NARRATIVE OF A VOYAGE FROM NEW SOUTH WALES. I EMBARKED for England on the 4th of February, 1824, and sailed from the heads of Port Jackson with a south-east wind, which continued more or less foul till the evening of the 12th, when it came round to the north-west. On the two following days we saw flying-fish, though our latitude on the last of them was 37° 22′, which is a higher southern parallel than this tropical animal was perhaps ever seen in before. We had the wind now from the southward, and next from the westward, as it prevails in these latitudes at this season, and as we wished it to be for the purpose of making an eastern passage home round Cape Horn. But the wind being right aft, with a heavy sea, caused a great rolling of the ship. On the 18th Capt. Cook's Strait between the two islands of New Zealand was in sight, and we passed Cape Farewell in the course of the day, and were at night off the Brothers. It was calm in the night, and the strait being so narrow that we could see the land on both sides, the sea was smooth and the ship steady in the day. The land we saw consisted of barren hills or sand. We observed no signs of inhabitancy. These are not the fertile parts of New Zealand. The mountains were even topt with sand, which we at first took for snow. The next day Entry Island was in sight, and we passed through the strait; and on the following day, we left New Zealand out of sight. Hav ing cleared the land, the sea ran high, and the ship's rolling became heavy again. On the 21st we crossed the longi'tude of 180°, and entered the western hemisphere, as it may strictly be called, though the maps do not divide till 20° more; but having lived more than seven years in the eastern hemisphere, one is anxious to forestal a change. On the 25th albatrosses were numerous, and on the 26th stormy peterels. On the 28th we saw eight of the former swimming, which they seldom do, and on the 29th the latter were in great variety. From this time to the 17th March the weather was generally wet and windy, and the vessel being very deeply laden and uneasy, shipped the salt water almost constantly; so that we were imprisoned in our cabins, which were necessarily darkened. This was the worst of doubling Cape Horn; for on the 28th March, the day on which we actually passed the longitude of it, and left the Pacific for the Atlantic ocean, the weather was fine, and the ship steady; and the next day the sen was calm and the sky beautiful, with Staten Island in sight twelve leagues to the north, looking even green. So was it fine weather for the three following days, but on the last of these the wind came foul. On the day we doubled Cape Horn, we met a ship about five miles off: the thermometer at this time stood at 44°, being the lowest fall on the voyage. On the 25th came heavy rain with a squally night, and the sea being against the wind caused a great rolling and pitching of the ship. So the deck was generally wet and our cabin dark again till the 4th day of April, when the dead lights were removed for good; and the worst of our passage was over. This week we made two Thursdays-in order to accommodate our reckoning to that of this hemisphere, having gained a revolution of the earth, by going back to the sun round the world-two first days of April; so that this being Teap-year, I shall have lived 367 days in one year, a thing which few people can understand, and still fewer say. If the Emperor Titus had been up to this, he might have indemnified himself for his celebrated loss. On the 5th day of April, the thermometer stood at 75°, being a change of 30° in a fortnight. On the 12th we were so fortunate as to meet his Majesty's ship Tamar, Captain Bremer, bound from England to New South Wales: this was the only vessel we visited during the whole passage, we being bound from New South Wales to England, and a man of war not having sailed from England to New South Wales for twenty years before. An old acquaintance of mine, an officer of the ship, boarded us, and gave us a few newspapers of January and February last, which we should not have seen in New South Wales for three months more. Here be fruits! first profits of the voyage home! The Tamar was bound to New South Wales on secret service; but on my arrival in England, I found the secret very well known to be the intended establishment of a commercial factory at Port Essington, a discovery of Capt. King's of His Majesty's surveying service, on the north coast of Australia. The treaty with Holland having shut us out of all the islands of the Indian Archipelago, into which British goods are not admitted by the Dutch without payment of a very high duty, our government have, by assisting in the formation of this factory, anticipated any foreign occupancy of this part of the Australian coast, from whence the Malays, who visit it every year from Macassar to fish for trepang for the China market, may be supplied with our manufactured goods. It is hoped that the Malays will soon induce Chinese emigrants to settle at Port Essington, and keep up this trade in British goods. The port lies very handy, not only for the Moluccas, but for the Caroline and Philippine Islands, and even for China. On the same day on which we met the Tamar, we crossed the tropic of Capricorn; and I saw the Great Bear again for the first time for more than seven years: The northern team, And great Orion's more refulgent beam, To which around the axle of the sky The Bear revolving points his golden eye, Who shines exalted on th' ethereal plain, Nor bathes his blazing forehead in the main. On the 15th we met a brig ten miles off, and on the 17th another standing to the south-west. These were proofs of our drawing towards the coast of Brazil; and on the 20th the land was in sight, the city of St. Salvador in the Brazilian province of Bahia, latitude 12° 59′, longitude 38° 28', according to one reckoning; 38° 21', according to another. Two ships were in sight, also standing for the harbour of Bahia; and in the afternoon we came to anchor there. We found Bahia in the possession of the Brazilians, and the Portuguese either expelled or hiding themselves. The Brazilians are not such finely made men as the negroes of this province, who are celebrated for the beauty of their figures; but the South Americans, notwithstanding the diminutiveness of their forms, will be a great people,― A little body with a mighty heart. The very children in the streets are singing Liberty. The imperial flag was hoisted on the fort, and flying on the ships of war. I wish they had chosen a prettier mixture of colours. They are light green and yellow, with an unmeaning coat of arms. I went on shore this evening, and called, as is the etiquette, upon the British consul, who lives at Vittoria, in the upper or new town, on Cape St. Antonio, on which is another fort. This is almost entirely an English settlement, and delightfully situated, with lanes, at least clean, if not trim, and gardens, or rather shrubberies, to each house, down to the sea. The mango, and other tropical trees, struck me with their rich leafiness, after the barrenness and dryness of Australian foliage. I found the white cedar, the melia azedarach, or common bead-tree of India, growing here, as well as at New South Wales; and I particularly admired the splendour of that species of acacia, called poinciana pulcherrima, or the Barbadoes flower-fence. The lower town of Bahia, in which the English merchants have only compting-houses, is very close and disgusting, rather from filth and the manners of the Portuguese, than from the mode of building; for narrow streets ensure shade, and declivity of ground commands the sea-breeze everywhere by its nature, and would command cleanliness with a very little art. There are many British merchants and shop-keepers settled here, corresponding principally with Liverpool. They are, as they are all over the world, the wealthiest and most respectable people in the place, and in favour with all parties, royalists, imperialists, and republicans. The next afternoon, I went on shore till my ship should sail, to enjoy the hospitality of my countrymen at Vittoria; for I had no other claim to it than that of common country, but that was enough. Mrs. Graham, in her late Voyage to Brazil, repays the hospitality of the English at Bahia, by saying that "society is at a low, very low scale here among the English," and that "the ladies are quite of the second rate even of colonial gentility." Now, though there are about twenty English merchants here, there are but six married English ladies, and one single one; and when Mrs. Graham was here, there was, in exchange for one of these, the Consul's daughter, whom this genteel authoress has the indelicacy to name at full length. It does not appear that Mrs. Graham meant to include Miss P in her criticism, but the number of six is too small to scatter censure harmless among; and one of those six must have been Miss P- -'s married sister, whom Mrs. Graham also mentions. I can only say that I had the good fortune to be either more grateful or less fastidious. But I should have thought that a very small share of gratitude, and a very considerable one of fastidiousness, might still have left the guest of Mrs. Jentirely satisfied of her unaffected good-breeding, and of the perfect politeness of such of her few countrywomen as I had the pleasure of meeting under her roof. At our Consul's house, I saw an Indian of Botocudo (in the interior of the country) who had been to Vienna to see the world, and was staying at the Consulate, on his way back to his own nation. He had a large, round, cake-shaped piece of wood, inserted in a long slit in his under lip, something like the natives of the Baie des Françoises on the west coast of North America, figured in the Atlas to La Pérouse's Voyage; and a similar piece in a slit in each ear. I have since learnt that there was a Botocudo with his wife and child exhibited in London in the year 1822. The weather favoured our little relache; and our ship completed her watering on the 23d of April. I had therefore no time to visit the interior of the country, to which indeed there are no roads; but I perambulated the city of Bahia with great diligence, both in caderas, and on horseback. The streets are too steep for carriages, although the hill on which the town is built, is not 600 feet high (as the books say), but a little more than 200, teste Captain Sabine. The caderas, or curtained chairs, which are used as much by gentlemen as by ladies, are carried obliquely, with only one pole from the top of the chair on the shoulder of each of two negroes, so that each may see his way before him, and the sitter enjoy the thorough breeze and see before him too, if he chooses to open the cur tains. As it was the season of the carnival, and this city was once the ecclesiastical metropolis of Brazil, we expected to witness the masquerading holydays of the Roman Catholic Religion. But the revolution had left priests at a heavy discount. We found the saint-cupboards in the streets shut up; and the carnival was forbidden by the governor, for fear of political riot. On Sunday the 25th, I visited the public garden in the fort of St. Peter, presenting a fine terrace to the sea. I found the garden neglected, probably in consequence of the late siege of Bahia by the Brazilians. The remains of an earthwork, thrown up by their troops, are in the neighbouring square. I copied the following inscription from an obelisk in the garden, commemorative of the Prince Regent of Portugal's first landing here, on the emigration of the Royal Family from the mother country. I wonder the Brazilians have not pulled it down. Joanni Priore Reg. P. F. P. P. huc primum appulso xi. cal. Februar. A. D. MDCCCVIII. In the afternoon, I re-embarked, refreshed with oranges and limes, (though they kept not long) and pleased with Bahia, although I did not find it so musical and romantic as Rio de Janeiro. To be sure, the Portuguese were either away or shut up; and the lascivious guitar was silenced by the trumpet of freedom. There is a large operá-house here, and there was to be a performance that night; but our countrymen did not speak highly of Brazilian taste, or of the ripeness of the revolution ists for elegant amusements. The climate of Bahia is not oppressive to a visitor; but it must be tiresome to a resident to have the thermometer all the year round from 750 to 859. Winter rains induce the lower degree, and the higher is always relieved by a sea-breeze. The oranges of Bahia are particularly fine. When the king of Portugal lived at Rio de Janeiro he would eat no other. They are seedless in the main core. The seeds are in a little perfect sub-orange at the top of the other, which gives the fruit some what of a pear-shape, with the seed chamber divisions indicated in the rind of this little top-orange. The ant is the great enemy of this fruittree. Its armies will strip an orange tree in a night→→→ cabin paint, rendered the between decks, which were always wet and dirty, perfectly uninhabitable. Was it the hides of the cargo that generated this horrible smell, and produced this sulphuretted hydrogen, which, combining with the oxygen of the paint, formed sulphate of lead? The wind being no longer aft, this odour was blown into the stern cabins for the rest of the voyage, and rendered the ship more disagreeable in the trade-winds, than in rounding Cape Horn. Scouring was useless; the black-lead was soon afterwards reproduced; and without going so far as to feel a stain (as Burke says) like a wound, it is not to be conceiv ed by the ladies and gentlemen of England, who live at home in ease, how distressing is the constant sense of uncleanness on board of ship. I am told that this stench and these stains are the consequences of many cargoes, particularly of sugar; and yet masters of ships (from pure in difference to every thing but navi Shake down its mellow hangings, nay its gation) take no measures to prevent leaves, And leave it bare to weather. I saw some of these little animals walking away with large bits of leaves. No remedy of girthing the trunk with any thing, however poisonous or offensive, has yet been discovered. They surmount all difficulties. Fire at night is the only thing that drives them away for a time. The only manufactory at Bahia is of red pottery. The various watervessels are peculiarly adapted to this warm climate, from the porousness of the clay of which they are made; and the excellent water that is poured from them, after they have been placed in the sea or land breeze, drinks deliciously cool. We sailed from Bahia in the afternoon of the 26th of April with a south-east wind and showery weather; and so the wind and weather continued, and prevented us from clearing the land till the 3d day of May. In addition to this foulness of wind, we now found a foul ship; for the vessel having been some days stagnant in harbour, an infernal sulphuric stench came from the hold, and from the bilge-water, which, attracting the lead from the salt-water-stained them, either by the use of unpainted cabin-linings, or by ventilating the holds. He that cannot eat and drink any thing, drest in any way, at any time, out of any thing, touched by any thing, mixed with any thing, and this under the sight of any dirt, the smell of any stench, the sound of any discord, and the feeling of any motion, should not go to sea. I write this while I am at sea, because the touch of shore is apt to put to flight the memory of all these miseries, however keen at the time; and I am determined to have my revenge of shipboard; and to tell landsmen what truth will utter and what sailors will not. I said I would write a pamphlet against the sea. I am in a mood to chide the tempest, to rebuke the waves, like King Canute. If my outward ship was heavy and uneasy, my homeward was heavy, uneasy, wet and filthy. On the day after we left Babia, the French merchant-ship, which sailed with us, and the Dutch one, which left the harbour the day before, were close in sight; and on the next day a brig was near us, supposed to be an English merchant vessel that sailed from Bahia on Sunday. On the following morning, the French ship was close in sight again; and on the next day, a vessel was still visible. On the 5th of May, we saw a Portuguese Man-of-war, not a ship, but a species of zoophyta of the medusa kind; and in the evening we passed the high pyramidical peak of the is land of Fernando Norhonha, distant six or seven leagues, to the eastward, rising like a spire. On the 8th we crossed the line in the longitude of 329 30', and were becalmed for only two days, with rain for only one, after which we got the north-east trade-wind till the 2d of June, when we were in the latitude of 35° 55', and in the Florida Gulf Stream. On the 13th of May the wind was light with heavy rain all day; and on the next evening, which was showery, we saw a lunar rain bow, a phenomenon which I have witnessed only once before, and which many people die of old age without seeing. On the 22d, being in latitude 20° 7', the sun was vertical at noon, yet the thermometer was only 75°. This is a wonderful sight, and yet thousands, who visit the tropics, notice it not. Shine, but no sun, till you look over head; and, what is more awful, like the goblin in the Lay of the Last Minstrel, Your form no darkling shadow throws A vertical sun is as much a miracle to an extra-tropical inhabitant, as snow and ice to an inter-tropical one. On the next day, at evening, we met a brig; and much sea-weed was seen all day, supposed to have drifted from the Gulf Stream. It seemed to be all of one sort, namely the fucus natans. On the 24th of May, we crossed the tropic of Cancer; and on that and the three following days the seaweed was very abundant. When gathered, small crabs and shrimps came up among it. On the 30th of May, the wind being light and the weather fair, we saw half a dozen dolphins, with their ultramarine blue bodies, and their orange-green tails; but they would not bite a bait. We also passed a brig. Eight weeks have now elapsed, during which we have had the ther mometer standing from 749 to 839, both night and day. From this time the heat fell to a common English summer temperature. On the next day, which was rainy and cloudy, instead of dolphins, stormy peterels were very numerous under the stern of the ship; and on the following day came a strong breeze and a high sea, producing heavy rolling. We passed a schooner, showing English colours. The day after, the sea was still high and the wind fresh at north-west, with heavy rain in the evening, which latter continued the next day. With the exception of one day we had now a fair wind, till we entered the English Channel. On the 4th of June we passed a brig, which afterwards overtook and spoke us; namely, the Nocton Packet from the island of St. Thomas to England, On the next day, the wind was stronger and the ship more uneasy and wet than ever: we were out of the Gulf Stream, and on the following morning we passed the islands of Flores and Corvo, the two north-westernmost of the Azores, or Western Islands. Flores looked verdant; but Corvo is little better than a lofty rock: both however, are inhabited. We were now drawing near home and the converging of outward and homeward bound vessels. On the 9th day of June we passed a ship, and on the next day met a large one; on the 13th we met a brig, and saw two or three other small vessels in the chops of the Channel. The next day, a vessel was in sight, and the sea was green, the ship being in soundings. We were out of blue water. The following morning several vessels were in sight in the afternoon we saw the land, Start Point, in Old England; and late at night, we discerned the Portland Lights. On the next day, we were off Portland and St. Alban's Heads; but the wind was foul; a mortifying circumstance with home in sight. An Isle of Wight pilot came on board; and we had that island in sight all day. The next morning the weather was wet, and the land out of sight. At noon of the 17th of June we tacked towards England, and made St. Cathe rine's on the Isle of Wight at three o'clock p. m.; when the wind con |