United States or Latvia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"In the geographical department," said Duperrey, "we would propose to verify or to rectify, either by direct, or by chronometrical observations, the position of a great number of points in different parts of the globe, especially among the numerous island groups of the Pacific Ocean, notorious for shipwrecks, and so remarkable for the character and the form of the shoals, sandbanks, and reefs, of which they in part consist; also to trace new routes through the Dangerous Archipelago and the Society Islands, side by side with those taken by Quiros, Wallis, Bougainville, and Cook; to carry on hydrographical surveys in continuation of those made in the voyages of D'Entrecasteaux and of Freycinet in Polynesia, New Holland, and the Molucca Islands; and particularly to visit the Caroline Islands, discovered by Magellan, about which, with the exception of the eastern side, examined in our own time by Captain Kotzebue, we have only very vague information, communicated by the missionaries, and by them learnt from stories told by savages who had lost their way and were driven in their canoes upon the Marianne Islands.
In the expedition of d'Entrecasteaux, a common swallow was seen 60 leagues distant from Cape Blanco; but this was towards the end of October, and M. Labillardiere thought it had newly arrived from Europe. We crossed these latitudes in June, at a period when the seas had not for a long time been agitated by tempests.
They had not been gone more than a few hours when a general report was circulated that it had been the conversation of the French officers that Mons'r Baudin had orders to fix on a place for a settlement at Van Diemen's Land, and that the French, on receiving his accounts, were to make an establishment at 'Baie du Nord, which, you will observe, in D'Entrecasteaux's charts is what we call 'Storm Bay Passage, and the French 'Canal D'Entrecasteaux. It seemed one of the French officers had given Colonel Paterson a chart, and described the intended spot."
Arriving there on the 5th of July in such gloomy, rainy weather, that it was with no small difficulty that the entrance of the harbour of Carteret, where D'Entrecasteaux made a stay of eight days, was made out; whilst there the travellers received several visits from the score of natives, who seem to make up the total population of the place.
The Esperance and the Recherche passed before Vanikoro without stopping there, and, in fact, this voyage was most disastrous, as it cost D'Entrecasteaux his life, and those of two of his lieutenants, besides several of his crew. Captain Dillon, a shrewd old Pacific sailor, was the first to find unmistakable traces of the wrecks. On the 15th of May, 1824, his vessel, the St.
Launceston is warm, sheltered, and moist; and Hobart Town, protected by Bruny Island and its archipelago of D'Entrecasteaux Channel and Storm Bay from the violence of the southern breakers, preserves the mean temperature of Smyrna; whilst the district between these two towns spreads in a succession of beautiful valleys, through which glide clear and sparkling streams.
Two ships, the RECHERCHE and the ESPERANCE, were selected and placed under the command of Dentrecasteaux. He had already had some experience in a part of the region to be searched, had been a governor of Ile-de-France, and during a South Sea voyage had named the cluster of islands east of Papua now called the D'Entrecasteaux Group.
For two months I had been on the d'Entrecasteaux Islands gathering data for the concluding chapters of my book upon the flora of the volcanic islands of the South Pacific. The day before I had reached Port Moresby and had seen my specimens safely stored on board the Southern Queen.
Discovered in 1511 by the Portuguese Francisco Serrano, these shores were successively visited by Don Jorge de Meneses in 1526, by Juan de Grijalva in 1527, by the Spanish general Alvaro de Saavedra in 1528, by Inigo Ortiz in 1545, by the Dutchman Schouten in 1616, by Nicolas Sruick in 1753, by Tasman, Dampier, Fumel, Carteret, Edwards, Bougainville, Cook, McClure, and Thomas Forrest, by Rear Admiral d'Entrecasteaux in 1792, by Louis-Isidore Duperrey in 1823, and by Captain Dumont d'Urville in 1827.
The north coast of Australia, both from its more interesting formation and the lack of settlement, has received a good deal of attention from our navigators of the present century, and by far the most fascinating part of Captain Flinders' log refers to the north coast. In 1802, we find him following the track of M. D'Entrecasteaux round the Great Bight.
Word Of The Day