on another, we have reason to believe that such errors are owing to accidental causes, and not to currents. This seems to have been the case in our passage between England and Teneriffe. But, from the time of our leaving that island, till the 15th of August, being then in the latitude of 12o N., and longitude 24° W., the ship was carried 1° 20′ of longitude to the westward of her reckoning. At this station the currents took a contrary direction, and set to E.S.E., at the rate of twelve or fourteen miles a day, or twenty-four hours, till we arrived into the latitude of 5° N., and longitude of 20° W.; which was our most easterly situation after leaving the Cape de Verde Islands, till we got to the southward. For in this situation the wind came southerly, and we tacked and stretched to the westward; and for two or three days could not find that our reckoning was affected by any current. So that, I judged, we were between the current that generally, if not constantly, sets to the east upon the coast of Guinea, and that which sets to the west towards the coast of Brasil. This westerly current was not considerable till we got into 2° N., and 25° W. From this station, to 3° S. and 30° W., the ship, in the space of four days, was carried one hundred and fifteen miles in the direction of S.W. by W. beyond her reckoning; an error by far too great to have any other cause but a strong current running in the same direction. Nor did its strength abate here; but its course was, afterward, more westerly, and to the N. of W.; and off Cape Augustine, north, as I have already mentioned. But this northerly current did not exist at twenty or thirty leagues to the southward of that Cape, nor any other, that I could perceive, in the remaining part of the passage. The little difference we afterward found between the reckoning and observations, might very well happen without the assistance of currents, as will appear by the Table of Days' Works. " In the account of my last voyage * I remarked, that the currents one meets with in this passage generally balance each other. It happened so then, because we crossed the line about 20° more to the eastward than we did now; so that we were, of consequence, longer under the influence of the easterly current, which made up for the westerly one. And this, I apprehend, will generally be the case, if you cross the line 10° or 15° to the east of the meridian of St. Jago. From these remarks I shall draw the following conclusion, that, after passing the Cape de Verde Island, if you do not make above 4° or 5o easting, and cross the line in, or to the westward of, the meridian of St. Jago, you may expect to find your ship 3° or 4° to the westward of her reckoning, by the time you get into the latitude of 10° S. If, on the other hand, you keep well to the east, and cross the line 15° or 20° to the east of St. Jago, you will be then as much to the east of your reckoning; and the more you keep to the eastward, the greater will be your error; as has been experienced by some India ships, whose people have found themselves close upon the coast of Angola, when they thought its distance was above two hundred leagues. During the whole of our passage from England, no opportunity was omitted of observing, with all the attention and accuracy that circumstances would permit, the variation of the compass, which I have inserted in a table, with the latitude and longitude of the ship at the time of observation. As the longitude may be depended upon, to a quarter or half a degree at most, this table will be of use to those navigators who correct their reckoning by the variation. It will also enable Mr. Dun to correct his new Variation Chart, a thing very much wanted. It seems strange to me, that the advocates for the variation should not agree amongst themselves. We find one of them telling us, as I have already observed, "that with 8° west variation, or anything above that, you may venture to sail by the Cape de Verde islands, by night or day, being well assured, with that variation, that you are to the eastward of them." Another, in his chart‡, lays down this variation ninety leagues to the westward of them. Such a disagreement as this, is a strong proof of the uncertainty of both. However, I have no doubt, the former found here, as well as in other places, the variation he mentions. But he should have considered, that at sea, nay even on land, the results of the most accurate observations will not always be the same. Different compasses will give different variations; and even the same compass will differ from itself two degrees, without our being able to * Vol. I., p. 348. + Nichelson. Mr. Dun. discover, much less to remove, the cause. Whoever imagines he can find the variation within a degree, will very often see himself much deceived. For, besides the imperfection which may be in the construction of the instrument, or in the power of the needle, it is certain that the motion of the ship, or attraction of the iron work, or some other cause not yet discovered, will frequently occasion far greater errors than this. That the variation may be found, with a share of accuracy more than sufficient to determine the ship's course, is allowed; but that it can be found so exactly as to fix the longitude within a degree, or sixty miles, I absolutely deny. CHAPTER IV.-THE TWO SHIPS LEAVE THE CAPE OF GOOD HOPE.-TWO ISLANDS, NAMED PRINCE EDWARD'S, SEEN, AND THEIR APPEARANCE DESCRIBED.-KERGUELEN'S LAND VISITED.-ARRIVAL IN CHRISTMAS HARBOUR.- OCCURRENCES THERE.-DESCRIPTION OF IT. AFTER the disaster which happened to our sheep, it may be well supposed I did not trust those that remained long on shore, but got them, and the other cattle, on board as fast as possible. I also added to my original stock by purchasing two young bulls, two heifers, two young stone-horses, two mares, two rams, several ewes and goats, and some rabbits and poultry. All of them were intended for New Zealand, Otaheite, and the neighbouring islands, or any other places, in the course of our voyage, where there might be a prospect that the leaving any of them would be useful to posterity. Towards the latter end of November the calkers had finished their work on board the Discovery, and she had received all her provisions and water. Of the former, both ships had a supply sufficient for two years and upwards; and every other article we could think of, necessary for such a voyage, that could be had at the Cape, was procured; neither knowing when or where we might come to a place where we could furnish ourselves so well. Having given Captain Clerke a copy of my instructions, and an order directing him how to proceed in case of separation, in the morning of the 30th we repaired on board. At five in the afternoon a breeze sprung up at S.E., with which we weighed, and stood out of the bay. At nine it fell calm, and we anchored between Penguin Island and the east shore, where we lay till three o'clock next morning. We then weighed and put to sea, with a light breeze at south, but did not get clear of the land till the morning of the 3d, when with a fresh gale at W.N.W. we stood to the S.E. to get more into the way of these winds. On the 5th a sudden squall of wind carried away the Resolution's mizen topmast. Having another to replace it, the loss was not felt, especially as it was a bad stick, and had often complained. On the 6th, in the evening, being then in the latitude of 39° 14' S., and in the longitude of 23° 56′ E., we passed through several small spots of water of reddish colour. Some of this was taken up, and it was found to abound with a small animal which the microscope discovered to be like a cray-fish, of a reddish hue. We continued our course to the south-east, with a very strong gale from the westward, followed by a mountainous sea, which made the ship roll and tumble exceedingly, and gave us a great deal of trouble to preserve the cattle we had on board. Notwithstanding all our care, several goats, especially the males, died; and some sheep. This misfortune was, in a great measure, owing to the cold, which we now began most sensibly to feel. On the 12th, at noon, we saw land extending from S.E. by S. to S.E. by E. Upon a nearer approach, we found it to be two islands. That which lies most to the south, and is also the largest, I judged to be about fifteen leagues in circuit, and to be in the latitude of 46° 53′ S., and in the longitude of 37° 46′ E. The most northerly one is about nine leagues in circuit, and lies in the latitude of 46° 40′ S., and in 38° 8′ E. longitude. The distance from the one to the other is about five leagues. We passed through this channel at equal distance from both islands, and could not discover, with the assistance of our best glasses, either tree or shrub on either of them. They seemed to have a rocky and bold shore; and excepting the south-east parts, where the land is rather low and flat, a surface composed of barren mountains, which rise to a considerable height, and whose summits and sides were covered with snow, which in many places seemed to be of a considerable depth. The southeast parts had a much greater quantity on them than the rest; owing probably to the sun acting for a less space of time on these than on the north and north-west parts. The ground, where it was not hid by the snow, from the various shades it exhibited, may be supposed to be covered with moss, or, perhaps, such a coarse grass as is found in some parts of Falkland's Islands. On the north side of each of the islands is a detached rock that near the south island is shaped like a tower, and seemed to be at some distance from the shore. As we passed along, a quantity of sea-weed was seen, and the colour of the water indicated soundings. But there was no appearance of an inlet, unless near the rock just mentioned; and that, from its smallness, did not promise a good anchoring-place. These two islands, as also four others which lie from nine to twelve degrees of longitude more to the east, and nearly in the same latitude, were discovered, as I have mentioned in my late voyage *, by Captains Marion du Fresne, and Crozet, French navigators, in January 1772, on their passage in two ships from the Cape of Good Hope to the Philippine Islands. As they have no names in the French chart of the southern hemisphere which Captain Crozet communicated to me in 1775 †, I shall distinguish the two we now saw, by calling them Prince Edward's Islands, after his Majesty's fourth son; and the other four by the name of Marion's and Crozet's Islands, to commemorate their discoveries. We had now, for the most part, strong gales between the north and west, and but very indifferent weather; not better, indeed, than we generally have in England in the very depth of winter, though it was now the middle of summer in this hemisphere. Not discouraged, however, by this, after leaving Prince Edward's Islands, I shaped our course to pass to the southward of the others, that I might get into the latitude of the land discovered by Monsieur de Kerguelen. I had applied to the Chevalier de Borda, whom, as I have mentioned, I found at Teneriffe, requesting, that if he knew anything of the island discovered by Monsieur de Kerguelen, between the Cape of Good Hope and New Holland, he would be so obliging as to communicate it to me. Accordingly, just before we sailed from Santa Cruz bay, he sent me the following account of it, viz., "That the pilot of the Boussole, who was in the voyage with See book iy. chap. 9. These islands are there said to be in the latitude of 48° S., that is, two degrees farther south than what here appears to be their real position. † See vol. I., as above. Dr. Forster, in his Observations made during that voyage, p. 30, gives us this description of the chart then communicated by Monsieur Crozet; that it was "published under the patronage of the Duke de Croye, by Robert de Vaugondy." Captain Cook tells us lower in this chapter that it was published in 1773. Monsieur de Kerguelen, had given him the latitude and longitude of a little island, which Monsieur de Kerguelen called the Isle of Rendezvous, and which lies not far from the great island which he saw. Latitude of the little isle, by seven observations, 48° 26' south; longitude, by seven observations of the distance of the sun and moon, 64° 57′ east from Paris." I was very sorry I had not sooner known that there was on board the frigate at Teneriffe an officer who had been with Monsieur de Kerguelen, especially the pilot; because from him I might have obtained more interesting information about this land than the situation alone, of which I was not before entirely ignorant *. My instructions directing me to examine it, with a view to discover a good harbour, I proceeded in the search; and on the 16th, being then in the latitude of 48° 45', and in the longitude of 52° E., we saw penguins and divers, and rock-weed floating in the sea. We continued to meet with more or less of these every day, as we proceeded to the eastward ; *Captain Cook's proceedings, as related in the remaiuing part of this chapter, and in the next, being upon a const newly discovered by the French, it could not but be an object of his attention to trace the footsteps of the original explorers. But no superiority of professional skill, nor diligence in exerting it, could possibly qualify him to do this successfully, without possessing, at the same time, full and authentic intelligence of all that had been performed here by his predecessors in the discovery. But that he was not so fortunate as to be thus sufficiently instructed, will appear from the following facts, which the reader is requested to attend to, before he proceeds to the perusal of this part of the journal. How very little was known, with any precision, about the operations of Kerguelen, when Captain Cook sailed in 1776, may be inferred from the following paragraph of his instructions:-"You are to procced in search of some islands said to have been lately seen by the French in the latitude of 48° S., and in the meridian of Mauritius." This was barely the amount of the very indefinite and imperfect information which Captain Cook himself had received from Baron Plettenberg at the Cape of Good Hope, in November 1772; in the beginning of which year Kerguelen's first voyage had taken place. The Captain, on his return homeward in March 1775, heard, a second time, something about this French discovery at the Cape, where he met with Monsieur Crozet, who " very obligingly communicated to him a chart of the southern hemisphere, "wherein were delineated not only his own discoveries, but also that of Captain Kerguelen." But what little information that chart could convey, was still necessarily confined to the operations of the first voyage; the chart here referred to having been published in France in 1773; that is, before any intelligence could possibly be conveyed from the southern hemisphere of the result of Kerguelen's second visit to this new land, which we now know happened towards the close of the same year. Of these latter operations, the only account (if that can be called an account which conveys no particular information) received by Captain Cook from Monsieur Crozet "that a later voyage had been undertaken by the French, under the command of Captain Kerguelen, which had ended much to the disgrace of that commander." was, What Crozet had not communicated to our author, and what we are sure, from a variety of circumstances, he had never heard of from any other quarter, he missed an opportunity of learning at Teneriffe. He expresses his being sorry, as we have just read, "that he did not know sooner that there was on board the frigate an officer who had been with Kerguelen, as he might have obtained from him more interesting information about this land than its situation." And, indeed, if he had conversed with that officer, he might have obtained information more interesting" than he was aware of; he might have learned that Kerguelen had actually visited this southern land a second time, and that the little isle of which he then received the name and position from the Chevalier de Borda, was a discovery of this later voyage. But the account conveyed to him being, as the reader will observe, unaccompanied with any date, or other distinguishing circumstance, he left Teneriffe, and arrived on the coasts of Kerguelen's Land, under a full persuasion that it had been visited only once before. And, even with regard to the operations of that first voyage, he had nothing to guide him but the very scanty materials afforded to him by Baron Plettenberg and Monsieur Crozet. The truth is, the French seem, for some reason or other, not surely founded on the importance of Kerguelen's discovery, to have been very shy of publishing a full and distinct account of it. No such account had been pub. lished while Captain Cook lived. Nay, even after the return of his ships in 1780, the gentleman who obligingly lent his assistance to give a view of the prior observations of the French, and to connect them on the same chart with those of our author, though his assiduity in procuring geographical information can be equalled only by his readiness in communicating it, had not, it should seem, been able to procure any materials for that purpose, but such as mark the operations of the first French voyage; and even for these he was indebted to a MS. drawing. But this veil of unnecessary secrecy is at length drawn aside. Kerguelen himself has, very lately, published the journal of his proceedings in two successive voyages in the years 1772 and 1773; and has annexed to his Narrative a chart of the coasts of this land, as far as he had explored them in both voyages. Monsieur de Pagès also, much about the same time, favoured us with another account of the second voyage, in some respects fuller than Kerguelen's own, on board whose ship he was then an officer. From these sources of authentic information we are enabled to draw every necessary material to correct what is erroneous, and to illustrate what otherwise would have remained obscure, in this part of Captain Cook's Journal. We shall take occasion to do this in separate notes on the passages as they occur, and conclude this tedious, but, it is hoped, not unnecessary detail of facts, with one general remark, fully expressive of the disadvantages our author laboured under. He never saw that part of the coast upon which the French had been in 1772; and he never knew that they had been upon another part of it in 1773, which was the very scene of his own operations. Consequently, what he knew of the former voyage, as delineated upon Crozet's chart, only served to perplex and mislead his judgment; and his total ignorance of the latter put it out of his power to compare his own observations with those then made by Kerguelen; though we, who are better instructed, can do this, by tracing the plainest marks of coincidence and agreement. and on the 21st, in the latitude of 48° 27′ S., and in the longitude of 65° E., a very large seal was seen. We had now much foggy weather, and, as we expected to fall in with the land every hour, our navigation became both tedious and dangerous. At length, on the 24th, at six o'clock in the morning, as we were steering to the eastward, the fog clearing away a little, we saw land*, bearing S.S.E., which, upon a nearer approach, we found to be an island of considerable height, and about three leagues in circuit. Soon after, we saw another of the same magnitude, one league to the eastward ‡ ; and between these two, in the direction of S.E., some smaller ones §. In the direction of S. by E. E., from the E. end of the first island, a third || high island was seen. At times, as the fog broke away, we had the appearance of land over the small islands; and I had thoughts of steering for it, by running in between them. But, on drawing near, I found this would be a dangerous attempt, while the weather continued foggy. For, if there should be no passage, or if we should meet with any sudden danger, it would have been impossible for us to get off; the wind being right astern, and a prodigious sea running, that broke on all the shores in a frightful surf. At the same time, seeing another island in the N.E. direction, and not knowing but that there might be more, I judged it prudent to haul off, and wait for clearer weather, lest we should get entangled amongst unknown lands in a thick fog. We did but just weather the island last mentioned. It is a high round rock, which was named Bligh's Cap. Perhaps this is the same that Monsieur de Kerguelen called the Isle of Rendezvous ¶; but I know nothing that can rendezvous at it, but fowls of the air; for it is certainly inaccessible to every other animal. At eleven o'clock the weather began to clear up, and we immediately tacked, and steered in for the land. At noon we had a pretty good observation, which enabled us to determine the latitude of Bligh's Cap, which is the northernmost island, to be 48° 29′ S., and its longitude 68° 40′ E.** We passed it at three o'clock, standing to the S.S.E., with a fresh gale at W. Soon after we saw the land, of which we had a faint view in the morning; and at four o'clock it extended from S.E. E., to S.W. by S., distant about four miles The left extreme, which I judged to be the northern point of this land called, in the French chart of the southern hemisphere, Cape St. Louistt, terminated in a perpendicular rock of a considerable height; and the right one (near Captain Cook was not the original discoverer of these small islands which he now fell in with. It is certain that they had been seen and named by Kerguelen, on his second voyage, in December, 1773. Their position, relatively to each other, and to the adjoining coasts of the greater land, bears a striking resemblance to Kerguelen's delineation of them. This is the isle to which Kerguelen gave the name of Croy or Crouy. Besides delineating it upon his chart, he has added a particular view of it, exactly corresponding with Captain Cook's account of its being of "considerable height." Kerguelen called this Isle Rolland, after the name of his own ship. There is also a particular view of it on the French chart. The observations of the French and English navigators agree exactly, as to the position of these smaller isles. The situation of Kerguelen's Isle de Clugny, as marked on his chart, shows it to be the "third high island' seen by Captain Cook. ** The French and English agree very nearly (as might be expected) in their accounts of the latitude of this island; but the observations by which they fix its longitude, vary considerably. The pilot at Teneriffe made it only 64° 57′ E. from Paris, which is about 67° 16′ E. from London; or 1° 24' more westerly than Captain Cook's observations fix it. Monsieur de Pagès says it is 66° 47′ E. from Paris, that is 69° 6' E. from London, or twenty-six miles more easterly than it is placed by Captain Cook. Kerguelen himself only says that it is about 68° of E. longitude, par 68° de longitude." + Hitherto, we have only had occasion to supply defects, owing to Captain Cook's entire ignorance of Kerguelen's second voyage in 1773; we must now correct errors, owing to his very limited knowledge of the operations of the first voyage in 1772. The chart of the southern hemisphere, his only guide, having given him, as he tells us, the name of Cape St. Louis (or Cap Louis) as the most northerly promontory then seen by ¶This isle, or rock, was the single point about which the French; and his own observations now satisfying him Captain Cook had received the least information at Tene- that no part of the main land stretched further N. than riffe; and we may observe how sagacious he was in tracing the "left extreme" now before him; from this supposed it. What he could only speak of as probable, a compa- similarity of situation he judged that his own "perpenrison of his chart with that lately published by Kerguelen, dicular rock must be the Cap Louis of the first disproves to be certain; and if he had even read and copied coverers. A comparison of the chart laid down by Capwhat his predecessors in the discovery says of it, he could tain Cook with that published by Kerguelen, shows scarcely have varied his account of its shape. Kerguelen's in the clearest manner that the northern point now words are "Isle de Réunion, qui n'est qu'une roche, described by Captain Cook is the very same to which nous servoit de rendezvous, ou de point de ralliement; the French have given the name of Cap François. et ressemble à un coin de mire." |