THE VOYAGE OF THE ROEBUCK Part 2

They once again then lifted their anchor on December 5th, 1699, but had not measured many miles when they discovered that the numerous shoals along the coast would render an inshore voyage impracticable. Dampier thereupon bore away seawards and deepened his water from eleven to thirty-two fathoms. Next day but the merest film of land was [Pg 96]in sight, and on the 7th nothing of the coast was visible, even from the masthead. By this time he was heartily weary of New Holland. He confesses his disgust very honestly, and laments the weeks he has wasted on the coast, which he believes he could have employed with greater satisfaction to himself and with larger promise of success had he pushed straight on to New Guinea. His men were drooping; the scurvy was being helped by the brackish water they were obliged to drink, and he could think of no better remedy than to shift his helm and steer away for the Island of Timor.

He gives a very close and interesting description of this island. He had certainly plenty of leisure for inspection, for he did not get under weigh again until December 12th, whence, though he does not date his arrival at Timor, we may gather that he must have stayed there for at least three months. He now headed on a straight course for New Guinea—the coast of which he discovered in the form of very high land on New Year’s Day, 1700.

Islands studded the water on all sides, from one of which some days afterwards they saw smoke rising. At sight of this Dampier bore away for it before a brisk gale, and anchored in thirty-five fathoms of water at the distance of about two leagues from what proved a large island. Thus they remained during the night, whilst all through the hours of darkness they observed many fires burning ashore. In the morning they weighed again and sailed closer to the land, anchoring within a mile of the beach; whereupon a couple of canoes came off to within speaking distance of the ship. The savages called to them, but their language was as unintelligible as their gestures.

Dampier invited them by motions to step on board, but this they declined to do, though they approached so close that they were able to see the beads, knives, hatchets, and the like, which were held up with the idea of tempting them to enter the ship. Dampier then got into his pinnace and rowed shorewards. He hailed the people there in the Malay language, but they did not understand him. Numbers of the wild men lurked in ambush behind the bushes, but on Dampier throwing some knives and toys ashore they ran out, and, wading to the boat, poured water on to their heads as a sign of friendship. He describes these people as a sort of tawny Indians with long black hair, differing but slightly from the inhabitants of Mindanao. He also noticed amongst them a number of woolly-headed New Guinea negroes, most of whom he suspected were slaves to the others. The crew gave them brandy, which they drank with relish,—a behaviour that caused Dampier to suppose that, let their religion be what it would, they were not Mahometans. It is noteworthy that Tasman differs from Dampier to the extent of describing these natives as resembling the savages of New Zealand. He speaks of them as being armed with slings, darts, and wooden swords, decorated with bracelets and rings of pearl, with rings in their noses. Schouten had long previously found them a very ferocious and intractable people, who would have made themselves masters of his vessel if he had not fired upon them and put them to flight. But as in these so in those days.

The world was somewhat kaleiodoscopic, and the combination of colours seen by the peering traveller at one time was by no means the same assemblage of hues viewed by other eyes at another time.

On February 4th the Roebuck was off the north-west coast of New Guinea. Here Dampier found some very pleasant islands richly wooded and full of wild pigeons, and sweetened to the sight by vast spaces of white, purple, and yellow flowers, which so perfumed the wind that the fragrance could be tasted at a great distance from the shore. On one of them he stood surrounded by a portion of his crew, and after drinking the king’s health, christened the spot King William’s Island. Crossing the equator they proceeded to the eastward, and then, partly with the idea of escaping the perils of a navigation among shoals and islands, and partly with the hope of being rewarded for their sufferings and disappointments by some discovery of magnitude and importance, they steered the ship for the mainland.

They were now within sight of a high and mountainous country, green and beautiful with tropical vegetation, and dark with forests and groves of tall and stately trees. A number of canoes came out to them, but the brief intercourse terminated in the usual way: the intentions of the natives were misunderstood; a gun was fired and several savages killed. Dampier’s narrative at this point deals for some pages chiefly with the natives of New Guinea, though he shortly describes the islands and the aspect of the mainland as he sails along. So far his tone is one of disappointment, but nevertheless he keeps a very steady, honest eye upon the object of his voyage to these unknown waters.

“I could have wished,” he says, “for some more favourable opportunities than had hitherto offered themselves as well for penetrating into the heart of the New discovered country as for opening a Trade with its inhabitants, both of which [Pg 99]I very well knew, could they be brought about, must prove extremely beneficial to Great Britain.” Happily the conduct of his officers and men had improved, and they seemed as willing as he to explore the new land; but he writes with knowledge of the issue, and it is impossible to miss in this narrative of his the subdued and faltering language of a discouraged heart. On March 14th he was within view of what he terms a well-cultivated country. He observed numbers of cocoa-trees, plantations apparently well ordered, and many houses.

His method of opening communication with the natives was by firing a shot over a fleet of canoes, which sent them paddling away home as fast as their crews could drive them. Presently three large boats put off, one of which had about forty men in her. The Roebuck lay becalmed, and it looked as if the blacks meant to attack the ship. A round shot was sent at the canoes, the savages turned about, and a light breeze springing up, the ship followed them into the bay. When close to the shore Dampier noticed the eyes of innumerable dusky-faced people peeping at the vessel from behind the rocks. A shot was fired to scare them, but they continued peeping nevertheless. Dampier seems surprised after this that the natives were unwilling to trade. The utmost they consented to do was to climb the trees for cocoanuts, which they contemptuously flung at the English with passionate signs to them to be gone.

The crew were now finding plenty of fresh water, and the ship’s casks were soon filled. In spite of the defiant posture of the savages, it was agreed, after a consultation amongst the officers and men, to remain where they were [Pg 100]and attempt a better acquaintance with the people of the coast. Next day whilst the boats were ashore, forty or fifty men and women passed by; they moved on quietly without offering any violence. Says Dampier, speaking of them: “I have observed among all the wild Nations I have known that they make the Women carry the burdens, while the Men walk before without carrying any other load than their arms.” Extremes meet, and assuredly in some respects the most polished nation in the world is within a very measurable distance of the most savage.

It does not appear that the obligation of having occasionally to kill a few natives greatly interfered with the friendly relations between them and Dampier’s men. The ship’s company went ashore and slaughtered and salted a good load of hogs, whilst the savages peered at them from their houses. “None offered to hinder our Boats landing,” writes Dampier; “but, on the contrary, were so Amicable, that one man brought ten or twelve Cocoanuts, left them on the Shore, after he had shewed them to our Men, and went out of sight. Our People, finding nothing but nets and images, brought them away; these two of my men brought in a small Canoe; and presently after, my Boats came off. I ordered the Boatswain to take care of the nets, the images I took into my own Custody.” Thus they requited the friendly disposition of these poor savages by plundering them. Who can doubt that most of the massacres of European crews by the inhabitants of countries often as beautiful and radiant as earthly paradises, the glory and sweetness of which might easily be deemed to have subdued the human beings found upon them to the tenderness and lovableness of the inspirations [Pg 101]of the soil, the fruit, the majestic forests, the shining birds, should be the effect of traditions whose origin may be found in the barbarities practised by the early mariner?

Dampier describes the country hereabouts as mountainous and wooded, full of rich valleys and pleasant fresh-water brooks. He named it Port Montague, in honour of the patron to whom he had dedicated his first volume. The Roebuck sailed from this place on March 22nd, and two days afterwards, in the evening, Dampier, who was indisposed and lying down in his cabin, was hastily called on deck to behold what the crew regarded as a miracle. The wonder was no more than a burning mountain, but then those were days when enchanted islands [17] were to be met with at sea, and this great flaming scene was at once a prodigy and a terror to the sun-tanned mariners, who stared at it over the rail with every superstitious instinct in them astir. Tasman had viewed it, but the honest old Batavian did not wield Dampier’s pen. It was a grand sight indeed,—a large pillar of fire crimsoning the north-west blackness, rearing its blood-red blaze higher and higher for three or four minutes at a time, then sinking till it seemed to have died, then rising afresh flaming furiously. They got a better view of this volcano a little later. “At every explosion we heard a dreadful noise like thunder, and saw a flame of fire after it the most terrifying that ever I beheld.” Streams of liquid light ran down to [Pg 102]the foreshore and overflowed the beach with incandescent lakes. The description of this burning mountain is, I think, one of the finest passages in Dampier’s writings.

All this while he supposed that he was still off the coast of New Guinea; but following the trend of the shore, he arrived at those straits which still bear his name, and then discovered that the little country whose seaboard he had been exploring was an island. This land he called Nova Britannia, or, as we now know it, New Britain. Happy would it have been for the reputation of Dampier if, instead of steering east through his straits, he had continued to skirt the New Guinea coast to the south-east, for by so doing he must have rounded into the Gulf of Papua, struck the channel called Torres Straits, and, catching sight of Cape York, have been encouraged to pursue his exploration of the coast of New Holland on that side of the great continent whose fruitfulness, beauty, and conveniency have courted the civilisation of Europe. It is true that the Roebuck was provisioned for twenty months only, but an ardent and ambitious navigator would have made little or nothing of such a condition of his voyage as this when close aboard of him were lands filled with fruit, hogs, fowls, and fresh water. But there is no question that Dampier had long grown weary of this business. He could see nothing but honour (and little enough of that, as things went) to be got out of this journey, and as a poor man, with the heart of a buccaneer in him besides, he would appreciate the need of something more substantial than fame. Be this as it may, he had now, it being April 26th, 1700, started on his return home, intending on [Pg 103]the way to call at Batavia to careen and doctor his crazy ship for the long voyage to England. When clear of the straits a vessel hove in sight at dusk, and as her manœuvrings were puzzling they loaded their guns, lighted the matches, and made ready to fight her.

She sheered off, but was in sight at daybreak, and then proved to be nothing more dangerous than a Chinese junk laden with tea, porcelain, and other commodities, and bound for Amboyna. The Roebuck’s progress was very slow; she was coated with weeds and barnacles, and in a sea-way her timbers worked like a basket. It was not until June 23rd that they arrived at the Straits of Sunda, and at the close of the month they dropped anchor off Batavia. Here Dampier stayed for three months whilst his ship was careened and repaired. Her condition was such that one can only wonder that he and his crew ventured to sail home in her. We might scarcely credit that Dampier’s patrons honestly felt much faith in his representations, and in the hopes he held out of vast and important discoveries, when we find them putting him and his crew of boys into a ship which time had made rotten probably some years before she was equipped for this voyage, if it were not that the later experiences of Anson exhibit the same profound departmental indifference and neglect on an occasion which we may assume was regarded as far more significant than Dampier’s expedition. Of all the wonderful accomplishments of the English sailor, nothing to my mind is so amazing as the triumphs with which he crowns the cause of his country in defiance of the miserable indifference of the British Admiralty to him and to his labours. The best that Dampier could do [Pg 104]with his ship was so to patch her up as to enable her to carry her people home with the pumps going day and night. They sailed from Batavia on October 17th, arrived at the Cape of Good Hope on December 30th, and brought up at the island of Ascension in a sinking condition on February 21st, 1701. Even whilst Ascension was in sight the Roebuck had sprung a fresh leak, and when she anchored both hand and chain pumps were going. There was still a long stretch of ocean for them to traverse, and a ship like a sieve to measure it with. The tinkering of the carpenters apparently increased the mischief, and whilst Dampier was waiting below to receive the news of the leak being stopped, the boatswain arrived with a long face to tell him that the vessel was sinking.

“The plank was so rotten,” says Dampier, “it broke away like Dirt, and now it was impossible to save the Ship; for they could not come at the Leak because the water in the run was got above it. I worked myself to encourage my Men, who were very diligent, but the Water still increased, and we now thought of nothing but saving our lives: Wherefore I hoisted out the boat that if the Ship should sink we might be saved; and in the Morning we weighed our anchor and Warped in nearer the shore, tho’ we did but little good.”

The men with their clothes and bedding were sent ashore on rafts; the sails were unbent and converted into tents for the use of Dampier and his officers; fresh water and rice had been landed for the use of all, “but,” writes the unfortunate commander, “great part of it was stolen away before I came ashore, and many of my books and papers lost.” Luckily there was no lack of turtle, but those who have [Pg 105]visited Ascension will understand the distresses of a numerous crew cast away upon an uninhabited island of cinders and volcanic cones, with one green hill only far away in the middle of the calcined heap for the eye to find refreshment in. They were fortunate enough to discover a spring of fresh water; the men carried their beds into the hollows of the rocks, and perhaps thought themselves better off than in the wet, dark, half-drowned, cockroach-laden forecastle of the Roebuck. Moreover, in addition to turtle there were crabs, goats’-flesh, and sea-birds for food; and as the air of Ascension is about the sweetest and most wholesome in the world, the castaways kept their health and spirits, and managed on the whole very well indeed.

Their imprisonment did not last long. On April 3rd four vessels hove in sight, and in the course of the day anchored off the island. Three of them proved English men-of-war—the Anglesea, Hastings, and Lizard; the fourth was an East Indiaman named the Canterbury. Dampier went on board the Anglesea with 35 of his crew, and the remainder were divided between the other men-of-war. The ships proceeded to Barbadoes, but Dampier, with a keen sense of his misfortunes, and anxious to justify himself to his patrons, accepted an offer to return to England in the Canterbury. “The same earnest desire,” he says, “to clear up Mistakes, to do myself Justice in the opinion of the World, and to set the Discoveries made in this unfortunate voyage in their proper Light, that it may be of use to the World, how unlucky soever it proved to me, is the reason that induced me to publish it; And I persuade myself that such as are proper Judges of these sort of Performances [Pg 106]will allow that I have Delivered many things new in themselves, capable of affording much Instruction to such as meditate future Discoveries, and which in other respects may be of great utility to the present age and to posterity.”