Mr Selkirk Said He Had Seen Snow And Ice Here In July, The Depth Of The Southern Winter; But In September, October, And November, The Spring Months, The Climate Is Very Pleasant, And There Are Then Abundance Of Excellent Herbs, As Purslein, Parsley, And Sithes.

We found also an herb, not unlike feverfew, which proved very useful to our surgeons for fomentations.

It has a most grateful smell like balm, but stronger and more cordial, and grew in plenty near the shore. We gathered many large bundles of it, which were dried in the shade, and sent aboard for after-use, besides strewing the tents with it fresh gathered every morning, which tended much to the recovery of our sick, of whom, though numerous when we came here, only two died belonging to the Duchess. We found the nights very cold, and the days not near so warm as might have been expected in so low a latitude. It hardly ever rains, instead of which there fall very heavy dews in the night, which serve the purposes of rain, and the air is almost perpetually serene.

The 13th February we held a consultation, in which we framed several regulations for preserving secrecy, discipline, and strict honesty in both vessels: and on the 17th we determined that two men from the Duke should serve in the Duchess, and two of her men in the Duke, to see that justice was reciprocally done by each ship's company to the other. The 28th we tried both pinnaces in the water under sail, having a gun fixed in each, and every thing else requisite to render them very useful small privateers.

SECTION II.

Proceedings of the Expedition on the Western Coast of America.

In the evening of the 13th March[220] we saw a sail, and the Duchess being nearest soon took her. She was a small bark of sixteen tons from Payta, bound to Cheripe for flour, having a small sum of money on board to make the purchase, being commanded by a Mestizo, or one begotten between a Spaniard and an Indian, having a crew of eight men, one a Spaniard, another a negro, and all the rest Indians. On asking for news, we were told, that all the French ships, being seven in number, had left the South Sea six months before, and no more were to come there; adding, that the Spaniards had such an aversion to them, that they had killed many Frenchmen at Callao, the port of Lima, and quarrelled with them so frequently that none of them were suffered to come ashore there for some time before they sailed.

[Footnote 220: It is quite obvious that they had now left Juan Fernandez, but this circumstance and its date are omitted by Harris. - E.]

After putting some men aboard the prize, we haled close upon a wind for the isle of Lobos, and had we not been informed by our prisoners, had endangered our ships by running too far within that isle, as there are shoals between the island and the main, having a passage for boats only in that direction to get into the road which is to leeward of these islands in a sound between them.

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