Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
lands, he tried to pick up the trade winds which would carry him
across to Brazil. But, like thousands of other sailors before and since,
he found himself trapped by the variable equatorial winds and cur-
rents. Whole days were spent becalmed or on long tacks and only
after six weeks at sea, in heat so sweltering that fresh meat was pu-
trid within a couple of hours of being slaughtered, did the
Dolphin
and
Tamar
thankfully drop anchor in Rio roads. There was some
sickness aboard the
Tamar
but the men quickly recovered after a few
days ashore.
The situation was far worse aboard another English ship which
put in while Byron's ships were there. This was the East-Indiaman
Kent.
She had left her home port a month before the
Dolphin
and
Tamar
and made a direct Atlantic crossing. Yet she arrived off Brazil
a month after Byron's ship, by which time many of her crew were
down with scurvy. Her most prestigious passenger was Robert Clive,
returning to India for the third time to crown a dazzling career in the
service of the East India Company. Much to Byron's embarrassment
this public hero now applied to transfer from the
Kent
to the
Dolphin,
believing that the naval vessels were bound for the East and would
reach India long before the Company ship. A request from Lord Clive
was virtually an order. Probably Byron was able to extricate himself
only by sharing his secret instructions with the would-be passenger.
Rio de Janeiro was now a highly civilised port of call where
all the needs of Byron's ships and men could be met and the com-
modore himself was received with a fifteen-gun salute and granted
an impressive audience by the viceroy:
. . . he received me with great form. About 60 officers were drawn
up before the palace, as well as a captain's guard, all extremely well
clothed and very well looking men. The vice king with a number of per-
sons of the first distinction belonging to the palace received me at the
head of the stairs . . .
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