Ocean's Story; or, Triumphs of Thirty Centuries / Maritime Adventures, Achievements, Explorations, Discoveries and Inventions; and of the Rise and Progress of Ship-Building and Ocean Navigation, from the Ark to the Iron Steamships

by Frank B. Goodrich

Spilbergen was now detained nine months in the Molucca and neighboring islands, in the service of the East India Company. A narrative of his transactions here would be foreign to the purpose of this work. He left the ships in which he had hitherto sailed in India, and returned to Holland in the Amsterdam. His voyage produced no new discoveries in the South Sea; but the Directors of the Company bestowed upon him the highest praise for his prudent management and timely energy. The Company may be said to have dated their grandeur from the day of his return, both as regards power and wealth,—the first resulting from his successful circumnavigation of the globe, the latter from their conquests in the Moluccas, in which he took a prominent part, and of which he brought home the first intelligence.

The Dutch East India Company held from the Government the exclusive privilege of trading in the Great South Sea,—all private citizens being prohibited from entering those waters by the Cape of Good Hope on the east or the Strait of Magellan on the west. This prohibition stimulated rather than checked the commercial ardor of the country, and it soon became the study of navigators and merchants to discover some safe means of eluding the law, it being hard, they said, that Government should close up the channels which Nature had left free. Isaac Lemaire, a rich trader of Amsterdam, was the first to whom the idea occurred of seeking another passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific than the Strait of Magellan. He imparted his views to William Cornelison Schouten, who had been three times to the East Indies in the different capacities of supercargo, pilot, and master. He too was convinced that to the south of Terra del Fuego lay another passage from one ocean to the other. Could they find this passage, they might legally trespass upon the monopoly held by the Company. They determined to attempt the discovery, and Lemaire advanced half the necessary funds, Schouten and his friends furnishing the other half. Two ships were fitted out, the larger,—the Concord,—of three hundred and sixty tons, being manned by sixty-five men, and pierced for twenty-nine guns of small calibre; the Horn, of one hundred and ten tons, carrying eight cannons, four swivels, and twenty-two men. Schouten was master and pilot of the expedition, and James Lemaire, the son of Isaac, supercargo. The object of the voyage was kept a profound secret, the officers and men being bound by their articles to go wherever they should be required, and, in compensation for this unusual condition, receiving a considerable advance upon the ordinary wages. The little fleet was equipped in the port of Horn, and left the Texel on the 14th of June, 1615, proceeding towards the coast of Africa.

On the 30th of August, they cast anchor in the roads of Sierra Leone, where they drove a brisk trade in lemons, easily purchasing a thousand for a handful of worthless glass beads. Fresh water was obtained by holding casks under a bountiful cascade, and thus easily were the materials for lemonade procured in this favored spot. They then made directly for the southwest. While in the middle of the Atlantic, the crew of the Concord were startled by her receiving a violent blow upon her bottom, although no rock was visible. The color of the sea around them changed suddenly to red, as if a fountain of blood had been discharged into it. A large horn, of a substance resembling ivory, and solid, not hollow, was subsequently found in the ship's side, having passed through three of her planks and entered the wood to the depth of a foot, leaving at least a foot more upon the outside. The vessel had evidently been in collision with a narwhal or sea-unicorn, and the broken horn and the crimsoned water plainly showed which had suffered most from the shock.

Late in October, the ships' companies were informed of the design of the voyage, and readily consented to engage in a scheme which promised both distinction and emolument. Early in December, they made the coast of Patagonia, some three hundred miles to the north of Magellan's Strait. Here the Horn, the smaller of the two vessels, caught fire by accident and was destroyed. Her iron-work, guns, and anchors were transferred to the Concord. On the 24th, the Concord passed the Strait of Magellan, and was soon in the latitude where Schouten and Lemaire hoped to make their grand discovery. While Terra del Fuego was still in sight upon their right hand, they noticed a high, rugged island upon their left, which they named Staten Land, or Land of the States. The ship passed between the two, and soon after rounded the promontory which advanced the farthest into the sea, to which, in honor of the port from which the expedition had sailed, Schouten gave the name of Cape Horn. He then launched into the South Sea, being the first who passed completely round the South American continent. Lemaire claimed the honor of giving his name to the strait which had brought them to the Cape,—one which clearly belonged to Schouten, as the leader and pilot of the expedition. The strait is still known by the name of the supercargo, geographers having consecrated, by silence, this manifest act of injustice.

CAPE HORN.

Altering their course to the northward, they soon recognised the mouth of Magellan's Strait,—which rendered their discovery complete. They returned thanks to God for their success, and passed the wine cup three times round the company. Schouten then made for the island of Juan Fernandez, where he hoped to give rest and refreshment to his sickly and wearied crew. The currents and the winds would not permit him to land; and he was compelled to start across the Pacific in a crazy ship and with a disabled company. Like Magellan, who traversed this ocean without seeing any of the important islands which, just below the line, extend from America to Asia, forming, as it were, a girdle from shore to shore, Schouten discovered but a few insignificant rocks and reefs, passing between and at a distance from the great archipelagoes which dot the Pacific in this latitude. At one of these spots his men met an enemy more numerous and formidable than any tribe of savages. Innumerable myriads of flies followed them from the shore to the ship, so that they came on board absolutely black with the winged and buzzing infliction. The flies enveloped the vessel in a thick and melodious cloud, from which the sailors were glad to escape with the first favoring breeze. Schouten consulted geographical propriety by naming the scene of this adventure Fly Island.

THE CONCORD AT FLY ISLAND.

Early in July, 1616, they arrived at the Moluccas, and went ashore upon the island of Gilolo, where they procured poultry, tortoises, rice, and sago. They next touched at Ternate, where they were kindly entertained by the Dutch authorities. They sold their two pinnaces, still upon the deck of the Concord, together with what had been saved from the Horn; they received in return thirteen hundred and fifty reals. With this they purchased a large quantity of rice, a ton of vinegar, as much Spanish wine, and three tons of biscuit. They then sailed for Java, and cast anchor in the harbor of Jacatra—now Batavia—sixteen months after quitting the Texel, having lost but three men upon the voyage. The expedition properly terminates here; for Jan Petersen Coen, President for the Dutch East India Company at Bantam, in Java, confiscated their ship and cargo as forfeited for illegally sailing within the boundaries of the Company's charter. He sent Schouten and Lemaire to Holland, however, that they might plead their cause before a competent court. Lemaire died on his way home, overcome with grief and vexation at the disastrous end of a voyage which had been so successful till the seizure of the ship. Schouten made several subsequent voyages to the East Indies, and died, in 1625, in the island of Madagascar. His name is little known, and his memory has almost passed away, although to him clearly belongs the credit of improving upon Magellan's discovery by furnishing a safer route to the commerce of the world and substituting the doubling of Cape Horn for the threading of the Strait.