moon, now Madagascar. He penetrated to the court of Prester 
 John, the King of Abyssinia, and became so necessary to the 
 happiness of that potentate, that he was compelled to live and 
 die in his dominions. An embassy sent by Prester John to 
 Lisbon made the Portuguese acquainted with Covillam's adven- 
 tures. Long ere this, however, Bartholomew Diaz had sailed 
 upon the voyage which has immortalized his name. He received 
 the command of a fleet, consisting of two ships of fifty tons 
 each, and of a tender to carry provisions, and set sail towards 
 the end of August, 1486, steering directly to the south. It is 
 much to be regretted that so few details exist in reference to this 
 memorable expedition. We know little more than the fact that 
 the first stone pillar which Diaz erected was placed four hundred 
 miles beyond that of any preceding navigator. Striking out 
 boldly here into the open sea, he resolved to make a wide circuit 
 before returning landward. He did so ; and the first land he saw, 
 on again touching the continent, lay one hundred miles to the 
 
136 ocean's story. 
 
 eastward of the great southern cape, which he had passed with- 
 out seeing it. Ignorant of this, he still kept on, amazed that 
 the land should now trend to the east and finally to the north. 
 Alarmed, and nearly destitute of provisions, mortified at the 
 failure of his enterprise, Diaz unwillingly put back. What was 
 his joy and surprise when the tremendous and long-sought pro- 
 montory — the object of the hopes and desires of the Portuguese 
 for seventy-five years, and which, either from the distance or the 
 haze, had before been concealed — now burst upon his view ! 
 
 Diaz returned to Portugal in December, 1487, and, in his nar- 
 rative to the king, stated that he had given to the formidable 
 promontory he had doubled the name of "Cape of Tempests." 
 But the king, animated by the conviction that Portugal would 
 now reap the abundant harvest prepared by this cheering event, 
 thought he could suggest a more appropriate appellation. The 
 Portuguese poet, Camoens, thus alludes to this circumstance: 
 
 •'At Lisboa's court they told their dread escape, 
 And from her raging tempests named the Cape. 
 •Thou southmost point,' the joyful king exclaimed, 
 •Cape of Good Hope be thou forever named !' " 
 
 Successful and triumphant as was this voyage of Diaz, it 
 eventually tended to injure the interests of Portugal, inasmuch 
 as it withdrew the regards of King John from other and im- 
 portant plans of discovery, and rendered him inattentive to the 
 efforts of rival powers upon the ocean. It caused him, amid 
 the intoxication of the moment, to refuse the services and re- 
 ject the science of one who now offered to conduct the vessels 
 of Portugal to the Indies by an untried route. It caused him, 
 as we shall soon have occasion to narrate, to turn a deaf car to 
 the proposals of Columbus, who had humbly brought to Lisbon 
 the mighty scheme with which he had been contemptuously re- 
 pulsed from Genoa. We have arrived at the Great Era in Navi- 
 gation, — the age of Columbus, da Gama, and Magellan. 
 
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 BIRTH OF CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS — HIS EARLY LIFE AND EDUCATION — HIS 
 FIRST VOYAGE — HIS MARRIAGE — HIS MARITIME CONTEMPLATIONS — HE MAKES 
 PROPOSALS TO THE SENATE OF GENOA, THE COURT OF VENICE, AND THE KING 
 
 OF PORTUGAL — THE DUPLICITY OF THE LATTER COLUMBUS VISITS SPAIN — 
 
 JUAN DE MARCHENA — COLUMBUS REPAIRS TO CORDOVA — HIS SECOND MAR- 
 RIAGE — HIS LETTER TO THE KING — THE JUNTO OF SALAMANCA — COLUMBUS 
 
 RESOLVES TO SHAKE THE DUST OF SPAIN FROM HIS FEET MARCHENA'S 
 
 LETTER TO ISABELLA THE QUEEN GIVES AUDIENCE TO COLUMBUS THE 
 
 CONDITIONS STIPULATED BY THE LATTER — ISABELLA ACCEPTS THE ENTER- 
 PRISE, WHILE FERDINAND REMAINS ALOOF. 
 
 Cristofero Colombo (in Spanish Colon, in French Co- 
 
 lomb, in Latin and English Columbus) was born in Genoa, in 
 
 137 
 
138 ocean's story. 
 
 the year 1435.* His father was a wool-comber, and Chris- 
 topher followed, for a time, the same occupation. lie was sent, 
 however, at the age of ten years, to the University of Pavia, 
 where he seems to have studied, though with little advantage, 
 natural philosophy and astronomy, or, as it was then called, 
 astrology. Returning to his father's bench, he worked at wool- 
 combing, with his brother Bartholomew, till he was fourteen 
 years of age. By this time the natural influence of the situa- 
 tion, the atmosphere, and the traditions of Genoa had awakened 
 in him the tastes and the ambition of a sailor. The sea had 
 long been the home and the life of the Genoese : it was the 
 theatre of their glory, and their avenue to wealth. Christopher's 
 great-uncle, Colombo, commanded a fleet intrusted to him by 
 the king, and with which he carried on a predatory warfare 
 against the Venetians and Neapolitans. His nephew joined his 
 ship, and thus became acquainted with the whole extent of the 
 Mediterranean, which was at that period ploughed by the pirates 
 of the Archipelago and the corsairs of the Barbary States. As 
 the vessel went armed to the teeth, the young sailor not only 
 learned the art of navigation, but acquired those habits of disci- 
 pline and subordination, of self-command and presence of mind, 
 which afterwards served him in so good stead. This manner of 
 life lasted for many years, till Columbus, at the age of thirty, 
 was wrecked off" the coast of Portugal, and reached, with some 
 difficulty, the city of Lisbon. Here he found his brother Bar- 
 tholomew settled, and occupying himself in drawing plans, charts, 
 and maps for the use of navigators. Christopher joined him, and 
 gained a suflicicnt livelihood by copying manuscripts and black- 
 letter books, and aiding his brother in his avocations. He soon 
 married an Italian lady named Felippa di Percstrello, whose 
 
 * A late French biography of Columbus, a work of profound research and 
 erudition, by M. Roselly de Lorgues, proves beyond a cavil the accuracy of this 
 assertion. The work in question was published under the auspices of the Pope. 
 
COLUMBUS REJECTED. 139 
 
 father, now dead, had been Governor of the island of Porto 
 Santo, one of the Madeiras. This union between the humble 
 son of a wool-comber and the daughter of an Italian gentle- 
 man is deemed, by several of the biographers of Columbus, a 
 strong proof of the nobility of his ancestry. After his marriage, 
 he left for Porto Santo, — the sterile dowry of his wife, — where 
 his first son, Diego, was born. 
 
 We have already seen that the period was one of the greatest 
 excitement and expectancy in regard to maritime discovery. 
 Columbus had long reflected upon the existence of land in the 
 west, upon the sphericity of the earth, and upon the possibility of 
 crossing the Atlantic. He had already conceived the idea of 
 reaching Asia by following the setting sun across the immensity 
 of the waters. His mind, too, was kindled to religious enthu- 
 siasm by the allusions in the Bible to the universal diffusion of 
 the gospel, and, in his dreams of nautical discovery, the belief 
 that he was destined to be an apostle, sent to extend the domi- 
 nion of the cross, predominated over more worldly aspirations. 
 For years, while struggling with disappointment and harassed 
 by poverty, he pursued this idea with the pertinacity of a mono- 
 maniac. When forty years old, and residing at Lisbon, he pro- 
 posed to the Senate of Genoa to leave the Mediterranean by 
 the Straits of Gibraltar and to proceed to the west, in the sea 
 known as the Ocean, as far as the "lands where spices bloom," 
 and thus circumnavigate the earth. The Genoese, whose mari- 
 time knowledge was confined to the Mediterranean, and who had 
 no fancy for adventures upon the ocean, declined listening to the 
 proposition, pretexting the penury of the treasury. It would 
 also seem that overtures made by Columbus to the Council of 
 Venice were similarly rejected. For a time, therefore, he 
 abandoned all eff"orts to further his desires. In 1477, he made 
 a voyage to Iceland, in order to discover whether it was in- 
 habited, and even sailed one hundred leagues beyond it, — where, 
 to his astonishment, he found the sea not frozen. 
 
14:0 ocean's story. 
 
 Upon the accession of John II. to the throne of Portugal, — a 
 sovereign whom we have already shown to be deeply interested 
 in the progress of the art of navigation, — Columbus made known 
 to him his opinions and his plans, assigning the extension of the 
 gospel as the avowed and final object of the expedition. The 
 subject was referred to a maritime junto and to a high council, 
 by both of whom it was rejected as visionary and absurd. The 
 king was induced, however, by one of his councillors, to equip 
 a caravel and send it on a voyage of discovery upon the route 
 traced out by Columbus, and thus obtain for himself the glory of 
 the expedition, if successful. Columbus was invited to hand in 
 to the Government his maps and charts, together with his written 
 views upon the whole subject. This he did, supposing, in his 
 simplicity, that another examination was to be made of the 
 practicability of the venture. The king despatched a caravel, 
 under the command of one of the ablest pilots of his marine, to 
 follow the track indicated. The vessel left, but soon returned, 
 her crew having been appalled at sight of the boundless horizon, 
 and her captain having lost his courage in a storm. Columbus, 
 indignant at this duplicity, secretly left Lisbon and returned 
 home to Genoa. At this period he had the misfortune to lose 
 his wife Felippa, who had shared his confidence in the existence 
 of unknown lands, and whose encouragement had sustained him 
 in his disappointments. This was in the year 1484. He re- 
 newed his proposal to the Senate of Genoa, which was again 
 rejected. lie now cast his eyes upon the other European powers, 
 among whom the two sovereigns of Spain, Ferdinand of Ara- 
 gon and Isabella of Castile, seemed to deserve the preference. 
 
 Not far from Palos, upon the Spanish coast, and in sight of 
 the ocean, stood, upon a promontory half hidden by pine-trees, 
 a monastery — known as La Rabida — dedicated to the Virgin, and 
 inhabited by Franciscan friars. The Superior, Juan Perez de 
 Marchena, offered an example of fervent piety and of theological 
 erudition, at the same time that he was a skilful mathematician 
 
COLUMBUS RECOMMENDED. 141 
 
 and an ardent practitioner of the exact sciences. lie was at 
 once an astronomer, a devotee, and a poet. During the hours 
 of slumber, he often ascended to the summit of the abbey, and, 
 looking out upon the ocean, — known as the Sea of Darkness, — 
 would ask himself if bejond this expanse of waters there was 
 no land yet unclaimed by Christianity. He rejected as fabulous 
 the current idea that a vessel might sail three years to the west 
 without reaching a hospitable shore. The ocean, formidable to 
 others and intelligible to few, was to him the abode of secrets 
 which man was invited to unfold. 
 
 One day a traveller rang at the gate and asked for refresh- 
 ment for himself and his son. Being interrogated as to the ob- 
 ject of his journey, he replied that he was on his way to the 
 court of Spain to communicate an important matter to the king 
 and queen. The traveller was Christopher Columbus. How he 
 came to pass by this obscure monastery — which lay altogether off 
 his route — has never been explained. A providential guidance 
 had brought him into the presence of the man the best calculated 
 to comprehend his purpose, in a country where he was totally 
 without friends and with whose language he was completely un- 
 acquainted. A common sympathy drew them together; and 
 Columbus, accepting for a period the hospitality of Marchena, 
 made him the confidant of his views. Thus, while the colleges 
 and universities of Christendom still held the childish theory that 
 the earth was flat, and that the sea was the path to utter and 
 outer darkness, Columbus and Marchena, filled with a sponta- 
 neous and implicit faith, intuitively believed in the sphericity of 
 the globe and the existence of a nameless continent beyond the 
 ocean. In theory they had solved the great question whether 
 the ship which should depart by the west would come back by 
 the east. 
 
 Marchena gave Columbus a letter of recommendation to the 
 queen's confessor, and, during his absence, promised to educate 
 and maintain his son Diego. Thus tranquillized in his affections, 
 
142 ocean's story. 
 
 and aided in his schemes, Columbus departed for Cordova. Here 
 he was destined to undergo another disappointment; for the 
 queen's confessor, his expected patron, treated him as a dream- 
 ing speculator and needy adventurer. He soon became again 
 isolated and forgotten. In the midst of his indigence, however, 
 a noble lady, Beatrix Enriquez, young and beautiful, though 
 not rich, noticed his manners and his language, so evidently above 
 his condition, and detained him at Cordova long after his hopes 
 were extinguished. He married her: she bore him a son, Fer- 
 nando, who afterwards became his father's biographer and his- 
 torian. 
 
 Columbus now wrote to the king a brief and concise letter, 
 setting forth his desires. It was never answered. After a mul- 
 titude of similar deceptions and disappointments, Geraldini, the 
 ambassador of the Pope, presented him to Mendoza, the Grand 
 Cardinal, through whose influence Columbus obtained an audience 
 of Ferdinand, who appointed a junto of wise men to examine 
 and report upon his scheme. This junto, made up of theologians 
 and not of navigators and geographers, and which sat at Sala- 
 manca, opposed Columbus on biblical grounds, declared the 
 theory a dangerous if not heretical innovation, and finally re- 
 ported unfavorably. This decision was quite in harmony with 
 public opinion in Salamanca, where Columbus was spoken of as 
 "a foreigner who asserted that the world was round like an 
 orange, and that there were places where the people walked on 
 their heads." Seven years were thus wasted in solicitation, sus- 
 pense, and disappointment. From time to time Columbus had 
 reason to hope that his proposals would be reconsidered ; but in 
 
 1490 the siege of Baza, the last stronghold of the Moors, and in 
 
 1491 the marriage of Isabella, the daughter of Ferdinand and 
 Isabella, with Don Alonzo of Portugal, absorbed the attention 
 of their majesties to the exclusion of all scientific pre- occupations. 
 Finally, when the matter was reopened, and the junto was re- 
 assembled, its president, Fernando de Talavera, was instructed 
 
ISABELLA INTERESTED. 143 
 
 to say that the exhaustion of the treasury necessitated tlie post- 
 ponement of the whole subject until the close of the war with 
 Grenada. At last, Columbus, reflecting upon the delays, re- 
 fusals, afifronts, and suspicions of which he had been the object, 
 the time he had wasted, and the antechambers in which he had 
 waited the condescension of the great, resolved to shake the dust 
 of Spain from his feet, and returned to the abbey of his friend 
 Marchena. He arrived there bearing upon his person the im- 
 press of poverty, fatigue, and exhausted patience. Marchena 
 was profoundly annoyed by the reflection that the glory of the 
 future discoveries of Columbus would be thus taken from Spain 
 and conferred upon some rival power. Fearing, however, that 
 he had too readily lent his ear to theories which had been twice 
 rejected as puerile by a competent junto, he sent for an eminent 
 mathematician of Palos, Garcia Hernandez, a physician by pro- 
 fession. They then conferred together upon the subject and pro- 
 nounced the execution of the project feasible. The assertion that 
 the famous sailor Martin Alonzo Pinzon was a party to the confer- 
 ence would appear to be an error. Pinzon was at this period at 
 Rome, and did not see Columbus for a year or more afterwards. 
 Marchena at once wrote an eloquent letter to Queen Isabella, 
 and intrusted it to a pilot whose relations with the court rendered 
 him a safe and reliable messenger. He gave the missive into 
 the hands of the queen, and returned to the monastery the 
 bearer of an invitation to Marchena to repair at once to Santa 
 Fe, where the court then was, engaged in investing Grenada. 
 Columbus borrowed a mule for the friar, who left secretly at 
 midnight and arrived safely at Santa Fe. That Isabella should, 
 at such a moment, when engaged in war and harassed by finan- 
 cial embarrassments, listen to a proposition which had been twice 
 condemned by a learned body of men, is a circumstance which 
 entitles her in the highest degree to a share in the glory which 
 her protdg^ Columbus was, through her, destined to obtain. 
 She received Marchena graciously, and instructed him to summon 
 
144 ocean's story. 
 
 Columbus, to -whom she sent twenty thousand maravedis — 
 seventy dollars, nearly — with which to purchase a horse and 
 a proper dress in which to appear before her. 
 
 Columbus arrived at Santa Fe just before the surrender of 
 Grenada and the termination of the struggle between the Cres- 
 cent and the Cross. He was present at the delivery of the keys 
 of the city and the abandonment of the Alhambra to Isabella 
 by the Moorish king, Boabdil el Chico. After the official re- 
 joicings, the queen gave audience to Columbus. As she already 
 believed in the practicability of the scheme, the only subjects to 
 be discussed were the means of execution, and the recompense to 
 be awarded to Columbus in case of success. A committee was 
 appointed to consider this latter point. Columbus fixed his con- 
 ditions as follows: 
 
 He should receive the title of Grand Admiral of the Ocean : 
 
 He should be Viceroy and Governor-General of all islands and 
 mainlands he might discover : 
 
 He should levy a tax for his own benefit upon all productions 
 — whether spices, fruits, perfumes, gold, silver, pearls, or dia- 
 monds — discovered in, or exported from, the lands under his 
 authority : 
 
 And his titles should be transmissible in his family, forever, 
 by the laws of primogeniture. 
 
 These conditions, being such as would place the threadbare 
 solicitor above the noblest house in Spain, were treated with de- 
 rision by the committee, and Columbus was regarded as an in- 
 solent braggart. He would not abate one tittle of his claims, 
 though, after eighteen years of fruitless effort, he now saw all his 
 hopes ;it the point of being again' dashed to earth. He mounted 
 his mule, and departed for Cordova before quitting Spain for- 
 ever. 
 
 Two friends of the. queen now represented the departure of 
 Columbus as an immense and irreparable loss, and, by their sup- 
 plications and protestations, induced her once more to consider 
 
FERDINAND OBJECTS. 14^ 
 
 the vast importance of the plans he proposed. Moved by their 
 persuasions, she declared that she accepted the enterprise, not 
 jointly, as the wife of the King of Spain, but independently, as 
 Queen of Castile. As the treasury was depleted by the drains 
 of war, she offered to defray the expenses with her own jewels. 
 A messenger was despatched for Columbus, who was overtaken 
 a few miles from Grenada. He at first hesitated to return ; but, 
 after reflecting upon the heroic determination of Isabella, who 
 thus took the initiative in a perilous undertaking, against the re- 
 port of the junto, the advice of her councillors, and in spite of 
 the indifference of the king, he obeyed with alacrity, and re- 
 turned to Santa Fe. 
 
 He was received with distinction by the court and with affec- 
 tionate consideration by the queen. Ferdinand remained a 
 stranger to the expedition. He applied his signature to the 
 stipulations, but caused it to be distinctly set down that the 
 whole affair was undertaken by the Queen of Castile, at her own 
 risk and peril, — thus excluding himself forever from lot or parcel 
 
 in this transcendent enterprise. 
 10 
 
 ▼lOLBT A6TEBIA. 
 
HEAD OF MERG0N8KR. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 THE PORT OF PALOS — THE SUPERSTITION OF ITS MARINERS THE HAND OF 
 
 SATAN A BIRD WHICH LIFTED VESSELS TO THE CLOUDS THE PIXTA ANU 
 
 THE NINA THE SANTA MARIA CAPACITV OF A SPANISH CAEAVEL THK 
 
 THREE PINZONS THE DEPARTURE — COLUMBUS' JOURNAL THE HELM OF 
 
 THE PINTA UNSHIPPED — THE VARIATION OF THE NEEDLE THE APPEARANCM 
 
 OF THE TROPICAL ATLANTIC — FLOATING VEGETATION — THE SARGASSO SEA — 
 ALARM, AND THREATENED MUTINY, OF THE SAILORS PERPLEXITIES OF CO- 
 LUMBUS land! land! A FALSE ALARM — INDICATIONS OF THE VICINITY OF 
 
 LAND MURMURS OF THE CREWS OPEN REVOLT QUELLED BY COLUMBU» — 
 
 FLOATING REEDS AND TUFTS OF GRASS — LAND AT LAST — THE VESSELS 
 ANCHOR OVER-NIGHT. 
 
 Columbus received his letters-patent, granting him all the 
 privileges and titles he had demanded, on the 30th of April, 
 1492. His son Diego was made page to the prince-royal, — 
 a favor only accorded to children of noble families- The 
 harbor of Palos was chosen as the port of departure ; and its 
 inhabitants, whose annual taxes consisted in furnishing two 
 caravels, armed and manned, to the Government, were in- 
 structed to place them, within ten days, at the orders of 
 Columbus. Persons awaiting trial or condemnation were to 
 have the privilege of escaping verdict and punishment by 
 embarking upon this terrible and perhaps fatal voyage. 
 
 The mariners of Palos received these tidings with dismay. 
 Nothing was certainly in those days more calculated to strike 
 with terror the cautious coaster than a voyage upon the bound- 
 less, endless Mare Tenebrosum, which, in the imagination not 
 
 only of the ignorant, but even of the educated, was the home 
 
 147 
 
148 ocean's story. 
 
 of chaos, if not the seat of Erebus. Upon the maps of the 
 world designed at this period, the words Mare Tencbrosum were 
 gurroundcd with figures of imps and devils, compared to which 
 the Cyclops, griffins, and centaurs of mythology were modest 
 and benign creations. The Arabians, who were forbidden by 
 the Koran to depict the forms of animals, gave, as they thought, 
 a fitting character to the sea, by representing the hand of Satan 
 upon their charts, ready to clutch and drag beneath the waves 
 all who should be so rash as to brave the displeasure of Bahr-al- 
 Talmet. Besides Satan, besides the Leviathan and Behemoth, and 
 other similar submarine terrors, the adventurer upon the open 
 eea would find adversaries in the air; and, if he escaped the blast 
 and the thunderbolt, it would be to fall a victim to the roc, that 
 gigantic bird which lifted ships into the air and crunched them 
 in the clouds. This roc, from terrifying the companions of 
 Columbus, has descended to amuse children in the nautical 
 romance of Sinbad the Sailor. 
 
 Time passed, and the authorities of Palos had yet furnished 
 nothing towards the voyage. Owners of vessels hid them in 
 distant creeks, and the port became gradually a desert. The 
 court ordered stringent measures, and at last a caravel named 
 the Pinta was seized and laid up for repairs. All the carpenters 
 turned sick, and neither rope, wood, nor tar were to be found. In 
 vain did Marchena, the zealous Franciscan of Palos, who was 
 beloved by all its inhabitants, undertake a crusade among the 
 seafaring population in favor of the project: the whole Anda- 
 lusian coast considered it chimerical and a temptation of Pro- 
 vidence. 
 
 Martin Alonzo Pinzon, one of three brothers, all seamen, and 
 who had at this period lately returned from Rome, wliere the 
 Pope's librarian had shown him a njap bearing the representa- 
 •"tion of land in the Atlantic to the west, was introduced by Mar- 
 chena to Columbus. The report soon became current that the 
 brothers, whose credit and influence at Palos were very great, 
 
THE EXPEDITION READY. 149 
 
 intended to risk the adventure on board of the caravel Nina, 
 belonging to the younger of the three. The mariners took 
 courage, and the city of Palos contributed its second caravel, 
 the Gallega, making three in all. This Gallega, though old 
 and heavy and unfit for the service, was stout and solid, and 
 Columbus chose her for his flag-ship, rebaptizing her, however, 
 the Santa Maria. Towards the end of July, the vessels were 
 nearly ready for sea, and Columbus retired for a period to the 
 monastery, where he passed his days in prayer and his nights 
 in contemplation. On one occasion he left the convent and 
 appeared among the workmen: he surprised the sailors, con- 
 demned by the city to accompany him to the west, engaged in 
 putting the rudder of the Pinta together in such a manner that 
 the first storm would unship it. Marchena redoubled his exhor- 
 tations, and at last the expedition was ready. . 
 
 Popular belief has, in modern times, represented these vessel* 
 as much smaller than they probably really were. The term 
 caravely of doubtful etymology, affords no indication of their 
 tonnage or capacity. Caravels were used, however, to trans- 
 port troops, provisions, and artillery, and even to fight upon 
 the high seas. They were sent by Portugal to the coast of 
 Africa. John II. had, as we have narrated, sent a vessel to 
 the west in order to anticipate Columbus; and this vessel was 
 a caravel. The smallest of the three — the Nina — subsequently, 
 when at sea, took on board fifty-six men, in addition to her own 
 crew, a number of cannon, and a portion of the rigging of the 
 Santa Maria, without lowering her water-line; and Columbus 
 once threatened a Portuguese officer to take one hundred of his 
 men on board the Nina and carry them to Castile. Neither she, 
 nor the other two caravels, were the " light barks" or " shal- 
 lops'* which historians have delighted to represent them. The 
 importance of the subject requires that we describe the three 
 vessels with all the minuteness which the late researches of 
 which we have spoken will authorize. 
 
150 OCEAN^S STORY. 
 
 The Santa Maria measured about ninety feet at the keel. 
 She had four masts, two of them square-rigged, and two fur- 
 nished with the lateen-sails of the Mediterranean. She had 
 a deck extending from stem to stern, and a double deck at the 
 poop, twentj-six feet long, — one-third, nearly, of her entire 
 length. The double deck was pierced for cannon, the forward- 
 deck being armed with smaller pieces, used for throwing stones 
 and grape. From the journal of Columbus wc know that he 
 employed, in the manoeuvres, quite a complicated system of 
 ropes and pulleys. Eight anchors hung over her sides. She 
 represented in her general characteristics a modern vessel of 
 twenty guns. She was manned by sixty-six men, not one of 
 whom was from Palos, — one of them being an Englishman, and 
 one an Irishman, — and was commanded by Columbus. 
 
 The Pinta and the Nina were decked only forward and aft, 
 the space in the middle being entirely uncovered. Their 
 armament was equal to that of sloops of sixteen and ten guns 
 respectively. Alonzo Pinzon commanded the Pinta, whose total 
 crew, including the officers, numbered thirty men. The youngest 
 of the three Pinzons, Vincent Yanez, commanded the Nina, 
 with twenty-three men. The provisions of the fleet consisted 
 of smoked beef, salt pork, rice, dried peas and other vegetables, 
 herrings, wine, oil, vinegar, &c., sufficient for a year. 
 
 As the day approached and the danger grew more imminent, 
 the apprehension increased, and the sailors expressed a desire to 
 reconcile themselves with Heaven and obtain absolution for their 
 «ins. They went in procession to the monastery of La Rabida, 
 with Columbus at their head, and received the Eucharist from 
 the hands of the Franciscan Marchena. Columbus, while wait- 
 ing for the land-breeze, retired for a last time to the convent, to 
 meditate upon the duties before him and to peruse his favorite 
 book, the Gospel of St. John. At three o'clock in the morning 
 of the 3d of August he was awakened by the murmuring of the 
 Jong wished for wind in the tops of the pine-trees which bordered 
 
THE EXPEDITION STARTS. 151 
 
 his cell. The coming day was Friday, a day inauspicious to 
 sailors, but to him a day of good omen. He arose, summone(i 
 Marchena, from whom he received the communion, and then 
 descended, on foot, the steep declivity which leads to Palos. 
 
 The Santa Maria at once sent her boat to receive the admiral, 
 and at the sound of the preparations and the orders of the pilots, 
 the inhabitants awoke and opened wide their windows. Mothers, 
 wives and sisters, fathers and brothers, ran in confusion to the 
 shore, to bid a last farewell to those whom they might perhaps 
 never see again. The royal standard, representing the Cruci- 
 fixion, was hoisted at the main; and Columbus, standing upon 
 the quarter-deck, gave the order to spread the sails in the name 
 of Jesus Christ. Thus commenced the most memorable venture 
 upon the ocean that man had then made or has made since, — 
 the record of whose shortest day is more stored with incident 
 than was the whole voyage of Jason, from the Whirling Rocks 
 to the Golden Fleece. 
 
 Columbus commenced his journal at once, and it is from the 
 passages of this narrative which are still extant, that we shall 
 derive an account of the voyage. He begins by declaring the 
 object of the expedition to be to extend the blessings of the 
 gospel to nations supposed to be without it. He adds, that he 
 shall write at night the events of the day, and each morning the 
 occurrences of the night. He will mark the lands he shall dis- 
 discover upon the chart, and will banish sleep from his eyelids 
 in order to watch the progress of his vessel. 
 
 All went well till Monday, when the helm of the Pinta fell to 
 pieces, — this accident having been a second time prepared by 
 her refractory owners. The fleet made the best of their way to 
 the Canaries, where the Pinta was repaired. They sailed again 
 on the 6th of September, narrowly escaping attack from three 
 Portuguese caravels that Kmg John had sent against Columbus, 
 indignant that he should have transferred to another power the 
 proposal he had once made to himself. 
 
152 ocean's story. 
 
 Thus far the route had lain over the beaten track between the 
 continent and the Canaries, along the coast of Africa. As they 
 now launched into the open sea, and as the Peak of Teneriff« 
 sank under the horizon behind them, the heart of Columbus beat 
 high with joy, while the courage of his officers and men died 
 away within them. The Admiral kept two logs, one for himself 
 and one for the crew, the latter scoring a distance less than that 
 which they had really made, and thus keeping them in ignorance 
 of their actual distance from home. His course was to the 
 southwest. The sky, the stars, the horizon, the water, changed 
 visibly as they advanced. Familiar constellations disappeared, 
 others took their place. On the 13th of September, Columbus 
 observed a strange and fearful phenomenon. The needle, which 
 till then had been infallible, swerved from the Polar star, and 
 tremblingly diverged to the northwest. The next day this 
 variation was still more marked. Columbus took every pre- 
 caution to conceal a discovery so discouraging from the fleet, 
 and one which alarmed even him. The water now became more 
 limpid, the climate more bland, and the sky more transparent. 
 There was a delicate haze in the air, and a fragrance peculiar to 
 the sea in the fresh breeze. Aquatic plants, apparently newly 
 detached from the rocks or the bed of the ocean, floated upon the 
 waves. For the first time in the history of the world, the tranquil 
 beauties and the solemn splendors of the tropical Atlantic were 
 passing before the gaze of human beings. According to the journal 
 of Columbus, "nothing was wanting in the scene except the song 
 of the nightingale to remind him of Andalusia in April." 
 
 The proximity of land seemed often to be indicated by the 
 odor with which the winds were laden, by the abundance of 
 marine plants, and the presence of birds. Columbus would not 
 alter his course, as he did not wish to abate the confidence of 
 bis men in his own belief that land was to be found by steering 
 west. The floating vegetation now became so abundant that it 
 retarded the passage of the vessels. The sailors became seriously 
 
THE SARGOSSO SEA. 163 
 
 riiarmed. Thej thought themselves arrived at the limit of the 
 world, where an element, too unstable to tread upon, too dense to 
 sail through, admonished the rash stranger to take warning and 
 return. They feared that the caravels would be involved be- 
 yond extrication, and that the monsters lying in wait beneath 
 the floating herbage would make an easy meal of their defence- 
 less crews. The trade-winds, then unknown, were another cause 
 of anxiety; for, if they always blew to the westward, as they 
 appeared to do, how could the ships ever return eastward to 
 Europe? In the midst of the apprehensions excited by these 
 causes, which nearly drove the terrified men to mutiny, a con- 
 trary wind sprang up, and the revolt was thus providentially 
 quelled. Columbus wrote in his journal, **this opposing wind 
 came very opportunely, for my crew was in great agitation, 
 imagining that no wind ever blew in these regions by which they 
 could return to Spain." 
 
 But the terrors of the ignorant men soon broke out afresh. Sea- 
 weed and tropical marine plants reappeared in heavy masses, 
 and seemed to shut in the ships among their stagnant growth. 
 The breeze no longer formed billows upon the surface of the 
 waters. The sailors declared that they were in those dismal 
 quarters of the world where the winds lose their impulse and 
 the waters their equilibrium, and that soon fierce aquatic mon- 
 sters would seize hold of the keels of the ships and keep them 
 prisoners amid the weeds. In the midst of the perplexities to 
 which Columbus was thus exposed, the sea became suddenly 
 agitated, though the wind did not increase. This revival of 
 motion in the element they thought relapsed into sullen inactivity, 
 again cheered the crew into a temporary tranquillity.* 
 
 * This tract, so thickly matted with Gulf-weed, and covering an area equal 
 in extent to the Mississippi Valley, has 8inc» been called by the Portuguese 
 the Sargasso Sea. It still exists in the same spot, and if we now hear very 
 little of it, it is because navigators have learned to avoid it. Lieut. Maury ac- 
 
154: ocean's story. 
 
 At sunset on the 25th, Alonzo Pinzon, rushing excitedly upoa 
 the quarter-deck of the Pinta, shouted, " Land ! land ! My lord, 
 I was the first to see it I" The sailors of the Nina clambered 
 joyfully into the tops, and Columbus fell upon his knees in 
 thanksgiving. But the morn dissipated the illusion, and the 
 ocean stretched forth its illimitable expanse as before. On the 
 1st of October, one of the lieutenants declared with anguish that 
 they were seventeen hundred miles from the Canaries, intelli- 
 gence which terribly alarmed the crew, though they had really 
 made a much greater distance, being actually twenty-one hun- 
 dred miles from Teneriffe, according to Columbus' private reck- 
 
 onmg. 
 
 The indications of the vicinity of land had been so often de- 
 ceitful, that the crew no longer put faith in them, and fell from 
 discouragement into taciturnity, and from taciturnity into insub- 
 ordination. The discontent was general, and no efforts were 
 made to conceal it. In their mutinous conversations, they spoke 
 contemptuously of Columbus as *'the Genoese," as a charlatan 
 and a rogue. Was it just, they said, that one hundred and 
 twenty men should perish by the caprice and obstinacy of one 
 single man, and that man a foreigner and an impostor? If he 
 persisted in proceeding " towards his everlasting west, which went 
 on and on, and never came to an end," he ought to be thrown 
 into the sea and left there. On their return they could easily 
 say that he had fallen into the waves while gazing at the stars. 
 A revolt was agreed upon between the crews of the three ships, 
 
 counts for its existence in the following manner : — " Patches of this weed are 
 always to be seen floating along the Gulf Stream. Now, if bits of cork, or 
 chaflF, or any floating substance, be put in a basin, and a circular motion be 
 given to the water, all the light substances will be found crowding together near 
 the centre of the pool, where there is the least motion. Just such a basin is 
 the Atlantic Ocean to the Gulf Stream, and the Sargasso Sea is the centre of 
 the whirl. Columbus found this weedy sea in his voyage of discovery, and 
 there it has remained to this day." 
 
SIGNS OF LAND. 151 
 
 who were on several occasions brought into communication by 
 the sending of boats from the one to the other. The captaina 
 of the Pinta and the Nina were aware of what was transpiring, 
 but for the time being maintained a cautious neutrality. The 
 sea continued calm as the Guadalquivir at Seville, the air was 
 laden with tropical fragrance, and in twenty-four hours the fleet, 
 apparently at rest, glided imperceptibly over one hundred and 
 eighty miles. This motionless rapidity, as it were, thoroughly 
 terrified the crew, and, breaking out into open mutiny, they re- 
 fused, on the 10th of October, to go any farther westward. The 
 Nina and the Pinta rejoined the Santa Maria; the brothers 
 Pinzon, followed by their men, leaped upon her deck, and com- 
 manded Columbus to put his ship about and return to Palos. 
 
 At this most vital point of the narrative, our authorities are 
 contradictory, while the journal of Columbus himself is silent. 
 According to Oviedo, — a writer who obtained his information from 
 an enemy of Columbus, — the latter yielded to his men so far as to 
 propose a compromise, and to consent to return unless land was 
 discovered in three days' sail. To say the least, such a submis- 
 sion to the menaces and behests of his infuriated subalterns was 
 not an act compatible with the character of Columbus, with his 
 well known self-reliance, and his openly expressed and constantly 
 reiterated confidence in the Divine protection. The Catholic 
 biography, which we have quoted, attributes the pacification of 
 the revolt directly to the Divine interference, asserting that no 
 human philosophy can explain this sudden and complete suspen- 
 sion of the prevailing exasperation and animosity. It is certain, 
 at any rate, that the demonstration, which began at night-fall, 
 had ceased long before the morning's dawn. 
 
 And now pigeons flew in abundance about the ships, and 
 green canes and reeds floated languidly by. A bush, its 
 branches red with berries, was recovered from the water by 
 the Nina. A tuft of grass and a piece of wood, which appeared 
 to have been cut by some iron instrument, were picked up by 
 
156 ocean's story. 
 
 the Pinta. Such indications were sufficient to sustain the most 
 dejected. Still the sun sank to rest in a horizon whose pure 
 line was unbroken by land and unsullied by terrestrial vapor. 
 The caravels were called together, and, after the usual prayer 
 to the Virgin, Columbus announced to them that their trials 
 were at an end, and that the morrow's light would bring with it 
 the realization of all their hopes. The pilots were instructed 
 to take in sail after midnight, and a velvet pourpoint was pro- 
 mised to him who should first see land. The crews which, two 
 days before, considered Columbus as a trickster and a cheat, 
 now received his word as they would a gospel from on high. 
 The expectation and impatience which pervaded the three shipa 
 were indescribable. No eye was closed that night. The Pinta, 
 being the most rapid sailer, was a long way in advance of the 
 others. The Nina and the Santa Maria followed slowly, for 
 sail had now been shortened, in her track. Suddenly a flash 
 and a heavy report from the Pinta announced the joyful tidings. 
 A Spaniard of Palos, named Juan Rodriguez Bermejo, had seen 
 the land and won the velvet pourpoint. Columbus fell upon his 
 knees, and, raising his hands to heaven, sang the Te Deum Lau- 
 damus. The sails were then furled and the fleet lay to. Arms 
 and holiday dresses were prepared, for they knew not what the 
 day would bring forth, whether the land would ofi*er hospitality 
 or challenge to combat. The great mystery of the ocean was to 
 be revealed on the morrow: in the meantime, the night and the 
 darkness had in their keeping the mighty secret — whether the 
 land was a savage desert or a spicy and blooming garden. 
 
H 
 
 ts 
 
 H 
 
 > 
 
 a 
 o 
 
 s 
 
 M 
 > 
 
 to 
 
 o 
 
 « 
 o 
 
COLUMBUS TAKING POSSESSION OF GUANAHANI. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 DISCOVERY OF GUANAUANI CEREMONIES OF TAKING POSSESSION — EXPLORA- 
 TION OF THE NEIGHBORING ISLANDS — SEARCH FOR GOLD — CUBA SUPPOSED BY 
 COLUMBUS TO BE JAPAN — THE CANNIBALS — HAITI — RETURN HOMEWARDS — A 
 STORM — AN APPEAL TO THE VIRGIN — ARRIVAL AT THE AZORES — CONDUCT OF 
 THE PORTUGUESE — COLUMBUS AT LISBON — AT PALOS — AT BARCELONA — CO- 
 LUMBUS' SECOND VOYAGE — DISCOVERY OF GUADELOUPE, ANTIOOA, 8AMTA 
 
 CRUZ, JAMAICA ILLNESS OF COLUMBUS TERRIBLE BATTLE BETWEEN THE 
 
 SPANIARDS AND THE SAVAGES — COLUMBUS RETURNS TO SPAIN — HIS RECEP- 
 TION BY THE QUEEN — HIS THIRD VOYAGE — THE REGION OF CALMS — DIS- 
 COVERY OF TRINIDAD AND OF THE MAIN LAND ASSUMPTION AND MARGA- 
 
 BITA COLUMBUS IN CHAINS. 
 
 On Friday, the 12th of October, 1492, the kindling dawn 
 revealed to the wondering eyes of our adventurers the bright 
 colors and early-morning beauties of an island clothed in ver- 
 dure, and teeming with the fruits and vegetation of mid-autumn 
 in the tropics. Its surface undulated gently, massive forests 
 skirted the spots cleared for cultivation, and the sparkling water 
 of a fresh lake glittered amid the luxuriant foliage which encir- 
 cled it. An anchorage was easily found, and Columbus, dressed 
 in official costume, and bearing the royal standard in his hand, 
 landed upon the silent and deserted shore. He planted the 
 
 standard, and, prostrating himself before it, kissed the earth he 
 168 
 
COLUMBUS AS AUMIRAL OF THE OCEAN. 159 
 
 had discovered; he then uttered the since famous prayer, the 
 opening lines of which were, hv order of the Spanish sovereigns, 
 repeated by subsequent discoverers upon all similar occasions. 
 He drew his sword, and, naming the land San Salvador, in memory 
 of the Saviour, took possession of it for the Crown of Castile. 
 The crews recognised Columbus as Admiral of the Ocean and 
 Viceroy of the Indies. The most mutinous and outrageous 
 thronged closely about him, and crouched at the feet of one 
 who, in their eyes, had already wealth and honors in his gift. 
 
 The island at which Columbus had landed was called by the 
 natives Guanahani, and is now one of the archipelago of the 
 Bahamas. The inhabitants had retreated to the woods at the 
 arrival of the strangers ; but, being gradually reassured, suffered 
 their confidence to be won, and received from them fragments 
 of glass and earthen-ware as presents possessing a supernatural 
 virtue. Columbus took seven of them on board, being anxious 
 to convey them to Spain and offer them to the king, promising 
 however to return them. Then he weighed anchor and explored 
 the wonderful region in which these lovely islands lie. New 
 lands were constantly, as it were, rising from the waves ; the eye 
 could hardly number them, but the seven natives called over a 
 hundred of them by name. He landed successively at Concep- 
 9ion, la Fernandine, and Isabella ; at all of which he was en- 
 chanted by the magnificence of the vegetation, the superb 
 plumage of the birds, and the delicious fragrance with which the 
 forests and the air were filled. He sought everywhere for 
 traces of gold in the soil, for he hoped thus to interest Spain in 
 a continuance of his explorations. Such was his desire to ob- 
 tain a sight of the precious metal, that he passed rapidly from 
 island to island, indifferent to every other subject. At last, the 
 natives spoke of a large and marvellous land, called Cuba, where 
 there were spices, gold, ships, and merchants. Supposing this 
 to be the wonderful Cipango, described by Marco Polo, he set 
 Bail at once. It was now the 24th of October. 
 
160 ocean's story. 
 
 On the 28th, at dawn, Columbus discovered an island, which, 
 in its extent and in its general characteristics, reminded him 
 strongly of Sicily, in the Mediterranean. As he approached, his 
 senses underwent a species of confusion from the miraculous 
 fertility and luxuriance of the vegetation. In his journal, he 
 does not attempt to describe his emotions, but, preserving the 
 silence of stupefaction, says simply that " he never saw any thing 
 80 magnificent." He no longer doubted that this beautiful spot' 
 was the real Cipango. He landed, gave to the island the name 
 of Juana, and commenced a search for gold, which resulted in a 
 complete disappointment. On leaving Cuba, he gave it a name 
 which he thought more appropriate than Juana, styling its 
 eastern extremity Alpha and Omega, being, as he thought, the 
 reo-ion where the East Indies finished and where the West 
 Indies besan. This error of Columbus was the cause of the 
 Korth American savages being called Indians — an error which 
 has been perpetuated in spite of the progress of geographical 
 discovery, and which will doubtless endure forever. 
 
 On the 6th of December, he discovered an island, named 
 Haiti by the natives, and which he called Ilispaniola, as it re- 
 minded him of the fairest tracts of Spain. He found that the 
 inhabitants had the reputation with their neighbors of de- 
 vouring human flesh ; they Avere called Caniba people, an epithet 
 which, after the necessary modifications, has passed into all 
 European languages. The Caribs were the nation meant. At 
 this point, the captain of the Pinta deserted the fleet, in order 
 to make discoveries on his own account. Soon after, the Santa 
 Maria was wrecked upon the coast of Haiti, and Columbus, 
 thinking that this accident was intended as an indication of the 
 Divine will that he should establish a colony there, built a fort of 
 live timber, in which he placed forty-two men. He weighed 
 anchor in the Nina, on the 11th of January, 1493, and shortly 
 after fell in with the Pinta. He pretended to believe and accept 
 the falsehoods and contradictions which Pinzon allefred as the 
 
THE PILGRIMAGE BY LOT. 161 
 
 reasons for his abandonment of the fleet. The two vessels now 
 turned their heads east, Columbus hoping to discover a cannibal 
 island on his way, as he wished to carry a professor of the dis- 
 gusting practice to Spain. 
 
 No event of moment happened until the 12th of February, a 
 month afterwards, when a terrible storm burst over the hitherto 
 tranquil waters. Its violence increased to such a degree that 
 nothing remained but a desperate appeal to *' Mary, the Mother 
 of God." A quantity of dried peas, equal in number to the 
 number of men on board the Nina, were placed in a sailor's 
 woollen cap, one of them being marked with a cross. lie who 
 should draw this pea, was to go on a pilgrimage to the church 
 of Saint Mary at Guadeloupe, bearing a candle weighing five 
 pounds, in case the ship were saved, Columbus was the first to 
 draw, and he drew the marked pea. Other vows of this sort 
 were made, and, finally, one to go in procession, and with bare 
 feet, to the nearest cathedral of whatever land they should first 
 reach. Tlie admiral, fearing that his discovery would perish 
 with him, withdrew to his cabin, during the fiercest period of 
 the tumult, and wrote upon parchment two separate and concijjc 
 narratives of his discoveries. He enclosed them both in wax, 
 and, placing one in an empty barrel, threw it into the sea. The 
 other, similarly enclosed, he attached to the poop of the Nina, 
 intending to cut it loose at the moment of going down. Hap- 
 pily, the storm subsided; and, on the 17th, the shattered vessels 
 arrived at the southernmost island of the Azores, belonging to 
 the King of Portugal. Here half the crew went in procession 
 to the chapel, to discharge their vow; and, while Columbus was 
 waiting to go with the other half, the Portuguese made a sally, 
 surrounded the first portion, and made them prisoners. After a 
 useless protest, Columbus departed with the men that remained, 
 having with him, in the Nina, but three able-bodied seamen. 
 Another storm now threw him upon the coast of Portugal, at 
 the mouth of the Tagus. Here he narrowly escaped shipwreck 
 
JIKCKITION or COLUMBITS BY FliKUlNAND AJ D laAUULl^ 
 
fiv 
 
 0^^ v 
 
 RETURN OF COHTHBUS, 16»S 
 
 a second time, but, with the assistance orHnc wonder-stricken 
 inhabitants, reached in safety the roads of Rostello, The king, 
 though jealous of the maritime renown he was acquiring for 
 Spain, received him with distinction and dismissed him with 
 presents, Columbus arrived, in the Nina, at Palos on Friday, 
 the 15th of March, seven months and twelve days after his de- 
 parture. Alonzo Pinzon had already arrived in the Pinta, and, 
 believing Columbus to have perished in the storm, had written 
 to the court, narrating the discoveries made by the fleet, and 
 claiming for himself the merit and the recompense. 
 
 It is not our province to relate the history of the career of 
 Columbus upon land, nor have we space so to do. We can only 
 briefly allude to his discharge, by pilgrimages to holy shrines, 
 of the vows, which, three times out of four, had, by lot, devolved 
 upon him: to the week he spent with Marchena, and in the 
 silence of the cloister, at la Rabida ; to the princely honors he 
 received in his progress to Barcelona, whither the court had 
 gone ; to his reception by the king and queen, in which Ferdi- 
 nand and Isabella rose as he approached, raised him as he 
 kneeled to kiss their hands, and ordered him to be seated in 
 their presence. 
 
 The Spanish sovereigns soon fitted out a new expedition ; and, 
 on the 25th of September, 1493, Columbus left the port of 
 Cadiz with seventeen vessels, five hundred sailors, soldiers, 
 citizens and servants, and one thousand colonists, three hundred 
 of whom had smuggled themselves on board. He sailed directly 
 for the Garib or Cannibal Islands, and on the 3d of November 
 arrived in their midst. He named one of them Maria-Galanta, 
 from his flag-ship ; another, Guadeloupe, from one of the shrines 
 of Spain where he had discharged a vow. He here found 
 numerous and disgusting evidences of the truth of the story 
 that these people lived on human flesh. The island which he 
 named Montserrat, in honor of the famous sanctuary of that 
 name, had been depopulated by the Caribs. He gave to the 
 
16^ ocean's stoby. 
 
 next land the name of Santa Maria V Antigoa; it is nowlvnown 
 as Antigoa, simply. Another he called Santa Cruz, in honor 
 of the cross. Returning to Hispaniola, he found the fort de- 
 stroyed and the garrison massacred. Having founded the city 
 of Isabella upon another part of the island, he sent back twelve 
 of his ships to Spain, and with three of the remaining five, one 
 of which was the famous Nina, started upon a voyage of dis- 
 covery in the surrounding waters. lie touched at Alpha and 
 Omega, and inquired of the savages where he could find gold. 
 They pointed to the south. Two days afterwards, Columbus 
 descried lofty mountains, with blue summits, upon an island to 
 which he gave the name of Jamaica, in honor of St. James. 
 Then returning to Cuba, and following the southern coast a dis- 
 tance sufficient to convince the three crews that it was a conti- 
 nent and not an island, he took possession of it as such. He 
 then w^ished to revisit the Caribbean Islands and destroy the 
 boats of the inhabitants, that they might no longer prey upon 
 their neighbors, but the direction of the winds would not permit 
 him to sail to the west. Returning to Isabella, he met his 
 brother Bartholomew, who had just arrived from Spain, bearing 
 a letter from the queen. He also found, to his extreme regret, 
 that the officers he had left in charge of the colony had tran- 
 scended their authority and had abandoned their duties. Mar- 
 garit, the commander, and Boil, the vicar, had departed in the 
 ship that had brought Bartholomew. Overcome by the toils and 
 privations he had undergone, and sick at heart at the sight of 
 the disasters under which the colony was laboring, he fell into a 
 deep lethargy, and for a long time it was doubtful whether ho 
 would ever awake again. 
 
 He did awake, however, but only to a poignant consciousness 
 of the miseries the Spanish invasion had brouglit upon the island. 
 The Spaniards and Indians had become, through the treachery 
 of the former, hostile during his absence, and battles, surprises, 
 and murders were of daily occurrence. Seeing the necessity of 
 
COLUMBUS AT BURGOS. 165 
 
 a vigorous effort in order to maintain his authority over the 
 natives, he led his two hundred and twenty men against a furi- 
 ous throng of naked, painted savages, whose numbers were de- 
 clared by the Spaniards to be no less than one hundred thousand. 
 The Indians were defeated with great slaughter, and were 
 subjected to the payment of tribute and to the indignity of 
 taxation. At this period, an officer, named Juan Aguado, sent 
 out by Ferdinand and Isabella upon the malicious representa- 
 tions of Margarit and Father Boil, to inquire into the state of 
 the colony and the conduct of Columbus, arrived in the island, 
 Columbus determined to return himself to Spain, to present in 
 person a justification of his course. A violent storm having de- 
 stroyed all the vessels except the Nina, Columbus took the com- 
 mand of her, Aguado building a caravel for himself from the 
 wrecks of the others. They both left Isabella on the 10th of 
 March, 1496, taking with them the sick and disappointed, to 
 the number of two hundred and twenty-five, and thirty-two In- 
 dians, whom they forced to accompany them. They touched at 
 Guadeloupe for wood and water, and, after repulsing an attack 
 of Caribs, contrived to gain their confidence, and to obtain the 
 articles of which they stood in need. They left again on the 
 20th of April. After a long and painful voyage, in the course 
 of which it was proposed to throw the Indians overboard in 
 order to lessen the consumption of food, they arrived, without 
 material damage, at the port of Cadiz. Columbus wrote to the 
 king and queen, and during the month that elapsed before their 
 answer was received, allowed his beard to grow, and, disgusted 
 with the world, assumed the garments and the badges of a Fran- 
 ciscan friar. He was soon summoned to Burgos, then the resi- 
 dence of the court, where Isabella, forgetting the calumnies of 
 which he had been the object and the accusations his enemies 
 had heaped upon him, loaded him with favors and kindness. 
 
 Numerous circumstances prevented Columbus from requesting 
 the immediate equipment of another expedition. It was not 
 
166 ocean's story. 
 
 till the 30th of May, 1498, that he sailed again for his dis- 
 coveries in the West. lie left San Lucar with six caravels, three 
 laden with supplies and reinforcements for the colony at Isabella, 
 and three intended to accompany himself upon a search for the 
 mainland, which he believed to exist west of Hispaniola, Cuba, 
 and Jamaica. On the 15th of July, in the latitude of Sierra 
 Leone, they came into the region of calms, where the water 
 seemed like molten silver beneath a tropical sun. Not a breath 
 of air stirred, not a cloud intercepted the fiery rays which fell 
 vertically upon them from the skies. The provisions decayed in 
 the hold, the pitch and tar boiled upon the ropes. The barrels 
 of wine and water opened in wide seams, and scattered their 
 precious contents to waste. The grains of wheat were wrinkled 
 and shrivelled as if roasting before the fire. For eight days this 
 incandescence lasted, till an east wind sprang up and wafted 
 them to a more temperate spot in the torrid zone. 
 
 On the 31st of July land was discovered in the west, — three 
 mountain peaks seeming to ascend from one and the same base. 
 Columbus had made a vow to give the name of the Trinity to 
 the first land he should discover, and this singular triune form 
 of the land now before them was noticed as a wonderful coinci- 
 dence by all on board. It was named, therefore, Trinidad ; it 
 lies off the northern coast of Venezuela, in the Continent of 
 South America. The innumerable islands, formed by the forty 
 mouths of the Orinoco, were next discovered, and shortly after- 
 wards the continent to the north, which Columbus judged to be 
 the mainland from the volume of water brought to the sea by 
 the Orinoco. Columbus was not the first to set foot upon the 
 New World he had discovered : being confined to his cabin by 
 an attack of ophthalmia, he sent Pedro de Terreros to take 
 possession in his stead. This discovery of the Southern portion 
 of the Western Continent was, however, as we shall soon have 
 occasion to show, subsequent to that of the Northern portion by 
 John Cabot, who visited Labrador in 1407. 
 
COLUMBUS IN DESPAIR. 16/ 
 
 The fleet was unable to remain in these seductive regions, 
 owing to the scarcity of provisions and the increasing blindness 
 of the admiral. He would have been glad to stay in a spot 
 which, in his letter to his sovereigns, he describes as the Terres- 
 trial Paradise, the Orinoco being one of the four streams flowing 
 from it, as described in the Bible. The fact that this river 
 throws from its forty issues fresh water enough to overcome the 
 saltness of the sea to a great distance from the shore, was one 
 of the circumstances which gave to this portion of the world the 
 somewhat marvellous and fantastic character with which the 
 imagination of Columbus invested it. He sailed at once from 
 the continent to Hispaniola, discovering and naming the islands 
 of Assumption and la Margarita. At Hispaniola he again found 
 famine, distress, rebellion, and panic on every side. Malversa- 
 tion and mutiny had brought the colony to the very verge of 
 ruin. 
 
 We have not space to detail the manoeuvres and machinations 
 by which the mind of Ferdinand was prejudiced towards Co- 
 lumbus, and, in consequence of which, Francesco Bobadilla was 
 sent by him in July, 1500, to investigate the charges brought 
 against the admiral. Arrogant in his newly acquired honors, 
 Bobadilla took the part of the malcontents, and, placing Colum- 
 bus in chains, sent him back to Spain. He arrived at Cadiz on 
 the 20th of November, after the most rapid passage yet made 
 across the ocean. The <2;eneral burst of indii^nation at tlie 
 shocking spectacle of Columbus in fetters, compelled Ferdinand 
 to disclaim all knowledge of the transaction. Isabella accorded 
 him a private audience, in which she shed tears at the suiferings 
 and indignities he had undergone. The king kept him waiting 
 nine months, wasting his time in fruitless applications for re- 
 dress, and finally appointed Nicholas Ovando Governor of His- 
 paniola in his place. 
 
COLUMBUS IN CHAINS AT CADIZ. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 THE FAILING HEALTH OF COLUMBUS — HIS FOURTH VOYAGE — MARTINIQUE, PORTO 
 
 KICCO, NICARAGUA, COSTA RICCA, PANAMA HIS SEARCH FOR A CHANNEL 
 
 ACROSS THE ISTHMUS — HE PREDICTS AN ECLIPSE OF THE MOON AT JAMAICA 
 
 HIS RETURN — THE DEATH OF ISABELLA COLUMBUS PENNILESS AT VALLA- 
 
 DOLID HIS DEATH — HIS FOUR BURIALS — THE INJUSTICE OF THE WORLD 
 
 TOWARDS COLUMBUS — CHRISTOPHER PIGEON — AMERIGO VESPUCCI — THE NEW 
 
 WORLD NAMED AMERICA ERRORS OF MODERN HISTORIANS THE DISTRICT 
 
 OF COLUMBIA JOHN CABOT IN LABRADOR — SEBASTIAN CABOT IN HUDSON'S 
 
 RAY — VINCENT YANE7. PIKZON AT THE MOUTHS OF THE AMAZON. 
 
 Columbus was now advanced in years, and his sufferings and 
 
 labors had dimmed his eyesight and bowed liis frame ; but 
 
 his mind was yet active, and his enthusiasm in the cause of dis- 
 168 
 
COLUMBUS AT PANAMA. 169 
 
 covery irrepressible. He had convinced himself, and now sought 
 to convince the queen, that to the westward of the regions he 
 had visited the land converged, leaving a narrow passage 
 through which he hoped to pass, and proceed to the Indies be- 
 yond. This convergence of the land did in reality exist, but the 
 strait of water he expected to find was, and is, a strait of land 
 — the Isthmus of Panama. However, the queen approved of 
 the plan, and gave him four ships, equipped and victualled for 
 two years. Columbus had conceived the immense idea of passing 
 through the strait, and returning by Asia and the Cape of Good 
 Hope, thus circumnavigating the globe and proving its spherical 
 form. He departed from Cadiz on the 8th of May, 1502. 
 
 He touched at, and named, Martinique early in June, and after- 
 wards at St. Jean, now Porto Ricco. Ovando refused his request 
 to land at Isabella to repair his vessel and exchange one of them 
 for a faster sailer. Escaping a terrible storm, which wrecked 
 and utterly destroyed the splendid fleet in which the rapacious 
 pillagers of the island had embarked their ill-gotten wealth, he 
 was driven by the winds to Jamaica, and thence by the currents 
 to Cuba. Here a strong north wind enabled him to sail south 
 southwest, towards the latitude where he expected to find the 
 strait. He touched the mainland of North America at Trux- 
 illo, in Honduras, and coasted thence southward along the 
 Mosquito shore, Nicaragua, Costa Ricca, and Panama. Here he 
 explored every sinuosity and indentation of the shore, seeking 
 at the very spot where civilization and commerce now require 
 a canal, a passage which he considered as demanded by Nature 
 and accorded by Providence. He followed the isthmus as far as 
 the Gulf of Darien, and then, driven by a furious tropical tem- 
 pest, returned as far as Veragua, in search of rich gold mines 
 of which he had heard. The storm lasted for eight days, con- 
 cluding with a terrible display of water-spouts, which Columbus 
 is said to have regarded as a work of the devil, and to have 
 dispelled by bringing forth the Bible and exorcising the demon. 
 
170 
 
 ocean's story. 
 
 One of the water-spouts passed betweeh the ships without in- 
 juring them, and spun away, muttering and terrible, to spend 
 its furj elsewhere. 
 
 THE WATliK.sroUT, 
 
 On reaching Veragua, Columbus sent his brother up a river, 
 which he called Bethlehem, or by contraction Belem, to seek for 
 gold. His researches seeming to indicate the presence of the 
 precious metal, Columbus determined to establish a colony upon 
 the river, an attempt which was defeated by the hostility of the 
 natives. Their fierce resistance and the crazy state of his 
 vessels forced Columbus, in April, 1503, to make the best of 
 his way to Ilispaniola with two crowded vessels, which, being 
 totally unseaworthy, he was obliged to run ashore at Jamaica. 
 There Columbus awed the natives and subdued them to obedience 
 and submission, by predicting an eclipse of the moon. 
 
 Thus left without a single vessel, he had no resource but to 
 send to Ilispaniola for assistance. After a period of fifteen 
 months, lost in quelling mutinies and in opposing the cruelties 
 
BURIAL OF COLUMBUS. 171 
 
 and exactions of the new masters of the island, he obtained a 
 caravel, and again sailed for Spain on the 12th of September, 
 1504. During the passage, he was compelled, by a severe attack 
 of rheumatism, to remain confined to his cabin. His tempest- 
 tossed and shattered bark at last cast anchor in the harbor of 
 San Lucar. He proceeded to Seville, where he heard, with dis- 
 may, of the illness, and then of the death, of his patroness 
 Isabella. Sickness now detained him at Seville till the spring 
 of 1505, when he arrived, exhausted and paralytic, before the 
 king. Here he underwent another courtly denial of redress. 
 He was now without shelter and without hope. He was com- 
 pelled to borrow money with which to pay for a shabby room 
 at a miserable inn. He lingered for a year in poverty and 
 neglect, and died at last in Valladolid, on the 20th of May, 
 1506. The revolting ingratitude of Ferdinand of 9{)ain thus 
 caused the death, in rags, in destitution, and in infirmity, of 
 the greatest man that has ever served the cause of progress or 
 labored in the paths of science. Had we written the life of 
 Columbus, and not thus briefly sketched the history of his 
 voyages, we should have found it easy to assert and maintain 
 his claim to this commanding position. 
 
 The agitation of the life of Columbus followed his remains to 
 the grave, — for he was buried four successive times, and his 
 dead body made the passage of the Atlantic. It was first de- 
 posited in the vaults of the Franciscan Convent of Valladolid, 
 where it remained seven years. In 1513, Ferdinand, now old 
 and perhaps repentant, caused the coffin to be brought from 
 Valladolid to Seville, where a solemn service was said over it 
 in the grand cathedral. It was then placed in the chapel be- 
 longing to the Chartreux. In 1536, the coffin was transported 
 to the city of St. Domingo, in the island of Hispaniola. Here 
 it remained for two hundred and sixty years. In 1795, Spain 
 ceded the island to France, stipulating that the ashes of Colum- 
 bus should be transferred to Spanish soil. In December of tho 
 
172 ocean's story. 
 
 same year, the vault was opened, and the fragments which were 
 found — those of a leaden coffin, mingled with bones and dust 
 returned to dust — were carefully collected. They were carried 
 on board the brigantine Discovery, which transported them to 
 the frigate San Lorenzo, by which they were taken to Havana, 
 where, in the presence of the Governor-General of Cuba and 
 in the midst of imposing ceremonies, they were consigned to 
 their fourth and final resting-place. 
 
 It will not be altogether out of place to group together here 
 the numerous and remarkable instances of the world's injustice 
 and ingratitude towards Columbus. We have said that he died 
 in penury at Valladolid. A publication, issued periodically in 
 that city from 1333 to 1539, chronicling every event of local 
 interest — births, marriages, deaths, fires, executions, appoint- 
 ments, church ceremonies — did not mention, or in any way al- 
 lude to, the death of Columbus. Pierre Martyr, a poet of 
 Lombardy, once his intimate friend, and who had said, at the 
 time of his first voyage, that by singing of his discoveries he 
 would descend to immortality with him, seemed to think, later 
 in life, that he should peril his chances of immortality were he 
 to sing of his death, for his muse held her peace. In 1507, a 
 collection of voyages was published by Fracanzo de Montalbodo, 
 in which no mention was made of Columbus' fourth voyage, and 
 in which Columbus himself was alluded to as still alive. In 
 1508, a Latin translation of this work was published, in the 
 preface to which Columbus was mentioned as still living in 
 honor at the court of Spain. Another famous work of the 
 time attributes the discovery of the New World, not to the 
 calculations and science of a man, but to the accidental wander- 
 ings of a tempest-driven caravel. Not ten years after the death 
 of Columbus, the chaplain of one of the kings of Italy, in a 
 work upon "Memorable Events in Spain," stated that a New 
 World had been discovered in the West by one Peter Colum- 
 bus. And, in the same taste and spirit, a German doctor, in 
 
AMERIGO VESPUCCI. 173 
 
 the first German book which spoke of the New Worhl, did not 
 once mention the name of Columbus, but, translating the proper 
 name as if it were a common noun, calls him Christoffel Daw- 
 ber, which, being translated back again, signifies Ciihistopiier 
 Pigeon. 
 
 We shall now speak of that signal instance of public in- 
 gratitude and national forgetfulness which is universally re- 
 gretted, yet will never be repaired, — the giving to the New 
 World the name of America and not that of Columbia, — a sub- 
 stitution due to an obscure and ignoratit French publisher of St. 
 Die, in Lorraine. 
 
 Amerigo Vespucci, born at Florence fifteen years after Co- 
 lumbus, and the third son of a notary, appears to have been 
 led by mercantile tastes to Spain in 148G, where he became a 
 factor in a wealthy house at Seville. He abandoned the counter, 
 however, for navigation and mathematics, and took to the sea 
 for a livelihood. He was at fiist a practical astronomer, and 
 finally a pilot-major. He went four times on expeditions to 
 the New World, in 1499, 1500, 1501, 1502. During the first, 
 he coasted along the land at the mouths of the Orinoco, which 
 had been discovered by Columbus the preceding year. Even 
 had he been the first to discover the mainland, — which he was 
 not, — there would have been no merit in it, for he was merely a 
 subordinate officer on board a ship following in the track of Co- 
 lumbus, seven years after the latter had traced it upon the ocean 
 and the charts of the marine. He published an account of his 
 voyage. But it does not appear that he ever claimed honor as 
 the first discoverer, and tlie friendly relations he maintained 
 with the family of Columbus after the death of the latter show 
 that they did not consider him as attempting to obtain a dis- 
 tinction which did not belong to him. The error floAved from 
 another and more distant source. 
 
 Columbus had died in 1506, and had been forgotten. In 
 1507, a Frenchman of St. Did republished Vespucci's narrative, 
 
174 ocean's story. 
 
 substituting the date of 1497 for that of 1499, — thus making it 
 appear that Vespucci had preceded, instead of followed, Co- 
 lumbus in his discovery of the mainland. He did not once men- 
 tion Columbus, and attributed the whole merit of the western 
 voyages to Vespucci. He added that he did not see why from 
 the name of Amerigo an appellation could not be derived for 
 the continent he had discovered, and proposed that of America, 
 as having a feminine termination like that of Europa, Asia, and 
 Africa, and as possessing a musical sound likely to catch the 
 public ear. This work Was dedicated to the Emperor Maxi- 
 milian, and passed rapidly through editions in various lan- 
 guages. 
 
 Thus far no specific name had been given to the con- 
 tinent. Its situation was sometimes indicated upon maps by 
 a cross, and sometimes by the words Terra Sanct^ Crucis, 
 siVE MuNDUS Kovus, often printed in red capitals. In 1522, 
 for the first time, the name of America, under its French form 
 of Ama-ique, was printed upon a map at Lyons. Germany fol- 
 lowed, and the presses of Basle and Zurich aided the usurpa- 
 tion. Florence was but too eager to accept a name which flat- 
 tered her vanity; and, as Genoa did not protest in the name 
 of Columbus, Italy yielded to the current, and did a large share 
 in the labor of injustice. In 1570, the name of America was 
 for the first time engraved upon a metal globe, and from this 
 time forward the spoliation may be regarded as accomplished. 
 Columbus had been twice buried and twice forgotten ; and now 
 his very name was lost, — the continent he had found having 
 been baptized in honor of another, and his race in the male line 
 being extinct, — for Diego and Fernando had died without heirs. 
 
 In modern times, in our own day even, it has been a common 
 practice to depreciate the services of Columbus, and eminent 
 writers have thought it no disgrace to profess and testify igno- 
 rance of his history and life. Raynal, a French philosopher 
 of distinction, declared, about the year 1760, that the passage 
 
THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA. 175 
 
 of the Cape of Good Hope by Vasco da Gama was a greater 
 achievement than the crossing of the Atlantic by Columbus. 
 He offered a prize for disquisitions upon the question, "Has 
 the discovery of America been useful or prejudicial to the 
 human race ?" Buffon seems, too, to have considered the dis- 
 coveries of the Portuguese in the East as more important than 
 those of Columbus in the West. Robertson, in his History of 
 America, says that even without Columbus some happy acci- 
 dent would have discovered the New World a few years later. 
 Fontenelle, and many others, attribute the first notice of the 
 variation of the compass to Cabot in 1497, though Columbus 
 distinctly mentions noticing it in his journal on the loth of 
 September, 1492. A late Spanish historian writes: — "Co- 
 lumbus made nothing but discoveries in these regions ; con- 
 quest was reserved for Cortez and Pizarro." Lamar tine makes 
 an error of fifteen years in stating the period of the return of 
 Columbus to Spain. Dumas asserts that Columbus passed " a 
 portion of his life in prison," — an expression he would not pro- 
 bably have used, knowingly, to designate a period of three 
 months. Granier de Cassagnac places the last voyage of Co- 
 lumbus in 1493, instead of 1502. St. Hilaire makes the cele- 
 brated Las Casas cross the sea with Columbus nine years too 
 soon. These mis-statements, though not resulting in distortion 
 or misrepresentation of character, are the effects of that indif- 
 ference which for centuries history has manifested towards the 
 life, services, and death of Columbus. 
 
 Columbia is the poetic and symbolical name of America, 
 occurring in the National Anthem and in numerous effusions 
 of patriotic verse. An effort to avenge the memory of the dis- 
 coverer was made by giving his name, officially, to a tract bor- 
 rowed from Virginia and Maryland, and measuring one hundred 
 miles square, — the seat of the American Government. So far 
 from this tardy acknowledgment being a reparation, however, 
 it is probable that the spirit of the departed benefactor, if sum- 
 
176 OCEAN S STORY. 
 
 moned to speak, would declare it the last, and by no means the 
 least, of the long line of insults that an ungrateful posterity 
 had heaped upon his memory. 
 
 It will be proper to add to this view of the voyages of Co- 
 lumbus a brief account of those effected immediately afterwards 
 by John and Sebastian Cabot, and by Vincent Yanez Pinzon. 
 
 In the year 1496, Henry VII. of England, stimulated by the 
 success of Columbus, granted a patent to one Giovanni Gabotto, 
 a Venetian dwelling in Bristol, to go in search of unknown lands. 
 Little is known of this person, whose name has been Anglicized 
 into John Cabot, except that he was a wealthy and intelligent 
 merchant and fond of maritime discovery. He had three sons, 
 one of whom, named Sebastian, was nineteen years old at the 
 time of the voyage, upon which, with his brothers, he accom- 
 panied his father. They sailed in a ship named the Matthew, 
 and on the 24th of June, 1497, discovered the mainland of 
 America, eighteen months before Columbus set foot upon it at 
 the mouths of the Orinoco. For a long time it was supposed 
 that Cabot had landed upon Newfoundland, but it is now con- 
 sidered settled that Labrador was the portion of the continent 
 jfirst discovered by a European. No account of the further 
 prosecution of the voyage has reached us, and the only official 
 record of Cabot's return is an entr}^ in the privy-purse expenses 
 of Henry, 10th August, 1497 : — " To hym that found the New 
 Isle, 10/." Thus, fifty days had not elapsed between the dis- 
 covery and its recompense in England, — a fact which sliows 
 that Cabot returned home at once. He is supposed to have 
 died about the year 1499. 
 
 Sebastian Cabot, the second son, who is regarded as by far 
 the most scientific navigator of this family of seamen, appears 
 to have lived in complete obscurity during the following twelve 
 years. Disgusted, liowever, by the want of consideration of the 
 English authorities towards him, he accepted an invitation from 
 King Ferdinand to visit Spain in 1512. Here, for several 
 
SEBASTIAN CABOT. 177 
 
 years, he was employed in revising maps and charts, and, with 
 the title of Captain and a liberal salary, held the honorable 
 position of Member of the Council of the Indies. The death 
 of Ferdinand and the intrigues of the enemies of Columbus 
 induced him to return to England in 1517. He was. employed 
 by Henry VIII., in connection with one Sir Thomas Perte, to 
 make an attempt at a Northwest passage. On this voyage he is 
 said to have gained Hudson's Bay, and to have given English 
 names to sundry places there. So few details of the expedition 
 have been preserved, that the latitude reached (67J degrees) is 
 referred by different authorities both to the north and the south. 
 The malice or cowardice of Sir Thomas Perte compelled Cabot 
 to return without accomplishing any thing worthy of being re- 
 corded. It was often said afterwards, that if the New World 
 could not be called Columbia, it would be better to name it 
 Cabotiana than America. 
 
 Vincent Yanez Pinzon, the youngest of the three brothers 
 who had accompanied Columbus upon his first voyage, deter- 
 mined, upon hearing, in 1499, that the continent was discovered, 
 on trying his fortunes at the head of an expedition, instead of in 
 a subordinate position. He found no difficulty in equipping four 
 caravels, and in inducing several of those who had seen the 
 coast of Paria to embark with him as pilots. He sailed from 
 Palos in December, 1499, and proceeded directly to the south- 
 west. During a storm which obscured the heavens he crossed 
 the equator, and on the disappearance of the clouds no longer 
 recognised the constellations, changed as they were from those 
 of the Northern to those of the Southern hemisphere. Pinzon 
 was thus the first European who crossed the line in the Atlantic. 
 The sailors, unacquainted with the Southern sky, and dismayed 
 at the absence of the polar star, were for a time filled with 
 superstitious terrors. Pinzon, however, persisted, and, on the 
 20th of January, 1500, discovered land in eight degrees of 
 
 south latitude. He took possession for the Crown of Spain, 
 12 
 
178 
 
 OCEAN'S STOBT. 
 
 and named it Santa Maria de la Consolation. We shall soon 
 Iiave occasion to mention why this name was superseded by that 
 of Brazil. 
 
 Pinzon explored with amazement the huge mouths of the 
 Amazon, whose immense torrents, as they emptied into the sea, 
 freshened its waters for many leagues from the land. Sailing 
 to the north, he followed the coast for four hundred leagues, 
 and then returned to Palos, carrying with him three thousand 
 pounds' weight of dye-woods and the first opossum ever seen in 
 Europe. 
 
 And now, having closed the fifteenth century with the 
 achievements of the Spanish in the West, we open the six- 
 teenth with those of the Portuguese in the East. 
 
 THE PHAETON OR TROPIC BIRD. 
 
VASCO DA GAMA. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 PORTUGUESE NAVIGATION UNDER EMMANUEL POPULAR PREJUDICES — THE LtT- 
 
 SIAD OF CAMOENS VASCO DA GAMA MAPS OF AFRICA OF THE PERIOD — 
 
 PREPARATIONS FOR AN INDIAN VOYAGE — RELIGIOT'S CEREMONIES THE DE- 
 PARTURE RENDEZVOUS AT THE CAPE VERDS LANDING UPON THE COAST — 
 
 THE NATIVES AN INVITATION TO DINNER, AND ITS CONSEQUENCES — A STORM 
 
 MUTINY THE SPECTRE OF THE CAPE. 
 
 In the year 1495, John II. of Portugal was succeeded by his 
 cousin, Emmanuel, into whose mind he had a short time before 
 his death instilled a portion of his own zeal for maritime dis- 
 covery and commercial supremacy. He had especially dwelt 
 upon the necessity of continuing the progress of African re- 
 search beyond the point which Bartholomew Diaz had lately 
 reached, into the regions where lay the East Indies with their 
 wealth and marvellous productions, and thus substituting for the 
 
 tedious land-route a more expeditious track by sea. Upon his 
 
 179 
 
180 ocean's story. 
 
 accession, Emmanuel found that a strong opposition existed to the 
 extension of Portuguese commerce and discovery. Arguments 
 were urged against it in his own councils, and had a marked 
 effect upon the public mind by heightening the danger of the 
 intended voyage. 
 
 In our narrative of the first East Indian expedition, we shall 
 often have occasion to quote from a poem written in commemo- 
 ration of it, — the Lusiad of Camoens, a semi-religious epic and the 
 masterpiece of Portuguese literature, — Lusiade being the poetic 
 and symbolical name of Portugal. Camoens describes at the 
 outset the hostility of the nation to further maritime adventure, 
 and places in the mouth of a reverend adviser of the king the 
 following forcible appeal : 
 
 "Oil, frantic thirst of Honor and of Fame, 
 The crowd's blind tribute, a fallacious name ; 
 What stings, what plagues, what secret scourges cursed. 
 Torment those bosoms where thy pride is nursed! 
 What dangers threaten and what deaths destroy 
 The hapless youth whom thy vain gleams decoy! 
 Thou dazzling meteor, vain as fleeting air, 
 What new dread horror dost thou now prepare ? 
 Oh, madness of Ambition ! thus to dare 
 Dangers so fruitless, so remote a w.ar ! 
 That Fame's vain flattery may thy name adorn, 
 And thy proud titles on her flag be borne : 
 Thee, Lord of Persia, thee of India lord, 
 O'er Ethiopia vast, and Araby adored 1" 
 
 Never was any expedition, whether by land or water, so un- 
 popular as this of King Emmanuel. The murmurs of the 
 cabinet were re-echoed by the populace, who were wrought upon 
 to such an extent that they believed the natural consequence of 
 an invasion of the Indian seas would be the arrival in the Tagus 
 of the wroth and avenging Sultan of Egypt. But Emmanuel, 
 who, we are told, "regarded Diffidence as the mark of a low 
 and grovelling mind, and Hope the quality of a noble and 
 aspiring soul," discerned prospects of national advantage in tho 
 scheme, and determined to pursue it to a prosperous issue. 
 
COVILLAM'S map of AMERICA. 181 
 
 King John, before his death, and shortly after the return of 
 Diaz, had ordered timber to be purchased for the construction 
 of ships fit to cope with the storms of the redoubtable Cape. 
 Emmanuel now sought a capable commander, and, after much 
 deliberation, fixed upon a gentleman of his own household, 
 Vasco da Gama by name, a native of the seaport of Sines, and 
 already favorably known for enterprise and naval skill. We 
 are told that "he was formed for the service to which he was 
 called, — violent indeed in his temper, terrible in anger, and 
 sudden in the execution of justice, but at the same time intrepid, 
 persevering, patient in difficulties, fertile in expedients, and 
 superior to all discouragement. He devoted himself to death if 
 he should not succeed, and this from a sense of religion and 
 loyalty." When the king acquainted him with the mission 
 intrusted to his charge, Vasco replied that he had long aspired to 
 the honor of conducting such an undertaking. Camoens makes 
 da Gama thus describe his acceptance of the honor: 
 
 " 'Let skies on fire, 
 Let frozen seas, let horrid war, conspire : 
 I dare them all,' I cried, 'and but repine 
 That one poor life is all I can resign,' " 
 
 The most distinguished members of the Portuguese nobility 
 were present at this interview. The king gave da Gama, with 
 his own hands, the flag he was to bear, — a white cross enclosed 
 within a red one, — the Cross of the military Order of Christ. 
 Upon this he took the oath of allegiance. Emmanuel then 
 delivered him the journal of Covillam, with such charts as were 
 then in existence, and letters to all the Indian potentates who 
 had become known to the Portuguese. Among these was of 
 course one addressed to the renowned Prester John. 
 
 A map of Africa had been lately designed, in accordance 
 with the discoveries made by land, as we have mentioned, by 
 Covillam. The accompanying specimen is a fac-simile of one 
 which belonged to Juan de la Cosa — the pilot of Columbus. 
 
182 
 
 ocean's story. 
 
 Upon it the principal cities are indicated by a roughly sketched 
 house or church; the government is denoted by a picture of a 
 king, closely resembling the royal gentry in a pack of cards; 
 while flafTS, phinted at intervals, indicate boundary lines and 
 frontier posts. The winds are represented by fabulous divinities 
 sitting round the world upon leathern bottles, whose sides they 
 are pressing to force out the air. The celebrated statue of the 
 Canaries is often seen flourishing his club at the top of his tower. 
 
 MAP OF AFRICA DRAWN IN THE YEAR 14»7. 
 
 Abyssinia figures with its Prester John, his head being adorned 
 with a brilliant mitre. Other kingdoms are marked out by 
 portraits of their kings in richly embroidered costumes. The 
 inhabitants of Africa, in maps of the world, arc represented as 
 giraffes, black men, and elephants. Portuguese camps are de- 
 noted by colored tents, while groups of light cavalry, splendidly 
 caparisoned, dotting the territory at numerous points, indicate 
 that the Portuguese army is making the tour of that mysterious 
 continent. These quaint specimens of chartogruphical art are, 
 
VASCO DE GAMA. 183 
 
 in short, the faithful expression of the geographical science of 
 the age. 
 
 The fleet equipped for da Gama's voyage consisted of three 
 ships and a caravel, — the San Gabriel, of one hundred and 
 twenty tons, commanded by da Gama, and piloted by Pero 
 Dalemquer, who had been pilot to Bartholomew Diaz ; the San 
 Rafael, of one hundred tons, commanded by Paulo da Gama, 
 the admiral's brother ; a store-ship of two hundred tons ; and 
 the caravel, of fifty tons, commanded by Nicolao Coelho. Be- 
 sides these, Diaz, who had already been over the route, was 
 ordered to accompany da Gama as far as the Mina. The crews 
 numbered in all one hundred and sixty men, among whom were 
 ten malefactors condemned to death, and who had consequently 
 nothing to hope for in Portugal. Their duty in the fleet was 
 to go ashore upon savage coasts and attempt to open intercourse 
 with the natives. In case of rendering essential service and 
 escaping with their lives, their sentence was to be remitted on 
 their return home. 
 
 A small chapel stood upon the seaside about four miles from 
 Lisbon. Hither da Gama and his crew repaired upon the day 
 preceding that fixed for their departure. They spent the night 
 in prayer and rites of devotion, invoking the blessing and pro- 
 tection of Heaven. On the morrow, the adventurers marched to 
 their ships in the midst of the whole population of Lisbon, who 
 now thronged the shore of Belem. A long procession of priests 
 sang anthems and offered sacrifice. The vast multitude, catch- 
 ing the fire of devotion and animated with the fervor of religious 
 zeal, joined aloud in the prayers for their safety. The parents 
 and relatives of the travellers shed tears, and da Gama himself 
 wept on bidding farewell to the friends who gathered round him. 
 
 Camoens thus describes the emotions of the adventurers as 
 they gazed at the receding shore: 
 
 "As from our dear-loved native shore we fly, 
 Our votive shouts, redoubled, rend the skj: 
 
184 ocean's story. 
 
 * Success ! Success!' far echoes o'er the tide, 
 While our broad hulks the foaming waves divide. 
 When slowly gliding from our wistful eyes, 
 The Lusian mountains mingle with the skies ; 
 Tago's loved stream and Cintra's mountains cold, 
 Dim fading now, we now no more behold ; 
 And still with yearning hearts our eyes explore, 
 Till one dim speck of land appears no more." 
 
 The admiral had fixed upon the Cape Verd Islands as the 
 first place of rendezvous in case of separation by storm. They 
 all arrived safely in eight days at the Canaries, but were here 
 driven widely apart by a tempest at night. The three captains 
 subsequently joined each other, but could not find the admiral. 
 They therefore made for the appointed rendezvous, where, to 
 their great satisfaction, they found da Gama already arrived ; 
 "and, saluting him with many shots of ordnance, and with 
 sound of trumpets, they spake unto him, each of them heartily 
 rejoicing and thanking God for their safe meeting and good 
 fortune in this their first brunt of danger and of peril." Diaz 
 here took leave of them and returned to Portugal. Then, on the 
 3d of August, they set sail finally for the Cape of Good Hope. 
 
 They continued without seeing land during the months of 
 August, September, and October, greatly distressed by foul 
 weather, or, in the quaint language of those days, "by torments 
 of wind and rain." At last, on the 7th of November, they 
 touched the African coast, and anchored in a capacious bay, 
 which they called the Bay of St. Helena, and which is not far 
 to the north of the Cape. Here they perceived the natives "to 
 bee lyttle men, ill favored in the face, and of color blacke ; and 
 when they did speake, it was in such manner as though they did 
 alwayes sigh." Camoens rhapsodizes at length over this approach 
 to the land ; and it must be remembered that, having followed in 
 da Gama's track as early as the year 1553, his descriptions of 
 scenery are those of an eye-witness: 
 
 " Loud through the fleet the echoing shouts prevail: 
 We drop the anchor aud restrain the sail ; 
 
AFRICAN HOSPITALITY. 185 
 
 And now, descending in a spacious bay, 
 
 Wide o'er the coast the venturous soldiers stray, 
 
 To spy the wonders of the savage shore 
 
 Where strangers' foot had never trod before. 
 
 I and my pilots, on the yellow sand, 
 
 Explore beneath what sky the shores expand. 
 
 Here we perceived our venturous keels bad pass'd, 
 
 Unharmed, the Southern tropic's howling blast, 
 
 And now approached dread Neptune's secret reign: 
 
 Where the stern power, as o'er the Austral main 
 
 He rides, wide scatters from the Polar Star 
 
 Hail, ice, and snow, and all the wintry war." 
 
 Trade was now commenced between da Gama and the natives, 
 and, by means of signs and gestures, cloth, beads, bells, and 
 glass were bartered for articles of food and other necessaries. 
 But this friendly intercourse was soon interrupted by an act of 
 imprudent folly on the part of a young man of the squadron. 
 Being invited to dine by a party of the natives, he entered one 
 of their huts to partake of the repast. Being disgusted at the 
 viands, which consisted of a sea-calf dressed after the manner 
 of the Hottentots, he fled in dismay. He was followed by his 
 perplexed entertainers, who were anxious to learn how they had 
 offended him. Taking their officious hospitality for impertinent 
 aggression, he shouted for help ; and it was not long before 
 mutual apprehension brought on open hostilities. Da Gama and 
 his officers were attacked, while taking the altitude of the sun 
 with an astrolabe, by a party of concealed negroes armed with 
 spears pointed with horn. The admiral was wounded in the 
 foot, and with some difficulty effected a retreat to the ships. 
 He left the Bay of St. Helena on the 16th of November. 
 
 He now met with a sudden and violent change of weather, 
 and the Portuguese historians have left animated descriptions 
 of the storm which ensued. During any momentary pause in 
 the elemental warfare, the sailors, worn out with fatigue and 
 yielding to despair, surrounded da Gama, begging that he 
 would not devote himself and them to a fate so dreadful. 
 They declared that the gale could no longer be weathered, and 
 
186 ocean's story. 
 
 that every one must be buried in the waves if they continued to 
 proceed. The admiral's firmness remained unshaken, and a 
 conspiracy was soon formed against him. He was informed in 
 time of this desperate plot by his brother Paulo. He put the 
 rin^rleaders and pilots in irons, and, assisted by his brother and 
 those who remained faithful to their duty, stood night and day 
 to the helm. At length, on Wednesday, the 20th of November, 
 the whole squadron doubled the tremendous promontory. The 
 mutineers were pardoned and released from their manacles. 
 
 The legend of the Spectre of the Cape is given by Camoens 
 in full ; and it is so characteristic of the age, and, as an episode, 
 is itself so interesting, that we cannot refrain from quoting it 
 entire. Da Gama is supposed to be relating his experience in 
 the first person : 
 
 *'I spoke, "when, rising through the darken'd air, 
 Appall'd, we saw a hideous phantom glnre. 
 High and enormous o'er the flood he to\v;M'd, 
 And thwart our way with sullen aspect lower'd ; 
 An earthly paleness o'er his cheeks was spread, 
 Erect uprose his hairs of wither'd red ; 
 Writhing to speak, his sable lips disclose, 
 Sharp and disjoin'd, his gnashing teeths' blue rows ; 
 His haggard beard flow'd quivering in the wind ; 
 Revenge and horror in his mien combined ; 
 His clouded front, by withering lightnings scar'd, 
 The inward anguish of his soul declared. 
 Cold, gliding horrors fiU'd each hero's breast; 
 Our bristling hair and tottering knees confess'd 
 Wild dread. The while, with visage ghastly wan, 
 His black lips trembling, thus the fiend began : 
 
 ' Ye sons of Lusus, who, with eyes profane. 
 Have view'd the secrets of my awful reign. 
 Have pas.s'd the bounds which jealous nature drew 
 To veil her secret shrine from mortal view ; 
 Hear from my lips what direful woes attend, 
 And, bursting soon, shall o'er your race descend : 
 "With every bounding keel that dnres my rage, 
 Eternal war my rocks and storms shall wage. 
 The next proud fleet that through my drear domain 
 With daring hand shall hoist the streaming vane, 
 That gallant navy, by my whirlwinds toss'd. 
 And raging seas, shall perish on my coast. 
 
i88 ocean's story. 
 
 Then lie who first my secret reign descried, 
 
 A naked corpse, wide floating o'er the tide, 
 
 Shall drive. Unless my heart's full raptures fail, 
 
 Lusus, oft shalt thou thy children wail ! 
 
 Each year thy shipwreck'd sons shalt thou deplore, 
 
 Each year thy sheeted masts shall strew my shore !' " 
 
 The cut upon previous page — a copy from an antique 
 original — represents da Gama's ship and the Spectre of the 
 Cape. The table-land of the promontory is seen through the 
 drift of the tempest, towards the east. The ship is broached to, 
 her sails close-furled, with the exception of the foresail, which 
 has broken loose and is flapping wildly in the hurricane. Both 
 the engraving and the description we have quoted from Camoens 
 are strikingly illustrative of those visionary horrors which per- 
 vaded the minds of the navigators of the period, and are also 
 characteristic of that peculiar cloud whose sudden envelopment 
 of the Cape is the sure forerunner of a storm. The artist seems 
 to have chosen the moment when the spectre, having uttered his 
 dreadful prophecy, is vanishing into air. 
 
 PHOSPIIOKESCENCK. 
 
THE MAN OVERBOARD, AND THE ALBATROSS. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 DA OAMA AND THE NEGROES THE HOTTENTOTS AND CAFFRES ADVENTURE 
 
 WITH AN ALBATROSS THE RIVER OF GOOD PROMISE — MOZAMBIQUE TREACH- 
 ERY OF THE NATIVES MOMBASSA — MELINDA, AND ITS AMIABLE KING — FES- 
 TIVITIES THE MALABAR COAST CALICUT THE ROUTE TO THE INDIES DIS- 
 COVERED. 
 
 Da Gama landed some two hundred miles beyond the Cape, 
 and, discharging the victualling-ship of her stores, ordered her 
 to be burned, as the king had directed. He then entered into 
 commercial relations with the natives, and exchanged red night- 
 caps for ivory bracelets. "Then came two hundred blacke men, 
 some lyttle, some great, bringing with them twelve oxen and four 
 sheep, and as our men went upon shore they began to play upon 
 four flutes, according with four sundry voices, the music where- 
 of sounded very w^ll. Which the generall hearing, commanded 
 
 189 
 
190 ocean's story. 
 
 the trumpets to sound, and so they danced with our men. In 
 this pastime and feasting, and in buying their oxen and sheep, 
 the day passed over." Da Gama had reason before long to sus- 
 pect treachery, however, and withdrew his men and re-embarked. 
 It was in this place that a man falling overboard, and swimming 
 for a long time before the accident was observed, was followed 
 by an albatross, who hovered in the air just above him, waiting 
 the propitious moment when he could make a quiet meal upon 
 him. The man was subsequently rescued, and the albatross 
 disappointed. 
 
 Da Gama now passed the rock de la Cruz, where Diaz had 
 erected his last pillar, and by the aid of a brisk wind escaped 
 the dangers of the currents and shoals. Losing sight of land, 
 he recovered it again on Christmas-day, and in consequence 
 named the spot Tierra da Natal, — a name which it still pre- 
 serves. From this point his course was nearly north, along the 
 eastern coast of the continent. Farther on he landed two of 
 his malefactors, with instructions to inform themselves of the 
 character and customs of the inhabitants, promising to call for 
 them on his return. On the 11th of January, 1498, he anchored 
 off a portion of the coast occupied by people who seemed peace- 
 ably and honestly disposed. They were, in fact, Caffres, — the 
 fleet having passed the territory of the Hottentots. One of the 
 sailors, Martin Alonzo, understood their language, — a circum- 
 stance very remarkable, yet perfectly authenticated. As he 
 had not been lower than the Mina, on the western coast, and of 
 course never upon the eastern at all, the inference seems in- 
 evitable that some of the negro tribes of Africa extend much 
 beyond the limits usually assigned them in modern geography. 
 After two days spent in the exchange of civilities of the most 
 courteous nature, the ships proceeded on their way, — da Gama 
 naming the country Tierra da Boa Gete^ — Land of Good 
 People. 
 
 He next found, at the mouth of a large river, a tribe of 
 
THE RIVER OF GOOD PROMISE. 191 
 
 negroes who seemed to have made greater progress in civiliza- 
 tion than their neighbors. They^had barks with sails made of 
 palm-leaves, — the only indication of any knowledge of navi- 
 gation the Portuguese had yet met with upon the African coast. 
 No one — not even Martin Alonzo — understood their language : as 
 far as could be gathered from their pantomime, they had come 
 from a distance where they had seen vessels as large as the San 
 Gabriel, whence da Gama conjectured that the Indies were not 
 far off. He gave to the river the name of Ilio dos hos jSinaeSy 
 or River of Good Promise. The crew suffered greatly here 
 from the effects of scurvy, — many of them dying of the disease 
 and others succumbing under the consequences of amputation. 
 The ships were careened and repaired : thirty-two days were 
 spent in this labor. These incidents are thus graphically de- 
 scribed in the Lusiad : 
 
 *' Far from the land, wide o'er the ocean driven, 
 Our helms resigning to the care of Heaven, 
 By hope and fear's keen passions toss'd, we roam ; 
 When our glad ej^es behold the surges foam 
 Against the beacons of a shelter'd bay, 
 Where sloops and barges cut the watery way. 
 The river's opening breast some upward plied, 
 And some came gliding down the sweepy tide. 
 Quick throbs of transport heaved :n every heart. 
 To view this knowledge of the seaman's art ; 
 For here we hoped our ardent wish to gain, 
 To hear of India's strand, — nor hoped in vain : 
 Though Ethiopia's sable hue they bore. 
 No look of wild surprise the natives wore ; 
 Wide o'er their heads the cotton turban swell'd, 
 And cloth of blue the decent loins conceal'd. 
 Their speech, though rude and dissonant of sound, 
 Their speech a mixture of Arabian own'd. 
 Alonzo, skill'd in all the copious store 
 Of fair Arabia's speech and flowery lore, 
 In joyful converse heard the pleasing tale, 
 'That o'er these seas full oft the frequent sail. 
 And lordly vessels, tall as ours, appear'd. 
 Which to the regions of the morning steer'd : 
 Whose cheerful crews, resembling ours, display 
 The kindred face and color of the day.' 
 
192 ocean's story. 
 
 Elate with joy, we raise the glad acclaim, 
 And PwivER OF Good Signs the port we name. 
 
 " Our keels, that now had steer'd through many a clime, 
 By shell-fish roughen'd, and incased with slime, 
 Jtiyful we clean; while bleating from the field 
 The fleecy dams the smiling natives yield. 
 Alas ! how vain the bloom of human joy ! 
 How soon the blasts of woe that bloom destroy ! 
 A dread disease its rankling horrors shed, 
 And death's dire ravage through mine army spread. 
 Never mine eyes such dreary sight beheld ! 
 Ghastly the mouth and gums enormous swcll'd ; 
 And instant, putrid like a dead man's wound, 
 Poison'd with fetid steam the air around. 
 Long, long endear'd by fellowship in woe. 
 O'er the cold dust we give the tears to flow ; 
 And in their hapless lot forebode our own, — 
 A foreign burial, and a grave unknown." 
 
 The fleet joyfully left the River of Good Promise on the 24th 
 of February, and not long after discovered two groups of 
 islands. Near the coast of one of these they were followed by 
 eight canoes, manned by persons of fine stature, less black than 
 the Hottentots, and dressed in cotton cloth of various colors. 
 Upon their heads they wore turbans wrought with silk and gold 
 thread. They were armed with swords and daggers like the 
 Moors, and carried musical instruments which they called sag- 
 buts. They came on board as if they had known the strangers 
 before, and spoke in the Arabic tongue, repelling with disdain 
 the supposition that they were Moors. They said that their 
 island was called Mozambique ; that they traded with the Moors 
 of the Indies in spices, pearls, rubies, silver, and linen, and 
 offered to take the ships into their harbor. The bar permitting 
 their passage, they anchored at two crossbow-shots from the 
 town. This was built of wood and thatch, — the mosques alone 
 being constructed of stone. It was occupied principally by 
 Moors, the rest of the island being inhabited by the natives, who 
 were the same as those of the mainland opposite. The Moors 
 traded with the Indies and with the African Sofala in ships 
 
THE ISLAND OF ilC^EASSA. 193 
 
 without decks and built without the use of nails, — the planka 
 being bound together by cocoa fibres, and the sails being made 
 of palm-leaves. They had compasses and charts. 
 
 The Moorish governor of Mozambique and the other Moors sup- 
 posed the Portuguese to be Turks, on account of the whiteness 
 of their skin. They sent them provisions, in return for which 
 da Gama sent the shah a quantity of red caps, coral, copper 
 vessels, and bells. The shah set no value upon these articles, 
 and inquired disdainfully why the captain had not sent him 
 scarlet cloth. He afterwards went on board the flag-ship, where 
 he was received with hospitality, though not without secret pre- 
 parations against treachery. The Portuguese learned from him 
 that he governed the island as the deputy of the King of 
 Quiloa ; that Prester John lived and ruled a long distance 
 towards the interior of the mainland; that Calicut, whither da 
 Gama was bound, was two thousand miles to the northeast, but 
 that he could not proceed thither without the guidance of pilots 
 familiar with the navigation. He promised to furnish him with 
 two. Discovering subsequently, however, that the strangers 
 were Christians, the shah contrived a plot for their destruction. 
 The vessels escaped, but with only one pilot, whose treachery 
 throughout the voyage was a source of constant annoyance 
 and peril. On departing, da Gama gave the traitors a broad- 
 side, which did considerable damage to their village of thatch. 
 
 On the 1st of April, da Gama gave to an island which he 
 
 discovered the name of AQOutado, in commemoration of a sound 
 
 flagellation which was there administered to the pilot for telling 
 
 him it formed part of the continent, — upon which he confessed 
 
 that his purpose in thus misrepresenting the case was to wreck 
 
 and destroy the ships. On the 7th, they came to the large 
 
 island of Mombassa, where they found rice, millet, poultry, 
 
 and fat cattle, and sheep without tails. The orchards were 
 
 filled with fig, orange, and lemon trees. This island received 
 
 honey, ivory, and wax from a port upon the mainland. The 
 13 
 
194 OrtAX'S STOBT. 
 
 houses were built of stone and mortar, and the city was de- 
 fended by a small fort almost even with the water. " They have 
 a king," says the chronicle, "and the inhabitants are Moores, 
 whereof some bee white. They goe gallantly arrayed, especially 
 the women, apparelled in gownes of silke and bedecked with 
 Jewells of golde and precious stones. The men were greatly 
 comforted, as having confidence that in this place they might 
 cure such as were then sick, — as in truth were almost all ; in 
 number but fewe, as the others were dead." 
 
 The King of Mombassa, however, was as great a rogue as the 
 Shah of Mozambique, from whom he had heard, by overland 
 communication, of what had happened in his island. During 
 the night following a grand interchange of civilities and of pro- 
 testations, da Gama was informed that a sea-monster was de- 
 vouring the cable. It turned out that a number of Moors were 
 endeavoring to cut it, that the ship might be driven ashore. 
 Anxious to quit this inhospitable coast, the fleet profited by the 
 first wind to continue their course to the north. They captured 
 a zambuco, or pinnace, from which they took seventeen Moors 
 and a considerable quantity of silver and gold. On the same 
 day they arrived ofi* the town of Melinda, situated three degrees 
 only to the south of the equator. The city resembled the cities 
 of Europe, the streets being wide, and the houses being of 
 Btone and several stories high. " The generall," we are told, 
 " being come over against this citie, did rejoyce in his heart 
 very much, that he now sawe a citie lyke unto those of Portin- 
 gale, and rendered most heartie and humble thanks to God for 
 their good and safe arrival." The chief of the captured zam- 
 buco offered to procure da Gama a pilot to take the fleet to 
 Calicut, if he would permit him to go ashore. lie was landed 
 upon a beach opposite the city. The chief performed his 
 promise, and induced the King of Melinda to treat the strangers 
 with courtesy and respect. Camoens thus describes the festivi- 
 ties upon the alliance : 
 
THE SEA ROUTE TO THE GANGES, 195 
 
 ** With that ennobling worth whose fond employ 
 Befriends tJie brave, the monarch owns his joy ; 
 Entreats the leader and his weary band 
 To taste the dews of sweet repose on land. 
 And all the riches of his cultured fields 
 Obedient to the nod of Oama yields, 
 *What from the blustering winds and lengthening tide 
 Your ships have suffer'd, here shall be supplied; 
 Arms and provisions I myself will send, 
 And, great of skill, a pilot shall attend.' 
 So spoke the king ; and now, with purpled ray, 
 Beneath the shining wave the god of day 
 Retiring, left the evening shades to spread. 
 When to the fleet the joyful herald sped. 
 To find such friends each breast with rapture glows : 
 The feast is kindled, and the goblet flows ; 
 The trembling comet's irritating rays 
 Bound to the skies, and trail a sparkling blaze ; 
 The vaulting bombs awake their sleeping fire. 
 And, like the Cyclops' bolt, to heaven aspire; 
 The trump and fife's shrill clarion far around 
 The glorious music of the night resound. 
 Nor less their joy Melinda's sons display: 
 The sulphur bursts in many an ardent ray. 
 And to the heavens ascends in whizzing gyres. 
 Whilst Ocean flames with artificial fires," 
 
 During the interview which followed, the king remarked 
 that he had never seen any men who pleased him so much as 
 the Portuguese, — a compliment which da Gama acknowledged by 
 setting at liberty the sixteen Moors of the captured pinnace. 
 The king sent the promised pilot on his return; he proved to 
 be as deeply skilled in the art of navigation as any of the pilots 
 of Europe. He was acquainted with the astrolabe, compass, 
 and quadrant. The fleet set sail from Melinda on the 24th of 
 April, As they had now gone far enough towards the north, 
 and as India lay nearly east, they bade farewell to the coast, of 
 which they had hardly lost sight since leaving Lisbon, and struck 
 into the open sea, or rather a wide gulf of the Indian Ocean, 
 seven hundred and fifty leagues across. A few days after, 
 having crossed the line, the crew were delighted to behold again 
 the stars and constellations of the Northern hemisphere. The 
 
196 
 
 ocean's sroRY. 
 
 Toyage was rapid and fortunate ; for in twenty-three days they 
 arrived off the Malabar coast, and, after a day or two of south- 
 ing, discovered the lofty hills which overhang the city of Calicut. 
 Da Gama amply rewarded the pilot, released the malefactors 
 from their fetters, and summoned the crew to prayer. The 
 anchor was then thrown, and a feast was spread in honor of the 
 day. The route by sea had been discovered from the Tagus to 
 the Ganges: da Gama had laid out the way from Belem to 
 Golconda. 
 
 CALICUT IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTUITT. 
 
WRECK OF THE SAN R A F A £ 1„ 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 »HE MOORS IN HINDOSTAN — CONDITION OF THE COUNTRY UPON THE ARRIVAL Of 
 DA GAXA HOSTILITY OF THE MOORS THEY PREJUDICE THE KING OF CALI- 
 CUT AGAINST THE PORTUGUESE CONSEQUENT HOSTILITIES DA GAMA SETS 
 
 OUT UPON HIS RETURN WILD CINNAMON A MOORISH PIRATE DISGUISED 
 
 AS AN ITALIAN CHRISTIAN — A TEMPESTUOUS VOYAGE — WRECK OF THE SAN 
 
 RAFAEL HONORS AND TITLES BESTOWED UPON DA GAMA AN EXPEDITION 
 
 FITTED OUT UNDER ALVAREZ CABRAL — ACCIDENTAL DISCOVERY OF BRAZIL — 
 COMETS AND WATER- SPOUTS LOSS OF FOUR VESSELS A BAZAAR ESTA- 
 BLISHED AT CALICUT ATTACK BY THE MOORS CABRAL WITHDRAWS TO 
 
 COCHIN VISITS CANANOR AND TAKES IN A LOAD OF CINNAMON IS RE- 
 CEIVED WITH COLDNESS UPON HIS RETURN VASCO DA GAMA RECALLED 
 
 INTO THE SERVICE BY THE KINO HIS ACHIEVEMENTS AT 80FALA, CANANOR, 
 
 AND CALICUT HE HANGS FIFTY INDIANS AT THE YARD-ABM PROTBCTi 
 
 COCHIN AND THREATENS CALICUT WITHDRAWS TO PRIVATE LIFE. 
 
 Some two hundred years before this time, the Malabar coast 
 of Hindostan was united under one single native prince — named 
 Perimal — whose capital was in the interior. It was at this period 
 that the Arabians discovered India. Perimal embraced the Mo- 
 hammedan religion, and resolved to make a pilgrimage to Mecca 
 and to finish his days there. He intrusted the government to 
 other hands, and embarked for Arabia from the spot where Cali- 
 cut now stands. The Arabians were led by this circumstance te 
 
 197 
 
198 OCEAN*S STORT. 
 
 regard Calicut mih peculiar veneration, and bj degrees aban- 
 doned the former capital : it was thus that Calicut gradually 
 became the great spice and silk market of the East. 
 
 In the time of Vasco da Gaifta, India Proper, or Ilindostan, 
 was divided into several independent kingdoms, such as Moul- 
 tan, Delhi, Bengal, Orissa, Guzarate or Cambaia, Deccan, Ca- 
 nara, Bisnagar, and Malabar. The divisions of Farther India 
 were Ava, Brama, Pegu, Siam, Cambodia, Cochin-China, and 
 Tonkin. The Portuguese fleet had arrived upon the coast of 
 Malabar, which is the edge of the southwestern promontory of 
 Hindostan. It was here, and upon the western coast generally, 
 that the Portuguese were now enabled to plant establishments 
 and to form treaties of alliance and commerce. 
 
 The Moors of Arabia had already, as we have said, a foot- 
 hold in the country, and were alarmed at seeing Europeans 
 arrive by sea at the scene of a trade of which they had hitherto 
 held the exclusive monopoly. They succeeded in throwing ob- 
 stacles in the way of the Portuguese admiral, and in poisoning 
 the ear of the Indian zamorin, or king, against him. They 
 even laid a plot far the destruction of the fleet and all on board, 
 that no one might return to Europe to tell of the new route to 
 the Indies. The native monarch was induced by them to testify 
 dissatisfaction with the presents da Gama had brought, and to 
 ask for the golden statue of the Virgin that ornamented the 
 admiral's ship, as a more suitable offering to one of his rank^ 
 Da Gama replied that it was not a golden Virgin, but a wooden 
 one gilt ; that it had nevertheless preserved him from the perils 
 of the sea, and that he could not part with it. After many 
 proofs of the hostility of the Moors and the treachery of the 
 natives, da Gama obtained from the zamorin the following 
 laconic epistle to his sovereign: — "Vasco da Gama, a gentleman 
 of thy house, has visited my country. Ilis arrival has given me 
 pleasure. My land is full of cinnamon, cloves, pepper, and pre- 
 cious stones. What I desire to obtain in return from yours is 
 
THE SON RAFAEL LOST. 199 
 
 gold, silver, coral, and scarlet." With this missite da Gama 
 set sail upon his return early in September. The zamorin sent 
 sixty armed barks to attack him, but a broadside or two and a 
 favorable wind enabled him to make good his escape. Upon a 
 neighboring island some of the crew discovered a large forest 
 of wild cinnamon. Not far from here, da Gama discovered the 
 Angedive, or Five Islands, and in the vicinity had a brush with 
 Indian pirates. An elderly person, differing in appearance 
 from the natives, came on board and represented himself as an 
 Italian Christian. He had come from the Indians of the island 
 of Goa, he said, to beg the admiral to go thither and trade. 
 This well-behaved old gentleman proved to be a sort of Moorish 
 buccaneer, and, upon being put to the torture, confessed that 
 he was a spy, and that he had been sent to reconnoitre the fleet 
 and count their numbers. Da Gama retained him as a trophy 
 to present to King Emmanuel. He finally left the Indian coast 
 on the 15th of October. 
 
 When they were fairly out at sea, the pirate-prisoner made 
 a complete confession, and his evident sincerity quite won da 
 Gama's heart. He gave him clothes and a supply of money. 
 The Moor repented of his evil ways and of his pagan faith, and 
 forthwith embraced Christianity. He was baptized by the name 
 of Gaspardo da Gama. 
 
 The voyage back to Melinda, across the gulf, was disastrous 
 in every sense. The weather was tempestuous and hot. The 
 scurvy carried off thirty men in the first week, and consterna- 
 tion seized the officers and crew. After four months' naviga- 
 tion, when hardly sixteen men able to work were left on each 
 vessel, they descried the African coast, thirteen leagues above 
 Melinda. Descending to the latter city, they were received 
 with joy by the king, who was anxiously awaiting their return. 
 They took on board an ambassador sent by him to King Em- 
 manuel. The San Rafael was lost upon this coast, and t'le 
 fleet thus reduced to two vessels. Da Gama discovered the 
 
200 OCEAN^S STORY. 
 
 island of Zanzibar, and received offers of service from the 
 sovereign. He doubled the Cape successfully on the 20th of 
 March, and anchored soon after at the Cape Verds. Here, 
 during the night, Nicolao Coelho, the captain of the caravel, 
 slipped away, and made all haste to Portugal, in order to be 
 the first to carry to Europe the intelligence of the grand dis- 
 covery. 
 
 Da Gama now found that he could prosecute the voyage no 
 further in his disabled vessel, the San Gabriel, and chartered a 
 caravel in which to proceed to Lisbon. On the way his brother 
 Paulo died, and was buried at the island of Terceira. Vasco 
 arrived at Belem in September, 1499, two years and two months 
 after his departure. The king, informed of his approach by 
 the previous arrival of Coelho, sent a magnificent cortege to 
 conduct him to court. He overwhelmed him with honors, 
 wealth, and distinctions. He himself took the title of Lord of 
 the Conquest of Ethiopia, Arabia, Persia, and the Lidies. Coelho 
 was ennobled, and a pension of one thousand ducats secured to 
 him. Of the one hundred and sixty men who departed upon 
 this voyage, only fifty-five had returned, and all these were 
 munificently rewarded for their share in the brilliant achieve- 
 ments of their commander. The king ordered a series of 
 public festivities, which were preceded by a solemn service of 
 thanksgiving to Heaven for the glory vouchsafed to the Portu- 
 guese name and nation. 
 
 Emmanuel allowed not a week to pass before he directed the 
 necessary preparations to be made for fitting out another and 
 more powerful fleet, to follow in da Gama's track and attempt 
 to colonize the Indies. He determined that da Gama should 
 enjoy his dignities and renown in peace, however, and intrusted 
 the command to one Pedro Alvarez Cabral, a gentleman of 
 merit and distinction. The fleet numbered thirteen vessels, 
 manned by twelve hundred men, among whom were eight Fran- 
 ciscans to convert the pagans, and some thirty condemned male- 
 
BRAZIL VISITED. 201 
 
 factors to undertake communications with the savages. Cabral 
 carried a hat blessed by the Pope and deemed to possess miracu- 
 lous virtues. Among the captains were Bartholomew Diaz and 
 his brother Diego. The specific object of the expedition was 
 to obtain permission from the Zamorin of Calicut to establish a 
 trading station there, the Portuguese promising in return to 
 furnish him the same articles which the Moors furnished him, 
 and on more advantageous terms. 
 
 The squadron set sail on the 9th of March, 1500. It will 
 appear almost incredible that, in order to avoid the calms known 
 to prevail at that season off the coast of Guinea, they pro- 
 ceeded so far to the west that, late in April, they touched 
 at the continent now known as South America; where, how- 
 ever, Yanez Pinzon had been before them. Cabral gave to it 
 the name of Land of the Holy Cross ; but this, as well as the 
 name given by Pinzon, was subsequently changed to that of 
 Brazil, from a species of dye-wood which grew in abundance 
 there. The inhabitants were friendly, and exchanged parrots 
 of brilliant plumage for bits of paper and cloth. Cabral put 
 two of his criminals ashore and left them, with instructions to 
 inquire into the history of the country and the customs of its 
 inhabitants. He also sent one of his vessels back to Lisbon 
 with intelligence of the discovery. 
 
 The fleet left Brazil on the 2d of May, steering to the south- 
 east, in order to double the Cape. A terrible comet visible day 
 and night, a storm which lasted three weeks, a water-spout 
 reaching to the clouds, — this latter being a phenomenon which 
 the Portuguese had never before seen, — now menaced and har- 
 rassed them in quick succession. Four vessels were lost, and 
 among them that of Bartholomew Diaz, with all on board. The 
 rest were severely injured ; but Cabral was rejoiced to find that 
 during the storm he had weathered the redoubtable promontory. 
 Encountering some Moorish vessels laden with gold, he seized 
 them, but not until the crews had thrown a portion of the pre- 
 
202 ocean's story. 
 
 cious metal into the sea. At Mozambique lie took a pilot for 
 the island of Quiloa, three hundred miles to the north, whose 
 sovereign was enriched by his gold-trade with the African port 
 of Sofala. Here he attempted to enter into a treaty of com- 
 merce ; but the prejudices entertained against Christians pre- 
 vented any concessions on the part of the Moors. At Melinda 
 Cabral landed two criminals and the preseYits for tlie king sent 
 out by Emmanuel. Obtaining pilots for the Indian coast, he 
 departed on the 7th of August, and arrived at Calicut on the 
 13th of September. 
 
 From this point dates the first European establishment in 
 the East Indies. Stimulated by considerations of interest, the 
 zamorin, after, many delays, granted the admiral an interview, 
 in which the latter stated the ardent desire of his master, the 
 King of Portugal, to furnish the zamorin's subjects with all 
 articles of European production or manufacture, taking in 
 exchange the spices and jewels of the East. A market or 
 bazaar was at once opened, and the cargoes of the ships, being 
 transfi rrcd to it, were rapidly converted into cinnamon, diamonds, 
 and drugs. 
 
 The Moors now became seriously jealous of the activity, 
 power, and success of their rivals. They resorted to every 
 means to excite the hostility of the zamorin and his subjects 
 against tlioin. They attacked and destroyed the Portuguese 
 market, plundering it of goods to the amount of four thousand 
 ducats. The inconstant zamorin offering neither apology nor 
 restitution, Cabral determined on vengeance. He boarded two 
 large Moorish vessels, killed six hundred men, and salted down 
 three elephants for food. He then bombarded the town : palaces, 
 temples, and storehouses crumbled to dust beneath the thunders 
 of the artillery. The zamorin fled, and Cabral withdrew with 
 his victorious fleet to Cochin, a rich capital one hundred and 
 fifty miles to the south of Calicut, where pepper was abundant 
 and the king was poor. Trimumpara, the monarch, was in- 
 
• THE FLEET RETURNS. 203 
 
 formed of the summary vengeance wreaked by the fleet upon 
 his brother of Calicut, and at once offered the strangers hospi- 
 tality and protection. The admiral sent him a silver basin full 
 of saffron and a silver vial filled with rose-water. Trade and 
 barter rapidly loaded the ships with the fragrant commodities 
 of the country. A fleet of twenty-five sail now appeared in the 
 ofl5ng, and Trimumpara told Cabral that their object was to 
 attack him, and that they were sent by the zamorin of Calicut. 
 Cabral, having been separated from his most efficient ship, de- 
 termined not to venture a combat, and made for the north, cast- 
 ing anchor before Cananor, a town a little above Calicut. Here 
 he found a commodious roadstead, an independent prince, and 
 a soil abounding in ginger, cardamom-seeds, tamarinds, and 
 cinnamon. Of the latter article he took four hundred quintals. 
 The king, judging, from the insignificance of this purchase, that 
 he was short of money, offered him a further supply upon credit. 
 Cabral expressed his sense of appreciation of this generosity, 
 but declined the proposition. The fleet now sailed homewards: 
 one of the vessels was lost upon the African coast, and, taking 
 fire, was destroyed with its contents. The six ships remaining 
 of the twelve which had left Brazil, arrived at Lisbon on the 
 31st of July, 1501. Cabral ^ya.3 received with coldness by the 
 king, partly on account of the loss of ships and men he had met 
 with, and partly on account of his failure at Calicut, to which 
 place he, — the king, — relying on Cabral's success, had sent out, 
 three "months previous to his return, a fleet of four vessels under 
 Juan de Nueva. This expedition was singularly happy in its re- 
 sults, — Nueva lading his vessels to great advantage at Cananor, and 
 discovering the island of St. Helena upon his homeward voyage. 
 It was now evident to the Portuguese that without the em- 
 ployment of force it would be impossible to obtain a permanent 
 foothold in the Indies. After listening to a deliberation as to 
 whether it were not best to abandon the attempt altogether, 
 Emmanuel ordered the equipment of a grand fleet of twenty 
 
DA QAMa's rLAO-SBIP. 
 
CALICUT DESTROYED. 205 
 
 vessels, to be placed under the command of Vasco da Gama, 
 who consented to resume active life. It was to be divided into 
 three portions: the first, consisting of ten sail, under da Gama, 
 was to undertake the subjugation of the refractory kings of 
 Malabar; the second, of five sail, under Vincent Sodrez, was 
 to guard the entrance of the Red Sea into the Indian Ocean, 
 and thus prevent the Turks and Moors from trading with the 
 ports of Africa and Hindostan; and the third, of five vessels, 
 under Stefano da Gama, was to be detailed upon any service 
 the admiral might direct. They sailed early in 1502, and 
 formed a treaty of alliance and commerce with the king of 
 Sofala, without difficulty. Da Gama obtained from the king 
 of Quiloa an engagement to pay to the crown of Portugal an 
 annual tribute in gold fresh from the mine. Upon the Indian 
 coast near Cananor, he fell in with an Egyptian vessel of the 
 largest size, laden with costly merchandise and crowded with 
 Moors of high rank on their way to Mecca. He attacked, 
 plundered, and burned her : three hundred men and women 
 perished in the flames, in the sea, or by the sword. Twenty 
 children were saved and conveyed to the ship of da Gama, who 
 made a vow to educate them as Christians, in atonement for the 
 apostasy of one Portuguese who had become a Mohammedan. 
 After this sanguinary lesson, da Gama found no obstacles to 
 the establishment of a trading station at Cananor, where his 
 fleet landed a portion of their cargoes. He then sailed to 
 Calicut, determined to inflict summary vengeance upon the 
 faithless and treacherous zamorin. 
 
 Not far from the coast he seized a number of boats in whick 
 were fifty Indians. He sent word to the zamorin that, unless 
 satisfaction were given for the late destruction of the Portu- 
 guese bazaar before noon, he would attack the city with fire and 
 sword, and would begin with his fifty prisoners. The time having 
 expired, the unfortunate captives were hung simultaneously at 
 ihe yard-arms of the various vessels. The town was then reduced 
 
206 ocean's story. 
 
 to ashes. A squadron was left to sweep the Moorish vessels 
 from the seas, and da Gama proceeded down the coast to Cochin, 
 the city of the friendly Trimumpara. * Presents and compliments 
 were here exchanged, — the offerings of the King of Portugal 
 being a golden crown, vases of embossed silver, a rich tent, a 
 piece of scarlet satin, and a bit of sandal-wood, while those of 
 his majesty of Cochin were a Moorish turban of silver thread, 
 two gold bracelets set with precious stones, two large pieces of 
 Bengal calico, and a stone ^said to be a specific against poison, 
 and taken from the head of an animal called bulgodolph, — a 
 fabulous creature, declared by some to be a serpent and by 
 others to be a quadruped. 
 
 An apology was now received from the zamorin, and da Gama 
 returned to Calicut with only one vessel. Seeing him thus 
 single-handed, the zamorin sent thirty-three armed canoes 
 against him, and, without the prompt assistance of Sodrez' 
 cruising squadron, da Gama would inevitably have perished. 
 The zamorin now threatened Trimumpara with his vengeance if 
 he continued to harbor the Portuguese and to trade with Chris- 
 tian infidels. Da Gama promised Trimumpara the assistance 
 and alliance of the King of Portugal, and set sail with well- 
 laden vessels. He met the zamorin's fleet of twenty-nine 
 sail, and, having captured two, put the rest to flight with great 
 slaughter. In the two that were taken he found an immense 
 quantity of porcelain and Chinese stuff's, together with an 
 enormous golden idol, with emeralds for eyes, a robe of beaten 
 gold for a vestment, and rubies for buttons. Leaving Sodrez and 
 his fleet to defend Cochin against Calicut and to exterminate 
 the traders from Mecca, da Gama returned with thirteen vessels 
 to Portugal. The king conferred upon him the titles of Admiral 
 of the Indian Ocean and Count de Vidigueira. He again 
 withdrew to privacy, and did not a second time emerge into 
 public life till the year 1524, when the interests of the country 
 under John III. again reclaimed his services in the East. 
 
VESSELS EMPLOYED IN THE SPICE-TRADE: SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 SPREAD OF THE PORTUGUESK EAST INDIAN EMPIRE — ^^ALPIIONZO d'aLBUQUER- 
 
 QUE — IMMENSE SACRIFICE OF LIFE ANCIENT ROUTE OF THE SPICE-TRADB 
 
 WITH EUROPE COMMERCE BY CARAVANS REVOLUTION PRODUCED BY OPEN- 
 ING THE NEW ROUTE — FRANCESCO ALMEIDA DISCOVERY OF CEYLON TRISTAN 
 
 d'aCUNHA THE PORTUGUESE MARS HIS VIEWS OF EMPIRE — AN ARSENAI 
 
 ESTABLISHED AT GOA — REDUCTION OF MALACCA SIAM AND SUMATRA SENI> 
 
 EMBASSIES TO ALBUQUERQUE — THE ISLAND OF ORMUZ — DEATH OF ALBU- 
 QUERQUE EXTENT OF THE PORTUGUESE DOMINION ORMUZ BECOMES THE 
 
 GREAT EMPORIUM OF THE EAST FALL OF THE PORTUGUESE EMPIRE. 
 
 Having narrated, in the prGceding chapters, the incidents 
 "which led to the circumnavigation of Africa, and having de- 
 scribed the several voyages which introduced the Europeans into 
 the East, bj the new route of the Indian Ocean and the Cape 
 of Tempests, we must briefly allude to the sequel, — the spread 
 of European commerce among the islands and seaports of this 
 highly favored region. Alphonzo and Francesco dAlbuquer- 
 que, with a fleet of nine vessels, and Edoardo Pacheco, with 
 three vessels, carried terror and revenge to the Malabar coast : 
 forts were built to protect the Portuguese commerce, kings were 
 forced to pay tribute, fleets were swept from the seas ; and, as a 
 proverb of the time expressed it, pepper began to cost blood. 
 
 Again the King of Portugal sent out a formidable squadron, — 
 
 207 
 
208 ocean's story. 
 
 thirteen ships of the line, the largest yet constructed, under 
 Lopez Soarez. Sea-battles now took place, in which the pro- 
 portions of the slain were one thousand infidels to seventy- five 
 Portuguese, — in which a single European vessel contended suc- 
 cessfully with myriads of the native barks. The sacrifice of 
 life was truly awful ; but gradually the whole eastern coast of 
 Africa, and, opposite to it, the whole western coast of India, 
 fell under Portuguese sway. 
 
 The entire commerce of this quarter of the world was of 
 course revolutionized by these discoveries and conquests. Be- 
 fore this period the productions of the East had been carried to 
 Europe in the following manner. The city of Malacca, in the pen- 
 insula of the same name, was the central market to which came 
 the camphor of Borneo, the cloves of the Moluccas, the nutmegs 
 of Banda, the pepper of Sumatra, the gums, drugs, and per- 
 fumes of China, Japan, and Siam. These products were taken 
 by water, either in the clumsy boats of the natives or the more 
 solid vessels of the Moors, to the ports of the Red Sea, were 
 landed at Tor or at Suez, whence they were transported by cara- 
 vans to Cairo, and thence by the Nile to Alexandria, where 
 they were placed on board of vessels bound to all the ports of 
 Europe. Those intended for Armenia, Trebizonde, Aleppo, 
 Damascus, were taken by the Persian Gulf to Bassorah, and 
 thence distributed by caravans. The Venetians and Genoese 
 took their portion at Beyrout, in Syria. The East Indians 
 preferred the manufactures of Europe to gold and silver, and 
 consequently the trade was generally in the form of barter 
 and exchange. In addition to the products of Farther India 
 which we have mentioned must be added those of India 
 Proper, — the fabrics of Bengal, the pearls of Orissa, the 
 diamonds of Golconda, the cinnamon of Ceylon, the pepper of 
 Malabar. 
 
 Thus, not only thousands of laborers, sailors, conductors of 
 caravans, saw themselves ^suddenly deprived of their livelihood 
 
THE NEW COURSE OF COMMERCE. 209 
 
 by this diversion of the traffic into the hands of the Portuguese, 
 but rich cities lost their revenues and princes lost their tribute. 
 VYhile the Venetians resolved to appeal to arms, the Sultan of 
 Egypt addressed a protestation to Rome. But the King of 
 PortugLil tranquillized the Pope by declaring his intention of 
 extending the jurisdiction of the apostolic faith, and he prepared 
 to resist violence by sending out, in 1507, Don Francesco Al- 
 meida, with twenty-two ships and fifteen hundred regular 
 soldiers : he bestowed upon the new commander the title of 
 Viceroy of the Indies. Almeida deposed the King of Quiloa, 
 and crowned another of his own appointment ; he built a fort in 
 twenty days, garrisoned it with one hundred and fifty men, and 
 left a brigantine and a caravel to scour and protect the coast. 
 He bombarded Mombassa, killed fifteen hundred men and lost 
 five. He erected forts and established trading stations at 
 Onor, Cananor, Surat and Calicut, upon the Malabar coast. 
 To the important point of Sofala, upon the African coast, 
 Emmanuel sent a distinct expedition of six ships, under Pedro 
 da Nayha and Juan da Quiros, who compelled the king to admit 
 their nation to a share in the famous gold mines which consti- 
 tuted his kingdom and his wealth. In 1508, Lorenzo, the son 
 of Almeida, while chasing the flying Moors with six men-of- 
 war, discovered the island of Ceylon, to the south of Hindostan. 
 Here he found the Moors and natives loading vessels with ele- 
 phants and cinnamon. 
 
 Again King Emmanuel, drawing upon resources which seemed 
 almost inexhaustible, sent out thirteen vessels, with thirteen 
 hundred men, under Tristan d'Acunha. This fleet was driven 
 to the coast of Brazil, and upon the way thence to the Cape of 
 Good Hope the commander discovered the islands which now 
 bear his name. He burned and pillaged the town of Oja, near 
 Melinda ; he reduced a neighboring shah to the payment of an 
 annual tribute of six hundred golden ducats. His soldiers 
 
 would not give the captured women of Brava time to remove 
 14 
 
210 ocean'3 story. 
 
 their bracelets and ear-rings, but in their ruthless haste cut off 
 their arms and ears. 
 
 It was now evident to the King of Portugal that his rule in 
 the East could not be consolidated and extended by the same 
 means which had obtained him his first foothold upon the 
 coast, — chance, intrepidity, and unscrupulous violence. What 
 was required was a carefully conceived system of government, 
 and a man capable of administering it. Emmanuel's choice fell 
 upon Alphonzo d'Albuquerque, whose services in the East had 
 already been meritorious, and to whom, in 1509, he gave the titlo 
 and power of viceroy. Albuquerque, whose courage obtained for 
 him the name of the Portuguese Mars, ranks, by his talents, hia 
 severe virtues, and his disinterested zeal, among the greatest 
 men whom the world has produced. He at once formed the 
 plan of founding an empire which should extend from the Per- 
 s'.an Gulf to the peninsula of Malacca ; and, determining to 
 abandon Calicut, which had thus far been looked upon as the 
 best point for an arsenal, he selected the island of Goa, a little 
 to the north, captured it, and made its admirable harbor a Por- 
 tuguese roadstead and its town a Portuguese capital. He built 
 bazaars and citadels along the coast from north to south, and 
 then turned his eyes towards Malacca, — a magnificent country, 
 ruled by a despot and inhabited by slaves. As we have said, its 
 principal seaport was the central resort of the ships of China, 
 Japan, Bengal, the Philippines and the Moluccas, Coromandel, 
 Persia, Arabia, and Malabar. 
 
 The Portuguese had first visited Malacca two years pre- 
 viously, Emmanuel having sent one Siguiera to make a treaty 
 with the king. He had been perfidiously treated, and Albuquer- 
 que now, in 1511, appeared before the city to call the monarch 
 to account. A long and obstinate battle resulted in tlie defeat 
 of the natives and the unconditional surrender of the peninsuhu 
 The Kings of Siam, Sumatra, and Pegu sent ambassadors to 
 Albucjuerquc, asking the honor of his friendship. He buIU a 
 
PORTUGUESE EMPIRE IN THE EAST. 211 
 
 citadel and returned to Cochin. But, as he left one spot to 
 repair to another, revolt was sure to follow ; and, as the Vene- 
 tians now joined the Moors to repel the Portuguese, he saw that 
 his dominion could not be complete till he controlled the naviga- 
 tion of the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf. The city of Aden, 
 in Arabia, was the key to the Red Sea, commanding, as it did, 
 the Straits of Babelmandel; and the island of Ormuz was the 
 key to the Persian Gulf. He failed to take Aden, but he suc- 
 ceeded easily with Ormuz, whose king acknowledged himself 
 the vassal of Emmanuel. Albuquerque then formed a gigantic 
 plan in reference to the Red Sea. Unable to command it by 
 the capture of Aden, he determined to ruin Suez, at the other 
 extremity of the sea, by forming an alliance with the King of 
 Ethiopia, and inducing that monarch to dig a new course for the 
 Nile and make it empty into the Red Sea instead of into the 
 Mediterranean, thus rendering Egypt uninhabitable and Suez 
 desert. The invasion of Egypt by the Turks, however, pre- 
 vented the accomplishment of this undertaking. Thus the 
 people and kings of the East everywhere gave way before the 
 grand plans and deeds of Albuquerque, whom they both feared 
 for his energy and loved for his justice. When, in 1515, he 
 died at Goa, disgraced by his king and worn out by a thankless 
 service, the heathen monarchs wept over his grave, and for 
 many years went in pilgrimage to his tomb, asking his protec- 
 tion against the cruelty or injustice of his successors. 
 
 The Portuguese, in little more than fifty years from the first 
 expedition of Vasco da Gama, had established an empire in 
 these seas of truly wonderful extent and power. They held 
 exclusive possession of the Malabar and Coromandel coasts of 
 India Proper, were masters of the Bay of Bengal, ruled the 
 peninsula of Malacca, and held tributary the islands of Ceylon, 
 Sumatra, Java, and the Moluccas. To the westward, towards 
 Africa, their authority extended as far as the Persian boundary, 
 and over all the islands of the Persian Gulf. In Arabia, even, 
 
, 212 OCEAN S STOP.Y. 
 
 « 
 
 they had tributaries and allies, and no Arabian prince dared 
 confess himself their enemy. They exercised an influence in 
 the Red Sea : and upon the eastei-n coast of Africa, they were 
 the masters of Quiloa, Sofala, Mozambique, and Mclinda. 
 
 As Albuquerque had foreseen, Ormuz — from its fortunate 
 situation, as an emporium of trade, at the mouth of the Persian 
 Gulf — became the most important of the Portuguese conquests. 
 The island was by nature little more than a barren rock, and was 
 entirely destitute of water. Its wealth and splendor, however, 
 during the period of its commercial supremacy, gave the world 
 an example of the power of trade which had never yet been 
 witnessed. The trading season lasted from January to March 
 and from August to November: during these months, the bouses 
 fronting on the streets were opened like shops, and decorated with 
 piles of porcelain and Indian curiosities, and perfumed with 
 fra errant dwarf shrubs set in rrilded vases. Camels laden with 
 skins of water stood at the corners of the streets. The richest 
 Avines of Persia and the most costly odors of Asia Avere offered 
 in profusion to those who visited the city to trade. Thick awn- 
 ings stretched from roof to roof across the promenades, ex- 
 cluding the rays of the sun. The luxury and magnificence 
 of the place seemed to flow rather from the lavish extravagance 
 of an idle prince than from the legitimate pomp of a stirring 
 and active commercial population. 
 
 In 1580, Portugal was conquered and annexed to Spain, and 
 the Portuguese Empire in the East at once declined, and the 
 Dutch Empire sprang up upon its ruins. Ormuz was plundered 
 by the Persians and English united in 1GG2: the very stones of 
 which its edifices were built were carried away as ballast, and 
 it speedily sank back into its primitive state — a barren and 
 desolate rock. Hardly a vestige of the proud city noAV remains 
 to vindicate history in its record that here once stood one of 
 the most famous emporiums of connuerce and most fre(p:cnted 
 resorts of man. 
 
PONCE DE LEON AND THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH. 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 POXCE DE LEON — THE FOUNTAIN OF TOUTH-^DISCOVERY OF FLORIDA — THE MAR- 
 TYRS AND THE TOBTUGAS THE BAHAMA CHANNEL VASCO NUNEZ DE BALBOA 
 
 HE GOES TO SEA IN A BARBEL MARRIES A LADY OF THE ISTHMUS — HIS 
 
 SEARCH FOB GOLD HEARS OF A MIGHTY OCEAN UNDERTAKES TO REACH IT 
 
 — PREPARATIONS FOR THE EXPEDITION — LEONCICO THE BLOODHOUND BATTLE 
 
 WITH A CACIQUE ASCENT OF THE MOUNTAINS BALBOA MOUNTS TO THE 
 
 SUMMIT ALONE — THE FIRST SIGHT OF THE PACIFIC CEREMONIES OF TAKING 
 
 POSSESSION — BALBOA UP TO HIS KNEES IN THE OCEAN EVERY ONE TASTES 
 
 THE WATER A VOYAGE UPON THE PACIFIC, AND A NABBOW ESCAPE IGNO- 
 MINIOUS FATE OF BALBOA JUAN DIAZ DE SOLIS DISCOVBBS THE RIO DB 
 
 LA PLATA — HIS HORRIBLE DEATH BY CANNIBALS. 
 
 We now return, in due chronological progression, to the dis- 
 coveries of the Spaniards in the "West. We have not space to 
 describe, or even to mention, all the successive expeditions made 
 to various points of the great American Continent : we select, 
 therefore, only the more important and interesting episodes 
 
 among the Spanish maritime achievements. Three heroes will 
 
 213 
 
214 ocean's story. 
 
 occupy our attention from 1510 to 1514, — Ponce de Leon, Juan 
 Diaz de Solis, and Vasco Nunez de Balboa. 
 
 Juan Ponce, surnamed de Leon from his native province, was 
 one of the Spanish captains who emigrated to Hispaniola shortly 
 after its discovery by Columbus. After an active and pros- 
 perous career, he found himself, in 1510, by the withdrawal of 
 the king's favor, without place or occupation. He was, however, 
 rich, and resolved to attempt to regain his credit by means of 
 discoveries. He was avaricious, too, and would willingly have 
 augmented his already large possessions. He had heard from 
 the Indians of Cuba of the existence, to the north of His- 
 paniola, of an island named Bimini, where, they asserted, was 
 a spring whose waters had the virtue of restoring youth to 
 the aged and vigor to the decrepit. Ponce thought that if 
 he could discover and seize this fountain it would be an inex- 
 haustible source of revenue to him, as he could levy a tax 
 upon all who derived benefit from its influence. He deter- 
 mined to set out in search of it, and fitted out two stout ships 
 at his own expense. With these he left St. Genevieve, in Porto 
 Rico, on the 1st of March, 1512, and steered boldly through 
 the intricate group of the Lucayos. Wherever he stopped, he 
 drank of all the running streams and standing pools, whether 
 ' their waters were fresh or stagnant, that he might not miss the 
 famous spring. He inquired of all the natives he met where he 
 could find the wondrous Fountain of Youth. 
 
 At last he discovered a land till then unknown to Europeans. 
 Early in April, and in Easter week, he touched what he sup- 
 posed was an island, but what in reality was a portion of the 
 continent. As the landscape was covered with flowers, he named 
 the spot "Florida." He had several severe fights with the In- 
 dians, one of whom he made prisoner, that he might learn Span- 
 ish and give him information concerning the country. He now 
 sailed to the south and doubled Cape Florida on the 8th of May, 
 which, on account of the currents, he named Cabo de las Corri- 
 
PONCE DE LEON. 215 
 
 entes. On the 15th, he sailed along a line of small islands as far 
 as two white ones, and called the whole group Los Martyros, or 
 The Martyrs, from the high rocks at a distance which had 
 the appearance of men undergoing crucifixion. The name 
 was singularly applicable, for the large number of seamen 
 who have since been wrecked upon these islands has made them 
 in reality a place of martyrdom. He discovered another group 
 to the southwest, which he called the Tortugas, as his men took 
 one hundred and seventy tortoises upon one of them in a short 
 time, and might have had more if they w^ould. Ponce de Leon 
 continued ranging about here till September, when he returned 
 to Porto Rico, sending one of his ships to Bimini — the smallest 
 of the Bahamas — to see if he could discover the spring. The 
 vessel went and returned, the captain, Perez de Ortubia, re- 
 porting that the island was pleasantly diversified with hills, 
 groves, and rivers, but that none of the latter possessed any un- 
 usual charm. ^ 
 
 One great advantage which resulted from the voyage of Ponce 
 de Leon was the discovery, by his second captain, Ortubia, of 
 the passage now known as the Bahama Channel, by which ships 
 bound from Havana to Spain pass out into the Atlantic Ocean. 
 This new passage became the universal track even during Ponce 
 de Leon's life. Upon his return to court, he was well rewarded 
 for his discoveries both by land and sea, but his gathering years 
 caused him often to regret that he had missed the Fountain of 
 Youth. 
 
 We have now to relate the manner in which the Pacific Ocean, 
 which had rolled for centuries in its accustomed bed, unknown 
 to Europeans, was first seen by Continental eyes. The islands 
 discovered by Columbus were still under the exclusive dominion 
 of the Spaniards ; Hispaniola was the central point of tlieir 
 operations of discovery and conquest. Settled here, upon a 
 farm, was a man, still in the prime of life, named Vasco Nuiiez 
 de Balboa. He was a native of Xeres, in Spain, and had 
 
216 ocean's story. 
 
 eagerly enlisted in the late voyages of adventure. He was 
 known to be a mere soldier of fortune, and of loose, prodigal 
 habits, and is described as an "egrcgius digladiator," or adroit 
 swordsman. His farm had involved him in debt ; and, to escape 
 his embarrassments and elude his creditors, he caused himself, in 
 1511, to be nailed up in a cask, to be labelled " victuals for the 
 voyage," and to be conveyed on board a ship starting upon an 
 expedition to the mainland. When the vessel was out of sight 
 of the shore, he emerged from the cask, and appeared before 
 the surprised captain, Hernandez de Enciso. Being tall and 
 muscular, evidently inured to hardships and of intrepid disposi- 
 tion, he found favor with the captain, especially when he told 
 him that a venerable priest had asserted ''that God reserved him 
 for great things." 
 
 In the course of two years, Balboa had acquired authority 
 over a tract of the Isthmus of Darien, and had married the 
 young and beautiful daughter of the Cacique o€ Coyba. After 
 a victory obtained over one of the neighboring monarchs, 
 from whom four thousand ounces of gold and a quantity of 
 golden utensils had been extorted, Balboa ordered one-fifth 
 to be set apart for himself and the rest to be shared among 
 his followers. While the Spaniards were dividing it by weight, 
 a dispute arose respecting the fairness of the award, when the 
 Indian who had given the gold spoke to the disputants as 
 follows : 
 
 "Why should you quarrel for such a trifle? If gold is to you 
 BO precious that you abandon your homes for it and invade the 
 peaceful lands of others, I will tell you of a region where you 
 may gratify your wishes to the utmost. Beyond those lofty moun- 
 tains lies a mighty sea, which from their summits may be easily 
 discerned. It is navigated by people who have vessels almost 
 as large as yours, and, like them, furnished with sails and oars. 
 All the streams which flow from these mountains into the sea 
 abound in gold : the kings who reign upon its borders eat and 
 
BALBOA HEARS OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 217 
 
 drink out of golden vessels. Gold, in fact, is as common there 
 as iron among you Spaniards." 
 
 Fired by this discourse, Balboa inquired whether it would be 
 difficult to penetrate to this sea and its golden shores. "The 
 task," the prince replied, "is arduous and dangerous. Power- 
 ful caciques will oppose you with their warriors; fierce canni- 
 bals will attack you, and devour those Avhom they kill. To 
 
 
 BALBOA AND THE INDIAN. 
 
 accomplish your enterprise, you will require at least a thousand 
 men, armed like those you have with you now." To prove his 
 sincerity, the prince offered to accompany Balboa upon the ex- 
 pedition, at the head of his warriors. This was the first in- 
 timation received by a European of the splendid expanse of 
 water which was so soon to receive the name of Pacific. It 
 exerted an immediate and radical change upon the character 
 and conduct of Balboa. The soldier of fortune became ani- 
 mated by an honorable and controlling ambition ; the restless 
 and reckless desperado saw before him a glorious path to immor- 
 tality. He baptized the prince wlio had given him information 
 
218 ocean's story. 
 
 80 priceless, and proceeded to Daricn to obtain the means of 
 accomplishing his scheme. 
 
 For a long time he was baffled. A terrific tempest laid waste 
 the fields nnd devastated the harvests. He sent to Ilispaniola 
 for men and provisions ; but the emissary was wrecked upon the 
 coast of Jamaic.i. He wrote to Don Diego Columbus, who 
 governed at San Domingo, informing him of the existence of a 
 new ocean, bordered with shores of gold, and asking for a thou- 
 sand men with whom to prosecute its discovery. He forwarded 
 the sum of fifteen thousand crowns in gold, to be transmitted to 
 the king as his royal fifths. Many of his followers, too, sent 
 sums intended for their creditors in Spain. 
 
 While waiting for a reply, Balboa learned indirectly that he 
 had fallen into disfavor with the king. One brilliant achieve- 
 ment micrht restore him to consideration and forever fix him in 
 the good graces of the monarch. He chose one hundred and 
 ninety of the most vigorous and resolute of his men, and took 
 with him a number of bloodhounds. His own peculiar body- 
 guard was a dog named Leoncico, — one of the numerous progeny 
 sired by the famous warrior-dog of Juan Ponce de Leon. Leon- 
 cico was covered with scars received in his innumerable fights 
 with the natives. Balboa often lent him to others, and received 
 for his services the same share of booty an able-bodied man 
 would have claimed. Leoncico had earned for his master in 
 this way several thousands of dollars. 
 
 On the 1st of September, 1513, Balboa embarked with his 
 followers in a light brigantine and nine canoes, and ascended a 
 stream which was navigable as far as Coyba. Here he received 
 accessions of men, and, having sent back those who were ill 
 or disabled, prepared to penetrate the wilderness on foot. In 
 a battle with a cacique named Quaragua, he slew six hundred 
 of the natives. Some were transfixed with lances, others hewn 
 down with swords, and others torn to pieces by the bloodhounds. 
 He advanced hardly seven miles a day, but at last reached a 
 
THE PACIFIC DISCOVERED 
 
 219 
 
 village lying at the foot of the mountain that commanded the 
 long wished for prospect. Only sixty-seven men out of two 
 hundred remained to make this last grand effort. Balboa 
 ordered them to retire early to repose, that they might be ready 
 at the cool hour of dawn. They set forth at daybreak on the 
 morning of the 26th of September. In a short time they 
 emerged from the forests, and arrived at the upper regions of 
 the mountain, leaving the bald summit still to be ascended. 
 Balboa ordered them to halt, that he might himself be alone 
 to enjoy the scene and the first to discover the ocean. He 
 reached the peak, and there the magnificent sight burst upon his 
 view. The water was still at the distance of two days' journey ; 
 but there it lay, beyond the intervening space, grand, bound- 
 less, and serene. He fell upon his knees, and returned thanks 
 
 BALBOA DISCOVERING THE PACIFIC OCEAN. 
 
 to God. He summoned his followers to ascend, and thus ad- 
 dressed them: — "Behold, my friends," he said, *'the glorious 
 sight which we have so ardently longed for. Let us pray to 
 God that he will aid and guide us to conquer the sea and land 
 which we have discovered, and in which no Christian has ever 
 entered to preach the holy doctrine of the Evangelists. By the 
 favor of Christ you will thus become the richest Spaniards that 
 have ever come to the Indies." The priest attached to the 
 expedition chanted that impressive anthem, the Te Deum ; and 
 the Spaniards, in whom religious fervor and the thirst for pillage 
 
220 OCEANS STORY. 
 
 Boomed to be mingled in equal proportions, joined in the chorus 
 with heart and voice. 
 
 Balboa now called upon all present to witness that he took 
 possession of the sea, its islands and surrounding lands, in the 
 name of the sovereigns of Castile ; and the notary of the expe- 
 dition made a record to that effect, to which all present, to tlie 
 number of sixty-seven men, signed their names. Balboa then 
 caused a tall tree to be cut down and fashioned into the form of 
 a cross: this he erected on the spot whence he had first beheld 
 the ocean. A mound of stone was likewise piled up as a monu- 
 ment, and the names of Ferdinand and Juana were carved upon 
 the neighboring trees. 
 
 A scouting party under Alonzo Martin, sent by Balboa to 
 discover the best route to the sea, came after two days' journey 
 to a beach, upon which were twb canoes, stranded as it were, 
 and apparently out of the reach of water. But the tide soon 
 came rushing in, and floated them ; upon which Alonzo Martin 
 stepped into one of them, and was thus the first European who 
 embarked upon the ocean which Balboa had discovered and Avhich 
 Magellan was to name. Balboa soon arrived upon the coast : 
 the tide had ebbed, and the water was nearly two miles distant. 
 But it soon returned, invading the place where the Spaniards 
 were seated. Upon this Balboa arose, and, taking a banner 
 representing the Virgin and Child and bearing the arms of 
 Castile and Leon, marched knee-deep into the water, and, waving 
 the flag, pronounced the following act of taking possession : 
 
 "Long live the liigh and mighty monarchs Don Ferdinand 
 and Donna Juana, sovereigns of Castile, Leon, and Aragon, in 
 whose name I take real and actual and corporeal possession of 
 these seas, and lands, and coasts, and ports, and islands of the 
 South, and all thereunto annexed ; and of the kingdoms and pro- 
 vinces which do or may appertain to them in whatever manner 
 or by whatever right or title, ancient or modern, i\i times past, 
 present, or to come, without any contradiction ; and if other 
 
BALBOA TAKIMa POSSESSION OF THE PACIFIO OCKAM. 
 
222 ocean's story. 
 
 prince or captain, Christian or infidel, or if any law, condition, 
 or sect whatsoever, shall pretend any right to these lands and 
 seas, I am ready to maintain and defend them in the name of 
 the Castilian sovereigns, whose is the empire and dominion over 
 these Indies, islands, and terra firma. Northern and Southern, 
 with all their seas, both at the Arctic and Antartic poles, on 
 either side of the equinoctial line, whether within or without the 
 tropics of Cancer and Capricorn, both now and in all time, as 
 long as the world endure, and until the final day of judgment 
 of all mankind." 
 
 As may be supposed, no one appeared to dispute these for- 
 midable pretensions, and no champion entered the lists in behalf 
 of the original owners of the seas, islands, and surrounding 
 lands in question ; so that Balboa called upon his companions to 
 bear witness that he had duly and uninterruptedly taken posses- 
 sion. The notary drew up the necessary legal document, which 
 was signed by all present. Then they all tasted the water, 
 which, from its saltncss, they felt assured was the ocean. Bal- 
 boa carved a cross on a tree whose roots were below high-water 
 mark, and, lopping off a branch Avith his sword, bore it away as 
 a trophy. 
 
 Balboa now wished to perform a voyage upon the bosom of 
 the new-found ocean. In spite of the advice of friendly In- 
 dians, who rcpresenjtcd the season as stormy, he embarked with 
 sixty of his men in nine canoes. A tempest compelled them to 
 seek refuge upon an island. In the night the tide completely 
 submerged it, and rose to the girdles of the Spaniards. Their 
 canoes were broken to pieces, and at low tide they managed 
 vfhh. great difficulty to effect their escape to the mainland. 
 After numerous forays against the caciques ruling the neighs 
 boring tribes, Balboa arrived at the Darien llivcr, on the 10th 
 of January, 1514, after having accomplished one of the most 
 remarkable feats on record, and after an expedition wliicli iiiuiit 
 ever be memorable among deeds of intrepidity and adventure. 
 
BALBOA BEHEADED. 223 
 
 The king created him Adelantado of the South Sea, and Go- 
 vernor of Panama and Coyba, but subject to Pedrarias, the 
 Governor of Darien. The latter regarded him as his rival, 
 and, by a successful series of treacherous arts, brought against 
 him a well-contrived charge of treason to the king. He was 
 reluctantly found guilty by the alcalde, and by Pedrarias con- 
 demned to be beheaded, as a traitor and usurper of the terri- 
 tories of the crown. The execution took place in the public 
 square of a small town near Darien, and was witnessed by 
 Pedrarias from between the reeds of the wall of a house some 
 twelve paces from the scaffold. Balboa and four of his officers 
 were beheaded in quick succession during the brief twilight of a 
 tropical evening. Pedrarias confiscated Balboa's property, and 
 ordered his head to be impaled upon a pole and exposed upon 
 the public square till decomposition should ensue. 
 
 Thus perished, at the age of forty-two years, — the victim of tlie 
 meanest envy nnd the most odious treachery, — a man who w'ill 
 be ever remembered as one of the most illustrious of the early 
 discoverers. Events transformed him from a rash and turbulent 
 adventurer into a discreet and patriotic captain ; and, from the 
 moment when he felt that he had drawn the attention of the 
 world upon him, his conduct was that of a man born and pre- 
 destined to greatness. He fell in the zenith of his glory, a 
 worthy coteraporary of Columbus, da Gama, and Magellan. 
 
 Juan Diaz de Solis, who, Avith Yanez Pinzon, An^erigo Ves- 
 pucci, and Juan de la Cosa, the pilot of Columbus, was a member 
 of the Spanish council appointed to deliberate upon discoveries 
 yet to be made, sailed to South America in 1514, and, doubling 
 Capes St. Roque, St. Augustin, and Frio, entered the bay upon 
 which now stands the city of Rio Janeiro, and was probably the 
 first European to set foot upon the coast thus far to the south. 
 He supposed the bay to be the mouth of a pas.^a|^o through to 
 the South Sea so lately discovered by Balboa. He proceeded 
 to the south, ascertaining the position of every headland and 
 
224 
 
 OGE.^^'S STORY 
 
 indentation with all the precision the instruments and science of 
 the time would permit. At last he found a great opening of 
 the sea towards the west: he took possession of the northern 
 coast for the King of Spain, and named the gulf Fresh-Water 
 Sea. Subsequently, finding that it was a river, and that silver- 
 mines existed there, he named the stream Rio de la Plata. The 
 Indians called it Paraguaza. He found the country fertile and 
 attractive, and an abundance of the wood which had given to 
 the whole region the name of Brazil. He went on shore with a 
 small party, but soon fell into an ambuscade laid for them by 
 
 FATE OF DE SOLIS AND HIS COMPANIONS. 
 
 the natives. Soils and five of his companions were taken, 
 killed, roasted, and devoured by the horrible cannibals who in- 
 habited the country. The Spaniards who remained on board 
 the ships witnessed the shocking catastrophe, which so appalled 
 and horrified them that they fled in dismay and sailed hastily 
 back to Spain. 
 

 FERDINAND MAGELLAN, 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 BEMARKABLE FOEESIGHT OF TUB COURT OF ROME — A PAPAL BULL FERDINAND 
 
 MAGELLAN — HE OFFERS HIS SERVICES TO SPAIN — HIS PLANS — HIS FLEET 
 
 PIGAFETTA THE HISTORIAN — AN INAUSPICIOUS START TENERIFFE AND ITS 
 
 LEGENDS — ST. ELMO'S FIRE THE CREW MAKE FAMOUS BARGAINS WITH THE 
 
 CANNIBALS — HEAVY PRICE PAID FOR THE KING OF SPADES — PATAGONIAN 
 
 GIANTS PIGAFETTa's EXAGGERATIONS — THE HEALING ART IN PATAGONIA 
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF PORT JULIAN — DISCOVERT OF A STRAIT — THE OPEN SEA 
 
 CAPE DESEADO THE OCEAN NAMED PACIFIC — RAVAGES OF THE SCURVY A 
 
 PATAGONIAN PAUL THE NEEDLE BECOMES LETHARGIC — DISCOVERY OF THE 
 
 LADRONES — THK FIRST COCOANUT A CATHOLIC CEREMONY UPON A PAGAN 
 
 ISLAND. 
 
 The Pope of Rome, whose authority was at this period 
 supreme among the princes who were in communion with the 
 Church, now thought proper to anticipate a possible collision 
 
 15 
 
 226 
 
226 ocean's story. 
 
 between Spain and Portugal, the two monopolists of commerce 
 and discovery. He declared by a bull, or papal decree, that all 
 new countries which should be thereafter discovered to the east 
 of the Azores were to belong to the crown of Portugal, while 
 all that were discovered to the west should be the property of 
 Spain. Thus, a potentate who claimed to be infallible issued a 
 decree based upon the pontifical conviction that the world was 
 flat, even after the very solid arguments to the contrary of 
 Columbus and da Gama. His Holiness, in his wisdom, imagined 
 that one nation might sail to the right, the other to the left, and 
 go on forever : he did not foresee, what was now almost palpable 
 to every eye but that of Roman infallibility, that the Spaniards 
 and the Portuguese would at last meet at the antipodes. There, 
 in time, they did meet, and the very pretty dispute which arose 
 in consequence we shall narrate in the sequel. But a more 
 immediate effect of the decree was this: — a Spaniard, if he felt 
 himself neglected or maltreated by his own sovereign, would 
 offer his services to the Portuguese king, confident of employment 
 at his hands, as the latter would thus weaken Spain and profit 
 by discoveries made by her subjects. A Portuguese, if similarly 
 aggrieved, would in the same way desert to the Spanish king 
 and accept service from the Spanish crown. 
 
 It so happened that one Fern5,o Magalhaens, known in 
 English as Ferdinand Magellan, a Portuguese by birth, and 
 who had served with distinction in the East Indies under Albu- 
 querque, addressed himself to the court of Lisbon for the re- 
 compense which was his due. His application was treated with 
 disdain. He forthwith withdrew to Spain with a learned man 
 who had been similarly neglected, one Ruy Falero, an astronomer, 
 whom the Portuguese regarded as a conjurer and charlatan. 
 Magellan made overtures for new discoveries to Cardinal 
 Ximenes, then Prime Minister of Spain, and in reality its ruler 
 during the absence of Charles V. The Portuguese ambassador 
 sought by every means in his power to baffle his designs, and 
 
AN ASTROLOGICAL PROPHESY. 227 
 
 demanded of the court that he and Falero should be given up 
 as deserters. He even offered Magellan a reward if he would 
 desist from his purpose, or, at least, execute it in the service of 
 Portugal. But the cardinal listened with favor to the plan 
 presented by Magellan, which was briefly as follows : 
 
 Columbus, who started upon his voyage to the west in order 
 to reach the East Indies bv a western route, had failed in his 
 object, discovering instead an intermediate continent. Magellan 
 now proposed to seek the Portuguese Moluccas, or Spice Islands, 
 by sailing, if possible, from the Atlantic Ocean into the South 
 Sea, discovered by Balboa five years before. His idea was to 
 attempt to find a passage through the mainland of South Ame- 
 rica by the Rio de la Plata, or some other channel opening upon 
 its eastern coast. Should this succeed, Spain would possess the 
 East Indies as well as the West, since, if the Moluccas were 
 discovered by way of the west, even though situated to the east, 
 they would fall expressly within the allotment made by the late 
 papal bull. Magellan thought the world was round, in defiance 
 of the pontifical declaration that it was flat. 
 
 In accordance with this proposal, the Spanish crown agreed to 
 equip a fleet of five vessels and to give the command of it to 
 Mage^llan. It was furthermore agreed that he should have a 
 twentieth part of the clear profit of th^ expedition, and that 
 the government of any islands ho might discover should be 
 vested in him and his heirs forever, with the title of Adelantado. 
 The five vessels were accordingly fitted out at Seville, Magellan's 
 flag-ship being named the Trinidada. They were manned by 
 two hundred and thirty-seven men, thirty of whom were able- 
 bodied Portuguese seamen, upon whom Magellan principally 
 relied. The astronomer Falero declined accompanying him^ 
 having, in his astrological calculations, foreseen that the voyage 
 would be fatal to him. A certain San Martino, of Seville, who 
 went in his stead, was, as will be seen, assassinated in his place at 
 the island of Zubu. An Italian gentleman, named Pigafetta, was 
 
228 ocean's stoby. 
 
 permitted by the cardinal to form part of ^Magellan's suite. lie 
 afterwards became the historian of the voyage. 
 
 The fleet set sail from Seville on the 10th of August, 1519, 
 its departure being announced by a discharge of artillery. 
 Seville is nearly one hundred miles from the sea, by the river 
 Guadalquivir, the seaport of which is San Lucar, whence they 
 finally departed on the 20th of September. It would be difficult 
 to imagine circumstances more inauspicious than those under 
 which Magellan left the shores of Europe. The course he was 
 to follow was unexplored : so rash was the attempt considered, 
 that he dared not communicate to his men the real object of the 
 expedition. The season was already advanced, and he would in 
 all probability arrive in high southern latitudes at the coldest 
 period of the year. To the perils naturally incident to such a 
 voyage was to be added the unfortunate fact that the commanders 
 of the other four ships were Spaniards, and consequently inimi- 
 cal to Magellan, who, though in the service of Spain, was of 
 Portuguese birth. 
 
 In six days the squadron reached TenerifTe ; of this island 
 Pigafetta relates several curious legends current at that time. 
 It never rained there, he says, and there was meither river nor 
 spring in the island. The leaves of a tree, however, which was 
 constantly surrounded by a thick mist, distilled excellent water, 
 which was collected in a pit at its foot, whither the inhabitants 
 and wild beasts repaired to quench their thirst. Eaily in 
 October the fleet passed between Cape Verd and its islands, and 
 coasted along the shores of Guinea and Sierra Leone. Here 
 they met with contrary winds, sharks, and dead calms. One 
 dark night, during a violent tempest, the St. Elmo fire blazed 
 for two hours upon their topmast. This, which is now known to 
 be an eff'ect of electricity, which the ancient idolaters believed 
 to be Castor and Pollux, which Catholics in Magellan's time 
 regarded as a saint, and which English sailors call Davy Jones, 
 was a great consolation to the Portuguese during the storm. 
 
THE NATIVES OFFENDED. 229 
 
 At the moment when it disappeared it diffused a light so re- 
 splendent that Pigafetta was almost blinded and gave himself 
 up for lost; but, he adds, "the wind ceased momentaneously." 
 
 Passing the equinoctial line and losing sight of the polar star, 
 Magellan steered south-southwest, and in the middle of De- 
 cember struck the coast of Brazil. His men made excellent 
 bargains with the natives. For a small comb they obtained two 
 geese ; for a piece of glass, as much fish as would feed ten men ; 
 for a ribbon, a basket of potatoes, — a root then so little known 
 that Pigafetta describes it as resembling a turnip in appearance 
 and a roasted chestnut in taste. A pack of playing-cards was 
 a fortune, for a sailor bought six fat chickens with the king of 
 spades. The fleet remained thirteen days at anchor, and then 
 pursued its Avay to the southward along the territory of the can- 
 nibals who had lately devoured de Solis. Stopping at an island 
 in the mouth of a river sixty miles wide, they caught, in one 
 hour, penguins sufficient for the whole five ships. Magellan 
 anchored for the winter in a harbor found in south latitude 49° 
 and called by him Port Julian. Two months elapsed before the 
 country was discovered to be inhabited. At last a man of 
 gigantic figure presented himself upon the shore, capering in 
 the sands in a state of utter nudity, and violently casting dust 
 upon his head. A sailor was sent ashore to make similar ges- 
 tures, and the giant was thus easily led to the spot where Ma- 
 gellan had landed. The latter gave him cooked food to eat and 
 presented him, incidentally, with a large steel mirror. The 
 savage now saw his likeness for the first time, and started back 
 in such fright that he knocked over four men. He and several 
 of his companions, both men and women, subsequently went on 
 board the ships, and constantly indicated by their gestures that 
 they supposed the strangers to have descended from heaven. 
 One of the savages became quite a favorite: he was taught to 
 pronounce the name of Jesus and to repeat the Lord's prayer, 
 and was even baptized by the name of John by the chaplain. 
 
230 ocean's story. 
 
 This profession of Christianity did the poor pagan no good, for 
 he soon disappeared, — murdered, doubtless, by his people, in 
 consequence of his attachment to the foreigners. 
 
 The whole description given by Pigafetta of these savages, 
 whom Mat^ellan called Patagonians, — from words indicating the 
 resemblance of their feet, when shod with the skin of the lama, 
 to the feet of a bear, — is now known to be much exaggerated. 
 It is certain that they were by no means so gigantic as he 
 represented them. He adds that they drank half a pail of water 
 at a draught, fed upon raw meat, and swallowed mice alive ; that 
 when they were sick and needed bleeding they gave a good 
 chop with some edged tool to the part affected; when they 
 wished to vomit they thrust an arrow half a yard down their 
 throat. The headache was cured by a gash in the forehead. 
 
 A fearful tragedy was enacted in Port Julian. The four 
 Spanish captains conspired to murder Magellan. The plot was 
 discovered and the ringleaders were brought to trial. Two were 
 hung, another was stabbed to the heart, while a number of their 
 accomplices were left among the Patagonians. Magellan quitted 
 Port Julian in August, 1520, having planted a cross on a neigh- 
 boring mountain and taken solemn possession of the country in 
 the name of the King of Spain. On the 14th of September, ho 
 discovered a fresh-water river, which he named Santa Cruz, in 
 honor of the anniversary of the exaltation of the cross. Here 
 the crew, by Magellan's order, made confession and received the 
 holy communion. 
 
 On the 21st of October, Magellan made the great discovery 
 which has immortalized his name. He reached a strait commu- 
 nicating between the Atlantic Ocean and the South Sea : con- 
 sulting the calendar for a name, he called it in honor of the 
 day, the Strait of the Eleven Thousand Virgins. It is now 
 Magellan's Strait. It was enclosed between lofty mountains 
 covered with snow ; the water was bo deep that it afforded no 
 anchorage. The crew were so fully persuaded that it possessed 
 
A. PATAGONIAN GIANT. 
 
 231 
 
 no western outlet, that, had it not been for Magellan's confidence 
 and persistence, they would never have ventured to explore it. 
 The strait was found to vary in breadth from one mile to ten, 
 and to be four hundred and forty miles in length. During the 
 first night spent in the strait, the Santo Antonio, piloted by one 
 
 CAPE VIRGIN— THE EAST ENTRANCE OF MAGELLAN'S STRAIT. 
 
 Emmanuel Gomez, who hated Magellan, found her way back 
 into the Atlantic, and returned at once to Spain. The pilot's 
 object was principally to be the first to tell the news of the dis- 
 covery, and to carry to Europe a specimen of a Patagonian 
 giant, one of whom he had on board of his vessel. On his way 
 he stopped at Port Julian and took up two of the conspirators 
 who had been abandoned there. The Patagonian was unable to 
 bear the change of climate, and died of the heat on crossing the 
 line. 
 
 One of Magellan's remaining four vessels was sent on in 
 advance of the others to reconnoitre a cape which seemed to 
 terminate the channel. The vessel returned, announcing that 
 the strait indeed terminated at this cape and that beyond lay 
 
232 ocean's stoby. 
 
 the open sea. " We wept for joy," says Pigafetta : " the cape wa« 
 denominated Cabo Deseado, — Wished-for Cape, — for in good 
 truth we had long wished to see it." The sight gave Magellan 
 the most unbounded joy, for he was now able practically to de- 
 monstrate the truth of the theory he had advanced, — that it was 
 possible to sail to the East Indies by way of the west. lie 
 now named the famous strait the Strait of the Patagonians, but 
 a sense of justice induced the Europeans to change its name and 
 to call it the Strait of Magellan. At every mile or two he 
 found a safe harbor with excellent water, cedar-wood, sardines, 
 and shell-fish, together with an abundance of sweet celery, — a 
 specific against the scurvy. 
 
 On the 28th of November, the squadron, reduced to three 
 ships by the loss of the Santiago, left the strait and launched 
 into the Great South Sea, to which, from the steady and gentle 
 winds that propelled them over waters almost unruffled, Magellan 
 gave the name of Pacific, — a name which it has ever since re- 
 tained. They sailed on and on during the space of three months 
 and twenty days, seeing no land, with the exception of two sterile 
 and deserted islands which they named the Unfortunate. During 
 all this time they tasted no fresh provisions. Their biscuit was 
 little better than dust and smelled intolerably, being impregnated 
 with the effluvia of mice. The water was putrid and offensive. 
 The crew were so far reduced that they were glad to eat leather, 
 which they were obliged to soak for four or five days in the sea 
 in order to render it sufficiently supple to be broiled, chewed, 
 and digested. Others lived on sawdust, while mice were sought 
 after with such avidity that they were sold for half a ducat 
 apiece. 
 
 Scurvy now began to make its appearance, and nineteen of 
 the sailors died of it. The gums of many were swollen over 
 their teeth, so that, unable to masticate their leathern viands, 
 they perished miserably of starvation. Those who remained alive 
 became weak, low-spirited, and helpless. The Patagonian taken 
 
NATIVE THIEVES. 233 
 
 on board the Trinidada at Port Julian was attacked by the 
 disease. Pigafetta, seeing that he could not recover, showed 
 him the cross and reverently kissed it. The Patagonian besought 
 him by gestures to forbear, as the demon would certainly enter 
 his body and cause him to burst. When at death's door, how- 
 ever, he called for the cross, which he kissed : he then begged 
 to be baptized, and was received into the bosom of the Church 
 under the name of Paul. 
 
 The vessels kept on and on, seeing no fish but sharks, and 
 finding no bottom along the shores of the stunted islands which 
 they passed. The needle was so irregular in its motion that it 
 required frequent passes of the loadstone to revive its energy. 
 No prominent star appeared to serve as an Antarctic Polar guide. 
 Two stars, however, were discovered, which, from the smallness 
 of the circle they described in their diurnal course, seemed to 
 be near the pole. "We traversed," says Pigafetta, "a space 
 of from sixty to seventy leagues a day ; and, if God and His 
 Holy Mother had not granted us a fortunate voyage, we should 
 all have perished of hunger in so vast a sea. I do not think 
 any one for the future will venture upon a similar voyage." It 
 was, indeed, nearly sixty years before Drake, the second 
 circumnavigator, entered the Pacific Ocean. 
 
 Early in March, 1521, Magelhm fell in with a cluster of 
 islands, where he and his men went ashore to refresh themselves 
 after the fatigues and privations of their voyage. The in- 
 habitants, however, were great thieves, penetrating into the 
 cabins of the vessels and taking every thing on which they could 
 lay their hands. Magellan, exasperated at length, landed with 
 forty men, burned a village and killed seven of the natives. 
 The latter, when pierced with arrows through and through, — a 
 weapon they had never seen before, — would draw them out by 
 either end and stare at them till they died. Magellan gave the 
 name of Ladrones to these islands, — a name which they retain 
 in modern geography, though, in the time of Philip IV. of 
 
234 ocean's stort. 
 
 Spain, they were called the Marianne Isles, in honor of Marin, 
 his queen. 
 
 At another island the crew received from the inhabitants the 
 first present of cocoanuts made to a European of which any 
 record exists. Pigafetta describes this now world-famous fruit 
 in a manner which shows that he considered it a most wonderful 
 novelty. We extract a portion of his description: — "Cocoa- 
 nuts," he says, "are the fruit of a species of palm-tree, Avhich 
 furnishes the people with bread, wine, oil, vinegar, and physic. 
 To obtain wine, they make an incision in the top of the tree, 
 penetrating to the pith, from which drops a liquor resembling 
 white must, but which is rather tart. This liquor is caught in 
 the hollow of a reed the thickness of a man's leg, which is sus- 
 pende 1 to the tree and is carefully emptied twice a day. The 
 fruit is of the size of a man's head, and sometimes larger. Its 
 outward rind is green and two fingers thick : it is composed of 
 filaments of which they make cordage for their boats. Beneath 
 this is a shell harder and thicker than that of the walnut. This 
 they burn and pulverize, using the powder as a remedy in several 
 distempers. Within, the shell is lined with a white kernel about 
 as thick as a finger, which is eaten, instead of bread, with meat 
 and fish. In the centre of the nut, encircled by the kernel, a 
 sweet and limpid liquor is found, of a corroborative nature. 
 This liquor, poured into a glass and suffered to stand, assumes 
 the consistence of an apple. The kernel and liquor, if left to 
 ferment and afterwards boiled, yield an oil as thick as butter. 
 To obtain vinegar, the liquor itself is exposed to the sun, and 
 the acid which results from it resembles that vinegar we make 
 from white wine. A family of ten persons might be supported 
 from two cocoanut-trees, by alternately tapping each every 
 week, and letting the other rest, that a perpetual drainage of 
 liquor may not kill the tree. We were told that a cocoanut- 
 tree lives a century." 
 
 At another island, Pigafetta asserts that, by sifting the earth 
 
A DEFENCE FROM LIGHTNING. 235 
 
 he found lumps of gold as large as walnuts and some as big as 
 eggs even, and that all the vessels used by the king at his table 
 were of the same precious metal. These are believed to have 
 been gross falsehoods of Pigafetta's invention, in a view to pro- 
 cure for himself the command of a subsequent voyage of dis- 
 covery. Magellan gratified two island-kings with the spectacle 
 of a grand Catholic ceremony. He sprinkled them with sweet- 
 scented water, and offered them the cross to kiss. On the 
 elevation of the host he caused them to adore the Eucharist 
 with joined hands. At this moment a discharge of artillery, 
 arranged beforehand, was fired from the ships. The entertain- 
 ment concluded with a hornpipe and sword-dance, — an exhibition 
 which seemed to please the two kings highly. A large cross 
 was then brought, garnished with nails and a crown of thorns. 
 It was set up upon a high mountain, as a signal to all Christian 
 navigators that they would be well treated in the island. The 
 kings were also assured that if they prayed to it devoutly it 
 would defend them from lightning and tempests. Thoy had 
 evidently suffered severely from the vagaries and violence of the 
 electric fluid, and were delighted to be thus easily protected 
 against its pernicious and destructive influence. 
 
 LAMONARI.V. 
 
THE NATIVES OK BORNEO PREPARE TO ATTACK MAGELLAN. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 DISCOVERY OF THE PHILIPPINES THE KING OF ZUBU WISHES THE KINO OF 
 
 SPAIN TO PAY TRIBUTE — HE FINALLY ABANDONS THE IDEA — A WHOLE ISLAND 
 
 CONVERTED TO CHRISTIANITY MAGELLAN PERFORMS A MIRACLE — A DUMB 
 
 MAN RECOVERS HIS SPEECH MAGELLAN INVADES A REFRACTORY ISLAND 
 
 HIS DEATH ATTEMPTS TO RECOVER HIS BODY THE CHRISTIAN ISLAND RE- 
 TURNS TO IDOLATRY — THE SHIPS ARRIVE AT BORNEO — THE SAILORS DRINK 
 TOO FREELY OF ARRACK FESTIVITIES AND TREACHERY — VIVID IMA- 
 GINATION OF PIOAFETTA — THE FLEET ARRIVES AT THE MOLUCCAS THB 
 
 KING OF TIDORE — A BRISK TRADE IN CLOVES — THE SPICE-TARIFF — THE 
 VITTORIA SAILS HOMEWARD — PIOAFETTA IS AGAIN IMAGINATIVE — ARUIVAL 
 
 AT THE CAPE VERDS LOSS OF ONE DAY COMPLETION OF THE FIU8T 
 
 VOYAGE OF CIRCUMNAVIGATION PIOAFETTA S ROMANCE BECOMES VERITABLE 
 
 HISTORY. 
 
 On the 7th of April the squadron entered the harbor of the 
 
 island of Zuhu, one of a group which has since been named the 
 
 Philippines. Magellan sent a messenger to the king to ask an ex- 
 236 
 
MAGELLAN COMES TO THE NATIVES. 237 
 
 change of commodities. The king observed that it was customary 
 for all ships entering his waters to pay tribute, to which the 
 messenger replied that the Spanish admiral was the servant of 
 so powerful a sovereign that he could pay tribute to no one. 
 The king promised to give an answer the next day, and, in the 
 mean time, sent fruit and wine on board the ships. Magellan had 
 brought with him the king of Massana, a neighboring island, 
 and this monarch soon convinced the king of Zubu that, instead 
 of asking tribute, he would be wise to pay it. A treaty of peace 
 and perpetual amity was soon established between his majesty of 
 Spain and his royal brother of Zubu. 
 
 Pigafetta here introduces a ridiculous and incredible story of 
 the conversion of these islands to Christianity by Magellan. It 
 is as follows : — Magellan, being much displeased at learning that 
 parents attaining a certain age in this island were treated dis- 
 respectfully by their children, told them that the Almighty, 
 who created heaven and earth, had strictly commanded children 
 to honor their parents and had threatened with eternal fire those 
 who transgressed this commandment. He added other observa- 
 tions from Holy Writ, which afforded the islanders much pleasure, 
 and inspired them with the desire of being instructed in the true 
 religion. Magellan assured them that before departing he would 
 baptize them all, if they could convince him that they accepted 
 the boon, not through any dread with which he might have in- 
 spired them, or through any expectation of temporal advantage, 
 but from a spontaneous emotion, and of their own will. They 
 convinced him easily of the spontaneity of their feelings, where- 
 upon Magellan wept for joy and embraced them all. Sunday, 
 the 16th of April, was fixed upon for the ceremony. A scaffold 
 was raised and covered with tapestry and branches of palm. A 
 general salute was fired by the squadron. Magellan then told 
 the king that one of the advantages which would accrue to him 
 from embracing Christianity would be that he would be strength- 
 ened, and would more easily overcome his enemies. The king 
 
238 ocean's story. 
 
 replied that even without this consideration he felt disposed to 
 become a Christian. Eight hundred persons were then baptized, 
 the queen receiving the name of Jane, after the mother of the 
 Emperor of Spain. She begged an infant Jesus of Pigafetta, 
 with which to replace her idols. This remarkable story con- 
 cludes with a statement that one village of idolaters absolutely 
 refused to be converted, and that Magellan therefore burned 
 their houses, erecting a cross upon the ruins. Not content with 
 this, Pigafetta next makes Magellan perform a miracle. The 
 king's brother was very sick, and had totally lost his speech. 
 The admiral said that if all the idols remaining in the island 
 were burned, and if the prince were baptized, he would pledge 
 his head that he would recover. Magellan then baptized the 
 invalid, together with his two wives and ten daughters. The 
 captain "then asked him how he found himself, and he answered, 
 of a sudden recovering his speech, that, thanks to the Lord, he 
 found himself very well. We were all of us ocular witnesses 
 of this miracle. The captain then, with greater fervor than 
 the rest of us, returned praise to God." Idols were now com- 
 mitted to the flames in vast numbers, and temples built upon 
 the margin of the sea were demolished. The new Christians 
 went about the island crying, at the top of their voice, " Viva la 
 Castilla!" in honor of the King of Spain. 
 
 On the 26th of April, Magellan learned that a neighboring 
 chief, named Cilapolapu, refused to acknowledge the authority 
 of the King of Spain, and remained in open profession of 
 paganism in the midst of a Christian community. He deter- 
 mined to lend his assistance to the converted chiefs to reduce 
 and subjugate this stubborn prince. At midnight, boats left 
 the ships, bearing sixty men armed with helmets and cuirasses. 
 The natives followed in twenty canoes. They reached the re- 
 bellious island — Matan by name — three hours before daybreak. 
 Cilapolapu was notified that he must obey the Christian King 
 of Zubu or feel the streno-th of Christian lances. The islanders 
 
DEATH OF UAGEhL^tsk^'^^r^ '~^^^ 239 
 
 replied that they had lances too. The uivaaers waited for day;-^ » 
 light, and then, jumping into the water up^*^eir thighs, waded 
 to shore* The enemy was fifteen hundred in auaiber, formed 
 into three battalions : two of these attacked them in the flank, 
 the third in the front. The musketeers fired for half an hour 
 without making the least impression. Trusting to the superiority 
 of their numbers, the natives deluged the Christians with showers 
 of bamboo lances, staves hardened in the fire, stones, and even 
 dirt. A poisoned arrow at last struck Magellan, who at once 
 ordered a retreat in slow and regular order. The Indians now 
 perceived that their blows took effect when aimed at the nether 
 limbs of their foe, and profited by this observation with telling 
 efiect. Seeing that Magellan was wounded, they twice struck his 
 helmet from his head. He and his small band of men continued 
 fighting for more than an hour, standing in the water up to their 
 knees. Magellan was now evidently failing, and the islanders, 
 perceiving his weakness, pressed upon him in crowds. One of 
 them cut him violently across the left leg, and he fell on his 
 face. He was immediately surrounded and belabored with 
 sticks and stones till he died. His men, every one of whom 
 was wounded, unable to afibrd him succor or avenge his death, 
 escaped to their boats upon his fall. 
 
 "Thus," says Pigafetta, "perished our guide, our light, and 
 our support. But his glory will survive him. He was adorned 
 with every virtue : in the midst of the greatest adversity, he 
 constantly possessed an immovable firmness. At sea he sub- 
 jected himself to the same privations as his men. Better skilled 
 than any one in the knowledge of nautical charts, he was a 
 perfect master of navigation, as he proved in making the tour of 
 the world, — an attempt on which none before him had ventured." 
 Though Magellan only made half the circuit of the earth on this 
 occasion, yet it may be said with reason that he was the first to 
 circumnavigate the globe, from the fact that the way home from 
 
24:0 ocean's story. 
 
 the Philippines was perfectly well known to the Portuguese, and 
 that Magellan had already been at Malacca. 
 
 An attempt was made in the afternoon to recover the body 
 of Magellan by negotiation; but the islanders sent answer that 
 no consideration could induce them to part with the remains of 
 a man like the admiral, which they should preserve as a monu- 
 ment of their victory. Two governors were elected in his stead, 
 Odoard Barbosa and Juan Serrano. The latter, together with 
 San Martino, the astronomer, and a number of officers, having 
 been decoyed on shore by the converted king, were murdered 
 by him in cold blood. He had seen the inferiority of Christians 
 to savages in war, and, being doubtless disgusted with the boast- 
 ful pretences of Christianity, had, upon Magellan's death, re- 
 nounced it and returned again to idolatry. Juan Serrano was 
 seen upon the shore, bound hand and foot : he begged the people 
 in the ships to treat for his release ; and, upon this being refused, 
 he uttered deep imprecations, and appealed to the Almighty to 
 call to account on the great day of judgment those who refused 
 to succor him in his hour of need. They put to sea, leaving 
 the unfortunate Serrano to his miserable fate. 
 
 Odoard Barbosa, now sole commander, ordered the ConcepQion, 
 one of the three ships, to be burned, transferring its men, am- 
 munition, and provisions to the other two. After landing at 
 various islands, he came to the rich settlement of Borneo, on 
 the 9th of July. The king, who was a Mohammedan and kept a 
 magnificent court, sent out to them a beautiful canoe, adorned 
 with gold figures and peacocks' feathers. In it were musicians 
 playing upon the bagpipe and drum. Eight officers of the 
 island brought to the captain a vase full of betel areca to chew, 
 a quantity of orange-flowers and jessamine, some sugarcane, 
 and three goblets of a distilled liquor which they called arrack, 
 and upon which the sailors became intoxicated. Permission was 
 granted the visitors to wood and water on the island and to 
 trade with the n«tives. An interview with the king was like- 
 
WALKING LEAVES. 241 
 
 wise accorded, which took place with every possible ceremony, 
 
 processions of elephants, presents of cinnamon, and illumina- 
 tions of wax flambeaux. Notwithstanding these professions of 
 friendship, the squadron was obliged to leave Borneo very sud- 
 denly, in consequence of the appearance of one hundred armed 
 canoes, which they imagined to be bent upon a hostile expedition. 
 
 Among the wonders of Borneo, Pigafetta mentions two pearls 
 as large as hens' eggs, and so round that if placed upon a 
 polished table they never remained at rest, and cups of porce- 
 lain possessing the power to denote the presence of poison, by 
 breaking if any were put into them. At a neighboring island 
 where the fleet remained undergoing repairs for six weeks, 
 Pigafetta saw a sight which he thus describes : — " We here found 
 a tree whose leaves, as they fall, become animated and walk 
 about. They resemble the leaves of the mulberry-tree. Upon 
 being touched they make away, but when crushed they yield no 
 blood. I kept one in a box for nine days, and, on opening the 
 box, found the leaf still alive and walking round it. I am of 
 opinion they live on air." Pigafetta's mistake here was in 
 stating that a leaf resembled an insect : he should have spoken 
 of the curiosity as an insect resembling a leaf. It is now known 
 to naturalists as a species of locust. 
 
 On the 6th of November, they espied a cluster of five 
 
 islands, which their pilots, obtained at their last station, declared 
 
 to be the famous Moluccas. They had therefore proved the 
 
 world to be round, for vessels sailing to the west from Spain 
 
 had now met vessels sailing thence to the east. They returned 
 
 thanks to God, and fired a round from their great guns. They 
 
 had been at sea twenty-six months, and had at last, after 
 
 visiting an infinity of islands, reached those in quest of which 
 
 they had embarked in the expedition. On the 8th, three hours 
 
 before sunset, they entered the harbor of the island of Tidore. 
 
 They came to anchor in twenty fathoms' water, and discharged 
 
 all their cannon. The king, shaded by a parasol of silk, came 
 16 
 
242 
 
 OCEANS STORY. 
 
 the next day to visit them, said he had dreamed of their approach- 
 ing visit, had consulted the moon in reference to this dream, 
 and was now delighted to sec it confirmed. He added that he 
 was happy in the friendship of the King of Spain, and was 
 proud to be his vassal. This potentate, whose name was Rajah 
 Soultan Manzour, was a Mohammedan: he was "an eminent 
 astrologer," and had numerous wives and twenty-six children. 
 
 TIDO R E. 
 
 On the 12th, a shed was erected in the town of Tidore by 
 the Spaniards, whither they carried all the merchandise they 
 intended to barter for cloves. A tariff of exchange was then 
 drawn up. Ten yards of red cloth were to be worth four 
 hundred pounds of cloves, as were also fifteen yards of inferior 
 cloth, fifteen axes, thirty-five glass tumblers, twenty-six yards 
 of linen, one hundred and fifty pairs of scissors, three gongs, or 
 a hundredweight of copper. As the stock of articles brought 
 by the strangers diminished, however, their value naturally rose, 
 and a yard of ribbon would buy a quintal of cloves: in fact. 
 
AN EAR FOR A BLANKET. 2:13 
 
 every thing with which the ships could dispense on their return- 
 voyage was bartered for clov^es. They were soon so deeply 
 laden that they hardly had room in which to stow their water. 
 The Trinidada, becoming leaky, was left behind, Juan Carvajo, 
 her pilot, and fifty-three of the crew, remaining with her. The 
 Vittoria bade adieu to her consort on the 21st of December, 
 the two vessels exchanging a parting salute. The number of 
 Europeans on board of the Vittoria was now reduced to forty- 
 six ; and the fleet, which formerly consisted of five sail, was now 
 reduced to one. 
 
 As the Vittoria made her way through the thick archipelagoes 
 of islands which dot the seas in these latitudes, her Molucca 
 pilot told Pigafetta amazing stories of their inhabitants. In 
 Aracheto, he said, the men and women were but a foot and 
 a half high ; their food was the pith of a tree ; their dwellings 
 were caverns under ground; their ears were as long as their 
 bodies, so that when they lay down one ear served as a mat- 
 tress and the other as a blanket ! 
 
 In order to double the Cape of Good Hope, the captain 
 ascended as high as the forty-second degree of south latitude : 
 he remained wind-bound for nine weeks opposite the Cape. 
 The crew were now suffering from sickness, hunger, and thirst. 
 After doubling the Cape, they steered northwest for two 
 months, losing twenty-one men on the way. Pigafetta noticed 
 that, on throwing the dead into the sea, the Christians floated 
 with their faces turned towards heaven, while the Moham- 
 medans they had engaged turned their faces the other way ! At 
 last, on the 9th of July, 1522, the vessel made the Cape Verds. 
 These were in the possession of the Portuguese ; and it was a 
 very hazardous thing for the Spaniards to put themselves in 
 their power. However, they represented themselves as coming 
 from the west and not from the east, and made known their 
 necessities. Their long-boat was laden twice with rice in ex- 
 change for various articles. On its third trip the crew was 
 
244 ocean's story. 
 
 detained, — the Portuguese having discovered that the Yittoria 
 was one of Magellan's fleet. She was compelled to abandon 
 the men as prisoners, and sailed away, — her whole equipment 
 now numbering eighteen hands, all of them, except Pigafetta, 
 more or less disabled. The latter, to discover if his journal 
 had been regularly kept, had inquired at the islands what day 
 it was, and was told it was Thursday. This amazed him, as his 
 reckoning made it Wednesday. He was soon convinced there 
 was no mistake in his account; as, having sailed to the westward 
 and followed the course of the sun, it was evident that, in cir- 
 cumnavigating the globe, he had seen it rise once less than 
 those who had remained at home, and thus, apparently, had lost 
 a day. 
 
 On Saturday, the 6th of September, the Yittoria entered the 
 Bay of San Lucar, having been absent three years and twenty- 
 seven days, and having sailed upwards of fourteen thousand six 
 hundred leagues. On the 8th, having ascended the Guadal- 
 quivir, she anchored off the mole of Seville and discharged all 
 her artillery. On the 9th, the whole crew repaired, in their 
 shirts and barefooted, and carrying tapers in their hands, to 
 the Church of Our Lady of Yictory, as in hours of danger they 
 had often vowed to do. The captain of the Yittoria, Juan Se- 
 bastian Cano, was knighted by Charles Y., who gave him for 
 his coat of arms the terrestial globe, with a motto commemo- 
 rating the voyage. Pigafetta presented to Charles Y. of Spain, 
 to King John of Portugal, to the Queen Regent of France, and 
 to Philippe, Grand Master of Rhodes, journals and narratives 
 of the expedition. From the latter, the most complete, we 
 have extracted the foregoing account, — taking care, however, 
 to correct its errors, and to point out the numerous instances in 
 which its author was indebted to his imagination for his facts. 
 
 
Btttion iV. 
 
 PROM THE FIRST VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD TO THE DIS- 
 COVERY OF CAPE horn; 1519—1016. 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 VOYAGE OF JACQUES CAllTlER — MARITIME PROJECTS Ot FRANCIS I. OF FRANCB 
 
 GULF OF ST. LAWRENCE— 'A QUICK TRIP HOME— SECOND VOYAGE — CANADA, 
 
 QUEBEC, MONTREAL A CAPTIVE KING— VOYAGE OF BIR HUGH WILLOUGHBY 
 
 AND RICHARD CHANCELLOR DISCOVERY OF NOVA SEMBLA— DISASTROUS 
 
 WINTER FATE OF THE EXPEDITION MARTIN FROBISHER— HIS VOYAGE IN 
 
 QUEST OF A NORTHWEST PASSAGE GREENLAND — LABRADOR FROIBISHER'S 
 
 STRAITS EXCHANGE OF CAPTIVES SUPPOSED DISCOVERY^ OF GOLD SECOND 
 
 VOYAGE A CARGO OF PRECIOUS EARTH TAKEN ON BOARD META INCOGNITA 
 
 — THIRD VOYAGE — A MORTIFYING CONCLUSION. 
 
 It would appear natural for the Spaniards to have sought to 
 derive immediate profit from their discovery of a western pas- 
 sage to the South Sea. They did not do so, however ; and a 
 generation was destined to pass away before a second European 
 vessel should enter Magellan's Strait. We must for a time, 
 therefore, leave the Spanish and Portuguese in quiet posses- 
 sion of their Indian and American commerce, and turn to the 
 several transatlantic and Arctic enterprises undertaken at this 
 period by the French and English. 
 
 Jacques Carticr, a native of St. Malo in France, had, in 
 
 1534, finished his apprenticeship as a sailor. He conceived 
 
 the idea of seeking a passage to China and the Spice Islands 
 
 to the north of the Western Continent, and in the vicinity of 
 
 the Pole. This was the origin of the various efforts made in 
 
 245 
 
tOSMK ON TUB OAMADIAM COAST. 
 
ADAM'S WILL AND TESTAMENT. 247 
 
 quest of the renowned Northwest Passage. He also thought it 
 incumbent upon France to assert her right to a share in the 
 explorations and discoveries which were making Portugal and 
 Spain both famous and rich. He caused his project to be laid 
 before Francis I., who had long viewed with jealousy the suc- 
 cessful expeditions of other powers, and who is said once to have 
 exclaimed, ^' Where is the will and testament of our father 
 Adam, which disinherits me of mj share Ik these possessions in 
 favor of Spain and Portugal?" He at once approved the pro- 
 position; and, on the 20th of April, 1534, Cartier left St. Malo 
 with two ships of sixty tons each. No details of the outward 
 voyage have reached us. It was rapid and prosperous, however, 
 for the ships anchored in Bonavista Bay, upon the eastern coast 
 of Newfoundland, on the twentieth day. 
 
 Proceeding to the north, he discovered Belle Isle Straits, and 
 through them descended to the west into a gulf which he called 
 St. Lawrence, having Newfoundland on his left and Labrador 
 on his right. He thus assured himself of the insular character 
 of Newfoundland. He discovered many of the' islands and 
 headlands in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and some of them bear 
 to this day the names he gave them. He had interviews with 
 several tribes of natives, and took possession of numerous lands 
 in the name of the King of France. In the middle of August 
 east winds became prevalent and violent, and it was impossible 
 to ascend the St. Lawrence River, at the mouth of which they 
 now were. A council was held, and a return unanimously de- 
 cided upon. They arrived safely at St. Malo, after a rapid and 
 prosperous voyage. 
 
 Francis I. immediately caused three ships, respectively of one 
 hundred and twenty, sixty, and forty tons, to be equipped, and de- 
 spatched Cartier upon a second voyage of exploration, with the 
 title of Royal Pilot. He started in May, 1535, and after a stormy 
 voyage of two months arrived at his anchorage in Newfound- 
 land. From thence he proceeded to the mouth of the St. Law- 
 
24:8 ocean's story. 
 
 rence, which he calls by its Indian name of Ilochelaga. Here 
 he was told by the savages that the river led to a country culled 
 Canada. He ascended the stream in boats, passed a village 
 named Stadacone, — the site of the present city of Quebec, — and 
 arrived at the Indian city of Hochelaga, which, from a high 
 mountain in the vicinity, he named Mont Royal, — now Mon- 
 treal. He went no farther than the junction of the Ottawa and 
 the St. Lawrence, and then returned. He remained at Stada- 
 cone through the winter, losing twenty-five of his men by a con- 
 tagious distemper then very little known, — the scurvy. 
 
 Cartier returned to France in July, 1536, taking with him 
 a Canadian king, named Donnaconna, and nine other natives, 
 who had been captured and brought on board by compulsion. 
 They were taken to Europe, where Donnaconna died two years 
 afterwards : three others were baptized in 1538, Cartier stand- 
 ing sponsor for one of them. They seem to have all been dead 
 in 1541, the date of Cartier's third voyage. The king ordered 
 five ships to be prepared, with which Cartier again started for 
 the scene of his discoveries. The narrative of this expedition is 
 lost ; but it appears to have resulted in few or no incidents of in- 
 terest. Cartier was ennobled upon his return in 1542, and lived 
 ten years to enjoy his new dignity. His descriptions of the 
 scenery, products, and Indians of Canada are graphic and correct. 
 y^ln the year 1553, "the Mj^stery imd Company of English 
 merchants adventurers for the discovery of regions, dominions, 
 islands, and places unknown" — at the head of whom was Se- 
 bastian Cabot — fitted out an expedition of three vessels, an(/ 
 gave the chief command to Sir Hugh Willoughby, "by reason 
 of his goodly personage, as also for his singular skill in the 
 services of war." King Edward YI. confirmed the appointment 
 in "a license to discover strange countries." 
 
 The fleet consisted of the Buona Speranza, of one hundred 
 and seventy tons, commanded by Sir Hugh, with thirty-eight 
 men, the Edward Buonavcntura, of one hundred and sixty 
 
NOVA ZEMBLA DISCOVERED. 249 
 
 tons, commanded by Richard Chancellor, pilot-major of the ex- 
 pedition, with fifty-four men, and the Buona Confidentia, of 
 ninety tons, with twenty-four men. The ships were victualled 
 for fifteen months. On board of them were eighteen mer- 
 chants interested in the discovery of a northeast passage to 
 India, — a route, therefore, attempted by the English previous to 
 that by the northwest, as the voyage of Sebastian Cabot can 
 hardly be considered a serious effort. A council of twelve, in 
 whom was vested the general direction of the voyage, was 
 composed of the admiral, pilot-major, and other officers. 
 
 The squadron sailed from Deptford on the lOth of May, 1553, 
 and fell in with the Norwegian coast on the 14th of July. On the 
 30th, while near Wardhus, the most easterly station of the Danes 
 in Finmark, Chancellor's vessel was driven off in a storm, and 
 was not seen again by the two others. The latter appear to have 
 been tossed about in the North Sea for two months, in the course 
 of which they landed at some spot on the western coast of Nova 
 Zembla, being the first Europeans to visit that uninhabited waste. 
 On the 18th of September they entered a harbor in Lapland 
 formed by the mouth of the river Arzina. Here they remained 
 a week, seeing seals, deer, bears, foxes, " with divers strange 
 beasts, such as ellans and others, which were to us unknown 
 and also wonderful." It was now the 1st of October, and the 
 Arctic winter was far advanced. They resolved to winter there, 
 first sending out parties in search of inhabitants. Three men 
 went three days' journey to the south-southwest, but returned 
 without having seen a human being. Others who went to the 
 west and the southeast returned equally unsuccessful. This is 
 the last positive intelligence we have of the fate of these hardy 
 and unfortunate explorers. A will, however, alleged to have 
 been made by one Gabriel Willoughby, and signed by Sir 
 Hugh, bearing the date of January, 1554, shows, if authentic, 
 that at least two of the party were alive at that period. 
 Purchas, one of the oldest authorities upon navigation and 
 
250 ocean's story. 
 
 travels extant, says that the Buona Speranza was discovered 
 in the following spring by a party of Russians, who found all 
 the crew frozen to death. In 1557, a Drontheim skipper told 
 an Englishman, at Kcgor, that he had bought the sails of the 
 Buona Confidentia ; but it is not known where she was lost, or 
 what was the fate of the crew. The will of which we have 
 spoken, and a fragmentary diary attributed to Sir Hugh, were 
 found by the Russians, and were restored to the kinsmen of the 
 adventurers in England. 
 
 . The Edward Buonaventura, commanded by Chancellor, and 
 which was separated from her consorts off Wardhus, reached 
 Archangel, on the White Sea, in Russia, in safety, and laid 
 the foundation of a commercial intercourse between Russia 
 and England. On his return, his ship was lost on the coast 
 of Scotland, and he himself, with several of his crew, drowned. 
 Thus, of the three ships despatched, not one ever reached 
 home ; and of the officers, merchants, and men, none survived 
 to revisit their country, except a few of the common sea- 
 men of the Edward Buonaventura. The advantages acquired 
 at such a cost of human life were limited to the barren 
 discovery of the ice-clad coast of Nova Zembla. Nothing 
 had been eflfected towards the accomplishment of a Northeast 
 Passage. 
 
 Martin Frobisher, a seaman of experience and enterprise, 
 was the first Englishman to cherish the project of attempting 
 to penetrate to Asia by the channel supposed to exist to the 
 north of America. He communicated his design to his friends, 
 and spent fifteen years in fruitless efforts to enlist capital and 
 energy in the cause. Sailors, financiers, tnerchants, statesmen, 
 — all regarded the scheme as visionary and hopeless. At last 
 Lord Dudley, the fjivorite of Elizabeth, interested himself in 
 Frobisher's success, and from that moment he experienced little 
 difficulty in accomplishing his object. He formed a company, 
 amassed the requisite sums of money, and purchased three small 
 
MARTIN frobisher's voya<.;e. 251 
 
 vessels, — two barks of twenty-five tons each, the Gabriel and 
 fhe Michael, and a pinnace of ten tons. This valiant little fleet 
 weighed anchor at Deptford on the 8th of June, 1576, and, 
 passing the court assembled at Greenwich, discharged their 
 ordnance, and made as imposing an appearance as their limited 
 outfit would allow. Queen Elizabeth waved her hand at the 
 commander from a window, and, bidding him farewell, wished 
 him success and a happy return. On the 25th he passed the 
 southern point of Shetland, — known as Swinborn Head. He 
 anchored here to repair a leak and to take in fresh water. On 
 the 10th of July, he descried the coast of Greenland, "rising 
 like pinnacles of steeples, and all covered with snow." The crew 
 made efforts to go ashore, but could find no anchorage for the 
 vessels, or landing-place for the boats. On the 28th, Frobisher 
 saw dimly, through the fog, what he supposed to be the coast 
 of Labrador, enveloped in ice. On the 31st he saw land for 
 the third time, and on the 11th of August entered a strait to 
 which he gave his name. 
 
 He ascended this strait a distance of one hundred and fifty 
 miles. It was not till the eighth day that he saw any inhabit- 
 ants. He then found that the country was sparsely settled by 
 a race resembling Tartars. He went ashore and established 
 friendly relations with a colony of nineteen persons, to each one 
 of whom he gave a "threaden point," — in other words, a needle 
 and thread. A few days afterwards, five of the crew were taken 
 by the natives and their boat destroyed. The inlet in which 
 this happened was called Five Men's Sound. The next morning 
 the vessels ran in-shore, shot off a fauconet and sounded a 
 trumpet, but heard nothing of the lost sailors. However, Fro- 
 bisher caught one of the natives in return, having decoyed him 
 by the tinkling of a bell. When he found himself in^ captivity, 
 we are told that "from very choler and disdain he bit his tongue 
 in twain within his mouth : notwithstanding, he died not thereof, 
 but lived until he came to England, and then he died of cold 
 
252 ocean's story. 
 
 which he had taken at sea." On the 26th of August, Frobisher 
 weighed anchor and started to return to England, the snow lying 
 a foot deep upon the decks. He arrived at Yarmouth on the 
 1st of October. 
 
 One of Frobisher's sailors had brought with him a bit of 
 shining black stone, which, upon examination, was found to 
 yield an infinitesimal quantity of gold. The Northwest Passage 
 became now a matter of secondary interest, the mines of Fro- 
 bisher's Strait promising a more speedy and abundant return. 
 The society he had formed determined to send him out anew, in 
 vessels better equipped and provisioned for a longer period. He 
 left Blackwall on the 26th of May, 1577, in her Majesty's ship 
 Aide, of one hundred and eighty tons, followed by the Gabriel and 
 Michael, his ostensible object being to discover *^ America to be 
 an island environed with the sea, wherethrough our, merchants 
 may have course and recourse with their merchandise, from 
 these our northernmost parts of Europe to those oriental coasts 
 of Asia, to their no little commodity and profit that do or shall 
 frequent the same.'* The fleet passed the Orkneys on the 8th 
 of June. 
 
 For a month they sailed to the westward, the season of the 
 year being that when, in those latitudes, a bright twilight takes 
 the place of the light of day during the few hours that the sun 
 is below the horizon; so that the crew had "th« fruition of their 
 books and other pleasures, — a thing of no small moment to such 
 as wander in unknown seas and long navigations, especially when 
 both the winds and raging surges do pass their common and 
 wonted course." Throughout the voyage they met huge fir- 
 trees, which they supposed to have been uprooted by the winds, 
 driven into the sea by floods, and borne away by the currents. 
 
 On the 4th of July they made the coast of Greenland. The 
 chronicler of this voyage, who had doubtless lately visited tro- 
 pical latitudes, remarks that hove, ''in place of odoriferous and 
 fragrant smells of sweet gums and pleasant notes of musical 
 
frobisiier's third voyage. 253 
 
 birds, which other countries in more temperate zones do yield, 
 we tasted in July the most boisterous boreal blasts." In the 
 middle of the month they entered Frobisher's Strait. On either 
 side the land lay locked in the embrace of winter beneath a 
 midsummer sun. Frobisher would not believe that the cold was 
 sufficiently severe to congeal the sea-water, the tide rising and 
 falling a distance of twenty feet. Ten miles from the coast he 
 had seen fresh-water icebergs, and concluded that they had been 
 formed upon the land and by some accidental cause detached. 
 He reconnoitred the coast in a pinnace, and penetrated some 
 distance into the interior, returning with accounts of supposed 
 riches which he had discovered in the bowels of barren and 
 frozen mountains. A cargo of two hundred tons of the precious 
 earth was taken on board of one of the vessels. On the 20th 
 of August, says the narrative, "it was high time to leave: the 
 men were well wearied, their shoes and clothes well worn; 
 their basket-bottoms were torn out and their tools broken. 
 Some, with overstraining themselves, had their bellies broken, 
 and others their legs made lame. About this time, too, the 
 water began to congeal and freeze about our ships' sides o' nights." 
 The fleet, which had troubled itself very little with the North- 
 west Passage, at once set sail to the southeast, and arrived ,in 
 England towards the end of September. 
 
 The specimens of ore were assayed and found satisfactory, 
 and Frobisher's reports upon the route to China were received 
 with favor. The queen gave the name of Meta Incognita^ or 
 Unknown Boundary, to the region explored. The Government 
 determined to build a fort in Frobisher's Strait and send a gar- 
 rison and a corps of laborers there. In the mean time, Frobisher 
 was despatched a third time with the same three vessels, and 
 with a convoy of twelve freight-ships which were to return laden 
 with Labrador ore. They set sail on the 31st of May, 1578, 
 and made Greenland on the 20th of June. In July they entered 
 the strait, where they were in imminent danger from storms and 
 
254 OCEAN S STORY. 
 
 ice. The bark Denis, being pretty well bruised and battered, 
 became "so leaky that she would no longer tarry above the 
 water, and sank ; which sight so abashed the whole fleet, that 
 we thought verily we should have tasted the same sauce." Boats 
 were, however, manned, and the drowning crew were saved. The 
 storm increased, and the ice pressed more and more upon them, 
 so that they took down their topmasts. They cut their cables 
 to hang overboard for fenders, "somewhat to ease the ships' 
 sides from the great and dreary strokes of the ice. Tlius we 
 continued all that dismal and lamentable night, plunged in this 
 perplexity, looking for instant death ; but our God, who never 
 leaveth them destitute which faithfully call upon him, although 
 he often punisheth for amendment sake, in the morning caused 
 the wind to cease and the fog to clear. Thus, after punishment, 
 consolation ; and we, joyful wights, being at liberty, hoisted our 
 sails and lay beating off and on." 
 
 At last, at the close of July, such of the vessels as had not 
 been separated from Frobishcr's ship entered the Countess of 
 AYarwick's Sound, and commenced the work of mining and 
 lading. The miners were from time to time molested by the 
 natives, but lost no lives. They put on board of their several 
 ships five hundred tons of ore, and, on the 1st of September, 
 sailed with their precious freight to England, where they arrived 
 in thirty days. The ore turned out to be utterly valueless, — a 
 result so mortifying that it disgusted the English for many years 
 with mining enterprises and with voyages of discovery. AVu 
 shall hear of Frobisher again, in connection with Francis Drake, 
 and in the conflict with the Spanish Armada. 
 
 The engraving upon the opposite page, which is copied from 
 an original of the period, represents a portion of the royal fleet 
 of England in the time of Henry VIII. The king is embarking 
 at Dover previous to meeting Francis of France at the Field of 
 the Cloth of Gold. This pageantry at sea was a fitting preluile 
 to the festivities which followed upon the land. 
 
> 
 
 2 
 5 
 o 
 
 > 
 
 H 
 
 O 
 O 
 <1 
 
 t4 
 
FRANCIS DRAKE. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 OEIOIM OF ENGLISH PIRACY — SIR JOHN HAWKINS — FRANCIS DRAKE — HIS FIRST 
 VOYAGE TO THE SPANISH MAIN — COMMISSION GRANTED BY QUEEN ELIZABETH 
 — EXPEDITION AGAINST THE SPANISH POSSESSIONS — EXPLOITS AT MOOADOR 
 AND SANTIAGO — CROSSING THE LINE — ARRIVAL IN PATAGONIA — TRIAL AND 
 EXECUTION OF DOUGHTY PASSAGE THROUGH MAGELLAN'S STRAIT — ADVEN- 
 TURES OF WILLIAM PITCHER AND SEVEN MEN CAPE HORN ARRIVAL AT 
 
 VALPARAISO — RIFLING OF A CATHOLIC CHURCH. 
 
 We have thus shown that, while the Spanish and Portuguese 
 
 had succeeded triumphantly in their maritime expeditions, the 
 
 English had disastrously failed in theirs. The tropics were held 
 
 in exclusive possession by the two former nations ; and the only two 
 
 known routes by which ships could sail thither were also in their 
 256 
 
SIR FRAXCIS DRAKE. 257 
 
 power. These two nations were Catholic : England was Pro- 
 testant, and disinherited therefore, as it seemed, of her lawful 
 share in the riches of the world. She had thus far wasted her 
 means and endangered the lives of her citizens in fruitless at- 
 tempts to find a route for herself, bj the northwest or the north- 
 east, to the lands of gold and gums. Baffled in these efforts, 
 she permitted, if she did not encourage, a certain class of her 
 subjects to engage in a system of warfare against Spain which 
 can be characterized by no milder term than piracy. Still, 
 those who resorted to it adduced ready arguments to prove that, 
 80 far from engaging in piratical practices, they were employed 
 in open warfare and an honest cause. Spain and England were 
 in a state of manifest enmity, they urged, more bitter on both 
 sides than if they had been avowedly at war. No English sub- 
 ject trading in the Spanish dominions was safe unless he were a 
 Roman Catholic, or unless, being a heretic, he succumbed to the 
 menaces or the tortures of the Holy Inquisition. These out- 
 rages were resented by the English people before they were 
 taken up by the British Government; and the injured parties, 
 calling to their aid all persons of adventurous spirit or shattered 
 fortunes, set out upon the sea, if not with the commission, at 
 least with the connivance, of the crown, to avenge their wrongs 
 themselves. They did not consider themselves to be pirates, 
 because of this tacit sanction given by the Government, because 
 of the fact that they carried on hostilities, not against all who 
 traversed the sea, but against the Spaniards only, and because 
 of the risk they ran, — for if taken by the enemy they had no 
 mercy to expect. It thus became the fashion in England for 
 men of desperate fortunes and damaged character to seek to 
 retrieve the one and redeem the other by cruising against the 
 Spaniards. 
 
 Among the earlier adventurers of this stamp was one Sir 
 John Hawkins. His exploits were for a time brilliant and suc- 
 cessful: at last, however, they were disastrous, and one of his 
 17 
 
258 OCEAX'S STORY. 
 
 young kinsmen, Francis Drake by name, was discreditably In- 
 volved. The latter had embarked his whole means in this 
 adventure, and lost in it all his money and no little reputation,-^ 
 for he disobeyed orders and deserted his benefactor and superior 
 in the hour of need. He brought his vessel, — the Judith, of fifty 
 tons, — however, safely home. 
 
 Drake now resolved to engage permanently in the lawless but 
 exciting career of which he had lately witnessed several in- 
 teresting episodes. It was long before he could obtain the 
 means of fitting out an expedition under his own command. 
 He at last bought and equipped two vessels, — one of two hundred 
 and fifty tons, the other of seventy, — manned them with seventy- 
 three men, and sailed for the Spanish dominions in America. 
 He attacked and took the town of Nombre de Dios, on the 
 Isthmus of Darien, but was soon obliged to retreat. He after- 
 wards took Venta Cruz, on the same isthmus, and had the 
 good fortune to fall in with three convoys of mules laden with 
 gold and silver, going from Panama to Nombre de Dios. He 
 carried off the gold and buried the silver. From the summit 
 of a mountain he obtained a sight of the Pacific Ocean or South 
 Sea, which so kindled his enthusiasm that he uttered a fervent 
 prayer that he might be the first Englishman who should sail 
 upon it. He was already the first Englishman who had beheld it. 
 
 On his return to England with his treasure, he entered for a 
 time the volunteer service against Ireland, while waiting an 
 opportunity to execute the grand project he had formed. At 
 last, Sir Christopher Hutton, Vice-Chamberlain and Counsellor 
 of the Queen, presented him to Elizabeth, to whom Drake im- 
 parted his scheme of ravaging the Spanish possessions in the 
 South Sea. The queen listened; but whether she gave him a 
 commission, or merely assured him of her favorable sentiments, 
 is a disputed point. It is alleged that she gave him a sword and 
 pronounced these singular words:— "We do account that he 
 which striketh at thee, Drake, striketh at us!" He fitted out 
 
A PORTUGUESE PRIZE. 259 
 
 an expedition, at his own cost and with the help of friends and 
 partners in the enterprise, consisting of five ships, — the largest, 
 the Pelican, his flag-ship, of one hundred tons, and the smallest 
 of fifteen. These vessels were manned by one hundred and 
 fifty-four men. They carried out the frames of four pinnaces, 
 to be put together as occasion required, and, after the example 
 of the Portuguese in their first Eastern voyages, took with 
 them specimens of the arts and civilization of their country, 
 with which to operate upon the minds of the people with whom 
 they should come in contact. They sailed in November, 1577, 
 but were driven back by a tempest. The expedition finally 
 got to sea on the 13th of December. 
 
 At the island of Mogador, off the coast of Barbary, Drake 
 attempted to traffic with the Moors, and in an exchange of 
 hostages lost a man, who was taken by the natives : they then 
 refused to trade, and Drake, after a vain effort to recover the 
 sailor, left the island, and followed the African coast to the 
 southward. Between Mogador and Cape Blanco he took several 
 Spanish barks called canters,— one of which, measuring forty 
 tons, he admitted into his fleet, sending his prisoners off in the 
 Christopher, the pinnace of fifteen tons and one of the original 
 five vessels. He landed on the island of Mayo, where the inhabit- 
 ants salted their wells, forsook their houses, and drove away 
 their goats. Off the island of Santiago he took a Portuguese 
 vessel bound for Brazil, carrying numerous passengers and 
 laden with wine. He kept the pilot, Nuno da Sylva, gave the 
 passengers and crew a pinnace, and transferred the wine to the 
 Pelican. The prize he made one of the fleet, having given her 
 a crew of twenty-eight men. 
 
 At Cape Verd Drake left the African shore, and, steering 
 steadily to the southwest, was nine weeks without seeing land. 
 When near the equator, he prepared his men for the change of 
 climate by bleeding them all himself. He made the coast of 
 Brazil on the 4th of April, 1578, — the savage inhabitants 
 
260 ocean's stort. 
 
 making large bonfires at their approach, for the purpose, as 
 he learned from Sylva, of inducing their devils to wreck the 
 ships upon their coast. On the 27th he entered the Rio de la 
 Plata, and, sailing up the stream till he found but three fathoms* 
 water, filled his casks by the ship's side. The same night, 
 the Portuguese prize, now named the Mary, and commanded by 
 John Doughty, parted company, as did two days afterwards the 
 Spanish canter, which had been named the Christopher, after 
 the pinnace for which she had been exchanged. Drake, be- 
 lieving them to have concealed themselves in shoal water, built 
 a raft and set sail in quest of them. 
 
 DRAKE AND HIS RAFT. 
 
 Early in June, Drake landed on the coast of Patagonia, 
 wlierc he broke up the Swan, of fifty tons, for firewood, having 
 taken every thing out of her which could be of any use, — his 
 object being to lessen the number of ships and the chances of 
 separation, and to render his force more compact. His men 
 easily killed two hundred and fifty seals in an hour, which fur- 
 nished them with very tolerable eating. They entered into very 
 pleasant relations with the natives, delighting them with the 
 sound of their trumpets, intoxicating them with Canary wine, 
 and dancing with them in their own savage and extravagant 
 manner. The natives gave Drake a vexatious proof of their 
 agility and address, by stealing his hat from his head and baffling 
 every effort made to recover it. Shortly after sailing from this 
 
A TRAGICAL EVENT. 
 
 261 
 
 spot, named bj Drake Seal Bay, the fleet fell in with the Chris- 
 / topher again, which Drake ordered to be unloaded and set adrift. 
 
 DRAKE AND THE PATAGONIANS. 
 
 He soon met the Portuguese Mary, and on the 20th the whole 
 squadron anchored in the harbor named Port Julian by Ma- 
 gellan. Intercourse was attempted with the Indians, but was 
 stopped on account of a fray begun by the savages, in which 
 two of the English and one of their own party were killed. 
 The natives made no further attempt to molest the strangers 
 during their two months' stay in the harbor. 
 
 A very tragical event now followed. Magellan had in this 
 place, as we have stated, quelled a dangerous mutiny, by hanging 
 several of a disobedient and rebellious company. The gibbet 
 was still standing, and beneath it the bones of the executed were 
 now bleaching. Drake apprehended a similar peril, and was led 
 to inquire into the actions of John Doughty. He found, in his 
 investigations, that Doughty had embarked in the enterprise 
 rather in the hope of rising to the chief command than of re- 
 maining what he started, — a gentleman volunteer : he had vjews, 
 
262 ocean's story. 
 
 it seemed, of supplanting Drake by exciting a mutiny, and of 
 sailing off in one of the ships upon his own account. The com- 
 pany were called together and made acquainted with the parti- 
 culars; Doughty was tried for attempting to foment a mutiny, 
 found guilty, and condemned to death by forty commissaries 
 cliosen from among the various crews. Doughty partook of 
 
 DRAKE CONDEMNING DOUGHTY, 
 
 the communion with Drake and several of his officers, dined at 
 the same table with them, and, in the last glass of wine he ever 
 raised to his lips, drank their healths and wished them farewell. 
 lie walked to the place of execution without displaying unusual 
 emotion, embraced the general, took leave of the company, 
 offered up a prayer for the queen and her realm, and was then 
 beheaded near Magellan's gibbet. Drake addressed the com- 
 pany, exhorting them to unity and obedience, and ordered them 
 to prepare to receive the holy communion on the following Sab- 
 bath, the first Sunday in the month. 
 
 This tragedy has been embellished by many fanciful ad- 
 ditions on the part of Drake's apologists, and upon the part 
 of his calumniators by many false statements. It is said by 
 the former that Drake, after Doughty's condemnation, offered 
 him the choice of three alternatives, — either to be executed in 
 Patagonia, to bo set ashore and left, or to bo sent back to Eng- 
 land, there to answer for his acts before the Lords of her Ma- 
 jesfy's Council ; and that Doughty replied that he would not 
 
A DIFFICULT QUESTION. 263 
 
 endanger his soul by being left among savage infidels ; that, as 
 for returning to England, if any one could be found willing to 
 accompany him on so disgraceful an errand, the shame of the 
 return would be more grievous than death; that he therefore 
 preferred ending his life where he was, — a choice from which no 
 argument could persuade him. These assertions can hardly be 
 correct, as nothing of the kind is set forth in the account of 
 the voyage given by Fletcher, the chaplain of the expedition. 
 It is highly improbable that Doughty, if conscious of innocence, 
 would have rejected the offer of a trial in England ; while it is 
 unlikely that the offer was ever made, as Drake could ill spare 
 a ship in which to send the prisoner home. Different opinions are 
 held in the matter by different writers. Admiral Burney thought 
 the statements too imperfect for forming, and the whole matter 
 too delicate to express, an opinion. Dr. Johnson wrote thus on 
 the subject: — "What designs Doughty could have formed with 
 any hope of success, or to what actions worthy of death he could 
 have proceeded without accomplices, it is difficult to imagine. 
 Nor, on the other hand, does there appear any temptation, from 
 either hope, fear, or interest, that might induce Drake, or any 
 commander in his state, to put to death an innocent man 
 on false pretences." Southey, in his Lives of the Admirals, is 
 disposed to consider Drake as justified in making a severe ex- 
 ample. Harris is of opinion that the act was ^'the most rash 
 and blameworthy of the admiral's career.'* Sylva, Drake's 
 Portuguese pilot, once said that Doughty was punished for 
 attempting to abandon the expedition and return to England, 
 and thus evidently thought that a sufficient motive existed for 
 his execution. And it is worth remarking that the Spaniards, 
 who never neglected an opportunity of loading Drake with ob- 
 loquy, extolled him in this case for his vigilance and decision. 
 Doughty was buried on an island in the harbor, together with 
 the bodies of the two men slain in the fray with the savages. 
 The Portuguese prize, being now found leaky and trouble- 
 
264 ocean's stort. 
 
 some, was broken up, the fleet being thus reduced to three. 
 On the 21st of August, Drake entered Magellan's Strait, — 
 being the second commander who ever performed the voyage 
 through it. He cleared the channel in sixteen days, and entered 
 the South Sea on the 6th of September. Here the Marygold 
 was lost in a terrible storm, and the Elizabeth, being separated 
 from Drake's vessel, wandered about in search of him for a time 
 and then sailed for England, where her captain was disgraced 
 for having abandoned his commander. Drake was driven from 
 the Bay of Parting of Friends, as he named the spot in which 
 he lost sight of the Elizabeth, and was swept southward to the 
 coast of Terra del Fuego, where he was forced from his anchor- 
 age and obliged to abandon the pinnace, with eight men in it 
 and one day's provisions, to the mercy of the winds. 
 
 The miseries endured by these eight men are hardly equalled 
 in the annals of maritime disaster. They gained the shore, 
 salted and dried penguins for food, and coasted on till they 
 reached the Plata. Six of them landed, and, of these six, four 
 were taken prisoners by the Indians. The other two were 
 wounded in attempting to escape to the boat, as were the two 
 who were left in charge. These four succeeded in reaching an 
 island nine miles from the coast, where two of them died of 
 their wounds. The other two lived for two months upon crabs 
 and eels, and a fruit resembling an orange, which was the only 
 means they had of quenching their thirst. One night their boat 
 was dashed to pieces against the rocks. Unable longer to en- 
 dure the want of water, they attempted to paddle to land upon 
 a plank ten feet long. This was the laborious work of three 
 days and two nights. They found a rivulet of fresh water ; and 
 one of them, AVilliam Pitcher, unable to resist the temptation 
 of drinking to excess, died of its effects in half an hour. His 
 companion was held in captivity for nine years by the Indians, 
 when he was permitted to rel^rn to England. 
 
 Drake, after the loss of the pinnace, was driven again to the 
 
A PRIZE CAPTURED. 265 
 
 southward, and, in the quaint language of the times, "fell in 
 with the uttermost part of the land towards the South Pole, 
 •where the Atlantic Ocean and the South Sea meet in a largo 
 and free scope." He saw the cape since called Cape Horn, 
 and anchored there : he gave the name of Elizabethides to all 
 the islands lying in the neighborhood. As he neither doubled 
 nor named this cape, it remained for the daring navigators 
 Schouten and Lemaire to demonstrate its importance, by pass- 
 mg around it from one ocean into the other, which Drake, it 
 will be observed, had not done. He went ashore, however, and, 
 leaning over a rock which extended the farthest into the sea, 
 returned to the ship and told the crew that he had been farther 
 south than any man living. He anchored at the island of 
 Mocha on the 29th of November, having coasted for four weeks 
 to the northward along the South American shore. He landed 
 with ten men, and was attacked by the Indians, who took them 
 for Spaniards. Two of his men were killed, all of them dis- 
 abled, and he himself badly wounded with an arrow under the 
 right eye. Not one of the assailants was hurt. Drake made 
 no attempt to take vengeance for this unprovoked attack, as it 
 was evident it was begun under the mistaken idea that they 
 were Spaniards, whose atrocities had made every native of the 
 country their enemy. He sailed for Peru on the same day. 
 
 Early in December he learned, from an Indian who was found 
 fishing in his canoe, that he had passed twenty miles beyond 
 the port of Valhario, — now Valparaiso ; and that in this port lay 
 a Spanish ship well laden. Drake sailed for this place, where 
 he found the ship riding at anchor, with eight Spaniards and 
 three negroes on board. These, taking the new-comers for 
 friends, — for the Spaniards had never yet seen an enemy in 
 this ocean, — welcomed them with drum and trumpet, and 
 opened a jar of Chili wine in which to drink their health. 
 Thomas Moore, the former captain of the Christopher pinnace, 
 was the first to board the unsuspecting craft. He laid lustily 
 
266 ocean's story. 
 
 about him, upon which the principal Spaniard crossed himself 
 and jumped overboard. The rest were easily secured under the 
 hatches. The prize was rifled, and one thousand seven hundred 
 and seventy jars of Chili wine, sixty thousand pieces of gold, 
 and 'a number of strings of pearls, were taken from her. The 
 miserable town, consisting of nine families, who at once fled to 
 the interior, was next ransacked. A poor little church was 
 robbed of a silver chalice, two cruets, and a cloth with which 
 the altar was spread. A warehouse was forced to disgorge its 
 store of Chili wine and cedar planks. Thus did Drake, armed 
 with the sanction of Elizabeth, Queen of England, plunder a 
 handful of inoff"ensive men securely anchored in a peaceful 
 roadstead, who saluted their coming with music and with wine. 
 Thus did Drake commit sacrilege in a Christian church, and 
 furnish the mess-room of his ship from the spoils of a Catholic 
 altar. Even Southey admits that, in this aifair, Drake deserves 
 no other name than that of pirate. And we shall see that he de- 
 served it equally well throughout his stay upon the coast. 
 
 bKA a.m:.mom>). 
 
CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 DRAKE'S EXPLOIT WITH A SLEEPINQ SPANI..RD— HIS ACHIEVEMENTS AT CALLAO 
 —BATTLE WITH A TREASURE-SHIP— DRAKE GIVES A RECEIPT FOR HER CARGO 
 —INDITES A TOUCHING EPISTLE— HIS PLANS FOR RETURNING HOME— FRESH 
 CAPTURES— PERFORMANCES AT GUATULCO AND ACAPULCO— DRAKE DISMISSES 
 HIS PILOT— EXCEEDING COLD ^VEATHER- DRAKE REGARDED AS A GOD BY THE 
 CALIFORNIANS— SAILS FOR THE MOLUCCAS— VISITS TERNATE AND CELEBES— 
 THE PELICAN UPON A REEF— THE RETURN VOYAGE— PROTEST OF THE SPANISH 
 AMBASSADOR— HE STYLES DRAKE THE MASTER-THIEF OF THE UNKNOWN WORLD 
 —QUEEN ELIZABETH ON BOARD THE PELICAN— DRAKe's USE OF HIS FORTUNE 
 —HIS DEATH— THE VOYAGE OF JOHN DAVIS TO THE NORTHWEST. 
 
 A FORTNIGHT after leaving Valparaiso, Drake anchored at 
 
 the mouth of the Coquimbo. The watering party sent ashore 
 
 had barely time to escape from a body of five hundred horse and 
 
 foot. At another place, called Tarapaca, the waterers found a 
 
 Spaniard lying asleep, and took from him thirteen bars of silver 
 
 of the value of four thousand ducats. Southey states, as if it 
 
 were a trait of magnanimity, that no personal injury was offered 
 
 to the sleeping man. They next captured eight lamas, each 
 
 carrying a hundred pounds of silver. At Arica they found two 
 
 ships at anchor,. a single negro being on board of each: from 
 
 the one they took forty bars of silver, and from the other two 
 
 hundred jars of wine. As the Pelican was more than a match for 
 
 the two negroes, the latter wisely offered no resistance. Drake 
 
 arrived at Callao, the port of Lima,— Lima being the capital of 
 
 Peru,— before it was known that an enemy's ship had entered 
 
 the waters of the Pacific. He immediately boarded a bark laden 
 
 with silk, which he consented to leave unmolested on condition 
 ' 267 
 
268 ' ocean's story. 
 
 that the owner would pilot him into Callao, which he did. Here 
 Drake found seventeen ships, twelve of which had sent their 
 sails ashore, so that they were as helpless as logs. He rifled 
 them of their silver, silk, and linen, and then cut their cables 
 and let them drift out to sea. Learning that a richly-laden 
 treasure-ship, named the Cacafuego, had lately sailed for Paita, 
 he at once gave chase. He stopped a vessel bound for Callao ; 
 and such was his thirst for gain, that he took from it a small 
 silver lamp, the only article of value on board. In a ship bound 
 to Panama he found forty bars of silver, eighty pounds of gold, 
 and a golden crucifix set with large emeralds. Soon after cross- 
 ing the line, the Cacafuego was discovered ten miles to seaward, 
 by Drake's brother John. The Pelican's sailing qualities were 
 now improved by what Sylva, the pilot, calls a "pretty device.'* 
 Empty jars were filled with water and hung with ropes over the 
 stern, in order to lighten her bow. The Spaniard, not dreaming 
 of an enemy, made towards her, whereupon Drake gave her 
 three broadsides, shot her mainmast overboard, and wounded her 
 captain. She then surrendered. Drake took possession, sailed 
 with her two days and two nights from the coast, and then lay 
 to to rifle her. He took from her an immense quantity of pearls 
 and precious stones, eighty pounds of gold, twenty-six tons of 
 silver in ingots, a large portion of which belonged to the king, 
 and thirteen boxes of coined silver. The value of this prize 
 was hot far from one million of dollars. Then, as if he had 
 been engaged in a legal commercial transaction, Drake asked 
 the captain for his register of the cargo, and wrote a receipt in 
 the margin for the whole amount ! 
 
 The prize, thus lightened of her metallic cargo, was then 
 allowed to depart. Her captain received from Drake a letter of 
 safe conduct in case he should fall in with the Elizabeth or the 
 Mary. This letter is remarkable for its deep and touching piety. 
 After recommending the despoiled captain to the friendly notice 
 of Winter and Thomas, Drake concludes thus: — "I commit you 
 
RETURNING WITH BOOTY. 269 
 
 all to the tuition of Him that with his blood hath redeemed us, 
 and am in good hope that we shall be in no more trouble, but 
 that he will help us in adversity; desiring you, for the passion 
 of Christ, if you fall into any danger, that you will not despair 
 of God's mercy, for he will defend you and preserve you from 
 all peril, and bring us to our desired haven : to whom be all 
 honor, and praise, and glory, forever and ever. Amen. 
 "Your sorrowful captain, 
 
 "Whose heart is heavy for you, 
 
 "Francis Drake." 
 Drake now considered his object in these seas as accomplished : 
 the indignities offered by the Spaniards to his queen and country 
 were avenged, and their commerce was well-nigh annihilated. 
 He next examined the various plans of returning home with his 
 booty. He thought it impossible to go back by the way he had 
 come: the whole coast of Chili and Peru was in alarm, and ships 
 had undoubtedly been despatched to intercept him. Moreover, the 
 season (for it was now February, 1579) was unfavorable either 
 for passing the Strait or for doubling the Cape. He might have 
 followed the course of Magellan, and thus have circumnavigated 
 the globe ; but this seemed but a paltry imitation to his daring 
 and inventive mind. He conceived the idea of discovering a 
 Northwest Passage and returning to England by the North Polar 
 Sea. He therefore sailed towards the north, making the coast of 
 Nicaragua in the middle of March. Here he captured a small 
 craft laden with sarsaparilla, butter, and honey. A neighboring 
 island supplied him with wood and fish : alligators and monkeys 
 also abounded there. A vessel from Manilla, which he captured 
 while her crew were asleep, contributed to his stores large quan- 
 tities of muslin, Chinese porcelain, and silks. A negro taken 
 from this vessel piloted him into the haven of Guatulco, on the 
 coast of Mexico, inhabited by seventeen Spaniards and a few 
 negroes. Drake ransacked this place, but boasts of no other 
 booty than a bushel of silver coins and a gold chain that Thomas 
 
270 
 
 ocean's story. 
 
 Moon took from the person of the escaping governor. At Aca- 
 pulco he found a few Spaniards engaged in trying and condemn- 
 in<r a parcel of the unhappy natives. He broke up the court, 
 and sent both judges and prisoners on board his vessel. 
 
 DRAKE INTERRUPTING THE COURSE OF JUSTICE AT ACAPULCO. 
 
 Before leaving Acapulco, Drake put the pilot, Nuno da Sylva, 
 whom he had taken at the Cape Verds, on board a ship in the 
 harbor, to find his way back to Portugal as best he could. He 
 then sailed four thousand five hundred miles in various direc- 
 tions, till he found himself in a piercingly cold climate, where the 
 meat froze as soon as it was removed from the fire. This was in 
 latitude forty-eight north. So he sailed back again ten degrees 
 and anchored in an excellent harbor on the California coast. 
 This harbor is considered by numerous authorities as the present 
 Bay of San Francisco. The natives, who had been visited but 
 once by Europeans, — under the Portuguese Cabrillo, thirty-seven 
 years before, — had not learned to distrust them, and readily 
 entered into relations of commerce and amity with Drake's 
 party. From the Indians the latter obtained quantities of an 
 herb which they called tahak^ and which was undoubtedly tobacco. 
 The Californians soon came to regard the strangers as gods, and 
 did them religious honors. The king resigned to Drake all title 
 to the surrounding country, and offered to become his subject. 
 So he took possession of the crown and dignity of the said ter- 
 ritory in the name and for the use of her majesty the queen. 
 The Californians, we are told, accompanied this act of surrender 
 
NEW ALBIOX. 271 
 
 with a song and dance of triumph, "because thej ■were not only 
 visited of gods, but the great and chief god was now become 
 their god, their king and patron, and themselves the only happy 
 and blessed people in all the world." Drake named the country 
 New Albion, in honor of Old Albion or England. He set up 
 a monument of the queen's "right and title to the same, namely, 
 a plate nailed upon a fair great post, whereon was engraved her 
 majesty's name, with the day and year of arrival." After 
 remaining five weeks in the harbor, Drake weighed anchor, on 
 the 23d of July, resolved to abandon any further attempt in 
 northern latitudes, and to steer for the Moluccas, after the 
 example of Magellan. 
 
 On the 13th of October he discovered several islands in latitude 
 
 eight degrees north, and was soon surrounded with canoes laden 
 
 with cocoanuts and fruit. These canoes were hollowed out of a 
 
 single log with wonderful art, and were as smooth as polished horn, 
 
 and decorated throughout with shells thickly set. The ears of 
 
 the natives hung down considerably from the weight of the 
 
 ornaments worn in them. Their nails were long and sharp, and 
 
 were evidently used as a weapon. Their teeth were black as 
 
 jet, — an effect obtained by the use of the betel-root. These 
 
 people were friendly and commercially inclined. Drake visited 
 
 other groups, where the principal occupation of the natives was 
 
 selling cinnamon to the Portuguese. At Ternate, one of the 
 
 Moluccas, the king offered the sovereignty of the isles to Drake, 
 
 and sent him presents of "imperfect and liquid sugar," — 
 
 molasses, probably, — " rice, poultry, cloves, and meal which they 
 
 called sagu, or bread made of the tops of certain trees, tasting in 
 
 the mouth like sour curds, but melting like sugar, whereof they 
 
 made certain cakes which may be kept the space of ten years, 
 
 and yet then good to be eaten." Drake stayed here six days, 
 
 laid in a large stock of cloves, and sailed on the 9th of November. 
 
 At a small island near Celebes, where he set up his forge and 
 
 caused the ship to be carefully repaired, he and his men saw 
 
272 ocean's story. 
 
 sights which they have described in somewhat exaggerated 
 terms: — "tall trees without branches except a tuft at the very 
 top, in which swarms of fiery worms, flying in the air, made a 
 show as if every twig had been a burning candle ; bats bigger 
 than large hens, — a very ugly poultry ; cray-fish, or land-crabs, 
 one of which was enough for four men, and which dug huge 
 caves under the roots of trees, or, for want of better refuge, 
 would climb trees and hide in the forks of the branches." This 
 spot was appropriately named Crab Island. 
 
 On the 9th of January, 1580, the ship ran upon a rocky shoal 
 and stuck fast. The crew were first summoned to prayers, and 
 then ordered to lighten the ship. Three tons of cloves were 
 thrown over, eight guns, and a quantity of meal and pulse. One 
 authority says distinctly that no gold or silver was thrown into 
 the water, though it was the heaviest part of the cargo ; another 
 authority asserts the contrary in the following passage : — 
 " Conceiving that the best way to lighten the ship was to ease 
 their consciences, they humbled themselves by fasting, after- 
 wards dining on Christ in the sacrament, expecting no other 
 than to sup with him in heaven. Then they cast out of their ship 
 six great pieces of ordnance, threw overboard as much wealth 
 as would break the heart of a miser to think of it, with much 
 sugar and packs of spices, making a caudle of the sea round 
 about." The ship was at last freed, and started again on her 
 way. Her adventures from this point offer no very salient 
 features : she stopped at Java, the Cape of Good Hope, and 
 Sierra Leone. In the latter place Drake saw troops of ele- 
 phants, and oysters fastened on to the twigs of trees and hang- 
 ing down into the water in strings. 
 
 Drake arrived at Plymouth after a voyage of two years and 
 ten months. Like Magellan, he found he had lost a day in 
 his reckoning. He immediately repaired to court, where he was 
 graciously received, his treasure, however, being placed in se- 
 questration, to answer such demands as might be made upon it. 
 
FIRST ENGLISH VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD. 273 
 
 Drake "was denounced in many quarters as a pirate, while in 
 others collections of songs and epigrams were made, celebrating 
 him and his ship in the highest terms. The Spanish ambassador, 
 Bernardino de Mendoza, who called him the Master-Thief of the 
 Unknown World, demanded that he should be punished accord- 
 ing to the laws of nations. Elizabeth firmly asserted her right 
 of navigating the ocean in all parts, and denied that the Pope's 
 grant of a monopoly in the Indies to the Spaniards and Portu- 
 guese was of any binding effect upon her. She yielded, how- 
 ever, so far as to restore, to the agent of several of the merchants 
 whom Drake had despoiled, large sums of money. Enough re- 
 mained, however, to make the expedition a remunerating one 
 for the captors. The queen then, in a pompous and solemn 
 ceremony, gave to the entire affair an official and govern- 
 mental ratification. She ordered Drake's ship to be drawn 
 up in a little creek near Deptford, to be there preserved as a 
 monument of the most memorable voyage the English had ever 
 yet performed. She went on board of her, and partook of 
 a banquet there wuth the commander, who, kneeling at her 
 feet, rose up Sir Francis Drake. The Westminster students 
 inscribed a Latin quatrain upon the mainmast, of which the 
 following lines are a translation : 
 
 " Sir Drake, whom well the world's end knows, which thou didst compass round, 
 And whom both poles of heaven saw, — which north and south do bound, — 
 The stars above will make thee known, if men here silent were ; 
 The sun himself cannot forget his fellow-traveller." 
 
 The ship remained at Deptford till she decayed and fell to pieces: 
 
 a chair was made from one of her planks and presented to the 
 
 University of Oxford, where it is still to be seen. 
 
 Such was the first voyage around the world accomplished by 
 
 an Englishman. Drake's success awakened the spirit and genius 
 
 of navigation in the English people, and may be said to have 
 
 contributed in no slight degree to the naval supremacy they 
 
 afterwards acquired. If, in accordance with the manner of tho 
 18 
 
QUEEN ELIZABETH KNIQHTlNa D&AKS. 
 
THE NORTH-WEST PASSAGE. 275 
 
 times, he was quite as much a pirate as a navigator, and mingled 
 plunder and piety, prayer and pillage, in pretty equal pro- 
 portions, and is to be judged accordingly, he at least made a 
 noble use of the fortune he had acquired, in aiding the queen 
 in her wars with Spain, and in encouraging the construction of 
 public works. He built, with his own resources, an aqueduct 
 twenty miles in length, with which to supply Plymouth with 
 water. He died at sea, while commanding an expedition against 
 the Spanish West India Islands. He wrote no account of his 
 adventures and discoveries. A volume published by Nuno da 
 Sylva, his Portuguese pilot, whose statements were confirmed by 
 the officers, has served as the basis of the various narratives in 
 existence. 
 
 We may briefly allude here to an attempt made in 1585, under 
 the auspices of the English Government, by John Davis, a sea- 
 man of acknowledged ability, with two ships, — the Sunshine and 
 Moonshine, — to discover the Northwest Passage. After a voyage 
 of six weeks, he saw, in north latitude 60°, a mountainous and 
 ice-bound promontory. It was the southwestern point of Green- 
 land, and he gave it the name of Cape Desolation, which it still 
 retains. He now sailed to the northwest, discovered islands, 
 coasts, and harbors, to which he gave appropriate appellations. 
 He thus was the first to enter the strait which bears his name, 
 and beyond which Baffin, thirty years later, was to discover the 
 vast bay which, in its turn, was to bear his name. Davis made 
 two subsequent voyages to these waters in search of a passage 
 across the continent, but, with the exception of the discovery 
 of Davis' Strait, eifected nothing which needs to be chronicled 
 here. This single discovery, however, was one of the utmost 
 importance, as it served to stimulate research and to encourage 
 further effort in this direction. More than two centuries were 
 nevertheless destined to elapse before success was to be attained. 
 
I I.ITISH SHIP OF WAi: OF 1578 FROM TAPE.STKY IN TIIi: HOLSE OF LORDS. 
 
 CHAPTER XXYIIL 
 
 POLICY OF QUEEN ELIZABETH THOMAS CAVENDISH HIS FIBST VOYAGE — EX- 
 PLOITS UPON THE AFRICAN AND BRAZILIAN COASTS PORT DESIRE — PORT 
 
 FAMINE — BATTLES WITH THE ARAUCANIANS C-\JPTURE OF PAITA ROBBERY 
 
 OF A CHURCH — REPEATED ACTS OF BRIGANDAGE CAPTURE OF THE SAKTA 
 
 ANNA THE RETURN VOYAGE CAVENDISH'S ACCOUNT OF THE EXPEDITION 
 
 THE SPANISH ARMADA PREPARATIONS IN ENGLAND THE CONFLICT TOTAL 
 
 EOUT OF THE INVINCIBLES PROCESSION IN COMMEMORATION OF THE EVENT. 
 
 Queen Elizabeth had found it to her advantage to en- 
 courage displays of public spirit in private individuals, and to 
 excite the nobles and persons of fortune who were ambitions 
 of distinction, as well as the indigent in search of employment, 
 to hazard, the one their wealth, the other their lives, in the 
 
 national service. She thus derived benefit from a class of peo- 
 276 
 
THOMAS. CAVENDISH. 
 
 277 
 
 pie who Iiad been of little use In any other reign. Many gentle- 
 men of rank and position devoted a portion of their means to 
 harassing the Spanish at sea, to prosecuting discovery in distant 
 quarters, and to planting colonies upon savage coasts. Among 
 the most distinguished of these was Thomas Cavendish, of 
 Trimley, near Ipswich. 
 
 This gentleman was of an honorable family, and possessed a 
 large estate. He equipped, in 1586, three ships of the requisite 
 burden, — the largest, the Desire, being of one hundred and forty 
 tons, the lesser, the Content, being of sixty, and the least, the 
 Hugh Gallant, a bark of forty tons. He provisioned them for 
 two years, and manned them with one hundred and twenty-three 
 officers and men, some of whom had served under Sir Francis 
 Drake. His patron, Lord Hunsdon, procured him a commis- 
 sion from Queen Elizabeth, thus assimilating his vessels to 
 those of the navy, and rendering his contemplated piracies 
 legitimate. Cavendish sailed from Plymouth on the 21st of 
 July, directing his course to the south and touching upon the 
 coasts of Guinea and Sierra Leone. Here the crew destroyed a 
 negro town, in revenge for the death of one of their men, whom 
 the inhabitants had killed with a poisoned arrow. Their course 
 across the Atlantic to the Brazilian shore offers no remarkable 
 
 CAVENDISH IN BRAZIL. 
 
 features. They erected their forge upon an islnnd, where they 
 healed their sick and built a pinnace. Anchoring in a harbor 
 on the Patagonian coast. Cavendish named it Port Desire, after 
 
278 ocean's story. 
 
 his flag-ship, — a name which it still retains. He seems to have 
 considered the savages to be giants, and asserts that he saw 
 footprints eighteen inches long. He entered the Strait at the 
 commencement of January, 1587, and soon discovered a mise- 
 rable and forlorn settlement of Spaniards. These numbered 
 twenty-three men, being all that remained of four hundred who 
 had been left there three years before, by Sarmiento, to colonize 
 the Strait. They had lived in destitution for the last eighteen 
 months, being able to procure no other food than a scanty sup- 
 ply of shell-fish, except when they surprised a thirsty deer or 
 seized an unsuspecting swan. They had built a fortress, in 
 order to exclude all other nations but their own from the passage 
 of the Strait, but had been compelled to leave it, owing to the 
 intolerable stench proceeding from the carcasses of their un- 
 happy companions who died of want or disease. Cavendish 
 took the survivors on board, and named the spot upon which 
 the fortress was built Port Famine. 
 
 PORT FAMINE. 
 
 Cavendish entered the Pacific late in February, after a tem- 
 pestuous passage from the Atlantic side. Landing upon the 
 Chilian coast, in the country of the Araucanians, he received 
 a warm reception from the natives, who mistook his men for 
 Spaniards, by whom the territory had been repeatedly invaded 
 in search of gold. He afterwards undeceived them, and found 
 them willing to satisfy his wants when convinced that they did 
 not belong to that avaricious and cruel people. In another 
 
STEALING CHURCH BELLS. 279 
 
 place, inhabited by a Spanish colony, he fought a pitched battle 
 with two hundred horsemen, driving those who were not slain 
 back to the mountains. At another spot farther north, the In- 
 dians brought him wood and water on their backs. In May he 
 captured two prizes, taking out of them twenty thousand pounds' 
 worth of sugar, molasses, calico, marmalade, and hens, and then 
 burning them to the water's edge. lie seized upon the town 
 of Paita, which he ransacked and burned, carrying off a large 
 quantity of household goods and twenty-five pounds' weight of 
 pieces-of-eight, or Spanish dollars. Off the island of Puna he 
 fell in with a ship of two hundred and fifty tons ; but, being dis- 
 appointed at finding her empty, he sank her out of sheer spite. 
 The inhabitants of Puna were Christians, having followed the 
 example of their cacique, who had married a Spanish woman and 
 had thereupon made a profession of her religion. They were rich 
 and industrious. Cavendish pillaged the island, burned the 
 church, and carried off its five bells. Being attacked by the 
 Spaniards and natives combined, he fought a long and bloody 
 battle, after which he ravaged the fields and orchards, burned 
 four ships on the stocks, and left the town of three hundred 
 houses a heap of rubbish. lie took a coasting-ship, rifled and 
 scuttled her, and compelled her captain to become his pilot. 
 He continued this course of brigandage and piracy .all along the 
 South American and Mexican coasts, destroying towns, pillaging 
 custom-houses, and burning vessels. 
 
 Early in November, Cavendish, who had been told by the 
 pilot he had taken that a vessel from the Philippines was ex- 
 pected, richly laden, at Acapulco, lay in wait for her off the 
 headland of California. She was discovered on the 4th, bearing 
 in for the Cape. She was the Santa Anna, of seven hundred 
 tons, belonging to the King of Spain, and commanded by the 
 Admiral of the South Sea. Cavendish gave chase, and, after a 
 broadside and a volley of small-arms, boarded her. He was 
 repulsed, but renewed the action with his guns and musketry. 
 
280 OCEAN'S STORY. 
 
 The Spaniard was soon forced to surrender, and her officers, 
 going on board the Desire, gave an account of her contents, — 
 ■\vlilch they stated at thirty thousand dollars in gold, with im- 
 mense quantities of damasks, silks, satins, musk, and provisions. 
 This glorious prize was divided by Cavendish, a mutiny being 
 very nearly the result: it was, however, prevented by the gene- 
 rosity of the commander. The prisoners were set on shore with 
 sufficient means of defence against the Indians; the Santa Anna 
 was burned, together with five hundred tons of her goods ; and 
 Cavendish then set sail for the Ladrone Islands, five thousand 
 five hundred miles distant. 
 
 He arrived at Guam, one of the group, in forty-five days, and 
 from thence prosecuted his homeward voyage, through the Phi- 
 lippine Islands and the Moluccas, to Java. He passed the months 
 of April and May, 1588, in crossing the Indian Ocean to the 
 Cape of Good Hope. He touched at St. Helena early in June, 
 and, when near the Azores, in September, heard from a Flemish 
 ship the news of the total defeat of the great Spanish Armada. 
 He lost nearly all his sails in a storm off Finisterre, and re- 
 placed them by sails of silken grass, which he had taken from 
 his prizes in the South Sea. The voyage of Cavendish was the 
 third that had been performed round the world, and was the 
 shortest of the three, — being accomplished in eight months' less 
 time than that of Drake. 
 
 Cavendish at once wrote a letter to Lord Hunsdon, in which 
 occurs the following brief relation of his achievements: — "It 
 hath pleased the Almighty to suffer me to encompass all the 
 Avhole globe of the world. I navigated along the coasts of 
 Chili, Peru, and New Spain, where I made great spoils. I 
 burned and sank nineteen sail of ships, great and small. All 
 the towns and cities that ever I landed at I burned and spoiled, 
 and, had I not been discovered upon the coast, I had taken 
 a great quantity of treasure. . . . All which services, together 
 with myself, I humbly prostrate at her majesty's feet, desiring 
 
THE IXVIXCIBLE ABMADA. 28^ 
 
 the Almighty long to continue her reign among us 4 %*'atrthi3 
 day she is the most famous and victorious prince that liveth in 
 the world. Thus, humbly desiring pardon for my tediousness, 
 I leave your lordship to the tuition of the Almighty." 
 
 Cavendish spent his immense wealth in equipping vessels for 
 a second voyage, which ended disastrously, and in which, after 
 being beaten by the Portuguese off the coast of Brazil, he died 
 of shame and grief. He ranks as one of the most enterprising, 
 diligent, and cautious of the early English navigators, though, 
 of course, he must be regarded as an arrant buccaneer. 
 
 From what we have said of the piracies of the English, and 
 of their encroachments upon the domain of the Spanish, and 
 of the ardent desire of the latter to retain the monopoly of the 
 trade with the natives of America and to hold the exclusive 
 right to rob and slay them at their pleasure, the reader will be 
 prepared for the imposing but bombastic attempt made by Spain 
 against England in 1588. Philip II. determined to put forth his 
 strength, and his fleet was named, before it sailed, "The most 
 Fortunate and Invincible Armada." It was described in official 
 accounts as consisting of one hundred and thirty ships, manned 
 by eight thousand four hundred and fifty sailors, and carrying 
 nmeteen thousand soldiers, two thousand galley-slaves, and two 
 thousand six hundred pieces of brass. The vessels were named 
 from Romish saints, from the various appellations of the Trinity, 
 from animals and fabulous monsters, — the Santa Catilina, the 
 Great Griffin, and the Holy Ghost being profanely intermixed. 
 In the fleet were one hundred and twenty-four volunteers of 
 noble family, and one hundred and eighty almoners, Domini- 
 cans, Franciscans, and Jesuits. Instruments of torture were 
 placed on board in large quantities, for the purpose of assisting 
 in the great work of reconciling England to Romanism. The 
 Spaniards and the Pope had resolved that all who should 
 defend the queen and withstand the invasion should, with 
 all their families, be rooted out, and their places, their honors. 
 
282 
 
 OCEAN S STORY. 
 
 their titles, their houses, and their lands, be bestowed upon the 
 conquerors. 
 
 Elizabeth and her councillors heard these ominous denuncia- 
 tions undismayed, and adequate preparations were made to re- 
 ceive the crusaders. London alone furnished ten thousand men, 
 and held ten thousand more in reserve : the whole land-force 
 amounted to sixty-five thousand. The fleet numbered one 
 hundred and eighty-one vessels, — fifty more in number than the 
 Armada, but hardly half as powerful in tonnage. Eighteen of 
 these vessels were volunteers, and but one of the one hundred 
 and eighty-one was of the burden of eleven hundred tons. 
 The Lord High-Admiral of England, Charles, Lord Howard of 
 Effingham, commanded the fleet, with Drake, Hawkins, and 
 Frobisher in command of the various divisions. A form of 
 prayer was published, and the clergy were enjoined to read it 
 on Wednesdays and Fridays in their parish churches. In this, 
 Elizabeth was compared to Deborah, preparing to combat the 
 pride and might of Sisera-Philip. The country awaited the 
 arrival of the Spaniards in anxiety, and yet with confidence. 
 
 The Armada sailed from the Tagus late in May, with the 
 solemn blessing of the Church, and patronized by every influen- 
 
 MULL OF A VESSEL OF THE ARMADA. 
 
 tial saint in the calendar. A storm drove it back with loss, and 
 it did not sail again till the 12th of July. It was descried off 
 Plymouth on the 20th, "with lofty turrets like castles, in front 
 like a half-moon; the wings thereof spreading out about the 
 
drake's good luck. 283 
 
 length of seven miles, sailing very slowly, though with full sails, 
 the winds being as it were weary with wafting them, and the 
 ocean groaning under their weight." The English suffered them 
 to pass Plymouth, that they might attack them in the rear. 
 They commenced the fight the next day, with only forty ships. 
 The Spaniards, during this preliminary action, found their ships 
 " very useful to defend, but not to offend, and better fitted to 
 Btand than to move." Drake, with his usual luck, captured a 
 galleon in which he found fifty-five thousand ducats in gold. 
 This sum was divided among his crew. Skirmishing and de- 
 tached fights continued for several days, the Spanish ships being 
 found, from their height and thickness, inaccessible by boarding 
 , or ball. They were compared to castles pitched into the sea. 
 The lord-admiral was consequently instructed to convert eight 
 of his least eflScient vessels into fire-ships. The order arrived 
 as the enemy's fleet anchored off Calais, and thirty hours after- 
 wards the eight ships selected were discharged of all that was 
 worth removal and filled with combustibles. Their guns were 
 heavily loaded, and their sides smeared with rosin and wild-fire. 
 At midnight they were sent, with wind and tide, into the heart 
 of the invincible Armada. A terrible panic seized the affrighted 
 crews : remembering the fire-ships which had been used but lately 
 in the Scheldt, they shouted, in agony, "The fire of Antwerp! 
 The fire of Antwerp!" Some cut their cables, others slipped 
 their hawsers, and all put to sea, "happiest they who could first 
 be gone, though few could tell what course to take." Some were 
 wrecked on the shallows of Flanders; some gained the ocean; 
 while the remainder were attacked and terribly handled by 
 Drake. The discomfited Spaniards resolved to return to Spain 
 by a northern circuit around England and Scotland. The 
 English pursued, but the exhausted state of their powder-maga- 
 zines prevented another engagement. The luckless Armada 
 never returned to Spain. A terrific storm drove the vessels 
 
 upon the Irish coast and upon the inhospitable rocks of the 
 
 T 
 
28i 
 
 OCEAN S STORY. 
 
 Orkneys. Thirty of them were stranded near Connnught: two 
 had been cast away upon the shores of Norway. In all, eighty- 
 one ships were lost, and but fifty-three reached home. Out 
 of thirty thousand soldiers embarked, fourteen thousand were 
 missinfT^. Philip received the calamity as a dispensation of 
 Providence, and ordered thanks to be given to God that the 
 disaster was no greater. 
 
 A day of thanksgiving was proclaimed in England, inasmuch 
 as "the boar had put back that souglit to lay her vineyard 
 waste." Some time afterwards, the queen repaired in public 
 procession to St. Paul's. The streets were hung with blue cloth ; 
 
 PROCESSION IN HONOR OF THE DEFEAT OF THE ARMADA. 
 
 the royal chariot was a throne with four pillars and a canopy 
 overhead, drawn by white horses. Elizabeth knelt at the 
 altar and audibly acknowledged the Almighty as her deliverer 
 from the rage of the enemy. The people were exhorted to 
 render thanks to the Most High, whose elements — fire, wind, and 
 storm — had wrought more destruction to the foe than the valor 
 of their navy or the strength of their wooden walls. 
 
SIR WALTER RALEIGH, 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 THB FICTION OF EL DORADO MANOA DESCRIPTION OF ITS FABLED SPLEN- 
 DORS — ATTEMPTS OF THE SPANIARDS TO DISCOVER IT — SIR WALTER RALEIGH 
 
 HIS VOYAGE TO GUIANA HIS ACCOUNT OF THE ORINOCO HIS DESCRIP- 
 TION OF THE SCENERY — HIS RETURN HIS SECOND VOYAGE EXPEDITION TO 
 
 NEWFOUNDLAND HIS DEATH MODERN INTERPRETATION OF THE LEGEND OF 
 
 EL DORADO. • 
 
 The mines of the precious metals which the Spaniards had 
 
 discovered in Peru, the wealth which they annually brought 
 
 home in treasure-ships to the mother-country, together with the 
 
 exaggerated accounts given by Spanish authors respecting the 
 
 splendor and the civilization of the empire of the Incas, had 
 
 now begun to excite the cupidity and inflame the imagination of 
 
 every other people in Europe. It was known that, at the time 
 
 285 
 
286 ocean's story. 
 
 of the conquest of Peru by Pizarro, a large number of the native:! 
 escaped into the interior ; and rumor added that one of the sons 
 of the reigning Inca had withdrawn across the continent to a 
 region situated between the Amazon and the Orinoco and called 
 by the general name of Guiana. Here he had founded, it was 
 added, an empire more splendid than that of Peru : its capital 
 city, Manoa, only one European had seen. This was a Spaniard, 
 a marine on board a man-of-war, who, according to the legend, 
 had allowed a powder-magazine to explode and was condemned 
 to death for his carelessness. This penalty was commuted, how- 
 ever, and he was placed in a boat at the mouth of the Orinoco, 
 with orders to penetrate into the interior. He stayed seven 
 months at Manoa, and then escaped to Porto Rico. He gave 
 the following account of the city and kingdom, the latter being 
 called, he said. El Dorado, or The Gilded : 
 
 The columns of the emperor's palace were of porphyry and 
 alabaster, the galleries of ebony and cedar, and golden steps 
 led to a throne of ivory. The palace, which was built of white 
 marble, stood upon an island in a lake or inland sea. Two 
 towers guarded the entrance : between them was a pillar twenty- 
 five feet in height, upon which was a huge silver moon. Beyond 
 was a quadrangle planted with trees, and watered by a silver 
 fountain which spouted through four golden pipes. The gate 
 of the palace was of copper. Within, four lamps burned day 
 and night before an altar of silver upon which was a burnished 
 golden sun. Three thousand workmen were employed in the 
 Street of the Silversmiths. 
 
 ^ The name of El Dorado, as applied to the kingdom of which 
 Manoa was the metropolis, may refer to its wealth and splendor, 
 or it may be derived from a habit attributed by some to the 
 emperor, by others to the high-priests, and even to the inhabit- 
 ants generally when in a state of intoxication. This custom 
 was to cause themselves to be anointed with a precious and 
 fragrant gum, after which gold-dust was blown upon them 
 
SIR WALTER RALEIGH. 287 
 
 through tubes, till thej were completely incrusted with gold. 
 This attire was naturally considered sumptuous, and, in connec- 
 tion with the abundance of precious metals afforded by the 
 country, may have given rise to the title of El Dorado. The 
 legend, in either case, is a worthy companion to Ponce de Leon's 
 Fountain of Youth. 
 
 No geographical fiction ever caused such an expenditure of 
 blood and treasure as this. The Spaniards alone lost, in their 
 attempts to discover the city of Manoa, more lives and money 
 than in effecting any of their permanent conquests. New ad- 
 venturers were always ready to start, upon the discomfiture or 
 destruction of those who had gone before ; and no disappoint- 
 ment suffered by the latter could daunt the hopes of those who 
 believed the discovery reserved for them. The Spanish priests 
 regarded the mania as a device of the Evil One to lure mankind 
 to perdition. 
 
 The greater portion of these persons were adventurers, 
 soldiers of fortune, and Quixotic knights-errant. The most 
 distinguished of the converts to a belief in the existence of an 
 El Dorado, however, it would be unjust to class among them. 
 Sir Walter Raleigh, an Englishman of the highest talent and 
 character, after having enjoyed the favor of Queen Elizabeth 
 for twenty years, lost it by an intrigue with a lady of the 
 palace. Though he repaired the injury by marrying the lady, 
 he found he could not expect to be restored to grace except by 
 performing some exploit which should add new lustre to his 
 name. He had long been filled with admiration at the courage 
 and perseverance exhibited by the Spaniards in the pursuit of 
 their romantic and brilliant chimera. As he himself firmly be- 
 lieved it to be a reality, he determined to make an attempt him- 
 self. A part of his design was to colonize Guiana, and thus to 
 extend the sphere of the industrial and commercial arts of 
 England. He was familiar with the sea, as he had already 
 
288 ocean's stoby. 
 
 sent out several expeditions for the colonization of Virginia in 
 America. 
 
 He sailed from Plymouth in February, 1595, with five vessels 
 and a hundred soldiers. In order to reach the capital city of 
 Guiana, it was necessary to ascend the Orinoco, the navigation 
 of which was completely unknown to the English. As the ships 
 drew too much water, a hundred men embarked with Raleigh in 
 boats and proceeded up the stream. In these they remained 
 for a month, exposed to all the extremes of a tropical climate, 
 — sometimes to the heats of a burning sun, and again to violent 
 and torrential rains. Raleigh's account of their progress 
 through the labyrinth of islands and channels at the river's 
 mouths, of tlieir precarious supplies of food and water, the ap- 
 pearance of the country and the n:ianners of the natives, and, 
 finally, of their entrance into the grand bed of the superb Ori- 
 noco, has been admired for its descriptive beauty as well as ridi- 
 culed for its extravagant credulity. Indeed, it is doubted by 
 many whether Raleigh really believed the stories which he put 
 in circulation. We quote a passage : 
 
 " Those who are desirous to discover and to see many nations," 
 he writes, "may be satisfied within this river; which bringeth 
 forth so many arms and branches leading to several countries 
 and provinces, above two thousand miles east and west, and of 
 these the most either rich in gold, or in other merchandises. 
 The common soldier shall here fight for gold, and pay himself, 
 instead of pence, with plates of gold half a foot broad, whereas 
 he breaketh his bones in other wars for provant and penury. 
 Those commanders and chieftains who shoot at honor and abun- 
 dance shall find here more rich and beautiful cities, more tem- 
 ples adorned with golden images, more sepulchres filled with trea- 
 sure, than either Cortez found in Mexico or Pizarro in Peru ; and 
 the shining glory of this conquest will eclipse all those so-far- 
 extended beams of the Spanish nation. There is no country 
 which yieldeth more pleasure to the inhabitants, for those com- 
 
RALEIGH ON THE ORINOCO. 289 
 
 mon delights of hunting, hawking, fishing, fowling, and the rest, 
 than Guiana does. I am resolved that, both for health, good 
 air, pleasure, and riches, it cannot be equalled by any region 
 in the East or West. To conclude : Guiana is a country that 
 hath yet her maidenhead, never sacked, turned, nor wrought. 
 The face of the earth hath not been torn, nor the virtue and salt 
 of the soil spent ; the graves have not been opened for gold, 
 the mines not broken with sledges, nor the images pulled down 
 out of their temples. It hath never been entered by any army 
 of strength, nor conquered by any Christian prince. . . . 
 I trust that He who is Lord of lords will put it into her heart 
 who is Lady of ladies to possess it. If not, I will judge those 
 most worthy to be kings thereof that by her grace and leave 
 will undertake it of themselves." 
 
 Raleigh ascended the stream nearly two hundred miles, when 
 the rapid and terrific rise of its waters compelled him to re- 
 turn. He took formal possession of the country, and made the 
 caciques swear allegiance to Queen Elizabeth. He returned to 
 England during the summer, having been but five months ab- 
 sent. It was then that he published the narrative from which 
 we have quoted. 
 
 His restoration to favor precluded any further prosecution of 
 his designs on Guiana during the reign of Elizabeth. He was 
 imprisoned for thirteen years during the reign of James, her 
 successor, for the crime of high-treason and supposed participa- 
 tion in the plot to place Lady Arabella Stuart on the throne. 
 In 1617, he equipped a fleet of thirteen vessels in which to pro- 
 ceed to Guiana for the purpose of again seeking El Dorado. 
 The fleet arriv^ in safety, but Raleigh was too unwell to ascend 
 the Orinoco in person. Captain Keymis led the exploring 
 party, and, upon being compelled to return to the ship without 
 success, and with the news of the death in battle of Sir Walter's 
 eldest son, committed suicide. Raleigh sailed to Newfoundland 
 
 to victual and refit ; but a mutiny of the crews forced him to re- 
 19 
 
290 ocean's story. 
 
 turn to England, where he was beheaded for the crime already 
 punished by thirteen years' confinement. 
 
 Modern historians and travellers, and men of judgment and 
 intelligence who have inhabited the regions at the mouth of the 
 Orinoco, have not hesitated to avow their opinion that the story 
 of El Dorado is not without some sort of foundation in fact. 
 Humboldt accounts for it geologically, and holds the ardent 
 imagination of the Indians to be answerable for the fable. He 
 conjectures that there may be islands and rocks of micaslate 
 and talc in and around Lake Parima, which, reflecting from their 
 surfaces and angles the glowing rays of the sun, may have been 
 transformed by the extravagant fancy of the natives into the 
 gorgeous temples and palaces of a gilded metropolis. He at- 
 tempted to penetrate to the spot, but was prevented by a tribe 
 of Indian dwarfs. No European has ever yet visited this cele- 
 brated locality: its great distance from the sea, the trackless 
 forests, the wild beasts and barbarian inhabitants, have repelled 
 both the conqueror and the explorer, so that it is not known 
 to this day what degree or what kind of authority exists for the 
 extraordinary story in question. But, inasmuch as Cortez 
 passed within ten miles of the wonderful city of Copan without 
 hearing of it, the supposition that there may be aboriginal cities 
 in the unexplored regions of South America, affording, perhaps, 
 basis sufficient for the tale of El Dorado without its exaggera- 
 tions, is neither impossible nor improbable. The magnificent 
 ruins lately discovered in Yucatan, where they were not ex- 
 pected, seem to argue the existence of others in regions where 
 positive and persistent tradition has located them. 
 
NATIVE OF THE SOLOMON ISLANDS. 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 DISCOVERY OF THE SOLOMON ISLANDS BY MENDANA — HE SEEKS FOE THEM 
 AGAIN THIRTY YEARS LATER — QUIROS — THE MARQUESAS ISLANDS — THE WOMEN 
 COMPARED WITH THOSE OF LIMA STRANGE FRUITS — CONVERSIONS TO CHRIS- 
 TIANITY — ARDUOUS VOYAGE — SANTA CRUZ — MENDANA EXCHANGES NAMES WITH 
 
 MAL0p6 — HOSTILITIES — WAR, AND ITS RESULTS — DEATH OF MENDANA QUIROS 
 
 CONDUCTS THE SHIPS TO MANILLA. 
 
 The progress of discovery now recalls us to Spain. About 
 
 the year 1567, one Alvaro Mendana de Neyra, who had thus 
 
 far lived in complete obscurity, followed his uncle Don Pedro de 
 
 Castro to Lima, in Peru, where he had been appointed governor. 
 
 Mendana, disdaining commerce, and feeling little inclination to 
 
 lead a monotonous life on shore, after the taste he had had during 
 
 the passage of a roving existence upon the water, resolved to 
 
 undertake the discovery of new lands in the name of the King 
 
 291 
 
292 ocean's story. 
 
 of Spain. His uncle encouraged him in his design and furnished 
 him with the necessary funds. Mendana set sail from Callao 
 on the 11th of January, 1568. He proceeded fourteen hundred 
 and fifty leagues to the west, and discovered a group of islands 
 in about 10° south latitude. One of them, to which he gave the 
 name of Isabella, is distinguished as having been the scene of 
 the first celebration of a Catholic mass in the Pacific Ocean. 
 He sailed round another of the group, St. Christopher, and, 
 after several disastrous encounters with the natives, returned to 
 Callao. This voyage, the most important undertaken by the 
 Spanish since the discovery of America, gave rise to multitudes 
 of fables, with which the historians and chroniclers of Spain 
 filled the minds of the people during the century which followed. 
 The islands discovered by Mendana were represented as enor- 
 mously rich in gold and the precious metals. The name of 
 Solomon was given to the group, — a name which was thought to 
 be eminently suited to so luxurious an archipelago, having for- 
 merly been that of a luxurious prince. As in those days the 
 art of scientific navigation was in its infancy, and as latitude 
 and longitude were not fixed with any great degree of precision, 
 the position of the Solomon Islands was very loosely marked 
 down by Mendana, and the question of their locality became, 
 and for a long time remained, one of the most puzzling questions 
 in geography. 
 
 Mendana sent home to the Spanish Government brilliant ac- 
 counts of his discoveries, and solicited the means of prosecuting 
 them still further. War and other -engagements prevented the 
 ministry from attending to his requests till the year 1595, when 
 he obtained the command of an expedition having for its object 
 the colonization of St. Christopher. He sailed from Callao in 
 April with four ships carrying four hundred men : his wife, 
 Isabel de Barretos, and three of his brothers-in-law, accompanied 
 him. Pedro Fernandez de Quiros, of whom we shall afterwards 
 speak more particularly, was the pilot of the fleet. They 
 
THE BEAUTIFUL WOMEN OF LIMA. 293 
 
 stopped at Paita, where they watered and enlisted four hundred 
 additional men, and on the 16th of June finally started in quest 
 of the long-lost islands. A month afterwards, being in latitude 
 11° south, Mendana discovered a group of three islands, to 
 which he gave a collective name as well as individual names. 
 He called them Las Marquesas de Mendoga, in honor of the 
 Marquis of Mendo<^a, a Spaniard of distinction. They are still 
 known as the Marquesas Islands. The natives manifested a 
 remarkably thievish disposition, and received several rounds of 
 grape for pilfering the jars of the watering party who had gone 
 ashore. Though the chronicler draws a comparison in speaking 
 of the women, he yet skilfully contrives to compliment all parties 
 mentioned. He says, "Very fine women were seen here. Many 
 thought them as beautiful as those of Lima, but whiter and not 
 so rosy ; and yet there are very beautiful at Lima. They have 
 delicate hands, genteel body and waiste, exceeding much in per- 
 fection the most perfect of Lima ; and yet there are very beau- 
 tiful at Lima. The temperament, health, strength, and corpu- 
 lency of these people tell what is the climate they live in : cloaths 
 could well be borne with night and day; the sun did not molest 
 much; there fell some small showers of rain. Our people never 
 perceived lightning or dew, but great dryness, so that, without 
 hanging up, they found dry in the morning the things which 
 were left wet on the ground at night." A singular fruit was 
 noticed, which the men eat green, roasted, boiled, and ripe. It 
 had neither stone nor kernel, and the Spaniards called it blanc- 
 mange. They likewise admired another fruit "inclosed in 
 prickles like chestnuts, and which resembled chestnuts in taste, 
 but was much bigger than six chestnuts together." Mendana 
 ordered a grand mass to be said, during which the islanders 
 remained on their knees with great silence and attention. 
 
 Mendana took possession of the islands in the king's name, 
 and sowed maize in many spots which he thought favorable to 
 its growth. The chaplain taught one of the natives to bless 
 
29:J: ocean's story. 
 
 himself and say Jesus Maria. This being done, the shallop 
 being refitted, three crosses erected, and wood and water having 
 been stored, the squadron set sail again for the still-missing 
 archipelago. The soldiers soon became despondent, and the 
 crews were placed upon short allowance. Fourteen hundred 
 leagues from Lima they saw a desert island, which they called 
 St. Bernardo ; and at fifteen hundred and thirty-five leagues' 
 distance they named an island the Solitary, "as it was alone." 
 Thus they continued their course, "many people giving their 
 sentiments, and saying they knew not whither they were going 
 nor what they were coming to, and other such things, which could 
 not fail of giving pain." At last, when eighteen hundred leagues 
 from Lima, they fell in with a large island, one hundred miles 
 in circuit, which Mendana named Santa Cruz — since called 
 Egmont Island by Carteret. Here was a volcano, " of a very 
 fine-shaped hill, from the top whereof issues much fire, and 
 which often makes a great thundering inside." Fifty small 
 boats rigged with sails came out to the ship. The men were 
 black, with woolly hair, dyed white, red, and blue. Their teeth 
 were tinged red, and their faces and bodies marked with streaks. 
 Their arms were bound round with bracelets of black rattan, 
 while their necks were decorated with strings of beads and 
 fishes' teeth. Mendana at once took them for the people he 
 sought. He spoke to them in the language he had learned 
 upon his first voyage ; but they neither understood him, nor he 
 them. Without provocation, they discharged a shower of arrows 
 at the ship, which lodged in the sails and the rigging, — without, 
 however, doing any mischief. The soldiers fired in return, kill- 
 ing one and wounding many more. 
 
 Friendly relations were soon restored, and a savage, ap- 
 parently of high rank, visited the admiral in his ship. He was 
 lean and gray-headed, and his skin was of the "color of wheat." 
 He inquired who was the chief of the new-comers. The ad- 
 miral received him with cordiality, and gave him to understand 
 
AN INTERCHANGE OF NAMES. 295 
 
 that he was. The Indian said his name was Malopd. The ad- 
 miral replied that his was Mendana. Malop^ at once rejoined 
 that he would be Mendana, and that the admiral should be 
 Malop<). He manifested much gratification at this exchange, 
 and, whenever he was called Malop^, said, "No: Mendana;" 
 and, pointing to the admiral, said that was Malopd. This was 
 probablj the first instance of an exchange of names — one of 
 the most solemn acts of friendship with certain tribes of tl^e 
 Pacific Islanders — being efi*ected between a European and a 
 savage. The natives soon learned to shake hands, to embrace, 
 to say "friend," to shave with razors, and to pare their nails 
 with scissors. This state of amity did not last long, however, 
 and a trivial circumstance caused suspicion, and finally hostility. 
 The savages commenced with arrows, and the Spaniards re- 
 taliated with fire and sword. In the evening, Malop(^ came to 
 the shore, and, in a loud voice, called the admiral by the name 
 of Malop^, and, smiting his breast, declared himself to be Men- 
 dana. He said the attack had been begun by another tribe, 
 not his, and proposed they should all sally forth against them. 
 To this Mendana did not accede, but, landing his men, pro- 
 ceeded to found a colony. 
 
 At this point the details furnished by the several chroniclers 
 of the expedition become vague and unsatisfactory. It appears 
 that Malope was killed in a skirmish ; that the natives were not 
 content with merely lamenting his death, but withheld all supplies 
 from the Spaniards ; that Mendana caused two mutineers to be 
 beheaded and another to be hung. A war of extermination 
 now commenced, and a state of sedition, misery, and want 
 ensued, which brought Mendana rapidly to the grave. He 
 died of disappointment and regret, in October, 1595. His suc- 
 cessor, being wounded, died in November. The crew, worn out 
 with fatigue and sickness, and being reduced to such an extent 
 that twenty resolute Indians could have destroyed them, re- 
 solved to suspend the enterprise and re-embark. They took in 
 
296 
 
 OCEAN S STORY. 
 
 wood and water, and sailed on the 7th of November. Quiros 
 maintained discipline among a mutinous crew, and, after almost 
 superhuman efforts to navigate his crazy ships upon an unknown 
 Bea, arrived with the remains of the expedition at Manilla. 
 From thence Quiros — whose adventures and discoveries we 
 shall soon have occasion to narrate — returned to Acapulco, in 
 Mexico, and thence to Lima, where he petitioned the viceroy for 
 the means of continuing the researches of Mendana. As he 
 did not set sail till 1606, we must first attend to the various 
 enterprises undertaken in the interval. 
 
 TSB ISLANDERS BEFORE A BREEZE. 
 
XHE DUTCH AT WALRUS ISLAND. 
 
 . CHAPTER XXXL 
 
 ATTEMPTS OF THE DUTCH TO DISCOVER A NORTHEAST PASSAGE VOYAGE OF 
 
 WILHELM BARENTS — ARRIVAL AT NOVA ZEMBLA WINTER QUARTERS — BUILIV 
 
 INO A HOUSE — FIGHTS WITH BEARS THE SUN DISAPPEARS THE CLOCK 
 
 STOPS, AND THE BEER FREEZES THE HOUSE IS SNOWED UP — THE HOT-AOUB 
 
 — FOX-TRAPS — TWELFTH NIGHT — RETURN OF THE SUN — THE SHIPS PROVE 
 
 UNSEAWORTHY PREPARATIONS TO DEPART IN THE BOATS — DEATH OF 
 
 BARENTZ ARRIVAL AT AMSTERDAM RESULTS OF THE VOYAGE, 
 
 In the year 1514, the Dutch resolved to seek a northeast 
 passage by water to the Indies, across the Polar regions of 
 Europe. Their first two attempts were attended with so little 
 success that the States- General abandoned the undertaking', 
 contenting themselves with promising a reward to the navigator 
 who should find a practicable route. In 159G, the city of 
 Amsterdam took up the matter where the Government had left 
 it, and equipped two vessels, the chief command of which was 
 given to Wilhelm Barentz. He started on the 10th of May, 
 and passed the islands of Shetland and Feroe on the 22d. Not 
 long after, the fleet saw with wonder one of the phenomena 
 peculiar to the Arctic regions, — three mock suns, with circular 
 rainbows connecting them by a luminous halo. On the 9th of 
 June, they discovered two islands, to which they gave the names 
 
 297 
 
298 ocean's story. 
 
 of Bear and Walrus Islands. Thej kept on, to the usual Arctic 
 accompaniment of icebergs, seals, aurorse boreales, whales, and 
 white bears, till they came to a land which they named Spita- 
 bergen, or Land of Sharp-peaked Mountains. 
 
 On the 17th of July, they arrived at Nova Zembla, — dis- 
 covered in 1553 by Willoughby, — and here the two ships were 
 accidentally separated. In August, the vessel of Barentz was 
 embayed in drifting ice, and no efforts could release her from 
 her dangerous position. Winter was coming on, and the crew, 
 despairing of saving the ship, which was now groaning and 
 heaving under the pressure of the ice, resolved to build a house 
 upon the land, "with which to defend themselves from the colde 
 and wilde beasts." They were fortunate enough to find a large 
 quantity of drift-wood, which had evidently floated from a dis- 
 tance, as the icj soil around thera yielded neither tree nor herb. 
 The work began and continued in the midst of constant fights 
 with bears and the arduous labor of dragging stores from the 
 ship upon hand-sleds. The cold was so extreme that their skin 
 peeled off upon touching any iron utensil. Snow storms in- 
 terrupted the progress of the house, for which they were soon 
 obliged to obtain materials by breaking up the ship. One of 
 the men,, being pursued by a bear, was only saved by the latter *3 
 waiting to contemplate the body of one of his fellow-bears, 
 which the sailors had killed and left to freeze stiff in an upright 
 position. 
 
 On the 12th of October, half the crew slept in the house for 
 the first time : they suffered greatly from cold, as they had no 
 fire, and because, as the narrative quaintly remarks, " they were 
 somewhat deficient in blankets." The roof was thatched, by 
 the end of October, with sail-cloth and sea-weed. On the 2d 
 of November, the sun raised but half his disk above the horizon : 
 the bears disappeared with the sun, and foxes took their place. 
 The clock having stopped, and refusing to proceed, even with 
 increased weights^ day could not be distinguished from night, 
 
SUFFERING FROM COLD AND HEAT. 
 
 299 
 
 except by the twelve-hour-glass. The beer, freezing In the 
 casks, became as tasteless as water. Half a pound of bread a 
 day was served out to each man : the provisions of dried fish and 
 salt meat remained still abundant. The chimney would not 
 draw, and the apartment was filled with a blinding smoke,— 
 which the crew were obliged to endure, however, or die of cold. 
 The surgeon made a bathing-tub from a wine-pipe, in which 
 they bathed four at a time. They were several times snowed 
 up, and the house was absolutely buried. Though half a league 
 from the sea, they heard the horrible cracking and groaning of 
 the ice as the bergs settled down one upon the other, or as the 
 huge mountains burst asunder. On one occasion, unable to 
 support the cold, they made a fire in their house with coal 
 brought from the ship. It was the first moment of comfort 
 they had enjoyed for months. They kept up the genial heat 
 until several of the least vigorous of the men were seized with 
 dizziness and with the peculiar pains known as the hot-ache. 
 Gerard de Veer, the chronicler of the expedition, cauo^ht in his 
 arms the first man that fell, and revived him by rubbing his face 
 w^ith vinegar. He adds, " We had now learned that to avoid one 
 evil we should not rush into a worse one." 
 
 THE DUTCH IN WINTER QUARTERS. 
 
 They set traps all around their cabin, with which they caught 
 on an average a fox a day. They eat the flesh, and with the 
 skins made caps and mittens. They had the good fortune to 
 
SOO OCEAN S STORY. 
 
 kill a bear nine feet long, from which they obtained one hundred 
 pounds of lard. This they found useful, not as pomatum, but 
 as the means of burning their lamp constantly, day and night, 
 as if it -were an altar and they the vestal virgins. On the 19th 
 of December, they congratulated themselves that the Arctic 
 nigiit was just one-half expired; "for," says the narrative, "it 
 was a terrible thing to be without the light of the sun, and de- 
 prived of the most excellent creature of God, which enliveneth 
 the entire universe." On Christmas eve it snowed so violently 
 that they could not open the door. The next day there was a 
 white frost in the cabin. While seated at the fire and toasting 
 their legs, their backs were frozen stiff. They did not know by 
 the feeling that they were burning their shoes, and were only 
 warned by the odor of the shrivelling leather. They put a strip 
 of linen into the air, to see which way the wind was : in an in- 
 stant the linen was frozen as hard as a board, and became, of 
 course, perfectly useless as a weathercock. Then the men said 
 to each other, "How excessively cold it must be out of doors !" 
 The 5th of January was Twelfth Night, and the hut was 
 buried under the snow. In the midst of their misery, they 
 asked the captain's leave to celebrate the hallowed anniversary. 
 With flour and oil they made pancakes, washing them down with 
 wine saved from the day before and borrowed in advance from 
 the morrow. They elected a king by lot, the master gunner 
 being indicated by chance as the Lord of Nova Zembla. On the 
 8th, the twilight was observed to be slightly lengthening, and, 
 though the cold increased with the returning sun, they bore it 
 with cheerfulness. They noticed a tinge of red in the atmo- 
 sphere, which spoke of the revival of nature. They visited the 
 ship, and found the ice a foot high in the hold: they hardly 
 expected ever to see her float again. The diflJiculty of obtain- 
 ing fuel was now such, that many of the men thought it would 
 be easier and shorter to lie down and die than make such dread- 
 ful efforts to prolong life. To save wood during the daytime, 
 
THE RETURN OF THE SUX. 301 
 
 they played snow-ball, or ran, or wrestled, to keep up tlie circu- 
 lation. 
 
 On the 24th of January, Gerard de Veer declared he had 
 seen the edge of the sun: Barentz, who did not expect the 
 return of the luminary for fourteen days, was incredulous, and 
 the cloudy state of the weather during the succeeding three 
 days prevented the bets which were made upon the subject from 
 being settled. On the 27th, they buried one of their number in 
 a snow grave seven feet deep, having dug it with some difficulty, 
 the diggers being constantly obliged to return to the fire. One 
 of the men remarking that, even were the house completely 
 blocked up fifteen feet deep, they could yet get out by the chim- 
 ney, the captain climbed up the chimney, and a sailor ran out 
 to see if he succeeded. He rushed back, saying he had seen 
 the sun. Everybody hastened forth and ''saw him, in his entire 
 roundness," just above the horizon. It was then decided that 
 de Veer had seen the edge on the 24th, and they "all rejoiced 
 together, praising God loudly for the mercy." 
 
 Another season of snow now set in, while, at the same time, 
 the ice that bound the ship began to break up, so that the 
 men feared she would escape and float away while they were 
 blockaded in the house. They were obliged to make themselves 
 shoes of worn-out fox-skin caps, as the leather was frozen as 
 hard as horn. On the night of the 6th of April, a bear as- 
 cended to the roof of the house by means of the embankments 
 of snow, and, attacking the chimney with great violence, was 
 very near demolishing it. On the 1st of May, they eat their 
 last morsel of meat, relying henceforth on what they might 
 entrap or kill. 
 
 It was now decided that even if the ship should be disengaged 
 she would be unfit to continue the voyage. Their only hope 
 lay in the shallop and the long-boat, which they endeavored 
 to prepare for the sea, in the midst of interruptions from bears, 
 who "were very obstinate to know how Dutchmen tasted." 
 
802 ocean's story. 
 
 As late as the 5th of June, it snowed so violently that they 
 could only work within-doors, where they got ready the sails, 
 oars, rudder, &c. On the 12th, they set to work with axes and 
 other tools to level a path from the ship to the water, — a distance 
 of five hundred paces. On the 13th, Barentz wrote a brief 
 account of their voyage and sojourn, placed it in a musket- 
 barrel, and attached it to the fireplace in the house, for the infor- 
 mation of future navigators. They then dragged, with infinite 
 labor, the boats to the water, together with barrels and boxes 
 of such stores as their now impoverished ship could yield. 
 They bade adieu to their winter quarters on the 14th, at early 
 morning, "with a west wind and under the protection of Heaven." 
 Barentz, who had been a long time ill, died on the 20th, while 
 opposite Icy Cape, the northernmost point of Nova Zembla. 
 His loss was deeply regretted ; but their " grief was assuaged 
 by the reflection that none can resist the will of God." 
 
 The men were often obliged to drag the boats ac^oss in- 
 tervening fields of ice ; and sometimes, when the wind was 
 contrary, they drew them up on a floating bank, and, making 
 tents of the sails, camped out, as if on military service. The 
 sentinels frequently challenged bears, and, on one occasion, 
 tliree coming together and one being killed, the surviving two 
 devoured their fallen companion. Through dangers and dif^ 
 Acuities then unparalleled in navigation, they struggled hope- 
 fully on, descending the western coast of Nova Zembla towards 
 the northern shores of Russia and Lapland. On the 16th of 
 August, they met a Russian bark, which furnished them with such 
 provisions as the captain could spare. On the 20th, they touched 
 the coast of Lapland upon the White Sea, where they found 
 thirteen Russians living in miserable huts upon the fish which 
 they caught. On the 2d of September, they arrived at Kola, in 
 Lapland, where they found three Dutch ships, one of which was 
 their consort, which had been separated from them ten months 
 before. Having no further use for their boats, they carried 
 
HOilE AGAIN AT AMSTERDAM. 303 
 
 themwitli ceremony to the "Merchants' House," or Town-IIall, 
 where they dedicated them to the memory of their long voyage 
 of four hundred leagues over a tract never traversed before, and 
 which they had accomplished in open boats. They started at 
 once for home, and arrived on the 1st of November at Amster- 
 dam, twelve in number. The city was greatly excited by the 
 news of their return, for they had long since been given up for 
 dead. The chancellor and the "ambassador of the very illus- 
 trious King of Denmark, Norway, the Goths and the Vandals'* 
 were at that moment at dinner. The voyagers were summoned 
 to narrate their adventures before them, — which they did, " clad 
 in white fox-skin caps." 
 
 No voyage had hitherto been so fruitful in incident, peril, 
 and displays of persevering courage and fortitude. Though it 
 resulted in no discovery except that of the western coast of 
 Nova Zembla, it served the useful purpose of demonstrating 
 the difficulty, if not the impossibility, of effecting a northeast 
 passage. 
 
 FEM.^LE OTTER AND HER YOUNG. 
 
THE FUNERAL OF MAHU AT BRAVA ISLAND. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIl. 
 
 niE FITB 8niF9 OF ROTTERDAM — BATTLE AT THE ISLAND OF BRAYA SEBALD 
 
 DK WEERT DISASTERS IN THE STRAIT OF MAGELLAN THE CREW EAT 
 
 UNCOOKED FOOD THE FLEET IS SCATTERED TO THE WINDS — ADTKN- 
 
 TURBS Off DK WEEBT — A WRETCHED OBJECT RETURN TO HOLLAND VOYAOB 
 
 OF OLIVER VAN NOORT BARBAROUS PUNISHMENT THE EMBLEM OF UOPB 
 
 BECOMES A CAUSE OF DESPAIR — FIGHT WITH THE PATAGOXIANS — ARRB8T OF 
 THE VICE-ADMIUAL — HIS PUNISHMENT DESCRIPTION OF A CHILIAN BEVE- 
 RAGE — CAPTURE OF A SPANISH TREASURE-SHIP — A PILOT THROWN OVER- 
 BOARD — SEA-FIGHT OFF MANILLA — RETURN HOME, AFTER TUB FIRST DUTCH 
 VOYAOB OF CIRCUMNAVIGATION. 
 
 The Dutch, who had now succeeded the Portuguese in tho 
 
 possession and control of the East Indies, had, up to the year 
 
 1598, made all their voyages thither by the Portuguese route, — 
 
 the Cape of Good Hope. In this year, two fleets fitted out by 
 
 them were directed to proceed by the Strait of Magellan and 
 304 . 
 
DUTCH EXPLORING EXPEDITION. 305 
 
 across the South Sea. The first of these expeditions is known 
 as that of the Five Ships of Rotterdam, one of the five, however, 
 becoming separated, and ^orming a distinct enterprise, under 
 Sebald de Weert: the secon*d was the voyage of Oliver Van 
 Noort. We shall narrate them in order of time. 
 
 The Five Ships of Rotterdam were equipped at the charge 
 of several merchants called the Company of Peter Verhagen. 
 The flag-ship, commanded by Jacob Mahu, was named the 
 Hope; another, commanded by Sebald de Weert, was the Good 
 News, or Glad Tidings, or Merry Messenger, — all these names 
 being given in the various translations. They sailed from Goree, 
 in Holland, on the 27th of June, 1598. 
 
 They were off the island of Brava — one of the Cape Verds, — 
 on the 11th of September, and sent boats ashore with empty 
 casks in search of water. The men were accosted by some 
 Portuguese and negroes, who told them that French and Eng- 
 lish ships were accustomed to water there, but always remained 
 nnder sail. Sebald de Weert noticed four or five ruinous huts, 
 ind found them full of maize, which he at once proceeded to 
 appropriate, — an act which the Portuguese endeavored to resent ; 
 but the Dutch flag-ship silenced their feeble resistance with her 
 guns. The death of Mahu now caused a transfer of captains, 
 by which Sebald de Weert left the Glad Tidings for the Good 
 Faith. The fleet lost thirty men by the scurvy during the pas- 
 sage across the Atlantic. They anchored off" the Rio de la Plata 
 early in March, 1599, and observed the sea* to be as red as 
 blood. The water was examined, and found to be full of small 
 worms, which jumped about like fleas, and which were supposed 
 to have been shaken ofi" by whales in their gambols, as the lion 
 shakes dew-drops from his mane. 
 
 On the 6th of April, they entered the Strait of Magellan, 
 
 and were compelled to pass the Antarctic winter there, — that is, 
 
 till late in August. Gales of wind followed each other in quick 
 
 succession; and the anchcrs and cables were so much damaged 
 20 
 
306 ocean's story. 
 
 that the crews were kept in continual labor and anxiety. The 
 scarcity of food was such that the people were sent on shor€ 
 every day at low water, frequently in rain, snow, or frost, to 
 Beek for shell-fish or to gather roots for their subsistence. These 
 they devoured in the state in which they were found, having 
 no patience to wait to cook them. One hundred and twenty 
 men were buried during this disastrous winter. 
 
 On the evening of September the 3d, the whole fleet, including 
 a shallop of sixteen tons, named the Postillion, which had been 
 put together in the Strait, entered the South Sea. A storm 
 soon separated them, leaving the Fidelity and Faith as consorts, 
 and scattering the rest in every direction. The adventures of 
 the Fidelity and Faith, however, require that we should follow 
 them in their fortunes around the world. De Weert found his 
 ship almost unseaworthy, without a master, short of hands, and 
 with two pilots quite too old to be efficient. After weathering 
 another storm, which nearly sent the vessels to the bottom, both 
 captains resolved to return to the Strait and to wait there in 
 some safe bay for a favorable wind. On the 27th, they arrived 
 at the mouth of the Strait, and were drifted by the current some 
 seven leagues inland. 
 
 As the Antarctic summer was now approaching, they were in 
 hopes of fair weather; yet during the two months of their 
 stay they hardly had a day in which to dry their sails. The 
 seamen began to murmur, alleging that there would not be 
 sufficient biscuit Tor their return to Holland if they remained 
 here longer. Upon this de Weert went into the bread-room, as 
 if to examine the store, and, on coming out, declared, with a 
 cheerful countenance, that there was biscuit enough for eight 
 months, though in reality there was barely enough for four. 
 On the 3d of December, they succeeded in leaving the Strait, 
 but, by some mismanagement, anchored a league apart, with a 
 point of land between them which intercepted the view. A gale 
 &f wind forced the Fidelity from her anchors, and she was com- 
 
A SOLITARY WOMAN. 307 
 
 T>elled to proceed upon the voyage alone. On her arrival at the 
 Moluccas she was attacked and captured by the Portuguese. 
 
 Sebald de Weert was thus left without a consort and almost 
 without a crew. When leaving the Strait, and towing the 
 only remaining boat astern, the rope broke, and the boat went 
 ndrift and was not again recovered. The next morning they 
 F1W a boat rowing towards them, which proved to belong to 
 another Dutch fleet, under Oliver Van Noort, bound to the 
 South Sea and the East Indies. De Weert endeavored to sail 
 in company with them ; but the reduced condition of his crew — 
 but forty-eight men remaining out of one hundred and ten — 
 rendered it impossible. He finally abandoned all attempts to 
 prosecute the voyage, and, profiting by the west winds, returned 
 through the Strait to the Atlantic. He anchored at the 
 Penguin Islands, where a large number of birds were taken and 
 salted. Some of the seamen who were on shore discovered a 
 Patagonian woman among the rocks, where she had endeavored 
 to conceal herself. The chronicle thus speaks of her: — "A 
 state more deeply calamitous than that to which this woman was 
 reduced, the goodness of God has not permitted to be the lot 
 of many. The ships of Van Noort had stopped at this island 
 about seven weeks before, where this woman was one of a nume- 
 rous tribe of Patagonians ; but they were savagely slaughtered 
 by Van Noort's men. She was wounded at the same time, but 
 lived to mourn the destruction of her race, the solitary inhabit- 
 ant of a rocky, desolate island." De Weert presented her with 
 a knife, but left her without any means of changing her situa- 
 tion, though she made it understood that she wished to be trans- 
 ported to the continent. 
 
 On the 21st of January, 1600, he left the Strait by the 
 eastern entrance, and bent his course homewards. Six months 
 afterwards he entered the^hannel of Goree, in Holland, having 
 lost sixty-nine men during the voyage. The ship had been 
 absent two years and sixteen days, the greater part of which 
 
308 ocean's story. 
 
 had been misemployed. She had been only twenty-four days 
 in the South Sea, and had spent nine months in the Strait of 
 Magellan and the remainder in the passage out and back. The 
 Faith was, nevertheless, more fortunate than her companions; for 
 she was the only ship of the five which sailed under Jacob Mahu 
 which ever reached home again. The Charity was abandoned 
 at sea; the Hope was plundered by the Japanese at Bungo; 
 the Glad Tidings was taken by the Spaniards at Valparaiso ; 
 and, as we have said, the Fidelity fell into the hands of the 
 Portuguese at the Spice Islands. The Postillion shallop, which 
 had been launched in the Strait, was never heard of after she 
 entered the Pacific Ocean. 
 
 The plan of the South Sea Expedition under Oliver Van 
 Noort was in all respects similar to that of Mahu and de Weert, 
 and the equipment was made at the joint expense of a company 
 of merchants. The vessels fitted out were the Mauritius, whose 
 tonnage is not mentioned, — in which sailed, as admiral,Van Noort, 
 who was a native of Utrecht, and an experienced seaman, — the 
 Hendrick Frederick, and two yachts, the whole being manned 
 by two hundred and forty-eight men. The instructions to the 
 admiral were to sail through Magellan's Strait to the South Sea, 
 to cruise off the coast of Chili and Peru, to cross over to the 
 Moluccas to trade, and then, returning home, to complete the cir- 
 cumnavigation of the globe. lie sailed on the 13th of Septem- 
 ber, three months after the departure of the Five Ships of 
 Rotterdam. 
 
 At Prince's Island, near the coast of Guinea, — a station held 
 by the Portuguese, — Van Noort's flag of truce was not respected 
 by the garrison, and two Hollanders were killed and sixteen 
 wounded. Van Noort revenged this outrage by burning all the 
 sugar-mills which he dared to approach. He set one of his 
 pilots ashore upon Cape Gon^alves for mutinous practices. IIo 
 made the coast of Brazil early in February, 1510 ; but it was de- 
 termined in council that, as the Southern winter was so near at 
 
A SAVAGE SLAUGHTER. 309 
 
 iand, they would hibernate at St. Helena. They sailed cast- 
 ward, and spent three months in searching for the island ; but in 
 vain. At the end of May, they unexpectedly found themselves 
 again upon the coast of Brazil; but the Portuguese opposed 
 their landing. On the 18th of June, the council of war sen- 
 tenced two men, a constable and a gunner, "to be abandoned in 
 any strange country where they could hereafter be of service," 
 for mutiny; and another seaman was sentenced to be fastened, 
 by a knife through the hand, to the mast, there to remain till he 
 should release himself by slitting his hand through the middle. 
 This barbarous sentence was carried into execution. 
 
 After burning one of the yachts which proved unfit for service, 
 the fleet proceeded towards the Strait, and, on the 4th of No- 
 vember, anchored off Cape Virgin. Here Van Noort's ship 
 lost three anchors, and the admiral wrote to the vice-admiral to 
 furnish him one of his. The latter refused, saying that he was 
 as much master as Van Noort, — a piece of impertinence which 
 the admiral declared he would punish upon the first convenient 
 opportunity. The vessels entered the Strait four times, and 
 were as often forced back by the violence of the wind. On the 
 27th, they arrived at the two Penguin Islands. It was here 
 that the transaction occurred to which we liave alluded under 
 Sebald de Weert. It happened as follows : 
 
 On the smallest of the islands some natives were seen, who 
 made signs to the Dutch not to advance, and threw them some 
 penguins from the cliffs. Seeing that the strangers continued 
 to approach, they shot arrows at them, which the Dutch re- 
 turned with bullets. The savages fled for refuge to a cavern 
 where they had secreted their women and children. The Dutch 
 pursued them, and used their fire-arms with unrelenting ferocity, 
 receiving little or no damage from the feeble missiles of the 
 natives. The latter continued to fight in defence of their women 
 and children with undiminished courage, and not till the last 
 man of them was killed did the Hollanders obtain an entrance. 
 

 OCKkSb cTTORT. 
 
 Within they fonnd a number of wretched mothers who had 
 formed barricades of their own bodies to protect their children. 
 Of these they killed several and wounded more. Seven weeks 
 after, as has been said, Sebald de Weert found the tribe ex- 
 
 AFFRAr BETWEEN THE DUTCH AND PATAGONIANS. 
 
 terminated and but one woman surviving. Six. children were 
 taken by Van Noort on board of the fleet. One of the boys 
 afterwards learned to speak the Dutch language, and from him 
 were obtained several slender items of information respecting 
 the tribe to which he had belonged, but which were far from 
 compensating for the flagrant act of cruelty which had led to 
 the capture of his fellow-exiles and himself. 
 
 The men went ashore near Cape Froward, and some of them 
 ate of an herb which drove them " raging mad." During an 
 anchorage bore, the carpenters built a boat thirty-seven feet 
 long in the keel ; the blacksmith set up his forge, while the 
 wooders made charcoal from trees which they felled. A light 
 wind springing up, the vice-admiral, without receiving orders. 
 
LEFT ALONE O.N AxN ISLAND. 3\ 1 
 
 Cred a gun and got under waj, and, though the admiral re- 
 mained stationary, continued sailing on and firing guns, as if he 
 had been commander-in-chief. Such, said Van Noort, is the 
 effect, upon a vice-admiral, of having a larger number of anchors 
 than his superior. He caused him to be arrested and to be 
 tried upon the charge of exciting mutiny by insubordinate con- 
 duct, and allowed him three weeks to prepare his defence. At 
 this period the number of deaths in the fleet had amounted to 
 ninety-seven persons. 
 
 When the three weeks expired, the vessels were still in the 
 Strait, and the council was assembled on board the admiral's 
 vessel, to hear the defence of the prisoner, which proved insuf- 
 ficient for his acquittal, and he was condemned to be set on shore 
 and abandoned in the Strait. This sentence was publicly read on 
 board the difierent ships, and, on the 26th of January, 1600, Jacob 
 Claesz was carried in a boat to the shore, with a small stock of 
 bread and wine. He was thus left to shift for himself among 
 the wild beasts and still more savage inhabitants. Van Noort 
 ordered a prayer and exhortation to be read in the fleet during 
 the execution of this terrible verdict. 
 
 Being still at anchor in the Strait in the middle of February, 
 the admiral announced his determination to persevere two months 
 longer, and, if it were still impossible to reach the Pacific by 
 the west, to turn eastward and reach it by the Cape of Good 
 Hope. On the 29th, the wind having veered, Van Noort, with 
 two ships and a yacht, after a tedious navigation of a year and 
 a hair, finally entered the Great South Sea. A storm compelled 
 the admiral to cast loose and abandon the long-boat which had 
 been built at Cape Froward, and forced the new vice-admiral to 
 part company. His ship was never seen again. During an 
 anchorage upon the coast of Chili, one of the sailors whom we 
 have already mentioned as sentenced to be abandoned upon any 
 coast where they could be of service, was sent ashore to open 
 negotiations with the natives. If he succeeded f^nd returned in 
 
112 ocean's story. 
 
 gafety, his senience was to be remitted. He was favorably re- 
 ceived, and a regular trade was established. The official narra- 
 tive of the voyage thus describes the hospitality of the people : — 
 ** An elderly woman brought us an earthen vessel full of a drink 
 of a sharp taste, of which we drank heartily. This drink is made 
 of maize and water, and is brewed in the following manner : old 
 women who have lost their teeth chew the maize, which, being 
 thus mixed with their saliva, is put into a tub, and water is added 
 to it. They have a superstitious opinion that the older the women 
 are who chew the maize, by so much will the beverage be the 
 better. And with this drink the natives get intoxicated and 
 celebrate their festivals." 
 
 Soon after. Van Noort's ship gave chase to a Spaniard, which 
 it was important to take, lest she might spread the alarm along 
 the coast. She proved to be the Good Jesus, and to be stationed 
 there expressly to give early notice of the arrival of strange 
 Bails. She was taken, and a prize-master placed on board to 
 navigate her. One of the prisoners stated afterwards, that ten 
 thousand pounds' weight of gold had been thrown overboard 
 during her flight ; and this was corroborated by the pilot, who at 
 first denied it, but, upon being put to the torture, confessed. 
 Van Noort now steered for the Philippines, by way of the La- 
 drones. On the 30th of June, the pilot of the Good Jesus, 
 who ate at the admiral's table, was taken ill, and accused Van 
 Noort of wishing to poison him, and maintained the charge in 
 presence of the officers. lie was sentenced to be cast head 
 foremost into the sea, — the established Dutch mode of punishing 
 pirates. "We therefore threw him overboard," says the journal, 
 " and left him to sink, to the end that he should not ever again 
 reproach us with any treachery." The Good Jesus now lost her 
 rudder, and, being very leaky, was abandoned in mid-ocean. 
 
 While Van Noort was thus making his way towards Manilla, 
 preparations were making at that place for defence. Cavite, 
 ihe port, was fortified ; two galleons were ordered to be armed 
 
A DESPERATE NAVAL CONTEST. 313 
 
 and equipped. The Dutch squadron arrived off the entrance of 
 the bay on the 24th of November, and Van Noort dcternrined 
 to remain there till February, to intercept all vessels bound in. 
 He soon stopped a Japanese vessel, laden with iron and hams. 
 He allowed her to proceed, having first purchased a wooden 
 anchor. He remarks in the journal that he saw Japanese 
 scimetars which could cut through three men at a blow, and 
 that slaves were kept for the purpose of furnishing the necessary 
 proof of their temper to purchasers. He next took a Spanish 
 vessel laden with cocoanut wine, and a Chinese junk laden with 
 rice. The cargoes were transferred and the vessels sunk. 
 
 Early on the morning of the 14th of December, the two gal- 
 leons were seen bearing down upon the Dutch squadron, now 
 reduced to two sails, — the Mauritius, with fifty-five men, and the 
 Concord, with twenty-five. The Spanish ships are supposed to 
 have had two hundred men apiece. They steered directly for 
 the enemy, but could not return their fire, as the wind from the 
 starboard compelled them to keep their lee ports shut. The 
 Spanish admiral ran his ship directly upon the Dutch admiral, 
 and his men at once overpowered the latter by the mere force 
 of numbers. The Dutch retreated from the deck, and harassed 
 the Spaniards from their close quarters. The colors of the 
 Mauritius were struck, upon which the captain of the Concord, 
 thinking his superior had surrendered, endeavored to escape, 
 being closely pursued by the Spanish vice-admiral. 
 
 The Dutch admiral, however, was not captured yet. The 
 Spaniards having remained masters of the open deck for six 
 hours, Van Noort told his men they must go up and expel the 
 enemy, or he would fire the magazine and blow up the ship. 
 The Spanish account says that they were at this moment them- 
 selves forced to disengage their ship and withdraw their men, as 
 the after-part of the Hollander had taken fire. At all events, 
 the two vessels were cleared and the engagement renewed with 
 cannon. The Spanish vessel took in water so fast that she went 
 
314 
 
 ocean's story. 
 
 down not long after. The Dutch rowed about in boats among 
 the struggling Spaniards, stabbing and knocking them on the 
 head. In retaliation for this, the officers and crew of the Con- 
 cord, which was easily taken by the Spanish vice-admiral, were 
 conveyed to Manilla and executed as pirates and rebels. In Van 
 
 THE TWO ADMIRALS AT CLOSE QUARTERS. 
 
 Noort's ship only five men were killed, twenty-six being wounded 
 more or less severely. He continued on his way with one vessel 
 only, touching at Borneo, Java, and Mauritius. At tlie latter 
 place, where he found other vessels at anchor, his men met with 
 very pleasant entertainment, and on one occasion ten of them 
 dined in an inverted tortoise-shell, the first inhabitant having 
 withdrawn to furnish the new occupants with both soup antl 
 
 Bittmg-room. 
 
 Van Noort arrived at Rotterdam on the 2Gth of August, 1601, 
 where he was received with the utmost joy, having been absent 
 a fortnight short of three years. His was the first Dutch vessel 
 that circumnavigated the globe, and the only one of the nine 
 
PICNIC IN A TURTLE SHELL. 
 
 315 
 
 ships that sailed from Holland in 1598 in that design which 
 succeeded in fulfilling it. The voyage contributed nothimr to 
 geography, but, in spite of the instances of barbarity with which 
 
 A DUTCH PICNIC IN THE MAURITIUS. 
 
 it abounded, added to the warlike and commercial reputation of 
 the country, and therefore met with favor from both Government 
 and people. 
 
 BEAD or A TUBTLS. 
 
WOMAN AND CHILD OF ESPIRITU SANTO. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 ^TTlftOS' THEORY OF A SOUTHERN CONTINENT — HIS ARGUMENTS AXP MEMORIALS 
 — HIS FIRST VOYAGE — DISCOVER IKS — ENCARNA9ION — SAGITTARIA, OR TAHITI 
 DESCRIPTION OF THESE ISLANDS — MANICOLO — ESPIRITU SANTO — ITS PRODUC- 
 TIONS AND INHABITANTS — QUIROS B">FORE THE KING OF SPAIN HIS BELIEF 
 
 IN HIS DISCOVERY OF A CONTINENT — HIS DISAPPOINTMENT — RENEWED SOLI- 
 CITATIONS — DEATH OF QUIROS — DISCOVERIES OF TORRES — THE MUSCOVY COM- 
 PANY OF LONDON — HENRY HUDSON — HIS VOYAGES TO SPITZBEBGEN AND NOVA 
 
 ZEMBLA — HIS VOYAGE TO AMERICA — CARTS ANCHOR AT SANDY HOOK ASCENDS 
 
 THE HUDSON RIVER AS FAR AS THE SITE OF ALBANY — HIS VOYAGE TO ICELAND 
 
 AND Hudson's bay — disastrous winter — mutiny — Hudson set adrift — 
 
 HIS DEATH. 
 
 We have said, in a preceding chapter, that Pedro Fernandez 
 de Quiros was the pilot of Mendana's second expedition. During 
 the voyage he had reflected deeply upon the probability of tlie 
 
 existence of a Southern continent: on his return to Peru, he 
 
 316 
 
ANTARCTIC EXPEDITION. 317 
 
 asserted it, and devoted the remainder of his life to the prose- 
 eution of a plan of discovery. He was the first to bring for- 
 ward scientific arguments in support of the theory, — one which, 
 by the way, was destined to agitate and interest the world for 
 two centuries, till its final overthrow by Cook. He presented 
 two memorials to Don Luis de Velasco, the viceroy, praying for 
 ships, men, and other necessaries, with which " to plougli up the 
 waters of the unknown sea, and to seek out the undiscovered 
 lands around the Antarctic Pole, the centre of that horizon." 
 His arguments were many of them profound, and made a deep 
 impression upon the viceroy, who replied, however, that Quiros' 
 desires exceeded the limits of his authority. He nevertheless 
 despatched him with strong recommendations to the court of 
 Spain. Philip III. gave favorable attention to his projects, and 
 ordered that Quiros should go in person upon an expedition 
 "among these hidden provinces and severed regions, — an expedi- 
 tion destined to win souls to heaven and kingdoms to the crown 
 of Spain." Quiros returned to Lima "with the most honorable 
 schedules which had ever passed the Council of State." He pre- 
 sented his papers to the viceroy, and, forgetting the obstacles and 
 discouragements he had met with during eleven years, entered 
 on his new and arduous labors. He built three ships, and em- 
 barked on the 20th of December, 1605, holding his course west 
 by south. 
 
 One thousand leagues from Peru, he discovered a small island 
 which he named Encarna9ion : to others, of little importance and 
 uninhabited, he gave the names of Santelmo, St. Miguel, and 
 Archangel: the tenth he called Dezena. On the 10th of Febru- 
 ary, 1606, land was seen from the topmast-head, and, to the 
 joy of all, columns of smoke — an unmistakable sign that the 
 land was inhabited — were perceived ascending at numerous 
 points. A boat advanced to the surf, through which it seemed 
 impossible to gain the shore. A young man, Francisco Ponce 
 by name, stripped off his clothes, saying that, if they should 
 
318 
 
 ocean's story. 
 
 thus turn their faces from the first danger which offered, therfe 
 would be no hope of eventual success. He threw himself into 
 the sea, and, after a fierce struggle with the receding waves, 
 clambered up a rock to a spot where one hundred Indians were 
 awaiting him. They seemed pleased with his resolution, and 
 frequently kissed his forehead. Peace was made, and a safe 
 anchorage was pointed out. The island thus discovered subse- 
 quently became, for many reasons, the most famous in the whole 
 Pacific Ocean. Quiros called it Sagittaria; but it is now known 
 as Tahiti or Otaheite. We shall have occasion hereafter to 
 describe at length this lovely oasis in the desert of the waters. 
 
 SCENE IN TAHITI. 
 
 The fleet stayed here but two days, and then continued on its 
 way. Quiros discovered several islands which have not been 
 seen again from that time to this. To one of them he gave the 
 name of Isla de la Gente Ilcrmosa, — Island of Handsome People. 
 Convinced that the mainland must be near, ho kept on in search 
 
A TROPICAL CLIMATE. 319 
 
 of what he called the "mother of so many islands." At one 
 named Taumaco he seized four natives to serve him as guides 
 and interpreters, and carried them away, lie liiis been much 
 blamed for this act of treachery towards a people who treated 
 him with kindness and hospitality. Three of the four jumped 
 overboard during the two days following, and escaped to islands 
 in the vicinity. The chief of the island where he had taken 
 them had informed him that, if he would change his course from 
 the west to the south, he would come to a large tract, fertile and 
 inhabited, named Manicolo. Following this advice, he discovered 
 the islands of Tucopia and Nuestra Senora de la Luz. It is 
 doubtful whether either of these has been seen by subsequent 
 navigators. On the 26th of April, he made a land which he 
 took to be the continent of which he was in search, and to which 
 he gave the name of Tierra Austral del Espiritu Santo. Bou- 
 gainville and Cook, who arrived here a century and a half after- 
 wards, thought themselves justified, by acquiring the certitude 
 that it was a group of islands and not a continent, in christening 
 them anew, — Bougainville naming them the Grandes Cyclades, 
 and Cook the New Hebrides. 
 
 Quiros has left an admirable picture of this fertile and de- 
 lightful spot. "The rivers Jordan and Salvador," he says, 
 "give no small beauty to their shores, for they are full of odori- 
 ferous flowers and plants. Pleasant and agreeable groves front 
 the sea in every part : we mounted to the tops of mountains and 
 perceived fertile valleys and rivers winding amongst green mea- 
 dows. The whole is a country which, without doubt, has the 
 advantage over those of America, and the best of the European 
 will be well if it is equal. It is plenteous of various and delicious 
 fruits, potatoes, yams, plantains, oranges, limes, sweet basil, nut- 
 megs, and ebony, all of which, without the help of sickle, plough, 
 or other artifice, it yields in every season. There are also cattle, 
 birds of many kinds and of charming notes, honey-bees, parrots, 
 doves, and partridges. The houses wherein the Indians live are 
 
320 OCEAX'6 STORY. 
 
 thatched and low, and they of a black complexion. There are 
 earthquakes, — sign of a mainland." The Spaniards found it 
 impossible to make peace with the natives, and the few days 
 which they spent there were passed in wrangling and blood- 
 shed. 
 
 The achievements and discoveries of Quiros properly end here. 
 His sliips were separated, and his own crew disabled by the effects 
 of poisonous fish which they had eaten. He called a council of 
 his officers, and asked their opinion upon a choice of courses, — 
 a prosecution of the voyage to China, or a return to Mexico. 
 The latter was decided upon. Quiros arrived at Acapulco nine 
 months after his departure from Callao. 
 
 He soon returned to Spain, where he presented a memorial 
 to Philip III. upon the results of his voyage, and the advantage 
 of further efforts in the same direction. His grand argument 
 in favor of the theory that he had discovered an Austral con- 
 tinent was drawn from the statements of Pedro, — the only one 
 of the four kidnapped savages of Taumaco who had remained 
 on board. A subsequent memorial shows the fate with which 
 all his representations to Philip met: — "I, Captain Pedro Fer- 
 nandez de Quiros, say that with this I have presented to your 
 majesty eight memorials touching the country of Australia In- 
 cognita, without to this time any resolution being taken with 
 me, nor any reply made me, nor hope given to assure me that 
 I shall be despatched, — having now been fourteen months in this 
 court, and having been fourteen years engaged in this cause 
 without pay or any other advantage in view but the success of 
 it alone ; wherewith, and through infinite contradictions, I have 
 gone by land and sea twenty-two thousand leagues, spending all 
 my estate and incommoding my person, suffering so many and 
 such terrible things that even to myself they appear incredible : 
 and all this has come to pass, that this work of so much good- 
 ness and benevolence should not be abandoned. In whose name, 
 and all for the love of God, I beg your majesty not to neglect 
 
THE USES OF COCOANUT PALM. 821 
 
 these innumerable benefits, which shall last as long as the world 
 subsists, and then be eternal." 
 
 Quiros then enters into a detailed description of the islands 
 and the continent he had seen. Their extent, he said, was as 
 much as that of Europe, Asia Minor, England, and Ireland. 
 They had no such turbulent neighbors as the Turks or the 
 Moors. The people were intelligent and capable of civilization. 
 Bread grew upon the trees. The palm yielded spirijts, vinegar, 
 honey, whey, and toddy. The green cocoanut served instead 
 of artichoke; when ripe, for meat and cream; and, when old, 
 for oil, wax, and balsams. The shells furnished cups and bottles. 
 The fibres afforded oakum, cordage, and the best slow match. 
 The leaves furnished sails, matting, and thatch. The garden- 
 stufTs of the country were pumpkins, parsley, "with intimation of 
 beans." The flesh was hogs, fowls, capons, partridges, geese, 
 turkeys, ringdoves, and goats, "with intimation of cows and 
 buffaloes." The riches were silver, pearls, and gold. The 
 spices were nutmegs, mace, pepper, and ginger, "with intimation 
 of cinnamon and cloves." There was ebony, and infinite woods 
 for ship-building. At daybreak the harmony of thousands of 
 birds trembled upon the air, — nightingales, blackbirds, larks, gold- 
 finches, and swallows, — besides the chirping of grasshoppers and 
 crickets. Every morning and evening the breeze was laden 
 with fragrant scents wafted from orange-flowers and sweet 
 basil. This enthusiastic document concludes thus: — "I can 
 show this in a company of mathematicians, that this land will 
 presently accommodate and sustain two hundred thousand Spa- 
 niards. None of our men fell sick from over-work, or sweating, 
 or getting wet. Fish and flesh kept sound two or more days. 
 I saw neither sandy ground, nor thistles, nor prickly trees, nor 
 mangrovy swamps, nor snow on the mountains, nor crocodiles in 
 the rivers, nor ants in the dust, nor mosquitos in the night. 
 "Acquire, sire, since you can with a little money, which will 
 
 be required but once, — acquire heaven, eternal fame, and that 
 21 
 
322 ocean's story. 
 
 new world with all its promises. Order the galleons to be 
 ready, sire ; for I have many places to go to, and much to pro- 
 vide and to do. Let it be observed that in all I shall be found 
 very submissive to reason, and will give satisfaction in every 
 thing." 
 
 These stirring appeals were disregarded by the feeble suc- 
 cessor of Charles V. ; and Quiros, who, though a Portuguese by 
 birth, is often styled the last of the Spanish heroes, died at 
 Panama on his way back to Lima. 
 
 We mentioned the dispersion of Quiros' fleet after leaving 
 Espiritu Santo. We must recur for a moment to this incident, 
 in order to follow the ship of Luis Vaez de Torres, the second 
 in command. He proceeded on his voyage to the southwest, 
 and saw enough of Espiritu Santo to convince him that it was 
 not a continent. He would have circumnavigated it had the 
 season permitted. Standing finally to the northward, he fell in 
 with numerous islands rich in pearls and spices, and *' coasted 
 for eight hundred leagues along the southern shore of some land 
 to him unknown." This can have been no other shore than 
 that of Papua or New Guinea; and it is considered positive that 
 he was the first European to see this since famous and remark- 
 able island. He found this whole sea to be filled with groups 
 of islands producing spices and the usual tropical fruits. He 
 made his way to the Philippines, where he rendered an account 
 of his adventures since his separation from Quiros. 
 
 While these distinguished navigators were thus searching the 
 regions lying about the equator, another adventurer, equally 
 enterprising, was endeavoring to reach the Pole. Henry Hud- 
 son, a seaman renowned for his hardy and daring achievements, 
 was appointed, in 1607, by the Muscovy Company of London, 
 to the command of a vessel intended to penetrate to China by 
 the Arctic seas to the north of Europe. His crew consisted 
 of ten' men and a boy. He advanced as far as Greenland, and 
 returned by Spitzbergen, — being convinced that the ice formed 
 
DISCOVERY OF NEW YORK HARBOR. 323 
 
 an insurmountable barrier against farther progress. He again set 
 out in 1608, and, keeping more to the eastward, passed to the 
 north of Norway, Sweden, and Russia as far as Nova Zembla. 
 The ice again stopped him, and he returned, — persuaded that 
 the northeastern passage did not exist. The next year he was 
 again sent upon the same errand; but, being still unsuccessful, 
 he crossed the Atlantic to America, He coasted along the con- 
 tinent as far as Chesapeake Bay, and then returned to the 
 north, entering Delaware Bay and arriving in sight of the high- 
 lands of Neversink on the 2d of September. This he pronounced 
 a "good land to fall in with, and a pleasant land to see." The 
 next morning he passed Sandy Hook, and came to anchor in 
 what is now the Lower Bay of New York. "What an event,** 
 says Everett, "in the history of American population, enter- 
 prise, commerce, intelligence and power, was the dropping of 
 that anchor at Sandy Hook!" 
 
 HUDSON'S VESSGL, THE HALF-MOON, OFF SANOY HOOK. 
 
 "Here he lingered a week," continues the same author, "in 
 friendly intercourse with the natives of New Jersey, while a 
 boat's company explored the waters up to Newark Bay. And 
 now the great question: — Shall he turn back, or ascend the 
 stream ? Hudson was of a race not prone to turn back, by sea 
 or land. On the 11th of September, he raised the anchor of 
 the Half-Moon, and passed through the Narrows, beholding on 
 both sides * as beautiful a land as one could tread on ;' the ship 
 floating cautiously and slowly up the noble stream, — the first that 
 
324 ocean's stort. 
 
 ever rested on its bosom. He passed the Palisades, Nature*8 
 dark basaltic Malakoif; forced the iron gateway of the High- 
 lands; anchored on the 14th near West Point ; swept around and 
 upwards the following day, by grassy meadows and tangled slopes, 
 ; hereafter to be covered with smiling villages, by elevated banks 
 and woody heights, the destined sites of towns and cities, — of 
 Newburgh, Poughkeepsie, Catskill; on the evening of the 15th 
 arrived 'opposite the mountains which rise from the river's side,' 
 where he found *a very loving people and very old men;' and, 
 the day following, sailed by the spot hereafter to be honored by 
 his own illustrious name. One more day wafts him up between 
 Schodac and Castleton; and here he landed and passed a day 
 with the natives, greeted with all sorts of barbarous hospitality, 
 — the land 'the finest for cultivation he ever set foot on.' On 
 the following morning, with the early flood-tide, the Half-Moon 
 ran higher up, and came to anchor in deep water, near the site 
 of the present city of Albany. Happy if he could have closed 
 his gallant career on the banks of the stream which so justly 
 bears his name, and thus have escaped the sorrowful and mys- 
 terious catastrophe which awaited him the next year." 
 
 He soon after returned to England ; and, not being discouraged, 
 nor finding it difficult to obtain the means of continuing his 
 maritime adventures, he set sail, in 1610, in a vessel of fifty-five 
 tons' burden, manned by twenty-three men and victualled for 
 six months. He touched at the Orkneys and anchored at Ice- 
 land. Mount Hecla revealed to him the magnificence of a volcano 
 in travail, and the Hot Springs obligingly cooked his food. He 
 passed Greenland, where the sun set in the north. In the course 
 of June and July, he passed to the northward of Labrador, and 
 followed the strait which now bears his name. In spite of ice and 
 disturbances among his crew, which at times assumed the cha- 
 racter of a mutiny, he pushed on into the great inland sea known 
 as Hudson's Bay. For a long time he did not know that it was 
 a bay, and naturally was led to hope that he was on the point 
 
THE FATE OF HUDSON. 32^ 
 
 of attaining tlie object of all his efforts, — a passage by the 
 northwest to China. The extent of its surface amply justified 
 him in these expectations, for it is the largest inland sea in the 
 world, with the exception of the Mediterranean. 
 
 On the 1st of November, after seeking winter quarters, his 
 men found a suitable spot for beaching their vessel. Ten days 
 afterwards, they were frozen in, with provisions hardly sufficient 
 to last, upon the most meagre allowance, till they could expect a 
 release from the ice. A reward was offered to those who added- 
 to the general stock by catching either birds or fish, or animals 
 serviceable for food. A house was built; but the season was so 
 far advanced that it could not be rendered fit to dwell in. The 
 winter was severe, and the men lived at first upon partridges, 
 then upon swans and teal, and finally upon moss and frogs. 
 They assuaged the pain of their frozen limbs by applying to 
 them a hot decoction made from buds containing a balsam-like 
 substance resembling turpentine. Towards spring, they ob- 
 tained furs from the natives, in exchange for hatchets, glass, 
 and buttons. 
 
 When the ice broke up, they prepared to return, — the laat 
 ration of bread being exhausted on the day of their departure. 
 A report was circulated among the crew that Hudson had 
 concealed a quantity of bread for his own use, and a mutiny, 
 fomented by a man named Green, broke out on the 21st of June. 
 Hudson was seized and his hands bound. Together with the 
 sick, and those whom the frost had deprived of the use of their 
 limbs, he was put into the shallop and set adrift. Neither he, 
 nor the boat, nor any of its crew, were ever heard of again. 
 
 The wretched mutineers made the best of their way home in 
 the ship they had thus foully obtained. Not one of the ring- 
 leaders lived to reach the land. The rest, after suffering the 
 most awful extremities of famine, finally gained the shore. 
 
DUTCH VESSEL TRADING AT THE LADRONES. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIY. 
 
 IHB FLEET OF JORIS SPILBERGEN — ARRIVAL IN BRAZIL ADVENTURES IN THB 
 
 STRAIT OF MAGELLAN — TRADE AT MOCHA ISLAND TREACHERY AT SANTA 
 
 MARIA TERRIBLE BATTLE BETWEEN THE DUTCH AND SPANISH FLEETS 
 
 RAVAGES OF THB COAST — SKIRMISHES UPON THE LAND SPILBERGEN SAILS 
 
 FOR MANILLA ARRIVAL AT TERNATE — HIS RETURN HOME — THE VOYAGE OF 
 
 •CHOUTEN AND LEMAIRE LEMONADE AT SIERRA LEONE — A COLLISION AT 
 
 SEA — DISCOVERY OF STATEN LAND — CAPE HORN — LEMAIRE's STRAIT — AR- 
 RIVAL AT BATAVIA CONFISCATION OF THE SHIPS — GENERAL RESULTS OF 
 
 THE VOYAGE — THE VOYAGE OF WILLIAM BAFFIN — ARCTIC RESEARCHES DURING 
 THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 We have said, in a former chapter, that the Dutch succeeded 
 
 the Portuguese in tlie possession of the East Indies. During 
 
 the struggle between these two powers for supremacy over the 
 
 Spice Islands, the Dutch East India Company resolved to make 
 
 a vigorous effort to reach the Moluccas by the Strait of Ma- 
 326 
 
MUTINEERS EXECUTED. 327 
 
 gellan. They equipped a fleet of six ships, for the purpose of 
 exploring a new route. These vessels were named the Great 
 Sun, the Half-Moon, the Morning Star, the Huntsman, and 
 the Sea Mew, and were placed under the command of Joris 
 Spilbergen as admiral, who had already conducted a Dutch 
 fleet to the Indies. He received his commission from their 
 Mightinesses the States-General. He sailed from the Texel 
 on the 8th of August, 1G14. 
 
 While upon the South American coast, a mutiny broke out in 
 the Sea Mew, and the two ringleaders were condemned to be cast 
 into the sea, — a sentence which was rigorously executed. They 
 entered the Strait of Magellan on the 28th of February, 1615, 
 but were forced out again by adverse currents. They entered 
 again on the 2d of April, and saw men of gigantic stature 
 upon the hills, dead bodies wrapped in the skins of penguins, 
 and shrubs producing sweet blackberries. The mountains were 
 covered with snow, yet the woods were filled with parrots. 
 Water-cresses, and a tree whose bark had a biting taste, induced 
 them to give to an inlet the name of Pepper Haven. The natives 
 bartered ornaments of mother-of-pearl for knives and wine. The 
 vessels entered the South Sea on the 6th of May, and on the 
 25th anchored ofi" Mocha Island, half a league from the coast 
 of Chili. 
 
 The natives were delighted to learn that the strangers were 
 the enemies of the Spaniards their oppressors, and to see thjit 
 their ships were so large and well armed. The chief of the 
 island visited the admiral's ship and remained his guest all 
 night. A hatchet was the price fixed upon for two fat sheep ; 
 and a hundred were obtained at this rate. The natives would 
 not permit the Dutch to see their women, and at last, when they 
 had disposed of all the provisions and live stock they had to 
 spare, made signs for them to re-enter their ships and depart, 
 with which reasonable request Spilbergen at once complied. 
 
 On the 29th, the vessels anchored off" the island of Santa 
 
328 ocean's story. 
 
 Maria, and, though there were Spaniards upon it, negotiations 
 were opened. The Dutch officers were invited by a Spaniard 
 to dine on shore, and, having accepted and assembled for the 
 purpose, were either led to suspect treachery, or were convinced 
 that they were strong enough to help themselves without negotia- 
 tion. They summoned soldiers from the ships, burned a number 
 of houses, and carried off five hundred sheep. The Spaniard 
 who was to have been their host, but who was now their prisoner, 
 informed them that the Viceroy of Peru had been for some 
 months aware of their approach, and that a strong force was pre- 
 pared at Lima to attack them. Spilbergen determined to go in 
 search of the Spanish fleet : the gunners were ordered to have 
 every thing in readiness for battle, and military regulations were 
 promulgated, — every one, from the admiral to the swabs, being 
 determined to do or die. One of the orders was that "during 
 the action the decks were to be continually wetted, that accidents 
 might not happen from ignited powder." 
 
 At Conception, the Dutch landed and set fire to a number of 
 houses; at Valparaiso, the Spaniards burned one of their own 
 vessels, that she might not fall into the enemy's hands. At 
 Arica — the seaport to which the Potosi silver was brought to be 
 shipped to Panama — they took a small ship laden with treasure. 
 On the evening of the 16th of July, the Spanish fleet, of eight 
 sail, appeared in sight. The Jesu Maria, the flag-ship, had no 
 less than four hundred and sixty men, and mounted twenty-four 
 guns ; and the whole squadron were in the same proportion better 
 provided with men than artillery. Don Rodrigo de Mendo^'a 
 was the commander. He insisted upon an immediate attack by 
 night, saying that " any two of his ships could take all England, and 
 much more these hens of Holland, who must be spent and wasted 
 by 80 long a voyage." About ten at night, the Spanish admiral 
 and the Dutch admiral closed, — the Jesu Maria and the Great 
 Sun. They hailed each other, and some conversation passed 
 before a shot was fired. The attack was then commenced by 
 
THE TOWN OF PAITA BURNED. 329 
 
 the musketry, seconded by the great guns. The ships of both 
 fleets came up in succession and joined battle. The pomp and 
 circumstance of war were not neglected, for the braying of the 
 cannon was accompanied by the sounding of tambours and 
 trumpets. The Spanish San Francisco received a broadside 
 which the Great Sun could spare from the Jesu Maria, and soon 
 after went to the bottom. The Sun sent out one of her boats 
 for a rescue ; but it was mistaken by the Huntsman for an 
 enemy's boat, and was blown out of the water by a cannon-shot. 
 The night becoming very dark, the fleets were gradually sepa- 
 rated. The next morning five of the Spanish ships sent word 
 to their admiral that they were going to escape if they could. 
 The Spanish admiral and vice-admiral were lashed together for 
 mutual support, and were, in this condition, attacked by the 
 Great Sun and the Half-Moon. The Spanish seamen several 
 times hung out a white flag in token of surrender, which was as 
 often cut down by their oflicers, who chose rather to die than 
 yield, especially as they had sworn to the Viceroy of Peru to 
 bring him all the Hollanders in chains. At nightfall, the Jesu 
 Maria cut hersolf loose and fled from pursuit ; but her leaks and 
 damages were so serious that she went to the bottom before 
 dawn. This decided the victory in favor of the Dutch, who are 
 accused of allowing many of the enemy to drown who might 
 easily have been saved. 
 
 The victorious fleet sailed directly for Callao ; but the Spanish 
 shipping in the port was so well protected by batteries that it 
 was not thought prudent to attack them. Soon after, a vessel 
 laden with salt and sugar was captured and the cargo distributed. 
 The town of Paita was plundered and burned. No money or 
 treasure is mentioned among the booty. Keeping a sharp 
 watch for the fleet of Panama, which the Dutch did not care to 
 meet or engage, they proceeded to the north, and, on the 11th 
 of October, entered the harbor of Acapulco, in Mexico or New 
 Spain. Negotiations were entered into and a treaty was made, 
 
\ 'h -', 
 
SHOE TRACKS ON THE SAND. 
 
 331 
 
 the Dutch agreeing to release all their prisoners, and the Spanish 
 to furnish them with oxen, sheep, poultry, fruit, water, and wood. 
 Thus the Spaniards saved their town at a small expense, and 
 the Butch found refreshments which they could have obtained 
 in no other way. 
 
 On the 10th of November, they anchored at the mouth of a 
 river reported by their prisoners to abound in fish, v.liilc its 
 banks produced citron and other fruit trees. Boats were sent 
 to examine it. The Dutch noticed that the footprints upon the 
 shore were the prints of shoes, and not of feet as Nature made 
 them. Suspecting, therefore, the presence of Spaniards, they 
 did not disembark, but returned to the ship. The next day the 
 admiral landed with two hundred men, and was at once attacked 
 by a strong body of Spaniards concealed in the woods. Tho 
 latter were repulsed with loss, but Spilbcrgen withdrew his men 
 to the ships, as his ammunition was nearly exhausted. 
 
 THE DUTCH SURPRISED BY THE SPANIARDS. 
 
 On the 2d of December, the fleet left the American coast 
 and directed their course west by south for the Ladrone Islands. 
 The next year — 1G16 — was ushered in with distempers that 
 proved fatal to many of the seamen. On the 23d of January, 
 they came in sight of the Ladrones, where they stopped two days 
 to traffic with the natives for flesh, fish, fruit, and fowl. Tho 
 savages were, as usual, treacherous and given to thieving, and 
 at times required the chastisement of powder and ball. Tho 
 fleet touched at the Philippines early in February, but the In- 
 
332 ocean's story. 
 
 dians refused to trade with them, as they were enemies of the 
 Spaniards. They entered the Straits of Manilla, and anchored 
 before the island of Mirabelles, remarkable for two rocks which 
 tower to a vast height into the air. The Dutch took several 
 barks laden with the tribute of numerous adjacent places to the 
 citj of Manilla. They gained intelligence of a fleet of twelve 
 ships and four galleys, manned by two thousand Spaniards, be- 
 sides Indians and Chinese, sent to drive their countrymen from 
 the Moluccas and to reduce those islands to the dominion of 
 Spain. On this news, they discharged all their prisoners, and 
 made preparations to meet the Manilla fleet and to proceed to 
 the assistance of their friends. They arrived on the 29th of 
 March at Ternate, one of the principal islands of the group, 
 where the Dutch possessed a trading-station. They were re- 
 ceived with joy by their countrymen. 
 
 Spilbergen was now detained nine months in the Molucca and 
 neighboring islands, in the service of the East India Company. 
 A narrative of his transactions here would be foreign to the pur- 
 pose of this work. He left the ships in which he had hitherto 
 sailed in India, and returned to Holland in the Amsterdam. 
 His voyage produced no new discoveries in the South Sea ; but 
 the Directors of the Company bestowed upon him the highest 
 praise for his prudent management and timely energy. The 
 Company may be said to have dated their grandeur from the day 
 of his return, both as regards power and wealth, — the first re- 
 sulting from his successful circumnavigation of the globe, the 
 latter from their conquests in the Moluccas, in which he took a 
 prominent part, and of which he brought home the first intelli- 
 gence. 
 
 The Dutch East India Company held from the Government 
 the exclusive privilege of trading in the Great South Sea, — all 
 private citizens being prohibited from entering those waters by 
 the Cape of Good Hope on the east or the Strait of Magellan 
 on the west. This prohibition stimulated ra:lier than checked 
 
A NEW PASSAGE TO THE PACIFIC. 333 
 
 the commercial ardor of the country, and it soon became the 
 study of navigators and merchants to discover some safe means 
 of eluding the law, it being hard, they said, that Government 
 should close up the channels which Nature had left free. Isaac 
 Lemaire, a rich trader of Amsterdam, was the first to whom the 
 idea occurred of seeking another passage from the Atlantic to 
 the Pacific than the Strait of Magellan. He imparted his views 
 to William Cornelison Schouten, who had been three times to 
 the East Indies in the different capacities of supercargo, pilot, 
 and master. He too was convinced that to the south of Terra 
 del Fuego lay another passage from one ocean to the other. 
 Could they find this passage, they might legally trespass upon 
 the monopoly held by the Company. They determined to at- 
 tempt the discovery, and Lemaire advanced half the necessary 
 funds, Schouten and his friends furnishing the other hiilf. Two 
 ships were fitted out, the larger, — the Concord, — of three hun- 
 dred and sixty tons, being manned by sixty-five men, and pierced 
 for twenty-nine guns of small calibre ; the Horn, of one hundred 
 and ten tons, carrying eight cannons, four swivels, and twenty- 
 two men. Schouten was master and pilot of the expedition, and 
 James Lemaire, the son of Isaac, supercargo. Tlio object of 
 the voyage was kept a profound secret, the officers and men 
 being bound by their articles to go wherever they should be 
 required, and, in compensation for this unusual condition, re- 
 ceiving a considerable advance upon the ordinary wages. The 
 little fleet was equipped in the port of Horn, and left the Texel 
 on the 14th of June, 1615, proceeding towards the coast of 
 Africa. 
 
 On the 30th of August, they cast anchor in the roads of 
 Sierra Leone, where they drove a brisk trade in lemons, easily 
 purchasing a thousand for a handful of worthless glass beads. 
 Fresh water was obtained by holding casks under a bountiful 
 cascade, and thus easily were the materials for lemonade pro- 
 cured in this favored spot. They then made directly for the 
 
334: ocean's story. 
 
 southwest. While in the middle of the Atlantic, the crew of 
 the Concord were startled hj her receiving a violent blow upon 
 her bottom, although no rock was visible. The color of the sea 
 around them changed suddenly to red, as if a fountain of 
 blood had been discharged into it. A large horn, of a substance 
 resembling ivory, and solid, not hollow, was subsequently found 
 in the ship's side, having passed through three of her plankg 
 and entered the wood to the depth of a foot, leaving at least a 
 foot more upon the outside. The vessel had evidently been in 
 collision with a narwhal or sea-unicorn, and the broken horn and 
 the crimsoned water plainly showed which had suffered most 
 from the shock. ^ 
 
 Late in October, the ships* companies were informed of the 
 design of the voyage, and readily consented to engage in a 
 scheme which promised both distinction and emolument. Early 
 in December, they made the coast of Patagonia, some three 
 hundred miles to the north of Magellan's Strait. Here the 
 Horn, the smaller of the two vessels, caught fire by accident 
 and was destroyed. Her iron-work, guns, and anchors were 
 transferred to the Concord. On the 24th, the Concord passed 
 the Strait of Magellan, and was soon in the latitude where 
 Schouten and Lemaire hoped to make their grand discovery. 
 While Terra del Fuego was still in sight upon their right hand, 
 they noticed a high, rugged island upon their left, which they 
 named Staten Land, or Land of the States. The ship passed 
 between the two, and soon after rounded the promontory which 
 advanced the farthest into the sea, to which, in honor of the port 
 from which the expedition had sailed, Schouten gave the name 
 of Cape Horn. He then launched into the South Sea, being 
 the first who passed completely round the South American con- 
 tinent. Lemaire claimed the honor of giving his name to the 
 strait which had brought them to the Cape, — one which clearly 
 belonged to Schouten, as the leader and pilot of the expedition. 
 The strait is still known by the name of the supercargo, geo- 
 
A CASE OF GEOGRAPHICAL INJUSTICE. 
 
 335 
 
 graphers having consecrated, by silence, this manifest act of 
 injustice. 
 
 Altering their course to the northward, thcj soon recognised 
 the mouth of Magellan's Strait,— which rendered their discovery 
 complete. They returned thanks to God for their success, and 
 
 CAPE HORN. 
 
 passed the wine cup three times round the company. Schoutcn 
 then made for the island of Juan Fernandez, where he hoped to 
 give rest and refreshment to his sickly and wearied crew. The 
 currents and the winds would not permit him to land ; and he was 
 compelled to start across the Pacific in a crazy ship and with a 
 disabled company. Like Magellan, who traversed this ocean 
 withoiit seeing any of the important islands which, just below 
 the line, extend from America to Asia, forming, as it were, a 
 girdle from shore to shore, Schouten discovered but a few in- 
 significant rocks and reefs, passing between and at a distance 
 from the great archipelagoes which dot the Pacific in this lati- 
 
336 
 
 OCEAN'S STORY. 
 
 tude. At one of these spots liis men met an enemy more 
 numerous and formidable than any tribe of savages. Innume- 
 rable myriads of flies followed them from the shore to the ship, 
 so that they came on board absolutely black with the winged 
 and buzzing infliction. The flies enveloped the vessel in a thick 
 and melodious cloud, from which the sailors were glad to escape 
 with the first favoring breeze. Schouten consulted geographical 
 propriety by naming the scene of this adventure Fly Island. 
 
 THE CONCORD AT FLY ISLAND. 
 
 Early in July, 1616, they arrived at the Moluccas, and went 
 ashore upon the island of Gilolo, where they procured poultry, 
 tortoises, rice, and sago. They next touched at Ternate, where 
 they were kindly entertained by the Dutch authorities. They 
 sold their two pinnaces, still upon the deck of the Concord, 
 together with what had been saved from the Horn ; they 
 received in return thirteen hundred and fifty reals. With 
 this they purchased a large quantity of rice, a ton of vinegar, 
 as much Spanish wine, and three tons of biscuit. They then 
 
THE DISCOVERY OF BAFFIN'S BAY. 337 
 
 sailed for Java, and cast anchor in the harbor of Jacatra — now 
 Batavia — sixteen months after quitting the Texel, having lost 
 but three men upon the voyage. The expedition properly ter- 
 minates here ; for Jan Petersen Coen, President for the Dutch 
 East India Company at Bantam, in Java, confiscated their ship 
 and cargo as forfeited for illegally sailing within the boundaries 
 of the Company's charter. He sent Schouten and Lemaire to 
 Holland, however, that they might plead their cause before a 
 competent court. Lemaire died on his way home, overcome with 
 grief and vexation at the disastrous end of a voyage which had 
 been so successful till the seizure of the ship. Schouten made 
 several subsequent voyages to the East Indies, and died, in 1625, 
 in the island of Madagascar. His name is little known, and his 
 memory has almost passed away, although to him clearly belongs 
 the credit of improving upon Magellan's discovery by furnish- 
 ing a safer route to the commerce of the world and substituting 
 the doubling of Cape Horn for the threading of the Strait. 
 
 During this same year, the English made their last attempt 
 for nearly two centuries in the Arctic waters of America. 
 William Baffin, who had accompanied Hudson in one of his 
 earlier voyages, embarked in the capacity of pilot on board 
 the Discovery, — a vessel bound for the northwest and com- 
 manded by one Robert Bylot. The crew consisted of fourteen 
 men and two boys. Passing through Davis' Strait, they came 
 to the vast bay which now bears Baffin's name. They found it 
 to be eight hundred miles long and three hundred wide. They 
 ascended to the north as far as the seventy-eighth degree of 
 latitude, where the bay seemed to taper off in a strait or sound, 
 which they called Thomas Smith's Sound. Here Baffin observed 
 the greatest variation of the needle known at that time, — fifty- 
 six degrees to the west. The charts of Baffin are lost; but 
 several of his journals are extant, and contain numerous astro- 
 nomical and hydrographic observations, which have since been 
 fully verified by the superior instruments of modern science. 
 22 
 
338 
 
 OCEAN'S STORY. 
 
 Baffin saw the opening to the west which Ross, two centuries 
 later, was to call Lancaster Sound, and through which Parry 
 was to penetrate to Melville Island and to the Polar Sea. lie 
 was convinced that a northwest passage existed, though he 
 never made a second voyage in search of it. For one hundred 
 and sixty years, now, the Arctic waters of the American con- 
 tinent were left undisturbed by adventurers from Europe. Their 
 icy coasts remained unvisited till the middle of the eighteenth 
 century, when the energies of English navigators were roused 
 into activity by the reward offered by Parliament, — twenty 
 thousand pounds to him who should sail to China by the north- 
 west. 
 
 AKCnC GULL IN PURSUIT. 
 
FROM THE DISCOVERY OF CAPE HORN TO THE APPLICATION OF 
 STEAM TO NAVIGATION ; 1616—1807. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXV. 
 
 A FAMOUS VESSEL — THE MAYFLOWER — HER APPEARANCE — THE SPEEDWELL — 
 
 DEPARTURE OF THE TWO SHIPS ALLEGED UNSEAWORTHINESS OF THE 
 
 SPEEDWELL — THE MAYFLOWER SAILS ALONE THE EQUINOCTIAL — CONSULTA- 
 TIONS — A REMEDY APPLIED FIRST VIEW OF THE LAND SUBSEQUENT HISTORY 
 
 AND FATE OF THE MAYFLOWER. 
 
 We have now to narrate the incidents of a voyage without 
 precedent, in one point of view, in maritime annals, and to 
 chronicle the adventures of a ship which may be safely said to 
 have achieved a fame beyond that of any other that ever 
 ploughed the ocean. "When we mention the name of the May- 
 flower, in which the Pilgrim Fathers proceeded from South- 
 ampton Water to Plymouth Rock, we are sure that the distinc- 
 tion which we claim for this feeble vessel will be contested by 
 none, — not even by those who would gladly accord the supremacy 
 of the seas to the Nina of Columbus or the Vittoria of Ma- 
 gellan. The details of the voyage are few and unsatisfactory ; 
 but the vivid imagination of historians and orators has amply 
 supplied their place. 
 
 The Mayflower was built in England, at a time when English 
 
 commerce could bear no comparison with that of Holland, and 
 
 when the trade with the latter power employed six hundred Dutch 
 
 ships to one hundred of English build. They were picturesque 
 
 339 
 
uo 
 
 ocean's story. 
 
 in appearance, though tub-like and clumsy, the hull being 
 broad-bottoined and capacious, while the lofty cabins, towering 
 high both fore and aft, — a style now obsolete in Europe, but 
 still prevailing in the Red Sea and the Levant, — caused them 
 to roll heavily in rough water. The Mayflower was a high- 
 Bterned, quaint, but staunch little vessel of one hundred and 
 eighty tons, and was built for one of the trading companies 
 lately chartered by the Government. The Dutch portion of 
 the emigration had already embarked at Delfthaven in the 
 Speedwell, of sixty tons, and both vessels were, on the 1st of 
 August, 1620, anchored before the old towers of Southampton. 
 The pilgrims were then regularly organized for the voyage, 
 being distributed according to rules laid down and accepted 
 
 SPEEDWELL AND MAYFLOWER. 
 
 by all. The larger number were of course received on board 
 ihe Mayflower. On the 5th of August, both vessels weighed 
 anchor, and sailed down the beautiful estuary of Southampton 
 
THE VOYAGE OF THE MAYFLOWER. 3-il 
 
 Water : passing the Isle of Wight and tlie rocks known as the 
 Needles, they entered the English Channel. 
 
 They were no sooner launched upon the fretful waters of this 
 confined strait than their disasters began. The captain of the 
 Speedwell, who had engaged to remain a year abroad with the 
 vessel, actuated either by cowardice or by dissatisfaction with the 
 enterprise, declared that his ship was leaky, and that she could 
 not proceed to sea. Dartmouth Harbor oflfered an opportunity 
 for effecting the necessary repairs, and here a week was spent : 
 the Speedwell was then pronounced quite sound by the carpen- 
 ters and surveyors. They again set sail ; but the captain of the 
 Speedwell 'soon profited by the vicinity of Plymouth to assert 
 a second time that he was ready to founder. He ran into 
 port, and the Mayflower followed. No special cause was dis- 
 covered for the apprehensions of the captain ; but it was decided 
 that the Speedwell should be sent back to London as tinsea- 
 worthy, with such of her passengers as were disheartened, the 
 remainder being transferred to the larger ship. One hundred 
 and one persons — some of them aged and infirm, and several of 
 them women soon to become mothers — were thus imprisoned, as 
 it were, in a vessel much too small to accommodate them ; whild 
 the delays resulting from the treachery or stratagem practised 
 by the captain of the Speedwell had already proved so serious, 
 that it was the 6th of September before the Mayflower, with her 
 crowd of suff*ering passengers, could continue the voyage thus 
 inauspiciously commenced. 
 
 The wind was east by north, blowing, according to the jour- 
 nal, "a fine small gale," when the Mayflower started from Ply- 
 mouth upon her lonely way. The solitude of the ocean — in this 
 latitude almost a trackless waste — lay stretched out before them. 
 The prosperous gale soon gave way to the equinoctial storm, 
 and a terrible head- wind from the northwest compelled the little 
 bark to struggle anxiously with waves which threatened to 
 engulf her. She was soon sorely shattered : her upper works 
 
34:2 ocean's story. 
 
 were strained, and one of the main beams amidships was "bent 
 and cracked. A consultation was held between the seamen and 
 passengers, and the question was seriously debated whether it 
 would not be better to put back. It was fortunately discovered, 
 however, that one of the Dutch pilgrims had accidentally 
 brought on board a large iron screw, and this served to rivet the 
 defective beam. The ship proceeded on her course, struggling 
 with westerly gales and tempestuous seas. For whole days 
 together she was compelled to lie to, or to scud with bare poles. 
 "Methinks," says Everett, "I see the adventurous vessel, the 
 Mayflower of a forlorn hope, freighted with the prospects of a 
 future State and bound across the unknown sea. I behold it 
 pursuing, with a thousand misgivings, the uncertain, tedious 
 voyage. Suns rise and set, weeks and months pass ; and winter 
 surprises them on the deep, but brings them not the sight of the 
 wished-for shore. I see them now, scantily supplied with pro- 
 visions, crowded almost to suffocation in their ill-stored prison, 
 delayed by calms, pursuing a circuitous route, and now driven 
 in fury before the raging tempest on the high and giddy waves. 
 The awful voice of the storm howls through the rigging ; the 
 laboring masts seem straining from their base ; the dismal sound 
 of the pumps is heard ; the ship leaps, as it were, madly from 
 billow to billow; the ocean breaks and settles with engulfing 
 floods over the floating deck, and beats, with deadening, shiver- 
 ing weight, against the staggered vessel." Only one death 
 occurred during this terrible voyage, — a loss in numbers which 
 was made good by the birth of a boy, to whom was given tho 
 name of Oceanus Hopkins. 
 
 Sixty-four days had passed, and the 9th of November had 
 dawned. Upon this date the tempest-tossed pilgrims obtained 
 their first view of the American coast. "To the storm-ridden 
 voyager," writes one of their descendants, "exhausted by con- 
 finement and suffering, the sight of any shore, however wild, the 
 
THE ARRIVAL OF THE MAYFLOWER. 843 
 
 aromatic fragrance that blows from the land, are inexpressibly 
 
 Bweet and refreshing : 
 
 Lovely seems any object that shall sweep 
 Away the vast — salt — dread— eternal deep ! 
 
 And thus we find that the low sand-hills of Cape Cod, covered 
 with scrubby woods that descended to the margin of the sea, 
 seemed, at the first glance, a perfect paradise of verdure to the 
 eyes of these poor sea-beaten wanderers." 
 
 The orator and statesman from whom we have already quoted 
 thus eloquently alludes to the providential circumsta'nces attend- 
 ing the arrival of the Mayflower upon the American shore : — 
 ^'Let us go up in imagination to yonder hill and look out upon 
 the November scene. That single dark speck, just discernible 
 through the perspective glass on the waste of waters, is the 
 fated vessel. The storm moans through her tattered canvas, 
 as she creeps, almost sinking, to her anchorage in Provincetown 
 Harbor ; and there she lies, with all her treasures, not of silver 
 and gold, — for of them she has none, — but of courage, of patience, 
 of zeal, of high spiritual daring. So often as I dwell in imagi- 
 nation on this scene, — when I consider the condition of the 
 Mayflower, utterly incapable as she was of living through 
 another gale, — when I survey the terrible front presented by our 
 coast to the navigator who, unacquainted with its channels and 
 roadsteads, should approach it in the stormy season, — I dare not 
 call it a mere piece of good fortune that the general north and 
 south wall of the shore of New England should be broken by 
 this extraordinary projection of the Cape, running out into the 
 ocean a hundred miles, as if on purpose to receive and encircle 
 the precious vessel. As I now see her, freighted with the des- 
 tinies of a continent, barely escaped from the perils of the deep, 
 approaching the shore precisely where the broad sweep of this 
 most remarkable headland presents almost the only point at 
 which, for hundreds of miles, she could with any ease have made 
 a harbor, and this perhaps the very best on the seaboard, I feel 
 
344 ocean's story. 
 
 my spirit raised above the sphere of mece natural agencies. I 
 see the mountains of New England rising from their rockj 
 thrones : they rush forward into the ocean, settling down as 
 they advance; and there they range themselves, a mighty bul- 
 wark, around the Heaven-directed vessel. Yes ! the everlasting 
 God himself stretches out the arm of his mercy and his power 
 in substantial manifestations, and gathers the meek company of 
 his worshippers as in the hollow of his hand." 
 
 "I see the pilgrims," he continues, "escaped from their perils, 
 landed at last, after a two months' passage, on the ice-clad rocks 
 of Plymouth, weak and weary from the voyage, — without shelter, 
 without means, surrounded by hostile tribes. Shut now the 
 volume of liistory, and tell me, on any principle of human pro- 
 bability, what shall be the fate of this handful of adventnrers. 
 Tell me, man of military science, in how many months were 
 they all swept off by the thirty savage tribes enumerated within 
 the early limits of New England? Tell me, politician, how long 
 did this shadow of a colony, on which your conventions and 
 treaties had not smiled, languish on the distant coast? Student 
 of history, compare for me the baffled projects, the deserted 
 settlements, the abandoned adventures, of other times, and 
 find the parallel of this. Was it the winter*s storm, or disease, 
 or labor and spare meals, or the tomahawk — that hurried this 
 forsaken company to their melancholy fate ? And is it possible 
 that neither of these causes, that not all combined, were able to 
 blast this bud of hope ? Is it possible that from a beginning so 
 feeble, so frail, so worthy not so much of admiration as of 
 pity, there has gone forth a progress so steady, a growth so 
 wonderful, an expansion so ample, a reality so important, a 
 promise, yet to be fulfilled, so glorious?" 
 
 The Mayflower remained in Plymouth Harbor, and was the 
 home of the women and children during the severe winter of 
 1620-21. She rode out the storm at her anchorage, — though 
 she was placed in great danger by a gale upon the 4th of 
 
THE liETURN OF THE MAYFLOWER. 345 
 
 February, her want of ballast — unladen as she was — rendering 
 her light as a cockle-shell. With the opening of spring, the 
 captain determined to return to England, and offered to carry 
 back any of the colonists who might be disheartened by the 
 calamities which had overtaken them, — for they had buried 
 half their number. But their sufferings had endeared the soil 
 to them, and not one embraced the opportunity of returning. 
 The Mayflower left Plymouth on the 5th of April, 1621, and 
 made the run home to London in thirty days. She seems to 
 have performed several voyages back and forth, and, in 1630, 
 arrived in the harbor of Charlestown, with a portion of Win- 
 throp's company of emigrants. Her subsequent history is very 
 uncertain ; and all attempts to ascertain it have been baffled by 
 the circumstance that several ships bore the name of Mayflower, 
 and no reliable means exist of distinguishing her of Pilgrim 
 celebrity from others of obscurer fame. 
 
 THE COD. 
 
T ASWAN'S VESSEL,— THE Z E E H A A N. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI. 
 
 DISCOVERY OF NEW HOLLAND — TASMAK ORDERED TO SURVEY THE ISLAND 
 
 DISCOVERY OF VAN DIEMEN'S LAND OF NEW ZEALAND MURDERERS' BAY 
 
 THE FRIENDLY ISLANDS — THE FEEJEE3 NEW BRITAIN AN EARTHQUAKE AT 
 
 SEA A COPIOUS LANGUAGE CIRCUMNAVIGATION OF NEW HOLLAND RETURK 
 
 TO BATAVIA — RESULTS OP THE VOYAGE — DUTCH OPINIONS OF TASMAN'S 
 MERIT. 
 
 The Council of the Dutch East India Company thought 
 proper, in 1G42, to order a complete and precise survey of the 
 lands accidentally discovered during the previous fifty years by 
 vessels trading between Holland and Batavia, in Java. These 
 had touched, at intervals, at numerous points upon the conti- 
 nental island of New Ilolhind, — Ilertog at Endracht's Land in 
 161G, and De Witt, Van Nuyts, and Carpenter at other points, 
 somewhat later. It was eminently desirable that a scientific 
 
 navigator should visit and render an account of this region, of 
 346 
 
THE DISCOVERY OF TASMANIA 3i7 
 
 which only casual glimpses had thus far been obtained. Cap- 
 tain Abel Jansen Tasman was intrusted with this duty by Van 
 Diemen, Governor-General of the Company. He left Batavia 
 in August with two vessels, the Zeehaan and the Heemskirk, 
 and proceeded towards the south and southeast. During this 
 portion of the voyage the needle was in such continual agita- 
 tion, unwilling to remain in any of the eight points and boxing 
 the whole compass in twenty-four hours, that Tasman was led 
 to believe large mines of loadstone to exist in the vicinity. On 
 the 24th of November he discovered land, and gave to it the 
 name of Van Diemen's Land, — a name which it has retained, 
 though in honor of its discoverer it is often, of late years, called 
 Tasmania. He saw no inhabitants, though he fancied he heard 
 human voices. He noticed two trees, fifteen feet in girth and 
 sixty feet in height from the ground to the branches. Up the 
 trunks of these trees steps, five feet apart, had been cut in the 
 bark. By these the natives, apparently of prodigious size, had 
 climbed into the foliage and robbed the birds' nests of their 
 eggs. Though a sound resembling that of a trumpet had been 
 heard, though tracks of wild beasts were fresh in the sand, and 
 though smoke ascended from the interior in several places, 
 no living creature was seen, Tasman set up a post, upon which 
 every man of the company cut his name, and upon the top of 
 which a flag was hoisted, and then set out in quest of the Solo- 
 mon Islands, which he supposed to lie to the east. 
 
 On the 13th of September he discovered a high, mountainous 
 country, to which he gave the name of Staten Land, — Land of 
 the States, [of Holland.] Its present name is New Zealand. He 
 coasted along the shore to the northeast, and anchored in a fine 
 bay, though he did not disembark. The savages, who were shy 
 at first, at last ventured on board the Heemskirk, in order to 
 trade, Tasman, suspicious of their intentions, sent a boat with 
 seven men from the Zeehaan, to put the crew of his consort 
 upon their guard. These seven men, being without arms, were 
 
348 
 
 OCEANS 3T0RT. 
 
 attacked : three of them were killed, and the other four forced 
 to swim for their lives. The two vessels opened their fire upon 
 the canoes of the islanders, and Tasman branded the spot with 
 a name which still exists upon the charts, — Murderers' Bay. 
 
 MURDERERS' BAY. 
 
 On the 21st of January, 164B, he saw three islands, in latitude 
 21° south : he named them Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and Middle- 
 bourg. The inhabitants were peaceable and friendly, were un- 
 acquainted with the use of weapons, and very skilful in stealing-. 
 The natives called Amsterdam Tonga-Tabou; Rotterdam, Ana- 
 Mocka; and Middlebourg, Eoa. These are now the principal 
 members of the group known as the Friendly Islands. They 
 remained unvisited by Europeans from the time ©f Tasman, in 
 1643, to the second voyage of Cook, in 1773, — a space of one 
 hundred and thirty years. Cook found traditions still existing 
 respecting Tasman's ships ; and a nail was shown him which had 
 been left by the Dutch navigator. Proceeding to the north and 
 then to the west, Tasman discovered a group of twenty islands, 
 girt with shoals and sands. He named them Prince William's 
 Islands and Ileemskirk's Shallows. These now form the eastern 
 portion of the Feejee archipelago. They remained unvisited for 
 a century and a half, until the people of the Friendly Islands 
 spoke of them to Cook and his successors and induced them to 
 visit them. 
 
 Tasman now feared that the currents and winds had driven 
 him more to the westward than he had supposed; for he had 
 
mi 
 
 AUSTRALIA CIRCUMNAVIGATEil^^^ 349 
 
 not seen t'ne sun for many weeks, and was consequently without 
 reliable observations. He resolved to make for the north, and 
 then for the western coast of New Guinea, in order not to be 
 driven to the south of the island and pass it without seeing it. 
 
 t4ATIVES OF MURDERER S' BAY. 
 
 On the 1st of April, he saw the coast of what he supposed was 
 New Guinea, but which was in reality New Britain. Here an 
 earthquake terrified the seamen, for the shock caused them to 
 fear they had struck upon a rock ; but the lead did not reach 
 the bottom. On the 20th, they passed a burning island, noticed 
 by late navigators, and perceived flames issuing from lofty moun- 
 tains. The water was full of shrubs, bamboos, and small trees, 
 carried by the rivers to the sea. The discharge of fresh water 
 by these rivers was such that it almost corrected the salt of the 
 ocean. The natives showed Tasman some ginger, and sold him 
 hogs and cocoanuts. At the island of Moa he found the inha- 
 bitants speaking a language so copious, that they could at once 
 repeat, intelligibly, the words of any other language. Tasman 
 did not find it so easy to speak theirs, however, as the letter r 
 occurred once or more in every syllable. He purchased, for 
 knives made of the iron hoops of water- casks, six thousand 
 cocoanuts and a hundred bunches of bananas, or Indian figs. 
 
 On the 18th of May, Tasman reached the western extremity 
 of New Guinea, having sailed entirely round the continent or 
 island of Australia. He arrived at Batavia, whence he had 
 
350 ocean's story. 
 
 started, after an absence of ten months. His expedition was the 
 clearest and most precise of the several voyages which had been 
 made for the discovery of the Terra Australis Incognita : few 
 voyages, since that of Magellan, had contributed more to geo- 
 graphical science; for, by reducing the limits of the Terra Aus- 
 tralis, as he did by circumnavigating the supposed continent, 
 he did much to rid geography of its most important error. 
 Tasman made a second voyage in 1644 ; but his journals and 
 his track have been completely lost, — probably by design, as 
 the Dutch did not make geographical researches in the interest 
 of the world, but exclusively in that of the East India Com- 
 pany. By his second voyage he is believed to have determined 
 the extent of the great Gulf of Carpentaria, which so profoundly 
 indents the northern coast of New Holland. The portion of his 
 discoveries relative to New Zealand and the Friendly Islands 
 has been completed by Cook ; that relative to Van Diemen's 
 Land by d 'En t recast eaux, in his voyage in search of Lapd- 
 rouse. The fragments which remain of Tasman's journals attest 
 his reasoning powers, his nautical experience, and his unerring 
 judgment. The Dutch never published his own account of his 
 adventures, and the few extracts which have become public 
 crept by accident and stealth into later works and journals 
 of discovery. A Dutch writer thus alludes to the indifference 
 manifested by his countrymen in regard to Tasman: — "We do 
 not know when he was born, when he went to India, or when he 
 returned. In our grand biographical dictionaries, where you 
 will find every puerile detail respecting such and such musty 
 Bavant, only known as a professor at some university or as 
 a quarrelsome skirmisher of the Republic of Letters, there is 
 no room, it seems, for the first navigator of his age." The 
 English have proposed of late to substitute a name of their own 
 for that of Van Diemen's Land ; but the appellation of Tas- 
 mania is beginning, as wo have said, for evident reasons of pro- 
 priety to find a place upon modern charts and maps. 
 
A euCCANEER. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVII. 
 
 PIB-ACT^-OaiOIN OF THK BUCCANEERS — THEIR MANXER OF LIFE — DRESS — OCCU- 
 PATION THE ISLAND OF TORTUGA THEIR HEAD-QUARTERS THEIR RELIGIOUS 
 
 SCRUPLES — MANNER OF DIVIDING SPOILS — ^THB EXTERMINATOR — THE OB3ERV- 
 
 f 
 
 ANCK OF THK SABBATH — EXPLOITS OF HENRY MORGAN — IMPOTENCE OF THE 
 
 SPANIARDS CAREER OF WILLIAM DAMPIER HIS FIRST PIRATICAL CRUISE 
 
 ADVENTURES BY LAND AND SEA DESCRIPTION OF THE PLANTAIN-TREE 
 
 LINGERING DEATHS BY POISON REPROACHES OF CONSCIENCE THE NEW- 
 HOLLANDERS DAMPIER's DANGEROUS VOYAGE IN AN OPEN BOAT PIRACY 
 
 UPON THE AMERICAN COAST WILLIAM KIDD SENT AGAINST THE PIRATES — 
 
 HE TURNS PIRATE HIMSELF — HIS EXPLOITS, DETECTION, AND EXECUTION — 
 HIS BURIED TREASURES — WRECK OF THE WHIDAH PIRATE-SHIP. 
 
 It is necessary to pause at this period in our review of the 
 
 grand maritime expeditions which successively left the various 
 
 351 
 
352 ocean's story. 
 
 seaports of the world, in order to refer to a practice which was 
 now rendering commerce hazardous and the whole highway of 
 the seas insecure, — piracy. Besides the numerous isolated ad- 
 venturers w^ho preyed upon the vessels of any and every nation 
 which fell in their way, a powerful association or league of 
 robbers, who infested particularly the West India Islands and 
 the Caribbean Sea, and who bore the name of Buccaneers, be- 
 came, during the century of which we are now speaking, the 
 peculiar dread of Spanish ships. We shall describe this fra- 
 ternity in some detail. The term buccaneer is a corruption of 
 the French word boucanier, which in its turn was made from the 
 Caribbean noun houcaUj being the flesh of cattle dried and pre- 
 served in a peculiar manner. The French also called them 
 flibustiers, this word being a corruption of the English word 
 freebooters; and this French word has been still further tortured 
 into *' Filibusters," — a term now applied to such Americans as 
 desire violently to extend the area of freedom. 
 
 The buccaneers were principally natives of Great Britain and 
 France, and first attract notice in the island of St. Domingo. 
 The Spaniards would not allow any other nation than their own 
 to trade in the West Indies, and pursued and murdered the 
 English and French wherever they found them. Every foreigner 
 discovered among the islands or on the coast of the American 
 continent was treated as a smuggler and a robber ; and it was 
 not long before they became so, and organized themselves into 
 an association capable of returning cruelty by cruelty. The 
 Spaniards employed coast-guards to keep off interlopers, the 
 commanders of which were instructed to massacre all their 
 prisoners. This tended to produce a close alliance, offensive 
 and defensive, among the mariners of all other nations, who in 
 their turn made descents upon the coasts and ravaged the 
 weaker Spanish towns and settlements. A permanent state 
 of hostilities was thus established in the West Indies, indepen- 
 dent of peace or war at home. After the failure of the mines 
 
THE BUCCANEERS. 355 
 
 of St. Domingo and its abandonment by the Spaniards, it was 
 taken possession of, early in the sixteenth century, by a number 
 of French wanderers who had been driven out of St. Chris- 
 topher ; and their numbers were soon augmented by adventurers 
 from all quarters. 
 
 As they had neither wives nor children, they generally lived 
 together by twos for mutual protection and assistance: when 
 one died, the survivor inherited his property, unless a will was 
 found bequeathing it to some relative in Europe. Bolts, locks, 
 and all kinds of fastenings were prohibited among them, the 
 maxim of "honor among thieves" being considered a more efficient 
 safeguard. The dress of a buccaneer consisted of a shirt dipped 
 m the blood of an animal just slain, a leathern girdle in which 
 hung pistols and a short sabre, a hat with feathers, — but without 
 a rim, except a fragment in guise of a visor to pull it on and off, — 
 and shoes of untanned hide, without stockings. Each man had 
 a heavy musket and usually a pack of twenty or thirty dogs. 
 Their business was, at the outset, cattle-hunting ; and they sold 
 hides to the Dutch who resorted to the island to purchase them. 
 They possessed servants and slaves, consisting of persons de- 
 coyed to the West Indies and induced to bind themselves for a 
 certain number of years. They treated them with great severity. 
 The following epigrammatic conversation is reported as having 
 taken place between an apprentice and a buccaneer. "Master,'* 
 said the servant, " God has forbidden the practice of working on 
 the Sabbath : does he not say, ' Six days shalt thou labor; and on 
 the seventh shalt thou rest' ? " "But I say unto thee," returned 
 the buccaneer, " six days shalt thou kill cattle ; and on the 
 seventh shalt thou carry their hides to the shore." 
 
 The Spaniards inhabiting other portions of St. Domingo con- 
 ceived the idea of ridding the island of the buccaneers by de- 
 stroying all the wild cattle; and this was carried into execution 
 by a general chase. The buccaneers abandoned St. Domingo 
 
 and took refuge in the mountainous and well-wooded island of 
 23 
 
354 ocean's story. 
 
 Tortuga, of which they made themselves absolute lords and 
 masters. The advantages of the situation brought swarms of 
 adventurers and desperadoes to the spot ; and from cattle-hunters 
 the buccaneers became pirates. They made their cruises in open 
 boats, exposed to all the inclemencies of the weather, and cap- 
 tured their prizes by boarding. They attacked indiscriminately 
 the ships of every nation, feeling especial hostility and exercising 
 peculiar cruelty towards the Spaniards. They considered them- 
 selves to be justified in this by the oppression of the Mexicans 
 and Indians by Spanish rulers, and, quieting their consciences 
 by thus assuming the character of avengers and dispensers of 
 poetic justice, they never embarked upon an expedition without 
 publicly offering up prayers for success, nor did they ever return 
 laden with spoils without as publicly giving thanks for their good 
 fortune. 
 
 They seldom attacked any European ships except those home- 
 ward bound, — which were usually well freighted with gold and 
 silver. They pursued the Spanish galleons as far as the Ba- 
 hamas ; and if, on the way, a ship became accidentally separated 
 from the convoy, they instantly attacked her. The Spaniards 
 held them in such terror that they usually surrendered on coming 
 to close quarters. The spoil was equitably divided, provision 
 being first made for the wounded. The loss of an arm was rated 
 at six hundred dollars, and other wounds in proportion. The 
 commander could claim but one share, — although, when he had 
 acquitted himself with distinction, it was usual to compliment 
 him by the addition of several shares. When the division was 
 effected, the buccaneers abandoned themselves to all kinds of 
 rioting and licentiousness till their wealth was expended, when 
 they started in pursuit of new booty. 
 
 The buccaneers now rapidly increased in strength, daring, and 
 numbers. They sailed in larger vessels, and undertook enter- 
 prises requiring great energy and audacity. Miguel de Basco 
 captured, under the guns of Portobello, a Spanish galleon valued 
 
SEXRY morgan's EXPLOITS. 355 
 
 at a mlHIon of dollars. In Europe, immense editions of books 
 "were published, giving accounts of the barbarities committed by 
 the Spaniards and of the holy reprisals waged against them by 
 the buccaneers. A Frenchman by the name of Montbars, on 
 reading these narratives, conceived so deadly a hatred for the 
 Spaniards, and, after becoming a buccaneer, killed so many 
 of them, that he obtained the title of *'The Exterminator." 
 His audacity was only equalled by his love of shedding Spanish 
 blood, by which he believed himself to be avenging the unhappy 
 victims of Spanish colonization. 
 
 Other men joined the "Brethren of the Coast" — as they were 
 sometimes called — from less ferocious motives. Raveneau de 
 Lussan joined the association because he was in debt, and in 
 consequence of a conviction entertained by him that ** every 
 honest man ought in conscience to pay his creditors." Many 
 of the buccaneers were men of a religious temperament ; or, at 
 least, they thought that proper respect should be paid to ap- 
 pearances, and that due deference should be had towards the 
 prejudices of society. It was doubtless from such sentiments 
 as these that Captain Daniel shot one of his crew in church 
 for behaving irreverently during mass, that Captain Sawkins 
 threw a pair of dice overboard on finding them contributing to 
 a game of chance on Sunday, and that Captain Watling ordered 
 his men to regard, as the very first rule of their association, 
 that which instructed them to keep holy the Sabbath day. 
 
 But the fame of all the buccaneer commanders was eclipsed by 
 that of Henry Morgan, a "Welshman. The boldest and most 
 astonishmg of his exploits was his forcing his way across the 
 Isthmus of Darien from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. 
 His object was to plunder the rich city of Panama : his expedi- 
 tion, however, opened the way to the great Southern Sea, where 
 the buccaneers laid the foundation of much of our geographical 
 knowledge of that ocean. He first took the castle of San Lo- 
 renzo, at the mouth of the river Chagres, where out of three 
 
356 OCEAN'S STORY. 
 
 hundred and fourteen Spaniards lie put two hundred to death. 
 He left five hundred men in the castle, one hundred and fifty on 
 board of his thirty-seven ships, and with the rest — who, after 
 deducting the killed and wounded, amounted to about twelve 
 hundred men — began his progress through a wild and trackless 
 country which was then known only to the native Indians. On 
 the tenth day, after a desperate combat with the Spaniards, he 
 took and plundered Panama, which then consisted of about seven 
 thousand houses. His cruelties here were abominable. He im- 
 prisoned one of his female captives, with whom he had fallen 
 in love but who repelled his advances, causing her to be cast 
 into a dungeon and to be insufficiently supplied with food. But 
 his men murmured at the delay, and he was compelled to depart. 
 He returned to the mouth of the Chagrcs with an enormous 
 booty, and, after defrauding the fleet of their share of the spoils, 
 sailed for Jamaica, which was already an English colony. He 
 was made Deputy Governor of the island by Charles II., by 
 whom he was also knighted. He proved an efficient officer, 
 and gave no quarter to the buccaneers ! 
 
 Morgan's expedition had pointed out a short way to the South 
 Sea; and in 1680, some three hundred English buccaneers 
 started from the Atlantic side to cross the isthmus. They 
 formed an alliance with the Darien Indians, who furnished them 
 a quantity of canoes upon the Pacific side. They launched out 
 in these into the Bay of Panama, attacked three large armed 
 ships, took two of them, and began cruising in them. They 
 captured vessels and plundered towns along the coast. Some 
 of them remained a long time in the South Sea, and made 
 many discoveries of undoubted benefit to mankind. 
 
 The Spaniards never dared to defend themselves unless they 
 greatly outnumbered their assailants, and even then they were 
 usually routed with ease. They had become so enervated by 
 luxury that they had lost all military spirit and had well-nigh 
 forgotten the use of arms. They had acquired from the monks 
 
WILLIAM DAM pier's HISTORY. 357 
 
 the idea that the buccaneers were devils, cannibals, and beings 
 of monstrous form. They revenged themselves upon the enemy 
 whom they dared not meet by mangling and subjecting to mimic 
 tortures such dead bodies of the invaders as were left behind, — 
 an exhibition of impotent rage which only excited the buc- 
 caneers to fresh cruelties. 
 
 One of the English buccaneers — William Dampier — became 
 subsequently an eminent discoverer, author, and philosopher. 
 After receiving a collegiate education, he went to sea in northern 
 latitudes, which for a time disgusted him with a maritime life. 
 A voyage to the East Indies, the superintendence of a plantation 
 in Jamaica, and three years spent among the logwood-cutters of 
 Campeachy, gave him a strong bias for the tropical waters. In 
 Campeachy he became acquainted with some of the buccaneers, 
 whose descriptions of their adventures kindled in him a fond- 
 ness for a roving and piratical life. He joined an expedition 
 under Captain John Cooke : an English pilot named Cowley 
 was engaged as master, and embarked in complete ignorance of 
 the nature of the voyage. They sailed in August, 1683, in the 
 Revenge, mounting eight guns and manned by fifty-two men. 
 Cowley was told the first day that the vessel's mission was 
 trade and her destination St. Domingo ; on the second, he was 
 informed that piracy was her object and Guinea her market. 
 
 Stopping at the Cape Verd Islands, they resolved to go to 
 Santiago, in the hope of finding some ship in the road, and in- 
 tending to cut her cable and run away with her. They saw a 
 ship at anchor, and approached her with hostile intent. They 
 were not far off when her company struck her ports and ran out 
 her lower tier of guns. Cooke bore away as fast as he could, 
 convmced that he was unable to cope with a Dutch East India- 
 man of fifty guns -and four hundred men. Some time after, 
 when off Sierra Leone, they fell in with a newly built ship of 
 forty guns, well furnished with water, provisions, and brandy, 
 which they boarded and captured. They named her the Re- 
 
g58 ocean's story. 
 
 venge, and continued their voyage in her, destroying their 
 original vessel. From here they crossed the Atlantic to the 
 Patagonian coast. They doubled Cape Horn during a tre- 
 mendous storm of rain, which furnished them with twenty-three 
 barrels of fresh water. The weather was at this time so cold 
 that the men could drink three quarts of burnt brandy in 
 twenty-four hours without being intoxicated. They joined com- 
 pany in the Pacific with the Nicholas, of twenty-six guns, 
 Captain John Eaton, and started together upon an attempt 
 against the Peruvian coast. They captured three flour-ships, 
 and learned from the prisoners that their presence was known 
 to the Peruvian authorities. Their design upon the coast was 
 therefore abandoned. They carried their prizes to the Galla- 
 pagos or Tortoise Islands, where they might store their captured 
 provisions in a secure place. They arrived and anchored there 
 on the 31st of May, 1684. 
 
 Proceeding to the northward, they descried the coast of 
 Mexico early in July, where Cooke, who had been ill for some 
 months, died and was buried. Edward Davis, quartermaster, 
 was elected captain in his stead. The two ships separated on 
 the 2d of September, the Nicholas withdrawing from the part- 
 nership. Davis and Dampicr remained in the Ilevenge, and 
 were soon joined by the Cygnet, a richly-loaded vessel designed 
 for trading on this coast. Her captain liglitened her by throw- 
 ing his unsalable cargo overboard. They attacked Paita in 
 the month of November, but found it evacuated. They held 
 the town for six days, hoping the inhabitants would ransom it ; 
 but, as this hope was disappointed, they set the town on fire. 
 On the 1st of January, 1G85, they captured a package of letters 
 sent by the President of Panama to hasten the captains of the 
 silver-fleet from Lima, as the coast was believed to be clear. 
 Being particularly desirous that the silver-fleet should share 
 this belief, they 8uff*ered the letter-bearers to continue thoir 
 voyage and resolved to lie in wait for the ships. In the mean 
 
LEON DESTROYED. 359 
 
 time tliey captured several prizes, and manned them with bucca- 
 neers that they met, from time to time, engaged in small enter- 
 prises on separate accounts. By the end of May, their fleet 
 consisted of ten sail, two of them being ships of war, carrying 
 fifty-two guns and nine hundred and sixty men. The Spanish 
 fleet — consisting of fourteen sail, eight of them men-of-war, and 
 two of them fire-ships, the whole manned by three thousand 
 men — now hove in sight. The admiral of the fleet deceived 
 the buccaneers at night, by hoisting a light upon the topmast 
 of an abandoned bark, by which they were decoyed into a posi- 
 tion which gave the Spaniards the next day all the advantage 
 of the wind. Thus was the grand scheme adroitly frustrated. 
 
 Having thus failed at sea, they agreed to try their fortune on 
 land, and chose the city of Leon, on the coast of Nicaragua. 
 Four hundred and seventy men were landed for this purpose. 
 They were met and opposed by five hundred foot and two hun- 
 dred horse, both of which arms of the service retreated in con- 
 fusion at the first collision. As they refused to ransom the city 
 for thirty thousand dollars, it was set on fire. A Spanish gen- 
 tleman, who had been captured by the buccaneers, was released 
 upon his promise to deliver one hundred and fifty oxen at Rea- 
 lejo, the next place which they intended to attack. Realejo was 
 taken, but yielded them Uttle of value except five hundred bags 
 of flour, with some pitch, tar, and cordage, and the one hundred 
 and fifty promised oxen. Captains Davis and Swan now agreed 
 to separate, — the former wishing to return to Peru, and the 
 latter desiring to visit the northern coasts of Mexico. Dampier 
 remained with Swan in the Cygnet. 
 
 Towards the middle of September they came in sight of the 
 ?ity and volcano of Guatemala. Dampier landed at the port of 
 (iuatulco with one hundred and forty men, and marched fourteen 
 miles to attack an Indian village, where they found nothing but 
 vanilla beans drying in the sun. They endeavored to cut out 
 a Lima bullion-ship lying •fi' Acapulco, but failed. Not far 
 
360 
 
 ocean's story. 
 
 from here tliey robbed a caravan of sixty mules, laden with 
 flour, chocolate, cheese, and earthenware. They found and 
 appropriated an abundance of maize, sugar, salt, and salt fish. 
 Dampier, being afflicted with the dropsy, was cured — or, at least, 
 much benefited — by being buried up to his neck for half an hour 
 in the sand in California. A profuse perspiration, which was 
 thus brought on, was the commencement of his convalescence. 
 
 Swan and Dumpier were now convinced that the commerce 
 of tliis region was not carried on by sea, but by land, by means 
 of mules and caravans. They therefore resolved to try their 
 fortune in the East Indies. They sailed from California on the 
 31st of March, 1686. They made the island of Guam, after a 
 voyage of six thousand miles, in seven weeks, having but three 
 days' provisions left, and the men having begun to talk of eating 
 Captain Swan when these were exhausted. They found the 
 island defended by a small fort mounting six guns, and con- 
 taining a garrison of thirty men with a Spanish governor, — this 
 being solely for the convenience of the Manilla galleons on 
 their annual voyages from Acapulco to Manilla. The governor, 
 being deceived as to the character of the ship, sent the captain 
 some hogs, cocoanuts, and rice, and fifty pounds of Manilla 
 tobacco. 
 
 They learned here, from the friar belonging to the garrison, 
 
 BOATS USED IN THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 
 
 that Mindanao, one of the Philippine Islands, was very fertile and 
 productive, and that the natives, who were Mohammedans, were 
 
THK I'LANTAIN-TKEE. 361 
 
 at war with the Spaniards. They therefore resolved to go there, 
 and left Guam on the 2d of June. After seeing Luzon, (Matan,) 
 where Magellan was killed, they anchored off Mindanao, the 
 largest of the Philippines with the exception of Luzon. Though 
 mountainous, Dampier found its soil ''deep, black, and extra- 
 ordinary fat and fruitful." The valleys were moistened with 
 pleasant brooks "and small rivers of delicate water, and in the 
 heart of the country were mountains that yielded good gold." 
 
 Dampier's description of the plantain-tree is often quoted as 
 a fine specimen of descriptive writing. "It is," he says, "the 
 king of all fruit, not excepting the cocoanut. The tree is three 
 feet round and twelve feet high : it is not raised from seed, but 
 from the roots of old trees. As soon as the fruit is ripe the tree 
 decays; but suckers at once spring up and bear in a twelve- 
 month. It comes up with two leaves, within which, by the time 
 it is a foot high, two more spring up, and in a short time two 
 more, and so on. When full grown, the leaves are seven or 
 eight feet long and a foot and a half broad. The stem of the 
 leaf is as big as a man's arm. The fruit-stem shoots out at the 
 top of the full-grown tree, — first blossoming, and then bearing. 
 The Spaniards give it the pre-eminence over all other fruit, as 
 most conducive to life. It grows in a cod about seven inches 
 long and three inches thick. The shell or rind is soft, and, when 
 ripe, yellow. The fruit within is of the consistency of butter 
 in winter. It has a very delicate flavor, and melts in the mouth 
 like marmalade. It is pure pulp, without kernel, seed, or stone. 
 A large plantation of these trees will yield fruit throughout the 
 year, and will furnish the exclusive food of a family. The mar- 
 kets of Havana, Carthagena, Portobello, &,c. are full of the fruit ; 
 and they are sold at the price of threepence a dozen. "When 
 used as bread, it is roasted or boiled before it is quite ripe; and 
 sometimes a roasted plantain is, as it were, buttered with a ripe 
 raw plantain. An English bag-pudding may be made with half 
 a dozen ripe fruit ; and, again, plantains sliced and dried in the 
 
362 OCEAN'S STORT. 
 
 sun taste like figs, and may be preserved in any climate. Green 
 plantains dried and grated furnish an excellent flour for bread 
 or puddmgs. The Mosquito Indians squeeze a plantain into a 
 calabash of water and drink it : they call it mishlaw, and it re- 
 resembles lambs'-wool made of apples and ale. It drinks brisk 
 and cool, and is very pleasant." Such was the plantain two 
 centuries ago. 
 
 The Sultan of Mindanao received the strangers with favor, 
 and would gladly have induced them to settle upon the island 
 and form the nucleus of an English trading station. Danipier 
 would have remained, but the majority were against him. After 
 a time, a mutiny broke out, — the principal cause being the want 
 of active employment; and, as Captain Swan manifested no 
 energy or address in quelling it, he and thirty-six men were left 
 at Mindanao, the rest escaping with the ship. Dampier here 
 remarks that they had buried sixteen men upon the island, who 
 had died by poison, — the natives revenging the slightest dal- 
 liance with their women with a deadly, though lingering, dose or 
 potion. Some of the mutineers that ran ofi" with the vessel died 
 of poison administered at Mindanao four months afterwards. 
 
 SURF BATHING BY NATIVES. 
 
 Kead, the new captain, and Dampier, cruised for some time 
 among the Philippine Island;^. At one of those they saw an 
 extraordinary display of surf-bathing on the part of the natives. 
 The art seemed to be practised as well by the women as the 
 men, and children in arms were taught to gambol in the water 
 
THE NATIVES OF NEW HOLLAND. 363 
 
 as if it were tlieir native element, and as if tliey -were born 
 web-footed. 
 
 On the 4th of January, 1688, they touched at New Holland, — 
 then known to be a vast tract of land, and by all except the 
 Dutch supposed to be a continent. Here they found a mise- 
 rable race of people, compared to whom Dampier declares the 
 Ilodmapods, though a nasty race, to be gentlemen and Chris- 
 tians. They lived wretchedly on cockles, muscles, and shell- 
 fish. They were tall, straight-bodied, and thin, with small, long 
 limbs. They had bottle noses, big lips, and wide mouths. They 
 held their eyelids half closed, to keep the flies out. Their hair 
 was not long and lank, like that of Indians, but black, short, 
 and curled, like that of negroes. A bit of the rind of a tree 
 and a handful of grass formed their only clothing. The crew 
 landed several times, and brought the natives to some degree of 
 familiarity by giving them a few old clothes ; but they could not 
 prevail upon them to assist them in carrying water or any other 
 burden. AYhen the savages found that the ragged jackets and 
 breeches which had been given them were intended to induce 
 them to work, they took them off and laid them down upon the 
 shore. 
 
 Dampier was now tired of wandering about the world with 
 this mad crew, none of whom — not even the captain — had any 
 settled purpose or object in view. Read was afraid that Dampier 
 would desert, and when off Sumatra executed a scheme which 
 he hoped would render it impossible. lie gave chase to a small 
 sail which was discovered making for Acheen in Sumatra. 
 Taking on board the four Malays who manned her and the 
 cocoanuts with which she was laden, he cut a hole in her bottom 
 and turned her loose. This he did in order to render Dampier 
 and any others who might be disaffected afraid to trust them- 
 selves among a people who had been thus robbed and abused. 
 At one of the Nicobar Islands, however, Dampier escaped, and 
 two Englishmen and one Portuguese followed him. The four 
 
?61 
 
 ocean's story. 
 
 sailors of Aclieen were also put ashore. The whole eight joined 
 company, purchased a canoe, for which they gave an axe in 
 exchange, and set oflf to row to Acheen. They had not pro- 
 ceeded half a mile before the canoe overset. They swam 
 ashore, dragging the canoe and their chests, and spent three 
 days in making repairs. The Acheenese fitted the canoe with 
 that universal Polynesian apparatus,— an outrigger, or balancer, 
 on each side, — by which capsizing is rendered impossible. They 
 
 POLYNESIAN CANOE, WITH ITS OUTRIGGER. 
 
 felled a mast in the woods and made a substantial sail with 
 mats. They put oiF again, following the shore for several days. 
 At length they ventured forth upon the open sea, with one 
 hundred and fifty miles of dangerous navigation before them. 
 They rowed with four oars, taking their turns, — Dampier and 
 Hall, one of the Englishmen, relieving each other at the tiller, 
 none of the rest being able to steer. The current against them 
 was very strong, so that, when looking in front for Sumatra, 
 Nicobar, to their dismay, was still visible behind them. A dense 
 halo round the sun, portending a storm, now caused great 
 anxiety to Dampier. The wind freshened till it blew a gale, 
 and they reefed the sail one -half of its surface. The light 
 bamboo poles supporting the outriggers bent as if tliey would 
 break; and, if they had broken, the destruction of the boat 
 would have been inevitable. Putting away directly before the 
 wind, they ran off their course for six hours, the outriggers being 
 very much relieved by this change of direction. 
 
A TERRIBLE STORM. 
 
 365 
 
 Dampler's description of this storm is graphic and quaint. 
 *'The sky looked very black," he writes, "being covered with 
 dark clouds. The winds blew hard and the seas ran high. The 
 sea was already roaring in a wlilte foam about us, — a dark night 
 coming on, and no land in sight to shelter us, and our little ark 
 in danger to be swallowed by every wave ; and, what was worst of 
 all, none of us thought ourselves prepared for another world. I 
 had been in many eminent dangers before now ; but the greatest 
 of them all was but a play-game compared to this. I must 
 confess that I was in great conflicts of mind at this time. Other 
 dangers came not upon me with such a leisurely and dreadful 
 solemnity ; a sudden skirmish or engagement or so was nothing 
 when one's blood was up and pushed forward with eager expecta- 
 tions. But here I had a lingering view of approaching death, 
 and little or no hopes of escaping It ; and I must confess that 
 
 DAMPIER'S BOAT IN THE STORM. 
 
 my courage, which I had hitherto kept up, failed me here. I 
 had long ago repented me of my roving course of life, but never 
 
366 ocean's story. 
 
 with such concern as now. I composed my mind as well as I 
 could in the hope of God's assistance ; and, as the event showed, 
 I was not disappointed of my hopes." 
 
 The preceding representation of the storm is copied from an 
 engraving one hundred and fifty years old, which appeared in the 
 narrative published by Dampier himself. Were it not for this 
 fact, we should not have reproduced it, — as it is very inaccurate, 
 and does not give the outriggers, by which alone the canoe was 
 maintained afloat. 
 
 About eight o'clock in the morning one of the Malays cried 
 out, Pulo War/, which Dampier and Hall took to be good Eng- 
 lish, meaning "Pull away." He pointed to the horizon, where 
 land was just appearing in sight. This was the island of Pulo 
 "Way, at the northwest end of Sumatra. It lay to the south ; 
 and, in order to make it with a strong west wind, " they trimmed 
 their sail no bigger than an apron," and, relying upon their out- 
 riggers, made boldly for the shore, which they reached the next 
 morning, the 21st of May. The supposed island turned out to 
 be the Golden Mountain of Sumatra. They landed, and, after 
 being hospitably received by the natives, arrived at Acheen early 
 in June. 
 
 At this point the history of Dampier's adventures as a cir- 
 cumnavigator comes properly to an end. He published a nar- 
 rative of his career, which he dedicated to Charles Montague, 
 President of the Royal Society, and which brought him into 
 favorable notice. His descriptions have been long admired for 
 their graphic force ; while his treatises on winds, tides, and cur- 
 rents show a remarkable degree of observation and science for 
 that age of the world. His account of the Philippine Islands 
 and of New Holland is still printed complete in the numerous 
 collections of voyages that are constantly thrown off by the 
 English and Continental presses. Such was the remarkable 
 career of a man who, though without the ferocity and barbarous 
 habits of the buccaneers, was in every sense of the word a 
 
CAPTAIN KIDD's HISTORY. 867 
 
 pirate and a freebooter. We shall shortly have occasion to 
 mention him again. 
 
 We must now refer to another species of piracy, — privateer- 
 ing. This did not enjoy the same repute as in the days of 
 Drake and Hawkins; but several circumstances conspired to 
 render it a calling permissible, if not legitimate. England and 
 France were at war; and private armed vessels, bearing com- 
 missions from James II. and William III. against the French, 
 roved the seas and robbed all defenceless ships which fell in 
 their way. They attacked even the vessels of Great Britain, 
 and from privateers became pirates. Many of the Colonial 
 Atlantic ports of America received them and shared in their 
 spoils. Fletcher, the Governor of New York, was bribed to 
 befriend and protect them, while the officers under him were 
 regular contributors to the funds with which corsairs were 
 bought and equipped. 
 
 The English Government determined to suppress this ne- 
 farious practice, and removed Fletcher in 1695, sending the 
 Earl of Bellamont to replace him. The latter suggested that 
 a frigate be fitted out to assist him in the attempt; but England 
 could spare none of her naval force from the war with France. 
 A proposition, however, to purchase and arm a private ship for 
 the service was received with favor, and several nobles, together 
 with Bellamont and Colonel Richard Livingston, of New York, 
 contributed a fund of six thousand pounds sterling. Livingston 
 recommended, to command the vessel, one William Kidd, who 
 had been captain of a merchant-vessel sailing between London 
 and New York, and of a privateer against the French. Kidd 
 was placed in command, and Livingston became his security for 
 the share he agreed to contribute, — six hundred pounds ster- 
 ling. To give character to the enterprise, a commission was 
 issued under the great seal of England and signed by the king, 
 William III., directed to *'the trusty and well-beloved Captain 
 Kidd, commander of the ship Adventure Galley." This vessel 
 
368 ocean's story. 
 
 carried thirty guns and sixty men. Kidd departed from Ply- 
 mouth in April, 1G96, and arrived off the American coast in 
 July following. He occasionally entered the port of New York, 
 where he was cordially received, as he was considered useful in 
 protecting its commerce. For this service the Assembly voted 
 him the sum of two hundred and fifty pounds sterling. 
 
 He now added ninety-five men to his crew, who shipped to go 
 to Madagascar in pursuit of pirates. He then sailed for the 
 East Indies, and, while on his way, resolved, possessing as he 
 did a vessel manned and equipped like a frigate, to turn pirate 
 himself. He seems to have found ready listeners in the licen- 
 tious creatures of whom he had composed his crew. He arrived 
 off the Malabar coast, in Hindostan, where he pillaged vessels 
 manned by Indian, Arab, and Christian crews. He lay in wait 
 for a convoy laden with treasure, but, finding it well guarded, 
 abandoned the attempt. He landed from time to time, burned 
 settlements, murdered and tortured the inhabitants, and placed 
 a price upon the heads of such persons as he thought their 
 friends would ransom. He was once pursued by two Portu- 
 guese men-of-war, whom he fought and then contrived to elude. 
 He captured a merchantman named the Quedagh, and, refusing 
 the offered ransom of thirty thousand rupees, sold her and her 
 cargo at a pirates' rendezvous for forty thousand dollars. He 
 exchanged the Adventure for a larger vessel, and established 
 himself at Madagascar. Here he lay in ambush, plundering the 
 flags of every nation. He made himself dreaded, as a bloody, 
 cruel, and remorseless bandit, from Malabar and the Red Sea 
 across the Atlantic to the West Indies and the American coast. 
 He arrived at New York in 1698, laden, it is asserted, with 
 more spoil than ever fell to the lot of any other individual. He 
 found Bellamont Governor in place of Fletcher, and deemed it 
 necessary to conceal his treasures. He sailed along the shore 
 of Long Island as far as Gardiner's Island, at the eastern end. 
 He here disembarked, and, in the presence of Mr. John Gar- 
 
CAPTAIN KIDD's EXECUTION. 369 
 
 diner, the owner of the island, whom he placed under the most 
 solemn injunction to secrecy, buried a quantity of gold, silver, 
 and precious stones. 
 
 After satisfying his crew by such a division of the remainder 
 as they considered equitable, he dismissed them, and had the 
 audacity to appear in the streets of Boston in the dress of a 
 gentleman of leisure. Bellamont, who was Governor of Massa- 
 chusetts and New Hampshire as well as of New York, met him, 
 caused his arrest, and sent him to England for trial. He was 
 arraigned for the murder of the gunner of his ship, whom he 
 had killed with a bucket. Being convicted, he was hung in 
 chains at Execution Dock on the 12th of May, 1701. The 
 ballad which was written upon his death has survived, and is a 
 favorable specimen of doggerel versification. We subjoin the 
 most striking stanzas : 
 
 My name was William Kidd when I sail'd, when I sail'd ; 
 
 My name was William Kidd when I sail'd ; 
 My name was William Kidd, God's laws I did forbid, 
 
 And so wickedly I did, when I sail'd. 
 
 I cursed my father dear when I sail'd, when I sail'd ; 
 
 I cursed my father dear when I sail'd ; 
 I cursed my father dear, and her that did me bear, 
 
 And so wickedly did swear, when I sail'd. 
 
 I'd a Bible in my hand when I sail'd, when I sail'd ; 
 
 I'd a Bible in my hand when I sail'd ; 
 I'd a Bible in my hand, by my father's great command. 
 
 And I sunk it in the sand, when I sail'd. 
 
 I murder'd William Moore as I sail'd, as I sail'd ; 
 
 I murder'd William Moore as I sail'd ; 
 I murder'd William Moore, and left him in his gore, 
 
 Not many leagues from shore, as I sail'd. 
 
 And being cruel still, as I sail'd, as I sail'd, 
 
 And being cruel still, as I sail'd. 
 And being cruel still, my gunner I did kill. 
 
 And his precious blood did spill, as I sail'd. 
 
 My mate was sick and died as I sail'd, as I sail'd ; 
 My mate was sick and died as I sail'd ; 
 24 
 
S70 ocean's story. 
 
 My mate was sick and died, which me much terrified. 
 When he call'd me to his bedside, as I sail'd. 
 
 And unto me he did say, See me die, see me die ; 
 
 And unto me he did say, See me die ; 
 And unto me he did say, Take warning now by me, 
 
 There comes a reckoning day : you must die. 
 
 I thought I was undone, as I sail'd, as I sail'd ; 
 
 I thought I was undone, as I sail'd ; 
 I thought I was undone, and my wicked glass had run. 
 
 But my health did soon return, as I sail'd. 
 
 My repentance lasted not as I sail'd, as I sail'd ; 
 
 My repentance lasted not as I sail'd ; 
 My repentance lasted not ; my vows I soon forgot ; 
 
 Damnation's my just lot, as I sail'd. 
 
 I spied three ships of Spain as I sail'd, as I sail'd ; 
 
 I spied three ships of Spain as I sail'd ; 
 I spied three ships of Spain, I fired on them amain. 
 
 Till most of them were slain, as I sail'd. 
 
 I'd ninety bars of gold as I sail'd, as I sail'd ; 
 
 I'd ninety bars of gold as I sail'd ; 
 I'd ninety bars of gold, and dollars manifold, 
 
 "With riches uncontroll'd, as I sail'd. 
 
 Then fourteen ships I saw as I sail'd, as I sail'd ; 
 
 Then fourteen ships I saw as I sail'd ; 
 Then fourteen ships I saw, and brave men they were. 
 
 Ah, they were too much for me, as I sail'd. 
 
 Thus being o'ertaken at last, I must die, I must die; 
 
 Thus being o'ertaken at last, I must die ; 
 Thus being o'ertaken at last, and into prison cast. 
 
 And sentence being pass'd, I must die. 
 
 Farewell the raging sea, I must die, I must die ; 
 
 Farewell the raging main, I must die ; 
 Farewell the raging main, to Turkey, France, and Spain, 
 
 I shall ne'er see you again : I must die. 
 
 To Newgate now I'm cast, and must die, and must die; 
 
 To Newgate now I'm cast, and must die ; 
 To Newgate now I'm cast, with a sad and heavy heajl, 
 
 To receive my just desert : I must die. 
 
 To Execution Dock I must go, I must go ; 
 To Execution Dock I must go ; 
 
CAPiAiN kidd's treasure. 371 
 
 To Execution Dock will many thousanc!s flock, 
 But I must bear the shock : I must die. 
 
 Come, all jou young and old, see me die, see me die ; 
 
 Come, all you young and old, see me die ; 
 Come, all you young and old, you're welcome to my gold, 
 
 For by it I've lost my soul, and must die. 
 
 Bellamont, having in some way learned that treasure had been 
 concealed upon Gardiner's Island, sent commissioners to secure 
 it. They found a box containing seven hundred and thirty- 
 eight ounces of gold, eight hundred and forty-seven ounces of 
 silver, a bag of silver rings, a bag of unpolished stones, a 
 quantity of agates, amethysts, and silver buttons. For this 
 they gave a receipt to Mr. Gardiner, which is still preserved by 
 the family. Other sums were discovered at various periods in 
 the possession of persons who had had relations with Kidd ; but 
 the soil of Long Island never yielded up any other booty than 
 the box which we have mentioned. 
 
 It was natural that the knowledge that Kidd had buried a 
 portion of his spoil, that his companions had shared his good 
 fortune according to their rank, that the vicinity of New York 
 was the rendezvous of pirates for years, — it was natural that 
 this knowledge should induce the prevalent belief that it was 
 the custom among them thus to conceal their booty, and that 
 the spot chosen by Kidd was, perhaps, the scene of the deposits 
 of the entire gang. It was evident, too, that, unless rumor had 
 greatly exaggerated the value of Kidd's ill-gotten gains, the box 
 of gold and silver reckoned in ounces was but a tithe of what 
 he had buried. It was thus that was created that feverish ex- 
 citement which stimulated eager searchers for piratical store 
 along the coasts of New York and Massachusetts, and particu- 
 larly among the islets of the Sound. This search has been 
 again and again renewed, and even now, at the distance of a 
 century and a half, the hope of discovering the abandoned 
 wealth ot the great pirate is not altogether extinct. 
 
 Romances, ballads, and tales without number have been 
 
372 ocean's story. 
 
 ■written upon the adventures of Captain Kidd, his fate, and his 
 money. The most remarkable of these is the ''Gold-Bug" of 
 Edgar A. Poe, which details the incidents of an imaginary effort 
 made to recover the treasure the corsair had entombed. 
 
 WRECK OF THE PIRATE-SHIP WHIDAM. 
 
 Piracy did not disappear with Kidd. The coasts of the Caro- 
 linas were for a long time infested with freebooters, though at 
 various times some fifty of them were hung in Charleston. In 
 1717, the famous and dreaded privateer Whidah was wrecked 
 upon the shores of Cape Cod. This vessel carried twenty-three 
 guns, one hundred and thirty men, and was commanded by 
 Samuel Bellamy. The dead bodies of all but six floated ashore : 
 these six were taken alive and executed. This was a severe loss 
 to the pirates. But the decisive blow against them was not struck 
 till 1723. The British man-of-war Greyhound captured a craft 
 with twenty-five men and carried them into Rhode Island. 
 They were tried, found guilty, and hung, at Newport, in July. 
 This was the end of piracy in the American waters. 
 
HOME OF ALEXANDER SELKIRK. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIII. 
 
 THE VOYAGE OF WOODES ROGERS — DESERTION CHECKED BY A NOVEL CIRCUM- 
 STANCE — A LIGHT SEEN UPON THE ISLAND OF JUAN FERNANDEZ — A BOAT 
 SENT TO RECONNOITRE — ALEXANDER SELKIRK DISCOVERED — HIS HISTORY AND 
 
 ADVENTURES — HIS DRESS, FOOD, AND OCCUPATIONS HE SHIPS WITH ROGERS 
 
 AS SECOND MATE TURTLES AND TORTOISES — FIGHT WITH A SPANISH TREA- 
 SURE-SHIP PROFITS OF THE VOYAGE THE SOUTH SEA BUBBLE — ITS INFLA- 
 TION AND COLLAPSE — MEASURES OF RELIEF. 
 
 A COMPANY of merchants of Bristol fitted out two ships in 
 1708 — the Duke and Duchess — to cruise against the Spaniards 
 in the South Sea. The Duke was commanded by Woodes Rogers, 
 the Duchess by Stephen Courtney. William Dampier, whose 
 name had long been a terror to the Spaniards, was pilot to the 
 larger ship. They left Bristol on the 14th of July, with fifty- 
 six guns and three hundred and thirty-three men, and with 
 
 373 
 
374 CK^EAX'S STORY. 
 
 double the usnal number of officers, in order to prevent the 
 mutinies so common in privateers. 
 
 Nothing of moment occurred till the vessels anchored at Isola 
 Grande, off the coast of Brazil. Here two men deserted, but 
 were so frightened in the night by tigers, as they supposed, but 
 in reality by monkeys and baboons, that they took refuge in the 
 sea and shouted till they were taken on board. The two ships 
 passed through Lemaire^s Strait and doubled Cape Horn, and, on 
 the 31st of January, 1709, made the island of Juan Fernandez. 
 During the night a light was observed on shore, and Captain 
 Rogers made up his mind that a French fleet was riding at 
 anchor, and ordered the decks to be cleared for action. ^ At day- 
 light the vessels stood in towards the land; but no French fleet — 
 not even a single sail — was to be seen. A yawl was sent forward 
 to reconnoitre. As it drew near, a man was seen upon the shore 
 waving a white flag ; and, on its nearer approach, he directed 
 the sailors, in the English language, to a spot where they could 
 best effect a landing. He was clad in goat-skins, and appeared 
 more wild and ragged than the original owners of his apparel. 
 His name has long been known throughout the inhabited world, 
 and his story is familiar in every language. We need hardly 
 say that his name was Alexander Selkirk, and that his adven- 
 tures furnished the basis of the romance of Robinson Crusoe. 
 
 Alexander Selkirk was a Scotchman, and had been left upon 
 the island by Captain Stradling, of the Cinqueports, four years 
 and four months before. During his stay he had seen several 
 ships pass by, but only two came to anchor at the island. They 
 were Spaniards, and fired at him ; but ho escaped into the woods. 
 He said he would have surrendered to them had they been 
 French ; but he chose to run the risk of dying alone upon the 
 island rather than fall into the hands of Spaniards, as he feared 
 they would either put him to death or make him a slave in their 
 mines. " He told us,** says Rogers, " that he was born in Largo, 
 in the county of Fife, and was bred a sailor from his youth. 
 
ALEXANDER SELKIRK. 375 
 
 The reason of his being left here was a difference with his cap- 
 tain, which, together with the fact that the ship was leaky, made 
 him willing to stay behind ; but when at last he was inclined to go 
 with the ship the captain would not receive him. He took with 
 him his clothes and bedding, with a firelock and some powder 
 and bullets, some tobacco, a knife, a kettle, a Bible, with other 
 books, and his mathematical instruments. He diverted himself 
 and provided for his sustenance as well as he could, but had much 
 ado to bear up against melancholy for the first eight months, 
 and was sore distressed at being left alone in so desolate a place. 
 He built himself two huts of pimento-trees, thatched with long 
 grass and lined with goat-skins, — killing goats as he needed 
 them with his gun, as long as his powder lasted. When that 
 was all spent, he procured fire by rubbing two sticks of pimento 
 wood together. He slept in his large hut and cooked his 
 victuals in the smaller, and employed himself in reading, pray- 
 ing, and singing psalms, — so that, he said he was a better 
 Christian during his solitude than he had ever been before, or 
 than, he was afraid, he should ever be again. 
 
 "At first he never ate but when constrained by hunger, — 
 partly from grief, and partly for want of bread and salt. 
 Neither did he go to bed till he could watch no longer, — the 
 pimento wood serving him both for fire and candle, as it burned 
 very clear and refreshed him by its fragrant smell. His fish 
 he sometimes boiled, and at other times broiled, as he did his 
 goats' flesh, of which he made good broth; for they are not as 
 rank as our goats. Having kept an account, he said he had 
 killed five hundred goats while on the island, besides having 
 caught as many more, which he marked on the ear and let them 
 go. When his powder failed, he ran them down by speed of 
 foot; for his mode of living, with continual exercise of walking 
 and running, cleared him of all gross humors, so that he could 
 run with wonderful swiftness through the woods and up the hills 
 and rocks. 
 
S76 
 
 ocean's story. 
 
 " He came at length to relish his meat well enough without 
 salt. In the proper season he had plenty of good turnips, 
 which had been sowed there by the crew of the ship and had 
 now spread over several acres of ground. The cabbage-palm 
 furnished him with cabbage in abundance, and the fruit of the 
 pimento — the same as Jamaica pepper — with a pleasant season- 
 ing for his food. He soon wore out his shoes and other clothes 
 by running in the woods ; and, being forced to shift without, his 
 feet became so hard that he ran about everywhere without in- 
 convenience, and could not again wear shoes without suffering 
 from swelled feet. After he had got the better of his melan- 
 
 \ I. f A <A. 
 
 SELKIRK AND HIS FAMILY. 
 
 choly, he sometimes amused himself with carving his name on 
 the trees, together with the date of his arrival nnd the duration 
 of his solitude. At first he was much pestered with cats and 
 rats, which had bred there in great numbers from some of each 
 
A WILD LIFE. 377 
 
 species wliicli had got on shore from ships that had wooded and 
 watered at the island. The rats gnawed his feet and clothes 
 when he was asleep, which obliged him to cherish the cats, by 
 feeding them with goats' flesh, so that many of them became so 
 tame that they used to lie beside him in hundreds, and soon 
 delivered him from the rats. He also tamed some kids, and, for 
 his diversion, would sometimes sing and dance with them and 
 his cats. So that by the favor of Providence and the vigor of 
 youth — for he was now only thirty years of age — he came at 
 length to conquer all the inconveniences of his solitude, and to 
 be quite easy in his mind. 
 
 "When his clothes were worn out, he made himself a coat 
 and a cap of goat-skins, which he stitched together with thongs 
 of the same cut out with his knife, — using a nail by way of a 
 needle or awl. When his knife was worn out, he made others 
 as well as he could of old hoops that had been left upon the 
 shore, which he beat out thin between two stones and grinded 
 to an edge on a smooth stone. Having some linen cloth, he 
 sewed himself some shirts by means of a nail for a needle, 
 stitching them with worsted w^hich he pulled out from his old 
 stockings ; and he had the last of his shirts on when we found 
 him. At his first coming on board, he had so much forgotten 
 his language, for want of use, that we could scarcely understand 
 him, as he seemed to speak his words only by halves. We 
 offered him a dram, which he refused, having drunk nothing but 
 water all the time he had been upon the island ; and it was some 
 time before he could relish our provisions. He had seen no 
 venomous or savage creature on the island, nor any other animal 
 than goats, bred there from a few brought by Juan Fernandez, 
 a Spaniard who settled there with a few families till the oppo- 
 site continent of Chili began to submit to the Spaniards, when 
 they removed there as more profitable." 
 
 Captain Rogers remained here a fortnight, refitting his ship. 
 The "governor," as his men called Selkirk, never failed to pro- 
 
878 ocean's story. 
 
 cure two or three goats a day for the sick. They boiled up and 
 refined eighty gallons of seal-oil, in order to save their candles. 
 On the 13th of February, it was determined that two men from 
 the Duke should sail on board the Duchess, and two from the 
 Duchess on board the Duke, to see that justice was reciprocally 
 done by each ship's company to the other in the division of 
 prizes ; and on the 14th the anchors were weighed, Alexander 
 Selkirk shipping on board the Duke as second mate. 
 
 When off the Lobos Islands, they took a prize, which they 
 named The Beginning. They learned from their prisoners that 
 the widow of the late Viceroy of Peru was soon to embark at 
 Callao for Acapulco, with her family and riches; and they 
 determined to lie in wait for her. In the mean time they landed 
 and tobk the town of Guayaquil, but consented to its ransom 
 for thirty thousand dollars. They also seized thirteen small 
 vessels, from which they took meal, onions, quinces, pomegra- 
 nates, oil, indigo, pitch, sugar, gunpowder, and rice. 
 
 At the Gallapagos Islands they laid in a large stock of sea- 
 turtles and land-tortoises, some of the former weighing four 
 hundred pounds, while the latter laid eggs in profusion upon the 
 decks. Some of the men aflfirmed that they had seen one four 
 
 CATCHING TURTLE. 
 
 feet high, that two of their party had mounted on its back, and 
 that it easily carried them at Its usual slow pace, not appearing 
 to regard their weight. This monster was supposed to weigh 
 seven hundred pounds at least. 
 
CAPTURE OF A TREASURE SHIP. 379 
 
 Having made the coast of Mexico, and having determined to 
 wait only eight days either for the Manilla galleon or the ship 
 of the viceroy's widow, they were rejoiced to descry, on the 
 morning of the 22d of December, the Spanish treasure-ship 
 on the weather bow. Preparations were made for action, and 
 a large kettle of chocolate was boiled for the crew in lieu 
 of spirituous liquor. Prayers were then said, but were inter- 
 rupted, before they were concluded, by a shot from the enemy. 
 She had barrels hung at her yard-arm, which seemed to warn 
 the English of an explosion if they attempted to board. The 
 engagement commenced at eight, and lasted an hour, after which 
 she struck and surrendered. She bore the imposing name of 
 Nuestra Senora de la Encarna^ion Disenganio, and mounted 
 twenty guns. Nine of her men were killed and nine wounded. 
 Of the men of the Duke — the only ship of Rogers' fleet en- 
 gaged — but two were wounded. Captain Rogers himself, who 
 lost a portion of his upper jaw and two of his teeth, being one. 
 The name of the prize was changed from Our Lady, &c. to The 
 Bachelor, and she was equipped as a member of the squadron, 
 which now sailed immediately for the Ladrone Islands. 
 
 They arrived at Guam on the 10th of March, 1710, where 
 their wants were amply supplied, cocoanuts being furnished in 
 abundance at the rate of one dollar a hundred. Captain Rogers 
 bought one of the sailing proas of the islanders, which he had 
 seen sail at the rate of twenty miles an hour. He carried it to 
 England, intending to put it in the canal at St. James' Park as 
 a curiosity. At the Cape of Good Hope they joined a number 
 of homeward-bound ships, and sailed in company, early in April, 
 forming a fleet of sixteen Dutch and nine English ships. Rogers 
 and his consorts anchored at Erith, in the Thames, on the 14th 
 of October. 
 
 This voyage is the last in which Dampier is known to have 
 been engaged, and what became of him afterwards has never 
 been ascertained. It would not be easy to name, before the 
 
380 ocean's story. 
 
 time of Cook, a navigator to whom the merchant and mariner 
 are so much indebted. Ilis style was unassuming, as free from 
 affectation as was the narrative itself from invention. Dean 
 Swift made Captain Lemuel Gulliver hail Dampier as cousin. 
 
 The outfit of this voyage amounted to <£15,000, and the gross 
 profits to X170,000. One third of this, or .£57,000, was divided 
 among the officers and seamen. In view of this enormous return 
 for a two years' voyage, we can hardly wonder at the fact tliat 
 in this age, and during a long succeeding period, nearly all navi- 
 gation was privateering, and that all ventures upon the t^cas 
 appear to the reader of the present day as little better than the 
 marauding excursions of corsairs and buccaneers. 
 
 This is the proper place for speaking of the famous Company 
 formed for carrying on trade with the Spanish possessions in 
 the Pacific, which received, upon its calamitous failure, the name 
 of South Sea Bubble. This Company was formed, chartered, 
 and prospered and fell, soon after the return of Rogers and 
 Dampier. It originated in 1711, with Harley, the Lord Trea- 
 surer, his object being to improve public credit, and to provide 
 for the payment of the floating debt, amounting to £10,000,000. 
 He allured the nation's creditors by promising them the mono- 
 poly of trade with the Spanish coast in America. They greedily 
 swallowed the glittering bait, and dreamed of El Dorado and 
 Peruvian Golcondas. This spirit spread throughout the nation, 
 and, in 1719, rose to a fever heat of speculation. Sir John 
 Blunt, once a scrivener, now a prominent South Sea Director, 
 conceived the idea of consolidating all the public funds into one, 
 and 'made the proposal to the Government. The Bank of Eng- 
 land and the South Sea Company displayed the utmost eagerness 
 to outbid each other in the offers made for this magnificent pri- 
 vilege. The South Sea Company finally bid seven millions and 
 a half, and the bill then passed the two houses of Parliament 
 triumphantly. The Directors immediately opened a subscription 
 of a million, and then a second, both of which were eagerly filled. 
 
SPECULATIVE COMPANIES. 381 
 
 Every engine was set at work to delude the public : mysterious 
 rumors were rife of secret treasures in America, of overtures 
 made to Stanhope to exchange Gibraltar for a diamond-mine in 
 Peru, and of inexhaustible piles of wealth which were only 
 waiting to be snatched up by the fortunate subscribers to the 
 South Sea stock. The Directors began to quote dividends of 
 twenty, thirty, fifty per cent. They claimed that, being the only 
 national creditor, they could soon dictate to Parliament and rule 
 the country. The stock rose from one hundred and twenty-six 
 to one thousand. The mania was universal, — statesmen, washer- 
 women, Churchmen, Dissenters, ladies of high and low degree, 
 being all smitten alike. 
 
 Other bubbles were started by other companies, some of them 
 for the most extravagant objects, such as The Company to make 
 Salt Water Fresh, to Build Hospitals for Bastards, to Obtain 
 Silver from Lead, to Extract Oil from the Seeds of Sunflowers, 
 to Import Jackasses from Spain and thus improve the Breed of 
 English Mules, to Trade in Human Hair, and for a multitude 
 of other equally absurd purposes. The subscriptions thus 
 opened amounted at one period to no less than three hundred, 
 millions sterling. 
 
 These projects, which rose rapidly one after another and danced 
 in prismatic radiance before the public view, were regarded with 
 jealous eyes by the South Sea Directors, who wished to have a 
 monopoly of the trade in public credulity. They therefore ap- 
 plied for writs of " scire facias" against their managers, and, 
 by showing them to be frauds, suppressed them. But in thus 
 destroying the national confidence in bubbles generally they 
 seriously undermined that enjoyed by their own. Distrust was 
 now excited, and every one became anxious to convert his 
 bonds into money ; and then the enormous disproportion be- 
 tween the promises to pay on paper and the means to redeem in 
 coin became evident to all. The stock fell at once, as the basis 
 "which sustained it was proved to be altogether imaginary. 
 
882 
 
 vjcean's story. 
 
 Thousands of families were reduced to beggary, and the rage, 
 resentment, and disappointment were bitter and universal. The 
 Company sank into nothingness as rapidly as it had risen to 
 notoriety. Parliament passed a bill by which public confidence 
 was in a measure restored, while the estates of the Directors 
 and officers were confiscated and applied to the relief of the 
 sufierers. The proposed commerce with the Spanish American 
 provinces was naturally never opened, and the next expedition 
 of the English to that quarter, so far from being a voyage for 
 trade, was a very formidable excursion for plunder, — that of 
 Lord Anson, in 1740. We shall refer to this at length in its 
 proper place. 
 
 HAMMER HEAD SIIAUK. 
 
THE EAGLE AND THE PIRATE. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIX. 
 
 THE DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY — RENEWED SEARCH FOR THE TERRA AUS- 
 
 TRALIS INCOONITA — JACOB R0GG5WEIN HIS VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY — BRUSH 
 
 WITH PIRATES ARRIVAL AT JUAN FERNANDEZ EASTER ISLAND — ITS INHA- 
 BITANTS ENTERTAINMENT OF ONE ON BOARD THE SHIP A MISUNDERSTAND- 
 ING — PERNICIOUS AND RECREATION ISLANDS GLIMPSE OF THE SOCIETY ISLANDS 
 
 A FAMINE IN THE FLEET — ARRIVAL AT NEW BRITAIN — CONFISCATION OF 
 
 THE SHIP AT BATAVIA DECISION OF THE STATES-GENERAL — VITUS BEHRING 
 
 BEHRING's STRAIT DESCRIPTION OF THE SCENE — DEATH OF BEHRING 
 
 SUBSEQUENT SURVEY OF THE STRAIT. 
 
 The monopoly of the Dutch East India Company had been 
 somewhat disturbed, as early as the year 1621, by the formation 
 and charter of the Dutch West India Company. The latter 
 held the exclusive commerce of the African coast from the 
 tropic of Cancer to the Cape of Good Hope, and that of the 
 American coast both upon the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. In 
 1674, its power and influence were somewhat extended by a 
 fresh grant of privileges and an increase of capital. It was ne- 
 cessary for any one proposing a new scheme of commerce within 
 the limits under their control, to apply to the Company for 
 permission to execute it. A mathematician by the name of 
 Roggewein, a native of the province of Zealand, formed a 
 
 project, in 1696, for the discovery of the vast continent and 
 
 383 
 
884 ocean's story. 
 
 islands supposed to exist in the South under the name of Terra 
 Australis Incognita. He died, however, before any step was 
 taken by the Company in furtherance of his designs. His son, 
 Jacob Roggewein, renewed the application in 1721, presenting 
 a memorial, in accordance with which immediate orders were 
 given for equipping three vessels, — the Eagle, of thirty-six 
 guns, the Tienhoven, of twenty-eight, and the African galley, of 
 fourteen. Roggewein was made admiral, and two hundred and 
 seventy-one men were embarked upon the three ships. They 
 sailed from the Texel on the 21st of August, 1721. 
 
 When approaching the Canaries, they saw a fleet of five sail, 
 carrying white, red, and black colors, which caused the admiral 
 to suspect them to be pirates. He gave the signal for action, 
 when the enemy struck their red flag and hoisted a black one, 
 on which' was a death's-head with a powder-horn and cross- 
 bones. A brisk encounter succeeded ; and, aftei; two hours, the 
 pirates spread their canvas and bore away with all speed. 
 Roggewein did not follow them, — as all ships of the "West and 
 East India Companies had strict orders to pursue their course 
 and never to give chase. He had a long and painful passage 
 across the Atlantic, — the crews suffering from heat, hunger, 
 thirst, and the scurvy. Many of the men had high fevers, and 
 some of them fits like the epilepsy. 
 
 During a terrible hurricane on the 21st of December, the 
 Tienhoven parted company, and the Eagle and the African gal- 
 ley kept on together as far as the Strait of Magellan. In this 
 latitude, Roggewein saw the group of islands which a French 
 privateer had named Islands of St. Louis, but which some Dutch 
 traders had subsequently called the New Islands. Roggewein 
 baptized the group anew, and, thinking that if it should ever be 
 inhabited the people would be the antipodes of the Dutch, gave 
 it the name of Belgia Australis. He determined to make the 
 passage through Lemaire's Strait, and, being propelled by a 
 favorable wind and rapid currents, attained the western coast of 
 
DISCOVERIES IN THE PACIFIC. 385 
 
 America in six days* time. Whenever the weather was clear 
 the nights were exceedingly short ; for, though it was the middle 
 of January, the Antarctic summer was at its height. On arriving 
 at the island of Juan Fernandez, Roggewein was surprised and 
 rejoiced to see the Tienhoven safe at the rendezvous. The three 
 captains dined together the next day, and made merry over their 
 mutual convictions of each others' unhappy shipwreck. 
 
 After a considerable run to the westward, Roggewein dis- 
 covered, on the 14th of April, 1722, an island sixteen leagues 
 in extent, to which he gave the name of Easter Island, in com- 
 memoration of the day. This was one of the most important 
 discoveries ever made in the Pacific ; and Easter Island is, for 
 many reasons, one of the most famous oases in that desert of 
 water. Roggewein thus speaks of his first adventure there: — 
 *' One of the inhabitants came out to us, two miles from shore, 
 in a canoe. We gave him a piece of cloth, for he was quite 
 naked. He was also offered beads and other toys: he hung 
 them all, with a dried fish, about his neck. His body was all 
 painted with every kind of figures. He was brown : his ears 
 were extremely long and hung down to his shoulders, occa- 
 sioned, doubtless, by wearing large, heavy ear-rings. lie was 
 tall, strong, robust, and of an agreeable countenance. He was 
 gay, brisk, and easy in his behavior and manner of speaking. 
 A glass of wine was given to him: he took it, but, instead of 
 drinking it, threw it in his eyes, which surprised us very 
 much. We then dressed him and put a hat upon his head ; but 
 he wore it very awkwardly. After he was regaled with food, 
 the musicians were ordered to play on different instruments: 
 the symphony made him very merry, and he began to leap and 
 dance. We sent him back with presents, that the others might 
 know in what manner we had received him. He seemed to leave 
 us with regret, praying with great violence and uttering the 
 word 'Odorraga! odorraga !' The next day large numbers of 
 
 his countrymen came to our new anchorage, bringing us fowls 
 25 
 
SSQ ocean's story. 
 
 and roots. At sunrise they prostrated themselves with their 
 faces towards the east, and lighted fires as morning burnt-offer- 
 ings to their idols, of which there were many upon the coast." 
 Of these supposed idols we shall speak hereafter. 
 
 During the landing, in which one hundred and fifty of the 
 crevr took part, an islander was accidentally shot ; and sub- 
 sequently, as some of them touched, from curiosity, the Dutch 
 fire-arms, a volley of bullets was discharged at them, and among 
 the killed was the man who had first gone on board the admi- 
 ral's ship. The consternation and grief of the natives was very 
 great: they brought all kinds of provisions as ransom for the 
 dead bodies. They threw themselves upon their knees, and 
 offered branches of palms in sign of peace. The Dutch carried 
 their outrages no further, but exchanged assurances of good 
 will. They gave sixty yards of painted cloth for eight hundred 
 fowls, some bundles of sugarcane, and a large quantity of plan- 
 tains, cocoanuts, figs, and potatoes. Roggewein was of opinion 
 that the island might be colonized to advantage, as the air was 
 wholesome and the soil rich : the low lands seemed fitted to pro- 
 duce corn, and the higher grounds well adapted to vineyards, 
 lie intended to land with a sufficient force to make a general 
 survey ; but, in the mean time, a west wind forced him from his 
 anchorage and drove him out to sea. 
 
 lie soon found himself in the wide tract which had obtained 
 the name of Bad Sea, on account of the brackish water of one 
 of its islands. Through this region he sailed eight hundred 
 leagues, and, by a change of wind, was driven with his consorts 
 among a number of islands, by which they were considerably 
 embarrassed. The Africa, which drew the least water, was sent 
 in advance, but soon got upon the rocks and fired signals of dis- 
 tress. Night came on, and the natives, alarmed by the reports, 
 kindled fires and came in crowds to the shore. The Dutch, 
 whose confusion of mind seems to have been extreme, fired upon 
 them without ceremony, that they might have as few dangers as 
 
bowman's islands DISCOVEUED. 337 
 
 possible to contend with at once. In the morning the Africa 
 was found to be jammed between two rocks, from wlience she 
 could not be disengaged. She was therefore abandoned. The 
 island upon which she was lost was named Pernicious Island. 
 Five men deserted here, and were left behind. Eight leagues 
 from Pernicious, an island, discovered at daybreak, was named 
 Aurora; and another, seen at sunset, was called Vesper. At 
 another, which they named the Island of Recreation, a party 
 sent on shore for salad and scurvy-grass for the sick had so 
 desperate an encounter with the natives, that, when a second 
 landing was proposed, not a man could be prevailed upon to 
 make the dangerous attempt. 
 
 Roo;f!;ewein was now convinced that no Terra Inco^^nita was 
 to be discovered in the latitude he had kept, and therefore re- 
 solved, in accordance with his instructions, to return home by 
 way of the East Indies. His crews were so reduced that a 
 further loss of twenty men would compel him to abandon one 
 of his remaining vessels. The officers regretted this decision ; 
 for they were anxious to visit the lands named Solomon's Islands 
 by Mendana on account of their supposed wealth ; but they 
 were now compelled to return by way of New Britain, the Mo- 
 luccas, and the East Indies. 
 
 Not far from Recreation Island, a group was discovered by 
 the captain of the Tienhoven, and was named, from him. Bow- 
 man's Islands. The natives came off to the ships with fish, 
 cocoanuts, and plantains. They were generally white, except 
 that some were bronzed by the heat of the sun. They appeared 
 gentle and humane: their bodies were not painted, and were 
 clothed from the waist downward with fringes of woven silk. 
 Around their necks they wore strings of odoriferous flowers. 
 Roggewein describes them as altogether the most civilized and 
 honest nation he had seen in the South Sea : — " Charmed with 
 our arrival, they received us as divinities, and testified afterwards 
 great regret when they perceived we were preparing to depart : 
 
388 ocean's story. 
 
 sadness was painted in their countenance as we left." These 
 islands are supposed to have been the most northerly of the 
 group now known as the Society Islands. 
 
 During the long run to New Britain, the frightful effects of 
 bad provisions were made painfully manifest, for the salt meat 
 had long been decayed, the bread was full of maggots, and the 
 water intolerably putrid. The scurvy began to cut off four 
 and five men a day. Cries and groans were incessantly heard 
 in all parts of the ship: those who were well fainted at the 
 stench of the carcasses. Some were reduced to skeletons, so 
 that the skin cleaved to their bones, while others swelled to a 
 monstrous and disgusting size. The journal says that "an ana- 
 baptist of twenty-five years old called out continually to be 
 baptized, and when told, with a sneer, that there was no parson 
 on board, became quiet, and died with great resignation." At last 
 the high land of New Britain put an end to their miseries, — 
 for which there was no cure on earth except fresh meat, green 
 vegetables, and pure water. 
 
 The expedition intrusted to Roggewein having proved abortive 
 by the failure to find a Southern continent, we shall follow his 
 adventures no farther. It will suffice to say that his ships were 
 confiscated at Batavia by the Dutch East India Company, — a 
 proceeding which the West India Company resented by com- 
 mencing an action for damages. After a long litigation, the 
 States-General decreed that the former Company should furnish 
 the latter with two ships better than those confiscated, should 
 refund the full value of their cargoes, should pay the wages of 
 both crews to the day of their return to Holland, together with 
 the costs, and a heavy fine by way of punishment for having so 
 manifestly abused their authority. 
 
 We come now to the first expedition at sea made by Russia 
 for the purpose of extending and promoting the science of geo- 
 graphy. Vitus Behring was a Dane in the Russian service, 
 having been tempted by the encouragements held out to foreign 
 
THE DISCOVERY OF BEURING's STRAIT 389 
 
 mariners by Peter the Great. He had risen to the rank of 
 captain in 1725, when the Empress Catherine, who was anxious 
 to promote discovery in the Northeast of Asia and to settle the 
 question, then doubtful, as to the existence of a strait between 
 Asia and America, appointed him to the command of an expe- 
 dition fitted out for that purpose. During a period of seven 
 years, having travelled overland to Kamschatka, he explored 
 rivers, sounded and surveyed the coasts, and sailed as far to the 
 northward as the season and the strength of his very inferior 
 boats would permit. In 1732, he was made captain-commander, 
 and the next year was ordered to conduct an expedition fitted 
 out on a very extensive scale for purposes of discovery. In 
 1740, he reached Okhotsk, where vessels had previously been 
 built for him. He sailed for Awatska Bay, where he founded 
 the settlement of Petropaulowski, known in English as the Har- 
 bor of Peter and Paul. Sailing to the northward, he landed upon 
 the American coast, giving name to Mount St. Elias, and then, 
 returning to the westward, struck the continent of Asia, finding 
 a strait fifty miles wide between the two continents at the point 
 where they approach each other the nearest. This, in honor of 
 its discoverer, is called Behring's Strait. 
 
 The following description of this scene of desolation, as it first 
 broke upon Behring's eye, is due to the imagination of Eugene 
 Sue: — ^'The month of September," he says, "is at its close. The 
 equinox has come with darkness, and sullen night will soon 
 displace the short and gloomy days of the Pole. The sky, of a 
 dark violet color, is feebly lighted by a sun which dispenses no 
 heat, and whose white disk, scarcely elevated above the horizon, 
 pales before the dazzling brightness of the snow. To the north, 
 this desert is bounded by a coast bristling with black and gigantic 
 rocks. At the foot of their Titanic piles lies motionless the vast 
 ice-bound ocean. To the east appears a line of darkish green, 
 whence seem to creep forth numerous white and glassy icebergs. 
 This is the channel which now bears the name of Behring. Be- 
 
890 ocean's story. 
 
 yond it, and towering above it, are the vast granitic masses of 
 Cape Prince of Wales, the extreme point of North America. 
 These desohite latitudes are beyond the pale of tlie habitable 
 world. The piercing cold rends the very stones, cleaves the trees, 
 and bursts the ground, which groans in producing the germs of 
 its icy herbage. A few black pines, the growth of centuries, 
 pointing their distorted tops in different directions of the solitude, 
 like crosses in a churchyard, have been torn up and hurled 
 around in confusion by the storm. The raging hurricane, not 
 content with uprooting trees, drives mountains of ice before it, and 
 dashes them, with the crash of thunder, the one against the other. 
 " And now a night without twilight has succeeded to tlie day, 
 — dark, dark night ! The heavy cupola of the sky is of so deep 
 a blue that it appears black, and the Polar stars are lost in the 
 deptlis of an obscurity which seems palpable to the touch. 
 Silence reigns alone. But suddenly a feeble glimmer appears 
 in the horizon. At first it is softly brilliant, blue as the light 
 which precedes the rising of the moon ; then the effulgence in- 
 creases, expands, and assumes a roseate hue. Strange and con- 
 fused sounds are hcaid, — sounds like the flight of huge night 
 birds as they flnp their wings heavily over the plain. These are 
 the forerunners of one of those imposing phenomena which 
 strike with awe all animated nature. An aurora borealis, that 
 magnificent spectacle of the Polar regions, is at hantl. In 
 the horizon there appears a semicircle of dazzling brightness. 
 From the centre of this glowing hemisphere radiate blazing 
 columns and jets of light, rising to measureless heights and 
 illumining heaven, enrtli, and sea. They glide along the snows 
 of the desert, empurpling the blue tops of the ice-mountains 
 and tinging with a deepened red the tall black rocks of the two 
 continents. Having thus reached the fulness of its splendor, 
 the aurora grows gradually pale, and diffuses its effulgence in a 
 luminous mist. At this moment, from the fantastic illusions of 
 the mirage, frequent in those latitudes, the American coasts 
 
t, i i§ 
 
892 ocean's story. 
 
 though separated from that of Asia by the interposition of an 
 arm of the sea, suddenly approaches so near it that a bridge 
 might be thrown from one world to the other. Did human 
 beings inhabit those regions and breathe the pale- blue vapors 
 which pervade them, they might almost converse across the 
 narrow inlet which serves to divide the continents. But now 
 the aurora fades away, and the deceptive mirage sinks back 
 into the shadowy realms from whence it came. Fifty miles of 
 sullen waters roll again between the continents, and a three 
 months' night settles over the ghastly and appalling scene." 
 
 It is not improbable that Behring passed to the north of East 
 Cape, the promontory on the Asiatic side, into the Arctic 
 Ocean beyond. He was soon compelled to return, owing to the 
 disabled condition of his vessel, Avhich was wrecked upon an 
 island on the 3d of November, 1741. This island, which was 
 little better than a naked rock, afforded neither food nor shelter ; 
 and Behring, suffering from the scurvy and sinking from disap- 
 pointment, lay down in a cleft of the rock to die. The sand 
 collected and drifted about him, half burying him alive. He would 
 not suflfer it to be removed, as it afforded him a grateful warmth. 
 He died in this wretched condition on the 8th of December. The 
 next summer, the few of his crew who survived the winter built 
 a vessel from the timber of the wreck : in this they reached Kam- 
 schatka and made known the miserable fate of their commander. 
 
 Though Behring settled the fact of the existence of the strait 
 which bears his name, it was reserved for Captain Cook to 
 survey the entire length of both coasts. This he did with a 
 precision and accuracy which left nothing for after-voyagers to 
 perform, and which has mode the geography of this remote and 
 b r.-barous region as familiar as that of the Atlantic shores of 
 America. The island upon which Beliring died, and which was 
 tiien uninhabited and without a shrub upon its surface, is now 
 an important trading station, and affords comfortable winter 
 quarters to vessels from Okhotsk and Kamschatka. 
 
LORD ANSON. 
 
 CHAPTER XL. 
 
 PIRATICAL VOYAGE UNDER GEORGE ANSON UNPARALLELED MORTALITY AR- 
 RIVAL AND SOJOURN AT JUAN FERNANDEZ — A PRIZE CAPTURE OF PAITA 
 
 PREPARATIONS TO ATTACK THE MANILLA GALLEON DISAPPOINTMENT FOR- 
 TUNATE ARRIVAL AT TINIAN — ROMANTIC ACCOUNT OF THE ISLAND A STORM 
 
 ANSOn's ship driven OUT TO SEA THE ABANDONED CREW SET ABOUT 
 
 BUILDING A BOAT — RETURN OF THE CENTURION BATTLE WITH THE MANILLA 
 
 GALLEON ANSON's ARRIVAL IN ENGLAND — THE PROCEEDS OF THE CRUI8K. 
 
 The statesmen of England had now become penetrated with 
 the idea that, in order to consolidate their territorial supremacy, 
 they must make their country the undisputed mistress of the 
 seas. War was declared against Spain in 1739, and the king 
 determined to attack that power in her distant settlements and 
 deprive her, if possible, of her possessions in America, and 
 especially in Peru. It was supposed that the principal resources 
 
394: ocean's story. 
 
 of the enemy Avould be by this means cut off, and that the 
 Spanish would be reduced to the necessity of suing for peace, 
 deprived as they would be of the returns of that treasure by 
 which alone they could be enabled to support the drains of a 
 foreign war. A fleet of six vessels, manned by fourteen hundred 
 men and accompanied by two victualling-ships, was placed under 
 the command of George Anson, a captain in the naval service. 
 The flag-sliip was the Centurion, mounting sixty guns and 
 carrying four hundred men. On their way out from Spithead, 
 on the 18th of September, 1740, the fleet was joined by an 
 immense convoy of trading ships, which were to keep them 
 company a portion of the way, — numbering in all eleven men-of- 
 war and one hundred and fifty sail of merchantmen. 
 
 The squadron passed through Lemuire's Strait on the Tth 
 of March, 1741. "We could not help persuading ourselves," 
 writes Anson, "that the greatest difficulty of our voyage was 
 now at an end, and that our most sanguine dreams were upon 
 the point of being realized; and hence we indulged our imagi- 
 nations in those romantic schemes which the fancied possession 
 of the Chilian gold and Peruvian silver might be conceived 
 to inspire. Thus animated by these flattering delusions, we 
 passed those memorable straits, ignorant of the dreadful calami- 
 ties which were then impending and just ready to break upon 
 us, — ignorant that the time drcAV near when the squadron would 
 be separated never to unite again, and that this day of our 
 passage was the last cheerful day that the greater part of us 
 would ever live to enjoy." 
 
 The sternmost ships were no sooner clear of the Strait, than 
 the tranquillity of the sky was suddenly disturbed, and all the 
 presages of a threatening storm appeared in the heavens and 
 upon the waters. The winds were let loose upon the unfortu- 
 nate fleet, and for three long months blew upon them with 
 unrelenting fury. The Severn and Pearl parted company and 
 were never seen again. During the month of April, forty-three 
 
THE EFFECT OF SCURVY. 395 
 
 of the crew of the Centurion died of the scurvy ; and during the 
 passage from the Strait to the island of Juan Fernandez the 
 flag-ship lost, by this disease, bj accident, and by tempest, two 
 hundred and fifty men; and she could not at last muster more 
 than six foremast-men capable of doing duty. On the 22d of 
 May, all the various disasters, fatigues, and terrors which had 
 previously attacked the Centurion in succession now combined 
 in a simultaneous onset, and seem to have conspired for her 
 destruction. A terrific hurricane from the starboard quarter 
 split all her sails and broke all her standing rigging, endangered 
 the masts, and shifted the ballast and stores. The air was filled 
 with fire, and the ofiicers and men upon the decks were wounded 
 by exploding flashes which coursed and darted from spar to spar. 
 
 Thus crippled and disabled, with five men dying every day, 
 and not ten of the crew able to go aloft, the Centurion, sepa- 
 rated from her consorts, and supposing them to have perished 
 in the storm, made the best of her weary Avay to the island of 
 Juan Fernandez, where she arrived at daybreak on the 9th of 
 June, after losing eighty more men from the scurvy. 
 
 *'The aspect of this diversified country would at all times," 
 says Anson, "have been delightful; but in our distressed situa- 
 tion, languishing as we were for the land and its vegetable 
 productions, — an inclination attending every stage of the sca- 
 Bcurvy, — it is scarcely credible with what transport and eager- 
 ness we viewed the shore, and with how much impatience we 
 longed for the greens and other refreshments which were then 
 in sight, and particularly the water. Even those among the 
 diseased who were not in the very last stages of the distemper 
 exerted the small remains of strength which were left them, 
 and crawled up to the deck to feast themselves with this reviving 
 prospect. Thus we coasted the shore, fully employed in the 
 contemplation of this enchanting landskip." 
 
 In his description of the island, Anson speaks of the former 
 residence of Alexander Selkirk upon it, and says, "Selkirk 
 
396 ocean's story. 
 
 tells us, among other things, that, as he often caught more goats 
 than he wanted, he sometimes marked their ears and let them go. 
 This was about thirty-two years before our arrival at the island 
 Now, it happened that the first goat that was killed by our 
 people had his ears slit; whence we concluded that he had 
 doubtless been formerly under the power of Selkirk. He was 
 an animal of a most venerable aspect, dignified with an exceed- 
 in<y majestic beard and with many other symptoms of antiquity." 
 The Centurion was soon joined by the Tryal sloop of war, 
 by the Gloucester, and the victualler Anna Pink: the other 
 members of the squadron were never heard of again. Upon 
 the island, which was entirely deserted, Anson thought he dis- 
 covered appearances which indicated the recent presence there of 
 a Spanish force ; and, as they might return, every effort was made 
 to get the ships and the men in position to cope with them on 
 equal terms. While refitting, a sail was discovered upon the 
 distant horizon, and the Centurion started out in pursuit of her. 
 Anson took her for a Spanish man-of-war, and ordered the 
 oflficers* cabin to be knocked down and thrown overboard, and 
 the decks to be cleared for action. She proved, however, to be 
 an unarmed merchantman saihng under Spanish colors. She 
 surrendered without delay, and proved to be the Monte Carmclo, 
 bound from Callao to Valparaiso, with a cargo of sugar and blue 
 cloth, and, what was infinitely more acceptable to Anson and his 
 crew, eighty thousand dollars in Spanish coin. The Centurion 
 then returned with her prize to Juan Fernandez. The spirits 
 of the English were greatly raised by this capture, and their 
 despondency dissipated by so tangible an earncsj of success. 
 The repairs upon all the vessels were hastily completed, and, 
 while they were sent to cruise in different directions in search 
 of Spanish merchantmen, the Centurion and the Carmelo sailed, 
 on the 19th of September, for the general rendezvous at Val- 
 paraiso. 
 
 In November, Anson determined to attack, with the force of 
 
PAITA DESTROYED. 
 
 397 
 
 his two vessels, the unfortunate seaport of Paita, in Peru, — 
 which, as may be seen from our narrative, was invariably at- 
 tacked by every successive depredator. The town was taken with 
 
 BOMBARDMENT OF PAITA. 
 
 the utmost ease, — the governor, who was in bed at the time of 
 the surprise, running away half naked in the utmost precipitation, 
 and leaving his wife, hardly seventeen years old, and to whom he 
 had been married but three days, to take care of herself. The 
 custom-house, where the treasure lay, was seized upon and its 
 contents transported to the ship. Anson, not satisfied with this, 
 sent word to the governor, who had come to a halt on a distant 
 hill, that he would listen to proposals for ransom. The governor, 
 who was somewhat arrogant for a magistrate who had made so 
 signal a display of poltroonery, did not deign to return an answer 
 to these overtures : he collected together his people, however, 
 and prepared to storm the city, but, upon second thoughts, 
 prudently abstained. Pitch, tar, and other combustibles were 
 now distributed by Anson's men among the houses of Paita ; 
 the cannon^ the fort were spiked, and fire was then set to the 
 town, which was speedily reduced to ashes. The loss of the 
 Spaniards by the fire, in broadcloths, silks, velvets, cambrics, 
 was represented by them to the court of Madrid as amounting 
 to a million and a half of dollars. Anson's ships carried away 
 with them, in plate, coin, and jewels, about one hundred and 
 fifty thousand dollars more. Soon after leaving Paita, they fell 
 
398 ocean's story. 
 
 in with a launch laden with jars of cotton. The people on 
 board said they were very poor ; but, as they were found dining 
 on pigeon pie served up in silver dishes, it was thought advisable 
 to search for the sources of this opulence. The jars of cotton 
 were found to contain sixty thousand dollars in double doubloons. 
 
 Anson now determined to steer for the southern parts of Cali- 
 fornia, there to cruise for the galleon due at Acapulco from Ma- 
 nilla towards the middle of January. He did not arrive there 
 till the 1st of February, 1742 ; but, being assured by some of his 
 Spanish prisoners that the galleon was often a month behind 
 her average time, he stood on and off, waiting with feverish 
 impatience for an arrival whose value he estimated in round 
 millions. He soon learned, from some negroes whom he cap- 
 tured, that the galleon had arrived on the 9th of January. 
 They added, however, that she had delivered her cargo, and 
 that the Viceroy of Mexico had fixed her departure from Aca- 
 pulco, on her return, for the 14th of March. This news was 
 joyfully received by Anson and his men, as it was much more 
 advantageous for them to seize the specie which she had received 
 for her cargo than to seize the cargo itself. 
 
 It was now the 19th of February, and the galleon was not to 
 leave port till the 14th of March, or, according to the old style 
 followed by Anson, the 3d of March. The interval was em- 
 ployed in scrubbing the ships' bottoms, in bringing them into 
 the most advantageous trim, and in regulating the orders, 
 signals, and positions to be observed when the famous ship 
 should appear in sight. The positions held were as follows. 
 The squadron was stationed forty miles from shore, — an offing 
 quite sufficient to escape observation : it consisted of the Centu- 
 rion, the Gloucester, and three armed prizes: these were ar- 
 ranged in a circular line, and each ship was nine miles distant 
 from the next, the two vessels at the extremes being, therefore, 
 thirty-six miles apart. As the galleon could be easily discerned 
 twenty miles outside of either extremity, the whole sweep of 
 
PRIZES SUNK. 399 
 
 the squadron was seventy-five miles, the various vessels com- 
 posing it being so connected by signals as to be leadily informed 
 of what was seen in any part of the line. The Centurion and 
 the Gloucester were alone intended to come to close quarters, 
 or, indeed, to engage in the action at all : they were therefore 
 strengthened by accessions from the others. 
 
 The calls of hunger and all other duties were neglected on 
 the 3d of March : all eyes were strained in the direction of 
 Acapulco, and voices continually exclaimed that they saw one 
 of the cutters returning with a signal. To their extreme vexa- 
 tion and dismay, both that day and the next passed without 
 bringing news of the galleon. A fortnight went by; and Anson 
 at last came to the melancholy conclusion that his presence 
 upon the coast had been discovered, and that an embargo had 
 been laid upon the object of all their hopes. He afterwards 
 discovered that his presence was suspected, but not known, but 
 that the wary Spaniards had frustrated his schemes by detain- 
 ing the galleon till the succeeding year. With a heavy heart, 
 the admiral gave orders for the departure of the fleet from the 
 American coast, in prosecution of the plans drawn up previous 
 to his leaving England. He sailed early in May with the Cen- 
 turion and Gloucester only, having scuttled and destroyed his 
 three prizes on the enemy's coast. 
 
 A terrible attack of scurvy soon reduced both vessels to half 
 their working force, and a storm of unusual violence completely 
 disabled the Gloucester. She held out, however, till the middle 
 of August, when her stores, her prize-money, and her sick were 
 with great difficulty removed to the Centurion, which was herself 
 in a crazy and well-nigh desperate condition. The Gloucester 
 was set on fire, lest her wreck might fall into the hands of the 
 Spaniards : she continued burning through the night, firing her 
 guns successively as the flames reached them: the magazine 
 exploded at daylight. 
 
 The Centurion kept on her way, losing eight, nine, and ten 
 
400 ocean's stor^. 
 
 men every twenty-four hours. A leak was discovered, which all 
 the skill of the carpenters failed to stop. The ship and men 
 were in a condition bordering on positive despair. Under these 
 circumstances, the sight of two distant islands revived for a time 
 their drooping spirits. But these islands Avere bare and unin- 
 habited rocks, aifording neither anchorage nor fresh water. The 
 reaction produced by this disappointment was evident in the 
 renewed ravages of the relentless scurvy. *'And now," says 
 Anson, " the only possible circumstance which could secure the 
 few of us which remained alive from perishing, was the acci- 
 dental falling in with some other of the Ladrone Islands better 
 prepared for our accommodation ; but, as our knowledge of them 
 was extremely imperfect, we were to trust entirely to chance for 
 our guidance. Thus, with the most gloomy persuasion of an 
 approaching destruction, we stood from the island-rock of Ana- 
 tacan, having all of us the strongest apprehensions either of 
 dying of the scurvy, or of being destroyed with the ship, which, 
 for want of hands to work her pumps, might in a short time be 
 expected to founder." 
 
 On the 27th of August, the Centurion came in sight of a 
 fertile and, as Anson supposed, inhabited island, which he after- 
 wards found to be one of the Ladrones and named Tinian. Fearing 
 the inhabitants to be Spaniards, and knowing himself to be in- 
 capable of defence, Anson showed Spanish colors, and hoisted 
 a red flag at the foretopmast head, intending by this to give his 
 vessel the appearance of the Manilla galleon, and hoping to 
 decoy some of the islanders on board. The trick succeeded, and 
 a Spaniard and four Indians were easily taken, with their boat. 
 The Spaniard said the island was uninhabited, though it was one 
 of an inhabited group : he aflirmed that there was plenty of fresh 
 water, that cattle, hogs, and poultry ran wild over the rocks, 
 that the woods aflbrded sweet and sour oranges, limes, lemons, 
 and cocoanuts, besides a peculiar fruit which served instead of 
 bread; that, from the quantity and goodness of the productions 
 
A STOREHOUSE AND HOSPITAL. 401 
 
 of the island, the Spaniards of the neighboring station of Guam 
 used it as a storehouse and granary from whence they drew in- 
 exhaustible supplies. 
 
 A portion of this relation Anson could verify upon the spot : 
 he discovered herds of cattle feeding in security upon the island, 
 and it was not difficult to fill, in imagination, the rich forests 
 which clothed it, with tropical fruits and all the varied produc- 
 tions of those beneficent climes. On landing, he at once con- 
 verted a storehouse filled with jerked beef into an hospital for 
 the sick : in this he deposited one hundred and twenty-eight of 
 his invalids. The salutary effect of land-treatment and vege- 
 table food was such that, though twenty-one died on the first 
 day, only ten others died during the two months that the Cen- 
 turion remained at anchor in the harbor. 
 
 ANSON'S ENCAMPMENT AT TINIAN. 
 
 Anson gives a romantic account of the happy island of Tinian 
 The vegetation was not luxuriant and rank, but resembled the 
 clean and uniform lawns of an English estate. The turf was 
 composed of clover intermixed with a variety of flowers. The 
 woods consisted of tall and wide-spreading trees, imposing in their 
 aspect or inviting in their fruit. Three thousand cattle, milk- 
 white with the exception of their ears, which were black, grazed 
 in a single meadow. The clamor and paradings of domestic 
 poultry excited the idea of neighboring farms and villages. 
 Both the cattle and the fowls were easily run down and captured, 
 
 so that the Centurion husbanded her ammunition. The hogs were 
 26 
 
402 ocean's story. 
 
 hunted by dogs trained to the pursuit, a number of which had 
 been left by the Spaniards of Guam : they readily transferred 
 their services and their allegiance to the English invaders. The 
 island also produced in abundance the very best specifics for 
 scorbutic disorders, — such as dandelion, mint, scurvy-grass, and 
 sorrel. The inlets furnished fish of plethoric size and inviting 
 taste; the lakes abounded with duck^ teal, and curlew, and in 
 the thickets the sportsmen found whole coveys of whistling 
 plover. 
 
 On the night of the 22d of September a violent storm drove 
 the Centurion from her anchorage, sundering her cables like 
 packthread. Anson was on shore, down with the scurvy ; several 
 of the officers, and a large part of the crew, amounting in all 
 to one hundred and thirteen persons, were on shore with him. 
 This catastrophe reduced all, both at sea and on land, to the 
 utmost despair: those in the ship were totally unprepared to 
 struggle with the fury of the winds, and expected each moment 
 to be their last ; those on shore supposed the Centurion to be 
 lost, and conceived that no means were left them ever to depart 
 from the island. As no European ship had probably anchored 
 here before, it was madness to expect that chance would send 
 another in a hundred ages to come Besides, the Spaniards of 
 Guam could not fail to capture them ere long, and, as their 
 letters of marque were gone in the Centurion, they would un- 
 doubtedly be treated as pirates. 
 
 In this desperate state of things, Anson, who preserved, to 
 all outward appearance, his usual composure, projected a scheme 
 for extricating himself and his men from their forlorn situation. 
 In case the Centurion did not return within a week, he said, it 
 would be fair to conclude, not that she was wrecked, but that 
 she had been driven too far to the leeward of the island to be 
 able to return to it, and had doubtless borne away for Macao. 
 Their policy, therefore, was to attempt to join her there. To 
 effect this, they must haul the Spanish bark, which they had 
 
COCOANUT MILK. 403 
 
 captured on their arrival, ashore, saw her asunder, lengthen her 
 twelve feet, — which would give her forty tons' burden and enable 
 her to carry them all to China. The carpenters, who had been 
 fortunately left on the island, had been consulted, and had pro- 
 nounced the proposal feasible. The men, who at first were 
 unwilling to abandon all hope of the Centurion's return, at last 
 saw the necessity of active co-operation, and went zealously to 
 work. 
 
 The blacksmith, with his forge and tools, was the first to com- 
 mence his task ; but, unhappily, his bellows had been left on 
 board the ship. Without his bellows he could get no fire ; without 
 fire he could mould no iron ; and without iron the carpenters 
 could not rivet a single plank. But the cattle furnished hides 
 in plenty, and these hides were imperfectly tanned with the help 
 of a hogshead of lime found in the jerked-beef warehouse: with 
 this improvised leather, and with a gun-barrel for a pipe, a pair 
 of bellows was constructed which answered the intention tolerably 
 well. Trees were felled and sawed into planks, Anson working 
 with axe and adze as vigorously as any of his men. The juice 
 of the cocoanut furnished the men a natural and abundant grog, 
 and one which had this advantage over the distilled mixture to 
 which that name is usually applied, — that it did not intoxicate 
 them, but kept them temperate and orderly. When the main 
 work had been thus successfully started, it was found, on consul- 
 tation, that the tent on shore, some cordage accidentally left by 
 the Centurion, and the sails and rigging already belonging to 
 the bark, would serve to equip her indifferently when she was 
 lengthened. Two disheartening circumstances were now dis- 
 covered: all the gunpowder which could be collected by the 
 strictest search amounted to just ninety charges, — considerably 
 less than one charge apiece to each member of the company : 
 their only compass was a toy, such as are made for the amuse- 
 ment of school-boys. Their only quadrant was a crazy instru- 
 ment which had been thrown overboard from the Centurion with 
 
404 ocean's story. 
 
 other lumber belonging to the dead, and which had providentially 
 been washed ashore. It was examined by the known latitude 
 of the island of Tinian, and answered in a manner which con- 
 vinced Anson that, though very bad, it was at least better than 
 nothing. 
 
 On the 9th of October — the seventeenth day from the depar- 
 ture of the ship — matters were in such a state of forwardness 
 that Anson was able to fix the 5th of November as the date of 
 their putting to sea upon their voyage of two thousand miles. 
 But a happier lot was in store for them. On the 11th, a man 
 working upon a hill suddenly cried out, in great ecstas}', " The 
 ship! the ship!" The commodore threw down his axe and 
 rushed with his men — all of them in a state of mind bordering 
 on frenzy — to the beach. By five in the afternoon the Cen- 
 turion — for it was she — was visible in the offing: a boat with 
 eiorhteen men to reinforce her, and with meat and refreshments 
 for the crew, was sent off to her. She came happily to anchor 
 in the roads the next day, and the commodore went on board, 
 where he was received with the heartiest acclamations. The 
 vessel had, during this interval of nineteen days, been the sport 
 of storms, currents, leakages, and false reckonings; she had but 
 one-fourth of her complement of men ; and when, by a happy 
 accident of driftage, she came in sight of the island, the crew 
 were so weak they could with difficulty put the ship about. 
 The reinforcement of eighteen men was sent at the very moment 
 when, in sight of the long wished-for haven, the exhausted 
 sailors were on the point of abandoning themselves to despair. 
 
 Fifty casks of water, and a large quantity of oranges, lemons, 
 and cocoanuts were now hastily put on board the Centurion. 
 On the 21st of October, the bark (so lately the object of all the 
 commodore's hopes and fears) was set on fire and destroyed. 
 The vessel then weighed anchor, and took leave of the island of 
 Tinian, — an island which, in the language of Anson, "whether 
 we consider the excellence of its productions, the beauty of its 
 
REPAIRING FOR THE PRIZE. 4U6 
 
 appearance, the elegance of its woods and lawns, the healthiness 
 of its air, and the adventures it gave rise to, may in all these 
 views be justly styled romantic." After a smooth run of twenty 
 days, the Centurion came to an anchor on the 12th of Novem- 
 ber, in the roads of Macao, — thus, after a fatiguing cruise of two 
 years, arriving at an amicable port and in a civilized country, 
 where naval stores could be procured with ease, and, above all, 
 where the crew expected the inexpressible satisfaction of receiv- 
 ing letters from their friends and families. 
 
 The Centurion remained more than five months at Macao, 
 where she was careened, thoroughly overhauled, and refitted. 
 The crew was reinforced by entering twenty-three men, some of 
 them being Lascars, or Indian sailors, and some of them Dutch. 
 On the 19th of April, the admiral got to sea, having announced 
 that he was bound to Batavia and from thence to England, 
 and, in order to confirm this delusion, having taken letters on 
 board at Canton and Macao directed to dear friends in Batavia. 
 But his real design was to cruise ofi" the Philippine Isles for the 
 returning Manilla galleon. Indeed, as he had the year before 
 prevented the sailing of the annual ship, he had good reason to 
 believe that there would this year be two. He therefore made 
 all haste to reach Cape Espiritu Santo, the first land the gal- 
 leons were accustomed to make. They were said to be stout 
 vessels, mounting forty-four guns and carrying five hundred 
 hands ; while he himself had but two hundred and twenty-seven 
 hands, thirty of whom were boys. But he had reason to expect 
 that his men would exert themselves to the utmost in view of 
 the fabulous wealth to be obtained. 
 
 The Centurion made Cape Espiritu Santo late in May, and 
 from that moment forward her people waited in the utmost im- 
 patience for the happy crisis which was to balance the account 
 of their past calamities. They were drilled every day in the 
 working of the guns and in the use of their small-arms. The 
 vessel kept at a distance from the cape, in order not to be dis- 
 
406 ocean's story. 
 
 covered. But, in spite of all precautions, she was seen from 
 the land, and information of her presence was sent to Manilla, 
 where a force consisting of two ships of thirty-two guns, one of 
 twenty guns, and two sloops of ten guns, was at once equipped ; 
 it never sailed, however, on account of the monsoon. 
 
 On the 20th of June, at sunrise, the man at the masthead of 
 the Centurion discovered a sail in the southeast quarter. A 
 general joy spread through the ship, and the commodore in- 
 stantly stood towards her. At eight o'clock she was visible 
 from the deck, and proved to be the famous Manilla galleon. 
 She did not change her course, much to Anson's surprise, but 
 continued to bear down upon him. It afterwards appeared that 
 she recognised the hostile sail to be the Centurion, and resolved 
 to fight her. She soon hauled up her foresail, and brought to 
 under topsails, hoisting Spanish colors. Anson picked out 
 thirty of his choicest hands and distributed them into the tops 
 as marksmen. Instead of firing broadsides with intervals be- 
 tween them, he resolved to keep up a constant but irregular fire, 
 thus baffling the Spaniards if they should attempt their usual 
 tactics of falling down upon the decks during a broadside and 
 working their guns with great briskness during the intermission. 
 At one o'clock, the Centurion, being within gunshot of the 
 enemy, hoisted her pennant. The Spaniard now, for the first 
 time, began to clear her decks, and tumbled cattle, sheep, pigs, 
 goats, and poultry promiscuously into the sea. Anson gave orders 
 to fire with the chase-guns : the galleon retorted with her stern- 
 chasers. During the first half-hour he lay across her bow, 
 traversing her with nearly all his guns, while she could bring 
 hardly half a dozen of hers to bear. The mats with which the 
 galleon had stuffed her netting now took fire, and burned 
 violently, terrifying the Spaniards and alarming the English, 
 who feared lest the treasure would escape them. However, the 
 Spaniards at last cut away the netting and tossed the blazing 
 mass into the sea among the struggling and roaring cattle. The 
 
TWO MILLIOXS CAPTURED. 
 
 407 
 
 Centurion swept the galleon's decks, the topmen wounding or 
 killing every officer but one who appeared upon the quarter, and 
 totally disabling the commander himself. The confusion of the 
 
 THe CENTURION AND THE TREASURE-SH fP. 
 
 Spaniards was now plainly visible from the Centurion. The 
 officers could no longer bring the men up to the work ; and, at 
 about three in the afternoon, she struck her colors and sur- 
 rendered. 
 
 The galleon, named the Nostra Signora de Cabadonga, 
 proved to be worth, in hard money, one million and a quarter of 
 dollars. She lost sixty-seven men in the action, besides eighty- 
 four wounded ; while the Centurion lost but two men, and had 
 but seventeen wounded, all of whom recovered but one. "Of so 
 little consequence," remarks Anson, "are the most destructive 
 arms in untutored and unpractised hands." The seizure of the 
 Manilla treasure caused the greatest transport to the Centurion's 
 
408 ocean's story. 
 
 men, who thus, after reiterated disappointments, saw their wishes 
 at last accomplished. 
 
 The specie was at once removed to the Centurion, the Caba- 
 donc^a being appointed by Anson to be a post-ship in his ma- 
 jesty's service, and the command being given to Mr. Saumarez, 
 the first lieutenant of the Centurion. The two vessels then 
 stood for the Canton River, and arrived off Macao on the 11th 
 of July. On the way, Anson reckoned up not only the value 
 of the prize just captured, but the total amount of the losses 
 his expedition had caused the crown of Spain since it left the 
 English shores. The galleon was found to have on board one 
 million three hundred and thirteen thousand eight hundred and 
 forty-three dollars, and thirty-five thousand six hundred and 
 eighty-two ounces of virgin silver, besides cochineal and other 
 commodities. This, added to the other treasure taken in pre- 
 vious prizes, made the sum total of Anson's captures in money 
 not far from two millions, — independent of the ships and mer- 
 chandise which he had either burned or destroyed, and which he 
 set down as three millions more; to which he added the expense 
 of an expedition fitted out by the court of Spain, under one 
 Joseph Pizarro, for his annoyance, and which, he learned from 
 the galleon's papers, had been entirely broken up and destroyed. 
 *'Ttie total of all these articles," he writes, "will be a most 
 exorbitant sum, and is the strongest proof of the utility of my 
 expedition, which, with all its numerous disadvantages, did yet 
 prove so extremely prejudicial to the enemy." 
 
 At Macao, Anson sold the galleon for six thousand dollars, 
 which was much less than her value. He was very anxious to 
 get to sea at once, that he might be himself the first messenger 
 of his good fortune and thereby prevent the enemy from forming 
 any projects to mtercept him. The Centurion weighed anchor 
 from Macao on the 15th of December, 1743: she touched at 
 t!ie Cnpc of Good Hope on the 11th of Mnrcli, 1744, wljcre the 
 coinmodv.rj sojou.ncd a fortn'ght, in a spot which he considered 
 
THE ACCOUNT OF ANSON'S TRll\ 409 
 
 aa not disgraced by a comparison with the valleys of Juan Fer- 
 nandez or the lawns of Tinian. The fortuitous escapes and 
 remarkable adventures which had characterized the career of his 
 famous ship continued till she saluted the British forts. The 
 French had espoused the cause of Spain; and a large French 
 fleet was cruising in the Chops of the Channel at the moment 
 when the Centurion crossed it. The log afterwards proved 
 that she had run directly through the hostile squadron, con- 
 cealed from view by a dense and friendly fog. She arrived safe 
 at Spithead, on the 15th of June, after an absence of three 
 years and nine months. Anson caused the captured wealth to 
 be transported to London, upon thirty-two wagons, to the sound 
 of drum and fife. The two millions were divided, -according to 
 the laws which regulate the distribution of prize-money, between 
 Anson, his officers and men, — the crown abandoning every 
 penny to those who had suifered and fought for it. Anson was 
 now the richest man in the naval service. The sympathy and 
 applause bestowed upon him by the public may be imagined from 
 the fact that the narrative of his voyage went through four im- 
 mense editions in a single year, was translated into seven 
 European languages, and met with a far greater success than 
 had ever fallen to the lot of any maritime journal. 
 
BtRON AT KING GEORGE'S ISLAND, 
 
 CHAPTER XLI. 
 
 THE FIRST SCIENTIFIC VOYAGE OF CIRCUMNAVIGATION THE DOLPHIN ANtt 
 
 TAMAR — BYIION IN PATAGONIA — FALKLAND ISLANDS ISLANDS OF DISAPPOINT- 
 MENT — ARRIVAL AT TINIAN BYRON VERSUS ANSON — THE VOYAGE HOME 
 
 WALLIS AND CARTERET THEIR OBSERVATIONS IN PATAGONIA — WALLIS AT 
 
 TAHITI — A DESPERATE BATTLE — NAILS LOSE THEIR VALUE — A TAIIITIAN RO- 
 MANCE PITCAIBN's island — QUEEN CHARLOTTE'S ISLANDS — NEW BUITAIX 
 
 THE VOYAGE HOME — A MAN-OF-WAR DESTROYED BY FIRE. 
 
 In the year 1764, England was at peace "with all the world, 
 
 and his majesty George III. conceived an idea which till then 
 
 had penetrated no royal hrain, — that of sending out vessels upon 
 
 voyages of discovery in the single view of extending the domain 
 
 of science and contributing to the advance of geographical 
 
 knowledge. Voyages had previously been undertaken for pur- 
 410 
 
PATAGONIANS ON HORSEBACK. 411 
 
 poses either of conquest, colonization, pillage, or privateering; 
 and discovery had usually been the result of accident, and was 
 generally subordinate to the grand business of plunder and 
 rapine. The king at once executed his design by giving the 
 command of the Dolphin and Tamar — the former a man-of-war 
 of twenty-four guns, and the latter a sloop of sixteen— to Com- 
 modore John Byron, who had been one of the wrecked captains 
 of Anson's fleet in 1740. The vessels sailed from Plymouth 
 on the 3d of July. Nothing of moment occurred during their 
 passage to Rio Janeiro, if we except the fact that Byron noticed 
 that no fish would come near his ship, though the sea was alive 
 with them at a little distance, — a circumstance which he attri- 
 buted to the Dolphin's copper sheathing. She was the first 
 vessel upon which the experiment of coppering the bottom had 
 been tried. 
 
 Upon the Patagonian coast, Byron saw a party of the natives 
 on horseback, one of whom, who dismounted, he describes as 
 follows: — "He was of a gigantic stature, and seemed to realize 
 the tales of monsters in human shape : he had the skin of some 
 wild beast thrown over his shoulders, as a Scotch Highlander 
 wears his plaid. Round one eye was a large circle of white; 
 a circle of black surrounded the other, and the rest of his face 
 was streaked with paint of different colors. His height could 
 not be less than seven feet. This frightful Colossus and his 
 whole company conducted themselves in a peaceable and orderly 
 manner which certainly did them honor." Byron entered Ma- 
 gellan's Strait in December. During an anchorage here, a part 
 of the men slept on shore: they were always awakened from 
 their first slumber by the roaring of wild beasts, which the 
 darkness of the night and the loneliness of their situation 
 rendered horrible beyond description. The animals were pre- 
 vented from invading the tent by the kindling of large fires. 
 
 Having determined to await the arrival of the Florida, — a 
 store-ship which was to follow him, — Byron returned into the 
 
412 ocean's story. 
 
 Atlantic and discovered a group of islands, of which he took 
 possession for King George III. by the name of the Falkland 
 Islands. Here the seals and penguins were so numerous that it 
 "was impossible to walk upon the beach without first driving them 
 away. The men were also compelled to do battle and fight hand- 
 to-hand encounters with enormous and formidable sea-lions, and 
 with animals as large as a mastiff* and as fierce as a wolf. On 
 returning to Port Desire, in February, 1765, the whales about 
 the ship rendered the navigation dangerous, and one of them 
 blew a jet of water over the quarterdeck. The Florida arrived 
 about the same time, and the Dolphin and Tamar took from her 
 all the provisions they could store. They then entered the Strait, 
 and, for seven weeks and two days, struggled with the terrible 
 weather which at the period of the spring equinox prevails in 
 that tempestuous region. They made Cape Deseado on the 
 8th of April, and soon after entered the South Sea. 
 
 Turning to the north as far as Juan Fernandez, and then 
 making a long stretch to the west, Byron discovered, on the 7th 
 of June, in 14° 5' south latitude and in 145° west longitude, a 
 group of islands covered with delightful groves and evidently 
 producing cocoanuts and bananas in abundance. Turtles were 
 Been upon the shore ; and the whole aspect of the island was 
 tropical and attractive in the extreme. But a violent surge 
 broke upon every point of the coast, and the steep coral rockg 
 which formed the shore rendered it unsafe to anchor. The 
 Bailors, prostrated with scurvy, stood gazing at this little para- 
 dise with sensations of bitter regret ; and Byron accordingly 
 named the group the Islands of Disappointment. Two days 
 later, however, he discovered another group, to which he gave the 
 name of King George's Islands. Here the savages, in attempt- 
 ing to repel an invasion of their domain, provoked reprisals, and 
 two or three of them were killed: one, being pierce<l by three 
 balls which went quite through his body, took up a large t-tone 
 and died in the act of throwing it. Byron obtained several boat- 
 
TORTURED BY INSECTS. 413 
 
 loads of cocoanuts and a large quantity of scurvy-grass. After 
 discovering and naming Prince of Wales' and Duke of York's 
 Islands, Byron bore away for the Ladrones, a month's sail to 
 the west. 
 
 In due time, and after a voyage accomplished without incident, 
 the two vessels arrived at the Ladrone island of Tinian, already 
 famous from the glowing description given of it by Lord Anson. 
 They anchored not far from the spot where the Centurion had lain, 
 and in water so clear that they could see the bottom at the depth 
 of one hundred and forty-four feet. Byron gives a very different 
 account of the island from that furnished by AnSon, — a fact attri- 
 butable to the circumstance that he visited it during the rainy 
 season. The undergrowth in the woods was so thick, he says, 
 that they could not see three yards before them : the meadows 
 were covered with stubborn reeds higher than their heads, and 
 which cut their legs like whipcord. Every time they spoke 
 they inhaled a mouthful of flies. In the Centurion's well they 
 found water that was brackish and full of worms. Centipedes 
 bit and scorpions bled. The ships rolled at anchor as never 
 ships rolled before. The rains were incessant. The heat was 
 suffocating, being only nine degrees less than the heat of tho 
 blood at the heart. Anson's cattle were very shy; for it took 
 six men three days and three nights to capture and kill a 
 bullock, whose flesh, when dragged home to the tents, invariably 
 proved to be fly-blown and useless. 
 
 After a stay of nine weeks at Tinian, Byron weighed anchor 
 on the 30th of September, with a cargo of two thousand cocoa- 
 nuts. On the 5th of October, he touched at the Malay island 
 of Timoan. The inhabitants were inclined to drive hard bar- 
 gains and to part with as few provisions as possible. They were 
 even offended at the sailors hauling the seine and taking fish 
 upon their coast. Leaving this ungenerous island, they met 
 with a fortnight of light winds, dead calms, and violent tor- 
 nadoes, accompanied with rain, thunder, and lightning. On the 
 
414 OCEAN S STORY. 
 
 19th of October, they hailed an English craft belonging to the 
 East India Company and bound from Bencoolen to Bengal. 
 Tiie master sent them a sheep, a turtle, a dozen fowls, and two 
 gallons of arrack. With this assistance Byron easily reached 
 Java, where he took in stores of rice and arrack. Nothing of 
 moment occurred during the run home, except the incident of a 
 collision between the Dolphin and a whale, in which the latter 
 appeared to be the greatest sufferer, as the water was deeply 
 tinged with blood. Byron arrived at Deal on the 7th of May, 
 1766. Each ship had lost six men, including those that were 
 drowned. This number was so inconsiderable that it was deemed 
 probable that more of them would have died had they remained 
 on shore. Byron, having discharged all the duties devolving on 
 him during this voyage with prudence and energy, could not be 
 held responsible for the poverty of the scientific results obtained, 
 — a circumstance owing to the absence of scientific men, natu- 
 ralists, mathematicians, astronomers, &c. The Government re- 
 solved to make another effort, and to equip the expedition in a 
 style more adequate to its necessities. The Dolphin was im- 
 mediately refitted and furnished for a voyage to be made in the 
 same seas under Captain Samuel Wallis. The Swallow, a sloop 
 of fourteen guns, was appointed to be her consort, instead of the 
 lumbering Tamar, and Captain Carteret, who had accompanied 
 Byron, was ordered to command her. The Prince Frederick was 
 appointed to accompany them as store-ship. They left Plymouth 
 in company on the 22d of August, 1766. 
 
 The run to Magellan's Strait offers no points of interest. They 
 entered into amicable relations with the Patagonians. These 
 people, who. from Magellan's and Byron's accounts, had obtained 
 the reputation of being giants of seven feet, were measured with 
 a rod by Wallis. The tallest were six feet six, while their 
 average height was from five feet ten to six feet. He invited 
 several of them on board, where, following the example of 
 Magellan, he showed one of them a looking-glass. "This, 
 
TREES TRANSPLANTED. 415 
 
 however," he says, "excited little astonishment, but afforded 
 them infinite diversion." The Prince Frederick took on board, 
 bj Wallis' order, several thousand young trees, which had been 
 carefully removed with their roots and the earth about them, 
 and transported them to the Falkland Islands, where there was 
 no growth of wood. Captain Carteret climbed a mountain in 
 the hope of obtaining a view of the South Sea : he erected a 
 pyramid, in which he deposited a bottle containing a shilling and 
 a paper, — a memorial which, he remarked, might possibly remain 
 there as long as the world endured. At other points the land 
 was bare, covered with snow, or piled to the clouds with rocks, 
 looking like the ruins of nature doomed to everlasting sterility 
 and desolation. 
 
 A storm now disabled both ships, and Carteret found the 
 Swallow to be almost unmanageable. From this time forward, 
 during the passage of the Strait, the inhabitants they met seemed 
 to be the most miserable of human beings, — half frozen, half 
 fed, half clothed. After four months' dangerous and tedious 
 navigation, they issued from the Strait into the ocean on the 
 11th of April, 1767, bidding farewell to a region where in the 
 midst of summer the weather was tempestuous, "where the 
 prospect had more the appearance of chaos than of nature, and 
 where, for the most part, the valleys were without herbage and 
 the hills without wood." A storm here separated the Dolphin 
 and the Swallow, and from this point the adventures of Wallis 
 and Carteret form two distinct narratives. We shall follow the 
 course of the Dolphin, and then return to that of the Swallow. 
 
 Wallis sailed to the northwest for two months without inci- 
 dent, discovering Whitsun Island and Queen Charlotte's Island 
 in mid-ocean. At last, on the 19th of June, he touched at 
 Quiros' island of Sagittaria : it had been lost for a century 
 and a half, and its existence even was doubted. The Dolphin 
 was soon surrounded by hundreds of canoes, containing at least 
 eight hundred peonle. They did not manifest hostile intentions, 
 
iltt OCEANS sroRy. 
 
 however, contenting themselves with petty thefts. Wallis sent 
 his boats to sound for an anchorage, and, observing the canoes 
 gather around them, fired a nine-pounder over their heads. A 
 skirmish followed, which resulted in the wounding of several 
 on both sides. But, on Wallis' attempting to enter the Bay of 
 Matavai, the islanders offered a determined resistance : three 
 hundred canoes, manned by two thousand warriors, surrounded 
 him and attacked him with a hail of stones. Repulsed for a 
 time, they twice rallied, and hurled stones weighing two pounds 
 on board, by means of slings. At last a cannon-ball cut the 
 canoe bearing the chief in halves, whereupon canoes and war- 
 riors disappeared with the utmost precipitation. The ship was 
 now warped up to the shore, and the boats landed without oppo- 
 sition. Mr. Furneaux, the lieutenant, took possession of the 
 island for his majesty, in honor of whom he called it King 
 George the Third's Island. The water proving to be excellent, 
 rum was mixed with it, and every man drank his majesty's 
 health. The natives choosing to make a demonstration at mid- 
 night, Wallis cleared the coast with his guns, and sent the 
 carpenters ashore with their axes, to destroy all the canoes 
 which in their precipitation they had left. Fifty canoes, some 
 of them sixty feet long, were thus broken up. These measures 
 brought the savages to terms, and boughs of plantains were soon 
 exchanged and vows of friendship pantomimically expressed. 
 Trade was established, and a tent erected at the watering place. 
 The crew now lived sumptuously upon fruits and poultry, and 
 in a fortnight the commander hardly knew them for the same 
 people. This, as we have said, was the island which Cook was 
 to render famous under the name of Tahiti. 
 
 It was not long before it was discovered that nails, the prin- 
 cipal medium of exchange, seemed to have lost their value with 
 the islanders. Bringing forth large spikes from their pockets, 
 they intimated that they desired nails of a similar size and 
 strength. It was now ascertained that the sailors, having no 
 
AN ENAMORED QUEEN. 417 
 
 nails of their own, had drawn all the stout hammock-pins, and 
 had ripped out the belaying cleats. Every artifice was prac- 
 tised to discover the thieves, but without success. 
 
 On the 11th of July, a tall woman of pleasing countenance and 
 majestic deportment came on board. She proved to be Oberea, 
 sovereign of the island. She seemed quite fascinated by Wallis, 
 who was recovering from a severe illness, and invited him to go 
 on shore and perfect his convalescence. He accepted the in- 
 vitation, and the next day called upon her at her residence, — an 
 immense thatched roof raised upon pillars. She ordered four 
 young girls to take ofif his shoes and stockings and gently chafe 
 his skin with their hands. While they were doing this, the 
 English surgeon who accompanied Wallis took off his wig to 
 cool himself. Every eye was at once fixed upon this prodigy 
 of nature. The whole assembly stood motionless in silent as- 
 tonishment. They would not have been more amazed, says 
 Wallis, had they discovered that the surgeon's limbs had been 
 screwed on to the trunk. Oberea accompanied Wallis on hia 
 way back to the shore, and whenever they came to a little 
 puddle of water she lifted him over it. 
 
 It was now discovered that one Francis Pinckney, a seaman, 
 had drawn the cleats to which the main-sheet was belayed, and 
 had then removed and bargained away the spikes. Wallis culled 
 the men together, explained the heinousness of the offence, 
 and ordered Pinckney to be whipped with nettles while he ran 
 the gauntlet three times round the deck. To prevent the ship 
 from being pulled to pieces and the price of provisions from 
 being disproportionately raised, he directed that no man should 
 go ashore, except the wooders and waterers. 
 
 Oberea now became romantic and tender. She tied wreaths 
 of plaited hair around Wallis' hat, giving him to understand 
 that both the hair and workmanship were her own. She made 
 him presents of baskets of cocoanuts, and of sows big with 
 young. She said he must stay twenty days more ; and, when 
 27 
 
418 
 
 OCEANS STORY. 
 
 he replied that he should depart in seven days, she burst into 
 tears, and was with great difficultj pacified. When the fatal 
 hour arrived, she threw herself down upon the arm-chest and 
 wept passionately. She was with difficulty got over the side 
 into her canoe, where she sat the picture of helpless, unutter- 
 able woe. AVallis tossed her articles of use and ornament, which 
 ghe silently accepted without looking at them. He subsequently 
 bade her adieu more privately on shore. A fresh breeze sprang 
 ip, and the Dolphin left the island on the 27th of July. 
 
 PARTING OF WALLI3 AND OBEREA. 
 
 On his way to Tinian he discovered several islands, one of 
 which the officers did their commander the honor of calling 
 AVallis' Island. At Tinian they found every article mentioned 
 by Lord Anson, though it required no little time and labor to 
 noose a bullock or bag a banana. When they left, each man 
 had laid in five hundred limes. On the passage to Batavia, and 
 thence to Table Bay, the sick-list was very large, and several 
 men were lost by disease and accident. At the Cape, the crew 
 
SEPARATED BY A STORM. 419 
 
 were attacked by the small-pox, and a pest-tent was erected upon 
 a spacious plain. The infection was not fatal in any instance. 
 The Dolphin anchored in the Downs on the 20th of May, 1768. 
 Wallis was enabled to communicate a paper to the Royal So- 
 ciety in time for that body to give to Lieutenant Cook, then pre- 
 paring for his first voyage, more complete instructions by which 
 to govern his movements. 
 
 We must now return to the Swallow, commanded by Philip 
 Carteret, and, as far as the Strait of Magellan, the consort of 
 the Dolphin. A storm, as we have said, separated them; and, 
 while Wallis sailed to the northwest, Carteret was driven due 
 north. He was surprised to find Juan Fernandez fortified by 
 the Spanish, and did not think it prudent to attempt a landin*. 
 Sailing now due west, he discovered an island to which he gave 
 the name of Pitcairn, in honor of the young man who first saw 
 it. This island we shall have occasion to mention more particu- 
 larly hereafter, as it became the scene of the romantic adven- 
 tures of the mutineers of the Bounty. The vessel had now 
 become crazy, and leaked constantly. The sails were worn, 
 and split with every breeze. The men were attacked by the 
 scurvy ; and Carteret began to fear that he should get neither 
 ship nor crew in safety back to England. 
 
 At last, on the 12th of August, land was discovered at day- 
 break, which proved to be a cluster of islands, of which Carteret 
 counted seven. Ignorant that Mendana had discovered them in 
 1595, nearly two centuries previously, and had given them the 
 name of Santa Cruz, Carteret took possession of them, naming 
 them Queen Charlotte's Islands and giving a distinctive appella- 
 tion to each member of the archipelago. Cocoanuts, bananas, 
 hogs, and poultry were seen in abundance as they sailed along 
 the shore; but every attempt to land ended in bloodshed and 
 repulse. They now steered to the northwest, and, on the 26th 
 of August, saw New Britain and St. George's Bay, discovered 
 and named by Dampier. Anchoring temporarily, and agait. 
 
420 OCEANS STORY. 
 
 wishing to weigh anchor, Carteret found, to his dismay, that 
 the united strength of the whole ship's company was insufficient 
 to perform the labor. They spent thirty-six hours in fruitless 
 attempts, but, having recruited their strength by sleep, finally 
 succeeded. They had neither the strength to chase turtle nor 
 the address to hook fish. Cocoanut-milk gradually revived the 
 men, who also received benefit from a fruit resembling a plum. 
 
 The wind not allowing Carteret to follow Dampier's track 
 around New Britain, the idea struck him that St. George's Bay 
 might in reality be a channel dividing the island in twain. 
 This the event proved to be correct. On his way through, 
 he noticed three remarkable hills, which he called the Mother 
 and Daughters, the Mother being the middlemost and largest. 
 Leaving the southern portion of the island in possession of its 
 old name. New Britain, he called the northern portion New 
 Ireland. On leaving the channel, the vessel was in such a state 
 that no time or labor could be any longer devoted to science or 
 geography : the essential point was to reach some European set- 
 tlement. Carteret discovered numerous islands and groups, and, 
 after touching at Mindanao, arrived at Macassar, on the island 
 of Celebes, in March, 1768. He had buried thirteen of his men, 
 and thirty more were at the point of death : all the officers were 
 ill, and Carteret and his lieutenant almost unfit for duty. The 
 Dutch refused him permission to land, and Carteret determined 
 to run the ship ashore and fight for the necessaries of life, to 
 which their situation entitled them, and which they must either 
 obtain or perish. A boat, bearing several persons in authority, 
 put out to them, and commanded them to leave at once, at the 
 same time giving them two sheep and some fowls and fruit. 
 Carteret showed them the corpse of a man who had died that 
 morning, and whose life would probably have been saved had 
 provisions been at once afforded him. This somewhat shocked 
 them ; and they inquired very particularly whether he had been 
 among the Spice Islands, and, upon receiving a negative reply, 
 
A RECORD LEFT IN A BOTTLE. 421 
 
 which they appeared to believe, directed him to proceed to a 
 bay not far distant, where he would find shelter from the 
 monsoon and provisions in abundance. He proceeded, therefore, 
 to Bonthain, where he altered his reckoning, having lost about 
 eighteen hours in coming by the west, while the vessels that 
 had come by the east had gained about six. He stayed here 
 two months, with difficulty obtaining natives to replace the many 
 seamen he had lost. On the passage from Bonthain to Batavia, 
 the ship leaked so fast that the pumps, which were kept con- 
 stantly at work, were hardly able to keep her free. He arrived 
 at Batavia on the 2d of June. Here the Dutch authorities again 
 placed every obstacle in his way ; and it was the last week in July 
 before he could heave down the ship for repairs. These being 
 completed, he set sail for England. 
 
 On the 30th of January, 1769, he touched at Ascension, where 
 it was the custom, as the island was uninhabited, for every ship 
 to leave a letter in a bottle, with the date, name, destination, &c. 
 With this custom Carteret of course complied. Three weeks 
 afterwards, he was overhauled by a ship bearing French colors 
 and sailing in the same direction as himself. Carteret was very 
 much surprised to hear the French captain call him and his 
 ship by name: he was still more surprised to hear that the 
 Dolphin had already returned to England, and had reported 
 his — Carteret's — probable loss in Magellan's Strait. " How did 
 you learn the name of my ship?" shouted Carteret through his 
 trumpet. ''From the bottle at Ascension," was the reply. 
 "And how did you hear of the opinion formed in England of 
 our fate?" "From the French gazette at the Cape of Good 
 Hope." "And who may you be, pray?" "A French East 
 Indiaman, Captain Bougainville." The vessel was La Boudeuse, 
 whose voyage round the world we shall narrate in the following 
 chapter. The Swallow anchored at Spithead on Saturday, the 
 20th of March, having been absent three years wanting two 
 days. No navigator had yet done so much with resources so 
 
422 OCEAXS STORY. 
 
 insufficient: Carteret's discoveries were of the highest interest 
 in a geographical point of view. He was a worthy predecessor 
 of Cook ; and his achievements with a crazy ship and a disabled 
 crew prepared the public mind for the researches which his 
 already distinguished successor would be enabled to make 
 with the carefully equipped expedition which had lately started 
 under his command. 
 
 A harrowing incident which occurred at sea about this time 
 produced a painful sensation throughout Europe. The French 
 man-of-war Le Prince, being on her way from Lorient to Pon- 
 dicherry by way of Cape Horn, was discovered to be on fire. 
 Smoke was noticed ascending almost imperceptibly from one 
 of the hatchways. The usual measures were promptly taken, 
 eighty marines being placed on duty with loaded muskets to 
 enforce obedience from the crew. The pumps and buckets were 
 totally inadequate to master the now raging flames ; while the 
 fresh water, set running from the casks, was of equally little 
 service. The yawl, by the captain's orders, had been lowered: 
 seven men seized it and rowed rapidly away. Of the other 
 boats, two were burned, and one was swamped as it touched the 
 water. The consternation now became general ; and the despair- 
 ing shrieks of the dying, mingled with the cries of the affrighted 
 animals on board, rendered the scene one of terrible confusion. 
 The chaplain went about, granting a general absolution, and 
 extending the remission of their sins even to those who, to 
 avoid death by fire, committed suicide by leaping into the sea. 
 There were six women on board, two of them the cousins of the 
 captain. They were lowered into the water upon hen-coops, the 
 captain bidding them an eternal farewell, as it was his duty and 
 his determination to perish with the ship. 
 
 The water was now alive with human beings, clinging to 
 spars, oars, barrels, and other floating materials. Upon one spar 
 were nine men, who had escaped the fury of one element, and 
 were calmly awaiting the fate which they were expecting from 
 
BURNING OF THE SHIP. 
 
 423 
 
 another. They were destined to die by neither, but in a manner, 
 if any thing, more horrible. The flames, reaching the cannon, 
 which by some fatal coincidence were loaded, discharged them 
 
 one by one. A ball, striking the spar by which these nine 
 devoted men were kept afloat, ploughed its way through them 
 all, killing several outright and mortally wounding the rest. 
 Not one escaped. The mast now fell into the sea, making 
 terrible havoc among those within its reach; while at every 
 moment a gun launched its reckless metal upon the water. 
 The chaplain, chnging to a bit of charred wood, edified all who 
 heard him by his piety and resignation. Once he tried to sink, 
 but was brought back by the first lieutenant. "Let me go," 
 said he; "I am full of water, and it cannot avail to prolong 
 my sufferings." "In his holy company," says the lieutenant, in 
 his narrative, "I passed three hours: during which time I saw 
 
4:24 ocean's story. 
 
 one of the captain's cousins give up the effort to keep herself 
 afloat, and fall back and drown." This lieutenant, surviving 
 the rest, hailed the seven men in the yawl, by whom he was 
 taken in, as were also the pilot and the quartermaster. These 
 ten persons were all that were saved out of the three hundred 
 who composed the vesseFs crew. The frigate soon blew up; and, 
 after this frightful scene of her expiring agony, all relapsed into 
 silence. 
 
 The lieutenant assumed the command of the boat, and, rowing 
 to the remains of the wreck, ordered a search for stores and 
 other articles of which they bad pressing need. They found a 
 leg of brandy, fifteen pounds of salt pork, a piece of scarlet 
 cloth, twenty yards of coarse linen, and a quantity of staves 
 and ropes. With the scarlet and an oar they made a mast and 
 sail, with a key they made a pulley, and with a stave a rudder. 
 With this equipment, and without astronomical instruments, 
 they started upon their adventurous voyage, being six hundred 
 miles distant from the coast of Brazil. 
 
 Favored by a brisk breeze, they sailed during eiglit days, 
 making seventy-five miles every twenty-four hours. They were 
 nearly naked, and suffered terribly from exposure to the rays of 
 a tropical July sun. On the sixth day, a light rain gave them 
 the hope of satisfying their devoui'ing thirst. They licked the 
 drops from the sail, but found them already bitterly impregnated 
 with salt. They suffered as much from hunger as thirst; for the 
 salt pork, which had been found to cause blood-spitting, had been 
 abandoned on the fourth day. A draught of brandy from time 
 to time revived them somewhat, but burned their stomachs with- 
 out moistening them, causing them pain rather than satisfaction. 
 On the eighth night, the lieutenant passed ten hours at the 
 helm, not one of the remainincr nine havincr the strength to 
 relieve him. It was not possible they could survive another 
 day. The dawn of the 3d of August brought with it the 
 blessed sight of land, and, collecting all their strength, to avoid 
 
A FORTUNATE aESCUE. 426 
 
 being wvecked by the currents, tides, and reefs, they landed in 
 safety late in the afternoon. The men rushed upon the beach, 
 and, in their joy, rolled in the sand, and mingled thanksgivings 
 with their shouts of joy. They no longer appeared like human 
 beings, sufifering having rendered their faces frightful to behold. 
 The lieutenant twisted a piece of red cloth about his loins to 
 show his rank to such inhabitants as they might fall in with. 
 A rapidly-flowing stream being discovered, they all rushed into 
 it, and lapped, rather than drank, its beneficent waters. 
 
 The place where they were was a Portuguese settlement, 
 and they were hospitably received by the colonists, who gave 
 them shirts and manioc in abundance. Proceeding to Per- 
 nambuco, where a Portuguese fleet was stationed, they were 
 welcomed with kindness by the officers, the lieutenant being 
 admitted to the admiral's mess, and the men being distributed 
 among the ships and placed on full pay. They were soon re- 
 stored to their country, and the lieutenant communicated to the 
 Government an official account of the disaster. 
 
 CHAIN OF PHOSPHORESCENT SKLPAA. 
 
BOUGAINVILLE. 
 
 CHAPTER XLII. 
 
 COLONIZATION OP THE FALKLAND ISLANDS — ANTOINB DE BOUGAINVILLE — HI8 
 
 VOYAOB AROUND THE WORLD — ADVENTURE AT MONTEVIDEO THE PATA- 
 
 G0NIAN8 — TAKING POSSESSION OF TAHITI — FRENCH GALLANTRY— CEREMONIES 
 OP RECEPTION — SOJOURN AT THE ISLAND — AOTOUROU — THE FIRST FKMALE 
 CIRCUMNAVIGATOR — FAMINE ON BOARD — REMARKABLE CASCADE — ARRIVAL AT 
 THE MOLUCCAS — INCIDENTS THERE — RETURN HOME. 
 
 Several years before the period of which we are speaking, 
 
 the French Government had colonized the Falkhmd Islands, 
 
 lying off the eastern coast of Patagonia. The establishment 
 
 lasted barely three years, and, in an agricultural point of view, 
 
 was a complete and disastrous failure. The Spanish crown 
 
 subsequently claimed these islands as belonging to the continent 
 
 of South America, and the King of France was easily induced 
 42G 
 
BOUGAINVILLE'S VOYAGE. 427 
 
 to abandon them. Captain Louis-Antoine de Bougainville was 
 instructed, in 1766, to proceed to the islands, and there, in the 
 name of his French majesty, cede them to the Spanish authorities 
 who would be sent out for the purpose. He was then to con- 
 tinue on, by the Strait of Magellan and the Pacific, to the East 
 Indies, and thence to return home. Should he accomplish this 
 task, he would be the first French circumnavigator of the globe. 
 
 Bougainville received the command of the frigate La Bou- 
 deuse, carrying twenty-six twelve-pounders, and was to be 
 joined at the Falklands by the store-ship I'Etoile. He sailed 
 from Brest on the 5th of December, the Prince of Nassau- 
 Singhen, who had been allowed to accompany the expedition,, 
 being on board. They arrived at Montevideo early in February, 
 1767, and found there the two Spanish frigates to whose com- 
 mander Bougainville was to surrender the Falkland Islands, and 
 with whom he sailed in company on the 28th of the month. They 
 met with severe weather, but arrived safely at their destination 
 towards the close of March. The settlement was made over to 
 the Spaniards on the 1st of April: the Spanish colors were 
 planted and saluted at sunrise and sunset. The French inha- 
 bitants were informed they might either remain or return : a 
 portion embarked with the garrison for Montevideo, on their 
 way back to France. 
 
 Bougainville waited at the islands till the end of May for 
 the store-ship, which was to join him at this point, and then 
 returned to Rio Janeiro, where he hoped to get tidings of her. 
 She had but just arrived, bringing salt meat and liquor suffi- 
 cient for fifteen months, but no bread or vegetables. So ho 
 was forced to go, in quest of these provisions, back to Monte- 
 video. From here he went to Buenos Ayres, on the opposite side 
 of the bay formed by the mouths of the La Plata, making the 
 journey, however, overland, as a contrary wind prevented his pro- 
 ceeding by water. At night, he and his party slept in leathern 
 tents, while tigers howled around them on every side. Coming 
 
128 
 
 ocean's stoby. 
 
 to the river St. Lucia, which is wide, deep, and rapid, they 
 were at a loss how to cross it. At last their guide procured a 
 hollow canoe, the master of which fastened a horse on each 
 side of the bow, and then boldly assumed the reins. He sup- 
 
 A FERRY BOAT AT BUENOS AYRES. 
 
 ported the heads of the horses above the water and drove them 
 safely across it. The Frenchmen landed on the opposite side 
 dry shod. 
 
 It was not till the 14th of November that the Boudeuse and 
 Etoile, liaving taken in supplies of biscuit and bread, sailed, for 
 the last time, from Montevideo. They made the entrance of 
 the Strait of Magellan a fortnight afterwards. On the 8th of 
 December, they saw a number of Patagonians, who liad kept 
 up fires all niglit, hoisting a white flag on an eminence, — a flag 
 which some European ship had evidently given them as a pledge 
 of alliance. Bougainville went on shore, where some thirty 
 natives received him witli every mark of good will. They em- 
 braced him and his party, shook hands with them, and imitated 
 the report of muskets with their mouths, showing that they were 
 accustomed to fire-arms. They aided the botanist in collecting 
 plants and simples, and one of them applied to the physician 
 for a prescription for his inflamed eye. They asked for tobacco, 
 and swallowed small draughts of brandy, blowing with their 
 mouths after the draught and uttering a tremulous inarticulate 
 sound. They begged them to remain over night, and, upon the 
 
TAKING POSSESSION FOR THE KING. 
 
 429 
 
 invitation being politely declined, accompanied tLem with cere- 
 mony to the shore. 
 
 Bougainville, with three of his officers, spent some hours in 
 taking soundings near Cape Froward. Perceiving a small flat 
 rock, which barely afforded them standing-room, they mounted 
 
 BOUGAINVILLE IN MAGELLAN'S STRAIT. 
 
 upon it, hoisted their colors, and shouted Vive le Roi ! The 
 coast now resounded for the first time, says Bougainville, with 
 this compliment to his majesty. Upon which an English com- 
 mentator remarks "that it is a striking instance of the vanity 
 by which the French nation is distinguished." The vessels, 
 being retarded by constant head- winds and harassed by violent 
 storms, occupied fifty-two days in threading the channel, and 
 the month of January, 1768, was well advanced before they 
 discovered the boundless expanse of the Pacific. 
 
 Sailing to the northwest, they passed several low, half-drowned 
 islands, one of which Bougainville called Harp Island. A 
 cluster of reefs he called the Dangerous Archipelago. Soro 
 
430 ocean's story. 
 
 throats now troubling the crew, he attributed them to the snow- 
 water of the Strait, and cured them by putting a pint of vinegar 
 and a dozen red-hot bullets into the daily water-cask. He com- 
 bated the scurvy by employing lemonade prepared from a con- 
 centration in the form of powder. He made fresh water from 
 salt water by means of a distilling apparatus which furnished a 
 barrelful every night. In order to economize their drinking- 
 water, their bread was kneaded with water dipped up from the 
 sea. On the 4th of April, they discovered land ; and fires burn- 
 ing during the night over a wide extent of coast showed them 
 that it was inhabited and populous. In the morning a canoe pro- 
 pelled by twelve naked men approached. The chief, with a pro- 
 digious growth of hair which stood like bristles divergent on his 
 head, offered the commander a cluster of bananas, indicating that 
 this was the olive-branch in use in Tahiti, — the island at which 
 the ships had now arrived. Presents were exchanged and an 
 alliance effected. 
 
 The vessels were now surrounded with canoes laden with 
 cocoanuts and bananas, and a brisk and tolerably honest trade 
 was driven by the natives and the strangers. The aspect of the 
 coast — the mountains covered with foliage to their very summits, 
 the lowlands interspersed with meadows and with plantations of 
 tropical fruit, cascades pouring down from the rocks into the sea, 
 streams flowing among lovely clusters of huts situated upon the 
 shore — offered an enchanting scene to the wearied crews. While 
 the Boudeuse was casting her anchor, canoes filled with women 
 came around her. "These," adds Bougainville, with charac- 
 teristic French gallantry, "are not inferior for agreeable fea- 
 tures to most European women. It was very difficult, amidst 
 such a sight, to keep at their work four hundred young sailors 
 who had seen none of the fair sex for six months. The capstan 
 was never hove with more alacrity than on this occasion." 
 
 The captain and several officers now went on shore, where 
 they were received with high glee by all, with the exception of a 
 
A NATIVE LEAVES WITH THEM. 431 
 
 venerable man, apparently a philosopher, "-whose thoughtful and 
 Buspicious air seemed to show that he feared the arrival of a new 
 race of men would trouble those happy days which he had spent 
 in peace." A poet, reclining beneath a tree, sang them a song 
 to the accompaniment of a flute which a musician blew, not with 
 his mouth, but with one of his nostrils. In return for this en- 
 tertainment, the strangers gave, at night, an exhibition of sky- 
 rockets, witch-quills, and other pyrotechnics. The chief, learn- 
 ing that the Prince of Nassau was a man of royal blood, offered 
 him a wife ; but, as the lady was advanced in years and corre- 
 spondingly mature in appearance, the prince plead a previous 
 union and escaped. 
 
 The vessels stayed here a fortnight, cutting wood and drawing 
 water. They lost six anchors during their sojourn, and twice 
 narrowly missed utter shipwreck, — "the worst consequence of 
 which would have been to pass the remainder of their days on 
 an isle adorned with all the gifts of nature, and to exchange the 
 sweets of the mother-country for a peaceable life exempt from 
 cares." The islanders exjjressed infinite regret at their de- 
 parture, — one of them, Aotourou by name, being unable to 
 endure the separation, and asking permission to go with them. 
 He gave his young wife three pearls which he had in his ears, 
 kissed her, and went on board the ship. Bougainville quitted 
 the island on the 16th of April, no less surprised at the sorrow 
 the inhabitants testified at his departure than at their affection- 
 ate confidence on his arrival. 
 
 He directed his course so as to avoid the Pernicious Isles, 
 warned by the disasters of Roggewein to avoid them. Aotourou 
 pointed at night to the bright star in Orion's shoulder, indicating 
 that they should guide their course by it, and that in two days 
 it would bring them to a fertile island where he had friends and 
 children. Being vexed that no attention was paid to his advice, 
 he rushed to the helm, seized the wheel, and endeavored to put 
 the shiji about. In the morning he climbed to the mast-head, and 
 
432 OCEAN S STORY. 
 
 Bought, in the distant horizon, the favored land of which he had 
 spoken. 
 
 The vessels kept on steadily to the westward, passing through 
 Navigator's Islands and the group which Quiros had named 
 Espiritu Santo. To the latter Bougainville gave the name of 
 Grandes Cyclades, — one, however, not destined to be long re- 
 tained. He was at this time informed that Bar^, the servant of 
 M. de CommerQon, the botanist of the Etoile, was a woman. 
 He went on board the store-ship to make investigations. He 
 thought the report incredible, as Bard was already an expert 
 botanist, and had acquired the name, during his excursions with 
 his master among the snows of Magellan's Strait, — where he 
 carried provisions, fire-arms, and bundles of plants, — of being his 
 beast of burden. The first suspicion of him occurred at Tahiti, 
 where the natives, with the keen intuition of savages, cried out 
 in their dialect, "It is a woman !" and insisted on paying her 
 the attentions due to her sex. When Bougainville went on 
 board the Etoile, Bard, bathed in tears, admitted that she was a 
 woman. She said she was an orphan, had served before in men's 
 clothes, and that the idea of a voyage around the world had 
 inflamed her curiosity. Bougainville does her the justice to 
 state that she always behaved on board with the most scrupulous 
 modesty. She was not handsome, and was twenty-seven years of 
 age. She was the first woman that ever circumnavigated the globe. 
 
 It was not long before the provisions began to give out, and 
 the crew were put upon half rations. The commander was soon 
 obliged to forbid the eating of old leather, as it was becoming as 
 scarce as biscuit and was quite as necessary. The butcher shed 
 tears upon sacrificing a favorite goat, and Bougainville turned 
 away his head as that sanguinary personage, with equally cruel 
 intent, whistled to a young Patagonian dog. Breakers, reefs, 
 and channels, where the tide ran fast and dangerously, indicated 
 the presence of land, to which was given the name of Louisiade. 
 This is a group of islands inhabited by Papuans. 
 
HOSTILE AND TREACHEROUS NATIVES. 
 
 433 
 
 On the coast of New Britain, at an uninhabited spot which 
 Bougainville named Port Praslin, he obtained a supply of inferior 
 provisions, such as thatch-palras, cabbage-trees, and mangle 
 apples. A species of aromatic ivy was likewise found, in which 
 the physicians discovered anti-scorbutic properties ; and a store 
 of it was therefore laid in. An immense cascade, which fur- 
 nished the vessels with fresh water, is enthusiastically described 
 by Bougainville. After a stay of eight days at Port Pra&lin, 
 
 CASCADE AT PORT PRASLIN. 
 
 during which time the heavens were black with continual tem- 
 pests, the vessels profited by a change of wincT and continued 
 their westerly course. The field-tents were cut up, and trousers 
 made from them were distributed to the two ships* companies. 
 Another ounce was taken from the dailv allowance of bread. 
 From time to time canoes would shoot out from the coast of New 
 Britain ; but the hostility and treachery of the natives rendered 
 all efibrts to obtain food from them unavailing. 
 
 On the 1st of September, Bougainville made the island of 
 Boero, one of the Moluccas, where he knew the Dutch had a small 
 factory and a weak garrison. All his men were now sick, without 
 exception. The provisions remaining were so nauseous that, 
 as he says, "the hardest moments of the sad days we passed 
 were those when the bell gave us notice to take in this disgusting 
 and unwholesome food. But now our misery was to have an end. 
 
 Ever since midnight a pleasant scent exhaled from the aromatic 
 28 
 
434 ocean's story. 
 
 plants with "which the Moluccas abound ; the aspect of a con- 
 siderable town, situated in the bottom of the gulf, of ships at 
 anchor there, and of cattle rambling through the meadows, 
 caused transports which I have doubtless felt, but which I can 
 not here describe." 
 
 It was found that the Dutch East India Company reigned 
 supreme, and that the governor was disposed to keep to the 
 letter of his instructions, which forbade him to receive any ships 
 but those of the monopoly. Bougainville was obliged to plead 
 the claims of hunger and considerations of humanity before the 
 authorities would listen to him. They then furnished him with 
 rice, poultry, sago, goats, fish, eggs, fruit, and venison, the latter 
 being the flesh of stags introduced and acclimated by the Dutch. 
 Henry Inman, the Dutch governor, though placed in a critical 
 position by this arrival, behaved as became an honorable and 
 generous man. He first did his duty towards his superiors, and 
 then towards fellow-creatures in distress. Aotourou, the Tahi- 
 tian, not being taken ashore by the commander on his first visit, 
 imagined that it was because he was bow-legged and knock-kneed, 
 and begged some of the sailors to stand upon his legs and 
 straighten them out. 
 
 During the run back to France, by way of the Cape of Good 
 Hope, St. Helena, and the Cape Verd Islands, nothing happened 
 which requires mention here. Bougainville entered the port of 
 St. Malo on the 16th of March, 1769, having been absent two 
 years and four months, and having lost but seven men during 
 the voyage. He was the first Frenchman who ever went round 
 the world in one ship, — one Gentil de la Barbinais, a pirate, 
 having accomplished a voyage of circumnavigation in several 
 ships, some fifty years before. He sustained his claim to this 
 honor by publishing, two years afterwards, a narrative of his 
 expedition, written in an animated and graceful style, and which 
 established his reputation as a sailor and explorer. 
 
CAPTAIW JAMES COOK. 
 
 CHAPTER XLIIL 
 
 EXPEDITION DESPATCHED AT THE INSTANCE OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY — LIEUTENANT 
 JAMES COOK — INCIDENTS OF THE VOYAGE — A NIGHT ON SHORE IN TERRA 
 
 DEL FUEGO ARRIVAL AT TAHITI — THE NATIVES PICK THEIR POCKETS THE 
 
 OBSERVATORY — A NATIVE CHEWS A QUID OF TOBACCO — THE TRANSIT OF VENUS 
 
 TWO OF THE MARINES TAKE UNTO THEMSELVES WIVES — NEW ZEALAND 
 
 ADVENTURES THERE REMARKABLE WAR-CANOE — CANNIBALISM DEMONSTRATEB 
 
 THEORY OF A SOUTHERN CONTINENT SUBVERTED NEW HOLLAND BOTANY 
 
 BAY — THE ENDEAVOR ON THE ROCKS — EXPEDIENT TO STOP THE LEAK — A CON- 
 FLAGRATION — PASSAGE THROUGH A REEF — ARRIVAL AT BATAVIA — MORTALITY 
 ON THE VOYAGE HOME COOK PROMOTED TO THE BANK OF COMMANDER. 
 
 In the year 1768, the Royal Society of England induced the 
 
 Government to equip and despatch a vessel to the South Seas. 
 
 The reader may perhaps imagine — and, from what has preceded 
 
 in this volume, he would be amply justified in so doing — that its 
 
 purpose was plunder, and its object either the capture of the 
 
 Manilla galleon or the sack and pillage of the luckless town of 
 
 435 
 
436 ocean's story. 
 
 Paita. Thirty years, however, have elapsed since the voyage of 
 Anson, — the last of the royal buccaneers. The vessel whose 
 career we are now to chronicle sought neither capture, nor spoil, 
 nor prize-money. It was a peaceful ship, with a peaceful name, 
 — the Endeavor : her commander bore a name to be rendered 
 illustrious by peaceful deeds, and he was bound upon a peaceful 
 errand. James Cook, an oflScer of forty years of age, who had 
 rendered efficient service in America, at the capture of Quebec, 
 and who had shown himself a capable astronomer, was instructed 
 to proceed to the island named Sagittaria by Quiros, and King 
 George the Third's Island by Wallis, there to observe and record 
 the transit of the planet Venus over the disk of the sun. The 
 position of the island as reported by Wallis was deemed to be 
 exceedingly favorable for such an observation. Cook was pro- 
 moted to the rank of lieutenant ; Charles Green was attached to 
 the ship in the capacity of astronomer, Joseph Banks and Solander 
 — the latter a Swede and a pupil of Linnseus — in that of natural- 
 ists, Buchan as draughtsman, and Parkinson as painter. The 
 vessel sailed from Plymouth Sound, with a fair wind, on the 
 25th of August. 
 
 The voyage to Rio Janeiro was enlivened by many incidents 
 now of quite ordinary occurrence, but novel and interesting to 
 navigators one hundred years ago. They saw flying-fish whose 
 scales had the color and brightness of burnished silver. They 
 caught a specimen of that species of mollusk which sailors call a 
 Portuguese Man-of-War, — a creature ornamented with exquisite 
 pink veins, and which spreads before the wind a membrane which 
 it uses as a sail. They observed that luminous appearance of 
 the sea now familiar to all, but then a startling novelty. They 
 were of opinion that it proceeded from some light-emitting animal : 
 they threw over their casting-net, and drew up vast numbers of 
 medusse, which had the appearance of metal heated to a glow 
 and gave forth a white and silvery cfTulgence. At Rio Janeiro 
 the viceroy regarded them with strong suspicion, and refused to 
 
SEARCHING BOTANICAL SPECIMENS. 437 
 
 allow Mr. Banks to collect plants upon the shore. He could not 
 understand the transit of Venus over the sun, which he was told 
 was an astronomical phenomenon of great importance, — having 
 gathered the idea from his interpreter that it was the passage of 
 the North Star through the South Pole. On Wednesday, the 
 7th of December, they again weighed anchor, and left the Ameri- 
 can dominions of the King of Portugal, the air at the time being 
 laden with butterflies, and several thousands of them hovering 
 playfully about the mast-head. 
 
 Towards the 1st of January, 1769, the sailors began to com- 
 plain of cold, and each of them received a Magellanic jacket. 
 On the 11th, in the midst of penguins, albatrosses, sheer-waters, 
 seals, whales, and porpoises, they descried the Falkland Islands, 
 and, soon after, the coast of Terra del Fuego. On the 15th, ten 
 or twelve of the company went on shore, and were met by 
 thirty or forty of the natives. Each of the latter had a small 
 stick in his hand, which he threw away, seeming to indicate by 
 this pantomime a renunciation of weapons in token of peace. 
 Acquaintance was then speedily made : beads and ribbons were 
 distributed, and a mutual confidence and good-will produced. 
 Conversation ensued, — if speaking without conveying a meaning, 
 and listening without comprehending, can be called so. Three 
 Indians accompanied the strangers back to the ship. One of 
 them, apparently a priest, performed a ceremony of exorcism, 
 vociferating with all his force at each new portion of the vessel 
 which met his gaze, seemingly for the purpose of dispelling the 
 influence of magic which he supposed to prevail there. 
 
 A botanical party under Solander and Banks attempted an 
 . excursion into the interior, for the purpose of obtaining speci- 
 mens of the plants of the country. The snow lay (feep upon 
 the ground, and the weather was very severe. An accident 
 rendered it impossible for them to return to the ship ; and they 
 were compelled to pass the night, without shelter, among the 
 mountains. Solander well knew that extreme cold, when joined 
 
438 ocean's story. 
 
 with fatigue, produces a torpor and sleepiness which are almost 
 irresistible : he therefore conjured the company to keep moving, 
 whatever pain it might cost them. "Whoever sits down," said 
 he, "will sleep ; and whoever sleeps will wake no more." He 
 was the first to find the inclination, against which he had 
 warned others, unconquerable, and he insisted upon being suffered 
 to lie down upon the snow. He declared that he must obtain 
 some sleep, though he had but just spoken of the perils with which 
 sleep was attended. He soon fell into a profound slumber, in 
 which he remained five minutes. He was then awakened, upon 
 the reception of the news that a fire had been kindled. He was 
 roused with great difficulty, and found that he had almost lost 
 the use of his limbs, his muscles being so shrunk that his shoes 
 fell from his feet. Richmond, a black servant, slept and never 
 woke : two others, overcome with languor, made their bed and 
 fihrcud in the snow. Such are the terrible efiects of cold in the 
 Land of Fire. 
 
 On the 22d of January, Cook weighed anchor and commenced 
 the passage through the Straits of Lemaire ; on the 26th, he 
 doubled Cape Horn and entered the Pacific Ocean. He sailed 
 for many weeks to the westward, making many of the islands 
 which had been discovered the year before by the French navi- 
 gator Bougainville, and himself discovering others. On the 
 11th of April, he arrived at King George's Island, his destina- 
 tion, and the next morning came to anchor in Port Royal Bay, in 
 thirteen fathoms' water. The natives brought branches of a tree, 
 which seemed to be their emblem of peace, and indicated by their 
 gestures that they should be placed in some conspicuous part of 
 the ship's rigging. They then brought fish, cocoanuts, and bread- 
 fruit, which they exchanged for beads and glass. The ship's 
 company went on shore, and mingled in various ceremonies insti- 
 tuted for the purpose of promoting fellowship and good-will. 
 During one of these, Dr. Solander and Mr. Markhouse — the latter 
 a midshipman — suddenly complained that their pockets had been 
 
POISONED BY TOBACCO. 439 
 
 picked. Dr. Solander had lost an opera-glass in a shagreen case, 
 and Mr. Markhouse had been relieved of a valuable snuff-box. 
 A hue and cry was raised, and the chief of the tribe informed 
 of the theft. After great effort and a long delay, the shagreen 
 case was recovered ; but the opera-glass was not in it. After 
 another search, however, it was found and restored. The 
 savages, upon being asked the name of their island, replied, 
 0-Tahiti, — " It is Tahiti." The present mode of writing it, there- 
 fore, — Otaheite, — is erroneous: Tahiti is the proper spelling. 
 
 Cook now made preparations for observing the transit of 
 Venus. He laid out a tract of land on shore, and received from 
 the chief of the natives a present of the roof of a house, as his 
 contribution to science. He erected his observatory under the pro- 
 tection of the guns of his vessel, being somewhat suspicious of the 
 object of such constant offerings of branches as the inhabitants 
 insisted upon making. Mr. Parkinson, the painter, found it diffi- 
 cult to prosecute his labors ; for the flies covered his paper to 
 such a depth that he could not see it, and eat off the color as 
 fast as he applied it. The music of the country, as the party 
 gathered from a serenade played in their honor, was at once 
 eccentric and laborious. The favorite instrument was a sort of 
 German flute, which sounded but four semitones. The performer 
 did not apply this apparatus to his mouth, but, stopping up one 
 of his nostrils with his thumb, blew into it with the other, as 
 Bougainville had already had occasion to observe. 
 
 One day Mr. Banks was informed that an Indian friend of 
 his, Tubourai by name, was dying, in consequence of something 
 which the sailors had given him to eat. He hastened to his hut, 
 and found the invalid leaning his head against a post in an atti- 
 tude of the utmost despondency. The islanders about him inti- 
 mated that he had been vomiting, and produced a leaf folded up 
 with great care, which they said contained some of the poison 
 from the fatal effects of which he was now expiring. He had 
 chewed the portion he had taken to powder, and had swallowed 
 
440 ocean's stoby. 
 
 the spittle. During Mr. Banks's examination of the leaf and its 
 contents, he looked up with the most piteous aspect, intimating 
 that he had but a short time to live. The deadly substance 
 proved to be a quid of tobacco. Mr. Banks prescribed a plenti- 
 ful dose of cocoanut-milk, which speedily dispelled Tubourai's 
 sickness and apprehensions. 
 
 On the 1st of May, the astronomical quadrant was taken on 
 shore for the first time and deposited in Cook's tent. The next 
 morning it was missing, and a vigorous search was instituted. It 
 had been stolen by the natives and carried seven miles into 
 the interior. Through the intervention of Tubourai it was 
 recovered and replaced in the observatory. 
 
 Thus far the integrity of Tubourai had been proof against 
 every temptation. He had withstood the allurements of beads, 
 hatchets, colored cloth, and quadrants, but was finally led astray 
 by the fascinations of a basket of nails. The basket was known 
 to have contained seven nails of unusual length, and out of these 
 seven five were missing. One was found upon his person ; and 
 he was told that if he would bring back the other four to the 
 fort the afiair should be forgotten. He promised to do so, but, 
 instead of fulfilling his promise, removed with his family to the 
 interior, taking the nails and all his furniture with him. 
 
 The transit of Venus was observed, with perfect success, on 
 the 3d of June, by means of three telescopes of different magni- 
 fying powers, by Cook, Dr. Solander, and Mr. Green. Not a 
 cloud passed over the sky from the rising to the setting of the 
 sun. A party of natives contemplated the process in solemn 
 silence, and were made to understand that the strangers had 
 visited their island for the express purpose of witnessing the im- 
 mersion of the planet. 
 
 The ship was to leave Tahiti on the 10th of June, and the time 
 was now spent in preparations for departure. On the evening 
 of the 9th, it was discovered that two marines, Webb and Gibson, 
 had gone ashore, and were not to be found. It was ascertained that 
 
SOCIETY ISLANDS DISCOVERED. 4:il 
 
 they had married two young girls of the island, with whom they 
 had been in the habit of having stolen interviews, and to whom 
 they were very much attached. They were recovered with much 
 diflBculty, and compelled, by the stern laws of the naval service, 
 to leave their wives behind them. The vessel sailed on the 13th, 
 an Indian named Tupia having been gratified in his desire to 
 accompany Cook upon his voyage. As the anchor was weighed, 
 he ascended to the mast-head, weeping, and waving a handker- 
 chief to his friends in the canoe. The latter vied with each other 
 in the violence of their lamentations, which was considered by 
 the English as more affected than genuine. 
 
 Lieutenant Cook now discovered, successively, the various 
 islands which he regarded as forming an archipelago, and to which 
 he gave the name of Society Islands. He left the last of them on 
 the 15th of August, and on the 25th celebrated the anniversary 
 of their leaving England by taking a Cheshire cheese from a 
 locker and tapping a cask of porter. On the 30th, they saw the 
 comet of that year, Tupia remarking with some agitation that 
 it would foment dissensions between the inhabitants of the two 
 islands of Bolabola and Ulieta, who would seem, from this, to 
 have been peculiarly susceptible to meteorological influences. 
 On the 7th of October, they discovered land, and anchored in an 
 inlet to which they gave the name of Poverty Bay. This was 
 the northeast coast of New Zealand, — an island discovered in 
 1642 by Tasman, and which had not been seen since, a space 
 of one hundred and twenty-seven years. The natives received 
 them with distrust, and several of them were somewhat unneces- 
 sarily killed by musket-shots. All efforts to enter into amicable 
 relations with them failed, and Cook determined to make another 
 attempt at some other point of the coast. Here a bloody fight 
 took place, which resulted in the capture of three young savages 
 by Cook's men. They expected to be put to death, and, when 
 relieved from their apprehension by the kindness with which they 
 were treated, were suddenly seized with a voracious appetite, and 
 
442 ocean's story. 
 
 seemed to be in the highest possible spirits. During the night, 
 however, they gave way to grief, sighed often and deeply, and sang 
 low and solemn tunes like psalms. The next morning they were 
 brilliantly decorated with beads, bracelets, and necklaces, and 
 displayed in this guise to their countrymen on shore. The nego- 
 tiation totally failed : the boys were sent home, and the ship 
 stood away from the inhospitable shore on Wednesday, the 11th. 
 
 Cook coasted along the island to the south, now alarming the 
 natives by a single musket-shot, now dispersing a hostile fleet of 
 a dozen well-armed canoes by a discharge of a four-pounder 
 loaded with grape-shot, but aimed wide of the mark. At another 
 time Tupia would be ordered to acquaint a party of shouting and 
 dancing savages that the strangers had weapons which, like 
 thunder, would instantaneously destroy them. Cook was badly 
 worsted in a bargain he made with a species of New Zealand 
 confidence-man, who came under the stern and proposed to trade. 
 Cook ofi'ered him a piece of red baize for his bear-skin coat. The 
 savage accepted. Cook passed over the article, upon which the 
 islander paddled rapidly away, taking with him the baize and the 
 bear-skin. An attempt made by a party of the natives to kidnap 
 Tupia's servant, Tayeto, — a Tahitian like himself, — and which 
 was near being successful, induced Cook to name the deep 
 indentation of the sea at this point of the coast. Kidnapper's 
 Bay. 
 
 Somewhat farther to the south they found the natives more 
 disposed to be friendly, and Mr. Banks and Dr. Solander went 
 ashore and shot several birds of exquisite beauty. Some of the 
 ship's company returned at night with their noses besmeared with 
 red ochre and oil, — a circumstance which Cook explains by saying 
 that " the ladies paint their faces with substances which are gene- 
 rally fresh and wet upon their cheeks and were easily transferred 
 to the noses of those who chose to salute them. These ladies," 
 he goes on to say, " were as great coquettes as any of the most 
 fashionable dames in Europe, and the young ones as skittish as 
 
CANNIBALISM. 443 
 
 an unbroken filly. Each of them wore a petticoat, under which 
 was a girdle made of the blades of highly-perfumed grass." 
 
 At another point they set up the armorer's forge, to repair 
 the braces of the tiller. They here met an old man who insisted 
 on showing them the military exercises of the country, with a 
 lance twelve feet long, and a battle-axe made of bone and called 
 a patoo-patoo. An upright stake was made to represent the 
 enemy, upon which he advanced with great fury : when he was 
 supposed to have pierced the adversary, he split his skull with his 
 axe. From this final act it was inferred that in the battles of 
 this country there was no quarter. It was also ascertained that 
 cannibalism was a constant and favorite practice. They here 
 saw the largest canoe they had yet met with. She was sixty- 
 eight feet and a half long, five broad, and three deep : she had 
 a sharp keel, consisting of three trunks of trees hollowed out : the 
 
 A NEW ZEALAND CANOE. 
 
 side-planks were sixty-two feet long in one piece, and quite elabo- 
 rately carved in bas-relief: the figure-head was also a master- 
 piece of sculpture. 
 
 The expedition had thus far been sailing to the southward. 
 Dissatisfied with the results, and finding it difl&cult to procure 
 water in suflficient quantities. Cook put about, determining to fol- 
 low the coast to the northward. He named a promontory in the 
 neighborhood Cape Turnagain. Another promontory, more to 
 
444 ocean's story. 
 
 the north, where a huge canoe made a hasty retreat, he called 
 Cape Runaway. On the 9th of November, the transit of Mer- 
 cury was successfully observed, and the name of Mercury Bay 
 given to the inlet where the observation was made. Two locali- 
 ties, for reasons which will be obvious, were called Oyster Bay 
 and Mangrove River. Before leaving Mercury Bay, Cook caused 
 to be cut, upon one of the trees near the watering-place, the ship'g 
 name, and his own, with the date of their arrival there, and, 
 after displaying the English colors, took formal possession of it 
 in the name of his Britannic Majesty King George the Third. 
 
 On the 17th of December, they doubled North Cape, which 
 is the northern extremity of the island, and commenced de- 
 scending its western side. The weather now became stormy 
 and the coast danorerous, so that the vessel was obli<]^ed to stand 
 off to great distances, and intercourse with the natives was very 
 much interrupted. At one point, however, the English satisfied 
 themselves that the inhabitants ate human flesh, — the flesh, at 
 least, of enemies who had been killed in battle. An Indian, to 
 convince Mr. Banks of the truth of this, seized the bone of a 
 human fore-arm divested of its flesh, bit and gnawed it, draw- 
 ing it through his mouth, and indicating by signs that it afforded 
 him a delicious repast. The bone was then returned to Mr. 
 Banks, who took it on board ship with him as a trophy and a 
 souvenir. He was afterwards told that the New Zealanders ate 
 no portion of the heads of their enemies but the seat of the in- 
 tellect, and was assured that as soon as a fight should take place 
 they would treat him to the sight of a banquet of brains. 
 
 By the end of March, 1770, the ship had circumnavigated 
 the two islands forming what is now known as New Zealand, 
 and had therefore proved — what was before uncertain — that it 
 was insular, and not a portion of any grand Southern mainland. 
 The whole voyage, in fact, had been unfavorable to the notion 
 of a Southern continent, for it had swept away at least three- 
 quarters of the positions upon which it had been founded. It 
 
BOTANY BAY NAMED. 445 
 
 had also totally subverted the theory according to which the 
 existence of a Southern continent was necessary to preserve an 
 equilibrium between the Northern and Southern hemispheres ; for 
 it had already proved the presence of sufficient water to render 
 the Southern hemisphere too light, even if all the rest should be 
 land. 
 
 The vessel left New Zealand on the 31st of March, sailing 
 due west, and, on the 18th of April, Mr. Hicks, the first lieu- 
 tenant, discovered land directly in the ship's path. This was 
 the most southerly point of New Holland, and was called, from 
 its discoverer, Point Hicks. Cook followed the coast for many 
 days to the northward ; and it was only on the third that he 
 learned, from ascending smoke, that the country was -inhabited. 
 On the thirteenth, he saw a party of natives walking briskly 
 upon the shore. These subsequently retired, leaving the defence 
 of the coast to two persons of very singular appearance. Their 
 faces had been dusted v/ith a white powder, and their bodies 
 painted with broad streaks of the same color, which, passing 
 obliquely over their breasts and backs, looked not unlike the 
 cross-belts worn by civilized soldiers : the same kind of streaks 
 were also drawn round their legs and thighs, like broad garters. 
 Each of them held in his hand a weapon two feet and a half 
 long. The landing party detached by Cook numbered forty 
 men ; and one of the musketeers was ordered to show the two 
 champions the folly of resistance, by lodging a charge of small 
 shot in their legs. The wooders and waterers then went ashore, 
 and with some difficulty obtained the necessary supplies. 
 
 Early in May, Cook landed at a spot to which, from a casual 
 circumstance, he gave the name of Botany Bay, — a name now 
 famous the world over. Mr. Banks and Dr. Solandcr collected 
 here large quantities of plants, flowers, and branches of unknown 
 trees ; and it was this incident that furnished the pastoral appel- 
 lation to the Retreat for Transported Criminals. They found 
 the woods filled with birds of the most exquisite beauty ; the 
 
446 ocean's story. 
 
 shallow coasts were haunted with flocks of waterfowl resembling 
 swans and pelicans ; the mud-banks harbored vast quantities of 
 oysters, muscles, cockles, and other shell-fish. The inhabitants 
 went totally naked, would never parley with the strangers, and 
 did not seem to understand the Tahitian dialect of Tupia. 
 
 At a place which, in consequence of the difficulty of pro- 
 curing fresh water, received the name of Thirsty Sound, the 
 watering party met with singular adventures. They found 
 walking exceedingly difficult, owing to the ground being covered 
 with a kind of grass, the seeds of which were very sharp and 
 bearded backwards, so that when they stuck into their clothes 
 they worked forward by means of the beard till they pierced the 
 flesh. Mosquitos stung them at every pore. The air was so 
 filled with butterflies that they saw, smelt, tasted, and breathed 
 butterflies. Black ants swarmed upon the trees, eating out the 
 pith from the small branches and then inhabiting the pipe which 
 had contained it ; and yet the branches, thus deprived of their 
 marrow and occupied by millions of insects, bore leaves, flowers, 
 and even fruit. They saw a species of fish resembling a minnow, 
 which appeared to prefer land to water : it leaped before them, 
 by means of its breast-fins, as nimbly as a frog ; when found in 
 the water it frequently jumped out and pursued its way upon 
 the dry ground ; in places where small stones were standing 
 above the surface of the water at a little distance from each 
 other, it chose rather to leap from stone to stone than to pass 
 through the water. They saw several of them proceed dry-shod 
 over large puddles in this ingenious and unusual manner. The 
 ship left Thirsty Sound on the 31st of May. 
 
 On the night of Sunday, the 10th of June, the vessel struck 
 at high tide upon a rock which .lay concealed in seventeen 
 fathoms' water, and beat so violently against it that there 
 seemed little hope of saving her. Land was twenty-five miles 
 off, with no intervening island in sight. The sheathing-boards 
 were soon seen to be floating away all around, and the false keel 
 
A LEAK STOPPED. 447 
 
 was finally torn off. The six deck-guns, all the iron and stone 
 ballast, casks, staves, oil-jars, decayed stores, to the weight of 
 fifty tons, were thrown overboard with the utmost expedition. 
 To Cook's dismay, the vessel, thus lightened, did not float by a 
 foot and a half at high tide, — so much did the day tide fall short 
 of that of the night. They again threw overboard every thing 
 which it was possible to spare ; but the vessel now began to leak, 
 and it was feared she must go to the bottom as soon as she 
 ceased to be supported by the rock, — so that the floating of the 
 ship was anticipated not as a means of deliverance, but as an 
 event that would precipitate her destruction. The ship floated 
 at ten o'clock, and was heaved into deep water: there were 
 nearly lour feet of water in the hold. The leak was held at bay 
 for a time ; but the men were finally exhausted, and threw them- 
 selves down upon the deck, flooded as it was to the depth of 
 three inches by water from the pumps. The vessel was finally 
 saved by the following expedient, proposed and executed by Mr. 
 Markhouse. He took a lower studding-sail, and having mixed 
 together a large quantity of oakum and wool, chopped pretty 
 small, stitched it down in handfuls upon the sail as tightly as 
 possible. The sail was then hauled under the ship's bottom by 
 ropes ; and, when it came under the leak, the suction which car- 
 ried in the water carried in with it the oakum and the wool. 
 The leak was so far reduced that it was easily kept under by 
 one pump. The vessel was finally got ashore and beached in 
 Endeavor River: the surrounding localities were fitly named 
 Tribulation Bay, Weary Point, and the Islands of Hope. 
 
 The repairs of the vessel occupied many weeks, — the officers 
 and crew occupying themselves in the mean time in fishing, in 
 endeavors to obtain interviews with the natives, and in excur- 
 sions for botanical or geological purposes. On the 14th of July, 
 Mr. Gore killed an animal which had excited the interest and 
 curiosity of the English in the highest degree, being totally un- 
 like any animal then known. The name given by the natives to 
 
448 ocean's story. 
 
 this creature was "kangaroo." He was dressed the next day 
 for dinner, and proved most excellent fare. 
 
 A party of natives in the neighborhood having been rendered 
 hostile by the refusal of a pair of fat turtle belonging to the 
 ship, they snatched a brand from under a pitch-kettle which was 
 boiling, and, making a circuit to the windward of the few articles 
 on shore, set fire to the grass in their way. This grass, which 
 was five or six feet high and as dry as« stubble, burned with 
 amazinfT fury. The fire made rapid progress towards a tent 
 where the unhappy Tupia was lying sick of the scurvy, scorch- 
 ing in its course a sow and two pigs. Tupia and the tent were 
 saved in the nick of time : the armorer's forge, or such parts of 
 it as would burn, was consumed. The powder, which had been 
 taken ashore, had been transported back to the magazine but 
 two days before. At night, the hills on every side were dis- 
 covered to be on fire, — the conflagration having spread with 
 wonderful celerity. On the 3d of August, the ship sailed from 
 Endeavor River, the carpenter having at last completed the 
 necessary repairs. 
 
 The ship now coasted along the edge of a reef which stretched 
 out some twenty miles from the shore. This became suddenly 
 of 80 formidable an aspect, and the winds and waves rolled them 
 towards it with such sure and fatal speed, that the boats were 
 got out and sent ahead to tow, and finally succeeded in getting 
 the ship's head round. The surf was now breaking to a tremen- 
 dous height within two hundred yards : the water beneath them 
 was unfathomable. An opening in the reef was now discovered, 
 and the dangerous expedient of forcing the ship through it 
 was successfully tried. They anchored in nineteen fathoms' 
 water, over a bottom of coral and shells. The opening through 
 the reef received the name of Providential Channel. 
 
 They sailed to the northward many days within the reef, till 
 they at last found a safe passage out. Cook then for the last 
 time hoisted English colors upon the eastern coast, which he was 
 
NEW SOUTH WALES NAMED. 449 
 
 confident no European had seen before, and took possession of its 
 whole extent, from south latitude thirty-eight to latitude ten. He 
 claimed it, in behalf of his Majesty King George the Third, by the 
 name of New South Wales, with all its bays, rivers, harbors, and 
 islands. Three volleys of small-arms were then fired, and the 
 spot upon which the ceremony was performed was named Pos- 
 session Island. The ship passed out to the westward, finding 
 open sea to the norths of New Holland, — a circumstance which 
 gave great satisfaction to all on board, as it showed that New 
 Holland and New Guinea were separate islands, and not, as had 
 been imagined, different parts of the supposed Southern conti- 
 nent. On Thursday, the 24th of August, the ship left New 
 Holland, steering towards the northwest, with the intention of 
 making the coast of New Guinea. 
 
 Early in September they arrived among a group of islands 
 which they supposed to lie along the coast of New Guinea. As 
 they attempted to land, Indians rushed out of the thickets upon 
 them, with hideous shouts, one of them throwing something from 
 his hand which burned like gunpowder but made no report. 
 Their numbers soon increased, and they discharged these noise- 
 less flashes by four and five at a time. The smoke resembled 
 that of a musket ; and, as they held long hollow canes in their 
 hands, the illusion would have been perfect had the combustion 
 been accompanied by concussion. Those on board the ship were 
 convinced the natives possessed fire-arms, supposing that the 
 direction of the wind prevented the sound of the discharge from 
 reaching them. Cook determined to lose no time in this latitude, 
 having accomplished what he considered as of paramount import- 
 ance ; that is, he had sailed between the two lands of New Hol- 
 land and New Guinea, and had thus established their insular 
 character beyond any possibility of controversy. 
 
 He now sailed to the west, and anchored, on the 8th of October, 
 
 at Batavia, in Java. Here he laid up the ship for repairs. *' What 
 
 anxieties we had escaped," he writes, "in our ignorance that a* 
 2SI 
 
450 
 
 ocean's story. 
 
 large portion of the keel had been diminished to the thickness 
 of the under leather of a shoe !" But the ship's company, 
 which had been so wonderfully preserved from the perils of the 
 sea, were destined to undergo the rude attacks of disease upon 
 land. Markhouse, the surgeon, Tupia and Tayeto, the Tahitians, 
 and four sailors, were rapidly carried off by fever. On the 27th 
 of December, the ship weighed anchor, the sick-list including 
 forty names. Before doubling the Cape pf Good Hope, she lost 
 Sporing, one of the assistant naturalists, Parkinson, the artist, 
 Green, the astronomei*, Molineux, the master, besides the second 
 lieutenant, four carpenters, and ten sailors. Cook was forced 
 to wait a month at the Cnpe ; and on the 12th of July, 1771, 
 he cast anchor in the Downs, after a cruise of three eventful 
 years. His crew was decimated and his ship no longer sea- 
 worthy. The skill and enterprise displayed by Cook, and the 
 important results attained by the voyage, induced the Govern- 
 ment to raise him to the lank of commander. We shall follow 
 him upon his second voyage, in the next chapter. 
 
 CAI'K I'KiKON. 
 
COOK'S SHIP BESET BY WAT E R - S P U T 3 . 
 
 CHAPTER XLIV. 
 
 OOOK'S second voyage A STORM — SEPARATION OF TUB SHIPS — AURORA AUS- 
 
 TRALIS NEW ZEALAND SIX WATER-SPOUTS AT ONCE TAHITI AGAIN PETTY 
 
 THEFTS OF THE NATIVES — COOK VISITS THE TAHITIAN THEATRE — OMAI — ■ 
 
 ARRIVAL AT THE FRIENDLY ISLANDS THE FLEET WITNESS A FEAST OF HUMAX 
 
 FLESH — THE NEW HEBRIDES NEW CALEDONIA — RETURN HOME — HONORS BE- 
 STOWED UPON COOK. 
 
 The English Government now determined to despatch an expe- 
 dition in search of the supposed Southern or Austral continent. 
 A Frenchman, bj the name of Benoit, had seen in 1709, to the 
 south of the Cape of Good Hope, in latitude 54° and in longi- 
 tude 11° East, what he believed to be land, naming it Cape Cir- 
 cumcision. Cook was placed in command of the Resolution and 
 
 Adventure, and instructed to endeavor to find this cape and 
 
 451 
 
452 ocean's story. 
 
 satisfy himself whether it formed part of the great continent in 
 question. He left Plymouth on the 13th of July, 1772, and the 
 Cape of Good Hope on the 22d of November. 
 
 A terrific gale soon drove both vessels from their course, 
 "washed overboard their live-stock, and well-nigh disabled the Reso- 
 lution. The cold increased suddenly, and drawers and fearnaughts 
 were served in abundance to the crew. Immense ice-islands now 
 occupied the horizon, and the sea, dashing over them to the height 
 of sixty feet, filled the air with its ceaseless roar. On Sunday, 
 the 13th of December, they were in the latitude of Cape Circum- 
 cision, but ten degrees east of it. For weeks they kept in 
 high Southern latitudes, now menaced by towering peaks of ice, 
 now enclosed by immense fields and floating masses, till, towards 
 the 1st of February, 1773, Cook came to the unwelcome conclu- 
 sion that the cape discovered by Benoit was nothing more than 
 a huge tract of ice, which, being chained to no anchorage and 
 subject to no latitude, he had no reason to expect to find in the 
 spot where the credulous Frenchman had discovered it sixty 
 years before. 
 
 On the 8th of February, the Resolution lost sight of the Ad- 
 venture, and cruised three days in search of her, firing guns and 
 burning false fires, but without success. On the 17th, between 
 midnight and three in the morning, Cook saw lights in the sky 
 similar to those seen in high Northern latitudes and known by 
 the name of Aurora Borealis : the Aurora Australis had never 
 been seen before. It sometimes broke out in spiral rays and in 
 a circular form ; its colors were brilliant, and it diffused its light 
 throughout the heavens. On the 24th, a tremendous gale, accom- 
 panied with snow and sleet, made great havoc among the ice- 
 islands, breaking them up, and largely increasing the number of 
 floating and insidious enemies the ship had to contend with. 
 These dangers were now, however, so familiar to the crew, that 
 the apprehensions they caused were never of long duration, and 
 were in some measure compensated by the seasonable supplies of 
 
DANGEROUS WATER-SPOin'S 453 
 
 water the ice-islands afforded them, and without which they 
 would have been greatly distressed. 
 
 On the 16th of March, Cook found himself in latitude 59°, 
 longitude 146° East. lie now determined to quit this quarter, 
 where he was convinced he should find no land, and proceed to 
 New Zealand to look for the Adventure and to refresh his crew. 
 On the 26th, he anchored in Dusky Bay, New Zealand, after 
 having been one hundred and seventeen days at sea, and having 
 sailed eleven thousand miles without once seeing land. This point, 
 the most southerly of New Zealand, had never been visited by a 
 European before. 
 
 While coasting to the northward, towards Queen Charlotte's 
 Sound, where he expected to find the Adventure, Cook suddenly 
 observed six water-spouts between his vessel and the land. Five 
 of them soon spent themselves ; the sixth started from a point three 
 miles distant, and passed within fifty yards of the stern of the 
 Resolution, though she felt no shock. The diameter of its base 
 was about sixty feet : within this space the sea was much agitated 
 and foamed up to a great height. From this a tube was formed, 
 by which the water and air were carried up in a spiral stream 
 to the clouds, from whence the water did not descend again, 
 being dispersed in the upper regions of the atmosphere. " I 
 have been told," says Cook, "that the firing of a gun will dissi- 
 pate water-spouts ; and I am sorry that we did not try the experi- 
 ment, as we were near enough and had a gun ready for the 
 purpose ; but as soon as the danger was past I thought no more 
 about it." 
 
 On the 18th of May, the Resolution discovered the Adventure 
 in Queen Charlotte's Sound : the crews of the two ships were 
 overjoyed at meeting each other after a separation of fourteen 
 weeks. The captain of the latter had seen upon the coast some 
 natives of the tribe which had furnished Tupia to Cook's vessel 
 upon his first voyage. They seemed quite concerned when 
 informed that he had died at Batavia, and were anxious to 
 
454 ocean's story. 
 
 know whether he had been killed, and whether he had been 
 buried or eaten. 
 
 Before leaving the island, potatoes, turnips, carrots, and 
 parsnips were planted in spots favorable to their growth, and 
 the natives were made to understand their value as esculent 
 roots. A ewe and ram were sent ashore from the Resolution, — 
 the last pair of the large stock put on board at the Cape of 
 Good Hope; but they probably ate a poisonous plant during 
 the night, for they were found dead in the morning. The 
 Adventure put ashore a boar and two sows, in the hope that 
 they would multiply and replenish the island. 
 
 The two ships sailed in company from New Zealand on the 
 7th of June, their purpose being to proceed to the eastward in 
 search of land as far as longitude 140° West, between the lati- 
 tudes of 41° and 46° South. During a long cruise. Cook saw 
 nothing which induced in him the belief that they were in the 
 neighborhood of any continent between the meridian of New 
 Zealand and America. A fact which militated against it was, 
 that they had, as is usual in all great oceans, large billows from 
 every direction in which the wind blew a fresh gale. These bil- 
 lows never ceased with the cause which first put them in motion, 
 — a sure indication that no land was near. They constantly 
 passed low and half-submerged islands, — now consisting of coral 
 shoah fretting the waves into foam, and now of islets clothed 
 with verdure. On the 17th of August they arrived at Tahiti, 
 after an entirely fruitless voyage. 
 
 The tliieving and cheating propensities of the natives ap> 
 peared in bold relief during the sojourn of the English ' 
 upon their coast. The latter sometimes paid in advance for 
 promised supplies of hogs and fowls, in which case they were 
 sure never to get them, — the wary trader making off with his 
 axe, shirt, or nails, and dispensing with the necessity of fulfill- 
 ing his engagement. The practice of overreaching was not 
 confined to the underlings of society, but extended even to the 
 
A ROYAL DANCE. 
 
 455 
 
 chiefs. A potentate of high warlike renown came one day to 
 the side of the Resolution, and offered for sale a superb bundle 
 of cocoanuts, which was readily bought by one of the officers. 
 On untying it, it was found to consist of fruit which they had 
 already once bought, and which had been tapped, emptied 
 of the milk, and thrown overboard. The dishonest dignitary 
 sat in his canoe at a distance, indicating by the glee and vigor 
 of his pantomime that he enjoyed in a supreme degree the bril- 
 liant success of this mercantile fraud. 
 
 At another part of the coast, Cook and his officers were in- 
 vited by Otoo, the king, to visit the theatre, where a play was 
 to be enacted with music and dancing. The performers were 
 five men and one woman, who was no less a personage than the 
 king's sister. The instruments consisted of three drums only, 
 
 • KING OTOO'S SISTER DAXCING. 
 
 and the music lasted about an hour and a half. The meaning 
 of the play was not apparent to the English, except that it 
 abounded in local allusions, — the name of Cook constantly ro- 
 
a 
 
 H 
 
 •< 
 
 14 
 o 
 o 
 o 
 
 p« 
 o 
 
 a 
 o 
 
 i>< 
 
 H 
 
 a« 
 
 (4 
 
 D4 
 
RECEPTION AT THE FRIENDLY ISLANDS. 45? 
 
 curring. The dancing-dress of the lady was very elegant, being 
 ornamented with long tassels made of feathers, hanging from 
 the waist downwards. 
 
 Cook left Tahiti early in September, taking with him a 
 young savage named Poreo, who was smitten with a desire to 
 visit foreign parts. At the neighboring island of Huaheine, a 
 native named Oraai, belonging to the middle class, was also 
 taken on board. Cook thus speaks of him two years later: — 
 "Omai has most certainly a good understanding, quick parts, 
 and honest principles: he has a natural good behavior, which 
 renders him acceptable to the best company, and a proper de- 
 gree of pride, which teaches him to avoid the society of persons 
 of inferior rank. He has passions of the same kind as other 
 young men, but has judgment enough not to indulge them to an 
 improper excess.'* Omai was taken back to Huaheine by Cook 
 when he started upon his third voyage of discovery, in 1776. 
 We shall have occasion hereafter to chronicle the incidents of 
 this restoration. 
 
 Cook arrived at Middlebourg, one of the Friendly Islands, 
 early in October. Two canoes, rowed by three men each, came 
 boldly alongside ; and some of them entered the ship without 
 hesitation. One of them seemed to be a chief, by the authority 
 he exerted, and accordingly received a present of a hatchet and 
 five nails. Tioony — such was this potentate's name — was thus 
 cheaply conciliated. Cook and a party soon embarked in a 
 boat, accompanied by Tioony, who conducted them to a little 
 creek, where a landing was easily effected. Tioony brandished 
 a branch of the tree of peace in his right hand, extending hi« 
 left towards an immense crowd of natives, who welcomed tho 
 English on shore with loud acclamations. Not one of them 
 carried a weapon of any sort: they thronged so thickly around 
 the boat that it was difficult to get room to land. They seemed 
 more desirous to give than receive ; and many threw whole bales 
 of cloth and armfuls of fruit into the boat, and then retired 
 
458 
 
 OCEAN S STORY. 
 
 without either asking or waiting for an equivalent. Tioony then 
 conducted the strangers to his house, which was situated upon 
 a fine plantation beneath the shade of shaddock-trees. The 
 floor was laid with mats. Bananas and cocoanuts were set 
 before them to eat, and a beverage was prepared for them to 
 drink. This was done in the following manner: — Pieces of a 
 highly-scented root were vigorously masticated by the natives ; 
 the chewed product was then deposited in a large wooden bowl 
 and mixed with water. As soon as it was properly strained, 
 cups were made of green leaves which held nearly half a pint, 
 and presented to the English. No one tasted the contents but 
 Oook, — the manner of brewing it having quenched the thirst of 
 every one else. In this island, as well as in the neighboring 
 one of Amsterdam, the people — both men and women — were 
 observed to have lost one or both of their little fingers. Cook 
 endeavored in vain to discover the reason of this mutilation ; but 
 no one would take any pains to inform him. 
 
 Cook noticed with interest the sailing canoes of these islands. 
 A remarkable feature was the sail, — which, being suspended by 
 its spar from a forked mast, could be so turned that the prow 
 
 CANOES OF THE FRIENDLY ISLANDS. 
 
 of the boat became its stern, and vice versd. They sailed with 
 equal rapidity in either direction. 
 
 On his return to New Zealand in November, Cook found that 
 his efforts to introduce new plants and animals had been frus- 
 trated by the natives. One of the sows had been incapacitated 
 
A CANNIBAL FEAST. 459 
 
 by a severe cut in one of her hind-legs ; the other sow and the 
 boar had been sedulously kept separate. The two goats had 
 been killed by a fellow named Gobiah, and the potatoes had 
 been dug up. Cook here had the satisfaction of beholding 
 a feast of human flesh. A portion of the body of a young man 
 of twenty years was broiled and eaten by one of the natives 
 with evident relish. Several of the ship's crew were rendered 
 nick by the disgusting sight. 
 
 The Adventure separated from her consort at this point ; nor 
 was she again seen during the remainder of the voyage. Cook 
 left New Zealand early in December for a last attempt in the 
 Southern Ocean. On the 12th he saw the first ice, and on the 
 23d, in latitude 67°, found his passage obstructed by such quan- 
 tities that he abandoned all hopes of proceeding any farther in 
 that direction, and resolved to return to the north. As he was 
 in the longitude of 137°, it was clear that there must be a vast 
 space of sea to the north unexplored, — a space of twenty-four 
 degrees, in which a large tract of land might possibly lie. 
 
 Late in February, 1774, Cook was taken ill of bilious colic, 
 and for some days his life was despaired of. The crew suifered 
 severely from scurvy. On the 11th of March, they fell in with 
 Roggewein's Easter Island, which they recognised by the gigantic 
 statues which lined the coast. They noticed a singular dispro- 
 portion in the number of the males and females, having counted 
 in the island some seven hundred men and only thirty women. 
 
 Early in April, Cook arrived among the Marquesas Islands, 
 discovered in 1595 by Mendana. On the 22d, he arrived at 
 Point Venus, in Tahiti, where he had observed the transit in 
 1769, and of which the longitude was known: he was able, 
 therefore, to determine the error of his watch, and to fix anew 
 its rate of going. The natives, and especially Otoo, the king, 
 expressed no little joy at seeing him again. On leaving Ta- 
 hiti, Cook visited in detail the islands named Espiritu Santo by 
 Quiro* and Grandes Cyclades by Bougainville. As he deter- 
 
4 >0 ocean's story. 
 
 mined their extent and position, he took the liberty of changing 
 their name to that of the New Hebrides. 
 
 Cook now discovered the large island of New Caledonia, 
 whose inhabitants he mentions as possessing an excellent cha- 
 racter. Subsequent navigators, however, ascertained them to be 
 cannibals. They were much lower in the scale of intelligence 
 than the Tahitians. Their canoes were of the most clumsy 
 
 N E W C A L E DON rA N DOUBLE CANOE. 
 
 description, and were generally propelled in pairs by pohjs. 
 Cook was unable to obtain provisions ; and, as his crew w^re 
 BOW suffering from famine, he returned to New Zealand, where 
 he arrived on the 18th of October. He left again on the 10th 
 of November, and anchored on the 21st of December in Christ- 
 mas Sound, in Terra del Fuego. He doubled Cape Horn, dis- 
 covered numerous islands of little importance, and finally headed 
 the vessel for the Cape of Good Hope. He anchored in Table 
 Bay on the 19th of March, 1775. He here found news of the 
 Adventure, which had already passed the Capn? on her way 
 home. On the 30th of July, Cook landed at Plymouth, after 
 an absence of three years and eighteen days. During this space 
 «f time he had lost but four men, and only one of these four by 
 gickness. He was promoted to the rank of captain, was elected 
 a member of the Royal Society of London, and received the 
 Godfrey Copley gold medal in testimony of the appreciation in 
 which his efforts to preserve the health of his crew were held by 
 the Government. He was now forty-seven years of age. 
 
ASANOWICM ISCANO KIN6 fROCECOINS TO VISIT COOK. 
 
 CHAPTER XLV. 
 
 cook's third voyage TIIK NOllTIIWE^T PASSAGE OMAI — HIS KECEPTIOM AT 
 
 HOME — THE CUKW rOKEGO THEIR GROG DISCOVERT OF THE SANDWICH 1SLAXD8 
 
 NOOTKA SOUND THE NATIVES — CAPE PRINCE OF WALES TWO CONTINENTfl 
 
 IS SIGHT ICY CAPE RETURN TO THE SANDWICH ISLANDS— COOK IS DEIFIED 
 
 INTERVIEW WITH TKREOBOO — SUBSEQUENT DIFFICULTIES A SKIRMISH 
 
 PITCHED BATTLE AND DEATH OF COOK — RECOVERY OF A PORTION OF HIS 
 REMAINS FUNERAL CKREMONlEs LIFE AND SERVICES OF COOK. 
 
 Cook might justly have retired at this period to private life, 
 
 to enjoy his well-earned reputation. But the grand question 
 
 of the Northwest Passage, now agitated by the press and the 
 
 public, induced him once more to tempt the perils of foreign 
 
 adventure. As every effort to force a passage through Baffin's 
 
 or Hudson's Bay had signally failed, it was determined to 
 
 make the experiment through Behring's Straits. On the 0th 
 
 461 
 
462 OCEAN S STORY. 
 
 of February, 1776, Cook received the command of the sloop-of- 
 war Resolution, — the vessel in which he had made his last voyage, 
 — the Discovery, of three hundred tons, being appointed to 
 accompany the expedition. Both ships were equipped in a 
 manner befitting the nature of their mission : they were well 
 supplied with European animals and plants, which they were 
 to introduce into the islands of the Pacific. Omai, the young 
 Tahitian whom Cook had brought to England, was placed on 
 board the Resolution, as it was not likely another opportunity 
 would occur of sending him home. He left London with regret ; 
 but the consciousness that the treasures he carried with him 
 would raise him to an enviable rank among his countrymen 
 operated by degrees to alleviate his sorrow. The Resolution 
 sailed from Plymouth on the 12th of July, and was followed, on 
 the 10th of August, by the Discovery : both vessels joined com- 
 pany, early in November, at the Cape of Good Hope. 
 
 As we have already been frequently over the track now for 
 the third time traversed by Cook, we shall merely give his route, 
 without detailing his adventures, which did not materially differ 
 from those of his former voyages. He arrived at Van Diemen's 
 Land in December, and passed a fortnight of the month of 
 February, 1777, in Queen Charlotte's Sound, New Zealand. 
 Soon after he discovered an island which the natives called 
 Mangya : he noticed that the inhabitants, for want of a better 
 pocket, slit the lobe of their ear and carried their knife in it. 
 At another island of the same group, Omai extricated himself 
 and a party of English from a position of great danger by 
 giving the natives an exaggerated account of the instruments 
 of war used on board the two ships anchored in the offing. 
 '* These instruments," he said, "were so huge that several 
 people could sit conveniently within them ; and one of them was 
 sufficient to crush the whole island at a shot." Had it not been 
 for this formidable story, Omai thought the party would have 
 been detained on shore all night. At one of the Society Islands 
 
THE VALUE OF RED FEATHERS. 463 
 
 Cook planted a pineapple and sowed some melon-seeds. lie 
 was somewhat encouraged to hope that endeavors of this kind 
 would not be fruitless, for upon the same day the natives served 
 up at his dinner a dish of turnips, being the produce of the seeds 
 he had left there during his last voyage. 
 
 The Resolution soon anchored off Tahiti, and Cook noticed 
 particularly the conduct of Omai, now about to be restored to his 
 home and his friends. A chief named Ootu, and Omai's brother- 
 in-law, came on board. There was nothing cither tender or strik- 
 ing in their meeting. On the contrary, there seemed to be a 
 per-fcct indifference on both sides, till Omai, having taken his 
 brother down into the cabin, opened the drawer where he kept 
 his red feathers and gave him three of them. Ootu, who would 
 hardly speak to Omai before, now begged that they might be 
 friends. Omai assented, and ratified the bargain with a present 
 of feathers ; and Ootu, by way of return, sent ashore for a hog. 
 But it was evident to the English that it was not the man, but 
 his property, they were in love with. *'Such," says Cook, "was 
 Omai's first reception among his countrymen. Had he not 
 shown to them his treasure of red feathers, I question much 
 whether they would have bestowed even a cocoanut upon him. 
 I own I never expected it would be otherwise." 
 
 The important news of the arrival of red feathers was con- 
 veyed on shore by Omai's friends, and the ships were surrounded 
 early the next morning by a multitude of canoes crowded with 
 people bringing hogs and fruit to market. At first a quantity 
 of feathers not greater than might be plucked from a tomtit 
 would purchase a hog weighing fifty pounds ; but such was the 
 quantity of this precious article on board that its value fell five 
 hundred per cent, before night. Omai was now visited by his 
 sister ; and, much to the credit of them both, their meeting was 
 marked by expressions of the tenderest affection. Cook foresaw, 
 however, that Omai would soon be despoiled of every thing he 
 had if left among his relatives: so it was determined to esta- 
 
•^CA ocean's story. 
 
 blish him at the neighboring island of Iluaheine. A large lot 
 of land was obtained there from the chief, and the carpenters of 
 the two ships set about building him a house fit to contain the 
 European commodities that were his property. Cook told the 
 natives that if Omai were disturbed or harassed he should 
 upon his next visit make them feel the weight of his resent- 
 ment. Omai took possession of his mansion late in October, 
 and on Sunday, November 2, bade adieu to the officers of the 
 ship. He sustained himself in this trying ordeal till he came 
 to Cook, and then gave way to a passionate burst of tears. 
 He wept abundantly while being conveyed on shore. " It was 
 no small satisfaction to reflect," writes Cook, "that we had 
 brought him back safe to the spot from which he was taken. 
 And yet such is the strange nature of human affairs that it is 
 probable we left him in a less desirable situation than he was 
 in before his connection with us. He had tasted the sweets 
 of civilized life, and must now become more miserable from 
 being obliged to abandon all thoughts of continuing them." 
 The career and destiny of Omai were perhaps more remarkable 
 than those of any other savage : he was cherished by Cook, 
 painted by Reynolds, and apostrophized by Cowper. 
 
 During the stay of the vessels at the Society Islands, Cook in- 
 duced the crews to give up their grog and use the milk of cocoa- 
 nuts instead. He submitted it to them whether it would not be 
 injudicious, by drinking their spirits now, to run the risk of 
 having none left in a cold climate, where cordials would be most 
 needed, and whether they would not be content to dispense 
 with their grog now, when they had so excellent a liquor as that 
 of cocoanuts to substitute in its place. The proposal was 
 unanimously agreed to, and the grog was stopped except on 
 Saturday nights. 
 
 Early in February, 1778, Cook made a most important dis- 
 covery, — that of the archipelago now known as the Sandwich 
 Islands, so named by Cook in honor of the Earl of Sandwich, 
 
0^:,, 
 
 r 
 
 OMAl. 
 
466 ocean's story 
 
 First Lord of the Admiralty. He visited five of these islands, 
 one of which was Oahu. He found a remarkable similarity of 
 manners and coincidence of language with those of the Society 
 Islands, and in his journal asks the following question: — "How 
 shall we account for this nation having spread itself in so many 
 detached islands, so widely separated from each other, in every 
 quarter of the Pacific Ocean? We find it from New Zealand 
 in the south to the Sandwich Islands in the north ! And, in 
 another direction, from Easter Island to the New Hebrides ! 
 That is, over an extent of three thousand six hundred miles 
 north and south, and five thousand miles east and west !" 
 
 From the Sandwich Islands Cook sailed to the northeast, 
 and on the 7th of March struck the coast of America, upon the 
 shores of the tract named New Albion by Sir Francis Drake. 
 The skies being very threatening, he gave the name of Cape 
 Foulweather to a promontory forming the northern extremity. 
 Late in March the two vessels entered a broad inlet, to which 
 Cook gave the name of King George's Sound ; but it is better 
 known now by its original name of Nootka Sound. Cook 
 found the natives friendly and willing to sell and buy. They 
 were under the common stature, their persons being full and 
 plump without corpulence, their faces round, with high promi- 
 nent cheeks, noses flattened at the base with wide nostrils, low 
 forehead, small black eyes, thick round lips, and well-set though 
 not remarkably white teeth. The color of their skin, when not 
 incrusted with paint or dirt, was nearly as white as that of 
 Europeans, and of that pale effete cast which distinguishes the 
 Southern nations of Europe. A remarkable sameness charac- 
 terized the countenances of the whole nation, the expression of 
 all being dull and phlegmatic. It was not easy to distinguish 
 the women from the men; and not a female was seen, even 
 among those in the prime of life, who had the least pretensions 
 to being called handsome. 
 
 Cook gives a very long and detailed account of the manners 
 
COOK IN NORTHERN SEAS. i67 
 
 and customs of these people, their habitations, weapons, food, 
 domestic animals, language, and religious views, and concludes 
 by remarking that they differ so essentially in every respect 
 from the inhabitants of the various Pacific islands that it is 
 
 HABITATIONS IN NOOTKA SOUND. 
 
 impossible to suppose their respective progenitors were united 
 in the same tribe, or had any intimate connection when they 
 emigrated from their original settlements into the places where 
 their descendants were now found. 
 
 Cook left Nootka Sound on the 26th of April, and early in 
 May entered a deep inlet, to which he gave the name of Prince 
 William's Sound. Proceeding on his course, as he supposed, 
 toward Behring's Strait, he was surprised to find various in- 
 dications that he was no longer in the sea, but ascending a wide 
 and rapidly-flowing river. He was, however, encouraged to 
 proceed by finding the water as salt as that of the ocean. 
 Having traced the' stream a distance of two hundred miles 
 from its entrance, without seeing the least appearance of its 
 source, and despairing of finding a passage through it to the 
 Northern seas, Cook determined to return. Mr. King, one of 
 the officers, was sent on shore to display the flag and take 
 possession of the country and river in his majesty's name, and 
 to bury in the ground a bottle containing some pieces of Eng- 
 lish coin of the year 1772. The vessels left the river — after- 
 ward named, by order of Lord Sandwich, Cook's River — on the 
 5th of June. 
 
468 ocean's story. 
 
 On the 9tli of August, Cook arrived at a point of land, in 
 north latitude 66°, which he called Cape Prince of Wales, 
 and which is the western extremity of North America. Had 
 he sailed directly north from this spot, he would have passed 
 throuf^h Behring's Straits. But the attraction of two small 
 islands drew him to the westward, and by nightfall he anchored 
 in a bay on the coast of Asia, having in the course of twenty- 
 four hours been in sight of the two continents. On the 12th, 
 while sailing to the north, both continents were in sight at the 
 same moment. On the 17th, a brightness was perceived in the 
 northern horizon, like that reflected from ice, commonly called 
 the blink. But it was thought very improbable that they should 
 meet with ice so soon. Still, the sharpness of the air and 
 gloominess of the weather seemed to indicate some sudden 
 change. The sight of a large field of ice soon left no doubt as 
 to the cause of the brightness of the horizon. At half-past two, 
 being in latitude 71° and in twenty-two fathoms water. Cook 
 found himself close to the edge of the ice, which was as com- 
 pact a5 a wall and twelve feet out of water. It extended to 
 the north as far as the eye could reach. A point of land upon 
 the American coast obtained the name of Icy Cape. 
 
 The season was now so far advanced that Cook abandoned 
 
 all attempts to find a passage through to the Atlantic this year, 
 
 and directed his attention to the subject of winter quarters. 
 
 » 
 Discovering a deep inlet upon the American side, he named it 
 
 Norton's Sound, in honor of Sir Fletcher Norton, Speaker of the 
 
 House of Commons. At Oonalaska, an island some distance to 
 
 the south, he fell in with three Russian carriers, who had some 
 
 store-houses and a sloop of thirty tons' burden. They appeared 
 
 to have a thorough knowledge of the attempts which had been 
 
 made by their countrymen, Kamschatka, Behring, and others, to 
 
 navigate the Frozen Ocean. 
 
 On the 26th of October, Cook left Oonalaska for the Sandwich 
 
 Islands, intending to spend the winter months there, and then to 
 
cook's deification. 
 
 469 
 
 MAN OF THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 
 
 direct his course to Kamschatka, arriving there by the middle of 
 May in the ensuing year. On the 26th of November, the two 
 ships anchored at the archipelago of the Sandwich Islands and 
 discovered several new members of the group. At Owhyhee, 
 Cook found the natives more free from reserve and suspicion 
 than any other tribe he had met ; nor did they even once 
 attempt a fraud or a theft. Cook's confidence, already great, 
 was still further augmented by a singular, if not grotesque, 
 incident. 
 
 The priests of the island resolved to deify the captain, under 
 the name of Orono. One evening, as he landed upon the beach, 
 he was received by four men, who immediately swathed him m 
 red cloth, and then conducted him to a sort of sacrificial altar, 
 where, by means of an indescribable ceremony, consisting of 
 rapid speeches, offerings of putrid hogs and sugarcanes, invo- 
 
170 
 
 OCEANS STORV. 
 
 WOMAN OF THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 
 
 cations, processions, chants, and prostrations, they conferred 
 upon him a celestial character and the right to claim adoration. 
 At the conclusion, a priest named Kaireekeea took part of the 
 kernel of a cocoanut, which he chewed, and with which he then 
 rubbed the captain's face, head, hands, arms, and shoulders. 
 Ever after this, when Cook went ashore, a priest preceded 
 him, shouting that Orono was walking the earth, and calling 
 upon the people to humble themselves before him. Presents 
 of pigs, cocoanuts, and bread-fruit were constantly made to him, 
 and an incessant supply of vegetables sent to his two ships : no 
 return was ever demanded or even hinted at. The offerings 
 seemed to be made in discharge of a religious duty, and had 
 much the nature of tribute. When Cook inquired at whose 
 charge all this munificence was displayed, he was told that the 
 expense was borne by a great man, named Kaoo, the chief of 
 
NATIVE HOSPITALITY. 471 
 
 the priests, and grandfather of Kaireekeea : this Kaoo was now 
 absent, attending Tereoboo, the king of the island. 
 
 The king, upon his return, set out from the village in a large 
 canoe, followed by two others, and paddled toward the ships in 
 great state. Tereoboo gave Cook a fan, in return for which 
 Cook gave Tereoboo a clean shirt. Heaps of sugarcane and 
 bread-fruit were then given to the ship's crew, and the cere- 
 monies were concluded by an exchange of names between the 
 captain and the king, — the strongest pledge of friendship among 
 the inhabitants of the Pacific islands. 
 
 It was not long before Tereoboo and his chiefs became very 
 anxious that the English should bid them adieu. They ima- 
 gined the strangers to have come from some country where 
 provisions had failed, and that their visit to their island was 
 merely for the purpose of filling their stomachs. " It was 
 ridiculous enough to see them stroke the sides and pat the 
 bellies of our sailors," says King, the continuator of Cook's 
 journal, " and telling them that it was time for them to go, 
 but that if they would come again the next bread-fruit season 
 they should be better able to supply their wants. We had 
 now been sixteen days in the bay ; and, considering our enor- 
 mous consumption of hogs and vegetables, it need not be 
 wondered that they should wish to see us take our leave." 
 When Tereoboo learned that the ships were to sail on the next 
 day but one, he ordered a proclamation to be made through the 
 villages, requiring the people to bring in presents to Orono, who 
 was soon to take his departure. 
 
 On the 4th of February, 1779, the vessels unmoored and 
 sailed out of the harbor, after having received on board a 
 present of vegetables and live stock which far exceeded any 
 that had been made them either at the Friendly or Society 
 Islands. The weather being, however, extremely unfavorable, 
 they were compelled to return for shelter, and on the 11th 
 dropped anchor in nearly the same spot as before. The fore- 
 
472 ocean's story. 
 
 mast was found to be much damaged, the heel being exceedingly 
 rotten, having a large hole up the middle of it capable of hold- 
 ing four or five cocoanuts. The reception of the ships was very 
 different from what it had been on their first arrival : there 
 were no shouts, no bustle, no confusion. The bay seemed de- 
 serted, though from time to time a solitary canoe stole stealthily 
 along the shore. 
 
 Toward the evening of the 13th, a theft committed by a party 
 of the islanders on board the Discovery gave rise to a disturbance 
 of a very serious nature. Pareea, a personage of some author- 
 ity, was accused of the theft, and a scuffle ensued, in which 
 
 FIGHT WITH ISLANDERS. 
 
 Pareea was knocked down by a violent blow on the head with 
 an oar. The natives immediately attacked the crew of the 
 pinnace with a furious shower of stones and other missiles, and 
 forced them to swim off with great precipitation to a rock at 
 some distance from the shore. The pinnace was immediately 
 ransacked by the islanders, and would have been demolished, 
 but for the interposition of Pareea, who, upon the recognition of 
 his innocence, joined noses with the officers and seemed to have 
 forgotten the blow he had received. 
 
 When Captain Cook heard of what had happened, he ex- 
 pressed some anxiety, and said that it would not do to allow 
 the islanders to imagine that tliey had gained an advantage. 
 It was too late to take any steps that evening, however. A 
 double guard was posted at the observatory, and at midnight 
 
A QUARREL WITH THE NATIVES. 473 
 
 one of the sentinels, observing five savages creeping toward him, 
 fired over their heads and put them to flight. The cutter of the 
 Discovery was stolen, toward morning, from the buoy where it 
 was moored. At daylight. Cook loaded his double-barrelled 
 gun and ordered the marines to prepare for action. It had 
 been his practice, when any thing of consequence was lost, to 
 get the king or several of the principal men on board, and to 
 keep them as hostages till it was restored. His purpose was to 
 pursue the same plan now. He gave orders to seize and stop 
 all canoes that should attempt to leave the bay. The boats of 
 both ships, well manned and armed, were therefore stationed 
 across the mouth of the harbor. Cook went ashore in the 
 pinnace, obtained an interview with the king, satisfied himself 
 that he was in no wise privy to the theft committed, and invited 
 him to return in the boat and spend the day on board the 
 Resolution. Tereoboo readily consented, and, having placed 
 his two sons in the pinnace, was on the point of following them, 
 when an elderly woman, the mother of the boys, and a younger 
 woman, the king's favorite wife, besought him with tears and 
 entreaties not to go on board. Two chiefs laid hold of him, 
 insisting that he should go no farther. The natives now col- 
 lected in prodigious numbers and began to throng around 
 Captain Cook and their king. Cook, finding that the alarm 
 had spread too generally, and that it was in vain to think of 
 kidnapping the king without bloodshed, at last gave up the 
 point. 
 
 Thus far, the person and life of Cook do not appear to have 
 been in danger. An accident now happened which gave a fatal 
 turn to the affair. The ships' boats, in firing at canoes attempt- 
 ing to escape, had unfortunately killed a chief of the first rank. 
 The news of his death arrived just at the moment when Cook, 
 after leaving the king, was walking slowly toward the shore. 
 It caused an immediate and violent ferment : the women and 
 children were at once sent off: the warriors put on their breast- 
 
M 
 
 o 
 o 
 o 
 
 M 
 
 < 
 
 < 
 O 
 
 Pa 
 O 
 
 U 
 
 H 
 
 ■< 
 
DEATH OF CAPTAm COOK. 475 
 
 mats and armed themselves with spears and stones. One of the 
 natives went up to Cook, flourishing a long iron spike by way 
 of defiance, and threatening him with a large stone. Cook 
 ordered him to desist, but, as the man persisted in his insolence, 
 was at length provoked to fire a load of small shot. As the 
 shot did not penetrate the matting, the natives were encouraged, 
 by seeing the discharge to be harmless, to further aggression. 
 Several stones were thrown at the marines: their lieutenant, 
 Mr. Phillips, narrowly escaped being stabbed by knocking down 
 the assailant with the butt end of his musket. Cook now fired 
 his second barrel, loaded with ball, and killed one of the fore- 
 most of the natives. A general attack with stones and a 
 discharge of musketry immediately followed. The islanders, 
 contrary to the expectations of the English, stood the fire with 
 great firmness, and, before the marines had time to reload, 
 broke in upon them with demoniacal shouts. Four marines 
 were instantly killed ; three others were dangerously wounded ; 
 Phillips received a stab between the shoulders, but, having for- 
 tunately reserved his fire, shot the man who had wounded him 
 just as he was going to repeat the blow. 
 
 The last time that Cook was seen distinctly, he was standing 
 at the water's edge, calling out to the people in the boats to 
 cease firing. It is supposed that he was desirous of stopping 
 further bloodshed, and wished the example of desisting to proceed 
 from his side. His humanity proved fatal to him ; and he lost 
 his life in attempting to save the lives of others. It was 
 noticed that while he faced the natives none of them offered 
 him any violence, deterred, perhaps, by the sacred character 
 he bore as an Orono ; but the moment he turned round to give 
 his orders to the men in the boats, he was stabbed in the back 
 and fell, face foremost, into the water. The islanders set up a 
 deafening yell and dragged his body on shore, where the dagger 
 with which he had been killed was eagerly snatched by the 
 
476 ocean's story. 
 
 savages from each others' hands, each one manifesting a brutal 
 eagerness to have a share in his destruction. 
 
 "Thus fell," writes King, "our great and excellent com- 
 mander. After a life of so much distinguished and successful 
 enterprise, his death, as regards himself, cannot be reckoned 
 premature, since he lived to finish the work for which he seemed 
 designed, and was rather removed from the enjoyment than 
 cut off from the acquisition of glory. How sincerely his loss 
 was felt and lamented by those who had so long found their 
 general security in his skill and conduct, and every consolation 
 in their hardships in his tenderness and humanity, it is neither 
 necessary nor possible for me to describe : much less shall I 
 attempt to paint the horror with which we were struck, and the 
 universal dejection and dismay which followed so dreadful and 
 unexpected a calamity." 
 
 AVhcn the consternation consequent upon the loss of their com- 
 mander had in some measure subsided, Clarke, the captain of 
 the Discovery, assumed the chief command of the expedition. 
 The ships were in such a bad condition, and the discipline 
 became so relaxed upon the withdrawal of the master-mind, 
 that it was decided to employ pacific measures, rather than a 
 display of vigorous resentment, to obtain the restitution of the 
 remains of Cook and of the four massacred soldiers. The 
 moderation of the English produced no efi'ect, however, the 
 natives using the bodies of the marines in sacrificial burnt- 
 offerings to their divinities. As they considered that of Cook 
 as of a higlicr order, they cut it carefully in pieces, sending 
 bits of it to difi*erent parts of the island. Upon the evening of 
 the 15th, two priests brought clandestinely to the ship the 
 portion they had received for religious purposes, — flesh without 
 bone, and weighing about nine pounds. They said that this 
 was all that remained of the body, the rest having been cut to 
 pieces and burned: the head, however, and all the bones, 
 
REVENGE FOR COOK's DEATH. 4:77 
 
 except what belonged to the trunk, were in the possession of 
 Tereoboo 
 
 The natives on shore passed the' night in feasts and re- 
 joicings, seeking evidently to animate and inflame their courage 
 previous to the expected collision. The next day, about noon, 
 finding the English persist in their inactivity, great bodies of 
 them, blowing their conch-shells and strutting about upon the 
 shore in a blustering and defiant manner, marched off over the 
 hills and never appeared again. Those who remained com- 
 pensated for the paucity of their numbers by the insolence of 
 their conduct. One man came within musket-shot of the 
 Resolution and waved Cook's hat over his head, his country- 
 men upon the water's edge exulting in his taunts and jeers. 
 The watering-party sent upon their daily duty were annoyed 
 to such an extent that they only obtained one cask of water in 
 an afternoon. An attack upon the village was in consequence 
 decided upon, and was executed by the marines in a vigorous 
 and effective manner. A sanguinary revenge wns taken for 
 the death of their commander : many of the islanders were 
 slain, and their huts were burned to the ground. This severe 
 lesson was necessary, for the natives were strongly of opinion 
 that the English tolerated their provocations because they 
 were unable to suppress them, and not from motives of hu- 
 manity. At last, a chief named Eappo, a man of the very 
 first consequence, came with presents from Tereoboo to sue for 
 peace. The presents were received, but answer was returned 
 that, until the remains of Captain Cook were restored, no peace 
 would be granted. 
 
 On Saturday, the 20th, a long procession was seen to descend 
 the hill toward the beach. Each man carried a sugarcane or 
 two upon his shoulders, with bread-fruit and plantains in his 
 hand. They were preceded by two drummers, who planted a 
 staff with a white flag upon it by the water's edge and drummed 
 vigorously, while the rest advanced one by one and deposited 
 
478 ocean's story. 
 
 their presents upon the ground. Eappo, in a long feathered 
 cloak, and with a bearing of deep solemnity, mounted upon a 
 rock and made signs for a boat. Captain Clarke went ashore 
 in the pinnace, ordering Lieutenant King to attend him in 
 the cutter. Eappo went into the pinnace and delivered to the 
 captain a quantity of bones wrapped up in a large quantity of 
 fine new cloth and covered with a spotted cloak of black and 
 white feathers. The bundle contained the hands of the unfor- 
 tunate commander entire; the skull, deprived of the scalp and 
 the bones that form the face ; the scalp, detached, with the hair 
 cut short, and the ears adhering to it; the bones of both arms, 
 the thigh and leg bones, but without the feet. The whole bore 
 evident marks of having been in the fire, with the exception of 
 the hands, the flesh of which was left upon them, — with several 
 large gashes crammed with salt, apparently for the purpose of 
 preventing decomposition. The lower jaw and feet, which were 
 wanting, had been seized by different chiefs, Eappo said, and 
 Tereoboo was using every means to recover them. 
 
 The next morning Eappo came on board, bringing with him 
 the missing bones, together with the barrels of Cook's gun, his 
 shoes, and several other trifles that had belonged to him. Eappo 
 was dismissed with orders to "taboo" the bay — that is, to place 
 it under interdict — during the performance of the funeral cere- 
 monies. This was done : not a canoe ventured out upon the 
 water during the remainder of the day, and, in the midst of 
 the silence and solemnity of the scene, the bones were placed 
 in a coffin and the service of the Church of England read over 
 them. They were then committed to the deep, beneath the 
 booming thunders of the artillery of both vessels. " What our 
 feelings were on this occasion," says King, "I leave the world 
 to conceive : those who were present know that it is not in 
 my power to express them." 
 
 No one man ever contributed more to any science than did 
 Captain Cook to that of geography. We have seen that on his 
 
THE RESULTS OF COOK's VOYAGES. 479 
 
 first voyage he discovered the Society Islands, determined the 
 insular character of New Zealand, discovered the straits which 
 cut that island in halves, and made a complete survey of both 
 portions. He explored the eastern coast of New Holland, gave 
 Botany Bay its name, and surveyed an extent of upward of two 
 thousand miles. In his second voyage he resolved the problem 
 of a Southern continent, having traversed that hemisphere in 
 such a manner as to leave no probability of its existence, unless 
 near the Pole, put of the reach of navigation and beyond the 
 habitable limits of the globe. He discovered New Caledonia, 
 the largest island in the South Pacific except New Zealand; 
 he settled the situations of numerous old discoveries, rectifying 
 their longitude and remodelling all the charts. On his third 
 voyage he discovered, to the north of the equator, the group 
 called the Sandwich Islands, — a discovery which, all things 
 considered, and from their situation and products, may be said 
 to be the most important acquisition ever made in the Pa- 
 cific. He explored what had hitherto remained unknown of the 
 western coast of America, — an extent of three thousand five 
 hundred miles, — and ascertained the proximity of the two great 
 continents of Asia and America. "In short," says King, "if 
 we except the Sea of Amur, and the Japanese Archipelago, 
 which still remain imperfectly known to the Europeans, he has 
 completed the hydrography of the habitable globe." After 
 Christopher Columbus, Cook acquired, and now, at a distance 
 of nearly a century, still enjoys, the highest degree of popularity 
 which ever fell to the lot of a navigator and discoverer. 
 
LAPEROUSE. 
 
 CHAPTER XLYI. 
 
 LOUIS XVI. AND THE SCIENCE OF NAVIGATION — VOTAGE OF LAPEROUSE — ARRIVAL 
 
 AT EASTEB ISLAND — ADDRESS OF THE NATIVES OWHYHEE TRADE AT MOWEE 
 
 SURVEY OF THE AMERICAN COAST A REMARKABLE INLET DISTRESSING 
 
 CALAMITY SOJOURN AT MONTEREY RUN ACROSS THE PACIFIC THE JAPANESS 
 
 WATERS — ARRIVAL AT PETROPAULOWSKI AFFRAY AT NAVIGATORS* ISLES 
 
 LAPEROUSE ARRIVES AT BOTANY BAY, AND IS NEVER SEEN AGAIN, ALIVE OR 
 
 DEAD VOYAGES MADE IN SEARCH OF HIM d'kNTRECASTEAUX DILLON 
 
 D'uRVILLE — DISCOVERY OF NUMEROUS RELICS OF THE SHIPS AT MANICOLO — 
 THEORY OF THE FATE OF LAPEROUSE — ERECTION OF A MONUMENT TO II18 
 MEMORY. 
 
 Louis XVI., King of France, became at this period deeply 
 interested in the study of the science of geography and naviga- 
 tion. Upon the perusal of the voyages, discoveries, and services 
 of Cook, he conceived the idea of admitting the French nation 
 
 480 
 
laperouse's voyage. 481 
 
 to a share in the glorj which the English were reaping from 
 maritime adventure and exploration. He drew up a plan of 
 campaign with his own hand, ordered the two frigates Boussole 
 and Astrolabe to be prepared for sea, and gave the command 
 of the expedition to Jean-Frangois Galaup de la Perouse, — 
 better known as Lap^^rouse. The vessels were supplied with 
 every accessory of which they could possibly have need. The 
 instructions and recommendations received from the Academy 
 of Sciences fill a quarto volume of four hundred pages. The 
 fleet sailed from Brest on the 1st of August, 1785, and arrived 
 at Conception, in Chili, late in February, 1786. 
 
 After a short stay here, the two frigates again put to sea, 
 and, early in April, anchored in Cook's Bay, in Easter Island. 
 Here the two commanders landed, accompanied by about seventy 
 persons, twelve of whom were marines armed to the teeth. 
 Five hundred Indians awaited them at the shore, the greater 
 part of them naked, painted, and tattooed, others wearing 
 pendent bunches of odoriferous herbs about their loins, and 
 others still being covered with pieces of white and yellow cloth. 
 None of them were armed, and, as the boats touched the land, 
 they advanced with the utmost alacrity to aid the strangers in 
 their disembarkation. The latter marked out a circular space, 
 where they set up a tent, and enjoined it strongly upon the 
 islanders not to intrude upon this enclosure. The number of 
 the natives had now increased to eight hundred, one hundred 
 and fifty of whom were women. While the latter would seek, 
 by caresses and agreeable pantomime, to withdraw the attention 
 of the Frenchmen from passing events, the men would slyly 
 pick their pockets. Innumerable handkerchiefs were pilfered 
 in this way ; and the thieves, emboldened by success, at last 
 seized their caps from their heads and rushed off with them. 
 It was noticed that the chiefs were the most adroit and success- 
 ful plunderers, and that though, for appearance' sake, they 
 
 sometimes ran after an offender, promising to bring him back, 
 31 
 
482 ocean's story. 
 
 it was evident that they were running as slowly as they could, 
 and that their object was rather to facilitate than to prevent 
 their escape. Laperouse was not saved from spoliation by his 
 rank : a polite savage, having assisted him over an obstruction 
 in the path, removed his chapeau and fled with the utmost 
 rapidity. On re-embarking to return to the ships, only three 
 persons had handkerchiefs, and only two had caps. Lapdrouse 
 stayed but a day on this island, having nothing to gain and 
 every thing to lose. There was no fresh water to be found, the 
 natives drinking sea-water, like the albatrosses of Cape Horn. 
 In return for the hospitality with which they had been received, 
 Laperouse caused several fertile spots to be sown with beets, 
 cabbages, wheat, carrots, and squashes, and even with orange, 
 lemon, and cotton seeds. "In short," says Laperouse, "we 
 loaded them with presents, overwhelmed with caresses the 
 young and children at the breast; we sowed their fields with 
 useful grains ; we left kids, sheep, and hogs to multiply upon 
 their island ; we asked nothing in exchange ; and yet they 
 robbed us of our hats and handkerchiefs, and threw stones at 
 us when we left." The following reflection, which concludes 
 Lapdrouse's account of Easter Island, could only have pro- 
 ceeded from a Frenchman: — "I decided to depart during the 
 night, flattering myself that when, upon the return of day, they 
 should find our vessels gone, they would attribute our departure 
 to our just resentment at their conduct, and that this conclusion 
 might render them better members of society." 
 
 Laperouse now sailed to the northeast, intending to touch at 
 the Sandwich Islands, — a distance of five thousand miles. He 
 hoped to make some discovery during this long stretch, and 
 placed sailors in the tops, animated by the promise of a prize 
 to discover as many islands as possible. In the furtherance of 
 this design, the two frigates sailed ten miles apart, — by which 
 the visible horizon was considerably extended. Lapdrouse was 
 destined, however, to owe his celebrity to his misfortunes and 
 
LAPEROUSE AT OWH^UEE. 483 
 
 not to hi3 discoveries: ho arrived, on the 28th of May, at 
 Owhyhee, without once making land. " The aspect of the 
 island," he writes, "was charming. But the sea beat with such 
 violence upon the coast, that, like Tantalus, we could only long 
 for and devour with our eyes that which it was impossible for 
 us to reach." This prospect was aggravated by the sight of 
 one hundred and fifty canoes laden with pigs and fruit which put 
 out from the shore : forty of them were capsized in attempting 
 to come alongside while the frigates were under full sail. The 
 water was full of swimming savages, struggling pigs, and tempt- 
 ing cocoanuts ; but the necessity of making an anchorage before 
 nightfall compelled them to seek another portion of the island. 
 
 On the 30th of May, Lapdrouse landed upon the island of 
 Mowee, where he found the savages mild, polite, and com- 
 mercially inclined. Exchanges of pigs and medals were made 
 with great success. Lapdrouse abstained from taking possession 
 of the island in the name of the King of France, — Cook not 
 having visited Mowee, — inasmuch as he considered European 
 usages in this respect extremely ridiculous. " Philosophers 
 must often have wept," he writes, "at seeing men, simply be- 
 cause they have cannon and bayonets, count sixty thousand of 
 their fellow-creatures as nothing, and look upon a land which 
 its inhabitants have moistened with their sweat and fertilized 
 with the bones of their ancestors for centuries as an object of 
 legitimate conquest." 
 
 On the 23d of June, in latitude 60° north, Lapdrouse struck 
 the American coast : he recofi^nised at once Behrinir's Mount 
 St. Elias, whose summit pierced the clouds. From this point 
 southward as far as Monterey, in Mexico, lay an extent of 
 coast which Cook had seen but not surveyed. The exploration 
 of this coast was a work essential to the interests of naviiration 
 and of commerce; and, though the season only allowed him 
 three months, he undertook and executed it in a manner credit' 
 Me to the navy of France. He discovered a harbor that had 
 
*84 ocean's story. 
 
 escaped tlie notice of preceding navigators. This harbor or bay 
 seems to have been a remarkable place. The water is unfathom- 
 able, and is surrounded by precipices which rise perpendicularly 
 from the water's edge into the regions of eternal snow. Not a 
 blade of grass, not a green leaf, grows in this desolate and 
 sterile spot. No breeze blows upon the surface of the bay : its 
 tranquillity is never troubled except by the fall of enormous 
 masses of ice from numerous overhanging peaks. The air is 
 so still and the silence so profound that the noise made by a 
 bird in laying an egg in the hollow of a rock is distinctly heard 
 at the distance of a mile and a half. To this wonderful bay 
 Lap^rouse gave the name of Frenchport. 
 
 A painful accident occurred as the vessels, after a somewhat 
 prolonged stay, were about departing from the spot. Three 
 boats, manned by twenty-seven men and officers, were sent to 
 make soundings in the bay, in order to complete the ^hart of 
 the survey. They had strict orders to avoid a certain dan- 
 gerous current, but became involved in it unawares. Two 
 boats' crews perished, consisting of twenty-one men, the greater 
 part of them under twenty-five years of age. Two brothers, by 
 the name of Laborde, whom their superior officers never sepa- 
 rated, but always sent together on missions of peril, were among 
 the victims of the disaster. A monument was erected to their 
 memory, and a record buried in a bottle beneath it. The 
 inscription was thus conceived : — 
 
 ** At the entrance of this bay twenty-one brave sailors perish'd : 
 "Whoever you may be, mingle your tears with ours." 
 
 On the 13th of September, Lap^rouse arrived at Monterey, 
 after a cursory examination of the coast, determining its direc- 
 tions, but without exploring its sinuosities and inlets. The 
 Spanish commander of the fort and of the two Californias 
 had received orders from Mexico to extend all possible hospi- 
 tality to the adventurers. He executed his instructions to the 
 
486 ocean's story. 
 
 letter, sending Immense quantities of fresh beef, eggs, milk, 
 Tegetables, and poultry on board, and then declining to hand in 
 the bill. On the 24th, every thing being in readiness, the ves- 
 sels started upon their route across the Pacific, the intention of 
 Lap^rouse being to make for Macao, on the Chinese coast. He 
 hoped on his way to make many discoveries of islands upon this 
 unknown sea, — the Spaniards, in their single beaten track from 
 Acapulco to Manilla, never varying more than thirty miles to 
 the north or south of their usual and average latitude. He also 
 hoped not to find, in the longitude marked against it, a very 
 doubtful island named Nostra Seiiora de la Gorta, that he might 
 erase it from the charts. This he was unable to do, for the 
 winds did not allow him to pass within a hundred miles of its 
 supposed position. When half-way across the Pacific, he dis- 
 covered a naked, barren rock, to which he gave the name of 
 Necker, after the French Minister of Finance. He arrived 
 at Macao on the 3d of January, 1787, after a voyage entirely 
 free from incident or adventure. He spent three months here 
 and at Manilla, and finally, on the 10th of April, started for 
 the scene of the most important portion of his mission, — the 
 coasts of Tartary and of Japan, — the waters which separate the 
 mainland of the former from the islands of the latter being 
 very imperfectly known to Europeans. 
 
 Early in June, Lapdrouse entered a sea never before ploughed 
 by a European keel ; and, as it was only known from Japanese 
 or Corean charts, published by the Jesuits, it was his first object 
 either to verify their surveys or to correct their errors. As 
 the Jesuits travelled and made their calculations by land, La- 
 pdrouse added hydrographic details and observations to their data, 
 which he found quite generally correct. His voyage in these 
 latitudes set many doubts at rest. After several months spent 
 in these labors, the expedition arrived at Pctropaulowski in 
 September of the same year. The officers were grievously 
 disappointed in not finding letters and despatches from France, 
 
THE VALUE OF GLASS BEADS. 487 
 
 but one evening, during a Kamschatka gala ball, the arrival of a 
 courier from Okhotsk was announced, and the ball was inter- 
 rupted that the mail might be opened and delivered. The news 
 was favorable for all, though, after so long an absence, it was 
 natural that there should be evil tidings for some among so 
 many. Laperouse learned that he had been promoted in rank; 
 and the Governor of Okhotsk caused this event to be celebrated 
 by a grand discharge of artillery. M. de Lesseps, the inter- 
 preter attached to the expedition, was detached from it at this 
 point by Laperouse and sent across the continent by way of 
 Okhotsk, Irkoutsk, and Tobolsk to St. Petersburg, and thence to 
 Paris, with the ships' letters and Lap^rouse's journal. It is 
 from this journal, published at Paris, that we have obtained the 
 details of the expedition as we have thus far chronicled them. 
 
 The track of Lapdrouse was now directly south, through the 
 heart of the Pacific Ocean. He touched, on the 9th of De- 
 cember, at Maouna, one of Navigator's Isles. The vessels were 
 at once surrounded by a hundred or more canoes filled with pigs 
 and fruit, which the natives would only exchange for glass 
 beads, which in their eyes were what diamonds are to Europeans. 
 Delangle, the captain of the Astrolabe, went ashore with the 
 watering party. The islanders made no objection to their 
 landing their casks ; but as the tide receded, leaving the boats 
 high and dry upon the beach, they became troublesome, and 
 finally forced Delangle to a trial of his muskets. For this they 
 took a sanguinary vengeance. Delangle was killed by a single 
 blow from a club, as was Lamanon, the naturalist. Eleven marines 
 were savagely murdered, either with stones or heavy sticks, 
 while twenty were seriously wounded. The rest escaped by 
 swimming. Lapdrouse did not feel himself sufficiently strong to 
 attempt reprisals. The natives hurled stones with such force 
 and accuracy that they were more than a match for as many 
 musketeers. Besides, he had lost thirty-two men and two 
 boats, and his situation generally was such that the slightest 
 
4:88 ocean's story. 
 
 mischance would now compel him to disarm one frigate in order 
 to refit the other. It was late in January, 1788, that he arrived 
 at Botany Bay, in New Holland, — the last place in which he 
 was ever seen, alive or dead. 
 
 His last letter to the Minister of Marine was dated at Botany 
 Bay, the 7th of February. In this he stated the route by 
 which he intended to return home, and the dates of his antici- 
 pated arrivals at various points. His plan was to visit the 
 Friendly Islands, New Guinea, and Van Diemen's Land, and to 
 be at the Isle of France, near Madagascar, at the beginning of 
 December. His letter arrived in due course at Paris, where the 
 public mind was too much agitated by the throes of revolution 
 to pay much heed to matters of such remote interest. At last, 
 in the year 1791, the Society of Natural History called the 
 attention of the Constituent Assembly to the fate of Lap^rouse 
 and his companions. The hope of recovering at least some 
 wreck of an expedition undertaken to promote the sciences 
 induced the Assembly to send two other ships to Botany Bay, 
 with orders to steer the same course from that place that 
 Lap^rouse had traced out for himself. Some of his followers, 
 it was thought, might have escaped from the wreck, and might 
 be confined on a desert island or thrown upon some savage 
 coast. Two ships were therefore fitted out, and placed under 
 the command of Rear-Admiral d'Entrecasteaux. 
 
 The ships returned in two years, without having obtained the 
 slightest clue to the fate of Lapdrouse : their commander had 
 died of scurvy at Java. At the Friendly Islands, the first 
 landing that Lapdrouse was to make after leaving Botany Bay, 
 the inhabitants, who remembered Cook perfectly, and who knew 
 the difference between French and English, declared that La- 
 pdrouse had not visited them. As they were the most civilized 
 and hospitable of all the Pacific islanders, it was thought im- 
 probable that he had ever sailed as far as the very first station 
 of his route, — an opinion which was confirmed by finding no 
 
IN SEARCH OF LAPeROUSE. 489 
 
 trace of him at any subsequent point of his intended track. No 
 floating remnants of wood or iron work were anywhere dis- 
 covered ; and the public mind gradually settled into the convic- 
 tion that the two unfortunate vessels were lost upon their 
 passage from Botany Bay to the Friendly Islands. The cause 
 was supposed to be neither fire, nor leakage, nor the effects of a 
 stress of weather, — causes which could hardly be fatal at the 
 same moment to two vessels. It was generally believed that, 
 as the Boussole and Astrolabe were accustomed to keep as near 
 each other as possible during the night, they both simultaneously 
 dashed upon a hidden quicksand. In this manner, one vessel 
 would not have been able to take warning in time by the dis- 
 aster of the other. 
 
 In the year 1813, one Captain Dillon, in the service of the 
 British East India Company, putting in at one of the Feejee 
 Islands, found there two foreign sailors, one of whom was a 
 Prussian, the other a Lascar. At their request he transported 
 them to the neighboring island of Tucopia, where he left them, 
 the natives expressing no hostility toward them nor objections 
 to their stay. In 1826, — thirteen years afterward, — Captain 
 Dillon again touched at Tucopia, where he found them comfort- 
 able and contented. The Lascar sold the armorer a silver 
 Bword-hilt of French manufacture and bearing a cipher en- 
 graved upon it. It resulted from Dillon's inquiries that the 
 natives had obtained many articles of iron and other metals 
 from a distant island named Manicolo, where, as they said, two 
 European ships had been wrecked forty years before. It imme- 
 diately occurred to Dillon that this circumstance was connected 
 with the loss of the vessel of Lapdrouse, whose fate still remained 
 involved in uncertainty. Aware of the iriterest felt in Europe 
 in the fate of the unfortunate navigator, he sailed with the 
 Prussian to Manicolo, but, being prevented from landing by the 
 surf and the coral reef, bore away to New Zealand and pro- 
 ceeded on his voyage. 
 
490 ocean's story. 
 
 In 1827, Dumont d'Urville was sent out by the French Govern- 
 ment in the sloop-of-war Astrolabe to explore the great archi- 
 pelagoes of the Pacific, with incidental authority to follow up any 
 clue he might discover to the fate of Lap^rouse. At Hobart 
 Town, in Van Diemen's Land, he heard some account of the 
 efforts made by Dillon, and determined to conclude what he had 
 begun. He sailed at once for Manicolo, and, after examining 
 the eastern coast of the island without success, proceeded to the 
 western. Here he found numerous articles of European manu- 
 facture in possession of the savages, who steadfastly refused to 
 say whence they had obtained them or to point out the scene of 
 any catastrophe or shipwreck. At last, the offer of a piece of 
 red cloth induced a painted islander to conduct a boat's crew to 
 the spot which is now regarded as that at which the lamented 
 commander and his vessels met their untimely fate. Scattered 
 
 REMNANTS OP THE WRECK. 
 
 about in the bed of the sea, at the depth of about twenty feet, 
 lay anchors, cannon, and sheets of lead and copper sheathing, 
 completely corroded and disfigured by rust. They succeeded in 
 recovering many of them from the water, — an anchor of four- 
 teen hundred pounds, a small cannon coated with coral, and 
 two brass swivels, in a good state of preservation. Thus pos- 
 sessed of evidence which after the lapse of forty years must be 
 considered as conclusive, d'Urville erected near the anchorage 
 a cenotaph to the memory of the hapless navigator. It was 
 placed in a small grove, and consecrated by a salute of twenty- 
 one guns and three volleys of musketry. 
 
ERECTING A MONUMENT. 
 
 491 
 
 The islanders were now profuseNu/their explanations of the 
 circumstances attending the calami tj<v^As far as d'Urville 
 
 CONSCCRATIOW OF THE CCNOTAPM. 
 
 could interpret their language and their pantomime, the ships 
 struck upon the reef during a gale in the night. One speedily 
 sank, only thirty of her crew escaping ; the other remained for 
 a time entire, but afterwards went to pieces, her whole crew 
 Laving been saved. From her timbers they constructed a 
 schooner, in which labor they occupied seven moons or months, 
 and then sailed away and never returned. What befell them 
 after their second embarkation, what was the fate of their daring 
 little vessel, — if indeed any such was ever built, — no one has 
 survived to tell. It is safe to believe that both vessels were 
 lost upon the island of Vanikoro, now one of the archipelago 
 of the New Hebrides. It is supposed that Lap^rolise was the 
 first European navigator that visited it, Dillon the second, and 
 d'Urville the third. 
 
SCENE tN TERBtA DEL FttE&Oi 
 
 CHAPTER XLVIL 
 
 THE TRAKSPLAWTATION OF THE BREAD-FRUIT TREE — THE VOTAGIT OF TETK 
 BOUNTY — A MUTINY — BLIGH, THE CAPTAIN, WITH EIGHTEEN MEN, CAST ADRIFT 
 
 IN THE LAUNCH INCIDENTS Of THE VOYAGE FROM TAHITI TO TIMOR 
 
 TERRIBLE SUFFERINGS AND A MARVELLOUS ESCAPE ARRIVAL OF THE 
 
 MUTINEERS AT TAHITI THEIR REMOVAL TO PITCAIRN's ISLAND SUBSE- 
 QUENT HISTORY VOYAGE OF VANCOUVER — ALGERINB PIRACY BURNING OT 
 
 TUB PHILAI>ELniIA — PROUD POSITION OF THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 In the year 1787, the merchants and planters of England, 
 interested in his Majesty's West India possessions, petitioned 
 the king to cause the bread-fruit tree to be introduced into 
 these islands ; and, in accordance with this request, the armed 
 transport Bounty, of two hundred and fifteen tons, was pur- 
 chased and docked at Deptford to be furnished with the proper 
 
 fixtures. Lieutenant William Bligh, who had been round the 
 
 492 
 
THE MUTINY OF THE BOUNTT. 493 
 
 world with Oook, was appointed to "command her. Her cabin 
 was fitted with a false floor cut full of h-oles sufficient to receive 
 one thousand or more garden-pots. She was victualled for 
 fifteen months, and laden with trinkets for the .South Sea 
 Islanders, Her destination was Txihiti bj way of Cape Horn. 
 She sailed late in December, 1787, 
 
 After a three months' tempestuous passage, she made the 
 eastern coast of Terra del Fuego, She contended thirty days 
 here with violent westerly gales, seeking either to thread the 
 strait or double the cape. Finding either course impossible, 
 Bligh ordered the helm to be put a-weather, having resolved 
 to cross the South Atlantic and approach Tahiti from t\ie 
 westward, — a determination which was successfully executed. 
 
 Bligh gave directions to all on board not to inform the natives 
 of the object of their visit, lest, by the natural law of supply 
 and demand, the price-current of bread-fruit trees should sud- 
 denly rise. He contrived to make the chiefs believe that he was 
 doing them a favor in conveying specimens of their plants to the 
 great King of England. A tent was erected on shore to receive 
 the trees, some thirty of which were potted every day. On the 
 4th of April, 1789, the vessel set sail, with one thousand and 
 fifteen roots in pots, tubs, and boxes. 
 
 It was now that an event took place which rendered the cruise 
 of the Bounty one of the most extraordinary in the annals of the 
 sea. A mutiny, which had been planned in secrecy, broke out 
 on the 27th. The whole crew were engaged in it, with the ex- 
 ception of eighteen men, Bligh, with these eighteen, — most of 
 them officers, — was hurried into the launch, which was cut loose, 
 with one hundred and fifty pounds of bread, twenty-eight gallons 
 of water, a little rum and wine, with a quadrant and compass. 
 A few pieces of pork, some cocoanuts, and four cutlasses, were 
 thrown at them as they were cast adrift. Some of the mutineers 
 laughed at the helpless condition of the launch; while others 
 expressed their confidence in Bligh's resources by exclaiming, 
 
494 OCEAN S STOKr. 
 
 ivith oaths, " Pshaw ! he'll find his way home if jou give him 
 pencil and paper 1" "Blast him 1 he'll have a vessel built in 
 a month I" 
 
 Bligh was convinced that, defenceless and unarmed as they 
 were, they had nothing to hope from the inhabited islands of 
 the surrounding waters. He told the crew that no chance of 
 relief remained except at Timor, where there was a Dutch 
 colony, at a distance of three thousand five hundred miles. 
 They all agreed, and bound themselves by a solemn promise, to 
 live upon one ounce of bread and a gill of water a day. They 
 then bore away across this unknown and barbarous sea, in a 
 boat twenty-three feet long from stem to stern, deep-laden with 
 nineteen men, and barely supplied with food for two. There is 
 nothing in maritime annals more worthy of a place in a work 
 treating of " Man upon the Sea" than is this marvellous voyage 
 from Tahiti to Timor. 
 
 The first thing done was to return thanks to God for their 
 preservation and to invoke His protection during the perils they 
 were to encounter. The sun now rose fiery and red, foreboding 
 a severe gale, which, before long, blew with extreme severity. 
 The sea curled over the stern, obliging them to bale without 
 cessation. The bread was in bags, and in danger of being 
 soaked and spoiled. Unless this could be prevented, starvation 
 was inevitable. Every thing was thrown overboard that could 
 be spared, — even to suits of clothes : the bread was then secured 
 in the carpenter's chest. A teaspoonful of rum and a fragment 
 of bread-fruit — collected from the floor of the boat, where it had 
 been crushed in the confusion of departure — was now served to 
 each man. 
 
 They constantly passed in sight of islands, upon which they 
 did not dare to land. They kept on, alternately performing 
 prayers, dining on damaged bread, and sipping infinitesimal 
 quantities of rum or other cordial. On grand occasions, Bligh 
 served out as the day's allowance a quarter of a pint of cocoa- 
 
MEASURING RATIONS. 490 
 
 nut-milk and two ounces of the meat. One half of the men 
 watched while the other half slept with nothing to cover them 
 but the heavens. They could not stretch out their limbs, for 
 there was not room : they became dreadfully cramped, and at 
 last the dangers and pains of sleep were such that it became an 
 additional misery in their catalogue of sorrows. A heavy thun- 
 der-shower enabled them to quench their thirst for the first time 
 and to increase their stock of water to thirty-four gallons ; but, 
 in compensation, it wet them through and caused them to pass 
 a cold and shivering night. The next day the sun came out, 
 and they stripped and dried their clothes. Bligh thought the 
 men needed additional creature comfort under these dismal cir- 
 cumstances, and issued to each an ounce and a half of pork, 
 an ounce of bread, a teaspoonful of rum, and half a pint of 
 cocoanut-milk. They kept a fishing-line towing from the stern ; 
 but in no one instance did they catch a fish. 
 
 Bligh now became convinced that in serving ounces of bread 
 by guess-work he was dealing out overmeasure, and that if he 
 continued to do so his stores would not last the eight weeks he 
 had intended they should. So he made a pair of scales of two 
 cocoanut-shells, and, having accidentally found a pistol-ball, 
 twenty-five of which were known to weigh a pound, or sixteen 
 ounces, he adopted it as the measure of one ration of bread. 
 The men were thus reduced from one ounce to two hundred and 
 seventy-two grains. Another thunder-shower now came on, and 
 they caught twenty gallons of water. The usual consolation 
 of a thimbleful of rum was served when the storm was over, 
 together with one mouthful of pork. The men soon began to 
 complain of pains in the bowels ; and nearly all had lost in a 
 measure the use of their limbs. Their clothes would not dry 
 when taken off and hung upon the rigging, so impregnated was 
 the atmosphere with moisture. On the fifteenth day they dis- 
 covered a number of islands, which, though forming part of 
 the group of the New Hebrides, had been seen neither by Cook 
 
i:96 ocean's stort. 
 
 nor Bougainville, and thus, in the midst of their agonies, the 
 barren satisfaction of contributing to geographical science was, 
 as it were in derision, awarded to them. The men now clamored 
 for extra allowances of pork and rum, — which Bligh sternly re- 
 fused, administering his bullet-weight of bread with the severest 
 ceremony. 
 
 "At dawn of the twenty-second day," says Bligh, "some 
 of my people seemed half dead : our appearances were horrible, 
 and I could look no way but I caught the eye of some one in 
 distress. Extreme hunger was now too evident ; but no one 
 suffered from thirst, nor had we much inclination to drink, — that 
 desire, perhaps, being satisfied through the skin. Every one 
 dreaded the approach of night. Sleep, though we longed for it, 
 afi*orded no comfort: for my own part, I almost lived without it." 
 Bligh now examined the remaining bread, and found sufficient 
 to last for twenty-nine days ; but, as he might be compelled to 
 avoid Timor and go to Java, it became necessary to make the 
 stock hold out for forty days. He therefore announced that 
 supper would hereafter be served without bread ! 
 
 A great event happened on the twenty-seventh day. A 
 noddy — a bird as large as a small pigeon — was caught as it flew 
 past the boat. Bligh divided it, with the entrails, into nineteen 
 portions, and distributed it by lots. It was eaten, bones and 
 all, with salt water for sauce. The next day a booby — which is as 
 large as a duck — was caught, and was divided and devoured like 
 the noddy, even to the entrails, beak, and feet. The blood was 
 given to three of the men who were the most distressed for want of 
 food. On the thirtieth day the}^ landed upon the northern shore 
 of New Holland, and gave thanks to God for his gracious pro- 
 tection through a series of disasters and calamities then almost 
 unparalleled. 
 
 They found oysters upon the rocks, which they opened with- 
 out detaching them. A fire was made by the help of a magni- 
 fying-glass ', and then, with the aid of a copper pot found in the 
 
A FORTUNATE ESCAPE. ♦ 497 
 
 boat, a delicious stew of oysters, pork, bread, and cocoanut was 
 cooked, of which every man received a full pint. Spring water 
 was obtained by digging where a growth of wire grass indicated 
 a, moist situation. The soft tops of palm-trees and fern-roots 
 furnished them a very palatable addition to their mess. After 
 laying in sixty gallons of water and as many oysters as they 
 could collect, they re-embarked, after having slept two nights 
 on land and having been greatly benefited thereby. Keeping to 
 the northwestward, and coasting along the shore, they landed 
 from time to time in search of food. On the 2d of June, the 
 watch of the gunner, which had been the only one in the com- 
 pany successfully to resist the influences of the weather, finally 
 stopped, so that sunrise, noon, and sunset were now the only 
 definite points in the twenty-four hours. On the next dayj 
 having followed the northeastern shore of New Holland as 
 far as it lay in their route, they once more launched into the 
 open sea. 
 
 On Thursday, the 11th, they passed, as Bligh supposed, the 
 meridian of the eastern point of Timor, — a fact which diffused 
 universal joy and satisfaction. On Friday, at three in the 
 morning, the island was faintly visible in the west, and by day- 
 light it lay but five miles to the leeward. They had run three 
 thousand six hundred and eighteen miles in an open boat in 
 forty-one days, with provisions barely sufficient for five. Though 
 life had never been sustained upon so little nourishment for so 
 long a time, and under equal circumstances of exposure and 
 suffering, not a man perished during the voyage. Their wants 
 were most kindly supplied by the Dutch at Coupang, and every 
 necessary and comfort administered with a most liberal hand. 
 
 On his return to England, Bligh published a narrative of his 
 voyage and of the mutiny, which was soon translated into all 
 the languages of Europe. He ascribed the revolt to the desire 
 of the crew to lead an idle and luxurious life at Tahiti, though sub- 
 sequent developments, and his own outrageous and brutal conduct 
 32 
 
498 
 
 ocean's stort. 
 
 when Governor of New South "Wales, proved quite conclusivtiy 
 that his cruelties and tyranny had rendered him odious and 
 intolerable. The British Government could not allow such a 
 transaction upon the high seas to pass unpunished, and de- 
 spatched the frigate Pandora, Captain Edwards, to Tahiti in 
 the month of August. Only ten of the mutineers were found, 
 the rest havincr withdrawn to another island through fear of 
 discovery, as we shall now relate, merely stating that the ten 
 persons taken were conveyed to England, where they were tried 
 and executed, 
 
 John Adams, one of the mutineers, being apprehensive that 
 the English Government would make an attempt to punish the 
 revolt, resolved to escape to some neighboring and uninhabited 
 island, and there establish a colony- With eight Englishmen, 
 one of whom was Christian, the ringleader in the mutiny, their 
 Tahitian wives, and a few islanders of both sexes, he sailed in 
 the Bounty to Pitcairn's Island, which had been lately seen by 
 Carteret. They arrived there in 1790, and, having unladen the 
 vessel, burned her. A settlement was formed, which prospered in 
 spite of the continual quarrels between the males of the two races. 
 This hostility resulted, in three years, in the extinction of the 
 
 COLONISTS OF PITCAIRN'S ISLAND. 
 
 savages, leaving upon the island Adams, three Englishmen, ten 
 women of Tahiti, and the children, some twenty in number. 
 One of the Englishmen, having succeeded in distilling brandy 
 
THE FATE OF THE COLONY. 499 
 
 from a root which grew in abundance, drank to excess and 
 threw himself headlong from a rock into the sea. Another was 
 slain for entertaining designs upon the wife of the only remain- 
 ing Englishman except Adams. Thus, in 1799, Adams and 
 Young were the only males of the original colony surviving. 
 They began to reflect upon their duties toward their children 
 and those of their companions: they commenced holding re- 
 ligious services morning and evening, and instructed the rising 
 generation in such rudimental branches of education as their 
 own learning would permit. Young died in 1801, and Adams 
 became the administrator and patriarch of the colony. He was 
 assisted by the Tahitian women, who showed a remarkable ca- 
 pacity for civilization and aptitude for refinement. An English 
 frigate, the Briton, touched at Pitcairn in 1814, and her captain 
 offered to take Adams back to England, promising him to pro- 
 cure his pardon from the king. But the forty-seven persons, 
 women and children, forming the settlement, besought their 
 patriarch not to leave them. In 1825, Captain Beechey 
 visited the island, and found the population increased to sixty- 
 six. Adams was sixty years old, but still vigorous and active. 
 He begged Beechey to marry him, according to the rites of the 
 English Church, to the woman with whom he had lived, and 
 who was now infirm and blind. Beechey gladly acceded to 
 the request. Soon after, an English missionary, named Buffet, 
 went out to Pitcairn to assist Adams in the discharge of his 
 duties and to succeed him upon his death. The latter event 
 occurred in 1829. Vessels occasionally stopped at Pitcairn, 
 and the English Government was thus kept informed of the 
 progress of its interesting colony. 
 
 In 1856, the descendants of the original settlers, having in- 
 creased so much as to outgrow the resources of their sea-girt 
 home, abandoned Pitcairn's Island, and transferred themselves, 
 with their goods and chattels, to Norfolk Island, directly west 
 and toward New South Wales. They numbered one hundred 
 
500 ocean'3 story. 
 
 and ninety-nine in all, the oldest man being sixtj-two, and th^ 
 oldest woman eighty. Charles Christian is the grandson ot 
 Christian the ringleader. Their new home contains about four, 
 teen thousand acres, and is well watered, fertile, and healthy, 
 the soil producing abundantly both European and tropical fruits, 
 veo^etables, grains, and spices. The history of the present 
 colony, the offspring in the third generation of European 
 fathers and Tahitian mothers, is as remarkable as any tale in 
 romance or any legend in mythology. 
 
 In the year 1790, — to return to chronological order, — the 
 British Government determined to make one more attempt to 
 discover a channel of communication between the Atlantic and 
 Pacific to the north of the American continent, and selected to 
 command the expedition Lieutenant George Vancouver, who 
 had accompanied Cook on his second and third voyage?. He 
 was raised to the rank of captain and placed at the head of 
 an expedition consisting of the sloop-of-war Discovery and the 
 armed tender Chatham. He left Falmouth on the 1st of April, 
 1791 ; and, as the Admiralty had designated no route by which 
 to proceed to the Pacific, he decided to go by way of the Cape 
 of Good Hope. He arrived here without adventure in July, 
 and, late in September, struck the southern coast of New Hol- 
 land at a cape to which he gave the name of Chatham, from the 
 President of the Board of Admiralty. 
 
 The two vessels coasted to the eastward, surveying the in- 
 dentations and giving names to all points of interest. A harbor 
 being discovered, it received the name of King George the 
 Third's Sound, and Vancouver took possession of the land in 
 the name of his Gracious Majesty. A wretched hovel, three 
 feet high, in the form of a bee-hive cut through the centre from 
 the apex to the base, and constructed of slender twigs, hero 
 revealed the presence of inhabitants ; while the singular appear- 
 ance of the trees and the vegetation, which had evidently under- 
 gone the action of fire, — the shrubs being completely charred 
 
A DESERTED VILLAGE. 501 
 
 And the grass having been shrivelled by the heat, — showed that^ 
 miserable as they certainly were, they were acquainted with the 
 uses and abuses of fire. At last they discovered a deserted vil- 
 lage, consisting of some two dozen huts or hives, which had 
 
 A DESERTED VILLJkGE. 
 
 apparently been the residence of a considerable tribe. They 
 gratified their curiosity by contemplating and investigating 
 these humiliating efforts of human ingenuity. 
 
 Continuing to the eastward, Vancouver touched at New 
 Zealand, and arrived at a spot where he had been with Cook 
 eighteen years before. An inlet which Cook had been unable 
 to explore, and which he had named in consequence "Nobody 
 KNOWS WHAT," was explored by Vancouver and called by him 
 *' Somebody knows what." Running to the north, he dis- 
 covered an island whose inhabitants spoke the language of the 
 great South Sea nation and who seemed perfectly acquainted 
 with the uses of iron, though they had little or none of that 
 metal. A Sandwich Islander, whom Vancouver had brought 
 from London as an interpreter, and who was named Towerezoo, 
 was of very little assistance ; for he had been so long absent 
 that he now spoke English much better than his mother-tongue, 
 and spoke the latter no better than Vancouver. The island 
 appeared to go by the name of Oparo, by which Vancouver 
 thought fit to distinguish it till it should be found more pro- 
 perly entitled to another. The two vessels arrived in December 
 at Tahiti, and anchored in Matavai Bay. The chronometers 
 
502 
 
 OCEAX'S STORY. 
 
 were landed, in order to correct them by the known longitude 
 of the island ; the sails were unbent, the topmasts struck, for a 
 thorough examination of the rigging. The Discovery went by 
 accident upon a rock, and was for a while in great danger. On 
 
 THE SHIP DISCOVERY ON A HOCK. 
 
 Sunday, the 1st of January, 1792, every one had as much fresh 
 pork and plum-pudding as he could eat, and a double allowance 
 of grog was served in which to drink the time-honored toast. 
 The formula, however, was slightly altered to suit the state of 
 the case : the gunner of the Discovery being the only married 
 man of the party, the toast given was Sweethearts and 
 Wife ! 
 
 On the 24th of January, the two ships turned their head to 
 the northward, now for the first time commencing the voyage 
 In view of which the expedition had been equipped. They ran 
 the two thousand five hundred miles that lay between them and 
 the Sandwich Islands in the space of five weeks, and anchored 
 oflf Owhyhee on the 1st of March. They touched the American 
 coast, or that part of it known as New Albion, in 39° north 
 latitude, which Vancouver now explored and surveyed. In 
 Auf'ust he entered Nootka, where, in accordance with his in- 
 fitructions, he was to receive from the Spanish authorities the 
 formal cession of the colony they had established. He found 
 Lis Catholic Majesty's brig Active already there, commanded 
 fey Senor Don Juan Francisco de la Rodega y Quadra. The 
 two commanders agreed to honor each other by a mutual salut* 
 
VANCOL'VEUo LAlJJiiS. 603 
 
 of tliirteen guns, wliich was done ; while otlier courtesies wore 
 cordially exchanged. The ceremony then took place. Van- 
 couver now returned to Owhyhee, and the king, smitten by a 
 Budden and vehement attachment for the English, proposed to 
 make over the island to the dominion of the King of England. 
 All the insular di^rnitaries assembled on the decks of the Dis- 
 covery, and the surrender was made in the midst of speeches 
 and cannonades. Vancouver did not seem to have been deeply 
 impressed with the importance of this event. The solemnity 
 of the transaction was not increased by the circumstance that it 
 took place upon the spot where Cook had so recently been 
 massacred. 
 
 Returning to the north, Vancouver continued his surveys and 
 explorations of the American coast as far as the lifty-slxt'.i 
 degree of latitude. He terminated his operations on the 22d 
 of August, at Port Conclusion, where an additional allowance 
 of grog was served, that the day might be celebrated with 
 proper festivity. He returned to Europe with the certitude 
 that no passage existed from the North Pacific across the 
 American continent into the Atlantic. Ilis surveys remain as 
 a monument of his activity, skdl, and perseverance. The pro- 
 Bent charts of the coast of North America upon the Pacific arc 
 based upon them. More than nine thousand miles of shore, 
 with its headlands, capes, rivers, bays, promontories, and laby- 
 rinths of islands, had been carefully explored by surveying 
 parties in boats, in superintending which Vancouver injured his 
 health and brought on the decline which terminated in h'a 
 death, in the year 1798, at the early age of forty-eight. 
 
 We have now to record the ren^arkable series of acts by 
 which the United States of America, in the twenty-fifth year 
 of their existence as a nation, put an end to a humdiation to 
 which the commercial powers of Europe had submitted for cen- 
 turies. From the time when the Spanish Moors, driven out of 
 Granada by Ferdinand the Catholic, settled on the opposite 
 
504 OCEANS STORY. 
 
 coast and commenced the practice of piracy, the Barbary 
 States, Tunis, Tripoli, and Algiers, had been united against 
 all Christian commerce in the Mediterranean. Emboldened by 
 impunity, they extended their operations into the Atlantic, 
 seizino" the vessels of all nations who did not pay them tribute. 
 En^rland under Cromwell, and France under Louis XIV., how- 
 ever, caused their flags to be respected. The Dutch, Danes, 
 and Swedes, by paying an annual tax, purchased exemption 
 from seizure, — thus giving the sanction of a treaty to the 
 outrage and consenting to wear an odious badge of servitude. 
 Iwussia and Austria were protected by special agreements. 
 
 During the early years of the American Republic, Tripoli 
 intimated to the Government the propriety of paying tribute. 
 Jefferson replied, in 1800, by declaring war against Tripoli, 
 and sent out an armed naval force under Commodore Dale. 
 This officer, with two frigates and a sloop-of-war, blockaded 
 Tripoli, preventing the cruisers from getting to sea, and thus 
 protecting our commerce. Commodore Preble followed with 
 seven vessels in 1803. In October, one of his ships, — the 
 Philadelphia, Captain Bainbridge, — engaged in reconnoitring 
 the harbor of Tripoli, grounded and was forced to surrender. 
 The officers were treated as prisoners of war, the sailors as 
 jslaves. The vessel was floated and moored in the harbor, 
 strongly manned by Tripolitans, whose naval force was thus 
 unexpectedly augmented. 
 
 The American squadron rendezvoused at Syracuse, in Sicily, 
 — somewhat over a day's sail from Tripoli. A young lieutenant 
 under Preble, named Decatur, formed a plan for destroying the 
 Philadelphia and thus rcdticing the Tripolitans again to their 
 ordinary naval strength. Preble consented to the scheme, and 
 Decatur armed a ketch which he hajd captured, and with it 
 entered, in February, 1804, under cover of the night, the har- 
 bor of Tripoli. He had with him an old pilot who spoke tlie 
 Tripolitan language. On approaching the Philadelphia, they 
 
THE PHILADELI'HIA FIKED. 505 
 
 were challenged; but the pilot replied that he had lost his 
 anchor and merely wished to fasten his vessel to the frigate till 
 morning. A boat was sent ashore by the Tripolitans to ask 
 permission, and then Decatur and his men leaped upon the 
 deck. They rushed upon the affrighted corsairs, fifty in num- 
 ber, and drove them into the sea. They set fire to the Phila- 
 delphia, and, by the light of the blaze, escaped without the loss 
 of a single man. One sailor was wounded by receiving upon 
 his arm a blow from a sabre with which the tuibaned pirate 
 meant to decapitate Decatur. 
 
 The Tripolitans were enraged at the loss of their prize, and 
 treated Bainbridge and his enslaved crew with greater severity 
 than ever. Three times did Preble enter the harbor of Tripoli 
 with his fleet and open his broadsides against the town, destroy- 
 ing some of the shipping, but making no material impression. 
 At last, a series of brilliant actions upon land under General 
 Eaton, whose army consisted of nine Americans, twenty Greeks, 
 and five hundred Egyptians, and the arrival of the frigate Con- 
 stitution in June, 1805, forced the Bashaw of Tripoli to come to 
 terms ; and he released his prisoners and abandoned forever the 
 levying of tribute upon American ships. Peace was at once 
 concluded. 
 
 In 1812, the United States being at war with England, the 
 Dey of Algiers thought our Government would be unable to 
 cope with two enemies upon the ocean, and determined to re- 
 sume piracy on our vessels. He pretexted the unsatisfactory 
 quality of a cargo of military stores furnished by our Govern- 
 ment, and ordered the American agent to leave the capital. 
 Depredations were immediately recommenced : our vessels were 
 plundered and confiscated and their crews enslaved. The Pre- 
 sident suggested the importance of taking measures of preven- 
 tion, in his message to Congress in December, 1814, and, after 
 the signing of the treaty of peace with England, despatched two 
 squadrons to the Mediterranean, under Decatur and Bainbridge, 
 
S' wwW 
 
ALGERIAN SLAVERY ENDED. 507 
 
 both now commodores. The former captured, in June, mi 
 Algerine frigate of forty-foUr guns and a brig of twenty-two. 
 He then sailed for Algiers. The American navy had eariRsl 
 an enviable distinction in the war with England, and the sigijt 
 of our gallant fleet inspired the dey with a salutary terror, llu 
 consented to the terms imposed by Decatur, which were to give 
 up all captured men and property, to pay six million dollars 
 for previous exactions, and to exempt our commerce from tribute 
 for all time to come. A treaty was signed on the 4th of July, 
 — an auspicious date for so honorable an achievement. 
 
 The proud position thus attained by the United States 
 attracted the attention of Europe. Our Government had ex- 
 torted expressions of submission from the corsairs such as no 
 other power had ever obtained. The Congress of Vienna dis- 
 cussed the subject, and it was resolved that from that time for- 
 ward Christian slavery in Algiers was suppressed. The English 
 sent Lord Exmouth to bombard that city, and compelled the 
 dey to submit to conditions like those imposed by Decatur. 
 The Algerines were not yet broken, however. They placed 
 their city in a formidable state of defence, and then proceeded 
 to intercept the trade of the French. The French Government 
 declared war, — a measure which resulted in the capture of 
 Algiers in 1830 and in the seizure of Abd-el-Kader in the 
 winter of 1847-48. These events have led to the colonization 
 of the territory by the French and to the partial extinction 
 of the Algerine people. Piracy in the Mediterranean may 
 safely be said to be at an end forever. 
 
THE CLERMONT: THE FIRST STEAMBOAT. 
 
 CHAPTER XLVIII. 
 
 APPLICATION OF STEAM TO NAVIGATION — ROBERT FULTON — CHANCELLOR LIVING- 
 STON — LAUNCH OF THE CLERMONT — SHE CROSSES THE HUDSON RIVER — HER 
 
 VOYAGE TO ALBANY DESCRIPTION OF THE SCENE FULTON's OWN ACCOUNT 
 
 LEGISLATIVE PROTECTION GRANTED TO FULTON — THE PENDULUM-ENGINE 
 
 CONSTRUCTION OF OTHER STEAMBOATS THE STEAM- FRIGATE FULTON THE 
 
 FIRST — THE FIRST OCEAN-STEAMER, THE SAVANNAH — ACCOUNT OF HER VOYAGE 
 — MISAPPREHENSIONS UPON THE SUBJECT. 
 
 In the year 1807, a new agent was introduced into the science 
 of navigation, — one which was destined to effect as great a 
 change in the duration of a voyage at sea as the compass had 
 effected in its practicability. Steam was applied to a boat upon 
 the Hudson, and the Clermont, propelled by wheels, steamed 
 from Jersey City to Albany. Though this was an event that 
 immediately concerned river-navigation, and though twelve 
 years were to elapse before the accomplishment of the first 
 ocean steam- voyage, we cannot with propriety omit j^n account 
 of the conception, construction, and success of the first river- 
 steamboat. 
 
 Robert Fulton was born in Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, 
 in the year 17G5. He manifested a genius for mechanics at an 
 
 early age, though portrait-painting was his first profession. He 
 
 608 
 
THE FIRST STEAMBOAT. 509 
 
 Bpent many years in England and France, and conceived the 
 idea of a vessel propelled by steam in 1793. He received no 
 countenance from Napoleon, and returned to the United States 
 in December, 1806. His mind was now occupied with two 
 projects, — the invention of submarine explosives and the con- 
 struction of a steamboat. He published a work entitled "Tor- 
 pedo War," with the motto, " The liberty of the seas will be the 
 happiness of the earth." He renewed his acquaintance with 
 Chancellor Livingston, whom he had known when ambassador 
 to Paris. This gentleman had long had entire faith in the 
 practicability of steam-navigation, and as early as 1798 had 
 obtained from the Legislature of New York a monopoly of all 
 such navigation upon the waters of the State, provided he 
 would within twelve months build a boat which should go four 
 miles an hour by steam. When they met in America, in 1806, 
 the two entered into a partnership and commenced the con- 
 struction of a boat. Finding the expenses unexpectedly heavy, 
 they offered to sell one -third of their patent ; but no one would 
 invest in an enterprise universally deemed hopeless. The boat 
 was nevertheless launched, in the spring of 1807, from the ship- 
 yard of Charles Brown, on the East River. She was supplied 
 with an engine built in England, and was driven by steam, in 
 August, from the New York side to the Jersey shore. The 
 incredulous crowd who had assembled to laugh stayed to wonder 
 and applaud. 
 
 The Clermont soon after sailed for Albany, her departure 
 having been announced in the newspapers as a grand and un- 
 equalled curiosity. "She excited," says Colden, in his Life of 
 Fulton, "the astonishment of the inhabitants of the shores of 
 the Hudson, many of whom had not heard even of an engine, 
 much less of a steamboat. There were many descriptions of 
 the effects of her first appearance upon the people of the bank 
 of the river : some of these were ridiculous, but some of them 
 were of such a character as nothing but an object of real 
 
510 ocean's story. 
 
 grandeur could have excited. She was described, by some who 
 had indistinctly seen her passing in the night, as a monster 
 moving on the waters, defying the winds and tide, and breathing 
 flames and smoke. She had the most terrific appearance from 
 other vessels which were navigating the river when she was 
 making her passage. The first steamboat — as others yet do — 
 used dry pine wood for fuel, which sends forth a column of 
 ignited vapor many feet above the flue, and whenever the fire 
 is stirred a galaxy of sparks fly off, and in the night have a 
 very brilliant and beautiful appearance. This uncommon light 
 first attracted the attention of the crews of other vessels. Not- 
 withstanding the wind and tide, which were adverse to its ap- 
 proach, they saw with astonishment that it was rapidly coming 
 toward them ; and when it came so near that the noise of the 
 machinery and paddles was heard, the crews — if what was said 
 in the newspapers of the time be true — in some instances shrunk 
 beneath their decks from the terrific sight and left their vessels 
 to go on shore, whilst others prostrated themselves and besought 
 Providence to protect them from the approaches of the horrible 
 monster which was marching on the tide and lighting its path 
 by the fires which it vomited." 
 
 Fulton himself wrote the following account of the trip up the 
 river and back, and published it in the American Citizen: — "I 
 left New York on Monday at one o'clock, and arrived at Cler- 
 mont, the seat of Chancellor Livingston, at one o'clock on Tues- 
 day : time, twenty-four hours; distance, one hundred and ten 
 miles. On Wednesday, I departed from the chancellor's at 
 nine in the morning, and arrived at Albany at five in the 
 afternoon : time, eight hours ; distance, forty miles. The sum 
 is one hundred and fifty miles in thirty-two hours, — equal to 
 near five miles an hour. 
 
 "On Thursday, at nine o'clock in the morning, I left Albany, 
 and arrived at the chancellor's at six in the cvenlnjr: I started 
 from thence at seven, and arrived at New York at four in the 
 
MONOPOLY OP^ STEAMBOATIXa. 511 
 
 afternoon; time, thirty hours; Fpaco run" through, one hundred 
 <arid fifr.y m'.lc.^, — equal to five miles an hour. Throughout my 
 'whole way, both going and returning, the wind was ahead: no 
 advantage could be derived from my sail : the whole has there- 
 fore been performed by the power of the steam-engine." 
 
 In a letter to one of his friends, Fulton wrote: — "I overtook 
 many sloops and schooners beating to windward, and parted 
 with them as if they had been at anchor. The power of pro- 
 pelling boats by steam is now fully proved. The morning I left 
 New York there were not perhaps thirty persons who believed that 
 the boat would even move one mile an hour, or be of the least 
 utility ; and while we were putting off from the wharf, which 
 was crowded with spectators, I heard a number of sarcastic 
 remarks. This is the way in which ignorant men compliment 
 what they call philosophers and projectors. . . . Although the 
 prospect of personal emolument has been some inducement to 
 me, yet I feel infinitely more pleasure in reflecting on the im- 
 mense advantage that my country will derive from the inven- 
 tion." 
 
 The Clermont was now advertised as a regular passenger- 
 boat upon the Hudson. She met with numerous accidents 
 during the season ; and her obvious defects would have been 
 remedied by the application of as obvious improvements by Fulton 
 himself, had not other persons anticipated him by taking out 
 patents for improvements which they themselves proposed. They 
 thus caused him infinite annoyance, and even contested his riglit 
 as an inventor. Shipmasters, too, who looked upon his boat as 
 an intruder upon their domain, ran their vessels purposely foul 
 of her on more than one occasion. The Lcirislature saw fit to 
 counteract the effects of this hostility by passing an act pro- 
 longing Livingston and Fulton's privilege five years for every 
 additional boat established, — the whole time, however, not to 
 exceed thirty years. It also made all combinations to destroy 
 the Clermont offences punishable by fine and imprisonment. 
 
512 ocean's story. 
 
 Thus protected, the Clermont ran throughout the season, 
 always well laden with passengers. In the winter she was 
 enlarged and improved. The wheel-guards were strengthened, 
 and became a prominent and essential feature of the boat. 
 The rudder was replaced by one of much larger dimensions, 
 and a steering-wheel towards the bow was substituted for tho 
 ordinary tiller. The accommodations for passengers were made 
 much more comfortable, — luxurious even, — and the public taste 
 was consulted in the application of numerous coats of rather 
 gaudy paint. She then commenced her trips for the season 
 of 1808. She started regularly at the appointed hour, — at first 
 much to the discontent of travellers who had before been waited 
 for by both sloops and stages. At the end of the season the 
 Clermont was altogether too small for the crowds who thronged 
 to take passage. Two boats, the Car of Neptune and the 
 Paragon, were therefore soon added to the line. 
 
 Fulton, menaced by constant contestation of his rights, took 
 out a patent in 1809 from the General Government, and another, 
 for improvements, in 1811. His system was so simple — the 
 adaptation of paddle-wheels to the axle of the crank of Watt's 
 engine — that it seemed then, as it has proved since, almost im- 
 possible by any specifications effectually to protect it. The famous 
 Pendulum Company caused Fulton for a time much trouble. 
 They built a boat the wheels of which were to be moved by a 
 pendulum. While she was upon the stocks and the wheels 
 were resisted only by the air, the labor of a few men made 
 them turn regularly and rapidly ; but when she was launched, 
 and the pendulum encountered the resistance of the water, 
 neither pendulum, wheels, nor boat would stir. The Pendulum 
 Company were aghast at this phenomenon, and clearly saw that 
 if the boat was to be moved by the wheels, and the wheels by 
 the pendulum, something must be devised of sufficient power to 
 move the pendulum. There was nothing, evidently, but th« 
 steam-engine; and so they copied Fulton's. Lawsuits followed; 
 
STEAM FERRY-BOATS. 513 
 
 and in his argnment in behalf of Fulton Mr. Emmet thu8 
 spoke of the Pendulum gentlemen: — "They are men who never 
 waste health and life in midnight vigils and painful study ; who 
 never dream of science in the broken slumbers of an exhausted 
 mind ; who bestow upon the construction of a steamboat just as 
 much mathematical calculation and philosophical research as on 
 the purchase of a sack of wheat or a barrel of ashes." Fulton 
 gained his cause, and the boat which was to go bj clock-work 
 was prohibited from going even by steam. 
 
 In 1812, Fulton built the Fire-Fly; and, as the town of New- 
 burgh, half-way to Albany, offered sufficient traffic to support 
 at least one boat, she was placed upon that route. In the same 
 year he constructed two ferry-boats for crossing the Hudson, 
 making them with rudder and bow at either end. He also 
 contrived floating docks for their reception, and a method 
 of stopping them without concussion. In 1813, he built a 
 steam-vessel of four hundred tons and unusual strength, to 
 ply in Long Island Sound between New York and New 
 Haven. She was the first steamboat constructed with a round 
 bottom. "We quote a passage referring to her from a work 
 published in 1817 : — " During a great part of her route she 
 would be as much exposed as she could be on the ocean : it 
 was therefore necessary to make her a perfect sea-boat. She 
 passes daily, and at all times of the tide, the dangerous strait 
 of Hell-Gate, where for the distance of nearly a mile she often 
 encounters a current running at the rate of at least six miles an 
 hour. For some distance she has within a few yards of her, on 
 each side, rocks and whirlpools which rival Scylla and Charybdis 
 even as they are poetically described. This passage, previously 
 to its being navigated by this vessel, was always supposed to be 
 impassable except at certain stages of the tide ; and many a 
 shipwreck has been occasioned by a small mistake in the time. 
 The boat passing through these whirlpools with rapidity, Tvhilc 
 
 the angry waters are foaming against her bows and appear to 
 33 
 
514 OCEAN S STORY. 
 
 raise tliemselves in obstinate resistance to her passage, is a 
 proud triumph of human ingenuity. The owners, as the highest 
 tribute they had in their power to offer to his genius, and as an 
 evidence of the gratitude they owed him, called her the Fulton/' 
 
 Early in 1814, the United States and England being at war, 
 Fulton conceived the idea of a steam vessel-of-war, capable of 
 carrying a strong battery, with furnaces for redhot shot, and 
 sailing four miles an hour. Congress authorized the construc- 
 tion of such a floating battery, and the keel was laid on the 
 18th of June. The vessel was launched on the 27th of October 
 the same year, in the midst of excited and applauding throngs. 
 Before she sailed, however, her engineer and builder had been 
 removed to another sphere : Fulton died on the 24th of Febru- 
 ary, 1815. The Legislature paid an unusual tribute to his 
 memory : they resolved to wear mourning for three weeks. 
 This manifestation of regret for the loss of a man who had 
 never held office nor served his country in any public capacity 
 was entirely unprecedented. 
 
 On the 4th of July, the steam-frigate made a trial trip, and, 
 with her engines alone, sailed fifty-three miles in eight hours 
 and twenty minutes. The following description of the Fulton 
 the First, as she was called, is given by the committee appointed 
 to examine her in behalf of Congress: — "She is a structure 
 resting on two boats asnd keels separated from end to end by a 
 channel fifteen feet wide and sixty-six feet long. One boat con- 
 tains the caldrons of copper to prepare her steam ; the cylinder 
 of iron, its piston, lever, and wheels, occupy part of the other. 
 The water-wheel revolves in the space between them. The 
 main or gun deck supports the armament, and is protected by a 
 parapet, four feet ten inches thick, of solid timber, pierced by 
 embrasures. Through thirty port-holes as many thirty-two 
 pounders are intended to fire redhot shot, which can be heated 
 with great safety and convenience. Her upper or spar deck, 
 upon which several thousand men might parade, is encompassed 
 
A STEAM PROPELLER. 515 
 
 by a bulwark, which affords safe quarters : she is rigged with 
 two stout masts, each of which supports a large lateen yard 
 and sails : she has two bowsprits and jibs, and four rudders, cne 
 at each extremity of each boat, so that she can be steered with 
 either end foremost: her machinery is calculated for the addi- 
 tion of an engine which will discharge an immense column of 
 water, which it is intended to throw upon the decks and through 
 the port-holes of an enemy and thereby deluge her armament 
 and ammunition. If in addition to all this we suppose her to 
 be furnished, according to Mr. Fulton's intention, with hundred- 
 pound Columbiads, two suspended from each bow so as to dis- 
 charge a ball of that size into an enemy's ship ten or twelve feet 
 below her water-line, it must be allowed that she has the ap- 
 pearance, at least, of being the most formidable engine for war- 
 fare that human ingenuity has contrived." 
 
 Such was the first step towards the establishment of a steam- 
 navy. Forty years afterwards, George Steers built the pro- 
 peller-frigate Niagara ; and the reader, by comparing the two 
 vessels, will have an adequate idea of the immense strides 
 made in naval mechanics and engineering during the lapse of 
 less than half a century. In Europe the size and qualities of 
 the Fulton the First were at the time ludicrously exaggerated, 
 as will be seen from the following passage from a Scotch treatise 
 on steamships. After magnifying her proportions threefold, 
 the author continues : — " The thickness of her sides is thirteen 
 feet of alternate oak plank and cork wood : she carries forty- 
 four guns, four of which are hundred-pounders ; quarter- 
 deck and forecastle guns, forty-four-pounders ; and, further to 
 annoy an enemy attempting to board, can discharge one hun- 
 dred gallons of boiling water in a minute, and, by mechanism, 
 brandishes three hundred cutlasses with the utmost regularity 
 over her gunwales, works also an equal number of heavy iron 
 spikes of great length, darting them from her sides with pro- 
 digious force and withdrawing them every quarter of a minute !" 
 
516 ocean's story. 
 
 The frigate made a second experimental trip, on the 11th of 
 September, with her armament and stores on board, her draught 
 of water being eleven feet. She changed her course bj re- 
 versing the motion of her wheels. She fired salutes as she 
 passed the forts, and performed manoeuvres around the United 
 States frigate Java. The machinery was not aifected in the 
 slightest degree by the detonation of her guns. Her average 
 speed was five and a half miles an hour, — Fulton having con- 
 tracted to obtain three miles an hour only. The city of New 
 York now felt itself invulnerable ; but the cessation of hostilities, 
 which occurred soon after, precluded the necessity of employing 
 her as a means of defence. It is probable that such a con- 
 trivance, even in the present advanced state of naval warfare, 
 would be found useful in protecting the mouths of harbors, — 
 not as a frigate, but as a floating battery or movable fortress. 
 The fact that this vessel was built by Fulton makes him the 
 father not only of steam-navigation, but of the steam-navies 
 of the world as well. We shall have occasion to chronicle at 
 intervals, as we progress in our record, the successive steps of 
 improvement in the science, till we arrive at the era of steam 
 floating palaces upon American rivers, of steam pleasure-yachts 
 owned by American merchants, of commercial steam-leviathans, 
 American and English, bearing the names of continents and 
 oceans, and of the peerless steam-frigate to which we have 
 already alluded, — " a noble ship with a noble name, bound, in 
 1857, upon the noblest of missions." 
 
 The history of the first ocean-steamer is very incompletely 
 and unsatisfactorily told in the annals of the time. The fol- 
 lowing is the substance of all that has been preserved of the 
 first transatlantic steam-voyage on record : 
 
 The Savannah, a steamer of three hundred and fifty tons, 
 intended to ply between New York and Liverpool, under the 
 command of Captain Moses Rodgers, was launched at New 
 York on the 22d of August, 1818. She made a preliminary 
 
AN OCEAN STEAMER. 
 
 517 
 
 voyage to the city whose name she bore, in April, 1819, where 
 she arrived in seven days, after a very boisterous passage. She 
 v/as several times compelled to take in her wheels — having 
 machinery for the purpose — and rely upon her sails, which waij 
 done with all the promptitude and safety anticipated. This 
 trial trip left no doubt that she would successfully accomplish 
 the object for which she was built. She left Savannah for 
 Liverpool soon after, and the New York newspapers of the 
 second week in June announced that she had been spoken 
 at sea, all well. In the log-book of the Pluto, which arrived 
 soon after at Baltimore from Bremen, occurred the following 
 passage : 
 
 "June 2. — Clear weather and smooth sea: lat. 42^, long. 
 59°, spoke and passed the elegant steamship Savannah, eight 
 
 THE SAVANNAH; THE FIBST O C E A N - S T E A M E R. 
 
 days out from Savannah to St. Petersburg by way of Liver- 
 pool. She passed us at the rate of nine or ten knots ; and the 
 captain informed us she worked remarkably well, and the 
 greatest compliment we could bestow was to give her three 
 cheers, as the happiest effort of mechanical genius that ever 
 appeared on the Western ocean. She returned the compli- 
 ment." 
 
 Niles' New York Register of the 21st of August contains 
 the following paragraph in italics at the head of its column 
 of foreign news: — "The steamship Savannah, Captain Moses 
 
518 OCEAN'S STORY. 
 
 Rodgers, — the first that ever crossed the Atlantic, — arrived at 
 Liverpool in twenty-five days from Savannah, all well, to the 
 great astonishment of the people of that place. She worked 
 her engine eighteen days." The next record of her movements 
 is that she sailed in August for St. Petersburg, passing Elsinore 
 on the 13th, and that the British '''"wisely supposed her visit to 
 be somehow connected with the ambitious views of the United 
 States." She arrived back at Savannah in November, in fifty 
 days from St. Petersburg via Copenhagen and Arendal in Nor- 
 way, all well, and, in the language of Captain Rodgers, " with 
 neither a screw, bolt, or a rope-yarn parted, though she encoun- 
 tered a very heavy gale in the North Sea." She left Savannah 
 for Washington on the 4th of December, losing her boats and 
 anchors off Cape Hatteras. 
 
 It is a singular fact, and one not creditable to the English, 
 that many of their works treating of inventions and the pro- 
 gress of the arts and sciences entirely overlook this voyage 
 out and back of the Savannah, and uniformly make the British 
 steamers Sirius and Great Western the pioneers, in 1837, in the 
 great work of ocean steam-navigation. The authors of these 
 works err either through design or ignorance, and in either 
 case display a marked unfitness for their vocation. Were they 
 to consult the London and Liverpool newspapers of the time, 
 they would find ample record of the accomplishment of a steam- 
 voyage nearly twenty years before the period to which they 
 assign it. We have said enough, however, to prove that the 
 first steam-vessel that crossed the ocean was built in New York, 
 and that Moses Rodgers, her captain, was an American citizen. 
 When we arrive at the year in which the two British steamers 
 inaugurated steam commercial intercourse between the hemi- 
 spheres, we shall record it, with due acknowledgment of its im- 
 portance ; but we repeat the assertion that, as the first river- 
 steamer was the Clermont, the first Atlantic steamer was the 
 Savannah : both one and the other were built in New York. 
 
HEAD OP WHITE BEAR. 
 
 Section Vh 
 
 FROM THE APPLICATION OF STEAM TO NAVIGATION TO THE 
 LAYING OF THE ATLANTIC CABLE: 1807-1857. 
 
 CHAPTER XLIX, 
 
 ARCTIC EXPLORATIONS — RUSSIAN RESEARCHES UNDER KRUSENSTERN AND 
 KOTZEBUE — FREYCINET — ROSS — THE CRIMSON CLIFFS — LANCASTER SOUND— 
 
 BUCHAN AND FRANKLIN PARRY THE POLAR SEA WINTER QUARTERS 
 
 RETURN HOME DUPERREY EPISODES IN THE WHALE-FISHERY PARRY's 
 
 POLAR VOYAGE — BOAT-SLEDGES — METHOD OF TRAVEL — DISHEARTENING DIS- 
 COVERY — 82° 43' NORTH. 
 
 We have now entered the nineteenth century. From this time 
 forward we shall find little or no romantic interest attaching to 
 the history of the sea, with the single exception of that of the 
 Arctic waters. The epoch of adventure stimulated by the thirst 
 for gold has long since passed : there are no more continents to 
 be pursued, and few islands to be unbosomed from the deep. 
 There was once a harvest to be reaped ; but there remain 
 henceforward but scanty leavings to be gleaned. The navi- 
 gator of the present century cannot hope to acquire a rapid 
 fame by brilliant discoveries : he must be content if he obtain a 
 tardy distinction by patient observation and minute surveys, — 
 a task far more useful than showy, and, while less attractive, 
 much more arduous. Our narrative, therefore, of the remaining 
 maritime enterprises will be correspondingly succinct. The 
 reader's interest, as we have said, will attach almost exclu- 
 sively to the Polar adventures of the heroes of the Northwest 
 
 519 
 
520 
 
 ocean's story 
 
 Passage : of Ross, who saw the Crimson Cliffs ; of Parrj, who 
 discovered the Polar Sea ; of James Clarke Ross, who stood 
 upon the North Magnetic Pole ; of McClure, who threaded the 
 Northwest Passage ; of Franklin and of Kane, the martyrs to 
 Arctic science. Though we shall dwell more particularly upon 
 these voyages, we shall nevertheless mention in due order those 
 undertaken for other purposes in all quarters of the globe. 
 
 In 1803, Alexander of Russia determined to enter the career 
 of maritime discovery and geographical research. He sent 
 Captain Krusenstern upon a voyage round the world, in the 
 London-built ship Nadeshda. Nothing resulted from this 
 voyage except the augmented probability that Saghalien was 
 not an island, but a peninsula joined to the mainland of China 
 by an isthmus of sand. 
 
 In 1815, the Russian Count Romanzoff fitted out an expedi- 
 tion at his own expense for the advancement of geographical 
 science. The specific object of the voyage was to explore the 
 American coast both to the north and south of Behring's Straits, 
 and to seek a connection thence with Baffin's Bay. The com- 
 mand was given to Otto Von Kotzebue, a son of the distin- 
 guished German dramatist Kotzebue. In Oceanica he discovered 
 an uninhabited archipelago, which he named Rurick's Chain, 
 
 RECEPTION OF K0T2EDUE *T OTDIA. 
 
 from one of his vessels. In Kotzebue Gulf, northeast of Belirinp^'s 
 Straits, he discovered an island which was supposed to contain 
 
A SCIENTIFIC EXPEDITION. 521 
 
 immens3 quantities of iron, from the violent oscillations of the 
 needle. Upon a second visit to Otdia, one of the Rurick 
 Islands, in 1824, the inhabitants remembered him upon his 
 shouting the syllables Totobu^ — their manner of pronouncing 
 his name. They received him with great joy, rushing into the 
 water up to their hips : they then lifted him out of his boat and 
 carried him dry-shod to the shore. 
 
 In 1817, Louis XVIII. sent Captain Freycinet upon the first 
 voyage which, though undertaken for the advancement of science, 
 had neither hydrography nor geography for its object. Its 
 purpose was to determine the form of the globe at the South 
 Pole, the observation of magnetic and atmospheric phenomena, 
 the study of the three kingdoms of nature, and the investigation 
 of the resources and languages of such indigenous people as the 
 vessel should visit. The expedition was conducted with skill ; but 
 its results, being purely scientific, do not require mention here. 
 
 In the winter of 1816, the whalers returning from the Green- 
 land seas to England reported the ice to be clearer than they 
 had ever known it before. The period seemed favorable for a 
 renewal of Arctic exploration ; and in 1818 the Admiralty 
 fitted out two vessels — the Isabella and Alexander — for the 
 purpose. Captain John Ross was sent in the first to discover a 
 northwest passage, and Lieutenant Edward Parry in the second, 
 to penetrate if possible to the Pole. Their instructions required 
 them to examine with especial care the openings at the head 
 of Baffin's Bay. Sailing on the 18th of April, they reached 
 the coast of Greenland on the 17th of June. They saw tribes 
 of Esquimaux who had never seen men of any race but their 
 own, and who felt and testified an indescribable alarm at the 
 sight of the adventurers. It was subsequently proved that 
 what they feared was contagion. Quito at the northern ex- 
 tremity of the bay, Ross observed the phenomenon which has 
 given so romantic, almost legendary, a character to his voyage, 
 ' — that of red snow He saw a range of peaks clothed in a 
 
522 ocean's story 
 
 garb which appeared as if borrowed from the looms and dyes 
 of Tyre. The spot is marked upon the maps as " The Crimson 
 Cliffs." The color was at the time supposed to be a quality- 
 inherent in the snow itself; but subsequent investigations have 
 established its vegetable origin. 
 
 The ships were now at the northern point of Baffin's Bay, 
 among the numerous inlets which Baffin had failed to explore. 
 They all appeared to be blocked up with ice, and none of them 
 held out any flattering promise of concealing within itself the 
 long-sought Northwest Passage. Smith's Strait, where the bay 
 ends, was carefully examined ; but it proved to be enclosed by 
 ice. Returning towards the south by the western coast of the 
 bay, they arrived at the entrance of Lancaster Sound on the 
 30th of August, just as the sun, after shining unceasingly for 
 nearly three months, was beginning to dip under the horizon. 
 The vessels sailed up the sound some fifty miles, through a sea 
 clear from ice, the channel being surrounded on either hand by 
 mountains of imposing elevation. It was here that Ross com- 
 mitted the fatal mistake which was to cloud his own reputation 
 and to put Parry, his second, forward as the first of Arctic 
 navigators. He asserted, and certainly believed, that he saw a 
 high ridge of mountains stretching directly across the passage. 
 This, he thought, rendered farther progress impracticable, and 
 the order was given to put the ships about. Ross returned to 
 England, convinced that Baffin was correct in regarding Lan- 
 caster Bay as a bay only, without any strait beyond. It was 
 destined that Parry should thread this strait and find the Polar 
 Sea beyond. 
 
 In the same year the British Government sent an expedition 
 under Captain Buchan and Lieutenant — afterwards Sir John — 
 Franklin, to endeavor to reach the Pole. The objects were to 
 make experiments on the elliptical figure of the earth, on mag- 
 netic and meteorological phenomena, and on the refraction of the 
 atmosphere in high latitudes. The two vessels — the Dorothea 
 
524 
 
 ocean's story. 
 
 and Trent — sailed in April, 1818, and made their way towards 
 Magdalena Bay, in Spitzbergen. In latitude 74° north, near an 
 island frequented by herds of walruses, a boat's crew was 
 attacked by a number of these animals, and only escaped 
 destruction by the presence of mind of the purser. He seized 
 a loaded musket, and, plunging the muzzle into the throat of the 
 leader of the school, discharged its contents into his bowels. 
 As the walrus sinks as soon as he is dead, the mortally-wounded 
 animal at once began to disappear beneath the water. His 
 
 ATTACKED BY WALRUSES. 
 
 companions abandoned the combat to support their chief with 
 their tusks, whom they hastily bore away from the scene of 
 action. 
 
 The climate here was mild, the atmosphere pure and brilliant, 
 and the blue of the sky as intense as that of Naples. Alpine 
 plants, grasses, moss, and lichens, flourished in abundance, and 
 afforded browsing pasturage to reindeer at the height of fifteen 
 hundred feet above the sea. The shores were alive with awks, 
 di7era, cormorants, gulls, walruses, and seals. Eider-ducks, 
 
COLLISION WITH ICEBERGS. 525 
 
 foxes, and bears preyed and proii\'led upon the ice ; and the sea 
 furnished a home to jaggers, kittiwakes, and whales. Having 
 ascended as high as 80° 34' N., and finding it impossible to 
 penetrate farther to the north, Buchan resolved to quit the 
 waters of Spitzbergen and stand away for those of Greenland. 
 A pack of floating icebergs, upon which the waves were beating 
 furiously, beset the ships. The Trent came violently in colli- 
 sion with a mass many hundred times her size. Every man on 
 board lost his footing ; the masts bent at the shock, while the 
 timbers cracked beneath the pressure. This accident rendered 
 a prosecution of the voyage impracticable, and the two ships 
 returned to England, where they arrived in October. The ex- 
 pedition thus failed of the main object it was intended to 
 accomplish. 
 
 As we have already remarked, Ross neglected the oppor- 
 tunity afforded him of penetrating to the interior of Lancaster 
 Sound, — thus leaving for another the glory of attaching his 
 name to the' discoveries to be made there. The Government, 
 being dissatisfied with his management, and being encouraged 
 by Lieutenant Parry to believe that the supposed chain of 
 mountains barring the passage had no existence but in Ross's 
 imagination, gave him the command of two ships, strongly 
 manned and amply stored, for the prosecution of discovery in 
 that direction. He left England on the 11th of May, 1810, 
 with the ship Hecla and the gun-brig Griper. On the 15th of 
 June he unexpectedly saw land, — which proved to be Cape 
 Farewell, the southern point of Greenland, though at a distance 
 of more than a hundred miles. The ships were immovably 
 " beset" by ice on the 25th : their situation was utterly help- 
 less, all the power that could be applied not availing to turn 
 their heads a single degree of the compass. 
 
 The ofiicers and men occupied themselves in various manners 
 during this period of inaction. Observations were made on the 
 dip and variation of the magnetic needle, and lunar distances 
 
RELEASED FROM THE ICE. 527 
 
 were calculated. White bears were enticed within rifle-distance 
 by the odor of fried red-herrings, and then easily shot. On the 
 30th the ice slackened, and, after eight hours* incessant labor, 
 both ships were moved into the open sea. On the 12th, Parry 
 obtained a supply of pure water which was flowing from an ice- 
 berg, and the sailors shook from the ropes and rigging several 
 tons' weight of congealed fog. The passage to Lancaster Sound 
 was laborious, and was only efiected by the most persevering 
 efforts on the part of all. 
 
 An entrance into the sound was effected on the 1st of August ; 
 and Parry felt, as did the officers and men, that this was the 
 point of the voyage which was to determine the success or 
 failure of the expedition. Reports, all more or less favorable, 
 were constantly passed down from the crow's nest to the quarter- 
 deck. The weather was clear, and the ships sailed in perfect 
 safety through the night. Towards morning all anxiety respect- 
 ing the alleged chain of mountains across the inlet was at an 
 end ; for the two shores were still forty miles apart, at a distance 
 of one hundred and fifty miles from the mouth of the channel. 
 The water was now as free from ice as the Atlantic ; and they 
 began to flatter themselves that they had fairly entered the 
 Polar Sea. A heavy swell and the familiar ocean-like color 
 which was now thought to characterize the water were also 
 encouraging circumstances. The compasses became so sluggish 
 and irregular that the usual observations upon the variation of 
 the needle were abandoned. The singular phenomenon was soon 
 fDr the first time witnessed of the needle becoming so weak as 
 to be completely controlled by local attraction, so that it really 
 l>ointed to the north pole of the ship, — that is, to the point 
 where there was the largest quantity of iron. 
 
 Ice for a time prevented the farther western progress of the 
 'fessels, and they sailed one hundred and twenty miles to the 
 south, in a sound which they called Prince Regent's Inlet. 
 Parry suspected, though incorrectly, that this inlet communi- 
 
528 ocean's story. 
 
 eated with Hudson's Bay. Returning to the mouth of the inlet, 
 he found the sea to the westward still encumbered with ice ; but 
 a heavy blow, accompanied with rain, soon broke it up and dis- 
 persed it. They proceeded slowly on, naming every cape and 
 bay which they passed : an inlet of large size they called Wel- 
 lington, "after his Grace the Master of the Ordnance." Being 
 now convinced that the passage through which they had thus 
 far ascended was a strait connecting two seas, Parry gave it the 
 name of Barrow's Strait, after Mr. Barrow, Secretary of the 
 Admiralty. The prospects of success during the coming six 
 wrecks were now felt by the commander of the expedition to be 
 "truly exhilarating." 
 
 An island — by far the largest Parry had seen in these waters 
 — appeared early in September, and the men worked their 
 arduous way along its southern coast, till, on the 4th, they 
 reached the longitude of 110° west. The two ships then be- 
 came entitled to the sum of X5000, — the reward offered by 
 Parliament to the first of his Majesty's subjects that should 
 penetrate thus far to the westward within the Arctic Circle. 
 The island was called Melville Island, from the First Lord 
 of the Admiralty. In a bay named The Bay of the Hecla and 
 Griper, the anchor was dropped for the first time since leaving 
 England ; the ensigns and pennants were hoisted, and the Bri- 
 tish flag waved in a region believed to be without the pale of the 
 habitable world. 
 
 The summer was now at its close, and it became necessary 
 to make a selection of winter quarters. A harbor was found, 
 a passage-way cut through two miles of ice, and the ships settled 
 in five fathoms' water : they were soon firmly frozen in at a 
 cable's-length from the shore. Hunting, botanizing, excursions 
 upon the island, experiments in an observatory erected on shore, 
 and amateur theatricals, afforded some relief from the unavoid- 
 able inactivity to which officers and crew were now condemned. 
 Parry had named the group of islands of which Melville is the 
 
WINTER IN THE ICE. 
 
 62y 
 
 largest, the North Georgian Islands, in honor of King George ; 
 and during the days of constant darkness a weekly news- 
 
 CUTTING IN. 
 
 paper, entitled " The Nortli Georgia Gazette and Winter 
 Chronicle," was edited by Captain Sabine, the astronomer. 
 
 The sun reappeared on the 3d of February, 1820, after an 
 absence of ninety-one days. The theatre was soon closed and 
 the newspaper discontinued. The ice around the ships was 
 seven feet thick, though by the middle of May the crews had 
 cut it away so as to allow the ships to float, and had sawed a 
 channel for their boats. On the 1st of August, there was not 
 
 the slightest symptom of a thaw ; on the 2d, the ice broke up 
 
 and disappeared with a suddenness altogether inexplicable. 
 
 Parry determined to return home at once, and arrived at Leith, 
 
 in Scotland, towards the close of October. He was received 
 
 with great favor, and was rewarded for his signal services by 
 
 promotion to the rank of captain. 
 34 
 
630 ocean's story. 
 
 Parry made a second voyage in 1821, with instructions to 
 seek a passage by Hudson's Strait instead of by Lancaster Sound. 
 It was totally unsuccessful. lie made a third attenipt, in 1824, 
 with the Fury and the Hecla. The Fury was lost in Lancaster 
 Sound, and Parry returned baffled and for a time disheartened. 
 
 In 1822, a French captain, named Duperrey, made a voyage, 
 under the orders of the Government, which is in many respects 
 the most remarkable on record. He sailed seventy-five thou- 
 sand miles in thirty-one months, without losing a man or 
 having a single name upon the sick-list; nor did the ship once 
 need repairs. The discoveries made were not important, but 
 the surveys effected and the observations upon terrestrial mag- 
 netism recorded were interesting and valuable. 
 
 At about this period, the perils incident to the whale- 
 fishery were strangely augmented by a circumstance which we 
 cannot forbear mentioning. The whale, whose intellcctu;il 
 faculties had been sharpened by the warfare waged against 
 him for two hundred years, was suddenly found to be animated 
 by a new and vehement passion, — that of revenge. " Mocha 
 Dick," who earned a terrible reputation for ferocity, only suc- 
 cumbed after many years of successful resistance. His body 
 proved to be covered with scars, his flesh bristled with harpoons, 
 and his head was declared to be wonderfully expressive of "old 
 age, cunning, and rapacity." Not long after this, a sperm- 
 whale was wounded by a boat's crew from the Essex. A 
 brother leviathan, eighty-five feet long, approached the ship 
 within twenty rods, eyed it steadfastly for a moment, and then 
 withdrew, as if satisfied with his observations. He soon returned 
 at full speed: he struck the ship with his head, throwing the 
 men flat upon their faces. Gnashing his jaws together as if 
 wild with rage, he made another onset, and, with every appear- 
 ance of an avenger of his race, stove in the vessel's bows. This 
 was the first example on record of the whale's displaying posi- 
 tive design in seeking an encounter. He certainly acted from 
 
532 ocean's story. 
 
 the promptings of revenge, and, moreover, directed his attacks 
 upon the weakest part of the ship. 
 
 The whale of Captain Deblois, of the ship Ann Alexander, was 
 a still more remarkable animal. When harpooned, instead of 
 seeking to escape, he turned upon the boat, and, in the language 
 of an eye-witness, " chawed it to flinders." The second boat 
 met the same fate. The whale then dashed upon the ship, and 
 broke through her timbers, letting the water in in torrents. In an 
 hour the vessel lay a wreck upon the ocean. Four months after- 
 wards, the crew of the Rebecca Sims captured a whale of large 
 size but of enfeebled energies. He was found to have a damaged 
 head, with large fragments of a ship's fore-timbers buried in 
 his flesh ; while two harpoons, sunk almost to his vitals, and 
 labelled "Ann Alexander," designated him as the fierce but 
 now exhausted antagonist of Captain Deblois, of New Bedford. 
 
 In 1827 — to return to the Arctic explorations — a new idea 
 was broached with reference to the Pole and the most likely 
 method of reaching it. Captain Parry, despairing of getting 
 there in ships, conceived the plan of constructing boats with run- 
 ners, which might be dragged upon the ice, or, in case of need, 
 be rowed through the water. The Government approved of the 
 idea, and two boats were specially constructed fur the service : 
 each one, with its furniture and stores, weighed three thousand 
 seven hundred and fifty-three pounds. They were placed on 
 board the sloop-of-war Ilecla ; and the expedition left the Nore 
 on the 4th of April, 1827, for Spitzbergen. At Ilammersfeld, 
 in Norway, they took on board eight reindeer and a quantity 
 of moss for their fodder. 
 
 After experiencing a series of tremendous gales, being beset 
 in the ice till the 8th of June, the Hecla was safely anchored 
 on the northern coast of Spitzbergen, in Hecla Cove. Parry 
 gave his instructions to his lieutenants, Foster and Crozier, and 
 on the 22d left the ship in the two boats, having named them 
 the Enterprise and Endeavor, with provisions for seventy-one 
 
A HAZARDOUS VOYAGE. 533 
 
 days. The ice appeared so rugged that the reindeer promised 
 to be of little assistance, and were consequently left behind. 
 The following is an abridged account of the extraordinary 
 method of travelling adopted upon this singular voyage : 
 
 *'It was my intention," says Parry, "to travel by night and 
 rest by day, thus avoiding the glare resulting from the sun 
 shining from his highest altitudes upon the snow ; and pro- 
 ceeding during the milder light shed during his vicinity to the 
 horizon, — for of course, during the summer, he never set at all. 
 This practice so completely inverted the natural order of things 
 that the officers, though possessing chronometers, did not know 
 night from day. When we rose in the evening, we commenced 
 our day by prayers ; after which we took off our raccoon-skin 
 sleeping-dresses, and put on our box-cloth travelling-suits. We 
 breakfasted upon warm cocoa heated with spirits of wine — our 
 only fuel — and biscuit : we then travelled five hours, and stopped 
 to dine, and again travelled four, five, or six hours, according 
 to circumstances. It then being early in the morning, we 
 halted for the night, selecting the largest surface of ice we 
 happened to be near for hauling the boat on. Every man then 
 put on dry stockings and fur boots, leaving the wet ones — which 
 were rarely found (jry in the morning — to be resumed after 
 their slumbers. After supper the officers and men smoked 
 their pipes, which served to dry the boat and awnings, and 
 often raised the temperature ten degrees. A watch was set to 
 look out for bears, each man alternately doing this duty for one 
 hour. It now being bright day, the evening was ushered in 
 with prayers. After seven hours' sleep, the man appointed to 
 boil the cocoa blew a reveille upon the bugle, and thus at night- 
 fall the day was recommenced." 
 
 The difficulty of travelling was much greater than had been 
 anticipated. The ice, instead of being solid, was composed of 
 small, loose, and rugged masses, with pools of water between 
 them. In their first eight days they made but eight miles* 
 
534 ocean's story. 
 
 northing. At one time the men dragged the boats only one 
 hundred and fifty yards in two hours. On the 17th of July 
 they reached the latitude of 82° 14' 28'',— the highest yet 
 attained. On the 18th, after eleven hours' exhausting labor, 
 they advanced but two miles ; and on the 20th, having appa- 
 rently accomplished twelve miles in three days, an observation 
 revealed the alarming fact that they had really advanced but 
 five. The terrible truth burst upon Parry and his officers : the 
 ice over which they were with such effort forcing their weary 
 way wa^ actually drifting to the south ! This intelligence was 
 concealed from the men, who had no suspicion of it, though 
 they often laughingly remarked that they were a long time 
 getting to this eighty-third degree. They were at this time in 
 82° 43' 5". The next observation extinguished the last ray 
 of hope : after two days' labor, they found themselves in 82° 
 40'. The drift was carrying them to the south faster than 
 their own exertions took them to the north ! In fact, the drift 
 ran four miles a day. It was evidently hopeless to pursue the 
 journey any farther. The floe upon which they slept at night 
 rolled them back to the point they had quitted in the morning. 
 Parry acquainted the men with the disheartening news, and 
 granted them one day's rest. « 
 
 The ensigns and pennants were now displayed, the party 
 feeling a legitimate pride in having advanced to a point never 
 before reached by human beings, though they had failed in an 
 enterprise now proved beyond the pale of possibility. They 
 returned without incident of moment to England. Parry did 
 not totally abandon the idea of eventually reaching the Pole 
 over the ice, and as late as 1847 was of the opinion that at 
 a different season of the year, before drifting comes on, the 
 project may yet be realized. Still, no mortal man has ever 
 yet set foot upon the pivot of the axis of the globe ; and it i.s 
 not venturing too much to predict that no man ever will. 
 
NAVIGATORS FROZEN IN. 
 
 CHAPTER L. 
 
 Ross's SECOND VOYAGE — THE NORTH MAGNETIC POLE — d'uRVILLE — ENDERBT'S 
 
 LAND back's voyage IN THE TEKROR — THE GREAT WESTERN AND SIRIUS — 
 
 UNITED states' EXPLORING EXPEDITION — THE ANTARCTIC CONTINENT — SIR 
 JOHN franklin's LAST VOYAGE IN THE EREBUS AND TERROR — ETFORTS MADE 
 TO RELIEVE HIM — DISCOVERY OF THE SCENE OF HIS FIRST WINTER QUARTERS 
 
 THE GRINNELL EXPEDITION — THE ADVANCE AND RESCUE — LIEUTENANT DE 
 
 HAVEN — DR. KANE — RETURN OF THE EXPEDITION. 
 
 In the year 1828, Sir John Ross applied to the Governnient 
 for the means of making a second voyage to the Arctic waters 
 of America, and was refused. The next year, Mr. Sheriff 
 Booth, a gentleman of liberal spirit, offered to assume the pecu- 
 niary responsibilities of the expedition, and empowered Ross to 
 make what outlay he thought proper. He bought and equipped 
 the Victory, a packet-ship plying between Liverpool and the 
 Isle of Man. She had a small high-pressure engine, and paddle- 
 wheels which could be lifted out of the water. She sailed in 
 May, 1829. We shall give but a brief account of the incidents 
 of the voyage till we arrive at the event which has made James 
 Clarke Ross, the nephew of Sir John, illustrious, — the discovery 
 of the North Magnetic Pole, — that mysterious spot towards 
 which forever points the needle of the mariner's compass. 
 
 While in BaflSn's Bj^y, in June, the Victory lost her fore- 
 
 635 
 
536 OCEAN'S STORY. 
 
 topmast in a gale ; two of the sailors who were reefing the top- 
 sails had harely time to escape with their lives. Proceeding 
 
 THE VICTORY IN A GALE. 
 
 through Lancaster Sound, and then descending to the south 
 into Prince Regent's Inlet, Ross arrived, after coasting three 
 hundred miles of undiscovered shore, at a spot which he thought 
 would furnish commodious winter quarters. The whole terri- 
 tory received the name of Boothia, in honor of the patron of the 
 expedition. Here they remained eleven months, beset by ice ; 
 not even during the months of July and August, 1830, did the 
 ship stir from the position in which she was held fast. At last, 
 on the 17th of September, she was found to be free, and the 
 delighted crew prepared for a speedy deliverance. The unfor- 
 tunate vessel sailed only three miles, however, when she was 
 again firmly frozen in. The engine, which had proved a 
 wretched and most inefficient contrivance, was taken out and 
 carried ashore, — an event which was hailed with pleasure by 
 all. "I believe," says Ross, "that there was not a man who 
 ever again wished to see its minutest fragment." Another 
 year of monotony and silence now stared the weather-bound 
 navigators in the face. Six months elapsed before even a land- 
 excursion could be attempted ; but in May, 1831, occurred the 
 great discovery to which we have referred. 
 
 Commander James Clarke Ross was the second officer of the 
 ship. He started in April, with a party, to make explorations 
 inland. The dipping-needle had long varied from 88° to 89°, 
 
THE NORTH MAGNETIC POLE. 537 
 
 — thus pointing nearly downwards, — 90° being, of course, the 
 amount of variation from the horizontal line of the ordinary 
 compass which would have made it directly vertical. Com- 
 mander Ross was extremely desirous to stand upon the wonder- 
 ful spot where such an effect would be observed, and joined a 
 number of Esquimaux who were proceeding in the direction 
 where he imagined it lay. He determined, if possible, so to set 
 his foot that the Magnetic Pole should lie between him and the 
 centre of the earth. Arriving at a place where the dipping- 
 needle pointed to 89° 46', and being therefore but fourteen 
 miles from its calculated position, he could no longer brook the 
 delay attendant upon the transportation of the baggage, and 
 set forward upon a rapid march, taking only such articles as 
 were strictly necessary. The tremendous spot was reached at 
 eight in the morning of the 1st of June. The needle marked 
 89° 59', — one minute from the vertical, — a variation almost 
 imperceptible. We give the particulars of this most interesting 
 event in the words of the discoverer himself: * 
 
 "I believe I must leave it to others to imagine the elation of 
 mind with which we found ourselves now at length arrived at 
 this great object of our ambition : it almost seemed as if we had 
 accomplished every thing we had come so far to see and do, — as 
 if our voyage and all its labors were at an end, and that nothing 
 now remained for us but to return home and be happy for the 
 remainder of our days. 
 
 "We could have wished that a place so important had pos- 
 sessed more of mark or note. It was scarcely censurable to 
 regret that there was not a mountain to indicate a spot to which 
 so much of interest must ever be attached ; and I could even 
 have pardoned any one among us who had been so romantic or 
 absurd as to expect that the Magnetic Pole was an object as 
 conspicuous and mysterious as the fabled mountain of Sinbad. — 
 that it even was a mountain of iron or a magnet as large as Mont 
 Blanc. But Nature had here erected no monument to denote 
 
6o8 ocean's story. 
 
 the spot which she had chosen as the centre of one of her 
 greatest powers. 
 
 " As soon as I had satisfied my own mind, I made known to 
 the party the gratifying result of all our joint labor ; and it was 
 then that, amidst mutual congratulations, we fixed the British 
 flag on the spot and took possession of the North Magnetic 
 Pole and its adjoining territory in the name of Great Britain 
 and King William the Fourth. We had abundance of materials 
 for building, in the fragments of limestone which covered the 
 beach ; and we therefore erected a cairn of some magnitude, 
 under which we buried a canister containing a record of the 
 interesting fact, — only regretting that we had not the means 
 of constructing a pyramid of more importance and of strength 
 sufficient to withstand the assaults of time and the Esquimaux. 
 Had it been a pyramid as large as that of Cheops, I am not 
 sure that it would have done more than satisfy our ambition 
 under the feelings of that exciting day. The latitude of this 
 spot is 70° 5' 17'', and its longitude 96° 46' 45" west from 
 Greenwich." 
 
 We must remark in this connection that the fixation of the 
 latitude of the Magnetic Pole was the only important element 
 of this discovery ; for, as the Magnetic Pole revolves about the 
 North Pole at the rate of 11' 4" a year, it consequently changes 
 its annual longitude by that amount. A quarter of a century 
 .has elapsed since its longitude was settled for the year 1831 ; 
 end this lapse of time involves a change of place of between 
 four and five degrees. It requires no less than eighteen hun- 
 dred and ninety years to accomplish the cycle of revolution. 
 The latitude of the Pole of course remains unchanged. It will 
 always be sufficient glory for Ross to have stood upon the spot 
 where the Pole then was : the fact that the spot then so mar- 
 vellous has since ceased to be so is assuredly no cause for 
 detracting from his merit. After this discovery the party 
 returned to the ship. 
 
LAND JOURNEY IN THE ARCTIC REGIONS. 539 
 
 In September the ice broke up, and the Victory, which had 
 the previous year sailed three miles, this year sailed four. She 
 was again immediately frozen in : the men's courage gave way, 
 and the scurvy began to appear. Their only hope of a final 
 deliverance seemed to be to proceed overland to the spot where 
 the Fury had been lost under Parry in 1824, and to get her 
 supplies and boats. The distance was one hundred and eighty 
 miles to the north. They drank a parting glass to the Victory 
 on the 29th of May, 1832, and nailed her colors to the mast. 
 After a laborious journey of one month, they reached Fury- 
 Beach, where they found three of the boats washed away, but 
 several still left. These were ready for sea on the 1st of 
 August, when the whole party embarked. They were com- 
 pelled to return in October, and made preparations for their 
 fourth Polar winter. The season was one of great severity: 
 in February, 1833, the first death by scurvy took place. Ros« 
 himself and several of the seamen were attacked by the disease^ 
 It was not till August that the boats were again able to move. 
 They reached Barrow's Strait on the 17th, and on the morning 
 of the 26th descried a sail. They made signals by burning wet 
 powder, and succeeded in attracting the stranger's attention. 
 She was a whaler, and had been formerly commanded by Ross 
 himself. Thus they were rescued. After a month's delay, the 
 vessel, now filled to its utmost capacity with blubber, sailed for 
 Hull, in England. There Ross and his officers received a public 
 entertainment from the mayor and corporation. The former 
 then repaired to London, reported himself to the Secretary of 
 the Admiralty, and obtained an audience of the king. His 
 Majesty accepted the dedication of his journal, and allowed 
 him to add the name of William the Fourth to the Marrnetic 
 Pole. He learned that he had been given up for lost long 
 since, and that parties had been sent out in search of him. 
 
 All concerned in this interesting expedition were rewarded 
 by Parliament. Mr. Booth was shortly after knighted; Com- 
 
^40 * ocean's story. 
 
 mander Ross was made post-captain ; the other officers re- 
 ceived speedy promotion ; and Government paid the crew the 
 wages whicli had accrued beyond the period of fifteen months 
 for which they were engaged, — amounting in all to X4580. A 
 select committee of the House of Commons was appointed to 
 consider the claims of Captain Ross himself, and concluded its 
 labors by recommending that a sum of X5000 be voted to him 
 by Parliament. 
 
 In 1825, Captain d'Urville was sent by Charles X. of France 
 upon a voyage similar to those performed by Freycinet and 
 Duperrey. As we have already had occasion to say, this officer 
 was fortunate enough to return to France with the positive 
 proofs of the destruction of the vessels of Lap(3rouse upon the 
 island of Vanikoro. He surveyed the whole of the Feejee 
 archipelago, and restored upon French maps its native name 
 of Viti. The results of d'Urville's labors are comprised in 
 twelve octavo volumes, sixty-three charts, twelve plans, eight 
 hundred and sixty-six designs representing the various island 
 nations, their arms, dwellings, &c., and four hundred landscapes 
 and marine views. Admiral d'Urville ranks as the first French 
 navigator of this century. 
 
 In 1830, two rich shipping-merchants of London, by the 
 name of Enderby, sent Captain Biscoe to the Antarctic Ocean 
 to fish for seals, in the brig Tula and the cutter Lively, giving 
 him directions to seek for land in high southern latitudes. In 
 February, 1831, — being then as far south as the sixty-ninth 
 parallel and in 12° west, — he saw distinct and positive signs of 
 land. On the 27th, in 00° of latitude and 47° of longitude, he 
 convinced himself of the existence of a long reach of land ; but 
 huge islands of ice prevented his approaching it. The magni- 
 ficence of the aurora australis, appearing now under the forms 
 of grand architectural columns and now as the fringes of 
 tapestry, drew the attention of the sailors so constantly towards 
 the heavens that they neglected to watch the ship's track amid 
 
FIRST OCEAN STEAMER, 541 
 
 mountains of floating and tumbling ice. Captain Biscoe gave 
 to the discovery the name of Enderby's Land. Farther to the 
 west he discovered an island, which he named Adelaide, in 
 honor of the Queen of England. It presents an imposing 
 appearance, — a tall peak burying itself in the clouds and often 
 peering out above them. Its base is surrounded with a dazzling 
 girdle of snow and ice, which extends, though sapped and exca- 
 vated by the action of the waves, some nine hundred feet into 
 the sea. 
 
 In 1836, the English Government appointed Captain George 
 Back — who had lately been upon a land-expedition in the 
 American Arctic regions in search of Captain and Commander 
 Ross — to the since celebrated ship Terror, for the purpose of 
 determining the western coast-line of Prince Regent's Inlet. The 
 voyage, though entirely unsuccessful, is one of the most remark- 
 able on record, — showing as it did a power of resistance and 
 endurance in a ship which till then was not believed to belong 
 either to iron or heart of oak. Back proceeded no farther than 
 Baffin's Bay, the Terror remaining for ten months fast in the 
 gripe of its "cradle" or "ice-wagon," as the men called the 
 huge floating berg upon which she rested. He w^as knighted on 
 his return, and his sturdy ship was put out of commission and 
 docked. It is a subject of regret that so splendid a specimen 
 of marine architecture, as far as strength and solidity are con- 
 cerned, should have met the fate which she has encountered. 
 Where she is no mortal knows, except perhaps a few inaccessible 
 Esquimaux ; for she has perished with her lost consort, the 
 Erebus, and their hapless commander, Sir John Franklin. 
 
 In the year 1838, on the 23d of April, two ocean-steamers — 
 the first with the exception of the Savannah — entered the harbor 
 of New York. They were the Sirius and the Great Western. 
 They had been expected, and their arrival was the signal for 
 general rejoicings and the theme of universal congratulation. 
 Crowds of peopl* — men, women, and children — assembled alon^j 
 
542 ocean's stobt. 
 
 the wharves to view the unwonted spectacle. The Sirius was a 
 vessel of seven hundred tons and three hundred and twenty 
 horse-power, and had previously plied between Liverpool and 
 Cork. She had left the latter port on the 4th of April, and 
 had therefore been nineteen days upon the passage. The Great 
 Western was a new ship : she was of thirteen hundred and forty 
 tons ; her extreme length was two hundred and thirty-six feet ; 
 her depth of hold, twenty-three feet ; breadth of beam, thirty- 
 five feet; diameter of wheels, twenty-eight feet; length of 
 paddle-boards, ten feet ; diameter of cylinder, six feet ; length 
 of stroke, seven feet. She had four boilers, and could carry 
 eight hundred tons of coal, — sufficient for twenty-six days' con- 
 sumption. She had left Bristol on the 8th of April, and had 
 accomplished the voyage in fifteen days and five hours. Ilcr 
 mean daily rate was two hundred and forty miles, or nine 
 miles an hour, with unfavorable weather and strong head-winds. 
 She was expected to stop either at the Azores or at Halifax, 
 but succeeded in making the passage direct. She consumed 
 but four hundred and fifty tons of coal out of six hundred. 
 This event was looked upon by all as an earnest of the complete 
 triumph of ocean steam-navigation ; and the Great Western is 
 regarded by the people of the two countries as the pioneer ship 
 among the many noble vessels that have plied upon the great 
 Atlantic ferry. The Britannia — the first vessel of the Cunard 
 line to cross the ocean — arrived at Boston on the 18th of July, 
 1840, after a passage of fourteen days and eight hours. 
 
 In this same year, (1838,) the United States' Exploring Ex- 
 pedition, — consisting of the Vincennes, a sloop-of-war of twenty 
 guns, Lieutenant Charles Wilkes, commander-in-chief; tlie 
 Peacock, eighteen-gun sloop-of-war, William L. Hudson, com- 
 manding; the Porpoise, ten-gun brig; the Relief, exploring 
 vessel ; and the schooners Flying-Fish and Sea-Gull, — sailed 
 from Hampton Roads. Its objects were to explore the Southern 
 and Pacific Oceans; to ascertain, if possible, the situation of 
 
THE ANTARCTIC CONTINENT. 64S 
 
 that part of the Antarctic continent supposed to lie to the south 
 of New Holland, and to make researches and surveys of im- 
 portance to ships navigating the Polynesian seas. The squadron 
 was absent four years, and accomplished a vast amount of 
 arduous labor interesting to science and invaluable to com- 
 merce. We propose to speak only of what became afterwards 
 its prominent feature, — the supposed discovery of an Antarctic 
 continent. 
 
 On the 15th of February, 1840, land was seen in longitude 
 106° 40' E. and latitude Q^° 57' S. The next day the ships 
 were within seven miles of it, and, "by measurement, the extent 
 of the coast of the Antarctic continent then in sight was made 
 seventy-five miles." The men landed on an ice-island, where they 
 found stones, boulders, gravel, sand, and clay. Everybody wished 
 to possess a piece of the Antarctic continent ; and many frag- 
 ments of red sandstone and basalt were carried away. The island 
 was believed to have been detached from the neighboring land. 
 Subsequent voyages, however, have thrown great doubts upon 
 the accuracy of these assertions. James Clarke Koss, who was 
 sent with the Erebus and Terror, in 1839, to the South Pole, 
 was informed at Van Dicmen's Land of Wilkes' alleged dis- 
 covery. He reached the spot in January, 1841, and, instead of 
 an Antarctic continent, found water five hundred fathoms deep. 
 The existence of such a continent, therefore, must be regarded 
 as altogether hypothetical. "It is natural," says the London 
 Athenseum, "that a commander of his country's first scientific 
 expedition should wish to make the most of it ; but Science is 
 so august in her nature and so severe in her rules that she de- 
 clines recording in her archives any sentence as truth on which 
 there rests the slightest liability of doubt : in all such cases she 
 prefers the Scotch verdict, — 'Not proven.' " 
 
 Though at this period the discovery of a Northwest Passage 
 — if one existed — was no longer expected to afford a short and 
 commodious commercial route to the Indies and to China, j^t 
 
54i ocean's story. 
 
 the scientific and romantic interest of the subject still exerted a 
 powerful effect on both nations and Governments. Great Britain 
 resolved to make one last attempt, and, selecting two vessels 
 whose fame was now world-wide, appointed Sir John Franklin 
 to their command, — the Erebus being his flag-ship, with Captain 
 Crozier, as his second, in the Terror. The olficers and crew, all 
 told, numbered one hundred and thirty-eight picked and reso- 
 lute men. The instructions given to Franklin were to proceed, 
 with a store-ship ordered to accompany him, as far up Davis' 
 Straits as that vessel could safely go, there to transfer her pro- 
 visions and send her home. He was then to get into Baffin's 
 Bay, enter Lancaster Sound, thread Barrow's Straits, and fol- 
 low Parry's track due west to Melville Island, in the Polar Sea. 
 Here the instructions, with an assurance which seeips incredible 
 now, begged the whole question of a Northwest Passage, and 
 directed him to proceed the remaining nine hundred miles which 
 separate that point from Behring's Strait, — a region which it 
 was hoped would be found free from obstruction. He w^as not 
 to stop to examine any opening to the northward, but to push 
 resolutely on to Behring's Strait, and return home by the 
 Sandwich Islands and Panama. He sailed from the Thames on 
 the 19th of May, 1845. He received the store-ship's cargo in 
 Davis' Straits, and then despatched her home. His two ships 
 were seen by a whaler named the Prince of Wales on the 2Gth 
 of July : they were in the very middle of Baffin's Bay, moored 
 to an iceberg and waiting for open w^ater. 
 
 Two years passed away, and, nothing being heard from them, 
 the public anxiety respecting them became very great. The 
 Government determined to attempt their rescue, and sent out 
 three several expeditions in 1848. The two first — one overland 
 to the Polar Sea, under Richardson and Rae, another by 
 Behring's Strait, in the ships Herald and Plover — totally 
 failed of success, as they were founded upon the supposition 
 that Franklin had advanced farther westward than Parry in 
 
FATE OF FRAJSKLIN. 545 
 
 1820, — a supposition altogether unlikely. The third — consist- 
 ing of the Enterprise and Investigator, under Captain Sir 
 James Clarke Ross — was equally unsuccessful, though con- 
 ducted in a quarter where success was at least possible. At 
 Port Leopold, at the mouth of Prince Regent's Inlet, Ross 
 formed a large depot of provisions, — the locality having been 
 admirably chosen, being upon Parry's route to the Polar Sea, 
 and upon any track Franklin would be likely to take on his 
 "way back, in case he had already advanced beyond it. His 
 men built a house upon shore of their spare spars, and covered it 
 with such canvas as they could dispense with. They lengthened 
 the Investigator's steam-launch, so that it would be capable of 
 carrying Franklin and his crew safely to the whalers' rendez- 
 vous, and left it. They then made their way through the ice 
 to Davis' Straits, and arrived in England early in November, 
 1849. 
 
 The probable fate of Franklin now absorbed all minds, and 
 the Admiralty, Parliament, the public, and the press eagerly 
 discussed every theory which would account for his prolonged 
 absence, and every means by which succor could be sent to him. 
 The Admiralty offered a reward of one hundred guineas for 
 accurate information concerning him. Lady Franklin offered 
 the stimulus of X2000, and a second of £3000, to successful 
 search ; and the British Government sought to enlist the ser- 
 vices of the whalers by announcing a bonus of £20,000. A 
 vessel was sent to land provisions and coal at the entrance to 
 Lancaster Sound. Three new expeditions were sent out in 
 1850 by the Government, besides one by public subscription, 
 assisted by the Hudson Bay Company, under Sir John Ross, 
 and another by Lady Franklin. They accomplished wonders 
 of seamanship, and their crews endured the most harassing 
 trials ; but we have no space to chronicle any thing beyond the 
 finding of a few distinct but unproductive traces of the missing 
 
 adventurers, which occurred in the following manner : 
 35 
 
546 ocean's story. 
 
 Captain Ommaney, of the Assistance and Intrepid, landed 
 on Cape Riley, in Wellington Channel, late in August. 
 There he observed sledge-tracks and a pavement of small 
 stones which had evidently been the floor of a tent. Around 
 were a number of birds' bones and fragments of meat-tins. 
 Upon Beechey Island, three miles distant, were found a cairn 
 or mound constructed of layers of meat-tins filled with gravel, 
 the embankment of a house, the remains of a carpenter's 
 shop and an armorer's forge, with remnants of rope and 
 clothing ; a pair of gloves laid out to dry, with stones upon 
 them to prevent their blowing away. The oval outline of a 
 garden vras still distinguishable. But the most interesting and 
 valuable result of these investigations was the finding of three 
 <yraves with inscriptions, one of which will show the tenor of 
 the whole : 
 
 '' Sacred to the memory of William Braine, R.M., of H.M.S. 
 Erebus, who died April 3, 1846, aged thirty-two years. 
 Choose ye this day whom ye will serve. — Josh. xxiv. 15." 
 
 This and one of the other inscriptions, dated in January, 
 seemed to fix at this spot the first winter quarters of Franklin, 
 — for 1845-46. They also show that but three men died during 
 the winter ; and three out of one hundred and thirty-eight is 
 not a high proportion of mortality. The seven hundred empty 
 meat-tins seemed to show that the consumption of meat had 
 been moderate ; for the ships started with twenty-four thousand 
 canisters. This was the substance of the intelligence obtained 
 during this year of the fate of the wanderers ; and it was, as 
 will be noticed, already five years old. 
 
 An expedition was also fitted out for the search in 1850, 
 under the combined auspices of Ilcnry Grinnell, Esq., a mer- 
 chant of New York, and the United States Navy Department, 
 — the former furnishing the ships and the means, the latter the 
 men and the discipline. Two hermaphrodite brigs, — the Advance 
 and Rescue, — of one hundred and forty-four and ninety tons 
 
DR. KANE'S EXPEDITION. 
 
 547 
 
 respectively, manned by thirty -eight men, all told, and 
 strengthened for Arctic duty beyond all precedent, were pre- 
 pared for the service. They were placed under the command 
 of Lieutenant De Haven, — Dr. E. K. Kane, of the Navy, being 
 
 '•''^m 
 
 r ^ 
 
 DR. KANE. 
 
 appointed surgeon and naturalist to the squadron. They sailed 
 from New York on the 23d of May, and in less than a month 
 descried the gaunt coast of Greenland at the moment when the 
 distinction between day and night began to be lost. The 
 Danish inhabitants of the settlement at Lievely made them 
 such presents of furs as their own scanty wardrobes permitted. 
 Two sailors, complaining of sickness, were landed at Disco 
 Island, thence to make the best of their way home. 
 
 Thus far the weather had been favorable, and they passed 
 the seventy-fourth degree without meeting ice. On the 7th of 
 
DR. RANK PASSING THROUGH DEVIL S NIP. 
 
TRACES OF FRANKLIN. 549 
 
 July, being still in Baffin's Bay, they encountered the pack. 
 It was summer-ice, consisting of closely- set but separate floes. 
 They could not make over three miles a day headway through 
 it, — which they considered a useless expenditure of labor. 
 They remained beset for twenty-one days, when the pack 
 opened in various directions. The ships now reached Melville 
 Bay, on the east side of Baffin's Bay, — Lancaster Sound, 
 through which they were to pass, being upon the west. Mel- 
 ville Bay, from the fact that it is always crowded with ice- 
 bergs, and presents in a bird's-eye view all the combined hor- 
 rors and perils of Arctic navigation, has received the appellation 
 of the "Devil's Nip." Across this formidable indentation the 
 two vessels made their weary way, occupying five weeks in the 
 transit. A steam-tug would have towed them across in forty- 
 eight hours. In the middle of August the vessels entered Lan- 
 caster Sound, and, on the morning of the 21st, overhauled the 
 Felix, engaged in the search, under the veteran Sir John Ross. 
 The next day, the Prince Albert, one of Lady Franklin's ships, 
 was seen, and, soon after, the intelligence was received of the 
 discovery of traces of Franklin and his men. The navigators 
 of both nations visited Beechey Island and saw there the evi- 
 dences which we have already mentioned. The Advance and 
 Rescue now strove in vain to urge their way to Wellington 
 Channel. The sun travelled far to the south, and the brief 
 summer was rapidly coming to a close. The cold increased, 
 and the fires were not yet lighted below. On the 12th of Sep- 
 tember the Rescue was swept from her moorings by the ice and 
 partially disabled. The pack in which they were enveloped, 
 though not yet beset, was evidently drifting they knew not 
 whither. The commander, convinced that all westward pro- 
 gress was vain for the season, resolved to return homeward. 
 The vessels' heads were turned eastward, and slowly forced a 
 passage through the reluctant ice. On the evening of the 14lh 
 of September, Dr. Kane was endeavoring, with the thermometer 
 
650 ocean's story. 
 
 far below zero, to commit a few words to his journal, when he 
 heard De Haven's voice. *' Doctor," he said, "the ice has 
 caught us : we are frozen up." 
 
 The Advance was now destined to undergo treatment similar 
 to that suffered by the Terror under Captain Back. For eight 
 mortal months she was carried, cradled in the ice, backwards 
 and forwards in Wellington Channel, wherever the winds and 
 currents listed. At first, before the ice around them had 
 become solid, they were exposed to constant peril from ''nips" 
 of floating and besieging floes ; but these huge tablets soon 
 became a protection by themselves receiving and warding off 
 subsequent attacks. Early in October, the vessels were more 
 firmly fixed than a jewel in its setting. 
 
 They now made preparations for passing the winter. The 
 two crews were collected in the Advance. Until the stoves 
 could be got up, a lard-lamp was burned in the cabin, by which 
 the temperature was raised to 12° above zero. The condensed 
 moisture upon the beams from so many breaths caused them to 
 drip perpetually, till canvas gutters were fitted up, which carried 
 off a gallon of water a day. The three stoves were soon ready, 
 and these, together with the cooking-galley, diffused warmth 
 through the common room formed by knocking the forecastle 
 and cabin into one. Light was furnished by four argand and 
 three bear's-fat lamps. The entire deck of the Advance was 
 covered with a housing of thick felt. On the 9th of November 
 their preparations were fairly completed. 
 
 The sun ceased to rise after the 15th of November: after 
 that, the east was as dark at nine in the morning as at mid- 
 night ; at eleven there was a faint twilight, and at noon a streak 
 of brown far away to the south. The store-room would have 
 furnished an amateur geologist with an admirable cabinet, so 
 totally were the eatables and drinkables changed in appearance 
 by the cold. " Dried apples and peaches assumed the appear- 
 ance of chalcedony ; sour-krout was mica, the laminae of which 
 
IMAGINATION CURES. 551 
 
 were with difficulty separated by a chisel ; butter and lard were 
 passable marble ; pork and beef were rare specimens of Floren- 
 tine mosaic ; while a barrel of lamp-oil, stripped of the staves, 
 resembled a sandstone garden-roller." 
 
 The crews soon began to suffer in health and spirits : their 
 faces became white, like celery kept from the light. They had 
 strange dreams and heard strange sounds. The scurvy ap- 
 peared, and old wounds bled afresh. Dr. Kane endeavored to 
 combat the disease by acting upon the imagination of the suf- 
 ferers. He ordered an old tar with a stiff knee to place the 
 member in front of a strong magnet and let it vibrate to and 
 fro like a pendulum. A wonderful and complete cure was thus 
 effected. He practised all sorts of amiable deceptions upon his 
 patients, — making them take medicine in salad and gargles in 
 beer. Not a man was lost during the voyage. 
 
 From time to time fissures would open in the ice around 
 them with an explosion like that of heavy artillery. It became 
 necessary to make preparations for abandoning the vessel, and 
 sledges, boats, and provisions were gotten ready for an emer- 
 gency. The men were drilled to leave the ship in a mass at 
 the word of command. The crisis seemed to be upon them 
 many a time and oft ; but the Advance held firmly together, 
 and the ice around her gradually became solid as granite again. 
 Dr. Kane lectured at intervals on scientific subjects, till the 
 return of light brought with it a return of hope and animal 
 spirits. On the 29th of January, 1851, the sun rose above the 
 horizon, after an absence of eighty-six days. "Never," says 
 Dr. Kane, "till the grave-clod or the ice covers me may I 
 forego this blessing of blessings again ! I looked at him 
 thankfully, with a great globus in my throat." 
 
 The ice-pack did not open till the close of March. Previous 
 to this, all the successive symptoms of the coming thaw pre- 
 sented themselves. The ice began to smoke, and the surface 
 became first moist and then soft. It was soon too warm to 
 
552 
 
 ocean's story. 
 
 skate, and the cabin-lamps, that had burned for four months 
 without cessation, were extinguished. The mercury rose to 
 32° ; the housings were removed from the Advance, and the 
 Rescue's men returned to their deserted ship. The saw was put 
 in motion early in May ; but the grand disruption of the ice, 
 which was either to free the ships or crush them, did not occur 
 till the 5th of June. It was five o'clock in the afternoon when 
 the first crack was heard, and the water, spirting up, was seen 
 following the track of the fissure. In half an hour the ice was 
 seamed with cracks in every direction, some of them spreading 
 into rivers twenty feet across. The Rescue was released at 
 once : the coating of the Advance held on for three days more, 
 parting at last under the weight of a single man. The liberated 
 ships soon made the Greenland coast, at Godhavn, where they 
 spent five days in reposing, in celebrating the Fourth of July, 
 and in splicing the main-brace, — this latter being a convivial, 
 and not a mechanical, operation. The vessels arrived safely at 
 the Brooklyn Navy- Yard on the 1st of October, 1851. The 
 vessels were restored to Mr. Grinnell, with the stipulation that 
 the Secretary of the Navy might claim them, in case of need, 
 for further search in the spring. 
 
 TTIK SBAL. 
 
CHAPTEE LI. 
 
 Kennedy's expedition — sm edward belcher — mcclure — discovebt of tbh 
 
 NORTHWEST PASSAGE JUNCTION OF McCLURE AND KELLETT EPISODE OF 
 
 THE RESOLUTE — COMMODORE PKRRY's EXPEDITION — DECISIVE TRACES OF THB 
 FATE OF SIR JOHN FRANKLIN — THB LBVIATHAN. 
 
 Encouraged by the discovery of traces of her husband, Lady 
 Franklin caused the Prince Albert, upon her return with the 
 intelligence, to be at once refitted for another Arctic voyage. 
 The expedition, though conducted with consummate skill by 
 William Kennedy, late of the Hudson's Bay Company, and 
 Lieutenant Bellot, of the French Navy, his second, totally 
 failed of success. It returned in October, 1853. In the mean 
 time, another and more imposing expedition — that under Sir 
 Edward Belcher — had sailed for the Polar regions. The 
 squadron consisted of five vessels, — the Assistance, with the 
 steamer Pioneer, the Resolute, with the steamer Intrepid, and 
 the North Star storeship. They sailed on the 28th of April, 
 1852, and arrived at their head-quarters at Beechey Island — 
 the scene of Franklin's hibernation in 1846 — on the 10th of 
 August. The North Star remained here with the stores, while 
 the two ships, with their respective tugs, started upon distinct 
 voyages of exploration, — Sir Edward Belcher, in the Assist- 
 ance, standing up Wellington Channel, and Captain Kellett, in 
 the Resolute, proceeding to Melville Island. The latter was 
 instructed to seek at this point for intelligence of Captains 
 McClure and Collinson, who had been sent to Behring's Strait 
 
 in 1850, in order to force their way eastward from thence, and 
 
 553 
 
S54 ocean's story. 
 
 ■who had not since been heard of. As the interest of Sir 
 Edward Belcher's expedition centres entirely in the junction 
 effected by Kellett with McClure, we revert to the adventures 
 of the latter explorer, now distinguished as the discoverer of 
 the Northwest Passage. 
 
 Collinson and McClure sailed in the Enterprise and Investi- 
 gator for Behring's Strait vi(l Cape Horn on the 20th of 
 January, 1850. They arrived at the strait in July. The 
 Enterprise, being foiled in her efforts to get through the ice, 
 turned about and wintered at Hong-Kong. McClure, in the 
 Investigator, kept gallantly on through the strait, and, during 
 the month of August, advanced to the southeast, into the heart 
 of the Polar Sea, along a coast never yet visited by a ship, and 
 on the 21st of August arrived at the mouth of Mackenzie River, 
 discovered by Mackenzie in his land-expedition in 1789 to 
 determine the northern coast-line of America. He had now 
 passed the region visited and surveyed in former years by 
 Franklin, Back, Rae, and others, in overland explorations, and 
 on the 6th of September arrived at a point considerably to the 
 east of any land marked upon the charts. He now began to 
 name the islands, headlands, and indentations. On the 9th, 
 the ship was found to be but sixty miles to the west of the spot 
 to which Parry, sailing westward, had carried his ship in 1820. 
 Could he but sail these sixty miles his name would be immortal. 
 "I cannot," he writes, ''describe my anxious feelings. Can it 
 be possible that this water communicates with Barrow's Straits 
 and shall prove to be the long-sought Northwest Passage? 
 Can it be that so humble a creature as I am will be permitted 
 to perform what has baffled the talented and wise for hundreds 
 of years?" On the 17th, the Investigator reached the longi- 
 tude of 117° 10' west, — thirty miles from the waters in which 
 Parry wintered with the Ilecla and Griper in a harbor of Mel- 
 ville Island. Alas ! the vessel went no farther east : the ice 
 drifted perceptibly to the west, and it was fated that these 
 
THE NORTH-WEST PASSAGE. 555 
 
 thirty miles should remain, as they had remained for ages, as 
 impassable to ships as the Isthmus of Suez. 
 
 The Investigator passed the winter heeled four degrees to 
 port and elevated a foot out of water by a "nip," in which 
 position she rested quietly for months. Late in October, a 
 sledge-party of six men, headed by McClure, started to tra- 
 verse on foot the distance which it was forbidden their ship to 
 cross. On the 25th, they saw the Polar Ocean ice. The next 
 morning, before daybreak, they ascended a hill six hundred 
 feet high, convinced that the dawn would reveal them the 
 previous surveys of Sir Edward, and make them the discoverers 
 of the Northwest Passage, by connecting their voyage from the 
 west with his from the east. The return of day showed their 
 anticipations to be correct : Melville Strait was visible to the 
 north, and between it and them, though there was plenty of 
 ice, there was no intervening land. They had discovered the 
 Passage, — that is, an ice-passage, which of course involved a 
 water-passage when the state of the atmosphere permitted it. 
 Though they regretted bitterly that they could not get their 
 ship through, their only remaining course was to send one of 
 their party home by the well-known route through Barrow's 
 Straits, and thus prove the existence of the passage by the 
 return of one who had made it. They erected a cairn and left 
 a record of their visit, and then commenced their homeward 
 journey to the ship. McClure became separated from his com- 
 panions, and nearly perished in the snow. He arrived in 
 safety, however, and the grand discovery was duly celebrated 
 and the main-brace properly spliced. Numerous searching- 
 parties were now from time to time sent out, and in the middle 
 of July the ice broke up and the Investigator was released. 
 She drifted five miles more to the east, — thus reducing the dis- 
 tance of separation to twenty-five miles. Here she was again 
 firmly and inextricably frozen in. Another and another winter 
 passed ; and it was not till the spring of 1853 that relief 
 
556 ocean's story. 
 
 reached them. In order to make a consecutive story, we must 
 return to that portion of Sir Edward Belcher's squadron which, 
 under Captain Kellett, was sent to Melville Island, and which 
 arrived there late in 1852. At this period, Kellett, in the 
 Resolute, and McClure, in the Investigator, were about one 
 hundred and seventy miles apart. 
 
 A sledge-party sent out by Kellett discovered, with the 
 wildest delight, in October, 1852, a cairn in which McClure 
 had deposited, the April previous, a chart of his discoveries. 
 They were compelled to wait the winter through ; and it was not 
 till the 10th of March that Kellett ventured to send a travelling- 
 party in quest of the Investigator. The communication was 
 effected on the 6th of April, 1853. McClure thus describes it : 
 
 "While walking near the ship, in conversation with the first 
 lieutenant, we perceived a figure coming rapidly towards us 
 from the rough ice at the entrance of the bay. He was cer- 
 tainly unlike any of our men; but, recollecting that it was 
 possible some one might be trying a new travelling-dress pre- 
 paratory to the departure of our sledges, and certain that no 
 one else was near, we continued to advance. The stranger 
 came quietly on : had the skies fallen upon us we could hardly 
 have been more astonished than when he called out, *I'm 
 Lieutenant Pim, late of the Herald, now of the Resolute. 
 Captain Kellett is in her, at Dealy Island.' 
 
 "To rush at and seize him by the hand was the first im- 
 pulse ; for the heart was too full for the tongue to speak. The 
 news flew with lightning rapidity : the ship was all in commo- 
 tion ; the sick, forgetful of their maladies, leaped from their 
 hammocks ; the artificers dropped their tools, and the lower 
 deck was cleared of men ; for they all rushed for the hatchway, 
 to be assured that a stranger was actually among them and that 
 his tale was true. Despondency fled the ship, and Lieutenant 
 Pim received a welcome — pure, hearty, and grateful — that be 
 will surely remember and cherish to the end of his days." 
 
THE RESOLUTE RETURNED. 567 
 
 It was now decided to abandon the Investigator, immovably 
 fixed as she was in the ice. Her colors were hoisted on the 3d 
 of June, and she was left alone in Mercy Bay. The officers 
 and crew arrived on board the Resolute on the 17th. McClure 
 sent Lieutenant Gurney Cresswell, with despatches for the 
 Admiralty, by sledges, down to Beechey Island, where he 
 found a Government vessel and at once sailed for England. 
 Though he had not made the Northwest Passage, he had at 
 least crossed the American continent within the Arctic Circle ; 
 and this had yet been done by no mortal man. 
 
 Kellett and McClure remained for many months in the Reso- 
 lute and Intrepid, beset in the ice. They received instructions 
 from Belcher, in April, 1854, to abandon their ships. The 
 latter were placed in a condition to be occupied by any Arctic 
 searching-party, — the furnaces of the steamer being left ready 
 to be lighted. Sir Edward Belcher had also been compelled to 
 abandon his vessels, the Assistance and Pioneer : the four 
 crews met at Beechey Island, and embarked on board their 
 Btoreship, the North Star, which had been laid up for two 
 years. They arrived in England late in September. The 
 reader will at once recognise the Resolute as the ship which 
 ■was found in Baffin's Bay, in 1855, by Captain Buddington, 
 of the New London whaler George Henry. She had forced 
 her way, unaided by man, through twelve hundred miles of 
 Arctic ice. The incidents of her arrival at New London, of 
 the abandonment to the American sailors of all claim upon her 
 by the British Government, of her purchase by the United 
 States Congress from her new owners, her re-equipment at the 
 Brooklyn Navy- Yard, and her restoration to the English Navy 
 by Captain Ilartstene, U.S.N., are still fresh in the minds 
 of all. 
 
 In the year 1853, an expedition sent by the United States 
 under Commodore Perry ventured into waters never before 
 ploughed by vessels of a Christian nation. On the 8th of 
 
558 
 
 VT» 
 
 OCEAN'S STORY. 
 
 July, the precipitous southern coast of Niphon — the largest 
 island of the Japanese group — loomed up through the fog. 
 
 JAPANESE VESSEL. 
 
 The American steamers entered the Bay of Jeddo, eight miles 
 wide at the mouth but spreading to a width of twelve beyond. 
 They were now land-bound, with the shores of an empire 
 almost fabulous enclosing them on every side. Though 
 peremptorily forbidden to anchor, though surrounded by 
 myriads of boats filled with men eager for a conflict, though 
 menaced by forts which seemed formidable till examined 
 through the glass, the fleet kept on, and finally, by dint of 
 persistence and several salutary displays of power, the commo- 
 dore, having at his disposal the national steamers Susquehanna, 
 Mississippi, and Powhatan, the frigate Saratoga, and the ships 
 Macedonian, Vandalia, Lexington, and Southampton, wrung 
 from the sullen monopolists a treaty opening to American trade 
 the port of Simoda, in Niphon, and that of Ilakodadi, in Jesso. 
 It now remains for the Americans to lead the Japanese, by 
 
> 
 
 n 
 
 > 
 
 5!! 
 
560 ocean's story. 
 
 judicious and honorable treatment, to experience and acknow- 
 ledge the benefits of commerce and intercourse with the nations 
 of Christendom. 
 
 To return once more to the Arctic researches. Soon after 
 the return of Belcher and McClure to England, decisive intelli- 
 gence of Franklin and his party was received in England. Dr. 
 Rae, who had been engaged for a year past in a search by 
 land, had met a party of Esquimaux who were in possession of 
 numerous articles which had belonged to Franklin and his men. 
 They stated that in the spring of 1850 they had seen forty 
 white men, near King William's Land, dragging a boat and 
 sledges over the ice. They were thin and short of provisions : 
 their officer was a tall, stout, middle-aged man. Some months 
 later the natives found the corpses of thirty persons ujjon the 
 mainland, and five dead bodies upon a neighboring island. 
 They described the bodies as mutilated ; whence Dr. Rae in- 
 ferred that the party had been driven to the horrible resource 
 of cannibalism. The presence of the bones and feathers of 
 geese, however, showed that some had survived till the arrival 
 of wild-fowl, about the end of May. Dr. Rae purchased such 
 articles of the natives as would best serve to identify their late 
 possessors. All furnished decisive testimony ; but a round 
 silver plate gave peculiarly strong evidence, bearing as it did 
 the following inscription : — "Sir John Franklin, K.C.B." The 
 slight clue thus yielded of his fate was the last which has thus 
 far been obtained ; and it will doubtless be the only one till the 
 Arctic seas give up their dead. The expedition of Dr. Kane 
 had, however, already sailed from New York. 
 
 It was while these events were transpiring that the keel of the 
 mammoth steam-vessel — known at first as the Great Eastern, 
 and afterwards as the Leviathan — was laid, at Milwall, on the 
 Thames. We refer the reader to the engraving on the opposite 
 page for a view of this "village adrift." 
 
CAPE ALEXANDER: THE ARCTIC GIBRALTAR. 
 
 CHAPTER LIL 
 
 the second orinnell expedition — the ada'ance in winter quarters — 
 
 total darkness — sledge-parties adventures the first death 
 
 Tennyson's monument — humboldt glacier — the open polar sea — second 
 
 WINTER abandonment OF THE BRIG THE WATER AGAIN UPERNAVIK — 
 
 RESCUE BY CAPTAIN HARTSTENE DEATH AND SERVICES OF DR. KANE — 
 
 ATTEMPT TO LAY THE ATLANTIC CABLE— CONCLUSION. 
 
 The Government of the United States forwarded to Dr. 
 Kane, in the month of December, 1852, an order "to conduct 
 an expedition to the Arctic Seas in search of Sir John 
 Franklin." The brig Advance was again placed at his dis- 
 posal by Mr. Grinnell, and manned by eighteen picked men. 
 Dr. Kane's plan was to enter Smith's Sound at the top of 
 Baffin's Bay, — into which, alone of the Arctic explorers. Cap- 
 
 3t> 
 
 661 
 
562 ocean's story. 
 
 tain Inglefield had penetrated in August, 1852, in the Isabel, — 
 to reach, if possible, the supposed northerly open sea, where he 
 hoped to find traces of the missing navigators. He sailed from 
 New York on the 30th of May, 1853, touched at Fiskernaes, in 
 Greenland, on the 1st of July, where he engaged the services 
 of Hans Cristian, a native Esquimaux of nineteen years. 
 Through ice and fog the vessel forced her way, and on the 7th 
 of August doubled Cape Alexander, a promontory opposite 
 another named Cape Isabella, — the two being the headlands 
 of Smith's Strait, and styled by Dr. Kane the Arctic Pillars 
 of Hercules. 
 
 The vessel closed with the ice again the next day, and was 
 forced into a landlocked cove. Every effort to force her through 
 the floes was tried, without success, and, after undergoing the 
 most appalling treatment from the wind, waves, and ice com- 
 bined, the brig was warped into winter quarters, in Rensselaer 
 Bay, on the 22d of August, and was frozen in on September 10. 
 There she lies to this hour, — "to her a long resting-place 
 indeed," writes Kane ; " for the same ice is around her still." 
 This was in latitude 78° 37' N., — the most northerly winter 
 quarters ever taken by Christians, except in Spitzbergen, which 
 has the advantage of an insular climate. An observatory was 
 erected, a thermal register kept hourly, and magnetic observa- 
 tions recorded. Parties were sent out to establish provision- 
 depots to the north, to facilitate researches in the spring. 
 Three depots or "caches" were made, the most distant being 
 in latitude 79° 12' : in this they deposited six hundred and 
 seventy pounds of pemmican and forty of meat-biscuit. These 
 operations were arrested by darkness in November, and the 
 crew prepared to spend one hundred and forty days without the 
 light of the sun. The first number of the Arctic newspaper, 
 "The Ice-Blink," appeared on the 21st. The thermometer 
 fell to 67° below zero. Chloroform froze, and chloric ether 
 became solid. The air had a perceptible pungency upon 
 
fmjr 
 
 A RESCUE PAAtYy 
 
 563 
 
 inspiration : all inhaled it guardedly a»d with compressed 
 lips. The 22d of December brought with it the midnight of 
 the year : the fingers could not be counted a foot from the 
 eyes. Nothing remained to indicate that the Arctic worhl had 
 a sun. The men during this their first winter kept up their 
 spirits wonderfully ; but most of the dogs died of diseases of the 
 brain brought on by the depressing influences of the darkness. 
 
 The first traces of returning light were observed on the 21st 
 of January, when the southern horizon had a distinct orange tint. 
 Towards the close of February the sun silvered the tall icebergs 
 between the headlands of the bay : his rays reached the deck 
 on the 28th, and perpetual day returned with the month of 
 March. The men found their faces badly mottled by scurvy- 
 spots, and they were nearly all disabled for active work. But 
 
 CHAOS." 
 
 six dogs remained out of forty-four. "No language can 
 describe," says Kane, " the chaos at the base of the rock on 
 
564: ocean's story. 
 
 "wliicli the storehouse had been built. Fragments of ice had 
 been tossed into every possible confusion, rearing up in fantastic 
 equilibrium, surging in long inclined planes, dipping into dark 
 valleys, and piling in contorted hills." A sledge-party was 
 sent out on the 19th to deposit a relief cargo of provisions ; on 
 the 31st, three of its members returned, swollen, haggard, and 
 almost dumb. They had left four of their number in a tent, 
 disabled and frozen. Dr. Kane at once started with a rescue 
 of nine men, and, after an unbroken march of twenty-one 
 hours, came in sight of a small American flag floating upon a 
 hummock. They were received with an explosion of welcome. 
 The return with the sledf]^e laden with the weif]rht of eleven 
 hundred pounds was eff*ected at the expense of tremendous 
 efforts of energy and endurance. 
 
 While still nine miles from their half-way tent, they felt the 
 peculiar lethargic sensation of extreme cold, — symptoms which 
 Kane compares to the diffused paralysis of the electro-galvanic 
 shock. Bonsall and Morton asked permission to go to sleep, 
 at the same time defying that they were cold. Hans lay down 
 tinder a drift, and in a few moments was stiff. An immediate 
 halt was necessary. The tent was pitched, but no one had the 
 strength to light a fire. They could neither eat nor drink. 
 The whiskey froze at the men's feet. Kane gave orders to them 
 to take four hours' rest and then follow him to the half-way 
 tent, where he would have ready a fire and some thawed pem- 
 mican. He then pushed on with William Godfrey. They were 
 both in a state of stupor, and kept themselves awake by a con- 
 tinued articulation of incoherent words. Kane describes these 
 hours as the most wretched he ever went through. On arriving 
 at the tent, they found that a bear had overturned it, tossing 
 the pemmican into the snow. They crawled into their reindeer 
 sleeping-bags and slept for three hours in a dreamy but intense 
 slumber. On awaking, they melted snow-water and cooked 
 some soup ; and on the arrival of the rest of the party they all 
 
DEATH BY LOCK-JAW. 
 
 565 
 
 took the refreshment and pushed on towards the hrig. Their 
 strength soon failed them again, and they began to lose their 
 self-control. Kane tried the experiment of a three minutes' 
 sleep, and, finding that it refreshed him, timed the men in their 
 turns. Doses of brandy, and, finally, the distant sight of the 
 brig, revived and encouraged them. The last mile was accom- 
 plished by instinct, as none of the men remembered it after- 
 wards : they staggered into the cabin delirious and muttering 
 with agony. 
 
 Death now entered the devoted camp : Jefferson Baker died 
 of lockjaw on the 7th of April. A meeting with a party of 
 Esquimaux now enabled Kane to reinforce his dog-team, and 
 
 WILD DOG TEAM. 
 
 encouraged him to start, late in April, upon his grand sledge- 
 excursion to the north. It failed, however, completely. Kane 
 became delirious on the 5th of May, and fainted every time he 
 
HUMBOLDT GLACIERS. 567 
 
 was taken from the tent to the sledge. He was conveyed back 
 to the brig, and from the 14th to the 20th lay hoverinor between 
 life and death. Short as the expedition was, however, several 
 remarkable discoveries were made. "Tennyson's Monument" 
 was the name given to a solitary column of greenstone, four 
 hundred and eighty feet high, rising from a pedestal two hun- 
 dred and eighty feet high, — both as sharply finished as if they 
 had been cast for the Place Yendome. But the most wonderful 
 feature was the Great Glacier of Humboldt, — an ice-ocean of 
 boundless dimensions, in which a complete substitution had been 
 effected of ice for water. " Imagine," Kane writes, " the centre 
 of the continent of Greenland occupied through nearly its whole 
 extent by a deep unbroken sea of ice that gathers perennial 
 increase from the water-shed of vast snow-covered mountains 
 and all the precipitations of the atmosphere upon its own sur- 
 face. Imagine this moving onward like a great glacial river, 
 seeking outlets at every fiord and valley, rolling icy cataracts 
 into the Atlantic and Greenland seas, and, having at last 
 reached the northern limit of the land that has borne it up, 
 pouring out a mighty frozen torrent into unknown Arctic 
 space. . . . Here was a plastic, moving, semi-solid mass, oblite- 
 rating life, swallowing rocks and islands, and ploughing its way 
 with irresistible march throuojh the crust of an investinor sea." 
 
 Other sledge-parties were from time to time sent out. One 
 of six men left the brig on the 3d of June, keeping to the north 
 and reachinc: Humboldt Glacier on the loth. Four returned to 
 the ship on the 2Tth, one of them entirely blind. Hans Christian 
 and "William Morton kept on, and finally, in north latitude 81° 
 22', sighted open water, — an open Polar sea. To the cape at 
 which the land terminated Morton gave the name of Cape Con- 
 stitution. A lofty peak on the opposite side of the channel, but 
 a little farther to the north, and the most remote northern land 
 known upon our globe, was named Mount Edward Parry, from 
 the great pioneer of Arctic travel. 
 
56b ocean's story. 
 
 A second winter now stared the explorers in the face. *'It 
 is horrible," says Kane, "to look forward to another year of 
 disease and darkness, without fresh food or fuel." Still, pre- 
 parations were made for the direful extremity. Willow-stems 
 and sorrel were collected as antiscorbutics. Lumps of turf, 
 frozen solid, were quarried with crowbars, and with them the 
 ship's sides were embanked. During the early months a com- 
 munication was kept up with the nearest Esquimaux station, 
 seventy-five miles distant, and thus scanty supplies of fox, 
 walrus, seal, and bear meat were occasionally obtained. These 
 failed, however, during the months of total darkness. Early in 
 February, Kane wrote in his journal : — "We are contending at 
 odds with angry forces close around us, without one agent or 
 influence within eighteen hundred miles whose sympathy is on 
 our side." On the 4th of March, the last fragment of fresh 
 meat was served, and the whole crew would have perished 
 miserably of starvation, had it not been for the successful issue 
 of a forlorn-hope excursion to the Etah Esquimaux station 
 undertaken by Hans and two dogs. Dr. Kane ate rats, and 
 thereby escaped the scurvy. The bunks were warmed by oil- 
 lamps, after the Esquimaux fashion : the beds and the men's 
 faces became in consequence black and greasy with soot. The 
 sufferings endured by the party were perhaps the most dreadful 
 to which Arctic adventurers have ever been subjected. 
 
 The abandonment of the brig had been resolved upon before 
 the setting in of winter, and the misery of the hours of darkness 
 had been in some measure alleviated by the progress of the 
 preparations for that event, — in making clothing, canvas moc- 
 casins, seal-hide boots, and in cutting water-tight shoes from 
 the gutta-percha speaking-tube. Provision-bags were made of 
 sail-cloth rendered impervious by coats of tar. Into these the 
 bread was pressed by beating it to powder with a -capstan-bar. 
 Pork-fat and tallow were melted down and poured into other 
 bags to freeze. The three boats — none of them sea-worthy — 
 
ABANDONING THE SHIP. 569 
 
 were strengtliencJ, housed, and mounted on sledges rigged with 
 shouhler-belts to drag by : one of them they expected to burn 
 for fuel on reaching water. The powder and shot, upon which 
 their lives depended, were distributed in canisters : Kane took 
 the percussion-caps into his own possession, as more precious 
 than gold. The 17th of May was fixed upon for the departure. 
 
 The farewell to the brig was made with due solemnity. The 
 day was Sunday, and prayers and a chapter of the Bible were 
 read. Kane then stated in an address the necessities under 
 which the ship was abandoned and the dangers that still awaited 
 them. He believed, however, that the thirteen hundred miles 
 of ice and water which lay between them and North Greenland 
 could be traversed with safety for most and hope for all. A 
 brief memorial of the reasons compelling the desertion of the 
 vessel was fastened to a stanchion near the gangway, to serve 
 as their vindication in case they were lost and the brig was ever 
 visited. The flags were hoisted and hauled down again, and 
 the men scrambled off* over the ice to the boats, no one thinking 
 of the mockery of cheers. 
 
 We have not space to detail the perils, adventures, and 
 narrow escapes from starvation of this hardy party in their 
 romantically dangerous escape to the south. On the 16th of 
 June, the boats and sledges approached the open water. "We 
 see its deep-indigo horizon," writes Kane, "and hear its roar 
 against the icy beach. Its scent is in our nostrils and our 
 hearts." The boats, which were split with frost and warped by 
 sunshine, had to be calked and swelled before they were fit for 
 use. The embarkation was eff'ected on the 19th : the Red Eric, 
 the smallest of the three boats, swamped the first day. They 
 spent their first night in an inlet in the ice. Sometimes they would 
 sail through creeks of water for many successive hours : then 
 would follow days of weary tracking through alternate ice and 
 water. During a violent storm, they dragged the boats upon a 
 narrow shelf of ice, and found themselves within a cave which 
 
570 
 
 ocean's story. 
 
 myriads of eider had made their breeding-ground. They re- 
 mained three days in this crystal retreat, and gathered three 
 thousand eggs. They doubled Cape Dudley Digges on the lltli 
 of June, and spent a week at Providence Halt, luxuriating on 
 a dish composed of birds sweeter and juicier than canvas-backs 
 and a salad made of raw eggs and cochlearia. The coast now 
 trended to the east ; the wide expanse of Melville Bay lay 
 between them and Upernavik, — that Danish outpost of civiliza- 
 tion. The party was at one moment in the actual agonies of 
 starvation, when a lucky shot at a sleeping seal saved them 
 from the dreaded extremity. They soon saw a kayak — a native 
 boat — in which one Paul Zacharias was seeking eider-down 
 
 SEEKING EIDER DOWN. 
 
 among the islands. Not long after, the single mast of a small 
 shallop — the Upernavik oil-boat — loomed up through the fog. 
 They landed the next day in the midst of a crowd of children, 
 and drank coffee that night before hospitable Danish firesides. 
 
572 ocean's story. 
 
 A Danish vessel — the Mariane — was to return to Denmark 
 on the 4th of September, and at that date Kane and his party 
 embarked on board of her, the captain engaging to drop them 
 at the Shetland Islands. On the 11th they arrived at God- 
 havn, and there, at the very moment of their final departure, 
 Captain Ilartstene's relief-squadron was sighted in the ofiing. 
 With the rescue of the adventurers closes our record of Arctic 
 peril and discovery. 
 
 Dr. Kane fell a victim to his zeal in the arduous paths of 
 science. He died, on the 16th of February, 1857, at Havana, 
 where he was seeking to recuperate his debilitated system be- 
 neath a tropical sun. His loss was sincerely lamented by the 
 whole country. No commander was ever better fitted by nature 
 for the task confided to him ; and no historian ever chronicled 
 the results of his own labors in language more enthralling or in 
 a style more commanding and picturesque.* 
 
 In the summer of 1857, an attempt to unite the two hemi- 
 spheres by means of a submerged electric cable was made under 
 the auspices of the New York, Newfoundland, and London Tele- 
 graph Company, assisted by vessels furnished by the Govern- 
 ments of Great Britain and the United States. Of this under- 
 taking — unsuccessful as it was, and fresh as it is in the minds of 
 all — our account will properly be brief. The idea was first con- 
 ceived in the year 1853, in America, and was earnestly pursued 
 in defiance of all obstacles, — Cyrus H. Field, Esq., Vice-President 
 of the Company, being one of its most zealous and indefatigable 
 champions. Surveys and deep-sea explorations, made by Cap- 
 tain Berryman, U.S.N., in the Dolphin and Arctic, in 1853 and 
 1856, resulted in the discovery of a submarine ledge or prairie, 
 at a depth varying from two to two and a half miles, extending 
 
LAYLVG THE CABLE. 
 
 673 
 
 HAULING THE CABLE ASHORE. 
 
 from Cape Race, in Newfoundland, to Cape Clear, in Ireland. 
 This tract received the name of the Telegraphic Plateau. 
 Lieutenant Maury, of the National Observatory, inferred, from 
 observations made in the Atlantic during a long series of years, 
 that both sea and air would be in the most favorable condition 
 for laying the wire between the 20th of July and the 10th of 
 August. The telegraphic fleet consisted of the U.S. steam- 
 frigate Niagara, Captain Hudson, to lay the first half of the 
 cable from Yalentia Bay, in Ireland, of II.B.M. steamer Aga- 
 memnon, to lay the second half of the cable, and of six other 
 auxiliary steamers of both nations. 
 
 The Niagara commenced shipping the cable from the factory 
 at Birkenhead, near Liverpool, late in June, and completed the 
 work in somewhat less than a month. The share of each of the 
 two vessels was twelve hundred and fifty miles of wire, — the 
 wire itself being an elaborate combination of fine copper strands 
 and gutta-percha coatings. The whole fleet was assembled in 
 Valentia Bay on the 4th of August. The Lord-Lieutenant of 
 
57-i 
 
 ocean's story. 
 
 LANDING THE CABLE. 
 
 Ireland was already upon the ground, the guest of the Knight 
 of Kerry. The next evening, the shore-end of the cable was 
 hauled from the stern of the Niagara to shallow water by an 
 attendant tug named the Willing Mind, and from thence taken 
 ashore, in the midst of the cheers of tlie spectators, by a boat's 
 crew of American sailors. The expedition set sail on Thursday, 
 the 6th. It was understood that the first message was to be 
 the following, from Queen Victoria to President Buchanan : — 
 *' Glory be to God on high, and on earth peace and good-will 
 towards men." 
 
 All went on favorably for several days : a constant communi- 
 cation was kept up between the Niagara and the shore. At 
 four o'clock on the following Tuesday, the signals suddenly 
 ceased. The return of the squadron confirmed the fears enter- 
 tained : the cable had broken in deep water. Three hundred 
 and thirty-five nautical miles had been laid, and the last half 
 of it in water over two miles in depth. The Niagara was 
 making at the time four miles an hour, and the cable running 
 
A year's rest. 
 
 575 
 
 out at a greater speed, — from five to six miles an hour. This 
 was more than could be afforded, and the retard strain upon the 
 brakes was increased to three thousand pounds. The cable 
 bore the augmented pressure for a time, but finally parted, to 
 the dismay of the whole fleet. The vessels returned to England; 
 and the enterprise was abandoned for another year. Though 
 thus postponed, little* or no doubt existed upon its ultimate suc- 
 cess. The exhilarating triumph which eventually attended the 
 efforts of the Company will form the subject of the next 
 chapter. 
 
 HOLLOW WAV*. 
 
THE CABLE IN THE BED OF THE OCEAN. 
 
 CHAPTER LIIL 
 
 SECOND AND THIRD ATTEMPTS TO LAY TIIE ATLANTIC CABLE — THE FAILURE IN 
 THE MONTH OF JUNE — DESCRIPTION OP THE CABLE — THE VOYAGE OF THE 
 
 NIAQABA THE CONTINUITY ALL RIGHT AGAIN CHANGE FROM ONE COIL TO 
 
 ANOTHER THE KNIGHTS OP THE BLACK HASD — UNFAVORABLE SYMPTOMS 
 
 THE INSULATION BROKEN — THE THIRD OF AUGUST AN ANXIOUS MOMENT — 
 
 LAND DISCOVERED — TRINITY BAY — MR. FIELD VISITS THE TELEGRAPH STATION 
 
 THE OPERATORS TAKEN BY SURPRISE — LANDING OP THE CABLE IMPRESSIVE 
 
 CEREMONY — CAPTAIN HUDSON RETURNS THANKS TO HEAVEN — THE VOYAGE OF 
 THE AGAMEMNON THE QUEEN'S MESSAGE — THE SIXTEENTH OF AUGUST — DEEP- 
 SEA TELEGRAPHING THE EQUATOR AND THE CABLE. 
 
 The Atlantic Telegraph Company, undeterred by their 
 
 failure to lay the cable in 1857, resolved to make another 
 
 attempt in the summer of the following year, the American 
 
 and English Governments again placing the Niagara and the 
 
 Agamemnon at their disposal. It was decided, however, in 
 
 order to lessen the chances of unfavorable weather, that the 
 676 
 
THE CONSTRUCTION OF TUE CABLE. 
 
 577 
 
 two vessels should proceed to mid-ocean, should there splice 
 their respective ends of the wire, and that the Agamemnon 
 should then steam to Valentia Harbor and the Niagara to 
 Trinity Bay. They were each furnished with an ingenious 
 contrivance for paying out the cable, — the invention of Mr. 
 Everett, of the United States Navy. June was the month 
 selected, and the ships departed upon their errand. They were 
 absent much longer than was expected, in the event of a suc- 
 cessful accomplishment of their purpose. When they returned 
 to Queenstown, it was to tell of storm, disaster, and failure. 
 Still undaunted, the Company again despatched the ships. The 
 Niagara and Agamemnon met in mid-ocean on the 28th of 
 July : the splice was effected, and the task began. The Niagara 
 had eight hundred and eighty-two miles to sail, and eleven 
 hundred miles of cable ; the Agamemnon, with the same quantity 
 of cable, had but eight hundred and thirteen miles to sail. The 
 Niagara had three hundred tons of coal, the Agamemnon five 
 hundred. At one o'clock the wire began to reel over the stern 
 of the Niagara, westward and homeward bound. 
 
 The following engraving will give a correct idea of the 
 manner in which the cable is formed. The core, or conductor, 
 is composed of seven copper wires wound tightly together. 
 
 1. "NVire — eighteen strands, seven to an inch. 
 
 2. Six strands of yarn. 
 
 3. Gutta percha, three coats. 
 
 4. Conducting wires, seven in number. 
 
 5. Section of the cable, eleven-sixteenths of an inch in diameter. 
 
 The flexibility of this cable is so great that it may be tied in 
 
 a knot round the arm without injury. Its weight is eighteen 
 
 hundred and sixty pounds to the mile, and its strength such 
 37 
 
578 ocean's story. 
 
 that six miles of it may be suspended vertically in water of that 
 depth without breaking. 
 
 " The sea is smooth," — we quote the extremely interesting 
 journal of an eye-witness*, writing upon the first day, — " the 
 barometer well up ; and, if we can only do for the next seven 
 days as well as we have done since one o'clock, we shall be at 
 Newfoundland by the 5th of August, and in New York some 
 time between the 15th and 20th of the sapie month. But we 
 have been somewhat too hasty in our calculations, for our ship 
 has just slowed down, and the propeller has ceased working for 
 the last ten minutes. There must be something wrong to cause 
 this interruption. Let us take a look at the machine. The 
 cable still goes out, which certainly would not be the case 
 if it had parted. Ah ! the continuity ! That's it : there's where 
 the difficulty lies ; and, as the electricians are the only parties 
 who can inform us on that point, we at once go in search of 
 them. A visit to their office explains the whole matter. The 
 continuity is not gone altogether, but is defective, — so defective 
 that it is impossible to get a signal through the cable. Still, 
 there is not * dead earth' upon it, and all hope, therefore, is 
 not lost. When dead earth, as it is termed, is on the con- 
 ductor, then, indeed, the difficulty is beyond remedy; for it 
 shows that the conductor must be broken and is thrown under 
 the influence of terrestrial magnetism. But the continuity is 
 not gone; and, although with darkening prospects, we arc still 
 safe while it remains, imperfect as it is. It would be absurd to 
 say that the occurrence was not discouraging : it was painfully so ; 
 for the hopes of some of us had really begun to revive, and we 
 were gaining confidence every hour. Now nothing could be 
 done. We must wait until the continuity should return or take 
 its final departure. And it did return, and with greater strength 
 than ever. At ten minutes past nine P.M., the electrician on 
 duty observed its failing, and at half-past eleven he had the 
 
 * Mr. John Mullaly. 
 
"look out now, men." 679 
 
 gratifying intelligence for us that it was ^ all right again.' The 
 machinery was once more set in motion, the cable was soon going 
 out at the rate of six miles an hour, and the electrical signals 
 were passing between the ships as regularly as if nothing had 
 occurred to interfere with or interrupt the continuity." 
 
 The change of the wire from the forward main-deck coil to 
 that on the deck immediately below, on the third day, is thus 
 described, the operation being a most delicate and perilous 
 one : — " At least an hour before the change was made, the 
 outer boundaries of the circle in which the cable lay was literally 
 crowded with men ; and never was greater interest manifested 
 in any spectacle than that which they exhibited in the proceed- 
 ings before them. There were serious doubts and misgivings 
 as to the successful performance of this important part of the 
 work ; and these only served to increase the feeling of anxiety 
 and suspense with which they silently and breathlessly await 
 the critical moment. The last flake has been reached, and as 
 turn after turn leaves the circle every eye is intently fixed on 
 the cable. Now there are but thirty turns remaining ; and, as 
 the first of these is unwound, Mr. Everett, who has been in the 
 circle during the last half-hour, gives the order to the engineer 
 on duty to ^ slow down.' In a few moments there is a perceptible 
 diminution in the speed, which continues diminishing till it has 
 reached the rate of about two miles an hour. 
 
 '' 'Look out now, men,' says Mr. Everett, in his usual quiet, 
 self-possessed way. The men are as thoroughly wide-awake as 
 they can be, and are waiting eagerly for the moment when they 
 shall lift the bight, or bend, of the cable and deliver it out safely. 
 One of the planks in the side of the cone has been loosened, 
 and;" just as they are about taking the cable in their hands, it is 
 removed altogether ; so that, as the last yard passes out of the 
 now empty circle, the line commences paying out from the 
 circle below, or the 'orlop' deck, as it is called. The men — 
 who are no other than the coilers, or ' Knights of the Black 
 
580 ocean's story. 
 
 Hand,' as they have not inappropriately been termed — have 
 done their work well ; and the applause with which they have 
 been greeted by the crowd of admiring spectators is the most 
 gratifying testimony they can receive of the fact. They have 
 hardly passed the cable out of the circle before they are re- 
 ceived with as enthusiastic a demonstration of approval as the 
 rules of the navy will permit. 
 
 "Confidence is growing stronger," — this is the fourth day, — 
 " and there is considerable speculation as to the time we shall 
 reach Newfoundland. The pilot who is to bring us into Trinity 
 Bay is now in great repute, and is becoming a more important 
 personage every day. We are really beginning to have strong 
 hopes that his services will be called into requisition and that 
 in the course of a few days more we will be in sight of land. 
 But the sea is not at all so smooth as it was the day before : 
 it is, in fact, so rough as to favor the belief that there must 
 have been a severe gale a short time since in these latitudes. 
 The condition of the vessel is such as to alarm us greatly for 
 the safety of the cable should it come on to blow very hard, 
 as the large amount already paid out and the quantity of coal 
 consumed have lightened her so much as to render her rather 
 uneasy in a heavy sea. The wind is increasing, and, although 
 it has not yet attained the magnitude of a gale, it is blow- 
 ing rather' fresh for us in the present unsettled state of our 
 minds. Both wind and sea are nearly abeam; and the 
 rolling motion which the latter creates brings a strain upon 
 the cable which gives rise to the most unpleasant feelings. 
 The bea, too, seems to be getting worse every minute, and 
 strikes the slender wire with all its force. Every surge of the 
 ship affects it; and as it cuts through each wave it makes a 
 small white line of foam to mark its track. The sight of that 
 thread-like wire battling with the sea produces a feeling some- 
 what akin to that with which you would watch the struggles of 
 a drowning man whom you have not the power of assisting. 
 
TES'HNG THE CONTLNTriTY. 581 
 
 You can only look on and trust either that the sea will go 
 down or that the cable may be able to resist the force of the 
 waves successfully. Of the former there is very little prospect, 
 but of the latter there is every reason for hope. The contest 
 has been going on now for several hours, and there is no more 
 sign of the cable parting than when it commenced. The elec- 
 tricians report the continuity perfect ; and the signals which are 
 received at intervals from the Agamemnon show that that 
 vessel is getting along with her part of the work in admirable 
 style. What more can we desire ?" 
 
 An incident occurring upon the fifth day is thus described: — 
 " I have said that, despite the bad weather and heavy sea, the 
 paying-out process was going on well ; but during the night the 
 continuity was again affected; and although it was restored and 
 became as strong as ever, yet it was for about three hours a 
 very unpleasant affair. It was subsequently found that the 
 difiiculty was caused by a defect of insulation in a part of the 
 wardroom coil, which was cut out in time to prevent any serious 
 consequences. There were only a few on board the ship, how- 
 ever, aware of the occurrence until after the defect was re- 
 moved and the electrical communication was re-established be- 
 tween the two ships. Both Mr. Laws and Mr. De Santy — the two 
 electricians on the Niagara — were of the opinion that the insula- 
 tion was broken in some part of the wardroom coil ; and, on using 
 the tests for the purpose of ascertaining the precise point, they 
 found that it was about sixty miles from the bottom of that 
 coil, and between three or four hundred from the part which 
 was then paying out. The cable was immediately cut at this 
 point and spliced to a deck coil of ninety miles, which it was 
 intended to reserve for laying in. shallow water and was there- 
 fore kept for Trinity Bay. About four o'clock in the morning 
 the continuity was finally restored, and all was going on as well 
 as if nothing had occurred to disturb the confidence we felt in 
 the success of the expedition." 
 
532 ocean's story. 
 
 Upon the sixth day — the 3d of August, the anniversary of 
 the day upon which Columbus sailed from Palos — the great work 
 took place of the change from " the fore-hold coil to that in the 
 wardroom, which are at least two hundred feet apart. This 
 occurred at eight o'clock in the morning; and, as the time was 
 known to all on board, there was even a larger crowd assembled 
 to witness it than I observed at any of the other changes. It 
 was considered a most critical time; and, although the opera- 
 tion turned out to be very simple, it was anticipated by some 
 with considerable uneasiness. The splice between the two coils 
 had been made some hours in advance, and men were stationed 
 all along the line of its course from the hold to the wardroom. 
 Mr. Everett and Mr. Woodhouse were both on hand ; the best 
 men had been picked out to pass up the bight, when the 
 last turn should be reached ; and one man, named Henry 
 Paine, a splicer, was specially appointed to walk forward with 
 the bight to the after or wardroom coil. As the last flake was 
 about to be paid out the ship was slowed down, and by the 
 time the last three or four turns came to be paid out she could 
 hardly be said to be moving through the water. The line came 
 up more slowly from the hold, until we were nearing the 
 bight, where it could not have been going out faster than half a 
 mile an hour. One more turn and the bight comes up. There 
 is not a sound to be heard from the crowd who are watching it 
 with eager and anxious faces from every point of view. No one 
 speaks, or has ventured to speak for the last minute, except the 
 engineers, and they have very little to say, for their orders are 
 convc'yed in the most laconic style; and the quick *ay, ay!' 
 of the men show that they understand the full value of time. 
 * Now, men,* says Mr. Everett, *look out for the bight,* as 
 those in the hold hand it up to the men on the orlop deck, and 
 it is passed from hand to hand till it reaches the platform and 
 long passage which has been built upon the spar-deck for this 
 part of the work. Here the bight arrives at last, and Paine 
 
PICK UP THE PIECES. 583 
 
 takes it in his hand, paying out as he follows the line of the 
 cable to the wardroom coil. How anxiously the men watch 
 him as he walks that terrible distance of two hundred feet, and 
 think that if he should happen to trip or stumble while he holds 
 that bight in his hand the great enterprise may end in disaster ! 
 It is not a difficult task ; but how often have things that are so 
 easily performed been defeated by want of coolness ! There is, 
 however, such an easy self-possession about the man, as he comes 
 slowly aft with the long black line, that inspires confidence. 
 All hands have deserted the decks below, and follow him as 
 he walks aft, and one, in his impatience to get a glimpse of him, 
 has nearly fallen through the skylight of the engine-room, in 
 which he has smashed several panes of glass in the effort to 
 save himself. * Pick up the pieces,' says Paine, in a vein of 
 quiet humor, as he proceeds on his course without interruption, 
 and, coming up to the wheel, which is immediately above the 
 wardroom, he straightens the bight, and the cable begins to run 
 out from the top of the coil on the deck beneath. His work is 
 done; and, as the line passes out of his hands, he receives a 
 round of applause from the hands of the spectators, who, but 
 for those terrible navy rules, would have greeted him with a 
 cheer that would have done his heart good. As it is, they 
 must give vent to their feelings in some way; and the exclama- 
 tions of * Well done!' * That's the fellow!' ^ Good boy, Paine!' 
 are not a bad compromise, after all. Besides, it might be 
 rather premature at this time to indulge in any triumphant 
 expression of feeling before we are even in sight of land." 
 
 Upon the seventh day land was discovered from the masthead. 
 " It is now half-past two o'clock, and we are entering Trinity 
 Bay at a speed of seven and a half knots an hour, paying out 
 the cable at a very slight increase on the same rate. The 
 curve which it forms between the ship and the water proves 
 that there is little or no strain upon it, and proves also another 
 thing, — that it can be run out at eight, nine, and, I believe, ten 
 
THE CABLE LAID. 585 
 
 miles with the greatest safety. This, however, as I have pre- 
 viously stated, cannot be done with old cable that has been 
 coiled so often as to have a tendency to kink ; and there is — as 
 has been already intimated — some of this kind which we shall be 
 obliged to pay out before landing. A signal signifying ' all well' 
 has been received from the Agamemnon, which must now be on 
 the point of landing her cable at Valentia Bay, Ireland, which is 
 about sixteen hundred and forty miles from our present position." 
 At eight o'clock in the evening, while the Niagara was pro- 
 ceeding up Trinity Bay and was yet some eighteen miles 
 distant from the landing-place, Mr. Field left the ship for the 
 purpose of visiting the telegraph station and sending a despatch 
 to the United States. " It was near two o'clock in the morn- 
 ing before he arrived at the beach ; and, as it was quite dark, he 
 had considerable difficulty in finding the path that led up to the 
 station. There was no house in sight, and the whole scene was 
 as dreary and as desolate as a wilderness at night could be. A 
 silence as of the grave reigned over every thing before him ; 
 while behind, at a distance of a mile, he could see the huge hull 
 of the Niagara looming up indistinctly through the gloom of 
 night, and the light of the lamps on her deck making the dark- 
 ness still darker and blacker by the contrast. He entered the 
 narrow road, and after a journey of what appeared to be twenty 
 miles he came in sight of the station, which stands about half a 
 mile from the beach. There was, however, no sign of life 
 there ; and the house in its stillness looked strangely in unison 
 with every thing around. It had a deserted look, as if it had 
 long since ceased to be the habitation of man. In vain he 
 looked for a door in the front ; but there was no entrance there. 
 He looked up at the windows, in the hope, perhaps, of being 
 able to enter by that way ; but the windows in the lower story 
 were beyond his reach ; and the house, having been partly built 
 on piles, had the appearance of being raised on stilts. A 
 detour of the establishment, however, led to the discovery of a 
 
586 OCEAN'S STORT. 
 
 door in the side ; and through this he finally succeeded in efiect- 
 ing an entrance. The noise he made in getting in, it waa 
 natural to expect, would arouse the inmates ; but there seemed 
 either to be no inmates to arouse, or those inmates were not 
 easily disturbed. He stopped for a moment to listen, and as he 
 listened he heard the breathing of sleepers in an apartment 
 near him. The door was immediately thrown open, and in 
 a few seconds the sleepers were awake, — wide awake, and 
 opening their eyes wider and wider as the wonderful news fell 
 upon their astonished and delighted ears. They could hardly 
 believe the evidence of their senses, and were bewildered at 
 what they heard. The cable laid, when, but a few short weeks 
 before, they had received the news of disaster and defeat, and 
 they had looked only to the far-distant future for the accom- 
 plishment of the great work ! The cable laid, and they un- 
 conscious of it! — they, who had waited and watched so many 
 weary days and weeks for the ships they had begun to be- 
 lieve would never come! And they were now in the bay, 
 — those same ships, — within a mile of them! Can they be 
 dreaming? Dreaming! No. What they have heard is true, — 
 all true ; and there is the living witness before them. 
 
 " *What do you want?' was the exclamation of the first who 
 was awakened, as he endeavored to rub the sleep out of his eyes. 
 
 " ' I want you to get up,' said Mr. Field, * and help us to 
 take the cable ashore.* 
 
 " ' To take the cable ashore V re-echoed the others, who were 
 now just awakening, and who heard the words with a dim, 
 dreamy idea of their meaning ; * to take the cable ashore ?' 
 
 " * Yes,' said Mr. Field; 'and we want you at once.* 
 
 "They were now thoroughly aroused; and, directing Mr. 
 Field to the bedrooms of the other sleepers, — for there were 
 four or five others in the house, — they prepared themselves 
 with all haste to assist in landing the cable. Mr. Field found 
 that the telegraph office would not be open till nine o'clock 
 
LANDING THE SHORE END. 587 
 
 that morning, and that the operator of the New York, New- 
 foundland, and London telegraph was absent at the time. 
 He also ascertained that the nearest station at which he 
 could find an operator was fifteen miles distant, and that the 
 only way of getting there was on foot. Now, fifteen miles in 
 Newfoundland is about equal to twice the distance in a civilized 
 country, and is a tolerably long walk ; but it was something to 
 be the bearer of such news to a whole continent, and so two 
 of the young men willingly volunteered for the journey, bearing 
 with them, for transmission to New York and the whole United 
 States, the despatch which contained the first announcement 
 of the successful accomplishment of the work." 
 
 Upon the eighth day the cable was landed, the ships being 
 dressed with flags in honor of the occasion. Sixty men from 
 the Niagara, and forty from the British ships Gorgon and 
 Porcupine, took part in this task and the attendant ceremonies. 
 "The landing-place for the cable is a very picturesque little 
 beach, on which a wharf has been constructed. A road, about 
 the dimensions of a bridle-path, has been cut through the forest, 
 and up this road, through bog and mire, you find your way to 
 the telegraph station, about half a mile distant. Alongside of 
 this road a trench has been dug for the cable, to preserve it 
 from accidents to which it might otherwise be liable. 
 
 " When the boats arrived at the landing, the officers and 
 men jumped ashore, and Mr. North, first lieutenant of the 
 Niagara, presented Captain Hudson with the end of the cable. 
 Captain Otter, of the Porcupine, and Commander Dayman, of 
 the Gorgon, now took hold of it, and, all the officers and men 
 following their example, a procession was formed along the 
 line. The road or path over which we had to take the cable 
 was a most primitive aff'air. It led up the side of a hill a couple 
 of hundred feet high, and had been cut out of the thick forest 
 of pines and other evergreens. In some places the turf — which 
 is to be found here on the top of the highest mountains — was so 
 
533 ocean's story. 
 
 soft ■with recent rains that you. would sink to your ankles in it. 
 Well, it was up this road we had to march with the cable ; and 
 a splendid time we had. It was but reasonable to suppose that 
 the three captains who headed the procession would certainly 
 pick out the best parts and give us the advantage of the 
 stepping-stones; but it appeared all the same to them; and 
 they plunged into the boggiest and dirtiest parts with a reck- 
 lessness and indifference that satisfied us they were about the 
 worst pilots we could have had on land, despite their well-known 
 abilities as navigators. 
 
 ^'This memorable procession started at a quarter to six 
 o'clock, and arrived at the telegraph station about twenty 
 minutes after. The ascent of the hill was the worst part of the 
 journey ; but when we got to the top the scene which opened 
 before us would have repaid us for a journey of twenty miles 
 over a still worse road. There beneath us lay the harbor, shut 
 in by mountains, except at the entrance from Trinity Bay; and 
 there, too, lay the steamers of the two greatest maritime nations 
 of the world. On every side lies an unbroken wilderness, and, if 
 w^e except the telegraph station, at which we will soon arrive, 
 not a single habitation to tell that man has ever lived here. 
 
 " Never was such a remarkable scene presented since the 
 world began. Even now, at the very point of its realization, it 
 does not seem as if the work in which we have been engaged 
 has been accomplished. The continuity, however, without 
 which the cable would be utterly valueless, is as perfect now 
 as it ever was. Mr. Laws and Mr. De Santy, the two chief elec- 
 tricians who have accompanied us from England, have ' tasted' 
 the current, and about a dozen others at the head of the proces- 
 sion have done the same thing. The writer himself is a witness 
 on this point, and will never forget the singular acid taste which 
 it. had. Some received a pretty strong shock, — so strong that 
 they willingly resigned the chance of repeating the experiment. 
 
 " On the arrival of the procession the cable is brought up to 
 
THE captain's SPEECH. 589 
 
 the house and the end placed in connection with the instru- 
 ment. The deflection of the needle on the galvanometer gives 
 incontrovertible evidence that the electrical condition of the 
 cable is satisfactory. The question now is, How shall we pro- 
 perly celebrate the consummation of the great event? How, 
 but by an acknowledgment to that Providence without whose 
 favor the enterprise must have ended in disaster and defeat? 
 Captain Hudson took up his position on a pile of boards, the 
 officers and men standing round amid shavings, stumps of trees, 
 pieces of broken furniture, sheets of copper, telegraph-batteries, 
 little mounds of lime and mortar, branches of trees, huge boul- 
 ders, and a long catalogue of other things equally incongruous. 
 
 "'We have,' said the captain, 'just accomplished a work 
 which has attracted the attention and enlisted the interest of 
 the whole world. That work,' he continued, ' has been per- 
 formed not by ourselves: there has been an Almighty Hand 
 over us and aiding us; and, without the divine assistance thus 
 extended us, success was impossible. With this conviction firmly 
 impressed upon our minds, it becomes our duty to acknowledge 
 our indebtedness to that overruling Providence who holds the 
 sea in the hollow of his hand. " Not unto us, Lord, not 
 unto us, but to thy name, be all the glory." I hope the day 
 will never come when, in all our works, we shall refuse to 
 acknowledge the overruling hand of a divine and almighty 
 Power. . . . There are none here, I am sure, whose hearts are 
 not overflowing with feelings of the liveliest gratitude to God in 
 view of the great work which has been accomplished through his 
 permission, and who are not willing to join in a prayer of 
 thanksgiving for its successful termination. I will therefore ask 
 you to join me in the following prayer, which is the same, with 
 a few necessary alterations, that was off'ered for the laying of 
 the cable.' " 
 
 This prayer was then ofi'ered at the throne of grace by the 
 captain^ the auditors responding at its close with an "Amen" 
 
590 
 
 ocean's story. 
 
 "which showed with what profound emotion they regarded the 
 scene in which thej were such prominent actors. 
 
 THE AGAMEMNON IN A GALE. 
 
 In regard to the voyage of the Agamemnon we find little to 
 say which would not be a repetition of that of the Niagara, 
 with the exception that she experienced much less favorable 
 weather, and that the admirable paying-out machine invented 
 by our countryman, Mr. Everett, performed its delicate duty 
 under more trying circumstances than those to which it had 
 been subjected on the American frigate. The Queen's Message 
 was transmitted over the wire on the 16th of August; and, 
 intelligence of the fact being made known the same evening 
 throughout the Northern and Western States, the people gave 
 themselves up to the wildest demonstrations of joy. Few per- 
 sons of an age to appreciate the significance of the triumph 
 will forget that memorable night. 
 
THE OCEAN CABLE. 59 J 
 
 We have not to follow the inventors, electricians, and com- 
 manders to the land, and detail the ovations of which they were 
 the honored objects. The public will long remember the elo- 
 quence of the orators who dilated upon the theme, the inspired 
 language in which the newspapers held forth to their amazed 
 subscribers, and the prophetic vein in which the clergy felt 
 justly entitled to indulge. Fifty years from norw, those who were 
 boys on the 16th of August will tell, with undiminished interest, 
 of the tar-barrels and bonfires, the salutes and fireworks, the 
 illuminations and torchlight processions, which, from one end 
 of the country to the other, welcomed the inspiring tidings and 
 made the summer night gorgeous with flames and clamorous 
 with artillery. The cable is at length laid through the bed of 
 the Atlantic Ocean. Over what jagged mountain-ranges is that 
 slender filament carried ! In what deep oceanic valleys does it 
 rest ! Through what strange and unknown regions, among things 
 how uncouth and wild, must it thread its way ! Still, in spite 
 of this first magnificent success, deep-sea telegraphing must be 
 regarded as in its very infancy ; and doubtless many new and 
 even more marvellous feats will yet be performed claiming ad- 
 mission among the achievements of Man upon — or rather be- 
 neath — the Sea. 
 
 Perhaps the best among the numerous good things suggested 
 by the happy return of the Telegraphic Fleet was the following 
 sentiment: — "The Equator and the Cable: the former an 
 imaginary line which divides the poles, the latter a veritable 
 line which connects the hemispheres!" 
 
 ♦' Far, for below ocean s neavmg breast, 
 Where the storm-spirit ever is hush'i to rest, 
 The cable now lies on its snowy bed, — 
 The glittering ashes of ocean's dead ; 
 And storms shall not break nor tempests sever 
 This arch of promise, for ever and ever, 
 Till an angel shall stand with one foot on the sea 
 Ap<^ L-iwe^^ *hat ♦iTO.*' tto 'ionger shall be." 
 
592 ocean's story. 
 
 The continuity of this cable was shortly afterwards brokcn. 
 but it had so successfully demonstrated that it was possible to 
 lay one that another attempt was soon organized. P'or this 
 purpose the Great Eastern, which had been found too large a 
 ship to be ordinarily used in trade, since her great depth pre- 
 vented her from entering any but the very deepest harboj-s, 
 was engaged. Iler size enabled her easily to take in the cable 
 for the entire distance, and, starting from Ireland, she kept up 
 telegraphic communication with that station, wi-thout interrup- 
 tion, throughout the whole of the voyage. This cable has 
 worked continously since that time. 
 
 Beside this, another Atlantic cable, connecting France with 
 the American Continent, has been laid successfully and has 
 worked without interruption. From England fifteen submar- 
 ine wires, laid across the beds of the Channel or the Korth Sea, 
 connect that country with France, Belgium and Ilolland. 
 Sweden and Norway are connected with Germany by marine 
 cables across the Baltic, while Sicily and Sardinia are connected 
 with Italy by a cable in the bottom of the Mediterranean. 
 
 In Europe, in 1872, it was estimated that at an expense of 
 about $100,000,000 more than 1,300,000 miles of telegraphic 
 wire had been erected and counting the double and multiple 
 wires used on the most important lines, that a length of 621,- 
 000,000 miles had been stretched, a length sufficient to encircle 
 the entire globe, at the equator, some twenty-five times, while 
 the yearly increase of new lines consumed enough wire to 
 again encircle the earth. 
 
 A telegraphic cable is also proposed from Lisbon to Rio 
 Janeiro. France has been also connected with Algeria, and 
 lines connecting the Eastern Mediterranean, the Red Sea and 
 the Indian Ocean, have been laid, though they have frequently 
 been injured. 
 
 The Pacific Ocean has also its cable connecting California 
 with India, bringing Calcutta, San Francisco, New York, Lon 
 
OCEAN TELEGRAPIIIXa. 593 
 
 don, Vienna, Constantinople and Bagdad within a circuit 
 measuring about 12,400 miles in length. 
 
 The cables which have been laid in the beds of oceans and 
 seas, connecting islands, peninsulas and continents, are estimated 
 to measure about 12,400 miles in length. 
 
 There are now three Atlantic cables connecting Europe and 
 America. These are the Anglo-American, the New Yoik, 
 Newfoundland and London, and the French. Of these the 
 French one is singular from its method of conveying intelli- 
 gence. A minute mirror is placed on the needle, and a beam 
 of light from a lamp is reflected from this upon a screen. As 
 the current of electricity afl'ects the needle, this light moves in 
 curves upon the screen, and the meaning of these curves is 
 read off by the observer, according to a pre-arranged code of 
 cymbols. Beside these three companies, there is a fourth pro- 
 posed line, to be known as the American Atlantic, and which 
 it is proposed to lay this coming summer, 1873. 
 
 The rates of ocean telegraphing have recently been raised 
 and it is found that the lines contemplate combining with each 
 other, and forming a monoply. They have been acting in 
 concert for some time, but without any formal agreement. As 
 ocean telegraphing has become a necessity* this promptness on 
 the part of the companies to combine into a monopoly gives great- 
 er force to the proposition that the telegraph, in the public in- 
 terest, should be owned and controlled by government. Es- 
 pecially is this becoming more apparent, since the telegraphic 
 reports of weather observations, which in the hands of the 
 Sijmal Bureau have become of such practical public service, 
 have recently been extended, so as to embrace Europe and 
 
 this country in a single circuit. 
 38 
 
THE SEAL. 
 
 CHAPTER LIY. 
 
 DlTIRO — TffE FIRST DIVING-BKLL — FIXED APPARATUS SUPPLTBD WITH COMPRESSED AIB 
 THE SUBMARINE HTDROSTAT — OPBRATIOIfS AT HELL GATE — DIVIWO APPARATUS- 
 SUBMARINE EXPLOSIONS — IMPROVED DIVINO DRESSES — THEIR USE— WORK OP VARIOUS 
 KINDS DONE WITH THEM — INSTANCES OP THIS — SEEKING THE TREASURE OP THE HUS- 
 SAR — SUNKEN SHIPS IN SEBASTOPOL — OPERATIONS IN MOBILE — THE DRY DOCK AT PKN- 
 SACOLA BAY — THE BEAUTIES OF THE 8UBMARINF WORLD— HABITS OF THE FISH— POS- 
 SIBLE DEPTH OP DESCENT. 
 
 Not only have men in modern times sought to extend their 
 knowledge of the sea by dredging and sounding, but with the 
 appliances of modern science they have attempted to plunge 
 themselves into its depths, and provide the conditions there for 
 not only remaining alive but for working. We have seen that 
 the divers for coral and for pearls are enabled to remain under 
 the surface only at the very outside two minutes, and that eveii 
 this is such a strain upon the organs of the body that their 
 lives are materially shortened by engaging in such work. Air 
 is so indispensable to human life, that before any one can hope 
 to remain any time under the water, some arrangement must 
 be provided for supplying him with air. 
 
 The ancients, of cxirse, knew that man was a breathin?' 
 594 
 
THE FIRST DIVING-BELL, 595 
 
 animal; they saw that each of themselves carried on this process 
 constantly, but what they breathed they did not know, and 
 they were equally ignorant of why they breathed. The dis- 
 covery of what the air is belongs purely to modern times 
 About a century ago the astronomer Ilalley first proposed the 
 use of the diving-bell, and went down in one he had built, to 
 the depth of about fifty feet. The diving-bell was named from 
 Us original form, which was that of a bell, and this name i.-» 
 
 DIVING-BELL. 
 
 Btill retained, though the form of the vessel is changed. The 
 supply of air is kept up by an air-pump worked above water. 
 This is, however, a clumsy appliance in which the diver is 
 limited only to that portioi of the bottom on which the bell 
 rests. Where there is either a strong current, or the bottom 
 is very shelving, the diving-bell is embarrassing if not danger- 
 ous. In one case ii is said that the diver was taken from the 
 bell by a shark. Expert swimmers can dive from the outside, 
 and, passing under the lip of the bell, rise suddenly inside of 
 ■t, a feat which always surprises those who are in the bell 
 
596 
 
 OCEAN S STORY 
 
 There is also sometimes danger that the bell may settle in the 
 Boffc mud, and be held there by suction. Such a case once oc- 
 curred in New York harbor, when a party had gone in the bell 
 as a sort of pleasure excursion. The difficulty looked threat- 
 ening, but one of the party proposed rocking the bell, and 
 doing so the water was forced under, and the bell was lifted 
 from the ooze. 
 
 FIXED APPARATUS SUPPLIED WITH COMPRESSED AIR. 
 
 As the workmen cannot leave the bell, this difficulty if pos- 
 sible is obviated by moving the bell. Frequently, however, 
 submarine operations are to be carried on only in one spot, as 
 in building bridges, when the foundations of the piers are to be 
 laid, or in building breakwaters; laying the foundations of 
 lifjht-houses, or other similar work. In such cases, structures 
 which in principle are the same as the diving-bell, are fre- 
 quently employed. The one which was used to build the piers 
 of the magnificent bridge over the Rhine, near Strasbourg is 
 represented in the cut. Each of the piers of this bridge rests 
 ou a foundaiion composed of four large iron caissons, of great 
 weight. Each ca'sson was open at its lower end. The upper 
 
SUBMARINE HYDROSTAT. 597 
 
 part supported three shafts — a middle and two lateral ones. 
 All three shafts arose above the water of the river. The mid- 
 dle shaft communicated with the open air, and the water rose 
 in it to the level of the river. In this a dredging machine, 
 driven by a steam-engine above, worked at the bottom of the 
 river. The other two shafts were closed at the top. The work 
 men entering above the stream, closed their means of ingress, 
 air tight, and then air was forced in until the water was forced 
 down, and out below, leaving the shafts free. The workmen 
 then descended and filled the buckets of the dredging machine. 
 When thej wanted to ascend, they mounted to the upper part 
 of the shafts ; the air was let off, the water mounted in the 
 shafts and they stepped into the open air. 
 
 The abutments of the bridge over the East River, which is 
 to connect New York and Brooklyn by a suspension bridge, 
 with a span high enough to not interfere with the navigation 
 of the river, were built with a somewhat similar device. The 
 towers upon each side of the river had to be so high that a 
 very deep foundation, going down to the original rock, had to 
 be laid, and the workmen engaged in building it worked in a 
 submarine apartment, supplied with air forced down by a steam 
 engine. 
 
 The submarine hydrostat, as it is called, is one of the most 
 ingenious and recent applications of the diving-bell principle. 
 Thirty men may work in it at once, for a number of hours, 
 without any inconvenience ; while beside this it enables them 
 at will, to float or sink. 
 
 Externally, as will be seen from the upper structure in the 
 cut, the machine is a rectangular box, surmounted with an- 
 other smaller one, entirely closed except at the bottom. The 
 interior of the hydrostat consists of three principal compart- 
 ments; the lower figure in the cut represents these in section. 
 The lower one, or hoW, is open below, and communicates by a 
 shaft with the up'^er compartment. Between the upper and 
 
598 
 
 ocean's story. 
 
 lower compartments is a third, communicating with the othera 
 only by stop-cocks. The upper compartment is called the be- 
 tween decks, and the middle one the orlop deck. All round 
 the hold and the orlop deck runs an air-tight gallery connected 
 with the other compartments only by stop-cocks. The lower 
 part of this gallery contains the ballast, while its upper part 
 is fill with air or water, according as it is desired to float oi 
 sink. 
 
 fayerne'3 submarine hydrostat. 
 
 When the hjdrostat floats, the hold and a portion of the 
 shaft are filled with water ; while the orlop deck, its gallery 
 and the between decks are full of air. The workmen are in 
 the betv/'een decks, where are lifting and forcing pumps. When 
 it is desired to sink the hydrostat, the door of the shaft and 
 the hatch of the between decks are closed water and air-tight. 
 The pump is then worked so as to draw water from the out- 
 side and fill the orlop deck and its gallery. At the same time 
 the force-pump is used to force air into the hold through a 
 pipe eov.uecting the hold and the orlop deck, and furnished 
 
OPERATIONS AT HELL GATE. 599 
 
 with a stop-cock. As the orlop deck, with its gallery, fills 
 with water the machine gets heavier and sinks, while the hold 
 becomes at the same time filled with air. Though the air 
 thus forced into the hold would tend to float the hjdrostat, 
 this tendency is counterbalanced by the filling of the orlop 
 deck with water. "When the hold is filled with air, the work- 
 men in the between decks open the shaft and descend to the 
 bottom. A sufficient number remain in the between decks to 
 haul up and dispose of the material excavated, and to attend 
 to the pumps which maintain the supply of air for those in 
 the hold. When they want to rise again, the men ascend from 
 the hold by the shaft to the between decks, closing the shaft 
 again. The air is then let from the hold to the orlop deck and 
 gallery ; the hold fills with water, while the orlop deck and 
 gallery become filled with air, and the hydrostat rises to the 
 surface ; the men open the hatch of the between decks and ob- 
 tain free communication with the outer world again. 
 
 The dimensions of the hydrostat are as follows : The hold 
 is square, the sides measuring each 26 feet, and being 6 feet 6 
 inches high. The orlop deck is of the same size. The be- 
 tween decks have the same depth, but are only 16 feet in the 
 sides. The base of the hold therefore covers 676 square feet. 
 This ingenious machine has been already used with the most 
 perfect success in performing various work, such as cleaning 
 out and deepening harbors ; searching for lost treasure ; re- 
 moving obstructions in channels, and so on. 
 
 One of the most important and interesting pieces of subma- 
 rine engineering ever done in this country was that undertaken 
 for removing the rocky obstructions in Hell Gate, at the en- 
 trance, through Long Island Sound, of New York harbor. The 
 first attempt to remove these was by drilling and blasting, as 
 in an ordinary quarry. This work was, however, quite slow, 
 since the current is there so rapid that operations could be car- 
 ried OT^ only a few -^inutes each day at the turns of the tides. 
 
600 ocean's story. 
 
 The next plan was proposed by a French engineer, M. Maillefert, 
 who had used it with great success in the harbor of Nassau 
 This plan was entirely new, and had the great merit of being 
 surprisingly cheap compared with those then in use. It dis- 
 pensed with the costly and difficult process of drilling, but ex- 
 ploded the charges on the surface of the rocks to be removed, 
 while they were covered with the greatest depth of water. 
 Gunpowder burnt in the open air explodes without anything 
 but a harmless flash. The pressure of the atmosphere is not 
 enough to restrain the dispersion of the gases suddenly gener- 
 ated. Under water, though, it is different ; its pressure con- 
 fines the gases and makes them act with destructive effect on 
 all sides. For a couple of years operations were carried on by 
 M. Maillefert with considerable success. But he was ham- 
 pered by want of means, the money that was spent being 
 raised by private subscriptions ; and though the channel was 
 greatly improved, operations were suspended. It was found, 
 too, that this method was of great service in breaking off iso- 
 lated pinnacles of jagged rock, but when the bed was reached 
 and the rock reduced to a large, smooth, flat surface, progress 
 in the work became slow, doubtful and costly. This process, 
 however, of exploding charges of gunpowder, under water, by 
 means of an electric battery is very valuable in certain situa- 
 tions. 
 
 In 1868 Congress appropriated $85,000 for the needs ot 
 ITell Gate, and bids for the work were opened to the public. 
 The contract was awarded to Mr. S. F. Shelbourne, of New 
 York, who proposed to do the work by drilling and blasting, 
 the machinery to be placed on the bottom and worked by a 
 steam pump y)laced on a vessel above. The rock was to be 
 drilled by mushroom drill, as it was called, a diamond drill 
 worked by a small turbine wheel, driven by steam. This drill 
 was tried on the Frying Pan, one of the worst rocks obstruct- 
 ing the channel, but was found to be too delicate and uncertain 
 
THE WORK AT HELL GATE. 
 
 601 
 
 of continuous action under the trying requirements of the 
 rough work at Uell Gate. A striking drill was then tried, and 
 a machine was built and put in poskion, but the very day it 
 was to commence to work it was run against by one of the 
 craft so constantly crowding through Hell Gate, and destroyed. 
 Mr. Shelbourne then retired from any further attempt, and the 
 Government has undertaken it, and placed the management of 
 the operations in the hands of General Newton. 
 
 The plan 
 
 now 
 undertaken is to 
 undermine the 
 whole bed of the 
 river at this point, 
 with a series of 
 galleries connected 
 by transverse gal- 
 leries, l(>-aving only 
 so much rock standing in columns as 
 shall insure stability to the roof above. 
 When this work is completed, these sub- 
 marine channels are to be c'larged with 
 the requisite number of thousands of 
 pounds of nitre-glycerine, and blown 
 up with one grand explosion. This 
 enormous work is now well under way, 
 and is being rapidly pushed to comple- 
 tion. Work is carried on day and night, three sets 
 of workmen being engaged in it, each working eight hours. 
 The drilling has thus far been done chiefly by hand, and ia 
 very laborious. The workmen are chiefly Cornish miners, who 
 alone can stand the severity of such mining. They are hardly 
 ever dry while at work, and in the winter their clothes are fre- 
 quently stiffened by ice. Preparations are however making to 
 uis** machine drills operated by compressed air. 
 
 MUSHROOM DRILL. 
 
602 ocean's story. 
 
 The operations of this mining under the channel of the 
 East River have to be conducted with great care. Every inch 
 of the way has to be critically explored. Seams of decom- 
 posed mica have been met, through which the water of the 
 river ran as through a sieve. In one of the shafts such a seam 
 was met, through which the water poured at the rate of six 
 hundred gallons a minute, and could be stopped only by build* 
 inor a stronor shield. The floor of the shaft follows a level about 
 
 o o 
 
 thirty feet below the low-water line. The roof follows of course 
 the general contour of the reef, and to determine this, sound- 
 ings of a special kind have to be taken. The bed of the stream 
 is covered, except on the highest points of the reef, with a de- 
 posit of boulders, marl and organic matter from the sewers of 
 New York, sometimes to the depth of ten or twelve feet. As 
 the exact profile of the solid rock must be known before the 
 miners can proceed, every sounding for determining tliis — and 
 more than 15,000 have been already made — must be carefully 
 done. The sounding apparatus consists of a float, or raft, sup- 
 porting a machine like a guillotine or pile driver, by which a 
 three-inch iron tube is driven through the overlying matter to 
 the rock bed. The contents of the tube are then pumped out 
 and an iron rod is used to determine the nature of the rock be- 
 low. If it is a boulder, a dull thud is heard, and the rod does 
 not rebound. Solid rock returns a sharp clink, and the rod 
 springs back. The bearings of the tube are then talcen by in- 
 struments from the shore, and the position of the rock calcu- 
 lated by a simple process. 
 
 Under the direction of General Newton, other submarine 
 operations are also carried on in New York Harbor for the re- 
 moval of the rocky and dangerous obstructions known as Dia- 
 hiond Reef, and Coentie's Reef, which lie in the busiest part 
 of the harbor, directly in the track of the numerous ferry boats 
 plying between New York and Brooklyn, and are not only 
 trcnblesome, but dangerous, especially at low water. To per 
 
THE WORK AT HELL GATE. 
 
 603 
 
 form this work, General Newton has had a special boat built, 
 a scow, a low-lying, box-like craft, with a confusion of timbers, 
 ropes, chains, and machinery surrounding a huge dome in the 
 center. This vessel is very solidly built, and anchored so firmly 
 that the waves strike against its sides as against a wharf. This 
 strength is important for the work, and also to protect the ma- 
 chinery against the chance collision of the constantly passing 
 vessels in the harbor. The general purpose of the scow ia 
 easily comprehended. Its object is to guard the drilling ma- 
 
 READY TO GO DOWN. 
 
 oliinery while it is at work ; to transport it when necessary, and 
 to support the engines for working the drills. In the center 
 of the scow is an octagonal well, thirty-two feet in diameter, 
 in which is supported an iron-wrought dome for protecting the 
 divers. At the top of the dome is a "telescope," twelve feet 
 in diameter, with a rise and fall of six feet to adapt it to the 
 various stages of the tides. When the dome is in working or- 
 
604 ocean's story. 
 
 der, it stands clear of the scow, resting on self- adjusting legs, 
 whicb adapt themselves to the inequalities of the reef. When 
 the drills are working, the dome is down, out of sight, and the 
 machinery, which at the first glance seems in disorder on the 
 scow, is arranged in order, and is level with the deck. The en- 
 gines which drive the drills are supported on moveable bridges, 
 thrown back when the dome is up ; and the drills work in 
 stout iron tubes passing through the dome, one in the center, 
 and the others arranged round it in a circle about twenty feet 
 in diameter. The dome, when down, serves to protect the div- 
 ers, so that at any time they can go down to regulate the work- 
 ing of the drills, or perform any other service. Without this 
 protection, the divers could not keep their feet, so strong is the 
 current on a rising or falling tide. The divers are protected 
 by a diving suit ; the air is furnished them by a pipe to the 
 back of the helmet they wear, and is forced down by an air 
 pump. When a set of holes are drilled, they are charged with 
 aitro-glycerine, and simultaneously exploded by electricity. 
 
 This simple statement serves to show how much the modern 
 methods of conducting such submarine operations are de- 
 pendent upon the advance in chemistry of modern times. In 
 fact, hardly a single appliance used in such operations, from 
 the steam-engine which drives the drills, to the gutta-percha 
 tubes, and the india rubber suits which enable the divers to 
 descend below the water, but what are inventions or discoveries 
 which belong entirely to modern times, and enable men to-day 
 to perform operations which to the ancients would have really 
 
 been impossible. 
 
 The nitro-glycerine is contained in tin cartridge cases, like 
 
 mammoth candle moulds, ten feet long and from four to five 
 
 inches in diameter. They are connected with the battery by 
 
 wires. The divers go down and place these in the holes 
 
 which have been drilled, first pulling out the wooden plugs 
 
 wHich havj ^een placed in them after they were drilled, to 
 
SUBMARINE EXPLOSIONS. 
 
 605 
 
 keep them from getting filled with dirt. As soon as the charges 
 are placed, the diver returns to the boat, and it drops far 
 enough from the spot, to be safe from the effects of the ex- 
 plosion, and then, with a few turns of the battery, the nitro 
 glycerine explodes. Two muffled explosions are heard, the 
 one transmit-ted 
 through the water 
 and the other 
 through the air, 
 and on the instant 
 a volume of water 
 is hurled perhaps 
 fifty feet into the 
 air, while through 
 
 the mass jets of water are hurled in all 
 directions two or three times further, 
 together with fragments of rock. The 
 water subsides quickly, and round the 
 spot dead fish come floating to the top, 
 killed by the shock of the explosion. 
 At each blast the rock is broken up 
 over an area of four or five hundred 
 square feet, and the fragments are re- 
 moved by a grappling machine. putting in the charges. 
 In these submarine operations the divers use the armor 
 which the discovery of india rubber and the process of vul- 
 canizing it has made possible, enabling the diver to descend, 
 and leaving him liberty of movement enough to work. In 
 this, as in almost every other new method, there have been 
 gradual steps of improvement and development. During the 
 latter part of the last century the plan was proposed for the 
 diver to carry down with him a supply of air, compressed into 
 a reservoir which he wore on his back, inhaling the air through 
 a tube. Modi^ed arrangements of this method were in use 
 
606 
 
 ocean's story. 
 
 until, in 1830, the discovery of india-rubber afforded the op- 
 portunity which was immediately made use of, to improve the 
 diving apparatus. Various improvements, some of them pro- 
 tected by patent rights, have been made in the construction of 
 this submarine armor, but as perfect a method of making it as 
 any is that designed by two Frenchmen, M. Eouquarol, a min- 
 ing engineer, and M. Denayrouze, a lieutenant in the French 
 navy. One of the chief merits of this arrangement is that by 
 which the supply of air is furnished the diver. This appar- 
 atus the diver carries on his back, and it consists of a reser- 
 voir made of steel or iron, capable of resisting great pressure, 
 
 GRAPPLING MACHINE. 
 
 with a chamber on its top constructed to regulate the influx 
 of the air. A tube from this chamber, terminating in a mouth- 
 piece, is held between the diver's teeth. This pipe is furnished 
 with a valve permitting the expulsion of air, but opposing the 
 entrance of water. The steel reservoir is separated from the 
 chamber by a conical valve opening from the air chamber in 
 such a way as to open only by the force of exterior pressure, 
 that of the air in the reservoir tending to close it. The 
 air from the air-pump is forced into the reservoir, and from 
 this the diver supplies his needs as follows: The air-chamber 
 is closed by a movable lid, to which is attached the tail of the 
 conical valve. The diameter of the lid is a little less than the 
 int^^ri-^r diameter of the chamber, and it is covered with india- 
 
BREATHING UNDER WATER. 
 
 607 
 
 rubber so as to be air-tight. It yields to both interior and ex- 
 terior pressure, rising and falling as the case may be. When 
 exterior pressure is exerted on it, the valve is affected, com- 
 munication is opened between the air-chamber and the reservoir 
 and a portion of the compressed air from the latter flows into 
 the chamber. Should there be too much air in the chamber 
 its pressure against the movable lid keeps the valve closed. 
 
 When in use under water its operation is thus: The 
 diver by drawing his breath takes air from the chamber ; cx- 
 
 DIVERS DRESSED IN THE APPARATUS DESCRIBED. 
 
 terior pressure is exerted on the movable lid, it falls, causes 
 the valve to open, and air comes from the reservoir to estab- 
 lish the equilibrium, when the lid rises and shuts off the com- 
 munication between the air-chamber and the reservoir until 
 another inspiration on the part of the diver repeats the action 
 just described. When the workman expires, the valve in the 
 respiratory tube allows the expelled air to escape into the 
 water. This apparatus works automatically ; though the air- 
 pump may be worked irregularly, its action is regular. The 
 diver -^ec^^'ves just the quantity of air enough for a respiration, 
 
608 
 
 OCEAN S STORY. 
 
 and this reaches him at a pressure equal to that to which the 
 rest of his body is subjected, and he is therefore able to breathe 
 without effort or atteutioa. The compression of air heats it, 
 and the breathing of air thus heated is bad for the diver 
 This has been remedied by the same gentleman, by the modifi- 
 cation of the pumps by which the air is forced in the reservoir. 
 The air is cooled by being forced to pass through two layers of 
 
 DIVERS FINDING A BOX OF GOLD IN THE PORT OF MARSEILLES. 
 
 water before it reaches the reservoir ; and expanding in its 
 passage into the air-chamber it becomes again cooled. 
 
 AVith the use of this apparatus another advantage is gained. 
 When the diver is down the air he expires rises in bubbles to 
 the surface, and by the regularity with which they rise his 
 condition can be easily known. If they cease, it is known 
 that something must have happened, and that he should be 
 instantly hauled up. In the old diving dress the expired air 
 passed into the space between his body and the clothing and 
 out at a valve in the helmet, but as the excess of air supplied 
 to him escaped in this way also, it could not be told from this 
 whether the diver was alive or dead. 
 
DIVING FOR TREASURE. 609 
 
 So common has the practico of diving become, that in all 
 countries it is a regular profession. A few instances of the 
 advantages gained by it will prove interesting. 
 
 In February, 1867, a collision took place in the port of 
 Marseilles between two steamers, the Ganges and the Impera- 
 trice. The last of these lost one of her wheels, and a box of 
 gold in the officers' quarters fell out and sank in the mud. The 
 exact spot where it feel was not known. The box was black 
 and not very strong. The next day an attempt was made to 
 recover it. A lead was sunk at the supposed spot where the 
 box was lost : and two lines attached to it were knotted at 
 distances of a yard along their length. The two divers having 
 descended, took each of them one of these lines in his hand, 
 and, using the lead as a centre, walked round in gradually 
 increasing circles, searching carefully every foot of their way. 
 After working three hours in this way they found the box, 
 and restored it to the delighted owner. 
 
 Another most interesting case is that of the Hussar, an 
 
 English navy vessel, which was wrecked in Hell Gate, in New 
 
 York Harbor. On the 23d of November, 1780, during the war 
 
 of the Revolution, and while New York was in the possession 
 
 of the English, a .British fleet entered the harbor. Among 
 
 them, as convoys, were the Mercury and the Hussar. The 
 
 first had on board £384,000, mostly in guineas, and the second 
 
 £580,000, together amounting to about $4,800,000. This large 
 
 sum was intended to pay the English troops then in this 
 
 country. The next day the whole of this money was placed 
 
 on board the Hussar, and she got ready to proceed to New 
 
 London, Connecticut, which was then a place for the British 
 
 rendezvous. Before starting she also took on board seventy 
 
 prisoners, from the prison hulks in the bay, who were confined 
 
 with irons on the gun deck below. What it was intended to do 
 
 with these unhappy prisoners is not known, nor does it appear 
 
 from the record* However, thus freighted the Hussar hauled 
 39 
 
610 ocean's story. 
 
 from the dock, and under the charge of a negro pilot, who, a 
 few days before, had safely carried a frigate through Ilell 
 Gate, started on her way through that dangerous passage. 
 When she was almost through, when open water lay only a 
 few rods before her, she struck, drifted off, commenced to fill 
 rapidly, and while the question of backing her was being dis- 
 cussed, she struck again, and soon settled, and sliding from 
 the rocks, sank in ninety feet of water. The officers and crew 
 escaped, but the seventy prisoners, chained below to the gun 
 deck, sank with the vessel, without an attempt having been 
 made to save them. 
 
 The vessel herself was a large one, carrying thirty-two guns, 
 and measuring two hundred and six feet in length by fifty- 
 eight in width. In 1794 an expedition from England came 
 over to New York, and for two seasons attempted in vain to 
 raise the wreck by grappling, when they were forbidden to 
 work any longer by the Government of the United States. 
 In 1819 another attempt was made by an English company, 
 who prosecuted their work with a diving bell. The strength 
 of the current here made their efforts of no avail, and they 
 abandoned the attempt. Since then the possible chance of 
 the four million doUars has tempted various other companies 
 to try, and in turn they each abandoned the attempt in despair 
 of success. "Within the past four years, however, a new com- 
 pany has been at work, using the newly -invented submarine 
 armor, and during this time a sloop has been lying, dismantled 
 »-iit firmly anchored, about a hundred yards from the N"ew 
 York side of the East River, three-quarters of a mile above 
 Ward's Island. This is the spot where the Hussar sank, with 
 her prow pointing north. 
 
 The diver's suit consists of, first, a pair of thick rubber 
 leggings and boots combined. These end at the waist in an 
 iron band furnished with iron clamps. Straps of lead weigh- 
 ing together ni'^pty pourds, and which are made to fit about 
 
ARMED AGAINST THE SEA. 
 
 611 
 
 his ankles and waist, are intended to give him weight enough 
 to withstand the current. On the upper part of his body he 
 wears a large copper helmet, with a strong ring-bolt on the 
 top, and below which, securely fastened to it, is a rubber 
 jacket, ending in an iron band, so constructed as to meet that 
 of the leggings and be tightly fastened to it. The sleeves of 
 
 ARMING THE DIVER. 
 
 this jacket are gathered round his wrists and tightly tied. 
 The jacket is of a more pliable stuff than the leggings, so as to 
 enable him to more easily use his hands and arms. The diver 
 puts on his leggings, and then a hook, attached to the end of a 
 rope passed over a pulley, and worked by the engine, is hooked 
 into the i»nr on the top of the helmet, and this, with the 
 
612 
 
 OCEAN^S STORY. 
 
 jacket, is hoisted and let down over bis head. Having worked 
 himself into the sleeves, he is as helpless, with the weight of 
 his armor, as an old knight encased in iron was. The front 
 of his helmet has a glass door, covered with wire, in it, 
 which is opened for him, while his companions complete his 
 
 CASTING OPP THE DIVER. 
 
 toilet by tying his jacket sleeves round his wrists ; adjusting 
 the iron bands of his leggings and jacket, and screwing them 
 firmly together ; and then fitting on his leaden anklets and 
 girdle, screwing on the pipe through which his supply of air 
 is provided, and then shutting the door of his helmet, and se- 
 curely fastening it, he is read" to be cast off. In his hand the 
 
SIGNALING FROM BELOW. 
 
 613 
 
 diver carries down a slender cord, witli which he signals his 
 wants when below. He is slowly lowered down to the bottom, 
 ninety feet below, where his work is pressing, since he has 
 only the hour before and the hour after the turn of the tide. 
 While he is down those above are as intent upon his welfare 
 
 DIVEB DOWN. 
 
 as he is himself. He who has the signal cord, holds the most 
 responsible position. There is a prearranged code of signals, 
 for " more air," " pull me up," " more tools," " pull up the 
 bucket, " and so on. Ilis work below has been the destruction 
 of the heavy frame work of the vessel, and right well has it 
 been done; there is but little left of her but the worm-eaten 
 
614 ocean's story. 
 
 and water-locfored knees and beams which formed her bottom 
 and the chief task of the diver now is, with pick and shovel, to 
 break up the hard conglomerate of sand and gravel which haa 
 been compacted by the action of the water and the rusting iron 
 The only sense the diver has to guide him in these depths is 
 that of feeling, for at this depth it is as dark as midnight. The 
 material he thus collects is brought to the surface in a bucket 
 and carefully looked over. 
 
 This work is done at the cost of the Frigate Ilussar Com 
 pany, an incorporated company, with a capital stock dividei* 
 into forty-eight thousand shares of one hundred dollars each, 
 corresponding to the amount of treasure said to be in the run 
 of the Hussar, and since 1866 it has been steadily carried on. 
 The mass of gold has not yet been found, but from time to 
 time in the loads of mud and sand a gold-piece is found. A 
 1 ump of silver made of various coins, agglomerated by the ac- 
 tion of the water, has been brought up, having some gold coins 
 set in it. Cannon, cannon balls, chains, manacles, piles of gun- 
 flints, silver plate, pewter dishes, the ship's bell, and quantities 
 of glass and earthen ware, with numbers of human bones, have 
 been rescued from the deep. Various museums in the ccantry 
 have specimens of relics brought up from this historic ship. 
 One day a brass box was brought up, and when opened found 
 to be full of jewels, necklaces, ear-rings, and pearls of great 
 value. Being left for a moment on the deck of the salvage 
 schooner, it disappeared, and the second searoi for it has 
 proved more fruitless than the first. 
 
 During the Crimean wa*-, a line of ships and frigates was 
 sunk by the Russians in the harbor of Sebastop 1, in the pas- 
 sage between forts Catharine and Alexander. When forced 
 to leave the town, others remaining in the har\K>r were sunk, 
 i o that at least 100 vessels, representing an estimated value of 
 batween fifty and sixty millions of dollars, were sunk. To 
 prevent if possible the action of the sea upon their machinery 
 
riVIXa IN SEBASTOPOL. 
 
 615 
 
 and metallic portions, these were covered with tar or tallow. 
 When the war was over, an American engineer, named 
 Go wan, went to Russia and undertook the job of raising these 
 vessels, after having gone down himself in a diving suit, 
 and satisfied himself of their condition, and that he could 
 recover some of them entire and others in parts. In this 
 Work use was made of an enormous pump, raising nearly 1,000 
 tons of water a minute. With this, after closing as well as 
 could be, the port holes and other openings, another pipe for 
 the introduction of air was arranged, and the pump set in 
 action. This powerful machine emptied the vessel of water 
 
 CANNON, BELL AND BONES BROUGHT UP FROM THE WRECK OF THE UUSSAR. 
 
 in a very short time, so that the air flowed into it by the other 
 pipe, and the vessel rose of itself to the surface. An enormous 
 chain, each link of which weighed over two hundred pounds, 
 was used to help lift them, when necessary, or alone when it 
 was found most easy to use alone, 
 
 A very important use to which the submarine armor is 
 often put, is that of enabling the diver to clean the bottom of o 
 vessel, below water, while she is moving. This is a great con 
 venience, as it saves the delay and expense of being obliged 
 to place her in a dry dock. A rope ladder, with rungs of wood 
 or iron, is stretched under the ship, passing down one side 
 and up the other. It is thus drawn tight, and the diver de 
 
DIVING IN MOBILE BAY. 617 
 
 scends. A bar, tied at each end witli a rope, ending in a hook 
 is hung by the hooks to the rungs, and gives him a seat, leav- 
 ing his hands free. lie may also fill his air- tight suit with 
 air, and thus be partially sustained against the side of the ship. 
 The sailors of the U.S. ship Colorado repaired, at Cherbourg, 
 the injuries suffered by the monitor Miantonomoh, in five 
 days, though the weather was rough. The French iron- plated 
 ram, Taureau, had her bottom scraped and entirely cleaned 
 
 CAULKING A VESSEL. 
 
 of sea-weed and shells in 109 hours of labor, with a great 
 increase of her speed. 
 
 In Mobile Bay some of the most successful diving opera- 
 tions have been carried on. About a sunken vessel there, 
 it became necessary to sink a row of piles, into the bed of 
 quicksand which had gathered round her. On trial the 
 ordinary pile-driving machine was found incompetent to do 
 this. Under the strokes of the falling weight the elastic 
 sand rebounded, and the pile was thrown out. This unex- 
 pected difficulty -^as met in a simple, but most effective way. 
 A suctinn-pump was rigged up, and the hose tied to the end 
 
618 ocean's story. 
 
 of a pile ; wlien the pile touched the bottom the pump was 
 set to work, and the suction bored a hole in the sand, into 
 which the pile fell with a rapidity that was startling. "When 
 the pile had been sufficiently sunk, the hose was withdrawn, 
 and the sand settling round the pile, held it as fast as though 
 it had been cemented in. 
 
 During the late civil war the monitor Milwaukee was 
 struck by a concealed torpedo in Mobile harbor and sunk. 
 During the war these torpedos sunk three of the monitors in 
 this harbor, besides several dispatch boats, which met the 
 same fate. The Milwaukee was sunk nearly due east from 
 the city, and during the continuance of hostilities an effort 
 was made to rescue her armament and her machinery. Her 
 guns cost the Government $30,000 each. A party of divers 
 were engaged, who were chiefly mechanics and engineers, 
 who were exempt from military service in the Confederacy, 
 but who sympathised fully with its cause. The duty was one 
 of singular danger, since it had not only those peculiar to sub- 
 marine diving, but as she lay within range, and hostilities still 
 continued, the divers while below, though safe there from being 
 hit, were yet in danger of even a worse death, from the injury 
 which might be done to the air-pump above, upon which 
 their supply of air depended, and which was of necessity 
 exposed. 
 
 The work below was also peculiarly arduous. The hulk was 
 crowded with the entangled machinery of sixteen engines, 
 cuddies, posts, spars, levers, hatches, stanchions, floating 
 trunks, boxes, and the confusion worse confounded by the 
 awful, mysterious gloom of the water, which is not night or 
 darkness, but the absence of any ray of light to touch the 
 optic nerve. The sense of touch is the only reliance, and the 
 life-line is the only guide of the diver. The officers and iJien 
 of the ship were anxious for the recovery of their baggage, 
 and offeiet^ the divers salvage for its rescue. One of the 
 
PROFITLES^V LABOR. 619 
 
 am mS tr 
 
 officers was very anxious to obtain mS trunk, which was in a 
 remote state-room, and offered fifty dollars reward for it. 
 The diver who undertook the task has described the difficul- 
 ties he encountered in its execution. To find the state-room 
 required that he should descend below the familiar turret- 
 chamber, through the inextricable confusion of the tangled 
 machinery in the engine room, groping among floating and 
 sunken objects. By touch alone he was to find a chest, to handle 
 it in that thickening gloom, to carry it, push it, move it through 
 that labyrinth, to a point where it could be raised, and through 
 all this he had to carry his life-line and his air-hose. Three 
 times the line became entangled in the machinery, and three 
 times he had patiently to follow it up, find the place, and 
 release it. Then the door of the state-room shut when he was 
 in it, and round and round that little chamber he groped, in 
 the dark, before he could find it again. All parts of the cham- 
 ber seemed the same, a smooth slimy wall, glutinous with 
 the jelly-like deposit of the sea-water. The line, entangled, 
 became, instead of a guide, a further source of error, and the 
 time was passing away, and life was dependent upon the con- 
 tinuity of the tube. There was no chance to hasten ; with 
 tedious and patient care he must follow the life-line, find its 
 entanglements and slowly loosen them, then carefully taking 
 up the slack follow the straightened line to the door. Nor 
 must he forget the chest, slowly he heaves and pushes, now 
 at the box, now at the line, which catches on every project- 
 ing knob, handle, peg or point of the machinery. Finally, 
 however, his cool-headed patience is rewarded with success. 
 He gets the chest to the open air and restores it to its owner ; 
 but in so doing he has made the worst mistake of all ; he has 
 mistaken the character of the man ; he never paid, or offered 
 to pay, the fifty dollars. 
 
 Another instance of cool determination in the unforseen 
 dangcers of sub<narine divine; occurred to a diver who was 
 
620 OCEAN'S STORY. 
 
 engaged in the recovery of the valuable dry dock at Peusacola 
 Bay. In the passionate destractiveness which was so violently 
 manifested by the South at the commencement of the civil 
 war, as children in their rage destroy their own playthings, this 
 structure was burned to the water's edge and sunk. Afterward 
 a company was formed to raise it. It was built in compartments, 
 and this method of construction, which originally was intended 
 to prevent it from sinking, now served to prevent it from 
 floating. Each one of the small water-tight compartments, 
 now they were filled, kept it down. It was necessary to break 
 into the lower side of each of them, and allow the water to 
 flow evenly into them. 
 
 The interior of the hall was full of these boxes. Huge 
 beams and cross- ties intersected each other at right angles, 
 forming the frame- work of this honej^combed interior. It 
 was necessary to break through the outside of these, and it 
 was a most difficult and tedious job, under water. The net- 
 work of beams was so close that the passage between barely 
 admitted the diver's body. Into one of these holes the divei 
 crawled. The work of tearing off the casing occupied him an 
 hour or more, and when it was done, he thought to back out 
 of his place. But he found he could not. The armor about 
 his head and shoulders, acting like the barb of a hook, caughfc 
 him ; he could pass in, but he could not pass out. In vain 
 attempts to twist himself out he spent so much time that the 
 men above began to be alarmed and increased their work at 
 the pump. The air came surging down, and swelled up his 
 armor, so that he was more elYectually caught than ever. 
 He signalled for the pump to stop. The cock at the back of 
 his helmet, to let the air out, was out of his reach. Ilis only 
 chance was to open his dress round the wrists, where the 
 aleeves were tied. This be set out to do, but suddenly found 
 himself affected by breathing over the air in his armor. The 
 <»arboniied air began to affect him, making his mind dreamy, 
 
A NARROW ESCAPE. 621 
 
 and inducing an intense desire to sleep. This he could over- 
 come only by a resolute effort of his will. Meanwhile his 
 tugging at his wrists had been successful ; the air had escaped 
 and lessened his bulk. With the energy of despair he makes 
 one more supreme effort. It is successful, and he was drawn 
 to the surface dazed, drowsy and only half conscious of the 
 peril he had undergone. 
 
 These instances, however, are exceptional, and arose only 
 from their peculiar conditions. At other times there is a 
 pleasure in diving, thus protected ; and the divers consider it, 
 as it is, the only true way to visit the submarine world. 
 The first sensation in descending is the sudden, bursting roar 
 of cascades in the ears, caused by the air driven into the hel- 
 met from the air-pump. As the flexible hose has to be strong 
 enough to bear a pressure of twenty-five to fifty pounds to the 
 square inch, the force of the current can be estimated. The 
 drum of the ear yields to the strong external pressure. The 
 mouth opens involuntarily, the air rushes in the eustachian 
 tube and strikes the drum, which snaps back to it^ normal 
 state with a sharp, pistol-like crack. The strain is for a mo- 
 ment relieved, to be again renewed, and again relieved by the 
 same process. 
 
 Peering through the goggle eyes of glass arranged about 
 his helmet, the diver sees the curious, strange beauty of the 
 world about him, not as the bather sees it, blurred and indis- 
 tinct, but clearly, and in its own calm splendor. The first 
 thought is unspeakable admiration of the miraculous beauty 
 of every thing about him. Above him is a pure golden can- 
 opy, with a rare glimmering lustrousness, something like 
 the soft, dewy, effulgence which is seen when the sun-Hght 
 breaks through an afternoon's shower. The soft delicacy of 
 that pure straw yellow, which prevades everything, is crossed 
 and lighted by tints and glimmering hues of accidental and 
 complementary colors, which are indescribably elegant. The 
 
622 ocean's story. 
 
 floor of the sea rises like a golden carpet inclining gently to 
 the surface, in appearance. This is perhaps the first thing 
 which calls attention to the fact that he is in a new medium, and 
 that the familiar light comes altered in its nature. Looking 
 horizontally around him a new and beautiful wealth of color 
 is seen. It is at first a delicate blue, but it soon deepens into 
 a rich violet. As the eye dwells upon it, it darkens to indigo, and 
 deepens into a vivid blue-black, solid and adamantine. It is 
 all around him, he seems encased in the solid masonry of the 
 waters. 
 
 The transfiguration of familiar objects is curiously wonder- 
 ful. The hulk of the ship seems encrusted with emerald and 
 flossy mosses, and glittering with diamonds, gold, and all man- 
 ner of precious stones. A pile of brick becomes a huge hill 
 of crystal, decked with jewels. A ladder becomes silver, 
 crusted with emeralds. The spars, the masts, and yards, when- 
 ever a point or angle catches the light, multiply the reflected 
 splendor. Every shadow gives the impression of a bottomless 
 depth. The sea seems loop-holed with cavities that pierce the 
 solid globe. There is no gradation of perspective. 
 
 In the mouth of a great river, the light is affected with the 
 various densities of the different media. At the proper depth, 
 the line is clearly seen where these meet, sharply defined. The 
 salt water sinks to the bottom, and over it flows the fresh wa- 
 ter of the river. If this last contains much sediment, it ob- 
 scures the depths like a cloud. In freshets, this becomes a 
 total darkness. Even on a clear, sunshiny day, and in clear 
 water, the shadow of any object in the sea is unlike any shade 
 in the atmosphere. It throws a black curtain over what it 
 covers, entirely obscuring it. Standing within the shadow, is 
 like looking out from a dark tunnel; around, everything is 
 dark, while things in the distance can be seen clearly. 
 
 The cabin of a sunken vessel is dark beyond any ordinary 
 conception of darkness, nor do its windows, though they may 
 
DRIVING A NAIL UNDER WATER. 623 
 
 be seen, alter this darkness. The distrust of his sight grows 
 stronger in the diver with his experience. The eye is accus- 
 tomed to judge of form, proportion and distance, in a thinner 
 medium, and is continually deceived in a denser one, until ex- 
 perience has taught the diver how to estimate rightly the different 
 impressions. Perhaps the most striking illustration of this 
 difference, the diver finds in trying to drive a nail under 
 water. If depending on sight, untaught by experience, he is 
 sure to fail, lie will instinctively strike just where the nail 
 is not. For this reason, even the electric light below the 
 water, does not furnish all that is wanting : the familiar medium 
 of the upper world is wanting, and this the electric light does 
 not supply. By practice, therefore, the diver learns to depend 
 entirely upon the sense of touch, and with experience, becomes 
 able to engage in works under the sea which require labor and 
 skill, with the easy assurance of a blind man who finds his 
 way with confidence along a crowded thoroughfare. 
 
 The conveyance of sound through water is so difficult, that 
 under the sea has been called the world of silence. But this 
 is not strictly correct. Some fish have the power of making 
 sounds, and they all have simple and imperfect auditory organs. 
 To the diver, however, save for the cascade of air through his 
 air-pipe, the sea is silent. No shout, or word from above, 
 reaches him. A cannon shot is dull, and muffled, and if dis- 
 tant, he does not hear it. A sharp, quick sound, especially if 
 produced by striking something on the water, can be heard. 
 The sound of driving a nail on the ship above, or a sharp 
 tap on the diving-bell below, can be heard. Conversation 
 between two divers, below the water, is, by the ordinary 
 methods, impossible, but by touching their helmets together, 
 they can converse, the vibrations being transmitted through 
 the metallic substance, and to the air inside. 
 
 The diver has also a new revelation of the character and 
 beaut V of fish and other inhabitants of the sea when he thus 
 
624: ocean's story. 
 
 meets them at home. The exudations covering them, is there 
 a brilliant varnish. Their lustrous colors are beautiful in the 
 fish market, but when in their native element, they are seen 
 full of life, nimble and playful, they appear to be the most 
 graceful creatures, and cannot be observed unmoved. The 
 eyes of the fish are visible as far as the fish can be seen, and 
 its whole animate existence is expressed in them. In the 
 minnow and sun-perch there is a fearless familiarity, a social 
 and frank intimacy with their novel visitor which suprises 
 him. They crowd around him, curiously touch him, and 
 regard all his movements with a frank, lively interest. Nor 
 are the larger fish shy. The sheep- head, red and black gro- 
 per, sea-trout and other well-known fish receive the diver 
 with fearless curiosity. In their large, round eyes lie reads 
 evidence of intelligence and curious wonder, which at times 
 is startling from its entirely human expression. No f^aithful 
 dog, or pet animal could express a franker interest in its 
 eyes. 
 
 Their curiosity is expressed, not only in their eyes, but in 
 their movements. They share with mankind the desire to 
 touch what is novel to them. A diver was approached by a 
 large catfish, who came up and touched him with its cold 
 nose. The man involuntarily threw up his hand, and struck 
 the palm on the fish's sharp fin. There was an instant strug- 
 gle before the fish wrenched itself free, and then it only swam 
 off a short distance, staring with its black eyes at the intruder 
 as if it wished to ask who he was, and what he wanted. 
 
 A long stay by the diver in a single place enables him to 
 test the intelligence of the fishes who visit him. A diver, 
 whose occupation kept him in one spot, was continually sur- 
 rounded, while at work, by a school of gropers, averaging 
 about a foot in length. Uaving identified one of them who 
 had suffered from an accident, he noticed that it was a daily 
 visitor. After they had satisfied their first curiosity, the gro- 
 
MAKING FRIENDS OF THE FISH. 625 
 
 pers apparently decided tliat their novel visitor was harmless 
 and clumsy, but useful in assisting them to get their food. 
 They feed on Crustacea and marine worms, which hide under 
 the rocks, on mosses, and other objects on the bottom. In 
 raising anything from the mud a dozen of these fish would 
 thrust their heads into the hole for their food, before the 
 diver had removed his hand. They followed him about, ey- 
 ing his motions, dashing in advance, or around in sport, and 
 evidently displaying a liking for their new friend. Pleased 
 with such unexpected familiarity, the diver brought food wit'h 
 him, on his return, and fed them from his hand as one feeds a 
 flock of chickens. Sometimes two would get hold of the 
 same morsel, and then would result a trial of strength, accom- 
 panied with much flashing and glitter of shining scales. But 
 no matter how called off, their interest and curiosity remained 
 with the diver. They would return, pushing their noses 
 about him, with an apparent desire to caress him, and bob 
 down into the treasures of worm and shell fish his labor dis- 
 closed. He became convinced that they were sportive, and 
 indulged in play for the fun of it. This curious intimacy 
 was continued for weeks: that they knew and expected the 
 diver at his usual hour, was a conclusion he could not deny, 
 since they, unless driven away by some other fish who preyed 
 on them, were always in regular attendance during his hours 
 of work. 
 
 The depth at which men can descend in a suit of submarine 
 armor, has been tested by experiment with the following 
 results : The diver can breathe, and his organs may retain 
 their normal condition, and he preserve his presence of mind, 
 to a depth of 130 feet, but when he exceeds this depth by ten 
 or twenty feet, the external pressure causes physiological 
 effects on his organs, independent of his will. One hundred 
 and thirty feet is therefore the depth which experiment haa 
 
 shown to be t^e greatest at which any prolonged submarine 
 40 
 
020 
 
 OCEANS STORY. 
 
 work can be performed. Within this limit, security to life 
 is perfectly compatible with an attempt to recover any ship 
 or sunken treasure which will pay the expenses. 
 
 THE NOBTUERN DIVER. 
 
STAR FISH. 
 
 CHAPTER LY. 
 
 THK OCKAK AS A FIELD — THE VARIOUS CROPS IT YIELDS — THE SPONOB— TRANSPl AWT- 
 INQ SPONGES — CORAL FISHING — THE DISCOVERY OF THE NATURE OK COHAL — ITS RB- 
 CEPTION BY NATURALISTS — OYSTER FISHERY— THE OYSTER A SOCIAL ANIMAL — THB 
 YOUNG OYSTER — OYSTER CULTURE — DREDGING FOR OYSTERS — THK AMERICAN OYSTER 
 FISHERY— PEARL OYSTERS— PEARL FISHERIES — THEIR VALUE — SHARK FISHING— BUT- 
 TLE FISHING. 
 
 Though tlie ocean may appear to be a barren waste oi 
 water to the farmer, it has by no means this aspect to the 
 fisherman. To him it is the field in which he labors, and 
 the crops he gathers from it are as diversified in character, 
 and as important for satisfying the demands of the world, as 
 those which the farmer raises. And further than this, the 
 labors of the fisherman have helped to increase our knowledge 
 of the composition and character of the sea, of the habits of the 
 organized beings found in it, as the labors of the farmer have 
 done the same thing for the soil, and the products which it bears. 
 
 In considering the various fisheries of the ocean, naturally 
 
 that of the sponge, as one of the lowest forms of animal life, 
 
 comes first in order. Science is hardly yet decided in its 
 
 views concerning the organization and development of these 
 
 obscure and complex creatures, and despite the investigations 
 
 of modern naturalists, their position in the scale of animal 
 
 lite is still problematical, and their internal organization is still 
 
 known only imperfectly. Dr. Bowerbank in his work on 
 
 627 
 
BPOIfOE FISniNO. 
 
THE VARIETIES OF SPONGES. 629 
 
 British Sponges, published in 1866, describes nearly 200 
 species, but this number by no means includes them all. They 
 are of all sizes, and of all possible diversity of shape. At pre 
 sent the chief sponge fisliing is carried on in the Grecian 
 Archipelago and on the coast of Syria. The boat*s crew con- 
 sists of four or five men who, between June and October, seek 
 the sponges under the clift's and ledges of the rocks. Those 
 obtained in shallow waters are considered inferior; the best 
 are obtained at a depth ranging from twenty to thirty fathoms. 
 The poorer sponges are taken from the shallow waters with 
 harpoons, but are injured by this method of capture. The 
 others are taken by hand. The diver descends to the bottom, 
 and can stay there from a minute to a minute and a half, and 
 carefully detaches the sponges from the rocks with a knife. 
 
 Sponge fishing is also carried on in other parts of the Med- 
 iterranean, but without any foresight, so that the sponges will, 
 in time, be exhausted. To guard against this contingency, it 
 has been proposed to transplant and acclimatize the sponges 
 upon the coast of France and Algeria, where the composition 
 of the water is the same as that upon the coast of Syria, and 
 where the difference of temperature would prove no impedi- 
 ment to their flourishing. In fact, the farther north the 
 sponges grow, the finer and compacter are their tissue. By 
 use of a submarine boat, supplied with air by a force-pump, 
 it was proposed to collect such specimens, as were best suited 
 for the purpose, removing the rocks with them; and also to 
 collect the young sponges, during the months of April and 
 May, shortly after they have commenced their independent ex- 
 istence, and before they have anchored themselves to some 
 permanent abode, and transport them to a favorable locality. 
 The French Acclimatization Society, in 1862, gave a commission 
 to M. Lamiral, who had passed years in the study of sponges, 
 and who has published an excellent work upon their habits, to 
 collect th^ germs, and transplant them to the coast of France. 
 
630 ocean's story. 
 
 Thougli rp to tills time, the attempts wliicli have been made 
 to do this have not met with perfect success, yet the results 
 already gained, show that with further experience, persever- 
 ance will attain its desired end. 
 
 Sponges are also fished for in the Red Sea. On the Bahama 
 Banks, and in the Gulf of Mexico, sponges are taken by Mex- 
 icans, Spaniards, and Americans, in shallow water. A mast 
 is sunk at the side of the boat, and the diver descends this ; 
 gathering the sponges found near the bottom of the pole. 
 
 Next in order of fishing in deep sea, comes coral fishing. 
 The ancients believed that the coral was a plant, but it is now 
 known that the coral is constructed by a family of polyps liv- 
 ing together, and constituting a polypidom. It abounds in the 
 waters of the Mediterranean where upon rocky beds like a sub- 
 _,-^inarine forest, the red coral, the most brilliant and celebrated 
 of all coral, grows at various depths, rarely less than five fath- 
 oms, or more than one hundred. Each polypidom resembles a 
 red leafless shrub, bearing delicate little star-shaped white 
 flowers. The branches and trunk of this little tree, are the 
 parts common to the family, the flowers are the individual 
 polyps. The branches show a soft, reticulated crust, or 
 bark, full of small holes, which are the cells of the polyps 
 and they arc permeated by a milky juice. Beneath the crust 
 is the coral, hard as marble, and remarkable for its striped sur- 
 face, its red color, and the fine polish it will take. The fishing 
 is chiefly carried on by sailors from Genoa, Leghorn, and Na- 
 ples, and is a very laborious occupation. The barks engaged 
 in it are small, ranging from ten to fifteen tons. The coral is 
 fished with an apparatus called an engine, consisting of cross 
 bars of wood tied and bolted together at the centre. Below 
 this is a large stone with nets or bags attached. Each engine 
 has a number of these nets, and when let down into the sea, 
 they spread out. The coral grows on the tops of the rocks, 
 ^nd the object is to scrape it off into these bags. By experi- 
 
OOSAL nSHINO OFF THK COAST OF SICILY. 
 
632 ocean's story. 
 
 ence, the fishermen come to learn the favorable places for cap- 
 turing the coral. "When such a spot is reached, the engine is 
 thrown overboard, and as soon as it reaches the bottom, the 
 speed of the vessel is slackened, and the capstan, for hauling it 
 up is manned. In this way the the engine is dragged over the 
 bottom, becomes entangled with the rocks, and the nets catch 
 the coral. Sometimes rocks of lar^e size are broucrht on board. 
 
 Up to the last century the opinion of antiquity that coral 
 was a vegetable product was accepted by all naturalists, 
 though no one attempted an explanation how it grew. This 
 opinion was confirmed when the Count de Marsigli announced 
 his discovery of the flowers of the coral plant, and this an- 
 nouncement was considered the final proof of the vegetable 
 origin of coral. In 1723, however, Jean Andre de Peyssonnel, 
 a pupil of Marsigli's, and a student of medicine and natural 
 history at Paris, was sent to Marseilles, his native place, by 
 the Academy of Sciences, to study the coral in its living con- 
 dition, and continued his studies on the northern coast of 
 Africa, where he was sent by the French Government. 
 
 lie soon discovered, by a series of careful and delicate ex- 
 periments, that the coral was an animal product, and that the 
 supposed flowers were the expanded little animals who build 
 up the coral, and who form one of the lowest forms in the 
 series of organized life on the globe. Peyssonnel says: "I 
 put the flower of the coral in vases full of sea- water, and I 
 saw that what had been taken for a flower of this pretended 
 plant was, in truth, only an animal, like a sea nettle or polyp 
 I had the pleasure of seeing the feet of the creature move 
 about, and having put the vase full of water, which contained 
 the coral, in a gentle heat over the fire, all the small animals 
 seemed to expand. The polyp extended his feet, and showed 
 what M. de Marsigli and I had taken for the petals of a flower. 
 The calyx of this pretended flower, in short, was the animal, 
 wh'^h advanced and issued out of his cell." 
 
OYSTER FISHERY. 633 
 
 This discovery was received by the naturalists of the time 
 with contempt and ridicule ; so much so that Peyssonnel, dis- 
 gusted, retired into obscurity, leaving his manuscripts in the 
 Museum of Natural History in Paris, where they still remain, 
 unpublished. Before his death, however, in his retirement, he 
 had the satisfaction of seeing his views accepted, and some of 
 those who had most ridiculed them on their first presentation, 
 become the most enthusiastic and effective advocates of them. 
 
 Besides the coral fished for as we have described, the coral 
 polyp constructs islands, and carries on labors which very 
 materially affect the condition of the ocean and the form of the 
 land, concerning which we will have occasion to speak else- 
 where. 
 
 Another fishery which may be fitly mentioned here is the 
 oyster fishery. There are several varieties of the oyster. 
 Those usually eaten in France are the common oyster {Ostrea 
 edulis\ and the horse foot oyster {0. hippopus). The oysters 
 of the Mediterranean are the rose-colored oyster {0. rosacea\ 
 and the milky oyster (0. lcLcteola\ with the small and little 
 known crested oyster [0. instata\ and the folded oyster {0. 
 plicata). On the Corsican coast the oysters are called foliate 
 {Olamleosd). In France the Cancale and Ostend oysters are chiefly 
 noted. When the first of these has been fed for some time in 
 the parks or beds, and has assumed a greenish color, it is 
 known as the Narenna oyster, from the name of the park in 
 the Bay of Scudre. 
 
 Natural oyster beds occur in every sea where the coast 
 affords the proper conditions with a shelving and not too rocky 
 bottom. In France the beds of Rochelle, Rochefort, the isles 
 of Re and Oleron, the bay of St. Brieuc, Cancale and Gran- 
 ville are the most famous. On the Danish coast there are 
 forty or fifty beds on the west coast of Schleswig, the best 
 lying between the small islands of Sylt, Arazon, Fohr, Pel- 
 worm and N^rdstrand. The oyster beds of England extend 
 
634 ocean's stort. 
 
 from Gravesend, in the estuary of the Thames and midway 
 along the Kentish coast, and in the estuary of the Coluc and 
 other small streams on the Essex coast. The Frith of Forth 
 is also famous for its oyster beds. The product of these beds 
 has diminished in recent times; according to some authorities 
 from too improvident and persistent dredging, but Mr. Buck- 
 land attributes the decrease in the yield to sudden changes in 
 the temperature at the critical period when the spat, or young 
 oysters, are just formed, rather than to over-dredging 
 
 The United States is more abundantly furnished with oyster 
 beds than any other country. They extend along almost the 
 entire coast. Those of Virginia are estimated to comprise 
 nearly 2,000,000 of acres. The sea-board of Georgia is fnmous 
 for its immense supplies, while the whole 115 miles of Long 
 Island is occupied with them. 
 
 The oyster is one of the lowest forms of the mollusk. Its 
 mouth opens right into its stomach, which is surrounded by 
 its liver, permeated by a yellow liquid, the bile. It may thus 
 be said that they have their stomach and intestine in the liver, 
 the mouth upon the stomach and the opening of the intestine 
 in the back. They have a heart which circulates a colorless 
 blood. They breathe at the bottom of sea, having an organ 
 which separates from the water the small amount of oxygen 
 it contains. Their respiratory organs are two pair of gills, or 
 branchiae, curved and formed by a double series of very deli- 
 cate canals placed close together, resembling the teeth of a fine 
 comb. This apparatus, like the mouth, is hidden under the 
 fold of the mantle. They have no brain, but a ganglion of 
 nerves, a whitish substance situated near their mouths. From 
 this originate the nerves, which branch off to the region of 
 the liver and stomach ; here they rc-unite in a second ganglion 
 which is placed behind tlic liver. The nerves of the mouth 
 and its tentacles ori^^inate in the first <j:an<Tlion, those of the 
 respiratory organs in the second. It has no sense of sight 
 
THE OYSTER A SOCIAL ANIMAL. 635 
 
 or hearing, the sense of touch is all that it has, and this resides 
 in the tentacles of the mouth. Its taste, if it has any, must 
 be very feeble. Its powers are most limited; imprisoned for- 
 ever in its shell, it has no power of locomotion, and being 
 without any distinction of sex, its wants or desires must be 
 very few. 
 
 Still the oyster appears to be a social animal, and loves to 
 gather together in great numbers, so that despite their appa- 
 rently low grade of intelligence, we cannot say that they have 
 not sympathetic feelings. Uniting as they do both sexes in 
 each individual, the oyster's organs of reproduction are visi- 
 ble only at the period they are in use. Their young are pro- 
 duced from eggs, which are produced between the folds of their 
 mantle, and in the midst of their respiratory organs. The 
 number of these eggs is prodigious. According to some au- 
 thorities the number produced by a single oyster reaches 
 10,000,000. Naturalists, however, at present consider this 
 estimate too high, and limit it at about 2,000,000 for each in- 
 dividual. The eggs are yellow, are hatched in the mantle, and 
 when the embryo leaves its parent it can breathe. The spawn- 
 ing time is from June to September. The oyster differs from 
 most shell-fish in that when the young leave the parent they 
 can support themselves; ordinarily the shell-fish throw out 
 their eggs committing them to chance for their protection. In 
 the spawning season an oyster bed is the most interesting 
 place ; each oyster is throwing out a whole army of descend- 
 ants, filling the water with a cloud of living dust, so that the 
 sea is clouded with the spat as it is called. 
 
 Under the microscope the spat is seen to be provided with 
 a shell, and with vibratory cils which enable it to swim. 
 When the current carries it against any stationary body, it im- 
 mediately adheres to it, the cils disappear and the young oys- 
 ter, becoming fixed, commences to develop. It takes three 
 years for them to attain their full size. While the ppat is 
 
(J36 OYSTER FARMING. 
 
 swimming about, before becoming fixed, it is said tliat if any- 
 .hing alarm them they seek refuge again within the maternal 
 chell. Such prolific production would soon stock the whole 
 sea, were it not for the fact that the young are feeble swim- 
 mers, and that millions of them are annually swept away and 
 lost by the current, or fall a prey to the numerous animals 
 which feed upon them. 
 
 The favorite place for the oyster is on the shore, in water 
 not very deep and free from currents ; here they they are very 
 prolific. The idea of breeding them is as old as the Eomans, 
 and to-day the planting of oyster beds, and fishing from them 
 
 FAGGOTS SUSPENDED TO RECEIVE OYSTER SPAT. 
 
 gives occupation to thousands. Some of the oyster beds of 
 France which were nearly exhausted twenty years ago have 
 been made again very productive by attention and care. The 
 plan of suspending faggots upon which the spawn should ad- 
 here, has been found very successful. From the Bay of St. 
 Brieuco two faggots, taken up at random, were found to contain 
 about 20,000 young oysters, ranging in size from one to three 
 inches in diameter. Their exhibition excited astonishment ; 
 they looked like leafy branches, each leaf being a living oyster. 
 \\\ the island of Re oyster farming is in full operation. It 
 i.s calculated that the beds contain 600 oysters to the square 
 yard, the majority of marketable condition, making a total of 
 878,000,000 in these beds alone. In the United States, the 
 
MODES OF OYSTER FISHINQ. 637 
 
 prodiictiveiiess of the beds is almost iaestira able, and yet, despite 
 the immense number of oysters yearly brought to market, the 
 demand continually outstrips the supply. The modern meth- 
 ods of canning have opened a so much wider market, the whole 
 inland country being thus opened to the supply, it is almost 
 impossible to overstock the market. 
 
 The peculiar green color of the oysters in France, which 
 have been planted in l>eds, or claries, and which is thought to 
 make their flavor better, arises from some cause, concerning 
 which naturalists differ. It seems, however, to be some kind 
 of disease, arising from the condition of the water in these 
 beds. 
 
 Oyster fishing is pursued in different ways, in diiferent coun 
 tries. Around Minorca the diver descends with a hammer in 
 his hand to knock the oysters from the rocks, and brings up 
 generally a dozen or more with each descent. On the English and 
 French coasts the dredge is used. This method is very destruc- 
 tive, since it tears the large and small together from their native 
 Bpot, and buries many also in the mud. Oysters, as we know 
 them, are of convenient size for making a mouthful ; the largest 
 may have to be separated into parts before a delicate person 
 can swallow them, but it is only the largest which have to be 
 submitted to this process, and your real oyster lover has too 
 tender a regard for his favorite mollusk to so maltreat it. On 
 the coast of Coromandel, however, the oysters grow to be as 
 big as soup plates, and larger, the shells of some of them 
 measuring almost two feet across. These shells are frequently 
 used in the Catholic churches of Europe to contain the holy 
 water, placed near the door for the use of the faithful, and are 
 quite as large as big hand basins. A half-dozen such oysters 
 on the half-shell, would make a feast even for the most vora- 
 cious oyster eater. 
 
 The oyster beds v)n the coast of the United States are gener- 
 ftUv it?, ar shallow water that they can be readily reached with 
 
638 ocean's story. 
 
 rakes famished with handles fifteea to twenty feet long. A 
 pair of these are mounted like a gigantic pair of scissors, the 
 pivot being nearer the rakes than the other end of the poles. 
 Taking an end of one of these poles in each hand, the fisher- 
 man sinks it to the bottom, opens it, and moves the handles 
 until a supply of oysters is scraped up between the rakes. 
 Then pulling up the instrument, he empties the oysters into 
 the bottom of his boat, and uses his rakes again. Millions of 
 dollar's worth of oysters is thus fished every year, and fleets of 
 small sailing ships are constantly engaged in the traffic along 
 the coast. 
 
 To an European, the American oyster at first appears enor- 
 mous, compared with those he is accustomed to. Their flavor 
 also is different; they have not a peculiar coppery taste 
 to which he is accustomed, and which most Americans in Eu- 
 rope dislike at first. A little practice, however, soon enables 
 the European to recognize the merit of our oysters, and they 
 become very fond of them. Both Thackaray and Dickens, 
 during their visits to this country, were loud in their praises 
 of the excellence of the oysters. 
 
 The pearl oyster [Melea^/rina 7nargaritifera\ is one of the 
 most interesting and valuable of the varieties of the oyster. 
 The pearls are formed of the same substance which lines the 
 shells of so many shell- fish, and which as nacre, or mother of 
 pearl, is so well known for its iridescent beauty. It is depos- 
 itetl by the animal ii ^-ery thin layers, and it is the interference 
 of the rays cf light in their reflection from this varying 
 surface which produces the phenomena of iridescence. It is 
 easy for any one to satisfy himself of this. Press a piece of 
 wax upon a piece of mother of pearl, or any other iridescent 
 body, and the surface of the wax when removed will itself a{>- 
 pear iridescent. It has reproduced the fine lines of the irides- 
 cent body. Soap bubbles, being formed of films of the soapy 
 water, attain their brilliant coloring from the sarac' cause. 
 
640 
 
 THE PEARL OYSTER, 
 
 Brass buttons were once fashionable which showed the same 
 colors. They were made by having the polished surface ruled 
 with microscopically fine lines. It was, however, so costlj 
 to make them, they cost a guinea each, that they were soon 
 abandoned. 
 
 Pearls are the secretion of nacreous material, spread, it is 
 supposed, over some foreign substance which has been intro- 
 duced into the shell, under the mantle of the mollusk. When 
 the pearls are deposited on the shells, they generally adhf^jre 
 
 A tiUKLL. CONTAINING CHINESE PEARLS. 
 
 to it, when they originate in the body of the animal they are 
 free. As a rule some foreign body is found in their centre 
 which served as the nucleus for the deposit of the secretion. 
 It may be a sterile egg of the animal itself, or of a fish, or a 
 grain of sand, wliich was washed in. 
 
 The Chinese and other nations of the East, take advantage 
 •»f tins fact in natural history, for purposes of profit. They take 
 up the living mollusk, and opening the shell introduce into it 
 glass beads, or small metallic casts, representing some one of 
 their gods, or other objects, and then returning the mollusk \o 
 
THE PEARL OYSTER. 641 
 
 thtf water, in time the animal Las coated them with mother of 
 pearl. The illustration shows a shell into which small beada 
 have been introduced, and converted into pearls, together with 
 a dozen small figures of Buddha, the Ilindoo divinity, seated, 
 which have been covered over with nacre also. 
 
 The pearls are at first very small, but they increase in size 
 with the yearly deposit of a layer on the original centre. 
 Sometimes they are diaphanous, semi-transparent, lustrous and 
 more or less irri descent, at other times, however, they prove to 
 be dull, obscure, and smoky even. The pearl fisheries are 
 carried on in various places. They are found in the Persian 
 Gulf, on the coast of Arabia, in Japan, on the shores of Cali- 
 fornia, and in the islands of the South Sea. The most import- 
 ant ones are, however, those of the Bay of Bengal, the coast 
 of Ceylon, and elsewhere in the Indian Ocean. Previous to 
 1795 most of the Indian fisheries were in the hands of the 
 Dutch, but in 1802, after the treaty of Amiens, they passed 
 into the possession of the English. Sometimes the Ceylon 
 fisheries are undertaken by the Government, while at others 
 they are sold to a contractor. In either case, before they 
 begin, the coast is inspected by a Government official, in order 
 to see that the banks are not exhausted by too frequent 
 fishing. 
 
 The chief supply of mother of pearl is obtained from the 
 
 fishery in the Gulf of Manaar, a large bay on the north-east of 
 
 the island of Ceylon. It commences in February or March, 
 
 and lasts thirty days. Some two hundred and fifty boats are 
 
 engaged in it, coming for the purpose from all parts of the 
 
 coast. At ten at night a gun gives the signal for them to set 
 
 sail, and reaching the ground they commence as soon as the 
 
 dawn affords sufficient light. Each boat carries ten rowers 
 
 and ten divers, five of whom rest while the others are engaged. 
 
 A negro to attend to the odd jobs and chores accompanies 
 
 each boat. 
 41 
 
C42 
 
 PKARL nsHixa. 
 
 The clivers deacead from forty to fifty feet, seventy is the 
 atmost they can stand. Thirty seconds is the time they 
 usually remain under water, and the best cannot stay longer 
 than a minute and a half. When the fishing ground is reached 
 a staging, built of the oars, is rigged to project from the 
 boat over the water, and to the edge of this the diving-stones 
 are hung, weighing from fifty to sixty pounds. The diver 
 stands in a stirrup upon this, or if this is wanting upon the 
 Btone itself, holding the cord attached to it between his toes ; 
 
 FKAKL FISQEK IN DANGER. 
 
 with his left foot he holds the net for the reception of the 
 pearl-oysters. Then, pressing his nostrils firmly with his left 
 hand, and with his right grasping the signal cord, he is let 
 rapidly down to the bottom. As soon as he arrives there, he 
 removes his foot from the stone which is immediately drawn 
 up again. Then throwmg himself flat upon the ground, he 
 hastily gathers into his net all the oysters within his reach. 
 When he feels he must return to the surface he pulls the sig- 
 na' cord with a jerk, ana is pulled up as quickly as possible. 
 A good diver seeks to avoid straining himself, and so stays 
 ander water euU ^he shortest time, seldom more than half a 
 
PEARL riSHING. 643 
 
 minute, but he will repeat the operation sometimes as much 
 as fifteen or twenty times. The work is very distressing, the 
 increased pressure of the water affects the entire system, and 
 froquently on rising to the surface the water which runs from 
 their ears, nose and mouth is tinged with blood. The effect 
 is also to induce pulmonary diseases, and the divers rarely 
 attain old age. Sharks are also common in these waters, and 
 the divers are not unfrequently destroyed by these rapa- 
 cious monsters,who are the more attracted by the fact that the 
 divers, for their own convenience, are naked. 
 
 The work continues until noon, when a second gun gives 
 notice for its cessation. The boats then return with the cargo 
 they have gained, and are received by the proprietors on the 
 shore, who personally superintend their discharge, which must 
 be finished before dark, since anything left over night would 
 most certainly be stolen. 
 
 The fisheries of Ceylon were formerly very valuable, but at 
 present the banks show signs of exhaustion^ from over-fishing 
 most probably. In 1798 they are said to have produced 
 nearly a million dollars' worth of pearls, but now they seldom 
 yield more than a hundred thousand dollars' worth. The in- 
 habitants along the coast of the Bay of Bengal, the Chinese 
 seas, and the islands of Japan, are also engaged in the pearl 
 fishing. Together the yield is estimated at about four mil- 
 lions of dollars. 
 
 Further west, on the Persian coast, the Arabian gulf and 
 the Muscat shore, as well as in the Red sea, pearls are found. 
 
 In these latter countries the pearl fishing commences in 
 July, for during this and the next month the sea is usually 
 calm. When the boats have arrived over the bed, tliey 
 anchor, the water being eight or nine fathoms deep. Tiie 
 divers carry their bag tied around their waists, and plug their 
 nostrils with cotton, then closing their mouths, are sunk by a 
 Btone rapidl^ to thf boi^'-om. The pearls obtained frcm the 
 
644 ocean's story. 
 
 fisheries on the Arabian coast reach a value of over a millioD 
 nnd a half of dollars. 
 
 Pearl fishing is also carried on, on the coast of South Amer- 
 ica. Before the Spanish conquest of Mexico the fisheries 
 were situated between Acapulco and the Qulf of Tehuantepec, 
 but since that time other beds have been found near the islands 
 of Cubagua, Margarita and Panama. The yield at first was 
 so promising that flourishing cities grew up in the vicinity of 
 these places, and during the reign of Charles V., pearls to the 
 value of nearly a million of dollars were sent to Spain, but 
 the present yield averages only about three hundred thousand 
 dollars. 
 
 When the oysters are taken from the boats, they are piled 
 up on grass mats on the shore, and left in the sun. The moJ- 
 usks soon die, and begin to decompose. In about ten days they 
 are su:liciently putrified to bocome soft. Then they are thrown 
 into tanks of sea water, opened and washed. The pearls which 
 adhere to the shells are taken off with pinchers ; those thai 
 are in the body of the animal are secured by passing its sub- 
 stance through a sieve, after boiling the flesh to make it soft. 
 The shells furnish the nacre, which is split off from the rough 
 outside with a sharp instrument, or the outside is dissolved 
 from the mother of pearl by an acid. Three kinds of mother 
 of pearl are known in commerce, as silver face, bastard white 
 and bastard black; the first is the most valuable. The pearls 
 are the most important part of the product. Those which 
 adhere to the shell are always. more or less irregular in their 
 shape, and are sold by weight. They are called baroques. 
 Those found in the body of the animal are called virgin pearls^ 
 or paragons, and are round, oval or pyramid shaped. These 
 are sold generally singly ; the price varying according to size, 
 lustre, clearness, etc. Months after the shells have been ex- 
 amined, poor natives are seen diligently turning over theputri- 
 fying mass wnich has been cast aside, eagerly searching for 
 
SHARK FISHLNQ. 645 
 
 some pearl tliat has beea overlooked; as in our cities the 
 ashes, barrels and gutters are searched bj the same wretched 
 class for the refuse of luxury. 
 
 The pearls are polished by shaking them together in a bag 
 with nacre powder. By this process they are smoothed and polish- 
 ed. Then they are assorted according to sizes by being passed 
 through a series of copper sieves, placed over each other, and 
 pierced with an increasing number of holes, growing smaller. 
 Thus, sieve number twenty has twenty holes in it; fifty, fifty 
 holes, and the last of the series of twelve, one thousand holes. 
 The pearls retained between twenty and eighty are called mill, 
 and are considered to be of the first order. Those between 
 one hundred and eight hundred are vivadoe, and class second. 
 Those which pass through all but the thousand are tool, or seed 
 pearls, and are third. The seed pearls are sold by measure or 
 weight. The larger ones are drilled, strung on a white or 
 blue silk thread, and exposed for sale. 
 
 In the American fisheries the oysters are opened each separ- 
 ately with a knife, and the animal is pressed between the 
 thumb and finger in the search for pearls. This process takes 
 longer, and is not considered as certain to find them all as 
 that followed in the East, but the nacre and the pearls thus 
 taken from the live animal are fresher and more brilliant 
 than from those oysters which have died and decayed. Other 
 mollusks also furnish pearls, but not in a regular enough supply 
 to justify their fishing. In fact pearls are often found in our 
 common oysters. 
 
 Fishing for sharks is one of the most exciting kinds of sport, 
 and has the further merit that its success is the destruction of 
 the most destructive inhabitant of the sea ; a predatory rob- 
 ber, who spares none that come in kis way. The prey iu 
 which the shark most delights is, however, man himself. Ho 
 even manifests, according to some authorities, a preference for 
 Europeans over tlxe Asiatic or the Negro races. A shark who 
 
SHARK FISHING. 
 
SHARK FISHING. 647 
 
 has once enjoyed the luxury of human flesh is said to haunt 
 the neighborhood where he obtained it. He follows a ship 
 from some instinctive feeling, and has been known to leap 
 into a fisherman's boat, or throw himself against a ship in au 
 effort to reach a sailor who had shown himself over the bul- 
 warks. The slave ships during their voyages were constantly 
 followed by sharks, who battled eagerly for the corpses of the 
 unhappy dead which were thrown overboard. In one case it 
 is recorded that a corpse was hung from the yard arm, dang- 
 ling twenty feet above the water, and was devoured, limb by 
 limb, by a shark, who leaped that distance from the water to 
 obtain his horrid repast. 
 
 On the African coast the negroes boldly attack the shark in 
 his own element. As his mouth is placed under his head, he 
 has to turn round before he can seize anything, and taking 
 advantage of this, the negro seizes the opportunity to rip him 
 up with a sharp knife. 
 
 Shark fishing is regularly followed off the coast of Nan- 
 tucket, for their skins and the oil they furnish. The skins 
 are used for various purposes in the arts. In Norway and 
 Iceland portions of the flesh are dried, and serve as provision 
 for the food of winter. 
 
 The persistancy with which a shark will follow a vessel at 
 sea leads to their frequently being caught. The hook is of 
 iron, as thick as a man's finger, and six or eight inches long^ 
 the point made very sharp. It is fastened with a chain five 
 or six feet long, to prevent the shark's teeth from severing it. 
 Baited with a good sized piece of pork, and fastened to a long 
 line, it is thrown over. Sometimes in his easrerness to catch it 
 
 7 O 
 
 the shark will jump from the water, but oftener, having pro- 
 bably learned from experience something about the tricks of 
 men, he is more cautious in taking it. Often he will examine 
 it, swim round it, and manage to get it, without t''»k:ing the 
 hof^\ ''Iso, as often as it is offered to him rebaitv^L If he, 
 
CUTTLE FISH. 649 
 
 however, swaiiows the hook with the bait, it still requires 
 some dexterity to catch him ; the line must not be jerked pre- 
 maturely ; he must be given time enough to swallow it well, 
 then a good jerk fixes the point of the hook, and the sport 
 commences for everybody but the shark. In hauling him in 
 it is not safe to trust only to the hook ; his struggles are so 
 violent and his strength is so great that he may break away. 
 Being hauled therefore to the surface, the next thing is to get 
 the noose of another rope round his body near the tail, or 
 round one of his pectoral fins. This done he may be safely 
 hauled on board, but even then he cannot be approached with- 
 out danger, since a blow from his tail may prove fatal. In 
 catching sharks off the coast of Nantucket, ia smacks, the 
 fishermen haul them to the surface at the side of the boat, 
 and then kill them with blows on the head before takin^r them 
 on board. 
 
 Among the monsters of the deep, none is more terrific m 
 appearance than the cuttle fish. Terrible stories have been 
 told of the magnitude (»f these sea monsters. Under the name 
 of the Kraken marvelous tales were told of its destruction of 
 ships, one of them, it being said, embracing a three-masted 
 ship in its gigantic arms. Our illustration, however, shows 
 a well authenticated case of the captu re of an enormous cuttle fish. 
 An account of the capture was made to the French Academy 
 of Sciences by Lieutenant Bayer, the commander of the French 
 corvette Alecton, who made the capture, and M. Sabin Berthe- 
 lot, the French Consul at the Canary Islands. While on her 
 course between Teneriffe and Madeira, the Alecton fell in with 
 a large cuttle fish measuring about fifty feet in length, without 
 counting its eight arms, covered with suckers. Its head, its 
 largest part, measured about twenty feet in circumference ; its 
 tail consisted of two fleshy lobes or fins. Its weight was esti- 
 mated at 4,000 pounds. Its color was brickish red, and its 
 flesl: was soft and glutinous. The shots which were fired at 
 
THE CUTTLE-FISH. >* 0'"~^ ^ 651 
 
 It passed through it without apparently j^odncing any injury 
 After it was thus wounded, however, the sea was observed to 
 be covered with foam and blood, and a strong odor of musk 
 was smelt. Harpoons were also cast into it, but they took no 
 hold. Finally, however, one of the harpoons stuck fast, and 
 the sailors succeeded in getting a running noose round the 
 lower part of its body, near the tail. On attempting to haul it 
 on board, the rope cut it in two, the head part disappearing 
 and the tail portion being brought on deck. 
 
 It is supposed that the animal was either sick, or exhausted 
 from some cause, possibly a recent struggle with some other 
 marine monster, and that on this account it had left its usual 
 haunts on the rocks at the bottom of the sea, since otherwise 
 it would have been more active than it was, or would have 
 discharged the inky cloud, which the cuttle fish has always at 
 its disposal for avoiding its enemies. 
 
 SLKD CORAL. 
 
i>Kja>UINU. 
 
 CHAPTER LVI. 
 
 DRCDOlira Ilf MOOBKW TIMBS — WHAT IT HAS TAUGHT VB — DEKF BRA 80riCDIl»G8— TI K»T 
 ATTEMPTS — IMPLEMENTS USED FOR IT— THK CHAKCS POE INVSNTOBS. 
 
 In modern times we have learned a great deal more of the 
 ocean than the ancients knew, from dredging. Bj this means 
 we have become acquainted not onlj with the outline of the 
 bottom, but have also become acquainted with the temperature 
 of deep seas, with the varied forms of animal and vegetable 
 life which are present there, and have come to know, with far 
 greater certainty and completeness than ever before, the part 
 which the ocean has played and is still playing in the pre- 
 paration of the land. 
 
 By sounding, the ancients, of course, knew the depths of the 
 
 shallow waters along their coasts. It would be the most 
 
 natural thing for a sailor to tie a stone to a string, and let it 
 
 down into the water, when he wanted to know whether it was 
 
 deep enough to float his vessel, and the same means would 
 
 also l:>e used to discover whether there were any sunken rocka 
 652 
 
MEASURING THE DEEP SEA. 653 
 
 in such harbors as he was frequenting. But the ocean, to all 
 antiquity, was unfathomable ; they dared not attempt to crosa 
 it, and of course did not think they could measure its depth. 
 Long after the ocean had been crossed by ships the belief was 
 Btill current that it was impossible to measure its depth, and 
 this belief was made the stronger by the unsuccessful attempts 
 made in mid ocean to obtain soundings with the ordinary 
 lead and line. 
 
 Before we arrived at a positive knowledge of the depth of 
 the ocean, scientific men attempted to calculate it by varioug 
 methods. Laplace, calculating the mean elevation of the land, 
 supposed the sea must be of about equal depth. Young, draw - 
 ing his deductions from the tides, calculated the depth of the 
 sea. This method has been recently used to calculate the 
 depth of the Pacific. A wave of a certain velocity indicates 
 water of such a depth. In the case of the earthquake of 1854, 
 in Japan, which caused a wave that extended to California, the 
 rate of its progress afforded an indication of the mean depth 
 of the sea it passed over, and authentic soundings taken since 
 have confirmed the general accuracy of the calculation. 
 
 The ordinary lead used for soundings is a pyramid of lead, 
 the bottom of which has a depression in it, which is filled 
 with tallow ; on striking the bottom a little of the sand or mud 
 adheres to thii* tallow and is brought up to the surface. In 
 this way something is learned about the depth and bottom of 
 the sea, but not enough to satisfy the naturalists, who inquired 
 whether it might not be possible to dredge the bottom of the 
 sea in the ordinary way, and to send down water bottles and 
 registering instruments to settle finally the conditions of the 
 deep waters, and determine with precision the composition 
 and temperature at great depths. 
 
 An investigation of this kind is beyond the powers of pri- 
 vate enterprise. It requires more power and sea skill than 
 oaturalists usually have. It is a work for governments. That 
 
654 ocean's story. 
 
 of the United States has contributed fully its share. The 
 coast survey has added a great deal to our knowledge of the 
 deep sea, and the ships of the navy took part in the soundings 
 by whicli the existence of the plateau across the bed of the 
 North Atlantic, which has been used for the ocean telegraphic 
 cable, was proved. 
 
 In 1868 the English government provided the vessels and 
 crews for the purpose of conducting deep sea dredgings, under 
 the direction of Dr. Carpenter and Mr. "Wyville Thompson. 
 These expeditions have found that it is quite possible to work 
 with certainty, though not with such ease, at the depth of 600 
 fathoms, as at a depth of 100 ; and in 1869 it carried on deep 
 sea dredging at a depth of 2,435 fathoms, 14,610 feet, or very 
 nearly three miles, with perfect success. Dredging in such 
 deep water is very trying. Each haul occupied seven or eight 
 hours, and during the whole of this time the constant atten- 
 tion of the commander was necessary, who stood with his hand 
 on the regulator of the accumulator, ready at any moment to 
 ease an undue strain, by a turn of the ship's paddles. The 
 men, stimulated and encouraged by the cordial interest taken 
 by the officers in the operations, worked with a willing spirit; 
 but the labor of taking up three miles of rope, coming up with 
 a heavy strain, was very severe. The rope itself, of the very 
 best Italian hemp, 2 J inches in circumference, with a breaking 
 strain of 2 J tons, looked frayed out and worn, as if it could 
 not have been trusted to stand such an extraordinary ordeal 
 much lons^er. 
 
 The ordinary deep sea lead used for soundings weighs from 
 80 to 120 pounds. The samples of the bottom which it brings 
 up are marked upon the charts as mud, shells, gravel, ooze or 
 sand, thus 2,000 m. sh. s. means mud, shells and sand at 2,000 
 fathoms; 2,050 oz. st. means ooze and stones at 2,050 fathoms ; 
 2,200 m. s. sh. sc. means mud, sand, shells, and scorise, at 2,200 
 fath'^ma. and so on. When no bottom is found with the lead, 
 
DEEP SEA SOUNDING. 655 
 
 it is entered on the chart thus: 3,200, meaning no bottom 
 
 was reached at that depth. 
 
 This method of sounding answers very well for comparatively 
 shallow water, but it is useless for depths much over 1,000 fath- 
 oms, or six thousand feet. The weight is not sufficient to 
 carry the line rapidly and vertically to the bottom; and if a 
 heavier weight is used, the ordinary sounding line is not strong 
 enough to draw up its own weight, and that of the lead from 
 a great depth, and so breaks. No impulse is felt when the 
 lead touches the bottom, and so the line continues running out, 
 and any attempt to stop it breaks it. In some cases the slack 
 of the line is carried along by currents, and in others it is 
 found that the line has been running out by its own weight 
 and coiling in a tangled mass on top of the lead. 
 
 These sources of error vitiate the results of very deep soundings. 
 Thus Lieutenant Walsh, of the U.S. schooner Taney, reported 
 34,000 feet without touching bottom ; and the U.S. brig Dol- 
 phin used a line 39,000 feet long without reaching bottom. 
 An English ship reported 46,000 feet in the South Atlantic 
 and the U.S. ship Congress 50,000 feet without touching bottom 
 These are, however, known to be errors, so that no soundings 
 are entered on charts over 4,000 feet, and few over 3,000. 
 The U.S. Navy introduced the first great improvement in 
 deep soundings. This consisted in using a heavy weight and 
 a small line. The weight, a 32 or 68-pound shot, was rapidly 
 run down, and when it touched bottom, which was shown 
 by the sudden change in the rapidity with which the line was 
 run out, the line was cut and the depth estimated from the 
 length of cord remaining on the reel. This, however, cost the 
 loss of the shot and the line for each sounding. 
 
 One of the first attempts at deep sea dredging was mac^e in 
 1818, by Sir John Ross, in command of the English navy vps- 
 Bel Isabella, on a voyage for the exploration of Baffin's Bay 
 with a machine of his own invention, which he called a "deer 
 
656 ocean's story. 
 
 dea clamm." It consisted of a pair of forceps, kept apart bj? 
 a bolt, and so contrived that when the bolt struck the ground 
 a heavy iron weight slipped down a spindle and closed the for- 
 ceps, which retained a portion of the mud, sand, or small 
 stones, from the bottom. With this instrument he sounded in 
 1,050 fathoms, and brought up six pounds of very soft mud, 
 using a whale line, made of the best hemp, and measuring 
 2 J inches in circumference. 
 
 The cup lead is another invention. With this there is a 
 pointed cup at the bottom of the lead, fastened to it with a rod 
 upon which a circular plate of leather plays, gerving as a cover 
 to the cup. As it strikes the bottom, the cup is driven in the 
 mud, and on hauling up the cover is pressed into the cup by 
 the water, and brings up the mud it contains. The objection 
 to this is that it is too crude ; in its passage up, the water 
 washes away the mud, so that only on an average of once in 
 three times does the cup come up with anything in it ; and 
 deep sea soundings take too much time, and are too valuable, 
 to admit so large an average of loss. 
 
 About 1854 Mr. J. M. Brooke, of the U. S. Navy, who waa 
 at the time associated with Prof. Maury, so well known for his 
 labor in gathering and diffusing a knowledge of the currents 
 of the ocean, invented a deep sea sounding apparatus, which is 
 known by his name. It is still in use, and all the more recent 
 contrivances have been, to a great extent, only modifications and 
 improvements upon the original idea, that of detatching the 
 weight. The instrument is very simple. A 64-pound shot is 
 cast with a hole in it. An iron rod, with a cavity in its end, 
 fits loosely in the hole in the shot. Two movable arms at the 
 top of the rod are furnished with eyes holding ends of a sling 
 in which the ball hangs. The cavity at the end of the rod 
 is furnished with tallow, and the apparatus is let down. On 
 reaching the bottom, the rod is forced into the mud, the cavity 
 becomes filled with it, and there being no more tension, on the 
 
42 
 
658 ocean's story. 
 
 rope holding up the movable arms, they fall, disengage the 
 ends of the sling, and allow the ball to slide down the rod. 
 The rod is then withdrawn, carrying up the portion of the 
 bottom secured in the cavity at its foot, and leaving the ball 
 on the bottom. This apparatus costs a ball each time it is used, 
 and brings up but a small portion of the bottom, which is also 
 apt to be diminished on its way to the top, by the water it 
 passes through. 
 
 Commander Dayman, of the English Navy, in 1857 invented 
 an improvement upon Mr. Brooke's original invention. He 
 used iron wire braces to support the sinker, as these detach 
 more easily than slings of rope. The shot he replaced by a 
 cylinder of lead, as offering less surface to the water in its de- 
 scent, and he fitted the cavity in the bottom of the rod with a 
 valve opening inward. Commander Dayman used the appa- 
 ratus, with these modifications, in the important series of 
 soundinors he made in the North Atlantic, while encrasred in 
 surveying the plateau for the ocean telegraphic cable, and re- 
 ports that it worked well. 
 
 The apparatus known as the bull-dog machine is an adap- 
 tation of Sir John Ross' deep-sea clamms, together with 
 Brooke's idea of disengaging the weight. It was invented 
 during the cruise of the English Navy vessel, the Bull-dog, in 
 1860, and the chief credit for it belongs to the assistant engineer 
 during that cruise, Mr. Steil. A pair of scoops are hinged 
 together like a pair of scissors, the handles represented by B. 
 These are permanently fastened to the sounding rope, F, which 
 is here represented as hanging loose, by the spindle of the 
 scoops. Attached to this spindle is the rope, D, ending in a 
 ring. E represents a pair of tumbler hooks, like those used 
 so generally. C is a heavy weight, of iron or lead, hollow, 
 with a hole large enough for the ring upon D to pass through. 
 B is an elastic ring of India rubber, fitted to the handles of 
 the scoops, and designed to shut them together as soon as the 
 
ocean's story. 
 
 669 
 
 weight, C, which now holds them apart, is removed. When 
 the bottom is reached, the scoops, open, are driven into the 
 
 ground, the tension on the rope 
 ceases, the tumbler hooks open 
 and release the weight, which 
 falls on its side, and allows the 
 elastic ring to shut the scoops, 
 inclosing a portion of the bot- 
 tom in which they have been 
 forced. The trouble with thia 
 apparatus is its complicated 
 character ; pebbles may get in 
 the hinge and prevent thescoope 
 from closing. In all apparatus 
 to be used for such a purpose 
 the greater the simplicity the 
 better, and an invention, which 
 shall at once be simple and ef- 
 fective, capable of bringing up 
 a pound or two from the bot- 
 tom at a depth of 2,000 fathoms 
 or more, without fail, and with- 
 out too much trouble, is still a 
 desideratum, and its invention 
 is well worth the attention of 
 the ingenious. 
 
 Another arrangement, called 
 the Hydra sounding machine, 
 is intended to bring up portions 
 of the bottom and water from 
 the lowest strata reached. It 
 consists of a strong brass tube, 
 which unscrews into four cham- 
 THH wrxDOQ SOUNDING MACHINE, bcrs, closcd with valves, open- 
 
660 
 
 DEEP SEA SOUNDING. 
 
 ing upward, so that in the descent the water passes through 
 them freely ; but when it is commenced to haul up, the pres- 
 sure of the water closes the valves. This apparatus is also 
 furnished with weights to sink it, which are released, on 
 
 MASSKy's BOUTTDINa MACHINB. 
 
 reaching the bottoni, by a similar method to those described 
 This instrument was used during the deep sea sounding cruise 
 of the Porcupine, and never once failed. Its faults are its 
 com plica*'* on, and that it brings up only small samples of the 
 bottom Captain Calver, who used it, could always, v hen at 
 
DEEP SEA SOUNDING. 6^1 
 
 the greatest ieptps, distinctly feel the shock of the arrest of the 
 weight upon the bottom communicated to his hand. 
 
 Various attempts have been made to construct instruments 
 which should accurately determine the amount of the vertical 
 •descent of the lead by self-registering machinery. The most 
 successful and the one most commonly used is Massey's sound- 
 ing machine. This instrument, in its most improved form, is 
 shown in the accompanying cut. It consists of a heavy oval 
 brass shield, furnished with a ring at each end of its longer 
 axis. To one of these a sounding rope is attached, and to 
 the other, the weight is fastened at about a half fathom below 
 the shield. A set of four brass wings or vanes are set obli- 
 quely to an axis, so that, like a windmill or propeller wheels, 
 it shall turn by the force of the water as it descends. This 
 axis communicates its motion to the indicator, which marks 
 the number of revolutions on the dial plate. One of these 
 dials marks every fathom, and the other every fifteen fathoms 
 of descent. This sounding machine answers very well in 
 moderately deep water, and is very valuable for correcting 
 soundings by the lead alone, where deep currents are sus- 
 pected, as it is designed to register vertical descent alone. In 
 very deep water it is not satisfactory, from some reason which 
 it is difficult to determine. The most probable explanation is 
 that it shares the uncertainty inherent in all instruments using 
 metal wheel work. Their machinery seems to get jammed in 
 some way, under the enormous pressure of the water, at great 
 depths. 
 
 To ascertain the surface temperature of the water of the sea 
 is simple enough. A bucket of water is drawn up, and a ther- 
 mometer is placed in it. With an observation of this kind 
 the height of the thermometer in the air should be always noted. 
 Until very recently, however, very little d^ nothing was known 
 with any certainty about the temperature of the sea at depths 
 belov thf surface. Yet this is a field of inquiry of very great 
 
662 ocean's story. 
 
 importance in physical geography, since an accurate determina- 
 tion of the temperature at difTerent depths is certainly the best, 
 and frequently the only means, for determining the depth, the 
 width, the direction and general path of the warm ocean cur- 
 rents, which are the chief agents in diffusing the equatorial 
 heat; and more especially of those deeper currents of cold 
 water Avhich return from the poles to supply their places, and 
 complete the watery circulation of the globe. The main cause 
 of this want of accurate knowledge of deep sea temperatures 
 is undoubtedly the defective character of the instruments which 
 have been hitherto employed. 
 
 The thermometer which has been generally used for making 
 observations on the temperature of deep water is that known 
 as Six's self-regulating thermometer, inclosed in a strong cop- 
 per case, with valves or apertures above and below, to allow a 
 free passage of the water through the case and over the face 
 of the instrument. This registering thermometer consists of a 
 glass tube, bent in the form of a U. One arm terminates in a 
 large bulb, entirely filled with a mixture of creosote and water. 
 The bend in the tube contains a column of mercury, and the 
 other arm ends in a small bulb, partly filled Avith creosote and 
 water, but with a large space empty, or rather filled with the 
 vapor of the mixture and compressed air. A small steel index 
 with a hair tied round it, so as to act like a spring against the 
 side of the tube, and keep the index at any point it may as- 
 sume, lies free in either arm, among the creosote, floating on 
 tlie mercury. This thermometer gives its indications only from 
 the expansions and contractions of the liquid in the large full 
 bulb, and consequently is liable to some slight error, from the 
 variations of temperature upon the liquids in other parts of 
 the tube. When the liquid in the large bulb expands, the 
 column of mercury is driven upward toward the half-empty 
 bulb, and the limb of the tube in which it rises is graduated 
 fronj V»elow, upward, for increasing heat. When the liquid 
 
VKKi* SEA TllEKMOMETERS. 663 
 
 contracts in the bulb, the mercury rises in this arm of the tube, 
 which is graduated from above downward, but falls in the 
 other arm. AVhcn the thermometer is going to be used, the 
 steel indices are drawn down in each limb of the tube, by a 
 strong magnet, till they rest, in each arm, upon the surface of 
 the mercury. When the thermometer is drawn up from deep 
 water, the height at which the lower end of the index stands 
 in each tube indicates the limit to which the index has been 
 driven by the mercury, the extreme of heat or cold to which 
 the instrument has been exposed. Unfortunately, the accuracy 
 of the ordinary Six's thermometer cannot be depended upon 
 beyond a very limited depth, for the glass bulb which contains 
 the expanding fluid yields to the pressure of the water, and 
 compressing the contained fluid, gives an indication higher 
 than is due to temperature alone. This cause of error is not 
 constant, since the amount to which the bulb is compressed 
 depends upon the thickness and quality of the glass. Yet, as 
 in thoroughly well-made thermometers, the error from pressure 
 is pretty constant, it has been proposed to make a scale, from 
 an extended series of observations, which might be used to 
 correct the observations, and thus closely approximate the 
 truth. 
 
 A better plan has been proposed, and being practically ap- 
 plied, has been found to work very well. This consists in 
 incasing the full bulb in an outer covering of glass, so that 
 there shall be a coating of air between the bulb and the outside 
 coating, and that this air being compressed by the pressure of 
 the water outside, shall thus protect the inside bulb. Observa- 
 tions taken in 1869 with thermometers constructed in this 
 way, as deep as 2,435 fathoms, in no instance gave the least 
 reason to doubt their accuracy. A modification of the metallic 
 thermometer, invented by Mr. Joseph Saxton, of the United 
 States office of weights and measures, for the use of the coast 
 g^rvey, may be thus described. A ribboi? of platinum and one 
 
^^■^ ocean's story. 
 
 of silver are soldered with silver solder to an intermediate plat« 
 of gold, and this compound ribbon is coiled round a central 
 axis of brass, with the silver inside. Silver is thcmost expan- 
 sible of the metals under the influence of heat, and platinum 
 nearly the least. Gold holds an intermediate place, and its 
 intervention between the platinum and silver moderates the 
 strain and prevents the coil from cracking. The lower end of 
 the coil is fixed to the brazen axis, while the upper end is fast- 
 ened to the base of a short cylinder. Any variation of tem- 
 perature causes the coil to wind or unwind, and its motion 
 rotates the axial stem. This motion is increased by multiply- 
 ing wheels, and is registered upon the dial of the instrument by 
 an index, which pushes before it a registering hand, moving 
 with sufBcient friction to retain its place, when pushed for- 
 ward. The instrument is graduated by experiment. The 
 brass and silver parts are thickly gilt by the electrotype pro- 
 cess, so as to prevent their being acted upon by the salt water. 
 
 The box in which the instrument is protected is open to 
 admit the free passage of the water. This instrument seems 
 to answer very well for moderate depths. Up to six hundred 
 fathoms its error does not exceed a half degree, centigrade ; at 
 1,500 fathoms it rises however to five degrees, quite as much 
 as an unprotected Six thermometer, and the error is not so con- 
 stant. Instruments which depend for their accuracy upon the 
 Vforking of metal machinery cannot be depended upon when 
 subjected to the great pressure of deep soundings 
 
 For taking bottom temperatures at great depths, two or 
 more of the thermometers are lashed to the sounding line at a 
 little distance from each other, a few feet above the sounding 
 instrument. The lead is rapidly run down, and after the bot- 
 tom is reached an interval of five or ten minutes is allowed 
 before hauling in. In taking serial temperature soundings, 
 which are to determine the temperature at certain intervals of 
 depth the thermometers are lashed to an ordinary deep sea 
 
THE FREEZING POINT OF SALT-WATER. 665 
 
 lead, tlie required quantity of line for each observation of the 
 series ran out, and the thermometers and lead are hove each 
 time. The operation is very tedious; a series of such obser- 
 vations in the Bay of Biscay, where the depth was 850 
 fathoms and the temperature taken for every fifty fathoms, 
 occupied a whole day. In taking bottom temperatures with a 
 self-registering thermometer, the instrument of course simply 
 indicates the lowest temperature to which it has been subject- 
 ed, so that if the bottom stratum is warmer than any other 
 through which the thermometer has passed, the result would 
 be erroneous. This is only to be tested by serial observations; 
 but from these it appears, wherever they have been made, 
 that the temperature sinks gradually, sometimes very steadily, 
 sometimes irregularly from the surface to the bottom, the bot- 
 tom water being always the coldest. 
 
 Several important facts of very general application in phy- 
 sical geography have been settled by the deep sea tempera- 
 ture soundings which have been recently made, and the theories 
 formerly held on this subject shown to be erroneous. It has 
 been shown that in nature, as in the experiments of M. Des- 
 pretz, sea water does not share in the peculiarities of fresh 
 water, which, as has been long known, attains its maximum 
 density at four degrees, centigrade ; but like most other liquids 
 increases in densisity to its freezing point ; and it has also 
 been shown that, owing to the movement of great bodies of 
 of water at different temperatures in different directions, we 
 may have in close proximity two ocean areas with totally 
 different bottom climates, a fact which, taken along with the 
 discovery of abundant animal life at all depths, has most im- 
 portant bearings upon the distribution of marine life, and 
 upon the interpretation of palaeontological data. 
 
 Mr. Wyville Thompson, who conducted the series of impor- 
 tant deep sea soundings undertaken in the Porcupine, says 
 very truly "It had a strange interest to see these little in- 
 
666 ocean's story. 
 
 Btruments, upon whose construction so much skilled labor 
 and consideration had been lavished, consigned to their long 
 and hazardous journey, and their return eagerly watched for 
 by a knot of thoughtful men, standing, note-book in hand, 
 ready to register this first message, which should throw so 
 much light upon the physical conditions of a hitherto unknown 
 world" 
 
 Up to the middle of the last century the little that was 
 known of the inhabitants of the bottom of the sea beyond low 
 water mark, appears to have been gathered almost entirely 
 from the few objects thrown up on the beaches after storms 
 or from chance specimens brought up on sounding lines, or 
 by fishermen engaged in sea fishing or dredging for oysters. 
 From this last source, however, it was almost imposssble to 
 obtain specimens, since the fishermen were superstitious con- 
 cerning bringing home anything but the regular objects of 
 their industry, and from a fear that the singular things which 
 sometimes they drew up might be devils in disguise, with pos- 
 sibly the power to injure the success of their business, threw 
 them again, as soon as caught, back into the sea. Such super- 
 stitions are dying out, and in fact so singular are many of the 
 animals hid in the depths of the sea ; their forms and general 
 air are so different from anything which the fishermen were 
 used to see, that we can hardly wonder at the fear they excited. 
 When, however, the attention of naturalists was turned toward 
 the sea, they used the dredge such as was used by the oyster 
 fishermen, and all the dredges now in use are simply modifica- 
 tions of this. 
 
 The dredge for deep sea operations is made with two scrapers, 
 so that it shall always present a scraping surface to the bottom, 
 however it may fall. The iron work should be of the very best, 
 and weighing about twenty pounds. The bag is about two 
 feet deep, and is a hand-made net of very strong twine, the 
 Dieshes half an inch to the side. As so open a net- work would 
 
THREE MILES OF ROPET o *^' 
 
 let manj small things through, the bottom of the bag, to tne 
 height of about nine inches, is lined with a light open kind of 
 canvas, called by the sailors "bread-bag." Kaw hides have 
 been used for making the dredge bag, but, though very strong, 
 they are apt to become too much so to another sense than 
 touch. It is bad economy to use too light a rope in such ope- 
 rations, and best to fasten it to only one arm of the dredge, the 
 eyes of the two arms being tied together with a thinner cord, 
 In case, then, the dredge becomes entangled at the bottom, this 
 cord will break first, and thus releasing one of the arms of the 
 dredge, may so change the direction of the strain upon the rope 
 as to free the dredsje itself. 
 
 Dredging in deep water, that is, at depths beyond 200 
 fathoms, is a matter of some difficulty, and can hardly be done 
 with the ordinary machinery at the disposal of amateurs. The 
 description of the apparatus used in the Porcupine, in 1869 and 
 70, on her dredging cruise in the Bay of Biscay, will show 
 what is necessary. These arrangements are also shown in the 
 cut. This vessel, a gun-boat of the English navy, of 382 tons, 
 was fitted out specially for this w^ork. Amidships she was 
 furnished with a double cylinder donkey-engine, of about twelve- 
 horse power, with drums of various sizes, large and small. 
 The large drum was generally used, except when the cord was 
 too heavy, and brought up the rope at a uniform rate of more 
 than a foot a second. A powerful derrick projected over the 
 port bow, and another, not so strong, over the stern. Either 
 of these was used for dredging, but the one at the stern was 
 generally used for soundings. The arrangement for stowing 
 away the dredge rope was such as made its manipulation sin- 
 gularly easy, notwithstanding its great weight, about 5,500 
 pounds. A row of some twenty large pins of iron, about two 
 feet and a half long, projected over one side of the quarter- 
 deck, rising obliquely from the top of the bulwark. Each of 
 thesa held a coil of from two to three hundred fathoms, and 
 
THE STERN OF THE PORCUPINE. 
 
DRIFTING WITH THE DREDGE. 669 
 
 the rope was coiled continuously along the wfele row. When 
 the dredge was going down, the rope was taken rapidly by the 
 men from these pins in succession, beginning from the one 
 nearest the dredging derrick, and in hauling up a relay of men 
 carried the rope from the drum of the donkey-engine and laid 
 it in coils on the pins, in reverse order. The length of the 
 dredge rope was 3,000 fathoms, nearly three and a half miles. 
 Of this, 2,000 fathoms were hawser-laid, of the best Russian 
 hemp, 2h inches in circumference, with a breaking strain of 2 J 
 tons. The 1,000 fathoms next the dredge were hawser laid, 2 
 inches in circumference. Russia hemp seerw.s to be the best 
 material for such a purpose. Manilla is considerably stronger 
 for a steady pull, but is more likely to break at a kink. 
 
 The frame of the largest dredge used weighed 225 pounds. 
 The bag was double, the outside of strong twine netting, lined 
 with canvass. Three sinkers, one of 100 pounds, and two 
 of 56 pounds each, were attached to the dredge rope at 500 
 fathoms from the dredge. A description of the sounding made 
 in the Bay of Biscay on the 22d of July, 1869, will give an 
 idea of the process. When the depth had been ascertained, 
 the dredge was let go about 4:45 P. M., the vessel drifting 
 slowly before a moderate breeze. At 5:50 P. M. the whole 
 3,000 fathoms of rope were out. While the dredge is going 
 down the vessel drifts gradually to leeward ; and when the 
 whole 3,000 fathoms of rope are out, she has moved so as to 
 make the line from the dredge slant. The vessel now steams 
 slowly to windward, and is then allowed to drift again before 
 the wind. The tension of the vessel's motion, thus instead of 
 acting immediately on the dredge, now drags forward the 
 weight, so that the dredging is carried on from the weight and 
 not directly from the vessel. The dredge is thus quietly 
 pulled along, with the lip scraping the bottom, in the position 
 it naturally assumes from the center of weight of its iron frame 
 ancl a^ms. If, on the contrary, the weights were hung close to 
 
670 ocean's story. 
 
 the dredge, and the dredge was dragged directly from the ves- 
 sel, owing to the great weight and spring of the rope the anna 
 would be continually lifted up, and the lip of the dredge be 
 prevented from scraping. In very deep water this operation 
 of steaming up to windward until the dredge rope is nearly 
 perpendicular, after drifting for half an hour or so to leeward, 
 is usually repeated three or four times. At 8:50 P. M. haul- 
 ing-in is commenced, and the donkey-engine delivers the rope 
 at a little more than a foot a second. A few moments before 
 1 o'clock in the morning the weights appear, and a little after 
 one, eight hours after it was cast, the dredge appears and is 
 safely landed on deck, having in the meantime made a journey 
 of over eight miles. The dredge, as the result of this haul, 
 contained IJ hundred weight of characteristic pale grey Atlan- 
 tic ooze. The total weight brought up by the engine was as 
 follows : 
 
 2,000 fathoms of rope, 4,000 
 
 1,000 " " l.oOO 
 
 5,500 
 Weight of rope reduced to \ in water 1,375 
 
 Dredge and bag 275 
 
 Ooze 1(>8 
 
 Weight attached 224 
 
 2,042 pounds. 
 
 Tn many of the dredgings at all depths it was found that 
 while few objects of interest were brought up within the 
 dredge, many echinoderms, corals and sponges came to the sur- 
 face sticking to the outside of the dredge bag, and even to the 
 first few fathoms of the rope. The experiment was therefore 
 tried of fastening to a rod attached to the bottom of the 
 dredge bag, a half dozen swabs, such bundles of hemp as are 
 used on ship-board for washing the decks. The result was 
 marvelous ; the tangled hemp brought up everything rough 
 and movable that came in its way, and swept the bottom of the 
 ocean as it would have swept the deck. So successful was 
 this experiment, that the hempen tangles are now regarded as 
 
SWABING THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA. 671 
 
 an essential adjunct to the dredge, and nearly as important as 
 tlie dredge itself, and when the ground is too rough for using 
 the dredge, the tangles alone are used. 
 
 The mollusca have the best chance of being caught in the 
 dredge; their shells are comparatively small bodies mixed with 
 the stones on the bottom, and they enter the dredge with these. 
 Echinoderms, corals and sponges, on the contrary, are bulky 
 objects, and are frequently partially buried in the mud, or more 
 or less firmly attached, so that the dredge generally misses 
 them. With the tangles it is the reverse, the smooth heavy 
 shells are rarely brought up, while the tangles are frequently 
 loaded with specimens ; on one occasion not less than 20,000 
 examples came up on the tangles in a single haul. 
 
 In the Porcupine both derricks were furnished with accu- 
 mulators, w^hich were found of great value. The block 
 through which the sounding line or dredging rope passed was 
 not attached directly to the derrick, but to a rope which passed 
 through an eye at the end of the spar, and was fixed to a 
 bitt on the deck. On a bight of this rope, between the block 
 and the bitt, the accumulator was lashed. This consists of 
 thirty or forty, or more, vulcanized india-rubber springs, fas- 
 tened together at the two extremities, and kept free from each 
 other by being passed through holes in two wooden ends like 
 barrel heads. The loop of the rope is made long enough to 
 permit the accumulator to stretch to double or treble its length, 
 but it is arrested far within its breaking point. The accumula- 
 tor is valuable in the first place as indicating roughly the 
 amount of strain upon the line; and in order that it may do 
 so with some degree of accuracy it is so arranged as to play 
 along the derrick, which is graduated, from trial, to the num- 
 ber of hundred weights of strain indicated by the greater or 
 less extension of the accumulator; but its more important 
 function is to take off the suddenness of the strain on the line 
 mhei the vessel is pitching. The friction of one or two miles 
 
672 
 
 ocean's story 
 
 of cord in the water is so great as to prevent its yielding to a 
 Buddec jerk, sucli as is given to the attached end when the 
 vessel rises to a sea, and the line is apt to snap. 
 
 Th ? results which have been gained by deep sea dredging 
 are so important that the English Government recently fitted 
 out another vessel, the Challenger, for such a cruise, witb 
 every appliance. This vessel is now due in New York. 
 
 AqUABIUM. 
 
CHAPTER LYII 
 
 Tm DIVZLOPMENT OF SHIP BUILDING— WEW MODELS FOR SHIPS — 8TBAM SHIP SAVIQA- 
 TION — MONITORS — IKOIC-PLATED FaiOATES — TIN CLADS — RAMS — TORPEDO BOATS— 
 THKIR USB IN THE CONFEDBRAOY — LIFK RAFTS — YACHT BTTILUINa — OCEAN YACHT 
 RACK — THE COST OF A YACHT. 
 
 From the oars, which were the only means of propulsion 
 used in the galleys of antiquity, to the sails of a subsequent, 
 period, by which only favoring winds could be made use df, 
 the advance was great, but not as great as the discovery nf 
 steam, by which in modern times the sea is traversed w:.';h 
 but little regard for the condition of the wind. To suit t'»e 
 different means used for the propulsion of these vessels, mo li- 
 fications have been made in the manner of their constructi« f i, 
 in their form, and with sailing ships in the arrangement i«f 
 sails. When, with the successful termination of the war of the 
 Revolution, the United States first took its place in the wo\ .d 
 as an independent nation, the commercial activity which \r.is 
 the natural result of the greater political freedom resulting 
 from the issue of that contest, found its expression first in cur 
 commerce ; and the self-reliance, which is the inevitable 
 result of liberty ; the spirit of inquiry fostered by a departure 
 from old methods, and the abandonment of old traditions, were 
 displayed in the construction, the rig and the general air 
 of the vessels then built, as much as in the construction of the 
 political organization of the new republic. 
 
 So much was this the case that American vessels became 
 
 known the world over for their trim and neat appearance. 
 
 The blunt, rounded j)rows and heavy sterns of the English or 
 43 673 
 
674 ocean's story. 
 
 Dutch vessels v;ere replaced by American models, sbaij), 
 nothing superfluous, and riding the waters as easy as a bird. 
 The American clipper ships became renowned for their quick 
 passages, and in transporting teas from China made fortunes 
 for their happy owners, by bringing to the markets the first 
 cargoes of the new crops. 
 
 The same thing^ occurred when steam- vessels first be^^an to 
 cross the ocean. The English in their first steamers followed 
 the models of their largest sailing ships. They still preserved 
 the heavy bowsprit, projecting twenty to thirty feet in advance 
 of the prow, though it was not necessary, as in their sailing 
 ships, for balancing the pressure of the other sails. Their 
 steamers were therefore always heavy at the head, and when, 
 in a rough sea, they were driven by the power of the engine, 
 buried their bows in every large wave. Any one who has 
 crossed the Atlantic in an English steamer of twenty yeais ligo, 
 must have noticed how heavily it labored in rough weather, 
 and how the waves broke over her bow. To take in tons of 
 salt water when the waves ran high, was usual ; and in a pas- 
 sage acro^ the Atlantic it was no rare thing to have the suit 
 encrusted on the smoke-stack, from the waves which dasheil 
 over the bow and swept aft, reach a thickness of from one to 
 two inches. 
 
 The American ship-builder, however, early saw that tlic 
 model of his ciaft, which was to be propelled by steam, shoulil 
 differ from that of a ship depending upon its sails alone, and 
 governed himself accordingly, lie made her sharp, for speed, 
 and ended her j^row straight up and down, as he built the 
 steanboats for river navigation. The consequence was that 
 she rode dr/ through waves which would pour tons of sail 
 wat;r upon the deck of an English model. George Steers, of 
 Neu York, a genius in naval architecture, and whose early 
 dca h was deeply regretted, was the j^erson who did the mosi 
 to 1 ring ^*nto us*» the present form used in the best models foj 
 
IMPROVED STEAM SHIP BUILDING. 
 
 675 
 
 ocean steamers. One of his first steamers, the Adriatic, built 
 for the Collins line, excited great attention in Liverpool, when 
 she first appeared there. The London Times spoke of her in 
 leading articles, calling upon the English ship-builders to con- 
 iTdst her with ships of their own construction. It spoke of 
 
 PENNSYLVANIA AND OHIO ON THE STOCKS, 
 
 how she glided up the Mersey, making hardly a ripple from 
 hei bows, so evenly and quietly she parted the water, while 
 an English steamer of her size so disturbed the stream as to 
 bring up the mud from the bottom. The Times was also 
 specially struck with the ease with which she was handled, 
 turning alm'^st in her length, while for an English steamer 
 turning was an operation requiring so much more space, and 
 
676 ocean's story. 
 
 making so much more disturbance in the water. From that 
 time to this the English have followed the American models 
 in the construction and equipment of their steamers, and their 
 example has been imitated bj most other nations. 
 
 The latest specimens of American ship building are shown 
 in the cut representing the Pennsylvania and Ohio on the 
 stocks. These vessels are the pioneers of the new line between 
 Philadelphia and Liverpool. 
 
 Nor is this the onlv chancre which naval architecture has 
 
 ml O 
 
 undergone. The material for ship-building, especially for sea 
 going steamers, has in modem times come to be chiefly iron. 
 Livingstone, in his book of travels in Africa, tells how, when 
 he was putting together on the banks of one of the rivers 
 there the pieces of a small iron steamer which had been sent 
 out to him from England, the natives gathered round, and in* 
 specting the work going on, jeered at him for thinking that 
 a boat built of such a material would float. Their whole ex- 
 perience with iron was that it would sink. AYhen, however, 
 the steamer was completed and launched, they could hardly 
 express their astonishment at finding that she floated. 
 
 Though every school-boy, from his text-books en natura) 
 philosophy, can explain the reasons why a ship bviH of iron 
 will float, yet our ancestors would have considered a proposi 
 tion to construct a ship from this material very nr iich as^the 
 n^itive Afj'icans did. Even in the constructio'.i of wooden 
 ships, iron enters now much more than it did formerly. The 
 knees, or bent oak beams, by which the form of the ship was 
 made, have become so scarce and dear that they are now fre 
 quently made of iron. It takes so long for an oak tree to 
 grow, and the demand was so great for limbs of such a natural 
 bend as could be used for ship-building, that even before the 
 use of iron for such portions of a ship, the process waa in fre- 
 quent use of bending the beams, or knees, by steaming thci» 
 ind then F'*bjecting then" to great pressure. 
 
THE COMPARATIVE SAFETY OF IRON SHIPS. 677 
 
 Lron as a material for ships has some very great and 
 material advantages. It is on the wliole lighter, so that an iron 
 ship weighs less, absolutely, than a wooden one of the same 
 size. Then as the knees and other timbers take up less space 
 when made of iron, than when made of wood, and as the thick- 
 ness of the side.', is much less, more space is secured in an iron 
 ship than in a wooden one for carrying the cargo. Besides 
 this, a vessel built of iron can be divided into water-tight com- 
 partments, so that an accidental leak will damage only that 
 portion of the cargo contained in that compartment in which 
 it occurs. 
 
 This method of construction is also another faxjtor of safety 
 in case of accident by collision or in any other way. One com- 
 partment may be injured so as to fill with water, while tlie 
 others, being uninjured, their buoyancy will still keep the ship 
 afloat. An objection, however, to the use of compartments 
 lies in the fact that, as they must be riveted to the sides, the 
 rows of holes for the rivets necessarily weaken the strength of 
 the sides, so that a ship with compartments, which touches on a 
 rock or other obstacle, at one end, is more apt to break apart 
 than one without compartments, as the sides, unsupported by 
 the buoyancy of the water, have the less strength to support 
 her weight in the length. Still, all things considered, iron h^s 
 come so much in favor for the construction of large ships, that 
 it is in much more general use for that purpose than wood. 
 
 In the construction of an iron ship, the naval architect draws 
 his plans, and sends his construction drawings to the iron roll- 
 ing mill, where each plate is made of the exact curve and di- 
 mensions. The holes for the rivets are punched by machinery, 
 and the plates are then ready to be put together. The hull of 
 the vessel is made of iron bars riveted together, and the pktes 
 are riveted to the iron upright ribs, each plate overlapping the 
 preceding. Tlie ribs are placed from ten to eighteen inchea 
 ^part, and the whole structure is of iron. The simplicity of 
 

680 
 
 OCEAN S STORY. 
 
 tlie construction of an iron ship is such, that when the plates 
 are ready, it can be put together with wonderful rapidity. 
 
 For constructing ships of war, iron is almost wholly used, 
 and the experience of our late war has almost entirely changed 
 the methods and theories of naval warfare. The enormous 
 -^igate, carrying a heavy armament of numerous guns, and 
 manned by a thousand men, has been replaced by a small 
 craft — so low in the water as to project above it only a few 
 inches, carrying but a single gun, or at most only two, which 
 are of very heavy calibre, and are mounted in a revolving 
 
 8T. LOUIS. 
 
 tower in the middle of the craft. The general description of 
 the Monitor, that it was a cheese- box on a raft, aptly describes 
 their appearance. 
 
 By the introduction of the monitor as a war vessel, a cum- 
 plote change was wrought in naval warfare. The large hulk 
 of the old ships afforded only a better target for the heavy 
 guns of this new craft, while its own slight projection above 
 the water, and tb^ fact that its engines and propeller were cov- 
 ered by the water, afforded it almost absolute security from the 
 enemy's guns. Even if it was struck, the round shape of its 
 vor clad deck, and its revolving tower caused the balls to 
 
682 ocean's story. 
 
 glance off without affecting much injury. In October, 1861, 
 forty-five days from the laying of her keel, the St Louis was 
 launched, being the first iron-clad ship owned by the United 
 States. Other vessels of similar design were rapidly brought 
 to completion, and these iron-clad river boats began their task 
 of opening the navigation of the Mississij)pi. The St. Louis 
 was built in the city of the same name, by Mr. James B. Eads, 
 of that city. 
 
 The cuts represent the shape of some of the iron-clads built 
 for service in the western rivers, where the shallowness of the 
 stream made it necessary that the craft shoiud not draw too 
 much water. 
 
 For the same reasons the "tin-clads," as they were called 
 from the thinness of the plates with which they were covered, 
 were built. The " double-enders " were also thus constructed, 
 in order to navigate, as necessary, either way, in the narrow 
 and crooked streams, where our navy performed such admir 
 able work during the war. 
 
 The use of heavy artillery in naval warfare has also caused 
 great modifications to be made in the construction of other 
 naval ships than the monitors. To avoid the injury caused by 
 heavy artillery, the idea was suggested of plating them with 
 iron. The most extensive experiments of this kind were made 
 in England, but not with the most gratifying success. It was 
 found that the iron plating rendered the ships too heavy, if it 
 was made thick enough to be of effective service. In a rough 
 sea the vessels rolled so heavily as to be nearly unmanageable, 
 while the weight of the plating on the sides acted with a lever- 
 age to tear the ships in halves, so that they were considered 
 almost unsafe. One of them, also, on her trial trip, having cap- 
 sized and sunk with her entire crew, public confidence in them 
 as serviceable vessels was entirely lost ; and the advantage of 
 iron-plating large shins of war may be still considered as an 
 open questioi\ 
 
684 ocean's story. 
 
 It has also been suggested that ships of war should be fur- 
 nished with a sharp beak of steel, and with such powerful 
 engines as should secure for them great speed, and, without 
 trusting at all to the use of their guns, should be used as rams 
 to run into and crush their adversaries. This suggestion, 
 which is practically returning to the practice of the ancients 
 before the invention of either gunpowder or steam, has never 
 yet, however, been carried out in fact. So far, therefore, the 
 most serviceable modern ships of war are the monitors. The 
 largest and most expensive of these, the Dunderberg, was not 
 finished until after the war was over, and was sold, with the 
 consent of the government, by her builder, to Bussia for $1,000,- 
 000, and crossed the Atlantic safely, a feat which showed her 
 to be sea-worthy, and more worthy of confidence than any of 
 the armored vessels built by the English Government. 
 
 In modcro^times attention has also been given to construct- 
 ing vessels which should be navigated under the water. Ful- 
 ton, whose name is so inseparably connected with the intro- 
 duction of the steamboat, made an attempt, the first on record, 
 in the harbor of Brest, on the west coast of France, in 1801, 
 under the order of Napoleon I., to blow up an English ship 
 with a torj^edo, a weapon of warfare which is said to have been 
 first suggested by Franklin, who experimented with them in 
 the Bevolution. Fulton used, in this attempt, a submarine boat 
 of his own invention, the model . and construction of which 
 have never been made public. His attempt being unsuccessful 
 the project was abandoned, as Napoleon withdrew his support 
 from the scheme. 
 
 During our late civil war, while the harbor of Charleston, 
 South Carolina, was blockaded by the ships of the national 
 navy, and the bombardment of Fort Sumter continued, attempts 
 were made by the besieged to destroy the blockading ships by 
 torpedoes, which were to be fastened by a submarine oratt. 
 Oue of these boats, ciUed a " cig^r boat," though both ends 
 
■'npiiililfiitli: 
 
686 ocean's story. 
 
 were pointed, is tlius described : She was thirty feet long and 
 six feet broad, painted a lead color. Her propelling power 
 consisted of a six-horse engine, geared to a shaft turning a pro- 
 peller. At her bow was an iron bowsprit, so arranged that it 
 could be lowered to the required depth, and au the end of this 
 the torpedo was secured. When afloat only about fifteen feet 
 of her length projected some fourteen inches above the water. 
 For fuel she used anthracite coal, and attained a speed of about 
 six miles an hour. Iler tonnage was about seven or eight tons, 
 and in this craft Lieutenant Glassells, of Virginia, volunteered 
 to attack the iron-clad, the Ironsides, which was the most pow- 
 erful ship at that time afloat in the navy, rated at from three 
 to four thousand tons. The Ironsides was a very heavily armed 
 ship, provided with eleven-inch guns, and capable of delivering 
 the heaviest broadside ever fired from a single ship. On the 
 night of the sixth of October, 1868, Lieutenant Glassells set 
 out on his expedition from one of the wharves of Charleston. 
 The sky was covered with clouds, and the night was very dark. 
 His crew consisted of a fireman and a pilot, and his offensive 
 armament of a torpedo, in position, and a double-barreled fowl- 
 ing-piece. Being asked why he carried a gun on such an ex- 
 pedition, he answered : " You know I have served in the 
 United States navy, and. I shall not attack my old comrades 
 like an assassin. T shall hail and fire into them, with this, then 
 let the torpedo do its work like an open and declared foe." 
 This speech is a fair specimen of the singular mixture of honor 
 and disloyalty which characterized the whole secession move- 
 ment. This lieutenant could desert his navy, could take up 
 arms against his country, but could not attack one of its ships 
 without first giving its crew warning. 
 
 The "cigar boat" steamed silently on its course until within 
 about fifty yards of the Ironsides, without being discovered. 
 Everything on the immense ship seemed as quiet as the grave 
 Suddenly, in the st'U night, the lieutenant cries, " Ship ahoy I' 
 
TOKi^EDO ATTACK. 
 
 687 
 
 " Wliere away ?" is the answer. " We have come to attack 
 you," cries the lieutenant, at the same time firing his fowling- 
 piece, checking the engine, and directing the torpedo. It 
 struck, but before the "cigar boat" could retire, with a guvg- 
 
 TORPEDO EXPLOSION. 
 
 ling roar it exploded. The explosion sounded like the dis 
 chaige of a submerged gun. Water mixed with flame waa 
 forced by the explosion far up above the gunwales of the ship, 
 and bearing' uj\ the bows of the smaller craft, poured back in 
 
688 ocean's story. 
 
 torrents through the chimney, put out the fires, and rendorefi 
 the " cigar boat " helpless. 
 
 For a moment everything on board the Ironsides was in 
 confusion ; but the discipline of the navy was equal to the 
 emergency. The drums beat to quarters, the guns were 
 manned, and the marines poured a steady fire upon the Httle 
 caft, now floating helplessly on the sea. Lieutenant Glassells 
 jumped into the water, to escape death from the shower of 
 balls ; the pilot followed him, but the fireman remained at his 
 post, as the boat drifted away from danger. Glassells then 
 called for help ; the marines ceased firing, and a small boat 
 from the Ironsides rescued him from the water. The pilot 
 swam back to the " cigar boat " and he and the fireman bailed 
 her out, rekindled the fire, and escaped to Charleston. Glas- 
 sells was afterwards sent North, and under confinement his 
 health broke down. The Ironsides was sufficiently injured by 
 the explosion to be sent from her station for repairs. Had 
 the torpedo struck her further below, it is thought to be prob- 
 able that she would have been sunk. 
 
 Another torpedo boat was also built in Charleston, upon a 
 different model. This was called the " fish boat." It was 
 built of boiler-iron, was thirty feet long by five feet eight 
 inches deep, and about four and a half feet wide, amidships. 
 Its middle section was an ellipse flattening to a wedge shape at 
 both ends, which were alike. It was intended to rise or sink 
 in the water, like a fish, and in order to do this its specific 
 gravity had to be kept equal that of water. In navigating 
 under water the boat had also to be kept upon an even keel. 
 On her bowsprit, which projected ten feet, the torpedo was 
 secured, and in order to balance the hundred and fifty pounds 
 this weighed, an equal amount of ballast was stowed at the 
 stern. Ten feet from her bow she had two iron fins, one on 
 each side, about four feet long, seven inches wide and three- 
 •ighths of an inch thick. These fins were fastened to an inch 
 
THE CARKER OF THE " FISH BOAT." 689 
 
 rod of iron passing through water-tight fittings in her sides, 
 and provided with a crank inside, so that the fins could be 
 worked in any direction, or at any angle, forcing the craft to 
 the surface, or below, or forward or backward. By working 
 them also in opposite directions the vessel could be turned as 
 a row-boat is by pulling with one oar and backing water with 
 the other. At the stern, midway between the top and bottom, 
 she was provided with a propeller, worked by a shaft, fitted 
 water-tight, and propelled by hand-power inside the hold. On 
 her deck were two round hatches, or man holes, about ten feet 
 apart, and fitted with plates of such thick glass as is used in 
 side-walks, for cellar lights, set in iron frames, working upon 
 hinges, fastened on the inside, and fitting water-tight when 
 closed. Between these hatches were two flexible air pipes, 
 with air-tight valves, so that when within a foot of the surface, 
 by opening the valves, fresh air could be drawn into the hold 
 The crew depended upon the violent action of their hats, when 
 the valves were open, for making a current sufficient to dis- 
 place the foul air, and bring in a supply of fresh. 
 
 When the boat was finished, in the first experiment made 
 with her, she carried a crew of eight men, and a shifting ballast 
 of iron plates. She moved from the wharf, passed down the 
 river, just showing the tops of the hatches, dove under a ship 
 lying in the stream, rose on the other side, and returned to the 
 wharf. This was done successfully a second time, when the 
 chief of the crew left her for some purpose, and the rest of the 
 men, though unaccustomed to the work, undertook to perform 
 the experiment alone. She moved out, dove down, but never 
 came up. About a fortnight afterward she was found, raised, 
 the dead removed, and the whole inside disinfected, cleaned and 
 pamted white. On the second trial she filled just as the crew 
 had manned her, and sunk. The captain and one other saved 
 themselves, but the rest of the crew, consisting of five, were 
 drowned in her. Another crew volunteered to man her, and 
 
 44 
 
690 ocean's story. 
 
 on the night of the 17th of February, 186^, she set out from 
 SulHvan's Island, to which place she had run from heranchor- 
 Jige, to attack the blockading fleet, carrying a torpedo affixed 
 to her bowsprit. 
 
 During the v/hole night the bombardment of the city was 
 kept up, and nothing was heard of the fish boat. The. next 
 morning a heavy fog hung over the coast, clearing up about 
 eight in the morning, and the sloop-of -war Ilousatonic was 
 discovered to be sunk in about six fathoms of water, her crew 
 swarming in her rigging for safety. The fish boat had de- 
 stroyed her, and destroyed herself in doing so. This was the 
 first time that she had ever been used in exploding a torpedo, 
 and the cause of her destruction is supposed to have been as 
 follows: The weight of the torpedo, on her bowsprit, was 
 balanced hv the shiftinor ballast in her stern, and thus she was 
 kept on an even keel. As soon, however, as the torpedo struck 
 and exploded, the balance was destroyed, her bows were lifted 
 by the weight in the stern, control was lost of her, and the 
 Housatonic, sinking from the damage done her by the explo- 
 sion, settled upon the " fish boat" and carried her and her crew 
 to the bottom. 
 
 Disastrous as these attempts at submarine navigation were, 
 yet they are the most successful yet made. We have seen 
 else where that men have, for other purposes than Avar, been 
 able to descend under the surface of the sea, and stay there 
 quite a time without injury ; but their appliances are not ves 
 sels intended for navigation. 
 
 Let us turn, then, from this record of how human ingenuity 
 has been taxed to devise means to destroy men, to the conside 
 ration of the new devices made for their comfort or safety in 
 crossing the sea. One of the most useful of these is a life raft 
 or bolsa, one of which is represented in our cut. This con- 
 sists of three elastic cylinders, made of india-rubber cloth, 
 each twenty-five feet long. When empty they are easily packed 
 
CROSSING THE OCEAN ON A LIFE RAFT. 
 
 691 
 
 in a very small compass. For use they are blown u{), and fas- 
 tened to a prepared staging. The cut represents one which 
 crossed the Atlantic in 1867, arriving at Southaniptou July 25, 
 having started from New York forty-three days before. She was 
 rigged with two masts secured to the staging, and her crew 
 consisted of three men, John Wilkes, George Miller and Jerry 
 Malleue. A bellows to fill the cylinders, should they require 
 it, was an important item in her cargo. The crew kept altcr- 
 
 LIFE RAPT. 
 
 Lat« watch, sleeping, by turns, in a tent spread on the staging. 
 Their supply cf water they carried in casks. The experiment 
 of crossing the Atlantic was made to show the safety of a raft 
 thus constructed. 
 
 For attaining speed, and thus diminishing the tedium and 
 the risk of an Atlantic voyage, Mr. Wynans, of Baltimore, 
 has invented a cigar-shaped boat, as it is called, though it is 
 pointed at both ends. Various causes have hitherto prevented 
 his fina? experiment with his boat, but he hopes to be able to 
 
692 ocean's story. 
 
 make with it an average speed of at least eighteen miles an 
 hour. 
 
 Crossing the Atlantic has become so common, and sea sick- 
 ness making the trip so disagreeable and dangerous to many 
 people, attention has been turned to inventing a method of 
 construction which shall destroy the cause for this malady, by 
 keeping the saloon always on a level, notwitjistanding the pitch- 
 ing and rolling of the ship in a high sea. Mr. Bessemer, the 
 inventor of the new process for making steel, has invented a 
 boat, which he is now constructing, and which he thinks will 
 make it perfectly feasible to cross the Atlantic without the 
 necessity of paying the usual tribute to old Neptune. The 
 general idea of his ship may be thus described : The saloon 
 for passengers is to be balanced upon a frame work similar in 
 principle to that by which the lamps on ship-board are sup. 
 ported. An outer circle swings upon pivota at each end of its 
 diameter, and within another circle supports the lamp, which is 
 swung upon pivots at right angles with those in the first. How- 
 ever, then, the ship may pitch or roll, the lamp remains 
 perpendicular, the circles adjusting themselves to meet the 
 motion of the ship. This idea is to be applied in the con. 
 struction of the saloon, so that it will remain constantly on a 
 level, and as Mr. Bessemer has a plenty of money to construct 
 a dozen of ships for an experiment, the public may expect be- 
 fore long to hear of a trial. The first ship of the kmd is 
 reported as on the stocks, and to be rapidly approaching com- 
 })letion. Nor is this the only style of ship suggested to obviate 
 sea-sickness. A Russian, M. Alexandroiski, proposes a new 
 form of stationary ship-saloon, which differs from that of Mr. 
 Bessemer in having the cabin float in kind of a tank placed 
 between the engines, instead of being hung on pivots. This 
 invention, it is stated, has been tested by the Russian Naval 
 Department, and is reported to have been found entirely satis- 
 faclo'v^ the rolling motion of the vessel being completely 
 
YACHT BUILDING. f ( Uj^ ? 693 
 
 th'e^^i^w- c 
 
 counteracted. With the success of one or thos^^Tr of these 
 plans, an ocean voyage, even in a rough sea, wnh^gome a 
 pleasure trip, like sailing in a painted ship upon a painted 
 ocean ; the wildness of a storm even may become merely an 
 exciting spectacle, like looking at the representation of a hur- 
 ricane in a theatre, with the further advantage of having it 
 real and life-like. 
 
 Perhaps the change which has been brought about in our 
 feeling with regard to the ocean is shown more in the yacht- 
 ing of modern times than in anything else. The idea of mak- 
 ing a trip across the Atlantic is no longer considered an almost 
 foolhardy undertaking, but even our yachts have made it a 
 field for their races, and a match across the Atlantic has be- 
 come not an unusual thing. The owning of yachts has become 
 so general among our rich men, that yacht-building has become 
 a regular branch of naval architecture, and constant improve- 
 ments are being made in their models, and greater luxury 
 displayed in their fitting up. George Steers, who has been 
 mentioned before for his improvements in the model of the 
 steamship, made his first reputation by the construction of the 
 yacht America, which was sent over to Englana, and proved 
 the fastest vessel in the regatta on the occasion of the first 
 World's Fair in London. This yacht, after her victory, was 
 bought by an Englishman, and never used again, being left to 
 rot at her moorings. However, she changed the yacht models 
 of Europe. 
 
 A yacht race across the Atlantic was one of the sensations 
 of the year 1866. Three yachts entered the contest, the Hen- 
 rietta, the Fleetwing and the Vista. They started from Sandy 
 Hook one day in December, and though the season had been 
 unusually stormy, and they encountered gales almost all the way, 
 so that frequently they were forced to sail under bare poles, 
 and the Fleetwing lost several of her sailors, who were washed 
 overboard, yet they arrived safe at Cowes on the same day, 
 
THE EXPENSE OF A YACHT. 695 
 
 after a fourteen days' voyage, the Ilenrietta winning the race 
 by a couple of hours. This yacht was the property of James 
 Gordon Bennett, Jr., the son of the owner of the New York 
 Herald. During the war her owner freely offered her to the 
 government, and she has done good service. After the victory 
 Mr. Bennett sold her for $15,000, and purchased the Fleetwing 
 for $65,000, re-christening her the Dauntless. This yacht, in 
 another ocean race in 1870, was beaten by the Cambria, an 
 English yacht. These prices show the cost of seekint^ one's 
 pleasure in a yacht, and yet it is only one item of the expense. 
 To keep one of the vessels costs more than the expenses of the 
 majority of the households in the country. A crew of five 
 men is needed, and it is a question whether, all things consid- 
 ered, more real substantial interest and enjoyment is not 
 taken by a lover of the sea and of sailing in an ordinary sail- 
 boat, which he and a friend or two are amply competent to 
 man and manage, than is taken by the owners of the most lux- 
 uriantly furnished yachts in the world. As pleasure ships, how- 
 ever, the yacht is all that can be desired. Many of them con- 
 tain spacious saloons ; their cabins are almost always paneled in 
 cosUy woods, and most luxuriantly furnished, and even gas 
 has Deen provided for them. It is estimated that the vachts 
 of the New York club alone have cost more than $2,000,000, 
 and those of the whole country about $5,000,000. Much of this 
 is the mere luxury of ostentation ; but as the real pleasures 
 there are in thus visiting distant lands come to be better appre- 
 ciated, n»uch of this foolish expenditure will be abandoned 
 
CHAPTER LVIII. 
 
 PB KNOWLKDOB OF THE EARTH AND SKA — HOW IT HAS INCUEA8ET> — THE EARTH TSM 
 DAUGHTER OF THE OCEAN — THE OPINION OF SCIENCE — THE MEAN DEPTH OF THE 
 OCEAN — THE EXTENT OF THE OCEAN — ITS VOLUME — SPECIFIC ORAVITT OF SEA-Wl.TKn 
 ^<;ON8TlTUTION OF SALT-WATER — THE SILVER IN THE SEA — THE WAVES OF THE 
 SEA — THE CURRENTS OF THE OCEAN — THE TIDES— THE AQUARIUM — THE COMMERCE OF 
 MODERN TIMES— THE SPREAD OF PEACE. 
 
 In the preceding pages the facts have been given in a com- 
 prehensive though succinct form, which enable us to sec how, 
 step by step, each one of which became possible only when 
 those preceding had been taken. Mankind has gained a knowl- 
 edge of the outlines of the sea; of the form of the earth itself; 
 of the relative positions occupied by the water and the land ; 
 of their action upon each other, and thus the way has been pre- 
 pared by the enterprize of preceding generations for the scien- 
 tific methods of study which characterize the modern era. The 
 adventurous voyagers of the early times, who, daring as they 
 were, hardly were bold enough to venture in their open boats, 
 propelled only by oars, out of the sight of land, could not be 
 expected to conceive that it could be possible for men. Tike 
 themselves, to ever become able to construct ships such as modern 
 nations construct, in which, propelled by steam, voyages should 
 be taken across oceans, and out of sight of land, their course 
 over the trackless waters be guided with accuracy and certainty, 
 to any desired point, by the compass and the obser'vaitions of 
 the motions of the stars. 
 
 By experiment and observation the entire aspect and concep- 
 tion of the ocean has been changed in modern times from that 
 which prevailed in antiquity, or even more recently, until 
 within the few past generations. Though much has been done, 
 in the study of the ocean, toward obtaining a proper conception 
 
 of its influence in the general economy of the globe, 3'et there 
 
 am 
 
MODERN STUDY OF THE OCEAN. 697 
 
 13 still much to be learned. Among tlie ancients it was gene- 
 rally declared in their cosmogonies that the solid portions of 
 the world were produced by the ocean. " Water is the chief 
 of all," says Pindar ; *' the earth is the daughter of ocean," is 
 the mythological statement common to the primitive nations. 
 Though this poetical expression was merely based upon a 
 vague tradition, and can hardly be taken as the result of any 
 methodical study of the earth, yet modern science tends to 
 show that it is really true. The ocean has produced the solid 
 land. The study of geology, the skilled inspection of the 
 various strata of the land — the rocks, sand, clay, chalk, con- 
 glomerates — proves that the materials of the continents have 
 been chiefly deposited at the bottom of the sea, and raised to 
 their present position by the chemical or mechanical agencies 
 which are constantly at work in the vast labratory of nature 
 Many rocks, as for instance the granites of Scandinavia, which 
 were previously believed to have been projected in a molten 
 and plastic state from the interior of the earth, where they had 
 been subjected to the action of the intense heat supposed to ex ist in 
 the centre of the earth, are now supposed to be in reality ancient 
 sedimentary strata, slowly deposited by the sea, and upheaved 
 by the contraction of the crust, or by some other force of up- 
 heaval acting from the centre. Upon the sides of mountains, or 
 on their summits, now thousands of feet above the level of 
 the ocean, unquestionable traces of the action of the sea can 
 be found. And the scientific observer of to-day sees all 
 about him evidences that the immense work of the creation of 
 continents, commenced by the sea in the earliest periods of 
 time, is to-day continuing without relaxation or intermission, 
 and with such energy that even during the short course of a 
 single life great changes can be seen to have been produced. 
 Here and there a coast, subject to the beating of the serf, is 
 seCn to be slowly undermined, disintegrated, worn down and 
 carried away, while in another place the material is deposited 
 
698 ocean's story. 
 
 by the sea, and sandy beaches or promontories are built up, 
 New rocks also, differing in appearance and constitution 
 from those worn away, are formed. But beside this action of 
 the sea upon the coasts, in constantly changing the configura^ 
 tion of the land, modern observation has shown us that ani- 
 mal life is an a^i^ent constantly at work within the sea itself, 
 in the formation of new lands. The innumerable minute 
 forms of life with which the sea swarms; the coral polyps, 
 the shells, the sponges, and the animalculse of all kinds, are 
 constantly engaged in consuming the food they find, in repro- 
 ducing themselves, and in dying. From the various matters 
 brought down to the ocean by the rivers of the land, they se- 
 crete their shells or other coverings ; and as generation after 
 generation they die, these falling to the bottom form immense 
 banks, or plains, which some future action of upheaval will 
 bring above the surface to form the material for new conti 
 nents or islands. 
 
 Thus while the ocean prepares the materials for the future 
 continents in its bosom, it also furnishes the waters which wash 
 away the lands already existing. To the thought of modern 
 science the granite peaks, the snow-clad mountains, immova- 
 ble and eternal^ as they seem, are constantly disintegrating, 
 and partake, with every thing else in creation, the eternal 
 round of change which is constantly going on. From the sea, 
 by evaporation, rise the vapors which, condensing against the 
 sides of the mountains, form the glaciers ; and these, slowly 
 sliding '^own toward the plains, are such efficient agents in 
 wearing a\vay the mountains, grinding up their solid rocks 
 and preparing the gravel which the mountain streams distrib- 
 ute over the plains. From the sea the atmosphere receives 
 the moisture destined to return in rain from the clouds ; to feed 
 the brooks whose union forms the rivers, destined again to 
 return to the sea the waters it provided, and thus keep up, in a 
 Eingle, mighty and endless circulation, the waters of the globe 
 
ITS PRODUCTION OF THE LAND. ^9^ 
 
 Thus to the agency of the ocean we are indebted for our 
 rivers, which have played such an important part in the geo- 
 logical history of the earth, in the distribution of the flora 
 and fauna of various countries, and on the life of man him- 
 self. In the study also of the climates of the earth, and their 
 effects upon life, we find the ocean bears a most important 
 part. As the circulation of the atmosphere mingles the 
 heated air from the equator with that of the frozen regions of 
 the poles, so the currents of the ocean circulate about the 
 earth, blending the contrasts of climate, and making a harmo- 
 nious whole of all the different portions. Thus, instead of con- 
 sidering the ocean as the barren waste of desolation it appear- 
 ed to the ancients, to the modern thinker the ocean has, layer 
 by layer, deposited the land from its bosom, and now by its 
 vapors provides the rains which support its vegetable life, 
 upon which all other life depends, and creates the rivers and 
 the springs, which play such an important part in the modifi- 
 cation of the interior of continents, at the greatest distance 
 from the sea. 
 
 The mean depth of the whole mass of the ocean waters of 
 the globe is estimated at about three miles, since measure- 
 ments have shown that the basins of the Atlantic and Northern 
 Pacific are deeper than this by hundreds of thousands of 
 fathoms. Tlie extent covered by the surface of the ocean has 
 been estimated at more than 145,000,000 of square miles, and 
 with this estimate, the sea is calculated to form a volume of 
 about two and one-half million billions of cubic yards, or about 
 the five hundred and sixtieth part of the planet itself. The 
 highest point of the land raised above the level of the sea is 
 much less elevated than the bottom of the sea is depressed 
 from the same level, so that the mass of the land above this 
 level can be estimated only at about a fortieth part of the mass 
 of the waters. 
 
 The specific gravity of sea water is greater than that of 
 
/OO ocean's story. 
 
 fresh. This comes from the various matters which it holds in 
 solution. This difference varies with different seas ; with the 
 quantity of matters held in solution ; with the amount of eva- 
 poration; the size and number of rivers flowing into the 
 various seas ; the ice melting into them ; the currents, and 
 various other causes. The average quantity of salts held in 
 solution in sea water is estimated at 34.40 parts in 1,000, and 
 this average is the same in all seas. The quantityof common 
 salt held in solution is always a little more than three-quarters 
 (75.786) of the total mineral matter held in solution. The 
 salt of the sea averages, if the water is evaporated, about two 
 inches to every fathom ; so that, were the ocean dried up, a 
 layer of salt about two hundred and thirty feet thick would 
 remain on the bottom, or the whole salt of the sea would 
 measure more than a thousand millions of cubic miles. This 
 vast quantity of salt in the sea explains how the enormous 
 beds of rock salt were formed, when the lands now exposed 
 were covered by the waters. 
 
 Beside the oxygen and hydrogen which constitute its waters, 
 the sea contains chlorine, nitrogen, carbon, bromine, iodine, 
 fluorine, sulphur, phosphorus, silicon, sodium, potassium, 
 boron, aluminium, magnesium, calcium, strontium, barium 
 From the various sea- weeds most of these substances can be 
 obtained. Copper, lead, zinc, cobalt, nickel and manganese 
 have also been found in their ashes. Iron has also been ob- 
 tained from sea water, and a trace of silver also is often 
 deposited' by the magnetic current established between the 
 sheeting of ships and the salt water. Though only a trace is 
 thus found, vet it has been estimated that the whole waters of 
 the ocean contain in solution two million tons of silver. In 
 the boilers of ocean steamships, which use sea water, arsenio 
 has also been found 
 
 Sea water also retains dissolved air better than fresh water, 
 »ind the bulk of this in ocean water is generally greater by a 
 
THB VELOCITY OF WAVES. 701 
 
 third than that found in river water. It varies from a fiftli to 
 a thirtieth, and gradually increases from the surface to a depth 
 of about three hundred and twenty-five to three hundred and 
 eighty fathoms. The uniformity in the constitution of the 
 waters of the sea is chiefly caused by the action of the waves, 
 which finally mix and mingle the waters into a homogenious 
 mass. The waves of the sea are caused chiefly by the action 
 of the wind, and the effect continues even after the wind has 
 ceased. One of the grandest spectacles at sea is oftered by the 
 regular movement of the waves in perfectly calm weather, 
 when not a breath of air stirs the sails. During to the Au- 
 tumnal calm under the Tropic of Cancer, these waves appear 
 with astonishing regularity at intervals of two hundred to 
 three hundred yards, sweep under the ship, and as far as the 
 eye can reach, are seen advancing and passing away, as regu- 
 larly as the furrows in a field. Such waves are caused by the 
 regularity of the trade winds. The height of the waves is 
 not the same in all seas. It is greater where the basin v- 
 deeper in proportion to the surface, and also as the water i^ 
 fresher and yields easier to the impulses of the wind. 
 
 The height of waves has been variously measured. Some 
 observers have claimed to see them over one hundred feet 
 high, but from twenty to fifty feet is about the average of 
 observations on the Atlantic. The breadth of a wave is cal- 
 culated as fifteen times its height. Thus, a wave four feet high 
 is sixty feet broad. The inclination of the sides of the waves 
 varies however with the force of the wind, and with the 
 strength of the secondary vibrations in the water, which may 
 interfere with the primary ones. The speed of the waves is 
 only apparent like the motion in a length of cloth shaken up 
 and down. Floating objects do not change their relative posi- 
 tions, but slowly, except in rising and falling with the wave 
 The real movement of the sea is that of a drifting current, 
 which is slowly formed under the action of the wind, and this 
 
702 OCEAN'S STORY. 
 
 is not rapid; but slow. The astronomer Aireysa/s that everjr 
 wave 100 feet wide, traversing a sea 1&4: fiUhoms in average 
 depth, has a velocity of nearly 2,100 feet a second, or about 
 fifteen and one-half miles an hour ; a wave 674 feet, moving 
 over a sea 1,640 fathoms deep, travels more than 69 feet a 
 second, or nearly fifty miles an hour, and this last calculation 
 may be taken as the average speed of storm waves in great 
 seas. As, therefore, we can calculate the velocity of waves 
 from their width and the known depth of the sea, we can cal- 
 culate the depth of the sea from the known size and velocity 
 of' the waves. By this method the depth of the Pacific be- 
 tween Japan and California has been calculated from the size 
 and speed of an earthquake wave, which was set in motion by 
 an eruption in Japan. The accuracy of the calculation was 
 afterward established by actual soundings. 
 
 It was formerly supposed that the disturbance of the waves 
 did not penetrate the depth of the water, below four or six 
 fathoms, but this has been found, on further observation, erro- 
 neous. Sand and mud have been brought up from a depth of 
 a hundred fathoms below the surface, and experiments have 
 shown that waves have a vertical influence 350 times their 
 height. Thus a wave a foot high influences the bottom at a 
 depth of 50 fathoms, and a billow of the ocean 33 feet high is 
 felt below at a distance of If miles. At these great depths the 
 action of the wave is perhaps imaginary, but to this reason we 
 can ascribe the heavy swells which are often so dangerous. A 
 hidden rock, far below the surface, arrests some moving wave 
 and causes an eddy, which, rising to the surface, produces the 
 "ground swells" which suddenly rise in the neighborhood of 
 submarine banks and endanger ships. This cause also explains 
 the tide races, which, coming from the depths of the ocean^ 
 advance suddenly upon the beaches, destroying all that opposes 
 them. It is this cause which makes the position of light- 
 houses upon certain reefs so dangerous. The Bell Bock house, 
 
CURRENTS IN THE OCEAN. 703 
 
 on the Siott'sh coast, stands 112 feet above the rock, and yet it 
 is often covered with the waves and foam, even after the temp- 
 est has ceased to rage. Such light-houses are often washed 
 away ; as that at Minot's Ledge, on the coast of Massachusetts, 
 has often been. In consequence the modern method of build- 
 inor these structures differs from that formerly in use. The 
 custom was to build them of solid masonry, hoping to make 
 them strong enough to resist the waves. Now they are generally 
 built of iron lattice open work, making the bars as slender as 
 is consistent with the proper strength, so as to offer the least 
 resisting surface to the rushing water. This open frame work 
 is raised up high enough, if possible, to place the house aud 
 lantern above the reach of the body of the wave. 
 
 The force of the water in such positions is prodigious. 
 Stephenson calculated that the sea dashed against the Bell 
 Rock light-house with a force of 17 tons for every square yard. 
 At breakwaters in exposed situations the sea has been known 
 to seize blocks of stone weighing tons, and hurl them as a 
 child would pebbles. At Cherbourg, in France, the heaviest 
 cannon have been displaced ; and at Barra Head, in the Heb- 
 rides, Stephenson states that a block of stone weighing 43 tons 
 was driven by the breakers about two yards. At Plymouth, 
 England, a vessel weighing 200 tons was thrown up on the top 
 of the dike, and left there uninjured. At Dunkirk it has been 
 found that from the dash of the breakers the ground trembles 
 for more than a mile from the shore. Results of this kind, to 
 which our attention is specially directed, since they affect man's 
 work, show us what must be the effect produced by the sea, in 
 constantly eating away the shore ; altering the coast lines ; chang- 
 ing continents, and building them up elsewhere ; and suggest 
 how much greater than what we see must have been the effects 
 of the sea upon the land during the countless ages in which it 
 has been at work. 
 
 The currents in the ocean, which constitute the real irot'oo 
 
704 ocean's story. 
 
 of its waters, are very important in the study of the influenoo 
 of the sea upon the land. By these the circulation of the 
 waters of the globe is carried on. The warm water of the 
 equatorial regions seeking the poles, and a counter movement 
 from the poles to the equator, is established. By their means 
 a constant mingling of the waters on the face of the whole earth 
 is maintained, and the wonderful similarity of its different por- 
 tions, in their composition, appearance, and the substances 
 heli in solution, is produced. The chief causes of this grand 
 circulation are found in the heat of the sun and in the rotation 
 of the earth upon its axis. By the evaporation of the waters 
 in the tropics the surface of that portion of the ocean is esti- 
 mated to b3 lowered more than fourteen feet yearly. By this 
 means not only is the atmosphere provided with its store of 
 vapor, to be dispensed in rain upon the land, and thus returned 
 again to the sea, but this lowering of the surface of the ocean, 
 in one part, leads to the currents flowing from the others to 
 restore the equilibrium. The same cause leading also to the 
 circulation of the atmosphere, produces the trade winds, which 
 aid in producing the currents in the ocean. 
 
 Kow that by study and observation mankind have arrived 
 at the conception of the form of the earth, at its general fea- 
 tures, and can, in idea, grasp it as a whole, the opportunity is 
 prepared for the methodical study of its parts, and their rela- 
 tion to each other ; and this is the subject which for the first 
 time in the history of mankind is offered to the physical geog- 
 rapher, with the certainty that none of his observations can be 
 lost, but that they all are important, and can each be referred 
 to its proper place. Another movement of the ocean is the 
 tides. To the ancients, unacquainted with the form of the 
 earth, its position in space, or its relations with the other bodies 
 of the solar system, the tides were naturally inexplicable. It 
 has been possible only in modern times to attempt their expla- 
 nation. Kepler first indicated the course to be followed; and 
 
PHENOMENA OF TIDES. 705 
 
 Descartes and Newton eacli gave a theory; the first that of the 
 pressure of the waters; the last, that of the attraction of the 
 sun and moon upon the waters. This last theory is the one 
 generally accepted, since it has been found satisfactory in most 
 respects; yet it still has its opponents. Now, however, that 
 the telegraph has been discovered, and a means thus aftorded 
 for instantaneous communication between observers at distant 
 points, it has become possible to organize a simultaneous ob- 
 servation of the tides at various places, and eventually this will 
 be done, so that the theory that the tides are caused by the at- 
 traction of the sun and moon will be entirely proved or rejected 
 according as it will be found consistent with the facts observed. 
 
 In this connection an interesting; instance of the different 
 manner in which the ancients regarded natural phenomena, 
 from that in which the moderns rea;ard the same occurrences, is 
 found in the fear the ancients had of the two monsters Scylla and 
 Chary bdis, which v/ere the fabled guardians of the Straits of 
 Messina. At present there are no straits in the Mediterranean 
 more frequented than those of Messina. By the soundings 
 which have been made there, these monsters had been effectu 
 ally destroyed, and the whirlpools are known to be produced 
 by the ebb and flow of the tide, causing a greater flow of water 
 than can be accommodated by the narrow channel. The width 
 of the channel is hardly two m^'les, and at low tide it has often 
 been crossed on horse-back, by swimming. The rising tide 
 tends toward the north, from the Ionian to the Tyrrhenian sea, 
 and the falling tide' in the opposite direction. There is a strife 
 l)etween these currents, and on their confines eddies are formed 
 which ships avoid, but there is no danger unless the wind blows 
 strongly against the tide. 
 
 Besides the influence of the currents and the tides of the 
 
 ocean in altering the configuration of the land, the sea is the 
 
 home of innvmerable forms of animal life, which are constantly 
 
 laboring in the same direction. It has been truly said, that 
 45 
 
706 OCEAX'S STORr. 
 
 a beef bone, thrown overboard by a sailor on a sliip, mny 
 form the nucleus of a new continent. The entire chalk clifts 
 of England were formed from the minute shells deposited hj 
 the small animals which secreted them. At their death these 
 fell to the bottom, and thus slowly through the ages the de- 
 posit was formed. The recent deep sea dredgings have shown 
 the sea, at all depths, is full of animal life ; and as the steady 
 fall of snow-flakes in a winter's storm, piled up by currents 
 of wind, form the drifts, or falling quietly, cover the ground 
 uniformly, so the sea is full of the minute shells, which, car- 
 ried by currents, form banks, or, falling evenly, prepare the 
 plains which in the future will appear, in some upheaval, to 
 form new continents. 
 
 In 4-he United States the peninsula of Florida is an evidence 
 of the land produced by the labor of the coral polyp. Florida 
 has now ceased to increase toward the east, for on this side it 
 touches the deep waters of the gulf, and the polyps can live 
 only in shallow water. The peninsula increases only on its 
 southern and western coasts. The cut at the end of this 
 chapter represents the appearance of coral islands as they 
 first rise to the surface, before the gathering soil provides the 
 conditions for covering them with the luxuriant vegetation of 
 the tropics. 
 
 The cut at the head of this chapter, of an aquarium, repre- 
 sents a new appliance of modern times, which is a most valu- 
 able aid in our obtaining a knowledge of the habits of the 
 animals living in the sea. • In fresh water, as well as In salt, 
 the mutual relations of the vegetable and animal life serve to 
 keep the water from becoming stagnant. The plants secrete 
 the carbonic acid gas, which the animals give to the water by 
 breathing, and in so doing free the oxygen which the animals 
 require. In keeping therefore an aquarium,'t he desired point 
 in to provide such a natural proportion of vegetable and animal 
 life as shall preserve this balance. In many of the larger 
 
THE EXTENT OF MODERN COMMERCE. 707 
 
 museums of Europe, large aquariums have been built, and an 
 opportunity thus afforded for the study of the various animal 
 forms, the habits of the vegetable growths, and their relations. 
 Some of these structures are so arranged that they surround a 
 room which receives its light only through the water in the 
 aquaria, and thus the spectator, without disturbing the fish, 
 can watch them feeding and performing all their actiois. 
 
 From this arrangement of the aquaria, as the light passes 
 from the water to the eye, the spectator is not distubcd in his 
 vision, as he is by trying to look into the water from above, 
 by the refraction of the light. A great deal that has been 
 learned in modern times concerning the growth of the vegeta- 
 tion of the sea, of the habits of the animals, of their manner of 
 life, their food and their growth, has been obtained from the 
 chance of observation afforded by the various aquaria. Beside 
 the positive benefits which have thus resulted from the public 
 aquaria, those in smaller form afford for the lover of natural 
 history a new and interesting way of carrying on his studies. 
 In this way also the habits of observation are formed in the 
 young, and it is fair to believe that the spirit of inquiry thus 
 excited will tend to increase the knowledge of the phenomena 
 of life, and its relations to the conditions of existence. 
 
 It has been by this course that the race itself has risen from 
 barbarism to its present degree of civilization, and with the 
 new appliances of modern times, it is evidently impossible to 
 limit the probabilities of advance in the future. 
 
 A few facts about the extent of our commerce will show the 
 difference of the spirit with which the ocean is regarded in 
 modern times, compared with that prevailing in anti- 
 quity ; and the different use we have learned to make of it, from 
 the time when the exchanges of the world were confined to a 
 few coasters, who hardly ventured out of the sight of land. 
 To give even the most condensed summary of the world's 
 commerce to-day would require a series of volumes; but a 
 
708 ocean's story. 
 
 few figures taken from our own will enable the reader to 
 judge of that which is now going on all over the world, unit- 
 ing the most distantly separated nations ; enabling them to be- 
 come acquainted with each other; and impressing them with 
 the fact that by industry alone are the material comforts of 
 life to be attained, and that the task before humanity is to be- 
 come acquainted with the products of the world, with the 
 forces of which it is the theatre, and learn to control them for 
 our own benefit. 
 
 From the report of the Bureau of Statistics, for a portion of 
 1873, we learn that the imports and exports of the United 
 States during eight months, ending with February, 1873, 
 amounted to the following totals : Imported in American ves- 
 sels, $101:,891,24r8 ; imported in foreign vessels, $317,043,490; 
 imported in land vehicles, $12,356,325. During the same period 
 the domestic exports in American vessels amounted to a 
 total of $108,246,698 ; in foreign vessels, $311,816,048 ; and in 
 land vehicles, $5,282, 949. At the same time the re-exporta 
 tion of foreign products amounted in American vessels to 
 $5,147,805; in foreign vessels to $10,938,300; and in land 
 vehicles to $1,693,795. 
 
 The number and tonnage of American and foreign vessels 
 engaged in the foreign trade, which entered and cleared during 
 the twelve months ending with February, 1873, was as follows : 
 American vessels, 10,928, carrying 3,597,474 tons; foreign 
 vessels, 19,220, carrying 7,622,416 tons. The report of the 
 Bureau for 1872, gives the following totals of the number of 
 vessels and their tonnage engaged in the commerce of the 
 United States. Upon the Atlanticand Gulf coasts, 21,940 vessels 
 carrying 2,916,001,058 tons. On the Western rivers, 1,476 
 vessels carrying 3^,938,052 tons. On the Northern lakes 
 5,339 vessels, carrying 726,105,0^1 tons. On the Pacific coast, 
 1,094 vessels carrying 161,987,050. 
 
 From the port oS New York alone tl>ere are now thirteen 
 
MAGNITUDE OF SniPPlXG. 709 
 
 lines of steamsliips plying to Europe. Of these the Anchor 
 line has 15 steamers, with a tonnage of 36,127 tons; the 
 Baltic Lloyds has -i vessels of 9,200 tons ; the Cardiff (a Welsh) 
 line has three vessels of 8,000 tons ; the Cunard has 23 ves- 
 sels of 59,308 tons ; the Uolland (direct) line has two vessek 
 of 4,000 tons ; the General Transatlantic (a French line) has 
 5 vessels of 17,000 tons ; the Hamburg has 15 vessels of 45,- 
 000 tons ; the Inman line has 12 vessels of 34,811 ; the Liv- 
 erpool and Great Western line has 7 vessels of 23,573 tons ; 
 the North German line has 20 vessels of 60,000 tons; the 
 National line has 12 vessels of 50,062 tons; the State line has 
 3 vessels of 7,500 tons ; and the White Star line has 6 vessels 
 of 23,064 tons. Beside these ships, the thirteen companies are 
 building from 30 to 40 more steamers to meet the demand for 
 freight. 
 
 The ocean has thus become almost a steam ferry ; almost 
 every day a steamer leaves for Europe. With this knowledge 
 of how far we have progressed in becoming acquainted with 
 the ocean, it will be well to consider for a moment how much 
 still remains for us to explore. In the middle ages, and even 
 down to modern times, the maps of the world represented all 
 unknown lands as inhabited by monsters; but every voyage 
 made by discoverers has contracted the limits of these fables, 
 until they have finally about disappeared. Still at the North 
 Pole and in the Antarctic regions areas extending over a space 
 of 2,900,000 and 8,700,000 square miles, respectively, have 
 been, up to this time, unvisited. The icebergs and mountains 
 of ice have kept them from our accurate investigations. The 
 difficulties of such a sea are well shown in the adjoining 
 illustration. 
 
 Discoveries have also to be made in the interiors of Africa, 
 Asia, South America and Australia before the civilized por- 
 tions of the race can claim a complete knowledge of the earth, 
 their common dwelling-place. Every year, however, the por- 
 
710 
 
 OCEAN S STORY. 
 
 tions unexplored grow smaller and smaller, so that we are 
 justified in believing that eventually the whole world will bo 
 known to us, from actual observation. 
 
 Another difference which our extended knowledge of the 
 
 APPEARANCE OF ICE. 
 
 world has produced is this: The mariner now approaching 
 an unknown coast does not fear to meet monsters, but looks 
 out for the light-house, the light-ships, the buoys, and othei 
 evidences of civilization, by which the dangers of the. coast 
 are pointed out to the voyager. As a contrast with some of 
 
LIGHT SHIP AND INCOMINO VESSEL. 
 
712 
 
 THE SPREAD OF PEACB. 
 
 the pictures already given, representing the approacli to 
 the land of the early explorers, the illustration of the light- 
 ship will show how differently to-day a voyage approaches its 
 termination. Instead of looking out for enemies, and prepar- 
 ing weapons for use, a package of newspapers and letters is 
 got ready, and the news boat, which lies ready at hand, is 
 prompt to seize them, and hasten with these to spread the 
 news of another safe arrival. It is thus that science, 
 which is gradually preparing the means for converting the 
 globe into one great organism for the benefit of mankind, 
 points out the way for making it the abode of that harmony, 
 peace and plenty which has been dreamed of by the poets of 
 all time. For this it is only necessary that our moral progress 
 should keep pace with our advance in knowledge. The globe 
 will never become the abode of perfect harmony until men 
 are united in a universal league of justice and peace. And 
 in aiding toward the production of this most desirable con- 
 summation, what has been here written will show how 
 important has been the part taken by the ocean. 
 
 A CORAI^ ISLAND. 
 
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