COLONIZATION OF THE FALKLAND ISLANDS--ANTOINE DE BOUGAINVILLE--HIS
VOYAGE AROUND THE WORLD--ADVENTURE AT MONTEVIDEO--THE
PATAGONIANS--TAKING POSSESSION OF TAHITI--FRENCH GALLANTRY--CEREMONIES
OF RECEPTION--SOJOURN AT THE ISLAND--AOTOUROU--THE FIRST FEMALE
CIRCUMNAVIGATOR--FAMINE ON BOARD--REMARKABLE CASCADE--ARRIVAL AT THE
MOLUCCAS--INCIDENTS THERE--RETURN HOME.
Several years before the period of which we are speaking, the French
Government had colonized the Falkland Islands, lying off the eastern
coast of Patagonia. The establishment lasted barely three years,
and, in an agricultural point of view, was a complete and disastrous
failure. The Spanish crown subsequently claimed these islands as
belonging to the continent of South America, and the King of France was
easily induced to abandon them. Captain Louis-Antoine de Bougainville
was instructed, in 1766, to proceed to the islands, and there, in the
name of his French majesty, cede them to the Spanish authorities who
would be sent out for the purpose. He was then to continue on, by the
Strait of Magellan and the Pacific, to the East Indies, and thence to
return home. Should he accomplish this task, he would be the first
French circumnavigator of the globe.
Bougainville received the command of the frigate La Boudeuse, carrying
twenty-six twelve-pounders, and was to be joined at the Falklands by
the store-ship l'Étoile. He sailed from Brest on the 5th of December,
the Prince of Nassau-Singhen, who had been allowed to accompany the
expedition, being on board. They arrived at Montevideo early in
February, 1767, and found there the two Spanish frigates to whose
commander Bougainville was to surrender the Falkland Islands, and with
whom he sailed in company on the 28th of the month. They met with
severe weather, but arrived safely at their destination towards the
close of March. The settlement was made over to the Spaniards on the
1st of April: the Spanish colors were planted and saluted at sunrise
and sunset. The French inhabitants were informed they might either
remain or return: a portion embarked with the garrison for Montevideo,
on their way back to France.
Bougainville waited at the islands till the end of May for the
store-ship, which was to join him at this point, and then returned to
Rio Janeiro, where he hoped to get tidings of her. She had but just
arrived, bringing salt meat and liquor sufficient for fifteen months,
but no bread or vegetables. So he was forced to go, in quest of these
provisions, back to Montevideo. From here he went to Buenos Ayres, on
the opposite side of the bay formed by the mouths of the La Plata,
making the journey, however, overland, as a contrary wind prevented
his proceeding by water. At night, he and his party slept in leathern
tents, while tigers howled around them on every side. Coming to the
river St. Lucia, which is wide, deep, and rapid, they were at a loss
how to cross it. At last their guide procured a hollow canoe, the
master of which fastened a horse on each side of the bow, and then
boldly assumed the reins. He supported the heads of the horses above
the water and drove them safely across it. The Frenchmen landed on the
opposite side dry-shod.
[Illustration: A FERRY BOAT AT BUENOS AYRES.]
It was not till the 14th of November that the Boudeuse and Étoile,
having taken in supplies of biscuit and bread, sailed, for the last
time, from Montevideo. They made the entrance of the Strait of Magellan
a fortnight afterwards. On the 8th of December, they saw a number of
Patagonians, who had kept up fires all night, hoisting a white flag
on an eminence,--a flag which some European ship had evidently given
them as a pledge of alliance. Bougainville went on shore, where some
thirty natives received him with every mark of good will. They embraced
him and his party, shook hands with them, and imitated the report
of muskets with their mouths, showing that they were accustomed to
fire-arms. They aided the botanist in collecting plants and simples,
and one of them applied to the physician for a prescription for his
inflamed eye. They asked for tobacco, and swallowed small draughts of
brandy, blowing with their mouths after the draught and uttering a
tremulous inarticulate sound. They begged them to remain over night,
and, upon the invitation being politely declined, accompanied them
with ceremony to the shore.
[Illustration: BOUGAINVILLE IN MAGELLAN'S STRAIT.]
Bougainville, with three of his officers, spent some hours in taking
soundings near Cape Froward. Perceiving a small flat rock, which barely
afforded them standing-room, they mounted upon it, hoisted their
colors, and shouted Vive le Roi! The coast now resounded for the first
time, says Bougainville, with this compliment to his majesty. Upon
which an English commentator remarks "that it is a striking instance of
the vanity by which the French nation is distinguished." The vessels,
being retarded by constant head-winds and harassed by violent storms,
occupied fifty-two days in threading the channel, and the month of
January, 1768, was well advanced before they discovered the boundless
expanse of the Pacific.
Sailing to the northwest, they passed several low, half-drowned
islands, one of which Bougainville called Harp Island. A cluster of
reefs he called the Dangerous Archipelago. Sore throats now troubling
the crew, he attributed them to the snow-water of the Strait, and cured
them by putting a pint of vinegar and a dozen red-hot bullets into the
daily water-cask. He combated the scurvy by employing lemonade prepared
from a concentration in the form of powder. He made fresh water from
salt water by means of a distilling apparatus which furnished a
barrelful every night. In order to economize their drinking-water,
their bread was kneaded with water dipped up from the sea. On the 4th
of April, they discovered land; and fires burning during the night over
a wide extent of coast showed them that it was inhabited and populous.
In the morning a canoe propelled by twelve naked men approached. The
chief, with a prodigious growth of hair which stood like bristles
divergent on his head, offered the commander a cluster of bananas,
indicating that this was the olive-branch in use in Tahiti,--the island
at which the ships had now arrived. Presents were exchanged and an
alliance effected.
The vessels were now surrounded with canoes laden with cocoanuts and
bananas, and a brisk and tolerably honest trade was driven by the
natives and the strangers. The aspect of the coast--the mountains
covered with foliage to their very summits, the lowlands interspersed
with meadows and with plantations of tropical fruit, cascades pouring
down from the rocks into the sea, streams flowing among lovely clusters
of huts situated upon the shore--offered an enchanting scene to the
wearied crews. While the Boudeuse was casting her anchor, canoes
filled with women came around her. "These," adds Bougainville, with
characteristic French gallantry, "are not inferior for agreeable
features to most European women. It was very difficult, amidst such a
sight, to keep at their work four hundred young sailors who had seen
none of the fair sex for six months. The capstan was never hove with
more alacrity than on this occasion."
The captain and several officers now went on shore, where they were
received with high glee by all, with the exception of a venerable man,
apparently a philosopher, "whose thoughtful and suspicious air seemed
to show that he feared the arrival of a new race of men would trouble
those happy days which he had spent in peace." A poet, reclining
beneath a tree, sang them a song to the accompaniment of a flute which
a musician blew, not with his mouth, but with one of his nostrils.
In return for this entertainment, the strangers gave, at night, an
exhibition of sky-rockets, witch-quills, and other pyrotechnics.
The chief, learning that the Prince of Nassau was a man of royal
blood, offered him a wife; but, as the lady was advanced in years and
correspondingly mature in appearance, the prince plead a previous union
and escaped.
The vessels stayed here a fortnight, cutting wood and drawing water.
They lost six anchors during their sojourn, and twice narrowly missed
utter shipwreck,--"the worst consequence of which would have been
to pass the remainder of their days on an isle adorned with all the
gifts of nature, and to exchange the sweets of the mother-country for
a peaceable life exempt from cares." The islanders expressed infinite
regret at their departure,--one of them, Aotourou by name, being unable
to endure the separation, and asking permission to go with them. He
gave his young wife three pearls which he had in his ears, kissed her,
and went on board the ship. Bougainville quitted the island on the 16th
of April, no less surprised at the sorrow the inhabitants testified at
his departure than at their affectionate confidence on his arrival.
He directed his course so as to avoid the Pernicious Isles, warned by
the disasters of Roggewein to avoid them. Aotourou pointed at night
to the bright star in Orion's shoulder, indicating that they should
guide their course by it, and that in two days it would bring them to
a fertile island where he had friends and children. Being vexed that
no attention was paid to his advice, he rushed to the helm, seized the
wheel, and endeavored to put the ship about. In the morning he climbed
to the mast-head, and sought, in the distant horizon, the favored land
of which he had spoken.
The vessels kept on steadily to the westward, passing through
Navigator's Islands and the group which Quiros had named Espiritu
Santo. To the latter Bougainville gave the name of Grandes
Cyclades,--one, however, not destined to be long retained. He was at
this time informed that Baré, the servant of M. de Commerçon, the
botanist of the Étoile, was a woman. He went on board the store-ship
to make investigations. He thought the report incredible, as Baré was
already an expert botanist, and had acquired the name, during his
excursions with his master among the snows of Magellan's Strait,--where
he carried provisions, fire-arms, and bundles of plants,--of being his
beast of burden. The first suspicion of him occurred at Tahiti, where
the natives, with the keen intuition of savages, cried out in their
dialect, "It is a woman!" and insisted on paying her the attentions due
to her sex. When Bougainville went on board the Étoile, Baré, bathed in
tears, admitted that she was a woman. She said she was an orphan, had
served before in men's clothes, and that the idea of a voyage around
the world had inflamed her curiosity. Bougainville does her the justice
to state that she always behaved on board with the most scrupulous
modesty. She was not handsome, and was twenty-seven years of age. She
was the first woman that ever circumnavigated the globe.
It was not long before the provisions began to give out, and the crew
were put upon half rations. The commander was soon obliged to forbid
the eating of old leather, as it was becoming as scarce as biscuit
and was quite as necessary. The butcher shed tears upon sacrificing a
favorite goat, and Bougainville turned away his head as that sanguinary
personage, with equally cruel intent, whistled to a young Patagonian
dog. Breakers, reefs, and channels, where the tide ran fast and
dangerously, indicated the presence of land, to which was given the
name of Louisiade. This is a group of islands inhabited by Papuans.
On the coast of New Britain, at an uninhabited spot which Bougainville
named Port Praslin, he obtained a supply of inferior provisions,
such as thatch-palms, cabbage-trees, and mangle apples. A species of
aromatic ivy was likewise found, in which the physicians discovered
anti-scorbutic properties; and a store of it was therefore laid in.
An immense cascade, which furnished the vessels with fresh water, is
enthusiastically described by Bougainville. After a stay of eight
days at Port Praslin, during which time the heavens were black with
continual tempests, the vessels profited by a change of wind and
continued their westerly course. The field-tents were cut up, and
trousers made from them were distributed to the two ships' companies.
Another ounce was taken from the daily allowance of bread. From time
to time canoes would shoot out from the coast of New Britain; but the
hostility and treachery of the natives rendered all efforts to obtain
food from them unavailing.
[Illustration: CASCADE AT PORT PRASLIN.]
On the 1st of September, Bougainville made the island of Boero, one of
the Moluccas, where he knew the Dutch had a small factory and a weak
garrison. All his men were now sick, without exception. The provisions
remaining were so nauseous that, as he says, "the hardest moments of
the sad days we passed were those when the bell gave us notice to take
in this disgusting and unwholesome food. But now our misery was to have
an end. Ever since midnight a pleasant scent exhaled from the aromatic
plants with which the Moluccas abound; the aspect of a considerable
town, situated in the bottom of the gulf, of ships at anchor there, and
of cattle rambling through the meadows, caused transports which I have
doubtless felt, but which I can not here describe."
It was found that the Dutch East India Company reigned supreme,
and that the governor was disposed to keep to the letter of his
instructions, which forbade him to receive any ships but those of the
monopoly. Bougainville was obliged to plead the claims of hunger and
considerations of humanity before the authorities would listen to him.
They then furnished him with rice, poultry, sago, goats, fish, eggs,
fruit, and venison, the latter being the flesh of stags introduced and
acclimated by the Dutch. Henry Inman, the Dutch governor, though placed
in a critical position by this arrival, behaved as became an honorable
and generous man. He first did his duty towards his superiors, and then
towards fellow-creatures in distress. Aotourou, the Tahitian, not being
taken ashore by the commander on his first visit, imagined that it
was because he was bow-legged and knock-kneed, and begged some of the
sailors to stand upon his legs and straighten them out.
During the run back to France, by way of the Cape of Good Hope, St.
Helena, and the Cape Verd Islands, nothing happened which requires
mention here. Bougainville entered the port of St. Malo on the 16th of
March, 1769, having been absent two years and four months, and having
lost but seven men during the voyage. He was the first Frenchman who
ever went round the world in one ship,--one Gentil de la Barbinais, a
pirate, having accomplished a voyage of circumnavigation in several
ships, some fifty years before. He sustained his claim to this honor
by publishing, two years afterwards, a narrative of his expedition,
written in an animated and graceful style, and which established his
reputation as a sailor and explorer.
[Illustration: CAPTAIN JAMES COOK.]