Chapter IV: Section II

_Passage from Rio de Janeiro to Port Desire; with some Description of that Place._

On Monday the 22d, being now once more at sea, I called all hands upon deck, and informed them, that I was not, as they imagined, bound immediately to the East Indies, but upon certain discoveries, which it was thought might be of great importance to our country; in consideration of which, the lords commissioners of the Admiralty had been pleased to promise them double pay, and several other advantages, if during the voyage they should behave to my satisfaction. They all expressed the greatest joy imaginable upon the occasion, and assured me, that there was no danger or difficulty that they would not with the utmost cheerfulness undergo in the service of their country, nor any order that I could give them which they would not implicitly and zealously obey.[11]

[Footnote 11: "We had all the reason possible to believe that we were bound to the East Indies, and that we should now steer to the Cape of Good Hope, the scheme being so well concerted by our commodore, as even to deceive Lord Clive, who pressed him with great importunity to allow him to take his passage in the Dolphin, we being in much greater readiness for sea than the Kent; but to this the commodore could not consent; but flattered his lordship with the hopes of his taking him on board on their meeting at the Cape."]

We continued our course till Monday the 20th, having frequently hard gales with sudden gusts, which obliged us to strike our top-gallant-masts, and get up our stumps; but this day it blew a storm, with a terrible sea, and the ship laboured so much, that, to ease her, I ordered the two foremost and two aftermost guns to be thrown overboard: The gale continued with nearly equal violence all the rest of the day, and all night, so that we were obliged to lie-to under a double-reefed main-sail; but in the morning, it being more moderate, and veering from N.W. to S. by W. we made sail again, and stood to the westward. We were now in latitude 35°50'S. and found the weather as cold as it is at the same season in England, although the month of November here is a spring month, answering to our May, and we were near twenty degrees neater the Line: To us, who within little more than a week had suffered intolerable heat, this change was most severely felt: And the men who, supposing they were to continue in a hot climate during the whole voyage, had contrived to sell not only all their warm clothes, but their bedding, at the different ports where we had touched, now applied in great distress for slops, and were all furnished for the climate.

On Friday the 2d of November, after administering the proper oaths to the lieutenants of both ships, I delivered them their commissions; for till this time they acted only under verbal orders from me, and expected to receive their commissions in India, whither they imagined we were bound. We now began to see a great number of birds about the ship, many of them very large, of which some were brown and white, and some black: There were among them large flocks of pintadoes, which are somewhat larger than a pigeon, and spotted with black and white. On the 4th, we saw a great quantity of rock weed, and several seals: The prevailing winds were westerly, so that being continually driven to the eastward, we foresaw that it would not be easy to get in with the coast of Patagonia. On the 10th, we observed the water to change colour, but we had no ground with one hundred and forty fathom. The next day we stood in for the land till eight in the evening, when we had ground of red sand with forty-five fathom. We steered S.W. by W. all night, and the next morning had fifty-two fathom with the same ground: Our latitude now being 42°34' S., longitude 58°17' W., the variation 11°1/4 E.

On Monday the 12th, about four o'clock in the afternoon, as I was walking on the quarter-deck, all the people upon the forecastle called out at once, "Land right a-head;" it was then very black almost round the horizon, and we had had much thunder and lightning; I looked forward under the fore-sail, and upon the lee-bow, and saw what at first appeared to be an island, rising in two rude craggy hills, but upon looking to leeward I saw land joining to it, and running a long way to the south-east: We were then steering S.W. and I sent officers to the mast-head to look out upon the weather-beam, and they called out that they saw land also a great way to the windward. I immediately brought to, and sounded; we had still fifty-two fathom, but I thought that we were embayed, and rather wished than hoped that we should get clear before night. We made sail and steered E.S.E. the land still having the same appearance, and the hills looking blue, as they generally do at a little distance in dark rainy weather, and now many of the people said that they saw the sea break upon the sandy beaches; but having steered out for about an hour, what we had taken for land vanished all at once, and to our astonishment appeared to have been a fog-bank. Though I had been almost continually at sea for seven-and-twenty years, I had never seen such a deception before; others, however, have been equally deceived; for the master of a ship not long since made oath, that he had seen an island between the west end of Ireland and Newfoundland, and even distinguished the trees that grew upon it Yet it is certain that no such island exists, at least it could never be found, though several ships were afterwards sent out on purpose to seek it. And I am sure, that if the weather had not cleared up soon enough for us to see what we had taken for land disappear, every man on board would freely have made oath, that land had been discovered in this situation.

The next day, at four o'clock in the afternoon, the weather being extremely fine, the wind shifted at once to the S.W. and began to blow fresh, the sky at the same time becoming black to windward: In a few minutes all the people that were upon the deck were alarmed with a sudden and unusual noise, like the breaking of the sea upon the shore. I ordered the top-sails to be handed immediately; but before it could be done, I saw the sea approaching at some distance, in vast billows covered with foam; I called to the people to haul up the fore-sail, and let go the main-sheet instantly; for I was persuaded that if we had any sail out when the gust reached us, we should either be overset, or lose all our masts. It reached us, however, before we could raise the main tack, and laid us upon our beam-ends; the main tack was then cut for it was become impossible to cast it off; and the main sheet struck down the first lieutenant, bruised him dreadfully, and beat out three of his teeth: the main-topsail, which was not quite handed, was split to pieces. If this squall, which came on with less warning and more violence than any I had ever seen, had taken us in the night, I think the ship must have been lost. When it came on we observed several hundred of birds flying before it, which expressed their terror by loud shrieks; it lasted about twenty minutes, and then gradually subsided. The Tamar split her main-sail, but as she was to leeward of us, she had more time to prepare. In a short time it began to blow very hard again, so that we reefed our main-sail, and lay-to all night. As morning approached the gale became more moderate, but we had still a great sea, and the wind shifting to S. by W. we stood to the westward under our courses. Soon after it was light, the sea appeared as red as blood, being covered with a small shell-fish of that colour, somewhat resembling our cray-fish, but less, of which we took up great quantities in baskets.

At half an hour past four in the morning of the 15th of November, we saw land, which had the appearance of an island about eight or nine leagues long, there being no land in sight either to the northward or southward, though by the charts it should be Cape Saint Helena, which projects from the coast to a considerable distance, and forms two bays, one to the north, and the other to the south. As the weather was very fine, I tacked and stood in for it about ten o'clock; but as there were many sunken rocks at about two leagues distance from it, upon which the sea broke very high, and the wind seemed to be gradually dying away, I tacked again and stood off. The land appeared to be barren and rocky, without either tree or bush: When I was nearest to it I sounded, and had forty-five fathom, with black muddy ground. To my great misfortune, my three lieutenants and the master were at this time so ill as to be incapable of duty, though the rest of the ship's company were in good health.

The next day I shaped my course by the chart in the account of Lord Anson's voyage, for Cape Blanco. In the evening it blew extremely hard at S.W. by S. so that we brought to for the night under our main-sail. In the morning we made sail again, but we had a great sea; and although, it was now almost Midsummer in these parts, the weather was, in every respect, much worse than it is in the Bay of Biscay at the depth of winter. About six in the evening, having carried all the sail I could, we made land, bearing about S.S.W. which, as we had a good observation of the sun, we knew to be Cape Blanco; but it now began to blow with more violence than ever, and the storm continued all night, with a sea that was continually breaking over us, so that the ship laboured very much. At four in the morning, we sounded and had forty fathom, with rocky ground; having stood off in the night, we now wore and stood in again, the storm still continuing with hail and snow; and about six o'clock we saw the land again, bearing S.W. by W. The ship was now so light, that in a gale of wind she drove bodily to leeward; so that I was very solicitous to get into Port Desire,[12] that I might put her hold in order, and take in sufficient ballast, to avoid the danger of being caught upon a lee-shore in her present trim. We steered in for the land with the wind at N.E. and in the evening brought to; but the wind coming to the westward, we were driven off in the night. At seven the next morning, we stood in again, steering S.W. by S. by the compass, and soon perceived the sea to break right a-head of us; we immediately sounded, and shoaled our water from thirteen to seven fathom, soon after deepening it again from seventeen to forty-two; so that we went over the end of a shoal, which a little farther to the northward might have been fatal to us. Cape Blanco at this time bore W.S.W. 1/2 S. distant four leagues: But we were still at a loss for Port Desire, it being impossible that any description should be more confused than that which Sir John Narborough has given of this harbour. I stood into a bay to the southward of the cape, as he directs, but could find no such place; I therefore stood along the shore to the southward, the wind blowing off the land very hard, and saw several large columns of smoke rising in many places, but no tree or bush, the country resembling in appearance the barren downs of England. We observed also that the water was frequently very shallow at the distance of seven or eight miles from the shore, for we had many times not more than ten fathom.

[Footnote 12: So called after the name of his ship, the Desire, by Sir Thomas Candish, or Cavendish, who put in there on the 27th of November, 1586. See vol. x.p. 70--E.]

We continued to stand along the shore all day as near as possible, and in the evening we saw an island at the distance of about six leagues; in the morning we stood in for it, and found that it corresponded with Narborough's description of Penguin Island. As Port Desire is said to lie about three leagues north-west of this island, I sent the boat to look for it, and when she returned, having found it, I stood in for the land. There were thousands of seals and penguins about the ship, and near Penguin Island several smaller islands, or rather rocks. In the evening we saw a remarkable rock, rising from the water like a steeple, on the south side of the entrance of Port Desire; this rock is an excellent mark to know the harbour, which it would otherwise be difficult to find. At night, there being little wind, we anchored at the distance of four or five miles from the shore; and in the morning, with a breeze from the land, we turned up the harbour's mouth; we found it very narrow, with many rocks and shoals about it, and the most rapid tide I had ever known. I came to an anchor off the harbour in nine fathom, the entrance of the river being open, and bearing W.S.W. Penguin Island S.E. 1/2 E. distant about three leagues; the Steeple Rock S.W. by. W. the northermost land N.N.W. and two rocks, which are covered at half tide, and lie at the southermost extremity of a reef which runs from the same land, N.E. by N. I mention all these bearings particularly, because I think it may be of importance to future navigators, especially as the descriptions that have been given of this place by the few who have already visited it, are extremely defective. The wind blew very hard the greater part of this day, and there ran an ugly sea where we were stationed, yet I ordered our two boats to sound the harbour, and attended in my own boat myself. We found it very narrow for near two miles, with a tide running at the rate of eight miles an hour; we found also many rocks and shoals, but all the danger shows itself above water. When we came to the shore I landed, and walked a little way into the country, which as far as I could see was all downs, without a single tree or shrub. We saw the dung of many beasts, and had a glimpse of four, which ran away as soon as we came in sight, so that we could not certainly determine what they were; but we believed them to be guanicoes, many of which we afterwards saw come down to the water-side; they resemble our deer, but are much larger, the height of some being not less than thirteen hands; they are very shy and very swift. After I returned to my boat, I went farther up the harbour, and landed upon an island that was covered with seals, of which we killed above fifty, and among them many that were larger than a bullock, having before half-loaded our boat with different kinds of birds, of which, and seals, there are enough to supply the navy of England. Among the birds one was very remarkable; the head resembled that of an eagle, except that it had a large comb upon it; round the neck there was a white ruff, exactly resembling a lady's tippet; the feathers on the back were as black as jet, and as bright as the finest polish could render that mineral; the legs were remarkably strong and large, the talons were like those of an eagle, except that they were not so sharp, and the wings, when they were extended, measured from point to point no less than twelve feet.

The Tamar worked into the harbour with the tide of flood, but I kept my station with the Dolphin till I should have a leading wind, and the wind shifting to the eastward, I weighed about five o'clock in the afternoon, intending to go up with the evening flood: Before I could get under sail, however, the wind shifted again to N.W. by N. and it being low water, the ship lying but just within the harbour, and there being no tide to assist us, we were obliged to anchor near the south shore. The wind came off the land in very hard flaws, and in a short time our anchor coming home, the ship tailed on shore against a steep gravelly beach. The anchoring ground, indeed, as far as we had yet sounded, was bad, being very hard; so that, in this situation, if the wind blows fresh, there is always the greatest reason to fear that the anchor should come home before the ship can be brought up. While we were on shore, it began to blow very hard, and the tide running like a sluice, it was with the utmost difficulty that we could carry an anchor to heave us off; however, after about four hours hard labour, this was effected, and the ship floated in the stream. As there was only about six or seven feet of the after-part of her that touched the ground, there was reason to hope that she had suffered no damage; however, I determined to unhang the rudder, that it might be examined.

During all this night and the next morning the wind blew with great violence, and we had let go our best bower anchor when we were near the shore, in hopes it would have brought us up, and had not yet been able to weigh it. We now rode in a very disagreeable situation with our small bower, and that unfortunately came home again; we therefore got a hawser out of the Tamar, who lay in the stream, and after weighing the small bower, we got out by her assistance, and then dropped it again, most ardently wishing for fair weather, that we might get the ship properly moored.

The next day we sounded the harbour higher up, and found the ground softer, and the water not so deep; yet the wind continued to blow so hard that we could not venture to change our station. We had found a small spring of water about half a mile inland, upon the north side of the bay, but it had a brackish taste; I had also made another excursion of several miles into the country, which I found barren and desolate, in every direction, as far as the eye could reach. We had seen many guanicoes at a distance, but we could not get near enough to have a shot at them; we tracked beasts of several kinds in the soil, near a pond of salt water, and among them a very large tyger: We found also a nest of ostrich's eggs, which we eat, and thought very good. It is probable that all the animals which had left marks of their feet near the salt pond, drank the water, and indeed we saw no fresh water for them. The spring that we had found, which was not perfectly fresh, was the only one of the kind that we had been able to discover; and for that we had been obliged to dig, there being no appearance of it except a slight moisture of the ground.

On the 24th, upon slack water, we carried both the ships higher up and moored them: The extreme points of the harbour's mouth at low water bore from E. by S.1/4 S. to E.; and the Steeple rock S.E.1/4 E. We had here, at low water, but six fathom; but at spring tides the water rises no less than four fathom and a half, which is seven-and-twenty feet. The tide indeed in this place is such as perhaps it is not in any other.[13] It happened by some accident that one of our men fell overboard; the boats were all alongside, and the man was an exceeding good swimmer, yet before any assistance could be sent after him, the rapidity of the stream, had hurried him almost out of sight; we had however at last the good fortune to save him. This day I was again on shore, and walked six or seven miles up the country: I saw several hares as large as a fawn; I shot one of them, which weighed more than six and twenty pounds, and if I had had a good greyhound, I dare say the ship's company might have lived upon hare two days in the week. In the mean time the people on board were busy in getting up all the cables upon deck, and clearing the hold, that a proper quantity of ballast might be taken in, and the guns lowered into it, except a few which it might be thought necessary to keep above.

[Footnote 13: "The harbour itself is not much more than half a mile over. On the south shore is a remarkable rock in the form of a tower, which appears on entering the harbour's mouth. Abreast of this rock we lay at anchor in seven or eight fathom water, moored to the east and west, with both bowers, which we found extremely necessary, on account of the strong tide that regularly ebbs and flows every twelve hours. Indeed the ebb is so rapid, that we found by our log-line it continued to run five or six knots an hour; and in ten minutes after the ebb is past, the flood returns with equal velocity; besides, the wind generally blows during the whole night out of the harbour."]

On the 25th, I went a good way up the harbour in the boat, and having landed on the north side, we soon after found an old oar of a very singular make, and the barrel of a musket, with the king's broad arrow upon it. The musket-barrel had suffered so much from the weather, that it might be crumbled to dust between the fingers: I imagined it had been left there by the Wager's people, or perhaps by Sir John Narborough. Hitherto we had found no kind of vegetables except a species of wild peas; but though we had seen no inhabitants, we saw places where they had made their fires, which however did not appear to be recent. While we were on shore we shot some wild ducks and a hare; the hare ran two miles after he was wounded, though it appeared when he was taken up that a ball had passed quite through his body. I went this day many miles up the country, and had a long chace after one of the guanicoes, which was the largest we had seen: He frequently stopped to look at us, when he had left us at a good distance behind, and made a noise that resembled the neighing of a horse; but when we came pretty near him he set out again, and at last, my dog being so tired that he could not run him any longer, he got quite away from us, and we saw him no more. We shot a hare however, and a little ugly animal which stunk so intolerably that none of us could go near him. The flesh of the hares here is as white as snow, and nothing can be better tasted. A serjeant of marines, and some others who were on shore at another part of the bay, had better success than fell to our share, for they killed two old guanicoes and a fawn; they were however obliged to leave them where they fell, not being able to bring them down to the water side, near six miles, without farther assistance, though they were but half the weight of those that are mentioned by Sir John Narborough; some however I saw, which could not weigh less than seven or eight and thirty stone, which is about three hundred pounds. When we returned in the evening it blew very hard, and the deck being so full of lumber that we could not hoist the boats in, we moored them astern. About midnight, the storm continuing, our six-oared cutter filled with water and broke adrift; the boat-keeper, by whose neglect this accident happened, being on board her, very narrowly escaped drowning by catching hold of the stern ladder. As it was tide of flood when she went from the ship, we knew that she must drive up the harbour; yet as the loss of her would be an irremediable misfortune, I suffered much anxiety till I could send after her in the morning, and it was then some hours before she was brought back, having driven many miles with the stream. In the mean time, I sent another party to fetch the guanicoes which our people had shot the night before; but they found nothing left except the bones, the tygers having eaten the flesh, and even cracked the bones of the limbs to come at the marrow. Several of our people had been fifteen miles up the country in search of fresh water, but could not find the least rill: We had sunk several wells to a considerable depth where the ground appeared moist, but upon visiting them, I had the mortification to find that, altogether, they would not yield more than thirty gallons in twenty-four hours: This was a discouraging circumstance, especially as our people, among other expedients, had watched the guanicoes, and seen them drink at the salt ponds. I therefore determined to leave the place as soon as the ship could be got into a little order, and the six-oared cutter repaired, which had been hauled up upon the beach for that purpose.

On the 27th, some of our people, who had been ashore on the north side of the bay to try for more guanicoes, found the skull and bones of a man, which they brought off with them, and one young guanicoe alive, which we all agreed was one of the most beautiful creatures we had ever seen: It soon grew very tame, and would suck our fingers like a calf; but, notwithstanding all our care and contrivances to feed it, it died in a few days. In the afternoon of this day it blew so hard that I was obliged to keep a considerable number of hands continually by the sheet-anchor, as there was too much reason to fear that our cables would part, which however did not happen. In the mean time, some of our people that were on shore with the carpenters, who were repairing the cutter on the south side of the bay, found two more springs of tolerable water about two miles from the beach, in a direct line from the ship's station. To these springs I sent twenty hands early in the morning with some small casks, called barecas, and in a few turns they brought on board a tun of water, of which we began to be in great want. In the mean time, I went myself about twelve miles up the river in my boat, and the weather then growing bad, I went on shore: The river, as far as I could see, was very broad; there were in it a number of islands, some of which were very large, and I make no doubt but that it penetrates the country for some hundreds of miles. It was upon one of the islands that I went on shore, and I found there such a number of birds, that when they rose they literally darkened the sky, and we could not walk a step without treading upon their eggs. As they kept hovering over our heads at a little distance, the men knocked down many of them with stones and sticks, and carried off several hundreds of their eggs. After some time I left the island and landed upon the main, where our men dressed and eat their eggs, though there were young birds in most of them. I saw no traces of inhabitants on either side of the river, but great numbers of guanicoes, in herds of sixty or seventy together: They would not however suffer us to approach them, but stood and gazed at us from the hills, in this excursion the surgeon, who was of my party, shot a tyger cat, a small but very fierce animal; for, though it was much wounded, it maintained a very sharp contest with my dog for a considerable time before it was killed.[14]

[Footnote 14: "On the south shore the rocks are not so numerous as on the north side; and there are more hills and deep vallies; but they are covered only by high grass and a few small shrubs. Hence this is but a bad place to touch at, by any ship that is under the necessity of wooding and watering. Our commodore, in order to clear the ground of the overgrown grass, which grew in some places in great quantities, and also to improve the soil, which appeared to be of a barren sandy nature, gave orders for the grass to be set on fire in different places, which was no sooner done, than the flames ran so fast, that in less than half an hour they spread several miles round."]

On the 29th, we completed our ballast, which the strength of the tide, and the constant gales of wind, rendered a very difficult and laborious task; we also got on board another tun of water. On the morning of the 30th, the weather was so bad that we could not send a boat on shore; but employed all hands on board in setting up the rigging. It grew more moderate however about noon, and I then sent a boat to procure more water. The two men who first came up to the well found there a large tyger lying upon the ground; having gazed at each other some time, the men, who had no fire-arms, seeing the beast treat them with as much contemptuous neglect as the lion did the knight of La Mancha, begun to throw stones at him: Of this insult, however, he did not deign to take the least notice, but continued stretched upon the ground in great tranquillity till the rest of the party came up, and then he very leisurely rose and walked away.

On the first of December, our cutter being thoroughly repaired, we took her on board, but the weather was so bad that we could not get off any water: The next day we struck the tents which had been set up at the watering-place, and got all ready for sea. The two wells from which, we got our water bear about S.S.E. of the Steeple rock, from which they are distant about two miles and a half; but I fixed a mark near them, that they might be still more easily found than by their bearings. During our stay in this harbour, we sounded every part of it with great care, as high as a ship could go, and found that there is no danger but what may be seen at low water; so that now fresh water is found, though at some distance from the beach, it would be a very convenient place for ships to touch at, if it were not for the rapidity of the tide. The country about the bay abounds with guanicoes, and a great variety of wild fowl, particularly ducks, geese, widgeon, and sea-pies, besides many others for which we have no name. Here is also such plenty of excellent mussels, that a boat may be loaded with them every time it is low water. Wood indeed is scarce; however in some parts of this coast there are bushes, which in a case of necessity might produce a tolerable supply of fuel.

On Wednesday the 5th of December, I unmoored, in order to get out, but the best bower came up foul, and before we could heave short upon the small bower, the tide of ebb made strong; for at this place slack water scarcely continues ten minutes; so that we were obliged to wait till it should be low water. Between five and six in the evening, we weighed, and steered out E.N.E. with a fresh gale at N.N.W.