The Endeavour set sail from Plymouth on the twenty-sixth of August, 1768, and from Rio-de-Janeiro on the eighth of December. |1769. January.| On the fourteenth of January, 1769, the naturalists landed at Terra-del-Fuego, and they gathered more than a hundred plants theretofore unknown to European botanists. Proud of their success, they resolved that, after a brief rest, they would explore the higher regions, in hope to reap a rich harvest of Alpine plants. Solander, as a Swede and as a traveller in Norway, knew something of the dangers they would have to face. Banks himself was not without experience. But both were enterprising and resolute men. They set out on their long march in the night of the fifteenth of January, in order to gain as much of daylight as possible for the work of botanizing. They hoped to return to the ship within ten hours. As they ascended, Solander warned his companions against the temptation that he knew awaited them of giving way to sleep when overcome by the toil of walking. ‘Whoever sits down,’ said he, ‘will be sure to sleep, and whoever sleeps will wake no more.’ But the fatigue proved to be excessive. The foreseeing adviser was borne down by it, and was the first to throw himself upon the snow. Banks was the younger man by six or seven years, and had a strong constitution. He fought resolutely against temptation, and, with the help of the draughtsmen, exerted himself with all his might to keep Solander awake. They succeeded in getting him to walk on for a few miles more. Then he lay down again, with the words, ‘Sleep I must, for a few minutes.’ In those few minutes the fierce cold almost paralysed his limbs. Two servants (a seaman and a negro) imitated the Swede’s example, and were really paralysed. With much grief, it was found that the servants must, inevitably, be left to their fate. The party had wandered so far that when they set about to return they were—if the return should be by the way they had come—a long day’s journey from the ship. And their route had lain through pathless woods. Their only food was a vulture. A third man seemed in peril—momentarily—of death by exhaustion. Happily, a shorter cut was found. Their journey had not been quite fruitless. But they all felt that they had bought their botanical specimens at too dear a rate. Two men were already dead. One of the draughtsmen seems to have suffered so severely that he never recovered from the effects of the journey. Mr. Buchan died, three months afterwards, in Otaheite, just four days after they had landed in the celebrated island, to visit which was among the especial objects of their mission.
The stay in Otaheite.
The transit of Venus over the Sun’s disc was satisfactorily observed on the third of June, |1769.| but the observation had been nearly foiled by the roguery of a native, who had carried off the quadrant. The thief was found amongst several hundred of his fellows, and, but for a characteristic combination in Banks of frank good humour and of firm hardihood, the spoil would not have been recovered. On this, as upon many other occasions, both his fine personal qualities and his genial manners marked him as a natural leader of men. On occasions, however, of a more delicate kind they brought him into a peculiar peril. Queen Oberea fell in love with him. She was not herself without attractions. And they were clad in all the graces of unadorned simplicity. The poetical satirists of his day used Sir Joseph—after his return—with cruel injustice if he was really quite so successful, in resisting feminine charms in Otaheite, as he had formerly been at home.
The Voyage to New Holland.
But however that may have been, his researches, as a naturalist, at Otaheite were abundantly successful. And to the island, in return, he was a friend and benefactor. |1769–1770.| After a stay of three months the explorers left Otaheite for New Holland on the 15th of August, 1769. In Australia their collections were again very numerous and valuable. But their long stay in explorations exposed them to two great dangers, each of which was very nearly fatal to Mr. Banks and to most of his companions. They struck upon a rock, while coasting New South Wales. Their escape was wonderful. The accident entailed an amount of injury to the ship which brought them presently within a peril more imminent still. Whilst making repairs in the noxious climate of Batavia, a pestilence seized upon nearly all the Europeans. Seven, including the ship’s surgeon, died in Batavia. Twenty-three, including the second draughtsman, Mr. Parkinson, died on shipboard afterwards. Banks and Solander were so near death that their recovery seemed, to their companions, almost miraculous.
The Return Home.
After leaving New South Wales and Batavia they had a prosperous passage |1771. June.| to the Cape—prosperous, save for the loss of those whom the pestilence had previously stricken—and made some additions to their scientific stores. The Endeavour anchored in the Downs on the 12th of June, 1771, after an absence of nearly three years. Beyond the immediate and obvious scientific results of the voyage, it was the means, eventually, of conferring an eminent benefaction on our West Indian Colonies. It gave them the Bread-Fruit tree (Artocarpus incisa). The transplantation of God’s bounties from clime to clime was a favourite pursuit—and a life-long one—with Sir Joseph Banks, and its agencies cost him much time and thought, as well as no small expenditure of fortune.
The hardships and sufferings of Terra-del-Fuego and of Batavia had not yet taken off the edge of his appetite for remote voyages. |The Expedition to Iceland.| He expended some thousands of pounds in buying instruments and making preparations for a new expedition with Cook, |1772. July.| but the foolish and obstructive conduct of our Navy Board inspired him with a temporary disgust. He then turned his attention to Northern Europe. He resolved that after visiting the western isles of Scotland he would explore Iceland. Solander was again his companion, together with two other northern naturalists, Drs. Lind and Von Troil. Banks chartered a vessel at his own cost (amounting, for the ship alone, to about six hundred pounds).
Before starting for the cold north, they refreshed their eyes with the soft beauties of the Isle of Wight. There, said one of the delighted party, ‘Nature has spared none of her favours;’ and a good many of us have unconsciously repeated his remark, long afterwards. They reached the Western Isles of Scotland before the end of July, and, after a long visit, explored Staffa, the wonders of which were then almost unknown. Scientific attention, indeed, was first called to them by Banks, when he communicated to Thomas Pennant, of Downing, his minute survey, and his drawings of the basaltic columns.
He thought that the mind can scarcely conceive of anything more splendid, in its kind, than the now famous cave. |The Visit to Staffa.| When he asked the local name of it, his guide gave him an answer which, to Mr. Banks, seemed to need explanation, |1772. August 12.| though the name has nowadays become but too familiar to our ears. ‘The Cave of Fiuhn,’ said the islander. ‘Who or what is “Fiuhn”?’ rejoined Banks. The stone, he says, of which the pillars are formed, is a coarse kind of basalt, much resembling the ‘Giants’ Causeway’ in Ireland, ‘though none of them so neat as the specimens of the latter which I have seen at the British Museum.... |Banks to Pennant; Aug., 1772.| Here, it is dirty brown; in the Irish, a fine black.’ But he carried away with him the fullest impression of the amazing grandeur of the whole scene.