Voyages and Travels
A Journal of the First Voyage of Vasco Da Gama, 1497-1499
The publications of the Hakluyt Society (founded in 1846) made available edited (and sometimes translated) early accounts of exploration. The first series, which ran from 1847 to 1899, consists of 100 books containing published or previously unpublished works by authors from Christopher Columbus to Sir Francis Drake, and covering voyages to the New World, to China and Japan, to Russia and to Africa and India. Vasco da Gama (c. 1460-1524) was a Portuguese explorer who commanded the first European expedition to sail directly to India. This voyage and his combination of force and diplomacy while in India was integral to Portugal's success as a colonising power in the early sixteenth century. Translated and edited by E. G. Ravenstein, this volume contains an anonymous journal which is the last surviving first-hand account of Vasco da Gama's historic voyage. Contemporary diplomatic reports concerning the voyage are also included in this book.
A Narrative of the Expedition to Botany Bay: With an Account of New South Wales, Its Productions, Inhabitants, Etc.
In May 1787, eleven ships left England with more than seven hundred convicts on board, along with orders to establish a penal colony at Botany Bay, New South Wales. Watkin Tench (c.1758-1833) was a crew member on one of the ships of this First Fleet, the Charlotte, and he recalls the voyage and early days of the settlement in this vivid and engaging account, first published in 1789. The first half of the work retraces the route of the six-month journey, which took the fleet to Brazil and the Cape of Good Hope. The later chapters recount the landing at Botany Bay in January 1788, the establishment of a colony at nearby Port Jackson and observations about the natural world in this new settlement. Tench also discusses the initial interaction with the Aboriginal people, making this work an important source for scholars of British colonialism and Australian history.
A Voyage to the South Sea
Undertaken by command of His Majesty for the purpose of conveying the bread-fruit tree to the West Indies in His Majesty's ship the Bounty commanded by Lieutenant William Bligh; including an account of the mutiny on board the said ship and the subsequent voyage of part of the crew in the ship's boat from Tofoa, one of the Friendly Islands, to Timor, a Dutch settlement in the East Indies
Amours De Voyage
Yes, We Are Fighting At Last, It Appears. This Morning As Usual, Murray, As Usual, In Hand, I Enter The Caffe Nuovo; Seating Myself With A Sense As It Were Of A Change In The Weather, Not Understanding, However, But Thinking Mostly Of Murray, And, For To-day Is Their Day, Of The Campidoglio Marbles; Caffe-latte! I Call To The Waiter, ,and Non C'e Latte.