LETTER

(From the Times of June 2, 1877).

To the Editor of the ’Times.’—­Sir,—­Believing it possible that some interest may attach to the voyage completed on May 27 by the arrival of the ‘Sunbeam’ at Cowes, I venture to offer to your readers a short narrative of our proceedings.  The expedition is in some respects unprecedented; a circumnavigation of 35,400 miles has never before been made in the short period of 46 weeks, from which must be deducted 112 days of well-earned repose in harbour.  We had, it is true, the advantage of steam, without which such a performance would have been an impossibility; but we travelled 20,517 miles under sail alone, and the consumption of coal has not exceeded 350 tons.  The ‘Sunbeam’ sailed from Cowes on July 6, called at Torbay, Madeira, Teneriffe, and the Cape Verde, crossed the Line on August 8, and, carrying a favourable breeze in the south-east trades, without even a momentary lull, a distance of 2,500 miles, arrived at Rio Janeiro on August 17.  Following the coasts of South America, we visited Montevideo, Buenos Ayres, and Ensenada, steamed through the Straits of Magellan and Smyth’s Channel, and reached Valparaiso on October 21.

While on the coast of Patagonia it was our privilege to rescue a crew of 15 hands from the bark ‘Monkshaven,’ laden with an inflammable cargo of smelting coals, which had been on fire six days when we most providentially descried her signals of distress.

On October 30 we commenced our long and lonely voyage of 12,330 miles across the Pacific.  We touched at Bow Island in the Low Archipelago, Maitea and Tahiti in the Society Islands, and Hawaii and Oahu in the Sandwich group.  On January 21 we sighted Assumption in the Ladrones, and on the 29th arrived at Yokohama.  While in Japan we were present at the opening of the railway from Osaka to Kioto by the Mikado, and subsequently cruised in the Inland Sea in severe winterly weather.  At Simonoseki we found the people much agitated by the recent outbreak of the Satsuma clan.  On February 19 we bade a reluctant farewell to Japan, and following the most direct route to England, visited in succession Hongkong, Canton, Macao, Singapore, Johore, Malacca, Penang, Galle, Colombo, Aden, Alexandria, Malta, Gibraltar, and Lisbon.

Having given the principal dates, the story of the voyage will be most rapidly completed by entering our successive passages in a tabular statement: 

Miles

Steam Sail Total

Thames and English Channel 193 205 398

Torbay to Madeira 353 874 1,227

Madeira to Orotava (Teneriffe) 164 72 236

Orotava to Tarafal Bay (San Antonio, Cape Verde) 35 886 921

Tarafal Bay to Rio Janeiro 689 2,647 3,336

Rio to Monte Video and Buenos Ayres 509 712 1,221