extent, duration, or the want of every necessary of life." We may go further, and say it is impossible

the next great sea; all of the people were half-drowned, and sitting, except the bailers, at the bottom of the boat. On quitting the ship the distance of Fayal was two hundred and sixty leagues, or about nine hundred English miles.

Their provisions were a bag of bread, a small ham, a single piece of pork, two quart bottles of water, and a few of French cordials. One biscuit, divided into twelve morsels, was served for breakfast, and the same for dinner; the neck of a bottle broken off, with the cork in, supplied the place of a glass; and this filled with water was the allowance for twenty-four hours for each man.

On the fifteenth day, they had only one day's bread and one bottle of water remaining of a second supply of rain: on this day Matthews, a quarter-master, the stoutest man in the boat, perished of hunger and cold. This poor man, on the day before, had complained of want of strength in his throat, as he expressed it, to swallow his morsel; and in the night drank salt-water, grew delirious, and died without a groan. Hitherto despair and gloom had been successfully prevented, the men, when the evenings closed in, having been encouraged by turns to sing a song, or relate a story, instead of a supper: "but," says the captain, "this evening I found it impossible to raise either." The captain had directed the clothes to be taken from the corpse of Matthews and given to some of the men who were perishing with cold; but the shocking skeleton-like appearance of his remains made such an impression on the people, that all efforts to raise their spirits were ineffectual. On the following day, the sixteenth, their last breakfast was served with the bread and water remaining, when John Gregory, the quarter-master, declared with much confidence that he saw land in the south-east, which turned out to be Fayal.

But the most extraordinary feat of navigation is that which is related (on good authority) in a note of the Quarterly Review, vol. xviii. p. 337-339:

Of all the feats of navigation on record, however, that of Diogo Botelho Perreira, in the early period of 1536-7, stands pre-eminent; it is extracted from the voluminous Decades of Diogo de Couto, whose work, though abounding with much curious matter, like those of most of the old Portuguese writers, has not been fortunate enough to obtain an English translation. We are indebted to a friend for pointing it out to us, and we conceive it will be read with interest.

"In the time of the viceroyalty of Don Francisco de Almeyda there was a young gentleman in India of the name of Diogo Botelho Perreira, son of the commander of Cochin, who educated him with great care, so that he soon became skilled in the art of navigation, and an adept in the construction of marine charts. As he grew up, he felt anxious to visit Portugal, where, on his arrival, he was well received at court, and the king took pleasure in conversing with him on those subjects which had been the particular objects of his studies. Confident of his own talents, and presuming on the favour with which the king always treated him, he ventured one day to request his majesty to appoint him commander of the fortress of Chaul. The king smiled at his request, and replied, that the command of the fortress was not for pilots.' Botelho was piqued at this answer, and on returning into the antechamber, was

to read this extraordinary and unparalleled voyage without bestowing the meed of unqualified praise on

met by Don Antonio Noronha, second son of the Marquis of Villa Real, who asked him if his suit had been granted: he answered, "Sir, I will apply where my suit will not be neglected." When this answer came to the ears of the king, he immediately ordered Botelho to be confined in the castle of Lisbon, lest he should follow the example of Megalhaens, and go over to Spain. There he remained a prisoner until the admiralviceroy, Don Vasco da Gama, solicited his release, and was permitted to take him to India; but on the express condition that he should not return to Portugal, except by special permission. Under these unpleasant circumstances this gentleman proceeded to India, anxious for an opportunity of distinguishing himself, that he might be permitted again to visit Portugal.

"It happened about this time that the Sultan Badur, sovereign of Cambaya, gave the governor, Nuno da Cunha, permission to erect a fortress on the island of Diu,-an object long and anxiously wished for, as being of the greatest importance to the security of the Portuguese possessions in India, Botelho was aware how acceptable this information would be to the king, and therefore deemed this a favourable opportunity of regaining his favour, by conveying such important intelligence; and he resolved to perform the voyage in a vessel so small, and so unlike what had ever appeared in Portugal, that it should not fail to excite astonishment, how any man could undertake so long and perilous a navigation in such a frail and diminutive bottom.

"Without communicating his scheme to any person, he procured a fusta, put a deck on it from head to stern, furnished it with spare sails and spars, and every other necessary, and constructed two small tanks for water.

"As soon as the monsoon served, he embarked with some men in his service, giving out that he was going to Melinde; and to give colour to this story, he proceeded to Baticala, where he purchased some cloths and beads for that market, and laid in provisions; some native merchants also embarked with a few articles on board for the Melinde market, to which he did not choose to object, lest it should alarm his sailors.

"He set sail with the eastern monsoon, in the beginning of October, and arrived safely at Melinde, where he landed the native merchants, took in wood, water, and refreshments, and again put to sea, informing his crew that he was going to Quiloa. When he had got to a distance from the land, it would appear that some of his crew had mutinied; but this he had foreseen and provided for; putting some of them in irons, and promising at the same time amply to reward the services of the rest, and giving them to understand that he was going to Sofala on account of the trade in gold. Thus he proceeded, touching at various places for refreshments, which he met with in great plenty and very cheap.

"From Sofala he proceeded along the coast till he had passed the Cabo dos Correntes, and from thence along the shore, without ever venturing to a distance from the land, and touching at the different rivers, until he passed the Cape of Good Hope, which he did in January, 1537. "From thence he stretched into the ocean with gentle breezes, steering for St. Helena; where, on arriving, he drew his little vessel ashore, to clean her bottom and repair her, and also to give a few days' rest to

the able and judicious conduct of its commander, who is in every respect, as far as this extraordinary enterprise is concerned, fully entitled to rank with Parry, Franklin, and Richardson. Few men, indeed, were ever placed for so long a period in a more trying, distressing, and perilous situation than he was; and it may safely be pronounced, that to his discreet management of the men and their scanty resources,

his crew, of whom some had perished of cold, notwithstanding his having provided warm clothing for them.

"Departing from St. Helena, he boldly steered his little bark across the wide ocean, directing his career to St. Thome, where he took in provisions, wood, and water; and from thence he proceeded to the bar of Lisbon, where he arrived in May, when the king was at Almeyrin.He entered the river with his oars, his little vessel being dressed with flags and pennants, and anchored at Point Leira opposite to Salvaterra, not being able to get farther up the river. This novelty produced such a sensation in Lisbon that the Tagus was covered with boats to see the fusta. Diogo Botelho Perreira landed in a boat, and proceeded to Almeyrin, to give the king an account of his voyage, and solicit a gratification for the good news which he brought, of his majesty now being possessed of a fortress on the island of Diu.

"The king was highly pleased with this intelligence, but, as Botelho brought no letters from the governor, he did not give him the kind of reception which he had expected. On the contrary, the king treated him with coldness and distance; his majesty, however, embarked to see the fusta, on board of which he examined every thing with much attention, and was gratified in viewing a vessel of such a peculiar form, and ordered money and clothes to be given to the sailors-nor could he help considering Diogo Botelho as a man of extraordinary enterprise and courage, on whose firmness implicit reliance might be placed.

"The little vessel was ordered to be drawn ashore at Sacabem, where it remained many years (until it fell to pieces), and was visited by people from all parts of Europe, who beheld it with astonishment. The king subsequently received letters from the governor of Nuno da Cunha, confirming the news brought by Botelho; the bearer of these letters, a Jew, was immediately rewarded with a pension of a hundred and forty milreas; but Botelho was neglected for many years, and at last appointed commander of St. Thome, and finally made captain of Cananor in India, that he might be at a distance from Portugal."

The vessel named fusta is a long, shallow, Indian-built row-boat, which uses latine sails in fine weather. These boats are usually open, but Botelho covered his with a deck: its dimensions, according to Lavanha, in his edition of De Barros's unfinished Decade, are as follows: -length twenty-two palmos, or sixteen feet six inches; breadth, twelve palmos, or nine feet; depth, six palmos, or four feet six inches. Bligh's boat was twenty-three feet long, six feet nine inches broad, and two feet nine inches deep. From the circumstance mentioned of some of his crew having perished with cold, it is probable that they were natives of India, whom the Portuguese were in the habit of bringing home as part of their crew.

and to his ability as a thorough seaman, eighteen souls were saved from imminent and otherwise inevitable destruction. It was not alone the dangers of the sea, in an open boat, crowded with people, that he had to combat, though they required the most consummate nautical skill to be enabled to contend successfully against them; but the unfortunate situation to which the party were exposed rendered him subject to the almost daily murmuring and caprice of people less conscious than himself of their real danger. From the experience they had acquired at Tofoa of the savage disposition of the people against the defenceless boat's crew, a lesson was learned how little was to be trusted even to the mildest of uncivilized people when a conscious superiority was in their hands. A striking proof of this was experienced in the unprovoked attack made by those amiable people the Otaheitans on Captain Wallis's ship, of whose power they had formed no just conception; but having once experienced the full force of it, on no future occasion was any attempt made to repeat the attack. Lieutenant Bligh, fully aware of his own weakness, deemed it expedient, therefore, to resist all desires and temptations to land at any of those islands among which they passed in the course of the voyage, well knowing how little could be trusted to the forbearance of savages, unarmed and wholly defenceless as his party were.

But the circumstance of being tantalized with the appearance of land, clothed with perennial verdure, whose approach was forbidden to men chilled with wet and cold, and nearly perishing with hunger, was by no means the most difficult against which the commander had to struggle. "It was not the least of my distresses," he observes, "to be constantly assailed with the melancholy demands of my people for an increase of allowance, which it grieved me to refuse." He well knew that to reason with men reduced to the last stage of famine, yet denied the

use of provisions within their reach, and with the power to seize upon them in their own hands, would be to no purpose. Something more must be done to ensure even the possibility of saving them from the effect of their own imprudence. The first thing he set about, therefore, was to ascertain the exact state of their provisions, which were found to amount to the ordinary consumption of five days, but which were to be spun out so as to last fifty days. This was at once distinctly stated to the men, and an agreement entered into, and a solemn promise made by all, that the settled allowance should never be deviated from, as they were made clearly to understand that on the strict observance of this agreement rested the only hope of their safety; and this was explained and made so evident to every man, at the time it was concluded, that they unanimously agreed to it; and by reminding them of this compact, whenever they became clamorous for more, and showing a firm determination not to swerve from it, Lieutenant Bligh succeeded in resisting all their solicitations.

This rigid adherence to the compact, in doling out their miserable pittance,-the constant exposure to wet, the imminent peril of being swallowed up by the ocean,—their cramped and confined position, -and the unceasing reflection on their miserable and melancholy situation;-all these difficulties and sufferings made it not less than miraculous that this voyage, itself a miracle, should have been completed, not only without the loss of a man from sickness, but with so little loss of health. "With respect to the preservation of our health," says the commander, "during the course of sixteen days of heavy and almost continual rain, I would recommend to every one in a similar situation the method we practised of dipping their clothes in salt water, and to wring them out, as often as they become soaked with rain; it was the only resource we had, and I