Three Leagues From Port Desire There Is An Island, Having Four
Small Isles About It, On Which There Are Great
Abundance of seals, and
where likewise penguins resort in vast numbers at the breeding season.
To this island it was
Resolved to dispatch the Black pinnace
occasionally, to fetch seals for us to eat, when smelts and muscles
failed, for we could get no muscles at neap-tides, and only when the ebb
was very low.
In this miserable and forlorn condition we remained till the 6th of
August, 1592, still keeping watch on the hills to look out for our
general, suffering extreme anguish and vexation. Our hope of the
general's return becoming very cold, our captain and master were
persuaded that he might have gone directly for the straits; wherefore it
was concluded to go there and wait his coming, as there we could not
possibly miss seeing him if he came. This being agreed to by the whole
company, we set sail from Port Desire on the 6th August, and went to
Penguin island, where we salted twenty hogsheads of seals, which was as
much as our salt could do. We departed from Penguin island towards night
of the 7th August, intending for the straits. The 14th we were driven
among certain islands, never before discovered, fifty leagues or better
from the shore, east-northerly from the straits.[66] Fortunately the
wind shifted to the east, or we must have inevitably perished among
these islands, and we were enabled to shape our course for the straits.
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