Life and Letters:
Chapter Four

The Voyage of the Erebus and Terror: Passing Impressions

[Editor’s note: this chapter was pp.86–104 in the printed edition.
The original footnotes are shown in {curly brackets}: clicking on one will make the list of notes pop-up in a new window that you can close when you've finished reading.]

For reconstructing the history of the four years’ voyage, abundant materials exist. The official account is Ross’s book in two volumes, ‘A Voyage of Discovery and Research in the Southern and Antarctic Regions, during the Years 1839-43 ‘ (John Murray, 1847).{Note 1}

This abounds in good matter; not even the full-dress style of the period, very conscious of its epaulets, can mask the essential interest of these visits to the young colonies of the South, to the solitary fastnesses of oceanic life, and the unimagined wonders of an ice-world in a ‘furthest south ‘ four degrees beyond any previous record.

Next comes Hooker’s MS. Journal, upon which he drew for some of the material of his letters home. These letters, or copies of them, are faithfully preserved, bound in a large quarto volume. His letters home were generally transcribed by the willing hand of his mother-who frequently Johnsonised the style to her own liking-for distribution among friends and relations, official news being of the scantiest, while letters, to these others, were regularly sent to her to copy. This solidly bound volume contains fifty-two autograph letters, ranging from four to twenty-seven closely written quarto sheets in a minute hand, twenty-nine in copy only, and twenty-seven duplicates which had returned in course of time to Kew. A still larger companion volume contains 234 letters received by him during this period.

So much of this abundant material may be cited as will suffice to show the impression made upon his mind by new scenes and new ideas, his occasional jaunts, more and more coloured by his scientific objects, a few sketches of the people with whom he came in contact, a passage or two to show his sensitiveness to Nature, and his power of describing what he saw.

At Madeira, as ever and again on his travels, his eye is instantly caught by any likeness to his beloved Highlands, whose beauty had sunk deep into his mind from his earliest days. Equally he recalls the pictures of the same scenes in the books of travel so well known to himself and to his father.

On first nearing Madeira, I was strongly reminded of some of the islands on the West of Argyllshire, only the volcanic rocks are much redder, and clothed here and there with low brushwood; the tops of the hills are often capped with pines.

The ravines are quite like Scotch ones, but more sparingly wooded, and the faces of the very deep ravines are most admirably like the view in Webb and Berthelot, full of vertical perpendicular lines which are dotted with trees. These views came into my mind directly I saw the realities.

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With the botanist’s eye he notes for his father the botanist, the belt of chestnuts running halfway up the mountains: ‘the tops of the Mts. more sub-divided into conical peaks than the Scotch hills and covered with grass’: the mingled tropical and temperate fruits growing in the island: the joy of the crews on arrival when ‘all hands were busy spreading Bananas on our bread instead of butter and relishing grapes more than tea’: though he found little in his diligent search for Alpines on the extremely dry and barren rocks of the Curral, for ‘Neither the season nor place were favourable to botanising.’

Here he received the warmest of Scotch welcomes from a Mr. Muir, formerly a Glasgow merchant, and a great friend of his grandfather, ‘who had charged me particularly to call upon him,’ finding his house by the help of a passing Englishman, after his enquiries, couched in Dog-Latin with Portuguese terminations, had produced no effect on the natives.

Though unable to accept Mr. Muir’s instant invitation to stay at his Quinta as long as the ships lay off Funchal, he was constantly there, and notes with special pleasure, in the little parties got up to meet him, the absence of ceremony among the British families living there. Indeed there were so many Scotch and Glasgow acquaintances dining one night with another friend, that ‘the conversation was wholly upon Glasgow or Britain, and Mr. Shortridge had a long discussion with me concerning the respective merits of Mr. Almond and Mr. Montgomery [two Glasgow ministers]; distance lent energy to the cause, and I supported the former with much more warmth than I should have done at home perhaps.’

A party from the ships now carried out a long cherished plan of visiting the famous mountain glen known as the Curral. On the way, Hooker’s unceasing interest in the practical side of economic botany, already stirred by the discovery that the coffee served him at dinner was home grown, made him pay special attention to the ‘Jardine,’ a tea plantation among the chestnut woods some 2000 feet above the sea, belonging to the late British Consul, Mr. Veitch. In this temperate region, with a soil composed of a fine vegetable mould over volcanic detritus, he notes that ‘neither bananas, coffee, nor dates will grow here, but the climate seems peculiarly well adapted to the cultivation of Chinese plants; Camellias flourish, including the rare C. oleifera which produces the oil used in China.’ Mr. Veitch was hoping to grow tea regularly and cut into the monopoly of the East India Company. To Hooker lie confided his plans and methods, ‘telling me that it was his duty to impart his knowledge to me as Botanist of the Expedition, and only hoped I would not use it to his disadvantage on the Island.’ His visitor was allowed to take specimens of the plants, but ‘our time was too short to allow of our waiting and tasting Mr. Veitch’s tea. The owner very naturally praises his tea, as equal to the true Chinese herb. Mr. Muir informed us that it was execrable, and pronounced so by every one that had tasted it.’ On the other hand Lieutenant Bird testified to its excellence, while Captain Crozier, commander of the Terror, reconciled these opposite views, ‘— tells me he has often drunk Mr. Veitch’s tea, and that formerly it used to be so bad that bare civility could hardly tempt him to swallow it and not do the other thing, but that which he tasted this time was very fair tea indeed.’.

The lonely waste, where hardly any animal life was to be seen, was tenanted by strange human beings.

After leaving the Jardine we continued ascending through the forest, the trees gradually dwindled away and nothing remained but a short herbage with numerous bushes of a Cytisus with which the hillsides seemed spotted. On emerging at the top of the valley, about 3500 feet, we were suddenly attacked by a party of pseudo Highlanders male and female, chiefly children, ragged, dirty Portuguese, each armed with a long pole, iron shodded (sic) for climbing, with which they assailed our ponies, causing them to spring over the rough ground at a rate which nearly rendered my seat untenable. This was done apparently for effect, for we came suddenly upon one of the most splendid views I ever beheld. We stood upon the brink of a tremendous precipice which formed one side of a gully about 2000 feet deep and 4 of a mile across. On looking over nothing was seen but the tops of a few projecting trees, and at the bottom a small stream that dashed along and was all but invisible. The opposite precipice was steeper and more bare than that on which we stood.

The whole scene very much reminded me of a view among the Grampians of Forfarshire, where you come suddenly upon the Glen of the Dale; Glen Dhu stretches away on one hand, and on the other you look down into the broad valley of Clova; the present, however, was infinitely grander, and the numerous laurel trees gave it a different aspect. The river dashing at the bottom, which looked like a mere burn, brought Scotland forcibly to my mind; it foamed away with a murmur which from the distance we could scarcely catch.

The ragged Highlanders, for I can call them by no other name, were most troublesome, begging and offering us their climbing poles. . . . On seeing me scrambling among the rocks they paid me particular attention.

. . . On reascending I found my companions seated among some rocks, surrounded by a brood of the most extraordinary ragged urchins I ever beheld, of all ages from five to twelve, dressed in tatters with high peaked carabooshes, their long hair streaming over their faces, which were of a most determined Portuguese cast. They excited our compassion by kneeling round us and begging by holding up their hands with the palms together like Catholics invoking the Virgin. Some of them were really pretty, though [with] very coarse features; among them was a very old woman whose husband had been lost among the cliffs or rather killed. They had large black eyes and seemed remarkably healthy, though they live in the most wretched holes and feed upon chestnuts, scarcely ever touching other foods. Even the little babies were sucking chestnuts. A few clogs were spectral animals.

. . . On a grass bank, where we had left our horses, there was spread for us a famous cold luncheon prepared for us by Mr. Muir. Dr. Lippold {Note 2} had joined us just before reaching the Jardine, and he certainly amused us not a little during dinner. The young half savages clustered around us whilst eating, forming a ring, which gradually approached and hemmed us in. Now the little German abhors the Portuguese beyond any other nation, and he could not brook these unfortunate urchins drawing near us. He used accordingly, every now and then, to start up, take his stick, shout, hooroosh, shake his coat-tails at and scare the poor little snips out of their senses, who would run up the hills with amazing agility, their scanty clothing tripping and causing them to tumble over and over as they scrambled along on all fours, almost to our table-cloth.

An unfortunate result of this excursion was a sharp attack of rheumatic fever, caused by lying on the damp grass at lunch when overheated. Hooker was laid up in the ship for a week, and could scarcely go ashore to make his farewells. The report of this from friends in Madeira made his parents very anxious, for it was many months before they received his letters reporting himself perfectly well. In later life, it is true, his heart was not strong; but through all the following years of strenuous travel and unceasing work, the minor troubles which persisted indicated no serious weakness.

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At Teneriffe there was no time to travel the twenty-eight miles to Orotava in order to see the famous Dragon’s-blood tree. The brief afternoon ashore, gave opportunity of very little collecting. Nor was Hooker able, much as he wished, to see the two English Jacks taken when Nelson made his unsuccessful attack on Sta. Cruz. The church where they hung high out of reach, since an English middy had audaciously carried off the third, was too far away. However, ‘I was much amused by the little urchins grinning and repeating the word “English flag” when asked where the Parochia was.’ So in the town itself ‘the only remarkable thing I saw was the camel used as a beast of burden.’

Their next point was the Cape Verde Islands, ‘not that we knew we were going there, for everything regarding our destinations has been kept a profound secret until we cast anchor in the harbours !’ It strikes an old-time note indeed to be told that

On our arrival (November 11) a slaving schooner was lying in the Day, and I understood that a more cautious one had made sail on discovering us heaving in sight. The present one remained some days, and when taking her departure her drunken skipper saluted us, and mocking, told us he was going nigger hunting to the Coast. We had no commission to catch slavers or to do mischief further than resenting personal injuries.

If Madeira afforded the first vision of real tropical verdure, the Cape de Verdes intensified it with the unimagined grace and beauty of a cocoanut grove, the one redeeming feature of the prevailing Saharan desolation near the coast. The fertile interior was twelve miles away from Porto Praya; still, in a week here, during the bad season, Hooker managed to collect 110 species in a tolerable state and saw perhaps 100 more in a useless state-a very fair proportion of the 300 brought home by a previous collector. Of the famous Baobab tree he remarks that neither to himself nor to Captain Ross did it give the impression of being such a slow growing and ancient tree as was reported by those who had seen one cut down.

Distance was not the only obstacle confronting the botanist. Returning from their first day’s outing they found that ‘the Consul had very thoughtfully left word for us to prepare ourselves for the coast fever (or yellow fever), which was certain to lay hold of all Europeans who should expose themselves as we had done.’ Nevertheless they went not once again, but twice, further afield to the beautiful valley of St. Domingo in the interior, the first time entirely, the second half way, on foot.

The Consul persuaded us to ride, assuring us that a walk of twelve miles there and twelve back would assuredly be followed by fever. We therefore hired two ponies, the only two we could procure, and the very worst I ever saw, and a Jackass for which we drew lots. Mr. McCormick and I soon relinquished our beasts, and sent them back before leaving the Town, and the Jackass, having performed the feat of unassing Mr. Hallett and running through the Town with our poor purser hanging to his neck, we determined to walk.

After the Saharan desolation of the lower country, where under the tropical sun the soil of black volcanic slag and ashes scorched the feet in walking, the picture changed suddenly.

So enchanting is the scenery of these glens, and so suddenly do they start up beneath the feet, that one almost feels persuaded that the author of ‘ Rasselas’ was there before him, or that the scenes of the Arabian Nights were not all laid in the East.

Evening fell cool and refreshing as they descended this valley, and ‘one little bird sang so like a robin that we all exclaimed at once we were in England.’

To give his father a notion of the fantastic peaks and pinnacles of the surrounding mountains, he employs his frequent method of reference to their common knowledge of the literature of travel. ‘They reminded me of the Organ Mountains of Rio de Janeiro, only these were much sharper.’

Hospitality was freely offered by a Portuguese of some position in Porto Praya, but educated in France. In this remote valley he lived with his wife and several little slaves; his property surrounding his house being cultivated with tropical fruits and plants.

During dinner our hostess arranged three little slaves round the table; they were very clean and neatly dressed, quite young and jet black. After dinner they each received an embrace from their mistress and came to us for the same (which I assure you [he tells his sisters] was not withheld because of the swarthiness of their complexions, and was accompanied with a donation of fruit). Our host said he treated them as his children, and would not part with one for anything. On taking our departure we gave our kind host all our shot and I my powder flask, as the only recompense he would take.

So delightful had the excursion been, that on the Monday (17th) he repeated it, in company with Wilmot {Note 3} and Lefroy. This time they left early, and managed to ride across the first six uninteresting miles, when ‘Mr. Wilmot was the first to find out how to make a Porto Praya pony gallop (if it ever can). It is accomplished by exaggerating the motion of galloping yourself on the saddle, kicking your heels into the animal’s flanks, and personifying a flying postboy.’

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This day there was time to botanise; and after dinner with the friendly Frenchman they ascended a peak immediately behind his house, shaped like a steep cone with a pinnacle on the top of it, amid prophecies that they would break their necks.

The ascent culminated in an arduous climb, and a descent which seemingly could not be worse and was at least fresh, on the further side. Swinging down from ledge to ledge, while an agitated group of little niggers far below shouted and gesticulated unintelligibly,

I was well rewarded by finding, when about half way down, a lovely fern with beautiful soft green foliage growing like our Cystopteris out of the crevices of the rocks; it grew with lots of the Campanula and Umbellifer (found on the way up) which so put me in mind of old Scottish forms of plants, that I only wanted a companion who had botanised over Ben Lawers to share my joys with me. [Before returning,] I emptied my pockets into my travelling portfolio, which I may mention here is the only good way of preserving plants in the tropics, and were it not for the weight, ought to be looked upon as an indispensable addition to the vasculum. The poor withered herbs that I gathered on my previous excursions used on my return to be more crumpled still from the fiery heat of the sun beating on the vasculum, and sorry specimens they have made, though invariably put into paper immediately on my return.

No time was left for geologising, though the relation of the limestone and the volcanic rocks was an inviting problem. But the whole scene left a deep impression, and the Journal records:

Man always looks back with pleasure to such spots as this, where disinterested kindness has been shown him; when to this is added a new country and the charms of a scenery half tropical and half—what is dearer still to me—Scottish, both as to scenery and general features of a scanty vegetation, his happiness to whom the works of Nature have charms, is, for the time, complete.

Three more Oceanic islands were visited before the Cape, the unusual course west to St. Paul’s Rocks, then south to Trinidad off the Brazilian coast, then east to St. Helena, being followed in order to fix certain magnetic determinants.

On the eight or ten detached rocks of St. Paul, some sixty feet high, ‘a wretched cluster about as big as all the houses in the Crescent put together,’ Hooker did not set foot. Landing in the tremendous surf was so dangerous that Captain Ross gave up the second visit, on which he had intended to take Hooker. Botanically, however, this was little loss. Not even a lichen grew on the rocks, and his shipmates brought him back specimens of the only seaweed which grew there, serving to make a rude rest for the Noddy, interwoven with a few feathers.

Trinidad was a shade less inhospitable, its valleys possessing a little vegetation. Among its mountain crags

we easily pictured to ourselves the figures of gigantic Turks, bishops, &c., on the summits: there was no wood but a very remarkable tree on the top of the highest hills (2000 feet ?)-it struck me that it was a tree fern. All over the coast there are remains of barked white trees lying on their sides, but no live ones. They lay in different directions, and except the introduction of goats has, by eating up all the young trees and leaving the old ones to perish, destroyed the vegetation, as was the case at St. Helena (see Darwin), I am at a loss to conceive how they have so universally disappeared.

The one accessible beach on the lee side, where a landing was effected in the morning, was stony and barren and hemmed in by precipices; in the afternoon the surf on the windward side seemed hopeless. However:

When about to give up the attempt one of the party espied a small cove to the N. of the Nine Pin rock, and there we landed with great difficulty. A narrow platform of rock afforded us a footing. When within 100 yards of the shore, a grapnel was dropped and the boat was then backed to the rocks, a bowman carefully paying out the rope; then taking advantage of a lull another seaman with a lead line jumped ashore and made it fast; a third was stationed at this line in the boat, then, as the surf rose, the grapnel line was held tight and the lead line paid out, thus preventing the boat from being cast ashore; when the reflex came the contrary was done. In the intervals we jumped ashore and the instruments were handed out after us. To gain the beach from this we had to walk along a ledge of rock up to our middles in water, carrying the instruments by turns, both men and officers. . . .

After ascending about 600 feet of a shelving debris we found ourselves at the foot of a continuous precipice, that shut us in completely. The rocks were in most places perpendicular and smooth, without a sign of vegetation but a few lichens; in other places the rocks were broken up into quadrangular blocks, which when moved came tumbling down and bringing others with them, which continued their course till they reached the Captain’s instruments on the beach where he was conducting his [magnetic] experiments. These were materially affected by the iron in the rocks.

As bearing on the problem of distribution, the population of this lonely island is carefully noted. Besides the sea-birds, Noddy and Tern, whose eggs were sought by the Grapsus crab, ‘of insects I saw a Hemerobius, a small fly, cockroaches from the wreck of a vessel, common house-fly, and some spiders.’ The land crab was as much in evidence then as to more recent visitors to the island-, a very short, strong, thick-set animal,’ with ‘an enormous mouth and large savage black eyes. When threatened he takes up his post under a store, and commences opening his claws, and putting them to his mouth in a menacing attitude, evidently expressing a desire to eat you, opening his formidable mandibles at the same time.’

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Arrival at St. Helena was the more welcome because of the slowness of the voyage.

The Terror has been a sad drawback to us, having every now and then to shorten sail for her. I cannot tell you how delighted we were to get here (St. Helena), having been upon salt Junk for 74 days, with hard biscuit for vegetables. . . . The weather has been during the voyage very fine indeed, though very hot at times, so much so that sleeping upon deck is quite delightful. . .

St. Helena as a colonised island was very different from the others. Appealed to as a fount of botanical culture he pokes fun at himself as a practical gardener. Strawberries and similar European plants refused to fruit in the absence of a regular summer and winter season. He suggested on theoretical grounds two alternative methods of checking their ‘running to leaf ‘; ‘between these two methods I hope I have hit a gardener’s plan, or what will look like one; if the more orthodox plan succeeds my suggestion will, I hope, be looked upon as the invention of a fertile brain instead of the guess of an ignoramus.’

But ‘the plant that pleased him more than any other’ was a fine Araucaria (monkey puzzle). Few specimens then existed in Britain, and this, as a new species from Brazil, is described in full detail. The fruit, it was asserted, never ripened; but his keen eye noted several seedlings which the owner of the garden had never observed. He has a boyish delight in climbing the spiny tree and knocking off some cones, because travellers declared the tree unscalable, and at sea he writes, ‘even now I look at the cones slung up in my cabin by a true lover’s knot with great satisfaction.’

But here also he is confronted by his favourite problems of geographical distribution, of the interaction of imported animals and plants on the old flora. The climate differs on the wet side of Diana’s Peak; so do the plants. He perceives a striking phase of what was afterwards to be called the ‘struggle for existence’ bluntly revealed in the action of animals on plants, plants on each other, and plants again on animals, owing to the introduction of new forms of life into the island.

So, he writes in his Journal from his passing notes—time forbidding fuller observations

At that particular elevation (about 700 feet, 1000 feet being the average elevation of the interior of the island) there is hardly a trace of the original plants in the soil, they having been completely destroyed by the introduction of pigs and goats into the Island, which eat up all the young trees, leaving the old ones, which are invariably succulent Compositae, to perish, or else tearing off their bark which is soft and loose. In addition, the soil and climate is so well adapted to the growth of forest trees, which when once they have formed a shelter sow themselves, that there remains no opportunity for the native trees to recover the soil, which is now dry and not adapted to their habits, the rich vegetable mould which they formed being swept by torrents into the valleys subsequent to their destruction. On the northern slope of Diana’s Peak I have seen a broad belting of trees put a stop to the descent of the Cabbage trees (a name given to the six or eight species of native arborescent compositae) which cannot exist along with any other vegetation that overtops them, nor can they grow singly. Another tree is said to be completely extirpated-the Ebony. Large masses of the wood are still found in some of the valleys, though I was unable to procure any specimens.

Though the introduced trees have adapted themselves to this soil and climate, the Animal Kingdom and other indigenous vegetation are not to be found under their shelter. The insects and birds which I observed among the native trees were not to be found in these plantations; of the birds in particular I observed this. It is also the case with the Lichens and Insects, two species of Usnea and another Lichen being found on the firs and oaks only, whilst only one species of plant, Rubus pinnatus (an indigenous species), grows indifferently on open banks and in the wood—never in native wood.

Longwood, with its associations of fallen grandeur, was less to him than the wonders of nature; nevertheless, he writes in his Journal on February 6:

So very much is talked about Napoleon’s tomb, that though I felt very little interest in seeing it, I was determined to be no more called a Goth, which name I had earned from my previous indifference, and to go to this more hackneyed spot than Richmond or Kensington Gardens.

His fears were justified when he reached the tomb.

It is situated at the head of this valley, guarded by a sentinel who duns you about the mighty dead, and gives you water that the Emperor drank; on turning your heel upon him, numerous children assail you with flowers, Geraniums, that the Emperor was fond of. On turning into a pretty cottage to get some ale at 2s. a bottle, the cork was no sooner drawn than out came the Emperor with it; it was the Emperor this, that, and the other thing; our hostess’s daughter came in with the Emperor on her lips; his ubiquity certainly astonished me. As a last resource I commenced gathering Lichens; surely the hero of Marengo could have nothing to do with Lichens on a stone wall, when another disinterested stranger came to inform me that the Emperor had from it marked out the position of his tomb, and that the Emperor was fond of the wild plants I had in my hand. I fairly took to my heels, heartily wishing that for my own sake as well as for the good cause of humanity, the Emperor had had his wish of living and dying in some remote corner of Britain.

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The Cape was reached on March 17, and left on April 6, 1840. There is little to note during this brief stay. Hooker’s impressions of the Cape date from his second and longer visit. This time he collected, as has been said, some 300 species of Cape plants to study on the voyage. A long five weeks of sailing brought the ships to Kerguelen’s Land, where Ross’s prolonged magnetic observations kept them from May 12 to July 20.

Though this lodestone of Hooker’s childish imaginations deserved all too well its other name of Desolation Island, its fascination for him was reinforced, as we have seen, by a still stronger spell, the charm of discoveries leading on to luminous generalisations. The letter to his father from Hobart (August 16, 1840) describing the place deserves fairly full quotation {Note 4}.

We proceeded to Kerguelen’s Land, and after twice being blown off in a gale we at last, on May 12, anchored in Christmas Harbour. During the passage there were few sea-animals, so I studied Cape plants with Harvey, Endlicher, {Note 5} and De Candolle {Note 6}

From a distance the Island looks like terraces of black rocks; on which the snow lies, causing it to look striped in horizontal bands. On the melting of the snow, the flats appear covered with green grass and the hills with brown and yellow tufts of vegetation. The shores are almost everywhere bounded by high, steep precipices, some of frightful height, above which the land rises in ledges to the tops of the hills. The varied colour in the vegetation gave me hopes that the country might be rich in mosses, &c. [nor could anything the ingenious Mr. Anderson in ‘Cook’s Voyages ‘ said persuade me to the contrary. . . . Surely, I thought, this cannot be such a land of desolation as Cook has painted it, containing only eighteen species of plants].

Christmas Harbour is well described and figured by Cook, indeed the accuracy with which he made a running survey of the coast is quite marvellous, and shows how talented a man he was. I cannot say so much of his Surgeon and Botanist, ‘The ingenious Mr. Anderson,’ as our copy calls him. Had Cook been here in winter he would have found it a different place to lie in from what it is in summer; the winds blow into it from the N.W. with the most incredible fury, preventing sometimes for days any intercourse with the shore. We have the chain cables of a 28 gun-ship, and yet we drove with 3 anchors and 150 fathoms of chain on the best-bower, 60 on the small, and a third anchor under foot, the Sheet. Such a thing was never heard of before!

During our stay I devoted all my time to collect everything in the botanical way, and I hope you will not be disappointed with the fruits of my poor exertions. You say you hope I shall double the Flora and I have done so. {Note 7} I was much surprised at finding the plants in a good state of flower and fruit (all but two).

My time was my own to leave the ship when I liked, for the Captain took off all restrictions to my going where I liked. My rambles were generally solitary, through the wildest country I ever saw. The hill tops are always covered with snow and frost, and many of my best little Lichens were gathered by hammering out the tufts or sitting on them till they thawed. The days were so short and the country so high, snowy, and bad that I never could get far from the harbour, though I several times tried by starting before light. As far as I went the vegetation did not differ from that of the bays. . . .

I went several boating excursions in the neighbourhood, and in one was dismasted and nearly swamped. So Captain Ross would send no more, and I am promised to be of a longer and better party on the next opportunity. Two Lycopodia, one splendid one, and a Fern were all Mr. McCormick added to my collection. He brought numerous splendid quartz crystals and zeolites, &c., together with lots of coal and fossil wood. The latter we had long before found, and I first detected it lying in immense trunks in the solid basaltic rock; its existence here is wonderful in the extreme; I have plenty of specimens.

[In the absence of trees, the coloured patches of Lichens on the hillsides, the heaving belt of seaweed girdling the shores, took the place of forest green or autumnal tints.]

The Lichens appear here to form a greater comparative portion of the vegetable world than in any other portion of the globe, especially when it is considered that from the want of large trees there can be no parasitical species. The rocks from the water’s edge to the summit of the hills are apparently painted with them, their fronds adhering so closely to the stone that they are with difficulty detached; in other cases they seem to form part of the rock which, from its excessive toughness and hardness, almost defies any attempt to procure specimens that can be satisfactory. But it is at the tops of the hills that they assume the appearance of a miniature forest on the flat rocks, and nothing can be prettier than the large species with broad black apothecia that covers all the stones at an elevation of from 1000-1500 feet. A smaller species like a little oak-tree grows in spreading tufts also upon stones, and is of a delicate lilac color. Near the sea they are generally more coriaceous, especially a yellow one that then forms bright yellow patches on the cliffs. In the caves, also near the sea, a light red one is so abundant as to tinge such situations with that color, and many other species inhabit the rocks and their crevices.

Seaweeds are in immense profusion, especially two large species, the Macrocystis pyriferal {Note 8} and the Laminaria radiata?; the former of these forms a broad green belt to the whole Island (as far as seen) of 8-20 yds. across within 20 feet or so from the shore. Here its branches are so entangled that it is sometimes impossible to pull a boat through it, and should any accident occur outside of it, its presence would prove an insurmountable obstacle to the best swimmers reaching land., On the beach the effect of the surf beating it up and down is very pretty, but not so striking as the view from a little elevation, of a bay, with this olive green band running round it. The sea birds, etc., when on the water, always fly over or dive under to reappear on its other side. The Laminaria hangs down from every rock within reach of the tide, perpetually in motion from the lashing of the surf, and yet from its shininess and strength always unhurt. I think I may’, safely affirm that no other species in the vegetable kingdom has so secure a rooting as this seaweed has on the bare rock. I have often sat upon the cliff overhanging the sea at the N.W. bay during a gale of wind, and watched the surf break with terrific violence on the rocks, which are often themselves detached and alternately brought backwards and forwards by the swell and reflux with a deafening roar; still the coriaceous fronds of this weed are with impunity washed backwards and forwards, then form attachments defying the power of the sea. . . . [The only use in Nature I can assign to it is the shelter it affords to a species of Patella from the attacks of the gulls, which prowl about during low water and secure as their prey any other unfortunate shellfish which is exposed. The weight of the fronds of the Laminaria hanging down over the dry rocks forms an insurmountable obstacle to the birds.]

The birds, unused to man, were devoid of fear. In the shallow bay next to the Arch Point, were myriads of the beautiful Sheathbill as the sailors called it (a Chionis), so tame that it allows you to come quite close to it. It was something like a pigeon, black legs (not webbed), beak and eyes; it ran with great agility among the rocks [like ptarmigan, helping itself by the first joint of the wings, which is provided with two callous extremities admirably adapted for this purpose] and came close to examine me; its plumage is of a spotless white, with a slight pink tinge on the primaries of the wings; the bill was a sheath common to the two nostrils. On one occasion I thoughtfully sat down on a stone and commenced whistling a tune when, on turning my head, I found I had unwittingly been performing an Orpheus’s part, for upwards of twenty of these beautiful birds had gathered about me, and were gradually approaching, declining their heads and narrowly watching my motions, and would even perch on my foot, rocking their heads on one side in the most interesting manner. Among them were some penguins, peering over the rocks . . . so tame that they allowed me to take them by the beaks.

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Among the stones were feathers in amazing quantities and

many skeletons, especially Penguins’, which are, I suspect, destroyed by a very large gull, whose bill is like that of a hawk, and its webbed feet terminated by hooked claws of great strength. The penguins’ food is, I suspect, fish, at least the stomach of a common one was full of such matter; and the white birds are omnivorous, eating flesh, Seaweeds, and insects. One that we kept on board used to run about the decks after the sailors, and at their dinner used to help itself from their dishes, eating meat boiled or raw, raisins, rice, salt meat, and would drink water, limejuice, and grog! Its tameness and gentleness rendered it a general favourite, but its spotless plumage soon turned gray, and then black.

So too the common Jack penguins were easily tamed.

At first we had about a dozen on board, running wild over the decks following a leader; they cannot climb over any obstacle two or three inches high, so we thought them safe, until one day, the leader finding the hawse hole empty, immediately made his exit, and was followed by the rest, each giving a valedictory croak as he made his escape.

[As food, the sheathbills] are tolerable eating, rather tough though, and they have a rank flavour and smell when newly killed, and require soaking before cooking, when they eat well in pies and mulligatawny.

[The penguins’] flesh is black and very rich, and was much relished at first for stews, pies, curries, etc.; after a day or two we found it too rich, with a disagreeable flavour, whence partly from prejudice I believe, they were dropped, except in the shape of soup, which is certainly the richest I ever ate, much more so than hare soup, which it much resembles.

Certain annotations in the presentation copy of Ross’s Voyage deserve passing mention. They unmask two pieces of unconscious humour on the part of Dr. McCormick, one a mistake, the other the fruit of a well-laid practical joke. In the scientific appendices, McCormick (II. 409) describes the Kiwi or Apteryx, that wingless bird, as seeking ‘larvae and seeds of a rush (Astelia Banksii), its favourite food.’ On the margin is pencilled ‘grows on high trees only.’ And on p. 414 he describes the nest of the albatross, which ‘only lays one egg. In one instance only I found two eggs in the same nest (both of the full size, and one of them unusually elongated in its longest diameter), although I must have examined at least a hundred nests.’ Indeed a puzzle, anxiously detailed; but we smile at the accusing pencil, ‘placed there by Oakeley,’ the mate of the Erebus.

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