On the twelfth we made sail from Christmas Harbour, retracing our way
to the westward, and leaving Marion's Island, one of Crozet's group, on
the larboard. We afterward passed Prince Edward's Island, leaving it
also on our left; then, steering more to the northward, made, in
fifteen days, the islands of Tristan d'Acunha, in latitude 37° 8' S.,
longitude 12° 8' W.
This group, now so well known, and which consists of three circular
islands, was first discovered by the Portuguese, and was visited
afterward by the Dutch in 1643, and by the French in 1767. The three
islands together form a triangle, and are distant from each other about
ten miles, there being fine open passages between. The land in all of
them is very high, especially in Tristan d'Acunha, properly so called.
This is the largest of the group, being fifteen miles in circumference,
and so elevated that it can be seen in clear weather at the distance of
eighty or ninety miles. A part of the land towards the north rises more
than a thousand feet perpendicularly from the sea. A tableland at this
height extends back nearly to the centre of the island, and from this
tableland arises a lofty cone like that of Teneriffe. The lower half of
this cone is clothed with trees of good size, but the upper region is
barren rock, usually hidden among the clouds, and covered with snow
during the greater part of the year. There are no shoals or other
dangers about the island, the shores being remarkably bold and the
water deep. On the northwestern coast is a bay, with a beach of black
sand, where a landing with boats can be easily effected, provided there
be a southerly wind. Plenty of excellent water may here be readily
procured; also cod, and other fish, may be taken with hook and line.
The next island in point of size, and the most westwardly of the group,
is that called the Inaccessible. Its precise situation is 37° 17' S.
latitude, longitude 12° 24' W. It is seven or eight miles in
circumference, and on all sides presents a forbidding and precipitous
aspect. Its top is perfectly flat, and the whole region is steril,
nothing growing upon it except a few stunted shrubs.
Nightingale Island, the smallest and most southerly, is in latitude 37°
26' S., longitude 12° 12' W. Off its southern extremity is a high ledge
of rocky islets; a few also of a similar appearance are seen to the
northeast. The ground is irregular and steril, and a deep valley
partially separates it.
The shores of these islands abound, in the proper season, with sea
lions, sea elephants, the hair and fur seal, together with a great
variety of oceanic birds. Whales are also plenty in their vicinity.
Owing to the ease with which these various animals were here formerly
taken, the group has been much visited since its discovery. The Dutch
and French frequented it at a very early period. In 1790, Captain
Patten, of the ship Industry, of Philadelphia, made Tristan d'Acunha,
where he remained seven months (from August, 1790, to April, 1791) for
the purpose of collecting sealskins. In this time he gathered no less
than five thousand six hundred, and says that he would have had no
difficulty in loading a large ship with oil in three weeks. Upon his
arrival he found no quadrupeds, with the exception of a few wild
goats--the island now abounds with all our most valuable domestic
animals, which have been introduced by subsequent navigators.
I believe it was not long after Captain Patten's visit that Captain
Colquhoun, of the American brig Betsey, touched at the largest of the
islands for the purpose of refreshment. He planted onions, potatoes,
cabbages, and a great many other vegetables, an abundance of all which
are now to be met with.
In 1811, a Captain Heywood, in the Nereus, visited Tristan. He found
there three Americans, who were residing upon the islands to prepare
sealskins and oil. One of these men was named Jonathan Lambert, and he
called himself the sovereign of the country. He had cleared and
cultivated about sixty acres of land, and turned his attention to
raising the coffee-plant and sugar-cane, with which he had been
furnished by the American minister at Rio Janeiro. This settlement,
however, was finally abandoned, and in 1817 the islands were taken
possession of by the British government, who sent a detachment for that
purpose from the Cape of Good Hope. They did not, however, retain them
long; but, upon the evacuation of the country as a British possession,
two or three English families took up their residence there
independently of the government. On the twenty-fifth of March, 1824,
the Berwick, Captain Jeffrey, from London to Van Diemen's Land, arrived
at the place, where they found an Englishman of the name of Glass,
formerly a corporal in the British artillery. He claimed to be supreme
governor of the islands, and had under his control twenty-one men and
three women. He gave a very favourable account of the salubrity of the
climate and of the productiveness of the soil. The population occupied
themselves chiefly in collecting sealskins and sea elephant oil, with
which they traded to the Cape of Good Hope, Glass owning a small
schooner. At the period of our arrival the governor was still a
resident, but his little community had multiplied, there being
fifty-six persons upon Tristan, besides a smaller settlement of seven
on Nightingale Island. We had no difficulty in procuring almost every
kind of refreshment which we required--sheep, hogs, bullocks, rabbits,
poultry, goats, fish in great variety, and vegetables were abundant.
Having come to anchor close in with the large island, in eighteen
fathoms, we took all we wanted on board very conveniently. Captain Guy
also purchased of Glass five hundred sealskins and some ivory. We
remained here a week, during which the prevailing winds were from the
northward and westward, and the weather somewhat hazy. On the fifth of
November we made sail to the southward and westward, with the intention
of having a thorough search for a group of islands called the Auroras,
respecting whose existence a great diversity of opinion has existed.
These islands are said to have been discovered as early as 1762, by the
commander of the ship Aurora. In 1790, Captain Manuel de Oyarvido, in
the ship Princess, belonging to the Royal Philippine Company, sailed,
as he asserts, directly among them. In 1794, the Spanish corvette
Atrevida went with the determination of ascertaining their precise
situation, and, in a paper published by the Royal Hydrographical
Society of Madrid in the year 1809, the following language is used
respecting this expedition. "The corvette Atrevida practised, in their
immediate vicinity, from the twenty-first to the twenty-seventh of
January, all the necessary observations, and measured by chronometers
the difference of longitude between these islands and the port of
Soledad in the Malninas. The islands are three; they are very nearly in
the same meridian; the centre one is rather low, and the other two may
be seen at nine leagues distance." The observations made on board the
Atrevida give the following results as the precise situation of each
island. The most northern is in latitude 52° 37' 24" S., longitude 47°
43' 15" W.; the middle one in latitude 53° 2' 40" S., longitude 47° 55'
15" W.; and the most southern in latitude 53° 15' 22" S., longitude 47°
57' 15" W.
On the twenty-seventh of January, 1820, Captain James Weddel, of the
British navy, sailed from Staten Land also in search of the Auroras. He
reports that, having made the most diligent search, and passed not only
immediately over the spots indicated by the commander of the Atrevida,
but in every direction throughout the vicinity of these spots, he could
discover no indication of land. These conflicting statements have
induced other navigators to look out for the islands; and, strange to
say, while some have sailed through every inch of sea where they are
supposed to lie without finding them, there have been not a few who
declare positively that they have seen them, and even been close in
with their shores. It was Captain Guy's intention to make every
exertion within his power to settle the question so oddly in
dispute.[3]
[Footnote 3: Among the vessels which at various times have professed to
meet with the Auroras may be mentioned the ship San Miguel, in 1769;
the ship Aurora, in 1774; the brig Pearl, in 1779; and the ship
Dolores, in 1790. They all agree in giving the mean latitude
fifty-three degrees south.]
We kept on our course, between the south and west, with variable
weather, until the twentieth of the month, when we found ourselves on
the debated ground, being in latitude 53° 15' S., longitude 47° 58'
W.--that is to say, very nearly upon the spot indicated as the
situation of the most southern of the group. Not perceiving any sign of
land, we continued to the westward in the parallel of fifty-three
degrees south, as far as the meridian of fifty degrees west. We then
stood to the north as far as the parallel of fifty-two degrees south,
when we turned to the eastward, and kept our parallel by double
altitudes, morning and evening, and meridian altitudes of the planets
and moon. Having thus gone eastwardly to the meridian of the western
coast of Georgia, we kept that meridian until we were in the latitude
from which we set out. We then took diagonal courses throughout the
entire extent of sea circumscribed, keeping a lookout constantly at the
masthead, and repeating our examination with the greatest care for a
period of three weeks, during which the weather was remarkably pleasant
and fair, with no haze whatsoever. Of course we were thoroughly
satisfied that, whatever islands might have existed in this vicinity at
any former period, no vestige of them remained at the present day.
Since my return home I find that the same ground was traced over with
equal care in 1822 by Captain Johnson, of the American schooner Henry,
and by Captain Morrell, in the American schooner Wasp--in both cases
with the same result as in our own.