Kerguelen Islands

“ On the thirteenth of October we came in sight of Prince Edward's Island, in latitude 46° 53' S., longitude 37° 46' E. Two days afterward we found ourselves near Possession Island, and presently passed the islands of Crozet, in latitude 42° 59' S., longitude 48° E. On the eighteenth we made Kerguelen's or Desolation Island, in the Southern Indian Ocean, and came to anchor in Christmas Harbour, having four fathoms of water.
This island, or rather group of islands, bears southeast from the Cape of Good Hope, and is distant therefrom nearly eight hundred leagues. ”

“ This we learn most satisfactorily, from the accounts of Kerguelen's second voyage, as published by himself and Monsieur de Pagès, which present us with the following particulars:--"That they arrived on the west side of this land on the 14th of December, 1773; that steering to the N.E., they discovered, on the 16th, the Isle de Reunion, and the other small islands as mentioned above; that, on the 17th, they had before them the principal land, (which they were sure was connected with that seen by them on the 14th,) and a high point of that land, named by them Cape François ”

“ It is my most deliberate conviction that nothing would aid more, Natural History, than careful collecting and investigating ALL THE PRODUCTIONS of the most isolated islands, especially of the southern hemisphere. Except Tristan d'Acunha and Kerguelen Land, they are very imperfectly known; and even at Kerguelen Land, how much there is to make out about the lignite beds, and whether there are signs of old Glacial action. Every sea shell and insect and plant is of value from such spots. Some one in the Expedition especially ought to have Hooker's New Zealand Essay. ”

“ Persons, intimate with the latter country, have only to clothe it in imagination with the plants of Hermite Island, and they will readily understand the relations, in habit and station, which the most remarkable of these bear to one another. The Fuegian Flora possesses some other points of interest, especially when viewed in comparison with that of the antarctic islands lying to the south of New Zealand, also with that of the Falklands, South Georgia, Tristan d'Acunha, and Kerguelen Island. ”

“ The Erebus and Terror, under the command of Ross and Crozier, left England on the 29th September, 1839, and touched successively at Madeira, the Cape Verd Islands, St. Helena, and the Cape of Good Hope, where numerous magnetic observations were taken.
On the 12th April Ross reached Kerguelen's Island, and there landed his instruments. The scientific harvest was abundant. Some fossil trees were extracted from the lava of which this island is formed, and some rich layers of coal were discovered, which have not yet been worked. ”

“ Ile Saint-Paul (Ile Amsterdam et Ile Saint-Paul) : is uninhabited but is frequently visited by fishermen and has a scientific research cabin for short stays
Iles Crozet: are uninhabited except for 18 to 30 people staffing the
Alfred Faure research station on Ile del la Possession
Iles Kerguelen: 50 to 100 scientists are located at the main base at
Port-aux-Francais on Ile Kerguelen
Bassas da India (Iles Eparses) : uninhabitable
Europa Island, Glorioso Islands, Juan de Nova Island (Iles Eparses) : a small French military garrison and a few meteorologists on each possession ”

“ The observations of the French and English navigators agree exactly as to the position of these smaller isles.--D.]
[Footnote 101: The situation of Kerguelen's Isle de Clugny, as marked on this chart, shews it to be the third high island seen by Captain Cook.--D.]
We did but just weather the island last mentioned. It is a high round rock, which was named Bligh's Cap. Perhaps this is the same that Monsieur de Kerguelen called the Isle of Rendezvous; [102] but I know nothing that can rendezvous at it, but fowls of the air; for it is certainly inaccessible to every other animal. ”

“ Since there certainly once was a time when Kerguelen Island, perhaps then part of a continent, was habitable, when the tree trunks that are now lying buried in its northern hills were upright and flourishing forests, perhaps the men of those days had also a bird tamed, like the domestic fowl; and perhaps the chionis is descended therefrom, and its liking for man is an inherited tendency. ”

“ The group lies between the south end of New Ireland and the north end of the great Bougainville Island in the Solomon Archipelago, and consists of six low, well-wooded and fertile islands, enclosed within a barrier reef, forming a noble atoll, almost circular in shape. All the islands are thickly populated at the present day by natives, who are peaceable enough, and engage in bêche-de-mer and pearl-shell fishing. ”

“ It is a far cry from the trepang and tropic birds (the salmon-pink bo’suns) of the northern rocks to the sea-lions that yawn at the casual visitor to Disappointment Island. The Kermadecs—to employ an overworked expression—bask in the smiles of perpetual summer. The Three Kings, lying thirty-eight miles beyond the tip of the North Island, might be Portuguese isles, and the Chathams—as far as climate goes—bits of France. But the peaty groups of the shivering South lie right across the pathway of the Antarctic gales. ”

“ Quiros, Schouten, Roggewein, Byron, Wallis, Carteret, Bougainville, and Cook, have each met with new islands in their different courses; and what is most remarkable, they have found them inhabited at the distance of two hundred and forty leagues to the east of Otaheite. Nothing is more probable than, that on every new track other islands of this kind will still be met with, and particularly between the 16th and 17th degree of S. latitude, no navigator having hitherto run down on that parallel towards the Society Islands. ”

“ Several of the marine and many species of freshwater algae are peculiar to the island. The characteristic feature of the vegetation, the Kerguelen’s Land cabbage, was formerly abundant, but has been greatly reduced by rabbits introduced on to the island. Fur-seals are still found in Kerguelen, though their numbers have been reduced by reckless slaughter. The sea-elephant and sea-leopard are characteristic. Penguins of various kinds are abundant ”

“ The Kerguelen plateau rises in many parts to within 1500 fathoms of the surface of the sea. Beds of coal and of red earth are found in some places. The summits of the flat-topped hills about Betsy Cove, in the south-east of the island, are formed of caps of basalt.
According to Sir J. D. Hooker the vegetation of Kerguelen Island is of great antiquity; and may have originally reached it from the American continent; it has no affinities with Africa. The present climate is not favourable to permanent vegetation ”

“ The southern group consists of seven or eight islands and islets on the atoll, which is the skeleton of what some day, according to the history of coral reefs, will be a continuous island. North Keeling has no harbor, is seldom visited, and is of no importance. ”

“ There can therefore be little doubt but that Cowley gave the name of Pepys's Island after he came home, to what he really supposed to be the island of Sebald de Wert, for which it is not difficult to assign several reasons; and though the supposition of a mistake of the figures does not appear to be well grounded, yet, there being no land in forty-seven, the evidence that what Cowley saw was Falkland's Islands is very strong. The description of the country agrees in almost every particular, and even the map is of the same general figure, with a strait running up the middle. ”

“ On the 5th of January, Kerguelen sighted the lands he had discovered in his first voyage, and between that date and the 16th he recognized various points, Croy Island, Re-union Island, Roland Island, which in his estimation made more than eighty leagues of coast. The weather continued extremely severe; thick fogs, snow, hail, and gales succeeded each other. On the 21st, the vessels could only keep in company by constant firing. Upon that day the cold was so severe that several of the sailors fainted on deck. ”

“ The cocoa-nuts which we got here, and at Egmont island, were of infinite advantage to the sick.
From the time of our leaving Egmont island, we had observed a current setting strongly to the southward, and in the neighbourhood of these islands we found its force greatly increased: This determined me, when I sailed from Gower's island, to steer N.W. fearing we might otherwise fall in with the main land too far to the southward; for if we had got into any gulph or deep bay, our crew was so sickly, and our ship so bad, that it would have been impossible for us to have got out again. ”

“ For the quantity of fish that might be procured would be sufficient, and the people might roam about unmolested by the petulance of any inhabitants.
The nine or ten low islets, comprehended under the name of Palmerston's Island, may be reckoned the heads or summits of the reef of coral rock that connects them together, covered only with a thin coat of sand, yet clothed, as already observed, with trees and plants, most of which are of the same sorts that are found on the low grounds of the high islands of this ocean. ”

“ This island is situated in the latitude of 22° 27' S. and in the longitude of 150° 47' W. from the meridian of Greenwich. It is thirteen miles in circuit, and rather high than low, but neither populous nor fertile in proportion to the other islands that we had seen in these seas. The chief produce seems to be the tree of which they make their weapons, called in their language etoa; many plantations of it were seen along the shore, which is not surrounded, like the neighbouring islands, by a reef. ”

“ It is also known by the name of Nevil's Island and Johnston's Island; and it has been hitherto considered by navigators and others as uninhabited. This is not surprising; as we were told by the natives, that no white man had ever visited the place; though it seemed, from the pieces of iron in their possession, and from other circumstances, that they had had some communication with the Spaniards and Portuguese in that quarter of the world. [4] Like many other islands in those seas, this is surrounded by a coral reef, which is from an eighth to one half of a mile wide ”

“ To the southward and the S.W. were placed, in the French charts, a group of five islands, called the Three Sisters, Zellany and Kunashir. We were about ten leagues, according to the same maps, to the westward of the land of De Gama, which we had passed to the eastward in April last, at a distance rather less than this, without seeing any appearance of it; from which circumstance we may now conclude, that, if such land exist at all, it must be an island of a very inconsiderable size. ”

“ In the printed account of Cowley's voyage, he says, "we held our course S.W. till we came into the latitude of forty-seven degrees, where we saw land, the same being an island, not before known, lying to the westward of us: It was not inhabited, and I gave it the name of Pepys's Island. We found it a very commodious place for ships to water at, and take in wood, and it has a very good harbour, where a thousand sail of ships may safely ride. Here is great plenty of fowls; and, we judge, abundance of fish, by reason of the ground's being nothing but rocks and sands." ”

“ At day-break, in the morning of the 23d, the land above mentioned appeared in sight, bearing S.W., six or seven leagues distant. From this point of view it resembled a group of islands; but it proved to be but one, of thirty miles in extent, in the direction of N.W. and S.E.; the S.E. end being Cape Upright, already taken notice of. The island is but narrow; especially at the low necks of land that connect the hills. I afterward found, that it was wholly unknown to the Russians; and therefore, considering it as a discovery of our own, I named it Gore's Island. ”

“ Kermadec Islands: Abundant, attaining a large size, McGillivray, T.F.C. North Island: In various places on the coast, as far south as Hawke's Bay; more plentiful on the outlying islands than on the mainland. ”

“ The carpenters declare the ship in such good condition that the captain and supercargo resolve to explore the Loyalty and New Hebrides, and other groups in that direction, before seeking our final port. These islands are especially rich in sandal-wood, with which it is resolved we shall fill up. The first land we make is Marè—one of the Loyalty Islands—a low coral island, about seventy miles in circumference. The inhabitants are almost black, and a more brutalised savage race we have not yet seen. There are four tribes constantly at war with each other—the victors always eating their captives. ”

“ The natives of these islands are in general above the middle size, and well made; they walk very gracefully, run nimbly, and are capable of bearing great fatigue; though, upon the whole, the men are somewhat inferior, in point of strength and activity, to the Friendly islanders, and the women less delicately limbed than those of Otaheite. Their complexion is rather darker than that of the Otaheitans, and they are not altogether so handsome a people. ”

“ The northern group of the Cumberland Islands are high, and appear to be better furnished with wood, and more fertile than the southern groups, particularly on their western sides.
The principal peak, in latitude 29 degrees 15 minutes 10 seconds and longitude 148 degrees 55 minutes, is fifteen hundred and eighty-four feet high, and is situated on the largest island, which is ten miles long, and from three to nine broad: it has several bays on either side, and off its south-eastern end are four small islands: beyond them is a range of rocky islets. ”