Ludovico XV. Galliarum
rege, et d.[109] de Boynes
regi a Secretis ad res
maritimas annis 1772 et
1773.
[Footnote 109: The (d.), no doubt, is a contraction of the word Domino. The French secretary of the marine was then Monsieur de Boynes.--D.]
From this inscription, it is clear, that we were not the first Europeans who had been in this harbour. I supposed it to be left by Monsieur de Boisguehenneu, who went on shore in a boat on the 13th of February, 1772, the same day that Monsieur de Kerguelen discovered this land, as appears by a note in the French chart of the southern hemisphere, published the following year.[110]
[Footnote 110: On perusing this paragraph of the journal, it will be natural to ask, How could Monsieur de Boisguehenneu, in the beginning of 1772, leave an inscription, which, upon the very face of it, commemorates a transaction of the following year? Captain Cook's manner of expressing himself here, strongly marks, that he made this supposition, only for want of information to enable him to make any other. He had no idea that the French had visited this land a second time; and, reduced to the necessity of trying to accommodate what he saw himself, to what little he had heard of their proceedings, he confounds a transaction which we, who have been better instructed, know, for a certainty, belongs to the second voyage, with a similar one, which his chart of the southern hemisphere has recorded, and which happened in a different year, and at a different place.
The bay, indeed, in which Monsieur de Boisguehenneu landed, is upon the west side of this land, considerably to the south of Cape Louis, and not far from another more southerly promontory, called Cape Bourbon; a part of the coast which our ships were not upon. Its situation is marked upon the chart constructed for this voyage; and a particular view of the bay du Lion Marin, (for so Boisguehenneu called it,) with the soundings, is preserved by Kerguelen.
But if the bottle and inscription found by Captain Cook's people were not left here by Boisguehenneu, by whom and when were they left? This we learn most satisfactorily, from the accounts of Kerguelen's second voyage, as published by himself and Monsieur de Pagès, which present us with the following particulars:--"That they arrived on the west side of this land on the 14th of December, 1773; that steering to the N.E., they discovered, on the 16th, the Isle de Reunion, and the other small islands as mentioned above; that, on the 17th, they had before them the principal land, (which they were sure was connected with that seen by them on the 14th,) and a high point of that land, named by them Cape François; that beyond this cape, the coast took a south-easterly direction, and behind it they found a bay, called by them Baie de l'Oiseau, from the name of their frigate; that they then endeavoured to enter it, but were prevented by contrary winds and blowing weather, which drove them off the coast eastward; but that, at last, on the 6th of January, Monsieur de Rosnevet, captain of the Oiseau, was able to send his boat on shore into this bay, under the command of Monsieur de Rochegude, one of his officers, who took possession of that bay, and of all the country, in the name of the King of France, with all the requisite formalities."
Here then we trace, by the most unexceptionable evidence, the history of the bottle and inscription; the leaving of which was, no doubt, one of the requisite formalities observed by Monsieur de Rochegude on this occasion. And though he did not land till the 6th of January 1774, yet, as Kerguelen's ships arrived upon the coast on the 14th of December 1773, and had discovered and looked into this very bay on the 17th of that month, it was with the strictest propriety and truth that 1773, and not 1774, was mentioned as the date of the discovery.
We need only look at Kerguelen's and Cook's charts, to judge that the Baie de l'Oiseau, and the harbour where the French inscription was found, is one and the same place. But besides this agreement as to the general position, the same conclusion results more decisively still, from another circumstance worth mentioning: The French, as well as the English visitors of this bay and harbour, have given us a particular plan of it; and whoever compares them, must be struck with a resemblance that could only be produced by copying one common original with fidelity. Nay, even the soundings are the same upon the same spots in both plans, being forty-five fathoms between the two capes, before the entrance of the bay; sixteen fathoms farther in, where the shores begin to contract; and eight fathoms up, near the bottom of the harbour.
To these particulars, which throw abundant light on this part of our author's journal, I shall only add, that the distance of our harbour from that where Boisguehenneu landed in 1772, is forty leagues. For this we have the authority of Kerguelen, in the following passage:--"Monsieur de Boisguehenneu descendit le 13 de Fevrier 1772, dans un baie, qu'il nomme Baie du Lion Marin, & prit possession de cette terre au nom de Roi; il n'y vit aucune trace d'habitants. Monsieur de Rochegude, en 1774, a descendu dans un autre baie, que nous avons nommé Baie de l'Oiseau, & cette seconde rade est à quarantes lieues de la premiere. Il en a également pris possession, & il n'y trouva également aucune trace d'habitants." Kerguelen, p. 92.--D.]
As a memorial of our having been in this harbour, I wrote on the other side of the parchment,
Naves Resolution et Discovery de Rege Magnae Britanniae, Decembris 1776.
I then put it again into a bottle, together with a silver two-penny piece of 1772; and having covered the mouth of the bottle with a leaden cap, I placed it the next morning in a pile of stones erected for the purpose, upon a little eminence on the north shore of the harbour, and near to the place where it was first found, in which position it cannot escape the notice of any European, whom chance or design may bring into this port. Here I displayed the British flag, and named the place Christmas Harbour, from our having arrived in it on that festival.
It is the first or northernmost inlet that we meet with on the S.E. side of the Cape St Louis,[111] which forms the N. side of the harbour, and is also the northern point of this land. The situation alone is sufficient to distinguish it from any of the other inlets; and, to make it more remarkable, its S. point terminates in a high rock, which is perforated quite through, so as to appear like the arch of a bridge. We saw none like this upon the whole coast.[112] The harbour has another distinguishing mark within, from a single stone or rock, of a vast size, which lies on the top of a hill on the S. side, near its bottom; and opposite this, on the N. side, there is another hill, much like it, but smaller. There is a small beach at its bottom, where we commonly landed; and, behind it, some gently rising ground, on the top of which is a large pool of fresh-water. The land on both sides of the inlet is high, and it runs in W., and W.N.W., about two miles. Its breadth is one mile and a quarter, for more than half its length, above which it is only half a mile. The depth of water, which is forty-five fathoms at the entrance, varies, as we proceed farther in, from thirty to five and four fathoms. The shores are steep; and the bottom is every where a fine dark sand, except in some places close to the shore, where there are beds of sea-weed, which always grows on rocky ground. The head of the harbour lies open only to two points of the compass; and even these are covered by islands in the offing, so that no sea can fall in to hurt a ship. The appearances on shore confirmed this; for we found grass growing close to high-water mark, which is a sure sign of a pacific harbour.[113] It is high-water here, at the full and change days, about ten o'clock; and the tide rises and falls about four feet.
[Footnote 111: Cape François, for reasons already assigned.--D.]
[Footnote 112: If there could be the least doubt remaining, of the identity of the Baie de l'Oiseau and Christmas Harbour, the circumstance of the perforated rock, which divides it from another bay to the south, would amount to a strict demonstration. For Monsieur de Pagès had observed this discriminating mark before Captain Cook. His words are as follows:--"L'on vit que la cote de l'Est, voisine du Cap François, avoit deux baies; elles étoient separees par une pointe très reconnoissable par sa forme, qui representoit une porte cochere, au travers de laquelle l'on voyoit le jour."--Voyages du M. de Pagès, vol. ii. p. 67. Every one knows how exactly the form of a porte cochere, or arched gateway, corresponds with that of the arch of a bridge. It is very satisfactory to find the two navigators, neither of whom knew any thing of the other's description, adopting the same idea; which both proves that they had the same uncommon object before their eyes, and that they made an accurate report.--D.]