"We took fifty-two days to accomplish it. In spite of the difficulties we met with in the passage of the Straits of Magellan" (and in this Bougainville entirely agrees with Byron), "I should advise this route, in preference to that by Cape Horn from September to the end of March. During the remaining months of the year I should prefer the open sea.
"Contrary winds and heavy seas are not dangerous, whilst it is not wise to grope one's way between two coasts. One is sure to be detained for some time in the strait, but this delay is not time wholly lost. One meets with water in abundance, wood and shell-fish, and occasionally very good fish. And I am decidedly of opinion that a crew reaching the Pacific by doubling Cape Horn suffers more from the ravages of scurvy than that which proceeds by the Straits of Magellan."
Bougainville's opinion has met with many opposers up to the present time, and the route which he lauds so highly has been almost abandoned by navigators. One strong reason for which is that steam has completely transformed maritime experience, and entirely changed nautical science.
Scarcely had he entered the Southern Sea, when Bougainville, to his intense surprise, found the winds southerly. He was therefore obliged to relinquish his intention of reaching Juan Fernandez.
Bougainville had agreed with M. de la Giraudais, captain of the Etoile, that if a larger stretch of sea was discovered, the two vessels should separate, but not lose sight of each other, and that every evening the bugle should recall them within half a league of each other, so that, in the event of the Boudeuse encountering danger, the Etoile might avoid it.
Bougainville for some time sought Easter Island in vain. At last he fell in during the month of March with the lands and islands erroneously marked upon M. Bellin's chart as Quiros Islands. On the 22nd of the same month he met with four islets, to which he gave the name of Quatre Facardins, which belonged to the Dangerous group, a set of madreporic islets, low and damp, which all navigators who have visited the Pacific Ocean by way of the Straits of Magellan appear to have noticed.
A little further discovery was made, of a fertile island inhabited by entirely naked savages, who were armed with long spears, which they brandished with menacing gestures, and thus it obtained the name of Lancers Island.
| Lancer's Island. |
We need not refer to what we have already repeatedly said of the nature of these islands, the difficulty of access to them, their wild and inhospitable inhabitants. Cook calls this very Lancers Island, Thrum Cape, and the island of La Harpe, which Bougainville found on the 24th, is identical with Cook's Bow Island.