arly, particularly in his early
voyages, when he was merely a seaman before the mast or a petty officer.
He tells us that he carried about with him a long piece of hollow bamboo,
in which he placed his manuscript for safe keeping, waxing the ends to
keep out the sea water.

After almost endless adventures and hardships, he arrived back in England
in September, 1691, after a voyage of eight years, and an absence from
England of twelve, without a penny piece in his pocket, nor any other
property except his unfortunate friend Prince Jeoly, whom he sold on his
arrival in the Thames, to supply his own immediate wants. Dampier's next
voyage was in the year 1699, when he was appointed to command H.M.S.
_Roebuck_, of twelve guns and a crew of fifty men and boys, and victualled
for twenty months' cruise. The object of this voyage was to explore and
map the new continent to the south of the East Indies which Dampier had
discovered on his previous voyage. Had he in this next voyage taken the
westward course, as he originally intended, and sailed to Australia round
the Horn, it is possible that Dampier would have made many of the
discoveries for which James Cook afterwards became so famous, and by
striking the east coast of Australia would very likely have antedated the
civilisation of that continent by fifty years. But he was persuaded,
partly by his timid crew, and perhaps in some measure by his own dislike
of cold temperatures, to sail by the eastward route and to double the Cape
of Good Hope. The story of this voyage is given by Dampier in his book,
published in 1709, "A Voyage to New Holland, etc., in the Year 1699."

After spending some unprofitable weeks on the north coast of Australia,
failing to find water or to make friends with the aboriginals, scurvy
broke out amongst his somewhat mutinous crew, and he sailed to New Guinea,
the coast of which he saw on New Year's Day, 1700.

By this time the _Roebuck_ was falling to pieces, her wood rotten, her
hull covered with barnacles. Eventually, using the pumps day and night,
they arrived, on February 21st, 1701, at Ascension Island, where the old
ship sank at her anchors. Getting ashore with their belongings, they
waited on this desolate island until April 3rd, when four ships arrived,
three of them English men-of-war.

I was told, only the other day, by a friend who lives in the Island of St.
Helena, and whose duties take him at least once each year to Ascension
Island, that