The account which Dampier has given of their falling in with this land, would have cleared up the whole matter, but for a circumstance which is far more extraordinary than any yet mentioned, which is, that it long escaped notice, and seems never to have been generally understood, that Dampier and Cowley were at this time in the same ship, and their voyage thus far the same.
Dampier says, 'January the 28th (1683-4) we made the Sebald de Weerts. They are three rocky barren Islands without any tree, only some bushes growing on them. The two Northernmost lie in 51° S, the other in 51° 20′ S. We could not come near the two Northern Islands, but we came close by the Southern; but we could not obtain soundings till within two cables' length of the shore, and there found the bottom to be foul rocky ground[36].' In consequence of the inattention, or oversight, in not perceiving that Dampier and Cowley were speaking of the same land, Hack's ingenious adulation of the Secretary of the Admiralty flourished a full century undetected; a Pepys Island being all the time admitted in the charts.
Shoals of small red Lobsters. Near these Islands the variation was observed 23° 10′ Easterly. They passed through great shoals of small red lobsters, 'no bigger than the top of a man's little finger, yet all their claws, both great and small, were like a lobster. I never saw,' says Dampier, 'any of this sort of fish naturally red, except here.'
The winds blew hard from the Westward, and they could not fetch the Strait of Magalhanes. February. On February the 6th, they were at the entrance of Strait le Maire, when it fell calm, and a strong tide set out of the Strait Northward, which made a short irregular sea, as in a race, or place where two tides meet, and broke over the waist of the ship, 'which was tossed about like an egg-shell.' They sail by the East end of Staten Island; and enter the South Sea. A breeze springing up from the WNW, they bore away Eastward, and passed round the East end of Staten Island; after which they saw no other land till they came into the South Sea. They had much rain, and took advantage of it to fill 23 casks with fresh water.
March. March the 17th, they were in latitude 36° S, standing for the Island Juan Fernandez. Variation 8° East.
CHAP. XIII.
Buccaneers under John Cook arrive at Juan Fernandez. Account of William, a Mosquito Indian, who had lived there three years. They sail to the Galapagos Islands; thence to the Coast of New Spain. John Cook dies. Edward Davis chosen Commander.