Pioneers and Founders

The great savage island of New Guinea seemed to Captain Gardiner a field calling for labour, and, on his arrival in Australia, he found that the Roman Catholic Bishop of Sydney was trying to organize a mission.  He left Australia, hoping to obtain permission from the Dutch authorities at Timor to proceed to Papua, to take steps for being beforehand with the Australian expedition.  He reached the place with great difficulty, and he himself, and all his family, began to suffer severely from fever.  The Dutch governor told him that he might as well try to teach the monkeys as the Papuans, and the Dutch clergy gave him very little encouragement.  He remained in these strange and beautiful islands for several months, trying one Dutch governor after another, and always finding them civil but impenetrable; for, in fact, they could not believe that an officer in her Britannic Majesty’s Navy could be purely actuated by missionary zeal, but thought that it concealed some political object.  They were not more gracious even to clergy of other nations.  He found an American missionary at Macassar, whom they had detained, and some Germans, who were vainly entreating to be allowed to proceed to Borneo; and his efforts met only with the most baffling, passive, but systematic denial.  It was reserved for the enterprise and prudence of Sir James Brooke to open a way in this quarter.

The health of the Gardiner family had been much injured by their residence in those lovely but unwholesome countries, but the voyage to Capetown restored it; and immediately after they sailed again for South America, where the Captain had heard of an Indian tribe in the passes of the Cordilleras, who seemed more possible of access.  Here again he was baffled in his dealings with the local government by the suspicions of the priests, and never could obtain the means of penetrating beyond the city of San Carlos, so that he decided at last to repair to the Falkland Islands, and make an endeavour thence to reach the people of Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego, where no hostile Church should put stumbling-blocks in his way.

A doleful region he found those Falkland Isles, covered only with their peculiar grass and short heather, and without a tree.  A little wooden cottage, brought from Valparaiso, sheltered the much-enduring Mrs. Gardiner and the two children, while the Captain looked out for a vessel to take him to Patagonia; but he found that no one ever went there, and the whalers who made these dismal islands their station did not wish to go out of their course.  Captain Gardiner offered 200l., the probable value of a whole whale, as the price of his passage; but the skippers told him that, though they would willingly take him anywhere for nothing, they could not go out of their course.

To seek the most hopeless and uncultivated was always this good man’s object.  The Falkland Isles were dreary enough, but they were a paradise compared to the desolate fag-end of the American world,—a cluster of barren rocks, intersected by arms of the sea, which divide them into numerous islets, the larger ones bearing stunted forests of beech and birch, on the skirts of hills covered with perpetual snow, and sending down blue glaciers to the water’s edge.  The narrower channels are very shallow; the wider, rough and storm-tossed; and scarcely anything edible grows on the islands.  The Fuegians are as degraded a people as any on the face of the earth, with just intelligence enough to maintain themselves by hunting and fishing, by the help of dogs, which, it is said, they prize so much that they would rather, in time of scarcity, eat up an old mother than a dog; and they are churlishly inhospitable to strangers, although with an unusual facility for imitating their language, nor had any one ever attempted their conversion.

However, the master of the Montgomery, who had brought the Gardiners out to the Falkland Islands, hearing of the offer, undertook such a profitable expedition; but his schooner was utterly frail, had to be caulked and to borrow a sail, and, as he was losing no whales, Captain Gardiner refused to give more than 100l., a sufficiently exorbitant sum, for the passage of himself and a servant named Johnstone.  While the crazy vessel was refitting a Sunday intervened, during which he offered to hold a service, but only two men attended it, the rest were all absent or intoxicated.

The poor little ship put to sea, and struggled into the Straits of Magelhaen, drifting near the Fuegian coast.  Landing, the Captain lighted a fire to attract the attention of the natives, and some came down and shouted.  The English did not, however, think it safe to go further from the boat, and presently the Fuegians likewise kindled their fire, whereupon Gardiner heaped more fuel on his own, and continued his signals, when two men advanced, descending to the beach.  They were clad in cloaks of the skin of the guanaco, a small kind of llama, and were about five feet ten in height, with broad shoulders and chests, but lean, disproportionate legs.  Each carried a bow and quiver of arrows; and they spoke loudly, making evident signs that the strangers were unwelcome.  Presents were offered them; brass buttons, a clasp knife, and worsted comforter; and they sat down, but apparently with a sullen resolution not to relax their faces, nor utter another word.  A small looking-glass was handed to one of them, and he was grimly putting it under his cloak when Captain Gardiner held it up to him, and he laughed at the reflection of his own face; and his friend then looked at the knife, as if expecting it to produce the same effect, but, though they seemed to appreciate it, they made no friendly sign, and appeared unmoved when spoken to either in Spanish or in the few Patagonian phrases that Captain Gardiner had managed to pick up; nor did anything seem to afford them any satisfaction except demonstrations of departure.

Nothing seemed practicable with these uncouth, distrustful beings, and the Captain therefore went on in search of a tribe of Patagonians, among which, he was told, was a Creole Spaniard named San Leon, who had acquired great influence by his reckless courage and daring, and through whom it might be possible to have some communication with them.  The camp of these people on the main continent, near Cape Gregory, was discovered newly deserted, with hollow places in the ground where fires had been made, and many marks of footsteps.  This extreme point of the continent was by no means so dreary as the Land of Fire; it bore thorny bushes ten feet high, wild celery and clover, and cranberry-bushes covered with red berries.  Indeed, the Patagonians—so called because their big splay boots made Magelhaen conclude they walked on patas (paws), like bears—are a superior race to the Fuegians, larger in stature than most Europeans, great riders, and clever in catching guanacos by means of bolas, i.e. two round stones attached to a string.  If the Fuegians are Antarctic Esquimaux, the Patagonians are Antarctic Tartars, leading a wandering life under tents made of skins of horses and guanacos, and hating all settled habits, but not so utterly inhospitable and impracticable as their neighbours beyond the Strait.  In truth, the division is not clearly marked, for there are Fuegians on the continent and Patagonians in the islands.  Ascending a height, the Captain took a survey of the country, and, seeing two wreaths of smoke near Oazy Harbour, sailed in, cast anchor, and in the morning was visited by the natives of their own accord, after which he returned with them to their camp, consisting of horse-hide tents, semicircular in form, and entirely open.  They were full of men, women, and children, and among them San Leon, to whom it was possible to talk in Spanish, and indeed several natives, from intercourse with ships, knew a few words of English.  San Leon had been with the tribe for twelve years, and said that American missionaries had visited them, but that they had gone away because the Fuegians who crossed the Strait were such thieves that they ate up their provisions and cut up their books.  However, no objection was made to Gardiner’s remaining, so he set up a tarred canvas tent, closed at each end with bullock-hides, and slept on shore, a good deal disturbed by the dogs, who gnawed at the bullock-hides, till a coat of tar laid over them prevented them.  Not so, however, with another visitor, a huge Patagonian, who walked in with the words, “I go sleep,” and leisurely coiled himself up for the purpose, unheeding Johnstone’s discourse; but the Captain, pointing with his finger, and emphatically saying “Go,” produced the desired effect.  Then followed the erection of seventeen skin tents, all in a row, set up by the women.  These Patagonians behaved well and quietly; but, in the meantime, the master of the schooner had asked San Leon to obtain some guanaco meat for the crew, and the natives who went in search of the animals insisted on being paid, though they had caught nothing.  These however were Fuegians, and the Patagonians were very angry with them.  Captain Gardiner even ventured to remain alone with Johnstone among this people, while San Leon went on to Port Famine in the Montgomery, which was in search of wood; but, in the meantime, he could do nothing but hold a little monosyllabic communication; and once, when he and his servant both went out at the same time, they lost their dinner, which, left to simmer over the fire, proved irresistible to the Patagonians.  They, however, differed from the Fuegians in not ordinarily being thieves.

A chief named Wissale arrived with a body of his tribe with whom he had been purchasing horses on the Rio Negro, and bringing with him an American negro named Isaac, who had three years since run away from a whaler, and who spoke enough English to be a useful interpreter.

Wissale, with Isaac’s help, was made to perceive Captain Gardiner’s intentions sufficiently to promise to make him welcome if he should return, and to declare that he should be glad to learn good things.  There seemed so favourable an opening that the Captain made up his mind to take up his abode there with his family to prepare the way for a missionary in Holy Orders, for whom he never deemed himself more than a pioneer.

After distributing presents to the friendly Patagonians, he embarked, and making a weary passage, reached the Falkland Islands, where he found the two ships Erebus and Terror anchored, in the course of their voyage of Antarctic discovery.  The presence of the two captains and their officers was a great pleasure and enlivenment to the Gardiners, who received from them many comforts very needful in that inclement climate to people lately come from some of the hottest regions of the southern hemisphere.

Whalers continually put in, but not one, even though Captain Gardiner’s offers rose to 300l., would undertake to go out of his course to Patagonia to convey him and his family, and he would not trust his wife and children on board that wretched craft the Montgomery, so he waited on at the Falkland Islands, doing what good he could there, and expecting the answer of a letter he had despatched to the Church Missionary Society, begging for the appointment of a clergyman to this field of labour.  After six months’ delay, the letter came, and proved to be unfavourable; there was a falling off in the funds of the Society, and a new and doubtful mission was thought undesirable.  The Captain believed that nothing but personal representations could prevail, and therefore decided on going home to plead the cause of his Patagonians.  He sailed with his family for Rio in a small vessel, and the voyage could not have been one of the least of the dangers, for the skipper was a Guacho who had been a shoemaker, and knew nothing about seafaring, and there was not a spare rope in the ship.  From Rio Gardiner took a passage home, and safely arrived, after six years of brave pioneering in three different quarters of the globe.

He found, however, that the Church Missionary Society could not undertake the Patagonian Mission, and neither could the London nor Wesleyan Societies.  He declared that every one grew cold when they heard of South America, and viewed it as the natural inheritance of Giants Pope and Pagan; and for this very reason he was the more bent upon doing his utmost.  Failing in his attack on Pagan he made an assault on Pope, obtaining a grant of Bibles, Testaments, and tracts from the Bible Society, and in 1843 sailed for Rio to distribute them; this time, however, going alone, as his children were of an age to require an English education and an English home.

He undertook this mission, in fact, chiefly for the purpose of continuing his attempts to reach the Indian tribes.  His journey was, as usual, wild and adventurous, and its principal result was an acquaintance with the English chaplains and congregations at several of the chief South American ports, from whom he received a promise of 100l., per annum for the support of a mission to Patagonia.

With this beginning he returned home, and while residing at Brighton, his earnestness so stirred people’s minds that a Society was formed with an income of 500l., and Mr. Robert Hunt, giving up the mastership of an endowed school, offered himself to the Church Missionary Society.  A clergyman could not immediately be found, and it was determined that these two should go first and prepare the way.  In 1844, then, they landed in Oazy Harbour in Magelhaen’s Straits, and set up three tents, one for stores, one for cooking, and one for sleeping.  One Fuegian hut was near, where the people were inoffensive, and presently there arrived a Chilian deserter named Mariano, who said that he had run away from the fort at Port Famine with another man named Cruz, who had remained among the Patagonians.  He reported that Wissale had lost much of his authority, and that San Leon was now chief of the tribe; also that there was a Padre Domingo at Port Famine, who was teaching the Patagonians to become “Catolicos.”

To learn the truth as soon as possible, the Captain and Mr. Hunt locked up two of their huts, leaving the other for Mariano, and set off in search of the Patagonians; and a severe journey it was, as they had to carry the heavy clothing required to keep up warmth at night, besides their food, gun, powder, and shot.  The fatigue was too much for Hunt, who was at one time obliged to lie down exhausted while the Captain went in search of water; and after four days they were obliged to return to their huts, where shortly after Wissale arrived, but with a very scanty following, only ten or twelve horses, and himself and family very hungry; but though ready to eat whatever Captain Gardiner would give him, his whole manner was changed by his disasters.  He was surly and quarrelsome, and evidently under the influence of the deserter Cruz, who was resolved to set him against the new-comers, and so worked upon him that he once threatened the Captain with his dirk.  Moreover, a Chilian vessel arrived, bringing Padre Mariano himself, a Spanish South American, with a real zeal for conversion, though he was very courteous to the Englishmen.  An English vessel arrived about the same time, and Gardiner, thinking the cause for the present hopeless, accepted a homeward passage, writing in his journal, “We can never do wrong in casting the Gospel net on any side or in any place.  During many a dark and wearisome night we may appear to have toiled in vain, but it will not be always so.  If we will but wait the appointed time, the promise, though long delayed, will assuredly come to pass.”

But if he was not daunted his supporters were, and nothing but his intense earnestness, and assurance that he should never abandon South America, prevented the whole cause from being dropped.  His next attempt was to reach the Indians beyond Bolivia, in the company of Federigo Gonzales, a Spaniard, who had become a Protestant, and was to have gone on the Patagonian Mission.  Here fever became their enemy, but after much suffering and opposition Gonzales was settled at Potosi, studying the Quichuan language, and hoping to work upon the Indians, while the unwearied Gardiner again returned to England to strain every nerve for the Fuegian Mission, which lay nearest of all to his heart.

He travelled all over England and Scotland, lecturing and making collections, speaking with the same energy whether he had few or many auditors.  At one town, when asked what sort of a meeting he had had, he answered, “Not very good, but better than sometimes.”

“How many were present?”

“Not one; but no meeting is better than a bad one.”

He could not obtain means enough for a well-appointed expedition such as he wished for; but he urged that a small experimental one might be sent out, consisting of himself, four sailors, one carpenter, with three boats, two huts, and provisions for half a year.  He hoped to establish a station on Staten Island, whence the Fuegians could be visited, and the stores kept out of their reach.

Having found the men, he embarked on board the barque Clymene, which was bound for Payta, in Peru, and was landed on Picton Island; but before the vessel had departed the Fuegians had beset the little party, and shown themselves so obstinately and mischievously thievish, that it was plainly impossible for so small a party to hold their ground among them.  Before there could be a possibility of convincing them of even the temporal benefit of the white man’s residence among them, they would have stripped and carried off everything from persons who would refrain from hurting them.  So, once more, the Captain drew up the net which had taken nothing, decided that the only mission which would suit the Fuegians must be afloat, and went on to Payta in the Clymene.

While in Peru, he met with a Spanish lady, who asked if he knew a friend of hers who came from Genoa, and then proceeded to inquire which was the largest city, Genoa or Italy, and if Europe was not a little on this side of Spain, while a priest asked if London was a part of France.  After spending a little time in distributing Bibles in Peru, he made his way home by the way of Panama, and on his arrival made an attempt to interest the Moravians in the cause so near his heart, thinking that what they had done in Greenland proved their power of dealing with that savage apathy that springs from inclemency of climate, but the mission was by them pronounced impracticable.

In the meantime, his former ground, Port Natal, was in a more hopeful state.  Tremendous battles had been fought between Dingarn and the boers; but, in 1839, Panda, Dingarn’s brother, finding his life threatened, went over to the enemy, carrying 4,000 men with him, and thus turned the scale.  Dingarn was routed, fled, and was murdered by the tribe with whom he had taken refuge, and Panda became Zulu king, while the boers occupied Natal, and founded the city of Pieter Maritzburg as the capital of a Republic; but the disputes between them and the Zulus led to the interference of the Governor of the Cape, and finally Natal was made a British colony, with the Tugela for a boundary; and, as Panda’s government was exceedingly violent and bloody, his subjects were continually flocking across the river to put themselves under British protection, and were received on condition of paying a small yearly rate for every hut in each kraal, and conforming themselves to English law, so far as regarded the suppression of violence and theft.  One of the survivors of Gardiner’s old pupils, meeting a gentleman who was going to England, sent him the following message: “Tell Cappan Garna he promise to come again if his hair was as white as his shirt, and we are waiting for him;” and he added a little calabash snuff-box as a token.  But the Captain had made his promise to return contingent upon the Kaffirs of his settlement taking no part in the war, and they, poor things, had, with the single exception of his own personal attendant, Umpondombeni, broken this condition; so that he did not deem himself bound by it.  Moreover, means were being taken for providing a mission for Natal, and Christian teachers were already there, while he regarded his own personal exertions as the only hope for the desolate natives of Cape Horn.  So he only sent a letter and a present to the man, urging him to attach himself to a mission-station, and then turned again to his unwearied labour in the Patagonian and Fuegian cause.  His little Society found it impossible to raise means for the purchase of a brigantine, and he therefore limited his plans to the equipment of two launches and two smaller boats.  He would store in these provisions for six months, and take a crew of Cornish fishermen, used to the stormy Irish Sea.  As to the funds, a lady at Cheltenham gave 700l., he himself 300l.  The boats were purchased, three Cornishmen, named Pearce, Badcock, and Bryant, all of good character, volunteered from the same village; Joseph Erwin, the carpenter, who had been with him before, begged to go with him again, because, he said, “being with Captain Gardiner was like a heaven upon earth; he was such a man of prayer.”  One catechist was Richard Williams, a surgeon; the other John Maidment, who was pointed out by the secretary of the Young Men’s Association in London; and these seven persons, with their two launches, the Pioneer and the Speedwell, were embarked on board the Ocean Queen, and sailed from Liverpool on the 7th of September, 1850.  They carried with them six months’ provisions, and the committee were to send the same quantity out in due time, but they failed to find a ship that would undertake to go out of its course to Picton Island, and therefore could only send the stores to the Falklands, to be thence despatched by a ship that was reported to go monthly to Tierra del Fuego for wood.

Meantime, the seven, with their boats and their provisions, were landed on Picton Island, and the Ocean Queen pursued her way.  Time passed on, and no more was heard of them.  The Governor of the Falklands had twice made arrangements for ships to touch at Picton Island, but the first master was wrecked, the second disobeyed him; and in great anxiety, on the discovery of this second failure, he sent, in October 1851, a vessel on purpose to search for them.  At the same time, the Dido, Captain William Morshead, had been commanded by the Admiralty to touch at the isles of Cape Horn and carry relief to the missionaries.

On the 21st of October, in a lonely little bay called Spaniards’ Harbour, in Picton Island, the Falkland Island vessel found the Speedwell on the beach, and near it an open grave.  In the boat lay one body, near the grave another.  They returned with these tidings, and in the meantime the Dido having come out, her boats explored the coast, and a mile and a half beyond the first found the other boat, beside which lay a skeleton, the dress of which showed it to be the remains of Allen Gardiner.  Near at hand was a cavern, outside which were these words painted, beneath a hand:—

“My soul, wait thou still upon God, for my hope is in Him.“He truly is my strength and my salvation; He is my defence, so that I shall not fall.“In God is my strength and my glory; the rock of my might, and in God is my trust.”

Within the cave lay another body, that of Maidment.  Reverent hands collected the remains and dug a grave; the funeral service was read by one of the officers, the ship’s colours were hung half-mast high, and three volleys of musketry fired over the grave—“the only tribute of respect,” says Captain Morshead, “I could pay to this lofty-minded man and his devoted companions who have perished in the cause of the Gospel.”  There was no doubt of the cause and manner of their death, for Captain Gardiner’s diary was found written up to probably the last day of his life.

It appeared that in their first voyage, on the 20th of December, they had fallen in with a heavy sea, and a great drift of seaweed, in which the anchor of the Speedwell and the two lesser boats had been hopelessly entangled and lost.  It was found impossible for such small numbers to manage the launches in the stormy channels while loaded, and it was therefore resolved to lighten them by burying the stores at Banner Cove, and, while this was being done, it was discovered that all the ammunition, except one flask and a half of powder, had been left behind in the Ocean Queen; so that there was no means of obtaining either guanacos or birds.  Attempts were made at establishing friendly barter with the natives, but no sooner did these perceive the smallness of the number of the strangers, than they beset them with obstinate hostility.  Meantime, Gardiner’s object was to reach a certain Button Island, where was a man called Jemmy Button, who had had much intercourse with English sailors, and who, he hoped, might pave the way for a better understanding with the natives.