Bonin Islands  Source  Whalesite

	Chapter VI. [Bonin Islands] from Narrative of a Voyage to the Pacific and Beering's Strait ... in the years 1825, 26, 27, 28. Vol. II. by Captain F. W. Beechey, R.N.
(London, Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, 1831.)

Frederick William Beechey (1796–1856)

CHAPTER VI.

Passage from Loo Choo eastward — Arrive at Port Lloyd in the Yslas del Azobispo — Description of those Islands — Passage to Kamtchatka — Arrival at Petropaulski — Notice of that Place — Departure — Pass Beering's Strait — Enter Kotzebue Sound — Prosecute the Voyage to the Northward — Stopped by the Ice — Return to the Southward — Discover Port Clarence and Grantley Harbour — Description of these Harbours — Return to Kotzebue Sound — Ship strikes upon a Shoal.

      On the 25th of May we took our departure from Loo Choo, and steered to the eastward in search of some islands which were doubtfully placed in the charts. On the third day we arrived within a few miles of the situation of Amsterdam Island without seeing any land, and passed it to the northward, as near as the wind would permit. The weather was very unfavourable for discovery, being thick and rainy, or misty, with very variable winds. On the 3d of June we regretted exceedingly not having clear weather, as the appearance of plover, sandlings, flocks of shearwaters, and several petrel and albatrosses, created a belief that we were near some island.

      Three days afterwards we were upon the spot where the Island of Disappointment is placed in the latest charts. The weather was tolerably clear, but no land could be seen; and as we were so near the situation of a group of islands which, if in existence, would oc-

cupy several days in examining, I did not wait to search for Disappointment Island, which is said to be very small. I have since been informed that this island, which in all probability is the same as the island of Rosario, was seen by a whaler, who, not being able to find it a second time, bestowed upon it the name of Invisible Island. It is said to lie ninety miles N.W. from port Lloyd, a place which I shall presently notice.

      The next evening we reached the situation of the Bonin Islands in Arrowsmith's chart, and the following morning made sail as usual without seeing any land. We were almost on the point of declaring them invisible also, when after having stood to the eastward a few hours, we had the satisfaction to descry several islands extending in a north and south direction as far as the eye could discern. They all appeared to be small, yet they were high and very remarkable; particularly one near the centre, which I named after Captain Kater, V.P.R.S. &c.

      As the islands to the southward appeared to be the largest I proposed to examine them first: and finding they were fertile, and likely to afford good anchorage, Lieutenant Belcher was sent on shore with a boat to search for a harbour. In the evening he returned with a favourable report, and with a supply of fourteen large green turtle.

      We stood off and on for the night with very thick weather; and at daylight, when by our reckoning the ship should have been seven miles from the land, we unexpectedly saw the rocks beneath the fog, about a fifth of a mile distant, and had but just room to clear them by going about. The depth of the water at that time was sixty fathoms; so that had it been blowing strong

and necessary to anchor, there would have been but an indifferent prospect of holding on any length of time. The great depth of water, and the strong currents which set between the islands must make the navigation near them hazardous during thick weather. On the evening preceding this unexpected event, we found so strong a current setting to the south-west, to windward, that, though the ship was lying to, it was necessary frequently to bear away, to prevent being drifted upon the land.

      When the fog cleared away on the 9th, we discovered a distant cluster of islands bearing S. 5° E. true: I therefore declined anchoring in the bay which Lieutenant Belcher had examined the preceding evening, in the hope of being able to examine the newly discovered islands; but, finding both current and wind against us, and that the ship could scarcely gain ground in that direction — as there was no time to be lost, I returned to those first discovered. In running along-shore we observed an opening, which, appearing to afford better security than the before-mentioned bay, the master was sent to explore; and returned with the welcome intelligence of having found a secure harbour, in which the ship might remain with all winds.

      We were a little surprised, when we came back, to find two strangers in the boat, for he had no idea that these islands had been recently visited, much less that there were any residents upon them; and we concluded that some unfortunate vessel had been cast away upon the island. They proved to be part of the crew of a whaleship belonging to London, named the William. This ship, which had once belonged to his majesty's service, had been anchored in the harbour in deep water, and in rather an exposed situation (the

port then not being well known,) and had part of her cargo upon deck, when a violent gust of wind from the land drove her from her anchors, and she struck upon a rock in a small bay close to the entrance, where in a short time she went to pieces. All the crew escaped, and established themselves on shore as well as they could, and immediately commenced building a vessel from the wreck of the ship, in which they intended to proceed to Manilla; but before she was completed, another whaler, the Timor, arrived, and carried them all away except our two visiters, who remained behind at their own request. They had been several months upon the island, during which time they had not shaved or paid any attention to their dress, and were very odd-looking beings. The master, Thomas Younger, had unfortunately been killed by the fall of a tree fifteen days previous to the loss of the ship, and was buried in a sandy bay on the eastern side of the harbour.

      We entered the port and came to an anchor in the upper part of it in eighteen fathoms, almost land-locked. This harbour is situated in the largest island of the cluster, and has its entrance conspicuously marked by a bold high promontory on the southern side, and a tall quion-shaped rock on the other. It is nearly surrounded by hills, and the plan of it upon paper suggests the idea of its being an extinguished crater. Almost every valley has a stream of water, and the mountains are clothed with trees, among which the areca oleracea and fan-palms are conspicuous. There are several sandy bays, in which green turtle are sometimes so numerous that they quite hide the colour of the shore. The sea yields an abundance of fish; the rocks and caverns are the resort of crayfish

and other shellfish; and the shores are the refuge of snipes, plovers, and wild pigeons. At the upper part of the port there is a small basin, formed by coral reefs, conveniently adapted for heaving a ship down; and on the whole it is a most desirable place of resort for a whale-ship. By a board nailed against a tree, it appeared that the port had been entered in September, 1825, by an English ship named the Supply, which I believe to be the first authenticated visit made to the place.

      Taking possession of uninhabited islands is now a mere matter of form; still I could not allow so fair an opportunity to escape, and declared them to be the property of the British government by nailing a sheet of copper to a tree, with the necessary particulars engraved upon it. As the harbour had no name, I called it Port Lloyd, out of regard to the late Bishop of Oxford. The island in which it is situated I named after Sir Robert Peel, His Majesty's Secretary of State for the Home Department.

      As we rowed on shore towards the basin, which, in consequence of there being ten fathoms water all over it, was named Ten Fathom Hole, we were surrounded by sharks so daring and voracious that they bit at the oars and the boat's rudder, and though wounded with the boat-hook returned several times to the attack. At the upper end of Ten Fathom Hole there were a great many green turtle; and the boat's crew were sent to turn some of them for our sea-stock. The sharks, to the number of forty at least, as soon as they observed these animals in confusion, rushed in amongst them, and to the great danger of our people, endeavoured to seize them by the fins, several of which we noticed to have been bitten off. The turtle

weighed from three to four hundred-weight each, and were so inactive that, had there been a sufficient number of men, the whole shoal might have been turned.

      Wittrein and his companion, the men whom we found upon the island, were living on the south side of the harbour, in a house built from the planks of the William, upon a substantial foundation of copper bolts, procured from the wreck of the ship by burning the timbers. They had a number of fine fat hogs, a well stocked pigeon-house, and several gardens, in which there were growing pumpkins, water-melons, potatoes, sweet potatoes, and fricoli beans; and they had planted forty cocoa-nuts in other parts of the bay. In such an establishment Wittrein found himself very comfortable, and contemplated getting a wife from the Sandwich Islands; but I am sorry to find that he soon relinquished the idea, and that there is now no person to take care of the garden, which by due management might have become extremely useful to whale-ships, the crews of which are often afflicted with the scurvy by their arrival at this part of their voyage. The pigs, I have since learned, have become wild and numerous, and will in a short time destroy all the roots, if not the cabbage-trees, which at the time of our visit were in abundance, and, besides being a delicate vegetable, were no doubt an excellent antiscorbutic.

      We learned from Wittrein, who had resided eight months upon the island, that in the January of 1826 it had been visited by a tremendous storm, and an earthquake which shook the island so violently, and the water at the same time rose so high, that he and his companion, thinking the island about to be swallowed up by the sea, fled to the hills for safety. This gale, which resembled the typhoons in the China sea, began

at the north and went round the compass by the westward, blowing all the while with great violence, and tearing up trees by the roots: it destroyed the schooner which the crew of the William had begun to build, and washed the cargo of the ship, which since her wreck had been floating about the bay, up into the country. By the appearance of some of the casks, the water must have risen twelve feet above the usual level.^*

      We were informed that during the winter there is much bad weather from the north and north-west; but as summer approaches these winds abate, and are succeeded by others from the southward and south-eastward, which prevail throughout that season, and are generally attended with fine weather, with the exception of fogs which are very prevalent. Shocks of earthquakes are frequently felt during the winter; and Wittrein and his companion repeatedly observed smoke issuing from the summits of the hills on the island to the northward. Peel Island, in which we anchored, is entirely volcanic, and there is every appearance of the others to the northward being of the same formation. They have deep water all round them, and ships must not allow their safety to depend upon the lead, for although bottom may be gained at great depths between some of the islands, yet that is not the case in other directions.

      We noticed basaltic columns in several parts of Port Lloyd, and in one place Mr. Collie observed them divided into short lengths as at the Giant's Causeway; he also remarked at the head of the bay in the bed of a small river, from which we filled our water casks, a

sort of tessellated pavement, composed of upright angular columns, placed side by side, each about an inch in diameter, and separated by horizontal fissures. It was the lower part of the Giant's Causeway in miniature. Many of the rocks consisted of tuffaceous basalt of a grayish or greenish hue, frequently traversed by veins of petrosilex; and contained numerous nodules of chalcedony or of cornelian, and plasma? The zeolites are not wanting; and the stilbite, in the lamellar foliated form, is abundant. Olivine and hornblende are also common. The drusses were often found containing a watery substance, which had an astringent taste not unlike alum, but I did not succeed in collecting any of it.

      The coral animals have raised ledges and reefs of coral round almost all the bays, and have filled up the northern part of the harbor, with the exception of Ten Fathom Hole, which appears to be kept open by streams of water running into it; for it was observed here, that the only accessible part of the beach was at the mouths of these streams.

      I have before observed, that the hills about our anchorage were wooded from the water's edge nearly to their summit. There were found among these trees, besides the cabbage and fan-palms, the tamanu of Otaheite, the pandanus odoratissimus, and, a species of purau; also some species of laurus, of urtica, the terminalia, dodonaea viscosa, eleocarpus serratis, &c. We collected some of the wood for building boats, and found it answer very well for knees, timbers, &c.

      We saw no wild animals of the mammalia class except the vampire bat, which was very tame. Some measured three feet across the wings when fully extended, and were eight or nine inches in length in the body. We

frequently saw them flying; but they were more fond of climbing about the trees, and hanging by their hind claw, which appears to be their natural position when feeding. Some were observed with their young at their breast, concealed by the wide membrane of their wing. The tongue of this animal is unusually large, and furnished with fleshy papillae on the upper surface. Here we also found another species of vespertilio.

      Of birds we saw some handsome brown herons with white crests, plovers, rails, snipes, wood-pigeons, and the common black crow; a small bird resembling a canary, and a grossbeak. They were very tame, and until alarmed at the noise of a gun, suffered themselves to be approached.

      The sea abounded in fish, some of which were very beautiful in colour. We noticed the green fish mentioned at Gambier Island, and a gold-coloured fish of the same genus, both extremely splendid in their appearance. A dentex resembling our carp, a small rayfish, and some large eels, one of which weighed twenty pounds, were caught in the fresh water. We took forty-four turtles on board for sea stock, besides consuming two a day while we remained in port, weighing each about three hundred weight.

      The weather during our stay was fine, but oppressively warm; and though we had no rain, the atmosphere was generally saturated with moisture. There was a thick fog to windward of the islands almost the whole of the time; but it dispersed on its passage over the land, and the lee side was generally clear.

      While our operations at the port were in progress, Lieutenant Belcher circumnavigated Peel's Island in the cutter, and discovered a large bay at the south-

east angle of the island, which afforded very secure anchorage from all winds except the south-east; as this is the prevalent wind during the summer, it is not advisable to anchor in that season. I named it Fitton Bay, in compliment to Dr. Fitton, late president of the Geological Society. Mr. Elson also was employed outside of the harbour, and discovered some sunken rocks to the southward of the entrance to the port, on which account ships should not close the land in that direction so as to shut in two paps at the north-east angle of Port Lloyd with the south bluff of the harbour. With these objects open there is no danger.

      On the 15th of June, we put to sea from Port Lloyd; and finding the wind still from the southward, and that we could not reach the islands in that direction without much loss of time, I bore away to ascertain the northern limit of the group. We ran along the western shore, and at noon on the 16th observed the meridian altitude off the northernmost islet. The group consists of three clusters of islands lying nearly N. by E. and extending from the lat. of 27° 44' 35' N. to 26° 30' N. and beyond, but that was the utmost limit of our view to the southward. The northern cluster consists of small islands and pointed rocks, and has much broken ground about it, which renders caution necessary in approaching it. I distinguished it by the name of Parry's Group, in compliment to the late hydrographer, under whose command I had the pleasure to serve on the northern expedition. The middle cluster consists of three islands, of which Peel's Island, four miles and a fifth in length is the largest. This group is nine miles and a quarter in length and is divided by two channels so narrow that they can only

be seen when abreast of them. Neither of them are navigable by shipping, the northern, on account of rocks which render it impassable even by boats, and the other on account of rapid tides and eddies, which, as there is no anchoring ground, would most likely drift a ship upon the rocks. The northern island I named Stapleton, and the centre Buckland, in compliment to the Professor of Geology at Oxford. At the south-west angle of Buckland Island there is a sandy bay, in which ships will find good anchorage; but they must be careful in bringing up to avoid being carried out of soundings by the current. I named it Walker's Bay, after Mr. Walker of the Hydrographical Office. The southern cluster is evidently that in which a whale ship commanded by Mr. Coffin anchored in 1823, who was the first to communicate its position to this country, and who bestowed his own name upon the port. As the cluster was, however, left without any distinguishing appellation, I named it after Francis Baily, Esq. late President of the Astronomical Society.

      These clusters of islands correspond so well with a group named Yslas del Arzobispo in a work published many years ago in Manilla, entitled Navigacion Especulativa y Practica, that I have retained the name, in addition to that of Bonin Islands; as it is extremely doubtful, from the Japanese accounts of Bonin-sima, whether there are not other islands in the vicinity, to which the latter name is not more applicable. In these accounts, published by M. Klaproth in his MÉmoire sur la Chine, and by M. Abel Remusat in the Journal des Savans for September, 1817, it is said that the islands of Bonin-sima, or Mou-nin-sima, consist of eighty-nine islands of which two are large,

four are of a midling size, four small and the remainder of the group consists of rocks. The two large islands are there said to be inhabited, and in the Japanese chart, published in the Journal des Savans, contain several villages and temples. They are stated to be extremely fertile, to produce leguminous vegetables and all kinds of grain, besides a great abundance of pasturage and sugar-canes, and the plains to afford an agreeable retreat to man; that there are lofty palm-trees, cocoa-nuts, and other fruits; sandal wood, camphor, and other precious trees.

      Setting aside the geographical inaccuracy of the chart, which the Japanese might not know how to avoid, and the dissagreement of distances and proportions, their description is so very unlike any thing that we found in these islands, that if the Japanese are at all to be credited they cannot be the same; and if they are not to be believed, it may be doubted whether Bonin-sima is not an imaginary island.

      The group which we visited had neither villages, temples, nor any remains whatever; and it was quite evident that they had never been resided upon. There were no cocoa-nut trees, no sugar canes, no leguminous vegetables, nor any plains for the cultivation of grain, the land being very steep in every part, and overgrown with tall trees. Neither in number, size, or direction will the islands at all coincide: and under such dissimilarities, it may reasonably be inquired whether it is possible for these places to be the same. If we compare the number, size, and shape of the islands, or direction of the group, there is a yet wider discrepancy; ports are placed in the Japanese map where none exist in these; rocks are marked to the full number, which seem only to create useless

alarm to the navigator; and throughout there is a neglect of the cardinal points. I have therefore, on this ground, presumed to doubt the propriety of the name of Bonin-sima being attached to these islands.

      Were the situation of Bonin-sima dependent solely upon the account furnished by Kaempfer, it might safely be identified with the group of Yslas del Arzobispo; but the recent notice of that island by the Japanese authors is so very explicit, that great doubt upon the subject is thereby created. Kaempfer's account stands thus; — In 1675 a Japanese junk was driven out of her course by strong winds, and wrecked upon an island three hundred miles to the eastward of Fatsissio. The island abounded in arrack-trees (areca?) and in enormous crabs (turtle?), which were from four to six feet in length; and was named Bunesima, in consequence of its being uninhabited. In this statement the distance, the areca-trees, the turtle, and the island being unoccupied, agree very well with the description of the island I have given above; and it is curious that Wittrein, whom we found upon the island, declared he had seen the wreck of a vessel in which the planks were put together in a manner similar to that which was noticed by Lieutenant Wainwright in the junk at Loo Choo.

      It is remarkable that this group should have escaped the observation of Gore, Perouse, Krusenstern, and several others, whose vessels passed to the northward and southward of its position. In the journals of the above-mentioned navigators we find that when in the vicinity of these islands they were visited by land birds; but they never saw land, the three small islands of Los Volcanos excepted, which may be considered the last of the group. The consequence of its

having thus escaped notice was, that all the islands, except the three last-mentioned, were expunged from the charts; and it was not until 1823 that they re-appeared on Arrowsmith's map, on the authority of M. Abel Remusat.

      Near these islands we found strong currents, running principally to the northward; but none of them equalled in strength that which is said by the Japanese to exist between Bonin-Sima and Fatsissio. which indeed was so rapid that it obtained the name of Kourosi-gawa, or Current of the Black Gulf;^* nor did their directions accord, as the kou-rosi-gawa is said to set from east to west. At particular periods, perhaps, these currents may be greater than we found them, and may also run to the westward, but they are certainly not constant. To the southward of Jesso, Captain Broughton experienced a set in the opposite direction — that is, from west to east, and so did Admiral Krusenstern. With us, as has been mentioned before, the set was to the northward.

      June 16th. I had spent as much time in low latitudes, fixing the positions of all these islands, as was consistent with my orders, and it became necessary to make the best of our way to the northward; which we did, in the hope of being more successful in our search for the land expedition than we were the preceding year. At first we stood well to the eastward, in order to get nearly into the meridian of Petropaulski, that we might not be inconvenienced by easterly winds, which appear to be prevalent in these seas in the summer time; and

having attained our object, directed the course for that port.

Frederick William Beechey
(17 February 1796 – 29 November 1856)

      See the article in Wikipedia for information about Frederick William Beechey.

Source:

Frederick William Beechey.
      Narrative of a voyage to the Pacific and Beering's Strait, to co-operate with the Polar expeditions: performed in His Majesty's ship Blossom, under the command of Captain F.W. Beechey ... in the years 1825, 26, 27, 28.
    London : H. Colburn and R. Bentley, 1831.
  2 v. : ill., fold. maps.
Chapter VI. [Bonin Islands]
Vol. II, pp.227-251.

Bonin Islands  Source  Whalesite