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
A violent storm of wind drove Roggewein from his anchorage on the
eastern side of the island, and obliged him to make for the
west-north-west. He traversed the sea called Mauvaise by Schouten, and
having sailed eight hundred leagues from Easter Island, fell in with
what he took to be the Isle of Dogs, so called by Schouten. Roggewein
named it Carlshoff, a name which it still retains.
The squadron passed this island in the night, without touching at it,
and was forced in the following night, by the wind and adverse
currents, to the midst of a group of low islands, which were quite
unexpectedly encountered. The _African_ was dashed against a coral
rock, and the two consorts narrowly escaped the same fate. Only after
five days of unceasing effort, of danger and anxiety, the crew
succeeded in extricating the vessels and in regaining the open sea.
The natives of this group were tall, with long and flowing hair. They
painted their bodies in various colours. It is generally agreed now to
recognize in Roggewein's description of the Pernicious Islands, the
group to which Cook gave the name of Palliser Isles.
On the morning succeeding the day in which he had so narrowly escaped
the dangers of the Pernicious Islands, Roggewein discovered an island
to which he gave the name of Aurora. Lying low, it was scarcely
visible above the water, and had the sun not shone out, the
_Tienhoven_ would have been lost upon it.
As night approached, new land was perceived, to which the name of
Vesper was given, and it is difficult to decide whether or no it
belonged to the Palliser group.
Roggewein continued to sail between the 15th and 16th degrees, and was
not long in finding himself "all of a sudden" in the midst of islands
which were half submerged.
"As we approached them," says Behrens, "we saw an immense number of
canoes navigating the coasts, and we concluded that the islands were
well populated. Upon nearing the land we discovered that it consisted
of a mass of different islands, situated close the one to the other,
and we were insensibly drawn in amongst them. We began to fear that we
should be unable to extricate ourselves. The admiral sent one of the
pilots up to the look-out to ascertain how we could get free of them.
"We owed our safety to the calm that prevailed. The slightest movement
of the water would have run our ships upon the rocks, without the
possibility of assistance reaching us. As it was, we got away without
any accident worth mentioning. These islands are six in number, all
very pleasant, and taken together may extend some thirty leagues. They
are situated twenty-five leagues westward of the Pernicious Islands.
We named them the Labyrinth, because we could only leave them by a
circuitous route."
Many authors identify this group with Byron's Prince of Wales Islands.
Fleurieu holds a different opinion. Dumont d'Urville thinks them
identical with the group of Vliegen, already seen by Schouten and
Lemaire.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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