A New Voyage Round the World by a Course Never Sailed Before

by Daniel Defoe

But, besides all these difficulties, I had other projects in my head, which made me against all the proposals of passing by land to the North Sea; otherwise, had I resolved it, I should not have much concerned myself about obtaining a license from the Spaniards, for, as we were a sufficient number of men to have forced our way, we should not much have stood upon their giving us leave, or not giving us leave, to go.

But, as I have said, my views lay another way, and my head had been long working upon the discourse my men had had with the Spaniards at Baldavia. I frequently talked with the two Chilian Indians whom I had on board, and who spoke Spanish pretty well, and whom we had taught to speak a little English.

I had taken care that they should have all the good usage imaginable on board. I had given them each a very good suit of clothes made by our tailor, but after their own manner, with each of them a baize cloak; and had given them hats, shoes, stockings, and everything they desired, and they were mighty well pleased, and I talked very freely with them about the passage of the mountains, for that was now my grand design.

While I was coming up the Chilian shore, as you have heard, that is to say, at St. Jago, at the Conception, at Arica, and even at Lima itself, we inquired on all occasions into the situation of the country, the manner of travelling, and what kind of country it was beyond the mountains, and we found them all agreeing in the same story; and that passing the mountains of Les Cordelieras, for so they call them in Peru, though it was the same ridge of hills as we call the Andes, was no strange thing. That there were not one or two, but a great many places found out, where they passed as well with horses and mules as on foot, and even some with carriages; and, in particular, they told us at Lima, that from Potosi, and the towns thereabouts, there was a long valley, which ran for one hundred and sixty leagues in length southward, and south-east, and that it continued until the hills parting, it opened into the main level country on the other side; and that there were several rivers which began in that great valley, and which all of them ran away to the south and south-east, and afterwards went away east, and east-north-east, and so fell into the great Rio de la Plata, and emptied themselves into the North Seas; and that merchants travelled to those rivers, and then went down in boats as far as the town or the city of the Ascension, and the Buenos Ayres.

This was very satisfying you may be sure, especially to hear them agree in it, that the Andes were to be passed; though passing them hereabouts, (where I knew the mainland from the west shore, where we now were, must be at least one thousand five hundred miles broad), was no part of my project; but I laid up all these things in my mind, and resolved to go away to the south again, and act as I should see cause.

We were now got into a very hot climate, and, whatever was the cause, my men began to grow very sickly, and that to such a degree that I was once afraid we had got the plague among us; but our surgeons, who we all call doctors at sea, assured me there was nothing of that among them, and yet we buried seventeen men here, and had between twenty and thirty more sick, and, as I thought, dangerously too.

In this extremity, for I was really very much concerned about it, one of my doctors came to me, and told me he had been at the city (that is, at Lima) to buy some drugs and medicines, to recruit his chest, and he had fallen into company with an Irish Jesuit, who, he found, was an extraordinary good physician, and that he had had some discourse with him about our sick men, and he believed for a good word or two, he could persuade him to come and visit them.

I was very loath to consent to it, and said to the surgeon, If he is an Irishman, he speaks English, and he will presently perceive that we are all Englishmen, and so we shall be betrayed; all our designs will be blown up at once, and our farther measures be all broken; and therefore I would not consent. This I did not speak from the fear of any hurt they could have done me by force, for I had no reason to value that, being able to have fought my way clear out of their seas, if I had been put to it; but, as I had traded all the way by stratagem, and had many considerable views still behind, I was unwilling to be disappointed by the discovery of my schemes, or that the Spaniards should know upon what a double foundation I acted, and how I was a French ally and merchant, or an English enemy and privateer, just as I pleased, and as opportunity should offer; in which case they would have been sure to have trepanned me if possible, under pretence of the former, and have used me, if they ever should get an advantage over me, as one of the latter.