which is a detached rock) in a high indented point *. From this point the coast seemed to turn short round to the southward; for we could see no land to the westward of the direction in which it now bore to us, but the islands we had observed in the morning; the most southerly+ of them lying nearly W. from the point, about two or three leagues distant. About the middle of the land there appeared to be an inlet, for which we steered; but, on approaching, found it was only a bending on the coast, and therefore bore up, to go round Cape St. Louist. Soon after, land opened off the Cape, in the direction of S. 53° E., and appeared to be a point at a considerable distance; for the trending of the coast from the Cape was more southerly. We also saw several rocks and islands to the eastward of the above directions, the most distant of which was about seven leagues from the Cape, bearing S. 88° E.§ We had no sooner got off the Cape, than we observed the coast, to the southward, to be much indented by projecting points and bays; so that we now made sure of soon finding a good harbour. Accordingly, we had not run a mile farther, before we discovered one behind the Cape, into which we began to ply; but after making one board, it fell calm, and we anchored at the entrance, in forty-five fathoms water, the bottom black sand; as did the Discovery soon after. I immediately despatched Mr. Bligh, the master, in a boat to sound the harbour; who, on his return, reported it to be safe and commodious, with good anchorage in every part; and great plenty of fresh water, seals, penguins, and other birds, on the shore; but not a stick of wood. While we lay at anchor, we observed that the flood-tide came from the south-east, running two knots, at least, in an hour. At daybreak, in the morning of the 25th, we weighed with a gentle breeze at west; and having wrought into the harbour, to within a quarter of a mile of the sandy beach at its head, we anchored in eight fathoms water, the bottom a fine dark sand. The Discovery did not get in till two o'clock in the afternoon; when Captain Clerke informed me, that he had narrowly escaped being driven on the south point of the harbour, his anchor having started before they had time to shorten in the cable. This obliged them to set sail, and drag the anchor after them, till they had room to heave it up; and then they found one of its palms was broken off. As soon as we had anchored, I ordered all the boats to be hoisted out; the ship to be moored with a kedge-anchor; and the water-casks to be got ready to send on shore. In the mean time I landed, to look for the most convenient spot where they might be filled, and to see what else the place afforded. I found the shore, in a manner, covered with penguins and other birds, and seals. These latter were not numerous, but so insensible of fear (which plainly indicated that they were unaccustomed to such visitors), that we killed as many as we chose, for the sake of their fat or blubber, to make oil for our lamps, and other uses. Fresh water was in no less plenty than were birds; for every gully afforded a large stream. But not a single tree or shrub, nor the least sign of any, was to be discovered, and but very little herbage of any sort. The appearances, as we sailed into the harbour, had flattered us with the hope of meeting with something considerable growing here, as we observed the sides of many of the hills to be of a lively green. But I now found that this was occasioned by a single plant, which, with the other natural productions, shall be described in another place. Before I returned to my ship, I ascended the first ridge of rocks, which rise in a kind of amphitheatre above one another. I was in hopes, by this means, of obtaining a view of the country; but before I reached the top, there came on so thick a fog, that I could hardly find my way down again. In the evening, we hauled the seine at the head of the harbour, but caught only half-a-dozen small fish. We had no better success next day, when we tried with hook and line. So This right extreme of the coast, as it now showed itself to Captain Cook, seems to be what is represented on Kerguelen's chart under the name of Cap Aubert. It may be proper to observe here, that all that extent of coast lying between Cap Louis and Cap François, of which the French saw very little during their first visit in 1772, and may be called the N.W. side of this land, they had it in their power to trace the position of in 1773, and have assigned names to some of its bays, rivers, and promontories, upon their chart. + Kerguelen's Isle de Clugny. Cap François, as already observed. § The observations of the French, round Cap François, remarkably coincide with Captain Cook's in this paragraph; and the rocks and islands here mentioned by him, also appear upon their chart. that our only resource here, for fresh provisions, were birds, of which there was an inexhaustible store. The morning of the 26th proved foggy, with rain. However, we went to work to fill water, and to cut grass for our cattle, which we found in small spots near the head of the harbour. The rain which fell swelled all the rivulets to such a degree, that the sides of the hills bounding the harbour seemed to be covered with a sheet of water. For the rain, as it fell, ran into the fissures and crags of the rocks that composed the interior parts of the hills, and was precipitated down their sides in prodigious torrents. The people having wrought hard the two preceding days, and nearly completed our water, which we filled from a brook at the left corner of the beach, I allowed them the 27th, as a day of rest, to celebrate Christmas. Upon this indulgence, many of them went on shore and made excursions, in different directions, into the country, which they found barren and desolate in the highest degree. In the evening, one of them brought to me a quart-bottle which he had found, fastened with some wire to a projecting rock on the north side of the harbour. This bottle contained a piece of parchment, on which was written the following inscription: LUDOVICO XV. GALLIARUM REGI A SECRETIS AD RES MARITIMAS ANNIS 1772 ET 1773. From this inscription, it is clear, that we were not the first Europeans who had been in this harbour. I supposed it to be left by Monsieur de Boisguehenneu, who went on shore in a boat, on the 13th of February, 1772, the same day that Monsieur de Kerguelen discovered this land; as appears by a note in the French chart of the southern hemisphere, published the following yeart. The D., no doubt, is a contraction of the word Domino. The French Secretary of the Marine was then Monsieur de Boynes. On perusing this paragraph of the Journal, it will be natural to ask, How could Monsieur de Boisguehenneu, in the beginning of 1772, leave an inscription, which, upon the very face of it, commemorates a transaction of the following year! Captain Cook's manner of expressing himself here strongly marks that he made this supposition only for want of information to enable him to make As a memorial of our having been in this harbour, I wrote on the other side of the parchment, NAVES RESOLUTION ET DISCOVERY DE REGE MAGNE BRITANNIE, DECEMBRIS, 1776. I then put it again into a bottle, together with a silver two-penny piece of 1772; and having covered the mouth of the bottle with a leaden cap, I placed it, the next morning, in a pile of stones erected for the purpose, upon a little eminence on the north shore of the harbour, and near to the place where it was first found; in which position it cannot escape the notice of any European, whom chance or design may bring into this port. Here I displayed the British flag, and named the place Christmas Harbour, from our having arrived in it on that festival. It is the first, or northernmost inlet that we meet with on the south-east side of Cape St. Louis *, which forms the north side of the harbour, and is also the northern point of this land. The situation alone is sufficient to distinguish it from any of the other inlets; and, to make it more remarkable, its south point terminates in a high rock, which is perforated quite through, so as to appear like the arch of a bridge. We saw none like this upon the whole coast +. The harbour has another distinguishing mark within, from a single stone or any other. He had no idea that the French had visited this land a second time; and, reduced to the necessity of trying to accommodate what he saw himself to what little he had heard of their proceedings, he confounds a transaction which we, who have been better instructed, know, for a certainty, belongs to the second voyage, with a similar one, which his chart of the Southern Hemisphere has recorded, and which happened in a different year, and at a different place. The bay, indeed, in which Monsieur de Boisguehenneu landed is upon the west side of this land, considerably to the south of Cape Louis, and not far from another more southerly promontory, called Cape Bourbon; a part of the coast which our ships were not upon. A particular view of the Bay du Lion Marin (for so Boisguehenneu called it), with the soundings, is preserved by Kerguelen. But if the bottle and inscription, found by Captain Cook's people, were not left here by Boisguehenneu, by whom and when were they left? This we learn most satisfactorily, from the accounts of Kerguelen's second voyage, as published by himself and Monsieur de Pagès, which present us with the following particulars :-That they arrived on the west side of this land on the 14th of December, 1773; that, steering to the north-east, they discovered, on the 16th, the Isle de Réunion, and the other small islands as mentioned above; that, on the 17th, they had before them the principal land (which they were sure was connected with that seen by them on the 14th), and a high point of that land named by them Cap François; that beyond this Cape the coast took a south-easterly direction, and behind it they found a bay, called by them Baie de l'Oiseau, from the name of their frigate; that they then endeavoured to enter it, but were prevented by contrary winds and blowing weather, which drove them off the coast eastward; but that, at last, on the 6th of January, Monsieur de Rosnevet, Captain of the Oiseau, was able to send his boat on shore into this bay, under the command of Monsieur de Rochegude, one of his officers, "who took possession of that bay, and of all that country, in the name of the King of France, with all the requisite formalities." Here, then, we trace, by the most unexceptionable evience, the history of the bottle and inscription; the leavof which was, no doubt, one of the requisite formalities ved by Monsieur de Rochegude on this occasion. And though he did not land till the 6th of January 1774, yet, as Kerguelen's ships arrived upon the coast on the 14th of December, 1773, and had discovered and looked into this very bay on the 17th of that mouth, it was with the strictest propriety and truth that 1773, and not 1774 was mentioned as the date of the discovery. We need only look at Kerguelen's and Cook's charts, to judge that the Baie de l'Oiseau, and the harbour where the French inscription was found, is one and the same place. But besides this agreement as to the general position, the same conclusion results more decisively still, from another circumstance worth mentioning: the French, as well as the English visitors of this bay and harbour, have given us a particular plan of it; and whoever compares ours, published in this volume, with that to be met with in Kerguelen's and De Pagès' voyages, must be struck with a resemblance that could only be produced by copying one common original with fidelity. Nay, even the soundings are the same upon the same spots in both plans, being forty-five fathoms between the two Capes, before the entrance of the bay; sixteen fathoms further in, where the shores begin to contract; and eight fathoms up, near the bottom of the harbour. To these particulars, which throw abundant light on this part of our author's Journal, I shall only add, that the distance of our harbour from that where Boisguehenneu landed, in 1772, is forty leagues. For this we have the authority of Kerguelen, in the following passage:-"Monsieur de Boisguehenneu descendit le 13 de Février, 1772, dans un baie, qu'il nomme Baie du Lion Marin, et prit possession de cette terre au nom de Roi; il n'y vit aucune trace d'habitants. Monsieur de Rochegude, en 1774, a descendu dans un autre baie, que nous avons nommé Baie de l'Oiseau, et cette seconde rade est à quarantes lieues de la première. Il en a également pris possession, et il n'y trouva également aucune trace d'habitants."-Kerguelen, p. 92. Cap François, for reasons already assigned. + If there could be the least doubt remaining of the identity of the Baie de l'Oiseau, and Christmas Harbour, the circumstance of the perforated rock, which divides it from another bay to the south, would amount to a strict demonstration. For Monsieur de Pagès had observed this discriminating mark before Captain Cook. His words are as follow:-"L'on vit que la côte de l'est, rock, of a vast size, which lies on the top of a hill on the south side, near its bottom; and opposite this, on the north side, there is another hill, much like it, but smaller. There is a small beach at its bottom, where we commonly landed; and, behind it, some gently rising ground, on the top of which is a large pool of fresh water. The land on both sides of the inlet is high, and it runs in west, and W.N.W., about two miles. Its breadth is one mile and a quarter, for more than half its length; above which, it is only half a mile. The depth of water, which is forty-five fathoms at the entrance, varies, as we proceed farther in, from thirty to five and four fathoms, as marked upon the plan. The shores are steep; and the bottom is everywhere a fine dark sand, except in some places close to the shore, where there are beds of sea-weed, which always grows on rocky ground. The head of the harbour lies open only to two points of the compass; and even these are covered by islands in the offing, so that no sea can fall in to hurt a ship. The appearances on shore confirmed this; for we found grass growing close to high-water mark, which is a sure sign of a pacific harbour*. It is high water here, at the full and change days, about ten o'clock; and the tide rises and falls about four feet. After I had finished this business of the inscription, I went, in my boat, round the harbour, and landed in several places, to examine what the shore afforded; and, particularly, to look for drift-wood. For, although the land here was totally destitute of trees, this might not be the case in other parts; and if there were any, the torrents would force some, or, at least, some branches, into the sea, which would afterward throw them upon the shores; as in all other countries where there is wood, and in many where there is none; but throughout the whole extent of the harbour I found not a single piece. In the afternoon I went upon Cape St. Louis †, accompanied by Mr. King, my second lieutenant. I was in hopes, from this elevation, to have had a view of the sea-coast, and of the islands lying off it. But, when I got up, I found every distant object below me hid in a thick fog. The land on the same plain, or of a greater height, was visible enough, and appeared naked and desolate in the highest degree; except some hills to the southward, which were covered with snow. When I got on board, I found the launch hoisted in, the ships unmoored, and ready to put to sea; but our sailing was deferred till five o'clock the next morning, when we weighed anchor. voisine du Cap François, avoit deux baies; elles étoient séparées par une pointe très-reconnoissable par sa forme, qui représentoit une porte cochère, au travers de laquelle l'on voyait le jour."-Voyage du M. de Pagès, vol. ii. p. 67. Every one knows how exactly the form of a porte cochère, or arched gateway, corresponds with that of the arch of a bridge. It is very satisfactory to find the two navigators, neither of whom knew anything of the other's description, adopting the same idea; which both proves that they had the same uncommon object before their eyes, and that they made an accurate report. In the last note, we saw how remarkably Monsieur de Pages and Captain Cook agree about the appearance of the south point of the harbour; I shall here subjoin another quotation from the former, containing his account of the harbour itself, in which the reader may trace the same distinguishing features observed by Captain Cook in the foregoing paragraph. "Le 6, l'on mit à terre dans la première baie à l'est du Cap François, et l'on prit possession de ces contrées. Ce mouillage consiste en une petite rade, qui a environs quatres encablures, ou quatre cents toises de profondeur, sur un tiers en sus de largeur. En dedans de cette rade † Cap François. CHAPTER V. DEPARTURE DISCOVER ITS FROM CHRISTMAS HARBOUR.-RANGE ALONG THE COAST, ΤΟ POSITION AND EXTENT. —SEVERAL PROMONTORIES AND BAYS, AND A PENINSULA, DESCRIBED AND NAMED.—DANGER FROM SHOALS. —ANOTHER HARBOUR AND A SOUND. — MR. ANDERSON'S OBSERVATIONS ON THE NATURAL PRODUCTIONS, ANIMALS, SOIL, ETC. OF KERGUELEN'S LAND. As soon as the ships were out of Christmas Harbour, we steered S.E. S., along the coast, with a fine breeze at N.N.W., and clear weather. This we thought the more fortunate, as, for some time past, fogs had prevailed, more or less, every day; and the continuance of them would have defeated our plan of extending Kerguelen's discovery. We kept the lead constantly going, but seldom struck ground with a line of fifty or sixty fathoms. About seven or eight o'clock, we were off a promontory, which I called Cape Cumberland. It lies a league and a half from the south point of Christmas Harbour, in the direction of S. E. S. Between them is a bay with two arms, both of which seemed to afford good shelter for shipping. Off Cape Cumberland is a small but pretty high island, on the summit of which is a rock like a sentry-box, which occasioned our giving that name to the island. Two miles farther to the eastward, lies a group of small islands and rocks, with broken ground about them; we sailed between these and Sentry-Box Island, the channel being a full mile broad, and more than forty fathoms deep; for we found no bottom with that length of line. Being through this channel, we discovered, on the south side of Cape Cumberland, a bay, running in three leagues to the westward. It is formed by this cape to the N., and by a promontory to the S., which I named Point Pringle, after my good friend Sir John Pringle, President of the Royal Society. The bottom of this bay was called Cumberland Bay; and it seemed to be disjoined from the sea, which washes the N.W. coast of this country, by a narrow neck of land. Appearances, at least, favoured such a conjecture. To the southward of Point Pringle, the coast is formed into a fifth bay; of which this point is the northern extreme; and from it to the southern extreme is about four miles in the direction of S.S.E. E. In this bay, which obtained the name of White Bay, on account of some white spots of land or rocks in the bottom of it, are several lesser bays or coves, which seemed to be sheltered from all winds. Off the S. point are several rocks which raise their heads above water, and, probably, many more that do not. Thus far our course was in a direction parallel to the coast, and not more than two miles from it. Thither our glasses were continually pointed; and we could easily see that, except the bottoms of the bays and coves, which, for the most part, terminated in sandy beaches, the shores were rocky, and, in many places, swarmed with birds; but the country had the same barren and naked appearance as in the neighbourhood of Christmas Harbour. We had kept on our larboard bow the land which first opened off Cape St. Louis *, in the direction of S. 53° E., thinking that it was an island, and that we should find a passage between it and the main. We now discovered this to be a mistake, and found that it was a peninsula, joined to the rest of the coast by a low isthmus. I called the bay, formed by this peninsula, Repulse Bay; and a branch of it seemed to run a good way inland towards the S.S.W. Leaving this, we steered for the northern point of the peninsula, which we named Howe's Foreland, in honour of Admiral Lord Howe. As we drew near it, we perceived some rocks and breakers near the N.W. part, and two islands a league and a half to the eastward of it, which, at first, appeared as one. I steered between them and the Foreland +, and was in the middle of the channel by noon. At that time our latitude, by observation, was 48° 51' S., and we had made twenty-six miles of E. longitude from Cape St. Louis. *Cap François. Though Kerguelen's ships, in 1773, did not venture to explore this part of the coast, Monsieur de Pagés' account of it answers well to Captain Cook's. "Du 17 au 23, l'on ne prit d'autre connoissance que celle de la figure ale la côte, qui, courant d'abord au S.E., et revenant ensuite au N.E., formoit un grand golfe. Il étoit occupé par des brisans et des rochers; il avoit aussi une isle basse, et assez étendue, et l'on usa d'une bien soigneuse précaution, pour ne pas s'affaler dans ce golfe."-Voyage de M. de Pagés, tom. ii. p. 67. Cap François. |