The next fall I went on another voyage in the Mary, of Boston, Captain Joseph White, to St. Thomas for Molasses, which we carried to Boston.
During the next eight years I made sixteen voyages to the West India Islands, under different Captains and in different vessels. In none of these voyages did any thing unusual occur, though we had to throw some of our cargoes overboard to save the vessels. After the above voyages I stayed at home a few months, but not being contented on shore, about the 25th of June, 1829, I again went to sea in the ship Trident, of 600 tons. There were sixty of the crew, principally experienced whalemen. We were bound to the Pacific Ocean, for whale. Our course was as usual by way of the Western Islands, where we arrived in about 20 days. We caught three Sperm on the passage. We stopped at Flores, one of these islands, where we took in potatoes, onions, pumpkins, hogs, and chickens. Here we stopped but two days. Then we steered away south for the Cape De Verds, which we passed. The next land which we saw was the Isle of May. Thence we steered away for Cape Horn, where we arrived in 90 days thereafter. We then doubled Cape Horn, and sailed northward off the coast, until we came to the island of Juan Fernandez, famous for its being for several years the abode of the celebrated Robinson Crusoe. One could not help thinking of the dreadful life this celebrated navigator lived while here. His lonely hours and tantalizing dreams. His constant fear of beasts and cannibal savages. While here we visited the untenanted cave where that noted adventurer is said to have resided. On this island are a great many goats; also peaches, which grow wild in the woods. There were but few people here. The colony planted by Crusoe not having multiplied very fast. The land here is good, but the shore is generally bold. From this place we sailed for Payta, in latitude 5 degrees south, where we arrived after more than six months sail from the time we left New Bedford. Here we took in potatoes and onions, re-fitted ship, and made ready for fishing. Here we stayed eighteen days. Then we sailed for the "offshore ground" a famous place for sperm whale. We were fifty days sailing from Payta to the shore. Here we stayed five months, and took but two hundred barrels sperm. We then sailed again for Payta, where we recruited ship, staid a couple of weeks, and then sailed for Tombus, where we took in wood and water. When this was done, we sailed the for Gallipago Islands, where we went for Terrapin. The Terrapin very much resembles our large Turtle, only they live wholly on the land, and weigh from four to five hundred pounds. The manner of taking them is as follows: In the morning we used to go up into the island, among the bushes, where we usually found them feeding upon cabbage trees, that they had gnawed down the night before. After finding them two of us used to go up to them and turn them over upon their backs, then tie their legs, and swing them between us, by lashing them to our backs. We then carry them to the boats, and from thence to the ship. We sometimes keep them alive six months without any food or drink. They make excellent soup, and are esteemed very healthy. They are worth, when brought to a sea-port city, from two hundred to three hundred dollars. We took six hundred of these animals in five days, and got them on board ship.
After this, we went again to the "off shore" coast, for sperm whale. We had the luck to take six whale after we had been out two days. After this we continued our sail to the place of destination, where we took in eighteen hundred barrels of oil. Here we stayed three months, and sailed for Callao, on the coast of Peru. After arriving at the latter place, I left the ship and went aboard of the Charles, of London. The Trident, after recruiting ship sailed for New Bedford.
The Charles, on board of which I had shipped, sailed in about two weeks after I went aboard, for sperm, along the coast, but we had such a drunken Captain that we could not do any business. He was not sober any of the time while we were out. After going into the port from whence we last sailed I left the Charles and went on board the Golconda, of New Bedford. In this vessel I stayed about nine months, during which we fished in Panama bay with tolerable success. The Captain was a bad man and abused the crew very much.—From this bay we went to Payta, where I was paid off and left the ship.
The people of this place procure their water from springs that are nine miles off, which is brought in every morning on asses in what are called callabashes, that hold from fifteen to twenty gallons each. After staying at this place five months, myself and two others started with one ass loaded with water and provisions for Peuro, situated one hundred miles south east from Payta. The country through which we passed was a sandy desert, without a shrub or spire of grass to cheer us on our way. At night we slept on the sand and had no other shelter than the canopy of the heavens afforded. We were five days on our journey. There was no water to be seen during our whole journey, nor a single house or cultivated spot. The sands drift as the snow does in the northern parts of America. When I arrived at the place of our destination, I engaged to work for a Spanish gentleman called Don Francisco. This man owned a distillery in which I labored two months. Then I went about 70 miles further into the country, to a place called Apputaria, which was situated on the Columbian mountains. Here I labored five months on a farm, for a man named Tarbury. The people in this vicinity are Spaniards, and are very hospitable to strangers. Here the people live by raising sweet potatoes, corn, cotton and sugar cane. Here I stayed six months and enjoyed myself very well. The religion of this people is the Catholic.
The only man with whom I had formed an acquaintance who was from the United States, was a Cape-Cod man. This man and myself had lived together from the time I landed at Payta. From Apputaria we started about the first of March, 1834, and went again to Peuro, where my companion died, far from home and friends, in a foreign land. He had no kind friend to close his eyes for the last time, except the writer of this narrative, who rendered him such assistance as was in his power to render, and when he slept in death, procured him such a burial as was in accordance with the custom of the country.
After the death of my friend I stayed about a week, and them left that place and went to Payta, which is a sea-port town.—Here I stayed but about one month before I again shipped on board a whaler called the Mechanic, of Newport, Rhode Island. Alter leaving this port we went down to Tombus, where we took in potatoes, squashes, onions and water melons. We then steered away for the offshore ground, which is about three thousand miles west of the coast of Peru. Here we took two whale, after which we steered away west until we came to the Reupore Islands, but we did not land here on account of the ferocity of the natives, who were armed with heavy, carved war-clubs. The land appeared to be good, but was mountainous, back from the shore. The people were almost white, but very savage in their appearance, and went almost naked.—What little clothing they had was made of grass wove into a species of cloth. This they tied around their waists. It reached down before nearly to the knees. These people have never permitted the missionaries to live among them, but they worship idols made of stone. They raise potatoes and oranges of the vegetable kind, and of the animal, hogs. Of these latter, we purchased a hog that would weigh two bundled pounds, for one whale tooth. What they do with the teeth I do not know. This the natives brought to us by swimming to the ship. From the last mentioned Islands we steered away west by north, about two thousand miles further, when we reached an island called Riotier, one of a group called the Society Islands. Here my time being up, I left the ship and went among the natives, who were a very friendly, hospitable people. Here I staved five months, and learned much of the customs and manners of the country. The people generally go naked, and men, women and children live promiscuously together.
Their houses are very simple, being constructed by driving posts into the ground and then by fastening beams made of round sticks to the top of these posts, and smaller sticks, covered with grass wove very compactly together to the beams. This forms the dwelling of these poor, but happy people. When the wind blows hard, or when it rains they heave up grass mats on the side of the house towards the wind. Under this frail covering whole families, sometimes consisting of twenty or thirty, are huddled together both by night and by day. The people are very indolent, having every thing necessary for their subsistence growing spontaneously around them. Their food is bread fruit, which grows upon trees somewhat resembling apple trees. It grows like an apple, but as large as a man's head. This is prepared for eating by roasting it in the fire and by taking off the skin. Then it is sliced up the same as we slice up bread for the table. This is better than the best wheat bread. Of this fruit they have two crops in a year which lasts about two months and a half each crop. Then they have during the other parts of year two crops of Fayees, a kind of fruit that grows upon bushes about ten feet high and resembles large cucumbers. These are cooked by digging holes in the ground and then making hot fires in them and heating the same as we heat ovens. When the hole is sufficiently hot they clear out the fire, put in the fruit, and cover them over with large leaves. In about two hours they are sufficiently cooked.—When cooked, they become soft like a potatoe, but much more delicious. There is also a root, called tea-root, which is about four inches in diameter and two or three feet long.—These, when roasted, afford a juice similar to molasses. Besides these, they have plenty of good fish, hogs and cattle. Horses are very scarce, though I saw a few while there.
The people of this place, when they make a feast, which is often, roast a hog whole. This they do by digging a hole in the ground sufficiently large to put the animal in, then they build a large fire in it and heat it, as English people heat their ovens. While they are making the dirt oven ready, they have another large fire close by, where they heat small round stones. When these are sufficiently heated and the hole is also heated, they clear out the coals, and put a layer of the heated round stones upon the bottom, then they lay in the hog and cover it with large leaves, then over these a layer of the hot stones, then another of the leaves, and over all, they throw a layer of dirt. When the hog has become properly roasted, they take it out and lay it upon sticks prepared for that purpose, and the guests set round and eat.
There is an Englishman by the name of Hunter, who has a sugar plantation on this island, and employs seventy five hands, all natives of the country. He has about one hundred and seventy five acres under improvement. The sugar manufactured here is of good quality. There is a kind of root that grows here called tarrow, which resembles a potatoe. This is the only vegetable that I saw cultivated on the island. To raise these, the people burn over a spot during the dry season, and sow the seed, and get it in with sticks, where the land is not very mellow. It generally will sprout, and grow without any labor being bestowed upon it after sowing. The roots are fit for use in three months. These are cooked by roasting as we roast potatoes.