Celebrated Travels and Travellers, Part 3.: The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth CenturyVerne, Jules
History
Celebrated Travels and Travellers, Part 3.: The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century
Verne, Jules
Discoveries in geography; Explorers; Voyages and travels
And we must remember that we ourselves did not attain to the high state
of civilization we now enjoy without climbing up from the bottom of the
ladder. In the stone age our manners were probably not superior to
those of the natives of Oceania.
We must not, therefore, blame these representatives of humanity for not
having risen higher. They have never been a nation. Scattered as their
homes are on the wide ocean, and divided as they are into small tribes,
without agricultural or mineral resources, without connexions, and with
a climate which makes them strangers to want, they could but remain
stationary or cultivate none but the most rudimentary arts and
industries. Yet in spite of all this, how often have their instruments,
their canoes, and their nets, excited the admiration of travellers.
On the 18th May, 1804, the _Nadiejeda_ and the _Neva_ left Noukha-Hiva
for the Sandwich Islands, where Kruzenstern had decided to stop and lay
in a store of fresh provisions, which he had been unable to do at his
last anchorage, where seven pigs were all he could get.
This plan fell through, however. The natives of Owhyhee, or Hawaii,
brought but a very few provisions to the vessels lying off their
south-west coast, and even these they would only exchange for cloth,
which Kruzenstern could not give them. He therefore set sail for
Kamtchatka and Japan, leaving the _Neva_ off the island of Karakakoua,
where Captain Lisianskoi relied upon being able to revictual.
[Illustration: New Zealanders. (Fac-simile of early engraving.)]
On the 11th July, the _Nadiejeda_ arrived off Petropaulovski, the
capital of Kamtchatka, where the crew obtained the rest and fresh
provisions they had so well earned. On the 30th August, the Russians
put to sea again.
Overtaken by thick fogs and violent storms, Kruzenstern now hunted in
vain for some islands marked on a map found on a Spanish gallion
captured by Anson, and the existence of which had been alternately
accepted and rejected by different cartographers, though they appear in
La Billardiere's map of his voyage.
The navigator now passed between the large island of Kiushiu and
Tanega-Sima, by way of Van Diemen Strait, till then very inaccurately
defined, rectified the position of the Liu-Kiu archipelago, which the
English had placed north of the strait, and the French too far south,
and sailed down, surveyed and named the coast of the province of
Satsuma.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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