The officers returned on board, and told me what had happened on shore. I went thither immediately with M. de la Porte, our surgeon, who brought some milk and gruel with him. When we arrived, the patient was out of the hut; the juggler, who had now got a companion in the same dress, had begun again with his his operation on the belly, thighs, and back of the child. It was a pity to see them torment the poor creature, who suffered without complaining. His body was already bruised all over; and the doctors still continued to apply their barbarous remedy, with abundance of conjurations. The grief of the parents, their tears, the part which the whole troop took in this accident, and which broke out in the most expressive signs, afforded us a most affecting scene. The savages certainly perceived that we partook of their distress; at least they seemed to be less mistrustful. They suffered us to come near the patient; and our surgeon examined his bloody mouth, which his father and another Pecherais sucked alternately. We had much trouble to persuade them to use milk; we were obliged to taste it before them several times; and, notwithstanding the invincible objection of their jugglers, the father at last resolved to let his son drink it; he even accepted a pot-full of gruel. The jugglers were jealous of our surgeon; whom, however, they seemed at last to acknowledge as an able juggler. They even opened for him a leather bag, which they always wear hanging by their side; and which contains their feathered cap, some white powder, some talc, and other instruments of their art; but he had hardly looked into it, when they shut it again. We likewise observed, that whilst one of the jugglers was conjuring the distemper of the patient, the other seemed to be busied solely in preventing, by his enchantments, the effect of the bad luck, which they suspected we had brought upon them.
We returned on board, towards night, and the child seemed to suffer less; however, he was plagued with almost continual puking, which gave us room to fear that some glass was got down into his stomach. We had afterwards sufficient reason to believe our conjectures had been true; for about two o’clock in the morning, we on board heard repeated howls; and, at break of day, though the weather was very dreadful, the savages went off. They, doubtless, fled from a place defiled by death, and by unlucky strangers, who they thought were come merely to destroy them. They were not able to double the westermost point of the bay: in a more moderate interval they set sail again; a violent squall carried them out into the offing, and dispersed their feeble vessels. How desirous they were of getting away from us! They left one of their periaguas, which wanted a repair on the shore, Satis est gentem effugisse nefandam. They are gone away, considering us as mischievous beings: but who would not pardon their resentment on this occasion? and, indeed, how great is the loss of a youth, who has escaped from all the dangers of childhood, to a body of men so very inconsiderable in number!
Continuation of bad weather.
The wind blew east with great violence, and almost without intermission, till the 13th, when the weather was mild enough in day-time; and we had even conceived hopes of weighing in the afternoon. The night between the 13th and 14th was calm. At half an hour past two in the morning we had unmoored, and hove a-peak. At six o’clock we were obliged to moor again, and the day was dreadful. The 15th, the sun shone almost the whole day; but the wind was too strong for us to leave the harbour.
Danger which the frigate is exposed to.
The 16th, in the morning, it was almost a calm; then came a breeze from the north, and we weighed, with the tide in our favour: it was then ebbing, and set to the westward. The winds soon shifted to W. and W. S. W. and we could never gain the Isle Rupert, with the favourable tide. The frigate sailed very ill; drove to leeward beyond measure; and the Etoile had an incredible advantage over us. We plyed all day between Rupert island, and a head-land of the continent, which we called the Point of the Passage, in order to wait for the ebb; with which I hoped either to gain the anchoring-place of Bay Dauphine, upon the isle of Louis le Grand, or that of Elizabeth bay[[87]]. But as we lost ground by plying, I sent a boat to sound to the S. E. of Rupert’s-island, intending to anchor there, till the tide became favourable. They made signal of an anchoring-place, and came to a grapnel there; but we were already too much fallen to leeward of it. We made one board in-shore, to endeavour to gain it on the other tack; the frigate missed stays twice; and it became necessary to wear; but at the very moment when, by the manœuvres, and by the help of our boats, she began to wear, the force of the tide made her come to the wind again; a strong current had already carried us within half a cable’s length of the shore. We let go our anchor in eight fathom: the anchor, falling upon rocks, came home, and our proximity to the shore did not allow us to veer away cable. We had now no more than three fathom and a half of water a-stern; and were only thrice the length of the ship from the shore, when a little breeze sprung up from thence, we immediately filled our sails, and the frigate fell to leeward: all our boats, and those of the Etoile, which came to our assistance, were a-head, towing her. We veered away our cable, upon which we had put a buoy; and near half of it was out, when it got foul between decks, and stopt the frigate, which then ran the greatest danger. We cut the cable, and by the prompt execution of this manœuvre, we saved the ship. The breeze at length freshened; and, after having made two or three unprofitable boards, I returned to Port Galant, where we anchored again in twenty fathom oozy bottom. Our boats, which I left to weigh our anchor, returned towards night with it and the cable. Thus this appearance of fine weather served only to give us cruel alarms.
Violent hurricane.
The day following was more stormy than all the preceding ones. The wind raised a mountainous sea in the channel; and we often saw several waves run in contrary directions. The storm appeared to abate towards ten o’clock; but at noon a clap of thunder, the only one we ever heard in this strait, was as it were the signal at which the wind again began to blow with more violence than in the morning. We dragged our anchor, and were obliged to let go our sheet-anchor, and strike our lower-yards and top-masts. Notwithstanding this, the shrubs and plants were now in flower, and the trees afforded a very brilliant verdure, which however was not sufficient to dispel that sadness which the repeated sight of this unlucky spot had cast over us. The most lively temper would be overcome in this dreadful climate, which is shunned by animals of every element, and where a handful of people lead a languid life, after having been rendered still more unfortunate by their intercourse with us.
Assertion concerning the channel of Sainte Barbe discussed.
On the 18th and 19th there were some intervals between the bad weather: we weighed our sheet anchor, squared our yards, and set up our top-masts; and I sent the Etoile’s barge, which was in so good a condition as to be able to go out in almost any weather, to view the channel of Sainte Barbe. According to the extract M. Frezier gives of the Journal of M. Marcant, who discovered and passed through it, this channel must bear S. W. and S. W. by S. from Bay Elizabeth. The barge returned on the 20th, and M. Landais, who commanded it, informed me, that having followed the track and marks taken notice of by M. Marcant, he had not found the true mouth, but only a narrow channel, closed by shoals of ice and the land, which it is the more dangerous to follow, as it has not a single good anchoring place, and as it is crossed in the middle by a sand covered with muscles. He then went all round the isle of Louis le Grand to the southward, and re-entered the channel of Magalhaens, without having found any other. He only saw a fine bay on the coast of Terra del Fuego, which is certainly the same with that which Beauchesne calls Nativity Bay. Upon the whole, by going S. W. and S. W. by S. from Bay Elizabeth, as Frezier says that Marcant did, you must cut through the middle of the isle of Louis le Grand.