Part 13

These savages are short, ugly, meagre, and have an insupportable stench about them. They are almost naked; having no other dress than wretched seal-skins, too little for them to wrap themselves in; these skins serve them equally as roofs to their huts, and as sails to their periaguas. They have likewise some guanaco-skins; but they are in small number. Their women are hideous, and seemed little regarded by the men. They are obliged to steer their periaguas, and to keep them in repair; often swimming to them, notwithstanding the cold, through the sea-weeds, which serve as a harbour to these periaguas, at a pretty distance from the shore, and scooping out the water that may have got into them. On the shore they gather wood and shells, without the men partaking in any thing of their labour; nor are those women, who have children at their breast, exempted from their task. They carry their children on their backs, folded in the skins, which serve them as dresses.

Their periaguas are made of bark, ill connected with rushes, and caulked with moss in the seams. In the middle of each is a little hearth of sand, where they always keep up some fire. Their arms are bows and arrows, made of the wood of a holly-leaved berberry-bush, which is common in the straits; the bow-string is made of a gut, and the arrows are armed with points of stone, cut with sufficient skill; but these weapons are made use of, rather against game, than against enemies; for they are as weak as the arms, which are destined to manage them. We likewise saw amongst them, some bones of fish, about a foot long, sharp at the end, and toothed along one side. This is, perhaps, a dagger; or rather, as I think, an instrument for fishing: they fix it to a long pole, and use it as a harpoon. These Indians, men, women, and children, live promiscuously in their huts, in the middle of which they light a fire. They live chiefly on shell-fish; however, they have likewise dogs, and nooses, or springes, made of whalebone. I have observed, that they had all of them bad teeth; and, I believe, we must attribute that to their custom of eating the shell-fish boiling hot, though half raw.

Upon the whole, they seem to be good people; but they are so weak, that one is almost tempted to think the worse of them on that account. We thought we observed that they were superstitious and believed in evil genii; and, among them, the same persons, who conciliate the influence of those spirits, are their physicians and priests. Of all the savages I ever saw, the Pecherais are those who are most deprived of every convenience; they are exactly, in what may be called, a state of nature; and, indeed, if any pity is due to the fate of a man, who is his own master, has no duties or business to attend, is content with what he has, because he knows no better, I should pity these men; who, besides being deprived of what renders life convenient, must suffer the extreme roughness of the most dreadful climate in the world. These Pecherais, likewise, are the least numerous society of men I have met with in any part of the world; however, as will appear in the sequel, there are quacks among them: but as soon as more than one family is together, (by family, I understand father, mother, and children) their interests become complicated, and the individuals want to govern, either by force or by imposture. The name of family then changes into that of society; and though it were established amidst the woods, and composed only of cousins-german, a skilful observer would there discover the origin of all the vices, to which men, collected into whole nations, have, by growing more civilized, given names; vices that caused the origin, progress, and ruin of the greatest empires. Hence it follows, by the same principle, that in civilized societies, some virtues spring up, of which those who border on a state of nature are not susceptible.

The 7th and 8th the weather was so bad, that we could not by any means go from on board; in the night we drove, and were obliged to let go our sheet-anchor. At some intervals the snow lay four inches deep on the deck; and, at day-break, we saw that all the ground was covered with it, except the flat lands, the wetness of which melted the snow. The thermometer was about 5° and 4°; but fell to two degrees below the freezing-point. The weather was bad on the ninth in the afternoon. The Pecherais set out in order to come on board us. They had even spent much time at their toilet; I mean, they had painted their bodies all over, with red and white spots: but seeing our boats go from the ships, towards their huts, they followed them; but one periagua came on board the Etoile. She stayed but a short time there, and joined the others; who were very much the friends of our people. The women were, however, all retired into one hut; and the savages seemed uneasy, whenever one of our men attempted to go in. They invited them rather to come into the other huts, where they presented our gentlemen with muscles, which they sucked before they gave them away. They got some little presents, which they gladly accepted. They sung, danced, and appeared more gay, than one might expect from savages, whose outward behaviour is commonly serious.

[Sidenote: Unlucky accident, which befalls one of them.]

Their joy was but of very short duration. One of their children, about twelve years old, the only one in the whole troop whose figure engaged our attention, was all at once seized with spitting of blood, and violent convulsions. The poor creature had been on board the Etoile, where the people had given him bits of glass not foreseeing the unhappy effect, which this present might have. These savages have a custom of putting pieces of talc into their throat and nostrils. Perhaps their superstition combines some powers with this kind of talisman; or, perhaps, they look on it as a preservative against some sickness they are subject to. The child, probably, had made the same use of this glass. His lips, gums, and palate, were cut in several places, and he bled continually.

This accident spread consternation and mistrust amongst them. They certainly suspected us of some bad action; for the first thing their juggler did, was to strip the child immediately of a linen jacket, which had been given him. He wanted to return it to the French; and upon their refusing it, he threw it at their feet. However, another savage, who, doubtless, loved clothes more than he feared enchantments, took it up immediately.

The juggler first laid the child down upon his back, in one of the huts; and, kneeling down between his legs, he bent himself upon him, and with his head and hands pressed the child’s belly as much as he could, crying out continually, without our being able to distinguish any articulate sounds in his cries. From time to time he got up, and seeming to hold the disease in his joined hands, he opened them all at once into the air, blowing as if he wanted to drive away some evil spirit. During this ceremony, an old woman in tears, howled in the sick child’s ears, enough to make him deaf. This poor wretch seemed to suffer as much from the remedy, as from the hurt he had received. The juggler gave him some respite, and went to fetch his habit of ceremony; after which, having his hair powdered, and his head adorned with two white wings, like those on Mercury’s cap, he began his rites again, with more confidence, but with no better success. The child then appearing to be worse, our chaplain administered baptism to him by stealth.

The officers returned on board, and told me what had happened on shore. I went thither immediately with M. de la Porte, our surgeon, who brought some milk and gruel with him. When we arrived, the patient was out of the hut; the juggler, who had now got a companion in the same dress, had begun again with his his operation on the belly, thighs, and back of the child. It was a pity to see them torment the poor creature, who suffered without complaining. His body was already bruised all over; and the doctors still continued to apply their barbarous remedy, with abundance of conjurations. The grief of the parents, their tears, the part which the whole troop took in this accident, and which broke out in the most expressive signs, afforded us a most affecting scene. The savages certainly perceived that we partook of their distress; at least they seemed to be less mistrustful. They suffered us to come near the patient; and our surgeon examined his bloody mouth, which his father and another Pecherais sucked alternately. We had much trouble to persuade them to use milk; we were obliged to taste it before them several times; and, notwithstanding the invincible objection of their jugglers, the father at last resolved to let his son drink it; he even accepted a pot-full of gruel. The jugglers were jealous of our surgeon; whom, however, they seemed at last to acknowledge as an able juggler. They even opened for him a leather bag, which they always wear hanging by their side; and which contains their feathered cap, some white powder, some talc, and other instruments of their art; but he had hardly looked into it, when they shut it again. We likewise observed, that whilst one of the jugglers was conjuring the distemper of the patient, the other seemed to be busied solely in preventing, by his enchantments, the effect of the bad luck, which they suspected we had brought upon them.

We returned on board, towards night, and the child seemed to suffer less; however, he was plagued with almost continual puking, which gave us room to fear that some glass was got down into his stomach. We had afterwards sufficient reason to believe our conjectures had been true; for about two o’clock in the morning, we on board heard repeated howls; and, at break of day, though the weather was very dreadful, the savages went off. They, doubtless, fled from a place defiled by death, and by unlucky strangers, who they thought were come merely to destroy them. They were not able to double the westermost point of the bay: in a more moderate interval they set sail again; a violent squall carried them out into the offing, and dispersed their feeble vessels. How desirous they were of getting away from us! They left one of their periaguas, which wanted a repair on the shore, _Satis est gentem effugisse nefandam_. They are gone away, considering us as mischievous beings: but who would not pardon their resentment on this occasion? and, indeed, how great is the loss of a youth, who has escaped from all the dangers of childhood, to a body of men so very inconsiderable in number!

[Sidenote: Continuation of bad weather.]

The wind blew east with great violence, and almost without intermission, till the 13th, when the weather was mild enough in day-time; and we had even conceived hopes of weighing in the afternoon. The night between the 13th and 14th was calm. At half an hour past two in the morning we had unmoored, and hove a-peak. At six o’clock we were obliged to moor again, and the day was dreadful. The 15th, the sun shone almost the whole day; but the wind was too strong for us to leave the harbour.

[Sidenote: Danger which the frigate is exposed to.]

The 16th, in the morning, it was almost a calm; then came a breeze from the north, and we weighed, with the tide in our favour: it was then ebbing, and set to the westward. The winds soon shifted to W. and W. S. W. and we could never gain the Isle Rupert, with the favourable tide. The frigate sailed very ill; drove to leeward beyond measure; and the Etoile had an incredible advantage over us. We plyed all day between Rupert island, and a head-land of the continent, which we called the Point of the Passage, in order to wait for the ebb; with which I hoped either to gain the anchoring-place of Bay Dauphine, upon the isle of Louis le Grand, or that of Elizabeth bay[87]. But as we lost ground by plying, I sent a boat to sound to the S. E. of Rupert’s-island, intending to anchor there, till the tide became favourable. They made signal of an anchoring-place, and came to a grapnel there; but we were already too much fallen to leeward of it. We made one board in-shore, to endeavour to gain it on the other tack; the frigate missed stays twice; and it became necessary to wear; but at the very moment when, by the manœuvres, and by the help of our boats, she began to wear, the force of the tide made her come to the wind again; a strong current had already carried us within half a cable’s length of the shore. We let go our anchor in eight fathom: the anchor, falling upon rocks, came home, and our proximity to the shore did not allow us to veer away cable. We had now no more than three fathom and a half of water a-stern; and were only thrice the length of the ship from the shore, when a little breeze sprung up from thence, we immediately filled our sails, and the frigate fell to leeward: all our boats, and those of the Etoile, which came to our assistance, were a-head, towing her. We veered away our cable, upon which we had put a buoy; and near half of it was out, when it got foul between decks, and stopt the frigate, which then ran the greatest danger. We cut the cable, and by the prompt execution of this manœuvre, we saved the ship. The breeze at length freshened; and, after having made two or three unprofitable boards, I returned to Port Galant, where we anchored again in twenty fathom oozy bottom. Our boats, which I left to weigh our anchor, returned towards night with it and the cable. Thus this appearance of fine weather served only to give us cruel alarms.

[Sidenote: Violent hurricane.]

The day following was more stormy than all the preceding ones. The wind raised a mountainous sea in the channel; and we often saw several waves run in contrary directions. The storm appeared to abate towards ten o’clock; but at noon a clap of thunder, the only one we ever heard in this strait, was as it were the signal at which the wind again began to blow with more violence than in the morning. We dragged our anchor, and were obliged to let go our sheet-anchor, and strike our lower-yards and top-masts. Notwithstanding this, the shrubs and plants were now in flower, and the trees afforded a very brilliant verdure, which however was not sufficient to dispel that sadness which the repeated sight of this unlucky spot had cast over us. The most lively temper would be overcome in this dreadful climate, which is shunned by animals of every element, and where a handful of people lead a languid life, after having been rendered still more unfortunate by their intercourse with us.

[Sidenote: Assertion concerning the channel of Sainte Barbe discussed.]

On the 18th and 19th there were some intervals between the bad weather: we weighed our sheet anchor, squared our yards, and set up our top-masts; and I sent the Etoile’s barge, which was in so good a condition as to be able to go out in almost any weather, to view the channel of _Sainte Barbe_. According to the extract M. Frezier gives of the Journal of M. Marcant, who discovered and passed through it, this channel must bear S. W. and S. W. by S. from Bay Elizabeth. The barge returned on the 20th, and M. Landais, who commanded it, informed me, that having followed the track and marks taken notice of by M. Marcant, he had not found the true mouth, but only a narrow channel, closed by shoals of ice and the land, which it is the more dangerous to follow, as it has not a single good anchoring place, and as it is crossed in the middle by a sand covered with muscles. He then went all round the isle of Louis le Grand to the southward, and re-entered the channel of Magalhaens, without having found any other. He only saw a fine bay on the coast of Terra del Fuego, which is certainly the same with that which Beauchesne calls Nativity Bay. Upon the whole, by going S. W. and S. W. by S. from Bay Elizabeth, as Frezier says that Marcant did, you must cut through the middle of the isle of Louis le Grand.

[Sidenote: It is inhabited, notwithstanding its small size.]

This information gave me room to believe that the channel of Sainte Barbe was opposite the very bay where we now lay. From the top of the mountains which surround Port Galant, we had often discovered southward of the isles Charles and Monmouth, a vast channel, full of little islands, and terminated by no land to the southward; but, as at the same time we perceived another inlet southward of the isle of Louis le Grand, we took that for the channel of St. Barbe, as being more conformable to Marcant’s account. As soon as we were sure that this inlet was no more than a deep bay, we no longer doubted that the channel of Sainte Barbe was opposite Port Galant, southward of Charles and Monmouth Islands. Indeed, reading over again the passage in Frezier, and comparing it with his chart of the strait, we saw that Frezier, according to Marcant’s report, places Elizabeth Bay, from whence the latter set sail, in order to enter into his channel, about ten or twelve leagues from Cape Forward. Marcant therefore must have mistaken Bay De Cordes for Bay Elizabeth, the former lying actually eleven leagues from Cape Forward, being a league eastward of Port Galant: setting sail from this bay, and standing S. E. and S. E. by S. he came along the westermost point of Charles and Monmouth isles, the whole of which he took for the isle of Louis le Grand; an error into which every good navigator may easily fall, unless he is well provided with good directions: and then he stood into the channel full of isles, of which we had a prospect from the top of the mountains.

[Sidenote: Utility which would accrue from the knowledge of the channel of Sainte Barbe.]

The perfect knowledge of the channel of Sainte Barbe would be so much the more interesting, as it would considerably shorten the passing of the straits of Magalhaens. It does not take much time to come to Port Galant; the greatest difficulty before you come there, being to double Cape Forward, which is now rendered pretty easy, by the discovery of three ports upon Terra del Fuego: when you are once got to Port Galant, should the winds prevent your taking the ordinary channel, if they be ever so little upon the northerly points, the channel is open to you, opposite to this port; in twenty-four hours you can then be in the South Seas. I intended to have sent two barges into this channel which I firmly believe to be that of Sainte Barbe; they would have completely solved this problem, but the bad weather prevented their going out.

[Sidenote: Exceeding violent squall.]

The 21st, 22d, and 23d, squalls, snow, and rain, were continual. In the night between the 21st and 22d, there was a calm interval; it seemed that the wind afforded us that momentary repose, only in order to fall harder upon us afterwards. A dreadful hurricane came suddenly from S. S. W. and blew with such fury as to astonish the oldest seamen. Both our ships had their anchors come home, and were obliged to let go their sheet-anchor, lower the lower yards, and hand the top-masts: our mizen was carried away in the brails. Happily this hurricane did not last long. On the 24th the storm abated, we got calm weather and sun-shine, and put ourselves in a condition to proceed. Since our re-entering Port Galant, we took several ton weight of ballast, and altered our stowage, endeavouring by this means to make the frigate sail well again; and we succeeded in part. Upon the whole, whenever it is necessary to navigate in the midst of currents, it will always be found very difficult to manage such long vessels as our frigates generally are.

[Sidenote: We leave Bay Fortescue.]

On the 25th, at one o’clock in the morning, we unmoored, and hove a peek; at three o’clock we weighed, and were towed by our boats; the breeze was northerly; at half past five it settled in the east, and we set all our top-gallant and studding-sails, which are very seldom made use of here. We kept the middle of the strait, following its windings, for which Narborough justly calls it Crooked Reach. Between the Royal Isles and the continent, the strait is about two leagues wide; the channel between Rupert Isle and Point Passage, is not above a league broad; then there is the breadth of a league and a half between the isle of Louis le Grand and Bay Elizabeth, on the easterly point of which, there is a ledge covered with sea weeds, extending a quarter of a league into the sea.

[Sidenote: Description of the strait from Cape Galant to the open sea.]

From Bay Elizabeth the coast runs W. N. W. for about two leagues, till you come to the river which Narborough calls Bachelor, and Beauchesne, du Massacre; at the mouth of which, is an anchoring-place. This river is easily known; it comes from a deep valley; on the west, it has a high mountain; its westerly point is low, wooded, and the coast sandy. From the river Bachelor, to the entrance of the false strait or St. Jerom’s channel, I reckon three leagues, and the bearing is N. W. by W. The entrance of this channel seems to be half a league broad, and in the bottom of it, the lands are seen closing in to the northward. When you are opposite the river du Massacre, or Bachelor, you can only see this false strait, and it is very easy to take it for the true one, which happened even to us, because the coast then runs W. by S. and W. S. W. till Cape _Quade_, which stretching very far, seems to close in with the westerly point of the isle of Louis le Grand, and leave no outlet. Upon the whole, the safest way not to miss the true channel, is to keep the coast of Louis le Grand island on board, which may be done without any danger. The distance of St. Jerom’s channel to Cape Quade, is about four leagues, and this cape bears E. 9° N. and W. 9° S. with the westerly point of the isle of Louis le Grand.

That island is about four leagues long, its north side runs W. N. W. as far as Bay Dauphine, the depth of which, is about two miles, and the breadth at the entrance, half a league; it then runs W. to its most westerly extremity, called Cape St. Louis. As, after finding out our error concerning the false strait, we run within a mile of the shore of Louis le Grand island, we distinctly saw Port Phelippeaux, which appeared to be a very convenient and well situated creek. At noon Cape Quade bore W. 13° S. two leagues distant, and Cape St. Louis, E. by N. about two leagues and a half off. The fair weather continued all day, and we bore away with all our sails set.

From Cape Quade the strait runs W. N. W. and N. W. by W. without any considerable turnings, from which it has got the name of Long-Lane, or Long-Reach, (_Longue Rue_). The figure of Cape Quade is remarkable. It consists of craggy rocks, of which, those forming its highest summits, do not look unlike ancient ruins. As far as this cape, the coasts are every where wooded, and the verdure of the trees softens the aspect of the frozen tops of the mountains. Having doubled Cape Quade, the nature of the country is quite altered. The strait is inclosed on both sides by barren rocks, on which there is no appearance of any soil. Their high summits are always covered with snow, and the deep vallies are filled with immense masses of ice, the colour of which bears the mark of antiquity. Narborough, struck with this horrid aspect, called this part, Desolation of the South, nor can any thing more dreadful be imagined.