At the close of the fourteenth century Pigafetta published the account of the journey of Duarte Lopez, ambassador from the King of Congo to the Courts of Rome and Lisbon. A map which accompanies this narrative presents to us a Lake Zambre, in the very place occupied by Lake Tanganyika, and more to the west, Lake Acque Lunda, from whence issued the Congo River; south of the equator two lakes are indicated, one the Lake of the Nile, the other, more to the east, bears the name of Colue; they appear to be the Albert and the Victoria Nyanza. This most curious information was rejected by the geographers of the nineteenth century, who left blank the whole interior of Africa.

Upon the West Coast of Africa at the mouth of the Senegal, the French had established settlements which, under the skilful administration of Andrew Brue, speedily received considerable extension. Brue, Commandant for the King and Director-general of the Royal French Company upon the Senegal Coast and in other parts of Africa—so ran his official title—although he may be little known, and the article which treats of him may be one of the most curtailed in the great collections of biography, deserves to occupy one of the most prominent positions among colonizers and explorers. Not content with extending the colony as far as its present limits, he explored countries which have been only lately revisited by Lieutenant Mage, or which have not been visited at all since Brue's time. He carried the French outposts eastwards above the junction of the Senegal and the Faleme, northwards as far as Arguin, which we have since abandoned, although reserving our rights, and southwards as far as the island of Bissao. He explored in the interior Galam and Bambouk, so rich in gold, and collected the earliest documents concerning the Pouls, Peuls or Fouls, the Yoloffs and the Mussulmen, who coming from the north, attempted the religious conquest of all the black nations of the country. The information thus collected by Brue about the history and migrations of these various people, is of the greatest value, affording clear light, even in the present day, to the geographer and the historian. Not only has Brue left us the narrative of deeds of which he was witness and the description of the places which he visited, but we also owe to him much information about the productions of the countries, the plants, the animals, and all the objects which would give occasion for commercial or industrial enterprise. These most curious documents, put together very maladroitly it must be confessed, by Father Labat, formed the subject, a few years ago, of a very interesting work by M. Berlioux.

To the south-east of Africa, during the first half of the seventeenth century, the French founded some commercial settlements in Madagascar, an island long known under the name of St. Lawrence. They build Fort Dauphin under the administration of M. de Flacourt; several unknown districts of the island are explored as well as the neighbouring islands upon the coast; the Mascarene Islands are occupied in 1649. Although firm and moderate towards his countrymen, De Flacourt did not use the same self-control towards the natives; he even brought about a general revolt, as a consequence of which he was recalled. Expeditions into the interior of Madagascar were henceforth very rare, and it is not until the present day that we find a thorough exploration carried out.

Of Indo-China and Thibet the only information which reached Europe during the whole of the seventeenth century was due to the missionaries. Such names as Father Alexandre de Rhodes, Ant. d'Andrada, Avril, Benedict Goes, may not be passed over in silence. In their Annual Letters is to be found a quantity of information, which even in the present day retains a real interest, as concerning regions so long closed against Europeans. In Cochin China and Tonkin, Father Tachard devoted himself to astronomical observations, of which the result was to prove by the most conclusive evidence the great errors in the longitudes given by Ptolemy. This called the attention of the learned world to the necessity of a reform in the graphic representation of the countries of the extreme east, and for attaining this end, to the absolute need of close observations made by specially qualified scientific men, or by navigators familiar with astronomical calculations. The country which especially attracted the missionaries was China, that enormous and populous empire, which ever since the arrival of Europeans in India, had persevered with the greatest strictness in the absurd policy of abstention from any intercourse whatsoever with foreigners. It was not until the close of the sixteenth century that the missionaries obtained the permission, so often demanded before in vain, to penetrate into the Middle Empire. Their knowledge of mathematics and astronomy facilitated their settlement and enabled them to gather, as well from the ancient annals of the country, as during their journies, a prodigious quantity of most valuable information concerning the history, ethnography, and geography of the Celestial Empire. Fathers Mendoza, Ricci, Trigault, Visdelou, Lecomte, Verbiest, Navarrete, Schall, and Martini, deserve especial mention for having carried to China the arts and sciences of Europe, while they diffused in the west the first accurate and precise information upon the unprogressive civilization of the Flowery Land.

II. MISSIONARIES AND SETTLERS. MERCHANTS AND TOURISTS.

The Dutch in the Spice Islands—Lemaire and Schouten—Tasman— Mendana—Queiros and Torres—Pyrard de Laval—Pietro della Valle— Tavernier—Thevenot—Bernier—Robert Knox—Chardin—De Bruyn— Kaempfer.

The Dutch were not slow in perceiving the weakness and decadence of the Portuguese power in Asia. They felt with how much ease a clever and prudent nation might in a short time become possessed of the whole commerce of the extreme East. After a considerable number of private expeditions and voyages of reconnaissance they had founded in 1602 that celebrated Company of the Indies which was destined to raise to so high a pitch the wealth and prosperity of the metropolis. Equally in its strife with the Portuguese as in its dealing with the natives, the Company pursued a very skilful policy of moderation. Far from founding colonies, or repairing and occupying the fortresses which they took from the Portuguese, the Dutch bore themselves as simple traders, exclusively occupied with their commerce. They avoided building any fortified factory, except at the intersection of the great commercial roads. Thus they were able in a short time to seize all the carrying trade between India, China, Japan, and Oceania. The one fault committed by the all-powerful Company was the concentrating in its own hands a monopoly of the trade in spices. It drove away the foreigners who had settled in the Moluccas or in the Islands of Sunda, or who came thither to obtain a cargo of spices; it even went the length, in order to raise the price of this valuable commodity, of proscribing the cultivation of certain species in a large number of islands, and of forbidding, under pain of death, the exportation and sale of seeds and cuttings of the spice-producing trees. In a few years the Dutch were established in Java, Sumatra, Borneo, the Moluccas, and at the Cape of Good Hope, harbours the best placed for ships returning to Europe.

It was at this time that a rich merchant of Amsterdam, Jacob Lemaire, in concert with a skilful mariner, named Wilhem Cornelis Schouten, conceived a project for reaching the Indies by a new route. The Dutch States-General had in fact forbidden any subject of the United Provinces, not in the pay of the Company of the Indies, from going to the Spice Islands by way of the Cape of Good Hope or of the Strait of Magellan. Schouten, according to some, Lemaire, according to others, had formed the idea of eluding this interdict by seeking a passage to the south of Magellan's Strait. This much is certain, that Lemaire bore one half of the expense of the expedition, while Schouten, by the aid of several merchants whose names have been handed down to us, and who filled the chief offices in the town of Hoorn, provided the other half. They fitted out the Concorde, a vessel of 360 tons, and a yacht, carrying together a crew of sixty-five men, and twenty-nine cannon. This was certainly an equipment but little in accordance with the magnitude of the enterprise. But Schouten was a skilful mariner, the crew had been carefully chosen, and the vessels were abundantly furnished with provisions and spare rigging. Lemaire was commissioner, and Schouten the captain of the ship. The destination was kept secret, and officers and crew entered into an unlimited engagement to go wherever they might be led. On the 25th June, 1615, eleven days after quitting the Texel, and when there was no longer anything to be feared from indiscretion, the crews were assembled to listen to the reading of an order which ran as follows: "The two vessels would seek another passage than that of Magellan, by which to enter the South Sea, and to discover there certain southern countries, in the hope of obtaining enormous profits from them, and if heaven should not favour this design, they would repair by means of the same sea to the East Indies." This declaration was received with enthusiasm by the whole crew, who were animated, like all Dutchmen of that period, with a love for great discoveries.

The route then usually pursued for reaching South America—as may perhaps have been already observed—followed the African coasts as far as below the equator. The Concorde did not try to deviate from it; she reached the shores of Brazil, Patagonia, and Port Desire, at 300 miles to the north of the Strait of Magellan, but was for several days hindered by storms from entering the harbour. The yacht even remained for the space of one whole tide, aground and lying on her side, but high water set her afloat again; only for a short time however, for whilst some repairs were being done to her keel, her rigging took fire, and she was consumed in spite of the energetic efforts of the two crews. On the 13th January, 1616, Lemaire and Schouten arrived at the Sebaldine Islands, discovered by Sebald de Weerdt, and followed the coast of Tierra del Fuego at a short distance from land. The coast ran east-quarter-south-east, and was skirted by high mountains covered with snow. On the 24th of January at mid-day, they sighted its extreme point, but eastward stretched some more land, which also appeared to be of great elevation. The distance between these two islands, according to the general opinion, appeared to be about twenty-four miles, and Schouten entered the strait which divided them. It was so encumbered with whales that the ship was obliged to tack more than once to avoid them. The island to the east received the name of Staten Island, and that to the west the name of Maurice of Nassau.



Twenty-four hours after entering this strait, which received the name of Lemaire, the ship emerged from it, and to an archipelago of small islands situated to starboard was given the name of Barneveldt, in honour of the Grand Pensionary of Holland. In 58 degrees Lemaire doubled Cape Horn—so named in remembrance of the town where the expedition had been fitted out—and entered the South Sea. Lemaire afterwards went northwards as far as the parallel of the Juan Fernandez Islands, where he judged it wise to stop, in order to recruit his men who were suffering from scurvy. As Magellan had done, Lemaire and Schouten passed without perceiving them amongst the principal Polynesian archipelagos, and cast anchor on the 10th April, at the Island of Dogs, where it was only possible to procure a little fresh water and some herbs. They hoped to reach the Solomon Islands, but in the north the Dangerous Archipelago was entered, in which were discovered Waterland Island—so named on account of its containing a great lake—and Fly Island, because a cloud of these insects settled upon the vessel, and it was impossible to get rid of them until at the end of four days there was a change of wind. Afterwards Lemaire crossed the Friendly Archipelago, and entered that of the Navigators, or of Samoa, of which four small islands still retain the names which were then given to them: Goed Hoep, Cocoa, Horn, and Traitors' Islands. The inhabitants of these parts showed themselves extremely addicted to stealing; they tried to draw out the bolts from the ship and to break the chains. Scurvy continued to prevail among the crew, and it was therefore a great boon to receive from the king a present of a black boar and some fruits. The sovereign, who was named Latou, speedily arrived in a large canoe with sails, in shape like the Dutch sledges (trainaux), escorted by a flotilla of five and twenty boats. The king did not venture himself to go on board the Concorde, but his son was of a bolder spirit, and inquired the reason of everything he saw with the most lively curiosity. The next day the number of canoes was greatly augmented, and the Dutch perceived by certain indications that an attack was impending. Accordingly, a shower of stones falls on a sudden upon the ship, the canoes approach nearer, become annoying, and the Dutch to free themselves from them are forced to resort to a discharge of musketry. This island was rightly named Traitors' Island.

It was now the 18th of May, and Lemaire ordered the course to be changed, that the Moluccas might be reached by the north of New Guinea. He probably passed within sight of the Solomon Archipelago, the Admiralty Islands, and the Thousand Islands (Mille Iles), coasting afterwards along New Guinea from 143 degrees to Geelwink Bay. He frequently landed, and gave names to a number of points: the twenty-five islands which form a part of the Admiralty Archipelago, the High Corner, the High Mountain (Hoogberg)—which seems to correspond to a portion of the neighbouring coast of Kornelis-Kinerz Bay—Moa and Arimoa, two islands again seen later on by Tasman, the island to which was given the name of Schouten, but which is now called Mysore and which must not be confounded with some other Schouten Islands situated upon the Coast of Guinea but much farther to the west, and finally the Cape Goede-Hoep, which appears to be Cape Saavedra at the western extremity of Mysore. After sighting the country of Papua, Schouten and Lemaire reached Gilolo, one of the Moluccas, where they received an eager welcome from their compatriots.

When they were thoroughly rested from their fatigues and cured of scurvy, the Dutch went to Batavia, arriving there on the 23rd October, 1616, only thirteen months after quitting the Texel, and having lost only thirteen men during the long voyage. But the Company of the Indies did not at all understand their privileges being infringed upon, and a possibility discovered of reaching the colonies by a way not foreseen in the letters patent which had been granted to the Company at the time of its establishment. The Governor caused the Concorde to be seized, and arrested her officers and sailors, whom he sent off to Holland, there to be tried. Poor Lemaire, who had expected a totally different recompense for his toils and fatigues, and for the discoveries which he had made, could not bear up under the blow which had fallen so unexpectedly upon him; he fell ill of grief and died in the latitude of the island of Mauritius. As for Schouten, he appears not to have been molested upon his return to his own country, and to have made several voyages to the Indies, which were not distinguished by any fresh discovery. He was returning to Europe in 1625, when he was forced by bad weather to enter Antongil Bay, upon the east coast of Madagascar, where he died.

Such was the history of this important expedition, which by means of Strait Lemaire opened up a shorter and less dangerous route than that by Magellan's Strait, an expedition signalized by several discoveries in Oceania, and by a more attentive exploration of points already seen by Spanish or Portuguese navigators. But it is often a matter of difficulty to settle with accuracy to which of these nations the discovery of certain islands, countries, or archipelagos in the neighbourhood of Australia, may be due.

Since we are speaking of the Dutch, we shall put the chronological order of discoveries a little on one side, that we may relate as well as those of Mendana and Quiros, the expeditions of Jan Abel Tasman.

What was the early history of Tasman, by what concurrence of circumstances did he embrace the profession of a sailor, by what means did he acquire the nautical skill and science of which he gave so many proofs, and which conducted him to his important discoveries? From ignorance we cannot answer these questions, all we know of his biography commences with his departure from Batavia on 2nd June, 1639. After passing the Philippines, he would seem during this first voyage to have visited in company with Matthew Quast the Bonin Islands, then known by the fantastic title of "the Gold and Silver Islands."

In a second expedition, composed of two vessels of which he had the chief command, and which sailed from Batavia on the 14th of August, 1642, he reached the Mauritius on the 5th September, and afterwards sailed to the south-east, seeking for the Australian Continent. On the 24th November in latitude 42 degrees 25 minutes south, he discovered land, to which he gave the name of Van-Diemen, after the Governor of the Sunda Islands, but which is now with much greater justice called Tasmania. He anchored there in Fredrik Hendrik Bay, and ascertained that the country was inhabited, although he could not see a single native.

After following this coast for a certain time, he sailed eastwards, with the intention of afterwards making once more for the north, to reach the Solomon Archipelago. On the 13th December, in latitude 42 degrees 10 minutes, he came in sight of a mountainous country which he followed towards the north, until the 18th December, when he cast anchor in a bay; but even the boldest of the savages whom he met with there, did not approach the ship within a stone's throw. Their voices were rough, their stature tall, their colour brown inclining to yellow, and their black hair, which was nearly as long as that of the Japanese, was worn drawn up to the crown of the head. On the morrow they summoned courage to go on board one of the vessels and carry on traffic by means of barter. Tasman, upon seeing these pacific dispositions, despatched a boat for the purpose of obtaining a more accurate knowledge of the shore. Of the sailors who manned it, three were killed without provocation by the natives, while the others escaped by swimming, and were picked up by the ships' boats, but by the time they were in readiness to fire upon the assailants, these had disappeared. The spot where this sad event happened, received the name of Assassins' (Moordenaars) Bay. Tasman, who felt convinced that he could not carry on any intercourse with such fierce people, weighed anchor and sailed up the coast as far as its extreme point, which he named Cape Maria Van-Diemen, in honour of his "lady," for a legend states that having had the audacity to pretend to the hand of the daughter of the governor of the East Indies, the latter had sent him to sea with two dilapidated ships, the Heemskerke and the Zeechen.



The land thus discovered received the name of Staaten Land, soon changed into that of New Zealand. On the 21st January, 1643, Tasman discovered the islands of Amsterdam and Rotterdam, upon which he found a great quantity of pigs, fowls, and fruit. On the 6th February, the ships entered an archipelago, consisting of a score of islands, which were called Prince William Islands, and after sighting Anthong-Java, Tasman followed the coast of New Guinea from Cape Santa Maria, passed by the various points previously discovered by Lemaire and Schouten, and anchored off Batavia on the 15th June following, after a ten months' voyage.

In a second expedition, Tasman, in obedience to his orders dated 1664, was to visit Van Diemen's Land, and to make a careful examination of the western coast of New Guinea, as far as 17 degrees south latitude, in order to ascertain whether that island belonged to the Australian Continent. It does not appear that Tasman carried out this programme, but the loss of his journals causes complete uncertainty as to the route which he followed, and the discoveries which he may have made. From this time there is no record of the events which marked the close of his career, nor of the place and date of his death.

From the period of the taking of Malacca by Albuquerque, the Portuguese conceived that a new world extended to the south of Asia. Their ideas were soon shared by the Spaniards, and henceforward a series of voyages were made on the Pacific Ocean, to search for a southern continent, of which the existence appeared geographically necessary to counterbalance the immense extent of the lands already known. Java the Great, designated later by the names of New Holland and Australia, had been seen by the French perhaps, or as is more probable by Saavedra, from 1530 to 1540, and it was sought for by a crowd of navigators, amongst whom we may mention the Portuguese, Serrao and Meneses, and the Spaniards, Saavedra, Hernando de Grijalva, Alvarado, and Inigo Ortiz de Retes, who explored the greater part of the islands to the north of New Guinea, as well as that great island itself. Afterwards come Mendana, Torres, and Quiros, upon whose deeds we shall pause a little, on account of the importance and authenticity of the discoveries which we owe to them.

Alvaro Mendana de Neyra was nephew to the Governor of Lima, Don Pedro de Castro, who warmly advocated with the home government his nephew's project of searching for new countries in the Pacific Ocean. Mendana was one-and-twenty when he took the command of two ships and one hundred and twenty-five soldiers and sailors. He sailed from Callao, the port of Lima, on the 19th November, 1567. After sighting the small Island of Jesus, he discovered on the 7th February between 7 degrees and 8 degrees south latitude, the Island of Santa Isabella, where the Spaniards built a brigantine, with which they explored the archipelago of which this island was a part. "The inhabitants," says the narrative of a companion of Mendana, "are anthropophagi, they devour those whom they can make their prisoners in war, and even without being in open hostility, those whom they can succeed in taking by treachery." One of the chiefs in the island sent to Mendana as a delicacy, a quarter of a child, but the Spanish commander caused it to be buried in the presence of the natives, who appeared much hurt by an act which they could not understand. The Spaniards explored the Island las Palmas (Palm Island), los Ramos—so named because it was discovered on Palm Sunday—Galley Island, and Buena-Vista, of which the inhabitants, under the appearance of friendship concealed hostile intentions, which were not long in displaying themselves. The same reception awaited the Spaniards at the Island San Dimas, at Sesarga, and at Guadalcanar, upon which ginger was found for the first time. In the return voyage to Santa Isabella, the Spaniards pursued a course which enabled them to discover St. George Island, where they found bats as large as kites. Scarcely had the crew of the brigantine cast anchor in the harbour of Santa Isabella, than they were obliged again to weigh it, for the place was so unhealthy that five soldiers died and a great number of others were taken ill. Mendana stopped at the Island of Guadalcanar, where out of ten men who had landed to fetch water, one negro alone escaped from the attacks of the natives, who were extremely angry at one of their fellows having been carried off by the Spaniards. The punishment was terrible; twenty men were killed and a number of houses burnt. Mendana afterwards visited several islands of the Solomon archipelago, amongst others the Three Maries and San Juan. Upon the latter island, whilst the ships were being repaired and calked, several affrays with the natives occurred, in which some prisoners were made. After this checkered rest, Mendana again put to sea, and visited the islands of San Christoval, Santa Catalina, and Santa Anna. But as by this time the number of invalids was considerable, the provisions and ammunition nearly exhausted, and the rigging become rotten, the flotilla now set out to return to Peru. The separation of the flagship, the discovery of certain islands which it is difficult to identify, and probably of the Sandwich Islands; violent storms, during which the sails were carried away; the sickness caused by the insufficiency and putrefaction of the water and biscuit on board, were all incidents signalizing this long and trying return voyage, which was ended by the arrival of the ships at the port of Colima in California after five months of navigation.

The narrative of Mendana excited no enthusiasm, in spite of the name of Solomon which he gave to the archipelago discovered by him, to make it believed that from thence came the treasures of the Jewish King. Marvellous recitals had no longer any fascination for men glutted with the riches of Peru. Proofs were what they demanded; the smallest nugget of gold, or the least grain of silver would have been more satisfactory to them.

Mendana had twenty-seven years to wait before he was able to organize another expedition, but then his fleet was a large one, it being proposed to found a colony in the island of San Christoval which Alvaro de Mendana had seen during his first voyage. Thus four ships carrying nearly four hundred people sailed from the port of Lima on the 11th April, 1595. Amongst those on board may be named Dona Isabella, wife of Mendana, the three brothers-in-law of the general, and the pilot Pedro Fernandez Quiros, who later on distinguished himself as commander-in-chief of another expedition. The fleet did not finally leave the Peruvian coast, where its equipment had been completed, until the 16th April. At the end of a month's navigation, not distinguished by any remarkable incident, an island was discovered, which according to custom received the name of the saint whose day it was, and was called Magdalena. Immediately the fleet was surrounded by a crowd of canoes bearing more than four hundred Indians, of fine stature and nearly white, and who while presenting cocoa-nuts and other fruits to the sailors, appeared to entreat them to disembark. The natives no sooner came on board than they began to pilfer, and it was necessary to fire a cannon to get rid of them; a wound which one of the natives received in the fray soon changed their disposition, and a discharge of musketry was the reply to the shower of arrows which they let fly from their boats. Not far from this island three others were discovered, San Pedro, Dominica, and Santa Christina, and the name of las Marquezas de Mendoca was given to the group, in honour of the governor of Peru. So friendly had been the intercourse at the beginning, that an Indian woman upon seeing the beautiful fair hair of Dona Isabella de Mendana had begged her by signs to give her a curl of it; but by the fault of the Spaniards the mutual relations speedily became hostile, and so continued until the day when the natives, becoming conscious of the great inferiority of their arms, begged for peace.

On the 5th August the Spanish flotilla again put to sea and made 1200 miles west-north-west. On the 20th August were discovered the St. Bernard, since called Dangerous Islands, and afterwards Queen Charlotte's Islands, upon which notwithstanding the scarcity of provisions, no landing was made. After Solitary Island—a name which explains its situation—the Santa Cruz archipelago was reached. But at this time, during a storm, the flagship became separated from the fleet, and although search was made several times, no tidings of her were obtained. Fifty canoes, carrying a crowd of natives of a tawny complexion, or of a lustrous black, immediately approached the ships. "All had frizzled hair, black, red, or some other colour (for it was dyed); their teeth also were dyed red; the head was half shaven, the body was naked, except a small veil of fine linen, the face and the arms painted black, glittering and striped with various colours; the neck and limbs loaded with several strings of small beads, of gold, or of black wood, of fishes' teeth, or of a species of medals made of mother of pearl, or of pearls." For arms they carried bows, poisoned arrows with sharp points hardened in the fire, or tipped with bone and steeped in the juice of a herb, great stones, heavy wooden swords made of stiff wood, with three harpoon points, each more than a handbreadth long. Slung over their shoulders they had haversacks exceedingly well made out of palm leaves, and filled with biscuits made from certain roots which serve them for food.



At first Mendana thought he recognized in these natives the inhabitants of the islands he was seeking, but he was quickly undeceived. The vessels were received with a shower of arrows, which was the more vexatious because Mendana, seeing that he could not find the Solomon Islands, had determined to establish his colony in this archipelago. At this juncture, discord reigned among the Spaniards; a revolt fomented against the general was almost immediately suppressed, and the guilty were executed. But these sorrowful events and the fatigues of the voyage had so completely undermined the health of the head of the expedition, that he died on the 17th October, after having had time to indicate his wife as his successor in the conduct of the enterprise. After the death of Mendana the hostilities with the natives redoubled, and many of the Spaniards were so exhausted by sickness and hardships, that a score of thoroughly determined natives might easily have gained the mastery over them. To persist in the intention of founding a settlement under such conditions would have been folly; all agreed in this, and the anchor was raised on the 18th November. Dona Isabella de Mendana's project was to go to Manilla, and there to obtain recruits from amongst the colonists, with whom she would return to found a settlement. She consulted the officers, who all gave their approval in writing; and she found in Quiros a devotion and skill which were speedily to be put to a severe proof. They at once steered away from New Guinea, in order to avoid being entangled amongst the numerous archipelagos surrounding it, and also to enable them sooner to reach the Philippines, which the dilapidated state of the ships rendered necessary. After passing within sight of several islands surrounded by reefs of madrepore, upon which the crews wished to land, a permission which Quiros with great prudence always refused, after having been separated from one of the ships of the squadron, which could not or would not follow, the flotilla arrived at the Ladrone—soon to be called the Marianne—Islands. The Spaniards went on shore several times to buy some provisions; the natives did not desire either their silver or gold, but set the highest value upon iron and all tools made of that metal. The narrative contains here some details upon the veneration shown by the natives towards their ancestors, which are curious enough to warrant our reproducing them verbatim: "They take out the bones from the bodies of their relations, burn the flesh, and mixing the ashes with tuba, a wine made from the cocoa palm, swallow them. They weep for the dead every year for a whole week; there are a great number of female mourners, who are to be hired for the purpose. Besides that, all the neighbours come to weep in the house of the deceased; the compliment being returned to them when the turn comes for the feast to take place at their house. These anniversaries are much frequented, all those assisting at them being liberally regaled. They weep all day and drink to intoxication all night. They recite in the midst of tears, the life and deeds of the dead, beginning with the moment of his birth, and dealing with the whole course of his life, recounting his strength, his height, his beauty, in a word, all that can in any way do him honour. If some amusing action occur in the recital, the company begin to laugh as if they would split their sides; then on a sudden they drink and are again drowned in tears. There are sometimes two hundred persons present at these absurd anniversaries." When the Spanish crew arrived at the Philippines, it was scarcely more than a company of skeletons, emaciated and half dead with hunger. Dona Isabella landed at Manilla on the 11th February, 1596, under a salute from the guns, and was solemnly received in the midst of the troops drawn up under arms. The rest of the crew, fifty having died since the departure from Santa Cruz, were housed and fed at the public expense, and the women all found husbands in Manilla, except four or five who embraced the religious life. As for Dona Isabella, she was escorted back to Peru some time afterwards by Quiros, who lost no time in submitting to the viceroy a project for a fresh voyage. But Luis de Velasco, who had succeeded Mendoza, referred the navigator to the King of Spain and the Council of the Indies, under the pretext that such a decision would overstep the limits of his authority. Quiros therefore went to Spain and thence to Rome, where he received a kindly welcome from the Pope, who recommended him warmly to Philip III. At length in 1605, after numberless applications and solicitations, he was empowered to fit out at Lima the two vessels which he should judge the most suitable for the investigation of the Australian continent and for continuing the discoveries of Mendana. With two ships and one light vessel, Quiros set out from Callao on the 21st December, 1605. At 3000 miles from Peru he had as yet discovered no land. In latitude 25 degrees south he observed a group of small islands belonging to the Dangerous archipelago. These were the Convercion de San Pablo, the Osnabrugh of Wallis, and Decena, so named because it was the tenth island seen. Although this island was defended by rocks, intercourse was carried on with the natives, whose dwellings were scattered about amongst palm-trees on the sea shore. The natives were strong and well proportioned, and their chief wore on his head a kind of crown made of small black feathers so fine and supple that they might have been taken for silk. His fair hair, which descended to the waist, excited the wonder of the Spaniards, who, not being able to understand how a man with so tawny coloured a face could have such light yellow hair, "chose to think that he was married, and that he wore his wife's hair." This singular colour was only due to the habitual use of powdered lime, which burns the hair and causes it to turn yellow.

This island to which Quiros gave the name of Sagittaria, is, according to Fleurieu, Tahiti, one of the principal of the group of Society Islands. On the succeeding days Quiros sighted several other islands, upon which he did not land, and to which he gave names taken from the Calendar, according to a practice which has changed all the native nomenclature of Oceania into a veritable litany. One island visited may be especially noticed; it was named the island of la Gente Hermosa on account of the beauty of its inhabitants, and of the fair colour and coquetry of its women, who, as the Spaniards declared, even bore away the palm for grace and attractiveness from their own fellow-countrywomen of Lima, whose beauty is proverbial. This island, according to Quiros, was situated upon the same parallel as Santa Cruz, to which he intended to go. He therefore sailed westward and reached an island called by the natives Taumaco, in 10 degrees south latitude and 240 miles east of Santa Cruz. This must have been one of the Duff Islands, and here Quiros was told that if he directed his course southwards, he would discover a great land, of which the inhabitants were whiter than those whom he had hitherto seen. This information determined him to abandon his scheme of going to Santa Cruz. He steered in a south-westerly direction, and after having sighted several small islands, he arrived on the 1st May, 1606, in a bay more than twenty-four miles broad. He gave to this island the name which it still bears, of Espiritu Santo. It was one of the New Hebrides group. What events happened during the stay of the ships here? The narrative is silent upon this subject, but we know from other sources that the crew mutinied, made Quiros prisoner, and abandoning the second ship and the brigantine, set out on the 11th June to return to America, where they arrived on the 3rd October, 1606, after a nine months' voyage. M. Ed. Charton throws no light upon this incident. He is silent upon the mutiny of the crew, and even throws all the blame of the separation upon the commander of the second vessel, Luis Vaes de Torres, who abandoned his chief in quitting Espiritu Santo. Now it is known by a letter from Torres himself to the King of Spain—published by Lord Stanley at the end of his English edition of Antoine de Morga's History of the Philippines—that he remained "fifteen" days waiting for Quiros in the Bay of Saint Philip and Saint James. The officers met in council, resolved to weigh anchor on the 26th June, and to continue the search for the Australian continent. Hindered by bad weather, which prevents him from sailing round Espiritu Santo Island, assailed by the demands of a crew over whom prevails a slight breath of mutiny, Torres decides to steer to the north-east to reach the Spanish Islands. In 11 degrees 30 minutes he discovers land, which he imagines must be the commencement of New Guinea. "All this land is part of New Guinea," says Torres, "it is peopled by Indians who are not very white, and who go naked, although their middles are covered with the bark of trees.... They fight with javelins, bucklers, and certain clubs of stone, the whole adorned with beautiful feathers. All along this land there are other inhabited islands. Upon the whole of this coast there are numerous and vast harbours, with very broad rivers and great plains. Outside these islands stretch reefs and shallows; the islands are between these dangers and the mainland, and a channel runs between. We took possession of these harbours in your Majesty's name. Having pursued this coast for 900 miles, and seen our latitude decrease from 2-1/2 degrees until we found ourselves in 9 degrees, at this point commenced a shoal of from three to nine fathoms deep, which stretched along the coast to 7-1/2 degrees. Not being able to proceed farther on account of the numerous shallows and powerful currents which we encountered, we decided to alter our course to the south-west, by the deep channel which has been mentioned, as far as about 11 degrees. There is there, from one end to the other, an archipelago of innumerable islands, by which I passed. At the end of the eleventh degree the bottom became deeper. There were some very large islands there, and there appeared to be more of them towards the south; they were inhabited by a black population, very robust and quite naked, bearing for arms, strong and long spears, arrows, and stone clubs roughly fashioned."

Modern geographers are agreed in recognizing in the localities thus described, that portion of the Australian Coast which ends in York Peninsula, and the extremity of New Guinea recently visited by Captain Moresby. It was known that Torres had entered the strait which has been named after him, and which divides New Guinea from Cape York; but the very recent exploration of the south-eastern portion of New Guinea, of which the population has been discovered to be of a comparatively light colour and differing much from the Papous, has just furnished an unexpected confirmation of the discoveries of Quiros. It is for this reason that we have dwelt at some length upon them, referring for the purpose to a very learned work of M. E. T. Hamy, which appeared in the Bulletin de la Societe de Geographie.

It behoves us now to say a few words about some travellers who explored some unfrequented countries, and furnished their contemporaries with more exact knowledge of a world until then almost unknown. The first of these travellers is Francois Pyrard, of Laval. Having embarked in 1601 on board a St. Malo ship to go to the Indies to trade, he was wrecked in the Maldive Archipelago. These islets or atolls (detached coral reefs,) to the number of at least 12,000, descend into the Indian Ocean from Cape Comorin as far as the equator. The worthy Pyrard relates his shipwreck, the flight of a portion of his companions in captivity in the archipelago, and his long sojourn of seven years upon the Maldive Islands, a stay rendered almost agreeable by the pains which he took to acquire the native language. He had plenty of time to learn the manners, customs, religion, and industries of the inhabitants, as well as to study the productions and climate of the country. Thus his narrative is filled with details of all kinds, and had retained its attractions until recent years, because travellers do not voluntarily frequent this unhealthy archipelago, the isolated situation of which had kept away foreigners and conquerors. Pyrard's narrative therefore, is still instructive and agreeable reading.

In 1607, a fleet was sent to the Maldives by the King of Bengal, in order to carry off the 100 or 120 cannon which the Maldive sovereign owed to the wreck of numerous Portuguese vessels. Pyrard, notwithstanding all the liberty allowed him, and that he had become a landholder, was desirous to behold his beloved Brittany once more. He therefore eagerly embraced this opportunity of quitting the Archipelago with the three companions who out of the whole crew alone remained with him. But the eventful travels of Pyrard were not yet concluded. Taken first to Ceylon, he was carried afterwards to Bengal, and endeavoured to reach Cochin. Before reaching this town he was captured by the Portuguese and carried prisoner to Cochin; he afterwards fell ill and was nursed in the Hospital of Goa which he only quitted to serve for two years as a soldier, at the end of which time he was again thrown into prison, and it was not until 1611, that he was able to revisit the good town of Laval. After so many trials, Pyrard must doubtless have felt the need of repose, and we are justified in imagining, from the silence of history as to the close of his life, that he was privileged at length to find happiness.

While the honest burgess Francois Pyrard, was, so to speak, in spite of himself, and from having indulged the desire of making a fortune too rapidly, launched into adventures in which he had to pass much of his life, circumstances of a different and romantic kind caused Pietro della Valle to determine upon travelling. Descendant of an ancient and noble family, he is by turns a soldier of the Pope, and a sailor chasing Barbary corsairs. Upon his return to Rome he finds that a rival, profiting by his absence, has taken his place with a young girl whom he was to have married. So great a misfortune demands an heroic remedy, and Della Valle makes a vow of pilgrimage to the Holy Sepulchre. But if, as saith the proverb, there is no road which does not lead to Rome, so there is no circuit so long as not to lead to Jerusalem, and of this Della Valle was to make proof. He embarks at Venice in 1614, passes thirteen months at Constantinople, reaches Alexandria by sea, afterwards Cairo, and joins a caravan which at length brings him to Jerusalem. But while en route, Delia Valle had no doubt imbibed a taste for a traveller's life, for he visits in succession Baghdad, Damascus, Aleppo, and even pushes on as far as the ruins of Babylon. We must believe that Della Valle was marked out as an easy prey to love, for upon his return he becomes enamoured of a young Christian woman of Mardin, of wondrous beauty, whom he marries. One would imagine that here at length is fixed the destiny of this indefatigable traveller. Nothing of the kind. Della Valle contrives to accompany the Shah in his war against the Turks, and to traverse during four consecutive years the provinces of Iran. He quits Ispahan in 1621, loses his wife in the month of December of the same year, causes her to be embalmed, and has her coffin carried about in his train for four years longer, which he devotes to exploring Ormuz, the western coasts of India, the Persian Gulf, Aleppo, and Syria, landing at length at Naples in 1626.

The countries which this singular character visited, urged on as he was by an extraordinary enthusiasm, are described by him in a shrewd, gay, and natural style, and even with some degree of fidelity. But he inaugurates the pleiad of amateur, curious, and commercial travellers. He is the first of that prolific race of tourists who each year encumber geographical literature with numerous volumes, from which the savant finds nothing to glean beyond meagre details.

Tavernier is a specimen of insatiable curiosity. At two-and-twenty he has traversed France, England, the Low Countries, Germany, Switzerland, Poland, Hungary, and Italy. Then when Europe no longer offers any food for his curiosity, he starts for Constantinople, where he remains for a year, and then arrives in Persia, where the opportunity and

Quelque diable, aussi, le poussant,

he sets to work to purchase carpets, stuffs, precious stones, and those thousand trifles of which lovers of curiosities soon became passionately fond, and for which they were ready to pay fabulous sums. The profit which Tavernier realized from his cargo induced him to resume his travels. But like a wise and prudent man, before starting he learnt from a jeweller the art of knowing precious stones. During four successive journeys from 1638 to 1663, he travelled over Persia, the Mogul Empire, the Indies as far as the frontier of China, and the Islands of Sunda. Dazzled by the immense fortune which his traffic had obtained for him, Tavernier would play the lord, and soon saw himself on the verge of ruin, which he hoped to avert by sending one of his nephews to the east with a considerable venture, but instead, his ruin was consummated by this young man, who, judging it best to appropriate the goods which had been confided to him, settled down at Ispahan. Tavernier, who was a well-educated man, made a number of interesting observations upon the history, manners and customs, of the countries which he visited. His narrative certainly contributed to give his contemporaries a much more correct idea of the countries of the east than they previously possessed.

All travellers during the reign of Louis XIV. take the route to the East Indies, whatever may be the end they have in view. Africa is entirely deserted, and if America be the theatre of any real exploration, it is carried out without aid from government.

Whilst Tavernier was accomplishing his last and distant excursions, a distinguished archaeologist, Jean de Thevenot, nephew of Melchisedec Thevenot—a learned man to whom we owe an interesting series of travels—journeyed through Europe, and visited Malta, Constantinople, Egypt, Tunis, and Italy. He brought back in 1661 an important collection of medals and monumental inscriptions, recognized nowadays as so important a help to the historian and the philologist. In 1664, he set out anew for the Levant, and visited Persia, Bassorah, Surat, and India, where he saw Masulipatam, Burhampur, Aurungabad, and Golconda. But the fatigues which he had experienced prevented his return to Europe, and he died in Armenia in 1667. The success of his narratives was considerable, and was well deserved by the care and exactitude of a traveller whose scientific attainments in history, geography, and mathematics, far surpassed the average level of his contemporaries.

We must now speak of the amiable Bernier, the "pretty philosopher," as he was entitled in his polite circle, in which were found Ninon and La Fontaine, Madame de la Sabliere, St. Evremont, and Chapelle, without reckoning many other good and gay spirits, refractories from the stiff solemnity which then weighed upon the entourage of Louis XIV. Bernier could not escape from the fashion of travelling. After having taken a rapid survey of Syria and Egypt, he resided for twelve years in India, where his good knowledge of medicine conciliated the favour of Aurung-Zebe, and gave him the opportunity of beholding in detail, and with profit, an empire then in the full bloom of its prosperity.

To the south of Hindostan, Ceylon had more than one surprise in reserve for its explorers. Robert Knox, taken prisoner by the natives, owed to this sad circumstance his long residence in the country and the collection of the first authentic documents relating to the forests and the savage natives of Ceylon, the Dutch, with a commercial jealousy which they were not singular in evincing, having until now kept secret all the information which had come to light concerning an island of which they were endeavouring to make a colony.



Another merchant, Jean Chardin, the son of a rich Parisian jeweller, jealous of the successes of Tavernier, desired, like him, to make his fortune by trading in diamonds. The countries which attract these merchants are those of which the fame for wealth and prosperity is become proverbial; these are Persia and India, where rich costumes sparkle with jewels and gold, and where there are mines of diamonds of a fabulous size. The moment is well chosen for visiting these countries. Thanks to the Mogul Emperors, civilization and art have been developed; mosques, palaces, temples have been built, and towns have risen suddenly. Their taste—that curious taste, so distinctly characterized, so different from our own,—is displayed in the construction of gigantic edifices, quite as much as in jewellery and goldsmith's work, and in the manufacture of those costly trifles of which the east was beginning to be passionately fond. Like a wise man, Chardin takes a partner, as good a connoisseur as himself. At first Chardin only traversed Persia in order to reach Ormuz and to embark for the Indies. The following year he returns to Ispahan, and applies himself to learn the language of the country, in order to be able to transact business directly and without any intermediary agent. He has the good fortune to please the Shah, Abbas II. From that time his fortune is made, for it is at once genteel and also the part of a prudent courtier to employ the same purveyor as his sovereign. But Chardin had another merit besides that of making a fortune. He was able to collect so considerable a mass of information concerning the government, manners, creeds, customs, towns, and populations of Persia, that his narrative has remained to our own days the vade-mecum of the traveller. This guide is so much the more precious because Chardin took care to engage at Constantinople a clever draughtsman named Grelot, by whom were reproduced the monuments, cities, scenes, costumes, and ceremonies which so well portray what Chardin called, "the every day of a people."

When Chardin returned to France in 1670, the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, with the barbarous persecutions which resulted from it, had chased from their country great numbers of artisans, who, taking refuge in foreign countries enriched them with our arts and manufactures. Chardin, being a protestant, clearly perceived that his religion would hinder him from attaining "to what are termed honours and advancement." As, to use his own words, "one is not free to believe what one will," he resolved to return to the Indies "where, without being urged to a change of religion," he could not fail of attaining an honourable position. Thus liberty of conscience was at that period greater in Persia than in France. Such an assertion on the part of a man who had made the comparison, is but little flattering to the grandson of Henry IV.

This time, however, Chardin did not follow the same route as before. He passed by Smyrna and Constantinople, and from thence, crossing the Black Sea, he landed in the Crimea, in the garb of a religious. Whilst passing through the region of the Caucasus he had the opportunity of studying the Abkasians and Circassians. He afterwards penetrated into Mingrelia, where he was robbed of his goods and papers, and of a portion of the jewels which he was taking back to Europe. He could not have escaped himself had it not been for the devotion to him of the theatines, from whom he had received hospitality, but he escaped only to fall into the hands of the Turks, who, in their turn, accepted a ransom for him. After further misadventures he arrived at Tiflis on the 17th of December, 1672, and as Georgia was then governed by a prince who was a tributary of the Shah of Persia, it was easy for Chardin to reach Erivan, Tauriz, and finally Ispahan.

After a stay of four years in Persia, and a concluding journey to India, during which he realized a considerable fortune, Chardin returned to Europe and settled in England, his own country on account of his religion, being forbidden ground to him.

The journal of his travels forms a large work, in which everything that concerns Persia is especially developed. The long stay he made in the country and his intimate acquaintance with the highest personages of the state enabled him to collect numerous and authentic documents. It may fairly be said that in this way Persia was better known in the seventeenth century than it was 100 years later.

The countries which Chardin had just explored were visited again some years later by a Dutch painter, Cornelius de Bruyn, or Le Brun. The great value of his work consists in the beauty and accuracy of the drawings which illustrate it, for as far as the text is concerned, it contains nothing which was not known before, except in what relates to the Samoyedes, whom he was the first to visit.



We must now speak of the Westphalian, Kaempfer, almost a naturalized Swede in consequence of his long sojourn in Scandinavian countries. He refused the brilliant position which was there offered him in order to accompany as secretary, an ambassador who was going to Moscow. He was thus enabled to see the principal cities of Russia, a country which at that period had scarcely entered upon the path of western civilization; afterwards he went to Persia, where he quitted the Ambassador Fabricius, in order to enter the service of the Dutch Company of the Indies, and to continue his travels. He thus visited in the first place Persepolis, Shiraz, Ormuz upon the Persian Gulf, where he was extremely ill, and whence he embarked in 1688 for the East Indies. Arabia Felix, India, the Malabar Coast, Ceylon, Java, Sumatra, and Japan were afterwards all visited by him. The object of these journeys was exclusively scientific. Kaempfer was a physician, but was more especially devoted to the various branches of Natural History, and collected, described, drew, or dried, a considerable number of plants then unknown in Europe, gave new information upon their use in medicine or manufactures, and collected an immense herbarium, which is now preserved with the greater part of his manuscripts in the British Museum in London. But the most interesting portion of his narrative, now-a-days indeed quite obsolete and very incomplete since the country has been opened up to our scientific men,—was for a long time that relating to Japan. He had contrived to procure books treating of the history, literature, and learning of the country, when he had failed in obtaining from certain personages to whom he had rendered himself very acceptable, information which was not usually imparted to foreigners.

To conclude, if all the travellers of whom we have just spoken are not strictly speaking discoverers, if they do not explore countries unknown before, they all have, in various degrees and according to their ability or their studies, the merit of having rendered the countries which they visited better known. Besides they were able to banish to the domain of fable, many of the tales which others less learned had naively accepted, and which had for long become so completely public property that nobody dreamed of disputing them.

Thanks to these travellers, something is known of the history of the east, the migrations of nations began to be dimly suspected, and accounts to be given of the changes in those great empires of which the very existence had been long problematical.



CHAPTER VI.

I. THE GREAT CORSAIR.

William Dampier; or a Sea-King of the Seventeenth Century.

William Dampier was born in 1612 at East Coker, and by the death of his parents was from his childhood left to his own control. Not possessing any great taste for study, he preferred running wild in the woods, and fighting with his companions, to remaining in his place on the school benches. While still young he was sent to sea as cabin-boy on board merchant ships. After a voyage to Newfoundland and a campaign in the East Indies, he took service in the Naval Marine, and being wounded in a battle, returned to Greenwich to be nursed. Free from any prejudices, Dampier forgot his engagement when he left the Military Hospital, and started for Jamaica in the position of manager of a plantation. It did not require a long trial to discover that this occupation was not to his taste. So he abandoned his negroes at the end of six months, and went on board a ship bound for the Bay of Campeachy, where he worked for three years at gathering in woods for dyeing.

At the end of that period he is again found in London, but the laws and the officers charged with compelling their observance are too strict for his comfort. He goes back to Jamaica, where he speedily puts himself into communication with those famous buccaneers and corsairs, who at that time did so much harm to the Spaniards.

These English or French adventurers, established in the Island of Tortuga, off the coast of San Domingo, had sworn implacable hatred to Spain. Their ravages were not confined to the Gulf of Mexico: they crossed the Isthmus of Panama and devastated the coast of the Pacific Ocean from the Strait of Magellan to California. Terror exaggerated the exploits of these pirates, which however presented something of the marvellous.

It was amongst these adventurers, then commanded by Harris, Sawkins, and Shays, that Dampier enrolled himself. In 1680 we find him in Darien, where he pillages Santa Maria, endeavours in vain to surprise Panama, and with his companions, on board of some wretched canoes stolen from the Indians, captures eight vessels well armed, which were at anchor not far from the town. In this affair the losses of the corsairs are so great in the fight, and the spoil is so poor, that they separate from each other. Some go back to the Gulf of Mexico, while others establish themselves upon the island of Juan Fernandez, whence shortly after they attack Arica. But here again they were so roughly handled that a new secession takes place, and Dampier is sent to Virginia, where his captain hoped to make some recruits. There Captain Cook was fitting out a vessel, with the intention of reaching the Pacific by the Strait of Magellan, and Dampier joins the expedition. It begins by privateering upon the African coast, in the Cape de Verd Islands, at Sierra Leone, and in the River Scherborough, for this is the route habitually taken by the ships going to South America. In 36 degrees south latitude, Dampier, who notes in his journal every interesting fact, remarks that the sea is become white or rather pale, but of this he cannot explain the reason, which he might easily have done had he made use of the microscope. The Sebaldine Islands are passed without incident, the Strait of Le Maire is traversed, Cape Horn is doubled on the 6th February, 1684, and as soon as he can escape from the storms which usually assail ships entering the Pacific, Captain Cook arrives at the island of Juan Fernandez, where he hopes to revictual. Dampier wondered if he would find a Nicaraguan Indian there, who had been left behind in 1680 by Captain Sharp. "This Indian had remained alone upon the island for more than three years. He had been in the woods hunting goats when the English captain had ordered his men to re-embark, and they had set sail without perceiving his absence. He had only his gun and his knife, with a small horn of powder and a little lead; when his powder and lead were exhausted he had contrived to saw the barrel of his gun into small pieces with his knife, and out of them to make harpoons, spears, fish hooks and a long knife. With these instruments he obtained all the supplies which the island afforded: goats and fish. At the distance of half a mile from the sea, he had a small hut covered with goat skins. He had no clothes left, but an animal's skin covered his loins." We have dwelt at some length upon this involuntary hermit because he served Daniel de Foe as the original of his "Robinson Crusoe," a romance which has formed the delight of every child.

We shall not relate minutely all the expeditions in which Dampier participated. Suffice it to mention that in this campaign he visited the Gallapagos Islands. In 1686, Dampier was serving on board of Captain Swan's ship, who, seeing that the greater part of his enterprises failed, went to the East Indies, where the Spaniards were less upon their guard, and where the corsairs reckoned upon seizing the Manilla galleon. But when our adventurers arrived at Guaham, they had only three days' provisions, and the sailors had plotted if the voyage should be prolonged, to eat in turn all those who had declared themselves in favour of the voyage, and to begin with the captain who had proposed it. Dampier's turn would have come next. "Thus it came to pass," says he very humourously, "that after having cast anchor at Guaham, Swan embraced him and said: 'Ah Dampier, you would have made them but a sorry meal.' He was right," he adds, "for I was as thin and lean, as he was fat and plump." Mindanao, Manilla, certain parts of the Chinese coasts, the Moluccas, New Holland, and the Nicobar Islands, were the places visited and plundered by Dampier in this campaign. In the last-named archipelago he became separated from his companions, and was discovered half dead upon the coast of Sumatra.



During this voyage, Dampier had discovered several hitherto unknown islands, and especially the Baschi group. Like the thorough adventurer he was, immediately he recovered his health he travelled over the south of Asia, Malacca, Tonkin, Madras, and Bencoolen, where he enrolled himself as an artilleryman in the English service. Five months afterwards he deserted and returned to London. The narrative of his adventures and his privateering obtained for him a certain amount of sympathy amongst the higher classes, and he was presented to the Earl of Oxford, Lord High Admiral. He speedily received the command of the ship Roebuck to attempt a voyage of discovery in the seas which he had already explored. He left England on the 14th January, 1699, with the intention of passing through the Strait of Magellan, or of making the tour of Tierra del Fuego, so as to commence his discoveries on the coasts of the Pacific, which had hitherto received the visits of a comparatively small number of travellers. After crossing the line on the 10th March, he sailed for Brazil, where the ship was revictualled. Far from being able again to descend the coast of Patagonia, he beheld himself driven by the wind to forty-eight miles south of the Cape of Good Hope, whence he steered east-south-east towards New Holland, a long passage which was not signalized by any adventure. On the 1st August, Dampier saw land, and at once sought for a harbour in which to land. Five days later he entered the Bay of Sea-Dogs upon the western coast of Australia; but he only found there a sterile soil, and met with neither water nor vegetation. Until the 31st August, he sailed along this coast without discovering what he sought. Once when he landed, he had a slight skirmish with some of the inhabitants, who seemed to be very thinly scattered over the country. Their chief was a young man of middle height, but quick and vigilant; his eyes were surrounded by a single ring of white paint, while a stripe of the same colour descended from the top of his forehead to the end of his nose; his chest and arms were likewise striped with white. His companions were black, fierce in aspect, their hair woolly, and in shape they were tall and slender.

For five weeks Dampier hovered near land, and found neither water nor provisions; however, he would not give in, and intended to continue to ascend the coast northwards, but the shallows which he incessantly encountered, and the monsoon from the north-west which was soon due, obliged him to give up the enterprise, after having discovered more than 900 miles of the Australian continent. He afterwards steered towards Timor, where he intended to repose and recruit his crew, exhausted by the long voyage. But he knew little of these parts, and his charts were quite insufficient. He was therefore obliged to make a reconnaissance of it, as if the Dutch had not already been long settled there. Thus he discovered a passage between Timor and Anamabao, in a locality in which his map only indicated a bay. The arrival of Dampier in a port known only to themselves, astonished and greatly displeased the Dutch. They imagined that the English could only have reached it by means of charts taken on board a ship of their own. However, in the end they recovered from their fright and received the strangers with kindness.

Although the precursors of the monsoon were making themselves felt, Dampier again put to sea, and steered towards the western coast of New Guinea, where he arrived on the 4th February, 1700, near to Cape Maho of the Dutch. Amongst the things which struck him, Dampier notices the prodigious quantities of a species of pigeon, bats of extraordinary size, and scallops, a kind of shell fish, of which the empty shell weighed as much as 258 lbs. On the 7th of February he approaches King William's Island and runs to the east, where he soon sights the Cape of Good Hope of Schouten, and the island named after that navigator. On the 24th the crew witnessed a curious spectacle: "Two fish, which had accompanied the vessel for five or six days, perceived a great sea serpent, and began to pursue it. They were about the shape and size of mackerel, but yellow and green in colour. The serpent, who fled from them with great swiftness, carried his head out of the water, and one of them attempted to seize his tail. As soon as he turned round, the first fish remained in the rear, and the other took his place. They retained their wind for a long time, always heedful to defend themselves by flight, until they were lost to view."

On the 25th, Dampier gave the name of Saint Matthias to a mountainous island, thirty miles long, situated above and to the east of the Admiralty Islands. Further on at the distance of twenty-one or twenty-four miles, he discovered another island, which received the name of Squally Island, on account of violent whirlwinds which prevented him from landing upon it. Dampier believed himself to be on the coast of New Guinea, while he was in reality sailing along that of New Ireland. He endeavoured to land there, but he was surrounded by canoes carrying more than 200 natives, and the shore was covered by a large crowd. Seeing that it would be imprudent to send a boat on shore, Dampier ordered the ship to be put about. Scarcely was the order given, when the ship was assailed by showers of stones, which the natives hurled from a machine of which Dampier could not discover the shape, but which caused the name of Slingers' Bay to be given to this locality. A single discharge of cannon stupefied the natives, and put an end to hostilities. A little further on, at some distance from the coast of New Ireland, the English discover the Islands of Denis and St. John. Dampier is the first to pass through the strait which separates New Ireland from New Britain, and discovers Vulcan, Crown, G. Rook, Long Reach and Burning Islands.



After this long cruise, distinguished by important discoveries, Dampier again steered towards the west, reached Missory Island, and at length arrived at the Island of Ceram, one of the Moluccas, where he made a somewhat long stay. He went afterwards to Borneo, passed through the Strait of Macassar, and on the 23rd of June anchored at Batavia, in the Island of Java. He remained there until the 17th of October, when he set out for Europe. On arriving at the Island of Ascension on the 23rd of February, 1701, his vessel had so considerable a leak that it was impossible to stop it. It was necessary to run the ship aground and to put the crew and cargo on shore. Happily there was no want of water, turtles, goats, and land-crabs, which prevented any fear of dying of hunger before some ship should call at the island, and transport the shipwrecked sailors to their country. For this they had not long to wait, for on the 2nd of April an English vessel took them on board and carried them to England. We shall have occasion again to speak of Dampier with relation to the voyages of Wood Rodgers.

II. THE POLE AND AMERICA.

Hudson and Baffin—Champlain and La Sale—The English upon the coast of the Atlantic—The Spaniards in South America—Summary of the information acquired at the close of the 17th century—The measure of the terrestrial degree—Progress of cartography—Inauguration of Mathematical Geography.

Although the attempts to find a passage by the north-west had been abandoned by the English for twenty years, they had not, however, given up the idea of seeking by that way, for a passage which was only to be discovered in our own days, and of which the absolute impracticability was then to be ascertained. A clever sailor, Henry Hudson, of whom Ellis says, "that never did any one better understand the seafaring profession, that his courage was equal to any emergency, and that his application was indefatigable," concluded an agreement with a company of merchants to search for the passage by the north-west. On the 1st of May, 1607, he sailed from Gravesend in the Hopewell, a craft about the size of one of the smallest of modern collier brigs, and having on board a crew of twelve men; and on the 13th of June, reached the eastern coast of Greenland at 73 degrees, and gave it a name answering to the hopes he entertained, in calling it Cape Hold with Hope. The weather here was finer and less cold than it had been ten degrees southwards. By the 27th of June, Hudson had advanced 5 degrees more to the north, but on the 2nd of July, by one of the sudden changes which so frequently occur in those countries, the cold became severe. The sea, however, remained free, the air was still, and drift wood floated about in large quantity. On the 14th of the same month, in 33 degrees 23 minutes, the master's mate and the boatswain of the vessel landed upon a shore which formed the northern part of Spitzbergen. Traces of musk oxen, and foxes, great abundance of aquatic birds, two streams of fresh water, one of them being warm, proved to our navigators that it was possible to live in these extreme latitudes at this period of the year. Hudson, who had re-embarked without delay, found himself arrested at the height of 82 degrees, by thick pack ice, which he endeavoured in vain to penetrate or sail round. He was compelled to return to England, where he arrived on September 15th, after having discovered an island, which is probably that of Jan Mayen. The route followed in this first voyage having had no result towards the north, Hudson would try another, and accordingly set sail on April 21st in the following year, and advanced between Spitzbergen and Nova Zembla; but he could only follow for a certain distance the coast of that vast land, without being able to attain as high an elevation as he had wished. The failure of this second attempt was more complete than that of the voyage of 1607. In consequence, the English Company, which had defrayed the expenses of both attempts, declined to proceed further. This was doubtless the reason which decided Hudson to take service in Holland.

The Company of Amsterdam gave him, in 1609, the command of a vessel, with which he set sail from the Texel at the beginning of the year. Having doubled the North Cape, he advanced along the coasts of Nova Zembla; but his crew, composed of English and Dutch, who had made voyages to the East Indies, were soon disheartened by the cold and ice. Hudson found himself forced to change his route, and to propose to his sailors, who were in open mutiny, to seek for a passage, either by Davis' Strait, or the coasts of Virginia, where, according to the information of Captain Smith, who had frequently visited them, an outlet must surely be found. The choice of this crew, little accustomed to discipline, could not be doubtful. In order not to render the outlay of the Company completely abortive, Hudson was obliged to make for the Faroe Islands, to descend southward as low as 44 degrees, and to search on the coast of America for the strait, of the existence of which he had been assured. On July 18th, he disembarked on the continent, in order to replace his foremast, which had been broken in a storm; and he took the opportunity of bartering furs with the natives. But his undisciplined sailors, having by their exactions roused the indignation of the poor and peaceable natives, compelled him again to set sail. He continued to follow the coast until August 3rd, and then landed a second time. At 40 degrees 30 minutes, he discovered a great bay which he explored in a canoe for more than 150 miles. In the meantime, his provisions began to run short, and it was impossible to procure supplies on land. The crew, which appears to have imposed its wishes on its captain during this whole voyage, assembled; some proposed to winter in Newfoundland, in order to resume the search for the passage in the following year; others wished to make for Ireland. This latter proposition was adopted; but when they approached the shores of Great Britain, the land proved so attractive to his men, that Hudson was obliged, on November 7th, to cast anchor at Dartmouth.

The following year, 1610, notwithstanding all the mortifications which he had experienced, Hudson tried to renew his engagement with the Dutch company. But the terms which they named as the price of their concurrence compelled him to renounce the project, and induced him to submit to the requirements of the English Company. This company imposed on Hudson as a condition, that he should carry on board, rather as an assistant than as a subordinate, a clever seaman, named Coleburne, in whom they had full confidence. It is easy to understand how mortifying this condition was to Hudson. Accordingly, he took the earliest opportunity of ridding himself of the superintendent who had been imposed upon him. He had not yet left the Thames when he sent Coleburne back to shore with a letter for the Company, in which he endeavoured to palliate and justify this certainly very strange proceeding.

Towards the end of May, when the ship had cast anchor in one of the ports of the island, the crew formed on the subject of Coleburne, its first conspiracy, which was repressed without difficulty, and when Hudson quitted the island on June 1st, he had re-established his authority. After having passed Frobisher's Strait, he sighted the land of Desolation of Davis, entered the strait which has received his name, and speedily penetrated into a wide bay, the entire western coast of which he examined until the beginning of September. At this epoch, one of the inferior officers, continuing to excite revolt against his chief, was superseded; but this act of justice only exasperated the sailors. In the early part of November, Hudson, having arrived at the extremity of the bay, sought for an appropriate spot to winter in, and having soon found one, drew up the ship on dry land. It is difficult to understand such a resolution. On the one hand, Hudson had left England with provisions for six months only, which had already been largely reduced, and he could scarcely reckon, considering the barrenness of the country, upon procuring a further supply of nourishment; on the other, the crew had exhibited such numerous signs of mutiny, that he could hardly rely upon its discipline and good will. Nevertheless, although the English were often obliged to content themselves with scanty rations, they did not, owing to the arrival of great numbers of birds, pass a very distressing winter. But, on the return of spring, as soon as the ship was prepared to resume her route to England, Hudson found that his fate was decided. He made his arrangements accordingly, distributed to each his share of biscuit, paid the wages due, and awaited the course of events. He had not long to wait. The conspirators seized their captain, his son, a volunteer, the carpenter, and five sailors, put them on board a boat, without arms, provisions, or instruments, and abandoned them to the mercy of the ocean. The culprits reached England again, but not all; two were killed in an encounter with the Indians, another died of sickness, while the others were sorely tried by famine. Eventually, no prosecution was commenced against them. Only, the Company, in 1674, procured employment, on board a vessel, for the son of Henry Hudson, "lost in the discovery of the North-west," the son being entirely destitute of resources.



The expeditions of Hudson were followed by those of Button and of Gibbons, to whom we owe, if not new discoveries, important observations on the tides, the variation of the weather and the temperature, and on a number of natural phenomena.

In 1615, the English Company entrusted to Byleth, who had taken part in the last voyages, the command of a vessel of fifty tons. Her name, the Discovery, was of good augury. She carried, as pilot, the famous William Baffin, whose renown has eclipsed that of his captain. Setting sail from England on April 13th, the English explorers sighted Cape Farewell by the 6th of May, passed from the Island of Desolation to the Savage Islands, where they met with a great number of natives, and ascended north-westward as high as 64 degrees. On July 10th, land appeared on the starboard, and the tide flowed from the north; from which they conceived so much hope of the passage sought for, that they gave to the cape, discovered on this spot, the name of Comfort. It was probably Cape Walsingham, for they ascertained, after doubling it, that the land inclined towards the north-east, and the east. It was at the entry of Davis' Strait, that their discoveries came to an end for this year. They returned to Plymouth on September 9th, without having lost a single man.

So strong were the hopes entertained by Byleth and Baffin, that they obtained permission to put to sea again in the same vessel the following year. On May 14th, 1616, after a voyage in which nothing worthy of remark occurred, the two captains penetrated into Davis' Strait, sighted Cape Henderson's Hope, the extreme point formerly reached by Davis, and ascended as high as 72 degrees 40 minutes to the Women's Island, thus named after some Esquimaux females whom they met with. On June 12th, Byleth and Baffin were forced by the ice to enter a bay on the coast. Some Esquimaux brought them a great quantity of horns, without doubt tusks of walruses, or horns of musk oxen; from which they named the bay Horn Sound. After remaining some days in this place, they were able to put to sea again. On setting out from 75 degrees 40 minutes, they encountered a vast expanse of water free from ice, and penetrated, without much danger, beyond the 78 degree of latitude, to the entrance of the strait, which prolonged northwards the immense bay which they had just traversed, and which received the name of Baffin. Then turning to the west, and afterwards to the south-west, Byleth and Baffin discovered the Carey Islands, Jones Strait, Coburg Island, and Lancaster Strait, and afterwards they descended along the entire western shore of Baffin's Bay as far as Cumberland Land. Despairing then of being able to carry his discoveries further, Byleth, who had several men among his crew afflicted with scurvy, found himself obliged to return to the shores of England, where he disembarked at Dover, on August 30th.

If this expedition terminated again in failure, in the sense that the north-west passage was not discovered, the results obtained were nevertheless considerable. Byleth and Baffin had prodigiously increased the knowledge of the seas and coasts in the quarters of Greenland. The captain and the pilot, in writing to the Director of the Company, assured him that the bay which they had visited was an excellent spot for fishing, in which thousands of whales, seals, and walruses, disported themselves. The event could not be long in amply proving the correctness of this information.

Let us now descend again upon the coast of America, as far as Canada, and see what had happened since the time of Jacques Cartier. This latter, we may remember, had made an attempt at colonization, which had not produced any important results. Nevertheless, some Frenchmen had remained in the country, had married there, and founded families of colonists. From time to time, they received reinforcements brought by fishing vessels from Dieppe or St. Malo. But it was difficult to establish a current of emigration. It was under these circumstances that a gentleman, named Samuel de Champlain, a veteran of the wars of Henry IV., and who, for two years and a half, had frequented the East Indies, was engaged by the Commander of Chastes with the Sieur de Pontgrave, to continue the discoveries of Jacques Cartier, and to choose the situations most favourable for the establishment of towns and centres of population. This is not the place for us to consider the manner in which Champlain understood the business of a colonizer, nor his great services, which might well entitle him to be called the father of Canada. We will, therefore, advisedly leave this aspect of his undertaking, not the least brilliant, in order simply to occupy ourselves with the discoveries which he effected in the interior of the continent.

Setting sail from Honfleur, on March 15th, 1603, the two chiefs of the enterprise first ascended the St. Lawrence, as far as the harbour of Tadoussac, 240 miles from its mouth. They were welcomed by the populations, which had, however, "neither faith, nor law, and lived without God, and without religion, like brute beasts." At this place they quitted their ships, which could not have advanced further without danger, and reached in a boat the Fall of St. Louis, where Jacques Cartier had been stopped; they even penetrated a little into the interior, and then returned to France, where Champlain printed a narrative of the voyage for the king.

Henry IV. resolved to continue the enterprise. In the meantime M. de Chastes having died, his privilege was transferred to M. de Monts, with the title of Vice-admiral and Governor of Acadia. Champlain accompanied M. de Monts to Canada, and passed three whole years, whether in aiding by his counsels and his exertions the efforts of colonization, or in exploring the coasts of Acadia, the bearings of which he took beyond Cape Cod, or in making excursions into the interior and visiting the savage tribes which it was important to conciliate. In 1607, after a new voyage to France to recruit colonists, Champlain returned again to New France, and founded, in 1608, a town which was to become Quebec. The following year was devoted to again ascending the St. Lawrence, and ascertaining its course. On board of a pirogue, with two companions only, Champlain penetrated, with some Algonquins, to the Iroquois, and remained conqueror in a great battle fought on the borders of a lake which has received his name; he then descended the river Richelieu, as far as the St. Lawrence. In 1610, he made a fresh incursion into the territory of the Iroquois, at the head of his allies, the Algonquins, whom he had the greatest possible difficulty in making observe the European discipline. In this campaign he employed instruments of warfare which greatly astonished the savages, and easily secured him the victory. For the attack of a village, he constructed a cavalier of wood, which 200 of the most powerful men "carried before this village to within a pike's length, and displayed three arquebusiers well protected from the arrows and stones which might be shot or launched at them." A little later, we see him exploring the river Ottawa, and advancing, in the north of the continent, to within 225 miles of Hudson's Bay. After having fortified Montreal, in 1615, he twice ascended the Ottawa, explored Lake Huron, and arrived by land at Lake Ontario, which he crossed.



It is very difficult to divide into two parts a life so occupied as Champlain's. All his excursions, all his reconnaissances, had but one object, the development of the work to which he had consecrated his existence. Thus detached from what gives them their interest, they appear to us unimportant; and yet if the colonial policy of Louis XIV. and his successor had been different, we should possess in America a colony which assuredly would not yield in prosperity to the United States. Notwithstanding our abandonment, Canada has preserved a fervent love for the mother country.

We must now leap over a period of forty years, to arrive at Robert Cavelier de la Sale. During this time, the French establishments have acquired some importance in Canada, and have extended themselves over a great part of North America. Our hunters and trappers scour the woods, and bring, every year, with their load of furs, new information respecting the interior of the continent. In this latter task they are powerfully seconded by the missionaries, in the first rank of whom we must place Father Marquette, whom the extent of his voyages on the great lakes and as far as the Mississippi marks out for special acknowledgment. Two men, besides, deserve to be mentioned for the encouragements and facilities which they afforded to the explorers, viz., M. de Frontenac, Governor of New France, and Talon, intendant of justice and police. In 1678, there arrived in Canada, without any settled purpose, a young man named Cavelier de la Sale. "He was born at Rouen," says Father Charlevoix, "of a family in easy circumstances; but having passed some years with the Jesuits, he had had no share in the inheritance of his parents. He had a cultivated mind, he wished to distinguish himself, and he felt within himself sufficient genius and courage to ensure success. In reality, he was not deficient in resolution to enter upon, nor in perseverance to follow up, an undertaking, nor in firmness in contending against obstacles, nor in resource to repair his losses; but he knew not how to make himself loved, nor how to manage those of whom he stood in need, and when he had attained authority, he exercised it with harshness and arrogance. With such defects he could not be happy, and in fact he was not."

Father Charlevoix's portrait appears to us somewhat too black, and he does not seem to estimate at its true value the great discovery which we owe to Cavelier de la Sale; a discovery, which has nothing like it, we do not say equal to it, except that of the river Amazon, by Orellana, in the 16th century, and that of the Congo, by Stanley, in the 19th. However this may be, no sooner had he arrived in the country, than he set himself, with extraordinary application, to study the native idioms, and to associate with the savages in order to render himself familiar with their manners and habits. At the same time he gathered from the trappers a mass of information on the situation of the rivers and lakes. He communicated his projects of exploration to M. de Frontenac, who encouraged him, and gave him the command of a fort constructed at the outlet of the lake into the St. Lawrence. In the meantime, one Jolyet arrived at Quebec. He brought the news that in company with Father Marquette and four other persons, he had reached a great river called the Mississippi, flowing towards the south. Cavelier de la Sale very soon understood what advantage might be derived from an artery of this importance, especially if the Mississippi had, as he believed, its mouth in the Gulf of Mexico. By the lakes and the Illinois, an affluent of the Mississippi, it was easy to effect a communication between the St. Lawrence, and the Sea of the Antilles. What marvellous profit would France derive from this discovery! La Sale explained the project which he had conceived to the Count of Frontenac, and obtained from him very pressing letters of recommendation to the Minister of Marine. On arriving in France, La Sale learned the death of Colbert; but he remitted to his son, the Marquis of Seignelay, who had succeeded him, the despatches of which he was the bearer. This project, which appeared to rest upon solid foundations, could not fail to please a young minister. Accordingly, Seignelay presented La Sale to the king, who caused letters of nobility to be prepared for him, granted him the Seignory of Catarocouy, and the government of the fort which he had built, with the monopoly of commerce in the countries which he might discover.

La Sale had also found means to procure the patronage of the Prince de Conti, who asked him to take with him the Chevalier Tonti, son of the inventor of the Tontine, in whom he felt an interest. He was for La Sale a precious acquisition. Tonti, who had made a campaign in Sicily, where his hand had been carried off by the explosion of a grenade, was a brave and skilful officer, who always showed himself extremely devoted.

La Sale and Tonti embarked at Rochelle, on July 14th, 1678, carrying with them about thirty men, workmen and soldiers, and a Recollet (monk), Father Hennepin, who accompanied them in all their voyages.

Then La Sale, being conscious that the execution of his project required more considerable resources than those which were at his disposal, constructed a boat upon the Lake Erie, and devoted a whole year to scouring the country, visiting the Indians, and carrying on an active trade in furs, which he stored in his fort of Niagara, while Tonti pursued the same course in other directions. At length, towards the middle of August, of the year 1679, his boat, the Griffon, being prepared for sailing, he embarked on the Lake Erie, with thirty men, and three Fathers, Recollets, for Machillimackinac. In crossing the lakes St. Clair and Huron, he experienced a violent storm, which caused the desertion of some of his people, whom, however, Tonti brought back to him. La Sale arrived at Machillimackinac, and very soon entered the Green Bay. But during this time his creditors at Quebec had sold all that he possessed, and the Griffon, which he had despatched, laden with furs, to the fort of Niagara, was either lost or pillaged by the Indians; which of these took place has never been precisely ascertained. For himself, although the departure of the Griffon had displeased his companions, he continued his route, and reached the river St. Joseph, where he found an encampment of Miamis, and where Tonti speedily rejoined him. Their first care was to construct a fort on this spot. Then they crossed the dividing line of the water between the basin of the great lakes, and that of the Mississippi; they subsequently reached the river of the Illinois, an affluent on the left of that great river. With his small band of followers, upon whose fidelity he could not entirely depend, the situation of La Sale was critical, in the midst of an unknown country, and among a powerful nation, the Illinois, who, at first allies of France, had been prejudiced and excited against us by the Iroquois and the English, jealous of the progress of the Canadian colony.