Port Famine to Falkland's Islands
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our people grew tired of them: it was a common thing for a boat to bring off sixty or seventy fine geese, without expending a single charge of powder and shot, for the men knocked down as many as they pleased with stones: wood however, is wanting here, except a little that is found adrift along the shore, which I imagined came from the Streight of Magellan. Among other refreshments, which are in the highest degree salutary to those who have contracted scorbutic disorders, during a long voyage, here are wild celery, and wood sorrel, in the greatest abundance; nor is there any want of mussels, clams, cockles, and limpets: the seals and penguins are innumerable, so that it is impossible to walk upon the beach without first driving them away: and the coast abounds with sea lions, many of which are of an enormous size. We found this animal very formidable; I was once attacked by one of them very unexpectedly, and it was with the utmost difficulty that I could disengage myself from him: at other times we had many battles with them, and it has sometimes afforded a dozen of us an hour’s work to dispatch one of them; I had with me a very fine mastiff dog, and a bite of one of these creatures almost tore him to pieces. Nor were these the only dangerous animals that we found here, for the Master having been sent out one day to sound the coast upon the south shore, reported, at his return, that four creatures of great fierceness, resembling wolves, ran up to their bellies in the water to attack the people in his boat, and that as they happened to have no fire-arms with them, they had immediately put the boat off into deep water. The next morning after this happened, I went upon the southern shore myself, where we found one of the largest sea lions I had ever seen: as the boat’s crew were now well armed, they immediately engaged him, and during the contest one of the other animals was seen running towards us: he was
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Voyaging Accounts |  |
© Derived from Volume I of the London 1773 Edition: National Library of Australia call no. FERG 7243, page 49, 2004
Published by kind permission of the Library
To cite this page use: https://paulturnbull.org/project/southseas/journals/hv01/085.html