Thomas Musgrave

“ Port Pegasus is one of the finest harbours I have ever been in, and there is abundance of heavy timber all over its shores. If the land be good, which the abundance and verdure of its vegetation seem to indicate, it must, in the course of a few years, become a port of considerable importance. After dinner we got the anchor up and pulled the cutter outside, in hope of finding a breeze, but we were disappointed; there was not a breath of air, so we pulled in again, and in the evening anchored about six miles to the southward of where we lay last night. ”

“ It will be a glorious change if ever we get back to the land where the sun shines every day; and it is to be hoped we shall, and that before very long now. I don't know how it is, but for the last few days I have felt unaccountably fidgety and uneasy, as if I were every moment expecting some extraordinary occurrence. ”

“ Port Easy is ten miles to the northward of the South Cape, and by passing between the islands and the shore, and keeping the shore close on board, within three-quarters of a mile, you are bound to sail right into the port, which I must pronounce the snuggest and easiest of access that ever I have entered in the southern hemisphere. There is room for fifty ships of any size to swing to their anchors, well sheltered from all winds, and a convenient depth of water, three to four fathoms. ”

“ The wind is so that, should I slip the cable with a spring, she would not clear the point, or I would slip and run out to sea. At every heave of the swell she is dragging the anchor home, and getting nearer the shore. From 10 p.m. till midnight the gale blew with the most terrific violence, and precisely at midnight the ship struck, but we hung on to the cable, in hopes that the wind would moderate as the tide rose, as it was then low water. ”

“ How it had managed to crawl out of the water I cannot imagine, and whether it had been set into by more than one seal I am unable to conjecture. It was a cow, and was with calf.
This great scarcity of meat has not been for want of searching after it. We have constantly had one, and sometimes two, men out on the forage. If the boat was afloat, I have no doubt but we should be able to find as much as we could eat. When we get her afloat, we shall at once lay in a sea stock, and be off with the first slant of wind. ”

“ With much to delight the eye, and an extraordinary amount of new species to occupy the mind, there is here a want of any of those trees or shrubs to which the voyager has been accustomed in the north; and one cannot help feeling how much greater the pleasure would be to find new kinds of the pine, the birch, willow, or the oak, than those remarkable trees which have no allies in the northern hemisphere, and the mention of which, suggesting no familiar form to compare them with at home, can interest few but the professed botanist. ”

“ The means employed by the cow of getting her young into the water for the first time, and taking it to a place of safety, is, when witnessed, highly amusing.
It might be supposed that these animals, even when young, would readily go into the water—that being one of their natural instincts—but strange to say such is not the case; it is only with the greatest difficulty, and a wonderful display of patience, that the mother succeeds in getting her young in for the first time. I have known a cow to be three days getting her calf down half a mile, and into the water ”

“ If the wind is moderate in the least degree—that is to say, if it is not blowing a whole gale, they are flying about in myriads, from daylight to dark (fortunately they modestly retire in the night) , and alight on you in clouds, literally covering every part of your skin that happens to be exposed, and not only that, but they get inside our clothes and bite there. ”

“ From the quantity of land which has been cleared, I judge that a good many people have lived here. At 9 o'clock in the morning we up anchor and pulled the cutter out of the bay with the last of the ebb tide, expecting to find some wind when we got outside, from some quarter or other, for we are all heartily sick of the protractions of this voyage. ”

“ The days are getting short, and a long, stormy, dreary winter is before us, without the slightest prospect of getting away; and how those dear ones whom I left manage to battle with the misery in which my ambition and folly has plunged them, I dare not think. ”

“ It is a surprising fact that the nearer to the water a seal is killed, the more tenacious it is of life. I have actually seen one of these black bull seals, with two bullets in him, his head split open with an axe, and his brains hanging out, dragging the men along the beach, who were trying to keep him out of the water by hanging on to his hind flappers ”

“ Situated in the midst of a boisterous ocean, in a very high latitude for that hemisphere, and far removed from any tract of land but the islands of New Zealand, they proved, as was expected, to contain amongst many new species some of peculiar interest. Possessing no mountains rising to the limits of perpetual snow, and few rocks or precipices, the whole land seemed covered with vegetation; a low forest skirts all the shores, succeeded by a broad belt of brushwood, above which, to the summit of the hills, extend grassy slopes. ”

“ It is useless for me to describe it—it is a complete bundle of rags; and by adding to these troubles grim starvation, which all along has been gnawing at our bowels, we have a summary of our calamities, the details of which would be sickening. But, thank God! we are now in reality on the point of surmounting or ending our wretchedness and misery. ”

“ Certain mobs collect and camp on their own particular ground, and also keep together in the water, but do not confine themselves to any particular part of the harbour. This I have ascertained from observations. There is one seal which we all know particularly well wherever we see him; he appears to be the king of the mob which belong to Figure-of-Eight Island. He is a very large dark coloured bull, of the tiger breed; we have named him Royal Tom. He is not at all afraid of us when we see him on shore; if the seals around him run away, 'Tom' will not move, and takes very little notice of us. ”

“ It was very showery in the forenoon, but at noon the showers took off, and at 3 p.m. the wind moderated a little, and we at once got under weigh, and under double-reefed canvas beat up to our old house; and as we did not come in sight of it until within about a mile from it, the boys did not see us until we were close upon them. Then the one who saw us ran into the house to tell the other, and before they reached the beach Captain Cross and myself had landed, leaving the cutter under weigh, as there was too much wind and sea to anchor her. ”

“ When you surprise the calves when they are staying at the edge of the water, they will always run on shore and make for the bush. The last time that Raynal went without me the seals were very savage. In the water they attacked the boat; one left the marks of his teeth in an oar, and another one was going to jump into the boat, but Raynal shot him. When they are killed in the water they sink like a stone. ”

“ It is almost impossible to catch fish here with lines, as the seals are attracted by you, and come round in such numbers that they drive the fish away. In going down the harbour I took a number of soundings, and I have discovered another reef of rocks, which are dry at low water spring tides, and might prove very dangerous to anyone working up for the Middle Harbour, where the best anchorage is, as they lie about a cable's length from the southern point of its entrance; and a vessel would naturally bring that point, so as to weather in as far as possible on the first board. ”

“ The circumstances attending the wreck of the Invercauld are of a peculiarly painful nature, and such as are likely to excite in the minds of this community more than ordinary interest, while the details of the narrative furnished by Captain Musgrave, of the schooner Grafton, containing so harrowing an account of the miseries and privations endured by himself and his shipwrecked crew on that barren and desolate isle, are so fresh in the memories of the inhabitants of this colony. ”

“ Now (10 p.m.) we are at anchor in two fathoms of water, at the head of what may be termed a lagoon, with a clear drift for an easterly wind of at least 41⁄2 miles. It is about a quarter of a mile wide where we are, and widens to about three-quarters of a mile at the entrance. On three sides of us are hills rising abruptly from the water to the height of about 900 feet. Now I will endeavour to describe the manner in which we reached this place; its name I must omit, for the simple reason that I don't know whether it has one or not; it cannot possibly be Laurie Cove. ”

“ This, however, is natural enough, I have no doubt; for men, after suffering such an imprisonment as we have done, are ready to regain their liberty at any price, especially when grim starvation is urging them on.
Since I last wrote, we have worked steadily and industriously at the boat, and have got along as fast as our skill and tools will permit; and I think we shall be able to launch her in about ten more days from this. We have worked from daylight in the morning until half-past nine at night, Raynal at his forge, and I, after dark, at the sails in the house. ”

“ I have employed myself all the week in working at our new place, and I am going to much more trouble than is absolutely necessary, so as to divert my mind as much as possible from melancholy thoughts and forebodings. ”

“ On Monday and Tuesday we employed ourselves at tide-time in clearing away the rocks and boulders off the beach up above where she now lies, and where she must come up, if she comes up at all, which I consider as very doubtful; but rather than remain here another winter, I think I shall be tempted to risk my life in the boat. We shall not be able to do anything more until spring tides again. The barometer has been very low all the week—lowest on Friday, 28⋅65: during the hurricane it rose or fell as the wind lulled or increased in violence, and is now 29⋅40; steadily rising. ”

“ It is very fortunate that the weather is not severely cold, and I am somewhat surprised at it; for we have scarcely had frost as yet, and it is now mid-winter. On Friday morning we found ice in a tub, about as thick as a shilling, which is the first actual frost we have had. Our parrots are beginning to talk, but I think they are the ka-ka-po, a very rare bird, which is found in New Zealand and on some of the Philippine Islands, and eagerly sought after by naturalists. In the spring, if God spares me, I intend to get as many young ones as I can. ”

“ The truth is, starvation is staring us in the face, which, it will be admitted, is enough to drive men to desperation. And this fact has moved me to the resolution which I have taken, and I think I am acting prudently. I have given it my serious and deliberate consideration for the last three months, as I have all along had my doubts about being able to make augers, without which it is utterly impossible to build anything better than the boat ”

“ There is barely a passage for a boat, and very shallow water outside of the distance of a cable and a half, where the centre drops suddenly into eight fathoms, close to the edge, and deepens fast from that outwards. But I was not particular about sounding far from it, as it came on to rain, and we wanted seal, as our fresh provisions had been out for two or three days; so we landed on the island, and found three mobs of seals asleep. There were from 30 to 40 in each mob, and there were a great many very young calves amongst them. These we wanted to get without killing the old ones. ”

“ A south-east gale, or even fresh breeze, we have not yet had. As far as my experience goes, I find the summer gales heavier, of longer duration, and more frequent than those of the winter. In winter, or in this winter, we have had the most moderate weather; but fogs (which are frequent all the year round) are more prevalent, and excessively dense during the latter season, almost constantly enveloping entirely the land, and rendering its approach dangerous. On Thursday morning we got three seals, after going out every previous morning without success. ”

“ Tuesday, August 8.—As we proceeded to the northward again, the wind moderated and the weather cleared a little. It is now 3 a.m. We have just hove the cutter to, and will wait for daylight, as we have not yet made the land, although we have run 20 miles farther than where we should have found it. I feel very uneasy about it, as all on board do. We have only one compass on board, which I have every reason to believe is out of order and is leading us astray, and where we are, or which side of the channel we are on, it will be impossible to ascertain until I can get sights in the morning. ”

“ On Friday we went down to Flagstaff Point, and, finding our signal-board right, we caught fish and got mussels until dark, when we returned home with a load of mussels, but only a few fish. We can manage very well for provisions when the weather is fine, but still we have to look very sharp after it, for the days are very short (they are now at their shortest) . We have only eight hours daylight, and we have taken nearly all the fish and mussels that were anywhere within two or three miles of the house; and we cannot very well go any farther along the shores without the boat. ”