Bay of Biscay

“ WHO does not know the delightful monotony of a voyage southward, broken only at the intervals of anchoring beneath the brilliant green slopes of Madeira or under the grim shadow of the cliffs of St. Helena?
The first week of the voyage for those who are not sensitive of the uneasy motion of the ship through the waves of the Bay of Biscay is perhaps the most delightful, for then every one is courteous with every one else. The passengers have not become friendly enough to be able to quarrel satisfactorily. ”

“ They now began to feel the regular Atlantic roll, and shortly afterwards the wind, continuing to veer, worked round so far to the northward of west, that they were not only enabled to get another good pull upon the weather braces, but also to set studding-sails on the starboard side, when away went the ship plunging and rolling across the Bay of Biscay at a pace which amply justified her name, and sent all hands into ecstasies of delight. ”

“ Notwithstanding, however, we made good progress; the breeze was not steady but blew in squalls, making it often necessary to hand topsails, and raising great seething seas around us, over which the Golden Grove rode very gallantly. At nightfall, on the eighth day of our voyage, we lost sight of Ushant and entered into the great Bay of Biscay. The sea here runs exceedingly high, tumbling in to the shore in great ridges of blue water; but with a stout ship, well manned, the nature of the waves is not so dangerous as that of the short, boiling surges in the North Sea. ”

“ It's a sweet tooth, that fellow that you hold on upon yet, Mistress Pretty-bones. But as I was saying, take the whole coast along, I know it as well as the way from here to the Bold Dragoon; and a devil of an acquaintance is that Bay of Biscay. Whew! I wish you could but hear the wind blow there. It sometimes takes two to hold one man's hair on his head. Scudding through the Bay is pretty much the same thing as travelling the roads in this country, up one side of a mountain, and down the other."
"Do tell!" exclaimed Remarkable; "and does the sea run as high as mountains, Benjamin?" ”

“ Few people retain their health and good looks as she did. Running across the Bay of Biscay we sighted Cape Finisterre, rounding which we stood in for the coast, in hopes of picking up some of the Spanish Guarda Costas or any of the enemy’s merchantmen. ”

“ The packets are cargo-boats, but with excellent cabins and sleeping accommodation for twelve or fourteen passengers, including as good a bath as on a Cunard or White Star liner. And yet I was the only passenger last week. There can scarcely be a more interesting short voyage for any one who is a decent sailor; but I suppose the fourteen or sixteen hours “in the Bay of Biscay, oh!” scares people. As far as my experience goes, the Atlantic roars like a sucking-dove in the Channel and the Bay at Easter-time. ”

“ Where it is met with, the country is flat and subject to heavy floodings; and so it follows that in the rainy seasons [Pg 142] those Bay of Biscay plains are converted into shallow, muddy lagoons or impassable lakes.
After the water has evaporated or drained off, and until a pad has been worn through, the journeying over these wretched tracts is so unavoidably jolting and chin-choppy that (so 'tis said) horsemen dismount or stop and loll in their saddles, every hundred yards or so, to rest until their aching jaws and bones re-set and the kinks straighten out of their spinal columns. ”

“ With this demand the urgency of their own purpose, and the fear of the threatenings of the Captain, obliged them to comply, and the paper was drawn up and signed.
Fortunately for them, the Bay of Biscay maintained its too dreaded celebrity at the season referred to, by becoming the scene of a formidable sea and storm. The gale commenced rather suddenly, and became rapidly so fierce, that the seamen, who were quite inadequate in number, as well as in capabilities, were unable to get in the sail within the limits of safety. ”

“ Captain Billings, seeing the wind so favourable, instead of hugging the land, determined to make all the westing he could at this the very outset of our voyage, in order to avoid the cross currents hanging about the chops of the Channel, and off the Scilly Isles—which frequently, when aided by the contrary winds they engender, drive a ship on to the French coast, and into the Bay of Biscay, thus entailing a lot of beating up to the northwards again to gain a proper westerly course. ”

“ That's a long way back—a small trading-vessel was wrecked in the Bay of Biscay on the west coast of France, near the little village of Esnandes. All hands were lost except one sailor, an Irishman, called Walton. ”

“ The Oestrymnides, however, are generally, and, if Festus was right in saying that they produced tin, necessarily identified with the Cassiterides: the peninsula is rightly identified with Brittany,2299 or, more strictly speaking, with the promontory formed by Finistère; and therefore the gulf is either the Bay of Biscay, or the gulf in which lie the Channel Islands. ”

“ This area will be described in more detail in a later publication devoted to the topography of the Caribbean.
In the eastern Atlantic each abyssal plain has been crossed at least three times by ships employing a PDR, a coverage which, although sufficient to establish their existence, is vastly inferior to the coverage of the western Atlantic abyssal plains. The Biscay Abyssal Plain occupies a large portion of the Bay of Biscay. It is connected by an abyssal gap at 43° 30 ́N., 12° 00 ́W., to the Iberia Abyssal Plain which lies west of the northern two-thirds of the Iberian Peninsula. ”

“ The bend to Pole Camp Shackle, about 8 miles. Water might be to the left, perhaps a mile; follow pad or tracks into it. The Shackle to Newcastle Station 12 miles."
* * * *
In this stretch (28 miles) , I had the first experience worth noticing, of that "Bay of Biscay" formation of which much had been heard. And what there was of it was rough on bike and rider. Undeniably so.
Where "Bay of Biscay" ground occurs, the soil is generally a blue-black clay—a pug-mixture of silt and decomposed vegetable matter—which the roots of a thick and wiry blue-grass hold firmly lumped together. ”

“ It is earnestly to be hoped, for the sake of invalids, that accommodations along the shore at Key Biscayne, and at the mouth of the Miami, will before long be provided. While it is the very best, it could also be made the most accessible part of the sea coast of Florida, as the whole journey from the North could be made by water. Game as deer, bear, turkeys, etc., etc., very abundant in the pine woods, which extend along the coast, and fish swarm in countless numbers in the bay. Turtle of the finest kinds can be caught on the islets off the shore. Oysters are plentiful. ”

“ This it is, also, that causes the difference in fertility of this soil, as compared with the siliceous sand of the more northern part of the State. Biscayne Bay is located on the south-eastern coast of Florida, between the twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth degrees of north latitude, below the frost line, and is included within the limits of Dade county. The following facts are quoted from the “Florida Settler and Immigrants’ Guide,” prepared by Dennis Eagan, Commissioner of Lands and Immigration: “The climate of Dade county is exceedingly agreeable and conducive to health. ”

“ Industry pays quite as well there as in any part of the globe.” R. M. BACHE, of Philadelphia, author of “The Young Wrecker of the Florida Reef,” writes: “The climate of Biscayne Bay, like that of all the Reef, is wonderfully equable and pleasant, insular in its character, rarely oppressively hot in the shade, and during most of the year leaving nothing to be desired regarding enjoyability, the only trying weather being an occasional “norther.” Fish as well as turtle, are abundant, and game of various kinds on the land. The impressions I have about the soil, is that it is very fertile ”

“ The northern face of the Sá Leone peninsula is fretted with little creeks and inlets, bights and lagoons, which were charming in a state of nature. Pirate's Bay, the second after the lighthouse, is a fairy scene under a fine sky; with its truly African tricolor, its blue waters reflecting air, its dwarf cliffs of laterite bespread with vivid leek-green, and its arc of golden yellow sand, upon which the feathery tops of the cocoa-palms look like pins planted in the ground. To the travelled man the view suggests many a nook in the Pacific islands. ”

“ Their language is music; their climate delicious; their soil fruitful; land and living cheap. Their fleet is a formidable one; the Biscayan mariners for boldness and skill are unsurpassed, tossed as they are from infancy in the cradle of their bay, where the wide-spreading Atlantic is for ever wroth that it can go no further. ”

“ Viewed from the sea, the coast chosen for the new landing seems comparatively flat and gentle, seemingly, though not really, easy to land upon, but with no good military position near it. It looks as though once, long ago, the sea had thrust far inland there, in a big bay or harbour stretching from the high ground to the north of Suvla to the left of the Anzac position. This bay, if it ever existed, must have been four miles long and four miles across, a very noble space of water, ringed by big, broken, precipitous hills, into which it thrust in innumerable creeks and combes. ”

“ We anchored on the north shore, off a sandy bay, which I think as good a birth as any in the bay; Cape Banks bore east-south-east, and Point Solander south-south-east, the ground clear and good. The wind, either from the north-east or south-east quarters, set in a prodigious sea. Higher up the bay there is a spot of four fathoms, where a few ships might be laid in tolerable security, but they must be lightened, to enable them to pass over a flat of twelve feet, and that depth but of narrow limits. ”

“ Farther on, toward the northern horn of the bay, lies the mount of Posilipo, the ancient coast of Baiæ, Cape Mysene, and the mountain isles of Procida and Ischia, the last of which still preserves the costumes of Greece, from which it was colonised centuries ago. The bay itself is as blue as the sky, scarcely ruffled all day with the wind, and covered by countless boats fishing or creeping on with their picturesque lateen sails just filled: while the atmosphere over sea, city, and mountain, is of a clearness and brilliancy which is inconceivable in other countries. ”

“ Opposite Fortune Bay, which has several important arms, are the two islands of St Pierre and Miquelon, ceded by treaty in 1713 to France, as shelter for her fishermen, and now all that remains of French sovereignty in North America. In the neighbourhood of Bay St George, on the west coast (40 m. wide at the mouth and boasting a good harbour) are situated some of the most fertile lands in the island, well-timbered and containing large deposits of coal and other minerals. Three extensive arms run 20 m. inland from Bay of Islands, the seat of a profitable herring fishery. ”

“ Sailing thence to the southward towards the large island, we discovered a very large bay, well peopled, and very fertile in yams and fruits, hogs and fowls. They are all black people and naked. They fight with bows, darts and clubs. They did not choose to have peace with us, though we frequently spoke to them and made presents; and they never, with their goodwill, let us set foot on shore.
This bay is very refreshing, and in it fall many and large rivers. It is in 15 2/3° S. latitude, and in circuit it is twenty-five leagues. ”

“ But we touched in Queen's Bay just in time. The Governor (who is his own only subject) was very cordial and jolly and kind. We all went ashore, and pitched tents, and ate ducks and penguins till the men grew strong. I scraped her, nearly down to the bends, for the grass floated by our side like a mermaid's hair as we sailed, and the once swift Florida would not make four knots an hour on the wind;—and this was the ship I was to get into Bahia in good order, at my best discretion! ”

“ The bay, that but a day ago lay broad and silent and empty, now seems to narrow its proportions as each high-sided merchantman comes in; the hills draw nearer with every broad hull that anchors, wind-rode, in the blue of the bay. As if in key with the illusion, the broad expanse of shallow, inshore water, [191] that before gave distance to the hills, now sheds its power, cut and furrowed as it becomes by thrash and wake of tugs and launches all making out to serve the larger vessels.
On the high mound of the harbour-master's look-out, keen eyes note all movements in the bay. ”

“ We saw that an islet, unmarked on any chart, rose in the middle of the bay, while a reef of rocks, apparently coral, extended right round the bay, parallel to the beach, and at a short distance from it. Some of these rocks were above the surface of the water, some just below, and others—the most dangerous—further down, so that it was only occasionally that the sea broke upon them. The pirate in his confession had spoken of a channel he had discovered through this reef, situated under the Sugarloaf, at the eastern extremity of the bay. ”

“ Dickson's use of the term "La Baye" requires qualification to prevent misreading him. 1. The old Baye des Puans or Puants, Stinkers' bay, so called from the malodorous fish-eating Winnebagos who lived thereabouts, became from its verdure la Baie Verte, our Green bay, i. e., the whole water of that great N. W. arm of Lake Michigan, into the head of which Lower Fox r. empties. The last 7 m. of this river makes a sort of estuary from the foot of the last rapids, or head of natural river navigation, to the waters of Green bay ”