The French explorer, accompanying Ismail Pacha in the character of a mineralogist beyond Berber, on a quest for gold-mines, arrived at Shendy. He then went with Letorzec to determine the position of the junction of the Atbara with the Nile; and at Assour, not far from 17 degrees N. lat., he discovered the ruins of an extensive ancient town. It was Meroe. Pressing on in a southerly direction between the 15th and 16th degrees of N. lat., Cailliaud next identified the mouth of the Bahr-el-Abiad, or White Nile, visited the ruins of Saba, the mouth of the Rahad, the ancient Astosaba, Sennaar, the river Gologo, the Fazoele country, and the Toumat, a tributary of the Nile, finally reaching the Singue country between the two branches of the river. Cailliaud was the first explorer to penetrate from the north so near to the equator; Browne had turned back at 16 degrees 10 minutes, Bruce at 11 degrees. To Cailliaud and Letorzec we owe many observations on latitude and longitude, some valuable remarks on the variation of the magnetic needle, and details of the climate, temperature, and nature of the soil, together with a most interesting collection of animals and botanical specimens. Lastly, the travellers made plans of all the monuments beyond the second cataract.



The two Frenchmen had preluded their discoveries by an excursion to the oasis of Siwah. At the end of 1819 they left Fayum with a few companions, and entered the Libyan desert. In fifteen days, and after a brush with the Arabs, they reached Siwah, having on their way taken measurements of every part of the temple of Jupiter Ammon, and determined, as Browne had done, its exact geographical position. A little later a military expedition was sent to this same oasis, in which Drovetti collected new and very valuable documents supplementing those obtained by Cailliaud and Letorzec. They afterwards visited successively the oasis of Falafre, never before explored by a European, that of Dakel, and Khargh, the chief place of the Theban oasis. The documents collected on this journey were sent to France, to the care of M. Jomard, who founded on them his work called "Voyage a l'Oasis de Siouah."



A few years later Edward Ruppell devoted seven or eight years to the exploration of Nubia, Sennaar, Kordofan, and Abyssinia in 1824, he ascended the White Nile for more than sixty leagues above its mouth.

Lastly, in 1836 to 1838, Joseph Russegger, superintendent of the Austrian mines, visited the lower portion of the course of the Bahr-el-Abiad. This official journey was followed by the important and successful surveys afterwards made by order of Mehemet Ali in the same regions.



CHAPTER III. THE ORIENTAL SCIENTIFIC MOVEMENT AND AMERICAN DISCOVERIES.

The decipherment of cuneiform inscriptions, and the study of Assyrian remains up to 1840—Ancient Iran and the Avesta—The survey of India and the study of Hindustani—The exploration and measurement of the Himalaya mountains—The Arabian Peninsula—Syria and Palestine—Central Asia and Alexander von Humboldt—Pike at the sources of the Mississippi, Arkansas, and Red River—Major Long's two expeditions— General Cass—Schoolcraft at the sources of the Mississippi—The exploration of New Mexico—Archaeological expeditions in Central America—Scientific expeditions in Brazil—Spix and Martin—Prince Maximilian of Wied-Neuwied—D'Orbigny and American man.

Although the discoveries which we are now to relate are not strictly speaking geographical, they nevertheless throw such a new light on several early civilizations, and have done so much to extend the domain of history and ideas, that we are compelled to dedicate a few words to them.

The reading of cuneiform inscriptions, and the decipherment of hieroglyphics are events so important in their results, they reveal to us so vast a number of facts hitherto unknown, or distorted in the more or less marvellous narratives of the ancient historians Diodorus, Ctesias, and Herodotus, that it is impossible to pass over scientific discoveries of such value in silence.

Thanks to them, we form an intimate acquaintance with a whole world, with an extremely advanced civilization, with manners, habits, and customs differing essentially from our own. How strange it seems to hold in our hands the accounts of the steward of some great lord or governor of a province, or to read such romances as those of Setna and the Two Brothers, or stories such as that of the Predestined Prince.

Those buildings of vast proportions, those superb temples, magnificent hypogaea, and sculptured obelisks, were once nothing more to us than sumptuous monuments, but now that the inscriptions upon them have been read, they relate to us the life of the kings who built them, and the circumstances of their erection.

How many names of races not mentioned by Greek historians, how many towns now lost, how many of the smallest details of the religion, art, and daily life, as well as of the political and military events of the past, are revealed to us by the hieroglyphic and cuneiform inscriptions.

Not only do we now see into the daily life of these ancient peoples, of whom we had formerly but a very superficial knowledge, but we get an idea even of their literature. The day is perhaps not far distant when we shall know as much of the life of the Egyptians in the eighteenth century before Christ as that of our forefathers in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries of our own era.

Carsten Niebuhr was the first to make and bring to Europe an exact and complete copy of inscriptions at Persepolis in an unknown character. Many attempts had been made to explain them, but all had been vain, until in 1802 Grotefend, the learned Hanoverian philologist, succeeded, by an inspiration of genius, in solving the mystery in which they were enveloped.

Truly these cuneiform characters were strange and difficult to decipher! Imagine a collection of nails variously arranged, and forming groups horizontally placed. What did these groups signify? Did they represent sounds and articulations, or, like the letters of our alphabet, complete words? Had they the ideographic value of Chinese written characters? What was the language hidden in them? These were the problems to be solved! It appeared probable that the inscriptions brought from Persepolis were written in the language of the ancient Persians, but Rask, Bopp, and Lassen had not yet studied the Iranian idioms and proved their affinity with Sanskrit.

It would be beyond our province to give an account of the ingenious deductions, the skilful guesses, and the patient groping through which Grotefend finally achieved the recognition of an alphabetic system of writing, and succeeded in separating from certain groups of words what he believed to be the names of Darius and Xerxes, thus attaining a knowledge of several letters, by means of which he made out other words. It is enough for us to say that the key was found by him, and to others was left the task of completing and perfecting his work.

More than thirty years passed by, however, before any notable progress was made in these studies. It was our learned fellow-countryman Eugene Burnouf who gave them a decided impulse. Turning to account his knowledge of Sanskrit and Zend, he found that the language of the inscriptions of Persepolis was but a Zend dialect used in Bactriana, which was still spoken in the sixth century B.C., and in which the books of Zoroaster were written. Burnouf's pamphlet bears date 1836. At the same period Lassen, a German scholar of Bonn, came to the same conclusion on the same grounds.

The inscriptions already discovered were soon all deciphered; and with the exception of a few signs, on the meaning of which scholars were not quite agreed, the entire alphabet became known. But the foundations alone were laid; the building was still far from finished. The Persepolitan inscriptions appeared to be repeated in three parallel columns. Might not this be a triple version of the same inscription in the three chief languages of the Achaemenian Empire, namely, the Persian, Median, and Assyrian or Babylonian. This guess proved correct; and owing to the decipherment of one of the inscriptions, a test was obtained, and the same plan was followed as that of Champollion with regard to the Rosetta stone, on which was the tri-lingual inscription in Greek, Demotic or Enchorial, and hieroglyphic characters.

In the second and third inscriptions were recognized Syro-Chaldee, which, like Hebrew, Himyaric, and Arabic, belong to the Semitic group, and a third idiom, to which the name of Medic was given, resembling the dialects of the Turks and Tartars. But it would be presumptuous of us to enlarge upon these researches. That was to be the task of the Danish scholar Westergaard, of the Frenchmen De Saulcy and Oppert, and of the Englishmen Morris and Rawlinson, not to mention others less celebrated. We shall have to return to this subject later.

The knowledge of Sanskrit, and the investigation of Brahmanic literature, had inaugurated a scientific movement which has gone on ever since with increasing energy.

Long before Nineveh and Babylon were known as nations, a vast country, called Iran by orientalists, which included Persia, Afghanistan, and Beloochistan, was the scene of an advanced civilization, with which is connected the name of Zoroaster, who was at once a conqueror, a law-giver, and the founder of a religion. The disciples of Zoroaster, persecuted at the time of the Mohammedan conquest, and driven from their ancient home, where their mode of worship was still preserved, took refuge, under the name of Parsees, in the north-west of India.

At the end of the last century, the Frenchman Aquetil Duperron brought to Europe an exact copy of the religious books of the Parsees, written in the language of Zoroaster. He translated them, and for sixty years all the savants had found in them the source of all their religious and philological notions of Iran. These books are known under the name of the Zend-Avesta, a word which comprises the name of the language, Zend, and the title of the book, Avesta.

As the knowledge of Sanskrit increased, however, that branch of science required to be studied afresh by the light of the new method. In 1826 the Danish philologist Rask, and later Eugene Burnouf, with his profound knowledge of Sanskrit, and by the help of a translation in that language recently discovered in India, turned once more to the study of the Zend. In 1834 Burnouf published a masterly treatise on the Yacna, which marked an epoch. From the resemblance between the archaic Sanskrit and the Zend came the recognition of the common origin of the two languages, and the relationship, or rather, the identity, of the races who speak them. Originally the names of the deities, the traditions, the generic appellation, that of Aryan, of the two peoples, are the same, to say nothing of the similarity of their customs. But it is needless to dwell on the importance of this discovery, which has thrown an entirely new light on the infancy of the human race, of which for so many centuries nothing was known.

From the close of the eighteenth century, that is to say from the time when the English first obtained a secure footing in India, the physical study of the country was vigorously carried on, outstripping of course for a time that of the ethnology and kindred subjects, which require for their prosecution a more settled country and less exciting times. It must be owned, however, that knowledge of the races of the country to be controlled is as essential to the government as it is to commercial enterprise; and in 1801 Lord Wellesley, as Governor for the Company, recognizing the importance of securing a good map of the English territories, commissioned Brigadier William Lambton, to connect, by means of a trigonometrical survey, the eastern and western banks of the Indus with the observatory of Madras. Lambton was not content with the mere accomplishment of this task. He laid down with precision one arc of the meridian from Cape Comorin to the village of Takoor-Kera, fifteen miles south-east of Ellichpoor. The amplitude of this arc exceeded twelve degrees. With the aid of competent officers, amongst whom we must mention Colonel Everest, the Government of India would have hailed the completion of the task of its engineers long before 1840, if the successive annexation of new territories had not constantly added to the extent of ground to be covered.

At about the same time with this progress in our knowledge of the geography of India an impulse was given to the study of the literature of India.

In 1776 an extract from the most important native codes, then for the first time translated under the title of the Code of the Gentoos[1] was published in London. Nine years later the Asiatic Society was founded in Calcutta by Sir William Jones, the first who thoroughly mastered the Sanskrit language. In "Asiatic Researches," published by this society, were collected the results of all scientific investigations relating to India. In 1789, Jones published his translation of the drama of S'akuntala, that charming specimen of Hindu literature, so full of feeling and refinement. Sanskrit grammars and dictionaries were now multiplied, and a regular rivalry was set on foot in British India, which would undoubtedly soon have spread to Europe, had not the continental blockade prevented the introduction of works published abroad. At this time an Englishman named Hamilton, a prisoner of war in Paris, studied the Oriental MSS. in the library of the French capital, and taught Frederick Schlegel the rudiments of Sanskrit, which it was no longer necessary to go to India to learn.

[Footnote 1: Gentoo was the name given by old English writers to the natives of Hindustan, and is now obsolete, having been superseded by that of Hindoo.—Trans.]

Lassen was Schlegel's pupil, and together they studied the literature and antiquities of India, examining, translating, and publishing the original texts; whilst at the same time Franz Bopp devoted himself to the study of the language, making his grammars accessible to all, and coming to the conclusion which was then startling, although it is now generally accepted, of the common origin of the Indo-European languages.

It was proved that the Vedas, that collection of sacred writings held in too universal veneration to be tampered with, were written in a very ancient and very pure idiom which had not been revived, and whose close resemblance with the Zend, put back the date of the composition of the books beyond the time of the separation of the Aryan family into two branches. The Mahabharata and the Ramayana, dating from the Brahminical or the period succeeding that of the Vedas, were next studied, together with the Puranas. Owing to a profounder knowledge of the language and a more intimate acquaintance with the mythology of the Hindus, scholars were able to fix approximately the date of the composition of these poems, to ascertain the numberless interpolations, and to extract everything of actual historical or geographical value from those marvellous allegories.

The result of these patient and minute investigations was a conviction that the Celtic, Greek, Latin, Germanic, Slave, and Persian languages had one common parent, and that parent none other than Sanskrit. If, then, their language was the same, it followed as a matter of course that the people had been also identical. The differences now existing between these various idioms are accounted for by the successive breakings up of the primitive people, approximate dates enable us to realize the greater or less affinity of those languages with the Sanskrit, and the nature of the words which they have borrowed from it, words corresponding by their nature to the different degrees of advance in civilization.

Moreover a very clear and definite notion was obtained of the kind of life led by the founders of the Indo-European race, and the changes brought about in it by the progress of civilization. The Vedas give us a picture of the Aryan race before it migrated to India, and occupied the Punjab and Cabulistan. By the aid of these poems we can look on at struggles against the primitive races of Hindustan; whose resistance was all the more desperate in that the conqueror, of their caste divisions, left them only the lowest and most degraded. Thanks to the Vedas we can realize every detail of the pastoral and patriarchal life of the Aryans, a life so domestic and unruffled, that we mentally ask ourselves whether the eager strife of the modern peoples is not a poor exchange for the peaceful existence which their few wants secured to their forefathers.

We cannot dwell longer on this subject, but the little that we have said will be enough to show the reader the importance to history, ethnography, and philology, of the study of Sanskrit. For further details we refer him to the special works of Orientalists and to the excellent historical manuals of Robiou, Lenormant, and Maspero. All the scientific results of whatever kind obtained up to 1820 are also skilfully and impartially summed up in Walter Hamilton's large work, "A Geographical, Statistical, and Historical Description of Hindustan, and the neighbouring Countries." This is a book which, by recording the various stages of scientific progress, marks with accuracy the point reached at any given epoch.

After this brief review of the labours of scholars in reference to the intellectual and social life of the Hindus, we must turn to those studies whose aim was a knowledge of the physical character of the country.

One of the most surprising results obtained by the travels of Webb and Moorcroft was the extraordinary height attributed by them to the Himalaya mountains. According to them their elevation exceeded that of the loftiest summits of the Andes. Colonel Colebrook had estimated the average height of the chain at 22,000 feet, and even this would appear to be less than the reality. Webb measured Yamunavatri, one of the most remarkable peaks of the chain, and estimated its height above the level of the plateau from which it rises as 20,000 feet, whilst the plateau in its turn is 5000 feet above the plain. Not satisfied, however, with what he looked upon as too perfunctory an estimate, he measured, with all possible mathematical accuracy, the Dewalagiri or White Mountain, and ascertained its height to be no less than 27,500 feet.

The most remarkable feature of the Himalaya chain is the succession of these mountains, the ranges of heights rising one above the other. This gives a far more vivid impression of their loftiness than would one isolated peak rising from a plain and with its head lost among the clouds.

The calculations of Webb and Colebrook, were soon verified by the mathematical observations of Colonel Crawford, who measured eight of the highest peaks of the Himalayas. According to him the loftiest of all was Chumulari, situated near the frontiers of Bhoutan and Thibet, which attains to a height of 30,000 feet above the sea-level.

Results such as these, confirmed by the agreement of so many observers, who could not surely all be wrong, took the scientific world by surprise. The chief objection urged was the fact that the snow-line must in these districts be something like 30,000 feet above the sea-level. It appeared, therefore, impossible to believe the assertion of all the explorers, that the Himalayas were covered with forests of gigantic pines. Finally, however, actual personal observation upset theory. In a second journey, Webb climbed the Niti-Ghaut, the loftiest peak in the world, the height of which he fixed at 16,814 feet, and not only did he find no snow, but even the rocks rising 300 feet above it were quite free from snow in summer. Moreover, the steep sides, where breathing was difficult, were clothed with magnificent forests of tapering pines, and firs, and wide-spreading cypress and cedar-trees.

"The high limits of perpetual snow on the Himalaya mountains," says Desborough Cooley, "are justly ascribed by Mr. Webb to the great elevation of the table-land or terrace from which these mountain peaks spring. As the heat of our atmosphere is derived chiefly from the radiation of the earth's surface, it follows that the temperature of any elevated point must be modified in a very important degree by the proximity and extent of the surrounding plains. These observations seem satisfactorily to refute the objections made by certain savants respecting the great height of the Himalaya mountains, which may be, therefore, safely pronounced to be the loftiest mountain chain on the surface of the globe."

We must now refer briefly to an expedition in the latitudes already visited by Webb and Moorcroft. The traveller Fraser, with neither the necessary instruments nor knowledge for measuring the lofty peaks he ascended, was endowed with a great power of observation, and his account of his journey is full of interest, and here and there very amusing. He visited the source of the Jumna, and, at a height of more than 25,000 feet, he found numerous villages picturesquely perched on slopes carpetted with snow. He then made his way to Gangoutri, in spite of the opposition of his guides, who represented the road thither as extremely dangerous, declaring that it was swept by a pestilential wind which would deprive any traveller, who ventured to expose himself to it, of his senses. The explorer, however, was more than rewarded for all his dangers and fatigues by the enjoyment he derived from the grandeur and magnificence of the views he obtained.



"There is that," says Desborough Cooley in reference to Fraser's journey, "in the appearance of the Himalaya range, which every person who has seen them will allow to be peculiarly their own. No other mountains that I have ever seen bear any resemblance to their character; their summits shoot in the most fantastic and spiring peaks to a height that astonishes, and, when viewed from an elevated situation, almost induce the belief of an ocular deception."

We must now leave the peninsula of the Ganges for that of Arabia, where we have to record the result of several interesting journeys. That of Captain Sadler of the Indian army, claims the first rank. Sent by the Governor of Bombay in 1819, on an embassy to Ibrahim Pacha, who was then at war with the Wahabees, that officer crossed the entire peninsula from Port El Katif on the Persian Gulf to Yambo on the Red Sea.

Unfortunately the interesting account of this crossing of Arabia, never before accomplished by a European, has not been separately published, but is buried in a book which it is almost impossible to obtain, "The Transactions of the Literary Society of Bombay."

At about the same time, 1821-1826, the English Government commissioned Captains Moresby and Haines, of the naval service, to make hydrographical surveys with a view to obtaining a complete chart of the coasts of Arabia. These surveys were to be the foundation of the first trustworthy map of the Arabian peninsula.

We have now only to mention the two expeditions of the French naturalists, Aucher Eloy in the country of Oman, and Emile Botta in Yemen, and to refer to the labours in reference to the idioms and antiquities of Arabia of the French consul at Djedda, Fulgence Fresnel. He was the first, in his letters on the history of the Arabs before Islamism, published in 1836, to explain the Himyarite or Homeric language and to recognize that it resembles rather the early Hebrew and Syriac dialects, than the Arabic of the present day.

At the beginning of this volume we spoke of the explorations and archaeological and historical researches of Seetzen and Burckhardt in Syria and Palestine. We have still to say a few words on an expedition the results of which were entirely geographical. We refer to the journey of the Bavarian naturalist Heinrich Schubert.

Schubert was a devout Catholic and an enthusiastic student, and the melancholy scenery of the Holy Land with its wonderful legends, and the lovely banks of the mysterious Nile with its historic memories, had for him an extraordinary fascination. In his account of his journey we find the deep impressions of the believer combined with the scientific observations of the naturalist.

In 1837, Schubert, having crossed Lower Egypt and the peninsula of Sinai, entered the Holy Land. The learned Bavarian pilgrim was accompanied by two friends, Dr. Erdl and Martin Bernatz, a painter.

The travellers landed at El Akabah on the Red Sea, and went with a small Arab caravan to El Khalil, the ancient Hebron. The route they followed had never before been trodden by a European. It led through a wide, flat valley terminating at the Dead Sea; a valley through which the waters of the Dead Sea were supposed at one time to have flowed towards the Red Sea. This hypothesis was shared by Burckhardt and many others who had only seen the district from a distance, and who attributed the cessation of the drainage to an upheaval of the soil. The heights, as taken by the travellers, showed this hypothesis to be altogether erroneous.

In fact from the lower end of the Persian Gulf the country presents a continuous ascent for two or three days' march to the point called by the Arabs the Saddle, from thence it begins to sink and slopes down towards the Dead Sea. The Saddle is about 2100 feet above the sea-level, at least that was the estimate given a year later by Count Bertou, a Frenchman, who visited those localities at that time.

On their way down to the Bituminous Lake, Schubert and his companions took some other barometrical observations, and were very much surprised to find their instrument marking ninety-one feet below the Red Sea, the levels gradually decreasing in height as they advanced. At first they thought there must be some mistake, but finally, the evidence was too strong for them, and it became proved beyond a doubt that the Dead Sea could never have emptied its waters into the Red Sea for the very excellent reason that the level of the former is very much lower than that of the latter.

The depression of the Dead Sea is very much more noticeable when Jericho is approached from Jerusalem. In that case the way lies through a long valley with a very rapid slope, all the more remarkable as the hilly plains of Judea, Perae, and El Harran are very lofty, the latter rising to a height of nearly 3000 feet above the sea-level.

The appearance of the country and the testimony of the instruments were in such contradiction to the prevalent belief, that Messrs. Erdl and Schubert were very unwilling to accept the results obtained, which they attributed to their barometer being out of order and to a sudden disturbance of the atmosphere. But on their way back to Jerusalem the barometer returned to the mean height it had registered before they started for Jericho. There was nothing for it then but to admit, whether they liked it or not, that the Dead Sea was at least 600 feet below the level of the Mediterranean, an estimate, as later researches showed, which fell one-half short of the truth.

This, it will be admitted, was a fortunate rectification, which would have considerable influence, by calling the attention of savants to a phenomenon which was soon to be verified by other explorers.

At the same time, the survey of the basin of the Dead Sea was completed and rectified. In 1838, two American Missionaries, Edward Robinson and Eli Smith, gave quite a new impulse to Biblical geography. They were the forerunners of that phalanx of naturalists, historians, archaeologists, and engineers, who, under the patronage or in conjunction with the English Exploration Society, were soon to explore the land of the patriarchs from end to end, making maps of it, and achieving discoveries which threw a new light on the history of the ancient peoples who, by turns, were possessors of this corner of the Mediterranean basin.

But it was not only the Holy Land, so interesting on account of the many associations it has for every Christian, which was the scene of the researches of scholars and explorers; Asia Minor was also soon to yield up her treasures to the curiosity of the learned world. That country was visited by travellers in every direction. Parrot visited Armenia; Dubois de Monpereux traversed the Caucasus in 1839. In 1825 and 1826, Eichwald explored the shores of the Caspian Sea; and lastly, Alexander von Humboldt at the expense of the generous Nicholas, Emperor of Russia, supplemented his intrepid work as a discoverer in the New World by an exploration of Western Asia and the Ural Mountains. Accompanied by the mineralogist Gustave Rose, the naturalist Ehrenberg, well known for his travels in Upper Egypt and Nubia, and Baron von Helmersen, an officer of engineers, Humboldt travelled through Siberia, visited the gold and platinum mines of the Ural Mountains, and explored the Caspian steppes and the Altai chain to the frontiers of China. These learned men divided the work, Humboldt taking astronomical, magnetic, and physical observations, and examining the flora and fauna of the country, while Rose kept the journal of the expedition, which he published in German between 1837 and 1842.

Although the explorers travelled very rapidly, at the rate of no less than 11,500 miles in nine months, the scientific results of their journey were considerable. In a first publication which appeared in Paris in 1838, Humboldt treated only the climatology and geology of Asia, but this fragmentary account was succeeded in 1843 by his great work called "Central Asia." "In this," says La Roquette, "he has laid down and systematized the principal scientific results of his expedition in Asia, and has recorded some ingenious speculation as to the shape of the continents and the configuration of the mountains of Tartary, giving special attention to the vast depression which stretches from the north of Europe to the centre of Asia beyond the Caspian Sea and the Ural River."

We must now leave Asia and pass in review the various expeditions in the New World, which have been sent out in succession since the beginning of the present century. In 1807, when Lewis and Clarke were crossing North America from the United States to the Pacific Ocean, the Government commissioned a young officer, Lieutenant Zabulon Montgomery Pike, to examine the sources of the Mississippi. He was at the same time to endeavour to open friendly relations with any Indians he might meet.



Pike was well received by the Chief of the powerful Sioux nation and presented with the pipe of peace, a talisman which secured to him the protection of the allied tribes; he ascended the Mississippi, passing the mouths of the Chippeway and St. Peter, important tributaries of that great river. But beyond the confluence of the St. Peter with the Mississippi as far as the Falls of St. Anthony, the course of the main river is impeded by an uninterrupted series of falls and rapids. A little below the 45th parallel of North latitude, Pike and his companions had to leave their canoes and continue their journey in sledges. To the severity of a bitter winter were soon added the tortures of hunger. Nothing, however, checked the intrepid explorers, who continued to follow the Mississippi, now dwindled down to a stream only 300 roods wide, and arrived in February at Leech Lake, where they were received with enthusiasm at the camp of some trappers and fur hunters from Montreal.



After visiting Red Cedar Lake, Pike returned to St. Louis. His arduous and perilous journey had extended over no less than nine months; and although he had not attained its main object, it was not without scientific results. The skill, presence of mind, and courage of Pike were recognized, and the government soon afterwards conferred on him the rank of major, and appointed him to the command of a fresh expedition. This time he was to explore the vast tract of country between the Mississippi and the Rocky Mountains, and to discover the sources of the Arkansas and Red River. With twenty-three companions Pike ascended the Arkansas, a fine river navigable to the mountains in which it rises, that is to say for a distance of 2000 miles, except in the summer, when its bed is encumbered with sand-banks. On this long voyage, winter, from which Pike had suffered so much on his previous trip, set in with redoubled vigour. Game was so scarce that for four days the explorers were without food. The feet of several men were frostbitten, and this misfortune added to the fatigue of the others. The major, after reaching the source of the Arkansas, pursued a southerly direction and soon came to a fine stream which he took for the Red River.

This was the Rio del Norte, which rises in Colorado, then a Spanish province, and flows into the Gulf of Mexico.

From what has been already said of the difficulties which Humboldt encountered before he obtained permission to enter the Spanish possessions in America, we may judge with what jealous suspicion the arrival of strangers in Colorado was regarded. Pike was surrounded by a detachment of Spanish soldiers, made prisoner with all his men, and taken to Santa Fe. Their ragged garments, emaciated forms, and generally miserable appearance did not speak much in their favour, and the Spaniards at first took the Americans for savages. However, when the mistake was recognized, they were escorted across the inland provinces to Louisiana, arriving at Natchitoches on the 1st July, 1807.

The unfortunate end of this expedition cooled the zeal of the government, but not that of private persons, merchants, and hunters, whose numbers were continually on the increase. Many even completely crossed the American continent from Canada to the Pacific. Amongst these travellers we must mention Daniel William Harmon, a member of the North-West Company, who visited Lakes Huron and Superior, Rainy Lake, the Lake of the Woods, Manitoba, Winnipeg, Athabasca, and the Great Bear Lake, all between N. lat. 47 degrees and 58 degrees, and reached the shores of the Pacific. The fur company established at Astoria at the mouth of the Columbia also did much towards the exploration of the Rocky Mountains.

Four associates of that company, leaving Astoria in June, 1812, ascended the Columbia, crossed the Rocky Mountains, and following an east-south-east direction, reached one of the sources of the Platte, descended it to its junction with the Missouri, crossed a district never before explored, and arrived at St. Louis on the 30th May, 1813.

In 1811, another expedition composed of sixty men, started from St. Louis and ascended the Missouri as far as the settlements of the Ricara Indians, whence they made their way to Astoria, arriving there at the beginning of 1812, after the loss of several men and great suffering from fatigue and want of food.

These journeys resulted not only in the increase of our knowledge of the topography of the districts traversed, but they also brought about quite unexpected discoveries. In the Ohio valley between Illinois and Mexico for instance, were found ruins, fortifications, and entrenchments, with ditches and a kind of bastion, many of them covering five or six acres of ground. What people can have constructed works such as these, which denote a civilization greatly in advance of that of the Indians, is a difficult problem of which no solution has yet been found.

Philologists and historians were already regretting the dying out of the Indian tribes, who, until then, had been only superficially observed, and lamenting their extinction before their languages had been studied. A knowledge of these languages and their comparison with those of the old world, might have thrown some unexpected light upon the origin of the wandering tribes.[2]

[Footnote 2: The author has evidently not seen Bancroft's "Native Races of the Pacific," an exhaustive work in five volumes, published at New York and San Francisco a few years ago, and which embodies the researches of a number of gentlemen, who collected their information on the spot, and whose contributions to our knowledge of the past and present life of the Indians should certainly not be ignored.—Trans.]

Simultaneously with the discovery of the ruins the flora and geology of the country began to be studied, and in the latter science great surprises were in store for future explorers. It was so important for the American government to proceed rapidly to reconnoitre the vast territories between the United States and the Pacific, that another expedition was speedily sent out.

In 1819, the military authorities commissioned Major Long to explore the districts between the Mississippi and the Rocky Mountains, to trace the course of the Missouri and of its principal tributaries, to fix the latitude and longitude of the chief places, to study the ways of the Indian tribes, in fact to describe everything interesting either in the aspect of the country or in its animal, vegetable, and mineral productions.

Leaving Pittsburgh on the 5th March, 1819, on board the steamship Western Engineer, the expedition arrived in May of the following year at the junction of the Ohio with the Mississippi, and ascended the latter river as far as St. Louis. On the 29th June, the mouth of the Missouri was reached. During the month of July, Mr. Say, who was charged with the zoological observations, made his way by land to Fort Osage, where he was joined by the steamer. Major Long turned his stay at Fort Osage to account by sending a party to examine the districts between the Kansas and the Platte, but this party was attacked, robbed, and compelled to turn back after losing all their horses. After obtaining at Cow Island a reinforcement of fifteen soldiers, the expedition reached Fort Lisa, near Council Bluff, on the 19th September. There it was decided to winter. The Americans suffered greatly from scurvy, and having no medicines to check the terrible disorder, they lost 100 men, nearly a third of the whole party. Major Long, who had meanwhile reached Washington in a canoe, brought back orders for the discontinuation of the voyage up the Missouri, and for a journey overland to the sources of the Platte, whence the Mississippi was to be reached by way of the Arkansas and Red River. On the 6th June, the explorers left Engineer's Fort, as they called their winter quarters, and ascended the Platte Valley for more than a hundred miles, its grassy plains, frequented by vast herds of bisons and deer, supplying them with plenty of provisions.

Those boundless prairies, whose monotony is unbroken by a single hillock, were succeeded by a sandy desert gradually sloping up, for a distance of nearly four hundred miles, to the Rocky Mountains. This desert, broken by precipitous ravines, canons, and gorges, at the bottom of which gurgles some insignificant stream, its banks clothed with stunted and meagre vegetation, produces nothing but cacti with sharp and formidable prickles.

On the 6th July, the expedition reached the foot of the Rocky Mountains. Dr. James scaled one of the peaks, to which he gave his own name, and which rises to a height of 11,500 feet above the sea level.

"From the summit of the peak," says the botanist, "the view towards the north, west, and south-west, is diversified with innumerable mountains all white with snow, and on some of the more distant it appears to extend down to their bases. Immediately under our feet on the west, lay the narrow valley of the Arkansas; which we could trace running towards the north-west, probably more than sixty miles. On the north side of the peak was an immense mass of snow and ice.... To the east lay the great plain, rising as it receded, until, in the distant horizon, it appeared to mingle with the sky."

Here the expedition was divided into two parties, one, under the command of Major Long, to make its way to the sources of the Red River, the other, under Captain Bell, to go down the Arkansas as far as Port Smith. The two detachments separated on the 24th July. The former, misled by the statements of the Kaskaia Indians and the inaccuracy of the maps, took the Canadian for the Red River, and did not discover their mistake until they reached its junction with the Arkansas. The Kaskaias were the most miserable of savages, but intrepid horsemen, excelling in lassoing the wild mustangs which are descendants of the horses imported into Mexico by the Spanish conquerors. The second detachment was deserted by four soldiers, who carried off the journals of Say and Lieutenant Swift with a number of other valuable effects. Both parties also suffered from want of provisions in the sandy deserts, whose streams yield nothing but brackish and muddy water. The expedition brought to Washington sixty skins of wild animals, several thousands of insects, including five hundred new species, four or five hundred specimens of hitherto unknown plants, numerous views of the scenery, and the materials for a map of the districts traversed.



The command of another expedition was given in 1828 to Major Long, whose services were thoroughly appreciated. Leaving Philadelphia in April, he embarked on the Ohio, and crossed the state of the same name, and those of Indiana and Illinois. Having reached the Mississippi, he ascended that river to the mouth of the St. Peter, formerly visited by Carver, and later by Baron La Hontan. Long followed the St. Peter to its source, passing Crooked Lake and reaching Lake Winnipeg, whence he explored the river of the same name, obtained a sight of the Lake of the Woods and Rainy Lake, and arrived at the plateau which separates the Hudson's Bay valley from that of the St. Lawrence. Lastly, he went to Lake Superior by way of Cold Water Lake and Dog River.

Although all these districts had been constantly traversed by Canadian pathfinders, trappers, and hunters for many years previously, it was the first time an official expedition had visited them with a view to the laying down of a map. The explorers were struck with the beauty of the neighbourhood watered by the Winnipeg. That river, whose course is frequently broken by picturesque rapids and waterfalls, flows between two perpendicular granite walls crowned with verdure. The beauty of the scenery, succeeding as it did to the monotony of the plains and savannahs they had previously traversed, filled the explorers with admiration.

The exploration of the Mississippi, which had been neglected since Pike's expedition, was resumed in 1820 by General Cass, Governor of Michigan. Leaving Detroit at the end of May with twenty men trained to the work of pathfinders, he reached the Upper Mississippi, after visiting Lakes Huron, Superior, and Sandy. His exhausted escort halted to rest whilst he continued the examination of the river in a canoe. For 150 miles the course of the Mississippi is rapid and uninterrupted, but beyond that distance begins a series of rapids extending over twelve miles to the Peckgama Falls.

Above this cataract the stream, now far less rapid, winds through vast savannahs to Leech Lake. Having reached Lake Winnipeg, Cass arrived on the 21st July at a new lake, to which he gave his own name, but he did not care to push on further with his small party of men and inadequate supply of provisions and ammunition.

The source of the Mississippi had been approached, but not reached. The general opinion was that the river took its rise in a small sheet of water known as Deer Lake, sixty miles from Cass Lake. Not until 1832, however, when General Cass was Secretary of State for war, was this important problem solved.

The command of an expedition was then given to a traveller named Schoolcraft, who had in the previous year explored the Chippeway country, north-west of Lake Superior. His party consisted of six soldiers, an officer qualified to conduct hydrographic surveys, a surgeon, a geologist, an interpreter, and a missionary.

Schoolcraft left St. Marie on the 7th June, 1832, visited the tribes living about Lake Superior, and was soon on the St. Louis river. He was then 150 miles from the Mississippi, and was told that it would take him no less than ten days to reach the great river, on account of the rapids and shallows. On the 3rd July, the expedition reached the factory of a trader named Aitkin, on the banks of the river, and there celebrated on the following day the anniversary of the independence of the United States.

Two days later Schoolcraft found himself opposite the Peckgama Falls, and encamped at Oak Point. Here the river winds a great deal amongst savannahs, but guides led the party by paths which greatly shortened the distance. Lake Winnipeg was then crossed, and on the 10th July, Schoolcraft arrived at Lake Cass, the furthest point reached by his predecessors.



A party of Chippeway Indians led the explorers to their settlement on an island in the river. The friendliness of the natives led Cass to leave part of his escort with them, and, accompanied by Lieutenant Allen, the surgeon Houghton, a missionary, and several Indians, he started in a canoe.

Lakes Tasodiac and Crooked were visited in turn. A little beyond the latter, the Mississippi divides into two branches or forks. The guide took Schoolcraft up the eastern, and after crossing Lakes Marquette, La Salle, and Kubbakanna, he came to the mouth of the Naiwa, the chief tributary of this branch of the Mississippi. Finally, after passing the little lake called Usawa, the expedition reached Lake Itasca, whence issues the Itascan, or western branch of the Mississippi.

Lake Itasca, or Deer Lake, as the French call it, is only seven or eight miles in extent, and is surrounded by hills clothed with dark pine woods. According to Schoolcraft it is some 1500 feet above the sea level; but we must not attach too much importance to this estimate, as the leader of the expedition had no instruments.

On their way back to Lake Cass, the party followed the western branch, identifying its chief tributaries. Schoolcraft then studied the ways of the Indians frequenting these districts, and made treaties with them.

To sum up, the aim of the government was achieved, and the Mississippi had been explored from its mouth to its source. The expedition had collected a vast number of interesting details on the manners, customs, history, and language of the people, as well as numerous new or little known species of flora and fauna.

The people of the United States were not content with these official expeditions, and numbers of trappers threw themselves into the new districts. Most of them being however absolutely illiterate, they could not turn their discoveries to scientific account. But this was not the case with James Pattie, who has published an account of his romantic adventures and perilous trips in the district between New Mexico and New California.

On his way down the River Gila to its mouth, Pattie visited races then all but unknown, including the Yotans, Eiotaws, Papawans, Mokees, Umeas, Mohawas, and Nabahoes, with whom but very little intercourse had yet been held. On the banks of the Rio Eiotario he discovered ruins of ancient monuments, stone walls, moats, and potteries, and in the neighbouring mountains he found copper, lead, and silver mines.

We owe a curious travelling journal also to Doctor Willard, who, during a stay of three years in Mexico, explored the Rio del Norte from its source to its mouth.

Lastly, in 1831 Captain Wyeth and his brother explored Oregon, and the neighbouring districts of the Rocky Mountains.

After Humboldt's journey in Mexico, one explorer succeeded another in Central America. In 1787, Bernasconi discovered the now famous ruins of Palenque. In 1822, Antonio del Rio gave a detailed description of them, illustrated with drawings by Frederick Waldeck, the future explorer of Palenque, that city of the dead.

Between 1805 and 1807, three journeys were successively taken in the province of Chiapa and to Palenque by Captain William Dupaix and the draughtsman Castaneda, and the result of their researches appeared in 1830 in the form of a magnificent work, with illustrations by Augustine Aglio, executed at the expense of Lord Kingsborough.

Lastly, Waldeck spent the years 1832 and 1833 at Palenque, searching the ruins, making plans, sections, and elevations of the monuments, trying to decipher the hitherto unexplained hieroglyphics with which they are covered, and collecting a vast amount of quite new information alike on the natural history of the country and the manners and customs of the inhabitants.

We must also name Don Juan Galindo, a Spanish colonel, who explored Palenque, Utatlan, Copan, and other cities buried in the heart of tropical forests.



After the long stay made by Humboldt in equinoctial America, the impulse his explorations would doubtless otherwise have given to geographical science was strangely checked by the struggle of the Spanish colonies with the mother country. As soon, however, as the native governments attained to at least a semblance of stability, intrepid explorers rushed to examine this world, so new in the truest sense, for the jealousy of the Spanish had hitherto kept it closed to the investigations of scientific men.

Many naturalists and engineers now travelled or settled in South America. Soon indeed, that is in 1817-1820, the Austrian and Bavarian Governments sent out a scientific expedition, to the command of which they appointed Doctors Spix and Martins, who collected a great deal of information on the botany, ethnography, and geography of these hitherto little known districts—Martins publishing, at the expense of the Austrian and Bavarian governments, a most important work on the flora of the country, which may be looked upon as a model of its kind.

At the same time the editors of special publications, such as Malte Brun's Annales des Voyages and the Bulletin de la Societe de Geographie, cordially accepted and published all the communications addressed to them, including many on Brazil and the province of Minas Geraes.

About this period too a Prussian Major-General, the Prince of Wied-Neuwied, who had been at leisure since the peace of 1815, devoted himself to the study of natural science, geography, and history, undertaking moreover, in company with the naturalists Freirciss and Sellow, an exploring expedition in the interior of Brazil, having special reference to its flora and fauna.

A few years later, i.e. in 1836, the French naturalist Alcide d'Orbigny, who had won celebrity at a very early age, was appointed by the governing body of the Museum to the command of an expedition to South America, the special object of which was the study of the natural history of the country. For eight consecutive years D'Orbigny wandered about Brazil, Uruguay, the Argentine Republic, Patagonia, Chili, Bolivia, and Peru.

"Such a journey," says Dumour in his funeral oration on D'Orbigny, "in countries so different in their productions, climate, the character of their soil, and the manners and customs of their inhabitants, was necessarily full of ever fresh perils. D'Orbigny, endowed with a strong constitution and untiring energy, overcame obstacles which would have daunted most travellers. On his arrival in the cold regions of Patagonia, amongst savage races constantly at war with each other, he found himself compelled to take part, and to fight in the ranks of a tribe which had received him hospitably. Fortunately for the intrepid student his side was victorious, and he was left free to proceed on his journey."

It took thirteen years of the hardest work to put together the results of D'Orbigny's extensive researches. His book, which embraces nearly every branch of science, leaves far behind it all that had ever before been published on South America. History, archaeology, zoology, and botany all hold honoured positions in it; but the most important part of this encyclopaedic work is that relating to American man. In it the author embodies all the documents he himself collected, and analyzes and criticizes those which came to him at second hand, on physiological types, and on the manners, languages, and religions of South America. A work of such value ought to immortalize the name of the French scholar, and reflect the greatest honour on the nation which gave him birth.

END OF THE FIRST PART.



PART II.



CHAPTER I. VOYAGES ROUND THE WORLD, AND POLAR EXPEDITIONS.

The Russian fur trade—Kruzenstern appointed to the command of an expedition—Noukha-Hiva—Nangasaki—Reconnaisance of the coast of Japan—Yezo—The Ainos—Saghalien—Return to Europe—Otto von Kotzebue—Stay at Easter Island—Penrhyn—The Radak Archipelago—Return to Russia—Changes at Otaheite and the Sandwich Islands—Beechey's Voyage—Easter Island—Pitcairn and the mutineers of the Bounty—The Paumoto Islands—Otaheite and the Sandwich Islands—The Bonin Islands—Lutke—The Quebradas of Valparaiso—Holy week in Chili—New Archangel—The Kaloches—Ounalashka—The Caroline Archipelago—The canoes of the Caroline Islanders—Guam, a desert island—Beauty and happy situation of the Bonin Islands—The Tchouktchees: their manners and their conjurors—Return to Russia.

At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the Russians for the first time took part in voyages round the world, Until that time their explorations had been almost entirely confined to Asia, and their only mariners of note were Behring, Tchirikoff, Spangberg, Laxman, Krenitzin, and Saryscheff. The last-named took an important part in the voyage of the Englishman Billings, a voyage by the way which was far from achieving all that might have been fairly expected from the ten years it occupied and the vast sums it cost.

Adam John von Kruzenstern was the first Russian to whom is due the honour of having made a voyage round the world under government auspices and with a scientific purpose.

Born in 1770, Kruzenstern entered the English navy in 1793. After six years' training in the stern school which then numbered amongst its leaders the most skilful sailors of the world, he returned to his native land with a profound knowledge of his profession, and with his ideas of the part Russia might play in Eastern Asia very considerably widened.

During a stay of two years at Canton, in 1798 and 1799, Kruzenstern had been witness of the extraordinary results achieved by some English fur traders, who brought their merchandise from the northwest coasts of Russian America. This trade had not come into existence until after Cook's third voyage, and the English had already realized immense sums, at the cost of the Russians, who had hitherto sent their furs to the Chinese markets overland.

In 1785, however, a Russian named Chelikoff founded a fur-trading colony on Kodiak Island, at about an equal distance from Kamtchatka and the Aleutian Islands, which rapidly became a flourishing community. The Russian government now recognized the resources of districts it had hitherto considered barren, and reinforcements, provisions, and stores were sent to Kamtchatka via Siberia.

Kruzenstern quickly realized how inadequate to the new state of things was help such as this, the ignorance of the pilots and the errors in the maps leading to the loss of several vessels every year, not to speak of the injury to trade involved in a two years' voyage for the transport of furs, first to Okhotsk, and thence to Kiakhta.

As the best plans are always the simplest they are sure to be the last to be thought of, and Kruzenstern was the first to point out the imperative necessity of going direct by sea from the Aleutian Islands to Canton, the most frequented market.

On his return to Russia, Kruzenstern tried to win over to his views Count Kuscheleff, the Minister of Marine, but the answer he received destroyed all hope. Not until the accession of Alexander I., when Admiral Mordinoff became head of the naval department, did he receive any encouragement.

Acting on Count Romanoff's advice, the Russian Emperor soon commissioned Kruzenstern to carry out the plan he had himself proposed; and on the 7th August, 1802, he was appointed to the command of two vessels for the exploration of the north-west coast of America.

Although the leader of the expedition was named, the officers and seamen were still to be selected, and the vessels to be manned were not to be had in either the Russian empire or at Hamburg. In London alone were Lisianskoi, afterwards second in command to Kruzenstern, and the builder Kasoumoff, able to obtain two vessels at all suitable to the service in which they were to be employed. These two vessels received the names of the Nadiejeda and the Neva.

In the meantime, the Russian government decided to avail itself of this opportunity to send M. de Besanoff to Japan as ambassador, with a numerous suite, and magnificent presents for the sovereign of the country.

On the 4th August, 1803, the two vessels, completely equipped, and carrying 134 persons, left the roadstead of Cronstadt. Flying visits were paid to Copenhagen and Falmouth, with a view to replacing some of the salt provisions bought at Hamburg, and to caulk the Nadiejeda, the seams of which had started in a violent storm encountered in the North Sea.

After a short stay at the Canary Islands, Kruzenstern hunted in vain, as La Perouse had done before him, for the Island of Ascension, as to the existence of which opinion had been divided for some three hundred years. He then rounded Cape Frio, the position of which he was unable exactly to determine although he was most anxious to do so, the accounts of earlier travellers and the maps hitherto laid down varying from 23 degrees 6 minutes to 22 degrees 34 minutes. A reconnaissance of the coast of Brazil was succeeded by a sail through the passage between the islands of Gal and Alvaredo, unjustly characterized as dangerous by La Perouse, and on the 21st December, 1803, St. Catherine was reached.

The necessity for replacing the main and mizzen masts of the Neva detained Kruzenstern for five weeks on this island, where he was most cordially received by the Portuguese authorities.

On the 4th February, the two vessels were able to resume their voyage, prepared to face all the dangers of the South Sea, and to double Cape Horn, that bugbear of all navigators. As far as Staten Island the weather was uniformly fine, but beyond it the explorers had to contend with extremely violent gales, storms of hail and snow, dense fogs, huge waves, and a swell in which the vessels laboured heavily. On the 24th March, the ships lost sight of each other in a dense fog a little above the western entrance to the Straits of Magellan. They did not meet again until both reached Noukha-Hiva.

Kruzenstern having given up all idea of touching at Easter Island, now made for the Marquesas, or Mendoza Archipelago, and determined the position of Fatongou and Udhugu Islands, called Washington by the American Captain Ingraham, who discovered them in 1791, a few weeks before Captain Marchand, who named them Revolution Islands. Kruzenstern also saw Hiva-Hoa, the Dominica of Mendana, and at Noukha-Hiva met an Englishman named Roberts, and a Frenchman named Cabritt, whose knowledge of the language was of great service to him.

The incidents of the stay in the Marquesas Archipelago are of little interest, they were much the same as those related in Cook's Voyages. The total, but at the same time utterly unconscious immodesty of the women, the extensive agricultural knowledge of the natives, and their greed of iron instruments, are commented upon in both narratives.

Nothing is noticed in the later which is not to be found in the earlier narrative, if we except some remarks on the existence of numerous societies of which the king or his relations, priests, or celebrated warriors, are the chiefs, and the aim of which is the providing of the people with food in times of scarcity. In our opinion these societies resemble the clans of Scotland or the Indian tribes of America. Kruzenstern, however, does not agree with us, as the following quotation will show.

"The members of these clubs are distinguished by different tattooed marks upon their bodies; those of the king's club, consisting of twenty-six members, have a square one on their breasts about six inches long and four wide, and to this company Roberts belonged. The companions of the Frenchman, Joseph Cabritt, were marked with a tattooed eye, &c. Roberts assured me that he never would have entered this association, had he not been driven to it by extreme hunger. There was an apparent want of consistency in this dislike, as the members of these companies are not only relieved from all care as to their subsistence, but, even by his own account, the admittance into them is a distinction that many seek to obtain. I am therefore inclined to believe that it must be attended with the loss of some part of liberty."

A reconnaissance of the neighbourhood of Anna Maria led to the discovery of Port Tchitchagoff, which, though the entrance is difficult, is so shut in by land that its waters are unruffled by the most violent storm.

At the time of Kruzenstern's visit to Noukha-Hiva, cannibalism was still largely practised, but the traveller had no tangible proof of the prevalence of the custom. In fact Kruzenstern was very affably received by the king of the cannibals, who appeared to exercise but little authority over his people, a race addicted to the most revolting vices, and our hero owns that but for the intelligent and disinterested testimony of the two Europeans mentioned above he should have carried away a very favourable opinion of the natives.

"In their intercourse with us," he says, "they always showed the best possible disposition, and in bartering an extraordinary degree of honesty, always delivering their cocoa-nuts before they received the piece of iron that was to be paid for them. At all times they appeared ready to assist in cutting wood and filling water; and the help they afforded us in the performance of these laborious tasks was by no means trifling. Theft, the crime so common to all the islanders of this ocean, we very seldom met with among them; they always appeared cheerful and happy, and the greatest good humour was depicted in their countenances.... The two Europeans whom we found here, and who had both resided with them several years, agreed in their assertions that the natives of Nukahiva were a cruel, intractable people, and, without even the exceptions of the female sex, very much addicted to cannibalism; that the appearance of content and good-humour, with which they had so much deceived us, was not their true character; and that nothing but the fear of punishment and the hopes of reward, deterred them from giving a loose to their savage passions. These Europeans described, as eye-witnesses, the barbarous scenes that are acted, particularly in times of war—the desperate rage with which they fall upon their victims, immediately tear off their head, and sip their blood out of the skull,[1] with the most disgusting readiness, completing in this manner their horrible repast. For a long time I would not give credit to these accounts, considering them as exaggerated; but they rest upon the authority of two different persons, who had not only been witnesses for several years to these atrocities, but had also borne a share in them: of two persons who lived in a state of mortal enmity, and took particular pains by their mutual recriminations to obtain with us credit for themselves, but yet on this point never contradicted each other. The very fact of Roberts doing his enemy the justice to allow, that he never devoured his prey, but always exchanged it for hogs, gives the circumstance a great degree of probability, and these reports concur with several appearances we remarked during our stay here, skulls being brought to us every day for sale. Their weapons are invariably adorned with human hair, and human bones are used as ornaments in almost all their household furniture; they also often gave us to understand by pantomimic gestures that human flesh was regarded by them as a delicacy."

[Footnote 1: "All the skulls which we purchased of them," says Kruzenstern, "had a hole perforated through one end of them for this purpose."]

There are grounds for looking upon this account as exaggerated. The truth, probably, lies between the dogmatic assertions of Cook and Forster and those of the two Europeans of Kruzenstern's time, one of whom at least was not much to be relied upon, as he was a deserter.

And we must remember that we ourselves did not attain to the high state of civilization we now enjoy without climbing up from the bottom of the ladder. In the stone age our manners were probably not superior to those of the natives of Oceania.

We must not, therefore, blame these representatives of humanity for not having risen higher. They have never been a nation. Scattered as their homes are on the wide ocean, and divided as they are into small tribes, without agricultural or mineral resources, without connexions, and with a climate which makes them strangers to want, they could but remain stationary or cultivate none but the most rudimentary arts and industries. Yet in spite of all this, how often have their instruments, their canoes, and their nets, excited the admiration of travellers.

On the 18th May, 1804, the Nadiejeda and the Neva left Noukha-Hiva for the Sandwich Islands, where Kruzenstern had decided to stop and lay in a store of fresh provisions, which he had been unable to do at his last anchorage, where seven pigs were all he could get.

This plan fell through, however. The natives of Owhyhee, or Hawaii, brought but a very few provisions to the vessels lying off their south-west coast, and even these they would only exchange for cloth, which Kruzenstern could not give them. He therefore set sail for Kamtchatka and Japan, leaving the Neva off the island of Karakakoua, where Captain Lisianskoi relied upon being able to revictual.



On the 11th July, the Nadiejeda arrived off Petropaulovski, the capital of Kamtchatka, where the crew obtained the rest and fresh provisions they had so well earned. On the 30th August, the Russians put to sea again.

Overtaken by thick fogs and violent storms, Kruzenstern now hunted in vain for some islands marked on a map found on a Spanish gallion captured by Anson, and the existence of which had been alternately accepted and rejected by different cartographers, though they appear in La Billardiere's map of his voyage.

The navigator now passed between the large island of Kiushiu and Tanega-Sima, by way of Van Diemen Strait, till then very inaccurately defined, rectified the position of the Liu-Kiu archipelago, which the English had placed north of the strait, and the French too far south, and sailed down, surveyed and named the coast of the province of Satsuma.

"This part of Satsuma," says Kruzenstern, "is particularly beautiful: and as we sailed along at a very trifling distance from the land, we had a distinct and perfect view of the various picturesque situations that rapidly succeed each other. The whole country consists of high pointed hills, at one time appearing in the form of pyramids, at others of a globular or conical form, and seeming as it were under the protection of some neighbouring mountain, such as Peak Homer, or another lying north-by-west of it, and even a third farther inland. Liberal as nature has been in the adornment of these parts, the industry of the Japanese seems not a little to have contributed to their beauty; for nothing indeed can equal the extraordinary degree of cultivation everywhere apparent. That all the valleys upon this coast should be most carefully cultivated would not so much have surprised us, as in the countries of Europe, where agriculture is not despised, it is seldom that any piece of land is left neglected; but we here saw not only the mountains even to their summits, but the very tops of the rocks which skirted the edge of the coast, adorned with the most beautiful fields and plantations, forming a striking as well as singular contrast, by the opposition of their dark grey and blue colour to that of the most lively verdure. Another object that excited our astonishment was an alley of high trees, stretching over hill and dale along the coast, as far as the eye could reach, with arbours at certain distances, probably for the weary traveller—for whom these alleys must have been constructed,—to rest himself in, an attention which cannot well be exceeded. These alleys are not uncommon in Japan, for we saw a similar one in the vicinity of Nangasaky, and another in the island of Meac-Sima."



The Nadiejeda had hardly anchored at the entrance to Nagasaki harbour before Kruzenstern saw several daimios climb on board, who had come to forbid him to advance further.

Now, although the Russians were aware of the policy of isolation practised by the Japanese government, they had hoped that their reception would have been less forbidding, as they had on board an ambassador from the powerful neighbouring state of Russia. They had relied on enjoying comparative liberty, of which they would have availed themselves to collect information on a country hitherto so little known and about which the only people admitted to it had taken a vow of silence.

They were, however, disappointed in their expectations. Instead of enjoying the same latitude as the Dutch, they were throughout their stay harassed by a perpetual surveillance, as unceasing as it was annoying. In a word, they were little better than prisoners.

Although the ambassador did obtain permission to land with his escort "under arms," a favour never before accorded to any one, the sailors were not allowed to get out of their boat, or when they did land the restricted place where they were permitted to walk was surrounded by a lofty palisading, and guarded by two companies of soldiers.

It was forbidden to write to Europe by way of Batavia, it was forbidden to talk to the Dutch captains, the ambassador was forbidden to leave his house—the word forbidden may be said to sum up the anything but cordial reception given to their visitors by the Japanese.

Kruzenstern turned his long stay here to account by completely overhauling and repairing his vessel. He had nearly finished this operation when the approach was announced of an envoy from the Emperor, of dignity so exalted that, in the words of the interpreter, "he dared to look at the feet of his Imperial Majesty."

This personage began by refusing the Czar's presents, under pretence that if they were accepted the Emperor would have to send back others with an embassy, which would be contrary to the customs of the country; and he then went on to speak of the law against the entry of any vessels into the ports of Japan, and absolutely forbade the Russians to buy anything, adding, however, at the same time, that the materials already supplied for the refitting and revictualling the vessel would be paid for out of the treasury of the Emperor of Japan. He further inquired whether the repairs of the Nadiejeda would soon be finished. Kruzenstern understood what was meant as soon as his visitor began to speak, and hurried on the preparations for his own departure.

Truly he had not much reason to congratulate himself on having waited from October to April for such an answer as this. So little were the chief results hoped for by his government achieved, that no Russian vessel could ever again enter a Japanese port. A short-sighted, jealous policy, resulting in the putting back for half a century the progress of Japan.

On the 17th April the Nadiejeda weighed anchor, and began a hydrographic survey, which had the best results. La Perouse had been the only navigator to traverse before Kruzenstern the seas between Japan and the continent. The Russian explorer was therefore anxious to connect his work with that of his predecessor, and to fill up the gaps the latter had been compelled for want of time to leave in his charts of these parts.

"To explore the north-west and south-west coasts of Japan," says Kruzenstern, "to ascertain the situation of the Straits of Sangar, the width of which in the best charts—Arrowsmith's 'South Sea Pilot' for instance, and the atlas subjoined to La Perouse's Voyage—is laid down as more than a hundred miles, while the Japanese merely estimated it to be a Dutch mile; to examine the west coast of Yezo; to find out the island of Karafuto, which in some new charts, compiled after a Japanese one, is placed between Yezo and Sachalin, and the existence of which appeared to me very probable; to explore this new strait and take an accurate plan of the island of Sachalin, from Cape Crillon to the north-west coast, from whence, if a good harbour were to be found there, I could send out my long boat to examine the supposed passage which divides Tartary from Sachalin; and, finally, to attempt a return through a new passage between the Kuriles, north of the Canal de la Boussole; all this came into my plan, and I have had the good fortune to execute part of it."

Kruzenstern was destined almost entirely to carry out this detailed plan, only the survey of the western coast of Japan and of the Strait of Sangar, with that of the channel closing the Farakai Strait, could not be accomplished by the Russian navigator, who had, sorely against his will, to leave the completion of this important task to his successors.

Kruzenstern now entered the Corea Channel, and determined the longitude of Tsusima, obtaining a difference of thirty-six minutes from the position assigned to that island by La Perouse. This difference was subsequently confirmed by Dagelet, who can be fully relied upon.

The Russian explorer noticed, as La Perouse had done before him, that the deviation of the magnetic needle is but little noticeable in these latitudes.

The position of Sangar Strait, between Yezo and Niphon, being very uncertain, Kruzenstern resolved to determine it. The mouth, situated between Cape Sangar (N. lat. 41 degrees 16 minutes 30 seconds and W. long. 219 degrees 46 minutes) and Cape Nadiejeda (N. lat. 41 degrees 25 minutes 10 seconds, W. long. 219 degrees 50 minutes 30 seconds), is only nine miles wide; whereas La Perouse, who had relied, not upon personal observation but upon the map of the Dutchman Vries, speaks of it as ten miles across. Kruzenstern's was therefore an important rectification.

Kruzenstern did not actually enter this strait. He was anxious to verify the existence of a certain island, Karafonto, Tchoka, or Chicha by name, set down as between Yezo and Saghalien in a map which appeared at St. Petersburg in 1802, and was based on one brought to Russia by the Japanese Koday. He then surveyed a small portion of the coast of Yezo, naming the chief irregularities, and cast anchor near the southernmost promontory of the island, at the entrance to the Straits of La Perouse.

Here he learnt from the Japanese that Saghalien and Karafonto were one and the same island.

On the 10th May, 1805, Kruzenstern landed at Yezo, and was surprised to find the season but little advanced. The trees were not yet in leaf, the snow still lay thick here and there, and the explorer had supposed that it was only at Archangel that the temperature would be so severe at this time of year. This phenomenon was to be explained later, when more was known as to the direction taken by the polar current, which, issuing from Behring Strait, washes the shores of Kamtchatka, the Kurile Islands, and Yezo.

During his short stay here and at Saghalien, Kruzenstern was able to make some observations on the Ainos, a race which probably occupied the whole of Yezo before the advent of the Japanese, from whom—at least from those who have been influenced by intercourse with China—they differ entirely.



"Their figure," says Kruzenstern, "dress, appearance, and their language, prove that they are the same people, as those of Saghalien; and the captain of the Castricum, when he missed the Straits of La Perouse, might imagine, as well in Aniwa as in Alkys, that he was but in one island.... The Ainos are rather below the middle stature, being at the most five feet two or four inches high, of a dark, nearly black complexion, with a thick bushy beard, black rough hair, hanging straight down; and excepting in the beard they have the appearance of the Kamtschadales, only that their countenance is much more regular. The women are sufficiently ugly; their colour, which is equally dark, their coal black hair combed over their faces, blue painted lips, and tattooed hands, added to no remarkable cleanliness in their clothing, do not give them any great pretensions to loveliness.... However, I must do them the justice to say, that they are modest in the highest degree, and in this point form the completest contrast with the women of Nukahiva and of Otaheite.... The characteristic quality of an Aino is goodness of heart, which is expressed in the strongest manner in his countenance; and so far as we were enabled to observe their actions, they fully answered this expression.... The dress of the Ainos consists chiefly of the skins of tame dogs and seals; but I have seen some in a very different attire, which resembled the Parkis of the Kamtschadales, and is, properly speaking a white shirt worn over their other clothes. In Aniwa Bay they were all clad in furs; their boots were made of seal-skins, and in these likewise the women were invariably clothed."

After passing through the Straits of La Perouse, Kruzenstern cast anchor in Aniwa Bay, off the island of Saghalien. Here fish was then so plentiful, that two Japanese firms alone employed 400 Ainos to catch and dry it. It is never taken in nets, but buckets are used at ebb-tide.

After having surveyed Patience Gulf, which had only been partially examined by the Dutchman Vries, and at the bottom of which flows a stream now named the Neva, Kruzenstern broke off his examination of Saghalien to determine the position of the Kurile Islands, never yet accurately laid down; and on the 5th June, 1805 he returned to Petropaulovski, where he put on shore the ambassador and his suite.

In July, after crossing Nadiejeda Strait, between Matona and Rachona, two of the Kurile Islands, Kruzenstern surveyed the eastern coast of Saghalien, in the neighbourhood of Cape Patience, which presented a very picturesque appearance, with the hills clothed with grass and stunted trees and the shores with bushes. The scenery of the interior, however, was somewhat monotonous, with its unbroken line of lofty mountains.

The navigator skirted along the whole of this deserted and harbourless coast to Capes Maria and Elizabeth, between which is a deep bay, with a little village of thirty-seven houses nestling at the end, the only one the Russians had seen since they left Providence Bay. It was not inhabited by Ainos, but by Tartars, of which very decided proof was obtained a few days later.

Kruzenstern next entered the channel separating Saghalien from Tartary, but he was hardly six miles from the middle of the passage when his soundings gave six fathoms only. It was useless to hope to penetrate further. Orders were given to "'bout ship," whilst a boat was sent to trace the coast-line on either side, and to explore the middle of the strait until the soundings should give three fathoms only. A very strong current had to be contended with, rendering this row very difficult, and this current was rightly supposed to be due to the River Amoor, the mouth of which was not far distant.

The advice given to Kruzenstern by the Governor of Kamtchatka, not to approach the coast of Chinese Tartary, lest the jealous suspicions of the Celestial Government should be aroused, prevented the explorer from further prosecuting the work of surveying; and once more passing the Kurile group, the Nadiejeda returned to Petropaulovsky.

The Commander availed himself of his stay in this port to make some necessary repairs in his vessel, and to confirm the statements of Captain Clerke, who had succeeded Cook in the command of his last expedition, and those of Delisle de la Croyere, the French astronomer, who had been Behring's companion in 1741.

During this last sojourn at Petropaulovsky, Kruzenstern received an autograph letter from the Emperor of Russia, enclosing the order of St. Anne as a proof of his Majesty's satisfaction with the work done.

On the 4th October, 1805, the Nadiejeda set sail for Europe; exploring en route the latitudes in which, according to the maps of the day, were situated the islands of Rica-de-Plata, Guadalupas, Malabrigos, St. Sebastian de Lobos, and San Juan.

Kruzenstern next identified the Farellon Islands of Anson's map, now known as St. Alexander, St. Augustine, and Volcanos, and situated south of the Bonin-Sima group. Then crossing the Formosa Channel, he arrived at Macao on the 21st November.

He was a good deal surprised not to find the Neva there, as he had given instructions for it to bring a cargo of furs, the price of which he proposed expending on Chinese merchandise. He decided to wait for the arrival of the Neva.

Macao seemed to him to be falling rapidly into decay.

"Many fine buildings," he says, "are ranged in large squares, surrounded by courtyards and gardens; but most of them uninhabited, the number of Portuguese residents there having greatly decreased. The chief private houses belong to the members of the Dutch and English factories.... Twelve or fifteen thousand is said to be the number of the inhabitants of Macao, most of whom, however, are Chinese, who have so completely taken possession of the town, that it is rare to meet any European in the streets, with the exception of priests and nuns. One of the inhabitants said to me, 'We have more priests here than soldiers;' a piece of raillery that was literally true, the number of soldiers amounting only to 150, not one of whom is a European, the whole being mulattos of Macao and Goa. Even the officers are not all Europeans. With so small a garrison it is difficult to defend four large fortresses; and the natural insolence of the Chinese finds a sufficient motive in the weakness of the military, to heap insult upon insult."

Just as the Nadiejeda was about to weigh anchor, the Neva at last appeared. It was now the 3rd November, and Kruzenstern went up the coast in the newly arrived vessel as far as Whampoa, where he sold to advantage his cargo of furs, after many prolonged discussions which his firm but conciliating attitude, together with the intervention of English merchants, brought to a successful issue.

On the 9th February, the two vessels once more together weighed anchor, and resumed their voyage by way of the Sunda Isles. Beyond Christmas Island they were again separated in cloudy weather, and did not meet until the end of the trip. On the 4th May, the Nadiejeda cast anchor in St. Helena Bay, sixty days' voyage from the Sunda Isles and seventy-nine from Macao.

"I know of no better place," says Kruzenstern, "to get supplies after a long voyage than St. Helena. The road is perfectly safe, and at all times more convenient than Table Bay or Simon's Bay, at the Cape. The entrance, with the precaution of first getting near the land, is perfectly easy; and on quitting the island nothing more is necessary than to weigh anchor and stand out to sea. Every kind of provision may be obtained here, particularly the best kinds of garden stuffs, and in two or three days a ship may be provided with everything."

On the 21st April, Kruzenstern passed between the Shetland and Orkney Islands, in order to avoid the English Channel, where he might have met some French pirates, and after a good voyage he arrived at Cronstadt on the 7th August, 1806.

Without taking first rank, like the expedition of Cook or that of La Perouse, Kruzenstern's trip was not without interest. We owe no great discovery to the Russian explorer, but he verified and rectified the work of his predecessors. This was in fact what most of the navigators of the nineteenth century had to do, the progress of science enabling them to complete what had been begun by others.