"Seems to have undergone a change

Into something new and strange."

Then spiral-armed Brachiopods were the chief representatives of the

molluscs; then crinoid star-fishes paved the bottom of the ocean; then the

fishes, covered with large thick rhomboidal scales, were buckler-headed

like the Cephalaspis, or furnished with wing-like appendages like the

Pterichthys; and then the Trilobites, a crustacean tribe, thus named from

its three lobed skeleton, swarmed in the shallow littoral waters where

the lesser sea-fry afforded them an abundant food. From a comparison of

their structure with recent analogies, it is supposed that these strange

creatures swam in an inverted position close beneath the surface of

the water, the belly upwards, and that they made use of their power of

rolling themselves into a ball as a defence against attacks from above.

The remains of seventeen families of Trilobites, including forty-five

genera and 477 species, some of the size of a pea, others two feet long,

testify the once flourishing condition of these remarkable crustaceans,

yet but few of their petrified remains, so numerous in the Silurian and

Devonian strata, are found in the carboniferous or mountain limestone,

and none whatever in formations of more recent date. Thus, long before

the wind ever moaned through the dense fronds of the tree ferns and

calamites which once covered the swampy lowlands of our isle, and long

before that rich vegetation began, to which we are indebted for our

inexhaustible coal-fields, now frequently buried thousands of feet below

the surface on which they originally grew, the Trilobites belonged

already to the things of the past!

[Illustration: Ammonites, or Snake-Stones.]

In the seas of the mesozoic or mediæval period, new forms of life appear

upon the scene. A remarkable change has taken place in the cephalopods;

for the chambered and straightened Orthoceratites and many other families

of the order have passed away, and the spiral Ammonites, branching

out into numerous genera, and more than 600 species, now flourish in

the seas, so that in some places the rocks seem, as it were, composed

of them alone. Some are of small dimensions, others upwards of three

feet in diameter. They are met with in the Alps, and have been found

in the Himalaya Mountains, at elevations of 16,000 feet, as eloquent

witnesses of the vast revolutions of which our earth has been the scene.

Carnivorous, and resembling in habits the Nautili, their small and feeble

representatives of the present day, their immense multiplication proves

how numerous must have been the molluscs, crustaceans, and annelides, on

which they fed, all like them widely different from those of the present

day.

[Illustration: Belemnites.

_a._ B. acutus.

_b._ Belemnite (restored).

]

Then also flourished the Belemnites (Thunder-stones), supposed by the

ancients to be the thunderbolts of Jove, but now known to be the

petrified internal bones of a race of voracious ten-armed cuttle-fishes,

whose importance in the oolitic or cretaceous seas may be judged of

by the frequency of their remains, and the 120 species that have been

hitherto discovered. Belemnites two feet long have been found, so that,

to judge by analogies, the animals to which they belonged as cuttle-bones

must have measured eighteen or twenty feet from end to end, a size which

reduces the rapacious Onychoteuthis of the present seas to dwarfish

dimensions.

[Illustration: Ichthyosaurus communis.]

But of all the denizens of the mesozoic seas none were more formidable

than the gigantic Saurians, whose approach put even the voracious sharks

to flight. The first of these monsters that raises its frightful head

above the waters is the dreadful Ichthyosaurus, a creature thirty or

even fifty feet long, half fish, half lizard, and combining in strange

assemblage the snout of the porpoise, the teeth of the crocodile, and the

paddles of the whale. Singular above all is the enormous eye, in size

surpassing a man's head. Woe to the fish that meets its appalling glance!

No rapidity of flight, no weapon, be it sword or saw, avails, for the

long-tailed gigantic saurian darts like lightning through the water, and

its dense harness bids defiance to every attack. Not only have fifteen

distinct species of Ichthyosauri been distinguished, but the remains of

crushed and partially digested fish-bones and scales, which are found

within their skeleton, indicate the precise nature of their food. Their

fossil remains abound along the whole extent of the lias formation, from

the coasts of Dorset, through Somerset and Leicestershire to the coast of

Yorkshire, but the largest specimens have been found in Franconia.

[Illustration: Plesiosaurus.]

Along with this monster, another and still more singular deformity makes

its appearance, the Plesiosaurus, in which the fabulous chimæras and

hydras of antiquity seem to start into existence. Fancy a crocodile

twenty-seven feet long, with the fins of a whale, the long and flexible

neck of a swan, and a comparatively small head. With the appearance of

this new tyrant, the last hope of escape is taken from the trembling

fishes; for into the shallow waters, inaccessible to the more bulky

Ichthyosaurus, the slender Plesiosaurus penetrates with ease.

A race of such colossal powers seemed destined for an immortal reign, for

where was the visible enemy that could put an end to its tyranny? But

even the giant strength of the saurians was obliged to succumb to the

still more formidable power of all-changing time, which slowly but surely

modified the circumstances under which they were called into being, and

gave birth to higher and more beautiful forms.

In the tertiary period, the dreadful reptiles of the mesozoic seas have

long since vanished from the bosom of the ocean, and cetaceans, walruses,

and seals, unknown in the primitive deep, now wander through the waters

or bask on the sunny cliffs. With them begins a new era in the life of

the sea. Hitherto it has only brought forth creatures of base or brutal

instinct, but now the Divine spark of parental affection begins to

ennoble its more perfect inhabitants, and to point out the dim outlines

of the spiritual world.

During all these successive changes the surface of the earth has

gradually cooled to its present temperature, and many plants and animals

that formerly enjoyed the widest range must now rest satisfied with

narrower limits. The sea-animals of the north find themselves for ever

severed from their brethren of the south, by the impassable zone of

the tropical ocean; and all the fishes, molluscs, and zoophytes, whose

organisation requires a greater warmth, confine themselves to the

equatorial regions.

As the tertiary period advances towards the present epoch, the species

which flourished in its prime become extinct, like the numberless races

which preceded them; new modifications of life, more and more similar to

those of the present day, start into existence; and, finally, creation

appears with increasing beauty in her present rich attire.

Thus old Ocean, after having devoured so many of his children, has

transformed himself at last into our contemporaneous seas, with their

currents and floods, and the various animals and plants growing and

thriving in their bosom.

Who can tell when the last great revolutions of the earth-rind took

place, which, by the upheaving of mighty mountains or the disruption of

isthmuses, drew the present boundaries of land and sea? or who can pierce

the deep mystery which veils the future duration of the existing phase of

planetary life?

So much is certain, that the ocean of the present day will be transformed

as the seas of the past have been, and that "all that it inhabit" are

doomed to perish like the long line of animal and vegetable forms which

preceded them.

We know by too many signs that our earth is slowly but unceasingly

working out changes in her external form. Here lands are rising, while

other areas are gradually sinking; here the breakers perpetually gnaw

the cliffs, and hollow out their sides, while in other places alluvial

deposits encroach upon the sea's domain.

However slowly these changes may be going on, they point to a time when

a new ocean will encircle new lands, and new animal and vegetable forms

arise within its bosom. Of what nature and how gifted these races yet

slumbering in the lap of time may be, He only knows whose eye penetrates

through all eternity; but we cannot doubt that they will be superior to

the present denizens of the ocean.

Hitherto the annals of the earth-rind have shown us uninterrupted

progress; why, then, should the future be ruled by different laws? At

first the sea only produces weeds, shells, crustacea; then the fishes and

reptiles appear; and the cetaceans close the vista. But is this the last

word, the last manifestation of oceanic life, or is it not to be expected

that the future seas will be peopled with beings ranking as high above

the whale or dolphin as these rank above the giant saurians of the past?

PART III.

THE PROGRESS OF MARITIME DISCOVERY.

CHAP. XXIII.

Maritime Discoveries of the Phœnicians.--Expedition of

Hanno.--Circumnavigation of Africa under the Pharaoh

Necho.--Colæus of Samos.--Pytheas of Massilia.--Expedition of

Nearchus.--Circumnavigation of Hindostan under the Ptolemies.--Voyages

of Discovery of the Romans.--Consequences of the Fall of the Roman

Empire.--Amalfi.--Pisa.--Venice.--Genoa.--Resumption of Maritime

Intercourse between the Mediterranean and the Atlantic.--Discovery of

the Mariner's Compass.--Marco Polo.

Among the nations of antiquity, navigation, as may well be supposed,

was in a very rude and imperfect state. Unacquainted with the mariner's

compass, which during the darkest and most tempestuous nights safely

leads the modern seaman over the pathless ocean, the sparkling

constellations of a serene sky, or the position of the sun, were the only

guides of the ancient navigator. He therefore rarely ventured to lose

sight of land, but cautiously steering his little bark along the shore,

was subject to all the delays and dangers of coast navigation. Even under

the mild sky and in the calm waters of the Mediterranean, it was only

during the summer months that he dared to leave the port; to brave the

fury of the wintry winds was a boldness he never could have thought of.

Under such adverse circumstances, it is surely far less astonishing that

the geographical knowledge of the ancients was so extremely limited when

compared with ours, than that with means so scanty they yet should have

known so much of the boundaries of ocean.

But the spirit of commercial enterprise triumphs over every difficulty.

Stimulated by the love of gain, and the hope of discovering new sources

of wealth, the Phœnicians, the first great maritime nation mentioned in

history, were continually enlarging the limits of the known earth, until

the fatal moment when the sword of the conqueror destroyed their cities,

and extinguished their power for ever.

The first periods of Phœnician greatness are veiled in the mysterious

darkness of an unknown past, yet so much is certain, that their date

must have been very remote; as, according to the accounts which Herodotus

received from the priests, the foundation of Tyre took place thirty

centuries before the Christian era.

Long before the expedition of the Argonauts, the Phœnicians had already

founded colonies on the Bithynian coast of the Black Sea (Pronectus,

Bithynium); and that at a very early time they must have steered through

the Straits of Grades into the Atlantic is proved by the fact, that, as

far back as the eleventh century before Christ, they founded the towns of

Grades and Tartessus on the western coast of Southern Spain. Penetrating

farther and farther to the north, they discovered Britain, where they

established their chief station on the Scilly Isles, at present so

insignificant and obscure, and even visited the barbarous shores of the

Baltic in quest of the costly amber. They planted their colonies along

the north-west coast of Africa, even beyond the tropic; and, 2000 years

before Vasco de Gama, Phœnician mariners are said to have circumnavigated

that continent, for Herodotus relates that a Tyrian fleet, fitted out by

Necho II., Pharaoh of Egypt (611-595 B.C.), sailed from a port in the Red

Sea, doubled the southern promontory of Africa, and, after a voyage of

three years, returned through the Straits of Grades to the mouth of the

Nile.

Less wonderful, but resting on better historical proof, is the celebrated

voyage of discovery to the south which Hanno performed by command of the

senate of Carthage, the greatest of all Phœnician colonies, eclipsing

even the fame of Tyre itself. Sailing from Cerne, the principal Phœnician

settlement on the western coast of Africa, and which was probably

situated on the present island of Arguin, he reached, after a navigation

of seventeen days, a promontory which he called the West Horn (probably

Cape Palmas), and then advanced to another cape, to which he gave the

name of South Horn, and which is manifestly Cape de Tres Puntas, only

5° north of the line. During daytime the deepest silence reigned along

the newly discovered coast, but after sunset countless fires were seen

burning along the banks of the rivers, and the air resounded with music

and song, the black natives spending, as they still do now, the hours

of the cool night in festive joy. Most likely the Canary Islands were

also known to the Phœnicians, as the summit of the Peak of Teneriffe is

visible from the heights of Cape Bojador.

The progress of the great mariners of old in the Indian Ocean was no

less remarkable than the extension of their Atlantic discoveries. Far

beyond Bab-el-Mandeb their fleets sailed to Ophir or Supara, and returned

with rich cargoes of gold, silver, sandal-wood, jewels, ivory, apes,

and peacocks, to the ports of Elath and Ezion-Geber at the head of the

Red Sea. These costly productions of the south were then transported

across the Isthmus of Suez to Rhinocolura, the nearest port on the

Mediterranean, and thence to Tyre, which ultimately distributed them over

the whole of the known world.

The true position of Ophir is an enigma which no learned Œdipus will

ever solve. While some authorities place it on the east coast of Africa,

others fix its situation somewhere on the west coast of the Indian

peninsula; and Humboldt is even of opinion that the name had only a

general signification, and that a voyage to Ophir meant nothing more

than a commercial expedition to any part of the Indian Ocean, just as at

present we speak of a voyage to the Levant or the West Indies.

But whatever Ophir may have been, it is certain that the Phœnicians

carried on a considerable trade with the lands and nations beyond the

Gates of the Red Sea. Their trade in the direction of the Persian Gulf

was no less extensive. Through the Syrian desert, where Palmyra, their

chief station or emporium, proudly rose above the surrounding sands,

their caravans slowly wandered to the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates,

to provide Nineveh and Babylon with the costly merchandise of Sidon

and Tyre. Following the course of the great Mesopotamian streams, they

reached the shores of the Persian Gulf, where they owned the ports of

Tylos and Aradus and the rich pearl islands of Bahrein, and, having

loaded their empty camels with the produce of Iran and Arabia, returned

by the same way to the shores of the Mediterranean. How far their ships

may have ventured beyond the mouth of the Persian Gulf is unknown, but

the researches of the learned orientalists, Gesenius, Benfey, and Lassen,

render it extremely probable, that, taking advantage of the regularly

changing monsoons, they sailed through the Straits of Ormus to the coast

of Malabar.

The progress of the Phœnician race in the technical arts, as well as in

the astronomical and mathematical sciences so highly important for the

improvement of their navigation, was no less remarkable for the age in

which they lived, than the vast extension of a commercial intercourse

which reached from Britain to the Indus, and from the Black Sea to the

Senegal. They wove the finest linen, and knew how to dye it with the most

splendid purple. They were unsurpassed in the workmanship of metals, and

possessed the secret of manufacturing white and coloured glass, which

their caravans and ships exchanged for the produce of the north and of

the south. By the invention of the alphabet, which with many other useful

sciences and arts, they communicated to the Greeks and other nations with

whom they traded, they no less contributed to the progress of mankind

than by the humanising influence of commerce.

Thus when we consider the services which these merchant-princes of

antiquity rendered to their contemporaries, wherever their flag was seen

or their caravans appeared, the annihilation of the maritime power of

Tyre by Alexander (332 B.C.), and the destruction of Carthage by the

Romans (146 B.C.), must strike us as events calamitous to the whole human

race. Had the Carthaginians, so distinguished by their commercial spirit

and ardour for discovery, triumphed over the semi-barbarous Romans, who,

then at least, had not yet learned to imitate the arts of plundered

Greece, there is every probability that some Punic Columbus would have

discovered America at least a thousand years sooner, and the world at

this day be in possession of many secrets still unknown, and destined to

contribute to the comforts or enjoyments of our descendants.

In the times of Homer, when the Indian Ocean and the Atlantic had long

been known to the Phœnicians, the geographical knowledge of the Greeks

was still circumscribed by the narrow limits of the Eastern Mediterranean

and part of the Euxine, and many a century elapsed ere their ships

ventured beyond the Straits of Gades. Colæus of Samos (639 B.C.) is said

to have been the first seafarer of Hellenic race who sailed forth into

the Atlantic, compelled by adverse winds, and was able on his return

from his involuntary voyage to tell his astonished countrymen of the

wondrous rising and falling of the oceanic tides. It was seventy years

later before the Phoceans of Massilia, the present Marseilles, ventured

to follow the path he had traced out, and to visit the Atlantic port of

Tartessus.

The town of Massilia had the additional honour of reckoning among her

sons the great traveller Pytheas, the Marco Polo of antiquity. This

far-wandering philosopher, who lived about 330 years before Christ, had

visited all the coasts of Europe, from the mouths of the Tanais or Don to

the shores of Ultima Thule, which, according to Leopold von Buch, was not

Iceland, nor Feroë, nor Orcadia, but the Norwegian coast. His narrative

first made the Greeks acquainted with North-western Europe, and remained

for a long time their only geographical guide to those hyperborean lands.

While the horizon of the Greeks was thus considerably expanding towards

the regions of the setting sun, the conquests of Alexander opened to them

a new world in the distant Orient. Greek navigators now for the first

time unfurled their sails on the Indian Ocean. The Macedonian, desirous

not only of subduing Asia but of firmly attaching it to the nations of

the Mediterranean by the bonds of mutual interest, and hoping by this

means to consolidate his vast conquests, sent a fleet under the command

of Nearchus, from the mouths of the Indus to the head of the Persian

Gulf, to establish if possible a new road for a regular commercial

intercourse between India and Mesopotamia. The performance of this voyage

was reckoned by the conqueror one of the most glorious events of his

reign, but it may serve as a proof of the slowness of ancient navigation,

that Nearchus took ten months to perform a journey which one of our

steamers might easily accomplish in five days.

After the disruption of the Macedonian empire, the circle of the Greek

discoveries in the Indian Ocean was widened by the enterprising spirit of

the Seleucidæ and Ptolemies. Seleucus Nicator is said to have penetrated

to the mouths of the Ganges, and the fleets of the Egyptian kings sailed

round the peninsula of Hindostan and discovered the coasts of Taprobane

or Ceylon, the spicy odours of whose cinnamon-groves are said to be

wafted far out to sea, so that--

"for many a league,

Pleased with the grateful scent, old Ocean smiles."

But now came the time when earth-ruling Rome called the whole civilised

world her own, and her victorious eagles expanded their triumphant wings

from the Red Sea to the coasts of the Northern Ocean. What discoveries

might not have been expected from such a power, if the Romans had

possessed but one tithe of the maritime spirit of conquered Carthage?

But even this military empire contributed something to the enlargement

of maritime knowledge. Under the reign of Augustus a Roman fleet sailed

round the promontory of Skagen, discovered about sixteen years after the

birth of Christ the Island of Fionia or Fünen, and is even supposed to

have reached the entrance of the Gulf of Finland. In the year 84 A.C.

Julius Agricola, the conqueror of Britain, sailed for the first time

round Scotland, and discovered the Orcadian Isles.

In Pliny's time the real magnitude of the earth was still so imperfectly

known that, according to the calculations of that great though rather

over-credulous naturalist, Europe occupied the third part, Asia only the

fourth, and Africa about the fifth, of its whole extent.

The geographer Ptolemy, who lived about the middle of the second century,

under the reigns of Hadrian and Marcus Aurelius, describes the limits

of the earth as far as they were known in his time. To the west, the

coast of Africa had been explored as far as Cape Juby; and the Fortunate

Islands or Hesperides, the present Canaries, rose from the ocean as the

last lands towards the setting sun.

To the north discovery had reached as far as the Shetland Isles, and

the promontory Perispa at the entrance of the Gulf of Finland; while

on the east coast of Africa Cape Brava formed the ultimate boundary of

the known world. Soon after Ptolemy's time the whole coast of Malacca

(_Aurea Chersonesus_) and the Siamese Sea, as far as the Cape of Cambogia

(_Notium promontorium_), was explored, and the Romans even appear to have

had some knowledge of the great islands of the Indian archipelago, Java,

Sumatra, and Borneo.

And yet, notwithstanding all this progress towards the East, it may well

be asked whether the Phœnicians had not embraced a wider horizon than the

Romans in the full zenith of their fortunes. Even though we reject the

circumnavigation of Africa under Necho, and the discovery of America by

Punic navigators, as not fully proved or fabulous, it is quite certain

that they had explored the west coast of Africa to a much greater extent

than the Romans, and extremely probable that they knew at least as much

of the lands which bound the Indian Ocean. But, as from a narrow-minded

mercantile policy they kept many of their discoveries profoundly secret,

all knowledge of them perished with their ruin. In ancient times, when

the defeat of a people too often led to its complete destruction,

or at least to the extinction of its peculiar civilisation, and the

difficulties of intercourse rendered the diffusion of knowledge extremely

difficult and slow, it not unfrequently happened that useful discoveries

were erased from the memory of mankind, a danger which, thanks to the

printing-press and the steam-engine, is now no longer to be feared.

Thus a darkening or eclipse of intellectual life took place to a vast

extent when the western Roman Empire succumbed to the barbarians of

the North, and the bands which for centuries had united the cities of

the east and west were violently sundered. Under that fatal blight

Civilisation vanished from the lands which had so long been her chosen

seat, only to dawn again after a long and obscure night. Commercial

intercourse ceased between the sea-ports of the Mediterranean, all

communication with distant countries was cut off, and the boundaries

of the known earth became more and more narrow, as the ignorance of a

barbarous age increased.

It is not before the beginning of the ninth century that we perceive the

first glimpses of a better day in the rising fortunes of some Italian

sea-ports, where favourable circumstances had given birth to liberal

institutions. As early as the year 840 Amalfi possessed a considerable

number of trading-vessels, and carried on a lucrative commerce with

the Levant. The maritime code of this little republic regulated the

commercial transactions of all the Mediterranean sea-ports; as in a later

century the law-book of Wisby served as a guide to the merchants of the

Baltic. A few years after its submission in 1131 to the arms of King

Roger of Sicily, Amalfi was plundered by the Pisanese and almost entirely

destroyed. The neglected harbour was gradually choked with sand, and the

little town, which now numbers no more than 3000 inhabitants, has nothing

to console it for its actual poverty but the remembrance of a glorious

past. Along with Amalfi, Gaëta, Naples, and Pisa, rose to considerable

eminence in commerce, though far from equalling the power and splendour

of Genoa and Venice, the great republics of northern Italy.

As far back as the beginning of the sixth century, the city of the

lagunes fits out a small fleet to purge the Adriatic of Istrian pirates.

By a prudent course of policy she renders herself indispensable to the

Byzantine court, and acquires great privileges in Constantinople. It is

here she purchases the costly productions of the East, with which during

the ninth and tenth centuries, she provides Northern Italy and a great

part of Germany. About the beginning of the eleventh century her trade

with Egypt and Syria begins to flourish, and soon raises her to the

pinnacle of her power and wealth. In the year 1080 she extends her rule

over Croatia and Dalmatia, and gains in 1204 considerable advantages by

assisting the western crusaders in the conquest of Constantinople. Pera,

numerous coast towns from the Hellespont to the Ionian Sea, a great part

of the Morea, Corfu, and Candia fall to the winged lion's share, and

requite the services of "blind old Dandolo." The silk manufacture is

transported, as a valuable fruit of conquest, from the Morea to Venice,

and becomes a new source of wealth to the Adriatic Tyre. The Euxine opens

her ports to the Venetian seamen, treaties of commerce are concluded with

Trebizond and Armenia, and a factory is established at Tana, at the mouth

of the Don.

While thus the power of Venice rises more and more in the East, Genoa,

which already in the tenth century carried on a flourishing trade,

acquires by degrees the supremacy in the Western Mediterranean.

The aid afforded by the republic to the Greek emperor Michael

Palæologus contributes largely to the overthrow of the Latin throne

of Constantinople, and opens the Bosphorus and the Black Sea to the

enterprise of her merchants. The grandeur of Genoa now reaches its

height; she holds fortified possession of Pera and Galata, and covers the

coasts of the Crimea with her strong-holds and castles.

At a later period the Florentines appear on the scene, and assume the

rank formerly held by Pisa in Mediterranean commerce. The acquisition of

the sea-port of Leghorn (1421) opens the barriers of the ocean to the

birthplace of Dante and Galileo.

After their deliverance from the Moorish yoke in the ninth century, a

fresh and vigorous spirit begins also to animate the Catalans. They

conclude treaties of commerce with Genoa and Pisa, and towards the end of

the thirteenth century the ships of Barcelona are found visiting all the

ports of the Mediterranean.

But in spite of the growth of trade and navigation in Italy and Spain,

many years had yet to elapse after the fall of the Roman empire ere the

gates of the Atlantic were once more opened to the navigators of the

Mediterranean. It was not before the middle of the thirteenth century,

after Seville and a great part of the Andalusian coast had been wrested

from the Moors by Ferdinand of Castile, that the Italian and Catalonian

seafarers, encouraged by privileges and remissions of duties, began to

visit the port of Cadiz, where they met with merchants from Portugal and

Biscay. Soon after, and most probably in consequence of the connexions

thus formed, we find Italian ships visiting the ports of England and the

Netherlands. About 1316, Genoese vessels began to carry goods to England;

and somewhat later the Venetians, whose visits are not mentioned by the

chroniclers before 1323.

Thus after a long interruption we see the seamen of the Mediterranean at

length resuming the track to the Atlantic ports that had been struck out

more than thirty centuries before by their predecessors the Phœnicians.

But their voyages to the western ocean took place under circumstances

much more favourable than those which had attended the men of Tyre

and Carthage in their adventurous expeditions. Not only the better

construction of their ships, but still more the use of the mariner's

compass, for which Europe is probably indebted to the Arabs, who in

their turn owed its knowledge to the Chinese, enabled them to steer more

boldly into the open sea, and regardless of the bendings of the coasts

to reach their journey's end by a less circuitous route. The period when

the magnetic needle was first made use of by the Mediterranean navigators

is not exactly known, but so much is certain that it did good service

long before the time of Flavio Gioja (1302), to whom its discovery has

been erroneously ascribed, though he may have introduced some improvement

in the arrangement of the compass. Humboldt tells us in his "Cosmos,"

that in the satirical poem of Guyot de Provens, "La Bible" (1190), and

in the description of Palestine by Jaques de Vitry, bishop of Ptolemais

(1204-1215), the sea-compass is mentioned as a well-known instrument.

Dante also speaks of the needle which points to the stars (Paradise, xii.

29); and in a nautical work by Raimundus Lullus of Majorca, written in

the year 1286, we find another proof of a much earlier knowledge of the

compass than before the beginning of the fourteenth century, since its

use by the mariners of his time is expressly mentioned by that author.

Confidently following this unerring guide, the Catalonians sailed at

an early period to the north coast of Scotland, and even preceded the

Portuguese in their discoveries on the west coast of Africa, since

Don Jayme Ferrer penetrated to the mouth of the Rio de Ouro as early

as August 1346. About the same time the long-forgotten Canary Islands

were rediscovered by the Spaniards; and at a later period (1402-1405)

conquered and depopulated by some Norman adventurers, the Bethencourts.

While thus the South-European navigators unfurled their sails on the

Atlantic, and gave the first impulse to the glorious discoveries that

in the following century were destined to open up the ocean, and reveal

its hitherto unknown greatness to mankind, the Indian Sea still remained

closed to their enterprise; for though the Venetians by this time

rivalled, if they did not surpass the ancient maritime greatness of the

Tyrians in the Mediterranean, they did not, like them, directly fetch the

rich produce of the South in their own ships from the East-African and

Indian ports, but received them at second hand from the Arabian masters

of Syria and Egypt.

But though no ship of theirs was ever seen in the Indian seas, through

them the knowledge of the Arabian discoveries in those parts penetrated

to Europe, and widely extended the knowledge of the ocean. For when the

Arabs, fired by the prophetic ardour of Mahomet, suddenly emerged from

the obscurity of pastoral life, and appeared as conquerors before the

astonished world, the trade of the Indian Ocean fell into the hands of

these new masters of the Red Sea and Persian Gulf, who soon learnt to

pursue it with an energy which the Romans and Persians had never known.

The town of Bassora was founded by the caliph Omar on the western shore

of the great stream formed by the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates,

and soon emulated Alexandria herself in the greatness of its commerce.

From Bassora the Arabs sailed far beyond the Siamese Gulf, which had

formerly bounded European navigation. They visited the unknown ports of

the Indian archipelago, and established so active a trade with Canton,

that the Chinese emperor granted them the use of their own laws in that

city.

This progress of the Arabs, and the vast treasures accruing to Venice

from the overland Indian trade, could not fail to excite the envy of

the other seafaring powers, and to call forth an increasing desire

of discovering a new maritime route to the wealth-teeming regions of

Southern Asia.

The wonderful narratives of the first travellers who wandered by land to

the distant East likewise contributed in no small degree to foment the

ardour of discovery. The most celebrated of these geographical pioneers

was Marco Polo, a noble Venetian who had resided many years at the court

of the Mongol ruler, Kublai Khan, and visited the most remote regions

of Asia. He was the first European that ever sailed along the western

shores of the Pacific, the first that told his astonished countrymen of

the magnificence of Cambalu or Peking, the capital of the great kingdom

of Cathay, and of the splendour of Zipanga or Japan situated on the

confines of a vast ocean extending to the east. He also made more than

one sea-voyage in the Indian Ocean, and to him Europe owed her first

knowledge of the Moluccas, the east coast of Africa, and the island of

Madagascar.

This greatest of all the mediæval travellers, who without exaggeration

may be said to have enlarged the boundaries of the known earth as much as

Alexander the Great, was followed by Oderich of Portenau, who travelled

as far as India and China (1320-1330); by Sir John Mandeville, who

visited almost all the lands described by Marco Polo; by Schildberger

of Munich, who accompanied the barbarous Tamerlane on his locust

expeditions; and finally by Clavigo, sent in the year 1403 by the Spanish

court on an embassy to Samarcand. The truths which these bold travellers

communicated to their countrymen about the riches and the commerce of the

nations they had visited, as well as the fables in which their credulity

or their extravagant fancy indulged, made an enormous impression on the

European mind, and raised to a feverish heat the longing after those

sunny lands and isles which imagination adorned with all the charms of an

earthly paradise.

CHAP. XXIV.

Prince Henry of Portugal.--Discovery of Porto Santo and

Madeira.--Doubling of Cape Bojador.--Discovery of the Cape Verde

Islands.--Bartholomew Diaz.--Vasco de Gama.--Columbus.--His

Predecessors.--Discovery of Greenland by Günnbjorn.--Bjorne

Herjulfson.--Leif.--John Vaz Cortereal.--John and Sebastian

Cabot.--Retrospective View of the Beginnings of English

Navigation.--Ojeda and Amerigo Vespucci.--Vincent Yañez

Pinson.--Cortez.--Verazzani.--Cartier.--The Portuguese in the Indian

Ocean.

The reigning idea of a century finds always one or more eminent spirits,

in whom and through whose agency the desires and hopes of thousands ripen

into deeds, and are changed from dreams into realities. One of these

rare and highly gifted men was Prince Henry of Portugal, a son of King

John I., who made it the chief aim of his life to extend the boundaries

of maritime discovery, and devoted with glowing ardour all the powers

of his energetic mind, and all the influence of rank and riches to the

attainment of this noble object. From the castle of Sagres near Cape St.

Vincent, where, far from the court, he had fixed his residence in order

to be less disturbed in his favourite studies, his eye glanced over

the Atlantic, which constantly reminded him of the unknown lands which

held out such brilliant prospects to the navigator who should venture

to steer southwards along the African coast. The experienced seamen and

learned geographers that surrounded him confirmed him in his hopes, and

encouraged him to attempt the realisation of his generous ideas.

Fortunately all outward circumstances combined to favour the prince's

projects. At that time Portugal was not plunged, as at present, in a

state of slothful lethargy, but full of the bold and enterprising spirit

which the expulsion of the Moors and long intestine wars had called to

life. The geographical position of the country, bounded on every side by

the dominions of a mightier neighbour, forbade all extension by land, and

pointed to the ocean as the only field in which a comparatively small

but spirited people could hope to reap a rich harvest of wealth and glory.

The first two ships which Prince Henry sent out on a voyage of discovery

along the African coast (1412) did not reach farther than Cape Bojador,

whose rocky cliffs stretching far out into the Atlantic intimidated their

inexperienced commanders. Six years later (1418) Juan Gonsalez Zarco and

Tristan Vaz Tejeira were intrusted with a new expedition, and sailed with

express commands to double that ill-famed promontory; but a terrible gale

drove them out to sea, and forced them to seek a refuge on an unknown

island, to which they thankfully gave the name of Porto Santo. This

discovery, though extremely unimportant in itself, served to confirm the

prince in his projects, and encouraged him to send out in the following

year a new expedition under the same commander, to take possession of the

island.

This led to a more important discovery, for on landing on Porto Santo

the attention of the Portuguese was struck by a black and prominent

spot, rising above the southern horizon. To this they now directed their

course, and were equally delighted and surprised to see it swell out as

they approached to the ample proportions of a large island; to which,

on account of the dense forests which at that time covered its verdant

hill-slopes up to the very top, they gave the name of Madeira. Prince

Henry immediately equipped a considerable fleet to carry a colony of his

countrymen to the new land of promise, and furnished them with the vine

of Cyprus, and the sugar-cane of Sicily, which throve so well on the

Atlantic isle, that after a few years the produce of Madeira began to be

of consequence in the trade of the mother country.

Thus the first undertakings of Prince Henry were not left unrewarded;

but, besides the commercial advantages arising from the possession of

Madeira, it encouraged the Portuguese navigators no longer servilely to

creep along the coasts, but boldly to steer into the open sea. Thus Don

Gilianez, by avoiding the shore-currents, succeeded at last in doubling

the dreaded Cape Bojador (1433), and opening a new sphere to navigation.

One discovery now rapidly followed another. Gonsalez and Nuño Tristan

(1440-1442) penetrated as far as the Senegal; Cape de Verd was reached in

1446; and three years later, the limits of the known earth were extended

as far as the islands of the same name and the Azores, those advanced

sentinels in the bosom of the Atlantic. It may easily be imagined how

much these successes contributed to encourage the universal ardour for

discovery. Adventurers from all countries hastened to Portugal, hoping to

gratify their ambition or avarice under the auspices of a prince who had

already achieved so much; and even many Venetians and Genoese, who were

at that time superior to all other nations in naval science, reckoned it

as an honour to serve under a flag which might justly be considered as

the high school of the seaman. Thus before Prince Henry closed his eyes

(1463) the aim of his glorious life had been attained; for, though he did

not live to see his countrymen penetrate into the Indian Ocean, yet he

witnessed the mighty impulse which in a short time was to lead to that

important result.

In the year 1471 the line was crossed for the first time, and the

Portuguese thus detected the error of the ancients, who believed that

the intolerable heat of a vertical sun rendered the equatorial regions

uninhabitable by man.

Under John the Second a mighty fleet discovered the kingdoms of Benin and

Congo (1484), followed the coast above 1500 miles beyond the equator, and

revealed to Europe the constellations of another hemisphere.

The farther their ships penetrated to the south, the higher rose the

flood tide of their hopes. As the African continent appeared sensibly

to contract itself, and to bend towards the East as they proceeded,

they no longer doubted that the way to the Indian Ocean would now soon

be found, and give them the exclusive possession of a trade which had

enriched Venice, and made that city the envy of the world. The ancient

long-forgotten tale of the Phœnician circumnavigation of Africa now

found belief, and Bartholomew Diaz sailed from Lisbon for the purpose

of solving the important problem. The storms of an unknown ocean, the

famine caused by the loss of his store-ship, and the frequent mutinies of

a dispirited crew, could not stop the progress of this intrepid mariner,

who, boldly advancing in the face of a thousand difficulties, at length

discovered the high promontory which forms the southern extremity of

Africa. But, as his weather-beaten ships were no longer able to confront

the mountain-billows and furious gales foaming or roaring round that

stormy headland, he was obliged, sore against his will, to give up the

attempt to double the Cape of Tempests, Cabo tormentoso, as he called

it, but to which the king gave the more inviting name of the Cape of

Good Hope. Yet before Vasco de Gama set sail from Lisbon to accomplish

the great work (1498) and win the prize to which so many navigators had

gradually paved the way, the astounding intelligence had flashed through

Europe that on the 12th of October, 1492, Columbus had discovered a new

world in the west. The history of this most famous, and most important

in its results, of all sea-voyages, is so well known that I may well

refrain from entering into any details on the subject: at all events the

reader will be much more interested by a short account of the intrepid

navigators who, long before the great Genoese, found their way to the

shores of the new continent.

While Tropical America is separated from Europe and Africa by a vast

tract of intervening ocean, and even the advanced posts of the Azores

and Cape de Verd Islands are far distant from the western shores of the

Atlantic, Iceland and Greenland appear to us in the north as stations

linking at comparatively easy distances the Old World and the New. It is,

therefore, by no means surprising that the discovery of Iceland by the

Norwegian _Viking_ or pirate Nadod, and the somewhat later colonisation

of the island by Ingolf, in the year 875, should in the following century

have led the Norsemen to the discovery of America, particularly when we

consider that no people ever equalled them in daring and romantic love of

adventure:

"Kings of the main their leaders brave,

Their barks the dragons of the wave."

Greenland, discovered by Günnbjorn in the year 876 or 877, was indeed not

colonised by the Icelanders before 983; a delay excusable enough when

we consider the uninviting climate of that dreary peninsula or island,

but three years after the latter date, we already find Bjorne Herjulfson

undertaking a cruise from the new settlement to the south-west, and

successively discovering Nantucket, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland, though

without making any attempts to land. Bjorne was followed about the

year 1000 by Leif, a son of Erick the Red, the founder of the Greenland

colony; who, sailing along the American coast as far as 41-1/2° north

lat. discovered the _good Winland_, which received its name from the

wild vines which Tyrker, a German who accompanied the expedition,

found growing there in abundance. The fertility and mild climate of

this coast, when compared with that of Labrador and Greenland, induced

the discoverers to settle, and to found the first European colony on

the American continent. Frequent wars with the Eskimos or Skrelingers

(dwarfs), who at that time, as I have already mentioned in the fourth

chapter, extended far more to the south than at present, soon however

destroyed the colony; and the last account of Norman America we find in

the old Scandinavian records is the mention of a ship which, in the year

1347, had sailed from Greenland to Markland (Nova Scotia) to gather wood,

and was driven by a storm to Stamfjord on the west coast of Iceland.

About this time also the colonies in Greenland, which until then had

enjoyed a tolerable state of prosperity, decayed and ultimately perished

under the blighting influence of commercial monopolies, of wars with the

aborigines, and above all of the _black death_ (1347-1351), that horrible

plague of the fourteenth century, which, after having depopulated Europe,

vented its fury even upon those remote wilds. Thus the knowledge of the

Norman discovery of America gradually faded from the memory of man,

and thus also it happened that the names and deeds of Leif and Bjorne

Herjulfson remained totally unknown to the southern navigators, who at

that time moreover, had little intercourse with the nations of Northern

Europe.

Besides his well-authenticated Norman predecessors, Columbus may possibly

have had others. Traces of early Irish and Welsh discoveries are pointed

out by the Northern historians, and John Vaz Cortereal, a Portuguese

navigator, is said to have visited the coasts of Newfoundland some time

previous to the voyages of Columbus and Cabot.

If before the first voyage of the great Genoese navigator a mighty

longing to penetrate to distant countries pervaded the public mind of

Europe, it may be imagined to what a feverish glow this reigning idea

of the century was excited, when the wonderful accounts of the gold

and enchanting beauty of Haiti spread from land to land. As in former

times, half Europe had thrown itself upon the Orient to liberate the

tomb of our Saviour from the tyranny of the Moslem; so now one flood of

adventurers followed another to the new land of promise, which held out

such glittering prospects of wealth and enjoyment. Obeying the mighty

impulse, England and France now entered upon the path on which Portugal

and Spain had so gloriously preceded them, and, as the fruit of this

general emulation, we see after a few years the whole western shore of

the great Atlantic basin drawn into the circle of the known earth.

If Columbus was undoubtedly the first discoverer of the West Indian

islands (the Bahamas, Cuba, Haiti, 1492; Lesser Antilles, 1493; Jamaica,

1494), the honour of having preceded him on the American continent

belongs to John Cabot, a Venetian merchant settled in Bristol, and to

the youthful energy of his son Sebastian, since they landed on the coast

of Labrador (24th June, 1497) seventeen months before the continent of

Tropical America, in the delta of the Orinoco, was discovered by Columbus

on his third voyage.

Thus Genoa and Venice, the great Mediterranean rivals, divide the glory

of having revealed a new world to mankind, but it was ordained that

the laurels of their sons should bloom under a foreign flag, and the

fruits of their endeavours be reaped by other nations. For as Columbus

steered into the western ocean in the service of the Spanish monarch, the

Cabots were sent by Henry the Seventh of England across the Atlantic to

discover a north-western passage to India. This, of course, they did not

accomplish, but the discovery of Newfoundland and of the coast of America

from Labrador to Virginia rewarded their efforts, and laid the foundation

of Britain's colonial greatness. Their voyage is also remarkable as

having been the first expedition of the kind that ever left the shores of

England, which at that time held a very inferior rank among the maritime

nations, and gave but taint indications of her future naval supremacy. On

this occasion it may not be uninteresting to cast a retrospective glance

on the modest beginnings of British navigation. In the year 1217 the

first treaty of commerce was concluded with Norway, and in the beginning

of the fourteenth century Bergen was the most distant port to which

English vessels resorted. Soon afterwards they ventured into the Baltic,

and it was not before the middle of the following century that they began

to frequent some of the Castilian and Portuguese ports. Towards the end

of the fifteenth century the English flag was still a stranger to the

Mediterranean, and direct intercourse with the Levant only began with the

sixteenth. Edward the Second, preparing for his great Scottish war, was

obliged to hire five galleys from Genoa, the same town whence a few years

back our giant steamers transported a whole Sardinian army to the shores

of the Crimea, where centuries before the Genoese had been established

as lords and masters. Such are the changes in the relative position of

nations that have been brought about by the power of time!

After this short digression I return to America, where, in 1499, Ojeda

and Amerigo Vespucci were the first to sail along the coast of Paria.

The following year was uncommonly rich in voyages of discovery, as

well in the south as in the north. In the western ocean the line was

first crossed by Vincent Yañez Pinson, who doubled Cape Saint Augustin,

discovered the mouths of the Amazon river, and thence sailed northwards

along the coast as far as the island of Trinidad, which Columbus had

discovered two years before. About the same time a Portuguese fleet,

sailing under the command of Pedro Alvarez Cabral to the Indian Ocean,

was driven by adverse winds to the coast of the Brazils; so that, if the

genius of Columbus had not evoked, as it were, America out of the waves,

chance would have effected her discovery a few years later.

A third voyage, which renders the year 1500 remarkable in maritime

annals, is that of Gaspar Cortereal, a son of John Vaz Cortereal whom I

have already mentioned as one of the doubtful precursors of Columbus.

Hoping to realise the dream of a north-west passage to the riches of

India, Gaspar appeared on the inhospitable shores of Labrador, and

penetrated into the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Storms and ice-drifts forced

him to retreat, but firmly resolved to prosecute his design, he again set

sail in the following year with two small vessels. It is supposed that on

this second voyage he penetrated into Frobisher Bay, but here floating

ice-masses and violent gales separated him from his companion ship,

which returned alone to Portugal.

As in our times the uncertain fate of Franklin has called forth a series

of heroic deeds, so the doubtful destiny of the Portuguese explorer

allowed his brother Miguel no rest, whom in the following spring we

find hastening with three ships on the traces of the lost Gaspar. But

Miguel also disappeared for ever among the ice-fields of the north. A

third brother of this high-minded family yet remained, who earnestly

implored the king that he also might be allowed to go forth and seek for

his missing kindred. But Emanuel steadfastly refused permission, saying

that these deplorable enterprises had already cost him two of his most

valuable servants, and he could afford to lose no more.

In the year 1501 Rodrigo de Bastidas sailed to the coast of Paria, and

discovered the whole shore-line from Cape de Vela to the Gulf of Darien.

In the year 1502 the aged Columbus, entering with youthful ardour upon

his fourth and last voyage, set sail with four wretched vessels, the

largest of which was only seventy tons burthen, and discovered the coast

of the American continent from Cape Gracias á Dios to Porto-Bello. The

east coast of Yucatan was explored in the year 1508 by Juan Diaz de Solis

and Vincent Yañez Pinson, and the island of Cuba circumnavigated for the

first time by Sebastian de Ocampo.

In 1512 Juan Ponce de Leon is led by his evil star to Florida, where,

instead of finding as he hoped the fountain of eternal youth, he is

doomed to a miserable end; and in 1517 the above-mentioned Solis sails

along the coasts of the Brazils to the mouth of the Rio de la Plata,

where he is killed in a conflict with the Indians. In 1518 Cordova makes

his countrymen acquainted with the north and west coasts of Yucatan, and

in the same year Grijalva discovers the Mexican coast from Tabasco to San

Juan de Ulloa. In 1518 he is followed by the great Cortez, who lands at

Vera Cruz, overthrows the empire of Montezuma after a series of exploits

unparalleled in history, and renders the whole coast of Mexico far to the

north subject to the Spanish crown.

The voyages of Verazzani (1523) who sailed along the coast of the United

States, and of Jacques Cartier (1524) who investigated the Bay of

St. Lawrence, did not indeed widely extend geographical knowledge, as

these navigators, who had been sent out by Francis I., did no more than

examine more closely the previous discoveries of Cabot and Cortereal;

their explorations however had the result of giving France possession of

Canada, and of entitling her to a share in the fisheries of Newfoundland.

Thus within half a century after the ever memorable day when Columbus

first landed on Guanahani, we find almost the whole eastern coast of

America rising into light from the deep darkness of an unknown past.

But while the western shores of the Atlantic were thus unrolling

themselves before the wondering gaze of mankind, the Indian Ocean was

the scene of no less remarkable events; for in the same year (1498) that

Columbus first visited the American continent, Vasco de Gama doubled

the Cape of Good Hope, which thus fully justified its auspicious name,

crossed the Eastern Ocean, and on the 22nd of May landed at Calicut on

the coast of Malabar, ten months and two days after leaving the port of

Lisbon.

And now, as if by magic, the great revolution in commerce took place

which the Venetians long had feared and the Portuguese had no less

anxiously hoped for; for the latter lost no time in reaping the golden

fruits of the glorious discoveries of Gama and his predecessors. In less

than twenty years their flag waved in all the harbours of the Indian

Ocean, from the east coast of Africa to Canton; and over this whole

immense expanse a row of fortified stations secured to them the dominion

of the seas. Their settlements in Diu and Goa awed the whole coast of

Malabar, and cut off the intercourse of Egypt with India by way of

the Red Sea. They took possession of the small island of Ormus, which

commands the entrance of the Persian Gulf, and rendered this important

commercial highway likewise tributary to their power. In the centre of

the East-Indian world rose their chief emporium, Malacca, and even in

distant China Macao obeyed their laws. The discovery of the Molucca

Islands gave them the monopoly of the lucrative spice trade, which was

destined at a later period, and more permanently, to enrich the thrifty

Dutchman.

What vast changes had taken place since Prince Henry's first expeditions

to the coast of Africa! How had old Ocean enlarged his bounds! He who as

a child had still known the earth with her old and narrow confines might,

before his hair grew white, have seen the Atlantic assume a definite

form; Africa project like an enormous peninsula into the boundless world

of waters, and one single ocean bathe all the coasts from Canton to the

West Indies.

Yet a few years and the Pacific opens its gates, and all the discoveries

of Columbus and Vasco seem small when compared with the vast regions

which Magellan reveals to man.

CHAP. XXV.

Vasco Nuñez de Balboa.--His Discovery of the Pacific, and

subsequent Fate.--Ferdinand Magellan.--Sebastian el Cano, the

first Circumnavigator of the Globe.--Discoveries of Pizarro and

Cortez.--Urdaneta.--Juan Fernandez.--Mendoza.--Drake.--Discoveries

of the Portuguese and Dutch in the Western Pacific.--Attempts

of the Dutch and English to discover North-East and

North-West Passages to India.--Sir Hugh Willoughby and

Chancellor.--Frobisher.--Davis.--Barentz.--His Wintering in

Nova Zembla.--Quiros.--Torres.--Schouten.--Le Maire.--Abel

Tasman.--Hudson.--Baffin.--Dampier.--Anson.--Byron.--Wallis and

Carteret.--Bougainville.

The riches which the Indian trade had poured into the lap of Venice, and

which at a later period fell to the share of the Portuguese, formed the

chief incitement to the great maritime discoveries which illustrated the

end of the fifteenth and the first half of the sixteenth century.

The hope to discover a new road to India had not only animated the

Portuguese navigators, but also led Columbus and Cabot across the

Atlantic. It caused the unfortunate Cortereal to sail into the Gulf of

St. Lawrence, induced Juan de Solis to penetrate into the mouth of the

Rio de la Plata, and was finally the chief end and aim of the wondrous

expedition of Magellan. The time is now come when the barriers of

the Pacific are to fall, but before crossing its vast bosom with the

illustrious navigator who first traversed it from end to end, I shall

detain the reader a few moments on the shores of the Gulf of Darien,

where the wretched remains of the colony of Santa Maria el Antigua,

founded by Ojeda in 1509, had, after the departure of that unfortunate

adventurer, freely elected Vasco Nuñez de Balboa to be their governor.

This great man, who would have emulated the fame of a Cortez or Pizarro

if his good fortune had been equal to his merit, omitted no opportunity

of justifying the choice of his comrades by the unremitting zeal he

displayed for their welfare. Making up for the scantiness of his

resources by unceasing activity, he subdued the neighbouring caciques,

and collected a great quantity of gold, which abounded more in that part

of the continent than in the islands.

It happened during one of his frequent excursions that a young Cacique,

witnessing a very angry dispute among the Spaniards about a few grains of

gold, asked them in a contemptuous tone why they quarrelled about such

a trifle; and added, that, if they set such an exorbitant value upon a

metal comparatively worthless in his eyes, he could gratify their utmost

wishes by pointing out to them a land where gold was so plentiful that

even common utensils were made of it. And when Balboa eagerly asked where

that happy country was situated, "Six days' journey to the south," was

the answer, "will bring you to another ocean along whose coast it lies!"

This was the first time the Spaniards ever heard of the Pacific and of

gold-teeming Peru, and the intelligence was well calculated to inflame

the enterprising spirit of their leader. Balboa immediately concluded

that this sea must be that which Columbus and so many other navigators

had vainly sought for, and that its discovery would beyond all doubt

open the way to India, which, according to the geographical error of the

times, was supposed to be far less distant from America than it really is.

The most brilliant prospects rose before his fancy, and he would

immediately have gone forth to realise them, if prudence had not

warned him first to provide all the means necessary to insure success.

He therefore endeavoured before all to gain the good-will of the

neighbouring Indian chiefs, and sent some trustworthy agents to

Hispaniola with a considerable quantity of gold, whereby many adventurers

were induced to flock to his standard. Having thus reinforced himself, he

thought he might now safely undertake his important expedition.

The Isthmus of Darien, over which he had to force his way, is not above

sixty miles broad, but this short distance was rendered difficult, or

rather impervious, by the innumerable obstacles of a tropical wilderness.

The high mountains running along the neck of land were covered with

dense forests, and the low grounds beneath filled with deep swamps, from

which arose exhalations deadly to a European constitution. Wild torrents

rushed down the ravines, and often forced them to retrace their steps. A

march through a country like this, thinly peopled by a few savages, and

without any other guides than some Indians of doubtful fidelity, was an

enterprise worthy of all the energies of a Balboa.

On the 1st of September, 1513, after the end of the rainy season, he set

out with a small but well chosen band of 190 Spaniards, accompanied by

1000 Indian carriers. As long as he remained on the territories of the

friendly Caciques his progress was comparatively easy, but scarce had

he penetrated into the interior, when, besides the almost invincible

obstacles of nature--forests, swamps, and swollen torrents,--he had to

encounter the deadly enmity of the Indians. As he approached, some of

the Caciques fled to the mountains, after having destroyed or carried

along with them all that might have been of use to the hated strangers;

while others, of more determined hostility, opposed his progress by force

of arms. Although the Spaniards had been led to expect that a six days'

march would bring them to their journey's end, they had already spent no

less than twenty-five days in forcing their way through the wilderness,

amidst incessant attacks and hardships. The greater part of them were

rapidly giving way under fatigues almost surpassing the limits of mortal

endurance, and even the strongest felt that they could not hold out much

longer. But Balboa, ever the foremost to face danger or difficulty,

whose spirits no reverse could damp, and whose fiery eloquence painted

in glowing colours the glorious reward of their present privations,

knew how to inspire his men with his own unconquerable spirit, so that

without a murmur they kept toiling on through swamp and forest. At length

the Indian guides pointed out to them a mountain-crest from which they

promised them the view of the longed-for ocean. Filled with new ardour

they climbed up the steep ascent, but before they reached the summit

Balboa ordered them to halt, that he might be the first to enjoy the

glorious prospect. As soon as he saw the Pacific stretch out in endless

majesty along the verge of the distant horizon, he fell on his knees and

poured forth his rapturous thanks to heaven for having awarded him so

grand a discovery. And now also his impatient companions hurried on, and

soon the primeval forest--accustomed only to the howlings of the brute

or the eagle's scream--resounded with the loud exclamations of their

astonishment, gratitude, and joy.

It was from the small mountain-chain of Quarequa, on the 25th of

September, 1513, that the Spaniards first saw the sea-horizon, but they

had still several days to march before they reached the Gulf of San

Miguel. Here Alonzo Martin de Don Benito was the first white man that

ever floated in a canoe on the Eastern Pacific, even before Balboa, armed

with sword and shield, descended into the water to take possession of the

newly discovered ocean in the name of the king his master.

Although the subsequent fortunes of this great man are foreign to my

subject, yet it may not be uninteresting to the reader to be informed

how his important services were requited. Unfortunately the ingratitude

of the Spanish court, which so scandalously embittered the declining

years of Columbus and Cortez, reached its lowest depth in the case of

Balboa. Those great men had at least in the beginning enjoyed some show

of favour, but the discoverer of the Pacific was treated throughout with

the basest indignity. The governorship of Darien, to which his splendid

achievements had given him so undeniable a claim, was conferred upon

a certain Pedrarias Davila, a wretch who, after having persecuted and

thwarted the hero in every possible way, caused him at length to be

beheaded, under a false accusation of high treason.

Six years after Balboa had first seen the Pacific, two years after his

execution, Ferdinand of Magellan made his appearance in that great

ocean. A Portuguese of noble birth, this eminent navigator had served

with distinction under Albuquerque, the conqueror of Malacca. His plan

of seeking a new road to India across the Atlantic being but coldly

received in his native country, he transferred his services to Spain,

where his distinguished merit found better judges in Cardinal Ximenes,

and his youthful master, Charles V. With five ships, the largest of which

did not carry more than 120 tons, and with a crew of 236 men, partly

the sweepings of the jails, he sailed on the 20th of September, 1519,

from the port of San Lucar, and spent the following summer (the winter

of the southern hemisphere) on the dreary coast of Patagonia. In this

uncomfortable station he lost one of his squadron; and the Spaniards

suffered so much from the excessive rigour of the climate, that the crews

of three of his ships, headed by their officers, rose in open mutiny,

and insisted on relinquishing the visionary project of a desperate

adventurer, and returning directly to Spain. This dangerous insurrection

Magellan suppressed by an effort of courage no less prompt than intrepid,

and inflicted exemplary punishment on the ringleaders.

He now continued his journey to the south, and reached, near 53° south

lat., the celebrated straits which bear his name. Here again he had to

exert his full authority to induce his reluctant followers to accompany

him into the unknown channel that was to lead them to an equally unknown

ocean. One of his ships immediately deserted him and returned to Europe,

but the others remained true to their commander, and, after having spent

twenty days in winding through those dangerous straits, they at last,

on the 27th of November, 1521, emerged into the open ocean, the sight

of which amply repaid Magellan for all the anxieties and troubles he

had undergone. They now pursued their way across the wide expanse of

waters, of whose enormous extent they had no conception, and soon had

to endure all the miseries of hunger and disease. But the continuous

beauty of the weather, and the steady easterly wind, which, swelling the

sails of Magellan, drove him straight onwards to the goal, kept up his

courage; and induced him to give to the ocean which greeted him with

such a friendly welcome the name of the Pacific, which it still, though

undeservedly, retains. During three months and twenty days he sailed to

the north-west, and, by a singular mischance, without seeing any land

in those isle-teeming seas, except only two uninhabited rocks which he

called the "Desventuradas," or the "Wretched." At last, after the longest

journey ever made by man through the deserts of the ocean, he discovered

the small but fruitful group of the Ladrones (March 6, 1521), which

afforded him refreshments in such abundance, that the vigour and health

of his emaciated crew was soon reestablished. From these isles, to which

his gratitude might have given a more friendly name, he proceeded on his

voyage, and soon made the more important discovery of the islands now

known as the _Philippines_. In one of these he got into an unfortunate

quarrel with the natives, who attacked him in great numbers and

well-armed; and, while he fought at the head of his men with his usual

valour, he fell by the hands of those barbarians, together with several

of his principal officers.

Thus Magellan lost the glory of accomplishing the first circumnavigation

of the globe; the performance of which now fell to the share of his

companion, Sebastian El Cano, who returned to San Lucar in the "Victoria"

by the Cape of Good Hope, having sailed round the globe in the space of

three years and twenty-eight days.

But although Magellan did not live fully to achieve his glorious

undertaking, the astonishing perseverance and ability with which he

performed the chief and most difficult part of his arduous task have

secured him an immortal renown. Nor has posterity been unmindful of his

services, having awarded his name an imperishable place in the memory of

man, both in the straits, the portal of his grand discovery, and in the

"Magellanic clouds," those dense clusters of stars and nebulæ which so

beautifully stud the firmament of the southern hemisphere.

After Magellan, Pizarro, the conqueror of Peru, shines as a discoverer

in the South Sea. The history of his memorable feats by land does not

belong to this narrative, but I may well accompany him on his adventurous

navigation along the unknown coast of South America, and relate the

hardships he had to endure before he was enabled to reap the rewards of

victory.

Soon after the execution, or rather the murder, of Balboa, Pedrarias

Davila obtained permission to transfer the colony of Darien to Panama,

which, although equally unhealthy, yet from its situation on the Pacific

afforded greater facilities for the prosecution of discovery on the

south-west coast, to which now all the hopes and plans of the Spanish

gold-seekers were directed. Several expeditions left the new colony in

rapid succession, but all proved unsuccessful. Their timorous leaders,

none of whom had ventured beyond the dreary coasts of _Tierra firme_,

gave such dismal accounts of their hardships and the wretched aspect

of the countries they had seen, that the ardour for discovery was

considerably damped, and the opinion began to gain ground that Balboa

must have founded chimerical hopes on the idle tales of an ignorant or

deceitful savage.

But there were three men in Panama, Francisco Pizarro, Diego de Almagro,

and Hernando Luque, who, far from sharing the general opinion, remained

fully determined to seek the unknown gold-land. Pizarro and Almagro

were soldiers, Luque was a priest. They formed an association approved

of by the governor, each agreeing to devote all his energies to the

common interest. Pizarro, the poorest of the three, took upon himself

the greater part of the hardships and dangers of the enterprise, and

volunteered to command the first expedition that should be fitted out;

Almagro engaged to follow him with the necessary reinforcements; and

Luque, the man of peace, promised to watch in Panama over the interests

of the association.

On the 14th of November, 1524, Pizarro sailed from Panama with 112 men,

closely packed together in one small vessel. Unfortunately he had chosen

the worst season of the year for his departure, as the periodical winds

raging at the time blew quite contrary to the course he intended to

pursue, and thus it happened that after seventy days he had advanced

no farther to the south-east than an experienced navigator will now

traverse in as many hours. During this tedious journey he landed in

different parts of the coast of Tierra firme, but, finding all the

previous descriptions of its inhospitable nature fully confirmed, he

saw himself obliged to await the promised reinforcements in Chuchama,

opposite to the Pearl Islands. Here he was soon joined by Almagro, who

had suffered similar hardships, and moreover lost an eye in a fight with

the Indians. But, as he had advanced farther to the south, where the

country and people wore a more favourable aspect, this slight glimpse of

hope encouraged the adventurers to persevere in spite of all the miseries

they had endured. Almagro returned to Panama, where with the greatest

difficulty he could levy fourscore men, his sufferings and those of his

companions having given his countrymen a very unfavourable idea of the

service.

With this small reinforcement the associates did not hesitate to renew

their enterprise, and at length, after a passage no less tedious than the

first, reached the Bay of Saint Matthew on the coast of Quito (1526). In

Tecumez, to the south of the Emerald River, they were delighted with the

aspect of a fine well-cultivated country, inhabited by a people whose

clothing and dwellings indicated a higher degree of civilisation and

wealth. But, not venturing to attempt its conquest with a handful of men

enfeebled by fatigue and disease, they retired to the small island of

Gallo, where Pizarro waited, while Almagro once more returned to Panama,

hoping that the better accounts he could give of their second journey

would procure reinforcements large enough for the conquest of the newly

discovered countries.

But the new governor of Panama, Pedro de los Rios, interdicted all

further volunteering for an enterprise he considered chimerical, and

even sent a vessel to the island of Gallo to bring back Pizarro and his

companions. The associates, on the other hand, were less inclined than

ever to give up their enterprise, now that better prospects had opened,

so that Pizarro peremptorily refused to obey the governor's commands, and

used all his eloquence in persuading his men not to abandon him. But the

hardships they had endured, and the prospect of soon revisiting their

families and friends, pleaded so strongly against him, that when he drew

a line with his sword upon the sand, and told those that wished to leave

him to pass over it, only thirteen of his veterans remained true to his

fortunes.

With this select band of heroes Pizarro now retired to the desert island

of Gorgona, where, as it lay further from the coast, he could await

with greater security the reinforcements which he trusted the zeal of

his associates would soon be able to procure. Nor was he deceived, for

Almagro and Luque, by their repeated solicitations, at length prevailed

upon the governor to send out a small vessel to his assistance, though

without one landsman on board, that he might not be encouraged to any

new enterprise. Meanwhile Pizarro and his faithful "thirteen" had spent

five long months on their wretched island, their eyes constantly turned

to the north, until, heart-sick and despairing from hope deferred, they

resolved to intrust themselves to the inconstant waves upon a miserable

raft, rather than remain any longer in that dreadful wilderness. But now

at last the vessel from Panama appeared, and raised them so thoroughly

from the deepest despondency to the most extravagant hopes, that Pizarro

easily induced not only his old friends, but also the crew of the vessel,

to sail farther to the south instead of returning at once to Panama.

This time the winds were favourable, and after a voyage of twenty days

they at length reached the town of Tumbez on the coast of Peru, where

the magnificent temple of the sun and the palace of the Incas, with its

costly golden vases, exceeded their most sanguine expectations. But

once more Pizarro, too weak to attempt invasion, was obliged to content

himself with the view of the riches he one day hoped to possess, and

returned to Panama after an absence of three years.

Amidst interminable delays and difficulties, which, although not to be

compared to those he had endured, would still have totally discouraged a

mind of a less iron mould, five years more elapsed before the matchless

perseverance of Pizarro met with its reward. On the 14th of April, 1531,

he landed in Peru for the second time, and in a few months the empire of

the Incas lay prostrate at his feet. The poor adventurer of Gorgona was

now one of the richest men on earth.

From this time the stream of conquest and discovery continuously rolled

on to the south, so that after a few years the whole coast of Peru and

Chili, as far as the wilds of Patagonia, was either known or subject to

the Spaniards.

But while Pizarro and his comrades were thus opening the south-west

coast of America to the knowledge of mankind, the conqueror of Mexico

was no less anxious to add to his laurels the glory of discovery in the

Northern Pacific, whose shores his warriors had reached in 1521, soon

after the fall of the Aztec capital. Desirous of opening a new passage to

the East Indies, he fitted out a fleet (1526), which, under the command

of his kinsman Alvaro de Saavedra, was to sail to the Moluccas, and most

likely discovered part of the Radack and Ralick Archipelago, visited and

described three centuries later by Kotzebue and Chamisso.

In the year 1536 Cortez himself undertook a maritime expedition to

the north, discovered the peninsula of California, and explored the

greater part of the long and narrow bay which separates it from the

mainland. After the return of this great man to Spain, where, loaded with

ingratitude, he died in 1547, Rodriguez Cabrillo (1543) sailed as far

as Monterey, and subsequently the pilot of the expedition, Bartholomew

Ferreto, reached 43° N. lat., where Vancouver's Cape Oxford is situated.

In the year 1542 Villalobos made the first attempt to establish a colony

on the Philippine Islands with settlers from Mexico, but, having failed,

the colonisation did not take place before 1565. The intelligence of

this success was brought to America by the pilot and monk, Fray Andreas

Urdaneta, who sailed on the 1st of June from Manilla and arrived on the

3rd of October in the Mexican port of Acapulco. All previous attempts

to sail from Asia to America had failed, on account of the opposing

trade-winds; but Urdaneta sailed northward till he encountered the

favourable west wind, which carried him to the New World across the

wide bosom of the Pacific. The discovery of this new ocean route was of

considerable importance to the Spaniards, and, to perpetuate the memory

of Urdaneta's nautical ability, they continued to call the passage by his

name.

About the same time another Spanish pilot, Juan Fernandez, discovered the

proper sea route from Callao to Chili, by first sailing far out to sea,

and thus avoiding the coast-currents from the south. He also discovered

the island which still bears his name, and has become so celebrated by

the adventures of Alexander Selkirk, and the immortal tale of Daniel

Defoe.

In the year 1567 an expedition sailed from Callao under Alvaro Mendana,

which discovered the Solomon Islands; and in 1595 the group of the

Marquesas de Mendoza was first brought to light by the same navigator.

Before the last expedition of Mendana, Drake, the first circumnavigator

of the globe (1577-1580) after Magellan and El Cano, penetrated into the

Pacific, by rounding Cape Horn, and subsequently discovered the coasts of

New Albion as far as 48° N. lat.

After having thus rapidly followed the course of the discoveries which

during the sixteenth century made Europe acquainted with the whole

western coast of America, from Cape Pillares in Tierra del Fuego to the

mouth of the Columbia River, I return to the Indian Ocean, where in the

beginning of the century we left the Portuguese in the full bloom of

their power, and, to judge by the progress already made, likely to add

largely to the stock of geographical knowledge. But whether the masters

of the Indian Ocean had no desire to extend still farther the circle of

their conquests, or the fiery spirit of enterprise which had animated

Vasco de Gama and Diaz was prematurely extinguished, the discoveries of

the Portuguese in the Pacific by no means corresponded to the gigantic

flight which in less than a quarter of a century had led them from Cape

de Verde to the extremity of the Malayan Archipelago. New Guinea was

indeed discovered by Don Jorge de Menezes (1526) and Alvaro de Saavedra

(1528), and some old maps prove that before 1542 a part of the coast of

New Holland was known to the Portuguese, who had penetrated to the north

as far as Formosa and Japan, yet at the end of the sixteenth century the

western boundaries of the Pacific were only known from 40° N. lat. to 10°

S. lat., and all beyond was enveloped in darkness. As little was known

of the innumerable South Sea islands, for although some of the groups had

been seen or visited by the Spaniards, their existence was kept secret

lest other seafaring nations should be tempted to explore the wastes of

the Pacific.

I have already mentioned that the desire to find a shorter route to the

wealth of India was the chief inducement which led to the discoveries of

Vasco de Gama, Columbus, and Magellan; this same motive also called forth

the first attempts of the Dutch and English to find a northern passage to

the southern seas.

In the year 1553 Sir Hugh Willoughby and Chancellor left England on their

memorable voyage of Arctic discovery, and steered to the north-east.

In a stormy night they parted company, never to meet again. For a long

time nothing was heard of Willoughby, until some Russian sailors found

on the dreary coast of Lapland two wrecks tenanted only by the dead.

A note, dated January 1554, proved that then at least some of the

unfortunate navigators were still alive; but this was the last and only

memorial of the mysterious end of the first Britons that ever ventured

into the frozen seas. Chancellor was more fortunate. After having for

a long time been driven about by storms, he discovered the White Sea,

and on landing heard for the first time of Russia and her sovereign the

Czar Ivan Vasiliovitch, who resided in a great town called Moscow. This

unknown potentate the indefatigable seaman resolved to visit in his

capital, where he was graciously received, and obtained permission for

his countrymen to frequent the port of Archangel. Soon after his return

to England he was sent back to Russia by Queen Mary, for the purpose

of settling the terms of a treaty of commerce between the two nations;

and, having satisfactorily accomplished his mission, once more set sail

from the White Sea, accompanied by a Muscovite ambassador. But this time

the return voyage was extremely unfortunate; two of the ships, richly

laden with Russian commodities, ran ashore on the coast of Norway, and

Chancellor's own vessel was driven by a dreadful storm as far as Pitsligo

in Scotland, in which bay it was wrecked. Chancellor endeavoured to save

the ambassador and himself in a boat, but the small pinnace was upset,

and, although the Russian reached the strand, the Englishman, after

having escaped so many dangers in the Arctic Ocean, was doomed to an

untimely end within sight of his native shores.

Twenty years afterwards, Martin Frobisher set sail with three small

vessels of thirty-five, thirty, and ten tons, on no less an errand than

the discovery of a north-west passage to Asia. With these wretched

nut-shells he reached the coasts of Greenland and Labrador, but was

prevented by the ice from effecting a landing.

This first voyage was little remarkable in itself, but its accidental

results tended much to the advancement of northern research, for

Frobisher brought home some glittering stones, the lustre of which was

erroneously attributed to gold; a circumstance which, as may well be

imagined, greatly contributed to pave the way for a second expedition

to "Meta Incognita." This time Frobisher sailed with three ships, of a

much larger size, that they might be able to hold more of the anticipated

treasure; and, besides securing 200 tons of the imaginary gold,

discovered the entrance of the strait which bears his name.

His geographical knowledge may be inferred from the fact that he firmly

believed the land on one side of this channel to be Asia, and on the

other America; and, though we may be tempted to smile at his ignorance,

yet the lion-hearted seaman is not the less to be admired, who with such

inadequate means ventured to brave the unknown terrors of the Frozen

Ocean.

The gales and floating ice which greeted Frobisher as he endeavoured to

force a passage through the strait put a stop to all farther progress

to India; but, as the gold delusion still continued, the expedition was

considered eminently successful. A large squadron of fifteen vessels was

consequently fitted out for the summer of 1578, and commissioned not

only to bring back an untold amount of treasure, but also to take out

materials and men to establish a colony on those desolate shores.

But this grand expedition, which sailed forth with such extravagant

hopes, was doomed to end in disappointment. One of the largest vessels

was crushed by an iceberg at the entrance of the strait, and the others

were so beaten about by storms and obstructed by fogs, that the whole

summer elapsed, and they were fain to return to England without having

done anything for the advancement of geographical knowledge.

The utter worthlessness of the glittering stones having meanwhile been

discovered, Frobisher relinquished all further attempts to push his

fortunes in the northern regions, and sought new laurels in a sunnier

clime. He accompanied Drake to the West Indies, commanded subsequently

one of the largest vessels opposed to the Spanish Armada, and ended his

heroic life while attacking a small French fort on behalf of Henry IV.,

during the war with the League. He was one of those adventurous spirits

always thirsting for action, and too uneasy ever to enjoy repose.

In the year 1585, John Davis, with the ships "Sunshine" and "Moonshine,"

carrying besides their more necessary equipments a band of music "to

cheer and recreate the spirits of the natives," made his first voyage in

quest of the north-west passage, and discovered the broad strait which

leads into the icy deserts of Baffin's Bay. But neither in this attempt

nor in his two following ones was he able to effect the object for

which he strove; and these repeated failures cooled for a long time the

national ardour for northern discovery.

In the year 1594 the Dutch appear upon the scene. This persevering and

industrious people, which in the following century was destined to play

so important a part in the politics of Europe, had just then succeeded in

casting off the Spanish yoke, and was laudably endeavouring to gain by

maritime enterprise a position among the neighbouring states, which the

smallness of its territory seemed to deny to its ambition. All the known

roads to the treasures of the south were at that time too well guarded by

the jealous fleets of Spain and Portugal to admit of any rivalry; but,

if fortune should favour them in finding the yet unexplored northern

passage to India, they might still hope to secure a lion's share in that

most lucrative of trades. Animated by the bold spirit of adventure which

the dawn of independence always calls forth in a nation, a company of

Amsterdam merchants fitted out an expedition of northern discovery, which

it intrusted to the superintendence and pilotage of William Barentz, one

of the most experienced seamen of the day.

Barentz left the Texel on the 6th of June, 1594, reached the northern

extremity of Nova Zembla, and returned to Holland. Meanwhile his

associate, penetrating through a strait to which he gave the very

appropriate name of Waigats or "Wind-hole," battled against the floating

ice of the Sea of Kara, until, rounding a promontory, he saw a blue

and open sea extending before him, and the Russian coast trending away

towards the south-east. He now no longer doubted that he had sailed round

the famous cape "Tabis" of Pliny, an imaginary promontory which according

to that erroneous guide formed the northern extremity of Asia, and whence

the voyage was supposed to be short and easy to its eastern and southern

shores. He had only reached the Gulf of Obi, and within the Arctic

Circle the continent of Asia still stretched 120 degrees to the east;

but this was then unknown, and the Dutchman, satisfied with the prospect

of success, did not press onward to test its reality, but started in

full sail for Holland, to rouse the sluggish fancy of his phlegmatic

countrymen with chimerical hopes and golden visions.

On the receipt of this glad intelligence six large vessels were

immediately fitted out, and richly laden with goods suited to the taste

of the Indians. A small swift-sailing yacht was added to the squadron

to bear it company as far as the imaginary promontory of Tabis, and

thence to return with the good news that it had safely performed what was

supposed to be the most perilous part of the voyage, and had been left

steering with a favourable wind right off to India.

But, as may well be imagined, these sanguine hopes were destined to

meet with a woeful disappointment, for the Wind-hole Strait, doing

full justice to its name, did not allow them to pass; and, after many

fruitless endeavours to force their way through the mighty ice-blocks

that obstructed that inhospitable channel, they returned dejected and

crest-fallen to the port whence they had sailed a few months before,

elated with such brilliant expectations.

Although great disappointment was felt at this failure, the scheme

however was not abandoned, and on the 16th of May, 1596, Heemskerk,

Barentz, and Cornelis Ryp once more started for the north-east. Bear

Island and Spitzbergen were discovered, whereupon the ships separated;

Cornelis and Heemskerk returning to Holland, while Barentz, enclosed by

the ice, was obliged to spend a long and dreary winter in the dreadful

solitudes of Nova Zembla. Fortunately a quantity of drift-wood was found

on the strand, which served the Dutchmen both for the construction of

a small hut and for fuel. At the same time it raised their courage, as

they now no longer doubted that Providence, which had sent them this

unexpected succour in the wilderness, would guide them safely through all

their difficulties. And indeed they stood in need of this consolatory

belief, for as early as September the ground was frozen so hard that

they tried in vain to dig a grave for a dead comrade, and their cramped

fingers could hardly proceed with the building of the hut.

The attacks of the white bears also gave them great trouble. One day

Barentz, from the deck of the vessel, seeing three bears stealthily

approaching a party of his men who were labouring at the hut, shouted

loudly to warn them of their peril, and the men, startled at the near

approach of danger, sought safety in flight. One of the party, in his

haste and perturbation, fell into a cleft in the ice; but the hungry

animals fortunately overlooked him, and continued their pursuit of the

main body. These gained the vessel and began to congratulate themselves

on their safety, when, to their horror, they perceived that their foes,

instead of retreating from a hopeless pursuit, were actually scaling

the ship's sides, evidently determined to have their meal. Matters now

became serious. One of the sailors was despatched for a light, but in

his hurry and agitation could not get the match to take fire (Enfields

and revolvers were then unknown), and the muskets being thus rendered

useless, the sailors in despair kept their enemies off by pelting

them with whatever articles came first to hand. This unequal conflict

continued for some time, until a well-directed blow on the snout of the

largest bear caused the _barking_[AB] monster to retire from the field

followed by his two companions,

"who, seeing Hector flee,

No longer dared to face the enemy."

[Footnote AB: "I did not hear them roar as ours do, but they only

bark."--_Marten's Voyage to Spitzbergen._]

By the middle of October the hut was completed; and though the

accommodations it afforded were extremely scanty, they were glad to take

up their abode in it at once.

And now began the long, dreary, three months' night of the 77th degree

of latitude, during which snow-drifts and impetuous winds confined them

to their miserable dwelling. "We looked pitifully one upon the other,"

says Gerret De Veer, the simple narrator of the sufferings of that Arctic

winter, "being in great fear that if the extremity of the cold grew to

be more and more, we should all die there of cold; for that what fire

soever we made would not warm us." The ice was now two inches thick upon

the walls and even on the sides of their sleeping-cots, and the very

clothes they wore were whitened with frost, so that as they sat together

in their hut they "were all as white as the countrymen used to be when

they came in at the gates of the towns in Holland with their sleads, and

have gone all night."

Yet in the midst of all their sufferings these hardy men maintained brave

and cheerful hearts, and so great was their elasticity of spirit that,

remembering the 5th of January was "Twelfth Even," they determined to

celebrate it as best they might. "And then," says the old chronicler, "we

prayed our maister that we might be merry that night, and said that we

were content to spend some of the wine that night which we had spared,

and which was our share (one glass) every second day; and so that night

we made merry and drew for king. And therewith we had two pounds of

meale, whereof we made pancakes with oyle, and every man had a white

biscuit, which we sopt in the wine. And so, supposing that we were in our

own country, and amongst our friends, it comforted as well as if we had

made a great banket in our owne house." Blessed Content! arising from a

simple heart and a life of honest and healthful toil, never didst thou

celebrate a greater triumph, or more forcibly show thy power, than in

that dreary hut on Nova Zembla!

Some weeks afterwards the sun appeared once more above the horizon; and

the glorious sight, though it soon vanished again into darkness, was a

joyful one indeed, full of delightful images of a return to friends and

home. Now, also, the furious gales and snow-storms ceased; and, though

the severity of the cold continued unabated, they were able to brave the

outer air and recruit their strength by exercise.

When summer came, it was found impossible to disengage the ice-bound

vessel, and the only hopes of escaping from their dreary prison now

rested on two small boats, in which they ventured on the capricious

ocean. On the fourth day of their voyage, their fragile barks became

surrounded by immense quantities of floating ice, which so crushed and

injured them, that the crews, giving up all hope, took a solemn leave

of each other. But in this desperate crisis they owed their lives to

the presence of mind and agility of De Veer, who with a well-secured

rope leaped from one fragment of ice to another till he gained a firm

field, on which first the sick, then the stores, the crews, and finally

the boats themselves, were safely landed. Here they were obliged to

remain while the boats underwent the necessary repairs, and during this

detention upon a floating ice-field the gallant Barentz closed the

eventful voyage of his life. He died as he had lived, calmly and bravely,

thinking less of himself than of the safety of his crew, for his last

words were directions as to the course in which they were to steer.

Even the joyful prospect of a return to their families and home could

not console his surviving comrades for the loss of their leader, whom

they loved and revered as a friend and father. After a most tedious and

dangerous passage, they at length arrived at Kola in Russian Lapland,

where to their glad surprise they found their old comrade, John Cornelis,

who received them on board his vessel and conveyed them to Amsterdam.

During the seventeenth century the most remarkable maritime discoveries

were made by the English, Dutch, and Spaniards, though by the latter

only at its commencement. In the year 1605 Quiros sailed from Callao,

discovered the island of Sagittaria, since so renowned under the name of

Otaheite, and the archipelago of Espiritu Santo, or the New Hebrides of

Cook. On this journey he was accompanied by Torres, the bold seaman who

some years after gave his name to the strait which separates New Guinea

from Australia.

While the declining sun of Spain was thus gilding with its last rays the

northern shore of New Holland, the meridian splendour of the Batavian

republic cast forth bright beams of light over the wide Pacific.

Schouten and Le Maire, penetrating through the strait which is still

named after the latter, sailed in the year 1616 round Tierra del Fuego;

and about the same time Hartog discovered Eendragt's Land, on the west

coast of Australia. The successive voyages of Jan Edel (1619), Peter

Nuyts (1627), and Peter Carpenter (1628), brought to light the northern

and southern shores of the vast island, which thus began to assume a

rude shape on the map of the geographer. In the year 1642, Abel Tasman,

the greatest of the Dutch navigators, drew a mighty furrow through the

South Sea, discovered Van Diemen's Land, which posterity desirous of

perpetuating his fame has called Tasmania, saw the northern extremity of

New Zealand emerge from the ocean, and finally unveiled to the world the

hidden beauties of Tonga.

While the Dutch navigators were thus dissipating the darkness of

Australia, Hudson and Baffin were immortalising their names in the Arctic

Ocean.

In the year 1627 Henry Hudson made the first attempt to steer right on to

the pole, and to cross to India over the axis of the globe. He reached

the northern extremity of Spitzbergen, but all his attempts to penetrate

deeper into the polar ocean were baffled by the mighty ice-fields that

opposed his progress. But though he failed in his undertaking to sail

through the region of eternal winter to the spicy groves of India,

yet the numerous morses and seals he had seen basking on the coast of

Spitzbergen opened such cheering prospects of future profit, that the

"Muscovy Company," which had fitted out the expedition, was by no means

discontented with the issue of his voyage.

Three years after we find the gallant Hudson once more attempting

to discover the north-west passage in a vessel of fifty-five tons,

provisioned for six months. The crew which he commanded was unfortunately

utterly unworthy of such a leader, and quailed as soon as they had to

encounter the fog and ice-fields of the Frozen Ocean.

"And now there came both mist and snow,

And it grew wondrous cold;

And ice mast-high came floating by,

As green as emerald.

And through the drifts the snowy clifts

Did send a dismal sheen,

Nor shapes of men nor beasts we ken,

The ice was all between."

But, in spite of the murmurs and repinings of his faint-hearted

followers, the dauntless commander pressed on through the strait which

bears his name, until at last his little bark emerged into a boundless

deep blue sea. Hudson's Bay lay before him, but the delighted discoverer

was happy in the belief that the grand object of his voyage was attained,

and the shortest road to India laid open to the mariners of England. It

was about the beginning of August, and the spiritless crew considering

the passage accomplished, urged an immediate return; but Hudson was

determined on completing the adventure, and wintering if possible on the

sunny shores of India.

Three months long he continued tracking the coasts of that vast northern

Mediterranean, now for the first time explored by civilised man, vainly

hoping to see a new channel opening to the west, until at length November

came and imprisoned his small vessel in adamantine fetters. A long

and dreary winter awaited the ice-bound seamen, with almost exhausted

provisions, and unfortunately without that heroic patience and serene

concord which had sustained the sufferings of Barentz and his companions.

It must indeed have been a melancholy winter for poor Hudson, solitary

and friendless among scowling ruffians, hating him as the cause of their

bitter misery; but spring came at last with its consolatory sunshine, and

hope once more dawned in his tortured breast. The ship is again afloat,

and on the 21st of June, 1611, the captain comes forth from his cabin,

refreshed by the sleep of a quiet conscience, and strong in body and

mind to meet the duties of the day. But as he steps on deck his arms are

suddenly pinioned, and he finds himself in the power of a mutinous crew.

He looks around for some trace of sympathy, but hatred meets him in every

eye. Inquiry, remonstrance, entreaty, command, all alike fail to move

their stubborn resolution, and now Hudson resigns himself bravely to his

fate, with all the quiet dignity of a noble nature, and looks calmly at

the ominous preparations going forward. A small open boat is in waiting,

and into this he is lowered, some powder and shot and the carpenter's box

come next, followed by the carpenter himself, a strong brave fellow, the

captain's _one_ devoted adherent among the rebellious crew; the sick and

infirm complete the unfortunate cargo. A signal is given, the boat is

cast adrift, and soon the last faint cry for mercy expires in the breeze

which carries the vessel onwards on its homeward course.

Thus perished the high-minded Hudson, without further tiding or trace,

on the scene of his glory; but the vengeance of heaven soon overtook

the ringleaders of that dark conspiracy. Some fell in a fight with the

Eskimos, and others died on the homeward voyage, which was performed

under the extremity of famine. Whatever horrors may have attended the

last moments of Hudson, his sufferings were less, for his conscience was

undefiled by guilt.

In the year 1616 Baffin sailed round the enormous bay to which his name

has been given, but without attempting to penetrate through any one of

those wide sounds that have led the Arctic navigators of our days to so

many glorious discoveries.

From the times of Tasman, whose bold voyage through the wastes of

the Southern Pacific has already been mentioned, to those of our own

immortal Cook, but very little was done for the progress of geography,

as if, after so many heroic endeavours, the spirit of maritime discovery

had required a long repose to recruit its energies, ere the greatest

navigator of modern times was destined to unveil the mysterious darkness

which still concealed one half of the vast Pacific from the knowledge of

mankind. The voyages most worthy of remark during this period were those

of the Cossack Semen Deshnew (1654), who sailed from the mouth of the

Kolyma River round the eastern promontory of Asia, and must be considered

as the discoverer of Behring's Straits; of the adventurous Dampier

(1689-1691), that strange combination of the buccaneer, the author,

and the naturalist, who first discovered the strait which separates

New Guinea from New Ireland; of the Dutchman Roggewein (1721-23), who

made known some islands in the Pacific; of the brothers Laptew and of

Prontschitschew (1734-1743), who unveiled the greatest part of the

Siberian coast; of Commodore Anson (1740-1744), whose heroic sufferings

and successes in the Pacific still live in the memory of his countrymen;

and of the unfortunate Behring (1730-1741), who terminated his second

unsuccessful exploring expedition by a miserable death on a desert island.

After the peace of Aix la Chapelle England felt that the dominion of

the seas imposed upon her the obligation of extending the bounds of

geographical knowledge, and thus in rapid succession Byron (1764) and

Wallis and Carteret (1766-1768) were sent forth to discover unknown

shores, while France made a simultaneous effort to refresh the somewhat

meagre laurels she had reaped by the voyages of Verazzani and Cartier.

The consequences of this emulation were not unimportant. Bougainville

(1766-1768) completed the discovery of the Solomon Islands, which Mendana

had only partly seen; Wallis made the world acquainted with the beauties

of Tahiti, and Byron explored the unvisited coasts of Patagonia. But the

fame of these worthy mariners was soon eclipsed by a greater renown, for,

in the same year that Wallis returned from his expedition, Cook sailed

from the port of Plymouth on his first voyage round the world.

CHAP. XXVI.

What had Cook's Predecessors left him to discover?--His first

Voyage.--Discovery of the Society Islands, and of the East Coast

of New Holland.--His second Voyage.--Discovery of the Hervey

Group.--Researches in the South Sea.--The New Hebrides.--Discovery of

New Caledonia and of South Georgia.--His third Voyage.--The Sandwich

Islands.--New Albion.--West Georgia.--Cook's Murder.--Vancouver.--La

Peyrouse.

To form a correct estimate of Cook's discoveries, it is necessary that,

before following the track of that great seaman, we should glance

over the vast regions of the Pacific previously unknown to man. Many

navigators indeed, since Magellan, had traversed that immense ocean, but

the greater part of its expanse still lay buried in obscurity.

To the north of the line, the Spaniards, sailing from Manilla to

Acapulco, still servilely followed the route which Urdaneta had pointed

out, and all beyond was unexplored.

The regions to the south of the line were better known, but here also

maritime discoverers, with the sole exception of Tasman, had confined

themselves to the tropical waters. No one had yet tried to sail through

the boundless space which to the south of the 25th degree of latitude

extended between New Zealand and America. Of Australia only the western

coast was known; the existence of Torres' Strait had long since been

forgotten, and New Guinea and New Holland were supposed to form one

connected land. To the south no one knew whether Australia and Van

Diemen's Land were joined together, or severed by a channel; and the

eastern coast of the fifth part of the world still awaited a discoverer.

The boundaries of New Zealand were buried in the same obscurity. Tasman

had only visited the west coast of the northern island, which, as

far as was then known, might have extended a thousand miles farther

on towards Chili. In one word, the great geographical problem of an

enormous southern continent, the existence of which was formerly supposed

necessary to form the counterpoise of the northern lands, still remained

unsolved. The discoveries already made had indeed narrowed the limits

which during the sixteenth century were still assigned to that imaginary

continent, but in the unexplored bosom of the South Sea there yet was

room enough for lands surpassing the whole of Europe in extent. Many of

the South Sea islands moreover, though discovered before Cook's voyages,

had vanished again from the memory of the world, or, according to

Humboldt's expression, "wavered, as if badly rooted on the map, for want

of exact astronomical measurements." Thus two hundred and fifty years

after Magellan the Pacific still offered an enormous field for discovery,

and when Cook set sail on the 30th of July, 1768, on his first voyage of

circumnavigation, nearly one half of the globe lay open to his researches.

The first service he rendered on this voyage was the discovery that the

route to the Pacific through the Strait of Le Maire and round Cape Horn

was preferable to that which until then had been followed, through the

Straits of Magellan.

After having observed at Otaheite the transit of Venus across the sun,

which was one of the chief objects of the expedition, he soon after

landed on the shores of Huaheine, Ulietea, and Borabora, which had never

yet been visited by a European mariner, and gave to the whole group the

name of the Society Islands, on account of their close vicinity to each

other. Thence he sailed to New Zealand, which he was the first to find

consisted of two large islands, separated by the strait which bears his

name. With unwearied industry he spent no less than six months on the

accurate survey of the New Zealand group, and then sailed to New Holland,

the eastern coast of which he first discovered, and closely examined

in its full length of 2000 miles. He also found that the continent of

Australia was separated from New Guinea by a channel which he called

"Endeavour Strait," but to which the justice of posterity has restored

or awarded the name of Torres, its first explorer. This whole sea is so

full of dangerous reefs and shoals that for months the sounding line was

scarce ever laid aside, and any less experienced and prudent navigator

must inevitably have been wrecked during these constant cruises in such

perilous waters. Even Cook owed more than once his preservation to what

may well be called a miraculous interposition of Providence, of which I

shall cite a remarkable example. It was on the 10th of June, 1770, in

the latitude of Trinity Bay. The vessel sailed, under a fresh breeze

and by clear moonlight, through a sea the depth of which the plummet

constantly indicated at 20 to 21 fathoms, so that not the least danger

was apprehended. But suddenly the depth diminished to four fathoms, and

before the lead could be heaved again the vessel struck and remained

immoveable, except as far as she was heaved up and down and dashed

against the rocks by the surge. The general anxiety may be imagined,

and indeed the situation was such as to warrant the most serious

apprehensions. It was found that the ship had been lifted over the ledge

of a rock and lay in a hollow, inside of the reef, where the water in

some places was three or four fathoms deep and in others hardly as many

feet. The sheathing boards were knocked off and floating round the ship

in great numbers, and at last the false keel also was destroyed, while

the constant grating of the vessel against the rock seemed to announce

its speedy disruption. It was now necessary to lighten the vessel as much

as possible, and soon more than 50 tons' weight was thrown overboard.

On the following morning land was seen at the distance of eight miles;

but no islet lay between, on which, in case the vessel went to pieces, a

speedy refuge might be found. To add to their distress, the vessel drew

so much water that three pumps could hardly master it; and, finally,

it was found that even the rising of the flood, on which they mainly

reckoned, was unavailing to extricate them from their perilous position.

All that could possibly be spared was now therefore cast into the sea,

still more to lighten the vessel, and thus the next tide was patiently

expected, when, after incredible exertion, the ship righted, and they got

her over the ledge of the rock into deep water.

But the men were by this time so much exhausted by their uninterrupted

labour that they could not stand to the pumps more than five or six

minutes at a time, after which they threw themselves flat on the

streaming deck, where they lay till others exhausted like themselves

took their places, on which they started up again and renewed their

exertions. In this desperate situation one of the midshipmen, named

Monkhouse, bethought himself of a means by which a ship, having sprung

a leak admitting more than four feet of water in an hour, had yet been

able to perform the whole journey from Virginia to London. He took a

lower studding-sail, and, having mixed a large quantity of oakum and wool

together, stitched them down by handfuls as lightly as possible. The sail

was then hauled under the ship's bottom by means of ropes which kept it

extended. When it came under the leak, the wool and oakum, with part of

the sail, were forced inwards by the pressure of the water, which thus

prevented its own ingress in such an effectual manner that one pump,

instead of three, was now sufficient to keep it under. In this way they

got the ship into a convenient port on the coast of New Holland, where

they repaired the injury. Here it was found that their preservation was

not entirely owing to that ingenious expedient, for one of the holes in

the ship's bottom was almost entirely plugged by a piece of rock which

had broken off and stuck in it; and this hole was so large, that, had it

not been filled up in this truly extraordinary manner, the vessel must

undoubtedly have sunk. Some persons, leading a tranquil life unvexed by

storm or wave, might perhaps be inclined to ascribe so miraculous an

escape to chance, but the seaman, who has had death before his eyes, will

always in such a case recognise the hand of an Almighty protector: and

who can doubt that a thrill of intense gratitude flashed through the soul

of Cook on the discovery of the cause to which he owed the preservation

of his life?

With a vessel thus shattered, and a crew thus worn with fatigue, further

discoveries were no more to be thought of, and Cook hastened to return by

way of Batavia and the Cape to England, where he arrived on the 11th of

June, 1771.

The object of his second voyage (1772-1775) was to determine finally the

question of the existence of a great southern continent, and to extend

the geography of that part of the globe to its utmost limits. Sir Joseph

Banks and Dr. Solander had accompanied him on his first voyage, this time

John Reinhold Forster and his son George were engaged by government to

explore and collect the natural history of the countries through which

they should pass.

On the 13th of July, 1772, Cook sailed from Plymouth, and reached the

Cape without having a single man sick. Well aware how much cleanliness

and pure air contribute to health, he had neglected none of the means

necessary to insure it. Every day the beds were aired, the linen of the

sailors was frequently washed, and in rainy weather fire often made

between decks, to dispel unwholesome damps and effluvia.

He now sailed to the south far into a desert and unknown sea, crossed

it in various directions, and after having spent 117 days on the ocean,

mostly among floating ice-fields, and without having once seen land, he

steered northwards to the well-known coast of New Zealand, where on the

25th of January, 1773, he cast anchor in Dusky Bay. The feelings of the

seaman may be imagined, when, after long wanderings over the waste of

waters, he sees land, mountains, forests, and green plains rise above

the horizon, when singing-birds take the place of the wild sea-mew, and

friendly faces greet him on the strand. A beneficent mind is ever anxious

to do good, and thus before sailing farther on to Otaheite, Cook caused

a little garden to be planted, in which European vegetable seeds were

sown and confided with proper instructions to the care of the intelligent

savages, who were moreover presented with goats and pigs.

On the return voyage from Tahiti to New Zealand, where he intended to

provide himself with fire-wood and provisions, before advancing once

more into the high southern latitudes, he was pleased with the discovery

of the small but lovely Harvey Islands, whose green girdle of cocoa-nut

palms mirrors itself in the dark blue waters.

And now again he cruised in all directions through the icy sea, over an

extent of 65° of longitude and as far as the 71st degree of southern

latitude, without having seen any land; and having thus satisfied

himself of the non-existence of a southern continent, or at least of its

circumscription within bounds which must ever render it perfectly useless

to man, he left those dreary regions of eternal winter, to continue his

discoveries under a less inclement sky.

He first visited Easter Island and the Marquesas, where a new discovery

received the name of Hood's Island, and on the way thence to Tahiti

added the Palisser Group to the map of the world. We now follow him to

the extensive archipelago of Espiritu Santo, first seen by Quiros in

1606, who took it for a part of the imaginary southern continent. Since

then it had only been visited by Bougainville (1768), who however had

contented himself with landing on the Isle of Lepers, and ascertaining

the fact that it did not form part of a continent but of a considerable

group of islands. Cook on his part examined the whole archipelago in such

an accurate manner, ascertaining the situation of many of the islands

and discovering such numbers of new ones, that he justly thought he had

acquired the right to rebaptize them under the name of the New Hebrides.

From these islands he sailed for the third time to New Zealand, and

discovered on his passage New Caledonia and the romantic Norfolk Island.

Leaving New Zealand on the 10th of November, 1774, once more to search

for the southern continent, he traversed a vast extent of sea for 17

days, from 43° to 55° 48′ S. lat., when he gave up all thoughts of

finding any more land in that part of the ocean, and determined to steer

directly for the west entrance of the Straits of Magellan, with a design

of coasting the southern part of Tierra del Fuego, quite round Cape Horn

to Le Maire's Straits. Those wild, deeply indented, rocky coasts, the

region of eternal storms and fogs, form the most striking contrast to

the smiling shores of the South Sea islands. But, if in the latter the

splendour of tropical vegetation enchants the eye of the spectator, the

exuberance of animal life in the Magellanic Archipelago may well raise

his astonishment. In one of the small islands near Staaten Land Cook

admired the remarkable harmony reigning among the different species of

mammifera and birds. The sea-lions occupied the greatest part of the

sea-coast, the bears the inland; the shags were posted on the highest

cliffs, the penguins in such places as had the best access to the sea;

and the other birds chose more retired places. Occasionally, however,

all these animals were seen to mix together like domestic cattle and

poultry in a farmyard, without one attempting to hurt the other in the

least. Even the eagles and the vultures were frequently observed sitting

together on the hills among the shags, while none of the latter, either

old or young, appeared to be disturbed at their presence. No doubt the

poor fishes had to pay for the touching union of this "happy family."

Having fully explored the southern extremity of America, we once more see

the indefatigable navigator steer forth into the deserts of the southern

Polar Ocean, where he discovers some snow-clad isles, Bird Island, South

Georgia, Sandwich Land, the southern Thule; and finally returns to

England (30th July, 1775) after an absence of three years and seventeen

days.

His third voyage (1776) was undertaken for the purpose of exploring the

Northern Pacific, and casting the same broad light over those unvisited

waters as over the southern part of that vast ocean. To the south-east of

the Cape of Good Hope he discovered Prince Edward's Islands, and thence

proceeded to explore Kerguelen's Land, discovered six years previously

by the Frenchman of that name. This wintry island bears neither tree nor

shrub, but in the bays the gigantic sea-weeds form submarine forests, and

countless penguins make the dreary shores resound with their deep braying

voice.