University of Virginia Library

15. CHAPTER XV.

On the twelfth we made sail from Christmas Harbour,
retracing our way to the westward, and leaving Marion's
Island, one of Crozet's group, on the larboard. We afterward
passed Prince Edward's Island, leaving it also
on our left; then, steering more to the northward, made,
in fifteen days, the islands of Tristan d'Acunha, in latitude
37 ° 8′ S., longitude 12 ° 8′ W.

This group, now so well known, and which consists
of three circular islands, was first discovered by the Portuguese,
and was visited afterward by the Dutch in 1643,
and by the French in 1767. The three islands together
form a triangle, and are distant from each other about
ten miles, there being fine open passages between. The
land in all of them is very high, especially in Tristan
d'Acunha, properly so called. This is the largest of
the group, being fifteen miles in circumference, and so
elevated that it can be seen in clear weather at the distance
of eighty or ninety miles. A part of the land towards
the north rises more than a thousand feet perpendicularly
from the sea. A tableland at this height
extends back nearly to the centre of the island, and
from this tableland arises a lofty cone like that of Teneriffe.
The lower half of this cone is clothed with trees
of good size, but the upper region is barren rock, usually
hidden among the clouds, and covered with snow during

the greater part of the year. There are no shoals or
other dangers about the island, the shores being remarkably
bold and the water deep. On the northwestern
coast is a bay, with a beach of black sand, where a
landing with boats can be easily effected, provided there
be a southerly wind. Plenty of excellent water may
here be readily procured; also cod, and other fish, may
be taken with hook and line.

The next island in point of size, and the most westwardly
of the group, is that called the Inaccessible. Its
precise situation is 37 ° 17′ S. latitude, longitude 12 °
24′ W. It is seven or eight miles in circumference,
and on all sides presents a forbidding and precipitous
aspect. Its top is perfectly flat, and the whole region
is steril, nothing growing upon it except a few stunted
shrubs.

Nightingale Island, the smallest and most southerly,
is in latitude 37 ° 26′ S., longitude 12 ° 12′ W. Off its
southern extremity is a high ledge of rocky islets; a
few also of a similar appearance are seen to the northeast.
The ground is irregular and steril, and a deep
valley partially separates it.

The shores of these islands abound, in the proper season,
with sea lions, sea elephants, the hair and fur seal,
together with a great variety of oceanic birds. Whales
are also plenty in their vicinity. Owing to the ease
with which these various animals were here formerly
taken, the group has been much visited since its discovery.
The Dutch and French frequented it at a very
early period. In 1790, Captain Patten, of the ship Industry,
of Philadelphia, made Tristan d'Acunha, where
he remained seven months (from August, 1790, to April,
1791) for the purpose of collecting sealskins. In this
time he gathered no less than five thousand six hundred,
and says that he would have had no difficulty in loading
a large ship with oil in three weeks. Upon his arrival
he found no quadrupeds, with the exception of a few
wild goats—the island now abounds with all our most
valuable domestic animals, which have been introduced
by subsequent navigators.

I believe it was not long after Captain Patten's visit
that Captain Colquhoun, of the American brig Betsey,
touched at the largest of the islands for the purpose of
refreshment. He planted onions, potatoes, cabbages,
and a great many other vegetables, an abundance of all
which are now to be met with.

In 1811, a Captain Heywood, in the Nereus, visited
Tristan. He found there three Americans, who were
residing upon the islands to prepare sealskins and oil.
One of these men was named Jonathan Lambert, and he
called himself the sovereign of the country. He had
cleared and cultivated about sixty acres of land, and
turned his attention to raising the coffee-plant and sugarcane,
with which he had been furnished by the American
minister at Rio Janeiro. This settlement, however, was
finally abandoned, and in 1817 the islands were taken
possession of by the British government, who sent a detachment
for that purpose from the Cape of Good Hope.
They did not, however, retain them long; but, upon the
evacuation of the country as a British possession, two or
three English families took up their residence there independently
of the government. On the twenty-fifth of
March, 1824, the Berwick, Captain Jeffrey, from London
to Van Diemen's Land, arrived at the place, where they
found an Englishman of the name of Glass, formerly a
corporal in the British artillery. He claimed to be supreme
governor of the islands, and had under his control
twenty-one men and three women. He gave a very favourable
account of the salubrity of the climate and of
the productiveness of the soil. The population occupied
themselves chiefly in collecting sealskins and sea
elephant oil, with which they traded to the Cape of Good
Hope, Glass owning a small schooner. At the period
of our arrival the governor was still a resident, but his
little community had multiplied, there being fifty-six persons
upon Tristan, besides a smaller settlement of seven
on Nightingale Island. We had no difficulty in procuring
almost every kind of refreshment which we required
—sheep, hogs, bullocks, rabbits, poultry, goats, fish in
great variety, and vegetables were abundant. Having

come to anchor close in with the large island, in eighteen
fathoms, we took all we wanted on board very conveniently.
Captain Guy also purchased of Glass five hundred
sealskins and some ivory. We remained here a
week, during which the prevailing winds were from the
northward and westward, and the weather somewhat
hazy. On the fifth of November we made sail to the
southward and westward, with the intention of having a
thorough search for a group of islands called the Auroras,
respecting whose existence a great diversity of opinion
has existed.

These islands are said to have been discovered as
early as 1762, by the commander of the ship Aurora.
In 1790, Captain Manuel de Oyarvido, in the ship Princess,
belonging to the Royal Philippine Company, sailed,
as he asserts, directly among them. In 1794, the Spanish
corvette Atrevida went with the determination of ascertaining
their precise situation, and, in a paper published
by the Royal Hydrographical Society of Madrid in
the year 1809, the following language is used respecting
this expedition. “The corvette Atrevida practised, in
their immediate vicinity, from the twenty-first to the
twenty-seventh of January, all the necessary observations,
and measured by chronometers the difference of
longitude between these islands and the port of Soledad
in the Malninas. The islands are three; they are very
nearly in the same meridian; the centre one is rather
low, and the other two may be seen at nine leagues distance.”
The observations made on board the Atrevida
give the following results as the precise situation of each
island. The most northern is in latitude 52 ° 37′ 24′ S.,
longitude 47 ° 43′ 15′ W.; the middle one in latitude
53 ° 2′ 40′ S., longitude 47 ° 55′ 15′ W.; and the most
southern in latitude 53 ° 15′ 22′ S., longitude 47 ° 57′
15′ W.

On the twenty-seventh of January, 1820, Captain
James Weddel, of the British navy, sailed from Staten
Land also in search of the Auroras. He reports that,
having made the most diligent search, and passed not
only immediately over the spots indicated by the commander

of the Atrevida, but in every direction throughout
the vicinity of these spots, he could discover no indication
of land. These conflicting statements have induced
other navigators to look out for the islands; and,
strange to say, while some have sailed through every
inch of sea where they are supposed to lie without finding
them, there have been not a few who declare positively
that they have seen them, and even been close in
with their shores. It was Captain Guy's intention to
make every exertion within his power to settle the question
so oddly in dispute.[1]

We kept on our course, between the south and west,
with variable weather, until the twentieth of the month,
when we found ourselves on the debated ground, being
in latitude 53 ° 15′ S., longitude 47 ° 58′ W.—that is to
say, very nearly upon the spot indicated as the situation
of the most southern of the group. Not perceiving any
sign of land, we continued to the westward in the parallel
of fifty-three degrees south, as far as the meridian of fifty
degrees west. We then stood to the north as far as the
parallel of fifty-two degrees south, when we turned to
the eastward, and kept our parallel by double altitudes,
morning and evening, and meridian altitudes of the
planets and moon. Having thus gone eastwardly to the
meridian of the western coast of Georgia, we kept that
meridian until we were in the latitude from which we set
out. We then took diagonal courses throughout the entire
extent of sea circumscribed, keeping a lookout constantly
at the masthead, and repeating our examination
with the greatest care for a period of three weeks, during
which the weather was remarkably pleasant and fair,
with no haze whatsoever. Of course we were thoroughly
satisfied that, whatever islands might have existed
in this vicinity at any former period, no vestige of
them remained at the present day. Since my return

home I find that the same ground was traced over with
equal care in 1822 by Captain Johnson, of the American
schooner Henry, and by Captain Morrell, in the
American schooner Wasp—in both cases with the same
result as in our own.