It Removed From The Chart Five Or Six Islands Which
Had No Existence, Having Been Marked Down Erroneously By Previous
Navigators.
From this region the expedition sailed to Alaska, on the
north-west coast of North America.
Cook had explored here "with that
courage and perseverance of which all Europe knows him to have been
capable," wrote Laperouse, never failing to use an opportunity of
expressing admiration for his illustrious predecessor. But there was
still useful work to do, and the French occupied their time very
profitably with it from June to August. Then their ships sailed down
the western coast of America to California, struck east across
the Pacific to the Ladrones, and made for Macao in China - then as now
a Portugese possession - reaching that port in January, 1787.
The Philippines were next visited, and Laperouse formed pleasant
impressions of Manilla. It is clear from his way of alluding to the
customs of the Spanish inhabitants that the French captain was not a
tobacco smoker. It was surprising to him that "their passion for
smoking this narcotic is so immoderate that there is not an instant of
the day in which either a man or woman is without a cigar;" and it is
equally surprising to us that the French editor of the history of the
voyage found it necessary to explain in a footnote that a cigar is "a
small roll of tobacco which is smoked without the assistance of a
pipe." But cigars were then little known in Europe, except among
sailors and travellers who had visited the Spanish colonies; and the
very spelling of the word was not fixed. In English voyages it appears
as "seegar," "segar," and "sagar."
Formosa was visited in April, northern Japan in May, and the
investigation of the north-eastern coasts of Asia occupied until
October.
A passage in a letter from Laperouse to Fleurieu is worth quoting for
two reasons. It throws some light on the difficulties of navigation in
unknown seas, and upon the commander's severe application to duty; and
it also serves to remind us that Japan, now so potent a factor in the
politics of the East and of the whole Pacific, had not then emerged
from the barbarian exclusiveness towards foreigners, which she
had maintained since Europe commenced to exploit Asia. In the middle of
the seventeenth century she had expelled the Spaniards and the
Portugese with much bloodshed, and had closed her ports to all traders
except the Chinese and the Dutch, who were confined to a prescribed
area at Nagasaki. Intercourse with all other foreign peoples was
strictly forbidden. Even as late as 1842 it was commanded that if any
foreign vessel were driven by distress or tempestuous weather into a
Japanese port, she might only remain so long as was necessary to meet
her wants, and must then depart. Laperouse knew of this jealous
Japanese antipathy to foreign visitors, and, as he explains in the
letter, meant to keep away from the country because of it. He wrote: -
"The part of our voyage between Manilla and Kamchatka will afford you,
I hope, complete satisfaction. It was the newest, the most interesting,
and certainly, from the everlasting fogs which enveloped the land in
the latitudes we traversed, the most difficult. These fogs are such
that it has taken one hundred and fifty days to explore a part of the
coast which Captain King, in the third volume of Cook's last voyage,
supposes might be examined in the course of two months. During this
period I rested only ten days, three in the Bay of Ternai, two in the
Bay de Langle, and five in the Bay de Castries. Thus I wasted no time;
I even forebore to circumnavigate the island of Chicha (Yezo) by
traversing the Strait of Sangaar (Tsugaru). I should have wished to
anchor, if possible, at the northern point of Japan, and would perhaps
have ventured to send a boat ashore, though such a proceeding would
have required the most serious deliberation, as the boat would probably
have been stopped. Where a merchant ship is concerned an event of this
kind might be considered as of little importance, but the seizure of a
boat belonging to a ship of war could scarcely be otherwise regarded
than as a national insult; and the taking and burning of a few sampans
would be a very sorry compensation as against the people who would not
exchange a single European of whom they were desirous of making an
example, for one hundred Japanese. I was, however, too far from the
coast to include such an intention, and it is impossible for me to
judge at present what I should have done had the contrary been the
case.
"It would be difficult for me to find words to express to you the
fatigue attending this part of my voyage, during which I did not once
undress myself, nor did a single night pass without my being obliged to
spend several hours upon deck. Imagine to yourself six days of fog with
only two or three hours of clear weather, in seas extremely confined,
absolutely unknown, and where fancy, in consequence of the information
we had received, pictured to us shoals and currents that did not always
exist. From the place where we made the land on the eastern coast of
Tartary, to the strait which we discovered between Tchoka
(Saghalien) and Chicha, we did not fail to take the bearing of every
point, and you may rest assured that neither creek, port, nor river
escaped our attention, and that many charts, even of the coasts of
Europe, are less exact than those which we shall bring with us on our
return."
"The strait which we discovered" is still called Laperouse Strait on
most modern maps, though the Japanese usually call it Soya Strait. It
runs between Yezo, the large northerly island of Japan, and Saghalien.
Current maps also show the name Boussole Strait, after Laperouse's
ship, between Urup and Simusir, two of the Kurile chain of small
islands curving from Yezo to the thumblike extremity of Kamchatka.
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