CHAP. VII.

THE SEQUEL OF THE PASSAGE FROM CAPE HORN TO THE NEWLY DISCOVERED ISLANDS IN THE SOUTH SEAS, WITH A DESCRIPTION OF THEIR FIGURE AND APPEARANCE; SOME ACCOUNT OF THE INHABITANTS, AND SEVERAL INCIDENTS THAT HAPPENED DURING THE COURSE, AND AT THE SHIP’S ARRIVAL AMONG THEM.

On the first of March, we were in latitude 38° 44ʹ S. and longitude 110° 33ʹ W. both by observation and by the log. This agreement, after a run of 660 leagues, was thought to be very extraordinary; and is a demonstration, that after we left the land of Cape Horn we had no current that affected the ship. It renders it also highly probable, that we had been near no land of any considerable extent; for currents are always found when land is not remote, and sometimes, particularly on the east side of the continent in the North Sea, when land has been distant 100 leagues.

Many birds, as usual, were constantly about the ship, so that Mr. Banks killed no less than 62 in one day; and what is more remarkable, he caught two forest flies, both of them of the same species, but different from any that have hitherto been described; these probably belonged to the birds, and came with them from the land, which we judged to be at a great distance. Mr. Banks also, about this time, found a large cuttle-fish, which had just been killed by the birds, floating in a mangled condition upon the water; it is very different from the cuttle-fishes that are found in the European seas; for its arms, instead of suckers, were furnished with a double row of very sharp talons, which resemble those of a cat, and, like them, were retractable into a sheath of skin, from which they might be thrust at pleasure. Of this cuttle-fish we made one of the best soups we had ever tasted.

The albatrosses now began to leave us, and after the 8th there was not one to be seen. We continued our course without any memorable event till the 24th, when some of the people who were upon the watch in the night, reported that they saw a log of wood pass by the ship; and that the sea, which was rather rough, became suddenly as smooth as a mill pond. It was a general opinion that there was land to windward; but I did not think myself at liberty to search for what I was not sure to find; though I judged we were not far from the islands that were discovered by Quiros in 1606. Our latitude was 22° 11ʹ S. and longitude 127° 55ʹ W.

On the 25th, about noon, one of the marines, a young fellow about twenty, was placed as centry at the cabin-door; while he was upon this duty, one of my servants was at the same place preparing to cut a piece of seal-skin into tobacco pouches: he had promised one to several of the men, but had refused one to this young fellow, though he had asked him several times; upon which he jocularly threatened to steal one, if it should be in his power. It happened that the servant being called hastily away, gave the skin in charge to the centinel, without regarding what had passed between them. The centinel immediately secured a piece of the skin, which the other missing at his return, grew angry; but after some altercation, contented himself with taking it away, declaring that, for so trifling an affair, he would not complain of him to the officers. But it happened that one of his fellow-soldiers, over-hearing the dispute, came to the knowledge of what had happened, and told it to the rest; who, taking it into their heads to stand up for the honour of their corps, reproached the offender with great bitterness, and reviled him in the most opprobrious terms; they exaggerated his offence into a crime of the deepest dye; they said it was a theft by a centry when he was upon duty, and of a thing that had been committed to his trust; they declared it a disgrace to associate with him; and the serjeant, in particular, said that, if the person from whom the skin had been stolen would not complain, he would complain himself; for that his honour would suffer if the offender was not punished. From the scoffs and reproaches of these men of honour, the poor young fellow retired to his hammock in an agony of confusion and shame. The serjeant soon after went to him, and ordered him to follow him to the deck: he obeyed without reply; but it being in the dusk of the evening, he slipped from the serjeant and went forward: he was seen by some of the people, who thought he was gone to the head; but a search being made for him afterwards, it was found that he had thrown himself overboard; and I was then first made acquainted with the theft and its circumstances.

The loss of this man was the more regretted as he was remarkably quiet and industrious, and as the very action that put an end to his life was a proof of an ingenuous mind; for to such only disgrace is insupportable.

On Tuesday the 4th of April, about ten o’clock in the morning, Mr. Banks’s servant, Peter Briscoe, discovered land, bearing south, at the distance of about three or four leagues. I immediately hauled up for it, and found it to be an island of an oval form, with a lagoon in the middle, which occupied much the larger part of it; the border of land which circumscribes the lagoon is in many places very low and narrow, particularly on the south side, where it consists principally of a beach or reef of rocks. It has the same appearance also in three places on the north side; so that the firm land being disjoined, the whole looks like many islands covered with wood. On the west end of the island is a large tree, or clump of trees, that in appearance resembles a tower; and about the middle are two cocoa-nut trees, which rise above all the rest, and, as we came near to the island, appeared like a flag. We approached it on the north side, and though we came within a mile, we found no bottom with 130 fathom of line, nor did there appear to be any anchorage about it. The whole is covered with trees of different verdure, but we could distinguish none, even with our glasses, except cocoa-nuts and palm-nuts. We saw several of the natives upon the shore, and counted four and twenty. They appeared to be tall, and to have heads remarkably large; perhaps they had something wound round them which we could not distinguish; they were of a copper colour, and had long black hair. Eleven of them walked along the beach abreast of the ship, with poles or pikes in their hands which reached twice as high as themselves. While they walked on the beach they seemed to be naked; but soon after they retired, which they did as soon as the ship had passed the island, they covered themselves with something that made them appear of a light colour. Their habitations were under some clumps of palm-nut trees, which at a distance appeared like high ground; and to us, who for a long time had seen nothing but water and sky, except the dreary hills of Terra del Fuego, these groves seemed a terrestrial paradise. To this spot, which lies in latitude 18° 47ʺ S., and longitude 139° 28ʹ W. we gave the name of Lagoon Island. The variation of the needle here is 2° 54ʹ E.

About one o’clock we made sail to the westward, and about half an hour after three we saw land again to the N. W. We got up with it at sunset, and it proved to be a low woody island, of a circular form, and not much above a mile in compass. We discovered no inhabitants, nor could we distinguish any cocoa-nut trees, though we were within half a mile of the shore. The land, however, was covered with verdure of many hues. It lies in latitude 18° 35ʹ S., and longitude 139° 48ʹ W., and is distant from Lagoon Island, in the direction of N. 62 W., about seven leagues. We called it Thrumb-Cap. I discovered by the appearance of the shore, that at this place it was low water; and I had observed at Lagoon Island, that it was either high water, or that the sea neither ebbed nor flowed. I infer, therefore, that a S. by E. or S. moon makes high water.

We went on with a fine trade-wind and pleasant weather, and on the 5th, about three in the afternoon, we discovered land to the westward. It proved to be a low island of much greater extent than either of those that we had seen before, being about ten or twelve leagues in compass. Several of us remained at the mast-head the whole evening, admiring its extraordinary figure: it was shaped exactly like a bow, the arch and cord of which were land, and the space between them water: the cord was a flat beach, without any signs of vegetation, having nothing upon it but heaps of sea-weed, which lay in different ridges, as higher or lower tides had left them. It appeared to be about three or four leagues long, and not more than two hundred yards wide; but as a horizontal plane is always seen in perspective, and greatly foreshortened, it is certainly much wider than it appeared: the horns, or extremities of the bow, were two large tufts of cocoa-nut trees; and much the greater part of the arch was covered with trees of different height, figure, and hue; in some parts, however, it was naked and low, like the cord. Some of us thought they discovered openings through the cord, into the pool or lake, that was included between that and the bow; but whether there were or were not such openings is uncertain. We sailed abreast of the low beach or bow-string, within less than a league of the shore, till sunset, and we then judged ourselves to be about half-way between the two horns. Here we brought to, and sounded, but found no bottom with one hundred and thirty fathom; and, as it is dark almost instantly after sunset in these latitudes, we suddenly lost sight of the land, and making sail again, before the line was well hauled in, we steered by the sound of the breakers, which were distinctly heard till we got clear of the coast.

We knew this island to be inhabited, by smoke which we saw in different parts of it, and we gave it the name of Bow Island. Mr. Gore, my second lieutenant, said, after we had sailed by the island, that he had seen several of the natives, under the first clump of trees, from the deck; that he had distinguished their houses, and seen several canoes hauled up under the shade; but in this he was more fortunate than any other person on board. The east end of this island, which, from its figure, we called the Bow, lies in latitude 18° 23ʹ S., and longitude 141° 12ʹ W.; we observed the variation of the compass to be 5° 38ʹ E.

On the next day, Thursday the 6th, about noon, we saw land again to the westward, and came up with it about three. It appeared to be two islands, or rather groups of islands, extending from N. W. by N. to S. E. by S. about nine leagues. Of these, the two largest were separated from each other by a channel of about half a mile broad, and were severally surrounded by smaller islands, to which they were joined by reefs that lay under water.

These islands were long narrow strips of land, ranging in all directions, some of them ten miles or upwards in length, but none more than a quarter of a mile broad, and upon all of them there were trees of various kinds, particularly the cocoa-nut. The south-eastermost of them lies in the latitude of 18° 12ʹ S. and longitude 142° 42ʹ W., and at the distance of twenty-five leagues in the direction of W. ½ N. from the west end of Bow Island. We ranged along the S. W. side of this island, and hauled into a bay which lies to the N. W. of the southermost point of the Group, where there was a smooth sea, and the appearance of anchorage, without much surf on the shore. We sounded, but we found no bottom with one hundred fathom, at the distance of no more than three quarters of a mile from the beach; and I did not think it prudent to go nearer.

While this was doing, several of the inhabitants assembled upon the shore, and some came out in their canoes as far as the reefs, but would not pass them. When we saw this, we ranged, with an easy sail, along the shore; but just as we were passing the end of the island, six men, who had for some time kept abreast of the ship, suddenly launched two canoes with great quickness and dexterity, and three of them getting into each, they put off, as we imagined, with a design to come on board us; the ship was therefore brought to, but they, like their fellows, stopped at the reef. We did not, however, immediately make sail, as we observed two messengers dispatched to them from the other canoes, which were of a much larger size. We perceived that these messengers made great expedition, wading and swimming along the reef; at length they met, and the men on board the canoes making no dispositions to pass the reef, after having received the message, we judged that they had resolved to come no farther. After waiting, therefore, some little time longer, we stood off; but when we were got about two or three miles from the shore, we perceived some of the natives following us in a canoe with a sail. We did not, however, think it worth while to wait for her, and though she had passed the reef, she soon after gave over the chace.

According to the best judgment that we could form of the people when we were nearest the shore, they were about our size, and well-made. They were of a brown-complexion, and appeared to be naked; their hair, which was black, was confined by a fillet that went round the head, and stuck out behind like a bush. The greater part of them carried in their hands two weapons; one of them was a slender pole, from ten to fourteen feet long, on one end of which was a small knob, not unlike the point of a spear; the other was about four feet long, and shaped like a paddle, and possibly might be so, for some of their canoes were very small: those which we saw them launch seemed not intended to carry more than the three men that got into them: we saw others that had on board six or seven men, and one of them hoisted a sail which did not seem to reach more than six feet above the gun-wale of the boat, and which, upon the falling of a slight shower, was taken down and converted into an awning or tilt. The canoe which followed us to sea hoisted a sail not unlike an English lug-sail, and almost as lofty as an English boat of the same size would have carried.

The people, who kept abreast of the ship on the beach, made many signals; but whether they were intended to frighten us away, or invite us on shore, it is not easy to determine: we returned them by waving our hats and shouting, and they replied by shouting again. We did not put their disposition to the test, by attempting to land; because, as the island was inconsiderable, and as we wanted nothing that it could afford, we thought it imprudent as well as cruel to risk a contest, in which the natives must have suffered by our superiority, merely to gratify an idle curiosity; especially as we expected soon to fall in with the island where we had been directed to make our astronomical observation, the inhabitants of which would probably admit us without opposition, as they were already acquainted with our strength, and might also procure us a ready and peaceable reception among the neighbouring people, if we should desire it.

To these islands we gave the name of The Groups.

On the 7th, about half an hour after six in the morning, being just at day-break, we discovered another island to the northward, which we judged to be about four miles in circumference. The land lay very low, and there was a piece of water in the middle of it; there seemed to be some wood upon it, and it looked green and pleasant; but we saw neither cocoa-trees nor inhabitants: it abounded, however, with birds, and we therefore gave it the name of Bird Island.

It lies in latitude 17° 48ʹ S. and longitude 143° 35ʹ W. at the distance of ten leagues, in the direction W. ½ N. from the west end of the Groups. The variation here was 6° 32ʹ E.

On the 8th, about two o’clock in the afternoon, we saw land to the northward, and about sunset came abreast of it, at about the distance of two leagues. It appeared to be a double range of low woody islands joined together by reefs, so as to form one island, in the form of an ellipsis or oval, with a lake in the middle of it. The small islands and reefs that circumscribe the lake have the appearance of a chain, and we therefore gave it the name of Chain Island. Its length seemed to be about five leagues, in the direction of N. W. and S. E., and its breadth about five miles. The trees upon it appeared to be large, and we saw smoke rising in different parts of it from among them, a certain sign that it was inhabited. The middle of it lies in latitude 17° 23ʹ S. and longitude 145° 54ʹ W., and is distant from Bird Island forty-five leagues, in the direction of W. by N. The variation here was, by several azimuths, found to be 4° 54ʹ E.

On the 10th, having had a tempestuous night with thunder and rain, the weather was hazy till about nine o’clock in the morning, when it cleared up, and we saw the island to which Captain Wallis, who first discovered it, gave the name of Osnaburgh Island, called by the natives Maitea, bearing N. W. by W. distant about five leagues. It is a high round island, not above a league in circuit; in some parts it is covered with trees, and in others a naked rock. In this direction it looked like a high-crowned hat; but when it bears north, the top of it has more the appearance of the roof of a house. We made its latitude to be 17° 48ʹ S. its longitude 148° 10ʹ W., and its distance from Chain Island forty-four leagues, in the direction of W. by S.