CASCADE AT PORT PRASLIN.
On the 1st of September, Bougainville made the island of Boero, one of the Moluccas, where he knew the Dutch had a small factory and a weak garrison. All his men were now sick, without exception. The provisions remaining were so nauseous that, as he says, "the hardest moments of the sad days we passed were those when the bell gave us notice to take in this disgusting and unwholesome food. But now our misery was to have an end. Ever since midnight a pleasant scent exhaled from the aromatic plants with which the Moluccas abound; the aspect of a considerable town, situated in the bottom of the gulf, of ships at anchor there, and of cattle rambling through the meadows, caused transports which I have doubtless felt, but which I can not here describe."
It was found that the Dutch East India Company reigned supreme, and that the governor was disposed to keep to the letter of his instructions, which forbade him to receive any ships but those of the monopoly. Bougainville was obliged to plead the claims of hunger and considerations of humanity before the authorities would listen to him. They then furnished him with rice, poultry, sago, goats, fish, eggs, fruit, and venison, the latter being the flesh of stags introduced and acclimated by the Dutch. Henry Inman, the Dutch governor, though placed in a critical position by this arrival, behaved as became an honorable and generous man. He first did his duty towards his superiors, and then towards fellow-creatures in distress. Aotourou, the Tahitian, not being taken ashore by the commander on his first visit, imagined that it was because he was bow-legged and knock-kneed, and begged some of the sailors to stand upon his legs and straighten them out.
During the run back to France, by way of the Cape of Good Hope, St. Helena, and the Cape Verd Islands, nothing happened which requires mention here. Bougainville entered the port of St. Malo on the 16th of March, 1769, having been absent two years and four months, and having lost but seven men during the voyage. He was the first Frenchman who ever went round the world in one ship,—one Gentil de la Barbinais, a pirate, having accomplished a voyage of circumnavigation in several ships, some fifty years before. He sustained his claim to this honor by publishing, two years afterwards, a narrative of his expedition, written in an animated and graceful style, and which established his reputation as a sailor and explorer.
CAPTAIN JAMES COOK.