592 ANNUAL R EGI S TER, 1818. 



southern of our groupe. Captain 

 JVJeares must have passed very 

 near it in 1788; but from the 

 29th degree of latitude this navi- 

 gator experienced continual fogs, 

 which were sometimes so thick as 

 to prevent seeing from one end 

 of the ship to the other ; yet 

 towards the point corresponding 

 with the Bonin islands he met 

 with land birds, herbs, and other 

 signs generally regarded by 

 seamen as indications of the 

 vicinity of land. Colnett passed 

 tothe north ofFatsisio. Brough- 

 ton followed the same course in 

 1796, and stood close by the 

 coast of Ni-fon, in returning the 

 following year. Admiral Kru- 

 senstern sailed to the south, but 

 only at a short distance from 

 Fatsisio; his course in 1805 was 

 as southerly as that of the Reso- 

 lution in the longitude of our 

 islands. All these navigators, 

 therefore, have passed too far 

 north or south, to fall in with 

 the Bonin Islands. The space 

 left between their courses, in 

 this part, includes seven degrees 

 of latitude, that have not been 

 examined, which is more than 

 sufficient for the Archipelago 

 described by the Japanese. 



Kaempfer is the only author 

 who has collected any particulars 

 relating to them, but his state- 

 ments are so inexact, that it is 

 impossible to derive any advant- 

 age from them. About the year 

 1675, he says, the Japanese ac- 

 cidentally discovered a very large 

 island, one of their barks having 

 been forced the.e in a storm, 

 from the island Fatsisio, from 

 which they computed it to be 

 three hundred miles distant to- 

 words the east. They met with 



no inhabitants, but found it to be" 

 a very pleasant and fruitful coun- 

 try, well supplied with fresh 

 water, and furnished with plenty 

 of plants and trees, particularly 

 the arrack tree, which, however, 

 might give room to conjecture, 

 that the island lay rather to the 

 south of Japan than to the east, 

 these trees growing only in hot 

 countries ; they called it Bune 

 Sima, or the island Bune, and 

 because they found no inhabit- 

 ants upon it, they marked it with 

 the character of an uninhabited 

 island. On the shores they found 

 an incredible number of fish and 

 crabs, some of which were from 

 four to six feet long.* 



There are many inaccuracies 

 in this account, as we shall im- 

 mediately show ; — besides the 

 position of the discovered island 

 being so vaguely indicated, that 

 without additional information it 

 would be impossible to make use 

 of the discovery. This agrees 

 with Capt. Burney's opinion ex- 

 pressed in his large and magnifi- 

 cent work on the history of the 

 Pacific Ocean, where, after having 

 cited the passage from Kaempfer, 

 he adds : — " it would be useless 

 to make any conjecture on the 

 situation of this island, except 

 that the miles are probably Dutch 

 measure, fifteen to a degree. 

 The crabs, from four to six feet 

 long, no doubt were turtle.''f 



* History of Japan, b. i. ch. iv. p. 

 69. 



t A chronological liistory of the 

 voyages and discoveries in the Soutli 

 Sea and Pacific Ocean, Vol. iii. page 

 103. This work still scarce in 

 France, as well as several others pre- 

 viously cited and many valuable 

 charts, were communicated to me by 



What 



