Chapter XXX.
Gives some account of this bay, and of all that is contained in it, and in its port.
This bay, to which the Captain gave the name of St. Philip and St. James, because it was discovered on their day, is 1,700 leagues from Lima, from Acapulco 1,300, from Manilla in the Philippines 1,100 leagues. Its entrance is to the N.W. in 15° S., and the port is in 15° 10′ S. The bay has a circuit of 20 leagues, at the entrance 4 leagues across. The variation of the compass is 7° N.E.
The land which forms the bay runs directly N. on the E. side, with sloping heights and peopled valleys well covered with trees. This side ends at the mouth of the bay with a height rising to a peak, and the coast runs E. and then S.E., but we could not see how it ends.
The other land to the W. runs nearly N.W., and to the point is 11 leagues in length, consisting of a range of hills of moderate height, which the sun bathes when it rises, and where there are patches without trees, covered with dried-up grass. Here are ravines and streams, some falling from the heights to the skirts of the hills, where many palm groves and villages were seen. From the point on this side the coast turns to the W.
The front of the bay, which is to the S., is 3 leagues long, and forms a beach. In the middle there is a river which was judged to be the size of the Guadalquivir at Seville. At its mouth the depth is 2 and more fathoms; so that boats and even frigates could enter. It received the name of the “Jordan.” On its right is seen the Southern Cross in the heavens, which makes the spot noteworthy.
To the eastward, at the corner of this bay, there is another moderate-sized river called “Salvador,” into which the boats entered at their pleasure to get water. The waters of both rivers are sweet, pleasant, and fresh. The one is distant from the other a league and a half, consisting of a beach of black gravel, with small heavy stones, excellent for ballast for a ship.
Between the said two rivers is the port. The bottom is clean, consisting of black sand, and here a great number of ships would have room up to 40½ brazas. It is not known whether there are worms. As the beach is not bare nor driven up, and the herbs are green near the water, it was assumed that it was not beaten by the seas; and as the trees are straight and their branches unbroken, it was judged that there are no great storms. The port was named “Vera Cruz,” because we anchored there on that day.
In the whole bay we did not see a bank, rock, or reef; but it is so deep that there is no anchorage except at the above port. It is better to approach near the river Salvador, and there is another moderate port which is distant 2 leagues from this on the N. to S. coast.
All the said beach is bordered by a dense mass of great trees, with paths leading from them to the shore. It seemed to serve as a wall, the better to carry on defensive or offensive operations against other natives coming to make war. All the rest is a level plain, with hills on either side. These on the W. side run southward, becoming more elevated and more massive as their distance increases. As for the plain, we have not seen where it ends. The earth is black, rich, and in large particles. It is cleared of wild trees to make room for fruit trees, crops, and gardens surrounded by railings. There are many houses scattered about; and wherever a view could be obtained, many fires and columns of smoke were discerned, witnesses of a large population.
The natives generally seen here are corpulent, not quite black nor mulatto. Their hair is frizzled. They have good eyes. They cover their parts with certain cloths they weave. They are clean, fond of festivities and dancing to the sound of flute and drums made of a hollow piece of wood. They use shells also for musical instruments, and in their dances make great shouting at the advances, balances, and retreats. They were not known to use the herb.[1]
Their arms are heavy wooden clubs, and bows of the same, arrows of reed with wooden points, hardened in the fire, darts with pieces of bone enclosed.
Their interments are covered. We saw some enclosed with their oratories and figures, to which they make offerings. It is, to all appearance, a people courageous and sociable, but without care for the ills of their neighbours; for they saw some fighting with us without coming to help them.
The houses are of wood, covered with palm leaves, with two sloping sides to the roof, and with a certain kind of outhouse, where they keep their food. All their things are kept very clean. They also have flower-pots with small trees of an unknown kind. The leaves are very soft, and of a yellow-reddish colour.
The bread they use is mainly of roots, whose young shoots climb on poles, which are put near them for that purpose. The rind is grey, the pulp murrey colour, yellow, or reddish; some much larger than others. There are some a yard and a-half in thickness, also two kinds: one almost round, and the size of two fists, more or less. Their taste resembles the potatoes of Peru. The inside of the other root is white, its form and size that of a cob of maize when stripped. All three kinds have a pulp without fibres, loose, soft, and pleasant to the taste. These roots are bread made without trouble, there being nothing to do but to take them out of the earth, and eat them, roast or boiled. They are very good cooked in pots. Our people ate a great deal; and, being of a pleasant taste and satisfying, they left off the ship’s biscuit for them. These roots last so long without getting bad, that on reaching Acapulco those that were left were quite good.
Their meat consists of a great quantity of tame pigs, some reddish, others black, white, or speckled. We saw tusks 1¼ palmos in length, and a porker was killed weighing 200 lbs. The natives roast them on hearths, wrapped up in plantain leaves. It is a clean way, which gives the meat a good colour, and none of the substance is lost.
There are many fowls like those of Europe. They use capons. There are many wild pigeons, doves, ducks, and birds like partridges, with very fine plumage. One was found in a lasso, with which the natives catch them. There are many swallows; we saw a macaw and flocks of paroquets; and we heard, when on board at early dawn, a sweet harmony from thousands of different birds, apparently buntings, blackbirds, nightingales, and others. The mornings and afternoons were enjoyable from the pleasant odours emitted from trees and many kinds of flowers, together with the sweet basil. A bee was also seen, and harvest flies were heard buzzing.
The fish are skate, sole, pollack, red mullet, shad, eels, pargos, sardines, and others; for which natives fish with a three-pronged dart, with thread of a fibrous plant, with nets in a bow shape, and at night with a light. Our people fished with hooks and with nets, for the most part. In swampy parts of the beach shrimps and mussels were seen.
Their fruits are large, and they have many cocoa-nuts, so that they were not understood to put much store by them. But from these palms they make wine, vinegar, honey, and whey to give to the sick. They eat the small palms raw and cooked. The cocoa-nuts, when green, serve as cardos[2] and for cream. Ripe, they are nourishment as food and drink by land and sea. When old, they yield oil for lighting, and a curative balsam. The shells are good for cups and bottles. The fibres furnish tow for caulking a ship; and to make cables, ropes, and ordinary string, the best for an arquebus. Of the leaves they make sails for their canoes, and fine mats, with which they cover their houses, built with trunks of the trees, which are straight and high. From the wood they get planks, also lances and other weapons, and many things for ordinary use, all very durable. From the grease they get the galagala, used instead of tar. In fine, it is a tree without necessity for cultivation, and bearing all the year round.
There are three kinds of plantains: one, the best I have seen, pleasant to smell, tender and sweet.
There are many “obos,” which is a fruit nearly the size and taste of a peach, on whose leaves may be reared silk-worms, as is done in other parts.
There is a great abundance of a fruit which grows on tall trees, with large serrated leaves. They are the size of ordinary melons, their shape nearly round, the skin delicate, the surface crossed into four parts, the pulp between yellow and white, with seven or eight pips. When ripe it is very sweet; when green, it is eaten boiled or roasted. It is much eaten, and is found wholesome. The natives use it as ordinary food.
There are two kinds of almonds: one with as much kernel as four nuts lengthways, the other in the shape of a triangle. Its kernel is larger than three large ones of ours and of an excellent taste.
There is a kind of nut, hard outside, and the inside in one piece without division, almost like a chestnut: the taste nearly the same as the nuts of Europe.
Oranges grow without being planted. With some the rind is very thick, with others delicate. The natives do not eat them. Some of our people said there were lemons.
There are many, and very large, sweet canes: red and green, very long, with jointed parts. Sugar might be made from them.
Many and large trees, bearing a kind of nut, grew on the forest-covered slopes near the port. They brought these nuts on board as green as they were on the branches. Their leaves are not all green on one side, and on the other they turn to yellowish grey. Their length is a jeme,[3] more or less, and in the widest part three fingers. The nut contains two skins, between which grows what they call mace like a small net. Its colour is orange. The nut is rather large, and there are those who say that this is the best kind. The natives make no use of it, and our people used to eat it green, and put it into the pots, and used the mace for saffron.
On the beach a fruit was found like a pineapple. Pedro was asked if it was eaten, and he replied that only the bark was eaten of the tree which yielded that fruit.
There were other fruits, like figs, filberts, and albaricoques, which were eaten. Others were seen, but it was not known what fruits they were, nor what others grew in that land. To give a complete account of them and of other things, it is necessary to be a year in the country, and to travel over much ground.
As regards vegetables, I only knew of amaranth, purslane, and calabashes.
The natives make from a black clay some very well-worked pots, large and small, as well as pans and porringers in the shape of small boats. It was supposed that they made some beverage, because in the pots and in cavities were found certain sour fruits.
It appeared to us that we saw there quarries of good marble;[4] I say good, because several things were seen that were made of it and of jasper. There were also seen ebony and large mother-o’-pearl shells; also some moderate-sized looms. In one house a heap of heavy black stones was seen, which afterwards proved to be metal from whence silver could be extracted, as will be seen further on. Two of our people said they had seen the footprints of a large animal.
The climate appeared to be very healthy, both from the vigour and size of the natives, as because none of our men became ill all the time we were there, nor felt any discomfort, nor tired from work. They had not to keep from drinking while fasting, nor at unusual times, nor when sweating, nor from being wet with salt water or fresh, nor from eating whatever grew in the country, nor from being out in the evening under the moon, nor the sun, which was not very burning at noon, and at midnight we were glad of a blanket. The land is shown to be healthy, from the natives living in houses on terraces, and having so much wood, and because so many old people were seen. We heard few claps of thunder, and had little rain. As the rivers flowed with clear water, it was understood that the rains were over.
It is to be noted that we had not seen cactus nor sandy wastes, nor were the trees thorny, while many of the wild trees yielded good fruit. It is also to be noted that we did not see snow on the mountains, nor were there any mosquitos or ants in the land, which are very harmful, both in houses and fields. There were no poisonous lizards either in the woods or the cultivated ground, nor alligators in the rivers. Fish and flesh keep good for salting during two or more days. The land is so pleasant, so covered with trees; there are so many kinds of birds, that, owing to this and other good signs, the climate may be considered to be clement, and that it preserves its natural order. Of what happens in the mountains we cannot speak until we have been there.
As no very large canoes were seen, with so large a population, and such fine trees, but only some small ones, and the mountain ranges being so high to W. and E., and to the S., and the river Jordan being so large, with great trees torn up and brought down at its mouth, we came to the conclusion that the land must be extensive, and yielding abundantly; and that consequently the people were indolent, and have no need to seek other lands.
I am able to say, with good reason, that a land more delightful, healthy and fertile; a site better supplied with quarries, timber, clay for tiles, bricks for founding a great city on the sea, with a port and a good river on a plain, with level lands near the hills, ridges, and ravines; nor better adapted to raise plants and all that Europe and the Indies produce, could not be found. No port could be found more agreeable, nor better supplied with all necessaries, without any drawbacks; nor with such advantages for dockyards in which to build ships, nor forests more abundant in suitable timber good for futtock timbers, houses, compass timbers, beams, planks, masts and yards. Nor is there any other land that could sustain so many strangers so pleasantly, if what has been written is well considered. Nor does any other land have what this land has close by, at hand, and in sight of its port; for quite near there are seven islands, with coasts extending for 200 leagues, apparently with the same advantages, and which have so many, and such good signs, that they may be sought for and found without shoals or other obstacles; while nearly half-way there are other known islands, with inhabitants and ports where anchorages may be found. I have never seen, anywhere where I have been, nor have heard of such advantages.
I take the port of Acapulco as an example, being well known as such a principal city of Mexico. I say that if it is good as an anchorage, it is very bad owing to the frequency of fogs, and the want of a river and of ballast; also, from being unhealthy most of the year, and intolerable from the heat and the mosquitos, and other molesting insects for the rest; also for its inconvenient site near stony and dry hills, and because provisions have to come from a distance, and soon turn bad; and finally, because it is dear, and ships have a bad time from the S.E.
If we look from the Strait of Magellan along its two coasts, on one side to Cape Mendocino, on the other to Newfoundland, being 7,000 or 8,000 leagues of coast, it will be found that, out of the ports that I have visited, that of San Juan de Ulloa does not merit the name of a port, nor its town to be inhabited by people; that Panama and Puerto Bello have little and bad accommodation; and that Payta, Callao, Havanna, Carthagena (the two latter being famous), La Guayra and Santa Martha, and many others, including those of Chile and Brazil, according to what I have been told, are wanting in many necessary things. Not one will be found which has all the advantages possessed by the port and land of which I treat. Being in 15°, more good things may be expected than from places in 20°, 30°, and 40°, if things turn out as they promise. I also say that if there is nothing better than what I have seen, it is sufficient for a principal place that may be settled.
If we look round the coast of Spain, so good a port will not be found; while its soil only produces thorns, ilexes, and broom, or at best arbutus and myrtles, and other poor fruits; and he who grows them for profit has nothing for his pains. April and May failing, the fruits fail.[5]
[1] He means betel. See p. 51.
[2] Thistles; teazel.
[3] The space between the end of the thumb and the end of the forefinger, both stretched out.
[4] Coral cliffs.
[5] Captain Cook visited the Island of Espiritu Santo in August, 1774, and on the 25th entered the bay of San Felipe y Santiago, discovered by Quiros. The wind being S., Cook was obliged to beat to windward. Next morning he was 7 or 8 miles from the head of the bay, which is terminated by a low beach, and behind that an extensive flat covered with trees, and bounded on each side by a ridge of mountains. The latitude was 15° 5′ S. Steering to within 2 miles of the head of the bay, he sent Mr. Cooper and Mr. Gilbert to sound and reconnoitre the coast. Mr. Cooper reported that he had landed on the beach near a fine river. They found 3 fathoms close to the beach, and 55 two cables’ lengths off. At the ship there was no bottom with 170 fathoms. When the boat returned, Captain Cook steered down the bay; and during the night there were many fires on the W. side. In the morning of the 27th the ship was off the N.W. point of the bay, in latitude 14° 39′ 30″. The bay has 20 leagues of sea-coast—6 on the E. side, 2 at the head, and 12 on the W. side. The two points which form the entrance bear S. 53° E., and N. 53° W., from each other distant 10 leagues. An uncommonly luxuriant vegetation was everywhere to be seen. Captain Cook named the E. point of the bay “Cape Quiros,” which is in 14° 56′ S., and longitude 167° 13′ E. He named the N.W. point “Cape Cumberland.” It is in 14° 38′ 45″ S., and 166° 49′ 30″ E.—Cook’s Second Voyage, vol. ii, p. 89.
The Editor has to thank Dr. Bolton G. Corney for the following very interesting account of his visit to the bay of San Felipe y Santiago in 1876:—
“While on a voyage through the New Hebrides in the barque Prospector, of 260 tons, in August, 1876, I visited the bay of San Felipe y Santiago, now commonly known to shipmasters and other habitués of the Western Pacific as the ‘Big Bay.’
“The island itself is, for short, spoken of as ‘Santo,’ not only by local white men, but also by many of the natives of it and the neighbouring ones, many of whom have been in Fiji or Queensland, and have picked up a little Fijian or English, as the case may be.
“The Prospector was chartered by the Government of Fiji to return 476 of these people to their homes, in completion of contracts made with them a few years before, after performing a term of labour on the cotton and maize or cocoa-nut plantations of that group of islands, which, in 1874, became a British Crown colony. I was in charge of these returning emigrants, both medically and as representing the Government.
“We passed from Malikolo to ‘Santo’, and worked up under the lee of its western side to Pusei and Tasimate, landing and recruiting emigrants as we went, and bartering for yams, and taro, and pigs by way of provisions. We rounded Cape Cumberland (the extreme N.W. point of the island), and worked into the bay of San Felipe y Santiago, making one long board to the E.N.E or N.E. by E. first, and then a long leg to the S.S.W., or thereabouts, which brought us close in with the land on the W. side of the bay. The land there was high and steep, and we had deep water until quite close into the beach. We then went about and made short tacks towards the fundus of the bay, where we had to lay the barque quite close in to the shore before getting anchorage. The water was blue and clear, and I do not recollect seeing any reefs or patches. The anchorage we made for was known to our recruiting agents, who called it the ‘river Jordan.’ I have a recollection of hearing that we got 9 fathoms with the lead just before letting go. The water was quite smooth, protected by the land at the head of the bay from the prevailing trade-wind; and the barque lay at a few boats’ lengths from the beach—about 300 yards W. from the embouchure of the river.
“Our objects in calling there were (i) to land certain natives of the place whom we had on board, with their earnings; (ii) to recruit others if any suitable ones offered; and (iii) to obtain wood and fill water.
“The beach, if my memory does not mislead me, was of black sand, which is not an uncommon thing in islands of volcanic origin, such as the New Hebrides: the distance from low water-mark to the edge of the timber and undergrowth which fringed it just above high-water mark, was only a few yards—perhaps 18 or 25—except near the mouth of the river, where it was more shelving, and extended out into a sandy foreshore or bank corresponding to the bar, the dry land being flat and of alluvial formation.
“The river was about as large as the Thames at Isleworth, and flowed into the bay through a wide and far-reaching valley from S. to N. Its banks were low, and overgrown with reeds and scrub, and more than usually free from the customary mangrove trees and bushes. We did not explore it for far, because the friendly attitude of the natives could not be depended on to last, if they should get us into a ‘corner;’ but I pulled into the river in one of the recruiting boats for a short distance, and selected a place at which we filled our beakers and water-casks with water of good and fresh quality. This was perhaps less than half a mile from the mouth: the water was clear, and we could see the bottom in mid-stream; but the tide was at the last of the ebb, as we had chosen that time for the sake of getting the freshest water.
“The natives brought us some dead logs to the beach, and others on bamboos to the vessel’s side, much of which the sailors and officers bartered for in the belief that it was sandal wood. It was in reality, I believe, the wood known in Fijian as Sevna or Cevna, a kind of Pittosporum, which grows near the sea and has a strong sandal-wood odour. We also obtained the natives’ consent to our cutting some firewood, which was mostly wild dawa (Nephilium pinnatum), and mulomulo (Hiliuscus populnea), a littoral tree often used in Fiji to cut boats’ knees from.
“We recruited four men to go with us to Fiji for three years. They were all adults of about 20 to 24 years, tall, black, and athletic young men, much above the average stature of New Hebrideans anywhere north of Eromango; and the other people of the locality appeared to me equally well-built, and some 5 ft. 10 in. or 5 ft. 11 in. in height. I cannot say whether they were the true inhabitants of the place, as we saw no village nor huts: they may have been mountaineers from the interior on an excursion to the coast, the mountaineers in these islands being as a rule blacker, and I think taller (with exceptions), than the coast people.
“They had no canoes—at least I saw none—except two small catamarans; and the timber they took alongside the ship was floated off by means of bamboos.
“It is doubtful whether mountaineers would have possession of catamarans on the coast, or trust themselves to bamboo rafts.
“The west shore of this bay rises steeply from the water throughout most of its extent: but there are narrow strips of low-lying flat land between the beach and the mountain side at intervals, continuous with the small valleys, where creeks or torrents, of which there are several, have deposited silt and boulders, and rocky débris from the higher slopes. But, in so far as I remember, they are all insignificant in extent, as the mountain ridge which forms this large promontory and ends abruptly in Cape Cumberland, rises, as already mentioned, steeply from the sea, which is deep all along and around it, with only here and there even a fringing shore reef. There is no barrier reef whatever, and consequently no lagoon.
“As to size of the ‘Big Bay,’ I should say that the distance from Cape Cumberland to the ‘Jordan’ is something like 30 miles. The head of the bay runs from the river mouth in an easterly direction for 3 or perhaps 4 miles, being mostly flat, low-lying alluvium, and then sweeps round towards the N.E. and N., being more elevated and undulating, and ends in Cape Quiros. This land, forming the eastern horn of the bay, does not project so far seaward as the western promontory, and is neither so high nor so steep, nor so heavily timbered as the latter, which is in fact a continuation of the backbone of the island, as far out as Cape Cumberland. The eastern horn extends northward perhaps 10 or 12 miles only.
“The depth or extent of the bay itself, from its chord formed by an imaginary E. and W. line drawn through Cape Quiros, seemed to me about a dozen miles, and it is of similar width. It may, therefore, contain nearly 150 square miles in area.
“The anchorage is well protected from the prevailing trade-wind, which blows from E.S.E., and is sheltered from that point round by S. to N.W. It is not exposed either from E.N.E. to E.S.E., but from N.W. to N. and N.E. it is unsafe.”