At eight in the evening they stood to the westward, and held their course till the 6th of February, when they saw, and stood in for, Port Desire, at the mouth of which they came to an anchor, and had the pleasure of seeing the Florida, a store-ship, which they had expected from England. On Thursday the Master of the store-ship went on board the Dolphin, and informed the Commodore of the extreme bad condition of his ship; on which it was resolved to attempt the unloading her in the harbour, though a place very ill calculated for the purpose. They therefore entered the harbour; but the night proving very tempestuous, the Tamar and the Florida both made signals of distress, having been driven from their moorings up the harbour. On this and the following night they were both saved from driving on shore; and as the store-ship was in constant danger of being lost, Mr. Byron sent hands on board to assist in repairing her, and resolved to take her with him into the Streight of Magellan before he unloaded her. In this harbour the rudder of the Dolphin was likewise repaired, there being no timber proper for making her a new one.
On the 13th the Florida put to sea, with orders to steer directly for Port Famine; and on the next day she was followed by the Dolphin and Tamar. The three following days they saw a strange vessel following them, which shaped her course, and sailed faster or slower, exactly as they did, a circumstance that caused much speculation. The Commodore being obliged to wait for the Florida, which was far a-stern, imagined the stranger would speak with him, and therefore made the necessary dispositions to give her a proper reception. When he came to an anchor the stranger did the same, four miles to windward of him; but in the morning she was seen three leagues to the leeward. She now got under way, and approached the Dolphin; on which the Commodore got eight guns, which were all that could be come at, to one side of the ship, as he lay at anchor. Neither party hoisted any colours; but about this time the store-ship running a-ground, the strange vessel hoisted French colours, and sent two boats, with an anchor, to assist her. The Commodore now sent a boat from each of his ships to the assistance of the Florida, with positive orders not to let the French boats board her; but to acknowledge, in a proper manner, the offer of assistance. These orders were obeyed, and the store-ship was got off.
They weighed anchor at six in the evening, and anchored again at eleven; at which time the French vessel did the same, but in a situation that shewed her ignorance of the channel they were in.
On the 19th they again sailed; and as the French vessel steered after them, Mr. Byron thought they came from Falkland’s Islands, where there was then a French settlement, to take in wood, or that they were on a survey of the Streight of Magellan, in which they were now sailing. On the 20th they reached Port Famine, when the Dolphin and Tamar having taken as much provision out of the store-ship as they could find room for, the Master received orders to sail for England as soon as possible; it being determined to navigate the other ships through the Streight.
On the 25th they passed the French ship, which was in a small cove, and near her a large quantity of wood, which the Commodore had no doubt was intended for their new settlement. On Mr. Byron’s return to England this appeared to be the fact; and that the ship was commanded by Mons. Bougainville, and called the Eagle.
The rest of the account of their passage thro’ the Streight of Magellan, consists chiefly of the names of places, and descriptions of soundings, bearings and distances, which could not fail of proving unintelligible, if not disgusting, to the generality of readers. Whatever is really worth the notice of those who read either for instruction or entertainment, shall be faithfully recited in the following pages.
[Illustration: A CHART of the _STRAITS_ of MAGELLAN.]
The mountains on both sides of the Streight are covered with snow from the top to the bottom; are steep and craggy, and of a most desolate appearance. On the 1st of March two or three canoes of Indians followed the ship, one of which went on board. This canoe was of bark, and wretchedly made: it contained some men, women, and a boy, who had bows and arrows, which they exchanged for beads and other trinkets: the cord of the bow was made of the gut of some beast dried, and the arrows were formed of a reed, pointed with a green stone. These people had no other garment than a seal skin thrown over their shoulders, and they made, on the whole, a most wretched appearance. When the ship came to an anchor, several of the Indians went on board, and gladly accepted some ribbands, beads, and other trifling matters, with which the Commodore presented them. These people subsist chiefly on muscles and berries, some of the latter of which they gave Mr. Byron, when he returned their visit on shore.
Having narrowly escaped the dreadful effects of a storm on the 3d of March, boats were repeatedly sent out till the 6th, in search of a proper place to anchor in; and at length the Dolphin was moored in a little bay opposite Cape Quod; and the Tamar, which could not work up so far, about six miles to the eastward of it. This part of the Streight being only four miles over, its appearance is dreary and desolate beyond imagination, owing to the prodigious mountains on each side of it, which rise above the clouds, and are covered with perpetual snow. On the 8th they met with a large number of shell-fish; and on this day the Commodore went up a deep lagoon under a rock, at the head of which was a fine fall of water, and on the east side of it several small coves, calculated for the secure reception of ships of the greatest burden.
On the 12th an officer was sent in a boat, in search of an harbour; and in two days he returned with an account, that there were five bays between the ship and Cape Upright, in any one of which they might anchor securely. While this officer was absent, he met with some Indians, who made him a present of a dog, and one of the women having a sucking child, offered to give it him! At this time winter commenced with all its severity, and the hills were soon covered with snow. The cold became so intense that the seamen, whose clothes were continually wet, suffered severely: to fortify them against this inclemency of weather, the Commodore gave a warm jacket of woollen stuff, called fearnought, to the crews of both ships, officers included.
On the 16th perceiving they lost ground on every tack, they came to an anchor; but finding the ground to be rocky, they weighed again, and every man on board was on deck the rest of the day and the whole night, during which time the rain poured down on them in unremitting torrents. Notwithstanding this incessant labour, they found, in the morning, that they had been only losing way, owing to the rapidity of the current. They were now glad to anchor in the very bay they had left two days before.
As it continued to rain and blow violently for two days longer, the Commodore sent a boat to sound the bay on the north shore; but no anchorage could be found. On the 20th the vessel was driven from her moorings, but by heaving up the bower-anchor, and carrying out another, they soon restored her to her situation. After labouring all day on the 21st, they had gained only two miles on the current, when they came to an anchor; but the sea running high, they sailed the day following; and the current now running to the westward, they made great way, and, in the evening, anchored in a commodious bay, where the Tamar had arrived before them. It is remarkable that, notwithstanding the late severity of the weather added to their incessant labour, the crew retained both health and spirits.
On the 23d they again set sail, and in a few hours had sight of the South Sea, which rolled a prodigious swell on them. On the 25th two boats which had been sent in search of anchoring-places, returned with an account, that they had found two, but neither of them very eligible; they, however, made sail the next morning, and at four in the afternoon found themselves within a mile of the south shore, which the thickness of the weather prevented their seeing sooner; but as there was no place to anchor in, they stood for the opposite shore. Between six and seven the Tamar was ordered under the stern of the Dolphin, and then directed to keep a-head of her during the night to show lights, and as often as she varied her tack to fire a gun. At seven in the evening the weather cleared for a minute, so that they had sight of the north-shore, bearing west by north, on which they instantly tacked-about. The wind now blew a perfect hurricane; the rain descended in torrents; some of the sails were torn to rags; and during this tempestuous night, in which the sea was continually breaking over them, the ships parted company, and were encompassed with rocks and breakers: however, they happily weathered the storm, and at seven in the morning both ships came to an anchor. They had now been twice within four leagues of Tuesday’s Bay, at the western mouth of the streight, and twice driven ten or twelve leagues back again by storms; so dangerous is the navigation of this streight at an improper season of the year.