Narrative of the Voyage of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By the Late Captain Owe - Volume 1 by John MacGillivray (recommended reading txt) 📖

there for nine days, occupied in completing our stock of water, and obtaining a rate for the chronometers-so as to ensure a good meridian distance between this and the Louisiade. Since our last visit, the pilot station had been shifted to this place from Amity Point, the northern entrance to Moreton Bay being now preferred to that formerly in use.

One night while returning from an excursion, I saw some fires behind the beach near Cumboyooro Point, and on walking up was glad to find an encampment of about thirty natives, collected there for the purpose of fishing, this being the spawning season of the mullet, which now frequent the coast in prodigious shoals. Finding among the party an old friend of mine, usually known by the name of Funny-eye, I obtained with some difficulty permission to sleep at his fire, and he gave me a roasted mullet for supper. The party at our bivouac, consisted of my host, his wife and two children, an old man and two wretched dogs. We lay down with our feet towards a large fire of driftwood, partially sheltered from the wind by a semicircular line of branches, stuck in the sand behind us; still, while one part of the body was nearly roasted, the rest shivered with cold. The woman appeared to be busy all night long in scaling and roasting fish, of which, before morning, she had a large pile ready cooked; neither did the men sleep much-for they awoke every hour or so, gorged themselves still further with mullet, took a copious draft of water, and wound up by lighting their pipes before lying down again.

At daylight everyone was up and stirring, and soon afterwards the men and boys went down to the beach to fish. The rollers coming in from seaward broke about one hundred yards from the shore, and in the advancing wave one might see thousands of large mullet keeping together in a shoal with numbers of porpoises playing about, making frequent rushes among the dense masses and scattering them in every direction. Such of the men as were furnished with the scoop-net waded out in line, and, waiting until the porpoises had driven the mullet close in shore, rushed among the shoal, and, closing round in a circle with the nets nearly touching, secured a number of fine fish, averaging two and a half pounds weight. This was repeated at intervals until enough had been procured. Meanwhile others, chiefly boys, were at work with their spears, darting them in every direction among the fish, and on the best possible terms with the porpoises, which were dashing about among their legs, as if fully aware that they would not be molested.

HISTORY OF PREVIOUS DISCOVERIES ON THE SOUTH COAST OF NEW GUINEA.

On May 26th, we sailed from Moreton Bay-but, before entering into the details of this, the most interesting portion of the Voyage of the Rattlesnake, a brief but connected account of the progress of discovery on the south-east coast of New Guinea, and the Louisiade Archipelago, will enable the reader more clearly to perceive the necessity then existing for as complete a survey of these shores and the adjacent seas as would enable the voyager to approach them with safety. A glance at any of the published charts will show a vague outline of coast and islands and reefs, with numerous blanks-a compilation from various sources, some utterly unworthy of credit; and of the inhabitants and productions of these regions, nothing was known beyond that portion at least of them were peopled by a savage and warlike race.

LUIZ VAEZ DE TORRES.

The first navigator who saw the shores in question, appears to have been Luiz Vaez de Torres, in the Spanish frigate La Almiranta, coming from the eastward, in August 1606. In latitude 11 1/2 degrees South, Torres came upon what he calls the beginning of New Guinea, which, however, appears to have been a portion of what is now known as the Louisiade Archipelago. Being unable to weather the easternmost point of this land (Cape Deliverance) he bore away to the westward along its southern shores. "All this land of New Guinea," says he, in his long-forgotten letter to the king of Spain (a copy of which was found in the Archives at Manila, after the capture of that city by the British, in 1762) "is peopled with Indians, not very white, much painted, and naked, except a cloth made of the bark of trees. They fight with darts, targets, and some stone clubs, which are made fine with plumage. Along the coast are many islands and habitations. All the coast has many ports, very large, with very large rivers, and many plains. Without these islands there runs a reef of shoals, and between them (the shoals) and the mainland are the islands. There is a channel within. In these parts I took possession for your Majesty.

"We went along 300 leagues of coast, as I have mentioned, and diminished the latitude 2 1/2 degrees, which brought us into 9 degrees. From hence we fell in with a bank of from three to nine fathoms, which extends along the coast above 180 leagues. We went over it along the coast to 7 1/2 South latitude, and the end of it is in 5 degrees. We could not go further on for the many shoals and great currents, so we were obliged to sail out South-West in that depth to 11 degrees South latitude."

By this time Torres had reached the Strait which now bears his name, and which he was the first to pass through. He continues: "We caught in all this land twenty persons of different nations, that with them we might be able to give a better account to your Majesty. They give much notice of other people, although as yet they do not make themselves well understood."*

(*Footnote. Burney's Chronological History of Voyages and Discoveries in the South Sea or Pacific Ocean Volume 2 Appendix page 475.)

M. DE BOUGAINVILLE.

M. de Bougainville, in June 1768, with two vessels, La Boudeuse and L'Etoile, was proceeding to the eastward towards the coast of Australia, when the unexpected discovery of some detached reefs (Bougainville's reefs of the charts) induced him to alter course and stand to the northward. No land was seen for three days. "On the 10th, at daybreak," says he, "the land was discovered, bearing from east to North-West. Long before dawn a delicious odour informed us of the vicinity of this land, which formed a great gulf open to the south-east. I have seldom seen a country which presented so beautiful a prospect; a low land, divided into plains and groves, extended along the seashore, and afterwards rose like an amphitheatre up to the mountains, whose summits were lost in the clouds. There were three ranges of mountains, and the highest chain was distant upwards of twenty-five leagues from the shore. The melancholy condition to which we were reduced* neither allowed us to spend some time in visiting this beautiful country, which by all appearances was rich and fertile, nor to stand to the westward in search of a passage to the south of New Guinea, which might open to us a new and short route to the Moluccas by way of the Gulf of Carpentaria. Nothing, indeed, was more probable than the existence of such a passage."** Bougainville, it may be mentioned, was not aware of the previous discovery of Torres, which indeed was not published to the world until after our illustrious navigator Cook, in August, 1770, had confirmed the existence of such a strait by passing from east to west between the shores of Australia and New Guinea.

(*Footnote. They were beginning to run short of provisions, and the salt meat was so bad that the men preferred such RATS as they could catch. It even became necessary to prevent the crew from eating the LEATHER about the rigging and elsewhere in the ship.)

(**Footnote. Voyage autour du Monde par la Fregate du Roi La Boudeuse et la Flute l'Etoile en 1766 a 1769 page 258. See also the chart of the Louisiade given there, which, however, does not correspond very closely with the text.)

The Boudeuse and Etoile were engaged in working to windward along this new land (as it was thought to be) until the 26th, when, having doubled its eastern point, to which the significant name of Cape Deliverance was given, they were enabled to bear away to the North-North-East. The name of Gulf of the Louisiade was bestowed by Bougainville upon the whole of the space thus traversed by him, extending between Cape Deliverance and that portion of (what has since been determined to be) the coast of New Guinea of which he gives so glowing a description, and calls the Cul de Sac de l'Orangerie upon his chart.

CAPTAIN EDWARDS.

The next addition to our knowledge of these shores was made in August, 1791, by Captain Edwards in H.M.S. Pandora, shortly before the wreck of that vessel in Torres Strait, when returning from Tahiti with the mutineers of the Bounty. In the published narrative of that voyage the following brief account is given. "On the 23rd, saw land, which we supposed to be the Louisiade, a cape bearing north-east and by east. We called it Cape Rodney. Another contiguous to it was called Cape Hood: and a mountain between them, we named Mount Clarence. After passing Cape Hood, the land appears lower, and to trench away about north-west, forming a deep bay, and it may be doubted whether it joins New Guinea or not."* The positions assigned to two of these places, which subsequent experience has shown it is difficult to identify, are:

Cape Rodney: Latitude 10 degrees 3 minutes 32 seconds South, Longitude 147 degrees 45 minutes 45 seconds East.

Cape Hood: Latitude 9 degrees 58 minutes 6 seconds South, Longitude 147 degrees 22 minutes 50 seconds East.**

(*Footnote. Voyage round the world in His Majesty's frigate Pandora, performed under the direction of Captain Edwards in the years 1790, 1791 and 1792 by Mr. G. Hamilton, late surgeon of the Pandora, page 100.)

(**Footnote. Ibid page 164. Krusenstern assumes these longitudes to be 45 minutes too far to the westward, adopting Flinders' longitude of Murray's Islands, which differs by that amount from Captain Edwards'.)

CAPTAINS BLIGH AND PORTLOCK.

In the following year, Captains Bligh and Portlock, in the Providence and Assistance, conveying breadfruit plants from Tahiti to the West Indies, saw a portion of the south-east coast of New Guinea, when on their way to pass through Torres Strait. A line of coast extending from Cape Rodney to the westward and northward about eighty miles, the latter half with a continuous line of reef running parallel with the coast, is laid down in a chart by Flinders,* as having been "seen from the Providence's masthead, August 30th 1792."

(*Footnote. Flinders' Voyage to Terra Australis Atlas Plate 13.)

ADMIRAL D'ENTRECASTEAUX.

The northern portion of the Louisiade Archipelago was yet unknown to Europeans, and for almost all the knowledge which we even now possess regarding it, we are indebted to the expedition under the command of Rear-Admiral Bruny d'Entrecasteaux, who, on June 11th, 1793, with La Recherche and L'Esperance, during his voyage in search of the unfortunate La Perouse, came in sight of Rossel Island. The hills of that island were enveloped in clouds, and the lower parts appeared to be thickly wooded with verdant interspaces. A harbour was supposed to exist in the deep bay on the north coast of Rossel Island, but access to it was found to be prevented by a line of breakers extending to the westward as far as the eye could reach. D'Entrecasteaux passed Piron's Island, which he named, as well