Celebrated Travels and Travellers, Part 2.: The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth CenturyVerne, Jules
History
Celebrated Travels and Travellers, Part 2.: The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century
Verne, Jules
Discoveries in geography; Explorers; Voyages and travels
This part of his voyage concerns us but little, and a few particulars
only are interesting, as, for instance, his mention of a monkey in the
Gorgus Island, who was so lazy, that he was nicknamed the Sluggard,
and of the inhabitants of Tecamez, who repulsed the new-comers with
poisoned arrows, and guns. He also speaks of the Galapagos Island,
situated two degrees of northern latitude. According to Rogers, this
cluster of islands was numerous, but out of them all one only provided
fresh water. Turtle-doves existed there in great quantities, and
tortoises, and sea-turtles, of an extraordinary size abounded, thence
the name given by the Spaniards to this group.
Sea-dogs also were common, one of them had the temerity to attack
Rogers. "I was walking along the shore," he says, "when it left the
water, his jaws gaping, as quickly and ferociously as a dog escaping
from his chain. Three times he attacked me, I plunged my pike into his
breast, and each time I inflicted such a wound that he fled howling
horribly. Finally, turning towards me, he stopped to growl and show
his fangs. Scarcely twenty-four hours earlier, one of my crew had
narrowly escaped being devoured by a monster of the same family."
[Illustration: "I plunged my pike into his breast."]
In December, Rogers repaired to Puerto Seguro, upon the Californian
coast, with a Manilla galleon, which he had seized. Many of his men
penetrated to the interior; he found large forest trees, but not the
slightest appearance of culture, although smoke indicated the
existence of inhabitants.
The inhabitants, according to Albey Presort's "History of Voyages,"
were straight built and powerful, blacker than any Indian tribe
hitherto met with in the Pacific Ocean Seas. They had long black hair
plaited, which reached below the waist. All the men went about naked,
but the women wore a garment, either composed of leaves or of stuff
made from them, and sometimes the skins of beasts and birds.
Occasionally they wore necklaces and bracelets made of bits of wood or
shells. Others adorned their necks with small red berries and pearls.
Evidently they did not know how to pierce holes in them, for they
notched them and joined them by a thread. They valued these ornaments
so highly, that they refused to change them for English necklaces of
glass. Their chief anxiety was to obtain knives and useful implements.
The _Duke_ and _Duchess_ left Porto Segura on the 12th January, 1710,
and reached the island of Guaham, of the Mariannes, in the course of
two months. Here they revictualled, and passing by the Straits of
Boutan and Saleyer, reached Batavia. After a necessary delay at the
latter place, and at the Cape of Good Hope, Rogers cast anchor in the
Downs upon the 1st of October.
In spite of Rogers' reticence with regard to the immense riches he
brought with him, a good idea of their extent may be gathered from the
account of ingots, vessels of silver and gold, and pearls, with which
he delighted the shipowners.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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