A Voyage Round the World

On our coming to an anchor again, after our second driving off to sea, we laboured indefatigably at getting in our water; and having, by the 20th of October, compleated it to fifty tun, which we supposed would be sufficient during our passage to Macao, we on the next day sent one of each mess on shore to gather as large a quantity of oranges, lemons, coconuts, and other fruits of the island as they possibly could, for the use of themselves and their messmates when at sea. And these purveyors returning on the evening of the same day, we then set fire to the bark and proa, hoisted in our boats and got under sail, steering away towards the south end of the island of Formosa, and taking our leaves, for the third and last time, of the island of Tinian: an island which, whether we consider the excellence of its productions, the beauty of its appearance, the elegance of its woods and lawns, the healthiness of its air, or the adventures it gave rise to, may in all these views be justly stiled romantic.

And now, postponing for a short time our run to Formosa, and thence to Canton, I shall interrupt the narration with a description of that range of islands usually called the Ladrones, or Marian Islands, of which this of Tinian is one.

These islands were discovered by Magellan in the year 1521; and from the account given of the two he first fell in with, it should seem that they were those of Saypan and Tinian, for they are described as very beautiful islands, and as lying between 15 and 16 degrees of north latitude. These characteristics are particularly applicable to the two above-mentioned places; for the pleasing appearance of Tinian hath occasioned the Spaniards to give it the additional name of Buenavista; and Saypan, which is in the latitude of 15° 22' north, affords no contemptible prospect when seen at sea, as is sufficiently evident from a view of its north-west side.

There are usually reckoned twelve of these islands; but it will appear that if the small islets and rocks are counted, that their whole number will amount to above twenty. They were formerly most of them well inhabited; and even not sixty years ago, the three principal islands, Guam, Rota, and Tinian together, are asserted to have contained above fifty thousand people: but since that time Tinian had been entirely depopulated; and no more than two or three hundred Indians have been left at Rota to cultivate rice for the island of Guam; so that now Guam alone can properly be said to be inhabited. This island of Guam is the only settlement of the Spaniards; here they keep a governor and garrison, and here the Manila ship generally touches for refreshment in her passage from Acapulco to the Philippines. It is esteemed to be about thirty leagues in circumference, and contains, by the Spanish accounts, near four thousand inhabitants, of which a thousand are supposed to live in the city of San Ignatio de Agana, where the governor generally resides, and where the houses are represented as considerable, being built with stone and timber, and covered with tiles, a very uncommon fabric for these warm climates and savage countries. Besides this city, there are upon the island thirteen or fourteen villages. As Guam is a post of some consequence, on account of the refreshment it yields to the Manila ship, there are two castles on the seashore; one is the castle of St. Angelo, which lies near the road where the Manila ship usually anchors, and is but an insignificant fortress, mounting only five guns, eight-pounders; the other is the castle of St. Lewis, which is N.E. from St. Angelo, and four leagues distant, and is intended to protect a road where a small vessel anchors which arrives here every other year from Manila. This fort mounts the same number of guns as the former: and besides these forts, there is a battery of five pieces of cannon on an eminence near the seashore. The Spanish troops employed at this island consist of three companies of foot, betwixt forty and fifty men each, and this is the principal strength the governor has to depend on; for he cannot rely on any assistance from the Indian inhabitants, being generally upon ill terms with them, and so apprehensive of them that he has debarred them the use both of firearms and lances.

The rest of these islands, though not inhabited, do yet abound with many kinds of refreshment and provision; but there is no good harbour or road amongst them all. Of that of Tinian we have treated largely already; nor is the road of Guam much better, since it is not uncommon for the Manila ship, though she proposes to stay there but twenty-four hours, to be forced to sea, and to leave her boat behind her. This is an inconvenience so sensibly felt by the commerce at Manila, that it is always recommended to the Governor of Guam to use his best endeavours for the discovery of some secure port in the neighbouring ocean. How industrious he may be to comply with his instructions I know not; but this is certain, that notwithstanding the many islands already found out between the coast of Mexico and the Philippines, there is not any one safe port to be met with in that whole track, though in other parts of the world it is not uncommon for very small islands to furnish most excellent harbours.

From what has been said, it appears that the Spaniards on the island of Guam are extremely few compared to the Indian inhabitants; and formerly the disproportion was still greater, as may be easily conceived from the account given in another chapter of the numbers heretofore on Tinian alone. These Indians are a bold, strong, well-limbed people, and, as it should seem from some of their practices, are no ways defective in understanding, for their flying proas in particular, which during ages past have been the only vessels employed by them, are so singular and extraordinary an invention that it would do honour to any nation, however dextrous and acute. Since, if we consider the aptitude of this proa to the navigation of these islands, which lying all of them nearly under the same meridian, and within the limits of the trade-wind, require the vessels made use of in passing from one to the other to be peculiarly fitted for sailing with the wind upon the beam; or if we examine the uncommon simplicity and ingenuity of its fabric and contrivance, or the extraordinary velocity with which it moves, we shall, in each of these articles, find it worthy of our admiration, and deserving a place amongst the mechanical productions of the most civilized nations where arts and sciences have most eminently flourished. As former navigators, though they have mentioned these vessels, have yet treated of them imperfectly, and, as I conceive that besides their curiosity they may furnish both the shipwright and seaman with no contemptible observations, I shall here insert a very exact description of the build, rigging, and working of these vessels, which I am the better enabled to perform, as one of them fell into our hands on our first arrival at Tinian, and Mr. Brett took it to pieces that he might delineate its fabric and dimensions with greater accuracy: so that the following account may be relied on.

The name of flying proa, appropriated to these vessels, is owing to the swiftness with which they sail. Of this the Spaniards assert such stories as must appear altogether incredible to one who has never seen these vessels move; nor are they the only people who recount these extraordinary tales of their celerity, for those who shall have the curiosity to enquire at Portsmouth dock about an experiment tried there some years since with a very imperfect one built at that place, will meet with accounts not less wonderful than any the Spaniards have related. However, from some rude estimations made by us of the velocity with which they crossed the horizon at a distance while we lay at Tinian, I cannot help believing that with a brisk trade-wind they will run near twenty miles an hour; which, though greatly short of what the Spaniards report of them, is yet a prodigious degree of swiftness. But let us give a distinct idea of its figure.

The construction of this proa is a direct contradiction to the practice of all the rest of mankind: for as it is customary to make the head of the vessel different from the stern, but the two sides alike, the proa, on the contrary, has her head and stern exactly alike, but her two sides very different; the side intended to be always the lee side being flat, whilst the windward side is built rounding, in the manner of other vessels: and to prevent her oversetting, which from her small breadth and the strait run of her leeward side, would, without this precaution, infallibly happen, there is a frame laid out from her to windward, to the end of which is fastened a log fashioned into the shape of a small boat, and made hollow. The weight of the frame is intended to balance the proa, and the small boat is by its buoyancy (as it is always in the water) to prevent her oversetting to windward; and this frame is usually called an outrigger. The body of the proa (at least of that we took) is formed of two pieces joined endways and sewed together with bark, for there is no iron used in her construction. She is about two inches thick at the bottom, which at the gunwale is reduced to less than one. The proa generally carries six or seven Indians, two of which are placed in the head and stern, who steer the vessel alternately with a paddle according to the tack she goes on, he in the stern being the steersman; the other Indians are employed either in baling out the water which she accidentally ships, or in setting and trimming the sail. From the description of these vessels it is sufficiently obvious how dexterously they are fitted for ranging this collection of islands called the Ladrones: since as these islands bear nearly N. and S. of each other, and are all within the limits of the trade-wind, the proas, by sailing most excellently on a wind, and with either end foremost, can run from one of these islands to the other and back again only by shifting the sail, without ever putting about; and by the flatness of their lee side, and their small breadth, they are capable of lying much nearer the wind than any other vessel hitherto known, and thereby have an advantage which no vessels that go large can ever pretend to.

The advantage I mean is that of running with a velocity nearly as great, and perhaps sometimes greater, than what the wind blows with. This, however paradoxical it may appear, is evident enough in similar instances on shore, since it is well known that the sails of a windmill often move faster than the wind; and one great superiority of common windmills over all others that ever were, or ever will be, contrived to move with an horizontal motion, is analogous to the case we have mentioned of a vessel upon a wind and before the wind: for the sails of an horizontal windmill, the faster they move the more they detract from the impulse of the wind upon them; whereas the common windmills, by moving perpendicular to the torrent of air, are nearly as forcibly acted on by the wind when they are in motion as when they are at rest.

Thus much may suffice as to the description and nature of these singular embarkations. I must add that vessels bearing some obscure resemblance to these are to be met with in various parts of the East Indies, but none of them, that I can learn, to be compared with those of the Ladrones, either for their construction or celerity; which should induce one to believe that this was originally the invention of some genius of these islands, and was afterwards imperfectly copied by the neighbouring nations: for though the Ladrones have no immediate intercourse with any other people, yet there lie to the S. and S.W. of them a great number of islands, which are imagined to extend to the coast of New Guinea. These islands are so near the Ladrones that canoes from them have sometimes by distress been driven to Guam, and the Spaniards did once dispatch a bark for their discovery, which left two Jesuits amongst them, who were afterwards murthered. Whence it may be presumed that the inhabitants of the Ladrones, with their proas, may by storms or casualties have been driven amongst those islands. Indeed, I should conceive that the same range of islands stretches to the S.E. as well as the S.W., and to a prodigious distance, for Schouten, who traversed the south part of the Pacific Ocean in the year 1615, met with a large double canoe full of people above a thousand leagues from the Ladrones, towards the S.E. If that double canoe was any distant imitation of the flying proa, which is no very improbable conjecture, it must then be supposed that a range of islands, near enough to each other to be capable of an accidental communication, is continued thither from the Ladrones. This seems to be farther evinced from hence, that all those who have crossed from America to the East Indies in a southern latitude have never failed of discovering several very small islands scattered over that immense ocean.

And as there may be hence some reason to conclude that there is a chain of islands spreading themselves southward towards the unknown boundaries of the Pacific Ocean of which the Ladrones are only a part, so it appears that the same chain is extended from the northward of the Ladrones to Japan: whence in this light the Ladrones will be only one small portion of a range of islands reaching from Japan perhaps to the unknown southern continent. After this short account of these places, I shall now return to the prosecution of our voyage.

CHAPTER VI

FROM TINIAN TO MACAO

On the 21st of October, in the evening, we took our leave of the Island of Tinian, steering the proper course for Macao in China. The eastern monsoon was now, we reckoned, fairly settled; and we had a constant gale blowing right astern, so that we generally ran from forty to fifty leagues a day. But we had a large hollow sea pursuing us, which occasioned the ship to labour much; whence our leak was augmented, and we received great damage in our rigging, which by this time was grown very rotten. However, our people were now happily in full health, so that there were no complaints of fatigue, but all went through their attendance on the pumps, and every other duty of the ship, with ease and chearfulness.

Before we left Tinian we swept for our best and small bower, and employed the Indians to dive in search of them; but all to no purpose. Hence, except our prize anchors, which were stowed in the hold, and were too light to be depended on, we had only our sheet-anchor left: and that being obviously much too heavy for a coasting-anchor, we were under great concern how we should manage on the coast of China, where we were entire strangers, and where we should doubtless be frequently under the necessity of coming to an anchor. But we at length removed the difficulty by fixing two of our largest prize anchors into one stock and placing between their shanks two guns, four pounders. This we intended to serve as a best bower: and a third prize anchor being in like manner joined to our stream-anchor, with guns between them, made us a small bower; so that, besides our sheet-anchor, we had again two others at our bows, one of which weighed 3900, and the other 2900 pounds.

The 3d of November, about three in the afternoon, we saw an island, which at first we imagined to be Botel Tobago Xima, but on our nearer approach we found it to be much smaller than that is usually represented; and about an hour after we saw another island, five or six miles farther to the westward. As no chart or journal we had seen took notice of any island to the eastward of Formosa but Botel Tobago Xima, and as we had no observation of our latitude at noon, we were in some perplexity, apprehending that an extraordinary current had driven us into the neighbourhood of the Bashee Islands. We therefore, when night came on, brought to, and continued in that posture till the next morning, which proving dark and cloudy, for some time prolonged our uncertainty; but it clearing up about nine o'clock, we again discerned the two islands abovementioned; and having now the day before us, we pressed forwards to the westward, and by eleven got a sight of the southern part of the island of Formosa. This satisfied us that the second island we saw was Botel Tobago Xima, and the first a small islet or rock, lying five or six miles due east of it, which, not being mentioned in any of our books or charts, had been the occasion of all our doubts.

When we had made the Island of Formosa we steered W. by S. in order to double its extremity, and kept a good look-out for the rocks of Vele Rete, which we did not discover till two in the afternoon. They then bore from us W.N.W. three miles distant, the south end of Formosa at the same time bearing N. by W.½W. about five leagues distant. To give these rocks a good birth we immediately haled up S. by W. and so left them between us and the land. Indeed we had reason to be careful of them; for though they appeared as high out of the water as a ship's hull, yet they are environed with breakers on all sides, and there is a shoal stretching from them at least a mile and a half to the southward, whence they may be truly called dangerous. The course from Botel Tobago Xima to these rocks is S.W. by W. and the distance about twelve or thirteen leagues: and the south end of Formosa, off which they lie, is in the latitude of 21° 50' north, and according to our most approved reckonings in 23° 50' west longitude from Tinian; though some of our accounts made its longitude above a degree more.

While we were passing by these rocks of Vele Rete there was an outcry of fire on the forecastle; this occasioned a general alarm, and the whole crew instantly flocked together in the utmost confusion; so that the officers found it difficult for some time to appease the uproar: but having at last reduced the people to order, it was perceived that the fire proceeded from the furnace, where the bricks being overheated, had begun to communicate the fire to the adjacent woodwork: hence by pulling down the brickwork it was extinguished with great facility. In the evening we were surprized with a view of what we at first sight conceived to have been breakers, but on a stricter examination we discerned them to be only a great number of fires on the Island of Formosa. These we imagined were intended by the inhabitants of that island as signals to invite us to touch there, but that suited not our views, we being impatient to reach the port of Macao as soon as possible. From Formosa we steered W.N.W. and sometimes still more northerly, proposing to fall in with the coast of China to the eastward of Pedro Blanco, as the rock so called is usually esteemed an excellent direction for ships bound to Macao. We continued this course till the following night, and then frequently brought to, to try if we were in soundings: but it was the 5th of November, at nine in the morning, before we struck ground, and then we had forty-two fathom, and a bottom of grey sand mixed with shells. When we had run about twenty miles farther W.N.W. we had thirty-five fathom and the same bottom; then our soundings gradually decreased from thirty-five to twenty-five fathom; but soon after, to our great surprize, they jumped back again to thirty fathom. This was an alteration we could not very well account for, since all the charts laid down regular soundings everywhere to the northward of Pedro Blanco. We for this reason kept a careful look out, and altered our course to N.N.W., and having run thirty-five miles in that direction, our soundings again gradually diminished to twenty-two fathom, and we at last, about midnight, got sight of the main land of China, bearing N. by W. four leagues distant. We then brought the ship to, with her head to the sea, proposing to wait for the morning; and before sunrise we were surprized to find ourselves in the midst of an incredible number of fishing boats, which seemed to cover the surface of the sea as far as the eye could reach. I may well style their number incredible, since I cannot believe, upon the lowest estimate, that there were so few as six thousand, most of them manned with five hands, and none of those we saw with less than three. Nor was this swarm of fishing vessels peculiar to that spot: for, as we ran on to the westward, we found them as abundant on every part of the coast. We at first doubted not but we should procure a pilot from them to carry us to Macao; but though many of them came close to the ship, and we endeavoured to tempt them by showing them a number of dollars, a most alluring bait for Chinese of all ranks and professions, yet we could not entice them on board us, nor procure any directions from them; though, I presume, the only difficulty was their not comprehending what we wanted them to do, as we could have no communication with them but by signs. Indeed we often pronounced the word Macao; but this we had reason to suppose they understood in a different sense, since in return they sometimes held up fish to us; and we afterwards learnt that the Chinese name for fish is of a somewhat similar sound. But what surprized us most was the inattention and want of curiosity which we observed in this herd of fishermen. A ship like ours had doubtless never been in these seas before; and perhaps there might not be one amongst all the Chinese, employed in that fishery, who had ever seen any European vessel; so that we might reasonably have expected to have been considered by them as a very uncommon and extraordinary object. But though many of their boats came close to the ship, yet they did not appear to be at all interested about us, nor did they deviate in the least from their course to regard us. Which insensibility, especially of maritime persons, in a matter relating to their own profession, is scarcely to be credited, did not the general behaviour of the Chinese in other instances furnish us with continual proofs of a similar turn of mind. It may perhaps be doubted whether this cast of temper be the effect of nature or education; but, in either case, it is an incontestable symptom of a mean and contemptible disposition, and is alone a sufficient confutation of the extravagant praises which many prejudiced writers have bestowed on the ingenuity and capacity of this nation. But to return.

Not being able to procure any information from the Chinese fishermen about our proper course to Macao, it was necessary for us to rely entirely on our own judgment: and concluding from our latitude, which was 22° 42' north, and from our soundings, which were only seventeen or eighteen fathoms, that we were yet to the eastward of Pedro Blanco, we still stood on to the westward. And for the assistance of future navigators, who may hereafter doubt what part of the coast they are upon, I must observe that besides the latitude of Pedro Blanco, which is 22° 18', and the depth of water, which to the westward of that rock is almost everywhere twenty fathoms, there is another circumstance which will be greatly assistant in judging of the position of the ship: this is the kind of ground; for, till we came within thirty miles of Pedro Blanco, we had constantly a sandy bottom; but there the bottom changed to soft and muddy, and continued so quite to the Island of Macao; only while we were in sight of Pedro Blanco, and very near it, we had for a short space a bottom of greenish mud, intermixed with sand.

It was on the 5th of November, at midnight, when we first made the coast of China. The next day, about two o'clock, as we were standing to the westward, within two leagues of the coast, still surrounded by fishing vessels in as great numbers as at first, we perceived that a boat ahead of us waved a red flag and blew a horn. This we considered as a signal made to us either to warn us of some shoal, or to inform us that they would supply us with a pilot. We therefore immediately sent our cutter to the boat to know their intentions, when we were soon convinced of our mistake, and found that this boat was the commodore of the whole fishery, and that the signal she had made was to order them all to leave off fishing and to return in shore, which we saw them instantly obey. Being thus disappointed we kept on our course, and shortly after passed by two very small rocks, which lay four or five miles distant from the shore. We were now in hourly expectation of descrying Pedro Blanco, but night came on before we got sight of it, and we therefore brought to till the morning, when we had the satisfaction to discover it. Pedro Blanco is a rock of a small circumference, but of a moderate height, resembling a sugar-loaf, both in shape and colour, and is about seven or eight miles distant from the shore. We passed within a mile and an half of it, and left it between us and the land, still keeping on to the westward; and the next day, being the 7th, we were abreast of a chain of islands which stretched from east to west. These, as we afterwards found, were called the islands of Lema; they are rocky and barren, and are, in all, small and great, fifteen or sixteen; but there are, besides, many more between them and the main land of China. We left these islands on the starboard side, passing within four miles of them, where we had twenty-four fathom water. Being still surrounded by fishing boats, we once more sent the cutter on board some of them to endeavour to procure a pilot, but we could not prevail; however, one of the Chinese directed us by signs to sail round the westermost of the islands or rocks of Lema, and then to hale up. We followed this direction, and in the evening came to an anchor in eighteen fathom; at which time the rock bore S.S.E. five miles distant, and the grand Ladrone W. by S. about two leagues distant. The rock is a most excellent direction for ships coming from the eastward: its latitude is 21° 52' north, and it bears from Pedro Blanco S. 64° W. distant twenty-one leagues. You are to leave it on the starboard side, and you may come within half a mile of it in eighteen fathom water: and then you must steer N. by W.½W. for the channel, between the island of Cabouce and Bamboo, which are to the northward of the grand Ladrone.