THE DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY--RENEWED SEARCH FOR THE TERRA AUSTRALIS
INCOGNITA--JACOB ROGGEWEIN--HIS VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY--BRUSH
WITH PIRATES--ARRIVAL AT JUAN FERNANDEZ--EASTER ISLAND--ITS
INHABITANTS--ENTERTAINMENT OF ONE ON BOARD THE SHIP--A
MISUNDERSTANDING--PERNICIOUS AND RECREATION ISLANDS--GLIMPSE
OF THE SOCIETY ISLANDS--A FAMINE IN THE FLEET--ARRIVAL AT NEW
BRITAIN--CONFISCATION OF THE SHIP AT BATAVIA--DECISION OF THE
STATES-GENERAL--VITUS BEHRING--BEHRING'S STRAIT--DESCRIPTION OF THE
SCENE--DEATH OF BEHRING--SUBSEQUENT SURVEY OF THE STRAIT.
The monopoly of the Dutch East India Company had been somewhat
disturbed, as early as the year 1621, by the formation and charter of
the Dutch West India Company. The latter held the exclusive commerce
of the African coast from the tropic of Cancer to the Cape of Good
Hope, and that of the American coast both upon the Atlantic and Pacific
Oceans. In 1674, its power and influence were somewhat extended by a
fresh grant of privileges and an increase of capital. It was necessary
for any one proposing a new scheme of commerce within the limits under
their control, to apply to the Company for permission to execute it.
A mathematician by the name of Roggewein, a native of the province
of Zealand, formed a project, in 1696, for the discovery of the vast
continent and islands supposed to exist in the South under the name
of _Terra Australis Incognita_. He died, however, before any step was
taken by the Company in furtherance of his designs. His son, Jacob
Roggewein, renewed the application in 1721, presenting a memorial,
in accordance with which immediate orders were given for equipping
three vessels,--the Eagle, of thirty-six guns, the Tienhoven, of
twenty-eight, and the African galley, of fourteen. Roggewein was made
admiral, and two hundred and seventy-one men were embarked upon the
three ships. They sailed from the Texel on the 21st of August, 1721.
When approaching the Canaries, they saw a fleet of five sail, carrying
white, red, and black colors, which caused the admiral to suspect them
to be pirates. He gave the signal for action, when the enemy struck
their red flag and hoisted a black one, on which was a death's-head
with a powder-horn and crossbones. A brisk encounter succeeded; and,
after two hours, the pirates spread their canvas and bore away with
all speed. Roggewein did not follow them,--as all ships of the West
and East India Companies had strict orders to pursue their course and
never to give chase. He had a long and painful passage across the
Atlantic,--the crews suffering from heat, hunger, thirst, and the
scurvy. Many of the men had high fevers, and some of them fits like the
epilepsy.
During a terrible hurricane on the 21st of December, the Tienhoven
parted company, and the Eagle and the African galley kept on together
as far as the Strait of Magellan. In this latitude, Roggewein saw the
group of islands which a French privateer had named Islands of St.
Louis, but which some Dutch traders had subsequently called the New
Islands. Roggewein baptized the group anew, and, thinking that if it
should ever be inhabited the people would be the antipodes of the
Dutch, gave it the name of Belgia Australis. He determined to make the
passage through Lemaire's Strait, and, being propelled by a favorable
wind and rapid currents, attained the western coast of America in six
days' time. Whenever the weather was clear the nights were exceedingly
short; for, though it was the middle of January, the Antarctic summer
was at its height. On arriving at the island of Juan Fernandez,
Roggewein was surprised and rejoiced to see the Tienhoven safe at the
rendezvous. The three captains dined together the next day, and made
merry over their mutual convictions of each others' unhappy shipwreck.
After a considerable run to the westward, Roggewein discovered, on
the 14th of April, 1722, an island sixteen leagues in extent, to
which he gave the name of Easter Island, in commemoration of the
day. This was one of the most important discoveries ever made in the
Pacific; and Easter Island is, for many reasons, one of the most
famous oases in that desert of water. Roggewein thus speaks of his
first adventure there:--"One of the inhabitants came out to us, two
miles from shore, in a canoe. We gave him a piece of cloth, for he was
quite naked. He was also offered beads and other toys: he hung them
all, with a dried fish, about his neck. His body was all painted with
every kind of figures. He was brown: his ears were extremely long and
hung down to his shoulders, occasioned, doubtless, by wearing large,
heavy ear-rings. He was tall, strong, robust, and of an agreeable
countenance. He was gay, brisk, and easy in his behavior and manner of
speaking. A glass of wine was given to him: he took it, but, instead
of drinking it, threw it in his eyes, which surprised us very much.
We then dressed him and put a hat upon his head; but he wore it very
awkwardly. After he was regaled with food, the musicians were ordered
to play on different instruments: the symphony made him very merry,
and he began to leap and dance. We sent him back with presents, that
the others might know in what manner we had received him. He seemed to
leave us with regret, praying with great violence and uttering the word
'Odorraga! odorraga!' The next day large numbers of his countrymen came
to our new anchorage, bringing us fowls and roots. At sunrise they
prostrated themselves with their faces towards the east, and lighted
fires as morning burnt-offerings to their idols, of which there were
many upon the coast." Of these supposed idols we shall speak hereafter.
During the landing, in which one hundred and fifty of the crew took
part, an islander was accidentally shot; and subsequently, as some of
them touched, from curiosity, the Dutch fire-arms, a volley of bullets
was discharged at them, and among the killed was the man who had first
gone on board the admiral's ship. The consternation and grief of the
natives was very great: they brought all kinds of provisions as ransom
for the dead bodies. They threw themselves upon their knees, and
offered branches of palms in sign of peace. The Dutch carried their
outrages no further, but exchanged assurances of good will. They gave
sixty yards of painted cloth for eight hundred fowls, some bundles of
sugarcane, and a large quantity of plantains, cocoanuts, figs, and
potatoes. Roggewein was of opinion that the island might be colonized
to advantage, as the air was wholesome and the soil rich: the low lands
seemed fitted to produce corn, and the higher grounds well adapted
to vineyards. He intended to land with a sufficient force to make a
general survey; but, in the mean time, a west wind forced him from his
anchorage and drove him out to sea.
He soon found himself in the wide tract which had obtained the name
of Bad Sea, on account of the brackish water of one of its islands.
Through this region he sailed eight hundred leagues, and, by a change
of wind, was driven with his consorts among a number of islands, by
which they were considerably embarrassed. The Africa, which drew the
least water, was sent in advance, but soon got upon the rocks and fired
signals of distress. Night came on, and the natives, alarmed by the
reports, kindled fires and came in crowds to the shore. The Dutch,
whose confusion of mind seems to have been extreme, fired upon them
without ceremony, that they might have as few dangers as possible
to contend with at once. In the morning the Africa was found to be
jammed between two rocks, from whence she could not be disengaged. She
was therefore abandoned. The island upon which she was lost was named
Pernicious Island. Five men deserted here, and were left behind. Eight
leagues from Pernicious, an island, discovered at daybreak, was named
Aurora; and another, seen at sunset, was called Vesper. At another,
which they named the Island of Recreation, a party sent on shore for
salad and scurvy-grass for the sick had so desperate an encounter with
the natives, that, when a second landing was proposed, not a man could
be prevailed upon to make the dangerous attempt.
Roggewein was now convinced that no Terra Incognita was to be
discovered in the latitude he had kept, and therefore resolved, in
accordance with his instructions, to return home by way of the East
Indies. His crews were so reduced that a further loss of twenty men
would compel him to abandon one of his remaining vessels. The officers
regretted this decision; for they were anxious to visit the lands named
Solomon's Islands by Mendana on account of their supposed wealth; but
they were now compelled to return by way of New Britain, the Moluccas,
and the East Indies.
Not far from Recreation Island, a group was discovered by the captain
of the Tienhoven, and was named, from him, Bowman's Islands. The
natives came off to the ships with fish, cocoanuts, and plantains. They
were generally white, except that some were bronzed by the heat of the
sun. They appeared gentle and humane: their bodies were not painted,
and were clothed from the waist downward with fringes of woven silk.
Around their necks they wore strings of odoriferous flowers. Roggewein
describes them as altogether the most civilized and honest nation he
had seen in the South Sea:--"Charmed with our arrival, they received
us as divinities, and testified afterwards great regret when they
perceived we were preparing to depart: sadness was painted in their
countenance as we left." These islands are supposed to have been the
most northerly of the group now known as the Society Islands.
During the long run to New Britain, the frightful effects of bad
provisions were made painfully manifest, for the salt meat had long
been decayed, the bread was full of maggots, and the water intolerably
putrid. The scurvy began to cut off four and five men a day. Cries
and groans were incessantly heard in all parts of the ship: those who
were well fainted at the stench of the carcasses. Some were reduced
to skeletons, so that the skin cleaved to their bones, while others
swelled to a monstrous and disgusting size. The journal says that
"an anabaptist of twenty-five years old called out continually to be
baptized, and when told, with a sneer, that there was no parson on
board, became quiet, and died with great resignation." At last the high
land of New Britain put an end to their miseries,--for which there was
no cure on earth except fresh meat, green vegetables, and pure water.
The expedition intrusted to Roggewein having proved abortive by the
failure to find a Southern continent, we shall follow his adventures
no farther. It will suffice to say that his ships were confiscated at
Batavia by the Dutch East India Company,--a proceeding which the West
India Company resented by commencing an action for damages. After a
long litigation, the States-General decreed that the former Company
should furnish the latter with two ships better than those confiscated,
should refund the full value of their cargoes, should pay the wages of
both crews to the day of their return to Holland, together with the
costs, and a heavy fine by way of punishment for having so manifestly
abused their authority.
We come now to the first expedition at sea made by Russia for the
purpose of extending and promoting the science of geography. Vitus
Behring was a Dane in the Russian service, having been tempted by the
encouragements held out to foreign mariners by Peter the Great. He
had risen to the rank of captain in 1725, when the Empress Catherine,
who was anxious to promote discovery in the Northeast of Asia and to
settle the question, then doubtful, as to the existence of a strait
between Asia and America, appointed him to the command of an expedition
fitted out for that purpose. During a period of seven years, having
travelled overland to Kamschatka, he explored rivers, sounded and
surveyed the coasts, and sailed as far to the northward as the season
and the strength of his very inferior boats would permit. In 1732, he
was made captain-commander, and the next year was ordered to conduct
an expedition fitted out on a very extensive scale for purposes of
discovery. In 1740, he reached Okhotsk, where vessels had previously
been built for him. He sailed for Awatska Bay, where he founded the
settlement of Petropaulowski, known in English as the Harbor of Peter
and Paul. Sailing to the northward, he landed upon the American coast,
giving name to Mount St. Elias, and then, returning to the westward,
struck the continent of Asia, finding a strait fifty miles wide between
the two continents at the point where they approach each other the
nearest. This, in honor of its discoverer, is called Behring's Strait.
The following description of this scene of desolation, as it first
broke upon Behring's eye, is due to the imagination of Eugene
Sue:--"The month of September," he says, "is at its close. The equinox
has come with darkness, and sullen night will soon displace the
short and gloomy days of the Pole. The sky, of a dark violet color,
is feebly lighted by a sun which dispenses no heat, and whose white
disk, scarcely elevated above the horizon, pales before the dazzling
brightness of the snow. To the north, this desert is bounded by a
coast bristling with black and gigantic rocks. At the foot of their
Titanic piles lies motionless the vast ice-bound ocean. To the east
appears a line of darkish green, whence seem to creep forth numerous
white and glassy icebergs. This is the channel which now bears the name
of Behring. Beyond it, and towering above it, are the vast granitic
masses of Cape Prince of Wales, the extreme point of North America.
These desolate latitudes are beyond the pale of the habitable world.
The piercing cold rends the very stones, cleaves the trees, and bursts
the ground, which groans in producing the germs of its icy herbage. A
few black pines, the growth of centuries, pointing their distorted tops
in different directions of the solitude, like crosses in a churchyard,
have been torn up and hurled around in confusion by the storm. The
raging hurricane, not content with uprooting trees, drives mountains
of ice before it, and dashes them, with the crash of thunder, the one
against the other.
"And now a night without twilight has succeeded to the day,--dark,
dark night! The heavy cupola of the sky is of so deep a blue that
it appears black, and the Polar stars are lost in the depths of an
obscurity which seems palpable to the touch. Silence reigns alone.
But suddenly a feeble glimmer appears in the horizon. At first it
is softly brilliant, blue as the light which precedes the rising
of the moon; then the effulgence increases, expands, and assumes a
roseate hue. Strange and confused sounds are heard,--sounds like the
flight of huge night birds as they flap their wings heavily over the
plain. These are the forerunners of one of those imposing phenomena
which strike with awe all animated nature. An aurora borealis, that
magnificent spectacle of the Polar regions, is at hand. In the horizon
there appears a semicircle of dazzling brightness. From the centre of
this glowing hemisphere radiate blazing columns and jets of light,
rising to measureless heights and illumining heaven, earth, and sea.
They glide along the snows of the desert, empurpling the blue tops
of the ice-mountains and tinging with a deepened red the tall black
rocks of the two continents. Having thus reached the fulness of its
splendor, the aurora grows gradually pale, and diffuses its effulgence
in a luminous mist. At this moment, from the fantastic illusions of
the mirage, frequent in those latitudes, the American coast, though
separated from that of Asia by the interposition of an arm of the sea,
suddenly approaches so near it that a bridge might be thrown from one
world to the other. Did human beings inhabit those regions and breathe
the pale-blue vapors which pervade them, they might almost converse
across the narrow inlet which serves to divide the continents. But now
the aurora fades away, and the deceptive mirage sinks back into the
shadowy realms from whence it came. Fifty miles of sullen waters roll
again between the continents, and a three months' night settles over
the ghastly and appalling scene."
[Illustration: MIRAGE AT BEHRING'S STRAITS.]
It is not improbable that Behring passed to the north of East Cape,
the promontory on the Asiatic side, into the Arctic Ocean beyond.
He was soon compelled to return, owing to the disabled condition of
his vessel, which was wrecked upon an island on the 3d of November,
1741. This island, which was little better than a naked rock, afforded
neither food nor shelter; and Behring, suffering from the scurvy and
sinking from disappointment, lay down in a cleft of the rock to die.
The sand collected and drifted about him, half burying him alive.
He would not suffer it to be removed, as it afforded him a grateful
warmth. He died in this wretched condition on the 8th of December. The
next summer, the few of his crew who survived the winter built a vessel
from the timber of the wreck: in this they reached Kamschatka and made
known the miserable fate of their commander.
Though Behring settled the fact of the existence of the strait which
bears his name, it was reserved for Captain Cook to survey the entire
length of both coasts. This he did with a precision and accuracy which
left nothing for after-voyagers to perform, and which has made the
geography of this remote and barbarous region as familiar as that of
the Atlantic shores of America. The island upon which Behring died, and
which was then uninhabited and without a shrub upon its surface, is now
an important trading station, and affords comfortable winter quarters
to vessels from Okhotsk and Kamschatka.
[Illustration: LORD ANSON.]