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The island of Guam, Guaham, or Guaci, one of the group named by the Spaniards Islas de las Velas, Ladrones, or Mariane Islands, is in lat 13° 40' N. The soil is tolerably fertile producing vast quantities of cocoas, and the natives grow rice in several places. The Dutch procured here about 2000 fowls, but the natives would not part with their cattle for any price.
They were discovered by Magellan in 1521, and have belonged to Spain ever since. Their population is 11,000. The soil is fertile and densely wooded. The climate is temperate. Guam, the southernly and principal island, is 100 miles in circumference, and has a population of 8,100, of which 1,400 are Europeans. Its central part is mountainous, and it has a small volcano.
We were certain to meet with at least one missionary going through the Carolines, and he would many us. If we did not, it would not matter there were half a dozen Spanish priests in Guam.
Leaving Guam, we proposed to go for some way directly west, to clear some islands that were in the way, and then to steer for the S.E. part of Min-danao, and from thence the nearest way to Ternate. In the afternoon of the 14th April we made land, which bore from us W.N.W. ten leagues, and which we supposed to be the N.E. part of Celebes.
But we felt a little comforted at the thought that we had already taken some very rich Prizes, and my own part of the Plunder was now over 1500l. January 11th, we weighed from Port Segura, and ran towards the Island of Guam. Our Steward missing some pieces of Pork, we immediately searched and found the Thieves.
However, the objects of the mission were not interfered with by all this dining and festivity. Natural history excursions, magnetical observations, the geographical survey of the island of Guam, entrusted to Duperrey, were all being pushed forward simultaneously. But in the meantime the corvette had got to moorings in the deep water off the port of St.
We sang no more; but the indefatigable cornetist on the troop deck still entertained his fellows, while occasionally a second steward stole out with a mandolin, and struggled with the intermezzo from "Cavalleria." We did not run out of talk, however, and the days went by all too swiftly. Of Guam I can only say that it struck me as the most desolate spot I had ever seen.
We knew the wind we now had was merely a land breeze, and that by running 100 leagues out to sea we should fall in with the regular trade-wind, which blows always N.E. or E.N.E. our first purpose was, therefore, to get into the latitude of 13° N. which is that of Guam, and then to bear away before the wind in that parallel.
Why, before I joined the navy I didn't know whether Guam was a vegetable or an island, and Culebra wasn't in my geography. Now? Why, now I'm as much at home in Porto Rico as I am in San Francisco. I'm as well acquainted in Valparaiso as I am in Vermont, and I've run around Cairo, Egypt, until I know it better than Cairo, Illinois. It's the only way to see the world.
So are Guam and the Sandwich Islands, if not also Samoa; and so will be Cuba if she comes, or any other West India Island. First, then, you are proposing to open the ports of the United States directly to the tropical products of the two greatest archipelagos of the world, and indirectly, through the Open Door we have pledged in the Philippines, to all the products of all the world!
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