how providentially our lives were saved at Tofoa, by the Indians delaying their attack; and that, with scarcely any thing to support life, we crossed a sea of more than twelve hundred leagues, without shelter from the inclemency of the weather; when I reflect that in an open boat, with so much stormy weather, we escaped foundering, that not any of us were taken off by disease, that we had the great good fortune to pass the unfriendly natives of other countries without accident, and at last to meet with the most friendly and best of people to relieve our distresses-I say, when I reflect on all these wonderful escapes, the remembrance of such great mercies enables me to bear with resignation and cheerfulness the failure of an expedition, the success of which I had so much at heart, and which was frustrated at a time when I was congratulating myself on the fairest prospect of being able to complete it in a manner that would fully have answered the intention of his majesty and the humane promoters of so benevolent a plan."

Having recruited their strength by a residence of two months among the friendly inhabitants of Coupang, they proceeded to the westward on the 20th August in a small schooner, which was purchased and armed for the purpose, and arrived on the 1st October in Batavia Road, where Mr. Bligh embarked in a Dutch packet, and was landed on the Isle of Wight on the 14th of March, 1790. The rest of the people had passages provided for them in ships of the Dutch East India Company, then about to sail for Europe. All of them, however, did not survive to reach England. Nelson, the botanist, died at Coupang; Mr. Elphinstone, master's mate, Peter Linkletter and Thomas Hall, seamen, died at Batavia; Robert Lamb, seaman (the booby-eater), died on the passage; and Mr. Ledward, the surgeon, was left behind, and not afterward heard of. These six, with John Norton, who was stoned to death, left

twelve of the nineteen, forced by the mutineers into the launch, to survive the difficulties and dangers of this unparalleled voyage, and to revisit their native country. With great truth might Bligh exclaim with the poet,

""Tis mine to tell their tale of grief,
Their constant peril and their scant relief;
Their days of danger, and their nights of pain;
Their manly courage, e'en when deem'd in vain;
The sapping famine, rendering scarce a son
Known to his mother in the skeleton;
The ills that lessen'd still their little store,
And starved e'en hunger till he wrung no more;
The varying frowns and favours of the deep,
That now almost ingulphs, then leaves to creep
With crazy oar and shatter'd strength along
The tide, that yields reluctant to the strong;
Th' incessant fever of that arid thirst
Which welcomes, as a well, the clouds that burst
Above their naked bones, and feels delight
In the cold drenching of the stormy night,
And from the outspread canvass gladly wrings
A drop to moisten life's all-gasping springs;
The savage foe escaped, to seek again
More hospitable shelter from the main;
The ghastly spectres which were doom'd at last
To tell as true a tale of dangers past,

As ever the dark annals of the deep

Disclosed for man to dread or woman weep."

It is impossible not fully to accord with Bligh when he says, "Thus happily ended, through the assistance of Divine Providence, without accident, a voyage of the most extraordinary nature that ever happened in the world,* let it be taken either in its

*The escape of the Centaur's boat, perhaps, comes nearest to it. When the Centaur was sinking, Captain Inglefield and eleven others, in a small leaky boat, five feet broad, with one of the gunwales stove, nearly in the middle of the Western Ocean, without compass, without quadrant, without sail, without great-coat or cloak, all very thinly clothed, in a gale of wind, with a great sea running, and the winter fast approaching, the sun and stars, by which alone they could shape their course, sometimes hidden for twenty-four hours;-these unhappy men, in this destitute and hopeless condition, had to brave the billows of the stormy Atlantic for nearly a thousand miles. A blanket, which was by accident in the boat, served as a sail, and with this they scudded before the wind, in expectation of being swallowed up by every wave; with great difficulty the boat was cleared of water before the return of

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 informa tion 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 thein 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 re ception 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 ap pointed 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 La vanha, 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 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 me as part of their crew