30' S. This storm was attended by such torrents
of rain, that they saved twenty-three barrels of water,
Besides dressing
their victuals all that time in rain water.[150] The weather also was so
excessively cold, that they could bear to drink three quarts of burnt
brandy a man in twenty-four hours, without being intoxicated.
[Footnote 150: It was discovered by the great navigator Captain Cook,
who at one time penetrated to lat. 71 deg. 10' S. that the solid ice found
at sea in high southern latitudes affords perfectly fresh water, when
the first meltings are thrown away. - E.]
When the storm abated, they steered N.E. being then considerably to the
west of Cape Horn, and got again into warm weather. In lat. 40 deg. S. they
fell in with an English ship, the Nicholas of London, of 26 guns,
commanded by Captain John Eaton, with whom they joined company. They
sailed together to the island of Juan Fernandez, where they arrived on
the 23d March, and anchored in a bay at the south end of the island in
twenty-five fathoms. Captain Watling, who succeeded Captain Sharp, was
there in 1680, and named it Queen Catharine's island. At his
departure, he accidentally left a Moskito Indian, who still remained,
having a gun, a knife, a small flask of powder, and some shot. In this
desolate condition, he found it equally hard to provide for his
subsistence, and to conceal himself from the Spaniards, who had notice
of his being left there, and came several times to take him.
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