CHAPTER VI 



ROUTE OF THE EXPLORERS, 1838-1842 



Narrative of the Cruise Madeira and Rio de Janeiro Dangerous Passage 

 around Cape Horn : Extreme Peril Valparaiso and the Cordilleras 

 The South Sea Islands : The Paumotus, Society Islands, Samoa Aus- 

 tralia Discovery of the Antarctic Continent New Zealand The 

 Feejee and the Sandwich Islands The Northwest Coast of America 

 Shipwrecked at the Mouth of the Columbia Crossing the Pacific 

 Manila, Sooloo, Singapore Return Home by the Cape of Good Hope 

 and St. Helena Arrival in New York. 



THE cruise was at last begun; new perils and new 

 victories were to come. Rio de Janeiro was the 

 first goal, so named in Paulding's instructions. En 

 route, the effort was to be made to determine whether 

 certain vigias, or shoals, reported obstructions to naviga- 

 tion in the Atlantic, were really in existence. So Wilkes 

 crossed the ocean to Madeira and anchored at Funchal a 

 month after leaving Norfolk. The enthusiasm of the 

 young explorers, as they looked upon the scenery and 

 vegetation of a semi-tropical island, was genuine and 

 hearty. A sketch of the Estroza Pass by the artist 

 Drayton precedes Wilkes's opening chapter, and the 

 Curral, a great chasm of two thousand feet in depth, was 

 also pictured and described. Dana, with Hale, Holmes, 

 and Eld, went to the east of the island, beyond Machico, 

 to examine the geology. 



" I have not space nor time," says Dana, " to describe 

 the many peculiarities of Madeira, and can only say that 

 I have spent the greater part of two days in riding over 



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