On the 14th they anchored near the eastern part of Celebes, and finding the land uninhabited and abundant in forests, they determined there fully to repair the ship for her voyage home. “Throughout the groves,” say the old writers in Purchas and Hakluyt, “there flickered innumerable bats ‘as bigge as large hennes.’ There were also multitudes of ‘fiery wormes flying in the ayre,’ no larger than the common fly in England, which skimming up and down between woods and bushes, made “such a shew and light as if every twigge or tree had bene a burning candle.” They likewise saw great numbers of land-crabs, or cray-fish, “of exceeding bignesse, one whereof was sufficient for foure hungry stomackes at a dinner, being also very good and restoring meat, whereof wee had experience; and they digge themselves holes in the earth like conies.”
On the 12th of December they again set sail; but now came their great peril. After being entangled in shoals among the Spice Islands for some days, in the night of the 9th of January, 1580, the Golden Hind struck on a rock. No leak appeared; but the ship was immovable. The ebb tide left her in but six feet water, while, so deeply was she laden, that it required thirteen feet of water to float her. Eight guns, three tons of cloves, and a quantity of meal were thrown overboard, but this did not relieve the ship. “We stucke fast,” says the narrator in Hakluyt, “from eight of the clocke at night til foure of the clocke in the afternoone the next day, being indeede out of all hope to escape the danger; but our generall, as he had alwayes hitherto shewed himself couragious, and of a good confidence in the mercie and protection of God, so now he continued in the same; and lest he should seeme to perish wilfully, both hee and wee did our best indevour to save ourselves, which it pleased God so to blesse, that in the ende we cleared ourselves most happily of the danger.”
Their ship in deep water once more, they reached the Isle of Barateve on the 8th of February, and were kindly and handsomely treated by the inhabitants. Java was reached on the 12th of March, and here again they were generously received. On the 26th they left Java, and did not again see land till they passed the Cape of Good Hope, on the 15th of June. The Portuguese being acquaintances, Drake did not wish just then to meet; he did not land at the Cape, but steered away north, and on the 22nd of July arrived at Sierra Leone. Finally, on the 26th of September, 1580, after an absence of two years and ten months, he came to anchor in the harbour of Plymouth.
The riches he had brought home, the daring bravery he had displayed, the perils undergone, the marvels told of the strange countries visited, made Drake the idol of the whole English people. On the 4th of April, 1581, Queen Elizabeth went in state to dine on board the Golden Hind, then lying at Deptford. After the banquet she knighted the gallant circumnavigator, and also gave orders that his vessel should be preserved as a monument of the glory of the nation and of the illustrious voyager.
CHAPTER IV.
One path of Enterprise belongs distinctly to modern adventurers—the search after interesting remains of antiquity, and investigation of their present actual condition. Such enterprises of discovery have often their source in a love of Art, which can only exist in the most cultivated minds. In other instances they arise from a laudable desire to verify ancient history, and thus serve the highly important purpose of confirming that branch of human knowledge which has hitherto depended simply on the testimony of written tradition.
Perhaps the greatest contributor to certain knowledge in this department of enterprise and discovery was the celebrated Belzoni, though our acquaintance with the time-honoured and mysterious monuments of Egypt has been enlarged by many other travellers. Greece has also had her distinguished list of antiquarian explorers; and the glowing lands of the East, so famous in sacred and profane story, have been visited by numerous travellers, each and all ardent to survey and report the present condition of the diversified monuments of human skill and strength existing in the primeval countries of our race.
Every youthful visitor to the British Museum will be interested with the beautiful black granite statue so well known as “the young Memnon.” Near the left foot of this gigantic sitting figure will be found the name of Belzoni, cut by his own hand. Burckhardt and Salt were the enterprising and disinterested persons who paid the expenses of conveying this massive piece of ancient sculpture to Alexandria: Belzoni and his assistants undertook the immense labour.