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land was, if possible, more dreadful than the sea, nothing appearing all around but a wild solitude, alike destitute of animals and vegetation. This dismal spot lay to the northward of the Straits of Magellan; but whether it formed part of an island or of the continent the sufferers had no means of determining. The narrative proceeds thus:—

"It is natural to think," says the author, "that to men, thus upon the point of perishing by shipwreck, getting to land was the highest attainment of their wishes; yet, all things considered, our condition was but little mended by the change. Whichever way we looked, a scene of horror presented itself; on one side the wreck (in which was all that we had in the world to support and subsist us), together with a boisterous sea, presented us with the most dreary prospect; on the other, the land did not wear a much more favorable appearance: desolate and barren, without signs of culture, we could hope to receive little other benefit from it than the preservation it afforded us from the sea. Exerting ourselves, however, though faint, benumbed, and almost helpless, to find some wretched covert against the extreme inclemency of the weather, we discovered an Indian hut at a small distance from the beach, within a wood, in which as many as possible, without distinction, crowded themselves, the night coming on exceedingly tempestuous and rainy. But here our situation was such as to

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exclude all rest and refreshment by sleep from most of us; for, besides that we pressed upon one another extremely, we were not without our alarms and apprehensions of being attacked by the Indians, from a discovery we made of some of their lances and other arms in our hut; and our uncertainty of their strength and disposition gave alarm to our imagination, and kept us in continual anxiety.

"In this miserable hovel one of our company, a lieutenant of invalids, died this night; and of those who, for want of room, took shelter under a great tree, which stood them in very little stead, two more perished by the severity of that cold and rainy night. In the morning the calls of hunger, which had been hitherto suppressed by our attention to more immediate dangers and difficulties, were now become too importunate to be resisted. We had most of us fasted eight and forty hours, some more; it was time, therefore, to make inquiry among ourselves what store of sustenance had been brought from the wreck by the providence of some, and what could be procured on the island by the industry of others; but the produce of the one amounted to no more than two or three pounds of biscuitdust, reserved in a bag; and all the success of those who ventured abroad, the weather being still exceedingly bad, was to kill one sea-gull, and pick some wild celery.

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"We were in all about a hundred and forty who had got to shore; but some few remained still on board, detained either by drunkenness, or a view of pillaging the wreck. These were visited by an officer in the yawl, who was to endeavour to prevail upon them to join the rest; but, finding them in the greatest disorder, and disposed to mutiny, he was obliged to desist from his purpose, and return without them. The ensuing night proved exceedingly tempestuous; and, the sea running very high, threatened those on board with immediate destruction, by the parting of the wreck. They then were as solicitous to get ashore, as they were before obstinate in refusing the assistance we sent them; and, when they found the boat did not come to their relief at the instant they expected it, without considering how impracticable a thing it was to send it them in such a sea, they fired one of the quarter-deck guns at the hut; the ball of which did but just pass over the covering of it, and was plainly heard by the captain and us who were within. Another attempt, therefore, was made to bring these madmen to land; which, however, proved ineffectual. This unavoidable delay made the people on board outrageous; yet one thing in this outrage they seemed particularly attentive to, which was, to provide themselves with arms and ammunition, in order to support them in putting their mutinous designs in execution, and asserting their claim to a lawless

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exemption from the authority of their officers, which they pretended must cease with the loss of the ship. But of these arms, which we stood in great need of, they were soon bereaved, upon coming ashore, by the resolution of Captain Cheap and Lieutenant Hamilton, of the marines. Among these mutineers was the boatswain; who, instead of exerting the authority he had over the rest, to keep them within bounds as much as possible, was himself a ringleader in their riot. Him, without respect to the figure he then made (for he was in laced clothes), Captain Cheap, by a blow well laid on with his cane, felled to the ground. It was scarce possible to refrain from laughter at the whimsical appearance these fellows made, who, having rifled the chests of the officers' best suits, had put them on over their greasy trowsers and dirty checked shirts. They were soon stripped of their finery, as they had before been obliged to resign their arms.

"The incessant rains, and exceeding cold weather in this climate, made it necessary to fall upon some expedient, without delay, which might serve the purpose of shelter. Accordingly the gunner, carpenter, and some more, turning the cutter keel upwards, and fixing it upon props, made no despicable habitation. Having thus established some sort of settlement, we had the more leisure to look about us. We soon provided ourselves with some sea-fowl, and found limpets,

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muscles, and other shell-fish, in tolerable abundance; but this rummaging of the shore was now becoming extremely irksome to those who had any feeling, by the bodies of our drowned people thrown among the rocks, some of which were hideous spectacles, from the mangled condition they were in, by the violent surf that drove in upon the coast. These horrors were overcome by the distresses of our people, who were even glad of the occasion of killing the gallinazo (the carrion crow of that country), while preying on these carcases, in order to make a meal of them. But a provision by no means proportionable to the number of mouths to be fed, could, by our utmost industry, be acquired from that part of the island we had hitherto traversed: therefore, till we were in a capacity of making more distant excursions, the wreck was to be applied to, as often as possible, for such supplies as could be got out of her. The difficulties we had to encounter in our visits to the wreck cannot be easily described; for no part of it being above water, except the quarter-deck and part of the forecastle, we were usually obliged to come at such things as were within reach, by means of large hooks fastened to poles, in which business we were much incommoded by the dead bodies floating between decks.

"In order to secure what we thus got, Captain Cheap ordered a store-tent to be erected