COLONIZATION OF THE FALKLAND ISLANDS—ANTOINE DE BOUGAINVILLE—HIS VOYAGE AROUND THE WORLD—ADVENTURE AT MONTEVIDEO—THE PATAGONIANS—TAKING POSSESSION OF TAHITI—FRENCH GALLANTRY—CEREMONIES OF RECEPTION—SOJOURN AT THE ISLAND—AOTOUROU—THE FIRST FEMALE CIRCUMNAVIGATOR—FAMINE ON BOARD—REMARKABLE CASCADE—ARRIVAL AT THE MOLUCCAS—INCIDENTS THERE—RETURN HOME.

Several years before the period of which we are speaking, the French Government had colonized the Falkland Islands, lying off the eastern coast of Patagonia. The establishment lasted barely three years, and, in an agricultural point of view, was a complete and disastrous failure. The Spanish crown subsequently claimed these islands as belonging to the continent of South America, and the King of France was easily induced to abandon them. Captain Louis-Antoine de Bougainville was instructed, in 1766, to proceed to the islands, and there, in the name of his French majesty, cede them to the Spanish authorities who would be sent out for the purpose. He was then to continue on, by the Strait of Magellan and the Pacific, to the East Indies, and thence to return home. Should he accomplish this task, he would be the first French circumnavigator of the globe.

Bougainville received the command of the frigate La Boudeuse, carrying twenty-six twelve-pounders, and was to be joined at the Falklands by the store-ship l'Étoile. He sailed from Brest on the 5th of December, the Prince of Nassau-Singhen, who had been allowed to accompany the expedition, being on board. They arrived at Montevideo early in February, 1767, and found there the two Spanish frigates to whose commander Bougainville was to surrender the Falkland Islands, and with whom he sailed in company on the 28th of the month. They met with severe weather, but arrived safely at their destination towards the close of March. The settlement was made over to the Spaniards on the 1st of April: the Spanish colors were planted and saluted at sunrise and sunset. The French inhabitants were informed they might either remain or return: a portion embarked with the garrison for Montevideo, on their way back to France.

Bougainville waited at the islands till the end of May for the store-ship, which was to join him at this point, and then returned to Rio Janeiro, where he hoped to get tidings of her. She had but just arrived, bringing salt meat and liquor sufficient for fifteen months, but no bread or vegetables. So he was forced to go, in quest of these provisions, back to Montevideo. From here he went to Buenos Ayres, on the opposite side of the bay formed by the mouths of the La Plata, making the journey, however, overland, as a contrary wind prevented his proceeding by water. At night, he and his party slept in leathern tents, while tigers howled around them on every side. Coming to the river St. Lucia, which is wide, deep, and rapid, they were at a loss how to cross it. At last their guide procured a hollow canoe, the master of which fastened a horse on each side of the bow, and then boldly assumed the reins. He supported the heads of the horses above the water and drove them safely across it. The Frenchmen landed on the opposite side dry-shod.

It was not till the 14th of November that the Boudeuse and Étoile, having taken in supplies of biscuit and bread, sailed, for the last time, from Montevideo. They made the entrance of the Strait of Magellan a fortnight afterwards. On the 8th of December, they saw a number of Patagonians, who had kept up fires all night, hoisting a white flag on an eminence,—a flag which some European ship had evidently given them as a pledge of alliance. Bougainville went on shore, where some thirty natives received him with every mark of good will. They embraced him and his party, shook hands with them, and imitated the report of muskets with their mouths, showing that they were accustomed to fire-arms. They aided the botanist in collecting plants and simples, and one of them applied to the physician for a prescription for his inflamed eye. They asked for tobacco, and swallowed small draughts of brandy, blowing with their mouths after the draught and uttering a tremulous inarticulate sound. They begged them to remain over night, and, upon the invitation being politely declined, accompanied them with ceremony to the shore.

Bougainville, with three of his officers, spent some hours in taking soundings near Cape Froward. Perceiving a small flat rock, which barely afforded them standing-room, they mounted upon it, hoisted their colors, and shouted Vive le Roi! The coast now resounded for the first time, says Bougainville, with this compliment to his majesty. Upon which an English commentator remarks "that it is a striking instance of the vanity by which the French nation is distinguished." The vessels, being retarded by constant head-winds and harassed by violent storms, occupied fifty-two days in threading the channel, and the month of January, 1768, was well advanced before they discovered the boundless expanse of the Pacific.

Sailing to the northwest, they passed several low, half-drowned islands, one of which Bougainville called Harp Island. A cluster of reefs he called the Dangerous Archipelago. Sore throats now troubling the crew, he attributed them to the snow-water of the Strait, and cured them by putting a pint of vinegar and a dozen red-hot bullets into the daily water-cask. He combated the scurvy by employing lemonade prepared from a concentration in the form of powder. He made fresh water from salt water by means of a distilling apparatus which furnished a barrelful every night. In order to economize their drinking-water, their bread was kneaded with water dipped up from the sea. On the 4th of April, they discovered land; and fires burning during the night over a wide extent of coast showed them that it was inhabited and populous. In the morning a canoe propelled by twelve naked men approached. The chief, with a prodigious growth of hair which stood like bristles divergent on his head, offered the commander a cluster of bananas, indicating that this was the olive-branch in use in Tahiti,—the island at which the ships had now arrived. Presents were exchanged and an alliance effected.

The vessels were now surrounded with canoes laden with cocoanuts and bananas, and a brisk and tolerably honest trade was driven by the natives and the strangers. The aspect of the coast—the mountains covered with foliage to their very summits, the lowlands interspersed with meadows and with plantations of tropical fruit, cascades pouring down from the rocks into the sea, streams flowing among lovely clusters of huts situated upon the shore—offered an enchanting scene to the wearied crews. While the Boudeuse was casting her anchor, canoes filled with women came around her. "These," adds Bougainville, with characteristic French gallantry, "are not inferior for agreeable features to most European women. It was very difficult, amidst such a sight, to keep at their work four hundred young sailors who had seen none of the fair sex for six months. The capstan was never hove with more alacrity than on this occasion."

The captain and several officers now went on shore, where they were received with high glee by all, with the exception of a venerable man, apparently a philosopher, "whose thoughtful and suspicious air seemed to show that he feared the arrival of a new race of men would trouble those happy days which he had spent in peace." A poet, reclining beneath a tree, sang them a song to the accompaniment of a flute which a musician blew, not with his mouth, but with one of his nostrils. In return for this entertainment, the strangers gave, at night, an exhibition of sky-rockets, witch-quills, and other pyrotechnics. The chief, learning that the Prince of Nassau was a man of royal blood, offered him a wife; but, as the lady was advanced in years and correspondingly mature in appearance, the prince plead a previous union and escaped.

The vessels stayed here a fortnight, cutting wood and drawing water. They lost six anchors during their sojourn, and twice narrowly missed utter shipwreck,—"the worst consequence of which would have been to pass the remainder of their days on an isle adorned with all the gifts of nature, and to exchange the sweets of the mother-country for a peaceable life exempt from cares." The islanders expressed infinite regret at their departure,—one of them, Aotourou by name, being unable to endure the separation, and asking permission to go with them. He gave his young wife three pearls which he had in his ears, kissed her, and went on board the ship. Bougainville quitted the island on the 16th of April, no less surprised at the sorrow the inhabitants testified at his departure than at their affectionate confidence on his arrival.

He directed his course so as to avoid the Pernicious Isles, warned by the disasters of Roggewein to avoid them. Aotourou pointed at night to the bright star in Orion's shoulder, indicating that they should guide their course by it, and that in two days it would bring them to a fertile island where he had friends and children. Being vexed that no attention was paid to his advice, he rushed to the helm, seized the wheel, and endeavored to put the ship about. In the morning he climbed to the mast-head, and sought, in the distant horizon, the favored land of which he had spoken.

The vessels kept on steadily to the westward, passing through Navigator's Islands and the group which Quiros had named Espiritu Santo. To the latter Bougainville gave the name of Grandes Cyclades,—one, however, not destined to be long retained. He was at this time informed that BarÉ, the servant of M. de CommerÇon, the botanist of the Étoile, was a woman. He went on board the store-ship to make investigations. He thought the report incredible, as BarÉ was already an expert botanist, and had acquired the name, during his excursions with his master among the snows of Magellan's Strait,—where he carried provisions, fire-arms, and bundles of plants,—of being his beast of burden. The first suspicion of him occurred at Tahiti, where the natives, with the keen intuition of savages, cried out in their dialect, "It is a woman!" and insisted on paying her the attentions due to her sex. When Bougainville went on board the Étoile, BarÉ, bathed in tears, admitted that she was a woman. She said she was an orphan, had served before in men's clothes, and that the idea of a voyage around the world had inflamed her curiosity. Bougainville does her the justice to state that she always behaved on board with the most scrupulous modesty. She was not handsome, and was twenty-seven years of age. She was the first woman that ever circumnavigated the globe.

It was not long before the provisions began to give out, and the crew were put upon half rations. The commander was soon obliged to forbid the eating of old leather, as it was becoming as scarce as biscuit and was quite as necessary. The butcher shed tears upon sacrificing a favorite goat, and Bougainville turned away his head as that sanguinary personage, with equally cruel intent, whistled to a young Patagonian dog. Breakers, reefs, and channels, where the tide ran fast and dangerously, indicated the presence of land, to which was given the name of Louisiade. This is a group of islands inhabited by Papuans.

On the coast of New Britain, at an uninhabited spot which Bougainville named Port Praslin, he obtained a supply of inferior provisions, such as thatch-palms, cabbage-trees, and mangle apples. A species of aromatic ivy was likewise found, in which the physicians discovered anti-scorbutic properties; and a store of it was therefore laid in. An immense cascade, which furnished the vessels with fresh water, is enthusiastically described by Bougainville. After a stay of eight days at Port Praslin, during which time the heavens were black with continual tempests, the vessels profited by a change of wind and continued their westerly course. The field-tents were cut up, and trousers made from them were distributed to the two ships' companies. Another ounce was taken from the daily allowance of bread. From time to time canoes would shoot out from the coast of New Britain; but the hostility and treachery of the natives rendered all efforts to obtain food from them unavailing.

On the 1st of September, Bougainville made the island of Boero, one of the Moluccas, where he knew the Dutch had a small factory and a weak garrison. All his men were now sick, without exception. The provisions remaining were so nauseous that, as he says, "the hardest moments of the sad days we passed were those when the bell gave us notice to take in this disgusting and unwholesome food. But now our misery was to have an end. Ever since midnight a pleasant scent exhaled from the aromatic plants with which the Moluccas abound; the aspect of a considerable town, situated in the bottom of the gulf, of ships at anchor there, and of cattle rambling through the meadows, caused transports which I have doubtless felt, but which I can not here describe."

It was found that the Dutch East India Company reigned supreme, and that the governor was disposed to keep to the letter of his instructions, which forbade him to receive any ships but those of the monopoly. Bougainville was obliged to plead the claims of hunger and considerations of humanity before the authorities would listen to him. They then furnished him with rice, poultry, sago, goats, fish, eggs, fruit, and venison, the latter being the flesh of stags introduced and acclimated by the Dutch. Henry Inman, the Dutch governor, though placed in a critical position by this arrival, behaved as became an honorable and generous man. He first did his duty towards his superiors, and then towards fellow-creatures in distress. Aotourou, the Tahitian, not being taken ashore by the commander on his first visit, imagined that it was because he was bow-legged and knock-kneed, and begged some of the sailors to stand upon his legs and straighten them out.

During the run back to France, by way of the Cape of Good Hope, St. Helena, and the Cape Verd Islands, nothing happened which requires mention here. Bougainville entered the port of St. Malo on the 16th of March, 1769, having been absent two years and four months, and having lost but seven men during the voyage. He was the first Frenchman who ever went round the world in one ship,—one Gentil de la Barbinais, a pirate, having accomplished a voyage of circumnavigation in several ships, some fifty years before. He sustained his claim to this honor by publishing, two years afterwards, a narrative of his expedition, written in an animated and graceful style, and which established his reputation as a sailor and explorer.