Master Mariner

THE LIFE AND VOYAGES OF

AMASA DELANO

Captain Amasa Delano, 1763-1823



BY
JAMES B. CONNOLLY

1943

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CHAPTER XIV

The Good Ship Perseverance

ON THE 10TH OF NOVEMBER 1799, Amasa Delano, then thirty-six years of age, put to sea in his well-found ship, the Perseverance, for a sealing trip to far southern waters. Long-continued head winds had him tacking half across to Europe before he could straighten out on his southerly course. There was no real loss of time in so doing. He was bound around Cape Horn; and with the great northeasterly shoulder of Brazil thrusting far out into the Atlantic, plenty of early easting usually worked out well for a Cape Horn passage.

He met with much adverse weather nearing the equator; not so much heavy weather as mean weather, with rain and contrary winds, and a stretch of days so calm and sultry that the sails and deck fixtures took on a blue mold. It was the sort of tropic weather that drove captains to praying for a hurricane to clear the air. Hurricanes might carry away spars, but they did also shake the gloominess from the souls of the crew of a ship rolling helpless in the doldrums for weeks on end; also a hearty hurricane left the air fit for sleeping in the close quarters of a stuffy fo'c'sle on a hot tropic night.

However, the most evil weather must come to an end. Amasa picked up the invigorating southeast trade wind, and sky hooting he went then, past that northeast Brazilian shoulder in his new well-found ship; and so on down past the equator.

The master mariner in Amasa wasn't submerging the navigator. Two days before Christmas he descried three small islands. At two miles from the nearest island he sounded and got no bottom with an eighty-fathom lead. The islands showed up as a mere cluster of rocks with no sort of vegetation. He landed on one of the islands and found it covered with boobies sitting on nests. He robbed no nests, having learned long since that all sea birds' eggs have a fishy taste.

The blue-footed booby of the Galápagos

According to Amasa's charts these should be St. Paul's Islands, no others being near by; but if these were St. Paul's they were wrongly placed on the chart, and so likely to bring some fine ship to her doom. And all hands perhaps. Inexact cartographers and incompetent shipmasters were two things Amasa could not abide; and these rocks being erroneously laid down would mean danger for mariners falling in with them in the night, because of a current setting toward the islands for a ship passing them to the eastward.

Amasa continued his observations as southerly he sailed. There was the island of Fernando de Noronha; "remarkable for a peak upon it which is called the Pyramid, looking at a distance from the sea Like a high steeple." He records the latitude and longitude, and, that future shipmasters would more certainly trust his location, he explains that he located Fernando "by a series of lunar observations, taken with good instruments."

Celestial observations being beyond the capacity of most ship captains of Amasa's day, he could not forbear, as in the foregoing, now and then hinting at his superior competency as a navigator. It was his one vanity.

Amasa sailed the high Brazilian south coast before fine fresh winds and a smooth sea. Abreast of the river Plate, the river that leads to Buenos Aires, the wind took to boxing the compass, and a pampero jounced him about for a time. But no harm in that for his well-found Perseverance.

He sailed past the bleak Patagonian coast without bothering to close in on it for an observation; and so on to an anchorage in North West Harbour of the Falkland Islands. He found an English whaler here before him, the Diana, of London, Captain John Lock, last out of Botany Bay by way of Cape Horn. Two of the crew of the Diana stowed away aboard Amasa's ship, he knowing nothing of their presence aboard nor what sort they were until he was out to sea again.

Amasa's chart books had it that the Falklands were dangerous for strange ships to be sailing through. He checked up on that and found it true. "The islands being thick together, and the tides running very strong on the full and change of the moon, that the tide rips cannot be distinguished from the shoals; and if there be not a strong breeze, a ship cannot be commanded when amongst them."

The tide rips and the shoals were but a small vexation, he having met with such hindrances to safe navigation a hundred times before. He tacked and hauled and reached, and felt and smelled his way in and out and through the passages within the Falklands to open water beyond. Amasa's only grievance against the Falklands was the meager driftwood to be had on the beaches.

Ship captains of Amasa's day usually liked to do a bit of hunting in lands they looked in on. After long weeks of walking a deck at sea, men found a refreshment in stretching their legs ashore. Amasa had done a good bit of hunting as a boy in Duxbury, so now he tramped several islands during his stay in the Falklands. Only a single fox and six wild hogs fell to his gun after a week of hunting. He could have brought down wild geese aplenty, but he knew sea geese of old-too fishy for good eating.

It was here in the Falklands that Amasa first became acquainted with penguins. He noted three varieties-the king, the macaroni, and the jackass. Here also were albatross in quantities, and what monstrously large feet they had, as big across as the bottom of a water pail! But it was the penguins he admired, parading with their chests out like new-made militia brigadiers, almost like barracks soldiery in rookeries that were laid out on the most nearly level ground they could find near the sea… "They nested in squares, the lines running through at right angles as true as they could be drawn by a quadrant."

Macaroni Penguins

Amasa found no seals in quantities off the Falklands. He did not expect to, the ocean thereabouts having been hunted till the seals would come near there no more. Even seals show good sense at times. He now cut across to the southerly part of the Patagonian coast, "a rough, ragged shore, indented with deep bays covers, and most parts lined with rocks and dangers."

He was bound for the South Chilean coast, which meant that he had his choice of beating his way through the Strait of Magellan or rounding Cape Horn. He considered the matter carefully. His knowledge of the Strait of Magellan came mostly from the gossip of ship captains he had met in near and far ports:

"They are filled with shoals and dangers and have such deep water in them in many places that a ship cannot find anchorage. They are more difficult in sailing westerly. The prevailing westerly winds which blow a great part of the time between the Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego render a westerly passage of the Straits very difficult for a ship."

No ship had ventured the westerly passage of the Strait for years before this. The first navigator to dare the Strait of Magellan, the same being Magellan himself, had come to grief there. Shipmasters were preferring to make the Pacific by way of Cape Horn, considering it less hazardous and more speedy: though nothing of real speed to it.

Amasa chose the Cape Horn passage. He was from the ninth of February to the twelfth of March before he considered himself fairly around the Cape. He had bad going against the strong westerly gales, which forced the ship to a reefed foresail and staysail for days on end. His ship, being deep waisted, was kept rail deep in water for much of the time, but no great harm in that-she had spacious scuppers for that very contingency. "There were gales of wind, and the sea was tremendous during the gales, rolling in mountains from the westward; but the weather was no worse than I have seen in high latitudes on the North Atlantic."

Besides correcting charts, Amasa liked to upset what to him were wrong beliefs in maritime matters. Having discussed Cape Horn weather with various shipmasters who knew what it was from more than one experience, and having now made the Cape Horn passage himself, he feels impelled to record:

"Reports of Cape Horn weather differ very much. I leave no other way to account for the difference but by allowing that all men do not see and think alike. I have observed the thermometer of men's minds to be filled with light inflammatory matter, which rises easily and occasions them to see a great deal of the dismal. Others are filled with genuine mercury, which will not rise without a cause. These last seldom see such extraordinary phenomena. For instance, Captain Dampier, Captain Cook and Captain La Peyrouse, three of the greatest mariners that ever traversed the globe, never represented any terrible difficulty in doubling Cape Horn, or in navigating other seas, as men of smaller abilities have. One reason why some captains see things so magnified is their being new to them, and at a great distance from home; but after being more acquainted with dangers and more accustomed to traversing distant regions, they would become familiar and not appear so terrible and would not be troubled with such uncommon difficulty afterwards."

There was a hint of Amasa's further comment on the Cape Horn passage of commanders who make themselves out heroes, or great captains, because of meeting with dangerous weather which, were they more skillful and courageous seamen, they would make nothing of. The Cape Horn passage (Amasa's judgment) was nothing that a capable captain of a well-found ship need ever worry about. After clearing the Horn, Amasa stood well in to the Pacific before turning northerly. He was accepting the word of previous shipmasters that from the Horn to the westerly end of Magellan Strait was a rough coast for a castaway ship. Cape Pillar was at the westerly end of the Strait, and the record was that no man had ever escaped alive from a ship wrecked at Cape Pillar. Amasa gave the Pillar a wide berth.

He held his northerly course through ten degrees of latitude before heading in to the coast of Chile. In this, the late end of summer, he met with "pleasant weather, and three fourths of the time moderate steady breezes from the south east." He noted the Andes "covered with snow, and in appearance magnificent beyond description when seen from a ship's deck eight or ten miles offshore, particularly when the sun is near setting, and the atmosphere clear. The sun then shines on the westerly side of the mountains next the sea, in some places beautifully shaded."

Amasa's first landing on the west coast of South America was at Concepción Bay.

"Concepción Bay is 36° 30' south on the coast of Chili. In making into the bay, keep to the southward if running for the port. This precaution is necessary in making any harbor on the coast of Chili; especially when the prevailing winds are from the southeast. Off the westerly entrance to Concepcion lie two rocks, one white and one black. The white one is the largest. The black rock lies to the north of it. When the head is passed bring the black one to bear east"

Amasa was always for taking time out to look into rather than have nothing to do with the prime object of his voyage. He took time out now to listen to great talk of gold and silver mines, of horses and cattle and sheep, of where good hunting was to be had; also to look into things for himself, as: "Here is good fishing and the finest fish and in the greatest variety of any place I ever visited…" And, of the people living there, there is "the curious construction of their houses, being principally built of clay which is baked in the sun, and covered on the roof with crooked tiles."

The northern world now knows all about adobe houses and Spanish tiled roofs; but not the people of young America in Amasa's day.

He decided to look in on the Galápagos Islands. The gossip was of no heavy sealing there, but he always wanted to see what the Galápagos were like, and so:

"On the 30th of June 1800, I saw Chatham Island [Galápagos] bearing north-north-west, ten leagues distant; soon after saw Hood's Island bearing west by north, six leagues distant; and on the last day of July anchored in twenty-eight fathoms, muddy bottom, in Stephen's Bay, Kicker Rock bearing west by north."

Amasa then proceeds to give a world-famous navigator before him a going over for describing Stephen's Bay as having a cove fit for vessels of one hundred and fifty or two hundred tons' burden to be hove down in. Amasa found the cove where reported, and:

"It was a convenient place for landing and for the taking on of wood. It was a sightly little harbour, having mangrove trees growing to the water's edge all the way round, but as a fit anchorage for vessels of two hundred tons--no, no! The man could not have sounded round its mouth, or within the cove. If he had, he would have found many places with not more than six feet of water, and a very rough rocky bottom, with a ground swell rolling quite into the cove. We found rocky ground in the easterly part, and it is recommended in going in, or coming out, to the eastward of Kicker Rock, not to run near the shore within it, or to the southward of the high head on the easterly side of the bay, ft being foul ground; for in case an anchor should be let go it would most probably be lost. There was very little to be obtained in this bay, except green turtle."

Amasa landed on every island of size, and some of small size, in the Galápagos Archipelago; and where the information might be of value he never fails to pass it on, as that about Dalrymple's Rock, which lay:

"About north-north-west from the westerly point of Chatham Island, four miles distant. It is 300 feet in circumference, and considerable high. We found very indifferent anchorage after we left the first bay that we anchored in; as all the north side of the island was deep water and foul ground and no kind of a harbour. The southerly and easterly being the windward parts of the island, and of course, not likely to afford any landing. The whole of this island appeared unfavourable to any kind of cultivation, as the greater part of ft was mountains or rocks burnt to a cinder; and ft appeared as if the whole island had undergone a revolution by a volcano."

Adrift on the easterly shores of several islands were the trunks of large trees. They were much larger than any to be seen growing on the islands; and to Amasa's thinking they must have drifted from continental America, most likely from somewhere to the northward of the Bay of Panama: an item to interest any navigator in that it indicated a prevailing current. For the benefit of people indifferent to the flow of ocean current, Amasa noted that the trees were of a kind called Spanish cedar, nearly as handsome as mahogany.

Amasa gives various previous ship captains a going over for not checking up on their findings before reporting them to the maritime world. There was that American captain who reported a reef to the northwest of Hood Island. There was no reef there. Tide rips coming together had that captain mistaking them for a reef as he sailed on by. And the captain of the English ship who saw a reef off the southeast end of Chatham Island, about three leagues distant Amasa cruised over the spot where that reef should be if that captain knew whereof he spoke. There was no reef there. Such false reports, so likely to lead shipmasters astray and cause vessels to be wrecked, roused Amasa's ire.

Amasa's idea of a report for later mariners was to make it so exact that no one could be led astray by it. As:

"Chatham's Island: It is best to anchor a quarter of a mile off the easterly shore from Chatham's. Here is six fathoms water and the east point north east by east. In making the harbour a ship must pass to the southward of the island when coming from the eastward, so for the advantage of a steady fresh breeze of wind that will carry quite up with the westerly point of the bay. A ship attempting to come in to the north and east of the island will be likely to meet with head winds and calms. What I especially liked about Chatham's Island was the abundance of teal and flamingoes. They liked to frequent the salt lagoons. I shot quite a few of them."

Sealers and whalers were pretty much the only people who looked in on the Galápagos. These put in there more often for harbor or wood and water than for hope of cargo. To the world at large the islands were unknown. A more than ordinarily venturesome rover would sometimes land there. Amasa heard of a roving Irishman who had quit his roving to settle on one of the islands and have a go at cultivating a farm. A restless lot, the Irish-they were everywhere. Six Boston Irishmen were among the crew of the Massachusetts when she sailed on that China voyage. Three of the six were knifed to death by Chinese gangsters in Macao.

Amasa located small islands that were not put down on any chart of his, and he had sailed with all the charts he could lay hands on. An island that his charts overlooked was James Island.

Amasa's shipyard training would never allow him to pass up growing trees without close examination. There was no building ships without timber. The hills and valleys of James Island were clothed with trees of a good growth. The underwood and shrubbery were so thick in spots that Amasa's men had to hew their way through them.

It puzzled Amasa that land should produce verdure where no rivers or springs were, and no rain to speak of. Why was that? He solved it in time. "The dew fell so heavily at some seasons, that it was equal to a light rain for setting a man's clothes soaking as if he had stayed out at night."

Pelicans were here, and, curiously, they were laying their eggs in nests built in trees. Flamingos also were here, looking like a small kind of albatross, but they were not the forehanded Falkland albatross, which laid its eggs in rookeries. Dumb creatures, these Galápagos ones. Amasa found them sitting and hatching on the burnt, stony ground.

But the turtles of the Galápagos were something to talk about! Amasa gave them his most special attention. The size of them! Four or five hundred pounds, perhaps more poundage than that, if he had the scales to weigh them. They scared him a bit at first, he walking the beach where they lay scattered all about. At first sight of Amasa approaching them, they raised their necks high till they were nearly vertical and advanced on him with their mouths wide open.

As Amasa got to know them better he saw them going for each other in the same threatening manner. Two of them would have at each other so near as almost to touch, and stand on their hind flippers as if about to tear each other apart.

Giant Galapagos Turtle

"Their mouths, heads, and necks, appeared to quiver with passion. I would touch of a stick against their necks or heads, and they would instantly shrink back and draw neck, head, and flippers into their shells. This is the only quick motion I ever saw them perform. They were perfectly harmless, as much so as any animal I knew, notwithstanding their threatening appearance. They were very strong, walking off easily under my weight."

Amasa got on the friendliest of terms with the turtles. He took some aboard his ship and trained them to be obedient and orderly.

"I placed them where I wished them to be kept on deck. When they moved from the spot I would whip them with a small rope, take them up and carry them to the place assigned for them. After repeating this a few times I had only to shake the rope at them to send them scurrying back to their berths. I thought I could discern in my turtles something of the sagacity of the elephants that I had seen working under the natives of India and South Africa."

Amasa learned that turtles would stay alive for a long time aboardship if, proper food were provided them. They were fond of prickly pear trees, the trunk of which is a soft pithy substance of a sweetish taste, and very juicy. "I brought pear trees aboard ship, cut them up and strewed the parts around deck, they would come arunning to gobble them up. Grass would also stir them into immediate action."

Amasa watched them live several months without food, "they growing lighter and leaner notwithstanding some writers have asserted to the contrary."

Amasa found skin and hair seals both among the islands but not enough to keep him there long. He sailed back to the coast of Chile. He carried 300 fat turtles back to the coast and landed 150 of them on an island. Grass was their only feed on the island. Half of the 150 soon died, which -Amasa's judgment:

"Was owing to their stomachs having got so weak and out of tone, they could not digest it. As soon as they ate any grass after landing, they would froth at the mouth, appear to go insane and die in the course of a day or two. Those that survived the shock, which was occasioned by this sudden transition from total abstinence to that of abundance, soon became tranquil and appeared to be as healthy and as contented with the climate as when they were at the native Gallipagos."

Amasa would have liked to note how long his turtles would live away from home; but his crew needed them for food. Then:

"It was common to take out of one of them ten or twelve pounds of fat when they were opened, besides what fat was necessary to cook them with. Their fat was as yellow as our best butter, and of a sweeter flavour than a hog's lard."

Amasa's praise of turtles was all for the Galápagos breed. He had known turtles in other parts of the world, such as the highly rated Madagascar turtles that were on exhibition in the Île de France, which were of less tonnage, had longer legs, and were much more ugly than his Galápagos pets. In all the other South Sea Islands he saw no turtles that could rate in any particular with his Galápagosans. No.