We Anchored At The Island Of Le Grand, In Lat, 23 Deg.

30' S.[206] on the 24th of November.

This is a very woody island, on which are several good springs of water. It is about nine miles in circuit, and three miles from the main, the woods being infested with many savage animals, which make a most hideous noise in the night. It produces sugar, rum, and several kinds of fruits, but all very dear, on account of supplying the town of St Paul with necessaries. St Paul is 300 miles inland from Le Grand; but by the vast high mountains which are between, it is reckoned a distance of sixty days journey. Near St Paul there is said to be a gold mine, which is accounted the richest hitherto known. We here wooded, watered, and refitted our ships; and our new first-lieutenant, falling out with the captain, went ashore, together with eight of our men, and left us. Here also Charles Pickering, captain of the Cinque-ports, departed this life, and was succeeded in the command by his first-lieutenant, Mr Thomas Stradling. At this island there are good fish of various sorts, one of which, called the Silver-fish, is about twenty inches long, and eight deep, from back to belly, having five small fins immediately behind the head, and one large fin from the last of these to the tail; one middle-sized fin on each side near the gills, and a large fin from the middle of the belly to the tail, which last is half-moon shaped. The eyes are large, the nostrils wide, and the mouth small. It is a thin fish, and full of bones, of a fine transparent white, like silver.

[Footnote 206: Isla Grande is only in lat 30 deg. N. and St Paul's, stated in the text, as 300 miles distant, is hardly 200, and is at within twenty-five miles of the coast farther south. - E.]

Leaving the isle of Le Grand on the 8th December, we passed the islands of Sebalt de Weert[207] [Falklands] on the 29th. In lat. 57 deg. 50' S. we had a terrible storm, in which we lost company of our consort, the Cinque-ports, on the 4th January, 1704. When in lat 60 deg. 51' S. on the 20th, believing we had sufficiently passed Cape Horn, we tacked to the N. and got sight of the island of Mocha on the 4th February. This island is in lat. 38 deg. 20' S. twenty miles from the coast of Chili, and is well inhabited by Indians, who are always at war with the Spaniards, and indeed with all white men, because they consider them all as Spaniards. It is a high island, four leagues long, having many shoals on its west side, which extend a league or more out to sea. It is about 112 miles to the northward of Baldivia.

[Footnote 207: Called Sibbil de Ward Islands in the narrative of Funnell.

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