When Past The
Cape, We Took In All Our Sails, And, Being Between The High Lands, The
Wind Blowing Trade,
Or steadily in the direction of the straits, we
spooned before the sea under bare poles, three men being unable
To
manage the helm, and in six hours we were driven twenty-five leagues
within the straits.
In this time we freed our ship from water, and when we had rested a
while, our men became unable to move, their sinews being stiff, and
their flesh as if dead. Many of them were so covered and eaten with
lice, that there lay clusters of them in their flesh as large as peas,
yea, some as big as beans. In this state of misery we were constrained
to put into a cove to refresh our men, where we moored to the trees as
we had done before, our only anchor being to seaward. We here continued
till the 20th of October; and being unable to continue longer, through
the extremity of famine, we again put off into the channel on the 22d,
the weather being then reasonably calm. Before night the wind blew hard
at W.N.W. The storm waxed so violent that our men could scarcely stand
to their labour; and the straits being full of turnings and windings, we
had to trust entirely to the discretion of the captain and master to
guide the ship during the darkness of the night, when we could see no
shore, and the straits were in some places scarcely three miles broad.
When we first passed these straits, our captain made so excellent a
draught of them, as I am confident cannot in any sort be made more
correct. Which draught he and the master so carefully considered, that
they had every turning, creek, and head-land so perfectly in their
memory, as enabled them, even in the deepest darkness of the night,
undoubtingly to convey the ship through that crooked channel.
The 25th October we came to an island in the straits, named Penguine
Isle, where the boat was sent ashore to seek relief, as it abounded
with birds, and the weather was calm; so we came to anchor near the
island, in seven fathoms. While the boat was ashore, where we got
abundance of penguins, there rose a sudden storm, by which our ship was
driven over a breach, and our boat sunk at the shore. Captain Cotton and
the lieutenant, who were both on shore, leapt into the boat, and freed
it of water, throwing away the birds, and with great difficulty got back
to the ship. All this time the ship was driving upon the lee-shore; and
when we got on board, we helped to weigh the anchor and make sail. Thus,
in a severe storm, we got clear of the straits on the 27th October; and
on the 30th we got to that Penguin Island which is three leagues from
Port Desire, where we purposed to seek relief.
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