Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1.: With an Account of the Coasts and Rivers Explored and Surveyed During; The Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle, in the Years 1837-38-39-40-41-42-43.; By Command of the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty. Also a Narrative; Of Captain Owen Stanley's Visits to the Islands in the Arafura Sea. — John Shaqi
Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1.: With an Account of the Coasts and Rivers Explored and Surveyed During; The Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle, in the Years 1837-38-39-40-41-42-43.; By Command of the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty. Also a Narrative; Of Captain Owen Stanley's Visits to the Islands in the Arafura Sea.Stokes, John Lort
History
Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1.: With an Account of the Coasts and Rivers Explored and Surveyed During; The Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle, in the Years 1837-38-39-40-41-42-43.; By Command of the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty. Also a Narrative; Of Captain Owen Stanley's Visits to the Islands in the Arafura Sea.
Stokes, John Lort
Australia -- Description and travel; Australia -- Discovery and exploration; Natural history -- Australia
seaman, himself all unconscious of its existence, yet strangely
influenced by its operations!
ANCHOR AT SIMON'S BAY.
We sighted land on the evening of the 20th of September, rounded the Cape
the next morning, and in the afternoon anchored in Simon's Bay. We found
here H.M.S. Thalia, bearing the flag of Admiral Sir Patrick Campbell,
Commander-in-chief of the Cape station: and during our subsequent stay
received every attention which kindness and courtesy could suggest, from
himself and his officers.
We were glad to ascertain that our chronometers had been performing
admirably. They gave the longitude of Simon's Bay, within a few seconds
of our homeward determination during the last voyage. Mr. Maclear, of the
Royal Observatory, and Captain Wauchope, of the flagship, had been
measuring the difference of longitude between Simon's Bay dockyard and
Cape Town Observatory, by flashing lights upon the summit of a mountain
midway between those two places. Their trials gave a greater difference,
by a half second, between the two meridians, than we had obtained on a
former visit by carrying chronometers to and fro. The results stand as
follow:
Mr. Maclear and Captain Wauchope: 11.5 seconds South.
H.M. Sloop Beagle: 11.0 seconds South.
ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN HARRIS.
We found at the Cape the renowned Captain Harris, H.E.I. Company's Bombay
Engineers, who had just returned from his sporting expedition into the
interior of Southern Africa, having made his way through every obstacle,
from the frontier of the Cape Colony, through the territories of the
chief Moselekatse, to the Tropic of Capricorn. With his spirit-stirring
accounts of hunting adventure and savage manners we were all most highly
gratified. What he had seen, where he had been, and what he had performed
"by flood and field," have since been told to the world by himself, and
therefore need not be repeated here: but it would be unpardonable not to
do justice to his energy, his perseverance, and his success. He had
collected quite a museum of the Natural History of the wild beasts
against whom his crusade had been directed; while his collection of
drawings, both as regarded the animals delineated, and the appearance of
the country in which they were found, was really most beautiful: and many
a pleasant hour was spent in viewing the various specimens and
illustrations, each one of which testified the intrepidity and skill of
himself or his no less adventurous companion, William Richardson,
Esquire, B.C.S. It will readily be believed that these two gentlemen were
then, themselves, the great Lions of that part of Africa.
SAIL FOR SWAN RIVER.
Having completed our observations, and crammed every available square
inch of the Beagle with various stores--a proceeding rendered absolutely
necessary by the unsatisfactory accounts we received of the state of
affairs at Swan River--we sailed for that place on the morning of the
12th of October.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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