EVEN GRa.s.s A DAINTY.

However, on the 10th, in the afternoon, we got under the lee of the island, and kept ranging along it at about two miles' distance, in order to look out for the proper anchorage, which was described to be in a bay on the north side. But at last the night closed upon us before we had satisfied ourselves which was the proper bay to anchor in, and therefore we resolved to send our boat next morning to discover the road. At four in the morning the cutter was despatched with our third lieutenant to find out the bay we were in search of, who returned again at noon with the boat laden with seals and gra.s.s; for though the island abounded with better vegetables, yet the boat's crew, in their short stay, had not met with them; and they well knew that even gra.s.s would prove a dainty, and, indeed, it was all soon and eagerly devoured. The seals, too, were considered as fresh provision, but as yet were not much admired, though they grew afterwards into more repute; for what rendered them less valuable at this juncture was the prodigious quant.i.ty of excellent fish which the people on board had taken during the absence of the boat.

The cutter, in this expedition, had discovered the bay where we intended to anchor, which we found was to the westward of our present station; and the next morning we steered along sh.o.r.e till we came abreast of the point that forms the eastern part of the bay. On opening the bay, the wind, that had befriended us thus far, shifted, and blew from thence in squalls; but by means of the headway we had got, we luffed close in, till the anchor brought us up in fifty-six fathoms. Soon after we had thus got to our new berth, we discovered a sail, which we made no doubt was one of our squadron; and on its nearer approach, we found it to be the Trial sloop. We immediately sent some of our hands on board her, by whose a.s.sistance she was brought to an anchor between us and the land. We soon found that the sloop had not been exempted from those calamities which we had so severely felt; for her commander, Captain Saunders, waiting on the Commodore, informed him that out of his small complement he had buried thirty-four of his men; and those that remained were so universally afflicted with the scurvy that only himself, his lieutenant, and three of his men were able to stand by the sails.

CHAPTER 9.

THE SICK LANDED--ALEXANDER SELKIRK*--SEALS AND SEA-LIONS.

(*Note. Alexander Selkirk (1676 to 1721) was an adventurous sailor who joined Dampier's privateering expedition to the South Seas in 1703. He quarrelled with his captain, Stradling, and requested to be landed on the uninhabited island of Juan Fernandez. He immediately repented of his request, and begged to be taken off; but his prayers were disregarded, and he remained on the island from September, 1704, until he was picked up in 1709 by Dampier's new expedition. An account of his adventures was published, which apparently gave Defoe his idea of Robinson Crusoe.)

We were now extremely occupied in sending on sh.o.r.e materials to raise tents for the reception of the sick, who died apace on board. But we had not hands enough to prepare the tents for their reception before the 16th. On that and the two following days we sent them all on sh.o.r.e, amounting to a hundred and sixty-seven persons, besides at least a dozen who died in the boats on their being exposed to the fresh air. The greatest part of our sick were so infirm that we were obliged to carry them out of the ship in their hammocks, and to convey them afterwards in the same manner from the waterside to their tents, over a stony beach.

This was a work of considerable fatigue to the few who were healthy; and therefore the Commodore, with his accustomed humanity, not only a.s.sisted herein with his own labour, but obliged his officers, without distinction, to give their helping hand.

The excellence of the climate and the looseness of the soil render this place extremely proper for all kinds of vegetation; for if the ground be anywhere accidentally turned up, it is immediately overgrown with turnips and Sicilian radishes; and therefore, Mr. Anson having with him garden seeds of all kinds, and stones of different sorts of fruits, he, for the better accommodation of his countrymen who should hereafter touch here, sowed both lettuces, carrots, and other garden plants, and set in the woods a great variety of plum, apricot, and peach stones. And these last, he has been informed, have since thriven to a very remarkable degree; for some gentlemen, who in their pa.s.sage from Lima to old Spain were taken and brought to England, having procured leave to wait upon Mr. Anson to thank him for his generosity and humanity to his prisoners, some of whom were their relations, they in casual discourse with him about his transactions in the South Seas, particularly asked him if he had not planted a great number of fruit-stones on the island of Juan Fernandez; for they told him their late navigators had discovered there numbers of peach trees and apricot trees, which being fruits before un.o.bserved in that place, they concluded them to be produced from kernels set by him.

ALEXANDER SELKIRK.

Former writers have related that this island abounded with vast numbers of goats; and their accounts are not to be questioned, this place being the usual haunt of the buccaneers* and privateers who formerly frequented those seas. And there are two instances--one of a Mosquito Indian, and the other of Alexander Selkirk, a Scotchman, who were left by their respective ships, and lived alone upon this island for some years, and consequently were no strangers to its produce. Selkirk, who was the last, after a stay of between four and five years, was taken off the place by the Duke and d.u.c.h.ess privateers, of Bristol, as may be seen at large in the journal of their voyage. His manner of life during his solitude was in most particulars very remarkable; but there is one circ.u.mstance he relates which was so strangely verified by our own observation that I cannot help reciting it. He tells us, among other things, as he often caught more goats than he wanted, he sometimes marked their ears and let them go. This was about thirty-two years before our arrival at the island. Now it happened that the first goat that was killed by our people at their landing had his ears slit; whence we concluded that he had doubtless been formerly under the power of Selkirk. This was indeed an animal of a most venerable aspect, dignified with an exceeding majestic beard, and with many other symptoms of antiquity. During our stay on the island we met with others marked in the same manner, all the males being distinguished by an exuberance of beard and every other characteristic of extreme age. But the great numbers of goats, which former writers described to have been found upon this island, are at present very much diminished. For the Spaniards being informed of the advantages which the buccaneers and privateers drew from the provisions which goats' flesh here furnished them with, they have endeavoured to extirpate the breed, thereby to deprive their enemies of this relief. For this purpose they have put on sh.o.r.e great numbers of large dogs, who have increased apace, and have destroyed all the goats in the accessible part of the country; so that there now remain only a few among the crags and precipices where the dogs cannot follow them.

(Note. 'The buccaneers.' The name "buccaneer" originally meant one who dried or smoked flesh on a "boucan," a kind of hurdle used for this purpose by the natives of Central and South America. The English, French, and Dutch smugglers who, in spite of the monopoly so jealously guarded by the Spaniards (see Introduction above) traded in the Caribbean seas, used to provision at St. Domingo largely with beef, jerked or sun-dried on the boucans. These men formed an organised body, under a chief chosen by themselves, and, under the name of the buccaneers, were for three-quarters of a century the terror of the Spaniards. In 1655 they were powerful enough to give material a.s.sistance to the English fleet which conquered Jamaica. In 1671 they raised a force of 2,000 men, marched across the isthmus, and besieged and took Panama; their success, as usual, being marked by horrible atrocities. In 1685 a Spanish fleet of fourteen sail, which had been fitted out to put them down, found ten buccaneer ships in the bay of Panama, but dared not give them battle. The war between France and England after 1688 dissolved the alliance between the French and English buccaneers; and the last conspicuous event in their history was the capture of Cartagena in 1697. Soon after this date they disappeared as an organised body, though for many years members of the band remained as pirates in the South Seas.)

Goats' flesh being scarce, we rarely being able to kill above one a day, and our people growing tired of fish (which abounds at this place), they at last condescended to eat seals, which by degrees they came to relish, and called it lamb. But there is another amphibious creature to be met with here, called a sea-lion, that bears some resemblance to a seal, though it is much larger. This, too, we ate, under the denomination of beef. In general there was no difficulty in killing them, for they were incapable either of escaping or resisting, their motion being the most unwieldy that can be conceived, their blubber, all the time they were moving, being agitated in large waves under their skins. However, a sailor one day being carelessly employed in skinning a young sea-lion, the female from which he had taken it came upon him unperceived, and getting his head in her mouth, she with her teeth scored his skull in notches in many places, and thereby wounded him so desperately that though all possible care was taken of him, he died in a few days.

CHAPTER 10.

REAPPEARANCE OF THE GLOUCESTER--DISTRESS ON BOARD--HER EFFORTS TO ENTER THE BAY.

The arrival of the Trial sloop at this island so soon after we came there ourselves gave us great hopes of being speedily joined by the rest of the squadron; and we were for some days continually looking out in expectation of their coming in sight. But near a fortnight being elapsed without any of them having appeared, we began to despair of ever meeting them again.

RETURN OF THE GLOUCESTER.

But on the 21st of June some of our people, from an eminence on sh.o.r.e, discerned a ship to leeward, with her courses even with the horizon.

However, after viewing her for a short time, the weather grew thick and hazy, and they lost sight of her. On the 26th, towards noon, we discerned a sail in the north-east quarter, which we conceived to be the very same ship that had been seen before, and our conjectures proved true; and about one o'clock she approached so near that we could distinguish her to be the Gloucester. As we had no doubt of her being in great distress, the Commodore immediately ordered his boat to her a.s.sistance, laden with fresh water, fish, and vegetables, which was a very seasonable relief to them; for perhaps there never was a crew in a more distressed situation.

They had already thrown overboard two-thirds of their complement, and of those that remained alive scarcely any were capable of doing duty except the officers and their servants. They had been a considerable time at the small allowance of a pint of fresh water to each man for twenty-four hours, and yet they had so little left that, had it not been for the supply we sent them, they must soon have died of thirst.

The ship plied in within three miles of the bay, but, the winds and currents being contrary, she could not reach the road. However she continued in the offing the next day, but had no chance of coming to an anchor unless the wind and current shifted; and therefore the Commodore repeated his a.s.sistance, sending to her the Trial's boat manned with the Centurion's people, and a further supply of water and other refreshments.

Captain Mitchel, the captain of the Gloucester, was under a necessity of detaining both this boat and that sent the preceding day; for without the help of their crews he had no longer strength enough to navigate the ship. In this tantalising situation the Gloucester continued for near a fortnight, without being able to fetch the road, though frequently attempting it, and at some times bidding very fair for it. On the 9th of July we observed her stretching away to the eastward at a considerable distance, which we supposed was with a design to get to the southward of the island; but as we soon lost sight of her and she did not appear for near a week, we were prodigiously concerned, knowing that she must be again in extreme distress for want of water. After great impatience about her, we discovered her again on the 16th, endeavouring to come round the eastern point of the island; but the wind, still blowing directly from the bay, prevented her getting nearer than within four leagues of the land. On this captain Mitchel made signals of distress, and our long-boat was sent to him with a store of water and plenty of fish and other refreshments; and the long-boat being not to be spared, the c.o.xswain had positive orders from the Commodore to return again immediately; but the weather proving stormy the next day, and the boat not appearing, we much feared she was lost, which would have proved an irretrievable misfortune to us all. But the third day after we were relieved from this anxiety by the joyful sight of the long-boat's sails upon the water, and we sent the cutter immediately to her a.s.sistance, which towed her alongside in a few hours. The crew of our long-boat had taken in six of the Gloucester's sick men to bring them on sh.o.r.e, two of whom had died in the boat. And now we learned that the Gloucester was in a most dreadful condition, having scarcely a man in health on board, except those they received from us; and numbers of their sick dying daily, we found that, had it not been for the last supply sent by our long-boat, both the healthy and diseased must have all perished together for want of water. And these calamities were the more terrifying, as they appeared to be without remedy, for the Gloucester had already spent a month in her endeavours to fetch the bay, and she was now no farther advanced than at the first moment she made the island; on the contrary, the people on board her had worn out all their hopes of ever succeeding in it by the many experiments they had made of its difficulty. Indeed, the same day her situation grew more desperate than ever, for after she had received our last supply of refreshments, we again lost sight of her, so that we in general despaired of her ever coming to an anchor.

Thus was this unhappy vessel bandied about within a few leagues of her intended harbour, whilst the neighbourhood of that place, and of those circ.u.mstances which could alone put an end to the calamities they laboured under, served only to aggravate their distress by torturing them with a view of the relief it was not in their power to reach.

THE GLOUCESTER COMES TO ANCHOR.

But she was at last delivered from this dreadful situation, at a time when we least expected it, for, after having lost sight of her for several days, we were pleasingly surprised, on the morning of the 23rd of July, to see her open the north-west point of the bay with a flowing sail; when we immediately despatched what boats we had to her a.s.sistance, and in an hour's time from our first perceiving her she anch.o.r.ed safe within us in the bay.

CHAPTER 11.

TRACES OF SPANISH CRUISERS--ARRIVAL OF THE ANNA PINK.

During the interval of the Gloucester's frequent and ineffectual attempts to reach the island, our employment was cleansing our ship and filling our water. The first of these measures was indispensably necessary to our future health, as the numbers of sick and the unavoidable negligence arising from our deplorable situation at sea, had rendered the decks most intolerably loathsome; and the filling of our water was a caution that appeared not less essential to our future security, as we had reason to apprehend that accidents might oblige us to quit the island at a very short warning. For some appearances, which we had discovered on sh.o.r.e upon our first landing, gave us grounds to believe that there were Spanish cruisers in these seas, which had left the island but a short time before our arrival, and might possibly return there again in search of us; for we knew that this island was the likeliest place, in their own opinion, to meet with us. The circ.u.mstances which gave rise to these reflections were our finding on sh.o.r.e several pieces of earthen jars, made use of in those seas for water and other liquids, which appeared to be fresh broken. We saw, too, many heaps of ashes, and near them fish-bones and pieces of fish, besides whole fish scattered here and there, which plainly appeared to have been but a short time out of the water, as they were but just beginning to decay. These appearances were certain indications that there had been ships at this place but a short time before we came there; and as all Spanish merchantmen are instructed to avoid the island on account of its being the common rendezvous of their enemies, we concluded those who had touched here to be ships of force; and not knowingthat Pizarro was returned to Buenos Ayres, and ignorant what strength might have been fitted out at Calla, we were under some concern for our safety, being in so wretched and enfeebled a condition that, notwithstanding the rank of our ship and the sixty guns she carried on board, which would only have aggravated our dishonour, there was scarcely a privateer sent to sea that was not an overmatch for us. However, our fears on this head proved imaginary, and we were not exposed to the disgrace which might have been expected to have befallen us had we been necessitated to fight our sixty-gun ship with no more than thirty hands.

After the Gloucester's arrival we were employed in earnest in examining and repairing our rigging.

Towards the middle of August our men being indifferently recovered, they were permitted to quit their sick tents and to build separate huts for themselves; as it was imagined that by living a part they would be much cleanlier, and consequently likely to recover their strength the sooner; but at the same time particular orders were given that on the firing of a gun from the ship they should instantly repair to the waterside.

I should have mentioned that the Trial sloop at her arrival had informed us that on the 9th of May she had fallen in with our victualler not far distant from the continent of Chili, and had kept company with her for four days, when they were parted in a hard gale of wind. This gave us some room to hope that she was safe, and that she might soon join us; but all June and July being past without any news of her, we suspected she was lost, and at the end of July the Commodore ordered all the ships to a short allowance of bread.* And it was not in our bread only that we feared a deficiency, for since our arrival at this island we discovered that our former purser had neglected to take on board large quant.i.ties of several kinds of provisions which the Commodore had expressly ordered him to receive; so that the supposed loss of our victualler was on all accounts a mortifying consideration.

THE ANNA PINK.

However, on Sunday, the 16th of August, about noon, we espied a sail in the northern quarter, and a gun was immediately fired from the Centurion to call off the people from sh.o.r.e, who readily obeyed the summons and repaired to the beach, where the boats waited to carry them on board. And now being prepared for the reception of this ship in view whether friend or enemy, we had various speculations about her; but about three in the afternoon our disputes were ended by unanimous persuasion that it was our victualler, the Anna pink. This ship, though, like the Gloucester, she had fallen in to the northward of the island, had yet the good fortune to come to an anchor in the bay at five in the afternoon. Her arrival gave us all the sincerest joy, for each ship's company was now restored to its full allowance of bread, and we were now freed from the apprehensions of our provisions falling short before we could reach some amicable port--a calamity which, in these seas, is of all others the most irretrievable.

This was the last ship that joined us.

(*Note. The flour was on board the Anna pink.)

CHAPTER 12.

THE WRECK OF THE WAGER--A MUTINY.

The remaining ships of the squadron were the Severn, the Pearl, and the Wager, store-ship. The Severn and Pearl parted company with the squadron off Cape Noir and, as we afterwards learned, put back to the Brazils, so that of all the ships which came into the South Seas the Wager, Captain Cheap, was the only one that was missing. This ship had on board some field-pieces mounted for land service, together with some Cohorn mortars, and several kinds of artillery, stores, and tools, intended for the operations on sh.o.r.e; and therefore, as the enterprise on Baldivia had been resolved on for the first undertaking of the squadron, Captain Cheap was extremely solicitous that these materials, which were in his custody, might be ready before Baldivia, that if the squadron should possibly rendezvous there, no delay nor disappointment might be imputed to him.

But whilst the Wager, with these views, was making the best of her way to her first rendezvous off the island of Socoro, she made the land on the 14th of May, about the lat.i.tude of 47 degrees south, and the captain, exerting himself on this occasion in order to get clear of it, he had the misfortune to fall down the after-ladder, and thereby dislocated his shoulder, which rendered him incapable of acting. This accident, together with the crazy condition of the ship, which was little better than a wreck, prevented her from getting off to sea, and entangled her more and more with the land, so that the next morning at daybreak she struck on a sunken rock, and soon after bilged and grounded between two small islands at about a musket-shot from the sh.o.r.e.

DISORDER AND ANARCHY.

In this situation the ship continued entire a long time, so that all the crew had it in their power to get safe on sh.o.r.e, but a general confusion taking place, numbers of them, instead of consulting their safety or reflecting on their calamitous condition, fell to pillaging the ship, arming themselves with the first weapons that came to hand and threatening to murder all who should oppose them. This frenzy was greatly heightened by the liquors they found on board, with which they got so extremely drunk that some of them, tumbling down between decks, were drowned as the water flowed in, being incapable of getting up and retreating to other places where the water had not yet entered, and the captain, having done his utmost to get the whole crew on sh.o.r.e, was at last obliged to leave these mutineers behind him and to follow his officers and such as he had been able to prevail on; but he did not fail to send back the boats to persuade those who remained to have some regard to their preservation, though all his efforts were for some time without success. However the weather next day proving stormy, and there being great danger of the ship's parting, they began to be alarmed with the fears of perishing, and were desirous of getting to land; but it seems their madness had not yet left them, for the boat not appearing to fetch them off as soon as they expected, they at last pointed a four-pounder which was on the quarter-deck against the hut where they knew the captain resided on sh.o.r.e, and fired two shots, which pa.s.sed but just over it.

From this specimen of the behaviour of part of the crew it will not be difficult to frame some conjecture of the disorder and anarchy which took place when they at last got all on sh.o.r.e.

There was another important point which set the greatest part of the people at variance with the captain: this was their differing with him in opinion on the measures to be pursued in the present exigency, for the captain was determined, if possible, to fit up the boats in the best manner he could and to proceed with them to the northward; for having with him above a hundred men in health, and having got some firearms and ammunition from the wreck, he did not doubt that they could master any Spanish vessel they should meet with in those seas, and he thought he could not fail of meeting with one in the neighbourhood of Chiloe or Baldivia, in which, when he had taken her, he intended to proceed to the rendezvous at Juan Fernandez; and he further insisted, that should they meet with no prize by the way, yet the boats alone would easily carry them there. But this was a scheme that, however prudent, was no ways relished by the generality of his people, for, being quite jaded with the distresses and dangers they had already run through, they could not think of prosecuting an enterprise further which had hitherto proved so disastrous, and, therefore, the common resolution was to lengthen the long-boat, and with that and the rest of the boats to steer to the southward, to pa.s.s through the Straits of Magellan, and to range along the east side of South America till they should arrive at Brazil, where they doubted not to be well received, and to procure a pa.s.sage to Great Britain. This project was at first sight infinitely more hazardous and tedious than what was proposed by the captain, but as it had the air of returning home, and flattered them with the hopes of bringing them once more to their native country, this circ.u.mstance alone rendered them inattentive to all its inconveniences, and made them adhere to it with insurmountable obstinacy, so that the captain himself, though he never changed his opinion, was yet obliged to give way to the torrent, and in appearance to acquiesce in this resolution, whilst he endeavoured underhand to give it all the obstruction he could, particularly in the lengthening of the long-boat, which he contrived should be of such a size that, though it might serve to carry them to Juan Fernandez, would yet, he hoped, appear incapable of so long a navigation as that to the coast of Brazil.

AN UNHAPPY ACCIDENT.

But the captain, by his steady opposition at first to this favourite project, had much embittered the people against him, to which, likewise, the following unhappy accident greatly contributed. There was a midshipman whose name was Cozens, who had appeared the foremost in all the refractory proceedings of the crew. He had involved himself in brawls with most of the officers who had adhered to the captain's authority, and had even treated the captain himself with great abuse and insolence. As his turbulence and brutality grew every day more and more intolerable, it was not in the least doubted but there were some violent measures in agitation in which Cozens was engaged as the ringleader, for which reason the captain and those about him constantly kept themselves on their guard. But at last the purser having, by the captain's order, stopped the allowance of a fellow who would not work, Cozens, though the man did not complain to him, intermeddled in the affair with great eagerness, and grossly insulting the purser, who was then delivering our provisions just by the captain's tent, and was himself sufficiently violent, the purser, enraged by his scurrility, and perhaps piqued by former quarrels, cried out--"A mutiny!" adding "that the dog had pistols," and then himself fired a shot at Cozens, which, however, missed him. But the captain, on this outcry and the report of the pistol, rushed out of his tent, and, not doubting but it had been fired by Cozens as the commencement of a mutiny, he immediately shot him in the head without further deliberation, and though he did not kill him on the spot, yet the wound proved mortal, and he died about fourteen days after.

This incident, however displeasing to the people, did yet for a considerable time awe them to their duty, and rendered them more submissive to the captain's authority. But at last, when towards the middle of October the long-boat was nearly completed and they were preparing to put to sea, the additional provocation he gave them by covertly traversing their project of proceeding through the Straits of Magellan, and their fears that he might at length engage a party sufficient to overturn this favourite measure, made them resolve to make use of the death of Cozens as a reason for depriving him of his command, under pretence of carrying him a prisoner to England to be tried for murder, and he was accordingly confined under a guard. But they never intended to carry him with them, as they too well knew what they had to apprehend on their return to England if their commander should be present to confront them, and therefore, when they were just ready to put to sea, they set him at liberty, leaving him and the few who chose to take their fortunes with him no other embarkation but the yawl, to which the barge was afterwards added by the people on board her being prevailed on to return back.

CHAPTER 13.

THE WRECK OF THE WAGER (CONTINUED)--THE ADVENTURES OF THE CAPTAIN'S PARTY.

When the ship was wrecked there remained alive on board the Wager near a hundred and thirty persons; of these, above thirty died during their stay upon the place, and near eighty went off in the long-boat and the cutter to the southward; so that there remained with the captain, after their departure, no more than nineteen persons, which, however, was as many as the barge and the yawl--the only embarkations left them--could well carry off. It was on the 13th of October, five months after the shipwreck, that the long-boat, converted into a schooner, weighed and stood to the southward, giving the captain who, with Lieutenant Hamilton, of the land forces, and the surgeon, was then on the beach, three cheers at their departure. It was the 29th of January following before they arrived at Rio Grande, on the coast of Brazil; and having by various accidents, left about twenty of their people on sh.o.r.e at the different places they touched at, and a greater number having perished by hunger during the course of their navigation, there were no more than thirty of them left when they arrived in that port. Indeed, the undertaking of itself was a most extraordinary one, for, not to mention the length of the run, the vessel was scarcely able to contain the number that first put to sea in her; and their stock of provisions (being only what they had saved out of the ship) was extremely slender; and the cutter, the only boat they had with them, soon broke away from the stern and was staved to pieces; so that when their provision and their water failed them, they had frequently no means of getting on sh.o.r.e to search for a fresh supply.

When the long-boat and cutter were gone, the captain and those who were left with him proposed to pa.s.s to the northward in the barge and yawl; but the weather was so bad, and the difficulty of subsisting so great, that it was two months after the departure of the long-boat before he was able to put to sea. It seems the place where the Wager was cast away was not a part of the continent, as was first imagined, but an island at some distance from the main, which afforded no other sorts of provision but sh.e.l.lfish and a few herbs; and as the greatest part of what they had got from the ship was carried off in the long-boat, the captain and his people were often in great necessity, especially as they chose to preserve what little sea-provisions remained for their store when they should go to the northwards.

Upon the 14th of December the captain and his people embarked in the barge and the yawl in order to proceed to the northward, taking on board with them all the provisions they could ama.s.s from the wreck of a ship; but they had scarcely been an hour at sea when the wind began to blow hard, and the sea ran so high that they were obliged to throw the greatest part of their provisions overboard to avoid immediate destruction.

STRUGGLING WITH DISASTER.