French Explorers In Early Africa

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 80, 25 June 1927, Page 7

French Explorers In Early Africa

INTERESTING* NARRATIVE Augustin de Beaulieu, who was horn at Rouen in 1589/made two voyages to the East Indies. Of the first the records are but scanty. In 1619, the merchants of Rouen and Paris, who had defrayed the expenses of the first expedition, deter** mined on another. Three vessels were fitted out, the Montmorency, the Esperance, and the Hermitage, with crews totalling 273 in all, the command was given to Beaulieu, and the little fleet sailed from Harfleur on October 2, 1619. The record of this voyage, written by Beaulieu himself, though not published until 27 years after his death, is contained in a folio work of 128 pages that forms part of the collection of voyages compiled by Melchisedeck de Thevenot. Table Bay Reached After passing Madeira the three ships coasted past Senegal and put in at Rufisco. At an “anchorage that the French call Tagrin” there was drowned while bathing, “one of our English trumpeters named Badfour.” Table Bay was reached on March 15, and a stay made there until April 12. Off the Natal coast Beaulieu decided to despatch the Esperance direct to Java, while he himself, with the other two ships, made for Madagascar and India. At last, on February 1, 1622, the ships left Ticou (in Sumatra) with fairly good cargoes, and on May 5 were once more in Table Bay. There they remained twenty-five days. On December 1, 1622, “thirty-eight months after our departure,” the ships reached home and anchored in the harbour of La Hogue. After his voyage Beaulieu quitted the merchant service and entered the navy of Louis XIII. Under the orders of Richelieu he commanded a ship at the siege of La Rochelle. He died at Toulon in the year 1637, when 48 years of age. A Turf Fort The following extracts deal with Beaulieu’s visit to Table Bay in 1620; “On Monday, the 16th of March, I sent the boat ashore with sails for the tents and twenty-five soldiers to guard them. I ordered ashore another twenty-five men from the Vice-Ad-miral’s ship, and gave directions for the erection of a forge. When the boatmen returned they told me that they had seen several dead men’s bodies and vestments scattered here and there. They said, too, that they had noticed, beside the rivulet, a small well-flanked turf fort. 1 thought it might have been the Danes who had built it, for Monsieur Grave (Captain of the Esperance), who had been to land, brought aboard two savages, one of whom had been to England and spoke a little English. In his jargon he assured us that five ships had left this place some three months previously, making for the East. This, indeed, we gathered more from signs than otherwise, as his English was good cnly when he asked for bread. Apes and Monkeys “On the 19th some musketeers, whom we had sent after a missing soldier, reported that they started toward the interior at a mountain that adjoins Table Mountain. They turned, they said, in a southerly direction and encountered an infinity of apes and -Jig monkeys. They then made their way to the slopes of the mountains Liat border the sea to the west, and walked along until they perceived the sea at half a league’s distance. I betwVe is some other bay between the one where we are and the Cape of Lood Hope, as I noticed one there *“ en passing. From there they began VJ ma k e their way back, and, as they a *d so, they discovered the sea to the south-east of them. This must be the s^a that lies to the east of the Cape °* Good Hope. They saw very clearly, too, some other mountains that we see from jmre, which appear to us very high, inaccessible and deserted. Between hose mountains and those where they they saw a flat plain, which be ten or twelve leagues across, ‘tn very good soil, fit for various This plain, uninterrupted by t aer moun tains, ends at the sea beeen Cape Falso and the Cape cf ood Hope. At the foot of the moun- « ns toward the west they found where were trees tall and am* ? s apple trees, having no fruit u . of a very hard wood. Fine pasr,_ were seen, with a few cattle ° n them. ‘•Tv, Around the Mountain. to report filled me with curiosity day I Hi the land, and the very next * 1 directed my tour of inspection