824 
THE VOYAGE OF H.M.S. CHALLENGER. 
safely landed, with cattle, mules, sheep, and a variety of poultry, as well as a suitable 
supply of seed and agricultural implements. A fort mounting 18 guns was also 
constructed. But this little colony had not been long settled when it was almost totally 
destroyed by the same dreadful earthquake which in 1751 overthrew the city of 
Concepcion in Chili. With this earthquake the sea rose and overwhelmed the houses, 
part of which were built on the seashore ; 35 persons perished, amongst whom 
were the Governor with his wife and family. The settlement was afterwards rebuilt 
in a safer position farther inshore. The expenses of this settlement in 1753 were 
12,640 dollars. 
Carteret was the first English navigator who noticed this settlement. He sighted 
Juan Fernandez in May 1767, and was greatly surprised to see a considerable number of 
men about the beach, with a house and four pieces of cannon near the water side, and a 
fort 300 yards inland on the brow of a hill with Spanish colours flying. Twenty-five or 
thirty houses were scattered round the fort, and many cattle were seen feeding, and the 
land also appeared to be cultivated. Carteret hoisted no colours but stood on for Mas-a- 
fuera Island. It may appear strange that Carteret, whose crew were much in want of 
water and refreshment, should leave an island on which he saw a settlement, cattle, &c., 
and prefer to proceed towards an uninhabited island, where the anchorage was bad, and 
the water could only be procured at considerable risk ; but it must be borne in mind 
that the Spaniards in those days were most inhospitable, and it is related in Captain Basil 
Hall’s “South America” that when (between the years 1784 and 1790) an American 
vessel from Boston touched at Juan Fernandez, having lost one of her masts, sprung 
her rudder, and being short of water and wood, the Viceroy of Peru and Chili repri- 
manded the Governor of the island for permitting the ship to repair damages and 
leave the port, instead of taking possession both of her and the crew, and giving an 
account of his having done so to his immediate superior the President of Chili. The 
Viceroy expressed his surprise that the Governor of an island should not know that every 
strange vessel which anchored in these seas, without a license from Spanish authorities, 
ought to be treated as an enemy, even though the nation to which she belonged should 
be an ally of Spain, and gave orders, should the distressed vessel appear again, that she 
was to be seized immediately and her crew imprisoned. Such conduct fully explains 
the reluctance exhibited by the old voyagers to placing themselves in the power or 
under the guns of a Spanish fortress, and also accounts for the meagre knowledge of the 
island available from the date of its first settlement by the Spaniards in 1750. In 
1792 Lieutenant John Ross, R.N., then in command of a whaling vessel called the 
“ William,” visited Juan Fernandez and found forty settlers and six soldiers on the 
island, occupying a village in Cumberland Bay, every house having a garden attached, 
with arbours of vines. Figs, cherries, plums, and almonds were abundant, as also were 
potatoes, cabbages, onions, and other vegetables. 
