[Z] A FASCINATING LOG FOR THE H.M.SHIPS REVENGE, CHANTICLEER, ST VINCENT, ENDYMION, MAGPIE, EXPRESS, RESISTANCE, ECLIPSE, RUBY, DEFENCE, HIMALAYA, HIBERNIA AND SUPERB

A FASCINATING LOG FOR THE H.M.SHIPS REVENGE, CHANTICLEER, ST VINCENT, ENDYMION, MAGPIE, EXPRESS, RESISTANCE, ECLIPSE, RUBY, DEFENCE, HIMALAYA, HIBERNIA AND SUPERB
kept by Assistant Paymaster C.L.J. Underwood between 4 December 1869 and 22 August 1881, 72ff., 11 pencil or pen and pencil drawings, five hand-coloured, two plans on tracing paper, two mounted botanical specimens (Mauritius and the Seychelles), nine photographs, sailing to Madeira, Panama, San Francisco, (with a two-page description of the social life), Vancouver, Easter Island (three and a half-page description) 'Friday 11th November 1870 ... when we arrived on the shore were met by a great number of natives (men, women and children) who danced and yelled ... the women pretty and with good eyes and teeth. The very singular feature of the island is the gigantic busts which have now fallen down, when standing they were about 14 feet and are now surrounded by skulls' (with a folding pencil drawing taken from five miles offshore), Lima, Valparaiso, Falkland Islands, Juan Fernández Islands (where he saw the tablet erected to Alexander Selkirk), Rio de Janeiro ('the town like all Portuguese simply smelling horrid', Barbados (where they played several cricket matches, including three scorecards), various ports in Spain, Rhodes (where he saw several enormous boulders used by the Turks in their bombardment of the town), Bombay, Karachi, and Cairo, and many other parts in Europe, America and Asia, written by Underwood in a large, untidy hand, contemporary half calf, flat spine gilt, with an anchor in compartments -- 13 x 8in. (33 x 20.5cm.)

This officer's naval career ended in 1884 as he does not appear in the Navy List for 1885. His career suffered in the early 1880s and his final entries record his influenza in New York where all his luggage and testimonials were stolen and his miserable return to England.