A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 12 - Arranged in Systematic Order: Forming a Complete History of the - Origin and Progress of Navigation, Discovery, and Commerce, by Sea - and Land, from the Earliest Ages to the Present Ti by Robert Kerr
page 43 of 647 (06%)
page 43 of 647 (06%)
![]() | ![]() |
|
as white as snow, with black spots; a very uncommon and beautiful sight.
The land here has the same appearance as about Port Desire, all downs, without a single tree. At break of day, on the 20th, we were off Cape Fairweather, which bore about west at the distance of four leagues, and we had here but thirteen fathom water, so that it appears necessary to give that cape a good birth. From this place I ran close on shore to Cape Virgin Mary, but I found the coast to lie S.S.E. very different from Sir John Narborough's description, and a long spit of sand running to the southward of the cape for above a league: In the evening I worked up close to this spit of sand, having seen many guanicoes feeding in the vallies as we went along, and a great smoke all the afternoon, about four or five leagues up the strait, upon the north shore.[17] At this place I came to an anchor in fifteen fathom water, but the Tamar was so far to leeward, that she could not fetch the anchoring ground, and therefore kept under way all night. [Footnote 17: "At eight we discovered a good deal of smoke issuing from different quarters, and on our nearer approach, could plainly perceive a number of people on horseback."] The next morning, at day-break, I got again under sail, and seeing the same smoke that I had observed the day before, I stood in for it, and anchored about two miles from the shore. This is the place where the crew of the Wager, as they were passing the strait in their boat, after the loss of the vessel, saw a number of horsemen, who waved what appeared to be white handkerchiefs, inviting them to come on shore, which they were very desirous to have done, but it blew so hard that they were obliged to stand out to sea. Bulkeley, the gunner of the |
|