Ayres, and at noon anchored in three and a half fathoms of water, off Pinta de India, in thick weather and a bad sea. In the afternoon, it became sufficiently clear for us to obtain a glimpse of the tops of some trees; sail was again made and on the fifth, we came too, in the outer Balissas, near to the United States’ ship Warren, under the command of Acting-Commodore Cooper, and the schooner Enterprise, commanded by Lieutenant-Commodore Downing. Having landed Mr. Baylies and family, and taken in provisions for our voyage across the South Atlantic and Indian oceans, we sailed on the nineteenth, and in four days arrived at Montevideo. As we passed to our anchorage ground, H. B. M. frigate Druid, A. R. Hamilton, commander, complimented our flag by her musicians playing “Hail Columbia,” which cheered our hearts and created a kindly feeling in us towards our English brethren. Many years previous to this visit to La Plata, I had resided many months at Buenos Ayres, and had become acquainted with a number of worthy men and lovely females, who then shone with great brilliancy at the Tertulias, in the Bolero and Pas-a-pie, but time had changed the faces and condition of the living—death had been busy among all classes and many a friend and acquaintance had gone to the eternal world, amidst the various revolutions. The splendid churches were shorn of their ornaments and a few solitary priests, superannuated and on the brink of the grave, were seen tottering through the deserted aisles and cloisters, where hundreds had once been, and where the resounding of my own footsteps now made me start, and look back to see if any of the departed had returned to wander within their former haunts, and deplore, though they were wont to be called holy, their numerous imperfections. A regal government has now given place to one of another stamp; but the great number of armed men in the streets and about the public buildings, have divested it of much of its republican character. A Protestant church is now erected, and English names are frequently seen over the doors of buildings where once a foreign merchant was not permitted to dwell. To me, it seemed like traversing a vast sepulchre—so many had closed their eyes in death, while others appeared like spectres of former days. It was like a city once in ruins, but which had been freed of its incumbrances, and was again ushered into light and life, peopled by a new generation.
Montevideo also had met with unparalleled sufferings from the time that it was besieged by the British to the present hour. The beautiful cathedral was disfigured by marks of cannon-balls—the walls were partly demolished—the gates broken down—the cannon removed, and not a solitary sentinel was on the lookout from the battlements; the streets were broken up, and full of unsightly and dangerous holes. Death, the all-consuming hand of time, and squalid poverty, had laid a whole city in ruins; it was like a vast cemetery; for all I once knew had been swept away; even their names had been obliterated for ever. I therefore left it, better satisfied to wander ten thousand miles over a trackless and stormy ocean, than to remain in a city whose former inhabitants were spread in dust amid its ruins.
CHAPTER II.
SAILING FROM MONTEVIDEO—DESCRIPTION OF THE ISLAND OF TRISTAN D’ACUNHA—ST. PAULS—ENGANO—ARRIVAL AT BENCOOLEN AND DESCRIPTION.
Agreeably to orders from the navy department, the commander of the Peacock was required to proceed to the west coast of Sumatra, to ascertain whether Commodore Downes had obtained redress for the murders and robbery committed on board the ship Friendship, of Salem, by the natives of Qualah Battu; and if it should appear that from any cause such redress had not been effected, then the Peacock, in conjunction with the United States’ schooner Boxer, was to proceed to Qualah Battu, and, if possible, to obtain possession of the murderers, and transport them to the United States for trial; and also to demand indemnification for the heavy losses sustained by the owner. If these demands were not complied with, the town was to be destroyed.
The Boxer not having yet joined us, orders were left for her commander to proceed to Bencoolen, in the island of Sumatra. On the evening of the twenty-fifth of June, the ship got under way, from the bay of Montevideo. As we slowly receded from the port, the feeble light on the mount shone like a distant star through the hazy atmosphere; and the thousand lights in the unfortunate town of San Felipé appeared like the glimmerings of the firefly in a midsummer’s night, revelling amid the light vapours arising from marshy ground; the brilliant light on the Flores also was in full view, throwing its extended beams far and wide over the tremulous sea. Our progress during the night was very slow—Flores and Lobos, and the serrated mountains of Maldonado, found us at the dawn of day, fanning along slowly, with an air which scarcely ruffled the ocean’s surface. Nothing occurred to us beyond what generally befalls the sons of the ocean, in running down ten thousand miles of coasting. Scarcely were we clear from the muddy waters of La Plata, and had launched amid the waves of the great Southern ocean, when squally weather assailed us, and close-reefed topsails were resorted to rather more frequently than is pleasant even to those who live upon the mountain-wave. The ship was at one time rolling her channels in before a strong westerly wind; at another, lying with her broadside deeply submerged by severe squalls from the northwestern quarter, the gun-deck being ankle-deep in water, and washing from side to side. Life-lines were secured from gun to gun to support the constant passing of men fore and aft the deck. On the fifteenth of July, the snow-clad mountains of Tristan d’Acunha appeared, lighted by a brilliant morning-sun, and towering to a height estimated at between nine and ten thousand feet.
This island is occasionally resorted to for water, live stock, fruit, vegetables, butter, &c.; the former may be had in abundance on the northeast side, where, in a clear day, it may be seen rushing from above, white as the snow on the mountain-top, and dashing on the beach, from a cataract of fifty feet in height. Owing to the steepness of the anchorage-ground and the frequency of sudden squalls, it is most safe “to lay off and on,” and send a boat on shore. Vessels which prefer anchoring, run in until the watering-place bears southwest by south, about one mile distant, where they find seventeen fathoms, in a gravelly bottom, mixed with broken shells.
This place was originally settled in 1811, by the unfortunate Jonathan Lambert, of Salem, who was drowned in going to Inaccessible island. It has ever since been occupied by an English sergeant and family, from the Cape of Good Hope, by order of the British government, who took possession of it, as was said, with the ostensible motive of keeping it as an outpost to St. Helena, at the time of Bonaparte’s imprisonment there.
It may be doubted whether a desire to prevent the Americans from resorting to the island, as a place of rendezvous in the event of another war, was not the real motive which actuated the British to take it within their protection.
On the nineteenth, having then been out twenty-three days, we obtained soundings in sixty fathoms water, on bank Lagullus, off the Cape of Good Hope. Dashing onward through storm and tempest, endeavouring to keep about latitude 38° or 39°, on the sixth of August, forty-one days from our departure from the bay of Montevideo, we descried on the northeast the uninhabited island of St. Pauls. As we approached from the southward and westward, it bore the exact resemblance of a long-nosed porpoise; but when passing its eastern extremity, and bearing off about four miles north, it appeared like a spermaceti whale, the head being to the eastward: fronting it was a moderately-high conical peak: its highest point would scarcely exceed five hundred feet. Three or four days subsequently, we encountered a very heavy gale from northnortheast, accompanied by a tremendous swell of the ocean; during its violence, a sea of uncommon height and volume struck the ship, and threw her nearly on her beam ends, completely overwhelmed the gig in the starboard-quarter, crushed it into atoms in a moment, and buried the first three ratlines of the mizen-shrouds under water.
It was fortunate that we escaped without further danger, as it came thundering onward “mountains high.” A universal silence prevailed during its threatening approach: after it had passed, great apprehensions were expressed that it would “break on board,” and completely sweep the deck.
As we proceeded along and gradually made northings from longitude about 90° east, the winds began to be variable and
