Formosa and Banshee

Formosa has 5 islands which we named:

• Orange
• Monmouth
• Grafton
• Bashee
• Goat Islands

Bashee

Southwest of Formosa is a large island. Its south end is in latitude 21 degrees 20 minutes and the north end in the 25 degrees 10 minutes north latitude.

The longitude of this isle is laid down from 142 degrees 5 minutes to 143 degrees 16 minutes reckoning east from the Pike of Tenerife, so that it is but narrow; and the Tropic of Cancer crosses it.

It is a high and woody island, and was formerly well inhabited by the Chinese, and was then frequently visited by English merchants, there being a very good harbour to secure their ships.

But after the Mongols conquered China, they:

• spoiled the harbour to hinder the rebelling Chinese from fortifying themselves there
• ordered the foreign merchants to come and trade on the main island

On August 6, we arrived at the 5 islands. We anchored on the east side of the northernmost island in 15 fathom, a cable’s length from the shore.

Here, contrary to our expectation, we found many people.

There were 3 large towns all within a league of the sea; and another larger town than any of the three, on the back side of a small hill close by also, as we found afterwards.

These islands lie in latitude 20 degrees 20 minutes north latitude by my observation, for I took it there, and I find their longitude according to our charts to be 141 degrees 50 minutes. These islands having no particular names in the charts some or other of us made use of the seamen’s privilege to give them what names we please. Three of the islands were pretty large; the westernmost is the biggest.

This the Dutchmen who were among us called the Prince of Orange’s Island, in honour of his present Majesty. It is about seven or eight leagues long and about two leagues wide; and it lies almost north and south. The other two great islands are about four or five leagues to the eastward of this.

The northernmost of them, where we first anchored, I called the Duke of Grafton’s Isle as soon as we landed on it; having married my wife out of his duchess’s family, and leaving her at Arlington House at my going abroad. This isle is about 4 leagues long and one league and a half wide, stretching north and south.

The other great island our seamen called the Duke of Monmouth’s Island. This is about a league to the southward of Grafton Isle. It is about three leagues long and a league wide, lying as the other. Between Monmouth and the south end of Orange Island there are two small islands of a roundish form, lying east and west.

The easternmost island of the two our men unanimously called Bashee Island, from a liquor which we drank there plentifully every day after we came to an anchor at it. The other, which is the smallest of all, we called Goat Island, from the great number of goats there; and to the northward of them all are two high rocks.

Orange Island is the biggest of them all, but is not inhabited.

It is high land, flat and even on the top with steep cliffs against the sea; for which reason we could not go ashore there as we did on all the rest.

A Digression On The Different Depths Of The Sea Near High Or Low Lands

Where the land is fenced with steep rocks and cliffs against the sea there the sea is very deep, and seldom affords anchor-ground.

Where the land falls away with a declivity into the sea (although the land be extraordinary high within) yet there are commonly good soundings, and consequently anchoring; and as the visible declivity of the land appears near, or at the edge of the water, whether pretty steep or more sloping, so we commonly find our anchor-ground to be more or less deep or steep; therefore we come nearer the shore or anchor farther off as we see convenient; for there is no coast in the world that I know or have heard of where the land is of a continual height without some small valleys or declivities which lie intermixed with the high land.

They are the subsidings of valleys or low lands that make dents in the shore and creeks, small bays, and harbours, or little coves, etc., which afford good anchoring, the surface of the earth being there lodged deep under water.

Thus we find many good harbours on such coasts where the land bounds the sea with steep cliffs, by reason of the declivities or subsiding of the land between these cliffs: but where the declension from the hills or cliffs is not within land, between hill and hill, but, as on the coast of Chile and Peru, the declivity is toward the main sea, or into it, the coast being perpendicular, or very steep from the neighbouring hills, as in those countries from the Andes that run along the shore, there is a deep sea, and few or no harbours or creeks. All that coast is too steep for anchoring, and has the fewest roads fit for ships of any coast I know.

The coasts of Galicia, Portugal, Norway, and Newfoundland, etc., are coasts like the Peruvian and the high islands of the archipelago; but yet not so scanty of good harbours; for where there are short ridges of land there are good bays at the extremities of those ridges, where they plunge into the sea; as on the coast of Caracas, etc.

The island of Juan Fernandez and the island St. Helena, etc., are such high land with deep shore: and in general the plunging of any land under water seems to be in proportion to the rising of its continuous part above water, more or less steep; and it must be a bottom almost level, or very gently declining, that affords good anchoring, ships being soon driven from their moorings on a steep bank: therefore we never strive to anchor where we see the land high and bounding the sea with steep cliffs; and for this reason, when we came in sight of States Island near Tierra del Fuego, before we entered into the South Seas, we did not so much as think of anchoring after we saw what land it was, because of the steep cliffs which appeared against the sea: yet there might be little harbours or coves for shallops or the like to anchor in, which we did not see or search after.

As high steep cliffs bounding the sea have this ill consequence that they seldom afford anchoring; so they have this benefit that we can see them far off and sail close to them without danger: for which reason we call them bold shores; whereas low land on the contrary is seen but a little way and in many places we dare not come near it for fear of running aground before we see it. Besides there are in many places shoals thrown out by the course of great rivers that from the low land fall into the sea.

This which I have said, that there is usually good anchoring near low lands, may be illustrated by several instances. Thus on the south side of the bay of Campeachy there is mostly low land, and there also is good anchoring all along shore; and in some places to the eastward of the town of Campeachy we shall have so many fathom as we are leagues off from land that is from nine or ten leagues distance till you come within 4 leagues: and from thence to land it grows but shallower.

The bay of Honduras also is low land, and continues mostly so as we passed along from thence to the coasts of Portobello and Cartagena till we came as high as Santa Marta; afterwards the land is low again till you come towards the coast of Caracas, which is a high coast and bold shore.

The land about Surinam on the same coast is low and good anchoring. The land on the coast of Guinea is such also.

And such too is the Bay of Panama, where the pilot-book orders the pilot always to sound and not to come within such a depth, be it by night or day.

In the same seas, from the high land of Guatemala in Mexico to California, there is mostly low land and good anchoring. In the main of Asia, the coast of China, the Bay of Siam and Bengal, and all the coast of Coromandel, and the coast about Malacca, and against it the island Sumatra, on that side are mostly low anchoring shores.

But on the west side of Sumatra the shore is high and bold; so most of the islands lying to the eastward of Sumatra, as the islands Borneo, Celebes, Gilolo, and abundance of islands of less note, lying scattering up and down those seas, are low land and have good anchoring about them, with many shoals scattered to and fro among them; but the islands lying against the East Indian Ocean, especially the west sides of them, are high land and steep, particularly the west parts, not only of Sumatra but also of Java, Timor, etc. Particulars are endless; but in general it is seldom but high shores and deep waters; and on the other side low land and shallow seas are found together.