Streight of Magellan to the Islands of Disappointment
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that were at least sixteen feet long. They presently made several large fires, which we supposed to be a signal; for we immediately perceived several fires upon the larger island that was to windward of us, by which we knew that also to be inhabited. I sent the boat with an officer to look for an anchoring-place, who, to our great regret and disappointment, returned with an account that he had been all round the island, and that no bottom could be found within less than a cable’s length of the shore, which was surrounded close to the beach with a steep coral rock. The scurvy by this time had made dreadful havock among us, many of my best men being now confined to their hammocks; the poor wretches who were able to crawl upon the deck, stood gazing at this little paradise which Nature had forbidden them to enter, with sensations which cannot easily be conceived; they saw cocoa-nuts in great abundance, the milk of which is perhaps the most powerful antiscorbutic in the world: they had reason to suppose that there were limes, bananas, and other fruits which are generally found between the tropics; and to increase their mortification they saw the shells of many turtle scattered about the shore. These refreshments, indeed, for want of which they were languishing to death, were as effectually beyond their reach as if there had been half the circumference of the world between them; yet their being in sight, was no inconsiderable increase of the distress which they suffered by the want of them. Their situation in itself indeed was no worse than it would have been if the obstacle to their wishes had been distance, and not a reef of rocks; and both being alike insuperable, a Being wholly under the influence of reason, would, by both, have been equally affected; but this is a situation, among many others, that may be remarked by a diligent observer, in which reason cannot preserve man-kind
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Voyaging Accounts |  |
© Derived from Volume I of the London 1773 Edition: National Library of Australia call no. FERG 7243, page 93, 2004
Published by kind permission of the Library
To cite this page use: https://paulturnbull.org/project/southseas/journals/hv01/129.html