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 in 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 streight, upon the north shore. 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.

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 Streight in their boat, after the loss of the vessel, saw a number of horsemen, who waved what appeared

Voyaging Accounts