The Antarctic regions were first approached by Europeans by following the coast line of the continent which stretches furthest south. Magellan, with that indomitable perseverance which characterised him, continued, in spite of all difficulties, to force his way south until he discovered the strait which led him into the Pacific Ocean. After that it was the contrary winds, driving ships to the south, which led to further discoveries in an Antarctic direction. The next Spanish fleet which passed through the Strait after Magellan was under the command of Garcia Jofre de Loaysa, with Sebastian del Cano as second in command. Seven vessels sailed from Coruña in 1525, one of the smallest being the St Lesmes, with Francisco de Hozes as captain. This little craft of 80 tons was blown out of the strait, and driven down as far south as 55°, sighting land, the eastern end of Staten Island. Adverse gales also drove Sir Francis Drake to new discoveries. In October, 1578, he thus unintentionally fell in with “the uttermost part of lands towards the South Pole.” The latitude was 56° S. and “there was no maine nor iland to be seen to the southwards; the Atlantic Ocean and the South Sea meeting in a most large and free scope.” Drake named this southern cape of the island after the great Queen, Cape Elizabeth, the Cape Horn of the Dutch. Twenty years afterwards another discovery-causing gale produced results. An expedition of four vessels and a small pinnace left Holland in June, 1598, under the command of Jacob Mahu, whose death placed it under Simon de Cordes. The object was to visit the coasts of Chile and Peru for plunder, and then cross the Pacific. After leaving the Strait of Magellan all the ships were scattered. The flag-ship Hope reached Japan in April, 1600, where the pilot, an Englishman named William Adams, was detained until his death, though he was able to send home very interesting letters. The little pinnace of 18 tons named Blijde Boodschap (Good News) was driven down to 64° S., where her Captain, Dirk Gerritsz, saw “high land with mountains covered with snow, like the land of Norway[181].” M. Gerlache has named the islands which he discovered, and which, with Graham Land form the Gerlache channel—“Dirk Gerritsz Archipelago,” for his latitude shows that this was possibly the land he sighted. Returning northwards in search of his consorts, Dirk Gerritsz put into Valparaiso, where his ship was taken by the Spaniards and he was wounded. He was sent a prisoner to Lima, but news of his proceedings reached Holland, though not of his fate.
On June 14th, 1615, an expedition left Holland apparently with the object of finding a way to the Pacific to the south of Magellan’s Strait. Willem Cornelisz Schouten of Hoorn commanded the Eendracht of 220 tons, with Jacob le Maire, a son of the owner, as principal merchant. In January, 1616, Schouten discovered the strait between Tierra del Fuego and an island which he named Staaten Island. The strait was named after Le Maire. He thought the island was part of the Antarctic Continent. On the 29th the most southern land was sighted—the Cape Elizabeth of Drake—and named Cape Horn. When the Spanish Government heard of these proceedings they fitted out an expedition to verify the Dutch discoveries. It consisted of two caravels commanded by two brothers named Nodal. They carried out their instructions with ability and success from September, 1618 to July, 1620, passing through the Strait of Le Maire, rounding Cape Horn, and being the first to circumnavigate Tierra del Fuego. They gave the name of San Ildefonso to Cape Horn. Moreover they got still nearer to the Antarctic regions, discovering rocks in 56° 31′ 8″, fifty-seven miles S.W. of Cape Horn, which they named Diego Ramirez after their pilot.
Ortelius’ Map of the World
While the explorers, by the action of adverse gales, were thus painfully making discoveries in the far south, the map-makers were presenting geographical students with a vast southern continent. In the map of the world by Ortelius (Antwerp, 1570) the outline of this “Terra Australis” is carried round the world as far north, in some places, as the tropic of Capricorn. Australia is included in it, but New Guinea is an island. There is the mysterious gold-yielding province called Beach, on a peninsula near Java Minor. In the G. de Jode’s map of 1578, New Guinea is made part of Terra Australis. Mercator, in his Duisburg map of 1587, has the Beach province and Java Minor, following Ortelius. The map of 1589 makes New Guinea an island again. The southern continent is shown in the same way on the Molyneux globe. The Mercator Atlas, published by Hondius at Amsterdam in 1623, represents the Terra Australis in the same way as Ortelius, as does the Hexham Atlas, even after the return of Schouten and Le Maire. All these maps treat Tierra del Fuego as a promontory of the great Terra Australis. This vast continent of the map-makers originated in some idea that the amount of land in the two hemispheres should balance each other. Its effect was, on the whole, useful, for it led to a desire among men of action to look for and discover the unknown land, and it is always a good thing when anyone undertakes to look for anything.
It was while serving with Mendaña, in his second voyage, that Pedro Fernandez de Quiros conceived his grand project, after studying and pondering over the maps of the world with their great southern continent. He thought that here might be a discovery as famous as that achieved by Columbus or Da Gama. After long waiting he at length obtained an order from Philip III to the Viceroy of Peru, to fit out an expedition with himself in command, for the discovery of the Antarctic continent. Quiros proceeded to Lima in 1603, but it was two years before the two small vessels were equipped and ready for sea. The plan of Quiros was to steer E.S.E. from Callao until he reached the latitude of 30° S., when he fully expected to have arrived at the southern continent shown on the maps. He continued on this course from December 21st to January 22nd, when he was in 26° S. There was a great swell from the south, and the men became alarmed. Quiros then came to the unlucky resolution of altering course to E.N.E. His excuse was that the crew were mutinous and that he was ill in bed. If he had gone on he would have discovered New Zealand. Thus ended, rather ignominiously, the first intended Antarctic voyage. Quiros discovered the New Hebrides, and his second in command finally separated Australia from New Guinea by discovering Torres Strait, but the Antarctic project came to an end.
About this time there was a Memorial written by a Chilean lawyer named Juan Luis Arias, on the discovery of an antarctic continent and the conversion of its inhabitants. This Memorial contains the statement that Juan Fernandez, the navigator who discovered the quickest route from Callao to Valparaiso, led an expedition from Chile which discovered the coast of the southern continent, landed on it, and had communication with the natives. But the story is not authentic[182]. More than a century passed without any further thought of the reputed continent round the antarctic pole. In 1675 an English merchant named Anthony La Roche, returning from the South Pacific, discovered the land to which Captain Cook afterwards gave the name of South Georgia. In 1738, the French East India Company sent two vessels under the command of Captain Lozier Bouvet to discover a peninsula in the South Atlantic said to form part of the southern continent. Bouvet sighted land in 54° S. and 11° E., but did not ascertain whether it was a peninsula or an island. He called it Cap Circoncision[183].
Hitherto the discoveries in the far south had for the most part been accidental, and there had only been one real antarctic expedition, that of Quiros, which too soon altered course from south, hesitating near the threshold, and met with failure in consequence.
CHAPTER XLVI
CAPTAIN COOK—BELLINGSHAUSEN
It was a bright page in English history when our Government awoke to its duties in taking a lead in discovery. In the instructions, dated June 17th, 1764, to Commodore Byron, who was despatched to the Pacific in that year, that duty is recognised in a very noble passage:—