[CHAPTER XI]
ROGGEVEEN, THE LAST OF THE GREAT VOYAGERS
The Hollanders entered the field of geographical exploration at a late date. The Spaniards and the Portuguese had discovered and navigated distant parts of the world for almost two centuries before the Hollander began to leave his own shores. But when we remember that they were a small nation and were engaged upon one of the most gigantic wars which was ever fought, the result of their labors as pioneers of the map was considerable. They found Spitzbergen and many new islands in the Arctic, and gave us the first reliable information about the impracticability of the Northeastern Passage. They discovered a new route to the Pacific shorter and less dangerous than the Strait of Magellan. They charted the southern part of the Pacific, and made the first scientific inspection of the Australian continent, besides discovering New Zealand and Tasmania. They discovered a number of new islands in the Indian Ocean and settled upon the fertile islands of Mauritius. Of course I now enumerate only the names of their actual discoveries. They established settlements in North and South America and all over Asia and in many places of Africa. They opened a small window into the mysterious Japanese Empire, and got into relation with the Son of Heaven who resided in Peking. They founded a very prosperous colony in South Africa. They had colonies along the Red Sea and the Gulf of Persia. But about these colonies I shall tell in another book. This time I give only the story of the voyages of actual discovery. The adventures of men who set out to perform the work of pioneers, the career of navigators who had convinced themselves that here or there a new continent or an undiscovered cape or a forgotten island awaited their curious eyes, and who then risked their fortunes and their lives to realize their dreams; in one word, the men of constructive vision who are of greater value to their world than any others because they show the human race the road of the future.
In Holland the last of those was a certain Jacob Roggeveen, a man of deep learning, for many years a member of the High Tribunal of the Indies, and a leader among his fellow-beings wherever he went. He had traveled a great deal, and he might have spent the rest of his few years peacefully at home, but when he was sixty-two years old the desire to learn more of the Southern Continent which had been seen, but which had never been thoroughly explored, the wish to know definitely whether there remained anything as yet undiscovered in the Pacific Ocean, drove him across the equator. With three ships and six hundred men he left Texel on the first of August of the year 1721, and the next year in February he was near Juan Fernandez in the Pacific Ocean. An expedition like this had never been seen before. All the experience of past years had been studied most carefully. It was known that people fell ill and died of scurvy because they did not get enough fresh vegetables. Wooden boxes filled with earth were therefore placed along the bulwarks of all the ships. In these some simple and hardy vegetables were planted. Instead of the old method of taking boxes full of bread which turned sour and got moldy, ovens were placed on board, and flour was taken along from which to bake bread. An attempt was made to preserve carrots and beets in boxes filled with powdered peat. People still fell ill during this voyage, but the wholesale death of at least half of the crew of which we read in all the old voyages did not take place. When Roggeveen reached Juan Fernandez he found the cabin of Robinson Crusoe just as it had been left in the year 1709. Otherwise the island proved to be uninhabited. On the seventeenth of March the ships continued their way, and a southern course was taken. Nothing was seen until Easter day, when a new island was found on the spot where an English map hinted at the existence of a large continent. This island, however, contained nothing except a few natives. It did not in the least resemble the unknown Southern Continent of which Roggeveen dreamed. Therefore he went farther toward the south. For a while he followed the route taken many years before by Le Maire. Some of the islands which Le Maire had visited he found on his map. Others he could not locate. Still others were now seen for the first time. It was a very dangerous sea to navigate. The Pacific Ocean is full of reefs. These reefs now appear upon the map, but even in this day of scientific navigation they wreck many a ship. On the nineteenth of April one of Roggeveen's ships ran upon such a hidden reef in the middle of the night. The crew was saved, and was divided among the other two vessels. The ship, however, was a total loss. Nothing could be saved of the personal belongings of the men and the provisions. It is a curious fact that the South Sea islands always have had a wonderful fascination for a certain kind of temperament. Many times while ships crossed the Pacific in the seventeenth and eighteenth century sailors preferred to remain behind on some small island and spend the rest of their lives there with the natives and the fine weather and the long days of lazy ease. Five of Roggeveen's crew remained behind on one of those islands, and when in the year 1764 the British explored the King George Archipelago, they actually found one of these five, then a very old man.
More than half a year was spent by Roggeveen in exploring the hundreds of islands and the many groups of larger islands which the industrious coral insect had built upon the bottom of the ocean. He found the Samoan Islands, and visited several of the Fiji group. Everywhere he met with the same sort of natives. How they got there was a puzzle to Roggeveen. They must have come from some large continent, and he intended to find that continent. But time went by, and his supplies dwindled away, and he did not see anything that resembled his famous continent. Whenever a new peak appeared upon the horizon, there was hope of reaching the land of promise. But from near by the peak always proved to be another rock sticking out of a placid sea, and giving shelter to a few thousand naked savages.