We were now in the very centre or middle of this South Sea, being, as I have said, in the lat.i.tude of 34 20"; but having had such good success in our inquiry or search after new continents, I resolved to steer to the south and south-east, as far as till we should be interrupted by land or ice, determining to search this unknown part of the globe as far as nature would permit, that I might be able to give some account to my employers, and some light to other people that might come that way, whether by accident or by design.
We had spent six-and-twenty days in this place, as well in repairing our brigantine and careening, as tr.i.m.m.i.n.g our ship; we had not been so long, but, that we did not resolve to careen our ships till we had spent ten days about the brigantine, and then we found more work to do to the sheathing of the Madagascar ship than we expected.
We stored ourselves here with fresh provisions and water, but got nothing that we could properly call a store, except the flesh of about thirty deer, which we dried in the sun, and which proved indifferently good afterwards, but not extraordinary.
We sailed again the six-and-twentieth day after we came in, having a fair wind at north and north-north-west, and a fresh gale which held us five days without intermission; in which time, running away south and south-south-east, we reached the former lat.i.tude, where we had been, and meeting with nothing remarkable, we steered a little farther to the eastward; but keeping a southerly course still, till we came into the lat.i.tude of 41, and then going due east, with the wind at north and by west, we reckoned our meridian distance from the Ladrones, to be 50 30".
In all this run we saw no land, so we hauled two points more southerly, and went on for six or seven days more; when one of our men on the round top, cried Land! It was a clear fine morning, and the land he espied being very high, it was found to be sixteen leagues distance; and the wind slackening, we could not get in that night, so we lay by till morning, when being fair with the land, we hoisted our boat to go and sound the sh.o.r.e, as usual. The men rowed in close with the sh.o.r.e and found a little cove, where there was good riding, but very deep water, being no less than sixty fathoms within cable"s length of the sh.o.r.e.
We went in, however, and after we were moored sent our boat on sh.o.r.e to look for water, and what else the country afforded. Our men found water, and a good sort of country, but saw no inhabitants; and, upon coasting a little both ways on the sh.o.r.e, they found it to be an island, and without people; but said that about three leagues off to the southward, there seemed to be a Terra Firma, or continent of land, where it was more likely we should make some discovery.
The next day we filled water again, and shot some ducks, and the day after weighed and stood over for the main, as we thought it to be. Here, using the same caution as we always had done, viz., of sounding the coast, we found a bold sh.o.r.e and very good anchor hold, in six-and-twenty to thirty fathoms.
When we came on sh.o.r.e, we found people, but of a quite different condition from those we had met with before, being wild, furious, and untractable; surprised at the sight of us, but not intimidated; preparing for battle, not for trade; and no sooner were we on sh.o.r.e but they saluted us with their bows and arrows. We made signals of truce to them, but they did not understand us, and we knew not what to offer them more but the muzzles of our muskets; for we were resolved to see what sort of folks they were, either by fair means or foul.
The first time, therefore, that they shot at our men with their bows and arrows, we returned the salute with our musket-ball, and kill two of their foremost archers. We could easily perceive that the noise of our pieces terrified them, and the two men being killed, they knew not how, or with what, perfectly astonished them; so that they ran, as it were, clean out of the country, that is to say, clean out of our reach, for we could never set our eyes upon them after it. We coasted this place also, according to our usual custom; and, to our great surprise, found it was an island too, though a large one; and that the mainland lay still more to the southward, about six leagues distance, so we resolved to look out farther, and accordingly set sail the next day, and anch.o.r.ed under the sh.o.r.e of this last land, which we were persuaded was really the main.
We went on sh.o.r.e here peaceably, for we neither saw any people, or the appearance of any, but a charming pleasant valley, of about ten or eleven miles long, and five or six miles broad; and then it was surrounded with mountains, which reached the full length, running parallel with the valley, and closing it in to the sea at both ends; so that it was a natural park, having the sea on the north side, and the mountains in a semicircle round all the rest of it. These hills were so high, and the ways so untrod and so steep, that our men, who were curious enough to have climbed up to the top of them, could find no way that was practicable to get up, and after two or three attempts gave it over.
In this vale we found abundance of deer, and abundance of the same kind of sheep which I mentioned lately. We killed as many of both as we had occasion for; and, finding nothing here worth our staying any longer for, except that we saw something like wild rice growing here, we weighed after three days, and stood away still to the south.
We had not sailed above two days with little wind and an easy sail, when we perceived this also was an island, though it must be a large one; for, by our account, we sailed near a hundred and fifty miles along the sh.o.r.e of it, and we found the south part a flat pleasant country enough; and our men said they saw people upon it on the south side, but we went not on sh.o.r.e there any more.
Steering due south from hence in quest of the mainland, we went on eleven days more, and saw nothing significant, and, upon a fair observation, I found we were in the lat.i.tude of 47 8" south; then I altered my course a little to the eastward, finding no land, and the weather very cold, and going on with a fresh gale at south-south-west for four days, we made land again; but it was now to the east-north-east, so that we were gotten, as we may say, beyond it.
We fell in with this land in the evening, so that it was not perceived till we were within half a league of it, which very much alarmed us, the land being low; and having found our error, we brought to and stood off and on till morning, when we saw the sh.o.r.e lie, as it were, under our larboard bow, within a mile and a quarter distance, the land low, but the sea deep and soft ground. We came to anchor immediately, and sent our shallops to sound the sh.o.r.e, and the men found very good riding in a little bay, under the shelter of two points of land, one of which made a kind of hook, under which we lay secure from all winds that could blow, in seventeen fathoms good ground. Here we had a good observation, and found ourselves in the lat.i.tude of 50 21". Our next work was to find water, and our boats going on sh.o.r.e, found plenty of good water and some cattle, but told us they could give no account what the cattle were, or what they were like. In searching the coast, we soon found this was an island also, about eleven leagues in length, from north-west to south-east, what breadth we could not tell. Our men also saw some signs of inhabitants. The next day six men appeared at a distance, but would take notice of no signals, and fled as soon as our men advanced. Our people went up to the place were they lay, and found they had made a fire of some dry wood; that they had laid there, as they suppose, all night, though without covering. They found two pieces of old ragged skins of deer, which looked as if worn out by some that had used them for clothing, and one piece of a skin of some other creature, which had been rolled up into a cap for the head; also a couple of arrows of about four feet long, very thick, and made of a hard and heavy wood; so they must have very large and strong bows to shoot such arrows, and consequently must be men of an uncommon strength.
Our men wandered about the country three or four days, with less caution than the nature of their situation required; for they were not among a people of an innocent, inoffensive temper here, as before, but among a wild, untractable nation, that perhaps had never seen creatures in their own likeness before, and had no thought of themselves but of being killed and destroyed, and consequently had no thought of those they had seen but as of enemies, whom they must either destroy, if they were able, or escape from them if they were not. However, we got no harm, neither would the natives ever appear to accept any kindnesses from us.
We had no business here, after we found what sort of people they were who inhabited this place; so, as soon as we had taken in fresh water, and caught some fish, of which we found good store in the bay or harbour where we rode, we prepared to be gone. Here we found the first oysters that we saw anywhere in the South Seas; and, as our men found them but the day before we were to sail, they made great entreaty to me to let them stay one day to get a quant.i.ty on board, they being very refreshing, as well as nourishing, to our men.
But I was more easily prevailed with to stay, when Captain Merlotte brought me, out of one oyster that he happened to open, a true oriental pearl, so large and so fine, that I sold it, since my return, for three-and-fifty pounds.
After taking this oyster, I ordered all our boats out a dredging, and in two days" time so great a quant.i.ty there was, that our men had taken above fifty bushels, most of them very large. But we were surprised and disappointed, when, at the opening all those oysters, we found not one pearl, small or great, of any kind whatever, so we concluded that the other was a lucky hit only, and that perhaps there might not be any more of that kind in these seas.
While we were musing on the oddness of this accident, the boatswain of the Madagascar ship, whose boat"s crew had brought in the great oyster in which the pearl was found, and who had been examining the matter, came and told me that it was true that their boat had brought in the oyster, and that it was before they went out a dredging in the offing, but that their boat took these oysters on the west side of the island, where they had been _shoring_, as they called it, that is to say, coasting along the sh.o.r.e, to see if they could find anything worth their labour, but that afterwards the boats went a dredging in the mouth of the bay where we rode, and where, finding good store of oysters, they had gone no farther.
Upon this intelligence we ordered all hands to dredging again, on the west side of the island. This was in a narrow channel, between this island and a little cl.u.s.ter of islands which we found together extended west, the channel where our men fished might be about a league over, or something better, and the water about five or seven fathoms deep.
They came home well tired and ill pleased, having taken nothing near so many oysters, as before; but I was much better pleased, when, in opening them, we found a hundred and fifty-eight pearls, of the most perfect colour, and of extraordinary shape and size, besides double the number of a less size, and irregular shape.
This quickened our diligence, and encouraged our men, for I promised the men two pieces of eight to each man above his pay, if I got any considerable quant.i.ty of pearl. Upon this they spread themselves among the islands, and fished for a whole week, and I got such a quant.i.ty of pearl as made it very well worth our while; and, besides that, I had reason to believe the men, at least the officers who went with them, concealed a considerable quant.i.ty among themselves; which, however, I did not think fit to inquire very strictly after at that time.
Had we been nearer home, and not at so very great an expense, as three ships, and so many men at victuals and wages, or had we been where we might have left one of our vessels to fish, and have come to them again, we would not have given it over while there had been an oyster left in the sea, or, at least, that we could come at: but as things stood, I resolved to give it over, and put to sea.
But when I was just giving orders, Captain Merlotte came to me, and told me that all the officers in the three ships had joined together to make an humble pet.i.tion to me, which was, that I would give them one day to fish for themselves; that the men had promised that, if I would consent, they would work for them gratis; and likewise, if they gained anything considerable, they would account for as much out of their wages as should defray the ships" expense, victuals, and wages, for the day.
This was so small a request, that I readily consented to it, and told them I would give them three days, provided they were willing to give the men a largess, as I had done, in proportion to their gain. This they agreed to, and to work they went; but whether it was that the fellows worked with a better will, or that the officers gave them more liquor, or that they found a new bank of oysters, which had not been found out before, but so it was, that the officers got as many pearls, and some of extraordinary size and beauty, as they afterwards sold, when they came to Peru, for three thousand two hundred and seventeen pieces of eight.
When they had done this, I told them it was but right that, as they had made so good a purchase for themselves by the labour of the men, the men should have the consideration which I had proposed to them. But now I would make another condition with them, that we would stay three days more, and whatever was caught in these three days should be shared among the men at the first port we came at, where they could be sold, that the men who had now been out so long might have something to buy clothes and liquors, without antic.i.p.ating their wages; but then I made a condition with the men too, viz., that whatever was taken they should deposit it in my hands, and with the joint trust of three men of their own choosing, one out of each ship, and that we would sell the pearl, and I should divide the money among them equally, that so there might be no quarrelling or discontent, and that none of them should play any part of it away. These engagements they all came willingly into, and away they went a dredging, relieving one another punctually, so that in the three whole days every man worked an equal share of hours with the rest.
But the poor men had not so good luck for themselves as they had for their officers. However, they got a considerable quant.i.ty, and some very fine ones; among the rest they had two in the exact shape of a pear, and very exactly matched; and these they would needs make me a present of, because I had been so kind to them to make the proposal for them. I would have paid for them two hundred pieces of eight, but one and all, they would not be paid, and would certainly have been very much troubled if I had not accepted of them. And yet the success of the men was not so small but, joined with the two pieces of eight a man which I allowed them on the ships" account, and the like allowance the officers made them, and the produce of their own purchase, they divided afterwards about fifteen pieces of eight a man, which was a great encouragement to them.
Thus we spent in the whole, near three weeks here, and called these the Pearl Islands, though we had given no names to any of the places before.
We were the more surprised with this unexpected booty, because we all thought it very unusual to find pearl of so excellent a kind in such a lat.i.tude as that of 49 to 50; but it seems there are riches yet unknown in those parts of the world, where they have never been yet expected, and I have been told, by those who pretend to give a reason for it, that if there was any land directly under the poles, either south or north, there would be found gold of a fineness more than double to any that was ever yet found in the world: and this is the reason, they say, why the magnetic influence directs to the poles, that being the centre of the most pure metals, and why the needle touched with the loadstone or magnet always points to the north or south pole. But I do not recommend this, as a certainty, because it is evident no demonstration could ever be arrived at, nor could any creature reach to that particular spot of land under the pole, if such there should be, those lands being surrounded with mountains of snow and frozen seas, which never thaw, and are utterly impa.s.sable either for ships or men.
But to return to our voyage; having thus spent as I have said, three weeks on this unexpected expedition, we set sail, and as I was almost satisfied with the discoveries we had made, I was for bending my course due east and so directly for the south part of America; but the winds now blowing fresh from the north-west, and good weather, I took the occasion as a favourable summons, to keep still on southing as well as east till we came into the lat.i.tude of 56, when our men, who had been all along a warm weather voyage, began to be pinched very much with the cold, and particularly complained that they had no clothes sufficient for it.
But they were brought to be content by force; for the wind continuing at north and north-north-west, and blowing very hard, we were obliged to keep on our course farther south, indeed, than I ever intended, and one of the men swore we should be driven to the south pole. Indeed, we rather ran afore it than kept our course, and in this run we suffered the extremest cold, though a northerly wind in those lat.i.tudes is the warm wind, as a southerly is here; but it was attended with rain and snow, and both freezing violently. At length one of our men cried out, Land, and our men began to rejoice; but I was quite of a different opinion, and my fears were but too just, for as soon as ever he cried Land, and that I asked him in what quarter, and he answered due south, which was almost right ahead, I gave orders to wear the ship, and put her about immediately, not doubting but instead of land I should find it a mountain of ice, and so it was; and it was happy for us that we had a stout ship under us, for it blew a fret of wind. However, the ship came very well about, though when she filled again, we found the ice not half a league distance under our stern.
As I happened to be the headmost ship, I fired two guns to give notice to our other vessels, for that was our signal to come about, but that which was very uneasy to me, the weather was hazy, and they were both out of sight; which was the first time that we lost one another in those seas; however, being both to windward, and within hearing of my guns, they took the warning, and came about with more leisure and less hazard than I had done.
I stood away now to the eastward, firing guns continually, that they might know which way to follow; and they answered me duly, to let me know that they heard me.
It was our good fortune also, that it was day when we were so near running into this danger. In the afternoon the wind abated, and the weather cleared up; we then called a council, and resolved to go no farther south, being then in the lat.i.tude of 67 south, which I suppose is the farthest southern lat.i.tude that any European ship ever saw in those seas.
That night it froze extremely hard, and the wind veering to the south-west, it was the severest cold that ever I felt in my life; a barrel or cask of water, which stood on the deck, froze entirely in one night into one lump, and our cooper, knocking off the hoops from the cask, took it to pieces, and the barrel of ice stood by itself, in the true shape of the vessel it had been in. This wind was, however, favourable to our deliverance, for we stood away now north-east and north-east-by-north, making fresh way with a fair wind.
We made no more land till we came into the lat.i.tude of 62, when we saw some islands at a great distance, on both sides of us; we believed them to be islands, because we saw many of them with large openings between.
But we were all so willing to get into a warmer climate, that we did not incline to put in anywhere, till, having run thus fifteen days and the wind still holding southerly, with small alteration and clear weather, we could easily perceive the climate to change, and the weather grow milder. And here taking an observation, I found we were in the lat.i.tude of 50 30", and that our meridian distance from the Ladrones west was 87, being almost one semi-diameter of the globe, so that we could not be far from the coast of America, which was my next design, and indeed the chief design of the whole voyage.
On this expectation I changed my course a little, and went away north-by-east, till by an observation I found myself in 47 7", and then standing away east for about eleven days more, we made the tops of the Andes, the great mountains of Chili, in South America, to our great joy and satisfaction, though at a very great distance.
We found our distance from the sh.o.r.e not less than twenty leagues, the mountains being so very high; and our next business was to consider what part of the Andes it must be, and to what port we should direct ourselves first. Upon the whole, we found we were too much to the south still, and resolved to make directly for the river or port of Valdivia, or Baldivia, as it is sometimes called, in the lat.i.tude of 40; so we stood away to the north. The next day the pacific, quiet sea, as it is termed, showed us a very frowning rough countenance, and proved the very extreme of a contrary disposition; for it blew a storm of wind at east-by-south, and drove us off the coast again, but it abated again for a day or two; and then for six days together it blew excessive hard, almost all at east, so that I found no possibility of getting into the sh.o.r.e; and besides, I found that the winds came off that mountainous country in squalls, and that the nearer we came to the hills the gusts were the more violent. So I resolved to run for the island of Juan Fernandez, to refresh ourselves there until the weather was settled; and besides, we wanted fresh water very much.
The little that the wind stood southerly helped me in this run, and we came in five days more, fair with the island, to our great joy, and brought all our ships to an anchor as near the watering-place as is usual, where we rode easy, though, the wind continued to blow very hard; and being, I say, now about the middle of our voyage, I shall break off my account here, as of the first part of my work, and begin again at our departure from hence.
It is true, we had got over much the greater run, as to length of way; but the most important part of our voyage was yet to come, and we had no inconsiderable length to run neither, for as we purposed to sail north, the height of Panama, in the lat.i.tude of 9 north, and back again by Cape Horn, in the lat.i.tude of, perhaps, 60 south, and that we were now in 40 south; those three added to the run, from Cape Horn home to England made a prodigious length, as will be seen by this following account, in which also the meridian distances are not all reckoned, though those also are very great.
From Juan Fernandez to the Line 30
From the Line to Panama 9
From Panama to Cape Horn, including the distance we take in going round 60
From Cape Horn to the Line again in the North Seas 60
From the Line to England 51 --- 210 Deg.
N.B. There must be deducted from this account the distance from Lima to Panama, because we did not go up to Panama, as we intended to do.
By this account we had almost 30 to run more than a diameter of the globe, besides our distance west, where we then were, from the meridian of England, whither we were to go; which, if exactly calculated, is above 70, take it from the island of Juan Fernandez.
But to return a little to our stay in this place, for that belongs to this part of my account, and of which I must make a few short observations.
It was scarce possible to restrain Englishmen, after so long beating the sea, from going on sh.o.r.e when they came to such a place of refreshment as this; nor indeed was it reasonable to restrain them, considering how we all might be supposed to stand in need of refreshment, and considering that here was no length of ground for the men to wander in, no liquors to come at to distract them with their excess, and, which was still more, no women to disorder or debauch them. We all knew their chief exercise would be hunting goats for their subsistence, and we knew also, that, however they wanted the benefit of fresh provision, they must work hard to catch it before they could taste the sweet of it. Upon these considerations, I say, our ships being well moored, and riding safe, we restrained none of them, except a proper number to take care of each ship; and those were taken out by lot, and then had their turn also to go on sh.o.r.e some days afterwards, and in the mean time had both fresh water and fresh meat sent them immediately, and that in sufficient quant.i.ty to their satisfaction. As soon as we were on sh.o.r.e, and had looked about us, we began first with getting some fresh water, for we greatly wanted it. Then carrying a small cask of arrack on sh.o.r.e, I made a quant.i.ty of it be put into a whole b.u.t.t of water before I let our men drink a drop; so correcting a little the chilness of the water, because I knew they would drink an immoderate quant.i.ty, and endanger their healths, and the effect answered my care; for, those who drank at the spring where they took in the water, before I got this b.u.t.t filled, and before the arrack was put into it, fell into swoonings and faint sweats, having gorged themselves too much with the cool water; and two or three I thought would have died, but our surgeons took such care of them, that they recovered.