shrouds we lowered both our main and fore yards, and furled all our
sails, and in this posture we lay to for three days, when, the storm
somewhat abating, we ventured to make sail under our courses only. But
even this we could not do long, for the next day, which was the 7th, we
had another hard gale of wind, with lightning and rain, which obliged us
to lie to again all night.

And now, after all our solicitude, and the numerous ills of every kind to
which we had been incessantly exposed for near forty days, we had great
consolation in the flattering hopes we entertained, that our fatigues
were drawing to a period, and that we should soon arrive in a more
hospitable climate, where we should be amply repaid for all our past
sufferings. For, towards the latter end of March, we were advanced by our
reckoning near 10 degrees to the westward of the westernmost point of
Tierra del Fuego, and this allowance being double what former navigators
have thought necessary to be taken in order to compensate the drift of
the eastern current, we esteemed ourselves to be well advanced within the
limits of the southern ocean, and had therefore been ever since standing
to the northward with as much expedition as the turbulence of the weather
and our frequent disasters permitted. And, on the 13th of April, we were
but a degree in latitude to the southward of the west entrance of the
straits of Magellan, so that we fully expected, in a very few days, to
have experienced the celebrated tranquillity of the Pacific Ocean.

AN UNEXPECTED DANGER.

But these were delusions which only served to render our disappointment
more terrible; for the next morning, between one and two, as we were
standing to the northward, and the weather, which had till then been
hazy, accidentally cleared up, the pink made a signal for seeing land