Galapagos Islands  Contents  Source  Whalesite

VOYAGE

AROUND THE WORLD

LA BONITE

ACCOUNT OF THE VOYAGE
BY A. DE LA SALLE.

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

CHAPTER XVIII.

CROSSING THE GUAYAQUIL TO THE SANDWICH ISLANDS.

Hey! who does not know the consoling spectacle
That spreads out bandits this vast receptacle,
This Botany-Bay, sentin of Albion,
Where theft, plunder and sedition
In crowds are vomited, and purging England,
In their distant exile will fertilize the earth?
There, the indulgent law, of dangerous subjects
Made of skilful colonists, happy citizens;
Smiles at repentance, stirs up industry,
Sells them freedom, morals, a homeland.
I see everywhere the parched marshes,
The embellished deserts and the cleared woods.
Imitate this example: in their sterile prison
Remove these brigands, make their punishment useful;
And, that snatching virtuous remorse from the iron
Forgiveness turns fruitless evils into goods.

CHAPTER XVIII.

      It was not yet clear that everyone was on their feet aboard the corvette. The night before, the boats had been loaded, everything in its place and everything ready for departure. All that remained was to raise anchor and set off. At five o'clock in the morning the capstan began to turn on its axis and half an hour later the Bonite under sail was sailing, led by the pilot, away from the anchorage of Puna.

      But, as I pointed out previously, it is not without some difficulty that we managed to get out of the

Guayaquil river. The winds blowing from the open sea only allow you to move forward by tacking and you have to do it with care to avoid running aground on the sandbanks which extend on both sides to a quite a distance from the coast. If the breeze is weak, you can only gain a little way, thanks to the current during the ebb tide. We must give up fighting against the tidal current as soon as it begins to make itself felt.

      Also, the Bonite, after less than six hours of walking, during which it had moved towards the left bank of the river to avoid the Mala Bank, was obliged to drop its anchor at half past eleven. The tide was beginning to rise and the breeze, until then quite weak, had just died out altogether. It was a real disappointment for our travelers; the sky was clear, the sun scorching, the atmosphere heavy and overwhelming; we hardly breathed; and everyone wondered with anxiety how many times one would have to endure the same annoyance before reaching the open sea.

      At that moment a huge shark came prowling around the vessel; its azure rump was showing on the surface

of the sea, reflecting the rays of the sun and drawing in the rapid revolutions of the animal like a magic circle which it traversed incessantly; sometimes he would turn abruptly on his back to catch some object that had fallen off the edge in passing, and he would display his white belly and his gaping mouth in the sun, armed with six or seven rows of sharp teeth.

      Sailors never see a shark in cold blood. He is their most heinous enemy. As soon as one appears, it is who will be the first to arm himself with the swivel to take it, and when the voracious monster has rushed on the bait, and caught himself in the trap set for his gluttony, a long cry of joy resounds. So, lest his weight and his violent efforts break the line that holds him back, ropes terminated in a noose are thrown around him, which bind him by the middle of the body. Twenty strong arms hoist him up to the bridge where his ordeal will begin. In vain he struggles furiously, in vain his formidable tail, a single blow of which would throw a man back, beats the sonorous floor; he is held, and everyone hastens to give him the first blows.

      One, armed with an ax, cuts down this formidable tail in which, it is said, lie the main strength of the animal and which must be cut first, to deprive it of its most powerful means of movement. Another cuts off his head; but no one touches it, because separated from the trunk it is still agitated convulsively and the hand which

one would present between its open jaws, as long as a remnant of life still remained it would be infallibly crushed.

      So we open his stomach and it is rare that we do not find material evidence that justifies his condemnation in the eyes of the sailors. Usually they are old clothes thrown into the sea on purpose or lost in the passage of some ship, for the shark swallows up everything it finds; but seeing in the bowels of the aquatic monster a tunic, trousers or a sailor's cap, no one is forbidden to suppose that they are the remains of an unfortunate man whom he has devoured.

      The flesh of the shark, cut into strips and dried in the sun, is a detestable dish, which the best cook would find difficult to make worthy of the less delicate palate. However, the sailors cook and eat it. Perhaps the feeling of satisfied revenge makes it taste better than any other seasoning.

      Either way, catching a shark on board a ship is always a pleasurable and eagerly grabbed distraction.

      But sailors of the Bonite were used to encounters of this kind; they had seen many of them as they approached Guayaquil; they had also seen many whales; some even close enough to be inconvenienced by the fetid odor which the water thrown into the air by their exhalations. Neither the sea monsters,

nor the various birds which until then had escorted the corvette, were for them at this moment a subject of distraction. The shark was therefore allowed to pursue its evolutions in freedom and no one thought of harming it, except for some superstitious and sorrowful spirit, as it is sometimes found in the crews, which, seeing it thus taunt the Bonite, perhaps took him for a disguised sorcerer who by his magic tricks kept her calm.

      At five o'clock in the evening, when the tide turned, the calm ceased and gave way to a nice breeze from the W. We hastened to take the opportunity to get under way. The wind soon freshened as night approached; but with it came the clouds, the sky darkened and thick darkness prevented us from distinguishing anything, we had to stop again. M. Vaillant remarked in this connection that this is the best one can do, in such a case, when sailing in Guayaquil. You have to see clearly, if you want to avoid the shoals; because the probe is not always enough to warn of them. Some in fact are quite steep and if the color of the water did not give a means of recognizing their approach, we might run aground there, at the very moment when the sounding had just revealed twenty or twenty-five fathoms.

      After spending the night at anchor, our travelers set sail again on the 13th at daybreak. They continued to tack near the left bank, to pass a hard sandbank which lies in the south of the great Mala bank; never straying from shore more than four or five miles, and navigating cautiously in depths of five to seven fathoms. It would have been unwise to advance too far towards the shores of Puna, enveloped in an impenetrable fog. The weather finally cleared up and allowed the pilot to recognize his position. He then no longer hesitated to extend his side in the direction of the point of Salinas, which forms the SW end of the island, and only tacked after having recognized, at the change of color of the waters, the proximity of the sand and mud bank which borders the coast. The sounding at this time was showing fifteen fathoms.

      Santa Clara Island still had to be doubled, around which there are also reefs and sandbanks, which skirt it from north to the south, passing through the east. M. Vaillant would have liked to keep the pilot until when these dangers had been overcome;

but the latter, who doubtless wanted to have time to reach land before nightfall, objected that it was not customary for the pilots of the river to exceed the limit where one was then, and he hastened to leave the corvette, which nevertheless succeeded in overtaking Santa Clara Island during the day without his help. At nightfall with his train of mists, M. Vaillant thought it best to anchor again, in a bottom of twenty-seven fathoms, about nine miles to the west of the island.

      It was the last stop that the Bonite had to undergo. It had been a good day, moreover, and nothing should now interfere with his exit. The next day, August 14, a nice breeze from the NW made it possible to reach, still tacking, the extreme limit of the mouth of the Guayaquil. At four o'clock in the evening, M. Vaillant had the point of departure taken, and at six o'clock, the winds having passed to the OSO, the Bonite, staying as close as possible to the port tack, passed Santa Clara Island for the last time. eighteen miles away and set off on the high seas. It had taken fifty-seven hours to descend the Guayaquil.

      Sea voyages have for a few

active and adventurous minds, one advantage that land trips don't offer: variety. Carried without transition from one country to another quite different by its physical constitution, its productions, its customs and its manners, the traveler eagerly grasps these characters made more striking by the contrast. His curiosity constantly aroused by new objects. has no time to cool down. The more he sees, the more he wants to see again, and satiety never comes to destroy the pleasure he finds in running around the world. So we see him, after a first trip, just as eager to set off for other places; it is rare that he who has once tasted these pleasures does not wish to experience them again.

      For serious and thoughtful minds, who on the contrary like to delve into a subject, rather than touching on several in passing, these fast races from one end of the universe to the other are a perpetual occasion of regret and disappointment.. New Tantalus, they see incessantly escape them the food which their laborious intelligence pursues with greed; hardly an interesting object of study is offered to them, when it is necessary to leave and to abandon the research begun. We do not harvest, we glean on a circumnavigation journey.

      The Bonite left and never returned to this land of America which is no longer a new world but on which there is still so much to do, so much to study. She had only touched on a few points of its

long shore; the most favored of the travelers she took across the seas had barely had time to glimpse the country, its inhabitants and its natural riches. As for the crew, most of the time they had to be satisfied with seeing the land from afar without setting foot there: that is the usual fate of the sailor. And yet, among the greatest number, the pleasure of going to visit new countries left no room for regret to leave without having seen better those that were abandoned. Their thought was no longer of the American beaches which they still saw on the horizon; they were entirely in the Sandwich Islands towards which their journey now tended. Like the ardent and carefree young man who launches joyfully into life, they did not look back with their eyes always fixed on the future; for the young spirit in science, as for the young man in life, there is no past.

      He who has lived a great deal is in quite different arrangements: the future does not belong to him; he likes to enjoy the present, to recapitulate the past years; the old man, they say, lives on memories. Likewise, a person who has been accustomed to reflection through long studies does not easily quit sketchy work to run after new ideas; he likes to link his observations today to the knowledge he already had; he seeks the sequence of facts, the consequences of the data acquired; he is not content to simply notice in passing a phenomenon in the physical or

moral order; he wants the explanation. He doesn't just see, he studies.

      In the society united between the walls of La Bonitethere were a few men of this character. This is to say the thoughts that preoccupied them when they left Guayaquil. How many interesting and unresolved questions would have been worthy of their meditations and research, if they had been allowed to address them during a longer stay on this land discovered by Columbus and the Americans, conquered and ravaged by the Cortes and the Pizarre, exploited like an immense mine by all the nations of Europe, now upset by the revolutions and yet still partly unknown, since all the interior, from Patagonia to Mexico, is occupied by tribes who have no relation to strangers!

      These questions, which I do not even want to touch on, will probably remain a mystery until that the progress of civilization has made science flourish on American soil. So, no doubt, this country will also have its philosophers, its antiquarians, its historians, who, exploring at leisure its traditions and its ruins, will perhaps tell us the unknown origin of the race of men who have populated it since time. the most remote, their relations with the races of the old world, and will attach to the great chain of human history this link so long lost that Christopher Columbus came across by chance while looking for a new way to go to India.

      Let us reserve this glory for them and follow the Bonite sailing in search of new climates.

      To go from Guayaquil to the Sandwich Islands, you can either go to the S. or the N. of the Galapagos Islands. It is always advisable to take the first route when you want to visit these islands in passing, because the winds and currents carry to the north and it is therefore important to have them as auxiliaries.

      It was this road that M. Vaillant wanted to follow, for he wished to see, in passing, a colony newly founded on two islands of this archipelago still very little frequented. His project was thwarted as we will see later by the action of the currents and the contrary winds which threw him too much into the N., but although he was unable to accomplish it, I do not believe not without interest to give here, on these islands, some details collected by the commander from the mouth of the founder of the colony.

      This founder is none other than Mr. Willimi whom Mr. Vaillant met in Guayaquil.

      Born in Louisiana, Mr. Willimi had entered as colonel in the service of the Republic of Ecuador. He was among

those who contributed most actively to founding its independence, and he settled permanently in the country. Later, believing he had something to complain about the government, he abandoned the service, but he needed aliment for his rare activity; Mr. Willimi sought him out in the founding of a new colony. The deserted and hardly known Galapagos Islands were the place he chose.

      These islands, situated about two hundred and twenty leagues from the American continent, did not properly belong to anyone; however, because of the neighborhood, the State of Ecuador could claim ownership, which had not been very popular until then. Mr. Willimi bought two, Charles Island and another located like this in the southernmost part of the Archipelago, and he easily obtained from the President of the Republic the authorization to found there at his expense a colony of free men: he called it Floriade, from the name of General Flores.

      At the time of the Bonite's passage, three years after its foundation, the Floriade fed a population of three hundred people and was already self-sufficient.

      It was in the prisons of Guayaquil that Mr. Willimi drew his elements of colonization and among the prostitutes

of this city he chooses wives for his new settlers. Both, if his testimony is to be believed, made us forget by their good behavior this unsavory origin. Why not work is a powerful means of moralization, as the English have successfully experienced in New South Wales.

      If I were not afraid to advance a paradox, I would say that there are no better sections of the population for a nascent colonial establishment than those drawn from similar sources. The man who has fallen once is not necessarily doomed to evil by his nature. Repentance commonly follows the fault committed and solicits the guilty to return to good; what does it need for that? perhaps in the front line the hope of rising up in the eyes of others as in his own eyes.

      But how could this hope be born, if he is condemned to live marked with a note of infamy in the places where he suffered his condemnation? Does he meet anything other than looks of contempt or at most (if he seems to be amending) looks of pity, no less offensive to his pride? Often he only returns to crime out of despair of ever being able to reap the benefits of virtue.

      If society has punished him fairly, he can resign himself to his conviction. If it humiliates and rejects him, he revolts. He would blush at a past fault if he had to answer only for the reproaches of his conscience; he displays cynicism

of vice in order to taunt the contempt of other men, for it is still to rise up for him to place himself by his audacity above their judgments.

      This seems to me to be true above all of those strongly marked characters whom passion wins, who are exalted by want or whom self-love, wounded by the comparison of their misery with the opulence of others, has precipitated into crime.

      Give these men a new homeland where no one will have the right to reproach them, where each, burdened with his own remorse, should be afraid of throwing the first stone at his neighbor; show them a happy and honored future as a sure consequence of the efforts they will make to build it with their own hands, nothing that humiliates or discourages them, but on the contrary everything that can rehabilitate them in their own eyes and strengthen their hope, you will see them deploying an energy, of which perhaps only they are capable, to endure the hard toil and overcome the difficulties involved in the founding of a new establishment.

      For men who enjoyed a certain ease in their homeland, the lure of a great fortune to be made is necessary for them to decide to emigrate. The hardworking worker or the honest plowman who earns his living by his work also needs the hope of a greater well-being less painfully purchased. But neither can promise themselves such advantages in a colony

news. The beginnings are painful and the benefits can only be the work of time.

      I do not believe in colonies whose foundation rests on ideas of speculation. Capitalists who commit their funds to such an operation must expect to lose them. The workers whom they will have enrolled, by deceiving them with promises of an impossible well-being, will abandon them as soon as they have, by experience, recognized the truth. Haven't we seen it today, and is more evidence needed? So, going back to the origin of most of the colonies, we find almost everywhere, as the first workers of these precious creations, adventurers, people without confession and without resources, who all had more or less to unravel with the justice of their country.

      People in this condition need something more than the more or less deceptive prospect of a quick fortune. What they need above all is to find, at any cost, a place. where they can live in peace and without fear of being worried or wanted for their past.

      It is when they have sketched the work that others can come to extend and perfect it; these newcomers contribute all the more to developing the seeds of prosperity of a recently founded colony, as they bring more resources and ease, for it is true to say that capital is a powerful means of fertilizing the job. But the very ones who come

at first, to settle with some wealth in a new colony, it would be wrong to expect immediate pleasures or a rapid increase in fortune. If they sow for the future of their grand-nephews, it is on condition that they impose sensitive and constant privations on themselves, and this is not done to encourage them.

      In the past, we clearly understood the difficulty I am talking about, which explains the many privileges granted by our kings to the first inhabitants of the French colonies. A motive other than interest or material well-being was necessary to attract to these establishments families endowed with some fortune or some industry; they turned to self-love; they were not afraid to lavish distinctions, letters of nobility, honorary privileges of all kinds, and they were right; we would not have succeeded without it.

      In our age of money and equality, these means are no longer appropriate; is it good, is it bad? I do not have to say, but it is quite certain that by depriving itself of the resources offered by rewards which flatter self-esteem, modern society has lost a powerful means of action which rewards will never replace. pecuniary however liberally public finances allow them to be distributed.

      The only resource therefore remains colonization by means of the condemned. Many politicians have already taken care of this destination to give them,

as a means of ridding the soil of the mother country of their presence.

      Seen from this point of view, the question presented serious difficulties, it is not yet resolved. Perhaps it would have been easier to arrive at its solution if we had considered colonization as the goal, the removal of the condemned as a consequence.

      From then on, in fact, one would have been less embarrassed to find a suitable place to receive them, and one would have been less concerned with a consideration which seems to have dominated all the others; I mean the need to make it impossible for them to get out. Undoubtedly, the government is responsible to society for guarding the criminals who have revolted against it. All appropriate means must be employed to secure it against further attacks on their part; but it should also be noted that all are not equally dangerous and do not require the same supervision; that the greater number would doubtless hesitate to attempt an escape, always difficult when it is necessary to cross the seas, and to trade a relatively happy situation for the chance to get lost and fall back into the hands of justice; that probably most of them and the less deeply perverted would attach themselves to a kind of life leading to rehabilitation and certain well-being in the future; that finally nothing would oblige to give a colonial destination to all the condemned without distinction; that it would be possible to establish legislative-

ment the faculty to retain in the most dangerous and hardened penitentiary establishments, and to make of the relative freedom granted to the colonists a sort of reward granted initially only to those recommended by the regularity of their conduct since their conviction.

      Nothing would prevent either, it seems to me, that this destination was always given to the pardoned convicts, whom society rejects today, in memory of their atoned fault, and who would find employment in their new homeland. easier and more honorable for the freedom which is restored to them.

      Those who have visited the agricultural colony of Mettray, which M. Demetz, its founder, directs with so much happiness and success, have no doubt been struck, like me, by a remarkable fact which seems to justify the theory which I am sketching here. The young prisoners taken in correctional facilities by Mr. Demetz and admitted by him to Mettray are not held there by guards or by walls. They are gathered in a rural establishment open on all sides and located a short distance from the city of Tours. So many facilities for those who would like to escape! Not one dreams of it.

      They are children, it will be said. Yes, but perverted children from an early age; children who have spent-

before the courts; children who, formerly placed in reformatories, already knew how to find a way to escape.

      It is true that they are chosen and that we do not indiscriminately admit to Mettray all the little scoundrels who have had to deal with the law. It is also true that all the means of moralization, religious instruction, regulated work, completely paternal conduct, advice, encouragement, rewards and (as an extreme resource) severe punishments, are used with prudence, charity, intelligence and admirable perseverance.

      Would it therefore be impossible to achieve, with men, something analogous to what is done in Mettray with children? The age difference is not a sufficient reason for despair. Man and child have the same weaknesses; they are lost by the same causes; we can save them by the same means. They are two patients whom the same remedy can cure; it is only a question of proportioning the dose to the strength of each one.

      I will perhaps be found very daring to dare to express my opinion so frankly in a question which the most eminent men have found bristling with difficulty. I do not give it as good, but as mine. If I am wrong, it is in good faith.

      I could expand a lot on this subject and justify my conviction by reasoning and proofs that a little experience and serious meditations have furnished me; but this is not the place; and, to make me

to forgive a digression that may already be a little too long, I hasten to resume my story.

      The colonists of the Floriade cultivate for themselves land which Mr. Willimi has given them in full ownership. From the outset, he provided them with seeds for sowing them and the agricultural implements they needed; but he has placed on his concessions a condition which is observed exactly: it is to devote a few hours of their time every week to work of common interest. Thus, he used them, during the Bonite voyage, to build a landing stage, to establish communication routes between the various points of the island, to create canals to collect and lead to the dwellings the water which descends from the heights of the interior, unfortunately in small quantity. The settlers also owe part of their time to the founder of the establishment to work on his plantations.

      The cultures of Charles Island are not yet very varied. Nevertheless, it already produces maize, cassava, yams, some sugar cane, cotton and vegetables. The fruit trees which have been planted there succeed very well. Mr. Willimi, when

M. Vaillant saw him in Guayaquil, was preparing to go there and bring plants of various species of fruit trees, as well as cattle which he wished to multiply there. Poultry and pigs were, moreover, from this time in fairly large numbers in the new colony.

      But independently of the products of the culture, which were already sufficient to defray the subsistence of the colonists, and which, in a few years, will probably offer on this point to the ships frequenting these areas of the means of supply, the Floriade is endowed with some wealth which, wisely exploited, can only increase the resources and well-being of the settlers. We already know from Dampier and Cowley that sea turtles are found in great abundance on the Galapagos coast; that the land turtles are numerous on these islands and of a remarkable size; that finally we also see seals of several varieties. Mr. Willimi also recognized in the waters of this archipelago excellent fish that can be used for local consumption and whales from the

      The title of founder of the Floriade was undoubtedly enough to give Mr. Willimi great authority over the colonists he gathered there. The equatorial government wanted to add a new sanction by appointing him governor of all the Galapagos. The laws in this

qualities he imposed on his small island state, are neither numerous nor complicated. The Floriade charter consists of a single article. "Everyone is completely free in their actions, as long as they do not result in harming the general well-being or the interests of others;" however, this rule is followed with such scruple that one of the colonists who wanted to hang himself, the one who charitably sought to prevent it, was punished with several days in prison, for having violated the freedom of others and right which he had to dispose of his life as he pleased.

      The climate of the Galapagos is healthy; although this archipelago is situated below the line, the temperature is not very high there, either because of the circumstances which act on the west coast of South America, or because the air is constantly there. refreshed by frequent thunderstorms and by the constant breeze from the SW or SSE The atmosphere is light and the sky most of the time pleasant.

      We do not yet know well enough about the Galapagos Islands to positively assert the most or the few resources that they can promise to mariners. Mr. Willimi himself could hardly speak in detail except of Charles Island on which he based his Floriade.

      Travelers who approached them, such as Dam-

pier and Cowley were unable to visit them in detail. They only say they saw some of the springs and even the rivers. It is certain that they offer in several places suitable moorings to shelter the vessels. Why have they remained without inhabitants? Neither the Malay tribes of the great ocean, nor the populations of the American race seem to have thought of settling there. Was it the poverty of the soil that put them off? The burgeoning prosperity of the Floriade seems to exclude this supposition. Perhaps their long abandonment is due only to their isolation or to quite fortuitous causes. If this is the case, let us wish that colonization will increase and extend over this archipelago which, by its position, would offer not only to whaling ships.

      It is easy to understand that after having learned in Guayaquil what I have just said about La Floriade, M. Vaillant attached great importance to visiting this new colony. He set the course accordingly, and as soon as he left the mouth of the river, he made the wind tighten on the port tack bearing to the NW or NW depending on the variations in the breeze.

      The following day the winds, turning to SSO, seemed to want to favor the plans of the commander who,

eager to take advantage of it, set course to the west. In following this direction, we were to pass to windward of Charles Island, according to the position where the esteem was then placing the corvette.

      The sky was overcast and no observations could be made that day. What was M. Vaillant's astonishment when on the 16th the weather having cleared up, it was possible to determine the latitude and longitude of the point where we were! In forty-four hours of sailing, the Bonite had been carried one degree in the N. and thirty-three minutes in the W. of the estimated route.

      However, as the breeze was blowing from the ESS then; there was still some hope of correcting the error, by tilting a quarter towards the S.; that was what we did. But the next day at noon, the Bonite had been worn again by thirty-three minutes in the N. and twenty-two minutes in the W.; it was 120 miles ENE of Hood Island, one of the Galapagos.

      Decidedly the currents were conspiring against the commander's wishes. There was no longer any way to successfully fight their action and to go south enough with the prevailing breeze, unless he wasted a lot of time tacking, which his instructions did not allow him. We therefore had to resign ourselves and give up seeing the new colony.

      From that moment M. Vaillant no longer thought

that to gain some way in the NW to arrive as soon as possible in the area where the trade winds from the NE are felt. The same day we crossed the line.

      On August 19, the Bonite had passed, in the northern Galapagos, the meridian of Culpeper Island. Already the currents, which had until then led the corvette in the direction of the NW, were much less felt.

      From the 21st they took a completely opposite direction and our travelers found themselves thrown back into the E. of their esteem. The commander, however, wanted to stay at least two hundred and twenty leagues from the American continent, whose coasts he extended, in order to escape as much as possible from the influence of wintering which then reigned in all its force on the coast of the Mexico.

      Until August 25, variable breezes from the S. to the SSO continued to favor the progress of the corvette. They had for our travelers the inconvenience of maintaining the tiring heat of the atmosphere; but the squalls, which from time to time rose from the horizon, attenuated the effect and momentarily spread a little coolness after a few showers of rain.

      One day, when the officer of the watch was observing with attention the approach of one of these squalls, he thought he could distinguish a low ground on the horizon, the silhouette of which stood out perfectly against the background of the sky. One end of this supposed land was facing the front of the vessel, the other was lost to the west. in the fog. The officer hesitated to believe his eyes; he nevertheless gave orders to let the NW arrive and warned the commander. At this moment the watch master also came to warn that a white line could be seen on the horizon extending as far as the forward direction of the ship. Although the maps do not indicate any danger the deposit of which could correspond to the position where the Bonite was then, prudence demanded to take account of this double warning; the commander therefore brought the NE quarter N. and everyone's attention was fixed on the point on the horizon indicated.Everyone saw or thought they saw like the officer and the master, and for some time one could believe in meeting an unknown island. It was, however, only an optical illusion. The deceptive appearance gradually dissipated, and the corvette resumed its first route.

      On August 25, the winds which had been favorable until then began.

softened and turned to WNW Was this the indication of the approaching trade winds? We hoped so at first and we saw only a favorable omen. The day was devoted to various exercises intended to improve the military training of the crew. However, the sky was covered with clouds, the weather took on a stormy aspect. When night came, these disturbing signs took on a more sinister character, soon lightning appeared on the eastern side; we could already hear the thunder rumbling in the distance. From moment to moment the noise increased as it approached; the lightning became more frequent and stood out more and more dazzling against the black background of the horizon, at four o'clock in the morning the air was on fire and the lightning burst with frightful violence. It was accompanied by a torrential rain which did not cease falling until nine in the morning. Calm came at this moment; but the sky did not lose its stormy appearance.

      The Bonite was becalmed; we thought of taking advantage of this circumstance to make a first experiment in order to determine the temperature of the lower layers of the sea water. We also kept a record of the amount of rain that fell during the storm. The adometer showed sixteen millimeters of water; it was nothing compared to what the following days promised.

      From there, in fact, began a series of stormy days, during which the Bonite experienced a real deluge. The rain fell with such abundance, in the frequent downpours which fell on it, that one could observe the fall of ninety-two millimeters of water in a single day; it is about the sixth part of what is commonly found in Paris during the whole year. Other days furnished from seventy to seventy-five millimeters; not to mention the smaller quantities, but still very considerable, which were collected every other day.

      Such weather, together with the stifling heat of the atmosphere, must have exercised an unfortunate influence on the health of the crew. This was indeed what happened. The hospital was filled with sick people, the number of whom was increasing day by day, despite all the hygienic precautions that the commandant scrupulously observed.

      Everyone on board was more or less inconvenienced by this hot humidity in the midst of which we were condemned to live. A new torment for the inhabitants of the Bonite, who had not yet experienced anything similar since their departure from France!

      Everything was molding in the vessel; provisions were spoiled; the metals themselves, wherever a thick coating of fatty substance did not preserve their surface from contact with air, oxidized deeply in a few hours.

      During this time, the winds continued to be unfavorable and constantly changed direction. Sometimes they tilted to the SW and M. Vaillant then tried to take advantage of these variations in the breeze, to rise in the N, without losing too much way to the W.; in order to reach the areas where he hoped to find the NE trade wind. When calm came, we resumed the experiments on sea water, with the thermometer and the apparatus of M. Biot¹. These experiences, and the daily exercises on board, were a bit of a diversion from the boredom of the crossing.

      One day a shark six and a half feet long came into the waters of the corvette; its capture provides the crew with a moment of distraction.

      During the night of August 29 to 30, following a violent storm, the winds which hindered the progress of the Bonite

fell unexpectedly and after a calm day a weak NE breeze was felt for the first time on August 31st. The Bonite was at this time one hundred and eighty leagues SW of Acapulco at 11° 16 N latitude and 109° 16 W longitude.

      This favorable wind continued to blow for four days, with uneven strength and sometimes varying to the E. and SE The corvette took the opportunity to move away from the American coast and make its way in the W.; but his trials were not to end soon. The weather continued to be rainy and loaded with squalls which were constantly forming in the SW and struggling against the influence of the trade winds. On September 4, the contrary breezes took over again and after a few moments of calm they blew violently until September 10.

      It was only that day that they fell altogether, so as not to return; a dead calm succeeding them lasted for forty-eight hours.

      The day of the 11th was usefully employed for science; it would have been difficult to find more favorable circumstances for underwater observations.

      We wanted to use them to check the temperature of the sea at the greatest possible depth. It was first necessary to have a probe line of a long

strength and strength commensurate with the proposed goal; all that was on board suitable ropes to serve for that, such as cap shrouds of cacatois, moorings of bonettes, etc., were put end to end and added to the ordinary lines. By this means, the thermometer could be lowered to a depth of thirteen hundred fathoms (six thousand five hundred feet). It took no less than twenty-one minutes to pull out this entire length of line. The instrument remained at the bottom for a quarter of an hour, after which the whole crew were employed in removing it from the water. This operation required an hour and forty minutes.

      The open air thermometer was currently reading 29° 3. The sea surface temperature was 27° 7. The thermometer readings gave 5° 8 for the deep layers of water he had just sounded; it was, as we see, a difference of about 24° compared to the atmospheric temperature.

      M. Biot's apparatus was plunged the same day to three hundred and eighty fathoms (nineteen hundred feet), and furnishes very curious indications as to the volume of air which the water of the sea contains at this depth.¹.

      While on board the Bonite we were using the time lost in this way for navigation, the sky was finally clearing the clouds which had veiled it almost constantly for nearly a month.

      Finally on the 12th, the breeze picked up from the NE and made it possible to proceed. Despite all the efforts made in the previous days to advance westward, we were still only 160 leagues SW of Cape San Lucar, the southernmost point of California and about 36 leagues away. SW half-S. of Santa-Rosa Island belonging to the Revilla-Gigedo Islands group. During this day and that of the 13th, it was still necessary to endure squalls, rain and frequent variations in the wind. But on the 14th, the breeze from the NE settled down definitively and gained strength. We had definitely reached the trade winds at 16° 56 N latitude and 121° 48 W longitude.

      Since that moment nothing has stopped the momentum of the corvette, which now leaned in a straight line towards the island of Hawaii, the easternmost of the Sandwiches.

      On September 21, the appearance of a land which stood out very distinctly towards the north, again deceived the eyes of travelers for a moment. We were already maneuvering to go and recognize it, when the clouds which produced this deceptive image dissipated.

      We observed the following day, at the beginning of the night, a very remarkable lunar rainbow.

      However, we were advancing quickly towards the goal of this long crossing. On September 28, at noon, Leohumuhai Point, which forms the end of Hawaii, was only twenty-five leagues away. This point is very low and it can be dangerous to land on this point at night. M. Vaillant did not make this remark until the next day after having passed him; he must have passed it very near before daybreak.

      During the day of the 29th, the corvette continued to extend the SE coast of the island, at a distance of six miles. On the 30th it was calm in the SW of Hawaii and our travelers were able to enjoy at their ease the imposing spectacle of the high mountains which rise in the interior of this island, the main ones being Mowna-Roa and Mowna- Kaah. A light breeze from the SSE allowed, the following night, to approach land; so that on the 1st of October we were only twelve or fifteen miles from the bay of Kearakekoua. The villages bordering the shores of the island in this part could be clearly distinguished from the bridge.

      Soon the Bonite found itself surrounded by light outrigger canoes, which the natives of Hawaii maneuvered with great dexterity. The finesse of these boats and the elegance of their shapes were the admiration of our sailors. M. Vaillant allowed the men who led them to board his vessel;

which they did with joy. Shortly after, a new canoe appeared, with an Englishman on board who presented the captain with a note signed by John Adams, attesting to his status as pilot of the island. The name of John Adams is that which the English gave to Kouakeni, one of the great chefs of the Sandwiches, governor of the island of Hawaii.

      The pilot arrived very timely. M. Vaillant, who might have had difficulty in recognizing the bay of Kearakekoua from the position assigned to him on the maps, accepted his services eagerly and entrusted him with the conduct of the corvette. At three o'clock in the afternoon, the Bonite, arriving at anchor, dropped anchor very close to land in fifteen fathoms.

Achille E´tienne Gigault de La Salle.
      Voyage autour du monde exécuté pendant les années 1836 et 1837 sur la corvette La Bonite / commandée par M. Vaillant,...; publié par ordre du Roi sous les auspices du Département de la Marine. Relation du Voyage..
Paris: Arthus Bertrand, [1847?]
Tome deuxieme.
pp. 131-166.

      This publication is available at the Hathi Trust.

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