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[ Present State of the Savages of North America ] [ The United States Today ]The Voyage
So I embarked at Saint-Malo, as I said; we took to the high seas, and on May 6, 1791, about eight o'clock in the morning we sighted the peak of the island of Pico, one of the Azores. A few hours later we cast anchor in a poor roadstead on a rocky bottom before the island of Graciosa. The description of the island is to be found in the Historical Essay. The exact date of the island's discovery is unknown.
This was the first foreign land that I approached; for this very reason I have kept memories of it which have preserved the force and the liveliness of youth. I did not fail to have Chactas go to the Azores and to have him see the famous statue that the first navigators to have found on these shores.claimed
From the Azores, blown by the winds on to the banks of Newfoundland, we were forced to make port a second time at the island of Saint Pierre. "T. and I," I say then in the Historical Essay, "went on excursions in the mountains of this frightful island; we became lost in the fogs with which it is incessantly covered, wandering between clouds and gusts of wind, hearing the bellowing of a sea which we could not discern, wandering on a dead and mossy heath and on the edge of a reddish torrent which rushed between the rocks."
The valleys are strewn in different parts with that kind of pine whose young shoots serve to make a bitter beer. The island is surrounded by several reefs, among which is noticed that of the Dovecote, so called because the sea birds make their nests there in the spring. I have given its description in the Genius of Christianity.
The island of Saint Pierre is separated from that of Newfoundland only by a fairly dangerous strait; from its desolate coasts one makes out the even more desolate shores of Newfoundland. In the summer the beaches of these islands are covered with fish drying in the sun, and in the winter by white bears which feed on the scraps forgotten by the fishermen.
When I landed at Saint Pierre, the capital of the island consisted as best I remember, of a fairly long street built along the sea. The gracious inhabitants were quick to offer us the hospitality of their tables -and homes. The governor lived at the edge of the city. I dined two or three times there. He was raising a few European vegetables in one of the moats of the fort. I remember that after dinner he would show me his garden; then we would go sit at the base of the flagpole surmounting the fortress. The French flag billowed over our heads as we watched a wild sea and the somber coasts of Newfoundland and spoke of the homeland.
After a two-week layover, we left the island of Saint Pierre, and the ship heading south reached the latitude of the coasts of Maryland and Virginia, where we were becalmed. We enjoyed the most beautiful of skies; the nights, the sunsets, and sunrises were admirable. In the chapter of The Genius of Christianity which I have already mentioned, called "Two Perspectives of Nature," I have recalled one of those nocturnal splendors and one of those magnificent sunsets. "The sun's globe, ready to plunge into the waves, appeared between the ship's lines, in the midst of endless space, and so on."
An accident came close to ending all my plans.
The heat was oppressive; the ship, in a dead calm, without and overburdened by its masts, was rolling heavily. Burning on the deck and fatigued by the movement, I decided I wanted to swim, and although we had no longboat in the water, I threw myself from the bowsprit into the sea. First all went well, and several passengers imitated me. I was swimming out watching the ship; but when I happened to turn my head, I saw that the current had already borne it quite far away. The crew had rushed on deck and had thrown a hawser to the other swimmers. Sharks were sighted in the waters near ship, and the crew were firing on them to drive them away. The roll was so great that it delayed my return and sapped my strength. I had an abyss beneath me, and at any moment the sharks might snap off one of my arms or legs. On the vessel, they were attempting to launch a boat, but they had to set up a block and tackle, and that was taking considerable time.
By the greatest stroke of luck, a barely perceptible breeze came up; the ship obeyed the rudder to a certain extent and approached me. I was able to grab hold of the rope, but the companions of my rashness had also caught hold of this rope; and when we were drawn to the side of the vessel, I found myself at the end of the line, and they hung on me with all their combined weight. We were fished out this way one by one, which took a long time. The rolling continued. At each roll we would dive ten or twelve feet into the waves or be suspended in the air, like fish on a line. At the last immersion, I felt ready to lose consciousness; one more roll, and it would have been all over. Finally they raised me on board half dead. If I had drowned, good riddance for myself and for others!
Several days after this accident, we sighted land; it was indicated by the tops of some trees which seemed to rise from the surface of the water: the palms at the mouth of the Nile later disclosed the shore of Egypt to me in the same way. A pilot came on board. We entered Chesapeake Bay, and that very night they sent a longboat to get water and fresh food. I joined the party that was going to land, and half an hour after having left the ship I set foot on American soil.
I remained some time with my arms crossed, looking about me with a mixture of feelings and ideas, which I could not unravel then and which I could not paint today. This continent unknown to the rest of the world through all ancient times and through many centuries of modern times; the first savage destiny of this continent, and its second destiny since the arrival of Christopher Columbus; the domination of the European monarchies shattered in this New World; the old society ending up in the young America; a republic of a kind unknown then, announcing a change in the human mind and the political order; the part my homeland had in producing these events; these seas and these shores owing part of their independence to the French flag and French blood; a great man coming forth in the midst of discord and wilderness; Washington living in a flourishing city in the same place where a century earlier William Penn had bought a bit of land from some Indians; the United States sending back to France across the ocean the revolution and the liberty which France had supported with its arms; finally, my own plans, the discoveries that I wanted to attempt in these native solitudes, which extended their vast kingdom behind the narrow empire of a foreign civilization- those are the things which confusedly occupied my mind.
We advanced toward a fairly distant habitation to buy there what they would be willing to sell us. We crossed some small forests of balsam and Virginia cedar which perfumed the air. I saw mockingbirds and cardinals flitting about, their colors and songs indicating a different climate. A negress 14 or 15 years old, of extraordinary beauty, came to open to us the gate of a house which resembled at the same time an English farm and a settler's cabin. Herds of cows were grazing in the makeshift pastures surrounded by palisades, on which were playing gray, Mack, and striped squirrels; some negroes were sawing wood, while others were at work in the tobacco fields. We bought corncakes, chickens, eggs, and milk, and we returned to the vessel moored in the bay.
We weighed anchor to reach the roadstead and then the port Of Baltimore. The trip was slow as there was no wind. As we approached Baltimore the waters narrowed and were perfectly calm; we seemed to be going up a river bordered by long avenues. Baltimore offered herself to us as if on the edge of a lake. Opposite the city rose a hill shaded with trees, at the foot which they were beginning to build a few houses. We tied at the quay of the port. I slept on board and didn't go ashore the next day. I went to lodge at the inn where they carried my baggage. The seminarians retired with their Superior to the establishment prepared for them and then scattered throughout America.