"To celebrate," says the narrative, "the memory of the passage of the Astrolabe, I conferred upon this dangerous strait the name of the 'Passe des Francais'" (French Pass), "but, unless in a case of great necessity, I should not advise any one else to attempt it. We could now look calmly at the beautiful basin in which we found ourselves; and which certainly deserves all the praise given to it by Cook. I would specially recommend a fine little harbour, some miles to the south of the place, where the captain cast anchor. Our navigation of the 'Passe des Francais' had definitively settled the insular character of the whole of the district terminating in the 'Cape Stephens' of Cook. It is divided from the mainland of Te-Wahi-Punamub[1] by the Current Basin. The comparison of our chart with that of the strait as laid down by Cook will suffice to show how much he left to be done."

[Footnote 1: Now "South Island."—Trans.]

The Astrolabe soon entered Cook's Strait, and sailing outside Queen Charlotte's Bay, doubled Cape Palliser, a headland formed of some low hills. D'Urville was greatly surprised to find that a good many inaccuracies had crept into the work of the great English navigator, and in that part of the account of his voyage which relates to hydrography, he quotes instances of errors of a fourth, or even third of a degree.

The commander then resolved to make a survey of the eastern side of the northern island Ika-Na-Mawi. On this island pigs were to be found, but no "pounamon" the green jade which the New Zealanders use in the manufacture of their most valuable tools; strange to say, however, jade is to be found on the southern island, but there are no pigs.

Two natives of the island, who had expressed a wish to remain on board the corvette, became quite low-spirited as they watched the coast of the district where they lived disappear below the horizon. They then began to repent, but too late, the intrepidity which had prompted them to leave their native shores; for intrepid they justly deserve to be called, seeing that again and again they asked the French sailors if they were not to be eaten, and it took several days of kind treatment to dispel this fear from their minds.



D'Urville continued to sail northward up the coast until the capes, named by Cook Turn-again and Kidnappers, had been doubled, and Sterile Island with its "Ipah" came in sight. In the Bay of Tolaga, as Cook called it, the natives brought alongside the corvette pigs and potatoes, which they readily exchanged for articles of little value. On other canoes approaching, the New Zealanders who were on board the vessel urged the commander to fire upon and kill their fellow-countrymen in the boats; but as soon as the latter climbed up to the deck, the first arrivals advanced to greet them with earnest assurances of friendship. Conduct so strangely inconsistent is the outcome of the compound of hatred and jealousy mutually entertained for each other by these tribes. "They all desire to appropriate to themselves exclusively whatever advantage may be obtained from the visits of foreigners, and they are distressed at the prospect of their neighbours getting any share." Proof was soon afforded that this explanation is the right key to their behaviour.

Upon the Astrolabe were several New Zealanders, but among them was a certain "Shaki" who was recognized as a chief by his tall stature, his elaborate tattooing, and the respectful manner in which he was addressed by his fellow-islanders. Seeing a canoe manned by not more than seven or eight men approaching the corvette, this "Shaki" and the rest came to entreat D'Urville most earnestly to kill the new arrivals, going so far as to ask for muskets that they might themselves fire upon them. However, no sooner had the last comers arrived on board than all those who were there already overwhelmed them with courtesies, while the "Shaki" himself, although he had been one of the most sanguinary, completely changed his tone and made them a present of some axes he had just obtained. After the chief men of a warlike and fierce appearance, with faces tattooed all over, had been a few minutes on board, D'Urville was preparing to ask them some questions, with the aid of a vocabulary published by the missionaries, when all at once they turned away from him, leaped into their canoes and pushed out into the open sea. This sudden move was brought about by their countrymen, who, for the purpose of getting rid of them, slily hinted that their lives were in danger, as the Frenchmen had formed a plot to kill them.

It was in the Bay of Tolaga, the right name of which is Houa-Houa, that D'Urville found the first opportunity of gaining some information about the "kiwi," by means of a mat decorated with the feathers of that bird, such mats being articles of luxury among these islanders. The "kiwi" is about the size of a small turkey, and, like the ostrich, has not the power of flying. It is hunted at night by the light of torches and with the assistance of dogs. It is this bird which is also known under the name of the "apteryx." What the natives told D'Urville about it was in the main accurate. The apteryx, with the tail of a fowl and a plumage of a reddish-brown, has an affinity to the ostrich; it inhabits damp and gloomy woods, and never comes out even in search of food except in the evening. The incessant hunting of the natives has considerably diminished the numbers of this curious species, and it is now very rare.

D'Urville made no pause in the hydrographical survey of the northern island of New Zealand, keeping up daily communication with the natives, who brought him supplies of pigs and potatoes. According to their own statements, the tribes were perpetually at war with one another, and this was the true cause of the decrease in the population of these islands. Their constant demand was for fire-arms; failing to obtain these, they were satisfied if they could get powder in exchange for their own commodities.

On the 10th February, when not far from Cape Runaway, the corvette was caught in a violent storm, which lasted for thirty-six hours, and she was more than once on the point of foundering. After this, she made her way into the Bay of Plenty, at the bottom of which rises Mount Edgecumbe; then keeping along the coast, the islands of Haute and Major were sighted; but during this exploration of the bay, the weather was so severe that the chart of it then laid down cannot be considered very trustworthy. After leaving this bay, the corvette reached the Bay of Mercury; surveyed Barrier Island, entered Shouraki or Hauraki Bay, identified the Hen and Chickens and the Poor Knights Islands, finally arriving at the Bay of Islands. The native tribes met with by D'Urville in this part of the island were busy with an expedition against those of Shouraki and Waikato Bays. For the purpose of exploring the former bay, which had been imperfectly surveyed by Cook, D'Urville sailed back to it, and discovered that that part of New Zealand is indented with a number of harbours and gulfs of great depth, each one being safer, if possible, than the other. Having been informed that by following the direction of the Wai Magoia, a place would be reached distant only a very short journey from the large port of Manukau, he despatched some of his officers by that route, and they verified the correctness of the information he had received. This discovery, observes Dumont d'Urville, may become of great value to future settlements of Shouraki Bay; and this value will be still farther increased should the new surveys prove that the port of Manukau is accessible to vessels of a certain size, for such a settlement would command two seas, one on the east and the other on the west.

One of the "Rangatiras," as the chiefs of that quarter of the island are called, Rangui by name, had again and again begged the commander to give him some lead to make bullets with; a request which was always refused. Just before setting sail, D'Urville was informed that the deep-sea lead had been carried off; and he at once reproached Rangui in severe terms, telling him that such petty larcenies were unworthy of a man in a respectable position. The chief appeared to be deeply moved by the reproach, and excused himself by saying that he had no knowledge of the theft, which must have been committed by some stranger. "A short time afterwards," the narrative goes on to say, "my attention was drawn to the side of the ship by the sound of blows given with great force, and piteous cries proceeding from the canoe of Rangui. There I saw Rangui and Tawiti striking blow after blow with their paddles upon an object resembling the figure of a man covered with a cloak. It was easy to perceive that the two wily chiefs were simply beating one of the benches of the canoe. After this farce had been played for some little time, Rangui's paddle broke in his hands. The sham man was made to appear to fall down, when Rangui, addressing me, said that he had just killed the thief, and wished to know whether that would satisfy me. I assured him that it would, laughing to myself at the artifice of these savages; an artifice, for that matter, such as is often to be met with among people more advanced in civilization."

D'Urville next surveyed the lovely island of Wai-hiki, and thus terminated the survey of the Astrolabe Channel and Hauraki Bay. He then resumed his voyage in a northerly direction towards the Bay of Islands, sailing as far as Cape Maria Van Diemen, the most northerly point of New Zealand, where, say the Waidonas, "the souls of the departed gather from all parts of Ika-Na-Mawi, to take their final flight to the realms of light or to those of eternal darkness."

The Bay of Islands, at the time when the Coquille put in there, was alive with a pretty considerable population, with whom the visitors soon became on friendly terms. Now, however, the animation of former days had given place to the silence of desolation. The Ipah, or rather the Pah of Kahou Wera, once the abode of an energetic tribe, was deserted, war had done its customary destructive work in the place. The Songhui tribe had stolen the possessions, and dispersed the members of the tribe of Paroa.

The Bay of Islands was the place chosen for their field of effort by the English missionaries, who, notwithstanding their devotion to their work had not made any progress among the natives. The unproductiveness of their labours was only too apparent.

The survey of the eastern side of New Zealand, a hydrographical work of the utmost importance, terminated at this point. Since the days of Cook no exploration of anything like such a vast extent of the coast of this country had been conducted in so careful a manner, in the face of so many perils. The sciences of geography and navigation were both signally benefited by the skilful and detailed work of D'Urville, who had to give proof of exceptional qualities in the midst of sudden and terrible dangers. However, on his return to France, no notice was taken of the hardships he had undergone, or the devotion to duty he had shown; he was left without recognition, and duties were assigned to him, the performance of which could bring no distinction, for they could have been equally well discharged by any ordinary ship's captain.

Leaving New Zealand on the 18th of March, 1827, D'Urville steered for Tonga Tabou, identified to begin with the islands Curtis, Macaulay, and Sunday; endeavoured, but without success, to find the island of Vasquez de Mauzelle, and arrived off Namouka on the 16th of April. Two days later he made out Eoa; but before reaching Tonga Tabou he encountered a terrible storm which all but proved fatal to the Astrolabe. At Tonga Tabou he found some Europeans, who had been for many years settled on the island; from them he received much help in getting to understand the character of the natives. The government was in the hands of three chiefs, called Equis, who had shared all authority between them since the banishment of the Toni Tonga, or spiritual chief, who had enjoyed immense influence. A Wesleyan mission was in existence at Tonga; but it could be seen at a glance that the Methodist clergy had not succeeded in acquiring any influence over the natives. Such converts as had been made were held in general contempt for their apostasy.

When the Astrolabe had reached the anchorage, after her fortunate escape from the perils from contrary winds, currents, and rocks, which had beset her course, she was at once positively overwhelmed with the offer of an incredible quantity of stores, fruits, vegetables, fowls, and pigs, which the natives were ready to dispose of for next to nothing. For equally low prices D'Urville was able to purchase, for the museum, specimens of the arms and native productions of the savages. Amongst them were some clubs, most of them made of casuarina wood, skilfully carved, or embossed in an artistic manner with mother-of-pearl or with whalebone. The custom of amputating a joint or two of the fingers or toes, to propitiate the Deity, was still observed, in the case of a near relative being dangerously ill.

From the 28th of April the natives had manifested none but the most friendly feelings; no single disturbance had occurred; but on the 9th of May, while D'Urville, with almost all his officers, went to pay a visit to one of the leading chiefs, named Palou, the reception accorded to them was marked by a most unusual reserve, altogether inconsistent with the noisy and enthusiastic demonstrations of the preceding days. The distrust evinced by the islanders aroused that of D'Urville, who, remembering how few were the men left on board the Astrolabe, felt considerable uneasiness. However, nothing unusual happened during his absence from the ship. But it was only the cowardice of Palou which had caused the failure of a conspiracy, aiming at nothing less than the massacre, at one blow, of the whole of the staff, after which there would have been no difficulty in prevailing over the crew, who were already more than half-disposed to adopt the easy mode of life of the islanders. Such at least was the conclusion the commander came to, and subsequent events showed that he was right.

These apprehensions determined D'Urville to leave Tonga Tabou as quickly as possible, and on the 13th every preparation was made to set sail on the following day. The apprentice Dudemaine was walking about on the large island, whilst the apprentice Faraquet, with nine men, was engaged on the small island, Pangai Modou, in getting fresh water, or studying the tide, when Tahofa, one of the chiefs, with several other islanders, then on board the Astrolabe, gave a signal. The canoes pushed off at once and made for the shore. On trying to discover the cause of this sudden retreat, it was observed that the sailors on the island Pangai Modou were being forcibly dragged off by the natives. D'Urville was about to fire off a cannon, when he decided that it would be safer to send a boat to shore. This boat took off the two sailors and the apprentice Dudemaine, but was fired upon when despatched shortly afterwards to set fire to the huts, and to try to capture some natives as hostages. One native was killed and several others were wounded, whilst a corporal of the marines received such severe bayonet wounds, that he died two hours later.



D'Urville's anxiety about the fate of his sailors, and of Faraquet, who was in command of them, knew no bounds. Nothing was left for him to do but to make an attack upon the sacred village of Mafanga, containing the tombs of several of the principal families. But on the following day a crowd of natives so skilfully surrounded the place with embankments and palisades, that it was impossible to hope to carry it by an attack. The corvette then drew nearer to the shore, and began to cannonade the village, without, however, doing any other damage than killing one of the natives. At length the difficulty of obtaining provisions, the rain, and the continual alarm in which the firing of the Frenchmen kept them, induced the islanders to offer terms of peace. They gave up the sailors, who had all been very well treated, made a present of pigs and bananas; and on the 24th of May the Astrolabe took her final departure from the Friendly Islands.

It was quite time indeed that this was done, for D'Urville's situation was untenable, and in a conversation with his boatswain he ascertained that not more than half a dozen of the sailors could be relied on; all the others were ready to go over to the side of the savages.

Tonga Tabou is of madreporic formation, with a thick covering of vegetable soil, favourable to an abundant growth of shrubs and trees. The cocoa-tree, the stem of which is slenderer than elsewhere, and the banana-tree here shoot up with wonderful rapidity and vigour. The aspect of the land is flat and monotonous, so that a journey of one or two miles will give as fair an impression of the country as a complete tour of the island. The number of the population who have the true Polynesian cast of countenance may be put down at about 7000. D'Urville says "they combine the most opposite qualities. They are generous, courteous, and hospitable, yet avaricious, insolent, and always thoroughly insincere. The most profuse demonstration of kindness and friendship may at any moment be interrupted by an act of outrage or robbery, should their cupidity or their self-respect be ever so slightly roused."

In intelligence the natives of Tonga are clearly far superior to those of Otaheite. The French travellers could not sufficiently admire the astonishing order in which the plantations of yams and bananas were kept, the excessive neatness of their dwellings, and the beauty of the garden-plots. They even knew something of the art of fortification, as D'Urville ascertained by an inspection of the fortified village of Hifo, defended with stout palisades, and surrounded by a trench between fifteen and twenty feet wide, and half filled with water.

On the 25th of May, D'Urville began the exploration of the Viti or Fiji Archipelago. At the outset he was so fortunate as to fall in with a native of Tonga who was living on the Fiji Islands for purposes of trade, and had previously visited Otaheite, New Zealand, and Australia. This man, as well as a Guam islander, proved most useful to the commander in furnishing him with the names of more than 200 islands belonging to this group, and in acquainting him beforehand with their position, and that of the reefs in their neighbourhood. At the same time, Gressier, the hydrographer, collected all the materials requisite for preparing a chart of the Fiji Islands.

At this station a sloop was put under orders to proceed to the island of Laguemba, where was an anchor which D'Urville would have been well pleased to obtain, as he had lost two of his own while at Tonga. On arrival at the island, Lottin, who was in command of the sloop, observed on the shore none but women and children; armed men, however, soon came running up, made the women leave the place, and were preparing to seize the sloop and make the sailors prisoners. Their intentions were too plain to leave room for any doubt on the subject, so Lottin at once gave orders to draw up the grapnel, and got away into the open sea before there was time for an encounter to take place.

During eighteen consecutive days, in the face of bad weather and a rough sea, the Astrolabe cruised through the Fiji Archipelago, surveyed the islands of Laguemba, Kandabou, Viti-Levou, Oumbenga Vatou Lele, Ounong Lebou, Malolo, and many others, giving special attention to the southern islands of the group, which up to that period had remained almost entirely unknown.

The population of this group, if we accept D'Urville's account, form a kind of transition between the copper-coloured, or the Polynesian, and the black or Melanesian races. Their strength and vigour are in proportion to their tall figures, and they make no secret of their cannibal propensities.

On the 11th of June the corvette set sail for the harbour of Carteret; surveyed one by one the islands of Erronan and Annatom, the Loyalty Islands, of which group D'Urville discovered the Chabrol and Halgan Islands, the little group of the Beaupie Islands, the Astrolabe reefs, all the more dangerous as they are thirty miles distant from the Beaupie Islands, and sixty from New Caledonia. The island of Huon, and the chain of reefs to the north of New Caledonia, were subsequently surveyed. From this point D'Urville reached the Louisiade Archipelago in six days, but the stormy weather there encountered determined him to abandon the course he had planned out, and not to pass through Torres Straits. He thought that an early examination of the southern coast of New Britain, and of the northern coast of New Guinea, would be the most conducive to the interests of science.

Rossel Island and Cape Deliverance were next sighted; and the vessel was steered for New Ireland, with a view to obtaining fresh supplies of wood and water. Arriving there on the 5th of July in such gloomy, rainy weather, that it was with no small difficulty that the entrance of the harbour of Carteret, where D'Entrecasteaux made a stay of eight days, was made out; whilst there the travellers received several visits from the score of natives, who seem to make up the total population of the place. They were creatures possessed of scarcely any intelligence, and quite destitute of curiosity about objects that they had not seen before. Neither did their appearance lead to the slightest prepossession in their favour. They wore no vestige of clothing; their skin was black and their hair woolly; and the partition of the nostrils had a sharp bone thrust through by way of ornament. The only object that they showed any eagerness to possess was iron, but they could not be made to understand that it was only to be given in exchange for fruits or pigs. Their expression was one of sullen defiance, and they refused to guide any one whatever to their village. During the unprofitable stay of the corvette in this harbour, D'Urville had a serious attack of enteritis, from which he suffered much for several days.

On the 19th July the Astrolabe went to sea again and coasted the northern side of New Britain, the object of this cruise was frustrated by rainy and hazy weather. Continual squalls and heavy showers compelled the vessel to put off again as soon as it had succeeded in nearing the land. His experience on this coast D'Urville thus describes:—"One who has not had, as we have, a practical acquaintance with these seas, is unable to form any adequate conception of these incredible rains. Moreover, to obtain a just estimate of the cares and anxieties which a voyage like ours entails, there must be a liability to the call of duties similar to those which we had to discharge. It was very seldom that our horizon lay much beyond the distance of 200 yards, and our observations could not possibly be other than uncertain, when our own true position was doubtful. Altogether, the whole of our work upon New Britain, in spite of the unheard of hardships that fell to our lot and the risks which the Astrolabe had to run, cannot be put in comparison for a moment, as respects accuracy, with the other surveys of the expedition."

As it was impracticable to fall back upon the route by the St. George's Channel, D'Urville had to pass through Dampier's Strait, the southern entrance to which is all but entirely closed by a chain of reefs, which were grazed more than once by the Astrolabe.

The charming prospect of the western coast of New Britain excited intense admiration both in Dampier and D'Entrecasteaux; an enthusiasm fully shared by D'Urville. A safe roadstead enclosed by land forming a semicircle, forests whose dark foliage contrasted with the golden colour of the ripening fields, the whole surmounted by the lofty peaks of Mount Gloucester, and this variety still further enhanced by the undulating outlines of Rook Island, are the chief features of the picture here presented by the coast of New Britain.



On issuing from the strait the mountains of New Guinea rose grandly in the distance; and on a nearer approach they were seen to form a sort of half-circle shutting in the arm of the sea known as the Bay of Astrolabe. The Schouten Islands, the Creek of the Attack (the place where D'Urville had to withstand an onset of savages), Humboldt Bay, Geelwinck Bay, the Traitor Islands, Tobie and Mysory, the Arfak Mountains, were one after another recognized and passed, when the Astrolabe at length came to an anchor in Port Dorei, in order to connect her operations with those accomplished by the Coquille.

Friendly intercourse was at once established with the Papuans of that place, who brought on board a number of birds of paradise, but not much in the shape of provisions. These natives, are of so gentle and timid a disposition, that only with great reluctance will they risk going into the woods through fear of the Arfakis, who dwell on the mountains, and are their sworn enemies.

One of the sailors engaged in getting fresh water was wounded with an arrow shot by one of these savages, whom it was impossible to punish for a dastardly outrage prompted by no motive whatever.

The land here is everywhere so fertile that it requires no more than turning over and weeding, in order to yield the most abundant harvests; yet the Papuans are so lazy and understand so little of the art of agriculture, that the growth of food plants is often allowed to be choked with weeds. The inhabitants belong to several races. D'Urville divides them into three principal varieties: the Papuans, a mixed breed, belonging more or less to the Malay or Polynesian race; and the Harfous or Alfourous, who resemble the common type of Australians; New Caledonians and the ordinary black Oceanic populations. These latter would appear to be the true indigenous people of the country.

On the 6th September the Astrolabe again put to sea, and after an uninteresting stay at New Guinea, in the course of which scarcely any specimens of natural history were obtained, except a few mollusca, and still less exact information regarding the customs, religion, or language of its diversified population, steered for Amboyna, which was reached without any accident on the 24th September. The governor, M. Merkus, happened to be on circuit; but his absence was no obstacle to the supply of all the stores needed by the commander. The reception given by the authorities and the society of the place was of a very cordial kind, and everything was done to compensate the French explorers for the hardships undergone in their long and troublesome voyage.

From Amboyna D'Urville proceeded to Hobart Town in Tasmania, a place not visited by any French vessel since the time of Baudin, arriving on the 27th December, 1827. Thirty-five years previously D'Entrecasteaux had met on the shores of this island only a few wretched savages; and ten years later Baudin found it quite deserted. The first piece of news that Dumont d'Urville learnt on entering the river Derwent, before even casting anchor at Hobart Town, was that Captain Dillon, an Englishman, had received certain information, when at Tucopia, of the shipwreck of La Perouse at Vanikoro; and that he had brought away the hilt of a sword which he believed to have belonged to that navigator. On his arrival at Calcutta Dillon communicated his information to the governor, who without delay despatched him with instructions to rescue such of the shipwrecked crew as might still be alive, and collect whatever relics could be found of the vessels. To D'Urville this intelligence was of the highest interest, seeing that he had been specially instructed to search for whatever might be calculated to throw any light upon the fate of the unfortunate navigator, and he had while at Namouka obtained proof of the residence for a time of La Perouse at the Friendly Islands.

In the English colony itself there was some difference of opinion as to the credit which Captain Dillon's story was entitled to receive; but the report which that officer had made to the Governor-General of India, quite removed any doubt from the mind of D'Urville. Abandoning, therefore, all further plans with reference to New Zealand, he decided upon proceeding at once in the Astrolabe, in the track of Dillon, to Vanikoro, which he then knew only by the name of Mallicolo.



The following is the statement of the circumstances as made by Dillon.

During a stay made by the ship Hunter at the Fiji Islands, three persons, a Prussian named Martin Bushart, his wife, and a Lascar, called Achowlia, were received on board, endeavouring to escape from the horrible fate awaiting them, which had already befallen the other European deserters settled in that archipelago, that of being devoured by the savages; this unhappy trio merely begged to be put on shore at the first inhabited island which the Hunter might touch at. Accordingly, they were left on one of the Charlotte Islands, Tucopia, in 12 degrees 15 minutes S. lat, and 169 degrees W. long. In the month of May, 1836, Dillon, who had been one of the crew of the ship Hunter, paid a visit to the island of Tucopia, with a view of ascertaining what had become of the people put on shore in 1813. There he found the Lascar and the Prussian; the former of whom sold him a silver sword-hilt. As might have been expected, Dillon was curious to know how the natives of that island had come into possession of such an article. The Prussian then related that on his arrival at Tucopia he had found many articles of iron, such as bolts, axes, knives, spoons, and other things, which he was told had come from Mallicolo, a group of islands situated about two days canoe sail to the east of Tucopia. By further interrogatories, Dillon learnt that two vessels had been thrown upon the coasts many years previously, one of which had perished entirely with all on board, whilst the crew of the second had constructed out of the wreck of their ship a little boat, in which they had put to sea, leaving some of their number at Mallicolo. The Lascar said he had seen two of these men, who had acquired a well-merited influence through services rendered to chiefs.

Dillon tried in vain to persuade his informant to take him to Mallicolo, but was more successful with the Prussian, who took him within sight of the island, called Research by D'Entrecasteaux, on which, however, Dillon was unable to land on account of the dead calm and his want of provisions.

On hearing his account, on his arrival at Pondicherry, the governor entrusted him with the command of a boat specially constructed for exploring purposes. This was in 1827. Dillon now touched at Tucopia, where he obtained interpreters and a pilot, and thence went to Mallicolo, where he learnt from the natives that the strangers had stayed there five months to build their vessel, and that they had been looked upon as supernatural visitors, an idea not a little confirmed by their singular behaviour. They had been seen, for instance, to talk to the moon and stars through a long stick, their noses were immense, and some of them always remained standing, holding bars of iron in their hands. Such was the impression left on the minds of the natives by the astronomical observations, cocked hats, and sentinels of the French.

Dillon obtained from the natives a good many relics of the expedition, and he also saw at the bottom of the sea, on the coral reef on which the vessel had struck, some bronze cannons, a bell, and all kinds of rubbish, which he reverently collected and carried to Paris, arriving there in 1828, and receiving from the king a pension of 4000 francs as a reward for his exertions. All doubt was dispelled when the Comte de Lesseps, who had landed at Kamtchatka from La Perouse's party, identified the cannons and the carved stern of the Boussole, and the armorial bearings of Colignon, the botanist, were made out on a silver candlestick. All these interesting and curious facts, however, D'Urville did not know until later; at present he had only heard Dillon's first report. By chance, or perhaps because he was afraid of being forestalled, the captain had not laid down the position of Vanikoro or the route he followed on the way from Tucopia, which island D'Urville supposed to belong to the Banks or Santa Cruz group, each as little known as the other.

Before following D'Urville, however, we must pause with him for awhile at Hobart Town, which he looked upon even then as a place of remarkable importance. "Its houses," he says, "are very spacious, consisting only of one story and the ground-floor, though their cleanness and regularity give them a very pleasant appearance. Walking in the streets, which are unpaved, though some have curb stones, is very tiring; and the dust always rising in clouds is very trying to the eyes. The Government house is pleasantly situated on the shores of the bay, and will be greatly improved in a few years if the young trees planted about it thrive. Native timber is quite unsuitable for ornamental purposes."

The stay at Hobart Town was turned to account to complete the stock of provisions, anchors, and other very requisite articles, and also to repair the vessel and the rigging, the latter being sorely dilapidated.

On the 5th January the Astrolabe once more put to sea, surveyed Norfolk Island on the 20th, Matthew Volcano six days later, Erronan on the 28th, and the little Mitre Island on the 8th February, arriving the next day off Tucopia, a small island three or four miles in circumference with one rather pointed peak covered with vegetation. The eastern side of Tucopia is apparently inaccessible from the violence of the breakers continually dashing on to its beach. The eagerness of all was now great, and was becoming unbounded when three boats, one containing a European, were seen approaching. This European turned out to be the Prussian calling himself Bushart, who had lately gone with Dillon to Mallicolo, where the latter remained a whole month, and where he really obtained the relics of the expedition as D'Urville had heard at Hobart Town. Not a single Frenchman now remained on the island; the last had died the previous year. Bushart at first consented, but declined at the last moment, to go with D'Urville or to remain on the Astrolabe.

Vanikoro is surrounded by reefs, through which, not without danger, the Astrolabe found a passage, casting anchor in the same place as Dillon had done, namely in Ocili Bay. The scene of the shipwreck was on the other side of the bay. It was not easy to get information from the natives, who were avaricious, untrustworthy, insolent, and deceitful. An old man, however, was finally induced to confess that the whites who had landed on the beach at Vanon had been received with a shower of arrows, and that a fight ensued in which a good many natives had fallen; as for the maras (sailors) they had all been killed, and their skulls buried at Vanon. The rest of the bones had been used to tip the arrows of the natives.

A canoe was now sent to the village of Nama, and after considerable hesitation the natives were induced by a promise of some red cloth to take the Frenchmen to the scene of the shipwreck about a mile off, near Paion and opposite Ambi, where amongst the breakers at the bottom of a sort of shelving beach anchors, cannons, and cannonballs, and many other things were made out, leaving no doubt as to the facts in the minds of the officers of the Astrolabe. It was evident to all that the vessel had endeavoured to get inside the reefs by a kind of pass, and that she had run aground and been unable to get off. The crew may then have saved themselves at Paion, and according to the account of some natives they built a little boat there, whilst the other vessel, which had struck on the reef further out, had been lost with all on board.

Chief Moembe had heard it said that the inhabitants of Vanon had approached the vessel to pillage it, but had been driven back by the whites, losing twenty men and three chiefs. The savages in their turn had massacred all the French who landed, except two, who lived on the island for the space of three months.

Another chief, Valiko by name, said that one of the boats had struck outside the reef opposite Tanema after a very windy night, and that nearly all its crew had perished before they could land. Many of the sailors of the second vessel had got to land, and built at Paion a little boat out of the pieces of the large ship wrecked. During their stay at Paion quarrels arose, and two sailors with five natives of Vanon and one from Tanema were killed. At the end of five months the Frenchmen left the island.

Lastly, a third old man told how some thirty sailors belonging to the first vessel had joined the crew of the second, and that they had all left at the end of six or seven months. All these facts, which had so to speak to be extracted by force, varied in their details; the last, however, seemed most nearly to approach the truth. Amongst the objects picked up by the Astrolabe were an anchor weighing about 1800 pounds, a cast-iron cannon, a bronze swivel, a copper blunderbuss, some pig lead, and several other considerably damaged articles of little interest. These relics, with those collected by Dillon, are now in the Naval Museum at the Louvre.

D'Urville did not leave Vanikoro without erecting a monument to the memory of his unfortunate fellow-countrymen. This humble memorial was placed in a mangrove grove off the reef itself. It consists of a quadrangular prism, made of coral slabs six feet high, surmounted by a pyramid of Koudi wood of the same height, bearing on a little plate of lead the following inscription,—

A la Memoire DE LA PEROUSE, ET DE SES COMPAGNONS L'ASTROLABE 14 Mars, 1828.

As soon as this task was accomplished, D'Urville prepared to set sail again, as it was time he did, for the damp resulting from the torrents of rain had engendered serious fevers, prostrating no less than twenty-five of the party. The commander would have to make haste if he wished to keep a crew fit to execute the arduous manoeuvres necessary to the exit of the vessel from a narrow pass strewn with rocks.

The last day passed by the Astrolabe at Vanikoro would have shown the truth to D'Urville had he needed any enlightening as to the true disposition of the natives. The following is his account of the last incidents of this dangerous halt.

"At eight o'clock, I was a good deal surprised to see half a dozen canoes approaching from Tevai, the more so, that two or three natives from Manevai who were on board showed no uneasiness, although they had told me a few days before that the people of Tevai were their mortal enemies. I expressed my surprise to the Manevaians, who merely said, with an evident air of equivocation, that they had made their peace with the Tevaians, who were only bringing some cocoa-nuts. I soon saw, however, that the new comers were carrying nothing but bows and arrows in first rate condition. Two or three of them climbed on board, and in a determined manner came up to the main watch to look down into the orlop-deck to find out how many men were disabled, whilst a malignant joy lit up their diabolical features. At this moment some of the crew told me that two or three of the Manevai men on board had done the same thing during the last three or four days, and M. Gressien, who had been watching their movements since the morning, thought he had seen the warriors of the two tribes meet on the beach and have a long conference together. Such behaviour gave proof of the most treacherous intentions, and I felt the danger to be imminent. I at once ordered the natives to leave the vessel and return to the canoes, but they had the audacity to look at me with a proud and threatening expression, as if to defy me to put my order into execution. I merely had the armoury, generally kept jealously closed, opened, and with a severe look I pointed to it with one hand, whilst with the other I motioned the savages to the canoes. The sudden apparition of twenty shining muskets, the powers of which they understood, made them tremble, and relieved us of their ominous presence."



Before leaving the scene of this melancholy story, we will glean a few details from D'Urville's account of it. The Vanikoro, Mallicolo, or, as Dillon calls it, the La Perouse group, consists of two islands, Research and Tevai. The former is no less than thirty miles in circumference, whilst the latter is only nine miles round. Both are lofty, clothed with impenetrable forests almost to the beach, and surrounded by a barrier of reefs thirty-six miles in circumference, with here and there a narrow strait between them. The inhabitants, who are lazy, slovenly, stupid, fierce, cowardly, and avaricious, do not exceed twelve or fifteen hundred in number. It was unfortunate for La Perouse to be shipwrecked amongst such people, when he would have received a reception so different on any other island of Polynesia. The women are naturally ugly, and the hard work they have to do, with their general mode of life, render their appearance yet more displeasing. The men are rather less ill-favoured, though they are stunted and lean, and covered with ulcers and leprosy scars. Arrows and bows are their only weapons, and, according to themselves, the former, with their very fine bone tips, soldered on with extremely tenacious gum, inflict mortal wounds. They therefore value them greatly, and the visitors had great trouble to obtain any.



On the 17th March the Astrolabe at length issued from amongst the terrible reefs encircling Vanikoro. D'Urville had intended to survey Tamnako, Kennedy, Nitendi, and the Solomon Islands, where he hoped to meet with traces of the survivors from the shipwreck of the Boussole and the Astrolabe. But the melancholy condition of the crew, pulled down as they were by fever, and the illness of most of the officers, with the absence of any safe anchorage in this part of Oceania, decided him to make for Guam, where he thought a little rest might possibly be obtained. This was a very grave dereliction from the instructions which ordered him to survey Torres Straits, but the fact of forty sailors being hors de combat and on the sick-list, will suffice to prove how foolish it would have been to make so perilous an attempt.

Not until the 26th April was Hogoley Archipelago sighted, where D'Urville bridged over the gaps left by Duperrey in his exploration, and only on the 2nd May did the coasts of Guam come in sight. Anchor was cast at Umata, where a supply of fresh water was easily found, and the climate much milder than at Agagna. On the 29th May, however, when the expedition set sail again, the men were not by any means all restored to health, which D'Urville attributed to the excesses in the way of eating indulged in by the sick, and the impossibility of getting them to keep to a suitable diet.

The good Medinilla, of whom Freycinet had such reason to speak favourably, was still governor of Guam. He did not this time, it is true, show so many kind attentions to the present expedition, but that was because a terrible drought had just devastated the colony, and a rumour had got afloat that the illness the crew of the Astrolabe was suffering from was contagious. Umata too was a good distance from Agagna, so that D'Urville could not visit the governor in his own home. Medinilla, however, sent the expedition fresh provisions and fruits in such quantities as to prove he had lost none of his old generosity.

After leaving Guam D'Urville surveyed, under sail, the Elivi, the Uluthii of Lutke, Guapgolo and the Pelew group of the Caroline Archipelago, was driven by contrary winds past Waigiou, Aiou, Asia, and Guebek, and finally entered Bouron Straits and cast anchor off Amboine, where he was cordially received by the Dutch authorities, and obtained news from France to the effect that the Minister of Marine had taken no notice of all the work, fatigue, and perils of the expedition, for not one officer had received advancement.

The receipt of this news caused considerable disappointment and discouragement, which the commander at once tried to remove. From Amboine the Astrolabe steered, via Banka Strait, for Uanado, with its well-armed and equipped fort, forming a pleasant residence. Governor Merkus obtained for D'Urville's natural history collections some fine barberosas, a sapioutang—the latter a little animal of the size of a calf, with the same kind of muzzle, paws, and turned-back horns—serpents, birds, fishes, and plants.

According to D'Urville the people of the Celebes resemble in externals the Polynesians rather than the Malays. They reminded him of the natives of Otaheite, Tonga Tabou, and New Zealand, much more than of the Papuans of Darei Harbour, the Harfous of Bouron, or the Malays, with their square bony faces. Near Manado are some mines of auriferous quartz, of which the commander was able to obtain a specimen, and in the interior is the lake of Manado, said to be of immense depth, and which is the source of the torrent of the same name that dashes in the form of a magnificent waterfall over a basalt rock eighty feet high, barring its progress to the sea. D'Urville, accompanied by the governor and the naturalists of the expedition, explored this beautiful lake, shut in by volcanic mountains, with here and there a few fumerolles still issuing from them, and ascertained the depth of the water to be no more than twelve or thirteen fathoms, so that in the event of its ever drying up, its basin would form a perfectly level plain.

On the 4th August anchor was weighed at Manado, where the sufferers from fever and dysentery had not got much better, and on the 29th of the same month the expedition arrived at Batavia where it only remained three days. The rest of the voyage of the Astrolabe was in well-known waters. Mauritius was reached in due course, and there D'Urville met Commander Le Goarant, who had made a trip to Vanikoro in the corvette La Bayonnaise, and who told D'Urville that he had not attempted to enter the reef, but had only sent in some boats to reconnoitre. The natives had respected the monument to the memory of La Perouse, and had been reluctant even to allow the sailors of the Bayonnaise to nail a copper plate upon it.

On the 18th November the corvette left Mauritius, and after touching at the Cape, St. Helena, and Ascension, arrived on the 25th March, 1829, at Marseilles, exactly thirty-five months after her departure from that port. To hydrographical science, if to nothing else, the results of the expedition were remarkable, and no less than forty-five new charts were produced by the indefatigable Messrs. Gressien and Paris. Nothing will better bring before us the richness of harvest of natural history specimens than the following quotation from Cuvier's report:—

"They (the species brought home by Quoy and Gaimard) amount to thousands in the catalogues, and no better proof can be given of the activity of our naturalists than the fact that the directors of the Jardin du Roi do not know where to store the results of the expedition, especially those now under notice. They have had to be stowed away on the ground-floor, almost in the cellars, and the very warehouses are now so crowded—no other word would do as well—that we have had to divide them by partitions to make more stowage."

The geological collections were no less numerous; one hundred and eighty-seven species or varieties of rock attest the zeal of Messrs. Quoy and Gaimard, while M. Lesson, junior, collected fifteen or sixteen hundred plants; Captain Jacquinot made a number of astronomical observations; M. Lottin studied magnetism, and the commander, without neglecting his duties as a sailor and leader of the expedition, made experiments on submarine temperature and meteorology, and collected an immense mass of information on philology and ethnography.

We cannot better conclude our account of this expedition than with the following quotation from Dumont d'Urville's memoirs, given in his biography by Didot:—

"This adventurous expedition surpassed all previous ones, alike in the number and gravity of the dangers incurred, and the extent of the results of every kind obtained. An iron will prevented me from ever yielding to any obstacle. My mind once made up to die or to succeed, I was free from any hesitation or uncertainty. Twenty times I saw the Astrolabe on the eve of destruction without once losing hope of her salvation. A thousand times did I risk the very lives of my companions in order to achieve the object of my instructions, and I can assert that for two consecutive years we daily incurred more real perils than we should have done in the longest ordinary voyage. My brave and honourable officers were not blind to the dangers to which I daily exposed them, but they kept silence, and nobly fulfilled their duty."

From this admirable harmony of purpose and devotion resulted a mass of discoveries and observations in every branch of human knowledge, of all of which an exact account was given by Rossel, Cuvier, Geoffrey St. Hilaire, Desfontaines, and others, all competent and disinterested judges.



CHAPTER III. POLAR EXPEDITIONS.

Bellinghausen, yet another Russian explorer—Discovery of the islands of Traversay, Peter I., and Alexander I.—The whaler, Weddell—The Southern Orkneys—New Shetland—The people of Tierra del Fuego—John Biscoe and the districts of Enderby and Graham—Charles Wilkes and the Antarctic Continent—Captain Balleny—Dumont d'Urville's expedition in the Astrolabe and the Zelee—Coupvent Desbois and the Peak of Teneriffe—The Straits of Magellan—A new post-office shut in by ice— Louis Philippe's Land—Across Oceania—Adelie and Clarie Lands—New Guinea and Torres Strait—Return to France—James Clark Rosset— Victoria.

We have already had occasion to speak of the Antarctic regions, and the explorations made there in the seventeenth, and at the end of the eighteenth century, by various navigators, nearly all Frenchmen, amongst whom we must specially note La Roche, discoverer of New Georgia, in 1675, Bouvet, Kerguelen, Marion, and Crozet. The name of Antarctic is given to all the islands scattered about the ocean which are called after navigators, as well as those of Prince Edward, the Sandwich group, New Georgia, &c.

It was in these latitudes that William Smith, commander of the brig William, trading between Monte Video and Valparaiso, discovered, in 1818, the Southern Shetland Islands, arid and barren districts covered with snow, on which, however, collected vast herds of seals, animals of which the skins are used as furs, and which had not before been met with in the Southern Seas. The news of this discovery led to a rush of whaling-vessels to the new hunting-grounds, and between 1821 and 1822 the number of seals captured in this archipelago is estimated at 32,000, whilst the quantity of sea-elephant oil obtained during the same time may be put down at 940 tons. As males and females were indiscriminately slaughtered, however, the new fields were soon exhausted. The survey of the twelve principal islands, and of the innumerable and all but barren rocks, making up this archipelago, occupied but a short time.



Two years later Botwell discovered the Southern Orkneys, and then Palmer and other whalemen sighted, or thought they sighted, districts to which they gave the names of Palmer and Trinity.

More important discoveries were, however, to be made in these hyberborean regions, and the hypothesis of Dalrymple, Buffon, and other scholars of the eighteenth century, as to the existence of a southern continent, forming, so to speak, a counterpoise to the North Pole, was to be unexpectedly confirmed by the work of these intrepid explorers.

The navy of Russia had now for some years been rapidly gaining in importance, and had played no insignificant part in scientific research. We have related the interesting voyages of most Russian circumnavigators; but we have still to speak of Bellinghausen's voyage round the world, which occupies a prominent place in the history of the exploration of the Antarctic seas.

The Vostok, Captain Bellinghausen, and the Mirni, commanded by Lieutenant Lazarew, left Cronstadt on the 3rd July, 1819, en route for the Antarctic Ocean. On the 15th December Southern Georgia was sighted, and seven days later an island was discovered in the south-east, to which the name of Traversay was given, and the position of which was fixed at 52 degrees 15 minutes S. lat., and 27 degrees 21 minutes W. long., reckoning from the Paris meridian.

Continuing their easterly course in S. lat. 60 degrees for 400 miles as far as W. long. 187 degrees, the explorers then bore south to S. lat. 70 degrees, where their further progress was arrested by a barrier of ice.

Bellinghausen, nothing daunted, tried to cut his way eastwards into the heart of the Polar Circle, but at 44 degrees E. long, he was compelled to return northwards. After a voyage of forty miles a large country hove in sight, which a whaler was to discover twelve years later when the ice had broken up.

Back again in S. lat. 62 degrees, Bellinghausen once more steered eastwards without encountering any obstacles, and on the 5th March, 1820, he made for Port Jackson to repair his vessels.

The whole summer was given up by the Russian navigator to a cruise about Oceania, when he discovered no less than seventeen new islands, and on the 31st October he left Port Jackson on a new expedition. The first places sighted on this trip were the Macquarie Islands; then cutting across the 60th parallel, S. lat. in E. long. 160 degrees, the explorers bore east between S. lat. 64 degrees and 68 degrees as far as W. long. 95 degrees. On the 9th January, Bellinghausen reached 70 degrees S. lat., and the next day discovered, in S. lat. 69 degrees 30 minutes, W. long. 92 degrees 20 minutes, an island, to which he gave the name of Peter I., the most southerly land hitherto visited. Then fifteen degrees further east, and in all but the same latitude, he sighted some more land which he called Alexander I.'s Land. Scarcely 200 miles distant from Graham's Land, it appeared likely to be connected with it, for the sea between the two districts was constantly discoloured, and many other facts pointed to the same conclusion.

From Alexander I.'s Land the two vessels, bearing due north, and passing Graham's Land, made for New Georgia, arriving there in February. Thence they returned to Cronstadt, the port of which they entered in July 1821, exactly two years after they left it, having lost only three men out of a crew of 200.

We would gladly have given further details of this interesting expedition, but we have not been able to obtain a sight of the original account published in Russian at St. Petersburg, and we have had to be content with the resume brought out in one of the journals of the Geographical Society in 1839.



At the same period a master in the Royal Navy, James Weddell by name, was appointed by an Edinburgh firm to the command of an expedition, to obtain seal-skins in the southern seas, where two years were to be spent. This expedition consisted of the brig Jane, 160 tons, Captain Weddell, and the cutter Beaufort, sixty-five tons, Matthew Brisbane commander.

The two vessels left England on the 17th September, 1822, touched at Bonavista, one of the Cape Verd Islands, and cast anchor in the following December in the port of St. Helena, on the eastern coast of Patagonia, where some valuable observations were taken on the position of that town.

Weddell put to sea again on the 27th December, and steering in a south-easterly direction, came in sight, on the 12th January, of an archipelago to which he gave the name of the Southern Orkneys. These islands are situated in S. lat. 60 degrees 45 minutes, and W. long. 45 degrees.

According to the navigator, this little group presents an even more forbidding appearance than New Shetland. On every side rise the sharp points of rocks, bare of vegetation, round which surge the restless waves, and against which dash enormous floating icebergs, with a noise like thunder. Vessels are in perpetual danger in these latitudes, and the eleven days passed under sail by Weddell in surveying minutely the islands, islets, and rocks of this archipelago, were a time of ceaseless exertion for the crew, who were throughout in constant danger of their lives.

Specimens of the principal strata of these islands were collected, and on the return home put into the hands of Professor Jameson, of Edinburgh, who identified them as belonging to primary and volcanic rocks.

Weddell now made for the south, crossed the Antarctic Circle in W. long. 30 degrees, and soon came in sight of numerous ice islands. Beyond S. lat. 70 degrees, these floes decreased in number, and finally disappeared; the weather moderated, innumerable flocks of birds hovered above the ships, whilst large schools of whales played in its wake. This strange and unexpected change in the temperature surprised every one, especially as it became more marked as the South Pole was more nearly approached. Everything pointed to the existence of a continent not far off. Nothing was, however, discovered.

On the 20th February the vessels were in S. lat. 74 degrees 15 minutes and W. long. 34 degrees 16 minutes 45 seconds.

"I would willingly," says Weddell, "have explored the south-west quarter, but taking into consideration the lateness of the season, and that we had to pass homeward through 1000 miles of sea strewed with ice islands, with long nights, and probably attended with fogs, I could not determine otherwise than to take advantage of this favourable wind for returning."

Having seen no sign of land in this direction, and a strong southerly wind blowing at the time, Weddell retraced his course as far as S. lat. 58 degrees, and steered in an easterly direction to within 100 miles of the Sandwich Islands. On the 7th February he once more doubled the southern cape, sailed by a sheet of ice fifty miles wide, and on the 20th February reached S. lat. 74 degrees 15 minutes. From the top of the masts nothing was to be seen but an open sea with a few floating ice-islands.

Unexpected results had ensued from these trips in a southerly direction. Weddell had penetrated 240 miles nearer the Pole than any of his predecessors, including Cook. He gave the name of George IV. to that part of the Antarctic Ocean which he had explored. Strange and significant was the fact that the ice had decreased in quantity as the South Pole was approached, whilst fogs and storms were incessant, and the atmosphere was always heavily charged with moisture, and the temperature of surprising mildness.

Another valuable observation made, was that the vibrations of the compass were as slow in these southern latitudes as Parry had noted them to be in the Arctic regions.

Weddell's two vessels, separated in a storm, met again in New Georgia after a perilous voyage of 1200 miles amongst the ice. New Georgia, discovered by La Roche in 1675, and visited in 1756 by the Lion, was really little known until after Captain Cook's exploration of it, but his account of the number of seals and walruses frequenting it had led to being much favoured by whalers, chiefly English and American, who took the skins of their victims to China and sold them at a guinea or thirty shillings each.

"The island," says Weddell, speaking of South Georgia, "is about ninety-six miles long, and its mean breadth about ten. It is so indented with bays, that in several places, where they are on opposite sides, they are so deep as to make the distance from one side to the other very small. The tops of the mountains are lofty, and perpetually covered with snow; but in the valleys, during the summer season, vegetation is rather abundant. Almost the only natural production of the soil is a strong-bladed grass, the length of which is in general about two feet; it grows in tufts on mounds three or four feet from the ground. No land quadrupeds are found here; birds and amphibious animals are the only inhabitants."

Here congregate numerous flocks of penguins, which stalk about on the beach, head in air. To quote an early navigator, Sir John Nasborough, they look like children in white aprons. Numerous albatrosses are also met with here, some of them measuring seventeen feet from tip to tip of their wings. When these birds are stripped of their plumage their weight is reduced one-half.



Weddell also visited New Shetland, and ascertained that Bridgeman Island, in that group, is an active volcano. He could not land, as all the harbours were blocked up with ice, and he was obliged to make for Tierra del Fuego.

During a stay of two months here, Weddell collected some valuable information on the advantages of this coast to navigators, and obtained some accurate data as to the character of the inhabitants. In the interior of Tierra del Fuego rose a few mountains, always covered with snow, the loftiest of which were not more than 3000 feet high. Weddell was unable to identify the volcano noticed by other travellers, including Basil Hall in 1822, but he picked up a good deal of lava which had probably come from it. There was, moreover, no doubt of its existence, for the explorer under notice had seen on his previous voyage signs of a volcanic eruption in the extreme redness of the sky above Tierra del Fuego.

Hitherto there had been a good deal of divergence in the opinion of explorers as to the temperature of Tierra del Fuego. Weddell attributes this to the different seasons of their visits, and the variability of the winds. When he was there and the wind was in the south the thermometer was never more than two or three degrees above zero, whereas when the wind came from the north it was as hot as July in England. According to Weddell dogs and otters are the only quadrupeds of the country.

The relations with the natives were cordial throughout the explorer's stay amongst them. At first they gathered about the ship without venturing to climb on to it, and the scenes enacted on the passage of the first European vessel through the states were repeated in spite of the long period which had since elapsed. Of the bread, madeira, and beef offered to them, the natives would taste nothing but the meat; and of the many objects shown to them, they liked pieces of iron and looking-glasses best, amusing themselves with making grimaces in the latter of such absurdity as to keep the crew in fits of laughter. Their general appearance, too, was very provocative of mirth. Their jet black complexions, blue feathers, and faces streaked with parallel red and white lines, like tick, made up a whole of the greatest absurdity, and many were the hearty laughs the English enjoyed at their expense. Presently disgusted at receiving nothing more than the iron hoops of casks from people possessed of such wealth, they proceeded to annex all they could lay hands on. These thefts were soon detected and put a stop to, but they gave rise to many an amusing scene, and proved the wonderful imitative powers of the natives.

"A sailor had given a Fuegan," says Weddell, "a tin-pot full of coffee, which he drank, and was using all his art to steal the pot. The sailor, however, recollecting after awhile that the pot had not been returned, applied for it, but whatever words he made use of were always repeated in imitation by the Fuegan. At length he became enraged at hearing his requests reiterated, and, placing himself in a threatening attitude, in an angry tone, he said, 'You copper-coloured rascal, where is my tin-pot?' The Fuegan, assuming the same attitude, with his eyes fixed on the sailor, called out, 'You copper-coloured rascal, where is my tin-pot?' The imitation was so perfect that every one laughed, except the sailor, who proceeded to search him, and under his arm he found the article missing."

The sterile mountainous districts in this rigorous climate of Tierra del Fuego furnish no animal fit for food, and without proper clothing or nourishment the people are reduced to a state of complete barbarism. Hunting yields them hardly any game, fishing is almost equally unproductive of results; they are obliged to depend upon the storms which now and then fling some huge cetacean on their shores, and upon such salvage they fall tooth and nail, not even taking the trouble to cook the flesh.

In 1828 Henry Foster, commanding the Chanticleer, received instructions to make observations on the pendulum, with a view to determining the figure of the earth. This expedition extended over three years, and was then—i.e. in 1831—brought to an end by his violent death by drowning in the river Chagres. We allude to this trip because it resulted, on the 5th January, 1829, in the identification and exploration of the Southern Shetlands. The commander himself succeeded in landing, though with great difficulty, on one of these islands, where he collected some specimens of the syenite of which the soil is composed, and a small quantity of red snow, in every respect similar to that found by explorers in the Arctic regions.

Of far greater interest, however, was the survey made in 1830 by the whaler John Biscoe. The brig Tula, 140 tons, and the cutter Lively, left London under his orders on the 14th July, 1830. These two vessels, the property of Messrs. Enderby, were fitted up for whale-fishing, and were in every respect well qualified for the long and arduous task before them, which, according to Biscoe's instructions, was to combine discovery in the Antarctic seas with whaling.

After touching at the Falklands, the ships started on the 27th November on a vain search for the Aurora Islands, after which they made for the Sandwich group, doubling its most southerly cape on the 1st January, 1831.

In 59 degrees S. lat. masses of ice were encountered, compelling the explorers to give up the south-western route, in which direction they had noted signs of the existence of land. It was therefore necessary to bear east, skirting along the ice as far as W. long. 9 degrees 34 minutes. It was only on the 16th January that Biscoe was able to cross the 60th parallel of S. lat. In 1775 Cook had here come to a space of open sea 250 miles in extent, yet now an insurmountable barrier of ice checked Biscoe's advance.

Continuing his south-westerly course as far as 68 degrees 51 minutes and 10 degrees E. long., the explorer was struck by the discoloration of the water, the presence of several eaglets and cape-pigeons, and the fact that the wind now blew from the south-south-west, all sure tokens of a large continent being near. Ice, however, again barred his progress southwards, and he had to go on in an easterly direction approaching nearer and nearer to the Antarctic Circle.

"At length, on the 27th February," says Desborough Cooley, "in S. lat. 65 degrees 57 minutes and E. long. 47 degrees 20 minutes land was distinctly seen." This land was of considerable extent, mountainous and covered with snow. Biscoe named it Enderby, and made the most strenuous efforts to reach it, but it was so completely surrounded with ice that he could not succeed. Whilst these attempts were being made a gale of wind separated the two vessels and drove them in a south-easterly direction, the land remaining in sight, and stretching away from east to west for an extent of more than 200 miles. Bad weather, and the deplorable state of the health of the crew, compelled Biscoe to make for Van Diemen's Land, where he was not rejoined by the Lively until some months later.

The explorers had several opportunities of observing the aurora australis, to quote from Biscoe's narrative, or rather the account of his trip drawn up from his log-book, and published in the journal of the Royal Geographical Society. "Extraordinarily vivid coruscations of aurora australis (were seen), at times rolling," says Captain Biscoe, "as it were, over our heads in the form of beautiful columns, then as suddenly changing like the fringe of a curtain, and again shooting across the hemisphere like a serpent; frequently appearing not many yards above our heads, and decidedly within our atmosphere."

Leaving Van Diemen's Land on the 11th January, 1832, Biscoe and his two vessels resumed their voyage in a south-easterly direction. The constant presence of floating sea-weed, and the number of birds of a kind which never venture far from land, with the gathering of low and heavy clouds made Biscoe think he was on the eve of some discovery, but storms prevented the completion of his explorations. At last, on the 12th February, in S. lat. 64 degrees 10 minutes albatrosses, penguins, and whales were seen in large quantities; and on the 15th land was seen in the south a long distance off. The next day this land was ascertained to be a large island, to which the name of Adelaide was given, in honour of the Queen of England. On this island were a number of mountains of conical form with the base very large.

In the ensuing days it was ascertained that this was no solitary island, but one of a chain of islets forming so to speak the outworks of a lofty continent. This continent, stretching away for 250 miles in an E.N.E. and W.S.W. direction, was called Graham, whilst the name of Biscoe was given to the islets in honour of their discoverer. There was no trace either of plants or animals in this country.

To make quite sure of the nature of his discovery, Biscoe landed on the 21st February, on Graham's Land, and determined the position of a lofty mountain, to which he gave the name of William, in S. lat. 64 degrees 45 minutes and W. long. 66 degrees 11 minutes, reckoning from the Paris meridian.

To quote from the journal of the Royal Geographical Society,—"The place was in a deep bay, in which the water was so still that could any seals have been found the vessels could have been easily loaded, as they might have been laid alongside the rocks for the purpose. The depth of the water was also considerable, no bottom being found with twenty fathoms of line almost close to the beach; and the sun was so warm that the snow was melted off all the rocks along the water-line, which made it more extraordinary that they should be so utterly deserted."

From Graham's Land, Biscoe made for the Southern Shetlands, with which it seemed possible the former might be connected, and after touching at the Falkland Islands, where he lost sight of the Lively, he returned to England.

As a reward for all he had done, and as an encouragement for the future, Biscoe received medals both from the English and French Geographical Societies.

Very animated were the discussions which now took place as to the existence of a southern continent, and the possibility of penetrating beyond the barrier of ice shutting in the adjacent islands. Three powers simultaneously resolved to send out an expedition. France entrusted the command of hers to Dumont d'Urville; England chose James Ross; and the United States, Lieutenant Charles Wilkes.

The last named found himself at the head of a small fleet, consisting of the Porpoise, two sloops, the Vincennes and the Peacock; two schooners, the Sea-Gull and the Flying-Fish; and a transport ship, the Relief, which was sent on in advance to Rio with a reserve of provisions, whilst the others touched at Madeira, and the Cape Verd Islands.

From the 24th November, 1838, to the 6th January, 1839, the squadron remained in the bay of Rio de Janeiro, whence it sailed to the Rio Negro, not arriving at Port Orange, Tierra del Fuego, until the 19th February, 1839.

There the expedition divided, the Peacock and Flying-Fish making for the point were Cook crossed S. lat. 60 degrees, and the Relief, with the naturalists on board, penetrating into the Straits of Magellan, by one of the passages south-east of Tierra del Fuego; whilst the Vincennes remained at Port Orange; and the Sea-Gull and Porpoise started on the 24th February for the Southern Seas. Wilkes surveyed Palmer's Land for a distance of thirty miles to the point where it turns in a S.S.E. direction, which he called Cape Hope; he then visited the Shetlands and verified the position of several of the islands in that group.

After passing thirty-six days in these inhospitable regions the two vessels steered northwards. A voyage marked by few incidents worthy of record brought Wilkes to Callao, but he had lost sight of the Sea-Gull. The commander now visited the Paumatou group, Otaheite, the Society and Navigator's Islands, and cast anchor off Sydney on the 28th November.

On the 29th December, 1839, the expedition once more put to sea, and steered for the south, with a view to reaching the most southerly latitude between E. long 160 degrees and 145 degrees (reckoning from Greenwich), bearing east by west. The vessels were at liberty to follow out separate courses, a rendezvous being fixed in case of their losing sight of each other. Up to January 22nd numerous signs of land were seen, and some officers even thought they had actually caught sight of it, but it turned out, when the various accounts were compared at the trial Wilkes had to undergo on his return, that it was merely through the accidental deviation before the 22nd January of the Vincennes, in a northerly direction, that the English explorers ascertained the existence of land. Not until he reached Sydney did Wilkes, hearing that D'Urville had discovered land on the 19th January, pretend to have seen it on the same day.



These facts are established in a very conclusive article published by the hydrographer Daussy in the Bulletin de la Societe de Geographie. Further on we shall see that d'Urville actually landed on the new continent, so that the honour of being the first to discover it is undoubtedly his.

The Peacock and Flying-Fish, either because they had sustained damages or because of the dangers from the roughness of the sea and floating ice, had steered in a northerly direction from the 24th January to the 5th February, The Vincennes and Porpoise alone continued the arduous voyage as far as E. long. 97 degrees, having land in sight for two or three miles, which they approached whenever the ice allowed them to do so.

"On the 29th of January," says Wilkes, in his report to the National Institution of Washington, "we entered what I have called Piners Bay, the only place where we could have landed on the naked rocks. We were driven out of it by one of the sudden gales usual in those seas. We got soundings in thirty fathoms. The gale lasted thirty-six hours, and after many narrow escapes, I found myself some sixty miles W. to leeward of this bay. It now became probable that this land which we had discovered was of great extent, and I deemed it of more importance to follow its trend than to return to Piners Bay to land, not doubting I should have an opportunity of landing on some portion of it still more accessible; this, however, I was disappointed in, the icy barrier preventing our approach, and rendering it impossible to effect.

"Great quantities of ice, covered with mud, rock, and stone, presented themselves at the edge of the barrier, in close proximity of the land; from these our specimens were obtained, and were quite as numerous as could have been gathered from the rocks themselves. The land, covered with snow, was distinctly seen in many places, and between them such appearances as to leave little or no doubt in my mind of it being a continuous line of coast, and deserving the name bestowed upon it of the Antarctic Continent, lying as it does under that circle. Many phenomena were observed here, and observations made, which will be found under their appropriate head in the sequel.

"On reaching 97 degrees east, we found the ice trending to the northward and continuing to follow it close, we reached to within a few miles of the position where Cook was stopped by the barrier in 1773."

Piners Bay, where Wilkes landed, is situated in E. long. 140 degrees (reckoning from Paris), that is to say it is identical with the place visited by D'Urville on the 21st January. On the 30th January the Porpoise had come in sight of D'Urville's two vessels, and approached to within speaking distance of them, but they put on all sail and appeared anxious to avoid any communication.

On his arrival at Sydney, Wilkes found the Peacock in a state of repair and with that vessel he visited New Zealand, Tonga Tabou, and the Fiji Islands, where two of the junior officers of the expedition were massacred by the natives. The Friendly, Navigator, and Sandwich Islands, Admiralty Straits, Puget Sound, Vancouver's Island, the Ladrones, Manilla, Sooloo, Singapore, the Sunda Islands, St. Helena, and Rio de Janeiro, were the halting places on the return voyage, which terminated on the 9th June, 1842, at New York, the explorers having been absent three years and ten months altogether.

The results to every branch of science were considerable, and the young republic of the United States was to be congratulated on a debut so triumphant in the career of discovery. In spite, however, of the interest attaching to the account of this expedition, and to the special treatises by Dana, Gould, Pickering, Gray, Cassin, and Brackenbridge, we are obliged to refrain from dwelling on the work done in countries already known. The success of these publications beyond the Atlantic was, as might be expected in a country boasting of so few explorers, immense.

Whilst Wilkes was engaged in his explorations, i.e. in 1839, Balleny, captain of the Elizabeth Scott, was adding his quota to the survey of the Antarctic regions. Starting from Campbell Island, on the south of New Zealand, he arrived on the 7th February in S. lat. 67 degrees 7 minutes, and W. long. 164 degrees 25 minutes, reckoning from the Paris meridian. Then bearing west and noting many indications of the neighbourhood of land, he discovered two days later a black band in the south-west which, at six o'clock in the evening, he ascertained beyond a doubt to be land. This land turned out to be three islands of considerable size, and Balleny gave them his own name. As may be imagined the captain tried to land, but a barrier of ice prevented his doing so. All he could manage was the determination of the position of the central isle, which he fixed at S. lat. 66 degrees 44 minutes and W. long. 162 degrees 25 minutes.

On the 14th February a lofty land, covered with snow, was sighted in the W.S.W. The next day there were but ten miles between the vessel and the land. It was approached as nearly as possible, and then a boat was put off, but a beach of only three or four feet wide with vertical and inaccessible cliffs rising beyond it rendered landing impossible, and only by getting wet up to their waists were the sailors able to obtain a few specimens of the lava characteristic of this volcanic district.



Yet once more, on the 2nd March in S. lat. 65 degrees and about W. long. 120 degrees 24 minutes, land was seen from the deck of the Elizabeth Scott. The vessel was brought to for the night, and the next day an attempt was made to steer in a south-west direction, but it was impossible to get through the ice barrier. Naming the new discovery Sabrina, Balleny resumed his northerly route without being able further to verify his discoveries.

In 1837, just as Wilkes had started on his expedition, Captain Dumont d'Urville proposed to the Minister of Marine a new scheme for a voyage round the world. The services rendered by him in 1819-21 in a hydrographic expedition, in 1822 and 1825 on the Coquille, under Captain Duperrey, and lastly in 1826-29 on the Astrolabe, had given him an amount of experience which justified him in submitting his peculiar views to the government, and to supplement so to speak the mass of information collected by himself and others in these little known latitudes.

The minister at once accepted D'Urville's offer, and exerted himself to find for him enlightened and trustworthy fellow-workers. Two corvettes, the Astrolabe and the Zelee, fitted up with everything which French experience had proved to be necessary, were placed at his disposal, and amongst his colleagues were many who were subsequently to rise to the rank of general officers, including Jacquinot, commander of the Zelee, Coupvent Desbois, Du Bouzet, Tardy de Montravel, and Perigot, all well-known names to those interested in the history of the French navy.

The instructions given by Vice-Admiral Rosamel to D'Urville differed from those of his predecessors chiefly in his being ordered to penetrate as near as the ice would permit to the South Pole. He was also ordered to complete the great work he had begun in 1827 on the Viti Islands, to survey the Salomon archipelago, to visit the Swan river of Australia, New Zealand, the Chatham Islands, that part of the Caroline group surveyed by Lutke, Mindanao, Borneo, and Batavia, whence he was to return to France via the Cape of Good Hope.

These instructions concluded in terms proving the exalted ideas of the government. "His Majesty," said Admiral de Rosamel, "not only contemplates the progress of hydrography and natural science; but his royal solicitude for the interests of French commerce and the development of the French navy is such as to lead him greatly to extend the terms of your commission and to hope for great results from it. You will visit numerous places, the resources of which you must study with a view to the interests of our whaling-ships, collecting all information likely to be of service to them alike in facilitating their voyages and rendering those voyages as remunerative as possible. You will touch at those ports where commercial relations with us are already opened, and where the visit of a state vessel will have salutary effects, and at others hitherto closed to our produce and about which you may on your return give us some valuable details."

In addition to the personal good wishes of Louis Philippe, D'Urville received many marks of the most lively interest taken in his work by the Academie des Sciences morales and the Geographical Society, but not unfortunately from the Academie des Sciences, although he had for twenty years been working hard to increase the riches of the Museum of Natural History.

"Whether from prejudice or from whatever cause," says D'Urville, "they (the members of the Academie des Sciences) showed very little enthusiasm for the contemplated expedition and their instructions to me were as formal as they would have been to a complete stranger."

It is matter of regret that the celebrated Arago, the declared enemy of Polar researches, was one of the bitterest opponents of the new expedition. This was not, however, the case with various scholars of other nationalities, such as Humboldt and Kruzenstern, who wrote to congratulate D'Urville on his approaching voyage and on the important results to science which might be hoped for.

After numerous delays, resulting from the fitting up of two vessels which were to take the Prince de Joinville to Brazil, the Astrolabe and Zelee at last left Toulon on the 7th September, 1837. The last day of the same month they cast anchor off Santa Cruz de Teneriffe which D'Urville chose as a halting-place in preference to one of the Cape Verd Islands, in the hope of laying in a stock of wine and also of being able to take some magnetic observations which he had been blamed for neglecting in 1826, although it was well known that he was not then in a fit state to attend to such things.

In spite of the eagerness of the young officers to go and enjoy themselves on shore they had to submit to a quarantine of four days, on account of rumours of cases of plague having occurred in the lazaretto of Marseilles. Without pausing to relate the details of Messrs. Du Bouzet, Coupvent, and Dumoulin's ascent of the Peak, we will merely quote a few enthusiastic remarks of Coupvent Desbois:—

"Arrived," says that officer, "at the foot of the peak, we spent the last hour of the ascent in crossing cinders and broken stones, arriving at last at the longed-for goal, the loftiest point of this huge volcano. The smoking crater presented the appearance of a hollow sulphurous semi-circle about 1200 feet wide and 300 feet deep, covered with the debris of pumice and other stones. The thermometer, which had marked five degrees at ten a.m., got broken through being placed on the ground where there was an escape of sulphuric vapour. There are upon the sides and in the crater numerous fumerolles which send forth the native sulphur, which forms the base of the peak. The rush of the vapour is so rapid as to sound like shots from a cannon.

"The heat of the ground is so great in some parts that it is impossible to stand on it for a minute at a time. Look around you and see if these three mountains piled one upon the other do not resemble a staircase built up by giants, on which to climb to heaven. Gaze upon the vast streams of lava, all issuing from one point which form the crater, and which a few centuries back you could not have trodden upon with impunity. See the Canaries in the distance, look down, ye pigmies, on the sea, with its breakers dashing against the shores of the island, of which you for the moment form the summit!... See for once, as God sees, and be rewarded for your exertions, ye travellers, whose enthusiasm for the grand scenes of nature has brought you some 12,182 feet above the level of the ocean."

We must add that the explorers testified to the brilliancy of the stars, as seen from the summit of the peak, the clearness of all sounds, and also to the giddiness and headache known as mountain sickness. Whilst part of the staff were engaged in this scientific excursion, several other officers visited the town, where they noticed nothing special except a narrow walk called the Alameda, and the church of the Franciscans. The neighbourhood, however, is interesting enough on account of the curious aqueducts for supplying the town with water, and the Mercede forest which, in D'Urville's opinion, might more justly be called a coppice, for it contains nothing but shrubs and ferns. The population seemed happy, but extremely lazy; economical, but horribly dirty; and the less said about their morals the better.

On the 12th October the two vessels put to sea again, intending to reach the Polar regions as soon as possible. Motives of humanity, however, determined D'Urville to change his plans and touch at Rio, the state of an apprentice with disease of the lungs becoming so rapidly worse that a stay in the Arctic regions would probably have been fatal.

The vessels cast anchor in the roadstead, not the Bay of Rio, on the 13th November, but they only remained there one day, that is to say, just long enough to land young Dupare, and to lay in a stock of provisions. The southerly route was then resumed.

For a long time D'Urville had wished to explore the Strait of Magellan, not with a view to further hydrographical surveys, for the careful explorations of Captain King, begun in 1826, had been finished in 1834 by Fitzroy, leaving little to be done in that direction, but to gather the rich and still unappropriated harvest of facts relating to natural history. How intensely interesting it was, too, to note how real had been the dangers encountered by early navigators, such as the sudden veering of the wind, &c. What a good thing it would be to obtain further and more detailed information about the famous Patagonians, the subject of so many fables and controversies. Yet another motive led D'Urville to anchor off Port Famine, rather than off Staten Island. His perusal of the accounts of the work of explorers who had penetrated into the Southern Seas convinced him that the end of January and the whole of February were the best times for visiting these regions, for then only are the effects of the annual thaw over, and with them the risk of over-fatigue to the crews.